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aethersea · 4 years ago

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May I request 41 - First Kiss and 94 - Hair Brushing/Braiding for the Leverage OT3, please? (Also extra bonus points if you give Eliot beads in his hair like in The Ice Man Job, because we didn't get NEARLY enough of that in the show) Thank you!

I cannot believe I wrote this whole thing out and then never published it. I’m so sorry, it’s been at least twenty-four years since you sent in this ask, please accept my humble apologies and also this ficlet.

However, this prompt is just pure fluff, and I hate to tell you this but I am not a fluff writer. I just can’t pull off that unadulterated sweetness. I am in this fandom for the shenanigans, first, last and foremost! So this fic is now a 5+1 of Eliot and Parker trying to seduce Hardison.

1. Parker thinks they need to give him gifts, so she goes through her stash and picks out the largest, fanciest jewel she’s ever stolen. Then she realizes: Hardison likes stories. He spends hours giving their aliases histories and pets and allergies and favorite foods, he can get a whole sordid history of jealousy and betrayal from a single corporate email chain, and Parker knows for a cold fact that he writes little stories with his online friends about being wizards together.

She goes through her stash again and picks out the most cursed thing she’s ever stolen.

It’s a jeweled statuette, almost as tall as her forearm, made of gold and studded with precious and semi-precious stones. Mysterious deaths have befallen five separate owners of this thing. Its base is dented from the time it was used to bludgeon Owner Number Three to death. The tiny rubies it has for eyes follow you across the room.

Parker puts a bow on it and leaves it in Hardison’s room while he’s sleeping. He wakes up to this horrible little statue watching him from his bedside table.

He texts the group chat, Hey did anyone put an evil little gold guy in my bedroom last night? But Parker chickens out and says nothing (drunkenly betting Eliot that she can seduce Hardison is one thing, but admitting that she likes him is something else altogether). Everyone else texts back variations on “nope.” (Except Sophie, who just sends back a string of heart eyes emojis and a wikipedia link. She loves cursed artifacts.) So Hardison puts the statue away in a closet somewhere and figures he’ll deal with it later.

Parker is mildly offended that he put her gift in a closet. She goes into his room the next night and puts it back on the bedside table, where it clearly belongs.

This goes on for a week. Hardison puts the statue in a desk drawer, then in one of the cabinets in the office downstairs, then in the dumpster down the street. Every day he wakes up to those glittering red eyes watching him sleep. He’s asked his internet buddies if anyone knows a good exorcist. Hardison doesn’t really believe in curses, but also? What the fuck. What the fuck.

2. Eliot assumes the drunken bet will be forgotten by morning. What kind of world would it be if people always followed through on promises they made while they could barely stay vertical? So he spends the morning nursing his hangover and cleaning his knives. Cleaning guns is no good while hungover—all the snaps and clicks of popping things in and out of place sound like actual gunfire when you’re hungover, it’s a nightmare—but knives are quiet and have no moving parts. Buffing and polishing them is soothingly repetitive work, and every once in a while he can throw one at one of the dartboards on the walls and reassure himself that his reflexes are still sound even after that much tequila.

It’s only when he gets Hardison’s text about the golden statuette that magically appeared in his room overnight that Eliot realizes Parker’s actually going for it. After some internal debate about whether he’s going to stoop to this or not, Eliot decides what the hell and starts making plans.

Eliot agrees that gifts are the way to go, but not stolen gifts. Not things. Anyone can give a thing. Proper wooing is about giving experiences.

Eliot plans for three days. On the fourth day, he and Hardison have their irregularly scheduled monthly coffee date, and Eliot texts him beforehand to say he wants to do it at the brewpub this time. Hardison arrives to find a deceptively simple meal: basic country fare perfected through years of experimentation, made with the best ingredients Eliot can get his hands on. And Eliot, after all, is still a retrieval specialist. There’s very little in the world he can’t get his hands on.

And yet the night ends and somehow he has not gotten his hands on Hardison.

This is just not right. Eliot knows how to deploy a smolder, okay, Tangled reference aside he is damn good at flirting and he knows the looks he’s giving Hardison are clear as day. It’d be one thing if Hardison had turned him down, or if he’d been uneasily unwilling, or even if his eyes had widened slightly in suppressed panic and he’d abruptly found a reason to leave. Eliot can take rejection, bet or no, and he’d have bowed out graciously without a fuss. But this was much, much worse.

Hardison didn’t even notice he was flirting.

He’s going to have to up his game.

3. “How do you seduce people?” Parker asks bluntly, turning up at Sophie’s door just past midnight.

Sophie, despite the hour, is utterly delighted by the question.

This goes as well as you would expect.

4. Eliot’s taken a lot of dates to sports games. Hardison may prefer sparkly elves with purple lightning magic to a decent MMA fight, but baseball is the American pastime. Eliot gets them perfect seats, hot dogs from the best vendor in the stadium, even chilled beer that he smuggles in without letting it get warm. It’s going to be a perfect game.

And it is. At first. Hardison, it turns out, has a lot of opinions about baseball. What he does not have is an understanding of the rules. They’re not even into the second inning by the time Eliot finally snaps and starts arguing with him about it.

They make it all the way to the fifth inning before Eliot realizes that Hardison’s basing his complaints off the rules of a game from a Star Wars novel.

They’re at the bottom of the eighth before Eliot will speak to him again.

5. Eliot and Parker are drunk again. This is not intentional. They didn’t even mean to come to this bar, but the smoothie place with the fried oreos that Eliot had brought Parker here to try was playing such incredibly bad music that they’d ordered the oreos to go and fled. The bar was just the coziest looking place on the block, and of course they’d ordered drinks to avoid being rude––Eliot had entertained himself for a few minutes scouring the menu for something that would pair well with fried oreos and popcorn chicken.

And now they’re drunk. The conversation has, perhaps inevitably, turned to the ongoing bet.

“I tried everything!” Parker wails. “I laughed at every joke, I touched my hair constantly, I got him talking about things he likes.” She thunks her forehead on the bar. “All that happened is now I know the complete history of orcs in western literature.”

“Hardison wouldn’t know flirting if it pinched him on the ass,” Eliot grumbles.

Parker slaps his arm. “No pinching Hardison!”

“I’m not going to—I don’t pinch people!”

Parker’s ignoring him. Eliot pouts and takes another sip of his drink. He’s not entirely sure what this one is––it’s blue and kind of fizzy, that’s all he can say for sure. Parker took over the drinks menu several glasses ago, and she’s been picking them based on what has the most fun name to say. Eliot’s pretty sure the alcohol content’s been doubling with each order.

“Eliot,” Parker slurs, “we need to work together.”

“What?”

Parker lifts her head from the bar and frowns at him, the way she does when she’s figured out the obvious solution and is just waiting for everyone else to get on the same page. It’s adorable. It’s always adorable, but right now her eyes are wide and slightly unfocused from the alcohol and she’s listing sideways a little, almost as if she’s unbalanced, and it is the most adorable thing Eliot has ever seen. Parker’s never unbalanced, but some part of Eliot’s fuzzy brain thinks she’s about to fall on top of him and cannot wait to catch her.

“You can’t seduce Hardison,” Parker points out. Eliot is drunk enough to get offended by this, but too drunk to get out a complaint before she continues, “I can’t seduce Hardison. But if we work together, the two of us can definitely seduce Hardison. Together.”

Eliot stares at her. Then he takes another sip of his fizzy blue drink. Later, when questioned, he will blame his next words on that drink.

“Worth a shot.”

They take Hardison to a movie. They research for three weeks beforehand. They find the best movie theater in town, with the nicest seats, the biggest screens, and concession snacks that Hardison likes, and they buy tickets for the midnight premiere of the superhero movie that Hardison hasn’t shut up about for the past month. Parker even hacks into the theater’s computers in a last-minute fit of nerves and cross-references the credit cards with drivers’ licenses to make sure the people sitting in front of them won’t be too tall.

Parker witnesses a kidnapping in the parking lot while the boys are getting popcorn. They don’t even stay long enough to catch the commercials.

+ 1. “Hey Eliot,” Hardison says during movie night, a little over a week later. “Remember the Ice Man Job?”

Eliot groans. “I try not to.”

Hardison throws a piece of popcorn at his face. “Shut up. Remember how you did your hair for that one? With the little—those little beads on, like, a braid?”

Eliot shoots Hardison a suspicious glance. “Yeah, I remember.”

“Teach me how to do that.”

Eliot shoots Hardison another, more deliberate look, this one pointedly directed at Hardison’s complete lack of braidable locks.

Hardison rolls his eyes as if that’s a silly detail to get hung up on and leans forward to dig around in one of the boxes he has under his coffee table. He emerges with a ziplock bag of plastic beads in no time flat and hands it triumphantly to Eliot. Then he yanks a few cushions out from behind Parker, who’s sitting on his other side, and puts them on the floor in front of him. “Sit here?” he asks Parker, patting the cushion pile.

Parker takes a moment to consider being offended at having her cushions stolen, but curiosity gets the better of her and she just plops down between Hardison’s legs, grabbing the bowl of popcorn as she goes, and waits.

Hardison lifts her hair with sudden gentleness, drawing it over her shoulders and letting it fall down her back in a golden wave. His fingers brush against her neck. Parker shivers. Eliot is distantly aware that he’s gone perfectly still, focused with a hunter’s intensity on Hardison’s dark, graceful fingers carding through Parker’s hair.

Hardison leans back, hands on his knees, and Eliot breathes again. “Well?” Hardison looks over at Eliot, a tiny smirk of challenge on his lips. “Show me how it’s done.”

Eliot is suddenly, brutally aware of how close they are. Hardison’s couch is obscenely comfortable, which is half the reason movie nights are at Hardison’s in the first place, but it is not large. Their thighs are touching. Hardison leans away, to give Eliot access to Parker’s hair, and he’s still so close that Eliot would barely have to reach out a hand to—

Eliot ruthlessly shoves that thought down into the dark where it belongs. He dealt with this, he dealt with this years ago, and accepting Parker’s stupid bet doesn’t mean he’s forgotten the way Hardison and Parker look at each other. It just means he doesn’t mind losing for a good cause.

So he keeps his tone steady and his fingers brisk as he shows Hardison how to braid the clunky plastic beads into Parker’s hair, and if he flushes with heat when their hands brush each other, well, nobody has to know. He’s been trained to withstand eight different schools of torture. It won’t show on his face. His voice never once falters.

Parker has had no such training. Her lips have parted, and her breathing is shallow. She’s staring glassy-eyed at the TV. Hardison can’t see her face, sitting behind her, but Eliot watches her carefully, worried that they need to call this off. Parker’s not used to intimacy, to closeness that means something, and for all the three of them have spent half their movie nights literally on top of each other, this is something else. This has weight.

Eliot puts a hand on her shoulder, pressing down just enough that Parker startles and cants a glance over at him. Eliot raises his eyebrows in question, and Parker glares back: don’t you fucking dare. Eliot backs off. Hardison, frowning in concentration as he threads a wisp of Parker’s hair through a green bead, graciously pretends he didn’t see the exchange.

Hardison gets the hang of the beading fairly quickly, and Eliot shows him a few different techniques. He’s almost managed to convince himself that nothing is actually happening when Hardison says, conversationally, “You two are really bad at this.”

Eliot glowers his confusion. “At movie night? You started this, if you wanted to actually watch Alien then you shouldn’t have—”

Hardison’s smile is soft, but Eliot decides for his own safety to focus on the laughter at its edge. “No, at this.” And then he slides his hand onto Parker’s neck, caresses her cheek, and isn’t the slightest bit surprised when she gasps.

Parker whips around, and there’s hurt on her face but it dies in the glow of Hardison’s gentle, unteasing smile. Hardison pulls her up with the lightest of touches, and she goes, eyes fixed on his like salvation.

They kiss sweet and slow, and Eliot’s heart twists in his chest and he can’t breathe. He needs to leave now before he shatters in half, but if he moves then they will look at him, and he would rather never breathe again than meet their eyes right now.

Hardison breaks off the kiss, gazing at Parker with something just this side of wonder, and then he does look at Eliot. Eliot flinches. He opens his mouth to…say something, make some joke or hasty excuse and scramble out the door, but Hardison raises a hand to Eliot’s face, slides his long fingers to cup Eliot’s neck, and pulls him forward, as gently as he did Parker.

It’s a chaste kiss, no more than a soft press of lips, because Eliot is too stunned to respond and Hardison doesn’t push. It lasts a long time. A whole era of change happens in the span of that kiss, as everything Eliot thought he knew tears out of place and then settles, gingerly, into a new understanding.

Hardison pulls away, his hand still warm on the back of Eliot’s neck. His smile is pure sunshine. Eliot finds himself smiling back, helpless.

Hardison’s grin turns smug. “And that,” he says, looking between Eliot and Parker, “is how you do it. Y’all are disasters, honestly, I can’t believe two master criminals working together couldn’t manage a single real date—”

Eliot heaves a deep sigh and drags Hardison into a headlock, pinning his arms when he flails. Parker surges to her knees and starts tickling him mercilessly.

They don’t finish the movie.

#finx writes #I didn't quite get Eliot's hair in there but I hope this works anyway #leverage #leverage fic #leverage ot3

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vostokovasmelina · 3 years ago

Text

— 𝐀𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐌𝐄𝐍𝐓 𝟑𝐂. (𝐬.𝐰.)

𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐢𝐢 | 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐢 | 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐲𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭

characters: fem!reader; sam wilson; archibald the tabby cat; sarah wilson

word count: 3.1k+

warning: mentions and descriptions of alcohol, death, grief, trauma, therapy, depression – i call this post-snap realism

series summary: after the blip, sam wilson gets home to an unpleasant surprise - his key doesn’t fit the lock anymore and his apartment is now inhabited by a stranger and a grumpy feline. however, the unusual encounter is only the beginning of their post-blip lives and the reader soon learns that what life takes away, it can give back in the most particular ways.

a/n: the ending is a dark unedited mess, so proceed with caution

Taking a cautious sip of your hot beverage, you watched this absolute gatecrasher of a man trying to make up his mind about whatever he was so confused about – Sam kept looking all around your apartment as if searching for something he had left there, his slightly lost and disoriented expression sending a sudden wave of guilt rushing over you. Now that you thought about it, it really must have sucked absolute cheese for him to come home hoping he could finally have that huge cup of strong black coffee he had been anticipating ever since having defeated that enormous purple bastard from Outer Space, only to find that his coffee machine was long gone and now this random lady with a philodendron problem and a judgmental cat were inhabiting the place with absolutely no room left for him whatsoever. It did sound tragic when you put it that way.

However, it really wasn’t your fault that you had needed to find a brand new residence approximately five years before. He really should have checked in with someone to make sure he still had somewhere to go home to. You were quite clearly the real victim here. And Lord only knew how poor Archie was going to process all the excitement of the day.

For a few seconds, you contemplated whether or not to put your thoughts into words, and eventually decided against it for the time being. The man had just helped save the world a few days before, after all, and out of what? Good conscience? Personally not for you, but you could appreciate it in others. And it would have been a real shame to die right when your fan-favourite succulents and killer new posting schedule had been attracting more Instagram followers than ever before. Thanks to the savior complex flaming inside of the gentleman standing before you though, the regular civilian had luckily escaped such terrible hardships. And special thanks to approximately a thousand and one other superheroes. Oh, and to an African country filled with similarly public-spirited people.

For a few awkwardly long seconds neither of you said a word. Sam kept looking around and you watched him look around, slowly lowering your mug onto the table and tilting your head slightly to the left. Weird how Sarah had never mentioned the brother believed to be dead for the last five years was this handsome. It is unfair, really. Some people are just naturally gorgeous no matter the shitty kitchen lighting, that tiny confused frown that had been sitting on their face for the last half hour, or those shiny black bugs for eyes tearing up ever so slightly to snitch on a long repressed yawn.

“Now that the drama is over and the Avengers as such are non-existent – have you considered a career in modeling yet?”

Sam snapped his head towards you with such force and speed that for a moment you were afraid you’d have to spend the rest of the afternoon sewing it back on his neck. You grabbed your mug still pretty much filled to the brim with tea and raised it back up to your mouth to hide your lingering half-smile behind a faded portrait of baby Archie on the ivory porcelain.

“Just saying, I would buy anything for this face on the package alone,” you continued with the confidence of a woman who hasn’t got a single drop of shame left in her body. But it was fine ‘cos you didn’t actually mean it, right? It was all just a joke, an attempt at lightening the mood and snapping him out of his puzzled melancholy. And that tiny flutter of your heart upon hearing Sam’s perfect little chuckle was but a momentary malfunction of the organ. The incident was purely physiological. No contribution from any emotional factors. It was simply an innocent coincidence that these two, completely unrelated things had co-occured.

So when your gazes met, you didn’t tear yours away in embarrassment – you stood your ground, completely unaffected and unbothered, ignoring the increasingly hot sensation in your cheeks when you saw Sam raise a cheeky eyebrow at you. Before even more damage could have been done, however, you decided to cut the party short.

“Oh, no. Don’t get your hopes up, Birdman. I simply couldn’t keep watching you in your deeply disturbed state.”

Very, very smooth. Cleared of all suspicion. Good job.

“Wow. Okay. That was cruel,” Sam scoffed and gave emphasis to his words by bringing up his right palm dramatically to his chest, right above his now most definitely broken heart. The overall effect got ruined by an annoyingly goofy grin in the end and before you even realised, you had already reached out for your massive mug again to drown your own erupting smile in the hot liquid.

In the silence that followed, however, you saw Sam’s smile fall ever so slightly, as if exhaustion or worry were holding onto the corners of his lips, physically tugging them down, and you shifted slightly uncomfortably in your seat. It was time you had stopped messing around with the poor guy.

“Look, I know this is weird but I’m sure we can find a solution. Just call Sarah so she can stop worrying now,” you suggested, finishing your tea and pushing the now empty mug to the middle of the table before leaning back in your seat.

“Ugh, yeah,” Sam started slowly, squatting down to get his mobile and the charger out of his massive sports bag. “Can I plug this in somewhere?”

You blinked at him a couple of times while he waited patiently for your answer. You could only imagine the number of missed calls and unread texts waiting for Sam on his phone, but you decided you didn’t know him enough to give him a lecture on behalf of his sister. So you just gave him a tired nod and gestured lazily towards your battered kitchen counter, Sam following your direction with his gaze.

“Above the microwave. Oh, and the socket farthest to the left–”

“–doesn’t work. I remember.” Sam flashed another exhausted but friendly smirk at you above his shoulder, and you allowed yourself to return the gesture to his back once he wasn’t watching.

“Right, sorry. Forgot I was the intruder here,” you joked, delighted to earn another one of those irritatingly lively chuckles of this man’s.

You seriously needed to get your shit together.

“Okay, while your phone is doing its thing, let’s call Sarah from mine, I guess” you continued, jumping up from your chair the moment Sam returned to the table and you headed towards your worn little couch where you scratched Archie gently behind his right ear. “Where have you put my phone, you dirty old man?” You cooed, smiling softly while sliding your hands under the cheap cushions and booping your irritated cat’s tiny nose when your fingers finally touched the cold metal you had been looking for.

Once seated again, you caught Sam staring at Archie, his eyes slightly narrowed in what appeared to be deep concentration. You furrowed your eyebrows and tilted your head, waiting for your uninvited guest to notice you.

“I don’t think your cat likes me too much,” he finally said, slowly tearing his gaze away from the pet feline’s and looking into your slightly more welcoming human eyes instead.

You chuckled dryly, turning around to see Archie in all his glory on the couch. He simply gave you an unbothered look before completely losing interest in the two of you, and he hopped of the couch, slowly making his way towards your bedroom where you knew he would bundle up under your bed on the cosy carpet. He had apparently decided it was time for his beauty sleep.

“Yeah, he’s like that with everyone. Nothing personal,” you assured Sam, who offered a tired half-smile in return. You cleared your throat gently, eyes fixed on your phone’s screen and fingers already searching for Sarah’s number. Once you had found it, you handed it to Sam whose only job left was to press the call button. You raised your eyebrows at him expectantly and he let out a sigh while reaching out for your mobile.

* * *

It wasn’t like he didn’t want to talk to Sarah. Quite the opposite, actually. But he was embarrassed. Sam knew full well how furious his sister was going to be. And honestly, rightfully so. He couldn’t argue with that. After all, she did say there had been something she wanted to talk to him about. And Sam did hang up on her without a passable excuse. And he did let his phone die on his way back home to Louisiana.

Yeah, he most probably wasn't going to be nominated for this year's Brother of the Year award.

Their last call had happened two days before. Two days is a long time without any news from a brother who had just returned after having been believed to be dead for the past five years. And if you had been to ask him, Sam wouldn’t have been able to tell you what had gotten into him either but ever since the Blip, something had not been exactly right. He couldn’t quite put his finger on what was going on, so he hadn’t brought it up to anyone, but his brain felt slow and foggy as if it hadn't had time to catch up yet.

Sometimes, Sam worried that the molecules in his brain had been mixed up and hadn't been put back into their original places in the process of the whole turning-into-dust-and-back-into-human-form-again thing.

It was a silly thought, yes, but with everything going on in the world, would it really be that hard to believe?

"Hey hon! What's up?" Sam's thought process was cut off by the endearing voice of his sister, and though he was aware all this affection was not directed towards him – given that he had called Sarah on your phone – his heart did swell upon hearing her again.

And then he said hi and it all went south from there.

Sarah was obviously pissed.

She asked Sam if he had any idea how many texts and missed calls she had left him, and no, he had no clue but if he had to guess, the number would have been way high up in the double digits.

Then she started going off on Sam, using different kinds of actually very creative euphemisms – which was a problem because Sam got so distracted by his sister's choice of words that her short, well-thought out rant had very little effect on him, but at least he had enough self-respect left to get his sister off speaker at this point.

"Look, Sarah, I know I messed up but I'm fine! I swear," he started, cutting his sister short while subconsciously picking at the skin around the nail on his index finger with his thumb. "What if I stop by Andy's and tell him to give me their best apple pie?" Sam added, hoping this promise would serve as an ice-breaker. Sarah did love her desserts. A lot. And Andy always gave a discount to the Wilson family, too.

When he heard his sister's tired sigh, Sam's heart gave a hopeful flutter, but he was rudely dragged back onto the ground on his way to cloud nine the very next second.

"I'm doing the shopping at the moment. Just got here and it's gonna take long," Sarah replied, annoyance poking through all her words. Then, the tension that had been dominating the pair's call suddenly seemed to evaporate as Sam sensed a weak shadow of a smile in her following sentence. "But that apple pie does sound good."

Sam couldn't help the grin that creeped its way onto his face and he didn't even care about Sarah's semi-serious threat, saying how they were nowhere near finished yet. He muttered out a quick sorry again, promised Sarah to give her regards to you and finished the call with a charming 'I love you' to which his sister replied with a snarky 'I bet' before hanging up with a promise that she would call again when she got home.

Sam let out a relieved chuckle before handing you back your phone and taking the final sip of his slightly lukewarm coffee, watching your bright red-nailed fingers tap away on the device, and he swallowed harder and probably louder than he had meant to. You just happened to put your phone down the very next second, so he tried to cover up the gulp by clearing his throat and shifting his gaze from your nails to your eyes.

Beautiful eyes.

Well shit.

"So, I guess you're staying," you started hesitantly, raising your eyebrows at Sam in a slightly impatient manner, which snapped him out of his blissful thoughts and thrust him back into reality.

Was he staying? He certainly had nowhere to go now that he was practically homeless and his sister was unable to welcome him in her own home for the next two hours, at least. But then again, you were a complete stranger whose afternoon he had just disrupted, and it didn't matter how weird it felt seeing you be so at home in his apartment because it wasn't his anymore. It was yours and you had all the right to kick Sam out and he had absolutely zero right to argue.

But, thankfully, he didn't have to.

"Which is fine, by the way. I did promise you an explanation, after all." Sam couldn't quite ignore the hint of dread behind your words and he was ready to object, to leave you alone and spend the rest of his afternoon doing God-knows-what, but then you offered him another cup of coffee followed by a tiny but honest smile, and Sam just couldn't bring himself to say no.

* * *

Sam Wilson was ridiculously easy to open up to.

It made you want to commit a crime.

His gaze was so intensely warm that after a while, you were looking at everything in your apartment but him just to avoid accidentally trauma dumping on him, especially when you got to the part about group therapy.

Because you had met Sarah at a group therapy session approximately four and a half years before.

It had been clear from the very first minute that neither of you had actually wanted to be there and that both of you had been forced into this situation. Sarah had been dragged to group by an overly enthusiastic co-worker of hers whose crush on the counselor had been probably more intense than the trauma she had suffered – she had lost a dog and her neighbor to the right whom she had always talked shit about behind his back. She was a nice enough woman, but considering that people had lost actual family in the Snap, her presence had always been mostly aggravating, to say the least.

In your case, it had been your grandmother who had bullied you into going to one of the sessions because 'she had the same rotten mentality when Miss Taylor told her to go but then she found it life-changing'. At this point, you had become so indifferent to everything in the world that you hadn't needed much convincing to go. You had told yourself it would be one session anyway after which you would have told Grandma Ethel that 'therapy was simply not for you' and could have been back to your usual Thursday evening routine consisting of a cheap bottle of red wine and depressing reruns of trashy British reality shows from the late 2000s.

The actual sessions had never worked for you. They might have if you had actually spoken up at any of them but you had never become quite ready to talk about your loss in front of a dozen other people, most of whom you had already known. But then you had met Sarah and something about her had made you feel secure, secure enough to talk about them for the first time, so you had started hanging out at a café not too far from the community center and it had become the best thing in your life.

"And the rest is history," you finished, getting up from your chair to put both yours and Sam's mug in the sink and watered your nearby plants while at it.

"I'm really glad Sarah had someone by her side," Sam commented and you could hear a hint of guilt in his words but you decided to ignore it. You simply nodded and muttered out a weak 'yeah', saying you were just as happy to have found a friend like Sarah.

Then Sam said something that made all the muscles in your body tense up and you froze completely for the next couple of seconds.

"And have you seen your family yet? Now that they've come back?"

It was an innocent question. He doesn't know the whole story. So calm down.

You slowly put down the glass you had used earlier to water your plants and tried with every particle in your body to put on the best toothpaste commercial-worthy smile you could force out of yourself before turning back towards Sam and answering his absolutely understandable question.

"Yeah!" No. "They're doing well, actually!" They're fucking dead.

Sam's genuinely happy smile was way too much to handle and if it hadn't been for a call from Sarah, you would have broken down in tears right in front of him the very next moment.

So instead of all that, you decided to turn right back around, pour yourself a huge glass of cold tapwater and down it in one breath while Sam finished his brief conversation with his sister. The stinging pain in your chest that followed was enough to distract your thoughts until he was finally at the door, saying goodbye and thanking your for the coffee and saying sorry for intruding and taking absolutely way too fucking long to finally leave.

"Hey, um... I could give you my number? If you ever need anything or..."

He can't be serious.

"Sure! You can, ugh, put it in my phone," you replied, your hands shaking dangerously as you reached into your back pocket for your mobile and handed it to Sam, who knew better than to comment on it.

Once finished, he returned your phone with one of those irritatingly joyful smiles of his and with a final 'see you around' Sam Wilson was off and you proudly patted yourself on the back for successfully holding it together until you finally reached your couch.

* * *

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@remusflirts

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#sam wilson #sam wilson x reader #sam wilson imagine #sam wilson headcanon #the falcon #the falcon x reader #captain america #captain america x reader #the falcon and the winter soldier #tfatws #tfatws imagine #mcu #mcu imagine #mcu mini series #mcu reader insert #marvel #marvel imagine #marvel reader insert #sarah wilson

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st-just · 4 years ago

Text

Wherein I shill for a 9 year old RPG

At the request of @lifeattomsdiner Answering this as a proper post, because I have yet to figure out quite how to do formatting in the chat box. Sorry about that.

But, okay, concession first: The game could absolutely have used another 6 months in development. They re-use the same, like, 5 maps for 80% of the game’s quests, the entirety of act 3 is just a mess, thematically, and, well, I don’t consider it a problem, but if you liked Origins the whole aesthetic of the game is much more stylized and 4-color.

That said – so, the central contradiction of Bioware games (or at least the Dragon Age and Mass Effect series, Anthem is just a whole other mess) is that they’ve got a studio of really excellent character writers, and are clearly very good at making likeable, engaging characters with personal dramas you get invested in and endearing interactions with each other, but for some reason they insist on every game being based around the most cookie-cutter, boring, ‘save the world/galaxy/kingdom/colony from the unending hordes of [space] orks and their [space] demonic masters! You are our only hoped, poorly justified PC messiah!” generic map fantasy/space opera plot imaginable. Dragon Age 2 is the only time they actually ratchet back the stakes a bit, and tell a story about literally anything else .

(Similarly, Mass Effect 2 is the best Mass Effect game because, while the ‘save humanity’ plot is terrible garbage, it’s also pretty ignorable and the majority of the game’s run time is (mostly, sorry Jacob) really well done character-focused stories.)

Specifically, it’s about the rags-to-riches-to-who-the-fuck-knows story of Hawke, their relationships with their companions, and the past and future of Kirkwall the city. And, like, calling it an actual tragedy is absolutely overselling it, but it’s not so much of a straightforward power fantasy, either? Hawke is exceptionally good at doing violence to things and saying terrible one liners, but they’re no Savior or Chosen One, so at the end of the day they’re covered in blood and beloved by half the city as everything burns down around them. That, to me, is interesting, far moreso than the standard save-the-world plot, anyway.

Getting a bit more specific – I know that quite a lot of people like a protagonist whose a total blank slate in these sorts of games, but generally speaking I do like a main character who has, well, character, and Hawke delivers that far better than either the full blank-slate protag or Origins or the miserable bland middle ground in Inquisition. Or, well, properly they have three characters – there’s generally three possible responses in any dialogue prompt, diplomatic/righteous, snarky/charming and aggressive/intimidating, which does helpfully signpost what tone your response is going to be read in when you choose it. And the game does actually keep track of which you choose most often, which can determine the lines spoken in cut scenes and, well, I have admittedly only ever played as sarcastic asshole, but if you commit to it you occasionally get fun little monologues like this.

youtube

But really, it’s a Bioware game, the real draw are the companions. And it’s, like, 60% just that the framing device is ‘10 years starting out as a refugee in a fucked up cesspit of a city’ and not ‘chosen one on a desperate quest to save the world’, but they really do seem much more their own people who happen to have close relationships to Hawke, and not adjuncts or subordinates or aides on her Epic Quest. They help you get rich or deal with a political crisis, and you help them deal with their ill advised blood magic experimentation, or with the agents of the slaver lord trying to drag them back in chains, or in one case do their job so they can use their evening patrol to flirt with a coworker. Or you don’t – the game does absolutely let you be a massive piece of shit and sell companions into de facto slavery on at least two occasions. But it also avoids the problem where you basically have to go along with your friends terrible ideas or you’re locking yourself out of content – you can be Friends with your companions, but you can bottom out approval and keep going down to be Rivals instead. (This goes for romance as well, and I think DA2 might be the only big-budget game ever made with a whole mechanic for hatesex). There’s also a lot of banter between companions when you’re just walking around the city, so much so that I usually end up cycling through every possibly combination to have with me as I walk around every act to make sure I’m not missing out on any (it’s often really funny, too)

Beyond that, well, minor things – the combat’s divisive, but I really do enjoy it, playing as a mage anyway (though difficulty spikes like 1000% when you switch up to the setting that enables friendly fire). The outfits and aesthetic are exagerated and silly, but I like the look, and at least the rogue with a V-neck going down to their navel is a guy for once. It’s not especially elegant or anything, but I maintain ‘just make all* the romance options bi’ is a better solution than anything Bioware has come up with before or since. The voice acting’s uniformly extremely good. And the loading screens are very, very pretty.

So, in conclusion, I want to replay the game now. Can’t wait for my new laptop to arrive.

#lifeattomsdiner #dragon age 2 #video games #dragon age #in this essay I will #bioware #this is theoretically a writing blog

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nachohypno · 4 years ago

Text

Nate and Dave Ch. 13

Didn’t take long for us to leave the shopping street. We did take a few pictures together, mostly for storing. Dave is pretty photogenic and looks great in all of them (He even wanted to take his tank top off for a few! But I assumed that would attract unwanted stares. Silly old Dave...)

We left our bags at the back seat and drove off towards Dave’s house. Something I always liked about living in a town: Everything is close, and yet, a car never seems a bad idea. Maybe my ass is just lazy, but I enjoy relaxing next to Dave as my werewolf boyfriend just drives us safely towards our destination.

“I forgot to ask… Are your parents home?” I like Mr. and Ms. Walker! I really do! But there’s so many things you can do when a couple of werewolves with heightened senses are in the house with you. I have a feeling that they can hear every single sound in the house.

And that’s not really fun. I don’t think it’s intentional though, but it’s pretty hard to have a heart-to-heart moment when you think everyone is listening to you.

“Nuh-uh.” Dave mumbled, as he parked outside his garage. “Pop’s working during the evening, comes back by the time we’d be out of school, so we have quite a few hours before our private time is over. Mom’s out with some of her friends I guess, she doesn’t like spending much time ‘locked away’.”

“So, you really want to have a pool day? We’re a month or so away from Winter, big guy.” Not intending to sound like a party pooper. The day was nice and you can survive without a jacket, but I don’t think I’ll be going into the pool. Catching a cold isn’t something I look forward to.

“I’m always up for some swimmin’, but get what ya mean, bruh.” He turned off the engine and looked at me. “You can relax by the pool, and if things get really cold we can just go to my room and warm ya up!”

We entered the house. I couldn’t hear a single sound inside, which was a comforting thing.

“Lose the clothes! Lose the clothes! Lose the clothes!” Dave started chanting, as he stripped in front of me as fast as he could, soon standing naked in the middle of the living room.

I always liked how easily he loses his clothes at every chance he gets. Maybe he likes having his built body at full display for others to admire? I mean, who wouldn’t admire him?

The meaty pecs are not too big, but not exactly small either. His 6-pack abs are perfectly aligned and seem ready to take a few punches, breaking your hand in the process.

His cock was hard, of course. His cock was always hard when he’s naked, like an automatic thing.

He seems like a 15 years old with those levels of horniness, and yet he makes such a great job holding himself back instead of suggesting to have sex everyday. I don’t know if he jerks off though, maybe he’s just happy to see me.

“I… prefer to stay clothed?” Such a party pooper, I know, but I’d rather not worry my mom with getting sick because I want to seem cool for my boyfriend. I’ll get naked in the bedroom, but the pool seems out of the question right now.

Dave frowned. “Still worrying about gettin’ cold? Wait here and strip, I’ll get ya a solution, bruh.” He raced upstairs, our bags in hand. I loved how the locket dangled in between his pecs, such a cool detail.

I did as told though, not because he told me to but because I was curious. And a little part of me didn’t want to be lame. That train is gone now, though, right?

I waited for my puppy boy, as I started feeling the cold getting to me. It wasn’t bad, but not exactly the most pleasant thing in the world. I stayed in my boxers, because I wasn’t looking forward to the air invading my ass.

A minute later or so, the jock dashed down the stairs with his varsity jacket on one arm, and a pair of towels on the other. He was already wearing his speedo, but it failed to hide anything due to his hard on.

“Uhm… Could you go soft like… down there?” I asked, trying to sound as nice as possible. Perks of having a werewolf soulmate, apparently everything you say sounds always as nice as possible, Dave is just happy to comply with everything that I may want or need.

Including controlling his body functions, like how his dick just got soft all of a sudden and the speedo looked a bit less revealing. Still, it fitted him quite well.

“Not gonna swim, right?” Dave asked, giving me a finger gun. I shook my head, before laying a towel on the ground and just laying down. “A’ight, watch these moves then, bruh!”

He jumped in the pool with a cannonball, making a big splash, before giving me a thumbs up and smiling. I clapped a lot, to show him some enthusiasm before he sank back down and started doing laps. I rolled my eyes, and started scrolling through my phone.

--------

Dave pulled himself out of the pool after finishing another set of laps, and started drying himself off like a dog: Shaking it off.

I covered myself with his jacket, and I heard him chuckle. “Water’s so nice today, bruh. You should give it a try!”

“Are you really not cold? It’s okay if you are… We can do something else instead.” I knew he wasn’t but I was worried about him.

“Chill out, my body’s as warm as a lighted chimney.” He finished drying himself off with a towel and sat beside me on the stone floor. “Us werewolves can take some really cold temperatures, especially while wearing our fur, babe.”

Huh, that awakened my curiosity!

“So… everyone in your family is a werewolf?” I asked, reaching out for my phone. I had to write this down or otherwise I would forget about it! I had made a special text file for my research on Dave’s… wolfiness.

As soon as I get some juicy new information, I write it down to satisfy my inner nerd. Never thought I would be so invested in investigating a supernatural creature, but yet again, I never thought I’d have a werewolf as my soulmate!

“Uh… not quite?. Like, I think there’s a fifty percent chance if one of the two is a normal person, but we don’t really care about that. It’s not like it’s a super important thing to have a werewolf son.” He tried to explain, putting on his sunglasses again and sitting beside me. “It is pretty important for my pops but between you and me, he’s just kinda racist.”

My fingers tapped the screen as I heard everything Dave had to say. I mean, not the part about his dad, but the werewolves’ children having a fifty percent chance to inherit lycanthropy.

“But,” He resumed his explanation. “Most of my family is a werewolf, maybe there’s just one or two not werewolves out there? There are a lot of Walkers, that’s for sure. Not sayin’ we mate like bunnies but… I do have a lot o’ cousins.”

“Any siblings?” I asked, but he shook his head in denial.

“Nope. I’m an only son, bruh. I always thought it was because I’m an alpha, and dad says I got the jackpot with that rank. Heheh.” A smug look on his face, he flexed his arms while pointing to himself with his head high. The guy was trying to seem narcissistic or he was really proud of himself.

He looked cute anyway. The speedo was holding his now-soft cock perfectly, and you could see his shape through it. Muscles in all the right places… the guy looked like a really little hulk. Just… human-like, and not green.

I took my eyes off him for a few seconds to finish writing this line at my notepad. ‘Werewolves seem to mate and reproduce themselves quite frequently, but it varies on a subject vasis.’

“Hey nerd, drop the phone.” Dave said, in a commanding tone. I definitely wasn’t expecting it, but I looked at him again and he seemed a bit annoyed. Maybe because I wasn’t giving him much attention? He wasn’t flexing anymore, then he started walking closer.

I tapped my way to the ‘Save’ button before leaving my phone next to me. “Uh… sure thing? What’s with the attitude?”

The puppy boy didn’t stop to answer, but instead got next to me and grabbed my hips in a swift move. Supernatural speed or reflexes, whatever you want to call it, I loved it. “Just enjoy it, babe…” He mumbled, before leaning in for a kiss. I closed my eyes as I kissed him back, and could feel my body being lifted from the nice towel on the grass.

His warm skin against my naked chest, only protected by his varsity jacket. A few seconds afterward, the varsity jacket was off. The locket necklace was cold, but I didn’t mind. I just enjoyed the moment, just like he said.

Dave was walking, but the kiss distracted me. My mistake was closing my eyes, because I didn’t see his prank coming.

“One… two…” He started to swing me towards the pool. I opened my eyes as soon as he started counting, but I only managed to say a surprised “Dave-!” before he interrupted me.

“Three!” SPLASH. I fell in the water. The cold water, but my body was quickly getting used to it. I stayed underwater for a few more seconds to fully embrace the cold temperature, I knew that I would shiver a bit less if I did that.

I had my eyes closed once again, because I never got used to my eyes touching water, but I did feel the water movement as Dave jumped right after me.

I swam back to the surface. I’m not a good swimmer, but this area of the pool wasn’t that deep so I could touch the bottom with my feet and keep myself up with small jumps.

“Hey, hey. I got’cha now…” Dave mumbled, catching me in his arms and keeping me from jumping. I hugged him as tightly as I could. His body was still warm, so it felt really good. Like some kind of underwater stove.

“T-Thanks, big guy…” I managed to say. I would have loved to avoid seeming a weakling, but even with Dave’s hot body, I still felt myself getting colder the longer I was in the pool.

Pulling me closer, he leaned in for a good make out session which I really appreciated. I wrapped my legs around his waist and we stayed like that for a good while.

...Until the coldness was too much for me, that is. There’s a little line between ‘being a party-pooper’ and ‘my body can’t hold this temperature anymore’. The wind wasn’t making it any easier, making me feel colder at every part that stood out of the water.

“D-D-Dave… Let’s head... back in, okay?” I managed to say, holding him close. The jock nodded, and swam over to the edge of the pool, making sure to keep me as close as possible.

Once we were out, I reached out for the towel I was laying on a while before. Dave was shaking the water off him like a puppy boy would do, so he was okay in that part. Then, I noticed him getting zoned out again as the fur on his body started to grow.

‘Oh, geez, I love this part!’ I thought, noticing a tail appearing behind him and his muscles growing with the yellow-ish/brown fur on his skin.

His human head morphed into a humanoid wolf one, two little fangs sticking out of his dog snout with a little black spot appearing where his nose was. His hands grew paw pads and claws, before finishing the transformation with a howl after going out of his self-induced trance.

I kept drying myself with the towel, hoping to get warmer with that, but then the puppy boy tackled me. I managed to grab my phone from the ground as he said “Don’t ya worry, my love. Gonna take good care of you…” before picking me up and dashing inside. He was already warm before, but his fur was really comfortable and helping out with the cold.

A few minutes later, the big guy entered his room with me on his arms. I felt like those couples on tv, being carried by my big and strong boyfriend towards his bed. Dave gently left me on top of it and then laid down next to me. A tight hug afterwards, I could feel the coldness fading away as a very comfortable warm invaded my body.

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Dave’s POV

Nate fell asleep in my arms. His shivering stopped, and he was warm again.

I sighed, such a dumb move I’ve made. But hey, gettin’ to werewolf form to warm him up was pretty smart, right?

Reluctantly, I pulled away from him and tried to get up from my bed. Any other day I would love to do this, he’s my soulmate! Weeks after noticing him, I still couldn’t believe it. I’m supposed to make him happy and safe, fuck.

I grabbed the bedsheets and made sure Nate was well-covered in them. ‘Only the best for my boyfriend’ I thought. I shivered the bit at the thought of having a ‘boyfriend’, but that’s what he is. A guy. THE guy, the one I love the most in the world.

Magic can be quite funny, huh. How a soulmate can turn my whole world upside down. I would be beatin’ the heck outta this guy if he ever implied that we’re meant to each other. And now I fell in love with a guy. Karma’s a bitch, some say.

The sight of Nate being so comfortable in his sleep, not shivering anymore, just happily dozed off, it pushed all the buttons for me. He had to be happy, I had to make sure of that. I want to be a good soulmate for the guy I love.

Looked down at my hands, I noticed I was still in werewolf form. Mom hates when we go werewolf while we’re at the house, because the fur gets all over the floor sometimes. She’s not home though, so I can do whatever I want.

Nate’s phone was firmly held by his owner. He had all that investigation thing in there, so I guess that’s why. I knew he wanted to know more about me and my lycanthropy, and I was honored to help him! He wanted to try and understand me more? He’s the best!

I rubbed my hairy wolf head, what to do now? Should I wait for him to wake up?

I mean, I’d love to spend time just cuddling with him, but I kinda feel guilty for pulling him into the pool like that. Gonna start listening to him if I want to stop fucking up.

Nate’s really nice to me, and never tells me I fuck up, but there’s always that little possibility I actually fuck up our dates quite often and he just never tells me, and I love him too much to hurt him in any way.

That’s also why I’ve been trying to control my strength, too! Our first days together, I almost crushed the guy down with my weight, but after some practice I managed to keep myself at bay to make sure he’s comfortable with me around!

I clenched my fist and threw a punch to the air. A little unfamiliar ‘cling cling’ sounded as I did so, the locket. Watching it filled me with joy and a warm feeling. It’s like I carry a little reminder that I’m Nate’s soulmate.

A puppy boy, always ready to please my owner in any way possible.

My own words, the ones I wrote on the little note inside the locket, resonated through my mind. “My heart, body and mind belongs to my lovely soulmate Nate Hall.” Followed by my signature. It was cheesy, and maybe a try hard-ish thing for my taste, but it was the truth. Nate was my owner and I was his puppy boy.

I held the metal thing tightly in my hand, before letting it go and turning around, heading out of my room. Empty house, still plenty of time to have fun.

I had to walk in tiptoes, because my heavy footsteps may wake up my boyfriend. I could just change back into human form, but I felt stronger and faster while in werewolf form. Any excuse I have to use it will be great.

Out on the corridor, I looked for the attic trapdoor’s handle on the ceiling. The attic is a pretty dirty and dark place, we just use it as storage. So, I assumed mom and pops would store their family treasures or memories. Boxes filled with old books, photo albums, letters and other trash.

Somewhere in those boxes had to be my old copy of the ‘Being a werewolf: How to keep the secret safe and live among the human society.’ book. (Sounds lame, but I ain’t making that up!).

So, time for a good search. I can’t search it by smell, because I would only smell dust and humidity.

My claws made it a bit more harder to search through the boxes without breaking stuff, but I managed to search through quite a few of them pretty quickly. No luck so far.

A box next to a small window had a little ‘Old stuff from Dave’ tag on it. Mom liked to organize stuff, I don’t know why I didn't look for this one to begin with.

I opened the top of the box and began searching through full notebooks filled with gibberish writing from when I didn’t know how to read or write. I was quite the slow learner, according to a few old teachers. Then, there it was.

A brown book, with a wolf doing a thumbs up to me, with silver letters that read ‘Being a werewolf: How to keep the secret safe and live among the human society.’ And a little seal of quality on the bottom of it that said ‘Approved by the supernatural council’. This would make a perfect gift for my nerdy boyfriend.

I decided to look a bit more around that box and other ones, just in case I found more stuff for him, but I’ve been up in the attic for quite some time, apparently.

“Uh… Dave?” A dazed Nate asked, still in my room. I could hear him perfectly, great part of the heightened hearing.

“Comin’ up!” I answered, trying to sound loud enough for him to hear me. Searching for treasures would have to wait, my soulmate needed me.

I left the attic and closed the trapdoor, before running into my room. Another rule, my mom doesn’t like us running in the house because we could break the furniture, but pops always gives me a free pass on that one.

“Need anythin’? I’m so sorry for pushing you in down there, bro…” I tried to apologize, but Nate didn’t seem mad at all. Nor disappointed, he just seemed… comfortable. “If you want me to do something to make it up for you, just say it and I’ll do it. Anything. Oh, wait, got you this book for your investigation...”

I sometimes think I can exaggerate when around Nate, but there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for him. And that’s not poetry, I mean it quite literally.

There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for him.

I gave him the book and Nate examined it carefully. “Being a werewolf… Is there actually a whole guidebook about being a werewolf?” He asked, before leaving it on my night table. I nodded, wondering if he liked it or not.

“Thanks so much! And about before, don’t worry about it.” Nate said, breaking the few seconds of silence. “I mean, I’m not dead so… it was just a fun prank!” Huh, I thought he would actually be mad at me after that. “Hey, c’mere.”

I did as told, while he reached out for my wolf head. I started giving light kicks to the floor as he scratched the back of my ear. There’s no way I can describe the pleasure this gives me. It’s just… the best thing in the world, next to him.

“‘sides, you also brought me up here and warmed me up. I can’t be mad at you for being such a good puppy boy! Who’s a good puppy boy? Huh? Who’s a good puppy boy?”

An urge to answer overwhelmed me. “I am!” I said. “I am a good puppy boy! Woof!”

“Yes, you are! You’re the best puppy boy ever, aren’t you?” He continued, now scratching my neck. My kicks came out a bit stronger now, as the pleasure went up. My cock was already rock hard, this was amazing!

“Yeah! I am your puppy boy, bruh! Woof, woof!” My urge to bark wasn’t a new thing, either. It was like my animal instinct and my human mind were at a bit of a struggle right now. I didn’t care though, Nate’s happiness was the thing that mattered the most to me right now.

“Come up on the bed, we’re gonna have some puppy fun, right puppy boy?”

I nodded excitedly, before climbing my bed. I loved how small Nate looked when on my bed. Probably because I’m way bigger than him, and the bed was actually made to fit my werewolf form on it.

“Also… could you just… zone out for a bit? You know, like we’ve practiced, puppy boy.”

No time to think, though. Had to obey.

If Nate was the center of my world before, then he just became the center of my universe as my mind emptied from every thought that didn’t involve obeying him.

Nate was my soulmate, my owner, the most important person in my life without a doubt. And I was just a simple puppy boy jock.

“My heart, body and mind belongs to my lovely soulmate Nate Hall.” Those words resonated again in my mind, this time stronger, as Nate pulled his wet underwear off. “Take off your speedo, puppy boy.” He ordered.

I was smiling, and my tongue was lolling out. I obeyed his order without a single doubt in my mind. Pure bliss by just obeying my soulmate was a great thing. Nate moved me like a ragdoll, having one of my hands wrapped around his cock and the other around mine. “Now, start jerking us off.”

It was an honor for me. My owner wanted me to jerk him off! I couldn’t disappoint him!

I did my best, trying to control my strength well enough so he could enjoy it without pain. I replicated my own moves on my cock, pleasuring myself as well. Nate was just laying there, eyes closed and arms behind his back. He moaned from time to time.

While we already went through the ‘fucking’ stage, I never knew if Nate enjoyed it as much as I did. We never did it again, so it’s hard to know.

But hey, any moment with my soulmate is an amazing one!

I kept stroking him for quite a while, not minding anything but focusing on bringing him pleasure. My own pleasure was another thing, but he included it in his order so I had to pleasure myself too!

Then, he pushed my hand off and grabbed me by the locket. “That’s enough for now, let’s just cuddle together, all right?”

My answer was a bit of panting, as I did as he suggested and wrapped him in my arms. I hoped my fur warmed him a lot more, after the shitty move I pulled before.

“I love you, puppy boy. You’re the best and only puppy boy in the world for me...” A little yawn as he laid on my pecs.

I smiled, feeling myself blush a bit but it would have been not distinguishable at all due to the fur in my face. This was one of the few times that I had to fight against the influence of being ‘zoned out’, not for a bad reason, but because I wanted to answer him.

“I… love you… too, my love…” I managed to say, quite happy but still a bit unemotional. Eh, did my best there, and Nate seemed happier, since he hugged me tighter.

“Let’s just nap for a while… Okay?” I don’t know if that was an order, but I almost immediately dozed off.

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Chapter 14 is already available in my Patreon! And by pledging you also get access to other stories before they go public!

#nate and dave #mind control #werewolf #brainwashing #brainwash #straight to gay #gay hypnosis #hypnotized

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give-jack-a-lightsaber · 5 years ago

Text

Inner Kid (1) (Team Flash x Reader)

My fanfiction number 2 omg 😭 I had this on my notes for like a year and I could finally finished it. I hope you guys like it! Super open to corrections and opinions💜💜 just be nice, I’m doing this as a hobby!

I had to split this one on two parts because it’s really long so I’ll probably upload the second part on this following days!

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A loud explosion coming from Cisco’s lab followed by flickering lights draw the attention of everyone in the Cortex.

“What in the world…” muttered Joe running with the others to find out the source.

The thick dark grey smoke was everywhere in the room. They can only hear the coughing coming from… somewhere.

“Cisco? Y/N? It’s everything alright?” asked Barry spotting Cisco in a chair with a pair of googles on and a stunned face. “Hey dude, what the hell happened?”

“I was running some tests with Y/N and one of the other machines started on it’s own and then… boom” said Cisco still processiong the situation, until… “Oh my god, Y/N” he said after a few seconds.

Just when everyone was pulled out of the shock they heard a cough and a little sneeze. Caitlin slowly approached the spot from when the sound came, she started crouching when a gasp found a way out of her mouth.

Standing up with her back to the team she slowly turn around with a confused face and a little girl in her arms, covered in the smoke residues, looking at them shyly with her little thumb in her mouth.

“Are we experimenting in kids now?” asked Harry. That seems to shake Cisco out of his trance.

“What-no, oh my god Harry, who do think we are?” said him offended and a little bit disgusted, “we were just Y/N and I in the lab, we made sure of that, like always.”

“What were you even doing?” asked Iris still eyeing the little girl. She seemed familiar.

“I made her a new suit and we were testing it.”

“Well where is it?” asked Barry.

“She was already wearing it” said Cisco looking around the lab for a clue but ending locking eyes with the girl. “Oh my g-OH MY GOD.”

“What?” asked a very confused Ralph.

“That’s the suit” whispered Cisco pointing to the toddler, “she’s wearing it.”

And then understanding fall into everyone. “Oh my god.”

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The Cortex was pure silence. They were expecting the DNA test results but it was really hard to believe that Y/N was now a little kid because that’s impossible, right?

“I have an idea” said Iris suddenly, “let’s look for old photos of Y/N and compare them with the girl.”

“Yeah good idea and after that we can start looking for her because I totally did not turn her into a four years old” Cisco said while tipping your name in the computer.

Meanwhile Caitlin couldn’t belive the results that she had in her hands, staring between them and the kid, now fast sleep in the bed.

Entering the Cortex she encountered the shocked faces of her team staring at a photo on the screens. “Well I guess that confirms it too.”

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An hour later and the discussion of how in the world this happened was still going, a little more chilled than before. They were so concentrated on the talk that when little Y/N entered the room no one notice her.

“Mommy, where is Mango?” she said rubbing the sleep from her eyes. The sweet and small voice startled everyone in the Cortex.

“Hey Y/N/N, do you know who am I?” asked Iris crouching to her eyes level. The only answer she got was a shake ‘no’ of her head.

“Okay, and what about the other people in the room? Do you know any of them?”

Shyly scanning the new faces, little Y/N’s eyes lit up when a familiar feline appears in her sight.

“Mango!” she squeak running towards the screens but stopping abruptly in front of them when she notice that it’s was just a photo. With a confused frown she turns to face the still weird people who are watching her cautiously, “where’s Mango?”

“I think she's talking about the stuffed tiger she's holding in the photo” said Ralph.

“Hey Y/N, we don't know where Mango is” said Barry with apologetic eyes.

Oh boy, you don't say that to a kid and get away with it. Her lips started trembling and her eyes watering.

She was crying in a second and Barry's eyes widened. “Guys!” he call out desperated to stop the girl from crying.

“For God sakes Barry, have you ever dealt with a child before” said Joe picking up the crying girl in his arms. “We need to get Y/N back to normal. And that tiger, now.”

“I'll call Felicity” sighed Cisco snapping a photo of Mango with his phone.

“Why? She's already on her way here” asked Barry.

“Yeah I know, I'll ask her to buy a tiger somewhere before Y/N start crying again” he replied. “Wow that was a really weird thing to say out loud.”

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

“Hello! We're here!” said Felicity entering the Cortex with Oliver behind “and we bring the weirdly specific present too.”

“Thank god” they heard from in front of them. Rounding the main computer table they found Cisco laying flat on the floor with a Star Lab hoodie in his face.

“Cisco what are you doing?” Oliver asked.

“We were playing tag and then hide and seek, I just needed a little break, Y/N is very energetic” he said panting slightly.

“Okay?” said Felicity giving Oliver a confused glance. “Why do you need a stuffed animal by the way.”

Little footsteps and giggles could be heard coming from the next room towards them and then silence.

"For her" said Cisco sitting up just when the door opened and the little girl came running with a water pistol and Joe trailing behind. "Gotcha Cisco!" she giggled and shoot water in his face but stopped when she noticed the two unfamiliar faces staring at her blankly. "Hey Y/N, they are our friends Felicity and Oliver, they have a present for you" he said softly to her. "A present?" her head perked up and eyes widened. "Uh yes, here" said Felicity with an awkward smile giving her the bag. By now the team was out the hiding spots and around the little girl. A tiny gasp left her mouth when she looked inside the bag. "Mango" she whispered. In an instant she was hugging it with a tight grip and head buried in the stuffed animal. Everyone was smiling at the scene until they hear little sobs coming from the sweet girl. "Hey, why are you crying?" asked Oliver crouching next to her with a concerned face. "I-I though h-he was gone like my-y Daddy" she said between hiccups looking up to him with red puffy eyes. ------------ "So, you're telling me that the kiddo is actually Y/N?" asked Felicity eyeing her now in Oliver arms playing with Barry and her tiger. "How that even happened?" "We still don't know, but maybe you could give Cisco a hand? He already feels guilty and two heads think better than one" said Iris. "I'll go too, toddlers are not my thing" said Harry leaving too. "Ollie I'm hungry, can we eat?" Y/N said looking at him with big puppy eyes. "Yeah Ollie, can we?" teased Barry earning a glare from Oliver. "Okay kiddo, what do want?" "Blueberry pie!"

------------ What a sight... Three guys and a little girl in Jitters eating pie, that was new and totally not weird. Oliver was eyeing their surroundings, because a four years old could be sneaky as a league of assassins member, and Barry was lost in thought trying to find a solution. Meanwhile Ralph and Y/N (and Mango of course) were giggling and stuffing their mouths with pie. "Are you sure Mango doesn't want some pie? It's sooo delicious!" asked Ralph playing along with her. "Silly Ralphy, tigers don't like pie! They eat... meat!! Roarrr!" she giggled. "But I tell you a secret, don't tell mommy" said lowering her voice and leaning onto the table. "Mango eats my vegetables" she whispered and covered her mouth to silence her giggling. They continued to play a little more to keep her distracted and she finally ended fast asleep with her head on Barry's lap. "What are you going to do if Cisco can fix this today? Are you aware that you guys have a kid under your care now?" asked Oliver sipping on his coffee. "Yeah I know but I never had to take care of a child before, none of us did, and we can't ask Joe because he's taking care of Cecile and also working" sighed Barry "I hope we find out how to fix this soon." "What about Wally? Still with the Legends?" "Maybe they can go back and prevent this mess" said Ralph slightly rocking the girl now in his arms. "Yeah I learned that messing with time travel it's a very bad idea so hard pass" Barry said throwing a glance towards the sleeping girl that it was not there anymore. "Ralph where Y/N?" "Uh right here, are you blind-oh my god... This is so cool." "What are you saying, Y/N is missing now, it's not cool" "She's not missing, she's right here" said Ralph lifting her little arm on the table and she appeared again in Ralph's arms. "Great now we don't have a toddler to watch, we have a meta-toddler" Barry sighs and drops his head on the table.

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xmxisxforxmaybe · 5 years ago

Text

Decryption_Error: “The Server Room, Part I”

Summary: Elliot is locked in the server room by a few of his colleagues to stop him from ruining their Memorial Day weekend. Y/N, Elliot’s manager, finds him and comes up with a solution to fix the broken servers, but because of Elliot’s injuries and his refusal to go to a hospital, Y/N makes him stay at her place for the long weekend. As Elliot and Y/N bond for the first time outside of work, something a little more than friendship starts to emerge.

Summary/Mood Board

Word Count: 5800

Disclaimer: I know 0 things about technology and want to cry real tears for making my narrator Elliot’s boss. I sincerely apologize to anyone I offend for my whack tech references--please let me know if you need me to fix something because it’s awful and I will credit you for saving me some embarrassment!

Tags: @sherlollydramoine @rami-malek-trash @teamwolf2411 @thingsfandom @limabein @lovie-rami @txmel @hopplessdreamer @ouatlovr

Warnings: Physical injuries/blood, language, **=heavily paraphrased from a monologue on Robot

Author’s Note: I won’t be able to update this story as quickly as Remnants because my life is about to get crazy busy. However, I will do my best so y’all don’t lose interest : ) Special shoutout to @alottanothing for helping me get this story organized and underway! Thanks for being my cheerleader 💕

For fuck’s sake! I thought as I changed out of my swimsuit and into a pair of shorts and a t-shirt, shoving my still wet feet into a pair of sandals.

I had made it to my family’s place for Memorial Day weekend for the first time in years only to be called back to work because something happened to the servers. My boss, Miles, was out of town like everyone else in the goddamn city, and he trusted me as the Senior Manager to handle the situation.

CIStech Cybersecurity had been my life for the past four years. Starting as an Analyst really fostered my affinity for data and subsequently put me on the fast-track to become management. I liked working hard, and when I first started at CIStech, I would be mystified when I realized it was 10 pm, everyone had gone home, and I had skipped dinner (again) because I was 5,000 clicks deep into testing a contingency plan I created for scenario 11/1,000 in the event of a security breach.

My relationship with my job was complex--I knew I worked too much, but I needed those long days to help quell my anxiety; data gave me a focus and helped me make sense of a world that seemed to be drifting further and further into shades of grey, a place where evil and good barely served as separate entities anymore.

This long weekend was an important test for me—I needed to prove to myself that I could step away from the office and the world wouldn’t end, nor would my mental stability.

Except that I did step away from the office and the world did end—sort of. So much for convincing my brain that taking time off was a good thing.

For the first three quarters of the drive into the city, I had gone over about 30 scenarios in my mind and just as I was about to drive myself crazy, I shook my head and cranked up the music. There was only so much I could mentally prep for until I knew whether the problem was physical or within the network.

Because everyone in the city had fled to escape the rising humidity, I was able to park on a side street about a half of a block from work. I swiped my badge to get into the lobby of CNC Precision Machining, our host company, then said a quick hello to the head of night security, Lance. I swiped my badge again to activate the elevator, and as I rode up to the 18th floor, my anxiety curled into a lead ball and made itself at home in my stomach. Something did not feel right, and I almost, almost went back downstairs to ask Lance to radio a guard.

But, how often do we actually act on our anxiousness? For me, I had to talk myself out of so many horrors a day that I always felt silly when I gave in to whatever idea had made itself at home in my mind.

I talked myself down, thinking, It’s almost 11 pm, and all I have to do is check the servers. Maybe one of the fans broke. Maybe a plug fell out. I can fix it and still get back to Mom and Dad’s by 2.

Once again, I swiped my badge. I entered CIStech’s wing, but as I opened the door to the cybersecurity offices and turned to deactivate the alarm, I saw it had never been set. My mouth fell open, and again the idea of turning back flitted through my mind, except being pissed overtook my apprehension.

Whoever was the last to leave was getting a letter of reprimand. Sure, the building itself was secure, but to not set the alarm in a company’s tech security office? Inexcusable.

Since I was now fuming, the unset alarm compounding with my ire over my ruined start to the weekend, I grumbled away my nagging thoughts as I quickly walked to the server room, swiped my badge and scanned my fingerprint to open the door.

The harsh lights were on an automatic switch, so they popped to life as I stepped a few inches into the room; however, the crunch of plastic and the popping of glass made me stop, one foot poised in the air as I looked down to see what I stepped on.

The remnants of a server, or more than one server, were littered across the ground, and as I scanned for the source of the damage, the last thing I expected to find was a body. Immediately, my mind wondered if this was a trap, and then I wondered if the body was even alive.

My voice emitted a sort of strangled groan which caused the body on the floor to move—and when I saw that it wasn’t just a random body, my heart sank.

It was Elliot, my employee and my friend.

***Eight Months Ago***

“Next up is Elliot Alderson. Recent grad. Bachelor’s in Computer Engineering from Stevens Institute of Tech. This is the guy with the impressive skill set, knowledgeable in everything we use. His portfolio backs it up, too.”

“Mmm, I remember reading through it and thinking if even half of it is legit, he’s smarter than everyone in that room put together,” Colin said, gesturing in the direction of the office floor.

“I tested his work on the headless Raspberry PI he sent with his portfolio—worked like a charm.”

“That could save us a lot of headaches,” JaLeah said, clicking through the description in Elliot’s portfolio again.

“Did you notice how streamlined his portfolio is? It’s masterfully organized and aesthetically pleasing,” I said, leaning over to look at JaLeah’s screen.

She hummed in agreement.

“Jayne? Bring in Mr. Alderson, please,” I said as I pressed the button on the wireless intercom.

At CIStech, we strived to maintain a comfortable atmosphere. Instead of a panel of interviewers, it was just myself and my two Supervisors. Instead of interviewing in our board room, we interviewed in my office, the three of us seated at a round table so when the applicant joined us, they felt less on-the-spot.

However, when Elliot Alderson walked in the room, his unease was so palpable I doubted anything would alleviate his nervousness.

“Mr. Alderson,” Colin began, extending his hand. “I’m Colin Greene, Supervisor.

Elliot paused long enough for me to give him a onceover, and peripherally, I saw JaLeah do the same.

“I’m Y/N Y/L/N, Senior Manager,” I said, shaking Elliot’s hand, his grip light as if the last thing he wanted to do in the world was touch me.

As JaLeah introduced herself, I took another quick inventory of Elliot Alderson. He was dressed well, although in clothes that were a bit too big on his small frame. His haircut, however, was immaculate, cut in a close fade on the sides with a mop of styled black hair on top.

His big, greyish eyes were moving around the room as if he were searching for the exit; and then, suddenly they stopped. It was like he reminded himself to pick a spot and focus.

“Go ahead and take a seat,” JaLeah said, sliding over the piece of paper that listed our interview questions.

As Elliot pulled out the chair and settled in, I explained what would happen during the interview, the goal to once again ease the nerves of the applicant.

“So, Mr. Alderson, I’m going to explain the process for this interview. First, we will give you a few minutes to read over the questions on the paper in front of you. When you are ready, let us know and we will take turns asking those questions. Once the Q&A portion is complete, we will connect our laptops to the one right here via RDP, and we will ask you to complete a specific task. Any questions so far?”

Elliot shook his head no.

“Excellent. Please take a few minutes to read over the questions, feel free to jot down notes in the spaces provided, then let us know when you are ready to begin,” I explained, ending with a smile.

Elliot did not return my smile; instead, his eyes dropped to the interview questions. As I watched him scan the paper, I had to remind myself not to stare. There was something about him that drew me in. His eyes were unlike any I had ever seen, and I couldn’t stop thinking about that damn, overquoted line from one of Walt Whitman’s poems: “I contain multitudes.”

Looking at Elliot, it was clear he contained depths, and I wanted to know everything there was to know about him. I could count on one hand the number of times I felt so immediately intrigued by another person.

After a minute or two, Elliot looked up, his eyes flickering between the three of us, and said, “Okay.”

Colin began, asking Elliot to tell us about his schooling and his professional experience.

Elliot answered carefully, reciting his academic and professional history. His voice was deep, a soothing monotone that was more like a raspy rattle than a melodious note.

“Thank you,” I said once he had finished speaking. “Question two asks about the steps you would take to secure a server. Walk us through that process, please.”

Once again, Elliot’s answer was correct and succinct.

“To secure a server, you use the SSL protocol for data encryption and decryption. Establish a secure password for your root and administrative users. Create the new users in the system. Remove remote access from the default root accounts. Configure your firewall rules for your remote access.”

I watched Elliot as he answered, his eyes focused on a spot over my shoulder. I made my notes as JaLeah moved on to the next question.

“What are the most common types of cyberattacks? Explain which attack you feel is most common and why it is most common.”

Elliot listed off the usual attacks with ease—phishing, malware, DDoS, password attacks, malvertising, man in the middle, but it was his answer to the second part of the question that allowed us to see a glimpse under his carefully crafted façade.

“People. People are the only reason cyberattacks happen and people are the ones who make it easy for hackers to execute any attack. The most common cyberattack in a large corporation is phishing—people are all too willing to provide information without first checking the origination. People who work in companies operate on autopilot, running their daily programs, usually without interruption, and in order to avoid a runtime error, people will click a link, enter their password, and by then, they have you.”**

We were all quiet for a moment and Elliot looked a bit surprised, as if he couldn’t believe what he just said aloud.

“Excellent answer, Mr. Alderson,” JaLeah said, narrowing her eyes and nodding, still mulling over Elliot’s response. “If only we knew how to prevent human error—but I supposed that would be a billion-dollar answer,” she finished, flashing him a smile.

He shrugged his shoulders and gave her a tiny smile in response.

That was the only real glimpse of Elliot’s personality we got for the rest of the interview, but he absolutely nailed the task, finding each vulnerability we set up in our system and fixing it in record time.

“Do you have any questions for us, Mr. Alderson?” I asked as we closed out the interview.

“I’ve already found out everything I needed to know,” Elliot replied, his eyes meeting and holding my gaze.

I smirked and nodded.

“I wouldn’t expect anything less, Mr. Alderson. You’ll hear from HR within 24 hours, either way,” I said as I hit the intercom.

“Please see Mr. Alderson out, Jayne.”

Elliot left as nervously as he entered, not bothering with any attempt at casual conversation to make his interview a bit more memorable.

As soon as the office door clicked shut, Colin leaned back in his chair and said, “No way. Guy’s weird.”

“Weird?” I questioned. “Since when is being nervous the same as being ‘weird’?”

“He didn’t make eye contact with me once—and not like in an ‘on the spectrum way.’ More like, he has a secret and no one can know it way. I’m not trying to be a dick—I just got a bad vibe.”

“Well, you are being a dick,” I said. “There are a thousand reasons why people struggle with eye contact, Colin. Don’t stereotype. Give me something factual if you really didn’t like him for the position.”

“And I remember a time when you couldn’t look me in the eye, Colin,” JaLeah said, her dark eyes flashing.

Colin rubbed his hands over his face and sighed.

“He didn’t elaborate on any of the questions—he spit back text-book answers on every one, except for JaLeah’s question about cyberattacks. I felt like he wasn’t hungry for this job—he acted like he didn’t really want it.”

I nodded my head.

“I wish he would have elaborated, too. However, I think his tech skills far outweigh any subpar people skills.”

“I agree with Y/N,” JaLeah said. “But I do see Colin’s point—remember when we had those interns? We ended up hiring Steph because she was able to build a rapport with everyone here. Granted, they all had about the same skill set, but her ability to communicate set her apart.”

“Doesn’t it also work in reverse, though--tech skills over people skills?”

Colin nodded in agreement. “It does.”

“So, let me make you both a deal: if any of the remaining candidates perform as well or better than Elliot Alderson on the task, we hire them. If not, we go with Alderson.”

“Works for me,” JaLeah said. “For the record, I did like him. He really spit some fire on that answer about human error.”

I smiled at JaLeah and nodded while Colin rolled his eyes.

“Alright—who’s up next?” he said, already accepting the idea that he was probably not going to win this one.

* * * * *

I closed my eyes and rolled my neck, listening to the bones pop and crunch. It was time to get up and take a lap around the office before the blood decided to pool in my calves and send me to an early grave.

It was nearly 8 pm, so when I saw the illumination of a computer screen reflected in a set of big grey eyes, I was a bit surprised. Elliot Alderson had accepted our offer and started at CIStech three weeks ago. He was proving to be an excellent engineer, and once he settled in, I wanted to assign him to the white hat team.

However, Colin saw fit to initiate a trial by fire and made Elliot the project manager for the development of a new code that could counter a DDoS flooding attack.

Colin may have done it to be an asshole, but I permitted it out of curiosity to see if my hire had what it took to climb. It was already clear that Elliot’s skills were unmatched. If he could pitch, he would be on the fast-track to becoming my boss one day.

When he saw me approach, his fingers immediately stilled and a look of apprehension crossed his features.

“Hey, Elliot. Working late?” I asked, surprised at the butterflies in my stomach as I initiated a conversation with him.

“I’m sorry if I disturbed you, Ms. Y/L/N. I didn’t realize how late it was,” Elliot said in his deep voice, his words rolling out in that gentle monotone.

“Y/N. It’s Y/N—we don’t do that Mr. and Ms. stuff once you’re hired. Call me crazy, but I like to think of all 50 or so of us as a family. Distant and dysfunctional, sure. But whose family isn’t?” I finished with an awkward chuckle at my own joke.

Elliot looked at me, his expression unreadable, and said nothing for what felt like an obscene amount of time. I’m certain my cheeks colored at my failed attempt at a joke and his subsequent silence. I began to feel an urgent need to fill the quietness with this almost-stranger I just called “family” when Elliot finally spoke.

“That’s . . . nice.”

I laughed and said, “You’re not much of a talker, are you?”

Elliot gave me a tiny smile, if you could even call the fleeting upturn of his lips before they drew back into a straight line a smile.

“No. I’m not.”

I thought for a few seconds, wanting my first one-on-one interaction with Elliot to be right. A thousand things to say barreled through my mind like Shanghai’s Maglev, and I saw Elliot’s attention turn back to his computer, his fingers twitching, probably wondering if it would be rude to go back to work.

“Do you know what I wish, Elliot?” I said, my words rushed as I reigned in the speeding train of my thoughts.

“No,” Elliot said, looking at me with genuine confusion.

“I wish we had a code we could input to just automatically cut out the bullshit of small talk. Imagine if our minds could input all of that information—we’d know right away whether or not a person was to our liking, whether they would be someone who could become our friend.”

Elliot looked at me, his eyes shining from the monitor in the dark of the office, his mouth a bit agape; he looked at me as if I were either the first human he’d ever seen or the last human he’d ever see—I couldn’t make up my mind on the former or the latter.

“Is that totally crazy?” I asked.

“It’s the least crazy thing I’ve ever heard,” Elliot said, his voice breaking with its normal monotone to convey honesty.

I smiled, and the butterflies in my stomach finally settled. I moved around Elliot’s desk and leaned on the edge. He scooted his chair back so he could angle it toward me, his hands fidgeting, unsure what to do without a keyboard underneath of them.

“I’m willing to pretend that code is real—we’ve scanned each other, determined we’re cool, and can now proceed along the route of friendship. At least, that’s what my data has output.”

Elliot grinned, and the fucking butterflies came back in full force. There was no part of my 8 pm afterwork self that was equipped to handle how damn good-looking this guy was.

“My data reads the same,” he said, his smile turning shy, his eyes flickering away from my face and toward the floor.

“Excellent. So, as emerging friends, I want to confess that, believe or not, I’m not much of a talker either.”

“I—I don’t think we are the same kind of not-talkers,” Elliot said, frowning up at me.

“Do me a favor. Tomorrow, pay attention after you pitch the DDoS counter plan. Once the pitch is out, everyone shoots off their own ideas and if they don’t have an original thought, they’ll turn to criticism. I won’t say a word—I never do.”

“Why?” Elliot asked, clearly interested because his response was immediate.

“Because I listen. People are so consumed by a need to have self-validation that they talk just to talk, hoping something that comes out of their mouth is what sparks someone else’s path to self-validation. It’s a . . . circle jerk, if you don’t mind me speaking in my ‘off the clock’ tongue.”

Elliot’s mouth had dropped open a little again as he listened, his brows drawn in as he gave it some thought—well, a lot of thought because once again, the silence bordered on oppressive before he spoke again.

“I thought people only said things like that inside their minds. Especially bosses.”

“Did I reveal an inherent human truth you were unaware of?”

Elliot chuckled, a gravelly rumble, and it was the cutest damn thing I had ever heard.

“No—I’ve thought the same thing for as long as I can remember.”

“See? Our data chose well. Now, do you want to sit there and tell me more about how unalike we are or are you ready to trust me enough to help you with whatever is plaguing you about pitching tomorrow?”

“How did you—” Elliot began before sighing and popping off of his chair to stalk over to the window. It took me by surprise that a little piece of his mask was so readily falling away.

I stayed where I was, even though his form was little more than a shadow that moved against the backdrop of the lighted city.

“I am not good with people,” Elliot said, his voice sounding harsh and too loud in the quiet office. “I don’t know how to talk to them one-on-one, so I sure as hell don’t know how to talk to them in a group. All I can think of when I get in front of anyone is how much of an idiot they think I am. I even typed up a letter of resignation,” Elliot said, his voice returning to its normal murmur with his confession.

This time, it was my turn to nurse the quiet. I thought about saying, Bullshit—you’re talking to me. You can do anything you put your mind to! But Elliot wasn’t someone who needed a pep-talk. He was deeper than that—probably even deeper than I could ever comprehend. “I’m not gonna bullshit you. You could walk out of here and get hired just about anywhere in any one of these buildings with your skill set. But I’d like to believe that you care, maybe just a little, that I am the one who extended you an offer—gave you a shot at your first ‘real’ job. So, yeah, you can run. But you’ll hurt my feelings if you do.” Whatever Elliot was expecting me to say, it wasn’t that. He walked back to stand in front of me and he blinked those big eyes that were once again a reflection of the light blue of the desktop.

“You don’t even know me enough to be affected by anything I do. I’m just another cog in the wheel.” I thought we were on a path to friendship, but if this was Elliot’s response to my admission I cared about whether or not he quit, I knew he was hiding, deep, deep inside of himself. “What makes you think you’re unworthy of general human concern? You are human, aren’t you?” I said, once again making an awkward joke for myself to softly laugh at. “I—I didn’t mean that I—" “Careful, Elliot. You intrigue me. And when people intrigue me, I have to figure them out. Have to.”

Elliot took off toward the window again, pacing as he struggled to convey his fear.

“Like I said, I’m not much of a talker and I’m not very good with people. I can do anything with a computer, but people. I just . . . can’t.”

“Mmm, until I see a T-800 running around and declaring “I’ll be back,” I will disagree with you that you can do ‘anything’ with a computer.”

Elliot stopped pacing and turned to face me, his head comically turned to the side as he decided whether or not to finally laugh at one of my jokes.

This time, he did laugh, a soft little chuckle as he shook his head and shoved his hands in his pants’ pockets.

“Let me make you an offer—”

“An offer I can’t refuse?”

I giggled and shook my head.

“Yes! He jokes! We really are on the path to friendship. . . which means, I want to help you: Fill me in on the details of what you’ve designed, and we can practice. Come on—we’ll go in the meeting room.”

“I can’t ask you to—”

“You did not ask. I gave you a command. All you have to do is type Y,” I said in a sing-song voice, smiling before pushing off the edge of his desk and walking toward the meeting room.

I turned after a moment to see Elliot grab his laptop and follow me.

When we crossed the office to the meeting room, I paused with my hand on the door.

“Actions help us believe what our minds have convinced us not to believe—if I truly thought you were nothing more than a cog, would I give my time to you? Tell me—what’s more valuable than time?”

Elliot didn’t answer me. Instead, he smiled at me, his expression conveying his gratitude.

I turned the knob and walked toward the sofa, plopping onto the cushion.

“So, fill me in.”

* * * * *

Elliot and I passed many nights like this, and I quickly realized Elliot wasn’t going to follow in my footsteps and climb up the management ladder. After his DDoS proposal, Colin followed my recommendation and moved Elliot to the white hat hackers, a small team of ten. The white hats worked a little more in isolation than the other techs, which is what Elliot wanted.

So, we worked. We talked. We listened. We ate too much take-out and spent too many late hours at the office.

Our data was compatible, which would be Elliot-speak for saying, “We became friends.”

***Present***

“Elliot! Elliot, what happened?” I asked as I dropped to my knees and rolled him the rest of the way onto his back.

His eyes snapped open and darted around the room, looking everywhere but at me. Elliot scooted away and backed up to the wall, pulling his knees up to his chest and crossing his arms over his legs. He looked like a trapped, feral animal, trying to make itself as small as possible to avoid capture.

I noticed the cuts and the trails of blood that smeared across his hands, and I saw that there was blood on the floor where he had been laying. As I looked him over, I also saw a gash across his forehead that ran into his hairline. Blood was still trickling down the side of his face.

“Elliot,” I said again in a soft, calm voice.

He still didn’t react; instead, he looked around the room and started mumbling, thumping the back of his head off the wall.

I got up and quickly moved to drop down in front of him, placing my hand between his head and the wall. It looked like he already had a concussion and I didn’t want him to hurt himself anymore.

“Elliot. Hey. It’s Y/N. You’ve gotta focus, sweetheart. Focus on my voice.”

I kept repeating myself in the same soothing tone. After a few moments, I slowly reached out and grasped his shoulder, running my thumb over the material of his light grey dress shirt.

Slowly, Elliot stopped moving his head and his eyes stopped darting. I still had no idea what he was mumbling and if it weren’t for the vibrations of his chest and the very subtle movements of his lips, I wouldn’t have known he was speaking.

When Elliot finally fixed his eyes on my face, his brows contracted into confusion.

“Y/N?” he said, his voice raspy, like someone who had been talking too loudly over music or who had smoked too many cigarettes in a night.

“Hey,” I said smiling and removing my hand from his shoulder.

“Shit! The servers!” Elliot said, and tried to dart up, but I held him back.

“No. Don’t move. Your head is bleeding and so are your hands. I need to get you to a hospital.”

Once again Elliot’s eyes began to look everywhere but my face and he tried to scramble up. This time, he broke free from my grasp and I found myself flat on my ass as he bolted up from the floor.

He didn’t get very far because after about three steps he swooned and crashed into one of the broken servers. I scrambled to my feet and helped him sit back down on the floor.

“See? Hospital. Now.”

This time Elliot looked right at me, his eyes filled with tears as he begged me not to take him to a hospital. The display of pure emotion was a shock for me—even though Elliot and I spent a lot of time together, he was always very careful in his interactions and remained emotionally distant. To see him so vulnerable made me rethink my insistence.

“Shh, okay. Okay. Listen—I don’t know if you’re concussed or what, but can you tell me anything about what happened? Or when this happened? If the tapes never went out. . .” I trailed off, unable to even imagine the repercussions.

“The courier left at 4:48.”

I raised my eyebrow at Elliot’s precise answer.

“Okaaaay.”

“I remember the time because—” Elliot broke off and looked away.

“Because why?”

“That’s when they locked me in here,” he mumbled, his voice barely audible over the buzzing of the air conditioning that kept the server room so cool.

My phone rang, startling both of us. As I talked, Elliot retreated further into himself again, his knees pressed to his chest once more, his eyes fixed firmly on the floor.

“Yes, I’m at work, Miles.”

“Uh-huh. Yeah.”

“We definitely have a problem, but everything’s been backed up—the tapes were couriered out this afternoon.”

“No—you don’t need to come in.”

“Uh, it’s a problem with the a few of the servers themselves, some broken parts. Listen, I promise—I’ll take care of it and everything will be up and running on Tuesday like nothing ever happened.”

“You’re welcome—enjoy your night.”

“I will. Bye.”

I hung up the phone and stood up, leaving Elliot to himself for a moment. I surveyed the damage that was apparently done by Elliot himself. My mind couldn’t even grasp the idea that people I supervised, many of whom I had hired myself, would do something so inhumane.

It was no secret that people avoided Elliot, even his white hat teammates—he was closed off, smarter than most of them, and worked harder than all of them. I wasn’t blind to the way he was he treated, but I also knew him in a different way; I knew he kept to himself because it was so difficult for him to socialize with people he considered strangers.

I also knew Elliot didn’t mean to do this.

After I surveyed the damage, I began thinking outloud, “Towers 2, 3, 6, and 7 are fucking toast, but the rest are untouched. I need to synchronize the traffic to the secondary servers and synch the databases. Since it’s Memorial Day weekend, the traffic is light enough that no real damage should have been done. I have a friend who might be able to get us new towers.”

Elliot was watching me as I talked and figured out how to fix his mess.

“I can—” he began, but I cut him off.

“I have to tell them how this happened, Elliot. I’m not making any promises, but if I can fix it by Tuesday morning, you might be able to keep your job. And I can promise you, the fucking assholes that did this to you won’t.”

Elliot looked to the floor again, his face filled with sadness.

“Sit—do not move while I grab some papertowels and ice.”

Elliot gave me a barely perceptible nod, and I went off to gather what I needed to ice his head and clean up the blood.

When I came back, Elliot was sitting at the desk in the server room, his fingers poking over the keys on the keyboard.

“Damnit, Elliot! I said not to move.”

“This is all my fault. I have to fix it. I have to fix it. I have to—”

I cut him off by lifting his arms away from the keyboard and scooting the rolling chair back. Elliot turned his bloodshot eyes to mine, the rims lined with red and I wondered if he’d been crying.

I sighed and placed my hands on both of his shoulders.

“This is not your fault,” I said firmly, my eyes flickering between his, refusing to release him from my gaze until he listened to me.

Elliot opened his mouth, then closed it, choosing not to fight me.

“Hold this on your head,” I said, tearing my eyes from his face, and reaching for the ice pack I had set on the desk.

Elliot complied, and I turned back to the desk to finish synchronizing the servers. Once I was done, I wiped up the blood on the floor with the wet papertowels, then unplugged the damaged servers.

“Now, let’s get out of here. Your head is still bleeding,” I said as I made a final lap to check for damage.

I helped Elliot up by wedging my hand under his elbow, careful to avoid his fucked up hands. For a moment, the two of us were face-to-face. His eyes lifted up to look into mine and I sighed, reaching up to grasp his chin and turn his head to look at the gash.

“Head wounds are the worst. Never can tell how deep they are,” I whispered, looking closely at his cut.

“I’m sorry, Y/N.”

“I know, El. Come on.”

Elliot followed me out of the server room and I locked the door. After throwing away the bloodied papertowels in the bathroom, I came out to see Elliot at his desk, struggling into his hoodie, hissing as his bleeding and bruised hands slid through the fabric.

“I’ll get your backpack,” I said as I approached and reached under his desk to pull it out. “Is there anything else you need?”

Elliot shook his head no and I shrugged into his backpack. He stayed close as I set the alarm and waited for the elevator, neither one of us wanting to talk.

“Good night, Lance,” I called toward the front desk as I kept walking.

“Eh, Ms. Y/L/N? Do you need me to call—”

“Nope—all is well! Sorry you’re stuck here tonight, though,” I said with a wave.

“Me, too,” Lance answered, chuckling a little.

I led Elliot to the passenger door of my SUV, opening it and then waiting for Elliot to get in. Once I made sure he was settled, I shut the door and opened up the back door to take off his backpack and place it onto the seat.

I got in, buckled up, and put the key in the ignition. The radio started belting out the Britney Spears song I was rocking to on the way in, and I quickly turned it down after Elliot and I both jumped.

“Now you know my darkest secret,” I said shaking my head.

Elliot looked at me, the hint of the smallest smile in the universe turning up one corner of his mouth.

“I’m taking you to my place and I don’t want an argument. I have a friend who is a PA and I’m going to call her. She’s going to look at your head and if she says you need to go to the hospital, you are going to go. Is that clear?”

Elliot frowned and his eyes looked to the door as if he was contemplating whether or not he could escape.

I quickly put the SUV in gear and swerved out into the street to prevent him from making a move.

“Ok,” he said quietly, knowing he had no other choice.

#Elliot Alderson #elliot alderson x reader #female reader #elliot x reader #elliot alderson fanfic #rami malek #rami malek character #mr robot #mr robot fanfiction

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britesparc · 4 years ago

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Weekend Top Ten #448

Top Ten Moments in The Secret of Monkey Island

This week was one of those weeks where I had a list all ready to go, and then I discovered something that made me throw the whole lot in the bin and write something new in a hurry. And the thing that I discovered is that it is, approximately, the 30th birthday of my favourite videogame of all time, The Secret of Monkey Island.

When I was a kid, I’d go round my cousins’ house and play on their Spectrum or their C64. I played the usual 8-bit hits of the era; Dizzy, Ghostbusters, Skool Daze, that really weird and probably insanely offensive Spitting Image beat-em-up… then I got my Amiga around Christmas 1990, and I figured games would be more-or-less the same but with more colours. I was wrong.

I got two games in short succession that utterly changed my appreciation for the medium: Lemmings and Monkey Island. The first was funny, inventive, colourful and characterful; a fiendishly difficult puzzler that nevertheless made you want to come back for more, because you just fell in love with the Lemmings themselves. It was like nothing I’d seen before, and felt impossible. Monkey Island, on the other hand, was not only better, not only more my cup of tea gameplay wise, but just blew the doors of my perception of what games were and what they could do. It was like an interactive movie before that was even a term; a living cartoon where you were the main character. A funny, wordy, witty adventure story, full of gags and references that I didn’t quite get but that I knew were smart and humorous (and there was lots of daft humour in there that I did get, too). It wasn’t just a case of being able to talk to people – I’d done that in stuff like Skool Daze – but the ability to solve problems, to divine solutions; to work out that you can drug dogs by smearing meat with dubious petals. And even when do did something like that, the game was irreverent enough to put a disclaimer on screen assuring you that the dogs were only sleeping. It broke the fourth wall, and I was only just old enough to understand what that meant in narrative terms; this was a game about gaming, about stories and adventures. It was filled with movie references (George Lucas even makes a cameo!). It inspired me to write into Amiga Power for help with a particular puzzle, and they printed my letter, but by the time it came out about three months had passed and I’d solved the puzzle on my own.

Monkey Island was the first game that I loved as much as the cartoons I watched or the comics I read; Guybrush and Elaine and LeChuck and the rest were the first gaming characters that I took to my heart in the same way as Bumblebee, Garfield, or Peter Venkman. I’ve said it before, but I’m not sure I’d love games the same way if I’d never played Monkey Island. It certainly changed the types of games I wanted to play; even though I’ve enjoyed my fair share of platformers, racing games, and shooters, it’s always the slower-paced narrative games that I come back to, the Fables and Mass Effects and Deus Exes of this world (even faster-paced games like Halo, Gears and Half-Life still grab me with their stories, as daft as they may sometimes be). Basically, Monkey Island made me a sucker for a dialogue tree.

Monkey Island was my gateway to a whole host of other LucasArts adventure games; Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, Sam & Max Hit the Road, Day of the Tentacle, Grim Fandango… Ron Gilbert and Tim Schafer were among the first names of games creators that I ever knew (probably the very first, in all honesty, was Peter Molyneux – I am British after all). It was a window into a much larger world, one filled with choice, consequence, non-sequiturs, and rubber chickens with pullies in the middle.

Anyway, to celebrate Monkey Island, here are my Top Ten moments from the game. See you next year for the Monkey Island 2 list.

How to Get Ahead in Navigating: I’ve gone about it before, but this simple, daft joke – swapping a guide book for an actual navigator’s head – blew my mind as a kid. It forced me to think differently about puzzles and comedy and how to approach the game. For little old me, it was a revelation, and just desperately funny.

How Appropriate, You Fight Like a Cow: a discussion of Monkey can’t be had without talking about the innovative swordfights; a wholly successful attempt to replicate the verbal parrying of a classic Hollywood swordfight, the insult-riposte dynamic also reinforced the puzzle mechanics of the game. Sublime.

Order Hint Book: Monkey Island was the first adventure game I played, so I didn’t realise at the time how innovative its gameplay was, because you could never get hopelessly, game-ruiningly stuck, and nor could you die. Except at one point, when you drown, but even that is a hilarious gag that is easily avoidable. The control verbs changing from things like “Pick Up” to “Decompose” is just tremendous.

Use Staple Remover on Tremendous, Dangerous-Looking Yak: Monkey plays fast and loose with game conventions, sending itself up in the process; the moment when Guybrush enters a room and is hidden from view, undergoing a series of preposterous and expensive-sounding adventures, which you only know about because you can read his actions in the sentence line as if you were still controlling him (“use… gopher repellent… on another gopher…”), is a phenomenal piece of comedy stagecraft, a game parodying games parodying itself, using its own architecture to tell a joke (as well as being a play on the whole “noises off” style of gag in the first place).

Ask Me About Loom: like I say, I’d never played an adventure game before; I’d never heard of any LucasArts (sorry, Lucasfilm Games) titles, apart from maybe Maniac Mansion. So the bloke in the SCUMM Bar with his “Ask me about LOOM” badge, who launches into an intense sales spiel when you speak to him, didn’t make sense at first. But when it clicked, the very idea of a pirate in this game directly referencing another game was fourth-wall-breaking hilarious genius; happening right near the start of the game lets you know what you’re in for.

The Rock: when you get to Monkey Island, there’s a puzzle where you need to use a makeshift seesaw to catapult a boulder onto a tree (or something). If you line it up wrong, you can sink your own ship (and presumably drown your mutinous crew). The first time I played the game, this is what I did; there’s another great gag where castaway Herman Toothrot turns out to have a ship of his own. But the second time I played through, I didn’t sink my ship, and sailed back with my original crew. This blew my mind; whilst obviously not at Warren Spector levels of emergent game design, the fact that you could actually change what happened, to have a different experience to another player, was phenomenal, and another one of those watershed gaming moments for me.

Men of Low Moral Fibre (Pirates): the trio of loitering pirates are funny in and of themselves, with their breath mints and Pieces o’ Eight and minutes from a PTA meeting. But what I always found really funny was that they are literally called “Men of Low Moral Fibre (Pirates)”; that’s what it says in the sentence line when you hover your cursor over them (an aside: Monkey Island and Lemmings probably taught me how to use a mouse). Again it was the game using the structure of a game to tell a joke.

Rescuing Otis: this is what promoted me to write into Amiga Power back in the day: how the heck do you rescue Otis from the jail?! There are delightful red herrings regarding files and whatnot, but the eventual solution – juggling acidic grog from mug to mug as you make your way through the town to eventually pour it on his lock – was a rare moment of fast-paced tension in a relatively slow game. Solving it on my own made me feel so clever at a tender age. And it’s funny! So great!

A Rubber Chicken with a Pulley in the Middle: ah, my beloved rubber chicken. Found early on in the game and used in a couple of puzzles, I don’t think I quite grasped the silly brilliance of it; as a kid you’re just more accepting of the surreal. Why does a rubber chicken have a pulley? It’s basically just so you can zip-line across a chasm; it’s a wholly functional, boring plot device. But it’s also a rubber chicken. It’s sublime comic genius. And then you cook it! Madness!

The Voodoo Root: I’ve not even mentioned The Ghost Pirate LeChuck yet (if I’m honest his best “moments” are in the sequel) but the finale of the game, when you’ve distilled your Voodoo Root and you’re dispatching ghosts left right and centre, brilliantly marries an epic adventure action sequence with the point-and-click structure of the game itself. But then you fight LeChuck and he boots you around the island, until finally you crash land on a soft drinks dispenser, and finally defeat him with… a can of root beer. Cue fireworks and a strangely romantic ending. Is it as good as the ending of Monkey 2? No, but nothing is. Literally nothing, in the history of the universe.

Wow, there we are. I never had room for the dance steps, the recipe, finding the treasure, defeating the Sword Master, or Stan. Stan! I didn’t have room for Stan! See, that’s how good the game is; I barely mentioned one of the greatest gaming villains of all time, and I didn’t even get round to one of the medium’s funniest supporting characters. Blimey.

Man, I love The Secret of Monkey Island. Ron and the rest of you guys: you done good. Thanks for the memories.

#top ten #monkey island #the secret of monkey island #monkey island 30 #lucasarts #lucasfilm games #ron gilbert

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oneemofungirl · 5 years ago

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Anniversary! | Thomas Hunt x Kate Anderson

Word count: 1k+

Summary: It's their anniversary but things don't go exactly as planned.

A/N: I am sosososososo sorry this took so freaking long 😭 School has left little time for me to write and now my phone too is broken... But I hope this is okay enough huhuhu hope you guys enjoy <3

After class, Addi stopped Kate in the hallways.

“Kate, are you okay? You looked kinda down during Professor Hunt’s class…” She asked, concerned

“I’m better now, but thank you for asking Addi.” She gave her a small smile.

Addi nodded and was about to leave for her class before Kate stopped her.

“Wait Addi, can I ask you a favour?” Her eyes pleading.

“Sure Kate, what is it?” Kate fiddled with her fingers and looked down.

“I was wondering if you could accompany me to go lingerie shopping…” Kate looked at Addi only to see her initial blank face turn into a wide grin.

“Are you planning something for Professor H?” Addi asked still grinning from ear to ear.

Kate blushed, she wasn’t ashamed but she felt kind of silly.

“Yeah…” She mumbled.

“Then meet me at my dorm at 5, oh we’re gonna have so much fun!” Addison squealed and Kate silently hoped that their search would be productive.

A few days later, Thomas was out at school to run some errands. It was the school holidays and Kate was busy preparing the stuff for the surprise.

“Okay lingerie~ check, chocolates~ check, strawberries~ check, lipstick~ check.” Kate made sure everything was perfect.

“okay!” She sighed loudly and took a few deep breaths.

They had been dating for six months and despite what everyone else was gossiping about them , they had never felt as happy as they did together and Kate was sure she couldn’t make it through the day without showing her appreciation for Thomas.

“Oh my gosh do I smell okay? Should I put on more perfume??” She was looking back and forth from her YSL perfume bottle to her reflection in the vanity mirror. She decided to put on a few sprays, careful not to overdo it.

Thomas remembered, although he didn’t say anything about it to her when she was beaming at him that morning. Neither of them had mentioned anything about the anniversary. He had plans of his own of course, but he wasn’t aware of Kate’s as he walked into a flower store after finishing his errands at work.

"What type of flowers does she like? " He pondered as he looked from one bouquet to another.

"Shit. Does she even like flowers? " He swore to himself out loud, hand flying to cover his mouth when he realized a young girl was standing beside him

She was staring at him wide-eyed, Thomas wasn’t sure if she had heard or understood the expletive that fell from his mouth, but he had other things to worry about

"Hey you, little girl, which one is the prettiest? " He pointed at several flowers that were on display.

"This one! " She smiled broadly at him and excitedly gestured at a bouquet of purple lilies.

Perfect, he thought to himself.

“Thank you.” he smiled at the little girl who was still sporting a grin on her face

Adorable, maybe our kids will be this cute one day he fantasized but quickly scolded himself and rushed into the store.

2:30PM

That’s what her phone displayed on her lock screen, and a photo of her and Thomas from a certain secret first date on Catalina Island.

That’s where it all changed. She looked at the photo fondly before being notified of a message from the man on the photo himself.

It read

“Just finished the last of my work, reaching home in 10 minutes.”

She typed back

“Okay! I’ll be waiting ^^”

She sighed and set her phone on the coffee table in front of the sofa she was sitting on.

Her stomach rumbled, they normally would have eaten lunch at 2PM but she didn’t want to start without him. Besides, she wasn’t that good at cooking and she didn’t feel like ordering takeout on a day like this.

So, she stood and walked over to the kitchen to grab a few Choco Rolls. Her eyes fell on the strawberry and chocolate that she had prepared for the night,

Jeez, I hope it goes well she took a bite of a roll and made sure the chocolates and strawberries were a little more hidden.

Finally, home at last he thought. As he parked his car in the garage, he wondered what she was doing alone.

He entered his home and searched quietly for the love of his life

Where could she be? he wandered from the living room to the kitchen

There she was, eating. She must’ve been starving because of him. Feeling slightly guilty, he creeped over to her and snaked his arms around her waist.

“Oh!” she let out, looking behind her and giggling when she realized it wasn’t an intruder.

“Welcome home sweetheart!” she kissed him on both his cheeks and she left some of the Choco Roll crumbs on his face.

He chuckled and wiped his face, “Thank you-” he pecked her lips softly, “-And Happy Six Months Anniversary”

“Happy Six Months Anniversary to you too Thomas” She beamed at him

"Ah! I have a gift for you!" he went to the living room to retreive the bouquet he bought

“I hope you’re not too mad I didn’t come back in time for lunch.” he presented the flowers to her

“Thank you so much! These look lovely!" She carefully held them

"I'm glad you like them" he admitted, honestly relieved.

"And no I am not mad, besides... I had these to accompany me. So, where we going to eat?” she asked while still munching her snack

“Well, how about you choose?” He offered.

She grinned at him wryly, “I don’t really know.”

They stood there for a few minutes in silence.

Awkward, how fucking awkward.

Neither of them had planned the day well.

Sigh, she thought

Suddenly, he gestured at some chocolates and strawberries that looked like they were placed to be more hidden

“How about those?” He looked at her, hopeful that he had found a solution

No no no she stared at him blankly, silently she asked herself, wait, what if he’s hungrier than me? I can’t let him be hungry... we don’t have anything to cook and delivery might take too long.

“Sure!” She said out loud, silently cursing herself in her head

“Great!” he grabbed the items and went to the stove to heat the chocolates

“Heh, yeah... great...” She laughed awkwardly.

Taglist: @hopelessromantic1352 @lilyofchoices

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old-read-all-about-kpop · 6 years ago

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hello may i request a stray kids reaction to there S/O practicing witchcraft thanks love-Witchy anon / 🌙 anon

A/N: Wait. With you putting your label, does this mean I have my first anon who I can identify with ease?? If so sksjsbskksnsk!! Anyway, this idea of yours is really interesting. I would have never thought of doing this kind of concept. I stan your brain love! I hope you enjoy my take on writing it! 💓

Chan

You were making a potion that would heal Chan’s sore throat. He was being a big baby and refusing regular medicine so you had to pull out your mini caldron and brew him a “peculiar tonic that tastes good”. His words exactly in his sick state. You added the last ingredient and stirred. You then spooned some in the medicine cup, pouring the right amount as if it was a normal medicine.

“Here, Chan. Drink this and you’ll feel better in minutes.”

“Does it taste good?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t taste it.”

“Why not?”

“Chan I’m not about to play 21 questions with you. Just drink it.”

He started whining. “It probably tastes more gross than regular medicine! I wanted it to taste better!”

“Chan, I will not hesitate to turn you into a sloth and have you drink it!”

“You wouldn’t do that to me.”

“…”

“OH MY GOD YOU WOULD, WOULDNT YOU?”

Woojin

You guys were dealing with a lot of bugs in your new home. There were mainly centipedes and spiders that crept around your house, and you hated it. You hated bugs. So, you thought of a solution. You decided to cast a spell to kill any that could be hiding/lurking around your home and to repel any that might try to come near your house. The minute they passed by the threshold of your home, they’d die.

“Babe, is it really that serious that you need to cast a spell to keep the bugs away? You know I could protect you.”

“I know that, Woo. But you’re not here all the time. And, besides, they don’t come out when you’re around. They wait until I’m alone to attack. So, this is war.”

“Sooo you and the bugs are having a war?”

“Yes. They started it, and I’m gonna finish it.”

Woojin simply kissed the top of your head and patted your back. “Good luck with that, babe.” He chose to keep his comments to himself and decided to just let you be, chanting spells to cast away harmless bugs.

Lee Know (Minho)

“Baaabbbeee, I said I was soorrrryyyy!” He continued to bang on the glass. But it was all in vain.

You simply sipped your tea, welcoming the silence. You were being petty but you didn’t care at that particular moment.

Minho, in his usual adorably hyper manner, was poking your face. He was trying to get your attention. But, you were indulged in your reading. So, he decided that he was gonna snatch the book out of your hand. Unfortunately he ended up knocking your black tea out of your other hand, causing it to spill on your brand new book, staining the pages.

You snared at your boyfriend. As if knocking your tea out of hand wasn’t enough, staining the couch and your clothes, but then your book just had to become stained as well.

But, now you sat on your now-clean couch, reading your now-clean book, all while sipping a new cup of tea thanks to the tidy spell you casted. And it was all achieved while you casted the glass prison spell on your boyfriend. You weren’t gonna keep him in there long. Half of the thirty minutes you wanted him locked up already ticked by.

“Baaabbbbeeee!”

Oh how you loved the soundproof prison. You blew Minho a kiss, not hearing his whines and complaints.

Changbin

“Sooo you think this is funny?”

You were red in the face, falling over from laughing. “I’m sorry! You look adorable though!”

“Change me back, y/n.”

You pouted. “But you look so cute.”

“I’M NOT STAYING LIKE THIS! This tail is making me feel like I have a permanent itch between my butt cheeks!” He whined out the last part, his ear twitching. You almost squealed from how adorable it was.

You threw your head back and groaned. “Fine!” Suddenly a lightbulb turned on in your head. You grabbed for your phone.

“Oh no! Don’t you dare!”

“It’s for memories.”

“That’s what your brain is for!” Changbin ran out your shared bedroom, refusing to let you get a picture of him in this form. The guys won’t ever let him live.

“Changbin, please! If you let me take a picture I’ll change you back!” You yelled, running after him.

“I’d rather go out in public looking like this then allow you to take one hundred pictures of me! Because we both know you are not going to take just one!”

You cackled as you tried to corner your pretty kitty.

Hyunjin

The space of the living room was filled with Hyunjin’s lovely laugh. He was feeling kind of down that he couldn’t get the tone of his rap right so you thought you could cheer him up. So, with your wand in hand, you created bubbles that resembled his members. You made them animated, doing silly dances before disappearing in the next ten seconds. You’ve been doing this for a while now, your arm feeling a little tired. But, with the sound of your boyfriend’s joyous laughter, it was worth the pain. You didn’t mind sucking it up if it meant hearing your favorite sounds.

You suddenly felt a pair of lips on your cheek. You turned, being met with Hyunjin’s beautiful eyes. His gaze was gentle and rich with love. Love that was only for you at this particular moment.

He gave you a chaste kiss on your lips. He pulled away with a big smile. “Thank you for doing this for me, baby. You really brightened up my mood.”

You blushed. “No need to thank me, babyboy. I’d do anything for you.”

“Anything?”

You gave him a questioning look. Were you about to regret your choice of words?

“Then…could you create a fire-breathing dragon?” His eyes held child-like hope and expectation.

You chuckled. “Of course, baby.”

Thrilled to hear you accept his request, Hyunjin cuddled into your side. He patiently waited for his mind to be blown by your amazing talent.

And that was how you spent the afternoon. You took as many requests as Hyunjin gave you. The gloom that hung over his head was long gone, and you couldn’t be happier.

Han (Jisung)

After Han decided to dye his hair a different color after coming out of nowhere with the blue, you were sad. You didn’t feel as though you got acquainted enough to blue-haired Han.

It was in the middle of the night when you were playing with your sleeping boyfriend’s fluffy hair that a brilliant idea sprung into your mind. A smile that almost looked identical to the Grinch’s spread across your face.

You slowly separated your body from Han’s, careful not to wake him. You grabbed your spell book from the drawer of your nightstand. You flipped through tens of pages before finding what you were looking for.

Weaving your fingers through Han’s hair once again, you muttered the spell that would surely present you the outcome you deeply desired. Your eyes grew to the sizes of saucers as you watched the strands of your boyfriend’s hair shift. In seconds, his hair went from orange to the beautiful black-blue color you fell head-over-heels for.

You smiled happily, landing a kiss in Han’s hair. You admired your work. Before you would fall asleep you would make sure to change his hair back to its former color. As sad as the thought was, you didn’t wanna risk raising any suspicions.

Maybe you would even make this a nightly thing. For a second you pondered over it, soon enough agreeing to the idea as you marveled at your snoozing prince.

Quickly you reached for your phone, choosing to snap a picture of him. It could not be avoided.

You put the photo as your lock screen before changing Han’s hair back to its former color. You watched as each strand transformed back to the lighter color. It caused a satisfying feeling to envelop you.

You put your book away and rested you head on top of your boyfriend’s. The slow breaths Han took began to lull you to sleep. With a final kiss to his temple, you let sleep take over your senses, a small smile present on your lips.

Felix

(I love this gif so much 😂 You gotta love flirty Felix)

You were getting ready for you and Felix’s date. With your wand in hand, you had your entire wardrobe on display. Whatever you didn’t want to wear was placed back in your closet neatly.

Right now you were faced with three outfit choices. Finally you decided to wear the most casual-looking one, since Felix said it wasn’t gonna be a date requiring a fancy getup.

But then you were faced with another dilemma. The color wasn’t working for you. It was a dusty rose, and even though you initially liked it when you first bought it, now it looked unappealing. So, you whipped out your wand, knowing an easy solution to your plight.

“Babe, are you done yet?” Felix’s deep voice could be heard behind the door. He slowly enter your shared bedroom, freezing immediately after entering.

“I’m almost done, love. I just need to change the color of my top.” You were indecisively switching between blue and green. You huffed in annoyance, wondering if you should just give up and find a different top to wear.

“Go with the green, darling. It’s your color.” Felix smiled warmly, catching your eyes in the mirror.

You changed the top to green, squinting at the top. He was right, the color did well for your skin tone. Earth tones always served you well.

“Alright, let’s go.” You grabbed Felix’s hand, kissing his cheek as well. “Thank you for your assistance, baby.”

“No problem, babe.”

Once you reached the front door, he asked you a question. A devious glint was in his eyes. “So…what else can you do to your clothes?” He wiggled his brows with a smirk.

You scoffed. “Boy, if you don’t…”

Seungmin

Seungmin was beautiful in your eyes. You complimented him all the time, causing the young man to bashfully thank you. You just couldn’t help but to gush over how handsome he was.

One day, your boyfriend was looking really good. You felt as if compliments would not suffice nor be able to fully express to how much you were affected by his beauty. So, you decided to do something extra.

He was in the bathroom, spraying cologne on his body. You smiled, unable to contain your excitement to, firstly, see his gorgeousness again, and, two, to execute your plan as Seungmin’s hype man/girlfriend.

He then began to leave the bathroom. You hurriedly grabbed your wand and shouted a spell, startling your boyfriend.

Over his head, a flurry of rose petals fell over him from thin air. He couldn’t help but smile at your silliness but he also couldn’t help looking a little perplexed. He knew that you never pulled out your wand unless it was absolutely dire. So what was so dire about having rose petals rain on him?

“I know you’re more than likely questioning me and my mental state so let me explain.” You sat up, a full-blown smile across your face. “You look really really good today and I felt as though I needed to something a little extra to fully show you how handsome I think you look.”

Seungmin’s cheeks reddened like strawberries. He couldn’t help but let out a laugh, feeling extremely shy all of a sudden. You simply admired him further. You gave yourself a mental pat on the back for a job well done.

Seungmin calmed down after a few more moments. His cheeks were still painted red. He smiled shyly at you, looking more precious than ever. “Thank you, y/n.”

You smiled from ear-to-ear. You ran over to him, wrapping him in your arms. “You’re welcome, handsome.”

Seungmin chuckled, embracing your lithe body tightly. You were a silly witch, but he loved you more than life itself.

I.N (Jeongin)

All day you’ve been walking around Seoul. You were shopping for groceries, toilet paper, paper towels, face masks (sheets for Jeongin and wash off ones for you), and new toothbrushes. You hummed quietly to yourself, a small smile present on your face. You were so happy today that Stevie Wonder could see your chipper mood.

Once home, you started unpacking your purchases. You placed them at their correct places around the house. Once done, you decided to prepare supper. You knew Jeongin wanted some fried chicken, so you decided to go with that as tonight’s menu.

You were working hard in the kitchen. You made ramen and cracked two eggs in it. One would be for you, and the other for JeonJeon. Almost all the chicken was fried. And then the ramen was simply simmering. You decided to wake up your boyfriend.

You peeked in the breast pocket of your shirt. In a cute ball, your precious boyfriend was sleeping soundly. You were in awe that he’s been asleep all this time; you were sure he would have stayed awake from all the movement that you were doing. You didn’t really wanna wake him up the longer you stared at him. But he had to eat. He had practice in the morning.

You craned your head down. “Jeongin,” you whispered. “Wake up, baby.”

He mumbled something before curling up in a tighter ball. Your heart squealed. You tried again in getting him to wake up.

“Jeongin, baby, the chicken is getting cold. You gotta eat.”

Upon mentioning chicken, your slumbering boyfriend woke up. He wasn’t fully awake but he wasn’t sleeping either.

“Come on, baby. Let me get you out so you can wash up.”

Jeongin nods his head. You grab him gently and place him on the floor. With a snap of your fingers, Jeongin grew back to his height right before your eyes. He smile sleepily at you. He then rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands.

“The food smells good.”

You chuckled, flipping the last pieces over in the oil. “Go and wash up, babyboy.”

He nodded his head before placing a soft kiss to your cheek. You fought off the blush that was about to take over your cheeks. Luckily, your sleepy boyfriend didn’t notice and had left the kitchen.

You couldn’t help smiling with contentment. You had the perfect day, having your boyfriend right in the comforts of your pocket. Nothing could possibly beat today.

#requested #🌙 anon #the jeongin one makes me feel so warm inside #and then the changbin one makes me cackle #stray kids #stray kids imagines #stray kids reactions #stray kids scenarios #kpop imagines #kpop reactions #kpop scenarios

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eleanor-writes-stuff · 6 years ago

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slide into my DMs [ficlet, i/iii]

Rey has an problem. Ben has a solution. Twitter brings them together.

OR: in which Ben shoots his shot - in the sweetest, most respectful, no-pressure way possible, because this is Ben Solo we’re talking about.

PART I: SHOOT YOUR SHOT | PART II | PART III

Update from the hell that is writer’s block: I’m still incapable of writing my usual proper one-shots. Instead, here’s yet another mini-fic that no one asked for - this time featuring social media, because I’m hip with the kids.

Also available on AO3.

Rey has been locked in a staring contest with her shower head for about five minutes now.

It’s been two hours since she got home from her shift at Maz’s, and she would like nothing more than to wash off the lingering smell of fried food and spilled beer. But fall has finally arrived and brought with it even-colder-than-usual ice water, and Rey can feel her lungs shaking at the mere thought of the shower that awaits her.

“Fuck everything,” she huffs, backing away from the shower for the fourth time in thirty minutes. Her phone sits on the countertop, lighting up every so often with notifications from friends tweeting about their super fun Friday night at the latest culinary hotspot or sharing bathroom selfies from fancy clubs Rey wouldn’t even be hired to work at, let alone be allowed into. Ignoring all of her classmates’ posturing, she quickly types out a tweet of her own.

endless pit @reyofsunshine

day 51 of ice cold showers because my landlord is a fucking cheapskate who refuses to fix anything

Bitching about her situation on social media won’t magically heat up her water, but it’s better than glaring at the cracked tiles of her bathroom wall. Even scrolling past everyone else’s over-the-top pictures seems preferable to a shower at this point, and Rey finally gives up – for now – as she trudges back into her bedroom and perches on the edge of her bed while she scoffs and laughs and shakes her head at her friends’ antics.

Finn, Rose, and Poe are at that weird new edible flower café, and based on their pictures she can tell Rose is about as baffled by the menu as she had been.

Jess and Kaydel finally managed to get a table at Coruscant, but they don’t seem that impressed by the itty-bitty portion sizes and the comparatively monstrous price tags.

Hux is in his usual Friday night hangout spot, spamming everyone’s feeds with bathroom selfies featuring the tacky gold wallpaper that’s unique to Finalizer, the most overpriced club in town. And judging by the way his cheeks match his hair, her least favorite classmate is already drunk as a skunk.

“Fun,” Rey mutters to herself as she navigates away from the app and moves to set her phone aside. It buzzes just before she can put it down, and a quick tap at the screen reveals one unread message from–

Rey tilts her head as she considers the sight of Ben Solo in her notifications. Have they ever even interacted on Twitter? They’ve traded messages on Instagram, mainly just snarky replies to each other’s stories, and they talk all the time in the group chat Poe added them to at the beginning of the semester, but this… this is new.

Ben Solo @accidentalgiant I’ve got a great shower.

endless pit @reyofsunshine how nice for you

Rey replies almost immediately, rolling her eyes at Ben and his trust fund apartment in the nice part of town. Forget hot water; the guy probably has actual water pressure and one of those fancy massage shower heads.

He sees her message, and then takes his own sweet time writing and deleting, writing and deleting until–

Ben Solo @accidentalgiant And a really comfortable bed too. In case I wasn’t being obvious enough.

“Oh,” Rey says out loud, and somehow that single, dumbfounded word appears on her screen a second later.

Ben’s… her friend, in a way. More Poe’s friend than hers, but they still interact often enough that she counts him among the ten or so actual friends she’s made in her two years at college. He’s nice enough when he’s not giving her a hard time, but then again she’s always being an ass to him in return; it’s not like they even mean anything by it at this point, it’s just their thing.

Which makes this conversation all the more bizarre and unexpected, given the usual tone of their friendship.

Ben Solo @accidentalgiant And a fully-stocked fridge.

Rey laughs despite her confusion.

endless pit @reyofsunshine next time lead with that

Next time? Next time?

Ben replies before she can freak out and rush into damage control mode.

Ben Solo @accidentalgiant Noted. So… Wanna come over?

She snorts at her phone and replies with the first thought that comes to mind, guiding them back to familiar ground.

endless pit @reyofsunshine wow you must be desperate bit of a dry spell, Solo?

But Ben’s always been stubborn – just as stubborn as her, according to Poe – so it comes as no surprise when he refuses to be herded back to safety.

Ben Solo @accidentalgiant It doesn’t have to be like that. I just thought it’d be nice to spend time with you.

endless pit @reyofsunshine spend time with me? is that what they’re calling it these days?

Rey smirks as she watches the telltale dots appear and disappear, trying to picture Ben’s reaction on the other end of the conversation. Whether or not he meant it that way, she’d bet a good chunk of this month’s paycheck that he’s already blushing. It gives him away every time, even when he manages to bite back a smile and maintain intense eye contact – which he does with her a lot, now that Rey thinks about it.

Maybe she should’ve seen this coming.

Ben Solo @accidentalgiant Rey. I’m serious.

He’s got his serious face on, then – the one he wears in class, the one she occasionally sneaks glances at because the focus in his eyes is… admirable. His attention span in a class full of kids who are half-asleep is admirable, that’s all, and it’s not like she sometimes wonders what it’d feel like to have him look at her with that kind of single-minded focus.

endless pit @reyofsunshine so you’re asking me to go over for a free meal and a hot shower and then we’ll just… what, cuddle up in front of the TV?

It’s a cozy little scene right out of the domestic daydreams Rey tells herself she absolutely doesn’t have, but this is college. And Ben, decent though he may be, is still a college boy. Maybe he has a TV in his bedroom. Maybe this is the part where he not-so-jokingly suggests that they Netflix and chill.

Ben Solo @accidentalgiant If that’s what you want.

Rey blinks at her screen and waits for him to add to that, to pepper their chat with increasingly suggestive alternative options for the evening.

A full minute later, it finally dawns on her.

endless pit @reyofsunshine wait oh my god you’re serious you actually mean that

She’s so caught up in her own thoughts that she fails to realize just how insulting her disbelief might be until Ben opts to ignore her in favor of cutting straight to the chase.

Ben Solo @accidentalgiant Yes or no, Rey?

He’s probably pacing the length of his apartment now, running one hand through his hair while he scowls at his phone, berating himself for even trying–

It’s an oddly displeasing image, especially when accompanied by the realization that there’s no reason for him to be so agitated – not when she’s surprisingly keen to say yes. But…

endless pit @reyofsunshine i’m carless this week and you’re way too far for me to walk

It seems like a poor excuse even to her, but Rey crosses her fingers and bites her lip and hopes Ben takes it as anything but, hopes he can tell how much she actually does want to spend the evening with him and his hot shower and his full fridge.

Ben Solo @accidentalgiant I could go pick you up. If you want to come over.

Despite her relief, Rey finds herself staring at his message.

endless pit @reyofsunshine seriously???

Ben Solo @accidentalgiant Sure, why not?

endless pit @reyofsunshine let me get this straight you’re gonna drive twenty minutes in the dark to pick me up take me to your place, feed me, and let me use your shower no funny business and you’re totally fine with that??

His reply comes not two seconds later, and sweeps away the last of Rey’s hesitation.

Ben Solo @accidentalgiant Sounds good to me.

This man is not real. This man cannot be real.

But Rey’s been through enough crap in her life to know when something good is in front of her, and this could definitely be good. Great, even.

endless pit @reyofsunshine okay then let me know when you’re here

Ben Solo @accidentalgiant Will do, sweetheart. See you soon.

Rey stares at that message until her screen goes dark, and then it’s a mad rush to empty out her backpack and repack it with her nicest sleeping clothes.

Ben might not be planning on funny business, but she’s reasonably sure he wouldn’t object to it.

This is at least 60% DMs because I have no idea what the fuck I’m doing anymore - other than clearing out my dusty WIPs I thought I’d never write folder, apparently.

As always, thank you for reading and I hope you gained at least some entertainment from this silly little thing. Please don’t hesitate to like/reblog/leave a comment!

UPDATE: somehow this has spawned a second chapter and a tiny epilogue.

AO3 | Ko-fi | Twitter

#reylo #rey x ben #kylo ren/rey #rey/kylo ren #rey/ben solo #star wars #rey #ben solo #kylo ren #ficlet: slide into #series: ao3 reblog #my fics

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allthefilmsiveseenforfree · 6 years ago

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Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween

I had a hard weekend. Wife and I foster dogs through our local animal shelter, and we have had the sweetest, most loving hospice foster for the past week. But the last couple days were really difficult for her, and it was clear her time was growing short, so we made the decision and brought her in to put her to sleep today. After we dried our tears and pulled ourselves together, we both needed a distraction so she did some work while I, obviously, went to the movies. But I wanted something that I could pretty much guarantee wouldn’t make me cry, and if you have been reading my reviews you know that’s uh...more difficult than you would think. This is a roundabout way of saying I’d like to take a minute so just sit right there, I’ll tell you how I became the only solo adult in a Sunday night showing of Goosebumps 2.

I didn’t hate the first Goosebumps, I really didn’t. I like kooky and paternal Jack Black as R.L. Stine, the basic premise is pretty sound, and there’s some very PG-friendly spookiness wrapped up in a blaring technicolor CGI package. I mean, I see the movies for free so...I have a pretty generous spirit. That being said, this sequel felt a little more gimmicky, a little less interesting, and a lot more money-motivated than its predecessor so I was verrrry skeptical. Does this one even live up to the mediocrity of the original? Well...

Meh? It feels a lot like the clearance aisle of CVS on November 1st. There’s some decent Halloween treats in there, but they feel a little bit stale and very cheap. The basic plot is pretty perfunctory: Sonny (Jeremy Ray Taylor, aka Ben from IT) and his friend Sam (Caleel Harris) find R.L. Stine’s first novel locked away in his old house, so they open it and unleash hell on earth which is how it’s supposed to work based on the internal rules of the first movie Slappy, the ventriloquist dummy. THEN they have to say some Latin-y phrase and Slappy comes to life! He wants to create his own family, and to do that he’s going to bring all of Halloween to life. Because in this movie, Halloween is made up of material objects and not an intangible concept like a unit or time or a cultural ritual made up of certain performative practices.

Some thoughts:

The film’s weakness is just a general lack of thought or care about the rules of its own world-building. Nothing feels very high stakes because it’s all so...silly. Call me old-fashioned, but I grew up on classic Disney. Gaston was a rapey abuser, Aladdin faced off against a gigantic fire snake, and Mufasa DIED ffs. I want my peril to feel, you know, fucking perilous! Here, the most fraught thing that happens is when Slappy turns the kids’ mom into his own mom by making her look like a ventriloquist dummy. It just doesn’t have the same punch.

See also: jokes that make no sense. A punch line at the end of a classroom scene has a girl who’s been electrified as a result of a science experiment gone wrong. She has the crazy bushed out hair and smoke marks all over her face and clothes, and she cries, “Today is picture day!” Um. Excuse the fuck out of me, but I can literally see a girl with her face painted like a tiger right behind you, and there are other students in the classroom wearing costumes. For the purposes of your lazy ass joke, you want to act like picture day is on actual Halloween? Also, writers, you’re telling me there’s not a better laugh line for that scene? CHICANEROUS and DEPLORABLE.

See also: You have an antagonist that you know can teleport. Your solution is to put him in a suitcase with chains around it and drop it in a lake. Do you...like are you guys even trying? I’m so embarrassed for you.

See also: a big turning point in the movie is the kids figuring out that the plot of the book they found is coming to life. But if the novel is unpublished and has been locked up for 30 years, how does Wikipedia know what the plot is? At this point it feels like you’re doing this shit to me on purpose.

See also: How did that Grandma not wake up????? You make a big show of the fact that she almost woke up when Sam grabbed some candy from a bowl, but then plates are flying, gummy bears are attacking, and nothing?

Ok, now for some actually not so terrible things. I still love Jack Black as Stine, but he gets far too little screen time here because he was busy filming the far superior The House With a Clock in Its Walls.

This is the second movie I’ve seen this week where a girl goes to a dance, sees the boy she’s dating kiss someone else, and runs away crying. That boy is no longer relevant or involved in her life after that, because instead she goes to focus on her family and her own goals. Maybe my favorite part of the ripple effect that #MeToo and Time’s Up is creating is that movies - even kids’ movies - are making it clear that girls don’t have to tolerate shitty boys being shitty. That boyfriends aren’t everything, and having a boyfriend isn’t the necessary default setting of adolescence. And most of all, we no longer have to devote any screen time to a crying girl saying “I was so stupid!” or “Why doesn’t he like me?” because we’re just now getting to a point where we can accept that girls deserve better than the bare fucking minimum of human decency masquerading as A Good Boyfriend.

I did dig the actual R.L. Stine cameo as he was giving the science award in the end.

I will say, sometimes in the middle of mediocrity, one really dumb funny thing will appear out of nowhere, and for me it was a super dumb pumpkin that was carved really clumsily, and when he came to life, he said “Hi! My name is Pumpkin. I’m round!” I’m still laughing about this, and I’m not sure why.

The performances are fine, and the message is fine, and seeing all the trappings of Halloween coming to life and rampaging on a town is fine. It’s all fine. However, if you have to choose a silly, spooky kids’ movie starring Jack Black to attend this Halloween season, you’re much better off choosing The House With a Clock in Its Walls.

#118in2018 #goosebumps 2 #goosebumps 2 haunted halloween #goosebumps 2 review #jack black #jeremy ray taylor #caleel harris #rl stine #goosebumps #movie reviews #film reviews

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megwritesfanfiction · 6 years ago

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Let Go, Chapter 8 (Raven/??)

Disclaimer: I do not own Teen Titans. This is a work of fiction that I am not making a profit off of.

A/N: Chapter 9 is almost done, so you guys can definitely expect it in two weeks!

Do you need to catch up? I got you! ->

Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

WARNING - FLASHBACK CONTAINS MENTION OF DRUG USE.

Flashback

Robin had known she was struggling to deal with the events of her birthday.

They were used to her being withdrawn. They’d grown to understand her powers and the limitations they presented. Everyone understood that she needed to meditate and sometimes remove herself from situations that may cause her powers to flair up.

But, she hadn’t locked herself away in awhile.

No matter what was going on, Raven would come out for at least two meals and at least two or three television/team nights a week. Granted she would sit in the corner of the couch with her nose buried in a book, but she was there.

Until one day she wasn’t.

Robin understood her need for privacy. Her birthday was far from a happy day despite it ending with friends, cake, and ice cream. He informed the team that Raven needed space. He couldn’t find the words to tell them about her failed suicide attempt.

She wasn’t neglecting her duty. Raven swiftly responded to each alarm before disappearing in the midst of her soul self, so he couldn’t fault her.

Logically, he knew that she was coming out of her room some portion of the day. Demon or not, she couldn’t survive on just air. The masked titan had found his suspicions were indeed correct, but he hadn’t realized she was leaving the tower.

When she stumbled into the common room dressed in a tight black dress, high boots, and neon bangles, the smell of alcohol and ash hit him faster than he was able to comprehend the scene in front of him.

Raven was drunk.

Drunk being the understatement of the year. Heaven knows what she had flooding through her system…

Her hair was out of sorts, and he was pretty sure there was vomit on her dress.

“Raven?” Robin questioned quietly, unsure of the scene in front of him.

Her eyes rolled from left to right as her wobbled. Her back hit the wall behind her as her hands went out in front of her, “Fuck.”

“Yeah,” Robin agreed walking over to her. “Are you drunk?” He steadied his hands on her shoulders, the smell of her night out burning his sinuses.

An acidic belch bubbled from her stomach as her head slumped forward, eyes going wide before relaxing again, “Yep.”

“Look at me,” he commanded.

“No,” she groaned taking a uneasy step back.

Pinching her face between his thumb and index finger, he tilted her head toward the light to check her pupils. “What did you take?”

“Nothing.”

“What did you take?” Robin questioned sternly, alarmed at the size of her pupils. He could only see a small sliver of violet.

Raven closed her eyes for a moment, brow wrinkling in thought, “Aside from alcohol? Some pink pills with little bunny rabbits on them, an orange one with a pizza, and one that was bright blue.” She smirked. “I snorted some-“

“What!?”

“Too loud,” she groaned, pushing him away from her. “And you asked, so don’t get pissy if you don’t like the answer.” She stumbled toward the kitchen, leaning over the sink as she felt her stomach bubble.

“What the hell is wrong with you?”

She laughed bitterly, “Really?”

Robin sighed, “I’m sorry.”

“Thank you,” she nodded proudly.

“But-“

“Fuck off and let me puke in peace please,” she groaned, fingers pulling her hair back.

“This isn’t the solution.”

She nodded. Her hands pressed against the edge of the sink as she pressed herself up straight. “Then what is?”

Robin looked at her, mouth agape.

“Huh? You seem to be so full of solutions in between judging how I deal with things! So you tell me, what I’m supposed to do!?” She shouted, turning sharply to face him. Her chest heaved as she unleashed her anger.

He was at a lost for words.

“What? I’m supposed to smile? Pretend everything is fine?” She snapped, running a hand over face roughly. “Act like I’m not going to kill you all in the end?”

“You don’t know that,” he shook his head. “It’s not over yet. There’s still a chance.”

There wasn’t. “Even if there was,” she slurred, shaking her head as her eyes blurred with tears and head throbbed. “It’s already ruined. He already broke me, so it doesn’t matter.”

“Raven,” Robin breathed, taking a step closer to her. “I think we should talk about this when you're sober.”

“I really think it doesn’t matter.” She turned her back toward the sink. “Just leave me alone.”

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Flash Forward

“Well, well,” Roy whistled amused as he approached the fire. “I didn’t know you smoked.” The sound of his bag swinging from his fingertips.

Raven rolled her eyes playfully. She could hear the dust crunch underneath his boots as he rocked back and forth on his heels with smug amusement as she exhaled. Keeping her eyes on the fire, she brought the cigarette to her lips, “I figured you wouldn’t mind if I bummed a few. I’ll buy you another pack at the next stop.”

“Not required. I have a carton in trunk,” he chuckled, dropping the bag by her seat. Using a stick, he carefully moved the pot resting on the iron rack toward him.

“Shouldn’t you have put things in the pot before putting it on the fire?” If he’d asked, she could have just levitated it unto the fire safely. “You’re gonna burn yourself.”

“You realize, I’m not just some pretty city boy, right?” He chuckled as he poked the fire. “Can you toss me the bag?”

Her wrist flicked delicately as the bag scooted next to him.

“Show off.”

Raven shrugged unapologetically as a slow satisfied smile curled on her lips as she continued to smoke. “You know, I could have moved that pot lid too.”

“I’m sure,” he chuckled removing the foil packs from the bag and placing them in the hot pot. “My stick also works quite well.” Roy guided the stick into the lid handle and lifted it back to the pot.

“So would pot holders and tongs,” she remarked.

Lifting the mentioned tools from the bag, he raised a curious eyebrow, “I have silverware and plates to make up for my lack of pot holders.”

“Fancy,” Raven smirked.

“The fanciest hobo meals you’ll ever eat, my dear,” Roy assured. He took a seat on the log next to her, leaning back on his elbows comfortably.

“Hobo meals?” She frowned, removing her vibrating phone from her back pocket.

Changeling.

She quickly ignored the call with a sigh.

“Yep,” he confirmed, glancing at the phone from the corner of his eye as he stretched casually. “Basically, some meat and vegetables expertly packed inside a bundle of aluminum foil.”

Her phone buzzed again. “Sounds tasty,” Raven commented, her fingers pressing the ignore button once more. She inhaled loudly, hoping to catch a whiff of the meal cooking in front of them. The sweet aroma from the firewood mixed with the smell of cooking meat and the ash of her cigarette. “Smells good.” Her phone buzzed again.

“Won’t be ready for a bit.”

Her fingers pressed the side button once again to send the call to her full voicemail box. At least, Changeling couldn’t yell at her anymore.

“There’s beef and chicken,” Roy informed as her phone glowed again. “The vegetables on the menu tonight are potatoes, green beans, zucchini, corn-“

Raven’s eyes drifted down seeing Changeling’s notifications flood the front screen of her phone, “None of those are vegetables.”

If you’re going to ignore my calls…

Now, he was texting.

At least have the decency to tell me why.

“What the hell do you call potatoes, green beans, and zucchini then?” Roy laughed as he lit his own cigarette, eyes still casually on her phone.

You just ignored my calls.

“Potatoes, sure,” Raven sighed as her eyes moved from her phone to Roy. “Zucchini and green beans are fruit, I believe.”

I know you’re there.

“Yes, but we treat all of those things as vegetables,” he argued with a smirk.

She shook her head, attention split between Changeling’s serious text and the silly conversation with Roy, “But it’s a not a vegetable. Just because you treat something like a vegetable doesn’t make it a vegetable.”

I know you’re ignoring me.

“That’s fair,” Roy shrugged, taking in her argument. “But, who's to say they don’t want to be treated like vegetables? What about what they want? ”

You never had a problem telling me to piss off.

“Are we really having this conversation?” She questioned, glancing at him brows knitted with confusion. Her phone buzzed, screen illuminating.

He shrugged, pulling out a cigarette and placing it between his lips, “It’s an important conversation.”

So, I’m trying to figure out why you couldn’t tell me you’re leaving?

Raven felt her heart slam against her rib cage as she stared at her phone. “Uhh,” she stammered, blinking as she fought for control. “I don’t think-” Her fingers quickly unlocked the message screen without thought, thumbs hovering over the keyboard. “I think they’re more concerned about being cooked alive if anything.” She started to type.

Gar, I want-

She sighed, thumb tapping the delete button.

Gar-

What the hell was she supposed to say? Her emotions were tangled with amusement from Roy and panic from Gar’s texting.

“Yes, but,” Roy kept his eyes on her phone as he lit his cigarette. “You don’t speak ill of the dead. We’re honoring the sacrifice these brave plants made for our nutrition.”

She couldn’t decide which was worse, her conversation with Roy or trying to explain herself to Gar. “Yeah,” she murmured. Raven honestly hadn’t really heard what Roy had just said. Her mind tried to untangle the messy web of words jumbled in her head.

I can see you typing.

Shit.

I’m sorry. Raven typed looking at the unsent message. I didn’t think me leaving was going to be a big deal. It wasn’t a complete lie. She honestly figured Changeling wouldn’t care enough to bombard her with messages. One voicemail and a couple of confused text messages were to be expected, but this was unexpected in the best and worst ways possible. Inhaling, her fingers continued to craft a response. I thoug-

“Alright,” Roy breathed, exhaling the end of his cigarette. “I tried,” he muttered as he tossed the butt of his smoke into the fire. Standing with another loud sigh, he stepped in front of Raven.

Her fingers froze, stopping her work on the unsent message. Raven slowly lowered her phone to stare at him intently, “Yes?”

“I’m going to apologize for this now,” he told her seriously. His lips were tight as he rocked back and forth on his heels with his hands clasped behind his back. “Because after I do it, I’m not going to feel bad.”

She slowly leaned away from him, brow raising curiously.

Roy inhaled slowly, hands going out in surrender as he looked up to the night sky, “I’m sorry.”

“Okay?” Raven questioned slowly. Her eyes wide and confused.

Roy snatched the phone from her hand, sprinting away from her.

“Roy!” Her heart dropped to the pit of her stomach. Raven leaped from her seat chasing after him. Her phone illuminated brightly in his hand as he led them away from the fire. What the hell was he gonna do with her phone? And where the hell was he going?

His pace slowed as he stopped in front of the cliff. “I already said I’m sorry,” he called as he tossed the phone into the cliff.

“What the fuck?!” Raven screeched charging at him.

“Whoa,” he shouted, sticking his arm out to grab her before she went off the cliff. “Watch yourself there.” Roy wrapped another arm around his waist and pulled her another step back.

“Watch yourself?!” Her pulse pounded in her head as she watched her the light from her phone disappear into the darkness below. “Are you fucking kidding me?!”

He shrugged, unapologetically, “I didn’t want you to fall.”

“I can fly!”

“I forgot about that.”

Her chest heaved as she struggled to make sense of what exactly had occurred.

“Be careful anyway,” Roy warned gently. His arms slowly released from her waist as he turned to walk back to their fire.

Raven stood at the edge of the cliff, feet sinking into the dust as she looked at the abyss. Her fists curled at her sides as her head throbbed. What the hell just happened? She pivoted sharply, giving into rage, “Harper!”

“One sec, Rae,” he answered. Expertly ignoring the sound of her angry steps, he knelt by the fire carefully pulling the pot of food from the fire. He dusted off his hands and looked up at her. “What’s up?”

“Are you fucking serious?!” She roared. “You just threw my phone off a goddamn cliff!”

“Yes,” he confirmed, using his stick to knock the pot lid off. “I remember. I was there, and I also apologized before hand.”

“You’re lucky I don’t toss you off that cliff,” Raven warned. Her fingers tore through her hair as she struggled to control her rage. She briefly remembered a time where she would have actually tossed him off the cliff.

Not to kill him.

She’d only let him fall far enough to make a point.

“I am indeed.”

She closed her eyes for a second as she placed a hand on her abdomen as she breathed deeply. “I am trying very hard not to murder you right now,” she whispered as she felt her body tremble.

“Sit down,” Roy commanded softly. He stood, folding his arms in front of him.

“Fuck you!”

He bit back a dirty remark. “Sit down,” he repeated calmly as he walked over to the log seats. He had to be patient. After all, he’d just thrown her phone off a cliff and she’d graciously decided not to sentence him to the same fate. “Please?”

Her shoulders sagged in defeat as he walked over to him. Violet eyes narrowed dangerous as she slowly sat down.

Roy sighed taking out his wallet, pulling out a worn piece of paper and presenting it to her.

“Your will?” Raven questioned sourly as she eyed the paper. If he was hoping to calm her down, he was shit out of luck there. This just gave her more time to plan where she was going to hide his body.

His eyes widened as he gestured for her to take the paper.

She scoffed, snatching the paper from his fingertips. “Okay?” She questioned, staring at the photograph confused. “A photograph?” She added, looking to him, feeling the tension in her brows lessen.

Roy sighed as he took a seat next to her. His elbows rested against his knees as his fingers laced together. Jasper eyes focused on the fire in front of them as he nodded, “Yep.”

Raven looked back at the photo. A beautiful woman with long black hair smiled brilliantly toward the camera. In her lap, she held a chubby cheeked red haired baby that was loosely wrapped in a fuzzy yellow blanket. “Your mother?” She questioned. Why was he showing her this?

“No,” he pulled out a cigarette, placing it between his lips. “That’s my daughter.”

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Despite their unpredictable lives, they were all creatures of habit.

Nightwing was, by design, a creature of habit in almost every aspect of his life.

But the others…

Starfire, for example, monopolized the television on Monday and Thursday night starting at eight in the evening. About ten minutes before her first show, she’d make a large bowl of extra butter popcorn and during the last commercial break of her final show she’d grab a pint of frozen custard to enjoy.

Terra always had the same pre battle ritual. Once they’d arrived, her feet would slide to a sudden stop. Crouched and feet planted in a battle stance, she’d lace her fingers, crack her knuckles, and toss her head from left to right.

Cyborg regularly indulged in a midnight snack. Typically, around eleven or eleven thirty he’d start preparing his midnight dish. Waffles, steak and potatoes, super meat leftover sandwich… Something heavy, hearty, and simple. If they had a long day of crime fighting or the pantry were bare, Cyborg would head out for some takeout to indulge in.

“Sweet baby Jesus, dude!” Cyborg jumped stepping into the kitchen, hand clutching his chest.

Changeling smirked, looking at the clock on the side wall then casting a glance to the brown paper bag in his hand.

Eleven forty-five.

Just as he predicted.

“The hell you doing up?” Cyborg wondered, stepping into the kitchen. “Had I known, I would have gotten you a veggie burger. I went to that diner near the bay.” He carefully unpacked his midnight meal, taking a seat across him Changeling.

“I’m not hungry,” Changeling shrugged, leaning back in his seat to watch his friend organize his food in front of him.

Cyborg carefully unwrapped his burger. A delicious triple patty burger, slathered with four different selections of premium cheese, a quarter pound of bacon, lettuce, tomato, the chef’s super secret sauce, and served with spicy Cajun fries. With a happy sigh, he licked his lips as his fingers curled around the burger.

The green man waited until the burger was at his friend’s lips. “You know,” Changeling spoke, suppressing a smile as his friend lowered his meal. “I’ve been thinking.”

“Alert the media,” Cyborg smirked harmlessly.

He figured since Raven wasn’t here, someone else had to pick up the slack in slinging sarcastic comments at Changeling department. “You realize I’m not dumb right?” Changeling questioned folding his arms in front of his chest, casting his friend a hard stare.

“B…” Though he’d outgrown his old code name, Changeling found he couldn’t escape the nickname. “I was joking, I wasn’t tr-“

“Of course,” Changeling shrugged innocently.

“We know you aren’t stupid, B,” Cyborg sighed, feeling bad about the quip. “I mean we might give you shit from time to time, but…”

“Right, right,” Changeling nodded. “I get it.”

Cyborg, seemingly satisfied, picked his sandwich up again.

“So…”

Cyborg froze, mouth stretched over his burger as he prepared for his first bite.

“Care to tell me why Raven told everyone but me she was leaving?” He questioned calmly, green eyes fixated on his friend.

Cyborg dropped his burger, staring at his friend in panic.

“Well, me and Terra, but…” The changeling shrugged as he trailed off. His eyes narrowed as he waited for an answer.

Cyborg swallowed hard, eyes wide, and fingers twitching nervously as his mind searched for the correct response to that question. “I think,” he started slowly. “I think you should talk to Raven about that.”

“So, you’re saying I’m right?”

“Garfield-“

Changeling chortled bitterly as he leaned back, “I’m Garfield now.”

All he wanted to do was eat his damn burger in peace. “I mean, that’s your name.”

“You never call me Garfield.” Unless it was something serious.

“All I’m saying is,” Cyborg started, keeping his eyes away from the changeling and on the table in front of him. “I think you should talk to Raven.”

“About why she didn’t think I needed to know she was leaving?”

“I didn’t say that!”

“But it’s true,” Changeling nodded. He pressed his palms to the table as he stood up. “Thanks for confirming my suspicions.” He walked out of the kitchen. “Enjoy your burger.”

Cyborg scowled, dropping his burger back in the bag, “A man can’t even eat in peace in this got damn mutha fucking tower.”

So much for his midnight snack.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Daughter?

Raven pulled the photo closer to her face as she examined the baby staring back at her. She could see Roy in the fiery curls that framed the baby’s head like a little halo. Her dark eyes and skin were clearly from her mother.

“Her name’s Lian,” Roy commented as he lit the cigarette.

Since when did Roy have a daughter? And how didn’t she know? Did anyone know? “You’re a father?”

“I am,” he acknowledged with a small nod.

What the hell was she supposed to say to this? How was she supposed to feel? Her rage had fizzled in to confusion, shock, and a weird pang of dread as she stared at the photo.

“I’m also a drug addict,” Roy commented casually.

What? “What?” Her head snapped to him, eyes wide with bewilderment.

“Well,” he exhaled, blowing the smoke toward the fire. “I don’t use drugs or drink right now, I’m sober, but…” His brow wrinkled trying to figure out how to word this. “I’ll always be addicted, so I’m a drug addict with or without the needle between my toes.”

There were so many things she could comment on Raven couldn’t pick just one. “What am I supposed to say to this?”

“Anything you want,” Roy shrugged, unbothered by her shock.

She looked back at the photo and then to the redhead, mouth open as she yelled, “You don’t get to throw my phone off a cliff and the dump your damage in my lap like it’s nothing!” Her chest heaved as confusion bled back into anger.

“That’s fair, but you’re not worried about whatever’s going on in Jump or your phone anymore, so I’d say it was worth it.” Roy tossed her a cocky smirk, running a hand through his hair. “And I figured you’d have mercy because I have a child. Low yes, but…”

Raven felt the color drain from her face as she remembered the unsent text message she’d been crafting to Changeling. He really was going to think she was avoiding him, now.

So much for her fairytale romantic moment.

Not that she was expecting it, but…

He cleared his throat, voice fading to a serious tone. “I’m not asking you to tell me why you left Titans West-“

The fire illuminated the planes of his face and made his eyes glow. Even without her empathy, she could feel the sincerity radiating.

“But don’t think I’m not smart enough to see that you’ve got some major emotional baggage of your own,” he told her. “And that’s okay.”

Raven’s face softened with shock, the sound of her heartbeat deafening in her ears.

“It’s okay that you’re ‘damaged’. Fuck, I’m damaged,” he smirked, turning to face her tenderly. Roy placed a hand on her knee and giving it a little squeeze. “I like to think that the damage makes us better. Makes us real.” He looked at her softly, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder.

A sad smile curled on her lips as her eyes stung with tears, “Right because you can’t be a superhero without being broken.”

“It’s not about that,” he told her gently. “So, I read somewhere that in Japan they put gold in the cracks of their broken pottery,” Roy recalled with a smile. “Because the cracks makes the pottery beautiful and unique. Sure, you can have a perfect manufactured piece, but the ones with cracks have a story. They have character. They’ve experienced things.” He gently bumped her arm with his shoulder. “You have character. Your experiences, good and not so good, make you who you are.”

“That’s really beautiful,” Raven whispered, sniffling as she wiped her eyes.

He exhaled loudly, “Great because I didn’t actually read that lovely little piece of information. I heard it in an AA meeting. Or was it NA?”

A loud cackle escaped her before she could stop it. She almost hated how she couldn’t stay mad at him, “You’re ridiculous.”

“I am. I’m also damaged too,” Roy started again, clearing his throat as his tone became serious. “No matter how fucked up we are, we’re worthy of being whole. So what if we have cracks.”

He sounded like her therapist.

“And it seemed like those text messages were taking little pieces from you,” he told her gently. She didn’t need to know that Roy was aware of who she was talking to. “Honestly, it seems like everytime you’ve touched your phone chipped away at you so-“

“You chucked it off a cliff?” No use crying or plotting murder over spilled milk now.

“I did,” He nodded with a small chuckle. “I’ll buy you a new one when we get to Chicago.”

Covering a smirk, her fingers traced of the photo she still held. “We’re days away from Chicago.”

“Exactly. You need some time to unplug.” If they really need to reach anyone, Roy had his phone and they both had their communicators. “Untangle yourself from whatever’s keeping you from being whole.” His cigarette firmly tucked between his lips, he went over to the pot.

Raven felt her shoulders slouch and relax as she watched him carefully remove the foil packs from the pot. “I’m still mad at you,” she told him with playful seriousness.

Roy laughed. That was fair.

To be Continued

#teen titans fanfiction #teen titans #raven #beast boy #bbrae #speedy #speedyrae #roy harper #royrae #let go

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vibefrost · 6 years ago

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Killervibe Week - Day 3: Time Travel

So this is basically an AU of the last episode in season 4, where instead of Barry and Iris’s daughter coming back from the future, it’s Cisco and Caitlin’s daughter instead, which of course freaks everyone out (especially Caitlin and Cisco) :)

The girl appeared seemingly out of nowhere, yet it was as though she’d been there all along. Cisco tried to keep up with the conversation around him, listening as people pointed out where they’d seen this strange girl before, and speculating on who she really was. Yet Cisco found himself caught off guard by her appearance. She just looked so familiar, with her slender build, bronze skin and chocolate brown hair. Her eyes reminded him of the color of caramel, and the way she smiled, albeit nervously, struck him as oddly recognizable.

“Who are you?” someone, probably Barry, asked, and then the strange girl locked eyes with him.

Have I seen her in a vibe? Cisco asked himself, but this familiarity came from his gut, not his mind. She almost looks like she could be—

“My name is Angelina Ramon,” she announced, her voice steady despite her apprehensive expression. “I’m your guy’s daughter, from the future.”

Cisco realized she had shifted her gaze away from him and onto someone else, and the realization hit Cisco harder than Barry’s super-sonic speed punch.

The smile, the eyes, the behavior. That’s why it all seemed so familiar, because it reminded him of his best friend.

It reminded him of—

“Wait, me?” Caitlin gasped, the glass in her hand falling to the living room rug. “You’re my—our—” she gave Cisco a fleeting glance before turning back to the young woman, “daughter?”

Angelina Ramon nodded, twisting her fingers together nervously. “I came because…I’m in trouble, and I’m afraid I’ve made a really big mistake.”

It had been three days since Angelina Ramon showed up and completely turned Cisco’s world upside down. He had always wanted to have a family with kids, but he never even dreamed he’d be meeting them before they were even conceived.

Or that Caitlin would be the mother of his children.

It’s not necessarily a bad thing though, Cisco reminded himself as he watched Caitlin run a DNA test on Angelina, just to be sure. I mean, Caitlin is beautiful and smart, and a great person overall. She’s probably a terrific mother.

It was just the fact that he had never once found himself having romantic feelings towards Caitlin that made the whole situation seem so much more bizarre. Would there be a sudden change in their relationship coming up soon? Were they married in the future? Did they have other children too? Cisco wanted to know all the facts, but Angelina would hardly reveal anything about their personal lives, except that she was their child.

He watched as Caitlin walked over to him after the test had been conducted, and sat down by his desk, staring at the tablet screen in her hands.

“Well?” he asked. “What’s the consensus?” He already knew she was without a doubt their daughter, but wanted to hear Caitlin acknowledge it for herself.

“She is extremely healthy, has perfectly working organs and strong bones, plus…a perfect mix of both of our DNA.” Caitlin finally looked up at him, her expression unreadable.

“So…” Cisco started, watching as Angelina enthusiastically interacted with Barry and Iris. “We have a daughter.”

“I suppose we do,” Caitlin replied.

Their eyes met, and despite the strangeness of the situation, Cisco couldn’t help but smile.

It was soon discovered that some twenty odd years in the future, metas were being hunted. Angelina explained to them all that there was a man, simply called “The Hunter,” that had the ability to drain metas of their power, and that Team Flash was in a desperate need of help.

“The majority of our team had lost their powers, leaving only me and Nora,” Angelina told everyone, as they all gathered in Star Labs to hear her story.

“Wait, who’s Nora?” Barry immediately interrupted, his expression inquisitive.

“Oh, um, your daughter. She’s a speedster too,” Angelina revealed, and then quickly resumed her story. “Anyway, I was supposed to go back in time to get you, but I kept stalling because I was sure there was another way around the problem without messing up the timeline.” She grimaced before continuing. “But because I delayed so long, The Hunter found us and ended up breaking into our facility and took my powers right after I opened a time-breach, but Nora didn’t know he took my powers so she pushed me through, and now I’m stuck here with no way to get back and she has no idea.”

Everyone was silent as they took in what she said.

“So what are your powers again?” Caitlin eventually asked.

Angelina smiled at her and Cisco before responding. “I can vibe. And I also can freeze things. Back home I’m called Crystal Vibe.”

“You inherited both of their meta powers?” Iris asked incredulously. “I didn’t know that was even possible.”

“Wait, you said you opened a time-breach,” Cisco pointed out. “And…what is that?”

Angelina blinked in surprise, and then softy laughed. “Right, sorry, you haven’t invented them yet. It’s a breach that lets you travel through different timelines, including the one you’re in.”

Cisco held up his hands. “Hold up—I invent time travel?”

Angelina laughed again, a sound that Cisco was coming accustomed to. “Uncle Barry kinda did it first, but you invented a version of it.”

When everyone had finished their questioning, Angelina left to catch up on some sleep, and Cisco found himself drawn to wherever Caitlin was.

“She is pretty cool, you have to admit,” Cisco said as he watched Caitlin clean her instruments in the med lab.

“Of course she is—she has us as parents,” Caitlin replied with a smile.

Cisco found himself wanting to make her smile more and more. He never noticed how happy it made him until now.

“Y’know,” Caitlin continued as she rinsed off her scalpel. “I never mentioned it earlier, but out of everyone I could’ve had a daughter with, I’m…I’m glad it was you. I know I can trust you with anything.”

Cisco wasn’t sure if it was his imagination or if she was actually blushing, but his heart leapt at her words.

Maybe the notion of him and Caitlin eventually hooking up wasn’t so absurd after all.

The real trouble started when The Hunter found a way to come to present-time Central City.

It was a complete surprise to all of them, and unfortunately caught them off guard. The Hunter burst into Star Labs, ominously moving through the corridors as he sought out more meta power to consume. Immediately, Iris ordered Cisco, Ralph, and Barry to flee the premises.

“You’re our three metas with powers, and we’ve got to keep you safe,” she commanded, disregarding all of their protests. “At least just hide until the Hunter has left, and then we’ll come up with a plan.”

Cisco hated it, but knew she was right. He breached Barry and Ralph out of Star Labs to the other side of the city, where they brainstormed ways to defeat The Hunter while awaiting Iris’s “all-clear” signal. Yet when they got the message and returned to Star Labs, they were met with an unpleasant sight.

Almost half of Star Labs had been demolished, or at least severely damaged. Apparently when The Hunter realized there were no metas there, he went into a rage and started destroying everything in his wake.

Cisco was annoyed, of course, but then he felt his heart stop in fear when Iris told them Caitlin had been injured in the attack, and wasn’t waking up. He rushed as quickly as he could to the Med Lab (or what was left of it) and saw Caitlin lying eerily still on the white bed, her face scratched and bruised. For two whole days he stayed by her side, trying everything her could to help her heal faster and wake her up, but as the hours stretched on so did his anxious thoughts.

He had known Caitlin for so long, and for so long they had been best friends, always laughing with each other and spending time together, whether it be at work or at their apartments, watching cheesy Netflix shows and giving a running commentary while gorging themselves on snacks. He didn’t think he could picture his life without her. He didn’t want to picture his life without her. He wanted to always have her by his side, to see her smile at his jokes and help comfort him when times grew tough. He wanted to be there and support her through all of her troubles and be there to celebrate her triumphs. He just wanted to be around her, whether they were saving the city or just going to the grocery store, he just wanted her, and that was when he realized that maybe, just maybe, he was in love.

It took another few days before Caitlin awoke form her coma, and Cisco had never felt more relieved when she did. He hadn’t been able to function properly without knowing if she was going to be okay, and he shared his worries with her once she was fully awake and oriented.

“Don’t be silly,” Caitlin chided fondly. “I couldn’t die. We have to have our daughter first, remember?”

All Cisco could do in response was grip her hand tightly and try not to cry.

Throughout the next few weeks the Star Labs team worked nonstop, trying to come up with a solution. They knew that The Hunter was somehow harboring all of the meta powers he’d stolen inside him, so they couldn’t just kill him or else all the powers would be lost. They needed to find a way to siphon the powers away from him so they could return them to their respective owners in the future, plus also find a way to get to the future.

“The speed force only goes to the past, so Barry can’t do it,” Angelina told them. “It has to be you, dad.” She had looked at Cisco with so much confidence, as though she knew he could find a way to time-breach, but Cisco was completely clueless. He had listened to his daughter try and coach him through how to do it, but no matter how hard he tried his efforts were useless.

“It’s impossible,” he groaned to Caitlin after Angelina suggested they take a break. “A time-breach is beyond anything I’ve ever tried before. It’s literally vibing apart the time continuum and jumping into the future!”

“I’m sure it just takes time,” Caitlin reassured him, squeezing his hand comfortingly. “But if anyone can do it, I know you can.”

Caitlin’s encouragement meant more to him than she probably knew. The following days he trained harder than ever before, willing himself to go beyond his limits to try and save the future. And every day, after his long training sessions were finally over, Caitlin was always there to give his shoulder a comforting squeeze, hold his weary hands, or even gently kiss his throbbing forehead. Their physical contact was becoming more and more common now than ever before, yet neither of them really noticed. It just seemed so natural to the both of them, as though it was always meant to be this way.

Eventually all of Cisco’s hard work paid off, and he finally discovered how to open a time-breach. Everyone congratulated him and was encouraged by his positive success, but the proud smile Caitlin gave him and the way she gently kissed his cheek was all the reward Cisco needed.

They team now had a way to get to the future, and soon they discovered a way to reverse the powers of The Hunter and take the meta powers back. All they needed was to lure The Hunter into walking through a time-breach to take him back to the future.

Together they all devised a plan where Barry would lure The Hunter to Star Labs again, only this time Cisco would be ready with a time-breach that Iris, Caitlin, and Angelina would knock him through. Then Barry, Cisco, and Angelina would follow The Hunter through the portal and use their siphoning ray to take his powers, and then distribute them to all the powerless metas. Then The Hunter would be locked up in Iron Heights, and Barry and Cisco would go home.

The plan seemed fairly stable, but Cisco was slightly apprehensive about all the unknown variables they didn’t account for. What happened if The Hunter didn’t take Barry as bait? What if The Hunter somehow stole Cisco’s powers before he could open the breach? Questions raced through his head, but he shook them off for the time being, focusing on the plan and what they did know instead.

“I guess this means I have to say goodbye to Angelina,” Caitlin said to him softly, after Iris told everyone to get into their places.

Cisco squeezed her hand. “We’ll see her again someday.” Caitlin nodded at his words.

Both of them had completely accepted the fact that they were going to have a child at some point in the future by now, and Cisco found himself looking forward to the time when they would actually start a family.

“Just be careful, all right?” Caitlin told him, reaching up to tuck a loose strand of his hair behind his ear. “The future can be a scary place.” She smirked as he rolled his eyes.

“I’ll be fine,” he promised, and then drew her into a hug. He was about to pull away when Caitlin caught him by the arm, her deep brown eyes boring into his. Then without any sort of warning or preamble, she leaned forward and pressed her lips against his own.

It was a short and sweet kiss, but it left Cisco breathless all the same. When she drew back she gave him a shy smile. “For luck,” she clarified, and then turned to go and bid goodbye to their future daughter.

Barry walked over a few minutes later, checking to make sure he was ready when he frowned, giving Cisco a wary look. “You looked dazed. Are you feeling alright?”

“I’m feeling great,” Cisco assured, thinking about how that kiss was just the beginning of several more to come.

The plan went off without a hitch. The Hunter took the bait as planned, and Cisco was successfully able to transport everyone to the future. There Angelina used the gun on The Hunter and released all the stolen meta power, which was quickly returned to their rightful owners, and everything had been restored.

“Thank you so much,” Angelina told Cisco once everything was over, giving Barry time to talk to his future daughter Nora for a bit. “We never could’ve done this without you.”

“No problem,” Cisco said, and then cleared his throat before continuing. “And, uh, thank you as well. If you hadn’t come, I don’t think you would’ve ever been born.”

To his surprise, she shook her head with a laugh. “I don’t think that’s completely true. You and mom have always shared a special connection, even before I showed up. You would’ve found your way to each other eventually.”

Her words initially shocked him, but after a moment he began to see how she could be right. “You really think so?”

Angelina nodded confidently. “You’ve always been in love with her, I just helped you come to the conclusion a little faster.” She glanced around behind her. “Speaking of parents, I should find them. Well, I mean my current-time parents.” She giggled as her eyes lit up, so similar to Caitlin’s when she got excited. “Your future self is gonna freak when I tell him I met you and mom.”

Cisco smiled. “Freak him out good for me.” He then gave her a quick hug, and she was gone.

Once Barry had finished talking to Nora, he came back to Cisco, smiling widely. “I can’t wait to meet her in our timeline,” he said excitedly, and then the two of them jumped through Cisco’s time-breach back into Star Labs.

“You made it!” Iris exclaimed, racing over to Barry and embracing him. Cisco hardly took notice of them though, for his eyes were focused on Caitlin, and how she gave him a warm smile before coming over to embrace him as well.

Later that night, with their hands intertwined, Cisco and Caitlin sat on the roof of Star Labs, watching as the sun set and painted the sky with pinks and yellows.

“So…” Caitlin began, shooting him a playful smirk.

“So,” Cisco parroted, turning his head to face her.

“You think we should skip all the dating and stuff and just get busy on creating Angelina Ramon?”

Cisco nearly choked on his own breath at her words, but then saw a large grin split her face as she began laughing hard, tears sparkling in her eyes.

“Your face, Cisco, was priceless,” she managed to say while still laughing.

Cisco couldn’t help but laugh along with her, and once they had eventually calmed down he turned to her, his demeanor more serious. “I do want to start a family with you,” he admitted, rubbing his thumb gently across her knuckles. “But I want to start out properly.” He glanced up at Caitlin, noting the affection in her eyes as she stared at him. “So, how does a date sound?”

“It sounds perfect,” Caitlin responded softly, almost glowing due to the sun shining on her hair.

This time Cisco leaned forward and captured her mouth with his own, and enjoyed the feeling of her soft lips and the sweet smell of her caramel hair. He soon became lost in the kiss, thinking of nothing but Caitlin and how he was the luckiest man in the multiverse.

The future looked bright for them, and for the moment, that was all he needed to know.

#killervibeweek #killervibe week #killervibe #my fic #writing #future child

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allofthisnonsenseplease · 7 years ago

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Another R76 au in which Jack is definitely not a cat person (unless you ask Gabe)

A/N: written based on some stuff Leah & i were talking about a while ago. silliness, and Jack thinking entirely too hard about certain things. =^..^=

Jack Morrison was not a cat person. He didn't hate them, exactly, but he didn't like them, either. As far as he was concerned, cats belonged in barns to control rodent populations, or—as he'd come to accept, if not understand—in secondhand bookstores to judge the customers as they browsed. He didn't think cats were evil or heartless, but there was something off-putting about the way they stared, something in their eyes that always made him suspect that they knew more than they were letting on. They were all so...alien-looking. And they cheated at physics. Jack was pretty sure that Douglas Adams had gotten it wrong—if the world was one giant lab set up with humans as the test subjects, it wouldn't be mice running the show, but cats.

Taking all that into account, he wondered, not for the first time, how he had ended up sitting at his favorite bar, looking at photos of a little white cat with stubby legs, while the creature's owner sang her praises.

Jack took a sip of his drink and let his gaze slip from the phone screen held between them, down to the leg of the man sitting next to him. Dark blue jeans hugged his calves and strained around thickly muscled thighs that Jack really wanted to become more intimately acquainted with. His eyes traveled up, past a gorgeous ass unfortunately firmly ensconced on the bar stool, trim waist and flat stomach, nice chest hidden beneath a gray hoodie bearing a few stray cat hairs, broad shoulders, and....

“Jack?”

His eyes snapped up at the sound of his name, meeting those of the man who had been regaling him with tales of his cat for the past half hour. The man's name was Gabriel.

He was a goddamn angel.

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

They'd met at the gym. Jack had noticed Gabriel almost immediately. Who wouldn't have? He was huge, and all of it, from what Jack had seen, was muscle. There was a presence about him, too, something commanding, and the ball chain disappearing into his tank top suggested dog tags. He had a bad case of resting bitch face, but he smiled easily enough that Jack made him for a genuinely friendly guy. That assumption proved itself true when, seeing him hovering indecisively near a weight bench, Jack had wandered over and asked if he needed someone to spot for him.

Gabriel had lit right up, and Jack had been unprepared for the full force of that smile. He'd gotten used to being the charming one. It was unexpected to find himself tongue-tied. Unexpected...but not entirely unpleasant. He smiled back and took his place as spotter and let Gabriel lead the conversation. The topic quickly came around to his pet cat, and Jack let the words flow over him, half lost in appreciation of Gabriel's arms and chest, his warm eyes and sharp cheekbones, the beard that looked like it would scratch so deliciously against delicate skin, the sweat-slicked curls atop his head, even just the quality of his voice.

“You want to get a drink when we're done here?” Jack asked as he finished. He sealed the deal with his brightest smile and added: “You can tell me more about your cat.”

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

“Jack? You all right?”

He managed to drag his focus back to what Gabriel was saying, though he couldn't for the life of him remember anything about the cat.

What had he said her name was? Munchkin? Or had that been the breed? Something with a 'B,' wasn't it?

God, he just wanted to climb right onto Gabriel's lap. He caught himself starting to chew on his thumbnail, and forced his hand down, brushing non-existent dust from his t-shirt.

“She's a real cutie,” Jack said, nodding at the phone. He nearly choked on his beer when Gabriel beamed. The man was unfairly handsome.

“Yeah, Bunny's my little angel.”

Gabriel smiled fondly at the picture on the phone, one of the least flattering ones that made it look like the squat furball's eyes were looking off in opposite directions as she lay tangled up in a ribbon toy. He glanced up suddenly at Jack, smile fading as he made to put his phone away.

“Sorry. Was I boring you? I didn't mean—”

“No, no. Not at all.” Jack was willing to put up with a lot more than just some uninteresting conversation if it meant improving his chances with a guy like Gabriel. He smiled winningly, and raised his beer in a mock toast. “I love cats.”

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

Gabriel gave Jack his number before they parted, and drinks after their workout that night turned into a couple days of texting followed by a date. They met at the gym, worked up an appetite, showered off (separately, to Jack's dismay, although his imagination was loudly opinionated on exactly what he was missing), and walked to a nearby pub for dinner. Dinner turned into drinks turned into three hours gone in the blink of an eye as they talked and laughed and Jack admired Gabriel's laughter and his voice and the way his mouth moved, lips and tongue shaping words that Jack did his best to focus on past his desire to bring Gabriel home and find out what those lips felt like against his skin, what his voice would sound like breathless with need, what the contours of Gabriel's body would feel like beneath his hands. Yes, it was fun talking with Gabriel—although the stories about his cat were just a bit too numerous—but Jack wanted something other than simply a date run long.

They parted ways at the pub. Jack mourned the missed opportunity, but Gabriel smiled for him and said they should do it again soon, and Jack's heart made a funny sort of leap in his chest that forced out his “Yes!” just a beat too quickly, a shade too enthusiastically. Gabriel wasn't a sex-on-the-first-date kind of guy. Jack could respect that. There were plenty of other guys he could hook up with. It wasn't as if he was desperate.

Still....

As he walked home, there was no use trying to lie to himself about being eager to see Gabriel again. And it had been a nice date, all in all, just not entirely what Jack had been hoping for. Next time, then, he told himself, and made do that night with the memory of Gabriel's warm voice and crooked smile, letting his imagination fill in a few blanks as he stroked himself to quell the unsatisfied need that had lain banked since their first meeting and had flared to life over the course of the evening.

They had their second date the very next night. Gabriel picked the restaurant this time—a Thai place Jack had never tried before, but immediately added to his list of favorite places to eat. It wasn't far from his apartment, and his hopes for the end of the evening soared higher as the comfortable vibe they'd found carried over. He couldn't seem to stop fidgeting—tugging his shirt straight, brushing dust off his clothes, smoothing down his jeans. When he asked as they were leaving if Gabriel wanted to come over to his place, he had to force a casualness that he didn't feel. Gabriel's quiet “Sure.” was a victory.

Utterly pleased with himself, he caught a glimpse of his reflection in the darkened glass of a storefront along the way home and paused. Seeing that his hair had begun to droop, he wet the tips of his fingers on his tongue and spiked it back up, preening a bit in his anticipation. After a moment, Gabriel stepped up right behind him and laid his hands heavily on Jack's shoulders.

“Why bother with that now?” he murmured in Jack's ear. “I'm only going to mess it up as soon as we get back to your apartment.”

A shiver ran straight down Jack's spine. He wasted no further time heading home.

It didn't really bother him when, hours later, Gabriel got out of bed and began getting dressed to leave. Jack was used to partners not always wanting to stay the night. So, well-fucked and pleasantly worn out, he bid Gabriel a sleepy good night and curled into the warmth left behind. He was drifting off even before Gabriel had left, but, on the edge of sleep, felt a hand ruffle his hair.

That evening was the first of several more like it. They texted throughout the day, met up at the gym or at restaurants that they took turns suggesting, talked over dinner and drinks and new photos of Gabriel's cat, and ended the night in Jack's apartment, making good use of his bed. Or sofa. Or, once, his shower. Gabriel always left before midnight, always petted Jack's hair as he left, and, as the days passed, Jack found himself wishing that he would stay a bit longer, that Gabriel would fall asleep with him and at least stay until morning.

He brought it up casually, once or twice, but Gabriel left early to be sure his cat was taken care of, and the only solution he offered was for Jack to come home with him instead. Convinced that Bunny would hate him on sight, and that actually encountering her would expose him for the liar that he was, Jack found excuse after excuse to avoid Gabriel's apartment. As much as Gabriel loved that cat, there was no doubt in Jack's mind that Bunny would always come first. It would put a damper on things if Gabriel found out that Jack didn't like cats, and Jack wasn't ready to let their relationship fizzle out. In the back of his mind, he knew it would end sooner or later like all the others...but something about Gabriel made him want to hold on, even if just for a little bit longer.

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

Jack almost thought he'd gotten his wish for Gabriel to stay over one night. They'd cuddled up and drifted off after getting cleaned up, but Gabriel had set an alarm on his phone. The sound of it yanked Jack out of his comfortable stupor, and he grumbled as Gabriel kissed his forehead and slipped out of bed. For a moment, Jack listened to him moving carefully around the room, then he sat up, spilling the sheets into his lap, and turned on the bedside lamp.

“You can go back to sleep,” Gabriel said, picking up his jeans. “I'll lock the door on the way out.”

“They make automatic food dispensers for cats, you know,” he said as he watched Gabriel dress.

“Yeah, but...it's not the same as being there with her. I don't like to leave her alone all night.”

Sighing, Jack lay back against the pillow. He left the sheets low over his hips where they'd fallen, and ran a hand idly over his chest. “What about me?”

Gabriel paused, socks in hand, looking unusually pleased with himself. “What about you?”

“Maybe I don't want to be left alone all night. Come play with me some more.”

He stretched, smirking to feel the sheets slide just a bit lower as he showed off his body and watched Gabriel watching him. He let his hand skim lower, past his stomach, until his fingers stirred the blond trail of hair below his bellybutton. The move didn't get the response he'd expected.

Gabriel chuckled. “You are exactly like Bunny.”

“What?”

At Jack's deadpan response, Gabriel sat down on the edge of the bed and reached over to ruffle his hair...a gesture Jack leaned into until he realized how much it resembled petting a cat, and he batted Gabriel's hand away. That didn't dissuade him. If anything, Gabriel's eyes took on a warmth that left Jack reflexively leaning even closer, bottom lip caught in his teeth. Gabriel cupped his cheek and stroked a thumb over his skin. He let Jack catch up his hand and bring it to his lips to kiss his fingers, suck them gently past his teeth, and run his tongue against the tips. When Gabriel pulled free, Jack pouted briefly, then smiled as Gabriel caressed his throat and ran his fingers down his chest, leaving a trail of coolness and shivers in his wake.

“You and Bunny,” Gabriel murmured, his voice a pleasant, low rumble. “Both of you want the maximum reward for the minimum effort.”

“Hey! That's not—!” His protest stopped short as Gabriel's hand reached the edge of the sheet and slipped beneath to cup him.

“It's all right,” he said, grinning as he began to stroke. “I think it's cute.”

Part of Jack was insulted. He wasn't 'cute.' He was sexy, hot, desirable—any number of things that shouldn't be associated with small, furry animals. He wanted to sit up and protest, make Gabriel take it back...

...but he was getting what he wanted. A bit more time, a bit more of Gabriel's attention and affection. He rocked his hips up into Gabriel's touch and moaned softly.

He could definitely bear being cute, if this was what it earned him.

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

“I'm telling you, Ana, he loves that cat more than me.”

'Jack...exactly how long have you been seeing this man?'

“Not the point,” he muttered, grateful that she couldn't see the embarrassment reddening his cheeks over the phone. He never should have called her up over this, but Gabriel had left immediately after that consolation hand job the previous night, and Jack was starting to panic over the thought that he was losing to a cat.

Saying 'love' had been...simply the most accurate way to describe Gabriel's attachment to his pet. It had no bearing on Jack's own feelings at all. As if he even could start to fall for someone in.... How long had he been seeing Gabriel? A couple of weeks? It couldn't have been more than—

'Jack?'

“Sorry, Ana, what were you saying?”

She sighed. 'I was saying that you're being ridiculous. Don't go looking for problems where there aren't any.'

“This isn't a fake problem! People always put their pets first. And you know I don't get along with cats.”

'I can tell you think this is important, which is why, instead of hanging up and considering this a waste of my time, I am going to suggest that you ask yourself if it is truly likely that all cats everywhere have an intrinsic dislike for you and, if so, if you honestly believe, in your heart of hearts, that Gabriel will dump you for not being as enamored with his pet as he is.'

Jack thought for a moment. Then: “You don't understand.”

'I'm hanging up now, Jack. Good luck with your paranoia.'

“Ana, wait!” The line went dead, droning heartlessly until he hit the end call button. He tossed his phone onto the coffee table and paced the living room. “I'm not making this up,” he muttered to himself.

He was going to have to work something out, and soon. He was running out of excuses to avoid going over to Gabriel's place, certain that Bunny would take an instant dislike to him and ruin everything. Or just get cat hair all over his clothes. Maybe crap in his shoes. Cats were sneaky.

The point was: Bunny would sense his dislike. She would know he had lied to Gabriel. Jack didn't want an angry cat throwing a wrench into this relationship. Things were going so well! Better than they had in a while, he realized. It was more than just great sex—there was a connection with Gabriel, he was sure of it. He was also sure that if Gabriel found out that he was the cold, heartless sort who couldn't love the little cat Gabriel was so devoted to, then that would be the end. Jack didn't know what the future might have in store for the two of them, but for the first time in a long time, he wanted to find out. He would have to keep the cat issue under wraps until he'd racked up enough points in his favor to stop it from being a deal-breaker. He just needed a bit more time. After all, even counting that first night when all they'd done was get a drink and exchange numbers, they'd only been seeing each other for...

Jack did a quick count backward and halted in his pacing. Without noticing it, he'd started biting his thumbnail again, and he yanked his hand away from his mouth as he muttered to himself: “Shit. It's been almost a month.”

Time had flown. He realized that he might be in a bit deeper than he'd thought.

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

Jack's sofa was gray. The salesperson had called it “charcoal gray,” and said it was “neutral” and would “go with anything.” It matched some of his decor. The TV was black, so far, so good. The TV stand was chrome and glass. The glass had a faintly greenish tint. His coffee table was a battered, solid oak monstrosity that had moved with him from Indiana and been in the family for who knew how long before that. The bookshelves were black-laminated plywood. His dinette was more chrome and glass (the glass had a faintly grayish tint). The carpet was basic apartment beige, the walls were the sort of matte white that always managed to look dingy, and the vertical blinds in front of the sliding door out onto his tiny balcony were eggshell. The sofa failed to bring everything together as promised, but it was comfy and, as far as Jack cared, that was what mattered.

It was a mishmash, but it was saved from being a dull mishmash by the plants. A vase of sunflowers sat to one side of the coffee table. They'd been a cash crop back home, but he'd found that keeping some in the apartment dulled the occasional sting of homesickness. The rest of the plants had accumulated for much the same reason. An enormous peace lily took up most of the corner between the TV stand and the balcony doors, and African violets peeked out from his bookshelves. A kalanchoe with bright yellow flowers sat on the kitchen table. When he pushed the blinds aside, the last rays of fading sunlight streamed in past the container garden that took up most of his balcony—planters of succulents, pots of begonias, hanging baskets overflowing with petunias, even a small grape tomato plant. He'd hung bird feeders up to either side. It gave him something to watch while he had his morning coffee.

Two days after he'd been abandoned in favor of a kitten who he was sure couldn't possibly be as lonely as her owner claimed, Jack had another date planned with Gabriel. Didn't everyone always say that cats were solitary creatures? They were supposed to be able to get along fine on their own. Bunny just had Gabriel wrapped around her stubby paw. She probably already hated Jack. He was competition.

He stalked through the apartment, making sure everything was cleaned up and set to rights. Originally, they had planned to go out for dinner, but Gabriel had texted him earlier to ask if he would mind changing things up. Now, Gabriel was on his way with fixings to make dinner. They were going to cook together and watch movies on the couch. Jack wasn't sure what had put the idea into Gabriel's head, but he was happy enough to go along with it. Although he'd had boyfriends that cooked for him once or twice, he hadn't ever cooked with someone like that. He was looking forward to it.

The sunflowers on his coffee table were wilting. Wishing he'd had time to pick up some fresh ones, Jack threw them away and rinsed out the vase. The table looked bare without them, and the room seemed suddenly colorless. Turning to the patio doors, he flicked on the balcony light against the growing darkness. His little container garden looked odd at night beneath artificial lights, but at least it would liven up the room a bit.

Realizing he was fussing over nothing, that Gabriel had already seen his apartment under more cluttered circumstances, Jack tried to sit down and relax. He told himself that this wasn't a big deal. It was casual. The assurances felt like lies. Casual, yes, but intimate. They were going to be cooking together, in his tiny kitchen. This wasn't just a couple guys grabbing a bite before heading back to an apartment to fuck, this was domestic. Nervous energy had him smoothing down his navy v-neck shirt, plucking at the slightest suggestion of dust, brushing imaginary wrinkles out of his khakis. More than almost anything at the moment, he wanted to be able to go for a jog or head to the gym for a few rounds against a punching bag. He shouldn't be so damn unsettled! This wasn't as big a deal as his nerves were making it out to be.

Part of him wanted it to be a big deal, though, which didn't help at all.

He was chewing his thumbnail when the sudden knock at his door broke into his whirling thoughts. It startled him badly enough that he jumped out of his seat, banging his shins against the coffee table. With a hiss he stumbled around it and hurried for the door.

“Coming!”

He pulled the door open and went still as stone, expression freezing in the middle of shifting from a pained grimace to a welcoming smile. The impulse to slam the door was strong enough that he had to tighten his fist around the knob until he could almost feel it creaking under the pressure. Gabriel stood just across the threshold, grinning and holding up a little ball of white fur that didn't look at all happy to be there.

“Say hi to Jack, Bunny!” Gabriel turned his grin onto the cat, giving Jack a much needed moment to shake off the unwelcome surprise.

“You brought Bunny.” The false enthusiasm he'd tried to buoy his voice with fell flat. Thankfully, Gabriel didn't seem to notice.

“Yeah. She's been dying to meet you. Here! Hold her for a sec while I bring all this in.”

Before Jack could protest, Bunny was thrust forward into his arms. He scrabbled, trying to get a good hold on the cat—dropping her would be like dropping Gabriel's flesh-and-blood child—without actually touching her any more than was necessary. He felt the warning prick of claws against his hands as Gabriel turned away.

“Uhh...Gabe?”

“I wanted it to be a surprise. We talk about her all the time, but you haven't been able to come over. Besides—” His smile as he turned around with a cat carrier in one hand and grocery bags in the other was far more suggestive than his grin had been. “—now I can stay the night with no distractions.”

One very big distraction squirmed in Jack's hold as he stepped aside to let Gabriel in. Bunny was soft as dandelion fluff, and not pleased with her situation. She meowed imperiously as Gabriel leaned in to give Jack a quick peck on the lips.

“Happy one month anniversary.” He slipped past Jack to set the groceries on the dining table and the cat carrier on the floor.

The reminder of a realization he'd only just come to the day before kick started Jack's brain. He smiled, hiding his discomfort as best he could while he fought to—gently—keep hold of the increasingly wriggly Bunny.

“So that explains the change of plans,” Jack said. “I was just thinking about that the other day, but I hadn't really expected we'd do much for it.”

Gabriel looked back at him, smile fading. “Too much? I just thought—”

“No, no!” Jack moved in for another kiss, sweet and lingering, and managed to pass Bunny off in the middle of it. “Cooking together, relaxing on the couch with a movie, and I get to keep you all night? We can celebrate every week if it means more dates like this.”

The words had just spilled out. Had that been too much? Was he being clingy? It had been so long since he'd wanted anything more than a good fuck out of a partner that he wasn't sure—

With his hands full of cat, Gabriel couldn't pull him into a hug, but he did catch Jack's lips in another kiss which only ended as Bunny began to protest. Laughing, Gabriel pulled away and soothed her with scratches behind her ears.

“Spoiled little imp,” he said affectionately.

Jack felt a sudden, acute spike of jealousy.

“Do me a favor, Jack, and move the lily and the kalanchoe out onto the balcony.” He caught Jack's look of bewilderment and added with an apologetic smile: “They're poisonous to cats. I had to look up the kalanchoe, but with lilies it's pretty common knowledge.”

Thinking that if Bunny wasn't smart enough to avoid eating poisonous plants, then she was obviously an evolutionary dead end, Jack nevertheless took his plants outside without a word of protest. He heard his door open and shut again, and turned to see that Gabriel had brought in one more thing. With Bunny now loose and sniffing around behind him, he came forward with a dwarf sunflower in a red ceramic pot painted with little black cats.

“Happy anniversary,” he said again, handing them to Jack along with another brief kiss.

Bunny meowed her disapproval, and Gabriel pulled away, laughing softly as Jack tried to marshal his warring delight and dismay.

“Do these need to go outside, too?”

“Nope.” Gabriel was practically beaming. “Your favorite flowers are cat friendly.”

“Great.” Smiling past the looming knowledge that he was a fraud, he set the flowers on the coffee table, and skirted around Bunny as she approached to sniff his feet.

“She won't bite.”

Jack looked up, startled to see Gabriel watching him with a crooked smile. “Oh. Yeah, I just.... She's so small, you know?”

He saw Gabriel's expression change, saw the smile widen, lips parting to reveal a glimpse of white teeth, saw it crinkle around the corners of his eyes, saw such clear affection focused on himself that it made his heart speed up. Jack felt himself heat up and knew he'd be blushing from the top of his chest all the way up to his ears. He clenched his fists at his sides and locked his knees, because if he moved, he was going to rush straight into Gabriel's arms and once that happened, they were not going to be getting around to cooking dinner anytime soon.

“Just be gentle with her, Jack. She'll love you.”

Jack wasn't convinced. He was certain that cats could tell when people didn't like them, and Bunny, with her stubby legs and suspicious stare and white fur that was going to get everywhere, was not exactly a welcome guest in his apartment. He moved out of the way to watch from a corner near the balcony door as Gabriel began pulling things out of bags to make Bunny at home. He had a small, plastic tray and litter, a pair of bowls, bagged food, canned food, three cat toys, and, stuffed into the cat carrier, a small, plush cat bed. Jack's pristine floor was soon scattered with Bunny's things. The cat meowed and rubbed against Gabriel, begging as he poured out a measure of dry food for her to eat, and playfully scolded her for her whining, reminding her that it wasn't yet dinnertime and that she'd get her wet food in just a little bit if she was patient and behaved. He talked to her as if she could understand.

It was only once he was done making Bunny at home that Gabriel began unpacking the things he'd brought to make dinner with. Jack eased out of his corner and slipped into the kitchen, watching Bunny warily the whole while, though she never once looked up from her food. On his way, he caught sight of his shoes next to the door. He had no good excuse to move them—'I don't trust your cat not to piss in my shoes' probably wouldn't go over well—so he crossed his fingers and hoped for the best. Maybe if he kept out of Bunny's way, she wouldn't take exception to him.

In the kitchen, Gabriel was arranging the ingredients he'd brought on the counter, and going through the cabinets, pulling out pans and utensils. Jack stepped up behind him, a bit closer than he strictly needed to even in the small space, and ran a hand across Gabriel's lower back as he came around to his other side to take a closer look. He noted the two bottles of wine with interest as Gabriel put a carton of strawberries and a covered steel mixing bowl into the fridge.

“What's on the menu?”

“Filet mignon with a balsamic glaze, steamed asparagus and grape tomatoes with Parmesan, and baby red potatoes. And I brought strawberries with homemade whipped cream for dessert.”

Jack blinked in surprise. “What, no bread to cover that last food group?” He was pleased to earn a soft laugh, and moved in closer, leaning against Gabriel and setting his chin on his shoulder to peek as he finished sorting things out. “That sounds complicated. Would it have been easier for me to come over?”

“It's simpler than you think.” Reaching up, Gabriel ruffled Jack's hair affectionately. “Wash up and help me chop potatoes.”

They got to it, Gabriel giving each of the baby reds a quick scrub, then handing them off to Jack to be chopped and tossed into a pot, then set to boil. “They'd be better roasted, really, but I was planing more for speed tonight,” he admitted. His smile turned smug, and there was a teasing note of challenge in his voice as he added: “Maybe next time, I'll have you over instead so I can take my time cooking something up.”

Jack's stomach flipped, and for a moment, he couldn't remember why he'd kept dodging Gabriel's invitations. Then, as if realizing that her presence had slipped Jack's mind, Bunny stalked into the kitchen, tail held high, and rubbed against Gabriel's leg, crying for his attention. Gabriel only laughed and assured her that he didn't have anything she would want to eat, winking at Jack as if keeping filet mignon from the cat was a joke they were sharing. He did, however, pull one of the dinette chairs near the edge of the counter and lift Bunny up onto the seat to give her a better view of what was going on. She cried and batted her paws for attention, even lifted up on her back feet, but aside from the occasional word of reassurance, Gabriel turned his attention back to cooking. Eventually, she gave up, quieted down, and resigned herself to simply watching.

Doing his best to ignore their audience, Jack clung to Gabriel like a burr, hands pressed against his back, chin resting on his shoulder, watching him work. Gabriel seemed not to mind as he rinsed off the asparagus and sliced away the dried bases of the stalks before putting them into a skillet, running some water over them, and setting them aside. The steaks got a coating of salt and pepper on both sides, then placed in their own small skillet. By then, the potatoes were just beginning to simmer, and Gabriel turned on the heat to steam the asparagus.

When Gabriel sidled away from the stove, Jack followed, hands slipping down to settle at his waist, fingers rubbing lightly just above the hem of his jeans. He grinned as Gabriel turned in his arms to kiss him, letting Jack press him against the counter. They shared slow kisses, a smack of lips, a breath in parting, the slightest tilt of their chins to bring their lips together again. Gabriel's palms were planted on the counter top. Jack's fingertips rested lightly on his waist, trembling with the need to explore, but reluctant to disturb the soothing give and take. He leaned into Gabriel, soaking up the heat of his body, delighting in how pleasantly they fit against one another. The moment dragged out, and might have gone on longer had it not been for a soft thud and a demanding meow and the feel of paws stepping on his feet as Bunny wormed her way in-between them.

Gabriel pulled back with a laugh, and looked down at his cat. “My sous chef says it's time to put the steaks on.”

“Why does the cat get to be the sous chef?” Jack grumbled. He slipped his hands beneath Gabriel's shirt to knead at his skin.

“Because she is actually being helpful.” Gently but firmly, he took hold of Jack's wrists and pulled his hands away, then turned back to the stove.

Despite what he'd said, he didn't shrug Jack off when Jack once more settled his chin on Gabriel's shoulder to watch him cook. He switched on the burner for the steaks and seared each side, then reached for one of the wine bottles and a cruet nearly full with a dark liquid. Turning down the heat, Gabriel poured a measure of both into the skillet as Jack sniffed appreciatively as the aroma of cooking meat mixed with the bitter scents of wine and balsamic vinegar, and the lighter smell of the asparagus. Gabriel covered the meat and checked on the greens, then reached for the small carton of grape tomatoes.

“Want to halve the tomatoes for me?”

Jack considered for a moment, then nuzzled the crook of Gabriel's neck. “No.” God, he smelled so good. Even better than the dinner he was cooking.

Again, Gabriel reached up and ruffled his hair, scratching briefly just above his ear. “You're going to have to give me a bit of room, then, so I can do it.” He was grinning broadly, and answered Jack's quizzical look with a quick peck on the cheek.

Wondering what joke he was missing, Jack stepped aside, bracing his forearms along the counter at the far edge. As Gabriel rinsed the tomatoes and piled them on the cutting board, a few slipped free. One dropped to the floor and was immediately attacked by Bunny, who began batting it around the small kitchen. Jack caught another that rolled too close and began absently rolling it on the counter as he watched Gabriel slice the rest neatly in half.

“So, who taught you how to cook?”

“My grandmother taught me the basics, a few favorite family recipes. Mostly, I learn new ones on my own. There's this great resource for that—you might have heard of it. The internet?”

“Ass.” Jack ducked his head, trying and failing to repress a smile. “I know how to find recipes.”

“Oh, yeah? And follow them, too? 'Cause, I couldn't help noticing, Jack, that you have never cooked in the month that I've known you. Everything is take out and leftovers. I had to check to be sure you'd have all the pans I needed last time I was here.”

“So that's why you were snooping in here.” He shifted his weight, hips canting to one side, and studied Gabriel's smirk until realization hit. “You don't think I can cook!” He accused.

Gabriel glanced sidelong at him, eyes bright with amusement. “Going to prove me wrong?”

“Name the date and then prepare to be amazed.” Although Jack's only secret family recipe was for chili, he wasn't about to let that get in the way of a challenge. How hard could it be to pick a recipe and follow the instructions? He could handle this romantic wine-and-dine stuff.

“You done playing with that?” Pointing with his knife, Gabriel indicated the tomato Jack was batting back and forth between his hands. He rinsed it off again when Jack handed it over, then chopped it in half and piled it with the rest. Checking the steaks filled the kitchen with their mouthwatering aroma. Jack rested his hands on Gabriel's shoulder as he peeked. His stomach growled as Gabriel flipped the steaks and spooned the glaze over top of them before settling the lid back on the skillet.

“So?” Jack prompted as Gabriel checked on the asparagus and turned down the heat. “When do you want your delicious, homemade meal prepared by yours truly?”

Steam wafted up as Gabriel drained the water from the skillet into the sink. Without turning to face Jack, he asked quietly: “What about for our three month anniversary?”

A happy little thrill uncoiled in Jack's stomach and shot up his spine. Gabriel wanted to be with him for the next few months at least; was making long-term plans with him! Small long-term plans, yes, but plans nonetheless. He couldn't have stopped smiling if he'd wanted to, and catching a glimpse of Gabriel's cheeks flushed a shade darker than normal was just icing on the cake.

“It's a date!” He tried to sound cool, but his delight spilled over enough for Gabriel to glance over his shoulder and break into a grin. Jack felt like a teenager again, caught in the undertow of heady young love.

The thought knocked the breath out of him. He took a step back, shaking his head to clear it. They'd only been seeing each other for a month. Sure, they'd clicked, but...love? That was a heavy concept. He liked Gabriel. A lot. Wanted to see more of him, get to know him better. Even listening to him talk about his cat had been starting to seem interesting lately, particularly given the way Gabriel lit right up, became more animated as he described Bunny's latest exploits. It made Jack wonder sometimes if Gabriel ever talked about him, if, one day, he might brighten up while talking about Jack to someone.

It was a nice thought, the idea of being someone who made Gabriel that happy.

“I'll go set the table,” Jack murmured. He pulled plates out of the cabinet, as Gabriel added Parmesan and halved grape tomatoes to the pan of asparagus and set it back on the burner to finish cooking.

“This is almost ready, so you can just leave the plates there and I'll serve. Go ahead and pour the wine. The unopened one is for us.”

Wordlessly, trying not to catch Gabriel's eye lest his expression give away his thoughts, Jack fetched a pair of long unused wine glasses from the very top cabinet and brought them and the bottle to the table. The wine was faintly chilled, and he took a long drink of his before refilling his glass. He fiddled with his glass, listening to the sounds of Gabriel moving around in his kitchen plating food, putting the finishing touches on a romantic dinner he'd planned and cooked for their one month anniversary.

This is crazy, Jack found himself thinking. This is going too fast. Since when do hook ups last long enough for an anniversary?

But Gabriel wasn't just a hook up. At least, not any more. And maybe Jack hadn't really wanted an anniversary, but, to be fair, he'd never considered that they might have one. The thought had never even crossed his mind. And now that it was happening....

“Coming through.” Gabriel stepped out of the kitchen with two plates loaded with mouth-watering filet mignon, bright and fragrant steamed vegetables, and mounds of red potatoes sprinkled with herbs and topped with melting butter. Jack looked from the dishes to Gabriel's face, saw pride and affection in his grin, and felt his anxiety easing.

“Looks amazing,” Jack said.

“Smells amazing. And it's going to taste amazing! Sit.” He set their plates down and took the chair across from Jack. As soon as he was settled, he raised his wineglass. “Cheers.”

“Happy anniversary,” Jack said, more pleased to say it than he would have thought possible.

Now that it was happening, he was so glad that this was something he had a chance to make work.

The meal was, of course, interrupted several times by Bunny.

She sat herself on the floor at Gabriel's side, crying for scraps and reaching up to set her paws on his leg when he didn't acknowledge her soon enough. It seemed to Jack that, had Gabriel wanted to break her of that habit, it would be easy enough to ignore her. Instead, he indulged the spoiled feline. Gabriel scraped the glaze off a bit of his steak, then sliced that piece off and cut it into tiny chunks.

“You wanna try some of what we're having? I don't know if you'll like it.”

“I like it,” Jack said, watching Gabriel actually get up from his seat to go put the chopped up filet in Bunny's food bowl.

“She likes to try new things,” Gabriel said as he sat back down. “Picky, though. Steak and hamburgers are okay, but she doesn't like pot roast. And she'll eat tuna all day, but turn up her nose at salmon.”

“You spoil that cat,” Jack said, and immediately could have swallowed his tongue. The accusation had popped out before he could stop it. Thankfully, Gabriel only laughed.

“Yeah. I do.” He caught Jack's eye, and the knowing grin he wore froze Jack in place. “You jealous? Feeling like I don't spoil you enough?”

Jack took a sip of wine, and smiled over the rim of the glass. “You just cooked an amazing meal for me as part of a surprise one month anniversary celebration. I'm feeling a little bit spoiled.”

“Only a little bit?” He leaned back in his chair, studying Jack in a way that sent a shiver up his spine. “I'll have to try harder.”

“When our two month rolls around?”

Gabriel's grin was absolutely wicked, and rousing appetites that had nothing to do with food. “When I take you to bed tonight.”

Jack swallowed hard. “Is there a reason we're waiting?” He was proud that his voice sounded mostly normal.

Smiling, Gabriel speared a grape tomato on his fork and licked it off the end of the tines, eyes on Jack the whole while. “Anticipation,” he said once he'd swallowed it down.

Whatever clever, flirty thing Jack might have responded with was cut off as he caught a movement out of the corner of his eye and turned to see that Bunny had jumped up onto the coffee table and was stalking his new potted sunflower.

“Hey!” He was up out of his seat without thinking, only slowing when he reached the table and realized that Gabriel probably wouldn't appreciate him snatching the cat up from where she had chosen to be. “Shoo,” he said quietly, feeling ridiculous as he flapped his hands a good foot away from Bunny, anxious not to scare her with Gabriel watching. “Go on. Hop down. You aren't supposed to be up here.”

Oh, God. Now he was talking to her as if she could understand. It was spreading.

There was a muffled laugh and a simulated shutter noise, and Jack turned to see Gabriel hiding a grin behind one hand as he held up his phone with the other.

“Smile for the camera, Jack.”

The expression was crooked and awkward, and Jack looked away just as he heard the click because the bright yellow petals in his peripheral vision had suddenly started to shake. Bunny had her paws on the rim of the pot, and he scooped her up before she could overturn it. Holding her out, suddenly unsure what to do, Jack looked to Gabriel for help and was met with another shutter snap.

“See? I told you she'd love you.”

Jack looked doubtfully at Bunny. She was kneading his sleeve, staring at him with an expression that he was pretty sure meant something closer to: 'Put me down or I will make you bleed' than whatever Gabriel believed was going on. Gingerly, Jack lowered Bunny to the floor, making sure all of her paws were firmly settled on the carpet before letting go. She swiped at his fingers, causing him to jerk away and take a step back.

“Just let her be. She's only curious. Once she's given the flowers a good sniff, she'll leave them alone.”

“So you say,” Jack murmured, returning to his chair.

The food was incredible, and Gabriel was the best company he could wish for, but the tiniest sound from the living room snatched Jack's attention away from dinner so often that Gabriel finally suggested that they finish their meal on the couch. Embarrassed to have been so obviously nervous about the cat exploring his apartment, Jack nevertheless agreed quickly. They gathered their plates and glasses and moved to sit on the sofa. As he pulled up a movie on Netflix, Jack decided that he preferred the new arrangement. He tucked himself against Gabriel's side and then tucked into the food, warm and content and still very much interested in Gabriel's teasing promises about where the evening was leading.

Bunny refused to admit defeat. She crawled up Gabriel's leg and nearly onto his plate. Eventually, he had to rest the dish on the arm of the sofa, and hold her on his lap while trying to feed the both of them. Jack cleared his plate long before Gabriel was done and barely restrained the urge to lick it clean. He watched as Gabriel struggled to cut cat-sized bites of filet to feed to Bunny, then leaned in and licked his lips.

“If you aren't going to finish your dinner, I'll be happy to share what's left.”

Side-eyeing him, Gabriel snorted as the corner of his lips quirked up. He cut a bite of filet and fed it to Jack, then offered Bunny a much smaller tidbit before taking another bite for himself. The rest of Gabriel's dinner was divided up similarly. He fed Jack bites of everything, and teased off tiny bits of steak for Bunny. If he hadn't looked so plainly self-satisfied, Jack might have backed off and left the begging to the cat, but something about the expression on Gabriel's face and the almost teasing affection every time he fed Jack another bite kept him butting his head against Gabriel's shoulder and tilting his chin up for more.

Once the last bites had been finished, Gabriel set his plate aside on the coffee table and relaxed back against the cushions. Jack, on the other hand, found himself facing an obstacle. His usual favorite place to rest his head when they watched movies together had been usurped. Bunny sat on Gabriel's lap, purring smugly as Gabriel stroked her fur. Unwilling to risk Gabriel's displeasure by chasing her off, Jack settled somewhat discontentedly at Gabriel's side.

He couldn't bring it up.

He absolutely couldn't bring it up....

But...

Bunny was in his spot!

It should have been his head resting on Gabriel's thigh, his hair that Gabriel's fingers were carding slowly through.

“Not enjoying the movie?” Gabriel murmured.

“What? No, it's all right.” He shifted guiltily, hoping Gabriel wouldn't be able to figure him out.

“It's not as good as I was hoping.”

“No?”

“No.” The hand he'd been petting Bunny with found its way to Jack's thigh and gave him a squeeze. “I don't really think it needs our full attention.”

“Definitely not,” Jack muttered, leaning in to meet Gabriel's lips. They shifted as the kiss deepened, pulling each other closer and quickly forgetting about everything else until an angry meow yanked their attention back to the present and the disapproving ball of fluff stubbornly clinging to her perch on Gabriel's lap.

“Telling us to get a room, sweetie?” Gabriel asked with a laugh. Gently, he shooed Bunny onto the floor, then stood and pulled Jack up after him. His smile crinkled up the corners of his eyes, etching laugh lines into his already handsome face, and making his eyes twinkle. “Come on. Let's find someplace more private.”

Jack was more than happy with that idea.

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

Bunny cried and scratched at the bedroom door nearly the entire time. Vocal to begin with, Jack made it a point to be loud enough to drown her out. He shouted himself hoarse as Gabriel made good on his earlier promise to try harder to spoil him. They wore each other out, finally collapsing in a tangle of limbs and sweat-soaked sheets to catch their breath. 'Marry me,' Jack wanted to say, and, in that moment, it wouldn't have been entirely a joke. He laughed breathlessly and let the impulse born of euphoria fade away.

“What did I ever do to deserve you?” he muttered, and winced to hear the rusty grating of his voice.

Gabriel nuzzled closer and kissed his neck lazily. He had an arm slung over Jack's body, fingers barely stirring against the skin of his hip. “You listened,” he said.

“Hmm?”

“When we got drinks together that first night, and you tried to pretend that you like cats.”

“I do like cats,” Jack insisted. He tried to sit up as a dawning panic chased away the warm stupor of the afterglow, but Gabriel slid an arm up his chest and held him down. “What makes you think I don't like cats?”

“It's okay, Jack.” His quiet laugh rumbled between them. “I've known from the start. You're not as good a liar as you think you are.”

Not liking this revelation one little bit, Jack huffed and tried to sink even further into the mattress. “If it was so obvious I lied, then why go out with me?”

“Well...I know I can be a little...overeager...about Bunny. Most guys I talk to, they make it obvious that they don't care, don't want to listen, would rather talk about anything else. At least you did me the courtesy of encouraging me to go on about her. I figured you deserved a chance after that. And what do you know?” He raised himself up on an elbow so that he could lean down and kiss Jack's lips. “You didn't fuck it up.”

“I lied to you, though. I don't.... Bunny doesn't....”

“A little white lie, told so I wouldn't feel bad going on about something I love. Don't worry about Bunny. She likes you just fine. I was hoping that, once you'd met her, you'd stop avoiding my place.”

“So...you really don't mind that I'm not a cat person?” Even looking up into the warm, reassuring brown of Gabriel's eyes, Jack still couldn't bring himself to say that he wasn't comfortable around Bunny. Gabriel seemed to understand anyway.

“I'm betting that she'll grow on you. If you still feel bad about it, then how about this? You be honest with me about your thoughts on cats, and I'll try to dial back the crazy cat owner stuff. Deal?”

Jack's gaze slid away from his. “I like listening to you talk about her,” he mumbled. “You light up.”

Even lying there in Gabriel's arms, in a room grown stuffy and humid, Jack still felt his cheeks heat up at the admission. He could only keep his gaze averted for so long before his eyes were drawn back up to Gabriel's, and the grin he saw focused on him left his mouth dry. Jack reached out to drag him down even as Gabriel slid fully atop him and caught his lips in a kiss. They moved against each other, ardor sparking anew. Outside the door, Bunny's plaintive meowing picked up again and went ignored.

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

Jack woke before Gabriel and lay still in his arms for a few minutes, savoring the comfort of waking up next to someone. He was careful as he slipped out of bed, not wanting to wake him. Bunny was curled up on Gabriel's pillow. They had let her in before going to sleep last night. She stretched as Jack got up and pulled on a pair of boxers, watching him with imperious eyes.

“Meow,” she demanded.

Jack raised a finger to his lips and motioned for her to follow him. She considered for a moment, then, to his surprise, hopped down and led the way out of the room, tail held high. Obviously she was smart enough to know that, fond of her or not, Jack was willing to buy her silence with food. Shaking his head, he followed after her. Cats were something else.

He fed Bunny and made coffee. Outside, the sun was warming his small container garden. He stood before the patio doors, sipping his coffee and watching birds come and go at the feeders. Bunny stood on her back paws, batting at the door as the birds caught her interest as well.

The soft noise of Gabriel's phone as he took a picture was the first warning Jack had that he'd woken up. Turning around, he saw Gabriel wearing nothing but a hoodie, grinning as he looked at the photo he'd taken. When he looked up to meet Jack's eyes, his grin only got wider.

“I think I have an idea about why you don't like cats, Jackie.”

“I'm still annoyed that you didn't say anything sooner.”

“Says the guy who spent a month lying to me about trivial shit. But seriously. Do you realize that you're practically a cat, yourself?”

“Excuse me?” He bristled, turning fully away from the view out the glass doors. “What, because I watch the birds in the morning?”

“Not just that.” Gabriel crossed the room, holding out his phone. “Here. Look.”

He scrolled through photos of Jack. There weren't as many as there were of Bunny, but there were still far more than Jack would have expected—photos from above of him resting his head on Gabriel's lap, one hand curled into his sweats as if he'd been kneading the fabric, photos of him with his tongue peeking between his lips as he fixed his hair, photos of him chewing on his thumbnail like a cat grooming its paw. There was a series of photos showing him going from sitting in a patch of late afternoon sunlight on the living room floor with a box of take out, to stretched out on his back in the sun, to rolling onto his stomach as he followed the light as it moved across the floor.

“Have you noticed that you'll bat pens and things back and forth when you've got one in front of you?”

“Bad habit.”

“And that if I cup your cheek, you nuzzle into my hand every time?”

“That's normal.”

“You're constantly grooming yourself.”

“I don't want to look like a slob!”

“And there's the fact that the comb you use looks suspiciously like a flea comb.”

“Okay, look. They have steel bristles and my hair's thick enough that I need something that won't break.”

Gabriel was only barely holding back laughter. “You knock glasses off the table all the time.”

“Not on purpose! I have bad depth perception!”

“What about this, then?”

He pulled up a video on his phone, and when Jack leaned in to watch, he saw himself stalking something around his living room as Gabriel laughed quietly, mumbling 'Get it, Jack,' under his breath. In the video, Jack batted at the air once, twice, then lunged forward and clapped his hands together. 'Got it!' he shouted, looking triumphantly up at Gabriel.

“I killed the fly, didn't I?”

“You are a mighty and impressive hunter. Just like Bunny.” He gestured, and Jack turned to see the cat batting at a moth on the other side of the glass doors.

“I don't have to listen to this.” He stalked off toward the short hall leading to his bedroom as Gabriel's laughter finally won out and burst free.

“Oh, come on, Jack. You're only proving my point. I can practically see your tail lashing.”

Gabriel caught up, wrapping one arm around Jack's waist and reaching up to ruffle his hair with his other hand. He kissed the back of Jack's neck and trailed his attentions to his ear, nipping at the lobe. Noticing that her human was paying too much attention to someone else, Bunny lost interest in the outside world and trotted over to weave through their ankles, butting her head against their legs and meowing.

“Bunny. Tell Jack I was only kidding.”

“Maaaow!”

“Thank you.”

“Sorry, I don't speak cat.”

“Jaaack.” Gabriel wrapped both arms around his chest and butted his head against the back of Jack's neck. “Come on,” he said, a smile still audible as he spoke. “What's it going to take for you to forgive this awful mistake I made?”

“Hmmm.... I suppose you could start by cooking breakfast.”

Gabriel snorted and let go of him. When Jack turned around, he was kneeling to scoop up Bunny. Both of them fixed him with knowing stares as Gabriel cuddled the cat and murmured: “Hear that, Bunny? Jack, who is definitely not like you in any way, says I can appease him with food.” His grin stretched suddenly wider. “You know, there's still that whipped cream in the fridge. What do you think? Does Jack deserve some cream as a special treat?”

Giving them the most disdainful stare he could manage, Jack gathered his dignity and stepped past them, heading for the kitchen. “I've got to water my plants.”

He ignored the muffled laughter as he filled up a plastic watering can in the sink and went out onto the patio. Gabriel let him have his space, and soon Jack heard faint noises from the kitchen and assumed that he was starting in on breakfast after all. Just as Jack was coming to terms with the idea that Gabriel might not be completely wrong about certain aspects of his behavior, his thoughts were interrupted by a quiet meow. Bunny had followed him outside.

Glancing back to be sure Gabriel hadn't noticed, Jack knelt down and carefully slid the door shut. It wasn't soundproof, but it would be better than nothing.

“Hey,” he said softly. “Bunny.” He watched her sniff at his plants, completely uninterested in him. Feeling a bit like an idiot, he continued anyway. “You really love Gabe, right? Well...he's pretty important to me, too. So, I just wanted to say, for his sake, that I hope we can get along.”

He reached out very hesitantly and, with another quick check to be sure that Gabriel wasn't secretly taking more pictures, patted her gently on the head.

#cornfuck and the reaper #fanfiction

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