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falcor-thee-luck-dragon · 4 years ago

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Love Cuts Deep

Chapter 1- She Ran With Wolves

Bucky Barnes x powered (f)reader Series Re-write (Civil War, Infinity War/Endgame, TFATWS)

Summary: You’re a survivor, always have been and always will be. After narrowly escaping the clutches of Hydra years ago, you’ve been keeping to the shadows for as long as time allows. With Hydra suddenly exposed and your secrets in the open, you’re on the hunt for the last part of your past, but is he ready to see you again?

Warning: angst, talk of violence, some fluff mixed in (a little); way more to come

Masterlist

Side note- This is a TFATWS Series Re-write!!! Obviously lol, anyways. Readers powers are heavily inspired by a certain Marvel badass and I just thought her powers would work so well for this. Also they’re cool as fuck.

September, 15th 2013

Location: S.H.I.E.L.D Headquarters, Washington D.C.

This recent project Fury had sent her on was beginning to make itself quit the annoyance for Natasha this past of couple weeks, granted he always gave her the toughest assignments, understanding that no one else can dig up as much dirt as the Black Widow can.

But this? This was different, the target in question was practically a ghost, a legend among the ones lucky, or possibly unlucky enough to have been made aware of this dangerous individual. But no matter how much she asked around from her various secretive resources on the problem in question, this mystery person was simply just rumor to them. Or perhaps too much of a sour subject to seek into any further. Although one thing was always prevalent, people were scared.

But why?

The assassin leans back in her chair, a thoughtful expression crossing over her features as she stares bitterly down at the top secret file gifted to her by Fury himself. Suddenly a door closes, she shuts the file in an instant, only to be greeted with the apologetic face of Steve as he walks past her.

“Sorry. Fury told me you would be in here.” Begins Steve as he takes the nearby couch, something small and metal in his right hand, “Said you were assigned some impossible case. How’s it going so far?”

Letting out a jaded sigh, she shifts her gaze over to the window, “The absolute vagueness of this person is....frustrating to say the least. All I’ve been able to gather is that they’ve been part of some top secret experimentation on pregnant women. Somehow they’re involved with it....I just, gotta figure out how.” She adds with a conflicted expression dancing across her features.

Steve hums in thought, “Sounds complicated.”

“You have no idea.” Mutters Natasha unenthusiastically as her green irises shift back down to the annoying little file.

Steve palms the object in his hand before gaining his friends attention once again, “Here. Fury told me to give this to you.” Her brows furrow in thought as she reaches over and quickly accepts the strange hard drive looking object, “I think this will help. It has the location of the target and who they are. That’s it.....Well, the last reported location.”

“How did he?” She wonders aloud, face suddenly breaking out into an irked grin, “Fury you son of a bitch, about time I found a legitimate lead.”

——

Sitting on her comfortable apartment couch, Natasha sifts through the various encrypted files from the hard drive that’s currently plugged into her laptop. So far she’s spent about two hours breaking through the various encrypted file blockers and now at long last has finally made some real progress.

Studying the brightly glowing screen, she moves her finger, clicking another coded link that reads -V13X11- she’s immediately greeted with a black screen and the slightly blurred picture of a woman’s face who’s looking rather stoic and fearless against the camera flash. Her eyes are set and hard as stone, dark and almost angry behind lips that show the ghost of a forced smile. She’s noticeably an overall attractive woman, in kind of a terrifying and intimidating sort of way, like looking at a fierce lioness standing valiantly against a foe; nonetheless she stares defiantly at the person behind the camera.

Her eye color, weight, date of birth, and presumably patient number, that's printed in big bold letters 00X13 on the glowing screen, right below her squared portrait. Furrowing her brows, Natasha scrolls down to see about a paragraph long of personal information given about the woman. Including, to the red heads tremendous surprise, a birth name, Y/N Valerious.

Oddly enough, the name indeed sounds a tad bit familiar, though she can’t quit place from where.

The file states that she was raised in a facility on the outskirts of Surinda, Russia; someplace in Siberia, close to the heart of the mammoth country. Trained by the organization Hydra and summitted into inhuman experimentation by the specific facility that held her, however the rest is all encrypted and impossible to translate into something comprehensible much to Natasha’s utter disappointment.

Huffing in frustration, she slips out the hard drive before shutting down her laptop and slamming it shut. The room is darker by now with the sun gone, and tomorrow it appears that Natasha will be off to Sweden to confront this woman, Y/N, in hopes of gathering valuable intel into the people who created her, and any important information regarding her troubled past.

If she’s willing to comply.

——

Closing your laptop, you stand and wander over to the opened window to stretch before taking a deep breath of freshly brisk winter air. The land here in Uppsala, Sweden is more beautiful and peaceful then you could have ever imagined since renting an apartment two months ago. In fact, this is probably the longest you’ve ever stayed in one spot since abandoning the life of an assassin many years ago.

Though you know it won’t be much longer until you leave again, but you can’t just yet, there happens to be a certain agent on her way to find you. Fury unknowingly received your encrypted hard drive with opened arms, foolishly under the impression it was sent from an old friend when he reached out for answers into your complicated history. Then when the Black Widow eventually clicked open your link, bam, you could see everything she was nosily sifting through. Everything you wanted her to see. You honestly wouldn’t be surprised if something dramatic happened to the people over in D.C. at this point, idiots, all of them.

For the past couple years S.H.I.E.L.D has become sort of a troubling snooping nuisance for you, constantly delving their way into your relatively uneventful lifestyle every couple of months, meddling around to figure out if you’re still currently active for Hydra and if not, are you willing to pay for your crimes or to join them like she did. Definitely not on your to do list any time soon.

Watching as a small black bird zips by, you quickly shut your window and close the dark colored curtains to block yourself from the rest of the chaotic world. Hastily making your usual rounds about the apartment to be absolutely certain all the possible openings are locked. Soon after you head for bed, ready to face the ex-assassin whenever she arrives in the following days ahead.

Seated at your kitchen table, you casually sip at your steaming hot tea while watching security footage from downstairs from when you hacked into their system, the same night you began renting the place. As expected, the notorious red head slips her way into the building and up the four flights of stairs until finally a light knock is heard at your old wooden door.

So she wants to do this cleanly.

Switching off the device, you stuff it in a nearby drawer before calmly walking down the tiny hallway over to the frontdoor and opening it, lock off and all. Her green eyes blink in curious surprise as you show her no indications of aggression; she’s about your height if not maybe slightly smaller, thick scarf and a winters coat about her person as she holds a normal sized black bag in her right hand. No doubt a gun concealed somewhere close, a light precaution in case things go south from here.

Trailing your wary gaze from her travel bag to her pale face, you raise an intrigued brow, “I assume you’re here for me?” You ask with the tinge of a confident Eastern European accent as she slowly nods, eyes calculated and calm as she studies your mellow yet slightly defensive stance.

Pursing plush lips together, she casually shrugs with a light hearted smile, “I only realized you must have sent that hard drive when I arrived in London...”

“Well I’ve gotten rather bored running away from your persistent bastards over in America.” You interrupt before opening up your door even wider, gifting her an open invitation instead of a fight, “Come in. I assume we have much to discuss.”

Following you to the table, she sets her bag on the closest chair as you take another sip from your tea. Cautious eyes trained on her every move as she shifts a bit uncomfortably in her chair, “So, I assume you’re not here to sell me that pretty bag of yours. Not that I’d want it.”

She smirks at your blunt sarcasm, pleased to know you’ve at least got a sense of humor after all you’ve endured, “No. I’m here to learn about who created you and if there are any more. Y/N, I’m well aware of how dangerous you truly are...but given the fact that you’ve had time to adjust, and let me into your home willingly. I came seeking answers. Nothing more, nothing less.”

Folding your hands together, you tilt your head at her thoughtfully, “Well that’s good. I didn’t really want killing the Black Widow on my conscience, though I’d speculate a few would be relieved.” You quip with a playful smirk before your face turns serious again, “I’ll tell you about the fuckers who made me. Then you leave and never bother me again. Understood?” You add in almost a growl.

Handing you a polite smile, she nods in agreement, “Of course. You have my word.” You take another sip of your tea as she reaches into her bag, a beige file suddenly plants itself atop your kitchen table. “This is the only surviving file on you. It’s enough, but there’s too many cracks that need to be filled. I need to know how they conducted the experiments and who else survived them. This is important for the safety of S.H.I.E.L.D and the rest of the world. Y/N, we’re trying to make sure something like this can never happen again. And well, any secrets on Hydra always helps.”

Setting your cup down, you smirk, “This should be filled with liquor if I’m going to be spilling some top secret Hydra business of this velocity.” You muse, setting aside your mug, your face quickly shifts to a more serious expression. “For starters this isn’t a very heartwarming story.”

“Neither is mine.” Begrudgingly admits the ex-assassin.

“Well, at least we have something in common then, Black Widow.” You assert with a pointed look before leaning back against the barred wood of your chair, thinking of where to start first. Your eyes trail over to the window as you begin your story, “This place, where they kept us. The scientists working for Hydra wanted to test out special DNA altering serums on the embryos of willing participants. Well, we weren’t willing....but they targeted the poor, feigning a program that would pay these mothers-to-be thousands if they participated. Plus a comfortable place to stay for awhile.” You reveal before taking another sip of your tea, “You see, I’m not originally from Russia, my home was some nameless village in Eastern Europe that I’ve forgotten the name of by now, it was so long ago. But anyways, I guess fate has a funny way of administering it’s business to the ones seeking safety in times of struggle. So my mother...” You take another sip of your tea to help clear your throat and head a little bit, God you hate talking about this.

Setting it down again, you continue, “Mine accepted. They took her and twenty-two others to this facility deep in the woods. This place was practically a paradise for them...” You chuckle miserably, “soon enough the scientists pumped them full of drugs and began their altering of the embryos DNA, genetic codes, and whatever else they saw fit to mess with. Nine months later we came into this world kicking and screaming.”

“Shit.” Mutters Natasha in astonishment, fully engrossed in your story as she starts to realize maybe her upbringing wasn’t as fucked as yours.

“They monitored us for the first few months, waiting to see if anyone acted strange....nothing, to their utter disappointment. Soon they drew blood samples and as it turned out, we all had altered DNA from the serum. Just as they’d planned.”

Her brows furrow in puzzlement before she asks, “How’d you get your powers then? I don’t think I missed anything.” Insists your guest questionably as you shake your head.

“You didn’t. But you have to understand that as we grew older, all of us basically became tiny super soldiers as fucked as that is, not only did they change our genetic code for meddling with later on when we got older. But this serum was so well developed that it completely fused with the fetuses genetic code, only causing us to grow stronger as we aged from toddlers to three-year-old's and up. Testing even revealed that it slowed down our ageing process just like with Captain America. But it wouldn’t be effective till we reached our mid to late twenties.”

Natasha takes a moment to process your words before she nods in acknowledgment, “Y/N. It’s my understanding that this is a buried secret from the organization for good reason, it’s just....what year did this all take place? It’s not in any of the records I was able to dig up, not even in yours, nothing except for your date of birth.” States Natasha curiously, stopping you before you speak of anything else.

Nodding you lean your arms against the wooden table, leaning in a bit closer now, “1953, after World War ll when people where still recovering from the heavy aftermath while the Cold War was still raging on when well, you know.” Giving her a lopsided shrug, you glance from an old faded picture on the wall then back to her, “Lets just say Russia wasn’t exactly having a stellar time, nor was my mother for that matter.” You Conclude before aimlessly pursuing your lips together, “Which yes, makes me at around 60 years old. Don’t I look pretty.” You add, voice dripping in sarcasm.

Natasha’s eyes concede silent astonishment as she blinks back surprise, “Even after all these years doing what I do, meeting the people that I have. I’m still left speechless every once in awhile. Y/N I can’t even imagine what you’ve seen.” Reveals the red head honestly as her green irises flicker from your file then back up to you, a conflicted expression dancing across her features, “How did they...how did you gain your powers, aside from what the serum gave you in the process?”

An apprehensive sigh escapes freely from your lips while you lean back into the creaky old chair, a troubled look darkening your features as you avoid her intrigued gaze, “They waited until we were twelve before testing us....in the meantime we lived as normal children; learning, playing, and training to survive. You know, the typical stuff.” You add with a small breathy laugh, though no humor finds your eyes, “We had our mothers until a year before they began the experiments. But it wasn’t that terrible of a loss since they trained us to adapt to our environment and never fully depend on anyone but ourselves.....it’s sick. And I’m not even sure what they did to them, I guess I never will.”

She nods as you make a disgusted face, an acidic hatred rising in your chest at the thought of your childhood, “I’m sorry, I can’t even imagine how traumatic that must have been.”

“Oh believe me, it gets better.” You joke bitterly, “In pairs of two they tested us, putting us into rooms where two doctors would strap us down and stick a needle into our skin. After that, they waited until something dramatic happened. Oh, and it sure as fuck did.” You conclude with a sneer.

Biting her lip anxiously, Natasha asks anyway, “How many survivors?”

Scoffing, you shake your head in revulsion for what those doctors did to everyone, an angry expression soon crossing your features, “One.” You sourly mutter, “All my other friends died of the new serum they gave us, either right then and there on the table, or in the following days. You see, it was supposed to blend with our altered DNA to create something powerful out of it, something beyond humans normal capabilities. It just ended up horribly mutating everyone except for me.” You whisper, clear sadness and hatred coating your very words.

Your eyes stare sharply at the peeling table top paint, a frown on your lips as you take in a deep breath before continuing, “What they did to me....no one should have to go through something so goddamn agonizing, I was only a child, just a little girl in a terrible place whether I knew it or not....and you know how it affected me?” She slowly shakes her head no as you smile miserably, your brows furrowed in pain, “I was gifted with bone claws that retracted out of my knuckles and one from each of my feet.” You confirm, eyes suddenly darkening in fury, “And you know what those goddamn bastards did to me afterwards? Like I hadn’t suffered enough from the pain of it all, they pumped me full of liquid Adamantium. Turning my claws to solid metal, the fucking strongest material on earth. Right in the body of an eleven year old child!” You shout furiously as she flinches back at your outburst, blinking hard, you let out a heavy breath before leaning back into your chair in defeat.

Calm down, Y/N. It’s just a memory now.

Strong brows dent her clear skin in thought as you await a response, after a few long moments does she soon gather her racing mind, lacing her fingers together she raises a brow at you, “That doesn’t explain how you’ve survived so long. The years working for Hydra, they turned you into a weapon....yet you’ve escaped and haven’t been killed yet. Not even a scratch to be found.....well, at least that I can see.”

Turning to face the puzzled assassin, you give her a lopsided grin, your chill composure coming back to you quickly enough, “I didn’t just get claws from the enhanced serum that fucked with my genetic make-up, it completely heightened my humanly abilities. Suddenly I was stronger, faster, and all my senses felt like they were on overload. Best of it all, I came to realize I had accelerated healing capabilities. Who would have thought that their shitty inhuman experiments would have gone so horrendously, yet with the one miracle of an exception. Me.”

“I had figured that branch of Hydra was meddling on dangerous ground, I hadn’t realized the extent of what they were doing. Did they try making any more like you?” She wonders.

“I was the last. Since I was the only compatible vessel, they didn’t want to waste anymore time or money on others who could possibly fail.” You explain with a shrug, “I became one of their most treasured assets.”

Pursing her lips together, she gives a slight nod before revealing a different file from her bag, you watch as she pauses for a moment before opening it up, you quickly take notice of the many white papers pinned together. Some with encrypted symbols and words while others are in plain English. Your brows furrow as she flips the first page to reveal...

“I know I came asking for answers about classified information, but this won’t be a complete mission if I don’t ask you about your time with Hydra.” Proposes the red head cautiously while she studies your face for any hostile reactions, not getting anything but skepticism, she continues, “I understand you were very important to them. It’s recorded you’ve completed about three dozen kills over an active period of about thirty-seven years.”

You scoff before muttering, “So it would seem. They gave me my first mission in 1971...when I was 17.”

“Right, but that’s not exactly what I’m seeking.” Her eyes immediately trail down to the files, “I assume you must have seen this man at least once...” She flips another page over and pulls out a playing card sized photograph, she turns it around and slides it closer to you. Instantly you recognize who he is, but how did she?..

“I haven’t seen him in years, nor heard of him for that matter.” You mutter, though your tone shifts to a more aggravated one.

Noticing this difference, Natasha continues, “That’s the look of someone who has met him for less then friendly reasons. What happened to the Winter Soldier?” You take a long moment to study his stoic face of icy blue and white, and black; its when he was in the Cryostacis chamber, the place where they would freeze him to keep their Winter Soldier locked away until he was needed for a new mission. All that you can fully witness is his sleeping face, though you know exactly what he looks like up close and with no ice crystals in his dark hair.

Letting out a heavy sigh, you slide the photograph back over to her folder, “I met him when I was 25 in 1979, Hydra needed us for a duel mission somewhere in South Africa, they needed their best. We were tasked with locating and stealing some precious metal which we later learned was Vibranium, because apparently they had used the last of the Adamantium on me.” You reveal with a casual shrug, “It went relatively well as expected...and well, we worked with each other many times after that, until I escaped and he was sent to kill me in 2009.”

“You knew him for almost twenty-nine years. Do you know where he might be now?”

Scoffing, you almost laugh, “Even if I did, you’d never get him. But if I’d have to assume, he’s probably frozen in some cryo tank somewhere in the middle of Russia. Waiting to be let loose again so he can take out a new enemy of the state.”

“Right.” Nods the Black Widow as she closes up her files, her green irises quickly on you again, “Thank you for your time, and for the heavy material you spoke of.”

“It was a long time ago, someone else should remember what those fuckers did to innocent mothers and their children. No one in this entire world knows except for me, you, and the doctors I haven’t killed yet.” You growl with venom lacing your every word.

Soon you watch as she swiftly rises to her feet, as you do the same, “I wish you well then.” Affirms the Black Widow as you follow her lead to the door, she stands on the other side for a moment before asking, “Is there any way I could find you again?”

Leaning against the door frame, you break out into a knowing smirk as she stands waiting expectantly, “If you’re lucky, you’ll never see me again. Goodbye agent Romanoff.” And with that do you gently close the door, leaving her in the hallway with a plethora of useful information, but still nothing significantly useful on the Winter Soldier, now only time will tell if he ever happens to show up on her radar again. Hopefully not, she thinks doubtfully before turning on her heels and sauntering off down the hallway.

——

Almost two whole years had passed since last you’ve spoken to the assassin, in that time you’ve watched her speak on live television when Hydra had finally been exposed to the world and all their secrets let loose for the prying hungry eyes of the public.

Even some of your own information had been leaked, the world knew who you were now, what atrocities you’ve committed for the organization during your time with them and that you’ve been M.I.A since 2009. Now you’re on an international watchlist. Fantastic. Apparently some very important leaders of the world and other prestige family members alike aren’t very fond of yourself for murdering their adversaries or filthy rich husbands.

But it’s not like you had a choice, Hydra would always alter your memories when they shocked you into forgetting who you even were; thus you’d complete a mission and a couple days or so later would your mind stitch itself back together again the best it could from the electrical trauma. Only the killing part would be a dark and fuzzy memory, thus revealing itself to you in bits and pieces at a time. Soon everything blurred together and you just complied or face getting electrocuted multiple times a session, until your eyes remained empty and dangerous.

Considering you’ve been on the run since that information was released, in this time, you’ve tracked down past agents and doctors alike who had wronged you, considering you now had full access to their recent history. Hence increasing your body count as you went from one country to the next, making the world a tad bit lighter with their darkness whipped from existence.

Although soon enough you became unsettled with the loads of information expunged from Hydra, your mind inevitably making a one eighty back to a certain broody super soldier from your complicated past. He must be in the world somewhere, living as a secret civilian or whatnot. He has to be. And you’ve decided to find him before someone else does.

Maybe it was curiosity, or the fact that he was like you and shared a bloody history with Hydra, but your instinctual drive to find the Winter Soldier eventually drew you the beautiful city of Bucharest, Romania. Although he didn’t make finding him effortless in the slightest, after endless days hacking into network databases looking for even a snippet of information. You found a lead.

Turns out airport security footage is very useful, even more so, footage from around the city’s grant center; and from there you were able to track him to Romania. Eventually after a couple of days in the city, you were able to catch a glimpse of him at the local market place and thus followed him to his little shitty apartment without him as so much as noticing.

Once he left again, you slipped inside and began your wait for his eventual return. But will he even want to speak with you? Does he even remember you? Your memories hadn’t been continuously whipped like his were, granted you were forced into cryo more then once and electroshocked into forgetting your memories. It eventfully stopped once they realized your mind would just heal itself into remembering again, so instead they threatened you with a tracking device deep into your skin tissue that would blow up if you tried to run.

Clearly you eventually found a way around this, as terrible of a memory it gave you.

——

Looking out the window, your ears suddenly pick up the sound of boots stealthily walking down the hallway, they’re incredibly light against the tiles outside, perhaps he somehow knows you’ve been following him. A moment later the scent of a man fills your nostrils and you know he’s inside the apartment. You could barely hear the door.

He’s silent as a mouse, nothing indicating he’s even there except for his rapidly thudding heartbeat that pounds anxiously against his strong chest; you slowly turn to face him. His hat from earlier is gone, dark blue eyes stare warily on you while soft breaths emit from his slightly parted lips. He’s not afraid, but he is nervous.

Folding your arms over your chest, you take a glance around the room, “Nice place.” You confirm casually, eyes back on the Winter Soldier in a second as the corner of your lips pull into a humored half grin, “I’m not here to complete some personal Vendetta against you, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“Then why are you here?” His voice is more curious then cold, maybe he can be reasoned with after all.

Taking a step forward, you shrug, “Wanted to make sure you aren’t still on their side.”

He keeps silent for a moment as you watch him watch you, “I’m done with them.” Mutters Bucky, disgust dripping off his words. That’s exactly what you wanted to hear. Progress.

“Good.” You add with the tiniest of smiles before motioning towards his little kitchen table, “Mind if we sit and talk? As, well...I guess civilians now.”

Studying your face for any indication of falseness and hostility, he’s pleasantly surprised when he finds none. Bucky takes off both of his gloves and sits, metal hand shinning in the low lighting. A threat or a precaution? Maybe he just wants it off?

You follow his example, and soon the two of you sit not even three feet away from each other. Both yourself and Bucky hold an awkward silence for a long moment as the tension in the room rises, shifting your gaze from the counter behind him, you don’t really notice as he trails his eyes over your face, “I remember you.” Reveals Bucky to your great surprise, your eyes falling onto him in an instant, “They sent us on missions together, until you left and they woke me up to kill you for it.”

Smiling, you let out a humored breath of air, “Turns out you didn’t miss me after all. I gave you a nice scar for your troubles though, you still have it?”

Bucky purses his lips into the tiniest of shadowy grins, although no real joy is shown, “It’s a thin little line across my left rib cage. Just barely reached my bone.” Yeah, and I would have if you didn’t punch me in the eye socket first, you think to yourself from when the Winter Soldier had tracked you down. But that’s a long story.

“Glad it’s healed and they didn’t have you come after me a second time. I don’t think I would have let you live again.”

He thinks hard for a second as he processes your words, “You let me live? The first time?”

“Well,” You serenely admit, “I couldn’t exactly kill you...I guess, well....I don’t really know why I didn’t kill you when I had the chance. Guess I’m not as ruthless as Hydra wanted.” You mumble with a conflicted frown, the two of you keep silent before you break the odd tension, “Doesn’t matter now. I heard about what happened in D.C. just like the rest of the world. Gotta say, I was wondering what everyone over there had been getting themselves into.”

“They leaked everything.” Mumbles Bucky with a knowing flash of insight within his dark restless eyes.

“I know.” You add with a slow nod, “I’ve been traveling more cautiously for the past year and a half now. You’d think they’d let us live in peace, of course not. But I guess it means the world knows what a piece of shit organization Hydra is. So that’s something.”

“Yes.” Agrees Bucky, eyes trailing from your fingerless gloves to your face, of course he remembers what hides beneath, “What happened to you since you left?

Fumbling with your fingers as they lay against his table, you turn you head to the window, the ghost of a smile dancing across your lips, “Surviving. You?”

He shifts his gaze back down to his metal hand as you turn to face him, “About the same I’d say.”

Leaning back against your creaky wooden chair, you hand him a small yet friendly smile, “Well then. What of us now? Two ex-assassins alone in the world. With nothing but our wit and fists to keep us afloat.” You add with a low chuckle, he doesn’t crack.

Losing your smile, the two of you keep silent as ghosts for a long moment before Bucky shifts uncomfortably in his seat, “I got some tea.” Replies the admittedly handsome man now since you have a moment to really look; the briefest hint of a grin revealing itself against his lips for only but a flash of a second. But you still see it.

Fumbling with your fingers you give him a pursed lip grin, “I like tea.”

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x y/n #bucky barnes x you #the winter soldier x reader #the winter soldier x y/n #the winter soldier #marvel imagine #marvel x you #marvel x reader #marvel x y/n #series rewrite #bucky barnes #tfatws

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joontier · 4 years ago

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Subliminal in Scrubs | V2; report xi

pairings: dr. jeon jungkook x female reader

chapter rating: NC-17 | genre: humor, workplace relationships

warnings: mentions of explicit themes, curse words

word count: 2.6k

g/n: Send me your thoughts?

[taglist]: @nottodayjjk @ditttiii @zeharilisharaban @btsbunny07 @turquoiseandplaidinautumn @aamxxrii @codeinebelle @btsmakesmehappy @stargukkie

Subliminal in Scrubs (the records) | navi. | m.list

As soon as you get out of the elevator, you rush to the slot where your car is parked, checking your surroundings before sending a quick text to Chohee.

You fall silent, remembering the events that transpired last night, and having to see the cause of it all just this morning.

You barely make it out of the basement with the eight-year-old family Camry you borrowed from your parents and as you exit your apartment building, you make a mental note to have it checked one of these days.

Thankfully, you reach Woocheon alive and in no time, considering the current state of your car. There are only thirty vacant slots left when you reach the hospital’s basement. Sighing, you keep your eyes open for any vacancies. When you spot one just beside the space reserved for motorcycles and bikes, you speed a little towards it, hoping that no one else will beat you to it.

Just next to you, a scooter arrives, and as a familiar mop of blonde hair greets you, you knock on your window, excitedly waving at Jimin as he lifts up the scooter seat to retrieve some of his things inside. “Jimin!!”

“Hello, _______, good morning to you too. You seem...bright-er today.”

“I’ll tell you all the deets later with Soomin, but ackkk can you believe it? Our first day!!” Jimin laughs at your enthusiasm as he waits for you to get your stuff from the passenger seat.

“You want me to help you with that?” Jimin eyes the duffel bag hanging by your shoulder. “I’m okay, no worries,” you reply, reassuring Jimin and waving him off with a free hand.

“_______, it seems as heavy as it looks...” Ah, maybe the strap straining against your shirt was a little too obvious then... but you don’t have the heart to burden Jimin with your own belongings so you politely decline one more time.

Jimin, however, isn’t convinced one bit with your statement, especially when he sees your knuckles turn white as you adjust the strap of your bag. “How ‘bout this instead? You carry my bag, and I’ll carry yours because mine is definitely lighter than that...baggage of yours, ________.”

He doesn’t budge from his spot, raising his eyebrows as he gives you an offer you can’t deny. “Fine, but this is only for today, okay?” Pouting, you hand your bag over to Jimin who accepts it with a smug smile. He then proceeds to jokingly topple over due to the weight of your bag.

“Jimin!” you exclaim, tugging the strap back towards you. “I’m kidding! It’s fine _______, don’t worry about me,” he smirks, doing weird poses as you both make your way out of the basement parking lot. Just a couple of minutes later, and Jimin entertaining you all the way through, you both arrive at a small restaurant just beside the hospital where the three of you agreed to meet for breakfast.

With brows furrowed in concern, Jimin waves his fork in front of you to get your attention, “_______, you okay? You’ve been staring at that bottle for quite some time already...you think maybe you can ketchup later instead?” Jimin snickers quietly to himself, while you and Soomin have similar expressions, staring blankly at Jimin who instantly turns quiet after seeing your reactions. Jimin sinks slowly in his seat as he clears his throat. “Uhm, sorry...I’ll just shut up...for now...”

“Mustard you do that this early in the morning?” Soomin looks at you then squints her eyes at Jimin while she fights the grin playing on her lips. Jimin’s face lights up like a little kid on Christmas day. The two share a high five as they bond over their equally awful jokes as you quietly rejoice in your seat, glad that they seem to have come out of their shells after their awkward first meeting.

You wish someone else in particular would have at least made an effort to rectify your rather unpleasant first meeting too.

“You two would make a cute couple.” You make sure your observation is loud enough for them to hear, disguising half of your sentence as a cough to distinctly express your amusement.

The two instantly part at your remark - Soomin going back to picking at her food while Jimin takes a sip of is drink. Your eyes widen a little bit, realizing that you might have celebrated a little too early for that. “Anyways, like Jimin here mentioned, you do seem a little distracted today...you alright?”

You close your eyes for a bit, trying to lose the image of Jungkook greeting you in your own corridor this morning. You’re certain it’s not just your sheer pique against Jungkook that continues to bother you, but half of it is definitely the humiliation that came with realizing he was the same person that had indirectly brought you to your high last night - and your own dignity could not take the veracity of it all.

“Okay, remember when I told you guys recently that my neighbor was leaving and that she’s looking for a new tenant, right?”

“Mhmm.”

“And do you also remember the time I mentioned that I am...uh...displeased with a particular human being named Jeon Jungkook?”

It’s Soomin who makes a second murmur of affirmation.

“Ah, yes... you meant you hate him. Am I correct?” seconds Jimin.

“That is affirmative. Yes.”

You take a deep breath before starting, “Well...”

“Hang on, let me just backtrack a little bit...we’re talking about the same Jeon Jungkook from Yonsei right? The one you tied with at the boards?”

“That is also a yes.”

“Well... I think he might be my new neighbor.” Grimacing, your face crumples in disappointment while you imagine just all the possible things that might happen having Jungkook as your neighbor...and all the nightmares that will accompany his moving in.

Jimin purses his lips in a poor attempt to control his snicker. “You have an insane amount of bad luck following you around, ________.” Courtesy of Chohee divulging yours and Jungkook’s history all the way to your first encounter with him, Jimin is well aware of your resentment towards Jungkook.

“In all honesty though, he seems like a normal dude. Just leaning a bit towards the cheeky side, but nothing too atrocious really...and if I do say so myself, you really, and quite literally, just got off on the wrong foot.”

“Jungkook...Jungkook...Jeon...” Soomin is looking somewhere else, clearly focused on trying to recall a memory as she repeatedly taps her nails against the table repeatedly. “There’s something about him that I’m forgetting but,” she says, looking at her watch, “but shit!! We’re going to be late, we gotta leave!”

The three of you get up from your seats abruptly, the sound of your chairs scraping against the floor startling the other customers in the restaurant. “Come on! Quickly!”

The locker room is full by the time the three of you arrive that you have to squeeze through rows of interns before a female WMC employee in uniform comes through the door with an announcement. “All interns, please proceed to the lobby for your hospital tour and orientation. Chief Park Daejung will be with you momentarily.”

Your trio scrambles to look for free lockers while the rest of the interns start to file out of the room, so when Jimin finds a free one for the meantime, he hurriedly grabs both yours and Soomin’s stuff and stashes them inside before ushering you all out of the room to catch up with the group.

At the lobby, the HR assistant from earlier, Narae (the same reason you’re convinced majority of the male interns are paying more attention than expected) is already making a roll call of all the interns that came in this morning and your trio just makes it in time to hear your names getting called.

Even from the back row with all the disadvantages of having average height, you’re practically buzzing in your spot and just like a crazed woman, you’re powerless to shake off the smile that seems permanently etched on your face.

“Excited?” Jimin nudges your side as he looks at you with an equally warm smile. “Yeah...” you murmur, marveling at the sheer size of the hospital, “I have studied my ass off my whole life for this moment...”

Opening the information booklet handed over by Ms. Narae earlier, you slide your ballpen off your lanyard, deciding to write your name both in Korean and English on the first page and officially claiming it yours. As you get to your surname, someone bumps into you, causing you to scribble a line throughout the entire page.

You take a deep breath, internalizing your annoyance and drilling it to the far end of your brain. Nope, you weren’t going to let this bother you, not today at the least. The name Chief Park Daejung class out however, makes you look up from the booklet.

“Jeon Jungkook? Glad to have you join us...fifteen minutes after call time.”

“I am sorry, Sir. Something came up. This won’t happen again.”

The chief turns to Narae, who’s been nothing but professional the whole time, ignoring all the ogling from all the other interns, “Didn’t know we actually got him. I’d recognize this kid anywhere. He’s the spitting image of his father - plus, they both make sure to make strong first impressions,” adds the chief, handing over a clipboard back to Narae.

Even though the voice coming from your right is unmistakable, you still close your eyes in fervent prayer, hoping that the person the chief was referring to isn’t the same number one person on your fight-on-sight list. Slowly, you pry one of your eyes open just to see Jungkook already staring you down with a smug grin on his face. “Fancy seeing you here, smally.”

Soomin, who’s standing on your left, leans toward your ear. “Ah, that’s what I was going to say earlier this morning...Jungkook was on the intern list.”

With the smallest smile your face muscles can muster, you look at Soomin, eye to eye. “Thanks for the warning, Soomin. I...really appreciate it.” She winks at you as she replies, “You’re very much welcome, dear.”

Jimin, who seems to have overheard the entire conversation, looks over and waves at Jungkook. “Hey bro, didn’t know you applied for Woocheon too! This is awesome!”

You’re starting to question if your so-called friends are really on your side or not.

Taken aback by Jimin’s questionable enthusiasm, Jungkook scratches the back of his head before voicing out a reply, “Oh yeah...surprise! I guess...”

Surprise indeed.

“Well, shall we start then? We’ve got a long day ahead of us!” Chief Park clasps his hands together, “Everyone, welcome to the Woocheon Medical City.”

Woocheon is going to be hell.

Miss Narae continues to walk your group around the hospital’s main building - through the lobby, cafeteria, outpatient clinics, as well as the different departments. “Correct me if I’m wrong but don’t the orientations usually come before the tours?” you ask Soomin, going over to the page of the booklet showing the hospital map.

“Yeah, but there’s a lot of foot traffic in the hallways starting from ten onwards so it’s not recommended to have the tour during those times…” Soomin replies.

“Oh… I see…” Your group finally arrives by the operating rooms and you close the booklet, focusing on Miss Narae’s guidelines. Suddenly, the automatic doors open and out come two doctors talking to each other with the taller man stretching his arms. “Interns, may I introduce to you our surgical residents, Dr. Min Yoongi and Dr. Kim Namjoon, specializing in general surgery and neurosurgery respectively.” Your group bows to the senior doctors, likewise greeting them a good morning.

“You all sure about choosing medicine as your career path?” The smaller one of the two, who you assume to be Dr. Min, says with a straight face.

“Hyung, don’t scare them away! But just so you know,” Dr. Kim adds, then takes a step closer to your group, “...there’s still time to back out, kids,” he whispers, earning nervous chuckles from the group.

“Ah new babies!!” Someone from behind your group announces. With the blue scrubs he’s wearing, you assume he’s another surgeon (and an insanely handsome one too). “Apples keep the doctors away but the hospital can’t really keep its patients away can it? Else we wouldn't have such a magnificent hospital such as the Woocheon Medical City, right?” Laughter erupts from the group as he passes through, making a beeline towards Dr. Min and Dr. Kim.

Miss Narae clears her throat, gathering everyone’s attention once more, “I’d also like to introduce to you Dr. Kim Seokjin, also a surgical resident specializing in general surgery.”

“Oh don’t believe her! With looks like these? Sheesh! We’re actually newbie actors filming season 3 of Hospital Playlist...but you know...between us three, it’s obvious who sets the bar, right?” This earns eye rolls from both Dr. Min and the other Dr. Kim.

Pushing Dr. Seokjin towards the operating room, Dr. Yoongi turns to your group again, “Please ignore him. We’re actual licensed doctors…Hyung just…” Dr. Min sighs, rubbing at his temples, “...he says he doesn’t like attention but he keeps on doing humiliating things like these…”

Dr. Seokjin, who’s already inside the operating room hallway, overhears Dr. Min’s words. “Hey! Why do you keep outing me like this?! Also, this appendectomy will just take a while - wait for me! I’m craving kalguksu today!”

“Soomin...is it just me or everyone here has got to be damn attractive?”

Jungkook leans in from behind, raising his eyebrows at you and Soomin. “Oh you guys weren’t aware that it was one of the qualifications before getting accepted into Woocheon? Kind of an unspoken rule really…” Jungkook remarks as he crosses his arms over his chest and you swear on your life you hadn’t taken a peek at the very distracting outline of his arms.

Jimin who seems to agree with the idea wholeheartedly, places his fingers under his chin and wriggles his eyebrows wildly.

Boys.

Rolling your eyes at them, you retort, “You do realize that that only means we’re hot too.” likewise raising your shoulders at them. Soomin gives you a high five before flipping her hair towards the two. Jungkook gives you both a lopsided smirk in reply, “I’m not going to deny that.”

Soomin grabs you by the elbow, turning both your backs to the boys behind you, “You sure you hate him, or you just can’t take the way he’s flirting with you?”

#jungkook x reader #btswritingcafe #bangtanarmynet #btsghostie #jeon jungkook #bts aus #bts fic #jeon jungkook x reader #jungkook fluff #doctors au

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kiekiecarrera · 4 years ago

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Tutorial - Transitional Blending + Adding Text

Another request from Mary @princess-seaweed :) This time I’m making a tutorial to show how I created the transition in this gif and how added the text with its effects:

Once again, this is an advanced tutorial that supposed you’re already familiar with basic gif making using photoshop.

I will try to go into as much detail as I can, but if anything is off/unclear/vague, don’t hesitate to reach out!

So, we’re gonna start by blending the two gifs with the transition, and then we’ll add the text and its effects.

I’m using photoshop 2020.

First things first, as I mentioned before, this is an advanced tutorial that supposes that you already know how to create gifs, so the first thing you wanna do is make the 2 gifs (or 3, or 4, or however many you want) you wanna blend separately, (resize, sharpen, add adjustment layers and whatever else you want to add), and then save the psd files (you don’t have to actually save if you have them open, but this is a precaution in case anything happens). Since we’re gonna be layering the gifs one after the other, the number of frames for each one can be different.

Once you’re satisfied with the gifs, open your animation timeline bar to the frames animation mode.

For this particular gif, I’m using the below gifs, sized 540x540px each. I’ve already resized, sharpened and colored my gifs and this is what they currently look like:

Not that it matters, but my first gif has 41 frames, and the second has 40 frames.

Okay, so what we’re going to do is we’re going to copy the second gif after the first one, but to get the transition, we’re going to layer some frames of both gifs on top of eachother. I know this sounds complicated, but it’s really not :)

First things first, you’re gonna decide the order of the gifs. I want the gift to start with happy JJ (1st gif) and transition to sad JJ (2nd gif).

So, you’re going to go to your 2nd gif, and select all the frames in the animation bar:

Now you’re going to click on the small menu on the right side of the animation bar, and select copy frames:

Now, we’re going to copy this gif after after the first one, but we want to layer some of the frames on top of eachother to achieve the transition part. In this case, we’re gonna layer 9 frames.

To do that, you’re going to go back to the first gif, scroll all the way to the end of the animation bar and select only the last 9 frames:

Then you’re gonna open the small menu in the right corner of the animation bar and choose paste frames:

A window will pop up, asking what the paste method is. Make sure paste over selection is checked and click ok:

So, what’s happened now is that the second gif has been added after the first one, with 9 frames overlapping between the two.

This is what my psd currently looks like:

Now you’re going to group the second gif. To do that, look at the layers tray. The layers of the second gif should all still be selected. You’re gonna keep them as they are and just click on the small folder icon at the bottom bar:

Now we’re going to start creating the transition. This isn’t very complicated, it’s just the crucial part to get the transition right. Basically, we’re going to be playing with the opacity of the 9 overlapping frames, so that the top layer gradually becomes more visible from one frame to the next. I promise, it’s not complicated.

You’re going to select the first frame containing the second gif in the animation bar. And you’re going to make sure the whole group is selected in the layers tray.

now you’re going to change the group’s opacity to 10%. To do that, find the opacity tab on the right side corner of the layers tray.

Now change the value from 100% to 10%. You’ll immediately see the top layer almost disappear, and the bottom layer will be mainly visible.

Don’t worry, this will only change the opacity value for this frame, and all the other frames will remain the same:

Now you’re going to move to the next frame. You’ll notice the opacity value will be back to 100%. This time, you’re gonna set it to 20%.

Again, this will only affect this frame, and top layer will fade, but be slightly more visible than the previous frame.

Now you’re going to move to the next frame. This time, you’re gonna set the opacity value to 30%.

And you’re gonna keep repeating the process, frame after frame, each time adding 10% to the opacity, until you reach the 9th frame and set that to 90%.

You’ll notice that with each frame, the bottom layer fades a little more and the top layer is more visible. Your 9th frame should look something like this:

And that’s it, the transition is complete. If you save your gif now, it should look like this:

You can make the transition as long or as short as you want. The trick it just to make sure that whatever number of frames you want, it’s a dividend of 100 so that your transition is even - that means that, for example, you can choose 5 frames and make the opacity jump by 20 from one frame to the other.

And that’s it for the transition part!

Now onto adding the text.

The first thing you’re going to do is make sure that the first frame in your animation bar is selected, because if you make any additions on any other frame, they won’t apply to the whole gif - this is why we were able to play with the opacity on the frames above, because they only change individually. If we wanted the opacity to apply to all the frames at the same time, we would’ve chose the first frame in the animation bar. So, select the the first frame, and choose the type tool.

The font I’m using is called Challenge, set to size 72, text color is white. click anywhere on the gif, and the standard lorem ipsum text will appear.

Now, write whatever text you want. I want it to be in the middle of my gif, so once I’ve written my text, I’m gonna click on the selection tool at the top.

To align the text, I create a new layer right under the text layer, fill it with any solid color, and select both layers:

Don’t worry, this is just to align the text, we’ll hide it in a bit. Now make sure the selection tool is chosen and that both your text layer and color layer are selected.

In the top bar, you’re gonna click on the two icons shown in the image below:

Your text should now be aligned in the center of your gif:

Hide the colored layer by clicking on the small eye icon next to it in the layer tray:

This is what your psd looks like now:

Next, we’re gonna add some effects to our text (mainly some shadow). You’re going to right click on the text layer, and from the menu you’re gonna choose blending options:

Now, a pop up box will open. You’re going to make sure the drop shadow box is ticked, and change the settings to your liking. My settings are as below:

I still want my shadow to be even darker, so I’m gonna click on the small + at the right of the drop shadow twice, to create 2 more shadow effects, and then click ok:

You can add other effects. I use glow, stroke and gradient alot, but for this one I only wanted to add a shadow.

And that’s it!

Now you just gotta save. My save settings are:

and my gif now looks like this:

And that’s it!

If you have any more questions or need anymore help, just hit me up, and let me know if you find this helpful at all!

#tutorials #resources #photoshop 2020 #photoshop tutorials #gif tutorials #my edits #kinda #tuts*#princess-seaweed

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hale-13 · 4 years ago

Text

Ultraviolet

By Hale13

For the Summer of Whump Day 7 - Sunburn

The best part about having free run of Tony Stark’s penthouse in the Tower is the Olympic sized pool that overlooks all of Manhattan. Peter could happily spend the whole summer here.

Words: 2503, Chapters: 1/1 (Complete), Language: English

Fandoms: Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)

Rating: Gen

Relationships: Peter Parker & Tony Stark

Characters: Peter Parker, Tony Stark, Bruce Banner

TW: Teenage Dumbassery

Read on AO3 or below the line break.

“Why are you wearing the Armani?” Peter asked, pushing the pair of battered bodega sunglasses he had been using for the past two years up to sit in his chlorine damp hair and squinting as his eyes adjusted to the dimmed lights of the penthouse. FRIDAY closed the automatic door to the balcony and pool behind him.

“First of all this is Tom Ford how dare you,” Tony said, pointing at him with the ‘dad finger’ but not looking up from his rapid texting. “Second of all I’m wearing the Tom Ford, not Armani you absolute heathen, because I have to step into a couple of meetings this afternoon.”

Peter hummed in confusion, taking a bottle of cold Gatorade (the red one because it was clearly the best flavor) from the fridge and chugging it before sitting on one of the barstools. Tony flicked his eyes away from his phone to glare at the puddle dripping off Peter’s swim trunks pointedly – Peter just smirked at him and cracked open the second bottle he had pulled from the fridge, sipping on it slowly. “I thought you were playing hooky all week?” Peter teased, referencing the plan Tony had laid out earlier in the week to do absolutely nothing of value while Pepper was out of town.

“That was the plan,” Tony conceded, tucking his phone into his inner jacket pocket and then fussing with the immaculate pocket square. “Pepper was supposed to land thirty minutes ago but she had to divert her plane to our LA office for… something. Honestly I wasn’t paying attention.”

“And that leads to you going to meetings?” Peter asked with a raised brow.

“Apparently,” Tony groused, pulling the colorful beach towel from around Peter’s neck and dropping it to the floor to soak up the puddle forming under the barstool. “Sorry buddy – I know I promised a week of fun bullshit but I think we both would prefer that I keep my head attached to my body so…”

“It’s fine,” Peter brushed off and it really was. To be honest, he was still tired from their thirty hour workshop bonanza and he could do with a nap. It was a pleasant day for June in New York with a good breeze and some light cloud cover – a nap on one of the obscenely large pool floats sounded heavenly. “I was thinking about napping anyway.”

Tony’s brow furrowed for a second before his hand darted out to land on Peter’s forehead. Peter batted his hand away, narrowly avoiding falling off the stool. “You don’t feel warm. Are you sick? FRI is the kid sick?”

“All vitals within normal limits Boss,” FRIDAY answered, almost sounding amused.

“I’m not sick! Teenagers can enjoy naps you know.” Peter protested, dodging another of his mentor’s attempts to check him for a fever. “It’s pretty much our MO actually.”

Tony rolled his eyes before slipping his tinted AR sunglasses onto his face. “Oh to be young again,” he said sarcastically, gathering up a couple thin files and his StarkPad, tucking his phone into his inner jacket pocket. “You sure you’ll be okay for a few hours?”

“Yes, Tony, jeez.” Peter said with an exaggerated eye roll.

“Oh joy, teenage snark. Aren’t I lucky?” His mentor questioned as he ruffled Peter’s hair into disarray, flinging little water droplets on the counter top and causing the loose curls to tighten up more as they dried. “I’ll be back in time for dinner. Want to grill?”

“Sounds good,” Peter said with a smile, finishing off his second drink and tossing the bottle in the recycling and waving as Tony entered the elevator. Peter let out a large yawn and stretched, sighing happily as his back popped and realigned, before hopping of the stool to gather his towel off the floor and get a couple bottles of water from the fridge.

The sun was bright and warm as he stepped back out onto the pool deck and Peter luxuriated in its warmth, momentarily blinded – he hated the cold more than anything and loved being out in the heat. It took him a few minutes to pick his pool float, Tony had collected an obscene number of ridiculous ones over the past month, but he eventually decided on the watermelon one for its large round shape. He loaded it up with his water, towel and sunscreen before pushing it into the pool and following it with a splash.

He agilely climbed up to sit in the middle and took the bottle of sunscreen, spraying on another protective layer before wadding his towel into a lumpy pillow and face planting into it. “Hey FRI?”

“Yes Peter?” FRIDAY’s voice asked from the waterproof speakers situated around the pool.

“Can you play my lofi playlist?” He nearly slurred, already half asleep.

“No problem Peter,” she answered before the soft music poured from the speakers and Peter let out a sigh before fully relaxing. There was truly nothing better than a nice warm nap out in the sun. The gentle rocking of the water was quick to put him into some of the best sleep of his life.

————————————————

“Peter? Peter! Wake up kiddo!”

Peter groaned, his body stiff and tight and hot and he cracked open his crusty eyes to stare at the edge of the pool. “T’ny?” He croaked out, mouth impossibly dry and vision blurred.

“Yes, Jesus, you really cooked yourself buddy. Can you paddle over here?” Tony was looking at him with worried eyes, pulling his jacket off and slipping out of his Italian leather loafers.

“Come over there?” Peter questioned, confused. The sun had sunk behind the tower and the rooftop was now covered in shade and Peter shivered. Why was it so cold?

“Pete focus up now. I need you to come to me.” Tony said, his voice patient but with the clear undercurrent of concern that he used when Peter had gotten himself into some form of trouble.

“Okay,” Peter grunted. He tried to shift his heavy arms and then gasped in pain, clenching his eyes shut. “Ouchies,” he mumbled, not making any effort to move again. A splash sounded and Peter opened his eyes to see Tony in the water with him, efficiently swimming over to his ridiculous pool float. “But Tom Ford,” Peter protested dumbly.

“This was last seasons suit anyway,” Tony dismissed as he reached the edge of the float, treading water. “I’m gonna help you get into the water Petey – you’re way too hot. It’s not going to feel all that great but you need to trust me alright?”

“You’re Iron Man,” Peter agreed, groggy. “Trust you.”

“Good to know buddy,” Tony said as he carefully reached out and put his arms under Peter’s chest. Peter let out a gasp as his mentor’s wet sleeve rubbed against his sensitive arm but kept his body limp and let Tony maneuver him to the edge of the float while barely keeping it from tipping completely over on them both. “Alright kiddo, take a deep breath for me and hold it okay?”

“Yeah,” Peter grunted before pulling in a large gulp of air and squeezing his eyes shut. To his benefit, Tony was fast – he lifted Peter off the float and dumped him into the water before hooking his forearms under Peter’s armpits and pulling his head up above water again. Peter coughed as he surfaced, more awake and aware now, and really feeling just how truly fucked he was. His skin from the back of his neck down was tight and burning and he remained limp to not stress out the damaged skin any more. “That sucked.”

“Sure did,” Tony agreed, carefully paddling the both of them to the shallow end of the pool where a gentle incline would lead back up to the pool deck. “Think you can walk if I help you?”

“Maybe,” Peter answered, but did adjust himself in the water so he was floating next to Tony with his arm wrapped around the man’s shoulder and Tony’s arm wrapped around his waist just below the edge of his swim trunks to prevent him from touching the tender skin of his back. Exiting the pool was difficult since Peter realized he had definitely burned the bottoms of his feet but, with Tony’s help, he was able to limp out of the pool and towards the penthouse door.

“We’ve gotta get you in some oatmeal,” Tony told him as they entered the living room. The cool air from the AC made Peter shiver but the cool polished concrete floor felt like heaven on the soles of his feet.

“Why oatmeal?” Peter asked, letting Tony steer him down the hall and past his own bedroom towards the master bedroom and into Tony’s own ridiculously huge bathroom.

“It’s an anti-inflammatory,” Tony told him as they entered the bathroom. The large porcelain tub that could probably fit seven or eight full grown men was filling with tepid water mixed with oatmeal – clearly FRIDAY had been listening to their conversation and had acted accordingly. Well that or Peter had missed when Tony had asked her to set it up.

It took some maneuvering, but, soon, Peter was lying face down in the tub, his head pillowed on a pile of soft towels with Tony applying damp washcloths soaked in the cool water and oatmeal to the parts of his back that weren’t submerged in the water. Peter shivered violently once, his failing thermoregulating attempting and not succeeding in functioning, before he just lay, missable, in the tub.

“Close your eyes,” Tony said, wetting another washcloth in the sink with clean water only and wiping his face down. He frowned as his hand ran over Peter’s forehead and he draped the cloth over Peter’s face and eyes to cool the reddened skin. “You’ve got quite the fever brewing Webs.”

“I just wanted a nap,” Peter moaned and he heard Tony let out a little sad sounding chuckle.

“I know. Just relax and try to cool down for now,” and then he stood up and walked to the door. “I’m going to grab you some dry shorts and get the bed set up. Try not to drown.” It took more effort than Peter thought it would but flipping Tony off over the lip of the tub was totally worth it.

He fell into a light doze from there – drifting off as the stinging in his back dulled down to a more comfortable level. “Oh Peter,” Bruce said from above him and Peter jerked in the tub, dislodging the washcloth from his face and causing his body to let out a sting of pain and protest. He let out a little grunt and Dr. Banner winced from above him. “Sorry Pete. I thought you heard me come in. You really burnt yourself.”

“I know,” Peter said, wanting to be irritated but too tired to feel much of anything. Bruce gave him a sad smile.

“According to FRIDAY your temp is down enough we can get you out,” Bruce told him as Tony leaned over the tub as well so both of them were staring down at him. Peter just blinked. “Let Tony and I do most of the work – you don’t want to stress your muscles. Once we can get you out and dried off I’ll get you started on some fluids and electrolytes and that should help some. And my aloe plant donated a couple of leaves to the cause.” Dr. Banner joked. Peter gave him a weak smile in response, not really looking forward the the execution part of Bruce’s plan.

Getting lifted out of the tub was nothing short of agony even though Tony and Bruce lifted him under his armpits again and left him leaning his chest heavily against the bathroom counter to keep as much weight off his feet as possible. Bruce pointedly left the room and Peter endured a few mortifying moments where his mentor had to help him dry off and change into a loose pair of athletic shorts that sat low on his hips so as to not interfere with the burn. He was going to have an awful tan line by the end of this he thought sadly, taking in the lobster colored skin of his back and neck.

Bruce crept back in moments after and had Peter lean his hip against the sink so that he could place the IV catheter into his forearm while standing – making it easier on both of them once they would get him settled into bed. The California king sized bed had been stripped down to just its fitted sheet and, with a little assistance, Peter did a controlled flop face first into the memory foam pillows, letting his eyes shut as he felt Bruce connect the IV line and the cool rush of fluids through his veins.

He was nearly out when a cold plop on his back tore his eyes back open in surprise and he felt immediate relief from his tight, hot skin where the wet mass had landed. “Feels good,” he slurred drowsily as a careful hand massaged the goop into his back. A second set was working on his tight calf muscles, loosening them up and easing the burn.

“Fresh aloe,” Dr. Banner told him. Nothing better for a sunburn.”

Peter hummed in agreement and let himself drift off, finally comfortable.

—————————————-

“I just wanted a nap,” Peter whined as he limped and hobbled into the kitchen of the penthouse almost three days later, Tony following a few steps behind to catch him if he fell over and relying on the walls and his ability to stick to anything to keep him from falling. “I wore sunscreen!”

“Clearly not enough,” his mentor told him, voice tight with irritation. Peter had been saying the same thing on repeat since he woke up from his nap and it was clearly grating the man’s nerves. Peter opened the fridge and pulled out a bottle of water, cracking it open and taking large gulps. Even days later and after Bruce pumped him full of fluids Peter still felt parched and dehydrated. “You know you’re supposed to reapply like every hour in direct sunlight and water right?”

“Well I do now,” Peter answered, leaning against the stove so he could take the weight off his legs. His skin still felt so tight that it felt like it may burst. And the blisters… best not to think about it. Tony clocked the movement.

“Time for more aloe,” he said pointedly, shooing Peter off toward his bedroom. “I’ll get it out of the freezer and be right behind you.”

“Thanks Mr. Stark,” Peter said as he hobbled away. He passed by the door to the pool, the water sparkling brightly in the mid-afternoon sun and he looked at it thoughtfully. “Redo next week,” he promised to himself. He’d just have to get FRIDAY to wake him up every hour next time. Besides, he needed to even out his tan.

#summerofwhump #summerofwhump7 #Summer of Whump 2021 #Prompt: Sunburn #spider man #irondad

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jcylenz · 4 years ago

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gif tutorial

So like, a ridiculously long time ago (I don’t even wanna say when, I am so sorry dear nonnie that you had to wait this long for this) I got asked for a tutorial on how I make my gifs, including the clipping part, and FINALLY I got my act together and wrote it up, so here you go peeps.

What you will need:

KMPlayer (download link in the source link)

Some kind of Photoshop (I use CC but they work similarly)

Patience for Photoshop and understanding my flimsy way of explaining things and the Hungarian you’re about to witness

1.) Clipping

So once you have KMPlayer on your computer and have decided on what you want to gif and have the footage too (for that the best is to use 720p or better quality footage, I usually work with 1080p), we’re going to start with clipping. Open the footage in KMPlayer and go to around the time the scene is that you want to clip

Once you have that, press Alt+C, it should be an automatical shortcut but if it doesn’t work for you, it should be something like Right Click > Record > Record Video File... (the screenshot below is to give you an idea of around where to look for, I realize that the text won’t look the same since my is HungarianxD)

Once you clicked that, this is what you should get:

First step is clicking on the Folder button around the top and choosing which folder you want to save your clips to. Once you have that, click on “File crop” on the very top next to Capture. This is what you’re gonna get:

There are a couple of things to do here. First of all, change the format from the original to mp4. This is really important, Photoshop only imports mp4 files in the way that I do them.

After that, go to the bottom where it says “Customize video and audio codecs (could cause erros).” and tick the little thing before it and then change the audio from AUTO to NONE.

So after all your panel should look like this:

And now all you need to do it set the time for the beginning and the end of the clip, which you can do around the top with “Start Time” and “End Time” (as you can see, I already set a time in the previous picture as well). And then you just press Start down in the bottom right corner, and you have a nice, workable, pretty clip at your hands.

I personally usually make around one minute long clips, I can work best with those or anything shorter in Photoshop, but everyone has different preferences, so it’s up to you and what feels best for you to decide, this method really can make clips any kind of length.

2.) Giffing

Now you need to open Photoshop. I use CC, but this method works in any version of Photoshop, as far as I know. First you have to go File > Import > Frames to layers.

You get the panel below:

Make sure to have clicked things similarly as me (idk what those say in English exactly, sorry) and then at the bottom of the little player, there are those two black sliders. Anything you choose between those two will be the amount of footage that Photoshop will turn into frames, you just have to make sure it isn’t a too long clips, because Photoshop can only open 500 frames at the time, if you want to open more, it just cuts off after 500 frames. (It gives you a warning for that, don’t worry.)

Once you open the frames, you should see this in your Photoshop:

You see the frames at the bottom? First delete any frames you don’t need from there and then highlight all the frames (step on the first frame, press shift, and then click on the last frame and everything will light up in between). Afterward click Alt+Ctrl+A and then Ctrl+G. Then you will get this:

See the frames on the right window? They got all neatly packaged in a folder, which is exactly what we need. Then go to the frames on the bottom and click on one of the 0.04 or whatever number is set under the frames and then choose “other” or the equivalent of that option.

This is when you set the time of the frames. I usually go with 0.05, which is probably the best rate, but you can play between 0.05 and 0.08, whatever you like best. Just time the amount in into the pop up panel and then click okay.

Now after this you need to go to the panel that has the bottom frames and on its right top corner there has to be a little arrow, click on that and then click convert to timeline.

And this is how it should look afterward:

Now you need to go into Layer > Intelligent object > Convert to intelligent object

The folder you had on the side with all the frames in it turned into an intelligent object. Now comes cutting. You can cut it in any dimensions you want. There is a useful tool, though, to make it the same size:

This tool on the side. Click on it, and then on the top toolbar you will have this:

Left is horizontal, right is vertical size and you set whatever dimensions you want the gif to be (as you can see, mine is currently set for my usual gif size) and cut the intelligent object.

Now comes the sharpening. Open Filter > Sharpen > Intelligent sharpen

And set the panels to the following settings:

Click okay. Now go to the right panel where the intelligent object layer is and duplicate that. Just a simple right click and dumplicate layer on it. This is how it looks now:

And now while you’re standing on the top layer, open Filter > Blur > Gauss blur

And set the panel for the following settings:

After clicking okay, go to the panel on the side where the layers are visible again.

Next to the Gauss blur little line, on the right click on those double arrows, set the opacity to 85% and then click okay.

And then standing on the entire layer set the opacity of the layer on 50%.

All we gotta do now is resize the gif. Click Image > Size

And then set whatever size you want for your gifs. And you’re done. All you need now is to put any psd you want on it or use your own coloring, which I’m not good at so I’m using this as the base psd and adjusting it when I need to.

And once you have all the coloring done, you need to click File > Save for web (don’t just simply save or save as, those will not work), and then set your panel to the following setting:

#giffing #tutorial #rpc #rpt #rph

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acciomalfoy · 4 years ago

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Head Boy (Bill Weasley x Reader)

Summary: Once Bill Weasley gets Head Boy there’s only one thing stopping you from talking to him - the Head Girl.

My parents pushed a letter into my hand as I was about to board the train, and my mum hugged me.

“We’re so proud of you, honey. Remember to owl us.” I hugged her back in confusion.

“Wha-“ Dad cut me off.

“We love you, stay safe.” Then I was on the train and they were gone. I opened the envelope and pulled out the letter with a Hogwarts seal. I read the parchment in my hand, and reread it. I was returning as a Gryffindor prefect. I stared at the headboys name, and I bit my lip. I had been trying to avoid Bill Weasley, on account of me having a massive fat crush on him. I was already seventeen, and I knew his birthday was in a couple months. If Bill was Head Boy, then maybe it was time I finally grew up and confronted my feelings.

“Salazar!” I swore when I saw who was Head Girl. It was a ghastly girl who shamelessly flaunted her “love” for Bill, and I knew I wouldn’t get a single slot of rounds with him. Of course, I didn’t want every round with him, but a couple would be nice. We were already decent friends, but my giggling friends had ruined the last several conversations we had. I knew it was a mistake to tell them.

“Hey, Y/n! Did you forget you were a prefect?” Bill popped out of nowhere, and I gasped.

“Bill!” I held a hand against a wall to steady myself, and he laughed. Godric, that laugh.

“You better get changed now, we have a meeting. I’ll wait for you.” He nodded towards the bathroom and I nodded.

“Sure. Thanks.” I toddled into the bathroom to get changed, and when I emerged he was leaning against the wall of the carriage, deep in thought.

“Oi, William!” I clicked my fingers in his face and he blinked.

“Finally, I thought I was going to turn to dust before you came out. Come on, meetings started.” He linked an arm with mine, and I felt a tingle of electricity run up it. We walked into the prefects room and took a seat at the back. All the heads of house were there.

“Welcome back, prefects! As you all know, Catherine Rawlings and William Weasley are head girl and head boy, making them in charge of organising rounds. If you are unable to complete rounds, you are to talk to them about it. If they find your reason implausible, or not worthy of changing the schedule, then you are able to pursue the matter with us.” McGonagall beamed proudly at all of us, and I couldn’t help but smile back. When I looked at Catherine, I saw the smug look on her face. Bitch.

“Now, did anyone lose their badges over the break?” Two hands went up, and I raised mine. It really wasn’t my fault. My cat is very temperamental.

“Honestly L/n, what am I going to do with you?” McGonagall smiled at me, and I took the badge she offered me.

“Thanks Professor. You know as well as I do how much Charlie hates shiny things.” She nodded, knowing my cat even better than I did.

“That I do.” She walked back to the front of the room.

“Alright prefects, you’re free to go.” Bill met my eyes, and the second he stood up McGonagall shook her head.

“Mr Weasley, as head boy you’ll be staying behind to sort out the rounds. Miss Rawlings, that’s you too.” Catherine swung around to smile at Bill, and I realised she had something green in her teeth. Serves her right.

“Bye, Bill. See you in the hall.” I waved before I left, feeling quite bad for myself. I found the carriage Bethany and Gabbie were in, and settled down for the long train ride. After a gruelling couple of hours, we arrived thanks to the magical train. My back was throbbing as I stood up, and Gabbie shouted in surprise when she tried to stand up and her foot was sleep.

“Help!” She yelled at she fell instantly. Bethany and I cracked up laughing as we stared at her on the floor, and we left without helping her. We could hear her shouting obscenities, and we laughed as we stepped off the train.

Once again, the magical view took my breath away. As I stared up at Hogwarts, stark against the pink sky, I was hit by the realisation that this was the second last time I would ever see this view. Things were never going to be the same, and it hurt.

“Bye, Beth. Gotta go catch the first one.” She nodded at me as I ran forward, her eyes also set on the view in front of us. I weaved in and out of students, some of them yelling my name, others glaring. When I reached the front, I saw Hagrid.

“Hagrid! Any room for me?” He laughed when he saw me, amid petting thin air.

“Have you ever been on time, Miss L/n?” He stepped aside to reveal a spare seat in Catherine and Bill’s carriage, and I laughed out loud. I really couldn’t help it.

“Thanks! See you at Hogwarts!” I waved at him as he set our carriage off and I looked at Bill.

“Fancy meeting you here, Weasley.” I held out a hand.

“Pleasure to meet you, L/n. I trust you enjoyed the train ride?” We shook hands, and then dissolved into laughter. Small things amuse small minds.

“Anyway, why didn’t you speak up earlier Bill? We could have adjusted them.” Catherine butted in, and Bill stopped laughing.

“I forgot.” He rubbed his neck, and I knew he was lying. He winked at me, and I tried not to laugh.

“What’re you laughing for? Got something to say?” Fucking hell, is it a crime to laugh?

“I didn’t realise laughing was forbidden.” I glared at her, and she glared back.

“Any chance of me getting my schedule early?” I looked at Bill with my best puppy dog eyes, and he looked away.

“Nope. You’ll get it as soon as we get there. We have to have a quick meeting to discuss the new rules, new house passwords, and schedules. Wait, do you want to choose our password?” Bill asked me excitedly. I gasped.

“Bill, that’s hardly appropriate-“ The bitch tried to butt in, but we ignored her.

“Yes! Holy shit! Can I make it nugget?” It was perfect. Reminded me of the crisp, tender chicken nuggets at home.

“Like, the gold?” Bill was confused, and I gasped.

“You mean, you’ve never had a chicken nugget?” It hurt to think that he hadn’t. Definitely something I would bring him from Christmas at home.

“No?” I shook my head.

“Doesn’t matter. That’s what I want the password to be.” Bill nodded.

“Okay, that’s settled. I was dying trying to think of a password. Way too much pressure. Hey, we’re here!” The carriage pulled into Hogwarts, and I was too busy being pleased with myself to stick the finger at Catherine.

“I’ll help you down.” Bill got out first, and he extended a hand to me.

“Such a gentlemen.” I smiled at him and climbed out with his assistance. We kept walking, ignoring Catherine’s shout.

“Oi!” We laughed as we entered the castle.

“We’re meeting here.” Bill stopped beside a pillar off to left of the main entrance, and I stopped with him.

“Can nugget really be the password?” I asked, hoping to Godric it was true. Bill laughed, and my heart soared.

“If you want it to be, then it will.” I smiled at him, and he smiled back.

“Thanks a lot.” Apparently Catherine didn’t how to be anything other than a massive bitch.

“For what?” Bill held up a peace sign, and I snorted.

“Regardless, L/n, your schedules being swapped already. I decided to take up an apprenticeship that contradicts my rounds.” Why she had to tell me that, I had no clue, but Bill stiffened.

“At least let her see it first.” Bill said quickly. Catherine shrugged.

“Sure, but it isn’t hers anymore. It’s mine.” Cow. Other prefects joined us, and McGonagall handed out our rounds. When I looked at mine, I saw I was with Griffin for all of them. Every last one. Fuck.

“I’ve swapped with Griffin.” Bill whispered in my ear, and I gasped.

“But I’ve swapped with you. Here’s your new one.” Catherine snatched mine out of my hand to give me hers. They were all with Bill, which was Griffin. When I looked at them, I realised something.

“Sorry, Catherine. I can’t do these. I take level four potions during these.” I tried to take mine back, but she pulled it out of reach.

“You’ll have to get rid of it then.” Bill raised an eyebrow.

“Give Y/n her rounds.” Catherine glared.

“No. They’re mine now.” Bill walked away, and Catherine smirked at me. Annoying bitch. Bill returned with McGonagall in tow.

“What seems to be the problem?” She asked, looking at the two of us.

“Catherine is trying to swap rounds but I can’t do hers and she won’t give me mine back.” Try me bitch. I don’t have a problem with being a tattletale if it’s to her.

“Is this true, Miss Rawlings?” Catherine sputtered.

“No! I was merely comparing rounds. Here you go, L/n.” Catherine handed back my sheet, but she was glaring. McGonagall left, and Catherine stuck the finger up at me.

“Watch yourself, Catherine. Wouldn’t want the title of head girl taken from you.” I blew her a kiss before Bill pulled me into the Great Hall, laughing.

“Thanks, Billy. Ready for all our rounds?” I ruffled his hair as we sat down at the end.

“Do you know why we have every round together?” Bill asked me, and I shook my head. I was grateful as Helena to Slughorn for offering me advanced level four potions classes, because without him I’d be good as gone.

“It’s because I like you. A shit ton. And Catherine’s a cow and she keeps trying to get me alone, but I don’t want to be alone with anyone but you.” I almost laughed at the thought of Bill being horny, till I realised what he said.

“What? You’re serious?” He nodded, and I smiled softly.

“I like you too. I’m so glad I don’t have rounds with Griffin. I almost shitted myself when I saw.” He pulled me in, and we hugged as students filed in.

“So,” I started.

“So,” He let go of me, and we stared at each other.

“Are we dating?”

“Can we please date?” I took one of his hands. It was almost double the size of mine.

“We may, kind sir.” We laughed, and I couldn’t imagine being soulmates with anyone else.

#bill weasley #bill weasley x reader

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artificialqueens · 4 years ago

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Gimme Love, 3/9 (Miz Cracker/Blair St Clair) - Grinder

AN: Hey, guys! I hope yall are enjoying this fic so far! Throw me a like please if you do. TW for this chapter: Grief // Homophobia

2003 High School. The bane of my existence. Just as I thought elementary and middle school were terrible, High School really was something else. From my childhood therapy sessions, I learned to conceal my anger, avoid freakouts, and channel my emotions into other things. It was good for me, yeah. But it also made me a more reserved person. Things still made me angry, the other kids at school being a primary key to that. But I never defended myself. Ever. Of course, Jujubee always had my back. Only in later years did I learn to appreciate the times she'd yell at the other kids, telling them to fuck off and whatnot. But back then, I wished she hadn't. It only drew more negative attention. All I wanted was to get through those tough years. I would come home a lot, look at pictures of myself as a child. And I'd be so mad because only then did I see that I wasn't an ugly kid. I was adorable. But, God clearly had favourites 'cause puberty did not do me any favours. If only I had grown up in a more modern time when no one gave a shit about looks. When people were outspoken about the cruelty that came with shaming someone for their looks. When people were more aware of the psychological damage that could do. Again, God had favourites. From years of my eyesight getting worse and needing a new pair of glasses every time I went to the eye doctor, I had thick-rimmed frames that made me look straight out of the 70s. And the lenses made my eyes look huge. I looked like Bubbles from Trailer Park Boys. My hair was bigger but full of split ends due to lack of giving a shit about it. I begged Mom to let me bleach it blonde. She always straight up refused. I had braces for a whole year which, yeah, many people had braces, but one time while answering a question in class, I drooled. And no one let me hear the end of it. And makeup wasn't something I really fucked with. I tried it once, safe and sound in my own bedroom, and it looked woeful. Instead of working to get better, I accepted defeat in that I would always be ugly. "I'm serious, girl. The foundation was so bad. And it was too dark." I ranted to Jujubee as we headed to the bus stop. I was trying to smoke my cigarette as fast as I could before getting there. Mom never knew, and what she didn't know couldn't kill her. Of course, I didn't just go into the store and buy them myself. Instead, I took one a day from my Grandpa's supply. "Girl, you gotta test it first." She pointed out, adjusting her bag straps. "Juju, I got the lightest colour they had. I don't fucking get it. Every other girl in the school uses it. Maybelline shouldn't sell this shit." "You just need to find a different brand." She grabbed my shoulder and pulled me closer, "OK, don't tell my Mom, but I tried some of her MAC shit the other day, and my skin looked fucking flawless." She let me go, took my cigarette from me, taking a toke herself. "Well, how am I supposed to get my hands on that?" I took the cig back. "I don't see any MAC stores around here." "Oh, yeah? Well, you know what your Other World self would do?" Jujubee's brow raised, a sweet grin appearing on her mischievous face. "She would say fuck school, hop on the next bus to Cleveland and go straight to the MAC store." Blowing out some smoke, I looked at her, "Well, Other World you wouldn't be encouraging that sort of behaviour." "No, she wouldn't 'cause she'd be the first on the bus." Jujubee countered. "And she'd start the sing-song." "Yeah, well other world me would out-sing you 'cause she's a star. She's a fucking diva, bitch. Mariah Carey has nothing on her." We were too caught up in our fantasy world; we almost missed the vehicle driving past us. Only when we saw the cackling faces of the boys at the back of the bus did realisation take over. We were going to miss the bus. "Fuck." I uttered, watching the guys still flipping us off as they moved further and further away. To make matters worse, a car pulled up beside us. And of fucking course, it was Trevor Preston, the Captain of the football team. His two sidekicks were in the

back seat, Logan and Noah. "Aw, look, guys. The geeks just missed the bus." Trevor fake whined. In these situations, I just shut down. I thought it was for the best at the time, but fuck, if I could go back and punch that guy. "You know what? Why don't you mind your own fucking business, Trevor?" Jujubee squinted her eyes at him. “Wow, little fiesty, Juju.” He continued, "How about this? We all say sorry, and we can both ride with us to school." 'Hell fucking no.' I thought. "Oh yeah? And what's the catch?" Jujubee raised a brow. "You let me feel your tits," Trevor smirked, his two cronies snickered. "Ah, there it is. I thought that was what your pea-sized brain would come up with." Jujubee nodded her head. "So, hey, Brianna," Trevor shifted his attention, "You're awfully quiet. Don't I at least get a hello?" I was still frozen, feeling my anxiety brewing within. "Dude, don't be so sensitive. You know, if she opens her mouth, she'll just drool all over herself." Logan added, the three axe wounds beginning to snicker again. I felt like I should have at least opened my mouth to prove them wrong, or maybe spit on Trevor's car. But still, I just stood there. "Trevor, if you don't fuck off right now, I'm gonna key your car." Jujubee threatened. "Juju." I tried to stop her. "Wouldn't even have the chance, sweetheart. Either of you bitches come near my car; you'll never walk the halls again." How gentleman-like, threatening two girls. Funny how our safety was the price to pay for a car. Oh, men. "Keep that in mind," Trevor concluded before driving away with dumb and dumber. "You didn't have to do that." I looked at Jujubee. "I'm sorry they're such assholes." She replied, taking my hand in hers. I shook it off, however. "No, I mean, I wish you wouldn't do that." Jujubee crossed her brows, "what? So I'm supposed to sit there and just take it? No fucking way." "I know. But," I paused, "they kinda scare me. You know?" "Brie, there's nothing more pathetic than a man sweating over the safety of his ride." She retook my hand, "Don't be afraid of a cunt like him." "I mean, I can try not to. But I can't make any promises." I shrugged. "Anyway, what's the plan? How are we supposed to get there on time?" Jujubee was silent for a moment before replying with, "my Mom?" Her Mom did end up giving us a ride, much to my dismay. I would have preferred to take the day off. Or better yet, to just fucking drop out altogether. But Jujubee was always there to reassure me - I adored that bitch. I would have fucking taken a bullet for her. I would like to say that it wasn't just Jujubee and me, that we had a group of more friends. But these guys, I never really counted them as friends. A year prior, we both decided to try and improve our social lives by joining a club. The only one that would accept us was the chess club. Every other member was a guy, and they were nerds. Not that Jujubee and I minded. However, the problem was that they only let us in because...well, do I even need to explain? "So, Brianna," Jimmy decided to approach me at the end of one session, licking his hand and sweeping his hair from his face. "Because I beat you twice today, what do I get?" "...Excuse me?" "My prize. What do I get??" He put an arm around my shoulders. I was puzzled, "Uh, you can have my chicken nuggets at lunch." His grin was beginning to disappear. "Oh, I was thinking of something else. A kiss, maybe?" I felt bad for doing it, but my fight or flight response told me to just run from the room. I didn't want to hurt his feelings, but these guys were just on another level of thirst. And it wasn't just me who they flirted with. Jujubee had informed me of a time Arnold convinced her to make out with him. She was all for it until she realised how awful of a kisser he was. And as the boys became more desperate, we decided that we were better off alone. Again, I was so grateful for Jujubee. I was surprised she stuck around, considering she had seen me at my worst when we were still so young. How the fuck had she not developed

issues of her own? Jujubee was the number one reason I even found the strength to just get up in the morning, drag my ass to school, and do my work - Well, aside from wanting to get good grades so I could go to a good college. The second reason? Blair. Unlike me, she was thriving. Our lives were totally cliche - me being the kid who grew up to be the nerd who only speaks when it's to answer a question. And Blair, growing up to be the head cheerleader. And I was still very much in love with her. What a fucking cliche. I avoided Blair at all costs for several reasons;

differing social circles (in my case, lack of),

her boyfriend, who was the Captain of the soccer team and wasn't shy about giving me and Jujubee grief,

her friends,

and, of course, my massive crush on her.

So, why was Blair the second reason as to why I dragged myself to school? Her smile. That was enough. As much as I tried to avoid her, the world decided to do a big "fuck you" on me and sometimes put us into situations together. And every time, I'd be internally freaking out. The worst was when we were both 16. It was that time of the year when the school would invite someone to subject us to the most humiliating moment of our lives. How the fuck were you supposed to put a condom on a banana without bursting out laughing? How the fuck were you supposed to sit there and keep a straight face when the educator used words like 'flaps'? We filed into the class, Jujubee and me taking seats at the back of the room. We knew this was going to be hilarious, so best to avoid the attention of the teacher. "Juju, I know you are dying to make jokes during this, but I'm begging you. Please don't." I spoke quietly to her as other students filed in. "But you know I'm going to, right?" Jujubee smirked, putting her bag on the ground. "No. We wanna keep a low profile. If we laugh, we draw attention, and then we risk being singled out. You know? We'll be at the front of the class demonstrating whatever this bitch asks us." Obviously, I was referring to putting condoms on bananas and the like. Juju, however, raised a brow, "I wouldn't mind that, babe. Don't worry. We won't need to take our clothes off." I stared at her for a few seconds, unable to think of how to respond to that. Jujubee winked, and I forced myself to look away. "That's not what I meant." Blair strolled in with Denali and Rosé, already I could feel my stomach knotting. They went to sit together somewhere in the middle. "Ugh, nope. I don't think so, ladies." Ah, Miss Jaida Hall, if only I could have warned you not to say what you were about to say. Somehow Blair and the two others knew she was speaking to them. She continued, "This is an important class, and I'm not gonna have you all laughing and snickering during it." She had a point. The three girls usually whispered to each other in class, giggling about all sorts of shit. It was never anything malicious about the lesson or teachers, just inside jokes with each other, pretty harmless stuff. But it pissed the teachers off so much. "You can't be serious, right?" Denali replied, clearly scandalised. "Very serious, actually." Ms Hall nodded, "Denali, sit with Brian. Rosé, with Gigi. Blair, with Brianna." I grabbed Jujubee by the wrist, the pressure making her squeak. This wasn't happening. This wasn't happening. Blair was not rolling her eyes as she made her way to the back towards me. This was not fucking happening. As instructed, Jujubee stood up and let Blair sit down, moving to sit somewhere else. I was alone with the one person I tried my hardest to avoid. She slouched down in her chair, arms folded like she was already over it. I wanted so badly to ask if she was OK. But I couldn't bring myself to. And as the lights turned off and the sex-ed lady pressed play on the video player, I wished I had said something. As the way too enthusiastic narrator explained step by step the act of sexual intercourse, I tried hiding the blush on my face with my hair. I tried so hard to focus on what I was being taught. The truth was, I was still a virgin, as were many of the others in the room, I'm sure. But unlike them, I had no idea how sex worked. It wasn't something I ever gave time to think about. I felt a tapping on my hand. My body tensed as I glanced to the side. Blair was looking at the screen, then at me, then her fingers brushed against my hand. I stared back, unsure of what was happening but also knowing full well what she was doing. She leaned closer and pressed her lips on mine. … OK, that's not what happened. Life wasn't a movie. This was the beginning of the fantasies. Was I ashamed because I was thinking about Blair like that? Or was I ashamed that I enjoyed thinking of Blair like that? "This is ridiculous," Blair whispered. Was I supposed to say something back? "What do you mean?" I

whispered back. "Do they actually think we're that dumb? We all know how sex works. We don't need this stupid class." Blair rolled her eyes. I almost told her that I belonged to the small percentage that didn't know. But I stopped myself. I couldn't bear her knowing that information. Instead, I went with the awkward, "haha. Yeaaahhhh…" For the rest of the film, we sat in silence. Still trying to focus on the screen. Not the absolute stunner sitting next to me. And as if by magic, the video ended. I wanted to say I was relieved, but I couldn't lie; what I learned from the film left me nauseous. He puts his hoo-ha in her what, now?? "Well, that was really cool and hip, right?" The educator enthused. I cringed internally. No woman wearing a crucifix necklace and ankle-length skirt has the right to use words like 'cool' and 'hip'. "I know it's probably all so confusing. So that's why I'm here to answer any of your questions, dudes and dudettes." Already, one of the boys put a hand up. "Go ahead, homie." "What about the other hole?" He said with a straight face before his friends started laughing. He laughed back as he fired one of them. "You know. The back door?" Ms Hall shot him the 'look'. He was toast. The sex educator fixed her hair quite uncomfortable, "Well, there's a reason that is an out hole, young man. I warn all of you, do not go down that road. You will get aids and die. Now, does anybody else have a question?" The educator rambled, fixing her hair awkwardly. I heard the rustling of clothes beside me, and glancing around, Blair had her hand straight up in the air. "Yes, sweetheart?" Sex Ed lady pointed to her. "OK, so this is interesting and all, but I was just wondering, what about non-heterosexual sex?" Her brows knit for a moment. I looked around at her now. The breath caught in my throat. "I'm sorry?" Sex Ed lady asked. "You know. Man on man. Girl on girl. What about all of that?" Blair raised a brow. "I mean, you gotta know there's more than just heterosexual people out there. Maybe some even in this room right now." "Blair." Ms Hall began. "Because, if you disagree, then that's ridiculous. Oh, and if you think aids is some kind of death sentence, then you seriously need to educate yourself." Sex ed lady looked appalled, her Christian beliefs quite clearly threatened. "That's it. Get out." Ms Hall stood up. Blair huffed, pushing her seat back, lifted her bag and left the room, Ms Hall following behind. "OK. So, any other questions? Reasonable questions only, please." Jujubee was looking over her shoulder at me now, sharing the same expression I did. Thank God for lunch next period. Jujubee and I were hiding at the back of the school, in an alley between the building itself and the old workshops. The perfect hiding place for a smoke and to freak the fuck out about specific events. "Juju, she knows. She knows I'm a lesbian. She knows I like her." I paced. "I'm moving. That's it." I stopped. "But why would she speak up for me of all people? It doesn't make sense." My eyes widened. "Unless she's also a lesbian. I mean, that makes sense, right?" Jujubee had been sitting on the wall, patiently listening to my manic ramblings. The first few minutes, she was just as astounded. But the more I theorised, rambling on and on, she was over it. "I highly doubt that considering the boyfriend." "Then she must know. Why else would she say it? I highly doubt there are other gays in that class. Speaking of which, I had no idea lesbians could have sex like; how does that work. I'm gonna look into that somehow. But getting back to the point, if she did know, why would she speak out for me of all people?" My ramblings were non-stop. I tried my best to avoid Blair for the rest of the day, not that I could, considering we were both in the same last period. Blair's outburst was the talk of the school. I wasn't sure if it was a positive response or not. The only thing I did know was Trevor was pissed. "Brie, look." Jujubee tapped me. I turned from my locker and looked where everyone else seemed to be

looking. Just down the corridor, Trevor was standing over Blair, their conversation clearly heated. People were shamelessly moving closer, Jujubee following in their path. "Juju, don't," I whispered. But she didn't listen. I went after her as if it would stop her. "Trevor, this isn't that big of a deal," Blair said. "Not a big deal? Blair, do you know what the guys are saying? They think you're gonna dump me for a girl. Do you know how humiliating that is?" Trevor held a hand to his chest "And what if I did?" Blair challenged. The few people standing around cooed with excitement. "Oh, please. Don't get all cocky now that you have an audience." Trevor pointed. But Blair took a step closer to him. "What, 'cause you know you're the one who looks like an idiot? Maybe if you weren't so insecure, you'd know I would never do that to you." "Don't call me an idiot." Trevor lowered his tone, choosing purposely to ignore her reassurance. "Fine. But don't criticise me for a valid question I asked in a class you weren't even a part of. It's none of your business, no one's business for that matter." Blair bit back. "I can do what I want, Blair." "OK. Whatever." Blair brushed past him. Trevor quickly spun around, grabbing her arm. "No, we're not done having this conversation." My stomach twisted. "Let go of my arm, Trevor." Blair tugged, her voice cracking. Trevor did as was told now that the air was thick with tension, "We are not done talking," he stressed. Blair took a step back, "Yeah, we are, actually," and she turned to walk away. "If you walk away right now, we're finished." Trevor threatened. It was as if time was at a standstill, waiting for her reaction. But at the same time, it felt as though time was counting down. Like we were in a competition show. The contestant has to decide before time runs out, while the audience yells, 'DO IT! DO IT! DO IT!' No one was shouting, but you could feel everyone's excitement. Blair's lip curled upwards. "OK. Fine by me." And, finally, she walked off. The people were cooing with excitement again. "Shut up!" Trevor shouted. I grabbed Jujubee by the shoulder and ushered her back. Trevor kicked his locker, the thud echoing through the halls. That was the last straw. Knowing Trevor, he'd take his anger out on us. It was time to flee the scene. It was all Jujubee wanted to talk about for the rest of the day. Now I knew how she felt during my smoke break. But I couldn't blame her. The scene played in my head over and over again, leading to so many questions. Was there more to this breakup? Did he grab Blair like that all the time? What would happen now? Would she find a new guy? A girl, maybe? I came to the conclusion that Blair and Trevor's breakup was neither good nor bad. Bad because, as I said before, now he had more pent up anger from the humiliation of being so publicly dumped. Therefore, Jujubee and I would most likely be subject to more harassment. Good, because maybe Blair did like girls. Maybe there was still some little chance for us to be together. But if we were going to be together, there was one issue; I still had no fucking idea how lesbian sex worked. Cut to later that night, I'm in my room, sitting in front of my computer. I needed to distract myself from my thoughts of the breakup. While the scratchy dial-up tones emitted the machine, I psyched myself up. Even though I knew sex was normal to learn about at that age, it was still daunting. With shaky hands, I searched 'lesbian sex'. And fuck was it a mistake. What I wanted was educational articles, guides, etc. And what I got was porn. I watched all but a few minutes, all the painfully bad acting scenes that took place before the main event. Upon hearing the first moan, I clicked out as fast as I could. Looking behind me, Piggie was just playing with a stuffed animal on my bed. "You saw that, right?" He looked at me with perked ears. I still felt judged, so I opened my bedroom door and let him out. I needed to be exact. 'How do lesbians have sex?' And Brianna Caldwell was never the

same. My mind was opened that night. This was no mistake. This was a surprise. I couldn't look away from the computer screen, no matter how slow the Internet connection was. All of this information was all too much but not enough at the same time. And it made me feel less nauseated than I felt after watching that stupid video in class. And I built up the courage to go back to that porn site. And I watched every damn second. Then I watched another one. And another. And just one more 'cause why the fuck not? My bedroom door opened. "Brianna, I'm ordering - -" "Get out," I shouted, closing the site down like my life depended on it. But she stood there for a few seconds, eyes wide and hand still on the door frame. "Honey, are you - -" "Mom, oh my god. Can you just - -" I couldn't even form a proper sentence. She gave an apologetic look and closed the door. But she remained on the other side. "I just wanted you to know that I'm ordering pizza for Grandpa and me. Do you want some?" My forehead was in my hand now. "Yes." "What kind?" "Just…" I wanted to shout, "Pepperoni." And with that, she left. But that wasn't the end of it. When the food arrived, I waited a few minutes before going downstairs to grab a few slices. Grandpa was in the living room watching an old rerun of The A-Team. But she was there, in the kitchen, as if she was waiting for me. "Honey, look. I know you're getting to that age where you're curious about certain things and - -" "Mom, no. Please, don't do this." I whined. "I know. I know. I just wanted to let you know that this is natural, and…" she continued to deliver the same talk we all got in class. My eyes were wide, face red with humiliation. -_-_-_- 2020 I picked up a slice of pepperoni pizza, instantly reminded of the traumatic event. OK, maybe that was too strong of a word to use. But of course, you are going to dread the thought of that time your parent talked to you about sex. I walked into the living room, pizza slice in hand, trying not to dwell on the memory. "So, Brianna. Any update on the love life?" Tamisha asked. I loved that bitch; being one of Mom's closest friends, she was present for most of my life. But she always had a tendency to ask questions I wasn't up for answering. I took a bite from my pizza and answered with a full mouth, "dry." "Girl, you're almost 40." She continued. I was ready to challenge her because I was actually just 33 when Mom took her turn to speak. "Yeah, get yourself a man and make me a Grandma already." She wasn't serious. She knew I hated these types of talks, but that didn't stop her from encouraging the others. The funny thing about the time she caught me watching porn, she never clocked it was girl on girl. Of all the years I've been on this planet, I hadn't given her a clue that I was a lesbian. Would I ever tell her? I didn't see the point. From previous failed relationships and being too busy with my job, I wouldn't end up with someone anyway. But of course, I'd make an exception for a certain someone. Monét poured the first round of shots. I already knew I'd hate myself the next day. I wasn't drunk already. Just sort of buzzed. But that changed within an hour. I was hammered. Mom, Monét and all her friends were singing all the old songs in the living room. I was out in the kitchen, trying to drink 8 glasses of water. I only managed 3. Piggie ran in and put his paws up on my knee. "There he is. My baby. My fucking son." I slid down to the ground and let him sit in my lap. "How is your night going?" Just great, Brianna! Anyway, how about that Blair girl, huh? Piggie's non-existent voice said. "Oh yeah," my eyes narrowed. I unlocked my phone and opened up Facebook. And I bravely searched up her name. I say bravely because it does take some balls to go and stalk your crushes social media accounts. All it took to fuck everything up was the slip of a finger, and before you know it, you've liked a post or sent a friend request. "Let's do some digging, Piggie." I cuddled him. Immediately, she was the top result, with Jujubee

being the only mutual friend. "Yeah, girl. Infiltration." I commented as I clicked into her profile. And then her profile picture. "Holy shit." She hadn't aged. She still looked as young and radiant as she did back in high school. "What do you think, Piggie?" I showed him the screen. He glanced at it before tucking his head under his arms. The enthusiasm. I rolled my eyes. I looked at her info. 'Single'. Promising. Scrolling down to her timeline, I noticed she didn't post a lot. Fair enough. Facebook was becoming a dead site in recent years. There were just your average Facebook posts, sharing giveaway posts, a post from an old lady saying, 'Blair, this is Granny. Could you go to Walmart and get me some applesauce? Love granny xx', a shared post from a guy called George Miller. And my finger stopped scrolling upon seeing Blair holding a baby. "Oh God, we've encountered our first obstacle, Piggie," I whined. I clicked into the comments. That George Miller guy commented, 'congrats, Blair!' She replied, 'thank you, but she's my cousin's lol'. "Thank you, Jesus." I put my phone down for a moment to put my hand up to the good lord. I scrolled some more, seeing many inspirational quotes, a link to Adore You by Harry Styles. And a picture of her. With that George Miller guy. With his arms around her. Pressing a kiss to her temple. I could feel my heart sink the more I studied it. Yeah, I knew Blair and I were never meant to be anyway. But it was still upsetting. Relax. They could be friends. Yeah, that's right. Friends hold each other and act all affectionate, right?? I cuddle with Jujubee sometimes. That doesn't mean anything. Right? I needed evidence, just anything, to make it not true. I scrolled some more. There was a video, she was sitting on her sofa, with a girl playing the guitar sitting on the other end. "I've been running races on empty, Pour it up 'cause my cup so empty. Gotta make time for the real me. I've been running, I've been running on empty." And my nerves were settled again. I had only heard Blair sing a few times. She and her friends would pretend they were famous singers in early elementary years, and she'd always be the best. Then another time was in high school, at the winter talent show. I specifically remember it being A moment like this by Kelly Clarkson. It was unreal. 'Jujubee 💋💅🏽 is typing…' I clicked into Snapchat before she even had a chance to type the whole message. "Do you remember Jujubee?" I asked Piggie. Again, he was silent. 'I hope you're having fun, babe ❤ lv u'. "Thanks," was all I could manage to type. A shadow cast over me. I looked up to see Monét join me on the ground. "Hey, girl." She greeted me. "Hi, Aunt Monét." I smiled. Piggie hopped off my lap and onto hers. "Aunt Monét? Honey, you haven't called me that since middle school." She smiled. I returned the smile, only mine probably looking goofy. "I'm just wasted." "I noticed. No more shots for you anyway." She noted, taking a drink from her own bottle. "Anyway, how's the project?" "We got fucking Ed Sheeran involved." I then cursed myself internally for bringing it up. "I heard. Your Mom was telling me. Ugh, girl, why him? Why not someone like…" she paused to think, "like Beyonce. Or Lady Gaga." "OK, man-hater." I quipped, reaching over to pet Piggie. "Not true. Not all men are bad." Monét pointed out. "Speaking of which, when are you getting yourself one?" I could have given her the usual 'I don't have time for men's talk. But the alcohol said no. "Monét, I like girls." And I felt no shame in saying it. A moment of silence fell between us before she asked, "for real?" "Yeah." I nodded. "Does anyone else know?" "Yeah. Juju. And Piggie probably." I replied, leaving one more name out for the sole purpose I didn't want to get into that. "And Mom?" "Nope." She nodded. "I guess this is one of these aunty-niece confidentiality things?" "Uh-huh." I smiled. Bless Aunt Monét. "Well, no matter who you live, we still love you." She laughed for a moment before taking another drink. I knew

she was right. Maybe coming out to Mom wasn't such a bad idea. "You know what, Brianna?" She paused, "Grandpa would be so proud of you, right?" My smile slowly began to drop. Fuck, the touchy subject. "Oh, I...thanks." I thought the change in my mood was hard to miss, but Monét clearly had. "You and I ain't ever talked about him since...you know." "OK," I said quietly, feeling like my chest was a fist, beginning to clench tighter and tighter. "And sometimes, it's just good to look back on - -" "I gotta go." I quickly stood up, feeling the dark fog already come over me. I rushed from the room, my aunty calling my name and apologising. I avoided going into the living room, rushing up the stairs and racing for the bathroom. As soon as the door was locked, I let myself crumble, my face hidden beneath shaking hands, a cry clogged in my throat just begging to belt out. Mom would definitely hear it. I wasn't going to ruin her day. Absolutely not. Tags: rpdr fanfiction // s10 // as5 // miz cracker // jujubee // blair st clair // blair x cracker // denali foxx // rose // fluff // coming of age // hurt/comfort // lesbian au // highschool au // grinder // tw grief // tw homophobia [Cover image here] AN: Hey, guys! I hope yall are enjoying this fic so far! Throw me a like please if you do. TW for this chapter: Grief // Homophobia [read more] 2003 High School. The bane of my existence. Just as I thought elementary and middle school were terrible, High School really was something else. From my childhood therapy sessions, I learned to conceal my anger, avoid freakouts, and channel my emotions into other things. It was good for me, yeah. But it also made me a more reserved person. Things still made me angry, the other kids at school being a primary key to that. But I never defended myself. Ever. Of course, Jujubee always had my back. Only in later years did I learn to appreciate the times she'd yell at the other kids, telling them to fuck off and whatnot. But back then, I wished she hadn't. It only drew more negative attention. All I wanted was to get through those tough years. I would come home a lot, look at pictures of myself as a child. And I'd be so mad because only then did I see that I wasn't an ugly kid. I was adorable. But, God clearly had favourites 'cause puberty did not do me any favours. If only I had grown up in a more modern time when no one gave a shit about looks. When people were outspoken about the cruelty that came with shaming someone for their looks. When people were more aware of the psychological damage that could do. Again, God had favourites. From years of my eyesight getting worse and needing a new pair of glasses every time I went to the eye doctor, I had thick-rimmed frames that made me look straight out of the 70s. And the lenses made my eyes look huge. I looked like Bubbles from Trailer Park Boys. My hair was bigger but full of split ends due to lack of giving a shit about it. I begged Mom to let me bleach it blonde. She always straight up refused. I had braces for a whole year which, yeah, many people had braces, but one time while answering a question in class, I drooled. And no one let me hear the end of it. And makeup wasn't something I really fucked with. I tried it once, safe and sound in my own bedroom, and it looked woeful. Instead of working to get better, I accepted defeat in that I would always be ugly. "I'm serious, girl. The foundation was so bad. And it was too dark." I ranted to Jujubee as we headed to the bus stop. I was trying to smoke my cigarette as fast as I could before getting there. Mom never knew, and what she didn't know couldn't kill her. Of course, I didn't just go into the store and buy them myself. Instead, I took one a day from my Grandpa's supply. "Girl, you gotta test it first." She pointed out, adjusting her bag straps. "Juju, I got the lightest colour they had. I don't fucking get it. Every other girl in the school uses it. Maybelline shouldn't sell this shit." "You just need to find a different brand." She grabbed my shoulder and pulled me

closer, "OK, don't tell my Mom, but I tried some of her MAC shit the other day, and my skin looked fucking flawless." She let me go, took my cigarette from me, taking a toke herself. "Well, how am I supposed to get my hands on that?" I took the cig back. "I don't see any MAC stores around here." "Oh, yeah? Well, you know what your Other World self would do?" Jujubee's brow raised, a sweet grin appearing on her mischievous face. "She would say fuck school, hop on the next bus to Cleveland and go straight to the MAC store." Blowing out some smoke, I looked at her, "Well, Other World you wouldn't be encouraging that sort of behaviour." "No, she wouldn't 'cause she'd be the first on the bus." Jujubee countered. "And she'd start the sing-song." "Yeah, well other world me would out-sing you 'cause she's a star. She's a fucking diva, bitch. Mariah Carey has nothing on her." We were too caught up in our fantasy world; we almost missed the vehicle driving past us. Only when we saw the cackling faces of the boys at the back of the bus did realisation take over. We were going to miss the bus. "Fuck." I uttered, watching the guys still flipping us off as they moved further and further away. To make matters worse, a car pulled up beside us. And of fucking course, it was Trevor Preston, the Captain of the football team. His two sidekicks were in the back seat, Logan and Noah. "Aw, look, guys. The geeks just missed the bus." Trevor fake whined. In these situations, I just shut down. I thought it was for the best at the time, but fuck, if I could go back and punch that guy. "You know what? Why don't you mind your own fucking business, Trevor?" Jujubee squinted her eyes at him. “Wow, little fiesty, Juju.” He continued, "How about this? We all say sorry, and we can both ride with us to school." 'Hell fucking no.' I thought. "Oh yeah? And what's the catch?" Jujubee raised a brow. "You let me feel your tits," Trevor smirked, his two cronies snickered. "Ah, there it is. I thought that was what your pea-sized brain would come up with." Jujubee nodded her head. "So, hey, Brianna," Trevor shifted his attention, "You're awfully quiet. Don't I at least get a hello?" I was still frozen, feeling my anxiety brewing within. "Dude, don't be so sensitive. You know, if she opens her mouth, she'll just drool all over herself." Logan added, the three axe wounds beginning to snicker again. I felt like I should have at least opened my mouth to prove them wrong, or maybe spit on Trevor's car. But still, I just stood there. "Trevor, if you don't fuck off right now, I'm gonna key your car." Jujubee threatened. "Juju." I tried to stop her. "Wouldn't even have the chance, sweetheart. Either of you bitches come near my car; you'll never walk the halls again." How gentleman-like, threatening two girls. Funny how our safety was the price to pay for a car. Oh, men. "Keep that in mind," Trevor concluded before driving away with dumb and dumber. "You didn't have to do that." I looked at Jujubee. "I'm sorry they're such assholes." She replied, taking my hand in hers. I shook it off, however. "No, I mean, I wish you wouldn't do that." Jujubee crossed her brows, "what? So I'm supposed to sit there and just take it? No fucking way." "I know. But," I paused, "they kinda scare me. You know?" "Brie, there's nothing more pathetic than a man sweating over the safety of his ride." She retook my hand, "Don't be afraid of a cunt like him." "I mean, I can try not to. But I can't make any promises." I shrugged. "Anyway, what's the plan? How are we supposed to get there on time?" Jujubee was silent for a moment before replying with, "my Mom?" Her Mom did end up giving us a ride, much to my dismay. I would have preferred to take the day off. Or better yet, to just fucking drop out altogether. But Jujubee was always there to reassure me - I adored that bitch. I would have fucking taken a bullet for her. I would like to say that it wasn't just Jujubee and me, that we had a group of more friends. But these guys, I never really counted them as

friends. A year prior, we both decided to try and improve our social lives by joining a club. The only one that would accept us was the chess club. Every other member was a guy, and they were nerds. Not that Jujubee and I minded. However, the problem was that they only let us in because...well, do I even need to explain? "So, Brianna," Jimmy decided to approach me at the end of one session, licking his hand and sweeping his hair from his face. "Because I beat you twice today, what do I get?" "...Excuse me?" "My prize. What do I get??" He put an arm around my shoulders. I was puzzled, "Uh, you can have my chicken nuggets at lunch." His grin was beginning to disappear. "Oh, I was thinking of something else. A kiss, maybe?" I felt bad for doing it, but my fight or flight response told me to just run from the room. I didn't want to hurt his feelings, but these guys were just on another level of thirst. And it wasn't just me who they flirted with. Jujubee had informed me of a time Arnold convinced her to make out with him. She was all for it until she realised how awful of a kisser he was. And as the boys became more desperate, we decided that we were better off alone. Again, I was so grateful for Jujubee. I was surprised she stuck around, considering she had seen me at my worst when we were still so young. How the fuck had she not developed issues of her own? Jujubee was the number one reason I even found the strength to just get up in the morning, drag my ass to school, and do my work - Well, aside from wanting to get good grades so I could go to a good college. The second reason? Blair. Unlike me, she was thriving. Our lives were totally cliche - me being the kid who grew up to be the nerd who only speaks when it's to answer a question. And Blair, growing up to be the head cheerleader. And I was still very much in love with her. What a fucking cliche. I avoided Blair at all costs for several reasons;

differing social circles (in my case, lack of),

her boyfriend, who was the Captain of the soccer team and wasn't shy about giving me and Jujubee grief,

her friends,

and, of course, my massive crush on her.

#rpdr fanfiction #s10 #as5 #miz cracker #jujubee #blair st clair #blair x cracker #denali foxx #rosé #fluff #coming of age #hurt/comfort #lesbian au #high school au #angst #gimme love #grinder #tw grief #tw homophobia

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basilone · 4 years ago

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basilone’s gif tutorial (part I)

I have been getting so many lovely comments on my gifs (thank you!) that I feel like I can give something back to all of you who want to create that sort of thing but have no idea on where to even begin. A lot of people have mentioned the colouring of my gifs in particular as something they really like, so I wanted to do a little tutorial on how to achieve it!

Part I of this tutorial will focus on how to go from absolutely nothing to the most basic of gifs. Most basic, in this case, means entirely unaltered: all this part of the tutorial will talk about is how I create a gif. (Other people may have other methods but this is the one I’m most familiar with.)

Part II will include how to go from the basic gif we created in the first part to the kind of gif you see me publish in my gifsets, with all the colours and sharpening settings and all that jazz.

If you have any questions or need clarification on anything, please drop me an ask and let me know!!

What you need for this first part:

A video file of whatever you want to gif

KMPlayer

Photoshop (I use CS6, other versions are cool too)

A little bit of patience

My end result once I have followed all the steps of part I looks like this:

Step 1

Open your video in KMPlayer. I used episode 4 of The Pacific for this tutorial! Search in the video until you find the exact scene you want to make a gif of. (For the sake of part II of this tutorial, I’ve chosen a scene with lots of daylight and colours.)

Step 2

Pause the video, if you haven’t already, and then click CTRL+G. You will now see this box appear:

Use my exact settings (shown above) for this one. In Extract to, choose the folder you want the screencaps to land in. Make sure the option Every frame is selected. Now click ‘start’.

Step 3

Play the video until the scene you want to gif is done. Pause it again. Click CTRL+G once more and press ‘stop’.

Step 4

Go to the folder on your PC that you saved the screencaps to. You’ll likely have hundreds (if not thousands) of them, but please don’t panic! Delete all the screencaps that don’t belong to the part of the scene you want to gif.

Important rule of thumb! How many screencaps you need depends on the size you want to make your gif. For gifs that are 540x304px, use no more than 50-60 screencaps tops. For gifs that are 268x151px, use no more than 80. For 151x85px (please love yourself what are you doing), just go crazy – you can easily use more than 100 for that. (You don’t wanna be in the situation where you’ve created and coloured your gif, only to find out when saving it that it exceeds Tumblr’s petty 8mb size and you have to go back to delete some frames.. believe me. :’))

Step 5

Start up your Photoshop (yay!) and go to File → Scripts → Load Multiple DICOM Files. Select the folder your screencaps are in, then click ‘ok’.

Make sure you’ve got all the tools open that you’re gonna need for both parts of this tutorial. You do this by going to Window in the Photoshop menu bar and selecting the following:

Actions

Adjustments

Layers

Navigator

Timeline

Step 6

Timeline is gonna be your new best friend! Click on Create Frame Animation. Then click on the little downward arrow that has three small stripes next to it, which is gonna make this next menu appear:

Select Make frames from layers and watch how all the individual frames are loaded into the timeline. Good, right? (You can see the individual frames in the Layers box as well, which we’ll get to in a hot moment.)

Step 7

Select all the frames on the timeline and click the little arrow next to where it says 0 sec below the frames. We don’t want to set our gif to 0 sec. We want to set it to 0,08. So, we select Other and type in 0,08 and then click ‘ok’ like we know what we’re doing.

That’s the movement part of the gif done, believe it or not, so we must be doing something right!

Step 8

So, yeah, we got it to move. Now what, you might ask? ;) Now it’s time to actually make sure that Tumblr doesn’t freak out about us uploading it. Here’s how we’re gonna do that.

Make sure all the frames are still selected on the timeline. Now select the Crop tool, set it to 540 px by 304 px or whatever size you want your gif to have, and start fiddling around with the corners of the image. You can select the part of the frame you actually want in your gif that way. Double-click on your selection once you’re satisfied with it or click the check mark that appears on screen. Tadaa! Gif is resized!

Step 9

Now, I assume that you’re like me in this case but if you’re not please feel free to skip past this step. I always have more frames than I technically need. I start off with about 70 screencaps/frames for big gifs, which I then need to select down to ideally 40-50 screencaps/frames total!

What I personally do is that I will make the gif the way I just described with all 70 frames in place, and then I will play it a couple of times in the timeframe mode to see which sections can feasibly be cut away. You can do the same thing, try it! (And you get to see how nifty the gif is gonna look, too!)

Select the frames on the timeline that you want to get rid of and click the little garbage can on the timeline. That gets rid of half of the trouble, but now you gotta do something else. Remember me saying something about the Layers box? That’s gonna be your other best friend in this first part. Go to that box and select the layers you just deleted from the timeframe.

How do you know which layers you’ve deleted? Select all the frames you’ve still got on the timeline. Those layers will get a little eyeball in front of them in the Layers box. Any layer that does not have the eyeball is one you’ve deleted. Select those layers and delete them by simply pressing delete on your keyboard or clicking on the garbage can in the Layers box.

(Alternately, as shown in the screencap above, select the first frame on the timeline. It will get an eyeball in front of it. Delete everything below that layer in the Layers box. Select the last frame on the timeline. Delete everything above that layer in the Layers box. NEVER delete frames in the middle, it’s gonna disrupt the flow of your gif like whoa!!)

Step 10

Almost there!

Click the button on the bottom left of the Timeline box, which will say ‘convert to video timeline’ when you hover over it.

Now select all your layers in the Layers box and right-click on them with your mouse. You’ll see the following pop-up. Select Convert to smart object.

Step 11

Save your gif as follows. Go to File → Save for Web. Use these settings:

Click ‘save’, give your gif a name, and you’re all set!!

#gif tutorial #ps tutorial #basilonetutorial #eesh I hope Tumblr uploads this properly and that y'all understand my step-by-step instructions #and I hope it'll be inspiring for folks? like half of PS is just experimentation tbh #just try to do things and click on stuff and watch/read tutorials from people cos honestly you don't have to reinvent the whole wheel #wait until we get to part II omg y'all are gonna die over the change between this basic gif and the finished product lol

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ceo-of-lions · 5 years ago

Note

Hello! I was wondering how you made the videos with the faces layered on top and such? I’ve always wanted to make some.

Putting this under a read more because I ended up severely overexplaining (as I do) and i’m not about to remove all this typing I did. Anon I am so sorry if this is ridiculously long and no help at all.

As a disclaimer, this is meant for pc/laptop. Phones can probably do it, but they’re much less capable in general and most editing apps are paid, watermarked, just plain bad, or a mix of those. Also, it’s entirely possible this is a very unnecessarily tiring and inefficient way do do this. This is just how I personally go about it. If this method gives you the ol’ jangle bones (cause it sure does that to me!) and it doesn’t quite feel right of fulfilling then I strongly recommend asking other people on how they do it.

To get started you’ll need a few things beforehand:

✦ A video editor of some kind (I’m using Lightworks; it’s free, unwatermarked, and autosaves your projects if it ever crashes)

✦ A photo editor (I’m using Pixlr E, it’s, again, free, and you don’t need any installation

✦ The video you want to edit characters onto

✦ A render for the charcter with a transparent background

I’m not sure whether or not installing Lightworks has any oddities i need to mention here, but if you (or anyone else) ever gets stuck, don’t hesitate to dm me or shoot me another ask!

First of all, you’re gonna need a good video. Trust me, once you manage to get into The Zone, this is going to be your only obstacle. And it’s an annoying one. Having a source that reliably uploads these kind of “short but sweet” videos (preferably around 30secs long or less) really is half the battle!

Once you’ve got your video chilling somewhere on your pc, you’re going to need a character render (or two) of some kind. Fandom wikias are often good (or at least decent) sources for this. Of course, you’ll need one that has as little covering/touching the character’s face as possible. Once you’ve got your renders, go to Pixlr E, click the blue “open image” button over over on the left get the pic you need n’ open it. After that, it’ll look like this:

Next, you’ll need the crop tool. Go ahead and crop away everything till the face is the main focus.

Once you’ve done that, zoom in and select the cutout tool. Then, select the “draw mask” option and reduce it’s softness all the way down to 0.

Once you have that going, just draw over the character until everything from their chin down is all gone, like this;

And it’s all done! Click “file” in the upper left corner, then “save” to download it. Make sure you save it as a .png file, otherwise the background won’t be transparent. You can just close the tab from here. I recommend taking a break here, get a drink or maybe a snack!

Next, open Lightworks. If it asks you to log in, do so. Take a tutorial if you feel like it. (I strongly recommend watching the “quick start’” video tutorial they have over at the lightworks forums along with some more in-depth ones; for creating simple videos with characters pasted over it, my guide will be all you need, but it might be useful to know how to mess around with audio, crossfades, greenscreen/chromakey, etc.)

Once you’re all free to do what you want, create a new project, give it a name, and set the framerate. (if you don’t know about this one just set it to “auto”)

Now, it’ll look like this:

Go to the bottom left and select “local files”. From there, select the video and your characters’ faces and import them. (tip: holding ctrl or left shift while clicking allows you to select multiple, don’t remember which one it was www)

Once you have everything, go to the “edit” tab.

Make sure the long red stick-thing at the bottom is all the way at 0, then double click your video to open the source viewer and press “b” (or click the button labeled ‘replace.). Once it’s in the bars at the bottom, you can get rid of the source viewer. Then, if your clip is anywhere under 5 minutes, you’ll be stuck with this gaping hole next to it:

Right click the empty void and click “close gap” to solve the issue. This is somewhat necessary, because if you export the video afterwards without the gap closed there’ll just be a black screen for 4 minutes. Make sure you don’t have any tracks hidden, otherwise closing the gap won’t work (though you probably won’t have anything hidden if you didn’t click anyting else).

Alright, now for the most soul-murdering part of the process (after looking for the video, of course): Image Key, a.k.a where we actually put the characters’ faces on top of the video. Go ahead and click “VFX” at the top, and you’ll have a menu like this:

In the effect library to the left, select the “key” category and then double click “Image Key”. You’ll need one of these image key effect for each face you’re using. (Also, you can just minimize the color correction if it’s unfolded, we’re not gonna be messing with it.)

So now, we’ve got this! For the sake of simplicity, you can rename the effects to the characters’ names so you don’t mix them up. Under “choose a file,” select the character faces. If you imported them into your project when you started, they should be easily findable under the “Project” tab. Right now, the characters will be in the center, right under one another. You can move the characters by either using the “Position” sliders on the left or by clicking and dragging them with your mouse in the actual video. For the most part, we’ll be doing the latter, but because the faces are stuck under one another in the exact center, you move both of them at the same time. To fix this, move one face away from the other using the slider one time.

Okay, moving on! This part is important not to skip. Notice the little timer-like icons to the left of the sliders? If you hover over them, it says “Enable/disable keyframes for this parameter.” Click them for every slider under “scale” and “position”. Now, we can start keyframing it; keyframing basically tells the image where it needs to be, when it needs to be in that location, how big, etc. For us, this means that we can make faces move along very fluidly with the video.

By now, we’ve made quite a bit of progress! I recommend taking another break before this to avoid feeling tired. Green tea helps! Once you’ve done that, go ahead and click “Graphs”. Since you enabled the keyframes, your effect should show up with, lo and behold, some graphs to go with ‘em:

I personally work by keyframing one face at a time. To do this undisturbed, I disable the little green light that says “toggle bypass” when you hover over it for the face i’m not going to be keyframing. It hides that face temporarily until i put it back on again. To decide what face i’ll be keyframing first, I just look at whatever face appears in the video first. Once you have the face that appears first, make absolutely positively sure the red bar is at zero to be able to set where and how the image starts out. Then, drag the face onto the poor human soul whose face we’ll be replacing today. Go back to the “settings” tab and slide with the “Scale: Master” until the character’s face is big or small enough for your liking. Then, if the person we want the second character to portray is not on-screen, we click the green (now gray) lamp on the unused face and drag it off: depending on your video format, either to the black on the side (which we’ll crop off when we’re done) or just off-screen if your video is fullscreen. If the person is on-screen, just drag the face on top of that person and adjust size like we did with the first face. These will be the locations the characters start on. Switch the green light back off for your second character, and move back to Graphs.

This is where the “””””fun””””” begins. So, right now, you have your red bar at 0, and you have your character where you want it. We need to move the character’s face frame-by-frame. Luckily, there’s an easier way to move frames: with your arrow keys. Every press with your left or right arrow key moves the video one frame into that direction. Now remember what i said about using your mouse to drag the images where they need to be? It comes in really handy here. Press your right arrow key thrice to move 3 frames ahead, and then drag the image to wherever the face is on that frame. Lightworks will automatically fill in where the image needs to be on the frames in between those frames so you don’t need to precisely move the image on every frame (though this might be helpful on shorther videos or videos where there is very fast movement.) Do this repeatedly until the video ends or the character disappears off-screen. Every 3-4 or so frames. For the remainder of the video. Entertaining. Very, very entertaining. (In short, it’s just: press arrow keys thrice > reposition image > repeat.)

Adding to this, sometimes the characters go off screen and then come back, but the faces move gradually to the spot leading to them appearing too soon. (sounds incredibly vague, I know, but you’ll know what it means when it happens.) To fix this, you need to go into the graphs labeled “position”. It’ll look something like this:

What you need to do here is click somewhere above or below the diagonal line in the middle to move your red line there. Press the arrow with the vertical line to the left to move to the previous keyframe. Copy the numbers that are to the left of the graph, press the arrow with the vertical line to the right, nudge one frame back with your left arrow key, paste the value you just copied over the one that’s already there and then press enter or the plus. That should fix it.

Okay. You have now keyframed all of the faces. It’s all done. Take a break here. I don’t care how determined you are right now. you Gotta. You Just Gotta. get some water, you deserve it.

After getting your water, go back to the “edit” tab at the top, right click your video and select export. Select the format, give it a name, and huzzah! Finally. Unless you have a video format with black edges, then it’ll look somewhat like this. To crop those sides off, we’re going over to Kapwing to crop it off. (You need to register (free) to remove the watermark, and i’m pretty sure Lightworks can also do it, but I haven’t found that option yet and I’m too stubborn to) Once you’re done with that, download it, delete the old version and you’re really done. You deserve a pat on the shoulder now because god fuck if this isn’t one of the most tiring processes to do out of free will (and that times 10 if you’re a slow worker like I am) but honestly making hundreds of people laugh is SO MUCH of a payoff you can’t help but keep wanting to do it wwww

if there’s any more questiong about this or if i forgot something (which i probably did) please shoot me an ask or dm!! all i am physically incapable of doing is simplifying this into less of a wall of text

#not twst #not a meme #ohhhhh my god #ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh #my god #i am never typing again for a week #i need to recharge and i ABSOLUTELY need a nap #i only just finished chapter 2 bc. lazy #i still need to process it #gonna upload the vid i used here in a minute or 2 #my brain is just coconut mall mario kart

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teamred · 5 years ago

Text

how to apply psds and adjust colouring for gifs

*** DISCLAIMER: i am only a basic user of photoshop and have been using it for less than a year. i rely on other creators’ psds and adjust the colouring within them. this tutorial is for beginners to learn how to apply psds to gifs and to adjust the colouring to their liking.***

how to get gifs to go from this:

to this:

please see these resources on how to gif if you do not know already or need more information: X X X

i use photoshop cc extended 2018 (downloaded from here)!

1. after you have converted your frames into a smart object as one layer within your timeline and smart sharpened it, open up a psd file you would like to use. for this example, i’m using itsphotoshop’s base psd.

2. next, drag your the psd folder (under layers) over to your gif’s window and onto the gif itself. see how i do it in this video. the psd folder will now appear in the layer section of your gif.

3. let’s take a closer look at the gif and zoom in a little.

my gif’s brighter, but not enough. i’m going to use another psd and drag it onto the gif. this time, i’m using selenapastel’s psd #156.

4. an improvement, but it still looks too dark and i’m not feeling the yellowish vibe... i’m going to add another psd to this - using glossypsd’s singularity psd.

now it lacks yellow because it’s heavy on grays and it’s darker than i wanted. there’s also something else...

right when peter shrugs his shoulders, it’s as if the lights dimmed. something is up with the psd’s colouring within the folder. also, there’s a flash of gray at the end, meaning the psd went over the gif itself.

5. go back to your gif. we’re going to zoom out of the timeline. slide it to the left until you can see all the psds and gif layer’s stop points.

and now we see that the psd files overrun the gif layer. how do we fix this???

6. click on the arrow beside the psd file you want to adjust (in this case, the singularity psd). you will now see a breakdown of all the layers in the psd file.

that glitch when peter shrugged his shoulders was because the gray layers didn’t start from the beginning. drag the beginning of the files to the start of the gif.

7. if you scroll down or increase the size of your timeline box, you notice the overrun of all the files within singularity psd over the gif layer.

we gotta fix the overrun of the psd files by shortening it to the end of the gif layer. drag each individually to the left until it reaches the end of the gif.

once i finished shortening them all, all the other psds shortened as well since the singularity psd was the problematic child in this situation - but we good now!

8. now back to colouring! i won’t adjust the base psd and the second psd that i used (i like them as is), but i’ll adjust the singularity psd. what i do when i adjust is turn on/off the layer visibility of the layers under the layers section on the bottom right hand corner (they look like eyes).

9. i turned off the first layer, which is a gradient map, and it brightens the gif without it. i like it, so i will decide to delete the layer.

to delete the layer, you can either press delete on your keyboard or right click the layer and click ‘delete layer’. i try to delete unnecessary layers as much as possible to keep it under the 3mb limit (the more layers and editing, the more space and data it will take).

i keep doing this until i end up with the layers labelled as five, seven, eight, and nine.

sidenote: you can also play with the opacity of the layers and psds. notice how the preset opacity of this layer was at 14%.

as an example, if i adjust it to 100%, it’l look like this:

aaAaaAand i’m keeping the opacity at 14%!!

10. so, we’re here:

but i want a softer look to it. i’m going to use the adjustments (above the layers box). i’m a basic beginner hoe, so i tend to use vibrance, brightness/contrast, and selective colouring. other ones i use are levels, curves, and exposure, but i won’t be using them for this tutorial.

vibrance:

click on ‘vibrance’ (the upside down triangle). often with adjustments in general, i just drag the arrows to my liking. i’m going to drag the vibrance level down to see what it’s like.

this is starting to become what i envisioned - a more softer look to it! i adjust the vibrance and saturation and end up with -28 vibrance and -8 for saturation.

selective colour:

click on ‘selective colour’ (second last icon on the third row; looks like four triangles in one rectangle).

because this scene/gif is mostly yellow and brown colours, especially for what i want to adjust, i will adjust the yellows and the reds. play with the adjustments in any order and you’ll begin to see what you like.

for the reds, i ended up here:

for the yellows:

brightness/contrast:

we’re almost done! click on ‘brightness/contrast’ (first icon in the first row with the sun).

i want the gif a little brighter and adjust the contrast a bit:

i think we’re good to go!

11. to export it as a gif, go under ‘file’ > ‘export’ > ‘save for web legacy’!

12. wait for it to finish exporting. when it’s finally finished, make sure to have the settings that you want.

these are my default settings:

ensure it’s GIF and that the animation looping is on ‘forever’. for my gif settings, i prefer to use selective pattern with transparency on (these settings depend on preference).

oH NO!!! my gif is over 3mb!!! do not fret!!! we will fix that in a moment. just save the gif once your settings are good!

13. find the saved gif file in your computer and drag the file into photoshop. it will open it with all the frames displayed like so:

14. delete the frames you don’t want to make it less than 3mb! a rule of thumb is that for each frame, it’s about 0.1mb. my gif is around 5mb right now, so i’ll have to delete around 20 frames (1 frame = 0.1mb * 10 = 1mb and we have to get rid of 2mb so 0.1 * 20 = 2mb).

to delete frames, click on the beginning frame of what you want to delete, hold down the shift key, and then click on the ending frame of the section you want to get rid of. press the trash button.

continue this process until you have the gif under 3mb. to see if it’s under 3mb, export the gif to see how much mb it will be!

15. last, but not least, your gif may be at a speed you don’t want. highlight all the frames by clicking on the first frame, holding down the shift key, and clicking on the last frame of the gif.

then, click the arrow on the bottom right hand corner of any frame and select ‘other’ for the frame delay.

the gif was originally at 0.03 frame delay. the optimal frame delay time is 0.05, but it depends on the quality of the video and what your preference is. generally, it ranges from 0.04-0.08. i decide to go with 0.05!

lastly, export the gif and voila!

upon completion of this tutorial, i realize some of the pictures may be unclear, so let me know if you have any questions!! feel free to message or send me an ask! also check out my resources side blog!

again, i want to reiterate that i am NOT an expert with photoshop, so i may not be able to answer all your questions. if i can’t, i’ll try my best to find an answer and if not, there are many great gifmakers on here who are willing to help!

#gif tutorial #usercarolina #userlance #userlaiba #userwilson #mytutorials

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1-800-hellraiser · 5 years ago

Text

(Just a P.S.A, this is more of a 'father and daughter' type thing, in this oneshot, you're 15. MAPs are disgusting. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.)

Requested by: no one

Pages: 7.5

Words: 2,733

Genre: fluffyyyyyyyy

Associated song: Daddy Issues - The Neighborhood

!TW! Mentions of family issues, mental and emotional abuse, blood, murder and some swearing.

<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3

"And if you were my little girl, I'd do whatever I could do. I'd run away and hide with you, I love that you got daddy issues."

Throughout your life, you were a good kid. You followed directions, you were kind and friendly, everything a parent could ask for in a child. Except, your parents were different, your parents hated you. They would call you names, manipulate you and put you down. You obviously hated it, so, one day you snapped. You killed your family, you didn't feel guilty.

Now, you live in a mansion with a bunch of serial killers, some human, most not. They are your family now, and you're glad to call them that. One being in particular that makes you feel this way is Hoodie. He was the first one to take you to Slender's mansion. Since then, you've been training to becime a proxy, just like him.

You see him as a father figure, you never said anything about it though. You don't want your relationship with him to be ruined. You're scared that if you tell him how you'll feel, he'll abandon you. The only one who knows about this is Slender, since he's the only one (other than Hoodie) that you trust in the mansion with this information.

You have a big day ahead of you today. You go on your first mission with Hoodie. You've been living in the mansion for about six months, those months have been used as training months. Now, you're ready for you're first misson as a proxy. You're excited, but also very nervous. What if you mess it up. What if the target gets away. What if you lose Hoodie. What if you lose his respect. What if-

"Good morning Y/n. You have to get up to get ready for the mission. You've got thirty minutes, I'll be waiting downstairs." You turn in your bed to face Hoodie. You take your hand from under your covers and give him a thumbs up. He chcukles at your action and closes the door.

After Hoodie leaves, you roll to the edge of your mattress and sit up. You raise both your arms above your head and stretch your back. You get up and pad over to your dresser. You open up the first drawerbto get undergarments and socks. The next drawer, you pull out your f/s (favorite shirt). You open the second to last drawer to grab some denim jeans.

You walk over to the bathroom built into your room. You put your clothes on the edge of the sink, and grab the towel that you used yesterday. You gently turn the handle to adjust the temperature. Silently taking off your pajamas, you toss them on the floor. Making a mental note to get them when you get put of the shower, you step into the shower.

You step out of the shower and grab your towel. Wrapping the towel around you, you pick up your pajamas with a dry hand, then toss them in with your dirty clothes. You pad back in to the bathroom and dry yourself off. After you dry off, you style your hair how you want. After that, you put on some deodorant and start putting on your clothes.

"Damn, this smells good." You comment to yourself about your body fragrance. You look in the mirror above your sink. You twist and turn a bit, then put your hands on your hips confidently. "I look like a boss ass bitch," You comment at your reflection. You walk out of the bathroom and grab your combat boots that are put neatly next to your bedroom door.

Sliding on your boots and tying them tight, you grab your weapon of choice. A simple aluminum baseball bat. You also grabbed your plain black zip-up hoodie, and headed downstairs. You try your best to walk down the stairs as quietly as you possibly can. You don't want to wake anybody up. Especially Jeff, you rather not get stabbed today.

Silently stepping off the last stair, you gently speedwalk to the living room. The living room is also close to the kitchen and the front door. The only thing dividing the kitchen from the living room was a counter. Bringing yourself back from the decor of the murder mansion, you turn to see a smiling Hoodie. He doesn't have his mask on yet, which suprises you greatly.

Hoodie always wears his mask, even if its unbearably hot outside, or when he's sleeping. You don't understand how its comfortable, but you learned from living with a bunch of serial killers to just not question it. "You ready to go?" His soft tone brings you back from your thoughts. You just simply nod and walk out the door with him.

The pastas and proxies don't normally have to use cars to get to their destination, but there are rare occurrences where they do. Only on missions that take more than an 45 minutes in walking time. This one was not an exception, just driving to this person's house will take you and Hoodie about a hour and a half.

The only car the pastas and proxies have is this big white van. Dubbed 'the candy van' by Jeff and BEN. Because of it's nature in media, you can see why the name sticks. You hop into the passenger seat and make yourself comfortable. You silently stare out the window into the vast forest that surrounds you.

You see why Slender put the mansion in the middle of a forest. Even if most of the inhabitants are stuck there, at least they have a beautiful view. You're torn away from your fixation on the forest by the revving of the ignition. You steal a glance at Hoodie, then relax into the questionably stained seat of the van.

The car ride was full of you seeing Hoodie become more, how do I put it, talkative? Yeah, he told you a lot about his past, you knew some if it, but not all of it. You feel honored to have this information and trust. So, its only fair you tell him your story as well right? You told him everything, everything from the nitty-gritty, to your favorite memories with friends. Mini road trips are magical.

Hoodie pulls into a rocky drive way at an unknown l youocation. The little GPS on his phine still showes about a five minute walk to the destination. He takes his phone, turns it off, and slips on his ski mask. He glances over at you, you are spacing out at the forest in front of you. "You okay?" His voice cuts through the air like a knife. You blink a few times, trying to get your train of thought back on track. "Yeah, I'm good, I just spaced out," You explain sheepishly.

Hoodie nods understandingly. You both hop out if the car parked in the dense forest area, and make your way to the victim's house. "So, what's the sitch Hoods?" You ask, not knowing the plan because you and Hoodie forgot to talk about it on the way there. But it was worth it.

"A woman by the name of Annie Butler has been sticking her nose where it doesn't belong. She's finding out way too much. So, we have to take some files of hers then kill her." You nod, hyping yourself up to do this. Admittedly, you are a bit anxious, but that won't stop you from gaining more of Hoodie's trust and respect.

You are hoping you don't fuck this up big time. You cant lose the bond that you and Hoodie have, it's way to important to you. You give a gentle sigh and keep walking with Hoodie.

Eventually, you arrive at the house of the person of interest. The house is white and the trim is a robins egg blue. It looks like the house of the traditional nuclear family, but with a bit more, suspicion. You start walking towards the house through the drive way before Hoodie grabs your arm.

"We gotta go around back to break in, she'll see us comming up the driveway." He informs, you blush, embarrassed about not thinking about that. You follow Hoodie around to the back of the house. Annie has a very nice white patio with a glass table and five black metal chairs with white cushons on top. She has a medium sized firepit adjacent to the patio near the backdoor.

"I think we should sneak in through that window." You say, pointing to the window next to the patio. Hoodie nods and you both start to walk over to the window. Once you reach the window, you slide up the protective screen and pull up the window.

Luckily, this lady is dumb enough to leave her windows unlocked. You set your butt on the windowsill and stick one leg in, then your torso, then the other. Hoodie follows in suit as you stand in the garage. You see the door that leads from the garage to the house and go to open it. Unfortunately, this lady is smart enough to lock the doors.

"What dumbass doesn't lock their windows, but locks their doors?" You say, Hoodie chuckles softly at your jab. You smile and fish around in your pocket, you grasp the cold metal and pull out a bobbypin. You pick at the lock for a while before hearing a small 'click'. You try the handle again and the door opens this time.

You and Hoodie both sneak into the house, you do not see Annie yet. "I'm going to go check the kitchen, you check the living room," You give Hoodie a thimbs up and tou both ho your separate ways. You silently pad over to the doorway leading into the living room and peak inside.

The living room walls are painted a light grey. There is a black couch on one side of the wall, and a flat screen t.v on the other. In the corner between the couch and the wall is a house plant in a modern, porcelain plant pot. Above the couch sat a few picture frames with pictures of what looks to be Annie and her family. You give a slight smile, she looks so happy in the photos. You see no sign of Annie.

You meet Hoodie at the foot of a stairwell. It probably leads up to her room. "This stairwell leads up to Annie's room," called it. You and Hoodie walk up the steps, being as quiet as humanly possible. You both see two doors "Her door is the left one" Hoodie states nonchalantly. You silently step towards the eggshell white door. You take a deep breath, and roughly shove the door open. Bat in hand, you speedwalk into the room, Hoodie right behind you.

You see Annie sitting at a desk with a monitor on it. She flinches into her chair and whips her head at you and Hoodie. "W-who are you, and what are you doung in my house?" Annie gets up from her chair and stumbles backwards a bit. "You know too much, we can't have that, we know what you know." Hoodie states reaching for the handgun in his hoodie pocket.

"S-STAY BACK", Annie shouts, pulling a meat cleaver from under her pillow. You chuckle lowly, "Do you really think we're afraid of you, Annie?" You seer, she gives you a look of shock and horror. "How do you know my name?" She questions, you laugh in her face. "Oh dear Annie, we know every little thing about you~" you laugh and step towards her menacingly. She stumbles backwards and falls on her butt, she scoots as far away from you until her back hits her bed.

You tilt your head to the right, signaling Hoodie to go get her files. You slowly and menacingly step towards Annie, every step you take your bat hits the floor with a solid 'thunk'. Your standing toe to toe with Annie's shaking form, you raise your bat. "P-please don't." She whimpers, her arms blocking her face. You chuckle and get ready to swing the bat.

"Too late, sweetheart." You say as you bring the bat down as hard as you can onto her head. Blood spews all over everything. Annie lets out a scream as you bring down your bat once more on her head. She lets out a gurgle as blood drips down from her bashed in skull, out her nose, and her mouth. Hit her with your bat right in her temple to make sure she's dead. Once you know she's dead, you lean on your bat, and try to wipe spewed blood off your s/t face.

"You got the files?" You turn to Hoodie, he holds up a thick manilla folder. "Ok, let's go." You say, as you start to navigate to the front door, Hoodie follows in suit. You both find your way out of the house, and take a trail through the forest to get to the van, so you won't get noticed. You finally get to the dirty white van and you hop into yhe passenger side.

Almost as soon as you both get on the road, you pass out. Who knew bludgeoning someone to death with a bat could knock the energy out of you. When Hoodie sees you passed out, he smiles and chuckles softly. It's normal for a new proxy to clonk out after their first mission.

Once you and Hoodie got home, it was about 5:30 pm (17:30). Hoodie gently shakes you awake. "Y/n, you gotta get up, we're home now." He whispers gently to your sleeping form. You stir and slightly open your eyes, you blink and sit up straight. You yawn and stretch a bit. "How long was I out for?" "About 45 minutes." Hoodie informs, you nod, grabing your bat and getting out of the van.

You and Hoodie proceed to walk back to the mansion. "Hey kid, you did a great job today, I'm proud of you." You smile, still sleepy and out of it. "Thanks dad." Hoodie stops in his tracks, you turn back and let what you said sink in. "UH, I meant thanks Hoods, eheheh." You say and speedwalk as fast as you can to the mansion.

As soon as you enter the mansion you haul ass to your room. You shut the door and run into your bathroom. You sit in the toilet seat, trying not to hyperventilate as you flip your shit. You just called Hoodie dad, you're royaly fucked. You start toncry a little before you hear a knock on your door. You stop everything you're doing.

"Y/n, please come out, I need to talk to you." You jear Hoodie's soft voice call from your door. You sigh, fuck it. You get up and trudge to the door. Your shaking hand grips the knob and turns it slowly. Your door creaks open to reveal Hoodie. "I'm so sorry for what I said I didn't mean to say it out loud I don't want you to think of me any less and I would like to forget this ever happened." You spew out, flinching back when you're finished. Hoodie frowns underneath his mask and puts a hand on your tense shoulder.

"It's ok Y/n, I never knew you thought of me that way, but, It's okay." He almost whispers. You start to shake again, Hoodie sees this and engulfs you in a hug. He gently rocks you back and forth as you let out muffled sobs of shame. "It's okay honey I'm here, I'm here."

"Love is just a history that they may prove, and when you're gone, I'll tell them my religions"

#marble hornets #creepypasta #marble hornets brian #marble hornets hoodie #hoodie #fluff #oneshot #short story #writers on tumblr #<3 <3 <3 #ilysm <333 #ily <3333

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turtle-steverogers · 5 years ago

Text

Government Affiliated Love Affairs

idk @fuck-your-fandoms suggested this and i vibed with it so yeee here we are

soulmate au! kinda!

ship: ralbert

warnings: none i dont think, but if i missed something lemme know

word count: 2600 ish

editing: eh kinda idk

“Well, this is stupid.”

“Yeah, tell me about it, pal.”

Race sighs, looking down at his hands as he fiddles with the cup sleeve of his grande americano.

It was common knowledge that the “Formulated Love Act of 2023” was not the most foolproof of laws passed by the government in the past 5 years (not that anything the government did anymore was foolproof, but he’ll digress), but Race couldn’t help but at least appreciate that it wasn’t trying to push any heteronormative bullshit.

That didn’t make this asshole any more bearable.

Granted, the notion of solving the ‘loneliness epidemic’ (which apparently was a thing and was causing the US enough damn trouble that the government fucking stepped in) through means of systematic soulmates was sweet. Everyone gets a match based off a stupid fucking questionaire they completed when they were 21, like “oh, you can drink now! Here’s a shot of vodka and also your future partner is gonna be determined by this thick ass packet, go ahead and fill that out, no pressure!” And by the time you’re 25, a soulmate’s been hand picked for you. By law, you’re required to marry them within a year of meeting, and then you’re set to live your life happily ever after.

It was nice in theory. But in practice? Not so much.

Then again, wasn’t the government usually like that?

Race wished he had some whiskey to pour into his americano like those edgy movie characters. Or Jack Kelly. Jack Kelly did that sometimes.

When he’d gotten the email a week ago with his soulmate’s information and their established ‘meet-up arrangements’- which were really just fancy words for ‘forced date, have fun’- Race had been tentatively hopeful that maybe he’d be one of the rare cases. The ones you read about on Buzzfeed where it really is love at first sight and maybe those few, poor FBI Agents who were stuck with the ‘Pairing Process’ had done something right for once.

The ounce of a Disney fan within him had even entertained the thought of some miraculous meeting, where sparks fly and eyelashes are batted and smiles are exchanged.

But no. Instead, Race is sitting at some random Starbucks in the middle of Manhattan with an obnoxious (and upsettingly pretty) redhead, who’s first words to him were, “I fucking hate coffee, I’m gonna get tea.” To which Race had tried to cover his scowl, but failed miserably.

He hated tea snobs. Don’t get him wrong, he enjoys tea as much as the next 25 year old guy, but those dudes who fucking made a point to openly despise coffee in favor of tea like some sort of pompous jerk? Yeah, they killed his boner.

Race toys around with his coffee cup for another moment, before the silence gets too thick and he breaks, “Albert, right?” he asks, because even though it’s been a good half hour since they’d met up, the guy still hasn’t properly introduced himself.

It had said Albert’s name and age in the email last Saturday, but come on. It’s basic human decency to at least offer your name and maybe a handshake.

Albert scrunches his nose, taking a long sip from his iced peach green tea lemonade. Fucking asshole.

“Yeah,” He says. He sounds bitter and uninviting. Race tries not to shrink in his seat, “And you’re Antonio.”

“Race,” Race interjects.

Albert’s eyebrows draw together, “Race? What the fuck kinda-”

“It’s a nickname, just-” Race scrubs a hand down his face, “Just, don’t question it, but it’s Race, got it?”

Albert leers at him, “Fine.”

The silence settles over them once more, except this time, they’re maintaining eye contact. Albert looks like he’s trying to size him up and Race’s neck prickles uncomfortably.

I mean, seriously, this is the guy Race has to marry? Yippee fucking ki yay.

“Listen,” Race says slowly, “This- I mean,” he blows out a breath, starting over, “I hate to break it to you, but we’re stuck together and you’ve gotta move in by,” he pauses, checking the date on his phone, “Wednesday, so we could either work something out or suffer.”

Albert’s glare doesn’t falter, “I’ll suffer.”

Race sighs again.

XXX

“And down the hall here is my room and that,” Race gestures to the door opposite his room, Albert trailing behind him, “Is yours.”

After their disaster of a first date last Saturday, Race had relented and cleaned out his office, turning it into a guest room and moving his desk and file cabinets into his own room. It was a tight squeeze into his relatively small space, but he wasn’t about to share a room with Albert. But he was a nice person and wasn’t gonna condemn him to the couch, either. So, guest room it is.

Albert hefts his box of belongings higher into his arms, shrugging his right shoulder to adjust the duffle bag on his back before inching into his room.

“Thanks, I guess,” He calls bluntly behind him before kicking the door closed, leaving Race standing dumbly on the other end.

Race blinks. Then, blinks again.

“Man, fuck you!” He calls in a sudden surge of anger. He hadn’t done a damn thing to Albert, what fucking right did he have to hate him? He didn’t even give him a chance!

“Nah.” Albert calls back.

“I didn’t mean it like that you fucking ass- you know what? Nevermind.” He storms into his own room, slamming the door shut behind him.

XXX

Later that night, Race is curled up in front of the TV, cradling a bowl of Panang curry and watching some random documentary about koalas. He spoons some fried tofu into his mouth, frontwardly considering getting a koala, because they’re fucking adorable, and distantly wondering if Albert was ever going to come out of his room.

He hadn’t heard from him all afternoon and the only indication that he was still in the house had been the distinct sound of a toe being stubbed, followed by a loud, ‘fuck me!’, which Race didn’t laugh at. He didn’t.

His question is answered a moment later when Albert’s door creaks open down the hall and he pads into the living room. Race can feel him lingering in the doorway, watching him, and he groans a little, placing his spoon back into his bowl and muting the television.

“What,” he says, turning to face Albert, who looks sheepish for a moment before replacing the scowl on his face.

“Nothing, just-” he purses his lips and glances towards the kitchen.

Race softens a little, “Are you hungry? I didn’t know your order, but I got you some pad thai,

‘cause it’s pretty standard…it’s in the fridge if you want it.”

Albert looks back at him, a strange look on his face, “You got me something?”

Race shrugs, “yeah?”

“Even after I-” Albert shakes his head, “Thanks.”

Race watches as he seems to go through some internal conflict before stalking off towards the kitchen. A moment later, the microwave starts up.

“Alrighty,” Race mumbles to himself, unmuting the television and picking his spoon back up.

A couple more minutes pass with the remote sounds of Albert putzing around in the kitchen and the narrator’s accented voice droning on. It feels weird to have someone else in the house, but Race shrugs it off. He never loved having roommates, but it was no different than his college days, really. Even though he couldn’t just forget Albert after the year was over. He had to marry the damn guy.

He’s surprised when Albert comes back into the living room and even more shocked when the other end of the couch dips. Glancing over, he finds Albert sitting with his legs tucked underneath him, twirling rice noodles around his fork and staring fixedly at the TV. He forces himself to relax and finish his curry.

They don’t say anything and eventually, Race lets his guard down a little. An indiscernible amount of time passes and the program turns to a show about domesticated hedgehogs and how to care for them.

Race feels himself nodding off, and he’s about to let sleep take him over completely when he feels his bowl being lifted out of his hands. He cracks open an eye in time to see Albert get up and clear their dishes.

He comes back a moment later and looks mildly startled to see Race awake.

“I thought you were out out,” he says, and Race notes that the hostility that’s been ever present since they met is curiously absent.

“I woke up when you took our stuff,” Race admits.

Albert hums and sits back down on the couch, clicking off the TV and bracing his forearms on his knees. He looks like he might want to say something, so Race waits patiently.

“Look,” Albert starts, sounding a little strained, “I’m sorry for how I’ve been acting. I’m not trying to justify my behavior, but this whole,” he gestures a little wildly, “soulmate thing freaks me out and I kinda panicked over it and totally took it out on you even though it’s not in any way your fault and,” he lets out a humorless chuckle, finally looking at Race, “I’m sorry. Really.”

Race offers him a tired, but reassuring smile, “Listen, bud, I’m like half asleep so only, like, a fraction of this conversation is getting comprehended, but it’s okay. I mean, you were an asshole, but I get it. This whole system is fucked.”

Albert laughs for real and Race finds that he likes it. Just a little. He can appreciate a nice laugh, okay?

“Sure is,” Albert agrees.

There’s a pause, but it’s not as charged as before.

“Where did the nickname ‘Race’ come from?”

“Uhhh,” Race yawns, stretching, “I dunno, my little sister always called me that and it stuck?”

“Cool.”

“Yeah.”

Race props his head up on his hand, sleepily watching Albert fidget. Albert seems to sense him staring, because he looks at him again, offering a small smile.

“You’re tired,” he points out uselessly, “you should sleep.”

Race nods, standing, “Yeah, I think I’m gonna,” he starts towards his room, “You should, too.”

Albert salutes him, “I will.”

“Goodnight, Al.”

“‘Night, Race.”

XXX

After their little impromptu apology session, things change between Race and Albert.

They hang out more, heading into the city to browse through museums and stroll aimlessly through Central Park. Albert brings Race to a planetarium and Race, in turn, takes him to an ABT performance at Lincoln Center. It’s nice, Race finds, and his initial opinion of Albert is rapidly changing into something entirely different and ten times more positive.

He discovers that Albert’s favorite ice cream flavor is stracciatella, even though it’s hard to find in the States. Albert tells him that he graduated from Pratt with a film degree and dreams to one day participate in the Sundance Film Festival.

In turn, Race confesses that even though he grew up dancing and always thought he’d be a professional dancer, culinary school had ended up being his calling.

Little things about Albert start to filter into Race’s awareness. Like the way he quirks one side of his mouth a little higher than the other when he laughs, or how he scrunches his nose a little and furrows his eyebrows when he’s filming. He’s got that kind of charming, self-deprecating humor, where he’s always cracking jokes, but only at his own expense, making him approachable and likable. When he’s telling stories, his voice always pitches a little different, captivating whoever’s listening. But when someone else is talking, he gives his full, unwavering attention.

It makes Race feel interesting and important. Like what he has to say matters.

It’s a sunny Friday and the two of them are sitting in a small sandwich shop in Brooklyn. Albert is retelling some ridiculous story about how he got a cab driver to bring him to a veterinarian for free, because he found an injured pigeon. His meatball sub is long since forgotten and Race notices that he has a little sauce on his cheek.

He’s just about to reach out to wipe it off when he realizes it.

He’s kind of in love with Albert Dasilva.

Huh. Crazy.

XXX

“Hey, so I was thinking we could go try out that new bubble tea place over on 14th?”

Race lifts his head from his pillow, blinking blearily at where Albert’s leaning against his doorframe. It’s Saturday and they’d spent the night previous in some club getting spectacularly drunk and naturally, Race is hungover as shit. But Albert doesn’t get hungover, the motherfucker.

He scrubs a hand down his face and Albert watches with a smirk as he struggles to sit up.

“Yeah,” Race says, “Yeah, I’m down, just,” he rolls his stiff neck, wincing as it cracks, “gimme a few minutes to freshen up.”

“No prob,” Albert says, sidling out of the room, “We can grab greasy breakfast for you somewhere as well!”

“You’re a saint!” Race calls back.

A half hour later, they’re bumping shoulders as they venture through The Village, keeping an eye on Albert’s google maps as they look for ‘Bubbleology’, the new fangled cafe Jack and Katherine had been insisting they try.

“So, the Air and Space Museum in DC is having an exhibit on Mars next weekend and I was thinking we could pop down to see it?”

Albert perks up, looking away from his phone to give Race an excited smile, “Really? Wait, how did you know about that and I didn’t?”

Race blushes a little, shoving his hands in his pockets, “It’s your birthday coming up, so I was looking for things to do and...yeah.”

“Aww,” Albert nudges him, but Race can see him flush, “That’s sweet, I’d love to- shit, Race, careful!”

Race gasps, freezing as a car speeds towards him. The only unfrozen part of his mind is screaming that the crosswalk says they can walk, so why isn’t that car fucking stopping and-

He feels a hand grip his bicep, yanking him back towards the sidewalk and all cognition slams back into him as he and Albert fall onto the pavement.

“-Fucking ASSHOLE, watch it!” Albert’s screaming uselessly after the car, but Race isn’t registering it. Not completely anyway.

He takes a moment to assess himself, breathing deeply as he becomes increasingly aware that he almost fucking died, but he didn’t thanks to Albert.

Albert looks down when Race tugs on his sleeve, “Are you okay? Jesus, that was- mmph.”

Race pulls him down, crashing their lips together. For a moment, Albert’s frozen against him, then he relaxes into the kiss, reaching up a hand to cradle Race’s jaw. They kiss for a while, until Race remembers that they’re quite literally sitting in the middle of a sidewalk and pulls away.

Albert opens his eyes, looking slightly dazed, “Whoa.”

Race bites his lip, suddenly unsure, “Sorry?”

“No,” Albert’s eyes widen, “No, don’t apologize, that- no, that was okay.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes,” Albert says, hoisting Race to his feet and pulling him in for another kiss, “Very okay.”

When they break apart again, they’re both laughing, foreheads resting against one anothers.

“Hey,” Race whispers, waiting until Albert’s eyes meet his to continue, “I like you.”

Albert rolls his eyes, but it’s fond, “I like you, too, dumbass. Maybe those FBI guys actually were onto something.”

Race smiles, goofy and genuine, “Yeah, maybe.”

They stand there for another moment, enjoying each other’s embrace. Then, Albert steps away abruptly, grabbing Race’s hand and pulling him down the street.

“C’mon, I still want bubble tea.”

It’s Race’s turn to roll his eyes, “Idiot.”

“Yeah, butcha love me.”

“You got me there.”

do we want a part 2 with fluffy dating stuff/wedding?

lemme know!

thanks for reading, chiefs

hmu to be added to my tag

TAG LIST: @getchapapes @we-dont-sell-papes @suddenly-im-respecsable

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#newsies #newsies fic #albert dasilva #racetrack higgins #ralbert #chaotic bois #we lov #lol #okay yeah i posted a fic eee

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stusbunker · 5 years ago

Text

Below the Surface and In the Wild

For Better or Worst: Chapter Three

Featuring: Sam Winchester x Emery Simmons-Winchester OFC

OCs: Bandit (their dog), Sam’s coworkers Gretchen, Lourdes and Cady. Neighbors: Trudy and Jason Schneider and their dogs Mox and Sho.

Season 14 AU

Word Count: 2481

Summary: Sam is a doll. A sneak peek into what life was like those rough, first, few weeks. Then the newlyweds unknowingly start to understand just what being bound on a soul-level means.

Warnings: Mixed reality, magical persuasion.

Series Masterlist

^*^*^

One morning, inside the library building and down two flights of stairs, Sam approached his cubby, which housed notes for his current project, a small wireless speaker and a picture of Emery and Bandit, taken when he was a puppy. This trek toward work only reminded Sam how old he actually was, relative to his coworkers, at least. Gretchen was helping Lourdes fill out her taxes with an online program, as this was the first time the young woman had held a job. They were two of many graduate students that made up most of the labor for the archive department, though Sam worked full time. A position, though he had been teased for nepotism, he quite enjoyed. At this point in the term, he had given up reminding the twenty-somethings that Emery had just started with the school as well. He had started drowning out the phrase “trophy husband”, however, as they not so quietly gossiped.

Luckily, Sam was almost positive to be left in peace, as he was transferring video footage from guest lecturers from the 80s and 90s into digital files for the school’s preservation society, in one of the soundproof rooms due to the availability of the allotted equipment. He didn’t need it to be silent, but it wouldn’t stop him from taking advantage of the location. Somewhere between fall ’84 and spring ’85, Cady knocked on the heavy door. Sam had very little interaction with the former volleyball player, but it wasn’t for her lack of trying. She smiled until he removed the headphones he wore, teeth pristine against spray tanned skin. Even post spring break, no one was that shade naturally.

“Hey, we’re going to the union for lunch, did you want to join us?” Cady cocked her head to the side with a hand on her hip, toe twisting at the end of her oh so long legs.

“I’m good, thanks,” Sam nodded and turned back to checking volume levels on what had transferred so far. He felt her linger behind him, but he didn’t look back until the door clicked shut. Sam closed his eyes in relief.

Once he heard voices in the common area, Sam ducked out for his own late lunch walk. He hated being stagnant for hours on end, even if he didn’t remember it, his body was used to roller coastering between seated research and quick intensive work outs. It was a Tuesday, a day that always sat wrong with him. He found himself wandering towards Owens Hall, following the steady flow of traffic into the massive building. Just as the doors were closing to Lecture Room B, Sam slipped inside and found the last aisle seat, near the middle of the auditorium. As soon as Emery stood and offered a cordial good afternoon, the hall fell silence. Sam didn’t notice the small grin that had seated itself on his face as he watched her pace in front of her projected bullet points as she spoke. She wove her lecture like a narrative, intriguing and informative, it was almost a performance to hear her speak of the Crusades instead of course work.

Halfway through the allotted time, Sam remembered he was supposed to be back to work, and he stood at an angle to duck out of the hall unnoticed.

“Excuse me, but the lecture isn’t finished,” a stern voice called to him from the stage. The students whispered in both mockery and annoyance as Sam got called out for interrupting.

“Sorry, I was just stopping by—my lunch break is over.” Sam nodded, frowning in chagrin.

“So, you’re rude AND decided to waste my students’ time, the same people who are paying to be here?” Emery raised her eyebrows at Sam, a sinister tilt to her painted lips.

“I guess so– Sorry, about that. I just wanted to see the hot new History professor I heard about,” Sam spat back, putting some humiliation on her plate as well. The crowd erupted.

“I’ll be going though, don’t want to waste anymore of y’all’s time,” he called over the fuss.

She bit her lip as he turned to go, cursing under her breath. As soon as the door closed behind his flanneled back, Emery was back in professor mode.

“Alright, that’s enough, he’s my husband—don’t get too excited.”

Come six o’clock, Sam beat Emery to their crossover, though he could have kept working. It was tedious and any of the grad students could have taken the project, it was just nice to have a reason to stop for the day. Sam hadn’t allowed himself this kind romance in what felt like lifetimes and without the ability to pinpoint why, he was holding fast to his marriage, his partnership. Leaning on someone he respected was natural to Sam and he felt doubly blessed to have a woman like Emery to be there to support him, day in and day out. It was a small, simple life, but it is was theirs.

They had plans with their neighbors Trudy and Jason, which they had rescheduled once already because Bandit had a go with a skunk. They were nice people, but Sam was still adjusting to the social expectations of living nearby other couples in their thirties. New town meant new friends, right? That’s what Emery had kept telling him, trying to brush off some of his awkwardness. As he waited, he caught up with the news on his phone, preferring to lean against the car than inside it. Though it had the headspace, not a lot of vehicles had the leg space for him to sit comfortably and it felt less creepy of him, somehow. It’s not like he was on a stakeout, why would he sit inside the car?

Emery clicked the unlock button on her keys, intentionally startling Sam from his latest article.

“Crash any good lectures today?” She taunted, leaning up for a quick kiss.

“Ha-ha,” was his only reply. She tossed her bags in the backseat before sliding into the driver’s spot. They drove home easily, flirty glances and light banter, the sounds of NPR in the background. Sam took the dog for a walk while Emery changed, and she prepped the dessert she bought while he did.

Cheesecake and wine in hand, they strolled out the back door, over the sidewalk a whopping sixty feet and were then promptly greeted by Jason and Trudy’s two rottweilers, all by seven o’clock sharp. Jason kneed his way to the door before taking Mox and Sho by the collar to allow their guests inside. Sam, handed Emery the wine before leaning down to greet the dogs, letting Emery present their gifts. Jason, both burly and gregarious, nodded to the back of the house to the kitchen where Trudy was finishing up. The conversation flowed easily over the dogs as everyone calmed down with the company.

“Now, I know you can’t partake, but I figured–,” Emery was nearly apologizing to the very pregnant Trudy over the passing of the bottle of wine. The somehow still lanky redhead waved off Emery’s concern.

“My doctor says a half a glass at this point won’t do anything besides let me relax and with those boys eating through the latest diaper bag—I could use it,” Trudy shrugged. “How’s your week been?”

The two couples ate al fresco, enjoying the Schneider’s large deck, on the back of their house built when they moved in four years before, along with the matching eight-foot fence. Emery kept her free hand on Sam’s thigh while they got settled, but after a few glasses of wine, they were all chuckling easily. Trudy had grilled steaks and asparagus that rivaled celery stalks in size. Jason had tried a couscous recipe which everyone politely and silently agreed to never speak of it again.

“Man, I gotta say, I’m glad we did this,” Jason handed out mushy bear hugs at the door.

“Anytime,” Sam replied, patting Jason on the back as he grabbed Emery.

“Yeah? Nice! Didn’t scare you off,” Jason teased. “Seriously though, after those first couple’a weeks I thought you were a douche.”

“And now?” Sam swallowed, putting his hands in his pockets.

“Jury’s still out,” Trudy dropped out of left field, causing everyone to break away with their own laughter. “Don’t be strangers just because my husband can’t cook.”

Perhaps they hadn’t all agreed to leave it be. With a signature awkward wave and a tugging at his elbow, Sam turned toward home. On his arm, Emery was humming from the gentle buzz of her share of the bottles of wine. Sam struggled to remember what would have made Jason say what he had.

Sam hadn’t been paying attention, but a passing glance at the date stamped on the sub/reddit he was reading made his blood run cold. It was Dean’s birthday, his fortieth. They needed answers, a timeframe, something. He deserved to know that this was all worth it, that it was working. Emery came home an hour later to find Sam sitting in the dining room, that they had yet to use. A third of a bottle of Johnny Walker gone.

“Hey, everything okay?” She held her stomach as uncertainty and alarm battled to creep out of her cool demeanor as accusations. She didn’t know much about Sam yet, but that much alcohol that quickly wasn’t good for anyone.

Sam turned and his lip curled in spite. “What’s it matter? It’s all in their hands now isn’t? We just play house and wait on the angels. Like that ever really worked before.”

“Sam, we both, we need this—" Emery looked to her feet as her throat thickened.

“Save it. I know. I’ll play the part. It doesn’t mean I am going to be quiet about them leaving us in the dark,” Sam snapped at the ceiling.

“So, what, you’re just gonna get drunk and scream at the sky? Really?” Emery huffed and walked away. “Classy.”

He dried out in time to go to church with Emery on Sunday morning, the sanctuary feeling much smaller than it had during their private ceremony the week before. The reverend commented on his change of facial hair and Sam smiled at the implication that he didn’t need to impress Emery anymore. He had already landed her. Sam cocked his head and took a few deep breaths, his shoulders and lungs straining as if in a vice, desperate he excused himself from the coffee hour crowd and into the stark gray morning.

That night Emery went to bed alone again, leaving Sam to pass out on the couch as he pretended to watch something in the den. She fell asleep with tears in her eyes and a lamenting prayer on her lips.

The more Sam thought about it, the more it felt like he was chasing smoke. Nothing stuck and his mind felt blank. All of the sudden, he was upstairs, watching Emery peel off her clothes. When his ass hit the bed, she sauntered over to stand between his legs, nimble fingers threading through his hair. That was enough of a distraction to leave the concern for another day.

April 23, 2019

There are days and there are dates, some days suck, while some dates are entombed in the psyche. Birthdays, anniversaries, heartbreaks and deaths: dates that could be forgotten, but usually aren’t. Some that should be forgotten, but refuse to leave the confines of memory, seeping into the very soul. It is a date as such that pierced through, causing Emery to wake up at 3:26 in a cold sweat, arms heavy with emptiness and head throbbing with unshed tears. She slipped out of bed and down to the den, the moment her foot moved from the last step to the hardwood floor, Bandit was at her knee, knowing something was the matter.

Dogs are some of the greatest blessings in the lives of humans, even when those humans don’t deserve their unconditional comfort, perhaps especially then. Emery sank down on the staircase, all-consuming grief over taking her as she held Bandit to her chest, burying her face against the thick strands covering his neck. The hollowness inside ruptured into the stillness of the predawn quiet, reverberating in the large empty rooms of their playhouse. As needed as Bandit was, he was still a portion of her life before, signifying what she had lost and how far she had yet to go. He was reality incarnate, a touchstone even. There they sat, one mystified, one overrun with sorrow until Sam broke their trance as he called from the landing.

“Baby? What is it? What happened?” Heavy yet agile foot falls announced his progress until he slipped behind her, wiping her hair from her face where it stuck in sweat and tears. His eyes searched for injury, for entry, for any disturbance at all. The room and her body were as right as rain, yet she cried, and Sam let her. Feeling not lost at her inexplicable melancholy, but awash with it. He clung to her, and Emery leaned into him; life rafts and castaways in the same storm.

Moments or minutes later, they stood and stretched, no less in pain, but slaves to their bodies’ needs; they broke apart. Slowly they began their day, quiet and uncertain of what it would bring. If this storm would pass as quickly as it came or, if it was a hovering sort. As the hours floated by, each in their respective autopilot politeness at work and in the neighborhood. During an unenthused walk with Bandit, Sam realized just how much he had been empathizing with Emery. It was at the forefront of his every thought, this drilling sadness. Buildings or miles apart, he still felt it in the hidden corners of his very being. Whatever this was, he wasn’t sure he could stand such unfounded torture for long.

Back home, up the dark stairs and through the closed door of their bedroom, Emery sat on her side of the bed. Once Sam came out from brushing his teeth, she tried to give him a grateful smile. “Sorry about today, it sort of hit me out of nowhere.”

Sam inhaled and nodded, pulling back the covers and holding his arms open for her to crawl into. “Can I ask what had you so upset?”

“Today is— just a tough day for me. It was once a beautiful memory, but–,” her voice cracking once more. Sam shushed her as she once again started to cry.

“It’s okay, we’re in this together. I got you,” Sam whispered into her hair.

“For better or worse?” The first time it was a question more than a promise.

“For better or worse,” Sam sealed their goodnight ritual. They fell asleep, emotionally depleted and awoke as if the day before had been like any other.

^*^*^

Read On: In Heaven Lies

#for better or worst series #sam winchester #sam winchester fanfiction #sam x ofc #sam x emery #simwin

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ask-gilbert-and-ludwig · 5 years ago

Text

Ludwig wasn’t sure what would be waiting for him downstairs, but he knew it would be a surprise of some sort. Seeing as how today was his birthday, and his brother and father always did something for his birthday.

What he really wanted was to spend his birthday with his friends, but seeing as how he didn’t have any, he couldn’t really do that.

Not that he didn’t enjoy spending time with his family, no of course not! Even if Gilbert was annoying more often than not and liked to pin him to the floor when they were fighting. Even if his dad didn’t have a set schedule for work and sometimes missed important stuff. He still loved them, but it wasn’t the same.

He wanted to be like the kids at school who held big parties and invited all their friends. Then talked about it the next day in class. Well maybe not the last part since he didn’t like talking to most people and most people didn’t like talking to him. But still.

He shook his head and looked at the clock.

I’d better get downstairs, he thought. Despite it being his birthday, he still had to go to school.

He didn’t hear anything as he left his room, but he did see streamers wrapped around the banister leading down the stairs. Noticing one pink amongst the blues and greens he sighed. Gilbert.

Once he’d turned the corner into the living room, he saw the set up surrounding the couch and chairs. A few presents of various sizes, a stack of birthday hats on the table, a banner saying ‘Happy Birthday’ hanging up on the wall, and a few letters.

Aster then trotted up to him, wearing one of the hats and rubbed up against him.

He giggled and took it off her. “I’m guessing that’s what you wanted?”

A loud noise then sounded coming from the kitchen. He looked over and saw Gilbert at the island with a noise maker in his mouth.

“Why did you get him those?” he asked his dad. A hint of desperation in his voice.

“He got them when I wasn’t with him,” he replied.

Gilbert blew into the noise maker again, much more loudly than previously, before proclaiming, “I’m sorry I didn’t want your birthday to be boring!”

“At least I wouldn’t have had a headache.”

“Whatever old man,” Gilbert sneered. “So how does it feel to be 7? Feel older?”

“Not really,” Ludwig replied as he made his way over to the island, “nothing’s changed from yesterday to today.”

“Except you’re 7 instead of 6 now! That’s a whole year!”

“Well I guess I’m taller than I was a year ago.”

Gilbert rolled his eyes. “You’re taller than you were a month ago. You’re like a weed.”

“I don’t know, your hair looks more like dandelion fluff than mine.”

Gilbert stuck his tongue out at him. Ludwig did so too a moment after.

“Alright, enough,” their father said. Both stopped but continued to side eye the other. “I made pancakes for breakfast, and I added chocolate chips too.”

Ludwig smiled. His dad was hardly ever home for long enough in the morning to make them pancakes made from scratch, and he only put in chocolate chips if he was feeling generous, or it was a special occasion.

“Thank you, Daddy,” he said.

“Ya thanks Dad,” Gilbert mumbled absentmindedly as he checked his phone.

Dad nodded. Setting two large pancakes in front of Ludwig before turning back to the stove. Gilbert quickly messed up his hair before their dad could see.

“Hey!”

Gilbert pretended to be absorbed in his phone. “What? I didn’t do anything.” But the smirk on his lips said otherwise.

“Don’t harass him too much today, okay Gilbert?”

“Not a problem, gonna be at school for most of it anyways.”

Their father sighed.

After finishing their pancakes both Gilbert and Ludwig got ready for school, despite being offered a ride, Gilbert still chose to drive himself to school. Why, Ludwig didn’t know, but at least now he didn’t have to listen to him complain about how much homework he had.

“So, what is it that you want to do today?” Dad asked.

Ludwig thought for a moment. “I don’t know. Maybe take a walk in the big park with the swings instead of the small one near home?”

Dad nodded. “Nothing else?”

“If I get new toys, I’ll want to play with them I guess.”

“Alright, but if you think of anything while you’re at school just let us know.”

“I will.” Ludwig then felt the car come to a stop.

“Have a good day at school Kleiner.”

Ludwig grabbed his backpack and left the car. “Bye!” he said, waving as he walked towards the school.

****

Finally, it was the end of the day and he could just go home. While he loved learning, sometimes school just felt like a punishment and not an actual place to learn. Especially when he kept getting reminded that no one in his class cared that it was his birthday.

As he walked to the front of the school where his bus would be, he saw Gilbert and his friends standing there waiting for him.

“How’d you get here on time to pick me up? School finishes at the same time for you as it does for me,” Ludwig pointed out, wondering why on earth he was there.

“We weren’t doing anything important so when I told the teacher what I was gonna do she just let me go early,” Gilbert explained.

“I just said I had an appointment,” Francis said.

“So, did I,” Antonio added.

“But why did you bring them if we’re just going back home?” While Francis and Antonio did sometimes come over to give him presents, they usually didn’t stay for long, not wanting to make the day about Gilbert instead.

“Because we’re not going home right away, and I need them to distract you.”

“Distract me?”

Francis nudged him. “And it was our idea.”

“Oh, ya that too.”

Ludwig tilted his head. “Where-”

“Come on!” Gilbert urged, pushing him towards his beat-up old car. Getting into the backseat squished in-between Francis and Antonio he couldn’t help but question why Gilbert couldn’t have just asked Dad for him to buy him a better one instead of forcing himself into buying an old used one.

As Gilbert checked his review mirror he said, “You idiots better be clipped in, and no I don’t mean you Ludwig, you’re the only one in this car that has more than one brain cell.”

“Of course, we are!”

“I am!”

Ludwig couldn’t make out his brother’s facial expression as he replied, “Alright good, then we’re off.”

It was slow getting out of the parking lot, while they had been talking the buses had started to pull out, along with every other parent who was picking up their kid.

“So where are we going?” Ludwig asked. Knowing Gilbert, he probably wouldn’t get the answer he wanted.

“Half the fun is the surprise!”

Of course not.

“Hey, you two are supposed to be entertaining him,” Gilbert chastised.

Antonio turned to Ludwig then. “So, how was your day?”

“Uh, it was okay, we had a quiz in math though” Ludwig recalled.

“Oh, that sucks! A quiz on your birthday?”

Ludwig shrugged. He kind of liked math. “It wasn’t too bad.”

“Did your teacher give you a gift or did anyone give you cards?” Francis questioned.

“No one gave me any cards,” most of them don’t like me enough to even remember my birthday, “and ya my teacher gave me a cupcake with gummy worms, but she does that for everyone’s birthday.”

“Still it must be nice,” Francis said, “I never got anything for my birthday at school.”

“Quit complaining,” Gilbert called from the front, “at least you get your birthday off every year. I once had a project due on mine!”

Ludwig remembered that. He had wanted to read with him before he went to sleep and give Gilbert his card early, but he had been too busy finishing the project. Ludwig was glad when he came home finally done with the stupid thing.

“Yes, but everyone is always on holiday on my birthday, so I can never be with friends. So, I am all alone.”

At least you have friends.

“Francis, we were both here this year for your birthday,” Antonio pointed out.

“Ya French fry, do you not remember the thousands of selfies we took on your phone and posted to Snapchat?”

Francis huffed. “I hate when you call me that.”

Gilbert breathed a laugh. “That’s exactly why I call you it.”

“Fine Snow White.”

“Snow White has black hair, I clearly don’t.”

“Yes, but your skin is as white as snow, and you are dumb enough to eat a poisoned apple offered by a stranger.”

“Guys,” Antonio sighed, “do you always have to have this same conversation every time?”

Ludwig tried to look past him out the window but got pushed back into his seat by Antonio before he could guess where they were.

“Sorry,” he mumbled.

“If he would stop calling me French fry, which aren’t French by the way, then we would never have this conversation.”

“So, it’s okay for Gil and you to call me Puppy but not okay for him to call you French fry?”

Gilbert snorted.

“French fry is historically inaccurate; Puppy is extremely fitting.”

Ludwig looked at Francis in confusion. “Why do you call him that?”

“Oh, he gets excited really easily, he follows Lovino around everywhere he can, and is loyal to a fault.”

“Not to mention he licks people,” Gilbert added.

“Only when they’re being annoying,” Antonio defended.

Ludwig felt the car park. “Oh, thank God we’re here,” he whispered.

They filed out of the car, Ludwig following close behind. Just as he was about to look around hands placed themselves over his eyes.

“What are you doing? I can’t see!” he complained.

“We gotta get you there first!” he heard Gilbert say right above him. It must have been him who was covering his eyes.

Ludwig sighed. He knew he wasn’t strong enough to get out of Gilbert’s grip anyways. “Fine.”

They started moving, slowly, as to avoid cars in the parking lot he assumed, towards the surprise. We probably look strange, he thought. Three teenagers leading a blindfolded child to wherever it was they were taking him. Hopefully nobody was staring at him.

When they finally stopped Gilbert said, “Guys do a drum-roll!”

Ludwig then heard what was probably Francis and Antonio attempting to mimic a drum-roll by slapping their thighs.

“I don’t need a drum-roll.”

“Yes, you do!” Gilbert said before taking his hands off of his face. “Ta-da!”

Ludwig let his eyes adjust to see that they were in a bookstore.

“Pick any three books you want,” Gilbert declared, spreading his arms wide.

“Shouldn’t you check them over to make sure they aren’t filled with,” Francis cleared his throat, “stuff.”

Stuff? What stuff? Books that have swearing?

“I doubt he’ll go anywhere near those sections, but...” Gilbert turned back to him. “I have to look them over first though okay?”

“Alright.” Ludwig didn’t understand why he needed to. He didn’t think there’d be any swearing or whatever in the history or fantasy books he wanted.

“Okay so run free but try and not take too long cause we need to get back in less than an hour, or Dad will think I kidnapped you.”

Ludwig breathed a laugh before running off to where he knew the history section was. He skimmed through the books until he found one on mythologies. While he knew the basics of some mythologies, he wasn’t very knowledgeable in them, and ever since he had met that weird frog, he had been more curious about them.

He then made his way towards the children’s section, making sure to hold his new book close to his chest, not wishing to drop it. He wanted to find a collection of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales. He had already read some of the more famous ones such as; The Little Mermaid and Thumbelina, but he had yet to read the lesser known ones that he had just recently heard about; The Nightingale and The Wild Swans.

Ludwig made his way down the row, checking the books for the authors names, until he came across Andersen’s. There were two different collections.

He held the two in his hands and thought about which he should choose. While the one had more stories and had a much prettier cover, the other was cheaper, and although Gilbert had a job of his own now, Ludwig didn’t want to force him to spend more than he had too.

But I really want it, he thought.

Deciding that he would just ask Gilbert if it was okay to get the more expensive one, he put the cheaper of the two back.

As he was about to speed off to another section, he heard a book fall off the shelf. Not wanting anyone to step on it, he went and picked it up.

Turning it over to look at the cover he saw that it was one he recognized. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.

Someone must have gotten lazy and left it here instead of putting it back in the French section where it belongs, he thought.

Looking at the cover he couldn’t help thinking about when he had read it in class. Although he had had a bit of trouble following along, he had gotten the gist of the story, and he had surprisingly liked it.

Instead of putting it back, he put it with his other two books and went to go find his brother. He found them standing a bit off from the line to the cash register, talking animatedly about something.

“You done?” Gilbert asked as he took the books from him.

“Yes.”

Looking them over Gilbert pulled out The Little Prince. “You sure you want the French version? I think they might have it in English.”

Ludwig shook his head. “No, I want it.”

“Okay.”

“Is it okay that I get this collection book of Fairy Tales or should I get the one that’s cheaper? I wanted this one because it has more stories, but I’ll go back if you want.”

“Nah it’s fine,” Gilbert reassured, “Antonio and Francis are chipping in anyways. It’s their gift to you.”

“Well thank you.”

Francis and Antonio smiled.

“No problem, I love giving people gifts!” Antonio replied.

“It’s your birthday! Of course, we’d get you something mon petit!” Francis then proceeded to run their hands through Ludwig’s hair.

Ludwig batted his hand away.

“Let’s get in line before it gets too long,” Gilbert said.

****

Gilbert had first dropped off Francis and Antonio at their homes before driving them back to their house. Now they were parked in their driveway and Gilbert was trying to convince Ludwig to set his new book down.

“You can read it later, now we’re gonna have cake and presents!”

Ludwig looked up from his book on mythologies and put his new bookmark in it.

“Good, now I don’t have to take it from you and put it on a high shelf.”

Ludwig glared at him and held the book closer.

Gilbert held the door open for him as they went inside. “We’re home!” Gilbert yelled down the hall.

They then walked into the living room to see the same spread of decorations, with just a few more presents added to the table.

“How was school?” their dad asked as he continued to prep dinner.

“It was okay,” Ludwig replied.

Gilbert set his bag down next to the bookcase. “Oh! You guys need to hear this! Today Arthur actually wore colour. It was horrifying.”

Ludwig had heard of Gilbert speak of Arthur and how he only wore black or wore mostly black with a bit of colour. He had called him ‘emo’. Ludwig still had no idea what that meant.

“Really? What was he wearing?” Ludwig questioned.

“He wore blue jeans with rips in them and a green shirt. It was so surreal! I had to ask Antonio if I was having a stroke.”

“Did you find out why?” Dad asked.

“Well Francis went up and complimented him, then said that maybe he wasn’t completely hopeless after all. Then Arthur got defensive and said it was because most of his clothes were dirty. So, this is probably just a onetime thing.”

“He could have been lying because he was embarrassed,” Ludwig suggested.

“Could be.”

Gilbert had told Ludwig all about his friends’ crushes. How Francis really liked Arthur and Arthur probably really liked him back because of how he acted towards him, but they were too stubborn to tell each other. Didn’t want to be the first to admit it. Ludwig had said that the logic of teenagers was dumb. Gilbert hadn’t agreed.

“Dinner will be ready soon if you want to come sit,” Dad interrupted.

Both boys went and sat at the island.

“So, what’re we having?” Gilbert said watching their father.

“Sauerbraten, potatoes, red cabbage, and knödel.”

“Hell yeah!”

A glare was sent his way.

“Sorry,” Gilbert mumbled in a tone that suggested he wasn’t.

Dad didn’t bother berating Gilbert for swearing further than the glare. While there was a no swearing rule Gilbert didn’t take it seriously. He was only easy to control if he wanted to be.

“We don’t have hats on!” Gilbert suddenly exclaimed as he jumped out of his seat. He came back a few seconds later and forced a birthday hat on both Dad and Ludwig.

Ludwig reached to take it off, but Gilbert stopped him.

“I’ll force you to wear two if you take this one off. It’s not that big a deal, just until you’re done unwrapping your presents.”

“Fine.”

****

After dinner Dad put the cake, a delicious looking one with blue icing with star shaped sprinkles, in front of Ludwig and lit the candles.

As always Ludwig felt awkward as his family sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to him. He really didn’t like being the center of attention and this was the worst kind.

“Make a wish!” Gilbert said once they had finished singing.

I wish I had just one friend.

He blew out the candles.

“What did you wish for?” their dad asked.

“You can’t ask!” Gilbert exclaimed. “It won’t come true if he tells you.”

“Alright. Well I hope it comes true.”

I hope so too.

“Of course, it will! Ludwig’s great! He deserves it to come true.” Gilbert leaned down and hugged him.

Ludwig struggled to get him away. “Let go.”

Instead Gilbert picked him up and carried him into the living room.

“Put me down! What about my cake?”

“I’ll get you a piece so we can eat it while you’re unwrapping presents.”

“Why can’t I just eat the cake then do presents?” he implored.

His brother set him down on the couch. “Cause I’m getting impatient. I want to see your reaction to my gift.” He jogged back over to the kitchen and grabbed two slices of cake. Then came back, their dad following much more slowly behind him, and gave Ludwig the bigger of the two slices.

Good.

First Gilbert gave him his card. Strangely it wasn’t a joke card, for once it was sentimental. “Thank you.”

“I haven’t even given you your gifts yet. You can thank me after.” Once he was done looking over the card Gilbert then grabbed a present wrapped in black wrapping paper with white paw prints printed all over it. “This ones from me!”

“I guessed.” He took the present from him and started to unwrap it carefully, not wanting to make a huge mess. Not unsurprised to see that it was clothing. Two shirts to be exact.

Gilbert took one of them and held it up against his chest to show that it said ‘big brother’ on it. Every year his brother got Ludwig and himself a new matching set of shirts with something along the lines of ‘big brother’ and ‘little brother’ written on them. It had become a sort of tradition. This year the words were in big white letters written in cursive over a blue shirt. A number two on the back of his.

“When will you stop buying these for us?” They didn’t even wear them all that often. They always wore them the day after his birthday, then maybe if Gilbert remembered they would wear them again a few more times. Ludwig usually just shoved his in a box in his closet.

“When you finally stop growing. Then they’ll be pink and have crowns on them.”

“If you do that, I’m donating them.”

Gilbert smirked.

“What’s the real present you wanted to give me?” Ludwig asked, trying to change the subject.

Gilbert reached into the pile again and this time handed Ludwig a wrapped-up box with a bow.

Ludwig untied the bow, then once the paper was off, he opened the box and pulled out a frame. Looking at it he saw that it was a picture of him and Gilbert on the swings in the park wearing their raincoats, laughing at some dumb joke Gilbert had made.

He smiled fondly, if he remembered the day correctly this had been a few months ago back in April when all three of them had gone to the park. Gilbert had challenged Ludwig to see who could swing the highest. Gilbert had obviously won, what with his legs being much longer. After wearing themselves out Gilbert had tried talking but his voice had cracked. What with him being winded and the added change to his voice it sounded silly. Instead of getting bashful as most would Gilbert had pretended to be a dying bird.

Ludwig leaned over and gave Gilbert a hug. “I really like it.”

“Ya, Antonio helped me carve the frame and Francis helped me pick out colours for it. But the idea was all mine!”

Ludwig looked at the picture again and payed more attention to the frame. It had a little rain cloud carved on one side. The blue of the frame matching Ludwig’s coat and the cloud matching the clouds in the picture.

“It’s really good.”

“Thanks, but you know me, I’m shit at art. Most of it was Antonio.”

“Music is art so you’re not all bad at it.”

Gilbert shrugged and handed him another present. “This is my last one then Dad’ll give you his.”

Ludwig unwrapped it to find a husky webkinz.

“Whatcha gonna name him?” Gilbert asked making room on the couch so Dad could sit with them.

“Snowy.”

“Coolio.”

His dad sat next to him and handed him a gift along with a card. This one was also in a box, but it was bigger than the one Gilbert had given him. Ludwig opened the envelop and read the card before he unwrapped the gift, discovering that it was a toy airplane that he had to build.

“It comes with a few paints so you can choose what colour it’s going to be.”

“Thank you.” He couldn’t wait to make and play with it. Maybe he would try and paint it like one of the planes from his history books.

Dad then handed him another present. “This is the last one.”

“Okay.” He opened it and saw a light brown bear wearing a blue shirt that said, ‘Happy Birthday’, blue jeans, and green and grey shoes.

“Thank you, I really liked all of them.”

Gilbert messed up his hair again. “Good!”

Ignoring his brother, he opened the letters on the table. All from his family in Germany, except for one from Roderich and his parents who couldn’t come today. All signed from family he had never met or was introduced to once when he was too little to remember. The entire process felt more like a formality then a genuine gift. At least Gilbert knew who all these people were.

After telling him happy birthday once more his dad went upstairs to work on paperwork and Gilbert moved to the small love-seat and started playing some game on his phone.

As he sat there on the couch, he started to feel very tired all of a sudden. Taking off his birthday hat he laid down and wondered if and when his wish would come true.

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