#literal scariest hour of my life

[spuddlespud]

Love werewolf movies bc they always have growly wolves and let me tell you I had a terrifying 5am in the dark face-to-face encounter with an actual wild wolf and the scariest thing was that it was completely silent, it wasn't trying to scare me off but it also hadn't run away from me (which I would have expected when it heard me coming) , it was just staring at me like a big mass of horror

[cextra-loz]

Today I was able to stand for a new limit of 50 minutes when my physical symptoms are at their most minimal in a controlled environment. So we know 50 is the max now we're trying to reach 1 hour. I feel like I could've reached an hour with how I was feeling but the muscle endurance in my legs wouldn't have let me. I'm reaching a weird stage in my progress where its been so long since my body has had to support my weight for that long the blood pooling in my soles irritates and hurts like hell the days afterwards so now i'm rubbing the my feet like i've worked a hard day to prevent the inflammation from impeding my progress. I feel tho if I can reach that 1 hour limit I can reach longer times with practice. Its been years since i've stood for so long i'm really excited to keep practicing and hopefully keep improving. Last year around this time I was barely reaching 35 maybe 40 if I really really pushed- during my least symptomatic hours. Those extra 10 minutes might not mean much but since the beginning of my illness I never imagined i'd be able to make it to 30 let alone 50. I felt pretty good this session too which is the most important part, I feel like its the lack of muscular stamina that held me back rather than cardiac endurance. Anyway update is over, if I reach that 1 hour time it'll be a happy day I cannot tell how long it'll take me to reach that time but with some more practice I think a few weeks or months at least i'd imagine maybe even sooner. I'm so happy lets go! Dreams do come true at least 4 me ehehe!

[runningfrom2am]

cold nights // part four

summary: all the stars aligned, and it was you.

pairing: coriolanus snow x fem!reader

wc: 2.9k

masterlists / nav / requests

tags/warnings: tribute!reader and mentor!coriolanus, r is very sweet (too kind for this world. literally.), sunshine x grumpy trope kinda, he falls first, violence typical for the source material, r is very smart (as she should), district twelve!reader.

a/n: this is your reminder to reblog and comment on fics you like!! it helps us writers out a TON the girlies who get it get it. thanks!!

series masterlist // playlist

"I just have to ask you a few questions... is that okay?" Coriolanus asks, sitting across from you at the small table you find yourself chained to.

"Please." You nod, grinning at him. You were so tired, the bags under your eyes were evidence enough of that. Screw getting you food- Coryo is worried if you don't sleep you'll be all but useless in the games, even if all he needs you to do is run and hide.

"It's just so people can get to know you a bit better. Okay, so..." He looks down at the sheet in front of him, tapping the pencil against the table as he tries to focus on reading. "First, nice and easy, what is your full name?"

"Y/N M/N L/N."

"Great... Okay, and where are you from?"

"District Twelve, born and raised."

"How old are you?"

"Seventeen. I'll be eighteen next week." You smile.

"Oh, really?" He asks, pausing mid-sentence as he starts writing it down.

"Yeah." You smile. "Hopefully I'll live to see the day."

"You will." He tries to be reassuring as he scribbles the finished answer on his sheet. God, you got unlucky. Not that his eighteenth was a big celebration like some of his classmates, but Tigris made him a cake with ingredients she'd been saving up for and she refit his school uniform for him. You wouldn't even have that- you would be spending the day fighting for your life, if you even made it that long.

"And who is in your family unit?" He reads directly from the slip as he forces himself to move on.

"Well, there's me, my brother, he's fifteen, and then my ma and pa." You nod. "Well, my pa isn't home much. Lots of work in the mines; usually has sixteen-hour days. I hardly ever see him." You admit, sadness laced into your tone. "Saw him, I mean."

"My father died in Twelve." Coryo says, catching you off guard. He doesn't even fully understand why he felt the need to tell you this. "About ten years ago, it was rebels."

"I remember that." You reply quietly, recalling the lockdown placed on the District after the murder of a peacekeeper general. "He was the general. Crassus Snow, I assume?"

"Yes."

Everyone was forced into their homes at gunpoint, and in search of the responsible parties everyone you knew had their home destroyed by peacekeepers. Yourself included. Your bed was torn apart, and your mattress shredded for any hidden weapons or plans. Since then, you have shared a bed with your brother. A new mattress was hard to make, and your ma never got the free time or materials again.

Up until this week, that was the scariest day of your life. Just before the peacekeepers kicked in your door, your mother had grabbed the two of you and shoved you into an opening under the floorboards- a crawlspace made from a faulty foundation. You were in there for what felt like hours, listening to shouting and your home being ruined as you held onto each other with a hand pressed over your brother's mouth to keep him from crying too loud. Your mother's cries that day never seemed to end.

"It's a small world." You say after a solid few moments of silence, and Coryo can see it in the way you're staring at his paper that you're not reading it. You're zoned out completely. "I'm sorry that happened to you. It must have been scary."

"The war was hard on all of us." He responds. "What... what do you remember?" He had never heard anything about it besides the bare bones of what happened, he had never considered that the people of Twelve would remember it as well. And judging by the look on your face, it wasn't a good memory.

"I was about six, maybe seven, and I was playing with my brother, and I didn't hear anything but my ma must have because she grabbed us and hid us under the floorboards so fast I could have got whiplash. Peacekeepers came into our home, tore the whole thing to shreds, hurt my ma, then took off. Onto the next house. I didn't find out until a while later that rebels killed the peacekeeper general, they were looking for any evidence of conspiracy, I guess. The people who did it."

"Sounds like it was scarier for you than for me."

"But I want you to know," You speak so quickly you almost cut him off. "My parents had nothing to do with it. My pa is an honest, good man. All he ever wanted was to keep us safe. We're not rebels, I promise you that."

Coriolanus almost wishes you were, so he wouldn't be so hurt by what his people were putting you through. "I know. I wouldn't blame you for that."

"Thank you." You whisper, picking at your nails now as you look down at your shaky hands.

Coryo clears his throat, forcing himself to look away from you. "Uh..." He chuckles at the next question, making you look up at him again. "Are you married?"

"No." You reply, having almost completely forgotten about the worksheet in front of him. "I'm not."

"It's just... I just, I have to ask." He says, clearing his throat as he writes it down.

"Of course." You nod in understanding.

"Boyfriend?" He asks, and as you squint at the sheet you can see it's not there, and he quickly covers the next lines with his palm, cheeks flushing pink.

"Yes." You giggle as he snaps his head up to look at you.

"You do?" He asks, voice catching as his curls fall back onto his forehead from the sudden movement.

"Yes, what is so wrong in that?" You raise an eyebrow at him, trying not to laugh.

"No, no, I mean, of course you do, you're beautiful, I just, you never mentioned-"

"Relax, Coriolanus. I'm kidding." You smile at the panic in his tone. "No, I don't have a boyfriend."

"Oh, right. Thanks, it's just for, yeah..." He mumbles, pretending to write something down behind his cupped hand so you couldn't see.

You shake your head at him while he's not paying attention, smiling to yourself.

"So, uh, do you have a job?"

"Not formally, but my ma is a seamstress. I help her lots with that. Fixing people's work clothes, stuff like that." You answer, getting back on topic.

"Did you make your dress?" He asks.

"Now I know that question's not on that form of yours." You laugh. "But yes, my ma made it for me when I was five. It's been my favourite ever since."

He looked the parts of it over that he could see above the table. It was well worn down, but well cared for. Similar to a lot of his own clothing.

"It used to be this big, flowing thing. Too big for a five year old- I would step on the bottom of it, just tore it right up." You recall. "So we trimmed the bottom, and as I grew, it grew right with me. I stitched up the bottom when I was old enough to enter the reaping, so now it's got shorts instead. But I still love it, lots of good memories held in the pockets of this old thing."

Shorts instead. So it's easier to run in. The thought haunts Coryo for a moment. The idea that you, at twelve years old, decided this is what you would want to run in, to die in, and took the liberty of sewing up the crotch in it yourself. Every stitch possibly sealing your fate.

"It's nice. I like it." He responds.

"Thank you." You smile, nodding proudly to yourself as you look down at the fabric. "It's real comfy, too."

"It looks it. Not very... restricting." He chooses his words wisely. No wonder you had kept it so many years. It still fit, so why not? Especially when it looked so good on you. The typically plain, neutral tone of the fabric complimented your skin tone so well. Even in bad lighting, it seemed as though you were glowing where the cloth met your skin. Glowing everywhere, now that he thought about it. Maybe you just lit up every room you walked into. Maybe it wasn't the clothing that was made just for you and hugged your form so flawlessly, maybe it was just you.

"Yes, it is not." You agree. "Now, our time is limited. Next question." You interrupt his thoughts, gesturing to the sheet of paper in between you.

"Yes, sorry." Coryo chuckles, shaking the distraction from his head. "Any hobbies?

"Reading."

"I did know that." He smiles to himself. "Anything else?"

"Well..." You think about it for a moment, chewing your lip. "I have a cat, and I like to play with him and take care of him, does that count?"

"I'll count it." He nods, quickly jotting it down. "What's your cat's name?" He asks, purely out of curiosity.

"Tybalt." You giggle.

"Tybalt?" Coryo tilts his head at you and you nod, bottom lip drawn between your teeth.

He nods slightly, prompting you to explain. "He's named after a character from Romeo and Juliet."

"That's your favourite, I remember."

"Good king of cats, nothing but one of your nine lives." You quote. "Mercutio calls Tybalt the king of the cats, so I named him after that."

"That's clever. Very funny."

"Thank you. I thought so." You smile proudly, watching him write down your cats name in his notes. "What is this for, if I can ask?"

"Uh, there's going to be an interview you'll have to do the night before the games. It'll be aired live on Capitol television, and people will be able to send in donations so I can send you things in the arena. Just like I told you." Coryo explains.

"An interview?" You ask. "What does that entail?"

"Well, I'm not sure yet." He answers honestly. "But we'll pass this sheet onto the host, Lucky, if you remember him, and he can ask you questions about your family, your life, any of this stuff. I think really whatever we want, though, so if there's anything in particular you want to say or talk about I can write that down for you."

"Oh, I'm really not sure." You reply. "Nothing in particular, but if you need me to talk I can talk about books for hours on end." You smile.

"Could you do a monologue?" He suggests. He had discussed this with Tigris before, and he was hoping you would, but knowing you, you would be dropping quotes in your interview anyway so you might as well commit to it and display how smart you are with something well-planned.

"Maybe, if you could find me a copy of Romeo and Juliet." You smile. "I think I know it, but it would be nice to have a refresher. Just to make sure I get it right. Would be awfully embarrassing if I made a mistake."

Coryo nods, quickly writing that down in the margins of the page. Considering he had never even heard of this book, it may be hard, but he would certainly try for you. "That would be great. Your goodbye was very moving, although quite confusing for most, but it had people talking about you and that's what we want."

"Okay. I'll practice."

"Thank you." Coryo smiles. "And I just have one more question on here to fill out... Do you have any special skills that you think will be helpful in the games?"

Your smile fades slightly and you just shake your head.

"That's okay. We'll figure it out."

That night, Coryo came to see you again. You were curled up with his blanket, draped half over yourself and half over Jessup as he lay next to you. It was a small blanket, obviously meant for a child, but it helped anyway. Maybe it was just a placebo, but for you, that was more than enough.

As you got up, hearing him call your name in a familiar tone, you draped the blanket more fully over Jessup before making your way over to the bars of the enclosure. "Good evening, Coryo. To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"I brought you some things." He whispers, digging in his bag.

"How kind." You smile, watching as he pulls things out, handing you a napkin with some bread wrapped inside and tucking whatever else he brought under his arm to give to you after you've eaten. "Can you sit for a few minutes?"

"Of course." He nods, sitting down with you as you cross your legs and unfold the fabric carefully as not to drop what's inside. "I was hoping to talk to you anyway."

"Let's talk; it is not day." You smile, leaning toward him more.

"Should I be asking what that's from?" He jokes, but is surprised when you shrug.

"You could, but I wouldn't want to bore you." You giggle, shaking your head. "Take a guess, though. I believe you'd know it."

He smiles, watching as you take a bite out of the bread. "Romeo and Juliet?"

"Yes." You nod in confirmation, covering your mouth while you speak. "You're a real fan, now, aren't you?"

"I guess so." He chuckles. "The fact that I've never read it is unimportant."

"Completely irrelevant." You agree with a quiet laugh. His smile fades as his eyes land on something behind you, and you turn to follow his gaze over your shoulder. "What are you looking at?" You whisper, looking back at him again.

"Are you sharing everything I bring you with Jessup?" He asks, voice stern as his brow furrows at the question.

"I try to." You nod, taking another bite. "He's not well. I think something bit him the first night we were here."

"You can't." Coryo insists. Of course, he wants you to win, and you handing over every bit of sustenance or help you receive is only lessening your odds. Making Jessup stronger and you only weaker. "I know you're a good person, but once you get in that arena you won't have any friends. Not even him." Coryo explains, strategically skipping over the part where it makes him ill to see you sleeping with your head on the boy's shoulder and sharing the blanket that he gifted to you.

"Oh..." You say, so quietly he can hardly hear. "But-"

"Y/N." He cuts you off, a serious look on his face. "If you keep feeding him, keep helping him, and it comes down to you and him in the end, who do you think will win in that fight? If you had all the same nutrients and sleep, who do you think will win?"

"I- well..." You stutter, looking back at your friend. "It won't come to that. I think we both know that."

"We have to assume it will." He pleads, eyes now locked on yours. "Don't make it easier for him."

"Coryo, he's got a family, siblings, his ma to get home to. They need him." You protest, leaning closer so no one else could properly hear.

"So do you." He reminds you. The look of guilt that crosses your face indicates to him that even though you had your own family, something about Jessup makes you willing to give that up for him to get home. "What about Tybalt? He'll never know what happened to his own mother. Or your brother losing his sister. Y/N, please..."

Your eyes widen at the mention of your cat and your brother in particular. Clearly, Coryo is so desperate for you to listen that he's pulling strings he shouldn't. To make you hurt. To make you pay attention.

Tears fill your eyes as you speak. "I know." Your voice cracks, and the pit in Coryo's stomach tells him he's gone too far. "I'm sorry, I just- I don't want to be afraid anymore. It's selfish of me, I know, but I won't last long and I know that so I just want to get it over with." You cry quietly, reaching up to wipe your eyes on your wrist. You hadn't been so candid with him before, he almost doesn't recognize you without a smile on your face.

"Hey, no, don't be sorry. It's not selfish." He whispers, without hesitation reaching through the bars and resting his hand on your knee. Your skin is cold to the touch, even for him after he had just walked all the way here in the same air. "But it'll be over soon, and I'll get you home. I'll do everything I can."

You sniff and nod, hesitating before placing your hand over his. "I promise I'll do my best in the interview. I want you to win your prize."

Coryo's mouth gets dry at the insinuation. You didn't think you could win, you won't even consider it even with all the encouragement he tries to feed you every day, but you want him to win. "That's not important." He says, shocking himself with the sentiment. The Plinth Prize is his only hope at a viable future, at saving his family. But right now, he doesn't even care.

You don't respond right away, just sliding your hand under his to hold it. His skin on yours feels warm, comforting, the same way it did when he held it when you were first dumped in the zoo. You don't know if it's more comforting to you or him.

"I'm sorry to cry at you, I just sometimes realize what's going to happen to me and spiral over the possibilities and no matter how hard I try to accept it..." You shake your head, looking down at your hands. "I'm still fearful." Your voice drops below a whisper.

"Then don't accept it." Coryo grasps your hand tighter, leaning closer to you and looking at you through the bars. "Fight. Try to win."

taglist: @soulessjourney, @keziahcore, @that-veela-girl, @motorsport, @dreamyysouls, @rockstarbfs, @Lanadelrey3, @rawrmameh, @3zae-zae3, @babyspice6, @pastel0rchid, @maysileeewrites, @articxari, @Urfavpouge, @Multivitaminfy, @baybieruth, @kitscutie, @annaelise, @serrendiipty, @fratboyharrysgf0201, @totallynotkaibiased, @stelleduarte, @klplynn, @secretsicanthideanymore, @bejeweledreverie, @fals3-g0d, @drewsandsebastianswife, @niicole-87, @queenofshinigamis, @innercreationflower, @nallasstuff, @spring-goddess1, @baybieruth, @lovelyxtom, @throughgoeshxmilton, @enwonie, @scorpiolystoned, @iovemoonyy, @kodzuvk, @soupasoup, @eedwardss, @thatmarvelchick19, @wearemadeofstardust0, @regulusblackcore, @kbakery , @qardasngan, @omgsuperstarg, @kuroosbby001, @puredreamagination,

if your user has a strikethrough i wasn't able to tag you! i'm so sorry!

[melgolbach]

Back Together | Sam Golbach

A/N: no warnings just fluff !1!1!

It was once again lonely in the house Sam, Colby, and you shared. It had been seven whole days without the two trouble makers making you laugh. You got visitors like Malia and Tara every now and then, and you were grateful for that. Though no one compares to the boy who makes you laugh and makes you warm at all. FaceTime calls and texts weren’t enough and you were growing tired.

“I miss you,” you whined out, throwing your head back onto the couch. “One more day babe, I’ll be home soon.” He smiles at the camera. “This school honestly is probably the scariest place we’ve stayed at yet.” Colby spoke from wherever he was, and you chuckled. “You two are the bravest I know. I’d never stay a week there!”

Sam’s smile turned into a smirk, “we could make another part to this and have you come..” he sung out. You shook your head back and fourth, “devil I say. The devil.” The two boys laughed, before it fell in silence. “I thought you guys were staying in the school room? Or.. I forgot which one it was honestly.” You questioned,

“we’re staying in the gym for the night. It’s huge! The boil room is also in here too so… we’re so getting possessed again.” He hummed. Your eyes shot open, “AGAIN?” You yelled out. Colby looked over at Sam, “you didn’t tell her?”

Sam let out a quiet “whoops, must’ve slipped! Okay honey I’m going to bed we have a long day tomorrow I’ll see you when I get home!! Love you bye!!” After a long two hour phone call with Sam, the house was suddenly quiet again. You groan, closing your eyes and imagining Sam being on the couch with you.

Getting up from your spot, you decide to do your nightly routine and then get ready for bed.

-

The day that Sam arrived home on was the day you were cleaning everywhere. You kinda let go of yourself, and it was a bit gross in the kitchen, the living room, the upstairs living room, and in general it was just disgusting in your room. So you started cleaning the kitchen first and it took about two hours, and after that you decided to have lunch break with Malia.

“I’m so excited for them to finally be home!” You excitedly spoke, Malia agreed with you. “It’s been too silent at my apartment,. I forgot what life was like without Colby.” She chuckled out. “Honestly. I’ve known Sam and Colby since their vine days and I can’t imagine life without them. They’re literally the life of the party.”

The two of you chatted for what seemed like ages only for it to be ten minutes, up until Sam called your phone. It was FaceTime again, and this time he was already on the plane and it looked like he was about to take off. “Oh hey Sam,” Malia waved at the camera, and as soon as she spoke Colby was in frame. “Baby!” He cooed, “Colby!” She spoke the same tone as him. “Oh you two are eating without us? Betrayers,” Sam scoffed in a silly tone. “Sorry Sam, she’s my girlfriend now.” Malia kissed your cheek as she said that.

His jaw dropped, and the four of you laughed. “Alright alright, when are you coming home?” You asked, sipping your drink afterwords. “In like,” he looked at his Apple Watch. “Three hours.” Your eyes widened, “yuh oh..,” you whispered. “I need to clean.” Your tiny friend group laughed at you as you realized what you started off on this morning only to be 10% done. “I can help if you want,” you shook your head at her.

“It’s ugly in there… and I’m embarrassed by it.” “Oh come on, it can’t be that bad..” Sam spurred. “I spent two hours nonstop cleaning the kitchen..” the three of them had their eyes wide open. “Since Colby is going to where you live, I’m helping weather you like it or not.” Malia huffed out. “Okayy, I warned you Mal..” you said.

Sam smiled at the camera while Colby waved bye to Malia, “alright. See you in three hours, house better be SPOTLESS!!” He joked, “just for that I’m gonna make it even more messier,” you replied back.

—

“That wasn’t that bad,” Malia spoke, huffing out her breath. You emerged from the shared bedroom of yours and Sam, drenched in your sweat. “Honestly… I think I’m just out of shape.” You both laughed at that. “I’m gonna take a shower, help yourself to the fridge of whatever you want. Also, thank you so much for helping me really. I’ll get the next lunch when we go out,” Malia waved her hand, smiling. “I had nothing else to do, plus we got our girls day out of this.” You nodded, “I’m gonna blast my music is that okay?” You asked her. She nodded.

After your shower, you got into soft black sweat pants and a beige t-shirt. You put on light make up, and blew out your hair for it to be dry. “The boys said they’re ten minutes away,” Malia was cozied up on the couch, with a hallmark on the tv. You grabbed a glass of your F/D, with a bit of ice in it and then sat at the opposite side of the couch from her. You were just getting cozy, putting the drink onto the table in front of you till you heard the door opening.

“Honey I’m home!!” The two boys yelled, you and Malia giggled at that, getting up from your spots to see both Sam and Colby with luggage in their hands. “Baby!!” You squealed, Malia and Colby already went up to Colby’s room. Sam placed his bags down, a huff breathing out of his mouth. “I’ve missed you,” he cooed, wrapping his arms around your waist as you wrap yours around his neck.

The two of you stayed like that for a few seconds, before looking at each other and Sam kissing you. “God I’ve missed those lips,” he mumbled. “Let’s get you settled in.”

[cvnt4him]

Ik that most of your stuff is nsfw (not complaining) but I was wondering if you could do something about an amusement park date w Izuku where the reader is kind of horrified of rides but gets on them anyway lol 💗 Love your writing SO much 🫶

I promise promise promise I write other things than just smut!! You can always go to my MHA masterlist to see ofc! Thank you so much for the love and appreciation, feel free to leave another req anytime you're always welcome<333

Writing this bc literally like 2 days ago I went to six flags n almost died.

Going on a surprise date with your boyfriend izuku midoriya was not supposed to be like this. You loved whenever he planned these, of course, but it just so happened to be the one thing in the world you were afraid of. Amusement parks.

It's not the park you were scared of, it was the rides, the rollercoasters. How high into the sky they'd get and those oh so terrifying drops. Don't even get me started on the loops they do and when they go backwards n twist n turn n shit, n how fast they go?! For fucks sake.

You were petrified. Literally shaking in your boots just staring at the entrance sign of the park, your eyes slowly moved to your boyfriends excited face the way he was blazing with excitement and happiness. You could tell he wanted this with you, to experience a traditional moment in girlfriend and boyfriend history.

Izuku was adorable by all means, and you loved him with ALL of your heart, but this was just something you weren't sure you could do. I mean, scary rides that go super duper fast and could go off the rails at any given moment whilst you're in the sky? It's a death wish waiting to happen.

“ surprise!! Are you excited? I'm so excited! I got us VIP passes so we get to skip the lines and go first! I can't wait to do this with you!!! First we'll go on the superman, then we'll go to the..-”

As he trailed off into exact details of what exactly you'd be doing suddenly you felt something swarm your tummy. It wasn't something as angelic as butterflies either...

“ grreeeeat...”

You cut izuku off mid sentence which made his eyes shoot directly to you, the way his smile dropped was fucking hilarious, but also heartbreaking at the same time. His eyes grew wide and started searching your face for any sign of discomfort or anything, he found exactly what he was looking for. He seen the way you were nervous and fiddling with the hem of your shirt, he cupped your face and pulled you closely placing a gentle kiss on the bridge of your nose.

“ hon, is everything alright?”

The worry in his eyes hurt your heart. You couldn't let his money that he spent on VIP PASSES.... Go to waste. You exhaled through your nose and sucked it up.

“ I'm fine, my love. Just hungry I guess, is there anything to eat?”

His loving smile reappeared, he patted your head gently before speaking to you in such a soft manner assuring you that not only would everything be okay, but you probably shouldn't eat first if you're going to go on fast rides.

Fuck.

The next two hours were spent on terrifying rides you tried your hardest to get through, you almost threw up a couple of times but that's not something he definitely needs to know. Your legs were wobbly and your stomach was swirling, you tried to catch your breath but your racing heart was not helping. Your hair was a mess, your cheeks were red due to the heat and worst of all you felt like the earth was spinning.

All the whole izuku was yipping and yapping ab how you should 'do it again' n how 'you should try the Texas Giant' which is known for being one of the scariest rides there. You literally started shaking at the mere mention of the ride, whimpering lowly as he grabbed your hand and dragged you to it.

Of course being the obedient partner you are, you suffered through it and had your eyes closed the entire time, you screamed loudly and held onto your boyfriend and the ride buckles for dear life terrified you were going to fall out.

After getting off you held onto the railings for dear life literally thanking everything above for not letting you die. Izuku however was more worried about your pictures that had gotten taken whilst you were on the ride.

“ wh- what..”

“ look! Look at how cute you look snuggled up close to me like that!”

You two must've been looking at two completely different pictures because the one you seen was you holding onto his shirt for dear life, screaming and pleading to not die whilst your hair was all over the place, it even looked like tears were prickling at your eyes. It was embarrassing and the fact everyone could see it made you feel even more hot.

It was burning up outside and you felt dizzy, those fast rides were NOT helping at all. You gulped down, dehydrated and terrified, wobbly legs hardly getting you to where you needed to go. You weakly call out to izuku who with a smile on his face turns back to look at you, he seen your estate and rushed to your side pulling you into the nearest shack with fans and drinks ordering you one instantly.

He watched dover you with a frown, worried he might be pushed you too far. He knew you had a fear of heights but he figured this could be fun, you two could overcome it together like those cheesy romcoms.

It broke izukus heart that this unfortunately wasn't like those stupid movies, as sad and disappointed as he was that you both had to leave due to you being terribly overheated and dizzy, he was glad you were okay.

The train ride home you look so sad, your rosey cheeks all puffed out while you looked at your shoes with a small frown. Izuku took notice and frowned alongside you, he placed one of his hands on top of tours and squeezed it lightly getting you to acknowledge him. once you look up to him a welcoming smile spreads across his freckled face, small dimples being present.

“ are you alright, hon?”

“ tsk, I'm fine. J's feelin’ bad I ruined your day.. you spent all that money on those VIP passes and I chickened out...”

That broke izukus heart knowing this was eating away at you. Izuku didn't care about money, or how much he'd spent, or how it'd "go to waste". He cared about spending time with his partner because he loves you. he squeezed your hand once more before completely embracing you in a hug. No matter how embarrassing you might've looked or how red you were due to the heat, he'd love you regardless and he was glad that despite your crippling fear of heights you went along with him.

“ y/n, don't worry about any of that. I don't care about that, so neither should you. I just wanted to spend time with you.. I'm glad you came along with me and rode the rides that you did! But I deeply apologize that you felt like you couldn't tell me no, that you didn't want to do it. I love you always, and nothing will change that.”

He was just too adorable and loving for you. Sometimes you felt as if you didn't deserve him, which is natural. He's such a great and caring and selfless guy it's normal to feel that way when you finally have something good. He was just so cute he was making you want to bite him n squeeze his stupid baby-like cheeks.

“ -and besides,.. we get to use those passes all year round. So don't worry about it, if you're ever feeling brave again we can just come back!”

Huh. Well there you go. A bright side to the dark side, he really did think this entire thing through didn't he. The perfect man that izuku was, and he was all yours. You loved him so much and you couldn't wait to show him just how much.

“ next time we go on a "surprise date" I'll let you know before hand it's not an amusement park, haha!!”

“ okay, y’dork.”

You sighed and snuggled into his chest, he chuckled at your words and held you close. Obviously due to the heat it didn't take long for you to let go of him but you held his hand regardless, no amount of sweaty palms could make you let go of him.

AN: I know people don't normally like when I write anything other than smut but since I've been away from writing anything other than little imagines n shit I enjoyed this. I hope you all do too<3

[tsuy4n]

Finally onto the last one! After this I'm gonna go back to lurking (I don't trust my own words).

Cutie patootie x Unstable/Unhinged, (add more and name the dynamic urself!)

[Leo] [Donnie] [Raph] >Mikey<

*sneaking in the snack bar*

[Y/n]: Okay, let's go.

Mikey: Wait! *points finger* It says no trespassing.

[Y/n]: Bro there's only dos of us, not tres.

Mikey: ...Bro

—

Mikey: Did you know that when breaking a bone, it typically will heal back stronger than before?

[Y/n]: So what you're saying is I should break every bone in my body until I become invincible?

Mikey: Please don't.

—

Raph: You lied?

Mikey: We may have.

Raph: You may have or you did?

[Y/n]: We may have did.

—

Mikey: Tell me the scariest horror story you know.

[Y/n]: Life without you bro.

Mikey: Bro.

[Y/n]: Bro.

—

[Y/n]: *after tracking down, beating up a couple of villains and setting their hideouts on fire*

[Y/n]: As long as I strike fear and terror into the hearts of my enemies what does it matter what my 'gender' is.

[Y/n]: I don't identify as a 'male' or 'female' I identify as a fucking threat.

Leo: *nods* Don't mess with Miguel, noted.

Raph and Donnie: *nervously agrees*

—

[Y/n]: It costs $400 to go see a therapist, it cost $0 to tell myself it be like that sometimes.

Mikey: *softly* no.

—

[Y/n]: Here's a fun idea. We hang a mistletoe but instead of kissing the person underneath, we have to fight them.

Donnie: That's kinda dumb.

Raph: Exactly, so we are not doing that–

Donnie: Though at the same time interesting and kinda fun! Winner gets to obviously ask the loser whatever they want!

Leo and Mikey: *nodding* Mistlefoe.

Raph: Stop encouraging them!

Raph: I'm in.

—

[Y/n]: When I get murdered, can you make sure I become an unsolved case?

Mikey: What?

[Y/n]: I want to be on Buzzfeed unsolved.

Mikey: Can we go back to the part when you said "When I get murdered"?

—

[Y/n]: *trying to flirt* I really like your name.

Mikey: *smiles brightly* Thanks! Splint's the one who gave it to me.

Leo: *whispering into [Y/n]'s ear* Are you sure you want that one?

—

Mikey: I think I'm in love with [Y/n].

Raph: You think you are?

Donnie: You just ranted about how perfect their smile is for over half an hour.

Leo: *pats Mikey's head* We know you do, lil' bro.

—

Mikey: How do you feel about art?

[Y/n]: I mean, you're pretty cool.

—

[Y/n]: Without you, 60 minutes feels like an hour.

Mikey: Aww, how cute!

Donnie: *From the distance* The fuck?

—

Leo: I accidentally ate Mikey's sandwich. How long do you think I'll have to live?

[Y/n]: *calmly* 5.

Leo: five what?

[Y/n]: 4.

—

[Y/n]: You seriously need to calm down.

Mikey: But how can ice cream be birthday cake flavor if birthday cake can be ANY flavor???

[Y/n]: Huh...you actually do have a point there.

—

Villain of day: I'm going to kill you!

Mikey: Hold on, let me ask [Y/n].

Villain of the day: It's not a choice-

Mikey: They said no. *smiles* And they're on their way here!

Mikey: *realizes* I think you should start running.

Donnie, Leo, and Raph: *nods in agreement*

—

Mikey: I love you!

[Y/n]: I trust you.

Mikey: *confused*

[Y/n]: That's bigger to me than "I love you".

—

[Y/n]: *Dramatically watches rain fall through the window* We're born alone and gonna die alone.

Donnie: *Done* Mikey literally just left to get pizza.

—

[Y/n]: I am clearly not cut out to help make people life choices.

Mikey: Oh, I wouldn't be so sure. You helped me choose you!

[Y/n]: Okay, that time I was a genius.

[onlyymirknows]

When Jean Met Karina

My submission for Reijean Christmas Week, Day 1! Prompt: meeting each other's parents.

Read on AO3 (link)

Word Count: 7.1k AU: Modern, they're adults in an established relationship Genre: Angst w/ a happy ending (plus fluff and reijean banter) CWs: Reiner gets triggered, past emotional abuse, past character deaths (car accidents), past suicidal ideation, past homophobia, dropping of the f-slur

⋆⁺₊❅⋆ ⁺₊❆⋆

Reiner handed Connie a small notebook, “Everything you need to know is in here but feel free to text me if you got any questions.” He leaned down and traced a small heart on the glass tank, leaving visible smudges. The small turtle near his fingertip glanced at its owner for a second before lazily paddling away to rest on some driftwood.

“I’ve watched him before, remember?” Connie reminded Reiner with a small, exasperated laugh, “He’s in good, capable hands. Don’t worry.”

Jean, noticing the way Reiner’s jaw clenched, squeezed his boyfriend’s shoulder. This was their first time leaving town for Christmas and thus the first time they had to get someone to pet sit in the winter. The scariest season for a reptile keeper.

“Babe, I know what you’re thinking but we specifically got you a native species so you don’t have to worry about the heat as much. Besides, he’s a tough little guy.” Jean forced a grin, hoping to mask his own tense mood. Reiner returned a small smile accompanied by a soft exhale. Bingo. 

Then Jean turned to Connie, “Thanks for watching Bertl for us, Con. We’ll text you when we’re on our way home.”

“No prob, guys,” Connie beamed while ushering the couple to the door, “drive safe and see you next year!”

⋆⁺₊❅⋆ ⁺₊❆⋆

When Jean slid into the passenger seat of Reiner’s truck he noticed a text from Connie, “try not to lose ur mind on reiner’s crazy mom k?” He scowled.

“What’s wrong?” Reiner pulled his door closed and started buckling his seatbelt. He turned the key in the ignition, the car engine purring to life.

“It’s nothing,” Jean muttered while buckling his own seat. He fiddled with the air vents while Reiner picked out some music on his phone. When Last Christmas began playing Jean couldn’t help but shoot a glare at his boyfriend.

“What’s with that sour expression?” Reiner asked incredulously, “It’s literally the 21st of December.” After a pause he added, “There’s no Mariah Carey on this playlist, okay? Just let me have this, Jeanie.”

Sighing, Jean looked out the window at the now moving pavement. “Okay, but once we get through this I get to choose the next playlist.”

Reiner laughed. “Yeah, yeah. As if I was going to torture you with 8 straight hours of Christmas music.” He glanced at Jean for a second with a warm smile while they waited at the red light letting out of their apartment complex. “Y’know, I love you in spite of the fact that you hate fun sometimes.”

Jean cracked a genuine smile for the first time that day. Maybe he did hate what many people would consider fun but it was only because he had taste. Unlike most of these Christmas songs that felt gaudy and artificial. Yet it was hard to deny the joy they seemed to bring his boyfriend so Jean disregarded his own preferences in the second half of December. Sacrifice and all that.

Indeed, his high school friends were confused when he brought a more “lowbrow” guy back with him from college. Then they saw the way Reiner made Jean loosen up and it all made sense. Somehow Reiner could convince Jean to try something new or give another thing a second chance. As if the blond were a siren and Jean a sailor who never dreamed of diving into the ocean.

Sometimes diving into the ocean to swim with a beautiful siren meant meeting a shark. In this case her name was Karina Braun and, as far as Jean was concerned, she was his enemy. Someone to challenge and fend off and—

“We can’t keep avoiding this, Jean,” Reiner paused the Christmas playlist, “do you want to talk about it now or when we’re closer to my hometown?”

The question broke Jean out of his thoughts and he bristled once the words registered in his mind. “What’s there to talk about?”

Reiner didn’t say anything as he merged onto the interstate. Instead he looked over his shoulder to check his blind spot before roving his gaze between his mirrors.

Jean rubbed his eyes, yawning, his own gaze fixed out the passenger window. When Reiner’s silence continued after they’d settled into the flow of traffic he turned his head. He couldn’t help but frown seeing the way Reiner’s fingers gripped the steering wheel, digits clearly tensed. Knuckles turning white.

“Rei, you good?”

“I’m fine.”

“Ugh.” Jean crossed his arms with a huff. “Look, I know I’m not the best at hiding my frustration. But I also don’t see what there is to discuss when you know damn well how I feel. I would’ve rather invited your cousin to come visit us. If it weren’t for the mem—”

“Don’t,” Reiner cut in firmly, his grip on the steering wheel tightening further, “we shouldn’t talk about that. Not right now… Maybe after we swap.”

“Right,” the brunet replied hoarsely, cheeks red, shoulders aching from suddenly tensing them hard as stone. He bowed his head, ashy brown locks slipping down and obscuring his face from view.

“But I shouldn’t’ve suggested talking bout all this right now,” the blond grumbled, “I shouldn’t’ve even said anything to begin with but I’m a dumbass and… yeah.” Reiner turned the music back on, keeping his eyes glued to traffic the whole time.

The two sat unspeaking for a moment, allowing the dulcet tones of Andy Williams to fill the space. Was it really The Most Wonderful Time of the Year? It certainly didn’t feel like it and, well, Jean knew he wasn’t helping. 

Despite his genuine intentions to help, Jean recognized how his stubbornness and results driven mindset could push the envelope at times. Sometimes to the point of causing more harm than good. And selfishly, he didn’t want to alienate his favorite person, so,  as the next song began, he placed a gentle hand on Reiner’s shoulder and gave it a soft squeeze.

“You’re not a dumbass,” Jean reassured, voice regaining its warmth, “I think you’re being proactive and I’m proud of you for how well you’re handling this situation in spite of my bad attitude.”

“As if you’re usually a ball of sunshine,” Reiner muttered, though Jean saw the way the corner of his boyfriend’s mouth twitched. “I guess I want you to at least try being nice. Just try. You know?”

“I will try,” Jean murmured, “but let’s talk about all this later so you can focus on the road. I think that’s a good idea.”

Reiner nodded, his fingers still wrapped tightly around the steering wheel. Jean turned up the stereo before reclining his seat and looking out his window. The snowy landscape rushed by, filling his vision with a blurred field of white. It was oddly beautiful. Mesmerizing, even. Maybe that’s why his eyelids felt so heavy… though it was probably just last night’s insomnia finally catching up to him.

⋆⁺₊❅⋆ ⁺₊❆⋆

A sudden blast of cold air rushing into the cabin jolted Jean from his slumber. He looked up to see Reiner standing outside his open door and the expression on his boyfriend’s face instantly perked him up. Unbuckling himself he turned in his seat to tightly wrap his arms around Reiner who fell into the embrace with a shudder.

“I.. I’m so s-sorry for waking you, Jean,” Reiner whispered breathlessly into his ear, “I just… traffic slowed down to a crawl and I g-got this feeling that..”

Jean hushed him while running a hand up and down his back. Looking past to the world outside he noted they were in an empty parking lot attached to what was probably an office building. Perfect. He took a deep breath before turning his attention back to his partner. 

“It’s okay, I’m glad you woke me up. You did exactly what you’re supposed to, Rei. You did good. Really, really good.”

They stayed in each other’s arms for a couple of minutes while Reiner calmed his shuddering breath. When Jean felt that his boyfriend was sufficiently recovered he insisted on taking the wheel. Originally the two planned on each driving about half of the way there but Jean assured that he didn’t mind driving extra.

“You get full music privileges,” Jean announced as he buckled himself into the driver’s seat, “hell, even Mariah.”

“Jean… it’s o-okay..” Reiner protested while wiping his eyes, “you don’t have to listen to music you hate just for me.”

“But I want to,” he grinned and gave Reiner’s shoulder a playful shove, “I know you would do the same for me.”

“I think I already do that, actually.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean. I don’t really hate any of your music but obscure 80’s ska and Medieval French battle hymns aren’t my favorite,” Reiner hesitated, “sometimes I’m not really in the mood but… I mean…” he trailed off, his mouth forming into a thin line across his face.

“Let me guess, you don’t ask me to change it because you don’t want to be a bother?”

Reiner turned to look at Jean head on and nodded, his lips curling into a faint smile.

Jean huffed. Of course his self sacrificing boyfriend would listen to literally anything Jean wanted. It was true that Reiner was a lot less picky than him. Yet he also felt like a bit of an ass for never asking if Reiner actually enjoyed his more niche music choices.

He reached over to ruffle the hair on the back of Reiner’s head, rolling his eyes as he did so. “You gotta work on this with your therapist more, hon. I want you to tell me stuff like that. I’m here to please you as much as you’re here to please me. I expect some god damn equality in my relationship. Got it?”

The blond’s smile grew wider. “Loud and clear.”

Without another word, Jean leaned over the console while pulling Reiner towards him. Their foreheads connected with a gentle bump and a renewed smile on both of their faces. Jean tilted his head slightly, making a point to nuzzle the crook of his boyfriend’s nose. 

Reiner sighed contentedly in response. He lifted his hand to cup the side of Jean’s face before pressing a soft kiss to his boyfriend’s lips. A silent thank you from one to the other, sweet, but also vulnerable. Like a hesitant knock on the door of Jean’s world where Reiner sometimes felt out of place. Such as now when his emotions were still dizzying and fraught.

Recognizing the call, Jean pulled Reiner in closer, and began peppering kisses all over his face. Forehead, brows, nose, cheekbones, jaw, chin. And the lips, so many flurried pecks to Reiner’s chapped lips. Every one meant to convey the same thing—I want you. I love you.

“Aghh!” Reiner exclaimed through the attack. He let out wonderfully delighted laughs that set Jean’s soul alight with elation. “Mercy, mercy!”

After one final kiss on the mouth, Jean let Reiner go to lay back against the passenger seat. The blond heaved deep breaths, latent laughs slowly dying on his lips. “I love this side of you,” he mused while buckling himself in, “I’m honored whenever you let me see it.”

“Oh shut up,” Jean chuckled, “you make me sound like some humorless dolt.” He turned the key in the ignition then threw the car into reverse.

“Humorless dolt? Not at all. In I fact think you’re very clever,” Reiner replied smoothly, “witty, droll, piquant—”

“That’s enough, Cyrano. Now where do you want to stop for lunch?”

⋆⁺₊❅⋆ ⁺₊❆⋆

The rest of the drive was relatively smooth. Free flowing traffic, no heated discussions, and Reiner chose a music genre both of them could agree on—80’s glam metal. Jean liked the fashion and showmanship while Reiner appreciated the cheese and catchy hooks. It wasn’t until Jani Lane started singing about secrets he just couldn’t tell that the dreaded topic returned.

“Are you sure you’re okay pretending to be roommates in front of my family?” Reiner asked after turning down the stereo. His voice cracked at the end, prompting him to busy himself with his water bottle to soothe his scratchy throat.

“Yeah, that’s okay,” Jean sighed.

“Are you positive? We don’t have to keep it a secret if you really don’t want—”

“I’m positive, Reiner. It’s seriously not a big deal.”

“And you’ll try being nice, right?”

“Oh course,” Jean insisted, albeit gently.

“…Okay,” Reiner moved to turn the volume back up when Jean covered the dial with his hand.

“Do you not trust me, Rei? To keep my cool?”

“It’s not that I distrust you, Jean. You have a cool head. I mean, I was surprised when your friends mentioned how much you fought with Eren growing up.” The thought of teens Jean and Eren fighting brought a smile to Reiner’s face. “But I know how strongly you feel about my mom. I don’t really blame you, either, it’s just that she’s not actually a villain.”

“I know that,” Jean responded tersely in spite of himself. In his periphery he noticed the way Reiner winced and he sighed again. With a softer voice he added, “I understand that she’s a person.”

“But will you keep that in mind when she says something ignorant? Or even just a little frustrating?”

“Reiner, I promise you I will do everything in my power to make this experience as stress free for you as possible. Trust me.” Jean glanced over at his boyfriend with a smile before returning his attention to the road. They were back on surface streets by now, mere minutes away from the Braun household.

The front door of the house flew open upon their arrival, before Jean finished pulling into the driveway, even. It was a teenage girl absolutely beaming from cheek to cheek, eyes scrunched closed in joy. From the passenger seat Reiner let out a quiet gasp and, without a word, hopped out of the car to meet her.

“Reiner!” She squealed excitedly, throwing her arms around his neck and letting him lift her up from the ground. “I’m so happy you came!”

“And I’m so happy to see you again, Gabi. You’ve grown so much!” He gave her a twirl before setting her back on the ground, his own smile dazzling brighter than the strings of twinkling lights surrounding the open doorway. 

Jean hadn’t seen his boyfriend this happy in weeks and he couldn’t help but stare in grateful awe at the scene. Then his eye caught another figure approaching from inside of the house and his mood immediately soured. 

It was Reiner’s mother, Karina. She was short with drabby blonde hair, deep set eyes, wrinkles, and a very familiar nose. Not exactly the face of evil but he knew how looks could be deceiving.

Reiner turned and hugged her with what looked like a beat of hesitation. Jean quickly got out of the car to join them, his protective instincts kicking into high gear. He heard the tail end of a sentence on his approach that made his jaw clench.

“…you’ve gotten so big, Reiner.”

Thankfully he caught himself before his face formed into the nastiest scowl, remembering the promise he’d made minutes earlier. Besides, Jean reminded himself, maybe Karina didn’t mean anything negative by it when she called her son big. Perhaps it was a comment on the fact that Reiner had gotten into weight training since his last visit.

“Thanks mom,” Reiner replied with an awkward chuckle, “I started going to the gym more regularly. So uh, let me know if you need me to lift anything for you while I’m here.”

Okay, so he was right to give her the benefit of the doubt. Except then Jean’s resolve almost faltered yet again when Karina greeted him, leaning past Reiner and smiling at him.

“Ahh so this is your roommate Gene, I take it? It’s nice to meet you, dear.” 

Of course she said his name wrong. Fucking Gene, as if he were a pair of denim pants. His hazel eyes narrowed dangerously, preparing the most passive aggressive response possible when Reiner suddenly jumped in with a correction.

“No, mom. It’s Jean. Kind of like fawn but with a J.”

“Oh!” She exclaimed with wide eyes, “I’m sorry, I had no idea. It’s wonderful to meet you, Jean.” Her expression softened back into a smile as her gaze moved to Reiner’s truck. “How about we get everything inside? It’s starting to get chilly.”

⋆⁺₊❅⋆ ⁺₊❆⋆

“So Jean’s bags should go into the guest room, then?” Reiner asked as they carried the last few things inside with them.

“No, dear, that’s where Gabi’s staying,” Karina responded, “your aunt and uncle are out of town on a couple’s trip with the Grices. I offered to let Gabi stay here.”

“Isn’t it great, Reiner?” Gabi hopped excitedly between each foot, practically jogging in place. “Just like old times! Remember how my parents and I would stay over for Christmas Eve and we’d all wake up together the next morning?”

Reiner nodded, “I do remember. You’d kick me out of my room and I’d sleep on the couch.” Though the wording sounded bitter the smile on his face indicated he felt quite the opposite. “So I’m guessing I’m on the couch while Jean’s in my old room? I’ll take my stuff to the living r—”

“Ahh, no,” his mother interrupted, “Falco will be on the couch.”

“Falco?” Jean found himself asking, trying to place the vaguely familiar name.

“My boyfriend!!” Gabi practically shouted. Reiner looked surprised before quickly recovering into a warm smile.

“Also a family friend,” Reiner elaborated, “his parents are the ones traveling with my aunt and uncle. I’m guessing my mother agreed to let him stay over, too.”

“I did, yes. He’s currently visiting his brother out of state but he’ll be here in a couple of days. I know it’s… unusual but do you mind sharing a room?”

“I don’t mind,” Jean replied, practically holding his breath. Was this for real?

Karina lowered her voice so only the two men could hear her, “Thank you. I obviously can’t let those two share a room, even if they’re both 18. It wouldn’t be decent.”

Oh. Of course it was a concern about the teenagers having sex. Jean held in a sigh while Reiner hurriedly ushered him upstairs to his childhood room, saying something to his mom about coming back down soon for dinner.

⋆⁺₊❅⋆ ⁺₊❆⋆

“Looks like we lucked out,” Reiner muttered after closing the door shut behind him, “though I’m surprised she didn’t insist on finding me a sleeping bag so we didn’t have to share the bed.”

“Maybe she’s trying not to push her luck,” Jean sat down on said bed and looked around the room. Any decorations Reiner may have put up as a teenager were long gone. Her son had been out of the house for close to a decade at this point so perhaps that was warranted but it still rubbed him the wrong way.

“Did you know your mom sanitized your room like this?”

Reiner shrugged and plopped down on the bed next to him. “No, but it doesn’t bother me, either. I don’t want to be reminded of the old days, anyway… it’s not like they were good.” As nonchalant as he probably tried to sound, the edge in his voice gave him away.

Jean frowned and wrapped an arm around Reiner’s shoulder, pulling him in for a sideways embrace. “Don’t say that, Rei,” he leaned over to whisper into his partner’s ear, “maybe you didn’t have any good days in this room but we wouldn’t be here right now if your entire life before college was exclusively miserable.”

“You’re right,” his boyfriend pressed their foreheads together gently, amber eyes closing, “I owed Porco a visit, anyways.” A single tear rolled down Reiner’s cheek as he took a shuddering breath, “Sometimes I can’t help but still feel like they’re both my—”

“Hey, hey, don’t go there,” Jean cut in, hands quickly cupping the other man’s face, “I… I understand, you know that. And I also get you can’t exactly help it sometimes but I’m also not gonna let you just say it. Because it’s not true. It was never true. Never.”

In his mind Jean thought the words he wouldn’t dare speak aloud right now. Not as Reiner began weeping quietly, tears seeping into the cracks between his own face and Jean’s supportive palms.

It’s not true, no matter what your mom told you.

⋆⁺₊❅⋆ ⁺₊❆⋆

Over the next couple of days Jean found himself on high alert. Despite the fact that Karina never said anything outwardly hostile, he couldn’t help but notice her frequent attempts to get her son alone. As far as he was concerned, no good could come from such an interaction.

Thus he made sure to intervene every single time, practically gluing himself to Reiner’s hip. Somehow he managed to do so without any pleading expressions from his beau. No desperate glances silently screaming for Jean to behave.

Instead Reiner thoroughly enjoyed himself, catching up with his baby cousin and introducing her to Jean. Gabi, while initially a shock to the senses with her loud voice and frequent exclamations, quickly grew on him. She was spunky, reminding Jean of a younger version of himself.

All the while Karina stood on the sidelines, watching. Occasionally she made some attempt at joining in on the conversation but often failed to connect. Gabi also made some efforts to bring her in on some topic or another but the old hag was usually too clueless to contribute. Talk about satisfying.

Jean smiled every time she made eye contact with him, imagining how much Karina probably hated him for not letting her sink her claws into his man.

Everything changed when he woke up alone on the morning of the 24th. The moment he realized Reiner wasn’t there he grabbed his phone to check the time. It was 7:18, meaning he hadn’t grossly overslept. Then Jean noticed a text message from Reiner from around an hour ago.

“Gabi begged me to pick up Falco from the airport with her. Should be back before breakfast.”

He sighed in relief, happy that Reiner was occupied by Gabi and not his mother. Speaking of, Karina usually served breakfast around 8, meaning the three should be back soon. 

Jean got up from bed and commenced his morning routine: showering, brushing his teeth, skincare, and of course haircare. By the time he wandered downstairs in some comfortable clothes it was already 7:55. Reiner and the kids were due back any minute. He sat down at the kitchen table and did a crossword on his phone while he waited.

Karina stood by the stove cooking up something for all of them to eat. If Jean had to give her credit for something, it was her cooking. Even something as simple as scrambled eggs and bacon smelled absolutely divine coming out of her kitchen. Had she been any other person he would’ve jumped at the opportunity to learn her secrets.

“Here you go, Jean. I’ll pour you some coffee, too.”

A plate with some eggs, sausage, and toast suddenly appeared on the table before him. He looked up at her, surprised that she would serve him breakfast before everyone else was present. The past couple of mornings they always waited for everyone, no matter how much Gabi insisted she was dying of starvation.

As if reading his mind Karina spoke up again, “Gabi told me they were running late and would grab breakfast on the way home. So it’s just us two this morning.” She placed a decorative mug of black coffee next to Jean’s plate. 

The mug was Christmas themed with little reindeer flying through the sky pulling Santa’s sleigh. Except instead of being cartoonish it was elegant and minimalist. White silhouettes on a black background with smooth looping script wishing him a Merry Christmas. Okay, maybe he had to give her credit for her tastes in drinkware, too. It was a wonder where Reiner got his adorable but tacky tastes.

He sipped on the drink, still piping hot from the coffee press, while Karina brought her own plate over and sat across from him. They ate in silence, Jean practically gluing his eyes to his phone screen to avoid catching her gaze. Without Reiner’s presence there to rein him in, the temptation to tear into her only grew. 

He just had to hold out until Reiner and the kids came back.

“They probably won’t get here until lunch,” Karina suddenly stated right as Jean finished the last bite of food on his plate. The way she said it sounded so certain. Probably? That was definitely a lie for appearances. She knew they wouldn’t be back for a while.

Jean swallowed hard, eyes finally snapping up to look at Karina. “Why do you say that?”

“I asked Gabi to buy me some time, and so she lied to Reiner about when Falco’s plane landed,” she replied, expression stony, “I thought, if you won’t let me talk to my son then I might as well talk to you instead.”

“Oh yeah?” He asked, raising an eyebrow, “What did you want to talk about?”

“Are you the reason my son won’t answer my calls anymore? Why he blocked me on social media? Why I haven’t seen him since my mother’s funeral several years ago?”

“You’re damn right I’m the reason,” he declared, feeling a fiery heat ignite in his soul, calling forth the fury he’d contained over the past few days. One built up by years of watching his best friend suffer from deep emotional wounds primarily inflicted upon him by this woman. Jean clenched his fists, mentally preparing himself for what felt like an ensuing battle. 

She frowned, the wrinkles in her forehead growing more pronounced. “Why did you do that?”

“Why?” Jean laughed haughtily, his almond eyes brimming with deep disdain. “Because you make him absolutely miserable. He can’t help but love you as his mom but I saw the way Reiner deflated after every phone call with you. How he’d get so anxious about every little mistake he made. And, unlike you, I got Reiner the help he needed. I supported him through that process and eventually helped him find the courage to finally cut you out.”

“Then why are you even here?” She asked, eyebrows furrowing further in what looked like frustration, “And why for so long? Why stay here until after New Years?”

Jean scoffed, “It’s not to see you, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“For Gabi, then?”

“No, if it was just about Gabi then I would have invited her to come visit us for the holidays. Falco, too. He sounds like a nice kid.”

Karina pursed her lips, mouth forming a thin line across her face. To Jean’s surprise, though, she stayed silent, evidently waiting for him to continue.

He hesitated, unsure if he wanted to elaborate. None of this was any of her business, after all. Except he wanted her to feel bad. To feel guilty for all of the cruel and messed up things she did and said to Reiner over the years. And, well, he only promised to make the trip stress free for Reiner who wasn’t there to bear witness… What if Reiner just never found out?

“We’re here to pay our respects to Marcel and,” Jean gazed at her with all of the intensity he could muster, “Bertholdt. Though you might know him better as that wretched sinner or, I don’t know, that disgusting faggot?” He paused for a moment, taking in the way she winced when he repeated her words back to her.

“I could scarcely believe it the first time Reiner told me about their deaths,” Jean spat, “how you screamed at him for killing Marcel. I mean, how dare you blame him for that? And for what? Because if he hadn’t skipped his extracurricular that day then he wouldn’t have been there to cause the accident?”

She bowed her head, staring intently at her hands to avoid confronting the deadly look on Jean’s face.

“As if Reiner had any control over the driver who ran the red light when they were all crossing the street. As if he chose to have his friend push him out of danger to take the hit himself! Marcel, a dear friend, died and you had no sympathy, no compassion for your son. It’s been 15 years and he still carries that guilt with him. Still blames himself.”

Tears of indignation started welling in the corner of Jean’s eyes but he quickly blinked them away. It’d be a cold day in hell when he showed any signs of weakness to this witch.

“And you didn’t even get him help! He watched a friend get hit by a car and you couldn’t be bothered to get him in to see a therapist. And I know you had the resources. Unlike Bertholdt’s father who wanted to get his son into therapy after also witnessing the accident but just didn’t have the right insurance. You realize that Reiner and Bertholdt practically held each other together after that, right?”

Surprisingly Karina responded with a single nod of the head. Yet she continued staring at the table, her expression unreadable. He knew he could stop here, having likely gotten his point across but fuck that. It wasn’t close to enough.

“If you knew how much your son relied upon that friendship then why did you tear them apart? Huh?”

Karina hunched further forward in her seat, elbows now propped up on the table so she could hold her head. She didn’t even attempt a response, which only served to piss Jean off more.

“We both know it’s because you walked in on them sharing a kiss! A simple peck on the lips and you lost your goddamn mind! You grounded your son for the rest of the school year and forbade him from seeing his best friend! They didn’t even know how they actually felt about each other but you didn’t hesitate to demonize an innocent teenager! One you’d known for years at that point, no less!”

Jean banged his fist on the table with a frustrated grunt, causing the dishes to clatter from the force. She flinched in response but still hung her head low, refusing to face his fury. He took a moment to catch his breath before continuing his condemnation. “The night Bertholdt died he was driving here to see Reiner. Not to have some secret affair but because your son was at the end of his rope.”

Finally she raised her head, looking at him with a hollow, wide eyed expression. 

“That’s right. Reiner started talking about hurting himself and his best friend rushed here despite your warnings in order to save your son…” for the first time Jean hesitated, temporarily uncertain if he should throw the finishing blow. Then he remembered the look of devastation on Reiner’s face the first time he heard this story and he knew it had to be done.

“Did you know that they were on the phone together? Bertholdt didn’t want to leave Reiner alone for a second, afraid of what might happen if he did. As a result Reiner heard all of it. The crash, the screams of pain, and then the emergency workers frantically pulling Bertholdt from the wreckage, shouting about the blood loss and—” 

“Stop!” Karina sobbed desperately, her suddenly visible eyes pleading with Jean to grant her mercy. The look on her face, the hint of remorse he sensed in her, made him take pity and skip the rest of the gory details.

“The only reason we’re even here talking right now,” Jean growled, “the only reason your son is still alive, is because he had other people to carry him through. First he had his friends here in town and then he went to college and found me. I saw how much he was hurting and I encouraged him to finally talk to a professional. Now he’s flourishing and I’ll be damned if I let you undo any of his hard earned progress!”

What he heard her say next didn’t make any sense. Jean couldn’t help but think he’d misheard Karina through her sobs and gasps for air. But then she said it again and again. So many times that it became unmistakable.

“Thank you.”

“What? Why the hell are you thanking me?”

“Because,” Karina suddenly reached across the table to grab one of Jean’s hands. In any other situation he would immediately pull away but his instincts told him to wait. “Jean, dear, I’ve been trying to get Reiner alone to ask if he would consider going to family therapy with me.”

“Wait, what?”

“After Reiner cut me off.. I was a complete mess. At first I was so angry. How could my baby forsake me like that? After everything I sacrificed to raise him. But then the anger, it turned into despair and I could hardly function. When I went in for a medical appointment, the doctor convinced me to see a therapist for my depression. It took years but eventually I realized how much I’d let down my dear son.”

Jean stared at Karina, too stunned to even notice that now he was crying. Not from righteous anger but from utter confusion. For all of the times he had daydreamed about putting this woman in her place he never imagined such a response.

“If you hadn’t convinced Reiner to shut me out I never would’ve gotten the help I needed. I never would’ve worked on my own issues and understood how I took them out on him. I failed him as a mother. I know that now.” She let go of Jean’s hand to grab a tissue box and set it on the table between the two of them.

“Hold on,” he watched as she pulled a tissue to dab at her eyes, “if you already knew you’d done wrong by Reiner then why did you let me tell you off like that?” Jean grimaced now as he thought back on the comments he’d just made. The fierce condemnations. The unapologetic jabs.

Karina smiled weakly, “Well… I guess I wanted to understand how you saw the situation as my son’s life partner.”

“That’s reasona— WHAT,” Jean bolted up from his seat, “what did you just call me!?”

“Reiner’s life partner,” she repeated gently, her smile widening.

“You knew this whole time!?”

Karina nodded.

“How?!” Jean slammed his palms down on the table, rattling the tableware yet again. 

This time, instead of flinching, Karina couldn’t stop herself from laughing. A goofy, genuine laugh that rumbled from her stomach and up through her chest. A laugh that sounded exactly like Reiner’s when he felt light and carefree. When he was happy.

“Gabi and Reiner are friends on social media, dear,” she finally explained after containing her amusement. “He isn’t shy about your relationship. And Gabi isn’t shy about, well, anything. I don’t think she realized that I wasn’t supposed to know when she told me.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Well,” Karina sighed, her smile quickly fading, “I… I didn’t want to stress Reiner. Or you, for that matter. With how bigoted I used to be, I wasn’t sure if either of you would believe me if I said I was okay with it, either.”

Jean nodded, finally allowing himself to smile. He sat back down at the table and leaned back in the seat. Without saying anything, Karina grabbed Jean’s nearly empty cup of coffee and brought back a fresh pour.

“We have a few hours still,” she reminded him, “If you’re up to it, I think it would be nice to start over.”

He considered her offer for a second, a smug smile crossing his face. “Sure but on one condition.”

⋆⁺₊❅⋆ ⁺₊❆⋆

The last thing Reiner expected to hear when he threw open the door of his mother’s house after hours of waiting around at the airport was raucous laughter. Especially not Jean’s laughter, at that. He kicked off his shoes and hastily ran into the kitchen where he discovered Jean gleefully laughing at a photo album.

“Oh, that picture of him dressed as a yam?” Karina asked with a chuckle. She was back at the stove, putting the finishing touches on their lunch.

“Is that what that is?” Jean questioned with a wide, mischievous smile. His eyes were glued to a polaroid of a young Reiner wearing a lumpy reddish-brown blob of a costume. “Was this for some Thanksgiving play or something?”

Reiner froze in place, mouth hanging open. Wide eyed, he glanced back and forth between the duo, too shocked to speak.

“No, no” she replied cheerfully, “that was for Halloween. Reiner really, and I mean really, loved sweet potatoes back then. I borrowed his aunt’s sewing machine and tried throwing something together for him. It admittedly wasn’t very good.”

Jean cackled. He flipped to the next page, grinning at more pictures of the yam costume while sipping on some water.

“Hello Ms. Braun, thank you for hosting me,” a gentle voice suddenly came from Reiner’s side and drew everyone’s attention. Falco stood in the doorway of the kitchen holding a small tin. “Colt baked these cookies for us to enjoy.”

Without skipping a beat Jean got up from the table to shake Falco’s hand and introduce himself. Then he gestured for the young man to follow him to the stove where Karina once stood.

Reiner looked down to see his mother gazing up at him, a nervous smile adorning her face. She gently grabbed his arm and led him to the next room while Gabi passed them to join the others.

“Mom, what’s going on?” He asked quietly, eyebrows still stuck high on his forehead.

“I asked Gabi to keep you busy for a while so I could talk to Jean,” Karina let go of her son’s arm to rest her hands at her sides. That alone was unusual to him, having grown accustomed to his mother clinging to him when they were in such close proximity. She continued, “I’m sorry for the tricks but I realized I needed to get your boyfriend on my side if I wanted to talk to you. And yes, I’ve known this whole time. Gabi told me a while ago.”

“Gabi told you I had a boyfriend? But then why—” Reiner cut himself off and shook his head, realizing that it really didn’t matter why his mother played along with the roommate story. Not when she referred to Jean as his boyfriend without a shred of contempt in her tone.

“Reiner, I’m so sorry,” Karina looked away for a moment to wipe her watering eyes, “I know I hurt you so much.”

He blinked back tears of his own. Was this real? “It’s… it’s okay, mom, r-really…” Reiner stammered, suddenly overcome with an indescribable feeling of guilt. One that he often felt when thinking about his mother but never understood.

“My dear boy, it’s not okay. I am your mother and I failed you. After talking to Jean I realized that I failed you even more than I thought. I wouldn’t blame you if you never forgave me.”

“Wait,” he protested, “that man, my dad, took advantage of you when you were still just a teenager and then abandoned you with his child. And then.. grandma and grandpa, I didn’t see it back then but I see it now. I see how disappointed they were. You hardly knew peace a-and they treated m-me like an extension of you. I… I can’t b-blame you for wanting me to meet their expectations.”

Karina shook her head, choking back tears. Reiner could see the way she fought against her own desire to pull him into a hug and it broke his heart. As often as Jean had encouraged him to be angry at his mother, he rarely ever could. 

That guilt, he suddenly realized where it came from. And that was from the knowledge that his very existence made Karina’s life infinitely harder. How every little mistake he made was weaponized against her by his grandparents. The only ones he ever knew and also the ones who silently saw Reiner as a mistake. 

It’s not like they were wrong, either.

Yet Karina didn’t stop shaking her head in disagreement, fighting against her own emotions to find her voice. “None of what you said, about your father or my parents or my age,” she croaked, barely understandable, “none of that was your fault.” She muffled a sob with her hands. 

“You didn’t choose to be born, Reiner. And maybe… maybe I didn’t choose to give birth, but it’s not an excuse for how I treated you. Or how I treated poor Bertholdt. You were just kids and I… I had n-no idea th-that you… or that h-he… it’s all m-my f-fault…”

Reiner sucked in a sharp breath, immediately understanding his mother now knew about that awful night. Without hesitation he pulled her into a strong embrace, unable to contain his own sobs. Karina whimpered innumerable apologies and for once he let her without protest. 

Deep down Reiner somehow knew that both of them needed this. His mom needed to apologize for her wrongdoings. He needed to forgive himself for every one of those wrongs for which he had ever accepted the blame. This was them, finally healing. The first step of countless many in a journey that already felt infinitely easier.

⋆⁺₊❅⋆ ⁺₊❆⋆

That night five of them sat around the kitchen table, laughing and playing some of their favorite board games. Karina sat out of some of the rounds but, unlike the previous days, she was very much part of the conversation. Jean still struggled at times to hold his tongue after she said something questionable but he cut himself some slack. He knew this was a process for him, too.

When he and Reiner finally retired to their room his heart felt much lighter. As did his boyfriend’s for that matter, (though he was a little tipsy, too.) It didn’t take long before Jean felt Reiner lightly snoring into the back of his neck, the latter insisting on being the big spoon that night. He smiled to himself as sleep gradually came to claim him, too.

Never in Jean’s dreams did he ever imagine liking Karina Braun. Perhaps it was a Christmas miracle. Or perhaps, as was sometimes the case, he assumed the worst of someone he never met in the process of fighting for someone he loved. He didn’t question it, however, just happy that he agreed to give her the chance.

⋆⁺₊❅⋆ ⁺₊❆⋆

A/N: Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed! If there is enough interest I might write a second part where reijean go on a double date with pokupiku and pay their respects to Marcel and Bertholdt.

[wjehfshs]

Hi can i request a reader that has infinite feral energy? Like reader acts as if he drank 27 cups of coffee and 29 cans of energy drinks everyday and he is just... feral af. People are scared of ghost because he is tall and scary but people are scared of reader because he is just so fucking unpredictable, if reader walks up to you he will either give you the tightest hug and pat your head or kick you in the shin and call you a loser while your on the floor crying over your poor shin, and it doesnt help the fact that reader also has the thickest, deepest european accent known to man. Reader made it his lifes mission to try and climb könig everytime he sees him. Price made it an official rule to never give reader any coffee or energy drinks because the last time reader drank coffee everyone had to suffer a sleepless night because reader was stomping up and down the halls. Does crazy shit with soap cuz c'mon we all saw it coming. Whenever reader gets tired (which is almost never) reader acts like a completely drunken man, bumping into things and walls, always trips on the stairs, dramaticly tumbles and falls, when he finally reaches the end of the stair case instead of getting up he just lays there on the ground re-thinking about his life choices, silently and blankly staring into space, this happens so much that tf141 makes bets on how long reader will stay on the floor. Readers favorite thing to do is chase and terrorise shadow company soldiers and new recruits, while chasing after them he will yell in his deep and heavy accented voice which causes the shadow company soldier and new recruits to think he is putting a curse on them.

Oh my god I love this

Reader is chaotic, crack fanfic, reader climbs König, MW/MW2 and Ghosts is kinda merged into one here with a huge select few of characters don’t ask why, male reader

Dude you where fucking terrifying

Energetic, heavy European accent, and completely feral

Before you came everyone thought Ghost was the scariest

Good god once they met you they feared for their sanity

Poor König can’t even stand without you climbing up on him

It’s like a daily thing

He’s just accepted it

You would grab onto his shoulders and climb up him like he’s a tree, then hug him like a Koala

Once you were given coffee by a rookie who didn’t know how feral you are

No one slept for the next 2 nights

Day and night you were running around, laughing, giggling, screaming, stomping

Like a literal child

After night 2 you crashed, on the stairs

Gaz found you laying on the stairs, face down just thinking, not blinking at all

“How long do ya think he’ll be there?” Soap asked

“I bet you 20 dollars he’ll be there for another 4 hours” Gaz laughed

Soap got the 20 dollars, you got up in 3 1/2 hours

Gaz was not happy but obliged anyways

The scariest part of you though was when you would chase people

The poor rookies would be screaming, running away as you laughed with your deep accented voice

You always caught them and tickled them

Ghost was just waiting for the day it was his turn to book it for the bunker as you chase him down

On the rare occasion you were tired, usually after a particularly tough mission, you were still just as bad

Stumbling around, giggling, no filter between your brain and mouth, and not to mention when you would randomly fall asleep anywhere

And I mean ANYWHERE

Once Price found you asleep in the shooting range after you stumbled in there in your tired, delirious state

Even with Rookies shooting guns and trying to ignore the man asleep in the corner of the room

You didn’t budge

But god did all of them breathe a sigh of relief

They wouldn’t trade you for the world, but they just couldn’t keep up

Once you went up to roach and nearly snapped him in half with a hug, he swore he heard a crack

But another time you went up to Keegan, hugged him, lifted him up, and threw him over your shoulder

Graves is usually the victim of your kicks

Rudy and Alejandro made a promise to each other to never give you any spicy food, who knows what could happen

Once you stole Alex’s prosthetic leg and ran around with it

He was hopping after you, screaming how it wasn’t fair as you just laughed manically

Farah once made the mistake of letting you use her bike

You rode around for the next 5 hours, once you finally got off everyone felt themselves melt from relief

Soap will occasionally rile you up when you’re actually sitting down, as calm as possible

He’ll do stuff like tickle you, make you laugh, anything to get you going again

Everyone loves you a lot but they have a lot of sleepless nights because of you

[cal-daisies-and-briars]

🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟

Eddie time! 129 for 🧟:

---

Eddie quickly learns that, though there are many similarities between Maddie and her little brother, there is one considerable difference. At least when it comes to long drives. Maddie and Buck are both kind and brave and gentle. Lionhearted type people, to be sure. They’re both well-spoken and intelligent. Friendly. Except, whereas Maddie was perfectly fine letting long stretches of time pass in relative silence, Buck cannot seem to accomplish this. He likes to talk. A lot. 

It’s not that Eddie has a problem with chatty people. He doesn’t. Shannon was really chatty, back when they got along. Eddie tends to not know how to fill silences, even when he should, with anyone but his son. So having someone who seems to be very adept at it is generally a good thing. And really, it would be. Eddie might appreciate it, any other day. Just today? So soon after leaving his kid and so close to finding or not finding Shannon?  Today, Eddie just doesn’t have the necessary social energy or focus to respond properly. And it’s making him feel sort of rude.

“I haven’t been to Los Angeles since I moved back here from Peru,” Buck starts their drive by explaining. 

“Peru?” Eddie blinks, confused. He’s only half-listening.

“Yes!” Buck explains. “I spent half a year working at a resort in Peru. Like an all-inclusive. Mostly attracted college-age party crowds, you know?”

Not really. Eddie had a kid before his nineteenth birthday. The closest to a party vacation he got was the fact that there was a beer festival happening an hour away from the military hospital in Germany where he recovered from being shot. 

He doesn’t say this.

“Right,” he mumbles instead.

“So, yeah, anyway, I moved here from Peru, and got the flight from Lima to LAX, and that was literally the last time I was in Los Angeles.” Buck continues with his story. “I always told myself I’d go more but between the fire academy and working and dating, I never did anything touristy.” 

“Life sure gets busy,” Eddie mumbles affirmatively.

“Yep! And then the world ends.”

It’s easy to say that. That the world has ended. And in a lot of the ways that matter, it feels like it really has. But maybe the scariest part is that it hasn’t. Not entirely. The scariest part is that there’s just enough left that Eddie and everyone else still alive and not a fucking zombie can’t throw in the towel. There’s way too much to keep fighting for. 

“So, what about you, man?” Buck asks.

“Me?” Eddie asks.

“You been to L.A. before or is this gonna be your first time?”

Right. That’s what they’d been talking about. Or, rather, that’s what Buck had been talking about. Sort of. 

“Yeah, I’ve been,” Eddie answers. “My Tia… Pepa. She lives… Lived…”

He takes a struggled breath at the thought of referring to any of them in the past tense. 

“My Tia and her kids lived out here and my Abuela moved out when I was fifteen or sixteen,” Eddie continues. “We visited.”

Buck graciously skirts over the fact that Eddie has just struggled to mention the family he’s lost.

“Oh, hey, that’s cool,” he says instead. “So you’ve done the touristy stuff?”

“Mhm,” Eddie confirms. “Some of it.”

His lack of elaboration seems to disappoint Buck a little. 

Eddie finds that he does not like that muted, disappointed look. It makes him want to scramble to bring his easy smile back. Shoot. Now is not the time for a crush. Not that there ever has been a good time for it. Slowing down and letting himself feel anything would confirm what Eddie’s quite sure he already knows. What he has probably always known, on some level. 

He’s gay. 

He’s gay and he’s searching for his estranged wife with the very handsome, very talkative brother of the woman he’s entrusted his son to. 

Yeah, not a good time for a crush. Like, at all. 

And yet he finds himself talking to mollify Buck anyway.

“I liked Griffith Park and Runyon Canyon,” Eddie says. “I like hiking.”

Buck lights up again. Eddie finds it stupidly endearing.

“I like hiking, too!” He exclaims. This turns into a full story about a hiking trip through the Shenandoah Valley when he lived in Virginia. Seems like this guy has lived everywhere. 

Eddie sits back and listens as he talks, eventually finding the raspy, excited lilt of his voice comforting. He finds himself wondering, perhaps stupidly, if in another life, they might be the sort of people who are well-suited for one another. Someone to hike and be active with. Someone to fill his silences. 

Eddie blinks the thought away. It’s useless. Right now, he has to focus on the road ahead of him, not the road he never got to take. 

▪️▪️▪️

It’s a two hour and twenty minute drive from Sunport to Los Angeles in theory. Eddie thinks. He doesn’t actually know for certain. It’s about two hours from Santa Barbara and he tacked on the twenty minutes. He doesn’t have Google Maps anymore. And he doesn’t know how long it will take to reach Shannon’s last known address in the city. This is all just a fuck ton of guess work, really. 

In practice, it takes them longer. They make it past Ventura, driving the same way he and Maddie had come, without an issue. It’s once they’re on a new route towards the city that things start getting complicated. 

First, the bridge over the Santa Clara River is out on the 101. Eddie’s not sure how this happened. It has not been long enough for the structure to naturally decay. It looks sort of… Blown up? Like someone intentionally destroyed it. They have to circle back and head northeast until they find another option. 

Not long after that, before they even reach Camarillo, there’s a transport truck overturned on the highway. Normally Eddie would just drive on the grass around it, but they’re on a steep hill. One one side of the road, the ground juts out above them. On the other side, it drops off after a guard rail. They’re sort of fucked. 

“This is ridiculous,” Eddie complains as they turn back around.

“Haven’t you driven all over?’ Buck asks. 

“Just from Texas,” Eddie says.

“So haven’t you seen way worse?” Buck asks. “Maddie says you were attacked by lions.”

Eddie shudders at the memory.

[morrigan-sims]

1, 3, 24, 33 :D

Hi Lush!!! Thank youu for asking!! 💖💖💖

who is/are your comfort character(s)?

My real answer is my own boys Rook and Carrion, but if I'm not allowed to answer with my own OCs, then it's Caleb Widogast (really all of the Mighty Nein, but Caleb is my most beloved boy), literally anyone from Black Sails (they're all awful, and I love them all) but especially Silver, Flint, Anne, and Max; Kaz Brekker, Nikolai Lantsov, Viktor arcane (and Jinx a bit), the Doctor (esp. the 10th Doctor), Percy Jackson, LOCKE LAMORA the og idiot-genius bastard man, and Ballister Blackheart + Nimona. This is a long list, but I have over 280 books in my bedroom, and also get too attached to fictional characters.

3. do you leave the window open at night?

When I'm at school, yes, because my building was built in the 1930s and is heated by awful radiators that spit out literally 85 degree air, so keeping your windows open is essential unless you want to die of heatstroke at night. In all three years I've lived in this dorm building (different rooms, but same building) the only time I've ever closed my window from the day I moved in til the day I moved out was over winter break between semesters bc I'm gone for a month and they do room checks and mandate that we close them. Yes, it was open even when it was literally 7 degrees Farenheit last February. At home at my mom's or dad's I do not, partly bc those houses have functional AC and heat, and also partly because I have had a very very very strong somewhat irrational fear of my cats falling out a window. (I say somewhat bc it did actually happen one time. But I had that fear for years even before that. Don't worry, he only fell like 2 feet and ran up onto the porch and came back inside the second we opened the door. But truly one of the scariest experiences of my life.)

24. if we were together on a rooftop, what would we be doing?

You and me? Absolutely discussing critical role and dnd, and bg3 and P:WotR. I'd like to imagine we're doing it while stargazing, too. I've always wanted to stargaze on a roof.

33. the last adventure you’ve been on?

If you count driving a 2001 volkswagon beetle that is set up for someone 6 inches shorter than you and the seat is stuck so you can't move it to go get tested for strep throat and covid, then I did that a couple hours ago. If you want an actually FUN adventure, idk. I don't go many places. Maybe going to the renaissance festival with @goldenwaves over Labor Day weekend? Since then I've basically just been stuck on campus doing school, but that was genuinely one of the best experiences of my life. (I've always wanted to go to a ren faire, so this was perfect. The idea came up at 2am on a Saturday, and by Sunday afternoon, I had bought plane tickets.)

[watchmorecinema]

I was re-watching the Folding Ideas video about Nostalgia Critic's The Wall, and it got me thinking about something. I'm perfectly ok with people hating my favorite movies, so long as they at least understand them. The Wall is a dark and depressing movie and maybe you just don't want to deal with that. But if you think the main theme is "high school sucks" then you didn't really try to engage with it at all.

A lot of this I think is due to advertising. The Exorcist isn't the scariest film ever made, it's a family drama. It's very compelling but if you're looking for a lot of scares then you'll walk away thinking it's boring. Rambo isn't really an action film since it's more about the character of Rambo and how he has been dehumanized by the very machine that sent him to kill in Vietnam (the sequels dropped all of that). A lot of people went into Fight Club expecting it to be a straightforward fighting movie but actually it's a twisty thriller about the horrors of capitalism.

But outside of that I think it happens when the movie is abstract in some way. The Wall is very abstract, but it's easy to understand what it all means. An animated scene about inhuman monsters destroying London isn't The Wall trying to be a Kaiju movie for a minute, it's a metaphor for the horror and destruction of the blitz.

David Lynch and Tarkovsky get hit pretty hard by this too; people don't understand what the plot literally means so they get hung up on that instead of coming up with their own interpretation. What Stalker means to me is completely different to what it means to someone else. Any Twin Peaks theory is valid so long as its yours. Good art is a mirror that lets you engage with it and reflect about your own thoughts and feelings. If you unironically think that Whiplash or Wolf of Wall Street was about supporting hustle culture then that says more about you than about the film.

If you don't regularly engage with art in this way, well you should! Watch movies you wouldn't normally consider and see how it makes you feel. Even bad movies can help you feel a certain sort of way and that's valid. Maybe you find something that means something to you in a way that was never envisioned by the creator. Videodrome has a lot to say about parasocial relationships with online content creators, but it came out more than a decade before the Internet came into being. Starship Troopers was panned on release but now it's understood to be a pretty clear satire of right wing militarism. Every time I rewatch Akira I get something different from it, especially if I'm in a different stage of my life.

There's a lot out there to explore. And sometimes that means you walk away from a film where you might think it was well made but that it did nothing for you. It's happened to me too; I can understand that The Wolf Man did a lot for werewolves in fiction (literally creating most of the lore you recognize), but it's also mostly about a guy being really creepy towards women with pretty bad special effects. I can appreciate its influence, but I just don't think it's a good movie.

I'm sure most people reading this will have similar thoughts about Stalker. It's very slow, philosophical, a bit nihilistic and while the plot is pretty easy to understand it leaves so much open ended that you need to decide for yourself what it all means. It's a lot of work to watch. I love it for that reason; very few movies actually give the viewer homework to mull about and chew on and this one gives so much to consider. But it's perfectly reasonable for someone to decide that it's hard to relate to the movie about Russians being depressed about abstract concepts for nearly 3 hours.

[ashleyjowilliams]

I am in vegas with family and I went to like the meow wolf art exhibit yesterday and it is literally the scariest place I have ever been in my life it was so cool and I loved it so much we spent like three hours in there and it was so interesting and fun. but then towards the end I got literally so scared because I got too immersed and it felt so real and disorienting and everywhere you looked there was more and more around you and then I spent the rest of the day walking around feeling like everything around me was ironic and dishonest and fake and surreal. so crazy and so fun but like scariest day of my life

[cyberphuck]

Tonight Sebastian showed me a very long r/nosleep story that he said had freaked him out a lot. I feel a little bad because glitchy technology stuff does not scare me at all, and I did warn him ahead of time that that was the case, but I think he’s a little mad at me because throughout the entire two hour run time I could not take the story seriously.

Even though he and I are only 11 years apart in age, we pretty much grew up in different eras of the Internet, as well as having vastly different backgrounds. Some creepypastas and nosleeps definitely scare me, but it’s never the technology glitch or evil technology ones. As a matter of fact, those who know me know that I think video game glitches are the funniest things to ever exist. One time I laughed so hard at a GTA glitch compilation that I legitimately thought I was going to rupture something in my gut. I literally could not stop laughing, and continued laughing all that night every time I thought about it. 

(Maybe the fact that I no longer fear most outside threats factors in to my being totally unfazed by most of the stories he shows me. FIGHT ME! FIGHT MEEEE!)

So the story about someone finding out that they had communicated with a dead girl on the Internet, who was maybe also a minion of a dead Internet God? (Or something) didn’t affect me at all. At one point, I couldn’t help myself and shouted “well then stop clicking on the links!” And Seb glared at me. At what was probably supposed to be the scariest part of the story, the narrator finds out that the skeletal remains he found in a hole in the wall at the Internet café are actually *his* skeletal remains, I thought ‘well obviously they’re not his remains because he’s standing right there.’ At least by that point I had stopped saying things out loud, lol.

there were a lot of inter linking parts of the story that maybe I wasn’t getting even though I was paying attention to the narrative, but I feel bad whenever Seb shows me something that affected him a lot and for me it just does nothing. I think for both of us the scariest stories involve a sense of inevitability or helplessness, but the method of delivery, whether it be through evil technology or monsters in the woods, differs for us both.

There’s also this thing that almost all creepypastas and nosleeps do which Seb and I call “And YOU were skeleton! And WROTE THIS!!” where they get to the climax, what should be the horrifying discovery followed by a cut to black, and instead they just keep going. “And the Evil Link came out of the TV and chased him around the house!” type of thing. Like dude, the story about a mysterious fucked up video game cartridge was fine, it was creepy enough. You have to leave some of it to the imagination. Any creepypastas that end with “in the morning they found his dead body with all his guts out and it was so scary” automatically gets an F from me.

The best stories, for me, are ones where something Not Normal is going on, no one knows why, and it’s never explained. The Smiling Man short story is a classic— the man is just wandering around being weird and uncanny, chases the narrator and is never seen again. What the fuck did he want? It COULD be that he’s going to kill you and wear your skin, or maybe he’s trying to sell you timeshares. You don’t know! If the obvious solution to “ghosts in my video game” is “go do something else then,” your story needs a rewrite, and don’t just do the playground tactic of “well you can’t because uhhhh, it’ll get you.” If my dead girlfriend is inside my copy of Animal Crossing I’m just gonna leave her in there.

Everyone knows it’s really hard to impress me when it comes to writing fiction, *especially* when it comes to horror, because I’ve been neck deep in true crime stories and gore videos for most of my life AND I’m a notorious snob about writing in general (and specifically popular works that I feel insult their readers by expecting them to put up with clunky dialogue and flimsy plots). Nosleeps are written by small time authors for the most part, but there are a few well known nosleepers who put out a lot of stories that are then recorded as YouTube videos and played to me by my brother whom I love dearly and would do anything for, and those authors need to step up their game so that I don’t laugh at the parts that are supposed to be scary.

For what it’s worth, Anansi’s Goatman Story scared the FUCK out of me.

[charbles]

In your AU who is your all time favorite and why?

Anon, I've been thinking about this for hours, I'm NOT joking, This au has been around since 2018, its a very special thing to me, its gotten me personally through ALOT of shit, and its one of Me and Ricks (@galacticaldisaster) first au's/rewrites we've EVER done together, this au short is SO SO important to me which is why its SO HARD just to choose one character, you feel me? On top of that Rick and I try to implement literally EVERYONE into this au, we Cherry-pick from books, we include EVERYONE from AR, there are GENUINELY so many options!

My favorites bounce around alot due to whoever i'm focusing on developing and the likes but i think i've got a solid tie for #1! and ive got reasons for why its a tie :]!

Chris is my favorite out of all of the characters i've written purely because he makes me very sad, I think i did the best job writing him as a character, hes balanced in the sense that hes a heartbreaking character and yet i think he stays child-like in essence, hes got reason for what he does but he goes about it like a 6 year old would, a very scared 6 year old

Which brings me to my second favorite of all of the characters, Richie. Richie is this au's FNAF 3 Phone dude, I havent really talked about Richie too much, besides the mention from last night. But richie will ALWAYS be on top, mostly because he is the very first character i wrote for this au, WAAAYYY back when i was 15, the very first picture i EVER drew of this au was of Richie Scott, Age 17, Threatening to hit someone with a lightning mcqueen Croc. Richie and Phillip's (@galacticaldisaster s phone guy) whole concept came from a game of Garrys Mod where we were being little idiots and beating the shit out of eachother with fnaf character models! I also just think Richies silly :]

Legally i DO have to give you all my favorite of Ricks characters;

You all obviously know springtrap/william, absolute motherfucker, but RICK. RICK HAS THE AUDACITY, THE G A L L to both turn him into the saddest dad you've EVER met, and the scariest and i mean, SCARIEST William ive ever read. seriously, dudes believe me, Rick's writing for his devolve from a dad/ business man to murderous deranged killer is GENUINELY my favorite, I've seen alot of interps of william, and maybe im a bit biased, But Ricks is my favorite.

Now Phillip is in the same vein of Richie, hes the phone guy and was made during a game of Gmod via rambling, but Phils character and story is genuinely very very :[ i love him, he is my favorite white boy, Phillip my beloved little corporate slave turned Man Fuck This Place >:,[ i wont talk about his story too much, but its sad, and i fucking adore him and will kill for him

an honorable mention for ricks, who i will not be sharing pictures of is Jeremy Fitzgerald, because rick is the ONLY person i know who has implemented the fact jeremy carved his fucking face off and also once again? i love him. hes a FUCKER.

HONORABLE MENTIONS BELOW CUT!!

my FAVORITE fucker to draw is malhare.

look at this fucking idiot, i love him, and yet he is ABSOLUTELY TERRIFYING. HE IS A MENACE. this guy and his bestie in au is ARE ABSOLUTE FREAKS. FUCK UP YOUR LIFE FLAVORED FREAKS!!

annnnndd currently my favorite character to write for is Vanny and the Tape girl (Delilah!) :]

i will not be giving context to this image :]

[vigilskeep]

How did Yrsa feel about the Fade (and also suddenly having dreams post-joining)?

initial impressions of dreams were not great, it has to be said! it was not enough punishment for the deep roads to take her mother, her eye, and, as a grey warden, her life; now they have to invade even her rest. but honestly i don't think the freaky dream aspects are the scariest thing to her. she's a brave warrior who's faced darkspawn, and as for the fade, in her waking hours on the surface she's already in an unfamiliar world with rules she doesn't understand and geography that makes her stomach lurch. the scariest part abt the fade quest is actually fighting alone. yrsa's had a loyal companion guarding her back and an audience to make her keep up a brave face for pretty much as long as she can remember, except during her exile in the deep roads. the separation anxiety with her new companions immediately hits hard. seeing their 'nightmares' makes her realise both how little she knows about these people and how badly she needs them, especially of course her fellow grey warden who, after facing betrayal after betrayal from all sides, she feels is the one person here she can really count on. (she also feels that one major reason she cannot give in to the sloth demon's dream and accept the death she was exiled to meet is because she is the one person he can really count on)

on the other hand, there was something liberating about the fade, too. when gorim asks her if she ever wishes she wasn't the king's child during the aeducan origin, she says, "i am what the ancestors made me". she's a duty-driven person who has always accepted the status quo and a plan for her life made before she was even born. the shapeshifting mechanic is a very literal way (or as literal as anything in the fade) to experience for the first time that not being her usual self might be as freeing as it is terrifying

(there was also a glitch where for a moment her 'true form' also appeared as a golem and my brain was immediately like oh huh non-binary yrsa canon. so. take that as you will i guess)

[golbrocklovely]

This is very out of blue but I stopped watching sam and colby around 3ish years ago (I got burned out on their content because I used to watch them every night before I went to sleep) and now I want to get back into their videos but I’m intimidated by the sheer amount of them! I was wondering if you could recommend some that you consider a “must watch” thanks 💕

this is literally so long, i'm so sorry. but it's bc i go into detail about the different eras of snc that you've missed and whatnot lol

okay, so threeish years ago would be 2020. i'll just start from 2021 and go from there. sorry if i give you a lot, since i know you said you were overwhelmed by how many videos there are. but these are just some of my faves/ones i liked, so watch them if you want and if not, no hard feelings. if the video is highlighted red, that's a video i strongly suggest you watch just bc it's a fan favorite or is really good imo. the others are just ones to watch for funsies.

so at the beginning of 2021, they did something called 25x25. basically it was supposed to be 25 things before they turned 25. they didn't do it for very long bc it didn't really get them that many views lol

but some videos from that era i would watch are:

best friend gives me first tattoo *blindfolded* our terrifying shipwreck experience | (ran out of air) overnight in most expensive hotel room! (las vegas) our return to haunted cerro gordo ghost town (overnight) surviving overnight on an abandoned island (thunderstorms!) exploring abandoned beach hotel (heavily guarded)

then they went back into haunted videos, but it was still under the 25x25 umbrella:

our unexplainable night at queen anne hotel | room 410 the night we talked to demons. | real conjuring house our unforgettable haunted experience | shanley hotel

then they went to chernobyl. highkey, i recommend just watching the whole 2 hours movie they made. it was really good and just very interesting watch. unless you don't care about their exploring stuff, which… valid lol

then we move into hell week #1, which is something that they are still doing to this year. highlights from that are:

our horrifying night at haunted dracula's castle (real vampire) terrifying ritual in world's largest catacombs overnight in haunted waverly hills sanatorium alone in the real conjuring house | sam and colby

then they finished out the year strong with some of their best videos: our haunted night at villisca axe murder house (solved) and our demonic encounter at haunted sallie house. both of those are fucking awesome, truly.

now we get to 2022. they did seasons this year. season one was about attachments (vaguely) bc sam had one from the sallie house. highlights from season one were:

the bellaire house: a portal to hell… a night alone in haunted hospital |fairfield infirmary the stanley: usa's most haunted hotel (our return)

i'll be honest… season one wasn't my favorite lol

season two was called 'empath' bc colby was getting more into his psychic abilities… bc yes, that's now a thing. there are more highlights in this season than last:

our most demonic experience | zak bagans haunted museum our terrifying encounter at most haunted hotel the demon on goatman's bridge (w/ kallmekris) the scariest night of my life.

then they went and did a trilogy, or season three, that took place in europe. respectfully, i don't like any of these videos so they're all kinda skip for me. but they collabed with georgenotfound and wilbur soot, along with kat and stas. so if you like any of those ppl, watch the trilogy. otherwise, you ain't missing much.

then they went on to hell week #2. both hell weeks are tied in my book content wise. hw #1 stands out more just bc of the conjuring. nonetheless, highlight from hell week #2:

the hospital of nuns: a night turned demonic shadow man encounter at trans-allegheny lunatic asylum the night a demon attacked us. the demon of bell witch cave our unexplainable night at winchester mystery house

the last one is cool not bc of the investigation per se, but bc of the numerology that they get into.

snc then did two final videos for the year: our demonic encounter with world's most haunted doll and my terrifying experience alone at haunted lighthouse. the robert the doll video is fine, i think the reason why i don't love it is bc a lot of fans blame the doll on colby's cancer…… so, i personally don't feel like watching it ever again lol

then we finally get onto this year. now, they haven't posted all that much this year bc colby was sick, which i assume you know about. and if not, definitely 100% watch i have cancer. it goes into colby's whole journey.

as for the other content, here are the couple videos i've liked that they have put out this year:

surviving 3 terrifying hotels in 50 hours.. | full movie the most demonic house in england. (w/ tommyinnit & jack) the demonic secret society of england. | hellfire club the demon of chillingham castle. (w/ daz)

that only leaves out like two videos from this year but ehh. if you wanna watch everything they've done this year, feel free to.

again all of these are just suggestions so don't feel like you gotta watch all of them in one sitting or even watch all of them to begin with. honestly, just to get you prepared for what's to come, watch the conjuring videos first - since snc are gonna be post three videos on the conjuring alone for hell week. and from there watch whatever you want. if you got any other questions, feel free to ask me :)