#pretty big maybe though. i gotta figure out the logistics and all

[quitedisastrous]

drew the most delightful fat anthro tiger because i had the idea to do a tiger pops themed design just to fumble around for a few hours and give up because i don't know how to deal with both the color mixing of the tiger pop and the tiger stripes. sucks but i can always come back to it later i guess. bigger issue is now i have to decide if i want to leave my beautiful lines for it or if i should just figure out another theme

[gveret-fic]

A lil fic in which Gideon showers with her clothes on, changes in the dark, applies her face paint out of a manual, and doesn't touch herself ever. Well. Hardly ever.

HtN spoilers ahead!

---

A bit anticlimactic, if you ask me, after slaying brain melting horror bees and swimming right out of hell, for my next great big challenge to be trying to figure out how to take a dump in a prudish little nun’s body without compromising its modesty.

Not to put too fine a point on it or anything, my sombre bathroom break micromanager, but you really didn’t stick the landing on this one. You had a letter for basically every contingency, like you had one for if God sneezed really hard and blew out the sun, I’m pretty sure, and then mine was basically just ‘fuck you, return to sender’. You just went and parked your porsche in my landing pad with the blasters still on and didn’t even bother to leave the DRY CLEANING ONLY tag on the upholstery. I had to come up with a virtue-preserving game plan all on my lonesome, you know.

And I've been such a good girl, Harrow, you'd be proud. Well, at least you'd be such an unexpectedly small, tiny, miniscule, astonishingly negligible amount of pissed off that it's basically pride at that point, right.

Don't get me wrong, it was a logistical nightmare. Ever tried to shower in multiple robes plus what I must assume are, like, pantaloons? The sonic flaps it all the fuck around, and let me tell you, getting spanked by heavy Ninth vestments is now officially off my kink list. Now, the other option is wet dog trapped in straightjacket, and I'm not too keen on that one either. But I stuck with it. It takes like 20 minutes, no joke, to struggle out of all your stupid layers in the dark, with my eyes closed, without touching any of your most hallowed skin. But I've got a knack for it now, you know? If I ever get the chance to get a lil frisky, maybe with a hot ghost or something I don't know, I can totally impress her with my wild 100% contact free striptease skills.

What I'm saying is, I've been such a super duper chaste and meticulous and ephemeral little make believe nun it's like I was never even here. So you gotta take that into consideration, Harrow, when you pass your terrible judgment once I tell you how I've sinned.

So, it happened when I was putting your face paint on. It wasn’t half bad, either. Really, it was half good. I’ve been practicing. I found this horrible little book full of the gnarliest, creepiest, just most hideous skull faces, and they all had these pretentious titles like The Palm of the Storm or The Young Boy’s Booger. Just your style, basically.

But I was looking at your face in the mirror—that’s the way paint application goes, Harrow, don’t pout—and I got stuck on your pinched, bloodless lips for some reason, and I forgot for a moment that it was me in your muscles, and I just thought, wow, you looked so sad. You always looked so goddamn sad, and no one ever did a fucking thing about it, least of all you, and in that moment I was so angry about it, I could smack you.

So naturally I reached out and I brushed your knuckle gently over your cheek. And lo, I wasn’t struck down on the spot. That gave me a bit of a confidence boost, I suppose. I ran your thumb under your eye, just a little avuncular half circle while thinking just the purest fucking thoughts, and it came away wet.

Really got you going, that one little barely there swipe. You needed this real bad, Nonagesimus. I needed this, too. We were gagging for it. We were crying for it. I needed you to be touched gently, so bad, and I needed even badder to be the one doing the touching. I knew you wouldn't want that, of course, don't feel the need to defend your honor. This was my best compromise, okay? I didn't have a lot to work with. This way you wouldn't really be touched and I wouldn't really be touching, but maybe we'd both get a little something out of it anyway.

This is maybe a good time to confess those thoughts weren't so totally super pure. They were maybe a little muddier, a little earthier, you know. Harrow, listen, I've been thinking a lot about your body, what with living in it for months and having only the one made up magazine to look at and being balls to the wall in love and all. Sorry. So when I tell you I've been thinking about running my fingertip over your eyebrow from glabella to sphenoid, what I'm saying is I've fantasized about the texture of each one of your big black goddamn eyebrow hairs so much my finger's never not tingly anymore. And when I wiped your eye with a tiny knuckle and ran that smooth little fingertip along your real ass eyebrow, Harrow, there was a definite fucking tingle, and I didn't fucking stop.

I traced the smooth plane of your frontal bone, the proud arch of your brow ridge. I dragged your fingertips over your temple and into the mass of your sweaty, overlong hair. The side of your finger grazed the shell of your ear, and you shivered—your ears are so sensitive, Nonageaimus, I thought this stuff only happened in porn—and I felt the full, terrifying shape of your skull in my hand. I cupped the back of your sore-ass neck in a palm and I squeezed just a little, just to let us know we were held, and I worked our fingertips into those nonexistent traps that still somehow managed to be clenched tighter than a stoma that's munched down on one too many emperors. I kneaded them good until they loosened just a bit, and we were still crying like a little bitch.

I squeezed your shoulder, the clavicle pressing sharply into our palm, and I stroked down your bicep, which did not deserve the name, by the way, and I brushed the inside of your elbow and I dragged the underside of your bitten fingernails up your forearm and over that terrifyingly delicate wrist and your doll sized soft palm and then I held your fucking hand.

Yeah, I laced our fucking fingers together, Harrow. Eat me.

I could feel your heart beating in our interdigital folds, I was holding your hand so hard and so intertwiney. And we were definitely feeling some kind of way just then. I had to sit down on your bony ass, your eyes leaking, your shoulders shaking, as I was having just the most mortifying little breakdown over holding my own hand.

I'm sorry, Harrow. I wanted to hug you a lot, these past few months. There were so many moments I wanted to reach outside of you, all like blerghgrgh sudden gorgeous beefy arm bursting out of your stomach to smack Shittier Gideon in the balls or give Shittier Tridentarius a purple nurple. I wanted to give you a pat on the head, tell you've been a good good doggie and you can take a lil break now. Wanted to rub your shoulders and arms all over, force a bit of warmth into em even if I've given up on muscle. Wanted to brace the heel of my palm at the small of your back, squeeze your hips and pull em back, run a hand along that spine to make it proud again, just to give you some support, just to see you stand up straight. Wanted to rub the frown right off your brow, poke your lil cheeks and make you snarl, give you something nice and tough to bite on. But mostly I just wanted to hold you.

I wanted to wrap you tight, so that you'd become a compact little package with well defined edges and maybe then you could open it all up and let it out. Only in my big stupid arms, I'd think selfishly, like some sort of grand duke of self delusion, would you finally feel safe enough to cry.

Nah. Who was I kidding? It was me who was crying. It was me who wanted to be comforted, to be touched kindly, to have her hand held, and it was only me who was getting anything out of doing this stupid weird creepy bullshit. I wasn't giving you shit, Nonagesimus. I just wanted to hold your hand.

I didn't let go, though. Again, Harrow, sorry. Your body didn't care that it was only you, only me. Your skin and your flesh and all those bits you didn't care about wanted this too, probably. The pressure, and the warmth, the illusion or the weird roundabout reality of another person who cares about you. Maybe I'm making excuses again. But I care about you, Harrow. You'll believe that much, won't you? I care about your body. I care about all the non-skeleton parts of you, even. Baffling, I know.

So I sat on your ass, and I bent your head over our joined hands, and I cried, and I didn't let go.

[darkpoisonouslove]

Sparks of Life Opera Edition

I am still not over Singing a New Tune so I am going to recap for you the experience of writing that fic because there were many interesting moments over the course of those three days. Lemme start from the beginning.

- So I’m writing a fic that mostly focuses on sexual stuff but it is also mainly happening in an opera so my first order of business is to figure out what that opera is. Both the building itself and the show they’ll be watching. Because that is of utmost importance.

- I have already mentioned that SoL is located in New York so I looked up New York operas. I do not vibe with research most of the time but I vibe even less with having to come up with names for any kind of thing so research was definitely the choice here.

- I somehow get results about operas that are in the other end of the USA. That was not great. I get to the Metropolitan Opera House at last (which I might have known existed if I cared about opera in any way, shape or form) which is great! I am so close to starting the fic! Just need to figure out what opera they’re watching. Because I need that for reasons.

- I end up downloading a PDF with the seatings inside the Met Opera so that I can figure out where the hell they will be seating. But I leave that for later. I look through the actual plays that they’re having while absolutely failing with the navigation of their site. I find a show that catches my eye. It’s called The Magic Flute. I have zero idea what it’s about so I read the Wikipedia summary just to be aware. It mentions that a character has a moment when he’s singing about his search for a wife and I think “Perfect! Foreshadowing!” (since this is set pretty early on in Griffin and Valtor’s relationship).

- I decide to look up the opera and see if I can find a part of it on youtube to figure out how it will sound. I am pretty sold on it already because of the summary I read and also because it implies there is magic as a subject in it which would call back to canon. Still, I look it up. I find a full version of it on the internet with English subtitles... It is 2 hours and 35 minutes:

- “Wow, okay... that’s a bit much. But hey, it has got subtitles in English. Maybe I’d actually watch that... once I’m done with the fic. I’m just gonna listen to a little bit while I finish my research, though, so I can have an idea of what it sounds like.”

- Now it’s time to open the engagement fic - Enough to Be Yours - because I don’t remember what year they got engaged in and I need that to reverse engineer the year in which this fic is taking place so that I can make sure that The Magic Flute was being performed back then. I don’t have an year stated in the engagement fic, though. I have a date - 9th October which is Friday and that means the year is 2015. Great! So I need to figure out if they were performing The Magic Flute back in 2010. Great.

- That takes a shit ton of time and nerves as it turns out. I spent over 4 hours just researching the logistics for this fic and a lot of that was unnecessary but I’m getting ahead of myself.

- I cannot find out whether they were performing the Magic Flute in 2010. I get results of it being broadcast in English (for the first time, I believe) in 2012 but that is way too late for this fic to be happening. Also, they are speaking of a broadcast which just doesn’t work for me. So I am having a hard time over here.

- I find a list of the new titles in 2011 but nothing mentions The Magic Flute as far as I can see.

- I am now considering switching to another opera. I see an opera that is based on events from The Song of the Nibelungs (I cannot be assed to go back and check what the actual title was). That catches my eye because I have read a book that was titled The Ring of the Nibelungs, I believe, and I kinda remember stuff from it... which is what makes me hesitate because that was a big tragedy.

- Meanwhile, I have stumbled upon a trailer for The Magic Flute:

MY GOD IS THAT BEAUTIFUL! THOSE PROPS ARE FUCKING GORGEOUS! WHAT THE HELL DO YOU MEAN THAT YOU GET TO GO AND SEE THAT LIVE? THAT IS NUTS! (Also, when I mentioned paper birds (I think they are) in the fic, I meant the ones shown in 0:13, not the big one in the beginning but HOLY SHIT, DID YOU SEE THAT THING????? HOW IS THAT REAL?!?!?!?! IT IS SO FUCKING AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I CAN’T. I AM DYING. THIS IS JUST TOO BEAUTIFUL.)

- I somehow happen upon an old archive of the opera (idk how I did that but I bookmarked it in case I’ll need it again) that has information about plays going back as far as the year 1900. This is nuts! I am in too deep but I can’t pull myself away. I’ve gotten this far, I will see it through.

- I search for keyword “flute” and I get results. Some of them are pretty old but I finally find what I need. Performances of the Magic Flute in 2010! Bingo!

-  ...Oh, wait, they’re all around Christmas and New Year’s Eve. Hmm... when will it be okay for them to go? I mean, Valtor has been established to have zero free time around that time of the year and I can’t see them going on the 24th or the 31st... Oh, those are matinees. Definitely no! I need them to go in the evening. And some of these are broadcasts which doesn’t work for me either.

- I looked up earlier years as well. I considered another opera again. I decided to switch up the timeline a little. It makes sense if it’s in 2009. I think they had spring performances of The Magic Flute then. Or was it 2008? Anyway, I finally settle on an early April date in 2009 (I think). Now that that’s settled, let’s go back to the seats.

- First I need to figure out what floor (let’s say) of the opera they’re on. I was thinking of the last one first (family circle) but the boxes (I figure those seats will be safest for their activities) look like this:

which isn’t vibing with me because they would be in the front row and it seems more visible. So I relocate to the previous floor (balcony) that looks like this:

That works a little better although there’s the danger of having more people in their box. But they’re sitting in box 14, seats 5 (Griffin) and 6 (Valtor) (where the arrow is pointing) and there’s only one man in seat 4 in front of them. So that is the best I can do.

- Wow, all that’s finally figured out. I decide to do all the rest of the research up front in order to be able to just write after that and not stop for another 4 hours. More on those other things later BUT I get to the part where I need to pick a vibrator and... well, I done fucked up.

- First thing that comes up for a remote controlled vibrator is Lush, of course. And I am immediately sold because it has a sound activated setting which Valtor will definitely love to utilize while in the opera.

BUT

Lush 2 (which is the first one to have the sound activated setting, I believe) came out in 2018. Even if we accept that Lush also has it, that came out in 2015. My fic is set in 2009. Searching for 2009 vibrators literally went no where so in the end I decided that the SoL verse is actually set in a parallel universe where time is a little warped so the Lush 2 is out in 2009. Plus, that way there isn’t going to be a pandemic in future installments. Overall, that works. Except that I needn’t have been so thorough with my opera research beforehand. Oh, well. It’s finally time to start writing.

- How do you write? How do you start a fic? One word in front of the other? Oh, okay, never mind. Lipstick is a girl’s best friend. Let’s start from there. And a kiss that leads to the discussion of lipstick... Damn, I forgot to spend one more hour on researching what kind of lipstick Griffin would have worn. Shame! You don’t get that detail now. I believe I didn’t even mention a shade.

- Oh, wait. Need for his breath to taste like something. Hmm, let’s see. Tonic water? Yeah, that sounds about right. Never mind that he should have probably drunk it right before getting out of the car to kiss her if it was still lingering on his breath. I mean, that’s not impossible. Just improbable.

- He’s also wearing cologne, right? Gotta research that too. How else would I get this:

and zero idea what it actually smells like despite the description. Also, did not check if that was a thing in 2009 but the story now exists in a vacuum so who cares.

- Apparently, Griffin doesn’t own any golden bracelets even though she does have a golden necklace? Or she could have a golden bracelet, just not one she likes for the current situation? Anyway, I wanted to mention Ediltrude as well because the twins always go together and that was the best I came up with. (That said, I didn’t need to put the mentions of them one sentence apart.)

- My god, I used a semicolon! That feels illegal. I sure hope I used that bitch correctly.

- Okay, I absolutely love all the banter and just flow in the car. Idk how I did that since it’s such a constricted space but I am really proud of it. However, the logistics were sometimes hard to logic my way through. I mean, Valtor doesn’t get to look at her a lot and I had to employ a red traffic light to give him the chance to do so.

- I hit a wall about three paragraphs later. Things started going in a weird direction. I was considering even deleting the last two lines but then I managed to get back on track thanks to having figured out how they met and I decided to write a little bit about that without spoiling it (that will be a fic of its own some day). Suffice it to say it was a meet-very-ugly. But it bailed me out. Also, they got over it so it’s all good.

- And now... that paragraph. You know which one I’m talking about. It stands out with the locations I’ve given. That paragraph required 30 minutes of looking at Google Earth to figure it out and I still nearly got it wrong. At that point it occurred to me that they’ll need a place to park. I mean, idk how parking is in NYC but it’s probably not the way it is in Bulgaria especially on small neighborhood streets where it’s just... park wherever (even in front of a garage if you’re brazen enough and don’t fear having your tires slashed). So first, I was going to have them coming down Tenth Avenue and passing by the backside of the Opera which is not ideal for me because I needed Griffin to figure out they’re going to the opera so that they can have the following dialogue. But there is the New York Public Library of the Performing Arts right next door so I figure Griffin will recognize the area if it’s next to a library. And I have them almost at the garage but... that’s not looking right. This garage is on 65th Street and mine is on 62nd... I have been looking at the wrong garage for the past hour. Now that I have caught that mistake, things get easier. They just drive right past the facade of the opera, take a right turn and then enter the garage. Easy peasy. For whoever’s actually paying attention to the map.

- They’re in the garage now and I have to write another kiss. Shoot! I do not vibe with writing kisses. Writing sex scenes is much easier. But I’ll try my best because this is a little bit necessary if we’re dealing with an insertion of a vibrator in a public bathroom one minute from now. (Again, logistics!) I actually went back to add in a little discomfort during the kiss (but not too much because they’re consumed with each other anyway and probably missed something) just to make it more realistic. They can’t be comfortable in the car. Also, you have got to love how I never even thought of what make the car is. But I did stop to research the tinting of the car windows.

- Now this is extremely funny but I would have had zero idea that there are different laws about how tinted your car windows can be in the USA if I hadn’t read a very extensive critique of Fifty Shades (whichever part it was that had that info). So I look up the VLT for New York and it says 70%. Great! Then it won’t be that visible through the windows what they’re doing inside. Oh, wait! VLT means Visible Light Transmission aka 70% of the light should be passing through the window. Aka it is only tinted on 30%. This much:

That’s practically nothing. You can see everything through it. Welp, then someone’s gonna see, I guess.

- Can’t believe I didn’t stop to look up clutches either. (Lmao, I was calling it a purse instead of a clutch at first even though I definitely meant a clutch. And then I remembered that clutch existed as a word. Who would’ve thought?) It’s baffling trying to figure out why my brain was prioritizing some details over others and I just genuinely have no idea what was going on.

- Griffin is blushing a lot in this. Can you tell I have no idea how else to convey Valtor giving her feelings through body language?

- I first envisioned the box being opened by the hair pin by turning it like a key. Only later did I realize that that wouldn’t be possible because the pin has two parts (whatever they’re called) and that would make turning it impossible unless all of the base fits into one hole in the lid of the box. So I had to adapt my vision to using the extensions at the ends of the hair pin like a hook that pulls the lid up once it’s clicked free. I have zero idea how that would be done but I’m sure it can be done. So yeah, anyway, the pin looks like this but with attachments at the ends to open the box:

- I might have gone a little overboard with Griffin’s reaction to having the vibrator inside her. I might have made her a bit too embarrassed but I still think that she simply wouldn’t appreciate someone knowing about what she considers a private experience (despite the very public setting).

- And I am being overly specific again with the seats but I worked for that information so you’re getting it against your will!

- Speaking of, that man in their box was pretty ignored throughout the fic. But then again Griffin wasn’t overflowing with lucidity. She is sure to have missed... A Lot, actually.

- My apologies (once again) to @her-majesty-wears-jeans​ for not letting Griffin punch Valtor in the face for the terrible pun he was about to make but I thought that that would ruin the mood so I had to skip it.

- I might have imagined things a little differently but then consent factored in and I had to change things up so that Griffin is clearly on board with everything. I hope it came through that way at least. She is on board even if she is very, very frustrated. She would never throw the bet just because it’s difficult for her. Though, I’m taking note for future fics of maybe being a little bit more explicit about the enjoyment of all parties involved. I just couldn’t really think of a way to convey it better back then and I am coming up with several ideas now and I will try to keep them in mind for future fics.

- I keep going back and forth on just how far into their relationship this is. Sometimes it feels like it’s not enough time for them to get this familiar with each other and sometimes it feels like too much for them to still be skirting their feelings for each other like that. Will update when I make up my mind about how long exactly it has been.

- In retrospect, probably should have picked up an opera that people would be less likely to bring their children to (as brought to my attention by @her-majesty-wears-jeans​). I apologize for this. Did not consider it at all.

- A wild tangent about Griffin’s sexual experiences before Valtor popped up (for the second time now). This is giving me thoughts and I am not even sure if I’ll manage to get them all out in the bachelorette party fic. Oh, no, I am getting ideas again.

- God, I had to mention those paper birds because I adore them. Also, needed to do a time skip somehow (sure hope they don’t show up at the very end or the very beginning).

- So there are some things about the whole thing with the suit jacket that if you squint, you’ll miss the very far-fetched and convoluted ways in which I could make them make sense but again, it isn’t impossible to make them operate according to logic so good enough.

- And now for the dress:

I thought it would be reasonable for Griffin to own something like that. It doesn’t look overly expensive or dramatic.

- I swear that most of the 2% angst was an accident. Griffin was supposed to say the “You paid how much for tickets exactly just so you could fool around?” line but the following few paragraphs sprang on me out of nowhere. That was where I left it off the first day I was working on it and I wasn’t sure how to continue it. Then the angst happened.

- I do not believe the retaliation part was planned but would it really be a Griffin x Valtor story if something like that hadn’t happened? XD

- “reverberated”, “multitudinous” and “unobtainable” are probably not words that Griffin’s muddled mind would go to in that precise moment but everything else I came up with for them just did not sound right.

- I completely forgot the word for neckline and was so mad at myself for that but, luckily, I managed to remember it before posting the fic. I believe the original read “he slipped a finger under the fabric of her dress, running it over the top of her breast” which is not incorrect but just not precise enough for my liking.

- Sure hope the shortened version of the opera did not cut out the ending musical sequence. But that seems unlikely.

- The idea was running overly long in my head by having them going back to the penthouse so that I could have the scene where he picked her up so I decided to move things around and have him carry her bridal style on their way from the opera to the car. It’s not like she didn’t earn it.

- Pretty sure I had planned something a little different for the last several lines of dialogue but I couldn’t remember what so we get this. Which isn’t a disadvantage. I mean, Griffin is already thinking of marrying him. XD (That’s probably a bit of a stretch at the current status of their relationship but then again, she was thinking of a wedding, not necessarily of their wedding even though I’m clearly a little romance gargoyle that meant exactly that.)

- Originally, Valtor was supposed to floor the brakes while they were out in the NYC traffic but then I decided that doing it while still in the garage with only one car behind them and both vehicles driving at a very slow speed was a lot safer so I switched to that. It also saved me writing more words which was appreciated. I thought this fic would be a bit shorter.

- I was at a loss for how many orgasms Griffin should want from him but then the commitment line happened and that was all avoided.

[official-impravidus]

Just A Kiss (i don’t wanna mess this thing up)

Peter had been a fan fiction writer for quite some time. When he was in middle school, his schedule balancing robotics club, band, and AcaDec, he needed a creative outlet that wasn’t rigidly confined by STEM or saxophone repetoire.

So, he found himself writing stories.

They weren’t good. They were actually quite horrendous at first, but he expressed his love for the Star Wars stories, exploring character interactions in as many ways as he could imagine. He made canon divergent fix-it fics and cringey OC fics and even modern high school AUs.

However, as he grew older, his skills blossomed, just from the sheer magnitude that he wrote.

Every day, when he got back from his extracurriculars, already having finished his homework during school, he would find himself at the chunky computer he had rebuilt from garbage scraps, typing away until Ben called him for dinner, and then back at the keyboard when he finished washing the dishes.

It wasn’t until Spider-Man entered his life did his stories really get somewhere.

Peter had become known for his hyper-realistic, extremely detailed action sequences. After a particularly long patrol, he took notes on form and the choreography of it all, the different way that the criminals attempted to fight against him.

Of course, he took a lot of creative liberty to adapt the fights to fit his characters, but people appreciated the ebb and flow, how it didn’t focus on the gore, but instead the intricacies of technique and battle preparation.

But, his modest AO3 following wasn’t something that he broadcasted in his real life. There were enough reasons for people to make fun of Peter Parker, and he didn’t want to add to the list.

So, after almost a year of knowing Harley Keeer, Peter didn’t think to mention it.

Harley was great. He was really, really, really great, and Peter didn’t want to ruin what he could only hope was respect and mutual friendship that he shared with Harley by divulging his deepest, darkest secret with him. (Because despite what one would think, Spider-Man was not his deepest, darkest secret.)

Because Peter maybe, just maybe, just maybe a teensy tiny little bit, had a big, fat, embarrassing, brain-goes-offline-and-he-makes-stuttering-static-noises-when-he-tries-to-talk crush on Harley.

Harley was effortless charismatic. He was funny in a dry and sarcastic kind of way that could keep up banter for what felt like hours. He was kind in a genuine benevolent generosity kind of way. He was intelligent, and he made it very clear that he was competent and capable. He was confident, unwavering and strong. And he was really pretty. Sparkling blue eyes and soft, bouncy blonde hair, and a crooked smile.

So, sue him! Harley was dreamy and exactly Peter’s type.

So, when Harley approached him one morning, Peter slurping down a mango smoothie, saying “hey, Peter, so I was checking out your AO3,” was it really his fault that he snorted it out of his nose and coughed for a good two minutes in pure shock and also so he could delay the conversation as much as he could?

Class started before Harley could bring it up again that day.

But Peter knew it was coming.

The two were lounging in Harley’s room, Peter at his desk finishing his research essay for AP Lit, and Harley lying on the carpeted floor, scrolling silently on his phone.

“I just finished “ Thnks Fr Th Mmrs (even if they weren’t so bad) ,” Harley announced.

Peter choked. “ What ?!”

“Yeah, it took me a good couple hours because I mean, Jesus, 236,000 words, but I finished, and I gotta say, wasn’t expecting that ending.”

Peter swiveled around in the rollie chair. “How did you find my AO3?”

“It’s linked on your Tumblr,” Harley said with a shrug. “Anyways, I know that it was tagged major character death, but killing off Rey like that, I mean, that was heartbreaking. I felt physical pain in my chest while reading that. I didn’t even know a book could do that.”

“You read my fic?” Peter asked.

Harley looked to him, confused. “Yeah, I said that didn’t I? I’ve been reading your whole page, though it’s gonna take me some time because you’ve got like at least a million words total.” He scrolled through. “I started from your earliest fics because I figured they’ll just get better the further I get, and I’m about fifteen fics in because that last one was so long, and I don’t have that much free time…”

“Why are you reading my fics?” Peter blurted out.

“Because you wrote them?” Harley responded, as if the answer was obvious. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“It’s… it’s embarrassing.”

“I mean, yeah, your earlier work had some formatting issues with the dialogue and some grammar mix ups, but I wouldn’t say it’s embarrassing. If anything, it’s really well written. Thnks Fr Th Mmmrs got a lot better as it went on.”

“That was my first multi-chap,” Peter said.

“You could tell. At least, at first you could. But like I said, it got better as it went on.”

“You liked it?”

Harley tilted his head. “Yeah. I did. You’re a really talented writer, Peter.” He looked to him with confusion and a hint of hurt. “Why didn’t you ever tell me about this? Did you not trust me? Did you think I was going to make fun of you?”

“No!” Peter said quickly. “Well, I… I just, people think it’s weird. And that I’m weird. And it’s just one more weird thing, and I just didn’t want you to think I was weird.”

“I could never think you were weird,” Harley said softly.

Peter ducked his head, averting his gaze. “So, uh, do you have any notes? The feedback is pretty mixed in my comments, but usually the criticism I receive isn’t quite constructive.”

“Well, your action scenes are impeccable,” Harley said. “You really know how to capture movement. And the team dynamics are spot on. The build of trust and eventual camaraderie doesn’t feel rushed at all, and as a reader, is really fulfilling and satisfying.”

“But?” Peter prompted.

“But,” Harley continued, “the non-platonic relationships are lacking.”

Peter bobbed his head in understanding, hand going to rub the back of his neck. “Yeah…” He sighed. “It’s just, it’s hard, y’know? Because I’ve never… I mean, the closest I ever got was with Liz, and you know how that ended up.”

Harley sat on the edge of his bed. “Have you tried reading it more?”

“I just don’t tend to read that stuff. I’m not… it’s just not as interesting to me because I don’t get it. And that’s the problem. I just don’t get this stuff. Even if I did, I wouldn’t be good at it enough to really retain that information,” Peter said with a pathetic shrug.

“What do you have trouble with?” Harley asked, leaning forward, invested and curious.

“It’s the physical side of things. I don’t… in theory, I get how the feelings should feel. But, getting the logistics of stuff like how it feels when they finally break that physical barrier or how a kiss should be described, I just, I’m hopeless.”

“Well, I could help you?”

Peter looked up. “What?”

“I could show you. And explain it to you. Show you how it should be written.”

Click Here to Read More!

[neshabeingchildish]

The Swellview Shut In

This is for Pearl @pearlselegancies, though I don’t know if she’ll feel up to reading at the moment. I do want to preface it by saying that it involves the quarantine, but not in a sad and negative way (mostly). Really, I wanted to do more of a focus on the good things in life/friendship/found family and bonding type of premise. Hopefully, she enjoys this and anyone else who reads, too.

Charlotte Page: Student Mentor - The Swellview Shut In

A sickness was sweeping over the globe. Charlotte figured that it wouldn’t get to Swellview. Nothing ever really reached Swellview, but apparently, this was everywhere, because whenever Jasper showed up to her house in the morning, he had on gloves, a mask and was carrying a cleaning caddy in his hand. “What is up with this?” She wondered.

“The sickness has made it to Swellview, they’re closing school for at least two weeks!” He said. Then, he pulled out a can of disinfectant and began spraying her door and her things.

“There’s no school today?” She asked. 

“Oh, no… There IS, but it’s only so that we can go in and grab our things, then they are promptly shutting the doors until further notice. Come on, I have stuff in my locker and I know that you do too.”

“If there’s really something going around, isn’t it stupid for them to even have the school open?”

“They were going to straight up close, but a lot of parents and stuff made a big deal about stuff like devices that teachers took up and locker possessions, so they had to open for that, but they’re like, setting up handwashing stations in the front and stuff. Do you not watch the news?” 

The school didn’t have handwashing stations set up at the front of the building, but there were handwritten signs reminding everyone to wash their hands before and after touching things. Charlotte went to her locker and emptied it into her bag, still not fully believing that it was necessary, but taking her stuff, just in case. She texted Henry to see if he was going to do the same. He had no idea what she was even talking about. She texted Piper and moments later, the freshman met her at her locker. 

“They’re kicking us out of school for at least two weeks! What do they expect me to do for breakfast and lunch? Eat the food at home? That’s way more expensive! Henry is gonna flip. Can I stay at your house?” Piper made prayer hands. Charlotte thought about it for a moment. Her parents were out of town and she did have an extra bed, but also… Her parents would flip out if she invited someone over in the middle of a possible pandemic… “Tell them it’s for charity!” Piper squealed, knowing by now how Charlotte’s mind worked. 

At that moment, Jasper walked up to the two of them and handed his cleaning caddy to Piper, “You need to sanitize and gear up,” he said. “Gloves, mask. Charlotte REFUSED, like a fool.” Piper sighed and furrowed her eyebrows, then dropped the caddy on the floor, letting it spill products, to Jasper’s dismay. He rushed to collect them and also told Charlotte, “Char, I’ve gotta quarantine at your place.”

“What? No,” she said. “I’m not gonna have you and Piper at my house while my parents are gone and school is out!” Charlotte said.

Piper squealed, “You’re letting me stay!” and she bounced up and down.

Jasper stood up, with his products collected and asked, “You’re shutting me out? Ugh. Charlotte. You know that I can’t stay at my house for something like this. I spent hours cleaning up last night and barely made a dent. My mom’s not working again. This morning, the threw her empty ice cream pint right onto the recliner next to the couch she’s been sleeping on. I JUST cleared all of the trash off yesterday! I don’t want the illness in my space, Charlotte. LOOK AT ME!” She looked at him. He really appeared to be freaking out about the possibility of germs. 

She sighed, “I’ll ask my parents, Jasper.” She wrapped an arm around Piper and said, “Come on. Let’s go get you some clothes from home.”

“TOO MUCH TOUCHING!” Jasper said and began to spray both of them with disinfectant, until Piper punched him in the ribs. “OUCH!”

“Jasper… tone down,” Charlotte said.

“She literally just punched me!”

“After you assaulted us with disinfectant!”

“For your own good!” Jasper said.

.

Piper let them into her house and was surprised to see Henry there. “For some reason, I assumed that when they closed school, you’d rush into work,” she said. He gave her a little smile, but didn’t respond.  Charlotte raised an eyebrow and went over to him while Piper rushed upstairs to get packed. 

“So, I’m gonna take her and Jasper in for a few at my place. My parents are actually stuck overseas and the town is officially going under curfew. So, I’ll make sure she’s taken care of for a little bit. Slight bit of stress off of you, right?” He frowned and nodded. “Why do I feel like it isn’t?”

He sighed and glanced towards the stairs, before saying quietly, “I’m temporarily out of work.” Charlotte gasped. Henry was the one who kept them above water and she could tell from his face that being out of work was going to most likely really hurt them. He noticed her face and forced a smile. “Don’t worry, Babe. I’ll figure something out.” He gave her a little kiss on the forehead and she smiled, in spite of being completely worried about him and Piper. But, there was something about him calling her “Babe” that kind of… made stuff at least go under the radar for a moment. 

Their relationship was a little assumed, and not officially spoken of, but Henry was usually affectionate with her and called her “Babe,” so in her mind, they were pretty much married. In fact, she had been working out the logistics in her mind, hypothetically, for what if he came along with her whenever she left for college? Sure, it would be a struggle, but he was used to some level of that and the job market where she was going was actually better than Swellview. And, yes… They would have to bring Piper, because he certainly wouldn’t leave her to fend for herself, but she could have a fresh new start at a new school and maybe even thrive if she had a happy Henry there with her and also the mentorship of Charlotte, reaching beyond the school’s program… “Babe? You okay?” Henry wondered, cutting into her overthinking tangent.

“Yeah. You… wanna come over? Since, you’re not gonna be at work? We can maybe play video games and stuff. No school for the next few weeks. You rarely get a relaxing night.”

“Yeah, I actually want to try to see what one of those ‘good night’s sleep’ things feel like,” he said. 

Piper came downstairs with her bags and said, “Henry, bring these to Jasper’s junk heap for me. I gotta see what cleaners we have. That’s what I’m using for “gas money” while we’re out of school.” 

She dropped them on the floor by the door and Henry laughed and finally let his hand drop from Charlotte’s hip. “Guess WILL be working,” he said. 

He went to go get her stuff and she went opening cabinets, “Do we SERIOUSLY not have basic household cleaners in this place? Are we THOSE people?”

“The oldest adult in your home just turned 18 a few months ago,” Charlotte reminded her. “Don’t worry about it, though. There’s plenty of cleaner at my place and Jasper took everything from his, because his folks were never going to use it anyway.”

“Dude… Are we about to do the apocalypse like the last kids on Earth?” Piper asked, excitedly.

“We’re spending some days, maybe a couple of weeks at my house. Did you bring hobby stuff? Because you’re not gonna be able to go out and hang with your girls when you’re bored. You need like books and stuff.”

“Books? Like… in case we run out of toilet paper? I think we’ve got some, somewhere…” Piper left and Charlotte didn’t even stop her. 

Henry came back inside and Charlotte wondered, “So… Are you coming over? We might be stuck there and that might mean not seeing your sister for a few…”

He made a confused face. “You worried about me not seeing Piper, or me not seeing you?”

“I mean… Are you worried about it?” She asked, nonchalantly shrugging her shoulders.

“It’d totally suck. Let me go get some stuff packed and I’ll meet you all there.” 

“Cool,” she said. She was really cheering inside. In fact, mentally, there was an entire Glee Cheerios performance, complete with stunts as she awkwardly left the house. 

Piper came back into view and said, “Well, most of these pages are pretty rough, so I vote making Jasper use these as toilet paper whenever stock gets low…” Henry stared at her in confusion. She waved a hand and stuffed a book into a duffel bag. “That was for Charlotte’s ears. Forget I said it.” She left, too and Henry sighed. This was going to be… Interesting.

.

Jasper and Piper worked on getting everything cleaned up while Henry unpacked and brought everything to the rooms that Charlotte assigned. Jasper was fine to take the couch, but most of his stuff would have to be kept in Charlotte’s room, simply because she wasn’t going to have her parents come back to see Jasper had moved into their living room! She and Piper were in her bedroom, all of Piper’s stuff fit beneath the spare bed, so Jasper’s was in the closet. And Henry was given her parents’ room, because he was the least likely to impose on their stuff. In fact, he was so uncomfortable that he didn’t want to unpack any of his things in there, but their bathroom was amazing. He was ready to at least spend some time in that shower. 

In fact, he got into the shower after he unloaded everything from Jasper’s car. Charlotte was making a list of things that they might need - which, she felt like they were pretty stocked up for the house - but normally, 3 people lived there, and now four were and there was a different basis of need, too. Her mother told her to use the emergency credit card to stock up and to message them everyday updates on how things were, and also photos of the house. She and Jasper went to gather everything, people were really wilding at the store, like… she was shocked at their behavior. Jasper had to guard her several times, and when they finally made it out, hours had passed. 

Henry and Piper were in her room whenever they got back to the house. They both felt uncomfortable being anywhere else in the house without permission, so they were just catching up in there. But, Henry rushed to help them bring everything in once they got there. 

They all unloaded the truck and Jasper and Charlotte told them about the way that people were behaving and how much more serious it seemed after having been around them like that. Henry was bothered by the fact that people were getting rough with Charlotte and he hadn’t been there to protect her. Protecting was kind of his thing, and Charlotte was kind of his girl. 

Piper told the others, “So, I’ve planned out a movie night thing for every night this week, since we’re gonna be in here at least that long. I’m thinking that it’ll be cool to watch some apocalypse kinda stuff. Maybe some zombie stories. End of the world, dystopian mood.”

“In this climate?” Charlotte wondered.

“Especially in this climate,” Piper said. 

“I think we should have assigned chores and designated dinner making nights,” Jasper said.

“Good idea, but I don’t cook. I suck at it. It would be a waste of food.”

Charlotte said, “My mom told me to make meals, do meal prep and also freeze some meals, so I’m going to get started on that today, since it’s more people than I usually have had to do stuff like this for.”

“You’ve had to do stuff like that before?” Henry asked.

Piper chuckled, “Her parents are almost literally never home,” she said. 

“They work a lot and since I’m older now, they take on a lot more overseas ventures than when I was younger,” Charlotte explained, defensively. 

Henry furrowed his eyebrows, wondering how he didn’t know that piece of information, but then again, he and Charlotte didn’t tend to discuss family stuff. Or at least… not hers. In fact, it occurred to him that he didn’t even know what her family LOOKED like. He didn’t want to ask, but he made a mental note to look for a photo later or something. In fact, he checked her social media. Surely, she had something there. But, her social media was pretty lacking in the parental area. He did see some people with her last name, though they were all white, so he clicked on a few, just out of curiosity. He found Fiona Page, who actually had a lot of young photos of her and Charlotte and one of the posts was her wishing her daughter a great time at Future Visionaries Camp. Now, he felt the need to investigate…

Charlotte and Jasper went to the kitchen. They had a routine for things like this, and they got started on their cooking party while Piper learned the remote control to the Pages’ system and Henry sat on his phone, looking at Charlotte’s mom’s page. Charlotte was fine to leave them to that while she and Jasper made a meal. It was the first time that she had Henry over in all the time that she’d known him. Mostly… Charlotte didn’t let people into her home. Piper was the first person in a while, and even she had only been over a couple of times, and only in the past few months. Jasper was the only friend that came over kind of regularly, and that was because (she believed) that her parents saw him as a charity case, and boy were they big on those. 

.

One week of denial passed. Then, a week of realization. By the third week, they had touched base with all of the adults - her parents were going to remain overseas for now, but didn’t mind if she kept her friends there. Jasper’s parents were BOTH so sick that they could barely leave the house. Charlotte told him to just stay put and fight that urge to go help take care of them. They could always call 911 if they simply couldn’t stand it. He was no doctor and this was a pandemic. Henry’s mom had “been trying to figure out where on Earth her children were” this whole time (she was at the Hart house, had found Jake in an alley and brought him home and the two of them were going to spend the citywide quarantine there). Piper wanted to go home, but whenever Charlotte told her that she would have to stay there if she did, she opted for just staying, also; but she was very visibly upset about it. Henry spent time trying to cheer her up. His boss called to tell him that he wasn’t sure if he would even be able to reopen the store after all of this. Nobody was in a good way, except for Charlotte and her family, so she tried not to harp on the things that she was feeling too much, because she felt like it was petty in comparison to the others.

Charlotte left all of her friends in the living room after dinner to go into her room and relax for a moment. She usually had some time just before dinner to meditate and unwind from the school day, but the past few weeks, she hadn’t done so, considering the change in the house. She needed at least a couple of minutes. 

After having been there for only a moment, Henry knocked on the door and peeked in, “Hey. You okay?” He asked. She forced a smile and nodded her head. She was lighting a candle and had a record player playing in the background. “I feel like I just interrupted something. I’ll go,” he said. She didn’t stop him. He sat down outside of the door and got back onto his phone. In case somebody else came around, he’d let them know that she didn’t seem to want to be bothered at the moment. 

Charlotte went into her bathroom and drew herself a bath. She could shower tomorrow. It wasn’t like she did a whole lot today, anyway… Well… maybe she should shower afterwards, just to be safe, if there were so many germs going around that now they were getting emails about prom being cancelled and POSSIBLY graduation. That was a hit to her gut. She knew that she probably wasn’t going to win prom queen. That Bianca most likely had that in the bag, and while Charlotte got a lot more popular her senior year than previously, Bianca had been on the road to prom royalty since junior high. But graduation? That was basically robbery. That was something that she PERSONALLY looked forward to for 13 years of her life! The first day of school, she asked her teacher, “When does school end?” and they said 3:00. “Forever?” she’d asked. Well, she certainly loved learning, but going to classrooms full of other people to do it was never her favorite thing and now that she was the best of the best in her area at it… she hated the thought of not finally being front and center, standing up to say, “Nobody can force us to go to school anymore!” Though… she wouldn’t really say that and she was gonna continue to go to school, but… Graduation was just really important and the thought of not getting one was a huge loss to her! 

She cried, listening to scratchy vinyl crooning, soaking away as much of her physical stress as possible, and posted a tiny rant about losing the opportunity to have prom and a graduation ceremony, and then just let it all out before taking a shower, doing her hair and resurfacing for her friends to let them know that she was going to go to bed and also to remind them to try to get some rest themselves.

She made it to the living room, where they all appeared to be having like crafts time or something - weird, but maybe not since they were quarantined. She furrowed her eyebrows in confusion, then said, “Um… I’m gonna go to bed. Probably like lay down and read or something. You all should try to get some sleep too.”

Henry had a pile of flowers he was toying around with until she began speaking, then he looked up and wondered, “Can I tuck you in?”

“I guess?” She said, laughing a little bit. He set down his craft materials and went with her. “You all look awfully busy with… crafts?”

“Yeah. We’re workin’ on something big,” he said, smiling. She wanted to ask him what, but she was actually exhausted from worrying and crying, so she kissed him goodnight and went to bed, opting for a book instead of reading on her phone, because she really didn’t want to see another mention of the quarantine, the virus, or the panic surrounding these things. 

.

She was always the first one up, out of all of them. The few times she’d crashed at Henry’s, she learned that. Today was an exception, though. Whenever she got up, she noted first that Piper wasn’t in the spare bed, but figured that she probably slept on the couch, because that was where the TV was and she loved TV almost as much as she loved social media. Charlotte turned on some music, went to brush her teeth and did morning stretches. She went to the living room, excited to start the day out with her friends, but paused whenever she got there and Piper was hissing at Jasper that he was hanging it wrong. She stood for a moment, taking in the room. There were these individual sheets of paper, with string connecting them to make a banner and each page was a letter, for a banner that read “HOUSE PROM.” 

“I have to be careful with it, or it’s going to tear!” Jasper fussed back at the freshman. 

Henry came into the house with a bucket full of flowers and paused whenever he saw Charlotte. 

“Morning…” He said. “I can explain.”

“You guys saw that I was bummed that Prom is cancelled, so you figured you’d turn my living room into a makeshift prom?”

“This guy gets it,” Jasper said from the step ladder.

“I know it’s not gonna be like a real prom, but… Me and Jasper are gonna wear suits. Piper’s gonna DJ. I made you a SICK flower crown… It’s gonna be okay,” Henry said, smiling and wincing at the same time, hoping that he sounded convincing. 

She sniffled and went to hug him. “These are for additional decoration… I was gonna make some arrangements and stuff. Nobody’s buying the flowers from the supermarkets, so I was actually able to get a lot of them pretty damn cheaply.” She gave him a kiss on the lips and he smiled wider. “And, I get to see you in your prom dress! You designed it, right?”

“Yeah…” 

“That’s awesome. I don’t think I’ve ever seen any of your design work.” He moved out of her reach to get back to decorations. She went to start on breakfast for everybody. He didn’t want to mention it right now, but he also was working on throwing her a mock graduation. Because, even though she had been trying to convince herself that everything would blow over and they would be able to finish the year out properly, the news said something totally different.

.

The House Prom was fun. Jasper made punch. Piper had great music and went live a few times so that kids at school could know that Henry and her did this FIRST, even if some of the rich kids might wind up doing it fancier. And Henry was stunned by Charlotte’s prom dress. He wasn’t sure what color it was, but went with whites and golds for her flower crown, which didn’t clash bad with the opaque pinkish dress that she had. The style of the crown wasn’t exactly a match for the style of the dress, but she insisted that it was perfect, that everything was perfect, and honestly, that was what really mattered to him. 

Henry knew that he wasn’t as smart as her, or have as much money, or as much education and stuff.. But, making her happy… that still mattered to him, because he believed that he could, so he made sure that he did. The thought of them going their separate ways in a few months was always scary for him as he fell for her, but also… it made him aware that he had only a short period of time to impact her life forever. House Prom was one of those forever impacts. 

They had an after party in Charlotte’s bedroom, which was just them laughing, eating and taking selfies to post to their House Prom tag, which was POPPING! Everyone at school wanted to be at Charlotte’s house, especially upon realizing that there were no adults there for the whole quarantine. She was extremely happy to have been so unpopular before. Now, nobody could just pop up at her house. Eventually, Piper fell to sleep and Jasper began dozing off in Charlotte’s bed. She scoffed, “How’s he gonna just fall asleep in MY bed?” 

Henry said, “I can sleep on the couch, if you wanna crash in your parents’ room.”

“No, no. I’ll take care of it, she said.” She had to shower and stuff, so she went to do that and Henry retired to her parents’ room. After she was all washed up and ready for bed, she went to look at Jasper, halfway hanging off of her bed, his suit all disheveled and his hair tousled. He looked like a little boy and more importantly, peaceful. She sighed grabbed a blanket and left the bedroom. Henry was already in bed when she peeked in, but he sat up, so she either woke him or he hadn’t fallen asleep yet. “Hey… I wanna crash in here, if that’s cool with you?”

“Yeah. I’ll take the couch, sure.”

“No.. I wanted to crash in here… with you.”

He smiled brightly, “Even better!” She came and climbed into bed and pulled the blanket with her. “How did you like being Prom Queen for a night?”

“It was awesome! You’re amazing. Thank you for doing that for me. I really didn’t want to make a big deal out of it. Your situation with your parents and Jasper’s… I’m actually so lucky and to complain in front of all of you felt cheap.”

He pulled her to himself and hugged her, “I want to know things about you, Char. You’re my girl. I don’t want you to feel like you have to wait until things are good for me to tell me what’s wrong with you. You’d be waiting forever.” She looked up at his face and he gave her a little half smile. “I never want you to have to wait on me,” he said.

She sat up now and placed both of her hands on his chest, tapping a little rhythm while she thought of how to say what she wanted to say.

“So… I was thinking… I know that you and Piper are a package deal, at least while she’s still so young, and that you hadn’t thought about things beyond graduation very much, but I was thinking and I’ve also kind of been looking into the details… IF you wanted to come with me, when I leave for Harvard, I’m gonna have a place out there. You won’t have to work to pay bills, but if you need something to hold you and Piper over, the job market is better there than it is here, and… I don’t know… Maybe you want to stay here and try to help your parents, or something, but if you did want to…”

“I do.” He smiled and then laughed, with tears in his eyes, “Of course I do! There’s nothing keeping me here and Piper… well, she’ll just have to understand that there’s not actually anything keeping her here either. I was so scared that whenever you left, you’d just forget about us. You’ve been… looking into the details?”

She shrugged her shoulders, “I can’t imagine my life without you in it anymore.” 

He smiled and gave her a kiss. “Come on, it’s bedtime.”

*******************************************************************************************

Also Tagging, because now I feel like I should be because of how y’all been talking about it @sunbeameyes @kiddangers @bitchmilsky @chenoahchantel @adorkable-blackgirl @daintyurbanprincess @ciara-knightly I think that’s it. My comfort level has expired. Lol. 

[thinger-strang]

no one dies and everyone's gay au

Nancy finds Barb when she gets stuck in the Upside Down when she's in the forest with Jonathan (don't ask me about the logistics) and so Steve ends up finding Jonathan and Barb in Nancy's room? And he's confused because at first he'd just seen Jon and thought Nancy was cheating but then he saw Barb walk into the room? (traumatic sleepover time! except Jon stays on the ground and Barb and Nance cuddle on the bed bc they're best friends and BARB WAS MISSING FOR LIKE TWO DAYS I THINK? she deserves snugs)

But Tommy and Carol started talking about how Nancy was probably sleeping with both, everyone knew Barb was the biggest d*ke in Hawkins, Nancy probably got curious about the other side!

He doesn't necessarily agree but still doesn't stop Tommy from spray painting the theater (because Nancy still lied to him? Lying generally meant there was something? going on? idk Steve's just confused and a little hurt rn)

The rest of the season goes pretty much the same, Barb's just there trying to not die and trying to help the Gang™ find Will and fight this bitch ass demogorgon (I don't think she's really be part of the Nancy and Jonathan luring it to the house and fighting it, she'd help with set up and the plan but I think she'd fuck right off when it comes down to facing it, she's had enough monsters for one life time thx)

But she'd so wanna help get Will out so she's there with Joyce and everyone talking to El while she's in the bath finding Will and talking Hop and Joyce about the Upside Down

(and she's been to the hospital, she didn't get a face sucking monster thing so she recovered quicker? idk don't ask logistics again lmao)

But she and Will end up getting along and sometimes when she's hanging out with Nancy and the party comes over she'll say hi to Will and like ruffle his hair

(also I want a little scene after the big monster hunting trip scene where a) Nancy and Jonathan explain everything to Steve and b) where Steve sees Barb again and pulls her into the biggest hug and starts like apologizing for not paying attention that night and for letting her get taken and even though she assured him it wasn't his fault he still feels guilty about it, it was his house, he should have helped her bandage her hand or something? idk but this right here is the beginning of the Barb/Steve friendship and the start of the "fall of King Steve")

cue s2

and so the four get really close, Jonathan and Steve are actually friends (idk what s2 was pulling but they're friends) and Barb talks to Nancy about Steve and Jonathan and Nancy ends up breaking up with Steve way earlier (bc you know none of that drama would have happened if Barb was there so)

But they're all still good friends, Steve's cool about the break up, and Nancy and Jonathan get together but it's not like right after? so it's all chill and they all went through a dramatic experience together so they remain close knit yeah

and Barb eventually comes out to them (everyone's supportive obviously) and Steve's is ready to throw down with anyone for her

cue Billy

the four of them are sizing up the new guy, Nancy doesn't really care, Jonathan thinks his hair is a little ridiculous (which I mean, that first day? when he steps out of the Camaro? yeah it was a lil rough), Barb can see right through his macho bullshit, and Steve? has a little bi meltdown. bc this kid has definitely had boy crushes before and knows he likes both (kid listens to queen of course he knew he was bi lmao)

blah blah blah s2 happens, Barb, Steve, and Billy have the same English class and Billys generally quiet during school, kinda stand-off-ish, only really bugs people during gym/basketball, but he literally sits in the back and does absolutely nothing during class and still somehow has the highest grade

(FUCK him and Barb get paired for a project and she fucking calls him out? like she's just like you're gay I'm lesbian you can cut the crap around me and they become...not friends? but they have solidarity, they're cool)

and I'm a slut for this trope but BILLY FIGHTS DEMODOGS WITH THEM lmao he hears Max sneak out and follows her and finds her in the junkyard armouring up a bus with fucking Harrington and a couple of nerds? and like the sun is setting and he needs to get Max home so he's like "Maxine! I don't know what the fuck this is and I don't fucking care, we gotta go!" and the four are like yelling at him to either leave or get in the bus! and he's so confused, I'm not here to play games Max! and Steve's running out of the bus with a FUCKING NAIL BAT WHAT THE FUCK HARRINGTON? And Steve's like behind you! and swings at a demodog. Billy has a borderline panic attack before he finds like a fender or exhaust pipe or whatever and starts swinging too

the dogs run away and Billy rounds onto Steve like what the living shit was that? and Steve has to explain everything with Dustin and Lucas interrupting and Max shrugging and trying to understand too? it's a mess

s2 continues with Billy and with HOPPER NOT BEING ABLE TO STAND HIM bc he's caught him speeding and underage drinking and shit and Billy's nervous as hell around cops which makes him mouthy and ITS A MESS

they're all at Joyce's (Barb's there too bc Will's possessed and they need to check up on her too? and she's concerned for Will anyway yeah she's in this too) and El shows up and Steve and Billy are just like what? another one? who the fuck? like Steve heard about her but this isn't a tiny child without hair??? idk it's funny

BILLY WITH AN AXE IN THE TUNNELS

(obviously Steve isn't passed out and the kids don't drive the car, it's Billy's awful impulse control that leads to them going into the tunnels)

okay I couldn't decide where to put Barb here? so I left her with Steve and Billy to babysit and she ends up in the tunnels too? and she's def handling it better than the boys are fuck yeah

Steve has his bat and is in front and Billy found an axe in the pile of shit from the Byers' shed and he pulls up the end

it's awesome

yada yada Steve and Billy end up becoming weirdly good friends by the end and he's good with him and Barb, idk about Nance and Jon but eh

s3 now

Billy ends up getting two jobs; lifeguard and cook at Benny's (bc he's alive too, fight me bitches this is the ultimate fix it) and Barb ends up working as a waitress there too (and working together builds the weirdest bonds so they are besties now)

everything in s3 is pretty much the same but with diner scenes too? and like all the Hawkins moms swarm Benny's too and leave lipstick stains on their kitchen tips and "send my compliments to the chef *wink*"

Billy eats it up but Barb can tell he also kinda hates it bc he's barely 18 and not even remotely into women and it makes him super uncomfortable but publicly he "loves" it (he starts wearing tank tops to the pool and tries to hide out in the kitchen but it really doesn't work)

he still gets caught up with the mind flayer but it's not bc he's about to sleep with Karen bc ew, idk why he's driving out by the warehouse idk maybe he's out on a drive bc he can't sleep yeah

anyway he gets caught up but like he knows, or kind of knows, what this is and calls in sick to both jobs and talks to Hopper bc WHAT THE FUCK isn't the gate closed? I got face fucked my an interdimensional monster so unless you know where the fuck that came from?? and they deal with it earlier (most of the shit still happens but it's less...messy? like Hop and Joyce are more involved in the Billy shit and Steve knows about it?)

Steve still gets caught up with the Russians (I don't think he'd have a chance to tell anyone (specifically Hopper) bc he finds out about Billy then the elevator stuff happens like right after and yada yada)

so for most of the season it's them trying to actually help Billy! and they end up saving a lot of people? (specifically Heather bc she was really nice to Billy and I want he to live fight me it's my au)

but enough people get melted and shit that starcourt still get destroyed blah blah blah!

but Billy makes it and so does Hop and Alexie (no one dies au) and they all end up doing the thing in the mall like they did in the shed with Will? like breaking Billy out? Barb talks about working at the diner and their secret and Steve talks about them hanging out and playing basketball and the tunnels and Max talks about Billy buying her a new board and them scream-singing along to ACDC in the Camaro and the kids mention him giving them rides and shit and yeah! El talks about his mom and that's it! Joyce and Hop close the gate while Billy's holding the one arm (he doesn't get stabbed in the chest, as cool as that scar would be, no...but he gets some on his hands and upper arms and his sides?)

(also Billy's drinking like bleach rn so they try and reverse that as much as possible while he's possessed so that he has a better recovery later bc no! chlorine is not good for you! and Billy tries so hard to not drink it but sometimes he can't fucking stop? idk but he has a support system now!)

and Robin came out to Steve and Steve comes out to her too? like kinda? he alludes to it vaguely bc he's so not ready to be out to anyone FUCK

And Billy comes out to Steve (he was planning on doing it earlier that summer but shit happened)

and Robin becomes friends with everyone (ITS ROBIN X BARB HOURS BITCHES)

(OKAY small like side shit? Benny and Hopper have known each other for years and Benny's like one of the only registered foster parents on Hawkins so he ends up fostering a lot of wayward kids while Hop figures out legal stuff (he hasn't adopted anyone yet but him and his husband (yeah Benny's gay deal with it) really want to? they just haven't yet, all the kids they take care of end up in their care temporarily) BUT Hop finds out about Billy and Max's home life (I know a lot of people write that Neil wouldn't hit Max but...nah son not how that works? idk but he needs to get them out? and Neil's bad to Susan too (he's the worst to Billy but still bad to Max and Susan) anyway Hop helps Susan leave Neil (it takes a while and Billy and Max end up with Benny for a little bit while the divorce is going down and all the legal shit yeah it's safer out of the house rn) long story short Billy ends up staying with Benny after everything and ends up getting adopted (they're like we know you're 18 and you don't need a guardian but if you want we can be your dads? and Billys like yeah sure that'd be nice and yeah) Hop ends up being a weird like uncle figure? idk like I said him and Benny are close and they both adopted kids so yeah? and Billy ends up considering El his little sister and he still visits Max and Susan and yeah?)

ANYWAY everything kind of calms down, Hop and Joyce get together (I just realized I forgot about Bob so...idk I guess this isn't an everyone survives au? no no that's weird um idk him and Joyce end up breaking up idk why) but yeah Hop and Joyce get together and like it's kind of fast but they've been in love for a long time so it's kind of fine? like idk but yeah

Barb and Robin get together (ITS FUCKING CUTE they go to aquariums and have paint dates where they sit on some old sheets and paint while listening to Robin's records ITS CUTE!)

STEVE COMES OUT TO EVERYONE! he definitely cries bc fuck he was scared! bc he likes both and he wasn't sure if that was a thing or whatever for a while and Billy's like oh yeah, like David Bowie or Freddie Mercury? and that's when Steve's cries bc oh thank God you guys get it and you're cool with it oh fuck and YEAH

UM Max is bi too, Will comes out as gay (listen I know none of this is like 80's realistic but everyone's gay and alive and happy, fuck off)

Um it takes forever for Billy and Steve to get together, it's awful. like Barb and Robin have to deal with their pining and shit? and like Robin hears about it from Steve at work and Barb hears about it from Billy at the diner and they put their knowledge together and make a Plan ™

it's like elaborate and dramatic (shut up they're all like 18-19) and shit? BUT LMAO okay one day they're all hanging out at Steve's (bc I've also hopped aboard the neglectful parents train sorry) and idk Steve and Billy are there before Robin and Barb are so the girls walk in on them arguing over whatever and like Billy's talking really fast and Steve's talking with his hands and idk what it's about but Billy ends up yelling that he loves him BUT THEY KEEP ARGUING FOR LIKE A SOLID MINUTE AFTER THAT BEFORE IT HITS THEM and Steve gets all quiet and is just like you love me? and Billy doesn't fucking know what to do?? he's like bright red and frozen and Robin and Barb are by the door trying to not like break the spell (bc it's been months guys) and Billy's like of course I do asshole and Robin thinks Steve's about to have a panic attack but he like rushes forward and cups Billy's face and kisses him senseless and it's like the best thing Robin and Barb have ever seen

and they're resting their foreheads together, Steve's still holding Billy's face and Billy has his hands on Steve's chest it's really tender but Robin's like yeah congrats and shit but you guys ruined our Plan™! and she gives them a long ass rundown of their elaborate scheme and Steve and Billy are like still touching and bumping into each other as they listen and Barb interrupts and says that this was better and Robin rolls her eyes but agrees

and they're watching a movie or whatever, cuddling in their respective couples and Steve fucking jumps up randomly and rounds on Billy like hey woah fuck I love you too, I didn't say that earlier! and Billy's looking up at him like yeah I know that asshole and yeah

[roxannepolice]

But yah rey as a character is just so frustrating you know? Cause like, yeah sure she could be complex with a powerful arc where shes forced to come to terms with the fact she wasted years of her life on self-imposed delusions in a cathartic way, or she could be a flat piece of marketing cardboard which Disney is banking on vagina+superpowers=profit without having to go through that persnicty character flaw overcoming or the like. Because like you said, hearing shes a nobody (which ngl, her assuming she was a somebody wasn’t really ever supported in tfa, just that her family was coming back and she desperately wanted them to) is apparently the worst thing but it changes absolutely nothing, not her approach, not her demeanor , if vaguely sad is the absolute worse a character is gonna experience in a goddamn space opera then yeah, full offense ill take the l on Mary sue discourse but her character will definitely be a boring ass wash. We all make fun of whiny new hope Luke but him being a kinda nuisance to both the audience and those around him is what made is transformation into full blown Jedi knight so powerful. With Rey so far what weve got is badass perfect cinnamon roll finally get her due as such, which is clearly working for some people, but I fail to see how that isn’t spectacularly tone deaf to make a protag in this genre such. Operas about drama, not patting you on the back. Rey (assuming she remains as is) would’ve been fine as a protag s the only piece of Star Wars media we ever got was a new hope. But rn she a chosen one architype (and I know that bunch of ppl are gonna go but the series ‘but shes not the chosen one, Anakin still is, the new series isn’t trying to make her one!’ but lets not beat around the burning bush, if u got a character that walks on water and the reason why is because god said so, ur dealing with a chosen one trope and if a character is star wars is made ultrapowerful in lore breaking ways because force said so? Yeah were dealing with a chosen one.) when we had both the deconstruction and the reconstruction done. Shes a straight hero when the success of the ot rest on hitting the formula near perfect the first time. What exactly is Rey, the individual character, bringing to the table? What makes her story supposedly so important the a perfectly good ending had to be made invalid to tell it? A bunch of ppl will say heroines’ journey! But if that’s the case I gotta say, wheres all the feminine shit? Im serious, if the heroines journey is reintegrating the feminine and realizing ‘oh shit mom had a point’ there where is both the feminine skills/coping mechanism and the mom? I mean I saw some ppl arguing for leia in a ‘reys Persephone!’ meta (she isn’t, you can make a much better case for ben himself as Persephone to be quite frank, yall are focusing so much on the trees ((girl gets abducted by guy)) that u forgot the forest existed, the actually story ((girl winds up queen on the underworld, well gee whiz which character just took control of that after leaving the world of living and a grieving divine mother behind, it’s a mystery apparently) behind, it’s a mystery apparently) ((but seriously though even if we hope for dark rey does anyone assume its gonna be taking control of a dark/dead coded org at least partially at this point, do you, do you really??). but given the fact she had what, one line of screen dialogue that’s breaking ur arm with that stretch. As far as skills go I guess you could make an argument for scavenging, but if that’s the case dlf did a shit job of conveying that as female-coded. Everything about rey in tfa seems deliberately androgynous, and yeah, she had her hair let down/mascara moment, but that’s tied to her ‘failure’ on the supremacy thus something nw.SPEAKIGN OF FAILURES ON THE SUPERAMCY AND LACK THERE OF. I find it kind funny that bunch of reylo bnfs (you know who they are) are all ‘hur dur fanboys/antis are dumb and don’t get story structure.’ And then going, ‘why are yall asking how/assuming rey fucked up in throne room/climax of her story in the second portion/darkest point of her character arc? Why do you hate women/ur own ovaries so much?’ because it like walking into a prefurnished house and being told by the relator ‘HERES THE LIVING ROOM’ and having no damn couch. It’s a living room, I expect a couch here. And in a movie where it’s the low point of a character arc and they drag puppet yoda out to tell me the movie is about failure, I expect a damn failure in whats clearly the climax of the characters arc for this movie. As it stands now there are three possibilities imo. 1st, rey had no failure, she is the pure badass maid o light ppl want and every inch the boring cardboard she is accused of by fanbros, remains static, and is relegated to an also ran to benlo taking the most compelling character trophy this trilogy in 10 yrs2nd possibility and the one im hoping for, failure speech wasn’t just thematic explanation but also foreshadowing, rey fucks up big and dramatic in a way that makes her manage to stand out as unique with both her contemporaries and her predecessors(last part, if its ever to much lemme know pls im sorry i just gotta get it out) 3rd and most likely possibility, rey isn’t the main character, benlo is and that’s why his failure both moral in the throne room and logistic on criat take center stage for the last third or so of the movie. Rey is merely a pov character to tell the dramatic villain protag story they wanted and have their very marketable unproblematic Disney heroine cake too.

Ok, so this discourse kinda died down by now, but thanks to that it’s possible to maybe have a calmer look at it I’m totally not trying to justify my late response.

Anyway, the good result is that quite recently my brother, who’s not overly taken with Rey - or the sequels in general, for that matter - said something which really stuck with me as a possible crux of the problem: 

She’s neither comical nor tragical. Just bland. 

This neither comical nor tragical really struck me. And the more I though about it, the more it was appearing to me that this qualm really applies to the sequels as a whole. The thing is that DLF are essentially telling a straightforward story that they’re trying to make captivatingly convoluted. And not just make, but keep this appearance over four years. And this is... a narrative teeth crasher. Like, when you’re honest about the endgame (in the context of the most structural meanings of comedy and tragedy), you can maintain a decorum, though you can also play with it, of course, whereas when you don’t want to be honest about the endgame, you end up mixing the styles somewhat messily. You can’t break or discuss with the rules without acknowledging them, so to speak. Because the originals were honest about the happy/hopeful endgame (the first episode is title A New Hope ffs), they could allow themselves deeply tragic moments like Larses’ deaths, Han getting frozen, destruction of Alderaan, etc. Because the prequels were open about being a tragedy, they could allow themselves lighthearted comic relief for the sake of lighthearted comic relief. 

The sequels... badly want us to consider the possibility of FO winning and Ben dying unredeemed while simultaneously insisting we root for those things not happening, while appearing conscious we’re definitely not buying the former and the latter only somewhat. And it’s tiresome. Dishonest. And indeed, bland. If the story is a tragedy it will be a bloodcurdlingly real one, if it’s a comedy it will be a borderline grotesque one. 

But yeah, returning to Rey, I guess as the main character she’s a lens which focuses the above problems. A very bitter tragedy of what her parents did t her prevents her from being comfortably comical whereas whoohooos I like thats and prancing like a husky on red bull over idols and visions because it’s for children so it must be hopeful prevents her from being intriguingly tragical. So I guess the intentioned effect was tragicomism but, from pov of an engaged casual fan that is my bro, it’s neither. 

As far as Rey’s heroine’s journey lacking some of the usual elements, I blame it on Disney being... a bit too ambitious, maybe. I think they tried to make a heroine’s journey that isn’t ostentaciously seeped in traditional feminine/masculine traits, maintains the structure without what could be called accidentals. On the one hand, I would point out that hero’s journey has pretty much desexualised itself over time, we are rather accustomed to “shero’s” journeys, but on the other... maybe Disney set out on a too novel a territory and may crack their teeth on it, alongside trying to out-Vader Vader at redemption. To elucidate, “toxic femininity” in which a heroine is supposed to find herself in the beginning of her journey, in Rey’s case is uprooted from any of our usual concepts of feminine-masculine social roles (it’s space, duh). My interpretation is that Rey’s version of toxic femininity kind of exists in contrast with Kylo Ben’s version of toxic masculinity - and since the apparent focus of the story is the attitude towards the past/parent figures, toxic femininity would mean her clutching onto the past. Which is why I predict that some act of IX will find Rey inebriated with apparent success in masculine world, meaning she’ll be the one rejecting the old gods this time - and I would point out that panel in Poe comic where she shows herself more sceptical towards idolisation of past don’t mind me, I’m just expressingmy trash dreams for a proper sith lady Rey.

Then again, Rian Johnson said she already found perfect balance between Luke’s clinginess and Kylo’s rejection of the past, so... idk, maybe I’m giving DLF too much credit again.

As for the Persephone thing, I guess the rub is that this reylo reading focuses less on the traditional reading of the myth (where Demeter is the actual main character and Kore is a Princess Peach MacGuffin) and more of an interpretation of it as one of the eldest (at least in Europe) versions of story depicting a transition of a girl into a woman, making Persephone more of a protagonist. 

Like, y’know, this Persephone (D. G. Rosetti, source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proserpine_(Rossetti_painting))

I’m no expert, but myths can lose their original meanings because of power relations (anyone still remember about Dionysus, the god associated with excessive drinking, going through a very Christ-like death and resurrection?) and I think it’s possible that this is the case with the story of Persephone becoming a pre-scientific explanation of seasons changing over the year. So teah, that’s how I always understood the Persephone theme regarding Rey.

But yes, I must agree that I’m confused about Disney’s handling of the mother figure, which... Look, SW became a legend of a modern myth because of how epically Lucas handled the hero dealing with his very explicit father. So yes, I don’t understand what exactly is their game with Rey Nobody from Nowhere in this regard. It’s one thing that they had a cool idea with giving her no lineage, another that parent figures are an essential element of archetypal journeys and from symbolic viewpoint the case of a female character the biological relationship is even more crucial than in male’s. And I swear to all the ewoks and porgs in the galaxy, I do hope Disney’s idea of Rey healing the mother/daughter divide isn’t through her healing the divide between Leia and Ben. Again, this isn’t the idealistic sphere. Just... no. 

Anyway, I still maintain hope (this whole meta blog is built on hope) that Rey will indeed turn out to have a proper personal mistake which will make her stand out in the saga. I do have to admit, though, that I find your last theory very likely. I mean, even when I read all the reylo metas going oh, Rey is going to have such an exciting arc in IX, she has so much to deal with though of course it’s not going to compromise her morally, it will be sooo exciting, I just... f*ck’s sake, what you’re describing isn’t a dramatic character only a dramatised role model. It’s great if that’s your thing, but don’t claim it is space opera-worthy, in operas people drown themselves because of cursed sailors, kill over a break up, decapitate over a bad dream and get dragged to hell over a dinner, not persuade their fallen lovers to change their ways, let alone patienly wait for them the understand the error of their ways (and if they do it’s doomed to end in someone dying).

[curewimdy]

alright i gotta get my Stars War thoughts out before i explode. spoilers i’m sorry if you’re on mobile and the cut decides not to work

tlj and Carrie Fisher’s death straight-up broke the sequel trilogy but this movie did a pretty good job with what it had left, i think. i loved:

the emphasis on found family and emotional ties, and Rey ultimately deciding to take over the Skywalker mantle

the movie had to establish and develop the trio’s entire dynamic on its own since tlj kept them almost completely separate for some fucking reason but the actors have great chemistry and i loved finally seeing them together. loved when Poe promoted Finn to husband, loved Poe and Rey bickering over the Falcon and BB-8, loved that Finn/Rey continues to be real. it’s just big ot3 vibes across the board & i hope that whatever tie-in material we get with them later continues to build on that

REY AND LEIA’S LIGHTSABERS!!!!

AHSOKA AND THE PAST JEDI’S VOICES COMING TO REY.... I CRIED?? I CRIED /DURING THE CREDITS/ WHEN AHSOKA AND KANAN AND LUMINARA’S NAMES SCROLLED BY i actually like that Ahsoka’s in there even though she’s not a Jedi at the end of her journey.... she’s a light side Force user who shows up when it counts and she’s FOR SURE a part of the Skywalker legacy so it’s good. God i wish we could’ve gotten Ahsoka mentoring Rey it would have been perfect

i don’t think that Ezra’s voice was in there even though Kanan’s was which... INTERESTING.... implying that Ezra’s still alive somewhere maybe?? hey when are we gonna get that fucking Ahsoka+Sabine quest

but re: the actual movie. i’m glad that they retconned in Leia completing her Jedi training and then going on to train Rey, it’s good

FORCE SENSITIVE FINN CONFIRMED

JANAH AND THE OTHER DEFECTED TROOPERS RULE

d-o or dio or whatever was cute

Lando!!!!

horses!!!!!

the actors were all really just turning up the charm the whole time. the story was a bit of a shambles but i loved everybody in this bar

stuff that was very stupid but in a fun way:

fucking Palpatine’s back and he’s got like 8 Snokes in a jar and a giant auditorium full of ???? mysterious cloaked figures???? who the fuck were those guys???????

the Knights of Ren are such nothing characters but i love their designs and their dumb weapons

REY PALPATINE is SO DUMB but SO FUCKING FUNNY

“hey we’re tired of fighting the Death Star in every single movie can you come up with another kind of climax” “ok how about this. this time, instead of one massive murder orb, there’s a MILLION slightly smaller murder TRIANGLES”

i can’t believe they had Hux pull a Kallus

there were a few points where i got caught up on like, logistical issues and “can the Force/Force ghosts do that” and w/e but ultimately like, it’s fine. Star Wars is loaded with logical inconsistencies and honestly i like being given the opportunity to think up explanations for things instead of like, having Rey turn around and say “i learned how to make a lightsaber from the Jedi texts and Luke’s notes and using the skills i learned as a scavenger” or Luke set the X-wing down and be like “Force ghosts have always been able to interact with the real world actually”

and things that sucked:

i fucking hated the kiss. dont do that

where the hell was Rose?? she was barely in the movie??

these characters have had completely different arcs and personalities in every single movie they’ve been in.

i’m a little weary of the st being so beholden to following up on the legacy of the ot.... can you imagine a timeline where Lucas made the prequel trilogy first and then the ot had to be extremely concerned with satisfying people’s nostalgia for those movies all the time. like as a fan i get excited about like, Rey flying Luke’s X-wing and seeing the ruins of the Death Star and but i do wonder how much of that is good for the story & how much is kind of added weight. but then on the other hand my favorite part of the movie was when all of the past Jedi acted like fairies waving miracle lights and shouting “Precure ganbare” in an All Stars movie even though Rey has no idea who Mace Windu or Luminara Unduli were so like, i’m kind of throwing rocks from a glass house here

we’re back to extreme black-and-white morality again huh. we’re back to Jedi ideology being 100% good and Sith ideology being 100% evil, after all of that

did not care for the implication that Janah was Lando’s daughter. it brings up so many issues with the way people talk about/react to the First Order and certainly undermines the whole point about literal bloodlines not mattering in the face of other types of legacy. if they’re not related but he takes her under his wing anyway then that’s good, though

[akaherosandwich]

FAO Defenders Crossover P.2: Chinese for Christmas Dinner

(Logistical note, this is the second half of a crossover thread between @foundoutthehardway, @atrxvido, @ironrand, and myself, of course (as Jessica). It, like Part 1, is somewhat unfinished, but the plot has moved well past.  Please enjoy these losers having dumplings on Christmas eve.)

The police arrived shortly after the mess had ended- while Jess was certainly not the biggest fan of the cops, especially not of Mercedes Knight, there wasn’t much more the heroes could do.  Not on Christmas Eve.  They all ducked out the back, hoping the papers would pin this ‘Christmas miracle’ on the Devil or something.

“Goodwill to all, and all that shit,” Jess spat, wiping her mouth with the back of her glove.  “I never went to Sunday school, but I definitely don’t remember ninjas in the nativity.  God, I can’t believe it’s Christmas in a few hours.”  Not that she particularly cared.  She never celebrated, but with Luke around… maybe they could have tried.  Jess had actually bought him what she imagined was a good gift, but she’d never given a good gift in her life.  Why start now?  She could give it to him later, when they got home.

To the apartment that had been set on fire.  Jess was going to have to do something about that, especially in light of this ninja business.

“Anyways, kicking ass worked up my appetite and honestly after not eating all day I’d like to take advantage of that,” she muttered, looking down the street to see if any neon signs were still on anywhere. Matt sighed, wiping the blood from his mouth on the back of his gloved hand. Ninjas weren’t going to be the death of him, but Jessica quite possibly was. “I was raised by nuns, and for once, you’re right about that. Merry Christmas, for what it’s worth.” Ah, shit, Christmas. Foggy. He wasn’t going to be able to hang around. Just as well. He didn’t want anyone else knowing his identity. “Look, there’s about a billion real noisy signs buzzing around here, but would you serve Daredevil?” He had to admit, he was hungry as well. He didn’t exactly eat well before he went out either. At least he wasn’t as bad as Jessica. “C’mon, you have to eat, when you’re - never mind.” Matt knew about the Hand, and he knew that it wasn’t going to go well if they got involved without him, but at the same time - he barely knew Luke and this new guy. Up until recently, his interactions with Jessica had been almost solely (somewhat) professional. Leaving the camera incident aside. “Look. I gotta go. But you have fun.”

“Oh, No, you don’t,” Luke said, grinning. “No way, man, you do all that parkour business, beatin’ bad folks up without even being able to see -- you eat with us. I know a Chinese restaurant owes me about a dozen favors, and we should be looking to hole up for a while. Don’t worry about the warehouse, Misty’s got our backs.”

And their numbers. And probably a whole lot of community service hours for Luke. But that was tomorrow’s problem. Luke slung an arm around Jessica’s shoulder, and another around Matt’s.

“Mushu pork! Szechuan beef. Enough dumplings to sink the Titanic. Come on, it’s Christmas Eve, I’m gonna be a daddy, and we opened a dozen cans of whup on those fake ninjas. We should be celebrating. … and probably hiding.”

After the fight came to its seemingly inevitable conclusion, Danny wasn’t sure what to…. do. Of course, he already had notions of a lean, mean, fighting team spinning around in his head, but he did his best to tamp down such expectations. Jessica and the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen weren’t exactly the joining type. 

Luke seemed nice, though.

“You’re going to be a dad?” Danny couldn’t help but splutter. His eyes moved back and forth between Luke and Jessica several times. He pulled off his crappy ski mask to squint more meaningfully at them. 

Was Jessica….?

In any case, Chinese - especially off-brand American Chinese - sounded much better than Lean Cuisine. “Luke can pick the place, but dinner’s on me.”

Jessica saw the way the masked stranger was eyeing her after Luke’s excited blabbering.  She kept her hands stuffed in her jacket pockets and shrugged.  “Yeah, yeah.  But don’t go making a big deal about it, okay?”  Despite herself, she managed a smile and gave Luke a quick peck as he threw his arm around her.

When Danny removed his mask, she just about spluttered in surprise.  “Wait, Danny fucking Rand?  Are you serious with the- the… the dragon punching stuff back there?  I thought I told you not to worry about it on the phone.”  Jess paused.  “But at least you held your own in there.  Jesus, what an ass-backwards group we’ve got here.”

She shook her head, not wanting to fret about it.  And if Danny was paying for dinner, she wasn’t going to complain.  “Alright, alright.  Fine, let’s hash this out on the way to food.  Luke, Danny, Devil, you’re coming with.  I’m starved.”  Jess broke from her boyfriend’s grasp and made a move to find a restaurant.

“Look, yes, Chinese food is great and we need to lay low for a while but whatever this is, I -” His train of thought was interrupted by Luke’s casual arm-slinging. He sighed. “I’ve been down this route before, and these guys do not mess around. This isn’t the kind of decision you take lightly.” He also shrugged off Luke’s grasp, and moved in the same direction as Jessica. “You bring Misty into this, you’re putting her in danger.” Matt crossed his arms. “You’re really, really risking getting dead here. Just so you can make an informed decision. I’ll come with, because it’s Christmas, but this isn’t a movie and we’re not all one big merry band of vigilantes.”

Actually, Luke was pretty sure they were, at this point, most definitely a merry band of vigilantes. All the evidence pointed that was, what with the not having police jobs or uniforms and still kicking a pile of ninja booty. But Matt looked like… actually, just then, he looked like Jessica before her tenth cup of coffee in the morning. A little sour. Luke decided nodding sagely was a good way to go. 

Also.

“Misty is a cop in New York City. She’s in danger every day. We got a chance here to make things a little bit safer for her and all the rest of them. In a not-band of vigilantes way, obviously.” He winked at Danny. Danny looked on board with the whole merry band of vigilantes thing. They were going to need a name. 

“Here we are,” he said, pushing the door open. “We’ll close the blinds, order food, and Danny can tell us about the dragons.”

Was Danny the only one still caught on the whole ‘Dad’ thing? And the fact Jessica was pregnant? He decided to file that away for later.

“Surprise?” Danny said tentatively, fixing Jessica with an awkwardly apologetic smile. “Sorry, I would’ve told you earlier, but I’m-- trying to keep a low profile. Hence the whole mask situation.” He raised the cloth in his hand as if in explanation, though his gaze strayed momentarily to Daredevil. “...Think I might be due for an upgrade, though, especially looking at this guy.”

Luke was nodding sagely at the whole ‘we’re not a team’ speech, so Danny decided copying him would be the best course of action. He caught the wink at the tail end, and figured he didn’t do too bad. 

Although he was really starting to see the benefits, though. Of a team. 

“I’m actually thinking Daredevil should tell us what he meant when he said he’s ‘been down this road before’. And I can order.” He greeted the older woman behind the counter in Chinese, extending a hand and offering a charming smile.

“Yeah, the glowing fist just screams ‘low profile’,” Jess muttered as she slipped inside the restaurant, pretending she didn’t see that wink that Luke gave to Danny.  It smelled a bit like frying oil and chili spices in here, but it would do.  Empty on a Christmas Eve, surprisingly, but Jess checked a clock on the wall and realized how late it actually was.  And a grumble in her gut reminded her that she hadn’t really eaten anything that day to begin with.

She stood back as Danny began speaking Chinese, earning a grin from the older woman.  Jess rolled her eyes somewhat, grabbing a menu and finding a table in the center of the room for them.  She sat down and put one foot up on the chair next to her, flipping open the laminate pages to take a look at the food available.

“God,” she groaned.  “I think I took a few good hits to the face- that’s gonna bruise tomorrow.  At least those ninjas had the decency not to make any low blows.” “I can sense you winking, Luke.” Matt sighed, following Jessica’s lead to move towards the table. He chose the chair opposite her, as not to engage in a ridiculous power play over the seat she had her foot resting on. Luke and Danny could contend with that issue. He was actually hungry, and for once he wouldn’t have to defrost something or attempt to contend with inaccessible websites when he’d been hit in the head multiple times. That was a good enough reason to stay. It smelt like...pork dumplings, if he guessed right. “Look, the Hand? They’re immortal fanatics, but they’re secretive and everywhere - imagine if conspiracy theories were real, essentially. Low blows? Kidnapped about 20 innocent people purely to lure me into a fight. Doesn’t matter if you’re a cop, you got super strength, bulletproof skin, you’re a...dragon guy. The Hand will still Ruin. Your. Day.”

“You know what, I don’t even think you’re blind. Ain’t no one can sense a man winking. And even if they could, you’re being creepy about it. Lighten up, Matt. We can deal with The Hand, but not on an empty stomach.”

He listed Jess’s feet and put them in his lap, patting her ankles. And looked at her stomach as if any second the first of the bump might appear. Nothing yet, but he gave her a grin. Adrenalin still coursing through his veins, and pissed off or not he was feeling pretty good. 

Matt looked deeply, deeply unimpressed by that statement.

“They’re bad guys. Very bad guys. Bad guys trip ���emselves up eventually, one way or another. And when they do, we’ll be there. We beat them, remember? We can do it again. Is that the sesame prawn toast?”

Danny gave the owner’s small, wrinkled hand one last squeeze before returning to the table, just in time to catch Matt’s comment about The Hand. Luke was pretty blasé about the whole thing, but Danny knew a thing or two about secret ninja cults. They were way old and way dangerous, stuff nobody in their right mind ought to fuck with casually. 

(Though he supposed ‘right mind’ would not be...  precisely applicable to the people sitting around this table.)

“Immortal fanatics?” Danny probed, turning one of the chairs around and taking a seat between Matt and Luke. He’d seen magic happen firsthand - literally - but nothing like immortality. “What exactly is their objective? World domination, or something?”

Connie - the old woman who owned the restaurant - set several plates of still steaming food onto the table in front of them. Danny offered her a smile and a brief thanks. 

“Luke’s right, obviously, I just think-- it’s important to know what we’re up against,” he loaded a couple onto his plate and handed Luke the sesame prawns. “Especially if we’re talking conspiracy theory levels of crazy.”

“Tch,” Jess hissed, frowning at Matt. “I meant ‘low blows’ in the sense that no one tried to punch me in the stomach. Because that could have ended badly. But yeah, sure, they’re bastards.”  She was so not here for the talks of crazy ninja cults and apocalyptic doom to Hell’s Kitchen.

Jess put one arm over the back of her chair as Luke pulled her legs into his lap. She gave him a little wink of her own- sense that, Matt. She then heaved a tortured sigh as if this was a massive inconvenience for her as the boys talked circles around this immortal fanatic situation. It made the days she complained about dealing with cheating spouses seem like a treat.

“Up against? We? I’m not exactly making these guys a passion project of mine.” Nor was she planning to make this ‘team up’ any more than a convenient and coincidental gathering of adjacently-familiar powered people.

The investigator straightened in her seat as several steaming plates of food were set down at the table. Jess reached for her pair of chopsticks, separating the flimsy wood sticks and quickly stabbing a few fried gyoza, shaking them off onto her plate. “Luke, pass the soy sauce?”

“At the risk of having this held against me for the rest of my life, I agree with Jessica.” For a quiet life, he chose not to comment on her wink. Matt’s reticence to commit to this was warring with his desire for sesame prawn toast. He settled for grabbing some - and maybe some of those pork dumplings - and sighing deeply at the same time. “You don’t want stopping the Hand to be your New Year’s Resolution.” He also got the sense that he was going to end up on this ride anyway. He’d not known the man long, but Danny gave off a sense of being far too interested in the concept of fighting immortal ninjas. 

“That’s just about it. They’ve built crime empires over centuries, and are willing to do just about anything to keep themselves going. I’m not being creepy about it. You’re being overly lax about it. When the suit’s on, you call me Daredevil. That’s it. Not all of us can afford to be so casual with our identities.” He wanted to cross his arms, to make the point, but that would have made it somewhat difficult to eat, so he settled for sullenly squeezing a gyoza between chopsticks harder than was strictly necessary.

---

[AND THEY ALL HAD DINNER AND BECAME BEST FRIENDS AND JESS AND LUKE HAD NOTHING BUT CUTE TIMES BEFORE THEIR BABY CAME AND ALSO SOMEHOW DANNY GOT THE BABY NAMED AFTER HIM, AND MATT WAS THERE TOO BECAUSE THEY’RE ALL BEST BUDDIES FOR LIFE. XOXO THE END]

(Okay, I took some liberties with that last part.)

[pjbehindthesun]

chapter 9: big waves and muddy waters

Tuesday, October 9th, 1990

“Alright, New Guy, Mark heard that the Off Ramp needs a band for the 22nd. We doing this or what?”

God, Stone, way to be an asshole about it, but I’m excited enough by the idea that I’m not even going to give him shit. I just hope Eddie says yes. I mean, he’s technically still here “auditioning” for a few more days, but let’s face it, he’s amazing, we fucking need him. Thankfully, Eddie’s not fazed.

“Yeah, yeah, definitely,” he bobs his head, looking at Stone with laser focus and worrying his bottom lip between his thumb and forefinger. But just like that, his face clouds over and he’s looking down again with his forehead all screwed up. “That is, if you guys decide… I mean…”

“No, you're in, for sure,” I cut him off, and he shoots me a grateful grin.

“Alright,” he says eagerly. “So then, we’ve got like four songs, no name, and two weeks. I like those odds.”

Stone nods approvingly and launches into a logistical monologue, planning out the next two weeks of our lives down to the minute. The fact that Eddie won Stone over this fast is pretty mind-blowing, even if Stone’s still got kind of a shitty attitude about the guy. We spent today messing around with the song Eddie called “Once,” making it a little less funky, a little heavier to match what he’d written for it. And he’d already come up with lyrics for “E Ballad” before he flew out here, these insanely powerful lyrics, and started calling it “Black.” I’ve got a few melody ideas rattling around that I’m going to bounce off them tomorrow. It’s already been a crazy productive day or two and we’ve still got like a week left before he goes home for a few days to tie up loose ends. I gotta be honest, I’ve never been more pumped about a project. Stone and I seem to have shelved a lot of our shit from the Love Bone drama, and Eddie’s just like this incredible injection of creative energy. It’s hard not to get too excited, but in the back of my mind, there’s still this voice telling me to slow down, hang back, wait for the shoe to drop. That’s how it’s always worked for me so far, anyway.

Over Stone’s voice, I catch a snippet of Lucy and Cora’s conversation, even though they abandoned our table and are now over at the bar. It’s like my ears are trained to pick up Lucy’s voice now over anything else, like I went too long without talking to her and my senses are letting me know about it. They’re each drinking a beer and Cora’s got her back to me so I can see Lucy watching her face intently. It was something about the exasperation with which Lucy just said “what obligation?” that made me look up. I didn’t hear the rest of it, but I can hazard a guess, especially given the patient but strained look on Lucy’s face while she nods and listens to the answer, whatever it is. I don’t know how that fucker Alex managed to screw up tonight but I’ve lived down the hall from them long enough to know this kind of shit is the tip of the iceberg. I can’t for the life of me figure out why Cora puts up with him. She’s such a little spitfire. I’ll be honest, I sort of hated her when I first met her -- maybe hate’s a strong word, it’s not like when I first met Stone. That’s not too far off the mark, though. She’s like a female Stone, always with a smartass comment for everything, always has to be the smartest one in the room. But she’s grown on me a lot in the last few months. You have to be some kind of badass or other to pick up and move across the country and do the kind of work she does, with the kind of energy she has for it. And she’s so protective of Lucy it’s scary, which is what really won me over. So what’s someone like that doing worrying about “obligation” to a useless motherfucker like Alex who treats her like she doesn’t matter?

There’s a break in their conversation as Cora finishes the last of her drink. I catch Lucy’s eye and I’m immediately rewarded with that look. That one that says, “wait until we’re alone.”

Fuck yes. Forget the rest of this shit, let’s get this thing rolling, let’s get home!

Seriously. I’ve been with her for almost five months now and she’s still full of surprises. I let the shy thing fool me at first, but I get her now, or at least I think I do. And it’s not like the shyness is an act -- it’s genuine. She really is an awkward mess around people she doesn’t know very well (except Eddie, who’s even shyer, and she’s already sort of taken him under her wing, which makes her even more awesome). And no matter how comfortable she gets around me, I can still make her blush at the drop of a hat, which is completely fuckin’ adorable considering that the girl’s a total freak. Under that shy exterior, under all that sweetness and light… the sex is intense. And she’s got all these tattoos, which totally disrupt that whole good girl vibe she has going, especially since you don’t even know most of them are there until she takes her clothes off. Seven, to be exact. I’ve traced them all with my fingers, studied them up close, sketched them endlessly, admired the artistry, but mostly I get distracted admiring the canvas…

Fuck, I need to get her alone. 

But I gotta get Eddie back up to the apartment first, I still haven't given him a key and I don’t have my spare. I put some cash on the table to pay for Lucy and me as the guys are divvying up the bill, and manage to slip away as Stone and Mike argue about the math.

“Hey, you two ready to go?” I ask the girls, hoping my voice sounds pretty level. Lucy’s toned down the look a little bit, but not nearly enough to be inconspicuous (bless her tipsy cute ass), and Cora gets the hint right away.

“Let me visit the little chemist’s room and then yeah,” Cora stifles a grin and ducks down the hallway to the bathroom. I grab my girlfriend by the hand and start tugging her outside.

“What about the rest of our stray pets?” Lucy laughs, pretending to drag her heels.

I give her a gentle pull and she loses her balance, running into my chest, which makes it easier for me to say softly in her ear, “you think I give a fuck?”

There’s the look again. She lets me lead her outside onto the sidewalk. Once we’re alone outside, she primly tucks a lock of hair behind her ear and gives me the world’s most innocent smile as I pull her in closer.

“That’s better,” I whisper, brushing the softness of her cheek with the back of my hand. “You ready to get out of here?”

“Mm hmm,” she nods, sliding her hands into my back pockets and sinking into me, taking my lower lip in her teeth and making me come after it.

***

I get back from the bathroom and find the group milling about near the door of the cafe. Well, most of the group -- Stone and Mike are talking shop, Eddie’s standing off to the side studying his sneakers, and Jeff and Lucy are… outside on the sidewalk, glued together at the mouth, of course. God, they’re fucking adorable. Normally their cuteness makes me happy, but the way my night’s going, it’s getting under my skin. Not like that’s not their fault, though, so I’m kind of glad they’re outside. I’m already glazing over listening to the two guitar nerds, so if we’re all just standing around aimlessly, I’d rather get to know the new guy better. We’ve really only talked for a few minutes so far about my stupid button, and in record time I’d made an embarrassing ass of myself by oversharing my problems. The poor thing. He handled it well, though.

“You look lost,” I tease him, but I instantly regret my word choice, because he really does.

“Nah, I’m okay, just waiting for Jeff,” he says to the floor with a bashful smile, hands shoved in his pockets. It’s an odd smile, the way it dawns sort of slowly, but those outsized cheekbones make for massive dimples that give him away even if he’s barely smiling at all.

“I think we’re going to have to crash that party, bud,” I laugh, glancing at our friends.

“Ahhh, uh-uh,” Eddie rumbles, shaking his head emphatically, smiling a little bigger but still looking down. He’s the funniest thing. Shoulders hunched over in his too-big jacket, head ducked down in his backwards baseball cap, like he's incognito and doesn't want anyone to notice him, let alone talk to him. How is a frontman so damn shy? I listened to his tape with Lucy and the guys when it arrived over the summer, and like everyone else, I was dumbstruck by this huge, powerful, intense voice. I don’t know what I expected him to be like, but it’s safe to say I figured he’d be more intense in person as well. And, I don’t know, taller or something? Not like I’m one to talk. Before I can think of anything else to say to him, Stone walks up behind me and interrupts my thoughts with a hand on my back.

“Hey, Red, I’m heading out. You guys gonna get home okay?”

“Yes, Mom,” I lean back against him and bump him in the chest with my shoulder blade. “I think we can handle six blocks without a chaperone.”

“Fine, be that way,” he says in my ear. I can't see his face from here but I can hear that eye roll a mile away. “Come get your shit out of my car?”

As he nudges me off his chest and I turn to face him, he brushes my hair back over my shoulder, then seems to change his mind, taking one lock back to the front again. He twirls it, gently tugs on it a couple times, allows his fingers slide through the ends as he lets it go. He’s been like this all night. Hovering, fussing, studying. I wish he wouldn’t. I feel like I’m under a microscope.

“Don't tell me what to do,” I retort, although truthfully I'm not in the mood to spar tonight, so I follow him obediently instead of launching my usual attacks. I’m too tired for that, and anyway, I still feel guilty as hell for interrupting the guys in the middle of their practice, even though Stone swore up and down that he didn't mind.

“That's not how this works, okay?”

I keep turning those words over in my head as we trail unnoticed past Jeff and Lucy and down the street to his car. Not how this works. The way he looked at me when he said it, like he was trying to pin me to the wall with his eyes to make sure I heard him. I’m not sure what brought that on, other than feeling sorry for his dumbass friend for getting herself into such a ridiculous situation. And it’s not that I’m not grateful that he dropped everything to help me. Of course I am, overwhelmingly so. It’s just that the whole thing was so fucking embarrassing that I’m not going to give him the opportunity to bring it up ever again.

“Your bag and your, uh… deer huntin’ finery,” he drawls the last two words in that stupid Southern accent he thinks he knows how to do as he holds out the awful orange bridesmaid dress, making me yank it out of his grip.

“Much obliged,” I grumble, not really in the mood.

“Hey, I...” he says, not quite in his normal voice but no longer in the ridiculous accent, and he reaches out and gently catches my arm in his hand before I can pull it all the way back. He frowns as he massages my elbow for a second, like he’s trying to buy time as he figures out what he’s supposed to say to his pitiful disaster of a friend. All he comes up with is, “hey, call me tomorrow, okay?”

I don’t know, maybe it’s not pity in his eyes...maybe it’s just concern, almost the same way he was looking at me back at the terminal. I know he’s asking me to tell him how it goes tonight. I wish he wouldn’t do that. It’s making my stomach do a backflip as I realize I can’t ignore the reality of going home for much longer.

I reach up with my free hand and hold his cheek, then lean in and give him an exaggerated reflection of the intense expression on his face. His laughter comes out in an exasperated huff, followed by another eye roll.

“Yeah. I will, Stone.”

I say I'll call him, but what would I really tell him? That when I get home, the evidence will confirm that my own boyfriend doesn’t give enough of a shit about me to remember when I’m flying back into town? That it was just a stupid fantasy to think he’d ever be the kind of guy who picks his partner up at the airport? That he may as well not even have noticed I was gone? That this doesn’t even surprise me anymore because the fault lines have been getting wider and wider since we moved to Seattle, and I’m afraid we don’t have anything in common anymore? That I think all of these things all the time and feel horrible about them, but I can’t ever bring myself to break up with him, even for something like what he did tonight, because as thoughtless as he can be sometimes, he still moved across the fucking country to be with me, to support my stupid dream? No one wants to hear that sob story. I’m not going to lay that on poor Stone. He did me a favor. I owe him one already. Best not make things worse.

“You’d better, Red,” he says, fidgeting with my hair one more time and starting to relax back into his usual smartass demeanor as we go back to the entrance of Cyclops, where Eddie and Mike have now joined Jeff and Lucy on the sidewalk. The lovebirds have finally acknowledged everyone else’s presence and Jeff looks like he’s trying and failing not to look at us like we’re the world’s biggest buzzkill. “You fuckers ready to go or what?”

“Not as ready as you fuckers,” Stone snickers before shouting in pain as Mike punches him in the arm.

We wave goodbye to Stone and Mike, and Jeff and Lucy set off down the sidewalk towards home, leaving Eddie and me to follow them. He gives me that small smile again. Well, not really me, it’s more like he’s smiling at his shoes again, but there’s no one else around so I assume it’s meant for me.

“So, uhm, can I follow you home, or what?” he mumbles through tight lips, his smile widening until he’s grinning kind of maniacally at the ground. Christ, he has the world's biggest dimples.

“Holy shit you were right, it's totally a pickup line,” I laugh, never having heard someone ask it of me before he did tonight, twice.

“Sure sounds like it,” he chuckles. “I mean, I think I know where I'm going, but I’ve only been there once and it was light out, so…”

“Ohh, you're staying with Jeff?” He nods. “Haha, yeah, come on. It's just a straight shot this way.”

We start walking after our friends, who are almost a block ahead of us now.

“So you live down the hall, right?”

“From Jeff? Yeah.”

“Cool,” he nods again, “neighbors.”

Definitely a man of few words. We walk in silence for a short while before I can think of something else to ask him that doesn't feel like I’m intruding on his meditative focus on the sidewalk. “So it sounds like it's going well, huh? Your audition, I mean. If you guys are already planning a show.”

“I think it's going fucking fantastically, yeah,” he says, finally looking up at me. His absurdly blue eyes are electrified all of a sudden. Oh. So there’s that intensity I heard on the tape. “In fact, I don't even really wanna stay at the apartment, I kind of just want to sleep at the studio again, you know? Not break the momentum?” He chews his lower lip and nods to himself.

“Yeah, it’s too bad you have to go back to San Diego so soon, what’s taking you back?”

“Oh, just work, promised I’d do a shift, and I could use the money for the move.”

“Where’s that?”

“Oh, uh, gas station. Graveyard shift.”

There’s that crazy grin again, and even though it’s still angled down at our feet, I feel myself returning it. It’s pretty infectious. “Night owl, huh?”

“Ahh,” he rumbles again, “just not much of a sleeper, really. You?”

“Same. Well, on the insomnia part. Definitely not a night owl though. I’m pretty much solar powered, except for lately.”

“Why, what’s happened lately?” He glances back up at me with a deep crease between his eyebrows and his fingers torturing his little soul patch.

Shit, Cora, he doesn’t want to hear more about your problems, why did you do that? He’s just being polite again, the poor thing. “Oh, uh, I’ve just been waking up a lot earlier than dawn the last couple months, so I guess the solar hypothesis is out the window.”

“Maybe, uhm, you’re just wired to be on a different time zone, ya know, it’s always sunrise somewhere,” he offers helpfully, his eyebrows tugging up in the middle, almost at a ninety-degree angle, his mouth curling into a tiny smile. It’s a total wiseass expression, challenging, which I didn’t expect from someone so shy, but it’s also warm and encouraging somehow.

“Great,” I laugh, “just drop me on a deserted island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and I’ll be all set.” Honestly, that would solve most of my shit anyway.

“Yeah okay, but you know I'm gonna have to follow you there too,” he chuckles before scowling downward again and stammering. “I mean, for the ocean part, uh, not like, for… not like I’d --”

“You looking to run away too?” I ask him carefully, trying to help him out of the hole he’s digging without laughing. “You just got here.”

“Nah,” he finally finds some actual words, “just, I really love surfing, so that’s pretty much my ideal right there.”

“Surfing? Oh, then we definitely have to run away, there’s not a lot of that in Seattle, bud.”

“Mmm,” he nods, looking thoughtful. “You ever tried it?”

“Nope. Even less of it in Appalachia, I’m afraid. And it always seemed like a pretty dude-heavy pastime.”

“Hey, now we gotta go!” he grins at me with that fierce light in his eyes again. “Somewhere way out in the Pacific, somewhere really warm. That’s where the big waves are. The Polynesians, man, they figured it all out in the first place, that’s where it started, and it used to be more egalitarian. See, the missionaries, they didn’t know what to make of all these naked people running around with surfboards, especially the women, so it kinda became a man’s game for too long after that. Which is bullshit. Anybody can surf. I’d teach you.”

Holy shit, there were more words in that one thought than he’s said all night. This guy really fucking loves surfing.

“Yeah, but like, not naked, though, right?” I tease him back.

“Sure, sure,” he shakes his head, “although if our island is somewhere warm then at least we don’t need wetsuits.”

“See, maybe you won’t…”

He shoots me a sideways grin with a cocked eyebrow.

“I get cold when it’s 75 degrees out,” I explain, “not to mention that being solar-powered is a pretty cruel feature when you’re this pale.” I hold out my hand and rotate it so he can witness my pallor and the ungodly number of freckles covering my skin.

“Yeah, true,” he nods again, thinking it over some more. “Well, we can build a hut, that’ll help keep you from roasting. Or I can put a hammock under some trees.” He gestures with his hand in front of where we’re walking, like he’s scoping out the perfect spot up ahead, and for a second it feels like I’m really somewhere in the South Pacific and not walking down 1st in the middle of the night.

“Well, the hammock idea beats the shit out of sitting in the sun long enough that my freckles finally run together into one continuous tan…”

“There’s a plan,” he grins. “So, okay, I’ll be out there surfing, you’ll be in the hammock. Whatcha doing in there?”

“Reading,” I say without skipping a beat. “Just reading and listening to the waves.”

“That sounds pretty perfect too. You can do that in Seattle, though… why the island?”

I think for a minute, trying to put this feeling into words. It’s an odd thing to be sharing with someone I just met, but then again, this whole conversation has been kind of odd, so fuck it. “Something about the idea of getting away from people. It’s like a reflex. Whenever things get too crazy or shit hits the fan, I just want to be in the least populated place I can find for a while. Somewhere off the grid, or at the very least, somewhere no one knows me, until things start to make sense again.” I look over at him and he’s watching me closely, nodding like he has some idea what I mean, so I go on, “like, uh, how does the Muddy Waters song go, ‘behind the sun’? That’s where I want to be. That’s home.”

He quirks an eyebrow at me and gives me the strangest expression, half smile, half scowl, and scratches the back of his neck. “Muddy Waters, huh?”

“Yeah,” I say, suddenly wary, “what about him?”

“Didn’t take you for the Chicago blues type, is all. That’s awesome.”

“Well, same to you, Surfer Dude,” I tease him.

“Hey,” he holds up his hands, “I’m from Chicago, I’ve got seniority in this discussion.”

“You’re from Chicago?” Now I’m scowling at him. What the hell? I thought he was from California?

He opens his mouth to answer me, but we’ve just rounded the corner to the building and Jeff shouts out, “hey Eddie, we thought we lost you!”

“They did their level best to, anyway,” I mutter to Eddie out of the corner of my mouth, and he laughs as we close the distance. The closer I get to the building, the faster I want to run away. The light’s on in my living room. I don’t know where the fuck Alex was, but at least now I know where he is. That island in the Pacific sounds better with every step. Is it crazy that I want to grab this Eddie guy by the shirt and ask him to come find one with me right now? Yes. Yes, that’s crazy. Stop it, get a grip.

We’re mostly silent as we head up the stairs, until Lucy pauses in her hallway on the third floor and peers at me with concerned but not totally sober eyes. “Cora, you good?”

Am I that obvious? I love you more than life, Luce, but I don’t need another mother hen, I just need to get home and rip this band-aid off, please stop reminding me. “Yeah, yeah, totally. I’ll call you.” I hope my voice sounds convincing, but her expression doesn’t reassure me. Eddie’s watching everything quietly, which seems to be his default mode, and Jeff’s only got eyes for Lucy, although she’s still frowning at me.

“Yeah,” she says, idly lacing her fingers in Jeff’s as he tries to get her attention.

“Okay, so let me just get Ed set up upstairs, and then I’ll come down in a bit?” Jeff asks her quietly, looking at her like leaving her a flight of stairs behind is the absolute last thing he’d like to do.

“No, man, uh, I remember where it is, if you just toss me your key, it’s cool,” Eddie stammers, shaking his head.

“I think I can herd him to the right door, Jeff,” I manage a small smile in Eddie’s direction and then glance back to Jeff, who’s looking at both of us with his face awash in gratitude as he tosses Eddie his keys. He barely even mutters a “goodnight, guys!” before ducking down the hallway after Lucy.

Eddie and I don’t say anything else as we continue up the stairs. I don’t know how much the guys told him about what happened, or how much he put together, and I’m afraid that opening my mouth at all will lead to more of my bullshit problems pouring out, and this poor new kid doesn’t need any more of that tonight. Thankfully, he doesn’t seem to mind the silence, which only strengthens his application for deserted island companion.

“Right, so uhm, this is me,” I say numbly in front of my own door, “and Jeff’s that one down there. You all set?”

“Yeah, yeah, of course,” he nods, but now he’s giving me the same narrowed-eye look everyone else has had all night long. Oh, please, not you too. “Uhm, you need anything? Just, uh, let me know, okay? ...neighbors, right?” He chews his bottom lip as he squints at me.

“Right.” I try one more time for a smile but I think it’s more like a grimace as I wave at him, swallow hard, and go inside, almost afraid to keep my eyes open while I walk in my own door.

But I do, and I see Alex, stretched out on our couch, eyes closed, a mostly empty beer bottle on the rug and his beat-up copy of The End of Eternity folded open on his chest. He’s asleep. Or he was, until just a second ago, and now he’s staring at me like I’m Banquo’s ghost as I close the door behind me. I don’t even know what to say, but he spares me the necessity of having to come up with something.

“Babe! What are you doing here?” he yelps. He jumps up, oblivious to the fact that he’s just kicked the dregs of his beer over as he bounds over to me, rubbing his mouth aggressively with one hand.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Oh look. I found some words.

“No, you’re -- you’re early, you came home early?” He stammers, the blood draining out of his face, taking me by the shoulders. “Wha -- is everything okay?”

“Early??”

“Yeah,” his voice breaks, coming out almost in a squeak, “your flight was tomorrow night, right? 6:15?”

“That was tonight, Alex,” I say slowly, fighting as hard as I can to keep my voice level. So he really did forget.

“No, no, hold on, I fucking swear, it was tomorrow…” he lets go of me and bounds to the kitchen table in two big steps, rifling through a small pile of receipts and mail until he pulls out a Post-It. “See, right here, United, arrives 6:15, October… ninth… FUCK!”

He rushes back over to me and pulls me into a bone-crushing hug. “Oh my god, Cora... babe... I’m so fucking sorry, I’m the biggest fucking idiot, I fucked it up, I’m so…”

I let him hold me, but it feels like my brain is two gears too low and struggling to put it all in place. He wrote it down right, but he still forgot? How does a person even do that? How little do I matter to you? Fuck, it’s somehow worse to get confirmation of the fears I’d been running from all night long than to keep pretending there was some other explanation.

“Hey, it was an honest mistake,” I say flatly as I mentally try to smooth out the bumps, make it all fit, make it all okay.

He pulls back far enough to get a look at my face. “You’re not mad? Wait a minute, how did you get back? Where’ve you been?” He glances at the clock on the wall. “Were you at SeaTac all this time?”

Where’ve I been? Did he really just ask me that?

“No, Stone picked me up when I couldn’t get a hold of you.”

“Well, I’ll have to thank him then.” Alex’s eyes narrowed just a tiny bit at the name, but he seems to have decided against his usual jealous bullshit, which is a good move right now.

“Yeah. Well, he said he didn’t mind.”

“That’s awfully good of him.” He rubs my back with one hand and kisses my forehead. I’m so not in the mood for this.

“Yeah. Look, I’m going to bed, it’s been a long day.”

I slip out of his grasp and give him a weak excuse for a smile, hoping it’s enough to end the conversation. He’s still looking like he’s seen a ghost, so he doesn’t fight me on it, and I duck down the hallway to our bedroom. “Night babe,” he calls tentatively down the hallway, and I hear a shaky sigh.

Jesus, he really knows he fucked up. The look on his face. I should probably go easier on him, but it’s going to have to wait until tomorrow. I just don’t have the fortitude right now to try to make him feel better about his mistake. I brush my teeth, get ready for bed, feeling totally numb and hoping for both our sakes that he stays out there in the living room until I can fall asleep. I just can’t take anymore tonight.

Under the covers, eyes closed, I try to drift away from it all. The fear that something terrible had happened to Alex, who, for all his faults, is the only man who’s ever actually loved me. The realization that nothing had happened, and that even the only man who’s ever actually loved me doesn’t even love me enough to think about me when I’m not around. The scrutiny from Stone, from Lucy, which feels like an extra weight to carry on top of it all. The look on Alex’s face that almost makes me feel sorry for him even though all I want to do is scream at him. All of it. I close my eyes and sink a little deeper, breathe a little slower, letting the warmth of the covers become the warmth of an island sun, the rhythm of my breath become the distant crashing of waves.

[delkios]

Best Served Cold (DC TV)

Title: Best Served Cold Fandom: DC TV Rating: PG-13 Word Count: 4483 Characters: Mark, Clyde, Lisa, Len, a couple cameos Summary: The ice cream factory is pretty chill work. At least until the Mardon brothers realize their boss is keeping a secret... Working at an ice cream factory was hardly glamorous but it paid rent and, right now, that's what Mark and Clyde desperately needed. It wasn't technically a factory, the place used to be a bakery back in the day but now all the counters and stoves had been cleared out so they could do mixing and packaging with some flimsy partitions put up to designate an office. Best Served Cold was a local, small business, run and owned by the equally chilly Leonard Snart with his sister Lisa handling the orders- and employees -so he could focus on the logistics. It didn't have a store front. All its business was in distribution to local ice cream parlors, grocery and corner stores and a handful of restaurants. Mark didn't really know how any of that stuff worked, he and Clyde just kept the machines churning out ice cream by the quart or gallon depending on the orders Lisa gave them. It was kind of boring, honestly- tedious and monotonous as they switched out ingredients and punched in different quantities and scoured the equipment multiple times a day. But it was still better than almost every other job Mark ever had- less backbreaking even with loading up the delivery truck. It was also one of the only places not to immediately dismiss the brothers for the felony check mark on their applications. At least the Snart siblings were interesting. Lisa was the more sociable of the two, simultaneously bright and sharp, reminding Mark of a knife. The decorative kind secretly honed to a razor edge. Len was charming in his own way- talkative while keeping everyone at a measured distance, always thinking of ten different things at once. Most of the time Mark saw him, Len was on the phone talking to someone about something- it wasn't his business so Mark never paid much attention. Even with the thin partitions, Len never raised his voice even when he snapped at someone, just got quiet and intense. Mark wondered if the people on the other end of the phone realized how lucky they were not having to go through that in person. Not three days after they started working, a couple men in suits carrying a briefcase came to talk to Len. Whatever they told him evidently pissed Len off and, though his words were too quiet to hear, Mark could tell from the sneer on his face and rigid set of his shoulders that Len was verbally savaging them. Mark made a mental note to not get on Len's bad side after that. Which wasn't all that difficult to do. The Snarts were sticklers for quality but Mark and Clyde figured out which parts of the job they suited best and, after a week, were working like a well oiled machine. Even Lisa admitted to being impressed. Then, about a month being on the job, getting back to their crappy apartment that was listing to one side and settling onto the couch that listed the other way, Clyde said, "I think Snart's secretly a mob boss."

Mark paused in the middle of popping off the cap of his beer bottle. "What?" "I'm serious! I know you get that shady vibe off him!" "Because he's got a record." Sure, it was only juvie, but he'd been caught with a pocket full of diamonds inside a jewelry store. He'd been forced to take the fall for his dad, Len had explained, because that wasn’t the kind of information he wanted the Mardons coming across just any which way. When he'd gotten out, his grandfather had basically taken Len in. Len helped his grandfather selling ice cream out of a truck and, when he died, his grandfather had a secret bank account for Len to inherit when he was old enough. Len decided to use that money in his grandfather's honor, learning to make ice cream and opened a small but successful business. Mark was secretly certain that Len had to have dipped into a little thievery before then, however. There was no way a guy working out of an ice cream truck had enough savings for a start-up. “Think about it!” Clyde said, obviously excited about this revelation. “Who would think an ice cream place would be used for money laundering?” Mark shook his head. “Whatever, man.” Clyde had always been easily swayed, it made him an easy target for peer pressure and drugs if Mark wasn’t around. Once, at some college frat party he crashed, Clyde had gotten hopped up on something, declared himself a god before jumping off a balcony. It was only through blind luck that he got away with just breaking a leg in the shallow end of a pool rather than his whole body on cement. “I’m serious! This isn’t some conspiracy theory!” Clyde put his knees on the couch so he could lean into Mark’s space. “You’ve seen those suits with the briefcase.” “Yeah, so?” “They show up every Monday and Friday! Don’t you think that’s weird?” ...Okay, sort of. Especially given the fact that Len clearly didn’t like them and Mark hadn’t actually noticed that. “Also he’s constantly out or on the phone even though this is supposed to be his only business.” “He’s doing sales work and talking to advertisers.” That much Mark could say with certainty given the amount of times he accidentally eavesdropped on those conversations. Which, “If he’s a secret mob boss, wouldn’t Snart have put in walls people can’t hear through?” “He’s probably speaking in code or has it for the times he needs to establish an alibi, I don’t know how mob bosses think!” “You seem to be doing an awful lot of leaps of logic on his behalf.” Clyde rolled his eyes. “What about the delivery guy?” “Roy? What about him?” “He wears sunglasses all the damn time. Even when we’re loading up the truck.” Mark had noticed that but assumed it as a random quirk. It was harmless so it wasn’t his business. “So?” “And he’s always wearing black turtlenecks. When have you ever seen a delivery guy wear nothing but black turtlenecks? And they’ve got stains!” Mark had also noticed that but thought nothing of it. Now that it was brought up, he realized he’d never been able to identify what those stains were on account of the turtlenecks being black. “Plus his name.” That derailed his thoughts. “What about his name?” Clyde gave him a look. “C’mon. Roy G. Bivolo can’t possibly be his actual name.” “Maybe his parents are assholes. Not like we haven’t known people with shitty names before. Remember Eddy Nigma?” Clyde clicked his tongue the way he did when he thought Mark was treating him like a little kid. “Okay, what about that one guy that shows up sometimes? Big, bald, all the gnarly scars?” Oh yeah, Mark knew the guy. Not much taller than Len or Mark but with shoulders like a truck, scowling more often than not. He looked like a quintessential Hollywood thug or mob muscle. And Mark was pretty sure he heard the man call Len ‘boss’ a couple times. “We don’t actually know who he is,” Mark defended weakly. “Because we’d be dead if they knew we figured it out.” Clyde nodded as if he’d solved a mystery. “So we gotta pretend we don’t know Len’s secret.” Mark shook his head and finally opened his beer. “You’re fucking high.” --- The next day the guys in suits were back only this time they didn't go to the front of the building but went around the back where Mark and Clyde were taking a break after loading up Roy’s truck. Something about them made Mark’s neck itch, like he really needed to wash his hands before the men’s presence permanently stained them. “Snart’s out,” he said preemptively, wanting them away from him and his brother. “We're aware,” said one, visibly older than his compatriot. “Our business is not with Mr. Snart today.” “We're hoping to have a moment of your time, gentlemen.” Said the other. Beside him, Clyde tensed. “For what?” Mark asked. “It's hardly anything salacious or untoward.” The older man said like he was sharing an inside joke. “We're hoping you could answer a simple question for us. One your employer has been reluctant to answer.” “You'll be paid for your time.” The other added, hoisting up his briefcase and cracking it open. Just enough so the brothers could see it was layered in bundles of bills. Mark sucked in a breath- he'd never seen that much money, even in the robbery he’d been arrested for. “You will remain completely anonymous as well.” He saw Clyde open his mouth out of the corner of his eye but Mark beat him to the punch. “What's so important you're willing to go behind Snart’s back?” The older man’s smile grew, voice full of private laughter. “Why, just the secret to his empire.” Clyde’s mouth clicked shut. “Feel free to consider your options. We'll be back later this week to try to reach an agreement with Mr. Snart again. If you agree, you will be doing us a great service.” The men gave them abrupt, tight smiles. “Have a good day.” Baffled at the sudden retreat, Mark almost didn't hear the purposeful clicking of Lisa’s heels. They turned at her approach and Mark was momentarily thrown by the dark look on her face. She came to a halt next to the brothers, still glaring at the shrinking backs of the suited men. “What did they want?” She all but demanded. “Some kind of secret.” Lisa snorted. “Like either of you would know.” The line of her shoulders eased but she still looked tense. “If you two want to stick around,” she said, “next time they approach you, tell them to go fuck themselves.” Lisa led them back into the warehouse and as the brothers went back to work, Clyde asked quietly, “That was weird, right? It's not just me?” “That was weird,“ Mark agreed. “Weird enough it would make sense that he’s a secret mob boss?” Mark glared. “Just get to work.” Of course now that the thought was at the forefront of his head, Mark couldn’t help seeing possible evidence. Nothing damning, at least not at first though Mark had noticed, a couple times while Len was on the phone, Len switching topics once he noticed someone was around. And, on the following payday- the day they were receiving payments from clients -Mark accidentally spotted Len and Roy in an out of the way corner and Roy had passed over several thick envelops. They could have very well been something other than cash but, given the shape, Mark was hard pressed to think of something else. Then the guy with the scars showed up again. Mark was on break at the time, hanging around outside for a smoke. That was the only reason he was able to witness it. The man didn’t even manage to make it to the door before Len was storming out, expression dark enough that Mark nearly swallowed his cigarette. Instinctively he ducked around the corner to avoid being seen. But was still close enough to hear. “What the hell are you doing here?” Len snapped. “Hi, Boss.” The man drawled, clearly not intimidated. Mark’s brain kind of stalled on ‘boss’. “Shipment arrived.” “And you decided you couldn’t tell me that over the phone?” “Had to pick up other shit for the job, since I was passing by I thought I’d stop by instead of wasting time calling you up.” He scowled. “Didn’t think I’d need your permission for that.” “Have you considered I don’t want certain people seeing you here, making connections I don’t want them to make?” “I can keep a fucking secret, Snart. No one’s going to find out and no one’s gonna be able to trace anything to me.” Len’s mouth twisted like he was debating if he was mollified by this or not and if he should admit it if he was. Instead he went to the van the man had driven in, nondescript asides from being old and dented. Len opened the doors in the back. There were no windows in the rear for Mark to peek in. “This it?” “That’s the last of it.” “22K?” The man snorted. “Like I’d get less.” Len stood there, staring at whatever it was before stepping back. He tucked something small into his jacket- an interior pocket, Mark assumed. He closed the door before turning to the man. “No one hears about this.” “Yeah, Boss, I got it.” They parted ways and Mark realized he was well overdue to return from break, getting an earful from Lisa when he finally made it back. Clyde pestered him on why he was so distracted for the rest of the shift but it wasn’t until they were driving back home that Mark told him. Clyde beamed like he won the lottery. “I knew it!” A couple days later, Mark was still so distracted by all this that he dropped part of a mixer on his foot. It wasn’t bad given his steel-toed boots, but it hit his ankle at an angle, making the joint buckle. Clyde helped him to a chair and Mark told the Snarts he didn’t need a hospital. Len took one look at the ankle, eased out of the boot, and told Lisa to call someone called ‘Boo’. ‘Boo’ turned out to be a young woman, probably not much older than Clyde, who examined the ankle cheerfully but clinically, declaring it nothing more than a sprain and wrapped it expertly. Mark wouldn’t have thought it anything special, that maybe she was from a local clinic, except when she went to talk to Len, he handed her a money envelope and a loaded-up brown paper bag. “For your trouble,” he added with a smirk. Boo peeked inside and grinned wickedly. “Always my favorite customer,” she said before leaving. It was mostly small, subtle moments like that but as those moments mounted, Mark had to admit the evidence was starting to become all the more likely. Especially when Clyde got back with information from Trixie. Technically, as part of their parole, the Mardons weren’t supposed to interact with her anymore, but given all her police records stubbornly kept the wrong name and gender on them, they decided the police obviously meant a completely different person. “Get this,” Clyde said, holding up a xerox from an aged newspaper article. It was about a cop being killed by a mob hit, dated almost twenty years ago. “The Snarts’ dad was killed by the Santinis!” “Sucks, but so?” Mark eyed the article- he hadn’t known their dad was a cop. “So, don’t you know the saying? Revenge is a dish best served cold?” Clyde threw his hands in the air. “C’mon, you’re the book nerd, you should know this!” “First, that’s from Star Trek. Second, what? You think Len became a secret mob boss to avenge his dad? Wouldn’t that be a little on the nose?” “Are you saying that wouldn’t make sense?” Mark sighed, pushing the copy from his face. “I’m still not convinced he is a secret mob boss.” Clyde gave him a dark look, obviously disappointed in his brother. “What more do you need?” “Actual proof,” he shot back before pointedly ignoring Clyde. So of course the next day it happened: The Conversation. It was the first time Mark had ever heard Len raise his voice and the question was enough to grab the brothers’s undivided attention. “What do you mean the body won’t fit!” They exchanged looks before quietly making their way toward the office to eavesdrop. “Mick, need I remind you how important this is? This will ruin everything if you don’t- well if you did your job properly, I wouldn’t be telling you how to do it!” On the other side of the wall, Len made a frustrated noise. “I don’t care how you do it- lop off a foot or take the whole damn thing apart, but you better unfuck this mess, Mick. In this situation, I’d argue you should be owing me. I’d rather not call in my solid with Assassin on a distraction run.” There was a long pause and when Len spoke again, his voice wasn’t as hard or demanding. “Mick, I wouldn’t have given you this job if I didn’t think you could handle it. Fine.” Another pause. “Yes, payment is still on the table. Of course it’ll be worth your while. When have I ever left you unsatisfied? Provided, of course, that we pull this off. I’ll swing by tonight to take stock of the situation. Five hours, Mick. Don’t disappoint me.” They scuttled back to their workstations. They filled orders, Lisa left, then Len closed shop for the day, telling the Mardons to leave while he locked up and went his own way. Clyde showed remarkable restraint waiting until Len’s motorcycle disappeared from view before he damn near throttled Mark. “Holy shit!” Contrary to his brother’s excitement, Mark was wondering how likely they were to die if he started looking for another job for the two of them. --- A week passed. As they went into work, Lisa called to them from the office and waved them over. Clyde was still a little fuzzy with sleep but Mark took one look at Len, poised at his desk, and tensed. Lisa shut the door and stood next to it and Mark realized he had no idea if she was part of this or not. “Mark. Clyde.” Len said with a deliberate congeniality. “There isn’t some kind of trouble, is there?” “No, sir.” Mark hoped he hadn’t sounded as meek as he felt saying that. “Then the reason why your productivity and attention to detail has gone down,” he drawled, “is because you just stopped caring?” Something in Len’s tone of voice seemed to filter through Clyde’s head and he sat up properly. Mark’s blood went cold. “No- nothing like that!” “Then…” Len drew out the word, an obvious invite for one of the two to elaborate. Neither did, exchanging uncomfortable glances instead. Len scowled, hands dropping from the desk and out of view. Mark flinched instinctively. “Not even going to attempt to justify yourselves?” Mark bit his lip, looking away from Len. Behind him, he could hear Lisa’s foot tapping irritably. Clyde blurted out, “We figured out you’re a mob boss!” “Clyde!” “What? If he’s gonna kill us anyway, I don’t want him torturing the information out of us!” The footing tapping abruptly cut off as Lisa burst into hysterical laughter. Len just sat there, staring at the Mardons blankly. “How, exactly,” he said slowly, “did you come to that conclusion?” Clyde seemed to suddenly re-think his strategy in blurting out the truth. “If we tell you, will you still kill us?” “I wasn’t planning on killing you to begin with, just fire you.” “Like… permanently fire us?” “In the sense that I wasn’t going to hire either of you again, yes. Lisa, would you stop laughing?” “This… is… hilarious!” She gasped out, stumbling to lean against the desk. Lisa burst out into fresh laughter at the brothers’ terrified and wary expression. “Holy crap, you actually believe that! This is the best thing I’ve heard in years!” Len rolled his eyes and deigned to ignore his sister. “Again, why do you think I’m a mob boss?” Mark and Clyde exchanged glances, waving their hands vaguely. “The guys with the suits and briefcase full of money.” Mark eventually said, “They wanted us to spill the ‘secret to your empire’.” Len scowled. “They’re lawyers. An especially shady kind, but that’s all. A few months before I hired you two, I found out one of my clients was modifying my ice cream and re-labeling it as his own. So I sued him and banned him from purchasing my brand ever again.” The scowl smoothed out into a disgusted sneer. “Shortly after, Scudder started sending his lawyers to me, trying to get me to sell my recipe. They tried bribing Lisa, Roy, and you two into stealing the recipe for them.” Clyde leaned over towards, whispering despite the fact both Snarts were close enough to hear regardless, “Do we believe that?” “I guess?” Mark shrugged. “I can’t think of a reason not to.” “Hey- what about Roy?” Clyde asked, sitting upright again. “What about him?” Len replied, an eyebrow raised. “What’s his deal? With the sunglasses and turtlenecks and all?” “He’s colorblind, those are color corrective lenses.” “And he’s an aspiring starving artist,” Lisa added with a smirk. “His whole look is intentional, he just works for us because he doesn’t actually want to experience the ‘starving’ part.” “And his name?” “Roy G. Bivolo is his actual, legal name,” Len said dryly. "I checked when I hired him." “And the lady you called when I hurt my foot,” Mark started, only to be quickly cut off. “Shawna- med student. I called her to see if the damage was actually serious because, one- hospital bills are ridiculous, and two- I’m not risking OSHA getting on my ass by making you work on a broken foot. Paying her in cash means it’s not taxable income for her.” “And the bag?” Lisa laughed brightly. “Ice cream. She’ll be hitting exams soon, she’ll need the morale boost.” Mark was starting to feel foolish. “And the guy with the scars?” “My husband,” Len said flatly, realizing how ridiculous this entire thing had gotten. “Mick Rory.” He lifted his hand and waggled his pinky finger, the only one that had a ring on it. “He wears that ring because Mick got it for him for Lenny’s first birthday they spent together and they’re both secretly massive saps,” Lisa supplied. Expression stoney, Len pushed her from the desk. Lisa just grinned and leaned up against the wall. “But… he calls you ‘Boss’!” “They met in juvie,” Lisa very pointedly ignored the glare Len sent her, “and Len was just as bossy back then as he is now. Good thing Mick seems to like that sort of thing.” She ignored the pencil Len threw in her direction. “And the thing in the van?” Mark snapped his fingers. “He was the one you were talking to on the phone! About the body!” Lisa’s eyebrows jump and Len glared. “You’re lucky we aren’t having this conversation eight days earlier,” he very nearly growled. “They were Lisa’s birthday presents, gold jewelry-” “I love gold,” she said with a dreamy sigh, “I’m very particular about it.” “She won’t accept less than 22 karats. And a motorcycle Mick built from scratch. He works at a custom autoshop- not a chop shop,” Len cut in when Clyde opened his mouth. “It’s owned by a disabled veteran,” Lisa added, “who just had a kid- that’s the last place anyone will be doing anything illegal.” Digesting the information, Mark said slowly, “So the body was… for the bike?” “The place he ordered it from got the specs wrong. Poor Mickey was pulling all-nighters for days getting it to fit.” “So the payment I overheard you talking about?” Mark asked, turning to Len who scowled. “I told him we would do whatever he wanted for a second honeymoon. He picked Aruba.” He made a face, like a Caribbean beach vacation was somehow a chore. “Is that why you’ve been getting so much of your payments in cash?” “Of course! I’m not using a credit card in another country, the fees are ridiculous!” “What about the assassin?” Clyde asked, narrow-eyed. “You mean Assassin Out Crashin’?” Len raised an eyebrow. “Have you ever heard of roller derby? Lisa’s on a team.” “I’m Golden Glider,” she said with pride. “Assassin is a friend of mine, Sara Lance. Shawna’s also on it.” “She’s Peek-a-Boo.” Lisa started ticking off names on her finger. “There’s also Wild Wild West, Quick And The Dead, Big Top, Mixin’ With Vixen, Light ‘Em Up, Hawk And Awe, Stay Frosty-” “Sara’s Lisa’s drinking buddy, I would’ve asked her to play distraction if Mick needed more time.” The Mardons fell quiet and, after a moment, Len asked, “Anything you need me to clear up?” “You named the place Best Served Cold,” Clyde said weakly. “Like the thing with revenge.” Lisa gave him a flat look. “Did you not read any of the flavors? Pony Espresso, I Don’t Caramel, Berry The Hatchet- I’m pretty Len would suffer an aneurysm if he passed up a pun.” “What can I say,” he shrugged, “I can't always be pun-predictable.” He smirked as everyone else groaned. “So it really had nothing to do with the Santinis and your dad, huh?” Len and Lisa froze and glared. They may not be secret mob, but they were still frightening in their own way. Mark felt for Clyde, getting the brunt of it. “Our father,” Len said slowly, “was a piece of shit who deserved what he got.” “I… read he was a cop,” Clyde said haltingly, in a tiny voice. “Didn’t I say he was the reason I went to juvie?” Len’s voice was cold. “He made me take the fall for his job. He was as corrupt as they came. The reason the Santinis killed him is because he was dumb enough to try to blackmail them for more money.” “Right. Sorry. Never mentioning it again.” “Good.” Len’s glare lessened, but his expression was still stern. “Any other lingering issues? Or can we all get back to work?” Mark and Clyde nodded like bobble-heads. “Please!” Len waved a hand dismissively and Lisa laughed as the brothers all but ran out. Getting to the machines, Mark said, “Clyde?” “Yeah?” “Next time you have a conspiracy theory, shut the fuck up.”

[harshmallowffxv]

Beware the Smile — a Promptio fic (General Audiences)

Written for day 2 of @promptioweek, under the prompt ‘exploration’.

Also over on ao3, for your convenience.

Prompto is up early, for once. Gladiolus watches under an arm thrown across his face as his companion slips through the tent’s opening and steps out into the dawn, stretching his arms over his head.

He doesn’t hear Gladiolus approach behind him, doesn’t hear the soft crunch of footsteps on the solid ground of the haven. He’s looking to the east, to where the sun will soon rise, his hands resting on top of his head.

He flinches when Gladiolus claps a hand down on his shoulder; fortunately for them both, and for the others still sleeping in the tent, he doesn’t shout out.

‘You gotta be more aware of your surroundings,’ Gladiolus says, as Prompto twirls on the soles of his feet to face him. ‘Never know what could be lurking in the shadows, waiting to attack.’

Prompto rolls his eyes.

‘We’re in a haven, Gladio. Only thing lurking around here is you.’

Gladiolus is just reaching up to ruffle a hand through Prompto’s blond hair when he catches himself, letting his hand drop. He’s been doing that a lot lately — letting his guard slip.

Prompto’s enthusiasm is so infectious it’s easy to get swept up in it, to forget that they don’t know each other all that well. Before the road trip, they barely shared more than a handful of words with one another in passing whenever they ran into each other at Noct’s apartment.

‘Since you’re awake so early,’ Gladiolus says, ‘how ‘bout a run to start off the day?’

He expects Prompto to protest, to throw a tantrum, but he gives a shrug instead and looks about their surroundings. He points off to the east, where the plains run flat and smooth, perfect for traversal by foot.

‘Thattaway?’

They warm up first, stretching by the edge of the haven. Gladiolus leaves a note for the others — Gone for a while. Don’t leave without us. — and they set off, keeping pace easily with one another.

It’s a little chilly out, the sun yet to have spread its warmth across the land, but Gladiolus doesn’t feel it. Before long they’ve worked up a sweat and he can see Prompto swipe the back of his arm across his forehead, his skin beaded with moisture.

‘Didn’t figure you for the running type,’ Gladiolus remarks, glancing over.

Prompto shrugs.

‘I didn’t get this physique overnight, y’know.’

Gladiolus can see him getting cocky — this pace is little by way of exertion. Maybe they ought to make it a real competition…

He points off to the left, toward the treeline in the distance. It’s an uphill hike across the face of a slope from where they currently run.

‘Race you?’ he says. ‘First one to the trees does the other’s chores tomorrow.’

Prompto looks over at him with narrowed eyes. Gladiolus sees him flick a glance toward the trees, then back again, and before Gladiolus can react he takes off at a sprint toward the forest.

‘Damnit,’ Gladiolus mutters, setting off after him.

It figures that somebody so small would be so fast — where Gladiolus had always thought of him as scrawny, he powers up the incline as though it’s nothing at all. Gladiolus’s strides are longer, though, and he soon makes quick work of the distance between them.

He’s caught up enough now that he can hear the sound of Prompto’s breathing, heavy and laboured; Prompto shoots a look back over his shoulder and pushes himself that much harder when he realises how close the race is.

Prompto makes the treeline first, by a hair’s breadth, but he’s so busy twisting back to gloat that he hits a root and stumbles over it, flying forward into the forest.

Just like that, he’s gone: tumbling over and over, vanishing out of sight.

Gladiolus slows his pace to a jog, then stops. Other than the noises of the birds in the tree canopy, disturbed by the human intrusion, he can’t hear anything.

‘Prompto?’

The response is muffled, tiny and meek: ‘I’m okay.’

Gladiolus trots up to the edge and peers down over it. The trees conceal the lip of some sort of basin, bounded as far as he can see by a sheer drop; when he finally spots Prompto, lying on his back almost hidden by the greenery, he’s a long way down.

‘Did you hurt anything?’ Gladiolus asks. ‘It’s a pretty big drop.’

Prompto sits up wearily. When he tries to push himself up to stand he gives a little yelp of pain and sits back down with a thud.

‘It’s my wrist,’ he calls. ‘I think I twisted it.’

Gladiolus sighs and covers his face with his hands. Prompto’s not going to be climbing back up any time soon, not with a sprained wrist.

‘Okay,’ he answers, dropping his hands. ‘Gimme a sec and I’ll find a way down.’

It’s slow work — slower than Prompto’s more abrupt method, anyway. Gladiolus manages to find handholds in the roots and vines sprouting from the face of the drop.

Prompto’s still parked on his backside when Gladiolus makes his way over. He looks worse off than he had at a distance: there are cuts and scrapes all over him wherever there’s bare skin, and there’s a tear in the knee of his jeans, gleaming wetly with something Gladiolus suspects might be blood. His hair is filled with little twigs and leaves and bits of dirt, but his head seems uninjured. That’s something, at least.

‘C’mon,’ he says, reaching for Prompto’s good hand.

Together they get Prompto to his feet, although he seems unsteady where he stands. When he glances down at himself to inspect the worst of the damage, he spots the gash in his pants and huffs out a sigh.

‘Aw, man.’

‘Count yourself lucky if that’s the worst you got to complain about,’ Gladiolus retorts.

They give the climb a glance over but Prompto only echoes Gladiolus’s earlier assumption: he’s not going to be able to make it up. Gladiolus is just considering the logistics of making his way back up with somebody thrown over his shoulder when Prompto’s voice rings out from a little way off.

He’s wandering, deeper into the forest. Gladiolus sees him point at something — the trees, no, beyond the trees. It isn’t until he catches up to Prompto, stepping quickly but carefully through the undergrowth, that he sees what Prompto is pointing at.

There’s a clearing, probably not much larger in diameter than the length of the Regalia. In the centre of it is a figure hewn in stone.

‘Let’s go check it out,’ Prompto says. He takes off before Gladiolus can stop him.

The statue is a woman, arms raised toward the heavens. Her body is lithe, so expertly carved it’s almost as if she were a real, living human who was turned to stone. Some sort of serpent wraps itself around her, its finned head turned skyward.

‘Leviathan,’ Prompto says, breathless.

Whatever this little shrine is doing here, hidden away within the woods, Gladiolus knows at the very least that somebody still tends to it — there’s a bowl carved into the plinth, filled with clear water, and offerings of flowers, food and money have been left all around it.

‘Somebody still worships here,’ Prompto says.

He walks toward it, hesitantly stretching a hand out toward the carved serpent. It’s so lifelike Gladiolus almost expects it to spring out and attack.

‘Then there’s gotta be a way out of here,’ Gladiolus says.

He drags his eyes from the shrine and looks around it, searching for any other hints of human life. There’s a path through the trees, small but well-worn; wherever it leads, it’s sure to take them toward civilisation.

He whips his phone out to send the others a text to let them know the situation, but the spot on the screen where the signal bars usually show up is filled instead with a little X.

‘Damnit.’

‘What’s up?’

Prompto steps across the clearance towards him, peering at the phone in his hand. Gladiolus shakes his head and kills the screen, pocketing it.

‘Nothing,’ he says. ‘No signal. I hope the others don’t come looking for us.’

The path leads in a mostly straight line, veering every now and then around trees or boulders. They aren’t on it long before Gladiolus realises it’s taking them away from the treeline, deeper into the woods.

Prompto doesn’t seem concerned when he voices his worries.

‘Path means people, right?’ he says. ‘We just gotta follow the yellow brick road.’

It’s so thickly wooded here, the tree cover so dense, that it starts to feel like night as they plunge deeper into the trail. Gladiolus thinks he hears the sinister noises of a daemon lurking somewhere nearby, but he convinces himself that it’s just his imagination. Still, he can’t help looking back over his shoulder from time to time, his eyes scanning for the movement of anything larger and deadlier than a deer.

When it feels as though they’ve been wandering for hours — and just as Gladiolus is about to resign himself to the fact that they’re lost — the path begins to widen before opening out onto another clearing. This one is larger than the first, with a cottage built right in the middle. The sight of the sunlight, of the blue skies overhead, gives him more relief than he could admit.

‘Somebody actually lives here?’ Prompto says, peering around. ‘Must get spooky at night with the daemons prowling around.’

‘The daemons aren’t welcome here and they know it.’

Gladiolus’s head whips toward the sound of the stranger’s voice; a woman stands by the door of the cottage. He’s almost sure she wasn’t there a moment ago, but he shakes the thought off and steps forward.

‘Sorry to intrude on your land,’ he says. ‘We’re lost.’

The woman shakes her head, sending her long brown curls cascading about her shoulders. Gladiolus can’t quite place her age: her face is youthful and unlined, but she carries herself with the refinement of someone much older.

‘These lands belong to me no more than they do to you,’ she says. ‘If you are lost, however, I may be of some help. Where did you come from?’

Gladiolus points back in the direction they came; he’s not even sure of how far they’ve strayed.

‘We were camped out at the haven nearby,’ he explains. ‘My friend’s hurt. We followed the path here — figured we might find somebody who could show us the way out.’

The woman looks him over appraisingly, then does the same to Prompto. When her eyes land on his hand, she strides over and gently reaches out to take it. He lets her.

‘It’s not broken,’ she says, giving it a cursory glance. ‘It will heal.’

She turns her glance toward Gladiolus once more. Still holding Prompto’s hand in one of hers, she gestures with the other toward her home.

‘I can show you the way back to the haven,’ she says, ‘but you must be thirsty. Come inside, and I’ll make you some tea.’

Something niggles at Gladiolus, a tug at the back of his mind. Whatever it is, it’s gone in an instant.

‘Sure.’

The woman smiles — a pretty smile, warm and welcoming. Prompto lets her take him by the hand and lead him to the cottage, and Gladiolus follows close behind.

The interior of the cottage is small and cosy, lit dimly by candles and oil lamps. As far as Gladiolus can tell it’s just one room; a small kitchen area sits off in a corner, while there’s a bed in another. The place is so warm it makes him feel drowsy.

‘Please,’ she says, gesturing toward a table to one side of the room. ‘Take a seat.’

She lets Prompto go with a pat on the hand and a sweet smile. Something about it makes Gladiolus feel jealous: protective.

They sit beside each other at the little table carved out of raw wood while she potters about in the kitchen, filling a cast iron kettle with water from a jug. She moves to the fireplace and hangs it over the flames before turning back to Gladiolus and Prompto.

‘You were at the haven,’ she says. ‘Are you hunters?’

Gladiolus feels like a schoolboy under scrutiny from a teacher. Beside him, Prompto hurriedly shakes his head.

‘We’re on a road trip,’ he answers. ‘We’re bringing Prin—’

Gladiolus gives his leg a thump under the table before he can continue; Prompto wails and shoots an irritated look at him, but thankfully he doesn’t finish what he had been saying.

‘A road trip?’ the woman echoes. ‘How lovely. Just the two of you?’

‘No,’ Gladiolus says. ‘There’s two others.’

Maybe it’s Gladiolus’s imagination — maybe it’s the heat, or the smell of herbs all around, or the little voice somewhere in the back of his thoughts, tuned out like a radio filled with static — but he can’t help thinking the woman’s shoulders dip a little. She briskly turns away, toward the kettle over the fire.

Gladiolus uses the time to look about the place, to try to get a read on things. This stranger, kind enough to invite two men into her home, seems harmless enough. So why does he feel like somebody’s walking over his grave?

He feels as though he nods off; a moment later the kettle is whistling in the fireplace and the woman bustles about, readying their tea. The smell of whatever brew she uses is intoxicating as the steam wafts through the room. Gladiolus resolves himself not to have any.

‘The others,’ she says, as she sets two cups down in front of them, filled to the brim. ‘Your friends. They aren’t lost, like you?’

She seems awfully interested in the others. The hairs prickle on Gladiolus’s arms, and before Prompto can take a sip of tea, he reaches out and grips him by the hand.

‘We really should get going,’ he says.

The woman nods. She takes a step back, folding her hands in front of her.

‘Of course.’

She bustles away a moment later; Gladiolus sees her root through a stack of books and papers until she finds a blank page and begins scribbling on it with a pen. When she returns to the table she sets it down in front of Gladiolus and he finds she’s drawn a map.

‘That’s the shrine you no doubt stumbled upon,’ she says, using a long, slender finger to point it out. ‘Here is the edge of the forest. The verge surrounding the basin is very sheer all along, almost impassable, unless you follow the stream.’

According to the map, the stream runs not too far from the cottage, leading in a mostly direct path in the direction they need to go.

‘Convenient,’ he mutters.

The woman smiles.

‘Are you sure you won’t have your tea?’

‘We’re sure,’ Gladiolus says.

She shows them to the door, opening it ahead of them. Gladiolus files out, but before Prompto can go she gently takes his hand. Gladiolus thinks it’s the one with the injured wrist, but he doesn’t react as though it hurts.

‘My boy,’ she says, looking Prompto in the eye. ‘I see a darkness around you — from within or without, I can’t be sure. I see a man. Tall, dark and…’

She pauses, flicking her glance toward Gladiolus.

‘Trust,’ she says. ‘In yourselves, and each other. You’ll need it in the times to come.’

With these words ringing in their ears, she ushers them out of the cottage, closing the door behind them with a firm click.

They stand in silence in the clearing, blinking against the brightness of the daylight.

‘That was…’ Prompto murmurs, trailing off.

Gladiolus shakes his head.

‘That was a heap of crap.’

Silence dogs them as they follow the woman’s hand-drawn map, skirting the edge of the stream. In hardly any time at all they see a broad, flat horizon out beyond the trees; Gladiolus unconsciously picks up his pace, eager to be away from this unsettling place.

His phone sounds out when they emerge from the forest: it’s a notification of a text message from Noct, probably sent while they had no signal.

Where R U? U missed breakfast

Gladiolus stops in his tracks. He feels a laugh bubble out of his chest; something about the text is so mundane — so normal — that he could cry. Prompto turns and looks at him, an eyebrow raised.

‘Everything… okay?’

‘Yeah,’ Gladiolus says. ‘Everything’s perfect.’

They’re in the Regalia later on when the sun begins to set and Ignis starts talking about finding a place to stay for the night. For once, Gladiolus doesn’t mind when Noctis suggests they check into a nearby motel.

Ignis takes the next exit, leading them toward the welcoming lights of the settlement by the side of the road.

Gladiolus waits until the others have gone ahead before he catches up to Prompto, gently laying a hand on his shoulder.

‘How’s your wrist?’ he says.

Prompto looks blankly at him for a moment before turning his glance down toward his hand. He gives a little shrug.

‘Fine,’ he says. ‘I guess. Haven’t really thought about it.’

‘So that woman earlier, huh,’ Gladiolus says. ‘I was thinkin’ we never even got her name.’

Prompto nods, thoughtfully. He lifts his hand, using it to flatten a strand of hair.

‘Whole thing kinda feels like a dream,’ he replies. ‘And that stuff at the end? About… the darkness?’

At this, Gladiolus can’t help but laugh: a big, rumbling chuckle that makes Prompto flinch.

‘What, you took her seriously?’ he says. He rolls his eyes. ‘She’s probably lost it from living all alone in the woods.’

‘Maybe,’ Prompto murmurs.

Gladiolus can tell Prompto isn’t very convinced. He gives a weary sigh and prods Prompto forwards, in the direction of the motel.

‘C’mon,’ he says. ‘Before they have dinner without us, too.’

[5hfanfiction]

don't need a Harper Avery when I got you 1/?

Yu probaly won’t enjpy this as much if you don’t watch Grey’s but like i tried to make it make sense and I’m mourning it rn so shhhhh (i have  a part 2 ready that will be more camren but i wanted to write thi now so sssssssshhhhhhhh)

“Morning Cristina,” Meredith smiles as she sets her coffee down and plops in the seat next to her friend at the cafeteria, knowing they’re only sitting for a few minutes because of time but excited to give Cristina her news about the day’s plan.

“What’s got you all smiley?” Cristina questions, reaching across to take a sip of Meredith’s coffee, scrunching her nose at how sweet it is but taking another sip, knowing she’ll need it after the night shift she just had on top of a morning shift starting right now.

“Well April is out today, something about ‘being sick’ but I think she really means fucking Jackson again even though I told her to not do that again if she thought it was a bad idea, which she did, she told me so herself, but anyways I’m getting off topic. April is out so she asked me to make the intern schedule today since she was 'too sick’ to do it and guess who I put with you?” Meredith smiles cheekily and can’t hold in a small laugh when she sees Cristina’s face immediately flash with realization of how hard ehr days about to get.

“You didn’t,” Yang said in a disbelieving voice that her best friend would deliberately stick her with this issue.

“Oh but I did,” Meredith smiles again and Cristina decides she’s keeping the coffee that her friend didn’t even really notice her take if she has to go through a day of torture. “You’ve got the devil twins! Is that what you call them? I couldn’t remember if it was that or like dumb and dumber? Damn it I forget but the point is, this is revenge for you making me deal with April’s Jackson problems alone last weekend.”

“Meeerrrrrrr,” Yang groans out and buries her hands into her hair in aggravation. “These two spawns of Satan are going to make me regret going for a degree in medicine eventually. Like I genuinely considered quitting or moving to Switzerland or somewhere random like that. They’re just so annoying and tiring and - god I don’t get how they’re so good at fighting with each other when I get tired just watching them argue,” she notes, genuinely confused how the two haven’t tired each other out yet.

“Well now I guess you can try to figure out the logistics of their arguing,” Meredith smirks again and reaches into her bag pulling out a muffin that Cristina decides she’s getting half of to make up for the sucky coffee.

-

“Jauregui, Cabello, and Hamilton you’re with Yang, Styles and Hernandez with Bailey, and Horan, Jane, and Malik with me,” Meredith barks out as she walks by the nurses station all the interns are perched at, resisting the urge to smirk when they immediately straighten up and try to look like they weren’t joking around before they spotted a superior.

“I get a cat show again, lucky me,” Yang comments annoyed still even though she saw it coming as she sips her coffee (Meredith’s), rolling her eyes at Jauregui and Cabello who were already glaring at each other.

The new shift of interns wasn’t exactly new, just young and fun to mess around with sometimes. It’d been about three months now of training the group and being in cardio surgery, along with being a hardo herself, Cristina Yang felt that she attracted the sharks in the sea that is medicine. At least, that’s how it was with Camila and Lauren.

The two interns had started the program with opposite attitudes. Camila was bubbly and eager (earning her the nickname Skip since she reminded Cristina of her old friend’s dog), whereas Lauren was cutthroat in how she went about moving up in the ranks of interns (grumpy). That’s what resulted in Skip’s sudden shift. Yang witnessed Grumpy swipe at least three surgeries a week out from under the more generous girl’s feet and finally it must’ve caused her to snap because now Skip was even more aggressive than Grumpy was when it came to stealing surgeries and showing other interns up.

Don’t get Cristina wrong, it was more entertaining than she had bargained for at first. She loved to see the look of confusion on Skip’s face when she realized she’d been bumped to watching instead of performing, but she lived even more for the look of realization. The first time Skip finally snapped and got back on the scrub in list was the most entertaining, but from then on out it’s been too extra for Yang to deal with on top of her normal duties.

What makes it all harder is that both girls are competing to be the top cardio intern. They’ve taken a liking to it, or to outdoing each other and don’t seem to be interested in following any of the other fellows or attendings working. Cristina doesn’t mind because usually they have different shifts, but at least a few times a week she has to deal with the bickering

“Hounds assemble,” Cristina demands after a moment of wondering whether or not sweet little sunshine girl was going to survive with these two. “Look you two better not pull anything or I swear to god I’ll get you filing papers all day every day for a month,” she threatens once the three girls gather and sunshine girl looks relieved to hear that they won’t be too out of control whereas Skip and Grumpy just pout like the five year olds Cristina thinks they are.

“Start with Janet Chapper?” Skip finally breaks the silence, pulling up the charts on her ipad and offering it to Yang who sends her a warning look before accepting the idea.

“Mer, I hope you know you owe me ten drinks for putting me with these girls again,” Yang calls back to her friend as she lets the interns lead the way to her next room, already getting competitive in who has the easiest route there.

-

“So how were the Satan’s spawn I stuck you with today?” Meredith jokes as she greets Cristina at the bar across the street with a shot of tequila and a teasing smirk.

“I don’t even want to think about it, god they’re just so… they bicker, all the time over any little thing like from a tiny stitch to who’s getting to scrub in and it’s… god it’s even when I’ve already said they all get to scrub, god they’re just, fuck were we that bratty when we were interns?”

“I doubt it, but then again we all hated Karev and taunted George from time to time and… maybe not as bad as Jauregui and Cabello but we were pretty bratty,” Meredith smiles and chuckles as Cristina downs the first shot and is already getting her second poured.

“God I just hope they grow out of it before like, tomorrow or some shit, but wait I gotta go hit the bathroom,” Cristina decides and hops up when she remembers she’s had to pee since her four hour surgery earlier, “who’re Cabello and Jauregui?” she ponders as an afterthought as she makes her way to the restroom.

Now, Cristina has had sex in Joe’s bar before. Most of them have. And most of them (all of them) know that the big stall in the women’s room is the best place to do it, so she’s not exactly shocked when she hears a moan the second she opens the door.

She smirks to herself and shakes her head slightly at the fact that two of her coworkers are getting it on and not being subtle about it. 'Must be interns,’ she thinks, 'they still haven’t figured out that it squeaks less if you prop up on the handicap bar instead of the small counter. Sure it’s more difficult to get a good angle that way but like, it’s worth it to avoid the complete lack of subtlety. But then again it’s not like bathroom sex is really classy ever so maybe these people just don’t really care as much as Cristina has and maybe they’ve got the right idea’.

She’s about to tell them that too though, that they can be more quiet with the handicapped bar. Not that Cristina is mean, (she is) but she kind of loves humiliating people who have sex in bathrooms. She knows that it’s playful so she doesn’t think it’s really mean mean, and is about to open her mouth when another moan cuts her off and makes her jaw drop.

“Fuck Camz harder,” the raspy voice breathes out and Cristina knows it’s the same voice that’s been bugging her all day fighting back and forth but that’s not what makes her jaw drop.

“Don’t tell me what to do baby girl,” is snapped back and then the squeaks of the counter get faster and but okay, Cristina remembers that voice saying that exact same thing earlier if she could only place - oh! That was when Grumpy told Skip to put more suction because she was getting sloppy and Skip said not to tell her what to - oh fuck wait!

Cristina isn’t dumb and it only takes another second for her to completely connect the dots and she’s out of the bathroom before she can let her squeal of laughter out at the realization.

“Mer, Mer, Mer, Mer, you’re never going to believe who was just fucking in the bathroom,” Cristina breaths out, managing to get her point across through her laughter at the twist this day has taken.

Who would’ve thought after coming to complain about those two hating each other she’d realize how completely wrong she was.

“Who? I’m not good at the guessing games while I’m drunk we should know this by now,” Meredith answers with a confused expression, not knowing how to read Cristina’s excitement over the discovery.

“I’ll give you a hint,” Cristina says as she swings around to be back in her seat and downs another shot that’s waiting for her. “We should’ve - I mean at least I should’ve known it was sexual tension not hatred,” she decides and can’t help but feel slightly disappointed in herself that she didn’t notice this until it smacked her in the face.

“Umm…” Meredith scratches at her head, too drunk to pick up on it (and not caring enough about intern feuds to have an obvious answer ready).

“Oh come on think about why we’re here,” Cristina scolds, knowing Meredith gets more ditzy than usual while drunk.

“Oh wait fuck is it your devil worshippers or whatever you - Cabello and Jauregui!” she answers, getting excited with herself once she figures it out.

Said devil worshippers chose that moment to leave the bathroom, both disheveled and flushed and Cristina and Meredith can’t hold in their laughter when they see the obvious sex hair.

Apparently their laughing is enough to attract the attention of the two girls who look over and immediately flush after realizing they’re the focus of the attendings’ laughter. Cristina can’t wait to use this to keep them off of poor sunshine girl’s back.

Also this is sho short as frick but I’m gonna make a mini series / mini one shots in Greys anatomy verse cause that sounds fun so yes ! It’ll be on here probably and also on @ longerr_hours on watt

[cosmosogler]

i got four bottle caps today. two from fishing, one from collecting shards in the “fun adventure island”, and one when i won the lottery. i should probably go back to trying for gold bottle caps now that i’ve got a good fishing system in place for the silver ones.

that’s not really what i’m gonna talk about too much though.

i woke up before my alarm again, but still put my alarm on snooze when it did finally go off. i did not want to get out of bed at all.

this morning i kinda goofed off and grabbed some of the leftover rice for a quick lunch before i left for therapy. i could only eat like two-thirds of it though, it made me really sick. the only difference between this rice and the rice i had a few days ago was the enchilada sauce. but the bean burrito adventure with enchilada sauce didn’t make me sick before the first leftover meal.

i mostly spent my 45 minutes with the therapist complaining about my parents and worrying about my grad school applications. i gotta email florida back about the enrollment deadline... i’ll do that right after i call uic in the morning. they were 10 minutes closed when i went to call them. just missed.

oh yeah, and she can’t see me next week. so it’ll be two weeks before i see her again. for 45 minutes.

i dunno, that extra 15 minutes i usually get with other therapists makes a big difference... i feel like i don’t have much time to settle in and figure out what’s on my mind. i mean, i have the topics i want to bring up going in, but it takes a bit of meandering for me to really find something i can actually work on that week.

i picked up my meds on the way home and then spent the afternoon hanging out with eve, fishing for bottle caps, watching some tv show reviews and adding them to my watch list, and making myself sick with a small snack. it was a frozen cheese pizza. i put it in the oven and left it in longer than the directions said and it was still cold in one spot, which was frustrating.

when mom came home she asked to see my acceptance letter from florida and the paperwork i gotta send in by monday. she said things like “why aren’t you excited” and “you don’t seem excited” and “i just thought you would be happy that you got into one of your top choices” and “you should be more excited” and it made me kinda mad, so i acted less excited and even more vague and tight-lipped about it.

i watched the wind blow the leaves in the tree in our backyard while mom talked to herself about the logistics of coming to visit. it was nice out, but i didn’t want to go outside. i ended up not taking wiley for a walk today. i wanted to give my bug bites a little time to heal, and also i lost track of time and forgot. i’ll take him for a long walk with asher tomorrow maybe.

oh yeah, she told me about her boss’ daughter’s experience with mental health hospitals. she went to a fancy one down south that apparently cost “90,000 dollars.” she said that the daughter’s diagnosis was that she was “addicted to pain” and “could not be happy unless there was something wrong with her” and she had to have a whole bunch of surgeries before she came home, and also had to stop taking her meds. i kind of squinted at mom, trying to figure out what she was implying. well, that’s a lie. i knew what she was implying. i was trying to figure out if she was doing that on purpose.

i told her about the place i found that i liked and was gonna set up an appointment with before my sister and i leave for the concert next thursday.

quick aside - my sister loves k pop and we have tickets for the bts concert. it is an 8 hour drive away. i spent some time with my therapist trying to figure out what i was gonna do about my meds if the concerts went on late into the night.

anyway, mom decided it was necessary to tell me multiple times throughout the day that my aunt and her sister were both familiar with the mental health facility i was looking at. i couldn’t figure out why, so i ignored it, and then when she came home from work she asked if i had called and asked my aunt about the facility. 

man, i don’t tell no one in my family about how i’m doing except sometimes gramma. i’m pretty sure they can tell there’s something wrong with me, but i don’t talk about it with them and they don’t generally ask other than a casual “how are you today?” which is our usual excuse to launch into long stories about whatever financial garbage we’re dealing with or if something has changed about our summer plans.

you know, stuff that’s more or less relevant to the whole family.

oh yeah, i got super mad in therapy today. not with the therapist. i was telling her about my hospital stays and how mom always talks over me. when i was in the hospital back in january after dad brought me home mom was telling the doctors about how i felt. and they were deferring to her when asking questions about my health! and i asked them to put the iv in my left arm instead of my right, so i could use my right arm, and they totally ignored me. i had to do everything left handed. like paperwork.

and the time after my heart surgery when a radio station mom liked was doing a fundraiser at the children’s hospital. we went to go on air and mom told everyone about how my whole life no one ever knew anything was wrong and it was so scary and she started crying and talking about being a parent. 

i knew something was wrong. i started figuring it out around the time i started wanting to die in christian school. nobody had listened to me. they’d just called me lazy or said i had no pain tolerance. and even after the doctors said, you know, i have a huge heart problem and i am in like a lot of pain whenever i exert myself, i would ask to use a wheelchair at the mall or whatever and mom would say “you don’t really need that. everyone’s going to stare at you.”

so, like, my problem turned into mom’s sob story about how scary it is to have something wrong with your child. the dj never asked me one question about it. i just stared at the two of them sitting on the bench while mom cried into the microphone. i was 11. i knew how to talk.

after that when i would bring up therapy, like, after i turned 18, mom would jump to either i’m seeing a therapist because “you have ptsd from your heart surgery” or “you have autism.” i was talking to a therapist about my... depression and nightmares... but you know, whatever floats your boat mom. tell me more about how i’m addicted to melatonin and my medications turn me into “not yourself.”

man i’ve complained about this like five times and i’m still salty and don’t know what to do about it.

the one useful thing mom told me is that she looked into why doogles is eating poop. apparently pack animals do that to hide their pack’s tracks from other predators when a member of the family is sick, so they don’t get picked off by stronger animals. it is a reasonable fear, considering the coyotes that wander around in the ranch land behind our backyard. they are technically capable of jumping the fence, though i don’t think they would do it while our dogs were actually in the yard.

it’s because she knows eve is not doing well, probably because of the tumor. she tries to cover her own “tracks” too. when dad caught her at it tonight he got super mad and yelled at her. i told him there was a reason and he said he didn’t care. i set my jaw and followed him inside.

i had some stuffed mushrooms as a snack. i feel... ok, i guess. and i had plain pasta for dinner. i couldn’t finish the little bowl and i felt kinda junky but not too nauseous. 

i think i lost track of time and started writing late, because it’s just past 12:40. i know i didn’t start until a few minutes after 12 since i was downstairs eating... i don’t like how easy it is to slip from my schedule. and no matter how early i get to bed i can’t seem to get up before 10. i go to bed at 1, can’t get up before 10. i go to bed close to 12, still get up at 10. i want to have a little more time in the mornings to maybe get stuff done, and a little more time between my morning and lunch medication doses, but that doesn’t seem like it’ll happen unless i can trick myself into getting up at 9 or 9:30.

ah, i forgot to draw today. that’s what it was. i don’t have too much to do tomorrow, just the phone call... and then i’m hanging out with asher in the afternoon. i will put my sketchbook back on my desk so i will see it when i get bored and open up youtube.

there was something else i wanted to talk about, but i think it was kind of a meta anecdote about how fleeting the little moments are, and how difficult they are to capture and write down. every now and then i’ll stop and think, and i’ll want to write the thought down here that evening, and i’ll have totally forgotten what it was by the time i sit down to write. sometimes i’ll send a message about it to asher and then write down what i texted basically word for word, but i don’t like to bother him constantly. 

like, my life in my writing seems to take place in some nebulous black text in white space, but it doesn’t quite... give you the experience i was having, the tile on my feet, the bug bites, diogi snoring behind mom’s chair, the darkness of the house’s downstairs and how the windows are always shuttered, the wind chimes, the specific hue of the sky that always makes me think of my dreams and i can’t figure out why because the sky is usually the wrong color in my dreams. the million side programs running in my head while i try to have a conversation and i end up just saying nothing because why bother, or worse, i have something to say and just freeze up or stutter. and then mom sighs, because of course, and of course i’m just too stupid to talk coherently. one of my feet is super sore on the bottom every time i try to walk barefoot. my stomach is always uncomfortable and i almost always am aware of it. the split skin on my finger’s joint stings all the time. 

there’s just so much stuff that i plain forget to talk about, and my posts ARE ALREADY SO LONG! there is too much that happens in one day to talk about all of it! even when nothing happens!!!

it’s 1 now. i should try to sleep. i’m real thirsty, but if i drink water now i’m gonna have to get up in a half hour.

[rantsaboutponies]

Equestria Girls: Legend of Everfree

Can they please stop making these? I don’t budget my time well, it’s 2:30 in the morning, I want to go to bed. Just remember, I’m doing this for YOU guys. For YOU guys.

For the record, I wait until the last minute to write these reviews because they usually take almost three times the length of the movie to write. It’s also why I can’t watch them on TV; I have to pause constantly.

First of all, I didn’t hear jack shit about this movie. I think the viewership for each one really is dwindling. I barely even saw any porn of it! That is surprising!

Second of all, was this one ever available on Netflix? I swear I streamed the third one there, but now it doesn’t even have a listing (nor does the fourth one). Hopefully the version I got is the uncut version (it’s not a TV rip, and the runtime does match), but if I left anything out, be sure to tell me. Oh, and I’ve given up on that list of “things that all these movies do that directly contradict the fact that this universe intersects with the pony universe” that I tried to carry over into the second movie’s review, so keep that in mind.

Oh, and can anyone let me know if they see a trailer for My Little Pony: The Movie in the theater? It comes out in four months, and I’ve been at almost all of the kids’ movies this year (yes, even Rock Dog, which actually wasn’t half-bad, and The Boss Baby, which was not as bad as the trailers made it look but was still the worst of the kids’ movies I’ve seen this year [which isn’t actually surprising, since there have only been three]; I’m still not seeing Smurfs, though, and I’m sure as fuck not seeing Spark: A Space Tail), and I’ve seen nothing about it. I’ll make a separate post about that closer to October.

All right, the review proper starts...NOW!

I said it before, and I’ll say it again: DO THESE HIGH-SCHOOLERS HAVE PARENTS?! SERIOUSLY, WHERE ARE THEY?

Thirty seconds. Thirty FUCKING seconds. That’s how long it was before Pinkie Pie made me want to strangle her. Literally. Thirty seconds. Her first line. Fantastic impression you’re making on me, movie.

All right, Rainbow Dash throwing a picture of herself into the suitcase is certainly part of the annoying one-dimensional writing that she (and really, all of the characters) has had in these movies, but...I’m sorry, I still laughed. Forgive me.

Wow, the...uh...plot just started right away, didn’t it? I’m so confused. I sure hope this is a dream sequence because otherwise this is really stupid. Oh, okay, it was. Never mind.

Ah, the indie rock craze has finally hit Human Equestria. You guys are, like, five years behind on that, you know. I gotta be honest, though, I kinda like this theme song. I feel like it would sound better with different singers, but I’m digging this so far. Maybe this movie won’t be so bad? Ah heh heh heh...

I briefly forgot that Human!Twilight’s Spike was magically given the ability to talk at the end of EQG3, so I was thrown off there for a second. I just realized, though, that that means that they don’t ever have to have any connection to Pony!Equestria ever again. Smart idea, but Pinkie’s summary of the previous three movies immediately afterwards negates what you were going for there (especially since none of that has anything to do with the plot of this movie directly).

“You’ll get used to it.” Yeah, you’d better get used to your “friends” talking shit about you to your face. The second movie was full of that. *sigh*

Oh, goody, Professor Umbridge is the camp director. Please tell me she gets dragged off by centaurs at the end of this movie, too.

“Stay away from the rock quarry. That’s off-limits. Unless, of course, you’re a main character, in which case the plot will facilitate that you go there at some point during this movie, probably somewhere near the end. Just a heads-up.” (Also, “rock quarry” is redundant, dumbasses.)

Actually, the word “sapphire”’s link to the Latin “sapphir” (or “sappir” or “sapphīrus”) links to the Ancient Greek “sáppheiros”, meaning “precious stone” or “gem”, which probably linked to a Semitic source (similar to Hebrew’s “sappī́r”, referring to lapis lazuli), but may be related to a non-Semitic source such as the Sanskrit “śanipriya”, meaning “dark-colored stone” or, literally, “dear to Saturn”. And, as an interesting sidenote, the Ancient Greeks didn’t even have a word for “blue”. Also, rubies are not just sapphires “with chromium”; rubies are corundum with chromium. Sapphires contain other impurities like titanium, iron, or magnesium (which give them any of a number of non-red colors) that rubies may not contain at all; since chromium is what colors them red, chromium is the only impurity required to make a ruby. So, in other words, shut your fucking face, you smug dipshit.

By GOD, I hope Gloriosa is the villain because I really hate her.

See, even though Filthy Rich is, well, filthy rich and could very easily be an upper-class dickhead, the show never made him one. He’s clearly not aware what an utter bitch his daughter is, since he punished her for it the one time he found out, but he has always been depicted as someone who cares about his community and acts kindly towards the other ponies in the town without being condescending or displaying any obvious class distinction. It is something notably unique about the show and is something I’ve actually admired amidst its recent waning quality.

The people writing this movie apparently didn’t know that and just went, “His name is Filthy Rich? He must be the VILLAIN!” Goddamnit, you fucking worthless TV movies.

Oh, man, oh, man, please tell me that Princess Celestia is holding a flute there in the background because she’s telling a “This one time, at band camp” story. I’ve already made that joke at least five times in my head by now, so please tell me I’m justified.

Holy shit, look at that setup! These girls get massive tents with only two people in each and with FULL-SIZE BEDS! So much for “roughing it”! How big is this camp again? This must take up a ludicrous amount of space.

Please tell me they’re not going to do Sunset Shimmer’s storyline again with Twilight. Come on.

No, Sunset, if there’s anyone you should be nervous around, it’s Pinkie Pie.

Okay, Fluttershy’s line about “birds that land on your finger” WAS funny until you felt the need to explain the joke with Rainbow Dash’s “I think that only happens to you.” Rule #1 of comedy: Don’t! Explain! The joke!

Does Vinyl Scratch have an amazing wireless connection, or do her headphones themselves contain an MP3 player? I don’t see those working any other way.

Can I punch Timber in the face yet?

How the hell would you make that dock into a catwalk? The only way that would work would be if either the models entered from or the audience were seated in the water. Otherwise, the models will be walking away from the audience and not easily visible for the majority of their time on the runway. You’ve gotta think about logistics, Rarity!

PUNCH.

Hmm...Gaia Everfree’s story is kind of weak. And arbitrary. “YOU CAN’T STAY!” “Oh, please let us stay!” “WELL...OKAY. BUT YOU’LL HAVE TO LEAVE! EVENTUALLY! AT SOME POINT IN THE FUTURE!”

25 minutes in is a little late for your first song, guys. I was starting to think this wasn’t going to be a musical.

Oh, thank GOD, Timber is a villain, too. That means we’ll get to WATCH HIM DIE. ... Okay, fine, wishful thinking. Hell, being the villain in these movies (or on the show) pretty much guarantees that you’ll get even more screentime in later installments. (Also, he apparently can’t hear anything that’s right next to him as long as he’s offscreen. Right.)

Of course, the scene in the cafeteria reminded me of this.

And in the next scene, it’s impossible not to think of this.

So... Rarity’s just...useless. That’s been established, right?

Goddamnit, Pinkie, stop being a menace! You almost killed all of your friends! Again!

Hmm...this song sounds like a really lame, low-rent version of this.

Wha? You mean the obvious villain is obviously a villain? NO. (Except I guess that means that Timber isn’t a villain as well. Damn.)

Boy, it’s really convenient that Gloriosa is having these extremely lengthy and detailed flashbacks while they all just stand there, totally unbothered by Sunset zoning out and holding onto her arm.

I do like that they made dummies of Twilight and Sunset just because they weren’t there for the dress rehearsal. How long do you think that took?

“I GOT THIS!” That’s got to be one of the weakest things I’ve ever heard that someone tried to turn into a catchphrase.

Well, looks like someone really liked Maleficent.

I gotta ask...has there ever been a good villain song in the MLP movies or the show?

“Oh, no! She’s forming a wall that clearly has an upper bound! If only we had some sort of appendages that we could use to project our bodies upward! No, I think we had better wait until the vines completely form a dome over us. Surely that will work.”

I think the writers are trapped in this paradox of knowing that they have an actual interesting character in Sunset Shimmer but being forced to focus all their efforts on the Mane Six because they’re the main characters, despite having no personalities to speak of.

“What are these?” “I’m not sure! But clearly they will be in stores alongside the release of this movie!”

Ah, so you got out of the logistical failure of trying to figure out how the dock could act as a runway by canceling the fashion show altogether! Wow.

Okay, this song is definitely one of the better ones in this movie series, but holy crap, get some stronger singers. I mean, all right, I know you can’t, but...can’t you, like, release an official cover of this song recorded by an actual singer, like Disney does with their animated musicals?

I do always love the moronic cliché of the villain showing up at the ending celebration for no logical reason other than to scowl at the protagonists and storm off angrily.

You know, there are only so many features and accessories and superpowers you can add to these characters before you start running out of places to put them.

*GASP* OH MY GOD THAT ENDING CLIFFHANGER MEANT NOTHING! Seriously, fuck off with that shit.

And of course, the stinger has to show that Pinkie Pie always ruins everything. ALWAYS. ALWAYS.

All right, so in conclusion...these movies are all the same. I mean, I think we kind of established that already, but man...

Can we just give Sunset Shimmer her own movie? One where she just fucks off by herself and finds better friends with actual personalities and they all do something interesting? Can that be the next theatrical movie? Please?

[isaacathom]

i dont /think/ the politics of the setting plays a huge role in the story, barring the effect it has on characters in a cultural sense (mostly re: Rien and Warzen). not unless the gang kidnaps a princess or something. it could play interestingly into the whole two gangs thing.

 since most of the story is spent tracking down Rien’s gang (Gang A) and then after the revelation that Saval was a Huge Fucking Liar, it swaps to the group trying to track her down (both for answers and because shes still a criminal and she straight up escaped). and maybe even that was tied into the plot. That Saval’s whole point, really, was to sufficiently distract the city/royal guard from focusing on the Hounds of Fovenis and making out Gang A to be the big villains. so the guard devotes its resources to fucking over Gang A, while the Hounds get ready for the real heist - royalty. while the guards off fucking around with random Gang A necromancers, they can just waltz in and kidnap members of the royal family and demand that $$$. a flawless plan.

except then Saval get found out. because one of the members of Gang A turning themself over and helping bring them down was not on the cards. Rien was a complete unknown factor. Koci and her justice god were unknown factors (sort of). Warzen was definitely an unknown factor, because Saval didn’t know he existed (cause, yknow, separate jails). and Saval didn’t get any pre-knowledge about Rien being an issue until Rien was supposedly murdered (the Hounds had faulty information - they assumed Amali was Rien) and Rien was chucked in the guys jail anyway. so. yknow. cool.

so Saval gets found out to be a liar. That she’s not from Gang A. how they figure out she’s a Fovenis plant instead is... hmm. not sure on that front yet. maybe its just simple process of elimination - if she’s not a member of Gang A, but she had all of this information, she was probably a Hound, and so forth.

so Saval fucking bolts. she fucked up real bad. they were almost ready to get big, but now theyre going to be under scrutiny. so she thinks, a) save my own ass and b) save my gangs ass. she leaves a trail. she plans to lure them out of the city if she can. get as much of the royal guard trying to track her down as possible. commit a bunch of random and dangerous crimes to make her a credible threat to society, etc. what else can she do???

but Saval probably falters. she’s spent a solid while with this specific group, the main cast. theyre friendly. they trusted her. and that was stupid of them. theyre stupid. but they were like... genuine about it. yknow? like they were neat. she liked hanging out with them.

and so of course the people that end up finding her are her friends. and after some fighting, she cracks. she ““accidentally”” outs the Hounds plan to kidnap royalty, which would send the region into some reaaaal chaos. cause. yknow. royalty??? especially if theres an assassination involved. which there likely is. the hounds dont fuck around. like their plan is basically to murder most of the royal family and scarper with a princex or two. everyone scrambles. the south rises. all that fun shit. makes sense to me that the hounds might be southern aligned.

then i guess the group (preferably + saval, but the logistics of that are.... complicated? disguises are possible though) races back to foil it. i dont know if they were fully succeed in that. someone probably does get straight up murdered. but they manage to mostly foil it. 

the alternative, at least in part, is to have Saval be directly betrayed by one of the Hounds. Flat out betrayed. set up. she was the fall guy. the plan, as far as she knew, was that the Hounds were going to break her out of jail just before the plan went into action, and she’d return into the fold seamlessly. that they’d put her back in her rightful spot. that she’d be back in control instead of at their whims (since her spot as the plant relies on the other hounds to do their jobs properly). and then they just dont? or something? she thought she’d be rewarded for her service to a gang she was literally born into, and that were her family, and they declined. they had no intention of breaking her out. she’d served her purpose. maybe before this mission she’d failed. she’d made mistakes. and they’d framed this mission, the long haul Gang A Plant, as a way for her to return to their good graces. but it was a suicide mission the whole time. a dead end. she wasn’t getting out.

the issue with that is that, while it basically makes sense, especially if they think lowly of Saval’s skills, is that idk how to like.... have that come up. as a way to fully convince Saval to help. without it, Saval’s only motive to urn on the Hounds is her friendship with the group, and that wouldn’t get them far enough as to convince her to fight with them against the Hounds. it would convince her to ““accidentally”” spoil the plot. which is tantamount to a full betrayal but idk, maybe they wouldnt figure out she’d done it. i mean she IS fucked either way. cause she failed. plus betrayal, ooh baby, she’s a dead ‘un, yknow? so maybe they could convince her. Rien would be a good candidate for doing that, since Rien is the only other person who is actually like, a Proper Crim (unlike Koci “i didnt want this” Farmer and Warzen “I just wanted to revive some friends” Eliodan) and would figure out how it works. besides, rien did basically experience what Saval will. if the Hounds let Saval back in, they’d execute her not long after. They’d send her to a routine job and then cap her in the head. Rien literally just had that happen (except Rien didn’t die, obviously, but the general event remains the same).

so Rien, presumably having basiiiically forgiven Saval for unwittingly setting up Rien to get murdered (its complicated), convinces Saval that if she thinks the Hounds will reward her for this, then shes the fucking idiot, not them. Because they won’t. If they don’t just kill her at the start, they’ll quietly dispose of her while she’s asleep, or while she’s on the open road. They’ll dispose of her. Failure is unacceptable to them, and Saval failed. So basically Saval’s only options are to Run, or to turn herself in and hope that the police can keep her safe.

Saval takes both. Saval agrees to help them get thwart the Hounds’ plan, and while everyone’s like, celebrating or some shit, she slips away. makes sense.

i think that would pretty much work? theres nothing wrong with the story being a smaller scale, but having Saval be the final boss would be.... weird. because she’d be really obviously less powerful than the other 4. they’d win. it wouldnt be challenging in any way. it would keep the story more.... like, personal, and thats fine too, right. i like that sometimes. but i feel like it needs a little more. plus, i could likely tie in the whole thing with the royalty with Koci. since she still has a pact in the air. the god fulfilled their end (p much), now its Koci’s turn. or something! im gonna have to think about it. esp since justice isnt omniscient and wouldnt know the royals are in danger for any certainty. maybe the pact is a bit more vague. like “if you enact justice. we’ll be good” “what the fuck does that mean” “uhhh do good things. protect people. right wrongs. save lives and shit” “arent i already doing that???” “yea but you gotta balance out what i did for you. equivalent and stuff” “huh.”

cause i guess the thing is that, without Koci knowing her pact, she probably would never do enough. its likely that if she switched too many times, they stop letting her leave, and now she cant even DO any justice. so she couldnt break her pact, and so forth. and if she knows her pact is to like. right wrongs and shit, or something, then she can convince them to let her keep coming along despite the risks, because it migh also set her free. and stuff? yea. especially as she communicates more w/ her god and they start working together more effectively. or something. again pacts are unclear as shit.

like i guess the issue with Koci’s pact is that not only was she brought back to life, BUT also that this happened so she could destroy the cultists. and then she went further. and it got a bit messy. and justice was lost. idk. maybe justice’s pact was basically ‘ill kill the cultists if you fuck over some people who have wronged me’ ‘do you know who they are?’ ‘not really’ ‘oh dude thanks youre a great help’.

idk. justice might be hard to work in to it in a way that feels satisfying or that couldnt happen without her knowing the pact. perhaps vengeance would be better? then its like, ok, i helped you get revenge. now help ME get revenge. but because Koci can’t talk to them (yknow, language barriers), Koci can’t do that. she can’t find the right people. but once they start talking, Koci figures out she can probably get what they want by continuing to do this whole main gang thing. the people they want fucked over are PROBABLY part of Gang A, right? she’ll work hard to keep fucking them up! and so the god agrees, because that makes sense, and gives her more control, which allows her to stay in the group (without the control, she’s a liability. with the control, she’s an asset) to work towards the goal.

except they arent part of Gang A. because Gang A just... doesnt do that? probably necromancy stuff. ok correction, they do, they do have a necromancer, but one who started doing that AFTER the Koci incident and therefore after the pact. and was not the goal. rather, their goal was someone from the Hounds. who i guess gets involved with the whole palace thing??? uh. ok this isnt Great. i do need to find a way to connect Koci’s pact to the story though. I’ll think more on that laaaaer??? hh