#not even like COMPLICATED INGREDIENTS but like. fucking. shit to make sandwiches with

[tangledinink]

I relate to the

“I have things to do, better take my medication”

“but I need to eat”

“Okay no medicine”

“but things to do-“

loop SO MUCH

I typically just eat right before I take medicine- that doesn’t solve having to cook but you can always just make ramen or get microwaveable meals

I dunno why I sent this- it probably won’t help much- uhh-

yeah no i feel that. = 3 = I try to do that but;;; idk! i feel! bad about only eating dumb microwave meals and stuff. like. i worry about it not being very healthy or financially wise and shit like that, y'know? and then i'll like. be awake in the dead of night trying to fall asleep and be like.

omg.... you know what would be so good...? soup.... i would love to make soup i haven't made soup in forever it's FALL WEATHER i should make SOUP ugh it would be so fantastic i should do that i'll make soup...

but then the morning comes and it's like... ah... well... the desire for soup still somewhat persists, but....

[thessalian]

Thess vs The Weekend Spoon Budget

Well, I have a whole weekend all to myself (which is me looking at the bright side of "My Saturday D&D shenanigans had to be cancelled again this week). Of course, I guess it's not technically all to myself because I suppose I should put those spoons towards household chores etc. So it's another Thess Is A Motherfucking Adult weekend ... to a point. See, the actual chores list goes something like "clean out the fridge, take out the trash and the recycling (which is not easy if you're me), and do some laundry". However, there are some other things that aren't quite chores but are sort of chores because they probably need doing by the standards of making my life easier but don't necessarily need doing by the standards of good housekeeping etc.

See, while I did not get tapped for overtime this week, some of it's still the same old bullshit. We seemed to be doing better typing-wise towards the end of the week (and that was with New Girl being away, so I dunno what's up with that), but I did get stuck with all the long-ass complicated bits of typing and the shit no one likes to do because the accents involved are a trial. Also they're trying to catch up with months of placenta reports so if I see one more fucking placenta form I am going to scream. Anyway, point is, not overtime-busy, but busy. And that's made things like lunch fall by the wayside. I don't generally have time or spoons to throw something together, even a sandwich. Too many steps involved in making a sandwich. So I don't want this to be a recurring thing, obviously. Food is good.

Now, I figured out how to make potato salad the other week. Which is good, because I like potato salad. So I thought, why not make other things like that, that I can just slop into a bowl and eat? So I thought chicken macaroni salad, and I do have all the ingredients for that, I think. So there's going to be boiling some macaroni, cooking some chicken, letting it all cool and Mixing Things. Stuff like that.

Of course, I also kind of want to fill the cookie jar. Now, if I want chocolate chip cookies (and I do), I'm going to have to make some cookie dough to chill. I do want to make more snickerdoodles. Maybe more three-ingredient peanut butter cookies. On top of that, I still have two more bananas left so I can make more banana bread (I kinda ate all my banana bread). So Things For Nibbles in the house. Problem is, with some of this stuff, I do need a couple of more ingredients. Sugar, for one. Eggs, because the corner shop only had medium eggs (which are going to become hard-boiled eggs so I can have some easy protein). Unsalted butter. Sour cream for the banana bread. Also I'm low on garlic salt and that cannot be allowed to stand. Soooooooo that means I probably have to go out farther than the corner shop today. Woe. I mean, I'd go to the little Co-Op down the road, but their selection is woeful. Eh, at least it's not miserably cold.

Right. Time to spend some spoons doing the Adulting Shit. Then I can go out and pick up stuff, and then come back home and do more Adulting Shit, and maybe have enough time and spoons to have some fun later.

Sometimes being an adult sucks, but at least it'll make for good eating later.

[extendedsbihcs]

cooking hcs bc i have thoughts

philza is a very nuanced cook. he can replicate dishes from far off lands perfecrly in one try but ask him to make fried chicken and the house burns down. he can make mac and cheese but still somehow hasnt memorized the recipe on the box. his sandwiches are terrible. shit baker.

techno is a decent cook. he cant do anything too complicated but his food tastes good. he has memorized multiple recipes. decent baker too, can make a good apple pie.

wilbur cannot fucking cook. this bitch cant even make a sandwich. how he fails so horribly is a mystery. his attempts at cooking look like frankenstein and smell like the plague, it could be used as a punishment. he has however learned a bit of baking. not much tho.

tommy is surprisingly a good cook. he watched phil and techno cook and kinda just figured it out as he went. his food tastes really good and he knows how to make a full meal out of few ingredients. can bake kinda too

tubbo is a shit cook. this is known. he also cannot bake very well but he is better than ranboo at it.

ranboo also cannot cook and this is also known. he has set the kitchen on fire because he forgot something was on the stove. he cant bake either, bc he just ends up making poison on accident by adding random things.

fundy is an okay cook. he can make very simple things usually from a box with instructions. he can bake a little bit but doesnt like to because he accidentally shut his tail in the oven once.

eret is a bad cook, she never had to cook for anyone and usually someone else would cook for him. their trying to learn now for fundy but its a difficult process. she can bake really good though, and makes excellent cakes

[woman-of-culture]

The traitor 2/2

Dabi x reader

I really needed to finish this bc I couldn't focus on literally anything but Dabis dick. 🥵

Warnings: 18+, smut, Dabis identity

Part One

Words: 7,864

What’s one word to describe this trip you ask? Nerve-racking, from the moment you left your apartment to the moment you entered the bus. Everything seemed like a blur at this point as you walked through the bus to find the only empty seat next to your target, Bakugou. It’s not exactly guilt you felt, you knew this was inevitable, but you did contemplate the outcome of this.

The League could fail, although that was unlikely from the plan Dabi told you, he could refuse or he could possibly join by some miracle. You haven’t the slightest clue but you were damn sure on one thing, you were gonna do everything in your power to ensure the Leagues success from the shadows. Sitting next to Bakugou you made sure to give him a curt nod as a sort of greeting.

“Haah? What makes you think you can sit there you damn extra?” “What do you want me to do? Stand for how many hours this trip takes? No thanks, if you don’t want to sit next to me then get up and leave.”

That seemed to pop a nerve in the boy, making him shout for a few seconds but ultimately falling silent when Aizawa told him to be quiet. ‘Thank God’ you thought to yourself as you laid back, thinking of ways to get the schedule for the next few days.

You put your headphones on, not wanting to be distracted by any unnecessary noise as your mind slowly drifts off to this morning.

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You woke up to the annoying sound of your alarm clock bursting to life just to make your life a little more miserable. “For fucks sake, who schedules a trip for 6 AM...” You thought, silently groaning at the stiffness in your body. You got up, stretched, did your morning routine of brushing your teeth, combing and styling your hair etc.

Ready to go make yourself breakfast, you certainly didn’t expect Dabi to still be here, let alone fully awake and shirtless in the middle of your kitchen. You discreetly admired his physique from the entrance of the kitchen, gawking at the muscles on his back, flexing every time he reached for something.

‘Holy shit’ you knew Dabi was an attractive and physically fit man, despite his kinda lanky built, but this wasn’t what you were expecting at all. His shoulders and 1/3 of his back are the same charred skin covering his face and chest but what you weren’t expecting was he smooth, pale skin of the rest of his back. The contrast extremely attractive in your eyes as you do nothing but stare and wonder what the front view is like.

As if hearing your thoughts, he turns slightly exposing the well defined muscles of his abdomen. Your eyes drawn immediately to the harsh skin of his collarbone, down the valley of his abs to the exposed, very prominent and very attractive v-line dipping to his most private area.

“I’m glad you’re enjoying the view but it’s not exactly nice to stare so hard for so long unless you’re planning on doing something about it.” Visibly flinching, you turn around, (poorly) hiding your more than flushed cheeks. “Get over y-yourself! I was just wondering why you were still here since you usually leave b-before I wake up.” “Aaw, dollface is so flustered she can’t even look me in the eyes. Don’t be so embarrassed, it’s normal to feel excited after that. You know, I could help with that in no time flat-...”

“OK, OK I GET IT! Shut up and answer my question, what are you still doing here?” You turn to face him, metaphorical steam coming out of your ears at his daring comments. He returns to what he was previously doing, which you now notice is making coffee and a sandwich. “Well I...don’t need to answer that.” He avoids the question completely, taking the 2 cups of coffee and sandwich to the living room table.

“That’s not fair Dabi! My house, my rules. Now answer the question.” Thinking he made a sandwich just for himself, you go to the fridge but stop once he called out to you “It’s your sandwich dumbass, I can’t eat in the mornings...” The last part being whispered as if it’s some secret.

You whipped your head so fast in his direction you’re surprised your neck didn’t snap. “What!? You? Dabi? The leach in my life who comes here just for the food, made something for me?“ You walked to the living room as you looked at him dead in the eyes. You leaned in far too close for his liking with narrowed eyes asking “What did you do to Dabi? Am I still sleeping? Toga, is that you?”

The proximity and teasing enough to slightly fluster him. He pushed at your face with his hand, blocking your view of him as he told you to shut up and eat like a normal person in silence.

You grabbed his hand, giggling as you removed it and agreed to eat while watching TV.

“...I won’t be able to come so often...” He mumbled into the coffee after a few minutes of silence. “Won’t be able to come? What are you talking about?”

“Well, you’re going to be at the camp in a few hours so I won’t be able to see you while you’re there...not to mention if this mission is a success and we get the explosive kid, that means I’ll have to be at the base more to keep watch and whatever. So I stayed today to be with you just a little more...” He said, not lifting his gaze from the TV during that whole monologue.

It now dawns on you, Dabi won’t be able to come in the evenings to spend the nights with you. “Oh” was the only word that left your mouth, unable to comprehend just how much this moment truly proved your feelings towards Dabi.

With a gentle smile on your lips, the slightest pink dusting the corners of your cheeks, you replayed his words over and over like a broken record. The smile on your face growing little by little as you thought of your own parents, who seemingly didn’t want you, just to then have Dabis words replay again and again assuring you there was someone who wanted ‘to be with you just a little more...’

The thought making you leap into his chest for a hug neither of you expected yet both enjoyed. “Uh, you okay Y/N?” He asked, patting you on the head. “Yeah! Can we - Can we just stay like this for a few minutes...please?”

“Sure, doll”

--------------------------------------------------

That was your final interaction with Dabi this morning, shortly after getting up and leaving to go to UA. The moment you closed your door you hoped wholeheartedly you could see him in a few days, unscathed and exactly as you left him.

“Yo, dumbass! Move so I can get off the damn bus.” “Ah Bakugou...always one to ruin the peaceful atmosphere.” You mumble as you grabbed your stuff and got off the bus.

-------------------------------------------------- 

“No more...” you mumble to yourself after the 8 hour trail down the mountain accompanied by some sort of clay beasts. While no one was paying attention, you quickly shot a text to Tomura with your current location. Your mentors for the duration of the camp, the Pussycats, praise you for the job well done and tell everyone to go to the dining hall for dinner and afterwards, take a bath and relax. The bath was a close call thanks to a certain pervert trying to scale the wall but thanks to the Kota he fell flat in the bath with a most endearing cry of pain, making the sadistic side of you giggle.

The next day was all about quirk training. Aizawa explained that everyone has grown emotionally but now was the time to focus on physical growth. Everyone got set up with personalized training, such as Bakugou dunking his hands in boiling water or Sero producing tape nonstop. You got set up with your own training regime and solely focused on that till about 4 PM - with the exception of a few breaks where you decided to snoop around a bit and ask one of the Pussycats if there were going to be more teachers here later on and the next days activities.

After the excruciating training, everyone was given the task of making dinner for the night, that being curry.

You smiled to yourself as you reminisced on the last time you made curry.

-------------------------------------------------- 

You made your way home, exhausted and sore from the sparing session you just had with Dabi. He was merciless but you couldn’t deny the immeasurable help he provided, pushing himself and you past your limits after such a tiring day.

You opened the door to your apartment and set what little ingredients you got on the way back. “So Dabi, what do you want to eat?” You asked, expecting him to ramble on and on about some complicated meals, forcing you to make a whole feast.

“Curry.” The one word response had you looking at him with an eyebrow raised. “That’s it? Just curry?” “Yeah, got a problem with it or something?” He questioned, sitting on the couch with you following shortly. “No, not at all. I was just expecting something...more?” “You want me to name more? Ok, let’s start with-...”

“No, no. Too late now, I’m gonna go make the best damn curry you’ve ever had in your life.” You jump up before he can get a word in and head straight for the kitchen.

He looked at the direction you ran off to, a small smile making it’s way on his face as he thought of the enthusiasm you displayed just to cook some food. He’d never tell you, but the only reason he asked for just curry is because it was easier to make, filling and took less time. He knew you were exhausted, mentally (from the meeting with HandMan) and physically (from your intense training session), so he wanted to lessen the burden. This is when he truly began to care for someone again, to care for their well-being. The thought putting an even bigger smile on his face.

--------------------------------------------------

Somewhere in the distance, on a cliff overlooking the whole forest lay 4 villains. 2 who you were very familiar with, that being Dabi and Toga. The last 2 you’ve never met before (thanks to your decrease in bar visits). One stood tall with a mask covering his face and a cloak covering his whole body from head to toe while the other had some sort of gasmask. 

“Throbbing, it’s throbbing. Let’s hurry up already” The one with a mask covering his face said, antsy to start a fight. “Need I remind you Muscular of the one person you can’t fight?” Dabi asked, turning with a glare towards the said villain. 

“Some (hair color and length) haired bitch with (eye color) eyes, riiight? What does it matter if I fight her? If I just passed her wouldn’t it seem suspicious? How about I break a few bones for good measure?” He taunted with a shit eating grin adorning his face. “Do that and I burn you till there's nothing left, not even ashes...” Dabi answered with full confidence, knowing he could easily cremate him - even with his quirk. 

He scoffed, side-eyeing him. “What’s even the deal with her? Is she your personal slut or something? If she’s here, that means she’s a hero or student right? And I came here to fuck up every hero, present or future.” 

Dabi, just about having enough of his ‘colorful’ language towards you turns but gets cut of by Toga. “Oh don’t be silly, how do you think we know the location of the camp? She’s the traitor amongst them.” 

“Exactly, so we are currently here waiting for her to send a message about tomorrows activities and the attack plan.” Dabi monotonously to everyone he was already forming a plan to keep him as far away from you as possible.

--------------------------------------------------

A new morning dawns and a new day of quirk training begins. Everyone resumed their training like normal except you who was more than visibly nervous thanks to the attack happening this evening at the test of courage. 

By some miracle, you were able to locate a schedule left behind by one of the Pussycats detailing how after dinner there was going to be a test where Class B will try to scare Class A to prove their courage and creatively use their quirks. It seemed like the perfect opportunity given that Bakugou will be with one person in the middle of the woods without any teachers nearby.

When the time came you were paired up with Midoriya to be the last pair to enter the woods.

‘Perfect’ There was no better scenario, you will be able to go to the cabin in no time once the students will be inevitably forbidden to fight unless there was a need for it.

The fifth team, Uraraka and Tsuyu, have just left into the forest leaving you, Midoriya, Ojiro, Mineta, Iida, Koji and the Pussycats.

You’ve sort of isolated yourself from the group because you couldn’t act like everything's fine while in reality you were practically shaking with nerves. The problem was, you weren’t afraid for your well being, you were terrified for Dabis. You knew he was a more than capable fighter since you have sparred with him on more than one occasion but that still did little to ease your nerves.

Just as you were about to question what’s taking them so long you felt a harsh scent of black smoke in the air.

‘Ah, only Dabi can create such a fire to the point of instantly calming my nerves with the warmth it spreads.’ you thought as your attention was brought back by Pixie-bob’s head being smashed into the ground thanks to Magne, and Spinners instantaneous voice breaking the silence.

Game on...

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As instructed by the Pussycats you, Iida, Mineta, Koji and Ojiro ran towards the camp where you would have no other part in this attack. Your nerves for Dabi were hidden by the fact everyone thought it was because of the villains. You no longer needed to hide the fact you were shaking, eyes wide as saucers and slowly tearing up as you ran full speed trying to get away from the situation behind you.

Just a little more

Just a little...

“SENSEI!” The boys yelled for Aizawa the moment they saw the villain he pinned down...the same villain you hopped was far, far away from here...

“D-dabi...” You muttered, way behind anyone to hear as you stopped the moment the clearing came into view. ‘It can’t be...’ The thought of can and can’t leaving your mind the moment his head turned in your direction, making direct eye contact for just a second. In that second you clearly saw Dabis gorgeous teal eyes looking at you as if he didn’t expect you to be here.

You started heaving, chest rising up and down rapidly as you processed the scene in front of you. What was he doing here? You specifically warned him about Aizawa and that he couldn’t possibly fight him one on one. Dabi wasn’t the physical type, he relied on his quirk too much making him unable to fight someone like Aizawa for he would lose fast and hard.

You gulped feeling bile rise to your throat as you thought of your next move. No way...no way were you letting Dabi get caught. It would cost you your cover but you didn’t care. Taking a step closer, you decided to use the element of surprise to shock Aizawa with a simple attack, enough to distract him so you and Dabi could escape.

Before that could happen, Dabi used Aizawas shock at your arrival to get out of his hold and stand up. “This is as much damage as I can take, huh?” What did he mean by...that?

“Hey hero...” The capturing weapon gets tighter around him until it goes right threw him, revealing that the Dabi Aizawa was fighting was nothing more than a clone. “Are your students important?” He asked whilst looking at him straight in the eyes and disappearing into nothing but some brown sludge on the ground.

You couldn’t believe it...you almost blew your cover for a fucking clone...

--------------------------------------------------

“Ah, dollface what took you so long?” Dabi asks as you enter the bar in full disguise - a hood covering your hair and a mask covering 3/4 of your face. It’s a pretty simple porcelain mask covering the top half of your face and half of your mouth with a complex pattern around the eyes. You even bought a voice-changer for this specific ‘guest’ of yours so he wouldn’t recognize you.

“Had some trouble after the mission” You answered, your voice (deeper/higher) than normal and a bit more mature-sounding. You walked up to Bakugou, chained to the chair like some sort of animal, examining for any injuries received during the attack. He lowly growled his disapproval for your proximity and told you to back off, which you complied to. Stepping to the farthest corner of the room away from everyone else you sat there while Tomura had a chat with him.

After a while it got extremely boring just hearing constant ‘join us’ and ‘no’-s. “What’s got you so moody doll? You haven’t even said hi.” Dabi whispered as he leaned on the wall close to you.

“Nothing Dabi, I’m just not in the mood to talk.” Was your only response as you got up and made your way to the back of the bar. “Say, Bakugou-kun. Do you want anything to eat? Drink? You haven’t had anything in a while now, and the situation surely can’t be helping that”

“I don’t want anything your shitty ass makes, it would probably taste like crap anyways.” As if on cue, his stomack faintly growls signaling his obvious hunger. You rolled your eyes taking the simple sandwich you made to stand in front of him.

“Look Bakugou-kun. You can either eat this sandwich you watched me make so you could be assured I didn’t spike it, or you can sit there hungry until you starve. Your choice.” “And how am I supposed to eat with my hand completely restrained dumbass?”

“Aaw, does the baby want me to feed him then?” “FUCK NO YOU CUNT!” You giggled to yourself, amused at how Bakugou could be in this situation yet be so feisty at the same time.

During the whole conversation Dabi looked at you and him spitefully. So you didn’t want to talk to him yet you can joke with the brat like it’s second nature? He fumed on the inside yet kept quite as Shigaraki had something to say.

“That’s enough out of you (villain name). Leave it at the table and sit down.” You huffed yet complied as you sat in your previous position near Dabi. “So what was that about?” He tried to ask, emotionless as ever. “What was what about?” You ask, avoiding his burning gaze at the side of your face.

“That? You refuse to speak to me and immediately after hang around the brat as if he were your boyfriend. Mind telling me what I did so wrong for this sort of treatment?” It was subtle, but you could detect a hint of annoyance in his voice. This made you angrier and more annoyed than you previously were. What right did he have to be upset with you?

“Oh, I don’t know Dabi.” You sarcastically said as his name dripped like poison from your lips. “Maybe it was the fact you didn’t bother to tell me you had Twice make clones to distract Eraser. Or the fact I almost blew my cover trying to rescue a goddamn clone!” You whisper shouted, making sure no one but him caught the last part.

Meanwhile Tomura was giving Bakugou some speech about how corrupt hero society really is. You didn’t really pay attention thanks to the anger slowly boiling in your veins towards the man in front of you.

“Is that all? Really? You’re an idiot if you planned to do something as stupid as try to help ‘me’ escape, even if that wasn’t a clone.” His jealousy and anger ranting before the logical side of his brain could speak as he glared at you with anger, confusion and a hint of sadness. “I didn’t know you were going to retreat back to the camp. For all I knew, you were around the explosive kid over there. Was that why you were so apposed to this mission, you didn’t want us kidnapping your little boyfriend and him finding out the truth?”

Taken aback you do nothing but look at him as Tomura says to let Bakugou go (his order not reaching your ears because of your own conversation). He ignored him and simply told Twice to do it as he was still expecting an answer from you.

“I can’t believe it...you know full well why I rejected this plan and it was NOT for something so - so implausible.” You shake your head as your voice cracks at the end of the sentence.

“And what do you mean that’s all? I was scared for you, I actually believed you went to fight Eraser on your own. I wanted to help you because I care for you, I couldn’t possibly see you behind bars knowing I could’ve prevented it!”

“I never asked for you to care for me!” He didn’t even let you finish your little rant, slowly loosing what little patience he had, his calm-ish charade cracking. “There is no reason why you would waste your time with that and risk all the time you put into...infiltrating them.” He whispered the last part as he noticed several eyes drawn to the conversation.

“No...reason?” You looked at him in disbelief “Of course there’s a reason! I could never NOT care for you” Your voice, along with you agitation, slowly went higher as the sentence continued. “WHY? Why would you care enough to risk everything?!” He followed your lead, voice getting louder.

“BECAUSE I THINK I’M IN LOVE WITH YOU, YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE!”

...

You could literally hear a pin drop at the end of your outburst. Everyone looked at you two. Even Shigaraki, who was now in front of an unrestrained Bakugou - who took advantage of the moment and set off an explosion right in his face, causing ‘father’ to be knocked off.

Everyone looked mortified, you most of all for both your outburst and the new development in Bakugous case, knowing that he was most likely going to get killed now.

“My bad for ruining the moment but I’ve listened to his endless talking long enough. Idiots can’t get to the point so they’re always talking for a long time. Basically you mean ‘We wanna harass people, so please join us,’ right?”

Oh he was soo fucked.

But what surprised you the most was the fact Shigaraki didn’t attack. No, he even ordered to not even touch him. Was this really Shigaraki? In any other situation he would instantly decay any person that dares touch ‘father’ let alone knock him off his face. He just calmly picked up ‘father’, placed it on his face and continued to talk. Has he...matured?

You though in complete disbelief, forgetting your outburst from a minute ago. But the person beside you refused to look away from your side profile, even to see Shigarakis next actions.

‘In love’ being the only phrase in his mind.

While there was a stare down happening between Shigaraki and Bakugou, a knock sounded from the door.

“Hello, this is Pizza-La, Camino store.”

You raised an eyebrow in suspicion as you looked around the room. “The fuck? Who ordered piz-...”

You weren’t even able to finish you question when a loud and obnoxious “SMAAASH!” was heard throughout the bar as, low and behold, All Might comes crashing threw the wall, throwing debris in every which direction making it impossible to see for a few seconds due to the dust that came along with it.

Those few seconds proved incredibly important as you weren’t able to see a piece of brick flying straight for your face, cracking your mask almost down the middle, barely keeping itself up at that point. The breeze that accompanied almost threw your hood down but thankfully Dabi was there to secure it into place. You looked at him, being reminded of your earlier mistake but quickly focused on the battle as Kamui Woods came next and captured everyone.

As Dabi was focusing on setting the trees on fire he didn’t notice Gran Torino who instantly knocked him out with a single kick. You screamed out his name, your voice-changer not functioning as your scream cracked in the middle, revealing your real voice for a second.

When Kurohiri tried to summon the Nomu waiting in the secret location, he was unable to teleport them as they seemed to be missing from their usual spot. Next he tried to teleport everyone out but was promptly knocked out by Edgeshot who seemed prepared for his next move.

‘No’...You were surrounded, unable to lift a finger and your mask slowly cracking and sliding down your face. ‘What now..think Y/N, think...’

“Didn’t I tell you earlier that it’d be in your best interest to stay put?” Gran Torino said as he began calling out every villain in the bar.

...Kenji Hikiiski

...Atsuhiro Sako

...Shuicki Iguchi

...Himiko Toga

...Jin Bubaigawara

You waited with bated breath...waited for your own name to be called out, maybe even Dabis but that’s where the list ended. ‘That’s it? That means they don’t know who I am just yet.’ The ray of hope diminishing the moment you realized the condition of your mask, as soon as it falls off every single person in the room will know your identity. Your heartbeat began to pick up it’s pace, panic setting in.

You looked around the room, trying to think of something...anything! that could possibly help in this situation. Your focus breaking the moment Tomura shouted ‘I hate you’ towards the no.1 hero.

Grayish-black liquid encompassed everyone in the bar, including yourself. ‘The Hell?! What is this?’ You thought panicking even more until Tomura mumbled on word.

‘Master?’ You questioned...MASTER, OF COURSE!

Relief set in at the thought of master saving you, looking over at Dabi you couldn’t help the serene close of your eyes the moment you saw him getting teleported as well. Thank God.

--------------------------------------------------

You fell to the ground with a thud as you looked at your surroundings. Everyone was here, including Bakugou, with master standing in the front speaking to Tomura. You quickly looked around spotting Dabi on the ground, laying still unconscious.

Quickly picking yourself of the ground you made your way to Dabi, picking his head up and laying it on your thighs so he could be somewhat comfortable, even if he wasn’t awake yet. However, you felt your mask cracking completely and falling to the ground. You quickly set your gaze downwards before Bakugou could get a look at your face, thankfully he seemed to be preoccupation with starring at master, a quite intimidating man who, by the looks of it, defeated 3 pro’s by himself, including the no.4 hero Best Jeanist.

Discreetly, you tugged on Mr. Compresses pant leg. “Atsuhiro, I know this isn’t the best time to ask, but could you give me your mask?” You ask whilst taking a peak at him to show him your mask completely broke.

“Of course, Y/N. Here.” He whispered back, handing you his mask. You mumbled your thanks as you looked at master who was having his own monologue.

“You’re here, after all, aren’t you?” ‘Oh for fucks sake, it isn’t over yet?’

Like an instant headache, All Might comes swooping in from the sky, attacking master instantly. Toga comes to you, protecting you since you couldn’t use your quirk with All Might and Bakugou here...plus the few uninvited guests behind a wall of debris. This just got a whole lot more interesting.

You let Atsuhiro use his quirk on Dabi whilst you took the pearl, securing it in your small weapons carrier you had for these types of situations. As instructed, everyone began attacking Bakugou hopping to recapture him.

While you were in the air thanks to some attack strategies you planned out with the rest a while back, you noticed Midoriya, Kirishima, Iida and Todoroki getting ready to execute some sort of plan to get to Bakugou. You landed just in time to see them propell themselves using Midoriyas quirk and then using Iidas boosters on Todorokis ice to fly high and fast. Kirishima yelled for Bakugou to come to them - which he did.

Ah, a truly brilliant strategy to save Bakugou whilst not engaging in head to head battle. You noticed Todoroki and Yaoyorozu making a quick escape but only smirked as you watched them leave. A sort of apology from you to them.

Since there was no longer a reason to stay, master urged us to leave, forcing Magnes unconscious body to propel every male towards you and Himiko, who were conveniently placed in front of the portal he forced Kurogiri to make a few minutes prior.

‘Well, this is gonna hurt’ You thought as 3 guys came crashing into you full force.

--------------------------------------------------

Dabi suddenly awoke with a searing headache, he couldn’t focus on his surroundings let alone remember what happened the moment prior to him pacing out.

“Good morning, here are some painmeds if the headache gets worse and the water is next to the bed on the table. I’ll be coming back every hour to check up on you, so don’t worry, get some rest and sleep it off.” You quickly mumbled as you noticed Dabi was finally awake after a few hours of taking care of him and non-stop worrying. Before he could make sense of the situation, you quickly left the room to go God knows where.

As he was left alone for a few seconds he finally remembered what happened a few hours prior, the old geezer of a hero knocked him out when he was about to burn the restraints off everyone. He looked around the room, noticing he was in a unfamiliar surrounding. A black blanket covering his form, a small work desk not even 2 meters away from him and a wardrobe on the opposite end of the room.

After analyzing his surrounding he remembered your brief words to him before your departure, everything slowly falling into place. He got injured so you took him to your apartment and cared for him until he awoke.

He also remembered your last conversation, or rather confession. He knew he needed to go to you and make sense of the whole situation but he was unable to get off the bed as he felt something restraining his left arm.

Handcuffs - kinky, but currently not appreciated.

--------------------------------------------------

For the past 2 hours you’ve been in the kitchen making all sorts of dishes just to pass the time and make up excuses not to go to your room. It’s been fun while it lasted but you couldn’t avoid this any more, what ere you going to do? Starve him to avoid him?

You made your way to the room, a millimeter away from the doorknob, second-guessing this whole thing. You turned around to leave and buy yourself another hour but a voice was heard on the other side of the door.

“You know, it’s quite rude to say you’ll be back in an hour and then leave for 2.”

‘Fuck’ was your sole thought as you entered the room, completely unaware of his expression as you looked to the foot of the bed, avoiding his gaze as much as possible.

“Sorry...the food took a bit more time to prepare than I thought” You mumbled as you made your way to the table near his bed, placing everything neatly and getting ready to leave.

As you turned around he grabbed you with his left arm, stopping you in your tracks. “You know we need to talk dollface.” He said as he pulled you a little closer to the bed.

“What’s there to talk about Dabi? I made a fool of myself in front of the whole League and practically yelled something neither of us was ready to hear... - wait” You exclaimed as soon as you noticed something was off. “Didn’t I cuff your left hand to the bed-?”

As soon as the thought left you he yanked you completely onto the bed, trapping you between himself and the mattress. Comfortably straddling your legs and cuffing both of your arms, in record time, to the bed frame so you couldn't struggle.

“ThE Hell are you DOing?” Your voice comes out as a shriek due to the immense surprise you felt in that predicament.

“Dabi, gEt off! You’re heavy and this is NOT the time to tease me” Tears formed in your eyes and your cheeks felt as if they were on fire, your struggling coming to an end once you realized he wasn’t budging. You gazed at his face, biting your tongue in anticipation for his next move.

He moved even closer if that was possible, looking at you straight in the eyes as your breath caught in your throat.

“What do you mean ‘you think’ you’re in love with me?”

Being caught off guard by the unexpected question, you just dumbly hummed a quiet ‘huh?’

“You said it earlier loud and clear, ‘I think I’m in love with you’, are you not sure Y/N?” The moment he used your real name instead of doll or dollface, you knew he was completely serious, no hint of sarcasm or malice laced in his voice as he kept on starring at your wide eyes.

His eyes encouraged you, silently begging for an answer as you moved your gaze away from him - a distraught look on your face.

“I...don’t know...” He slowly backed off, ready to get off you at your short response. “I get it...” But you continued before he could uncuff you and leave.

“I don’t know what it’s like to love someone! I- I have never had parental love, no friends and I certainly don’t know what it’s like to have romantic feelings since no one ever knew me and fully accepted me for me!” You quickly responded with your eyes closed, fearing his expression.

“Every time someone tried to talk to me I immediately thought ‘What if they find out I’m a villain, what if they don’t listen to my reasoning and stab me in the back the moment I turn around?’ I’m afraid of people abandoning me as soon as it gets dangerous! I can’t go threw that, not again!“ You quietly sob as one of your eyes opened, unable to see Dabi clearly threw the tears.

“But not you, you protected me and cared for me. I don’t want you to leave, I don’t want you to hate me. I love it when you break into my apartment, I love it when you eat with me, I love it when you train with me, I love it when you accidentally fall asleep on me, I love your perverted comments and even your complaints,

I love YOU Dabi!”

You finished, finally looking at him straight in the eyes to make your point clear.

“That’s stupid” was his only response as he leaned backwards, sitting upright with a look you couldn’t describe. Baffled, you were unable to respond, feeling empty. You wish you could cry but you stared at him unblinkingly, asking why he thought it was ‘stupid’.

“You say I know everything important in your life, your past, your present. And you’re right. I care for you deeply, more than I’d like to admit, I want for you to succeed, I want you to be happy because of all I know about you. But that doesn’t go both ways.” You could only stare at him as he continued his monologue.

“ I have a lot more baggage than you’re ready for, doll. You claim to love me when you know nothing about me, not even my name.”

“So let me get to know you.” Was your simple answer. “You’re right, I don’t know your past but I do know you now. You’re a firm believer in Stains ideology, you prefer spicy over sweet and you snore when you sleep.” You giggle at the end, remembering the first time you were there when he slept.

“I know there’s a lot I don’t know about you, but I’m willing to put in the effort to try. I want to get to know you Dabi and I want to help carry that baggage you so desperately need help with, that is, if you’re willing to give me a chance?”

“I was hoping you’d say something so cheesy.”  Without missing a beat, his lips smashed ageings yours with fervor and a clear goal in mind to show you just how much he cares.

The different texture creating an almost intoxicating feeling, but of course, a simple peck was no good in his book. He tugged at your bottom lip as you complied almost instantly. His tongue invaded your mouth, creating incredible friction with his tongue piercing you didn’t know he had.

The longer the kiss lasted the faster his hands started roaming your body, every dip and every curve being explored with his abnormally warm hands. You wanted nothing more than to return the favor but unfortunately your hands were tied to the bed and no matter how much you struggled you couldn’t get free.

“D-Dabi...” You said in between impossibly short breaks he took for air. “Uncuff me, hah, I want- I want to touch you too.” You pleaded with a fog in your eyes, not being able to focus on anything other than the man in front of you - who situated himself between your legs during your little request.

“Not a chance doll, do you know what you did to me every time you teased me, even as a joke? Well now it’s payback time.” He finished whilst simultaneously sliding your shirt up to your hands, revealing your chest clad in nothing but a deep purple bra.

He went straight for your neck with a goal to leave the biggest and darkest mark humanly possible. He bit down, sucked and licked every surface your neck had to offer, leaving a few dark bruises in his wake. He bit down particularly hard on a spot just bellow your collarbone, breaking your silence as you let out a barely audible gasp and mewl.

He thrived on the thought that you didn’t mind some pain with your pleasure, smirking sadistically as you tried to ignore the hard-on that was pressing against your thigh. But the more you wiggled and squirmed the more prominent the bulge got, pressing higher and higher.

His hands move stealthily, agonizingly slowly against your chest and over to the back where he proceeded to remove it by burning the straps off. His knuckles barely brush against your now bare nipples as he eased his way down, truly a tease. He took a moment to look at your eyes, piercing blue staring at crystal (eye color). His eyes displayed nothing but dominance and a need for pure, white hot pleasure, you’d shiver if it wasn’t for the overbearing heat coming from his body and actions.

He smiles lazily, his hands withdrawing completely and to your sides where he leans a bit over you to look at you straight in the eyes.

“Tell me princess, what do you want next?” He husks right into your ear as you put no thought in your answer. “Anything, I don’t care what you do just as long as you make me come.”

“That’s not very specific doll, use your words and pick one - tongue or fingers” He situated himself back between your legs, taking off your shorts and (not so subtly) stares at your matching lingerie, taking in the dark spot with an ever growing smirk. “How about both?”

“Now that’s an answer I like.” His palms slowly drag up your calves as he places kisses along your thighs, getting closer and closer to the spot you wanted, needed the most. His fingers inch up higher and higher, under your lingerie, kneading the flesh of your ass. His tongue trails along your lower lips, getting only a taste of what’s to come.

You roll your hips to meet the sway of his tongue, feeling his fingers slide between the straps of your underwear, dragging it down in one quick movement. “Dabi...” You try to distract him from his starring as he lowers his head, immediately lapping up the slick that accumulated during his previous ministrations. You moan his name again, albeit louder than you previously thought you could.

He pokes his tongue against your entrance, slowly entering you with the mission to taste as much as his tongue would allow him. You’re moans increasing in volume once his tongue left your entrance and decided to tease your swollen bundle of nerves just above it.

What you weren’t prepared for was a singe digit making it’s way to your entrance, going in knuckle deep on the first go. “Fuck” You half moaned, half whined. You weren’t used to such an intrusion, his fingers being much larger and much longer than your own. You couldn’t deny the pleasure that started accumulating the more he moved his finger at an unforgiving pace and lapped up your clit as if it was the last time he could.

As time passed he added more fingers until he finally got to 3. By that time, the coil slowly building up was ready to burst and make for an unimaginable orgasm. You were moaning his name as if it was the only word you knew which, for the moment, wasn’t incorrect.

The moment he felt your walls constricting he quickly got up, leaving you empty and needy. He was even cruel enough to hold your legs apart so you wouldn’t even be able to rub your thighs together, he only watched as your walls tightened around nothing.

“Dabi, you jackass!” was your only reply, along with whines of protest as he got up and undressed himself completely - making a little show of his last piece of garment. Your whines and complaints instantly getting caught in your throat as you looked at the picture-perfect image in front of you. His scars perfectly contrasting his healthy skin. Your eyes wondering lower and lower until you got to the godly sight of his fully erect and weeping with precum cock. Drool practically pooling at the back of your throat as you looked at the image before you. His cock wasn’t really anything special when it came to length, but the part that got you wide eyed was the sheer girth of it and the Jacob’s ladder running from the base to the tip accompanied with a prince albert piercing at the very tip of his manhood.

“Aren’t you glad you waited Y/N? Would you have rather came around my fingers or around my cock?” He teased, fully aware of your sole concentration on his girth. “Say, I’m getting a little dizzy doll, how ‘bout you take the lead?” You  fervently nodded your head, eager to have him fully sheathed inside you, not carrying about the position as long as you could get off. “Good girl” was his only response as he took the handcuffs off you.

Without missing a beat you grabbed him by the shoulders, flipping your positions and setting his back against the headboard so you could comfortably straddle his lap. He tried to tease you about your neediness but ultimately failed as you ground your hips against him, making you both sigh in a short lived relief. It felt like an explosion behind your eyes, getting all the confidence you needed just from his faint growls.

His chest is pressed against yours, nipples rubbing on rough skin creating friction almost too much to bare. Fuck, you really needed more.Your heart pounds against your ribcage, creating an almost painful sensation as you start another lewd kiss, teeth clashing and tongues meeting in the middle.

His hand lands on your hip, the other teasing your folds apart as you get ready for the main event. The tip presses against your entrance, piercing creating an indescribable feeling as you slowly descent. You can feel yourself heavily breathing, pussy throbbing at the stretch of his girth.

Obviously he had a hard time keeping still as he almost breaks the skin of his lips. ‘No more waiting’ was your single though as you began a faster pace, bouncing on his cock, feeling stretched beyond belief. At the first sign of your pleasure, he began slamming upwards, matching the descent of your hips. You were sure the vice like grip he had on your hips would leave pretty noticeable marks but that was currently the last of your problems.

The feeling of his piercings rubbing against your velvety walls accompanied by the undeniable pleasure you felt as he hit the deepest spots inside of you was enough to make you moan akin to a pornstar. The look on your face, the sounds you made and the feeling of your iron tight grip had him slamming you faster, harder.

“FucK, Dabi! I-I want to come! So, sO badly” you’re moaning, mumbling words of praise to the man beneath you. He doesn’t react much except for quite, deep groans. But you didn’t mind at all, attaching your lips once more for a short kiss as you continued moaning his name like a broken record.

Your mouth doesn’t stop trembling as you scream out a final ‘Dabi’, collapsing into his chest as he continues chasing his own high. He pulls out, finishing in his hand and a little bit of it ending on your lower back, neither of you minding as he quickly cleans it and lays on his side with you comfortably in his arms, facing away from him.

“I love you Dabi, I truly do.” were your final words as you closed your eyes. What you didn’t expect was for him to continue.

“Touya...call me Touya”

You were confused for a second until you realized ‘Ah, that must be his real name.’ You wished to continue the conversation, but the exhaustion finally hit you all at once so you were only able to mumble a quite ‘Allright, I love you Touya...’

He wasn’t sure if you heard him when he said ‘I love you too Y/N’ but that didn’t matter now. He could say it all he wants from now on.

[journalofimprobablethings]

a recipe for home

Author: journalofimprobablethings

Fandom: The Adventure Zone: Balance

Summary: 

Taako tries to cook for the first time since Glamour Springs. When things go awry, Lucretia is there to lend a hand.

Full fic under the cut, but this you can also find me on AO3!

Preview:

Living in the headquarters of the Bureau of Balance makes Taako nervous.

It’s not just the giant brainwashing jellyfish, or the weapons of mass destruction they're hunting, or the fact that it’s a literal moon base floating in the sky--that’s all weird, sure, but he’s Taako. He can deal with weird.

It’s the sense of deja vu he gets just walking around the place, the feeling that he’s been somewhere like this before. It’s the fact that so many things about it feel so damn familiar. The details of the place that feel right in a way he can’t explain. 

The deja vu is constant and sometimes overwhelming. He knows he's never lived anywhere like this--he’s pretty sure he would remember living in the sky--but he still can’t shake the feeling. If he tries to think about it too hard, his head buzzes like the beginning of a hangover and the thin needle of a headache starts to pierce his skull. So he doesn’t look at the feeling straight on. But he worries the edges of it sometimes, as he’s lying in his bunk listening to Magnus and Merle’s snores. 

He’s never had a place like this, never been part of a team like this. He’s always been alone. So why does this place--why do these people, Magnus and Merle and the Director and even, weirdly, Davenport--why do they feel so much like home?

-

The kitchen in the residential wing is the worst--or the best, depending on how you look at it. It’s small, just a tiny galley kitchen for the Bureau members to use if they don’t feel like going to the mess hall, and everything about it feels right. He’s never felt so immediately comfortable in a new kitchen before. He finds himself reaching for a spoon or a pan without thinking, and there it is, exactly where he expected. It’s as if somehow his body already has muscle memory for this place he’s never been. It’s the strangest thing.

Maybe that’s what makes him decide to actually try cooking again.

He hasn’t made anything more complicated than a peanut butter sandwich since Glamour Springs. Every time he thinks about trying, about cutting and assembling ingredients, about transmuting anything, his hands begin to shake, and the echo of forty people choking and gasping for breath sounds through his head. Before he came here, he’d barely set foot in a kitchen in six years.

But for some reason, this damn kitchen calms his fears, at least enough to pull out a pot and prepare himself a packet of instant ramen. Even he, he reasons, can’t mess up noodles and a flavor packet. He only ever cooks for himself, though, never for the others. He plays it off as selfishness-- get your own food, homie, I gave Garfield good elf hair for this shit --and hopes that Merle just thinks he’s an asshole for knocking the spoon out of his hand when he tries to steal a bite. Even he can’t mess up noodles and a flavor packet--but he had thought garlic chicken was a simple enough recipe, too.

--

Now, he’s standing at the stove, testing the waters in his mind. It’s late, Merle and Magnus long asleep, but after hours of lying in his bunk staring at the ceiling and trying not to think about all the questions this place raises in him, he’d given up on sleeping himself and made his way down to the kitchen. If he’s going to try, the middle of the night is a good time: no one around to disturb him, or ask for a taste.

Taako pulls a pot from the cabinet to the right of the stove, just where he thought it would be, and sets it on the burner. His heart is pounding in his ears, but his hands are steady, the ghosts of Glamour Springs so far silent.

Rice, he thinks. Rice is simple, easy. He’ll start with rice.

After a quick survey of the food stores he's found bacon in the fridge, pigeon peas and capers in the pantry, a container of cubes in the freezer labeled “sofrito” -- who in the Bureau cooks enough to make and freeze sofrito? he thinks. But he’s not complaining, because now he knows what he’s making: arroz con gandules, Tía Elsa’s recipe, a recipe engrained in his bones. There are enough spices in the cabinet to approximate sazón--no banana leaves to cover the pot, but Titi Elsa only did that half the time anyway, maybe if we had a banana tree in the front yard, mijo, but I’m not making a special trip just for leaves. Foil’s fine.

He assembles the ingredients on the tiny square of counter next to the stove, pulls out a cutting board and a knife. Takes a deep breath. 

And begins.

He heats the pot, cuts the bacon into thick dice and adds it in. The motions are easy, practiced, the tension in his shoulders relaxing as he falls into the familiar recipe. While the bacon crisps he turns his attention to the army of spice bottles he’s pulled from the rack. He starts mixing them in a small bowl, measuring them by eye in his hand. Garlic powder, onion powder, cumin, coriander. He’s missing annatto seeds, but there’s paprika, easy enough to transmute one to the other--

He stops, staring into the bowl, his hand smudged with red powder.

He did the magic without thinking, a simple shift in flavors, but now he’s staring at the bowl and the smudge on his hand and he’s thinking of elderberry and nightshade and the sound of a town choking to death on his mistakes--

“Taako?”

The voice is distant, he can barely hear it over the ghosts crowding his head.

“Taako, are you alright?”

A hand touches his shoulder, tentatively, and he flinches away from the touch but it pulls him into the present enough for him to open his eyes and see who's talking to him.

The Director is standing in front of him, a blue shawl wrapped around her shoulders and concern in her eyes.

Of all the people to find him like this, it had to be her.

“Peachy keen, jelly bean,” he says, trying for nonchalance, but he can’t stop his voice from shaking. “No worries here, Taako’s good--”

He reaches out to steady himself on the counter, but he misses and catches the edge of the spice bowl, tipping it over the edge. It shatters at their feet, spilling its contents across the floor in an aromatic slash of orange and red and brown.

"Shit," Taako says. "Fucking shit."

He reaches down to clear up the mess, and the world tilts and he almost falls over. Then the Director’s hands are on his shoulders, no longer tentative, catching him before he can fall. She steers him to the table at one end of the narrow kitchen, and guides him, gently but firmly, into a chair.

“Sit.” 

He does, and the world tilts again.

“Breathe,” the Director says, and yes, that’s why the world is tilting, because he’s not breathing, but how does he do that? He leans forward and puts his head between his knees, and manages to suck in a shaky breath.

“That’s it,” she says, “Just breathe.” She’s somewhere nearby but now that he’s seated she’s no longer touching him. He can hear her breathing, though, slow and even, and he tries to focus on that, to match his breath to hers.

It takes a few minutes to even out his breathing, and another few to silence the ghosts whispering in his ears. But finally he lifts his head and looks up at the Director. She’s crouched next to him, a small furrow of concern between her brows, and Taako has the strange urge to reach up and smooth the furrow away. He clenches his hands into fists.

He should probably say thank you, but he's angry with himself and embarrassed that she's seen him this way and so what comes out instead is,

“What are you doing down here?”

It’s a rude question for an employee to ask their boss, but she doesn’t seem to mind. 

“I was working late and came down to make some tea." She studies him. “You were cooking.” She says it so carefully, and not for the first time, Taako wonders just how much the Director knows about their pasts.

He’s afraid she’ll ask what set him off, ask if he wants to talk about it , and he doesn’t think he could handle that. He’s had enough of being vulnerable in front of her for the moment. So he straightens in his chair, pulls his nonchalance back over himself like armor.

“Yeah, you know, sometimes you just need something better than the crap we get in the dining hall.”

He waits for his words to provoke her, for her to stand and say something kind but brusque and leave. But she doesn’t. Instead she just sighs and looks back at the kitchen, surveys the ingredients on the counter, the spilled bowl of spices on the floor. "Gandules?" she asks, and Taako raises his eyebrows in surprise.

"Yeah."

She hesitates, and then says the most remarkable thing.

“Would you like some help?” 

He stares at her. Of all the things he might have expected her to say, that wasn’t on the list. She sounds different, somehow--less distant, less lofty. She sounds younger. 

“Listen, not that I don’t appreciate the offer, but don’t you have important Director-y things to do? Or you know, sleep to catch?”

She smiles thinly. “Sleep is a lost cause tonight, I think,” she says. “And even administrators have to eat sometimes.”

Maybe it's because of that change in her voice, or the fact that she didn’t try to make him talk about the spell he just had. Maybe it's because, against all odds, the Director's presence in this kitchen is strangely comforting. Whatever the reason, he doesn't push away her help the way he normally would. Instead he just shrugs and waves a hand.

"Sure. Knock yourself out."

The Director smiles, drapes her shawl over a chair out of the way, and gets to work. She clears up the spilled spices and shards of bowl, removes the now overly-crisped bacon from the pot, drops in cubes of sofrito to melt and fry in the drippings, and soon the kitchen is full of the mouthwatering smell of cooking onion and pepper and cilantro. It smells like Titi Elsa and home, and the band of anxiety around Taako’s chest begins to loosen.  

Taako watches the Director as she measures out the rice and adds it to the pot to toast, then mixes the spices in a new bowl, measuring them in her hand just as he had. She cooks slowly, like she’s having to remind herself of what comes next, but she goes through the steps of making the arroz exactly as he would.

Deja vu, he thinks.

“Where’d you learn to cook this?” he asks. “You spend some time in New Elfington or something?”

The Director doesn’t answer right away. Her hand pauses in its stirring, as though she’s considering what to say, and when she does answer her eyes are far away.

“My brother taught me,” she says quietly.

The answer surprises him. The Director is one of those people who is so private, so self-contained, that it’s hard to imagine her with a family, a life outside the Bureau. Taako tries to picture the Director younger, more carefree perhaps, standing side by side with her brother in the kitchen. But something about the image makes his head hurt, so he stops.

He wonders what her brother was like, and where he is now.

He thinks it must be nice, to have a sibling, someone to teach you to cook, to be at your side through good times and bad. Someone who would miss and mourn you if you were gone. The thought makes his chest ache with something like longing and something like grief.

So much of this place and these people make him feel this way, this confusing mix of longing and sorrow and comfort. He hates it, because he doesn't understand it, doesn’t know why it’s happening at all. These people mean nothing to him. He just met them. He doesn't care about them, he certainly doesn’t need them. He has never needed anyone.

This is what he tells himself, but as he leans back in his chair and watches the Director cook, he can't help but admit that it's the most at home he's felt in a long time.

---

Lucretia knows that this is a stupid risk.

She's supposed to be keeping her distance. She's supposed to be the Director: professional, dignified, distant . She's not supposed to let them catch her wandering to the kitchen late at night, and she's certainly not supposed to be in said kitchen cooking one of Taako's aunt's recipes for him--one of the ones that he absolutely forbade her to ever write down. (She'd watched him make it until she'd memorized the steps well enough to make it on her own. She's tried it a few times, since the redaction, and it has come out fine, but never as good as his.)

She's breaking all the rules she's set for herself, all the boundaries she's put up to keep her story in place, to keep them safe. She's putting everything at risk.

But when she came into the kitchen and saw Taako staring blankly at that bowl of spices, the smudge of paprika on his palm, helping him wasn’t even a question. She knows what happened at Glamour Springs, and she knows how hard cooking is for him now. She'd hoped the kitchen might help. It's modeled after the one on the Starblaster, laid out just the same, one of the places she couldn't bring herself to let go of.

And now it seems it's just made everything worse.

Maybe it's the guilt that makes her offer to finish the dish, so at least Taako can have a taste of home, even if it's not as good as his or his aunt's. Or maybe, she admits to herself, it's pure selfishness. Standing here in this kitchen with Taako, surrounded by the smells of his cooking, she can almost pretend that nothing has changed.

Until Taako speaks.

"Where'd you learn to cook this?" he asks, and her heart constricts in her chest.

She considers, and when she finally responds, it feels like the closest thing to truth she’s given him in weeks.

She remembers the first time she watched him make this dish, in that tiny galley kitchen on the Starblaster. They had lost Lup early that cycle, a venomous snakebite that acted too fast for Merle to be able to help. Taako retreated into himself the way he always did when Lup was gone, but when she offered to help out preparing the meals, he didn’t say no. He was prickly and short, and half the time he would take the knife out of her hand to finish chopping something himself if she was moving too slow. But he let her stay, and watch, and she soaked up everything he was doing as well as she could.

The last day of the cycle, she and Taako were in the kitchen early, and Taako made his aunt’s arroz con gandules, one of the dishes she had always made for Candlenights. He wouldn’t let Lucretia help at all. She stayed with him anyway, as the sky darkened with the coming Hunger and the light dimmed, and by the time Davenport flew them out of that plane and the threads of light pulled them apart, the pot sat covered and ready on the stove. Lup returned to a tackling hug from Taako, and a bowl of rice that tasted like home.

It was several cycles before he actually taught her how to make it, and several more before she cooked it on her own. Of all the things that he taught her to make, it was always one of her favorites, and she made it at the Bureau because it reminded her of that day, that feeling of reunion.

She only hopes they'll get there again, one day.

Gods, she misses him. She misses all of them. She hadn’t realized how peculiar a grief it was, to miss someone who is sitting right in front of you. To look in the eyes of someone who you’ve known for a century and see nothing but wariness and disinterest.

Every time she thinks she's become accustomed to it, something new appears; they do or say something that leaves her shattered.

Every time, it feels a little harder to put herself back together.

--

“Your rice is burning,” Taako says from the table.

Lucretia comes back to herself and realizes he’s right: the nutty smell of the toasting rice is now tinged with bitterness, and when she stirs there are dark flecks of the grains that have caught at the bottom of the pan.

She curses softly and grabs for the tomato sauce, which hisses and bubbles immediately as she adds it.

It’s been a long time since she let herself wander down those back paths of her memories. She’s avoided it for good reason: it hurts too much, and no good can come of it. For a moment, here, seduced by the familiarity, she allowed herself to drop her guard. 

And worse, she let Taako see.

The empty tomato sauce can clatters as she drops it too quickly onto the counter.

“You all right, there, Madam Director?”

She shouldn’t be here. It’s too dangerous, for him, for her, for the plan. She’s supposed to keep them at arm’s length so that they don’t ask questions, don’t try to follow her down those back paths to places their minds can’t go right now. She’d seen Taako wince when she’d mentioned her brother, because of course that would make him try to think of things that the voidfish has erased, and yet she'd continued on, losing herself in the comfort of the moment and ignoring the danger.

How could she have been so stupid?

She'll finish the dish, because she said she would. What comes next? Toast the rice, tomato sauce and then--what? She stares into the bubbling pot, trying to tamp down the panic clawing at her throat as it always does when she forgets something from the century. She knows this, it's--

"Here."

Taako's voice cuts into her thoughts. She blinks and he is standing next to her, holding the bowl of spices. She hadn't even noticed him get up.

He doesn't ask what's wrong, doesn't even tease her for forgetting what comes next. He just holds out the bowl to her. She takes it, and he doesn't comment on the fact that now it is her hands that are shaking.

"Thank you."

She pours the spices in, and by the time she's done he already has the next ingredient in hand.

They finish the rest of the recipe like that, together, Taako handing her each ingredient in turn. Then she adds just enough water to cover the rice up to her knuckle, and the heat is turned high to bring it to a boil. She and Taako tidy the kitchen without discussion while the water heats, and Lucretia wonders if Taako notices how easily they move around each other in this space, how familiar the dance of dishes and drying and putting away.

The water boils, and they reduce it to a simmer and cover the pot with foil, nesting the lid on top. And then it's done, nothing left to do but wait while the pot bubbles quietly away.

“I should go,” she says quietly. “It’s late.”

"I thought sleep was for the weak, or whatever," Taako says.

"There's always work to do," she replies. She picks up her shawl from the chair and surveys him. "Will you be alright?" 

He flashes a peace sign at her. "I think I know how to tell when rice is done. I'm golden."

"You know what I mean."

Their eyes meet, and for a moment there is a connection there, an understanding. It's not what they had before, of course, not even close. But it's not nothing, either.

"I'm good," he says.

She nods and turns to go, but his voice stops her before she gets to the door.

"Hey, Director?"

She turns. "Yes?"

He starts to say something, then stops, and his shoulders go up in a sort of helpless half-shrug. 

“Thanks.”

She smiles at that.

"You're welcome, Taako."

--

The next morning, Lucretia comes into her office to find a covered bowl sitting on her desk. Next to it is a note, and she recognizes the looping scrawl instantly.

Not bad, Madam D.

She smiles and uncovers the bowl. Even though it must have been hours since he placed it there, the rice is still steaming.

[windscattered]

Previously

Delano woke up to Fang carefully climbing off of him and onto the floor. He heard her patter off somewhere. Delano, still half-awake, just listened in case she started peeing somewhere in BG’s apartment.

Instead he heard a small gasp from where he assumed the kitchen was. “O-oh no,” a voice said quietly. “Where did you come from?” A pause. “N-no! Don’t come closer! Sh-shoo!”

Hadn’t BG said something about his brother…? Was that him?

With a quiet groan, Delano got up from the couch. Better go save him from the terrifying beast that was Fang.

“Fang, come here,” Delano said when he arrived at the kitchen. In the kitchen there was a young, thin man who was half-climbing onto the counter to get away from Fang, who was looking up at him, tail wagging with enough force to knock over a toddler.

The man had the same dark complexion and hair colour as BG. Definitely his brother. Although he was way skinnier than BG’s toned build. He also had way less facial hair than BG.

The young man was now staring at Delano, not looking any less panicked. If anything, his panic seemed to increase.

Fang, though, returned to Delano, tail still wagging.

“Sorry, I- uh. We…” Delano realized how it must look. A man built like a shit brick house with a busted-ass face appearing uninvited in his kitchen with a massive dog. No wonder the brother looked like he was being held at gunpoint. “Your brother. He, uh. Insisted we spend the night here. Me and my dog. Her name is Fang.”

The man was now slowly climbing down from the counter now that Fang was at least two meters away from him. His face brightened at the mention of his brother, though. “You know Orlando!”

Delano forced himself to not flinch. BG’s real name. He had tried to not learn it, but it was now slapped to his face. Shit. “Yeah.”

“I’m his brother Lorenzo,” the man continued.

Goddammit, now Delano also knew his brother’s name. He was getting too close. “Daniel,” Delano said. “Nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you too!” Lorenzo started going through the fridge as he continued talking. “How long have you known Orlando? How did you two meet?”

God damn, Delano just wanted to go back to sleep. “About two months, I think,” Delano said, sitting at the dining table.

Lorenzo brought some sandwich ingredients to the table, looking thoughtful. “Two months…” he repeated. “That’s… Ohh, are you the one who he’s been going out with?!” he asked, eyes huge.

Oh for fuck’s sake… “It’s complicated,” Delano muttered.

Lorenzo seemed to realize what he was asking. “Oh, sorry. That’s- that’s not any of my business. Sorry.” He chuckled a little as he made a sandwich. “Funny, though. That’s exactly what Orlando said too. Oh.” He paused from spreading butter on bread. “Do you want a sandwich too?”

Delano actually did. He hadn’t been hungry earlier when BG made him that omelette. “Yeah, thank you.”

Lorenzo pushed the bread and butter towards him as he proceeded to build his own sandwich. “Anyway, I thought it was funny that you both used the same exact words to describe the situation. What is it that makes it so complicated?”

Delano started to regret choosing to make a sandwich. “How much has he told you about me?” he asked instead.

Lorenzo frowned in thought. “Not much. I had to twist his arm a little to even find out your gender.”

Delano hummed. He didn’t want to be the one to burst his bubble. And expose his older brother for seeing a sex worker. “We’re… both very busy people,” Delano said noncommittally.

Lorenzo seemed to buy that lame excuse. His brow furrowed in sympathy. “I get it,” he said. “Orlando is so ridiculously busy… He spends all of his free time either running errands, doing housework or sleeping. I was so happy when he started going on dates.” He looked genuinely sad. “He’s spent so much time and energy making sure I am content that I fear he’s ignoring his own happiness.”

Hmm. Beej was one of those people, huh. Those people who were so desperate to be needed that they ignored themselves and their own needs. Selfless to a fault. How odd that he’s seeing Delano… Delano’s clientele usually were selfish people who only cared about themselves. Maybe BG was also one of those people who lowkey wanted to save Delano from the awful fate that was sex work.

Delano couldn’t put his finger on it, but something about it made an uncomfortable weight form in the pit of his stomach. Maybe he should stop seeing BG.

But before that, where’s the harm in having a sandwich with his younger brother at two in the morning? … Well, okay, him being so chatty was a little annoying, but Delano could deal with it. Luckily, Lorenzo seemed to be one of those people who were happy to chatter away by themselves with very little input from another person.

The two ate their respective sandwiches and Lorenzo then excused himself to go to bed. As Lorenzo retreated to the bathroom to brush his teeth, Delano gave Fang some more kibble and went back to the couch.

As Delano stared at the dark ceiling, waiting to fall asleep again, he idly wondered if he should “repay” this to BG somehow. Of course, Delano had no money, so he’d have to pay with his body. The problem was that BG seemed to be goody-two-shoes enough to turn that offer down. With a sigh, Delano decided to figure that out in the morning.

***

Later, Delano woke up to more sounds from the kitchen. That had to be BG making breakfast. Delano sighed, rubbing his face against the armrest of the couch. A part of him wanted to go back to sleep, but another part of him couldn’t sleep in a strange place anyway.

With a sigh, Delano got up from the couch and headed to the kitchen. He was greeted by BG cooking something at the stove and quietly chatting to Fang, who was standing by his feet and looking up at him with a gently wagging tail.

“The trick is to add the vegetables last,” BG was saying. “Otherwise they’d overcook and turn mushy and ruin the texture.”

“Are you teaching her to cook?” Delano asked with an amused smile, leaning on the doorframe.

BG turned around, looking slightly startled. “I-I, uh. I wanted her to feel included.”

“You do know that she only wants treats from you, right?”

“I did give her some broccoli and cauliflower as I cooked,” BG said, pulling out two clean plates. “With her kibble,” he added as he slid a half of a thick omelette on each plate. “I don’t want to teach her to beg while she’s here.”

Delano chuckled. “It might be too late for that.”

“Oh?” BG asked as he set the plates onto the dining table, along with two forks and knives. “How so?”

“She was really cute when she was a puppy,” Delano said as he sat down at the table. “I mean. She still is.”

BG chuckled as he poured coffee for them. “I understand.”

“Me and Fang used to eat the same food when I was younger and broke,” Delano mused as he grabbed a fork. “I mean more broke than I am now.”

BG’s smile was uncomfortable to say the least, as he brought the two cups of coffee to the table, along with sugar and some kind of plant-based milk. “At least you’re better off now, right?”

“Yeah,” Delano admitted, cutting a piece out of the omelette. “I don’t have to worry about rent, thanks to my jobs.”

BG sat down and poured some milk(?) into his coffee. “That’s good to hear.”

Delano hummed in agreement. “Speaking of work,” he said. “I have to pay you back for taking care of me.”

BG paused from mixing his coffee. “You don’t have to,” he said hastily. “Take it as payment for the first time we met.”

Delano squinted as he thought back. “The massage? You paid for that.”

“Yes, but-” BG fell silent, looking like he was desperately scrambling for an excuse. “I… I didn’t give you a gift for it.”

Delano chuckled. “What’s with you and the gifts? It’s not that important. As long as you pay me, I’m happy.”

BG smiled sheepishly. “It’s just… A thing I want to do.”

Delano had to admit that the gifts were endearing. They also set BG apart from his other clients. There were a few clients that paid Delano to pretend to be their boyfriend, so that was nothing new for him. But very few treated him like BG did. Very few talked to him about completely normal things like everyday life (although BG did avoid talking about his job), which in turn encouraged Delano to open up as well. Which he carefully avoided doing with clients, no matter how much they paid him and took on dates. There was also the way how BG had sex with Delano. Most of Delano’s clients jumped his bones, ripped his clothes off, shoved him into bed and fucked him fast and hard. But BG had an almost romantic approach to fucking Delano. No, you couldn’t even call it “fucking”. The way BG held Delano’s hands and gazed into his eyes while he slowly and gently made love to him. Not to mention how he caressed and stroked Delano, as if to make sure Delano also enjoyed it. There were a few times when BG sucked Delano off to make sure that Delano came also.

But now that Delano thought about it, in the light of Delano’s thoughts from last night, about BG’s perfectionist personality and possible saviour complex… It was starting to get uncomfortable. I mean yeah, Delano did take a few clients who liked to be rough with him and punch and choke him, but he didn’t need anyone to nag him about it. Fang did enough of that and she didn’t even speak.

But back to the present. Delano shrugged, letting the issue drop. He wasn’t that hard-pressed to not owe anyone. He’d pay back with some other kind of favour, then. If he ever got the chance to.

“I’ll get going once I’ve eaten,” Delano said.

Some kind of expression flickered on BG’s face, but it was gone as fast as it had appeared. “Okay. Do you want me to see you off? To make sure you make it home safely?”

Delano forced himself to smile. “You don’t have to. You’ve already gone out of your way for me.”

BG looked at him for a while, as if he was evaluating him. Then finally he nodded, rubbing his neck. “Alright. I guess I did kind of drag you out here without letting you say no.”

Delano chuckled. “At least I got two meals out of it.” Delano hadn’t known omelettes could be that filling. Maybe he should look up some recipes later.

BG smiled bashfully. It was almost like Delano had praised his cooking to high heavens. “I’m glad you enjoyed it.”

The two finished eating and Delano packed his and Fang’s things. BG saw him off to the front door.

“Text me when you get home,” he said.

Delano promised to do that, and after quick goodbyes, he and Fang left BG’s apartment.

[lavenderslotus]

Macarons and Chill

My first BakuCamie fic!! Hope you guys enjoy 🤗 Also cross posted on FF.N and AO3!

Summary: In which Bakugo and Camie try to make macarons in the midst of a global pandemic. 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t kick you out of my goddamn apartment, woman.” Bakugo snarls as he nearly rips the door off its hinges.

Camie merely blinks, clearly nonplussed by his tone. “Chill, Bakubae. I’m not even inside yet. Were you trying to hide your porn stash?”

“Can’t you see I’m in the fucking middle of something?!” Bakugo ignores her obvious jibe.

It’s only then Camie registers his uncharacteristically disheveled appearance. Donned in a black tank top that was smeared with flour and an orange Ground Zero apron that hung haphazardly on his hips, Bakugo looks positively dripping with annoyance. His already unkempt hair is matted in several different directions and if Camie didn't know any better, she would say that whatever he was attempting to bake was currently besting him.

Despite the atmosphere of the room, Camie pushes her way around Bakugo and flounces into the living room. “Ojamashimasu!” She sings as she kicks off her shoes in a hurry and practically runs into the kitchen.

“Fuck me, right?” Bakugo mutters as he bends down to fix her shoes so that they were perfectly aligned. She had been appearing more times on his doorstep than he cared for during this whole quarantine bullshit yet still didn’t have the decency to pick up after herself. “Oi, get out the hell out of my kitchen before you ruin shit!”

Camie turns around, already tugging on a bubblegum pink apron that Bakugo definitely does not keep around just for her. She juts out her lower lip. “I'm just trying to help out my favorite next-door neighbor.” She peers over at the bowl of whipped meringue on the kitchen counter. “Macarons, Bakubro? Do you have a death wish or something? Those are like, mad hard to bake, even for you!”

Bakugo resists the urge to thump her on the head. Instead, he settled for aggressively whisking the meringue once more, nearly ripping the appliance in two. “As if I’m going to be shown up by some shitty wannabe sandwiches. Tch.”

“Ehhhh? Is that so?” Camie tip-toes to place her chin on the shoulder that wasn’t vigorously moving with his stirring. Bakugo tries to ignore how close her cheek is to his, the soft plush nearly grazing him. “Well, no doubt they’ll be totally delish when you’re done! Anything I can do to help?”

Bakugo smirks, a cocky grin splitting his face. “Fuck yeah they will be. Go pick out the food coloring.” As Camie sashays away happily (“These are totes gonna be the prettiest macarons bae!”), he tries not to let his eyes linger. It’s like Camie intentionally picks clothes that loves her as much as she loves herself, because they cling to her figure like glue.

Their relationship was… Complicated. After they both graduated high school, her a year before him, Bakugo had no intention of keeping contact with anybody, save for maybe shitty hair. What was the point? He knew he’d see his former idiots of classmates and peers eventually. They all entered the same fucking industry; if anything, he had a feeling he’d them too often. It was only by chance that he and Camie wound up at the same agency, and it was even more of a twisted fate that he had happened to be assigned to live one door down from her. Which meant slowly but surely, Camie Utsushimi forcibly wedged her and her love for K-Pop into his life (and his apartment).

He didn’t know why she was so adamant on getting to know him. At first, he had thought it was just out of the pure convenience of living so close. He figured she would lay off after shutting her out a couple times. But goddamn, this woman was persistent. When she wanted something, she sure as hell knew how to get it. And he still didn’t know what it was she wanted from him. He never knew what she was thinking, for better or for worse.

“You know what’d be lit? If you had edible glitter.” Camie sighs wistfully as she lines up the bottles of food coloring. Bakugo grimaces at the array of pinks and purples but doesn’t say anything.

“What the fuck for?” Bakugo huffs as turned the bowl upside down. A smug expression flits his face when nothing falls out, a testament to the stiff peaks of the frosting.

Camie stares at him as if he had sprouted a tail. “Hell-oh! To decorate the macarons?! Jeez Bakubae, it’s like you have no eye for pretty things in life. No wonder you haven’t asked me out on a date yet.”

Then there was that. There always seemed to be something simmering between them, and it pissed Bakugo off to no end that he couldn’t figure out what the hell it was. Irritation? Sexual tension? Both? He didn’t know when she was serious or joking when she said shit like that.

Bakugo snorts to cover his inner turmoil and sticks his hand out. Camie wordlessly passes him a small bottle of food coloring. Without even looking at the color, his hand steadies as he carefully squeezes the gel into the meringue – bright pink, he discovers. Gross. “I told you to stop calling me that.”

“You already know I’m not gonna. Am I not your type?” Camie twirls a strand of her fawn-colored hair around her finger pensively. “You’re gonna die a virgin if you don’t hop on the dating scene, you know. Such a waste of a handsome face.”

“Fuck you.” Bakugo snaps as he stirs to incorporate the color. His grip is tight around the rubber spatula. “As if you have it any better, hag. You should stop hanging around this apartment if you want to put your money where your mouth is.”

Camie sighs contemplatively. “The hero life really doesn’t allow any time for dating, huh? We sure have it rough.” She cracks her knuckles and grins. “Not that we can go on dates or anything during this quarantine. I’m lucky I have you to bother, Bakuboo!”

“Yeah, so lucky.” Bakugo mumbles sarcastically under his breath. “Gimme that bowl.”

“But like seriously, what is your type fam?” Camie asks. Bakugo dumps the dry ingredients and begins to macaronage. “For a while, I totally thought you and Deku were gonna get it on.”

“Fuck no. Weak ass Deku wouldn’t be able to handle me, I’d rock his shit.” Bakugo scoffs. Camie lets out a delighted peal of laughter at that. “Besides, I ain’t gay. Can’t speak for him though.”

Camie raises a brow. “You do know that Deku and Uraraka-san are like, def canon right?”

Bakugo hates how he knows what ‘canon’ means because of her. He grunts. “I don’t give a shit. Hand me that piping bag and a tray, quick.”

“Don’t be like that Bakubae,” Camie chides as she bends over to reach for the baking trays stashed inside his oven. He averts his eyes at the way she juts her hips and arches her back. “You noticed it too, right? All our peers are like, getting it on. I’m banking on Todomomo next.”

Bakugo works quickly to transfer the macaron batter into the piping bag. The bright pink is an eyesore and he frowns. “Like I said, I don’t give a shit.”

“You’re totes gonna care when your options dwindle down to no one.” Camie taps her nails against the counter. “And you’re already picky as it is.”

Bakugo scoffs again as he rips out a sheet of parchment paper. It tears through the air like a record scratch. “How would you know that? I haven’t said shit. For all you know, I could have a secret fetish.”

“Do you?” Camie’s voice heightens with interest. Bakugo glares at her, but the curiosity in her face doesn’t waver.

“No, you sicko. Even if I did, it’s not like I’d tell you.” Bakugo begins to pipe the macarons onto the parchment paper in earnest.

“Everyone has their kinks,” Camie sing-songs. She walks two fingers up Bakugo’s arm and he would smack her arm away if he wasn’t already preoccupied. If each macaron wasn’t exactly 1½-inches, he was going to lose his shit. “It’s only a matter of time until I find out yours, bae.”

Bakugo pipes the last macaron onto the tray and tosses the piping bag. It tumbles away on the counter, smearing pink meringue everywhere. Great. He pretends not to notice her hand still resting on his upper bicep and rolls his eyes. “Good luck with that.”

“I bet you’re really into the whole power dynamics thing.” Bakugo chokes and Camie removes her hand to place both on her hips. “Y’know, all that sub and dom stuff. Kind of a mild kink if you ask me. Personally, I’m down for whatevs but idk, I think I draw the line at tentacles, not that I judge –”

“Yeah well, luckily no one fucking asked.” Bakugo barks as he airs out the bubbles in the batter by repeatedly slamming the baking tray onto the counter. Camie yanks the tray out of his hands and begins to tap the tray much more gently. He scowls and crosses his arms. “You know an awful lot about kinks for someone who doesn’t get laid.”

Camie winks and leans forward. She purposely pushes her cleavage together so that it spills over, her up-and-down ministrations of bumping the tray against the counter making them jiggle. Bakugo stubbornly doesn’t give her the satisfaction of looking down and meets her gaze dead-on. “How do you know I’m not getting laid?”

Bakugo feels an uncomfortable twist in his chest, but the sudden anger that floods him is almost unbearable. Camie? Having a fuck buddy? The thought stamps a hot iron brand of jealousy in his stomach. What the fuck? In an instant, he sees a vision of another pair of arms wrapped around Camie’s tiny waist, kissing her, tousling her hair. A throb of possessiveness goes through him. It’s what makes him snap, “Yeah fucking right. Why the fuck are you here and not with him then?”

“I mean, we are kinda in the middle of a global pandemic.” Camie drawls. She pushes back from the macaron tray. She cocks a head and her eyes rake his face. The tension that normally simmers between them at a tolerable five has knocked its way up to an insufferable ten. “’Sides, even if I had one, I’d rather be here.”

Bakugo deflates but only slightly. The crease between his eyebrows deepen and the feelings of anger, jealousy, and irritation still make him see red. “So you don’t have one.” He says it like a statement of verification rather than a question.

“No,” Camie shakes her head. She sounds a bit breathless. “I don’t.”

In two strides, Bakugo has her pinned against the wall. Camie’s eyes are wide as she takes in his narrowed ones, zeroing in on her like prey. Her arms are locked above her head, held by Bakugo’s, and he leans dangerously close. Their noses graze and Camie barely has a second to register just how long his eyelashes are when their mouths fuse together. Bakugo isn’t gentle but he sure as hell is an amazing kisser – Camie has to hold back a chuckle. He totes has to be the best at everything, huh? He claims it all, tongue sweeping and staking hold of everything that’s hers. She can hear the subliminal message being conveyed. Mine. Mine. Mine. His hands are greedy, falling from her wrists to touching her everywhere, gripping, pulling, pinching. She scrapes her hands along the hard muscle, equally as needy and lets him take and take.

“Bakugo,” Camie finally manages to gasp as he trails down her neck, sucking, biting, kissing. She can feel her skin puckering under his assault. “The macarons –”

“Fuck ‘em.” He grunts. “They need to chill for an hour anyway.”

Sorry Todomomo, Camie thinks to herself as she grins wildly. Looks like Bakucamie’s beat you to the punch.

[coffeestainsandcashmere]

hi hi hi, please can i prompt something a lil bit angsty (because i do adore my angst). the first serious fight that theo x draco x hermione have, and maybe how they make up after? thank you.

I loved loved LOVED this prompt, and I’m sorry it took me so long to get round to it. If it’s any consolation, it’s nearly 4k words long...?

Featuring: Draco being the grandiose nobleman he was brought up to be, Theo unthinkingly going along with it, one EXTREMELY tired Hermione who is absolutely not up for surprises or grand, showy, romantic gestures, Hagrid, Fang, Firenze the centaur, and a dollop of fluff to wash the fleeting angst and misunderstandings down.

Hope you enjoy it!

___

After the longest week, with barely a moment to catch her breath, burning the candle at both ends, all Hermione wanted to do on Saturday was sleep, read up on a few more things for an upcoming Ancient Studies test, perhaps lounge in the boys’ room down in the Dungeons, and perhaps convince one of them to give her a massage. Simple, humble plans, every last one of them.  

But the universe, apparently, had other ideas, given that it had seen fit to make the busiest week of term so far culminate not in an ordinary weekend, but in Valentine’s Day.  

Wizarding and Muggle alike the world was awash with pink hearts and red roses, and Hermione wanted nothing to do with it. She never had, and she knew that both boys were unfortunately prone to grand displays of affection, and that made her anxious and snappy. She’d spent most of the previous week - in the cumulative half hour that she’d actually spent in their company - trying to hint and suggest heavily that she had no interest in grand surprises and romantic endeavours. The most romantic thing someone could do for her was respect her wishes, after all.  

Quite deliberately, she’d not made any concrete plans to see the boys that Saturday, helped by the fact that Draco had an extensive Quidditch training session scheduled and Theo had some work to catch up, but after she’d woken at her usual time anyway, and had lain there for an hour, praying for sleep that wasn’t going to return, she got up. Her mother had always said that if you can’t rest, do something productive.  

The Great Hall teemed with excitable younger years, one or two unfortunate howlers, and a plethora of Exploding Envelopes filled with glittering confetti hearts from Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes, and she turned around and left before even bothering to step inside. It wasn’t that she hated the sentiments behind Valentine’s at all, but honestly, it just felt rather cheap and the thought of it all simply… exhausted her further.  

Without pausing or returning to the Tower, she made the split-second decision just to bolt out into the grounds and found herself eventually at Hagrid’s hut. He was outside chopping wood and Fang was busy sneakily lapping tea out of the bucket-sized mug that Hagrid had set on a spare stump. The enormous hound looked up suddenly as she caught him in the act, but then gave a low, baying woof of welcome.  

“‘Allo, ‘Ermione,” Hagrid said with a grunt and a little puzzled frown as he straightened from his work. “Good te see yeh. What brings yeh down ‘ere at this time o’ day?”

She shrugged. “Got any jobs I can help with?” she asked instead and he raised an eyebrow and chuckled.  

“Don’t see yeh swinging this around…” the half-giant laughed, hefting the axe that looked like it weighed five times what she did.  

“Preferably not,” she said. “Though I’m not opposed to using magic to get it done.”

“I think I’ve got a few jobs we can do together,” he said. “Fang? Let’s go see Uncle Firenze, eh?” 

They spent the day in the Forbidden Forest with the centaurs, a rare opportunity that Hermione relished, gathering wild mushrooms that only grew in the very depths of the forest and bringing them back carefully in a covered basket for the potions storeroom, among other rare ingredients. She also spent a long time walking with Firenze, the pale centaur quizzing her about the state of the wider wizarding world now, and she in turn asking him questions about the more rigorous sides of the art of divination. The three of them, four if you counted Fang snuffling about in the undergrowth, ate a packed lunch of cheese sandwiches which Hagrid drew out of his top pocket, only slightly misshapen and squashed, and afterwards Firenze showed them some rare, early-spring berries that tasted like pomegranate but had the texture of blueberries.  

At last, her physical exhaustion matched her mental tiredness, and by the time they returned to Hagrid’s hut an hour from sunset, grubby and a little sweaty, she felt fit to fall over.  

“Thank you, Hagrid,” she said, pushing a strand of her ‘witch of the wilds’ hair out of her face, only for it to spring back again. It was so big at that point that a hippogriff chick could probably have nested atop it in perfect comfort. “I needed the distraction.”

He bowed in quiet understanding. “Any time, ‘Ermione. Yeh know that.”

She blessed him silently for not asking any more, and with a nod and a final pat on Fang’s head, she turned her steps towards the castle with no more thoughts in her head than for a long soak in a bath and an early night.  

Again, the universe apparently had other ideas.  

Pacing the entrance hall like his caged namesake, she found Draco looking breathtakingly smart in a set of charcoal grey dress robes and shiny black Oxfords. When he looked up and spotted her, his face did something complicated, the final expression settling on relief, and he came over to her in two quick strides.  

“Where the hell have you been?” he barked, scowling. “Look at the state of you!”

“Out and about in the forest,” she said tersely, hackles rising at his tone. “I didn’t know I needed to report my whereabouts to you, Draco…”

“You —” he began but he broke off and took a breath. “You don’t. Of course you don’t. But I’ve been looking everywhere for you. Theo too. He’s gone to Gryffindor Tower to ask for you again. You weren’t in the library and no one has seen you all day.”

“Why?” she asked. “It’s not like we made plans…”

Draco went still at that, his cheeks first paling and then flushing.  

“Did we?” she pressed, hand on hip, now quite certain that they had not. “Oh god, Draco, don’t tell me you’ve got something dramatic planned for Valentine’s, and you haven’t told me because you wanted to surprise me?” She pinched the brow of her nose. “Please… I told you how I feel about that kind of thing…”

When he spoke again, his voice was cold, defensive, even haughty. “Actually, yes, I do. I wanted to do something nice for you today, and I’d appreciate it if you went and washed the thestral shit off your skin and the twigs from your hair, and changed into something nice. I know you know how to dress up, Granger.”

The frayed end of her metaphorical tether slithered into sight and vanished utterly, and she gasped, “You’d ‘appreciate it’, Draco? Well, you know what I’d have appreciated? Being asked!”

“I’m asking you now,” he said petulantly.  

“No you’re not!” she shrilled back at him. “You’re demanding. This is the classic, old Draco - ‘Go and change, Granger’, ‘dress up nicely, Granger’.”

Draco balked visibly but ground his jaw. “I’m sorry,” he snarled, sounding more frustrated that contrite. “But we’re going to miss our booking, and I’d really like to make it. Please… will you go and change?”

She nearly said yes. Damn her, but she nearly said yes.  

Even after the week from hell, with tutoring sessions and tests and homework and prefect’s patrols, she nearly said yes.

But this time, Hermione Granger was going to stand up for herself.  

“No, Draco, I won’t. I’m exhausted, and all I wanted from today was to relax, have a bit of time to myself, and spend the evening in the bath and then in bed. If you’d told me instead of just assuming I’d go along with whatever grand gesture you’re pulling out of your arse, then maybe I’d think differently. But you don’t just get to order me around like I’m some pureblood debutante to decorate your arm for the evening, Draco. Goodnight.”

And with that, she stormed up the stairs, leaving an astonished and fuming Draco at the bottom, his face revolving through a series of expressions and colours.  

She passed Theo on his way back down and he almost didn’t spot her as he scuttled down the staircase looking equally and devastatingly handsome as Draco had. “Hermione?” he asked, skidding to an ungainly stop and having to grab the banister to support himself as she charged past him.  

“Ask Draco,” she said over her shoulder. “But whatever it is, I’m not going. You two should go and indulge your penchant for lavish evenings on each other.”

“Fuck. I knew it,” she heard him hiss, but to his credit, he didn’t follow her either.

Hermione fumed all evening, and even the bath did nothing to calm her down. Despite her agitation, however, she did sleep soundly, the exertions of the day robbing her brain of the ability to over think itself into ever tighter and tighter circles. Sometimes she could see how far Draco had changed in what would be a year this May, but other times he defaulted to his pureblood upbringing; to the son of a nobleman, used to having people do his bidding without question. She tried to be patient, but at times like this, it irked her more than she would have thought possible.  

The fact that this was their first major falling out - sure, they’d had little misunderstandings and had snapped at each other before now - was also a major contributing factor to the free-floating stress and anxiety coursing through her. What if he never learned to ask instead of demand? Was that the kind of person she wanted to spend her life with? And Theo had been Draco’s boyfriend before he’d been hers. Would he always just go along with what Malfoy wanted? Doubts chased each other like kneazles and bats in her brain when she woke in the early dawn, until she thought she might go mad.  

Malfoy really had been a wonderful boyfriend so far, but he was undeniably prone to bouts of showy, melodramatic romanticism. Her mind conjured images of the diamond necklace he’d gifted her for Yule, and the staggeringly expensive watch he’d gifted Theo, and she struggled to brush them away. He’d come a long way, and he’d changed a lot, but some things took their time, and she doubted whether other things would ever change.

When she stepped out of the Fat Lady’s portrait the next morning, she ground to a halt and almost walked straight back into the tower before the portrait could swing shut. She didn’t, however. She held her ground and stared at Draco who was sitting on the floor with his back against the wall, looking like he’d been there all night. The charcoal grey robes were the same, if dishevelled, the shirt open at the collar. Merlin, he really had been camped out there all night.  

He levered himself to his feet and stared at her sheepishly. “I’m sorry,” he blurted before she could open her mouth. “Hermione, I’m so sorry. I wasn’t listening to you at all, and I should have asked, and I never should have just… presumed like that. I’m so sorry, Hermione.”

She stared at him. “So you know why I’m angry.”

“I didn’t ask,” he said immediately. “And I didn’t respect you. I knew that what I was doing wasn’t the right way to treat you, to show you… but I wilfully ignored that and went ahead with it anyway. I was a giant ass and I’m sorry I hurt you.”

His handsome face looked ashen and wan, his eyes pink behind the silver of his irises. He also carried the sleepless smudges of a night spent in a draughty corridor beneath his eyes.  

Looking around, she asked, “Where’s Theo?”

“Hiding,” Draco said bashfully. “And brooding. It’s awful. Sitting here on the floor all night was actually preferable to being around him.”

Fighting a smirk at his humour, she asked, “Did the two of you go last night?” Wherever it was they’d planned to take her.  

Draco’s brows dipped into a deep scowl. “Without you? Of course not.”

At that, she did twitch her lips. “Go and change out of last night’s robes, Draco,” she said gently, well aware that that was one of the things Draco had said to her, sparking the argument off in the first place. “And take a shower while you’re at it.”  

“Hermione —” he began, taking an aborted step towards her, but he swallowed thickly and nodded. “I’ve said what I wanted to say,” he added dejectedly, and turned away to walk down the corridor with his head held in a distinctly un-Malfoy bow.  

Before he’d gone two steps, she reached out and latched her fingers around his wrist. “I’ll see you in the Great Hall in a bit for some breakfast, ok?”

With eyes wide and achingly vulnerable, Draco tried out a little smile on his worried lips. It didn’t stick, but at least it had been there. “Ok. Thank you.”

She rolled her eyes as he walked off, hands in his pockets. “Such drama,” she said as she turned to find the Fat Lady watching their exchange with avid interest.  

The Fat Lady popped another chocolate into her mouth as if it were cinema popcorn, and giggled. “Young love,” she crooned. “I’ll enjoy telling Violet all about this later on! You mark my words. You know,” the portrait added thoughtfully as Hermione started to walk away too, and the witch halted immediately.  

“Know what?” she asked, warily.  

After another chocolate and a quick giggle, the Fat Lady said, “He tried every trick he could think of to get me to let him in. I know very well who he is to you, but I very nearly had to leave my painting in frustration. He kept it up until at least two in the morning.”

“When Draco sets his sights on something, he’s very difficult to dissuade,” Hermione agreed. “Thank you for not letting him in. I wouldn’t have welcomed his presence last night. I was still too angry with him.”

The Fat Lady looked horrified and said, “As if I’d let someone in that wasn’t supposed to be here!”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Hermione said. “But thank you all the same.”

With a soft ‘harrumph’ around another praline, the Fat Lady nodded.  

Theo was already in the hall when she entered, and she spotted him almost immediately. He was stirring his ceramic tankard of coffee listlessly with his spoon and staring into it like it held the secrets of the universe.  

“Drama queens, the both of you,” she muttered fondly to herself under her breath. Ignoring the Gryffindor table, she turned her steps towards the Slytherin one.  

Her presence there was now not such a surprise that most people ignored her approach without comment, effectively giving her the chance to sneak up on the lone Slytherin, sliding into the space on his right before he’d even realised she was there.  

“Morning,” she said in a low voice, and he nearly jumped out of his skin. The spoon clattered against the mug and coffee slopped over the sides as his fingers released it unbidden.  

“Hermione,” he breathed.  

His whole face was a question, and she laughed. “Yes, I’ve spoken to Draco, and yes, he’s still got his pretty face and both his bollocks.”

“What about his cock?” Theo joked reflexively, nervously.  

“You’ll have to find out later, won’t you?” she deadpanned without looking at him, reaching out to pour herself a mug of tea from a nearby pot.  

After a pause, in which Theo vanished the spilled coffee that had pooled around the base of his own mug, he asked, “So… how badly did we fuck up yesterday?”

She took a sip of her tea and added a splash more milk before responding. “Not going to lie, I was really annoyed with both of you for just assuming I’d be ok with being whisked off to wherever without a moment’s warning. I hate surprises, and you both know it.”

“Yeah…” Theo admitted.  

“So what were you thinking?” she almost shrilled. “That it’d be different if it came from you? That I’ll magically stop hating surprises just because they’re from you two?”

Theo half-shrugged, half-twitched, and said, “Kind of… Look, Hermione, I’m not trying to excuse us - we didn’t listen to you, and that’s the bottom line - but…” he broke off and ground his jaw for a moment.

“Just spit it out, Theo,” she said, turning and resting her elbow on the table to regard him properly.  

“We were raised in a different world from you, ok? From most witches and wizards actually. Purebloods like us are expected to behave in certain… coded ways with the women we’re… courting.”

“‘Courting’?” she snorted, unable to help herself.  

Adopting a sycophantic, over the top manner, he gestured and said, “Wooing, of whom we are seeking the favour, ingratiating ourselves… making our intentions known…”

“Shut up, you pompous prick,” she laughed and his face cracked into a tentative smile.  

He was clearly relieved to find laughter in her reaction, not anger. “So…” he continued in a more normal tone, returning his hands to the table and running his thumbnail along the grain in the wood, eyes downcast. “So… there are certain behaviours we kind of default to, and… honestly, there are certain behaviours that the women in our circles also expect of us. Big, showy, romantic gestures being one of them. You should consider yourself lucky you didn’t wake up to a room full of messenger owls all hooting imperiously and bearing enormous bunches of the rarest roses on earth or something…”

“I suppose I should,” she said, beginning to see it now from their point of view.  

“A pureblood wizard is expected to show that he can take care of the witch he intends to —” he cut off and swallowed, freckles briefly disappearing behind a rising flush. “—to court. That there’s nothing on earth he couldn't provide for her at the drop of a hat. I think we just… we just wanted to show you that we’re serious, but… we may have underestimated the calibre of the witch we’re dealing with here…”

“Maybe just a little bit,” she said dryly, and then sighed. “Did Draco really spend all night outside Gryffindor Tower?”

“Yup.”

“Big, showy, romantic gestures, huh?” she said, plucking a croissant off a nearby platter and tearing one end off. “I’m half expecting him to come in here with a single white rose in his hand,” she scoffed, looking up to find that Theo eyes were now fixed on a point just behind her. Draco had apparently arrived then.  

She saw his pale hand reaching down to the table out of the corner of her eye and when he picked up a silver spoon, she closed her eyes and laughed softly to herself. A tingle of magic nearby told her what he was doing, and sure enough, when she turned around to look up at him from her seat, Draco stood there with a single, transfigured white rose in his right hand.  

“Unbelievable,” she said, rolling her eyes again.  

Silently, Draco held it out to her and she took it. It smelled like summer evenings and she exhaled.  

“Apology accepted, Draco,” she said, glancing around. “Now sit down. You’re causing a scene.”

He slid onto the bench on her right and stared at the empty plate in front of him for a moment, hands resting elegantly on either side of it.  

She reached out and placed her palm over his, feeling the slight twitch beneath as their skin made contact. Hermione squeezed his long fingers until he looked up at her, his eyes shining and his face wracked with a complex mixture of emotions that she had no hope of deciphering.  

“Theo and I talked,” she said. “And he may have pointed out to me a certain ‘difference in upbringing’ that went some way towards explaining why you went to the lengths you did yesterday.”

“I still —” Draco began but she cut him off.  

“We’ve established already that you could have opened your lugholes a little sooner, but I feel like we’ve also moved on from that. It came from a place of love and good intention, and as such, I’d like to propose a compromise.”

At that, Theo and Draco both gave her their absolute and undivided attention and curiosity.  

Stifling a smirk, she said, “I don’t know what it is you had planned for yesterday, and frankly at this point, I don’t ever want to know. But how about we go into Hogsmeade next weekend and have dinner together. I’ll know it’s coming and what to expect, and you two can argue over who foots the bill if you want to make it a romantic gesture. Or we can split it three ways.”

“Absolutely not,” Draco said instantly and something hot flared inside her at that. “I meant splitting the payment three ways,” he added bashfully, seeing where her mind had gone instead.  

At that, the tension shattered and she tipped her head back and laughed, gripping his hand for support as she leaned almost perilously far back. Theo put his hand between her shoulder blades just in case, and half the Slytherin table began to stare at them.  

Theo leaned in close and said in her ear, “You’re causing a scene, dear Hermione.”

She squeezed Draco’s hand and let out a long, slow sigh as the laughter faded. “What am I going to do with you two?” she said, shaking her head.  

“Be patient…?” Draco all but begged, mumbling into his coffee. Where Theo took his black, Draco piled cream and sugar into his until it was barely recognisable as coffee in the first place. She smirked fondly to herself as she contemplated his ridiculously sweet tooth, and wondered if, with his penchant for apples, he also liked sour sweets. Perhaps she’d get Harry to owl her some Haribo to try out on him.  

“Hermione?” he asked, looking up at her. His skin was so pale it was like marble in the soft light of the Great Hall, and he looked eerily like the statue of a saint at a shrine in that moment, all hope and tentative expectation.  

For her answer, Hermione slid her left hand into Theo’s, and then reached up and took Draco’s chin in her right hand, turning him by his sharp and now-just-perfectly-pointed chin. His eyes were wide, gleaming, silver mirrors, fixed unyieldingly on her own.  

Hermione held him there between thumb and forefinger, and as she pressed a searing kiss against his pale lips, she felt Theo’s grip tighten on her left hand.

___

If you enjoyed, please reblog and share! I’m new to the fandom on here and appreciate all the help I can get!

___

writing masterlist | Ao3

[mamashitty]

Samwell Elementary Chapter 2

Chapter 2 of my Samwell Elementary Teacher AU! Y’all can enjoy reading it here or on my AO3.  Here is chapter 1.

Lord is Bitty tired.

He is seated cross-legged on Shitty’s couch, somewhat regretting the decision to come out tonight. He is always overly tired the first week of a new school year, often staying up later than usual, fretting about making his kids feel comfortable. Kindergarten is a big transition for a lot of the kids, the first time many of them are away from their parents for eight hours a day, five days a week. Not all of them had gone to preschool, either. Some can read and write, others cannot. It is an adjustment period for everyone. It is the first Friday of the school year, and it is a tradition for Shitty to host a party, to celebrate everyone making it through their first week of school. It never matters that the week is usually a short one.

Bitty yawns, not even attempting to fight it or hide it. Lardo plops down next to him on the couch and lounges, bringing her legs up to rest on Bitty’s.

“Where is Trevor?” She asks, and Bitty focuses on the noises in the other areas of the house. Ransom, Holster, and Shitty are setting up a table for some beer pong that Bitty has no intention in joining in. He can hear Dex and Nursey arguing in the kitchen over goodness knows what. Ford, Tango, and Chowder have yet to arrive with the pizza for the night. Bitty had brought with him some pies. It is the brief quiet before the party really gets going. Bitty wonders if they are all too old for this yet or not. He also realizes that Lardo is watching him closely and that maybe, he should answer her question. His mama had not raised him to be rude.

“He is out of town for business,” Bitty replies, and he busies himself with tracing designs with his finger on one of Lardo’s legs so that he does not have to see the look she gives him, so that he does not have to see her roll his eyes even though he can practically feel it.

“He has been out of town a lot lately,” Lardo says, simply. Bitty finally looks at her, and she has an innocently blank expression on her face.

“Work is just busy for him, things are really picking up. He’s trying for a promotion,” Bitty replies, doing his best to keep his voice even. It is part of adulthood, isn’t it? Getting busy with careers. He misses Trevor, sure but Bitty sometimes wonders if maybe he ought to be missing his boyfriend more than he really does with all these business trips he has been taking these past few months. “Where is Milly?” Bitty is not trying to change the subject.

“We broke up,” Lardo explains and Bitty feels guilty about trying to change the topic and guilty about not knowing.

“Lardo! When?” Last he had heard things were going really well with Milly and Lardo. There had even been talks about moving in together. He is staring at his friend now, waiting for her to answer. She chews on her lower lip, a grimace of sorts on her face before she shrugs.

“We wanted different things, Bits. She wants to settle down and have kids of her own. And… look, I love the little shits that I teach art to, but I don’t want my own, you know? She wants to get married and the thought of marriage honestly makes me feel a little sick.” Lardo explains, and Bitty can hear the sadness in her voice but she also seems… less sad than he would have expected. “We decided to end things now, hoping we can stay friends still, before… before things got too far and complicated. Being an adult fucking sucks sometimes,” Lardo finishes with a sigh.

Before Bitty can say anything else though, Shitty has run into the room. “Table is all set for some beer pong, brahs! Let’s get wasted enough that we wake up tomorrow morning, regretting being alive!”

“Lord, I don’t think my liver can handle that anymore,” Bitty explains, but he gently shoves Lardo’s legs off his lap. She gives him a weak smile, before climbing to her feet. Shitty scoops her up and carries her to the other room.

It is late when Bitty feels his phone vibrating in his pocket. The party is in full swing. Shitty has stripped down to just boxers and for some reason, a headband with penises all over it. Lardo has successfully kicked everyone’s asses at beer pong, save for Bitty who kept his private promise of not participating in it. He is nursing his third beer of the evening, not wanting to drink much more than that. Not wanting to deal with a hangover. Chowder and Caitlin are dancing in living room. He knows Lardo and Shitty are out on the roof, smoking. Ransom and Holster… he has no idea where they vanished. Dex and Nursey drunkenly coming up with lesson plans that he doubts they will follow through with in the morning. He honestly would not be surprised of Ransom and Holster were doing the same, wherever they had vanished to.

He’s alone again, this time in the kitchen. He reaches for his phone and notices a message from Trevor.

Trevor: Hey babe. How is the party going? I’ll be back Sunday afternoon. I miss you.

Bitty: The party is still kicking but I think I am going to go home soon. Or maybe crawl into Shitty’s guest room before anyone else can. I hope your trip is going well. I miss you too.

He waits a few minutes for a reply and when it does not come, he pockets his phone. He finishes off his beer and then slinks into the living room with Chowder and Caitlin.

Bitty wakes up, sandwiched between two bodies. He is big spoon to Lardo, and he realizes that Shitty is playing big spoon for him. He vaguely remembers making the decision to crash at Shitty’s place. He could have called a cab or gotten an Uber or something, but it was late and he was tired. He wonders in a vague sort of fashion as Shitty suddenly hugs him tighter in his sleep if they are all getting too old for this. Too old to be passing out in a bed together. Shitty is already in his thirties, with Bitty and Lardo hot on his trail. But, Bitty can’t bring himself to care too much even if he knows his mama would silently judge him if she could see him. He feels safe and comfortable enveloped by his friends, grateful that they took him under his wing that first year he began teaching. He cannot imagine a life without them, without mornings like this.

He feels Lardo shifting against him, shifting so that she can lay on her back. Bitty watches her, and she turns her head towards him, a sleepy expression on her face.

“Mornin’” she drawls, yawning immediately after.

“Mornin’.” Bitty replies and he elbows Shitty none too gently, to get him to let go of him. Shitty lets out a groan, but rolls away from him and completely off the bed with a dull thud. Bitty and Lardo stare at each other for a second, before they start to laugh. After a muffled protest of some sort, Shitty joins in the laughter.

He makes it home just before dinner time. His apartment feeling emptier than usual. He has not heard from Trevor all day, and he feels strange about it, so he shoots off another text. Sure, he could call, but somehow it feels a little less… something if a text goes unanswered over a phone call. He kicks off his shoes near the door as he pads into his kitchen. He finds the ingredients to make a decent dinner for himself. He’s lost in the zone when he feels his phone buzz in his pocket.

He tugs it out and reads the message.

Shitty: Bitty! I forgot to tell you that we have time on the rink next week for our first practice. We are going to kick ass this season! Shitty out!

Eric rolls his eyes, though he is smiling. He loves being on the ice, and he is grateful he gets to play with his fellow teachers. The rec league is a lot of fun. He did not think he would be able to continue to play hockey once he graduated from college and got a big boy job. He’s poised to respond to Shitty’s message when he remembers what little Maisie Zimmermann called him. Uncle Crappy, and how her father, Stanley Cup Winner Jack Zimmermann said that that was better than Uncle Poopy. He remembers how the other man turned a little red, and he remembers the laughter from earlier.

He’s always had a bit of a crush on the seemingly stoic hockey player. He had not been quite prepared to face that faraway crush in his classroom. The man is far more attractive in person, though. And his smile, it is a nice one. Bitty shakes his head, finally replying to Shitty.

Bitty: I can’t wait to kick ass with you this season, Uncle Crappy!

It is not the funniest or cleverest thing that he has ever sent over a text but it amuses Eric enough to actually laugh out loud in his empty apartment. He hums as he finishes up dinner.

[sadprose-auroras]

‘Heart and soul’ – John Deacon X Fem!Reader

A/N: You don’t need a romantic partner to complete you. You’re a whole person, and co-dependency never works out for anyone. Yes, this is me trying to convince myself of this. I’m just really lonely, okay?

In this world reader replaces Paul and he never existed because, well, do I have to explain?

I could’ve called this ‘Somebody to Love’ but that’s just a little too cliché. Think of this as a Shakespeare’s ‘Twelfth Night’ or ‘What you Will’ scenario.

Also a preface I suck at characterisation cause all my life I’ve written first-person stories with no other characters, and that usually reflects me, so please just like know that ?? Idk I’m trying ?? It’s hard with real people. Also obviously Rog is written as a one-dimensional asshole, and I’m totally aware that he is absolutely nothing like that irl.

(The line about ‘heart and soul’ came from a shadowhunters episode)

I’m lowkey embrassed about this idk it sucks I’ve had a bit of a writing slump recently ,,,

MY MASTERLIST

When was it your turn?

You hated to be ungrateful for the incredible people around you; your fun-loving, kind-hearted friends, your supportive family, your wonderful job that provided you the opportunity of a lifetime; to spend your days with the members of the band Queen, assisting them in their day-to-day lives, getting along with them wonderfully.

You hated to place all your hopes of finding happiness in a romantic partner, but you couldn’t help it. Something was missing. There was a gap in your life, waiting to be filled with romance.

As you watched all your friends get married, have children, settle down, you couldn’t help but resent it a little; you despised yourself for these thoughts. Of course you were happy for them, but you couldn’t help but wonder what was wrong with you. Why nobody paid you any attention. Why you’d never gone as far as awkwardly making out with a boy with braces when you were 14. Were you really that repulsive?

These were the kind of thoughts that kept you up at night, when you had nothing else to keep you happy or distracted. As you wondered where your Prince Charming was, somebody to sweep you off your feet and make you feel loved, you’d never imagined what you’d been looking for was right in front of you all along.

1975

“Jesus Y/N. What’s in here, bricks?” Roger practically dragged your bag through the dust as he struggled to carry it. You adjusted your handbag on your shoulder, rolling your eyes.

“You don’t have to carry it, Roger! I should be carrying your bags!” You exchanged a knowing glance with John; he grinned, his eyes creasing.

“Yes I do, I’m being a gentleman!” he exclaimed, literally tripping over his own feet, dropping your bag into the dust.

“No you’re not, you’re just trying to get into my pants. Which is super unprofessional, by the way,” you snapped, picking up your bag, dusting it off and marching ahead of him into the house.  

“She’s right, Rog. Y/N would never shag her boss. And if she did, she’d hide it really well,” Freddie pointed out.

“Thanks Fred,” you laughed, turning back to wink at him. John and Brian, quietly carrying their own bags, trailing behind, were amused at the exchange.               

Once everybody had found their rooms and settled in, the band went to the recording studio to work. You, meanwhile, sat in the kitchen, chatting to your closest friend Kathy on the phone. Somehow, you’d got into a conversation about your love lives. Unfortunately, your lack thereof.

“I don’t know, Kath,” you sighed, twirling the phone cord around your finger. “It feels like I’m so behind, you know? I hate to sound like I’m complaining but I haven’t even been on a date in like three months! And the guy was a total creep! When am I going to have something like you and Joe have?”

“Y/N, you’re amazing,” she sighed. “The right guy is just around the corner, and he’s going to love you heart and soul.” Kathy replied, ever the comforter.

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because it’s what you deserve!”

You laughed, “Thanks Kath.” The door opening behind you interrupted you, and you quickly said, “I have to go, I’ll call you later. Love you!”

She laughed. “Love you too, Y/N. He’s closer than you think!” She finished. You rolled your eyes, a small smile on your face as you hung up. You turned around in your chair to see who had come in. John stood with his hands in his pockets, rocking back and forth on his heels, a sweet smile on his face.

“Sorry Deaky, do you need anything?” you asked, feeling slightly guilty that you were talking to Kathy when you could be working.

“I’m sorry! Did I interrupt?” he walked past you to the fridge, opening it up and furrowing his eyebrows. “Who were you talking to? Someone special?” Heat rushed to your cheeks, but you couldn’t entirely explain why.

“No, no, just a friend. She’s awesome, we’ve been friends since high school,” you said, standing up to close the fridge, uncomfortable with how long he’d kept it open.

John nodded, smiling slightly at your actions. “Can you help me make some sandwiches and tea? I was sent to ask you to do it.”

“Of course, I was just thinking about getting everyone some lunch! Please, go back, I’ll do it,” you smiled at him, beginning to gather the necessary ingredients.

“I’m happy to help,” he said, a twinkle in his eye, putting the kettle on. You were taken aback at your body’s reactions to being alone with him, which had never really happened before. He tended to sit back and observe in group conversations, so it was interesting to see him in a different setting; he had an intriguing spark to him that you hadn’t really noticed before. You were surprised to find your heart beating faster when he placed his hand on your side to steady himself as he leant past you to grab something, blood rushing to your cheeks when he considerately asked you how you took your tea.

You’d never pictured it, but the two of you worked together seamlessly, as you chatted and joked easily. You playfully teased him, not being able to help yourself. However, unlike some people, he understood your sense of humour, laughing along with you.

The last straw came when you began discussing your personal life. Generally, you were a pretty open book, so you didn’t mind his questions. Little did you know, though, he was gauging the status of your love life for himself. Ever since you were hired by the band, John found himself captivated by your kindness, your sense of humour, your smile. The rest of the band knew of course, but you were oblivious to the signs, being, to your shame and disappointment, an amateur in the romantic department.

Now, after a mere ten minutes, you’d developed proper feelings for one of your employers. Sure, you laughed along when Roger tried to sleep with you, but you assumed he was always joking. And John was different. God, what was wrong with you? Were you really so starved for affection that you crushed on the first man to pay you attention for longer than a minute?

You knew you couldn’t ever do anything about this. Not only was it entirely unprofessional, you were certain he didn’t feel the same way. Besides, it would be way too complicated if things didn’t work out.

So, you pushed down your feelings, avoiding eye contact with John as much as you possibly could, walking in front of him when silently when you carried the trays of lunch to the recording studio.

----------

The next couple of days were torturous, to say the least. You wished you’d never had your sudden revelation, everything seemed so much simpler before. You were even finding yourself missing the sheer agony that came from not knowing if you’d ever meet your perfect man. Because you already had, you just didn’t realise it. And now, you had to spend all your time in his presence, knowing you would never be more than his assistant. Knowing you could never have him in the way you wanted.

That was, until you accidentally overheard a conversation that confused you even more, that brought even more conflict upon you. It was a little too early in the morning for your preference, and you were carrying a tray of coffees to the recording studio, a task that was proving quite the challenge. Just as you were attempting to balance the tray in one hand to open the door, the whole tray slipped out of your hand. Hot coffee splattered your leg, mugs smashed everywhere, and you could do nothing to stop it, except yell, “Fuck!”

That was your breaking point. Feeling entirely defeated, you slid down the wall almost comically, clutching your knees among the broken mugs. Coffee stained your pants, but you found yourself not caring. Hot tears filled your eyes, and you shook your head. You were pathetic. Why were you getting so worked up over a couple of coffee mugs? That’s when you heard the loud voices from inside.

“Did you ask her?” a voice you assumed was Brian’s asked. You froze, heart beating rapidly. You were the only woman around. Were they talking about you?

“Not exactly,” John said softly. The heat rushed to your cheeks, anticipating what he would say next. “I found out that she’s single, and it seems like she’s never been in a serious relationship.”

“You’d better do it soon mate, before I shag her, ditch her, and she quits because she can’t stand to be in the same room as me.” That was Roger. Of course it was.

At the same time you heard Freddie say, “She has way too much respect for herself for that,” John retaliated with, “Fuck off, Rog. She’s not like that.” Before you could even comprehend what just happened, their conversation changed rapidly, and you heard footsteps approaching the door. Shit.

You barely had time to stand up, before John swung open the door. He was, understandably, taken aback at the mess.

“I um,” you bit your lip. “Had a bit of an accident,” you stuttered awkwardly. You scolded yourself internally for the probably obvious blush on your cheeks. What was wrong with you? You really needed to pull yourself together.

As you broke eye contact with John and began to pick up the larger pieces of mugs, you heard a voice chime from inside, “Where are our coffees?”

----------

All eyes were on you as you lined up your cue, eyes narrowed in concentration as you broke.  Balls flew everywhere, bouncing off the sides of the table with satisfying sounds. Perhaps you were letting out your frustrations on the balls.

“Nice break,” John said, leaning against the wall. It was such a casual, neutral comment, you were quite embarrassed at your flustered response.

You smiled softly, muttering “thanks.” It was hard to ignore the knowing eyebrow raises and glances from Freddie, Roger and Brian. You thought back to the conversation you overheard earlier. Did John have feelings for you? And did the rest of the band know about it? You suddenly felt exposed and embarrassed at the thought. Surely it wasn’t true, it was too good to be true; a man you had feelings for actually reciprocating them? Either way, even if he did, you still couldn’t do anything about it considering your employment. But, still, at least you would be a step closer to love.

You tried your best to suppress your confusing feelings and multitude of questions as the night went on; a stream of drinks were consumed by all, laughs were had, and victories were had (mostly by you; what could you say? You’d been playing pool all your life). You found yourself thanking your lucky stars yet again to have such an incredible job where you could hang out with a bunch of truly great, fun, interesting and talented people. Slowly, Freddie, Brian and Roger dwindled away, leaving just yourself and John. By the time you were becoming too tipsy to properly aim, finding yourself confused at which balls were yours, John decided it was time for you to get some rest.

“Y/N you should go to bed, if you keep drinking you’re gonna feel even worse in the morning,” he said, as you sat cross-legged on the floor, cradling your beer. He leaned down with the intention of helping you up, placing his hand on your shoulder. “Big day tomorrow.”

You pushed him off you, scrambling to stand up. “Why are you telling me what to do all of a sudden? Just piss off. You’re not – I mean, we’re, you’re not, you’re –“ you struggled to find the right words in your current state of consciousness. John’s face contorted with – hurt? – as he looked like you’d slapped him.

“I was just trying to help,” he mumbled, scratching the back of his neck. “Sorry,” he said sincerely. God. You’d insulted him when he was being kind, and he was apologising to you? Could he be any more perfect?

“No I’m sorry, that was uncalled for. I just…” you trailed off, furrowing your brows as you studied his face. “I’m confused.”

“About what?” he asked, frowning, stroking your arm encouragingly. You melted into his touch; it sent goosebumps all over your body. Whether it was the alcohol or not you couldn’t tell.

“God, everything!” you rambled, not being to stop the words spilling out of your mouth. “You! I don’t know what to do, I don’t get it. You confuse me. What do I do?” you glanced up at him, the room slightly spinning. “Just take me to bed. You were right. I need to sleep, I don’t know what I’m saying.”

John nodded speechlessly, guiding you back to your room. He helped you take off your shoes, tucked you in and placed a glass of water beside your bed. 

Both of you went to bed with even more questions than answers that night.

----------

“Morning, there’s the party girl!” Freddie chimed, looking up at you.

“Shhhh, not so loud,” you grumbled, eyes barely open as you flopped down onto the couch in the recording studio, rubbing your temples.

“Sorry about last night, that’s so unlike me,” you said, ashamed. You recalled drinking a lot of beer, playing pool, and… oh no. Heat rushed to your cheeks as you remembered rambling to John. Did he know what you were implying? Was your childish little secret out already? It hadn’t even been a day. You never were very good at keeping your mouth shut. Much to your embarrassment, you locked eye contact with him, as he swivelled around in his chair to glance at you. You sat up quickly, entranced by his gaze. His eyes quickly flicked over to Freddie, then to Roger, who was sitting on the couch adjacent to you.

“Come on, Rog, let’s go, erm, help Brian!” Freddie said suddenly, shooting up out of his chair, practically dragging Roger across the room to join Brian on the other side of the glass.

“Fred what are you doing? He doesn’t need help. You could’ve at least been a little less obvious…” his voice trailed off as they shut the door behind them, joining Brian. There was a lull, and you found yourself shifting uncomfortably.

“I-“ you both started to speak at the same time, then stopped just as abruptly. You both laughed, as you chewed on your bottom lip nervously.

“You go” he said.

“Look, John, I’m sorry. Really. About last night. I didn’t know what I was saying. Can we just forget about the whole thing?” your heart was racing.

“Y/N, I can’t forget about it. I can’t stop thinking about it. I need to know what you meant, what you were trying to say. What did you mean when you asked me what you should do?” he came to sit down next to you on the couch, intently watching you. You could feel three pairs of eyes also watching the two of you through the glass, which you tried to ignore. Nosy bastards.

He was being so direct, so deliberate, you couldn’t put it off any longer. “I was talking about, um…” you moved closer to him, your throat becoming dry. He didn’t take his eyes off you for a second. “My feelings for you,” you finally said breathlessly, your heart feeling like it was beating out of your chest. This was it; he was going to reject you like all the others. You braced yourself for the inevitable heartbreak. But it never came.

Instead, John moved so quickly you could barely think, pressing his lips against yours sweetly. You inhaled sharply, shocked, before you came to your senses and kissed him back. Hard. You kissed him like you were drowning and he was oxygen. He pulled you close, his hands on your waist, while you reached up and ran your fingers through his silky hair, something you’d been wanting to do for so long. As he softly ran his tongue along your bottom lip in a way that made you melt, you wanted to pinch yourself. Was this really happening? Were you really kissing the man of your dreams? The butterflies in your stomach and the tingling sensation throughout your entire body was unlike anything you’d ever felt before. When you finally pulled away, it was like he’d kissed away all your fears and doubts. They were gone, and all that was left was an indescribable feeling of safety and passion.

He stroked your cheek, smiling fondly at you, his eyes crinkling. “I’ve been wanting to do that since the moment I met you.” His adorable accent was having a particular effect on you it hadn’t before.

You caught his hand, bringing it to your lips to give the top of his hand a quick kiss, before intertwining your fingers and bringing them down between you. “I’ve been wanting to do it since, well, yesterday afternoon…” you giggled. “Why didn’t I realise how incredible you are sooner?”

He shrugged, absentmindedly toying with the collar of your shirt. “I don’t know, but I know I’m not incredible. Just an average guy who really likes an amazing girl. And not just because she brings me food and looks after me,” he chuckled.

“You’re far from average, John Deacon.”

Just in the middle of the most romantic moment of your life thus far, the door swung open, and a chorus of yelling ensued.

“Finally, my darlings! We were so close to locking you in a room until you agreed to get together!”

“It’s about fucking time, you’re perfect for each other!”

“The two of you are sickeningly cute. I hate it.”

You blushed furiously, embarrassed that you’d forgotten they could see your every move. You were speechless, while John only managed, “Were you watching that whole time?”

----------

It was never easy. Queen’s growing success meant more eyes were on them more than ever before, meaning people were more and more curious about their personal lives. You partially understood, but when you read yet another insensitive, invasive headline questioning Freddie’s personal life, you couldn’t see why people wouldn’t just leave them alone. It began to take a toll on all of them, and even you. Multiple tabloids appeared, including photos of you and John walking along, looking miserable about the paparazzi following you. This was twisted of course, and the headlines read things like, ‘Controversial romance between Queen Bassist and assistant on the rocks.’

You despised the media for portraying him as using his position of power, and he despised them for portraying you as a gold digger. But you could always make each other feel better. No matter what, your love for each other prevailed. Every day you counted your blessings for being able to spend your life with your first love, being able to call him your husband and have his children. You never thought you’d be one of the lucky few who stayed with your first love.

It was different to what you expected at the start, when you were falling in love and it was all forehead kisses and butterflies and giggling. You had built up the idea of love so much in your head. Its absence in your life allowed you to blame your unhappiness and discontent on that void in your life. But it didn’t make all of that go away. Despite your hopes, being in love and having a stable relationship didn’t complete you. You were two imperfect people who loved each other as much as they could, fumbling their way through life’s trials and tribulations.

[punishandenslavesuckers]

Sometimes your life gets ruined over a ham sandwich and that’s just how the fuck it goes. Outtake from our home game because this part made us all lose our shit. 

So a triton and a tiefling walk into a bar.

It’s cramped, kind of dark, and there are three reanimated skeletons sitting around one of the tables. They look super dead and super sad about being dead, just peering mournfully into empty drink glasses. There is also a bugbear drinking ale. (Alarming.) And a straight up fiend of some variety peering eagerly at them from behind the bar. (Also alarming.) The triton – who is generally ignorant about the interplanar ecosystems of the surface world – still kens that animated skeletons must be unusual and tightens her dainty and lady-like vice-grip on the tiefling’s arm.

“Ahh! New customers,” says the fiend in a voice that slopes strangely from word to word. “Welcome to the Salted Lich. I am the proprietor of this place—Dornias Voth. Please. Make yourselves at home and purchase a beverage.”

He puts a little flourish on the word ‘beverage’ for no apparent reason.

Blue smiles. Blue has a politician’s smile. She smiles like she smiled at the city guards she hoodwinked with her husband two days earlier. She smiles like it’s pageantry and carefully pulls her taller tiefling compatriot to the privacy of a far table where they sit and she – still smiling and talking somewhat strained through her teeth – says:

“I’ve been on the surface long enough that even I know that’s not normal.”

Rime could tell her, just straight up, that the thing standing behind the bar is probably the most dangerously malevolent thing he’s encountered in his whole life – a life that includes, in no particular order, mind flayers, murderers, and hobgoblin berserkers – but feels like she might wrench his arm off if he does.

So he just flags the proprietor down, casual as anything.

The fiend, upon closer inspection, is wearing a tiny pair of spectacles, perched on the end of a very long, dark, jackal-like snout. Rime nearly misses the nightly price for a room (three gold) because he’s staring at them. The fiend has very fine red robes, stands bi-pedal somewhere over six and half feet and whenever he – Dorias – speaks, the mouth certainly opens and Common tongue comes out, but jackal jaws shouldn’t be able to form consonants properly and he’s puzzled what magic it is that’s doing the work there.

Rime nods… then glances somewhat meaningfully at the pack of skeletons.

Dornias flaps a lazy hand.

“Friends of the previous owner. Sadly he cannot command them anymore, so I just let them hang around. They did not cause any harm. They simply sit there and remember when they were alive.” He straightens the tiny spectacles. “Sad. But… it is their fate.”

Rime hands over the three gold, casts Thaumaturgy, and a fabrication of his regular speaking voice originates from a point somewhere near his head.

“Do you have anything strong and… fun to drink?”

Dornias remains unflapped by the spell usage. “Of course! Of course! I can offer you the Glabrezu Brew. Made from the blood of fallen soldiers in the Blood War?”

A pause.

Blue’s head tilts exactly one inch to the right.

“That… sounds violent,” says Rime, like you turn down a garnish on a side-salad.

“Ah. Then I can also offer Devas’ Tears.” Dornias beams with pride. “Made from the sorrows of one-thousand celestials.”

Another pause.

“Can I have a shot of rum?” says Blue.

“Maybe just a shot of whiskey,” says Rime.

“Do you have anything to eat?” Blue adds when the drinks arrive.

“I have been told that my sandwiches are worth killing someone over,” says Dornias happily, fingers steepled, ears pricked forward. “Not that you would need to. It is merely two silver…”

They order food. (Though Blue confirms no one did, in fact, die for a ham sandwich.)

Dornias stalks smoothly away on long digitigrade legs and goes behind the bar where he very rapidly puts together the ingredients for the sandwiches; he slices fresh bread from a fragrant loaf, lays thick slabs of ham, cheese, and lettuce, lovingly assembling and securing the layers with an olive-garnished toothpick each. Rime props his chin in two hands and absorbs Devil sandwich design with rapt detail.

Dornias reaches for a large glass jar on a shelf behind him. It glows somewhat ominously as he unscrews the lid… and from the briny depths of the jar a screeching voice issues forth, howling, “A THOUSAND CURSES UPON YOUR BLOODLINE. MAY THE DAMNED TEAR AT YOUR SOUL FOR ALL ETERNITY! I SHALL DROWN YOU IN THE RIVER –!”

Dornias pulls out two pickles from the jar, puts the lid back on, and sets both on the sandwich plates.

Blue, upon receiving her plate, kind of unsubtly bats the pickle away from the rest of her sandwich.

Rime casts Thaumaturgy and through it says, “Can I ask what the screaming pickle jar is all about?”

“Oh, is the previous owner.” Dornias fetches the jar and sets it down on the table where Rime and Blue can observe a human skull with jeweled eyes tumbling angrily around inside the jar.

In Infernal Rime says, “What the fuck?”

Dornias, also in Infernal, eagerly explains. “The previous owner bound me to this place as part of a convoluted plot to take over the city, kill the Masked Lords, murder the Open Lord in front of his children, then rule from here as part of his own dark fiefdom.” He says all this while drumming idle claws against the lid of the pickle jar and in the tone of someone recounting a fond anecdote. “Naturally, like someone who thinks of such a complicated scheme he forgot to assure the bindings that held me in place were secure. So, I tore the head from his body and put it in this enchanted jar.”

He pats the jar and the raging skull inside spins furiously and silently.

“But I have found I like customer service!” Dornias beams.“I like seeing the smiles on a patron’s face! So here I stay.”A beat. “Also the binding was good enough that I cannot leave.”

Rime glances at Blue who is smiling and nodding like people smile and nod when they don’t speak a lick of Infernal. Which, given the information just volunteered, is probably for the best. Rime goes on, brows arching upwardly.

“You stay because it’s fun?”

“Oh, well, I suppose with time, a bit of blood, some tears, a lot of sweat, I could probably get myself free but…” He sighs a happy sigh, gesturing widely to the bar around him. “Is easy life. You wipe the counter. You serve the drinks. A horde of pit fiends never bursts through and slaughters the people you are doing the accounting for.” Another sigh. “Is the good life.”

Blue, not understanding any of that, says, “Excuse me? One more shot.”

Rime kind of laughs, falling out of Thaumaturgy into spoken Common.

“So you don’t get a lot of customers, I assume?”

Beneath his question, the passive vocal aberration in his speaking voice puts a hissing reverb in each word. Like a second, softer voice whispering and rasping beneath Rime’s regular speaking voice. Rime’s grinning a little, visibly happy for an opportunity to speak aloud in strange but (weirdly) safe company. Dornias doesn’t bat an eye at the Infernal reverb, just nods thoughtfully.

“Ah, we do not get many clientele, but we are up and coming business. I am certain the chamber of commerce will welcome me soon.” Dornias nods. “It has only been fifty years.”

Rime grins wider, feeling a little of the tension winding out of his shoulders for the first time in a few days actually because, again rather unexpectedly, being a visible weirdo is creating an unprecedented bubble of safety. Who, even the Xanathar gang on their most irritated, is going to start trouble in a bar owned by a barely bound demonic entity with the skull of his summoner in a pickle jar?

The city watch was right -- this is the perfect place to lie low.

“Sounds like you’re winning an uphill battle,” Rime enthuses.

“Yes. As for your other question,” continues Dornias, “Yes, but not in seven centuries.”

Blue glances at Rime and Rime blinks, puzzled, “My other question?”

Your other question,” Dornias insists brightly.

An awkward beat followes. Long enough for Rime to suddenly question their own recollection of a conversation less than five seconds past and say, “Wait, what other question?”

“The one you asked in your other voice.”

Dead silence then.

Rime hears absolutely nothing except the sudden thunderous crush of his own heartbeat roaring through his ears. He stares up at the jackal-headed fiend standing over him. He can feel Blue looking back and forth between them, enough context clues suddenly tossed out in a shared language to imply things. Then, after a long, confused, then horrifying stretch of silence, Rime whispers:

“What?”

“You asked how long it had been since I saw the fires of Ivernas,” says Dornias. “Seven centuries.”

Rime switches back to Infernal. “You can understand my subvocals?”

“Yes?”

“What? I – I don’t— I’ve never met anyone who could –”Rime sputters for a moment then, doubles down. “I didn’t know it was SAYING anything.”

Dornias nods as though this is not surprising. “Difficult to understand if you weren’t part of a few small platoons of Glabrezu soldiers who crossed the River Styx to make their way into Ivernas, storm the Nine Hells, and destroy the multi verse.” He shrugs a little. “Uncommon tongue.”

Blue, becoming bored of Infernal conversations she’s not part of, pokes Rime in the arm. “Rime. RIME.”

“Hmm? Hmm?!”

She pouts. “What are you saying?”

“Uhh,” Rime says, glancing Dornias. “It’s an Infernal thing?”

“Are you okay? Blink twice if you need me.”

Rime’s tone softens a little. “I am okay.”

“Are the shots going to kill me?” Blue demands, face serious and inebriated. “Is he poisoning me?”

“Absolutely not.”

Blue immediately holds up one finger in Dorias’ direction. “Third shot sir! Thank you, Mister Friend.” Then she whispers to Rime. “Is he a whowolf too?”

Rime supposes she means ‘werewolf’ but just says, “No.”

And at that moment the main door to the bar opens and both William and Bian – returned from their second meeting today with shady and unscrupulous criminals for profit – enter the bar. They immediately and understandably freeze upon seeing the clientele. Bian’s large tabaxi eyes dart around the room, one fluffy triangular ear twitching a little bit, her tail flipping back and forth as she squints particularly at Dornis and the bugbear and the rage skull pickle jar. Then she’s looking at Rime the way you look to any bellweather for direction, and takes his relative calm as cue to be regular in here.

Will, meanwhile, goes for his sword.

“Ah,” says Dornias, holding up a hand. “Please no violence on the premise. I would hate to eject you.”

Blue begins to wave down her alarmed life partner, flapping a blue web-finned hand at him. “HUBBY. HUBBYYYY.” She might be drunker than Rime first picked up on. “Come sit down and talk to our friend.”

Will nervously drops his hand from his rapier, holding his palms open as he moves toward the table. He eyes Dornias the entire way there. “Uh, yeah. I’m sorry I… sorry?” Then in a lower voice to Blue,“What have we missed?”

Bian strides (unflapped by skeletons, bugbears, or demons) across the room. She yanks a chair over to the table beside Rime, then takes a seat backwards straddling it. Properly settled, she then promptly steals and eats the pickle off Rime’s plate. Rime stares. The pickle crunches satisfactorily between sharp feline jaws and she smacks, small pink nose wrinkling slightly but otherwise shows no ill affect from eating the pickle from the cursed skull jar. Rime, somewhat warily, slides her his whiskey shot as a chaser and turns back to Dornias.

Still in Infernal, he presses, “It’s a Glabrezu dialect—?”

Blue, whispering loudly to Will, demands, “Did you know he speaks Angry Tongue?”

Will glances at Rime, then back to Blue. “No. Did you?”

“No. But I didn’t ask.”

Bian keeps gnawing on the pickle, one ear rotating toward the voices, but otherwise appears to ignore everyone. Will and Blue continue to discuss Rime just loudly enough it kind of involves Rime, despite his being in another conversation entirely. Dornias is pondering his question, however, so in the meanwhile he hears:

“I didn’t know you spoke Fishy-Fish.”

Will sounds resentful.

Blue looks offended. “I am a fish. You speak in Ely-Elf don’t you?”

Rime, loudly, butts in at this point. “It’s Infernal, by the way. All tieflings speak Infernal.”

Blue lunges up dramatically in her seat, pointing at Rime. “YOU TEACH ME INFERNAL. I’LL TEACH YOU AQUAN.”

Rime, rather taken off guard by her volume goes, “Okay. Fair?”

“Anyway,”Dornias breaks in finally, still speaking Infernal. “Most Glabrezu speak Abyssal but a few were trained in other tongues. A bastarization of Infernal, Abyssal, lil bit of Celestial, some of the language of the Modrin but not much. Aaand I had to do their accounting for a few centuries.”

Rime likewise speaking Infernal, says, “Accounting? What? You said they stormed the Nine Hells?”

Dornias switches to Common then, sounding confused. “Yes! Have you—? Oh! I forget! Material Plane. I am sorry. I am so used to the Lower Planes where everyone knows!”

Blue raises her hand like she’s in class. “I’m not from this plane either!”

Dornias looks at her, eagerly, leaning across the table a little to grin at her. It’s toothy and worrisome. “I know! I have bought and sold some of your kind!”

Then he switches to Aquan and with a voice like a man drowning, launches into some kind of extended conversation with Blue in her native “fishy-fish” tongue. To her credit, her face remains a perfect, hospitable mask of rapt glee the entire time. Will, meanwhile, steals Blue’s ham sandwich from her plate and starts eating it. He gets about halfway through one bite before a kind of involuntary rapturous look of bliss crosses his handsome half-elf features and he kind of zones out. Both Rime and Bian stare.

“You okay over there, bud?” says Bian, shooting Rime’s whiskey.

“It’s a really good sandwich,” Will whispers.

Dornias suddenly swaps back to Common. “I’m sorry. I forget people of the Central Planes are not used to conversing about the Blood War. It’s struggles and strategies.” He looks around the table. “How much do you know about the Creation of the Universe?”

There’s a pause. Before Rime or Blue can volunteer something vague, Will – a man who only a few days ago called Bian a ‘cat-person’ and Rime ‘basically a demon’ and then failed to correctly identify his wife’s native tongue – immediately lifts his head and says (mouth full of sandwich), “Well, one time, in a bar…”

And proceeds to recount in detail the broad strokes of how the universe was created. At least, as told to him once by a raging drunk wizard in a tavern somewhere. While this is happening, Bian elbows Rime slightly, leveling a weighted sidelong glance at him that Rime interprets as a generalized, ‘Are we okay? Or should I be worried?’

Because she must notice, if nothing else, the anxious tail-lashing that Rime’s got going on around his boots beneath the table. A tell that other species with tails generally ken to more quickly than other races. Rime glances at her, allowing a slight nervous uncertainty knit his brow, then wobbles one hand back and forth.

Blue, staring at Will, says loudly, “I’m so into you right now. Wow. You know so much for a surface walker.”

And while Will looks pleased with himself, Dornias addresses the table again saying, “Anyway, in war there is always the middle Neutral ground yes? The No Mans’ Land as it were? Where all must cross and blood and mud and stabbing each other and bone sticking out of the dirt? There is where I live. On the River Styx. Or at least that’s where I used to.” Proudly he adds, “Now I live in Waterdeep. I am Waterdaviancitizen.” He beams. “I won the court case.”

The whole party stares a little.

“Anyway,” Dornias says, speaking to Rime suddenly, “your weird vocal tic sounds like Glabrezu shouting orders from other room, basically.” If he notices Rime’s horror that he’s saying this to the whole table, he doesn’t act on it, but goes on knowingly. “Facility with all languages means, uh, well, I speak all languages.”

Blue looks at Rime. “So… are you like… possessed? Is it like a possession thing? Do your weird voice whispers tell you to kill people?”

Rime, horrified, completely forgets Thaumaturgy and sputters, “No! I don’t even understand it.”

Blue nods sagely. “Good to know.”

Dornias adds, “Sounds like you have direct connection to Abyss.”

Rime chokes. “What?!”

Blue slams her palms excitedly on the table. “THAT’S SO COOL, RIME!”

“Wait. I’m sorry. Sorry,” says Dornias while Rime’s body goes cold all over. “I mean Nine Hells. Occasionally you get Glabrezu across both sides. Big mess. So yes, you have direct connection to Nine Hells in your vocal cords.

Blue is now drunkenly yelling, “THAT’S AWESOOOOME.”

Rime’s frozen, gripping the table edge. “I don’t know if that’s awesome.”

Blue giggles. “What’s up with the demon possession?”

“I am not possessed!”

“Oh… so it just kind of piggybacking on you?” Blue props her chin in her hand, frowning, puzzled at him. “Like it sits on your shoulder and says shitty things?”

Rime’s cantrip keeps half falling apart in his head so he just keeps, unable to stop himself, speaking aloud out of pure instinctive panic. “I don’t— I don’t know what – Dornias, as I’m talking is it speaking to YOU? And like… as I talk can it hear you and the conversations I’m having?”

Dornias says, “Uhhhhhh.”

And then there is a very, very, very long pause. Rime can visibly see the ancient fiendish hesitate as if uncertain what to do. He’s trying to decide what to say. By the time Dornias finally moves again, Rime’s fingers are aching where he’s gripping the table. Dornias surreptitiously produces a piece of paper. Then he picks up a pen and writes something on the paper. That done, he flips the paper around for them to read:

IT SAID NOT TO TELL YOU.

Dead silence follows.

Bian breaks it by asking, deadpan, “So is it gonna kill us in our sleep?”

For a moment, Rime kind of fades out in a long buzzing silence where Rime is vaguely aware of Blue saying things and Dornias saying things and, weirdly, the thing he is most aware of is his own fingernails, blunt and digging into the wood beneath his palms. He can feel Bian kind of side-eyeing him, but can’t bring himself to look at her. The buzzing in his ears fades in time to hear Dornias promising to teach Blue a demonic dialect, but only after they kill a lantern archon and climb Mount Celestial on another plane of existence.

Rime plants a hand on Blue’s shoulder and says, “Blue. No.”

Blue doesn’t hear though, and is eagerly wooting, “Alright. Let’s go!” Just in time for Will to also grab her other shoulder and pull her back into her seat.

Rime brings up his hands and in deliberate Sign, he says, Do you understand me?

Dornias also brings his hands up and signs, Yes. I understand you.

Rime holds his gaze.

Have you ever encountered anyone else who has this affliction?

Yes. But specifically only those with powerful connections to the lower planes.

Can you elaborate?

Typically direct descendants of archfiends or demon princes.

So what would your theory be about me?

Dornias glances sidelong and Rime realizes Blue is pouting dramatically, glaring at their fast-moving hand-signs with the resentment of someone being left out of a conversation.

“Hmm, well let’s see,” he says aloud, moving suddenly toward Rime. “Red skin, horns…” He reaches up and taps one of Rime’s horns with a claw. “You have strong connection to Minaros. You might be distant child of Mamon. The Arch Devil of Greed. He through whose hands pass all coin and who sits unchallenged upon a throne of stolen wealth from all the multi-verse.”

Again. Dead silence for a moment.

Then Will, beaming over his sandwich plate says, “Hey! My kinda guy! I don’t have a faith, but I can get behind that.”

Then from the far end of the bar, the bugbear drinking from a bucket-like tankard wobbles around in his seat and burps, “Uh. Respect.” Then slurps his beer.

Rime jerks physically. “No!”

Blue is already shouting. “Shots for the four of us! And the bugbeaaaaaar!”

Cheering ensues.

Rime fumbling his Sign, tries to say something to Dornias who is eagerly pouring out more shots all around.

Dornias. Do you –?

Blue lays a hand on his wrist to get his attention, suddenly concerned and mildly wounded. “Are you not doing your shot?”

Rime stares wildly at her, then the shot glass, then her again.

He slams the shot mostly of pure Lliiran instinct and the sudden realization he’s not drunk enough for this and has not been for some time.

Blue somewhat fuzzily to Dornias, says, “Can I have another sandwich? My dog ate mine.”

Will shoots her a look, but she ignores him.

Dornias whizzes away to prepare another screaming pickle and sandwich while Bian and Will shoot their respective drinks and Bian steals Rime’s untouched sandwich. Rime sits, hands braced against the sides of his head, staring vacantly into the middle of the table until the new sandwich lands on their table and Dornias loiters again benignly by their table, delighted apparently by their general patronage.

Rime takes the opportunity to Sign to him.

So… the vocal tick is basically that someone has a two-way connection between me and this realm of hell and someone is speaking through it whenever I speak?

Dornias studies his hands, then says aloud, “Effectively, yes.”

“Fuck!” Rime cries, pressing one palm against his forehead.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” Donias waves a hand. “Is slightly incorrect phrasing. Someones.” A beat. “At this point I have detected six distinct voices.”

Bian levels a cool look in Rime’s direction. “You got major problems.”

Rime snaps his fingers, his cantrip rebutting, “I’m fine!”

Blue folds her hands on the table, leaning forward with a knowing inebriation. “You know… Tritons respectour ancestors. Just saying…”

“I don’t know that’s what this is!”

Blue just eats her new cursed pickle while Will somewhat desperately flicks sandwich crust at her in an effort to stop her declarations about Rime’s suddenly deeply strange vocal affliction.

Rime turns to Dornias and through the spell, asks, “Is there anyway to stop it?”

“Hmm, is difficult process. But yes. I could probably stop connection.” Then, before anyone can get excited about his, he adds, “But you would have to die.”

Blue, still very drunk, flaps a hand at the fiend while Rime stares, speechless in every sense of the word.

“Do you just mean killhim?” She makes a kind of psssh/gargling noise of unimpressed-ness and jerks a thumb at Rime. “Because I can do that too.” She seems to realize how that sounds once said aloud, then mumbles, “I wouldn’tdo that… but I could.”

Dornias, trying very hard to be helpful, explains, “Process would specifically involving killing, removing heart, filling with lead, removing vocal cords, stretching them around an axe, and using it to chop up rest of body before burning in a fire from the Nine Hells.”

Blue is getting paper out of her bag. “Should we be taking notes?

Rime, very softly says, “No.”

Dornias is still explaining things. “Even after you die, connection will probably persist and eventually tear where devil soldiers will pour through into this plane of existence.”

Blue is scribbling on her piece of paper. “So definitely take notes. Can you go through that process one more time?”

Rime tries again, just once more, with shaking hands to Sign: Are you saying that I could be a portal? You said monsters could come through? What?

Dornias nods absently. “Yes, but will probably take long time. Unless you suddenly experience an enormous amount of negative energy passing through your body or alternatively someone held you down and ritually sacrificed you make it happen.” A little shrug then and a wave of the hand. “Buuut rare occurrence.”

Blue looks sincerely at Rime. “I wouldn’t do that to you,” she promises with liquor-muzzy fondness. She pats him on the arm. “But if you ever die, don’t worry, Imma un-portal you.”

Rime gets up. Rime can’t hear anything but a low roar. It might be his speech cantrip going out of wack. It might be his pulse in his brain. It might be the panic overriding every other process for receiving sensory data to his higher order thoughts.

Either way, he can’t hear a damn thing. He just kind of… stands up at the table, looks around… then runs. Bolts straight out the front doors, slamming his palms against the wood and knocking them wide open  into the street outside. He hooks around the door on the right so he can fetch up hard against the tavern wall and, for just a moment, fall apart. He stacks both hands over his mouth and just… smothers the noise that tries to rush out of him. He strangles that like a kitten in a bucket and leans, breathing hard, against the wall.

Around him, people are passing idly by. Overhead, the sky is cold, autumnal, and clear. He closes his eyes and for the first time since leaving home, he regrets not leaving the other half of his sending stones in Secomber because more than anything, anything, anything right now… he’d bleed just to hear something familiar. He mouths over and over silently against his fingers, “It’s okay. It’s fine. It’s okay,” until the shape of the lie is like braille against his palms.

Rime opens his eyes. He won’t speak aloud again for a while.

[mecharose]

ALL the evens pls

omg lol ok (skipping ones I already did, plus a readmore bc omg)

2. On a scale of 1-5, how afraid of the dark are you?

depends where I am. empty dark street? VERY. dark room? atmosphere, good

6. When you looked in the mirror this morning what was the first thing you thought?

I look like a farm lesbian (I’m wearing a flannel, jeans, and lace up brown boots)

8. What do you label yourself as?

I mean I just called myself a lesbian but I actually have major beef with basing my entire identity and view of others off labels. people are complicated man

10. What were you doing at midnight last night?

drawing, I think?

14. What is your current desktop picture?

16. The last song you listened to?

nocturnal me (I would link it, but youtube is dead)

18. Who would you really like to just punch in the face?

obvious answer but Donald Trump

20. What is your best physical attribute? (showing said attribute is optional)

everything I love what I look like

22. Do you have a secret talent? If yes, what is it?

bullshitting schoolwork and still doing well

24. You can only have one kind of sandwich. Every sandwich ingredient known to humankind is at your disposal.

is a hot dog a sandwich? saying this just to start drama

28. You discover a beautiful island upon which you may build your own society. You make the rules. What is the first rule you put into place?

I institute an autocracy of society based around my whims. I’m the god of this universe

30. Your house is on fire, holy shit! You have just enough time to run in there and grab ONE inanimate object. Don’t worry, your loved ones and pets have already made it out safely. So what’s the one thing you’re going to save from that blazing inferno?

my computer I’m a writer are u kidding

32. You got kicked out of the country for being a time-traveling heathen who sleeps with celebrities and has super-powers. But check out this cool shit… you can move to anywhere else in the world!

barcelona, like… I just really love barcelona

36. Have you ever been admitted to the hospital?

yes, for being sick once and breaking my foot another time

38. What is the color of your socks?

pink

40. Do you prefer sunrises or sunsets?

sunsets over NYC are beautiful

42. What football team do you support? (I will answer in terms of American football as well as soccer)

what’s a sports

44. What do you want to be when you graduate?

literally nothing if I could. I want to live in a comfy apartment with my friends and write books. fuck office jobs

46. Are you reliable?

in terms of what?

48. Do you hold grudges?

not really

50. What is the most unusual conversation you’ve ever had?

talking to a business executive type and his nervous, sweating new hire after a schizophrenic lady dropped a plastic bag full of scribbled violent phrases between them

52. How long could you go without talking?

bruh idk

54. Have you ever baked your own cake?

I used to love baking freshman year of high school!

56. What do you like on your toast?

jam is my jam

58. What would be you dream car?

my dad’s 1992 dodge stealth. IT’S MINE I’M THE OLDEST

60. Do you believe in aliens?

the universe is huge, something’s out there

62. What is your favorite letter of the alphabet?

O. it’s a circle

64. What do you think about babies?

tiny!! protect them!! also they are very small humans NOT some kind of weird pet and people need to realize that more. I don’t want my own kids though

[the-voice-of-hell]

Rent is Theft, part 17

Read from the beginning here, read the previous chapter here.  Note:  My MC is a Filipina trans woman and I am not.  If you have notes on that or anything else, hit me up.

                                                        ***

      I held her hand on the way out.  Despite every outer wall of the place being mostly glass, it was much darker inside than out.  The sun hurt our eyes and we put on cheap sunglasses.  The city was bright and cold, like it often was in the morning.  It looked generally clean, but a few scraps torn paper and other trash twirled in the wind like flakes in a fishbowl.

      “Breakfast sucked, didn’t it?”

      “Yeah,” she said.

      “We could get something to eat before we get on that bus.  This place over here has mondo cinnamon rolls with this thick, rich frosting.  Probably enough food for a week if you pace yourself, heh.”  I gestured to a chichi breakfast place that catered to fancy business people.  The gilt and tinted glass face made the patrons look like they were wading through dark beer.

       “No, they’ll tell us to leave.”

       I considered protesting.  I’d been there several times before.  But in my reflection, I saw that poverty and misfortune had taken a toll on my presentation.  Maybe we would catch grief.  I turned away and we kept walking.  “There’s a Subway tucked into the grubby basement level of a less fancy building a block over.  One time I ordered a BLT there but didn’t bother to specify the toppings, and the lady gave me a piece of bread with nothing but bacon on it.  C’mon.”

      “Heyheyhey yeah, wassup girls?”  A familiar raspy voice assaulted us from an alley.  We both turned to face him, sure we were about to get physically assaulted as well.  It was Walter, still tugging up his dingy trunks from a bit of public urination.

      But the strangest thing was his expression - none of the drama of the incident that sent everybody to the police station, just the pervy simmering he’d give to any sexy stranger.  “Just wanted to say, like, dyamn.  Just checkin’ your form.  Ya both priddy, ya know?  I wouldn’ mind a sex sandwich.  Not that I’m gonna do nothin’ cuz I’m a gennleman an’ shit.  Unless you wanted to, cuz like...”

      As thick as his skull was, he noticed we were both paralyzed in shock, but he guessed the wrong reason.  “HEY!  I said I’m a gentleman, bitches!  Fuck you anyway.  Bitches.”  He turned away and started tromping down the alley.

      Momi went after him.  I shook in horror, mind reeling.  Was she going back to him and leaving me?  Why would I have thought that for even a second?  Was she going to confront him and get herself killed?  I was shaking like a toy on a string, unable to step forward, to speak.

      “Walter!  Walter!”  I’d never heard her voice that loud.  It was unfamiliar, high but resonant.

      He turned around with eyes half-lidded in an expression of sleazy hope, etched sloppy into a potato-like face.  “I don’t know how you know me but--”

      She stopped four feet from him, rooted to the concrete, fists at her sides.  “Why don’t you know me?  I was the only one, Walter!  I was your Momi.”

      “My mommy?”  He looked deeply confused and a little scared.

      I got back enough control to take shambolic halting steps down the alley, felt like I was too far away.  I had already figured out this was another effect of our weird state of trespass, even if I didn’t know what to make of it.  But I was surprised she was bothered.  It seemed very convenient for this monster to forget her.  Just take it and leave, baby.

      She did not.  “Lei. Mo. Mi.  You don’t own me, you don’t treat me like that and jus’ forget me!  Fuck you, Walter!”

      “‘Ey hol’ up, bitch!”

      She answered with fists.  I was shook again, paralyzed as she beat the creep.  Would he kill her?  But she had a slight advantage of reach and height.  He was punching back but couldn’t get his full power behind it, couldn’t connect with her face.

      He’d always seemed indestructible to me, like he was made out of solid leather.  Some kind of substance with no internal organs to disrupt, no fragile calcium-based bones to break.  But he reeled for a moment, stunned - evidence of a nervous system, at least.  She took advantage of the moment to throw a big punch that knocked him down.  Concrete did the rest of the job as his head bounced, and he was unconscious.  She started kicking him.

      “Leimomi!  Stop!”  I scooted my feet closer, careful not to get in range of those fists and feet, in case her rage was blind.  “We gotta get out of here before you get arrested!”

      “AUGH!” She kicked him hard one last time then stepped away, gripped a chain link fence and seethed.  “Ooh I’m so mad.  I’m so mad!”

      “It’s cool baby.  You got him!  That’s great.  We gotta--”

      She wheeled to face me, face his body.  “We gotta hide the evidence.”  She reached down and hauled his dead weight off the ground, very awkwardly.

      “No, if we just get out of here... What are you doing?”

      Momi leaned Walter against a trash compactor, pinning him there with one arm while she opened the door of it with the other.  “Get rid of the evidence!”

      “Baby, no.  He’ll get compacted!  Squished up.  That’s no way to die.”

      She looked at me sadly, still holding the dog man against the hard metal with no visible effort.  “I just want to hide him.”

      I looked to the ends of the alley frantically.  Both were wide open to the street, with cars driving by every few seconds.  No one walking by at just that moment.  “Fine, like, use the dumpster.  The dumpster!”

      She nodded in agreement and smiled as she dragged him to the dumpster.  I was glad this alley still had one.  The city had cut a deal with some weird shady contractor to do an “eco-friendly” garbage service that involved leaving proprietary bags straight on the ground for pick up, and did away with most dumpsters.  But the bags were getting torn open by rats, so the dumpsters would surely return.  They just hadn’t cut the deals for that yet, leaving most alleys a grimy mess.

      I held up the wobbly grey plastic lid and she hoisted her ex-boyfriend up and in.  One of his feet kicked her in the side of the face as he flipped inside.  I was alarmed for her, but quickly distracted by the loud sound of him hitting the bottom.  The thing was nearly empty, giving Walter’s body a five foot drop onto hard steel.  Fucker could have broken his neck just then.

      I moved to take her in my arms, pull her away, but was arrested by the eyes of a pedestrian down the way.  The man glanced at us, then kept looking.  But he didn’t stop walking until he was out of sight.  Maybe he didn’t see the legs go into the dumpster.  I imagined he’d have a more extreme reaction.  But I didn’t want to stick around to find out.  I grabbed Momi’s hand and tugged her away from the scene of the crime.

      Normally when I walked hand in hand with Leimomi our fingers would interlace.  On the way home, I was just holding her wrist or the outside of her fist.  She was too tense, too high on the violence of our misadventure.  We got up to her apartment and I walked her inside.  She started pacing the wall like a caged cougar.  I went into the kitchenette, wringing my hands, stopped at the counter to watch her go.

      “Baby, do you need to work this out on like, a punching bag?”

      “God!  I don’t know.  Maybe.  God!”  She kept stomping.

      “Hey, you could try the ottoman there.  I don’t think anyone is living downstairs still, so...”

      “OK… AUGH!”  She attacked the furniture like a crazed white boy, falling to her knees and beating on it with both fists.

      I just stood there, worrying, sweating.  At last she was done, and slumped forward over the cushion.  “Hey honey, you need some water?  I could use some water.”

      “Mmhm.”

      She didn’t move until I brought over a red cup of water, at which she just sat up, still on the floor, one arm resting on the ottoman as she accepted.  I drank a cup of my own and sat on a chair close by.

      “When you’re ready, you should take a shower.  And we can find out how bad you got beat up.”

      “I didn’t get beat up!  I beat his ass!  I beat Walter’s ass!”  She didn’t look mad at me, but she was suddenly getting ramped up again so I tried to sound soothing, take her down a notch.

      “I just mean to see, like, if there are any cuts or broken bones.  Because he did hit you a few times.”

      She crumpled up her mouth but said nothing this time, and finished her water.

      “Come on, Rocky.  Let’s hit the showers, OK?”  I walked her to the bathroom and she took off everything except her bra and panties for me.  I turned on all the lights, took a wet rag, and started prodding the livid patches on her body.  “Does this hurt?  How about here?”

      “Just a little.  It’s not that bad.”

      “It’s gonna get dark before it gets better.  Maybe all of them.  You’re gonna be a walking bruise.”

      She stepped back, folding her arms over her breasts.  “Oh no.”

      “Don’t be shy, baby.  It’s no big deal, as long as you're OK.”  I hugged her but she didn’t unfold her arms.  “You’re adorable.  Hey, I’ll let you be alone so you can take a shower, and whatever.  We’ll have fun, take it easy today, huh?”

      “I won’t be too ugly?”

      “Of course not.  It just looks sad when somebody is hurt, it doesn’t look ugly.”

      She finally unfolded her arms.  “OK,” she ran a finger on my forehead, “but you need a shower too.”

      “Do I?”  I took my shirt off, trying to do it in one slick move, but it snagged on my head wrap.  “These scarves don’t help.  Ugh.”

      She giggled and reached around, clumsily undoing my bra.  I took hers off more easily.  We were all sweaty and gross, but I was feeling almost high.  We kicked off the last of our clothes and stepped into the shower.

                                                        ***

      I gathered the ingredients for more wizard shit, which took a few days.  Knobby and Olivia were still nowhere to be found and another werewolf sighting happened.  Last time I solved the allergy problem with a potion, it was pure improvisation.  This time I had a rulebook, but felt like there should be at least some leeway for doing it my way.  I also wondered if I should be heartbroken and drunk like the first time, to make sure it worked.  I settled on drunk, drinking a few full wine bottles as I prepared my ritual components and potion.

      I saved the potion for last because it was complicated.  After preparing my little pots of olive oil, making one fancy wand with red tape and three kinds of wood,, and drinking a full bottle of wine, I considered that starting with the most complicated part would have been a better idea.

      You know when you’re wasted and you try to just focus really strongly on what you’re doing, like if you do it slow enough you are somehow going to make that line straight?  That’s how I was working.  I got the water up to a boil while putting each ingredient into a shot glass or small cup, intending to throw them all in at the end, hoping not to create something so toxic I dropped dead on the spot.

      The sulphur I had gotten in ointment form and the camphor as Vap-O-Rub from a drugstore, as well as an ammonia-based cleaner.  The “castoreum” - some kind of beaver ass gland exudate - was apparently a “natural ingredient” used in fake vanilla, so I got a bottle of that.  The opium was the most expensive ingredient by far - it would have been a bit shy of five thousand bucks - so I figured I could get away with a smaller amount if I used heroin.  I scored a hundred dollars worth with Deandre’s help which according to my math was about right.  I wasn’t about to boil a live animal but I got some dehydrated snakes and frogs from a witch store, along with some mandrake root.  To make up for the fact the snake wasn’t alive, I decided to add some of my blood to the mix.  I stole the asafoetida, some mushrooms, and St. John’s wort from an expensive grocery store and I was good to go.

     The water reached a boil and I drank deep from the wine one more time.  Part of me was convinced the only way I could do magic was by shutting off my higher brain functions.  I gripped the edge of the stove with one hand for balance and started dropping my ingredients in the pot.

      Vanilla camphor ammonia vinegar nightmare vapor hit me this way and that.  My lungs started to burn so I pulled a scarf down from my head to cover my mouth and nose.  I made sure I was nowhere near the stove and counter in case I drunkenly knocked something over, but I had forgotten why the scarf was on my head in the first place.  Reverse Courtney.

      “HOOOOooo baby!  Courtney girl, I can’t believe you thought you could get by without me.  Here you are, trying to stay where you don’t belong, I mean, do you even have a conscience?  Guess what?  It’s me.  You can’t shut me up forever.  I swear, even if all I can do is hum the words through a gag, you’re gonna hear me.  You got that bitch?”

      “Damn, that was a mouthful.  Listen, I’m only toleratin’ you because I need this… gag.  I’m borrowin’ it--”

      “HEY!  You forgot your blood.  Haha.  Try getting that in the pot in your current state.”

      “Hey yerself!” I was slurred from the scarf as much as from the vino.  “How come you’re not drunk if I’m drunk?”  I tried to remember which drawer had my silverware in it.

      “I am drunk.  I’m just very loquacious.  It’s the last one to the right, genius.”

      “Thank you.”

      “Don’t cut your hand off don’t cut your hand off don’t cut your hand off EEEEEEE I can’t look!”

      “Guh.  Fuck off.”  I held my hand over the boiling pot, put a paring knife to the skin of my palm.

      “Steady now-AAAAAA!”

      She startled me and the knife slipped.  Fortunately it was pretty dull and I only had a little cut, but it fell out of my hand into the boiling pot.  I reflexively reached in to grab it.

      If someone in a neighboring building was Hitchcock peeping on my unit, they would see a mad woman running back and forth, completely amok.  By the time I had Reverse Courtney gagged, my hand loosely wrapped in another scarf, and pulled the potion off the stove, the stuff had reduced to a fairly thick pudding.  The smell had somehow averaged out to something like vanilla mint plastic.  I just put the pot straight in the refrigerator, nearly spilling it twice.

      I finished the second bottle and went to bed, whimpering myself to sleep.

                                                        ***

      The next day I woke up to a loud manly knock at the door.  I almost screamed at the pain from my burns as I jolted out of bed to answer, but composed myself enough to receive him.  Grime.

      “What the hell do you need Graeme?  Sorry if I’m curt but I’m in some pain.”

      “Ah, it’s probably nothing but if you go in or out, be aware the pest control company is supposed to be coming and going today.  Could be trouble if we blunder into somebody at the wrong moment.”

      “Mm, yeah, thanks man.”

      He ran a red hand to the back of his neck nervously.  “How are you?  Just hung over, or..?”

      “It’s medical too.  Don’t bother yourself.  Just leave alone, if you don’t mind.”

      “You don’t have to tell me twice, Court.  Take care.”

      He left me to tend my wounds.

      I cleaned myself up very carefully.  The burns were only first degree, as horrible as they felt, and could be covered by keeping my right hand in a pocket or otherwise out of sight.  I happened to have some reasonable ointments for protecting and soothing the skin, so it didn’t take long to get myself back in order.  But as I went to check on the fruit of my magical deeds, the phone rang.

      Unfamiliar number.  “Hello?”

      “Um, is there a Courtney Marquez there?”

      “This is she.  What do you need?”

      “Yes, well, you applied for the tech position at our firm, Selman Design Group, and we liked your qualifications.  We were wondering if you could interview today?”

      I almost dropped the phone, hustled to the bathroom mirror, and tried to suss out the damage.  Could I be made presentable?

      “Hello?  Are you there?”

      “Yes.  How soon?”

      “Preferably no later than one thirty PM?”

      “I can do one thirty, thank you.”  No you can’t.

      “Sure. Putting you down for one thirty.  Thank you, Courtney.”

      “I look forward to it.”

      I did not look forward to it.

      Shortly there was another knock at my door.  Leimomi.  She was dressed in her black kimono-ish robe with her hair freshly-rebundled in tiers of scarves, and had done her makeup.

      “Momi, hon, how’s it going?”  I opened the door wide but didn’t step out of the way.

      “Mm,” she leaned in and pulled me close, “I was thinkin’ maybe you and me,” she kissed me, “could do some stuff?”

      The worst timing in the world.  I wanted her like this - ready to go, not feeling bad about herself.  Was that a bruise from where Walter accidentally kicked her?

      I kissed her back and rubbed her up and down for a moment.  Grr.  “Baby I wish I could so much, but I got too much going on.”  She was about to open her mouth to say something and I cut her off again.  “Tonight too, it suuucks.  I’m gonna try to get the exorcism going, if we can catch Knobby.”

      She stepped back and looked down miserably.  “What if we still can’t find him?”

      “Right.  If we can’t find Knobby by… ten PM, let’s get together and go fucking nuts.”  I grabbed her hands and squeezed them.  “I love you so much, Momi.  I will see you later, OK?”

      “Yeah.”

      True to Grime’s word, there were exterminator trucks in the alley, but I didn’t see any men around.  I chose to hustle past that, and set out for the job interview.  I didn’t have to worry about Walter recognizing me on a bus so the trip was less tense than usual.

      I could have a job.  We could have an out.  This could work.

      I wished I didn’t still need to wrap my head so tightly.  Unlike Leimomi, I wasn’t trying to hide every hair, and could let a crown out to accentuate my femininity.  But the scarf had to be tight over the back, so it looked goofy.  I’m no rockabilly or riveting Rosie.

      The building was one of those hundred year old three to six story brick jobs (four stories in this one) that dominated the art district.  Many had wholly renovated interiors and this was no exception.  I doubted anything remained of the original except the outermost walls and support structures.  When buzzed in, I found an interior of frosted glass walls and richly stained yellow wood floors, flawlessly waxed and shining.  The lights were blown glass UFOs on long thin poles emitting a perfectly white light.  As you passed directly beneath them you could see they achieved that with inner rings of purple and green light that somehow added up to a wholly neutral bleach glow.

      I couldn’t help but look up.  The glass walls offered nothing but a twisting gleaming corridor to weave through, the UFOs the only real feature to look at.  I must’ve looked like a babe in the woods.  One of the glass doors opened inward and a tiny woman walked out, dark brown hair in a middle part and pale skin, dressed in black, like baby Christina Ricci aged into Edith Head.  She gave me the sleepy nod of a clinically depressed person who can’t smile for politesse and walked away without a word.

      It arrested me.  Where was I going?  If I kept following that white rabbit, I’d end up in a breakroom or bathroom where I didn’t belong.  Like the apartment building where I don’t belong... What weirdness would befall me in there?

                                                        ***

   Read next chapter here.

[blogs-a-clusterfuck]

1-65

1. Do you ever doubt the existence of others than you?Sometimes? I go into these really weird states where I just think I can’t be real???

2. On a scale of 1-5, how afraid of the dark are you?0

3. The person you would never want to meet?Hitler

4. What is your favorite word?Yanky

5. If you were a type of tree, what would you be?Birch tree

6. When you looked in the mirror this morning what was the first thing you thought?“Fuck I have class in 30 minutes”

7. What shirt are you wearing?My new favorite shirt, it’s peach and has cute cross things in it

8. What do you label yourself as?Idk and it makes me mad that I don’t know

9. Bright room or dark room?Depends on what I’m doing

10. What were you doing at midnight last night?Laughing hysterically with a few or my hall mates from my college dorm.

11. Favorite age you’ve been so far?Right now for sure, I’ve never felt so happy

12. Who told you they loved you last?My dad? That’s really weird for me to say but I think it was him…..

13. Your worst enemy?Don’t have one honestly.

14. What is your current desktop picture?Roses.

15. Do you like someone?Meh. I mean yes kinda but it’s complicated. I liked someone but he is a fuckboy, but I like someone but again I can’t keep up with it all so I’m just taking time for myself and honesty it’s slightly hitting me butttt….

16. The last song you listened to?Don’t stop me by queen

17. You can press a button that will make any one person explode. Who would you blow up?Idk

18. Who would you really like to just punch in the face?My dad

19. If anyone could be your slave for a day, who would it be and what would they have to do?Fuck slaves.

20. What is your best physical attribute? (showing said attribute is optional)Honestly I have no idea ngl.

21. If you were the opposite sex for one day, what would you look like and what would you do?I would do so much holy shit.

22. Do you have a secret talent? If yes, what is it?No? Maybe?

23. What is one unique thing you’re afraid of?Lightning, I have a horrible fear of it.

24. You can only have one kind of sandwich. Every sandwich ingredient known to humankind is at your disposal.I’m not a sandwich person, but I’ve been craving a grilled cheese.

25. You just found $100! How are you going to spend it?Textbooks

26. You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere in the world, but you have to leave immediately. Where are you going to go?Trinidad

27. An angel appears out of Heaven and offers you a lifetime supply of the alcoholic beverage of your choice. “Be brand-specific” it says. Man! What are you gonna say about that? Even if you don’t drink booze there’s something you can figure out… so what’s it gonna be?Rum chata

28. You discover a beautiful island upon which you may build your own society. You make the rules. What is the first rule you put into place? Everyone is not judged

29. What is your favorite expletive?Fuck

30. Your house is on fire, holy shit! You have just enough time to run in there and grab ONE inanimate object. Don’t worry, your loved ones and pets have already made it out safely. So what’s the one thing you’re going to save from that blazing inferno?It’s weird but my map

31. You can erase any horrible experience from your past. What will it be?How about my brother dying or maybe my ex from a couple years ago

32. You got kicked out of the country for being a time-traveling heathen who sleeps with celebrities and has super-powers. But check out this cool shit… you can move to anywhere else in the world!Sweet

33. The Celestial Gates Of Beyond have opened, much to your surprise because you didn’t think such a thing existed. Death appears. As it turns out, Death is actually a pretty cool entity, and happens to be in a fantastic mood. Death offers to return the friend/family-member/person/etc. of your choice to the living world. Who will you bring back?My brother

34. What was your last dream about?I think about my ex dying let me add I was extremely upset at this dream. Like I panicked in real life after this

35. Are you a good….[insert anything you’d like here]?No im not good

36. Have you ever been admitted to the hospital?Yeah once

37. Have you ever built a snowman?Yup

38. What is the color of your socks?Not wearing any

39. What type of music do you like?Classic 80s rock

40. Do you prefer sunrises or sunsets?Sunset

41. What is your favorite milkshake flavor?Peanut butter

42. What football team do you support? (I will answer in terms of American football as well as soccer)Pats and for soccer Chelsea or Manchester

43. Do you have any scars?Yuppppppo wayyyyyy too many

44. What do you want to be when you graduate?Pediatrician

45. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?Everything

46. Are you reliable?I try to be but not always

47. If you could ask your future self one question, what would it be?What are you doing now?

48. Do you hold grudges?Most of the time no, sometimes I do?

49. If you could breed two animals together to defy the laws of nature, what new animal would you create?Giraffee with a trex

50. What is the most unusual conversation you’ve ever had?Probably the one last night about BOOB and BOOBTOPIA

51. Are you a good liar?Yeah

52. How long could you go without talking?I mean I could go a long time especially if I’m in a bad mood.

53. What has been you worst haircut/style?To my shoulders

54. Have you ever baked your own cake?Yeah

55. Can you do any accents other than your own?A really good jersey one

56. What do you like on your toast?Peanut butter, Nutella

57. What is the last thing you drew a picture of?A galaxy and my future tattoo

58. What would be you dream car?I don’t know

59. Do you sing in the shower? Or do anything unusual in the shower? Explain.I sing like crazy even in college.

60. Do you believe in aliens?Of course

61. Do you often read your horoscope?Yeah kinda

62. What is your favorite letter of the alphabetR

63. Which is cooler: dinosaurs or dragons?Dinosaurs

64. What do you think about babies?Love them

65. Freebie! Ask anything interesting you can think of.Ehhhhhhhhh

[avecorviidae]

Fic: Aubade - Chapter Seven

Fandom: Mob Psycho 100 Rating: M Relationship(s): Kageyama Ritsu/Suzuki Shou Word Count: 4004

Ao3 Link

As with most things, they clearly haven’t thought this through.

Still, even when they’re folded up and empty, cardboard boxes are clunky and difficult to carry on buses and Ritsu is dreading carrying them back when they’re full, so when they leave the apartment at some point in the early afternoon to pack up Ritsu’s dorm room, they only bother taking the two boxes Shou had found tucked between a shelf and a wall in one of the hallway closets. Somehow, they mutually assume that this will be fine.

And the thing is, while they’re actually packing, it is fine. Ritsu had never really bothered to unpack most of his clothes in the past year, half out of pure laziness and half out of a reluctance to properly make himself at home in the dingy yellowish dorms, so they’d all still been sitting in a duffel bag in his closet that they’d stopped to grab last night. Probably the biggest bulk of space in the boxes ends up being taken up by his rented textbooks, which are the most expensive items he possesses and are as such stored safely under his mattress. He likes to think that at the very least, he’s sleeping on top of a small fortune that he can pawn off on the black market for drug money when his life inevitably spirals out of control.

For someone who doesn’t really have that much stuff, Ritsu learns that he apparently has a lot of stuff, as Matsuo keeps drifting in and out of the room with new things that Ritsu half-remembers buying in his frantic fit of oh-god-why-are-these-people-content-to-live-in-filth that had embodied his first week in the dorms, before he’d brought everyone’s standard of living up drastically with things like dish soap and bleach spray.

More than half of the stuff that Matsuo brings in Ritsu tells him to keep, because his former roommates are dysfunctional wrecks of human beings who don’t really understand that every house should probably have its own mop bucket, and Ritsu will be buying one of his own, thanks anyways, dude, but he and Shou end up being quite proud of how economically they pack the stuff that they do take. They close up the boxes with the roll of packing tape they’d dug out of one of Ritsu’s desk drawers, feeling perfectly satisfied with themselves, and Ritsu wonders why on earth freshmen tend to show up with an entire moving truck’s worth of boxes shoved into the backs of their parents’ cars.

And then Shou tries to pick up one of the boxes.

Again, they clearly didn’t think this through.

They, much like their two boxes that they have chocked full of Ritsu’s shit, are absolutely fucking dense.

Ritsu watches with a vague sense of horror as Shou manages to wedge his fingers under the box and slowly but surely stagger to his feet, veering precariously from side to side like a thin tree in a strong breeze. There is a part of him, small but there nonetheless, that really wants to give Shou a gentle push to see if it’ll tip him over.

The rational human being part finally kicks in and he grabs the other side of the box, and although their combined strengths are still somehow meager in comparison to the Heaviest Box Ever Packed, it’s enough to steadily lower it onto the floor, and they manage to set it down with minimal trouble and only a couple of fingers crushed underneath it.

For a few moments, they both just stand on either side of the thing, Shou’s hands on his hips and Ritsu’s crossed over his chest.

“Well,” Shou says tonelessly.

“Well,” Ritsu echoes, equally so.

“We’re dumb, huh,” Shou says, eyes wide and distant in surprise as if he’s just now realized this. Ritsu nods.

-

“Ritsu,” Shou hisses half an hour later, “we’re really dumb.”

Ritsu is back on the floor, cross-legged with his chin in his hands, trying to work through a plan, so he barely spares this comment a second thought.

“Yeah,” he replies absently, considering the logistics of taking one of those rolling box-carrying things that come in moving trucks on a bus. Of course, even if they did get it on the bus by some miracle of physics, they’d still have to return it eventually, which would be a real bore, and jeez, all of this sort of thing had been way easier when they’d had Reigen to drive them around in his janky used car.

He blinks back into focus to find himself staring straight at Shou’s knees. He follows them upwards to find Shou looking down at him with an expression like he’s had a religious sort of revelation. With an oddly apt sense of comedic timing, one of the boxes floats into view behind him, surrounded by an orange-pink haze.

“Ah,” Ritsu says serenely. “We’re fucking dumb.”

-

Shou taps him on the shoulder about halfway through the bus ride home, snapping Ritsu violently out of his thoughts. He doesn’t say anything, but he’s got on a concerned frown and his eyes are questioning, so Ritsu’s guessing some of his thoughts must’ve seeped into his expression.

Shit. He hadn’t even realized he’d zoned out. Maybe moving vehicles just make me weird, he thinks, somewhat absently.

“I’m just…” he sighs, then trails off, waving his hands vaguely at the boxes on the seats across from them. Thankfully, the bus is mostly devoid of people, so they’d only received a few mildly horrified stares when they’d floated onto the bus behind the two of them.

“It’s weird,” he says finally. “That my entire life fits into two boxes and a duffel bag. That’s it, that’s everything. It just doesn’t sit right with me, that I can pick up everything that’s been mine the last year and just go.” It makes even less sense out loud than it did in his head and he feels kind of stupid for trying to articulate it, but it’s as close as he thinks he’s going to get and, well, if anyone’s going to understand what he’s trying to say, it’s Shou.

Shou squints over at the boxes for a few moments, before turning and nudging one with the toe of his shoe. “Well,” he says, tone considering, “not unless you’re gonna try and fit me in one of those boxes.” He blinks, then adds, “Or your brother. Or Pops. Or the microwave in the apartment, actually, because if we ever move out I’m stealing it.”

Ritsu sighs, but there’s no heat in it. They’re already pressed pretty close in the bus seats, touching more or less from thighs to shoulders, but he finds himself leaning a little closer anyways, feeling weirdly light in the chest when Shou’s head drops onto his shoulder and stays there for the rest of the ride.

-

Being in the apartment is weird. It feels like looking at a puzzle that’s missing every third piece, or an optical illusion where it all seems to work out logically until suddenly there’s a crucial gap and then it all falls apart. Objectively, they have most of the pieces required to make this apartment a lived-in place, but there’s something missing from everything, just one little crucial piece that should tie it together. They’ve got a stovetop and a fridge and drawers and cabinets in the kitchen, and a thousand little knick-knacks from the dorm, but they’ve got no pots or pans or spoons or spatulas, nothing that’d actually make it usable. They’ve got closets and clothes, but no hangers, so they’re both still living out of their suitcases. They need shelves for books, bags for the trash, plates and cutlery for the food.

It’s kind of driving Ritsu fucking insane.

-

It goes down kind of like this:

On day two, after they’ve recovered Ritsu’s stuff from the dorm, they stock up on basic necessities at a tiny, on-the-go sort of grocery store that they find just down the street. Paper plates, plastic cutlery and cups for now, until they can go on a big shopping trip. Milk, eggs, snack foods, that sort of thing. They realize as soon as they get home that they’ve forgotten bread, but Shou’s trying to figure out how the fuck getting new internet works and Ritsu’s preoccupied with a mysterious stain on the bathroom wall, so neither of them can really be bothered to go back and get it.

On day three, Ritsu finds Shou attempting to construct a sandwich by precariously stacking up Decidedly Not Sandwich Ingredients. He notices Ritsu leaning in the doorway and freezes, one hand still halfway between the bag of doritos and the abomination on the countertop, looking for all the world like a raccoon that just got caught pilfering a trash can. Ritsu leaves the room, takes three deep breaths, then takes Shou’s wallet and goes to buy bread.

On day four, he wakes up at around five in the morning to the sound of unfamiliar traffic outside of his window, which is getting really fucking annoying. He gently advises his mind to get the fuck over it already because they live here now, you’re gonna have to get used to that, and then decides he’ll just get some water or something and then try to go back to sleep.

In the kitchen, Shou is committing a war crime.

More specifically, he’s got a box of cereal Ritsu doesn’t remember buying in one hand and a gallon of milk in the other, and appears to be trying to pour cereal into his mouth, hold it there, then tilt his head back far enough to pour milk in afterwards.

Shou spots Ritsu mid-milk pour and spends a good few minutes almost choking to death, though somewhat impressively, manages not to spill the milk at all. As soon as he’s breathing again, Ritsu points one finger directly at Shou’s nose and says, “You. Me. IKEA. Today.”

He goes back to bed.

-

They realize that this could get somewhat complicated without a car.

See, when Ritsu’s parents had ever bought anything big from IKEA, the type that came folded up in big boxes in the terrifying warehouse before the checkout, it’d ended up in the trunk of the car, or strapped precariously to the top of the car, or crushing him and Mob in the back of the car. Point being, the car had been a constant. He and Shou are decidedly carless, and their internet isn’t set up yet, so they can’t just order stuff online. Ritsu morally objects to managing an entire furniture order on a tiny phone screen, no matter how good Shou’s data plan is.

They employ their usual solution to problems.

-

TO: DAD Dad we need help being functioning adults

FROM: DAD Who’s in hospital?

TO: DAD ………….No one??? I think????? we need to get big things from IKEA

FROM: DAD ...I see. You know they deliver, right? Like, you go to the store, tell them what you want, and then they take it in a big ol’ truck to your place. It’s on their website and everything. I swear you used to be the one with common sense.

TO: DAD I gave it to one of my professors in exchange for an A on a paper Also no internet yet

FROM: DAD Fair. Good luck, kid. Try not to kill each other when it turns out you don’t actually know how to use a screwdriver.

-

IKEA appears over the horizon like a great blue leviathan, immediately compelling the two of them into awed silence as they stare at it through the bus window.

While Ritsu’s content to look out of the window for a while, he’s inevitably drawn back to Shou, whose gaze seems to be transfixed on IKEA with just a tad too much genuine trepidation. It’s almost as if…

There’s no fucking way.

“Shou,” he begins hesitantly, “have you ever actually… been inside of an IKEA?”

Shou whips around to glare at him, a furious pink flush rising on his cheeks. You’d think someone who acts as cool as him wouldn’t be so easy to tease, he thinks with a grin, and yet.

“Shut up,” Shou hisses, trying to elbow Ritsu in the ribs, but the effect is somewhat lessened by the smile he’s trying to suppress. “Do you not remember who my dad was? He wouldn’t buy furniture from anywhere within like, a five mile radius of a place like this, he was afraid he might accidentally touch a commoner or something.”

Ritsu ignores this entirely, instead leaning close to Shou and plastering on a Teru-worthy smirk. “Well,” he says, pitching his voice embarrassingly low and doing a godawful impression of a seductive lilt, “I’m honoured to be your first, Mister Suzuki.”

It’s the kind of dumb shit Shou pulls on him all the time, so it’s incredibly gratifying when Shou immediately starts spluttering, possibly choking on his own spit, then doubling over and wheezing “I hate you,” in between hacked laughs. When Shou finally looks up, his face is bright red and there are tear tracks on his face, his grin twitching like it’s threatening to break out into another giggling fit. “Fuck you,” he says, whacking Ritsu halfheartedly in the chest, “take me out to dinner first. Buy me IKEA meatballs, asshole.”

-

As soon as they walk inside and go up the escalator into the showroom, Shou’s enraptured. Ritsu can’t blame him. Reigen had once said that IKEA contained the organized, smooth Swedish aesthetic that all Hot Messes secretly aspire to, and honestly? Ritsu is feeling it already.

Shou perches on the edge of some sleek black pleather sofa, squinting around with an indeterminable expression. After some time, he declares, “We live here now.” “They will probably try to kick us out when the store closes, you realize,” Ritsu tries to reason.

“Try,” Shou echoes, nodding agreeably.

-

When you’re a kid, you’re more likely to accept weird stuff that happens to you. Ritsu doesn’t just say this because he grew up with a brother possessed of terrifyingly powerful psychic abilities; he’s pretty sure it’s universally true. The unnatural qualities of the world seem a whole lot less noticeable when you're a little kid and the boundaries of your natural world aren’t clearly defined.

Case in point: Ritsu is just now coming to realize that IKEA is a sentient building with labyrinthine qualities.

They spend their first little while in the showroom sitting on every soft surface and staring at lamps that look like bizarre enemies from some futuristic sci-fi video game. Ritsu tries to ignore the niggling feeling that the building looked too small from the outside to have this many turns in it. Instead, he picks up one of the massive blue crinkly bags and hands it to Shou, who holds it up and says, “Hideous. Absolutely awful. I love it.” “Wow, thanks Hanazawa.”

In one of the rooms clearly designed for pre-teens, they find a bunk bed decked out in fairy lights and Shou plops down on it immediately to take selfies in the lighting. Ritsu takes the opportunity to text Teru to have a very serious conversation about comfort versus style, the subject of the argument being an armchair in a truly unsettling shade of green that sits in the corner of Mob and Teru’s living room which also, apparently, can be found in an IKEA showroom.

“It was really soft, though,” Shou points out, chin resting on Ritsu’s shoulder so he can read off of his phone. “That’s not the point,” he replies, betrayed in the deepest sense.

At one point Shou physically clambers into a bed, kicking off his shoes and crawling under the covers. He pulls the quilt up over his nose when Ritsu tries to drag him out, but he can still see the grin crinkling the corners of his eyes. “You’re gonna get us kicked out,” he says tiredly. At almost the same exact time, he looks across the showroom and sees a woman in an IKEA shirt stretched out on one of the couches, pillow over her face and fast asleep.

Ritsu toes off his shoes and climbs in next to Shou.

The bathrooms are Ritsu’s personal favourite, usually dark and aggressively sleek, the perfect style for his residual emo soul. He’s been taking pictures of the tags of stuff they’re actually going to buy, so he doesn’t quite notice where Shou’s wandered off to until he turns around from a bathroom sink and spots him in a shower stall, calling him over with a wave of his hand. Ritsu steps inside, ducking his head under the bar for the shower curtain and noting with some interest the glossy black tiles that cover the walls.

He almost startles when Shou reaches over and pulls the shower curtain closed with a flourish, leaving them enclosed in the shower stall, somehow still mysteriously lit by no lamp that Ritsu can see. He shoots Shou a questioning look, only to snort when Shou leans back against the shower wall, a hand over his heart and eyelashes fluttering.

“Why, Mister Kageyama,” he says, all false coquettishness, “Cornering a young girl like me alone in a place like this? How scandalous.” Payback for the bus, he thinks as it suddenly clicks into place. He considers giving Shou the reaction he wants, a laugh and a shove on the shoulder and possibly a comment about exactly how classy making out in an IKEA shower stall is, but the reaction he’d gotten earlier was too good to resist playing along with the joke.

He shamelessly uses his height advantage when he steps into Shou’s space, one leg between Shou’s and a hand propped casually on the wall beside his head. He leans down so that their noses are almost touching, and says low, “Well with you standing here all gorgeous like this, how could I resist?”

It’s pathetic joke flirting, some cheesy disaster line out of every old black and white movie he’s ever watched with his mother, so he doesn’t quite expect it when Shou seems to freeze, eyes wide and locked onto Ritsu’s. It’s only for a few seconds, a barely noticeable pause before Shou’s howling with laughter as he pushes past him out of the shower, but Ritsu gets caught on it, on the hitch he thought he’d heard in Shou’s breath, on the way he feels oddly wired, like his skin is buzzing from the proximity, and what the fuck had just happened?

Still, he shrugs it off as probably nothing and steps out into the bathroom after Shou. He seems to have shaken the… whatever it was off pretty quickly as well, because he turns to Ritsu with a grin and says, “Can we go back and look at those weird round chairs again?” To which Ritsu shrugs and nods, and leads them out of the bathroom–

And into a completely unfamiliar part of the showroom.

Ritsu looks behind him and squints. See, as far as he’d been able to see, that bathroom had only had one entrance and exit, that being the one he had just come out of. And logically following, the one he had originally come through to get there in the first place. So how in the everloving hell had they just walked out into new and strange territory? “Oh, this place is so fucking with us,” Shou whispers next to him, like he’s afraid that IKEA will hear him and get angry. Ritsu, irrationally sharing that fear, just nods.

-

A couple of hours in, they have a shopping cart carrying two blue IKEA bags filled with Household Necessities, probably more spoons than are strictly necessary in a cutlery set, and a toilet roll holder inexplicably called GRUNDTAL, because the Swedish are conspiring against him.

They are also both starving to death, and Ritsu hasn’t seen hide nor hair of the supposed restaurant since they arrived. Eventually they drift over to one of the huge “YOU ARE HERE” maps, which Ritsu swears changes in basic layout each time he looks at one, and heave a collective sigh when it tells them that the café is pretty much on the other side of the building. Ritsu looks from the room around him to the map a few times, trying to orient himself, but finds that it’s all for nought because Shou has already chosen a random direction and started walking.

Now, Ritsu has learned to expect that every time they turn a corner, they will encounter a room they’ve never been in before. It’s happened on literally every single turn they’ve taken since they arrived in the showroom.

He’s not exactly prepared to follow Shou around a corner and find himself face to face with the supposedly-miles-away café. He and Shou exchange a look, and Shou silently mouths “it knows” with wide eyes. Ritsu is inclined to agree, and so chooses not to ask any more questions. He’s just happy to have food.

Partially for the sake of the joke and partially for propriety, Ritsu does end up buying Shou’s meatballs, which he devours with vigor. Ritsu has a weird sandwich… thing, which isn’t bad, but tastes distinctly and weirdly European. Over a piece of some chocolate dessert cake, Shou says, “So what now? Do we have everything?”

Ritsu does a halfhearted rummage through the bags at their feet, and scrolls through the pictures of tags on his phone. Floor lamps, shelves, dressers, cutlery, plates, chairs, he mentally counts off, though he’s been doing it all day in his head. He’s pretty sure they’ve got everything and more, including all of the extra whatsits that Shou had thrown in the bags along the way. “Yep. The website says that we should flag down an employee and ask them to draw up an order, or something, that we can take down to the checkouts. That way we’ll be buying the big furniture and the delivery costs, and I think we can arrange the delivery dates and times down there.”

He frowns at the thought of going over and asking one of the employees. It’s not that he can’t, or that he won’t, but for whatever reason he feels like he’s going to make an idiot of himself by asking. Which is silly, because he’d gotten through their apartment hunt with the landlords no problem, but then he’d rehearsed for that and there was protocol and social etiquette, and he’s not sure what the procedure is for this, or if it’s even actually a thing or just something that they don’t even offer anymore and they just haven’t taken it off their website, or–

“Okay, cool,” Shou says around a mouthful of cake, inadvertently interrupting his train of thought. “Gimme your phone?”

Ritsu hands it over without thinking, and blinks when Shou is gone, halfway across the room before he can process the movement and chatting animatedly with someone in an IKEA shirt. He watches for about ten minutes as Shou scrolls through pictures on his phone, waiting for the IKEA guy to copy it onto some tablet he’s holding. The two of them walk out of view for a few minutes, and Ritsu can’t quite help the small smile on his face when Shou starts walking back towards their table, a small packet of paper held triumphantly above his head.

He allowed himself a small sigh of relief. That’s the worst of it done with, then.

-

That was in no way the worst of it. The path downstairs to the checkouts was a disaster zone full of shiny things for Shou to touch and buy, and Ritsu ends up following closely behind Shou’s heels, putting the infinite number of colourful ice cube trays and bright orange photo frames carefully back into their rightful spots.

Somehow, when they get home and start unpacking their bags, Ritsu still finds no less than three sets of one hundred tiny candles. Asshole pyromaniac.

[thericoffeemilk-blog]

T’s in Narragansett

This is one of my favorite breakfast places. Their waffles are light and fluffy, the only disappointment is that they don’t add chocolate chips to them, they only add them to the top so you wind up with one big pile of melted chocolate that overwhelms the waffle. I love their hot chocolate on a cold day, or on a warm day, and the mug it’s served in is super cute too. It’s a popular, bright and colorful, ocean-themed spot so there’s usually a little bit of a wait, but for me, the food is worth waiting for.

T’s is not on my Top 5 List of places to go for breakfast. You’d sooner see me at a Dunkin, where at least you can justify the price. T’s does have quality ingredients and the recipes are generally pretty good. Their waffle may be “light and fluffy” but their pancakes ride on the dense side. My biggest issues with T’s are the atmosphere and the execution of certain dishes. It is ocean-themed, but I’d bet it was decorated by the same person who is hired to do up a sports bar. Random shit on the walls with a loose theme does not an atmosphere make. As for the food I have an example of what I think of T’s. They had a short rib sandwich from their specials menu. Very well cooked short ribs with eggs and a side of gravy between pieces of toast, something that I like very much. What’s the bad you ask? Wet as fuck and fell apart so fast I felt like I was eating fajita, forking on bits of everything to make a comprehensive dish. But yes, the wait is long and that’s why I always have an excuse to show up late.

As someone who generally doesn’t have to pay for her own meals, the price isn’t something that I factor into my reviews. I’ll agree that they are pricy, but the food is always worth it. Whoever their cook is, is fantastic. On most days, I would say that a simple dish is better than a complicated one. So ordering a short rib sandwich with so many components from a busy breakfast spot and then complaining that every aspect isn’t perfect is just unfair. They have amazing waffles, eggs, homefries, and french toast. And what more does anyone need from a good breakfast place? 

To clarify, I do not mind paying for two peoples meals, especially if it makes her happy. But if I were to look for a place say, by myself or with friends where I pay for what I get (splitting the bill is for rich California people) there's better value. Their cook is agreeably very good, but nothing and nobody can be perfect. The responsibility of delivering an enjoyable meal does not, however, lie with me. The execution of any item on the menu, no matter how complicated, should not affect how it leaves the kitchen. I may have gotten a dud, but that does not change the fact that I got a dud. Continuing this their scrambled eggs come out looking like a yellow skirt steak, and not even the slightest bit fluffy. Their homefries are deep fried and heavy, and as a preference, I do not want a side of fryer grease with my breakfast.

Sure, in theory, everything should leave the kitchen perfectly. Like you said, nothing and nobody can be perfect. But I’d say this place comes pretty close. I’d give this place a 7.5 out of 10 overall. 

As the bread winner 6/10 take it or leave it. At least 6/10 is better than most places (I’m looking at you Denny’s you 3/10 little shit).