#meanwhile in other places you are scrounging for literally anything useful

[bigskydreaming]

Like, I am very conscious of the aid people have given me and try not to ask any more than is absolutely necessary because I do not enjoy asking for charity like at ALL. But I am less than a year out from when I had a twenty thousand dollar (out of pocket) surgery to address a longterm disability caused by a gaybashing when I was nineteen and that flared up about seven years ago and caused constant, daily migraines, chronic pain and other issues that limited my ability to work while I spent the next six years doing literally everything I could to save up for that surgery while maintaining an expensive as fuck insurance plan that was the only option for getting the surgery DOWN to that ‘manageable’ price tag in the first place. Between that and the costs of just staying alive for those six years, even with e-begging and lots of help from people, I wiped out every cent of my savings and put myself in massive debt and tanked my credit as that was the literal only way I could afford that surgery and regain a decent quality of life. I STILL don’t even have fucking TEETH because every single one had to be pulled in order to do the surgery since to realign my jaw properly, I needed an even bite and after years of destroying my teeth every time I used one side of my face and one side only to do my best to chew and eat food, pulling every single one of my teeth and getting as-literally-cheap-as-possible-dentures instead of trying to repair my teeth first was quite literally the only real option without further dragging out the surgery timeline because I was basically bedridden by the time I actually did get it. After years without being able to work regularly, my ability to go back to my old careers are basically nil and I’ll have to start over from scratch - when I can even afford to - as in the meanwhile, my job options were limited by having a years out of date resume and pretty much all of my paycheck does go to managing my debt, trying to rebuild my credit, and basic cost of living while scrounging together pennies to try and save up now for the many bone graft surgeries I’ll need if I ever want to get teeth implants instead of relying on dentures for the next several decades. So yeah, I ask for help, mostly just when I don’t have money left over for food or the couple hundred dollars I spend monthly in meds because lmao, my various neurodivergencies don’t really help with all of that and I literally can’t afford to go off my meds or miss my regular schedule with them without risking everything I HAVE managed to pull together in terms of routine and income-generating ability.

So do I enjoy e-begging? Fuck no. Am I constantly trying to figure out better ways to supplement my income? Hell yeah. I’ve been trying to put together things like a patreon where people actually get something in exchange for money sent my way, for like, months and months but when I’m not working I’m fucking exhausted because grinding nonstop for six years through constant chronic pain and stress with zero days off will do that to a guy, and I haven’t exactly been able to kick back and enjoy myself even since the surgery. 

And I do my best not to put shit like that on my posts and just keep things to the bare minimum because not only do I not love dwelling on all that, I’m genuinely not trying to guilt people into anything or play the sympathy or pity card because when you used to pride yourself on being independent and self-reliant pretty much from the age of ten because your family taught you from an early age not to rely on anyone but yourself, it’d take even more therapy than I have now to actually be okay with the fact that I’d probably be dead by now without the kindness of internet strangers having helped me stay alive at times when I hadn’t eaten in days because I was busy keeping a roof over my head instead.

But sure, random internet anons - my little post about asking for $5 or $10 is an attempt to make people feel bad about getting blue checkmarks or their financials in general, as opposed to whatever that was.

[booppooo]

Prompt 10 and 14 with Abby and reader please

Friends with Benefits

Abby Anderson x Fem! Reader Headcannon

AN: pronouns and layout weren't specified so I'll be using an afab!reader pronouns and this will be a headcannon :)

Warnings: oral (reader receiving), unestablished relationship, swearing

Word Count: 1300

-

You and Abby had been close since Salt Lake City

So when you joined the WLF your two were practical inseparable

Both of you did everything together from training to missions to patrols

A lot of people suspected you two were secretly sleeping together because of Abby's flirtatious tendencies

She was also incredibly romantic but assured she was just being a good friend

That is if you consider finding you flowers and calling you gorgeous constantly being a good friend

You didn't mind of course, it never bothered you, if anything you always looked forward to her compliments which were always paired with a smirk and some little trinket or growth she always managed to scrounge up for you

And in return you'd always hug her tight and remind her how much you truly appreciated her, sometimes even finding coins for her :)

One time she came back from a patrol (one of the rare ones where you two weren't partnered up) with a hand made flower crown

"How the hell did you find the time to make this?"

"I have my ways." she smirked.

Then she gently set it on your head with a proud smile

But before she could step back to admire you, you took advantage of your closeness and brushed your lips over her's

At first it didn't register between you both considering your affectionate past and you both were smiling like normal

Eventually it hit you two like a ton of bricks

But neither of you moved

And the air between you two wasn't awkward just...tense

You could see how she struggled to find words or if she should speak at all, meanwhile you were debating if you should go in for a second kiss

The longer you took to think things through the more time you could spend kissing her

So you cupped her cheeks and brought her in for a proper (and long overdue) kiss

And you'll never forget how she just melted into it, her hands finding your body with ease

She kicked the door to your bunk shut and tugged at your thighs, and you happily complied by hopping into her hold with your ankles locked around her hips

With the same delicacy she had used to make the flower crown, she laid you on the bed and continued to swirl her tongue around yours

You stopped just for a moment to set the crown aside because it really was well crafted (you'd have to ask her how to make one later)

Her lips came down to your exposed neck and worked at leaving pretty purple marks against your skin while her knee had found a home between your thighs

"Fuck..." you breathed, "I've never wanted anyone to fuck me this badly."

And it was true, because you never recalled a heat building between your legs so fast and aching this intensely

Abby was in the same boat because she quite literally could not keep her hands off of you, squeezing at your hips and daringly brushing her fingertips over your clothed chest

She chuckled against your collar bone as she nibbled at the taught skin because of course she'd never admit she was feeling the same way

You had had enough of the foreplay (though it was endearing and Abby was taking wonderful care of you) and sped up the process by hastily fumbling with her belt

"Jesus Y/n..." she giggled and smacked away your hands to undo her pants

The favor was returned and your pants soon joined her's on the floor

Before you knew it Abby was between your legs leaving soft kisses along your thighs and purposefully ignoring the searing warmth at your core

You groaned her name and tugged at her neat braid which only encouraged her to tease you more

Before you could begin to whine and protest she pushed aside your damped panties and her eyes lit up - you really were gorgeous

And like she was starving she started her work on you and the sudden attack had your nails digging into her scalp, her hands pressing your thighs apart

Your head lulled back as your eyes rolled back into your head, "Please don't stop."

Abby had never thought about it in a million years because you tasted immaculate and the little whimpers and whines slipping past your lips made her brain fry

Needless to say you wouldn't imagine running to anyone else for a quick fix again because Abby had stolen first place

As time went on you two talked about your interests and we're always very vocal about what you did and didn't like in the bedroom

In terms of your relationship...it was more fun staying friends but both of you knew at the end of the day you were head over heels for each other (or in each other's beds)

[astralaffairs]

i know mc is specifically a political journalist, but what if she was covering a story like the blm on the side or a riot or smth, and happened to get arrested while on the job? any headcanons for how thom would react? i see him wanting to use his political influence to get her out but i feel like he might give away too much if he does that?? or would he not care at this point bc he just wants to make sure she's safe?

mc uses her prison phone call on either lafayette or dolley for the SOLE purpose of them getting her in touch w thom

because so many people were arrested, the cops arresting yet another journalist probably wouldn't make the news

so when she calls either dolley or laf she just has to hope that they know what she means when she says to "spread the word" that she's been arrested

when word reaches thomas about it, though, he damn near loses his mind because "they can't just hold her there indefinitely!!!!!"

however, because her invocation of habeas corpus is just met with a statement that she's suspected of "rioting" or some variation of theft or property destruction at the protests, they all realize that they can, in fact, hold her there indefinitely

because our criminal justice system is so wildly fucked up

being a certified Broke Bitch, our poor heroine cannot post bail, so she's there until either charges are dropped or she scrounges up enough money for bail

dolley and lafayette both come to visit her (regardless of who she calls w her one phone call, they each tell the other pretty quickly)

when they learn abt her situation, they're also freaking out

they both offer to pay her bail money, but considering that they're both public figures closely associated w the jefferson campaign, mc thinks it would look too sus

lafayette comes in the next day claiming to be her lawyer so he can talk to her alone (she j runs with it bc this might as well happen)

but really he just did it so he could have space to tell her that thomas was insisting on bankrolling her bail AND legal fees

his plan is to just fund it w/ offshore investments; if the $$ is coming from nevis, no one's gonna be able to track it back to him (haven't u heard thomas jefferson was implicated in the panama papers??)

she tells him fuck no u can't do that

because then she'd have evidence of him using offshore investments to evade taxes (and she'd publish that info w/o hesitation)

because of course he's guilty of tax evasion 🙄

she'd basically tell him to take his money out of the offshore accounts if he was gonna bankroll her anything; she refuses to let her bail fund b paid by dark money

meanwhile, alex and lafayette are about to throw down bc alex is pissed that lafayette is acting as mc's lawyer

"He doesn't even have a law degree! Why the hell would you trust him with this?"

and lafayette is ridiculously smug abt it, but he knows the only reason she's letting him act as her attorney is so he can act as an intermediary btwn her and thomas

(once she no longer needed to communicate w thom, lafayette would be losing his role there)

but anyway thomas quickly realizes she won't b letting him pay her bail fund (and that she's probably being more reasonable abt it than he is)

so, being the extra bitch he is, he literally funnels millions of dollars to washington dc bail funds (cool donation, mediocre motive)

however, despite him being lauded as a hero of the people and an Activist, mc's bail doesn't get paid

relative to the other people who are being held in the same jail as her, her bail is low-cost, and her charges aren't very serious, so bailing her out is low priority

so, being the extra bitch he is, thomas assembles a fucking legal team to take the arrest of reporters and journalists at the protests to the dc district courts as a first amendment violation

mc is fucking shocked when she finds out

she's even more shocked when she finds out alex forced his way onto thomas's legal team bc he decided he had a stake in the matter

he, of course, does not realize that thomas literally brought the case to the court for the sole purpose of freeing mc

and, yknow, protecting the bill of rights, of course

he wins his case, of course

it gets him ridiculously good press and his approval ratings jump significantly

he shows up at the holding cells at the county jail when the judge orders that all journalists and reporters are released partially to rub his win in the cops' faces

but also, by now, mc has been in a holding cell eating prison food for 8 days and thomas is absolutely worried sick

he hasn't seen her, spoken to her, or heard from her except by way of lafayette's interpretation of her words, and he has no clue how she's holding up

dolleys been doing her best to keep him updated

but, yknow, he has to personally see to it that the judge's orders are followed and the journalists are released

and mc is beyond overjoyed to see him

but she also thinks he was being extra as fuck, and he didn't need to do all this just to get her out

she thanks him for all his efforts in a very formal interaction when they're both at the county jail but she's clearly mildly amused that he went to all this trouble

and he just looks WORRIED AS SHIT. he wants to hug her and baby her and ask her if she's alright

instead, when she shakes his hand in a gesture of awkward gratitude, he subtly lets her know he'll be home all that evening

and then he's texting her all afternoon after she gets out

but she wants to stay home :( needs to be at her own place after all that time in a fucking holding cell

so she isn't shocked when thomas shows up for coffee at the diner around 10 pm

in fact, even tho she isn't working right then, she goes downstairs just on the hunch that he might show up

and when mc offers to let mira go, then, and leave closing up shop to mc, mira isn't shocked, either

by then, she's caught thomas sneaking out the back door of the building in the early morning one too many times for her to not suspect anything (even tho he always claims he was there for coffee, he swears)

mira just sighs and sends thomas upstairs w/ mc once the diner is all cleared out, and they're both like "shit shit fuck she knows oh my god"

but she doesn't push the conversation any further just then, so they figure it can wait until another day

and then, of course, thomas spends the night absolutely babying her

he insists on cooking for her since she didn't eat dinner (she claimed she didn't have an appetite, but he was fairly certain it was just the prison food making her feel sick)

she puts up a fight, but when the food is in front of her, it's a little too good to resist

and if they don't fuck when he spends the night, neither of them says anything about it. didn't this count as the "friends" part of "friends with benefits"?

and if it briefly occurs to them that friends aren't supposed to casually make out on their kitchen counters, they still don't say anything about it

and if mc spends the next couple nights sleeping better than she has in weeks because her bed smells like thomas, she doesn't say anything about it

[jeaneybean]

So I haven’t done a recap in a while

TL;DR previously on this campaign we broke into a vampire’s house, murdered him, looted it, the gang dug up a body and ‘let’ her brother take her somewhere that wasn’t a mass grave, and Vera lied like no other to a vampire’s major domo.

Last episode left off with Vlad’s father tearfully greeting Fyodora, asking the group why they’d came and how they met and whatnot. And that’s when Havilah failed his first control shape check of the full moon, turning into a wolf right in that great hall. He instantly grabbed his wolf and went outside to sulk, despite Vlad’s father Valery being like ‘no that’s just something that happens’. Werewolf dad is pretty chill with puppy problems.

Vlad and Valery go out hunting to get meat for the table and everyone except Havilah have dinner in the great hall. Introductions are made around the table, Vera giving a very diplomatic telling of how the party met up with Vlad. Jake does his normal Jake stuff after popping out of the necklace and Magnolia starts throwing rolls at him. Wolff Wolf skitters behind him and snaps up the rolls every time they hit the floor. Valery tries to figure out how Nitahn got his affliction, mostly trying to see if it was Vlad doing it. Vera doesn’t confirm or deny this, stating that it was necessary and bringing up how Juno would’ve turned him int he great hall anyway and they got to one up her. The entire party confirms that Nitahn is a big ol puppydog.

Valery offers the party sanctuary for however long they need, and Oz def makes a note that Vera mentions nothing about taking it despite being into her sixth months of being preggers. After dinner Vera brought Nitahn some Venison and talked to him for a bit, squooshing his face and wiggling his nose because he’s a cute wolf and also because ‘I can’t mess with you like this when you’re a human’ before heading back inside.

Jake also bothers Nitahn, using his newly gotten suggestion spell to have Nitahn fetch. This annoys Nitahn severly, and pisses off Oz pretty bad because Oz doesn’t like the entire Enchantment school. Oz scolds Jake pretty badly for taking away their friend’s free will before being like ‘yeah it’s probably best we don’t talk for a while’. Oz then goes to Nitahn and tattles on Vera for not asking to stay despite her state and puppy Nitahn is like ‘thank you for bringing this to my attention, boof.’. After that, Oz goes to Magnolia and again tattles on Vera.

Meanwhile Vera is having a time up in her room, finishing letters and getting herself real upset. This follows down to breakfast, where she’s very quiet. The mail carrier shows up to the distrust of everyone but Vera, and letters are passed out. Nitahn got a few from his family and three from Jasna, Vera got three from her husband and two from Nik, Oz got one from his mom and one from Vera’s husband. Vera sends off four letters: one to her husband, one to Nik, one to Jasna, and one that it takes her a bit to hand off. She instructs the carrier that it isn’t to be delivered to the Medvedev house, that it is to be left in care of either Mishti Isha or Vera Medvedeva. It’s a letter to her brother. After that Vera excuses herself from breakfast and goes up to her room, where she stays. Her letters get her caught up on city goss and Nik’s scrounged up every bit of werewolf/vampire politic information that he can.

Jake goes down to town and tries to get a loan from the bank, going with all of his usual chaos. He tries to get a loan to open a pancake shop, turning into a short copy of Vlad when the banker says he’d need a voucher. He also tries to use suggestion, leading the banker to realize that he’s tried to alter his mind but still is super confused about what’s going on. He tells Jake to come back tomorrow and Jake happily leaves.

Vera doesn’t show to dinner, citing not feeling well. Valery visits her in her room where she is hiding behind Bear and offers to let her stay in the keep until after she has the baby. Vera’s mostly dead to the world and is like ‘yeah, whatever they decide on I’ll do’. Which is good because Vera’s normal reponse would be basically ‘aw heck no’ to the idea of staying in one spot.

Valery repeats this offer to the group and Oz tattles on Vera to Valery, and Valery’s like ‘yeah no she’s very pregnant’. Magnolia spends another meal chucking rolls at Jake and Wolf-Wolf gets more snackums.

Jake heads back to the bank the next day to fuck with him more, and Vera tracks down Oz to ask him about something he’d mentioned during the great hall, about how dying wasn’t so bad. Mostly she just wants to tell him that should he need help in Spee, Selina isn’t that far away. Oz advises her to forget he said that, as he’s not legally allowed to discuss it. Vera is like ‘cool. Just remember if you need help I’m a lwayer.’ and Oz also realizes that Vera is looking bad. He inquires if she’s okay and Vera’s like ‘yeah, no, not really’ and eventually admits that now that they have downtime she’s got time to think on stuff. A year ago she was in the capital dressed in nice things going to parties, and now she’s out here up to her elbows in blood of terrible people. And she really, really prefers the second to the first. Oz tries to comfort her by saying that it is the blood of awful people, but Vera doesn’t seem to comforted. 

She also finds Magnolia and brings up the idea of silvered claws for bear. Magnolia agrees to the idea, and also brings up that Vera looks pretty wrecked. She offers to spend time with Vera, and Vera’s like ‘yeah I’ve been crying a lot and I don’t like people to see me cry’ and Mags is like ‘well, I can look away’ and Vera admits that’s what her husband does. 

They have a bit of downtime, and one day Fyodora comes up to Nitahn and is like ‘so there’s someone talking to my father and i am not cool with them, come with me?’ and they go to eavesdrop on official business. Nitahn, however, recognizes the voice: Anton Bellek. He instantly bursts into the room and is like YOU.

Meanwhile, Vlad knocks on Vera’s door and is like ‘So there’s someone here to meet my father on offical business and I don’t think he’s good. We should get the group together?” And vera’s like “Fine, help me put on my armor” “I think his name was Anton Bellek?” “-sounds of Vera scrambling across the room, throwing her door open- Okay let’s fucking go.’

They go down and vera’s like ‘so will you be okay heading in there?’ to Vlad and he’s like ‘Yeah, no, it’ll be fine.’ “He (Valery) wont’ hit you?” And that’s when Vlad learns something about Vera he probably didn’t want to get confirmation on and is like “Yeah, no. That’s not the kind of person he is.” And they initally hold back, but they hear Nitahn inside and Vera’s like ‘oh goddamnit’ before breaking in themselves.

Anton greets everyone pleasantly. Vera holds onto her temper for a bit and apologises to Valery for bursting in before turning to Anton. Anton’s looking for allies! Anton is also still super evil, though not enough to knock Vera unconcious. Magnolia’s hiding behind Vlad, making sniping comments whenever she can.

Anton gives a grand speech and he’s good at it, and Jake’s like ‘yeah no he sounds legit’ and the whole fucking time Vera is grinding her teeth and quickly losing any composure she has. She starts calling him out on about every point, adding in there the whole ‘hey, I’m a paladin, I can literally see you’re evil’ and he tries being like ‘I kill people to eat, I have to drink the blood of living creatures’ and Gremlin Oz is like ‘what about getting concent first’ and Vera’s like ‘Can’t you eat animal blood? I’m not evil because I eat meat’.

She goes on her own rant about understanding the desire of being up to your elbows in blood and she admits: She wants a war too. She all but begs him to fight against whatever nature he’s got from being a vampire and offers out her holy symbol as kind of a peace offing. Anton doesn’t take it and curls his lip up at it.

Anton departs, making some dark comments about Vlad and Valery as he goes. The enitre party sees shadows detach from the walls and go to him, and Oz passes a knowledge arcana to know there’s a preestige class that lets you summon shadows. Vera’s like ‘yeah, that tracts’.

Vlad is goaded by Magnolia to talking with his dad for the first time since they first arrived and he’s like ‘listen laws are there for a reason, but Anton’s right. We have to change. We can’t be a neutral party or we’re going to be targeted by everyone. We can’t stick to the old ways when there’s almost no one left here’ and Valery seems to be ackwnolaging this.

Vera makes a parting note to everyone to watch the shadows, and goes to Vlad’s room and is like ‘hey can I stay here tonight and make sure you don’t get eaten by shadows’ and he agrees. She spends her night laying on bear and quietly praying, because vera doesn’t afraid of anything but herself, and she just admitted to everyone that she wants to start a war and she really likes being covered in blood.

Things are chill for a while, until one day at dinner Oz hears a crash int he kitchen. Before we can prepare, but with enough time to make sure there’s no sneak attacks, nine werewolves storm the room. Three enter from the kitchen side, six from the main entrance. One wolf goes for Jake, two go for Valery. On the other side, one goes for Vlad and two go for Vera, while all three archers take shots at Valery. They hit him in the shoulders, and one in the face directly in his eye. He reacts by hulking out into a werewolf. Y’know. Like you do. Vlad doesn’t turn into a werewolf, choosing to instead swing his axe at one of the werewolves previously attacking Vera.

Magnolia and Oz take a quick second to talk about Vera, who has neither armor nor arms on her because she hasn’t been wearing them. Oz assures Magnolia he can protect Vera, and Magnolia encourages Vera to climb up on the table. Vera’s like ‘yeah, that was my plan’ as she climbs up on it and summons Bear in her place. Bear responds to this by going for the wolf that Vlad attack, full round attacking and killing it. Magnolia climbs on the table and reaches out to tap Valery with a Bear’s Endurance. Oz blocks Vera in from the other side and casts Slow on the remaining five werewolves on our side because Oz is an unholy terror. Jake hits himself with mage armor like a good boy. The werewolves with their crossbows drop them and draw short swords before slowly starting to move towards the group. 

Valery slashes at a nearby wolf and Vlad turns into a werewolf for the extra beef. Vera slaps bear with Divine Sacrifice and turns him loose on the werewolves, where Bear starts to just slap them the fuck around. Werewolves have DR. Bear doesn’t care. Bear overwhelms it. Magnolia casts Foundations of Stone on everyone on the ground. Oz casts stoneskin on himself.

A few other highlights: Bear did what I’d been hoping he’d do forever, crit on a Divine Sacrifice blow. 46 damage in one hit, he turned one wolf to mush. On our side of the room he tore through everything. Oz got hit once and shrugged it off thanks to stoneskin. He also cast haste on the party, and flesh to stone on one of the werewolves. Valery dragged a werewolf that pulled a silver dagger on him into a melee with Nitahn climbing in. Vlad offered Vera his axe to protect herself and Vera very unhappily had to turn it down because she’d probably fucking use it. Mags cast Balor Nimbus on herself and went to join the scrap of werewolves.

A vampire droped from the ceiling and hit Jake with a sneak attack for 46 damage, killing him. As Jake died, he felt himself pulled somewhere else. Death appeared before him, and as Jake watched, the skeletal form shifted until Death looked like him. The not Jake tipped his head and was like ‘fascinating’.

Meanwhile, as everyone starts to freak the fuck out about Jake, he pulls off of the sword, looks down at himself, and was like ‘Fascinating.’

[digitalmagus]

My growing list of Disney Princess Anakin Skywalker AUs

Of the Obikin and Obianidala variety that @subskywalker asked me to compile after spamming her with them during the last week. Disney Princess Anakin Skywalker includes the following:

Sleeping Beauty!Anakin is currently a few asks Cas has in her inbox and I won’t spoil unless she wants me too.

Vanellope!Anakin. Like i know she's got no love interest at her age but the premise is what I’m going for here. Anakin being the Chosen One but got usurped and is now glitched out until Obi-wan comes along and figures somethings not right or he could help Anakin and all I can think of is Anakin pulling Vanellope's execution bit on all the Jedi for being asses to him while he was glitched (you know he would and I am living for it). Maybe the glitch makes him go Vader when he gets angry? Or maybe Vader is a separate character and switched them but Anakin kinda fails at being the big bad villain. But I can't tell which version I like more, glitch-to-Vader Anakin cause angst or the-fail-villain Anakin who's so bad at his job but only Obi-wan sees it cause he's outside the set dialogue due to being from a different game (spin off/same franchise though?)

Mulan!Anakin is already covered via CT-Skywalker by Selcier

Snow White!Anakin.  Ashoka and the 7 clones who find the lost chosen one, cursed to sleep by the Sith Lord Sidious who dies from falling down a reactor shaft evading the clones shots. Obi-wan gets alerted and comes to Anakin's side only to be told it's hopeless cause the cure requires an attachment Jedi can not have but there’s no one outside the order who can do so either. But of course fully in love with Anakin as he is he doesn't hesitate to free him of the curse. By just planting one on him right there in the healing hall, right in front of the council cause of course he's gonna save his precious sub who takes all of two seconds to come to awareness and just hauls him closer(maybe there's some mewling)cause of course he knows it’s Obi-wan.

Kuzco!Anakin. Aka if anything is gonna be Obianidala it’d be this. But I came up with a twist!  Imagine some Vaderwan emperor's new groove BUT they're Kronk and Ezma, Vaderkin is Ezma and Obi-wan is Kronk adn Kuzco is Asajj or Qui-gon who's having that background adventure with Ashoka or Tahl as Pacha. If it's Qui-gon then Vaderkin is trying to oust him cause he's had it with Qui-gon taking all of Obi-wan's attention but also being a terrible master to him, not realizing that Obi-wan is literally letting him stage a coup and make one of them emperor as a clear sign he loves Vaderkin more. The spinach puffs line is cause he's craving pancakes like woah but Obi-wan thinks it's unhealthy to eat that many pancakes. If It's Asajj then Ashoka's husband is Rex but the kids are other clones, they're just on vacation cause Vaderkin didn't want them to get caught up in the coup and wasn’t expecting Asajj to run into them. Or maybe it’s just Sidious and he was planning the Death Star in place of that palace and so Vaderkin shoved him out and by the time he gets back with Pacha!Dooku Vaderkin and Obi-wan are already lauded as excellent co-emperor’s and no one wants him back.

Anastasia!Anakin(yes she’s a disney princesss now) I could go classic and make Ana=Anakin Dimitri=Obi-wan or throw Padme in and make it Obianidala(either as one of the three or as Sophie) or make Ana=Ashoka while Dimitri and Vlad as Obikin try to restore her to Shili’s throne with Shakk Ti as the grandmother. EVEN BIGGER TWIST Rasputin=Vaderkin who’s trying to rescue an amnesic Padme from Yoda with Sith magic and Obi-wan as a sassy cursed-into-a-bat/vampire who’s trying to keep Vaderkin from burning himself out cause even as the chosen one he still has limits and stuck as a bat he can’t really rescue Padme and watch Vaderkin at the same time.

Beauty and the Beast!Anakin. Plot twist. Sidious is the beast, Anakin bargained himself to get Ahsoka’s/Qui-gon's soul out and now Obi-wan has to mount a rescue while also freeing every Jedi soul Sidious has trapped in his castle(holocrons?). For regular Beauty and the Beast how about Obi-wan be the beast and Anakin wanders in one day but because he's a brat he winds up losing a bet and now has to stay in the castle and help Obi-wan fix all the equipment cause Obi-wan can't with his hands like they are. Meanwhile instead of an asshole like Gaston the Lady of the Manor Amidala returns from court to find her husband has been 'kidnapped' by the Beast that lives in the forest castle. Cue her busting in fully ready to kick ass with her handmaidens only to find Anakin quite happily upgrading everything and Obi-wan making sure he actually eats and sasses him back. She then moves in with them cause really it's a nice place once it's clean though it could use some better colors. Cue seduction of the castle's owner and the curse breaking and all the objects weren’t people but were broken droids that love Anakin for fixing them. Cause I love the image of Obi-wan having to put with R2-D2 only for the droid to actually listen to Anakin more after only five minutes of them meeting.

Little Mermaid!Anakin. In a twist Anakin is now an octo-merman and was chased out of his home of Tatooine for being suspected as a witch only while he can use magic he has no idea how to do spells cause it’s not like there’s books or a teacher around. He settles near Coruscant cause while they’re leery of a ‘witch’ they’ve got like every kind of mer there already. Padme/Obi-wan comes to him after hearing all the rumors cause they want a spell to turn them human/some other wish. Now Obi-wan/Padme in this is in love with another mer/human(ie Padme/Obi-wan) and while Anakin scrounges around for a lead on how to do the spell for them he starts falling for not just one but the other. But he figures they wouldn’t love him back so he stays away/tries not to lead on he’s in love with them and angst until a happy ending happens. If it’s the human/mer couple then there’s none of that hiding thing, they’re species have interacted before though a romance has only ever been seen to fail due to the differences. Cause I get the image of Anakin having his tentacles wrapped around a rock on the water’s edge while the human stands on land and the mer is in the sea waiting to see if Anakin’s new try at the spell is going to work. Also the image of Anakin singing a version of Poor Unfortunate Souls is masterful.

[punmasterkentparson]

Hooked on Feelings

kicking this out of my WIP folder ‘cause it’s been there for almost a month.

(ao3, part of the Parswoops Neighbors AU)

It’s not even halfway through January when Jeff’s life takes a turn for the worst.

It happens like this: he’s walking through the parking lot of his company office when he hears a soft, sad sound. He stops dead and turns his head slowly, listening. He hears the air conditioning units on the other side of the building, and distant drone of cars on the highway. Nothing out of the ordinary. But through that, Jeff hears the sound again.

He takes a few steps towards it, stops, and listens.

There, again.

He carefully follows the noise across the parking lot, all the way to the hedges that line the building. The noise is coming from behind them, so he has to lean over them to see the source. He doesn’t know what he’s expecting. To be honest, he isn’t giving it much thought; he follows out of curiosity more than anything else.

He only realizes his mistake when he catches sight of what’s behind the bushes, curled up and shivering on the wet mulch.

“…Oh, fuck.”

–

When Jeff gets home, he puts his foundling in the bathtub, nestled among a pile of towels. The wet thing cries for an hour before going to sleep.

Jeff’s second order of business is to text Kent frantically. There’s no reply for hours.

When Kent finally does get off work, he doesn’t text to say he’s coming; he just shows up at Jeff’s front door, already grinning like a smug loon.

“Shut up,” Jeff says. Left alone to his own devices, he has lost all sense of composure. He barely managed to scrounge up dinner with a side of beer to calm his nerves. Ten minutes ago he realized he was still in his work suit and finally changed for bed, which means the rattiest clothes he owns. Meanwhile, Kent is wearing the sleek, expensive-looking active wear that’s basically his work uniform and makes him look like a fitness god. Kent looks calm and capable. Jeff feels like a helpless hot mess.

Kent comes in, still grinning. “Where is it?”

The “it” has started making noise in the bathroom again, so Jeff doesn’t even bother with an answer, just waves a hand. Kent goes right in.

As soon as Kent sees what’s in the tub, he lets out the softest gasp that Jeff has ever heard out of a grown man.

“Oh, honey,” Kent sighs, and reaches into the tub to pry a meowing, squirming little gray-and-white cat off the towels. He gathers it in his arms, heedless of its claws, and cuddles it to his chest. “Aren’t you just the saddest thing I’ve ever seen.”

Jeff can absolutely agree with that. The cat (or kitten? It’s medium-sized, at least.) is drier than when he brought it in, but it still has matted fur in odd places and a bite out of one ear. The worst thing, however, is its tail, which is hanging on by a literal thread with the tip dragging along like a sad, lifeless caterpillar. Jeff honestly had been afraid to touch it when he found the cat outside, and had gone back to his car for a reusable shopping bag. (Which he is absolutely going to throw away or burn, now.)

Kent is cooing at the gross monstrosity and gently petting its ears. The cat has settled right in, which is annoying because Kent hasn’t even done anything yet, whereas Jeff rescued the damn thing and it squirmed the whole way into the apartment. There are red lines all over his arms from overgrown claws.

“It was outside my office,” Jeff says. “I found it in a bush. It was pretty cold, though, so it didn’t really wake up and start making a racket until I got it home.”

“And you just couldn’t leave him out there, huh?”

“How do you know it’s a he?”

“Magical cat-owner sense,” Kent replies, deadpan. “Also, I checked when I picked him up just now. He’s got massive cat balls.”

Jeff looks to the heavens for deliverance. “Look, obviously I don’t know a damn thing about cats. Can you take it for the night? I’ll pick it up tomorrow afternoon and take it to the vet, or the shelter, or whatever. Or, hell, you can keep it if you want.”

Kent’s shit-eating grin doesn’t bode well for Jeff. “Bro, I’ve got a house cat with a delicate constitution in my apartment. She’s vaccinated and shit, but who knows if this guy has fleas or ringworm or something. When I go home, I’m not even gonna touch anything until I’ve dumped all my clothes in the wash.”

“Ringworm? Fleas?” Jeff feels ill.

“Well, I take it back on the fleas,” Kent says, his fingers carefully searching through the cat’s fur. “I don’t see any flea dirt, so you’re probably in the clear. Still, better safe than sorry, those suckers are a pain in the ass to get rid of.”

This is officially the worst day of Jeff’s life. He is never going to do a good deed ever again. “So you’re telling me I’m stuck with a possibly flea and worm-infested cat for the night?”

Kent’s smile quirks in a way that’s almost fond. “I’ll hook you up with some cat food, and the name of Kit’s vet. They open at eight, so if you take some time off in the morning, you can probably take him in right away.”

“Where the fuck am I supposed to shower?”

Kent straight-up laughs, the dick. He has to see that Jeff is losing his shit. “Chill, bro. You can use mine. I’ll give you a key, you can just come right in whenever.”

So that’s that, apparently. Kent puts the cat back in Jeff’s bathtub—which Jeff definitely needs to sanitize the hell out of now, Christ, fuck everything—and leads Jeff upstairs. Before going into his apartment, Kent strips off his sweatshirt and shoes, and the moment they’re in the door he starts pulling off the rest of his clothes, too.

Despite knowing why Kent is getting naked, Jeff feels himself getting warm under the collar. And everywhere else. “Um.”

“Don’t touch anything,” Kent says as he pulls down his shorts and then shimmies out of his leggings. His ass is like marble and watching it move is making Jeff’s stomach flip. For better or worse, Kent is wearing skin-tight briefs underneath. “I’ll get the cat food, hold on.” Kit chooses that moment to run up, but Kent hops backwards, saying, “No, Kit—baby, just give daddy a sec, okay?” Then he scampers off to his bathroom, leaving a confused cat standing near Jeff, who hasn’t moved from the door except to close it behind him.

Kit sits on the floor and regards him.

“Hey,” he says. “Don’t mind me.”

Kit gives him a slow blink and a tail twitch. From Kent’s bathroom comes the sound of rummaging, and then Kent emerges wearing only a towel. He’s dry, so clearly he didn’t wash off, he just…stripped.

“Aren’t you going a little overboard?” Jeff asks. His heart feels like a locomotive picking up steam.

“Nope,” Kent replies, and disappears into the bedroom. He doesn’t close the door, so Jeff has to pretend he doesn’t see the towel getting flung onto the bed, or a flash of Kent’s bare ass as he crosses the room to his closet.

“God, I hate you, you sexy motherfucker,” Jeff mutters under his breath.

Kent comes out a few minutes later, wearing sweatpants and a clean hoodie over a ratty t-shirt. He’s got his key ring in one hand and is twisting something off it. “Here. Spare house key.” He holds it out to Jeff, who takes it.

“You sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure.” Kent looks amused by Jeff’s befuddlement. “I sleep like a rock, so even if you come in at the asscrack of dawn, you’re not gonna wake me up.”

Waking Kent up was not the basis for Jeff’s objection. Clearly the issue of trust never crossed Kent’s mind. Jeff vows to guard the key like it’s his own deposit. “Okay. Thanks.”

After that, Kent pulls half a dozen cans of wet cat food out of his kitchen pantry and puts it in a bag for Jeff. Then he borrows Jeff’s phone and programs in the number of Kit’s vet. Jeff would chirp him for having the number memorized, if he wasn’t still vaguely haunted by the memory of Kent breaking a glass and crying in his apartment when Kit was sick.

Too soon, Jeff is back in his apartment, alone, with the yowls of a gross street cat echoing in his bathroom.

He groans, sighs, and heads for his kitchen to dig out a make-shift food bowl.

–

The next morning, Jeff wakes up at his usual time of five-thirty and hauls himself out of bed. The cat stopped crying at around one a.m., so that’s about when Jeff fell asleep. He feels like shit. He needs coffee, breakfast, and a shower. So, after starting the coffee maker, he grabs a towel and heads upstairs to Kent’s place.

Unlocking the door and sneaking inside when the lights are all off makes him feel like an intruder. He bumps into a few things on his way to the bathroom and finds out that Kent’s shower is noisy as hell. When he comes out ten minutes later, damp and wearing the clothes he arrived in, he’s amazed to see that Kent hasn’t stirred. The door to Kent’s bedroom is open and Jeff catches sight of him passed out under the layers of bed sheets.

Jeff sneaks back to his apartment. The mangy monster in his bathroom is awake and starting to meow.

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll get your damn breakfast,” he tells it when he goes in to retrieve its bowl. By the time he has fed the creature and gotten coffee for himself, it’s nearly six-thirty. How does time go so fast?!

“Yeah, hi,” he says when he calls his department head. “Sorry, Ted, I know it’s early—Just needed to let you know I’ll be late getting in today. …Maybe noon? Yes, of course. I’ll email it to you, and look over your notes when I come in. …No, nothing like that. Just a little situation at home. Yeah, see you. Thanks.”

Thank god for Jeff’s infamous work ethic. He hasn’t taken unplanned time off in almost a year. People will notice he’s gone, but nobody will side-eye him for it.

It’s not until Jeff has googled the address of Kent’s vet, gotten dressed, and mentally prepared himself to head out that he realizes something vital: he has no fucking idea how he’s going to transport the furry goblin from his apartment to his car.

“Jesus H Christ.”

Last night, when Jeff wrapped it up in the cloth shopping bag, the cat had been too cold and hungry to protest. Now, having warmed up and slept and eaten, the thing is scratching at Jeff’s bathroom door and crying to be let out. Just because it didn’t scratch Kent up last night doesn’t mean it won’t tear into Jeff if he tries to move it somewhere this morning.

He digs a jean jacket and a pair of thick winter gloves out of his closet for protection. Then he steels himself for disaster and opens the bathroom door a crack to squeeze inside.

The cat doesn’t escape. Instead, it flees to the other side of the small bathroom, hiding behind the toilet and continuing to yell.

“Okay, buddy,” Jeff says. “Come quietly and please don’t send me to the hospital, yeah?”

By some miracle, Jeff gets the cat in the bag, out to his car, and halfway across town to the vet’s. He arrives about five minutes after they open, so they’re able to see him immediately. With far more visible comfort than Jeff had displayed carrying the cat in, the vet carefully takes the animal out and examines it.

“We’ll need to run some tests for parasites,” she says. “I’d also recommend an FiV test.”

“FiV?”

“Feline HIV.”

Jeff nods. “Okay. Yeah.”

“As for the tail,” she adds, carefully touching the sad, stringy thing with gloved hands, “I probably don’t have to tell you that it needs to be amputated.”

“I figured. How much will all that cost?”

She gives him a rough estimate. Jeff sighs and says, “Sure. Let’s do all the things you said.”

The tests come back in twenty minutes. It turns out that the cat does not have fleas, but it does have intestinal parasites that will require twice-a-day meds for the next week. They still need to take care of the tail, so after getting the results and paying for it all at the front desk, Jeff leaves, heading home for a change of clothes before he goes to work.

Around noon, Kent texts him.

just got up, how’s ur cat?

Jeff sighs, puts down his sandwich, and sends back,

Not my cat, and it has intestinal parasites. They’re gonna amputate the tail. I have to go back tonight to pick the cat up.

Kent sends a smilie face.

Jeff leaves work at his usual time and drives to the vet. He hadn’t told anyone at his office the reason for his morning lateness. He doesn’t want to spend a week fielding inquiries about the cat’s condition.

The cat is subdued from its experience at the vet. It has seventy-five percent less tail, the end of which is wrapped up in bandages that the cat is not allowed to lick or bite under any circumstances. A Victorian-style plastic collar has been included for the purpose of preventing this. Jeff goes home with a bag of medications, a cat carrier, and a cat brush. He’d been strongly advised to brush the cat out and get rid of the matting as soon as possible, before the clumps of fur become hazardous to the cat’s health or invite—of course—fleas.

Once home, Jeff gets the cat settled in his bathtub, giving it dinner and a bowl of water. He also brings in a few more hand towels for extra comfort, because he’s animal-inept but he’s not heartless. Now that the worst of the situation has been dealt with, he can take a moment to sit on the edge of the tub and just observe.

It’s not an ugly cat, he decides. It won’t be winning any beauty contests, not with that knobby tail stub and half-bitten ear, but its fur markings are okay. He dares to pat the cat while it eats. It ignores him.

Five minutes later, Kent shows up. “How’s the patient?” he asks, still standing at Jeff’s front door.

“You didn’t even call to see if I was home. Have you seriously been listening for me, just so you could see this damn cat?” Jeff demands.

Kent doesn’t deny it; he just waits for Jeff to roll his eyes and show him to the bathroom.

“I have two different types of meds I have to make it eat twice a day this week,” Jeff bemoans while Kent sits on the edge of the tub and coos over the cat. “I think they’re pills. How do you make cats eat pills?”

“Mix them with the food,” Kent replies. “Or find a treat the cat really loves and put it in that.”

Jeff nods. “I have to brush it out, too, apparently.” He’s a little scared to do it. What if he does it wrong and the cat bites him? What if he pulls out fur or skin?

His fear must show on his face because Kent just smiles, shakes his head, and says, “I can show you. D’you have a brush?”

And it turns out that brushes are some kind of cat cheat code. Within minutes, Kent has the cat flopped out in the tub and purring like a motor while he carefully scrapes through a thick matt near its tail. “It just takes patience,” he says. “You wanna give it a shot?”

Jeff does not. Kent gives him the brush anyway. Jeff switches spots with Kent at the tub and tries to mimic his movements with the brush. He knows he’s a bit stiff, but he’s still worried that he’s one fuckup away from a bleeding hand.

Kent, however, settles down on the tile to watch. “It’s just a cat,” he says, the lit to his voice definitely teasing. “Not a bomb. If you relax, the cat will relax.”

Jeff shakes his head. “I suck at handling animals, Parse. It’s just fact.”

Chuckling, Kent gives him a light smack on the thigh. “Good thing you’re cute, then.”

Jeff’s heart skips a beat. Kent has averted his gaze to the floor. There might be a blush on his cheeks, but Jeff doesn’t know what it means—if it’s, ‘oops, I said too much,’ or ‘oops, no homo.’ He likes Kent too much to risk being wrong. “I really doubt the cat cares,” he replies, and after the silence stretches a few safe seconds, he adds, “Thanks for helping me with this.”

Kent’s cheeks are still rosy when he looks up and grins. “No problem, man. Trust me, you’ve got this.”

–

The week drags on and Jeff doesn’t feel like he’s ‘got this’. He keeps the cat in his bathroom out of paranoia of parasites and having all his furniture clawed up while he’s gone. (After all, his apartment is not remotely cat-proofed.) Not that it matters. For the first week, he comes home daily to find shredded bath towels and teeth marks on the cabinet door corners and puddles of urine next to a perfectly good litter box that Kent helps him buy. He goes through endless paper towels and does a shit-ton of laundry and learns to dab hot sauce on anything the cat might deem edible.

He scoops so. Much. Cat poop.

But life continues, taking him to work and home again and back, and somehow he manages to feed, water, and medicate the cat without causing it any harm. He even brushes out all the matted fur, leaving bald spots and dander. Then, once the parasites are gone and the tail is healed up, he takes the cat back to the vet to be neutered. The cat strongly objects to the return of the plastic collar. Jeff figures it’s just as well he’s keeping the cat in his bathroom, since he can’t imagine what the cat might knock over with its cone head.

This means he also continues showering at Kent’s place. It feels weird. In part because he uses Kent’s shampoo since it’s easier than bringing his own every time—and because Kent insisted—but also because catching glimpses of Kent still asleep in his bed makes Jeff feel domestic. Like he actually lives with Kent, instead of just borrowing his bathroom. “Good thing you’re cute, then,” keeps echoing in his head like a broken record.

Dealing with the cat is bad enough, so Jeff pushes those heart-pang feelings to the back of his mind until he can ignore the fact that he has them.

The weekend following the cat’s neutering, there’s another hockey game with the league—and this time it’s against another team. A co-ed club from a community college the next city over takes the bus into Vegas, gear and sticks and all.

Jeff really enjoys playing that night. There’s an acute sense of competition, of “us versus them,” and although there are no refs to call penalties and therefore a standing agreement that they all play fair, Jeff wouldn’t say they’re all necessarily polite. Nobody is hooking or tripping or cross-checking, but they’re also not above bodily shoving each other out of the way to get at the puck.

The co-ed team wins.

“Isn’t it past your bedtime?!” Rabs hollers at them as they celebrate, which gets him some laughter from both teams and a brazen middle finger from one of the college kids.

“I’m surprised your knee held out two full periods, old man!” yells back a girl who’s probably barely eighteen, and she high-fives her teammates when the beer league guys just laugh at Rabs.

Half the beer league and most of the college kids go out for drinks after. As they commandeer a couple of tables, Bommer yells over the fuss, “If I catch any of you kids drinking underage or using a fake I.D., I’ll arrest your ass. Got it?” Then he heads for the bar.

One of the college kids leans close to Jeff. “He’s not serious, is he?”

Jeff knows for a fact that Bommer isn’t, because Bommer arrests drug dealers and vandals and rapists but not idiot college kids trying to sneak a beer—he just lectures them into next week. But Jeff looks the college kid dead in the eye and lies, “He once arrested his own daughter.”

It’s really fun to watch that little story get passed around in hushed whispers.

It’s also surprisingly fun to hang out with the college kids. Sure, they’re obnoxiously cocky and self-assured, but it’s just a product of their age. They chat about school, careers, reality TV, celeb gossip—and hockey, of course hockey. Some of the college kids are shooting for the big leagues, others content to leave hockey on the sidelines while they pursue other dreams. The college kids who are legal get drunk faster than the league guys. Most of them proceed to make fools of themselves, while their underage friends take pictures and videos to blackmail them with later.

It’s good. Kent is two seats down, close enough for Jeff to yell-talk at him but far enough away that after Jeff’s hands won’t get stupid after he’s had a few beers. Kent is loose and relaxed tonight, his smiles a dime a dozen, and every time Jeff catches one directed at him, his stomach swoops.

The college kids nearby manage to drag him into a conversation about Survivor, and then Lost. This leads to him getting into an argument with two of the girls about which season of Lost was the best (Jeff says the first, they’re adamant it’s the last). One of the girls is laughing a little too much at his lame-ass jokes and almost falling over her friend as she leans in to yell over the music. At one point, she catches herself from swaying with a hand on Jeff’s thigh and she leaves it there, and—okay, Jeff knows what this is.

He laughs and says, “I think you’ve had enough for the evening, huh?” He takes her hand off his leg and politely pushes it back to her. She’s drunk enough that her embarrassment just makes her laugh, and her friends laugh, too.

“Are you gay?” asks the drunk girl. It’s not an accusation, just a loose tongue brought on by alcohol. “’Cause, like, that’s cool, just I’m sorry if I’m making you uncomfortable, you know?”

“I am, actually,” Jeff says, and winks. “But even if I wasn’t, you’re a little young for me, honey.”

“But college boys are so lame!” the drunk girl hollers, and a couple of the guys around her immediately jump in to refute this assertion.

The conversations splinter and roll on. Jeff’s attention shifts away from the college kids and back to his own friends, where a few seats are already empty due to the guys in question having babysitters to relieve, spouses to see, or weekend shifts to get ready for. Kent, for once, isn’t heading home early, although he does keep checking his phone.

When he catches Jeff looking, he grins and shows him a livestream feed of his living room. In it, Kit is curled up on the sofa.

“That’s adorable,” Jeff says, and he really means it.

Kent grins and takes his phone back. “What about your monster?”

Jeff is not thankful for the reminder. “I fed him and made him take his pills before I left. I also scooped his gross litter box and changed the towels in the tub. He won’t stop peeing on them,” he complains.

Mike leans in. “Swoops, are you holding a kid hostage in your bathroom?”

Kent’s grin takes on epic proportions. “Jeff got a cat.”

“I did not get a cat,” Jeff corrects. “I found a dirty stray in a bush outside my office, and now it lives in my bathroom. I haven’t showered in my own apartment in weeks.”

Mike makes a point of sniffing Jeff until Jeff shoves him away. “Funny, you don’t smell any worse than usual.”

“Haha, you’re hilarious. I’m showering—somewhere else.” Jeff catches himself before he confesses to both having Kent’s apartment key and free access to his shower. Mike looks skeptical, so Jeff adds, “At a neighbor’s.”

“Generous neighbor,” Mike says, at exactly the same time as Kent stands up and says, “Last round, any takers? I mean orders, you moochers, I’m not paying!” All the previous requests for booze are waived off, which make Jeff laugh.

Once Kent is gone, Mike raises an eyebrow at him and says, “Kent lives in your building, doesn’t he?”

“Sure does,” Jeff replies, and chugs half his beer to avoid furthering that line of inquiry.

Mercifully, Mike lets it go, and they talk about other things. Until Mike is checking over his shoulder at the bar and lets out a low whistle. “Well, that’s ballsy.”

Jeff knows he shouldn’t look. He looks.

Kent is leaning on the bar, drink in hand, talking to one of the college guys. They must have met up at the bar, getting drinks at the same time. Except they’re standing close, and College Boy has a hand on Kent’s arm, and as Jeff watches, College Boy leans in to say something into Kent’s ear. Something that makes Kent laugh.

College Boy is flirting and Kent…doesn’t mind.

Jeff turns back around. He feels like his face is on fire. Guess that answers the question of homo or no homo, he thinks, mildly hysterical.

Next to him, Mike says, “The kid’s got balls going for Parson, I’ll give him that. He’s a little on the young side.”

“They’re both adults,” Jeff replies, mouth on autopilot. Now that the surprise is wearing off, he’s starting to simmer with resentment. How the fuck is a college kid managing the balls to flirt with Kent when Jeff has been sitting on his own hands since fall?

Mike snorts, and takes another look back over his shoulder. “Well, you can chill. Parson’s coming back.”

A few seconds later, Kent drops into his seat and then asks, utterly sans segue, “If Darth Vader and Voldemort faced off, who would win?”

“Voldemort,” says Mike without hesitation.

Kent gestures so hard with his free hand that he almost spills his drink in the other. “That’s what I said!” he exclaims, and then shouts down the table, “Because you can’t use the force if you’re Avada Kedavera’d to death, Peter!”

Jeff looks down the table and recognizes “Peter” as the flirt. He’d been on the brink of voting for Vader, just to be contrary, but now the retort dies in his throat.

Mike says, “I was thinking more along the lines that he’d be faster. Is magic even legal during a game?”

Peter is shaking his head. “If it’s not legal in Quidditch, it’s not legal in hockey.”

“Do wizards even have hockey?” asks a girl next to Peter.

“Darth Vader probably sucks at hockey,” Kent says. “He grew up on a freaking desert planet, come on.”

Somehow, the argument continues for another half hour. Jeff thinks the only reason they eventually leave is because the bar makes its last call, and the fact that all the college kids still have to get to their motel.

Outside the bar, while they wait for taxis, Jeff sees Peter sidle up to Kent again and murmur into his ear. Kent giggles, shakes his head, and gently pushes Peter away towards his friends, who pull him towards a cab. Jeff shouldn’t feel as relieved as he does.

Kent catches Jeff watching. Jeff instantly looks away.

After Peter is gone, Kent joins Jeff on the sidewalk. “That bother you?”

Jeff’s heart jack-knifes in his chest. “No,” he manages. “Why—why would it bother me?” As smooth as a rockslide. Fantastic.

Kent shrugs and puts his hands in his pockets. “I dunno. Some guys have a thing about it. And, you know, I never mentioned I’m bi, so…” Another shrug.

Oh. Oh. They’re having a totally different conversation than Jeff thought. He’s not being called out on his pining; Kent thinks Jeff might be a shade homophobic. Clearly he didn’t catch the exchange Jeff had with that college girl in the bar. He needs a moment to re-orient himself. Then he blurts, “I’m super gay. Just—unbelievably gay. My horoscope sign is a rainbow unicorn.”

Kent doubles over laughing. When he can speak again, he wheezes, “Wow. Okay. Crisis averted. Jesus, that’s the funniest thing you’ve ever said.”

“It was definitely not,” Jeff argues. “I’ve said way funnier.”

“Way dumber, too.”

“You’ve said way dumber, today.”

Kent laughs again and slings an arm around Jeff. It feels hot and strong and Jeff’s whole body is tingling. Kent leans in and declares, grinning, “Yeah, but I’m drunk, ripped, and hot. Nobody gives a shit what I say.”

Jeff picks a perfect time to glance sideways and drop his gaze to Kent’s mouth. Christ, it looks wet and soft.

“See, you’re not listening to me at all, are you?”

“Am too,” Jeff retorts, strained, and drags his gaze back up. There’s a shadow on Kent’s jaw, the blond beard just dark enough to betray a missed morning shave, and Jeff is having the insane urge to just lean in and find out what that feels like under his tongue.

Rabs startles him half to death by yelling, “We got you guys a cab, get in!”

They’re sharing with Cash, which is a blessing and a curse. Jeff gets squished between them, and when Cash starts pulling up pics of his kids that his babysitter sent, Kent leans over to see. He smells like beer and fried cheese and hours-old cologne, and his warm, solid body is plastered all up along Jeff’s side. Kent puts his arm back around Jeff and it feels so good to be tucked against him that Jeff’s chest feels like it’s caving in with the force of his heartache.

God, how he wants.

Kent’s and his apartment comes first. They clamor out and wave after the disappearing taxi until it’s gone. Then they head into the building, where they find an Out Of Order sign on the elevator.

“Goddammit,” Jeff grumbles. “I hate taking the stairs. So much fucking exercise.”

Kent grabs his hand and tugs him towards the exit door. “It’s just five flights. Come on, you baby.”

“I’ve got four flights to climb,” Jeff complains, though he’s mostly distracted by the firm surety of Kent’s grip to really protest. “Why are you dragging me up to your floor?”

Kent holds his hand up the whole three flights. Jeff’s heart is pounding by the time they reach Kent’s apartment. He knows it’s not from the climb.

“You wanna come in for a bit?” Kent asks. “Say hi to Kit?” His smile is lopsided and so openly fond that Jeff knows, intuitively and like a vise on his ribs, that if he says ‘yes’ to that offer, he might actually get what he’s longing for.

He didn’t know until now that he’s a coward.

“I gotta check on the monster,” he says, carefully letting go of Kent’s hand. “You know, food and shit.”

“Right, right.” Kent’s hands go into his pockets, out of reach. Jeff wants them back in his more than he can say; which is probably why he doesn’t.

“Night, Parser.”

“Night, Jeff.”

It’s a lonely walk up to his apartment. As soon as he’s inside, he clenches his jaw, then his fists, and after a second of internally fuming, he kicks the door. “Goddammit!” he hisses. “Fuck. Fuck me.”

From his bathroom, the stray cat yowls. Jeff waits until he has taken a few calming breaths before going to feed it.

He finds broken glass and the stench of cologne. The cat is cowering in a corner to hide from the smell.

“I hate you,” Jeff groans, and retreats to the kitchen for a roll of paper towels.

–

Nothing changes between Jeff and Kent. Jeff remembers everything from that night and he knows Kent remembers everything too, but nothing about their friendship changes. Jeff wouldn’t have minded that if he didn’t get the feeling he’d blown his chance for more.

At the next hockey game, there are two scouts in the stands, and Kent chats with them both. He also chats with the scouts who show up to the game after that.

It’s impossible for the rest of the guys to miss.

“They’re like flies on shit all of a sudden,” Rabs says after a day of three scouts. “Parser, you getting any offers?”

“Did you just call me dogshit?” Kent demands, and then shrugs noncommittally. “Not really offers, just talks.”

“Yeah, but. You gonna sign, if you get something good?”

And Kent replies to that like he always does—laughs it off, shakes his head, says something about how nobody’s really looking to sign him, they’re just checking him off a list of known free agents. None of it means anything.

Jeff believes that, right up until he sees the contracts.

It’s by accident; he goes into Kent’s apartment at the ass-crack of dawn, like always, ready to shower. He finds Kent passed out on the sofa. Jeff pauses in the living room, curious, because Kent is wearing his sleeping clothes but clearly drifted off before he made it to bed. The lamp next to him is still on.

What catches Jeff’s eye are the contracts spilled out over Kent’s coffee table. There are three, as far as he can tell, and each one has a piece of notepaper next to it covered in notes.

It’s what Jeff wanted for Kent, and what Kent has worked for. But it makes Jeff feel so sick at heart that he almost leaves without his shower. Almost.

Kent is awake when Jeff comes out of the bathroom, damp and clean. The contracts are stacked up, not gone. Kent is sitting upright on the sofa, rubbing his eyes.

“Good offers?” Jeff asks, like a jackass, because if Kent hasn’t ever mentioned it before then it’s obviously not something he wanted to discuss.

Kent sighs, sounding exhausted, and shrugs. “Bunch of zeroes. No-trade clauses, two- and three-year deals. So. Objectively, sure.”

Jesus. That’s the real deal. “Are you going to sign?”

Kent sighs again. “I don’t fucking know, Jeff.”

That’s not a “no.”

Jeff leaves and doesn’t bring it up again. He doesn’t mention it to the guys, not even Mike. Kent acts like it didn’t happen, still coming to games and texting Jeff at work and dropping by Jeff’s apartment to visit the monster cat that still lives in Jeff’s bathroom. The cat has monopolized the space for almost two months, now, because Jeff is too afraid of the potential destruction to let it wander free.

“I can help you cat-proof your place, you know,” Kent offers—again—one night when he comes over. He’s crammed into the bathroom with Jeff and the cat. Somehow, Kent has managed to entrance the cat with just a shoelace, dangling it and pulling it along the tiles and laughing when the cat tries and fails to pounce on it. “You can’t keep him in your bathroom forever. Have you even named him?”

Jeff calls the cat “the monster” or “Monster,” but Kent continues to insist that Jeff pick something better. Kent also brings new cat toys and treats every week, like the animal is a nephew he’s trying to spoil. Jeff has repeatedly asked Kent if he wants to keep the cat, but Kent keeps saying no. Jeff gets the impression that Kent expects him to keep Monster, so Kent can continue to dote on it.

Honestly, Jeff has thought about it. But he keeps coming to the conclusion that it’s not in the cards. He likes his life how it is and he doesn’t want the complication. So he says, “It doesn’t matter what I name him. The new owner will probably change it. I’ve got someone at the office who’s seen pics and she says she’s interested.”

Kent goes still. “Wait, you’re seriously giving him away?”

Jeff internally squirms under Kent’s wide-eyed look of betrayal, turning his gaze to Monster instead. “I’m not a cat person, Parse, I told you. It was okay playing the good Samaritan for a bit, but this isn’t me. I can’t see myself having a cat long-term.”

“Oh.” Kent is quiet for a long moment. Monster jumps on the shoelace and tugs it away; Kent doesn’t resist. “I guess you should do what’s best for you.”

“That’s all it is, Parse. I’m just not a cat person.”

Soon after that conversation, Kent leaves. He smiles as he goes, acting casual, but there’s a shadow in his eyes like something’s gone wrong. And, look, Jeff doesn’t always catch on quick, but he’s not an idiot. Even if he’s not sure what specific sentence was the wrong one, he knows he fucked up somehow. Rather than go upstairs and ask Kent to clarify, however, he just curses himself and kicks his door. Again. It’s becoming a pattern.

Why is he such a coward when it comes to Kent? Even back when Kent was a noisy menace, the only time Jeff didn’t go upstairs to confront him about it was the one time it had sounded like Kent really needed company. Now that he knows Kent personally, would he do differently? He hopes so. But, god—he also never pegged himself as a guy who’d avoid so many important conversations just because he was afraid of the outcome, even a potentially good one. He’d always thought that if he ever cared about someone like he cares about Kent, he’d bare his heart and put it all on the line.

He never expected to find himself approaching Valentine’s Day wondering if Kent was already finding someone else.

It’s desperation for reassurance, not courage, that makes him text Kent about coming over for pizza and beer.

“Dude, about time you had me over again,” Kent says when he arrives.

Jeff rolls his eyes and waves him in. “The fuck do you mean ‘about time,’ you’ve been over here doting on the cat every day.”

“Your cat is better looking, is why,” Kent replies. He heads for the sofa, only to stop short when he sees Monster curled up on it.

“Oh, yeah,” Jeff says. “My co-worker is picking him up tomorrow. I thought I’d give him a night to live it up before he moves out. How much damage can he do, right?”

Kent snorts. The look on his face is one of jumbled emotions, confusion and fondness and resignation.

“You can move him,” Jeff says. “He’s pretty chill suddenly, doesn’t really care if you pick him up or touch his feet and shit. Which is a goddamn turnaround, considering how nuts he always acted in the bathroom.”

“He just needed to feel at home, that’s all.” Kent crouches by Monster and pets him until he purrs and shows his belly. “Nobody feels at home in just a bathroom.”

Jeff feels awkward and he’s not sure why. “You know you could still keep him, if you really wanted. I’ll tell my co-worker there was a change of plans. She’ll understand.” She won’t. But Jeff would face Sarah’s sour disappointment for a year if it meant keeping Kent happy.

Except the offer just makes Kent look more unhappy. “No, it’s—fine. You promised.” Kent sits on the sofa arm, still petting Monster. “Come on, gimme pizza.”

Kent acts normally from then on, talking shit through the movie and criticizing Jeff’s choice in beer. But there’s a sadness weighing on him that comes out in the silences, and makes his fingers drift to Monster’s fur whenever he’s lost in thought. Monster attaches himself to Kent, nuzzling and purring, like he thinks Kent needs it.

Jeff hates it because it feels like his fault. Which it can’t be, because if Kent won’t keep the cat and Jeff can’t, there’s nothing else to fucking do.

The night concludes as it always does, with Kent smiling and giving him a half-hug before going home, and Jeff still sitting on a crush that he hasn’t yet dared to air out. In the living room, Monster is stalking the empty pizza boxes. When Jeff walks over and shoos him away from a stray piece of crust, Monster meows indignantly.

“You’re a weird-ass cat, you know that?” Jeff grumbles, and wiggles the boxes until Monster hops out.

Jeff crosses his fingers for no overnight disasters and goes to bed early. He wakes up on Sunday morning to find Monster sprawled out on his bed, whiskers twitching in his sleep. Jeff stares for a while. Monster still isn’t a beauty; he’s got half an ear on one side, almost no tail, and even without his balls he has a throaty, tomcat yowl. All of these disclaimers were made clear to Sarah before she agreed to take him. Jeff supposes that if you’re into cats, the little imperfections don’t matter.

Monster blinks awake and sees Jeff already looking. Without prompt, Monster starts to purr.

“You’re a terrible cat,” Jeff tells him. “I can’t wait until you’re gone and I can have my own life again.”

Monster closes his eyes and purrs louder.

“Shut up.” Jeff gets out of bed. Monster, sensing breakfast, follows. Once there’s food in front of Monster, Jeff escapes to his bathroom. He gets his towel and clothes and is halfway out his door before he remembers that he doesn’t need Kent’s shower anymore.

Well. That’s how it should be.

So he goes back to his bathroom and gets in his own shower for the first time in over a month. It feels strange. Kent’s shower setup had been the apartment’s standard, but Jeff’s is custom, and it’s like he’s completely forgotten how to use his own showerhead. He keeps twisting the knobs wrong, and twice he misplaces his shampoo. When he gets out, he shaves over the sink and frowns at himself in the mirror.

He takes Monster—and all of Monster’s accumulated shit—to his co-worker’s house that afternoon. Sarah takes Monster out of his carrier right away and coos over him. Monster squirms.

“He needs time getting used to new places,” Jeff says. “And new people.” Even as he says it, it doesn’t feel true. Monster had settled into Jeff’s bathroom and then his apartment in no time flat. And although Monster had been a matted, parasite-infested wreck when he first met Kent, he’d done nothing but knead and purr.

Sarah closes the door behind Jeff and puts Monster down. Monster slinks up to the first bit of furniture he can find—a bookshelf—and cautiously sniffs it. “We’ll make it work,” Sarah says.

Jeff nods. “Just leave him alone and keep feeding him, he loves food. He doesn’t care what happens as long as there’s food in front of him. Oh, and play with him. He’s got a ton of cat toys, courtesy of my neighbor, although for some reason he likes dumb stuff like shoelaces and towels.”

Sarah gives him a look. “Are you sure you don’t want to keep him? You sound attached.”

Jeff watches Monster take a slow swat at a book and ignores the tightness in his chest. “I’m not a cat person.”

Sarah nods. “Well, okay. Do you want to come into the kitchen, have a drink? I’ve got coke, coffee, or I can make tea. Give you a little more time to say goodbye to your cat?”

“No, thanks. I’m good.”

And just like that, Jeff is out the front door and back in his car, driving home. Alone.

–

Without Monster around, Kent has no concrete reason to drop by all the time, so he mostly stops. They don’t drift apart—they keep texting, and sometimes bump into each other in the elevator. But Jeff doesn’t fool himself; it’s not the same. He spends the next week feeling like there’s a hole in his life, and he’s self-aware enough to know that the hole is Kent-shaped. Their conversations aren’t as frequent and lack the spark they used to.

At the next hockey game, Kent doesn’t make a beeline for him the second he steps on the ice. There’s a scout waiting for Kent when the game is done, and he spends a long time talking with the guy—the longest he’s talked with any of them yet. He’s actually late to arrive at the bar, and when he takes a seat on the other end of the table from Jeff, it feels on purpose, not by chance.

Jeff is starting to feel like he gave away Kent along with Monster.

Are you mad at me? he sends from his work desk on Thursday, when he should be typing up a report. ‘Cause I didn’t keep the cat?

Kent’s reply comes instantly. And keeps coming.

Kent: what?! no!! of course not. i guess i just miss him. i got used to him being around but i’m not mad at YOU for not keeping him. its your life. and i really believe you should only get a pet if ur 110% committed. you shouldn’t make a commitment if you’re not able to, u know?

Me: Exactly. I just want what’s best for Monster.

Kent: i know. i’m never gonna be mad at u for doing what u gotta do, k? i’ll get over it.

Jeff should put his phone down and get back to work. But he feels like they’re finally communicating after almost two weeks of being lukewarm, and he’ll be hard-pressed to find this level of openness again. So he sends,

Me: You know you’re my best friend, right?

Kent’s icon shows that he’s typing for a long time; either preparing to send a wall of text, or second-guessing himself dozens of times. Neither bodes well.

Kent: i didn’t, actually. but ur mine, too.

Fuck, Jeff will die happy just from this.

Me: Right. So I want you to know that you’ll still be my best friend if you play in the NHL. Or the AHL. Or if you move to Russia and join the KHL. Or turn them all down and play in the beer league the rest of your life. You’re my best friend and nothing changes that.

Another long pause.

Kent: thanks, man.

It’s not much, but Jeff smiles in relief, anyway.

–

On Friday, as Jeff is getting ready to leave work, Sarah comes up to him. She’s been showing Jeff and everyone else in the office photos of Monster—re-named Stuart—since the day she brought him home. Jeff expects more of the same today, and mentally prepares an excuse to leave after viewing no more than five pictures.

He’s confused when, instead of pulling out her phone, Sarah asks, “Are you doing anything tomorrow?”

“No?” Jeff replies, then freezes when he remembers that tomorrow is February 14th, Valentine’s Day. Awkwardly, he says, “I’m, uh, flattered, but—”

“What?” Sarah blinks, and then her eyes go wide. “Oh—god, no! Jeff, I have a girlfriend.”

“…Oh.” Jeff takes a moment to mentally re-evaluate everything he knows about Sarah. He feels stupid for assuming that the woman in all her photos was her sister.

“Yeah,” Sarah says, like she can hear what he’s thinking. “Which is why—god, I feel terrible about this, but I can’t keep Stuart. My girlfriend is allergic. I mean really allergic.” She sighs. “We knew she had allergies, but they’ve never been so bad. She can’t come over to my place at all.”

“Oh,” Jeff repeats. “I can, uh, pick him up this evening? If you want?”

Sarah looks relieved enough that she might hug him. “Thank you so much. I’m so sorry. You were right, Stuart is a sweetheart once he warms up to you, and Jenna and I love him so much. But… well, we’d really rather just get a hypoallergenic cat than install special filters all over the house and do laundry three times a week.”

Although Jeff has never had allergy issues, he finds it easy to relate to the problem of Monster giving him too much housework. “It’s fine. I was gonna leave now, but I can hang back until you’re done.”

“Thanks so much. I’ve just got to send a couple of emails and I’ll be ready to head out.”

It’s dark when they get to the parking lot. Jeff follows Sarah’s car to her house, and comes inside with her to collect all of Monster’s belongings. Monster comes right up to him and rubs against Jeff’s shins, purring and meowing.

“Aww, he missed you.”

Jeff can feel himself blushing a little, so he just shrugs and stoops to pat Monster’s head. Monster yowls and pushes his face into Jeff’s fingers. “Yeah, yeah,” Jeff mutters while Sarah stuffs the last of Monster’s toys into a bag, and then to Monster he says, “Apocalyptic allergies, huh? Nice to see you can make a nuisance of yourself wherever you go.”

Monster is noisy on the drive home, in the elevator up to Jeff’s apartment, and then even after Jeff has brought him inside and let him out. Monster prances around rubbing against all the furniture.

Jeff drops the bag of toys next to the sofa and sinks onto the cushions. Monster trots in from the next room and hops up next to him, climbing onto Jeff’s lap and meowing at him. Jeff gets a face-full of fish-scented cat breath and coughs. “I was nearly free of you,” he complains, and submits to Monster’s demands by scratching his chin. “I don’t have anyone else lined up to take you.” He thinks for a minute. “We could put up flyers, maybe. Free cat to good home. Facebook, too, I’ve got a ton of friends all over the country who are suckers for cats.”

Monster closes his eyes and settles down on Jeff’s lap while Jeff keeps scratching his chin. The warmth and weight of Monster is kind of nice, Jeff decides. And waking up to Monster that one morning was the least lonely he’s felt at five a.m. in…well, a while.

“One of the guys might take you,” he continues, still brainstorming aloud. “Cash’s kids have been bugging him for a pet. You’d be good with kids, right? You’re chill. And you don’t have much of a tail to pull or step on.”

Monster begins to purr. It’s a deep, guttural rumble that seems to seep into Jeff’s bones.

“Oh, Christ, stop. I’m not keeping you, you goddamn noisy, ugly cat. Do you have any idea how much trouble you’ve been from start to finish? You destroyed my bathroom. You’d probably destroy my apartment. And you’re expensive, fuck, I’ve dropped so much cash on you. You had parasites, remember? Then the surgery for your tail, plus your balls, and if I keep you, I just know Parser is gonna talk me into microchipping you ‘cause he’s paranoid like that.”

He sighs, his fingers slowing. Monster tucks his face into his paws, so Jeff strokes his fur instead. Monster keeps purring. “I hate you, Monster. So much.”

He can’t fucking believe he’s considering this.

–

The next morning, Jeff wakes up to Monster curled up at his side.

“Manipulative little shit,” he accuses, to which Monster mumble-meows and bats at Jeff’s face until he gets up.

Jeff feeds Monster in the kitchen. While Monster noisily eats a can of soggy Friskies cat food, Jeff starts the coffee pot and contemplates…everything. Last night he’d gone to bed without making a firm decision about Monster. In the cold darkness of the morning, he doesn’t feel any surer. He’s still not a cat person. The whole experience of feeling outrageously sentimental about a pet is still something he can’t fully relate to. Even Monster, with his soft fur and adoring slow-blinks and motorboat purr, is still an alien entity whom Jeff regards with more confusion than unconditional love.

But as he watches Monster chomp down a fat piece of tuna, Jeff has to admit that he has grown attached.

He can’t fucking believe he’s resigning himself to this.

Kent will be ecstatic.

Kent also might sign an NHL contract and move across the country, rarely seen again, and it won’t matter that Jeff has finally given in and adopted Kent’s favorite ratty cat. Anything Jeff could have said, anything he might have wanted, will be lost in the face of Kent’s new whirlwind career.

A man can only be a coward for so long.

Fuck it, Jeff decides. If he can’t find the courage to do this shit on Valentine’s Day at the ass-crack of dawn when he has just decided to keep an utter wreck of a stray cat, he never will.

He puts on his fuzziest slippers and warmest sweatshirt and ventures upstairs. With his heart pounding in his chest, he knocks on Kent’s door.

Eventually, it opens. “Fuck, Jeff, it’s like six o’clock,” Kent complains when he answers. He’s wearing sweatpants and no shirt and he’s got terrible bedhead, plus a couple creases in his face from his pillow. He looks like he has every morning that Jeff has snuck by him sleeping in bed.

By now, Jeff’s urge to wrap himself around Kent and bury his face in Kent’s neck is mostly under control. “Just let me say this before I chicken out,” Jeff replies, and that gets him Kent’s attention. He takes a fortifying breath and says, “I like you.” Not the most eloquent, but in his defense, he hasn’t had coffee yet.

Kent blinks. He definitely hasn’t had coffee yet, either. “I like you, too?”

“No, Parser, I like you. Do you remember when I first brought Monster back from the vet, and we were sitting in my bathroom brushing him and I said that I sucked at animals, and you said it was a good thing I’m cute? I’ve been thinking about that non-stop ever since.”

Kent blinks again. “That was two months ago.”

“I know. But I’ve been thinking about it because it was the first time I really chickened out of being honest with you. Because you’re my best friend, and I don’t have best friends, so I can’t fuck this up with you. But I’ve also got a cat downstairs that I am apparently fucking keeping now, so if I can do that insane shit, I can do this insane shit.”

Kent’s eyes widen. “You’ve got—Monster?”

“Sarah, my co-worker, her girlfriend has massive allergies, so she asked me to take Monster back. I picked him up yesterday. I figure I’ll just keep him. Look, I’m sorry it’s so fucking early and I’m sorry it’s Valentine’s Day, I’m not trying to be a cliché, it’s just that I’ve been wanting to kiss you since Christmas and I kept chickening out—and for Christ’s sake, why are you always half naked? You wear shirts to bed, I’ve seen you.”

Kent’s sliver of a smile is halfway between amused and incredulous. “You’re getting off topic.”

“Not if you’re this sexy on purpose.”

“You’re really keeping Monster?”

That doesn’t answer Jeff’s totally legitimate question at all—because it is still the middle of February and damn cold. But Jeff nods seriously. “Yeah. Might as well. I’m already two months committed, what’s another ten years?”

Kent shakes his head, grins, and steps in close enough that Jeff can smell the faint remains of his body wash. It’s citrusy, familiar, and intoxicating. “I actually did take my shirt off a couple times when I saw it was you. Not always. But you always got so red, I figured it couldn’t hurt to throw you off your game.”

“I knew it—” is all Jeff gets out before Kent kisses him. It’s careful and hesitant, just the barest brush of lips in hopeful inquiry. Jeff pushes back a little to make it firm, more sure, and smiles against Kent’s mouth when Kent hums in relief. It’s good to know he’s not the only one who’s afraid of a kiss fucking everything up.

When they part, Jeff says, “Just ‘cause I’m not a cat person doesn’t mean I can’t date one.”

Kent has his hands on Jeff’s hips and he squeezes gently. “Looks like you’re a cat person now, too.”

“No, I’m not. I have a cat, Parse, I’m not a cat person.”

“Semantics.”

“Do you wanna come downstairs and see my new awful cat, or not?”

Kent’s grin widens and he wraps his arms around Jeff’s waist. It eliminates the last few breaths of distance between them and makes Jeff gulp. The visual of Kent half-naked didn’t at all prepare him for the feel of it. “Yeah,” Kent says. His smile is like the sun. “Lead the way.”

[shsl-heck]

A (Currently) Untitled Custom MTG Set

Okay so, this is my second attempt at typing this all up since tumblr randomly ate the first one, but for the past while I’ve been attempting to create a custom mtg set in a new plane I am tentatively naming Ecumia. This has been an on and off project but I decided to start posting updates here because I think it will be interesting to see my thought process throughout the whole thing, and also because I’m hoping it’ll motivate me to keep going. My basic idea is that it takes place on a plane starved for mana where cities have been modified to become constructs that travel the plane scrounging for what little mana they can find. The rest is going to be below a read me because it’s a long post. It has a summary of the setting, draft archetypes, mechanics and just some random thoughts on where I may go.

First I want to go ahead and go into more detail about the cities. There are five main giant cities, each of them is based on a four color mana combination. They’re all based both literally and ideologically on what color mana they lack just as much as they’re based on the colors they do have. So I guess I’ll go ahead and list them out with some explanations since they’re one of the biggest features of the world. (Sidenote: they’re all meant to be in some way terrible and corrupt.)

Zezuklet is the WUBR aligned city. It positions itself as a meritocracy, to be a prodigy in Zezuklet is the expectation. Everyone works to improve themselves and their skills to serve the city in its never ending quest for expansion and fuel. They cooperate and work together like the cogs in a machine not like people who care coming together. Black and red provide the passion for self improvement no matter the cost, blue provides the forethought and efficiency with which everything is run, and white gives the system it’s strict laws and orderly conduct. Meanwhile despite the white aspect’s focus on cooperation the lack of green mana manifests in a lack of sense of community which gives the city it’s main theme of isolation and alienation, the embodiment of society as a cold machine.

Philael is the WUBG aligned city. It’s a cult run by a council of revered priests, prophets, and theologists. It’s not the rakdos style cult though, it’s much more of the sinister sort of banality like scientology, mormonism or selesnya. The modern new life fusion way style of cult if that makes sense. Everyone is part of the family, and you don’t betray your family. If you do, then anything is fair game. Don’t worry though, family forgives. White and green create a tightknit but highly stratified and strict sense of community. Blue manifests itself in the extreme degree of mental manipulation and veiled knowledge that goes on in the running of the cult, and we see black in the cult’s policy of brutal retaliation against those that break its rules. The lack of red mana is meant to provide a sense of lacking individual identity or the ability to express oneself.

Novaesium is the WURG aligned city. In concept it’s meant to be ruled by a lineage of wise and powerful philosopher kings, however in execution the monarchs are rarely as wise and fair as one would hope. They are a regressive society who desperately tries to cling to a mythical past version of Novaesium where it was the center of culture of commerce across the plane. Anything that threatens to interfere with the return of the kingdom’s golden age is essentially considered treason. As with many of the cities white manifests in Novaesium through it’s monarchy and sense of authoritarianism and strict but arbitrary rules. Blue shows itself through the focus on subjects like classicism and focus on analyzing the past, while red lends itself to the passion and zeal to return to that past. Green ties it all together with the sense that their community is all linked together and working towards a common supposedly noble goal. Black mana when appearing in characters that aren’t villains is typically reflective of self improvement and ambition, so Novaesium’s lack of black mana is meant to reflect an inability to move beyond the dreams of the past and create something new.

Raxfada is the WBRG aligned city. In Raxfada might makes right, which means that few warlords last long thanks to the frequent invocation of trials by combat to determine who should be in charge. Despite the bloody duels and lack of formal legal system Raxfada works on a strict honor system. Families are to take eye for eye and tooth for tooth. In order to keep the city running Raxfada is in a forever war, hunting down smaller weaker cities and draining the mana from them or integrating them into the city’s mass. White and black combine to create the honor system that substitutes for rule of law with it’s focus symmetrical but swift and brutal violence. Red represents the zeal and love for battle that citizens are raised to value in order to continue the forever war, and green the philosophy of might making right, and value of raw physical strength.

Quisith is the UBRG aligned city. It runs on a parliamentary system in which many small guilds and miscellaneous groups vye for control over the parliament. People are in general highly devoted to their individual parties but deeply suspicious of all others, believing them to be plotting to take over. These fears are of course justified since nearly every single guild, secret society, etc are all planning to take over in some manner. Quisith is unique in that because it’s made up of small factions sweeping statements about philosophy are a bit harder, but in general blue and black combine to produce a very dimir-esque aspect of subterfuge and subtle conflicts and plotting between organizations. Red is meant to reflect the intensity of conflicts and constantly flaring tempers between warring factions. The lack of white means that there’s a lack of centralized authority and unity between the whole of the factions.

Now I want to move on to the draft archetypes, each of which cover a two color pairing to make them flexible enough to build in limited formats.

Azorius Artifacts takes advantage of the color pairing’s ability to control the tempo of the game while giving it tools to buff, untap, and take advantage of artifacts they play in other ways. This is probably the most control oriented draft archetype for players who are a fan of that.

Orzhov Cycling is, as the name suggests focused on cycling. Specifically it uses cycling as a means to drain life from your opponents while maintaining card selection. I have the urge to say this is probably more of a midrange deck, but honestly I could see it being built in a couple different ways.

Boros Voltron/Go Tall focuses on applying powerful buffs to a single creature with cheap spells, making it one of the more aggro focused draft archetypes. There’s really not much more to say than that.

Selesnya Toughness Matters is my attempt to make a draft archetype that takes advantage of creature’s toughness with spells that set power equal to toughness and others that reward playing high toughness creatures. Because of the focus on more defensive creatures I think this archetype could potentially turn into a stall focused one, but it is also green so who knows what people could come up with.

Dimir Self Mill seems like pretty well trodden territory (it just appeared in Theros,) but it specifically seeks to take advantage of the two new custom mechanics, Trawl, and Repurpose which both have graveyard synergy and actually give Dimir the ability to ramp. I’ll explain both those mechanics in the next section though.

Izzet Auras is not something that is traditionally thought to fit the color pairing. However on this plane I wanted auras to be a sort of magical expression of an inner truth. Similarly to how the Prismari in strixhaven view their craft as artistry, auras are considered a deeply personal and artistic form of magic which I thought fit Izzet. (I actually came up with this before strixhaven was spoiled so it was a fun surprise.) Izzet auras do things like grant card draw, firebreathing and more, making them a sort of toolbox deck.

Simic Go Wide wants to overwhelm their opponents quickly with their efficiently costed creatures and overwhelming generation of tokens. Yes, this is an aggro Simic archetype, lord forgive me.

Rakdos Self Burn obviously deals direct damage to yourself as well as opponents and permanents they control while rewarding you for lowering your own life with benefits like card draw and buffed creatures.

Golgari Repurpose is fully based around the Repurpose mechanic which grants them exceptional temporary ramp, letting them cheat out giant creatures at the cost of exiling cards from their graveyard to help pay. This is yet another archetype aiming to use new mechanics, this time with sacrifice outlets and giant beaters.

Gruul Aggro is the mother of all aggro draft decks in this list. It has a focus on cheap but strong creatures with haste, and powerful enter the battlefield effects that defeat your opponent before they can begin to pull out their own strategy.

Finally, I want to finish off with a summary of the new mechanics, and a report of my progress as of writing this.

The two main mechanics unique to this set are Trawl and repurpose. Trawl lets you mill an amount of cards and then return any lands put into your graveyard that turn to your hand. I’m still ironing out the kinks in repurpose, but essentially repurpose is a keyword on permanents that lets you exile them from your graveyard (and maybe your hand, I haven’t decided) in order to add generic mana to your mana pool.

As of right now I have around 65 of the 101 magic cards found at common in each set completed. Rough drafts of white’s common cards in the set are finished and I plan to go back over an re-edit them to add some polish after I’m done with all the commons.

Thanks for reading and hopefully this was interesting!

[kohaive]

who did it?

The letter is written.

Today, Irene is investigating the case of the missing socks. Socks are going missing in the Janus washer, and there’s no one better to figure out where they’re going than Irene. (At least, that’s what Irene says. Most of Janus is content to let them go on with their schemes without much complaint.)

Irene’s first order of business is to climb into the washing machine, exploring the nooks and crannies. When that proves to be a fruitless endeavor, she checks behind, under, and above the washing machine. Irene finds nothing, but this won’t deter her from discovering the truth. But this really does have them stumped; where are the socks going?

Irene takes some time to ask around at the other houses, but no other house seems to have this problem. She draws the conclusion that it means Janus has something that the other houses do not, and that that is responsible for taking the socks out from the dryer when nobody is awake to stop it. The first idea she comes up with is they’re somehow being drawn into the dimensional rip that opens occasionally, so Irene sets up a stakeout in the unused Janus dorm room (to the not-so-forceful protest of Teo) and waits for it to open. And when it does, Irene sticks her head in.

Irene is met with the scent of petrichor, a back alley, and the remains of a woman smeared carelessly along the wall. Long scratches are gouged into the brickwork, spelling a simple phrase:

B ᴀ ɴ ᴇ  ᴏ ғ  ᴛ ʜ ᴇ  B ᴀ ʏ ɴ ᴇ s .

Irene pulls her head back out.

Later, they realize the sock monster under Yura’s bed has been getting bigger, and concludes that it’s been taking the missing socks for itself.

The letter is sealed.

Today, Irene is investigating the mystery of the chittering noise in the ceiling. Yura is pretty sure it’s just a squirrel that found its way into the attic (Irene didn’t even know they had an attic), but after the SIM swapping incident Irene isn’t so sure. Against the advice of literally everyone but Han, Irene fashions a makeshift rope out of spare bedsheets and duct tape and uses it to climb up the tree outside and swing onto the roof. It’s not a difficult climb, but it’s something that self-starved Teo, watching from concern on the ground, would call “impossible” due to his lack of strength.

Not for Irene, though. They aren’t the strongest, but they can carry their own weight. A detective always has to be prepared for the greatest hardships, after all. They find the roof to be surprisingly easy to stand on, almost as if the shingles were designed specifically for anyone stupid enough to  climb onto the roof so they could stand there without falling. From there, it's a simple enough matter to start searching the roof for any holes that an animal might've crawled into. Meanwhile, she directs Teo below to search for any signs of a poltergeist. Teo does so, albeit in his usually mildly grumpy way.

Irene is left alone on the roof, which is not a situation that Irene should be allowed to be in for long. They scour the roof for holes big enough for a squirrel to climb into, and they don't fall off once.

They do scrape their hand on the rough shingles, though, and smelling blood sends images of slashed open body cavities and glassy, dull eyes and empty space where organs should be through their mind.

(Dead bodies on crime dramas seem so fake these days.)

Irene finds a hole, manages to coax the squirrels out with some of Alex's mustard, and Mends it closed. The chittering noises stop after that.

The letter is sent.

Today, Irene is investigating the mystery of the living ghost. They've heard from solid sources that there's one in Town Across, so they scrounge up their savings and take the ferry to go explore.

Town Across is one of the fanciest cities that Irene has ever been in, and every shop is expensive. Irene doesn't buy anything, just does some browsing from the street. There isn't a lot that she's interested in, but sometimes she wonders if she might see something nice for Teo that they can figure out how to duplicate later. A prism, they reason, would be a good gift to get for him. Teo loves rainbows after all.

The problem with this mystery, though, is that Town Across is a pretty big place, and Irene doesn't know where to start. They spend a good hour or two wandering about, seeing the shops, admiring the pristine streets, spotting the edge of the Lockwood Estate in the distance. Unfortunately, asking around, they don't get any closer to finding a living ghost. Everyone Irene asks gives her a confused, bothered look and walks a bit faster, clutching their purses between tight fingers.

Rich people, Irene thinks, and continues on her merry way.

Around noontime, Irene hears sweet music, and follows their ears to a fountain square, where a beautiful, dark-haired woman is playing ocarina. Irene recognizes the pin in her hair; it’s the symbol of the Sunshade family, an old-blood high class family that’s well known to resent magicks. Irene doesn’t understand why this woman has that pin in her hair, or why her ears are pointed at the tips, but she decides it’s a mystery for another day. As she passes by the woman, Irene drops a few coins into the basket at her feet and keeps looking around for a living ghost.

Irene can't find anything, which is pretty frustrating. A living ghost would be such a cool find...! But if they can't find one, then Irene supposes she might have to give up. She doesn't want to miss the last ferry back to Justus, after all. There's no way they have enough money to spend the night in Town Across.

So as the sun sets, Irene heads back towards the docks. It’s been a boring, uneventful day, and Irene wishes that something interesting would happen.

On the ferry, an owl lands on her shoulder, a letter sitting neatly in the pouch on its back.

The letter is received.

Today, Irene isn’t investigating anything.

It’s two in the morning, and Irene is downstairs in the dark common room, staring at the creased papers in their lap, crisp letters made visible with a lumos from their magnifying glass.

Irene pulls her glasses off and wipes at her eyes for the umpteenth time. This is wrong, she thinks. There has to be more to this. Except there isn’t, all that there is to it is laid out in the letter and the paper accompanying it. There’s no mystery for Irene to solve. The solution has been laid out neatly for her to see, but it isn’t one that she asked for.

Irene picks up the papers again and stares hard at them, as if glaring hard enough will rearrange the letters on the page into a solution that they like. Nothing happens of course, it only makes the various phrases stand out to them more.

...Case File #1888…B&B Private Investigation…still at large…deepest condolences…expect a call in the morning…

And under no circumstances are you to remove your jacket.

Hot anger blossoms in Irene’s stomach, and she crumples up the letter with a sudden ferocity, so violent that some of the paper tears. She shoves the ball into a pocket of her jacket and shuts off the lumos.

“Who did it?” Irene whispers to the empty room. They don’t get an answer, of course, but the deafening silence somehow upsets them even more and their eyes begin to brim over with hot, furious tears. They don’t know who did it, they don’t know where to begin, they don’t know how to solve this case, this case that has just become the single most important case in the world.

B ᴀ ɴ ᴇ  ᴏ ғ  ᴛ ʜ ᴇ  B ᴀ ʏ ɴ ᴇ s .

Glazed-over eyes, torn open bodies, empty space where organs should be.

Irene pulls her knees up, curls into a tight ball, and empties her tears where no one can see them.