#sorry guys this one’s a kind of aimless ramble

[knight-princess]

There’s something pretty surreal about how if Disney does go ahead and remove Willow then this’ll be a side blog for a show that doesn’t exist anymore. Or I guess one that can’t be watched legally anymore. Regardless, there’ll be hundreds of posts and reblogs and gif sets on this blog about a thing that cannot be found. Say a new person stumbles across the blog, and they wanna watch it bc hey it looks interesting, only to find out they can’t because Disney took it down. Just imagining that hypothetical person scrolling through this blog. There’s something so surreal about that image. So dystopian

I recently watched the Last of Us, but only through reaction videos on YouTube. I didn’t have access to HBO and didn’t want to pay for Now TV or whatever and I have anxiety and didn’t want to search for pirated versions. And it was the weirdest thing, skipping from video to video, seeing which scenes were included, which were left out, only finding out a certain scene even existed on the fifth reaction channel, and knowing all the while how much of each episode was beyond my reach. But that was a choice. I could have just paid to watch it for proper and I didn’t. But what if that was the only way someone like me would have access to Willow? Some queer kid who’s seen people talking about it and thought it was cool and literally cannot get hold of it? Watching multiple different reaction channels looking for one that’s included that scene they’ve seen an analysis of?

I know I’m aimlessly rambling but the whole things pretty surreal. The kind of surreal you expect of the far future looking back at a distant past, not a fan thinking about a show that came out last year

[churipu]

( OO2 ) ★ dude (romantically) , gojo satoru

featuring. gojo satoru x reader

warnings. cursing, 2006 highschool era, one sided enemies to lovers (alias u hate him bcs of "reasons", and u think he hates him too), gojo being such a fucking tease i love hate him so much, a lot of cringe and weird pet names from gojo bcs he's kind of a little shit, you being mean to him and you make him sad (but you'll make up dwdw, i don't need angst rn), um...kissing (yhyh u guys kissed, so what >:() // wc: 4.0k

ENTRY ( OO2 ) OF THE "INTO THE IPINVERSE" MILESTONE

"i hate you." "say that again?"

tags: @sad-darksoul, @sweeneyblue1, @idkuluka, @colorful-happy-shit

there are a lot of moments that you hate in life, but with all due respect, meeting gojo satoru has got to be at the top of your fucking list.

white hair, blue eyes deeper than the ocean. god, why does he have to be so pretty? why couldn't he be born with no hair and no eyes at all? because that, that would make it easier to hate him completely — yes, you're implying that he's physically attractive.

"hey, apple pie," gojo sings out, slinging an arm over your shoulder, "i missed you."

you pushed him away harshly, "don't call me that, gojo. and i don't fucking miss you," a strained whine escaped his throat as he feel the distance in between you both widen at your push.

"come on, sugar bear."

"jesus christ, stop calling me those fucking nicknames." you seethe out at him, standing up to walk away — escaping this hell, escaping gojo satoru and whatever tricks he had up in his sleeve.

"i know you like them," gojo sings out, skipping to catch up with you. shoving both of his hands inside his pockets, "come on, annoyed acrylic nail."

you stopped for a bit, amazed at the nickname. so amazed that you almost actually pulled out a laugh card at him — god, he's insufferable, "what the fuck was that nickname?"

"you kiss your mother with that mouth?" gojo asks, leaning down a bit to put his ugly face up close to yours. frankly, it's frustrating because he's an absolute beauty, what a prick.

"my mother's dead."

gojo widened his eyes a tad bit, "my god — pumpkin, it was just a saying." he sighs, scratching his nape awkwardly, "sorry for your loss."

you rolled your eyes, continuing your aimless walk. the sole point of this walk was to avoid the male, yet here he was, walking alongside you. silently. as you turned corners after corners, he trailed behind you, turning the same corners after corners.

"can you," i look at him, "leave me alone? why the hell are you following me?"

gojo shrugs, "no reason. can't i do that now?" you shook your head, "and why not?"

"this is — stalking. an act of following me around, i feel intimidated. do you want me to file a report, huh? huh?" gojo chuckles at your ramble, finding you quite adorable; in his eyes, you were like this small creature, trying to be intimidating.

"definitely not." he chuckled, "come on, chatterbox. you should let me take you out sometimes, what d'ya' think? sounds good?"

"no. just — don't talk to me, don't look at me, don't even breathe the same air as i am," you muttered out, flipping your middle finger at the male out of annoyance making him guffaw.

his slender fingers grabbed your hand, pushing it down gently, "are you implying that i should die?" his voice came out cheeky and teasing.

"yes."

he rolled his eyes, "you're gonna miss me when i do actually die, bet you'll cry and say y'miss me." the male laid his hand on top of your head — patting it lightly, "come on, bonbon. let me take you out, for food, for smoothies, for desserts. anything you want, i'll give it to you."

you heaved out a sigh, "gojo, no — just, no. and leave me alone."

the male eyes you, "you hang out just fine with suguru. all sunshine and rainbows, why d' you not give me the same treatment, huh?" he questions, almost offended at the thought of both you and suguru laughing and joking in front of him.

"'cause you're not him, obviously."

gojo furrowed his brows, expression filled with frustration, "what does that even mean? what's so different about suguru and i? he's a good guy, but 'm a good guy too. right?" he asks, voice low and meek.

"just — shut up, alright? leave me alone."

this time, the male complied; refusing to trail your figure as you disappeared around the corner. his eyes following you until you were gone, chewing on his lip in annoyance.

he didn't understand you, in his eyes you were like a lost cause. and it perturbed him, his peace, his life. the male is dying to know whatever the hell he'd done wrong to make you hate him so much, whether it being his constant nickname for you or was it because of the fact that he's always there to make fun of you?

gojo wouldn't be this bothered if you were like this to everyone. however — the fact is that you're only like this to him. and why? he didn't know.

and he hates it.

very helpful google.

the teen boy threw his head back, sighing out loudly — a few hours since that conversation with you and he still hasn't been able to get you out of his mind.

"what'cha doing?" a shadow peered over him, the white haired male fluttered his eyes open slowly; the afternoon sun gracing his face as he tries to make out who the person above him was.

"nothing," he muffled out, looking to the side — geto chuckled, jumping over the male's head before taking a seat next to him, "did you just jump over my head?"

"mhm," geto hums, "so? is it about y/n?"

gojo looks at his friend, "was it that obvious?" geto chuckled, nodding his head mutely, "try to think about it — as far as we've known each other, what the hell have i ever done wrong to them? i'm so lost."

"who knows? maybe they like you."

gojo rolled his eyes, "who in their right mind, would act like that to the person they like? that's just stupid." geto chuckled.

"people like y/n obviously."

the white haired male huffs out in defeat, "is it because of the weird nicknames? in my opinion, they're really cute. i mean — pumpkin, sugar bear, apple pie? you'd like to call your partner that too, right?" he babbles out, still in trance, wondering what he ever did wrong to you.

geto spared a glance at his friend, "no, that's stupid. it's pretty cringe," he honestly informed.

gojo's jaw tightened in response as he stared at his friend in betrayal, his lips parted as he wanted to deliver something — but the blue eyed male slowly shuts his mouth, pondering for a bit before delivering his comment, "okay, you're partly right. but i enjoy calling them that. they're cute, and my nicknames are cute." he pouted, his glasses slipping down a bit.

"annoyed acrylic nail? really? you can do better than that, satoru."

gojo's head snapped towards geto, "how'd you know about that one?" he narrowed his eyes.

"y/n, who else?"

"traitor. and mind you, i got that from a quiz i was playing on the internet."

geto tittered out in pure amusement, "they were just telling me about what happened," he explained, "and boy, was it interesting to say the least."

"what'd they say about me?" gojo asks, his voice soft. almost scared to question his friend, scared to hear about how you'd describe him — despite being this, "calm", "coolheaded" man he portrays, when it comes to you, it felt like judgement day.

"oh, nothing much," geto uttered out calmly, "how they can't stand you sometimes and how you maunder out the oddest nicknames on earth — oh, and how they find you physically attractive." geto finds himself whispering the last part.

geto was one to say the truth about these kind of things. except, he's now being a little cupid, alias . . . you never told geto that gojo is physically attractive. but the first two comments were the absolute truth.

"they did?" how cute.

geto nods his head mutely, "maybe you should go meet them, they were pretty intent on describing you as quote unquote, the most attractive boy they have ever met," the lie rolled over his tongue smoothly that gojo couldn't help but to grin widely.

"tell me about it, suguru. please, please?"

geto was most delighted to do so. the male enjoying this banter more than anything — if he wanted one result, it was to get you and gojo together. frankly, he finds it quite the mediocrity that you and gojo aren't in an established relationship as of now.

"they were saying how you have these pretty blue eyes that they'd love to look at every hour," geto started, "and how they actually don't mind some of your nicknames — like, sugar bear. they find it endearing."

little bastard. gojo was smiling like a fool right now, his long legs crossed happily as he sighed out in content, "i fucking knew it."

"well, what're you waiting for?"

gojo hops up, peering down at geto who was still seated, "i owe you one, suguru," geto chuckled, shaking his head.

oh, he owed me more than one. geto thinks to himself, waving his friend goodbye.

"hey, sugar bear." gojo confidently approached you, crossing his arms with a knowing smirk on his face, "i missed you."

groaning out in response, you covered your ears with the palm of your hands; not wanting to engage in the conversation right as it started. gojo chuckles softly, circling his fingers around your wrists, pulling them away from your ears, "come on, why're you always so mean to me?"

"you get on my fucking nerves. asswipe." you muttered out, pulling your wrists away, "and don't touch me."

gojo winced, "ouch. so, heard from someone that you called me attractive, huh?" his eyebrows danced up and down in delight, as if he was mocking you.

you arched your brow in confusion, because for all you know. one, you never said that to anyone. two, even if you did find him attractive, you didn't remember ever telling that to just anyone — hell, you don't remember telling anyone about it either.

"excuse you?" gojo gave you a lop-sided grin.

"so? why're you keeping up with the attitude?" he whispers out, shaking his head.

"gojo, what the fuck? who did you hear that from?" you interrogated the male, one of your hand resting on your hips, "whoever the fuck gave you that information is making shit up — no, i don't find you attractive."

the male rolled his eyes at your stubborn demeanor. well, you weren't particularly stubborn; you were partly framed at this point since you don't remember ever saying that to anyone.

"come on, why'd you have to lie to me? it's not like 'm gonna be angry or anything," you sent a sharp glare at him, because he is wrong for saying that — you made it clear you never expressed that forbidden thought to anyone. so why was he saying this to you?

"gojo—"

"why do you call suguru by his first name but me by my surname?" gojo cuts you off.

"gojo, listen—"

before you could say anything else, the male confidently hushes you down, yet again cutting your words off. and if there's anything else you hated more than gojo satoru, it's being interrupted while you were talking.

"gojo, respectfully, shut the fuck up." you scowled at him, and that indeed managed to shut him up almost immediately — the glare you had in your eyes signifying that you were actually serious. gojo can't help but to swallow the non-existent lump in his throat at the sight.

"i never said anything about you being attractive, and whoever the fuck said that to you is a pathological liar. this is getting tiring," you slowly, and calmly tell him. way too calmly for his liking, "you're bothering me. so with all due respect, can you like . . . maybe, leave me the fuck alone and never talk to me unless it's mission related. it's fucking annoying."

gojo was silent. he was clueless of how to react, a part of him wanted to get angry, he has so much questions to ask you. but another part of him just wanted to lay down low and walk away. and gojo went after the latter.

his stomach churned as he processed your words silently, his smile dropping, and his gaze softened. the male inhaled sharply before nodding his head, "okay, sorry."

and he turned his heels, slowly walking away out of your sight — you stared at his back, watching him walk further and further.

letting a string of curses escape your lips, you felt the urge to reach out to the male. call out to his name. say you were sorry and how you didn't mean that — god, sometimes you think it was you that should respectfully shut the fuck up.

" . . . goj—" you shook your head, deciding to just stay silent for now. for now.

this wasn't the first time you've told him off; and he always comes back the next day, so gojo would probably be the same old him tomorrow, right?

wrong.

gojo was dead set on what he was doing, avoiding you. and damn, he was pretty good at it — that it pisses you off. because why isn't he calling you those weird nicknames? why isn't he trailing after you anymore? why isn't he talking to you? why isn't he batting an eyelash at you? one week and still going strong.

"heartbreak problems?" geto appears beside you, taking a seat next to you, whistling out loudly, "over satoru? that's a first."

you wanted to retort back to the male, but honestly, there isn't any point to it. so you actually bobbed your head, "guess so," you muttered out lowly, balling your fists.

"what happened?"

his question made you side eye him, you were pretty sure gojo would've told him by now — after all, they're quite the pair at school. so this was an honest surprise, "shit happened. i said things that i obviously didn't mean, and now i'm suffering the consequences of my own actions, fairly enough, it fucking sucks."

"so, you're openly admitting to me that you do like him?" geto questioned softly, his eyes traveling to the ceiling of the classroom, "satoru? the one you shit-talk about every single day?"

you grunted, "jus' because i shit-talk him. doesn't mean i hate him," geto blinked feverishly before laughing out, "the hell are you laughing at, asswipe?"

"i told him you found him attractive. but i guess things didn't go as i expected," geto spouts out the truth, his laugh dying down slowly into a small smile, "what did'ya say to him?"

"thought you'd know by now, and that was you? fuck." you murmur out, "i told him to leave me alone and never talk to me unless it's mission related. i said it was annoying— that he was annoying."

geto hums out, "why're you always so angry towards him anyways?"

good question. why?

"that's . . . none of your concern, suguru." you ended up shutting down his question, chewing your lips in pure annoyance.

the male raises his hands up, "right. it's not mine — but it is satoru's, you should talk to him," he advices, "he's been miserable, trust me."

"he looks like he's doing fine, and doesn't he like . . . hate me?" geto raises a brow in disbelief, wondering if you were just plain dumb or too oblivious — or both. the male shakes his head, "oh. i thought he would by now."

"y'think he would do all that thing to you when he hates you?"

"well, it's him so it wouldn't be surprising. really." you chuckled out hoarsely, "and are you really giving me advice right now? because i can't fucking believe i'm actually getting an advice from you out of all people."

"that offended me." he smiled.

"well, sorry. i've never taken you for the advice giver type of person, so? is it really my fault?" you questioned, making the male roll his eyes in response.

"you have a man to chase, why are you still talking to me?"

right. you did, "bye suguru, i owe you one."

geto sighs out, remembering the same words that gojo had said to him a week before — and how the tables have turned. he was thoroughly enjoying this all.

"gojo."

the male stopped when heard your voice. your sweet, loving voice. oh how he missed it — your voice, your glare, you. finally sparing his first glance at you after a week.

it was hard. he's miserable. he wanted to approach you, he wanted to call you the nicknames he'd searched on google before morning comes, he wanted to talk to you even if it ended up on you scolding him with very nice words, he wanted to see you. gojo just wanted to see you.

the white haired male has never felt so miserable in his life. this was the farthest he has ever been from you, and it was honestly killing him inside.

"what?" he asks, wondering if he had done yet again, something to make you approach him first like such. because one thing he was confident in is that, you, y/n l/n, would never approach him for anything besides missions or . . . anger, "what did i do wrong this time? i didn't talk to you like you told me to. so?"

"you're fucking unbearable." you muttered out, fists balling tightly — very much angry at him, and at yourself.

gojo raises a brow, "i'm unbearable? what makes you think you can come up to me and tell me that?" he asks you, his voice soft, and a ghast of his blue eyes reflecting behind the dark lenses of his glasses.

"god, i hate you so much."

no, no, no. it wasn't supposed to go this way, you weren't supposed to say that you hated him — and the way gojo furrowed his brows at your statement made your heart drop. why couldn't you just mutter out the word "sorry" and everything would be back to normal.

when people tell you that, "sorry", "thank you", and "please" are the hardest words to say. you didn't take it literally — but now that you were in a position to say one of them, you could finally agree on it. why was it so hard to mutter out a five letter word?

"okay, you made it clear last week. what else do y'want me to say?" he muffled out lightly.

"i hate you." you repeated, "so fucking much."

gojo shakes his head, prompting to ignore you. he turned his heels and began to step away from you. he didn't need anymore hurtful words from you; from someone he deeply has feelings for, "don't fucking walk away," he heard you speak.

"don't . . . walk away." your voice dropped down a tone, "please."

the male hesitated, but he stopped walking in the end. gojo had only stepped away a few times and he couldn't fucking stand it, the way you called out to him — lord, if this hasn't been so serious. he swore he would be running to you right now, how he wanted to have you in his arms right now, even if it ended up with you pushing him away. he would take the chance.

it was better than having to ignore you like this.

"what?" he breathes out again, this time a little curious to what you had to say.

you blinked, parting your lips to say something, but nothing would come out. a few seconds passed, and your lips are still parted. and you were starting to grow desperate, desperate to say something — anything at this point. anything to make the male stay, to stop him from walking away.

"y/n . . . i don't have time for this." he mutters out, trying to keep his act up, even if he was fighting back the urge to just drop everything and run to you.

"no, wait. gojo— satoru." it took one specific word to roll over your tongue, and his heart was racing rapidly. his cerulean eyes intently looking at you from behind the dark lenses, "please, i . . . i'm sorry. i'm so sorry, so please don't walk away from me. don't do that again."

gojo felt his heart began to pound. the male stood there, his breathing growing rapid, "i didn't mean what i said to you — it was my fault. i'm fucking miserable, satoru. i don't know what to do," you tell him, voice lacing in desperateness, "i fucking hate you for this. i swear to god, it's disgusting . . . the feelings. i've never felt like this before and i hate it. i think about you all damn time, i hate you because why the fuck am i feeling like this? i can't stop, satoru."

the male parted his lips to respond, but you cut him off, continuing your words. groggily fiddling with your uniform, brows furrowed, eyes glassy, you continued, "so don't fucking walk away from me. don't fucking ignore me, please."

it took gojo no time to stride over to you, "fuck. do you know how fucking miserable i was for one. whole. week? do you think i wanted to ignore you? to not look at you?" his large hands cupped both side of your face, "i was fucking miserable, y/n. i just wanted you to know how much i fucking missed you. one day," he raises up a finger, "one day felt like a whole year, i can't stand it much longer. so, please — don't push me away anymore."

you look up at him, lips slightly parted, "i hate you."

gojo tilted your face up to him, "say that again?"

his fingers traveled down, brushing the skin of your neck vividly. even with his glasses on, you could see his eyes perfectly — and how they gleamed brightly. gojo smiles lightly, using his other hand to grab your right hand, placing your palm on top of his chest. where his heart was. the constant rapid thuds that you could feel against his chest made your heart flutter.

"god, i fucking love you," he breathes out, drawing your face towards his, his lips inclining towards yours — and your mouths fell together, a few seconds passed and gojo pulled back slightly, his lips parted, "i fucking love you, y/n," he whispers softly, capturing your lips into another kiss.

the hand you had on his chest lightly crumpled against his uniform, holding the male in place as you yearned more of the taste of his lips. it was vague, but you could taste strawberries — and . . . cream cheese. pulling away, you stared at him, "dude."

gojo arches a brow, etching your fingers off of his uniform. lacing them together with his — like a perfect puzzle piece, it was like his hand was meant for yours, and yours for his, "what did you say?"

clearing your throat, you said, "dude, but romantically."

the male chuckles, "you ruined our kiss and our moment, for that?" he pressed a kiss onto the tip of your nose, maintaining eye contact, "d'you know how long i've been wanting to do that? to kiss you?"

you shook your head, "no, but did you eat something with strawberries? and cream cheese? i could taste it."

gojo blinks, "oh, yeah. i had some daifuku," he replies, scratching his nape sheepishly, "why did you have to bring that up now, couldn't it wait until later?"

"dude." he looks at you in disbelief.

"but romantically, again." you added, and gojo smiles, "i can't help it — i don't know what to say."

"i do," he pressed a kiss into the hollow of your forehead, "date me. i promise i'll treat you well. i won't call you those nicknames anymore, just — i just need you to be close to me."

"what if i said no?"

"after that kiss?" he pulls away from you.

"kidding, dude."

the male whines, "stop calling me dude," he said, "can't you call me something else? baby? honey? darling? cutie? handsome? none of that?" he asks out.

"dude is pretty romantic." you rolled your eyes, "do you ever hear me calling anyone else with dude?"

he shook his head, "you never call anyone with a nickname anyways." gojo grumbled under his breath, looking away, "fine, what do you prefer? i don't do well with — nicknames."

"i like the sound of baby, or handsome. i am handsome, right? right?" you rolled your eyes, but gave out a subtle nod, "i knew it, you did find me attractive after all."

"shut up or i'm sticking with dude."

"no," he brushes his lips against your cheek, "i'm baby now. and you — you're sugar bear, pumpkin, apple pie, annoyed acrylic nail, and more to come."

"didn't you say you won't call me those nicknames anymore?" you questioned him with a light smile.

"uh . . . no, you heard wrong."

"okay, dude." you chuckled.

"y/n!" he whines.

© CHURIPU 2024 , DO NOT COPY OR REPOST ANYWHERE

[alyxia91]

In A Million Years

Soft Bakugou, because there’s something I love about the thought of this tough guy absolutely melting for someone. I’m sorry it’s kind of a long, slow-burn. I ramble. I’m working on it.

When you first met Bakugou, you were undeniably intimated. How could you not be? He was anger, pride and explosions personified. You wondered if standing too close was a hazard to your health, if not physically, mentally. But as time went on and you became more accustomed to his personality, you found that that red hot anger wasn’t scorching you, rather drawing you in and keeping you warm. Small, barely there conversations in passing grew enough to where you could confidently say he was a friend, and someone you relied on - you hoped he felt the same.  You didn’t notice the sideways glances he would send your way, or the faint blush that would flush across his face whenever you smiled at him. How he wished he would be the only one you smiled at, the only one to hold your attention. But you were too nice, while not overly popular by the typical standard, it was fair to say everyone liked you, including the explosive future hero. Those feelings only continued to grow as you progressed through your years at UA, both of you drawing closer and closer to each other subconsciously. He didn’t notice that he spoke to you differently, softer than anyone else; and you never realized that you were almost always touching him in some way - a hand on his arm, fingers brushing against each other.

Neither of you noticed that you’d fallen in love with each other.

It wasn’t until a fight against the League of Villains that those feelings were violently pushed to the forefront, when you got seriously injured.

The fight had been typical, if not chaotic. Everyone was doing their best to keep themselves alive while fighting. You were no different, your shadow fiends fighting at a distance while you kept up inn hand-to-hand combat. Thank God you practiced against Bakugou frequently - otherwise you doubted you’d be able to keep up. The years of training also prevented too much energy being wasted keeping your multiple shadow fiends active - it was a skill you wanted to grow further. You’d gone up from having one out for a few minutes to having multiples out for hours. Right now, you had 13 running around fighting and defending.

Explosions sounded to your left - you didn’t have to look to know it was Bakugou. Even in scenarios like this, somehow he was never too far from you, always keeping an eye on you. Unfortunately, that eye missed Tomura coming towards him, arm stretched out and hand reaching to grab at his face. You, however, noticed the movement in your peripheral, and with a swift kick to the stomach of whatever moronic douchebag you were fighting, launched yourself towards the pair. Your left arm stretching as far as you could make it, desperately trying to stop Tomura from making contact.

This resulted in your left hand grabbing his, your arm crossing over his body as an additional barrier. Pain erupted from your finger tips and you watched as your palm and fingers turned to dust. The pain shot up your arm, nerve endings for limbs you were quickly loosing  firing desperate warnings to get the hell out. Glitching your jaw, you willed a sword, a mace, ANYTHING strong to be formed with your right hand - by some grace an axe pulled itself from your fingertips, the purple smoke billowing off of it the only indication that you had created it. Without a second to think, you swung the axe across your arm, severing in and stopping the decay.

A different kind of pain shot through you, and before you truly knew what was happening, you stop up and pout your palm to Tomura’s chest. You met his eyes, and the maniacle grin he had on his face was enough to drive you to send all of your shadow fiends to him. With the strongest push you could muster, you distanced yourself from him just as they arrived to swarm him. You turned to look at Bakugou, to make sure he was okay, safe...alive, and you were met with easily the most wild eyes you had ever seen. You’d never found him particularly easy to read, but right now there were so many emotions flashing through his eyes you wondered if every emotion he’d ever felt was in there.

“Suki...” you whispered, suddenly too tired to speak properly. “You - you - what the hell did you - are you crazy?! You idiot! You could have-” Whatever he was saying was drowned out by a ringing in your ears, suddenly so loud and overwhelming you had to close your eyes. You dipped your head, an attempt to hide it to block out everything.  “Make it stop, make it stop, make it stop” you whimpered, desperate for the pain  to cease; and just as suddenly, it did.

You awoke hours later, the repetitive beeping of a heartrate monitor letting you know where you were. ‘Goddamnit. It’s been so long since I was here...thought I was doing better’ you thought, eyes staring blankly at the ceiling. You signed, resigning yourself to your fate. You made the decisions, you would live with the consequences.  The door opening caused you to blink, pulling you out of the aimless thoughts. Bakugou walked in, silent and looking exhausted. He paused when he saw you try to sit up, falling slightly when you tried to lean on where your left hand used to be. Three large steps brought him to your side, helping you sit up properly.

You two sat in silence, neither really sure what to say. He had almost died, and you had lost a hard and most of your lower arm to save him, as well as almost dying yourself. What could either of you say? You opened your mouth, only to close it again. Unsure of what else to do, you reached across and places your left hand on top of his, slightly uncomfortable with the twisting of your body.  The contact broke him, and you saw his eyes shut tightly before a small cry erupted from his lips. Tears fell and he grabbed your hand, desperate to hold on to you, to remind himself that you hadn’t died. He brought your hand up to his lips, kissing them and resting them there, his warm breath tickling your fingers.

“You are so stupid....so so stupid” he said, desperately trying to control his breathing, “you can’t do shit like that...you can’t...I can’t...you...you..” panicked breathes interrupted each word, his grip tightening with each attempt at breathing.  “Katsuki, I need you to breath honey - I can barely understand you” you said softly, voice somehow not wavering despite the emotions welling in your throat “copy my breathing, yeah? Look at me” He shook his head, terrified that you’d disappear and this would all be a dream. "I’m not going anywhere. I promise I’m here” you said, tightening your grip slightly to help reassure him. A deep inhale through his nose followed before he finally lifted his head and looked at you.  Even here, after you’d lost so much blood, you were beautiful. He’d never get tired of looking at you - and he almost lost you. In the blink of an eye, his entire world was almost gone. “I’m so sorry” you said, keeping your eyes connected with his “I didn’t think, I just saw you were about the die and I reacted. I didn’t think how it might affect you. I’m so...so sorry Katsu” “Please...please don’t ever do anything like that again. I can’t....I can’t see that again. You were dying in front of me and I couldn’t do anything. The only thing I could do was cause more damage to -” he stopped, and looked down at your arm. You followed his gaze, realizing for the first time just how much of your arm you had lost. Just before your elbow, a diagonal line towards the outer part of your arm.  “Couldn’t do a clean line huh? Well done’ you chastised yourself. “You were bleeding so much...so much...Todoroki was too far away, but we had something to close the wound. I...I had to try...it wouldn’t stop..” ‘He cauterized it’ you realized. Your body tensed with the realization, guilt overwhelming you.

Bakugou felt you tense beneath his hands, his body immediately doing the same. Were you angry? Did you hate him? He didn’t want to do it...he didn’t want to hurt you. But you were dying there, bleeding out in front of him and - “You saved my life, Katsu. I’m sorry I put your in a position to have to do that” “I’m sorry” he said suddenly, feeling overwhelmed and undeserving of your apologies “If I had been paying more attention. This wouldn’t have happened. I was too busy making sure you were safe. If I’d been paying attention, you’d have your arm...your life wouldn’t have changed. I’m sorry. I’m sorry” tears welled up in his eyes again, guilt crushing his heart and pulling hi away from you.

“Hey, hey. Katsu...Katsu please stop. I’m not mad at you, I’d never blame you for this. We both made it, yeah? You saved me. I’m awake and here with you, because of you, okay? I’m still me. I don’t hate you, or think that you should have done something differently. If anything I should have done things differently. But, I will ALWAYS try to save you. That I won’t apologize for. You’re too important to feel any remorse for saving” Bakugou stayed silent, absorbing your words. He kissed your fingers again before standing up, and laying your hand down across the bed. No longer twisting, you sat up straighter, worried that he was going to leave. Instead, and to your utter surprised, he moved one arm behind your back, and another under your knees, lifting you up and maneuvering himself beneath you on your bed. He opened his legs, placing you between them before wrapping his arms around your waist, pulling you against his chest.

“You are so stupid” he mumbled into your neck “you’re too important to throw your life around like that. I won’t survive if something happens to you. I can’t. I need you here, with me. Got that?” Heat engrossed your face, butterflies erupting in your stomach as you processed his words. You nodded, placing your right arm over his and intertwining your fingers. “I’m sorry” you whispered again. He responded by pulling you closer to him, bodies impossibly together. You felt his left arm release, coming down to lift yours up to inspect. You relaxed, letting him examine the bandaged limb. He didn’t say anything, he just let his fingers gently run across the bandage, You signed before inhaling deeply, imagining what your hand used to look like. Suddenly, purple smoke wrapped itself around the wound, molding itself into the missing arm and hand. Bakugou pulled away, eyes widening as the smoke solidified, leaving a purple arm and hand. Experimentally, you wiggled the fingers, excitement coursing through you as you saw them move, felt them against the palm. Bakugou reached forward, expecting his hand to pass through it - but was shocked when you came into contact with solid warmth. It felt like your other hand...exactly the same. Another cry passed his lips and you curled your fingers around his hand, squeezing lightly. Tears hit your shoulder, and your body shook with his as he cried, not even attempting to hide it. His arms wrapped around you again, hugging you tightly.

“I love you. I love you so much” he said, hiccupping softly

“I love you too Katsu” 

He hugged you tighter still, willing your body to mold into his own

“I’m never letting you go. I’m never letting you get hurt again”

“Katsu, I’m going to get hurt”

“No. Not like this. Anything more than a papercut is too much” he grumbled against your neck, lips whispering over your skin “And if paper cuts you I’ll destroy it” You couldn’t help but smile. You knew it was an impossible promise to keep, but you also knew he’d move heaven and earth to keep it. “I promise to try to avoid those kinds of situations from now on, okay?” “You fuckin’ better...” he muttered, finally kissing your neck. You turned towards him, eyes sparkling and a smile on your face., his expression mirroring yours. You were both beyond exhausted, but damnit you were so happy. 

“I can’t -” he started, only to stop himself “Katsu?” He didn’t say anything, just leaned forward and kisses you, soft and careful. Scared to shatter you, scared of seeing your skin turning to dust again. You smiled into the kiss, tightening your grip on his arms around your midsection; a sign that you weren’t going anywhere, that you wouldn’t break. He understood, and deepened the kiss. Hold you against him. Holding you where you belonged; and he was never letting you go. Never in a million years.

[shotgun--rider]

Starving

A Dean x Reader oneshot

Y/N comes from a big, unconventional hunter family, and Dean doesn’t know what to do with her habit of casual physical touch. He’s also not prepared to handle her driving his car. 

Word Count: 4115

Warnings: Touchstarved!Dean, aggressive fluffy snuggles, smut

*Female reader

A/N: CONSENT IS SEXY PEOPLE USE IT. Also, for the purposes of this fic the Impala has a manual transmission. I know she pretty much isn’t but sometimes when fics announce themselves fully formed and slightly confused in my head they come with oddly specific stipulations like Baby being manual. 

Aunt Danielle already had six boys when you came to live with her, and the youngest of them was seven years older than you. Your earliest memories involved cousin Joe dangling you upside down, tickling you until you shrieked for mercy, and then popping you up onto his shoulders to carry you downstairs when your aunt yelled for everyone to shut up and come eat dinner. 

Your aunt gave the best hugs, and that was a fact you’d decided in childhood that had never really gone away, even as an adult. She was warm and loving and had been successfully hugging your problems away since the tender age of four. Incidentally, offering hugs was still your go-to method of problem solving for everyone around you, and you had her to thank for it. 

You grew up trying to fit seven people onto a too-small sofa for Saturday night movie night. (It always ended with someone’s foot jammed in someone else’s side and a lot of complaining.) You spent years with the only car in the family being an old two-door pickup, so anyone that was too slow to call shotgun piled into the truck bed to get wherever you were going. (Which only really sucked when it was cold out.) You grew up as the recipient of piggyback rides and, occasionally, getting hauled out of the bathroom in a fireman’s hold if you took too long on your hair as a teenager. 

Somehow, it had never occured to you that that wasn’t everyone’s experience. In your mind, coming to live with the Winchesters was just an extension of the kind of life you’d always had, even though part of you always knew your little hunter family was an exception, not the rule.

The first time it happened, you’d been occupying a guest room in the bunker for maybe two weeks. The living arrangement was still temporary then, Sam and Dean treating you kindly enough but clearly not yet trusting. You’d swung through the kitchen while Dean was making dinner, just trying to grab a bottle of water, and, in some combined habit from your high school waitressing days and your aunt’s crowded kitchen, laid a hand on his back as you slid past. “Behind you,” you’d murmured, the touch only lingering for the split second you needed to cross over to the fridge. 

It was long enough to feel every single muscle in his body tense up like you were holding a gun barrel to the middle of his spine instead of your palm. But it wasn’t your place to comment, not really, so you just fished a bottle out of the fridge silently and went back to the library, reminding yourself that this was a man you barely knew, and would never have known if it weren’t for an especially pesky werewolf pack. 

A month later found the three of you celebrating after a miserably complicated hunt finally finished, arguing over who got to choose the movie. You’d smacked the cap off of your beer on a table edge on the way in and settled yourself in between the still-bickering brothers on the sofa with a roll of your eyes. “Someone better decide in the next ten seconds,” you huffed out with no real annoyance, not even sparing a thought for the fact that the entire right side of your body was pressed against Dean’s. 

His argument in favor of Die Hard was abruptly cut off with a shiver and an almost indiscernible noise in the back of his throat, and he’d avoided the weird look you shot him while Sam triumphantly jumped up to put his preferred pick into the old DVD player. It was maybe the first time in your entire life you’d watched a movie with few enough people to all fit on the couch (even though Sam ends up on the floor after the first twenty minutes) and it felt weird. 

Without thinking, you’d shifted your body into the space Sam vacated and pivoted your legs to land your feet over Dean’s lap, wincing internally when he immediately stiffened, his free hand hovering hesitantly in mid-air for an awkward length of time before he finally set it down, barely touching, over your ankles. Your thoughts had drifted to what his hands, calloused and warm, would feel like on other parts of your body before you snapped at yourself to end the train of thought. Dean obviously wasn’t comfortable around you, and you were going to have to remember that. Even if he was pretty much just unfairly perfect.

That proved to be easier said than done. As you settled into life at the bunker over the next few months, you had plenty of reminders after the fact, when you’d already made the seasoned hunter jump and flinch away from you, but you rarely caught yourself before you reached out to touch him. And getting to know him better really wasn’t helping your case. He was smart, surprisingly gentle, good at watching your back and making you laugh. He loved his car and his brother and a good slice of apple pie almost as much as you thought you could easily love him, and you, evidently, scared the shit out of him. 

You could almost picture your aunt’s face if you told her. I live with a really hot guy and I keep spooking him and I don’t know why. She would have thrown back her head and laughed in her loud, brash way, and then she would have fixed you with a sharp look and asked, well, did you ask him about it?

Staring blankly through the windshield in front of you, you blew out an exasperated breath. Because that conversation would go over so well. 

“Hey,” Dean’s voice cut through your thoughts, studying you with those green eyes. “Still with me?”

Your forehead scrunched together as you looked at him, watching him watch you bite your lip. “Dean, I don’t want to do this. What if I break her?”

He flashed you a grin. “If you break Baby? Start running,”

You huffed, rolling your eyes. “Dean, I’m serious!”

He looked affronted. “So am I. But you’re not going to break her.” Dean reached over, dangling the keys impatiently in front of you until you caved and pulled them out of his hands, trying to quell the nerves in your stomach. “Come on, you need to learn to handle her before you’re trying to figure it out with one of us trying not to get blood all over the backseat.”

You’d been behind the wheel of dozens of cars. You’d spent plenty of time criss-crossing states, though perhaps not nearly as much as Sam and Dean did, and you knew you were a decently competent driver. 

But you’d never driven a manual before. And you’d never tried practicing on a beloved car with said car’s owner watching you the entire time. Said car’s owner who you were possibly harboring the world’s most unbelievable crush on. Who flinched away from you on the regular. 

No, no reason to be nervous at all. Gritting your teeth, you put the key in the ignition, hearing the familiar purr of Baby’s engine come to life beneath your hands. You glanced at Dean, looking perfectly unbothered in the passenger’s seat. “Now what?”

“Press the clutch all the way down. Shift into first, now go easy on the accelerator,”

You got halfway through his instructions before the car made a noise of protest and you instinctively yanked your hands off the wheel, biting your lip again. “Oh, god, okay, I’m sorry, I–” you were rambling and you knew it, not sure if you were apologizing to Dean or to the Impala. 

Beside you, Dean chuckled softly and slid closer on the bench seat, glancing down at your foot on the clutch. “Just let up on the clutch a little slower this time,”

This time, you felt it catch, and Dean guided you through accelerating the car without stalling it. You exhaled, leaning forward just slightly without losing your careful control of the car. “I would rather go ten rounds with a rugaru than ever do that again,” you offered up conversationally, pretending you weren’t desperately white-knuckling Baby’s steering wheel.

To your surprise, Dean let out a loud laugh beside you, and you cursed the stupid driving lesson again for not letting you turn to look at him. In any other car, you would have, but taking your eyes off the road while driving the Impala seemed too big of a risk. 

That didn’t, however, stop Dean from watching you. He walked you through shifting into third gear without taking his eyes off you, and you could feel his green gaze boring holes into the side of your head while you executed a turn onto the next backroad, wincing at the slight grind you were still making every time you tried to get into second and back to third.

“Relax,” Dean said softly. “Stop strangling the wheel, you’re fine.”

You were most certainly not fine, riding some strange mixture of anxiety, adrenaline, and arousal as the sound of the car’s engine and Dean’s low voice warred for your attention. Still, over the next half-hour of aimless driving, you were starting to feel a little less intimidated by sitting in the driver’s seat. 

“Turn left up here,”

You promptly maneuvered the car into the right-hand turn lane, getting around the corner before Dean’s laughter interrupted you. “The other left, Y/N,”

Without thinking, you reached over to punch his arm. “Shut up, jerk, I’m trying,”

As usual, Dean stiffened under your touch, pulling away from you on the bench seat, and you huffed a breath of annoyance at yourself. “Sorry,”

You could feel Dean’s look of surprise, but your eyes stayed resolutely on the road. You passed one mile marker, then the next, the mood in the car suddenly more tense than it was when you were stalling the engine and grinding gears. 

“Do I make you uncomfortable?” you blurted out suddenly, wincing as your voice came out louder than intended. You were back to gripping the steering wheel until your hands turned white. 

“What?” Dean was silent for a moment after that outburst, like he was trying to process. “Do you–Y/N, what the fuck are you talking about?”

That was hardly the response you were expecting from him and you blinked, easing the Impala to a stop on the side of the completely empty road before turning to look at him, one hand braced on the steering wheel and one on the back of the seat. “I just…” you fumbled, looking anywhere but his eyes and that wasn’t helping because that just left you staring at his mouth and you needed to focus. “You jump every time I touch you, Dean,” you finally said softly. “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, I’m working on–”

“You don’t,” Dean cut you off, looking equal parts bewildered and hesitant. His hand came up to run through his short hair before landing in his lap where he stared down, not looking at you. “‘M just not used to it,” he mumbled after a pause. 

Something in your heart broke at the admission, at the idea that he was missing something that had been so fundamental to you for your entire life. “Dean…”

“It’s fine, Y/N,” he said roughly, still avoiding your gaze. 

“No, it’s not!” you surprised even yourself with the sharpness in your tone, and Dean’s head finally snapped up to look at you, meeting your eyes with green pools that looked almost on the verge of tears. “You deserve to be hugged and touched and loved as much as anyone else,”

You bit your lip, wondering if you were about to go too far. “Can I give you a hug?”

Dean scoffed, clearly not as unaffected as he pretended to be, but held his arm out for you to slide under. “Sure, whatever,”

You slid across the bench seat until you were tucked up next to him, turning your body into his chest as you wrapped your arms around him and laid your head on his shoulder. For the first time since getting into the Impala, you felt the tension drain out of your spine, and you shifted slightly, feeling the solid warmth of his body and the soft flannel he was wearing against your cheek. 

And then you realized he was shaking. Cautiously, you lifted your head, not quite letting him go as you opened your eyes to look at his face, scrunched up like he was in pain. It occurs to you that this is so far from any kind of the manly-slap-on-the-back hugs you’ve seen him exchange with his brother, and even those are few and far between. You were probably completely overwhelming him. “Too much?”

Dean shook his head once, his arm tightening just slightly around you, and you smiled softly at him, tucking yourself back into his side as best you could in the front seat of the car. “Okay,” you whispered, somehow afraid to break the moment if you spoke too loud. “Okay.”

One of your hands slid up to card through his short hair absently, your head still resting against his shoulder, and Dean melted. Every bone in his body seemed to simultaneously give up the fight, falling into you with a quiet noise in the back of his throat that somehow broke your heart and turned you on at the same time. 

At no point in this little driving lesson–hell, at no point since meeting him–did you imagine you would end up with your arms full of Dean Winchester, but you sure as hell weren’t complaining. You were caught halfway between realizing you felt completely safe for the first time since leaving your aunt’s house, and trying to focus on him. Somewhere in the middle of it, Dean had turned his face into your neck, lips hovering over the curve where your neck met your shoulder, and you shivered involuntarily. 

Dean froze, raising his head cautiously to search your face with those green eyes. “You good?” he asked in a low voice. 

“Yeah,” you whispered back, hand playing absently with the collar of his flannel and your eyes flicking between his lips and the freckles on his face. You had no way of explaining why this, a hug in a car pulled on the side of the road, was so much more intimate than anything you’d ever experienced before, it just was. Maybe it was because it was him. Maybe it was always just him.

You could see the same thing reflected in Dean’s expression, and when his eyes darkened and his hands shifted to your waist, you just went along with it, letting him lift you easily onto his lap with a little squeak leaving your lips. 

He smiled, pulling you tighter against him, and when his lips were suddenly on yours you weren’t even sure who moved first. Dean kissed you like he was starving, swallowing your gasp of surprise and tracing his tongue against yours, one hand tangling itself up in your hair. It was electric, stealing your breath and sending warmth pooling low in your belly, and you were completely unprepared for how completely it was taking you over. Your senses had narrowed to just him, his hand on your back trying to pull you closer, the heat of his mouth, his shirt clenched in your hands.

Finally, needing to breath, you pulled back, pushing your hair reflexively out of your face. “Not that I’m complaining,” you laughed softly, “but where did that come from?” You’d seen Dean pick up women in bars like it was nothing before. And you weren’t sure you could be that to him. Not now.

Dean practically growled, his hands tightening on your hips. “Are you kidding me? You driving my car was the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen,”

You smirked at him, surveying his face, all blown pupils and flushed skin. “Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Dean replied easily, his lips returning to your neck. “Helps that I’ve wanted to do this forever,” he muttered against your skin, pressing kisses to your shoulder. One of his hands slid from your hip to inch its way up your shirt, fingertips grazing your lower back and lighting you up at the touch. You shifted your weight on his lap, rocking forward against the bulge in his jeans and making him hiss. “You should have said something,”

“Sweetheart,” Dean started, pausing with wide eyes as your hands went to his belt. He watched for a moment, transfixed, before his brain caught up and he caught your hands in his, stopping you. 

Your eyes shot up to meet his, worrying your lip again as you watched him, wondering if you’d gone too far. But Dean was still looking at you with unrestrained desire written all over his face. “Get in the backseat,”

He didn’t have to ask you twice. You opened the passenger door with one last graze of your lips on his, almost tumbling off of his lap as you climbed out of the confined space, Dean on your heels. You pulled your shirt off before climbing into Baby’s backseat, smirking at the noise he made behind you. You’d never get tired of knowing the effect you could have on him. 

Settled back on the seat, Dean slid in after you, thankfully still with the presence of mind to shut the door behind him before he resumed devouring you, trailing his mouth from your lips down to your chest, teeth just grazing your breasts through the fabric before his hand snaked around to your back to unclasp your bra. You paused to let him pull the straps off of your arms before you went to work on his clothes, pushing the flannel impatiently off of his shoulders and letting out a frustrated whine when, in your current position, all you succeeded in doing was bunching it up around his biceps. Dean had you wound up too tight already and neither of you were even naked yet. 

He moved away from you just long enough to rip off the exasperating number of layers he was wearing, throwing them somewhere onto Baby’s floor. Settling back over you, Dean’s hands traced a burning path up your torso, thumbs just brushing over your nipples and sending a bolt of heat straight to your core. “You’re gorgeous, baby girl,”

You felt a flush of warmth at the compliment, not sure if you’d use the same words to describe yourself but too caught up to bother arguing. “Dean, hurry up,” you returned impatiently, lifting your hips toward him in search of friction. Your hands slid over his broad shoulders and down his back, feeling muscles ripple beneath your touch and watching the way his face changed at the contact. 

His hand slid down to deftly undo the button on your jeans, working the material off your hips as you pushed yourself up off of the leather seat to help him. His belt went next, and, with a bit of backseat gymnastics, Dean was sitting back on his heels above you with his pair of black boxers the only scrap of clothing left between you. 

You swallowed hard at the impressive tent in those boxers, rearranging yourself on the seat until you could slide your fingers into the waistband, looking up at his lust-blown eyes for confirmation. God, you just wanted to touch him, all of him, but you still wouldn’t do anything without his permission. 

Dean’s hand caught the side of your face, dragging you toward him for a messy kiss. Taking that as a yes, you pulled away after a moment with a breathy smile (and really, where had that come from) and pulled his boxers down far enough that his cock sprang free, bouncing against his stomach dark red and leaking. 

You wrapped your hand around him, thumb swiping experimentally over the tip and earning a low groan from Dean in response. “Wanna taste you,” you murmured, not waiting for a response before swallowing down as much of him as you could. He felt bigger in your mouth than you expected, the first blowjob you’d given that could probably actually choke you if you weren’t careful, but you weren’t about to let that stop you. Your hand covered whatever you couldn’t fit in your mouth, hollowing your cheeks as you moved over him faster, trying to wring as many of those little noises out of his throat as you could. 

“Shit, sweetheart,” he breathed, which only spurred you on. You’d never really found that much enjoyment in giving blowjobs before, seeing them more as a favor to your partner, but there was something about this, about Dean, that had you practically dripping onto Baby’s leather seat. You snaked one hand between your legs to touch yourself, desperately in search of any kind of contact, and moaned around your mouthful of Dean’s cock as you circled your clit. 

“Fuck, baby, stop,” Dean guided you off of his cock hastily, crashing his lips into yours for a heartbeat while his hands held tightly to your hips. Then, he carefully laid you back down on the seat, shifting until he was braced above you on his forearms with the tip of his cock just brushing your entrance. 

Desperate and past the point of caring, you bucked your hips up, almost crying in relief when Dean finally slid into you, one inch at a time. You threw your head back against the Impala’s door at the sensation, your mouth falling open in a silent gasp as he finally filled you, holding completely still for a moment to let you adjust.

“Shit, Y/N, you feel so good,” he groaned into your neck, mouthing little kisses there as he went. 

You’d never felt anything like this. No one had ever come close to this, and it wasn’t just that he was reaching places inside you that you hadn’t even known existed. You rocked your hips up, silently begging him to move, and Dean took the hint with a look of such adoration that it took your breath away. 

You sank into an easy rhythm there in Baby’s backseat, your teeth sinking into your lip as you tried to muffle the sounds caught in your chest. Dean’s soft lips moved over yours, coaxing your lip free before shooting you a heated gaze. “Let me hear you,”

His voice was deeper than you’d heard it before, the sound sending a rush of heat to your core, and you clenched your walls around him as he slid over your g-spot, a low wine tearing from your throat that didn’t sound remotely like your own voice. “Dean, god, fuck,”

 The pace of his thrusts sped up, one hand coming down to rub your clit in slow circles with the calloused pad of his thumb. “Come for me, Y/N,”

He was fucking you hard now, his every thrust slamming into your g-spot and a look on his flushed face that you wanted to commit to memory. He groaned roughly as your walls tightened around him, one sharp flick of your clit sending you over the edge into a wave of oblivion. Your vision went white, mouth open in a strangled scream, and you clung to Dean to hold you together as he shattered you perfectly. 

Vaguely, you registered Dean following you over the edge with a growl, and you both laid there in a tangle of limbs in Baby’s backseat, your skin sticking unpleasantly to the leather under your back but both of you unwilling to move. 

“So,” you said finally, “do all of your driving lessons go like that?”

Dean raised his head from where he’d been resting on your chest, opening one eye to stare at you with a scowl. “Only other person I taught to drive was Sammy,”

A laugh bubbled out of your throat, and you slid your fingers through his now-messy hair, a warmth caught in your chest as he arched into your touch, hugging his arms around your waist. “So does that make me special?”

He pressed a half-formed kiss to the skin above your left breast. “Maybe,”

“I still don’t want to drive home,” you said flatly, your eyes sparkling.

Still huddled against you, Dean barked a laugh. “Fine,” he raised an eyebrow. “I can get us there faster anyway,”

So Dean drove on the way back, Metallica on the radio, half of your clothes still in the backseat, with one hand on the wheel and the other in yours. 

[fanfoolishness]

Rambling thoughts for Little Graduation/Prickly Pair

My heart can’t even handle it, you guys.  I just... I can’t.  *cries forever* Thoughts behind the jump for spoilers/length, and please feel free to yell at me or reblog with your own thoughts!

Steven is singing along to an old Sadie Killer song because it’s old and familiar

Really the only time we’ve seen him sing this season

Because his feelings are too muddled up and painful to dare put to song

So he sticks to others’ music instead, safer that way

OMG he adds a little “Hey” to “Teens by day” so cute

OMG he does a falsetto part to the first Sadie Killer and Suspects and then a goofy as FUCK deep voice for the second Sadie Killer and the Suspects

I just… Zach Callison’s voice work this season has been so good and it sounds like he’s having such a good time at the silly parts and he’s been so emotional on the rough parts, if he doesn’t get recognized for his work on the show by the end it’ll be criminal

This is gonna be the last time we really see Steven happy for a long time, isn’t it? And it’s so sad because it such a joy to see him that way again for a second, no eye bags, no stress. My heart.

Aww Sadie got a neck too!

YEAH STEVEN REALLY DID DIAMOND EYES FROM EXCITEMENT, not stars!!!

I’m sad for Lars and Sadie that their growth took them different places but I’m so proud of them too!!!

“Don’t you wanna try something new?”

“Well, hm.”

“Except for me! I’ll still be… right here.”

Steven is losing control of his floating powers. Tried to be cool guy floating around with his friends and failed. This is really concerning. The last time he couldn’t float well was way back in season 4. Stevennnnnnn….

Shep DOES seem so cool!

Look at Rebecca Sugar, they truly just be out there like “last season, what are they gonna do to me if I put non-binary humans in the show, that’s right, they won’t do jack SHIT” bwahaha

And it’s lovely that it’s just no biggie

Steven your ship didn’t sail, I’m sorry but you can’t write AUs for real people

Lars is more worried about the cake than about his ex

“Are YOU okay?”

Finally someone is asking and of course Steven is like”what? My problems are visible externally? WHAT problems???”

“Everyone but me…”

Buck got into medical school??? Holy shit, so he was in college before? Dang. Also his bedside manner will be soooooo weird and cool

Actually I can see him as one of the weird internal medicine doctors who’s super smart so you want them on your case but he only says the occasional weird thing like “your gallbladder is an illusion” or “your hormones are like, totally out of sync. Lemme fix that” or wow, I don’t even know, I may have to write a drabble of an intern just being wowed by how weird he is

Classic Steven would definitely buy a jacket for his phone

Awww Sadie you should have told him 😭😭😭

Lars watching Steven slow motion self-destruct like “oh god is this how I was”

“Ah, well… you should have asked me, I’m-I’m really good at naming bands…”

Jesus Christ Steven that sound was my heart breaking for you

What the fuck is Shep’s instrument? Anyone know?

Okay this is actually a really good graduation song and while Sadie Killer is still awesome I love that Sadie can also tap into more personal emotions for her work now, she’s just so good!

I know how Lars feels, sometimes those big events are just overwhelming

I love his leather jacket!

So uhhhh maybe Steven doesn’t control Diamond Mode as well as we had thought given the last few episodes

It’s really fascinating because it’s clear in the animation and voice work Steven’s struggling with so many feelings right now

He’s scared Lars and the others are slipping away

He’s ashamed he feels so aimless beside them

He’s angry that Lars isn’t listening and is going to leave him

He’s sad that everyone’s changing

The way Steven yells at Lars to stop is just so fucking desperate, his shaking fist, holy shit kid you do not do goodbyes well do you

Aaaaaaand that’s new. What the hell is it??? We’ve never seen this from any other gem or Diamond before. DAMMIT STEVEN THIS IS NOT HEALTHY

It shredded the stage and the banner 😭

Digging that scary as fuck musical motif

It has the Diamond mode machine noise in the background — that flickering humming power sound

Seriously Steven!!! How the hell would Lars’ feelings— so much denial

“When did this happen, I didn’t see any of this!”

I love that he touched on this, like of course people don’t have to live their private lives in front of you, dingbat! But so much of his life has been lived with the Gems who did display all their trauma and problems that he can’t help but feel he’s entitled to see how things work out

It’s also concerning because it suggests he is having some trouble viewing people as independent to him, as having their own agency

WHITE DIAMOND ANYONE

I love that Lars is so excited to be back in space with his friends!!

Oh man the way everyone stares at Steven like “bro, clearly you are the only magical pink person in the room”

Some really gorgeous frames of Steven’s face here, wish Apple TV let you cap them 😢

“I can’t help it if my dumb heart misses you guys” I’m CRYING FOREVER

AMAZING use of “squash and stretch” Disney animation theory here hahahaha

Lars and Steven hug gives me so much life waaaaaah

I still can’t get over how grownup that boy looks behind the wheel. I love his hand tapping on the wheel.

So pensive. Poor Steven.

And now Prickly Pair, if you thought your heart hurt before well lemme tell you what!

How much time has passed since Snow Day?

Dammit, I predicted in one of my fics that Steven would feel weird about gardening magically and want to do it all the old-fashioned way…

But I haven’t finished it, alas. And Steven is doing much better emotionally by that point in MY story thank you hahahaha

Also it’s Connverse and adorable

Okay really should work on it

Well, okay, Connie is a cute smart blue flower so at least Steven’s still thinking of her? I really wish she had been here but I guess she’s gonna have to save Steven from himself soon enough.

I’m now kind of uneasy about the idea of them dating… I really wanted them to get together but Steven isn’t healthy right now. He’s really messed up and kind of worse than I was even thinking with all my angsting. If they try to get together now Steven might be weird and controlling and secretive and that is not the Connverse I want! Maybe we’ll get something cute and sweet after Steven starts recovering and getting mentally healthier?

Because not to say you can’t be in a relationship and be mentally ill… but the low point of your illness is NOT a time to START a relationship, and if they’d really been dating this whole time I have to imagine we’d have heard about it. So my guess would be not dating, Steven was too busy to hang out a lot of the time, but still friends.

Dammit I really wanted cute date episodes and the big dance from Chille Tid 😭

DON’T NAME YOUR PLANTS AFTER PEOPLE

Garnet tried to warn him… I wonder how the cactus acted in other timelines.

Does Zach voice the cactus too?

Yep: confirmed, Zach is a cactus.

FINALLY we’re in Steven’s head and it’s an uncomfortable place to be

“I used to be helpful, but the Gems don’t need me anymore! Why do I need to be needed? Stevennnn, pull it together!!!”

And again with the head clutching and yeah it really seems like White’s pulling a Steven in the intro doesn’t it???

Oh god I assumed the cactus was going to be a monster because of repressed feelings manifesting in Steven’s spit but it’s so much more painful that it repeats after him and THAT’s what makes it upset waaaaaaah

Cactus Steven screaming why do I need to be needed!!!

The Gems are finally asking the right questions but Steven is so paranoid he can’t help but view them in the worst way

Steven venting about the gems hurts but he DID have to deal with them at their worst

Oh no, he went diamond mode on Cactus Steven!

The powering up noise diamond mode makes is so ominous, I love it

I can’t believe Steven didn’t almost lose an eye from his own shield right then and there

“Those are my real private thoughts! I can’t let them hear!”

Noooo his house!

Nooooo Steven the Gems can take listening to you a lot better than a magical cactus could, you’ve GOT to talk to someone or this will get SO. MUCH. WOrse.

Yeah. It’s gonna get so much worse. ;_;

[artificiary-fr]

ok so arti’s unnecessary opinion time

Just wanna give a disclaimer that these are just my sort of thoughts in general, and are in no way an attempt to demean, attack, or cause drama about any artist or staff member, or community member. Just kind of what I’ve observed and come to the questions/conclusions of. I got a little opinionated at the end but I tried not to single anyone out save for I think, one unnamed example? 

I’ll put everything under the cut here, because I know I have a tendency to get wordy (and spoiler: It did. This is a super long post, I’m sorry). So, here we go...

TL;DR: I like the gene, I’ll wait for the revamp before giving a concrete opinion, there were definitely some issues, I appreciate that staff took note/action, more communication like this or the dev streams is good (though communication between staff/community is a Thing unto itself of which I probably have a Disliked Take on and that was the really long part that isn’t necessary to read)

Okay before anything: the familiars. They’re super pretty! I like the recolors, and now I’m gonna have to grind the Kelp Beds for those boss fams. Dang. I love the kitty golem recolor.

With that out of the way, here we are - the subject of today’s discussions... Glowtail.

So, my first opinion: It’s not a bad gene! I can see some curious use for it, certainly. But there are some problems with it (and yes; I am aware staff has addressed this and pulled it to fix those problems! That’ll be more relevant later on here c: )

Note One: I think I do understand why it is a gem gene. Yes, design/thematically it does appear to fit the bill of a Baldwin Gene more. But I’d like to posit it’s the completion of a gem-gene set - Wasp/Bee/Glowtail. So in that regard, it makes sense!

Note Two: My personal opinion with the gene is that I like it, but it feels... hm. Plain isn’t correct. Like it’s missing something, I guess? I wish the segmenting was a little more prominent, and that the glow or gradient had a little more glitz/glamor, maybe some glitteries around the hips, to really sell it as a gem gene. I do like the glow we have on the other bits of dragon like light reflection, though, because it adds a little bit of dimension! All in all however even so, I do like it, and I won’t cement my opinion until we see what their updated version looks like in the future.

Note Three (The Problems): The art errors. What... what happened here?

As we’ve noticed, male snappers and male tundras are the two big offenders, with large chunks of color erroneously sitting outside the lineart quite noticeably. There is also part of the ‘glow’ (the aforementioned light reflection) that doesn’t make sense - being on parts of the dragon where it shouldn’t be, like on the front of wings where the tail is not in front of said limb, but behind.

But like... how did this not get caught before it got posted? Was it a time crunch, or it just... didn’t get quality checked before this happened? It’s really unfortunate. :c

Something I do with my art - and this is just my own process/thoughts - is when I’ve put down the base color, before I do any shading/highlights/big details, I pop a layer underneath the entire drawing and fill it with a high contrast color to the palette. That way any bits where I missed coloring in - or didn’t clean up outside the lines - becomes super noticeable, and I can fix it then instead of being a problem later. Maybe doing something like this before throwing the gene through the color automation process would’ve helped?

Last Note:

I feel like part of why these errors went unnoticed is because of how often, and sometimes how rushed, some of these updates have been - and this has been more noticeable in this year than otherwise. Is it because of community dissent with wanting more updates creating more crunch? Due to low-attention reticence creating a need for pushing more ad revenue / more “come to the site there’s new”?

I’m unsure, but it’s unfortunate nonetheless. I think staff, and FR as a whole, would benefit from like... hm. How to word this...

Maybe taking more time on updates / a more extended schedule so things aren’t as crunch (of course this being said, I don’t know what the workload is like so I can’t even say if crunch is applicable), and more open communication? Like how the dev streams were going - that was pretty well liked and everyone I know got pretty excited to see em and how the art was doing. It also opened up the avenue for more open communication / more nuanced opinions or thoughts.

---

But herein lies the huge issue, I think, with communication. This is the part where I’d like to reiterate, this is just my observations, and is not intended as an attack, a vaguepost, or deliberate callout at anybody. There’s no malicious intent here. This bit could also be construed as drama I suppose, and I apologize for that because again - not the intent. Just my take.

I’ve noticed posts going ‘no drama please’ or being tired when new updates come out of like, ‘oh boy here comes the negativity’ so I don’t think it’s just me who’s seen it, but have you guys noticed when anything new comes out, there’s an immediate rush of extreme salt and negativity?

And I don’t mean posts where its like “it’s not for me” or “I don’t like it but here’s [detailed/explained reason why]” - those are the nuanced opinions I mean. Those are fine. I mean the ones where people in forums, or on the more prolific drama blogs, are just.... mean/empty? Like “FUCK staff I hate how lazy they are with this it’s shitty looking” - that really vocal generally super salty in general minority of the community. Just hate without explanation, or just kind of aimless generalized attack/complaint.

I think that’s where communication with Staff fell off the bandwagon. The really loud, really vocal minority of folks who throw super salt or yell “This Sucks You Suck” completely overshadow the people who are well intentioned with sharing their opinions or problems/criticisms. The toxic bits and really vitriolic words are what gets seen and noticed. I think this is the majority of what gets heard, which is why communication got so closed off / shut down unless positive, in recent times. Do I agree with that? No, I don’t either - but I’m just looking at this from the outside. Idk how staff feels or thinks.

And this goes for both people who don’t like the content, and people that do.

Remember that the Keel thread got locked because someone who was white-knighting started getting real nasty with people in the thread, and going to extremes insulting artists who did mock-ups to help visualize their thoughts/opinions and was just being a real douche?

What I really wish was that we could have more open communication. Some of the things I really liked to see were like: Dev Streams, Community Updates/Q&A, Opinion Polls, That Update Progress on Breed/Gene Progress from a while back. All of that was excellent. And I like to see the community responding in well thought out ways! I like to see staff more hands on too! We’re only human and love this site and our dragons and want to see it at it’s best - but they’re also only human, and make mistakes, and we don’t know what’s goin on in there, just out here.

Trello is a really good way to kind of show that communication, and is transparent, but isn’t free-to-use for businesses, so... of course I also don’t know how Stormlight Workshop runs their business/hours so I’m just blowing hot smoke. But anyway, I think everyone would benefit from slowing down and opening up. If things are going slow, that’s okay - if Staff opens up to the community and says “This is taking longer than expected, but here’s upcoming releases / current in-progresses” I think we’d be like oh okay things are happening and it’ll be nice! As compared to everyone gets super antsy, nothing’s happening, no-one is talking... and then we get hit with a bunch of updates, some of which, like today’s, have... issues.

Of course then I worry that with more open talking or “we’re experiencing delays” the more vitriolic will get even angrier/saltier which doesn’t... help... but I mean... yeah. 

ANYWAY so I’ve written a full dissertation essay here without really intending to (see? I warned y’all! I ramble/don’t shut up ahahaha) so I’m gonna just stop myself here before I start going in circles. This last chunk I don’t really know what the meat of what I was trying to say was, now, I think. Sorry about that. It was just “here’s my stream of consciousness” apparently ^^;;;;

Have a good evening y’all! Thanks for listenin’ to my (rant?) if y’all made it this far. You’re appreciated and thank you for letting me bend your ears! Stay safe in this crazy world, hang in there, and have a good one!

[peters-starks]

NUMBER NEIGHBOUR

Peter Parker x Reader 

Summary: when texting your number neighbour you got more than you bargained for. 

Word Count: 4,059

Masterlist

The recent trend on Twitter of people texting their “number neighbour” the person who has the same phone number as them but with one number difference had become really popular in the past few days, so much so even the majority of your friends had now done it. So, when you were having a chill night in with two of your friends and they tried to persuade you to text your number neighbours you really weren’t surprised.  

“Guys I’m not going to do it what if it’s some weirdo and they probably won’t even reply so it’ll be pointless” you chucked and shook your head. 

“Come onnnn this movie is so boring and we’ve both already spoken to our neighbours so it’s your turn!” Your best friend, Merise, wasn’t wrong, this movie was like a YouTube comedy remake of an actual horror movie and frankly the acting was beyond awful. 

“What happened to typical fun games like truth or dare” you yelped as your other friend, Amara, threw a pillow at you 

“Just do it” they groaned at you going to reach for another pillow making you put your arms over you in defence whilst laughing

“Okay okay! I guess I have no dignity left to lose!” 

All your friends gathered around your phone as you typed in your phone number and changed the last number at the end and selected the message option. You typed out a simple “hi” and then clicked send. 

“Hi? Hi! That’s so boring” Amara groaned and Merise pinched her side 

“What else were they gonna say?” 

You shook your head at your overly energetic friends and stared at your screen for a moment longer with nothing happening. “I told you there would be no resp-”your words were cut short by a notification noise coming through and Merise grabbed your phone laughing. 

UNKNOWN: hi? Who is this? 

You groaned and watched as Merise tapped away and the sound of a message being sent shortly followed. 

Y: I’m your number neighbour! Have you seen the trend online? 

Your eyes widened at this. “OMG what if they’re like 90 years old? Or like 8? If they’re like underage isn’t this illegal I mean” you typed as you rambled your friends watching you in amusement. 

Y: unless you’re like not online which is super fine and if you’re like really young then ignore this aha :) 

“Honestly I don’t understand how your level of awkwardness can project through a screen that hard like I’m getting awkward radiation poisoning from this” Amara gaped at you making Merise chuckle and mumble something in agreement along the lines of ‘it’s not that deep’.

~|~

Peter was perched on his favourite rooftop taking a break to view the New York skyline at night, this being one of the reasons he loved patrolling in the evenings as nowhere else could you see this view. His phone vibrating caught his attention and he assumed it was Aunt May asking when he would be home as she was probably fretting about him swinging across the city, still not completely loving his new role but all the same supporting him to an endless amount. 

Peter’s eyebrows furrowed when he saw an unknown number on his phone screen and swiped to open the message seeing a simple “hi”. The number looked vaguely familiar but at this point Peter was far too tired to place it. He replied cautiously and waited for the mystery person to answer him. 

When his phone vibrated again he was mildly surprised by the two messages. His number neighbour! Peter secretly loved that trend online much to MJ’s dismay as she found it ‘pointless’ and had sent her number neighbour links to government conspiracies when they had text her to which she had no reply. Peter thought she just didn’t like the trend because she was upset she didn’t make a new conspiracy friend. 

P: ohhhh, of course I know, hey neighbour! And don’t worry I’m not really young 

P: well that depends what you class as really young, 13 is pretty old right? 

P: lol kidding 

Peter face palmed himself at that, god he was such a dork. 

Y: Idk 13 is quite young when you’re 65 

Y: I’m not actually 65 tho don’t worry 

Y: how old actually are you tho lol 

Peter smiled slightly sensing your mild anxiety at texting a stranger and honestly it was most the reason he hadn’t done it yet because knowing his luck he’d message a child and have some very unhappy parents at his door. 

P: I’m 18 wbu 

Y: snap! 

P: thank god! Are you from New York? 

Y: yup lived here for a couple of years now, I take it you are too? 

P: Queens 

Your two friends squealed as you found out this stranger lived surprising close to your apartment. 

“Ask them their name! We might know them considering they’re so close” Merise squealed slightly. Honestly you just thought she was like a puppy who was excited to meet new people. 

Y: so neighbour what’s your name if you don’t mind me asking? 

Peter hesitated at this for a second as even though his identity was hidden, only those the very closest to him knowing him as Spider-Man, giving his name to someone over text who literally could be anyone seemed risky. However, he doubted that any random government agent or evil bad guy would know of number neighbours or be able to joke around so easily. 

P: Peter, what’s yours? 

Y: Hi Peter from Queens, I’m y/n.

Amara braced herself for Merise’s literal yell at finding out the person you were texting was not only the same age and from nearby but also A BOY. 

“I BET he’s cute, he seems nice over text and dorky so he’s gotta be cute ugh” Merise winked at you after her small speech and you simply rolled your eyes. 

“I’m sure he is, if he’s who he says he is” you started staring at your screen waiting for his reply. Time passed and after 40 minutes you gave up on checking your phone screen every 10 minutes waiting for Peter to answer you. He probably got bored of texting a stranger which you wouldn’t blame him. The internet came up with weird trends. 

Just as you let your friends out as it was way past the time they were supposed to leave as you had school the next day, your phone had another text notification.

P: hi y/n :) 

You smiled faintly at this because Merise was kind of right, Peter sounds like a bit of a dork. 

Y: do you go to school in New York? 

Y: that’s if you’re in school aha 

P: yea I go to Midtown actually 

Your eyes widened slightly as that was Amara’s school whilst you and Merise went to one a couple miles away from Midtown. 

Y: no way! My friend goes there. You must be pretty smart. I go to the next school over. 

P: nice! Guess we really aren’t too far away then. 

A few hours passed and you and Peter were still texting back and forth, knowing you both really should be asleep but the conversation flowed so well that time passed without any realisation. Which you both paid for when school started the next day.

Y: I.am.so.tired.

P: I literally slept through 3 alarms and coffee isn’t working. Help. 

Y: at least you don’t have a bio test today I’m honestly screwed. 

P: if you need bio help I’m actually kind of a nerd with that stuff. Text me the questions secretly ;)

Y: oh yea totally not noticeable. 

You smiled and rolled your eyes at Peters texts catching Merise’s attention. “Still texting Queens boy, are we?” She nudged your shoulder and winked at you. 

“Maybe I am” you tried to answer with a straight face but honestly it was difficult. 

Throughout the day, you and Peter exchanged small texts here and there, both your friends seemed to notice you being glued to your phones more than usual. 

When school ended, you went home and tried to get your school work done but honestly nothing was going in so you opted for aimless scrolling for a while. The top of your newsfeed was an alert of Spider-Man ending yet another Robbery only a few blocks away from your apartment which usually you took no notice of but it was the bank your parents used so it caught your attention more than usual. 

Y: yknow I think I’m going to need that study help, literally everything is distracting me. Including bank robberies! Not even Spider-Man can save my grades this semester. 

P: you never know, Spider-Man is probably pretty good at bio. 

Peter laughed at himself, inside jokes about his identity really were the only enjoyable part about hiding himself from the people around him. He was sat back on the rooftop from last night trying to rest up his side as he took a pretty hard blow from one of the robbers and certainly has a bruise. He remembered Ned saying a solution to help bruising the other day and decided to ask him and without looking dialled. 

“Hello?” 

Ok. So that isn’t Ned. 

“Peter is that you...” 

When you saw peter was ringing you it confused you but you did ask him for study tips so maybe he was saving your ass via phone call. 

Peter froze when he heard your voice, checking his phone and seeing “y/n” on the screen. God, he must’ve selected your contact instead of Neds since he was thinking about you. 

“Oh um hi sorry I meant to phone my friend about some bruise stopping thing but I must’ve called you by mistake” 

“Bruise stopper?” You cocked your head in confusion. “Do I even want to know” you chucked slightly. Hearing Peters actual voice was kind of weird but as much as you hated to admit it even his voice sounded cute to you. 

“Ah um I kind of ran into a wall aha yea like super hard” Peter literally wanted to dive bomb off the roof top, god his awkward rambles always revealed too much. And a wall?? Who’s going to believe that.

“Right a wall... clumsy I take it” 

“Yeah you could say that” peter laughed lightly. 

“Well don’t ask how I know this but cold compress it on and off and apply Arnica gel a few times a day and Aloe if you want to be extra careful” 

Peter raised his eyebrows in surprise a thought going through his head that you weren’t some secret vigilantly too or worse maybe some villain. “I won’t ask don’t worry but um thank you” 

You smiled gently “you’re welcome Peter from Queens” 

“Well i guess if you’re curing my bruising you can call me Peter Parker instead of Peter from Queens” 

“Well Peter Parker, y/n y/l/n” 

Peter smiled more until his cheeks hurt under his mask as you carried on speaking to each other, hearing your voice somehow made you more real to Peter and speaking to you was relaxing. You didn’t know him as Peter Parker quiet nerd from Midtown or as the rookie avenger that kind of went to space and saved the world but also helps old ladies cross the road. You knew him as Peter, number neighbour and hopefully at this point friend. Getting to know someone new was really a breath of fresh air. 

It was getting late again and honestly you don’t think you can go another day of school with next to no sleep no matter how much you loved speaking to Peter. And so you and peter began to say your goodnights. 

“It was really nice speaking to you today Peter, like actually speaking to you” 

“Yea it was really nice speaking to you too... maybe we can do it again sometime?” 

“You can call me whenever, especially if you are gonna help me with studying orrr if you need anymore bruises to heal” you smiled as you spoke, the tiredness etching into your body slowly. “Well, goodnight Peter Parker” 

“Goodnight y/n” 

Over the next two weeks you and Peter spoke every single day, most the time through texts and mainly through meme’s as well as evening phone calls. Sometimes Peter would have to leave the call abruptly with weird excuses which made you suspicious, Merise said it’s probably a girlfriend he doesn’t want you to know about but Amara shut that down saying that she doubts it. Amara also went to midtown with Peter but had no classes with him and barely knew his face, she said her friend said he was probably the guy with the Stark internship. When you asked Peter about the internship he got nervous and stuttered a lot which confused you but you convinced yourself it was because there was lots of Top Secret Avengers stuff he had to be careful with. 

“I’m so jealous you get to work with the avengers y’know? I’ve always loved those guys, like how cool would it be to have some kind of power and be able to save people?” You gushed to Peter one evening which honestly made him blush a bit. You were a bit of a superhero nerd too. 

“Yea it must be pretty cool” Peter tried to keep the tone in his voice even but Karen quickly informed him that his voice indicated excitement and anxiety. 

“Have you met many avengers? Have you met Thor? He’s a literal god I mean even meeting Tony Stark alone must have been amazing I’ve always found him so interesting like he’s was so clever and he saved us all like literally! Oh god and SPIDER-MAN he’s just so cool because he’s like our thing you know? Like a New York special hero” you were also blushing as you spoke realising you were fully geeking out to a guy you’d never even met and he probably thought you were a total avengers fan girl. 

“Yea Spider-Man is pretty cool, Thor is awesome though! The dude is massive! And Mr Stark was just a great guy y’know? I kinda owe him everything” Peters heart dropped a bit at mentioning Tony but talking about him kept his memory alive in Peter’s eyes, and that’s the least he could do for him. 

“Right yea, sorry I didn’t even think, I’m so sorry for your loss, he was such a great man” you cringed at yourself for not thinking. Of course Peter would’ve been affected by losing Tony. 

“No no it’s okay, I mean you and me wouldn’t be here without what he did so we all owe him one, it’s good to acknowledge it, bet it feeds his ego a bit really” Peter laughed a bit trying to lighten the mood and make you feel less bad. You had both previously spoken about the Snap as both of you had disappeared for those 5 years and late night discussions had run into the early mornings as you had heart to hearts about its tolls on you both. You both found it so easy to talk to each other it was like you’d known each other for years even though you’ve never even seen each other face to face before, both being too awkward to even suggest meeting. 

-|- 

 You knew it was a bad idea to walk home alone so late, but the extra studying was highly needed as Peter couldn’t make your evening phone call to help you study your math quiz tomorrow and if you failed it one more time you were in serious trouble. The lampposts illuminated just enough of the street for you to feel safe-ish but speed walking was definitely needed. 

You were only a block away from your apartment when you got that feeling. It was deep in your gut and it made you shiver. Something was wrong and you couldn’t put a finger on what it was. You turned your head slightly to look around you and at a first glance you saw nothing however a shadow moving in one of the alley ways made your hair on your arms stand up. This was a big nope. 

You grabbed your phone and kept it close to you ready to call for help as footsteps started coming behind you. However as a rough hand grabbed your shoulder pulling your whole body backwards with a tell your phone was knocked out your hand, tumbling towards the ground like your hope of getting through this. 

Your eyes closed in terror as a small object was pushed against your back. Who knew studying would literally be the death of you.

“What’s in the bag” the voice was rough and desperate causing you to hold your breath. “Give me the bag” 

You turned slowly, hands up and faced the man, his face was covered by some makeshift white mask and a black beanie covered his hair, the small black handgun being pointed at you was shaking slightly in his gloved hands. 

You slowly moved your backpack off your shoulders and moved it in front of you, dropping it to the ground and using you foot to push it towards the masked man. Just as the man moved to pick it up a blue and red blur zoomed past you eyes, knocking the man to the wall and his gun became stuck to it by some webbed material. Webbed material. SPIDER-MAN. 

“Hey I don’t think that belongs to you” the voice spoke sounding weirdly altered. 

The robber attempted to swing at the spandex covered hero but missed as Spider-Man ducked and then proceeded to pull him back with webbing as he tried to flee. 

“You know I think an apology would be in order for this” the robber simply muttered a “fuck you” under his breath to which Spider-Man tutted and webbed the guy to the wall before whispering inform the authorities and turning to you. 

“Um hey sorry about this, are you okay miss..” the hero was shorter than you thought standing taller than you but not by a huge amount and his posture seemed almost awkward as he scratched the back of his head waiting for your reply. 

“Oh um y/n” you whispered, trying your best to process your brush with death and also not crying in front of your favourite hero. 

At the mention of your name the eyes of Spider-Man widened and he seemed to freeze. Peter was shocked. Y/n? As in his y/n? Your voice sounded the same but surely not and he almost hoped not considered what just happened, what if he didn’t get here on time? Oh god I mean he thought you were pretty but this pretty? And everything that just happened you must be so terrified and right before your math quiz... 

You saw the hero frozen in place and became instantly confused. “Um... are you okay?” At this he seemed to snap out of it and laughed slightly. 

“I think that’s my line you know” Peter once again realised he fucked up as his voice changer was no longer on, Karen must disabled it when Peter froze and he bet she did it on purpose knowing full well who you are. 

When Spider-Man spoke your eyebrows furrowed because that voice sounded oh so familiar but you could only place it to one person. 

“Right yea um I’m okay I should probably get home I have school tomorrow” you nervously nodded hoping he would say something else so you could confirm it.

“Of course yea um, is it okay if I walk you home? Just to make sure you’re safe?” Peter knew there was no turning back, you’d either figure it out or you wouldn’t and there was no way he was going to let you carry on walking home alone after this. 

“Um... that’d be nice actually, thank you” 

On the walk home not much was said, Peter tried not to say something accidentally and completely reveal himself whilst you were wrapped up in thinking about what just happened to you and the fact not only was Spider-Man walking you home but you’re pretty sure he is your mystery friend Peter Parker. 

When you arrived at your apartment you thanked the Webster and watched him swing off into the New York skyline and then took your phone out and dialled the only number you could think of. 

“Hello? Everything okay?” Peter sounded out of breath which was very convenient and he also sounded worried which if you weren’t already so suspicious you wouldn’t take note of. 

“You’re not going to believe the evening I’ve had” you went on to explain your half robbery slash attack and Spider-Man’s dramatic entrance and you have to admit Peter is a good actor, although his concern for your emotional well-being seemed to consume his efforts in hiding his fake shock at Spider-Man turning up. 

“Yea it was so weird like I’m totally okay but I can’t figure out what’s the strangest thing, being saved from a robbery by Spider-Man or finding out Spider-Man is my number neighbour you know” you bit your lip with anticipation as you spoke. 

“Well yea u mean it sounds like a strange nigh- wait what” God Peter was so stupid of course you knew! He would recognise your voice anywhere so why wouldn’t you recognise his? “I’m-I’m not Spider-Man I m-mean that’s ridiculous” and he stuttered. Good job Peter. 

“Yea I mean Stark internship? Knowing the avengers and Spider-Man and you sharing a voice is a lot of coincidence huh? It was nice to finally meet you Peter” you didn’t sound offended or angry from what Peter could tell you actually sounded humoured which made him breathe a sigh of relief. 

“Go to your roof top” and with that the line went dead.

Five minutes later you were stood on the rooftop of your apartment complex, glad the door was old and easily pushed open. The hoodie you threw on barely kept you warm from the winds that bashed around you but that was all forgotten as Spider-Man , Peter , landed on the roof next to you. 

“Hey” you smiled and nervously tucked some hair behind your ear as he got closer. 

“Um hi” Peter said, approaching you slowly whilst being kind of unsure. 

“I know your identity is a big thing and I promise I won’t tell anyone about this but I couldn’t pretend I didn’t know and I mean it’s pretty cool but also awkward because I can’t BELIEVE you let me geek out about the avengers and YOURSELF to you for ages and didn’t say ANYTHING I mean wha-“ you were cut short by Peters body colliding with yours in a kind of awkward but sweet hug. He smelt really good. 

When he pulled away you cleared your throat and muttered a sorry. Peter only laughed and lifted his hands up to take his mask off. Underneath he was a lot cuter than you expected, honestly you had to hold in a gasp. His brown hair was floppy and curly, slightly messy from the mask, and his jawline was sharp framing his face and his brown eyes honestly were breath-taking as cliché as it sounds. 

“It’s nice to finally meet you too” Peter said playing with his fingers nervously “you um you’re prettier than I thought wait not that I thought you wouldn’t be pretty but I mean you’re just wow like super pre-“ this time peter was interrupted as your arms wrapped around his neck and you kissed him on the cheek. 

“Thank you. For um saving my life earlier and all, who knew Spider-Man could not only save my life but also save my grades by helping me study” you both chucked at that.

For the rest of the evening you sat on the roof top and enjoyed finally being around each other. The conversation was a lot easier in person, mostly because of the flirty body language and the fact Peters eyes told such a story. By the end you were nearly asleep on his shoulder as he wrapped his arm around your torso to help keep you warm and you both silently enjoyed watching the New York skyline at night. Peter had found a new favourite roof top. 

++++++++++++++

OKAY SO my first one shot on this account because the most stupid things inspire me, including twitter trends. i hope you like it as i wasn’t too sure with this one and feel like its a bit rough here and there but overall i enjoyed the concept too much to put it aside. 

Add yourself to my taglist 

TAGLIST: @aesthetic-png @liac2299 @animegirlgeeky @sexysamsungl @mikariell95 @evoutionofkatep  @orowit

[gwynbleiddyn]

If you’re taking requests, maybe a little snippet about Arthur meeting a trans guy reader and befriending him?

oh this is my JAM, of course anon! hopefully this gets somewhere close to what you were after

|| REQUESTS OPEN ||

arthur & male reader / all the stolen voices

Perched at the bar, you can feel a few pairs of eyes on you from across the dingy room. Nothing unusual, you’re used to the staring - it’s gotten less, sure, but a subtle shift of posture means curious eyes catch the glint of a revolver at your hip. Most turn away after that. Those that don’t, well, they either meet the business end of your fists or a bullet if they dare to tread in your footsteps on the way out. 

Tonight, though, nobody’s stare lingers and you’re grateful for it. It’s been a miserable day of hunting, the piss-poor weather making a poor show of what little tracking you can manage, and you’re left with barely a few coins to rub together for a drink to warm you up. The whiskey is unpleasant, lukewarm, tasteless by the time it hits your throat with its signature burn. It keeps you warm, though, and especially through the sodden layers of clothing you’re not about to remove anytime soon. It’s uncomfortable, but being without them is worse. The solid weight of a dark, worn leather duster on your shoulders keeps you sane most days, so the brief spells of discomfort in-between are a small price to pay. 

You keep your hat pulled low and ears to the ground, listening for any sign of trouble. It’s routine. Safe and comfortable for the most part, and that’s become a valuable thing for you. Taking another sip of the forgettable whiskey, you pick up a pair of footsteps approaching. They’re slow and ambling, but not those of a drunken fool or a old man either. Someone solid - they’re not light footsteps exactly, but whoever it is seems to be actively making an effort not to stomp their way across the dirty floorboards. Cautiously, you turn your head - and your ear - closer to the sound. 

“Just a beer.” A rough, low voice filters through the uproar of the evening, settling in at the bar next to you. On instinct, you tense up and pull your drink closer, dipping your head to avoid being seen. 

You apparently aren’t as subtle as you hoped. “Oh, I ain’t lookin’ for trouble.” 

That makes you glance up, slow and uncertain. A rough and ready looking bastard has propped himself up on the bar next to you - granted, the place is filled to the rafters and you can hardly blame him for finding a spot next to you, given as you’re probably one of the smaller folk taking up space. Managing a jerky nod in response, you make sure to get a better look at him as you settle back down at the bar, arms folded around your whiskey glass. He’s tall. He could easily loom over you and send you running, you figure, but he makes no effort to do so. Like you, he keeps his arms folded, even as the barkeep sets his drink in front of him and stomps away back to the braying fools at the other end of the bar. Everything about him is quiet and curled in, even the way his hat sits low over his eyes and the scruff at his jaw and chin hide the shape of his words. 

“What?” He’s noticed your scrutiny. Shit. Heat bubbles up in your chest and spreads across your cheeks, and you bite the inside of them to keep from scowling in distaste. You always hated how easily you blushed. Gets you read like a sissy from a mile off, even if that ain’t the truth. Huffing, you shake your head and shift in your seat, pushing your voice deep into your chest before you try and speak.

“Nothin’, mister. Just keeping myself awares, is all.” You manage a half decent reply, and the man seems satisfied with that. You feel a new pair of eyes on you then, and it makes sense - your voice doesn’t match your look, or at least, you don’t think it does. He’s wondering why. 

“Well like I said, no trouble.” The man relaxes a little, unfolding his arms to pull his drink closer to him. You feel yourself doing the same although you push your now-empty glass away instead. “What’s your name, kid?” 

You stammer something out in a knee-jerk reaction. He doesn’t question it at all, and only gives you a nod - which you assume is meant to be an acknowledgement, maybe, but you’re really not sure. He’s hard to pin down, and you’re used to being able to read people far easier than this. It throws you off.

“Arthur.” He introduces himself bluntly, and you feel a little better for knowing his name. Arthur. It sits nicely with your hastily conjured image of him. He does look a little worse for wear, but otherwise clean and well dressed - not like the usual stock of brigands who frequent this place. Though he could be a killer for all you know, and you tell yourself that before you start letting your guard down too quickly.

“You look like you’ve been through it.” Arthur says drily after a moment of two of silence, and you glance down at yourself. Mud splatters line your trousers and your coat, there’s a dribble of blood on your boot that you hope is from some buggered hunting job, and you can feel the prickly sensation of dried dirt on your chin. Yeah. He’s not wrong.

“You could say that.” You reply tersely, pushing your voice deeper still. He doesn’t seem to notice. 

“What are you? Some kind of hunter? Don’t look like a city type, don’t look much like a cold-blooded killer neither.” Arthur seems to be dropping his thoughts like pennies, and you get the impression he’s blowing through some bullshit of his own in the rambling, senseless way that lost folk seem to do. You know the feeling well. Something about that settles you, and you find yourself turning towards him a little if only to see him better.

“Sure. Why not? I ain’t much of anythin’ else, a hunter describes what I do prettily enough.” You admit, truthfully. You really are just scraping by, trying to find some way to survive without compromising yourself in the process. So far, this is the only thing that comes close.

“Huh, by yourself?” Arthur continues his aimless questioning. You’re happy enough to comply for now, so you nod, Arthur pays your way for another drink or several, and you find yourself in the company of a pleasant acquaintance instead of a stranger barely an hour later. 

By the time you get up to leave, though, you’ve somehow missed the group of shady looking bastards holed up by the door with their ugly little eyes flickering back and forth to you. The steady stream of whiskey hasn’t quite dulled your senses to the point of non-functionality - that stuff is almost definitely being watered down - and your instinct kicks in as you step off your barstool, Arthur’s laugh trailing off abruptly behind you. One of the men stops talking, looking directly at you with a sneer. 

“You ain’t right.” Is all he says, but it’s enough for you to snap to the draw, fingers finding the familiar revolver at your hip. That kicks up a commotion and a half, the men clustered by the door now leaping into the fray with slew of insults, all jostling to back up their slimy excuse of a leading man. You’re just about to draw when a heavy hand settles on your shoulder and begins to push you out of the commotion. Arthur’s shouts are far louder than the pathetic snivelling of the men inside, and you’re glad that you can’t hear them as you hit the cool night air, shrugging Arthur off your shoulder and making a beeline for your horse.

“Hey!” Arthur calls after you, leaving the barkeep to settle matters inside. You glance over your shoulder, still walking, trying your hardest not to let the shame bubble up into a nasty remark to a man who’s been nothing but friendly to you all evening. 

“Sorry, Arthur. I think it’s time I got the hell out of here.” You say, a little unsteadily. His strides are much longer than yours though, and he catches up easily.

“They ain’t worth your time, but I guess you figured that out a long while ago.” Arthur tells you. You’ve heard the sentiment before, but hearing it from Arthur - a no-good outlaw who seems to be on the run from God knows what - makes you listen a little more. You slow up, reaching out to pat your horse, seeking familiar comfort before your emotions started getting the better of you.

“You’re right. I did.” You’ve been through this shit plenty of times before now without anybody at your back, but the sentiment is appreciated this time. “But... thank you. It was real good talking to you, Arthur.” 

He seems confused for a moment, as if he isn’t expecting a thank-you, or even a kind sentiment in return. Blinking, he manages an awkward nod in your direction, and a hesitant clap on your shoulder in lieu of further rambling. You give him a warm grin before turning to swing yourself up into the saddle, wanting some peace and quiet and rest - things that you knew how to find in the wild, at least.

“Don’t go lookin’ for trouble now, you hear?” Arthur says as you pick up the reins. You manage a weak laugh, the minor rush of adrenaline from the almost-altercation beginning to make you shake.

“It usually finds me, mister. But I won’t go lookin’, I promise.” You give him a salute from the brim of your hat and as you turn away from a new friend, you sincerely hope it isn’t the last time you see him. 

[spiders-hth-is-an-outlier]

Hot Take: Daphne is Castiel

(Sorry if everyone but me has already thought of this.  It made me feel clever; don’t take this from me.)

So I was thinking about that Daphne Loves Fred carved on the bar in Dean’s “fantasy,” and then I was thinking about Daphne in general and who she is to Dean, which actually has some layers to it.

So, Scoobynatural was obviously entirely about childhood innocence, and Daphne is exactly the right Perfect Girl for a pre-sexual, child version of Dean.  She’s pretty and feminine, spunky and game for adventure, loyal and a caretaker -- honestly, she’s one pale pink nightgown short of a full-blown Oedipal issue (not in her similarity to Actual Mary, of course, but to the Mother Mary fantasy that Dean, who grieved his mother and the innocent pre-monster life she represented nonstop throughout his childhood).  Dean’s life was, like an episode of Scooby-Doo, lived on the road, out of a moving vehicle, on an aimless ramble from event to event with a reset button at the end of every “episode” -- but Scooby-Doo remained a fantasy and not a nightmare for him because it showed The Hunting Life not as the grim, marginal existence that Dean actually lived exclusively in the care of gruff man’s men like John and Bobby, but a playful version full of bright colors and giant sandwiches and the Sweetest, Prettiest Girl In the World.

Right, so but then -- puberty happened, and Dean discovered sex.  And the thing about Dean is that he ISN’T attracted to ingenues like Daphne.  Dean likes frisky women.  Dean likes ladies with experience.  Dean’s adult fantasies are exclusively about strippers and porn stars and One-Night Wonders and tramp-stamp rock’n’roll badasses like Pamela.  And he doesn’t have some kind of gross Madonna/Whore complex, either -- the time he found a woman that he could see in the wife-and-mother role, it was Lisa, whom he remembered with enormous enthusiasm from her younger days, when she used to pick up cute drifters in biker bars and bang them like screen doors for a couple of days then send them packing.  Yeah, Lisa had mellowed with age by the time she was Dean’s actual partner, but he picked someone he associated with assertive sexuality, not just domesticity.  Dean likes women who are going to meet his flirting and come back at him twice as hard, who want him, and who know what they want him for.

Season 13 rolls around, and he slips through what the fuck ever and ends up revisiting his childhood, and his childhood crush.  And in keeping with the theme of the episode, which is about the needs that nostalgia fulfills and the urge we have to protect the innocence of the child versions of ourselves (even knowing that the whole concept of “childhood innocence” is built on a series of illusions), he’s back in that child mindset right away: he wants DAPHNE, Daphne is PERFECT and BEAUTIFUL and everything he missed out on having in his life when he was young -- she’s both Devoted Girlfriend and Team Mommy Figure.  She’s terribly ill-suited to the person Dean actually grew up to be, but that’s not the point; she’s a child’s dream of feminine affection.

So who is Daphne, as “person” within the Scoobynatural universe (as distinct from the character Dean knew on the tv show)?  Well, just like he remembers, she’s brave and cheery and endlessly kind and foxy... but unlike whatever Dean’s half-formed boyhood fantasies were all about, she’s... completely unattainable.  (Oh, look who wants what he can’t have.  Hm.)  She’s completely unattainable for two reasons.

One is that she IS a devoted girlfriend -- Fred’s devoted girlfriend.  Sam calls him out immediately for trying to pick up someone else’s girl, and Daphne is impervious to Dean’s clumsy attempts to disparage Fred (”What a jerk!” “Not really.”)  When he asks what Daphne wants, she describes Fred -- strong, sincere, ascot.  (We’re gonna come back to the ascot.)  Daphne’s wants and needs are simple: she is a one-man woman, and she has her man.  There’s nothing there for Dean to work with.

The second is that... Daphne is a child’s fantasy, and appears to be, completely without calculation, as asexual as a child.  Now, the rules of the Cartoon Universe clearly don’t require that to be the case: Velma is also a cartoon character, and she’s wildly thirsty for Sam from minute one.  Sex, or at least sexual attraction, seems to exist in this reality... but Daphne is wholly unaware of it.  She hasn’t even rejected it; she just doesn’t think about it.  Boys and girls don’t sleep in the same room, silly.

Daphne loves Fred.  But Daphne doesn’t sleep with Fred; Daphne isn’t a sexual being at all.  Her love is loyal and true, but her love is for Fred’s virtues, not Fred’s body.

There’s a whole ‘nother long essay, of course, about Dean’s weird, all-over-the-map reaction to Fred.  Fred is the worst, Fred is a loser, the Perfect Woman is totally wasted on Fred... but of course, Fred also embodies some standard of heroism that Dean wants to be: he is strong, he is sincere, he’s the leader, the driver, the Good Soldier -- not just an obedient soldier, but a good one that people admire and care about.  His fear when he gets the Big Reveal about ghosts is that he hasn’t saved enough people; he’s that kind of guy. (Oh, hey, what does Daphne worry about? Just her eternal soul, whether she’s worthy of Heaven or damned to Hell. Isn’t that interesting.) Not for nothing does Dean end up wearing that goddamn ascot by the end of the episode; more than anything, what Dean aspires to be is someone who is strong and sincere and has done good and is worthy of the love and friendship that Fred takes for granted.

Daphne loves Fred.  Well, why shouldn’t she?  He’s a good man, faithful and strong, her companion and protector and teammate.  In spite of Dean kicking against the post, even he has to admit by the end, Daphne loves Fred because Fred deserves Daphne’s love.  They suit each other.  The exist in this fantasy world, perfectly matched and perfectly happy.  In separate bedrooms.

There’s a perpetual question, after this many years, about why exactly Dean is the only sentient being in the universe who seems convinced that he can’t be with Castiel.  He is not unaware of the fact that the obvious explanation for 3/4ths of everything Castiel has done in the past decade is “he’s absurdly, self-destructively in love with Dean.”  Like, Dean couldn’t be unaware of it, because people keep saying it.  A lot of fanfic has this kind of goofy, YA novel take on it, where Dean is obliviously self-deprecating, where he’s all like, oh, just some regular guy like me, how could he ever want me?  But that’s -- come on.  Dean’s not stupid, and he’s certainly not stupid about people.  The way he blithely factors Castiel into all of his future plans, the way he’s got that beach chair all picked out for their retirement, it’s clear that he know Castiel is here for the long haul, that he’s loyal to Dean for life.  Literally everyone knows that.

Daphne loves Fred.

But Dean can’t have Daphne.  Not in the real world.   Because Daphne isn’t from the real world.  She’s not a human being, although she’s close enough to make an engaging fantasy.

Daphne is entirely, unbreakably, unquestionably devoted to her strong, sincere, righteous man.  But boys and girls don’t sleep in the same room.  Silly.

I think it’s not Castiel’s love that Dean thinks he can’t have.  That’s often fandom’s take, because of some perception that Dean doesn’t think he deserves love or whatever.  And maybe Dean doesn’t think he deserves it, I don’t know, but he’s not an idiot, and it never really made sense to me that he could be that goddamn blind to the fact that he does have it.  Daphne loves Fred, and Dean maybe has some complex feelings about that -- about whether Fred is good enough, about whether Fred deserves Daphne -- but he knows it’s true.  He’s so sure it’s true that he keeps it carved deep in the grain, a sentimental reminder, the kind of thing childhood sweethearts do, a memento of first love in all its purity.

What Dean thinks he can’t have isn’t love.  It’s sex.  Because who he’s in love with is fundamentally incompatible with Dean specifically sexually -- and while I still think Dean’s internalized homophobia is a part of that, I think he’s at least mellowed enough to know that getting over his own shit is an option for him.  What’s not an option for him is Castiel ever becoming the kind of hot-blooded, sexually assertive, throw-you-down-and-fuck-your-brains-out kind of person that gets Dean’s dick hard.  Daphne may love Fred to death, but Fred is never, ever gonna get any ass from Daphne.

Fred seems to be fine with that.  He seems to love in that same pure, childlike way that Daphne does -- that Dean did when he actually was a child with his mother’s voice in his ears, telling him that angels were watching.  But present-day Dean, the man that Dean grew into, is not fine with it.

He wants what he can’t have.  He keeps that purity of love close to him, among the other signs and symbols of his identity that decorate his dumb squirrel bar, because he does value it, and he values Castiel.  But that distance exists between them, and I’m increasingly convinced it’s because of that fundamental incompatibility -- Dean is a guy who likes to get dirty (hell, even his demon-self just had orgies at honky-tonks with world-weary barmaids instead of properly debauching and corrupting the innocent like we see so many other demons preferring to do), and Castiel is (I think almost indisputably) some version of asexual.

Castiel loves Dean and the entire goddamn multiverse knows it, but he’s still something that Dean wants and can’t have.  Both of these concepts always seemed pretty intuitively obvious to me, but I don’t think I ever fully grokked how they connected to each other until the Daphne thing fell into place.

[mangokiwitropicalswirl]

Paging Dr. Scully, chp 3

Paging Dr. Scully, chp 1: Squeeze 

Paging Dr Scully, chp 2: Jersey Devil

Paging Dr. Scully, chp 3: Shadows

Why had she let Gina convince her to wear the lace bodysuit?

“I look like a preteen in a Love’s Baby Soft ad,” she mutters to herself in the bathroom mirror at the restaurant as she touches up her lipstick and pushes carefully-curled tendrils behind her ear.

Normally, she’d have called up Melissa to come help her get ready. Melissa keeps up with fashion trends – she wears chokers and Doc Martens with bohemian dresses, not a predictable rotation of petite-sized scrubs underneath bleachy-white doctor coats. Scully rarely has a reason to put on anything other than jeans and a sweatshirt in the all-too-short hours between shifts.

But Melissa is away “on walkabout,” as she had put it. Scully had teased her repeatedly for calling an aimless American road trip by the Australian term for an adolescent spiritual rite of passage. “But it IS meaningful, Dana,” Melissa had insisted, her voice deep with conviction. “I want to see what the world holds for me, to open myself up to possibilities.”

Scully had nodded, only the slightest raise of her eyebrow betraying her scepticism that the trip is anything other than an excuse to hook up with random strangers and experiment with mind altering substances of one kind or another. She could have been jealous of Melissa’s unencumbered ways, but that had never been what she wanted from life.

She had thrived on the challenges of school and the thrill of the ER’s energy. She likes knowing she has control, giving commands to nurses and technicians, swooping in to bring order out of the chaos. That’s what she does. And it’s what she wants – to make sense of things, to categorize and pin things down. Life should be conquerable, ordered, stable. She needs a partner who wants the same things, right?

Which is why she finds herself sitting across from Rob, the tax accountant, easily eight or ten years her senior. A divorcee. Talking about taking kids to the park, or the museum, or is it the circus? Her mind is wandering.

He is nice enough, pleasant, average-looking, but clean. Uncomplicated. The first date she’s had in far too long. Unless you counted that hospital-basement coffee that the cute FBI agent bought her the night before.

Fox. Why is she thinking about Fox right now? Rob is explaining some intricate new estate tax law that Congress is considering, which will wreck havoc on his clients’ attempts to exploit the gift tax loophole.

She keeps the polite smile plastered on her face, ignoring the back part of her brain that begins comparing this conversation to the bizarre repartee she’d had with Mulder – she remembers he had said to call him Mulder – his skulking around the morgue, the story about Jersey Devils. She wonders if he’d called up Dr. Diamond, and if he had, what they’d found out.

Rob is still rambling and she hopes her face isn’t betraying anything but eager, engaged first-date interest.

Would he call her? She’d basically asked him to. She never does that. Why had she done that?

“Dana,” Rob says her name suddenly. “Do you need to get that?”

“Hmm?” She gives her head a startled shake. “What?”

“Your pager went off, do you need to call in?” Rob looks dutiful and concerned.

“Oh, sorry!” She looks sheepishly down at her pager. It’s the hospital. “I’ll just be a minute.”

Walking toward the restaurant desk phone, she can’t put her finger on why she feels disappointed. It’s not like she’d given Mulder her pager number. And for goodness sake, she’s on a date with another guy! Get it together, Dana. Her internal monologue is confusing but mercifully cut short when the call in to the hospital switchboard jolts her back into a role she’s more comfortable with.

“Multiple victims from a ten car pile-up headed in, we need you here tonight, Dr. Scully.”

“I’m on my way.” She doesn’t pause to measure the sense of relief that floods her, which is not a typical reaction to news of a long night of triage and trauma. She’ll make her apologies to Rob, but she won’t say anything about rainchecks or next times.

She dodges Rob’s phone calls for the next week, although work is genuinely busy enough that she doesn’t have to actually lie about why she’s not calling him back. Her mom is not so easily dissuaded. Maggie can’t seem to understand why her highly eligible daughter has made it to the ripe old age of 29 without at least a steady boyfriend.

“We just didn’t click, Mom,” she explains as Maggie questions why she’s not going out with Rob again.

“Well honey, sometimes you have to give a guy a second chance to make an impression,” Maggie sighs.

Scully sighs as well. Sometimes she placates her with promises to be more open, but other times, the best approach is to deflect attention to Melissa, who is several years older and also equally unattached.

“Mom, how’s Melissa? Have you heard from her?”

Maggie knows this is a diversionary tactic, but lets her off the hook anyway. Their conversation wanders away from the topic of Dana’s love life and onto speculations about Melissa’s.

It’s not until a week later Scully remembers that Mulder neglected to call her. And then it’s a quiet Friday another week after that when her phone rings.

“I don’t suppose you’re in Philadelphia right now?” He doesn’t even bother with hello, so it takes her a minute to place the confident, teasing voice on the other end of the line.

“Alas, no,” she smiles, settling down into the soft corner of her couch, propping her feet up on the coffee table. “Why? Should I be?”

“It’s just that I have the strangest hankering to go and see the Liberty Bell. I’ve been here a hundred times and I’ve never seen it.”

“You’re not missing much. It’s a big bell with a big crack, and you have to wait in a long line.”

“Still,” Mulder pauses, “I’d really like to go. You want to come meet me?”

“At the Liberty Bell?” She incredulous, sitting forward on her elbows now.

“Yeah, it’s only, what, three hours drive?”

“Three hours and a dozen tolls,” she laughs. “Plus, I think they’d be closed by the time I get there.”

“Hmmm,” he hums looking at his watch, “true. They probably close after 11.”

“So you’re assuming I’m just going to hop in my car at 8 p.m on a Friday night and meet you in a city three hours away?” Scully is almost impressed by his audacity. “If I remember correctly, we’ve only met twice, and the second time you never called me back.”

“I’m calling you now, aren’t I?” She can hear the smile in his voice.

“Okay, fine. Let’s imagine I hop in my car and meet you in Philadephia. What are you doing up there anyway?”

“On a case. I think I’ve got real proof of psychokinetic activity this time.” He’s breathless, eager.

“Psychokinesis?” Scully laughs. This is an entirely different galaxy – nay, universe – from conversations about tax accounting. “You mean how Carrie got even at the prom?”

“Basically, yes.” He laughs too, and then there’s an awkward pause between them, a low hum over the telephone line that’s neither physical nor entirely imagined.

Scully takes a deep breath before she can change her mind.

“Okay.”

“Okay, what?”

“Okay, let’s go to the Liberty Bell.”

“Really?” His voice raises half an octave.

“Don’t make me second-guess myself, G-man,” she retorts, getting up from the couch and hurrying to change into something resembling an outfit. “And you better be buying the cheesesteaks because a girl gets hungry after a long drive.”

“You got it, doc.”

Three hours is a lot of time to second guess oneself, so she finds herself pushing the speed limit more than her usual nine-and-a-half miles over. If she drives faster, she won’t have a chance to analyze the logic of driving three hours to meet a man she’s only met twice – both times in a hospital, and both times he has talked about monsters. Well, monsters or aliens.

What the heck is she doing? She doesn’t know, but she can’t suppress the giggle that bubbles in her belly when she imagines his face when she told him she’d come. Somehow she can picture his wide-eyed surprise, and the way his lower lip must have turned up in a smile.

Why is she thinking about his lip? She barely knows him. Shut up brain. She drives faster.

To his credit, Mulder is waiting at the entrance to the deserted Liberty Bell pavilion parking lot with two oblong foil-wrapped cheesesteaks.

“I had to guess how you’d like yours.” He raises hers up in the air as a greeting as she steps out of the car. “Sorry.”

“I’m sure you did fine,” she smiles, reaching for the sandwich. Now it’s awkward. Should she hug him? Give him a kiss on the cheek? Shake hands?

He’s not helping, staring at her with a quizzical look, his eyes darting between the sandwich in his hands and still-lit pavilion behind her. Scully raises her eyebrows in a question, and shrugs.

“Well?” She says.

“C’mon,” he gestures with his head toward the lighted building. “I bribed the guards to keep it open.”

“You bribed the guards?”

“Bribed, threatened, cajoled, whatever.” He smiles. “The badge comes in handy sometimes.”

“So you’re saying you misused your credentials to convince some poor, beleaguered Liberty Bell attendants to stay open three hours past closing just so we can see this big cracked hunk of tin?” Her words are sarcastic, but her tone rings with delight.

“You make it sound so nefarious,” he says innocently. “Like I said, I just wanted to see it this time.”

“What about the sandwiches?”

“We can eat them inside.”

Scully shakes her head, smiling. This is, hands down, the strangest date she has ever been a part of. And now she’s not even sure it’s a date. He hasn’t attempted to touch her. Not a hug, not a hand on her shoulder. She’s suddenly worried she has misread this entirely, that this is just some strange overture of nerdy friendship. An uncomfortable sinking feeling lodges in her stomach as she searches for a way to ward off her embarrassment if it turns out she made too many assumptions.

But as they walk up to the building, he reaches ahead of her and opens the door, making an arch with his arm for her to walk under. She looks up at him with a smirk as he follows behind her, his hand pressing the lightest touch in the hollow curve of her back.

[starlit-scifi]

Chapter 6

First•Previous•Next

It’s the last round of exams for this term, and it’s taking a toll on everyone. You feel like you’re drifting from class to class like so much space junk, on an aimless collision course with failure.

Or at least with Lori; she manages to keep her footing while you topple over like a baby animal, bits of technology and snack wrappers spilling out of your bag. You look up at her, mortified, and she cracks up.

“Sorry, sorry...” She pulls herself together, and helps you pick up the last of your stuff. “I really need to not read while I walk.”

“You do,” you say firmly. She helps you up, and you wince as you put weight on the knee that you fell on.

“You okay?” she asks, concern in her grey eyes, and holds onto you a little longer. It takes you a moment to remember how to breathe, then another to remember what she just asked you.

“I think so, I’ll just walk it off,” you say quickly, and she nods and lets go, still staring at you. “So… where are you off to?”

She blinks, then shakes her head, a tired smile on her face. “Sorry I’m so spacey, I barely slept. I have Ethics of—Well, it’s a mil class. Last week they decided the final would be a written exam. I have it tomorrow and it’s going to be a disaster.”

“Okay, you should probably be reading for that.” You raise an eyebrow. “In a more stationary manner though.”

She chuckles at that. “Will do. What are you doing later?”

You sigh. “Studying. Unconventional Bio, and Empires of the Fourth Sector. Both finals are in two days.”

She winces. “Good luck. Those sound awful.”

“Eh…” you really can’t defend either class at this point. “Yeah. Thanks.”

“If you want to take a break, let me know. I need to get caught up on Missing Frequency.”

You laugh. “The only thing you need to do is study for that exam!” She shrugs innocently, and you can’t help but smile. “...But sure. After last week—”

“I know! Kara makes me so mad, can’t she just…" she glances off to the side and you notice one of your instructors walking by. She clears her throat. “Anyway. I should get back to studying. And you, too,” she adds sternly.

You smile. “Will do.”

---

The rest of finals week goes by in an over-caffeinated blur, but you’re pretty sure you pass everything. With exams finally over, there’s a few weeks of downtime before the next term starts. Unity is too far away from most of the colonies for the majority of students to bother travelling back, and since room and board for short breaks is paid for while travel home is not, almost everyone but the richest of the rich decides to stay. In your social stratum, the name of the game is “networking”, which your generation understands as “party hard”.

Of course, there are rules. The mils can’t have anything on their side of the ship, and are expected to wake up and train as usual, as well as participate in “teambuilding activities,” which Manda says with a scary grin on her face that you’re not sure you want to understand. On your side, things are a bit more relaxed, especially in your hall since your hall director tends to be at the center of most of the rowdier parties. Since you’d rather be sober enough to walk the next morning, you tend to keep to your own room and hold quiet get-togethers whenever friends do come by.

It’s getting into what passes for evening when you and your typical bunch of year-mates are sitting in your room playing a virtual board game as you munch on hoarded cheesy snacks. Keegan makes a particularly risky move and somehow manages to win the entire game. Everyone groans, Hayleen throws a cheese puff at his head.

“Aurie, you need to restart your airscreen,” she whines, “It’s glitching up again.”

“Don’t pick on it, it’s sensitive,” you say faux-angrily, tossing a cheese puff at her. She bounces it off her nose and catches it in her mouth. Your polite gathering devolves into a snack-throwing contest, until you’re alerted that someone’s at the door. You dodge several flying cheesebombs as you go to answer it. No sooner does the door open than you are shoved out of the way.

“Delenz, your room is a mess! Demerits! Demerits for all of you!” You recognize the voice as Lori’s and grab a stray cheese puff and throw it at her. It hits her right in the forehead. She laughs and says, “You know, if I weren’t so impressed by your perfect aim I might actually give you a demerit for that.”

“Lori, you know we’re off duty,” Manda says with a chuckle, closing the door behind her.

“And thank the stars,” Lori groans.“You wouldn’t believe how much paperwork we’ve had to do tonight!”

“It’s all virtual, mostly pre-filled, even,” Manda points out, scooting her way into your circle of cheese dust and depravity.

“That doesn’t make it any less irritating,” Lori grumbles lightheartedly, and shoves herself in beside Manda. You dig out another bag of snacks and a couple bottles of water and hand them to the pair.

“How do you even get your hands on this much food?” Manda asks between bites of chips.

“My parents got me this ridiculous care package subscription service. Plus I take food to my room most of the time, and then I don’t eat a lot, so I just save the non-perishable sides for later…”

“Deeeeemerits,” Lori hisses evilly.

You giggle and elbow her. “You wouldn’t,” you tease.

“I could,” she returns. “Posters on the walls—”

“Approved sticky tapes,” you cut in.

“Unnecessary electronic devices.”

“That’s not a rule.”

“Unmade bed and messy desk area.”

You stick your tongue out at her. “Also definitely not rules.”

“Do you really have zero rules on this side?”

You shrug. “No excessive noise after school hours, no sleeping over on school nights, no fire hazards, all the common sense ‘living in space’ kind of rules.”

“Aaaand no illicit drugs,” Manda singsongs. Lori freezes. Her eyes widen and she turns around slowly.

“You didn’t.” Her voice is low and almost threatening.

Manda shrugs. “I might have…”

Her cheerful attitude does absolutely nothing to calm Lori down. “You know it’s—”

Manda turns and puts both hands on Lori’s shoulders. You’re the only one close enough to hear her say softly, “Lori. Poor kid wouldn’t have a home to go back to. And it’s tame stuff.”

Lori’s face turns red, and you can practically see the moral dilemma working up to a thunderstorm in her brain. Eventually she closes her eyes and lets out a long, tired sigh, sticks out a hand, and says, “Give it.”

Manda obliges, pulling a small opaque cloth bag from her pocket. Lori takes it from her, then grabs her by the fingers and delivers a swift and audible smack to the back of her hand. Manda hisses in pain and pulls herself free.

“That’s for stealing,” Lori growls.

“Fair,” Manda concedes. “Good shot, too. Three points.”

Lori lets out a victory screech and pulls up her airscreen to add another tally mark to a spreadsheet that shifts around before your eyes—you can tell by the few editors’ names you recognize that it’s some sort of mil thing, and you can infer that it’s probably a stupid one, and definitely unauthorized. You roll your eyes and get Manda a juice from your cold storage compartment. She nurses her hand as Lori makes the two other cadets in the room promise not to tell anyone. You look around at your handful of suppie yearmates. You’re not all totally close, but everyone in the room is someone you can trust with at least the little things. Hayleen shrugs at you, you shrug back.

So the little black bag sits in the middle of the circle. Manda takes it, pulls it open, and pours the contents into an empty bowl. There’s a dozen little colorful pearlescent spheres; you’d think they were candy if you didn’t know better.

Manda looks around at the people in your room. “Nobody’s had anything in the past twelve hours, right? Not even headache medicine?” A chorus of soft “no”s and shaken heads. “Then we’re all doing this, each and every one. So if anyone lets it slip, we all go down.”

“Fair,” Lori murmurs.

“It’s just a pill,” Manda says, rolling a tiny sphere between her fingers. “Drink enough water that it goes down.” She demonstrates, then passes the bowl to the guy to her left. You watch it go around, and obediently take your turn. You swallow it easily, and you finish your bottle of water just to make sure. As Lori picks one up, she says to Manda, “You know, I really hate you sometimes.” Then she pops it in her mouth and takes a swig of water.

Manda shrugs, grinning, and ruffles Lori’s hair as she gets up to dispose of the two remaining pills. You hand out more snacks, then bring up your video library on your airscreen and start scrolling. After much complaining and teasing, the majority of your little gathering agrees on Two Brides, A Sweektar, And Jon.

Lori groans as you press play. “I’ve seen that one way too many times.”

“So have I, but it’s the comedy classic of our generation!” You say, giving your best announcer’s voice.

She rolls her eyes. “It’s inane, vapid nonsense and the character development isn’t even good.”

You’re a bit confused, and you’re pretty sure the pills haven’t started working yet. Maybe. “It’s supposed to be a comedy, not…” Coming to a realization, you grin, nudging her with your elbow. “You’re actually really into those cheesy overdramatic romantic dramas, aren’t you?”

She looks away. “I refuse to respond to that question.”

You smile. “That’s cute,” you tease.

“You’re cute,” she fires back. “Like… really… cute,” she mumbles, and her cheeks get more red with every word.

It takes a couple moments for you to process what she said, but when you get there, you freeze, staring at her, and she meets your gaze steadily. She opens her mouth, then closes it. Swallows. Then opens it again and says, slowly and deliberately, “I am now aware that I am not totally sober anymore and I am not going to talk anymore because if I do I’m just going to keep saying stupid things all night that…” She pauses her rambling to take a breath. “That you shouldn’t listen to.” Her lip wobbles and it, very unreasonably, worries you.

“I… I’m getting you another water.” She nods stiffly and plops down on the floor, watching the opening credits with a very determined look on her face.

With your arms full of goodies, you can barely get a finger free to answer the door when the bell rings. You recognize the face on the screen and manage to press the unlock button. Manda enters, grinning widely, and very gallantly offers to help you with your burden. When you’re done distributing yet another round of snacks, you rejoin the circle and she slides in between you and the person to your right.

“Suppie boys are pretty,” she confides, leaning heavily against your shoulder. “Aaaand, I got contact info... and he says his room is just across the hall if I’d like to ‘hang out later’, he said.”

“This is a girls’ hallway,” you point out. Manda considers it for a moment, then shrugs.

“Well suppie girls are pretty then, and I still got a date,” she concludes.

You happen to glance at the other side of the room just as someone from your bio lab tosses a cheesy puff at you. You shriek and duck, and as you fling one back, you ask her teasingly, “Can’t you get demerits for sleeping over in another hall?”

She shrugs. “Eh. It’s only a problem if you’re loud.” She grabs another cheesy puff and nails Keegan right on the cheek, then turns back to you. “This whole hallway is being loud, if you haven’t noticed.”

It is a little loud, you decide as Manda abandons you to join the cheesy puff melee. Almost uncomfortably so. You pull the blanket off your bed, sit in the corner against your desk, and wrap yourself in it, soft fabric by your ears muffling everything. You close your eyes; it’s not like anyone’s really paying attention to the movie anyway, comedy classic or not.

A soft “I’m cold,” reaches your ears. And then a quieter, almost glum: “I’m also still not talking to you.” You peek out from under your blanket to see Lori sitting on the floor a foot away from you. She’s let her hair down, and glances at you through the loose strands before looking away again.

“Then I’m definitely not sharing,” you say as you scoot over and redistribute the blanket so Lori can wrap it around herself, too. She slides up against you, seeking warmth. You oblige, draping your arm across her shoulder so she can put her cheek against your chest. It’s awkward since she’s bigger than you, but somehow in her quest for a cozy spot you make it work.

You close your eyes and take a deep breath. You know you’re easily overstimulated on this stuff; the noise of the party and the touch of your own clothing against your skin is nearly all you can take and feeling Lori against you is…

Actually, oddly, comforting. You feel warm, and it’s lulling you to sleep…

---

You wake up. The movie had to have ended hours ago and everyone who decided to spend the night is still asleep.

Including Lorina, you realize. At some point you must have both laid down on the floor, face to face, curled up under your blanket. She sighs softly in her sleep and draws closer to you.

And you’re warm, so warm, but it’s different from last night, somehow. Like you want to… you don’t know, you…

You wiggle yourself free and get up, making sure she’s still covered. You grab a pillow and attempt to nudge it under her head, but she grumbles something and wraps herself around it instead. That makes you smile, but you don’t have any idea where the lonely feeling in your chest comes from.

You make your way across the dimly lit room of sleeping people to secure the necessary supplies for taking a shower, cringing as you step on something crunchy. You’ll definitely need to clean up your room once everyone leaves, since at this point it’s probably messy enough for you to actually get a demerit or three from your incredibly lazy hall director… provided that she’s not too hungover to get out of bed.

As you make your way down the hall to the communal bathroom, you run into Manda. She’s wearing last night’s t-shirt and some sweatpants that don’t quite fit her, and carrying two covered bowls of whatever’s being served for breakfast today along with two bottles of juice. She smiles sunnily at you.

“Morning!” she sings out. “What’s got you up this early?”

“I dunno. I just woke up and couldn’t fall back asleep.”

She nods knowingly. “I can’t sleep with cuddlers either.” When you flinch, she grins and teases, “Don’t lie; I saw you two curled up together. It’s cute.”

“I didn’t— she didn’t— she said she was cold, so I just—”

She shakes her head and smiles, though there’s a little sadness in it. “You don’t need to explain yourself to me… And I don’t think you’ll need to explain yourself to Lori, either. She likes you, you know.”

“Of course she does, we’re partners.”

She shakes her head again. “That’s sweet. You’re a sweet person.” She stares at you for a moment, and you feel frozen in her sudden seriousness. “Take care of her, Delenz,” she says softly, a strange fierceness in her eyes. “You’re both going to need each other more than you think.”

And she puts on that sunny smile again, wishes you a good day, and flounces away.

You take a quick shower, and for some reason you don’t stop feeling naked even after you’re fully dressed.

Back in your room, people are starting to wake up. Keegan—bless him—has already recruited a couple people into cleaning up. You give him a thumbs-up of gratitude and he smiles back. Lori’s still sleeping, and when you shake her gently and ask if she needs to leave she mumbles “no” and wriggles away, so you just shrug it off and help clean in between giving people directions to the bathroom or back to their own halls. Eventually everyone is gone but the softly snoring blanket-covered lump on your floor. You go get (late) breakfast, and the sound of your return wakes her up. She sits up groggily and you plop down beside her.

“Good morning,” you say, and she yawns.

“Mmm… morning,” she mumbles as she sits up, still draped in your blanket. “How long was I asleep? What time—” She looks down at her wristscreen and curses. “I’m so getting in trouble for this.” She throws off the blanket and starts to hunt for her shoes.

Just then you get a (startlingly loud) message on your airscreen. You wince and quickly turn the volume down from movie-theatre-level before opening your inbox. The header shows a new message from Manda that’s tagged as important business, so you open it and load the attachment. It’s a screenshot of a forward of a forward of a badly-formatted schedule with a dozen names on it you don’t recognize, except for Manda Yu and Lorina Estevna, which are highlighted with bright pink glitter stickers. The message under the attachment is You’re welcome! accompanied by cheesy hearts and flowers, and signed Manda Yu. Lori slumps down on your bed.

“That girl,” she groans into her hands.

“What’s wrong?”

“Oh, she saved our butts, undoubtedly.” She shakes her head. “Who even knows what kind of strings she had to pull to get the schedule rewritten so last-minute, but we’re both off the hook for another… three hours? I owe her big time,” she mutters as she runs her hands through her hair. “…I also need a shower.” She turns guiltily to you. “Can I use your shampoo and stuff? I really shouldn’t be seen on the mil side right now.”

“Sure, no problem. You can borrow some clean PJs too if you’d like; I have plenty.”

She accepts graciously and you send her off to the bathrooms. The door closes and you return to your oatmeal, lukewarm and pasty with the gross-tasting kind of artificial fruit on it. It tastes like nothing in your mouth, but you’re determined to get through it because you know you just need something in your system at this point. After a few minutes you give up and just stare into the half-empty bowl, your mind whirling.

She thinks I’m cute.

She’s my partner.

We totally cuddled last night.

But she’s my partner.

I definitely really like her.

But she’s…

She comes back in; you hear her footsteps pause and then speed up. She kneels beside you and rests a hand on your shoulder.

“What’s wrong?”

You struggle to open your eyes, and for a moment all you see is blurriness and a tangle of eyelashes.

“I’m fine,” you lie.

“Are you sure?”

You shake your head, desperately trying not to cry. “I’ll be fine, this just… happens with this stuff,” you try to say it firmly, but it comes out more strained than you meant it to. “I’m just…” You feel your nails digging into your skin through your pajama pants. “Sleep-deprived, that’s all.”

“...Okay.” There’s concern in her voice, and that hurts more than anything else.

You hesitate, then lean against her shoulder. She’s warm, and her hair’s still wet, and she smells like your body wash and that makes you feel a hundred things you can’t begin to name. “I’m sorry,” you murmur.

“For what?” She slides her arm around you, and though you’re grateful for the bit of comfort, you can’t help but feel you’ve betrayed her.

“Being a mess, and you getting stuck here all night, and—the pills…”

She sighs. “It’s not a big deal.” You look up at her and she gives a tired half-smile. “Really. This all could have gone a lot worse. I’m not mad at you; if anything I’m mad at Manda… but even then I can’t be anything but grateful for her.” She laughs. “Stars know I don’t need any more punishment duty.” She gets a call and pulls away with a sigh to answer it. “Speak of the devil—ah, crap, it’s a video call.”

“It’s a video call to you too, sweetie,” Manda’s cheery voice comes from Lori’s airscreen. “How are you two doing?”

“Fine, thanks,” she grumbles, then exclaims, bewildered, “Wait, how did you know—”

Manda rolls her eyes, grinning. “You had to crash sometime. You haven’t slept more than five hours a night for the past week and a half. You barely slept at all during finals.”

“That’s—!” Her head hangs in defeat, though you don’t miss her sideways smile. “That’s actually true. You win.”

“I know I do, hence my very high score, which you need to catch up to.” She grins mischievously. “Delenz, keep that one away from the caffeine, you hear? Or I will give you demerits.”

You giggle. “Yes, ma’am.”

She blows a kiss. “Stay warm, lovebirds!” Manda hangs up before Lori can get another word out, so she settles for tossing the device onto the pile of blankets beside her. Lori’s face is thoroughly pink as she tells you, “Don’t take her seriously, please.” She’s almost begging, and it makes your stomach feel all funny—actually, that’s probably the oatmeal.

“I won’t,” you promise.

“Good.”

Silence. It’s awkward. It seems to be growing as quickly and boundlessly as the known universe itself. To counteract the endless pull of strange and unmeasurable forces propelling you towards saying or doing something exceedingly stupid, you opt for shovelling cold, congealed oatmeal into your face as Lorina’s fingers whirl across her airscreen.

When your sad excuse for breakfast has become totally inedible, you flit around your room cleaning aimlessly as Lori dozes off again until her time is up. She wakes up with a jerk when you put a hand on her shoulder, but quickly collects herself and gets ready to leave, promising to return your stuff as soon as she possibly can.

As soon as she’s gone, you flop down on your bed and cry out in frustration into your pillow.

First•Previous•Next

[bradleyarchive-blog]

black dahlia | self

I relate to empty jars of honey. I run my fingers along their insides tasting the remnants of something sweet.

“Little morbid, don’t you think?” Jasper started with an eyebrow curiously raised, crunching through a salted segment of charcoal burnt popcorn and attempting to hide his grimace at the flavour. “For fuck’s sake, Bradley. You always put it in too fucking long. Tastes like ass.”

Index dipping inside the one pot of three by her feet that was cracked open, it came away dripping in black so she could start painting out another word over white brick like a toddler let loose with crayons on expensive wallpaper.

Childish.

“What’s the point in all of this, then?” Jasper piped up as he watched a dribble of paint running down off the ‘h’, intrigue evident on features that came across deceptively soft. Eyes like chocolate drizzled on a nettle patch and labelled something sweet. Mouth like a modern art piece you could never grasp the abstract intentions of. “You’re fucking up your wall.”

“It was too clean,” came irritably gritted out, word sitting uncomfortably heavy on her tongue as ‘dirty, dirty, dirty’ rattled around her skull like a violently furious wasp trapped inside a Kinder surprise waiting to break out and sink its stinger in. “Alyssa liked painting so I thought I’d try it.”

“She did, did she,” he mumbled under his breath, attention already having strayed down to his camera again just as she wandered slowly along with a finger dragging a bold line besides her. 

“Yeah. Taking photos, too. Just like you, really. Except not really. She only took them when I was smiling.”

“Kind of like telling a donkey to tap dance though, that, isn’t it.” 

Humourless laugh parting her lips, her jaw was significantly more clenched when she came to trace out puppet strings from the gnarled branches of a dead tree intended to double as her father’s fingers.

“Is that him?” 

Her finger paused midway through etching out a stick figure sporting pigtails strung up like one of his play things. “Who?”

“Tony Milligan. Your dad,” came before he casually crunched through another puffed up kernel, tongue toying idly along his molar to dislodge a segment trapped there like a fleck of bone from a lion’s dinner.

Finger and thumb smoothing black sludge over one another, her eyes stayed stuck on the mess she was making there as she contemplated her answer. 

“You never talk about him,” he added carefully, tip toeing around a mine that hadn’t detonated yet as he fiddled silently with his camera’s shutter speed. “What’s he like? Do you have a favourite memory?”

Chewing on the inside of her cheek so harshly that her tongue probably resembled a bloody, uncooked delicacy at a high class restaurant when her teeth sank down to keep it still, anger underpinned her palm lying flat against the wall and dragging an aimless black mark beneath the line of Tony’s toys. Maybe some subconscious part of her was trying to make it look like the jet dark ripple of a shark pit. He loved dangling his things over snapping teeth, always cracking a grin when the first drop of blood fell down and only got them even hungrier.

“If you search his name on Google they’ll tell you he tied people to chairs and used tweezers to push their gums back until they bled so much they looked like Dracula after breakfast. That’s all they said. Just that. They didn’t add the part about the salt, though. How he made them eat it. How, when their legs started shaking because of how much it hurt, he’d smile and tell me he loved having a green thumb while I was sat in the corner watching like he told me to. Doing the gardening, he called it. Pruning the vegetable patch. Salting the slugs so they wouldn’t slime all over his aubergines any more. Think that was some kind of reference to his dick, looking back, but I didn’t really get it at the time. Don’t know. Guess you wouldn’t if you were twelve.”

Taking a slow step back from the busywork she’d settled into during her detached ramble, dilated eyes appraised her project in progress as the shirt she’d slung around her shoulders shifted in protest around slim thighs and exposed skin, flash of a camera behind her going unnoticed as she stooped down to pick up one of the buckets.

“I’m sorry, baby.”

Pausing like the statement had caught her off guard, a vacant expression twisted back to hang on him with his lens poised precisely in hand as if she was hesitantly searching him for something. She never knew what to do with concern, but it didn’t matter too much. It wasn’t often that she had to get her hands dirty with it anyway.

“What for?”

“I don’t know. I guess that’s just what you’re meant to say, isn’t it? What you’re meant to say when you hear something horrible.”

Whisper of a smile tugging on her mouth, it wasn’t until she’d violently splashed the contents of the container in a jet black spray along bible pure brick that she turned back to face him again, strand of hair stuck to the paint on her cheek like a fly writhing in ointment as he loudly cursed over the fleck that had got on his jeans somehow.

“That’s my favourite memory of him.”

“These cost sixty fucking-... For fuck’s sake. These are vintage.” Pausing a beat after he abandoned his furious rub at fabric, his eyes lifted again to observe her prolonged silence. “Right, well... Okay... Why?”

“Because,” she started, slowly making her way back over towards the mattress he was perched on so her fingers could slide up to carelessly leave hints of black paint to stain his jaw once she’d lowered into his lap, “after he was done he held my face in his hands like this and he told me if the world was his garden and other people were his slugs, I was his black dahlia.”

Jasper’s face flashed with something unreadable, then, but after another split second pause she came to the eventual conclusion that an element of the story must have unnerved him once he’d acquired the final jigsaw piece to see the whole picture. Maybe it was how strikingly similar she looked to her father, then, pressed up against him looking down like a sullen rain cloud over a picnicking party desperately yearning for clearer skies. He looked like a baby bird cupped inside a cat’s jaw waiting anxiously for his neck to snap when she finally realised he’d always intended on flying away in the first place. He looked like he’d only just realised an error in judgement he’d made and was desperately flicking through his brain to find an easy solution. 

He looked like he was afraid of her.

“He got blood on my mouth and I could-- I could taste whatever the guy’s name was on my teeth like syrup but it was okay. He saw a flower in me as dark as black fungus and horse shit. That’s what he called it. Ugly. Beautiful. Potential.”

Cold smile settling over her features like something so glass thimble fragile it could shatter any second, her thumb smoothed along his chin when she finally came to meet his eye.

“...And if you ever say his fucking name out loud again, Jasper? I mean it when I say you’ll see exactly what he fucking meant.”

[braverydefined-blog]

where do you see john's life going if he had not died when he did? or do you think it was an "act of fate"/inevitable?

RANDOM CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT QUESTIONS  /  ALWAYS ACCEPTING !!

this is honestly one of my favorite things to talk about !!!   it’s 1am so sorry if this gets a bit rambly but here it goes !!   (  trigger warnings for suicide ,   depression ,   and alcoholism.  )

the thing to remember is that john never PLANNED to survive the war ,   so he doesn’t have a backup plan for survival.   so in verses where john survives ,   he’s basically entirely aimless.   he doesn’t see any kind of future for himself     –––––     the only things he really could do are law   (  since his father forced him to go to law school ,   instead of studying medicine as john wished to do     –––––     if he had been allowed to study medicine ,   i can see john using those skills and being less purposeless after the war ,   but alas  )   or politics   (  which is ,   honestly ,   something he’d 100% rather die than do     –––––     he didn’t have the stomach for law ,   he certainly couldn’t stand being a politician  ).   he hates both of those options so much.

the good news is that he’s rich ,   still ,   so he wouldn’t necessarily HAVE to work.   the bad news is that he gets RESTLESS real fast.   this purposelessness isn’t good for him     –––––     it quickly makes his depression a thousand times worse ,   combined with the fact that he wishes he had died during the war   &   the fact that the one reason he would stay alive is alexander and alexander is now occupied between law  /  politics  /  eliza  /  his children.   john would hate to feel like he’s intruding on what alexander   &   eliza have or somehow fucking up their relationship ,   so he’d distance himself from alexander ,   which only serves to make everything worse   (  note how during the war ,   the two main times he was separated from alexander at length     –––––     when he was a prisoner of war in pennsylvania   &   the months leading to his death at combahee     –––––     were the times when his mental health was at its lowest.   letters exist from alexander to john while john was a prisoner of war basically begging john not to commit suicide.   it isn’t pretty.  ) 

so we have john ,   restless and depressed and probably suicidal ,   who has no idea what he’s doing with his life.   i doubt he would stay in south carolina   (  returning there was a suicidal action in itself   ;   his home state doesn’t have very many good memories in it ,   but it was a last resort at dying.   once the possibility of death is over ,   he’d leave.  )   the ONE THING that gives him direction in life at this point is working towards his abolitionist efforts ,   so he’d move to wherever the government is based at the time ,   be it nyc or philadelphia or dc bc i genuinely can’t remember the timeline of when it was where.   so he moves to the government ,   keeps petitioning congress about freeing slaves     –––––     but if he thought it was hard during the war ,   it seems downright impossible now ,   and he finds that no one is willing to listen to his ideas.   he’s branded an idealist and ignored.   this just makes him spiral deeper into depression   &   seclude himself further.   in addition ,   he struggles with ptsd from the war   (  he’d already had it from his brother’s death ,   but the war only makes it worse  ).   he has frequent nightmares ,   occasional flashbacks ,   and is emotionally numb most of the time.   he tends to rely more heavily on alcohol to help him ,   and becomes borderline an alcoholic   (  i hesitate to label him as that simply because i don’t know enough about it ,   and i don’t think he entirely depends on alcohol enough to truly call him an alcoholic ,   but he’s very close  )   and hardly sleeps ,   which certainly creates a vicious cycle and doesn’t help his mental health at all.

to go on a bit of a tangent ,   let’s talk about him and ALEXANDER post  -  war.   like i said earlier ,   john would distance himself a lot from alex ,   believing it’s for alex’s own good.   there’s a certain leniency for soldiers taking solace in each other   ;   during the war ,   if they were seen being more affectionate than the standard ,   it would be mostly ignored ,   and john was comforted by that fact in the midst of his fear about someone finding out.   (  this is the one thing he refuses to be reckless about     –––––     his legacy ,   his chance at glory after death.  )   but once the war has ENDED ,   there’s no longer that tendency to look away from those behaviors ,   and with alex’s blossoming political career and alex’s wife ,   john can’t risk that.   he stays away as much as he can   (  and what happens then is sorta dependent on what alex i’m writing with   ;   i have a verse with @bankhoe where they continue to be together in secret and make this little hidden life with each other ,   but the rest of what’s been stated remains   &   john is never quite satisfied with having to keep their love hidden like that and still dies in the way that’ll be discussed below.  )  

there’s also the matter of john’s DAUGHTER to consider.   frances - eleanor was six years old at the time of the war’s end ,   and living with john’s sister after john’s wife ,    martha ,   passed away a few months before john would have died in an ordinary verse.   if john doesn’t die ,   he’ll be expected to bring frances over from england to live with him.   john never met frances ,   had already left for america by the time she was born ,   and despite being slightly older than he was then ,   he’s still TERRIFIED at the thought of being a father.   he considers taking care of frances his duty now that martha’s gone ,   but he carries tremendous guilt for frances’ existence and for wronging martha like that ,   and it shows in his interactions with her     –––––     he becomes like his own father   (  the thing he feared the most  ) ,   emotionally distant from her throughout their time together.   it certainly doesn’t help that the entire time he’ll know frances is also his low point re : depression   ;   he can’t seem to form any attachment ,   despite the logical knowledge that this is his child.   he gives her the best life he can ,   gets her the best education possible ,   but in terms of emotions he ends up being a pretty shitty father in this verse.   (  in addition to being essentially a stay at home dad ,   john would likely be pressured ,   especially by his father ,   to remarry eventually ,   and he doesn’t want to put someone else through what he put martha through.  )

now for the topic we’ve all been waiting for :   DEATH.   john picks up some pretty bad habits in a post  -  war au.   he already has a tendency to get into fights   ;   in this verse ,   those tendencies reach suicidal heights ,   going out at least several times a week to bars or taverns just to pick fights with drunks in the hopes that one of them will go too far and kill him.   it’s an unspoken wish ,   but it’s there nonetheless ,   and not entirely subconscious.   he also gets into the habit of duels ,   will do stupid things just to get challenged or to have the chance to challenge someone.   normally i figure about three years pass after the war until he dies     –––––     he’s challenged to a duel by someone ,   and who it is doesn’t matter so much as the fact that john thinks the guy may actually shoot him   &   john wants that ,   so john goes and aims his pistol at the sky ,   hamilton - style ,   and is shot and killed pretty quickly.   

during the war ,   half of his suicidalness was in a desperate bid for GLORY ,   always obsessed with concepts of honor   &   legacy.   after the war ,   a duel is the closest he can get to that ,   and it still isn’t a satisfying end     –––––     he regrets pretty much daily that he didn’t manage to die during the war ,   but without another war to join a duel is the closest he’s going to get.   he leaves two letters behind before leaving for the duel ,   one for frances   (  a fairly typical one ,   apologizing for his actions ,   bidding her goodbye ,   saying he’ll see her on the other side when it’s her time ,   but carrying a too  -  formal and detached tone throughout it.  )   and one for alexander.   the letter for alexander is much more emotional     –––––     it’s an apology both for the duel itself and for pushing him away ,   and a declaration of how much john has continued to love alexander ,   and a plea for alexander to not be too upset at john’s death.   he begs alexander not to be angry with him for his choice.

OPTION B :   so now that john’s dead ,   let’s talk about the one option for post  -  war au to NOT be a total depressing mess !!   and that option ,   dear friends ,   is polyamory.   hear me out.   there’s a lot of reasons john’s depression is so bad post  -  war ,   but a good deal of it is him distancing himself from everyone.   particularly alexander ,   but the fact is that without alex ,   john’s friend base is considerably lessened ,   given that he was never quite as close to mulligan   &   lafayette has returned to france.   john is ridiculously dependent on alexander in terms of his mental health ,   to a frankly unhealthy degree   ;   john buys into ideas that he could be fixed or saved by love.   

here’s where poly comes in  :   if john doesn’t have to lose alexander and doesn’t have to keep their love a complete secret or feel like he’s harming alexander by loving him ,   he’s significantly less unsatisfied.   he’s still restless ,   still not quite content ,   still feels like he should have died during the war ,   but he’s not actively trying to get himself killed.   this could happen as john ,   eliza ,   and alex having a full poly triad or just v - shaped poly with both dating alex.   john is a jealous person ,   and it would take him a bit to warm up to the idea ,   but i do see the possibility for it to happen     –––––     and this also opens the possibility for his relationship with his daughter to be healthier ,   as he wouldn’t be entirely on his own raising her ,   and with slightly less depression weighing him down could actually form a healthy relationship and raise her correctly.   having some help to raise her instead of being alone would make him a bit less afraid of being a father ,   too ,   which is important     –––––     he’s constantly worried he’ll mess something up ,   and having alex and eliza around to help would be a huge assistance.   

of course ,   i’m not saying love makes his depression go away   ;   he still struggles with it frequently ,   even more than he did during the war ,   but he doesn’t have to resort to such unhealthy coping mechanisms ,   and has people to remind him that he matters.   in this version of the au ,   i can picture him living an almost content   &   fairly domestic life with alexander and eliza ,   helping raise their kids and frances ,   and dying later in life.   there’s a chance he still goes out in the way mentioned above ,   but i see it as more likely that he’d die of illness or some kind of accidental death ,   since with so many more people depending on him he would at least make an effort not to be actively suicidal.   

all in all ,   i see it as way more likely that the first option would happen.   i’d like to think that john would continue fighting for his beliefs with the same passion he carried during the war   &   possibly get some things changed on the front of civil rights earlier than what happened historically ,   but realistically ,   between the political climate of the time and john’s own depression and suicidal tendencies ,   he probably ends up just as overlooked as he ended up in a verse where he died at combahee.   what you said about his death being an act of fate is sort of correct     –––––     no matter what ,   he’s destined to die ,   and fated to become just a footnote in a history book ,   unfortunately.