#so ''idk how'' isn't really a good excuse for me

[pa-pa-plasma]

okay, because I haven't seen any posts mentioning specifically where/when to put readmores:

if your writing is longer than 300 words, put a readmore after the first paragraph. please. i am begging you. they are more likely to be reblogged when we aren't worried about inflicting a wall of text onto our unsuspecting followers. the readmore option looks like

or

start a new paragraph & then click that. it will then look like

if you are on mobile you start a new paragraph & then type :readmore:. it will look like

thank you for coming to my readmore tedtalk or whatever. happy writing

[slavhew]

Hello!

If you're not too busy, would you mind listing some of the things you think count as death flags for Mr. Spender?

There's the obvious fact that he's the "old" mentor to group of young protagonists, but what else do you think would count?

OHH BOY ok so I'd think I'm a crackpot for this but since we're talking about Zack "Foreshadowing" Morrison. I have some thoughts

No harm in leading with the (chronologically) first thing that jumped out at me:

This one IMMEDIATELY made me antsy whenever I came back to it after my initial read, and considering Zack has referred to it on twitter in the past as one of their favorite jokes it's definitely not been forgotten about.

Second, the sheer amounts of near-misses, jokey or not, of Spender narrowly avoiding specifically lightning

Again, not much, but it's weird that it happened thrice, latter two of which had real gravitas rather than an one-off joke.

And third, Spender himself. He's repeatedly shown himself to be kind of a self sacrificing idiot, as well as prideful to a fault. Granted, it's both him and Mina trying to take on all the responsibility of saving Mayview and its inhabitants from their fate.. But Spender is exactly that right measure of doesn't-value-himself-enough (chest footprint aftercare or lack thereof), having an obscene amount of power (enables his loner act + pride) and poor judgement that has the capacity to put him at great risk. And it has!

Spender has not only shown low enough self-esteem to view himself as the de-facto scapegoat for the safety of the town, but also prideful enough to make very bad calls that end up in people, often himself, hurt (COUGH FORGE INCIDENT COUGH)

This is all conjecture, but it's definitely enough to make me worried about him :') Even if all this doesn't mean he'll necessarily die he's definitely getting (even more) seriously injured at some point. I love the guy but he's so far doing a horrible job of convincing me he wants to live bad enough to circumvent at least that

[reminiscentrainclouds]

You guys ever feel trapped? Yea I'm well-acquainted with the feeling of being trapped.

[running-in-the-dark]

today was exhausting - my friend was here for about 7 hours and I just. oh man I love her and all but it's just a lot sometimes. it's probably for the best that we only meet up like 2-4 times a year now (gives me enough time to forget how draining it is so I look forward to it, and recover afterwards)

I don't talk to anyone but my husband most days, and he doesn't really talk. so that's maybe 15 minutes total of talking. and today it was literally. 7 hours. no breaks except when we were eating (but no even then someone was always talking).

first of all ouch, it hurts (my voice is very hoarse now). and also. it's so so so draining. like. we really have nothing in common at this point. but she's my oldest friend and I do love her so it's tolerable... but just barely. these days there's way too much diet/food/weight loss talk, and also she seems to be getting into alternative medicine which I cannot fucking stand (it's one topic where I can't pretend or be nice about it either). lots and lots of very preachy vegan stuff too (I don't have any problems with it, I admire people who can do it, but fuck dude you know I eat meat and that I've said many times that I *can't* go vegan (I would starve. there's not enough foods that would be left. seriously.) and it feels pretty shitty to keep going on about it every damn time. I'm not sitting there trying to convince her that she should really be an atheist or something, because I know what her thoughts are about that and I respect it.

when she hangs out with her other friends a lot it's mostly just talking about all the issues that come from that (they fucking suck). I don't know, it kind of feels like I'm her therapist. when I talk about something I'm interested in she doesn't ask many questions and it kind of sucks. like, dude I don't care about your plants either, but I'm interested because you care, so. maybe try that too. would be nice!

[pepperyduck]

porcelain. toji f.

a/n: nsfw, angst?????? idk what this is really, just me yapping, very unhealthy boyfriend behaviors from toji, toji pushes ur buttons & makes you snap, DACRYPHILIA!!!!!, p in v. 18+ mdni.

toji's always treated you as what he calls you; a doll.

no, he's never been the type to treat anyone delicately, but then there was you.

to him, you were but a fragile flower, asking to be crushed. toji's hurt a lot of people in his life. he would never hurt you. he never reciprocates the kindness of others, usually, but he couldn't help but treat you with the same love and respect you showed him.

he knows the real you.

toji knows that even among the most precious, delicate dolls, their porcelain skin will begin to crack if you play with them too much. he understands that under your angel-like persona, there's something much darker.

he sees the abyss of emotions inside of you, when you begin to crack.

he's too rough with you on purpose. because he wants that monster inside of you to come out. to be shown to him, what you really are. and it's all for his own pleasure. just for him to break you.

he wants you to snap at him so he can treat you accordingly. and he's so happy when your tired of your buttons being pushed, in his own twisted way.

"fuck off, toji!" with a hard push to his chest was all it took to make him happy. it gave him an excuse to not treat you like a doll anymore, toss you around a little bit. make you cry.

as crazy and sick as he was, you enjoyed it even more.

not even thirty minutes after your action of defiance, he had you laid out under him, eyes glossy with tears while he slowly stuffed you with his cock. toji's lips twitched in a sadistic grin as you allowed the tears to flow, all while staring dangerously into his eyes.

"y'er gonna break my heart, doll," toji groans. "cryin' like a baby all 'cus you feel bad, aww." he's cooing and it's doing nothing but pissing you off; but the drag of his length against the soft walls of your cunt melt the anger away.

"shut up, toji," you grumble, blinking your eyes to clear them so you can get a good look of the condescending man above you.

yet as he hears your snappy words, toji rams his hips into you one good time, bouncing your soft body against the sheets of his bed. you're sure that singular stroke bruised your cervix. the sudden jolt of pleasure that courses through your body brings you to reality quickly.

please.

toji's change in demeanor towards you is slow at first. he's always been so careful. so gentle. all to not hurt you. right now, though, he needs it.

please, baby.

another particularly harsh thrust makes your eyes widen and you panic. you look into toji's eyes, but it's almost as if he isn't even there. his eyes are low, dark and filled with hunger. and anger and sadness, and pain. that same mess of emotions hidden under your sensitive shell is staring you right in the eyes. empty, like a doll.

"toji?" you squeak, earning another stab of toji's cock into your gushing cunt, "toji!"

"i'm 'ere, doll," toji says, though it seems a bit untrue, and his pace quickens too fast, right before your eyes. he's losing himself in his mind and in the feeling of how tightly you squeeze around him when you panic.

break for me. please.

he's begging.

toji can feel how badly you want it, how much you want him to lose control over you. his porcelain doll.

he knows that underneath your glass skin, you're just like him.

he knows it.

[ms-demeanor]

Okay THANK YOU for saying “your body craves what it needs” is bs because that felt like bs this whole time.

Like you don’t need more sugar if you crave sweets that is NOT what that means. Sugar is a food that people crave because it tastes good/sugar I think is an addictive food??

Idk it just felt like people making excuses when they’re supposed to be trying to eat a little healthier (healthier, not low cal, not low fat or keto or whatever. Diets are bs but craving sweets does not mean sugar is healthy thing for your body rn)

People crave sugar because it tastes good, which is not a bad thing, and there is an evolutionary reason that sugar and fat taste good to us. Carbs are your body's favorite thing because it is SUPER easy for your body to break them down into useful molecules.

I'm not a fan of the idea that any foods are addictive and I'm skeptical of models that suggest "refined food addiction" is a thing with a measurable, real-world impact; there's a lot of debate in that area of nutrition science and to me it kind of seems like the tools people use to track food addiction aren't really examining the addictiveness of specific foods, but are decent screening tools for people who have compulsive behaviors around food (for instance, one group of people who the Yale Food Addiction Scale has repeatedly been demonstrated to be REALLY good at identifying is people with anorexia).

But your body needs sugar all the time, whether that's in the form of complex carbohydrates that get broken down into simple sugars by your body, or simple sugars that you stir into your tea that then gets sent to your cells as energy. If your diet doesn't have enough sugar in it, your body has a processes to turn non-sugars into sugar so that it can use the sugar (gluconeogenesis!). Sugar is unambiguously good for you in the way that fat is unambiguously good for you. You need sugar to survive and it's not a bad thing if you want to have a cookie or a soda or some candy, and again - your craving probably isn't telling you that you're deficient in a specific micro or macronutrient, but I still think that you should listen to your craving.

Like, I don't know how much you know about psychotherapy but the attitude that a lot of diet-focused discussion takes toward cravings reminds me of cognitive behavioral therapy. "When you crave chocolate, no you don't! Don't think about the chocolate, you actually probably need starch or sugar or something, let's redirect that into having a banana, or some frozen berries, or some spinach. Point away from the unhealthy craving and into the healthy replacement, or, better yet, ignore the craving. Mind over matter. You choose how you act."

(I actually think "X craving means that I want Y food so I shall replace it with Z, which is similar" "craving salt means that I am dehydrated and need electrolytes so instead of potato chips I'll have some soup" is how this goes most of the time. I think this is a diet culture thing, not a food positivity thing.)

And you know what I think that's a garbage way to look at both food and emotions.

When I'm craving ice cream it's not because I've been mostly vegetarian for a week and am low on dietary cholesterol (AN IMPORTANT NUTRIENT. Don't be scared of consuming some cholesterol), I'm craving ice cream because sugar and fat taste good. So instead of trying to pretend that I'm getting "what I need" from a piece of salmon the size of a deck of cards with no salt and some lemon squeezed on top, I'm going to scoop out a moderate portion of ice cream and eat it while focusing on how much I enjoy it. And I'm going to do that instead of sitting down with a pint and a spoon while I'm stressed at work and eating something that tastes good to distract from the fact that work is stressful. (And sometimes it's fine to sit down with a pint and a spoon but I will say that's generally best not to do while you're in the middle of something stressful)

And if you want to relate that back to therapy I see this as more of the DBT approach. I've accepted that I want ice cream so I'm going to eat it in an intentional way and enjoy it instead of eating so much that I don't want dinner, or that it makes me feel sick, or that I eat it without noticing it because I'm using it as a distraction instead of a snack.

I'm not trying to shut down the negative emotion or shun the "bad" food, I'm accepting that I have that emotion and I'm working this neutral food into my day so that I'll feel good tomorrow and won't get heartburn overnight.

So I see that you're trying to be kind of anti diet culture here, but I don't think people need excuses to eat sugar, and I actually think that making excuses to eat it is significantly less healthy than just eating the sugar (which, again, is unambiguously healthy to eat as part of a varied, filling, nutritious diet). It seems like you may have internalized some ideas about sugar that are not great even if you are trying to separate from diet culture.

Nobody is ever going to eat a diet so healthy and nutritionally complete that they don't want candy or cake or cookies sometimes. Food is not only fuel, it is entertainment and culture and comfort and distraction and celebration and a million other things, but it is not bad. I don't think there's a single universally bad food out there, or any food that never belongs as part of someone's diet (unless it's something you're allergic to - I don't care if you're craving peanuts, do not eat peanuts if you have a peanut allergy).

So it's okay to make sugar, you don't need to make excuses. It's okay to eat sugar if you're craving sugar, even if that's not what your body "needs". But also sometimes a craving is your body saying "I'm hungry and this sounds good, please feed me" even if you're not a finely-tuned spectrometer that's craving blueberries pie because you actually need antioxidants from the blueberries (you're not a finely tuned spectrometer, you don't need the antioxidants from the blueberries, it's perfectly fine to just eat a slice of pie).

[pretty-circa006]

I guess your bio clearly states you write for Negan, but it doesn't explicitly state you write only for Negan. So I'm thinking I should just ask. Are you open to writing a dadsbsf!Rick and dadsbsf!Negan x reader fic, they have a rivalry and are always trying to one up eachother to get in the readers good graces, but little do they know you already want them (both) and you get them (both). Ik this isn't something you normally write and it's totally fine with multiple partners. But you're clearly a great writer and I just had to ask. It's totally fine you don't take this request or even ignore it. But if you were to write could do something with an age gap and a minx reader and mean Rick and Negan but only during steamy, but otherwise they sprinkle their lives on you.(Maybe this could be series or something it doesn't have to be oneshot and you could your time exploring the idea, idk why I'm so passionate about this lol)

Thanks, for hearing me out, believe me ik this a tall order. Again it's totally fine if you ignore this!!!

P.s idk why I added the photos I'm sorry 😭😭😭😭(them trying to mark their territory trying to make the other back off of you???)

dadsbsf! Negan x F! Reader x dadsbsf! Rick

summary Negan and Rick are over at your house, joining your dad for a game of poker. tags gambling, mentions of smoking and alcohol consumption, age gap (reader is college aged and Rick and Negan are kinda old...like late 40s early 50s?)

wc 2.3k

note i really liked this request and i hope i interpreted it correctly, if not, i sincerely apologize! just fyi, i plan on making this multiple parts, which is why there's no smut....YET! :P

*you are responsible for your own content consumption. if this is something you DO NOT like, simply DO NOT read or interact! :) *

She loves summer. It's more so what comes with it, rather than the season itself. Being back home from college and finally having her own space in her own room and her own bathroom with her own shower. Most of all, she loves the late nights in her backyard, swimming in the pool beneath the bright stars, cicadas buzzing and crickets chirping in the background. 

Tonight's one of those nights. The dark, starry, cloudless sky accompanies her she floats on her back around the pool, enjoying the peace of the summer night. All she's missing is a nice midnight snack. The warm, humid nighttime air feels good against her wet skin as she climbs out the pool. She forgot to bring a towel with her when she came out earlier, but that doesn't matter since she's getting right back in anyway. Barefoot, she saunters across the soft grass to the sliding glass door that leads into her house. 

"Honey, where's your towel? You're dripping all over the floor," her dad complains as soon as she steps inside. Feeling the freezing air conditioning on her wet body also has her wishing she brought a towel. 

"Sorry, I forgot, but I..." She trails off, finally noticing that her dad isn't alone and that he's at the dining room table with his best friends, Rick and Negan, in the middle of a game of poker. 

"Hi, Rick...Negan," she awkwardly greets, folding her arms over her chest, suddenly feeling naked in front of the two. 

"I'll be right back, gonna go grab her a towel," her dad explains, excusing himself from the table. 

"Late night swim?" Negan teases while shamelessly eyeing the freezing girl's half-naked body. Her face grows hot as she feels his hazel eyes undressing what little clothing she has on. 

"Why don' you join us for a game?" Rick suggests with a pat to the seat beside him. 

"But I dunno how to play." Despite this, she takes the seat anyway. Rick pulls the chair closer to him until he can't anymore. 

"I'ma teach ya how." This earns a scoff from Negan. 

"Doll, you don't want this fuckin' prick teachin' ya how to play poker." 

"This comin' from the idiot who lost five hundred dollars last time we played," Rick fires back. Negan rolls his eyes and flips him the bird. 

She bursts into a fit of giggles at their rivalry. "I think I'll stick with Rick. I don't have much money to lose." 

Her dad finally comes back into the room, towel in hand. He tosses it at her and it lands over her head like a ghost costume. 

"Hey!" she huffs as she fixes the towel properly around her shoulders. Her father just huffs a laugh at her plight. 

"Rick's gonna teach me how to play poker," she tells her dad excitedly. He grimaces which earns a snicker from Negan. 

"If ya want any chance at winnin', you'll have your ol' man to teach ya, but hey," he raises his hands in mock surrender before taking his seat. 

“I’m stickin' with Rick.” Rick gives her a soft smile and places his large hand on her thigh. Shivers run down her spine, and she’s sure it’s not from the air conditioning. 

“You can jus’ watch this game and we’ll deal you into the next.” She nods in agreement and leans over Rick’s shoulder to look at his cards -a three of clubs and a three of spades-, ignoring the water droplets dripping from her hair onto his shirt, but he doesn’t seem to mind either. She has no idea what’s going on since she joined in mid-game, but by the looks of everyone’s faces…she still can’t tell what’s going. Her father’s face is blank and Negan’s has an air of mischief to it, but then again, it almost always does. Rick looks calm as his eyes move from his cards to the three that lie in the table’s center. 

“Wha’s goin’ on?” She whispers in his ear. He leans down to her level and explains to her that the three cards in the middle are the flop and that things are looking good for him. She nods and leans closer to get a better look. The three men all slide more chips into pile. Negan reveals another card next to the three, which Rick informs her is called the turn. They bet again and Negan reveals one last card - the river, Rick tells her- before they all reveal their hands. 

“Two pair,” her dad dejectedly reveals. 

“Three of a kind,” comes Negan’s reveal. 

“Full house,” Rick calls out smugly as he takes the pile of chips

“See, I knew Rick was gonna win!” She cheers, causing the two other men to groan in annoyance. Rick squeezes her thigh, which doesn’t go unnoticed by Negan who’s glaring daggers at the blue eyed man. 

“You playin’ this round, hon?” Her dad asks, shuffling the cards. She happily agrees and deals her in. 

“Ya sure ya wanna stick with Rick? He was just fuckin’ lucky last round,” Negan bargains. 

“Lucky and four hundred dollars richer! I’m stickin’ by him.” Rick flashes Negan the smuggest look ever before wrapping his arm around her, pulling her closer. 

“Got my good luck charm right here.” 

“See if you get so lucky this time ‘round,” her dad challenges as he deals out two cards to each player. She looks at her cards, still not fully sure on how to play. She slides in a chip alongside everyone else, which Rick explains is the ante. Her dad reveals the flop and she looks from it to her own cards, not knowing what plays she has, if any. She glances over at Rick who’s immersed in his own cards. 

“Rick, what do I do?” She whispers. 

“C’mere, I’ll help ya out,” he offers with a pat to his lap. She climbs onto his lap from her own chair, leaving her towel behind. Her dad doesn’t bat an eye. Rick is one of his best friends, basically a brother to him, and in turn like family. At least that’s the way he sees it, like a simple loving action between good family friends. 

But Rick can hardly focus on either of their cards. Having her on his lap is distracting. Her plush ass sits directly on top of his crotch and he can feel himself getting hard as she shifts around to get comfortable. If she can feel it too, she doesn’t move away or say anything. He rests his chin on her shoulder as he looks at her cards -an eight of diamonds and an eight of hearts- his beard prickling against her soft skin. 

“See that eight of spades on the table, you’re close to havin’ a four of a kind,” he whispers. 

“Is that good?” 

“Very.” Nobody’s looking, so he presses a quick kiss to her shoulder. She stifles a giggle at the ticklish sensation of his beard against her skin. They all bet again and the next card is revealed. She shifts around excitedly once she sees another eight on the table.

“Keep still, sweetheart,” Rick warns, growing harder in his pants. She doesn’t say anything, but Rick can see her shoulders shake with more stifled laughter. Everyone places another bet before the river is revealed and they all show their hands. 

“Full house,” Negan says as he reveals his cards. 

“Flush,” her dad reveals. 

“Two pair,” Rick shows his hand. 

“Four of a kind,” she apprehensively says, showing her own hand. 

“Maybe she is some kinda goddamn good luck charm,” Negan grunts. 

“Did I win?” She asks, noticing the proud but somehow simultaneously disappointed faces around the table. 

“You did, sweetheart, good job!” Rick says, hugging her from his position behind her. She gets up and presses a quick kiss to his cheek, dangerously close to his lips before skipping into the kitchen. 

“That was fun, but I’ma head back to the pool now.” Negan watches her struggle to reach a snack in one of the cabinets. She jumps a few times, her ass jiggling a bit each time she lands. He stands up and joins her in the kitchen, watching her pathetically try a few more times before standing behind her and effortlessly grabbing the bag of chips. He even opens it  before handing them to her. 

“T-thanks,” she says turning to face him and taking the bag. Her whole body feels like it’s on fire as she stares up at him. He’s standing so close to her, basically pinning her against the counter. His tongue glides across his bottom lip as he hungrily eyes her up and down, eyes lingering on her tits that her bikini top could hardly contain. 

“You’re welcome.” She doesn’t know what to say or even if she should say anything. Her eyes wander down to his strong arms that are folded across his chest, his tattoos on full display. She bites her lip when her eyes graze over the slight bulge in his pants. She can’t tell if he’s hard or just big, but either way she desperately needs to take a dip in the pool to cool the heat building up inside of her. 

“I’m gonna go back out now, bye!” She slips away from him and hurries out to the backyard before jumping into the pool. 

⋆ ˚｡⋆୨୧˚⋆ ˚｡⋆

She had about thirty minutes alone until she hears the sliding glass door open. Out comes Rick in nothing but his swimming trunks and a beer in hand. He doesn't seem to see her as he makes his way to the hot tub. He gets in, letting out a sigh of relief as he feels the hot water relaxing his muscles. He rests his arms around the ledge and tilts his head back, relaxing and the sight is delicious. She climbs out the pool and carefully steps into the hot water beside Rick. 

"Hey darlin'," Rick greets once she's sitting beside him. 

"What're you still doin' here? Isn't it past midnight?" she asks. 

"Me 'n Negan wanted the hot tub for a bit, but your old man's done for the night." 

"Oh. Okay." She's looking at Rick in a way he can't decipher. Her eyes hungrily trail across his body as she scoots closer and suddenly, she's in Rick's lap like before. 

"I can still sit here, right?" 

"Of course," he reassures, his hands resting on her thighs, fidgeting with the waistband of her bikini bottoms. He rests his chin on her shoulder, just relaxing and enjoying the feeling of her against him. 

The sliding glass door opens again, a jarring interruption to their peace. She flinches, scared one of her parents were about to come out and see her and Rick in a compromising position, but Rick, seeing that it's only Negan, holds her tighter. He joins them in the hot tub with a beer in hand and cigar between his lips. In nothing but his swim trunks, his hairy chest and tattoos are on full display, taking all of her attention away from Rick. If looks could kill, Negan would have murdered Rick with his hazel colored death glare. The tension in the hot tub is so thick, it's almost suffocating. Negan being there somehow makes her feel guilty for being so close to Rick, but leaving his lap isn't something she wants to do either.

"Hey, Negan," she says in a weak attempt to relieve the tension and kill the awkward silence. 

"Hey doll," he takes a drag from the cigar before blowing out the smoke, "congrats on winnin' your very first poker game." 

"Thanks...couldn'ta done it without Rick, really." She subconsciously leans further into Rick and he presses a few scratchy kisses to her shoulder and the back of her neck. Negan rolls his eyes at both her and Rick. 

"C'mere," he commands with a come hither motion. She swallows nervously, looking from man to man. Rick can feel that she wants to get up so he unravels his arms from her waist so she can, which she does, albeit apprehensively. Even though he didn't tell her to, she sits on Negan's lap, her cunt right atop his growing boner, the only barriers between them being his swim trunks and her bikini bottoms. His beard tickles the side of her face as he leans down to whisper in her ear.

Rick watches the two with an intense gaze, almost as if he was daring Negan to try something with his girl. Negan's arms are around her now as he whispers something in her ear. Rick is sure he's just talking shit  but jealousy still twinges in his chest. 

"Anything that asshole thinks he can teach ya, I can do it better," Negan whispers. Rick sees her giggling and she turns her head to whisper something back to him. 

"Yeah? Then why'd ya lose both games earlier?" she teases. He lets out a laugh which catches Rick's attention. His blue eyes glare daggers at Negan who only spares him a smug glance. 

"Didn't wanna embarrass poor Rick over here by beating his ass in front of ya," he says loud enough for Rick to hear. His voice returns to a whisper. "As for the other game...you just got pretty damn lucky." 

"Mmhmm sure," she replies sarcastically with an eye roll. She stands up and wades her way to the hot tub's stairs. 

"G'nite y'all," she wishes them as she exits the tub. 

"Goin' to bed already? Night's just started?" Negan complains, already missing having her on his lap. 

"It's almost three in the mornin'," Rick comments looking at his watch. "Night, sweetheart!" 

"See you both at the barbecue tomorrow!" She blows them both a kiss before skipping off toward the house. She can feel their gazes boring into her, particularly her ass as she does so. 

[mydarlingclaudia]

every word I meant to say

note : ermmmm hi. don't ask where I went for like almost a month work is eating me alive and I was sad. this was inspired by that the unsent project thing andddd idk if I really like this it's def ooc but I was thinking about it again today and this has been in my drafts since September so I figured why not

wc : 2.1k

tags : @luvrgreyy @clitorphosis @sonya-semyonova

desc : letters that went unsent. kind of unrequited love, angst (???), more Leon focused, re2r!Leon - DI!Leon, fem!reader, ooc, not proofread

"I meant to write sooner, I really did. I know it's been a year, my life is so different now, I don't think you'd even believe me if I tried to explain it. I hope you're doing better than I am, I'm happy you weren't able to move to the city with me."

Leon hasn't written a letter since, what, his first few years in the academy? Maybe the end of his senior year of high school? He can't really remember, but he knows that this letter is important because it's to you, his friend he hasn't seen since the night he left for Raccoon City. This isn't even an actual letter, he's scribbling out what he thinks might be good excuses as to why he hasn't talked to you in a year on the back of pieces of scrap paper he took from the office.

He's supposed to be asleep right now, same as everyone else in boot camp, but it's been a year since Raccoon City and he's wondering if you ever tried to reach him. Maybe you tried to go to Raccoon City to look for him, only to see the pile of rubble that stood in its place, sectioned off by the government. Maybe you thought he was dead, he wouldn't blame you.

You and Leon had stuck together all throughout high school, even managed to stay friends when he went off to the police academy and you moved a few hours away for college. He doesn't even know if your address is still the same, he really hopes it is, there's no phone-books in boot camp if he wanted to try and call you, you're supposed to have your loved ones numbers memorized.

The last time Leon saw you was the night before he was supposed to move to the city, before he got a letter in the mail the next morning telling him not to come in, he really wishes he had listened. You were so happy for him, starting out as a city cop was a big deal and he had worked so hard to get there, you and a few friends had thrown him a going-away-party, telling him not to forget you once he got to the city. Leon couldn't forget you if he tried.

You had talked about moving to the city with him for a short period of time, it was really just ramblings the two of you kept bringing up. "Oh, when we live in the city..." "I can come visit you at work..." "I'll handle dinner, you'll handle cleaning..." Nothing ever really came of those ideas, but it gave him a warm feeling in his stomach knowing you wanted to come to the city with him.

He hopes you’ve been well, that life has been kinder to you than it has to him. Leon hopes you got that job you were gushing about the last time he saw you, he hopes you still think of him on his birthday because he thinks of you often.

He shouldn’t have gone to Raccoon City, he should’ve stayed home the day he left and instead stopped by your house to bother you about going to see a movie. Or he should have taken you to lunch, anything would’ve been better than walking into a city that was beyond saving.

"I’m not really sure what I’m saying, but I know I miss you. How have you been? I hope I’m able to come and visit soon, everything’s been moving so fast, but I’ll figure something out. Maybe we can get dinner, or something. Whatever you want, I’ll pay for it, don’t worry."

Leon's hands shake a tiny bit when he thinks of you, it's that school boy nervousness that movies portray whenever there's a boy with a crush on a girl who he knows is probably too out of his league. You were friends, at least.

"You're done with school now, right?" He knows you are. "I wish I was there for the graduation ceremony, I know your parents are proud. Do you remember my graduation party? Someone spiked the punch and we both ended up passed out in the bathtub at your house, you looked really pretty that night. I hope your graduation was better than mine. This would probably have been better as a phone call, but I don't know, you said letters were always more thoughtful.

– Leon"

–

That letter never got sent. Every letter needs an envelope, Leon just never got around to finding one, but he kept that scrap piece of paper tucked inside his pillowcase on the odd chance that he got his hands on one. He had stricter rules to follow than the other recruits, being legally dead and all.

But even after he got out of boot camp, he kept the letter. It's hidden away in some drawer in his house, he's not sure where, though.

He didn't make it into the army, he's not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing, but being in the position he was in now wasn't much better. He's stronger now, hardened, more mature.

Leon's written a few more letters to you over the years, ones that still never got sent because he either deemed them unworthy or because he became unsure of himself halfway through writing it. But he hasn't thrown any of them away, he'll send them one day, he swears it.

Leon's not using you as a way of journaling, either, even though he should find some way to actually write down his thoughts to get them out of his head. What he writes to you is mostly memories, telling you that his life keeps changing and that he misses you. He knows you're different by now, too. You're both grown, no longer in high school, no longer in college or the academy. If he could turn back time, go anywhere other than Raccoon City, he would. He thinks that's selfish of him, him not being there would've left Claire and Sherry in that city, but how would he have even known?

"Me again, hope you're doing better than I am." Leon's way with words gets worse and worse by the week, not that he cares. "I met someone who kind of reminded me of you, she's a sweetheart, like you. You'd probably become fast friends if you were ever able to meet."

Leon's not allowed to tell you about his mission in Spain, or about the president's daughter. President Graham is putting more body-guards in place for his daughter once she steps foot in D.C. again, Leon's sure the president considered appointing Leon as one of them at some point since breaking the news that she was going to be coming back home safely.

Leon should stop thinking about you so much, it's not like you were his only friend in the world, you've probably forgotten him, anyway.

"My life is still different, but yours probably is, too. This probably sounds stupid, but I miss being in high school. You probably don't, your mom was up your ass all the time and you worked yourself to the bone. Has that changed at all?

I remember that one year I went to Thanksgiving at your house, your uncles were all drunk and your cousins kept trying to get me to come sit with them, your grandpa was trying to get me interested in football. I haven't had a holiday like that since then, your family was always really nice to me."

He's not sure what to say anymore, these letters always just end up dragging out, but Leon has a lot of memories and he hopes you think of them as often as he does.

"I'm sorry I haven't visited. It's harder for me to get time off of work these days, even though I could really fucking use it. I promise one day I'll come back, it's just not going to be for a little while. Just don't do anything dumb.

– Leon"

–

Those letters he's been writing you have piled up in the drawer of his nightstand.

He's definitely sure that your address has changed by now, you're probably not even in the same state anymore. He could always try to find you on Facebook, explain everything that's been building up over the years in a simple text, but there's still rules he's supposed to follow even in his personal life.

Leon didn't stop writing, though. The letters did eventually get shorter, he's not sure if you like the same things anymore or if you'd even be interested.

He writes now mostly about how different his life would be if he was with you, if he had just asked you out in high school or kissed you the night he was supposed to leave for Raccoon City. It almost feels real to him when he goes to sleep, but that might just be the alcohol numbing his brain, not the dream of you sleeping next to him or the feeling of your breath on the back of his neck, not even the little pitter-patter off tiny footsteps coming from down the hallway.

It does make him feel a bit pathetic, dreaming of a life with someone he hadn't talked to in years. Leon can't help but think of you, he always thought you were pretty, and the past always lives in the back of his mind, but it comes alive late at night.

You're an entirely different person by now, someone who he hasn't had the opportunity to meet yet. You're probably married, maybe you even have a few kids running around, Leon's jealous of that. That could've been him, but it's not. But he's not even sure if you'd recognize each other if you passed by on the street, so is it even worth it to dwell on all the maybe's?

"I'm not sure I'll get to visit you for a while, not without a lucky fucking twist of fate, anyway."

All these letters are starting to sound the same, but Leon clings onto the thought of someday sending them to whatever corner of the country you were hiding in and hoping that there's still room in your life for a stranger.

"Do you still want me over for dinner? You don't know what I'd give to just eat a shitty meal with you right now."

You don't know what he'd give to do anything with you, really. He knows that there's a lifetime worth of things he's missed out on and that maybe every once in a while you think about him in the same way he thinks about you.

"I don't know how to ask this, but are you married? I know you'd look stunning in a wedding dress." You probably are, you're a catch, who wouldn't want to put a ring on your finger? Your husband's probably a better man than he is, too. One who hasn't had years worth of trauma jammed into his brain with the proof of it marked across his body, your husband probably takes you out on a date every week, maybe even surprises you with breakfast in bed and kisses the nape of your neck to gross out your kids. "I really hope you're happy, in my head you are.

I wanted that to be us, I never told you, but I was a chicken-shit kid and didn't know how to say it. You show up in my dreams sometimes, you deserve nothing but the best. I meant to get back in touch with you forever ago, but I think it's probably too late.

– Leon"

–

Two years after his last letter and Leon's still thinking of you, seventeen years after Raccoon City and the image of you sitting across from him for the last time still loops in his mind. He doesn't really remember your voice but he knows that you thought handwritten letters were romantic, and he still reads over the ones he meant to send to you but kept avoiding.

He's done with the letters, hasn't written one in a long time. But he just got back from California and your old favorite song is playing on the radio, and he's remembering how in love he is with your memory.

"I don't know what I'm doing. I'm too old for this and I'm sure you'd tease me if we had somehow kept in touch. I don't blame you if you thought I died in Raccoon City, I hope you're still alive and that life is good to you.

You were always important to me, I think you've given me something to cling to over the years. This letter won't find you and I'm not even really sure if I want it to, but I hope you'd still call me if you were able to. You wouldn't believe the things I've seen, but I'm happy you never got to see them.

Love, Leon

p.s. I'd say I love you but it feels like something you'd say in person"

[chaethewriter]

You're dead to me [2]

dad!Jake Sully x human!daughter!reader

In which Jake Sully leaves his life on earth to settle down with the Omatikaya people as Toruk Makto. Having a family that consists of four kids with Neytiri, everything seems to work out just fine, but what if the past comes back for him? And his babygirl is right there in front of him?

warning: english isn't my first language, daddy issues, idk how one lives with zero gravity, barely proofread

Word count: 2,3k

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What actually took six years didn't feel like that to you at all. One moment you closed your eyes as you were put into cryosleep and after what felt like one second passed, you got woken up from your deep slumber. The claustrophobic space you are in makes something inside of you itch. Good thing you were into cryosleep, you couldn't have survived sleeping in this tube every night for six years in a row. Once your tube was pulled out of the wall, you immediately feel yourself floating. So this is what space felt like.

"Drink and eat lots, since you will feel very weak!", a loud voice echoes through the room as one by one everyone left their cryosleep. You float through the room with a smile on your face as you hold onto handles, lockers, anything to keep your balance. An excited scream could be heard from behind you, it was your friend Raja. "You are not dead I see," she jokes as she floats towards you, her arms wide open to invite you in a hug, "this is honestly insane, I can't believe that we are actually doing this!" You wrap your arms around you as you share her excitement, "I know right? We worked so hard for this, I can't believe this is happening." You met Raja on your first day being at the resistance base. She shared her passion for nature with pride and you always admired her for this. A cough is heard behind your back and Raja looks over your shoulder to see who it was, "Seb!" she squeals as she carefully gets out of your hug, floating towards their other friend to engulf him in a hug. You watch as Raja and Seb share their excitement with each other. They really didn't age at all while being in cryosleep, such an interestingly concept it was. You float towards them, holding onto Seb's shoulder to keep your balance and not pass out, because damn they were right. You feel so tired and weak. If you weren't in space right now you probably would have fallen to the floor. Your limbs felt like cooked noodles, you really needed to eat. "The trio is back at it again to cause havoc!!" Seb ruffles your head, your hair tangling in between his fingers as he did so. The three of you were the inseparable trio. While you had a group of friends you hung out with, you three always just stuck together like glue. It may have been the fact you bonded over being reckless warriors, thriving on the thrill and action, or the fact all three of you were top students, but that doesn't matter. Raja and Seb are your partners in crime til death do you all part. The two are engaged in a deep conversation, but you didn't bother to listen or chime in. You wanted to explore, and see what you worked your entire teenagehood for. Grabbing onto the handle against the walls, you made your way towards the huge window, were also most of the crew was floating around. You had to see this for yourself, you had to believe it with your own eyes. What if you were still dreaming?

"Excuse me, Pardon me!", still not used to not having any gravity, you keep bumping into other warriors. A 'watch where you're going!' was screamed your way, but you paid no mind to it as you had more important things to do. Floating past the last person that kept you from seeing outside, your eyes immediately widen at the beauty that lay in front of you. A planet, looking exactly like earth, right in front of you. It was beautiful, the true meaning behind mother nature. You bring your hand towards your cheek to pinch yourself, was this real? Were you truly experiencing this? When you pinched yourself so hard, leaving a red mark on your skin, and you didn't wake up you knew this was real. You were knocked out of your senses pretty quickly, as everyone was told to dress up, eat and get together in the common area. Where that was? No idea, but what you knew is that you were excited as hell. You basically swam through the air towards the lockers, where your supposed gear would be. The sight was probably incredibly silly, you thought, you probably looked like a swimming frog. Yet you didn't care about the stares that were given you. The only thing on your mind was to see Pandora with your own eyes— not out of books, notes you had to read, or drawings. You left without telling Seb or Raja, but you would probably find them, considering you're going to the same destination and those two definitely weren't to miss.

You float past all the lockers with nameplates, looking for your name. You were told that they were in alphabetic order. Last name. You could never escape him, could you? You proceed to float, using the lockers to pull yourself up and speed up towards the lockers that start with 'S'. Upon floating in front of the name that haunted you every day, you sigh and slam the locker open. Clothes sealed in recycled plastic, a pair of shoes, and an oxygen mask. Fortunately, it wasn't those old aquarium-like masks. When you learned about those you thought they were ugly as hell: a head in an aquarium. Those were designed like gas masks. Was that the best way to explain them? They only covered the mouth and nose part to breathe properly, it didn't cover the entire face anymore. You flash a skeptical expression towards the clothes in your arms. They were dark colors, dark colors in a hot amazon-like forest? If it were up to you, you wouldn't have chosen a little more, bare, clothes. For the sweat to at least dry up and not soak in the clothes. "Weird choice of clothes, right?", Raja appeared next to you, out of the blue, making you flinch. You quickly managed to cover it up and compose yourself, "I'm gonna end up looking like a crab while fighting a villain, kind of embarrassing." she laughs at your reply and grabs a hold of your forearm, "come on let's go change. Seb already went to change!" And with that, your friend pulls you with her. Changing your clothes was kind of awkward. The room was a big space where all women changed next to one another. It gave PE class vibes. You felt sticky and disgusting as you changed out of the clothes you wore for six years. Wearing fresh, clean clothes is always better than nothing. The material feels nice against your skin, and very cooling. As you look in the mirror, fixing every detail to look as neat as possible. You roll your sleeves up just a tad bit and tried to loosen the corset-like clothing piece around your upper body. It doesn't look exactly like a corset, but it's one of those clothing pieces that have a corset built into it. The mask is hanging against your hip, ready to be used 24/7 once you stepped foot on Pandora. The pants were a little wide thankfully, enough space to move into. "What is it with the corset though? Who wears a corset while fighting?" "Maybe it's bulletbroof or something?"

After this whole ordeal in the dressing room with some people whining about the clothes being too hot, while others were second guessing if the outfit was nice to fight in, you finally made your way towards this common area. There everyone was awkwardly sitting, what one could call sitting in space. Everyone was given a granola bar to snack on and a sealed bag with a sweet drink in it. You leaned against Seb, as you were too tired to use your strength to hold onto anything. Eating the bar and sipping from the overly-sweetened drink, you listened to the peptalk your superiors were giving you all. It was something about protecting Pandora, RDA and the forest Na'vi, but you really were too tired to listen. It was most likely the talk they did every time before you went into cryosleep. If you missed anything you could just ask Raja or Seb about it.

What almost felt like a decade to you, actually took just a few hours before you finally landed on Pandora. During the landing all, maybe twenty of you in total, were seated as you braced for impact. It wasn't too bad, it was like a plane landing. Before the doors opened, the duffel bags you took with you were placed on your laps. For your instance, the bag with the wrapped katana you got from your lieutenant was handed to you. You put your mask against your face, pressing it down and securing it as you breathe in the oxygen from the earth. Red lights flash through the area you're in with the others as the secured door lowers to the Pandorean ground, revealing the beauty of mother nature. You rise from your seat as your seat belt was already unclasped. Without waiting any longer, you rushed to the outside world in a heartbeat. Watching your surroundings, it seems like you landed on the resistance base. Unlike the RDA base, which you saw during your learning process, this one was more integrated with mother nature rather than destroying it to make space. It was so organic, so natural. A team was already waiting for your arrival, all standing in a row as you lock gazes with a Na'vi. Unlike the things you were taught about Na'vi clothing, this one was wearing human clothes. Could this be what one would call an avatar? The same situation your dad was also in? You start thinking he was your dad, but it didn't look like him at all. You knew avatars were supposed to look like their 'owners'. Even though it was supposed to be your dad's brother's avatar, they were twins. One would ask 'you don't know what your dad's avatar body looks like?', but honestly as you said many times you tried to pull away from the hauntings Jake Sully got you. The insecurities, and issues you got from his betrayal, his departure. It truly hit you like a truck. Questions would pop up like:

Were you enough?

Was there something wrong with you?

Why didn't he come back to you?

You couldn't take talking about your dad's new life. Selfish one may call it, then you were selfish in their eyes. You didn't care. Wanting your dad, is that selfish? Missing your dad, is that selfish? Angry because your dad wanted a new life without you, is that selfish? You yearned for him, yet despised talking about him. That's why you don't know what he looks like, what he is up to. You just know his history: put into the avatar body from his brother to follow military orders. From only caring about getting a paycheck to protecting the natives. He was crowned with the name Toruk Makto as you were taught. Mated to Neytiri te Tskaha Mo'at'Ite, daughter of the Olo'eyktan and Tsahik. When you first heard about this, you felt sick to your stomach. Reality hitting you even harder at age thirteen. It was already bad enough to know your dad left you, but also getting to know that he settled down while you spent your time waiting for him? You remember running out of the classroom when a superior taught you this information. This was also how you got in contact with Raja and Seb. They comforted you while everyone else thought of you as weird, weak. They were the first people, besides the superiors that came in contact with you, that came to know about your dad being Jake Sully, about the struggles you got after he left. Yet, they didn't laugh at what you thought was exaggerating. They listened carefully to your words as the tears rolled down your cheeks.

'We were attached to the hip, what went wrong?'

'Did I make him unhappy?'

'Was I too much for him?'

'Was he looking for something more rather than being a single dad?'

You spilled your insecurities to them and they never uttered a word about it to someone else. You will be forever grateful for them. You were so lost in thoughts, getting slightly emotional at all these thoughts about your dad, until a hand rested on your shoulder, "and last but not least, you must take her with you. She's our best warrior, Norm. She will need to stay on the battlefield, closest to the war." So Norm was his name. A pretty goofy one if you had to be honest. The avatar named Norm stood at least 10 feet tall as he looked down at you, literally. You just reached around his crotch area, which is kinda embarrassing because imagining running into his front. Hopefully, he likes to travel in his human body more. "Then that's settled, Oel Ngati Kameie." His hand rested against his forehead, slowly bringing it down to his chest. You flashed him a kind smile in return, ready for whatever adventure you will come across, "Oel Ngati Kameie."

But only if you knew.

.

.

"They have arrived, they will help us."

"They're sky demons! All the same!"

"I used to be one as well, yet I had a change of heart. Please accept the help they will offer us, for our people, for our family, our fortress." his hands grip hers, intertwining their fingers as he spoke to her in private, away from the children. He opened his mouth again, pressing his forehead against hers, "please, Ma Neytiri."

A/N: first of all, thank you all so much for the positive feedback. I honestly didn't expect it I'm gonna be fr😭 it gave me enough motivation to write part 2, so here it is, earlier than expected. I hope you enjoyed <3

also i hope no one noticed me accidentally posting the draft cause that was silly

Taglist (I couldn't find everyone):

@hoodiepandaninja16 @l0v3e1i @neteyamforlife @noname2246 @bunnyrose01 @littlelia007 @j0551 @navs-bhat @fyfy-world @hellok1ttycake @coterami @lwozy @erenjaegerwifee @n1ght5h4d3-24 @kahlowy @iloveavatar @farleyis @reguluscrystals @inomoikawa @bobojojoba69 @m3ll0n1xx @eternallyvenus @shyskybbb @imakms @keira7664 @alice121804 @aimsro @carollise @jjkclub @onlytays @wolfiealina @guska0 @yeosxxx @dakotali @destinylb @degenweeb @sunshinewwx @alohastitch0626

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

hey, sex batman! i recently found out that im like, super into hurting people. like, Super into hurting people in a sexual context. does that make me, like, a bad person?

hi anon,

I'm not really interested in declaring who is and isn't a bad person, because I'm not a cop. let's work with something a little more actionable, like "what impact are my actions having on others?"

now, broadly speaking, many people would hear "I like to hurt people" and have the knee jerk reaction that that's bad a scary. but let's pump the breaks and consider nuance and context.

you know who loves to hurt people? my tattoo artist. she punctures my skin, makes me bleed, and causes permanent damage to my body, and she takes great pride in her work. I don't know if you've ever gotten a tattoo, but your body does very much react like you've been hurt, because you have. it doesn't matter that I sought out the pain and willingly paid for it; I was very much injured.

so does that make my tattoo artist a bad person? most people would say no, because she's only hurting people who ask her to do so and are aware of the risks, sober, and of legal age to consent to body modifications. she also follows appropriate guidelines to make sure that while she is hurting me she's doing it as safely as possible, minimizing the risk of infection or other complications that would cause me unnecessary pain or make my healing more difficult.

so we can agree that under these circumstances my tattoo isn't a terrible pervert unfit for society, right? she's a person doing something she likes to people who eagerly seek her out for exactly that purpose.

okay, now let's look at you. you want to hurt people sexy style. that alone is a neutral thing; desires are neither good or bad. thought crime isn't real. but if you want to enact this with real people, what's your move? are you planning to find people who want to be hurt sexy style (an abundant population, I assure you) and talking out the ways in which you could hurt them that would be pleasurable and fun for everyone involved? or are you going to hide in the bushes and assault people like a villain of the week on SVU?

only one of those is bad, in my book, because only one of those options involves victimizing another person and taking away their ability to consent to having sex with you.

so idk dude, I don't really believe many, if any, people are just fully irretrievably Bad. but a lot of people treat others badly. you can't really make that call based on sexual proclivities! there are people who use kink as an excuse to be shitheads the same as there are real assholes who only have married missionary sex with the lights off every other Wednesday. the only deciding factor is how you treat people.

and how you treat people is up to you!

[carmenized-onions]

Loosen Your Grip. | R & D

logline; even when it seems counter-intuitive.

[!!!] series history; so many parts, so many words.

Spotify Playlist, if you like to listen while you read. I listen to it when I write :) Constantly gettin’ added to. 8 hour mark officially! Lets go!

portion; 15k knowing the next chapters, this trend isn't going to change. they have started to line up with the chapter number, to my chagrin.

possible allergies; i think this one is relatively harmless? Stress though. Everyone's stressed. Idk what to tell you man, it's the bear. oh but more things were yoinked from Season 3!! Think that's just gonna be ongoing tbh. also if this is bad don't tell me. tell me it's really good, actually. i've never doubted a chapter more than I do this one.

pairing; Carmen ‘Carmy’ Berzatto & Fem Reader it's so fem. it's so she/her'd it's so girl'd i'm so sorry

kofi; if you’ve enjoyed the series, perhaps you wanna tip!

i'm so sorry for the delays beloveds, can you say 'most high stress but high reward month and a half of my life'? i can!!!

The Monday morning after New York— The first morning waking up in your own bed in a day or two— Comes rudely. Well, not immediately. First you have to roll over and grab aimlessly at your nightstand, searching for your phone to turn off your alarm. Through blurred vision you slide it to snooze, and as you debate going back to bed, your eyes glaze over some texts you’ve received in your sleep, from numbers you never bothered to put in your contacts. It takes a minute to absorb the information and register it as real, but once you do—

“...Are you fucking kidding me?!” 

—You’re definitely not gonna be heading back to bed anymore. You’re wide-eyed and wired— You can probably skip coffee this morning. Maybe every morning forever.

“Oh— I fucking hate this fucking city, I fucking hate Chicago— Fuck this!” 

In lieu of coming to terms with your world shattering news, perhaps this is an important moment to express gratitude, for the things that have gone well in the past few days. 

The rest of the weekend in New York was as lovely as a last-minute trip in a cramped car full of kitchen equipment and four neurotics can be.

Gratitude. Highlight reel?

There’s a bag M and Ms monogrammed with Syd’s, Richie’s, Carmy’s, and your faces in your pantry now. Eva shouldn’t be the only one allowed to have fun. Though snacking on all your cute little faces does make you feel like a slight monster.

Managed to get a good gift for Richie. Thank you Tiffanys. It was certainly an interesting moment when everyone tried to come up with lame excuses as to why they had to split up from the group to definitely totally not go get Christmas presents.

 Carmen’s knife guy wasn’t able to do engravings on such short notice, and you’re not the type to settle for less, especially not with Syd, so that’ll be a next year gift, it seems. You came up with a serviceable back-up while strolling through the MET— Which was a mostly fun field trip, it was very inspiring. You all could've done without Richie's pretentious prattling about postmodern absurdist dadaism. Mostly because you're pretty sure half of it was wrong; but still a good trip, all told.

Still lost on what to get Carmen… You’ve got a week, it’s fine. You’ve done more with less before. How do you subtly ask a guy, ‘hey, what the hell else do you like besides your job?’ You’ll figure it out. Figure it out like you figure out everything else, like you always do. Hopefully.

It's Monday. You've got a week. It's fine. Stop looking at your phone. This is such bad timing. This is awful fucking timing. You’ll figure it out. Stop looking at your phone, stop looking at the texts. Do the Connections, send it to Carmy, he already sent his, be normal… Just such bad timing—

At the very least if you can't bear to look away from the life ruining texts, just shut your phone off. You’ve got to stop ruminating or you’ll rot in bed forever. And you really have to get out on time, today. 

“God wants me to kill myself—” Gratitude. Express gratitude.

The drive back went ‘well’. Everyone had their licenses so the squad took shifts either driving or sitting on the uncomfortable console. Or, in your case specifically, sitting half on Carmen’s lap in shotgun on occasion despite the many complaints from Syd and Richie. You had a good excuse! Neither of you slept for the entire trip just to work on the cocktail and coffee menu. It was practically a sacrifice! It was just easier to sit up front together, okay!? You had to be close, you were scribbling ratios and drawings of glasses into a stolen notepad from the Holiday Inn with pencil crayons bought from FAO Schwarz—

Oh, hey, put that on the gratitude scoreboard, that was another thing that went well. Pretty cool to go to the oldest toy store in America. Might not have gotten the chef in your life anything yet, but the kids in your life are covered— You’re winning best Aunt for sure.

Oh, huge highlight— Didn’t say love you, like some idiot. Got away with that by the skin of your teeth, honestly. Hard to stare up at the Rockefeller Christmas Tree next to the guy and not blurt out something fucking stupid. Thank God for Syd, who stomped on your foot when you seemed a little too doe eyed.

With great pain and bemoaning, you finish expressing gratitude, which hasn’t helped much. You slam your phone screen down on your nightstand and roll out of bed. 

Today’s Monday. Today’s your first day at The Bear. Today that is the priority and there is nothing else to worry about.

You signed your contract last night. Talked to Syd for hours about it, planning next steps and goals and classes and budgets and a million other things. You’re both a little easily excitable, when it comes to lists and plans. Watching you sign yours gave her the ‘confidence’ to sign hers, if you can call it that. Not like you knew she needed the help, though.

“I love my life, I love my life, I love my life…” If you keep saying it while washing your face in the bathroom, it’ll become true, right? …Where’s Sara’s card again?

The Bear doesn’t run service on Mondays, so it’s a good day to do onboarding— Good day to do R and D. …What does one wear to R and D? Don’t need the serving uniform. Don’t need to dress up. Don’t need the jumpsuit… This is the first time you don’t need a uniform and that is bizarre.

You’ll wear your dad’s flannel, at least. Feels illegal to not wear the patch worked flannel. But besides that, you’re just a normal… restaurateur… part of the team…

Your hand hovers over where your necklace sits, in the small jewellery box on your vanity. “Mikey, if you want me to keep wearing it, make my ceiling cave in or some shit.”

You give it ten seconds and nothing falls. With a curt nod to no one, you pick up your book bag filled with loose tools and the menu filled notepad. Leave your bedroom, put your shoes on, grab your keys out of your clay dish tray on the way out.

It’s snowing.

That’s a lot of stuff falling, so to speak.

That’s basically a sign. That’s basically what you asked for.

You head back in, grab the necklace, hook it over your neck, and tuck it under your shirt. Baby steps. You head back out.

…And then soon after, head back in— Forgetting one of the most important things you need today. “The fucking glass, goddamn it!”

There’s a chance that today might be a little bit of an off day for you. No one’s gonna notice that, though.

“Mikey, why didn’t you tell me? You want me to look stupid on my start day, don't you? Fucker.”

You’re good. You’re you. You figure shit out. You’re compartmentalising perfectly and no one’s gonna be able to tell that you’re internally scrambling to figure out where you're gonna live once your lease gets terminated.

“ ‘Sup with you?” Okay, so Tina did immediately notice upon opening the back door for you. She tries to help you with the huge sheet of plexiglass you’re carrying, but you wave her off, stumbling further inside The Bear. Thankfully it’s a slow start to the morning, so the walk way is clear for your fumbled steps.

“I got it, T, just spot me—”

“Woahwoahwoah—” But alas, immediately Carmen is rushing over, making a big deal over nothing, “Fuck are you doin?” And grabs the thick sheet of glass from you. “Wait by your car next time, why do I gotta keep tellin’ you?”

“I am very capable—” You grunt, but you’re relieved when he takes the weight off you. You nod to the table in front of expo. “Put it on the island.”

“What’s it for?” Carmy asks but he follows direction without hesitation.

“Syd’s idea.” You walk with him, sidling up to Syd who’s already stationed up on the island with what looks like way too much paperwork for Chefs. You bump her shoulder as a greeting, she bumps you back. She lifts up the stack of papers and you pick up her deli container of Coke and ice, letting Carmen slide the glass onto the table.

“Unless it’s bad—” You correct, putting the cup down and digging through the tool bag on your shoulder for the right parts. “If you hate it, then it’s my idea.”

Syd snorts next to you, putting the papers back down on top of the glass. “Nice save.”

“What’s your idea, Chef?” Carmen taps his fingers against the glass, bemused.

You finally fish out two lock hinges from your bag, gesturing to them with a little flair like you’re Vanna White as Sydney explains. “For R and D. Thought since we’re like— Constantly changing shit and needing to review, it’d be like, useful to have a whiteboard— But those are huge and inconvenient for a restaurant— Duh— So—”

“Glass!” You come in with the assist as she rambles on. “On hinges— These one’s lock so you can have the glass sort of tilted up like an easel, or on the station— And then when you start service you can just flip it down off the counter for the night. Easy!”

“And—And—” Like a TV ad, Syd points out, “We can put paper under it and still be able to see— So it’ll make editing clearer— I-I think.”

Carmen always takes a nerve-wracking amount of time to think through other’s ideas, but once he nods, you both breathe easy. “Smart idea. Thank you, Chefs.”

You just smile, and this seems to bother Carm. Or at the very least, something is bothering him, as he frowns. “You got a second?”

Your brows furrow, for a moment, worried. You nod, putting your tools down. Glass can wait. “Always.”

Carmen comes around the counter, before he pulls you aside, Syd whispers over your shoulder, “Trouble in paradise.” Making you snort. When has it ever been paradise?

The two of you lean across from each other in the doorway of Carmen’s office, not quite in, not quite out. He looks worried, and his worrying is making you worry. He’s first to say something, concerned hand on your shoulder.

“Are you good?”

Fuck, he caught you too? “Hmm? Yeah, I’m good, do I not—”

You’re halfway through your response when he interrupts, he seems even more panicked by your words. His hand abandons your shoulder. “Right— Stupid, stupid fucking question— I just— Sorry—”

“Woah—” You grip both his shoulders, rubbing down his sleeves lightly. “Are you good, Carmy? You’re right, sweets. You caught me. I’m a lil’ off today. What gave me away?”

“Right, yes— You’re nice.” He’s saying it more to himself than you, like he needs to remind himself. Even so, it still hitches your heartbeat. “I— I’m good, I was just—You didn’t text me back this morning.”

“Oh.” You say it so breathlessly, with relief. It’s cute that that’s what’s got him freaking. “Sorry, yeah, I’ve been trying to not look at my phone, I just got some…” You shake your hand in the air for effect. “Bleh news. Put a wrench in some things for me, that’s all.”

“Yeah? What’s up?”

“Ah—” You shake your head, waving it off, “Too much to get into. Later, though?”

“Yeah, yeah. Whenever you want.” He nods. “Ah, I wanna get into uhm—” Carmen snaps his fingers a few times, finding the words. “Get into drinks, today. I made all the concentrates and syrups ahead of time—But Uncles gonna come in first with The Computer to go over some numbers shit— Should be here in thirty?”

You nod, squinting. “Is it like… A special computer or something?”

“Computer is a guy.” Carmen says, while Syd yells the same in tandem with him, “Why wouldn’t he be!?” Walking past you both as she carries produce out of the walk-in.

“Why wouldn’t he be?” You grin, reiterating. Your smile soon sobers though, as you finally notice a giant silver blob of machinery behind Carmen. “Baby, what the fuck is that?” 

You’re already walking past him, quickly winding up all over again. It’s a gorgeous espresso machine— “It’s an Ascaso.” Explains Carmen. “It’s the best.” And it’s sitting exactly where your beautiful beat up mistake of a heavily-stained coffee machine used to be. 

“Baby, baby, baby—” you’re looking above and below the station for your rusted companion, hushed and panicked. “Don’t tell me you threw away the old one—” 

“You want the old one?”

Richie’s timing is perfect, as he walks in from front of house, and even from just hearing the last sentence, “Fuckin’ told you, Carm.” He knows the context. He keeps walking— On a mission, seemingly.

“I’m grateful— I- I am.” You kneel down and shove some mixing bowls aside to see if it was tucked in the back of some shelf— It’s not here. She’s not here. “New is good— New is nice— I’ll learn how to use the new one— I will— But— I— I need the old one— You didn’t throw it away, did you?” 

When he stays silent, you turn and look up to Carmen from where you’re crouched on the ground, pleading. “Tell me you didn’t.”

“I— I—” The Chef is nearly sweating from this line of questioning alone. “It— It barely worked—”

“I know it didn’t! That’s the point!”

He blinks. You just seem to be saying all his trigger phrases, today, huh? “That’s the point?”

“I knew how she worked.” You push yourself back up onto your feet. “It’s got an espresso function that doesn’t work, if you tamp the basket the basket literally breaks off so you have to hold it and burn your hand a little— You have to hold the hot water button at the same time as the grind button for some reason or it won’t dispense— It’s literally a fucking nightmare— I covered it in like ten sticky notes of instructions at one point and they became pointless because no one but me was willing to use it. And— And I’ve got it memorized.”

“...And you want that?”

“No one’s gonna know how to take care of her, she’s my baby!” You gesture, albeit a bit too dramatically, speaking with your hands. “If you throw her away or donate her, no one’s gonna take the time to figure it out— They’re just gonna think she’s broken but she’s not, she works! She just needs the right hand!”

A dull silence falls between you, as Carmen purses his lips, squinting. There’s an ever slight chance your ‘I’m totally fine’ facade is cracking. “...Are you sure you don’t want to talk about your thing right—” 

“I’m good!” “...Okay.” “Did you get rid of her?”

“Relax, Handy!” Carmen does not say this. 

You grimace, looking behind Carmen to see Chi-Chi yelling from around the bend, in The Beef’s corner territory. Looking over him with the blue apron calling you your least favourite nickname by far— Well, second least favourite, only to— “She’s over here, Jack-Off. More our speed than rich boy’s ack - queso bullshit…” It’s nostalgic. Bad nostalgic but nostalgic. 

He slaps the top of the machine, you and Carmen both wince as a random spigot falls off it. Chi-Chi clicks his tongue, staring at it in silence. “...Refresher would be good, though.”

You’re already walking back to your damaged darling, patting Carmen on the shoulder as a form of goodbye, he pats your hand back. You don’t get to see him smile, as he watches you get to work. “Don’t fuckin’ call me Jack-Off and don’t touch her, I’ll show you, I’ll break your hand Cheech, I swear—”

The man in question shrugs, a devilish and terrible smirk on his stupid face. “Ey, love a woman in charge. Show me the ways.” 

Even on your most off days, working with The Beef will always be second nature for you. Even when the space is significantly more cramped than it used to be. 

You rewrite directions on how to use the coffee machine while showing them to Ebra and Chi-Chi. Ebra tends not to learn new tricks, so he stops listening by the time you get to syrups. That’s fine. No one ordered syrups in their coffee at The Beef back in the day all that often either.

Mikey really shouldn’t have invested in all those syrups back then. He really only did it for you and the staff. To be fair, when he did convince regulars to try your coffee they always changed their tune. The people don’t know what they like yet. They will like this. You were his proof that that idea was true.

“You gotta toss these, Boss. Slows you down.” You overhear Cheech saying behind you. You turn to see his arm on Ebra’s shoulder, holding the small blue baskets for sandwiches in his other hand. “Just the wrapping is fine. These people are gonna throw this shit out anyways, waste of plastic.”

Cheech turns his head to you, “Right, Handy?”

“...Don’t call me Handy.” Don’t freak out about throwing the old stuff away. Don’t freak out about throwing his old stuff away. You shrug, looking at Ebra over your shoulder. “Maybe just offer them, if they ask for one?”

“Y’know what the people are asking for, babe?” Cheech sucks his teeth, pulling Ebra closer, who looks nonplussed. “They’re asking where the nearest brick is to throw through our window. This rich people shit is getting on their nerves.”

You sigh, eyes flitting to Ebra for confirmation. “Yeah?”

He shrugs, nodding. “Ninety-eight percent, Jack-Off.” Cheech and the gang have been a terrible influence. How are you going to undo this?

“C’mon, E…” You scoff, but nod as you turn around, arms crossed. Gesturing with the frother as you do. “Well, I’ll make note of that. Now back to the fuckin’ hand frother, Cheech?”

“I know how to crank it, Handy—” “I swear to fucking God—”

“Ey!” Tina comes up to your corner, smacking the back of Chi-Chi’s head with a hand towel when she does. “Don’t talk to the baby like that, clean your mouth.”

He puts one hand on the back of his head, hissing, and another up in front of him, in defense. “Ey, T, it’s all love, aright? Playing!”

“Yeah well, you’re not gonna wanna play wit’ this one. ‘Specially not now—” She nudges you, smiling that coy ‘I’m about to blow up your spot’ smile.

You grimace, attempting to interrupt her. “T, don’t—” “That she’s Jeff’s.” “—Goddamnit.”

“Oh! Oh shit!” Cheech laughs, delightfully shocked. “You finally closed on Charmin’? Congrats—” It’s a blessing and a curse that Carmen, the guy you only ever saw in photos and heard in stories that you had a very minor and not vocal crush on, is now your… boyfriend? Undetermined.

You wave a hand in his face, “Shut the fuck up—”

“So where should I send flowers?”

You hate this family. “For the record, I have not closed shit.”

“What’s closing?” Tina takes a half step back, surveying your face, it doesn’t reveal anything. “What’s that? Gramps?” She turns her question on Ebra, who shrugs, equally as old and unknowing. 

“Well Jack-Off’s a little Mother Mary for my taste—”

You scoff, “So not true, for the record—” but Chi-Chi continues his tirade. “So I suspect she just means they haven't had the ‘are we datey-wating carmy baby?’ talk.”

You all but growl, crossing your arms as you wait for the second tutorial coffee to finish dispensing from the beloved whirring machine behind you. You can get the fuck out of here as soon as it’s done, and you’re praying that’s soon, because this interrogation is about to turn terrible. “We are currently unlabelled, if that’s what you’re trying to say.”

Tina kisses her teeth, poking at your shoulder. “Richie told me you spent the whole wedding together and you come back with no label?”

You sigh, composure falling apart. You are not ready for a mother’s disappointment. “We talked out a lot of important stuff—” “Mija, that is important stuff!”

“I just— We’ll talk eventually—” 

Chi-Chi conveniently interrupts you when it looks like Tina’s about to go off into a full rant on the downfall of romance in modern relationships. “So you’re still on the market, Handy?”

“For you?” You smile, then drop it. Pushing your hand against his forehead. “Never. Now froth the fucking milk.”

He mumbles an endless series of expletives, but gets to work. You give him a quick tutorial on the hand frother— You fought hard for the old machine, but you are overjoyed to see an automated steamer and frother on that Ascaso. That part is gonna be a dream. You can make so many new drinks for Carm— The menu. 

When you finish, you take the latte from Cheech to hand to Tina; and when you do, you catch her looking… off. She’s staring at the piled up diner baskets, next to the unused napkin dispensers. 

You put your hand on her shoulder, massaging it lightly. “You good, T?”

Your hand shocks her back into reality, “Yeah, yeah, I’m good, baby.” It takes her a second to remember where she is. She takes the latte, nodding. “I’m good. You good?”

“I’ve got my complaints.” You shrug. “But nothing I won’t survive.” Probably.

Tina takes a sip of her coffee, continuing to nod. She wants to dig deeper into your thing, you want to dig deeper into hers, but the painful groaning from the front of the kitchen, “And when did I fuckin’ greenlight this?” interrupts both your trains of thought. Uncle Jimmy tends to have that effect.

With a knowing nod, you walk together to the front, leaving Ebra and Cheech to continue experimenting with the coffee machine before they open their side of the restaurant. 

You watch from the sidelines as Carmen defends his choices, “The old one was shit, she was burning her hands on it. She’ll need the three groups to keep up.” and you’re able to quickly glean they’re talking about the new espresso machine.

“Okay, I hear that,” Jimmy nods, “but why the fuck did it need to be ten grand?”

“Ten?!” You can’t help but shout, you slap your hand over your mouth. Budget is none of your business. But fucking ten? You part your fingers to mumble through your hand,  “Sorry, continue.”

Carmen cares too much about your drink menu. Berzattos tend to invest too much into your special interests. Though this time, instead of syrups, and in addition to a 10k coffee machine, you see on the stainless steel table your shared sketches laid out alongside all the ingredients needed– Including the concentrates, whips, and other compounds Carmen made ahead of time for you. He’s so sweet. God, you love him. God, that’s disgusting. They have all, of course, been haphazardly shoved aside though, to make room for The Computer’s— Computer. Carmy’s nonplussed by that fact, it seems.

Jimmy gestures to you, deadpanning to Carm. “See, Chip understands the power of the dollar.”

“I’m not involved.” You add, waving your hand, it’s a terrible moment for your favouritism to shine through. Though you do enter the radius of this trainwreck of a quarterly review, kneeling down by the kitchen island to finish what you started with the plexiglass and hinges. “Ignore me, continue.”

The men stand on either side of you, as you bolt down the hinges. Carmen brushes off the dollar comment with a simple, “It’s the best.”

Why do you need the best? You think; Jimmy concurs with your brain, speaking for both of you. “Why do you need the best?”

The question seems to make no sense to Carmen. He freezes, blue-screening. “Cause—”

You duck your head under the counter at just the right moment— Or just the wrong moment? Because you don’t get to see Carmen looking down at you, then back up at his uncle. “Because.” 

You don’t see Uncle Jimmy practically roll not just his eyes but his entire body back into himself, witnessing the puppy love that is going to ruin his credit score. “Chip…”

When you slide yourself out from under the counter, Carmen puts his hand on the edge of the counter to make sure you don’t hit your head— Because you have an awful tendency to do so. You’re too focused on the way Uncle Jimmy says your name like you’re in trouble to notice though. “What’d I do?” 

“You’re you.” Jimmy grimaces, shaking his head. It’s not your fault. Not completely. “F-Y-I– Your boss just cut your bar budget by ten grand.”

“Hm.” You squint, lips in a line. “And what do I do if the budget I was planning was just ten grand?”

“Well respect yourself more than that.” Cicero scoffs, arms crossed. “Take twenty, now you’re back to ten. You’re welcome.”

“Generosity knows no bounds.” You shake your head, laughing him off as you duck your head back under the counter. “Thank you, Unc.”

“Sorry, who exactly are we giving twenty thousand?” 

“Oh fuck—” Despite Carmen’s best efforts, you still manage to bump your head on the roof of the counter, alarmed by the new voice— The Computer, you assume. “Fuckin—Ow— Sorry! Y’know what, hol’ on, let me just finish up here—”

“It’s the drink budget. Tony’s the new mixologist.” Natalie answers for you. “And sommelier.”

“Ah,” hums The Computer. “She’s the one we’re paying Quarter-Master for?”

“Nah, that’s me.” Gary strolls by, calling out to wherever his manager has gone, “Richie, you find that book yet?!”

“I’m taking them too!” You finally pop your head out from underneath the counter, finished bolting in the hinges. “Apparently I need actual W-S-E-T certification and a bunch of memorized google searches, youtube videos, and wine review blogs do not legally make you a sommelier.”

“I think it’s impressive you made it this far on basically nothing.” Syd taps the top of your head, she’s the one who made the call on schooling. She looks to her co-owner. “Classes are coming out of the advanced.”

“So is this.” You tap the plexiglass, nodding up to Carmen as well. “You’re workin’ with like… A thousand left for pre-paid work?”

“Hm.” Carmen nods, looking at The Computer, and you turn your head to him too. “Did you account for that?”

“Did I account for a thousand dollars?”

Carmen shakes his head like a white flag immediately, hearing the sarcastic tone, “Alright, you don’t—”

“A thousand dollars does not take you out of the hole, man.” He’s right, but you don’t love the tone. He tilts his head, reading something off his screen. “Payroll is a little high, for a somme.”

“I don’t disagree—” You try to say, because yeah, your contract does have a weirdly high salary.

But Jimmy, Nat, and Carm all speak over you. “It’s not.”

“That’s not pay for a somme, that’s a pay for Chip, you don’t need to enhance on that.” Jimmy deads the topic then and there. “You’ll see. Just trust me. You were sayin’ somethin about tiny plants?”

“Microgreens.” Says Syd. 

“Yes. Do less of that.”

And you just watch, from the sidelines, as this crew flows into a bit of a repetitive we’re doing this, which gains the response, well stop. Do less, charge more, figure it out, duh, don’t duh– What’s that you’re hearing about a daily changing menu? Carmen seems to be the only one campaigning for it. At a point he just starts pacing, pointing at numbers on The Computer’s screen that he doesn’t understand but pretends he does.

You’ve got a million ideas, but it’s none of your business. It very literally isn’t your business, until Jimmy turns his head just so, grimacing at the non stop debate, to see you standing aside, arms crossed.

He sighs, beckoning you to the table, like it’s a witness stand. “What’s that fuckin’ face on your face, kid?” Oh, for the love of God, why are you so easy to read?

You pfft, shrugging. “I’m not makin’ a face—!” But you come forward nonetheless as he boldly speaks over you. 

“You’re makin’ a face,” — “This is just what I look like,” — “Y’know how I know you’re makin’ a face?” — “Enlighten me.” — “Cause it’s the same fuckin’ face—”

He takes this moment to point at the face on your face. “That your dad makes.” A man that gambles as well as Cicero is a man that knows your dad’s tells. And a man that knows your dad’s tells is a man that knows your tells. 

You bite down on your inner cheek, poorly pretending to be confused, shrugging again, “I dunno what you’re talking about.”

“Come off it.” “I’m not on anything, Unc—” “You’ve got a problem, say it.” 

“I don’t have a problem!” You have a lot of problems, but they can’t know that. That makes you judgy and pushy— You don’t know enough about the business to have an opinion. “I’m just observing, that’s all.”

Uncle looks up, to Heaven, to Mikey, and sighs the world’s heaviest sigh. It sounds painful. When he finally tilts his head back down to you, it’s to say, “C-K.”

“Cicero.”

“Y’know why I’m able to pour mas queso into this fuckin’ kid?” He loosely gestures in the direction of Carmen, who in response seems to bite down a lot of venom. It’s bad to think he’s pretty when he’s annoyed, isn’t it?

You tilt your head, “Honestly, I always assumed some sort of mob association.”

Jimmy holds back his laughter, it comes out as a disgruntled cough. He shrugs. “It’s because when I saw your dad at the table, makin’” —He gestures to you— “That fuckin’ face, I knew to pull back.”

“You don’t need to pull back.” Your reply is a touch too panicked and instant for anyone’s liking, makes it a little less believable. But Cicero smirks, and you know that face as well as he knows yours. Check. He’s got you. 

“Then speak on it.” And he pushes you forward, just slightly, like a slap of support on your back. You grimace, looking to Carm and Syd for permission to have opinions, and they both nod, like it’s obvious. With great hesitation, lips pressed together, you finally allow yourself to come off as judgy, opinionated, a fixer. 

“I think the chargers are kinda stupid.”

A plate no one eats off of, that they still have to clean, that’s on top of another plate? Definitely super necessary. Definitely not some rich people NOMA bullshit.

You look to Syd, apologetic. She shrugs, open mouthed, head tilted, “I– I mean, I didn’t invent them.” 

“It’s presentation.” Carmen nods, to himself. He doesn’t like to budge. “That first look at the table affects everything.”

“Yes.” You nod, directly across the counter from him. “I agree, I just think the plates are stupid.” 

“You got somethin’ better?”

“Think so.” You hum, tilting your body back to yell to the back of the restaurant. “Ay, Cheech! Pass me a fuckin’ basket!” 

It’s without hesitation that you hear, “Hut!” before even seeing the man. You see the blue basket being hurled towards you before you see the man. You catch it, albeit a bit clumsy, but you catch it. 

You toss the basket on the table. Everyone stares. You defend yourself before anyone even criticizes it, “Easier to clean than plates, because you just need to rinse the plastic. Ties together a colour scheme, costs nothing, they’re gonna be tossed anyways.”

“It looks cheap.” Carmen tuts, but he really does seem to be trying to hear out the idea, despite his reservations. 

“It looks purposeful.” You double down, leaning on the counter just so, “It carries a story, that we didn’t forget where we started.”

“Ooh.” Marcus, clocking in just in time, hums behind you. “Kind of a bar, Chef.”

“Thank you, Chef. Morning, Chef.” You fist bump him over your shoulder, not looking. Too focused on convincing the man before you, you let him think in silence for some time before asking. “Think on it?”

“No.” Carmen shakes his head, and you’re a little crestfallen, for a second. “It’s good. Let’s do the baskets, yeah—” He then remembers to ask for permission, he turns his head to Syd, “Yeah?”

“Yeah? Oh, uh. Yeah. Yeah. Baskets are good.” Syd nods to Nat. “Can you look into, uh—”

“Returning the expensive as fuck earthenware shit? Happily.” Nat is far too cheery upon receiving a paperwork rabbit hole of a mission. She brushes past you, excitedly whispering, “Please keep going.”

“Oh, uh—” Are you some sort of thought leader now? “Well, uhm, I think I heard you sayin’” —You snap your fingers at The Computer, “That R and D cost is a little high?”

“A lot high.” He corrects.

“Kid with crayons.” Jimmy tuts, “Need to pull back a little.”

Carmen’s screwing and unscrewing the cap of a mason jar— Marmalade, it’s for Syd’s drink. He made it this morning, it’s labelled down to the minute.  Just let him work on his fucking drinks menu, please God. He’s been dying for this moment and it’s being thrown off by this bullshit. 

He can’t keep biting his tongue, “Hey, uh, why don’t you just tell us to do everything a little bit less so we can skip this and get back to work, huh?”

You hear Uncle Jimmy inhale as preparation to verbally beat Carmen’s ass. You put one hand up in front of the old man’s face, the other hand grabs a dry-erase marker. “He didn’t mean it like that and he apologizes, Unc.”

“Does he now?”

“He does.” You drop your hand, focusing on lifting the glass panel, clicking the locks in place to keep it up. You nod to Carmen through the pane. “Right, Carmy?”

Poor Carmen nearly deflates, “...I’m tryna be the guy.” 

“Not what the guy does, baby boy.” You hum, uncapping the marker with your teeth. You turn your head to Cicero. “Guy had a lapse, he forgot you were his boss and just thought of you as family, so he spoke to you like family, cause he loves you, Unc.”

Cicero nods, tilting his head just so at Carmen. “S’that right?”

Carm manages to shake his head and nod all at the same time, “S’a facet.” 

“....Well, just don’t do it again.” A crisis is averted and an uncle is softened. 

“I love to see a family come together.” You hum, nonchalant, writing on the glass, ‘R & D - Cost: Bad’

“Bring it from bad to good.” The Computer notes very helpfully. “You can cut—”

“Hol’ on.” You put your index finger up, effectively shushing him, “Just think about it first. We don’t have to go straight to cutting. Let’s look at our options.”

“Your options are fucked.”

“Just—” You tut, rubbing the bridge of your nose, man, you really are becoming your dad right now. Loosen your grip, Jack. “Widen the scope. We cut costs through returning those chargers— How else can we ‘return’ shit? Carmy?”

Thank God you’re the guy, because Carm can’t hack it. “Heard? Yes?” And frankly, he doesn’t want to.

“What’s the main cost on R and D?”

“Supplies. Food— Y’know, lot of trial and error.” He nods to a bus tub filled with failed attempts over this morning’s session. But you like that, right? “Trying new things, y’know?”

“...Carmen.” He doesn’t answer, because he can hear he’s in trouble. He is staring at you stare at the tub in what seems like a sort of contemplative, serene, searing anger. “Sweetheart, are those four wagyu filets in a fuckin’ bus tub?”

“Yes, it’s got a blood orange reduction, but– But Syd suggested mint—” 

You don’t let him finish, “Is it poison?”

“It’s not.” “It’s edible?” “It is.” “Okay, so then, babydoll, why is it not being eaten?”

Syd winces from the sidelines, hissing under her breath, fist over her mouth. Carmen cannot help but notice. You’re perhaps… a dash upset.

“We can’t eat everything.” “Did you offer it to the crew?” “Yeah—” “You offered it to Nat, Unc, Cheech— All the servers? Or did you just offer it to the cooks?” “...Heard.” “Did you take a bite of all of these?” “Not all.”

You start writing on the glass again, explaining as you do, “Okay. So then uneaten food from R and D should be sold on one of those fuckin’ food waste apps— Too Good to Go, or somethin’. We advertise it to The Beef regulars, try to get the other side of our city to understand the finer things, prevent any brick through window incidents, how we feel ‘bout that?”

You remember small things far too well. You did make note of the rich people shit getting on The Beef customers' nerves. You make note of the people who live on your block, who cannot afford to eat here. You make note of the fact that Carmen resents subtracting with a passion now, so you find another way. He can still try new things, just needs to handle the results better. 

“...You keep a binder or somethin?” Is all Carmen can think to ask. 

“Steel trap memory.” You tap the cap of the marker to your head, “Good though?”

He nods, “Good.”

“Good.” You take a breath, dragging a hand down your face, practically coming out of a fugue state. Carmen knows your need to have something to do, just as much as him, so he slides the jar of fig marmalade to you from across the table. You take it happily, unscrewing the lid. You’ve also been dying to get to this menu.

But Richie comes up from behind, scratch and sniff wine book in hand— Didn’t Mikey get you that? It  was meant to be a gag gift but it’s actually quite useful. “Chip, can you also tell Chef Carmen the daily menu fuckin’ sucks?”

“Re-lax.” You sigh, pulling over all the ingredients and tools you need for Syd’s drink. “Syd told me ‘bout this though, daily pre fixe, or whatever it’s called?”

“It’s—” Carmen crosses his arms over himself, immediately defensive but trying his best not to be. “It’s an idea I’m floating, for now— It’s what the best restaurants do, and— And even if we don’t have full intent on getting a star, right now, it’s still important.”

“I just think…” You hum, trying to figure out the most delicate way to say it. “It doesn’t exactly give you the most room to collaborate or create—”

“The whole point of it is to collaborate and create—”

“Oh yes,” —As if waiting in the wings for this, Richie pops out behind you again, “What wasssit? ‘Vibrant Collaboration’ and ‘Constantly Evolve Through Eating My Own Head like a fucking ouroboros’.”

“Relax.” You hiss this time, putting a hand up in front of Richie. You can speak for yourself. “You don’t have time to be creative or collaborate when you’ve gotta make decisions in less than twelve hours.”

Carmen tries to defend, he gestures to the one good plate of wagyu with mint that came out of this morning, “But the—”

You nod and hum, knowingly. The sweet sound stops him. You already know the answer, but you ask anyway, as you scoop fig marmalade into your cocktail shaker. “Did you get to try the pop rocks thing yet?”

“Well, no, it’s not viable to perfect that in such—”

“A short amount of time, angel?”

“Oooh…” Richie mimics Syd’s movements, air whistling between his teeth as he takes a sharp breath. He gestures, standing behind you, staring at Carmen as he slides his thumb across his neck. He mouths, ‘Mad mad.’

Carmen’s two closest friends are freaking him the fuck out and one of them wasn’t even doing it on purpose. How do they know that? How can they tell that? Are you gonna break up with him? Are you even dating? This work together thing was a terrible idea—

“You don’t have time to be thoughtful about things, if you do an entire menu every day, you’re gonna have to cut corners on what you’re willing to experiment with.” You reword, more productive, better for his brain. “Plus, prix fixe is a fuckin— In—In my opinion, is sort of a lacking idea, maybe, for a new restaurant.”

Carmen’s willing to give up the daily rotation, he’s not so willing to give up the pre fixe. “It’s what the best restaurants do.” Carmen loves the word best, huh?

“Have those restaurants—” You bite your tongue from what was going to be an immediate catty response.

You try again, measuring out orange liqueur and lemon juice as you do so. “You’re thinking like a Chef and you need to think like a customer— A- A guest, for a second.”

Carmen gives you the floor, mostly because he cannot compute the command. You continue, “Let’s do a little roleplay, alright? Let’s say we’re just average people, not workin’ at The Bear, and we’re goin’ on a date.”

“When?” “...When?” “When is the date?” “No, I’m— It’s— This is hypothetical.” “Yeah but in the hypothetical.”

You shrug, clicking tongs together as you grab large chunks of ice for your shaker. “I dunno, Friday nights? We have like a Friday night date night.”

“Oh, so you’re doing good.” Richie hums, proud of this hypothetical you, “Weekly date night is a cornerstone.” 

“Moving on.” You elbow Rich behind you, shaker sloshing in hand, “I’m not a foodie, you are— In this hypothetical. You’re looking around at restaurants in the area for the date, you find The Bear— You find through their website with an improper hyperlink that the menu is,” —You list off on your free hand— “prix fixe, unavailable online, and changes daily so you can’t go off of reviews either. Also, it’s a new place, so you can’t really ask around for opinions.” 

“Right.” Carmen nods, as does Syd. Uncle Jimmy’s got that stupid smirk he gets when he sees his kids fall in line. You pour the ouzo over the ice, focus on the drink, not Carm’s mopey expression. 

“So, we probably wouldn’t go, right?”

Carmen keeps nodding, eyes downcast— Not upset, just can’t take feedback without keeping his head down. “Prob’ly not, yeah.” 

You pound the shaker shut, shaking it lightly in one hand as you try as hard as you can to sweetly explain. “People are open to like, two surprises on an outing. New place, new food— But they will need a set menu and they will need to have it available beforehand— And they’ll need to be able to choose.”

He looks like a cat in the rain, so you add, “But. Maybe we can do a daily special? Or weekly, depending on burnout, but like, y’know, a semi-frequent one new thing. And maybe on like, Valentines or some holidays we do a fresh prix fixe. That’s how some of the best places do it.”

Carmen’s eyes upturn, smiling with them, at that last part. “You do keep a binder.”

“Syd does. I just pay attention.” You shake your head. “She mumbled about it all night when we got back.” 

Adamu is immediately aghast, she should’ve realized ages ago, you were practically quoting her. “You said you couldn’t hear me!”

“No, I said you weren’t bothering me, and you weren’t.” You can’t hide your smile as you break the seal on the shaker. Syd sucks at sharing her ideas, but you’re happy to act as a good mouth for her good brain. “Hand me a lowball.” 

With a grumble, Syd walks off in search of  the lowball; while everyone does seem to agree this is best practice, Carmen does still seem a little sore about it.

“It’d probably also serve us well to do a seasonally rotating menu, right?” And so you throw him a bone. “Like Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall? Base it on what’s in season with local vendors?”

“What grows together goes together.” Tina says, nearly sing-songy. “Farmer’s market is rough though, Jeff.” 

“Fuck a farmer’s market— With love, fuck a farmer’s market.” Back to writing on plexiglass you go. “We gotta do vendors, maybe f’ like, eggs and dairy we can do farmer’s market, but it’s just not feasible. Maybe for holiday pre fixe or daily specials? But full stock, it’s just not— It’s not it. And I say that while having farm fresh eggs and local honey in my pantry, alright?”

Carmen agrees, like a bobble-head this guy. He nods to Tina. “That cool with you, T?”

“Yeah, yeah, that’s cool with me.” Tina is a millisecond off to pipe in, which is really not noticeable– To anyone but you, that is.

“Why’s— Why would T not be good with that?”

“She’s in charge of farmer’s market.” 

“Hm.” You bite the end of the dry-erase marker. “T, would you be cool with rotating that, now and again?”

“Ooh?” She tilts her head, shrugging, “Yeah, yeah, kid. If you wanna take the reins.”

“Not me.” You return to scribbling on the glass board. You point at Carmen and Syd through the glass. “Them.” 

“I’ve paid my sous chef dues.” Says Syd, returning to the table with your glass. You tut, shaking your head. You refocus your vision from your writing to beyond the plexiglass, at them. 

“You need it for inspiration! You fuckers keep forgetting you like cooking, I need you to visit the farmer’s market once in a while to remind you.” You take the lowball glass and tong a few ice cubes in. “Non-negotiable. Heard?”

A soft, simultaneous, “Heard, Chef.” from your cats. 

“Good.” You strain the mixed concoction out of the shaker, into the lowball glass. It’s a very pretty peachy pink. You tweezer a slice of dried fig and place it on top. You grab a toothpick, stick it down the glass, pull it out, and taste the toothpick. Balanced, solid flavour, should be good.

You slide the drink over to Syd. “I can’t drink everything obviously, so first dibs goes to whoever the drink is based on— I don’t care who drinks it, just let me know if it goes down smooth.”

You also in turn hand Syd the recipe card and sketch, and you’re quick to move on as she reviews and sips away.

Ouzo. Dry anise tasting spirit. It’s got a licorice aftertaste, but oddly sweeter for it. It’s strong. Resilient. It’s made from remnants of unfermented wine grapes and a mix of other distilled and unused spirits. Better than the sum of its parts. It goes well with figs. Muddle it together with fig marmalade— Sweet yet earthy, spring-like. Orange liqueur to marry the flavours, lemon juice to brighten. Shaken, pour over ice into a lowball, serve with a dried fig on top.

Syd manages to reserve her reaction to a slow but repetitive nod, like entering deep space. She only comes back to reality when Richie reaches for the drink, wanting to try. She’s quick to pull it away from him, coveting the glass. 

“Ah… what else? Rapid fire.” You knock your head around, remembering what The Computer talked about, and in quick succession, you line up every problem and talk through them, possibly solve them— As best as a newbie can. At the very least, you open the floor to actual discussions as you make drinks all the while. 

“Opening a full sixth day I think will shoot us in the long run, especially if we ever get a kitchen plague going. Maybe we just open for half the day on Mondays going forward, try out breakfast? Stop booing me, I’m right.”

Richie’s. Also served over ice in a lowball. It’s similar to a whiskey smash. Nixing the mint. Whiskey bourbon— A good one, but not too good that it’s a sin to mix. Something with a cinnamon spice, that's warm all the way down, but never burns. Water it down a bit by stirring peach juice over the whiskey with ice for a brief moment. Float blueberry syrup on top. Add a toothpick, spearing two blueberries and one peach halve, balance it over the glass, for stirring. So the drinker can mix the blueberry syrup in and have a cute colour changing experience. 

“Wine pours, me and Gary got that. We can also just start charging by the bottle by default— Whatever works.” 

Marcus’. Simple but effective. A rum and coke ice cream float. Made complex by the fact that the ice cream is on a rotating schedule, based on whatever Chef Brooks is feeling that night and what’s in stock. Right now? Pistachio. So tonight it’s actually rum and seltzer, and it will probably continue to be rum and seltzer, based on the way Marcus’ eyes light up by the opportunity to get weird. More often than not, you’re going to need that neutral base. Served in a milkshake glass, because what else?

“I don’t understand why I couldn’t just grow these microgreens myself in house. They’re just plants you murder early, are they not? Am I missing something?”

Tina’s. Varied take on a spiked agua fresca. Fresh blended mango agua fresca— With ginger, of course. A healthy kick is a necessity for a mom drink. Sweetened with simple syrup, spiked with white rum, dash of agave bitters, top with coconut water. Served in a tall glass, because why would you skimp on portions?

“Why are we shipping flowers from New York? No, fuck that, go to Violet’s Violets— I fixed her cooler once, she falls in love and gives a discount to literally anyone who’s nice to her. Just send Marcus with some dessert and you’ll be set for life.”

And of course, Carmen’s aperol spritz. You go with the cherry syrup rim for now because it’s important to try. You’re almost certain it’s too much though.

“Napkins…” You rub your icy cold hands— From shaking up so many goddamn drinks— Over your eyes. “Why are we renting?”

“Buying is insanely overpriced.” Answers Computer. 

You nod, shrug, but nod, fingers tapping the glass, “Well, it’s like renting over owning right? It might be better to own because, y’know, you might suddenly get told by your napkin vendor, like, like years down the line, after basically paying for these napkins in full through rent, ‘hey, actually, we’re gonna jack up prices or just take those napkins back’ even though you’ve —again— Literally had them for years—”

“Chippy, are you good?” Richie tries to massage your shoulder, tries to break you out of the doom spiral, but admittedly, it was never his forte. Still isn’t. 

“We—!” Your voice hangs and is grating in a way it usually isn’t, ignoring the question. “We can produce our own napkins if we buy linens by the yard and hem ‘em ourselves. We—” You snap your fingers a couple times at Carmen, praying he backs you up. “We can even get The Bear monogrammed on them.”

“That sounds nice…” It’s Carmen’s turn to ease you off the ledge of insanity, gently. “It also sounds expensive, were you gonna do that?”

“Fuck no.” You’re quick to shake your head. “I fucking suck at sewing, my own jumpsuit is covered in my blood— No, my—” Oh. “Hold on.”

Your hand immediately goes for your back pocket, quickly pulling your cell-phone out, and dial one of your first starred contacts. Richie, over your shoulder still, sipping his blueberry and bourbon cocktail, excitedly mumbles. “Oh, put it on speaker.”

You’re annoyed before he’s even answered, knowing the headache you’re about to get. “Trust me, the first thirty seconds minimum will not need—”

“Hey!” It’s impossible to convey how earth shatteringly loud and drawn out his voice is, immediately upon answering. There may be eight seconds of the sustained vowel? Maybe more. Almost everyone flinches, par for Syd, Carm, and Rich. Though for all different reasons. 

A touch grating, in the same way your voice just was. Like father, like occasional daughter, you suppose. “Hey kiddo baby darling sweetheart angel princess—” Oh, he’s mad. The whole ‘slew of nicknames when you’re pissed off’ thing? Yeah, that didn’t start with you. “Did someone die? Because that’s the only reason my darling baby only daughter calls anymore!”

You sigh, immediately exhausted, putting your weight on one leg. “Y’know, once a month is honestly a lot of times a year for a fully grown woman to call their dad, on average. I absolutely call you more than my friends call their dads.”

Richie almost chokes and whispers over your shoulder, hesitant, internally preparing for a dreadful future. “Please tell me that’s not true.”

“Oh, and you should be so lucky that you have a dad to call! Cause I bet those friends are calling funeral homes, aren’t they?!”

“Dad—”

“I should have never taught you independence. Worst mistake of my life to teach you how to be your own person. Richard, never teach your kid how to use a screwdriver, it will be the last day you are a father.”

“Noted, Big C-K.” Richie goes for your dry erase to actually write it down, you pull it away from him. That’s gonna require a long talk down later. 

Carmen mouths to you, across the table, he meant to ask earlier when Cicero said it but there wasn’t time. ‘C-K?’

You mouth back, gesturing to the logo on your very own flannel ‘Chicago’s Kindest.’ He’s not the best with acronyms. 

“Oh— And thank you for bringing that up! And what’s this I hear about you cutting your hours with C-K? I hear this from Tony of all people ‘fore I hear it from you?”

“I got a long-term bartender gig that’s actually gonna keep my bills paid, alright? And I like it. Putting that mixology double trade major to good use. Cicero’s got stock in the place, actually.”

“How you doin’ C-K?” Cicero pipes in next to you, waiting for his moment.

“Ah… I’ve got my complaints. For one, my Jack keeps you more company than me!”

There’s a series of hums and haws, that weird uncle secret language of heavy exhales that manage to say more than any actual words they could say. 

You let the heaving run its course for ten seconds before cutting it short with, “Anyways, I’m still gonna keep the business running, just only in the mornings. It’s not like I brought in that much business anyway, I’m not pulling a foundation.”

“Everytime a small business dies, a rich man laughs, Jack!” 

“It’s not dying! It’s alive! It’s present and alive!” Don’t get flashbacks. “Anyways, speaking of small businesses, I need a favour—”

“Ooh, the truth comes out, princess calls cause she needs bail—” 

“For the love of God, let me get through a sentence, Pops!” You grumble, continuing. “Remember that overpriced monogram machine you bought for no reason?”

“It was not for no reason, it was invaluable because it saved my mitts from hand embroidering all those logos— And and— you have to remember—” You mouth the words along with him, mimicking him, because you know exactly what he’s going to say, “that it all starts in your community— And now you have like eight beautiful outfits, cause of me… And also it’s fun.”

“Well… If it’s fun, would you consider making some linen napkins?”

And it flows like ping pong, because your dad is a repairman— Well, former, but still. He’s simple. He handles negotiations simple. So do you.

“For who?” “Restaurant. The Bear.” “Why?” “Cause they need linen napkins.” “How many?”

You look over your shoulder to Richie, he does the math in his head pretty quickly, “Bout seventy to a hundred covers a night.”

“Six hundred.” “Pay?” “We’ll pay supplies, and I’ll give you like—” You look to Syd, expectantly. She has no answer, so you put your advanced on the line. “A thousand?”

“A thousand!? Less than a dollar a napkin! Is this pre-housing crisis?!” “I work here, okay?! Discount me!” “My God, princess, are you in love with the owner or something?”

That world feels like it's choking, but that's probably just you. You blow hot air out of your mouth, looking anywhere but Carmen. Refusing to see him even in your periphery. Refusing to see his blue screened but ever so slightly expectant expression. Well? Are you? …Or something?

After a long moment, you find a way to avoid the question. “Ah–Uh, Syd co-owns the place.”

“Oh, Adamu?!” 

Syd pipes in, leaning over the table. You hold the phone out for her. “H–Hey, Mr. CK.” She waves, despite the fact that it’s a phone call.

“Hey kiddo. Aw, what a sweetheart. Lead with her next time!”

“Alright!” You bring the phone back to your face— It’s remained off speakerphone this entire time, but he continues to yell loud enough for the table. “I didn’t realize you were best friends.”

“Of course we are. Y’know she brought me this uh– this salmon mushroom risotto the other night? Unbelievable.”

You squint at Adamu curiously, whispering. “You bring my dad food?”

She whispers in return, defensive. “He lives on my block, don’t be weird.”

“For her, I’ll do it for eight-hundred, okay kiddo? I know how tough it is to start up a business, can’t imagine trying to move on top of that.”

Your turn to blue screen. Moving? You’re immediately over the love thing. “...Pardon?”

“...I’ll do it for eight—”

“No– Yes, sorry, yes dad that’s great—” You arch the phone away from your face, focusing your attention on Syd. “Syd, you’re moving out?”

She sighs, “Trying to.”

“Pops.” You straighten up, not looking away from her. “I’ll call you back to sort details later, okay?”

“Sure. You also need to let me know holiday plans, are we going up to Oak Park or—”

Somewhat disrespectfully, you speak hurriedly, “Yeah, we’ll figure it out, love you, bye!” and hang up. Still locked on Syd, you ask. “When you tryna move?”

“Like, soon as possible.” She stretches out her shoulders. “My own dad is sort of… Encroaching on my space.” 

“Right.” Your eyes flicker with too many ideas, and you’re trying to temper expectations. “You wanna live by yourself?”

“I mean, I don’t really know anyone on the same timeline as me, with the same ‘low budget’ as me.”

The Computer attempts to interrupt the interruption of his review, holding a finger up, “And why are we talking about—”

But you hold the palm of your hand up, continuing on, “I need to move out asap and have a ‘low budget’.”

That’s Carmen’s queue to chime in, he loves your place. “What happened?” 

Also Richie’s, “What? Chip, your spot’s like a historical site, ya can’t move.” and this is generally agreed upon by a sea of dismayed voices.

“To make an extremely long story short, I don’t have a choice.” You wave your hand in the air, silencing murmurs. “My sweet old lady landlord— The only landlord I’ve ever respected, got bought out by a fuckin’ big business gentrification ass company— I’m not in a rent controlled zone so they’re gonna keep jacking the rent until I move out so they can tear it down and build a new spot— They also may or may not have found out that me and Loretta— My landlord— Haven’t exactly been keeping up to date on my lease.”

“Meaning?” Carmen knows the answer will be bad. 

But it’s somehow worse. “Meaning I pay my rent on time in cash and she texts me once a year saying ‘do you want to keep living here?’ and I say ‘yes’, and we continue on.”

“Well, hold up—” Richie holds a hand up, like he’s a genius. “Squatter’s rights?”

“I thought about going that avenue, but—” You gesture to Syd. “If you’re already moving, and looking for a roommate?”

She looks up and around, thinking about it. You decide to join her in the brainstorm, scooching yourself just an inch to the right, writing on free space on the plexiglass screen, ‘pros and cons’

“Pro.” You murmur as you write. “I have a better credit score than you.”

Syd sputters, half sarcastic. “Well, that’s just uncalled for.”

“It’ll give you more options for places! Better ones! Ones with in-unit laundry!” You defend.

“In-unit laundry…” “Your eyes just lit up in such a sad way.” “Con. You are an ass.”

“That’s a pro. A real con would be that I have a lot of plants and if I ever go on vacation I’m gonna need you to take care of them, and I’m not gonna have a binder for you, because I water them based on vibes, and if I come back and they’re dying I’m gonna be pissed off and very passive aggressive about it.”

“Violently honest.” “Pro. Mostly direct. Aside from when I’m not.” “Con. I’m not direct.”

“Con. That’s fine but if I get the idea that you’re mad at me I’m gonna act really weird about it until you reassure me that everything is okay and you don’t want to throw me out the window.”

“Yeah. Con. Same.”

“Pro. I’ve lived by myself for a while, which is good to have when you’re moving out of your parents for the first time. Con. I’ve lived by myself for a while, and I’m very used to the lifestyle of big t-shirt no pants, I’m not giving that up.”

Now that one takes Syd a second to unpack, “But, but like, underwear though, right—?”

“No shit I wear underwear!”

“Okay! It’s important to note!”

“Don’t be weird.” Richie grumbles behind you, solidly directed at Carmen.

Who’s whole face really just scrunches up in confusion. “‘Don’t be weird’? You don’t be weird.”

“I’m not bein’ fuckin’ weird—” “Then why are you up in my shit—” “Up in your shit? Oh wow—” “Fully not what I was referencing—” “Don’t be weird, cousin!” “I literally— I did not even move— Not a single cell in my body—” “And— And you only know that ‘cause you had to lock it down, you dog—”

“I don’t remember having kids, why the fuck am I in a Kindergarden?” Uncle Jimmy interrupts.

“I’m just takin’ care of my boy, Unc.” Richie raises a hand in defense, feigning innocence. “Can’t be too careful.”

“You super can, and you super are.” You grimace, elbowing him again. “And also, not important–!”

“Actually, no, very important.” Syd of all people interrupts. “Non-negotiable, like you can’t— …Like you— …When I’m home it’s like— Don’t—” Ah.

You roll your eyes and save her before she just about breaks out in a feverish sweat. “Syd, I wasn’t planning on it. That’s like roommate rule one.”

“Syd.” Richie points to his own eyes, then to hers, ‘watching you’. “Don’t be weird.”

“What the fuck—”

“Everyone shut up, pros and cons—!” You shout, gaining the attention back. “Pros. I have a car, we work at the same place, I have all the furniture for a living room already,  you'd never have to wait for a landlord to fix something ever again, and I could probably do a bunch of D-I-Y renter friendly projects, if you wanted.”

“...Oh my god, a French-door pantry.” “I think I could swing that.” “Pros. You’ll never have to cook again. I guess that’s my only pro, actually.”

“Con. I have been feeding the cat on my fire escape for like a year and if I’m moving I am going to have to adopt her, so we’re gonna have a cat. She’s cute, she has five toes on each paw. Something dactyl, it’s called.”

“What’s her name?” Squid’s not excited per se, but she’s not saying no. 

You shrug. “I never named her, let’s name her together.”

“No, that’s too much pressure—” “No, you’ll do great—” “What do you mean I’ll do great—?” “Three–” “Oh like together together? No! What—?!” “Shut up, just do it, head empty, two—” “No! I’m just not gonna say any—” “Yes you will, Squid. One!”

And together, perfectly in sync, like it was planned all along, you both say on queue, “Calamari!”

“There we go.” You write ‘Calamari’ on the plexiglass. “That’s my girl— That’s our girl, actually. I’m still not sure if she’s a girl.”

You click your tongue against your teeth, knocking your head back and forth in thought as you look at the scribblings on the glass. “Non-negotiables?”

Syd leans forward on the table, chin propped up in her hands. “I need forty-five minutes of bathroom time at the beginning of the day.”

“...Do you have a fuckin’ lactose intolerance?” “It’s my me time!” “Alright! Fuckin’ fifty minutes of toilet time for Syd. Ah, I need east facing windows… and uhm…”

Syd stares at you, and alas, she can tell, “You have a big non-negotiable…”

“It’s not that big… It’s more a group thing than a roommate thing, really…” “What is it?” “I think… It would be fun… If we all started playing Dungeons and Drag—” 

There’s an immediate, staggeringly loud array of groans, you’re still writing it down nonetheless, all the while defending, “I honestly think a little roleplay and math would fix you assholes! I really think it would! I’ll D-M, I’ll make it so easy— Please?”

Syd grimaces, but inevitably nods. “Y’know what, you’re never gonna get a concrete schedule for that down, and no one else is gonna agree so yes, sure from me.” Still a win. 

“Okay.” You hum, capping the marker. “So… Aim to move first of February? You down?”

It takes some time, and you realize as Syd’s brain frozen, that you might be overstepping. “Sorry, that’s going too fast, you think on it—”

“...I’m down.” You make it very easy for her to say yes, by giving her the option to say no. “Yeah, let’s do it. February. I’m down.”

“I’m so happy for you two, but I’m still fuckin’ reeling— Chippy, it’s– it’s— So many memories—” Richie’s being overly dramatic on purpose, hand on your shoulder, really laying on the vocal fry in his voice; but it is true. “I mean, come on, first time I’d ever been stabbed was on your block.”

“Sorry, what?” Carmen was having fun watching his two favourite employees figure out they’d be perfect roommates. He loves to be a fly on walls around you more than he’d like to admit. Richie managed to ruin it with one line. “Stabbed on your block?”

“Yeah,” You suck the air between your teeth, trying to think of some sort of white lie, but slowly shake your head, “I— Yeah, there’s no real way for me to down play it, I was so fuckin’ scared.”

“You were tweaking!” Richie laughs, clapping his hand against your shoulder, to him it’s a charming story— You’d probably be laughing too, if Carmen didn’t seem so… unpleased, let’s say. “You fuckin’ thought I was gonna die!”

“You fucking were!” You slap Rich’s hand away. “It was so close to a cerebral artery— First and last time I’ll administer stitches in my fucking kitchen, hand to God—”

“What’s the story?” Oh, new face from Carmen you haven’t seen before, bewildered annoyance, you’d describe it as, it’s going in your bottom five. “You live in a bad neighbourhood?”

“It’s rustic—” You try, but Richie opts to speak on your behalf. “Oh, Chip lives in a terrible neighbourhood, Cousin. You’ve been there, haven’t you?”

“Yeah but it didn’t seem that bad— No— Hold on, go back, stabbed why?”

“So I heroically defended a boy from crooked—” Richie tries, but you opt to speak on his behalf. “Richie was helping me bring up groceries, we saw some highschoolers shaking a kid down, Richie tried to break it up, one of ‘em stabbed him with one of those shitty switchblade comb things.”

“You got stabbed by a kid?” Syd snorts, but immediately regrets it because she has perfectly set him up for—

“Yeah, and wouldn’t be the last time, would it?”

“Richie, c’mon…” You reach up, patting the guy’s shoulder. “It was an accident and she apologized—”

Richie just raises his eyebrows, interrupting with a simple, “Mm-mm.” 

And so yours raise in tow, “...Fuck you mean ‘mm-mm’?” And your head turns to Syd, alarmed. “Syd, you apologized, right?”

Her mouth just sort of hangs, sputtering noises do come out of it, but nothing that strings a sentence together. You grow more agog, repeating again, astonished, nearly laughing from the shock, “Syd?! You apologized, right?! And told him it was an accident, right?”

Syd takes a beat, but she gets there. “I— I. Am. Sorry I stabbed you by accident, Richie.”

“Hm.” Richie crosses his arms, considering, mostly sarcastically. “Yeah, I’ll take it, I guess. Would’ve liked a card.”

“I am not getting you a card.” “I’m jus’ sayin’ I’d’ve liked one.”

Carmen’s still five steps behind, “Are you gonna be fine living there? In January?”

You choke back a laugh, because this is how men try to show they care, one must imagine. “I’ve been fine for the past handful of years living there, I think I’ll be fine for another month, sweetheart.”

“Crime is bad in January.”

“I was a first responder, and I know that’s not true.” You shake your head, shirking off laughter. “It’s actually in the summer that you see shit go down. Again, I will be fine. But you are free to visit.”

“Point of order.” The Computer finally pipes up again— Might’ve forgot he was here, if you’re honest. “What are we talking about anymore?”

“Point of order— I feel like numbers— Talking numbers is great but it’s all just like— Paper, y’know?” You unlatch the plexiglass, gently settling it back down on the table. “We should be talking more.”

Tina nearly whistles in agreement, nodding by your side. “Heavy that, Jeff.”

“That’s what I’m sayin’, like—” You snap your fingers to the rest of the crew, hand moving to and fro to point at everyone, “Did y’all know until right now that Syd was moving? …No, right? Let’s like— Fuckin’ remember to check in, like y’know, family, Chefs.”

And without calling her out, you can feel Tina’s demeanor next to you change, relaxed. 

“Heard, Chef.” Is the agreement from the crew, however, The Computer nor Cicero seem convinced, so with a sigh, you put on your most authoritative voice.

 “Y’know. Three Cs! Caring cuts costs!” A phrase no one has ever said, but it sounds legitimate when you put it like that. That gets them to acquiesce. 

Thank God, Marcus helps you move the conversation along, “...What’s everyone doing for the holidays?” Alas for both of you, the silence is deafening. “...Or not.”

You volley back for him, “If no one has hard plans I was thinking of having a lil’ Holiday party? Nothing big. Sort of a ‘goodbye old apartment’ party? Come by after you hang out with your families or whatever?”

“Not gonna go up to Oak Park?” Rich leans one arm on your shoulder, nursing his whiskey cocktail in the other. 

“Meh.” You shrug, attempting to push him off you, but he doubles down. “We’re not so intense about holidays since everyone’s aged. I’ll visit my nephew on New Years.” 

“I’m doin’ Eve with Eva, but I’ll be free on the day. I’ll come by. We doin’ gifts?”

“I mean I got you something, so,” You tap the bottom of his glass as Rich takes another sip, making him flinch. “Catch the fuck up.” 

Syd pipes in, sniffing. “Me and my dad only celebrate on Christmas Eve now, so I’ll come.”

“Incredible. Two down.” You gesture to Marcus and Tina across the table. “You guys? Tina I assume you’ve got a loving family and shit?”

Tina smiles and nods, rightfully proud. “I do have a loving family and shit, but maybe I’ll come by late with them too?”

And Marcus tacks on with her, “I’m gonna be with my mom most of the night, but I’ll come through for a couple hours.”

“Perfect, perfect. Invites open to any plus ones as long as you text me first!” You hum, writing names down on the glass board. It’s kind of a nightmare of different lists at this point. “Richie, can you make sure Fak and Sweeps get the invite?”

“Yessir.”

“And us!?” Shrieks Cheech in the back, who really shouldn’t be able to hear you, he should be in the zone, slinging sandwiches.

You yell back without turning to him. “Yes, fucker, you and E can come, if you want! No fuckin’ plus one for you though!”

“Oh come the fuck on, Jack-Off!”

“Oh, make me a fuckin’ sandwich, big man!”

“Oh, I’ll make you a fuckin’ sandwich!”

“Oh, my dick!” A response that makes no sense, consistently the perfect bookend. You sigh, and finally, your eyes flit to the most terrified two in the room. “Berzattos… Holiday plans?”

“I think we’re gonna do dinner on Christmas Eve, and then the morning together? Well, I am.” Sug hesitates, she’s looking between Uncle Jimmy and Carmen. “I was gonna ask what Carm’s plan is…”

“I’ll go. I’ll go.” Carmen has to stop himself from biting the skin off the tips of his fingers. “I’ll go. And I’ll come to the party, after.” 

“I’ll probably just go home with Pete after. Baby’s first Christmas, y’know.” Natalie hums and nods awkwardly. There’s a question both of them want to ask. Neither of them are brave enough to ask it. And while you can sense there’s something dancing in the air, you’re not going to overstep on this front. 

“Mazel. I can buy silly decor with reason now. …Now let’s talk about the important grievances.” You hum, happy to end that chapter.

You turn just slightly to gently slap Richie’s cheek as he stands next to you. “Rich, you need to line your beard up, this neckbeard shit is pissing me off—”

“What’s with the fuckin’ drive by?!” “It’s been on my mind forever— You can’t be wearin’ suits and then be rockin’ that unkempt shit, clean up—” “I’m clean! I’m fucking clean!” “Who said? Who fuckin’ said? Cause I sure didn’t!” “How’m I s’posed to be linin’ my shit up every mornin’—” “You do not grow a beard that fast—” “Oh fuck you, I’m not fuckin’ Carmen, I grow a fuckin’ beard.”

Carmen’s just surprised to hear his name out of any name come up. “What– Now that’s a fucking drive by, what the fuck?” 

“If we’re voicing grievances, I’d like to voice my fuckin’ complaint with Captain Crash-Out over here—” “Who the fuck is sublimating now?” “You’re not usin’ that term correctly, cause you’re not integrated—” “I thought you two worked this out on the road trip!” “We did!”

You only half regret starting this feud with the beard comment— To be fair, you’re right. “This is it working?” 

“This is, in fact, it working.” Syd confirms plainly, her disappointment more than apparent. Rubbing the tips of her fingers to her temples. The fight is out of her, at this point. 

“Alright.” You slap your hands together. “Richie, what is your complaint?” Are you just union rep now? You might be a union rep now. 

“Carmen is fucking killing me.” The cocktail swishes and nearly spills as Richie points at the Chef, emphatic. “He won’t change shit for guests!”

“No substitutions!” It’s almost cultish, the way Sydney and Carmen yell it out together. 

Richie scoffs, head reeling back. “What happened to it bein’ about hospitality?” 

“I mean…” You suck air through your teeth, squinting. “If we’re sayin’ no substitutions, it’s no substitutions— Unless it’s like an allergy or sensory thing— But even then, it shouldn’t be like a major component getting replaced.”

“See? See?” It’s almost maniacal, rabid, how delighted Carmen is that you’re on his side. “Fuckin’ thank you. This is why I lo—” 

Before Carmen can finish his sentence, Richie flails about to suddenly throw the peach and blueberry skewer from his drink at Carmen— Not the pointed side, he doesn’t want to stab the guy. Just wants to save him from running his mouth. The peach slice hits Carm’s chest as Richie stutters out, “F-Fuck you, fuck you, fine. No substitutions— What the fuck am I supposed to say then?” speaking over whatever syllables fell out of Carmen’s mouth, muddling them. 

You cock your brow, but Carmen seems to quickly let the childish toss go, more than eager to move on. So you do too. “...Say some bullshit like, like, The Bear encourages —uhm— explorative culinary experiences where you let your taste buds go beyond your limitations and comforts— So eat a fuckin’ mushroom, you’re not gonna die.”

“If they don’t like mushrooms—” “Then they shouldn’t order it!” “How hard is it to just fuckin’ switch it out!?” “So hard! So hard! I think! I could guess!”

“I could do it.”

“Could you?” You cross your arms, leaning your weight onto one leg, pivoting to Richie. “Okay, roleplay, you’re Carmen, I’m you—” Just as Richie opens his mouth, you hold your index finger to his lips. “I know you wanna be a bitch, I’m askin’ you to just skip that part for me.”

His shit eating grin is only a little endearing. “How am I supposed to be in character if I’m not allowed to be a bitch?”

You clench and unclench your hands in the air, but let it go, opting to move on to your little thought experiment. “Chef, patient—” Instincts never give out, huh? “Christ, patron doesn’t want mushrooms in their anolini, I need you to sub it.”

“Ah, well I’m happy to do that for you, Host Richie, I—” He’s going to go into some scathing spiel, and you love the guy, but you have to rub dirt in the wound for the lesson to stick. 

You speak over him, voice stern, “Chef. In order to keep pace, I need you to make this call in fifteen seconds, what are you subbing it for?”

Richie’s head shakes back and forth as he scrambles to get his brain to work.“Fuckin— Fucking– Eggplant.” 

“Eggplant?” You ask politely, tone unsure. Carmen asks it with you, tone ridiculing. 

“It’s a sauce isn’t it?” You squint, turning your head to the actual Carmen. “It’s like a really thick mushroom sauce stuffed pasta?”

He tilts his head from side to side, but nods. In gist, yes. “It’s a ragout. Low and slow cooked stew—” Carmy’s ready to rave about it and teach you every facet of the dish, but perhaps that’s too romantic for a public setting. God, he’s weird about love. “We keep it going on our back burners all day— It takes an hour minimum to make from scratch, you can’t just sub it.” 

“Yeah, well…” Richie stops himself short of getting snarky for no reason all over again, taking a second to think about it. “Well, I didn’t know that. You didn’t explain that shit to me.”

“I don’t have time to hold your fuckin’ hand—” Carmen stops short of getting catty when you give him a very soft and yet gutting disappointed look. He pinches the bridge of his nose, sniffing. “I can’t explain why I do everythin’ I do when I’m— When we’re in a middle of a rush, I just need you to trust when kitchen says we can’t do it. Trust that I thought it through.”

Richie has to control himself, has to make sure the corners of his mouth don’t upturn just slightly, has to make sure it’s not clear that he is overjoyed that there’s finally middle ground, can’t get his hopes up. He nods. “I just wanna make everyone happy, y’know?”

“I know. You’re—” Carmen’s nose scrunches up for a second, God, he’s never had to say that he think’s Richie’s good to his face. And he’s not gonna start now, “Eggplant would be a good sub, if we had time.”

Richie prods his tongue along the side of his cheek, thinking. “Maybe I could look into knowin’ restrictions faster and estimatin’ their orders, so you can have ‘em on deck?”

And Carmen does think that’d be a waste of time, but he’s learning. He hears it out. “Could give it a shot, yeah.”

“Same team.” Richie reaches across the counter, and Carmen actually takes his hand, a quick dap. Civil.

“Same team.” First time you’ve heard Carmen adopt your idiom; you can’t help but smile, though you’re trying to hide it. You’re too focused on arguably the two most important men in your life to notice the silent conversation Uncle Jimmy is having with The Computer, speaking solely through nods and exchanged glances. 

Pay is for Chip. Cicero nods, and The Computer nods back. He gets it now. Pay is for Chip. Not just the mixologist, not just the sommelier, not just the repairman, not just the not-quite girlfriend, Chip. You’re Chip. You’re the cog, the piece. The grease between everyone. 

You’re the guy. Always have been, always will be. 

The silent conversation and the warm feeling in the room is cut short though, by The Computer. “Can she deal with the butter thing?”

“What the fuck is the butter thing?” You immediately jump onto the case, when Carmen looks down and away from you, you frown, leaning in. “What’s the butter thing?”

Jimmy snaps his fingers at The Computer, he hands him an invoice, which is then handed off to you. Old Major Farms, Orwellian Butter, salted and unsalted. $11,268. You just. Stare. The math comes all too easy to your head. Worth a week? 

“It’s the best.” Carmen repeats as your eyes remain worryingly unblinking. “It’s—”

“Carm.” Syd all but hisses, shaking her head in tight swivels, waving her hand around her neck for him to cut it. “Making it worse.”

“Angel is like, the worst it can get.” Hums Richie. Recalling your barometer of anger. Recalling the times when Mikey would say ‘what’s the point of paying bills?’ And you’d have to pull him aside. “Can’t get much lower than that besides—”

“Light of my life.” You look up from the paper in your hand, and both Richie and Sydney wince. Your voice is terrifyingly delicate as you nod over to the room behind you. “Apple of my eye. Can I speak to you in your office, please?”

Carmy’d like to say no. “...Yeah.” But you already started walking before he even answered, so there’s not much of a choice here. You head in by yourself, and thankfully, the door closes behind you, so Carmen’s got a second before he gets devoured. 

He walks around the counter, and as he nears the door, Richie grabs his arm. He whispers as he hands Carmen what’s left of his cocktail. “You need to lock the fuck in.”

“I know.” Carm returns, shooting down all that’s left of the lowball. Why’s Richie’s the sweet one? Why’d Carmen get the cough syrup drink? That’s not fair. Do you not think he’s sweet? “Thank you for the— Intercept.” 

Richie nods, he’s been unwillingly playing quarterback for Carmen since going to Rockefeller and seeing that goddamn giant tree and Carmen couldn’t stop opening his big fucking mouth after seeing you under the star. “Just think with your brain, not your—”

“Don’t.” “Was gonna say heart.” “Sure.” “Don’t be weird.”

“I know it’s expensive.” Carmen gets it out before even fully closing the door behind him, “But it’s normal prices, for high-end restaurants. I know it’s different—” He stops short when he finally turns around from the closed door, to see you, holding your painting. 

It’s facing you, you’re reviewing it in your hands where you sit in the office chair; the brown wrapping paper freshly ripped and on the floor. Carmen still doesn’t know what’s on the piece. 

“Carm.” You twist the piece around in your hand, turning it to him. He can see the nine squares. The Beef to The Bear. Mikey. “This is not another restaurant.”

Carmen continues to stare, silently, though he takes a step closer, reaching a hand out to graze over the canvas. You keep going, clarifying. “We’re not just another high-end restaurant. We’re us. And so we should be doing things like us. We’re the best, we don’t need the stuff to be.”

He was with you until that last part. His pursed lips say as much.

“It’s—” You smack your lips together, haphazardly handing him the canvas, he’s very quick to grab it with both hands, not wanting it unstable for a second. “Hold on, let me show you somethin’ — I think I left one in here.”

You roll the office chair back a bit, sinking down in the seat to reach far behind a tall cabinet; you have to pad your hand around in the dark nook for quite some time before you pull out— A screwdriver. An oddly shaped one, at that.

“...Has that been here the whole time?”

You nod. “Like threeish years at least, I think I threw it back there while telling it’s origin story. It’s part of the first set I ever got.” You grip the flat wooden handle. “It’s the worst screwdriver on earth, like, by far.” 

That gets a little chuckle out of Carmen. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” You look up from it to him. “It’s a handmade set. Dad’s dad made it.” You awkwardly roll closer to him, he leans over, head next to your head as you both look down at it. “It’s got a flat wooden handle, made of poplar— So not only is it fucking impossible to get a good grip on, it’s also so fucking slippery. It’s part of a whole set, passed down from my grandpa to my dad to me.”

“Sounds fucked.”

“It is.” You laugh, and so does he. “It’s purposefully meant to piss you off.” You rub your thumb over the dent marks in the wood— All from the times you threw it at something— Including the very cabinet that it hid behind. “You ever wonder why I took over the handyman gig, bein’ the youngest and all?”

Carmy shrugs, glancing from the screwdriver to you. “Just assumed you were the best.”

That gets another laugh out of you, and Carmen’s overjoyed by the sound. “Yeah, I’m probably the best. But that’s only cause I kept up with it.”

You turn your head up to face Carmen again as you explain, “When our dad started bringing us to jobs as kids, he would make us exclusively use this set of screwdrivers— Sort of as a secret test. My brothers would get pissed off, as planned, and they’d quit and cry. And I dunno, I guess I’d cry and keep going? And I learned a couple tricks, eventually.”

“Tricks?”

“Like.” You pull back in the chair and run your hand across the office desk. The corners of it are screwed into the metal cabinet below it. “It’s really good if you’re screwing from the top down.” Using it as an example, you start to unscrew it. “It’s balanced. And it’s really all in the grip— Always loosen your grip with this one. Even if that seems counterintuitive.”

You get it to unscrew just fine with your loosened grip. “But if that doesn’t work, and you just can’t get it to work—” You lift the screwdriver in front of his face, showing off the sides of the handle. He smirks at the— “Just make your own grooves, it’ll be easier to hold.” Tiny teeth marks. 

“Carm.” You tap the handle to his nose as he zones in too much on it. “I’m the best repairman because I can work with anything. You’re the best Chef because you can work with anything. You don’t need the best when you’re the best.”

He’s the best? 

He’s the best. 

He’s the best. 

“I truly think you could make just as good a plate with Becel as this fucking Animal Farm butter.” 

Carmen’s the best. You think he’s the best. 

He’s gotta think with his head and not with his heart and not with anything else, either. Lock the fuck in, Carmen.

“I dunno bout all that.” He shrugs, bashful and attempting to hide it, trying to shake the praise off his back. 

“Well I know ‘bout that.” You shrug back, “I’m actually kind of a genius, when it comes to knowing who’s good and who’s not.”

“I don’t doubt that.” Carmy hums, and the sound is sweet without reservations. “...Painting is very good.” He nods to himself, on repeat, like a bobblehead. “Or I guess it’s less a painting and more a buncha photo transfers?”

“Yeah.” You set the screwdriver aside on the desk. “Most of them I took.”

“They’re good. It’s—” He pauses, tongue against his teeth. “It’s nice to see evidence he kept up, or somethin’.”

You nod, seeing Carmen’s brain struggle to keep pace in real time. “We took that one I think the day we talked to Uncle Jimmy about The Bear? Had to print out articles as proof we could make it work— Or, that you could make it work, rather.”

Carmen sniffs, crossing his arms, hands in tight fists— Probably too tight— where they hide. “Yeah, kinda fuckin’ up my end of the bargain, hm?” The light laugh that follows is hollow.

“Eh. You both did.” You smile, though it’s hesitant. “ But at least you’re still here fixing it.”

Still here. Still fixing it. That is in essence, the piece. Carmen gets lost staring at the squares, so you speak as he does. “I was trying to like. I dunno, replicate your brain.” He can see it. The messy yet coherent, controlled yet chaos. The love. The grief. The progress. The home. You see him. He can see that you see him. 

“11k for butter,” Carm’s head doesn’t move but his eyes raise to you. “Is a week. More than a week.”

Ah. Carmen can see you too, see your thought process. The Ascaso, worth one of the worst weeks of Mikey’s life. The fucking butter. Worth more than a week of Mikey’s sobriety. 

All you can do is nod solemnly. “It is, yeah.” 

He nods back, tongue prodding his cheek. “That’s too much.”

“I’d agree.”

“I’ll switch to local.” You make it easy for him to fix his mistakes, by giving him the space to realize them. 

“I think that’s the right call.” You nod, smiling. After a moment, you reach for Carmen to uncross his arms, and when he does, you take his fist and uncurl it— Your hand is a very soothing balm to the spots where he dug his nails into his own hand.

“Loosen your grip, Carmy.”

And so, he does. With a laugh and a look to high heaven, he loosens his grip. Really loosens his grip. Well— Not completely, he’s not going to say that, but he will say something that is just nearly as difficult but not quite. He'll bite down a little. He’ll make the grooves, for now, until his grip is good enough.

“Come to dinner with us?”

would you believe me if i said I had to rewrite a bit of this last scene because intially it went so rom-com and I was so disgusted when I reread it in the morning I had to stare at it in the subway ride to work like "what the fuck am I gonna do"

was this chapter good? God I hope so. I felt like with where we're going, it was kinda necessary to do Chip's onboard, set the stage for what work is like for her. I had to loosen my own grip with this one lmao. just allow myself to be a LITTLE messy. if it's bad, lie to me. tell me sweet little lies peach

DAD REVEAL THOUGH EH? MR CK!!! So much did happen this chapter. Chips on board! Squid Ink moving in together era commences! Christmas party!! Also. Would you believe me if I told you no shit syd was gonna move, she was planning it in S2, but I was planning this whole time for Ink to get evicted!! I want those fuckers to be roommates STAT!!!

anyways, i really hope i remembered to write down everyone that asked to be added to the taglist, i might've not. i'm very sorry if i didnt

oh also if you wanna be added!! send in your thoughts!! words for words baby, essay for essay cmonnn gimme ur character analysis!! (oh and also ask to be added, ofc)

@hoetel-manager , @fridavacado @sharkluver , @spectacular-skywalker , @silas-aeiou , @deadofnight0 , @sunbreathingstuff , @anytim3youwant @navs-bhat @whoknowswhoiamtoday @gills-lounge @blueaproncarmy @itsallacotar @catsrdabestsocks101 @popcornpoppin @renaissance-painting @lostinwonderland314 @v0ctin @ashtonweon @mrs-perfectly-fine @thefreakingbear @anytim3youwant

[chiipay]

What if shidou was having a very bad day and the only thing he wanted was to stay in our presence or touch us in anyway

Just by seeing us, his nerves are calm? I don’t really know how to explain it

Uwohhh.. shidou request that's a first. I'm happy to know people do like him. I'll do my best to match his uhh vibe?.. idk

--

Ughhh it's happening again isn't it?

It's a shidou disaster. Is what you called it.

It's very very VERY normal to see another bickering shidou with another person. But DAMN it's too early for another fight he picked.

”...sorry about that, dude. I swear he normally wouldn't budge anyone at this hour-” you slightly bow in front of the French's stratum master, Julian Loki.

He's very polite and well-mannered for a guy...too good for a guy.

” it's fine. I'm surprised he suddenly acts like this at 3am..” he chuckled gorgeously- AHEM AHEM.

” shidou is in the training field. The Victor looking guy told us to locked him up there for a bit while waiting for you.” Charles Chevalier chipped in the conversation from behind making you shudder.

” oh- i see. Well if you excuse me, I'll be going now...to deal with the so-called demon.” you smile nervously before vanishing into the thin air.

As the small presence of you lingering around the hall, both the French duo look at your way.

”....i hope she won't get possessed by shidou-”

As you open the door, you meet with a pouty face of shidou who's sitting down on the grass field while the room is filled with balls lingering around like a mess.

” alright shidou, what the f-”

” i miss you. ”

”.....nuh uh- don't you use that excuse on me- NUH UH”

Shidou positions himself while sitting in front of you. Making some puppy face to ask for mercy makes you scrunch your face in disgust.

{a/n: I can't y'all I'm SoRrY-}

You look at his puppy face for a bit before sighing heavily making him grin a bit as if winning the lottery.

”....what do you want from me broo... I'm losing my shit just being here for 102935392735635 times because of you..." You covered your face with your hands making it look like you're in denial and you are.

” but that wouldn't be so fun if i tell you won't it?~~~” he smirked before patting his lap for you to sit on.

You sigh again for a tired of energy getting up at 3 am just to deal with him-

You sat down on the grass field but not for so long before shidou dragging you to sit on his lap. You ended up in a very uncomfortable position on his lap.

”.... I'm tired shidou... It's 3 in the morning... Why are you doing this? Did Rin annoy you or something? Neo league won't be too long before it ends y'know? wHy CaN't Y-” a big yawn escape from your mouth as you lean on shidou's shoulder.

He smells like shit.

But it's fine- you're too tired it makes sense while there's so many balls on the grass field. He probably got too bored getting locked up in here.

Shidou just hummed at everything questions you asked him while qooing you like a baby in his arms.

"just sleep my ever lasting star-”

" cringe.”

” the love of my life?”

” 2 × cringe.”

” my beloved, dear, sugar boo, pookie bear, bab-”

" stop it, I'm to die out of the cringiness you're making me. How did you come out with those nicknames.?"

”what can I say- you bring the best out of me, manager~”

”....cringe. no wonder why sae Itoshi ran away from you”

” ouch. but still love you tho.” he smug at you

”... thanks.”

[skelly-words]

Knock First Next Time

(NSFW Levi x Reader)

MDNI 18+ only

I just woke up and this was in my drive, bro, idk it's crazy. I don't even wanna talk about it anymore, just read the tags and don't look at me.

Reader has a cooch

Tags: excessive porn, Levi being a loser, Monster fucking-ish, double penetration, anal and p in v, tail play (is that a thing), biting, choking, undiscussed kinks (but bffr it's fine in fantasy), he has two dicks and they're blue with bioluminescent cum, that's my tag

Synopsis: You walk in on Levi playing eroge, pls just read the tags and don't make me explain it.

Wc: 4.2k

“Levi?” you yell through the door to his room. “You skipped lunch so I brought you something.”

You knock persistently at the wood. It’s late in the afternoon and nobody has seen Leviathan all day. Most of the brothers aren’t worried about him, citing his commonly reclusive behavior. Even if this is regular, you want to make sure he at least remembers to eat even if he is wrapped up in his new anime or RPG binge.

“I don’t know if you can hear me or not but I’m coming in.” You knock a couple of times in warning before you swing the door open.

The lights in his room are so dim you can barely see his silhouette as he sits, hunched over, in his gaming chair. Levi’s playing some kind of RPG. An erotic one judging by the big-tittied anime girls and multi-colored tentacles moving across the screen. And it would be nice if you had respected his privacy and left his room, but that would be boring and predictable. You calmly set the plate and sandwich on the edge of his bed as you approach the back of his chair.

As you get closer, you can hear muffled sound coming from his headphones. No wonder he couldn’t hear you knocking. You stay quiet and out of his peripheral vision, slowly reaching to lift the left side of his headphones away from his ear.

“Wow, Levi,” you whisper into his ear. “I didn't know you were into tentacle hentai.”

“No!” he shrieks, frantically trying to close out of the game. He’s too shocked, shaking so badly he can’t get the mouse to the exit button before you’re pulling his chair back from his desk. “That's not what this is. It isn't what it looks like.”

“Really? ‘Cause it looks like you blew us all off to play eroge all day. Just wait until your brothers hear about this.”

“No, please don’t, it’s not in like a weird way. It’s an RPG. I can’t resist a good RPG even if most of the art and story arc is erotic.”

“How respectful,” you say half-sarcastically. You’re equally unimpressed and entertained. “You’re making me interested. Talk to me about it.” You lean against his chair, tilting him back to look up at you. 

“No!” He says for the third time.

“What? Is that your new favorite word?” You tilt your head to the side to see if he looks any less embarrassed sideways. “Can I play with you?”

You have ulterior motives when asking, but Levi doesn’t seem to pick up on that. He shakes his head and buries his blush in his hands. 

“Absolutely not. Get out, and please don’t tell my brothers. Especially Mammon, he’ll extort me for money. And I can’t handle the teasing from Asmo…” He keeps mumbling about whatever, but you aren’t really listening to it. 

You pull his chair further away from his desk to make room for you to stand in front of him. The art style is interesting, and you click through some of the dialogue, but he’s too far progressed for you to understand the story at all. For all you know, the excuse that he’s playing it for the plot could be total bullshit.

“Hey, stop that.” Levi stands up and snatches the mouse from you, unintentionally clicking the story along. He’s recovered from his brief heart attack enough to get up from his gaming chair, but not enough to notice how his body effectively traps you against his desk.

The screen changes to the actual gameplay, which is somehow more lewd than the story portion of the game. A woman is spread across the center of the screen with a slimy blue tentacle pressed into each of her holes. There’s a slightly smaller tentacle too that wraps up the woman’s leg and lays across her clit. A timer bar steadily decreases across the top of the screen. 

Levi’s frozen. You probably think he’s such a fucking pervert now, and it doesn’t help that he can feel himself getting hard while standing so close behind you. It’s even worse that he’s going to have to lose this level now, ruining his perfect run of the game.

Your hand overlaps his on the mouse as you drag the cursor to the pause button. His fingers still don't move, hovering the cursor uselessly over the button.

"You're gonna run out of time," you keep a playful lilt to your voice. "Either pause it or play."

He debates for a second longer, doing whatever mental gymnastics he usually goes through to figure out how to proceed. He barely misses a beat. The cursor drops away from the pause button. You don't really pay attention to the gameplay itself, focusing on feeling his hand beneath yours, the lewd sounds echoing from the abandoned headphones looped around Levi's neck, and his growing boner pressing against your lower back.

"You're good," you say, half-impressed and concerned with the dramatics of the female's orgasm. The level finishes, and Levi keeps his perfect record with a three-star score.

"Do you still want me to show you how to play?" It's the boldest thing he can manage to say, which isn't saying much when it comes out so pathetically. He's begging as if the answer is hopelessly 'no.'

"Sure."

You can feel when Levi exhales, relieved, against your temple. His hand twitches beneath yours on the mouse as he drags the cursor to exit the game and start a new save.

Apparently, his whole spiel about playing for the story wasn't complete bullshit. He points out important plot points and shows you different strategies, but it's hard to concentrate on anything he says.

As his nerves dissolve, replaced by pure nerdiness, he pulls his chair back up to the desk, sits down, and settles you in his lap. You doubt he's completely aware of what he's doing with how engrossed he is with the game. When he's teaching you how to play, he has complete tunnel vision.

Levi lets you hold the mouse, reversing the roles so that he's guiding your hand. His unoccupied arm wraps around your waist, pulling you closer to him with a gasp whenever you come close to losing.

You find yourself surprisingly into it, despite never playing an eroge before. Your left hand stays glued to the keyboard, sprawled across the controls as you concentrate on the game. You're literally sweating as you struggle to finish the level (or make the level finish, either way).

A yellow banner unrolls across the screen, and the protagonist frowns at your one-star win.

"Shit, that was kinda intense." You sigh and lean back into his chest. Intense is an understatement. Adrenaline was making your hands shake and breath stutter. It didn't help that Levi was being so generous with his touch. If you didn't know better, you'd think he was pulling you against his bulge on purpose, but he was probably just being absentminded.

"It's fun, right?"

"Yeah, and the art is pretty hot too. It's fucked up that you need both hands to play, know what I mean?" You let go of the controls to pry his arm from around your waist. It starts off with you innocently playing with his fingers as he contemplates what you’re talking about. While it's obvious, he tries to find an alternative meaning.

"Help me out, Levi?" You bring his hand down to rest on the front of your shorts.

He stops breathing and he freezes. A few seconds pass as his brain takes a second to catch up. Even when he relaxes, there's still tension in how he holds himself.

"Are you sure?" he asks.

You roll your eyes at his question and go back to clicking through the next segment of the story.

Levi's touches begin hesitantly, barely brushing you as he unties the drawstring of the loose shorts. You try to stay cool. Somebody has to, and with the way he struggles to untie the simple bow, it's not going to be him.

"C'mon, Levi." You'd been playing for at least an hour, becoming more and more wound up by the erotic imagery the entire time. Maybe at the beginning, you were being purposefully suggestive to tease him, but now it felt like you actually needed him to touch you. Not that you were into tentacles or anything. You especially weren't turned on by the way his tail had loosely wrapped around your ankle at some point.

"You're not even playing anymore." He tried to sound smooth and confident, but there was still a shake in his voice and hands. Even the hand guiding yours on the mouse felt a little sweatier.

You clicked through the rest of the story quickly, skimming over the text and pausing for longer when particularly provocative characters or lines flashed across the screen.

Levi's fingers slipped down the front of your shorts as you started the next level of the game. You'd barely managed to win the last level, and your gameplay only got sloppier as his index finger pushed your underwear to the side. The tip of his middle finger slipped up your slit, stopping when he felt your clit.

You squirmed in his lap, spreading your legs across his thighs.

"Pay attention. You're losing." He critiques your technique further as the pad of his finger loops lazily over your nub. He's back to being fully immersed in the stupid RPG.

You can't pay attention when he slips his finger lower to tease your entrance just to make you wetter. He plays with your pussy so easily. You don't notice anything weird about it until you moan and he laughs, mumbling, "Just like the game."

"Are you fucking kidding me, Levi?" You're not mad that he's doing it, more pissed that it's working. He's following the motions you should be doing on the desperate, slutty, moaning woman on the screen.

"What? I'm giving you hints."

You lose that level, but Levi doesn't. He gently coaxes an orgasm out of you with a finger on your clit. You cum around nothing, staring enviously at the character stuffed so full on the screen.

"It's too bad we can't recreate the whole thing." You try to sound nonchalant, but your legs shake a little as you turn to face him. You straddle his lap as best you can without the armrests getting in the way.

"W-what do you mean?" He stutters now that it isn't a game anymore. His eyes flick from the red losing screen to your face.

"Don't play dumb." You can feel his bulge against the front of your shorts as you lean closer to him. It's hard to keep eye contact when filth spills out of your mouth. "I wanna be full like that."

"Are you serious? 'Cause-" He cuts himself off with a hand over his mouth.

"What?"

"I don't wanna say it. It's so gross." He speaks between the small gaps in his fingers.

"I'm into slimy tentacles, how gross could it be?" You gently pull his hand away from his mouth. "Tell me."

"U-um, I, er-" He clears his throat and shuts his eyes, as if not looking at you makes it easier. "I have two, um, well you know. But it's not normal, so if you think it's weird don't feel bad, okay?"

"Are you shitting me?" It's your turn to cover your mouth. "Sorry, I meant, can I see?"

He nods, dropping his head and hands to untie his sweats. You push his hands out of the way when he gets slow and loses his first wave of confidence. It's impossible to pull his sweats down in the cramped position forced by the gaming chair. After thirty seconds too long of struggling, you huff in frustration.

"Let's just go to your bed."

"The tub?"

"Yeah, the tub." You start to wiggle off his lap, but he stops you.

Levi roughly grabs your thighs. He's clumsy when he stands up but makes up for it with the fact that you weigh next to nothing to him. Your hands balance on his chest, working upwards to hold onto his shoulders.

His tail slips higher to notch in the bend of your knee as he takes unsteady steps towards his bathtub. The cool porcelain bowl is almost overflowing with pillows and plushies. Your legs loop over either side of the tub as you spill out of his arms. You sink into the tub, submerging in the pillows as you would in water. Your hips stay lifted in the air, legs held up by the tub and Levi's cool fingers.

You can hardly feel his shaky touch as it creeps up your thighs, not until he brushes the hem of your shorts. He's so light and cautious, afraid for you to regret your decision and run, every movement is testing the water.

"Don't tease me, Levi." You gently tug the sleeve of his hoodie, dragging his hand between your thighs again so he can feel how warm you are. And as if he could ever resist you after that, you softly whisper, "Please, I wanna see you."

With a groan, his hand slides higher, cuffing the crease of your thigh. The loose leg of the night shorts bunches up to show off the lacy blue panties that barely cover you at all.

"I don't even know what to do with you." His other hand palms his bulge through his sweatpants, thumbing over each cockhead through the layers of material.

It's hard not to laugh, not meanly, but Levi's so cute like this. His hands fall to his sides, tightening and relaxing like he needs something to hold onto. He's focused on how you move while you slip the shorts off your legs.

He fumbles with his sweats, still as clumsy as he was before. There's a light tremble to the motions of his fingers as the knot comes undone and his pants slide down.

Levi kneels between your thighs in his light gray boxers. You're caged in by his arms, still clothed in your dark shirt. His hips slot against yours, and you can feel how much precum has soaked through the fabric of his underwear. The stickiness between you makes a mess of your panties too; it slickens the friction against your sensitive clit. His hips set a steady rhythm of rutting into you, shallow breaths beating against your neck with each rough roll.

"Okay," he says between breaths, "but you can't freak out."

Levi leans in to hesitantly kiss you. His left hand slips down to his boxers, shuffling them down and around his thighs. The kiss is a distraction, capturing your attention with the slide of his tongue against your bottom lip while he presses the head of his dick against your thigh.

You gasp into the kiss pulling away to watch him push your panties to the side. The flushed purple at the tip of his upper cock fades to a blue that almost matches the lace trim digging into the crease of your thigh. The tip of his lower dick is buried inside you. Precum drips onto your navel as he fucks further into you, forming a snail trail up your abdomen to mark how deep he is.

Your tight tank top bunches higher and higher around your waist, inching up with each thrust until the material is scrunched under your tits. Levi's mouth latches around your nipple through the thin cotton, soaking it through with his spit as he sucks on you. He tugs the strap off your opposite shoulder, letting his fingers trail down your chest. The cool touch makes your nipple stiffen as he rolls the bud between his thumb and forefinger, a sharp exhale leaving your lips.

Levi's mouth becomes greedier as you moan freely. The seal of his mouth muffles his own sounds as his dick hits deeper, finding spots that make your hips buck back against him.

"I want both," you whine. Your hand drops to where his neglected cock slides up your tummy through a light-blue puddle. It throbs in your hand as you milk him for more precum until the slick drips between your fingers.

"Fuck, you were serious?" Levi pops off your tit to look down at you with a lopsided grin. The hand cupping your breast leaves, crawling down your stomach to collect some of his mess on the way to your butt. In the low light of his LED strips, the streaks on your skin almost glow.

He lets you keep him warm while he preps you. Hips stay flush with yours while he focuses on pushing his middle finger past your rim. He's so slow and gentle, groaning into your ear as he slides deeper. It's too slow and methodical, so torturous that you're breath catches with each push and pull.

Your messy hand slips lower, leaving the tip of his dick to help him out. The tip of your finger presses alongside his as he fucks into you.

"Shit, Levi." Your words come between hot pants. "I need one more."

"What a fucking filthy mouth." He laughs softly and catches your lips in a kiss. You're perfectly pliant, letting him fill you up, even his tongue tasting you too. A third finger stretches you open and you whimper into his mouth as your muscles adjust.

A sick squish comes from between your bodies, matching the milky stains that dotted the pillows beneath you. It takes all of Levi's self-control to keep his hips still when you're tucked under him like this. Thighs spread out while he fills up your cute pussy.

His breath catches as you tug his wrist away, pressing a kiss to his jaw.

"I think I'm ready, baby." Your hand wraps around his to guide it higher, up to the base of his lower dick. "Just, go slow, okay?"

"Uh-huh." He nods into your neck as he begins to pull out of you. The tip of his dick throbs when he taps it against your rim. "Fuck, I'm gonna cum so fast."

"I-It's okay," you stumble when the point of his tail bumps your clit. It's a shame that you're so empty, his pre dribbles out of your slit as you clench around nothing. "Me too."

The smooth scales of his tail raise goosebumps on your thigh as it moves across your skin. It winds down the crease of your right hip and up around to the left. He uses it to lift your hips up better and take the pressure off your legs. You can tell it's a good angle before he even pushes in. The head of his cock sinks into your ass, there's barely any resistance with how slick your pussy left him. His warm breaths dampen your neck, maybe some of it's spit with how it drips a little toward your chest.

You rub the tip of his neglected dick up and down your cunny, just enough to make him whine. His tail hikes your hips up and he sinks into you, not all at once, but enough for a sharp moan leave your split lips. He slows to a gentle grind, trying not to let out anymore embarrassing sounds in your ear, trying not to shove more into you no matter how good it feels.

His teeth sink into your neck, biting down to muffle the groans while he tries not to fuck into you.

"It's okay," you breathe out, "just go slow."

"Mmhmm," Levi hums, tongue laving over the indents of his teeth. The first roll of his hips is generous, and he bites back any noise when his dentition digs into you. Your moans pitch up as he fills you one inch at a time. The scales on his tail are cool to the touch, just like his fingers. The thin end flicks your clit up and down, making you leak and squish around him.

Your cunt is twitching as forces more dick into you, drooling down to lubricate your ass as you get closer. Just the way he bites you, grunting between gritted teeth as he ruts into you, has your poor pussy sucking him in more.

"You did it, baby." Levi's smile presses into your neck. He sits up on his knees, leaving a parting kiss on your lips as he pulls back. His hands trace the swell in your tummy, the fuzzy hair at the base of his cock bumping your swollen nub as he grinds into you. "I didn't think I'd fit."

A soft giggle trickles, rose-scented and sultry, out of your pretty mouth. "You fit fucking perfect."

A grin tugs at his mouth and he pulls back a little. The drag is delicious. You can feel every vein and ridge on him as your holes clamp down from sensitivity. He kisses you slow, shoving into your g-spot from the angle he has you bent at.

"You're so so tight," he murmurs against your mouth, taking shaky breaths between kisses. It's like you don't want to let him go and he'd be content to stay buried inside of you.

Levi doesn't let you reply, licking into your mouth when you try to speak, consuming your broken words when he bites those petal-sweet lips. Spit pools in the corners of your mouth, drooling to match the juice curving down your butt.

He has to swallow more of your moans as he starts to move. His hips start with a stutter because he wants so badly to stay stuffed inside of you, but he finds a rhythm. You cling to his shoulders, nails leaving angry crescents in his milky skin.

Your legs tremble each time Levi fills you up, squeezing into your tight ass while your pussy eagerly slurps in every inch of his heavy cock. They slip around his waist to lock in the back, one ankle crossing over the other so he can't possibly pull away. And he doesn't want to, whispering filth to you between tender kisses.

"Thank you," Levi groans as he rocks into you. "Thank you for being such a cute toy." His hands get greedier, slipping around your butt and gripping dimples into the fat.

He's smothers you with his lips until you're dizzy off his taste. Stealing more than just your breath, the swell of your bottom lips catches on his canine.

You cup Levi's jaw, drawing your thumb over his adam's apple on your way down his neck. The curve of your hand settles around the base of his throat as a warning.

"You think so?" Your voice is testy, but Levi doesn't seem to notice.

He nods, eyes too glazed over to really be listening. "Perfect fucking slut, all full of me." His breath fans over your wrist as he looks down at where you're holding him.

"Try again."

You keep him just a hair away from reaching your lips, digging the pad of your thumb into the hollow between his collar bones. There's barely pressure at first. He fucks into you harder, locking eyes with you while his dicks turn up your guts. As if that was the right answer, he leans in to kiss you again.

The palm of your hand flattens against the front of his throat, pressing him further away. You keep him held back, even has he strains against you, choking himself on your hand for a kiss.

"Gimme a kiss," his voice is thick, cut up too by the gentle squeeze of your fingers. "Please, baby." He punctuates each word with his cock, hitting you better with the heel of his palm flattening your stomach. He massages over the faint bulge. A thin string of saliva drips from his mouth to yours as he feels himself inside of you, prodding against his hand while you squirm beneath him.

A low rumble starts to build in his chest as he tries to get close to you, even to lay his pouting lips on your cheeks or forehead. His sounds are choked by the hand around his throat. He's almost silent as your fingers tighten around him except for a few strangled gasps that slip through.

You can feel Levi’s dick throb as his pace grows frantic, pushing you into the pillows like he can nestle any deeper. There's a hazy look in his eyes, partially obscured by the sweaty smear of his bangs. He's so cute it makes your grip loosen, bringing a pretty flush to his cheeks as blood rushes to his head. All that extra oxygen makes him whimper as he begins to spill out inside of you.

"Shi- Fuck I'm cumming." Levi's hands tighten around your waist as his thrusts become stunted and sloppier. His groans go straight to your pussy and the next swipe of his tail sends you over the edge. Your hips buck to meet him halfway as his slick begins to leak out of you. His cum glows a pale blue, running out as you tighten on his cock.

This time, you don't stop his kisses. Your fingernails scratch through the hair at the base of his neck, curling and tugging on it harsher than you mean to. The roll of his hips doesn't stop until you're both shaking and oversensitive. His breathing is heavy and getting slower as he comes to a stop.

Levi's breathing almost stops too when he looks down at the mess. "I'm sorry." His face pales as he pulls out of you. Rivulets of his release drip out, glossy and translucent to leave a cool shine to any skin it got smeared on. Your underwear is stretched to floss, sticking into place between your soaked pussy lips when your thighs snap shut. The love bites he left are beginning to darken as well, threatening to stain various shades of red and purple. "Like really seriously sorry."

A/N- nite then <3

<lightly edited bc I didn't do his orgasm justice>

[kremlin]

@wikwalker hi sure yes anything to give me an excuse to procrastinate the post i should be writing right now. here are all teh drugs and how to manage them. you can trust me, a drug addict

first of all: https://www.erowid.org/ , erowid always

don't be afraid of drugs, if they're the right drugs, you should do them since they will be a blast regardless and overcoming fear is also good (but outside the scope here)

OK to do as much as you want: alcohol - social benefit greatly outweighs health effects, no reason to avoid if predisposed to abuse since that'll happen sooner or later. what can i say? don't be a fucking dork. when you start drinking, really overdo it as much as possible without dying and get a few real nasty hangovers under your belt so you know how much is the right amount to drink.

weed - innocuous enough to be fine but will make you stupid in the long term. make sure to only buy from a real drug dealer and never some legal institution. cut it out when you're a "real adult". don't smoke weed and watch TV routinely, go out and do things so you naturally grow to hate it. good to go through this as early as possible to minimize the time you spend as a cringe weed enthusiast

i guess those are the only two.

ok to do infrequently (annually): "lsd" - or whatever it is, probably not lsd, blah blah blah, if it works and is sold on blotter its fine and won't make you go nuts or whatever. opt for a better psychadelic imo. see psych rule at bottom of section

mushrooms - better than acid since you know what they are. rule of thumb is to always do more than you think you want. minimum 1/8oz. see psych rule at bottom of post

dmt - if you somehow have a dmt hookup you don't need to be reading any of this. lasts 10 minutes which leads to tendency to way overdo it, don't do this, my favorite webcomic artist is permanently crazy from exactly that. using a crack pipe is also not the uhhhh most dignifying-feeling thing to do either. it's harder than you think.

mdma - for use at electronic music event or rave. overuse causes brain lesions or something.

coke - wait until you're in your 20s, have maxed out your roth IRA for a couple of years in a row, and havent missed a car payment in a similar timeframe. better still if you've worked a very shitty low paying job and know the value of a dollar. if you still find yourself buying candy you're not ready. too expensive to be worth it to get hooked on. know that you are VERY ANNOYING to anyone who also isn't high. don't fuck around with the guy selling it to you. avoid discussing or thinking about business ideas. you can't afford to make it a habit + kinda turns you into a piece of shit after a while, but at least a very interesting one

ketamine - another sick drug that rules, but save it for a special occasion. don't try and go into the k-hole your first time

rule for psychedelics - you get one good strong trip a year and that's it, make it count, always opt for doing a bit more than a bit less. but don't make it a habit, otherwise you turn into a very stupid very annoying "hippy" style cliché and believe in ghosts, aliens, crap like that.

ok to try once prescription opiates/benzodiazepine (xanax), valium, this kind of shit - worth trying so you can go "holy shit, this stuff is way way way too good to ever use responsibly" and then never do again. especially if you're white. for some reason we just can't handle this shit. if a doctor prescribes it to you, idk, that's your call to make.

ayhuasca - this is just dmt in a different form. do some other psychadelics a number of times before you do this. once you realize the whole "substantial visual hallucinations" thing is made up, its time. do exactly this: -buy root online (legal). receive box of dirt -boil dirt into "tea" (read erowid for exact recipe) -take over-the-counter anti nausea medicine or anything that will give you a stronger stomach -drink tea (its nasty as fuck, get it down quick) -have someone bigger than you keep an eye on you for the next five hours. -have the experience, which is absurdly intense, has no bearing to the real world, etc etc. don't be a bitch and throw up, if you do it'll only last an hour or so. again there is no way to provide a consistent description of the experience except that you will meet god. you only ever need to do this once and never again. trust me

peyote/salvia/etc - try em if you want, you'll never ever want to again afterwords. these are drugs for idiot teenagers too lame to get real drugs. imagine being very very sick from poison and utterly terrified at the same time. No good

whippets/nitrous oxide - just find a dentist that uses it and don't bother creating hundreds of pounds of trash on your floor for this crap that lasts ten seconds. you have to understand the extremely short timeframe coupled with the cost makes zero sense. go to a phish concert parking lot and do some people watching -- you do not want to be these people. only use is as a motivator to get routine dental exam. also if you somehow manage to make it a heavy habit your fucking legs stop working, no shit, but they start working again once you quit.

don't ever do heroin/meth/pcp - is is truly a mystery why you should never do these 🙄

synthetic weed/k2/shit from the gas station - it is so funny that they sell this as "weed that won't pop you on a drug test". its not weed. it is some dubious chemical sprayed on yard waste. smoke it to have a terrible time and go nuts. only buy drugs from legitimate drug dealers!

kratom - anyone's guess as to why this is legal but it's heroin for pussies. its still heroin

dxm/cough syrup - do you ever wonder why it is exclusively teenagers robotripping? it's because it sucks ass. is like a cheesegrater on your brain in terms of health effects with repeated usage. you're better than this king

inhalants - these are at the bottom of the list for a reason. do not huff gas. don't huff paint. do not consume computer duster. not fun + fastest way to make yourself a complete, uh, (word i can't say anymore) and then dead

not listed quaaludes- unavailable due to no longer being manufactured. these ruled apparantly

sincis2c - unavailable due to not existing, i just made this up

amphetamines - cannot provide objective take here. they're my albatross, lifelong (posted 4:55am natch)

[iid-smile]

can't get rid of me , fushiguro toji

a strong legacy to be left behind , chapter one

the series masterlist. | previous | next

cw: profanity, mentions of pregnancy (pills) but filtered for megumi's sake, mentions of violence in prison, you're broke, smoking cigarettes

author's note: sigh... im out of my fluff era 😞 (sorry guys) kinda wanted to write something that i think would actually happen in some sort of alternate jjk universe and um idk how far to go because this kind of stuff does happen in the manga, but writing it feels illegal??? idk...

"mom?" megumi peeks out from around the corner in the hallway. "who was calling?"

another groan escapes your lips, around the fifth one in the last three minutes, and you silence your phone once again. "your— excuse my language, shitty deadbeat dad keeps wanting to call me." you slap your hand across your forehead and lean back on the couch, a small creak coming from somewhere below. "apparently he's getting aggressive in prison. shut off the house phone, but they still found my number..."

your son comes closer to you, and you scoop him up, placing him by your side. he glances up at you, and you swear your fight or flight instincts nearly kicked in, (not that you'd be able to fight of a guy as big as toji anyways) flinching slightly from his sharp gaze. it sucks how he looks so much like his dad, because you loved megumi so much. but the image of that guy was almost too much to bear, and he's the spitting image.

"shitty?" he repeats. for a well-behaved kid, he really doesn't respect your words.

"don't say that megs, it's bad language." you swear around him all of the time, so what's the point in scolding him? "only your mama can say it."

"don't tell me what to do."

wow. okay. why do you feel threatened by a six year old? "damn, you've got his attitude too." you mutter, but you've only got yourself to blame for that. you knew you were never cut out to be a mother, so your ways of parenting weren't the best.

he snuggles closer to you, and you openly accept, moving your free hand to his hair to rub over it. "why can't i see toji?"

ah, this lovely story again. "because he left me as soon as you were born, love." really, you couldn't and didn't want to stop yourself from wrapping him up in your arms, feeling the need to protect him. "at this point, he's dead to me. seems like he doesn't feel the same though... i'm so sick of his ass." you also knew it wasn't good parenting to rant to your child about adult issues, but you've only got him to talk to.

that hug was out of comfort then. why are you lying to yourself?

he looks up at you with an irritatingly cute but blank face. "why?"

"god, i hate how many questions you ask." you speak under your breath once again, looking up at the ceiling from any sort of help from a higher being. the amount of times you've had to family-friendly-ify things that have happened isn't even funny. you're not naturally rated u for universal. it's more embarrassing when he recites those same stories to his teachers, and you get called into the school for a little talk.

yikes... here we go. "he lied when he said he gave me the right magical candy after we visited the stork. tried to make it drop you off back to where babies are made in heaven, but i wanted it to deliver you to me, whether he liked that or not." the story's got to be a little filtered somehow. you'd rather not get yourself in the principal's office again. "you're my little hero; a miracle to me. i would've given up on myself ages ago. your dad is a bad, bad man."

the type that would kill. if he found where you lived, or perhaps where megumi goes to school...

"and now i'm left broke in an apartment that barely functions, yet i still spoil my little hero." you sing-song, leaning your head back. "and with what money? i'm broke as hell, megs. can't even make both of us breakfast in the morning cuz your elementary school is too damn expensive."

"is this my fault?"

"...no. no, baby, of course not." you furrow your eyebrows more, a small pout in your lips. "if anything, you made my situation a bit more fortunate."

it's a selfish way of thinking, using your child to avoid solving your problems, using your child to wail and complain about how much you hate your life, but you've got nothing to lose. nothing to lose except for the one person you love.

you can feel your phone buzzing again.

"you stay here and watch tv, okay? mama's gonna go to the kitchen and talk to her friend." he seems a bit relieved as you let go of him, and you stand up.

you hear him mutter. "it's only playing the news though..." no shit it only plays the news, you can't afford to get a good television company that has any kids shows. that is, unless you wanna get scammed out of all of your money.

begrudgingly, you make your way to the kitchen, confirm that you closed the door completely, and answer the vibrating device. "hello?" you sigh, placing the device over your ear.

the other person on the call replies quickly. "is this miss—"

"yeah, yeah, it is. what the hell do you want?"

"um... we apologise, but we strongly suggest that you come to the prison building. he—" the guy's voice cracks. must be really nervous. "pardon me. he's been physically assaulting other inmates and guards, he doesn't follow orders, he never leaves his cell unless it's to visit the closed visits room. you know, in hopes that you'll come..."

obsessed much? where was this energy six years ago? "that's got nothing to do with me."

"please, ma'am. he won't listen to anyone, and we are unable to place him into special facilities as he doesn't emit any cursed energy." ah, he's begging? that's a first. you never would've thought you'd hear a person who works at a prison begging.

cursed energy, cursed energy, this talk again and again and again. "urgh..." you take a deep breath. your options are limited, and they won't stop calling until they can get that lunatic to calm down... surprise, surprise, you really don't want to go.

but if you were really uninterested in him, wouldn't you have already spent the bail money that's been sat on the counter for ages, neatly concealed in an envelope? wouldn't you have paid off all of your debts already? "will i— hm..." choose your words carefully, goddamn it. "can i get a reward of some sort if i go? money?"

"yes, yes! please do visit. there's nothing we can legally do to him in check anymore." ...you think this guy sounds a little too eager.

damn toji and his "supernatural powers", or else you wouldn't get yourself into this mess. finally, after your moment of silence, you respond. "okay. i'll visit."

"thank you—!" you cut off the line.

"fucking bastard..." you drop your phone on the counter, running your hands through your hair and over your face. "stressing me out for what? you don't even love me." your words turn into whispers. with haste, you rummage through your back pocket, trying to find those last few cigarettes, but as your hands were occupied, your eyes moved over to the ashtray that was collecting dust on top of the microwave. oh, right... you don't smoke anymore because there's no ventilation indoors.

you'd have to head out if you wanted to, but then megumi would be in the apartment on his own. and nobody can babysit, because you don't have anybody to ask to babysit. great, you can't smoke until monday. it's a friday afternoon. you have two whole days to get through!

you know for a fact your addiction won't hold out for that long.

[lif3lessb0dy]

₊˚⊹ ೀ rafayel

╰┈➤ . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁ headcanon; rafayel falling in love with you

cw; he's a dumbass, jealous but won't admit it, cursing, kinda love confession?? idk, just some fluff for my rafayel girlies ;333

for a long time he didn't understand what's going on

or he just didn't want to admit that to himself lmao

he found himself looking at you and your face for a little longer than he was supposed to. hmm her lips have really beautiful shape... WHAT THE FUCK, NO, WHAT AM I THINKING ABOUT?

him being brave whenever you’re in danger or would come close to it, putting himself at risk to protect you and always surprising you with how much strength he actually has

„hey, do you really need me to be your bodyguard? I see that you're doing great”

„i only saw what you couldn't cuz u were doing amazing job and I just kinda helped” he smiled proudly but after a while faked injury to make you laugh

he admires how determined u are with fighting wanderers, how you squint when opponent has dodged your attack

he would bring you many gifts from the places he visited, thomas was shocked when rafayel was complaining about the weight of luggage cuz he didn't bring many things with him but returned with second suitcase

many times he would find himself staring at some thing, wanting to get it for you but not being sure if he should expose how much he care about you

well, he isn't good at hiding this anyway

he doesn't like painting people but he kinda likes sketching your face when he's alone

when you're at work he could just stare at his phone waiting for some message, that was really weird cuz often he doesn't remember about phone

jealousy... he saw how you got along with thomas. thousands of thoughts ran through his mind. should i distance myself? maybe she doesn't appreciate my presence as I do hers? maybe I should give her mission with me just to spent some time with her? nah, I don't want to force this. but I want her to smile like that when she's with me

each accidental touch sent waves of heat through his body. when lemurians are in love their senses are committed to perceive their loved ones. your scent, touch, voice... he didn't even realize how much it affects him until he could experience you triggering all of his senses

i think that was the time he realized that he actually fell for you

you offered him a visit at your apartment, after a while you both were sitting on a couch and watching some movie. when you were laughing you placed your hand on his knee then rested head on his shoulder. he could smell your perfume mixed with his own scent, feel your warm touch on his cold skin, hear your low-pitched voice next to his ear... god it was so nice to have you so close

he didn't even notice when he wrapped his arm around you

when you simply hugged him, moving your head to his chest, he knew you could probably hear his heart beating loudly. it seemed to him that it was a simple gesture, even though at that time you were so stressed and didn't know what to do because you were afraid that you would go too far and expose your feelings towards him

yup, you were two idiots in love but won't admit it cuz you're too scared of rejection and losing the other person

„is it normal that you're so cold?” you asked quietly and touched his chest then his exposed skin on collarbones „your temperature is definitely below normal”

fuck. when your hand touched his bare skin, he had the urge to hold it there. why it was so nice?

„I... I guess it's alright and you're just the one whose temperature is weird, you're really hot” he came up with some excuse

„really?” you giggled due to the word 'hot'

he quickly realized what he said, he tried to hide his blush „oh, come on! you have a sense of humor like some high school boy!”

„I need to agree” u giggled again and closed your eyes

he gently cupped your cheek

„rafayel...?”

❛love and deepspace masterlist❜