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itsgrimeytime · 1 year ago

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Home is Where the Heart is (Part Two) || Farmer!Rick Grimes (TWD) x Teacher!GN!reader AU

Part 1...

rick grimes taglist: @golden-hoax

AVAILABLE ON AO3

Inspiration: Like Real People Do by Hozier.

Summary: Your life was spinning out of control, you knew that. After a string of particularly shattering events, you decided it was time to start anew. With a little help from one of your Grandma's rentals, you found yourself in the small town of Alexandria. The last thing you expected was your neighbor, Rick Grimes.

TWS: starting over, swearing, and identity crisis.

[[A/N: pretty is used gender neutrally here, so if you don't like that I'm sorry!!!Thanks for reading !!! For that anon, ly <3, enjoy :))) ]]

You were staring at your computer screen, the empty word document not quite intimidating you but it was definitely... something. The flickering little line that showed where you were typing was starting to get annoying though.

It was a lesson plan, one of the first ones actually, but one you had put off until further notice. Just something about the circulum hadn't sat right with you that day so you pushed it off. And then you pushed it off again, and again, and again-

Needless to say, you were now about two weeks away from your first-ever semester. Solo semester. You'd been a teacher's aide before, but never... never on your own. Just 'a lack of positions where you lived, and you weren't willing to relocate' problem, really. It was exciting and nervewracking and a lot-

Your life couldn't have been upturned at a worse time, honestly. Especially with so little experience on your own, but you told yourself you'd own it. You'd-

Just as you were getting into the groove of your writing process, your laptop flickered off. And then, you noticed the lights were off too. Your power was out.

"Fuck," you groaned out, half tempted to through your head down onto the table.

It wasn't a surprise, really. You knew that the internet wasn't exactly the best out here, and you'd bet that the electricity would be a little spotty too. But just because it made sense, didn't make it any less shitty.

You roamed outside, hoping to possibly get some cell service -to call the electricity company, or maybe your Grandma? Actually, now that you thought of it, you weren't sure that you knew who did the electricity of the house-

"Funny seein' you 'ere," the deep drawl lured you out of your thoughts -southern beyond belief.

You shifted, shading your eyes from the sun but just enough in his direction to see him. He stood tall, the morning looked good on him, his curls freshly washed and shirt unstained. The breeze of the morning tussled him slightly, and despite the warmth, he didn't look bothered by it. Out on the front porch in a set of pajama pants and coffee held gently in his hands -it looked warm, was Rick Grimes.

"Hey," you responded, dumbfounded -your brain had all but flatlined at the man... again.

He looked at you questioning, the slightest raise of an eyebrow -a sort of small smile brushing across the brim of his mug (almost teasing), "You're up early."

"Too early," you groaned, taking a seat on your porch in a delicately colored rocking chair -your Grandma's doing if you had to guess, "-working on some lesson plans I should've done months ago."

"Lesson plans? You the new teacher?"

You laughed, slightly, nervous, "Word spreads fast around here, then?"

"Always," he grinned, "-you'd be lucky to do anythin' out here without commentary."

You smiled, looking out into your yard -the billowing grass and trees were unfamiliar but peaceful. It was nice to just exist for a moment with someone else, even if you hardly knew them, it was nice. Freeing, even.

"What's the lead theory as to why I'm here?"

"Not sure," Rick paused, tilting his head towards you, attentive, "-why you got a good reason?"

"A super mysterious one," you answered back -playfully, "-what do you think I should go with? Spy overseas, or undercover royalty under witness protection?"

He chuckled, lightly, and something in your chest fluttered -the deep timber swimming into your head. He has a nice laugh, you noted somewhere far away in your head. It was just a thought, you'd let your brain get away with it this once.

"You lookin' for better stories or more intrigue?"

"Intrigue," you answered -doing a dramatic gesture with your hands, almost theatrical, "-no one should truly know me."

"Royalty," he responded -unflinchingly, "-ya look the part too."

You gasped, faux-offended, "What's that supposed to mean?"

"You're pretty," he answered, fluidly -as if the words out of his mouth were nothing but the truth, "-too pretty to be 'ere. Makes more sense."

"Oh," your mouth clicked shut -blush rising on your cheeks (chanting in your head, probably married, probably married, proba-), "-thank you. Good to know what I could get away with."

"Just the truth," he responded, one hand brushing over his beard as his coffee was set down on the top of the fence -a bit precariously.

You laughed, tilting your head back and rocking further from the motion -the buzz in your stomach was a teeny-tiny little thing. It wasn't anything to worry about, you knew better. You knew better than to walk right back into it again, believe and ignore and love-

It wasn't the time.

"Still," you added -smiley and with an accent you couldn't quite name, "-you'll back me up on my backstory? Death threats from my home kingdom ran away for safety."

He grinned -something big and bright, and it made you falter for a moment, "Sure, I'll tell 'em myself if I 'ave to."

You stilled, ever so slightly -eyes heavily focused on the world in front of you, intent like once you looked away it would disappear. Or maybe you would, back in that apartment, back with...

"Everythin' okay?" Rick interrupted, blue eyes intently on you -he must've noticed.

"What? Yeah-" you cleared your throat, blinking away some of the fog in your eyes -hoping he didn't see, "-Sorry, just got lost in my thoughts. I... I really need to get back to my lesson plans actually."

"Well-"

You interrupted, standing to your feet, "How long does a power outage usual last out here?"

He merely furrowed his eyebrows at you, somewhat understanding that something was bothering you but he didn't push, "Just a few minutes at most, maybe an hour if the weather's bad."

"Okay, good," you sighed in relief, before straightening and turning back to him -schooling your face into something more normal, neutral, "-It was nice talking to you, Rick. I'll... I'll see you around, yeah?"

"Yeah," he nodded, a sort of low grumble that seemed almost slurred in the morning, timber that shook your bones, "-and Y/N?"

"Yes?"

"If you ever... need anythin'," he started -carefully, blue eyes flickering over you with a concern you hadn't felt in a bit, "-I'm just a door down. Anythin'."

"Okay," you responded, quietly, genuinely, "-I'll be sure to take you up on that, Grimes."

#rick grimes #rick grimes x reader #its griming time #stuff n' thangs #rick grimes x you #rick grimes x y/n #ricky dicky doo dah grimes #twd #twd rick #rick grimes x y/n fanfiction #rick grimes oneshot #home is where the heart is #rick grimes x gn!reader

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lethalchiralium · 1 year ago

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Diamondback | [1]

a/n: i love this series and i haven’t even finished out the ending yet

warnings: Mentions of cheating, mentions of pregnancy (not reader), mentions of alcohol

summary: Pine, Arizona. You’ve touched down in Phoenix and driven up to a relatively normal sized city, more than ready to see your best friend and grossly underprepared for an interview you got twelve hours ago. It’s hard to tell if you’re ready, but now you have to be. It’s time to chase the light.

You weren’t surprised that the Hotshot Fire Station wasn’t located in town, but on a backroad that was in a patch of sand, surrounded by high mountains. Sand has already contaminated your boots and hair by the time you had exited the airport in Phoenix in the early morning. A manila folder sat in between your hands as you looked at the silver building, nerves dancing up and down your spine. The sun was bearing down on you, something that used to really be your friend.

Change is good. Change is supposed to be good, right? So why am I nervous? Don’t be nervous. People can see when you’re nervous. Quit it. Quit it!

Swallowing a bit of your nervousness, you moved out of the sun and into the building. You opened the door and walked into what appeared like the front room - it was painted a soft beige, floor made of sealed concrete and decorated with mismatched couches and seats - you could hear the clink of workout equipment down the hall, the smell of air freshener was dull.

This was so much different than your Firewatch tower in Yellowstone National Park; it was a two day hike to it, there was a babbling brook 50 yards away with a small campsite nearby as well. All you had was your radio, books, and binoculars to keep you company for two to four months out of the year, as well as an old laptop that was connected to very shitty ethernet. You had many years of firewatching under your belt, you had taken classes for fire science and wildfire safety, as well as EMT training just in case one of your fellow fire watchers had a medical emergency. You were well prepared for this job, to be a 141 Hotshot.

The 141 Hotshots were the second municipal hotshot crew to ever be formed and based in Arizona, holding up legacy of the Sandstone Mountain Hotshots, who had perished in a wildfire less than a decade prior - it was said that the Superintendent of the 141 had trained under the Superintendent of the Sandstone Hotshots only a few years before the tragedy, a man who you had read about before even thinking about becoming a Hotshot seven years ago, especially before your fiance forced you into fire watch. Wildfire firefighting work was grueling, you were very fit because of your work as a fire watcher, but this takes it to a whole new level.

“Y/N!”

You had stopped in the middle of the front room, eyes now focused on the sweaty and dirt stained face of your childhood best friend - Alex Keller. The man had been kind enough to lend you a room in his apartment and put in a good word to the well-respected Superintendent he had worked for for almost seven years. It had been a few years since you had seen him; you had only a backpack waiting in your rental car. You instantly opened your arms and let Alex hug you, not bothered by the sweat or dirt on him.

He patted your back before releasing you, a smile on his mustached face. “I hope that dickhead didn’t cause you any trouble.”

The dickhead he was talking about was your ex-fiancé, the man you definitely did not want to talk or think about. You rolled your eyes. “Alex, I’m fine.”

He gave a small huff before continuing, “Well? Did you decide?”

You held up your folder, to which the man smiled wider.

“Good! I know Price is gonna like you.” He patted your shoulder before he nodded back towards the hallway he had come from. “C’mon, I’ll give you a tour.”

“I don’t need a tour, I need to get to my interview-“ You blubbered before he grabbed your arm, pulling you towards him. “Alex!”

“I’m takin’ you to the interview, dingaling.” He chuckled, your apprehension slipped away and you then began to walk beside him. “So stubborn for no reason.”

“I like to think my stubbornness is a good quality.”

Alex gave you a look, you laughed at him. “Sure.” You opened your mouth to retaliate but he kept talking. “Anyway, I’m goin’ to Farah’s after my shift, you’ll have to fend for yourself. You know where I live, and the code to get in.��

You sighed. “I’ll be fine.”

He patted your back, smile still big. “You always are.” He then looked towards the large equipment you two were walking towards, seeing his fellow Hotshots working out or fixing their gear before he took your arm, stopping you from continuing. You looked to your friend as he spoke, “Are you sure you want to do this? It’s a lot different than just sitting in a tower and just watching a fire.”

“I was a Hotshot for a year, Alex.”

“Yeah, six years ago.”

You were about to retaliate to his argument when you heard your last name be called. You looked around Alex to see a genuinely handsome blond man, standing tall with his hands behind his back. Alex turned to look at the man, a hand then clapped your back. “Y/N, this is Assistant Superintendent Riley.”

Riley had a bored look in his eye, it made your skin bristle a little. He glanced to Alex before going, “Supe’s waitin’ on you, L/N.”

British? You glanced at Alex before he pushed you forwards, you immediately kept walking towards the door Riley was holding open. You nodded to him before walking into the office, watching as the man you were hopefully interviewing with stood.

Damn, what is with having pretty superiors?

“L/N, I’m Superintendent John Price of the 141 Hotshots, and you’ve just met my Assistant, Simon Riley.”

“British?” You blurted out as you held out your hand.

John chuckled a little before he took your hand with a firm handshake. “Yes, Liverpool. Simon’s from Manchester.” He gestured to the seat across from him as you let go and you instantly sat down, then handed him your manila folder. He took it, settling down in his chair as you heard the office door click. Footsteps behind you instantly told you that Simon intended to stay for the interview, noticing in the corner of your eye that Simon now leaned against the wall, watching you. “So, I heard you were fire watch?”

Your full attention was on John now, he had settled onto his arms on his desk. You nodded in response. “Six years.”

“Lonely up there.” Simon commented, John gave him a sharp look before gazing back at you.

“Keller said you were a Hotshot before. Why’d you quit?” You stared at John, noticing he hadn’t even opened your folder of qualifying classes and certificates.

“Fiancé-“ You cut yourself off before continuing. “Ex-fiancé convinced me to do fire watch instead. Said it was less dangerous, which it is.”

There was a twitch in John’s eye. “Then why are you here?”

“For a job-“

“Don’t run around the question. Why would you leave a cushy job that I’m sure pays well in one of the most beautiful National Parks in the world?”

“To be clear, sir,” Your eyes narrowed. “My personal business as to why I decided to change my career so quickly is none of your concern. I can promise it won’t be a problem, I didn’t leave because I was forced or fired.” You glanced to Riley. “And I may have not been on a team for the past few years, but that doesn’t mean I’m not a team player.”

The Superintendent in front of you chuckled, your facial expression didn’t change but your chest tightened.

I’ve done it again. There goes my new job. Rest in peace my independence - I’m gonna have to move in with Mom.

“You have all of your qualifications?”

A moment of shock stopped you from speaking, but you pushed through it, confusion flooding through your chest. “Uh, yeah. In the folder, fire science, EMT, fire safety training-“

“Where were you a Hotshot?” Simon’s voice made you look over to him, your answer instant, “Diamond Mountain.”

Simon whistled. “Up near Reno?”

You nodded as you looked back to John. “Was tough. No one liked me on the team except the Supe. Said I had potential.”

He had finally opened your file folder, flipping through the papers with almost blatant disregard for any of the information on the printed pages. He closed the folder after only looking through it for fifteen seconds, tossing the file back onto the desk. He settled on his elbows as he leaned forwards. “That Supe gave you flying colors when I called him.” Oh thank you, Breaker, thank you. Best Supe ever. “Said he was disappointed to see you go to fire watch so quickly.” You kept stoic, watching as John stared back. “You’re not gonna quit on me, are you?”

“No sir.”

“Not gonna run off when shit hits the fan? Or use this as a step to get to structure?”

“No sir.”

With one nod, John sat back in his chair.

“The crew’s going on a hike.” He nudged his chin towards the door. “Got running shoes, Firewatch?”

With a smile on your face, you nodded.

Summers in your fire watch tower were hot and dry - you used to sit at the worn desk, a book you’ve read thousands of times under your fingertips, as you watched over the large fields of brush and the faraway whispers of dense forests in the heart of Yellowstone. The four fans about the small one room cabin were on high, trying to move air around and keep you from overheating. It was nice, calm - even when you were watching a wildfire one year with high distance binoculars. Something about relaxing in the cabin and being over ten thousand feet in the air - it gave you a sense of calm. After years of having to fight to prove yourself, somewhere you can just be yourself was dropped into your lap.

Your heart was in your throat, you supposed sand had lodged into your esophagus by the time the 141 Hotshots had hit the second mile of the ‘hike’. Alex was kind enough to stay behind with you, not saying a word as the jog up a steep terrain was about to throw you into the hands of God. Both Price and Riley were at the head of the single file line, it slithered through the well defined trail like a Western Diamondback Rattlesnake - poised and ready to strike. There was a soft jingle that came from Alex, the sound of his two necklaces, and there was only the chchchchch of shoes against loose gravel and sand.

You were supposed to be up in that stupid one room cabin in Yellowstone by now, but here you were. Pushing yourself well beyond your now adjusted limits, you didn’t feel the need to entertain Price's statement in your head - you didn’t leave your ‘cushy’ job in Yellowstone for fun; you didn’t even want to go, but there was no way you were staying anywhere near Justin and that oddly sweet southern girl he got pregnant. You quite literally packed up three outfits, a couple pairs of underwear, and only took two pairs of socks and shoes. You had nothing else with you, anger pumped through your veins so intensely, that you wouldn’t dare go get the rest of your belongings without someone to keep you in check.

“Don’t beat yourself up.”

You looked to your right, seeing that Alex had slowed to your pace to talk to you. You then gazed back in front of you, seeing the person in front of Alex had a shirt tagged ‘Soap’. What the Hell kind of name is Soap? “I’m not.”

Alex chuckled. “Sure.” His elbow hit your arm, your head whipped to look at him. “It’s okay to be upset.”

You glared at him, eyebrows furrowed as you kept pace. “I don’t want to talk about it.” You pushed yourself further, closing the distance with the Soap Guy by a couple of feet. Alex was instantly at your side again. If you weren’t trying to be on your best behavior, you’d throw a punch directly in his smug face. He was right when he said Justin was bad news, and you were dreading the ‘I told you so’. “Can we do this later?”

Without even looking, you knew Alex gave you the look that he always gave you - you’re lying and I know you are, so I’m gonna wait until you’re not being stupid to talk about it. “I got you a key for my apartment, it’s coming in tomorrow. I didn’t really have time to clear my spare room, though.”

The sun was burning you, you regretted not thinking about sunscreen in that Phoenix airport store, you regretted not having better jogging gear, and you definitely regretted not packing your suitcase. You would have all of your hiking gear, but this job was quite literally a last minute decision you made in an airport bar. But did you regret this?

Your head looked out to the right, watching the scenery slowly change as you jogged behind the line of well-trained or in-training Hotshots. Golden colored brush, tall trees that you observed were pines, and an occasional cactus. You then looked back to Alex, his head faced ahead. He had truly grown into a handsome man, much more confident than that young adult you left in New Orleans six years ago. Sun-kissed skin and obviously gelled hair, a smile that seemed permanent; your best friend had done well for himself, you thought you had done the same. But your life had exploded into a million pieces, cutting into your not so delicate skin. You had to prove yourself, you had to do this to gain control again or everything might fall apart again.

You weren’t quite sure that you would actually regret this change, but anything was better than that one bedroom apartment in the Irish Channel in New Orleans, and with the witch of a woman who called herself your mother.

You turned your head forwards. “I’ll try to get out of your hair as quick as I can.”

“Don’t rush it.”

“Alex-“ You turned to look at him, but realized the group had slowed, you stopped on a dime.

The blond looked at you, giving you another look but it was one you couldn’t read. His hand settled on your back, pushing you to stand in between him and the stopped Soap Guy. “We’ll chat later.”

The booming voice of John Price made you snap to attention, “This is what we have been assigned to preserve. Take a breath.” You took a breath through your nose, the air tasted nothing like Yellowstone - the air in the valley you stood above was bitter and gritty, but it felt clean. “Then look out onto these thousands of acres of forest, admire it.” Your eyes fluttered as you gazed upon thousands of acres of dense pine trees, fields of brush and grass, and mountains that danced through the landscape. A twinge of guilt trembled through your stomach, guilt that you had left your entire life for an incredibly dangerous job that can get you killed at almost any turn. Your eyes moved from the horizon to the bearded man, watching as he fixed the band on his watch without even a glance to it, his eyes on all of the crew you only had a moment to glance over earlier. You watched his eyes scan every single person’s face before his eyes landed on you, maybe just for a moment too long before he looked to Alex.

“Breathe it in, because this will be one of the last times that you can look upon this sight without any negativity.”

It was truly a sight that stood before you. Breathing in air you’ve never had the chance to before, seeing the wonders of nature in a different place of America was incredible. Your lungs burned, you hadn’t had a fast-paced and tough hike since you were a Diamond Mountain Hotshot. It was good, you knew it was good for you - your eyes wandered back to Price.

“Because once I’m done with you,” His blue eyes landed upon you again, his voice sharp like a dagger as it sliced the sentiment into your brain. “all you’ll see is fuel.”

Okay, get yourself out of the gutter. He’s your boss, not a fucking treat to dangle in front of yourself! You literally just broke up with Justin, you cannot get the hots for your hot boss! KEEP IT TOGETHER!

He gave you a smirk before he started to jog towards you - then past you, then Riley behind him, and the crew followed. You waited for the Soap Guy to go for you to turn and go, but you noticed in the crew that you weren’t the only female - you didn’t catch that earlier when you went out to get your running shoes from your rental car. The only one who even looked at you gave you a smirk, she had almost black hair cut right at her shoulders, covered in tattoos. She was four people ahead of you, so it shouldn’t be hard to find her and hopefully make a friend out of Tattoo Girl. Your eyes then moved to the bold letters on the shoulders of the Soap Guy. You then saw him look over his shoulder at you.

What the fuck is with all of these guys being pretty?

“Say ye'r th' fresh meat. Alex said a lot o' guid things.” He had a wild mohawk and a charming smile, his fingers pinched the front of his shirt so he could somewhat fan himself.

“Scottish.” You remarked as Soap chuckled, following the person in front of you - you followed too, but he had moved to jog beside you like Alex. “Why do they call you Soap?”

The man looked over onto his back, tsking before giving someone ahead in line an invisible dagger through their chest. “Damn bastard wasn't suppose tae put that on mah shirt.”

Alex elbowed you again, you kept your eyes forwards now. The trail was becoming steep again, but it was easier to descend than to climb earlier. Your lungs were burning, but you were somehow pushing through. Adjusting and all that jazz. This shit is gonna suck with all the weight I have to carry during drills. Hopefully I get used to the heat quickly or else this might actually break me.

The Soap Guy cleared his throat, nudging you with a knuckle, you didn’t spare a moment to look at him. “Top secret!”

“He put Dawn dish soap in the dishwasher one night, and we came back to the station to a floor of bubbles. So his name is Soap.” Alex snickered, a smile grew on your face as Soap audibly deflated.

“So why aren’t you named Bubbles?” You kept your arms close to your chest as the route kept winding around, both men allowing you the worn gravel path as they opted for the sand and patches of grass.

Soap scoffed, “What, so I can be th’ ‘prettiest girl at th’ party’?”

A cackle of laughter came from the man you were following, another man with a nickname written on the back of his shirt - but he was conscious about the sun by wearing what looked like a well loved baseball cap. In big black letters in between his shoulder blades was ‘GAZ’, and Gaz kept cackling like a hyena. Soap took a couple fast strides forwards, immediately tugging Gaz into his sweaty armpit. The man screeched, Soap yelling some Scottish obscenities that you wouldn’t have been able to decipher if you tried. All Alex did was laugh, you watched as Soap now jogged next to Gaz, who was trying to get out of his hold.

“That’s the Team Leaders for you.”

You spared a look to Alex. “Team Leaders? Them?”

Your friend shrugged. “For as stupid as they act now, they’re amazing in the field.”

“Good to know.” Your legs burned, chest roared in pain. You gazed out onto the landscape, now noticing that the silver dot in the distance was turning into the Fire Station. “I could use a drink.”

“I also feel that you need a drink.”

You reached out and smacked Alex’s arm, snapping at him, “That’s not funny.”

He glanced to you, grabbing your hand and squeezing it. “There’s a quiet bar in town, I’ll send you the address.”

By the time you had gotten into your rental car after being dismissed with the rest of the Hotshots, you were exhausted. Lungs hummed with a slight burn, your back splattered with aches. It wasn’t hard to know you needed a stiff drink, especially after changing career paths drastically and uprooting your entire life.

You ditched going to Alex’s apartment as soon as you realized you really only had three outfits and barely any necessities to last you four days. Instead of going out to the nearest Walmart to get some new underwear and some shampoo that wasn’t Alex’s, you found yourself at the polished dark oak stool of a warmly lit quiet bar. There were barely a handful of souls in the small and cozy bar, it was well decorated and taken care of - yet you haven’t seen a bartender for twenty minutes. At least you were tired enough not to care, just glad you remembered deodorant when you had gotten back to your car. The bar had good air conditioning, softly blowing cool air around the black and gold themed bar.

Your phone had been off all day, but now it sat in your hands, on and with non-stop notifications. You had instantly put on Do Not Disturb, upset about it. Hundreds of calls from your ex-fiancé, almost a thousand texts, begging for forgiveness, then blaming it on you, then apologizing. Next was the calls from his mother, his three sisters, his brother - all people you had considered family. All were either asking where you were or asking to talk, to have Justin explain. You wouldn’t dare listen to them, wouldn’t dare listen to their defense for a slimy cheater. You wished you could just shove one sentiment down their throats:

He’s a liar, pathetic, mean, and he’s gonna get what’s coming to him. I don’t fucking cater to him anymore. He’s gonna have to learn how to suck the energy out of someone else.

The only message you wanted to read was from Justin’s father, a man you respected deeply and one you knew despised cheating. In your bones, you knew that man would take your side, even if the rest of his family took your ex-fiancé’s. The only reason why you didn’t tap on the message was because a voice had broken you from your focus.

“Thought I told you to go home and rest?”

You looked up in surprise, seeing the familiar face of Simon… behind the bar. Your eyebrows furrowed, “I thought you were a Hotshot?”

The blond shrugged in his white button up and black vest, resting his tattooed hands on his side of the bar. “Gotta have a year round job, had to pick up a shift for Lucy.”

You didn’t look away from Simon when you turned off your phone. “141 Hotshots aren’t year round?”

“God no.” He shook his head, pulling out a clean glass and a napkin, letting it settle on the bar in front of your folded arms before setting the cold glass in front of you. “We’re only mandatory for 90 consecutive days a year - I still need this cash for gas.”

A nod, you settled your phone in your lap. “Long Island, please.”

His hand was reaching for water, but it had stopped. He gave you a sharp look, a warning. “You almost passed out coming down the trail. My statement still stands,” He took the glass back, pouring water into it from the pitcher he retrieved only a minute ago. “Go home.”

Your phone buzzed in your lap. The pit of despair in your stomach got deeper. “One drink.”

He placed the glass of water in front of you. “Drink it, then go home.”

A straw was set in front of you, but you didn’t move your stare from the blond’s face. “I just moved across the country with the clothes on my back and barely enough money to rent a car.” You moved the glass off of the napkin, setting it a few inches away as you continued, “I’m moving into my best friend’s apartment because my eight year relationship ended ‘cause my fiance had to get his dick wet with another girl for an entire year.”

The stare of your Assistant Superintendent would’ve made you laugh if you weren’t waist deep in misery; his eyebrows furrowed just a little, his lips pressed into a thin line. His hand raised from the bar, grabbing another glass.

“Not to mention his mistress is pregnant.”

He let out a grunt, moving away from you to grab the liquor. “One drink.”

The buzzing phone on your lap did nothing to deter your small smile. “Thanks, Assistant Supe.”

He turned around, a small chuckle escaped him as he said, “You can just call me Captain like everyone else.”

“Captain Riley,” You smiled, he gave you a glare over his shoulder. “Thank you.”

He turned back around, grabbing his bottle of liquor before returning to his spot from before. He began to make your Long Island Iced Tea, eyes kept on his work as he spoke, “Remember to be at the firehouse at 6am. This is your only drink tonight.” Ice cubes clinked the glass as they were dropped in. “You got a ride home?”

You shrugged. “I’ll be fine.”

Simon looked up from his work, meeting your eyes with a sharp gaze. “I’ll take you home.”

A flush ran through your chest, eyebrows raising as you blubbered, “No, I’ll be fine, I promise-”

His hand waved a little. “Just wait for me.”

You smiled at him. “Thanks, Cap.”

taglist: @all-good-things-have-an-ending @warners-wife @random0lover @as-is-above-so-below @peachesofteal @halfmoth-halfman

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xanadontit · 9 months ago

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Insane Owner is really trying to make me feel bad for her when she whines that she works ALL THE TIME and look, lady, here's my thoughts on that:

You're literally the owner of the company and this is the role you've assumed.

You just sold your house in Newport Beach for $10M and bought two $5M houses so maybe go cry into a pile of cash or into one of the ten Ralph Lauren throw blankets you bought for one house?

Perhaps if you possessed any time-management or organizational skills and structured your day intentionally you wouldn't work seven days a week. But if you spend a Tuesday picking out shelves for your beachfront rental property then, yes, you're probably going to spend Saturday working to meet deadlines. Choices!

Sorry we're gonna circle back to item 2 real fast. I simply do not feel bad for anyone in this position. I will not!

Pay me more and maybe I'll keep the laptop open past 5pm. Until then? Meh.

#it's literally 10 blankets #she was very excited she snatched up the last ones #it's like working for Lucille Bluth crossed with Miranda Priestly and a Cluster B personality disorder come to life

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naffeclipse · 2 years ago

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I have the honor of being @arty-angel-things's secret Santa for the DCASS2022 event! I went a bit over the word minimum, but I had so much fun with this fic. It was a wonderful challenge to craft the prompt from your list of likes such as Mermaid AUs and Sun taking care of Y/N and helping them improve as a person! I did my best to incorporate several elements together and include Moon scaring Reader, of course, but nonetheless helping Y/N to become better as well!

I hope you like it!

Mayday In Paradise

FNAF Mermaid!Sun/Moon x Reader (SFW)

You can also read this fic on AO3!

Word Count: ~5,700 Warnings: Light Angst

You have no idea what you’re doing here, but you’re supposed to have fun. At least, that’s what Vanessa expects you to do. In truth, you’re growing wearier by the second.

The beach house is flawless, and it’s all yours for 14 days. You just flew in yesterday. As gorgeous as the tropical island, white-sand shore is, which is only a hop, skip, and a jump from the back porch of the rental you’re staying in, you’re getting trapped in your thoughts.

There’s a reason you never used your vacation days.

The company you worked for, Fazbear Entertainment, mandated that you use your vacation time by the end of the year or disciplinary action was going to be taken, as apparently, the government was breathing down their necks about their employee health and safety. When you bemoaned to Vanessa, your coworker, that you were going to be forced out of work for two weeks, she agreed, much to your dismay, that you needed the time off. She’s the one who suggested spending your Christmas somewhere down south where the weather is always warm and mild and the crystal clear, salt water is a mere stroll away.

“You need to do something nice for yourself,” she had said, smiling as you both hunched over her laptop during your lunch break, staring at house rentals and exotic locations.

You kneel on the edge of the wet sand, just where the tide laps up gently and brushes against your knees. The late morning sun is already blazing down on your shoulders where you had rubbed a great deal of sunscreen on as you really haven’t spent a great deal of time outside and fear how sensitive your skin will be. A tank top and shorts are proper beach attire, you think. You wear a nice little sunhat, too. Gazing out over the ocean, you touch the small canoe sitting on the shore. The boat was in the small shed tucked beside the garage of the rental, and the renter said everything was for your use, at your pleasure. Paddling around in the water is something fun, right?

It should be, but the longer you stay still, the more you drop into darker thoughts of leaving this beautiful place where time doesn’t grit between your teeth and the air is light and salty and you think you might enjoy yourself here.

You don’t want to get attached. You can’t. This isn’t your life. You have to go back to your empty apartment and wake up early in the cold to make it to work on time so you can talk to your only friend, Vanessa, and rinse and repeat until…

Until you die.

What a life you lead.

You groan quietly and bow your head, covering your face and incidentally brushing wet sand on your forehead. You don’t like to think and ponder about how pathetic your existence is. If you disappeared, only Vanessa would notice, but even then, you suspect she’ll move on because she has friends and family, and you are hardly a second thought, if that, in people’s lives.

This is why you keep up with the daily grind. This is why you work yourself to the bone so that when you go to bed at night, you have no choice but to sleep and not dwell on what is hopeless.

A bird chirps somewhere off in the palm trees, drawing you out of your internal collapse and allowing you to breathe in deeply. The waves gently wash up on shore. The horizon is endless and blue. What are you doing? You need to try to make the most of this before it ends and you’ve wasted it like you tend to waste other things.

Taking a hold of the canoe, you push it into the water, grunting with effort until it buoys. Your feet slip into the ocean. The warm, even temperature soaks your legs. Oh. You should probably get a life jacket on, but when you look back to shore and the empty beach house you’re going to sleep in for 13 more nights, you decide that you know how to swim. Not well, but you know how to. Climbing inside the little boat and setting off, you pick up the paddle laying at the bottom and begin heavy, slow strokes to sail through the small, peaceful slice of this paradise you’re intruding upon.

A peaceful rhythm begins as you paddle. The ocean is surreal—a rich teal color, sometimes cyan blue where it’s really shallow. You do your best to stay clear of a sandbar.

Something flashes just underneath the surface a little ways off from your canoe, a fin of some kind of fish. You can hardly see through the glare of the light reflecting off of the still surface, but then there’s another small splash—something frilled and yellow—but gone the next moment. Leaning forward, almost over the edge of the boat, you strain to pick up whatever was just underneath the surface.

A small bump and a loud scrap hit below the canoe. Your paddle hits something hard, not sand, but something unforgiving. Quickly, you push back and free the boat from whatever it hit, hoping with a cringe that it didn't scratch the paint on the canoe. You should have paid attention to where you’re going. The sandbar stretches a little longer than you had thought and you push around it to head further out to sea.

You paddle farther away, until the shore and the beach house blur into a thin line in the distance. Isolation is easy to find when the surface is calm. You inhale, and your chest feels much lighter than it had been earlier. The gloom that had clouded over your head slowly breaks apart and dissipates.

For a wild, frantic moment, you want to sail over the horizon and never come back. That mystical, other side would take you far away from the mundane and the trite, where you don’t feel so empty and worthless. You paddle harder. The minutes slip by, the heat soaks into your skin as you sweat slightly, and the shade offered by your sunhat barely keeps you cool.

Breathlessly, you stop. You’re farther away from shore, but no closer to where the sky meets the water. Laying the paddle down over your legs, you look across the ocean, as if it cares you're here, as if you’re even one ripple in its vastness. Your heart aches.

You wiggle your toes against the sensation of water. Though it’s warm, it’s cooler than the sun beating down on you.

Wait a minute.

You jerk your head down to find a steadily rising level of ocean seeping into the bottom of the canoe. Freezing in place, you stare as it slips higher, reaching your ankle. Then reality hits you as the canoe sinks deeper into the ocean, far more than it should.

Slowly, knowing that you’re not going to like what you see, you turn back to find shore a very, very long distance away. You’re far. Way too far for someone in just a canoe, not to mention one taking on water.

Uh oh.

You jump to your feet but almost fall overboard as the canoe titters dangerously. The paddle slips from your lap and lands into the wet bottom. Searching frantically, you drag your hands through the leaking canoe and rake your palms over every side, hoping for something, anything, to aid in dealing with this mess. You come up empty, though you do find a small, worn hole in the front of the canoe. Flashing back to that horrible scrap on the sandbar, you realize that this is your fault.

You didn’t bring anything with you—not a life vest, and your mouth grows drier by the second as you stand helplessly in the unstable boat as the surface level climbs up your shins.

You idiot. You stupid idiot.

In a last-ditch effort, you rip the paddle out of the water as the canoe begins to tip in the back, sinking dangerously further into the ocean, and paddle frantically. The boat is slow, struggling to move with the added load. Every shove you give is heavier than the last. There is no more buoyancy.

You drop the paddle and it slips overboard while you scramble forward, away from the devouring wave that’s starting to rush against your thighs. Panic sends your pulse upwards as you cling to the tip of the canoe as it angles slightly higher and the end sinks deeper. In the corner of your vision, something flashes through the water, red and swift.

Oh no. No, no, no. Was that a shark? They’re in these waters, you know they are, and you grow sick at the thought of being torn apart by layers of sharp teeth. Fear bleeds into you, sending your heart racing as you hold tight to the bow of your quickly sinking vessel.

Somehow, you didn’t see yourself becoming food for whatever native animals roam the waters around your vacation getaway. That’s so sad, honestly. You make a strangled noise, like a laugh that wants to be sob, but you can’t help it as terror takes hold. Vanessa might feel bad about suggesting you go here, but it’s not her fault. It’s your fault. If you weren’t so pathetic and lonely and just, not you, you wouldn’t be here, sinking.

The water crashes against your hips. Half of the canoe is submerged, tilting to a sharper degree as you whimper and look back to the thin line on the horizon that’s supposed to be land. You mentally balk. You have to swim. You don’t know how but you have to try and make it back to shore with whatever you just saw in the water.

The sinking feeling in your middle matches the finality of the canoe.

You close your eyes and inhale sharply, internally bracing yourself. Before you can unhook your hands from around the bow, something splashes close beside you.

When you open your eyes, looking over the end of the canoe, you’re met with an aqua-blue gaze, the color almost disappearing into the liquid hue lapping at the creature’s face. Bright yellow frills adorn his head in a way that reminds you of the rays that beam off of the sun.

You gasp as he blinks, then rises higher above the surface, revealing a grinning jaw full of razor-sharp teeth. The strange fish’s round and flat face tilt, the pale yellow color of its scales running down a slender neck adorned with red fins like a ruffle collar. Your arms lock around the canoe as you stare back. He slowly opens his deadly mouth; your mind screams at you to get away.

“You look like you’re in trouble, friend,” the fish cheerfully remarks.

You sputter, blinking rapidly, before registering that the water is overtaking the last of your precious floatation device. Scrambling, you furiously crawl on top of the very edge of the canoe before it, too, sinks.

“Get away!” you shriek, wishing you still had your paddle. You could have used it to wack that, that—whatever it is, back!

The fish-man thing slips away slightly, concerned but cringing at your piercing volume. He levels a soft gaze on you amid your fumbling panic.

Officially, the boat falls entirely underwater. You’re standing up, but your platform is taking you deeper. With no other choice, you kick off of it as much as you can to get a small leap through the water and away from that thing that’s smiling with way too many teeth.

You sputter as salt and liquid hit your face. Struggling, you kick and push your arms, splashing wildly. The fact that you’re a weak swimmer only pushes your frantic movements harder, and then something snags your foot, sharp points digging into your skin. You barely have a moment to inhale before something drags you under.

Through the burn of salt, you look down as your heart climbs into your throat. Glowing red eyes stare up at you from where the depth darkens the water and reveals another fish-man. A dark blue hand is wrapped around your ankle. This one is silvery and dark in the face, like a crescent moon hanging in the night sky. He bears a smile no less wide than the other one, and somehow, even sharper as he holds you in place just below the surface. Instead of frills, it has a thick, midnight blue appendage that reminds you of a nightcap trailing off of the back of his head, ending with a small, glowing bulb, much like an angler fish’s lure. His body is long and sleek, a darker color but his tail is dotted with designs in his scales, like stars. The sharp tips of his fins remind you of a shark.

A breath escapes you in a scream, swallowed by the sea in a burst of bubbles. You start thrashing wildly. The creature hisses and snatches your other ankle before pulling you deeper. You’re whipped downwards, forced to confront his terrifying grin. You freeze. The fish man looms in the water above you as his grip shifts to grab you tightly by the waist, reminding you how incredibly small and useless you are in the water. Red eyes paralyze you.

“Stop it,” he warns in a low, whispery voice, carried seamlessly through the water. “Be good, or else.”

Your wide gaze stings from the salt but you can’t look away, waiting for the creature to decide that it’s already reached ‘or else’ and take a bite out of you. A fire begins eating up your lungs. There is no more air left in you and the ocean is becoming darker by the moment.

Arms wrap around you, underneath your armpits, from behind. You jolt as your back is pulled flushed against a solid chest. The moon face creature narrows his eyes, irritated as if the fun was cut short.

“Moon, the poor thing needs air,” reminds a buoyant, chasting voice behind you before the other one releases your waist. In one flip of a tail, the yellow fish man lifts you to the surface.

Your head breaks through the water and you inhale sharply, choking several times before settling enough to register that a mysterious sea monster is still, very much, holding you tightly around your chest. Large hands, pale yellow, and arms lined with small red flowing fins on the outside that stop at the elbow, lower to your waist. Claws dig slightly into the fabric of your tank top.

Deeply breathing, you press your hands over the arms holding you in place above the water and sputter, “Don’t eat me!”

“Oh, we’re not going to eat you!” the voice behind you chimes pleasantly. “We’re not hungry.”

You tense. Panic flows once more through your veins but you’re distracted by the other fish man—merman, that’s the word you’ve been looking for—sliding up in front of you. He doesn’t break entirely through the surface, his mouth hidden beneath the slow ripples you’ve thrown out in your half-halted squirming. His red eyes bore into you, predator-like. You stiffen.

“Let me go,” you say quietly as you attempt to pry the sunny merman’s arms off of you, “Right now.”

“And let you sink again?” the merman behind you clicks his tongue disapprovingly. The dark blue one grabs your wrists with a small splash, forcing you to stop. Not that you actually got the yellow, scaly arms to budge. “Friend, you don’t seem to understand the danger you’re in.”

No, you’re well aware of the fact that two mystical and terrifying mermen are holding you captive right now, and that at their leisure, they could drag you under to drown or start tearing you apart. The water is dangerous because you are in it with them.

The blue merman rises higher out of the water, and immediately, you’re trapped in his shadow. His teeth flash in the light. When he tilts his face, the thing at the back of his head drapes over his shoulder.

“You think you can make it that far?” amusement fills his rasp.

You whimper as he slowly flexes his grip around your wrists before easing up slightly. You kick out once and hit something solid that you can barely make out in the water, something yellow and red striped that then jerks slightly. You’re pretty sure you hit the one holding you. Your thought is confirmed when the arms around your waist tighten.

“Be nice,” the yellow one’s voice lowers, becoming slightly darker, and you don’t miss the warning. His tone alone freezes you in place. “You need to mind your manners so we can keep helping you.”

“Help… me?” you breathe out. You tug on the silver and dark face merman’s grip, but he doesn’t budge.

“Get back to shore,” he says, his starry ‘hat’ glistening wet.

You glance momentarily around, back at the sun-like merman and back to the more moon-esque one.

“Why?” The word slips out of your mouth before you consider, maybe, not questioning the two sea creatures holding your life in their hands, and thus causing them to change their minds.

Two pairs of eyes, one red, one blue, fall on you. It’s very hard to swallow suddenly.

“You looked like you were having a bad day, friend,” the sunny one says simply. “There’s no need to let it get any worse!”

“We’re not hungry,” the moon fish says, echoing the sunny one’s words from earlier. Your face falls in horror before he snickers. You grow still as he turns over your hands and works your fingers open, unfurling your fists. Is he messing with you? Does he find it funny to scare you? You can only stare and wonder as he slides his hands over your palm to loosen the tension in the lines.

“O-okay.” Your fingers tremble until he finally releases your hands. In a smooth descent, he sinks below the water, red eyes still watching, ominously close.

“That’s much better, sunshine. Hold on, it’s a long way for you,” the one behind you says, very closely, and you glance over your shoulder to see his ever-sharp smile grow in excitement.

“Wait!” A spark of anxiety hits your chest, fearing the merman holding you is about to go under, too, but your outburst is silenced as he hikes you up, pulling you tighter against his chest as he falls onto his back. Water splashes over your arms and your legs. A small noise of fright escapes your throat before you inhale sharply, holding the precious air in your lungs. You flail for half a moment before registering the stern but gentle reprimand from the yellow merman. Holding still, you’re acutely aware of the water lapping at the edges of your body as he swims steadily with flicks of his tail, keeping you above the surface. The sky overhead is a perfect, crystal blue.

Tentatively, you exhale. A blazing heat not due to the sun setting over your face. It’s strange and almost intimate how he holds you so securely to him, and it immediately reminds you of those cute videos of mother otters holding their young on their bellies. Except, it’s you, and you’re clutched by a merman.

You’re lying on top of his body. When you glance down, you realize his tail is brightly striped in scarlet and yellow, with flowing, translucent red fins outlining his sides and expanding into a beautiful, full tailfin of the same colors.

“Stay right there. Don’t move, friend! It’s so much easier when you listen to us, isn’t it?” he hums encouragingly.

Slowly, slowly, you give in to this wild turn of events with a stark air of incredulousness. Your head reclines against a bony ridge on the merman—a slender collarbone, you think. Underneath your feet, the rhythmic motions of a tail working through the water become a familiar motion.

“You’re really taking me back to shore?” you ask dumbly. You're not even sure if you’re still alive or maybe this is an odd dream, something your sun-fried brain cooked up to give you a boost of serotonin, but that doesn’t fit right either. You can’t remember the last time you had a pleasant dream.

The merman’s short chuckle rumbles underneath your back.

“Yes,” the arms around you press a little tighter, “and I must insist that whatever destination you had in mind out on the ocean wait until you learn to not sink your boat.”

“I didn’t have a destination,” you mumble, embarrassed at his slight jab at your obvious mistake. Quietly, you berate yourself for your foolishness.

“You looked very determined to get somewhere , friend,” he says, voice lowering slightly as if pondering the idea of you lying to him.

Were he and the other one watching you from underneath the water? You guess that’s possible, but that doesn’t explain why he’d care to. You’re nothing special. The only eye-catching skill you’ve flaunted so far is being hilariously bad at being aware of your surroundings until it’s too late.

His claws dig deeper into your sides and you realize he’s expecting an answer, one you scramble for before blurting out, “I was getting away!”

“Away?” You can hear the frown in his voice, but you can’t picture his grinning maw turning upside down, so you try to peek up at him. “Away from what?”

You only manage to get a look past his shoulder into the water. The glimpse reveals a dark shape keeping up with the sunny merman’s steady swim, glowing faintly with a yellow hue in small patches. Looking back to the sky, you desperately hope the moon merman doesn’t get hungry anytime soon. You cling a little tighter to the arms holding you above water.

“I don’t know,” you confess. It’s a pathetic answer, and you know it wouldn’t be accepted by anyone, much less a merman who’s the only thing keeping you from a watery grave. You feel a small brush of something wet and solid on the top of your head—one of the yellow frills, maybe, framing his head.

The small motion unlocks your mouth with a watery key of fear, and you gush, “I don’t want to be here! But I don’t want to go back to my empty apartment and I don’t want to go back to work but it doesn’t matter where I go because it’s always me. I can’t get away from me and my stupid face and the stupid things I do!”

You exhale and your chest is tight, crushing your lungs. One hand lifts from around your middle, and you start. The claw digits take a hold of your chin and push your head up, up, until your eyes are tilting all the way back and you behold the merman sitting up slightly from the water, his face upside down in your vision.

“Be nice,” he warns softly. Water drips off of his fins as his aqua-blue eyes emphasize his point.

You can’t gulp at the angle you're pushed in, but when he lets go of your jaw, resuming his hold on your torso, you swallow dryly.

“I… I wasn’t being mean to you,” you give meekly. You immediately cringe, and desperately wish you would have just left it be.

“Be nice to yourself,” he soothes. Another brush of something wet and slippery against your hair gives you pause like he’s pressing his cheek against the crown of your head. This time, salt water trails down the side of your face before the touch lifts away. The merman flicks his tail once more with you in his arms.

Oh.

You turn your head to the side. Gazing out across the teal ocean, you pretend to not notice the dark shadow following just below you and the merman. You’re not sure what all of this means—if there’s some grand point, but it feels better. Not great, not peachy, but you’re definitely not thinking about what you were thinking about this morning.

That's a slight improvement. If only you could confirm whether or not the scary sea creatures were going to eat you or not. That would be the final factor in determining how well you’re doing right about now.

By the time your skin starts to burn since the sunscreen has long since washed away, the merman, who you’ve started mentally referring to as Sun, if only because he called the other one Moon, slows down gradually. You tense. The water is shallow here, the sand just a few feet below the crystal teal water, but you’re not ready to believe that it’s as simple as the merman said.

Claws around your middle flex as he gently says, “The shore is right here, sunshine.”

You’re not sure why he’s calling you that, or how it can cause so many flutters in your stomach, but slowly, he slides you off of him. You start to scramble for a handhold, fearing that even at this depth, which you’re not even sure you can touch the bottom, the mermen could drown you or easily enjoy a human meal. Quickly, before your panic can increase tenfold, you’re eased into another pair of arms. These are deep blue and silver, and you immediately cling to the wet shoulders of the other merman. Moon.

You look up and immediately suck in a quick breath at his sharp smile. He cranks his neck down, eyeing you closely before his red gaze narrows. Half a sensible thought reminds you to not struggle despite how hard your heart pounds. He might still eat you.

“Land,” he says in his low, whispery tone. Turning your head slowly, you find the white-sand shore and your beach house, sitting patiently. It’s only a few strokes away. Gradually, you turn to face him again, hyper-aware of his intense grip on your waist. The water laps at your neck but he’s all that keeps you afloat, and you still hold desperately to his frame.

The other one, Sun, sweeps around you. The smooth sensation of flourishing fins brushes against your calf as he eases to your side. Moon shifts slightly, angling you enough that they both face you. Your eyes dart between the mermen. Parched, and struggling with a dry mouth, you swallow roughly. Two pairs of magical and impossible eyes watch you. The ocean ripples with all three of you floating close together.

“Thank you,” you speak carefully as Sun had warned you before to mind your manners. “Thank you both for helping me.”

“You're welcome,” they speak in unison, one chipper and one low but not so spooky. Softer, even.

“Can I…” you hesitate as Moon’s hands dig slightly into your hips, but you’re not sure what else can be done. Either they eat you, or they let you go. Your heart skips a beat. “Can I swim to shore, now?”

The sea creatures share a glance, teeth always bared in a sharp grin, but the yellow one looks a tad discontent, unsatisfied. Nodding his head silently, the blue merman seems to be answering an unspoken question between them, but you’re not sure what. Are they agreeing to take a bite out of you? Your hands clench on Moon’s slick shoulders. Anxiety spikes in your pulse.

“Of course,” Sun says, tilting his head and dripping salt water off of his frills, “but first, what’s your name?”

You stare for a few moments too long. It would be considered rude if you weren’t certain your jaw was slack and your eyes wide in disbelief. At least, they appear to believe your genuineness. Sun’s eyes crinkle with worry and Moon parts his jaws slightly, revealing just how deadly the entirety of his mouth is.

“Your name,” Moon repeats tersely.

It sputters out of your mouth. The fact that it’s yours and they want to know it causes you to flinch internally. It’s nothing. It’s just your name.

The flow of water being pushed below gives away how Sun flicks his fins, pleased. Moon tilts his head as if chewing on the letters before deciding it’s good enough. You look to Sun, still wondering if the heat has baked your brain or if maybe this is a weird version of heaven or hell. His aqua-blue gaze softens.

He lifts a hand, claws dripping wet. You start to lean back but Moon’s grip tightens and you’re held in place as the yellow merman brushes a wet strand of hair away from your face, over your forehead.

“Let’s not repeat this little accident,” he says, the rebuke clear in his tone but he chuckles lightly.

“A-alright.” You nod once.

Moon pulls you close and your foot brushes against a sleek fin far below. His tail. He bares his teeth but mirth glows in the crimson of his gaze.

“Be good.” His hands rise from your side and cup your face. Firmly confined, you quickly grab tight to his wrists as he stares directly into you, not through you, but straight into your core. As if he refuses to let you not be aware of his intensity.

“I-I will,” you promise weakly.

“No,” he murmurs and taps a claw against your bottom lip. “ Be good .”

You glance down reflectively, but you can’t see much but the sensation of wet, sleek palms holding you above water.

“To you?” you try in your confusion.

“To you .” He emphasizes and taps once more, this time dropping to your chin. You resist the urge to lick your lips, well aware of how salty and dry they will taste.

Oh. Oh.

Maybe the world has gone mad. Maybe you’ve finally snapped and this is what fantasy your mind has driven you to.

You still don’t have an answer as Moon starts to push you backward. The water flows gently around you as Sun easily keeps with the leisure speed as if they’re both dragging out this time. You flick your eyes between them, then the first brush of sand hits the back of your heel, and you jerk slightly. Moon begins to release you, but you panic.

This—whatever this is, is about to end. This bizarre and mystical encounter with creatures that should not exist. How can you return to the mundane now? It’s as if you’ve been kept in the dark and have finally emerged into the world, only to be blinded by the light.

You don’t even know what they call themselves!

You let go of one of Moon’s wrists to snag Sun’s arm, touching the red fins floating off of his limb, who startles. Moon eyes flash in surprise and then something unreadable as you cling to him tightly.

“What are your names?” you gasp, barely standing on your tiptoes and keeping your mouth and nose from falling under. Without Moon’s support, you’re only just keeping your head above the surface.

They both stare at you. It would be all too easy for them to break your grip or even drag you under and back out to sea to drown, but they stay, watching your desperate attempts to keep them long enough to give them proper names.

“Moon,” he says, just as the yellow merman called him. He twists out of your grasp but snatches your wrist before your mouth falls under, relieving you of your pathetic struggle as he easily supports you.

“I’m Sun,” the other one gives gently—just as you thought! He, too, frees himself of your distress-fueled hold and instead pulls you closer, cupping your elbow so that you’re lifted on both sides, floating between the two. “You should rest away from the water for a while, sunshine”

“Okay, okay,” you breathe out. There are a million more things you want to ask but they push you backward until your feet scrap against the sand. They slip back, fins flicking underneath the surface. Their touch leaves you, and quickly, you become cold.

Moon ducks slightly, his mouth sinking below the waterline but his glowing red eyes stay on you as you quickly work your way backward. Until, finally, you’re standing in waist-deep water. Floating higher in the water, Sun watches you. He tilts his head, eyes upturned with quiet amusement as you trip over your own feet. Splashing, you catch yourself, surprisingly. You look back and the pair have drifted deeper, though you stay in the shallows, fingers clenching and grasping.

Moon sinks under first, then Sun, but you swear you can feel eyes on you as you stare out over the ocean. The heat of the day tilts. Orange begins burning at the edge of the horizon. You’re in desperate need of a drink and need to lie down.

Be good.

You pull yourself out of the ocean and stumble onto the shore, dragging your feet. Exhaustion slams into you as adrenaline and the need to survive wane. Something cold is left in its wake.

What did you stumble upon? Or rather, what did you sink into? You’re not that lucky to suddenly be confronted by magical creatures, much less helpful ones—even if they are very, very intimidating. Why your name? Why did they ask about your name? Why do they care to know? You’re no one. You don’t think anyone would have noticed you had drowned except for Vanessa, and even then—

Be nice.

You look back out over the water. A chill rolls over your skin and you hug yourself, realizing your sunhat is long gone. It must have gone under with the boat amid your panic.

Okay. Okay.

You slowly take yourself to the back porch of your beach house and wonder, how exactly, you’re meant to exist with the knowledge that mermen exist. Maybe if you could see them again, you could discover a way to cope with this new reality.

A soft blossom of warmth fills your chest.

Be good. Be nice.

You’ll do just that.

#DCASS2022 #arty-angel-things #sun x reader #sun x y/n #moon x reader #moon x y/n #mermaid au #mermaid!sun #mermaid!moon #ao3 link #Mayday In Paradise

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loftec · 8 months ago

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hihi!! writers truth or dare! 🔪☁️🎨 <3

Hellohello! ❤️

🔪 ⇢ what's the weirdest topic you researched for a writing project?

Maybe not the weirdest, but by far my favourite. Back in 2015 I tried to figure out what an American tour bus would reasonably look like, I guess? And then Facebook showed me ads for US bus rental companies for MONTHS after. Brilliant!

☁️ ⇢ what made you choose your username?

Cast your mind back 18 years I was on MSN messenger chatting with @mittimellan trying to figure out what I should make my username on Livejournal. I guess we were just sitting around quoting Shooting Fish as normal and their fake roof insulation company came up, and the rest is history.

🎨 ⇢ link your favourite piece of fanart and explain why you like it

Gosh this is hard, and I tried scrolling back in my archive to see what I could find and it nearly killed my ancient laptop lol, here's what I found before the fans kicked into high gear:

shoutout to this one, sorry but you must have known it was a risk. A favourite for obvious reasons, overwhelmingly nice.

favourite GO fanart, I have it on a mug and it makes me happy every time I open my cupboard.

This one, because hugs (friends and hugs, my two agendas).

and this one, because look at their little faces!!

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ereardon · 2 years ago

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A Place Like This [Chapter 2][Rhett Abbott x OC]

Summary: Rhett Abbott has never met a girl like you. You’re a corporate city girl in Wabang on borrowed company time — he thinks there’s no way you would waste it on him. So when you fall for the local bull rider, you’re both a little surprised. What will it take to get Rhett to realize he can give you everything you’re looking for? And will Rhett be able to reconcile the fact that your job is literally to dismantle Wabang and break apart the only place his family has ever known?

Pairing: Rhett Abbott x OC [Julia Han]

WC: 2.9K

Warning: Cursing, implied smut, some violence

Series masterlist here

“Julia, Dan wants to see you in conference room B.”

You tossed your head back with a groan, slipping your heels on beneath your desk and standing up, smoothing down the buttons of your blouse and grabbing your laptop before clicking down the hall, past the row of partners’ offices. The good offices, the ones with windows and built-in bars and a couch to collapse on when you got too piss drunk to possibly take the train home at midnight after a client meeting.

Sliding open the glass door, you cleared your throat.

“Dan? Charles said you asked for me.”

“Julia!” Dan turned his megawatt smile on you. “Take a seat.”

His enthusiasm terrified you. Dan got excited about exactly three things. When the White Sox won, the day his wife signed their divorce settlement and he managed to scrape by without a hefty monthly alimony payment, and acquisitions.

Dan loved the kinds of deals that could blow up in your face. The kind that sucked you dry and left you for the wolves. They were his kryptonite.

“How’s it going?” you asked, taking a seat in a black leather rolling chair, crossing one leg over another.

He lowered himself into the chair next to yours at the head of the table and slid a thin folder over. “Ever been to Wyoming?”

You shook your head. “Never been one for horses. Or cowboys for that matter.”

Dan chuckled. “You might change your mind after spending a few weeks there.”

You sighed and flipped open the folder. “Alright, you have my interest. What is it?”

His eyes sparkled and they told you everything you needed to know about this assignment.

It was going to be bad. People were going to lose their jobs. Maybe they’d even be forced to leave town. You would be a social pariah in a matter of days.

And you were going to make the firm tens of millions of dollars.

***

The town was simple. That was an understatement.

The guy at the airport had apologized profusely when the only rental car left was a slim Honda sedan instead of the luxury model you had made the reservation for.

You had sighed, climbing into the black car, and driving the hour and a half to Wabang. Halfway through, your Spotify bluetooth cut out and you swore, rapping your fingernails against the leather steering wheel.

It was a beautiful drive. You had to give Dan some credit. He could have sent anyone, but he chose you. Wyoming was not part of your normal remit for the firm. You were strictly the midwest agent: Chicago, Minneapolis, Milwaukee.

But you were vying for vice president and he knew it. This was your shot to prove your worth in an office of all white middle aged men. They hadn’t wanted to hire the young female associate. You didn’t fit their mold. You hadn’t gone to Northwestern or UMichigan and been a Tri Delt. You didn’t enjoy the steakhouse, cigars after work and strip club aesthetic that the other partners languished in.

What’s more, you were a woman. A half-Asian woman, no less. Some saw you as a diversity hire. Others said it was the firm finally entering into the twenty-first century. Either way, you had climbed your way up from the bottom. Dan saw it. The other partners did, too.

Some might say the Wyoming deal was to get you out of the office. But you knew what it was. A lifeline. A fast track to partner.

It was your shot.

***

Your corporate housing was a small apartment above the town’s bakery. It smelled like fresh baked bread in the morning and the entire front room was drenched in natural light by early afternoon. You hated that it was lovely, in the most ordinary way.

Wabang was such a different type of assignment that you hadn’t done the correct research before jumping on the flight. It was a jeans and boots kind of town. You stuck out in your Jimmy Choos, St. Johns suits, Chanel flap bag. You stuck out for a lot of reasons.

It was apparent from the moment that you got to town there were a handful of bachelors that had placed you on their radar. Perhaps it was the fact that you were fresh meat. Or that you were one of only a handful of unmarried twenty-something women in a town where the average marriage age was undoubtedly early twenties.

Either way, when a suave-looking blond in a blue button down approached you outside of the local market, his eyes skimming over your dress before landing on your face, white teeth bared in a shockingly luminescent smile, you felt a strange ick wash over you.

“Hello there,” he said, leaning against the brick of the building. “I’m Luke Tillerson.”

You nodded. “Julia Han.”

He smirked. “Where you from, gorgeous? Not from around here, obviously. Would have remembered a thing like you.”

The urge to gag was clear and present, but you choked it down. “Listen, sweetheart, we don’t have to do this. The answer is no and I think we both know it.”

An angry red blush crept over Luke’s chest, up his neck, and you saw his eyes bulge slightly. For a moment, you were almost worried that he might reach out and grab you. There was an air about him that gave you reservation. An instability.

“I don’t mean to be rude,” you followed up quickly, shifting your purse from one side to another, hiking it up on your shoulder. “I’m just in town for a few weeks, tops. I try not to make it a habit of starting things that I can’t follow through with.”

His fists, which had been balled up against his sides, slowly unwound themselves and you watched him take a deep breath. “Alright, darlin’, guess I gotta accept that.”

You smiled. “Nice to meet you, Luke.”

As you turned to walk away, his fingers circled your wrist, tugging you back. A sweat started to break out at your hairline as you turned around, his grip tight and unrelenting. “You change your mind, darlin’, and I’ll be here,” he whispered gruffly, standing so close you could smell his astringent aftershave. “Tillerson ranch. Come by anytime.”

Luke dropped your wrist and you shook it out at your side. You were used to men like him. Men who took because they thought it was owed to them. Men who had never heard the word no before in their lives.

They were dangerous. Almost as dangerous as you.

***

Rhett fiddled with his keys, leaning up against the side of the truck, eyes scanning the main street of Wabang for your signature heels.

The comment you had made as you walked out of the door at the bar the night before terrified him. You terrified him, in a way. In the best way possible.

He needed to know what you meant. Even though a part of him wanted to get away, leave Wabang in the dust, Rhett knew that he would always be inextricably tied to this place. This land. His family was Wabang.

Finally, he spotted you leaving a door near the bakery, dark sunglasses covering most of your face. You had traded in the black heels for a pair of nude ones, and the black dress for a pale blue one that offset your olive skin and dark hair.

He stepped out onto the sidewalk in your direct path and watched as you lifted the sunglasses to the top of your head and smiled, heading his way.

“Rhett,” you said softly and just the sound of your voice sent a jolt of electricity down his spine. “How are you?”

He nodded. “Good,” he whispered gruffly. You took in his hat, worn jeans and boots. It was the morning, still early, and you wondered what exactly he did when he wasn’t riding bulls. “I, uh, I was hoping we could talk again.”

You smiled. “Yeah, sure.”

“Now?” he said, lips curled up in a soft smile. “Diner’s right over there.” He pointed one long finger to a building down the road.

“I actually have a meeting with the Mayor in ten minutes,” you replied. “But I’m free for dinner?”

Rhett felt his chest constrict. He didn’t want to jump the gun and assume it was a date. But the way you were looking at him — sparkling eyes, lips pushed together in a perfect pout. He hoped you meant it as a date. “Yeah, OK,” he nodded. “I’ll pick you up at seven?”

“Alright. I’m staying right down there. Apartment over the bakery.”

Rhett nodded and smiled again. “I’ll be there.”

You slid your sunglasses on and pressed one hand to his muscular bicep, squeezing it gently. “Looking forward to it.”

***

Rhett waited nervously on the sidewalk outside of your apartment. He was early. Royal had asked him to stay late rebuilding a fence but he had brushed his father off, not letting on that he was taking the newcomer out to dinner.

Your arrival in town had whipped up a flurry of rumors, but it appeared that only Rhett knew your true reasoning for appearing in Wabang. The Mayor was notably silent about the fact that a corporation wanted to take over the town. He had failed, and a man like him hated to go down without a fight.

At seven on the dot, he stepped forward and pressed the metal buzzer for the upstairs apartment. Your voice rang through, muffled by the decades old technology. “Coming!”

You swung the door open, almost knocking Rhett off of his feet. He was standing too close to the door, not expecting you to swing it open so violently.

“Shit!” he whispered as the metal nearly skimmed him and you immediately reached out, pressing your hands to his face.

“Oh my God, I’m sorry!” you said quickly, brushing your fingers across his cheeks and then down his arms, eyes doing a quick assessment. “Are you OK? Did it hit you?”

He smiled and shook his head, a small section of hair falling into his face. He had a quiet way of observing his surroundings and Rhett simply stretched out his fingers, catching your own as your hands slid down his arms, checking for cuts or scrapes. “I’m fine, darlin’,” he murmured.

Rhett gripped one of your hands tightly, leading you out onto the sidewalk into the passenger seat of his truck. He pulled open the door, helping you up, and you smiled, climbing in.

“So where are we going?” you asked once he was settled into the driver’s seat, reversing out of the spot, one hand on the headrest of your seat. You couldn’t help but watch the muscles rippling beneath his clean shirt.

“Restaurant one town over,” he said in his gravelly voice. “‘Bout a ten minute drive.”

“Why one town over?”

Rhett shot you a look, eyebrows raised. “Cause we have some stuff to talk about and I have a feeling you’ll be a little more forthcoming outside of city limits.”

You chuckled and leaned back against the seat. “So you don’t want to be seen with the town pariah?”

“Trust me, a man wants to be seen with a girl like you on his arm.”

***

You ordered a gin and lime over ice, which made Rhett raise his eyebrows. He had you pegged as a red wine girl, or maybe a whiskey sour on a particular night. Not straight gin.

“So, what’s it like being a bull rider?” you asked.

“It’s not important or special, really. Just the one thing I felt like I could do around here.”

“Well it’s interesting to me,” you replied, taking a sip of your drink before leaning forward, sliding your arm around the top of the curved booth backrest, fingers dancing lightly on Rhett’s shoulder.

He blushed. “I’m sure a city girl like you needs a lot more to be impressed,” he said. “Bet I can’t compete with the kinds of guys you’re used to.”

You shook your head. “Those guys are all the same. They’re boring, in the absolutely worst ways.” You skimmed a nail across his shoulder toward the slight curl of hair at the nape of his neck. “So you’re wrong. It doesn’t take more to impress me.”

Rhett could barely focus. His brain was short circuiting as you brushed your fingers across his shoulders and neck. He was acutely aware that you had your legs crossed under the large booth table, one foot wedged tightly beneath his calf.

He wanted to reach out and touch you, feel your warmth under his fingertips, but he stopped himself as the waitress set down your food.

“Tell me why you’re really here.” His voice was low and husky. “The deal, the town.”

You shook your head again. “I said too much last night. It’s business, Rhett. Nothing personal.”

“You can’t drop a bomb like that and walk away.”

There was something in his voice that you couldn’t place. You had read him the moment he came up to you in the bar. He was stuck. But perhaps you had overestimated how much he wanted to leave Wabang.

He was going to take this much more personally than you had hoped.

“Rhett,” you whispered, placing your fork down on the plate and sliding one hand onto his thigh. He froze, blue eyes hooked on yours. “Honey, trust me when I say I don’t like doing this. But I was sent here to do a job. And I have to see it through.”

“But who is the buyer?” he asked. “What does this mean for the town? For my ranch.”

“Your ranch? I thought you said you were a bull rider?”

“My family has a ranch,” he said softly and the realization began to sink in. He was tied to the town in a way you hadn’t imagined. “Abbott ranch, out on Route Eight. Over next to the Tillersons.”

“Tillerson,” you repeated. “Like Luke Tillerson?”

Rhett tensed. “Yeah. You know him?”

“He kind of cornered me the other day. Tried to ask me out and I said no and he didn’t take it too well.”

“What do you mean, didn’t take it too well?”

“Rhett, it’s nothing.”

“Julia, it’s not nothing,” he said, his eyes trained on yours. “What did he do?” His voice was low, venomous. There was something there. It wasn’t just jealousy. It was years of competition and anger boiled down into a volatile slurry. You could almost feel it radiating off of him.

“He asked me out and I said no, that I don’t date while I’m on assignment. And then when I went to walk away he grabbed my wrist, hard, pulling me back. That was it.” You rubbed your fingers softly on his thigh. “Rhett, please, it was nothing. Let’s move on.”

He slammed one fist onto the table, rattling the plates, and you gasped. The other tables around you shot dirty looks, but Rhett looked at the ground, biting his bottom lip.

“Rhett,” you said and the anger in your voice made him look up. “No. We’re not going to do this. Either you let this go or I’m walking away.”

“Shit,” he muttered, wiping his hands on his napkin. “Julia, I’m sorry.” His fingers curled over yours where they sat on his thigh. “I’m sorry,” he repeated.

You nodded. “It’s alright.”

As you turned back to your dinner, sliding your hand from his leg, Rhett’s mind jumped in circles. What did you mean you didn’t date people on assignment? What was this dinner if that was the case?

When the waitress dropped off the check, you reached for it and Rhett shot you a look.

“No,” he said forcefully and you hated that it made you wet between your thighs. “Don’t even think about it, sweetheart.”

You smiled. “Alright, whatever you say, Rhett.” You didn’t want to point out that you made mid-six figures and he was a bull rider. You got the sense it would be deeply offensive to him if you tried to pay.

Outside, you took a deep breath. The air was so fresh compared to Chicago. Rhett towered over you, even in your heels, one hand pressed against the building wall as he leaned to the side.

“Did you have a nice time?” you whispered.

Rhett nodded, a small smile curving his perfect pink lips. “I did, yeah. Did you?”

He didn’t understand what you were after. What you wanted from him. What you wanted in general. He didn’t understand anything about you. In fact, you terrified him to his core. He had never known a woman like you and that terrified him because all he wanted was to pull you in, press his lips to yours, spend the next fifty years learning every inch of your body with his mouth and hands and mind.

So when you leaned forward and skimmed your hand through his hair near his ear, pulling his neck down, locking your lips against his, his heart threatened to explode from his body.

“Yeah,” you whispered, lips still grazing his. “I had a great time.”

Tag list: @double-j @momc95 @sadpetalsstuff @seresinhangmanjake @shanimallina87 @starrynightskyz @writercole @endofdays56 @coffeeandcuriosities @xoxabs88xox

#rhett abbott x oc #rhett abbott #outer range #lewis pullman #series #A Place Like This

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saffrontechnologies · 3 months ago

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Laptop Rental Dell Latitude 3490 Core i5 8th Generation 8gb ram 256gb SSD 14' HD Screen Backlit Keyboard With Adaptor

#laptoprental #laptop #it company #rental #corporate

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bitletsanddrabbles · 1 year ago

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WIP Why The Heck Not

So I got off the plane after an eight hour flight to discover there was a Thomas/Guy travel thing going on this month. Clearly I had to put my recent experience to work! Now that I've cleared the jet lag…and can mostly breathe again…and have all of my medical appointments out of the way…the month's almost over.

Typical.

But hey, I have the first couple of scenes done, and if I post the first one, I'll at least have started posting it before the deadline, right? Right. That's how these things work.

This, then, is the first scene of the most recent SURPRISE edition of the Poly!Thomas Modern AU. Chris and Richard will only be mentions in this one, I'm afraid, as they stayed in York.

For the record, first class seats are one of the few things my parents didn't splurge on for our trip.

We all know why it didn't happen.

We all agree that not tossing out an extra three grand was a sensible choice.

…we all kind of regret it anyway…

…)@#(*@))#$ economy….

“Well, hello there, Handsome. Is this seat taken?” Thomas started at the voice, half turning and nearly knocking his laptop off of his lap with his elbow. After he steadied the machine, he turned back to the man next to him, his face still a picture of shock. “Guy! What are you doing here? We can’t even check in for another four hours.” The actor gave him a bemused look, taking the seat next to him, apparently on the assumption that it was not, in fact, taken. Fortunately, it wasn’t. “This from the man who caught a six am flight from Edinburgh so he wouldn’t miss a five forty-five flight out of Heathrow?” Thomas scowled a little at that, shutting his laptop down and tucking it away. “You know how flights get delayed, and I certainly wasn’t taking the train! My luck there’d have been a bridge out or a flock of sheep asleep on the tracks or something. You were just coming from York.” “Trains from York can run into problems as easily as trains from Edinburgh,” Guy shrugged. “Besides, I thought if you were going to spend the entire day at the airport, you might like some company.” “Yes, well,” Thomas couldn’t help but grin at that. “I suppose you’ve got me there.” He leaned back in the less-than-comfortable chair he was occupying and asked, “How was the trip down, then?” “Not bad. The train was only five minutes late.” Ignoring the implied ‘I told you so’, Thomas snorted. “Typical.” “How was your flight?” Thomas thought about it a moment, then shrugged. “About the same. The person checking luggage said my cabin bag was an acceptable size, then the stewardess turned around and told me it was too big and I had to put it in the hold. The gate on the boarding pass was wrong, so I had to run down to a different one and get on a shuttle with a bunch of complaining Americans.” He shook his head at the memory. ‘Packed in like sardines’ they’d said. Yes, it was standing room only, but at least they weren’t all pressed up against each other! He’d dealt with worse. “The flight itself wasn’t that bad, I suppose. Fifteen minutes delayed and economy, but at least the people in front of me left their seats up.” “Thank goodness.” Guy had some horror stories about long economy flights behind people with reclined seats. He and Thomas had agreed that the one thing they were absolutely allowed to splurge on was first class seating. If all they could afford for a rental on the other end was a VW Beetle, so be it! Thomas would walk if it meant not flying economy long distance! “And then it took us forever to land and all of the Americans had to scramble for their connecting flight,” he left his own ‘I told you so’ unspoken, “and as I was coming this way I heard something about a canceled flight to…I think it was Inverness? Anyway, some of those poor sods were going to have to spend the night. But I made it up here without a problem and the woman over there,” he gestured vaguely, “told me where to go and when we could check in. And here we are.” “Here we are indeed,” Guy agreed. He checked his watch. “Well, since we have several hours to kill, what say we find a place to get food? I’ve only had a slice of toast to eat, and I’m guessing you didn’t exactly have a full Scottish breakfast before heading down?” “I had two pieces of complimentary shortbread,” Thomas informed him. It had, admittedly, been good shortbread, and the hotel staff had provided him with a decent cup of tea, but it was not his usual amount of breakfast. “I was just thinking it was about time to wander down to the M&S on the ground floor and grab something.” Despite having just sat down, it took no further prompting to get Guy back on his feet. “I’ll agree with that. And while we walk, you can tell me all about this birthday party Sybil begged you into going to. Did it go well?” Thomas laughed, nearly falling back into his chair. “Fifteen future aristocrats, none of them over the age of nine mind, running around a five star hotel? It was an unmitigated disaster.” Guy gave him a knowing look. “And from your grin, you loved every second of it.” “You know it.”

#downton abbey #downton abbey fanfiction #fanfiction #wip wednesday #thomas barrow #guy dexter #thomas/guy #thomas/chris/richard/guy

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notstinky · 1 year ago

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TIMING: Current FEATURING: Thea ( @notstinky ) & Cass ( @magmahearts ) LOCATION: Thea’s house, Worm Row SUMMARY: Cass's hair looks so nice! Gee, she must be a really skilled hairdresser Oh, wouldn't it be a great idea to invite her over to cut hair? CONTENT WARNINGS: none unless you are Charles Xavier

Cass was sad and Thea didn’t know what to do about it. She didn’t think it was the sort of sadness that could be extracted with company and google searches of a B-list X-Men (she would apologize to Rictor if he was real, but he probably understood why he was B-list). And, certainly, it wasn’t the sort of sadness that would magically evaporate if Thea let her hair be Cass’s new canvas, but she was going to try anyway. Standing around and letting her friend be sad just wasn’t an option. The week before a full moon was the time she had the most energy; the moments in which her body forgot what would happen to her in a few days' time. If she was going to give Cass the best damn chill-hang-out-at-a-friend’s-house ever, it would have to happen now.

“Cass!” Thea flung the door open with a wide smile. “Just in time! The google images page just loaded.” Thea spun her Macbook around, showing off the bright screen and the thousands of results of ‘Rictor marvel’ on Google: from his wet-dog X-Factor investigations look to his tragic early look with the nonsensical beige shoulder pads. “Come-in-how-are-you-love-the-hair,” she muttered all at once, standing off to the side so Cass could enter.

Thea’s extremely humble rental home had all the charm of something built two decades ago, maintained by the laziest of landlords, and subject to a bit of a pending silverfish problem. In every corner there was chipped paint and strange brown stains; if a floorboard didn’t creak then it was probably scratched so deeply that it had a new texture altogether; and the light bulbs illuminated the area in such warmth that it verged on orange. The only thing the house had going for it was the size, designed for a large family but currently occupied by Thea and three other mysterious college students she never saw except for the one time all three of them were huddled outside of her bedroom window, looking up at her. She didn’t think much of it. If her rent was five times what she was paying, it would remind her a lot more of the houses in Toronto.

—

Cass could count on one hand, really, the number of times in her life when someone had recognized she was upset and wanted to do something about it. It was the kind of thing that had seemed impossible for so long, as fantastical and outlandish as the events that unfolded in the comic books she was so fond of. But now? It was becoming almost common. Alex talked her through it when she was feeling abandoned, Nora stayed with her when she was upset, Van let her stay when she begged for it, Thea invited her over when she was sad and rambling on and on. She knew it was probably temporary, knew that eventually they’d all choose to leave her too, but she could enjoy it while it lasted, couldn’t she? She could sit with it, could let it lighten the load on her back. She could walk to Thea’s weird house in the bad part of town and feel good about it, could smile when her friend opened the door.

“Thea,” she greeted, letting her gaze jump down to the laptop monitor as it was turned around. And, yep, there he was. Short-tempered earthquake master Julio Richter, displayed in a thousand different boxes on the Google image result page. “I miss the mohawk,” she sighed, zeroing in on one of the pictures and shaking her head. “I wish they’d let him have one again.”

She stepped into Thea’s house as the other girl stepped to the side, glancing around. She couldn’t say much about anyone’s living situation — living in a cave kind of disqualified her from commenting on anyone’s house, she was pretty sure — but Thea’s place was a little run down. A little falling apart, a little unsteady on its foundation. She wondered how much it cost to live here, wondered if Thea wouldn’t be happier living in a cave instead. She couldn’t imagine anyone preferring any kind of living structure that wasn’t a cave, but people were weird, she guessed. “Um, I didn’t bring scissors because I don’t know where mine are. Do you have some? I can do your hair. What kind of hairstyle do you want?”

—

“It’s better than the long hair and the…whatever this is.” Thea pointed at a picture of Rictor sporting a green headband and skin-tight green spandex. “He looks like he’s going to teach a spin class.” And if Thea understood anything about Rictor, it was that he should not be teaching a spin class. Shatterstar would probably teach an interesting spin class, though. Maybe this was a new subject for Cass’s fanfiction. She’d have to casually broach the subject latter; it wouldn’t be polite to hound the best author in existence with her stupid ideas. The thought made her shiver suddenly, as thinking about Cass’s writing often did. She couldn’t level a comment about it that wasn’t praiseworthy, and that had seeped into her thoughts. Something was wrong, but she wasn’t sure what. Regardless, even if Cass had the writing skill of a sixth grader just discovering the ‘publish’ button, Thea took pleasure in just reading something her friend wrote. “I have scissors! They’re from Walmart, so maybe it’s lower quality than you’re used to, I hope that’s okay.” Thea gestured down the hall leading Cass into the bathroom.

Thea had taken great care to set it up for Cass. She had her Walmart scissors laid out, a spray bottle with water (she knew hairdressers used it, though she didn’t know why), towels, a stool and a hair dryer. A flickering thought crossed through her mind: if Cass cut her own hair, why didn’t she know where her scissors were? That seemed strange. Thea didn’t interrogate it. “Um, just whatever is easy,” she said, answering Cass’s question. “My hair is kinda longer than I like, so maybe just a little cut? Nothing crazy.” Thea sat down on the stool, lowering it so she was at a good height for Cass. She held up the laptop, pointing to a new photo of Rictor; a picture of him from the latest Excalibur run. “What do you think about this one?”

—

“It was the eighties,” Cass replied, squinting at the picture. “I think.” Hard to tell, sometimes; some of the art was recognizable as standard for the decade, but some of it was harder to pinpoint. A rough google image search was a lot harder to determine a specific year from than a full comic cover would have been, even for someone like Cass, who knew just about all there was to know about this particular obscure B-List X-Men character. “I’d go to his spin class. It’d probably be funny.” But talking about X-Men, with Thea, wasn’t quite as much fun as it used to be. That fanfiction bind was a silly one, but Cass still felt bad about it. Would Thea be angry with her if she knew? Maybe it was for the best that the subject changed to scissors and a haircut — that was a lot easier to think about without feeling bad. “Walmart scissors are fine!” Truthfully, Cass wasn’t even sure where she’d stolen her scissors from. It could have been Walmart. She didn’t think her ‘standards’ were quite what Thea assumed they were, but that was okay. She’d still do a good job on the haircut, she was sure of it.

The setup Thea had prepared for her looked very professional. Or… like what Cass imagined a professional setup might look like. She’d never actually seen one in person, but the chair and supplies Thea had pulled together didn’t look entirely dissimilar from that scene in Legally Blonde where they were all in the salon, so she figured it was pretty spot on. “I can definitely do that.” The words didn’t make her feel sick, so she was confident that they were true. That was how it worked, wasn’t it? Leaning forward to investigate the photo, she nodded. “I like that one,” she agreed. “That’s one of his better looks.”

And so, she got to work. She picked up a chunk of Thea’s hair, holding it between her fingers and letting her tongue poke out the side of her mouth as she concentrated. All she had to do was cut it riiiight… snip. Whoops. The scissors slipped, making the cut uneven. Cass carefully masked her surprise. It was fine. She’d cut a little more off to make it even. Except… That was uneven, too. A little more, then. She’d get it right eventually.

—

Thea’s head felt lighter. It was strange to think of hair as having a weight, but as Cass trimmed it very lightly just as Thea had asked, she certainly felt much lighter. She didn’t wonder why the snipping sounded so heavy; tiny cuts didn’t come with such a thick sound, like chunks of hair snapping under the sharpness of her Walmart scissors. When she glanced down, she thought she saw a pile of her hair that seemed to large to be something from a small trim, and she had emphasized she just wanted a trim, right? Nothing crazy? She had said that, hadn’t she? Thea continued to scroll through the images of Rictor, thinking nothing of it. Cass’s hair looked so good, if she got even a fraction of that talent used on her head, she’d be okay. There was nothing to worry about. “Do you like him just because he has rock related powers?” She asked, growing tired of scrolling through images of Rictor; most of them were images of him making out with Shatterstar anyway. She thought that was reductive, certainly Rictor was more than his messy gay romance. So, she typed, ‘cool rocks’ into the search bar and watched the page populate with images of different crystals and stones.

There were photoshop images of glowing rocks, one that looked like the cookie monster, and another that someone had just drawn sunglasses on. Thea realized she ought to have searched for something more specific. Instead of learning her lesson, she typed ‘cool volcanoes' and went with that. “Do you know why this happens?” Thea lifted the laptop up so Cass could see it, pointing at a picture of an erupting volcano with a branch of lighting striking down. She hadn’t intended to embark on a science lesson but unlike her searches of Rictor, the B-List X-Men, she did know a lot about the scientific functions of the world. She had lofty dreams, once. “How much do you know about volcanoes?”

—

This was not going well. Cass could tell, even if she gave no outward indication of it. Thea’s hair was way shorter than she’d meant to make it, getting more and more uneven with each snip. It was starting to look less and less like normal hair and more and more like a bowl cut, too close to the other girl’s skull. But she could still fix this, she was sure of it! She just had to… keep cutting. Thea could pull off short hair, anyway. She’d probably look good. And it’d come in handy with the janitor job! She’d save a fortune on hair ties, and she wouldn’t have to worry about… janitorial stuff getting into her hair! Cass was doing her a favor, really. With a newfound confidence, the oread continued to snip. She was nailing this, actually. She was doing great.

“I like him for a lot of reasons,” she replied, “but the rock related powers are definitely a big one. Have you read the new Excalibur? They gave him lava powers in the new Excalibur.” Naturally, Cass had been thrilled when she read it, even if the comic over all hadn’t been very good. She could excuse bad writing if it meant Rictor was in a comic book again. “I like his personality a lot, though. And his backstory is cool. I think it’s neat how he doesn’t try to fit in. He’s like, ‘This is who I am, and I’m gonna make earthquakes about it.’ I like that.”

Another snip, another mistake. Cass was growing less confident in spite of her internal pep talk. She distracted herself by looking at the laptop screen as Thea held it up for her. “Oh!” She grinned, excitement rushing through her. “There are a lot of factors that contribute to volcanic lightning, actually. Ice charging, frictional charging, fractoemission, radioactive charging, plume height… It builds up in the plume of an eruption. Not really as straightforward as a thunderstorm.” She lifted another strand of hair, snipping. Uneven again. Why was this so hard? “I know a lot about volcanoes.” Nearly everything there was to know, including some things that human scientists didn’t. But she could be chill about it.

—

“No, I haven’t read it yet. I’m really behind on comics. Like, by a few years. I got busy with school and then I got busy with…” Turning into a wolf and eating people. “…moving to America.” Thea sighed, sinking into her stool before she remembered that Cass was trying to cut her hair and moving around wasn’t helping. “Sorry!” She straightened up. If there were some uneven cuts (which she doubted, Cass was probably a pro), it would be Thea’s fault. “It's interesting that you picked Rictor, y’know? ‘Cause not a lot of people would pick him as their favorite; I think that says a lot of good things about you, Cass.” This hair cut was taking a while. Well, she couldn’t rush a genius. Her head felt really light, which was probably a good thing. She repeated this in her head until she believed it, which didn’t take very long—Thea had a superhuman ability to delude herself into anything. She was very proud of the skill.

“Really?” Thea spun around, interrupting another cut. “Ah,” she winced. “Sorry, sorry.” She spun back around; now there really was no one but herself to blame for uneven cuts. “Could you tell me more about volcanoes? Um, okay, well...I know how they’re formed and I know about the different types…” Thea scrunched her face up, trying to think of something specific she wanted to know that she could ask Cass about. In the end, she thought she knew quite a bit about volcanoes and couldn’t think of an extra curiosity on top of it. “Did you go to school for uh, the study of volcanoes? What is that called?” She asked and as a thought occurred to her, striking in her mind not unlike the lighting in ash plume, she spun around again. “Cass, do you…” And then she saw it: from the corner of her eye, her hair. Or, more accurately, her lack of it.

Thea stumbled to her feet, staring at herself in the mirror. “C-Cass?”

—

“It’s not good,” Cass said matter-of-factly, “but Rictor is there.” In her opinion, that made the book one worth reading. It was the eternal plight of comic readers, wasn’t it, to suffer through terrible storylines and awful art just to catch a glimpse of their favorite characters. Thea would understand that, she thought; Thea understood most of what Cass said about comics. Thea moved, and Cass’s hand slipped a little, but with all the other uneven cuts… it wasn’t even noticeable. It was a bad needle in a bad haystack. It was all just bad. “I know he’s not, like, super well-known,” she admitted. “I just like his vibes. I don’t know. Who’s your favorite obscure mutant?” She wanted to know everything about Thea’s tastes, if only to distract them both from what was an undeniably a terrible haircut.

Thea spun around again, and Cass winced. What was one more uneven cut in a sea of them? “I can tell you anything you want to know. I didn’t go to school for it, though. I, um…” She tried to think of the best possible way to describe it. “I learned it when I was a kid.” Not entirely true, but she could hardly say I was born knowing without questions. Anyway, it seemed like the conversation wouldn’t remain about volcanoes for long, because Thea was looking in the mirror and stumbling to her feet. Cass let out an undignified squeak, scrambling over and throwing a blanket from the floor over the mirror. “I’m not done yet!” As if there was any fixing this. “I’m not finished! You can’t look yet! Let’s talk about rocks!”

—

Thea tapped her chin, taking the question very seriously. It was hard to say what counted as an obscure mutant; Thea knew most of, if not all of the official X-Men and in her heart, Xuân Cao Mạnh/Karma was well-known, for example. She was still thinking about the question as she stared at her hair, before the blanket flew on top and she was staring at lint and dust. She would never get around to her answer, which was Monet St. Croix because of that one issue of Generation X where she pushed Jubilee up against a wall and recited the story about the scorpion and the frog and made Thea feel things. Thea never liked ‘mean’ characters but the desire to be stepped on had never made more sense to her than when she thought about Monet. “Cass,” Thea said, turning to her friend—and Cass was her friend, right? “I don’t think there’s any hair left for you to cut.” Thea lifted her hand to her head and groped around the uneven, pointy ends. She still had hair, it was just much shorter than Thea thought she could ever pull off; much shorter than she asked for. “W-what is there left to finish?” But like a good friend or a soldier in shock having watched their friend (her hair) be shot (cut up in what she could only describe as an intoxicated person’s attempt at mowing a lawn with blunt scissors), Thea sat down again.

“Tell me about rocks,” she mumbled, staring out of her soap-stained bathroom window. Her voice had gone flat like a soda left out. “You know, my hair kind of looks like those chia pets. But worse, because those are even.” Thea blinked. “That’s not really related to rocks; I’m sorry. Do you think I’d still look cute if I was bald? Be honest. Rocks are bald.”

—

There was hair left for her to cut! A little! She could fix it, she was sure, she just needed Thea not to look yet. It was too much pressure when Thea was looking. When Thea was looking away and talking about X-Men, Cass could convince herself that the haircut didn’t look quite so bad because no one was freaking out about it. But now, Thea was looking, was reaching up to touch the uneven ends, was stammering through her words. Cass really wanted to go back in time to about three minutes ago, before she’d really started in with the scissors. “Don’t freak out,” she said, though she was freaking out more than Thea seemed to be. “I’m gonna make you look so cute, okay? Um, cute enough for Scott Summers to refuse to blast you to pieces on the moon even though you’re ending the universe!” That was romantic, right? She’d always thought it was romantic, the whole ‘Cyclops and Phoenix dying in front of each other all the time’ thing. Thea would probably like the reference.

“You don’t look like a chia pet,” she squeaked. The lie tasted acidic, making her stomach churn. Thea looked so much like a chia pet right now. “I think — I think you’d look really cute bald. Way better than Charles Xavier. He looks stinky, but you’d pull it off on account of — you — you don’t, um — you don’t make teenagers fight supervillains for you.” This was going so well. So well.

—

It was true that Scott Summers and Jean Grey were sorta romantic; it was cute that through the chaos of her telepathic powers, she thought of Scott like an anchor, it was also true that through the evils the Phoenix could commit, Scott saw the woman he loved. Then there was that whole mess with Madelyne Pryor and Mr. Sinister but that was comics; for everything that made sense there were about twenty things that didn’t. The thought comforted Thea. Perhaps this was her Madelyne Pryor moment; it wouldn’t make sense but maybe she’d look back on it fondly and be thankful that it gave her Nathan Christopher Charles Summers, whose name would always be stupid but at least he had a cool glowing eye. This was her glowing eye. Or maybe, just maybe, her sanity had slipped from her like a screw loosening, popping out of its hole, and rolling away. It was true that she didn’t make teenagers fight for her but the thought didn’t comfort her as much as it should have. The truth was Charles Xavier was an ugly bald bitch and now she was going to be an ugly bald bitch too.

And there was no saving an ugly bald bitch (Thea issued mental apologies to all the ugly bald bitches that weren’t Charles Xavier—he could choke).

“Do you think I could pull off a wig?” Thea sniffled. “Maybe I could wear a red one like Jean Grey and then when I try to destroy the world, I’ll find a Scott Summers who seriously thinks about letting me do it. And a Logan too, although he’s kinda stinky I don’t know if I want him.” She paused. “I’m gonna be so ugly Cass.” She flipped around in the stool. “Promise me I’m not gonna be ugly. Look me in the eyes and say I won’t be ugly. I need you to mean it. I need you to say it for real. I need you to tell me I’m not going to adopt children and then make them fight for me but if I did do it, I’d be hot like Bruce Wayne and not an ugly bald bitch like Xavier. Promise me.” Thea wasn’t sure what she was making Cass do for her; the screw had rolled very, very far away.

—

She felt terrible. There was no saving what was left of Thea’s hair — even if she didn’t do anything else to it, it would grow back all patchy and uneven and weird. The best course of action, at this point, was to shave it bald. Except Thea didn’t seem to want to be bald, and Cass felt bad about making her bald. She thought about offering to shave her own head in solidarity, but she wasn’t exactly sure how that would work with her glamour. Her hair wasn’t even real hair, it was just a mask made of magic. She didn’t think she could shave it if she tried.

“You could definitely pull off a wig,” she insisted quickly. “You could do red like Jean, or — or blonde like Emma Frost. Maybe even white like Storm!” Was this making Thea feel any better? The idea of having Scott Summers and Wolverine in some kind of eternal contest to see who got to be with you on the rare occasions where you were all alive at the same time didn’t sound entirely appealing to Cass, but then, Cass also thought that Wolverine was a little stinky. Scott would probably be a good husband, but all the inner turmoil might get a little old after a while. “You’re not going to be ugly!” She hesitated for a moment, because this could be bad. This could be very, very bad. But her friend was upset and it was her fault, and didn’t she kind of owe her something for that? Plus, ‘ugly’ was a relative thing, anyway. “I promise you’re not going to be ugly,” Cass said, deciding to risk it. “And I’m definitely positive if you adopted kids and made them fight for you, you’d be cool like Bruce Wayne and not stinky like Charles Xavier. None of them would even kill you, probably!”

—

“Emma Frost is seriously hot.” Thea sniffled. “But I think most of that is her boobs.” Emma Frost wasn’t her hair and the more Thea thought about it, the more it comforted her. She thought about the hottest X-Men; Emma, Jean, Ororo, and Mystique (Psylocke would not be making an appearance on her mental list because body snatching discounted her as sexy). She wasn’t going to consider modern depictions of these women because Marvel had finally stopped featuring them on covers with a boobs-out approach, except for Emma Frost, who always had her boobs out. Thea needed to think of them when they were at their sexy peak: half-naked in skin-tight clothing with questionable anatomy. Yes, all of these women had hair but none of them were known for their hair. She could be hot without hair! It would just also require having big boobs and tight clothes and questionable anatomy. In the end, she was back where she started, accepting that Emma Frost wasn’t hot because she had hair, but because she had big boobs. Thea glanced down; some things could not be willed into existence.

The promise was nice even if it wasn’t Thea’s concern now. Sure, she wouldn’t be ugly but would she be Emma-Frost-hot? She twisted in the stool again. “Promise me I’m hot?” she asked, her wet eyes glistening. “Promise me that if you saw me with this hair walking down the street you’d think ‘wow, she looks attractive and cool’?” Thea blinked. “P-promise me that if you saw my hair, and if you were a stranger, you wouldn’t think ‘oh she fell into a lawn mower’…promise? Do you promise that? Do I have the Cass guarantee that no one is even going to notice my hair? No one is going to notice, right? If my child kills me it’ll be because they have an uncontrollable darkness inside of them and not because I’m an ugly bald bitch, right? Promise?”

—

“It’s not the boobs, it’s the attitude,” Cass insisted, still trying to salvage the whole ordeal. “And you’ve got a great attitude, too! Your attitude makes your boobs Emma Frost-level boobs.” Was this helping? Thea was looking down at her boobs — which were, decidedly, not Emma Frost-level boobs, because Emma Frost-level boobs really only existed on Emma Frost specifically, and that was because no one who had ever drawn Emma Frost had done so with a basic understanding of how boobs actually worked — and Cass was desperate to put some kind of a positive spin on this absolute disaster of a haircut. But some things were hard to spin. Cass couldn’t imagine Emma Frost or Jean Grey with this haircut, and she thought Thea probably knew as much.

Which brought them to a new promise. Cass could promise Thea that she wouldn’t be ugly and adopt a bunch of children that she’d make fight for her, because ugly was a relative term and Thea adopting a bunch of child soldiers was far-fetched enough to make the reward outweigh the risk of the promise being broken. But promising Thea that Cass, specifically, would see her haircut and think she was attractive and cool? That was… a little harder to keep. “Uhhh…” Cass’s eyes darted to Thea’s reflection in the mirror. “I don’t think you look like you fell into a lawn mower,” she said, which wasn’t a promise. She couldn’t make the promises Thea was asking for, because people were definitely going to notice. “Bald is in right now! Florence Pugh shaved her head this year, remember? Natalie Portman’s done it, too! And Karen Gillan! You’re gonna be trendy, Thea.”

—

“Those were for movies!” Except for Florence Pugh, but when you were an actress who made as much money as her and who looked like her, you could do anything. Thea thought so, at least. She stood up, pushing the stool away. She gripped Cass's shoulders and shook them lightly. “They got paid! They made money! I don’t have Emma Frost boobs or an attitude! My attitude is like a wet, overcooked noodle! I’m mushy! I’ll never be Natalie Portman or Emma Frost!” Water stung the edge of Thea’s eyes. She released Cass, sighing. It wasn’t her fault, Thea moved around a lot: shaking her head, talking, showing off pictures of volcanoes. It wasn’t lost on her that Cass didn’t promise the things Thea had asked, but as she pulled the blanket Cass threw on the mirror away, she knew what she’d asked for was impossible. It really would take the anatomy of a sexy comic book female character to fix her, and she was never going to get that. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled, turning to face her friend. “This isn’t your fault. I’m sure this looked really good before I started moving around and asking about volcanoes.” She slumped.

Thea’s goal had been to cheer Cass up, bald or not, she could still be a good friend. Sucking in a deep, quivering breath, Thea forced her mouth into a wide smile and perked up. “Maybe I’ll start a new trend!” She wouldn’t. “Maybe I’ll be so weird that I’ll be hot!” She really wouldn’t. “Maybe this will make me extra approachable.” It wouldn’t. She considered that if she shaved it down all the way, instead of leaving the uneven strands, she’d look better—but then her hair would have more to grow back from and she did want her hair to go back, desperately. “Hey, why don’t we watch V for Vendetta? So we can see Natalie Portman be bald. And maybe we watch that part of Fantasia that’s ‘Night on Bald Mountain’. Maybe we have a whole bald themed day. I’ll order a pizza but with no toppings, because it’s bald. I’m bald.” She opened her arms, inviting Cass into a hug. “I really appreciate you coming here to cut my hair and hang out, Cass.” This time, her smile was genuine.

Out of the corner of her eye, she looked at the glowing screen of her laptop. Once Cass was gone, she was going to look up pictures of Emma Frost until she felt her hotness was transferred into her. Then she’d try on an all white outfit and spill sauce from a leftover slice of pizza on it and cry. But that would be then and for now, all she wanted to do was hang out with her friend and be bald.

#a little off the top #c: cass #writing #s1 #// this was so fun #the rammys are going to be felt worldwide #also rip to thea's hair

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