#its luck of the draw with me whether my posts are going to be sad or happy and its fair to say this one is definitely sad

[atlalasassy]

Many people with trauma like Andrews block it out as a trauma response but he can’t - he remembers it all

[heartfulselkie]

Like, do you have this moment? Like spend a whole day drawing your greatest fanart forever and *It will be a success!* send it on Tumblr or anything else platform. But nothing happens. Its reaction even nothing compared to your past scrawl... It's my feeling. Just demotivates me. I know if want to enjoy popularity need time to manage account and improve my skill in painting, but it's just...feel pathetic.

How to pass it and keep my passion for drawing, I am confused now.

Oh I get that all the time! And I think every artist who's posted online has felt this at some point or other. Same for writers or any other creative that shares their work! So you're not alone in feeling that sometimes.

Why does the silly doodle I spent less than 10min drawing do better than the drawing I spent hours on? I have no idea. It's just how the internet is.

It does get demotivating, but you have to remember this isn't necessarily a reflection on you as an artist or creative. I think if you make the decision to share online, then you need some degree of thick skin to accept that the response isn't always going to be there. And it's largely down to luck or timing, so I personally never saw the point in trying to "cheat the system" by figuring out optimum posting times. So I will just occasionally reblog my own work so that it passes people's dashes again.

And it's understandable you want validation for the work you do. We spend time doing something we feel proud of and want it to be noticed. But translating your art's worth into a number of notes is not a healthy mindset. It's hard one to break - believe me, I know. But it's a mindset that will hold you back from something you're passionate about.

Sometimes you just need to keep drawing. And sometimes you just need to take a break.

Remember that the artists you admire started out somewhere too. They've had their times of posting and getting a minimal response. I've had it too.

And yes, it can be demotivating. But it's your choice whether to give up or continue. I'd be sad to see any artist, no matter their skill level, give up because they didn't think they were "good enough" or "popular enough". I'd given up art and drawing for a long time - and you know what? I'm sad that I did. I love drawing. I love sharing what I draw. Maybe I needed the break, but at the same time I wish I didn't let go of something that is just part of me and what I do.

Time spent on something you love is never time wasted. And no amount of notes, likes, reblogs or whatever should dictate the value of that. If you want to draw then keep drawing! If you want to share that, then go ahead! Popularity doesn't happen overnight, but you don't need to be popular to enjoy drawing.

[deathfavor]

I know this is a going to be a messy post so this is your forewarning and apology in advance for how all over the place it is. Good luck.

Kazutora is not someone who can easily break away from bad influences or habits. Quite frankly, he probably can't all on his own. The reasons vary a bit depending on the age, but it doesn't change that even if he KNOWS it's bad or fucked up, he really struggles. Whether it's a toxic connection with someone or bad habits, the claws sink in and draw him in. When he's younger, it's a mix of things. He doesn't trust few, but once he DOES, he has a very intense connection and sense of clinging on to someone. ( Admittedly that lingers in adulthood though not as severe. ) He wants their attention and approval, and he'd do a lot to gain it, in the case that it's a person. When he's older, its a mix of longing for familiarity and a sense of self punishment, and that part of him that still clings on to whatever connection was in the past. If you've had him wrapped around your finger at any point, you definitely can reawaken those poisonous vines in him again.

It's one reason I say Hanma is so dangerous for Kazutora in the future without Kazutora necessarily realizing it. It's not in the physical sense so much as Hanma KNOWS Kazutora and he's already had an influential hold over Kazutora in the past. ( Even if genuine, it is nonetheless a powerful weapon on hand. ) But it can go for anyone he's looked up to or wanted attention from at any point ever. Kazutora can be lured back into a bad situation or arrangement far too easily. Same goes in for bad habits ; when opportunity presents itself he might accept it. Less so if he's doing well, but whenever he's frustrated or sad or feeling isolated, he's more inclined to accept the opportunity or act on it.

And here's the thing. Kazutora's plenty aware he's messed up and no saint. Which is also part of what makes him more willing to accept a bad situation. Because he feels he deserves it, or it's a case of mutual destruction, of you fuck me up and i fuck you up, an unhealthy dynamic that festers and worsens. And he CAN walk away if he really wants to, but he's a very vulnerable target when he's at his worst. Kazutora can be mean, he can be manipulative, he can lash out be it in words or actions. When pushed to a point, despite all the progress older Kazutora has made, it still kicks his act first think later instincts into being in charge. Toxic / unhealthy / bad connections make him feel less guilty when the worst parts of him show up.

Kazutora, truthfully, needs someone who can pry him out of those situations. Who can intervene, but can also be patient when Kazutora slips and fucks up. He WILL and that's a fact. You can't just strongarm him out of things or it'll either make him worse or he'll never really learn it. Even if it's painful, even if it hurts, he has to reach the conclusions himself, especially in the case of a person. Be there when he's crumbling or intervene to say go home or something like that. But being like " [X] is bad for you" ? That won't do anything. He probably KNOWS that already, it's just that he thinks he deserves that pain or suffering or whatever it might be. He needs to see how it makes him worse. Otherwise without that, we end up with gestures at all my bad ending aus

[chiwhorei]

gun bunny

pairing: mafia!s. aizawa x fem!reader

genre: mafia!au, quirkless!au, smut- 18+ minors dni

word count: 2.5k

warning: somnophilia, voyeurism, violence, attempted kidnapping, attempted assault, mentions of blood, mentions of guns and knives, degradation, age-gap (reader is 19 and aizawa is 31), spitting

a/n: hello! this is my contribution to the smut pile mafia!server collab, this is both my first smut pile collab (this is so late i am so sorry sksksksk) and my first full-length bnha piece, be sure to check out everyone else’s amazing work here! thank you to @10millionyearsdungeon and @messwriting for your constant support while i trudged through sad pal hours for a fucking month and crawled out of the pits of writer’s block

hymns: hayloft by - mother mother, i’m on fire - awolnation cover

Blood pours over decades like syrup, the tinny-sweet smell was distinct but all too familiar. A muffled gun’s buzzing frames 19 years of life. The barrel feels cool, sitting precariously by the highest angle of your cheekbone.

“I told you not to cause trouble, brat. Now I have to clean up your little mess.”

Aizawa’s body is tall and broad above you, holding you against him with a protective grip on the small of your back. Every word is sneering, punctuated with a growl-- you feel it reverberate against his chest.

The bullet is resounding even through the silencer; a deafening sound, final bell tolling next to smeared streaks of mascara.

Aizawa Shouta has always been around-- whether bringing your dad a hefty stack of reports to thumb through or loosening his tie in the parlor and toasting him to another job well done. A carousel of chauffeurs and bodyguards encircle you, but all are nameless faces except for the man that can make people disappear in an instant: Eraser.

Otsuka y/n, the only daughter of the most powerful man in Japan, is a weighty title against your shoulders. Your father’s reputation has cradled you for almost two decades, keeping you draped in fur and balancing on red-bottoms. He has more money, more power than God. To most of your father’s inner circle, you are the dutiful, angelic heiress to his blood-soaked empire. You play the part well enough, polite, temperate- your hands are painted red in culpability, but perfectly manicured.

Your father’s business isn’t a secret, no matter his attempts to shield you over the years. There’s only so many nights spent humming to the tune of cracking skulls in the next room before “investments in oil” starts to lose its validity. Whenever you ask him, he pats your head, smoothing stray strands of hair, “I do it all for you, bunny. Everything is for you.”

You decide not to think about rouge splatters of blood and bruises against his knuckles, ignoring the clicking of a loading gun before he leaves for the office.

It’s better this way.

“You can’t be serious, Otsuka.” Aizawa paces across the hardwood, heel to toe with Italian leather from one large bookshelf to the other. A familiar habit, you’ve seen the contemplative marching before and know it to mean one thing: Aizawa is pissed.

“Have you ever known me to joke around? Especially with y/n?” Your father’s elbows hit the table in front of him, the jagged scars lining his face seem even more intimidating when coupled with a harshly set frown. You perch on the side of his large desk, swinging your feet lightly.

“Oh daddy, I’m not a child. I don’t need Eraser to babysit me.” You huff, crossing your arms and providing a pout to your father’s hard expression. You hear the mumbled, “Don’t call me that,” from behind you, but decide against a response.

“He’s going to look after you while I’m in Musutafu. I have to handle some…” he trails off slightly, one of his hands coming up to rub against his bald head, “noncompliance, but I shouldn’t be gone for more than a few days.” His disfigured fingers curling around yours, you look up to meet his eye, “Be a good girl, bunny.”

You give your father’s temple a kiss, pulling back to smile sweetly. Your next words have Aizawa snorting, rolling his eyes far enough into his skull to be painful.

“I always am.”

A bend downwards at the hips frames your ass perfectly, the lace of your panties curls around your pussy tightly, hooking against the lips and showcasing your soft skin. Questions swirl in the bowl of cereal in front of him, all but forgotten as soon as a cup“fell” from your fingers and clattered to the floor. The taste, the smell, the feeling of--

“Take a picture, it’ll last longer.”

Aizawa is ripped from the reprehensible desires of his senses to meet your eyes, your form still folded over on itself and displayed for Aizawa in the otherwise empty kitchen. You giggle at his scowl, snapping back up and smoothing out your skirt. Aizawa bites down on the spoon in between his teeth, he swears he can feel his teeth cracking. Better his canines than his will.

This only marks the beginning of a long week for your father’s right-hand man. The proceeding days turn to nights at a snail's pace. The past week has been inching towards disaster with every minute of alone time you could steal with Aizawa.

“Eraser, what are you doing up so late.” Your voice curls around his shoulder, the whine tugging him towards your open bedroom door. It’s late, far too late for you to be up to anything good.

You always like to push your luck, playing a game you know Aizawa won’t let himself win. Pressing firmly against the line but never pointing your heel across. Maintaining your immunity, feigning innocence behind a soft pout. Your appointed guardian isn’t fooled by any honeyed façade you build around his associates. He knows what you are at the core.

He tries to shake off your pull, but the way your voice lilts against the long hallway is magnetic. The past few nights have been the same song and dance, your disarming call to him as he trudges to one of the many guest bedrooms. Every night he gets closer, heavy feet and tense nerves guiding him towards your warm voice. He’s weathering a sea, you’re the siren hell-bent on his drowning.

“I told you not to call me that, little girl.” His response to your wanton call is shallow, the nickname is one he hates the sound of, especially rolling past your lips.

“Do you like what you see?”

Aizawa’s brows set harshly as he looks on to where you lie nestled in pillows and silk. You have nothing but a loose, light pink camisole to cover your body, cotton panties pulled down to your ankles with shameless intent. Your legs are spread wide for your viewer’s pleasure, two fingers brush against your lips, dragging lazily- up and back down.

Aizawa knows what you really are, a petulant brat.

You pull at the soft skin, spreading yourself to unveil the tight, clenching hole. He leans his shoulder against the jam, eyes drinking you in where his body shamefully wishes to be. The groan aching deeply in his chest is not lost on you as your other hand pulls the hem of your shirt upwards to catch in between your teeth.

The soft plush of your breasts bounces slightly, nipples peeking out from the folds of fabric, now fully exposed to the inky-black stare of your voyeur. There’s nothing left to his imagination now, the question that haunts sleepless nights, palming a large hand up and down his cock and imagining something softer and smaller. The picture of what his boss’s precious daughter would look like squirming under him becoming clearer beyond all reason.

Aizawa should turn heel and walk away, he should slam your bedroom door shut and count the days until your father’s return with a measured distance. He should walk away. He should-

A soft whimper drags him from contemplation and back to the writhing succubus center stage. Your fingers move quickly against your aching clit, drawing out babbled pleas to hit harshly against the tall, brooding presence at your door.

“I’ve had about enough of your games, bunny. Your father tasked me to keep you out of trouble, but you are the trouble.” Aizawa’s words hit your ears mockingly, but they sound more like an invitation than a warning, especially as his body inches forward, breaching the threshold of your bedroom inch by inch.

Two fingers slip past your lips, pushing in and drawing back slicked with arousal. You repeat the action, slowly, ensuring the boring set of eyes are trained on where you clench desperately; wanting to put on a good show with your bodyguard in the front row.

Aizawa’s head is swimming, dizzy and drunk. He wants to tear you apart, to lay claim to the twitching prize between your legs. If you struggle around two of your own much smaller fingers, it would be nearly impossible to wrap you around his thick cock.

That is, not without breaking you.

The heated pants escaping you pick up in canter, your audience winding a tight cord with his presence alone. Aizawa is unrelenting in his deep, unblinking stare, stepping towards your bed slowly. Once his body is looming over you, the coil in your stomach has turned into a hair pinned trigger.

“Such a messy little slut. Getting off to the attention aren’t you?” You’re rendered dumb at his comment, Aizawa barely has to press his thumb into your chin before your mouth hangs open. You look up with glassy eyes, fingers sore from working against your pussy, chasing a high you can only imagine how fast Aizawa could steal from you. His expression is as neutral as always, but the despondency doesn’t quite shadow the fire burning in his eyes. You watch him lean forward slightly, a string of saliva falling downward to land against your tongue. His spit feels hot, you can taste the remnants of cigar and mint gum as you swallow.

You come undone in a litany of cries, pleading with your captor. His hold is passive as he looks at you, watching you cum against your fingers, the squelching sounds make his mouth dry. The only source of hydration is at the apex of your thighs. Visions flash before his eyes, images of what the curve of your breasts look like as he’s buried tongue deep, lapping you up post-orgasm and pushing you over once more for good measure.

Aizawa retreats, lest he pulls you against his mouth while your cunt is still pulsating, he needs to escape before your knees are pressed to your shoulders. He slams your door closed harshly, leaving you with the taste of his contempt for you on your bottom lip.

You’re quick to sleep, body falling into the warmth of unconsciousness coupled with dreams of what a certain set of fingers would feel like against you. How the scars and calluses would brush against your most intimate inches of spongy flesh, how he would stretch you.

You can almost feel the soreness in between your legs and the heavy slap of something against your stomach. You can almost remember the whispered confessional swimming in the back of your head, the soft grunts from above your sleeping form. As sunlight stretches across your sleep-stiff body, your hand trails down over your naked skin, maybe you aren’t the only one playing games this week.

You could have almost sworn you had gone to sleep with panties on.

The car ride to your father’s bar was filled with unflattering tension. You had protested in vain that going with Aizawa wasn’t necessary, but had been met with a dismissive, “I don’t trust you to behave.”

“I’m not a child, Eraser. I don’t see why I couldn’t just sit at home.” You wobble behind your escort, heeled boots clacking against the gravel.

As you enter the building, a young mop of violet hair flanks Aizawa down with a stack of papers. The man is nameless to you but is familiar enough to be assumed under your father’s thumb.

Aizawa looks over the document’s now held in front of him with care, rolling up the sleeves to his crisp dress shirt as his eyes scan the pages. You note the shimmering silvered skin of a scar under his left eye, pronounced by the harsh lighting surrounding you. His hair is held up partially by a tie, the loose strands framing his face.

“Are you listening to me, little girl?” You're snapped back from watching his mouth curling around syllables to actually make out what they’ve been saying.

“Go sit down, I’ll only be a few minutes.” You nod along and turn to perch at the bar, but stop at the grip pulling you back for one final order. “Don’t get yourself into trouble.”

Aizawa leaves you to stew in the subtle brush of his pointer finger against the tender skin of your wrist, he rubs the skin subtly before disappearing to the back rooms.

The minutes ticking by are agonizing. Aizawa, usually the epitome of brief, has been gone long enough for the condensation on your glass to mar the wood below it in countless ringlets. You twirl the straw against the strawberry liquor, willing time to crank by faster with the action. The drink in your veins isn’t nearly enough to get you drunk but does make the opening of the front door unnoticeable.

Your back is facing the heavy wood, unaware of the two strangers now approaching until the curdling sound of one man’s voice hits the shell of your ear.

“Well, well, look what we have here. Why don’t I buy you a drink, princess?” Each man steals one of your sides, enclosing you into a tight, predatory huddle.

“This is my bar. I don’t need you to buy me anything.” You try to shake off the nauseating feeling of their bodies so close to you, gut twisting uncomfortably as one man’s breath crawls across your shoulder blades. They’re both so close. Too close.

“Wow, this little kitty cat’s got some claws, don’t she?” You feel hands curl around each bicep, a bruising grip right below your armpits. Your body is hoisted up, your balance off at the jarring upheaval.

Possible escape routes flash across your mind but all seem impossible. Would trying to shake off the still faceless strangers even work? And even if you sprung free, would you make it to the back office before they caught up? Should you try to scream? Would Aizawa hear you?

Before you can make any moves, you feel the flat side of a knife at your collarbone. A chill rattles down your spine at the contact, two inches of metal keeping your entire body compliant.

Their intent is clear, you’ll be coming with them, and by the sharp point of a blade digging into the first layer of skin-- you’ll be coming quietly.

A mixture of shock and disbelief compels your body into compliance, dragging you to the front door and closer towards an awaiting trunk.

“Your carriage, princess.” You hear the shorter man on your right, his voice at your neck sounds waterlogged through the blood rushing in your ears. Any protests die at the knife against your skin, digging in shallowly and pricking a small trail of red along your clavicle.

A sharp snap sounds behind you, like a piece of thin wood under a heavy boot. One of your captors falls in a pile next to you. You’re turned around to meet a familiar pair of venomous, black eyes, Aizawa’s words roll from his tongue with a growl.

You’re pulled at the wrist, stumbling back into the strong chest of your appointed bodyguard.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing with my bunny?”

all writing is dymphnasprose’s original content, please do not repost or modify. do no read my content as asmr.©️

[robininthelabyrinth]

Spilled Pearls

- Chapter 29 - ao3 -

“In the future, you should send your children to the Cloud Recesses for me to teach,” Lan Qiren said. He was sitting with Wen Ruohan on one of the rooftop gardens in the Nightless City, watching the moon and stars from a pavilion placed there for that purpose; their bodies were pressed close together, and it felt as if they were far away from all the things that were familiar. “You and Lao Nie both, and naturally I’ll come visit with you often as well, bringing my nephew. Between the three of us, we might even be able to teach them how to be proper human beings.”

Wen Ruohan laughed in his ear and pressed his lips to his cheek – he had taken to kissing him at random, spontaneous, as if still overwhelmed by the fact that he now had the right to do it.

“I will,” he promised. “I agree, I think they’ll turn out better that way…you would really have me educate your precious little A-Huan?”

“If I’m willing to entrust myself with you, why not him? Anyway, I can teach him music, and with the aid of the other teachers in my sect the sword in the Lan sect style, but you can teach him much more than that. You know how to look at the world and see it for what it is, and then bend it to your will, make it sing to your tune. He’ll be sect leader in the future; he needs to learn that, and you can teach it to him.”

“I can, and I will,” Wen Ruohan said, then thought for a moment and asked, “What does Lao Nie bring to the table?”

“Flexibility, mostly.”

Wen Ruohan barked out a laugh. “He certainly has that.”

He didn’t even sound bitter about it any more.

Lan Qiren smiled.

“In the meantime, I will handle the rest of it,” Wen Ruohan added, and Lan Qiren looked at him in silent question. “Come now, Qiren. Did you really think that I would allow you to remain caged in the Cloud Recesses your whole life?”

Lan Qiren paused. That was the sorest part of his heart, his most painful misery, but he didn’t think Wen Ruohan would bring it up casually. If anything, he was a bit more afraid of what Wen Ruohan might get into his head to do about it – there was very little Wen Ruohan wouldn’t dare.

“Da-ge –” he started warily.

“No, no,” Wen Ruohan said, lightly scolding. “Little Lan, be serious! I already rejected the opportunity to cage you here at the Nightless City, playing only for me, despite how much I longed to do so. I refused to do it – me, refusing myself – because I knew it would only make you sad. Do you really think I would allow other people a privilege that I have denied myself?”

Lan Qiren did not laugh, but he dearly wanted to. It might be the first time he’d ever wanted to laugh about his situation – not even Cangse Sanren had managed that. “Has anyone told you that you are extremely self-absorbed?” he asked instead. “Arrogance is forbidden. Do not be haughty and complacent.”

Wen Ruohan smirked back at him. “All true, little Lan, but don’t forget your favorite: Do not tell lies.”

Self-absorbed, narcissistic and arrogant, Lan Qiren concluded, and there was no helping it. It was clearly a terminal case.

He used his sleeve to hide his laughter.

“What are you planning, exactly?” he asked once he had recovered. “If you harm my sect, whether directly or indirectly by denying them my services, I would be even more upset than if you tried to lock me away in here.”

Wen Ruohan waved a hand dismissively. “Do you think me so incapable? I have already begun making arrangements. Discussion conferences may only be once or twice a year, being as they are tremendously irritating to arrange, but there’s no reason that we of the Great Sects should not recognize our greater duty towards the smaller sects, and not to mention our obligations to protect the mortal world –”

“You know that it exists, then?”

Wen Ruohan ignored him. “The resources of cultivation clans are limited, and the world large. There are many places which would benefit from aid that do not see any simply because they are far away or tucked in inconvenient places, and no sect lives nearby – naturally, it is our duty to fight evil no matter where it is encountered. Lao Nie has already agreed that it is critical that the sect leaders demonstrate our sincerity by fulfilling this duty in person, leading by example.”

Lan Qiren’s heart had already felt as if it were overflowing with warmth, and it felt even more so now, almost squeezed to pain by how much joy was there. More than he had known he could contain.

Bad luck in brothers, he thought to himself - but oh, he had such good luck in friends!

“I see,” he said, thankful that his usual neutral tone concealed how happy he felt. “And naturally, where you and Lao Nie go, Sect Leader Jin cannot be far behind in his eagerness not to lose out, and where three of the five Great Sects lead, naturally the rest cannot be far behind. So I, too, will be obligated to...what? Go out on night-hunts in inconvenient places?”

“The world is too large, and the number of cultivators too few – and at any rate, there’s no point in setting up a full night-hunt which draws in every person from a thousand li for a few paltry fierce corpses or a ghost or two. I propose, instead, that we would send cultivators out alone, in pairs or in small groups, to wander for a few months through the remote places in the world and clean them up. Then, at the next discussion conference, the Great Sects could jointly agree that whoever was most enterprising would receive a reward, and naturally, stories of various exploits could be exchanged – ”

“Ah. Another reason for young men and women to gather and boast of improbable exploits.”

“Think of it as giving them more opportunities to win glory,” Wen Ruohan said. “And stop talking down about ‘young men’; you are a young man. Naturally you are also qualified to go out to do such things. Required, even: if our Great Sects do not set a proper example, who will?”

“Mm. A proper example. Even if I coincidentally happen to spend more time playing music than hunting demons?”

Wen Ruohan’s eyes were bright. “Even so. And naturally, you could always bring along someone more powerful to do the demon-hunting for you…”

“How convenient.”

Wen Ruohan smirked. “Do you doubt that I will be able to make it happen, little Lan?”

“No,” Lan Qiren said, then added, honestly: “I think you could take over the world if you wished.”

“Naturally! But it would be quite irritating, I think, if I had to also ensure that both you and Lao Nie did not disapprove of my methods…” He paused, lips twitching. “By coincidence, while we’re discussing convenience, I was thinking that it would be dangerous to send all those wild and reckless young men out there without proper support. Surely it would be only reasonable to set up a few convenient places here and there, not so far away, to provide them with supplies and a place to rest and recover –”

Convenient places that would fly the Wen sect’s flag and spread its influence, Lan Qiren presumed. Lanling Jin would be furious – using wealth to buy influence was their favorite technique, and they resented other people copying it – and would immediately insist on establishing their own set of “supply stations”, and then the rest of them would have to catch up and make their own. Yet another expense, and the Great Sects would need to do more than most; it would probably wreck havoc with the Lan sect’s annual budget.

On the other hand, well the remote parts of the world really did need the help. One of the Lan sect’s newly recruited guest disciples had been talking about a place not far from his hometown that specialized in making coffin goods; it was, according to him, the most inauspicious place that could possibly be imagined…

Not a place anyone might want to go, unless they truly were intent on traveling.

Lan Qiren smiled once again. He thought he might never stop smiling.

“Indeed,” he said, trying to sound dry and rational. “Very coincidental. No one will doubt that this is nothing but a scheme to expand your reach and power, rather than any personal motive.”

Wen Ruohan did not answer, but instead, matching a smile of his own to Lan Qiren’s, pressed his lips against Lan Qiren’s once more.

After a little while of silence, Lan Qiren cleared his throat and asked, “Do you intend to tell people?”

He was not referring to Wen Ruohan’s plans for the future.

Wen Ruohan understood.

“In time,” he said. “As much as I would love to shout that you are mine and I am yours from the rooftops and perhaps have bulletins be posted to every town -”

Lan Qiren grimaced. It would be one thing if he thought Wen Ruohan was exaggerating for romantic effect, but unfortunately it would be just like him to engage in that level of over-the-top grandstanding.

“– but your position is not yet certain, and my reputation is too questionable. People would make assumptions and spread malicious gossip, and I – I would not harm you to please myself.”

“Sweet-talker.”

“It’s not sweet-talking when it’s true,” Wen Ruohan protested, although he was chuckling. “When you are more renowned as a teacher than a sect leader, when little A-Huan is old enough to have passed the worst stretches of childhood – then we will announce it, and let the rest of the world choke on it if they like. You, me, Lao Nie…hmm. Jin Guangshan will probably think we’re concealing a conspiracy and ask to join in.”

Lan Qiren gagged. “I refuse,” he said. “I don’t care if I’m not physically involved, neither you nor Lao Nie are allowed to even think about it. That man has visited so many prostitutes that one might be forgiven for thinking he believes that the road to immortality is paved with venereal disease.”

“…thank you, that was an image I did not require.” A pause. “Jiang Fengmian –”

“Remember when he punched me in the face in a fight over a girl I didn’t even want?”

“It wasn’t a serious suggestion.” Wen Ruohan chuckled once more and pressed another kiss to his cheek. “Some years ago now, I swore to your Cangse Sanren that I would do right by you. I ought to invite her here and show her that I’ve made good on it.”

“You haven’t made good on it.”

“I haven’t?”

“No. Such a promise is fulfilled through the keeping – if you want to do right by me, there is no one singular moment that would qualify, but rather a continuing obligation.” Lan Qiren smiled up at him. “I’m sorry, da-ge. You’ll have to continue to do right by me for the rest of our lives.”

“I will,” Wen Ruohan said, and smiled back. “It would be my pleasure.”

-END-

[jaskiersvalley]

HEY I JUST WANTED TO SAY THAT YOUR FICLET ABOUT GERALT BEING ILLITERATE IS THE MOST PRECIOUS THING IN THE ENTIRE WORLD. I had to put down my phone and whimper when he pulled out the card 🥺 can.. can i humbly request a pt. 2 in the future please? (also,, ive gone through the entirety of your blog too and its. so. good. while ive been chillin’ quarantinin’ reading your fics have been my very favourite thing to do!!) ♥️

Nonnie, you and @ohnomybreadsticks have both given me inspiration for more. It’s gone in a slightly different direction with the whole Wolf School in on the thing now. But, hopefully, you’ll enjoy this addition just as much. Best of luck with the quarantine! I’ll be posting stories fairly regularly for the foreseeable future which will hopefully keep you entertained and out of trouble!

The illiterate Geralt story can be found here.

Jaskier’s School of Self Care for Lost Wolves

It was a known fact that Jaskier loved too much and too freely. Sometimes, he even fell in love with those he hadn’t met but felt they needed love all the same. Which was how he ended up with emotions towards witchers he hadn’t met beyond Geralt occasionally letting a name slip. It wasn’t the same kind of love he held for Geralt, it wasn’t all consuming, he didn’t want to kiss the other witchers silly but it didn’t burn fiercely and involved a lot of throws and warm cuddles. Because, as Jaskier had helped Geralt work on his reading and writing, he realised something. None of the other witchers knew how to do that either. Which was how Jaskier ended up demanding he be allowed to go to Kaer Morhen with Geralt. He had a whole winter to remedy the mistakes their teachers had made. It wouldn’t magically make up for all the neglect but Jaskier would be damned if he didn’t try his best to slowly build scaffolding around and start the process of patching in the holes.

The journey back to the old keep was more hazardous than Jaskier had even dared imagine. It didn’t help that Geralt told him most witchers died on the path, either too naive and new on their way out or too tired or injured on the way back. That was utterly appalling and Jaskier was in half a mind to demand that a new path be devised to make sure all witchers could get home and get the care they needed. Even if Geralt insisted this was for the best, an injured witcher had no prospects after all. Rather than argue, Jaskier kept his mouth shut and began scheming.

There weren’t many witchers left, the school of the wolf was a dying breed but, along with Geralt, three other witchers returned and Jaskier was delighted. It seemed that the whole family was together again. Not that they acted like a family, more like a bunch of pissy cats trying to establish territories because they couldn’t figure out how to share and snuggle. That did disappoint Jaskier, he had a lot more work cut out for him than anticipated. Still, he could put the beginnings of his plan into play.

“What are you doing?” Lambert sounded so utterly offended when he came across Jaskier settled comfortably between Geralt’s legs, both of them stretched out on a fur in front of a fire. Jaskier was holding a book and Geralt was reading aloud in a low, rumbling voice.

“We’re enjoying a good story. Care to join us?”

Snarling, Lambert stalked out of the room and Jaskier shrugged. It was a start, even if it wasn’t an auspicious one. However, it set things into motion because not two days later, Eskel had approached Geralt in the kitchen, softly quizzing him on reading.

“I could teach you,” Jaskier volunteered as soon as he heard, deciding to ignore the wide eyed, almost sheepish look from Eskel.

That was how an hour was set aside each day where Jaskier sat with Eskel, leafing through well loved books that Geralt had used, sounding out words together. After the third time, they ended up with a secretive audience in the form of Lambert lurking just outside the door, listening in. In the end, Jaskier left a book in his usual hiding spot and waited for Lambert to come to him. It took longer than he had anticipated, Jaskier had been shooing Eskel out the room and hanging around to tidy up after their lessons for a good week before the book was thrown by his feet.

“Stop mocking me.” Lambert had his arms crossed defensively over his chest and was glaring in a way that would have sent bolts of fear through most people. Just as well that Jaskier wasn’t like most. He’d seen the posturing, the anger and lashing out in Geralt before, knew all too well what lay below it. With the greatest simplicity, he picked up the book and sat down, opening it and giving Lambert an expectant look. After a beat, the witcher sat down next to him.

That was three witchers on their way to literacy but something still bugged Jaskier. Thankfully, he didn’t have to say anything because Lambert took matters into his own hand. He had a book with him one breakfast, furiously trying to catch up with the other two and master ‘See Spot Run’ at record speed.

“Why did you never teach us to read?” he asked around a mouthful of eggs, greasy fingers leaving marks on the pages.

A silence descended on the table as eyes turned to Vesemir who, for the first time since they knew him, looked uncomfortable.

“It wasn’t needed,” he began. “A witcher can’t read a monster to death.”

Understanding dawned on Jaskier then and there. He put his fork aside and stood with an “oh you poor dear”. It was barely audible over Vesemir’s mumbled “I was just a fencing instructor.”

Walking around the table, he easily settled on Vesemir’s lap, ignoring all social conventions regarding touch. Looking up at the witcher, he smiled.

“It’s never too late to learn.”

Given the possessive nature of witchers, one would have expected Geralt to get jealous. However, he seemed content for Jaskier to do as he pleased, spending time with the other witchers. All too soon, all four of them were piled together on rugs and chairs around a fire and frowning over their respective books while Jaskier flitted between them, helping and encouraging where it was needed. It was obvious Lambert struggled the most, the letters dancing before his eyes and never quite settling which made him growl in frustration and his book often went flying across the room. Only once did it land in the fire.

“I’ve made a decision,” Jaskier announced during a quiet afternoon. “You’re all coming along wonderfully with reading and I have so much more to offer.”

Four witchers looked at him a little fearfully, wondering if they weren’t enough. They didn’t say anything as Jaskier walked out of the room but the sadness was palpable. Until Jaskier returned with his beloved lute.

“If anyone wants to learn any music, I’m happy to teach them.”

While reading was a chore for Lambert, he took to music like a duck to water when shown songs, able to replicate the chord sequences Jaskier showed him quite quickly. He had a special love of raunchy singing songs. The only sad thing was that there was only one lute or any kind of musical instrument in the whole of Kaer Morhen. Though Jaskier was more than happy to sing along to whatever tune Lambert was picking out. Soon, they had a whole repertoire of witcher drinking songs they would happily belt out while the others thumped the table in time with the beat.

By contrast, Eskel seemed content with the softer side of things. In fact, he had taken a real shine to sonnets and would often be found discussing them in depth with Jaskier. Occasionally, Geralt joined in but he didn’t find as much joy in dissecting whether the “sweet smell of faded summer” was in fact a statement about the passing of seasons or whether it was the soft lament of two lovers growing old.

“What are you doing?” Vesemir’s voice pulled Jaskier from his quiet introspection. It was early, the sun was barely poking out from behind the mountains but he was out in the courtyard with Geralt sat on a barrell and frowning into a book.

“Stretching,” Jaskier replied, sunnier than the weather. “I learned a series of movements to keep the body supple and the mind engaged. It helps me keep up with Geralt.”

The wink he sent Geralt’s way was enough to have him raising the book to hide his blush. While everybody knew what was going on between them, Geralt didn’t like to shamelessly advertise it. He was a private soul by nature.

“Come.” Jaskier beckoned Vesemir. “Let me show you.”

They worked through poses, Jaskier explaining a little about each of them. While they looked simple and easy, Vesemir was surprised to find that they gave the gentlest workout he had ever had. By the end, he was pleasantly tired but not in a way a training fight would have worn him out. It was, for want of a better word, rejuvenating. It had him as close to a smile as he usually got.

Over the course of the week, it went from Jaskier stretching in the courtyard while Geralt read to Jaskier and Vesemir. Until, silently, Eskel joined them one morning, standing next to Vesemir, a little nervous but a smile from Jaskier had him easing into the flow. The next morning, soft lute strums accompanied their exercises as Lambert sat opposite Geralt and his book, playing something gentle. The grateful look Jaskier shot him was enough to get him scowling, even if the music never stopped.

Spring was just around the corner. The witchers were all sat around the cleared dining room table with parchments in front of them, quills in hand. Eskel’s tongue was sticking out the corner of his mouth as he focused on his work.

“Just remember, this means you can keep in touch with each other. Enchanted crows can deliver your letters now.” Jaskier was playing soft music as the others perfected their penmanship. Well, all except Lambert who had taken to doodling, letters getting lost in the pictures. But that was okay, he could always draw his sentiments, the others would understand.

By the time it came to leaving Kaer Morhen, Jaskier was content and happy. He had four witchers who looked so much more self confident in their abilities. Because while he had kept their attention on the arts, it was inevitable that they all bonded. It wasn’t all that unusual to find at least two, if not three of them piling on top of each other with a book, getting lost in adventures they didn’t have to live through. Someone else’s struggles were so much more satisfying when the fear of death and failure didn’t hang above their heads.

Three witchers and a bard stood in the courtyard, horses loaded up as they prepared to leave on their respective paths. Only Vesemir stood in his usual attire and a soft smile creasing his face.

“Safe travels to you all,” he said, meeting the others’ eyes in turn.

“What will you do?” Eskel asked. “You usually accompany us at least some of the way.”

The smile turned into an excited grin and Vesemi gestured vaguely towards the keep. “My path for the year is one that is a tight circle. The library here needs some attention.”

Pride made Jaskier beam. He stepped forward and gave Vesemir a hug. “I expect many a wonderful tale from the library when we’re back next year.”

That sealed it. The next winter, they were all going to return with more stories. Eskel even kept a diary to share with Jaskier in case Geralt was stingy on his details for songs. And, when they all reconvened at the start of the next winter, Vesemir had tomes from the library ready to read stories from while Lambert turned up with his own lute on his back.

[mimisempai]

Wait for me on the other side 7/8

Summary:

Will we attend the long awaited meeting?

Notes:

Final stretch before the end... How are you doing?

https://archiveofourown.org/works/32948254/chapters/82448716

Loki's apartment - 2021

I WANT TO MEET YOU!

FOR REAL THIS TIME!

Loki turned the drawing over, Mobius had added a few words to it.

Answer me after 6pm, I'll wait by the mailbox.

Loki looked at the clock, it was 5:15 p.m., he took his notepad and his pencil and left in a hurry towards the house on the cliff.

Arriving a few minutes after 6pm, he went to the mailbox, scribbled quickly on his notebook, tore out the page and after putting it in the box, he raised the flag.

It was lowered almost immediately, the start of another conversation punctuated by its movement.

Mobius House - 2019

Mobius was pacing around the box, avoiding looking at his watch every minute, wondering if he had frightened Loki with his request for a date, when the flag suddenly rose.

L -How?

M -Pick a place. I will be there. I promise. Tomorrow, what do you say?

L -Mobius. It's not tomorrow for you. You'll have to wait two years.

M -I don't care. I'll wait. Meet me at the restaurant tomorrow and I'll be there. I'll be two years older, but I'll be there.

L -What will you be doing all that time?

M -Think about you. And working out every day, getting in shape, praying I don't lose my hair...

L -Are you sure?

M -I've never been so sure of anything in my life. I've already lost so much time. I don't want to waste any more with you.

Loki suddenly felt almost dizzy. Mobius had two years to prepare for this appointment while Loki had less than twenty-four hours. He took a deep breath before closing the mailbox.

L - See you in two years, then.

M - See you tomorrow night. Where would you like to go?

Frigga  restaurant - 2019

Mobius entered the restaurant and was greeted by the hostess.

"Hi, I'd like to reserve a table for two."

She flipped through the reservation book before telling him in an apologetic tone, "Well, I'm sorry, but we just received our fourth star and I'm afraid it's extremely difficult to get a reservation at this hour. When did you expect to dine here?"

Mobius replied with a smile, "Two years from tomorrow. September 15, 2021."

The hostess blinked a few times and then closed the book, before answering with a big smile, "We should be able to accommodate you, sir."

Loki's apartment - September 15, 2021 - Morning

Loki prepared to leave for work. He looked at the outfit he prepared for that evening. He couldn't remember when he hadn't felt such excitement. He couldn't remember ever feeling this excited.

September High School - September 15, 2021 - 5pm

As he packed up his things after having finished his last class of the day, and was already looking forward to the evening ahead, he was jolted out of his reverie by Thor's stormy arrival in his office.

"Thank God you're still here."

"Obviously." replied Loki, pointing out with irony.

"I'm sorry, I know it's not your week, but can you do a detention watch for an hour? Jane is visiting between flights and I was supposed to monitor tonight's detention, but-"

Loki looked at his watch and sighed, "Yes, I can, but one hour not more. I have a date."

"Thank you, thank you! I promise, it's just an hour, no more. But I want to hear all about this date tomorrow, okay?"

Loki shook his head and chuckled, "Alright, alright, go meet Jane!"

Before leaving, Thor threw over his shoulder, "I don't know who that is, but I've never seen you smile like that before, Loki, and it suits you! Bye!"

He was gone before Loki had time to answer.

An hour later, Loki was walking quickly towards his apartment. He entered in a hurry, ran into the room and threw off his clothes.

Croki followed him around, curious, as Loki muttered, "He waited two years. What's another half hour? Right?"

He continued his preparations, but at a calmer pace. He put on a dark green v-neck sweater, of a shade that he knew brought out his eyes, at least that's what the saleswoman had told him, a pair of charcoal-colored pants that highlighted his silhouette. He looked at himself two or three times in the mirror before shrugging his shoulders.

A few minutes later, he left his building and took a cab to the restaurant.

Frigga Restaurant - September 2021

Loki stopped before entering. He inhaled several times to calm himself. He was ready, excited but confident. He opened the door with a firm hand.

While removing his coat, he scanned the room. There are not many tables. Before he could find Mobius, the hostess approached him.

"Good evening sir, can I help you?"

Loki cleared his throat, "Yes, I have a reservation. Laufeyson. Or Mobius, I'm not sure what name it was made under."

The hostess examined her book and looked up with a huge smile, "Oh yes! You're the..." she paused before pulling herself together, "Follow me."

Loki was led to a table for two. It was empty. He was a little surprised.

The hostess turned to him and said, a little embarrassed, "I hope you'll forgive me, but I can't help asking..."

"Yes?"

"This reservation is sort of... legendary. It's been here longer than most employees. There's always been intense speculation about who made it, and why, and whether you were really going to show up. Some of the team members even made bets..."

Loki looked around. Throughout the room, waiters were glaring at him. The chefs and kitchen helpers were looking out the kitchen door. Loki suddenly felt very embarrassed.

The hostess immediately apologized, "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have... I'll send the waiter to get your drink order right away."

A little later a waiter returned and poured Loki a glass of champagne.

"Compliments of the chef."

Loki nodded in thanks.

Just before leaving, the waiter threw him a small smile, "Good luck."

Loki began to sip the champagne, a little more nervous.

Some time later, his glass was empty and he was still waiting, alone at the table. The waiter approached to refill his glass, but Loki stopped him.

He was aware that the restaurant staff was watching him, whispering among themselves. Two hours passed, other customers lingered over dessert, coffee, chatting intimately at the candlelit tables.

Loki was still alone.

After a long moment, he pushed back his chair and stood up. Everyone was looking at him, gravely.

He walked to the front, expressionless, and took his coat, without speaking to anyone before leaving under the sad look of the hostess watching him leave. Loki returned home, alone. His stoic facade began to crumble. He had tears in his eyes.

He took a paper and wanted to write but didn't have the heart. Not now.

House on the cliff - September 16, 2019

The day was gray and windy, Mobius stood in front of his mailbox and read the words "YOU WEREN'T THERE." He shook his head, lost.

M - I'm really sorry. I don't understand. Something must have happened. Look, I have two years. I'll try to fix it.

L -No, Mobius... You don't understand. It's too late. It's already happened.

I'm not upset. I mean, I was at first.

But now I just feel stupid... that I forgot how much a person's life can change in two years.

And for expecting yours not to change.

For expecting you to wait, to stand still, to put your life on hold, for me.

M - But I can do it. I can wait for you. I know I can. I won't forget.

L -Maybe you did. Maybe, wherever you are, you are busy, happy, and living so fully in the present that the dinner you planned two years ago just... slipped your mind. Just like you forget about impossible fantasies when they're over, when you get on with real life.

M - You mean I should go on with my real life?

L- I mean... I think we both should.

After seeing his words, Mobius hurried to answer, his hand trembling with emotion.

Please write to me, answer me.

Mobius put his letter in the mailbox and raised the flag. It stayed up.

An hour later, the flag was still up, Mobius opened the mailbox, there was only the note he had put in.

Hours, then days, then months passed, as Mobius wrote and posted letter after letter. Finally, there was a stack of his letters in the box. They continued to pile up, unanswered. Until the box was so full that Mobius could not put any more letters in.

Bi-Frost Bar - Février 2022

It was winter, everything outside was covered in snow.

Loki was sitting at a table with Bruce, Thor, Heimdall and Carol.

They were now meeting here at least once a week after work.

As Bruce and Carol debated some obscure point of astronomy, mediated by Heimdall, Thor leaned toward Loki and put his hand on his arm.

"Are you okay?"

Loki gave a half-smile and answered honestly because Thor was one of the few people who could read him, "I've been better."

"Are you still writing to your mysterious pen pal."

Loki, his throat tight, could not answer and shook his head.

Thor simply said, without insisting, "I'm sorry, Loki, if you need to talk, you know my phone number."

Loki did not answer.

Later, as he returned home, he found a message on his answering machine.

"Hi, Lo. It's Sigyn. I'm in town. I had to come in for a meeting."

Loki started to press the button to delete the message, when Sigyn's voice continued, "A real one this time. I swear to you. Call me. Only if you feel like it."

The next evening Loki and Sigyn were sitting in the pizzeria where they had met before. Neither of them really felt comfortable.

Sigyn said quietly, "I didn't think you'd come out."

Loki replied wryly, "Don't take this personally but..."

Sigyn interrupted him, "You couldn't say no to the free meal."

"Exactly." they both laughed.

Then Loki asked, "So. How did your ' meeting ' go?"

Sigyn looked slightly offended at the way Loki had emphasized the word meeting.

"I told you I didn't make it up, it really happened. They offered me a job.A bigger firm. I'm going to be in-house counsel." She smiled proudly before continuing, "Call them if you don't believe me."

A little later, they arrived in front of Loki's residence which was on the way to Sigyn's hotel. They stopped at the door.

Sigyn said quietly, "I took this job because I wanted to. This is not an ambush, Lo."

Loki nodded and replied softly, "Well, that's great news.  Congratulations, Sigyn. I'm really happy for you."

Sigyn smiled, "Thank you, and thank you for coming."

Loki leaned over and kissed her goodnight, briefly. Sigyn looked surprised and pleased.

Loki watched her, it was comfortable and familiar, but then his gaze slipped to the tree behind Sigyn. Its leaves swayed in the night air. It was the tree Mobius had planted. Loki looked at it, then closed his eyes and shook his head. "No, I'm sorry Sigyn, but I can't."

After a tearful goodbye, as he walked back up to his apartment, Loki muttered to himself, "I may not be able to meet him, but I can't lie to myself either."

Mobius House - 2020

The mailbox was covered with snow. It was so cold that the lake had frozen over. Mobius, who was walking outside, looked inside the mailbox, by reflex. It was empty. He closed it slowly, disappointment on his face.

Distracted, he didn't notice that Croki was walking away quickly, towards the forest.

Mobius finally looked around.

Croki started to run. Mobius chased him. But soon, in the density of the forest, he did not see him anymore. Mobius ran straight ahead, continuing to call. He tripped on a stump and fell into the snow, he got up and called again, looking around, upset. Croki was really gone.

Mobius was about to run again, when he suddenly stopped. A realization dawned on his face.

Croki was going to find his new owner.

Mobius knew what he had to do.

A few days later, he was talking in the living room with Casey.

"Are you sure you want to do this?"

Mobius replied with a wistful look on his face, "Yes, I need to move on, staying here, I won't make it."

Casey nodded, understanding and added simply, "If you need help, you can count on me."

A few weeks later, "Mobius packed the house methodically and with determination. He assembled boxes with tape and threw his things in. He put the trash in bags, swept and mopped.

As he was tidying up, he found the stack of letters from Loki. He looked at them for a moment, then packed them up and shoved them in the bottom of a cardboard box before carrying the box to the attic and sealing it.

Hill & Fury Law Firm - 2020

Mobius checked the address on his phone, walked in, and headed to the front desk.

"Hello, I'd like to speak to Sigyn Iwaldi, I don't have an appointment, but tell her it's Mobius and it's urgent."

A few minutes later, Sigyn arrived in the lobby, and motioned for him to follow her into an adjoining meeting room.  She barely greeted him and did not look happy to see him.

Mobius didn't wait and asked her point-blank, "Do you still want to rent a house by the lake?"

He didn't wait for an answer and tossed her a bunch of keys. Sigyn looked puzzled.

Mobius continued, "That's what Loki wants."

Sigyn looked angry and asked him abruptly, "How can you know that? How can you know what he wants? Besides, we're not even..."

Mobius shook his head, "I don't want to know anything, but trust me this is what he wants."

Mobius waited no longer and stomped out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

Later, as Sigyn was opening her car, something caught her eye in the distance. An alligator was slowly strolling down the street, looking lost but heading straight for her. It was Croki.

Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7 - Chapter 8 (End)

__________

I've said in the last chapter, as a reader I hate cliffhangers. So for you, I've put the turbo on and I'm just saying, stay tuned... you won't have to wait until tomorrow for the last chapter... maybe with only one comment on this chapter, I'll be convinced to publish it even sooner... 😏

[revan-posting]

Dying stars

Summary: “It was pointless to think about the past, they both were suffering and now the rush of emotions washed them over, captured in a searing kiss. Death or fear had no place in the room, not even the time have a meaning, an abyss collapses and consumes their solitude. What about the war? What about the conflict? For them, for now there's no factions nor  reasons to fight, the moment has vanquished the war. There's nothing else around.”

Pairing: Rex and Ahsoka, Rexoka, Rex x Reader-Ahsoka (let’s say whatever be your age is Ahsoka’s).

Warning: During Order 66, angst, tenderness/fluff, some lemmon or smut (I am not sure, honestly) tragedy, death, and my tired broken heart.

Word count: 6.2k wow

a/n: Well, this was requested by @bitch8901​ <3 I truly hope you like it and I apologize this took too long to be shared.

This Rexoka prompt was inspired by Sarah Connor’s romance in Terminator because of this post. It hasn’t been easy, it’s my very first fic written in English, so I apologize if there are grammar errors or spelling mistakes. Yeah, the title isn’t great as well, I’m not good naming things lol but all this was made with love. And others who might read it, hope you like it as well <3 criticism will be well received.

The Siege of Mandalore has finished. All that chaos has stopped, flames still burning and is raining ashes, blood and corpses everywhere, just for Maul to get the attention of Master Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi. It seems such an obsession. What a waste! It was necessary all this? He wanted something else after killing Skywalker?

Ahsoka and the rest inside the Venator already, she couldn't stop to think if she did right to not mention to Master Yoda all those crazy things Maul said. Within her, something started to ache, her chest feels like it's burning gradually. Maybe it was the recent battle, the fear and darkness sensed because of Maul caged on that mandalorian device. That shouldn't happen.

Still, those words he said about the Republic, justice and order, she couldn't forget them:

"The Republic already has fallen, and you just can't see it! There is no justice, no law, no order, except for the one that will replace it!"

Those damn words, his scared voice screaming, begging to be left to die, echoing on all her way to the bridge.

Rex was already there, looking at her, smiling until see her expression through his helmet, sad and worried. Every one salute her with respect and joy. Noticing this, Ahsoka tries to left behind her thoughts and salutes them back a bit happier for the welcome. She really missed them but also realize there are many less on board, incluiding those who weren't in the beginning of the reunion, like Fives. Where are his jokes, imprudence and laughs?

Ahsoka approaches to Rex with no words but a smirk for him; he take his helmet off to see her better. Looks so tired and of course there's something annoying her. Rex knows her so well to realize she's not entirely ok.

"Hey, Rex" the former jedi feels the need to hug him after all this chaos and losses, but she resists the temptation. Rex's chest started to pound so hard once his name was released from the lips of the togruta close to him.

He tries so hard to not rise his hand to her cheek, feel her skin, hug her and comfort her. So much to say, still, so much to hide.

Regs must be obeyed, they both have a code to be followed, emotions to bury alive, even if they don't know what they feel for each other.

It was irrelevant, Ahsoka wasn't a Jedi anymore but Rex is still being a soldier, and a good soldier follow orders, despite what he considers is wrong or right.

"It's been a while" Rex responds with such a low voice, a delightful tone for her ears.

"I know, my friend. So much has happened, so much...", she hesitates to keep talking. Her eyes try to look at any other point instead of those golden eyes. Ends to look at her feet while one hand grip her elbow.

"Hey, are you alright?" Rex rub her forearm with his to get her glance again. "Let's hang out of the bridge, do you agree?"

"Sure. It would be good for both", nods while lift up a shoulder.

The couple of friends leave the command center and the ship jumps to hyperspace; far enough of the rest of the clones, Ahsoka snag her arm with Rex's and keep walking through the hallways.

His body shudders as she gets closer to his side, both upper arms together. Gladly, the trooper armor hides his shivering body but the recent sweat on his forehead couldn't be hidden, and would be weird put his helmet on again.

Ahsoka sighs, distracted, distant. It took the attention of Rex, forgot his shyness and fear, and finally dares to speak.

"'Soka, what's wrong? You look... troubled. What is it? It's about Maul?" his face changed after name that murderer. Thinking about all the mess he provoked, all the pain caused to his men: Jesse felt so guilty and sick 'till the point he would prefered to die instead. Sure Rex was tortured with the Force once, and being choked wasn't an experience he would like to remind. Neverless, Jesse took the worse part.

"I'm sorry, Rex." she stopped sharp without releasing his arm. Drove a hand to her temple, like feeling a headache. Rex's eyes were looking for hers with no luck. "I should tell them about what he said. About that vision of him. And I must control my emotions, block this fear inside of me, but for now seems impossible to do so." Finally, the togruta takes her arm away from his. Cross both arms pressing her tummy and the self-distrust starts to invade her.

Like ignoring her friend, keeps walking. Feels suffocated, afraid, lonely and desperate; she needs to cry out to the sky for some reason. Seems that all the lessons learnt are gone, all those years in the Jedi Temple vanished. Felt so empty and confused, her eyes started to water and flick because of that. She wanted to run and hide, above all, hide her sorrow from Rex. She didn't want him to see her crying or being weak or-

"'Soka...". The togruta hears and feel a hand on her shoulder stopping her from behind. She turns around and Rex looks at her for a moment, drops his helmet and hesitating tug her from her shoulder to his body to finally hug her.

Rex tight his hold, sinking his temple on one lekku, caressing it carefully. Whilst Ahsoka stayed shocked for seconds until feel a warm in her chest wich was heavily pounding and her hands didn't know what to do, if surround him or keep them away. Clenchs her fists for a while trying to avoid the urge to hold him, such flames burning her chest to the point she cannot resist it anylonger and disposes to place both hands on his back.

The soldier was afraid to be not reciprocated until he feels her arms leaned on his body. Kept his eyes closed afraid to open them and see it was just a dream, but no, he actually was holding her as close as possible that could even feel her heartbeat through his armor. 'No more nightmares, no more pain' he was thinking. Something alike Fives said before he died on his arms. This moment feels like that: compassion and relief.

Ahsoka feels the same, exactly what she needed, relief from all pain and the compassion of a friend. It was no pity nor shame, it wasn't a negative comfort, it was a selfless act from a good heart of a great man. 

The embrace dies slowly full of calm like an expected departure. She was ready to release him from her arms, so he was. She sighed deeply, feeling her cheeks turning into red, smirks because of it. Rex takes a hand to his head and trails it to the back of the neck with the same red colored cheeks on his face, made a beautiful combination of colours with that tan skin he posses.

At the same time, Ahsoka and Rex rose their faces to look at each other and smile. Ahsoka giggles to see him blushing, that laughter melted the Captain's heart. Within him borns the want to feel her face, caress her cheeks, touch her lips; he cannot stop to admire her. Ahsoka wonders what's going on his mind right now? Longing to place her hands on his chest whether he's using an armor or not, or maybe take his hands.

She looks at the dropped helmet and bends to take it to its owner. Before Rex could take it back, she draws the marks and patterns the helmet has with her thinny fingers; after that, she looked at him again to indicate he can take the helmet.

Suddenly, a tear falls from one of Ahsoka's eyes, she feels it and frowns due the sensation. She was about to dry that it but Rex was faster, so with the thumb of his free gloved hand took that tear away and his heart skipped a beat. By the stars! Even wearing gloves, Rex could feel how warm and soft her skin was. A burning desire appeared from nowhere to feel more and more of that sunset skin. He clenched his jaw to suppress those thoughts, shocked his head in denial and stepped back.

"I apologize, Commander. Such an offense I have committed, it won't happen again, ma'am", said nervously with no idea where to look at now.

Ahsoka confused and a bit worried, parted her lips thinking of something to say to make him stay. "Rex! Please wait!". She could reach him taking his forearm and then his hand with both of her hands. She tugged of them to force him to return where they were, even going further back.

Rex obeys her demands intentionally like she was stronger than him to keep him under her power and submission.

"Please, let's talk, okey?" Ahsoka asks as it could be the last time they could talk.

"Lead the way, Commander" Rex answers back with that deep and sensually calm voice that gives her goosebumps.

She keeps holding his hand afraid of lose it during their way to somewhere more... private.

Rex indicated a way to her quarters, he thought Ahsoka would need a place to relax after all the mess it was to come. It was well settled and equiped with the necessarly, incluiding more pillows that usual. A refresher and new clothes, a jedi robe placed on a table close to the refresher, takes the fabric for a moment, the nostalgia hits her for a second, until heard Rex's sweet voice.

"I thought you would like to take a nap or something. I know is not as big as you use to-" the nerve betrays him, his voice started to cut off. For the very first time they're comepletly alone in a room, Ahsoka looks so tranquil and quiet. Rex felt like an idiot. Why he's so nervous? Being at the bar and sober wasn't that hard, surrounded by his brothers and girls they invited wasn't a big deal, nor even drunk. Now he's alone with the woman he cares to the point would rather die before losing her. Such an attachment, such bond they have created, should be forbbiden. It is forbbiden!

"Rex, it is okey, I didn't think I could need it, actually. I just, please, let's talk" she sighs again and takes sit in the bed. Rex didn't know what to do or where to go. There weren't chairs or anything else, Ahsoka invited him to sit next to her on that bed. That made him blush again, she giggles. Rex leaves his helmet on the table with the jedi robe and doubting to sit yet. Ahsoka takes his wrist and tugged on it to make him fall aside her. She laughs again, such a beautiful smile on her face, those blue cristals shining like the first time he saw them. 'Yeah, it's been a while' he thought, 3 years being partners, saving each others life, having each others back, 3 years of friendship. 3 years and couldn't do enough for her when she was accused of sedition. Yes, he also said he knew her perfectly to know she wouldn't murder another clone, anyways he hunted her along side her Master and others. She must have felt betrayed. And then, thought in Fives. What if... what if he was right about all he said of the Chancellor and those inhibator chips?

His laughter stopped and the torment showed off on his face. His wrist was safe and sound on Ahsoka's hands yet, looking at him with tender and a smirk. Until see the new expression he had now. In shame, Rex looks away and removes his arm from Ahsoka's grip. Stands up and just walks around, took both hands to his temple. He gets to the door, Ahsoka fears he leaves the room but Rex turns around to look at her again. Lained on the door with crossed arms and downcast eyes, he sighs, thinking well his next words, but it seems his mind doesn't want to speak but his heart aches ready to voice itself.

"Where you've been all this time, 'Soka?" Rex downhearted alleges to her, he denies to watch her face but Ahsoka stares to him worried due his change of tone. "Rex?" she wonders. "Tup died, Fives died, we found Echo almost brainwashed and tortured, where were you?", he sounds angry but weak. Never meant to blame her but, guess he needed her there with him, maybe, just maybe, Ahsoka could help Fives to survive, who knows? Maybe all he needed was her support, her presence to comfort him like she used to do in the darkest days, in the harderst missions.

"You know what he said? Fives. He said..." Rex hardly swallows and continues, "Fives said the Republic implanted inside us an inhibator chip to control us. A damn chip ready to use it against the Jedi", there were anger and pain on his glance, clenched his jaw like it could help him to control the incoming tears. "We tried to stop him, he was scared, desperate, we had no choice and... and Fox... Fox..." his voice broke down making it harder to keep talking. Ahsoka rose up as fast as she could and ran straight to him.

Took him by the shoulders seeking for his eyes. Rex tried to evade her, ignore her glance but failed. She placed both hands on his face, Rex with eyes wide open plunges on her soft touch.

"Rex, there was no day I didn't suffer to be far from you. Believe me, I would give anything to go back in time to mend all that happened. My days on the lower levels of Coruscant might be over, I don't know, but I learnt so much being there. The Jedi are not the heroes I thought they were." she trailed her hands on his shoulders again.

"Wait, you've been in Coruscant all this time?" Rex asked while taking her wrists down. "Yeah, it's been a mess, but I saw what people think about us, and I kind of agree with the-" Ahsoka shrugged and Rex cut her off "No, wait... You've been there all the time and never saw you." Rex said hurt and dissapointed of himself for some reason.

"Maybe you should take me to that famous bar you all frequent someday" Ahsoka bantered to ease the the mood taking his hands carefully to not take him by surprise. Rex notice this, with both thumbs caresses the back of her hands. He smirks by the idea of taking Ahsoka to the bar with the boys. He focus on the ceiling of the room thinking about it between laughters, Ahsoka sighs admiring the man close to her.  Such a delightful view to see her man laughing after all... 'My man?' she thought. Yes, my dearest friend, my beloved partner.

While Rex kept holding her hands, she took them to her lower back so he could hug her again. He got it and placed his hands on her middle, Ahsoka gazed at him one last time before embracing him again. Rex, again, felt like an kriffin' idiot for being so rude towards her. 'How could I blamed her about Fives? Damn it'. Rex's eyes wide shut because of that while tugged her closer, Ahsoka had no idea what's on Rex mind but could feel him troubled.

"Rex, what's going on?"

"I...I apologize for all I said, I don't know what I was thinking of"

Ahsoka stared at him and standing on tiptoe, kissing him close to his lips to interrump him. Rex swallows nervously and the blush started to burn his skin. "You don't have to apologize, there's nothing to be sorry about", Ahsoka caresses his top cheek softly, her fingers travel to his lips like her eyes.

She wonders what was that stir inside her chest, that burning flame warming her body, she wonders if Rex feels the same way, if there is the chance... She took both hands to the back of Rex's neck to pull him closer with no objection, their lips were almost together. Both hearts racing, there's nothing else around, nothing to think about. That until Rex stopped her sharp:

"Ahsoka, wait" Rex set her aside. The togruta almost lose her balance because of Rex moving her. "Wha... What's wrong?" she asks hurt. Rex walks around of the room trying to escape maybe.

"'Soka, this can't be."

"Why?" her eyes started to water again.

"'Soka..." Rex approaches to her, "Ahsoka, I..." heavy breathing being released from his mouth, his chest aches as hell, holds her by her upper arms firmlly.

"We can't!"

"Is there someone else?"

"No, Ahsoka, no!" his hands go cupped her face carefully, "Ahsoka... I'm a soldier, you're a Jedi. It is forbbiden, you know that!"

"No, Rex, I'm not a Jedi anymore! I-" she holds his hands without take them away.

"No, you're a Jedi, whether you like or not, you can't deny what you are." removed the tears on her cheeks. "Remember all those missions together, all the lives you saved, the lessons you have learnt and taught... Doesn't matter how I feel, I'm not gonna break the code, you're not gonna-"

"Do you feel something for me, Rex?", her eyes wide open, shining like two kybers newly found, the pounding heart in need of answers. 'Can it be? Is it truly happening?' questions inside her mind, anxious to know if all those beautiful moments, whether they endured or not, whether they were private or not, meant the same to him like they meant for her. The laughter, the jokes, the protection, the journey. The moments they healed each other wounds, telling stories, training together, do all those days matter for him?

"I shouldn't told you that" his hands released her face. Went to the table where his helmet was, ready to go cursing his words. 'I'm sorry, but I can't stay with you' he said to himself. "Forgive me".

With the Force, she manipulated the control panel to ensure the door. "What the... Commander, what are you doing?" he quarrelled her through his helmet nervously. 

"I'm sorry, Rex, but I need to know, please" tear drops kept falling from her eyes. "I care for you, Rex. Days after leaving the Order, I realized I might not see you again, possibly ever. The thought of that broke my heart. I knew what happened with Tup and Fives. The thought of that could be you instead broke my heart. Watching Maul murdering every one of you, torturing you, and that I could lose you in my turn... Rex", Ahsoka getting closer to the soldier looking for his hands. "Have you ever fall in love, Captain? Have you ever met someone you would give your life for? Because that's what I feel for you".

Rex couldn't believe what he listened, elated and surprised under the helmet. His heart pounding violently that thought it would escape from his chest, he wanted to stop arguing with the desire dwelling inside. Maybe this is the time.

"Rex?" Ahsoka takes his helmet off one more time.

"I still remember the day I met you on Christophsis, naive and eager to fight. The sparkle in your glance, the fire in battle was nothing compared to that light of yours. Every mission I feared it might be the last one, it wasn't until I arrived to the base I could breathe knowing you'd be okay. Every night I tried to sleep without dreaming, having the picture of you always in my mind didn't help. When you left, I used to draw your skin marks in any area I had in front of me, wondering where were you? If you were safe, if you were... I'd cross a thousands systems just to ask if you're happy now and if have you ever thought of me, at least once. I love you, Ahsoka, I always have, and because of that I'd give my life for you.

Rex held her hands caressing them again, Ahsoka couldn't feel happier. Hopped to embrace him and wraped her arms around Rex's neck. Whatever was aching his chest it stopped, felt like breaking chains to breathe again, the taste of freedom. That's what he thought until Ahsoka got off her grip and pulled his shoulders down to kiss him. Holding him again around his neck this time glenter in case he tried to escape again. Such a impassioned kiss made Rex tug her closer by her waist, unfortunately the armor was damn nuisance to enjoy the moment. Rex pushed away for a bit to breathe, Ahsoka gave him the chance to recover himself but in no time approached his face to hers to keep kissing him with the same passion.

"Ahsoka, wait" he breathed. His hands went to her jaw and neck, joined both foreheads like a Keldabe kiss, it helped to keep breathing, though.

"What is it, love?" she smirks heavily breathing.

"I... think, I think my chestplate is leftover, don't you think?" he sighed and smiled. Ahsoka gave a mischievous glance, Rex looked kinda scared.

"I think, more than the chestplate is leftover, Captain", trailed her fingers all the way of his arms. Rex swallowed and Ahsoka moved aways to give him the chance to remove not just the chestplate, she expects.

Rex was shivering, it made harder to put everything off of hi body, trying to breathe steady didn't work for now. 'Trained to work under pressure, yeah sure' he thought, not like this was a kind of work to do or something alike. His mind was a mess. Ahsoka came closer and surrounded his waist with her arms from behind. Leaned the side of her face in his back on blacks and sighed, rocking as slow as possible, "Do you need help?" she offers. "Don't worry, I'm almost done" he gazed her with his peripheral.

Chestplate, shoulder pads, upper and forearms bands, gloves and belt removed; Ahsoka couldn't wait for him to put off the legplates and greaves, almost gave him chance to remove his boots. She turned him around, the embrace were more pleasant than before, by far! His chest softer and warm, those strong arms covering her perfectly. Ahsoka rose her sight up looking for another kiss of her man, Rex didn't need words for it, cupped her face with his hands and kissed her, this time with no hurry or despair. His hands felt like heaven, Rex could feel this as well, for the very first time his bare hands caressed her skin and they were looking for something else. 

The kiss were turning deep gradually taking the same rhythm it had firstly, the passion through their tongues, sucking each others lips, their breathing increasing with difficult, Rex barely could remain standing so he drag her mate with him to the closest wall and his hands went to her hips to pull her body against his. The excitement was noticeable, it seems Rex didn't realize of it but it pulled a moan out of Ahsoka among their kiss while she tried to get closer to him to keep feeling that sensation down there.

Their kiss grew deeply, even more every time like it wasn't enough for both. Rex trailed his hands down to her asscheeks, squeezed them and spread them a bit. Ahsoka lifting the head stopped sharp the kiss to murmur his name, that gave Rex the chance to kiss her chin and jaw, lick her neck, trailed his mouth to a part of her collarbone. He couldn't kiss her further or bow lower, so he lift her up enough to Ahsoka wrap his waist with her legs and held her against the wall making Ahsoka to moan again. Rex felt the goosebumps again after that, breathed on her throat and kissed her gently. Her body started to feel hotter, like burning inside, something in him felt as hard as the beskar she's wearing, something Ahsoka could feel between her thighs while Rex kept kissing and sucking her neck carefully, she hummed in response for every kiss, tugging the fabric of his blacks. He missed her lips and the taste of her tongue and so did she.

"Take me to the bed... Rex" she begged.

"Are you sure?" he asked frowned.

"That's all I ask" she breathed. "Unless...Do you... do you want to...?" she asked as well, maybe he wasn't ready.

"You needed to ask, cyar'ika?" he drew a wide smile.

"Okay, then put me down".

Rex wondered what she was thinking of, whatever it is, he was eager -and nervos- to see. Ahsoka moved him back until his legs hit the edge of the bed, she push him by his bare tan chest to make him lay down. She stared at him for a while and started to take of her clothes, the blush on her face was burning her cheeks, shivering and giggling. Rex couldn't help but smile admiring her from the bed.

Ahsoka disappears for a moment to place the beskar pieces on the table, Rex takes advantage of her absence to remove the legplates and greaves that couldn't take off earlier, put kept the tight black pants on, for now...

Ahsoka shows off before his beautiful golden eyes with nothing but her headdress, crossing her knees and one arm barely covering her breast, blinking flirty. With his jaw dropped, Rex stared at the woman in front of him: his eyes were shining like dying stars, breathing between laughters, posing both elbows on his knees. He wished he could freeze the time just to preserve the current picture: the women he loves looking impressively ravishing and gorgeous. Nothing else mattered for him.

"You're enjoying this, aren't you?" Ahsoka bantered.

She crouched to the bed, Rex's legs were between Ahsoka's and then she sat on his lap. What kind of man had in front of her now? The narrow and precise soldier she met on Christophsis, the man made of regs and stone, honest and experienced, gone for now, for her. Ahsoka thought about the times when Rex was distant, quiet and even angry. Nothing could turn his mood easily, nor his brothers or the General Skywalker. She tried to be there, in all those bad moments or mostly of them, being an incorrigible chatty, weird and brisk, talking about silly shit she learnt from Fives or joking about any thing related to Kamino and its tall people.  Sometimes it worked, some other times, it was useless, causing the beaming 'joy' of the togruta vanish 'til death thanks to his monotonous tone of voice.

It was pointless to think about it, they both were suffering and now the rush of emotions washed them over, captured in a searing kiss like there’s no tomorrow. Ahsoka took away that tight t-shirt of his and touch every inch of his bare torso softly like she'd been afraid to rip his skin with her fingers. Rex's hands cupped her breast while licking her collarbone, could sense the vibrations from her throat that her moans were causing. His tongue were going lower and lower to kiss the middle of her chest, lick and suck each bosom, the sweet sound of hers just made his excitement increase and Ahsoka knew it. She stopped again, lay down his body for a better posture and travels her hips on his, Ahsoka started to grind down against him, Rex moaned with such a deep voice that made Ahsoka crumbled inside. The sensation was so electric, so addictive, Rex couldn't help but rock his hips up against hers, her entrance getting more wet due the rub they were doing. 

"Rex!" she gasp, the massage tingles her inside her lower abdomen, meanwhile Rex caresses her breast and squeezes them. Travels his hands to her waist  moving her a bit harder against his hips. His fingers tightens her bottom manipulating it because of the touch of her entrance with his erect member. It seems that Ahsoka was getting close to the peak of pleasure, her legs were starting to lock up, shivering, Rex notices this without knowing what to do but enjoy the view clutching at the sheets, relishing her taste, the taste of her tongue, her body. "Rex" she cries out again, the man holding her small waiting for orders of her commander. 

"Rex, I... I want you, I want you inside" she begged out of breathe.Rex heed, rose up to embrace her and switch positions, carefuly placed her body in the bed. One arm held her shoulders tugging her closer to his chest, his free hand posed in her tummy feeling her heavy breathing. Such a want in her eyes, a burning desire glowing on her countenance, Rex trailed his fingertips to her bottom lip, the top of her cheek, her jaw. Placed his hand on the curve of her neck and kissed her again. 

Seduced by the blaze, their bodies intertwining, being like a whole, rolling on the bed. There's a point that Ahsoka wraps his waist with her legs to immobilize him,  Rex buries his arms under the pillow letting his body go down taking over Ahsoka's skin. Rex rubbed his hips against hers, both gasped loudy in the moment he gets inside her. Ahsoka opened her eyes as wide as she could due the spiral of rushing pleasure she was experiencing, Rex smirked looking at her expression and kept planting kisses over her temple and going down her jaw. Ahsoka sank her fingers over the heaving back of Rex as he was thrusting against her hips a slow rhythm, overwhelmed by the passionate pleasure burning inside of him; Ahsoka licked his neck while Rex squeezed her breast, releasing heavy groans by his part. The vibrations from his throat were exciting, erotic. Such stimulation provoked an increased rhythm on his movements, taking her hands above her head, Ahsoka closed her eyes letting being drift by the satisfaction and thrill. 

"'Soka" he mumbled, she could barely hear him. His thrust were going faster and forceful every time, she was about to explode out full of passion and-

"Rex... Oh, Rex! I am... I-" whimpering weak until the burning pleasure dwelling inside of her core reached out to the highest point. A loud moan escape off of her lungs, but Rex wasn't done yet. Ahsoka was trembling and moaning, Rex still enjoyed her captivating body. Lied his head on the crook of her neck with his fanned breathing over her chest, his hips meeting hers insistent, faster thrusts until he finally came... Rex was labored breathing, his limbs were shivering, despite his current fatigue, his hips gave another couple of thrusts releasing a low groan after each one before pull out his erect member of her body.

"'Soka... I-" he breathed. She stared at him with tenderness and a quiet passion.

"Rex..." Ahsoka announced softly, looking for his eyes. "I love you". Rex gift her a wide smile over her confession and caresses her hot flushed face.

"Mesh'la," Rex kisses her, "Cyare," kisses her again, "I love you, too" kisses her one more time, "and my life is yours".

Even being tired and weak, Ahsoka found the strength to get up enough to embrace him, forcing him to lay back. Both gave into another passionate kiss to culminate their love. At the end, death or fear had no place in the room, not even the time have a meaning, an abyss collapses and consumes their solitude. What about the current war? What about the conflict? For them, for now there's no factions nor reasons to fight, the moment has vanquished the war. There's nothing else around.

* * * * *

Exhausted as hell, they sleep cuddled to recover energies. As expected, Rex is a man of light sleep, because of this, wakes up hearing his device was receiving a message. Carefully he abandons the bed trying to not to wake Ahsoka. Before taking his holo device, Rex puts on his blacks again to answer the call.

Rex watches the hologram, he's receiving new orders from a dark robed figure: "Execute Order 66".

"Yes, Lord Sidious", Rex responded.

Ahsoka was awaken already.

"Rex? What is it?" Ahsoka feared the worst, not because of the message, but the nightmare she had about her old master Skywalker and forced her to wake up.

"Find him... Fives, find him!" Rex looked chaotic, desperate. His voice was different, threatening.

"Rex...?" Ahsoka tried to approach him.

"FIND HIM!"

Rex started to shoot. Ahsoka evaded the blaster shots but is not enough, with the Force stopped him against the door. Unlocked it and pushed him out. She was scared, confused, her heart was racing as hell. The nightmares returned, she closed her eyes to concentrate about those dreams she just had. No doub it was about Anakin, something went wrong; so much suffering, chaos, anger... And now Rex is against her, why?

"Why he wants me dead if... He said he loved me, why he...?" her chest was aching so much, but she needs to calm down, she must know what just happened! She went for her clothes and lightsabers, got ready and the first thing she had in mind was Maul. He said this would happen, he must know something more.

Exiting the room, Rex wasn't there, looked everywhere to ensure the hallways were empty. A door opened and there he was with a bunch of clones by his side aiming her, ready to kill her.

"No, all of you go to the prision area and kill the sith. I'll take care of this, personally", Rex commanded.

Ahsoka couldn't understand but wonder what's going on and how she's gonna stop this maddnes? She knew about Tup and Fives, she knew something went wrong with them and died. Rex said "find him", and that's what she's going to do.

"Rex, what are you doing?", Ahsoka begged for an answer.

"The Jedi commited treason against the Republic, all of your kind must be executed", Rex said with conviction and coldness. "No exceptions".

* * * *

It's been a couple of weeks after the massacre against the Jedi Order, it's been a couple weeks the Venator crashed onto the surface of that moon. Rex and Ahsoka buried the bodies of the fallen clones found among the debris. Rex equipped the Y-wing bomber he piloted to escape from the Star Destroyer alonside Ahsoka.

She was mourning the soldiers, Rex watched her from behind drop her lightsaber on the ground in front of the fallen. Maybe to make it seem she died with them, maybe 'cause she couldn't do enough for them as a Jedi. Maybe she dropped her saber because she wasn't a Jedi anymore. Who knows.

She turned around to Rex and started to walk, Rex was approaching to her as well.

"Ahsoka?", like a man that used to have an strategy all the time and now has no idea of what's next since everything went to shit, tried to find some answers from his partner.

"We must go" Ahsoka couldn't watch him to his eyes. Her voice sounds so empty and scattered.

"'Soka...", Rex held her by her shoulder, took her upper arm and pulled her over him. "C-Cyare..." his voice were almost broken. 

Rex embraces his mate from behind leaned his head on her montral. Ahsoka was hurt and hopeless that she couldn't be afraid even. What is the point of the Dark if it cannot control what's teared into pieces. Forsaken and broken, what else she could be? What else she could do?

Felt her legs too weak to keep standing up and just slipped down to the ground. Rex tried to keep her up but was useless. He ducked in front of her to see what's going on. Her intense blue kyber crystals started to cry, quietly sobbing took her hands to her face to cover her shame. Rex couldn't see her crying, he would do anything to stop her tears from falling, but for now, he comprehend she needed to let it out, all the frustration, the sadness, the failure.

"Forgive me, Rex. I-I can't... I can't for now", she sobbed. Rex didn't say a thing. He had no words to share, however, even if he didn't know, his presence was everything for her. It was a gift that the man she loves had survived, still, as a Force user, could feel the chaos and death provoked by the clones. It is such a wound inside that seems can't be healed. But now, she has to learn to live with that wound and the pain it causes to her. She must find a new way live, a new path to follow, and Rex would be there with her. Nothing matters now.

Ahsoka stands up, Rex helped her carefully. Look at his sad golden eyes for a moment and Rex caressed her cheek. Embraced her once more and said "Thank you for saving my life once again, cyar'ika". "You would have done the same for me, dear", she retorded.

Rex smiled her weakened, dried a tear from her cheek with his gloven thumb, and both aboard the Y-wing ship ready to go wherever the Force take them from now on.

[dragonstoravens]

Babylon Vol. 1: Bad Behavior, A Dancer in her Own Right

[ID: a blue patterned banner with text reading “BABYLON.” End ID.]

(Two chapters today, but this one’s a bit of a shorter update anyway. Believe it or not, we’re getting towards the end of volume 1 now!! It’ll be all posted by the end of December, and then in the new year at some point we’ll start posting 2. We’re also looking into Wattpad, and maybe even making an audiobook, so keep an eye out for those updates. Enjoy the chapters!)

Taglist (ask to be added or removed!): @charlottedotexe @glitterandstarshine @rainbowcoloreddays @the-starlight-chills @erased-in-stone

General: @elywritesbydarkness @residentofthedisc @humour-and-hyperfocus @skyfirewrites @viawrites-andacts

17. Bad Behavior

    A tap on her shoulder alerted Azure to someone just behind her. She turned, smile plastered to her face. The woman was about her age, grinning conspiratorially. That was never good, in her book. Grinning usually meant there was a plan for the conversation, and conspiratorially meant she’d have to actually participate. She washed away her distaste for the idea with some champagne before speaking.

    “Hello, I don’t believe we’ve met.”

    “Oh no, we haven’t. Samantha Whitewater, my family owns the Whitewater mining firm.” The introduction was followed by a small bow, which Azure returned. A colony family, then. Whitewater continued. “I just wanted to congratulate you.”

    Congratulate her? She hadn’t done anything of note to these people. She never made deals and she talked about herself as little as possible, trying to create a black box of a history no one would question. There was nothing to congratulate, and even less for a stranger to bring up out of nowhere. She touched the comm.

    Hey Hotshot, you remember anyone from the Whitewater family?

    I think I got a proposal from them once, he responded. More business than pleasure, though I think they wanted a marriage too. At least they didn’t keep pushing when I denied both.

    That was all she needed. At least Samantha and her family had manners. Her smile relaxed to something more genuine. She didn’t know what she was about to be congratulated for, but at least it wouldn’t be underhanded. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean, things have been awful slow for me lately.” 

    “Oh, nothing like that. I’m just congratulating you on making such a good match. No one else here could say the same, though of course the Jericho name is something of a hot-ticket item to many of us. My own family included, I have to admit.” She laughed like it was some kind of joke between friends, and Azure’s blood pressure rose. Trinity, seeming to just take notice of the conversation as Azzy’s burgeoning anger began to make itself known through their mental link, began to turn, a crease in his brow the only sign of confusion showing through the ice-sculpture poise he wore around these events like armor.

    She blinked to cover for the twitch in her eye, tucking her hands behind her back to cover the sparking. She ignored the vague warning of Azzy, no, that buzzed in the back of her head from Trinity, bulldozing on. “I wasn’t aware he was on sale in the first place.” Her words came out clipped, stilted, and poisonously sweet. Speaking of her friend as though he was an item made her stomach churn, even in retaliation. These events often weren’t terrible until something like this came up, the word choice surrounding people objectifying and economic in the worst manner. But never once had someone brazenly spoken about Trinity to her face before, like it was normal or expected. That was her friend Whitewater was talking about, the one who’d taught her about shrimp forks and helped her reach high shelves in her lab and made poorly edited images of frogs telling bad jokes for her when she was sad. She seethed. “I suppose that would explain why you caught me off guard then.”

    The woman blinked. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what it’s like where you come from--” the incredibly rude phrasing was somehow undercut by the fact that she still didn’t seem to think she was insulting anyone at all-- “but clearly you’re not used to this kind of society. We’re all a commodity here. The best he or anyone should hope for is to find someone equally as useful to him as he is to them, and maybe someone he can get along with-- though with someone as Icy as Jericho I never held out too much hope for that. That could have been me, but I guess it’s you.”

    Azure opened her mouth to speak, but Trinity’s hand on her back stopped her just long enough for her to hear him out. Azure. She’s right. Drop it.

     Azure shot back a response with a dangerous growl entering her mental voice, indignant and angry and protective. I don’t recall askin’ how anyone else here felt about it but me, so you drop it. She cleared her throat, her tone once more painted over with a thin veneer of polite but apparent disdain. “It is me, thank you very much Miss Whitewater. I wish you the very best of luck in finding someone merely useful to you.” If it wasn’t going to get her kicked out, she’d have spat at the woman’s feet like she used to when people bullied Crim in elementary school. Instead, she grinned conspiratorially with entirely too many of her teeth. “Because as we both know, that’s simply the most one can hope for in this wonderful little bubble.”

    “Like you’ve done any better.” Whitewater finally seemed perturbed, angry that something was disrupting her sterile worldview. Her lip curled slightly. “That man touches you like he’d rather be doing anything else. Two inches away from anything that could be considered a little risque, even while dancing? At least someone like me would’ve known what I was getting into, with someone like him.” 

    Trinity saw Azzy draw in a breath, and knew whatever she was about to say would be even worse. So before it could leave her mouth. Trinity had turned fully to face the two of them, and in an instant his arm was wrapped firmly around her waist. His hand rested squarely on her hip-- right on the strip of skin her dress’ cutout bodice left exposed to the air. His fingers dug into her flesh just slightly. Not hard enough to even leave prints on the skin, but just enough to send a message. Azzy relaxed in posture only, looking for all the world like a guard dog that had just been told to sit as she looked up at him sidelong. “I’m sorry, Miss Whitewater, but my date and I have business elsewhere. Will this be all?”

    “Of course. Enjoy your evening, Jericho. Garza.” Whitewater’s voice was stilted. Trinity turned Azzy around and used his arm around her to begin to shepard her away-- he wasn’t sure she was prepared to actually leave this alone, left to her own devices. They made it about ten feet before Azure looked back over her shoulder, sliding her arm around his waist as well and winking back at Whitewater, Garza’s supposed devious intention with Trinity on display. Internally, there was a small blip of take that, asshole, and then a self satisfied calm. Trinity sighed. He hated to play into whatever that was, but unfortunately a deserted hallway was likely the only place he was going to be able to talk to Azzy alone. He tugged her away into a winding passage off to the side of the main ballroom, gritting his teeth as he imagined the scandalized stare that Whitewater woman was probably still sending after them. He couldn’t deny that it was… amusing, to an extent. But he liked to avoid attention he wasn’t looking for at this kind of thing, and the last thing he needed was a jilted business-lover spreading around the fact that he’d pulled his date into a secret corner in the middle of an event. What was done was done, though, and he had to admit he hoped Whitewater felt sufficiently humiliated by the end of all that. Whatever it was.

    Finally satisfied they were alone, he let go of Azzy-- careful not to let his hands linger a second longer than they had to-- and sighed, leaning against the wall with a slightly bemused smile. “What was that about? And why did it seem to have everything and nothing to do with me?”

    Azure blew a stray curl from her face, absently rubbing her hip where he’d touched her with her opposite arm. The consequences of her actions appeared to be finally setting in, and her face was apologetic in that same way it was when she realized she’d started eating in massive bites at dinner instead of polite and small ones yet again. She looked almost bashful as she looked up at him. “Sorry Hotshot, I just...I don’t know, she started talkin’ about you like you were a thing instead of a person. I’m used to ‘em talkin’ about how hot you are, and that’s fine because it’s true at least, but no one’s ever said anythin’ like that about you right to my face before, it pissed me off.” She finally let her own hip go, shaking her hands to rid them of sparks and avoiding his eyes to avoid letting it be known just how honest she was about to be. “It’s rude, and it’s dehumanizin’, and I just believe real strongly that you deserve better than that.”

    Trinity almost denied it, wanting to cite times he certainly had not deserved better, but the last thing he wanted was to open up that can of worms. The wound of his profiteering off that war-torn planet was still too fresh, his apology still somewhat inadequate. Instead, he just shook his head. “I know what you think, but whether that’s truly how I am or not, it’s how I’ve presented myself for years to these people. Besides, she practically called you a bumpkin to your face too, and I’m not sure you even noticed.” He felt something soften slightly inside him as he looked at his friend. She’d been defending him. God strike him down if he knew why. God would probably strike him down regardless.

    She waved a hand, looking unaffected. “Who gives a shit about me? I am a bumpkin for all these people should care. But you’re…” she struggled, squinting her eyes and scrunching her freckled nose as the machinery of her mind ground its way to some kind of an end to her sentence that was eloquent. It failed. Instead, she came out with: “You’re cooler’n they are and they should admit it to themselves and act with some damn respect.”

    Trinity tried and failed for several moments to hold himself together before he burst, doubling over with laughter. She’d never seen him laugh like this in person-- heard it, maybe, over a particularly good meme or something, but never like this, actual tears forming in his eyes. She grinned, wide and crooked, her job here complete. He slapped his knee, struggling to straighten back up. “Ah, Az. You’ve brought us full circle.” He wiped a hand over his eyes. “I give a shit about you. I am also what she said about me. And you are also ‘cooler’n’ them. Yes?”

    Now suddenly she was bashful again. No one ever called her cool. Smart, maybe, or nice or even helpful sometimes, but never cool. She blushed. “Sure. At least I know how to act normal. Sorta. In comparison, at least.” Her hand reached up to scratch behind her ear, sympathy painting her features. “It’s a sad little life she’s about to lead. Honestly, I hope it’s what she actually wants or else she’s gonna be damn lonely without an actual someone to connect with.”

    “It’s a sad life most of us lead,” was his only response. His face was turned slightly from her, into the shadows of the dark hallway, leaving his expression unreadable. “Sometimes there are things more important than our own happiness. Shall we?” He held out a hand, gesturing back down the hall towards the well-lit bustle of the ballroom. It struck Azzy that things in this world seemed to hide better among glitter and blinding lights than they did in the dark. Nevertheless, she placed her own hand gently in his.

    “Now remember, act like you like me or else I might actually have to throw down one of these days.”

    “Right, right.” Trinity huffed out a tiny little laugh, his fingers finding the skin of her hip once more. “As long as you’re alright with it.”

    “I’m a bad actor, this is easier.” She leaned her head into his shoulder, wrapping her arm around his waist and leaning into him. “Plus, this way I don’t even have to stand up straight.”

18. A Dancer In Her Own Right

    Her boots made a gentle beat against the hard metal of the floor. One step then another, sure of herself even as she looked in the opposite direction to her movement. There was a rhythm to her every sway, every object she tossed over her shoulder and caught in the other hand a step in a dance she was choreographing on the spot. Something from this drawer, cross the room to another cabinet, all of it swirling around that constant central point that was the examination table and her workbench. Watching her set up for a deep maintenance test was like witnessing a ballet. Her stretch for something off a high shelf was easy, graceful. She knew exactly how far everything was, exactly how many steps to get there. She carried the objects she collected as though they weighed nothing, a spring in her step the whole way. 

    Trinity sat on a counter as far out of her way as he could get, but he might as well not have been there at all, for all having another person in her space slowed her down. He couldn’t help but marvel a bit at the sureness of her movements, now that she was in a place entirely her own. In society and on a ballroom floor she stumbled occasionally, one might even assume she was clumsy. That thought would be long gone the moment they saw this dance, one made by and for her, the perfect combination of grace and power. Ballroom dances were as much for the observers as the dancers themselves, but being able to observe this felt like a privilege more than a right. Being allowed to appreciate this sight as an outsider, a friend but someone who would admit freely that he couldn’t even begin to understand her, was a gift. In this moment, Trinity relaxed, and let himself appreciate the organic yet mechanical beauty of her, without letting his brain get in the way. After all, dancing was supposed to be instinct above thought. 

    She held out a hand, and he automatically picked up a wrench that sat at his side, placing the handle in her palm. She took it without looking, and the dance went on. She vaulted casually onto a countertop like it was the most natural thing in the world, grabbing some gray box off a shelf near the ceiling and hopping down without a hint of hesitation, no signs of exhaustion as sparks flew in her wake. She made her way back to the center to drop both things off, to pick up something else, to continue this seemingly endless waltz. Individual curls of hair freed themselves from her braid, her beanie long discarded in favor of having the goggles she typically wore around her neck situated atop her head. She stopped briefly at the edge of her stage, only to map out a new path that carved the edges of the room from the center, a small bucket in hand to hold whatever things she needed as she went along. She needed a lot of trinkets and tools, and she knew what each of them were. She paused briefly in front of him, and pointed above his head. It took him a moment to insert himself into her rhythm again, then he knew what she wanted without words. He slid off the counter and held out his hands to make a step for her, boosting her up to whatever it was she needed to reach. She stepped lightly onto his outstretched hands, opening a cabinet and pulling a bottle down in the same motion as her descent back to the ground. She flashed him a grin, crooked and pleased. He heard a snippet of something she was humming to herself, low and sweet, her own orchestra to accompany her own dance. 

    Now that he was no longer needed for the moment, Trinity hopped back up on the counter, content to just watch her work in perfect harmony with herself.

[jayankles]

Slow and Steady Wins the Race

Pairing: Gabriel x Reader

Written for: @goodthingshappenbingo​ / @/spnonewordbingo / @spngenrebingo​

Squares Filled: Realization / tulip / angst to fluff

Word Count: 1065

Requested:  @angelwriter3895 said:I wish you would write a fic where Gabriel helps the reader through a breakup and she finds out he loves her and goes on the archangel date train. So to speak. Smut optional

Feedback is gold and appreciated since I hardly ever write for Gabe<3

“I fucking hate men, they’re all the same. Stupid. Self-centered. Do you have an ‘s’ word for cheaters?”

Sleazy comes to mind but Gabriel dares not to say anything. Y/N had just come through the doors to the bunker. He knew that when she walked in like this there was no way in heaven or hell that he was through to her.

Gabriel had seen this way too many times than he cared to admit. The tears flowing down her cheeks, the puffiness under her eyes, the way she closed in on herself but she soon replaced her demeanor with a more annoyed one and she rambled on about how all guys were assholes and how they would never be right for her no matter how charming and nice they had been at the beginning. That was always the story. 

Y/N never really had any luck with guys and when she did it never really lasted that long anyway. She thought it was her protective brothers, then she blamed it on being a hunter or a lack of a real home. Both were reasonable explanations but it still hurt that she hadn’t been able to keep a man for more than three months before they decided to call it quits. She would power through it, she always did but it still hurt her nonetheless.

Y/N had devoured a pint of her emergency ice cream and still didn’t feel any better. All the romance movies she watched made her cry even more so she resorted to poking fun at them and almost throwing a machete at the TV to make it stop.

Gabriel was there to save the day. Well, night, but semantics. He knew to leave her in her room for at least an hour to calm down before even thinking about interrupting her post break up meltdown. All Gabriel had to do was snap his fingers and happiness would be in his hand. Or Pizza as Y/N would call it.

Three taps at the door with the gold plated number eight. He had to be careful where he knocked or the drawings would slip down or the paint would peel off.

After a few seconds, he heard a sniffle before the door opened. Y/N did her best to hide behind a facade, a fake smile plastered on but it fell as soon as Gabriel raised an eyebrow at her. He knew what had happened the moment she slammed the bunker door closed. There was no use in pretending with him.

“He slept with a skank at the bar.” You wiped away another set of tears. “Why does it always end like this? I get hurt all the fucking time!”

Gabriel gave her a sad smile before he presented the pizza. “I may be an archangel and I can’t fix broken hearts or make assholes less ass-holey but the thing I can do is be here for you and help you heal. Nothing more I can do unless you want me to get rid of Travis. Because I can do that.”

With his expression, Y/N knew that in an instant - if she gave the command - Gabriel would snap his fingers and Travis’ head would explode, or be on a platter. Whatever he felt suitable, he would do it in a heartbeat, Y/N dreaded that Gabe would even go to the extreme lengths of Travis’ dick.

“Don’t go wasting your angel juice on that piece of trash. Can you just join me and we can eat this pizza? You can even choose the movie, I’m sick of these romance movies, no matter how much I love Ryan Reynolds.”

*

Gabriel had noticed a change in Y/N behaviour, she seemed a lot more happier lately and it made his heart all fuzzy. It was so weird. But he knew that it was because he was completely and utterly in love with her. Anything she did, he fawned over her.

Gabriel loved the smile on Y/N’s face when he bought her a bunch of tulips and a box of chocolates but he knew that she really got a kick from going to the demolition place. Y/N swung the sledgehammer like a champ, destroying the entirety of the room. The old vases didn’t stand a chance.

“Thank you for being a good friend. Thank you for being here for me.” Y/N said later that day, curled up against Gabriel, completely content in the archangel’s embrace, his presence comforting. Gabriel rolled his eyes before running a hand through his locks, tugging on them slightly to hide his frustration.

“Sure, as long as you’re not with assholes that treat you like shit.” Gabriel tugs Y/N a little bit tighter against him and he can’t help the fact that he’s glowing when she’s near.

*

“I think I love you.” Y/N bit her lips, her eyes darting between Gabriel’s golden eyes and his pink, plump lips.

“Well, it’s a good job because I love you too, honey buns.” Gabriel grabbed her by the hips and pulled her against him, Gabriel’s hand wandered her body, stopping just under her ass. Their lips locked and Y/N lept into Gabe’s arm.

“Y/N...Y/N...Y/N.”

“Y/N wake up.”

“Huh, what?” Y/N punched the air as Sam woke her from her dream. Her dream! She was falling for Gabe. “Sorry. Okay. Out of my room. I need a shower and I’m pretty sure you don’t want to see me naked.”

“Two things: one, gross. Two, I was going to ask what you wanted for breakfast but I’m just gonna buy a breakfast burrito and toss it on your bed. Goodbye.” Y/N rolled her eyes, spinning Sam around and pushing him out before she slammed the door behind him.

Y/N didn’t know whether to laugh, cry, or let herself feel the fluttering in her stomach. The sudden realisation made her stomach do more flips than a gymnast hoping for a gold medal. She was in love with Gabriel. In love with her best friend. In love with the friend that stood by her when she was stood up, made her laugh even when she was crying. He even endured her movie marathons - no matter how cringy they were - Gabriel was always there. Gabriel was the man - archangel - for her.

Feedback is gold and appreciated

Forevers: @super100012​ @lupine-princess​ @plaid-lover-bay25​ @atc74​ @growningupgeek​ @sophiebobzz​ @docharleythegeekqueen​ @poukothenerd​ @grace-for-sale​ @mrswhozeewhatsis​ @jesspfly​ @supernaturallymarvellous​ @sammysgirl1997​ @roxyspearing​ @mogaruke​ @be-amaziing​ @deanandsamsbitch​ @frankiea1998​ @hennessy0274-blog​ @spn-dean-and-sam-winchester @iwantthedean​ @capsheadquaters​ @emoryhemsworth​ @notmoose45​ @essie1876​ @cassieraider​ @brewsthespirit-blog​ @its-my-perky-nipples​ @riversong-sam​ @jotink78​ @captainradicalpassion​ @jadalecki-jackles​ @spnbaby-67​ @holyfuckloueh​ @gh0stgurl​ @alyssa6marie​ @esoltis280​ @bumber-car-s @alexwinchester23​ @x-waywardaf-x​ @thisismysecrethappyplace​ @randomparanoid​ @kellianz​

[vinylexams]

Heavy Heavy Low Low - Courtside Seats to the Greatest Fuck of All Time⁠

⁠ @heavyheavylowlow38 #heavyheavylowlow #hhll #deathwish @deathwishinc⁠ ⁠ I’ve been lucky as hell recently to snag insider info on some killer reissues and this one is no exception. You all already know how much I love HHLL, especially Turtle Nipple…, and through serendipity I got connected with Robbie from the band a few months back. I got to hear about how they are coming back to life after some years focusing on other projects, growing up and growing out, and evolving as musicians and artists in the process. They’ve worked with Twelve Gauge Records to put Courtside Seats on vinyl for the very first time and after they announced it on their platforms and immediately sold it out, they’re pressing another batch that you and the HHLL lovers in your life can and should snag before that pressing sells out, too!⁠ ⁠ What’s even more exciting is that I got to pick Robbie’s brain in typical VE fashion and he’s indulged me with all sorts of info about what they’re up to, whether or not we can expect new music, and some feel-good stories about huffing air duster and ripping shit up in an old warehouse on the California coast. Here it is in its unedited glory, but first…head to the website to pre-order your copy and then head to Robbie’s Indiegogo campaign to learn more about his upcoming short firm that’s scored by Nick from Tera Melos! ⁠https://deathwishinc.com/products/heavy-heavy-low-low-courtside-seats https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/morning-deliveries-short-film#/

INTERVIEW

First and foremost, it’s been a minute since we’ve heard from Heavy Heavy Low Low and then out of nowhere you sprang back to life in 2019. What motivated you all to pick up this project again? I’m not sure what motivated it. We had always been trying to jumpstart the whole thing again for some time and I think that it might have been a case of everyone’s lives slowing down and examining that time with a weird reverence. I can only speak for myself. The boys are all in school or doing their own thing.

I imagine you’ve all been working on different projects since HHLL went on hiatus. Do you have anything that you or the rest of the band have worked on that you’d love us to know about? Danny has gotten pretty popular in the Kendama world. Chris is studying various forms of martial arts. Roo is endlessly going to school and currently scoring independent films. Chip is heavily involved in competitive fishing. I’ve been making short films when the situation and my wallet allow it. We’re all crazy excited about finally owning Courtside Seats on vinyl for the first time. Aside from bringing that album onto the vinyl medium, the pre-order page notes that there’s new artwork, too. What can we expect from that? When we made the CD we weren’t expecting to sell any really.. I did the art and Matthew printed them all at his job. Him and I folded every crease, glued the o-cards and vacuum sealed them all. I think it sold out almost completely at the record release show. We made the same amount of records as we did the original cd (500). The artwork for the original CD pressing was done on sketch paper without any comprehension of what could be done with drawn art and a scanner. Matthew was the computer wizard and back then, young and silly, it was all done on the cuff. The new art is a bit more modern and plays with mortality. Court-side Seats to The Greatest Fuck of All Time being a front seat view of a an ordinary, bumpy ride through life. I’m proud of it. What’s it like to bring back an album from the earliest parts of the band’s career? Do you still identify with the music? It is odd. It was a truly surreal time and place. We were out of our fucking minds. We recorded it in Mountain View, Ca in this giant warehouse that tapered into gutted office spaces. It was a weird white collar tomb on the outskirts of Silicon Valley right before the real tech boom. In the big part of the warehouse where we’d enter there were giant mounds of clothes meant to be donated to some third world country. We’d burrow tunnels in them and do huge dramatic flips from pike to pile. There was an aisle of outdated medical equipment waiting to be sent that we’d stalk through in the dark. It was a strangely magic place. Once you got through the warehouse you’d get to these office stations that had been fashioned into recording studios and that’s where we birthed this thing. We were so misguided. The amount of compressed air that we inhaled should have killed us. I contribute a significant drop in IQ to that shit. Smoking copious amounts of weed from gravity bongs. Recording with a hip hop producer, Deegan. Never a disagreement. It still feels like it was some strange purgatory of youth. I don’t miss it, but it was beautiful. Does this mean there’s hope of having Everything’s Watched, Everyone’s Watching on vinyl sometime, too? So, there was a guy who was very adamant about putting that record out on vinyl. We had a dialogue going for the better part of a year and apparently he had been in contact with Rhino Music and Warner, the two companies that hold the licensing to that album. He had received word that it’d cost an impressive amount of money, but he still wanted to shoulder it. Mind you, this dude didn’t have a label, he just wanted to put this thing out and apparently hadnt thought that all out. Time goes by, I’m waiting, not worrying one way or the other. One day I get a link from a friend, a Christian college website detailing that dude had been arrested for kidnapping and assault. Very sad situation. Dude seemed semi normal. Anyway, that was the last effort I’d seen put into that. I’d love to contribute new art to that release if any go-getter wants to try their luck. I’ve loved everything HHLL put out, but Turtle Nipple is in my top 10 list of favorite albums of all time. What was the writing the recording process for it like and how did the band feel about the new creative directions on it? EWEW was half previously recorded material re-recorded and half material written a year prior, kind of forced into a studio with producers we had no previous rapport with. Those producers/engineers were incredible human beings (RIP Tom Pfaffle! See you in the mindfog) but we were very young punk kids thrown into a foreign land where we had our agents visiting and there were platinum records on the wall and it was a total barrage of privilege and excess. It was beautiful, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t feel soul in that record. Turtle Nipple is a dense trip through time and the record I’m most proud of in our discography. I don’t remember how long we had to record it, I do remember that it was the only time we’d been given to experiment and layer our sensibilities in an environment that catered to them. Sam (Pura) was a perfect conduit to that vibe and time and space and it really came out just how it should have. I think about that album as a 70s exploitation directors filmography.. it veers violently from genre to genre and while most of the stories are fiction and far from personal testimony, theirs a peek into some shared insanity contained throughout. George Cosmatos wandering through a punk club on an edible. I think that that album is our bands true personality. Sam is a member of our band whether he’s playing with us or engineering for us. He gets us. I love the idea of an alternate reality where we had lasted a bit longer and did an album with Steve Albini. He’d probably hate us, but I love those ‘What If?’ Scenarios. I’ll ask the question EVERYONE has been asking so it’s on the record somewhere: Does this mean we can expect new material or a new album soon? Maybe even a tour? We have a new EP in the works. We have some of it recorded with Sam. We’ve posted a couple clips on Instagram. We’re incredibly busy and spread out in our personal lives. Chip in TX, Dan in FL, Roo in OR, Rob and Chris in CA. Adulthood is a bitter, pulpy drink! We are going to be playing again. We won’t be leaving the West Coast. We had our fill of middle America and the travel involved. We have talked to some of our buds from our early days of touring about playing alongside (opening for) them for a limited run in 2020. I think that qualifies as a tour. Also, if anyone wants to fly us to Europe to play a festival in 2020, we’d like that. It’ll be an interesting year. How does it feel to be welcomed back by so many adoring fans who still love your music and are hoping for more after a long hiatus? It’s incredibly humbling. I have heard from people throughout the years about how we had affected them and it was always just strange to me. I’m pretty self deprecating, so I just don’t understand how some shit I wrote could mean much to anyone. My mind is just a shotgun blast of panic. I guess all of ours are? I love my band mates and their talents, though. So I understand the sorta sirens draw to the greater extent. I think they only got to show themselves slightly, too. Weird existence. Give us a piece of band trivia you’ve never shared in an interview before! Gees. There is a step-in part to most 15 passenger vans. It is a black, hard plastic. It meets with where you close the sliding door. When we had no bottles to pee in, we would just piss in ‘the step’. This thing was a den of germicidal activity. Trash and piss I don’t think we ever truly cleaned that thing. What’s odd is that we so rarely got ill on tour. The Step kept us healthy on a steady diet of trash and piss and general scum. Finally, this isn’t a question but the hidden track on Turtle Nipple is a fucking masterpiece and I wanted you to know. Thank you! I think that may have been my idea to add some weird 70s funk into an old track of ours. I think it turned out cool, but I think it betrays our vibe on that album! I wish it’d have devolved into some weird, primitive Altered States shit.

[purecamp]

Hi, I have a question about your mamma mia au! Is Pat dead on Here I Go Again? Because I was thinking that if she passed away before higa, Sharon and Willam would attend the funeral right? Wouldn't Sharon bring Trixie too? Wouldn't Willam go talk to her and get suspicious about Trixie? Is this me subtly asking you to write an oneshot about it just because I'm not ready to let go of this universe and also wanting you to write more Shillam? 😂

ahaha anon this tickled me tbh. first of all thanks for the love (!!!), so i’ll try to answer in parts

-unfortunately she has passed before higa because she would be 113, which is possible but... unlikely ahaha -ive been debating this since waaaay before u asked me bc its something i thought about a lot, like would sharon bring trixie or not? would she even go? lots 2 think about, decisions decisions -i would write oneshots for you in a second. plz feel free to request them at any time omg

anyway, i guess i’m gonna give it a go here! 

She was a good age, Sharon knew that. Spritely in nature right up until her last moments, Patricia Belli passed away in her retirement home at the age of ninety six.

Her letter had arrived in the post; a short and not-so-sweet note letting Sharon know that if she received this letter, then she had died, and the nursing home staff had actually honoured her request of them to send it to her. Somewhat of a doting grandma - owing to the fact that Sharon had no idea what Pat would be to Trixie if she even was related - she had attached some plastic-wrapped sweets and lollipops.

God, this was going to be difficult. On top of having to close the hotel, at least for a day whilst she attended the funeral, Sharon was going to have to explain the concept of dying to her three-year-old girl, who thought the world was nothing but sparkles and sunshine.

And that was without slotting in time for her own grief. In four years, Pat had transformed Sharon’s life, and she owed her everything.

Times like these were when Sharon wished she had a little bit of help. She needed to cry and sniff and weep into somebody, to wallow in the horrible feeling of finally being alone in the world with herself as the only adult to rely on. She needed to continue working in order to stay alive, and keep her home paid for and her daughter fed. She needed to sit down and explain to Trixie than Nana Pat was gone, and she wouldn’t be coming back. She needed someone else to bundle her up for once and tell her it was all going to be okay.

“You alright?” Maria broke her out of her thoughts, tapping her as she went past behind the bar to fetch a few more bottles of ale.

Sharon grabbed a rag and continued drying up the glasses - Maria had offered to extend the hotel into her bar, meaning Sharon now managed a hotel and taverna in one. “Yeah, just... Can’t believe she’s gone, you know? I always felt like Pat was gonna live forever.”

Maria nodded. “It will be strange, we miss her around here. She was regular for many years at this taverna. Party held here after the service, in her honour.”

“She’d like that. Everyone getting drunk for her.” She sighed, her eyes filling with tears. “I don’t want to have to tell Trix. She’s only young, after all.”

Shrugging, Maria offered a kindly smile. “Brave and strong, like her mother. Even if teeny tiny.”

Despite her heavy heart, Sharon laughed.

---

“Mama! You’re here!”

The same cheerful greeting that Sharon was met with every afternoon came at her once again, lifting her low mood a little. A flurry of pink shot towards her, Sharon noting a smudge of blue paint on her face and some scuffs on her shoes from a day of playing before she was tackled in a huge hug.

“I’m here, little pumpkin. Did you have a good day?”

“The best!” Trixie trilled. “We did painting, and running, and I played dolls with Kimmy and Pearl showed me how to draw hearts!”

Ever-suffering, her preschool teacher was stood by the door to the classroom, her gaze tired but still warm as her last student clung to her mom. It wasn’t too often that Sharon was last to pick up her little girl, but it happened enough that she knew to just sit Trixie down with some colouring and leave her to it. Today, the grief had slowed Sharon down, and she was behind on most of her maintenance.

“Sounds fun! Now, are we walking out of here or is mama carrying you all the way home?”

Trixie took a moment to think about it, before smushing her face into Sharon’s neck. “Mama carries me home.”

Sharon sighed, figuring that she needed to keep Trixie happy if she was going to deliver such bad news. “Okay, just this once. Say bye bye, now!”

“Bye bye, Miss Coulée!”

Just Sharon’s luck, the walk was roughly long enough for them to discuss the subject. She was careful not to let her own emotions influence Trixie’s too much, knowing that a sobbing little girl would be much harder to console when she herself wanted nothing more than to break down in someone’s arms. Curious and a little confused, she asked a few questions which Sharon tried her best to answer, all while avoiding the term “Heaven”. It felt like she’d done an okay job, all things considered, but the fact that she had to do it alone meant she was more than nervous. This wasn’t going to traumatise her into therapy as an adult... she hoped.

“Will she miss me?”

Fuck, this kid was tugging at every single one of Sharon’s heartstrings. It didn’t seem possible that she had been the one to give life to something so goddamn cute.

“Nana Pat? I’m sure she will miss you, baby. And we’ll miss her, too.” Sharon took a deep breath. “But she’s still with us, isn’t she? Because we remember her, and we always have our memories.”

Trixie nodded thoughtfully. She had begged and begged to sit on Sharon’s shoulders, so now she idly played with loose strands of her hair, the messy bun practically ruined from the day’s work anyway.

“But she won’t come back because she’s too old.”

The child-like ability to make the most innocent and heartbreaking of things funny was one that Sharon hoped Trixie held onto forever. Even with her own heavy sadness, she giggled slightly.

“That’s right, bubba.”

A pause. “Are you sad, mama?”

Sharon nodded infinitesimally, trying not to trigger her tears. “Lots of people will be sad. When we go to the funeral on Saturday, there will be lots of sad people wearing black who all love Nana Pat very much. Will you promise me to be a really good girl and just sit quietly with me? We don’t want to disturb anyone.”

Trixie leaned forwards, pressing her lips to the top of Sharon’s head in an awkward, well-meaning kiss. “I’ll be good.”

---

She was golden. Sharon had done all her crying in the morning, before Trixie scrambled into her bed, and she was relieved at how easily her toddler had gone along with everything. Getting herself dressed had been a breeze; she even tried brushing her own hair, which was unsuccessful but nevertheless touching. Trixie then scampered off to play whilst Sharon got ready, giving her a few more moments alone.

Smoothing down her skirt, she examined herself in the mirror. An uncomfortable possibility had dawned on her that night, as she tried to sleep, and it made her unbelievably nervous. After all, he was her great-nephew...

She didn’t look that different than the day they met, surely? But yet, staring at herself, Sharon started realizing how little she resembled that girl already. Only four years had passed, near enough, and at twenty one and a mom, there was almost nothing to anchor this version of herself to the similarly-burdened yet unrealistically carefree seventeen-year-old that Willam had known.

Her hips were wider now, one of the few permanent modifications that Trixie had given her, and for all her low income meant a reduced diet, there was still the remains of a post-baby pouch that stubbornly remained. Black dresses were slimming, Sharon reminded herself, not that the rest of her needed it, but she hoped it was enough that if Willam did see her, he wouldn’t notice anything different.

That being said, he was a man. The little things didn’t matter. The living, squirming three-year-old, however...

Sharon sighed and relaxed, not bothering to try and suck in her stomach like she had before. Willam definitely wouldn’t notice it, he’d be too busy staring at Trixie. The human that he might’ve helped her create. That she had opted not to tell him about. Even though she had an easy way to do so via his now deceased great-aunt.

Fuck.

They made their way up to the little old chapel on the island in good time. Pat knew and loved her home more than anything, so relatives had been flocking from around the world to a tiny chapel on a tiny island out in Greece. It was a difficult walk, and with every step Sharon had to face that she really was in this alone now.

Not wanting to intrude in spite of her invite, Sharon slipped into a pew at the back and bowed her head, clutching Trixie in her lap as more of a comfort than anything else. Thankfully, as more and more people filed in, Trixie seemed to sense that her mama was upset, and quietly played with her flamingo teddy.

He was one of the last to walk in, of course - he would have to make an entrance. Swaggering in, his expression mostly calm, and his sheer confidence was highly inappropriate for a funeral and god if Sharon didn’t sound like her fucking mother. He was young and hot and the swagger seemed to be a Belli thing, because no one paid him any attention. Somewhere, whether in heaven or in her coffin, Sharon knew Pat was cackling with laughter.

And, of course, he just had to speak too. Sharon lifted her head a tiny bit to watch him, trying to ensure his gaze didn’t flicker onto her.

“So many kind things have been said about my dear great aunt today, and whilst it has warmed my heart I’m here to undo it all.” Willam started, filling the room with soft laughter. “Rest in peace, Granny Pat. You were old as fuck, but we’ll miss your rottenness. She had an ego bigger than mine and a liver bigger than Dad’s, and she was the life of the party. We love you, Pat.”

Everything about him was so familiar. Sharon tried not to think about it, but her mind was flooded with him. He didn’t look different at all, but she supposed LA had treated him well. Tanned and charming as ever, he seemed to woo his family as easily as he had seduced her into bed with him... or at least, that was how Sharon chose to remember it.

This was going to be a long day.

---

In all honesty, Sharon didn’t go out much anymore. It came with the territory of being a full-time parent and hotel owner-manager-chef-bartender-maid, but she was tired almost all the time. When Raja and Jinkx came over she made exceptions, but on a day-to-day basis, once Trixie was in bed, Sharon was exhausted from exerting herself to make sure she could even be finished and home in time for Trixie’s bedtime story. So, being out in the taverna in the late evening?

Unbearable.

As soon as everyone came in, Maria offered to take Trixie and keep her entertained behind the bar - which probably wasn’t the most responsible choice Sharon had made as a mom, but she knew Maria would take good care of her as she always did, and insisted she needed to mingle.

Mingling was the last thing on her mind, but she reluctantly grabbed a drink and tried to remain casual in a room full of strangers. After all, none of them knew who she was. None of them knew what Pat meant to her, and everything the daft old woman had done for her. None of them knew that without Pat, it was likely that her beloved daughter would’ve been given up for adoption and Sharon would’ve had to return home to her mother with her tail between her legs. Pat had made it possible for her to live, and as rough as it was, it was nice to be self-sufficient at twenty one.

“Hey! I thought it was you! Hi blondie!”

Sharon clutched her glass a little tighter and turned around slowly. “Forgot my name already?”

There he was, right next to her, having made his way across the room with bright eyes and a shiny grin. LA really had treated him well.

“You’re unforgettable, Sharon, don’t play me like that.” Willam teased. “Good to see you again. I knew goodbye wouldn’t last forever.”

Sharon scowled, but it didn’t last. “Hence why I said we wouldn’t have one.”

“Good point.” He gestured to her glass. “Vodka?”

She shook her head. “Just coke.”

“Pffft. Boring. Pat would want you to have some vodka. Or gin. Or both.”

Rolling her eyes, Sharon took a sip from her decidedly non-alcoholic drink. “I have responsibilities to take care of, I can’t just get drunk.”

As she spoke, her gaze went searching through the throng of people, praying Trixie wasn’t about to run over and squeeze her legs in a damning cuddle. To her relief, she was that she was balanced on Maria’s hip, happily giggling away with her out of Willam’s eyeline.

“We’re twenty one, Shar, and you haven’t seen me forever. Live a little!” Willam encouraged. “Seriously though, it’s good to see you. I didn’t know if you would still be here or if you still saw Pat around. It’s nice to see a face that I know she’d be happy to see, too. She hated most of the people here.”

God, the past tense. Sharon tried not to well up.

“You’re the only face here I know.” She admitted, her voice thick. “I feel a bit lost, honestly. If I didn’t have work, I’d be doing shots to loosen up.”

Willam laughed at that. “Right! I’m glad you know my face, at least. Familiar face, familiar arms, familiar chest, familiar d-”

“Stop!” Sharon shrieked, giggling in spite of herself. “Your great aunt has just died and you’re talking about our teenage sex? You’re disgusting.”

He shrugged. “I’m a Belli, it runs in the family. All this nonsense about her living to a ripe old age... please. She wasn’t ripe, she was rotten. It’s why we love her so.”

Sharon chuckled appreciatively. “I’m gonna miss her.”

“Me too. She’d be glad to see us brought back together, though.”

“Yeah. Although I’m not gonna sleep with you again.”

Willam’s laugh was a little too loud, attracting some disgruntled murmurs from surrounding family members. “Welp, there goes my weekend plans.”

It was surprisingly nice, talking to Willam. As much as Sharon had been terrified that the first topic of conversation would be them, and it would inevitably lead to a confession, they fell into a fleeting friendship as easily as they had four years ago. Determined to keep things light, Sharon steered away from her work or home life as they talked, but it was still nice to catch up.

That being said, she also kinda never wanted to see him again. Nothing personal, just... for Trixie’s sake, she had closed that chapter of her life and under no circumstances would she be reopening it. Not now, not in twenty years, not ever.

“I assume you’re breaking into stardom in Hollywood, right? I’ll be seeing you on movie posters?” 

He laughed. “A star is born, baby. Keep your eyes open. And you, are you taking to the stage now you’re away from your bitch of a mom?”

Sharon shook her head. “Nah. I don’t... I don’t have time anymore. And with the girls gone, too...”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but you don’t need them. And we should sing together again sometime, too.”

At that, Sharon sighed. “There’s nothing keeping you here, Willam, not now she’s gone. We had fun, but... there’s no point holding onto that. I got over my exes, I have to keep living and so do you.”

Willam nodded. “A goodbye without a goodbye. I get it. It’s difficult, but we have to let go.”

Yeah, Sharon told herself. In more ways than one.

“It’s not a personal thing, you know I care about you as a friend-”

“I know.” Willam told her. “I care about you too. But I get it.”

He pulled her into a hug. “Needles, take care of yourself. You’re skinny, take advantage of the free food. Fall in love. Make music. Do things to make you happy. You deserve that.”

Speechless, Sharon could only nod as he held her. “I can tell you’re ready to leave, so I’ll say goodbye now. You’re a one of a kind, okay? Keep going, angel thighs.”

Pfft. The old parody nickname - trust Willam to remember that.

“Thank you, Willam.”

---

Trixie was fast asleep in Sharon’s arms. Her warm weight had settled comfortably into her as she walked home, and Sharon relished in the way her sweet daughter could fill her aching heart so perfectly. Her blonde curls were messy, just like her own were as a child, and she was completely tuckered out.

Her adorable girl had little outfits, a bedroom of her own and a roof over her head all thanks to the love and kindness of one foul-mouthed, gin-loving lady. As the sun started setting, Sharon realized she owed another Belli a lifetime of gratitude.

“Thank you, Pat.”

[fanfic-scribbles]

Building Bridges, Trying Not To Drown: Foundation

I actually wrote this last year but in going through my masterlist I realized I hadn’t posted it here, only to Ao3. It’s...hm. I like it but it’s not for everyone. Mind the trigger warnings (for the love of god or who or whatever please read the trigger warnings) and read the general warnings.  If you’ve seen this on Ao3, sorry for the repeat, but I like to put everything on both places because I am Paranoid. Also, I’m sort of on-and-off working on a part two, which may one day get posted here so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

Fandom: MCU Captain America/Avengers

Summary: Two sad people, trying their best in different ways.

Quick facts: Friendship – Steve Rogers & Reader – Nondescript (I think) Reader

Trigger Warnings: Depression, suicidal ideation, mention of self-injury (specifically cutting), thoughts of being nothing/worthless

General Warnings: Ups and downs can be jarring, first-person PoV, tense-shifting between past and present depending on scene, time and location are vague, kind of a crummy depiction of texting because I couldn’t make up my mind on how I wanted to do it, written in chunks over months and kind of reads like it

Words: 5465

A/N: One of the reasons I like fanfic so much is because I like the idea of being able to experiment with stuff. That said: this is a weird one. Not necessarily a bad one but strange and definitely an experiment. Part venting and part not. I don’t have evidence on hand, it’s purely an emotional reaction to watching the MCU character, but I just look at Steve Rogers and think he is, at heart, a sad dude, and whether through him or at him, I always want to play around with that. So I do. This is my second story using Steve Rogers to comfort a vague character that I’m leaving open as a reader insert. A lot of this is vague, actually, so don’t look too hard at the plot (if there is one). If you like it, great, if not, that’s fine too; you’ll probably know pretty quick if this is your thing or not.

    The water was black in the night, only revealing its shape with the aid of wind and reflected lights. It looked nice. Endless. Oblivion. I wanted so badly to sink into it. I wanted…

“Cold night.”

I flinched at the sudden voice, and glanced to the side. He was big, bundled up, and facing me with his body while he leaned on the railing and pretended to look elsewhere. I should have been concerned for my safety– he was huge and looked strong– but I was so far past caring that I didn’t even respond. I just went back to staring out at nothing. And being nothing.

“Is that jacket warm enough?”

Great. Mr. Chatty. Still, I had no energy to engage, so I didn’t. He was a stubborn one though; he didn’t leave, didn’t seem bothered by my lack of response. “As cold as it is, though, I love the air when it’s like this; it’s refreshing.”

It would have been polite to make a sound. To nod. But I couldn’t manage any of it. All I could do was stare. And so I did. For hours, until the world around me began to stir. A runner skimmed by, the sky began to lighten. I stood straight, turned away from the man, and walked home.

I tried.

When I couldn’t sleep, I put on comedy shows. Movies that were normally comforting. Music that I liked. Nothing could make it through the cloud. My tongue was locked in place and tasted sour in my mouth.

I ventured out to the bakery I liked. It was in a small area with a mix of food places and at this time of morning it would be lively, but I could handle the background noise. The people behind the counter weren't that talkative, and that was the important bit.

I picked out a lot of things, enough to last a couple of days, paid, and left.

And saw the man from just a few hours previous, sitting at a table with some other people. In the daylight he looked…familiar somehow. But I didn’t look hard enough to examine why. He noticed me staring and smiled brightly, and I left immediately, my chest curling into a knot at the idea of having to talk to him.

That wasn’t the last time I saw him. I went back to the bridge to look at the water, to try and draw some calm. To fantasize.

I wasn’t surprised when he showed up. I still wasn’t…much of anything, really. He leaned next to me, closer, but faced the water like I did.

“Are you getting enough sleep?” he asked. I didn’t know why he bothered. It was like talking to a doll. Or a floor. A doll probably had more life than me.

“The forecast said it’ll rain soon, but it looked so clear today I can’t–”

The first few drops fell as soon as he said ‘rain’ and more followed so quickly that there was a steady stream by the time he stopped talking. Rain was…nice. But even that wasn’t enough to lift me.

“I guess I’m bad luck,” he chuckled. It wasn’t so bad, really. It helped me stay awake. But the man shifted anxiously, like he expected me to leave. I could have told him he’d be disappointed. I could have told him to go home. But all the same, I couldn’t.

“Aren't you cold?”

He’d be surprised to find out what I couldn’t feel. Cold was– well, physiologically, yes, of course it must have, but at the same time it didn’t register. Nothing did. Nothing. Nothing.

I was nothing.

He was talking but I couldn’t make out what he was saying. A void was crawling across my mind, drowning everything with dark, rushing water.

I went to the bagel shop the next morning and only looked around as much as I had to to make sure no one was there to bother me. He wasn’t there at all, thankfully, so I got my breakfast in peace.

Later on I passed out and it was good. I slept. Until I couldn’t.

After two hours of tossing and turning I got up, got dressed, and got out.

I was so tired that the water looked like a nice, inviting blanket. A nice, inviting blanket that would swallow me whole.

“Getting an early start?”

This was a different strange man. In running clothes and breathing heavily. So at least he wasn’t as strange as the other one.

I turned my head back to the water. Soon it would be light and I would have nowhere to hide but home.

I didn’t want to go home.

“Steve said you weren't much of a talker,” the man said and leaned against the rail next to me in a familiar manner. Steve? I frowned. Who was–

Oh. That guy.

I looked back across the water for another handful of minutes, then turned and left. He followed me down streets, around corners, all the way to my home. It should have been concerning, how easily I had accepted two stalkers, but I still…didn’t…care.

That night I got up the energy to take out the garbage. Well, the garbage already in the trash can, if not the scattered bits across the apartment. Still, it was something.

When I opened the front door something fell. I stared at the piece of paper for a moment, then went to retrieve it. On the little bit of cardstock were two phone numbers– belonging to ‘Sam Wilson (the handsome devil from this morning)’ and ‘Steve Rogers (big blond puppy).’

I could have thrown it away. The trash bag was in my other hand. I would never call them anyway. But I slipped the paper in my back pocket, shut the door, and trudged out with the garbage. The other garbage.

When I got back I put the names and numbers into my phone. It felt strange to have actual contacts in my phone. Strange and…

Oh.

Feeling.

Well shit.

“I haven’t seen you for a few days.”

The streetlight is far but so bright it almost hurts. It’s sharp against my eyes, like a knife just beginning to slide in. I haven’t slept at all and I’m already twitchy, but the fresh wounds on my stomach-chest-legs-arms sting with every little movement. They keep me in my body, in this complete void of night and nothing.

I’m still here.

Still here.

Still.

“Did you get hurt?” Steve asks, concern and all and everything he is. Why. Why. “You're moving a little stiff.”

I bite my tongue, just in case, and stare resolutely out at blank water. Eventually, he will tire of this; he’ll get frustrated, or angry, or bored; he will mutter, or call me names, or walk away in silence and forget. I will come here everyday until I have the courage to jump. I will bring something heavy in case I lose my nerve. The world will continue to exist without me.

One day I won't hurt anymore.

“I used to come look at the water a lot. When I first…came back.” He sighs. “It seemed like a nice idea. To be gone. But drowning didn’t stick the first time either.”

That’s interesting. The water looks so nice that it’s also disappointing. Maybe drowning isn’t the way to go. But with weights, no witnesses, and no nosy stalkers to see me home (or not), I can do it better.

I hope.

The next day, a black hole sat on my chest and kept me in bed. I felt wrung out. My cuts itched and were stiff, but did nothing for me. Scabbing was the worst.

I drifted in and out of sleep. That night I picked up the phone and stared at it. And stared.

And then.

‘Not going to the bridge tonight,’ I sent to Steve.

I put my phone on the charger and turned to face it so I could keep browsing. Steve replied fairly quickly.

Steve: Okay :) Get some sleep :) :) :)

Great. King Emoji now had my number.

Steve: Hey what should I save you as?

I turned away from my phone and shut my eyes.

One day.

Two day.

Three day.

“I was a little suspicious of that bakery– green tea bread just sounds weird– but the éclairs were amazing. I think I could eat a hundred of those,” Steve said, gazing at a menu pamphlet.

I leaned over and pointed at the custard bread.

“Is that really good?”

I pointed at it again. The fruit tarts. And the cream puffs. Then I sat back in my place on the bench and went back to not interacting.

“Noted,” he laughed and marked them with his pen.

It was…quiet. Peaceful.

I should have felt good. I should have…

“Are you okay?” he asked.

I stared at the sky, bright sun that seared into my head and made it throb, like the light didn’t belong there. Or like I didn’t belong in it.

I only realized I was leaning too far when he pulled me back. “Sorry,” he said and took his hands off right away. “It’s just– come on; you wanna sit on the bench?”

I pulled away from him and slid to the ground, my back against the wall. “Okay. Okay,” Steve said, but he was too unsteady to be soothing. He sat next to me, but a few inches away.

I didn’t care. Again.

Again.

I pulled out my phone and texted. Steve’s phone vibrated– no ringtone– and he pulled it out of his pocket.

“‘Why?’” he repeated. “Why what?”

I texted again. It was slow with one hand, but I did it. And I didn’t even have to send it; I just showed my phone to him.

‘Why do this. It’s not fun for you. Can’t feel good. Why. Why.’

He scrutinized the words. “That’s a lot of ‘why’s. Something tells me they’re not all for the same thing.”

I blinked. That was…perceptive in a way that made my stomach itch and bubble. But he sighed and looked elsewhere. At nothing. At the nothing that wasn’t me. “Some things just feel right, and some things just feel wrong,” he said after a minute. “Staying with you feels right. Leaving you alone feels wrong. And it’s not an obligation. It feels…peaceful, I guess. I don’t know how to explain it.”

Well.

At least one of us was at peace.

It’s a bad night.

Beyond bad.

To be fair it’s been a bad day too, but it’s easier to talk yourself out of bad ideas when it’s a bright, sunshine-y day. I had played into the mindgame of it for as long as I could.

And then the sun went down.

It’s quiet and dark and I had put about three lines in myself before realizing that it wasn’t going to work. And now I’m lying on the floor, wondering if the shower frame can hold my weight, or if it’s possible to drown myself in the tub. I don’t have enough pills.

My phone buzzes. With a Herculean amount of effort from limbs weighed down by darkness, I manage to get it to the floor where I can curl around and poke at it.

Steve: No bridge tonight?

I forgot about that. Should I say goodbye? It’s polite. But his friend knows where I live and might have told him; he might try to stop me and I haven’t even decided how I’m going to go.

‘No, sorry; too tired. Good night, Steve,’ I reply.

A short time later it buzzes again, I expect ‘good night.’ Enough emojis to make a twelve-year-old roll their eyes. But.

Steve: Where are you

I squint. I want to ask why, but I’m suspicious. So I ignore it and go back to considering my options.

Which all go out the window when someone knocks on my door.

I am too tired, too sad, too pathetic and ugly and awful to deal with this right now.

They knock more forcefully. My phone goes off again.

Steve: Please I know you’re not all right and I’ll break down the door if I have to

I sigh. That would be inconvenient. So I roll out of my blanket and go unlock the door.

Steve is there, blond hair mussed, breathing heavily. Absently I wonder if he ran from the bridge. He looks me up and down. “You look…like you’re having a bad day.”

I lean back, grab the handheld mirror from the entry table that’s currently covered in all sorts of shit (like the rest of my apartment) and I hold it up to his face. He laughs, but it’s weak.

“Can I come in?” he asks.

I shrug and open the door further. He steps gingerly, avoiding trash and…stuff. I note that it’s dim in here compared to the hall, but his eyes dart around and look at everything. Like he can’t believe the hellhole he’s crawled into.

Believe it, buddy.

“It’s…homey,” he says, standing in the main room. “Well-lived in.”

I snort, but then we’re back to awkward silence. Since I’m up and at ‘em, I go to the floor lamp to turn it up for more light than the single faint bulb I have going, and–

crunch

I whimper in reflex– it hurts– but I turn on the light so I can see what’s going on. Big blond puppy Steve is almost unbearably concerned. “What happened?” he asks.

I look up at the ceiling where the lightbulb used to be. I mime it falling, dropping to the floor (like a bomb going off), and then…I shrug. I’d lost the energy and will to fix it when that had happened, but I don’t know how to convey that in a way he’d understand.

I use the ball of my foot to get back to the couch, and I cross it over my leg to see a large shard stuck almost dead center.

“Oh geeze, that’s a big one,” Steve says, leaning over my shoulder. “Do you have a first aid kit?”

I shake my head and rip out the biggest piece of glass. The blood flows pretty well for something that stings too much to be deep. It’s…mesmerizing.

“Oh– shit,” Steve says, concern etching into an otherwise steady voice. “Do you have any clean towels?”

I point to the hall closet without taking my eyes away from the red. Even with the lights on, the world is dim, but this, this is as vibrant as it gets. Life leaking out in the most non-metaphorical way. I can bleed. I can die.

But…do I want to?

“Sorry for going through your bathroom, but I found enough supplies to clean up,” Steve says and sits on the ottoman in front of me. He gives me a hand towel. “Staunch the bleeding, then we’ll clean it up with this–” a wet hand towel, “–okay?”

I follow his orders, unthinking, unfeeling. Trying to be unfeeling at least, which– odd. It’s always too much feeling or not enough. Not enough. Never enough. Too much. Too…

“Hey.” Steve grips my shoulder and he is so warm he’s hot and the hold is so tight it tingles and he is so alive it makes me realize how dead and yet painfully alive I am too and the cavern in my chest crumbles and pain blooms everywhere and I can’t breathe.

  Everything comes back and I’m…in Steve’s arms, actually, technically his lap, and I raise my head from his chest in a daze.

“Are you with me?” he asks. I look at him, confused, and he breathes out a heavy sigh. “Thank God. That was a pretty bad panic attack; I thought you were actually going to pass out.”

Pass out. Sleep. Now wouldn’t that be nice? I’m so tired. So fucking tired. But nothing ever eases the ache, the desire, the need for sleep. Even dreams offer no respite; not anymore.

I say my name. My voice is barely a whisper but, somehow, Steve hears it. He repeats it. He looks at me, though, and says, “Are you telling me because you don’t plan to use it much longer, or because you want to be friends?”

He says the second part with a weird mix of sarcasm and hope and I can’t even begin to parse it. “I don’t know,” I whisper and hang my head.

He brings me to lean against his chest and his hand, large and wide, cups around my shoulder. I sit, and try not to wonder.

‘I got out of bed and brushed my teeth this morning.’

In retrospect, I shouldn’t have sent something like that to someone who had just learned my name. But it was there and I sat– not dressed, but awake and aware and minty fresh– and waited. Which was stupid; he was probably busy–

My phone chimed with a notification and I scrambled to pick it up. Pathetic, I thought but read the message nonetheless.

Steve: That’s great!

And about a gazillion smiley faces.

Steve: Shit Steve: Sam says a lot of emojis are sarcasm Steve: I’m not being sarcastic Steve: I’m proud of you

That was…it took my breath away. Because Steve knew how pathetic I was and still…

Me: It’s okay Me: I believe you :) Steve: <3 Steve: Now Sam is saying hearts are inherently romantic Steve: I don’t know how to text

I smiled.

Me: Not inherently Me: I think your friend is fucking with you Steve: Damn it Steve: He is Steve: Brb have to beat him up

I snorted and set aside my phone. I was standing in my kitchen, thinking about maybe eating, when it chimed again.

Steve: Are you hungry? Me: ? Steve: Do you want to meet at the bagel shop near your apt?

It was a lot. It felt like a lot.

Me: sorry Steve: It’s okay Steve: Maybe some other time Steve: But if not that’s okay too

And that was that. The rest of the day was quiet and peaceful. But I was walking along an edge. Despite my aching foot, I made my way to the bridge that night, and I cracked. Just a little; enough for a few tears to slip out. They dried on my face, making my skin feel cracked and brittle.

Steve wasn’t there. I was relieved.

Steve: I had a hard time getting out of bed today

I actually stopped what I was doing to acknowledge the sudden thought that Steve seemed to understand, at least in a few places, and was never overbearing even when he was insistent. And yet I had never thought to…

It was like getting hit with a brick made of guilt. I quickly texted back, ‘did you?’

Steve: Yeah :) Steve: Even went to the grocery store and finished a book Steve: Little victories

I rolled my eyes. Fucking overachiever.

Me: Sounds like a lot Me: Gold star for you Steve: Haha, thanks

I hesitated.

Me: Do you have someone looking out for you? Steve: Yes Steve: A few people Steve: One of whom literally pulled out the sheets to drop me onto the floor this morning

I smiled. Just a little, but…well…‘little victories,’ and whatnot.

Me: Good Me: About the people, not the bed thing Me: That one’s ‘ow’ Steve: It’s okay Steve: I needed it

Fair enough.

“Here.”

I stared at the cup, and then I stared at Steve. He smiled like it wasn’t fucking cold as shit and held the coffee cup closer. I took it and sighed at the warmth seeping into my skin. It was only fall but the weather didn’t seem to know that.

“You're going to have to find a new place to spend your nights when winter comes,” Steve said and sipped his own drink.

I blew a raspberry. He laughed. When he looked at me he seemed happy. “Is it good?”

I nodded. “Th-…thank you.”

“No problem.”

I cleaned.

Not much but a little.

A little was something.

‘I picked up 13 pieces of trash and washed two dishes,’ I texted Steve.

He sent back thirteen thumbs-up, and two smiley faces.

I squinted at my screen.

Me: I’m beginning to suspect you know exactly how annoying that many emojis are and play dumb for your own amusement. Steve: I’m sure I :) don’t know :) what :) :) :) you :) mean :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :)

Yup.

Asshole.

I am rocking back and forth.

How fast can I dive off the edge?

Footsteps approach and I stop moving. Instead I dig my nails into my arm and let my foot shake out my nervous energy. The person sits next to me and Steve says, “Bad night?”

I almost try to answer, but I’d just vomit if I did.

Bad. Stupid. Awful. Evil. Dumb.

It hurts.

It hurts.

It hurts.

It hurts.

It hurts.

“I don’t know if I’m gonna make it,” I croak, bent over myself and holding tight. “And I don’t know if it even matters.”

He’s quiet. At first. “Sometimes I wonder that myself.” He shifts. “I…help people, technically, but sometimes it feels like drops into a bucket. And someone else would take that place, if I left it.”

“You don’t know that,” I mutter and keep staring at the ground.

“I don’t,” he agrees. “But it’s just about impossible to think anything else, in that state.”

That it is.

That night I dream of being consumed.

  When I woke to the sun, my chest ached.

 I couldn’t get out of bed until the light went down.

“How’s tonight?”

I shrugged. He nodded and sat next to me, but he seemed stiff. Here it was, then. I couldn’t blame him. He was dealing with his own shit; he didn’t need–

“I have to go away tomorrow,” he said and cast a concerned look at me. “I’ll be gone for maybe a week. I’m…worried. I was wondering if you could do me a favor.”

I looked at him for a few moments, gathering my thoughts. “My personal responsibility index starts and ends with goldfish,” I said. “And even goldfish are…” I put my hand flat and tilted it from side to side like a pinball board.

He barked a laugh and then covered his mouth. “Sorry,” he said and took his hand away to reveal a big smile. “No pets, I promise. I just was wondering if you could…if things get really bad, could you text me? I don’t care if it’s coherent or not, but if you need to get something out, if it’ll help you get through the day or night, then please…contact me. I won't be able to reply, but I’ll read it if you want and I won't if you tell me not to.”

I had to think about that. I didn’t know what to say, at first. “I can’t promise anything.”

“I know. And I can’t tell you what to do– it’s your life and in the end my word doesn’t mean as much as what you truly want.” He looked out at the sky and his sigh showed in a temporary burst of white before it faded and merged with the air. “But you’re trying, and I want to help. It’s nice to have a friend who…understands.”

I could sympathize. Sort of. “Work thing?” I asked, also staring out and away. The moon was nice; almost full. It was the kind of light that didn’t hurt, didn’t expect too much; that felt like it accepted the tired and the weak. Me. And Steve.

“Yeah,” he said regretfully.

I tried not to think of how he might not come back. I would… “Be safe,” I said.

“You too,” he said softly.

I looked down at the bench. “I’ll try.”

“That’s all I ask,” he said, sounding relieved. He shifted and brought up his hand, but quickly put it back down.

I scooted closer, and after a moment he put his arm around me.

It was okay.

Trying was hard.

So hard.

I was going to call Steve but couldn’t bring myself to do it. I word-vomited into a journal until my hands shook too hard to hold a knife. I was still too wired, though, so I took a walk. I walked and walked and walked until I ended up at my bridge.

I breathed a little easier then. For better or worse, this was my safe place. It was either where the water and sky would soothe me enough to watch me slink home, or where I would eventually launch myself into them.

Footsteps sounded nearby and I let my eyes flick in their direction. A man, older, not as big as Steve but still decently sized, was walking in my general direction. I watched him long enough to see that he was coming for the bench.

I didn’t want to deal with people. Steve was an anomaly. I stood up and started to walk away.

“Wait!”

I didn’t.

He grabbed me.

I hit back at him and couldn’t quite make it; he had a tight grip on my jacket and though I kept him from getting a good grip on me, he had just enough hold to drag me towards the side of the bridge.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” he cooed, like he was trying to soothe me. “I’ve watched you, I know you’re just afraid; it’s okay. I’ll help free you. It will be okay!”

I hit his arm and dragged my feet, but I glanced at the water. Could I…could I just–

No.

I had held on for too long to have some creepy asshole swoop in and try to kill-steal. My life was mine and no one else’s.

But he was stronger than me and though I hit and kicked and pulled, we tussled and suddenly I was weightless.

I thought I heard Steve scream my name just before I hit the water.

  Dark.

Cold.

It hurt.

I opened my eyes and the darkness stung. Alive still, but I felt weak and I couldn’t tell where the surface was. I heard something, like water breaking, but I couldn’t see anything, couldn’t even tell where it really came from. It wasn’t fair. My arms grew too heavy and my chest wanted to explode. I let my eyes shut. It wasn’t fair.

Dreamlike, arms wrapped around me and pulled. I could do nothing to help.

  The next thing I knew, I was throwing up water on the bank and there were so many lights, so many people…

“Easy,” Steve said.

“Steve,” I groaned and grabbed at him. He helped me sit up and held me without question. Those arms were– oh. Right. Made sense. Sometimes I just forgot how big he was.

“Hey Steve, let the paramedics in,” another familiar voice said. Sam? It must have been Sam.

“Okay,” Steve said and reluctantly started to let go. “I’ll just–”

I gripped his hand, terrified to be left alone with a bunch of strangers.

“–move over here,” Steve said, squeezed my hand, and kept a firm hold on it even as the paramedics moved in to poke and prod. One of them tried to stay cool and professional but ended up gushing over Steve. It was kind of cute. So cute that even Steve seemed reluctantly amused.

They let Steve ride with me and we were with two of the other paramedics. One of them cleared her throat and looked at Steve. “I, uh, I’m really sorry about Timothy; he didn’t mean to, uh…”

“It’s all right. He seems nice, it’s just…maybe not the best time,” Steve said and looked at me with a strained smile.

I shrugged. “I thought it was funny.”

He shook his head. “You had a crappy night; I’m pretty sure you just have a low bar.”

“I’m pretty sure ‘low bar’ is my default,” I said. “How– how did you know to come?”

“I didn’t, I just–” Steve visibly swallowed. “I got back a little while ago and Sam had left me a message, saying there was someone committing murders and making them look like suicides. You didn’t answer, so I went to the bridge first, just in case.”

“Good call,” I said. But he still looked so miserable. “What’s wrong?”

“If I hadn’t come back when I did–”

I pinched him and he jumped. “What was that for?” he asked and rubbed his arm.

“I once had a friend with anxiety who used to pinch herself when she started thinking of worst-case scenarios,” I said. “Maybe not therapist-approved, but it works in a…” I mimed a crab with my hand.

Despite his best effort not to (and oh how he tried), Steve laughed. He shook his head. “You can do better than that.”

I shrugged. “The worst could have happened. But it didn’t. Don’t focus on that; you’ll only hurt yourself.”

He stared at me for several moments, then leaned in and hugged me tight. “That sounds like something you might know about,” he murmured too low to be heard by anyone else.

I dug my head into his chest so hard it hurt. “I try. I try,” I said so low that I barely heard.

“I know,” he whispered and held me tighter. “And I’m proud of you.”

“Low bar,” I muttered. I was tired.

“Maybe,” he said and ran his hand over my head. “But it’s our bar, and as long as we make it then what else matters?”

I couldn’t argue with that.

Thinking about the apartment as a whole was overwhelming, so I compartmentalized. And then I compartmentalized some more.

First I opened the blinds and curtains, and one window– ‘cause it was pretty chilly. The fresh air was good though. Even slightly energizing. I could do this. I could do this. And if not…my bed still had sheets on it I could crawl into. But I promised myself first to give it my best shot.

As I surveyed my kingdom of dirt, someone knocked on the door. I was wary, even with Mr. Murder locked up in jail, but a peep showed me Steve and his friend Sam. When I opened the door, though, I almost knocked my head into a bunch of flowers.

“Oh, um…these are nice. Thank you,” I said and took them to the counter. They were light blue and yellow and white and even came in their own vase.

“Wow; I’ve never seen this place with sunlight before,” Steve said and stopped to hug me.

“It shows the dust pretty good,” I said. I wasn’t sure how to greet Sam but he opened his arms and I went in for it, because what the hell. It was a good choice; Sam gave an excellent hug.

“I can’t believe you’re cleaning just a couple days after you were almost murdered,” he said.

“It’s nice to curl up in bed when things are picked up and it doesn’t smell so bad,” I said.

“I can see that.” Steve looked around. “Do you need help?”

“For the record, he’s offering that,” Sam said and hopped onto a stool at the counter. “I can only offer you eye candy and sarcastic commentary.”

He was a man of his word, sitting there like he belonged in a magazine and firing off quips like he was getting paid per line. One of his jokes made Steve laugh so hard he doubled over and couldn’t get straight for almost half a minute. I smiled at the sight.

It was exhausting though, pleasant as Steve and Sam were, and I got to the point where I had to stand and assess myself. How did you politely tell someone to get lost?

“Tired?” Steve asked.

I nodded and accepted his and Sam’s hugs. Sam actually grabbed the trash bag and went on ahead, telling Steve he’d be waiting outside. And then it was just Steve and me.

“Thanks. Again,” I said and initiated a hug of my own.

“Anytime,” he said. As we pulled back he added, “You have my number. If you want to leave the house, just text. I’ll walk with you.”

I nodded, and after one small squeeze of my shoulder, he left. I stood there, taking in the moment. Then I went around dimming the light– not blocking it out entirely, just making the space more comfortable. Then I got into my pajamas, crawled into bed, and turned on the TV as I swiped through my phone. But all of that happened after I had cleaned my home, socialized, and had a little food. Now it was time to rest.

It was a low bar.

But it was mine.

[comicteaparty]

June 24th-June 30th, 2019 CTP Archive

The archive for the Comic Tea Party week long chat that occurred from June 24th, 2019 to June 30th, 2019.  The chat focused on Drugs & Wires by Mary Safro & Io Black.

Featured Comment:

Chat:

RebelVampire

COMIC TEA PARTY- WEEK LONG BOOK CLUB START!

Hello and welcome everyone to Comic Tea Party’s Week Long Book Club~! This week we’ll be focusing on Drugs & Wires by Mary Safro & Io Black~! (https://www.drugsandwires.fail/)

You are free to read and comment about the comic all week at your own pace, so stop on by whenever it suits your schedule! Remember, though, that while we allow constructive criticism, our focus is to have fun and appreciate the comic. Below you will find four questions to get you started on the discussion. However, a new question will be posted and pinned everyday (between 12:01AM and 6AM PDT), so keep checking back for more! You have until June 30th to tell us all your wonderful thoughts! With that established, let’s get going on the reading and the chatting!

QUESTION 1. What has been your favorite scene in the comic so far? What specifically did you like about it?

QUESTION 2. Who do you think made the Worm and for what reason? Why does it seem to mostly be affecting Stradania and not other places? Do you think Dan’s implant can ultimately be fixed, or is he stuck forever away from VR?

RebelVampire

QUESTION 3. At the moment, who is your favorite character? What about that character earns them this favor?

QUESTION 4. What aspect of the world’s cyberpunk setting interests you the most and why? Alternatively, what aspect are you hoping to see explored a bit more in regards to how it affects the characters?

RebelVampire

1) Gonna be a bit depressing when I say the bridge scene where Dan almost threw himself off it. Which I'm gonna spoiler tag the rest of this just as a suicide trigger warning precaution. I was 100% right there in the moment with him during that scene. Like I understood why he'd arrived at that conclusion, and it didn't come off as patronizing as I feel a lot of similar suicide scenes often do in comics. This is a man who even I felt really had nothing to live for, as sad as that is to say. Not that I wanted Dan to die, of course, but I get absolutely why he would. And then when he's saved, I liked that he is angry about it. Cause that is a dark reality I feel too many comics shy away from. And just all that gritty realism really hit me in the heart. 2) I don't know who made the worm and I don't think it matters all that much. Rather, I think the reason is more important, and the reason I think is to either kill VR or draw attention to Dan's shitty country. Which I kind of want to believe the latter, that this is somehow politically motivated. Or even if its the former, the idea is to get ppl more politically involved. That being said, I do think it's someone in Stradania who made it. As for Dan's implant being fixed, I don't think so. I don't think he'll be let off the hook that easy, and that he will continue to have to face his awful world for what it is, garbage and all.

3) Dan because he is the delicious epitome of a flawed protagonist. He's not mean, but between his drug problems, his crappy attitude towards most people, and so forth, he's got some real issues to work through. But that's great, cause at least that makes the few steps forward he's taken more satisfying. Since he's not getting those steps easy. He has to basically crawl through metaphorical lava to gain even 2 cm. 4) I really like the world's integration of VR and cybernetics. Like it's not on the level it's just there, but there's businesses around it, slang around it, and so forth. It's presented as this super ingrained culture thing, and that is super hard to play off. And it's just really well-done to see all the ways that those aspects bleed into their lives, whether the invention was intended to do so in that way or not.

Historical Jesus

I'm about to catch up. gimmy some time

RebelVampire

itll be going for the rest of the week, so theres no rush.

snuffysam

1) My favorite scene is the basement wake. It's a cool way to introduce those side characters (especially Vlad), and we were shown how our protagonist is seen through other people's eyes.

Like, we as the readers get to see Dan's struggles first-hand, but seeing the way Dan's "friends" think of him as a mindless junkie is really eye-opening

Re-reading the wake chapter made me think of something regarding question (2). Rebel, you suggested that the worm may have been made to kill VR. Could the reverse be true instead? Vlad has this speech about how the victims of the worm are martyrs, and the rest of the cast groans... but maybe he's not so far off.(edited)

My favorite character is Lin. On the surface, she's a terrible, shady person, but she's got heart where it counts! (in a trunk with a bunch of other organs)

Though I also really like Dan, for the same reasons as Rebel. He starts off in such a terrible place, and watching him take baby steps towards improvement is... honestly, uplifting, even if he does sometimes take some big steps backward.(edited)

RebelVampire

QUESTION 5. What has been your favorite illustration in the comic so far? What specifically about it do you like?

QUESTION 6. Do you think Dan will manage to find Eve again? If so, how might that affect him? Further, what do you think Dan’s past history is in general with his family and others that might play a role in the story?

Historical Jesus

Is the person writing this comic Russian

RebelVampire

cant speak for Io, but while not from Russia, Mary does speak Russian

Historical Jesus

SHe might have had family immigrate from Russia. This story just feels very Russian in the sense that everyone is down on their luck

But yeah. This story is freaking great!

Cryo

Hey, Mary here! I'm a Russian from Latvia, Io's German but I usually consult him on any Russian bits we have in the comic : D thanks so much for reading, loved seeing all the replies so far!

Historical Jesus

It's you

@Cryo Do you have experience with information security or bug hunting?(edited)

I mean, you sound like you REALLY understand hacker culture(edited)

Historical Jesus

ok I finished

1: Favorite scene? Hard to tell honestly. I like them all for different reasons. It's the continuum of the story I appreciate. The fact I'm always wanting to see what happens next? 2: Who made the worm. I've noticed that people who were infected had illegal copies of software. From a cybersecurity perspective, worms only work when either (A) someone finds a vulnurability that has never before been seem or (B) people don't update their shit for whatever reason. Hence why most software schedules mandatory updates. This could just be the inevitable conclusion to using pirated or older software. 3: Favorite character: Dan. I can relate to him the most. I don't do party drugs, just psycodelics.

4: Favorite aspect of cyberpunk. Historical relevance. In our past, rulers were privileged to rule because humans believed they were "ordained by God" to rule. European philosophers then said that the right to rule belongs to those who become the height of natural selection/ The premise being that there is no god and that we are "free agents" with "free will." No one is entitled to anything unless they produce something of value. This made perfect sense when manual labor was relevant and everything had to be done by hand. This includes pen and paper math. Hence why pay is exclusively based on labor value. Enter the age of technology fucked this up. Capitalism today is STUPIDLY efficient. We WHOOPED natural selections ass. We also learned that humans can't simply "change their outlook at will." Humans are mortal and are not much different than machines. The have needs and all that pesky human stuff. Some people could argue that healthier people have more free will than others, but poverty is the inevitable conclusion to this "free will" "labor value" mindset. But people think principles are sacred and set in stone. So what we are seeing is devalued labor and everyone becoming more poor and the formation of corporate oligarchies and dependences. Cyberpunk was WAY ahead of it's time in seeing this. We need to revisit this genre because I sure as shit don't want to live under a global illuminati with hard line cultural segregation.(edited)

Cryo

No, no real hacking experience here, I'm a 3d modeller by trade. We do our research when we can but our readers are a lot more technically minded than we are :p

Historical Jesus

I love 3D modeling

Attila Polyák

I'll be totally honest your work didn't really catch me at first, but I kept reading. Aaaaand dang that was a good decision. This is genuinely well made. I'm only at the end of chapter 4 but that bridge scene was great. I'm pretty sure it'll be my favourite scene but I need to read the rest first.

Historical Jesus

I have one of two options in life. Make high detailed models to sell on Gumroad or make comics. Gumroad will require constant adaptation to new software, but I already have my comic story structure fgiured out

Cryo

@Attila Polyák thanks for giving us a chance! Hope you enjoy the rest ( though chapter 5 is a lot less dramatic in comparison!)

Historical Jesus

Do you have a resolution in mind or are you just making it as you go?

Cryo

Yeah, we know where we're taking the story, but how it gets there can vary. Lots of the scenes we wrote years ago have to be tweaked or redone entirely to work

Historical Jesus

If the "free will" capitalist have their way, then we can expect the future to look very similar. Lots of poor people using lots of old tech. All software and hardware is closed sourced and locked down.The division between rich and poor will be larger than ever. Many of the zero days will be state sponsored much like they are now and they can use this to legally infect people and categorize them and use their own information against them if they ever become a threat to the state or the rich tech oligarchy

When I read this I got sense of creepy forcasting

More kids are playing with the Linux Kernal than smoking cigarettes so we might be ok

Historical Jesus

5: Favorite illustration? Anything that involved gif animations. That's not to say it should be overused but it was used at the right time

6a: Will Dan find Eve again? Probably. Since Cryo has a conceptual end in mind, I imagine she serves a key purpose in the plot. If they don't then it's likely that their actions will effect each other in some way.(edited)

6b: What is Dan's history with his parents? Let's look at who Dan is now. He's a poor drug addict who has had a dead end job. Yet he is not an overly angry person. Just depressed. He hangs around computer poetry people and other drug people. As a person who has experience with drugs, I noticed three types of people who do the dangerous drugs. At least in the US. They are... -People who have had repressive or needlessly strict parents. Thus overdoing drugs becomes associated with freedom and eventually a point of rebellion. But you can do too many of them. -People who are poor and need to sell them because they are poor. Naturally many of them do the drugs themselves so they naturally become addicted. -People who's parents are drug users themselves. The people who teach are schools will tell you it's that "people are trying to be cool" and it has nothing to do with that. Truth be told, they are hiding something. There is also a lot of dark racial history behind enhancing substances and the law and that can influence people's decision to take them, but I don't want to get into that because I don't want to get booted from this server.(edited)

Historical Jesus

Actually, @Cryo, would you be willing to give us a brief personal biography? Also, if you are, then can you tell us about your parents, what they did for a living, and the income situation you had growing up.(edited)

Why am I asking this? I think we can come up with more interesting answers about the comic if we know YOU as a person and how that influences your writing. I was able to infer that this story sounded Russian as fuck. Since the setting was Russian, I figured you were either from there or had family there

We can give more interesting answers that can help you come up with more interesting writing

RebelVampire

@Historical Jesus Your questions are getting a little personal, and while I understand the logic behind them, keep in mind we're here to discuss the comic and not the creators' personal lives.

keii4ii

Yeah... I feel even if the creators are okay with discussing it, this stuff is best left to DM

Historical Jesus

I understand. I would like to give her the choice. If she chooses not to then I understand. Biologically speaking, I think art is meant to be personal.

keii4ii

(and of course, if they don't want to discuss it, no one should pressure them about it )

RebelVampire

yeah if @Cryo wants to answer that's fine. Just for the future please keep those sorts of questions to a minimum and watch the wording on them. Cause that statement did sound overly pressure filled.

Historical Jesus

of course

keii4ii

I don't think we should be getting further into this territory?

RebelVampire

Agreed. This isn't a really appropriate topic for #week_long_bookclub, @Historical Jesus and has little to do with the comic.

Historical Jesus

I understand. I'm trying to demonstrate the the relevance and the benefits of understanding the author as a person. And again, it's her choice to choose what she discloses.

RebelVampire

And again, I get the logic. But just not appropriate for this discussion.

Historical Jesus

fair enough. I just want it to be known

I rephrased the question so it's less assertive. I apologies, I suck with social skills. Hopefully by the time she reads it, then it will be more inviting for her.

RebelVampire

thats better wording for sure, thank you.

Historical Jesus

no problem

art was definitely designed to be personal. The reason why a lot of big budget art feels bland is because it's meant for everyone and they have to not get too deep into offending people. Because it has to make money. That requires the work of a true genius. D&W is specialized and it will attract a certain group of people. Mostly people who value anonymous culture like myself. Or so I imagine.

RebelVampire

QUESTION 7. Which characters do you enjoy seeing interact the most? What about their dynamic interests you?

QUESTION 8. Will Lin actually go through with her plan to get into politics? If so, do you believe she can actually make a difference? What obstacles do you think she might run into, and do you think Dan will be of any help to her?

Cryo

(i would appreciate not having to talk about my life and anyones political beliefs neither here nor in DMs, thanks for understanding)(edited)

Historical Jesus

Understood

Historical Jesus

7: Dan, primarily because he is relatable. He would interact the way I would. Not having money sucks.

Historical Jesus

8: Will in go into politics? Probably not. She strikes me as a neroatypycal character. I could be wrong though.

RebelVampire

@snuffysam If the worm was designed to improve VR, I really want to meet the person who decided that making ppl martyrs was the way to go. Cause that's some backwards thinking, imo at least XD

5) There's a lot of really great ones, but I'm kind of fond of the illustration of Dan puking up rainbows. It's this cool mix of gross, psychedelic, and not what I expected. It expressed a lot of mood somehow for something that's less grand than I usually pick. 6) I think Dan will find Eve again, if only cause from a technical perspective she was introduced super early on to not be important. However, I think meeting her again is just gonna make him feel bad about himself as he realizes how little his baby steps of improvement are. In regards to his family, just gonna be bold and say my theory: his dad is part of that political group that took control and really hates cyborgs and technology and all that. Thus they were probably not the most open-minded and rejected Dan in multiple ways both through emotional abuse and neglect.

7) I like seeing Dan and Troy right now. Everyone else in the comic is kind of...shitty towards Dan. Like i know Dan isn't the greatest person, but I would hate to be in the situation where I'm constantly being told I'm a junkie who won't amount to anything. Which I mean don't get me wrong, those are interesting interactions. But Troy? Troy is this new person whose only experience with Dan is kind of a nice if not high tension one. Troy comes with a fresh, no prior knowledge of Dan perspective, and I think that's really interesting and gonna be a good way to shed new light on Dan's more positive traits. 8) I think Lin will try to go through with it, but I think Lin is fighting a losing game. Short of stuffing the ballot, I don't think those she's trying to help will vote for her. Instead they'll just bitch and be complacent to the world around them. But on that same vain, Lin probably could just stuff the ballots to win. I umm...honeslty don't think Dan can help her in anyway. Dan is really busy helping himself to suck less at the moment. XD

RebelVampire

QUESTION 9. What sorts of art or story details have you noticed in the way the comic is crafted that you think deserves attention?

QUESTION 10. What do you think Sandman and Fixer will find in regards to the Worm as the story continues, and what does the VR cafe Sandman has been hacking have to do with anything? How will Nate tie into this given he’s looking for Fixer?

RebelVampire

QUESTION 11. What do you think are this particular comic’s strengths? What do you think makes this comic unique? Please elaborate.

QUESTION 12. Overall, what role do you think Troy will have within the story? Additionally, how will she get out of her situation with having no ID, money, or much in the way of people she knows?

Historical Jesus

9: The art against the web design literally looks like something we would see at Def Con

10: I image he has a lead. After all his motivation is revenge

11: it’s strength is that it's good at making people empathize with characters even if you can't relate to them

12: I don't think Troy will get out of her situation. If she comes back to the states empty handed she will be fired. It might be in her best interest to get wrapped up in finding the worm programmer

Typically speaking large scale worms are state sponsored but it's not clear how far this thing actually spreads.

RebelVampire

9) My favorite details so far have been the small things in the background. Like the random graffiti on the walls, the cracks and dilapidation of the buildings, all the small do-dads in Lin's place. Like none of that needs to be there to create a complete background, but it adds so much character to the setting and each character. So I really appreciate the extra mile taken for that. 10) I think Sandman and Fixer are gonna find that some corporation or someone high up on some food chain made it on purpose. As for the VR cafe? Honestly, I think it's a red herring and Sandman is making an excuse to target them just cause he hates them. As for Nate, I think Nate is gonna join the investigation team but also kind of serve as a negotiator between Fixer and Dan. Cause I don't think those two will get along without help.

11) I think this comic's strengths are a) the setting both visually and story wise, as it's a really strong and vivid setting. then b) Dan. It is very, very hard to write a character like Dan. There are so many things he does that could immediately make him unlikeable, what between the drugs, self destruction, and general assholeness to some of the ppl around him. but yet he is likeable. you do want to see him succeed and not suffer. yet you also still can acknowledge hes unreliable. its a great dynamic that lesser writing could not pull off. 12) I think Troy is gonna be their viewport into the corporate world. Which I think will play a role since there is a themeing here about evil corporations. Plus, she at least knows some stuff better than they do, as she already showed off at the VR cafe. But getting out of it? Nope. Shes stuck and probably gonna make another panicked call to Dan at some point. And Dan will be an angel and help again.

snuffysam

I'm going to go out on a limb here. Not only will Lin go through with running for office, she'll win. And she won't even have to stuff the ballot that much. But... I'm not sure her fight will be over there. After all, there's more than just one corrupt person in the country. I agree with you on the investigation into the Worm, @RebelVampire . I think someone up the corporate ladder is responsible. With that said, I don't think Sandman is targeting the VR cafe for nothing. I think he's trying to draw more attention to their security flaws for... some reason. I guess to get more people involved in investigating? I doubt he foresaw Troy showing up and offering to upgrade the cafe's machines though, so I that probably isn't part of his plan. I think a major part of Dan's character arc going forward will be accepting that he doesn't need Eve. Like, accepting that he doesn't need her help to get better, and that he's the only one he needs to prove his progress to.

Dan's character writing is absolutely my favorite part of this comic. In a weaker comic, I would absolutely hate how a self-destructive character like Dan is portrayed. Like, often characters with addiction/other mental health problems in fiction come off as unlikeable, or too cartoonish, or too depressingly stagnant (at least, from what I've seen in other works of fiction). But Drugs & Wires strikes a great balance where character progression isn't always linear, and isn't always positive, but it's there, and that fluidity makes you want to root for him more each chapter.

Attila Polyák

Now that I finally read all of it... 1, The bridge scene at the end of chapter 4, that was really done. 2, Dan's implant... I'm pretty sure it can be fixed, but I have doubts if Dan will ever have the resources to have it fixed. As a matter of fact I feel like he'll never have the money or influence to have it fixed and the way it is he can't really replace it either, so... He's probably stuck without VR. 3, Lin! She's awesome! 4, Probably the grey market implant dealers, even though that's kinda bog standard cyberpunk stuff. :) 6, Yes, they will probably meet again. And yes, I do feel like we'll need to see more of Dan't past history especially about how he got involved in... well in everything that's his current life. 7, Nagy, as surreally odd, is a great addition to Dan. Like at times I thought his absurdity would actually help Dan. 8, Ofc she will, you don't forge that much "voter trust" for nothing. And Dan, tho probably seemingly unwillingly, will likely help her one way or another.

RebelVampire

QUESTION 13. What are you most looking forward to in the comic? Also, do you have any final thoughts to share overall?

QUESTION 14. Do you think Dan will ever be able to kick his drug habit, or will he continue to fall back into it forever? How will this affect his relationships? Further, how will his habits shape his future role in the story?

RebelVampire

13) I'm looking forward to getting more info about the worm. Cause right now I dont feel any more knowledgeable than I did at the start, and I'm itching to see Sandman, Fixer, or Dan to somehow get a bigger clue to what's going on. 14) I think both will apply. In that Dan will kick the habit eventually but will always be at risk because addiction is not really something you just completely cure. It's a battle he'll have for his entire life, even if he learns to manage it. As for for his relationships, I don't think it'll have much affect, tbh. Maybe things with Lin will improve, maybe Eve. But everyone else is kind of a jerk who already writes him off. Dan is in need of a fresh start somewhere far away.

Historical Jesus

13: Same here. I would like to know more about the worm. I hope that Cyro puts a cool technical characteristic into the worms behavior so that creates interesting and unique challenges for the characters 14: Statistically speaking most people do not kick their drug habit's. Especially not in the position he is in. Based on the story's cultural nature, I doubt the ending will be happy. But I am sure it will be interesting

Cryo

Thanks so much for picking and reading our comic this week! I've had a great time reading all the replies, especially since we don't hear from new readers often, and it's gonna come in handy when we get back into writing more stuff for the comic.

snuffysam

I had a great time reading it, Cryo!

Io.Black

Just wanted to add my own thanks to everybody who took the time to read and comment this past week. As a writer, it’s always incredibly valuable to get a sense of what people are taking away from your work, as well as where they think it’s headed.

RebelVampire

COMIC TEA PARTY- WEEK LONG BOOK CLUB END!

Thank you everyone so much for reading and chatting about Drugs & Wires this week! Please also give a special thank you to Mary Safro & Io Black for volunteering the comic and creating it! If you liked Drugs & Wires, make sure to continue to support it via some of the links below!

Read and Comment: https://www.drugsandwires.fail/

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Drugs & Wires’ Merch: https://www.hellovoid.online/

Safro’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/marysafroart

Io Black’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/b_iologic

[minijenn]

Universe Falls Chapter 54

Uguguhghghg right off the bat I’m gonna say fuck this chapter, I had basically no fun writing it and it sucks. The end. Enjoy if ya can. 

Previous: http://minijenn.tumblr.com/post/174794145519/universe-falls-chapter-53

Chapter 54: Evergreen Inn

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Though the Crystal Temple had been permeated by an unshakable feeling of tension the past several days following Garnet and Pearl’s bitter falling out, Steven had, interestingly enough, found that tension somewhat more bearable when his friends were there to help alleviate some of it. Hence why, awash in thoughts of all of the anguish, heartache, and betrayal he had been witnessing from his guardians as of late, he inevitably ended up calling Dipper, Mabel, and Connie over to hang out in the hopes that they could take his mind off of the ongoing stress he had been experiencing ever since he found that memory tube in Lion’s mane.

And so the kids crowded up onto the loft, all of them engaged in different activities, from reading, to watching tv, to drawing. Since Mabel had already been hanging out with Candy and Grenda earlier that morning, she had brought them up to the temple along with her, something that Steven readily welcomed. After all, the more the merrier when it came to distracting himself from all of the burdening thoughts he truthfully wanted to avoid.

“I can’t believe this is the first time me and Candy have had a chance to hang out at your house, Steven!” Grenda exclaimed loudly as she looked up from the picture her, Candy, and Mabel were working on. “It’s so cool!”

“It is cozy, yet mystical all at once!” Candy noted, equally impressed as she leaned back against Lion. “Complete with magical, fluffy pink lions and all!”

“Heh, yeah, thanks, guys,” Steven said with a halfhearted smile, his gaze focused on the temple gate rather than on the TV in front of him. “It’s… pretty great…”

“Steven, are you ok?” Connie asked upon glancing up from her novel and easily taking note of the young Gem’s melancholy.

“Huh? O-oh, uh yeah, I’m fine,” Steven quickly assured, forcing a smile.

“Are you sure?” Dipper asked, sharing Connie’s newfound concern. “You seem a bit… distracted.”

“Distracted? Me?” the young Gem scoffed as he turned his attention back to whatever was on TV. “I-I don’t know what you’re talking about, I’m completely-”

“Are you… worried about the Gems maybe?” Mabel ventured, taking note of how Steven had been looking to the gate earlier. Needless to say that her getting right to the heart of the matter however, managed to catch the young Gem quite off guard.

“N-no! I…. I mean, yes! I mean-” Steven cut himself off  tightly, realizing that now everyone was looking to him with both confusion and concern. “I…. I’m—I don’t-”

Fortunately, the young Gem didn’t have to explain himself any further as the warp pad suddenly lit up, startling all six of the kids as they quickly turned to see Pearl unexpectedly arrive. The white Gem’s expression was awash in dread and woe, her hands held close to her chest as she looked down to her feet. However, before she could even really take a step off of the warp pad, she was quick to discover that she wasn’t as alone as she had hoped she’d be upon her return.

“Pearl!” Steven exclaimed, hurriedly rushing down from the loft and up to the white Gem. Though the other kids were still somewhat worried for Steven, given how strange he had been acting just a moment ago, they all soon followed after him to meet up with Pearl as well. “Where have you been? I haven’t seen you since the other day.”

“Oh, w-well, I’ve just been looking for Peridot!” Pearl informed, wringing her hands anxiously. “For… a few days straight…”

“Did you have any luck in finding her?” Connie asked.

“Er… n-not really…” the white Gem sighed, shaking her head morosely as her tone turned sad, yet sincere. “Kids, I know I might have… disappointed all of you. I know Garnet is very upset with me, but I’m going to prove to her that she can trust me again, no matter what it might take!”

Of course, the kids harbored nothing against Pearl for the obvious mistake she had made in deceiving Garnet, especially since the white Gem truly did seem to be very remorseful about her wrongdoing. And yet, before any of them could really reassure her in her admirable mission to win back the Gem leader’s favor, said Gem leader herself happened to enter the temple through the front door. Garnet’s expression was stoic and unreadable as she walked inside, offering neither the kids nor Pearl any sort of greeting as she instead silently passed by them en route to the temple, clearly in no mood to converse.

“Oh! Garnet!” Pearl exclaimed with as much of an amicable smile as she could muster. “I was just out looking for Peridot! She’s bound to be somewhere, r-right? Any new ideas?” Much to the white Gem’s despair, Garnet said nothing as she simply continued on ahead, staunchly ignoring her teammate just as she had been doing for the past several days. Which left Pearl with only one idea to try and bridge the unbearable gap still between them. “I-I’m sorry,” she said, her tone genuine and rife with guilt as she looked down shamefully. Much to her surprise, Garnet did stop at this, though she didn’t turn around, leaving the white Gem with essentially no idea as to what her reaction to her sudden apology was. Even so, Pearl was prepared to continue and finally voice her earnest appeal for the Gem leader’s forgiveness. Or at least she would of if an unexpected intrusion hadn’t happened at the very worst of times.

“Who wants to go on a ROAD TRIP!?” Greg exclaimed excitedly as he burst into the house, brochure in hand. Stan burst in right behind him, packed suitcases in tow and his manner every bit as bombastic as Greg’s.

“You kids do, that’s who!” the conman proclaimed. “Whether you want to or not!”

“Aw, come on, Mr. Pines,” the former rock star chuckled, amused. “They gotta have some say in this-” Greg cut himself off upon glancing over to the group before him, taking note of how caught of guard the kids were as well as the palpable tension between Garnet and Pearl that just about anyone with eyes could clearly see. “Uh… is this a bad time?”

“No,” Garnet finally spoke up, turning to face Greg and Stan. “Please continue.”

“Well, like we were saying, Greg and I are headin’ upstate for a few days on some… business,” Stan began to explain.

“Business?” Dipper raised a suspicious eyebrow. “What kind of business? Are you on the run from the law again?”

“Pfft, no,” Stan rolled his eyes. “At least not this week I’m not. Besides, I’ll have you know this trip is a tradition. Every year, my tourist trap competitors prank the Mystery Shack, and every year, I set out to prank them right back. Last year, those hooligans duct taped Soos to the celling for 78 hours and then there was that year when they covered everything in the shack in plastic wrap!”

“And he means everything…” Greg remarked, shuddering at the memory from his days of employment at the shack.

“Which means I gotta hit them back fast and hard this year,” Stan said with stark determination. “We’re gonna visit every tourist trap along the Evergreen Highway and I’m gonna prank every single one!”

“And I’m going because I met a guy on an internet message board who’s selling car wash brushes for real cheap!” Greg said with a wide grin. “And the place where we arranged to meet is right along the same route Mr. Pines is taking, so we figured we’d make things easier by riding together.”

“I don’t like those brushes…” Steven said with a frown. “They feel weird on your fur.”

“Fur?” Connie, Candy, and Grenda all asked in confused unison.

“It’s a long story,” Mabel quickly whispered to them.

“Well, do like inns?” Greg asked his son.

“Probably!” Steven ventured, having never really stayed in one before.

“Think you’d like to stay at an inn with your favorite dad?”

“I don’t know if you’re my favorite…” the young Gem teased, his spirits raising as his father let out an amused laugh.

“Oh, you kidder! Come here!” the former rock star laughingly accepted his son into his arms, hoisting him up onto his shoulders.

“I can’t wait to get room service!” Steven exclaimed, stars in his eyes.

“You’re thinking of a hotel,” Greg corrected. “We’re going to an inn. It’ll have a pool, and free ice, and its right down the road from the best diner in the world!”

“Oh my gosh, this is so exciting!” Mabel chimed in, sharing Steven’s elation and passing it onto Candy and Grenda as well. “Maybe if we’re lucky, it’ll be one of those inns that has free cold bagels for breakfast every morning!”

“Why cold bagels, specifically?” Dipper asked, confused.

“Well, cause they probably can’t afford toasters to warm ‘em up, duh!”

“Whoa, there, eager beavers,” Stan shook his head. “First of all, an inn with continental breakfast is way too fancy for my blood. Second of all, we’re only staying there one night. For the rest of the trip, I’ve rented out an RV for a cut rate price, one that’s guaranteed to not explode or I’ll get half my money back!”

“Good luck getting that money back if it does explode…” Pearl remarked sardonically, crossing her arms.

“Can we go too, Mr. Pines?” Grenda asked with an eager smile.

“Eh sure, the more the merrier,” the conman shrugged, pulling out a stack of legal forms. “Just sign these non-disclosure agreements. None of your parents are lawyers, right?”

“Well… my dad is a cop, so… we should probably be careful…” Connie advised with a worried frown.

“Bow wow!” Grenda cheered after she finished signing the papers. “Time to let the road dogs bark!”

“That is us, we are the road dogs!” Candy quipped, cheerfully joining Grenda and Mabel in bouncing up and down in unshakable elation.

“I’m coming too,” Garnet said, instantly cutting through the ongoing excitement over the trip as everyone paused to look at her in apt confusion.

“W-what?” Pearl spoke up first, bewildered by the Gem leader deciding to leave at a time like this.

“Oh my gosh! That makes it even better!” Steven gasped, delighted to see that Garnet wanted to come for more reasons than one. After all, not only did it mean that he would get to have a fun trip with one of his beloved guardians, it was also a sure-fire sign that perhaps she wasn’t as upset over the Sardonyx incident as she seemed to have been the past several days. Or at least, he could only hope that she wasn’t.

“Hey, uh, Garnet?” Greg spoke up in a whisper. “I know me and Mr. Pines are talking this whole RV/inn thing up, but… it ain’t exactly the ritz…”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” the Gem leader remarked with a hint of a smirk.

“Eh, I guess you can come along, shades,” Stan crossed his arms. “Just be sure you don’t cramp my pranking style.”

“I didn’t ask for your permission, Stan,” Garnet deadpanned, though she was still grinning all the same. “But don’t worry, I won’t.”

“Well, in that case…. Road trip!” Greg exclaimed with renewed vigor.

“Road trip!” Steven, Mabel, Candy, and Grenda all cheered, eliciting amused chuckles from Dipper and Connie.

“Road trip,” Garnet nodded, much more calmly as her smile faded.

“Um… that’s… wonderful!” Pearl quipped, clasping her hands together anxiously. “I’ll make sure that Amethyst knows that-” The white Gem didn’t get a chance to finish as Garnet succinctly walked past her once more, not sparing her a single word as she instead headed outside, leading the way for the others to do the same. “Uh… f-fine,” Pearl said with a forced smile as she waved the others off before letting out a small, remorseful sigh. “Well… goodbye…”

“This is gonna be fun! Right, Dad?” Steven asked, still perched on Greg’s shoulders as they headed out.

“Uh… sure, Stu-ball!” the former rock star assured, even if he was a bit wary now that Garnet had volunteered to come along. Normally, he wouldn’t have minded her company at all, but given how unsteady things had apparently been amongst the Gems lately, he wasn’t so sure what brining one on a trip like this would end up entailing. But even so, Greg didn’t want to spoil Steven’s excitement, and so he said nothing else, hoping that the trip would turn out to be just as fun and peaceful as the young Gem was clearly looking forward to.

But of course, as usual, it would end up being anything but.

It wasn’t very surprising that the RV Stan had rented for the road trip had seen better days. Its exterior was ridden with dents and dings and was in desperate need of a good washing, while its interior was cramped and cluttered and barely enough to contain its nine passengers. Even so, they all managed to find space as they set out on the road, everyone taking shifts in sitting up front in the less crowded passenger seat as Greg and Stan took shifts in driving down the long yet lovely Evergreen Highway.

“Man, RVs are amazing!” Grenda exclaimed as her and the other girls sat at the table near the back. “I can’t believe we’re sitting at a table in a moving vehicle.”

“Ooo, and look! Informational travel pamphlets!” Candy quipped, pressing a pile of said pamphlets to her cheek. “I want to read them all and gain their travel knowledge.”

“Uh… I’m pretty sure all these pamphlets are from the 1970s…” Connie noted as she leafed through a few of the dusty handouts.

“Whoa… they’re vintage!” Mabel remarked with genuine fascination. “That means they’re probably super accurate!”

“Ah, this is the life, kid,” Stan said to Dipper, who was currently sitting up front alongside him. “The open road, the clear blue skies, the fumes comin’ from the RV’s engine… What more could anyone want? Its no wonder me ‘n Amethyst always call this yearly trek the ‘mother of all Revenge Trips’, huh?”

“Oh yeah, I’ve been meaning to ask you, Grunkle Stan,” Dipper said with a curious frown. “Why didn’t you ask Amethyst to come with us? This whole thing with pranking all these tourist traps seems like it’d be right up her alley.”

The conman flinched, realizing he had let his nostalgia get the better of him, something that only made things awkward in the present. “Uh… usually she does tag along,” Stan began, not meeting his nephew’s gaze in favor of keeping his eyes on the road. “But this year, I just… uh… d-didn’t get the chance to ask her, that’s all.”

“More like you you haven’t had the chance to talk to her in general since what happened with the portal, right?” Dipper asked somewhat knowingly.

“I-I’ve talked to her since then!” Stan snapped defensively, his grip on the steering wheel tightening. Even so, Dipper hardly believed him.

“Which is why you asked all of us to come along on this trip,” he continued his line of rather accurate reasoning. “So you wouldn’t feel lonely going around and pulling off a bunch of pranks without Amethyst. Am I somewhere in the ballpark of being right about all that?”

“I-I’ll tell you what you are in the ballpark of: moving out of the front seat!” Stan growled, catching Dipper off guard with how suddenly angry he was. “Now, get back there and get your sister, its her turn to sit up here.”

“But I just got up here-”

“Well you should have thought about that before you started asking a bunch of annoying questions,” the conman huffed, sending his nephew a sharp, warning glare. “Now, scoot before I toss you out and leave ya for a pack of wild hitchhikers.”

Dipper begrudgingly did as his uncle said, getting up from the front seat with a frustrated sigh to go switch places with Mabel. Things seemed much more peaceful in the furthest back seat in the RV, where Garnet and Steven both sat; the young Gem had been keeping himself occupied by enjoying the scenery go by through the window and occasionally pointing out what he saw as well as his ongoing excitement about the trip in general, to the Gem leader. Who, much like the past several days, didn’t have much to say in response.

“Whoa, check it out, Garnet!” Steven exclaimed as he pulled a coin out from under his seat. “Another penny! I guess someone must have spilled a whole bunch back here too. And probably some grape juice at some point based on this big stain right here. Still, between the pennies and the RV and the inn we’re gonna get to stay at, I’d say this trip is already turning out to be pretty great, wouldn’t you?”

“Mmm…” Garnet responded, her lips pressed into a thin line and her hands laying heavily upon her knees. Though there was plenty of room in the small back quarters of the RV for Steven, the Gem leader was admittedly a bit cramped, though that was hardly what was bothering her at the moment. In fact, what was agitating her lay far beyond this trip at all, but she was hardly about to let Steven, or anyone else for that matter, in on her internal conflict. As far as she was concerned, this was something she could just as easily sort out solely by herself.

“Look alive, everyone!” Stan announced roughly an hour later as he pulled off the highway. “We’re coming up on an attraction run by the most black-hearted proprietor in all of Oregon: Granny Sweetkins’ Yarnball.”

“Uh, Mr. Pines, are you sure about this?” Greg asked, rather concerned as they arrived at the unassuming, rather welcoming attraction, its main feature being a massive ball of soft, colorful yarn.

“Don’t let the face fool you,” Stan glared up at the nearby sign depicting Granny Sweetkins herself. “This woman lit my car on fire on two non-consecutive occasions.”

As soon as the conman parked the RV, everyone filed out, taking a moment to be amazed by the yarnball’s quite impressive size before leaping right into action. “Girls, I’m going in,” Mabel said with determination, brazenly leading the way before Candy and Grenda eagerly followed after her directly into the ball of yarn.

“Wait for me, you guys!” Steven laughed, jumping in after the trio as Dipper and Connie watched on in bewilderment.

“Why do I have this terrible feeling that we’re gonna get caught vandalizing this thing?” Connie asked, anxiously glancing around for any signs of incoming security.

“Eh, I wouldn’t worry,” Dipper shrugged. “Whenever we do something mildly illegal like this, Stan usually makes sure we end up making a clean enough getaway. Usually.”

“Yeah, Mr. Pines does have a knack for pulling off daring escapes,” Greg added with a chuckle as he watched Stan supervise the other kids in taking the yarnball apart from the inside out. “Right, Garnet?”

The Gem leader offered no answer as she simply stood alongside the group in silence, apparently paying little attention to what was going on before her. Greg, Connie, and Dipper all looked over to her in slight concern over her lack of any sort of response, but even so, Garnet still said nothing, almost as if she was lost in her own thoughts entirely. However, before any of them could try to properly garnish her attention, Stan suddenly rushed past them, Mabel, Candy, Grenda, and Steven following hot on his heels as they all carried sizable clumps of yarn from the gradually shrinking yarnball.

“Everyone, book it! Now!” the conman ordered, prompting the rest of the group to flee back into the RV. No sooner had the door shut behind them than Stan floored it, the camper taking off at a surprising speed despite its age. As the group made their hasty retreat, Granny Sweetkins herself rushed after it, outraged as her world-famous yarnball unraveled right before her eyes.

“Why, you gall darn, no good, son of a-!” the elderly woman cut herself off, taking the knitting needle that had once held the yarnball together out of the ground and tossing it after the speeding RV with a vicious vengeance. “I’ll get you, Stan Pines!”

This incensed sentiment was shared across all of the owners of all of the tourist traps that Stan pranked across the next several days, his route meticulous and his methods always quite destructive towards whatever attraction was involved. The gang’s visit to Upside-Down Town resulted in all of them working together to flip the overturned house rightside up, essentially taking away the main thing that set it apart and turning it into a normal home. At Log Land, they untied the spectacular stack of wood the attraction was known for, resulting in a potentially deadly logslide that fortunately no one was injured in (save for the tourist trap’s revenue and reputation). The Corn Maze was easy enough to ruin simply by taking away the plentiful scarecrows positioned throughout it and waiting for the mass of crows to fly in and eat just about everything in sight. And in a similar fashion, the rest of the tourist traps they stopped in at fell, Stan raking in the sheer delight of taking his competitors down several pegs, the kids getting to join in on the exciting, rather morally ambiguous mischief, and Greg cautiously supervising to make sure none of them got hurt. The only one amongst the group who seemed completely adverse to participating altogether was Garnet, who usually barely moved away from the RV when they stopped, if she left it at all. And yet, with as much fun as they were having, no one really seemed to notice the Gem leader’s lack of engagement, even as she grew more and more closed off as the days rolled by. For the most part, they all just assumed that it was her usual stoic manner; but in reality, what it really was, was something much more concerning.

The group had been on the road for roughly three days when they finally arrived to their stopping point for the final night of their trip: the supposedly legendary Evergreen Inn. Still, despite Greg’s fanciful description of the motel, it was admittedly anything but impressive. Tucked just off of the Evergreen highway, the inn was a small, two story establishment with apparently plenty of vacancies as the clearly bored front desk receptionist implied. Still, the inn did have a decently-sized, mostly clean swimming pool claiming most of its tiny parking lot, which presented Stan with something of a challenge in finding a place to park the RV when the group arrived. They had ended up checking into two rooms right next to each other, one for Garnet and the girls to stay in and one for the Stan, Greg, and the boys. But since they had made it to the inn rather early in the evening, the kids all decided to congregate in the boys’ room first in order to enjoy what few amenities the inn had to offer.

“Another great thing about inns,” Greg said to the kids as he unlocked the door to the room. “You can drive right up to your door!”

“Or at least we could if that ol’ rust bucket out there didn’t take up three parking spots,” Stan remarked sardonically, though the kids were hardly paying much attention as they got their first glimpse of the room. By all accounts it was nothing special, a simple two bed setup with a standard bathroom, TV, desk, and décor. But even despite its almost dull normality, most of the kids were instantly taken with excitement over it.

“Its so beautiful!” Grenda proclaimed dramatically.

“Yes! Two beds!” Mabel cheered, readily hopping up onto one of them before jumping across to the other. “You guys gotta try this! It’s just like a trampoline, only with a huge, potentially dangerous gap in the middle!”

Candy and Grenda both rushed to join Mabel in her bed-hopping campaign, the three of them clearly enjoying themselves despite how simplistic their form of entertainment was. “Well, they’re easily impressed…” Connie remarked to Dipper and Steven with something of a bemused grin.

“Can you blame them? This place is amazing!” Steven exclaimed, stars in his eyes as he rushed forward into the room to better explore it. “I’m gonna swim in the pool, order a movie, get free ice, it’ll be great!”

“N-not before we check for bed bugs, it isn’t!” Greg cautioned, hurrying to do just that as Stan also properly entered the room. Garnet came in behind them, easily toting everyone’s bags, though no one really heard the somewhat burdened groan come from the Gem leader as they each took a look around the room for themselves.

“Good news! We’re bugless,” Greg let out a sigh of relief upon lifting one of the mattresses up before Steven, Mabel, Candy, and Grenda all landed squarely on top of it.

“Then that puts this place above 90% of the motels I stayed in back during my drifting days,” Stan remarked with a wry grin before briefly checking his watch. “Oh, Greg, looks like its about time for us to get those… what were they again?”

“Oh that’s right! The brushes!” the former rock star exclaimed as he quickly stood. “Hey, Garnet, do you mind holding down the fort until Mr. Pines and I get back?” Garnet responded to this simply in the form of a rather shaky thumbs up as she sat on the opposite bed, her other hand twitching rather erratically and her expression tight and terse. Even so, this was good enough for Stan and Greg. “Great!” the former rock star grinned as him and the conman headed out the door. “We’re going to see a man about a tunnel brush. An internet man… If we’re not back in an hour, call the police.”

“Pfft, please, Greg, we’re not gonna need any pansy police,” Stan rolled his eyes. “If we run into any trouble with this guy, all it’ll take to shake him off our backs is one good slug in the jaw with these babies.” The conman smirked as he pulled his infamous brass knuckles out of his suit pocket before quickly slipping them back into hiding.

“Mr. Pines, we can’t just beat the guy up.”

“Ha! Try tellin’ that my old parole officer.”

“Bye!” Steven called after the pair as they left, leaving the kids behind with Garnet, not that she was really paying any of them much mind to begin with.

“Oh my gosh, you guys, wait!” Mabel gasped, halting the ongoing barrage of jumping between beds. “What if this inn has vending machines?!”

“Inns can have vending machines too?!” Steven asked in amazed surprise. “Seriously, how could this place get any better?”

“We should go see if they have one, and if they do, we should get a bunch of candy!” Mabel exclaimed, hopping up and down in place on the bed.

“Call me crazy, but for some reason I feel like candy is the last thing any of you guys need right now,” Dipper pointed out with an exasperated frown.

“He is right,” Candy conceded with a small, steadily growing, wry smirk. “After all, I’m already here!”

“Oooo! I see what you did there!” Grenda laughed, Steven and Mabel readily joining in as even Dipper and Connie managed to get a bit of a chuckle out of this joke.

“Garnet!” Steven called over to the Gem leader with another small laugh. “Did you hear what Candy just-”

The young Gem cut himself off upon hearing a rather tense, rather loud groan that came from Garnet herself. The levity in the room was all but shattered as all the kids looked to her with apt alarm, though she largely ignored them in favor of carrying on what seemed to be a quite intense argument with herself. “Calm down…” she advised, her voice shaking as it quickly hitched with anger. “I don’t feel like forgiving Pearl! Y-you don’t understand, we must. Augh! If you’re not going to listen, then you can just GO!”

On this harsh, sudden proclamation, a sudden, bright light overtook the Gem leader, though it only lasted for a brief second before, without hardly any warning at all, she quite literally fell apart. Ruby and Sapphire both let out startled cries as they fell onto the floor, though their surprise was quickly replaced with the still strong sentiments left over from their internal struggle, even as all six of the kids stared at the couple in shocked, silent awe.

“We must move past this, Ruby,” Sapphire began, her voice stoic and steady as she sat elegantly on the floor, facing away from the red Gem.

“No! She lied to us to form Sardonyx!” Ruby snapped harshly, practically shaking with rage. “She tricked us! Don’t you feel used?!”

“Oh my gosh!” Mabel squealed amidst the couple’s ongoing squabble as she looked to Candy and Grenda, who were clearly still in shock over what they had just seen. “See? Garnet really is a fusion, just like I was telling you guys!”

“Ruby! Sapphire!” Steven greeted the pair brightly. “We-”

“You’re just choosing to take it personally,” Sapphire said to Ruby, neither of them paying any attention to the kids amidst their own conflict.

“It’s fusion, Sapphire!” Ruby hopped to her feet hotly. “What’s more personally to us than fusion?!”

“I know you’re still upset-”

“Oh, so its just me then, huh?”

“Of course not,” Sapphire turned to face her partner, her expression completely dour and emotionless. “Can’t you see I’m engulfed with rage?”

“Well, it doesn’t feel like it,” Ruby growled, impatiently tapping her foot. All the while, the kids continued watching on, none of them quite sure what to say to interrupt this rather intense argument, if it was even a wise idea to do so at all.

“The sooner we forgive Pearl, the better it will be for all of us,” Sapphire assured, finally lifting herself up off the floor to, oddly enough, levitate just above it. Ruby only glared at the blue Gem as she gracefully lifted herself up onto the bed to take a placid seat upon it.

“You’re not as above this as you think you are!” the red Gem shouted fiercely, her rage coming out in the form of visible steam that rose up from her.

“Yes,” Sapphire hummed, gently placing her hands in her lap. “I am.”

“Grr… Why doesn’t this bother you!?” Ruby groaned, slamming her fist onto the lower end of the bed.

“I never said it didn’t,” the blue Gem countered evenly. “I’m just choosing to be reasonable about it. Something you should do too, Ruby.”

“I don’t have to be reasonable about anything!” the red Gem barked, though she quickly paused upon realizing what she had just said. “W-wait! That’s not what I meant! I just… I… AUGH!”

“Its like I said,” Sapphire continued calmly. “You can’t stay angry with Pearl forever.”

“Wanna bet?” Ruby scowled, clearly not retracting her firm, angry position.

“Ruby, the carpet,” the blue Gem nodded down to the floor, which her partner just so happened to be burning a hole into simply by standing upon it.

“You… c-cant even… augh!” Ruby cut herself off with another frustrated shout before she ended up storming out of the room altogether, brutally slamming the door behind her. A beat of rather awkward silence passed as the kids, who had all been largely spectating the argument between the two Gems, slowly all looked towards Sapphire, who was still sitting on the bed, her gaze fixated solely in front of her and her expression as unmoving and seemingly unfeeling as ever.

“Nice to… see you again?” Steven was the first to break the silence, offering the blue Gem something of a small smile that she didn’t return.

“Nice to see you too,” Sapphire replied, her tone and manner quite stately.

“So…” Mabel began innocently enough before rather bluntly getting to the heart of what they had just seen. “Does that fight you and Ruby just had mean you guys are getting a divorce?”

“O-okay!” Dipper quickly interjected almost as soon as his sister had voiced this awkward question, not even giving the rather confused Sapphire a chance to answer it as he abruptly pushed Mabel towards the door. “I think its about time that the six of us get some fresh air! Like… right now.”

“Aw…” Steven frowned in disappointment as Connie helped pull him, Candy, and Grenda after the twins. “But we just-”

“Now,” Dipper insisted as he finished shooing everyone out of the room before exiting himself.

“You know, I gotta admit,” Connie began as soon as they were all congregated outside of the room. “Based on what you guys have told me about Ruby and Sapphire and their relationship, what happened in there was… pretty unexpected.”

“Well, the first time we saw them together, they actually got along really well,” Steven shrugged.

“Yeah, they did!” Mabel chimed in brightly. “They hugged and kissed and danced until they fused back into Garnet, augh! You guys should have seen it!” she quipped to Candy and Grenda, who were clearly taken by this romantic recounting. “They were so adorable!”

“Aw, man! I wish we could see them being adorable together!” Grenda pouted, crossing her arms in disappointment.

“Yes, but at the moment, it seems as though they are having… relationship issues,” Candy noted just as solemnly.

“Seriously, you think they’d at least be willing to talk to each other about this whole thing instead of arguing about it,” Dipper said.

“Wait a second…” Steven mused, a sudden idea coming to him. “That’s it! If Ruby and Sapphire won’t talk things out on their own, then maybe we can help them instead!”

“Oh my gosh, that’s a great idea, Steven!” Mabel readily agreed. “And it makes perfect sense too! Garnet’s always helping us without our relationship problems, so its about time we return the favor and help Ruby and Sapphire work theirs out!”

“You know what this means?” Candy asked with a growing grin. “It is our turn to be-”

“Romance experts!” Mabel and Grenda chimed in alongside Candy, all three of the girls more than excited to be taking up this rather daunting undertaking.

“Uh, I don’t know, you guys,” Dipper interjected much more rationally. “Maybe getting in the middle of Ruby and Sapphire’s, uh… disagreement isn’t really the best idea. We should probably just let them patch things up on their own.”

“But who knows how long that could take!” Mabel said with an impatient huff. “We all saw that lil’ spat they just had; those two need some serious relationship help STAT! So here’s how its gonna go down: it’ll be easier if we all split up to talk to them first so we can convince them to talk to each other.”

“Huh, that… actually makes sense,” Connie remarked, realizing that this idea wasn’t as bad as it had originally sounded.

“Of course it does! Now, me, Steven, and Grenda will go try to cool Ruby down,” Mabel continued explaining. “Meanwhile, Dipper, Connie, Candy, you three go see if you can do anything to get Sapphire to warm up. Ya see what I did there? Cool? Warm? It’s a-”

“Yeah, we get it, it’s a pun,” Dipper interupted, rolling his eyes. “By the way, I still don’t think this plan is gonna work, but… I guess anything’s better than listening to those two argue all night so, its probably worth a try.”

“Don’t worry,” Steven assured before the respective groups split up to carry out their missions. “All we gotta do is convince Ruby and Sapphire to hear each other out and then I’m sure everything else will work itself out. Or at least… I really hope it will…”

Despite her abruptly storming out of the room earlier, Ruby wasn’t all too difficult to find thanks to the trail of ashy footprints she had left behind, one that Steven, Mabel, and Grenda found led towards the pool. And so, for the sake of being discreet in their goal as well as to have a little fun at the same time, the trio quickly changed into their bathing suits and hurried out to the pool, hoping to get the incensed red Gem to simmer down somehow.

Upon slipping through the pool’s open gate, the trio found that, sure enough, there Ruby was, pacing angrily around the parameter. A plume of steady steam rose up from her all the while as her hands remained in tight fists at her sides and her expression set in a bitter downward glare. For a moment, the kids simply watched her, all of them noting that she apparently hadn’t noticed their arrival at all, at least until Steven spoke up to greet her.

“Uh… hey, Ruby,” the young Gem began with a tentative smile and wave as he put his towel down. “You wanna swim in the pool with us?”

“And, I dunno, maybe we can all talk about our feelings?” Mabel suggested innocently enough. “They say pools are the best place to work your pent up anger out, after all.”

“Whoa, really?” Grenda asked, apparently amazed by this fact. “Wow… and all these years, I was doing that by hitting things!”

“Uh… yeah…” Steven said as both him and Mabel looked to Grenda with confused frowns before he turned back to Ruby, who was still pacing intently. “Anyway, we-”

“It’s fusion, Steven!” Ruby suddenly snapped, her manner every bit as hostile as it had been back in the room. “It’s like Sapphire doesn’t even care! And we’re supposed to be ‘the bigger Gem’ about this. We’re always the bigger Gem! Well, not this time! Not about this!”

“Uh… well… y-you could always try talking to Sapphire about it,” Mabel mused somewhat awkwardly, knowing that it probably wasn’t wise to push the red Gem too far. “You know… calmly?”

“I did that already!” Ruby retorted hotly. “You three were there, you saw how she just refuses to admit that she could ever be wrong about anything just ‘cause she can see the future. But I can see plenty of things myself, and I can see that she’s wrong this time, I know it!”

“Um, r-right…” Steven said somewhat nervously before throwing on a reassuring smile. “Well, why don’t you come cool down in the pool with us?” At this, the young Gem promptly cannonballed into the pool, Mabel following right after him. Grenda was last and the earlier pair was rather caught off guard by the large splash her jump created, one that ended up splaying Ruby with water that quickly turned to steam as it evaporated off of her very warm form.

“I don’t need to cool down,” the red Gem grumbled, crossing her arms as she glared away from the pool.

“Aw, come on, Ruby!” Mabel urged brightly. “The water’s niiice!”

“And there’s only like 4 or 5 bugs floating around in here, which makes it cleaner than most hotel pools I’ve been to at least!” Grenda added just as exuberantly.

Ruby paused, taking another sour glance over at the pool before finally relenting and stepping down into it, continuing her ongoing rant all the while. “Why does she always act like I’m being ridiculous!?” she huffed, walking straight to the bottom of the pool and staying grounded there as she resumed pacing. “Just because she wants to pretend like she doesn’t have feelings?! Oh yeah, I don’t have any feelings, well I…” Ruby continued her frustrated ramblings, though much of it was muffled by the several gallons of water she was under, though apparently not hindered by whatsoever.

“Wow, Ruby’s a really good swimmer,” Grenda noted, duly amazed as they all watched the red Gem pace about.

“Is she… ok down there?” Mabel asked with a slightly worried frown.

“Yeah, I think so,” Steven mused, even as Ruby continued to pay none of them any mind amidst her ongoing venting. “Uh… Ruby? Oh!” the young Gem gasped as the water around them began to bubble with sudden warmth. “Heh, you made a warm spot!”

“Hey, yeah! It almost feels like a hot tub in here now!” Mabel chuckled along with Steven and Grenda before the water’s temperature unexpectedly spiked from comfortably warm to unbearably hot. “Ah! O-OK, now it’s a really hot tub!”

“M-more than hot! Boiling!” Steven cried as him, Mabel, and Grenda all frantically scrambled to get out of the piping hot water. The pool was still largely bubbling over even as they hurriedly climbed out of it, sitting on the dry edge as they all panted in a desperate attempt to cool down from the near-burns they had almost received. A beat of awkward silence passed as they tried and failed to spot Ruby amidst the rapid bubbles she was unwittingly creating from her quite literally burning rage. Even so, in the end it was rather clear that as stubborn as someone like Ruby was, it would take more than just a few apprehensive words of convincing to get her to hold anything close to a civil conversation with Sapphire at this point.

Or at least this fact was clear to Steven and Mabel, since Grenda turned to the pair with a rather satisfied grin just a moment later. “Ya know, I think that went pretty well!”

Upon splitting up from the others and reentering the inn room, Dipper, Connie, and Candy all immediately noticed that the room itself seemed a bit chillier than it had been when they had stepped outside mere minutes ago. Even so, the trio didn’t really put too much thought into this apparently coincidental change as they greeted Sapphire casually enough.

“Uh… hey, Sapphire,” Dipper began with a tentative wave as him, Connie, and Candy moved to take a seat on the other bed.

“Hello, Dipper, Connie, Candy,” Sapphire nodded in return, her tone flat as she maintained her spot on the bed, her hands folded neatly in her lap.

“Are… you doing ok in here?” Connie asked, not really sure where to start in convincing the blue Gem to talk things out with her significant other.

“I’m… fine…” Sapphire said somewhat tightly, a bit of frost creeping up on the wall behind her. As it did, the kids happened to notice the room’s temperature fall from refreshingly cool to blatantly cold in almost an instant, most likely as a result of the blue Gem’s tranquil dissatisfaction. Even so, none of them decided to address that fact to Sapphire herself, lest doing so result in the room growing somehow even colder than it already was, which was quite an unsavory thought given how frigid it was already becoming.

“H-how about we watch some TV?” Candy suggested with a shiver, unceremoniously pulling the bed’s blanket up and wrapping part of it around herself before offering the rest to Dipper and Connie.

“Sure,” Sapphire remarked, as unexpressive as always.

“Oh, uh, l-look at that, the TV channels are different here than they are in Gravity Falls,” Dipper said upon turning the television on before addressing Sapphire. “M-maybe you could use your future vision to point us to a good one?”

“Hm… 43,” the blue Gem replied after only a brief moment of thought. “But there’s not much on.”

Even despite this, Dipper switched to the aforementioned channel and all three of the kids burrowed themselves deeper into the blanket, which admittedly offered them little warmth amidst the still ever-dropping temperatures of the room. For a moment or two, the doldrum sounds of the TV filled in what would have otherwise been awkward silence as frost continued climbing up the walls, particularly behind Sapphire, who didn’t really seem to have much to say regarding her and Ruby’s falling out at all. Which meant that perhaps all she needed was a bit of good prompting towards the subject.

“H-hey, Sapphire-” Connie ventured to begin, but the blue Gem succinctly cut her off before she could continue.

“Even if I do, Ruby won’t listen.”

“H-huh?”

“You’re going to say that I should talk to Ruby,” Sapphire correctly predicted. “But it won’t help. At least not right now.”

“A-are you sure?” Dipper asked, shuddering from the bitter chill that seemed to have no relief in sight. “Cause she seemed pretty upset earlier.”

“That doesn’t matter,” Sapphire concluded firmly. “She’s simply overreacting. It’s a longtime habit of hers, one that usually doesn’t cause too many problems. But in the off chance that it does, she always comes around eventually. She can’t stay mad at Pearl forever and she can’t stay mad at me forever, and then she’ll come back and see that I’m right.”

“B-but don’t you think talking to her might smooths things over between you two… I-I don’t know, sooner?” Connie attempted, her eyes widening as she realized she could see her breath in the apparent icebox they were now in.

“There’s no need to rush this,” the blue Gem shook her head. “I can see the path of fate as it stretches on the horizon. The rift between us isn’t destined to last. Ruby can’t avoid the inevitable. She’s just letting her emotions get out of hand.”

“N-not you though, right?” Dipper asked, rolling his eyes rather knowingly as he realized they weren’t really getting anywhere with the practically immovable blue Gem.

“No,” Sapphire said, even as the bed she was sitting on completely froze over, not that she paid it any real mind at all.

By this point, while Dipper and Connie were trying to come up with a last ditch attempt to convince Sapphire to speak to Ruby, Candy had apparently decided that the frigid conditions had become too much for her to bear. “I-I must use the bathroom!” she cried, hopping off the bed and rushing for the smaller room that she hoped would be just a bit warmer.

“Also inevitable,” Sapphire noted dryly.

“O eoseo!” Candy shouted in frustrated Korean before poking her head outside the bathroom door. “T-the toilet is frozen!”

“Such is fate,” the blue Gem said, completely apathetic to the trio of practically frozen kids, none of whom could really stand the subzero conditions any longer.

“S-so I guess its our fate to pee outside in the grass too, then?” Dipper huffed in annoyance as him and Connie began to follow Candy out of the room, all three of them more than frustrated by how little progress they had made with the supposedly sensible blue Gem.

But all the same, Sapphire kept up her “calm” composure, barely even effected at all as the kids left her behind in the effective tundra of a room she had created. “…Yes.”

Coincidentally enough, just as Steven, Mabel, and Grenda were trudging back from the pool, fanning themselves off all the while from the heat Ruby had unwittingly subjected them to, Dipper, Connie, and Candy emerged from the frozen room, all three of them more than glad to be out in the balmy summer night’s air after their frigid stint with Sapphire.

“H-hey, you guys,” Steven panted as the two groups converged, all of them taking a seat on the curb near the room. “How’d it go with Sapphire?”

“N-not so great,” Connie admitted, still largely chilled to the bone. “She’s pretty dead set on thinking that Ruby the wrong one here and that she’ll eventually realize that which means they don’t need to talk things out.”

“And then she froze the entire room over!” Candy added fretfully. “Including the toilet…”

“That’s… basically what Ruby said about Sapphire…” Mabel frowned worriedly.

“Before she accidentally boiled the three of us in the pool!” Grenda huffed hotly.

“Well, that’s… not really that surprising,” Dipper remarked dryly. “You know, despite basically being opposites with the whole fire and ice thing, those two really are pretty similar, especially when it comes to how stubborn they are. No wonder they usually get along so well.”

“Well, I wish they were getting along now…” Steven sighed sadly as he flopped onto his back. “What are we gonna do, you guys? We can’t just… let them stay mad at each other like this! Its great seeing Ruby and Sapphire again, yeah, but I already miss Garnet so much! What if… what if they never make up a-and they never form Garnet again!?”

“Aw, Steven…” Connie said, placing a sympathetic hand on the young Gem’s shoulder. “I’m sure they’ll make up sooner or later.”

“Yeah, and until they do, we’ll just have to step our ‘romance expert’ game up so we can really help them get back together!” Mabel proclaimed with a daring grin.

“Or… maybe we should just leave well enough alone,” Dipper countered, rubbings his arms in a continuous attempt to warm them up. “After all, the last thing I wanna do right now is step back into ‘Antarctica’ in there.”

Despite their somewhat lowered spirits, this did manage to get something of a small laugh out of the kids, one that was all too short lived as they quickly returned to their former dejection over their failed missions. While they all figured that the squabble between Ruby and Sapphire would end eventually, the underlying fear still existed, however small it was, that this conflict between them would last, that they’d stay fixed in their positions and refuse to find some sort of compromise. That, worst of all, they’d never see Garnet again as a result.

Fortunately though, none of them had too much of a chance to stew in such unsavory thoughts as the bright, telltale headlights from an oncoming RV encompassed all of them. As soon as their eyes adjusted to the light, they were able to see that the camper had indeed returned, now with a set of brand new car wash brushes tied to the roof.

“Hey, kids!” Greg greeted warmly as he popped out of the RV, two pizza boxes in hand. “We brought dinner!”

“Hey, Dad,” Steven replied with a halfhearted smile. “How’d it go?”

“Well, he wasn’t an axe-murderer,” the former rock star said, joining the kids on the curb.

“And I didn’t have to use these babies,” Stan added as he got out of the camper, letting out a disappointed sigh as he held up his brass knuckles. “At least not this time…”

“…Which was probably a good thing,” Greg remarked, scratching the back of his neck. “Anyway, what are you kids doing outside anyway? And why are you three in your bathing suits?” he asked Steven, Mabel, and Grenda in particular before turning to Connie, Dipper, and Candy. “And why do you three look so cold? And where’s Garnet?”

“You… don’t wanna know,” Dipper deadpanned in clear exasperation.

“Uh, yeah, we kinda do,” Stan remarked, his hands on his hips. Prompted by curiosity, both Greg and Stan took a tentative peek inside the boys’ room, only to find it largely frozen over, ice and frost coating the walls, the floor, and just about everything else. And of course, Sapphire still remained sitting on the bed, still completely unmoving, though she did briefly turn to the pair, her expression completely unmoved as she offered them a bizarre, almost ominous prediction. “They’re not gonna like that its square…”

At this, the conman and the former rock star quickly closed the door, leaving the blue Gem to her privacy as they both turned to the kids, slightly baffled. “Oh great…” Stan grumbled, rolling his eyes knowingly. “Those two again…”

“Uh… where’s the other one?” Greg asked worriedly, glancing around for any sign of Ruby.

“She’s pacing around in what used to be the pool,” Grenda informed, pointing over to the now completely dried up pool, where the red Gem was still marching around and muttering angrily to herself.

“Wait, wait, wait,” Mabel interjected, her eyes wide with newfound curiosity as she looked between Greg and Stan. “You guys have both met Ruby and Sapphire before?!”

“A… few times,” the former rock star admitted. “Its not like they’re really around that much seeing as how Garnet’s usually pretty steady.”

“Then how come you never bothered to tell us that she was a fusion all that time?” Dipper asked, giving Stan in particular a critical glance.

“Cause it never came up,” the conman shrugged with a bit of a scoff. “What were you two runts expecting me to tell you when you got off the bus at the beginning of the summer? ‘Hey, kids! Welcome to the Mystery Shack! Keep your fingers away from the goat! The tall, square-haired lady who lives up the hill is actually just two small fries in a trench coat!’”

“Eh, yeah I guess that would probably have ruined the surprise,” Mabel noted in agreement.

“Something pretty serious must be going on if it made Garnet split up,” Greg said, getting the conversation back on track. He was quick to change gears, however, upon noticing his son’s rather forlorn expression over this fact. “B-but hey! All of us can still have a good time!” The former rock star smile as he finally opened up one of his pizza boxes, revealing something that made just about all of the kids groan in exasperation.

“Square pizza!” Steven cried fretfully. “What’s wrong with this crazy place!?”

“Son, there will come a time in your life when you learn to accept all pizza,” Greg said with a hint of sagely wisdom in his tone.

“Besides, it could be worse,” Stan remarked dryly as he grabbed a slice. “Could be street pizza from an overworked delivery guy who ya snubbed a tip to.”

Despite the conman’s attempt at bringing some levity, it didn’t really work as most of the kids still looked just as downtrodden as they had been before, especially Steven as he decided to earnestly voice his ongoing concern. “Why can’t Ruby and Sapphire just… make up?”

“Aw, Steven…” Greg frowned sympathetically, putting a hand on his son’s shoulder. “Sometimes people that love each other can hurt each other’s feelings without meaning to. We should probably just give them some space.”

“Aw, but who knows if they’ll ever talk to each other again if they don’t have help from a bunch of romance experts like us?!” Mabel asked, deeply worried.

“A bunch of what?” Stan asked, raising a confused eyebrow.

“I’m sure everything will be better in the morning,” Greg reassured warmly.

“You bet it will be,” the conman remarked with a daring smirk. “Tomorrow’s our last stop on this route of revenge against all these lesser tourist traps. Everything up until now has been a walk in the park compared to our next attraction.”

“Is it a walk in the world’s biggest park?” Candy asked curiously.

“Eh, sort of, actually,” Stan shrugged. “But I’m not saying any more about it until we wreck the place tomorrow.”

“B-but before that,” Greg interjected, holding a brochure he had picked up earlier. “We’ll all go to the best diner in the world, which just so happens to be right inside this place! And there, all of us, including Ruby and Sapphire, will have the best brunch in the world, which is bound to smooth things over between them!”

“You really think that’ll help?” Steven asked, hopeful.

“Nothin’ like a little breakfast to bring people together,” the former rock star nodded firmly, finally garnishing much needed smiles out of all of the kids, including his son.

“You really are my favorite dad,” Steven sighed happily, finally partaking of the square pizza as he leaned against his father.

“Heh,” Greg chuckled, sincerely hoping that he was right about his assumptions concerning the bickering Gem couple, if for no one else’s sake than Steven’s. “I knew this pizza would put me over the top.”

The next morning saw the entire group rising early to get a head start on their nearby final stop of the trip. Since Sapphire had frozen one of the rooms over entirely, Stan, Greg, and the boys had resorted to sleeping in the RV, which was fortunately much more temperate, though perhaps a bit balmy thanks to the incredibly warm aura put off by the nearby pool, or rather, the red Gem who had spent the entire night hotly pacing around in it. While the staff of Evergreen Inn were far from happy about the messes the couple had unknowingly made, Greg and Stan managed to smooth things over enough that they were able to check out without too many complications. And soon enough, they were on the road again, though fortunately it didn’t take too long for their penultimate destination to peak over the forested horizon.

“There she is, kids,” Stan scowled, gripping the steering wheel tight as a tall, mist-covered mountain loomed in the distance. “Mystery Mountain. Five times the size of the Mystery Shack, and what’s worse: she actually has real attractions.”

“Oh! I have read about this place,” Candy remarked, unfolding the brochure about the attraction she had picked up at the inn earlier. “It has a sky tram. And a mummy museum. And sightings of half human, half spider people.”

“Ooo, and a gift shop!” Steven chimed in as he took a peek at the brochure for himself.

“And that diner I was telling you kids about last night,” Greg added with a smile as he glanced over his shoulder to the rest of the passengers. “Who’s hungry for some brunch?!”

At this, all of the kids excitedly raised their hands, leaving only Ruby and Sapphire out as they sat beside each other on the couch wordlessly, both of them averting each other’s gaze as they instead devoted their attention elsewhere and maintained a noticeable distance away from each other. Still, no one made any real note of that as Stan continued showing his quite apparent envy of everything Mystery Mountain had to offer.

“Enjoy that brunch while ya can,” the conman said with a growing, vengeful smirk. “Because today, that mountain falls!”

After Stan recklessly pulled into the attraction’s parking lot and everyone filed out of the RV, they were all able to see that the conman hadn’t been exaggerating when it came to the scope of Mystery Mountain. The tourist trap was grand in scale and presentation, the mountain towering high above and carrying an all around aura of mystery and intrigue to it that actually almost felt genuine. A slow-moving sky tram carried guests up and down the massive hill, giving them a scenic view of the area, though many other tourists favored hiking the mountain’s fascinating trails as well. The place wasn’t lacking for any business at all either; satisfied tourists were abundant, all of them apparently enthralled by the secrets and surprises Mystery Mountain had in store, something that irritated Stan in particular as they all took a cursory look around.

“Ugh, stupid place thinks its so great just because they have a bunch of fog and mummies and free public restrooms,” the conman scoffed haughtily. “Well it won’t be after we’re through with it! Kids! I got five bucks for whoever can tip that big blue ox over there! Go! Go! Go!”

On this prompting, the kids all gladly hurried over to the large ceramic ox nearby to do just that, Greg rushing after them to make sure no one would hurt themselves as they all clamored up onto it. Satisfied with this, Stan prepared to join them, though he paused upon glancing back towards the RV only to notice Ruby and Sapphire both standing near it, their backs practically turned to each other and their expressions every bit as harsh/unfeeling as they had been the night before.

“You two aren’t just gonna stand there and look angry at each other, are ya?” Stan asked, giving the couple a critical glance as he turned to face them fully. “Cause I didn’t agree to bring you, or, uh… Garnet, or… or whoever along on this trip just for you to argue and do a whole bunch of nothing.”

Ruby was the first to let out a sour scoff at this, sending a fierce warning glare up at the conman before flames suddenly burst around her hand. “How’s this for nothin’, Stan?” she asked crossly, preparing to ram her flaming fist into the RV itself before Sapphire fortunately stopped her.

“No, Ruby,” the blue Gem chastised calmly, her hands folded neatly over her skirt.

“Oh, don’t tell me you’ve actually decided to care about something for a change like this dumb old RV!” Ruby growled, her hand still smoking even if the flames did diminish about.

“Well, it is our only ride home,” Sapphire pointed out rationally.

“What, you think I don’t know that?!”

“I know you know that.”

“Well, you always act like I don’t know anything!”

“I never once said that. Ever.”

“Well, ya might as well have!”

“Don’t misconstrue things, Ruby.”

“I’m not misconstruing anything! You’re the one who’s-”

“Alright, alright, enough already!” Stan suddenly interjected, severely annoyed by the couple’s ongoing bickering by this point. “Yeesh, and I thought you two were supposed to head over heels for each other. But if you’re gonna go at it like two rabid chipmunks, then clearly your relationship needs some serious work.”

“Stan,” Sapphire began evenly enough. “You really should stay out of-”

“What did you just say?” Ruby growled, her hands curled into tight fists as she scowled up at Stan.

“You heard me, shorty,” the conman shrugged, surprisingly nonchalant. “Seems to me like your ‘fling’ or whatever you two call it is heading downhill fast. Maybe you should go see one of those crackpot marriage counselors or something to help you work all this junk out. And maybe bring a firefighter along with you just in case you end up setting the whole place on fire.”

Upon hearing this, the red Gem let out an outraged shout, steam steadily rising from her all the while as Sapphire had to essentially hold her back from physically going after the still rather unphased conman. “What would you know about our relationship!?” she shouted hotly. “We’ve been together for thousands of years!”

“Oh really?” Stan asked, raising an unimpressed eyebrow. “Then I guess the spark between you guys really is gone after all that time. Maybe what you need is to see a good example of what real romance looks like.”

“A real romance?!” Ruby scoffed incredulously, practically shaking with rage by this point. “Why I oughta-”

“Before you say or do anything else, Stan, I should warn you that what you’re thinking is a very bad idea,” Sapphire spoke up, her manner quite firm, especially as she noticed the conman happen to glance over at the blonde, relatively older woman running the ticket booth a few feet away.

“Yeah, yeah, bad idea, schmad idea,” Stan remarked with an uncaring wave of his hand as he put on a wry, charming grin. “Watch and learn how a true master does it.”

“Again, Stan, you really shouldn’t talk to that woman,” Sapphire attempted to warn as the conman started heading over to the ticket booth. “She’s actually a-”

“Hey, there,” Stan greeted the woman casually enough as he leaned against the counter and searched his pockets briefly. “Oh, I seem to have lost my number! Can I borrow yours?”

Upon hearing this corny pickup line, Ruby let out a disgusted groan and Sapphire shook her head disapprovingly. The woman, however, was seemingly taken by the conman’s flirting as she let out a loud, apparently amused chuckle. “Oh, you are a riot!” she exclaimed laughingly. “What brings you here? We don’t normally get men so handsome around these parts!”

“Heh, well-” Stan cut himself off briefly to steal a glance at the woman’s nametag. “Darlene, between you and me, what I’m doing here is a little secret.”

“Oh, you seem like a man with secrets,” Darlene coed, leaning forward in intrigue. “You know, I’m going on a break. You wanna take the sky tram up to Widow’s Peak?”

“Only if I go with a looker like you,” Stan remarked coyly as Darlene got out of the ticket booth.

“Ohh, fancy!” the woman grinned wryly, taking the arm the conman as offering to her. As the pair headed off on their so-called ‘date’, Stan stole a glance back at Ruby and Sapphire, offering them a smug, triumphant grin before he left them alone for a beat of awkward silence.

“Uh… what did we just watch?” Ruby asked, still quite put off by the previous display of tawdry flirting.

“A mistake,” Sapphire deadpanned in response, her future vision making the outcome of this situation quite clear. “Trust me.”

“Well, we managed to tip that ox over without breaking any bones or getting caught,” Greg said with a relieved smile as he returned to the couple a moment later. “Uh… hey, where’s Mr. Pines?”

“He’s busy showing us what a ‘real’ relationship looks like,” Ruby grumbled, her arms crossed as she glared in the direction the conman had just left in.

“Um… ok?” Greg frowned in confusion. “I guess he’s gonna miss brunch then… Kids, come on! That diner’s right over here!”

Upon mention of a much-needed meal, the kids all readily hurried over from the remains of the now fallen ox, more than eager to follow the former rock star to the so-called ‘best diner in the world’. Of course, the place was really just a modest, run of the mill all-day breakfast joint, tucked away at the base of Mystery Mountain for its guests to have a decent meal before exploring the attraction. All the same, the group got a sizable booth, one that was fortunately large enough to accommodate everyone as they waited for their food to come in a mostly comfortable silence. That is, save for the still largely ongoing tension between Ruby and Sapphire as they sat next to each other, refusing to really even spare each other so much as a second glance. Fortunately though, the diner was quick with its service, and before anyone really had a chance to bring this tension to light, everyone’s breakfasts arrived, including the meals that the former rock star had decided to order for the Gem couple, who had failed to do so for themselves.

“Aw, an eggs and bacon smiley face!” Mabel cheered upon receiving her meal. “It’s deliciously cheerful!”

“It is almost too adorable to eat!” Candy chimed in just as brightly, even as Grenda began hungrily scarfing her own food down beside her.

“What’s the matter?” Greg asked curiously upon noticing that Ruby was simply staring blankly at the food in front of her. “Not hungry?”

“Gems don’t need to eat, Dad,” Steven reminded as he took a bite of his bacon.

“Eh… well, Garnet likes to eat sometimes,” the former rock star pointed out with a shrug.

“AUGH!” Ruby suddenly snapped, throwing herself back against the back of the booth bitterly. “Well, Garnet’s not here right now!”

“Man, and I thought last night was awkward…” Dipper remarked to Connie in a very aside whisper.

“Tell me about it…” Connie replied with a frown, one that all of the kids gradually shared as a quite uncomfortable silence settled in at the table. With the Gem couple as at ends as they were, no one quite knew what to say or do as they simply ate their breakfasts quietly, hoping that this awkward brunch would pass by soon enough. Even so, Greg couldn’t help but steal a glance over at Steven, who had pressed himself close to the table, a fretful expression on his face as he absently cut into his eggs, though he hardly seemed interested in eating as he devoted his worried attention to pair of quarreling Gems across the table from him. Clearly, the young Gem was quite dejected over Garnet’s split and Ruby and Sapphire’s still-ongoing bickering, or at least that’s what Greg assumed as he tried to lighten the otherwise heavy mood a bit.

“Mm! Oh boy, this really is the best diner in the world!” Greg exclaimed with a bit of a forced grin. “Mr. Pines doesn’t know what he’s missing! I wonder where he is anyway…”

Given Stan’s self-perceived talent when it came to wooing women, he had found it rather easy to keep up the flirtatious dynamic he had built up with Darlene earlier going as they ventured into the so-called “Giant Spider Forest”. Given that the trail was seeped in deep fog, dense forestation, and creeping spider webs, it carried a bit of an ominous vibe to it, though the conman attempted to play this off as romantic as he led his date to sit down on a nearby bunch to relax for a bit.

“Oh, are you sure you wanna go this deep into the forest?” Darlene asked with exaggerated concern. “It’s soooo scary.”

“Heh, don’t worry, toots,” Stan smirked, wrapping an arm around her shoulder. “That spider people stuff is just an urban legend. I can’t believe people fall for it.”

“Ooo, you’re so brave…” Darlene cooed almost knowingly.

“What can I say?” the conman shrugged obliviously. “I’m a real catch.”

“Yeah, you sure are…” the woman’s grin turned rather sinister. With a simple blink of her eyes, they turned black completely, irises completely gone as her voice distorted and dark as an alarming transformation began to take place. “The catch of the day…”

“Uh… did your contacts fall out or-” the conman’s confusion was quickly replaced with apt fear as Darlene changed completely before him, her size and number of legs tripling as her unassuming appearance turned into something truly monstrous. Something that was more than eager to trap Stan in the tightened web he had unknowingly gotten himself entangled in.

Despite Greg’s best efforts of starting up a conversation, the brunch table was still largely seeped in awkward silence. That is, until Ruby absently began bumping the bottom of the table with her impatiently tapping foot.

“You’re shaking the table,” Sapphire broke her longstanding silence to point out, her manner calm as she glanced over at the red Gem.

“OH?!” Ruby suddenly slammed her fist down on the table, growing increasingly frustrated by the second. “I’m kinda surprised you felt anything at all, to be honest!”

“I didn’t need to feel,” Sapphire countered evenly. “I saw.”

“Oh, everything’s just so CRYSTAL CLEAR TO YOU, ISN’T IT?!” Ruby shouted, now actively shaking the table out of her sheer, unabridged fury. Everyone else was quick to lift their plates off the rapidly quaking table to avoid making a mess, all of them watching the Gem couple with wide eyes out of slight fear of what might transpire next.

“This will pass,” Sapphire reassured them over Ruby’s noisy raging. “She’ll eventually just burn herself out and-”

“That’s what you think!” the red Gem snapped, summoning her single gauntlet and holding her fists high above the table. “I AM AN ENTERNAL FLAME, BABY!” And with that outraged exclamation, Ruby brought her hands down, smashing the table cleanly in half and sending what food was left on it flying everywhere as the couple’s hostile argument continued.

“You don’t know me!” Ruby shouted at the blue Gem, standing up on her seat. “You always act like you know everything-”

“How could I possibly not know you?” Sapphire retorted even as Ruby continued over her. “We always fuse. Why are you being so-”

“-But you don’t even know yourself! You just wanna pretend that-”

“-Difficult, look at yourself. Look at what you’re going on about, you’re being ridiculous about-”

As this seemingly ceaseless bickering between the two Gems continued, the kids largely just watched in stunned dread, all of them knowing better than to try and intervene in such a heated conflict. Steven, however, was by far the most upset by this unexpected explosion, one that demonstrated to him that things between Ruby and Sapphire were showing no signs of getting better any time soon. If anything, it only looked like they were going to get worse.

“H-hey, it’s ok, pal!” Greg quickly attempted to reassure his son, especially as he noticed tears starting to well up in his eyes. “We can still save this! Why don’t we just bag all this up to go and-”

The former rock star was abruptly interupted by Steven suddenly tossing his plate onto the floor, where it shattered instantly. At this, Ruby and Sapphire’s fighting came to a stark halt as everyone turned to look to the young Gem in alarm, only to find his fledgling tears finally falling as he promptly stood and rushed out of the diner without saying a single word.

“Aw geez…” Greg sighed sympathetically, scratching the back of his neck as he watched his upset son retreat.

“Should we go after him?” Connie asked, unanimously worried about Steven along with the rest of the kids.

“Eh, I think maybe we should just give him a little time by-” Once again, Greg was cut off, only this time by Ruby and Sapphire as they both darted up out of their seats, their expressions rife with concern and guilt as they hurried off after the young Gem themselves. “O-on second thought…” the former rock star frowned as he looked between the door and the messy remains of what used to be the table before them. A mess that he wasn’t entirely sure how he was going to deal with, if he was perfectly honest. “Maybe we should go too…”

As Steven ran out towards the nearest cluster of trees closest to the restaurant, he let out one of the several sobs he had been holding in ever since Garnet had first split up. And yet, in reality, it was likely a sob that he had been holding in much longer than that, since Pearl’s deception against Garnet was uncovered, since the Gems had recovered their lost memories. Since he had ruined the tight-knit bond between his guardians by uncovering those apparently bitter memories in the first place.

It was hardly a new thought for the young Gem, the realization that all of the tension and grief that had been transpiring between the Gems as of late was entirely his fault, but as he faced that thought now, it was perhaps the most painful it had ever been. Because Steven knew that if he had never found that memory tube, if he had never reunited the Gems with echoes of the past that were clearly better left forgotten, then certainly none of this would have happened. Certainly, Pearl wouldn’t have felt the need to heal her own pain by tricking Garnet into forming Sardonyx. Certainly, Ruby and Sapphire wouldn’t have split apart and their usually strong relationship wouldn’t have crumbled apart as a result of this schism. Certainly, the Crystal Gems would still be the strong, healthy, inseparable group Steven had always known them to be if it wasn’t for him, for his meddling, for his reckless need to fix his mother’s massive mistakes. True, he had given them back their lost memories. But what he had taken from them in doing so was something arguably even more important than those memories altogether: their unity.

And the worst part of it all was, that unlike their memories, that precious, missing unity was something he hadn’t the faintest idea about how to restore to them whatsoever.

“Steven!” the young Gem’s mournful musings were interrupted by a simultaneous cry, one that came from Ruby and Sapphire as they hurried out of the diner to find him. Greg and the others weren’t too far behind, but unlike the Gem couple, they lingered back, knowing that this wasn’t really their place to intervene considering how poorly their previous attempts had turned out.

With another harsh sob, Steven turned to the couple as they approached, not even trying to hide his disappointment and dejection as he instead finally let it all out. “I was so happy when Garnet said she was gonna come on this trip with us!” he began sharply yet still sadly. “Home’s been awful. Here’s been awful! I thought you wanted to have a fun time but… everyone’s been acting awful too! I-it just came with us! I don’t understand!” He let out a deep breath, one that really didn’t do anything to calm him down as he instead looked to the ground in tearful guilt. “Is… is it me? Is it because I found your memories? B-because… I thought that would make things better, that you guys getting your memories back meant that you wouldn’t be so lost and confused anymore. But I was wrong. It only made things worse. I only made things worse…”

“No!” Ruby readily exclaimed, catching the morose young Gem off guard. “Steven, you didn’t make anything worse! It was all us!”

“Steven, you returned something very important to all of us when you found our memories,” Sapphire assured, her tone shaken, yet serious. “Something that we’ve been missing for years. True, what we saw was… unexpected, but what’s been happening isn’t your fault. It’s…” The blue Gem trailed off, pausing for a moment as she looked down with dawning shame and realization before looking to Ruby with a soft gasp. “It was us…”

“Wait, wait, wait!” Both Steven and the Gem couple were caught off guard upon hearing Greg, who was suddenly quite alarmed as he stood alongside the other kids, taking on the phone to someone. “Slow down, Mr. Pines. You’re where?!”

Before Stan could explain, Greg put his phone on speaker so that everyone could hear his concerning, but oddly enough not very urgent message. “I’m sorta… tied up at the moment… literally,” Stan said, keeping his phone pressed to his shoulder as his hands were pinned in the web cocoon he was entangled in courtesy of Darlene. “Turns out the lady tried romancing to show Thing 1 and Thing 2 up is actually one of those spider people. But beyond that, the date’s been ok.”

“Wait, what?” Dipper asked with apt surprise upon hearing this.

“Oh no! Grunkle Stan!” Mabel cried with fretful concern.

“To be fair, I tried to warn him,” Sapphire remarked, having anticipated this turn of events all along.

“Yeah, it was weird,” Stan remarked, still largely not too apparently worried about his current plight. “One minute we’re having the perfect date, and the next minute, she’s growing extra legs and encasing me in webbing. Women, right?”

“You couldn’t tell she was a spider?” Connie asked rather incredulously.

“Hey, I was blinded by flattery!” Stan exclaimed defensively as he repositioned his phone. “Also, the acid she spit in my face. Anyway, I’m up at the mountain at Widow’s Peak.”

“Uh, o-ok, we’re on our way, Mr. Pines!” Greg assured, though he was rather anxious about the idea of facing off against a spider person. “Stay put!”

“…I don’t really have much of a choice, Greg,” the conman deadpanned, glancing down at his web-encased body that was essentially stuck to the floor of Darlene’s spider cave.

“Alright, kids, looks like we better go save Mr. Pines before he gets eaten by that evil spider lady,” Greg said to the kids before pausing for a brief beat. “Huh. Well there’s something I never thought I’d say.”

Not wasting time on any further deliberation, Greg and the kids hurried off to the nearest trail, hoping to rescue Stan before it was too late. Ruby was the first to follow after them, knowing that she was obligated to help since the conman had indirectly gotten himself into this mess because he had been trying to prove a point to her and Sapphire. However, before she could really go anywhere, Sapphire suddenly stopped her by unexpectedly grabbing her hand.

“R-Ruby, wait,” the blue Gem sighed, glancing down with clear remorse. “I-I-”

“Hey, i-it… it’s ok,” Ruby assured, her tone calmer than it had been since they had split up as she placed a tentative hand over her partner’s. “We’ll, uh… we’ll figure all this out when we get back, alright?”

Sapphire hesitated, rather caught off guard by how Ruby wanted to talk things out instead of projecting her anger as she had been all this time. Still, she knew that now wasn’t the time for such discussion; now was the time for action. “R-right…” she nodded, her voice quiet as she hurried after the red Gem. Both of them still could feel the unsteadiness between them, an unsteadiness that was unfamiliar and unwelcome given how open and close they usually were. But at the very least, this newfound armistice between them was something, even if it was really nothing more than just a start.

No sooner had Stan gotten off the phone with Greg than the phone itself was snatched out of his hand by a sudden burst of sticky webbing from Darlene. The spider woman caught the phone squarely, her upper half still in her prior human guise though her lower half was completely spider-like, complete with eight legs, a thorax, and all. Even so, she seemed to be quite satisfied with her latest “catch” as she skittered forward, sending Stan a triumphant grin all the while.

“Tryin’ to escape, huh?” she asked, raising a knowing eyebrow before she ultimately tossed the phone to the ground, breaking it.

“You tricked me!” Stan shot back harshly. “I’m 80% certain you don’t really love me at all!”

“Ha!” Darlene laughed coldly. “Men will fall for anything. ‘Oh, you’re so funny, great story, I love a man with shoulder hair!”

“Y-you didn’t mean it about my shoulder hair?” the conman asked, genuinely offended.

“Tell me, Stan,” Darlene ignored him as she stepped a bit closer. “Before I transformed, who’d you think was in charge here? You, with your cheesy pickup lines and your ‘knack’ for ‘romance’? Please. I’m the master pickup artist here, so sorry, toots! This time you’re getting used for your body! Which, to my weird species, is food. Allow me to slip into something more horrifying.” At this, Darlene used her frontmost legs to pull the remains of her human skin down, unveiling her frighteningly grotesque, full spider form, much to Stan’s apt alarm.

“A-aw, geez, all I wanted to do was show two annoying, tiny lovebirds up!” the conman exclaimed fearfully, cringing as he watched Darlene maneuver her mandibles hungrily.

“Well ya should have thought twice before you decided to get tangled up with me,” Darlene goaded smugly before fortunately turning away. “Now, I wonder what beverage pairs well with a vintage 70-something old man? Be right back!” she called, heading deeper into the cave and leaving Stan on his own, as completely trapped and vulnerable as ever.

“Please,” the conman began, glancing up pleadingly. “I don’t know if you’re really up there or not, but if you are… please save me, Paul Bunyan!”

“Mr. Pines!”

“Whoa, did that actually work?” Stan jolted as this unexpected voice called out for him, only to spot Greg, the kids, Ruby, and Sapphire all rush into the cave to rescue him. With a steady battle cry, Grenda rammed into the conman, freeing him from the stalk of webbing holding him in place.

“I realize now might not be the best time to say I told you so,” Sapphire remarked to Stan as stoically as ever. “But-”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it,” Stan rolled his eyes in exasperation. “The last thing I need right now is you grilling me. Or, uh, I guess… icing me? Ugh, forget it.”

“Uh, t-that spider woman isn’t anywhere around here, is she?” Greg asked nervously as the kids worked on freeing Stan from the rest of the webbing.

“No, but she will be if we don’t hurry and hightail it outta here already!” the conman exclaimed, haphazardly picking himself up off the ground and leading the way out of the cave. And the group made it out just in time too as they slipped out right as Darlene happened to notice that her hostage had been freed.

“No!” the spider woman shouted, skittering out of the cave on all eight of her thin legs. “Get back here!”

Knowing that Darlene would be hot on their tails, the group rushed for what they unanimously assumed would be the quickest way down the mountain: the sky tram.

“Quick! Everyone get on!” Candy shouted, making it to the tram first as everyone crowded into one of its cars.

“Haha! Yes!” Mabel cheered once they were all safely onboard.

“Ride like the wind, sky tram!” Stan exclaimed, glancing out the window in the hopes that Darlene wasn’t chasing them. However, instead of the tram zooming down the line to the bottom of the mountain as they had hoped, it instead began to crawl down it at speeds that were almost painfully slow.

“Welcome to Trambiance,” the tram’s built in recorded greeting announced in a calm voice, completely contrasting to the current situation. “The world’s slowest tram ride. Enjoy the sights at 0.1 miles per hour.”

“Ugh! Move! Move! Move!” Grenda shouted, slamming her foot down on the floor of the tram in an attempt to make it move.

“Seriously? Can’t this thing go any faster?” Dipper asked anxiously.

“No, it can’t,” the recording answered almost knowingly. “This is Trambiance.”

“Uh, i-it looks like she’s coming!” Connie exclaimed fearfully as she pointed out the window to Darlene, who had already hopped onto the tram line and was jumping from tram to tram, searching for the one containing her missing prey.

“Enjoying the view?” the recording asked innocently as the tram line rocked violently. “Take a picture!”

“We’re doomed!” Stan shouted, his eyes wide as he spotted Darlene drawing dangerously close to their tram.

“No we’re not!” Ruby growled, her hands in tight fists as she looked around the tram. “Cause I got a plan. But uh…” The red Gem trailed off, her confidence dissipating as she glanced over at her partner almost anxiously before she continued. “Sapphire, I-I… I know you think I don’t know a lot compared to you, but… I-I need you to trust me on this one and help me. Y-you know… if you want to…”

“Oh, Ruby…” Sapphire sighed, her manner rather sad and remorseful as she briefly glanced down. For a moment, it looked as though the blue Gem wanted to say quite a bit to her partner, but of course, given the dire straits they were currently all in, such sentiments would have to wait. “O-of course, I trust you. And I know your plan is going to work. So, what do you need me to do?”

Ruby offered Sapphire a warm, thankful smile at this, glad for the confidence and support that she hadn’t really felt from her in quite some time. But of course, despite how happy she was with it, the red Gem was quick to focus her attention back on the matter at hand. “I need you to freeze the box connecting the tram to the rail until it breaks off,” she began, her tone firm and steady. “I’ll keep 8-legs out there busy while you do. Everyone else, hold on! Things are about to heat up.”

With a smirk, Ruby summoned her gauntlet, punching through the nearest window just as Darlene launched herself towards the tram. She didn’t get far though, as before she could land, the red Gem lashed out, a bust of intensely hot flames flying out of her first and towards the spider woman with great speed. Though Darlene maundered out of its path and landed on another tram instead, she failed to notice the thick layer of frost that had begun coating the connector box on the tram. Sapphire maintained her focus well, even as everyone else was panicking around her as the tram shook from Ruby sending out wave after wave of fire at Darlene in the hopes of keeping her repelled. Few of her flames hit their mark, but that wasn’t exactly the intention anyway. At most, they were a simple distraction while Sapphire worked away at freezing the connector, and, sure enough, it began to crumble under the intensity of the cold being pressed upon it. With a simple nod from the blue Gem, Ruby let up, allowing Darlene to finally make her approach and land squarely on top of the tram car, only for it’s frozen connector to finally give way with her added weight pressed upon it.

Everyone inside the tram did their best to maintain a hold on anything they could as the car itself began rolling down the side of the mountain roughly, Darlene following not too far behind. As it neared the bottom, Ruby and Sapphire both reacted accordingly, with the red Gem using a burst of strong flame to launch the car one last time while the blue Gem created a sizable snow drift for it to land in. Fortunately, the car hit its mark, the soft snow cushioning its otherwise abrupt landing as it barreled into the Paul Bunyan statue near the parking lot. In one last ditch attempt to recapture her pray, Darlene shot a string of web at the now still tram car, only for the large statue to end up falling squarely on top of her right as she zoomed by it. The spider woman let out a surprised cry as the statue’s foot pinned her down, and despite her best efforts to wriggle free from its firm hold, she found that she was ultimately unable to do anything to escape from under it.

“Augh! My only weakness! A giant boot!” Darlene grumbled in defeat. “A giant newspaper or a giant cup would’ve also been pretty bad.”

After making sure no one was injured from the fall, everyone climbed out of the fallen tram car, tumbling through the snow drift and back onto solid ground as the recording offered one final farewell. “Thank you for riding Trambience sky tram. Tell your friends it was a boring, boring ride!”

“You guys, that was amazing!” Steven exclaimed to Ruby and Sapphire, stars in his eyes. “The way you two worked together back there, I gotta admit, it… it was really nice to see that again.”

“Yeah, who knew you guys could kick just as much butt apart as you can when you’re fused?” Mabel asked with a wide smile.

“Eh, it wasn’t that great,” Stan deadpanned, hands on his hips until Greg gave him a bit of a prompting elbowing. “Ow! Uh, I mean… I guess I was wrong about the whole ‘relationship’ thing I was going on about earlier. Not that you two would know much more than I do though, what with all that all that yelling and magic you’ve been tossin’ at each other all day.”

“Uh, Grunkle Stan, I’m pretty sure its safe to say that Ruby and Sapphire know more about relationships than most people do,” Dipper remarked somewhat sardonically, to which Stan only let out a disbelieving scoff to.

“Actually… no…” Sapphire interjected, holding her hands close as she frowned morosely. “He’s right. We… we really don’t know much about keeping a healthy relationship. Or… at least I don’t…”

“S-Sapphire?” Ruby asked, suddenly concerned as she took a step closer to her partner.

“I can’t believe how blind I was this whole time…” the blue Gem said, her voice almost a whisper as she shook her head in shame. “I couldn’t even see what was right in front of me. W-we made Steven feel like… like this was all his fault…” Steven frowned as he heard this, though he didn’t interrupt, instead opting to listen with apt concern as Sapphire continued, her voice starting to choke up with clearly oncoming tears, especially as she finally looked over to Ruby. “I keep looking into the future, when all of this has already been solved… a-as if it doesn’t matter how you feel in the present.” By this point, a few of the blue Gem’s tears had already started to fall, streaking right down the center of her face as she let out a guilty sob that she was unable to suppress any longer. “No wonder you think I don’t care!”

For a moment, Ruby was starkly silent, her eyes wide as she took in her lover’s distress with growing panic that quickly rose to the surface the moment Sapphire started crying. “No no no no no!” she exclaimed, shaking her head frantically. “This is all my fault! I-I didn’t want to look for a solution! I just wanted to be mad! Y-you’re right, you’re always right! I was just being stupid-”

“I don’t think you’re stupid!” Sapphire quickly countered, deeply upset by even voicing such a ludicrous thought at all.

A beat of unsteady silence followed after this, but when Ruby finally broke it, her voice was small, soft, perhaps even a bit sad as she finally reached out to touch her distraught lover gently. “I… I’m sorry…” she whispered, brushing the bangs out of Sapphire’s face to reveal the source of her mournful tears: a large, singular, light blue eye in place of where two would normally be. And while the kids were somewhat surprised to see this, to Ruby, this sight was perhaps one of the most beautiful she had ever had the privilege of seeing as many times as she had before.

“You honestly think I’m not upset about what happened?” Sapphire asked just as gently, her tears still streaming down from her lone eye until Ruby slowly wiped it away. “I was just… trying to do the right thing…”

“I know…” Ruby admitted as Sapphire pressed her hand against her own, letting out a small, but comforted sigh as she did. Silence lingered between the pair for a bit, one that was filled with regrets that were finally starting to lift as they at long last started to reach an understanding. It was true that the pain of the past few days had left them both in quite a painful spot, but now more than ever, they both knew that the only way they could move past such profound pain was by doing what they always did: standing together. And perhaps, through their support, through their solace, through they love, they could go on. After all, even though they were as different as fire and ice, they belonged together. They always had, and they always would, and no amount of restored memories or deceptive betrayals could ever change that fact. “You know what’s nice about being split up?” Ruby asked a moment later, a small, almost coy smirk slowly appearing on her face.

“W-what?” Sapphire asked, somewhat concerned, though by this point her tears were mostly gone.

“I get to look at you,” Ruby grinned fully, not even bothering to hide her flirtatious manner whatsoever.

“Pfft, be serious!” Sapphire laughed, pushing her lover away from her playfully, though Ruby was quick to pull her right back into a fond embrace.

“There’s my Laughy Sapphy!” the red Gem exclaimed happily, joining her partner in a warm, welcome gale of laughter.

“Shh! You’re embarrassing me in front of the kids!” Sapphire blushed deep blue, stealing a glance over at said kids, who were all still watching this exchange with apt intrigue. While Steven, Dipper, and Connie looked away upon this mention in slight flusterment, Mabel, Candy, and Grenda were all more than eager to watch the admittedly adorable interactions between the Gem couple, especially as Ruby took things in an even more romantic direction.

Without warning, the red Gem hoisted her lover up into her strong arms, eliciting a surprised, but delighted gasp from Sapphire, who laughingly accepted every single gentle kiss Ruby peppered across her cheek and neck. This bout of playful affection continued between the pair even as everyone else decided to give the couple their privacy, though not without complaint in some instances.

“Ugh, geez, get a room already,” Stan remarked dryly, though his comments were largely unheard by the still-cuddling couple.

“Well, what do you know?” Connie remarked to the other kids with a small smile. “It looks like they really did work things out after all.”

“And its all thanks to us being a bunch of awesome love experts!” Mabel concluded with ample satisfaction.

“Love experts! Love experts!” Grenda cheered in boisterous support.

“Uh, I’m pretty sure what just happened here had basically nothing to do with us,” Dipper remarked, crossing his arms. “But if you wanna keep thinking that, then I guess nothing’s stopping you.”

“Well, I don’t care how it happened, I’m just glad to see those two finally getting along again…” Steven said with a tired, but relieved smile. “And who knows? Maybe this means things really will start to get better back home after all…”

The other kids all offered the young Gem a round of reassuring smiles at this, though they were soon interupted as Greg joined them, having just emerged from the diner. “Well, I paid for brunch,” he reported. “…And the damage to the booth… As for that tram car, well…”

“Who said anything about paying for that?” Stan interjected with a scoff. “We’re here to prank this place, remember? Not pay for damages and tell them to ‘have a nice day’ like a bunch of armatures would.”

“…A-anywho…” Greg continued after a beat of awkward silence. “I think I’m all vacationed out. Anyone else ready to call it a day and head home?”

The kids prepared to answer this, but before they could, they were suddenly distracted by a bright, familiar burst of light nearby, one that signaled the return of a fusion that they had all sorely been missing. “Not before we get our free ice,” Garnet grinned as she stood tall and confident once more, no signs of Ruby and Sapphire’s unsteadiness or disagreement remaining as the usual harmony between them had returned in full force.

“Garnet!” the kids all exclaimed in excited unison, running up to embrace the Gem leader, who accepted them with a warm, amused hug. The levity of the moment was short lived however, as Darlene interupted from her spot still pinned underneath Paul Bunyan’s large wooden boot.

“Staaaaaany!” she called to the conman, pulling her human guise back over her upper half as she offered him a flirtatious wave. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what came over me! You’ll let me out, right?”

“What? After all that?” Stan asked harshly. “Seriously, do I look like an amnesiac?”

“Ha! You’re so funny!” Darlene falsely complimented, pulling her pickup tricks on the conman once again. “Have you ever considered becoming a comedian?”

“You know, actually I have!” Stan grinned proudly, falling for the bait. “Comedy is too subtle these days. My style involves more over-sized props. Here, let me get you out from there and-”

Fortunately, the kids managed to pull the conman away from the spider woman just before he could foolishly release her, even as she reverted back into her full spider form and reached out to take a bite out of him. “Oh yeah, right,” Stan said stiffly, remembering just how dangerous Darlene was, even despite her fake womanly wiles.

“You win this round, Stan!” the spider woman growled in angry disappointment. “But mark my words: as long as there’s men like you out there, with their dumb one-liners and pickup moves, I’ll never run out of prey!”

“Mm, actually, I think you will,” Garnet interjected, crossing her arms knowingly. “After all, Stan only fell for your tricks because he’s really gullible.”

“Hey!” Stan exclaimed hotly, sending the Gem leader an offended glare. “You know, I kinda liked it better when you split up. At least then you two were too busy ragging on each other to get on my case.”

“Well sorry to disappoint you, Stan,” Garnet remarked with a hint of a wry smirk, one that grew into a genuine smile as she glanced down to Steven, who was still happily hugging her leg in lieu of her long-awaited return. “But I don’t plan on going anywhere for a long time.”

Though the ride was rather lengthy, the group ended up making it back to Gravity Falls before the sun even sank over the distant hills. After dropping Connie, Candy, and Grenda off at their respective homes, Stan did the same for Steven, Greg, and Garnet as he let them off at the base of the temple hill. After waving goodbye to the Pines, the trio headed up to the house, Garnet toting the bag of ice they had gotten from Mystery Mountain as Steven happily hung in between her and his father, genuinely glad to home now that he carried the belief that things would, in time, start to fix themselves. And really, that was all the young Gem could really hope for.

“We’re home!” Steven proclaimed as they burst into the house. Pearl and Amethyst both happened to be in the living room, carrying on a rather low-tone, serious conversation that came to an abrupt end as soon as the door opened.

“O-oh! You’re back!” Pearl exclaimed, somewhat startled as Amethyst removed her hand from her knee to wave at Steven and Greg. “Uh… y-you look like you all had fun!”

“Yeah!” Steven said with a smile of clear relief. “Everything worked out!”

Pearl prepared to say something more, though she stopped short upon noticing Garnet step inside behind Steven and Greg, her expression largely neutral as she began to make her way over to the temple gate. “Um… G-Garnet, how are you?” the white Gem asked, her tone anxious and tentative.

However, unlike before, the Gem leader didn’t simply ignore her. Rather, she put a calm hand up, pausing briefly as she spoke authoritatively, but fortunately, not angrily either. “Not now,” was all she said before she disappeared into the temple, leaving Pearl rather shocked by this exchange, however short it was.

“S-she… she’s speaking to me again…” the white Gem mused in both surprise and relief. “Well, kind of…”

“You know, that really was a great trip,” Greg grinned as he placed a hand on his son’s shoulder.

“Can we go back?” Steven asked eagerly, excited stars in his eyes.

“Uh, maybe one day… but not to that diner!” Greg paused for an awkward beat, knowing that they had all been effectively banned from that diner thanks to the destruction Ruby had caused. Not that he had any intentions of telling Steven that. “Oh boy…”

“This trip was so much fun!” Mabel exclaimed as the RV neared the Mystery Shack. “We gotta do it again sometime, complete with the pranks, the inn, Ruby and Sapphire, and heck, even the evil spider people!”

“Eh, leave the spider people outta it and I’m down,” Stan remarked with a shrug.

“You know, I still feel a little bad about wrecking all those tourist traps,” Dipper said somewhat apprehensively.

“Ah, come on,” Stan said with an unconcerned wave of his hand. “Everyone loves my pranks! And the best part is, I never have to face any consequen—SWEET LORD!”

The RV came to a screeching halt as they arrived back at the shack, only to find that it was in the midst of being completely ransacked by the proprietors of the tourist traps they had just pranked. Toilet paper was streamed all across the building, and several rather rude tags had been left on just about ever surface with spray paint. In their round of destruction, they had even ended up shattering several windows and defacing the shack’s signage by removing several of its letters entirely so that it read ‘Mr. Hack’, no doubt a direct dig intended for Stan himself.

“Oh come on!” the conman shouted fretfully as he jumped out of the RV, the twins following not too far behind. “I just got this place fixed up from the last time it got destroyed!”

Upon realizing that they had been caught in the act, the other tourist trap owners quickly began to flee, their work already completed as they all laughed triumphantly at Stan’s misfortune. Still, to add insult to injury, one of the owners used their baseball bat to quickly smash the headlights of the nearby RV out, much to Stan’s continued surprise.

“That’s what you get!” the owner shouted fiercely before following the others off into the woods. “That’s what you get!”

“I don’t understand!” Stan exclaimed to the kids, looking over the absolutely ruinous state the Mystery Shack was now in. “I completely don’t deserve this!”

Of course, matters were only made worse when Ford happened to emerge from the shack, apparently unaware of the damage done to his home as he instead greeted his family casually enough. “Oh, you’re all finally back,” he said, offering the twins a brief smile though he didn’t really bother to do the same for Stan. “Strange, for a moment I thought you had returned earlier since I heard some sort of odd banging noise a while ago, but I just figured it was-” The author sharply cut himself off upon stealing a glance at the shack behind him, one that was more than enough to shock and enrage him all at once. “Stanley!” he shouted, correctly placing the blame for this disaster.

“Kids, get back in the RV,” Stan said starkly, already pushing the twins in that direction so he could avoid Ford’s very obvious fury.

“Grunkle Stan, wha-” Mabel attempted to ask before the conman quickly interupted.

“RV, now!” he ordered again, rushing into the camper before the author could catch him.

“Stanley, no!” Ford yelled hotly, even as Stan put the RV into reverse and began peeling backwards into the woods in what was, by all accounts, yet another daring escape. “Get back here and explain the meaning of this mess immediately! Stanley!”

“Aw, geez…” Stan muttered to himself, glancing out the side view mirror to see that Ford was angrily running after him, intent on making him answer for the destruction done to his home. “I wonder if its too late to go back to Mystery Mountain and have Darlene eat me. It’d be better than having to deal with this, that’s for sure…”

 Next: 

[parf-fan]

2018 in-house shows posted!

Once more, no mention on their facebook page or in their emails, but I suppose that’s what I’m here for.  If you go to PARF’s website, you’ll find that the list of in-house shows has at last been updated for this season.  I took the liberty of copy-pasting it all here nonetheless.

King’s Court King Henry and Queen Catherine host the visiting king and queen of France. Never before have so many monarchs gathered upon a Mt. Hope stage! Will the Master of Revels, Sir Walter Roderick Kensington, be up to the task of entertaining four royals? Join them at the Endgame stage, and watch the saga of the Field of Cloth of Gold commence!

(I am so pleased that they specifically mentioned the question of whether Sir Walter will be able to cope with four monarchs.)

Human Chess King Henry and King Francis, in the spirit of friendly competition, have agreed to match wits in a game of Human Chess. All the denizens of Mt. Hope, from lowly peasants to noble knights, will take the board as members of the kings’ armies. But as the ring of steel fills their ears, and the thrill of battle heats their blood, will the contest stay friendly for long?

(I didn’t read the above description, for it undoubtedly contains what would count as spoilers to me.)

Ultimate Joust

As the sun sets upon Bosworth Field, four knights will meet in mounted combat, as a crowd of thousands looks on. Come and cheer for your favorite knight; thrill to the pounding hooves and the clash of steed and steel. Join the royal court and all the villagers of the Shire, in the epic Ultimate Joust that has made Mt. Hope famous.

(I didn’t read the above description, for it undoubtedly contains what would count as spoilers to me.)

Finale in Song

As the festival day draws to a close, the town gathers for a final celebration of song, dance, and laughter. Join King Henry and Queen Catherine, along with King Francis and Queen Claude of France, and the entire town of Mt. Hope, in a village event that reveals the very heart of the Shire.

(I didn’t read the above description, for it undoubtedly contains what would count as spoilers to me.)

Grand MacGuffin Melee Good Master MacGuffin has not had much luck with his establishment. It seems like every new business venture he tries always winds up in a massive brawl. But this time, he has decided to attract a fancier sort of clientele. Come attend the grand opening of MacGuffin’s Gallerie of Fine Arte. With such a high-class aspiration, what could possibly go wrong?

(I’d finished reading this before I registered that it was for a show I consider storyline, and therefore didn’t want spoilers for.  That said, this can only end well.)

Disasterpiece Theatre The Master of Revels, Sir Walter Roderick Kensington, has assembled the shire's best performers (who had nothing else going on at the time) to delight our guests with a masterpiece on the stage. They present a different modern story with a 16th century twist every weekend; and of course when Sir Walter tries to get something done-- anything that can go wrong will go wrong. It will truly be a Disasterpiece!

(As soon as I’d read the title and the fact that the description starts with naming Sir Walter, I was already dying with laughter.  I am so glad that character and his particular style of overwroughtness managed to become so iconic.  This promises to be fantastic.  I predict that they will definitely adapt Mean Girls, if nothing else.  I also vote for an adaptation of Newsies.  Les Mis would be great, but I dunno that that counts as “modern”, and it’s also a little long, ya kno?)

Bloody Best Attend the tale of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, He Who Would be King of Scotland. ‘Tis forty minutes of brutal combat, murder most foul, and disturbingly comic violence. And blood. There will be blood.

(B l o o d y B e s t i s t h e S c o t t i s h P l a y.  Which should be interesting, because the entirety of the grounds count as a theatre, and it’s only safe to name the play if it’s in the script.  So what if someone tries to interact with the performers regarding the contents of Bloody Best after the show is over?  Would improvised interaction be close enough to keep them safe?  Or will it call down the curse if they are forced to utter it in that circumstance?  And if the latter is true, will they then be able to get to the edge of the grounds / the gate into the performer-only area [that is, leave the theatre] in time to be able to perform the ritual to lift the curse?  Most importantly, am I cruel enough to put this to the test?)

The Sirens The pirate crew of the Relentless Contessa is out for blood and gold...on any other normal day, but today, they are taking a break to demonstrate their fierce musicality, daring boldness, and filthy pirate jests!

(THE SIRENS ARE PYRATES THIS TIME AT LAST FINALLY YESYESYES I HAVE BEEN WANTING THIS FOR YEEEEAAAARRRRS!!!) (No Bloody Shame [THE BLOODY SHAME!] though. I’m sad.)

The Rakish Rogues What happens when two French Nobles and two English Nobles are employed by Their Majesties to entertain the masses? They don't know either! Watch these charming nobles sing revelrous songs and regale you with rowdy vulgarities.

(After years of the Rogues being in some of the more lightweight outfits, their day of reckoning has finally come.  Boys, welcome to the excessively  heatstroke-laden life of a noble.)

The Irish Revels The three Eugenia Sisters, proprietors of The Wild Rose Inn, are celebrating the return of their father by reassembling the family band. Join them for rousing Irish folk music and quirky family values.

(THE IRISH REVELS ARE RETURNING THE IRISH REVELS ARE RETURNING THE IRISH REVELS ARE RETUUUURNIIIIINNNNNG!!!!!) (Yo, the MacGuffin Stables and Tavern has competition!)

Friday Knights Come see our Improv Track perform feats of mental, verbal, and physical agility for your entertainment! Presented in 2 acts, the first half is a competition of comedy as 2 teams face off against each other in "Whose Line..." style improv games hoping to earn the laughs and love of our audience judges. Then, after the intermission, both teams come together to perform a completely improvised musical based on the audience's suggestion!

(Quite pleased this is back.  Rest assured I shall actually attend this time.)

Neighborhoods Kings and Queens are great and all, but what do the average citizens of Mount Hope do on a festival day? Seek out these interactive stories that you can get involved in all over the shire to find out! Provide your expert opinion at a Town Hall Meeting; help track and arrest a wanted thief (or help the thief escape!). Get involved in the happenings of Mount Hope and influence the lives of its inhabitants at these scenarios found not on stages, but in the neighborhoods all around the shire.

(So.... literally exactly what it’s always been.  It’s just listed here this time.)

Music with Their Majesties Take a break with Their Majesties, as they demonstrate Their musical merits and host the best of entertainment from the realm.

(!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Robin Hood You think you know the story of Robin Hood? You've probably never heard it like our Apprentice of Revels and her rag-tag team are going to tell it to you.

(........ Apprentice of Revels?  There’s a Apprentice of Revels now?  Sir Walter has a hecking apprentice this year!  I’m like really really hyped about this character’s existence.  For some reason, my mom is convinced this role is gonna be played by Katie Markey.)

Finale Dumb Show Have you missed every Plot Show during the Faire day? Did you not even know there WAS a plot? Arrive to the Globe Stage 15 minutes before Finale In Song to catch up on what happened in the silliest way possible!

(I am left with a deep-seated happiness over the Dumbshow’s return.  But they wrote it wrong.  I have it from the actors, it is oNE WORD!)

The Legend of One-Eyed Willy The Cabin Boy of the "Relentless Contessa" has been tasked with finding more members for the ship's Pirate Crew. Come join his crew, and witness the tale of the most feared pirate to ever sail the seven seas! Presented by The Mount Hope Players!

(was One-Eyed Willy aboard the original Bloody Shame [THE BLOODY SHAME!]?  That wold be a good reason to fear them.)

King's Cavalry Join the Master of Revels and The Lady Mayor for some literal horse-play on the chessboard directly before our Human Chess match! Bring your nipperkins so that they may join the King's Royal Mounted Cavalry!

(Everybody who, like me, attends King’s Cavalry because they went to Chess early to secure good seats, Y’ALL BETTER FUCKIN’ CLAP AND CHEER FOR THOSE KIDS, I SWEAR!)

King Arthur: The Legend of Murray Everyone knows that King Arthur was the Wizard Merlin's greatest apprentice, but did you know Merlin had another apprentice after Arthur? Come experience the tale of Merlin's OTHER apprentice: Murray!

(I’m gonna have to figure out how to make this fit with the canon of BBC’s Merlin, friggin’ fantastic.)

Is... is there no Tournament Joust this year then, or....