#just another thing to add to the to do list

[lillaydee]

Shhh!!! Part 9

Celebrity!Joel Miller / F Reader

A reluctant celebrity contractor who has closed his heart for love meets a celebrity-hating Cafe on Wheels owner...

She HATES him. Thing is, he couldn't get enough of the coffee she makes...

Tag List:

@kirsteng42 @peelieblue @harriedandharassed @joelalorian @vickie5446 @inept-the-magnificent @maried01 @brittmb115 @peedrow @lovefreylove @jessthebaker

Let me know if you would like to be added/removed from the tag list.

Dividers by the awesome @saradika

Header by Moi cause I learned how to use Canva! Yay me!

WARNINGS: Grumpy Joel (The Last of Us), Protective Joel (The Last of Us), Good Parent Joel (The Last of Us), Joel is Bad at Feelings (The Last of Us), Alternate Universe - No Cordyceps Outbreak (The Last of Us), Joel Needs a Hug (The Last of Us), Celebrity Joel Miller, Fluff and Angst, Eventual Smut, I'm Bad At Tagging, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Tags May Change, Hurt Joel (The Last of Us), Jealousy.

SERIES MASTER LIST

Part 8

Someone’s hammering.

Stop it.

Who was hammering?

It’s early. Fuck. Stop hammering.

Quit it! It’s early.

Was it?

Joel decided to open his eyes. Peek at what was going on. Why was it so bright? Did he leave the lights on?

Fuck… his head.

Who was hammering?

That’s weird. The clock on his wall said 9.30.

Was that right? Was it 9.30?

He sat up, trying to get his brain to stop moving in his head. Quit moving.

There was no more hammering. But there was. What the fuck was going on?

He crawled out of bed, slowly getting himself upright and made his way to the ensuite. He made the mistake of switching the light on in the bathroom, immediately retreating and switching it back off.

Fuck he’s old. Hangovers had never been worse.

The house was quiet when he ventured into the kitchen, still trying to keep his head as still as he could, lest his brain fell out.

“Finally! Good morning!”

“Shhh!!!” he hissed, his shushing vibrating its way into his wobbling brain. “Too loud. Too loud,” he croaked.

Ellie quietly snickered, going into his room, coming back out with sunglasses for her Dad, gently placing them on his nose. “You and Uncle Tommy had fun last night, huh?” she whispered, as she helped him sit on the stool behind the kitchen island. She shuffled about as he held his head in his own arms on the wooden surface, busying herself with the microwave, cringing a little, shushing it when it beeped. She placed a huge mug in front of him, the man immediately taking the mug and thankfully sipping the black liquid his daughter offered. His eyes closed, a silly smile appearing on his lips, and he took a deep breath of satisfaction.

“Sarah went and got you coffee from Lil this morning before work. She predicted you will need it, big time. Guess she was right!”

Joel smiled, thanking Ellie for the coffee, making a mental note to thank Sarah for her thoughtfulness. He took another sip, smiling at the thought that you had made this coffee for him. He should text you and thank you.

“Shit.”

“What?” Ellie asked, pouring the oatmeal she was heating up for him into a bowl, placing the now empty pot in the sink and turning the water on to soak it.

“Lily.”

Ellie smiled, turning to give him the bowl, taking a banana and a knife to add to it.

“What about her?” she asked, a sly smile on her face as she cut the banana for him, getting rid of the peel and opening the cupboard to get the honeypot.

“Did I… talk to her last night?”

Ellie’s head snapped towards him, an excited smile accompanying it. “Did you?”

“I’m asking you.”

“The fuck would I know, I didn’t call her. You did.”

“Did I?”

“I don’t know. Did you or did you not call her?”

“I don’t remember, okay?” he said, rather defensively.

Ellie closed the honey jar, pushing the bowl nearer to him and ran off, coming back with his phone in her hand. She shoved it in his face for some reason, causing him to retreat, almost falling off the stool.

“What are you doing?”

“Getting facial recognition, to unlock your phone.”

“Just do the slidey thing.”

Ellie looked confused, sliding the lock on the phone and voila, it unlocked. The teenager looked at her Dad, disbelieving.

“You don’t lock your phone with anything? No password? No thumbprints? Facial recognition?”

“No, should I?”

“Fuck yeah! What if someone steals the phone, your dick pics are gonna go viral man!”

Joel couldn’t speak. His what was gonna go viral now? He looked at his daughter, taking his sunglasses off, shocked that she would say such things. Ellie noticed.

“Oh, come on, I know men do that. Just in case someone tells them to whip them out and measure.”

“Ellie!” he exclaimed, shocked, and immediately regretted it when his head throbbed. She snickered, telling him to eat and producing two Tylenols as if she was some magician. “I don’t do that, okay? And how is it that you know men do this?”

She shrugged, “I go to school. People talk.”

Oh my God, he thought. How soon can he build a panic room and lock both his daughters in it and not let them out? Was that legal? It was, right? He’d still be a good Dad, right?

She checked his call log, a smile appearing on her face. “Oh yeah, you called her alright,” she said, shoving the much too bright screen on his face again. He shrunk back, putting the sunglasses back on.

Shit. What did he say to you?

“Oh, and you texted her,” she said, scrolling up, her eyes widening. “Did you say you want to kill her?”

What? No he didn’t! He grabbed the phone out of her hand and read the text himself. Oh no. No… No, no, no, no, no. Why? Why oh why did he text you when he was drunk? And he called you. Fuck! What did he say to you?

He gave Ellie his phone back, dropping his head on the counter, spooning his oatmeal into his mouth like that, sulking. How the fuck was he going to face you again?

“What’s wrong?” Ellie asked.

“I don’t remember what I said to her,” he mumbled, mouth full of oatmeal.

“So call her and find out!”

He lifted his head. “What if I was rude to her? What if I said something bad?”

“Well, you drank that coffee, and you’re still alive, so… it’s not poisoned. I’m sure you didn’t. If you did, you’d be dead.”

Good point. Good point. Okay. He’ll call you.

Fuck, what should he say?

“So…” Ellie tried, elbows on the counter, a smirk on her face, “Are we nervous to call her?”

“No…” he said, rather defensively. Too defensively.

“Uhuh…” she deadpanned, “Just like we’re not nervous about asking her to join us for dinner Friday, right?”

Oh! That was it!

“Hey, I asked her about that! I couldn’t text so I called and asked her.”

“And? What did she say?”

Joel thought for a while. Hard. What did you say?

His head hit the kitchen counter again. “I don’t remember,” he mumbled.

Ellie shook her head, patting him on his back, “Well, you think on that. And then let me know if you need to go over the script to ask her what happened on the call, kay?”

Joel took a deep breath, sulking at the prospect of embarrassing himself, yet again, over the phone with you.

Sarah came home to a very antsy father pacing the backyard, his phone in his hand, both hands gesturing as his lips moved, saying something she couldn’t decipher. The last time she saw him doing this was when she was maybe seven or eight? Just before the first DIY segment he did with Uncle Tommy on that morning show. He didn’t need to do this anymore with his lines. Looked at his scripts once and sort of said whatever came close these days – the directors had given up trying to get him to say exactly what they wanted him to say. So that couldn’t be it.

Ellie was sitting on the couch, watching him go through this obviously important process he simply must go through, a bag of chips in her hands.

“What’s going on?”

“He’s rehearsing what to say to Lil when he finds his balls to call her. He did last night, apparently, to ask her about the dinner Friday, but could not, for the life of him remember what he said to her.”

“Oh, yeah, Lil said he was gonna call her back to ask her again – she didn’t want to say yes while he was drunk. In case he didn’t mean to ask her, you know? I told her he was serious. Couldn’t promise her he will call today, he hasn’t had a hangover in years. She said she’ll come,” Sarah said, smiling uncontrollably at her Dad’s obvious nervousness.

“Oh, really? Should we tell him? Put him out of his misery?”

Sarah contemplated for a bit.

“Nah… let him sweat. This’ll be fun to watch.”

Ellie sat a little bit straighter, crossing her legs to watch more closely. Sarah went outside to join her Dad.

“Hey Dad,” she greeted, giving her old man a kiss and a hug.

“Hey BabyGirl. How was work?”

“It was alright. That talkative parrot was back. The owner refused to believe she could really imitate a dog’s bark. I almost suggested a shaman.”

Joel laughed, the parrot in question a regular since Sarah started her internship.

“I was gonna order dinner. What do you feel like having?” she asked her Dad, an innocent look on her face.

“Er… anything you feel like having. I don’t mind. I just have a quick phone call to make,” he said, raising the hand with his phone in it.

“Okay,” she said, turning around to walk inside. “Oh Dad? I’m supposed to remind you to call Lily, she said you called her last night?” She smiled coyly at her suddenly very flustered father, going inside before he could say anything else.

Joel rubbed his face for the hundredth time since he went out to his backyard that evening. Shit. You’re expecting his call. He really had to call now. You’d been waiting for his call.

His heart expanded slightly at the thought that you talked about him when he wasn’t around. That you were waiting for his call. He spent the entire day agonizing whether or not to call you. Would a text be better? But asking someone out, even if it’s not a date - no, it’s not a date, it’s a family thing… with more than just the two of you, so no, not a date – didn’t seem proper, for some reason.

Sarah and Ellie watched with gleeful smiles as their father straightened his posture, wiping his face and dusting some imaginary dust off his shoulder, lifting his phone up, looking at the screen, fixing his hair as he moved his head around a little, brushing his fingers on his moustache and scruff one final time, as if preparing to go on camera, before taking a visible, deep, deep breath and clicking on his screen, lifting the phone to his ear.

“Hello?”

“Lily? Hi, it’s Joel. Miller. Joel Miller. Ellie and Sarah’s Dad?”

Silence. Joel couldn’t hear anything, save for his thundering heartbeats. He looked at his screen, “Hello? You still there?”

You laughed, and Joel swore his heart almost jumped out of his mouth. “Yes, Joel, I’m still here. Why are you introducing yourself to me like I’ve never met you?”

He shut his eyes, shame flooding his system.

“I have no idea. I don’t make this kind of calls a lot,” he said, chuckling slightly.

“And what kind of call would that be?”

He sat down, “The kind where I call to tell the other person I forgot what I said to her last night cause I was too out of it to remember?” he cringed, hoping you wouldn’t be offended.

You snorted, getting sponge cake all over your couch. “You, Mr Miller, is responsible for getting my couch cleaned now. I just sprayed sponge cake all over it.”

“Send me the bill!” he joked easily, a huge, relieved smile on his face. “Is that what you’re having for dinner? Sponge cake?”

“Uhuh,” you mumbled, trying to chew as fast as you could to answer him. “I’m so hungry but I’m too tired to cook, reheat or even wait for food to arrive. Luckily, I have this sponge cake my neighbour gave me last night.”

“You should’ve told me, I would’ve sent something over,” he said, facepalming himself for blurting that out. Who the fuck was he to be sending you food? You’re gonna find him creepy now.

“Well, even if you did, I would’ve gotten full from sponge cake cause whatever you sent me would get here too late.”

Phew. You didn’t find him creepy. What the heck was going on? He talked to you all the time, why was he so nervous? You’re not even here, not even on video. Why the nerves?

“So all this horror of me eating sponge cake for dinner, what are you having for dinner?”

“Uh, I’m not sure, the girls are supposed to do the ordering,” he turned around just in time to see his girls clambering off the couch, Ellie with a huge packet of chips in her hands. “I just eat whatever they order.”

“You do take out a lot? And just to be clear, that’s what I do, can’t cook to save my life.”

He laughed, “I do cook sometimes, simple things. Paid enough attention in my Mama’s kitchen to survive. Had Sarah to cook for. And Tommy too, most of the time.”

“Ah… survival cooking huh?”

“Yep. Only a few poisonings recorded so far, so fingers crossed!” he said, a smile clear in his voice.

You smiled to yourself, swooning internally at this man’s humbleness.

“So how come you’re not cooking today?”

“Uh… Ellie felt like take out,” he quickly said, throwing the teenager under the bus. He couldn’t possibly tell you he spent the entire day trying to come up with the perfect things to say regarding the call he made last night that completely vacated his mind, so much so he forgot to cook. Thank God Ellie was home and ordered lunch.

“So, hangover gone?”

Joel groaned, covering his face with his hand, ashamed to be reminded of it. “Why do hangovers feel so much worse when you’re in your forties? I swear I was dead when I woke up this morning.”

You laughed, “Is my laughing giving you a headache? I’ll stop if it is…”

“No!” he countered, a little too quickly.

Please laugh some more. I need to hear you laugh to breathe.

“Okay.”

Phew.

“So, if you don’t mind reminding me, I know I called you to ask about Friday night. But for the life of me I can’t remember if you answered, or if I even asked you,” he tentatively asked, cringing at himself.

“You did ask me to join you guys for dinner. I didn’t answer, in case you were drunkenly asking? As in you didn’t mean to ask but did because you were drunk?”

“No, I really did mean to ask you. I swear.”

“You said you would get back to me today to prove you were serious.”

“Well, thank God I called you, then. Lily, will you join us for dinner Friday?”

“Are you sure I’m not intruding? Meeting Tommy’s new girlfriend, that sounds private.”

“You’re really not. Please?”

“Do I have to dress up? I mean, are we going somewhere with a dress code? Cause I don’t do that. I don’t… I’m not comfortable with that.”

“No, not at all. I mean, you can dress up if you feel like it, but you don’t have to, I promise.”

You were quiet for a beat.

Please say yes, please say yes, please say yes…

“Okay.”

Joel didn’t realize it, but he shot up so quickly his back creaked. His limbs were involuntarily twitching, threatening to break into moves that were definitely out of character for him. He heard snickering from inside, turning around to see his girls running inside from Sarah’s balcony, the sliding door quickly shut behind them.

Thank God he had enough control to stop from breaking into a dance.

He composed himself, trying hard not to gush.

“Yeah? Okay! Uhm, I’ll pick you up 730?”

“I can Uber, you know.”

“No… let me pick you up, please?”

“Okay.”

No… no, no, no, no, no… Was there not an ounce of hair gel in this house? How was it that he didn’t own hair gel? Shit. He barged out of his room, grabbing his keys, wondering if there was enough time to stop at the store for hair gel. He hated himself at that moment. Why was he such a sloppy man? Would it kill him to have hair gel lying around? Thank God he had deodorant. And damn it, why didn’t he own any colognes? He rummaged through the pantry, looking through the toiletries stock for anything he could use in place of hair gel, cologne, but found nothing.

Sarah came running in, having just arrived home from work, a paper bag in her hands. She went straight for her Dad, just as Ellie came out of her room, still not dressed for the dinner.

“You guys aren’t ready? We’re gonna be late!” Joel panicked, looking at his watch.

“Uh, Joel, chill. It’s 6.20. Dinner’s not ‘til 8.”

Oh.

Sarah pulled a stool out, asking Joel to sit down. She rummaged in the paper bag and pulled out some sort of spray, spritzing some on her palms and running them through his hair, styling them as she did.

“This,” she said, face full of concentration as she ran her fingers in his hair, “Should keep the style, but not make your hair oily or sticky.”

She and Ellie then studied their father, perched nervously on the kitchen stool, head tilted to the side, a small smile on their faces. Joel felt like he was on display, nervously tugging on the dress shirt he had on. Ellie came over, folding the sleeves of his shirt to just below his elbows, taking a step back, looking impressed.

“You clean up really well, Dad,” Sarah said. Ellie nodded. Their faces were… something… unreadable to Joel. Sarah reached into the paper bag once more, taking out a glass bottle, lightly spritzing Joel’s pulse points before telling him he’s ready to go now.

“What about you two?”

“Sarah’s driving us. We need to stop at the store for something,” Ellie said.

“Plus, traffic from Lil’s to the restaurant is not bad, but the traffic to her place from here can be, so you should go now,” Sarah said, pulling him to stand.

Joel stood at the garage entrance for a bit, wondering if he should just wait for the girls.

“Go, Dad, it’s okay. We’ll meet you there.”

Okay, okay. Joel checked his pockets for his wallet, phone and keys, and opened the garage door. He turned to look at the two girls once more, just to be sure.

“Go!”  

Joel finally left, and the girls waited until he backed out of the garage to call their favourite BBQ place for take-out, sly, hopeful smiles on their faces.

Joel’s drive to your place was filled with anxiety. He knew this was not a date, but God was he nervous. Sure, he practically had lunch alone with you almost daily for weeks and had that lunch at the Thai place with you once, but this felt different. He didn’t even look at his usual t-shirts or flannels when getting dressed. He wanted to look good. Not just for you, obviously. Just good… in general.

He got to your place at 7.15, drumming his fingers on his steering wheel, wondering if he should go up to get you, or call you to let you know he was there. He looked at the rearview mirror to check his hair, running his fingers through his scruff just in case, smelling his armpits to make sure he didn’t smell bad. He looked over to the passenger seat, frowning at the piece of paper he saw on the footwell, bending over to get it, a receipt from the take out last week. Shit, he didn’t wash his truck. He chanced a glance at the back seat, an array of folders and notebooks and blueprints and paper bags scattered all over. He jumped out of his truck, going to the back to clear everything out, just managing to hide everything in the bed of his truck when he heard you call his name.

Fuck. Him. Hard.

Joel felt lightheaded. You were smiling at him, walking over in a simple pair of dark jeans and a dark blue blouse, making him curse at himself for choosing this dark grey dress shirt instead of the dark blue one.

“Wow, you clean up nice,” you said, your dimply smile gracing your face, light make up on, your lips a darker shade than your usual blush, your hair free falling over your shoulders.

Joel found himself blubbering, finding the right words to say that would still get his point across without sounding like an idiot. But you reached him before he could, giving him a peck on his cheek as a hello.

It was as if all the vocabularies he had amassed since he was blessed with the ability to speak left his head, and all he could do was mumble something akin to ‘you look beautiful’ out, which he was convinced sounded more like a blurb.

He ran to his passenger side door, offering you his hand to help you get in, and cursed himself as he closed the door and ran to the other side. When he opened his door, the smell of your perfume flooded his senses, and he had to fight the urge to bury his nose in your neck to get a better whiff, as if he was not about to openly swoon at what he was already smelling.

“Last chance to back out, Miller, you sure you want me there?” you teased.

“Yes,” he finally managed to say clearly, “I’m sure. You look really nice, by the way.”

“You already said that,” you told him, gracing him with another smile, “Thank you. At least I don’t smell like coffee tonight.”

Joel had to bite his tongue from saying he liked it when you smelled like coffee. The way your hair smelled when you hugged him goodbye the other day, like coffee mixed with coconut milk, almost made him collapse from swooning.

“Nothing wrong with smelling like coffee,” he said, putting the truck into gear.

“Ahh, see, tell me that when you spend every single day in the truck with me for years, Miller. You’ll never want a cup of coffee again, I promise you that.”

Images of spending his retirement in the truck with you filled his head and wouldn’t leave.

“Lily, Joel, I’d like you to meet Maria,” Tommy beamed. You shook Maria’s hand, and she pulled you into a hug. Tommy leaned across his new girlfriend to kiss you on the cheek. The four of you sat down, Joel finally noticing that the table was for four, and not six.

“The girls called, Sarah’s car wouldn’t start, it’s just us four,” Tommy easily explained before Joel could even ask.

Joel took his phone out to call her, his protective fatherly instinct taking over, but Tommy pushed his hand away. “They’re at home, Joel, it’s not like they’re stuck somewhere. They’ll be fine. Let’s order, huh?”

The four of you chatted easily throughout dinner, Maria getting along with you famously. She worked at one of your father’s chains for a couple of months, she said, minding the till, but never got the chance to try making coffee – she was too new, and left for college soon after. You offered to teach her, if she was interested, just come by the truck, and she happily accepted, excited at a chance to try latte art.

Joel couldn’t stop watching his brother with Maria. He really did seem relaxed, happy, content. Heck, even the fact that he was introducing her to him was a big deal. He had never brought a lady home to meet anyone. And Maria, she seemed nice, very easy going, very friendly, and obviously very patient, if she could stand being in Tommy’s company this long, as short as that may be. But as much as he tried to focus on the main purpose of the dinner, to meet Tommy’s girlfriend, he found himself pulled back to you, how easily you got along with his brother, his girlfriend, how you tried and almost succeeded in teaching him how to use the chopsticks, how easily you included him in the conversations, how comfortable he was with you being there, despite this being a non-date.

He struggled a bit with one particularly slippery piece of sashimi, his efforts to get the piece of salmon between the bamboo sticks without drenching himself in shoyu showing, his tongue sticking out between his teeth. He was about to give up and take the darned fish with his fingers when you reached over, clipped it effortlessly with your chopsticks, dipped it in shoyu and offered it to him, a wide smile on your face. He laughed at himself for his lack of dexterity, taking the salmon into his mouth, giggling a little as you mimed his mouth movements like one would when feeding a child.

Tommy watched with interest as his brother let his guard down, clearly enjoying this time with you. Maria leaned over, quietly asking him if he was sure the two of you were not together already? Tommy raised his eyebrows at her, and the two gave each other knowing smiles, not that you or Joel noticed, as you fed him another piece from your own plate, giggling like schoolgirls as he took the piece from your chopsticks, his face going a bit red as the wasabi hit his senses so hard he almost sneezed. You rubbed his back, asking him if he was okay, and he only laughed, nodding in response.

“Well, well, well, look who we have here, this is very merry,” Angela came sashaying to the table, her typical smile plastered on her face. “Angela Maddison, I’m their agent,” she introduced herself to you and Maria, offering the very tips of her fingers to the both of you, immediately retreating her hand once both of you took it, wiping her fingers at the back of your chair.

“Hey Angela,” Tommy mumbled, “Who are you here with?” he asked, taking a sip of his matcha tea, not at all looking interested in knowing the answer.

It was very odd. This woman was their agent, had been for 20 years, yet their faces snapped shut the moment she made herself known. That little fact was not lost on Maria either, it seemed, she was looking at you with an eyebrow slightly raised.

“Oh, I’m just here with Antonio,” she cooed, turning slightly and waving her pointer finger at a handsome young man at what you assumed was her table. Tommy nodded disinterestedly. Joel glanced at the table, nodding at the young man, before helping himself to a piece of maki off your plate. There was an awkward silence for a beat, Angela still standing there as if expecting an invite to join you, her eyes eyeing Joel’s movements.

Joel made to take an unagi off your plate, and you stopped his chopsticks with yours, letting out an exaggerated gasp, playfully chastising him for trying to steal your favourite piece, the one you were saving for last. He picked it up anyway, dipping it into the shoyu, bringing it to your lips, an apologetic plea, complete with a playful pout on his face, morphing into a smile when you took it into your mouth.

“Well, I’ll see you guys around then, this looks like a fun date night!” Angela finally said, a beaming smile that made you want to cringe on her face. “It was nice to meet you both… erm…?” she said to you and Maria, before seemingly realizing that neither Joel nor Tommy actually introduced you two to her.

“See you around, Angela,” Tommy said with finality in his voice, turning to Joel to ask him something about some neighbour they had growing up, the conversation continuing well after Angela’s sourpuss and footsteps retreated from your table.

The four of you stood in front of the restaurant, chit chatting idly as you waited for the Miller men’s cars to be brought around. You and Maria exchanged numbers. She hugged you goodbye when Tommy’s car was brought around, giving Joel a peck on his cheek, Tommy doing the same to you, before leaving, Maria telling you she will text you about those coffee lessons. The two of you waved them goodbye as you waited for his truck.

“You okay?” he asked you.

“Very full, but otherwise okay,” you replied. “If I fall asleep in your truck you’ll only have yourself to blame.”

“Hey, I tried to steal your sushi but you wouldn’t let me,” he teased, “But if you do fall asleep in my truck, I’d have no choice but to bring you home. I don’t have the heart to wake you if you do. You can sleep in the truck in my garage.”

“Such a gentleman!” you said, hand clutched at your chest, pretending to be touched.

“Hey, don’t knock it ‘til you’ve tried it, it’s got AC and everything!” he joked.

You laughed, hard, the man himself almost bending double laughing with you.

His truck was brought around, and he placed his hand on the small of your back to lead you to it.

“Is that your girlfriend, Joel? Has the elusive Joel Miller finally gotten himself a girlfriend?” a man’s voice asked. You turned to see a phone pointed at you, the flashlight shining in your face. His voice was so loud a group of young ladies walking by stopped in their tracks, their faces morphing into excitement when they saw Joel.

“Oh my God, Joel! We love you! Are you his girlfriend? You’re so lucky! Oh, she’s so pretty!” A chorus of cooing voices followed. You kept your head down, Joel wrapping his arm around you, keeping you close to him so the man’s camera couldn’t capture you, bringing you to his truck. He opened the door for you and helped you up, making sure you were all in before shutting the door behind you, tipping the valet, and getting in himself.

“You okay?” he asked, looking a bit alarmed.

“Yeah, I’m okay, just…”

Your door opened suddenly, the man had followed you, shoving the phone in your face again, loudly asking for your name, if you were Joel Miller’s girlfriend. You tried to pull the door closed again, but he grabbed you by the arm and pulled you out. You fell to the sidewalk, the ladies screaming something or other in unison, yet separately. You pushed the man away, you could just make out the many phones aimed towards you as you tried to get up, the man grabbing your arm roughly again, asking you one more time for your name, and if you were his girlfriend. More hands landed on you, but whose, you didn’t know. The screams from the ladies and the small crowd gathering was lost to you but overwhelming you at the same time as you tried to get away from the man’s firm grasp on your arm, and the other hands on your person.

“Let her go! Get away from her!” you heard Joel yell out, the man pulled away from you so roughly he flew a few feet back onto his ass. The doorman at the restaurant and the valet person held the man, along with some passersby, as Joel lifted you into his arms and deposited you, surprisingly gently, back into his truck, shutting the door, telling you to lock it, before running towards his side of the truck and driving off, his right hand landing on your left one, squeezing it tight, asking you over and over if you were alright.

“Dave dear, be a doll and call my agent for me,” Cleo’s voice rang. Dave took a deep breath as he stilled his movements before carefully folding the silk camisole he had just finished ironing and placing it in the suitcase for the vacation they were going to take, which he now knew was never going to happen.

He padded out of the closet and found Cleo lying on her stomach on her bed, watching some story on Insta with interest.

“Isn’t this that bitch you dumped for me?” she asked him, a sly smirk on her face, showing him her phone. Dave looked at the screen. He watched in horror as some man opened the door to a truck that you were in and pulled you out, only to shove a phone in your face, as the person who took the video and the people around him yelled at the guy to leave you alone, some trying to pull you away from him. He was relieved when you managed to push him away, but his head froze as the guy grabbed you again, rougher this time, not letting you go, screaming at you, asking for your name and if you were dating ‘him’.

He watched as Joel Miller, the man he knew had history with the pap, pulled the man off you, sending him flying back, quickly taking you into his arms, protecting you with his own body, before lifting you back into his truck, yelling at you to lock the door, getting in himself and peeling away.

“Call my agent,” Cleo’s voice snapped him out of the chaos that was the video, the people around cursing at the guy for being physical with you.

“Why?” he asked, Cleo’s smirking face making him feel uncomfortable.

“Would you just do it? Sheesh!” she snapped.

Dave rolled his eyes, dialling the agent before giving her back her phone. “You had your phone in your hand, couldn’t you have just called him yourself?” he asked, knowing exactly why she wanted him to call the guy. She wanted him to know why she was calling. Cleo eyed him as she held the phone to her ear, her eyes shining with malice.

“Hey Tom? Savvant here,” she cooed into the phone. “Can we get in contact with Build with the Millers? I think I need a closet makeover.”

Part 10

[strawwritesfic]

Male!Loki x Female!Light Elf!Reader: With Dying Colors

Summary: Not everyone gets the chance to change their fate. Loki Odinson does so by accident, and finds the place he has been searching for all his life.

Rating/Tags: G (Canon Divergence - Avengers: Infinity War; Not Canon Compliant with Loki; References to Loki's Gender Fluidity; Mild Hurt/Comfort; Mild Language; Florence Nightingale Syndrome; Homesteading; Depressed Thor; Background Platonic Relationships)

Word Count: 11,465

Requester: Anonymous

Request: "Hey could I plz request a Loki fem reader? Loki somehow manages to escape Thanos (cause we’re all still in denial of his death) but gets separated from the rest of the Asgardians on the way to Earth. Severely injured he chances it and uses magic to escape and lands in the forest somewhere. He wakes up in a warm cozy cabin all healed but remembers bits of his time here…being fed, washed and nursed back to healthy [sic] by a woman. Reader is an earth witch/half light elf who was banished for her human side and takes care of him but now he doesn’t want to leave cause he starts falling for her. Coincidentally her forest meets up with the forest near the Avengers Compound so she sends them updates on his health, but she also protects him cause Ross wants him locked away in the Raft. She’s more powerful so no one really dares trespass on her land."

Tag List: @imaginesfire

Notes: Wow, it sure has been, like, half a minute, right? This took me a long, long time to write. I had to add scenes; I had to research homesteading; I had to do some adjustments after discovering I was writing a completely different theme towards the end...I've been working on it so long that my own mother started throwing shade at me for it. I don't know for sure if I'm back-back, but I am making an concerted effort to get back to doing things I love. I did my best to complete every aspect of this request, and I think I managed it in a reasonable fashion, save for not telling the story via flashbacks. As the author, I do have some veto power, and I just didn't think the story warranted that.

Ao3 Version Here

With Dying Colors

Lights. Ever-swirling, ever-flashing, ever-sparkling lights. An array of dancing colors surrounded Loki Odinson. He could see the endless shifting of them even with his eyes squeezed tightly shut. The lights danced around him—no. A more apt description would be that the lights rushed around him. He could feel them all moving so rapidly past him that his long, dark hair blew out behind his head, though there ought not be any wind in space.

If this was dying, death was not so nearly as horrible as he'd feared.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

Upon further rumination, dying was plenty painful. Thanos must have decided crushing Loki's windpipe had not been punishment enough. Now the Mad Titan sought to crack Loki's skull open with Mjölnir. For Odin's sake, Thanos had already cast Loki to the floor like refuse! Must he suffer further indignities before being allowed to pass?

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

Evidently so. The lights having faded into a void of black, Loki pressed his eyelids still tighter as the pain lanced through his head.

—just get it over with already, you overgrown prune, is what Loki intended to say. But he didn't even get the first two words out in understandable form. Trying to do so made him feel as though someone had stuffed his throat with shards of broken glass. A metallic taste filled his mouth, accompanied by some sort of warm liquid. He coughed the molten stuff out from within his burning chest.

"Shhhhhh," someone nearby murmured.

Whoever they were, they weren't Thor. That the voice belonged to a woman made that obvious; Thor had never shared Loki's predilection for swapping genders like clothing. Another of Thanos's monstrous children, perhaps?

Something wet prodded Loki's pounding forehead, and he lurched away—or attempted to. Once again, he found himself with little control over his own body. His shoulders whacked against a hard object that similarly could not be Thor. Even his brother wasn't that flat and unyielding.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

"Oh, for the love of—" the same voice said crossly.

The cool, damp thing near Loki's face vanished. He heard a squelching sound, then rapid footsteps crossing a floor—a distinctly not metal floor.

Bang! Bang! Ba—

A door opened.

"Miss [Name]," barked a new voice—not an Asgardian accent, Loki noted, and belonging to someone wholly unfamiliar to him, "if you don't—"

"I would request that you keep your voice down, Mr. Secretary," said the woman from before, albeit in a much cooler tone than the one she'd used with Loki.

A thump. Boots on wood, if Loki was not mistaken. His head hurt so badly even the softest noise felt like another blow, but he thought he could identify that much. Whoever this man was, he was now in the...room? Home? Escape pod? Loki finally had to know.

Though his eyelids felt welded shut, he pried them open to find himself somehow miraculously no longer aboard either the Statesman or Sanctuary II. Instead, the sight that greeted him was that of a small room. Night dark as pitch pressed against the windows, leaving only a multitude of candles burning on seemingly every surface to light the place. Their trail his eyes followed all the way to a doorway where two figures stood: a pale-skinned biped with a mustache towering over another biped entirely swallowed in shadows.

"And I," said the mustached one, "request that when I summon you, you come to see me. And if I have to come retrieve you, I request that you open the door at once."

"Mr. Secretary, I would remind you that I am under no obligation to follow your 'summons' at all."

"The Accords clearly state—"

"I may have signed your Accords, but I am not one your chess pieces to be moved at your whim. There were provisions put in place for people like me."

"People like you. Not people like him."

The man pointed in Loki's direction without taking his eyes off the woman. Had Loki been able to speak, he might have had a snide response prepared. But he couldn't, and he didn't, and the smaller figure stepped in front of the finger to shove the man's arm down.

"Please try to remember whose territory you are on, Mr. Secretary. Those provisions do allow me to act in self-defense," she said.

"Self-defense! Aiding and abetting more like." The man let out a scornful laugh. "That man is an intergalactically wanted war criminal!"

"Some might say the same of you in the near future, Mr. Secretary." The woman made to step away, but the man reached out to grab her shoulder before she could get very far.

"I have every right to take him into custody," he said.

The woman wrenched her bare, [color]-skinned shoulder out the man's grasp. "He is in no condition to be moved, especially not to your godsforsaken rock. Do you also have the right to watch him die?"

Though the man said nothing in response, Loki could see a mutinous glitter in his eyes despite the flickering candlelight surrounding all three actors in this little drama.

"He won't receive proper medical care at the Raft. We both know you taking him would be as good as a death sentence."

"I couldn't care less if the little bastard dies!" the man burst out. "How many of our good men and women have died because of him? And you think he ought to be allowed to make a full recovery and murder more?"

"How many more might die without him?" The woman's voice had dropped, and yet she sounded so firm that there could be no question that she meant what she asked. The man stared down at her, speechless once more, but this time his eyes had gone wide. "They're already here, aren't they, Mr. Secretary?" she went on in an innocent tone. "The monsters looking for the Stones? How many of your precious Avengers have already gone missing?"

A shock of ice-cold lightning flashed through Loki's very core. Stones? Avengers? Could he really be so cursed? Whatever stroke of luck had seen him use enough dark magic to escape Thanos with his injuries had been no luck at all. He'd only gotten away as far as Midgard, where at least two damned Infinity Stones waited for their master to claim them. Worse, by the sound of things, Thanos's children had already arrived and already won.

As his heart and mind raced, a burst of white light filled the room. The glare of it burned Loki's already aching head and left a smear of purplish blue across his vision. Terrified, able to breathe only shallowly without bringing more blood into his mouth, he blinked as fast as he could to recover his vision. He could do nothing but accept his fate now, whether that be at Thanos's hands or those of the angry man's, but he preferred to retain some semblance of dignity either way this go-round.

When at last he could see clearly again, however, Thanos did not stand in the wreckage of the building. Nor did any of his children, Loki realized, nor the man from before. Only one person remained, and that was the woman. She had her back toward him as another white light surrounded the door she stood in front of.

Then she turned her face to him. Their eyes met across the dark room. Her angry expression melted at once.

“Oh,” she said, “you’re awake.”

Loki didn’t even manage to open his mouth to answer before his eyes rolled back in his head and he passed out from pain and fear.

******

Next Loki woke, he found himself in an airy, well-lit room. Day had broken, and clear sunshine beamed through the many windows on the walls. It was the same place he had woken in previously. The extinguished candles clustered across every visible flat surface were proof enough of that. He could also see the same door from before. Only one other shut door led away from where he lie. Nothing moved around him. Birds chirped outside at such a decibel that he could hardly believe he'd slept through their incessant racket.

Except that he still hurt. Bor, he hurt. But Loki had not lived this long without knowing, generally, what sort of situation he had gotten caught in. Throbbing, stabbing, straining, burning, he pushed himself into a seated position against the stack of pillows behind his head. His gasp for air when he made it felt like a knife lodged deep inside his throat. There would be time to catalog his injuries later, perhaps, and less of a chance of that if he didn't seize this opportunity to take note of where he was.

What he saw surprised him somewhat. Though tidy, the one-room structure held a lot of clutter. In between all the candles sat hunks of rocks and crystals, some polished, others rough. Many were Midgardian in nature, but others Loki could tell at a glance weren't local at all. Piles of books in varying conditions littered the polished wood floor. Every window held at least one plant, each different, each in obviously robust health. Perhaps strangest of all was the mound of pillows and knitted blankets a few feet away from his resting place—the only messy thing in the entire place.

Not that it mattered. This homey little cottage would not last long with Thanos on the way, if he had not arrived during Loki's second bout of unconsciousness. Rather than sitting around and admiring the cleaning job, he needed to be finding a way out. His leg screamed in pain as he forced it out from underneath the sheet and put his foot on the floor. He ignored it. What was a little pain now compared to what he would feel when Thanos got ahold of him again?

"You're not strong enough yet for that sort of nonsense," someone said.

He sucked in a breath so swiftly that it triggered another coughing fit. The taste of blood flooded his mouth once more. His head spun with pain. Something rustled softly over by the door. Then Loki heard footsteps for a second or two before he felt a hard object against his mouth. Before he could gather his wits about him enough to shove the object away, a cold, bitter liquid flowed across his tongue and into his waiting throat. Loki spluttered as much of it entered his lungs, and yet even as he did the pain in his chest subsided somewhat.

Once his breathing evened out, the concoction stopped pouring into his mouth. The hard object vanished. Loki inhaled tremulously.

"I told you that you weren't strong enough," said the same voice from before. Now that he thought about it, Loki recognized the voice as belonging to the woman who had kept him safe the last time he'd been awake.

It was she that sat beside him now. His eyes met hers consciously for the first time—beautiful, sparkling, [color], and indignant. Definitely indignant. How women across so many realms and cultures could master the same look was a mystery for the ages. She didn't give him a chance to ask. With a snort, she stood and bustled over to the door through which the mustached man had burst before. After she'd gathered a weaved basket into her arms, she stepped over to a nearby kitchen hung with shining copper pots and bouquets of drying herbs.

"That was hardly my fault," Loki said into the silence. "You startled me. I didn't realize I had company."

The woman smiled at him over her still-bare shoulder. "You don't. You're company. And from the stories I've heard, Loki of Asgard ought to be a little more difficult to catch unawares."

"You'll forgive me if my near-death experience put me a little off my game."

Again, she said nothing. The sink turned on without a touch as you unloaded dirt-encrusted vegetables from the basket. Interesting. Though the room held many trappings of the bog-standard Midgardian witch, Loki had never seen a Midgardian perform any sort of magic, mundane or not.

"And to whom should I direct my thanks for saving my life?" he asked pointedly.

"Me. Mostly."

"Yes, and who is me?"

She paused in unloading her foodstuffs to give him a pursed-lipped look. Then her head whipped back away from him again she replied, "[Name]."

"[Name]." The sound of it tasted interesting on his tongue. "Thank you, [Name]."

"Don't thank me. I wouldn't say you're out of the woods yet."

Loki lifted a hand to his ruined throat. "So I've noticed. And may I ask..."

Well, now that he thought about it, he had a plethora of questions. A given name hardly got him anywhere. But before he could select a single query from the dizzying array crowding his mind, you supplied an answer him:

"I don't know."

"Excuse me?"

"I don't know what happened. The cards have been cryptic." Was that a note of annoyance he heard in your voice? "All I've got from them is something about Thanos and the Infinity Stones. I don't even think you’re supposed to be here."

He hardly registered that last sentence. The mere mention of the Mad Titan made Loki feel very cold even underneath the considerable bulk of his blanket. His voice sounded even raspier when he spluttered, "Are they—has he—"

"He's not here."

              "How would you know?"

"I'd know." You dropped your now-empty basket onto the gleaming wood countertop. Perhaps you spotted the horror in Loki's eyes as you turned to him, because you went on, "And if I didn't, my next-door neighbors would let me know."

"Neighbors?" Loki squeaked. Clearing his throat only made his vocal cords throb.

You didn't remark on that, just nodded slowly. "They're the ones that brought you to me a few days ago."

At last, something that Loki could latch on to! Even the vaguest of clues as to his location would aid him in working out a spell. He'd escaped from Thanos once; he could do it again.

"And where, exactly, might your neighbors have found me?" he asked.

You opened your mouth. Loki leaned forward in anticipation. Before you could utter a single word, however, someone knocked on the door. The noise was a far cry from the incessant, head-rending banging of earlier. Still, he noticed that your normally [color] skin paled several shades at the sound.

"That's probably them now," you said.

That didn't quite explain your change in color or the jittery way you rushed over to the door. Loki's eyes followed you there. Too late did he think to pull the blanket over his head to hide himself. In his current condition, it would have been a struggle to do so before you opened it to reveal —

"Steve? Natasha?"

At least you sounded as horrified as he felt by the sudden appearance of two Avengers on your doorstep. They could be no other, though they didn't look quite right. The former had dark hair now, as well as a beard, and the latter had turned blonde. But who else could it be? Who else would show up at Loki's weakest point?

His alarm increased as you threw your arms briefly around Natasha. The alarm swiftly turned into suspicion when he noticed she made no move to throw you off.

"I don’t understand," you said, as you released her and allowed the two to enter your home. "Why are you back? Where's Tony?"

"We're not sure," Steve answered.

No sooner were the words out of his mouth than did his and Loki's eyes meet across the room. Loki noticed that Steve's gaze had changed just as drastically as his appearance in the intervening years. Much of the sadness was gone. Now there was just some blazing hardness dampened not at all as he took in Loki's injuries. Loki knew that Natasha was looking at him, too, but he was too busy with his staring contest with Steve to pay her much mind.

Oddly, he felt no satisfaction whatsoever when Steve broke their stare off to return his attention to you:

"How's your patient?"

You didn't miss a beat. "Not well."

"Can you leave him?"

"No."

"Is moving him an option?"

"Absolutely not."

"Better question." Loki started painfully at the sound of Natasha's voice right next to him. She'd come to stand beside his bed, arms crossed, the look in her eyes even colder than Steve's had been. "Do we care what happens to him?"

Of course. Of course Loki had escaped the greatest threat the universe had ever seen—for a given value of "escape," he had to admit—only to die at the hands of the so-called heroes his brother had considered his friends. At least Steve's presence was likely to ensure Loki's death came swiftly. If Thanos's children were already scouting out the planet, perhaps Natasha would even be doing him a favor.

"Rhodey wouldn't have told us he was here if what happens to him didn't matter," Steve said.

"If he can't help us, I fail to see what benefit there is in keeping him alive."

"Help you with what?" you cut in, voice as sharp as steel.

Natasha stepped away from Loki. He let out a breath he hadn't even realized he'd been holding. Relaxing his muscles made the blood rush through his body so hard it made him dizzy—but it did not distract him from hearing Steve's answer to your question:

"We're going to Wakanda. They can remove Vision's Stone there without killing him."

"We hope," said Natasha.

"It will work."

"Sounds great." You didn't sound like you agreed with your own sentiment. "What do you need either of us for to do that?"

"They'll come, [Name]. We'll have the last of the Stones with us. They'll all come. Maybe even Thanos himself."

"You'd be a huge asset," Natasha added.

"We could use all the help we can get. And that includes Loki."

Suddenly, all eyes were on Loki. He licked his lips. "And why should I bother to help you all?" he rasped at last.

No one looked surprised by this question. Steve's eyebrows lifted slightly before he said, "It's your universe at risk, too. And from the sound of it, you wouldn't have made it very long if Tony and Rhodey hadn’t brought you here."

"Oh, yes, thank you.” His lip curled; he hoped that Steve could not hear his wildly beating heart. "Thank you so much for the rescue. And just in time to be obliterated along with the rest of reality! You shouldn't have."

"We're going to do our best not to let that happen. What about you, [Name]?" he asked as he turned back to you.

Loki felt rather than saw your gaze on him, searching and gentle. He found that he could not lift his head to meet your eyes. Then, in a soft tone full of regret, you said:

"I can't."

"If we lose this, there's a good chance he'll die anyway," said Natasha.

"He'll die for sure without anyone here to look after him."

She opened her mouth, but whatever nasty remark she planned to make next, Steve silenced her with a hand on her shoulder.

"We understand," he told you.

You nodded.

Without another word, the two Avengers left the cabin. You watched them go until Natasha pulled the door shut behind them. Silence buzzed through the room like electricity. You did not move. So long did you stare at the door that Loki half-expected it to burst into flame; the same could be said about the length of time he spent staring at the back of your head. He opened his mouth, found it dry, licked his lips, and tried to speak evenly:

"If you hurry, you could still catch up with them."

You shook your head, turning to head back to his bedside.

"Truly," he said. "I can make it on my own. Why, I only feel mostly like dying now instead of completely like dying."

"And you only feel that good because I've been here to take care of you." From the silver pitcher on the bedside table, you poured some smoking, purple concoction into the nearby cup. Then you sat down on the edge of the bed and held it out to him. "Speaking of, drink this."

A delicate sniff of the cup thrust toward him indicated that this was the same bitter brew you'd forced down his throat earlier. He did not take it. "I am a god. I can take care of myself."

"If I leave, you won't make it until tomorrow. This stuff doesn't keep, and you can't make it yourself." When Loki made no move to take the cup from you, you rolled your eyes. "Same thing if you won't drink your medicine."

He wrinkled his nose, but accepted the glass. Instead of swallowing the foul-smelling stuff, he cradled it in his hands. "Why are you doing this for me?"

"I don't think even one life should be given up if I have the power to save it. That's all," you said.

"Even if they could die anyway?"

"Even if they could die anyway." You cocked your head to one side, regarding him quietly for a few moments. Then you stood again. "Drink up, and get some rest. Hopefully the rest of the world will still be here the next time you're awake."

A sudden surge in pain obliterated Loki's desire to retort. Steeling himself, he lifted the potion to his lips and gulped it down as quickly as he could. The relief came over him almost at once, so heady that it made his head spin. Darkness crept into the edges of his vision. Before he could wonder if this was Thanos's victory, natural sleep overtook him. Perhaps dying this way would be easier, he thought, than what might face him later in that tiny cabin.

******

The potion’s effects only did so much for him after that dose. Loki slept fitfully, plagued by a leaden weight in his stomach that even sleep could not dispel. His dreams ended in exploding planets, in melting cities, in scorching pain. All the magic sedative coursing through his system did was drag him along from one cataclysm to the next. Try as he might, he could not tear himself into the hellscape of his reality—not until a loud clang issued from somewhere nearby.

“Owwww!” Loki snapped as he forced his eyelids open. At least this awakening did not hurt as badly as the last two had. The clear, watery light of morning only worsened his headache a little as opposed to a tremendous degree.

And he knew where he was. That helped. Though the panic searing the inside of his rib cage did not abate, he doubted that anyone observing him would be able to tell that at a glance. At least he managed to refrain from throwing himself out of the bed this time. This allowed him to maintain some dignity as he searched for the source of the noise.

And there you stood in the kitchen. One of those copper pots sat steaming on the island. As though you could sense his eyes on you, you looked up from your stirring.

“Congratulations. The rest of the world is still here,” you said.

How little he cared about this backwater rock when Thanos could set the entire known universe on fire should he succeed in wresting the last Infinity Stone from Steve's all-too-human fingers. Biting back this retort, Loki struggled into a seated position. He was pleased to find himself recovered enough to do so on his own.

“So I see,” he said at last, once he noticed you watching him. “So did your friends…” he didn’t quite know how to finish that sentence. He didn’t quite know which question he wanted answered, or what answer he wanted to hear either.

You shook your head. “I won’t hear back from them unless they get back.”

“Not even your precious cards could tell you?”

“Even if they could, I wouldn’t ask. All I can tell you is that you and I are still standing.”

‘In a manner of speaking.’ Loki took a moment to glower at his weak legs. “Yes. How much longer will that be the case, I wonder.”

“There’s no use fatalizing about it. Would you like some porridge?”

The gears in Loki’s mind took several seconds to adjust to the abrupt change of subject. Unfortunately, the moment he gave any real thought to the sweet aroma wafting from the pot, his stomach rolled so badly he couldn’t open his mouth to reply. Who knew what sort of muck might pour out of it, given all the strange things you’d forced down his throat during your short acquaintance?

“I’ll add something to your medicine to help with nausea.” A note of sympathy had crept into your voice. “We need to get something solid in your stomach before too much longer.”

Making breakfast, gathering food, healing him—what good would all of this effort do in the end? Probably you just wanted a distraction from the inevitable doom you both faced. Thor’s ragtag bunch of misfits had defeated Loki, but he was in no condition to consider himself a threat the same level as Thanos. The Avengers didn’t even have Thor anymore.

Loki’s eyes suddenly burned, and his throat felt all over again the pressure of Thanos’s enormous fingers. The thought of what might have happened to his brother in the aftermath of Loki’s escape would not bear thinking about. Time to focus on other things.

There wasn’t much else to focus on but you, however. He watched as you doled out a serving a mush into a waiting wooden bowl. You ate it quickly. Then you took your pot and carefully spooned the rest of the food into a line of glass jars sitting on the countertop.

Loki noticed that you moved differently than other Midgardians, now that he could stop and take the time to observe you at length—more graceful, more intentional, with no wasted movements whatsoever. Mortals could be taught to replicate such movement, but they could never achieve the same kind of ability as beings superior to them.

Only when you’d easily hefted the heavy object over to the sink did he finally say, “You’re not human, are you?”

You looked over your shoulder at him, expression guarded. “Half,” you said at last, then shifted some hair away from one of your ears. Doing so revealed that ear to end in a perfect, delicate point.

“You’re a light elf,” Loki said wonderingly.

“Half,” you said again, before returning to the chore of cleaning your dishes.

“What are you doing so far from Alfheim?”

“The whole half-human thing? Yeah, it didn’t exactly endear me to my family there.”

“But why here? There are light-elf communes in the realm.”

“Those jackasses at the North Pole declined to house me as well. One human per pole, apparently. And half-humans count.”

“There’s an entire galaxy out there. You could have gone anywhere.”

“By then, I’d figured out I was better off on my own.” Water continued to run over your hands and bare forearms, but these had stilled. Your gaze was fixed on some distant point in time. Then it snapped back to his face. “It was a long time ago. I went to SHIELD, traded a few goods and services for secrecy. And Howard Stark let me build a place near where he was stationed. I’ve been here ever since.”

“That sounds…lonely.” Lonely in a way that Loki understood; lonely in a way he’d always felt growing up, although he hadn’t understood why—lonely in the way he’d been after he had discovered his true heritage.

You shrugged flippantly. “It worked pretty well up until the Accords. Now I’ve always got Ross breathing down my neck.”

“The Accords?”

“It’s an Avengers thing, or at least Ross wants it to be.”

“So you—”

“Are not an Avenger.” Finished with cleaning, you tipped the pot onto the counter upside down, dried your hands on the waiting towel, then turned to face him. “I’ve never been one, and I’ll never be one.”

Loki found his body loosening somewhat after this revelation. Strange. He hadn’t noticed he’d been so taut to begin with. “And yet they came to you for aid,” he pointed out.

“I do aid them, sometimes. But not because some Midgardian law says I have to. Like I said before, if I have the power to save one life I’ll do it, whether or not my neighbors believe that life is worth saving. If anyone can get rid of Thanos, it’s them. But they couldn’t save you.”

“Is a single life worth saving if they can’t?”

“I guess that’s up to the person whose life it is.”

“And the life Thanos leaves them with.”

He noticed then you had gone very still. You cocked your head to one side and regarded him down your nose. “Do you regret it? Being saved?”

Loki inhaled sharply. How could he answer that question? For all the aggravation and fear he felt about his present circumstances, to reply in the negative would be terribly rude. Your bedside manner left much to be desired. Your skill in healing, on the other hand…

The sudden disintegration of half the plants in the room saved him from having to voice his thoughts. Your eyes locked onto his. Neither of you breathed a word. Somehow Loki still knew your thoughts to be the same: The Avengers had at last done the unthinkable. They had failed.

******

Some things Loki grew accustomed to over the years following what came to be called "The Snap." He grew accustomed to the new, permanent roughness of his voice. He grew accustomed to the slight limp from his injuries becoming more pronounced when the wind turned cold. He grew accustomed to eating food only available seasonally, to working for that food, to sharing a smaller space than he'd ever lived in before. He grew used to braiding his lengthening hair each day. He even grew accustomed to the smell of the chicken coop.

That day, the stench was worse than most others. An unexpected rainstorm had blown in overnight, and left everything damp or dripping, from the branches overhead to the edges of the roof. Loki shook his hood back as he made to the door, scuffed his worn boots on the welcome mat, and entered the cabin.

"Breakfast," he announced, somewhat breathless after his run for cover.

You stood already working at the stove. He placed the basket he carried in an empty space near your elbow. After a quick glance at his sodden figure, you reached under the piece of cloth he'd placed over the eggs, pulled two out, and cracked them over the skillet. Only once the food was sizzling did you offer him a warm smile.

Instead of saying anything, Loki swallowed and did his best to avoid your gaze.

"Thanks," you said into the silence.

"I had no issues with gathering eggs for you this morning. I wanted to check on Gunnhild myself."

"How is she?"

Loki hummed noncommittally as he went to a drawer for cutlery to set the table. He couldn't quite put words to the worry he felt nowadays over so much as Midgardian hens of all things. Perhaps he felt obligated to keep alive as many beings as he could after Thanos had taken so much. After finding one of his ladies so lethargic the evening prior, he'd spent a long, sleepless night fretting over her condition until he could trek to the pen under the pretense of helping with the morning meal. Truth be told, Gunnhild had seemed livelier then, but still, his thoughts continued to linger over her when he sat down in one of the two heavy wooden chairs.

The sound of a plate being placed in front of him snapped Loki from his musings. He did not know if he liked the understanding look you shot him as you slid into your own seat across from him. His stomach twisted painfully until he looked away from your face again.

Add that to the somewhat shorter list of things Loki had not grown accustomed to since the Snap.

"I'll put a little something extra in the feed today. She'll hardly know she had a respiratory infection."

More and more often lately, Loki found himself unable to meet your eyes, and when he did force himself to do so, his insides would suddenly feel hot. Had he been a younger or more ignorant being, he might have been inclined to blame the numerous concoctions you forced him to drink (some days with more arm-twisting than others) even this much time after his near-fatal injuries. You seemed to have magic for every aliment known, for chicken and Jotun alike. Why not a philter as well?

But he had been alive long enough—been in love often enough—to know the truth. These physical sensations had nothing to do with your talents, and everything to do with his...isolation? Rescue? Maturing?

He had never believed himself to be one of those fools capable of falling head over heels for someone for no greater reason than that they had nursed him back to health. What a pathetic way to return the kindness you had shown him—all the panaceas grudgingly swallowed; all the staggering walks contemptuously taken; all the nights you'd slept in a makeshift nest of quilts when Loki disdainfully refused to leave your bed.

The sudden lack of people in the world had not put the responsibility of his rehabilitation on your shoulders. You had taken that on willingly well before the Snap. But he did believe that, had Thanos not succeeded, you might have happily ended up without such of a chore of a lingering houseguest. Every morning he woke began anew a day you could decide Loki had overstayed his welcome. His only consolation was that, surely, these feelings would fallow once he no longer came in contact with you.

But then surely, too, his body would fall apart without your aid. So Loki kept his mouth shut. Cohabitating with you while keeping his growing romanticism a secret was difficult; he shuddered to think of the alternatives left to him in this half-empty universe.

Once again, you interrupted his thoughts, this time with a wry observation of: "You're overthinking something again."

His rough gulp hardly helped his case any more than the following, "I am not."

"You are."

I should think I know my own thoughts better than you do."

"Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but Loki of Asgard isn't nearly as difficult to read as he thinks he is. Your mouth gets these deep wrinkles at the corners, and..." Trailing off, you frowned before you leaned forward to grasp the hand he had resting on the table. "Is that what this is about?"

You must have seen his split-second grimace when you'd referred to him in that mocking way of yours. If you'd noticed that, he had no doubt you'd spotted the way he stiffened when you touched him like that as well. Be that as it may, you kept your fingers lightly resting against his as you went on:

"We need to talk about it."

“I don't have the faintest idea what it is there is to discuss," he answered firmly.

You laughed. The sound made Loki's chest ache. "You do."

"I assure you I do not. And if you're going to insist on this level of condescension, I'd much prefer to get some work done than sit around listening to your riddles. Now, if you'll excuse me—"

"Why don't you go ahead and admit that you were eavesdropping when Natasha visited last night?"

If your iron grip hadn't been enough to keep Loki rooted to his chair, your question would. He felt blood rush to his face, try as he might to fight the urge to blush. "I beg your pardon?" he asked, knowing all the while that he would not hit quite the right note to express his feigned incredulity.

You did not answer. Neither did your hand loosen. A staring contest ensued, though it did not last long. Loki knew better than to argue when he spotted the familiar gleam there. What would be the point in lying anyway, when this Borforesaken rasp had so ruined his famous silver tongue? After another moment or two of internal debate, he finally wilted.

"If you already knew I knew, why not say something sooner?" he asked.

"You'll need to learn someday that those who eavesdrop often hear things they don't like."

"And those who refuse to eavesdrop often hear nothing worth hearing at all."

"You could simply quit lurking around and speak with us face-to-face."

"And risk the conversation turning to naught but insults targeting me? You'll have to forgive me for preferring to 'lurk' for what morsels of information your friends deign to offer you in secret."

"There was no secret."

"Oh?" Trapped as he was with his hands bound to the table, Loki's only escape was to avert his eyes to the rain-streaked window near the table. "If it was common knowledge, why not bring it up yourself without having to pry it out of me?"

You let go of him and held your hands up in a galactic sign of surrender that he could only see out of the corner of his eye. "I did not wish to upset you unduly."

"Upset me? Is that what you think? You think that I'm upset that my people have established a settlement in this Realm and are attempting to move on?"

"Aren't you?"

"Obviously not!"

Once more, Loki felt instead of saw your probing look. He folded his arms across his chest and carefully avoided so much as turning his head in your direction. This seemed to succeed in getting you to drop the subject; you said nothing else. Then you pushed your chair away from the table with an almighty screech and a firm, "Let's get you packed, then."

He couldn't help rising to his feet after you in his panic. "What?"

"Let's get you packed," you repeated. "New Asgard awaits the coronation of its king."

"Let it wait! Forever, if it must!"

"Why should it? Natasha's told me all about how badly you want to rule."

"Wanted. Wanted. That was a different time. A different me!"

Loki's heart had not hammered so hard since the moment of the Snap. Distantly, he realized that the exertion did not cause him as much pain as it used to. But would it be enough?

You did appear to notice his desperation, for you paused in some gesture that seemed to have caused his toothbrush to float out of its cup. Silence fell. He realized you were waiting for him to explain himself. Of all the cruelties you had enacted upon him, this perhaps might have been the cruelest of them all.

"New Asgard—" His breath hitched. Loki licked his lips and tried again, "New Asgard little needs yet another descendant of Odin on the throne. Let Brunnhilde keep the crown. I want it not."

Though admitting as much made him in ache in a way Thanos's assault had not, Loki knew the years since that assault had changed him. Between his inglorious defeat on this very planet, the series of humiliations leading up to Ragnarök, and his near-death among the Asgardian refugees, he had learned to see himself more clearly. Leadership did not suit him as he'd once convinced himself it had. And besides, what good would it do for what remained of the spirit of his childhood home? Being among his people again would only remind him more sharply of what he'd lost—their true ruler amongst the most grievous of those losses.

"Then what do you want, Loki?" you asked softly.

He opened his mouth. Closed it again. Thought hard about his answer to your question.

It came without as much thought as he'd expected. So few of his responses were even possible anymore. But those that were surprised even himself. He wanted to learn the subtle ways of Midgardian magic. He wanted to memorize the patterns of the stars in this Realm. He wanted to eat vegetables and fruits and grains grown by the power of his own hands. He wanted to look after his chickens until they died at venerable ages. And to do all of that, any of that, there could be only one reply:

"I want to stay here," he whispered, so quietly he did not even know if he wanted you hear him.

But hear him you did. A dazzling smile the likes of which he'd never seen before spread across your face. Then, without giving Loki a chance to grasp the meaning of such an expression, you rushed forward and threw your arms around him in a suffocating embrace.

"Then stay," you breathed in his ear.

The surprise he felt at your sudden closeness dissipated rapidly. Soon, Loki wrapped his own arms around you in turn. He did not know how long the two of you stayed tangled up like that before you finally released him. But when you did, you looked so smug that he couldn't help but add:

"It's not as though I have any choice in the matter. I'd die in a week without your care."

"Oh, that." The smug smile transformed into a smirk. "I've been giving you placebos for months now. You're as mended as you'll ever be."

His jaw dropped nearly to the floor, causing a glorious peal of laughter to tumble from your mouth.

"You whined so much. What else could I do?" you asked by way of explanation.

"You fox!" he said, though he couldn't find it himself to be truly enraged. It was the sort of thing he'd have done to his brother, after all. Who would have thought he'd have found a kindred spirit in the middle of nowhere on Midgard of all places?

You neared again, now gazing directly into his eyes. "But you love me."

"That," Loki said as he cupped your cheek and brushed his thumb over the [color] skin there, "I believe to be unequivocally true."

******

More time passed, on the Podunk little rock Loki had once schemed to make his own just as slowly as it did in the greater, emptier galaxy. Seasons passed. The half-obliterated woods around the cabin grew thicker and greener every summer. Native creatures once sparse in the area returned in larger numbers.

There were no servants to lay out his clothes, nor banquets with food-laden tables as far as the eye could see. But there were fruits and vegetables brought forth by his own hands, homespun tunics created with care, and fresh eggs in abundance from his ever-increasing brood of chickens. There was bright sunlight by day and warm candlelight by night. But best of all, there was you.

Well, most of the time you kept close to the cabin you both called home. Nearly five years to the day since the Snap, Loki stood alone in the kitchen. He hardly ever wandered far afield those days. What reason had he to do so? Surely Ross had not been the only Midgardian eager to see Loki pay for his crimes, and Loki was hardly a welcome visitor at the Avengers headquarters on the other side of the forest—which was the second most common place to find you, and where you'd traipsed off to during the still-dark hours that morning.

Loki found himself worrying over his pot of stew more than he'd have liked to admit now that it had grown dark once again. Not about the stew, not this time; he felt he had accomplished making a perfectly edible, if not very exciting, stew with produce from the garden you and he had canned that fall. Given that he'd hardly been offered much opportunity to create purposefully edible meals as Asgardian royalty, no one could deny this to be a culinary accomplishment on his part.

You hardly ever kept him waiting this long for you to return from the large, ugly compound. He could not begrudge you going to see friends. On the other hand, he knew how the remaining Avengers still felt about him. It was the same way he felt about them. If any of them had the silver tongue he had had once...

Before he could spiral into the possessive behavior he inclined toward despite your frequent admonishments, he heard the sound of footsteps—barely. Light elves moved so lightly he would not have heard your approach had he not been listening so closely for it. The door swung open shortly after this noise, and you stepped inside the room already filled with lit candles.

"I'm home," you said cheerily, and unnecessarily.

"So I see." Loki gave the pot below him a pointed stir. "Did you enjoy your time with your...friends?"

"If you're going to be a sourpuss, I won't give you your surprise."

"I hardly want whatever gift the lovely Natasha might have sent along with you."

"It's from me. Do you want it? Yes or no?"

He knew better what you meant by the appraising look you shot him: Play along, or pay the price. "Please," he said as flatly as he could. Though you never used your considerable powers to hurt, he knew that an outright refusal on his part would probably wind up with him sprouting a pair of donkey ears for the foreseeable future, or something equally annoying and hard to explain when your neighbors inevitably came by to mock him.

You grinned despite his obvious lack of enthusiasm. One of your fingers made a series of shapes in the air. Then, out of seemingly nowhere, your familiar basket appeared next to Loki's elbow. A simple blue-and-white checked towel covered its contents.

"Open it," you said when all he did was squint at you.

It wasn't moving, so Loki took that to mean lifting the fabric would not be dangerous. Nestled underneath sat a pile of off-white mushrooms with brain-like knobs atop the stems.

"We went a little over during the meeting. I knew you'd have already started dinner. When I stumbled on these little guys on my way home, I picked them up for you as a treat."

All fear of Natasha finally convincing you to give him up died away for the moment. Loki pressed his lips together in a smile. "They're the perfect addition," he said, pulling the recently-cleaned cutting board toward him and starting to chop.

Your smile grew as you walked around him to gather bowls. "You're welcome."

"So what went on that took so long? Rewatching footage of Captain America's glory days?"

Instead of chastising him for his snide tone, you simply answered: "I thought you said you didn't want to be involved in anything we got up to."

"I don't."

"Then let's not talk about it anymore."

Loki spilled the sliced fungi into the pot with something of a startled expression. You would normally find something of note to tell him after a two-hour conversation with the Avengers, and yet you had nothing to relay after being with them all day?

"[Name], what are you hiding?"

"Is the stew ready yet?"

"You're trying to distract me."

"No," you drew the word out as you sat the last utensil on the table. He caught a flash of mischief in your [color] eyes. You bared your teeth in a wicked grin. Then you sauntered forward and looked him up and down before you slid your hands up his shoulders to interlock them behind his neck. "This is me trying to distract you."

You pressed your mouth to his without sparing him a moment to retort. Loki did not forget the thread of the conversation, per se, but kissing you back seemed of greater importance than pursuing the matter. Who cared about the inconsequential scheming of those who had already lost everything? Certainly not him, not when, egged on by his enthusiastic response, you smiled against his lips and surged forward. He had no choice but to let you push him onto the nearby counter to allow you space to work.

"Still curious about what I got up to this afternoon?" you asked during a brief pause.

"Not in the slightest," Loki said honestly. He cupped your face to pull you closer to him again.

By all rights, it ought to have turned out to be a very good day: a stew with fresh mushrooms; your eagerness to touch him, even simply as a distractoin. Loki might have been perfectly content to remain distracted had something not slammed open the door just as something besides dinner began to heat up.

You whirled to face the intrusion—but you moved no further, frozen, it appeared, by the massive shape moving through the doorway.

"Thor?" you asked.

"Thor?" Loki echoed, bewildered.

The shape crossed into what little light the multitude of lit candles allowed, and still Loki could not believe it. Whoever had burst in could not be his brother. His brother was dead, not to mention Thor would never let himself go to such a degree. This being looked thicker and flabbier than Volstagg on his worst days. They also had stringy hair and a scraggly beard that obviously had not been washed in some time.

"You followed me?" You sounded outraged, which typically spelled trouble for the offending party.

Thor—or whoever the shape was—did not spare you a glance, terrified or otherwise. Their eyes remained fixated on Loki's face, and as Loki met their gaze, he felt a spark of recognizing flare hot and painful somewhere deep inside his stomach.

"I had to see it for myself," the apparent stranger rumbled.

And that was all it took. Loki slid off the counter and stepped around you. A torrent of emotions constricted his chest. The room around him spun. After a minute or so of thick swallowing and struggled, he managed to open wide his arms and step in Thor's direction.

"Brother, you're alive!"

Thor did not meet Loki's cheer with any of his own. "So this is where you ran off to hide."

Loki felt his smile slide off his face. "Pardon me?"

"I thought you were dead. I mourned you."

"As I did for you. I thought surely Thanos—"

"I should have known your vanishing was nothing more than yet another trick!"

"Well, I confess to using a smidgen of magic to get me here, but—"

"We needed you. The galaxy needed you. I needed you!"

With every statement, Thor's voice grew louder and louder. Rarely since his brother's exile had Loki seen him so enraged. He stared as the noise washed over him, and allowed his arms to drop to his sides. These stayed there when Thor took another step in Loki's direction.

"Perhaps it was a lie. Perhaps you always intended to aid Thanos in achieving his wicked goal."

You stepped forward to put yourself between the two men. "Hey. He was in no condition to fight. If he'd gone to Wakanda, he would have died for sure."

"As he had me believe he already had for five years. My brother chose his own life over half the galaxy." Thor's eyes flicked disdainfully between you and Loki, a gesture at odds with the bright red of his face. "But I should not be so surprised. Loki has always been a coward."

"Don't you—"

"[Name]."

Loki spoke the word softly, but his tone must have gotten through to you. Now you spun to gape at him. He merely held his hand out in a quelling gesture and told Thor:

"You're right."

It had taken a long time—eons, really—for Loki to accept the truth about himself—a long time and nearly dying more than once. If he could go back and change things, he would. How different would things be for everyone if Loki had never spent that time being coddled by the Grand Master, or masqueraded as Odin for so long, or agreed to invade Asgard, or even led Laufey through the secret passages to the palace? Always he had served himself. What argument had he that a different choice would not have saved untold lives just as Thor claimed?

But as things stood, Loki could not even change Thor's thunderous expression with his admission.

"You have changed, Brother, and not for the better."

"Perhaps I have changed," Loki conceded. "But is this not what you have always wanted for me? Living quietly, not causing trouble? Happy?"

"Happy at what expense, Loki? At least I am still trying. I am still fighting!"

"Are you? Judging by the state of your facial hair, I'd hazard a guess that's a more recent development."

"Loki," Thor growled through clenched teeth.

"You say I've changed for the worst? Fine. No one is inviting you stay for dinner and to get to know the new me or the person I've chosen to stay with."

Silence rang audibly through the dark cabin, punctuated only by the bubbling stew. Thor inhaled slowly. His shoulders migrated to up around his ears. Loki braced himself for a tirade that would have made their father proud. Instead, Thor's voice was flat and emotionless as he said:

"As usual, I will clean up your mess, Brother. And if in doing so, you are the one lost, perhaps this time I will not feel the grief of it."

No sooner had the words left his mouth than did Thor leave. He slammed the door behind him with such might that the whole cabin shook and several candles blew out. The sound of Thor's heavy footsteps faded quickly into the dark woods beyond.

"Loki?"

He had not realized he'd been staring at the place Thor had stood until you spoke his name. All he did in response was blink. Your warm hand enveloped his own, though this did nothing to quell his sudden tremors.

"Loki."

Words failed him. For the first time in his memory, Loki could think of nothing appropriate to say. Pain did not hold his tongue, nor injury, simply the fact that nothing would come to mind; nothing seemed to matter. But speak he must, or he risked standing there in the dark forever.

"How long?" he asked.

"What?"

"How long, [Name]?"

The fingers around his tightened.

"How long have you known my brother was alive?"

At last, he wrenched his hand free and turned to look at you. Tears sparkled in those eyes that had only a little while ago been gleaming with affection. That told Loki enough. He no longer needed you to answer.

"All this time," his mouth felt thick and clumsy, so he tried again with little improvement: "All this time, you knew. You knew Thor lived, and yet you allowed me to go on assuming otherwise!"

"If you'd just let me explain—"

"What is there to explain? I've spoken to you of the guilt I've felt over his death. You, of all people, knew what he meant to me. You could have freed me from all of that, yet you did not! What, did you believe I'd choose him over you? That I would flee to New Asgard the moment I realized my last remaining family member lived?"

The words were not as sharp as they once could have been. The tone itself was no longer smooth as velvet. They rose and fell like an overused axe. But the blow landed. You flinched.

Loki found he did not much care whether you did so because his words were true or his hysteria had been laid plain his voice. His throat throbbed where Thanos's fingers had once crushed it. Perhaps Loki should have let him. Dying that way would have hurt less than now, here, by the phantoms of everyone he had ever hurt.

You said his name again. He shook his head. Almost blindly, he stumbled through the shadows to the door, yanked it open, and stepped outside. Loki stood there on the step for a moment or two, breathing in the acrid smell of burning stew behind him before he pulled the door shut. Then he staggered off toward the quiet trees with little idea of where he was actually going.

The cold quickly leached beneath his tunic, but that he could handle. What he was not so sure of was his ability to handle any more heartbreak that night or, indeed, for the rest of his life.

******

Loki returned, for where else had he to go? The idea of turning to the Avengers for shelter he found laughable, and surely Thor wouldn't want him anywhere near New Asgard. Besides, Loki would miss his chickens—and he'd been in enough relationships during his life to know that an occasional nighttime walk did wonders to cool his head.

Wonders, yes; miracles, no. Although each sunrise since the Snap had felt like a miracle to him, the days following Thor's sudden reappearance twisted into a discomfiting slog. Each day followed the same routine: Loki would wake in an empty cabin with a neatly folded pile of quilts on the floor near the bed; he would eat the single roll on the counter; and he would gather his things and move mechanically through the chores that needed done even when he felt as though he were limping through a void. These would fill his time until he returned to the vacant bed to start again.

Two days he followed this routine before it grew too tiresome to ponder continuing for the rest of his life. What if his path led nowhere but to day after day after Borforsaken day of banal work and loneliness? Loki might have been prepared to accede to Thor's claims of his cravenness; he had not been so prepared to consider death at Thanos's hands may have been the better option for him.

And so he turned to the one activity that could stop him from thinking about the end of life: The beginning of it.

The cool spring midmorning appeared perfect for transplanting the pea seedlings he had picked up from their growing space on a windowsill back in the cottage. He knelt on a flat cushion of sorts in the midst of the mostly-bare garden to get to work. All he could hear was the chilly breeze blowing through the surrounding trees, their new leaves still too young to provide any noise of their own. His pale fingers worked the freshly-tilled dirt as he mentally measured the distance between plants.

Perhaps if Thor had had occasion to see Loki like this, elbow-deep in homemade chicken compost, he might have understood things a little better.

"Loki."

He did not turn away from his work at the sound of the familiar voice.

"Can we talk?"

"About what?" he asked evenly.

This was the first time you'd approached him since the argument. Obviously, you'd returned home a number of times, but only after he'd fallen asleep, and only to disappear again before he awoke. Loki half-expected you to leave again. A long pause followed his question before you surprised him by asking:

"Are you really going to make me say it?"

"I think that's the best way to open up negotiations, yes."

"Negotiations?"

Loki carefully piled a small mound of dirt around a recently-planted sprout. It waved back and forth as if to say thank you.

"I'm sorry," you said.

He adjusted the bamboo trellis embedded in the dirt behind his peas.

"I should have told you as soon as I found out about Thor. I didn't know for long. Natasha only told me when she knew he'd be coming to help them out, but it wasn't fair to you to keep it a secret."

Slowly, without moving his head at all, Loki sat up. His filthy fingers curled around his knees.

"I didn't want you to leave. I knew how much Thor meant to you, and I knew you'd go to New Asgard to see him. And what then? Would you ever come back?"

"That's hard to say when I was never given a choice in the matter."

Another length bout of silence. This time, however, Loki could hear something else over the wind: A soft sniffling that nearly had him moving to comfort you—nearly.

"You were right, Loki. I was scared."

"Scared of what?" he asked.

How could you be scared of anything? He himself had witnessed the power at your fingertips more than once, and Steve and Natasha certainly had tales to tell of your prowess. Surely nothing on Midgard existed to threaten the likes of you after all this time.

Now he risked a glance at you out of the corner of his eye. Never before had he seen you distraught. Flustered, yes. Angry, absolutely. Undone, perhaps fewer times than he'd have liked. But he could tell even from a distance that you hadn't slept since your fight a few days ago. Pronounced bags clung the bottoms of your eyelids, and you rubbed your hands together in obvious agitation. The urge to go to you grew stronger still.

"I've never belonged anywhere before you came along," you said in a rough whisper.

All his willpower shattered at the moment your voice broke. He half-rose, twisting toward you, unable to feign absolute disinterest any longer. Perhaps he might have drawn closer to you, had you allowed him. But you held out your hands with the fingers wide to indicate you needed him to keep his distance. Loki did, although he said softly:

"[Name], that's not true."

"I kept trying to find a place, but no one wanted me."

"You have the Avengers."

"They aren't—" You gripped your elbow tightly in the opposite hand as you turned your face away. "They aren't home."

Before he could speak—whether to dissuade you, or ask for more details, or even to put an abrupt end to this tête-à-tête, he had no idea himself—you barreled onward, apparently under the impression that if he did not let you say all this now, Loki never would.

"I've been here for a long time, a very long time. People move into that building. People move out. Sometimes they bother to get to know me. Most of the time they don't. It doesn't matter either way, because they all leave in the end. Steve, Natasha, Rhodey...they'll all leave permanently someday, too."

So intent on listening had he been that he flinched when you looked directly into his eyes.

"You're the only one who's ever stayed.

He could think of nothing more to say than, weakly, "If you're so desperate for company that someone too injured and cowardly to leave is appealing—"

"You are not a coward, Loki."

"This is not about me," he said, then added, "unusual though that may be. For now, we are talking about you."

"I don't know what else it is you need me to say."

Truthfully, he needed nothing. An apology had been all he desired, and you'd returned with that and an admission that he'd been in the right. So slowly, as though he were trying to sneak up on a snoozing Thane Regin with a pair of shears, he stepped in your direction.

"Pretending for one moment that your attachment to me is anything other than imprinting on an admittedly very charismatic invalid—"

You snorted.

"—why not tell me? Why not come to New Asgard with me?"

The hand on your elbow went pale with the force of your grasp. "I am not as Asgardian."

"Neither am I, as you well know."

"I am tired of trying to figure out where I belong. I tried just about everywhere. I will not be cast out again." You blinked at him fiercely. "If you want to go, you should go. Be with your people. Reconcile with your brother. I only wanted to let you know that you are precious to me, even if I acted poorly because of that."

The spell your gaze cast on him snapped. You both averted your eyes. It did not take Loki so long to recover. He found himself drawing in a deep breath of remarkably fresh air before closing the remaining gap between you. When he took the hand dangling your side, you inhaled sharply as you looked up at him. Encouraged, he squeezed your fingers.

"I will reconcile with my brother, when he is ready. But you're my people, [Name]. You ought to know that by now. Maybe I will desire to visit New Asgard someday. Know this, however: As long as you want me, I shall always return to you."

After another pause, you returned the squeeze. "I think it's safe to say I'll always want you. But I might be glad for an occasional break, now I think of it. It would be nice having my bed to myself from time to time."

"Without me to warm it, you won't sleep a wink."

Rather than reply, you broke into a smile as dazzling as the sun hanging over the forest. He felt the familiar warm hook of your palm at the back of his neck, then you pulled his lips down to yours for a long, lingering kiss.

"I love you, you realize," he murmured once you parted.

"Oh, my gods," you said breathlessly through a half-open mouth.

"Yes, I am rather impressive. It comes from centuries of practice. Why, my last partner—"

You cuffed him lightly on the back of his head. "No, Loki. Look!"

So he pulled away and did as you instructed—and what he saw took his breath away as well.

Where his sparse rows of tender pea shoots had been only minutes ago, now a multitude of plants threatened to crowd one another out. Extra trees and their roots intruded on the edges of the garden. Bees, butterflies, and birdsong filled the clearing in which you and Loki stood.

He felt his throat contract, but no words left his mouth.

You, meanwhile, lifted shaking hands to your mouth. "They did it."

"Who?"

"The Avengers."

"Did what?"

"They did it!" Now you shrieked, practically dancing in place. "They figured it out! They got the Infinity Stones! It worked!"

"The Infinity—is that what you were all doing that day?"

"Tony and Bruce made a time machine. We weren't sure that it would work, but..."

"It did," Loki finished for you, somewhat dazed himself.

It was back. It was all back. He did not have to leave this place to know that not only had Thor and his friends done the impossible to bring plant life back to this planet, but that beings of all natures would be returning across the entire universe.

But, of course, the galaxy never had been willing to give Loki Odinson a lingering period of peace and happiness. Every time he felt he stood once more on solid ground, the realms tilted on their axes. This occasion would be no different. No sooner had he realized the sparkling tears of joy in your eyes were reflected in his own than did a shadow fall—literally—across the entire woods.

Above, soaring through the once-radiant blue sky, winged a great, dark ship.

Thanos had returned.

In the span of a breath, you bounded in the direction of the Avengers' home. Loki felt all the blood rush from his face. That he remained standing was itself a miracle. He felt suddenly dizzy. His heart rushed. Black crept into the edges of his vision.

Just before you disappeared into the newly-thickened forest, he managed to croak, "Where are you going?"

You stopped to look over your shoulder at him. "You don't need me this time around. I'm going to go help them fight."

Loki pressed his shaking lips together. He could stay. He could stay, and be as safe as anyone could be when Thanos and his children arrived. With a shake of his head, he crossed to you.

"I'll always need you. We'll go together."

You smiled again. Then you both ran, hand in hand, towards the clangor of battle erupting from not too far away. What would come of this whole affair, Loki did not know. What he did know was that if this was dying, death was not so nearly as horrible as he'd feared.

[cannedbabs]

Taking $1 Turbo Sketch Comms! (And more!)

((Please read below!))

Hello lovelies! I have gotten a tad tight w money and I’m looking to do adult things like move out and the like and thought I’d do something here about it :] and that’s Turbo sketch commissions!

DETAILS:

* They will be Fullbody sketches! Optionally colored like the above image or like the below images

* Once I’ve gotten a decent amount they’ll be compiled into a sketch page to post!!

* Other characters also allowed, please keep reading to find out about those!

* If you Comm you MUST be ok with messy lines and guidelines. I’ll try to make it as nice as I can, though!

* I take PayPal / Venmo / Cashapp! I even have a Kofi if that’s easier! Just PM me if interested :]

* Also pls nothing NSFW or fetish-y. I’ll turn you down immediately.

For $1 it will be Turbo OR King Candy in any sort of pose, expression, etc you like. Small props (like the spray paint can, a trophy, etc.) allowed at no extra cost!

If you want to add an extra character FROM WRECK-IT RALPH (or Ralph breaks the internet) it will be just another $1! If you want to upgrade it to King Candy/Turbo Bug he will be $3 (sorry he’s just hard to draw!)

If you have a WIR OC and want them, it’ll be $5! But keep an eye out I’m going to be making some WIR inspired YCH’s for cheap soon… ((if you’ve read this far give me suggestions on characters you’d like to see for that!))

If you don’t want Turbo/KC at all just let me know and I’ll most likely haggle! I just enjoy drawing him the most, hence it being $1.

If you’d rather just want a sketch comm from me, those are $5! Doesn’t have to be WIR related :] example below

I talk a LOT and probably some stuff didn’t make sense. Feel free to ask for clarification :] Any reblogs help also!!

All this stuff is listed on my Trello! It also has my TOS so I encourage looking there!

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

by Itamar Eichner

The website states that this is the first part of the database, which was prepared by the managing editor of the opinion section of The Maple website, Davide Mastracci, and that more names will be published in the near future.

Jews and Israelis in the Jewish community in Canada say that the publication of the database adds another layer to the general feeling that there has been a rise of antisemitism in Canada.

"It's stirring up the community," said an Israeli who has lived in Canada for five years. "It's running wild in our groups. In general, you see, our whole sense of 'security' here has been radically undermined for a long time. There will always be those who ignore it and say that it's more dangerous in Israel. That may be true, but Canada, which was the symbol of a comfortable and safe life for Jews, has long since ceased to be so. There are antisemitic incidents all the time and the great concern is the lack of intervention by the police here. Just last Sunday police refused to take action against protesters who celebrated the deaths of the Bibas family members."

The Israeli resident of Canada added: "It is criminal naivety to publish such a list as part of freedom of expression. It opens a window, God forbid, for serious things that he certainly would not write publicly. What else needs to happen for those who need to wake up? We are experiencing processes here from 1930s Europe. Marking Jews/Israelis, excluding them, shaming them in public. The point is that there is no doubt that the whole world is against us, but Canada is no longer a safe place for Jews."

Jews in the Toronto community say the feeling behind the publication of the list is that the shedding the blood of Jews is being condoned. "Whoever published the list is careful. He is not calling for harming them, but insists on publishing a list only of Canadians who served in the IDF. Why is that good?" the community said. The Jewish community added: "There is also a condoning of shedding of Jewish blood; a feeling that the police are doing nothing."

There has also been a sharp spike in antisemitic incidents against Jews in Canada, and since October 7, 2023, the number has jumped by about 670%. Last month, windows were smashed at the "Healthy" Hosahra restaurant in Toronto, which is very popular among Jews and Israelis. This caused great panic.

[terresdebrume]

I keep going back and forth on the topic of where I fall on the allo/aro spectrum, partially because I kind of like. Don't wanna be aro (I'm already trans, queer and autistic with depressive tendencies, I don't need to add another thing to the list)

But another part of it is that even if I am capable of romantic love I probably just wouldn't know, because I already don't really know what platonic love feels like? And I'm not saying I can't love anything or anything like that it's just. Like many other emotions, I kind of have to retroingeneer it, sort of

I know I love my cats, not because I feel a surge of Something when I look at them, but because it makes me smile when they do something cute—my face knows what I'm feeling in those moments, I'm not sure I do. I know I love them because when Pouet died I cried every day for a month and I still cry sometimes, when I think about her. I know I love my cats because my brain keeps lighting up with fear signals when they're sleeping and I don't immediately see their chest move as they breathe.

I know what anxiety feels like, I know what anger feels like (when it explodes), I know what depression feels like because I dealt with them for so long I learned to recognize their physical symptoms! If these emotions didn't leave specific signals in my body then I'm not sure I'd know what they are.

And the thing is... I don't really like. Know what love or affection feels like, I think. Yes I can feel myself smile when I speak to certain people, but I also habitually smile at everybody because it makes things easier socially. I know I like people because if they ask me if I want to do an activity I either say yes or I have regrets about saying no.

My point is: I feel like I don't know my emotions so much as I know the buttons they push in my body, so to speak, but the problem about platonic/romantic love is that I can't imagine they make that different a shame, so who's to say which one it is?

It's funny, in a way, that I don't know something like that at my age. It's also really inconvenient, tbh. There's not really a reason for me to think about this rn except sometimes if I meet a cool dude whom I know is gay I wonder for a minute or two what a relationship with him would be like (which I'm going to assume is not that weird a thing to do) and the last time that happened led to, well. Ponderings about romance I guess

Anyway, the tl;Dr is that it took me decades to figure out the emotions I can recognize now, and I've largely approached social interactions with the inner spirit of a wet Chihuahua for most of that time, so how the fuck do I know if I can't identify those because I'm shit at self understanding or because I don't feel them???

Idk, it's complicated

(Tho honestly it would also be a little bit hilarious if after all this shit I landed on nah just aro. Not my preferred option right now but eh xD)

[mariacallous]

Startup founder Tara Langdale-Schmidt says her company’s devices, known as VuVa, are designed to soothe the pelvic and vaginal pain and discomfort that she and millions of other women have experienced. But over the past decade, Langdale-Schmidt alleges, Amazon has repeatedly shut down VuVatech’s product listings—sometimes she says for violating what she views as prudish “adult” content rules. Last year, Amazon blocked VuVatech from adding a discount coupon to one product because its automated systems identified the item as “potentially embarrassing or offensive,” according to a screenshot seen by WIRED.

“We just have to stop this insanity with being embarrassed about things,” Langdale-Schmidt says. “There's no difference from your vagina than your ear, your nose, your mouth. It is another place on your body, and I don't know how we got to this point where it's not OK to talk about it. I just don't get it.”

Amazon spokesperson Juliana Karber tells WIRED that no VuVatech products have been blocked for adult policy violations over the past year, though Langdale-Schmidt says that’s because she’s given up trying to list new items. Karber adds that Amazon understands the importance of sexual health and wellness products to its customers and has thousands of merchants offering them. The small fraction of those products categorized as “adult” are subject to additional policies “to best ensure we serve them to intending customers and not surprise customers who are not looking for them,” Karber says.

Companies and organizations working in sexual health and wellness have for years railed against what they view as excessive restrictions on their content by shopping, advertising, and social platforms. A new survey and an accompanying report shared exclusively with WIRED by the Center for Intimacy Justice, a nonprofit that advocates for more fair online policies and draws some funding from sexual health organizations, underscore just how widespread these concerns are.

In the survey, which was completed in March 2024, VuVatech and more than 150 other businesses, nonprofit groups, and content creators spanning six continents reported challenging experiences sharing content about their work, promoting products, and using other services from Amazon, Meta, Google, and TikTok. Those surveyed included organizations offering tools and support for pregnancy, menopause, and other health topics.

Jackie Rotman, founder and CEO of the Center for Intimacy Justice, says ending what she describes as biased censorship against women’s health would unlock valuable commercial opportunities for tech platforms, and is also simply the right thing to do. “Bots, algorithms, and employees who are not knowledgeable in this topic should not be prohibiting women’s access to important and valuable health products,” she says.

Google, Meta, TikTok, and Amazon say they stand by their policies, some of which are aimed at protecting minors from encountering potentially sensitive content. The companies also all note that they offer ways for users and advertisers to appeal enforcement actions.

Some of the offerings cited in the Center for Intimacy Justice’s survey include unregulated products that have limited or mixed evidence supporting their effectiveness. Complaints about content moderation on tech platforms also extend well beyond sexual health issues. But Rotman, the nonprofit group leader, says its survey findings show how widely sexual health tools and information are suppressed across the internet.

Sixty-four percent of the 28 survey respondents who sold goods on Amazon reported the ecommerce giant had removed their offerings at some point, and about a third of the merchants claimed Amazon had suspended their selling accounts altogether. Karber, the Amazon spokesperson, says that the survey reflects experiences of “a very small number of selling partners.”

Langdale-Schdmit alleges some versions of the VuVa remain blocked on Amazon today and none are eligible to be featured in paid advertisements. (Amazon bars ads for “adult products” including toys and products promoted for “sexual purposes.”) Despite earning about $6.5 million in lifetime sales, Langdale-Schmidt says VuVatech is losing money, a problem she attributes in part to the volatility of selling on Amazon, which is responsible for half of the company’s revenue.

Around 2022, Langdale-Schmidt noticed something else frustrating about Amazon: When she typed “vaginal” into Amazon’s search bar, it barely triggered any suggested search queries, while “erectile” resulted in a plethora of suggestions, like pills and supplements. “They took away all the sexual wellness prompts for the word ‘vaginal,’” Langdale-Schmidt alleges. For broad search queries, Amazon excludes from the results any product flagged as “adult,” including the VuVa, according to Langdale-Schmidt. This, for instance, prevents someone searching for “toy” from encountering a listing for a dildo.

The company’s adult products policy mentions a variety of sex toys and objects such as dildos and wand massagers, but doesn't specifically list dilators or similar pelvic health devices, such as the VuVa. Amazon’s Karber says that customers looking for adult products are able to search directly for them using specific search terms or browsing product catalogs.

A former engineering leader at Amazon theorizes the search bar suggestions for “vaginal,” may be aggressively filtered because algorithms trained on internet content tend to associate women’s genitalia with porn-related terms. (Oddly, many of the search suggestions for “penis” include misspellings such as “penisen largement tool.”)

“That doesn’t mean Amazon shouldn’t be pressured to implement smarter search [technology] that can tell the difference between health products and porn,” says the ex-employee, who was granted anonymity to maintain their professional relationships.

“Vaginal Dryness”

In another case from 2023 cited in the Center for Intimacy Justice report, Google limited who was shown some ads from Aquafit Intimate, a small Israeli startup that develops pelvic and vaginal care products. In an email to Aquafit seen by WIRED, a Google representative explained the decision by citing references on Aquafit’s website to “bodily fluids such as vaginal dryness,” the display of body parts “unnecessarily,” and content about “itching” and “burning” that was likely to trigger a negative reaction among viewers.

Rebecca Sternberg, Aquafit’s cofounder and CEO, says she and her team tried appealing Google’s decision twice to no avail. “I said, well, you know vaginal dryness is not a secretion. Quite the opposite,” she says. Aquafit ultimately gave up on that form of Google advertising.

Google spokesperson Nate Funkhouser says the “moderately restricted” designation it applied to Aquafit’s ads under the ad giant’s sexual content policy was appropriate.

Aquafit continues to buy keyword-based Google search ads without issue, including for the term “vaginal dryness.” Sternberg says the paid promotions are crucial because every dollar spent on them has generally returned $3 or $4 in sales for the Aquafit. But Sternberg remains cautious. “If Google says you cannot say, you cannot buy the words ‘vaginal,’ ‘itching,’ ‘burning,’ ‘discharge,’ we're up shit creek,” she says. “If we didn't have Google ads, we'd be dead.”

Overall, about two-thirds of the 74 businesses and individuals the Center for Intimacy Justice surveyed that advertise on Google reported the tech giant blocked some of their ads, largely citing rules around sexual or inappropriate content. Funkhouser says that Google has long allowed ads for a variety of sexual health products and services, and that last year, it loosened its rules to allow for promoting additional products, including pubic grooming tools.

The report alleged that Google’s biggest online advertising competitor, Meta, unfairly rejected ads for a urinary tract infection treatment and a guide to recognizing sexual coercion, which showed a hand touching a body. Meta spokesperson Daniel Roberts says the UTI ad had violated policies limiting prescription drug ads; the other ad had been incorrectly blocked under a ban on nudity. Roberts says Meta generally allows ads that promote sexual health, wellness, and reproductive products and services.

Among the 97 organizations and individuals surveyed who use TikTok, about half reported facing instances of their posts or ads being removed, often without explanation. Some organizations responded that they haven’t bothered with advertising on TikTok because they feared the company would block their ads. TikTok declined to comment. The video app’s policies prohibit nudity, restrict content with semi-nudity, and don’t allow advertising for what it calls sexual "enhancement" products.

Some organizations reported that they have tried to avert potential restrictions on TikTok and other platforms by writing in what is called “algospeak,” intentionally including misspellings of words or representing them with emojis so that they aren’t detected by automated filtering systems. For example, sex can become “seggs,” lube turn into “loob,” or the word “butt” could be represented by the peach emoji. Avoiding proper language can lead to confusion and exacerbate stigmas, some businesses said. But they also felt like they had no choice but to self-censor to get their message out.

[manghhos]

once again got fucked over by the dorm selection process 💀 hate it here

[powerfulkicks]

so many tips for budgeting/being frugal are just twice as hard when you have a disability

"meal plan!" idk if i'll be feeling well enough to cook every day so it's hard to plan for what to eat

"cook in advance!" i can't cook meals for a whole week at once and plus i can't count on that because again idk if ill feel okay to cook at the same time every week

"use cloth napkins and towels!" those need to be washed and folded, i already have trouble doing my laundry

"delivery is expensive, always shop in person!" going to the grocery store can wipe me out for the day.

"base your food shopping on whats on sale that week!" one, allergies are a thing and some people don't have that luxury, two, that's a lot that you have to prep for and that takes energy.

"DIY!" takes time and energy. maybe i could do it by myself but would it be worth all the time i need to take to recover?

i mean none of these are bad ideas or trying to exclude people. most of it is cutting out conveniences. but for disabled people, something that's a convenience for someone can be a necessity to others

[cacodaemonia]

is it just me, or is anyone else sick of all the new SW shows being about how the space fascists have a point, actually? 😑

[marlynnofmany]

Monkey Chase

I stepped off the loading ramp and got a good view of the reason why we’d landed in the wrong part of the spaceport. A giant cargo hauler lay on its side, broken and bent — had a ship crashed into it, or had the engine exploded? I couldn’t tell from here — and large slabs of spaceship insulation gel sprawled everywhere. The hauler’s cargo, clearly. As I watched, three people with a hovercart tried to shove one aside to no effect, and another slab as big as a cross-section from my old apartment on Earth slowly peeled off from inside the remains of the hauler. It hit the ground with the squishiest thud I’d ever heard - the thing was the color of smoke, but dense enough to make the ground vibrate from here.

I whistled, then regretted it when the tentacle alien on the ramp beside me scrunched up at the sound. “Sorry,” I told Mur.

“Ow,” he said, uncurling his blue-black tentacles. “Was that a human swear? It’s sharp.”

“More of a ‘wow-look-at-that’ kind of noise,” I said. “But swearing would sure be appropriate. What a mess.”

“You said it. Glad it’s not our problem.”

Captain Sunlight came down the ramp to join us, regal as ever in the bright yellow scales that had given her the name. “Our client isn’t answering,” she said. “I’ve put in a request at the local medcenter to see if they’ve been injured in this crisis, but haven’t heard back yet. Anyone interested is welcome to join me in walking over to where their ship was meant to be parked.”

Three other crewmates followed her out of the ship: Blip and Blop in their flowiest silks that both matched their fin colors and also showed off their biceps, and Zhee with his purple exoskeleton as shiny as always. They all made quiet noises of dismay at the state of the spaceport.

(Well, Blip and Blop seemed dismayed. Zhee was looking down his nonexistent nose at whoever had been careless enough to cause such a mess.)

Mur waved a tentacle. “Lead the way,” he said to the captain. “Here’s hoping the ship isn’t buried under all that.”

“Yeah, it looks heavy,” I said as we moved out. “I wouldn’t be surprised if a little ship could be crushed under that, especially if it also took damage from whatever kaboom happened in the first place.”

As we got closer, I made several observations in a range of importance. A medical shuttle was zipping off toward the city center while another appeared to be waiting around just in case; the medics were standing there chatting instead of tending to anyone. The gel slabs couldn’t be pushed, though they could be lifted with a big enough gravity platform. There was only one of those here. Cleanup was going to take a while. The slabs covered a large area of ground as well as a couple ship-sized lumps, turning the spaceport into a sea of smoky gray translucent rubber.

A small creature bounced around on it. People were shouting about that.

“What’s going on over there?” I asked.

Captain Sunlight sighed deeply and sped up. “I really hope that’s not our cargo.”

“Our cargo’s an animal?”

“Yes, among other things. I thought I told you, but I guess not; it was a last-minute addition to our load. Someone’s exotic pet.” She looked up at me with concern on her lizardy face. “How are your animal-catching skills?”

“Depends on the animal,” I said, squinting at the fast-moving thing. I was the critter expert on the ship, but I didn’t want to promise anything. “What species is it?”

“I’ll bring up the description in a moment,” Captain Sunlight said. “I think I see our client over there.”

She was right. The slender Frillian with a leash and an exasperated expression did turn out to be the person we’d come to meet, and the various spaceport officials on the scene had no any easy answers about how to catch his pet.

“Normally he comes running for food!” the client exclaimed. “But he’s got plenty to pick from here!” He pointed accusingly at the spill of fruit from a truck smashed open by a slab of gel.

“Oh, like that’s my fault?” said a Heatseeker who was busy gathering fruit. “Half my stock is ruined! Go catch your little menace and stop complaining.”

This led to a rant about how impossible the menace in question was to catch when he didn’t want to be — giving him a bath had to be done by trickery — and he was never going to come down from this playground full of food, and oh the man should have just paid for a transit that allowed him to bring pets.

Zhee muttered agreement at that last, but I don’t think the guy heard him. Spaceport officials offered calming words and a reminder that nets had been sent for.

Captain Sunlight asked one of them, “Is there an animal-handling service anywhere nearby?”

“Nowhere close,” was the answer.

She looked back up at me. “Any bright ideas? Here, I’ll show you the description.”

While she unfolded a screen and brought up the information from this particular courier gig, I watched the jumpy creature carefully. He was close enough for a good look now, since he’d come back to snatch another alien citrus off the ground, making the owner yell after him.

My first thought was “monkey,” followed by “frog.” The animal was long-limbed and green, though with velvety fur instead of an amphibian’s shine, and had a tail that could hold fruit just as well as his hands could. Pointy nose, round ears, and the biggest eyes of anyone here except for Zhee. He could probably see a person sneaking up from behind. He was fast. And he was clearly having a great time jumping from one bouncy surface to another, making chattering noises and spitting citrus peel everywhere.

“It’s called a treeleaper,” Captain Sunlight told me. “Warmblooded, diurnal, omnivorous, and ‘a bit of a troublemaker.’”

Mur snorted. “Sounds like your species,” he told me.

“Just with a tail,” Zhee added.

“I wanted a tail as a kid,” I said absently, thinking hard. I’d just caught sight of a shipful of humans disembarking nearby, on the other side of the biggest pile of gel. They looked like they were in pretty good shape. One was already walking on the gel and laughing about the bounce.

I had an idea. “Excuse me, Captain. I think I see reinforcements,” I said, then ran off toward my unsuspecting kinfolk. When I got close, I took great pleasure in yelling, “Hey humans! Who wants to help me chase a monkey across a trampoline??”

They were all smiles and questions, then when I led the way to where they could see the monkey-frog jumping around with stolen fruit, they volunteered immediately.

“I’ll get the small cargo net!”

“Do you think the big gravity wands will slow it down?”

“Bet you a cleaning shift that I can grab it in a towel.”

“You’re on!”

I told Captain Sunlight that I had successfully recruited some animal-catchers, and she didn’t bat an eye, just suggesting that our crew gather similar tools from our own ship. Zhee and the twins rushed off while Mur stayed to yell suggestions.

The other humans were already venturing into the bounce zone. I hurried to follow, grabbing a fist-sized lime thing from the ground as I did. We made a wide circle before closing in.

The treeleaper saw us coming, of course. Threw a half-eaten fruit at one person and made a rude noise at another, then sprang up to ricochet between surfaces like an unholy pinball.

Thus began a merry chase.

It brought back memories of bouncy houses and birthday parties at the trampoline gym. The gel was tough enough to take an impact without doing more than denting briefly and launching a person hooting into the air, to rebound off another surface and hopefully not smack into anyone else in midair. There were a couple close calls. But that just made everything funnier somehow.

I jumped off one gel wall with and hit another with my shoulder, making the monkey-frog turn a 180 back towards a pair of guys with gravity wands. He tried to spring away to the side, but I threw my lime to bounce off a surface nearby, spooking him enough to change direction yet again. Somebody slid down a gel slab like a rubbery playground slide, yelping as that turned into a wild tumble. The animal didn’t know what to make of all the flailing and laughter. His hesitation was enough for the gravity wands to lift him partway off the gel, then when he stuck a leg out far enough to jump free, he was immediately bagged by a grinning lady with a cargo net.

Everybody cheered.

The treeleaper growled and tried to scramble free, but no luck. Somebody else caught up and helped tie the net off with a scarf. Everyone settled down to minimal bouncing, and many hands worked together to carry the bundle of ropes and disgruntled animal back to solid ground.

“You got him! Is he okay? He didn’t sprain anything in that net, did he? I hope he didn’t eat too much fruit. He’ll do that if given the chance, you know.” The owner was grateful and worried and relieved and talkative.

Eggskin had arrived from our ship with a medical scanner, and thankfully they could put everyone’s mind at ease about the state of our animal cargo. The treeleaper was fine. It had a stomach full of fruit and a bloodstream full of adrenaline, but all it needed was a nice nap in its carrying cage.

I considered asking why it hadn’t been in the carrier before, when the rented shuttle got its windows smashed, but I didn’t.

A small hand patted my back, as far up as it could reach. “Earning your keep once again,” said Captain Sunlight.

I laughed. “That was my pleasure.”

Another human lingering nearby asked, “Is there anything else that needs catching? That was great.”

“Yeah, you should sell tickets to this!” agreed another.

A Frillian in a port uniform said, “No, but thank you.” She paused, then added, “Hm. I wonder if that’s worth suggesting to the owner of all this insulation. It’s useless for its intended purpose now that it’s breached the sanitation shielding.”

I smiled. “It still makes an excellent trampoline even with footprints all over it. Lay those out in an empty field and charge people entrance, and they could make back a decent amount of money. You get plenty humans through this port, right?”

The woman who’d caught the treeleaper said, “We’re here early for a family reunion before the big festival, then there are three or four sporting events in a row. Let us know if that does happen, because we can get you a lot of humans interested in jumping on this stuff.”

I had to leave with the animal cargo back to our courier ship, so I didn’t hear how the rest of the conversation went, but I saw the official bring the representative of the hauling group over to meet the humans. He looked very interested in what the spokesperson had to say.

I grinned at the scene as I walked away: the intense conversation in front of the vast playground of bouncy surfaces. I wondered if we’d get a chance to come back for a visit when they got it set up properly.

~~~

The ongoing backstory adventures of the main character from this book. More to come! And I am currently drafting a sequel!

[kheprriverse]

More doodles of the fire dragon variety :D

More details ab him and just general dragon behavior. And also a silly little doodle at the bottom right.

[triglycercule]

oh yeah before i forget cute mttpoly headcanon because i said so: when killer finds out (through SOME way of means. he has his ways) that dust and horror like something then at every chance he can he goes and finds that thing for them :3 because I SAID SO AND IT'S CUTE ‼️‼️ (something something killer has no idea how to properly show affection and appreciation after believing his whole life was meant to cause pain and suffering to those close to him and now that he's trying he does silly goofy stuff like this hehe,,,,,,, dust is DROWNING in piles of fluffy blankets and books. horror cannot keep up with eating the amount of snacks killer keeps stealing for him 😞😞😞)

[nemmet]

i can’t believe that be cool scooby doo is a show that actually exists (/pos)

[magentagalaxies]

KITH related things in my room that just make sense

bc i just got done cleaning/redecorating/etc. and i think it's hilarious that i have multiple framed photos of the kids in the hall

My entire closet door

which is of course home to the iconic "buddy cole timeline" (recently updated since i just realized i hadn't put anything since march 2024) but also this meme i made and printed out right when i finished watching the show the first time

and beneath it a display featuring a production still from "terriers", a fan-letter asking if they're ever bringing buddy cole back after his first appearance, and the first page of a never-aired sketch called "recruits" (which includes the typo "mark and scoot")

2. "Buddy Babylon" and "One Dumb Guy" on my bookshelf

(Buddy Babylon is also autographed by Scott and Paul)

3. Two different copies of Bruce McCulloch's book "Let's Start a Riot" (my mom got me the paperback for my birthday the year before I met Bruce, and the first time I met Bruce he gave me an autographed hardcover so now I have doubles lmao)

4. Autographed vinyl of the Mouth Congress EP "Ahhhh the Pollution" displayed on my wall with a printed out quote from Buddy Babylon

4. Autographed vinyl of Mouth Congress's first album "Waiting for Henry"

(I do not have "Valley of Song" on vinyl yet but I'm sure I will soon, I'm just waiting to see if they're pressing it on color-vinyl bc the WFH vinyls are gorgeous)

5. Various KITH related photos and other mementos on my corkboard

(I listed them all but the paragraph was so long so I'm leaving it as an iSpy mystery lmao. But I will shoutout @ofkithandmckinney for the lovely drawing and letter in the top right)

6. A framed photo from "Brain Candy" next to my antidepressants

7. And last but certainly not least, a framed production still of Tammy sucking on a pickle in front of the Queen of England

(not pictured: the fake-knife I got from the citizen kane sketch and six different binders filled with KITH-related scripts (one is an original draft of brain candy, one is a mix of sketch scripts and materials for directing the buddy cole documentary, two are 100% sketch scripts, and two are different drafts of a screenplay scott wrote. all these items are on shelves in my closet tho so they count as item number one)

[bleue-flora]

Thought in light of my playlist with all of the Tommy lore, (btw if I missed anything let me know and I’ll try to find and add it) I’d also share all the playlists I have saved that could be useful to people watching lore or making their own playlists. There are also some other ones on my channel that you can check out if you want to, some of which I’m still working on (marked *). I have also posted lore resources before [here] and [here], which mention people like @spit-bite-glitch and @Wishdreamerx on youtube who have playlists by month.

{Also, I am trying to put together a dream playlist, which since he mostly doesn't have his own pov and sticks his head into everything, is quite a challenge, so if you are currently going through lore or something and come across the green boy it would be a big help if you would let me know, no need to provide time stamps or anything just a link, or even like just informing me of maybe some smaller lore you know he shows up in. I'd really appreciate it<3}

Timeline Playlist Links:

<> - <> - <> - <> - <> - <>

Anyways, this one is probably one of if not the best playlists I found. It does a pretty thorough job and includes lots of povs, it is understandably missing a few small things, but it’s really good and can definitely help you get a good view of the timeline too:

Characters:

Awesamdude - <> - <>

Sam Bucket*

Badboyhalo - <>

Dream*

DreamXD*

Eret

Eryn

Foolish - <>

Fundy

George

Michaelmicchill - <>

Niki

Philza

Ponk

Puffy

Punz* - <> - <>

Purpled

Quackity

Ranboo - <> - <>

Sapnap

Seapeekay

Skeppy - <>

Techno

Tommy

Tubbo - <> - <> - <> - <>

Wilbur - <> - <>

Arcs:

Disc Saga

War for Independance

Exile

Egg - <> - <>

Las Nevadas - <>

Prison Arc - <>

Post-Prison Arc

Daedalus * - <>

Finales*

And just for fun, while I'm at it, here are some other lore resources for you:

Transcripts Archive

Exile Transcripts

Exile & Prison Visitors

DSMP Members' Ages

DSMP Map Coordinate Archive

[arinsanity]

hey y'all! so y'all remember this funni little pre-trial lonely wiz design i featured in that one drawing?

(this just made me realise how cool this drawing looks vertically...)

i don't rlly have a name for em yet.. cuz like, lonely wiz in the game doesn't have a confirmed name unlike goobert and amber. plus, i don't just wanna call them "lonely"..

i thought of names for them (with a bit of struggle cuz i'm uncreative with names) and so far i think the name i like the most is Nox !! so yea, that's what i'm goin with :]