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thatonesadending · 4 years ago

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After being set adrift as a sheep in the astral sea, and making it into this strange city that they had followed Lucien into, Caleb is left alone with his thoughts and suspicions on what's really going on in Lucien's head. Can he bring all of his friends safely home while not being able to use the magic that Lucien can so easily dispel.

Or in other words. How Caleb defeats Lucien with a kiss, and ends up with two magical purple men by his side. Oh and it was really Sprinkles that saved the day!

He liked being a sheep. It was almost peaceful, floating in the astral sea without a thought in his fuzzy head. The tumbling only made him a little dizzy, but other than the occasional shout of his companions, his mind was quiet. He would like it to stay that way, maybe.

But of course, that was not in his cards. Beau had grabbed him by the wool shortly after she had come through the gate, keeping him from straying too far. He didn't mind the rough yank from her, or even mini Veth clinging to him as they sailed towards the city. But Jester's aggressive petting once they reached their destination was a little much. He very much didn't like when she put Sprinkle/Artigone on his back and declared them "best furry friends", and the damn fey weasel began tunneling through his wool coat trying to tickle him. Essek had wordlessly picked up the small fey and handed it back to Jester, while stroking Caleb's woolen head, and apparently ignoring the others as they bickered about a plan.

Sheep are not very smart, so it took Caleb a very long time to realize Essek was petting him. And even longer to realize he was bleeding fairly heavily. Suddenly, whatever wild magic had changed his form evaporated and Caleb was himself again, on his hands and knees in this mysterious magical city, and Essek's hand midway through carding his hair.

"Oh, apologies." Essek snatched his hand back before Caleb could even process their positions. The movement had obviously hurt whatever injury the Dow was suffering through, but before he could comment on it, Jester was calling out to him.

"Oh good, you are back! You were really really cute as a sheep Caleb, but you couldn't cast the tower. Can you do that, and we can do the hero's feast, and rest, and -" Fjord cut her off.

"Jes, we might need to figure out where Lucien and Cree went first before we are safe taking a long rest."

Right. Lucien.

The whole reason that being a sheep had been initially a very nice experience. He could stop thinking about Lucien. And, well, what wasn't Lucien.

"You good?" Beau was in his head, and he turned his head to look for her and realize he was still on his hands and knees next to Essek. As the embarrassment crawled up his neck, and thump his ass to the ground and took a moment before responding.

"Is good even an option at the moment?"

"Fair. But like, right now, you are in check? That was pretty reckless teleporting like that."

Caleb found her standing 10 feet away, shifting uncomfortably and staring at him. Instead of answering he just nodded his head, he wasn't sure if it was a lie or not but Beau took it.

They had decided that the tower wouldn't be a good idea until they knew they were safe, and the dome and a short rest would have to do for now. They had set up their quick camp in between two of the unfamiliar buildings, thinking that to be safer than out in the open. The alley was only 15 feet wide, but opened out to two large streets that hopeful they could get away quickly if need be. Caleb was not really paying attention though, all of his swirling thoughts and overthinking came back. What they were facing was …. daunting. There were too many unknowns, questions, and possibilities to think through and make a plan. Lucien has proven to be incredibly powerful, but also impossibly confusing. None of them really knew what he wanted, or why he wanted them to be there to watch. Whatever it was, it could not be good.

Lucien said he wanted to make dreams come true through his reign, it was vague and threatening enough to send a chill through Caleb’s spiking hope. Caleb had only one dream at that moment, and that was that all of his friends made it safely home from Aeor alive. All of them. It was an impossible dream, especially since he wasn't sure how many friends he had here in this strange city.

A purple hand was resting on his knee as he sat in the dome, eating and tuning out the Mighty Nein’s arguing. Caducess had healed Essek as much as he was able, but the other wizard was still clearly very tired and out of his element. It was the second time that day Essek had reached out to Caleb, well if you could count petting him through his shock of the battle, while Caleb was numbly enjoying being a mindless sheep. Normally this would have caused a little rumble of warmth and pleasure in Caleb’s chest. They had been through so much as of late, and despite it all, Caleb would be lying if he said he wasn't beginning to feel more than just friendship for the other man. However, right now, the sight of those purple fingers touching him was causing his vision to become watery, and his chest tighten with anxiety.

They were reminding him of the one thought he didn't want to dwell on, the dangerous suspicion he had not said out loud yet to anyone. They reminded him of a very different friendship that, while short, had influenced almost every choice he had made in the last year or so. Had encouraged him to see himself as more than just the worthless scars of his past, worthy of love and caring from his friends, and to leave things better than when he found them. These dark purple hands brought back memories of lavender ones that were quick to help him up when he had fallen, slap him when he was lost, and to embrace him when he was lonely. A lavender that now was being worn by a man that did not deserve them, or the memories attached to them that he claimed not to have, but still seemed to affect him.

Caleb said nothing, not just for fear of how the others would react, but how it might be their undoing. He had tested this theory a few times now, with different degrees of success. The other’s had too, but he wasn't sure they had known what they could be doing at the time. Beau couldn't help annoying Lucien, it was just in her nature. And Jester, how for all the God’s she had pulled those cards was beyond him, but it had clearly had an effect. And now, despite having multiple opportunities, Lucien had not killed them, but rather invited them to the show. But what if ….

No, he couldn't think about that, he had to push it aside. If him and his found family were going to make it through this alive, he could not continue to entertain this dangerous thought. They - he - had to focus on the problem at hand, and that was what they were going to do next time -

“So you have paid for your ticket I see. Why don't you come see the preview of my show?”

You would have thought a spell had been cast to turn Caleb and Beau into stone, for how suddenly ridged they had gotten. It was too soon. They hadn't had any time to rest, plan, they could not survive another brutal confrontation. Essek’s hand tightened on Caleb’s knee, a silent quention, one that he didn't have an answer for. He slowly met Beau’s eyes from across the dome where she sat next to a very nervous Yasha.

“I promise, you all will make it to the main event, as long as you come and be a friend.”

“Beau, is it him? Is it - is it Lucien?” Yasha was strong, but her normally quiet voice that was now shaking was giving away how distressed she was. Caleb knew this had been all very hard for her, watching Lucian reak havoc on them while wearing the face of her oldest friend. It was part of why Beau, wanting so badly to comfort her new girlfriend, had been extremely cautious as of late, trying to minimize the damage when possible. However, she was clearly losing her cool at the moment. Beau was firmly holding on to Caleb’s attention as the now visible anger was tensing all of her muscles, causing her words to be more spat than spoken.

“The dick couldn’t even let us eat in piece before fucking around with us again.”

The dome was very quiet, as they all were incredibly aware how vulnerable they were, and how they couldnt even tuck tail and run if they wanted. They were not just tired, but not nearly healed enough, and so emotionally worn out from the excitement of the day that none of them were capable of a wise thought. Maybe that's why he did it.

Caleb dispelled the dome and stood. It's not like the dome provided safety to them from Lucien if he wanted their attention, he would just dispel the magic. Besides, he couldn't leave it in place and do what he was about to.

“I will go speak with him. You all can stay here, it would be safer.” He said. Beau had already led the way once today, and she was clearly too wrung out to be asked to do that again. Lucien had not said all of them needed to go, and for whatever his promise was worth, he claimed not to want to hurt him yet.

“Like hell you will.” Veth had since returned to her normal size, but her shrill voice cut through all of the tenuous silence of the others, unleashing a new wave of arguing. Caleb was tired of the back and forth, the fear, the unknown. He just wanted to get this over with, and if the Gods had any mercy left, would get Lucien to leave them alone long enough to get a bit of sleep. Hell, if he had to welcome Lucien back in his tower so that he could get some rest so that he could think through whatever upcoming plans Lucien had, he was just about ready to do that.

The only one who caught him walking about from the group in the dark was Essek, the others too busy rehashing old plans they already knew weren't going to work. “Where do you think you are going?” He hissed in the dark as Caleb followed Lucien’s mental pull.

“I am going to get some answers. Please go back with the others, you will be safer.”

“Do not pretend to care for my safety when you are carelessly abandoning yours.” Essek could have just replied with a thought, but he did not, choosing to let his commanding voice echo in the dark, bouncing off the alley walls, destroying any chance Caleb had to slip away from the others.

Veth and Jester were already on their way to drag him back when they all saw the familiar pair of red glowing eyes heading towards them in the direction Caleb had been heading.

“I thought I would continue to be a gracious host and meet you halfway.” Lucien said aloud, his gaze trained on Caleb.

“How thoughtful.” Caleb didn't even try to contain his sarcastic weariness. “Where is Cree?” He had just needed a couple more hours of not thinking about this man, what the future held, and the danger they were all in. Just a couple of hours and then maybe Caleb could have thought of a plan for survival. As it was, Lucien was making large confidant strides towards him, and Caleb felt himself stumbling back to the others.

“She is waiting for me, getting the show prepared.” He offered, as though it was the only natural answer.

“What the fuck do you want Lucien? We followed you through, we haven't tried to attack you, should that earn a fucking moment for ourselves before you drag through whatever stupid shit you have planned?” Caleb had been right, Beau was not in the right frame of mind to be talking to Lucien right now. Maybe that was what he wanted though, his usual annoyance at her was missing, and he was grinning a fang laced snarl at her.

“Now, I promise you I have no ‘stupid shit’ planned.” He said, with an amused condescension that Caleb was sure irritated Beau as much as it did him.

“Are you patronizing me, Lucien? That’s two promises you have made in the last five minutes that I doubt you plan on fucking keeping.” She snapped back. The tieflings smile disappeared, replaced with confusion. Genuine shock at something Beau had said, his guard only dropped for a moment, and Caleb could swear those red pupiless eyes flickered for a moment. He had twitched again, but it faded, and with it lost any good humor he had.

“No, was hoping that you’re going to patronize me. Would rather me reward your group's bravery in joining me here to witness the greatness magic you’ll ever experience, with simply killing you before you get the chance? It would not change any of my plans.” His words came as a growl, a threat. That voice had once been on their side, threatening violence to those that aimed to hurt the Mighty Nien, not directed at them.

“No,” Caleb sighed, trying to gain back a bit of control. “We have come as requested as friends, not foe, for the time being.” The silence was heavy for a moment, the tension thick as none of the Nien knew how to proceed. Jester eventually spoke up.

“So, are you gonna like … tell us what’s going on or like whatever. Because if not, we would really like to finish eating.” Jester was trying to sound cheery, motivating Lucien with her effortless charm to give him more information. However, Caleb’s mind was still lingering on that twitch he had seen, just a moment ago. His suspicion was full force now in the front of his mind, he couldn't shake it, no matter how foolish or unlikely. Maybe his exhaustion was making him soft, it was definitely clouding his judgement, but a plan was starting to form in his head. A foolish plan. More of an experiment, but if was all he had without magic. Caleb was suddenly grateful for his perfect memory, the one that allowed him to remember every word those purple lips had ever spoken to him or around him. All of seemingly wise words and quickly spun bullshit.

“Now Jester, you know his mother always told him to never give away a story for free.” Caleb interjected before Lucien could respond. His red eyes snapped to him, but almost as soon as they did they unfocused. They were surely going to argue with him, ask him why he was appearing to take Lucien’s side, so he quickly pressed on. “So friend,” he directed at the tiefling in front of him, unable to conceal more sarcasm in calling him friend, “ you clearly wanted us here for a reason. You wanted us to come make ourselves useful. Tell me, how can we be the chaos you want to see in the world.”

You would have thought Caleb had struck the blood hunter, his whole lavender form constricting for a moment. Tearror, fear, uncertainty, all flitting across his face before settling on anger. It didn't take Lucien more than two steps to reach Caleb, roughly pushing him back into the alley wall.

“Get the fuck out of my head Widogast.”

Caleb was paralyzed with fear, his half formed plan had had an effect, but now what. He couldn't raise his eyes to meet Lucien’s, knowing they were clear again, and staring him down with venom.

“I was not in your head. Whatever is there, whomever is there, is not of my own doing. I know you do not want to remember anything, do not want anybody else’s baggage in your head, their problems, thoughts, ideas.” Caleb was taking a gamble speaking to Lucien telapaically, but he wanted to make his appeal as deep as possible, take any ounce of luck he might have. Lucien froze again, his eyes impossibly wide with fear. He was too close to Caleb for him to get away, his grip strong on the shoulder that he shoved back against the wall, and pain was ripping through Caleb’s fear. Fire began to curl around his finger tip automatically, just in case this foolish plan went south. Before Caleb could continue though, he caught out of the corner of his eye, Essek preparing a spell, no doubt in effort to save Caleb. But Lucien simply removed his claws from Caleb’s shoulder for a moment, waving angrily to dispel any and all magic around him sending Essek flying backwards in force, and replaced his hand now around Caleb’s throat.

“If any of you so much as think a thought of magic, I will wring his throat until he is dead.” Lucien spat, but his eye still seemed to have lost their sheen, not that the others could see it. Caleb knew he had to act quickly, before Lucien fully came out of his daze that his words had left him in.

“Don't worry, the only thing magical here is you my friend.” Despite the pressure on his neck, and the searing pain in his shoulder, Caleb reached a hand up between them and pressed it lightly to Lucien’s lavender cheek. He stroked it ever so softly. The grip lightened, and the tiefling looked as though the ground had been pulled from under him. The rest of the Mighty Nien must have noticed the change, because they all went still and were watching the odd exchange, none of them knowing what Caleb was saying. The red eyes that had been nearly boiling with rage moment ago, almost looked like a dull pale ruddy marbles, not focused on anything but whatever was going on inside. Purple limbs were trembling around him, not backing away from Caleb, but unable to move other than to shake.

Caleb threw up a silent prayer to the Moonweaver. Hells, to the Wildmother, to the Luxon, to the Traveler. He was going to need any ounce of favor he could garner for what he was going to do next. Keeping his hand on Lucien’s cheek, he used his other hand to guide the now limp and trembling fingers away from his throat, and interlocked them with his. It had been so long since he had gotten to hold these hands, he had to force himself not to look down at them and try and take them all in. Instead, Caleb pushed himself away from the alley wall, closer to the dazed and confused blood hunter, and placed his lips to the man’s forehead.

He was just as warm as Caleb remembered. A curl falling in front of his face as he leaned in to Caleb’s kiss.

“Caleb!” The surprised voice rang through his head like a beautiful chime announcing the morning was here. There was no anger, no hint of condensation, just surprise and … joy. Caleb was failing in his attempt not to hope, his kiss lingered longer than it should, not wanting to face whatever ugly expression could be back on that handsome face. But when he pulled away, he got a smile. His knees nearly gave out in relief, but the free lavender hand was wrapping around him, keeping him upright and from pulling away farther.

“Caleb!” He was now speaking to him outloud, saying his name light a gasp. The smile dancing on his lips was light, it was sweetly mischievous, and not a lick of malice. Then in his head, “Caleb, darling, would you be so kind as to help me get this fucker out of my body.” It wasnt a demand, but a plea to a friend. Caleb felt an almost immediate draining of any will power that was keeping him from hoping, freeing his inhibition. He had no idea how to get Lucien out of this body, but he knew how to draw this voice closer. Closer to him, hopeful never to go again.

The hand that had been resting on a lavender cheek, now threaded through deep purple curls, pulling the tiefling as close as Caleb could get him, lips fitting together perfectly, if a bit desperately. He could hear Jester’s attempt to stifle a gasp, Beau non-attemp to yell “What the fuck!”, Fjord’s chuckle and then loud whisper at Veth to “Just hold on, give’em a minute”. But Caleb didn't care, not sure if he ever would. This kiss was bright, gentle, and held all these unexplored feelings he hadn't wanted to explore on his own. The ones he had just started to open up when death seemed to come and stop him, the ones of accepting love and forgetting guilt. And then there were ones he continued to explore on his own and with his friends, trying to make this world a better place.

Caleb let himself feel the joy in this moment, choosing not to care for now if it would last. The kiss was long, embarrassingly so, arms were still wrapped around him with no indication of release, so he just leaned into it. He didn't know how to banish Lucien, but he felt himself reach out in his mind, and gather up everything that wasnt that evil soul and pull it close. Every good memory, every hopeful moment, every bit of light he could find, he gathered together. Eventually he felt the tiefling chuckle against his lips. The laughter sent such a brilliant sensation of hope, Caleb had to pull away so he could see the face in front of him.

“Mr.Mollymauk Tealeaf?” He inquired, surprised at the hesitation the sent thought had.

“Ja, ja. The one and only Mr.Caleb.” It was no less cute the second time he heard Molly playfully mock his accent with his own barely there one. There was a long moment where the two simply rested their foreheads together, coming down from the incredibly high emotions from the last few minutes. Eventually it was Molly’s turn to pull away and look over Caleb.

“I mean I knew you could clean up pretty, but bless the Moonweaver, how the fuck did you get this handsome?” The easy flirting tone, the one Caleb hadn’t quite gotten used to until it was gone, filled him with more joy then he could possibly hold.

“And you my friend could use a bath and a change into old clothes.” Caleb spoke with a lightness he didn't know he was capable of, laughter lifting up every work. Molly looked down at himself, still water logged from Aeor and missing all of his color.

“You know, I think you are right. Gods this coat should be a sin, a capital offense.” There was no offense in his tone, just mirth. Caleb wanted to reach out and kiss him again, except suddenly Molly was holding him at arms length and looked worried.

“You know he is still in there right? Just … deeper? Like I was.” and the out loud, as though it was an afterthought “He is fighting for center stage. Like fuck I will give it to him with out a proper showdown though.” Even though his words were quite serious, Molly seemed not to let the situation take hold of him, optimism still shining through. Still smiling.

“Gods you two are making quite a show of this, and I really do hate the theater.” An exasperated voice cut through the shocked silence that had taken over the Mighty Nien, and a small wessel wormed its way off of Jester’s shoulder and over to Molly. Before he could say anything, the little quasi-deity of trickery and joy, jumped up to catch him by the wrist and bit down hard. Molly was jumping up and down rather undignified, swatting unsuccessfully at the fey creature but yelling quite a few obscenities. Yasha was the first to break from the Nien, striding over and removing the Traveler from Molly’s wrist without a word.

“What the fuck. Why did a talking rat just bite me Yash?!” Molly was holding his bleeding wrist, looking up at the familiar barbarian like he had never left.

“Excuse me, I would have you know that I am currently a wessel.” The traveler rebuked in what was probably more admonishment then he actually felt.

“Ok, well, whatever the fuck you currently are, why the fuck did you bite me?” But before an answer could be made, Molly was turning to the still stock still group of friends that were currently making no movements to understand all of the events that just happened. “Jester, love, you think you could heal this up? I would hate to make a mess of this lovely drab coat.”

Jester didn't move however, her mouth opened and gaping. Caduceus however was looking between Caleb and Mollymauk, and seemed to be the first to accept what was happening and walked over to Molly. Clasping both his hands the tieflings wrists, he said a prayer of healing without a word.

“Um, thanks. I don't think I have met you before. My name is Mollymauk, but my friends call me Molly.”

Caduceus, is regular form, laughed easily at the introduction. “I am Caduceus, and our friends - well, they call me lots of different names.” Their smiles were easy, that of a fast friendship.

“And the rat-wessel thing that bit me? Does it have a name?” Molly asked.

“Oh, um, that’s the Traveler. At least I think.” Cad spoke as though he was just giving the time of day.

“God’s, and I thought I was good at conning people. Jessie, you really got - oof” Jester slammed her full body weight into Molly, and impossibly, picked up the taller tiefling at the same time.

“If this is a trick, I will never forgive you, I don't care if you are dead Molly, I will really haunt you if you are pranking me!” Jester sounded on the edge of tears.

“Love, how would you haunt me if I was the one that was dead and you weren't?” Molly lovingly replied while stroking Jester's hair while she clung to him.

“Don't underestimate us, we would find a way!” Veth chimed in adding her arms to the hug, despite all she could reach was his thigh.

“Um, I feel like I should know you, but I am not really one to deny a hug.” Molly laughed through obvious confusion at the halfling clinging to his leg.

“It’s Nott you asshole.” she said, never letting go.

“Oh, ok. That makes perfect sense.”

They eventually let go for the others to see, leaving Fjord shaking his head in disbelief, Beau obviously wrestling with either punching or hugging the man, Essek standing back in confusion, and Yasha … arms crossed and distrusting.

“Prove it. Tell me something only he and I would know.” Molly looked a little hurt, but then a wide grin took over his face. The kind he had saved when he had a really great story to tell.

“Well, Yash, there was that time a couple weeks after you brought me to the circus, and I was really trying hard to save up the coin for my first tattoo. And well, I volunteered myself for that ‘after hours’ performance. You being the lovely dear that you are, volunteered with me thinking you would be gentler than the rest, and what was a little rubber and oil between friends. Only, you got me to use a safeword for the firs-” He was tackled for the second time that night, the rest of that story snuffed out by Yasha’s arms.

“I thought we agreed never to bring that up again?!” But she obviously wasnt mad.

Fjord and Beau both broke at the same time, gathering up Molly into a shared embrace. Of course, Beau had to end it with punching him in the shoulder and muttering “asshole” under her breath. Essek was still clinging to the shadows, obviously not wanting to be part of this reunion. Caleb didn’t know how to introduce the two just yet, so instead he clung to the familiar.

“Mollymauk, it seems like we might have a lot to talk about, -”

“Like how you two were KISSING!?” Jester interrupted excitedly.

“Um, well, ah - I meant more of where we are and what to do about Lucien.” Caleb replied.

“You don't have to worry about him anymore.” Sprinkles was once again on Jester’s shoulder, speaking much louder than a wessel should. “I have removed his soul and sent it to the Moonweaver to deal with it. She is a lot better with that kind of thing.”

“Um thanks?” Molly said, clearly still thrown off by the talking fey wessel.

“Not a problem. Besides, I am the only one around here who gets to strangle people until death.” That should have been a horrifying sentence, but Jester was just giggling along with it.

“Ok, before we talk about anything else, you lot wouldn't happen to have my coat? And a place to sleep, I feel like I haven't slept in a year!” Molly playfully whined. He did however look fairly tired. They could get the rest of their questions answered later, all that matter was right now. And right now, they had Molly back with them. Caleb had Molly back.

He couldn't help but shoot the tiefling silly grins as he summoned the tower, looking forward to every next moment Caleb could spend with Mollymauk Tealeaf. Even as he pushed back the guilt of still having Essek by his side.

#critical role #caleb widogast #caleb saves the world #mollymauk is fine #mollymauk tealeaf #i love molly #lucien is an asshole #shadowgast #its still totally a thing and eating caleb alive #mollymauk #i am hopelessly in love with mollymauk and caleb #circus man #its complicated #cr2e136 #cr fanfic #cr fandom

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photolover82 · 3 years ago

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The Masked Singer Season 6 Costumes (Ranking & Opinions/Guesses)

Hello everyone! We are back baby! Welcome (or welcome back) to Ana's Masked Singer recap, where I, Ana, talk about this not so little show called The Masked Singer, not sure if you have heard of it lol. IT’S SEASON 6 TIME EVERYONE, which means that when a new season is upon us, we gotta rate some costumes (hey, I do make the rules, and that’s a special tradition we do here in case you are new… if you are new, hi, welcome, have a seat, get a cookie, some dinner, whatever you would like, and relax we are about to go on a ride of sorts with costumes). Having said that, let’s get started!

Preface: The show will air September 22 and 23 as a two night premiere and costumes are being revealed little by little at the moment (When I am writing this, idk how many contestants there will be in total so this might be more than 1 part long)

Preface over… introducing the new costumes! *INITATE DRUMROLL PLEASE*

1. Banana Split 🍌🍨

Thoughts: It’s a cute idea ngl…. It kinda makes me sad that there was already a banana costume and an ice cream costume and they just kinda put it together, but it’s still an adorable idea. I love pair costumes on the show, so this is very cute, the cartoon nature of it is super fun.

Prediction: (I am gonna put a prediction on who I think it could be, like whether it’s an athlete, musician, a pair of siblings, a couple, etc.) I think they are a couple, probably married or played a married couple on TV… I am also gonna dream cast this for fun: my dream cast for Banana Split would be either Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard or Fran Drescher and Charles Shaughnessy (who played Fran and Max on The Nanny, who were love interests/a married couple on the show)

First Clue: 3 pair of 🎲 with the numbers adding to 6

Rating: 10/10

2. Hamster 🐹

Thoughts: it’s soooo fluffy and cute omg I love it… I really hope this is a good singer because I just love this costume, it is too cute to be sent home the first week (I’m looking at you Gremlin). Everything about this costume is so cool and whimsical, any child (and me) would go crazy for the hamster.

Prediction: My brain automatically goes to an athlete who can sing (hopefully) but from experience with the show, this seems like an athlete would be under this mask… but another part of me thinks it might be an actor, so I am torn between the 2: actor or athlete (hopefully who can sing ok)… probably male I predict. Dream cast actor wise would be Jack Black and athlete wise I have no idea because I know close to nothing about sports and I don’t wanna embarrass myself here with names

First Clue: A whistle

Rating: 10/10!

3. Cupcake 🧁

Thoughts: This is a costume I have been waiting for a while… I love I so much. It reminds me of the cupcake float from Victorious (if anyone knows that reference I applaud you) and I really love it honestly.

Prediction: An actress or/and singer (female), I low key want it to be like one of the actresses I grew up on like anyone who used to be on Nickelodeon or Disney Channel… so my dream cast would be between Liz Gillies (who played Jade on Victorious), Victoria Justice (Tori also on Victorious) or Sabrina Carpenter (from Girl Meets World on Disney Channel)

First Clue: 🧭 pointing North

Rating: 10/10!

4. Mallard (Duck) 🦆

Thoughts: Wow, this one is really dope and dapper looking, it kind of reminds me of Giraffe from season 4, I really like the look of it. Also, I heard from the preview that he can sing a mean country song, so I’m excited, I hope he’s good, fingers crossed.

Prediction: From what Robin Thicke said in the preview, perhaps a country singer or an actor who can sing country. My dream cast would probably be Keith Urban, Jason Aldean, or LeAnn Rimes’s husband (who was on that Netflix show about country music so I guess he can do a country song idk) Eddie Cibrian

First Clue: Red telephone ☎️

Rating: 10/10

5. Dalmatian 🐶

Thoughts: This one is also pretty cool, I really hope someone in sports isn’t under there because that would be way too predictable… it reminds me of last season’s Bulldog mask which ended up being Nick Cannon… but like cooler for some reason

Prediction: I’m gonna go off the cuff here (since those kind of responses work for this show lol) and I think it might be a rapper of some sort, similar to like Frog or Chameleon. My dream cast for this one would probably be Kendrick Lamar, Snoop Dogg (lolll get it… probably not tho), or Chance the Rapper

First Clue: Eagles 🦅

Rating: 9/10

6. Octopus 🐙

Thoughts: This is my first time seeing the octopus, since it was just revealed today… but I really like the vibe, even though it is a bit of an unconventional twist on an octopus. I like the idea of an octopus for this season since so many international versions have it and the American one really needed it. It’s cool ngl, I was hoping for more of an authentic octopus tentacle thing instead of just the pants but it is cool regardless

Prediction: I think this is a male actor or singer, someone a bit older or someone popular from the 80s or 90s. I am in between like a member of Boyz 2 Men, Ted Danson, or Lance Bass for a dream cast.

First Clue: Cookie 🍪 dunked in milk 🥛

Rating: 8/10

7. Bull 🐂

Thoughts: I really like what Masked Singer did with the bull, making it look like a Spanish matador which is super cool and also ironic in a funny way. It looks really cool, kinda reminds me of the Dragon from season 4. I like it a lot tbh.

Prediction: I think this might be a male actor or musician… I am thinking similar my prediction to Octopus, either older or popular from the 80s-90s. Again, dream cast wise, I would say someone from Boyz 2 Men, AJ McClain from Backstreet Boys, or like a legend like Paul McCartney

First Clue: Lions and Tigers

Rating: 9/10

8. Queen of Hearts 🫀

Thoughts: It’s a dope costume, but the one eye and the mouth is kinda creepy looking tbh. I do like the idea of an actual heart with a crown being the Queen of Hearts instead of like a similar thing to Alice in Wonderland’s Queen of Hearts.

Prediction: Probably a female actress or TV personality (probably from reality TV perhaps), age wise I am not too sure but it might be a shorter girl. Dream cast wise I would say Liza Koshy, Nicole Richie, or Paris Hilton.

First Clue: Horses

Rating: 8/10

9. Baby 👶🏼

Thoughts: Damn, that’s a creepy baby and Masked Singer confirmed on Instagram that it was their biggest costume yet, which their previous biggest one was 7 feet, so a huge baby makes it even more terrifying like wow! However, having said that, part of me is pretty intrigued to see who the hell is under this mask. I’m sure they cannot sing tho…

Prediction: My mind straight goes to an male athlete because that would be so funny and kind of a troll on Masked Singer’s part… and that’s most of the big people we have seen thus far. So, dream cast wise, you are allowed to laugh at me but my mind immediately went to Shaq (Shaquille O’Neal) because he’s huge and if you are gonna go big for someone, it would be for Shaq.

First Clue: "This pacifier sucker never claimed to be classy, especially when I get gassy"

Rating: 6/10

10. Beach Ball 🏖

Thoughts: Yeah, there is no way a human could fit in that thing, but it’s cool regardless… I also saw that it has two faces. That’s super interesting to me honestly, it reminds me of Snail from last season who ended up being a Muppet, so this is a bit reminiscent of that. I like it, this is the most intriguing one thus far.

Prediction: As I kind of hinted at in my thoughts, I feel like this is a Muppet or puppet of some kind, round two! There might be more than one puppet in there because of the two faces, but I am gonna assume one for dream cast reasons, I really want it to be Miss Piggy because it would be funny with Kermit being there last season.

First Clue: 2 band-aids shaped like an X

Rating: 8/10

That’s it for part 1! Stay tuned for part 2 for more costumes and predictions! See you guys then! 👋🏼

* This post was edited on September 13th to add the 1st clues from the sneak peak episode that aired on September 12th but even though some of my thoughts have changed (especially with Queen of Hearts), I will not be changing them and I can elaborate better when the episode airs *

#the masked singer #themaskedsinger #celebrities #hollywood #music #tv shows #the masked singer season 6

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vicunaburger · 5 years ago

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Admittedly, I’m Hard to See

Fandom: Beetlejuice the Musical Chapters: 13.1/? Pairing: Beetlejuice x OC (Holidae) The Players: Beetlejuice, Lydia Deetz, Holidae Bell Word Count: 2,301 Warnings: M for Suggestive Content and Language

Notes: I had to break this one up because it was getting away from me. Part 2 coming soon~

Chapter 13.1 - In Which the Mind is a Terrible Thing to Use

Time was a weird concept when you were dead.

Minutes, hours, days: none of them really had any meaning anymore. They were just arbitrary things that kept the mortal realm in line, dictating the daily lives of those still living in it. The Neitherworld time difference was one of the hardest things for the Recently Deceased to grasp upon entry, and it was part of Beetlejuice’s job as a guide to break it down in simple terms. Congrats! You’re dead, do what you want because you’re here forever. Take up a hobby or something, it makes the days go by faster.

When he was in the mortal realm, he never really paid attention to the passage of time, but he knew it happened.

It had been dark when Holidae had dragged him topside, and now her room was brighter with sunlight peeking through dark curtains. He wondered if Holidae even realized time had passed that much, since she had her nose buried in the Handbook for a while now. She had let him sit with her this whole time, occasionally leaning against his shoulder to find a more comfortable reading position.

When he realized it was already nearing the middle of the day, he offered to leave her alone so that she could sleep, something he knew breathers had to do, “Hey, your eyes are gonna cross if you keep that up. Go to bed or something, I gotta check on a project back on the Other Side anyway.”

Holidae looked up from her reading, blinking at him to let her eyes adjust, “You’re leaving me?”

Beetlejuice had been lighting up a cigarette, but her question made him pause, the unlit smoke hanging from the corner of his mouth. Something in that tone of voice was… familiar. A little nagging worm in the back of his mind that he couldn’t quite pin down.

“I won’t stay away too long, babes. You won’t even miss me that much.” He chuckled, resuming his task and taking a long drag, puffing out jagged little smoke heart in her direction. “I know how eager you are to have me all to yourself. I don’t blame you; all this sexiness within arm’s reach for so long… your willpower it amazing, ya know?”

Frowning, she waved the smoke away, “Not going to miss the crushing weight of your ego, that’s for damn sure.”

Chuckling, Beej snapped his fingers, vanishing with a soft pop. Holidae rolled her eyes, sliding off the bed and going over to check the alarm clock on the dresser, wincing when she noticed it was already the afternoon. Hearing movement from downstairs, she quickly changed out of her pajamas, heading down to see what Lydia was up to.

Lydia was by the front door, one foot planted firmly on the top of an overstuffed suitcase as she attempted to close it, struggling with the zipper. Holidae skipped down the stairs two at a time, going over to kneel down and help to make sure nothing was being caught in the closure.

“Jesus, Lyddy, you’re going away for one night. Do you really need all this stuff?” Holidae mumbled, stuffing a frilly lace skirt back inside the suitcase. “Are you going for a fashion show?”

“Hey, you never know what can happen in the uninhabited part of the woods at night. What if some cryptid comes out and want to borrow an evening look? I’m not going to be rude, Holli.” Lydia snickered, managing to secure the small padlock on the closure.

Laughing, Holidae helped to lift the suitcase up onto its wheels, “I can’t argue with that logic. Just make sure you take the dress to the dry cleaner’s afterwards. Might have fleas.”

“Speaking of fleas, it’s your turn for chores this weekend. I’ve already seen this house looking like a Halloween haunt once, don’t let it happen without me, okay?” Lydia grabbed the car keys of the entryway table, dragging the suitcase behind her as she headed outside.

———

Holidae spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning the house from top to bottom; mainly not wanting to incur Lydia’s wrath should the house get another inch of dust before she returned, but it also served to take her mind off of other things. Her sudden burst of confidence in inviting her ghostly roommate to spend the weekend with her… alone… she wasn’t normally such a forward person. Her brain was having a time of it; trying to decide if she should try and politely rescind the invitation, or just jump in with both feet.

Reading the Handbook hadn’t really done much to ease her fears, seeing as there was absolutely no useful information on whether or not such activities were even allowed, let alone possible. Were the going to be consequences? Did they need to take any extra precautions? How did he even retain a sex drive with no functioning organs? Obviously, Beej wasn’t shy about getting a little frisky with her, but was it done through some sort of non-biological means?

Over-thinking about such things were probably why she hadn’t slept in the past 24 hours.

Holidae halfheartedly pushed the broom around the outdoor deck, trying to gather the fallen leaves into a pile. A sudden breeze kicked up some fallen foliage, disrupting the progress she had made in sweeping the porch clear of debris. Groaning, she knelt down and picked up one of the leaves, glaring at it as though it were the sole cause of her internal torments.

“Why must you taunt me, huh? I just get this all clear and pretty and moderately balanced in some semblance of external harmony. And now you ruin it so casually?” She tossed the leaf into the small pile she had gathered with a huff.

Not wanting to be deterred from her task, she slipped her phone from her back pocket, queuing up some music to break up the silence of the outdoors. Once she found something suitable, she placed the phone on the nearby lawn chair, turning up the volume.

It was a bouncy tune; one that made it impossible not to add a few extra flourishes to her broom strokes, sweeping along to the rhythm. Before long, all intentions of actually cleaning had ceased, and Holidae was far more concerned with pulling off fantastic moves with her dance partner. For a broom, it was surprisingly limber as she swung her arms wide, twirling in some bastardized ballroom number created just for this occasion. Waltz for an autumn cleaning spree.

“You’re making a mess.” A familiar, gravel laden voice cut over the music.

Holidae looked around wildly, clutching the broom to her chest in surprise, noticing the ghost casually lounging on the lawn chair. He held her phone in one hand, scrolling idly; a half-finished cigarette burning in the other.

“Holly-baby, you’ve been holding out on me. All these cute underwear pics… and you never bothered to share? I’m hurt. Who’s been seeing these if not me?” Beetlejuice waves the phone around for emphasis. “Do I need to remove some dude’s eyeballs now?”

Her face cherry-red, she marched over and snatched the phone away, “Hey, that’s private stuff, jerkass.”

Upon inspection, the phone was set on the lock screen, meaning he hadn’t been browsing her private photos as he had claimed. Beej sat up with interest, laughing at her panicked state.

“Ah-ha! So you do have sexy pictures on that thing. Give it here… don’t you know sharing is caring?” He held out his hand impatiently. “Call it a sneak preview.”

Holidae shoved the phone into her pocket, “Whether or not such pictures exist is none of your concern. And please don’t go around removing eyeballs. Or at least don’t tell me about it. I don’t want to be complicit.”

“It’s very much my concern, babes. I should be the only one getting the honor of seeing every bit of you from now on. But fine, I will keep you out of my eyeball collection.” Beej reached up, hooking a finger through the belt loop of her jeans, tugging playfully. “So, Cinderella, you done playing housekeeper? I could always get you a little maid outfit for authenticity.”

“Well, technically I’m done, but there’s always- eep!” Holidae was cut off, having been picked up and thrown over Beetlejuice’s shoulder like a sack of flour. “Put me down! This is undignified!”

Beetlejuice ignored her struggling, humming a nonsense tune as he glided through the house, heading up the stairs. Holidae kicked her feet in protest, stringing a few choice words together as she was carried around with little effort. One of her kicks landed dangerously close to a rather sensitive area below his belt, earning her a sharp smack across her backside.

“Ow. Fuck you!” She hissed, gripping his coat as he floated up the stairs. “I don’t like this one bit! Put me down or I’ll kick you again, and I won’t miss.”

Undeterred by her protesting, the ghost continued all the way into the attic, unceremoniously depositing her on the ratty sofa; having been folded up at some point. She sank into the half-stuffed cushions, propping herself against the arm of the sofa, angrily scrunching herself as far into the corner as she could fit. The ghost settled himself into the opposite corner, amused with how flustered he had made her in such a short time.

“Holli~” Beetlejuice was purring deep in his throat, “Babydoll, look at me.”

“No,” Holidae kicked at him with her feet.

He chuckled, “C’mon. Look, I’ll apologize if you just look at me. I don’t say sorry often, so I think you should take advantage of this opportunity. Look look look…”

With a heavy sigh and a roll of her eyes, Holidae turned to look at him, “You are such a pain in the- JESUS CHRIST.”

Beetlejuice was sitting with one leg folded over the other, his arm draped across the back of the sofa. A perfectly normal pose… save for the fact he was stark naked. His pale coloring covered his entire body; the bits of green-tinted mold dotting various parts of him. A thin smattering of chest hair - green of course, matching his hair - made a trail down his pudgy stomach, the rest hidden by his crossed leg. She could only assume that all of his hair sported the same color-changing hue, but wasn’t about to ask. The only thing really out of place about him was the fact there was a brutal looking scar in between two of his ribs.

Holidae stared, slack jawed like a fish, unable to look away for far too long; desperately keeping her eyes locked onto his face. Beej waggled his eyebrows in an exaggerated manner, gesturing over himself with his free hand.

“I’m sorry I made you undignified or whatever.” He attempted a sorry look, “I take it you like what you see? All this can be yours~ whenever you want. As an apology.”

“I… I can’t look anywhere but your face.” Holidae stuttered, a flush of color spreading out from her nose across her cheeks. “P-Please put on pants. At least pants.”

The ghost mumbled disapprovingly, but complied with her request to a degree; a pair of boxer shorts covering the most scandalous bits of him for the moment. Breathing a sigh of relief, Holidae allowed herself to relax against the arm of the sofa, running a hand through her hair as she gave him a better look-over this time.

“Ah, good, my plan worked.” Beej crawled over to her side of the sofa, squishing her playfully between his body and the cushions.

Holidae head-butted him, “The plan to embarrass me to death?”

He shook his head, conveniently resting his face on her chest, “My ice-breaker. Getting naked. You ever heard of that old thing where if you’re awkward about something, you picture people naked? I cut out the middleman. You’ve now seen me naked, so it you won’t be embarrassed about later, and now we just gotta work on getting you naked.”

“That’s an ice-breaker to you? That’s… that’s like final step territory. What kind of person just immediately disrobes like that? Okay, well, not everyone can just magic their clothes away like you, but it’s the point.” She pouted, brushing through the shorter hairs at the nape of his neck with her fingers.

“...hookers?” He offered, taking a moment to adjust her legs so he was between them, using her body as furniture instead of the sofa.

“Ah, good point, but you don’t strike me as a street walker.” Her skin grew warm under her sweatshirt, fully processing the mostly naked man lounging with her. “Even then I think there’s a least a few minutes beforehand where it’s all business transaction talk. So, being naked immediately is optional. Plus, what if the client wants to keep their clothes on? There’s too many variables, Juice. Did you even account for activities that don’t require disrobing at all?”

Holidae realized she was rambling, her nerves having set her brain on fast-talking auto pilot to cover the fact she was stalling the whole situation with him. She glanced down, finding herself face to face with a pair of molten gold eyes, practically glowing in the sunlight in the attic window. It was so easy to forget how inhuman he was; things like that were a stark reminder.

Beetlejuice had a lazy grin on his face, a few sharp teeth peeking out from the corner of his mouth, content with watching the breather talk circles around him.

Not the breather. His breather.

As much as she tried to ignore him, or refuse his playful offers, he could see it in her face as she stared back at him. Who else would let him lie around like this? Who else would validate his need for constant attention without even realizing she was doing it? This was not a bestest best friend: he already had one of those.

This was a Holidae: and he only wanted one of those.

Before he could utter so much as a snarky quip, her hands grabbed the sides of his face, pulling him close, and she closed the gap between them with a kiss.

Writing Tags: @mr-geuse @paxenera @leiasolo77 @go-commander-kim @ashemspirit @asriells

#beetlejuice x oc #beetlejuice fanfiction #beetlejuice the musical #beetlejuice broadway #beetlejuice x self insert #writing time

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kitaychan · 4 years ago

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White Flame

Chapter 4

Rating: M

Warnings: Blood, Psychological Horror

General Summary: Royal/ Magical AU. As their two Kingdoms get closer to a war, the past keeps on hovering around their choices. Prince Ivan has a hard time controlling his magical powers while being tormented by a mysterious ghost and Prince Alfred embarcs in seeking a revenge that might cost more than it’s worth it.

Preview: Arthur tried to delay the crowning ceremony, he didn’t want to go through it, it was a horrid setting, the black dresses and the long and exhausted faces of the attendants made it worse. When he walked through the crowd of people, his heartbeat quickened, the silence that engulfed the scene was broken horribly by his footsteps and instead of feeling like the soon to be king in his crowning ceremony, he felt like walking the corridor to his execution.

A crown and a clock.

Arthur was accustomed to his life in the palace.

Tutoring the twins and keeping them company while the king was away was quite easy. He had been bitter at the beginning, deeming the task as a babysitting activity but the peacefulness when Alfred behaved and Madeline played the piano was something he didn’t have back home with all his brothers’ fuss and fights.

In the gardens, he heard the hem of Madeline's dress rustling against the bench while Alfred ran around them claiming to be a knight, the current obsession the young prince had. Arthur smiled at the sight of the fourteen year old liveliness, he hoped that this time Alfred would stick to it instead of abandoning his classes as he had done before, the boy didn’t seem to have a long- lasting vocation. Arthur was disappointed, Alfred showed more interest in the fencing practices than the magic lessons he offered him, after all the magic ran in the family but it was futile to teach the prince if he refused. Madelaine on the other hand, was so diligent that Arthur was delighted, she’d be able to chant complex spells in no time, her attentiveness and carefulness were compatible with her curiosity and kindness.

The warm and cozy scene was broken by the galloping of several horses and Alfred’s shouts, the boy ran excitedly to the palace as he heard the clicking of metal and hard footsteps. All that noise could only be due the King’s return.

He followed Madelaine to the entrance, a bitter taste crawling in his mouth when he observed the knights surrounding the entrance, one of them stopping Alfred in his tracks, telling him to stay away. Arthur stepped up to them, a single glance outside confirmed his fears, the horses had returned but there were few men left, the king was nowhere to be seen.

The twins were taken away by a maid, while Arthur was surrounded by courtsmen and the few soldiers that returned. An emergency meeting was held, taking the rest of the day as well as some part of the night, the King’s death was confirmed and the details for the following transition into the next monarch and the current defeat were arranged. Arthur had to sign a poorly done treaty, giving out territories to the enemy in order to assure peace. The only detail missing was that Arthur had to be crowned for the truce to be legitimate.

The ceremony was going to be quick and solemn, after all, they had to save their respectful duel for the deceased king. Arthur stood still while some servants dressed him, not daring to glance at at them. He’d never admit it, but he was secretly scared and ashamed of his recent promotion if one could call it like that. He tried to not to worry too much about the situation but being told out of the blue that he was to take on the King’s duties until the prince was old enough to do so, were the kind of news that one had to take a week to overcome. All he was given were thirty minutes of breakfast and the resounding cries of two children when they got the news of their father’s death.

Arthur tried to delay the crowning ceremony, he didn’t want to go through it, it was a horrid setting, the black dresses and the long and exhausted faces of the attendants made it worse. When he walked through the crowd of people, his heartbeat quickened, the silence that engulfed the scene was broken horribly by his footsteps and instead of feeling like the soon to be king in his crowning ceremony, he felt like walking the corridor to his execution.

The smell of incense made him dizzy and the feathery cape they put on him made him sweat. When the crown was placed in his head, he felt chills running down his spine. It was heavy and cold, he wondered if the late king had passed through something similar or if it was just him over analyzing the scene. Arthur tried not not think about it as it reminded him of the fate of the later king. They said it was a coincidence but it took a bit of curiosity and some questions to the soldiers to figure that it wasn’t only an unfortunate conflagration. Fire and ice at the same time were strangely rare and the dimensions of both were suspicious. Arthur was sure magic had to be involved, the question was what kind of it.

The only certain thought that Arthur had at the moment was that everything would change from now on. The predicament that tormented him was if it would change for the better or not.

---

Arriving to his homeland seemed like a fairytale to Ivan, seeing the outlines of the palace from the city entrance was surreal after such a long trip, the sight filled him with ecstasy.

They were received by a cheering crowd, they had returned victorious from a foreign land and for a moment, Ivan let himself be rejoiced by the sudden glory of it; staying back in the city instead of going straight into the palace alongside his father.

The evening went smoothly, the tired soldiers reunited with their families, the citizens offered a feast, unknowingly sharing it with their prince and for what seemed like a short span of time, Ivan felt himself at ease, not caring about his royal duties, his lessons or his father. What would he do? stand up from his illness and drag him back into the palace?

The soldiers seemed to forget about his title, treating him as they would treat any other comrade, offering him the same warmth as they did to their fellow friends. Ivan found himself integrated within the group, they sat alongside, devoured the meals and shared the wine until one of them started to sing.

It was only at that moment that Ivan understood he wasn’t supposed to be there, everybody joined the song while he just stayed there, drinking the awful beverage they called wine. The situation bothered him for a while but a couple of women served him another of those fermented liquors that made the whine seem like the greatest delicacy of the world. He pondered on throwing it away but the warm feeling it gave him made him change his mind.

The night came before Ivan could realize, the people arranged a campfire and some musicians started a simple tune, some gathered around the fire and started a festive dance. He was dragged into the crowd, not bothering much to follow them as the dizziness made him clumsy, not that it mattered as most of the soldiers were worse than him.

The dance was abruptly broken with the arrival of a carriage, Ivan trying to return to his sitting spot without tripping didn’t seem to register the scene until he was forcefully dragged into the carriage. Panic overtook him as he tried to ask for the help of the silent observers, reminding them that he was their prince.

He kept struggling until he met the face of her sister, growing embarrassed of his foolishness.

She crossed her arms glaring at him. “I can’t believe what you did.”

He looked down, the situation was stupid, he couldn't help but laugh at the display of strictness from his sister. “Katya, what are you doing here? why did they drag me into the carriage?”

“You are drunk!” she exclaimed, furrowing her eyebrows and frowning.

“I am not… that drunk.”

She shook her head. “I won’t talk to you like this. You will go to sleep and we´ll talk tomorrow at first hour.”

“Fine.” Ivan wasn't stupid enough to talk back to Katya when she was displeased, but seeing her frown and give him such disapproving glance made him realize how similar she was to their father.

The silence was bothering him but he was too mortified to keep on talking with her, leaning against the carriage’s window and feeling his eyelids heavier with each second, he let himself drift out to sleep accompanied by the galloping of the horses.

The next day, Ivan woke up with a horrible headache and an overwhelming sense of dread. He had to force himself to be present at breakfast.

At the table, Katya sat with her brows furrowed. “What were you thinking?”

Ivan sighed, taking a seat. “Good morning sister, I am happy to see you too.”

She set aside her fork and scolded. “What is wrong with you? Everyone knows it was you, you stated it quite loudly last night, everyone is talking about it. What do you think Natalya and her family are going to think?”

A plate was arranged for him to eat, alongside some water. Ivan took a sip and dismissed with his hand. “They’ll think that I got drunk with the rest of the soldiers, which is not wrong. That wasn’t the worst thing I could have done last night, Katya. Anyway, is not like they are going to draw back from the compromise, they did not care when I explained that I was disgusted by it.”

Katya gasped, covering her mouth with her hand. “What has happened to you? you spend some time with father and return like a completely different person.”

“How is our father doing?” Ivan glanced at her sister before picking at his food.

Her behavior softened considerably. She moved away her food and looked away from him. “Not well, he keeps saying that the conquest is not over, that we must not sign or accept any peace offering”

“Well, in that he is right. why should we negotiate if we won? I don’t think that’s how a war works.”

She shook her head and raised her voice, her eyes pleading. “Vanya, you have to listen to me, while you arrived, there was a crowning ceremony in the west. The new king has sent a request, to end the conflict. It’s a good deal, convince father of accepting it. It’s enough bloodshed for now.”

Ivan glanced up to see her sister looking intently at him. The idea of talking with their father wasn’t attractive but he’d do as she wanted. After all, going back to another battle wasn’t something he wished to do. He nodded at her. “I'll try.”

---

Ivan entered the room in silence, trying not to upset the figure resting on the bed.

He sat carefully in the chair that he supposed Katya had moved, meeting those familiar cold eyes that always glared at him, before he could talk, the king started. “I heard you spent some time with the soldiers.”

“Father, I'm here to talk about something else. My doings in the city are not of importance.”

His father scoffed. “Of course they are. I know what happened, Katya told me everything.”

Ivan frowned, how cruel could Katya be, sending him right into the beast’s fangs.

“Ivan you are old enough to understand that your actions have consequences. What will people think when they see the next king, not only with the peasants but drunk?”

“If this is about Natalya and her family, I assure you they won't care.” Ivan said crossing his arms.

“Of course they won't Ivan,” the king laughed. “My sister will see that you marry her daughter no matter what. I couldn't care less. What I am talking about is the people that matter, like the other princes we've just barely defeated or those from the western kingdom whose king you killed.”

Ivan straightened his posture, fidgeting with his fingers. “Father-”

“Do not interrupt me. You have to get this through, you have a reputation to maintain, you can't show weakness because the moment you do so, they'll attack you. You think you'll win the respect of the one's left in the firebird by sharing a feast? What we'll do from now on is to feed their fear. You saw what happened back there, that Ivan will be the key to maintain the order or to lose it. If they fear us, they won't fight back.”

Ivan leaned forward, looking down. “About that... they already surrendered, father. We have to rearrange administration and gain back the resources we spent. Signing the peace is the most sensible choice.”

The king sat up, raising his voice. “No, we won't I have to finish this, it is necessary. You are not capable of doing such thing.”

Ivan pushed him down again, not hiding the annoyance of his tone. “Father, you have to rest.”

“No, I can't. I will rest when I die,” he said, prying off Ivan’s hands from him. “This has to finish before you take over the throne. I won't die peacefully knowing that it'll be you doing it. Your mother will kill me.”

Ivan sighed, lowering his voice. “Father… I am sure that mother would have agreed to the treat, she disliked conflict. She'd like me to have a peaceful reign.”

“You Idiot, how dare you use your mother's memory like that,” the king fumed. “that's exactly what I am trying. Why do I have to bear with your useless rambling. Don't waste my time. I… Ivan, what time is it?”

“It’s four past five.”

His father glanced around and questioned. “Where is it? What have you done with it? I won't pass that clock to you, give it back.”

Ivan rolled his eyes and stood up. “I don't know father. It's clear to me that you deem me unworthy of the family relic.”

“Where is it? What have you done?” the king cursed, his tone grew desperate, some servants entered and Ivan stepped back, frowning at his angered father and shrugging.

“Idiot! Where is it? What have you done? Why, why does this have to happen? Not again, this can't happen again. Ivan, what have you done? Where’s Katya?”

His father's shouts were appeased when Katya entered the room and retrieved the clock from the nightstand. The scene made Ivan glare, no matter what, his father would always blame him for everything, even stupid things like this.

Once outside, Katya was scolding him for torturing their father.

Ivan walked hurriedly through the corridor. "It isn't my fault that he has gone mad."

Katya followed his pace, lifting her dress to take longer strides. “You should have told him it was there.”

“How could I if he doesn't let me talk?” he argued.

“Did you manage to convince him?” She whispered.

Ivan stopped, shaking his head. “Katya, just sign the treaty yourself or I will. Father won't last long anyways.”

She gasped, fear crossing her face. “How can you say that?”

“Katya, at this point we are better off without him.” He admitted, looking down after the words left his mouth.

“Ivan!” She warned looking around the hall.

“He won't know unless you tell him,”Ivan murmured. “Sign with his name, you have his seal. If he somehow gets the news blame me for it. What will he do? Execute his successor? The rest of the kingdom approves your plan.”

Katya gasped but stayed silent probably pondering on the idea.

Ivan walked away, trying to evade the blue eyes judging him from above, perhaps he could convince Katya to finally burry that haunting gray wolf.

#hetalia #aph russia #aph america #aph england #aph ukraine #aph nyo canada #hetalia fanfiction #hws russia #hws america #hws ukraine #hws nyo canada

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a-secondhand-sorrow · 5 years ago

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Dear Evan Hansen Gift Exchange!

This is my gift for the @sincerely-us DEH Gift Exchange for @thatfriendlyanon! Hey @thatfriendlyanon, hope you enjoy :D This is a bit of an amalgam of prompts that you offered but it’s mostly centered on Evan and Zoe a year later. Just for ease of timing/pop culture references it’s set in 2019/2020. Happy 2020! (here’s an ao3 link if you prefer)

Her first night back home, Zoe slips out the back door and just sits on the porch. It’s cold outside, like it always is in December, and it seeps through the old dollar store flip-flops she’d shoved her feet into on the way out the door. She shivers as a chilly gust of air bites through her purple and white sweatpants and old, graduating-class t-shirt. She’s like a collage of new and old school spirit, and some part of her hates it while the rest of her loves it. Sinking into one of the wicker chairs, she takes a breath for what feels like the first time since she stepped off the train in town, letting the hum of the cicadas drown out her other thoughts. She’s almost forgotten the different noise in the suburbs, the noises she was so used to in her first eighteen years of life. It feels disarming to be back in those noises after so long away.

Finally, once she’s sat in the feeling of the cold outdoors, her eyes drift up towards the sky. A smile picks at her lips, drawn by the faint points of light in the sky. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she registers names of a few, although had she tried to remember them consciously, she’s sure she wouldn’t be able to say them.

(Maybe it’s two memories, ripe with different kinds of nostalgia, that stop her from truly remembering. Maybe it’s the memory of two different hands in hers under the night sky. The memory of childhood, of wild giggles spilling from her lips, of another protective little hand in hers and speaking in what they thought were whispers but were more like normal volumes, sharing those names with her for the first time. And later, a later memory, of grass underneath her and a once-still hand in hers and warm lips pressed just right of her ear whispering the names he knew and asking her the ones he didn’t.)

She...likes school. She really does. It‘s felt like a fresh start in so many ways, with new people and new scenery and an easier way to breathe. Fewer shadows to haunt her from the corners of her eyes, drowned out by the constant lights of the city.

She just wishes she could see the stars there, that’s all.

Not that the stars at home are bright, exactly. They’re still dulled and hard to see, but they’re a world away from how they look at school. They are visible even if they’re not the strongest.

So Zoe smiles and looks at them, ignoring the lights that spill out from inside the house and the two figures they reveal inside.

After some time, she stands quietly, moving through the air as though it is nothing more than smoke and revelling in how silent she can be just before opening the door to the indoors.

“Everything alright?

Zoe’s head snaps up, locking onto where Larry is seated just beyond the kitchen and into the living room. She shakes her head at her own jumpiness, freeing her feet from the flip-flops. “Yeah, just catching some fresh air.”

Already, that almost-suffocating feeling is back. She can breath, but the air doesn’t seem to quite reach her lungs.

“Yeah, I just wanted some fresh air.” Her eyes scan the rooms. “Where’s mom?”

Larry’s lip quirks at the corner, but it doesn’t really seem happy. “She wanted to stay up to talk with you, but she was pretty tired so she turned in early.”

“Oh,” Zoe says, and for some reason it makes her feel kind of small. She crosses the house, letting her feet acclimate to the warmer temperature through her socks. She studies her father; he has dark circles of his own, and his hand seems to shake slightly where it holds the day’s newspaper. “I’m probably just gonna go to bed anyway, unless you…?”

“No, that’s fine, sweetheart,” he says, and for some reason Zoe’s heart feels heavy. Larry hasn’t called her sweetheart for a long time, and something in the word makes her feel like a little kid again. “I’m sure you’re tired.”

She nods and grabs her phone off of the small coffee table, turning towards the stairs. The light is already off upstairs, she can tell. “Well, ‘night.”

A sound that’s suspiciously like a yawn, and then a “‘night” back.

On the second step, her father’s voice stops her. “Zoe? We’re really glad you’re home.”

She ducks her head back down, forces a smile in his direction, and then continues to her room without looking up from her feet.

Evan’s still working at Pottery Barn.

He told himself, time and time again after senior year, that he’d be out of Pottery Barn in a year. Off to college full-time, maybe commuting or maybe even living on campus. But it’s six months past that year-long deadline, and here he is, on the first night of Hanukkah only just finishing the common app for next fall. Or trying to, rather, around his Pottery Barn shifts and his general fear of opening up to other people.

On one of his shifts, he scrolls through Instagram during a quiet spell, having accepted the fact that his application would not be worked on during work hours long ago. Just his average feed, a few former high school classmates posting holiday pictures (Alana Beck, unsurprisingly, has color-coordinated with her dads, sister, and grandma effortlessly for Christmas photos) and some of those Central Park nature shoots the pretentious photographers he follows are always posting. He’s about to click onto his Explore page when a recommended account catches his eye. His heart sinks as he recognizes the profile picture and the name, simply titled “zo + ev” in place of full names. And there she is, Zoe Murphy, smiling so wide that some of her freckles disappear behind the others and her eyes are smaller than usual. Another girl sits just behind her, her lips angled so her face comes across as more “funny” than “happy,” but that’s on purpose, he thinks. Before he can convince himself not to, he clicks into their account, and it’s revealed that the other girl in the picture must be ‘Ev,’ or Eva, if her main account’s handle is trustworthy. His pulse slowing slightly, his eyes skim their profile.

@stargirlzo_m and @evamillthegreat_ / NYU ‘23 / covers + general goofery / dm to req a song!

From a glance, it appears that they’re roommates. Not that he’s like, actively trying to figure that out, no, it’s just that all of the videos seem to be filmed in the same place, and the previews of the comments have a couple messages like “that’s our fav down the hall neighbors!” and such. Evan’s not even surprised to see that they have a couple hundred followers, since when one of their videos begins to auto play, they definitely sound really good. Zoe’s playing guitar, and something in the familiar curve of her fingers on the strings almost makes him turn his phone off and shove it away to get rid of the deep swell of emotion he feels just seeing her like that.

After...everything, he never really saw her play guitar again. While they were together, it was almost constant, because their coexistence was almost constant. But he couldn’t bring himself to go to the jazz band concerts for the rest of his senior year, and he certainly wasn’t hanging around her house while she figured out a new tune. Hearing her play is bittersweet and nostalgic and he feels...off. But he listens anyway.

Her roommate has a really great voice, and it’s clear that in their few months of knowing each other they’ve played together a lot. He keeps scrolling. Eva, or Ev, has a few videos up of her singing a cappella, or with a background, some kind of...TikTok riff challenge, maybe? Zoe, too, has a few where she strums some jazzy numbers by herself, that familiar old smile on her face in a whole new light. But then he finds one of her alone in a denim jacket and a flower-patterned dress, and she opens her mouth and begins to sing, and Evan swears he could cry. She always claimed she couldn’t sing, but of course he disagreed. He still does, and as she softly sings Dodie Clark and her fingers pluck at the strings in some complicated pattern, he could never disagree more. He hurriedly keeps scrolling, since if he were to continue listening he’s not sure if he’d be able to make it through his shift without crying.

She and her roommate are playing Crush by Tessa Violet, then, and it’s a little easier to hear.

A customer comes into his line of sight and he quickly shoves the phone under the counter before he can hear Zoe come in to harmonize in the background.

Sometime after Cynthia accepted the fact that Zoe wasn’t going to share every detail of her college life with her, she set her the task of going through her closet and cleaning up. She’d already done it before leaving in the fall, but Zoe agrees, mostly just to have something to do rather than thinking about the bedroom across from hers. She still hasn’t really breathed properly, but it’s a little easier when she’s alone.

When her trash garbage bag is already partially filled with old tops from high school, old Harry Potter and Brie Larson posters, and some guitar sheet music she doesn’t remember buying, she catches sight of an old plastic storage bin. Her hand brushes the unmistakable feel of dusty plastic, and her fingers search for purchase so she can drag the container out. It’s heavier than it looks, and the most she can do is drag it out. She falls back onto her heels as she does, eventually crossing her legs criss-cross under her. She pushes her hair away from her face and lets her eyes roam over the container. It looks like it’s filled with paper, and as she opens the lid there’s an overwhelming scent of school glue and cheap acrylic paint. There are old star stickers coming off everywhere.

“Oh, boy,” she mutters under her breath.

She considers just chucking it into the trash for a moment, but thinks the better of it. Tentatively, she plunges one hand into the pile of papers and promptly sneezes. Fucking dust allergies.

A few old math tests from elementary school are in the top pile, for some reason. She wastes no time in setting those into the garbage bag. She’ll sort the recycling out later, but for now she just wants to get the dust into one area. There’s an old, dried-up glue stick under the old tests and a couple of purple and blue markers with no caps. The faded yellow folder beneath them has clearly suffered for it, with big splotches of color on the thin paper. After tossing the markers in her normal trash, she picks the folder up. Immediately upon opening it, she’s hit by an image of herself as a little kid, her hand scribbling some crayon against printer paper with Connor at her side scribbling on the same paper. She lets out a sharp hiss of breath for nothing in particular. It turns out the folder is just full of old drawings, nothing special. Crayon stars on superhero capes, just about her and Connor’s combined interests. Seeing them on the same page feels like less of a gut punch after remembering them drawing together, but it still hurts all the same.

She knows her mom would want to keep the drawings, but she dumps them into the garbage bag before she can think to do otherwise.

The construction paper is surprisingly rough under her fingertips, but she smiles at the glue galaxies she’d created on the page, the letters of each star’s name written painstakingly next to them. She wonders where her good handwriting went and sets the page aside, figuring a little nostalgia won’t hurt.

There are several pages that just seem to be covered in glitter and star stickers, which immediately find themselves in the unforgiving cell that is her garbage bag. Some old book reports reach the same fate, as does a small journal that seems to be dedicated entirely to her writing with her left hand. If some of the handwriting looks like Connor’s, she chooses to ignore it.

“It’s weird,” Zoe says. “Who else writes with their left hand?”

Connor sniffs, looking indignant as he holds his pencil aloft in his hand. It’s held so gently and delicately in his artist’s hand, all long and thin fingers. “I think it’s cool. Right hand writing isn’t special.”

“And you smudge everything you write,” Zoe mutters under her breath. That didn’t stop her from trying to write like him, though. If he saw her, he ignored it.

It’s better to be rid of it, anyway.

The next item appears to be crudely bound by some old thread. It’s several sheets of printer paper bound together, and with a sinking heart Zoe sees the same crayon stars and superhero capes on the page. Monsieur Lumière. One of Connor’s pretentious French phases as a child, probably, fueled by the old English-French dictionary he found in his room.

She’d completely forgotten about the fake superhero they’d created, probably while huddled under one of their beds as their parents fought. A man to take away all their fear and sadness, who would bring the light of the stars wherever he was. Just a silly invention they’d dreamt up. A lot of good it did them.

This hurts more, this creation of their shared crayons on one page. There were probably hours spent on this, and she can’t even bring herself to open it and read a page.

She drops it suddenly as though the very touch of the paper to her fingers scalds her. She pushes it across the floor, away from her. She may leave it on some counter for her mother to find, rather than bringing herself to throw it away. She wants to get rid of it, but she can’t bring herself to pick it up again, not yet.

It’s only as she picks up the next glitter-coated paper that she realizes it gave her a paper cut.

“-right here—oh, isn’t this lovely?” Heidi says, her head turning back in Evan’s direction. She drops down onto the blanket she’s just finished spreading over the grass, crossing her legs under her.

Evan smiles. “It is, yeah, definitely.”

And maybe he’s just a little surprised by how much he means it. Because this is the first year in a very long time, too long a time, where January 6th has felt like something other than a slightly sadder mirror of every other day. When he woke up today, he didn’t feel that same hollow dissatisfaction on this birthday. He felt...excited.

It’s a nice feeling. Unusual, but nice.

He’d probably be excited even if he hadn’t woken up like that, however. Heidi had insisted she take the day off, and she herself was so excited to be off and to be with him that he couldn’t help but pick up on it. His mother was always like that - if she was excited, he was excited.

And she was definitely excited, given the honest-to-God picnic basket she’d packed for them and the new watch she’d given Evan just that morning “so he’d know when to look away from his inbox” (to which he’d feebly protested that it’s never too early to keep an eye out for forward movement, which she’d dismissed with a kiss on the cheek). As Evan carefully chooses a spot on the blanket where he is protected from the sun by the shade the tree branches above them throw, Heidi gets set unpacking everything, from small cans of sparkling water to grilled cheeses to bakery cookies to a bunch of grapes that looked like they’d had a fight with an anemic mouse and lost. Evan smiles as each item gets pulled out.

Almost automatically, his eyes start scanning over the park. It feels like it’s been a while since he’s been here, too, or at least since he’s taken a moment to sit back and observe the park in its entirety. In the time it takes Heidi to finish setting up, he’s not sure he’s discovered the source of the uneasiness deep in his stomach.

But Heidi is happy, and so he is, too. He turns back to her.

“I picked up this cheese from Shaw’s, it’s supposedly super sharp which I know you love, so it should turn out better than the Kraft Singles grilled cheese last week.”

Evan represses a shudder. “Oh, good.”

Heidi lies back slightly, smiling at him. “Here.” She holds out a plate full of food she’d just pulled out.

“Thanks,” Evan says, and when he smiles at her it's more genuine than most of the smiles he'd given her when he was younger.

She reached over and pats his cheek. “I like seeing you happy, you know that?”

“Yeah, I think I got that from the whole motherly affection thing.”

Heidi shakes her head. “I’d tell you to lay off the sass, but this is the one day I can’t, huh?”

“Oh, you love it.”

“Yeah,” Heidi says, picking up an apple and taking a bite out of it. “Yeah, I do.” She leans over, and with her free hand, she ruffles Evan’s hair.

“Hey!” He protests. “What was that for?” The action makes him feel like he’s a little kid again.

Heidi smiles at him again. He can’t remember the last time she smiled this much. “My little boy is all grown up. Twenty. Can you believe it?”

He shakes his head, looking up toward the trees. He really can’t believe it. Three years ago, he’d never have believed it. Seventeen was a bad year. But here he is, sitting in Ellison Park three years later, where he’d felt so helpless before. He’d be lying if he said there wasn’t an edge of that now, but it’s nowhere close to the wide expanse it had once been. He’s made it to twenty, and he knows he’ll make it longer. He smiles back at her. “Not really,” he says.

They eat in silence for a moment. Normally the presence of other people in the park besides them would make him anxious, but not today. He’s just another person, enjoying the afternoon sun with his mother. He blends in with everyone else. He feels like them. He wants to cork it up along with the feeling of the sun on his cheeks and the grass below him. With a start, he realizes his ache a little from the constant pull upwards his lips are engaged in. He’s smiling so much his cheeks hurt.

“I think you’re freckling again,” his mother mentions offhandedly. “I think you’re just about the only person who can’t freckle in the summer but can freckle just fine in January.”

“Maybe I am,” he says. “Like a superpower. Although it’s kind of a dumb superpower.”

“I don’t think so at all, sweetheart.” Heidi says.

He shakes his head, and as his mind fills with the image of someone else’s freckled cheeks, he may be inclined to agree.

“So you play a lot with Eva?”

Zoe looks up from her laptop, her brain unable to really understand the question. “What?”

Cynthia sits at the other end of the couch, and Zoe automatically tilts her screen in towards herself. “Aunt Christie mentioned it. She said that Sarah was talking about your...music Instagram at Christmas?”

Her cousin had ended up cornering her about her instagram account between dinner and desert. She was actually kind of happy to talk about it, since she and Eva do get along better than most roommates and it’s pretty cool to play with other people. She couldn’t really care about their followers, but they certainly had them, that’s for certain. Besides, it was a welcome reprieve from the dreaded “do you have a boyfriend?” questions, since she couldn’t exactly say no, i don’t have a boyfriend, since I’m still caught up on Evan, you know, the guy from junior year who lied about being friends with Connor and completely but accidentally fucked over the family in the public eye? But they didn’t know the half of that story, and she didn’t like to admit to herself how much she still cared for Evan, so the significant other area was a no-go and anything else was boring.

“Yeah, we have an account,” she says, shrugging. “It’s just a habit we’ve gotten into, playing together. It’s kind of fun to share it.”

“Ah,” Cynthia said, in that ‘I’m trying to understand but honestly have no idea what she’s talking about” tone of voice. “I’m glad, Zo’.”

Zoe smiles.

“But are you sure that’s the...best thing?”

The corners of her lips turn down, and she can feel her voice hardening a little. She doesn’t want to be defensive, but she is. “What?”

“Well, after everything that happened with your brother...with the Connor Project.” When she realized that wasn’t a sentence, she continued. “Are you sure the public eye is the best thing?”

She bristles. “It’s hardly the public eye, it’s just an Instagram account, and my full name isn’t on it. And honestly, mom, it couldn't get worse. No one cares anymore. It’s been years. Most of that was taken down. And I can take care of myself.”

“I know, Zoe,” her mother said, and maybe she’s just being placating, but the hand she reaches over and lays on her arm really does lessen her defenses. “I know. But you can’t control those people, and I just want you to be happy and safe.”

“I know,” Zoe says. “I know you do.”

She’s sure they both remember the endless days of calls, coming in a time of confusion and new grief she doesn’t know if they’ve really moved past, yet. Zoe knows that, if she tries, she can probably remember the exact words they said, the exact tone they said them in. It was only worse when she believed them.

Cynthia sits back again. They sit in silence for a little while.

“I’d love to hear some, though,” she says, in that classic mom voice.

“Why don’t you ask Sarah for a link?” Zoe says, sure to make her voice sarcastic.

“Why have a lousy link when I’ve got the rockstar right in front of me?”

Zoe rolls her eyes. “Sure, let me just summon my roommate. She’s not in Buffalo at all, she’s actually been tiny sized and in my suitcase this whole time, just waiting for my mother to ask about my music so she can belt her tiny heart out.”

“Ha, ha,” Cynthia says. “Good thing you can sing, missy. I know this is where you’re going with all of your university sarcasm.”

“I can’t, mom.”

“Don’t give me that.”

“What would you prefer I give you?”

“An accurate assessment of your talents.”

“Sure, I know I’ve got one in my coat pocket somewhere, right with my sky-high self esteem and my 4.0 GPA.”

“Your GPA is more than fine and if you keep talking like that I’m going to worry. Why don’t you go pick it up from your room along with your guitar? Then I can hear the famous musician’s liquid silver voice while she plucks away with the speed of a god at her strings.”

Zoe cringes. “Always so poetic.”

“It’s a gift,” Cynthia says airily, and the two smile at each other. “Go on. I’ll get your father.”

“I'm not a child at a recital.”

“Why couldn’t you be? We just want to hear you play, sweetheart. We barely see you now, and next time it’ll be Carnegie Hall.”

Somehow, Zoe ends up retrieving her guitar. True to her mother’s word, Larry was there when she came back downstairs. She’d never expected to actually play for them, but this is the first time Cynthia has really pushed her on something in a long time. It’s nice, quite honestly, that she feels that strongly about hearing her play guitar.

“I really normally don’t sing,” she protests mildly.

“Nonsense,” Larry says, and Zoe smiles. She shifts the guitar in her lap.

“Eva absolutely loves singing this,” she begins, her fingers seeking out the beginning chords to Crush, because quite honestly she can’t think of anything else to play. Her parents’ eyes on her make her feel nervous. “She’s made me play it a million times. She’d probably be mad if she knew I was singing it without her.”

It’s...nice to play for them. They smile and clap as she plays song after song for them. She can feel their happiness at something she’s accomplished, for the first time in her life. But for the first time since she’s been home, she thinks she can feel the weight of a third gaze on her. She knows it’s just in her mind, but all the same, she hoped she’d left that lurking guilt from Connor far away, in the orchard, at the end of senior year. She doesn’t know how she feels now that it’s back.

He always used to listen to her play. Maybe this is what she gets instead of him, now.

“Zoe?” Evan says.

She looks...small, is the first word that crosses his mind. Which is funny, because although Zoe Murphy isn’t the tallest person you’ll ever meet, she’s certainly got the confidence and gravitas to make up for it. Stage presence, as his mother would say.

Maybe he’s caught her between the first and second act, then.

She looks up at him, her hands practically drowning in her chunky-knit yellow sweater. It comes up to her chin, half-tucked into a denim skirt at her waist, and where the skirt ends a pair of high riding boots begin. Some part of his brain recognizes that she looks impeccable just as she always does, even when the look on her face is so unguarded and shaken that he’s half surprised she’s still standing. Something passes over her face, and in a second it rearranges into something a little happier than before. It’s not happy or okay, not by a long shot, but if he didn’t know her better he may think it was. Barely giving himself a moment to marvel at just how cool it is she does that, concern overrides every alarm bell going off in his brain about being around her and talking to her and hurting her again (not again, not again), because the most important thing is making sure she’s okay, the most important thing is her comfort. “What-” he breaks off, shakes his head. What does he want to say? What are you doing? What are you feeling? What do you need?

What could he possibly say?

(He knows it doesn’t matter what he wants, in the end. It doesn’t matter.)

“What’s...up?” he finishes a second later, cringing internally.

Zoe’s mouth twists and her nose scrunches, and for a second he thinks she’s going to cry, but a moment later she settles on a half smile, and she looks so much like Connor did that day in the computer lab that he feels winded, winded by an image he couldn’t have conjured consciously. At once the weight of where he is hits him squarely in the chest, and Zoe must sense it, because when she speaks it’s gentle, almost, even though every fiber of her being feels like it’s been shifted on its axis. “Well, uh. You know. Not a lot. And a lot, also, I guess.”

Evan nods, and for a second he feels seventeen again, fighting against a torrent of words, because Zoe never talked like that. She always selected every word carefully, and if she can’t, there’s no hope for Evan. “Yeah, no I, I definitely get it. That makes, that makes sense. You’re um, I guess you’re home for break? Winter break?”

Zoe nods once, and for once he detects a hint of ice in the gesture. “Yeah. And you’re…”

“Still home,” he supplements quickly. “I’m, uh, applying, actually, but, you know…”

“Yeah,” she says, and Evan privately thinks that this may be the most painful conversation they’ve had. There’s still a look in Zoe’s eyes, something a little unhinged and a lot hurt, and he wants more than anything to get rid of it. He knows that it’s not his job, but God, he wants to. He wants to grab her hand and press a kiss to her temple just like he used to, to slide his hand along the side of her jaw like he did whenever she was upset. He wants to remind her to breathe just like she used to remind him to do, wants to trace the freckles on her cheeks until she’s giggling and her eyes are dry.

“Are you here to see Connor?” she spits out, as though surprising herself, and Evan finds himself nodding, because oh yeah, they’re at a cemetery. He absolutely could not tell you why he chose to go down to the cemetery, rather than literally any other place. He just...felt like he had to. For some reason, he felt like he needed to go to Connor’s grave to say sorry and maybe thank you for something he couldn’t quite understand. He hadn’t planned on running into Zoe, though.

“You are too? I can...I can go,” he offers, and he’s surprised at how quickly Zoe shakes her head.

“No, I’d...I’d like someone else there.”

“Really?” he says, his voice soft.

“Yeah,” she says, offering him a quick ghost of a smile before steeling herself and turning.

He follows her in silence, choosing to focus on the sound of her shoes on the concrete and examining the back of her head and the trees lining the rows of graves and new clouds that have crossed the sun. They must reach Connor’s plot eventually, as Zoe turns sharply and leads him through the maze of stones until they stand in front of one that is simpler than its neighbors. Classic, he supposes, although he doesn’t know if that’s actually a thing, a ‘classic’ grave. Connor Murphy is cut into the stone, followed by a birth and death date and a short epitaph of beloved son, brother, and friend. He squashes down an unkind thought before it can really grow at all.

Zoe’s sat down on the grass, denim skirt and all. After hesitating, he follows.

“Would you like me to-”

“No,” Zoe says, but her eyes are focused on the grave, and Evan has the feeling she’s a million worlds away from him and it wouldn’t matter what he said. “You’re fine.”

So he sits quietly, and tries to think of something he’d like to say to Connor in the peace of his own head. What would he say, if given the chance? He doesn’t know if it would be worth anything. For him, he grew to learn that he was not who he thought he was on his worst days, no matter how many there were. But he doesn’t know if that’s worth saying to Connor. It wasn’t even really Connor who taught him that, in the end. He forced that message into his own brain, with the help of Dr. Sherman and his mother and even Zoe and the Murphy’s, in some roundabout way. He’s learned he can keep going.

Maybe Zoe still needs to learn that, he thinks, with a glance in her direction. She seems to be deteriorating, her hand absently twisting grass at her side, her face falling just a little more. She’s biting her lip and her brow is furrowing deeper. Or maybe this is just one of her bad days.

She stands up and sways on her feet. Evan clambers up after her, a hand reaching out to steady her almost unconsciously. “I’m sorry,” she says, and it’s only then that he notices the near-silent sobs coming from her, although there are not yet any tears. She just looks...sad. He hasn’t seen her look that sad in a while. Her non-grassy hand reaches up to her face. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

“Hey,” Evan says, and he aches to reach out and touch her, to comfort her in some way, but he holds himself back. He attempts a joke. “You apologize too much.”

He sees tears on her cheeks, and one indents where he’s sure she’s biting the inside of her mouth.

“Please,” he says, and it’s only then that she seems further away than she was before. “Do you need a ride somewhere?”

She’s in no state to refuse, but she looks like she might anyway. He cuts her off with another ”please, let me do this” and she relents. She looks ready to collapse at any moment, and he’s terrified she will, so he keeps one hand hovering nervously hovering between her shoulder and back their whole walk as though he’s swatting invisible bugs away. He considers opening the door for her, but thinks the better of it and leaves her to fend for herself in that particular field. They’re silent as he gets into the car and shifts the key in the ignition, pulling out of the cemetery parking lot. They stay silent for a few minutes on the road as well, while Evan drives in the vague direction of her house.

“You’re driving,” Zoe says suddenly, and through the thickness of tears Evan thinks he can detect a hint of pride.

“Yeah, that I am,” he replies, shaking his head slightly.

He thinks Zoe may say something like “wow” under her breath, but a moment later she’s sniffling again and that’s all he can think about. “I have some tissues in the glove compartment.”

“Thanks,” she says softly, almost getting drowned out in the sound of tires on pavement, and the sound of her soft consonants breaks his heart. “I’m sorry,” she tries again, but Evan stops her.

“Don’t, Zoe. Don’t ever apologize. Really.” His hands tighten on the steering wheel. “Believe me. You have nothing to apologize for.”

There’s another silence. It seems like Zoe has stopped crying, although she still seems unsteady, albeit less all over the place than when he first saw her.

“I swear I’m doing better than this,” she says. “I really am. I don’t, I really don’t know why that happened. I wish I could explain to you why. Why it’s still happening now, honestly. I’m doing better. I am.”

“You don’t owe me any explanations, Zoe.”

“I know. I mean, I don’t, but. I want to give you one, anyway.”

He nods. “Where to?” He finally says, the words stiffer than he wanted them to be.

Her voice is small, almost fragile. “Could you...maybe go to the orchard?”

He nods again, feeling a bit like a bobble head. “Yeah, of course.” He doesn’t add the anything, anything at all for you, but he thinks she might hear it anyway.

Sitting in the orchard with Evan again, it’s almost...surreal.

Zoe hasn’t been back since she met him a week before graduation. Being in the orchard brings all kinds of feelings of melancholy for her, a tangle of guilt and longing and maybe a little bit of hope, too.

Because when she looks across from her, Evan is there, and her own emotions are reflected on his face. They’re both sitting in the grass under one of the trees. They’re no longer saplings, which in itself is weird. The year has brought a lot of growth for them. Looking at Evan, she can’t help but think that they’re not the only ones.

He’s so much more...something than he was before. Is it happy? Confident? Whatever it is, it fills him from the inside. Even in the orchard, where his brow is furrowed and his eyes are focused on some faraway point in the distance, he’s sitting taller and fidgeting less than before. He’s doing better.

And she meant what she said to him, how she’s doing better too. Getting out and away to the city had really done wonders for her, finally being away from all of the shit that happened in high school.

She pushes her foot out, nudging against his thigh. He angles his head to her, and suddenly she gets the same urge to cry again. Her vertigo has lessened significantly since arriving at the orchard and stumbling to sit, but she still feels unsteady even while sitting. The corner of his lip perks up a bit as his eyes meet hers.

“It’s been almost a year,” she says.

“I know.”

There’s a pause; she lets herself listen to the rustle of the no-longer-saplings.

“Do you ever wish you could go back?” she says, surprising herself.

He takes a moment to respond. “To when?”

“I don’t know,” she admits. Her eyes burn and she’s not quite sure why. “Last time we were here? Last year? The very first time we really talked? This morning?”

Evan shakes his head. “That’s, that’s a lot of times.”

“I know.”

“Maybe I’d go back to this morning,” he said. “So I could...prepare myself for this. So I’d be ready to see you.”

She snorts. “I’d like preparation to deal with me, too.”

“That’s not what I meant, Zoe.”

“Oh?” She doesn’t know where this challenge has come from in her tone. “What did you mean?”

“I meant—I meant that it’s...different seeing you now. Because of...everything. And I don’t want to hurt you more.”

At once, all the fight leaves her. She passes a hand over her face. “God, Evan. I don’t think that’s possible.”

If she had meant to hurt him-and she honestly doesn’t know herself if she did-she certainly succeeded. Evan seems to curl in on himself a bit.

“That’s not what I meant,” she adds belatedly. “I just-you make things difficult, you know? Because this entire—” and here she gestures emphatically to the orchard, “thing is so fucked, and I want to leave it all behind, since it makes me feel fucked. But then I see you, and it’s like…” she lets out a puff of air. “It’s like I’m back to being sixteen again. Which is terrible on so many levels but is really, really great on one.”

He doesn’t say anything.

Her hand picks at the hem of her skirt. “I had you, Evan. And that made everything else okay.” She blinks rapidly against her blurring vision. “And as much as I want to leave everything else behind, I don’t-I can’t leave you. And that.”

“I understand,” Evan says softly.

She doesn’t say the other part that keeps her from leaving, the total guilt that fills her mind every once in a while when she thinks about Connor. She had a feeling he may already know that part.

“And the stars are here, too. I can’t leave them.”

She can hear the smile in Evan’s voice. “No, I bet you can’t.”

She shakes her head, tears slipping from her eyes. As he leans over and swipes them away with his thumb, she represses a choking sob from somewhere deep inside her chest. “I couldn’t either,” he says, his smile morphing into something sadder and smaller. His fingertips brush against her cheeks one last time, and belatedly she remembers those nights spread out on the grass where he traced the stars from the sky on her freckles. His fingers feel just like they did then, almost reverent against her cheek, his feather-light touch sending shivers from where it lands. Her eyes close, and without the hard ground beneath her and the sunlight that’s bright on her eyelids, she can almost pretend no time has passed at all, that she can have this entirely and wholly and painlessly. But Evan’s hand, and then his whole being, moves away from her, and she is left with only the phantom of his touch and the quiet noise of the leaves behind her. She lets her eyes drift open again, once the tears have receded slightly.

Evan stands, maybe sensing that she needs to get away or maybe just wanting out himself. “C’mon,” he says, holding a hand out to her. “I’ll drive you home.”

She smiles, albeit a watery smile, and takes his hand, ignoring just how familiar and easy it feels to slip her hand into his. His palm is warm, and he hoists her up with only a little difficulty. She smiles as she rights herself, and he steps back quickly once he’s sure she won’t fall. The faint blush that steals across his cheeks only makes her vertigo worse, but she manages to walk anyways, the blurriness fading from her eyes.

Just before they get in the car, Zoe reaches out a grabs his sleeve, the fabric of it rough under her calloused fingertips. Time slows down for the barest second, and her world narrowed to the faint, warm brown of his eyes. But the moment passes, and she tugs him in closer to her, wrapping her other arm around his shoulder. She means to say thank you, but the words never pass her lips. Instead she pushes herself up until her mouth is right next to his ear. Zoe breathes, “Watch the stars for me, Evan. Please.”

She feels him nod against her shoulder, and finally his grip around her lower back feels like more than just dead weight. “I will, Zo.”

In a moment, she’ll reach for the car door and step away from him. In a moment he’ll do the same, and they’ll sit in an almost-comfortable silence for the ride home. In a while they will be at her house, and they will say goodbye, and Zoe will go back to NYU the next day and Evan will go to his shift at Pottery Barn. In a moment, this may be the last time they just exist like this with each other, or it may not be.

Either way, she holds him close in this moment and savors the feeling of his heart beating in tandem with hers.

#dear evan hansen #dear evan hansen fanfic #dear evan hansen fanfiction #dear Evan Hansen gift exchange #thatfriendlyanon #bandtrees #deh #deh angst #deh fanfic #evan hansen #zoe murphy #zoevan

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go-events · 5 years ago

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GO Rom Com Spotlight: @tisziny

The most excellent @tisziny (also tisziny on AO3) has claimed Imagine Me and You to adapt for Good Omens in the Good Omens Rom Com Event.

For reference, here’s a little background about the source material!

About Imagine Me and You: During her wedding ceremony, Rachel (Piper Perabo) notices Luce (Lena Headey) in the audience and feels instantly drawn to her. The two women become close friends, and when Rachel learns that Luce is a lesbian, she realizes that despite her happy marriage to Heck (Matthew Goode), she is falling for Luce. As she questions her sexual orientation, Rachel must decide between her stable relationship with Heck and her exhilarating new romance with Luce.

We spent some time chatting about how the adaptation is coming so far, as well as future plans for it! Now, get to know @tisziny a little better!

* * *

goromcom: So, about your Tumblr. When someone opens a chat with you here, Tumblr reports that you post "about #jinkx monsoon and #reply". Let me take a wild guess -- are you a fan of Dru Paul's Drag Race?

tisziny: I am a fan of Rupauls Drag Race, but a little bit less so lately. It's all pretty repetitive and sold out for straight audiences.

goromcom: I’ve heard that! Such a shame.

You chose to adapt Imagine Me and You as your rom com. Has this movie been a favorite of yours, or is there some other reason you chose it?

tisziny: I love the movie Imagine Me And You. When I first came out as gay my older sister (she's bi and a relationship with a woman) gave me a list of heaps of queer movies and blogs and things like that. I watched Imagine Me and You and it was probably the first lesbian movie I saw. So yeah it has a soft spot with me.

goromcom: That’s really sweet! Knowing that the movie holds a special place in your heart, what's your favorite moment of Imagine Me and You, and are you looking forward to presenting it in your adaptation? Any loose plans for that scene that you can share?

tisziny: My favourite part of the movie is probably just the dynamic between all the characters. Which is silly because obviously that changes. I also really love the character H, Rachel's little sister. She's being replaced with twins, a boy, Warlock, and a girl, Ada (Adam).

goromcom: Do you plan to stick very closely to the story beats of the original movie, or make bigger changes?

tisziny: There will be changes, definitely. The character of Coop probably won't exist in my version, or his part will be significantly smaller. The story of Hec and his shitty boss is changed because Hec is being replaced with Newt. I can't imagine Newt being a bigshot at work or lying to clients, etc. I'm going to stick to the general theme and major plot points of the movie but I don't just want to completely regurgitate it with different names.

goromcom: I think that’s definitely a good call!

What's an interesting decision you've made in your planning so far--a notable casting decision, a changing of venue, or some other plan you have to paint Good Omens all over your rom com?

tisziny: I suppose the biggest thing is I decided to keep it lesbians? So we have Azira Fell (daughter of Gabriel and Michaela Fell) and Antoine Crowley (daughter of Gezibelle Tracy and the absent Louis Crowley).

goromcom: Oh goodness, I wonder who some of those people might be? ;)

With those little sneak previews now given, we’ll move on to the last question, which I am blatantly stealing from The Good Place: The Podcast. Tell me something "good". It can be something big or small. It can be a charity you think is doing good work, or you can talk about how great your pet is.

tisziny: Something good... I've been writing and rewriting this and it sounds so cheesy and bullshit but it's true. My best friend is alive and happy. And if you knew just half of what she's faced, honestly this is beyond my wildest dreams.

goromcom: I’m so grateful to hear that, and that you have someone wonderful like that in your life. Best wishes to your best friend from all of us. <3

Stay tuned to this space once posting for the GO Rom Com event begins, to see @tisziny‘s adaptation of Imagine Me and You!

#goromcom #goromcom spotlight #good omens #tisziny #imagine me and you

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the-gayborhood · 5 years ago

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Application & Profile Preview

I’m so excited to talk about applications (even though I couldn’t even get all the fun stuff in one screenshot). Meet Joe:

As you can see here, Joe’s got:

1. a space for pride flags (up to four can be claimed and displayed per profile)

2. inventory slots (for items that you get from the lootboxes you can earn by participating in events - and, of course, we have events planned for pride, after our soft opening)

3. an “app” to list what your character is looking for, along with their current partner(s)

4. a place to link some music or a playlist for your character

5. their VR settings (including a custom username, and pain and pleasure sliders)

6. What’s this....? An egg that will eventually hatch into a unique VR pet?

And more! I’m so stoked to see all the characters yall are going to make. Under the following read more I’ll give some more information about the joining process for those of you that are interested, but stay tuned because tomorrow we open the Discord! (And all the staff are so excited.)

Joining is as simple as registering an OoC account. OoC accounts are required because of the way we coded the site (which, ultimately, makes it SO much easier to do a lot of stuff, like making characters). When you register an OoC account you’ll be asked a few questions - answers can be whatever length you like, and they will be housed on your profile so other members can use them to see if you’re compatible.

Then you’re free to make your character(s). The process is similar - when logged into your OoC account, register a new account. You’ll be asked it give us some quick information about your new character.

To help cut down on anxiety during the application process, all character are automatically accepted for a trial period. If you’re the sort of person who likes to develop characters as you go, you can dive right in and immediately begin posting (after making your face claim, of course).

If you prefer to do more development right out of the gate, you can access your profile where you will be able to edit the information you gave when registering, and you’ll find you now have access to more, optional profile sections.

How to move out of the trial period with your characters, you ask? Simply keep to the rules and make seven posts with your character account for them to be considered Verified.

#gayborhoodrp

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thesevenseraphs · 5 years ago

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Bungie Weekly Update - 10/31/19

This week at Bungie, we’re hosting a celebration.

Festival of the Lost has been unleashed on the Tower. Cobwebs are everywhere, black cats are on the prowl, and every vendor has some candy for you to enjoy. Eva Levante went all-out this year on decorations and brought some new masks for you to earn. While candies and treats are readily available, you also have the BrayTech Werewolf to earn, packing the multikill clip punch. The Tower isn’t the only place that’s a bit spookier. There’s been an uprising on the Moon, and Eris is calling on you to challenge the Hive in the Altars of Sorrow and the Pit of Heresy.

youtube

Xenophage made its grand entrance, bug and all. We’ve seen Guardians cracking the puzzle and claiming their Exotic in real time, but it isn’t the only new weapon for you to add to your arsenal. We’ve got some Hive-infused weapons that not only look mean, but back it up with some serious firepower.

If you’re wanting to take on opposing Guardians with a bit more lethality, Momentum Control has arrived. Fast respawns, quicker kills, and ability regeneration tied to the defeat of your opponents. Get out there and make Shaxx proud.

So, now that we’ve covered everything that went live on Tuesday, let’s see what else is on the calendar: A charity, a costume contest, a hotfix, a bounty, and more are inbound.

TRICK OR TREAT!

Even with everything going on, we can take a moment to appreciate the little things in life. A bit of humor in the face of fear. Eva Levante is hosting the Festival of the Lost this year, and we have another opportunity for players to earn the Levante Prize. Throw on a mask, embrace your inner darkness, and join us in celebrating Festival of the Lost 2019.

Want to participate? Here’s how:

Create a costume for your Guardian and strike a pose in the perfect setting.

Snap a screenshot in any Destiny 2 destination or activity.

Play with shaders and armor combinations for the spookiest outcomes.

Group participation is encouraged!

Submit your image to the Community Creations page on Bungie.net.

We’ll retweet our favorites from @Bungie and grant winners the Levante Prize.

If you do win, make sure you give us Bungie.net profile links so we can deliver the emblems!

While we’re all for fun and games, we’d love for you to try and scare us while you’re at it. Bonus points to those who do.

PINNACLE HOTFIX INBOUND

Destiny 2 Hotfix 2.6.1.1 is tentatively planned for Thursday, November 7. It contains some quality-of-life fixes for the sandbox and Season Pass weapon acquisition. One of the more major changes deals with your pursuit of pinnacle Power. While we’ll be providing a patch note preview below, we have some words from the team on our initial goals for pinnacle Power and why we’re making some adjustments.

Dev Team: When we designed the pinnacle band of Power for Season 8, our intent was to provide an aspirational progression that reflects participation in some of the more difficult and time-limited content of Destiny 2. This was meant to be a slower progression than the powerful reward band, but one that wasn’t a gateway to accessing content.

We’re not hitting our goals for the availability of rewards in all slots for the pinnacle-level rewards. You may have experienced getting duplicate Energy weapon drops from these sources, which is compounded by the need to get a drop in all slots in order to gain enough Power to raise your character’s overall Power by 1. To mitigate this, we have increased the Power granted by pinnacle rewards to +2 instead of +1.

Once this change goes live, only four slots will be needed to increase your character’s average Power, at which point your powerful rewards will allow those slots that you might have missed to catch up. Our goal is that the pinnacle band remains a reward for tackling the more prestigious challenges, but takes some of the sting away from receiving multiple drops in the same slot. We appreciate all the feedback that we’ve received on this, we and hope to hear more from you on how this band of progression feels with the new change.

PLEASE NOTE: As this change is currently planned for next Thursday, players should wait to earn their pinnacle rewards until this hotfix is available so they can take advantage of the +2 change.

Alongside the changes to pinnacle rewards, we’re also adding the Season Pass weapons (Pluperfect and Temporal Clause) as possible rewards from the Vex Offensive activity. While players may currently unlock the chance for these weapons to drop with random rolls from the Crucible, Gambit, and strikes, we wanted to add them to another activity to give players more agency in earning random rolls.

Additionally, we’ve developed a fix for ashes to assets to prevent Telesto from being the absolute best-o, where players could earn their Supers far more quickly than intended.

Stay tuned to @BungieHelp for updates on the exact time and date of this hotfix.

IRON FRIGHT

Amid all this excitement, Lord Saladin wanted to get in on the action. The Iron Banner returns next week, bringing Power-enabled combat back to the Crucible. With a handful of bounties in tow, you’ll have opportunities to earn the Iron Will armor set, along with some pinnacle-tier rewards.

Iron Banner Control

Starts: 9 AM Pacific on November 5

Ends: 9 AM Pacific on November 12

Note: You may be thinking “Wait, 9 AM? What’s going on here?” – Day Light Savings ends this weekend for us in the states. I know, it’s confusing. I don’t really know why it happens either. You can find more information in the Player Support Report later in this very article.

Earlier this week, Destiny 2 Update 2.6.1 introduced changes to Heavy ammo spawning in the Crucible. The following change will also be present within the Iron Banner:

Heavy ammo initial spawn changed to 60 seconds (was 45 seconds)

Heavy ammo additional spawning changed to every 120 seconds (was every 60 seconds)

Now, to make sure we say it again, we are currently planning a hotfix that will increase pinnacle reward Power gains next Thursday. We highly recommend that players wait to redeem any Iron Banner bounties which reward pinnacle gear until the hotfix has been applied.

We also fixed an issue in 2.6.1 that was causing the Iron Banner bounties to reset daily. Players will have four bounties to complete throughout the week.

REGICIDE

If you follow your community news, you know that Gothalion is on the move to a new streaming platform. To ensure a nice, warm welcome in his new home on Mixer, we’re inviting the internet to hunt him down in the Crucible. We’ve placed a Bungie Bounty on his head! It seemed like the neighborly thing to do…

Bungie Bounty—King Gothalion

Saturday, November 2, 10 AM–Noon Pacific

Momentum Control on PC

www.mixer.com/kinggothalion

Festival of the Lost has introduced a new competitive mode in the Crucible. If you play on PC, that’s your hunting ground. The rules are simple: Match with Gothalion, as either a teammate or an opponent, and win. The game must be played on his stream during the two hours allotted. To the victors go the new Bungie Bounty emblem.

This is a housewarming party and you’re all invited to attend. Bring snacks and ammunition. This is one of those rare occasions in which stream sniping is encouraged!

CHARITABLE ENDEAVORS

This week was also host to the inaugural Game2Give charity event, supporting the Bungie Foundation’s iPads for Kids program and Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals. We’ve been blown away by the community involvement, as we’ve raised nearly 1 million in donations from Guardians around the world. The charity is still going, and this weekend continues the event with DCPLive, joined by special guest Pete Parsons!

As a reminder, we have a few incentives for each donation, 100% of which goes to the charity!

A $10 donation will earn you the NEW Mist Blossoms emblem.

A $50 donation will earn you both the Mist Blossoms emblem and our first-ever Charity Ghost, the Gilded Shell Exotic Ghost.

A $100 donation will earn you both items above and enter you to win an item from the Bungie Prize Pool.

We’re having many more players join in on this event through the weekend, so stay tuned to http://bung.ie/game2givestream for more information.

FORGE WARDENS

Two-Six-One was our most recent update. We’ve got a slew of changes that have gone live, but it seems that the Izanagi’s Burden quest line continues to evade some players. Destiny Player Support is on the case, bringing the most up-to-date information on what we’re tracking.

This is their report:

Izanagi’s Burden

Earlier this week, we deployed Destiny 2 Update 2.6.1 to players. With this update, we resolved an issue that was preventing a subset of players from completing the Mysterious Box quest to receive Izanagi’s Burden. Following this update, however, new issues have emerged which block progression further down the line for this quest. Specifically, Destiny Player Support is tracking the following two issues:

Players are not receiving progress when redeeming forge keys.

Players are not receiving progress for the Obsidian Crystal received from rare Black Armory bounties.

These issues are currently under investigation, to be addressed in a future update. Players who are encountering other issues with Black Armory forges or the Mysterious Box quest should report to the #Help forum.

Festival of the Lost

This week, Festival of the Lost returned in Destiny 2. Eva Levante has made sure that this Festival is open to all.

For anyone joining us in progress, let’s review the entry requirements outlined last week:

Brand-new players who go through the New Light experience must achieve at least 770 Power before Eva Levante will beckon them with her Festival of the Lost introductory quest. If these players are lower than 770 Power, they will not be able to interact with Eva Levante at all.

All veteran players, including those who were boosted to 750 Power at the launches of New Light and Shadowkeep, may head directly to Eva Levante to begin her quest.

Don’t forget to wear your favorite mask when completing activities around the solar system. Wearing a mask is required in order to earn candy and Chocolate Strange Coins.

Lastly, this year’s Festival of the Lost will conclude at the weekly reset on November 19. Players looking for more information on Festival of the Lost should see our official guide.

Destiny 2 Known Issues

In addition to issues with the Mysterious Box quest tracked above, Destiny Player Support is investigating the following issues to emerge in Destiny 2:

Players may intermittently experience delayed loot drops and/or pursuit progression. If a player is at activity completion and has not yet received their loot, they should make sure they do not return to Orbit early.

If a Cabal Scorpius Turret Daemon falls off the map in the Haunted Forest, it will not be killed and won’t respawn, halting progress. Players will have to wait out the remaining time to collect rewards, or return to Orbit and restart the activity.

Following the launch of Destiny 2 Update 2.6.1, we monitored elevated ANTEATER, MONKEY, and WEASEL errors. At this time, issues causing these elevated errors are expected to be resolved. For the latest information on the state of Destiny services, players should follow @BungieHelp on Twitter or monitor our support feed at help.bungie.net.

For the latest known issues to be confirmed by Destiny Player Support, players should visit our Known Issues thread in the #Help forum.

Daily and Weekly Reset Time Change

Beginning this Sunday, November 3, Daylight Savings Time in the United States will end. This means that Destiny 2’s reset time will change to 9 AM PST (1700 UTC) through March 2020.

For more information, please view our Destiny 2 Ritual Reset Guide.

#Destiny #Destiny 2 #Destiny 2: Forsaken #Bungie Weekly Update #long post #Destiny 2: Shadowkeep

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inmyheadrp · 5 years ago

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hey cuties! we're baaack with an in my head contest AND sneak preview!!! we're aiming for a short buzz here because, let's be real, we're actually here to write - so stay tuned and tracking to get the most up-to-date info!!!

tomorrow at 8pm est we are opening up our general reserves! members are able to reserve two additional faces that can be duplicated! check out our faq here for more information about our claims process (or drop us an ask, we don't bite!!)! remember, a face can only be used four times, one per city. before you send in your reserves, make sure to check the current list!

onto the contest!!! we're conducting a social media contest to celebrate our own social media platform - atlas! there’s more information about atlas down below, but our social media contest is so easy! all you have to do is post any social media aesthetic for your character, tag #imhrp, and then submit for your f r e e reserve!!! that’s right - after general reserves, you can have up to FOUR faces for our opening!!! don’t forget to reserve your faces like this:

first last (city) for name

atlas is designed to encourage international plotting - something that will also be reflected in our discord server! in my head is multi-city and international for a reason, and atlas is a social media hybrid (think instagram and facebook’s cutie pie baby) where you can make connections, comment on other character profiles and slide into those dms!

xxoo, ur imh team

#imhrp #previews #contest

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millennial-medusa · 7 years ago

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Help Me Piece It All Together, Darling

This was just supposed to be a little Jasiper drabble for my Baseball AU, but I love these two so much and it got away from me and, well...here’s 11k words of them being idiots and honestly barely any baseball. It is absolutely as cheesy as it sounds.

This is set their sophomore year, so earlier than the other fics I’ve written for this au.

Jason x Piper, rated T, read on ao3

Jason Grace might just be the death of her.

She’d thought he was attractive as soon as she’d started going to baseball games last year and spotted him from the stands. She’d thought he was gorgeous when she’d approached him at that bar a few months ago, the couple drinks in her system giving her the courage to toss her hair and tease him a little, the resulting blush across his cheeks and the electric blue of his eyes weakening her knees.

But now, sitting in the library watching him help Leo through a research paper with all the patience and kindness and—yes, she’d admit it, grace, no pun intended—of a seasoned kindergarten teacher, she was positive he was the most beautiful person she’d ever met.

And this was a problem.

It was a problem because Piper, despite being a decent flirt when she wanted to be, had absolutely zero skills in terms of getting a guy to date her. She’d had her fair share of one night stands and casual hookups, but those were easy; the kind of guys that were willing to do one night stands were willing to do them with anyone decently attractive and emotionally detached. Piper checked those boxes pretty well, minimal work required.

But Jason wasn’t one of those guys. The more time she spent with him, the more obvious it was that he was the kind of guy to hold open doors and only kiss on the third date and ask for a lady’s favor before going to fight a dragon for her hand because he was literally a knight in shining armor, and it sucked because Piper was pretty sure she was the scullery maid in that scenario. Or the evil step-sister. Or the dragon.

(Okay, she reasoned, she wasn’t that bad. She wasn’t evil. Just hopeless and delusional. One of the nameless court ladies who swooned at a glance from the knight, but was overlooked in favor of the lovely and virtuous princess he would live happily ever after with.)

So a crush on Jason was a terrible, awful, absolutely horrendous idea, but for some reason her heart didn’t get the message her brain was so desperately signaling to it with red flags and emergency flares, because it kept picking up speed with every blindingly white smile he sent her from across the table.

(What had she just been saying about swooning?)

“But I say right there what it’s about,” Leo was complaining, gesturing to his laptop screen.

“No, that’s your topic sentence for that paragraph,” Jason explained. He ran a hand through his already mussed hair.

Piper wanted to run her own hands through it, tugging on the blonde locks while her tongue explored his mouth.

“Isn’t that what a topic sentence is supposed to do?”

“Yes, but you don’t have a thesis. Or an introduction.”

“Why would I need one of those when you made me write that abstract thing that explained the whole paper anyway? I still maintain that invalidates even needing to write a paper, by the way.”

“Leo, have you ever written an essay in your life?”

Leo’s eyes darted to Piper’s, and twin smiles stretched slowly across their faces.

“Oh yeah,” Leo answered, turning back to Jason. “I’ve written tons, and they were fantastic. Totally winners.”

Piper bit back a laugh. “Honestly, Leo’s written some of the finest essays of our generation. I’m incredibly proud of my—ah, of his work,” she added.

Jason’s brow furrowed—in a non-totally adorable and distracting way, of course—as he glanced back and forth between the two of them.

“Leo,” he repeated slowly, fixing him with a stern gaze, “have you ever written an essay in your life?”

“Define ‘written.’”

“Are you serious?” Jason’s eyebrows hit his hairline, and Piper didn’t bother to hold back her laughter. “How did you get through high school? How did you get through all of last year?”

Leo grinned over at him. “Wilderness school didn’t assign too many essays, and when they did, they didn’t read them closely enough to realize the similarities in Piper’s and my writing styles.”

Jason’s eyes widened before landing on Piper. “You—you wrote his essays for him? For all of high school?”

Piper shrugged. “Like he said, there weren’t that many to write. Besides, I can knock out a three page paper in less than an hour, and Leo did lots of my math assignments to pay me back.”

“Yes, she drove a hard bargain, but every equation was worth it to not have to analyze Jane Eyre," Leo sighed.

“What can I say? The rates are high, but I provide excellent customer service.”

“Absolutely. I’d give you four stars on yelp.”

“Only four? That rhetorical analysis of Mark Antony’s speech got you a 98!”

“Sure, the quality is great, but your options are limited. You’re not writing this essay, for example.”

“You’re right, the uses of obscure elements is a little out of my scope of provided services. That’s what you get for taking chemistry.”

“What good are you comm majors if you can’t even write my essays for me?”

“You committed plagiarism for four years and got away with it?” Jason interrupted with a harsh whisper.

“Relax, Sparky, the teachers didn’t care what we did as long as we sat quietly,” Piper laughed.

“Which, naturally, we always did,” Leo added. “We’re both known for our ability to sit in silence and behave just like we should.”

Jason shook his head. “I have no idea how I ended up with the two of you for friends.”

“Aww c’mon, you know you love us,” Leo crooned.

Jason chuckled and adjusted his glasses. “You’re lucky I do. I would not risk having ‘aiding and abetting criminals’ on my record for anybody else.”

With that, the air shifted. Piper felt her stomach drop, and her eyes met Leo’s again, but this time the knowledge that passed between them was not of an inside joke. The laughter had disappeared from their expressions, and Jason noticed.

“Guys?” he asked tentatively, glancing between the two of them nervously before landing on Piper. “Is everything okay? Did I say someth—”

“So I don’t have a thesis,” Leo interrupted, “what is that, exactly?”

Jason was still studying Piper, who was avoiding his gaze. She could feel his eyes, all too perceptive, roaming over her drawn face and tensed shoulders, but she focused resolutely on the textbook in front of her.

“Your thesis statement sums up your argument and the key points you’re using to prove it,” she spoke up, her gaze trained on Leo now. “It’s like, a shortened version of the back of a book. Or a highlights reel. Or a movie trailer.”

Leo looked back at her blankly. “So…another thing that sums up the whole paper. Why do I have to write the whole paper if I can prove it in one sentence?”

Piper rolled her eyes, but, to his credit, Jason managed a small smile. “It doesn’t prove your claim, it just gives a little preview of how you’re going to prove it. It gives the reader an idea of what to expect,” he explained, far more patiently than Piper ever could have. She was good with words, but even Leo exceeded her patience at times like these.

Jason was just so good. Piper couldn’t think of anybody deserving of him, especially not herself.

Her heart ached.

Over the past three months, Jason had fit seamlessly into Leo and Piper’s lives, clicking instantly. She and Jason were easy friends in their own right, getting pizza together or hanging out in the apartment when Leo was out. Of course, she’d befriended Percy, Annabeth, and many of the other team members and their assorted friends in the same amount of time, but her connection to Jason was just…different, somehow. And not just because she was perilously close to falling in love with him already.

Leo would always be Piper’s best friend—they’d been through so much together that losing him wasn’t even a possibility to Piper, they were stuck with each other for life—but Jason, even after only three months, was already a close second. After their initial meeting of tipsy flirting, they’d bonded quickly over their shared love of baseball and Disney movies.

So now Piper knew just how kind and genuine of a person he really was. She also knew how much of a disaster she was, and how much he didn’t deserve to have to put up with that.

So she suffered in silence, hoping her little crush would go away painlessly and soon. The way her stomach flipped when Jason glanced over at her again, his eyes still slightly apprehensive, seemed to insist she would not be getting an easy out.

When she tuned back into the boys’ conversation, Jason was asking Leo when the paper was due.

“Tomorrow?” he yelped at Leo’s answer. “And you waited until now to ask for my help? Leo, you have six more pages to write, we’re gonna be here all night!”

“Nice rhyme, Dr. Seuss,” Leo teased, but at the look Jason gave him, he ducked his head guiltily. “I know, honestly I didn’t think writing a dumb essay would take that long,” he mumbled. “You guys can go home if you want, it’s pretty late and finals are in a few days and I’m sure I can figure this out—”

Piper just snorted. “Not going anywhere, Valdez. We’re a team.”

“She’s right,” Jason chimed in, patting Leo lightly on the shoulder. “I meant it when I said I’d help. If we have to stay until the paper is due, then that’s what we’re gonna do.”

Leo smiled at both of them, and they went back to work.

—

Three hours later, Piper felt her eyelids drooping. It was only 10 PM, but she'd had gotten up early and worked all day, so she could already tell staying up with Leo was gonna be rough. The boys, she noted, were looking a little frazzled too, so she stood and told them she was going on a coffee run.

Jason frowned. “It’s late, Pipes, are you sure you should be walking across campus alone?”

Warmth spread through her at his concern, but she shrugged it off and her jacket on. “I’m a tough girl, I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

Jason opened his mouth to protest, but Leo cut him off. “Just go with her, Jason, I need some time alone anyway.”

Piper nodded at Jason’s questioning glance, but she glared daggers at Leo when Jason turned to grab his coat. Leo just gave her a shit eating grin; he’d picked up on Piper’s crush early on and frequently found excuses to leave them alone together.

A few moments later, Piper and Jason were walking out into a wall of freezing December air that had Piper tugging her coat around her and wishing she could cuddle up to Jason. Strictly to conserve heat, naturally.

They chatted easily as they walked to a small coffee shop about five minutes away, the only one on campus open 24 hours.

“Are your finals bad?” Jason asked, his words a puff of steam in the frigid air.

Piper shook her head and buried her hands deeper in her pockets. “Nah. My media law final is the only one I’m really worried about, but I think I’ll do okay. What about yours? Is that political theory stuff still giving you trouble?”

“I’ve been studying for it, so I think I’ll be okay,” he shrugged.

“I wish I had the self discipline to already be studying for finals,” Piper grumbled. “I can’t get myself to study before the last minute.”

Jason laughed at her sullen expression. “You just need the right motivation, like a reward or a study buddy.”

“You offering?” She caught his eye and smirked; Jason blushed a pretty shade of pink that spread down his neck and disappeared beneath the collar of his peacoat. Piper found herself wishing she could see just how far down that blush travelled.

“Yeah—I mean, if you wanted,” Jason stammered, looking hurriedly away from her.

Piper cringed inwardly; she hadn’t meant to embarrass or pressure him. But she had to admit, having someone to make her study would be helpful—Leo was no help at all and Annabeth had her hands full with Percy—and she couldn’t bring herself to say no to spending time with Jason, even if she should for her own sake.

“I’d like that,” she found herself saying, and his resulting smile was so bright she forgot all about the awkwardness of the previous moment. His teeth were so perfect and straight, he could’ve done toothpaste commercials, she noted. And his lips—well, Piper had spent plenty of time thinking about them already; they were a little thin and a little chapped, but they were so frequently pulled into a smile and looked so inviting she knew she wouldn’t mind the roughness if they were working with her own. She wanted to bite the scar on his upper lip—where had it come from? She’d have to ask him sometime.

Her eyes traveled upward then, following the gentle slope of his nose to his bright blue eyes. Piper usually preferred brown, like her own, but Jason’s were so genuinely captivating, fringed with long, blonde lashes, that she longed to drown herself in them.

That thought snapped her out of her haze: she wasn’t this much of a fucking sap, and she couldn’t afford to be thinking things that sounded like they were written by a lovesick thirteen year old. She couldn’t take her eyes off his, though, and she noted the way they dropped to her mouth as her tongue darted out to wet her lips.

He was looking at her mouth. And his eyes were different somehow—darker? Or maybe that was just the shadowy lighting, but either way he was definitely staring at her mouth and either he was going to stop and kiss her or she had something stuck in her teeth. She really hoped it was the former, because they’d gotten so close their arms were touching as they walked and his eyes were flitting up to her own and back down again, and Piper prayed, oh she prayed that she was right because she was leaning forward now so there was no going back and—

Unfortunately, staring prolongedly at a boy who probably wasn’t even into her meant that Piper didn’t notice the patch of ice she was walking towards.

She shrieked as her feet slid out from under her, the dark pavement suddenly racing towards her. She braced for impact, but instead of freezing concrete to the nose, she felt a pair of strong arms wrapped around her waist and hauling her back to her feet.

Before she could fully process what was happening she found herself pressed entirely up against Jason’s front, his arms securely around her waist and his wide eyes blinking down at her from behind his glasses. Her hands settled on his chest as they stared at each other, and then slid down to grip his forearms. Neither his hands nor his gaze shifted.

Piper swallowed hard before noting just how nice his arms felt, even through his coat. All those workouts and baseball practices had really paid off.

Jason’s cheeks were stained crimson again—he blushed a lot, and Piper adored it—but he started laughing.

“Yeah, uh, I guess they have,” he said. Suddenly his eyes went wide. “Not—not that you’re heavy, or anything. Because you aren’t. I mean, you’re like, average weight I assume? For a girl your height? I don’t really know, I haven’t caught very many people—”

Piper was mortified her comment had been spoken aloud, but thankfully Jason’s own stammering had shifted the focus off of her.

“What?” she asked, cutting him off with a raised eyebrow. “You mean to tell me you don’t regularly swoop in and catch people? And here I thought you were some kind of blonde Superman. It’s kind of a let down that you don’t save the day all the time.”

Jason grinned, a little sheepishly, but without most of the previous nervousness. “Haven’t noticed too many people falling.”

Piper’s heart hammered in her chest, and surely he could feel it with the way they were still pressed together. Then you must be blind, she wanted to say.

Instead, she stepped back, letting his arms fall away from her. She instantly felt the chill seep into her as though she weren’t even wearing a coat.

“Guess it’s just me, then,” she quipped, tossing him a smile as they headed toward the coffee shop again. They were nearly there. “Figures, I’m pretty clumsy.”

A small smile appeared on Jason’s face at that. Piper saw him attempt to subtlety lengthen his strides—attempt being the key word, because it wasn’t subtle at all—and reached the door first, just in time to open it for her, ever the perfect gentleman. “Hey, every princess needs a little saving now and then,” he said.

This time, Piper was the one blushing.

—

Piper McLean was going to be the death of him, he was sure of it.

Jason had never been great with girls. He knew there had been girls who’d liked him in the past, definitely more than a few who’d flirted with him, but he never had much interest. The only relationship he’d ever had was with Reyna in high school, and that had been short lived; Jason cared about her deeply but not romantically, and Reyna…well. Reyna had ended up dating his older sister.

Where was he going with that? Oh, he was bad with girls. Right.

So when he’d seen Piper across that bar in September, he’d nearly panicked. She was gorgeous, looking him up and down with eyes that were shifting color, and she seemed to approve of what she saw, but Jason couldn’t flirt to save his life when he was sober, let alone several drinks in. Luckily she’d been about as drunk as he had, so she hadn’t minded his inability to keep up with her.

Since that night, Jason couldn’t get her out of his head. She was beautiful and brilliant and funny, and they just matched. The more time he spent with her, the harder he fell, and he knew it would end badly because she was clearly out of his league—but that didn’t stop him.

Being around her and knowing she would never be interested in him was torture, but if it meant he could make her laugh and watch her re-braid her hair and listen to the little songs she made up under her breath when she thought he couldn’t hear, then he’d gladly suffer every day of his life.

They’d gotten the coffee and headed back to the library after the rather embarrassing incident outside the shop (he wanted to die a little remembering how he’d basically called her heavy, and that he’d stood there and not let her go like some kind of clingy creeper. It was worth it to get to hold her like that—it just felt right—but still. And had he really called her a princess in need of saving? As if Piper needed him to save her. Piper was more like a badass queen who slew her own dragons, so Jason really had no idea what had possessed him to make that comment).

In any case, they’d made it through the rest of the night without any more awkward moments, and now, at nearly 4 AM, Leo was finishing up his paper. Jason’s eyelids had been drooping for the past hour even with the enormous amount of coffee he drank, and Piper had slumped forward and fell asleep on her arms some time ago. Leo, however, somehow managed to maintain his ridiculously high energy levels, which struck Jason as a little concerning. Did he ever sleep?

“Okay,” he was saying now, his fingers flitting frantically over the keyboard, “what if I shifted this quote down here, and I could add something up here about the chemical bonding process?”

Jason shook his head to wake himself up. It didn’t work. “Uh, yeah, if you’ve got more to say about…about uh, chemical bonding, I say go for it, man.”

He looked over at Piper. One of her arms was extended across the table in front of her, and the other was bent next to it. Her head rested on them at an angle that didn’t look comfortable to Jason, but either didn’t bother Piper or the discomfort was outweighed by her exhaustion. Her hair was a mess, thrown across her shoulders and sticking to her face. Jason’s fingers twitched on the table, wanting to brush it back.

Even when she was messy and undone and practically drooling onto her oversized flannel, Piper still made Jason’s heart skip a beat. It wasn’t that she was traditionally beautiful at all times (because that was just unrealistic), but she was her own kind of beautiful, and it was the most breathtaking kind Jason had ever seen.

He must have been staring, because Leo nudged his shoulder and shot him a knowing grin that heated Jason’s cheeks. “I’ve got this covered here, if you wanna take Piper to bed.”

Jason’s face went full red at that. “What? I-I wouldn’t—she’s, I mean that’s not really—”

And then Leo was laughing, laughing way too loudly for four in the morning. “Relax, Grace, I just meant take her back to our place. This is basically all written, but I’ll probably stay a couple more hours to finish editing and then print it and turn it in while I’m up, so I’m not gonna be able to take her back. And I don’t…I don’t like her walking alone at night, even if she says she can,” he added quietly, suddenly more serious. Jason nodded in agreement. The idea of Piper going out alone at night on a college campus made his stomach turn. He knew how a lot of guys their age could be and wouldn’t put it past them to try something, as horrible as that was.

And the thought of one of them trying something with Piper made him want to punch someone’s teeth out.

“You sure you’re okay here?” he asked. “I can stay if you need more help.”

Leo shook his head. “I’m good now. But listen…thanks. I know this isn’t your ideal Saturday night, so, um, thank you.” He kept his gaze down, fiddling with his fingers like he always did, but this time it seemed more…agitated?

Nervous, Jason realized.

He gripped Leo’s shoulder tightly until the other boy met his gaze. “Remember what Piper said about us being a team? That includes me now, and I’ve always got your back, Leo.”

A grin lit up Leo’s face, and he shoved the hand off his shoulder playfully. “Welcome to Team Valdez and the Crew, then!”

“That name needs a little work.”

“What are you talking about? It’s perfect!”

“I somehow doubt Piper signed off on it, and I may be late to the game but I know I hold some kind of veto power.”

“Fine, we can workshop it. Later. Right now you need to get the beauty queen home, because if she stays like that any longer I’m pretty sure her arm is gonna lose blood flow.”

Jason chuckled and moved to Piper, trying to gently wake her. It took a few tries—wow, she was a deep sleeper—but eventually she stirred.

“Hmm? Jason?” Her eyes blinked in the fluorescent lights of the library, and closed again.

“Yeah, Pipes, it’s me,” he reassured quietly. “Come on, let’s get your coat on.”

“Coat?”

“Yep, I’m gonna get you home.”

“Oh. ‘S cold outside.” Jason had to keep himself from laughing at her slurred words. Half awake was as good as he was going to get, he supposed, but damn, it was too adorable for him to mind.

“Yep, that’s what the coat’s for.”

“Where’s—” she yawned dramatically— “where’s m’purse?”

“On your shoulder.”

“…oh. Hmm.”

Piper’s eyes were barely open, and he honestly didn’t trust her to not walk into a wall or something, so Jason hesitantly wrapped his arm behind her waist, gripping her hip to keep her pressed to his side. She immediately nuzzled into the crook of his shoulder and sighed, and Jason’s brain sort of broke for a moment. He stared down at the top of her head, his heart pounding.

That doesn’t mean anything, he told himself. Pull it together, man. She’s basically asleep. She doesn’t know what she’s doing.

So he shook his head in an attempt to clear it and started to steer her to the exit.

“Grace!”

Jason turned back a little to half face Leo. “Yeah?”

“Be careful with her. She’s more fragile than she looks.” The normal teasing lilt to his voice was there, but his eyes were serious, piercing into his own with purpose.

Jason nodded solemnly. He knew Leo meant more than just to be careful tonight, though he wasn’t sure exactly what he intended beyond that. What Jason did know is that he would never hurt Piper.

Besides, his own heart seemed much more at risk than hers.

—

Jason was living in a dorm this year and didn’t have a car, but luckily Piper and Leo’s apartment was only a short walk from campus. Plus, the longer they walked, the longer Piper was wrapped up in his arm, pressed against his side and nuzzling into him like a kitten.

By the time they reached her apartment building, the chill and the walk had woken Piper up some, and she was a bit more conscious of what was going on, but Jason noted giddily that she made no attempt to move away from him. In fact, she may have even pushed closer, but that could have been his imagination. Besides, it was probably just because it was below freezing and she wasn’t completely awake.

(He really didn’t mind.)

Finally he had to release her so she could kick off her shoes and shrug her coat off and fall into bed. He felt colder without her, and almost…hollow, like something was missing where she had been? But that was just silly. They were just friends, and he was fine with that. He had to be.

“Okay, well if you’re good I’m gonna—” he gestured towards her door, starting to leave, but her soft voice calling his name stopped him in his tracks.

“Just crash here,” she said sleepily, her eyes barely open. “It’s late.”

“Only if you don’t mind,” he said, but he was praying she would insist because it was freezing, and his dorm was on the other side of campus, and he was almost as exhausted as she was.

“‘Course not.” She yawned again, and her eyes drifted shut. “C’mere.”

Jason blinked, confused. “Um, I’ll just sleep on the couch, Pipes,” he tried to explain, but even in her mostly-asleep state she was pushy.

“Couch is lumpy and I want you to stay here,” she insisted, though her slurred words made her a little less intimidating than usual.

Still, Jason hesitated. She was so tired she was practically drunk, she could not be thinking straight. She’d probably wake up tomorrow and wonder what was wrong with him that he didn’t ignore her.

“C’mon, Sparky, I’m cold,” she pleaded, and when he glanced back at her, her eyes were open and clear. “Please?”

As Jason toed off his sneakers, draped his coat over her desk chair, set his glasses carefully aside, and crawled into bed beside her, he was cursing himself for being so weak for this woman. He knew he’d regret it tomorrow, but, well…he just couldn’t say no to her.

—

Piper woke suddenly. She sat up and glanced around blearily, trying to find what had woken her up. Her eyes landed on her clock. It was 7:28 on a Sunday morning, why the hell—

A noise came from beside her, a kind of strangled yelp, and she jumped. Jason was lying in her bed—Jason was lying in her bed, oh, God—Jason was lying in her bed—and he was shaking, a thin sheen of sweat glistening on his frowning forehead. His chest was heaving, and Piper realized with a clench of her heart that he was having a nightmare.

She placed a hand on his chest, feeling his erratic heartbeat beneath her fingers. Then she shook him gently, trying to wake him up.

“Jason,” she whispered, repeating it louder when he didn’t stir.

Suddenly he jolted awake, gasping, his eyes glancing about the room frantically before landing on her face and softening.

“Piper?” he croaked.

“Yeah, Jason, it’s me,” she answered softly, unthinkingly combing his hair back from his forehead. He leaned into her touch and her heart nearly stopped. What was she doing? It had been stupid of her to ask him to stay; he would’ve been fine on the couch.

He seemed to notice something was off, and he coughed awkwardly as he sat up. “I should go,” he muttered, not meeting her eyes. “I-I shouldn’t have stayed, I’m sorry, you were basically asleep, you—”

“I asked you to stay, and I meant it,” she insisted. It was the truth, even if she was kicking herself now for practically forcing herself on him. He paused and wiped the sweat from his brow. Together, they waited in silence for something Piper couldn’t name.

“What was it about?” she asked hesitantly. Her voice was small and cautious. “The dream.”

Jason’s head lifted and their eyes met, sparks lighting up Piper’s spine. Her nickname for him was more accurate than he realized.

But he hesitated, and Piper rushed to add, “If you don’t wanna talk about it that’s fine, I shouldn’t have pried, I just thought maybe—”

“My mom,” he answered quietly. “My real mom. She—well, she was an alcoholic, so Thalia and I got taken away from her when I was really little. I barely remember her, just bits of memories here and there. I was only two, so...I found out later my dad is some politician, barely even knew we existed, and his wife hated us so she made sure they didn’t have to take us. We were put into foster care, different families. Took us years to find each other again.”

His gaze hadn’t wavered from hers, and Piper could see the pain in his eyes. She hadn’t meant to make him relive something that hurt so much, she hadn’t realized.

“Jason,” she breathed, her hand finding his. He gripped it hard.

“She died,” he said, his eyes finally dropping from hers to settle on their hands. “Went sort of crazy and drank herself to death a couple years after we were taken away. I only found out years later, when Thalia told me. I never…I didn’t get to see her again.”

His hand was shaking in hers, so Piper squeezed harder. Minutes ticked by in silence, and she wasn’t sure how else to comfort him. There was nothing she could think to say to make him feel better, and it didn’t feel right to try to brush past what he’d just admitted to her. He’d opened up a huge part of himself to her.

Maybe that called for her to do the same.

“I never knew my mom,” she said finally. Jason glanced up at her earnestly, questioningly. She took a shaky breath and continued, “My dad’s a movie star and all so I guess it could be pretty much anyone, but he never talks about her and shuts down when I ask, so I gave up on trying a long time ago. He was never really around either though, with his film schedule and press stuff. He tried, for a while anyway, when I was little. He used to come home more often and take me to the beach, but I was always a difficult kid and pretty soon it was visits for a day every couple weeks when he could make the time to fly out and see me. Pretty sure he didn’t even want a kid, but he was stuck with me.”

Jason was watching her, studying her face openly, but she couldn’t meet his gaze. Instead she focused on their entwined hands, as he had done. Her fingers played with his as she talked, and she took comfort in the fact that he let her.

“Anyway, Leo and I met in middle school and he got me through it. His mom was really sweet to me, way nicer than the nanny my dad hired to watch me most of the time. That’s around the time I…I started acting out? You know, doing stupid stuff to get my dad to pay attention to me, even if it was just to scold me or whatever. Leo was happy to help, and after his mom died and he got stuck with his awful relatives it just got worse, and we probably spent most of our time in detention. It wasn’t enough for me, though, and it kept escalating, and I—I was in a really bad place, but my sophomore year I got caught shoplifting some clothes.”

She paused to look up at him, expecting to see judgement written across his face, but she found only the same earnest expression as before.

“It was dumb, and my dad’s lawyers got me off without anything on my record somehow, but I finally got my dad’s full attention. He flew all the way home just to chew me out.” She laughed a little at the absurdity. “It was really bad, and the next week I was at wilderness school, which was like this boarding school for troubled kids out in the middle of some bumblefuck Nevada desert.”

“Shit, Piper,” Jason said, “I’m sorry.”

Piper waved him off. “Please, even the racial slurs those kids threw at me is nothing compared to what you just told me, and Leo acted up enough to end up out there with me, so it wasn’t the end of the world. I just thought I should be honest.”

Jason frowned. “You don’t owe me anything. I told you that stuff because I wanted to, Pipes. I trust you.”

“I know. I trust you too,” she answered, squeezing his hand. “So now that we’ve agreed that parents are shitty, wanna go back to sleep for a few hours?” She forced a smile and hoped he would miss the tension behind it.

He studied her a moment longer, but finally relented with a nod. Together they lay back down in Piper’s bed and drifted back into sleep.

Piper smiled to herself at the realization that they were still holding hands.

—

The second time Jason woke that morning was not to Piper’s voice calling him out of a nightmare, but to her hair in his mouth and Leo’s loud laughter, which was somewhat less pleasant.

Apparently they had shifted over the last few hours so they were no longer holding hands; rather, Piper was stretched out face down on top of him, one leg slung over his hips and her head nestled on his chest, hence the aforementioned hair in his mouth. Jason had instinctually wrapped his arms around her, and he thanked every deity he could think of that there was no morning…issue to deal with. The situation was embarrassing enough without it.

He stared down at her as she came to, blinking confusedly in the morning light before meeting his eyes. She seemed to realize where she was then and shot up, Jason’s arms jerking back immediately.

Leo laughed again from the doorway, wiping tears from his eyes. “Jason, man, I told you I didn’t mean it literally when I said take her to bed!” he was giggling, and Jason felt his face flush brightly.

He was gonna kill him.

“Leo, get out of my room before I murder you,” Piper snapped from behind her hands covering her face.

Never mind, Piper had it handled.

Leo did as she asked, but not before blowing them each a kiss and winking at Jason.

The pause that followed was tense, unsurprisingly.

“Piper,” he started, but she interrupted him.

“I’m sorry, I was asleep so obviously I didn’t really know what I was doing,” she rushed, sliding out of bed and hurrying around her room, searching the clutter until she found a hair tie to braid her hair back with as she talked. “I wouldn’t have—I mean, I shouldn’t have made you stay. Sorry.”

Jason grit his teeth. There was the rejection he’d been anticipating since last night. It hurt more than he'd expected, but it was his own fault. He'd known the risks. He should’ve just slept on the couch. He should’ve kept quiet about his mom. He should’ve stopped her, told her he wasn’t trying to pressure her into talking, into anything.

He should’ve known better.

“No, I’m sorry,” he muttered, trying to mask the hurt on his face and bending to put his shoes on. “I appreciate you letting me stay. I’m gonna head out.”

She may have nodded, or maybe she didn’t answer, or maybe she watched him go. He wasn’t sure, he walked out and didn’t look back.

—

Piper didn’t hear from him for the next several days, and kicked herself every time she checked her phone hoping to see a message from him. Of course he isn’t gonna text you, she chided, you basically told him you regretted letting him stay over right after he poured his heart out to you, and you were cuddling with him when he woke up. You’ll be lucky if he talks to you again.

So Piper went to Annabeth, the only person she’d actually told about her feelings for Jason, unsure of what exactly she was hoping for.

What she got was a frown over the carton of ice cream they were sharing.

“You’re taking all the cookie dough chunks,” Annabeth complained.

“No I’m not. Focus on the real issue here!”

“The issue of you not telling Jason how you feel? Because that’s the real issue.”

Piper rolled her eyes; they’d had this exact conversation about a million times already. “There’s no reason to ruin the friendship we’ve got because my stupid feelings got in the way.”

“You seem to think you’ve already ruined it,” Annabeth pointed out, nudging Piper’s spoon away from another chunk of cookie dough.

“It’s been three days, what am I supposed to think?”

“Maybe he got busy?” Annabeth suggested. “Maybe his phone got broken or lost, maybe he thought you didn’t want to hear from him. Have you tried texting him?”

Piper bit her lip and focused very hard on getting a decent spoonful of ice cream.

“You haven’t even tried texting him. Of course not. Piper, I thought you were good with guys!”

“I am!” she insisted. “Guys that I wanna sleep with and then never see again, or that I want to flirt with and not have to worry about their feelings. But Jason is all perfect and handsome and sweet and suddenly my brain feels like it’s been zapped by lightning.”

Annabeth raised an eyebrow. “Well he probably thinks you don’t want to hear from him and is agonizing over why you haven’t texted him.”

Piper perked up a little at that. “You think so?”

“I don’t know, Percy said he was really off Monday but seems mostly fine now, just distracted. Sounds like it could have something to do with why he hasn’t said anything.”

Piper chewed on her lower lip, mulling the possibilities over. Either he was distracted by what had happened Sunday—though she hoped that wasn’t the case—or something else had happened and that was keeping him preoccupied. She just had to figure out what was bothering him, and then maybe things could go back to normal.

“So you think I should text him?”

Annabeth sighed. “Honestly? I think you should both wake up and realize you’re obviously head over heels for each other. But since neither of you is going to admit it apparently, yes, I think you should text him before it gets weird.”

Piper grinned and snagged a hunk of dough before pulling out her phone.

hey, she typed. Very eloquent. Definitely summed up the “please talk to me I’m really sorry and I miss you also I might be falling in love with you” sentiment she was going for.

But, having nothing else she could think to say, Piper pressed send and waited.

She didn’t have to wait long. Less than a minute later, her phone buzzed with an answering, Hey!! from him. Piper grinned, just as another message followed: What’s up?

“He answer?” Annabeth asked around the spoon in her mouth.

Piper nodded as her fingers flew across the keyboard. just haven’t heard from you in a few days, everything ok?

Yeah everything is fine, I’ve just been busy. he answered. Piper smiled at his perfect grammar. She’d tried to explain to him once that he didn’t need to worry about that with her, but he’d furrowed his brow and asked why she wouldn’t want the same consideration he gave to everyone else. She’d laughed at his seriousness and let the issue drop. She glanced down when her phone buzzed again. Are you still in need of a study buddy?

Only if it’s you, she shot back. It was a little risky, but she figured it was just a casual friendly remark. No hidden truths to be found anywhere.

Her anxiety mounted a little when the three dots showed up at the bottom of the screen and then disappeared. Was that the wrong thing to say? Had that sent her crashing through the thin ice she’d been standing on with him and right into hot water?

But no, his answer was simply, Tomorrow, 7 PM at the library? and she breathed a sigh of relief.

make it the coffee shop and you’ve got a deal

Sounds good. See you then.

Piper grinned giddily down at the screen. Everything was okay, and their friendship was intact.

She looked up to see Annabeth smirking at her from the other side of the couch.

“Shut up,” Piper muttered. Annabeth only shrugged and returned to the ice cream.

—

The “study date”, as Percy and Leo insisted on calling it, went smoothly, much to Jason’s relief. He’d panicked after not hearing from Piper for so long, thinking that either his storming out or the waking up cuddling incident had upset her, so getting a text from her was a huge weight off his shoulders. He focused on everything, including baseball, a little better when he was on good terms with her. It was dangerous, he knew; he couldn’t afford to let every disagreement with a girl he’d only known a few months throw him off his game, but he couldn’t exactly help it. He’d just have to settle for keeping her happy. (Luckily for him, keeping Piper happy was becoming a top priority at an alarming rate. Or…perhaps that was unluckily.)

Things had just about returned to normal between the two of them, and they hung like nothing had changed. Which, Jason reminded himself, was true. Nothing had changed. He just knew for certain that she wasn’t interested in him the way he wanted her to be. But he’d known that before. So.

Jason was just reflecting on this when Leo caught up to him, leaving the locker room after the last practice of the semester.

“You missed an easy shot at the end there, you sure you don’t need a little more practice?”

Jason raised an eyebrow at him. “What’s your average again?”

“Point taken. When are you headed home?”

“I’ve got one more final tomorrow and then I’m out. What about you?”

Leo looked down, his fingers tapping out an agitated rhythm on the shoulder strap of his bag. “I’m staying here, actually. Lotta money to fly to Houston, and I’ve got lots of stuff to work on here, so.” He shrugged.

“You’re from Houston?” Jason frowned. “I thought you and Piper went to school together.”

“We did. Piper lived at her dad’s little ranch house thing even while he was filming, supposedly so she didn’t ‘get sucked into the Hollywood stuff.’ Really it was because he didn’t want to deal with her.” Suddenly Leo glanced at him, eyes wide. “Shit, don’t tell her I said anything, yeah? I probably shouldn’t have told you that.”

Jason waved him off. “I won’t, but it’s fine, she already told me about her dad.”

This seemed to interest Leo. “She did?” A small smile appeared on his face at Jason’s nod, which seemed…odd, for such a serious subject. “Anyway yeah, we knew each other in Texas before we both got banished to the desert.”

“So she’s going home to Texas?”

“Nah, her dad sold the property as soon as she went to college. He didn’t use it, so no point in keeping it if you don’t need somewhere to stash a kid, I guess.” Leo’s tone was bitter, and Jason got the impression Leo felt about the same way toward Tristan McLean as his daughter did. “Besides, Piper’s only going to L.A. for Christmas because she has to, and then she’ll be back. We spend every New Year’s together. It’s tradition.”

“You’re lucky,” Jason commented drily, “my foster mom is great and all, but she’s a little…I don’t know, militant? Makes holidays kind of stressful.”

Leo grabbed his shoulders and pulled him so they were facing each other in the middle of the sidewalk. “Come back for New Year’s.”

“What?”

“I’m serious, you can stay in the apartment until the spring semester starts. You’ll still have Christmas with your mom, but you can have a little fun with us for the new year!”

Jason frowned, thinking it over. “I don’t know, Leo…”

“Piper will be there, too.” Leo wiggled his eyebrows suggestively, and Jason blushed.

“Are you sure she wouldn’t mind me staying for a couple weeks?”

Leo snorted and released his shoulders so they could walk again. “Please, Piper would love having you there.”

Jason started to ask what that meant, but before he could, Leo slapped him on the back.

“Great! Glad that’s settled. You’re gonna see Piper before you leave, right?”

“Um, I was planning on it, but Leo—”

“Smart man. Have a good break! See you at the end of the month!”

And then Leo was gone, leaving Jason with plans for the holidays and several questions.

—

“He what?”

Jason winced. He knew he shouldn’t have agreed without asking Piper first, but then again, Leo hadn’t left much room for debate.

“Yeah,” he answered once he’d swallowed the bite of pizza he’d been working on. “He kind of insisted, so now I guess I’m spending New Year's and the following couple weeks with you guys? I mean, if that’s okay with you. I can always tell him no,” he added, watching her chew her lip and resisting the urge to reach over and soothe it with his thumb.

“No!” she yelped, and immediately blushed. Probably remembering what had happened the last time he’d stayed with her, he figured. This plan was seeming worse with every passing minute. “It’s fine,” she amended more quietly, “I just wasn’t expecting it.”

“I’ll be sleeping on the couch, obviously,” he said with a dry smile. He’d hoped to reassure her, but her face seemed to fall, almost like…disappointment? But that didn’t seem right, unless she really didn’t want him there.

Her expression shifted almost immediately to one of excitement, though, and he didn’t have time to overthink anymore. “Right. It’ll be fun!” she was saying. “You can join in all our New Year’s Eve traditions, like drinking.”

Jason waited a moment for her to continue. She didn’t. “Oh, I thought you were listing things.”

Piper nodded, taking a sip of her soda. “I was.”

“So…?”

“That was the whole list.”

Jason laughed. “Of course. Well, it’s more traditions than I’ve got, so I’d be happy to join in.”

Piper’s answering smile lit up her whole face, and Jason had to swallow hard to keep his heart from jumping into his mouth. She was so beautiful it was just unfair.

—

As soon as Piper walked into their apartment on December 29th, she felt at ease again. Her Christmas had been stressful—which is completely unfair, by the way, it’s Christmas—because yeah, he was her dad, and he was trying and she got that, really she did, but she always felt a little on edge around him because, frankly, they didn’t know each other very well. It was easy for constant filming to get in the way of visiting your kid when you didn’t really want it in the first place.

So coming back to Leo, who always wanted her around and never made her feel awkward in the slightest, was an enormous relief.

“Hey, Beauty Queen, how’s it hanging?” he called from the kitchen.

“I’m sorry,” she laughed, “but I don’t think anyone has used the phrase ‘how’s it hanging’ since, like, the seventies.”

Leo only shrugged, abandoning his bowl of cereal to grab her suitcase and carry it to her room. “I’m bringing it back. The seventies had some great trends.”

“Such as?”

“Well, for starters, I could rock a pair of bell bottomed pants and one of those shiny disco shirts.”

Piper laughed and wrapped him in a tight hug, which he returned enthusiastically. “I missed you, Valdez.”

“Don’t be such a sap. You were gone for like a week and a half.”

“I know, don’t remind me.”

“That bad, huh?” He pulled back to examine her face. “You guys fight?”

Piper shook her head and started unpacking. “I’m just always on edge when I’m there. I hate L.A.”

Leo nodded in solidarity. “Wanna order pizza?”

“Obviously.”

Leo grinned and pulled out his phone.

—

As soon as Jason walked through the door on December 31st, he was treated to the sight of Piper wearing a blue bra, a beanie, jeans, and a single sock. It was in interesting look, but Leo was enough to distract him in socks, boxer shorts, a glove, and a top hat.

Jason was more than a little confused, but had the presence of mind to be grateful that Leo’s outfit was weird enough to take his attention from Piper in just a bra. That thought had the unfortunate effect, however, of directing his attention right back to her though, because Piper was in just a bra and Jason’s brain was sort of short circuiting because holy shit Piper was in just a bra.

(And the pants or whatever, but who could be bothered to look that low when Piper. Was. In. Just. A. Bra.)

Focus on something else, he told himself. Don’t be a creep. That’s super weird and predator-y and you’re not even dating. Yes, Leo’s top hat. Stare at that. Just focus on the top hat. He mentally patted himself on the back for pulling that off.

“Hey,” Leo and Piper called in unison, not even glancing up from the cards in their hands.

“Um, hey,” he answered, pausing to allow one of them to jump in and explain just what exactly was happening. Neither did. “What’s, uh…what’s going on?”

“Strip or sip poker,” Leo answered, laying a card down with incredible focus.

“Sorry?”

“It’s like strip poker, but you have the option of taking a drink instead of losing an article of clothing,” Piper explained, finally looking up at him. “It’s, um…”

Jason could swear her cheeks got redder when their eyes met; he knew his certainly did. Her loss of words made him feel a little better about his own at her state of undress as well.

“It’s our New Year’s Eve tradition,” she finished finally, looking back down at her cards. “Shit, Leo!”

Leo laughed triumphantly at whatever had just happened in the game.

“I thought your tradition was just drinking,” Jason commented, removing his coat and wheeling his suitcase farther into the living room.

“Didn’t you hear the drinking part of the rules?” Leo asked, grinning up at him from his seat on the floor. “Come on, I’ll deal you in as soon as this round’s over, which should be soon with the way Piper’s playing.”

Piper flashed her middle finger at him.

“You guys don’t think it’s weird that you play strip poker together every year?” Jason asked, running a hand through his hair.

“Why would it be weird?” Leo asked.

“You’re playing a game favored by couples and horny groups of teenagers because the purpose is to get naked.’’

“The purpose is to have fun and get drunk,” Piper countered. “Besides, we only strip until we reach our underwear. Then you have to forfeit or chug your drink.”

“I don’t know if I can keep up with these rules,” Jason laughed.

“Well you’re gonna have to learn quick,” she said, smirking. “Hurry up, Grace, it’s only two hours ’til midnight and I’m not even tipsy!"

“Alright, alright, but someone’s gonna have to explain how poker works because I haven’t played it in years.”

Leo and Piper groaned in unison, and Jason grinned as he took a seat where they’d left room for him beside the table. It was good to be back, even if he knew he was about to end up either drunk or naked very quickly.

—

As it turned out, it was a combination of the two.

By the time 11:59 rolled around, Piper had lost her beanie and her other sock, Leo was down to his boxers and top hat, and Jason was left with just his underwear (purple briefs, one of his nicer pairs which he was now thanking himself from this morning for picking out) because, as he’d expected, he lost horribly. He wasn’t nearly as drunk as the other two, however, as he’d had more items of clothing to lose and had to drink less to keep up.

He was exceedingly thankful for that as well, because he had no idea what drunk Jason would say to a half naked Piper and he certainly didn’t want to find out.

There were 60 seconds until midnight, and Leo was trying to get the other two to come out on the fire escape with him, insisting it was the best spot to watch the fireworks. Piper was laughing, definitely drunk but lucid enough to know it was way too cold for that. Jason was insisting Leo get back inside, that it was below freezing and Leo was going to catch a cold out there in just his underwear.

(Leo countered this by explaining he was also wearing a hat.)

There were 45 seconds until midnight, and Leo was attempting to translate Auld Lang Syne into Spanish. Piper was singing the English lyrics, since she didn’t know much Spanish to begin with and translating that was just too difficult. Jason was listening to Piper sing, because she had the most beautiful voice he’d ever heard, which was unfair because everything else about her was beautiful too, and it was keeping him rooted in place, just staring at her.

(Piper caught his eye more than once and her skin took on a pretty deep pink tinge, but Jason figured it was probably just the alcohol.)

There were 15 seconds until midnight, and Leo was beginning to count down, watching his phone to keep track of the seconds as they disappeared into the ether. Piper was warning him to be careful, that he was too drunk to be waving his phone around out there, that he was going to drop it. Jason was watching her inch closer to him, each second vanishing along with an inch of space between them until she was pressed fully to his side and his heart rate was skyrocketing.

(Jason was pressing closer to her too, he realized.)

Three, Leo was shouting over the railing.

Two, Piper was looking up at him expectantly through her eyelashes.

One, Jason panicked.

“Happy New Year!” the three of them yelled together, and Jason bent down, and Piper’s eyes fluttered shut, and he pressed his lips to her cheek, softly, so softly.

He pulled back to see Piper frown, looking almost disappointed. Maybe he wasn’t misreading signals then, maybe Piper really did want him to kiss her, and he’d majorly screwed up. But he wouldn’t let their first (and maybe last, if he really was just tipsy and she wasn’t into him at all) kiss be a drunken fumbling one for the sake of the holiday with Leo jumping around in his underwear. His brain was cloudy and he wanted so badly to press Piper up against a wall and hear her sigh his name, but he knew that she deserved better than anything that would happen tonight.

So together, shivering, they pulled Leo back inside and, after a bit of celebrating and watching whatever fireworks they could see, pushed him in the direction of his room. They all needed to get some sleep.

Jason found himself standing with Piper outside her bedroom door, which was across from Leo’s. She was studying his face, and had the same look in her eyes she’d had at midnight. It had Jason’s breath quickening, and his hands ached to brush her hair behind her ear or find her waist and pull her against him.

“What’s your resolution?” Piper asked, catching him off guard. Her words were only the slightest bit slurred, and her eyes were bright, the color seeming to change in the dim light.

“Haven’t really thought about it,” he answered truthfully.

Piper nodded solemnly, eyes still locked on his. Her voice was gentle, and soothed him even as the heat passing between them riled him up. “Wanna know mine?”

Jason nodded.

“It’s to go after the things I want,” she said, just a whisper, nearly drowned out by the sounds of partying and fireworks from outside.

“I like it,” Jason said. “Does it apply to anything in particular?”

Piper smiled coyly, and Jason couldn’t quite catch his breath. “Mm hm. But I think what I want can wait for another night, when I’m a little more sober.”

Unable to formulate a response to that, Jason nodded mutely again.

She turned and opened her bedroom door. “Goodnight, Sparky.”

“Happy New Year, Pipes.”

Her eyes sparkled at him, and then the door shut and he was left alone in the hallway.

—

Piper spent the first half of the next day hungover and hoping she wasn’t as obvious last night as she thought she’d been, and the second half regretting ever having made that ridiculous resolution because Jason fit so well with her and Leo and she really wasn’t looking forward to the awkwardness that would surely follow his rejection of her, but there was always a chance the heat in his eyes and the tenderness of his kiss last night hadn’t been a drunken hallucination, and besides, Piper had committed to going after what she wanted. What she wanted was him, and every time she thought about backing out she reminded herself that mama didn’t raise no bitch.

(You know, metaphorically, because she had no idea who her mother was and her father certainly didn’t raise her and the nanny didn’t put in much effort, so really it was more like…Piper didn’t raise herself to be no bitch. But that was too complicated, so she stuck with the original phrase.)

Actually telling Jason how she felt was a little more challenging with Leo hanging about—yeah, he lived there, but that was hardly an excuse—so before she knew it they were going to bed and she was lying awake, and then sneaking past a sleeping Jason to sit out on the fire escape, bundled in a hoodie and a blanket.

It was freezing, but the cold air helped her think, so she didn’t mind it too much. It was still pretty early for her, only a quarter past midnight, but the stars blinking down at her made it feel later than it was. A car honked in the distance. Someone in another building was blasting music.

“Jeez, Pipes, it’s freezing out here.”

And then Jason was sitting next to her, and it didn’t feel quite as cold as it had before.

She unwrapped one side of the blanket and held it open for him, letting him scoot closer and wrap the blanket around himself.

“It’s a good system,” she said, looking back up at the stars. “We can share a blanket and body heat.”

She hoped he couldn’t feel her heart pounding.

They sat in silence for what felt like hours, just drinking in each other’s presence and watching their breath turn to steam in the air, curling and entwining before vanishing into the night. Finally, it was Jason who broke the spell.

“Piper?”

Just her name, but it was enough to knock the wind out of her. “Yeah?”

“How drunk were you last night?”

She kept her eyes on the sky above them. “Not drunk enough to say anything I didn’t mean.”

He was silent then, but she could feel his eyes on the side of her face, watching her. She wondered what he saw.

“Piper?” he asked again.

“Yeah?”

“I came up with a resolution.”

She turned to look at him, and suddenly his lips were pressed to hers and the blanket was sliding down because his hands were on her waist, hot even through her hoodie, pulling her closer and closer and closer and somehow it still wasn’t enough, so Piper pressed back, one hand bunched in his shirt and the other finding his cheek. She needed air so desperately but she couldn’t pull back, not when his tongue was sliding against hers and she finally felt like she could breathe, and her hand slid up to wrap his hair around her fingers like she’d always wanted to.

She was practically in his lap now, nipping at the little scar on his lip, and she still didn’t know where he’d gotten it but she didn’t really care at the moment. His hands slid up, one around her back to hold her against his front and the other to her hair where it tugged on her braid, making her moan into his mouth. He must’ve liked that because he kissed her harder and his tongue dipped deeper and Piper had just about lost all presence of mind when she suddenly put her hands on his chest and shoved herself back.

She stared at him, panting, and he stared at her right back with his cheeks flushed gorgeously and his eyes wide. He opened his mouth and she knew he was about to apologize, he was going to think she stopped him because she didn’t want him to kiss her, and of course that couldn’t be farther from the truth, so—

“Jason Grace, how dare you have the audacity to kiss me,” she took a brief pause to catch her breath, not long enough for him to start to apologize but enough to scare him a little (she couldn’t resist messing with him just a tiny bit when he looked so adorably shocked), “when you knew it was my resolution to go after what I want, which is obviously you!”

Jason’s mouth opened and closed several times, but no sound came out. He blinked and frowned, and, “Um…what?”

“I was going to make the first move,” she sniffed. “I’d made a resolution and worked up the balls and even had a speech prepared. And backup speeches for different scenarios! I can’t believe you just ruined all those plans.”

Jason blinked several times, but a shadow of a smile had appeared on his face. “I’m sorry, I had no idea.”

“I basically told you last night.”

“I didn’t realize you were preparing speeches, though. I figured I’d save you the trouble with a resolution of my own.”

“You stole my resolution, too. Who’s committing plagiarism now?”

“Not true. Your resolution was to go after what you want. Mine was much simpler.”

“Oh yeah?” she challenged, picking up the fallen blanket to ward off the chill seeping back through her clothes. “What was it?”

“‘Kiss Piper.’”

She brushed back a piece of hair that had come loose from her braid—probably when Jason’s hand had tangled in it and pulled, she realized, the memory causing heat to pool low in her belly—to cover her smile. “Well that’s just…boring. Where’s the pizzazz?”

When she turned to look at him again, his face was much closer than it had been, his warm breath ghosting over her lips in a way that made them tingle deliciously. “I thought there was plenty of pizzazz. You need a refresher?” he teased.

Piper sucked in a breath. She had been far less prepared for confident, sexy, teasing, ready-to-kiss-her-stupid Jason than she’d thought, and it might just kill her. Trying to regain some control of the situation, she raised an eyebrow and said, “It still doesn’t make up for all the work I put in. Now I’ll never get to fulfill my New Year’s Resolution. I’m a failure.”

“Would it make you feel better to give me one of the speeches you prepared?”

“No, I don’t have one for this scenario.”

“You prepared for multiple scenarios but none of them included me kissing you?”

“I thought it would be at least another month before you made a move on me, Sparky, so no.”

“That stings.”

Piper laughed and nuzzled her nose against his, her eyes fluttering shut for a moment. “Can you blame me?”

“No,” he sighed, “I’m still pretty amazed I got it together long enough to kiss you. I’m sorry you didn’t get to give your speeches, though. You sure you can’t tell me one anyway?”

“I’m afraid that’s impossible, you’ll never know what I was going to say.”

Jason laughed. “You are a cruel woman, Piper McLean.”

She just shrugged, a smirk spreading across her face. “That’s what you get for stealing my moment.”

“How about I make it up to you?” His eyes were dark now, his nose brushing along hers and his voice deep. Piper shivered, and it wasn’t from the January air.

“I think we can work something out,” she whispered, and their mouths met in the middle as they reached for each other.

—

The first game of the season, Jason was third up to bat, and he was nervous as hell.

It was normal, especially for him. His nerves would decrease as the game went on, but that didn’t stop the shaking of his hands as he stepped up to the plate and took a couple warm up swings.

The first pitch veered to the left, just out of the strike zone.

The second was a fastball, and he was half a second too late.

He adjusted the straps on his gloves and tried to steady his breathing. This is normal, he told himself. You just need to pull it together and get your head in the game.

Great. Now I’m quoting High School Musical.

This, naturally, got I Don’t Dance stuck in his head, which wouldn’t even be an issue if Piper hadn’t made him watch the movies last week and sung that song at him constantly. (Not that he really minded; Piper’s singing voice was one of his favorite things in the world to listen to, even when accompanied by cheesy choreography.)

He glanced at the stands to his left, where he knew she was sitting with Annabeth, Grover, Hazel, and Percy’s family. He found her quickly, and she waved. His heart rate slowed, and the haze in his brain seemed to clear as he stepped back to the plate.

It probably wasn’t great to rely on her to keep him relaxed at bat. If they broke up, or fought, or even if she just missed seeing him play, he couldn’t afford to be off his game. He’d never had an issue working through his nerves before; he was sure he could do it without her, but it was so much easier to take one look at her and feel himself relax.

When he hit the ball way out to left field and made it to first with plenty of time to spare, he figured he didn’t mind relying on Piper so much. Watching her jump up and down, cheering in the stands, he got the feeling she wasn’t going anywhere.

#here it is #finally #jasiper #baseball au #otp: if i fall you're catching me #jason grace #piper mclean #fanfic #my writing #pjo #hoo

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