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lookforanewangle · 3 years ago

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hold on a little longer || spn || 2k || ao3

tags: blood, injury, broken bones, hurt/comfort, and forehead touches! also protective dean and protective cas

Between the spells, and the warding, and the combination of grace and Rowena's power, they thought they had been prepared.

Chuck, however, always seemed to be one step ahead of them.

or, Cas's grace is dwindling, Dean is dying, and both of them are too protective of the other for their own good.

a/n: inspired by this post by @letsboldlygomotherfuckers and @rainbowscas

also, I’m also playing in my hci verse here a little bit; all you need to know is that chuck turns to this universe after the show's canon (and yes, I believe in the chuck won theory, it's the only thing that makes sense), and tries to mix things up a bit. cas is introduced when dean is 13 instead of 28? 29? there are a lot of other changes, but those don't play into this scene, so I'm not gonna spoil anything else ;) this bit wouldn't come in until fic four or five anyway. idk if I'll ever write that far, but here's hoping!! (fic one is like.....a little over halfway done. I think. we have a long way to go lmao)

Between the spells, and the warding, and the combination of grace and Rowena's power, they thought they had been prepared.

Chuck, however, always seemed to be one step ahead of them.

"How?" Cas bites between waves of pain, arms bound tight behind him. There's blood dripping down his face, a shoulder dislocated, maybe a rib cracked, but his pain is nothing close to what Dean must be feeling.

Dean, who is just a mess of broken bones and skin on the floor.

“Because, see, I already know what’s going to happen,” Chuck says, pacing leisurely around them, tilting down towards Dean's unconscious form as he speaks. His footsteps are quiet in the vast emptiness of the warehouse, but each step seems to pound in time with Cas’s own injuries, pain driving higher at each step. For all Cas knows, Chuck could be doing that on purpose.

“Your brother will come racing in to save you,” Chuck continues, gesturing as he speaks, “and Jack will be there, too. They’ll make some valiant effort to save the two of you, try to beat me at my own game, but it’s not going to work. I’ve written every possibility, every scenario that could ever happen. Each one, I win. It's literally impossible for me to lose!” he says with a giddy grin, arms spreading out to his sides in victory.

Cas strains against his bonds, wrists tied much too tightly against the small of his back, eyes never leaving Dean’s too-still form on the floor.

“Dean,” Cas calls, but Dean doesn’t stir. His limbs are bent at awkward angles, the whole of him a heap atop blood splattered across the ground. Too much blood. Cas would almost think he was dead if not for the wheezing emanating from Dean’s chest at every shallow breath, every minuscule rise and fall. If he could just get close enough—

Chuck’s fist hits his face, and Cas crashes to the ground with a grunt.

“I never did get you figured out,” Chuck says, crouching in front of him. He tilts his head as he observes Cas struggle back into a sitting position. “Whatever changed, whatever you did in the last universe bled over into this one, and now we’re at the same end here as we were there. Well, almost. Close enough, anyway. You, grace failing and doing everything you can to save Dean, nearing death at every second. Dean will follow soon after, no matter what you do,” Chuck says with a helpless shrug. “It’s just how it’s supposed to go. Then again, if you hadn’t broken script…”

He trails off suggestively, and Cas’s blood runs cold. No. No. Dean’s coming death couldn’t— wouldn’t— be his fault.

“Dean’s not dying today,” Cas says, determined, voice gravelly.

“That’s not up to you,” Chuck counters. He reaches his hand out towards Cas and squeezes. Cas’s chest constricts in pain. He gasps, doubling over, feeling his grace ebbing further and further from his reach.

“Dean was always meant to die,” Chuck says, slowly twisting his wrist. Cas cries out in pain, tucking his head towards his chest, trying and failing to pull away from the pain radiating through every cell. “Even if you hadn’t saved him all those times, he still would have gone out in that stupid blaze of glory he was always glorifying.”

Chuck releases his grip on Cas’s grace. Cas goes limp with a gasp, limbs weak and trembling. Chuck hums.

“Wish I could just kill you now,” he says glumly. “But of all the drafts, killing you and Dean slowly in front of Sam and Jack is just...so much juicier. The pain is so much more intense when you make them watch. Especially if you're first. Dean watching you die just never gets old,” he says, fond smile on his face.

Cas wants to throw up.

“Well, then!” Chuck says with a sigh, eyebrows raised. He slaps his thighs and pushes to his feet, turning towards the entrance. “I’ll be back in, oh, however long it takes for Sam and Jack to show up. Depends on how they decided to travel here. There’s six different drafts just for their transportation. So, you know, don’t go anywhere,” Chuck calls over his shoulder with a wink. He snaps his fingers. Cas screams as his shin shatters. The door slams behind him and the sound reverberates through the warehouse, thunderous in Cas’s ears.

Cas takes a moment to get his ragged breathing under control, fighting down the little amount of grace he has left. He can’t let himself heal. He has to get to Dean first.

Dean is not dying tonight.

Cas grits his teeth against the pain, rolling over onto his stomach. He clenches his fingers in their binds and squeezes tight as he uses his good leg to push himself across the concrete towards Dean, biting back a cry as his leg is jostled. His brow furrows and he pushes on, refusing to let the pain get in his way.

“Dean,” he calls out as he draws near, desperate to hear his voice.

Dean doesn’t answer.

Cas pushes the final few feet and rolls to his side, heaving for air. He tugs at his bonds again, but until he’s able to heal his leg there’s no way he’s breaking out of the enchanted chains tying him back. He lets his eyes slip closed and leans forward, pressing his forehead gingerly against Dean’s bloody brow. He channels any scrap of grace he has left through that connection, hoping with everything he’s got that he reached him in time. Broken bones will heal on their own; he focuses his energy towards anything vital—damaged organs, severe trauma around his skull, and whatever else he can heal, remaining grace and breath leaving him in a rush. Dean’s wheezing has gone away at least, his breath steady and sure, and Cas sags, exhausted.

“Dean,” he whispers, voice weak. He pushes his brow against Dean’s forehead just enough to feel the pressure. He doesn’t have the strength for much else. “Dean. Please.”

Dean stirs slowly, and Cas fights with everything in him to stay awake. He has to make sure—

“Cas?” Dean breathes. Dean is still coming to, but Cas can feel darkness seeping in at the edges of his own consciousness, startling him back into awareness. Not yet, he begs desperately, blinking hard. Please not yet.

“Dean,” Cas answers, his voice so weak he’s not even sure that Dean heard it. Dean shifts against him. Cas concentrates on breathing through the pain, waiting for Dean to realize—

Dean inhales sharply and curses under his breath.

Cas is beginning to drift again, but he can hear Dean scramble into a sitting position, grunting against some pain Cas’s dwindling grace couldn’t reach. But he’s alive, Cas reassures himself in relief as the darkness grips him tighter. He’s still alive.

For how much longer, he can’t guarantee, but just for now is good enough.

Dean grabs his face between his palms then, fingers holding him steady, squeezing gently. Cas's eyelids flutter, exhaustion dragging at his limbs.

“No no no, hey,” Dean says in a rush, words quiet. Cas can hear the desperation in every syllable. “Come on, Cas, stay with me, man.”

Cas grunts softly in response.

“‘M here,” he rasps. Dean sighs, tipping forward to press their foreheads together.

“Okay,” Dean says under his breath, thumb swiping across Cas’s cheek. Cas is almost certain that was more for Dean than himself, reassuring himself that Cas was alive. Cas wants to reach up and grab him, intertwine their fingers, and assure Dean that he’ll be all right. But everything hurts, it’s difficult to breathe, and he’s not going to be awake for much longer; draining his grace like that wiped him out. Survivable, but dreadfully exhausting.

“Okay,” Dean says again, firm, shifting to move Cas, “let’s get you up.”

White hot pain explodes as Dean brushes against his leg, ricocheting into every other pain across his vessel. His back arches as he shouts, eyes clenching tight, teeth clenching.

“Ngh! Don’t—”

“Okay, okay,” Dean says, voice pained as he changes direction, lifting Cas's head into his lap. He settles and slides a hand into Cas's hair, brushing through slow and careful as he scans him for injuries. Cas is sure his leg is a mess, but the other injuries aren’t as obvious. Cas gasps, breaths shuddering in and out of his chest as he sags, the pain dulling back from the sharp flares at being moved.

“Are...are you all right?” Cas says as the pain fades to the background, eyes slipping closed as he rolls his head against Dean’s thigh towards his stomach. Dean barks a laugh, disbelieving, and shifts the hand in his hair to cup his face.

“Am I all right? Cas, you’re a mess.”

“Are you all right,” Cas repeats, straining through the tightness of his chest. He opens his eyes to look Dean over, searching for any sign that he's lying.

"Yeah," Dean says quietly, sobering as he meets his gaze. He swipes a thumb across Cas's cheek, eyes flicking back and forth across Cas's features. "Yeah I'll live, no thanks to you."

Cas exhales, breath rushing out in relief.

"Good," he whispers. "Good."

They sit like that for a moment and just breathe, pipes clanging in the distance. Cas shifts uncomfortably, arms pinned beneath him.

"Gotta get you up, Cas," Dean murmurs, apologetic, and slowly tugs Cas up and into his arms. Cas fights back a cry as he's shifted, Dean apologizing softly as he goes. Once up, Cas's head lolls against Dean's shoulder. He exhales slowly through his teeth, pushing the pain down and away as best he can. Dean presses a gentle kiss to his hair and turns his attention to Cas's wrists. He tugs at the bindings single-handed, his other arm holding Cas to him. He grunts in frustration as the chains only tighten at his efforts, Cas tensing in his arms. He shifts his hand to Cas's back, rubbing his hand up and down Cas's spine soothingly.

"We're gonna get you out of here, okay? We're gonna make it, Cas," Dean promises. "You hearing me?"

"Yes, Dean," Cas breathes. Everything hurts.

"Just, don't—" Dean takes an unsteady breath, fingers tightening on Cas's shoulder. He buries his face in Cas’s hair, eyes squeezed shut in agony. His voice is hoarse. "Don't you leave me again, Cas. Please. I can't...I can't go through that again. One more time and I'm done. I'm just done."

"Dean—"

"You don't have any idea, man," Dean whispers. "You have no idea what you do to me every time you leave. If I have to go through that again, I—"

He cuts off with a shuddering exhale. Cas's chest aches.

"Dean," he whispers, breathless. He presses his crown to Dean's throat. Dean tips his cheek against Cas's hair and sighs deep. Sam had told Cas in not so many words how hard Dean took each of his deaths and disappearances, but to hear it from Dean himself hurts Cas worse than any physical injury.

"I'm not leaving," Cas promises, voice weak from pain. He's fading again, clinging to consciousness with a death grip. He has to make sure Dean understands. "If we can...can defeat Chuck, I'm not leaving, Dean."

Dean's arm tightens around his back.

"I'm not leaving," Cas whispers again. "I-I want…I want nothing more than to stay by your side."

Dean shudders.

"Cas," he breathes. "I—"

A door bangs open somewhere in the warehouse. The two of them tense, breaths frozen. Dean scans the room for his gun, reaching out with his foot to pull it towards them. Once in his grasp, he pulls it to his lips, murmuring something against the metal, and aims it towards the sound, cocked and ready.

"Dean," Cas starts, but Dean shushes him, pulling him closer.

"We're gonna be fine," he says, reassuring. His eyes are steely as he waits, hand steady on the gun. "I'm not letting him take you away from me.

"Never again."

----

tagging some mutuals who may be interested!! @hashtagbravo @demenior @redriotted @leviathancas @starrynightdeancas

#dean winchester #castiel #destiel #deancas #supernatural #spn #hci verse #lyss writes #blood tw #broken bones #HERE YOU GO AAAHH #hope you guys enjoy :')#someday I'll finish fic one of hci. we'll get there. hopefully sooner rather than later

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lucys-key · 4 years ago

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Unexpected Encounters (Eren Yeager x Reader)

Part 1: Long Time, No See

An unexpected encounter one night reunites you with someone you haven't seen in a long time, but have also never quite forgotten about. (College/Modern AU).

Rating: Mature for now, but will probably change to explicit. (18+ only)

Warnings: Some cursing in this part, but otherwise no warnings. Let me know if you find anything else I should tag, though!

A/N: This is kinda something I’ve been writing for fun, haha, so I hope you enjoy!

...

It was the summer before your first year of college.

A summer that was a whirlwind of planning, buying everything you could think of that you might need, and saying goodbye to old friends.

You were equal parts nervous and excited. You were looking forward to getting away from the people at your high school, four years having been quite enough time with all of them, but you were also sad to be leaving the friends you had made. Anxiety about leaving home for the first time was also beginning to creep up as you got closer to move-in day. Needless to say, it was a stressful time.

You took a deep breath as you looked around your room. There was still so much that needed to be done, but it was such a nice day outside. You couldn’t bring yourself to focus on getting your shit together for school when you were missing out on your last summer before your first stage of adulthood.

Instead of packing, you walked over to the desk in your room where your phone was sitting and called your best friend Sasha. It was unfortunate, but you and Sasha had completely different interests when it came to academics, so when it was time to choose a college, you both ended up choosing rather different schools. Coming to terms with the fact that Sasha was not going to be there for you in-person everyday was perhaps one of the most difficult things about preparing to go off to college.

The line rang three times before Sasha picked up, her muffled greeting indicating that she was snacking on something, as per usual.

“What’s up?” she asked after swallowing her food. “Finished packing?”

You sighed and looked around your room which was a mess of boxes and clothes strewn around the floor that you were trying to decide whether or not to take with you.

“Nope. I’m procrastinating,” you said almost proudly. “This summer has gone by way too fast. I really thought I’d have more time to do everything.”

“Ugh, same,” Sasha groaned as she took another bite of whatever it was she was snacking on. “I take back what I said about wanting to further my education.”

You laughed and said, “I think it’s too late for that. Besides, don’t all freshmen get the unlimited meal plan at your school?”

Sasha squealed and you could feel her joy through the phone.

“YES!” she exclaimed. “And there are four dining halls to choose from. FOUR!”

“I’m happy for you and your culinary college journey,” you replied, feeling like you were really going to miss having your best friend around.

You heard a noise in the background that sounded like Sasha’s father, and sure enough, a second later Sasha said, “I’m happy for me, too, but hey, I gotta go. Fam requires my assistance.”

You nodded even though she couldn’t see you through the phone. “Go assist. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Alrighty, love you,” Sasha said and then hung up.

As you put your phone back down on the desk, you couldn’t help but feel a little sad. You only had a week before it was time to drive for four hours to your new home, and you didn’t know what to do with yourself. You still didn’t want to pack, and Sasha was busy so hanging out with her was also not an option.

Eventually, you sighed and stood up to face the inevitable: you had to pack, or at least organize your things. Before getting started, you walked over to the window next to your bed and looked outside. The sun was beginning to set, and it was still such a nice day. You pulled the window open to let in the warm summer breeze, and you heard the pleasant rustling of the leaves on the tree outside of your room.

After a few hours of packing, dinner, and watching Netflix, the sun had set completely, and you felt exhausted. You went to your dresser to put on an old, oversized t-shirt before going to the bathroom to complete your nighttime routine.

Once you were finished, you got into bed, pulled the covers over you, and soon enough you were fast asleep.

___

A loud noise.

You stirred in your sleep, not quite waking.

But then you heard another noise, and you sat up and opened your eyes, blinking them a few times to try and process your surroundings better. You looked around your room and didn’t see anything.

You felt a breeze and then realized that you had forgotten to close the window before going to bed. Deciding that the noise had been something from outside, you pushed your bed covers off of yourself to get up and close the window.

Only, as soon as your feet hit the ground and you took a step forward, you tripped over something on the floor and landed right on top of it. You groaned in pain, but before you could look to see what it was you had tripped on, an unfamiliar voice resonated throughout your bedroom.

“Ow, Jean. What the fuck?!”

You immediately froze. That was a person who just spoke. There was a person in your bedroom. A person you didn’t know, at least not by their voice.

After a few seconds, you got yourself together and quickly scrambled away from whoever it was lying on your bedroom floor. You stood up so you were looking down at them.

“Who are you?” you demanded, trying to keep the terrified edge out of your voice. Your eyes still hadn’t adjusted to the dark room so you couldn’t get a good look at their face.

The person moved, presumably to sit up, and then there was a pause.

“What do you mean ‘who am I?’ Who are you?” the stranger demanded back.

You scoffed. “This is my room dumbass. Get out. Now.”

Whoever it was in your room made a noise of confusion, and you walked around your bed to turn on the lamp. It filled your room with a soft light.

When you walked back around to the other side of your bed, the stranger had stood up, but their back was turned to you. All you could see was brown hair tied into a loose, messy bun.

“This isn’t Jean’s room,” they remarked and then whipped around to face you.

“Hey, where the fuck am I?”

You stood still as you finally got a look at the stranger’s face. Although it had been a long time, you’d recognize those bright green eyes anywhere.

“Eren?” you asked in astonishment.

Eren’s eyes widened slightly, and you were more than a little surprised when he said your name in return. You were sure after six years he would’ve forgotten it— forgotten you. You had been nothing more than classmates, after all.

Eren stood for a few seconds, but then his face broke out into a grin.

“Damn. It’s been a long time,” he said your name again, and as he continued to look at you, you were suddenly reminded of how you must have looked. You had only worn an oversized shirt to bed. Thankfully, it covered the upper half of your thighs, but you still felt yourself wishing you had more clothes on, as Eren was completely dressed in black sweats, a grey t-shirt, and sneakers.

As you looked at his face, you couldn’t help but recognize how much he had changed over the last few years. You met him when you were just twelve years old and in junior high. His child-like features had disappeared completely, and he was nothing like the boy you remembered.

For starters, Eren had grown— a lot. His voice was deeper, which was why you weren’t able to recognize it earlier. His facial features were also much more defined, his cheekbones and jawline now standing out. And perhaps the most remarkable thing about Eren’s appearance was the fact that he had chosen to grow his hair out. Your memories of Eren were of a boy with short brown hair and green eyes, though those were still the same, running around as he played with his friends at school.

You only let yourself look at him for a few more seconds before addressing the issue that had woken you in the first place.

“What are you doing here?” you asked, still so very confused about how he managed to make it into your bedroom of all places.

Eren rubbed a hand on the back of his neck looking slightly embarrassed.

“Oh, right,” Eren said and laughed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you or anything. I think I must’ve gotten the address confused.”

You almost wanted to roll your eyes in exasperation. What did that even mean? And what was he doing climbing into people’s rooms?

Eren must’ve seen your confusion so he continued his explanation.

“You know Jean, right?” he asked.

Oh yeah, you remembered. He had mentioned his name earlier. It just so happened that after Eren moved away during your second year of junior high—something to do with his dad’s job as a doctor, if you remembered correctly—Jean’s family also moved just across town to your street. You weren’t great friends with him, but you two had gone to the same high school. You also remembered that Eren and Jean used to be close friends before Eren moved away.

“This is my first time back here in a while,” Eren said. “Jean texted me his new address, but I’ve only been here like a day, and clearly haven’t figured everything out.”

Things were starting to make more sense to you, and Eren must have seen you relax slightly because he smiled.

“I don’t normally climb into people’s rooms, by the way,” Eren said, and took his phone out of his pocket to look again at the last text Jean had sent him. “Jean said I’d wake his parents if I went in the front door, so I should use the window since his room is close to the ground.”

Eren frowned and looked behind him at your own window which was still open. “Probably should’ve realized something was wrong when I had to climb a whole ass tree. That was exhausting.”

Despite everything, you found yourself laughing. You couldn’t believe that Eren had climbed all the way up a tree only to end up in your room. You bet he was just as confused as you were when he heard your voice instead of Jean’s.

You walked over to your dresser to take out a pair of shorts to cover yourself, and Eren turned away as you carefully put them on under your shirt.

“Why are you going to Jean’s at…” you started to ask, walking over to your desk to pick up your phone to check the time, “1:30 in the morning?”

Eren, still standing in the middle of your room, raised his eyebrows and grinned.

“Curious, are we?” he joked, and you felt heat rush to your face.

“Not really,” you managed to say, moving away from your desk to sit on your bed. “Just thought I should know why I was woken up by you at such an hour.”

“Fair enough,” Eren replied.

Since you were sitting on your bed, he moved to lean against your desk which was across from you.

“I’m staying with Armin,” Eren continued, “but Jean and I were planning to see some people tonight before everyone leaves for school in the next few days.”

After junior high, Armin transferred to a private high school, but he still lived in the area. You guessed he and Eren had managed to stay best friends even after Eren moved.

“I see. That sounds fun,” you said, but then added, “Although, I’m not sure why your friends like to hang out so late.”

Eren laughed, showing his perfect teeth. “I take it you’re not a night person, then?”

You looked down, feeling suddenly embarrassed.

“Just not tonight,” you replied.

Eren nodded in understanding. He looked at you for a few moments, and you suddenly felt awkward. He was still standing, and you thought you should invite him to sit or something. Was that weird?

You quickly decided that it wasn’t really weird, and you gestured to the desk chair and said, “You can sit if you want.”

Eren looked at the chair, seeming like he hadn’t even realized it was there.

“Oh, sure,” he said, but seemed conflicted. “Only if you want, though,” he continued. “I know I kind of barged in here, and I don’t want to invade your space or keep you up or anything.”

His politeness made you smile, and you found that you didn’t mind his presence in the least.

“No, it’s fine,” you replied.

Eren smiled too and moved to sit on the chair, his front pressed against the back of it so you could still see his face. Eren rested his arms on the top of the back of the chair and leaned forward.

“So how have you been?” he asked, your name leaving his mouth at the end of the question.

Six years was a long time to recap, so you just said, “Pretty good, although I have been stressed lately, as you can see.” You gestured to the many boxes sitting around the floor of your room.

Eren laughed and nodded.

“Yeah, my room looks similar. I needed to get away, and this seemed like a good escape, but I still have so much shit to do when I get back home,” he sighed.

“How long are you here for?” you asked, trying to keep your tone disinterested.

“Just until tomorrow,” he replied.

You were about to say something, but then Eren’s phone began to ring. He muttered “Sorry,” as he took the phone out of his pocket.

Eren turned his head to face the ground as he answered the phone, trying his best to keep his voice down.

“What do you want, horseface?” you heard him say as a greeting. You almost snorted as you realized horseface had to be Jean.

While Eren was talking, you took out your own phone and began to scroll through it mindlessly, not wanting to seem like you were eavesdropping on his conversation. You almost texted Sasha about what was happening, but then decided to wait.

After about a minute or so, Eren hung up the phone. You turned off your phone and looked up to see an apologetic expression on his face.

“Sorry, but I think I have to go,” Eren said, and he almost looked disappointed.

You also felt slightly disappointed but didn’t want to keep Eren from seeing his friends.

“Okay,” you said, and then looked over to your window. Was he planning to climb back out of it?

Eren followed your gaze and seemed to read your thoughts.

“Uh, would it be alright if I used your front door this time?” he asked, laughing shyly.

“Yeah, of course,” you said, feeling stupid. Of course he didn’t want to climb down a tree.

“Thanks,” Eren replied, obviously grateful, and he stood up from the chair.

You got off of your bed and walked towards your bedroom door. Before you opened it, you turned to Eren and said, “We have to be quiet, though. I don’t want to wake anyone.”

He smiled and nodded in understanding.

“Got it,” he whispered.

You turned the handle of your door slowly and pushed it open. With Eren close behind, you led him through the dark hallway to the stairs.

Unfortunately, your stairs were old and fairly steep, so navigating them in the dark would prove to be fairly difficult. You both made it about half-way down without a sound, but then you put your foot in front of you and accidentally missed the next step.

You felt yourself slipping, but then an arm from behind you wrapped around your waist before you could fall.

“Careful,” Eren warned.

“Thanks,” you said, and found yourself laughing at your clumsiness. In response, Eren laughed too. He still had his arm around you, and he was so close that you could hear the sound right next to your ear.

You breathed in deep as you were also able to take in his scent. He smelled like the outside, like smoke and the tree he had climbed, but there was also something sweet, like vanilla.

You heard Eren whisper your name from behind you and snapped out of your trance.

“Sorry,” you said, and then Eren moved his arm back to his side as you continued to walk down the stairs, paying extra attention to where you placed your feet.

After you successfully made it down without another incident, you walked to your front door and pulled it open. You felt the warm summer air rush over your body as you walked outside with Eren. You shut the door behind you so you could say goodbye without anyone in your house hearing.

You and Eren stood awkwardly for a moment, neither of you knowing how to say goodbye. What were you supposed to say? Everything you came up with in your head sounded embarrassing.

But then Eren smiled and laughed nervously, and you felt the tension disappear as it became clear that you and Eren both felt awkward.

You smiled back at him and asked, “Do you know where you’re going?”

Eren put his hands in the pockets of his sweatpants and nodded. “Yep. Looks like I had gotten the last number of the address wrong.”

You made a sound of understanding and were about to say something like goodbye, but then Eren’s voice cut you off before you could say anything.

“Hey,” he said, “it was really nice to see you.”

You couldn’t really believe the situation you were in. You had thought for sure that you would never see Eren again after he moved, yet here he was, standing outside of your house.

“Yeah, you too,” you said, and watched as the wind moved loose pieces of Eren’s hair around his face.

He smiled at you one last time before turning to walk down the pathway leading from your house to the sidewalk.

Before he got too far, he turned around and yelled, “Lock your window from now on!”

You couldn’t help the laugh that escaped you.

“I will!” you yelled back and waved at him.

Eren waved too, and then you watched him walk down the street for a few moments before going back inside your house.

After shutting your front dooor as quietly as you could, you walked back up to your room and took a deep breath. What were you supposed to do now?

You couldn’t get Eren out of your mind, still in disbelief that he had just been in your room. You had way too much energy to get back into bed. You looked around at the clothes on your floor and decided that it would be the perfect time to organize your things.

There was a sweater by your door with the name of your college on it. You picked it up and pulled it over your head before getting started.

Little did you know that in a few weeks, your life was going to become more intertwined with Eren’s than you could have ever imagined.

Read part 2 here

#eren yeager #attack on titan #eren x reader #aot anime #jean kirschtien #armin arlert #fanfic #annie leonhardt #historia reiss #ymir #reiner #snk anime #anime #unexpected encounters

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swiftie-miraculer13 · 4 years ago

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Last Day In Heaven Pt.3

-First- - Pt.2 - -Next-

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

She decided that she would go to college in a different country since there weren't so many things keeping her here left. Just Hawkmoth. And they were so close to figuring him out. Or rather... collecting enough evidence to prove their suspicions right. Marinette somehow has always felt that something was just not right about him even though he had been akumatized. By now the miraculous team was sure that Gabriel Agreste was Hawkmoth. They just needed more evidence.

But before that she needed to take Chat noir's miraculous back. He was no help anyway. They couldn't risk him ruining their plan. Tikki had told her about Chat noir's identity after she decided to break up with him. At first she was suprised, but now she just felt the same disgust for both sides of him.

Plagg knew about their plan on taking back Adrien's miraculous and he agreed with them. Even though he loved his kitten he admitted he has changed a lot recently.

Marinette sent Tikki to take his miraculous while he was asleep the other night and left a letter telling him that the miraculous was retrieved by the guardian due to his recent actions making him unwhorty to weild a miraculous , thanking him for battling beside Ladybug against evil at least for a limited time and wishing him luck on finding the right path in his life.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Lila had the whole class wrapped around her finger already and now she had Adrien too. She finally won . Sure it took more time than she expected but taking Adrien from that brat's own hands was so much more satisfying than anything else and oh how she loved that look on her face when she saw her kissing Adrien.

Now that she had a model boyfriend she could make all her claims on knowing those celebrities real and listen Marinette suffer all alone in the background. She was not done with that brat yet. But for now she would let her sink in the fact that Lila had finally won and she had lost.

~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~

When Adrien woke up the next day he was horrified when he couldn't feel the ring on his finger. He was about to search for it when he saw the letter. Huh? That was weird. And when he read the letter he was filled with rage because how dare Ladybug take his miraculous. Sure he hadn't shown up to the recent akumas but this was her fault for not sharing more information with him.

She was the one who defended him against people who called him Ladybug's sidekick telling them they were partners in fighting crime and equals. And when it came to proving that they were equals she refused to let him know more. She didn't even let him know her identity. Now that she was the guardian she could change the rules but she still used them as an excuse to not reveal herself to him.

Obviously she didn't trust him, if she didn't trust him with information he deserved to know, she couldn't trust him on the battlefield could she? And she couldn't battle beside someone who she didn't trust and neither could he beside someone who didn't trust him. So he stopped showing up to battles. Because of her. And here she acted like it was his fault.

He realized once again how Ladybug didn't deserve him, how Lila was right. And if she didn't want him now, he would wait until she regretted her decision and come crawling back to him.

××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××

Marinette had much more time for herself now that she didn't spend those times to make free things for her classmates or organizing birthdays, class trips (because they asked Bustier to change the class president when she stopped making free things) and she used that time to take commission from famous people Jagged introduced her to. She used to do that too but couldn't have the time to do so much. Now that she had the time, her fashion career was rising under the name of MDC and few people knew her real identity. She created her own website. They were starting to collect evidence on the Hawkmoth case . Life was good.

Well there were some exceptions of course... Like how she had to change her phone number because of the mean texts she got from her classmates because of how she 'bullied Lila' . At school they would call her names whenever they could. And one time she caught them just when they were about to harm her sketchbook so she tried not to bring her personal things to school . But it was okay. She would have to bear them just for a little while longer and she wouldn't have to see them again. And she was almost immune to their words by now . ........almost...... But it still didn't hurt as much as it used to did.

And it didn't hurt because they thought of her that way. No, it just hurted to see how she trusted the wrong people , to see how they were not whorty of any kind of trust from anyone. But she would get over it soon.

And she didn't have much time to think about them nowadays anyway. She was so busy with Hawkmoth and her fashion career. Everyone knew MDC, wondered who she was and even theorized about her real identity. They didn't think this much on even Ladybug's real identity!!! And she would reveal herself once Hawkmoth was defeated.

°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°

This chapter was a bit dull I admit, but you gotta sacrifice at least this much for the upcoming storm

and look i got a lil tag list! Yeayyyy!!!

tag list

@aestheticnpoetic @i-have-problems315 @kuroko26 @user00000003

#ml salt fic #ml salt #adrien agreste #lila rossi #last day in heaven #marinette dupain cheng #ml fic #tales of ladybug and cat noir #miraculous tales of ladybug and chat noir #chat noir #ml ladybug #mdc au #marinette is mdc

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thosewickedlovelies · 4 years ago

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Into the Woods: chapter 2 | Frankie Morales x GN!Reader

Summary: Instagram stalking ensues. Will you run into Frankie again?

Tags: no warnings AGAIN this is weird for me too but as mentioned I do have some smut planned for these two if anyone needs more incentive to read lmfao

Word Count: 2,783

A/N: As always, endless love to @yoditorian for this idea and her supervision of my writing about a social media platform I do not use 💗💚💗

Backstory / chap 1 /

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Later that night, Frankie sits at his desk, poring over maps both digital and physical. Where could you live to have traveled to the same point in the forest as him within a day? He’s hiked along the edge of his side of the woods, and knows that unless he’s missed some major construction, you can’t be there. So now he studies the other side of the treeline, looking at the closeness of the towns, any tiny side roads that could lead to individual houses like his own. But his frustration is growing.

There aren’t any. Not any within feasible walking distance, at least. And you hadn’t been grubby enough to have been camping. Frankie frowns, tracing the small highway which cuts through the forest. There, not far from the turnoff to his home, was a parking lot at the start of a web of trails through the woodland. If you started there and completely ignored the predetermined paths, heading a course straight for the pond...

“Huh,” Frankie murmurs. It wasn’t much further of a hike than his own. So that means you don’t live within walking distance- he shakes off an odd twinge of disappointment at that- but he does have an idea of your hiking range, if he felt like trying to seek you out.

He shakes his head. Don’t be weird. That was something Santiago might do- deliberately roam where he knew you regularly went in order to find you again. Frankie isn’t nearly so forward. His style is slower, less aggressive. What he’s already planning is his next cooking trip to the pond. Plants need water, and you forage for plants- he figures it’s a likely spot to run into you a second time.

Frankie hadn’t spoken to you again after you’d parted today. Only caught glimpses of you through the trees, from where he had dutifully remained by his fire. But at some point between the twisting of the campfire smoke from one way to another you had vanished, and not long after, Oso had returned to him, flopping down on her side with a satisfied huff.

He snorted. “Well, I’m glad you got to make a new friend.” Frankie rubbed her belly with only a little jealousy.

Now, feeling restless, he decides to upload the pictures he took today. He’s almost immediately distracted, however, by a string of likes from a new follower- concluding with a familiar photo of Oso and Gloriana. A prickle of excitement runs through him at a reference to foraging in the username. No way.

Frankie leans forward in his seat, straining for a closer look at the profile picture. A grin spreads across his face when the page finally loads.

It’s you. You, mid-laugh, perched comfortably up on a sturdy tree branch. He quickly scrolls down to confirm; but this is definitely you. Lots of photos of plants, and woodland that looks remarkably familiar. Your bare feet in a stream. A busy street at afarmer’s market, you smiling with a stall owner.

Frankie laughs out loud at the sheer absurdity of it. Here he was, worried about coming off as a mega-creep, and you’ve already shamelessly checked him out on instagram. He’s never hit ‘Follow Back’ so fast in his life.

You try to quash the squirmy anticipation in your belly as you pull on your pack, organizing yourself for the walk ahead. There’s no reason to get excited, you scold yourself. Even if you do see Frankie again, you still don’t really know anything about him.

You’d tried to stalk him online, but there wasn’t much information to go off of from his instagram photos. The pictures themselves spoke volumes, though. You’d always thought you could tell a little something of people’s personalities from what they posted, especially from pictures with their friends. Frankie’s main group of friends had a certain look about them- military maybe, a sort of cocky surety in their posturing. Despite this, they’re often grinning in candid moments, a relaxed, unself-conscious affection between the men which endeared them to you. Them, and Frankie. It’s a shame he doesn’t post more photos of himself. You recall again the sight of him in the woods, shafts of sunlight striking his expressive features, illuminating his kind smile and earthen eyes.

Then you shake your head. Too much time alone with your ever-churning thoughts have you romanticizing your meeting, when in reality you have no reason to expect to run into him again. He’d said he was out there all the time, but you’d never spotted evidence of any fires, or of a giant dog gallivanting around the place. Maybe he didn’t mean the pond specifically, but the forest in general.

“Argh!” Looking around, you stomp your foot in frustration. In your distraction, your walking pace had slowed, and you weren’t as far along in your hike as you should have been. Resolving to focus on your surroundings (because you won’t see Frankie again if you don’t get to the pond in good time), you splash some water on your face to refresh yourself and stride onward.

As you get closer to your pond, you slow down again, this time deliberately. All your senses strain for any sign of Frankie, but you don’t hear or see anything out of the ordinary. Then you smell it.

Smoke.

For a moment you panic. Is it wildfire season? Can you run away from a forest fire? Who do you call for this??

Then you smell something else- something familiar and edible- and you nearly pop yourself in the forehead. Of course you smell smoke, you idiot. What did Frankie say he did out here?? Cooked. You were literally just thinking about his instagram.

What is that smell? You have got to see this.

You step carefully to avoid making too much noise in the brush. Now that you’re looking for it, the gray haze of campfire smoke is obvious as it drifts through the trees. You give its source a wide berth, hoping for a chance to observe Frankie without him knowing.

Your wish is granted. You’ve come at him from the side, and now have an excellent view of his profile, his eyes narrowed in concentration as he stirs something in the heavy-looking pan in front of him. After a minute he looks satisfied, and retrieves the pan’s lid from behind him, arcing his arm carefully over the flames as he places it. Frankie sits back, a gusty sigh blowing from his lips. As you watch, he tosses his cap to the side, running his hands through loose curls and scratching his fingers across his scalp. You bite your lip in a smile at the sight of his moment of self-indulgence.

You scan Frankie’s setup and the area around him, searching for-

“Ruff!” The dog you were looking for crashes through the bushes beside you, and you yelp in surprise, automatically stooping to soothe her.

Dammit, how does such a large animal keep sneaking up on you?

“Oso?” Frankie calls. He’s standing now, still hatless, a few steps closer to you than where he’d been sitting. He glances uncertainly between the fire and your approximate location. You hear him try your name next.

You swear quietly. “No, not you,” you add to Oso.

“It’s me,” you reply, straightening. “Sorry, Oso got me again.”

The pleased, upward tilt of his lips reverses as he shakes a stern finger at his dog, whose ears perk happily at all the attention. “What did I tell you? No more accosting strangers!” he scolds, though he doesn’t sound the least bit upset.

With a expectant glance at you, Oso trots back over to him. Frankie ruffles her ears, definitively undermining any negative impact his words might have had. You regard each other tentatively.

“Hi,” you say lamely.

His face crinkles back up into a smile. “Hi,” he returns. “Fancy seeing you here.”

Every possible conversation you’d mentally practiced since your first meeting flew right out of your head. “Well, you know.” You shrug lightly. “A person’s gotta eat.” Inwardly you cringe.

But Frankie is unphased. “I’d be really interested to hear about the kinds of stuff you find out here. This is almost ready, if you don’t feel like foraging for your lunch today.” He gestures behind him to the pan on the fire.

You hesitate, and Frankie seems to sense your uncertainty. “Only if you want.” He holds his hands up in a universal ‘no pressure’ sign, even going so far as to take a step back in emphasis.

You tell yourself to stop being so paranoid. This is what you wanted, after all. All your curiosity comes surging back as the wind shifts and the smell of his cooking sets your stomach growling. “Okay,” you agree. “Yeah, that would be nice.”

“Great!” Frankie beams. He turns- and promptly trips over Oso, still sitting beside him.

“Fuck!” He curses, hands hitting the ground on the other side of his dog.

You clap a hand over your mouth to muffle your laughter. Is he always this prone to falling over? “Are you okay?” You make your way over to them.

“Yeah.” Now upright, Frankie seems flustered to find you so much nearer than before, his gaze flitting over you before he remembers himself. He turns to crouch by the fire again, snatching up his hat and re-securing it on his head.

You seat yourself a short distance away and observe. Oso has reclined on her belly on Frankie’s other side, her eager gaze fixed on the pan as he prods the food. Apparently deeming it finished, he retrieves three paper bowls from his bag and fills one each for you, himself, and Oso. With a small flourish and a nervous smile, he presents yours to you.

“Thank you.” You feel like maybe you should say something else, but he’s already moved to face Oso, murmuring something to her while he gives her her bowl. You decide to let the food do the talking.

And are glad you did when fresh, vibrant flavors flood your tongue. Your eyes flutter wide with surprise. “Wow, this is...incredible. How did you..?” You look between the steaming pan and his rucksack, unable to reconcile the feast of flavors in your bowl with how much you’d have to carry out here to achieve it.

The man blushes at your praise, gaze lowering briefly to hide his pleasure, but he looks back up at your question. “Trade secrets,” Frankie says solemnly. Then he drops the expression with a little laugh, his confidence clearly bolstered by your amazement.

“Just kidding, I’ll tell you. If-” he points his plastic spoon at you “-you tell me how we haven’t crossed paths before.”

That’s a fair deal, especially if it means you get to learn more about him. “I’ll do my best,” you promise. In between bites, you outline your gradual exploration of your surroundings upon moving into a nearby village a little over two years ago. This year, you decided to strike out into new territory- this forest.

“I found this pond pretty quickly and saw the blackberry bushes right at the end of the season last year. I’ve been coming here ever since, keeping an eye on it I guess. But this whole wood is really a gold mine.”

Frankie looks fascinated. “I had no idea. I know some plants, but I couldn’t even begin to guess what all is out here.” His mouth opens to ask more questions, but it’s your turn now.

“What about you?” you quiz. “How have I not seen you before if you’re out here ‘all the time’?”

“Well, I’ve been working my way over from the other side of the hill.” Frankie explains, gesturing to the gentle ascending slope behind him. “I only found this place earlier this year. Didn’t know it was someone else’s territory.” He offers an apologetic grin, and you duck your head, feeling a silly, pleased warmth in your cheeks.

“Anyway, I moved into my place over there about five years ago? But I had a lot to do at first. I made a ton of improvements to the house, I was starting a garden. The hiking was kind of a refuge from that at first, a way to quiet my thoughts when I was stressing myself out.” He admits this last part without looking at you, as if his stress is somehow something to be ashamed of.

“But then I realized that I actually enjoyed it, and it made me feel safer to know the woods in so much detail. So I made it a hobby. Started taking longer walks, mapping where I’d been. Brought whole meals instead of little snacks,” he adds wryly.

You laugh as his humor registers, completely engrossed in Frankie’s tale. He seems to notice this suddenly, and shuffles a little under your attention. “So that’s me,” he concludes, clearing his throat self-consciously.

Any foraging you intended to do today has long been forgotten. You’ve been sitting with your backpack on long enough that your shoulders have begun to ache, and you sling it off impatiently. Frankie seems to further relax himself at the sight of you settling in, leaning back on his hands, his empty bowl given to Oso to lick clean.

There’s one question that hasn’t been answered. “...so how did you end up on instagram?” you probe.

He laughs outright. “I wondered how long it would take you to ask,” Frankie teases. His lopsided grin suggests he knows the impression he gives off. His mirth is infectious, and you find yourself grinning back at him, although you refuse to be embarrassed. He was the one who had thrown his phone at you, after all. And he had stalked your profile right back.

“Well, I’m no photographer,” he begins. “But I like the act of taking pictures. Really stopping and looking at what’s around you, what captures your attention. I was in the army before this, and it was just in-and-out of so many places, not actually experiencing anywhere for real…” Frankie watches you from the corner of his eye, speaking slowly, as if reluctant to say something which might change your opinion of him.

“My friend’s wife- the one whose kid I’m godfather to- suggested I use instagram as a way to organize my photos, but also ‘so they know I’m still alive out here.’” He chuckles. “I kinda like it now- it’s like a public diary. Mostly it was a relief to find that I’m not the only weirdo out there who likes cooking in the woods.”

You breathe a laugh reflexively, but your mind is turning over his words. I keep an instagram, he’d said before. Like a diary. Well, that’s...really cute, actually.

“Well, that makes me feel really shallow,” you joke, unable to think of any deeper response to his unexpectedly meaningful answer.

“Nah.” Frankie dismisses your quip with an easy smile. He asks you about yourself, then. How you got into foraging, other questions inspired by the pictures he’d seen on your page.

For awhile you converse with the uncomplicated lightness of two strangers who know absolutely nothing about each other, but want to. As a dessert offering, you take out the tub of blackberries you’d gathered earlier. Frankie’s eyes widen at their size, fatter than any berry he’d see in the supermarkets.

His freely shared emotions- fascination, curiosity, delight- continue to confirm your impression of him. Safe. His mouth works as he savors the sweet fruit, lips puckering, head nodding in close-eyed approval.

You will yourself not to stare. Looking elsewhere, you glance up at the sky- and the angle of the sun sends you leaping to your feet. “Shit-”

Frankie startles. “What’s wrong?” He tenses, but remains seated. Oso jerks to wakefulness where she’d been dozing by his side.

“I’ve got to start back if I don’t want to be out here at night.” Hurriedly you check your phone to be sure of the time, your heart rate slowing upon seeing it’s not as late as you thought.

Frankie stands now to hand you back your container, still mostly full of berries. You pause. “Keep it,” you tell him. “Make yourself a campfire dessert.”

His lips part in surprise, but you step back before he can protest. “Or at least take them as a thank you. For the food...and the company.”

He purses his lips. “All right. I’ll save making dessert for next time, though.” He subtly searches for your reaction to his implied invitation.

Anticipation lightens your limbs, but you keep your feet firmly planted on the earth. “Next time.” You’re not sure you manage to smother the excitement in your smile.

---

Taglist: @thirstworldproblemss, @leonieb, @computeringturtle, @tobealostwanderer

#frankie morales x reader #francisco catfish morales x reader #triple frontier fic #frankie catfish morales #frankie morales x you #pedro pascal #pedro pascal characters #triple frontier imagine #outdoors insta frankie

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carriagelamp · 3 years ago

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Since it’s Pride Month, I decided this year I wanted to raid the library for a bunch of different queer books to read. Mostly graphic novels in this case, because I’ve had a hard time settling into much reading lately... thought hopefully now that it’s summer and I finally have my second shot I’ll be able to relax a bit more and dig into some heavier novels again. For now, enjoy some light, queer reads that I indulged in this June.

A Wolf Called Wander

A beautiful novel I had been hearing lots about. This story follows the young wolf Swift, who grows up knowing that he and his pack are the mountains, and the mountains are them. It’s in those mountains that he grows and learns and loves… until disaster strikes and he finds himself viciously torn apart from his family and forced out of the mountains that have always meant home to him. Forced to survive on his own. Swift then begins a gruelling journey that makes him face injury, starvation, and the everpresent danger of humans as he seeks a new place he can call home, and new people with whom he can form a pack.

This is all based on the true story of a tagged wolf known as OR-7, following the unbelievable route he took through Oregon and northern California! It was a very neat read, and I’d definitely recommend it if you enjoy stories told from an animal’s perspective because this book is a master class in it.

Bloom

I decided for June to try to read a handful of different queer books, and this was one of the first graphic novels I picked up. It is a super sweet story and the art is lovely. It’s about Ari, a boy who has just graduated high school and is now desperate to move away from his small town and his family’s struggling bakery, to join his band in the city where they hope to make it big. An agreement is finally reached: Ari’s father will let him leave, if he can find someone who can replace him in the bakery, which is how Ari meets Hector, someone who sees artistry and peace in baking. For anyone that’s read Check, Please, it gives off those types of vibes!

Boule et Bill: Bill est Maboul

Another book of Dupuis comics, because I can’t get enough of them! This one I just stumbled across and ended up reading on a whim but it was very cute. Geared younger than the others I’ve read, but still quite funny. It’s the charming hijinks of a young boy, his dog, and the family they live with. Each page or so is a different stand alone joke, a bit like Calvin and Hobbes except expanded beyond a single strip.

Chicken Run: Chicken Pies for the Soul

This was a ridiculous urge I got and had to follow. I recently rewatched Chicken Run (which is, of course, one of the best movies ever made) and felt the need to see if it had ever been novelized. Well, I found something better than a novelization! This is a chapter book with “advice” and stories written by the various characters, post-movie. It really does a good job with grasping the different characters’ voices and making something simple and funny out of it. It was very cute (and available on The Internet Archive if anyone else feels like reading something ridiculous!)

Doodleville

I picked this up on a whim and honestly, I shouldn’t have bothered. It was not very impressive. Very mediocre, awkward feeling artwork, and a story that only slightly manages to redeem it. The concept was kind of neat, and I did like how the ending came about, the rest was rather… plodding. I did not like the main character at all, her friends felt very Intentionally Quirky Aren’t We Cute :3 in a way that just tries too hard, and… yeah. Meh. It technically gets the “queer graphic novel flag” but it’s so in-passing that it feels rather excessive to give it that.

If you are interested, it’s about a world were doodles actually exist as living creatures that can be drawn into existence (the rather unsettling implications of which is never fully explored). This is all well and good, until the main character draws a monster and takes it with her to her art club... where it begins ravanging not only her doodles, but those of her friends. Together they need to work together to figure out how to stop this menace.

FRNCK v4

Phenomenal. I adore the FRNCK series, and book four wrapped up the first “cycle”, revealing several of the big secrets dogging the series so far, and changing how things are going to be able to run in the future.

If you haven’t seen me talk about it before, FRNCK is a graphic novel (a franco-belgian bande dessinée) about a young orphan, Franck, who’s chafing under the constant parade of uninterested foster parents that visit the orphanage he lives in. Determined to learn about his mysterious abandonment instead, he flees the orphanage… but finds himself tumbling through time, landing among a family of cave-people who rather reluctantly take him in and ensure this modern boy doesn’t die in the strange, dangerous new surroundings he finds himself in. You can get these ones in English as e-books, so if you want a really kickass graphic novel series to read please try these.

Haikyu!!

I’ve heard so much about Haikyu!! that I finally gave in and picked up the first book from the library. And I gotta say, it’s well worth the hype! This series really does capture the best parts of a good sports manga -- which is to say the team is filled with interesting, enjoyable character who all need to learn to pull together, boost each other’s strengths, and cover for each other’s weaknesses. Love me some found family tropes and this series oozes it in the best possible way. And then you also get some very cool action scenes as it makes high school volleyball seem like the most intense thing on earth. I can’t wait to continue it

Queer Eye

I haven’t been keeping up with Queer Eye but I was watching it ravenously when it first came out, and this seemed like a very cathartic book to read… and it really was. It had the same gentle, loving encouragement as the show. It doesn’t expect you to change your entire life, but to learn to embrace who you are, and take small steps to enhance those things. There a segment written (presumably) by each member of the Fab Five, explaining the mentality behind what they do on the show and how you can grow in those areas too. It’s very zen.

Spinning

I got this graphic novel out at the same time as Bloom, but it was the one that interested me less of the two... though that’s just because I have less interest in “real world” slice of life as a genre and this one is meant to be autobiographical. If you’re into that, you’ll probably love this because it really is stunning. Very pretty, and the format and pacing is all really well done. It’s a coming of age story for Tillie as she grows up dealing with a crosscountry move, complicated friendships, a burgeoning attraction to girls, and attending competitive figure skating classes.

This Place: 150 Years Retold

A stunning and heart-wrenching graphic novel told by a collection of different First Nation’s authors/artists, recounting oral histories about the 150 years since the colonialist formation of the country known as “Canada”. In other words, this is a post-apocalypse story, but one that really happened and that entire peoples are still fighting to survive. It’s very eye opening and beautifully told. Very strongly recommend the read, especially if you’re at all interested in history.

Torchwood: Serenity

Whoops, not technically a book. I had thought these were technically audiobooks at first, but rather they’re audio dramas that were played on the radio. Still, I decided to include one because I’ve been listening to them like a person possessed and they’re too fun not to at least mention. Let me indulge in my obsessions.

If you don’t know Torchwood, it’s a BBC series that spins-off from Doctor Who, focusing on the enigmatic and flirtatious Captain Jack Harkness, who is running the covert organization known as Torchwood, which is tasked to protect humanity from and prepare them for alien contact. It’s goofy and campy but also more adult and heavy than Doctor Who tends to get, so it is (in my opinion) a really fascinating series. Though it also has content warnings coming out the wazoo so maybe make sure it’s for you before delving in.

Serenity specifically is possibly one of the best Torchwood stories I’ve ever experienced. The Torchwood team concludes that there’s an undercover alien hiding in the idyllic gated community Serenity Plaza, and so that means it’s up to Jack and Ianto to go undercover as a happily married couple and flush out the alien without being discovered first. Even if it means being sickly sweet together, pretending to care about the local neighbourhood barbecues, and actually caring a bit too much about the Best Front Lawn competition. What is truly magical about this one, is that it manages to make it a Fake Dating AU despite the fact that Jack and Ianto are actually dating in canon. But they’re both used to dating as a pair of alien hunters with insanely dysfunctional lives, and who now need to figure out how to deal with domesticity. It is marvellous.

Wilderlore: The Accidental Apprentice

A middle grade novel that felt a bit like a cross between Harry Potter and Pokemon. It’s about orphan Barclay Thorne who wants nothing more than to be accepted in the rule-bound village of Dullshire, and live up to his apprenticeship as a mushroom farmer. He certainly wants nothing to do with the fearsome Beasts who live beyond the village, deep in the Woods or the sinister Lorekeepers that bond with them. It was, after all, a Beast that had killed his parents all those years ago. But when he finds himself at the very edge of the forest, hunting for an elusive mushroom, he is suddenly unable to avoid any of that. Not when a wild girl and her bonded dragon appear to summon a horrible Beast and end up getting Barclay bonded to it instead. Now, if Barclay ever wants to be welcomed back into his home, he has no choice but to venture into the Woods and find a way to sever the bond imprisoning him to the massive, monstrous wolf now imprinted on his body as a living tattoo.

I honestly can’t decide how I felt about this one. I feel like it’d be a really fun read for maybe a grade 5 to 7 student? I was a bit more meh about it. It was fine, but it was very hard not to draw unfavourable parallels to Harry Potter. But for a kid who’s never read Harry Potter? Or even an adult that has but is looking for something different to scratch that itch, this might be a good book to try. I’ll probably try reading the second book when it comes out.

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chandelier-s-notebook · 3 years ago

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Yoo! I’m back in with an 11 Chapter (subject to change) story. This was made for the TWB Fic Flip, unfortunately I wasn’t able to finish the whole thing by the deadline, but chap 1 is out.

Let me know if you wanna get tagged when I post new chapters. @sleepysnails.

Ao3 Link

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Techno Blade strode into the old gas station on the corner opposite the local mall. He winced at the harsh fluorescent lighting that welcomed him in from the crisp evening air.

He lowered his hood and ran his fingers through his short pink hair. His roots were coming in, he’d need to grab some dye as well tonight. Taking off his backpack, he began placing items in--trying to fit as much as possible: beef jerky, canned peaches, chocolate bars, a couple energy drinks a pack of Tic Tacs, and some box dye from the ends of the isle.

Techno glanced at the cashier. He liked when Tango was on shift; that guy didn’t give a shit about anything and cared more about Clash of Clans than whatever thievery Techno was doing whenever he came by.

“You plan on paying for that stuff?” Tango shouted across the room, still immersed in his game. “You know I don’t get commission if you steal it?”

“Of course!” Techno called back. He snorted to himself, it said a lot about his life that he and the cashier could joke about him stealing from the store. Techno grabbed another bag of beef jerky, slipping it into his steadily filling backpack. He heard the ding of Tango opening the till and the sound of coins splattering on the counter. “For Tommy,” he muttered, reminding himself why he was risking a criminal record.

There was an emergency exit he knew he could use down by the bathrooms. Techno studied the monitor that was supposed to display feeds from the four security cameras, but those were still busted from when those college seniors ransacked the place the week prior. Four different static patterns danced back at him. At least that would make his escape easier, not that Tango couldn’t point him out in a line up.

He grabbed a pack of gummy worms and put them at the top of his bag. “For Tommy to share with his friends.” He smiled to himself. Gosh he was going soft for the kid.

“Get down!” The front door was kicked open with so much force that the previously fractured glass shattered upon impact with the wall. “Hands where I can see them!” a male voice yelled.

Techno didn’t do that, his confrontation response telling him to stay put and out of it rather than submitting. Instead he crouched down and leaned his back against the aisle shelves, peaking out towards the counter. There were two guys pointing guns at Tango; one was ginger, black jacket, medium height, orange bandana peaking over his collar; the other was taller, but he was also less confident in his stance, blond, and he was wearing a purple sweatshirt--one that Techno was certain he had seen a thousand times before.

“Guys guys,” Tango said, trying to placate them. “I’m in the middle of something. Can this wait?”

“No. No it can’t,” he voice said again, clearly put off by Tango’s causal demeanor.

“Really? Cause I gotta get back to my Clan War…” he trailed off.

“Aren’t there more important things than a Clan War right now?” a new voice asked.

A voice that Techno recognized. If he thought the hoodie gave it away then the voice was the nail in the coffin. He let out an involuntary “Why?” before he could stop himself.

All three heads turn to him. “Like I said, in the middle of something; there’s a customer here.” Tango spoke slowly, as if the situation was finally dawning on him.

The ginger turned his gun towards the store. “Show yourself!” he demanded.

“Isn’t this place a little low profile for Las Nevadas?” Techno tried to joke. Eyes darting towards the door, Techno put his hands up. “I’m just shopping.”

“Not you’re not.” Fundy Soot smiled menacingly. “We’re doing a robbery, if you couldn’t tell. Take what you need and scram. Don’t call the cops either.”

“Got it.” Once Fundy turned his attention back to Tango, Techno grabbed a pack of M&Ms and shoved them in his backpack as well. He leaned down to zip it up, before tossing it over his shoulder and snagging a tube of toothpaste on his way out. Sue him, he needed a refill.

Techno carefully stepped over the shattered glass, and made his way out of the building. He regretted leaving Tango to deal with the gang, but sometimes he needed to put himself first. Always. Always put himself first. Techno vaguely wonders if he’s ever actually bought anything from this gas station.

“It’s immoral to steal,” yet another voice from the left side of the door called.

Techno whipped around and took in the man next to him. Techno first took notice of the red fabric folded neatly into a handkerchief pocket: a bandana. “You with those guys?” he asked, taking a step back.

“Maybe I am. Maybe I’m not.”

“Then why aren’t you calling this in?”

“Why aren’t you?” the man countered.

Techno gave him a sarcastic look, the sides of his mouth twitching in displeasure. “Because the guy with the gun told me to run, so excuse me.” He pivoted to make his escape.

“Say I said I was with those guys,” he said before Techno could make his escape. “What would you do?”

“I would assume you are Wilbur Soot. Brown trench coats and fluffy hair are the signature look of that guy. Looks like you’re watching over your brother and the new kid.” He shifted uneasily on his feet, ready to bolt. “Las Nevadas, saw the marker, figured it was polite to ask.”

Wilbur nodded, a gleeful smile taking over his face. He held out his hand. “Gimme the bag.”

“I need this.”

“Give it here.”

“Please,” Techno said, taking another step closer to his car. “Why do you need to take my stuff? You have two guys in there with guns.”

“That’s different.”

“How?”

Wilbur opened his palm, getting impatient. “I just want the M&Ms, kid.”

Techno glared at him, but he nonetheless opened his bag and handed them to the man. At least he could keep everything else in the bag.

“Thanks.” Wilbur ripped open the packaging and tipped his head back, sliding half of the bag into his mouth.

Techno took a tentative step back and waited a second for Wilbur to wave him off. “Hope Tango’s okay,” he muttered to himself on the brisk, stiff walk back to his car.

He threw the bag into the passenger seat and rested his head against the steering wheel--trying to slow down his beating heart--for thirty seconds before remembering that there was a robbery taking place ten meters from him, and he did not want to deal with the police.

Techno snorted to himself, and turned on the engine. As if he hadn’t gone in there with the express purpose of stealing.

He sighed deeply as he took stock of himself. He didn’t get shot--which was great. He also had a lot more food to add to his stash. His and Tommy’s stash.

Techno groaned out loud. Tommy. The person in the purple sweatshirt was definitely the kid’s friend Purpled and now he was going around robbing gas stations with Las Nevadas. “Why? It could have been anything else, but no: he just had to go and join a gang.” Techno slammed on the gas pedal more than was necessary. Techno parked his car a couple streets away from his foster home. He waited for a few minutes to collect himself. “Eleven thirty,” he read off the car’s dashboard. “Gonna have to use the window.”

He arrived at the house. Through the ground floor window he could see that the lights were on at the back of the house. The house he was in is quite old, and he’d managed to snag a room in the attic with a bay window jutting out the side of the roof. He’d had it for as long as he could remember, in fact the Foster Bitch’s was the only house he’d ever had the displeasure of living in.

Unfortunately, Techno was in the circumstance of having had to do this a hundred times. He hopped up one of the columns holding the overhang above the porch, feet slotting into familiar grooves. Swinging himself up on the shingles and quickly making his way to the concave corner of the building, he used his momentum to push himself up the next two stories. Finding the familiar scruff marks on the window frame, he hoisted himself up to the top of the roof.

Techno looked out at the street below, it was a nice few all things considered. He went to open the window.

Locked.

Right. It had been storming the night before and he forgot to open it in his rush to get to school that morning.

Techno looked up at the sky. It was nice out, and he wasn’t one to be bothered about sleeping in day clothes--better than facing the wrath of the Foster Bitch for entering the house at such a late hour. He’d have to sleep on the side facing the backyard, he remembered what happened last time he slept on the roof.

Techno knocked on the window. Yes, Tommy should be asleep right now, but it didn’t hurt to check. After a minute he knocked once more.

Techno smiled at Tommy through the glass when the kid finally dragged himself out of bed to let his roommate in. The blond stuck out his tongue and opened the window. “Evening Blade,” he whispered. “What brings you back so late?”

“Sleep,” Techno said, slipping into the room. He snorted at the sleepy, unamused look Tommy gave him. “Stuff. Did you eat?”

“No. The other kids got to it first.” Tommy closed the window behind them, leaving the latch unlocked. “Like always.”

Techno hummed and unzipped his bag. He dumped the contents out and started organizing them.

“How did you get that?”

“Don’t worry about it.” Techno dug through the pile and pulled out a pack of beef jerky. He tossed it in the general direction of Tommy’s head. “Leave a slice for me.”

Tommy caught the bag and quickly tore it open. He watched Techno disperse the food around their shared room, taking note where each item would be. “Techno?” he called in a small voice.

“I know, Tommy. I’m careful.”

Tommy’s shoulders relaxed slightly. “Techno if you’re caught they’re going to send you away!” he said, still a little distressed. “Then how am I going to survive here?”

“I won’t get caught.” Techno reassured him. “And if I do, I’m not getting sent away. If that was the case I’d have been gone before you even showed up here last year.” Techno hummed; he remembered that party. Some kid he’d never spoken to couldn’t afford to lose their scholarship so little seventh grade Techno had taken the blame for the alcohol serving party held at the house that night. He chuckled as he remembered gaslighting the whole community that it was his idea, not his finest moment, but one he was proud of nonetheless.

Being barred from the dinner buffet for two weeks had been worth the reputation points. Plus, he learnt valuable hoarding skills in that time. The Foster Bitch was fine--all things considered--but she was under the impression that if she put out a bunch of food on the table, everyone would get an equal portion in the mad dash for sustenance.

That wasn't the case. Techno could get food just fine, but Tommy was a gangly fourteen year old with too much height and not enough bulk; it was virtually impossible for him to grab food off the table.

“I’m not going to get caught.” Techno said putting the gummy worms on Tommy’s night stand. He held out his pinky, “I promise. I’m safe.”

“Techno,” Tommy whined, unhappy with the response--ignoring Techno’s hand. “That stash is bigger than normal.”

“I know.”

“Techno.”

“The cashier was busy with something else.”

Tommy’s voice took on a colder tone. “Techno.”

“Tommy.”

“What was the cashier busy with?”

“Stuff.”

Tommy huffed. “It wasn’t a Dream Team thing was it? You shouldn’t be hanging out with them.”

Techno snorted. “I’m older than you. Aren’t I the one who’s supposed to tell you to stop hanging out with the wrong crowd? Dream’s fine. Besides, you hang out with his little brother.”

“Well yeah!” Tommy’s voice got defensive. “But Tubbo’s Tubbo. Dream’s in the news for stealing and shit.” Tommy munched on his jerky angrily, even if he was going to stay oblivious: they both knew that Techno didn’t have the money to pay for this. Tommy dropped the friend’s point and moved to double down on the previous one. “What was the cashier busy with?”

“Stuff. Not Dream. Not death. Just stuff okay?”

“Not death?”

“Not death,” Techno agreed sagely.

“You aren’t going to tell me?”

Techno took off his hoodie and belt, but otherwise didn’t bother with pajamas. “Nope.” He settled into bed and held out his hand for Tommy to pass him the food.

Tommy stared him dead in the eye as he ate the last piece of beef jerky from that particular package. Techno rolled his eyes, but he understood; Tommy had heard that from Techno before: the not explaining where he’d been. He knew not to bother his foster brother, but that didn’t mean he had to be happy about it.

The next morning Techno and Tommy didn’t bother going to the kitchen for breakfast. Instead, they ate last night’s stolen granola bars in the comfort of their dingy penthouse suite--attic room--and listened to the thundering feet of the ten other foster’s in the house racing to get some food.

“If you want another, then take another.” It had taken a long time for Techno to teach Tommy that it was safe to take food from his stash; as far as he was concerned it was their stash. Hopefully, Tommy would stop feeling guilty about not asking, although that didn’t seem like it was happening any time soon.

Tommy sent him a half smile and scoffed down another bar. The two of them got ready for school, and were soon in Techno’s car. It was a ten minute drive to the high school, and Tommy sang along with the radio at the top of his lungs. It would be endearing if Techno wasn’t socially exhausted from the extrovert living in his room.

“I’m on top of the world, eh!” Tommy shouted, flipping off their foster siblings waiting at the bus station.

“Tommy.”

“What?”

“Don’t be a dick.”

“ I’m on top of the world! ”

Techno kept his smile to himself.

He rolled the car to a stop in the school parking lot. Before Tommy could open the door and vault out, Techno spoke. “Today’s a ‘going to Bad’s after school’ type of day.”

“What? Why?”

“Hanging out with Dream.”

Tommy’s face soured.

“Come on, don't be like that.”

“It’s not that I don’t like Bad. I just don’t like Dream. He’s bad news, and in the news.”

“It’s just an English project. We need to make a PowerPoint on something or other.”

“Okay,” Tommy said stiffly.

“I don’t police your friends. You don’t police mine.”

“Tubbo’s not in the news. Neither is Purpled. And you can’t complain about Ranboo.”

Techno thinks back to last night with the Soot brothers and the new kid in a purple sweatshirt. “Put a pin in Purpled.”

“No!” Tommy looked appalled at the insinuation Techno just made about his friend. “Have some faith. Tubbo and Purpled won’t turn out like their older brothers. Crime isn’t a gene that runs in families!”

Techno smiled sadly. “I hope not. Get out.”

“What do you mean ‘put a pin in Purpled?’” Tommy demanded.

Techno shrugged him off. “Text me if you leave Bad’s, I’ll come pick you up later.”

Tommy harshly pulled at the car door. “Tubbo won’t be like Dream, and Purpled won’t be like Punz.”

“I never said Purpled was a mercenary!”

Tommy got out of the car, slammed the door, and flipped his brother off before marching away.

Techno was so glad that they didn’t share any DNA. Could you imagine that? But just because they were brother’s out of necessity and foster placement didn’t mean he didn’t care about the kid.

#Technoblade #TommyInnit #Purpled #Fundy #Wilbur Soot #These Streets Are Made For Walking

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writingblock101 · 5 years ago

Text

Test Day (Jason Todd x Reader)

This means I have officially written a quarantine fic. What a weird time to be alive. I also hit 500 followers so thank you for that!

Request for anon: Fluff #7 “Oh, would you look at that? There’s nowhere to sit besides my lap.” with Jason

Word Count: 1,900

Tags: @idkmanicantenglish

When your alarm went off, you wanted nothing more than to turn it off and curl up against Jason’s warm chest and pretend you didn’t hear anything. But instead, you had to be a diligent student who actually studies so you quickly shut off your alarm and try to creep out of bed, but Jason already heard your alarm go off.

“No,” He mumbles, wrapping his arms around you tightly.

You sigh, leaning back against Jason for a moment, relaxing in his hold.

“I need to study,” You tell him.

“Five more minutes,” He mumbles into your neck. “It’s too early to study.”

“Any time before 11:30 is too early for you,” You remind him. “My test is today, I’ve got to cram.”

Jason grumbles, tightening his arms around your waist.

“Jase, come on,” You start trying to uselessly wiggle out of his grip. “I’ve been procrastinating this whole week.”

He sighs but releases his arms. You climb out of bed, but turn and pull the blankets over Jason’s chest again and kiss his head.

“Go back to sleep,” You tell him.

He waves you off.

“Yeah, go study for your test,” He grumbles.

You can’t help but giggle at his grumpiness but quietly creep out of the room and brew a cup of coffee. Once setting yourself up at your kitchen counter, you begin the long haul of learning as much organic chemistry as possible. While you weren’t completely helpless, the quarantine forced your classes online and completely destroyed your motivation. You’d been lightly studying throughout the week, but today was grind day.

An hour later, Jason emerges from your bedroom, still looking sleepy and a little grumpy.

“Nice sweatshirt,” He comments, pressing a kiss to the side of your head then pours himself a cup of coffee.

You grin, tugging on the strings of Jason’s hoodie that you’re currently wearing. It’s warm, big, and smells like Jason. Honestly, at this point, it’s providing more emotional support than physical comfort.

“I’m surprised you’re up,” You comment, glancing at the clock over your oven which reads: 8:09 AM.

Normally, you and Jason didn’t even acknowledge the outside world until after 10 o’clock unless absolutely necessary.

“I don’t like sleeping in an empty bed,” He admits to his coffee. “I don’t sleep as well.”

Your heart flutters at the comment, but you ruin the moment when you look back at the practice test open on your screen. Oh, you’re still here. You squint your eyes at the old tests as if it deeply offended you (which is has by existing, thank you very much).

“Did you eat breakfast?” Jason asks.

“Not yet.”

Jason nods then opens the fridge and begins making eggs while you keep cracking away at old tests. He wordlessly sets a plate of food down next to you, kisses the top of your head, then sits on the couch to quietly watch TV and enjoy his breakfast.

A few hours pass as you keep doing practice problems and drawing figures and formulas on your little whiteboard. You’re starting to feel better about the test, but you’re still unsure. Knowing your professor, he’ll ask a question that you have all the information to solve, but no idea how to do it. Your stomach grumbles and you decide you should probably eat lunch.

When you get stressed or “in the zone”, your brain tends to shut off your appetite. You’d never noticed it until you started living with Jason and he pointed it out after watching you study for a final. Luckily, he’s helped you become more aware of it.

Speaking of Jason, he disappeared back to the bedroom about an hour ago, probably to read a book or do research for his next mission with the Outlaws. As a thank you for making breakfast, you fix him a sandwich along with your own and walk it back to the bedroom.

You find him on the floor, one of his dresser drawers open, surrounded by shirts. He brightens when he sees you walk in with food.

“How’s studying going?” He greets.

You shrug, handing him his plate.

“It’s going. I’m starting to feel better about it, but there’s still a lot to go. What are you doing?”

“Cleaning out some stuff,” Jason looks at his various piles. “I never really built my wardrobe back up after I came back, so a lot of this stuff doesn’t fit me.”

“Are you going to order some new stuff online?”

Jason frowns.

“Maybe? I don’t like buying clothes online.”

“You don’t like buying clothes period,” You correct with a smile.

“After all this is over,” Jason vaguely gestures to the air. “I’ll be more than willing to go clothes shopping for at least the first week when quarantine ends, so I’ve gotta make it count.”

You chuckle.

“We’ll go on a shopping spree,” You promise. “Well, I gotta keep studying--”

“Wait, why don’t you eat lunch with me?” Jason asks. “Take a break?”

“This is me taking a break,” You gesture to him. “I gotta keep going.”

“Come on, babe, you’ve been studying since 7 this morning. You can afford to stop and eat lunch.”

“The longer I wait to get back to it, the harder it’s going to be to start,” You shrug. “Sorry, Jase.”

He frowns, watching you leave the room to keep studying.

Two hours later, you’re still going strong-- strong as in you’re still looking at the material, but you keep getting the same style question wrong and you can’t figure out why.

“Okay, an amino has one nitrogen, so you add one, but an amide has one site of unsaturation so you subtract two which then makes it 2n+1,” You scan the possible formulas. “None of these answers have odd numbers,” You groan then flip through your notes, knowing you’re not going to find the answer because you’ve been looking for it for the past fifteen minutes and still found nothing.

Jason emerges from the bedroom again.

“Hey, babe, how’s it going?” He asks, getting something to drink out of the fridge.

“I can’t figure out how to do these stupid problems,” You groan. “I could do them on the last test, but now I can’t do them with amino or amide groups because Dr. Meades never told us the corrected formula.”

Jason frowns, and rounds the counter, looking at the various scribbles and cross-outs on your whiteboard and open notebook.

“Maybe you should take a break,” He suggests, rubbing your back. “You’ve been going at it now,” Jason pauses to look at the clock. “For roughly seven hours.”

“But my test is in three hours. I’ve gotten figure out how to do these problems because there’s always five of them on the test and if I mess up one, I’m going to mess up two,” Your jaw tightens as you feel the burn of tears building in your eyes.

Oh, hell no. Organic chemistry is NOT going to make me cry. While you care about your studies, it’s not enough to make you cry. You take a deep breath, blinking a few times to force back the tears of frustration.

“Some fresh eyes might help. Just take a few minutes to shut your brain off,” Jason tries to urge you but you brush him off.

“I’m okay, I promise. I’m going to see if I can find some example problems,” You start typing on your laptop again, scrounging old tests.

Jason frowns but leaves you to work.

Two hours later, you get up to go to the bathroom. You stare at the blue walls of your bathroom feeling drained and exhausted. You hate organic chemistry and you hate online classes. Why are you even taking this class?! It’s stupid!

After washing your hands, you glance at the clock on Jason’s nightstand-- one hour until you take your test. Sighing heavily, you walk back out to the kitchen to continue studying, only to find every seat at the kitchen counter and small dining table have been taken by a varying amount of objects including but not limited to: a tall stack of folded laundry, a pile of what you were guessing to be Jason’s shirt rejects, a stack of plates from the cupboard, and Jason’s ammunition bag that he takes on missions.

You stare at the chairs then glance over at Jason only to notice he stacked your textbooks and DVD collection on the loveseat while he is pointedly sprawled across the other couch. He casually reads his book, pretending to not notice you.

“Hey, Jason?” You ask.

He hums in response.

“What is this?”

Jason looks around the room then sets his book down, placing a hand on his cheek in mock surprise.

“Oh, would you look at that? There’s nowhere to sit besides my lap.”

He opens his arms invitingly and you can’t help but laugh.

“Jason--” You start to say, not moving toward him, despite the tempting offer.

“No,” He cuts you off. “You have been studying all day. You need to take a break and you’re going to take it now.”

“My test is in an hour.”

“Honestly, if you don’t know it by now, you’re not going to know it for the test,” Jason tells you bluntly. “You’re going to be fine. Please, just take a break,” He looks at you pleadingly.

You glance back toward your laptop which you notice Jason had shut then sigh and walk over to Jason, letting him pull you down onto the couch with him. You land between his legs with his arms wrapped tightly around you.

“You’re going to do great,” He promises.

You snort.

“It’s organic chemistry, “great” does not exist in its vocabulary.”

“Shut up, it’s going to be great.”

“I got a 66 on the last test,” You remind him.

Jason pauses for a moment.

“You’re going to pass,” He fixes, making you laugh.

“There we go. That’s the realistic prediction I need to hear,” You grin, tucking your chin under his head. “I just want the semester to be over.”

“Yeah, I know doll,” He kisses the top of your head. “But you can’t keep trying to do your classes like this.”

“Yeah, I know,” You sigh, playing with his fingers.

You two stay like that until it’s time for you to log on and take your test. And what do you know? Jason was right, you did pass.

“Told you,” Jason grins, kissing your cheek as he looks over your shoulder at the screen.

“Yeah, yeah,” You roll your eyes, closing your laptop.

“I’m just saying that you should listen to me more,” He points out.

“Oh really?”

“Uh-huh, cause clearly, I’m a genius.”

“A genius you say?” You turn your chair so you’re facing Jason.

“Yep,” He grins, stepping between your legs while your arms go around his neck. “I could put Tim out of business.”

“I’m sure,” You roll your eyes. “You’re very humble about it too.”

“Oh of course,” Jason flips his hair dramatically. “Not only am I a genius, but I’m also smoking hot.”

You start laughing, shaking your head.

“You’re a dork,” You grin, kissing Jason.

“Yeah, but I’m your dork,” He murmurs against your lips.

“Damn right,” You grin.

The quarantine sucks, but at least you have a good company.

I had a test on Tuesday, can y’all tell? (I did pass)

#Jason Todd #Red Hood #Jason Todd x reader #Red Hood x reader #jason todd headcanon #red hood headcanons #quaratine fic #dc #batman #request #organic chemistry sucks #based on true events #aka my struggle #i got the same style question wrong on the test so rip #but i passed!!!!!#can i have a jason who reminds me to eat cause this is what i do when i get stressed??

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realityhelixcreates · 4 years ago

Text

Lasabrjotr Chapter 78: The Great Provider

Chapters: 78/?

Fandom: Thor (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe

Rating: pg 13

Relationships: Loki x Reader

Characters: Loki (Marvel),Thor(Marvel) Wanda Maximoff, vision, Bruce Banner

Additional Tags: Post-Endgame: Best Possible Ending (Canon-Divergent), Party Time, Alarr Is A Little Bitch Now And Forever, Seriously Bull Cults Are Super Old, And Super Important

Summary: You face the bull.

“There's a lot of people looking at me.” Your father whispered to you, fiddling nervously with a crumbling slice of dark buttered bread. “Your asshole beau got me good this time.”

Seated on the other side of you, Loki sighed. Of course he could hear, even with the din of the First Feast all around. You shook pepper onto a peeled, boiled egg.

“It wasn't planned like that.” You whispered back. “All of the humans are seated on this side, me included. The planners just thought you should be next to me.”

On the one hand, you were glad your father was acknowledging your relationship without major pushback. On the other hand, insulting a prince within earshot of that prince, and many of his vassals, was probably not such a good idea.

“I mean, I can ask them to change the seating order. Put you down at the farthest table, with a bunch of Asgardians you've never met.”

He shuddered. “You wouldn't. My own daughter wouldn't do that to me, her poor old father, who has so few years left to him. You wouldn't show such cruelty to a vulnerable old man.”

“Yeah, yeah, you've got one foot in the grave already. You could fall over dead any minute now. You're practically dust.”

“Well, that might be going a little far.” he huffed. “I've still got some vinegar in me.”

“You even talk like an old man.” you teased. “Besides, you don't get to pull the Old Man Card, and then complain because I play along. Make up your mind.”

You passed him a serving bowl full of bilberry porridge, and he dipped some out. One thing your father was always willing to do, was try new food.

“Speaking of, what counts as 'old' to these folks?” he asked. “You've been saying some stuff about that, but it seems unbelievable.”

“You gotta start believing this stuff, Dad.” you chided.” It's all real. I know it's hard. My head has been swimming for months. But it gets easier to accept the more you learn. Anyway, for an Asgardian, about five thousand puts someone firmly into the 'elderly' category, but for an Aesir, like the king, or Saga, or Loki, the sky is the limit. I can count the number of kings Asgard has had in it's whole history on one hand. They just live that long.”

“Five thousand? Damn. That's...That's like, pyramid building times, isn't it? Say...did they...?”

“No, they didn't build the pyramids. I already asked. And even if aliens did build them, it wouldn't have been Asgardians” you pointed out. “They would have been in the north, making, I dunno, runestones? Longships? Something like that. The people in the north never really did the large-scale monument building like they did in Egypt. But Asgardians sure did. You saw the paintings of the old palace?”

That thing that looked like a pipe organ? Yeah.”

“So, if they were building our monuments, they'd have looked like that, wouldn't they?”

“Okay, but what if it was different aliens? We know there's more than one kind of alien.” he pointed out.

“Yeah, but...I never found out if the other gods of the world were aliens or not. But even if they were, I'm pretty sure the pyramids were built by humans, even if they were built for their gods.”

“They were.” Loki interrupted. “But they also made for interesting sight-seeing expeditions for many peoples across Yggdrasil, so yes, aliens visited Earth quite often in your distant past.”

Your father clammed up and glared. After a few awkward moments, Loki turned back to his plate, passing along a crumbly cheese that turned out to be similar to feta. You added some to your grain salad.

Just get through dinner, you thought to yourself. Why did the men in your life always have to be so difficult?

Time was left between courses for the making of toasts, and there was a lot of back and forth-between the Icelandic dignitaries praising the Asgardians for being such gracious hosts, and the Asgardians praising them for hosting all of Asgard in the first place. There were toasts for the Avengers in attendance, though they were somewhat subdued; the Maximoff girl was still a fairly controversial figure, Dr. Banner continued to be visibly uncomfortable with the attention, and the Vision was simply not as well known. But they were dutifully honored nonetheless, and then the humans of Trolerkaerhalla turned their adoration on you.

'The People's Seidkona', they called you. 'The bridge', and 'the Huldra shield'. Even 'the Sapphire Brand', a kenning Loki had invented for you, which made you wonder what he had been discussing with his worshipers when he was out working on the longhouses.

The dessert course was mixed dried fruit, cooked down into a compote and served over bread.

It was also the last course before the slaughter of the bull, for tomorrow's Second Feast.

You'd told Tara and your father about it, to mixed reactions. Tara was repulsed, but your father, who presumably saw more dead animals along the side of the road than you would be comfortable with, seemed to take it in stride.

“Someone has to do it.” he'd said, “They gotta get to the plate somehow. Sucks, I know. There's no way out of it?”

“It's tradition.” you'd sullenly explained. “And it's really old. Like, Proto-Indo-European old. Back when kings used to be worshiped and held responsible for everything. If the crops failed, they sacrificed him. So it was in a ruler's best interests to make sure his people were provided for. I think, eventually, the bull became a stand-in for the king. I don't know if the Asgardians influenced us in this case, or if it was the other way around, but there's a whole deep layer cake of symbolism involved, and I really do have to participate.”

The bull and the ruler. Symbols of power, fertility, plenty, and prosperity. It was poetic, in an ancient, rustic kind of way.

You had thought that you had it all together, but when you heard the bellowing sound of the bull somewhere close, and your heart clenched in your chest.

Suddenly dessert didn't taste so good.

******

There had been an arena built between tables for the bull to be driven into, with a raised platform that you were currently perched on, holding a goad with a trail of ribbons at the end. You would be enticing the bull towards you with the movement of the ribbons, and once it was within range, Loki would strike.

Then the beast would be butchered on the spot, to prepare for the next nights festivities. It would be very educational.

The human guests had been informed of what was about to happen, and of course, the Asgardians already knew, but they still cheered you on anyway. Skaldic students picked up a slow drum beat, that pulsed like a heart.

How many thousands of years worth of rulers and seidkonas doing this? Odin and Frigga had done it. Bor and Bestla had done it. Buri and Audhumla had not-the holiday hadn't been declared until after Buri's passing. But one had to assume that they all gazed out from Valhalla, within it's great black hole, and saw what their descendants were doing. Presumably, Buri could now see that two people who had no true relation to him, were now the ones honoring him. How would he feel about that?

The bull bellowed behind the gates, the sound echoing and distorting strangely. Loki lurked next to the platform, waiting. This wasn't going to be like a matador facing down an angry beast. This was going to be an ambush.

The gates slowly begin to open, and your adrenaline spiked into the sky.

Here it comes, here it comes, here it comes

The bull entered the arena and you froze in shock, almost completely forgetting what you were supposed to be doing.

The bull was...wrong. It was completely still, standing on a board on wheels. It did not walk into the area, but was pushed. It's head was oddly textured, almost shiny, and strangely shaped. It bellowed again, weird and distorted, but did not open it's mouth.

Its strangeness blended into your anxiety, becoming a potent cocktail of revulsion and dread. Loki patted the platform next to you, and you started, jerking your ribbons to and fro. The bull bellowed one more time before Loki strode up to it, and, with one smooth and elegant swing, beheaded it.

There was no blood. The wound was hollow, and the head sprouted the legs of a child as soon as it hit the ground, running around and mooing irreverently to the amusement and obvious confusion of the audience.

It was fake. It was a fake bull. Loki had mentioned to you that you need not worry because he had taken care of her bull problem, but hadn't had time to elaborate before you'd had to scramble up the platform. You would have never guessed he meant this.

With a flourish, Loki whipped the tanned hide off the bull, revealing a hollow armature beneath, within which was an ice-covered table, piled up with cuts of meat, bowls of organs, piles of stew bones, and a bucket of blood. The bull reduced down to its edible parts, all ready for tomorrow's feast.

The drums stopped abruptly, the child who had been hiding in the paper-mache bulls head discarded it to the side and ran off into the cheering crowd, as people came forward to carry away the bits of bull.

Loki draped the bull's hide over his shoulders and helped you down from the platform.

“Did I not tell you?” he said smugly. “I took care of it for you. Truly, the symbolism is the most important part, and this speeds the process along so that we may get to the dancing all the sooner!”

“That was freaky as hell!” you scolded. “You shoulda told me it was gonna be a fake! I spent that whole time all bent out of shape because of it, ugh, what a lot of wasted sleep!”

“In my defense, I didn't find out that you were troubled about it until yesterday. I had only a limited time to come up with something.”

“And you decided to stuff a kid in a fake bull's head? That's what you came up with?”

“That's Beli's youngest great-great-great-grandson, and he volunteered! My dear, what's wrong? I thought you would prefer it this way?”

“I do!” you huffed, irritated. “But I need you to start telling me when you do things like this! How am I gonna do my job if you already make all the decisions by yourself? Stop trying to surprise me all the time. I froze out there because of it! What did that look like to everybody else, huh?”

“I think they were too captivated by the bull to take notice...” he didn't sound so sure. “But yes, you are right, of course. It is a bad habit. I will be better.”

Somewhat mollified, you took his arm and allowed him to lead you to the dances.

*******

“It's an insult!” Alarr raged. “He reduces our history to mere spectacle!”

“It may have been for convenience.” his wife pointed out. “Our Midgardian guests need more frequent rest. It wouldn't do for his Highness' little seidkona to collapse from exhaustion.”

“Do not call her that!” he snapped. “She doesn't deserve the title! What part of her is a seidkona? The part that graces Loki's bed? Or the part that gets into cat fights with her betters? This is exactly what I am talking about though! The Midgardians are weak, but we are the ones expected to lower ourselves to their level? If they cannot keep up, they shouldn't be here! The prince is a fool, and the Allfather merely enables him. Together, they will reduce us to infants.”

“Watch your tone with me, Alarr. I tire of your temper.”

“And I tire of watching our culture and people be diminished for easier consumption by outsiders. When does it end? If even our holy days aren't exempt from foreign influence, then what part of us can we really expect to keep? How much can we be diluted, and still remain Asgard?”

“Alarr, this obsession has already cost you dearly. And not just you, the whole family has been impacted by it. You are so preoccupied with everything you're afraid we're going to lose, that you don't see the harm that you are doing to us yourself! Now you may sit here and let your rage rob you of your Buridag, but I'm going back out there to enjoy myself! Stars know, I've had precious few chances to do so lately!”

She stormed out, leaving him behind to seethe.

******

“That was so weird.” Todd said. “I thought it was going to be a real cow.”

“I'm glad it wasn't!” another camper exclaimed.

“Yeah, me too, but why did they go through all that rigmarole about what was going to happen, explaining the whole thing, telling us not to fear, and then wheel out a meat-filled piñata instead? Did they think we were gonna think it was real? Like, are we toddlers to them?”

“Maybe? They're all hundreds of years old, aren't they? Even the kids.”

“Yeah, I guess so. I feel like that's a problem though. I mean, think of the advantages they have over all the rest of us! I can't help but feel like they will eventually have a disproportionate amount of global influence, just because of the monumental projects that they can put together with that longevity. And like, I know the longhouse squad might not mind having alien overlords, but I'm sure not excited about it.”

“Global superpowers rise and fall. That's just history.” another camper said. “Are you sure you aren't just worried that yours might be overshadowed?”

“No need to be rude.” Todd chided. “People were rightly worried about super powered individuals before these guys even showed up. I mean, look at what happened to Sokovia! When I was a kid, that kind of thing was unthinkable! Now we've gotta worry about nukes, and terrorists, and school shootings, and climate change, and now alien invaders and supermen on top of all that? It's no wonder people are so worried. Did you know these people haven't even signed the Accords? What do you think that says about them?”

“Hey, I'm not disagreeing, man. I'm skeptical too. But they're refugees all the same, and it's only been a couple years. I figure they're just trying to get adjusted before they go committing themselves to anything big, you know?”

“And that's fair for the average Asgardian. As far as we know, they didn't do anything wrong. But Thor...you know, as much as I like him, he's been involved in some pretty destructive events. And the least, I mean, the very least he could have done to show some kind of good faith with Earth, would be to turn his brother over to some kind of justice. But he hasn't; he's just let Loki flaunt every authority. The man committed a felony, he kidnapped my girlfriend, and...nothing! He's not allowed on United States soil, but he did it anyway, and nothing has been done. I can't help but be resentful, who wouldn't be?”

“I know what you mean, but then why did you come to this shindig, anyway?”

Todd shrugged. “I just wanted to see that she was okay, you know? We weren't perfect, but we really had something, and I just want to make sure she's okay. She didn't look okay, up there with that fake bull, and I don't like it. I know her; she's kinda delicate. All this is gonna be too much for her.”

“You have a lot to say.” interrupted an unfamiliar, accented voice. The little knot of campers jerked to attention. A young man stood nearby, arms crossed, glaring.

“Uh, yeah...” Todd said. “To my friends. Who are you?”

“Fritjof.” the stranger said shortly.

“That's the mutant.” one of the campers whispered urgently. “We saw him out in that fight, remember? He throws fire!”

“Oh.” Todd held his hands up in front of him. “Hey man, we don't have any beef with you. No need to lose our tempers or anything...”

Fritjof snorted. “Somehow, I doubt this.” he sneered.

“Frit!” A woman cried, then rattled off a quick sentence Todd could not understand. Fritjofs intimidating stance softened, and he answered back.

“I'm going to dance now.” He told Todd. “Be a more gracious guest.”

Several of the campers let out the breaths they'd been holding, as he left.

“What a freak.” One of them muttered.

“Don't know what his problem is, but I think he could use a class on minding his own business.” Todd said.

“So, you wanna go dance?”

“Not really, but I suppose it couldn't hurt to go see what it's like.”

******

The dancing was energized and frenetic; stomping, clapping, twirling, leaping. It was full of laughter and celebration, messy and unchecked. The commoner's dances were danced by all, and you had thrown yourself into them with relish. From arm to arm you passed, jumping and shouting in time with everyone else.

You danced, and spun, and bounced, finally ending up panting back in Loki's arms.

“Come, sit with me.” he said. “You need a breather.”

He sat you down in one of the covered seats, wrapped you in his cloak for extra warmth, and pressed a cup of hot cider into your hands. The community continued to dance, some breaking off to rest, some jumping back in. You simply watched, sipping your cider as Loki twirled Sjofn, Thor kicked with Wanda, and a very tall Asgardian lady tried to entice an increasingly uncomfortable looking Dr. Banner. Even Gloa seemed to be having a good time, though you noticed Alarr was nowhere to be seen. Andsvarr, however, was dancing for all he was worth, and rarely let Saldis out of his grasp. It was cute, but not as cute as Tara, slightly drunk off buttered rum, flirting openly with several very confused Asgardians, or your father, trying hard to avoid Dr. Banner's fate.

Loki whirled his way back to your side, and plopped down next to you, but must have noticed you were fading.

“It has certainly been a long day, hasn't it?” he asked. “Would you prefer to return to our rooms?”

“Yeah. As much as I'd like to stick around, I'd really need some sleep.” you admitted. “Gotta be up bright and early tomorrow too.”

“Then shall we?” He offered his arm, and somehow the two of you slipped away without much notice.

“Are you going back out?” you asked, as he tucked you comfortably into his bed.

“Yes, for a little while longer. It's best that my brother and I be seen out among the people for as long as possible. I'll be back later. Sleep soundly, my dear.”

The rigors of the day caught up to you quickly, and you had no inkling of how much time had passed when you finally felt him slip into bed next to you, smelling of sweet crystal mead.

#lasabrjotr #loki (marvel)#loki x reader

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bubblyani · 5 years ago

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Overtime

(Flip Zimmerman x Reader)

A Flip Zimmerman One Shot

Rating: Mature

Request : May I make a request? If you say no that’s just fine! But maybe Flip Zimmerman and the new secretary at the station?@lemonypink

Author’s Note: I could picture this in the movie hahah. Anyways I hope y’all enjoy this.

Tagging: @meta-human-of-221b-ravenclaw

“Y/N! Need a copy of this report please!”

“Sure thing!”

“Hey! Is my handwriting sloppy ? I’ve always wanted to know”

“Well all I will say is ...maybe try writing slower”

“Argh! knew it”

You were full of soft giggles as you typed away in your typewriter. The phone rang with much gusto until you finally picked it up.

“Colorado Springs PD, how may I help you?...” you answered. With habit, you quickly took your notepad with one hand as you listened to the caller, “Uh huh...” you muttered, whilst writing down, “...sure. I will relay the message to him. Thank you for calling!” You said before you hung up.

Apart from the nonstop sounds of countless typewriters being utilized across the whole room, your ears were always brimming with requests, inquiries and complaints from all. Be it officers, detectives and civilians. Why wouldn’t it be? You were a secretary in the Intelligence Division.

Being mostly surrounded by the detectives in the precinct, you were in the company of quite an interesting bunch.

“Y/N?” Especially One person in particular. “Yes Flip?”

Cheerfully, you greeted. Wearing one of his signature flannel shirts, Detective Flip Zimmerman stood in front of your desk there with his partner Jimmy Creek. “...Could you help me draft a letter to the sergeant, please?”

“Sure thing Flip...” you said, flipping into a new page in the notepad, “I’m just gonna need some details” you continued, “What is this pertaining to?”

“It’s about my resignation”

The pen suddenly dropped out of your hand.

“Your WHAT??“ You yelled out. Never did you think you’d be this loud as you were just now.

Finally unable to contain himself, Jimmy burst into laughter, forcing Flip and the others to join him. Upon realizing their scheme, you scowled.

“Not funny gentlemen” you said sternly, getting up from your chair. “Awww...you should have seen the look on your face” “Well, good for you Jimmy!” You said sarcastically, with your arms folded, watching Jimmy reenact your reaction to the rest of the gang. Shaking your head, you smiled eventually, finding the humor in the situation as you sat down. These men may be detectives, but the inner child had never left their bodies. “Sorry about that” Flip said softly, making you realize he was still standing by your desk. He sounded remorseful, you could tell from his voice. “It’s alright” you replied with a chuckle , before you began to type again. “Didn’t think you’d be so surprised though” he said, watching you work while casually leaning against the desk. “No it’s just-” looking up, you quickly paused upon seeing his face, “....well you’re a good detective. And...it would be a mighty shame to see you go” you said.

“Thanks” With his eyes never leaving yours, he headed over to his own desk.

When it came to the matters of a criminal investigation, withholding information was a resounding no. But when it came to the matters of your heart, you knew it was best to withhold the most intimate details that lingered within. Especially when those details included your deep, affectionate feelings towards Flip Zimmerman.

It was obvious, You were drawn to him from the very first day. Being the first one you’ve encountered in Colorado Springs PD, he left a lasting impression. You could never forget that first day.

“Why are you staring like that?” He said that day, upon finding your eager eyes staring at the Colorado Springs PD signboard outside the building. Blushing with embarrassment, you struggled to answer. “It’s just that...I’ve never worked for Police before. It’s just unbelievable” You remembered yourself mutter shyly, looking at the tall figure next to you. “Well...believe it. You’re one of us now”He said, before walking away.

You remembered that small smile he gave. The way he made you feel inclusive with just one line. And the way he looked out for you in the precinct without making you feel you were a pity party.

The silent working hours allowed you to appreciate the handsome man he was. The flannel, the hair, the mustache certainly grew on you, to the point where maintaining eye contact was a difficult task. Possible but difficult.

Jimmy’s laughter did not seem to fade, causing Rookie detective Ron Stallworth to enter the room with curiosity.

“Morning Everyone” he said looking around.

“Ron...” Jimmy cried out, “...you just missed something hilarious” he said, still in the midst of sniggers. Ron looked quite confused.

“Really?” He asked with a chuckle, “And what is that?”

“My embarrassment...”You answered, shaking your head, inciting more laughter from everyone in the room.

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

“You always have it up”

“Huh?”

Confused, you looked at Flip from your desk. Running his fingers through his raven hair, his inquisitive expression remained unchanged.

“Your hair...” he said, “It’s always up. Why?”

Feeling your high hair bun on the back of your head, you understood what he meant.

“Well...It’s proper. Isn’t it?” You said.

Being in a workplace, you never intended to look like a distraction. For it was easier to be one as a woman. So you wanted to be far from one. Hair bun, white shirt tucked in a navy blue skirt, you were the definition of proper.

“Y/L/N...” Sergeant Trapp came out of his office. You liked Trapp. He was kind to you.

“I know this isn’t your usual rodeo but...do you mind staying back tonight for some overtime? Gotta hell a lot of paperwork to finish up”

“Of course sir...” you answered in an instant. You’d rather slave away and finish up the work than leave it hanging for later.

And so you did. Two hours into overtime, you noticed the detectives haven’t left office. Huddled around Stallworth’s desk, Zimmerman, Creek and Trapp were engaged in a serious conversation while Ron was on the phone. From the chatter collected in the room, you were well informed of the current investigation about the clan, the organization. You could not forget Ron’s daring attempt that started the case, and grouped the detectives together.

“Oh Mr. Duke I’m so glad you asked” Ron said out loud, as he played his redneck persona, “What happened that day, it just boils my blood just thinking about it. Who do those colored folk think they are? Am I right?” Watching the others laugh silently, you could not help but stifle a grin.

“My sister?”

Ron began, suddenly in the mist of thinking, “Pamela? Oh she’s doing great ...” he said, making you furrow your brows with confusion, “In fact, she is dying to talk to you, Sir!” Just like the others, you were very confused. Even more so when Ron was looking directly at you. “You would?” He said, “Aww that would be mighty kind of you sir, let me just grab her” Covering the phone, he sat up, forcing everyone to direct their attention to you.

“Get over here” he mouthed at you. Your eyes widened.

“What?” You mouthed back. Snapping his finger, Flip finally understood what Ron was trying to do. You finally got up as you watched him walk towards you.

“Do it!” Flip said softly.

“Do what?” You asked with genuine confusion while walking with him to Ron’s desk.

“Come on! We’ve seen you do that impression” Ron whispered. He was right. To kill boredom, you would occasionally do an impression of Pamela, Ron’s imaginary sister who claimed to have been accosted by coloreds. You only did it for fun. Never did you think for once it was an audition, and now you were offered the part.

“What? But that’s just crazy” you said.

“This...would be perfect for us. This is gonna help us a lot” Flip said, looking at you. His words did not pressure you. Instead they gently convinced you to see the logic behind all this. Ron’s eyes gleamed as you sighed and took the phone. “H-Hello?” You answered with a raised voice, “Oh my word...is this really Mr. Duke?” You feigned surprise, letting out an excited laughter. You played along in this game with an unexpected confidence. And Duke seemed to have bought it “Can I just say what an honor it is to hear your voice, Sir!”

Excitement was evident in Ron’s face, while the Sergeant looked surprised. But none of that mattered to you when you saw Flip’s look of admiration, hidden in his face in the form of a small smile.

Grabbing the phone from you, Ron gave you a thumbs up, as he continued the conversation.“Mr. Duke, this is Ron again...” he began, “As much as my sister would love to talk, she’s busy making dinner. Hehe...yes sir...” he said, his voice growing softer “... women sure do belong in the kitchen”

He added, shooting a teasing look at you, watching you roll your eyes and the others silently snigger. But halfway through, you saw Ron’s eyes widen.

“Oh! Really?” He said, “Wow I’d be honored sir. Thank you! Alright, You have a lovely evening too”

Hanging up, everyone held their breath until he finally spoke.

“Well...the big guy’s even more impressed, thanks to you” he said, pointing at you, “...Walter’s gonna give me a call with the meeting details for tonight...Flip, get ready for a Cross Burning” Ron said, setting his gaze over at Zimmerman, who merely nodded. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

“Y/N...what are you still doing here? Go home. I’ll drop you“

Jimmy may have teased you earlier, but he always had cared for you like a sibling. Hence he was surprised to still find you at the office around midnight.

“No Jim it’s okay...” you said, whilst stifling a yawn, “...got some reports to finish up anyway”

Truthfully, with your experience, finishing up paperwork was easy as pie. But the reason that kept you from leaving had no relation to any form of paperwork whatsoever.

With Flip and Ron out meeting the clan for the Cross Burning, you could not help but worry for Flip’s safety. Tonight especially, more than you ever did before.

Sure, Ron would be there to look out, for him. You knew he had his back. But worrying was never correlated with logic.

With Paperwork completed, You searched for petty excuses to hang around. Anything to keep yourself occupied until you could see him walk in through the door, alive and well.

With your eyelids getting heavy, you were tempted to close them, drifting into sleep. Maybe just 10 minutes, you thought. With your head on the table, you let the exhaustion take charge.

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

The subtle creaking noises of furniture woke you. Opening your eyes slowly, you sensed that morning had dawned already. The office was empty.

And Flip was standing before you.

Relief washing over you like cool water over one’s face, you quickly covered your mouth to wipe away any form of saliva you had. Embarrassingly, you greeted him with a sleepy smile. “The burning went well I’m guessing?”

“Yep...” he said, “although too much burning for my taste”

You sniffed the hot coffee in the air, which got stronger as he handed you a cup full of it.

“Figured You’d need a good wake up” he said, as you accepted it. “Yeah I do, with the accidental sleeping” you chuckled, taking a sip.

“Yeah, plus you...snore” Flip said, finally giving up to sniggers. You dropped your jaw in shock. “What? I do? Oh no...”You cried out frustratingly, laughing alongside him, “...was I loud ?” You asked in a whisper.

“No...” he said, sitting on your desk, “...of course not”

“Oh good” Shaking your head in disbelief, you casually took off the hairpins off your messy head, letting the cascade of hair flow over your shoulders.

“Wait...” Flip said, “...you got uh...” Reaching out, he casually brushed a strand of hair off your face, which did not alarm you. For all the times you’ve waited for him to do this, you were secretly ecstatic. The moment eyes locked in each other’s, his hand did not leave. Instead his thumb grazed over your left temple. The way he stopped by your cheek, seemed to be a physical way of seeking permission. And your unaffected silence was your consent.

His touch comforted you, and for a man of his stature he was as gentle as he could be. As much as you were silent and welcoming, you wanted to make your intentions clearer. You took a daring risk the moment thumb brushed over your mouth. Pressing your lips against his finger, you embraced it with adoration, making sure he could feel it to the inner core.

And within seconds, your risk was deemed worthy the moment he moved towards you, quickly kissing you on the lips.

A sense of unrealized fulfillment came over you as you kissed Flip Zimmerman. You were excited, invigorated and intoxicated at the same time.

Pulling away, deep breaths were exchanged as foreheads were placed together. “Pretty...” Flip blurted out shyly, “....you look pretty with your hair down” he said, with his fingers tangled in your loose hair. You chuckled. “Thanks...” you said, placing the coffee cup on the table, “....you should see me in my normal clothes..” you joked, “I look much better “ you added with a smile. Flip’s eyes grew warm.

“Yeah I should...” He smiled back, “...maybe when we grab a bite sometime...”

Overjoyed, you kissed him once again with even more enthusiasm, grateful for the overtime work shift that made all this possible. ——————————————————

https://bubblyani.tumblr.com/post/190893189313/driver-masterlist

Check my MASTERLIST for more :)

#adam driver #flip zimmerman imagines #flip zimmerman x reader #blackkklansman #flip zimmerman x woc reader #blackkklansman imagines #adam driver x reader #adam driver fanfics #adam sackler #kylo ren #star wars #ben solo

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inkabelledesigns · 4 years ago

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We did it, the smoke smell has been mostly eliminated! The ink machine itself was fine after a few rounds of Febreeze, which makes me happy. That was the most important thing to clean, since it's the reason I got the lot in the first place. The figures on the other hand required some more love. I threw them in a dish with a mixture of laundry detergent and water, and that left a majority of them clean. Four of the smaller figures are still a bit smoky, so I've hit them with one last round of Febreeze to see how they do, then I'll let them air dry.

I'm really glad to have these guys all cleaned up, makes my little germaphobe heart happy. XD I felt pretty hopeless starting this project, didn't think any of them would ever lose the scent, but here we are a few days later, and it's all better! Thank you guys for tuning in and putting up with my shenanigans, and to everyone who had suggestions behind the scenes. XD I know this isn't what anyone comes to my page for, but I appreciate the support and just getting to talk about this. I really love fixing up old toys and dolls, there's something special about being able to make something good out of something that was destroyed, and I'd love to do that for some of our peeps here. What would you do with Alice, Sammy, and one-armed Bendy? I'd love to know,haven't decided how I'll mend them yet. XD

This does lead me to one other question: what would be the best path for my blog from this point on? I'm not a very frequent artist, but I'm contemplating having a dedicated place to put all of my artwork (be it dolls, illustrations, voice acting, etc), since my tags are kind of a mess. Should I do an art sideblog that's just my content, or should I just try to be more organized here? Or something else entirely? I've got another question about that to ask later, but for now I gotta get back to work on some projects Would love to hear your thoughts! Thank you so much, hope you all have an excellent day.

#bendy and the ink machine #batim #bendy merch #smoke smell hacks #bendy figures #long post

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welcometophu · 3 years ago

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The Meaning of Home, Chapter 2

The Meaning of Home Chapter 2

Tags for all Welcome to PHU novels will be available at the PHU tag list on Pillowfort. This list is under construction as of Sept. 5, 2021.

[ Previous | First | Next ]

Pawel spends much of Monday lounging around the house. He gets up to help get Conor and Emma on the bus, so his dad can leave on time for work. After meeting the bus in his pajamas, he walks back to Dad’s house and lies down on the couch. He doesn’t really need a blanket, but he pulls it up to his nose anyway for the comfort factor and spends the day dozing and streaming old movies on his dad’s TV.

He never makes it as far as thinking about cooking anything for dinner, so he treats Dad and Conor to a night out. It eats up more time than he’d like, and it means Conor needs to scramble to finish the last of his homework once they’re home, but it’s nice to spend an hour letting someone else do the cooking.

Later that evening, after Conor goes to bed, Pawel and Dad spend the next couple of hours finally talking through everything that’s happened. Pawel doesn’t want to leave things out, but there are a few things he avoids for Dad’s safety, like the government involvement, and one thing he just doesn’t know how to explain.

He hasn’t seen Chelsea in a while. She’s relearning how to work within the world without draining souls to stay alive. He highly doubts she’s planning on stopping by his father’s for a visit, and even if she did, Dad never got to meet her as anything other than one of Pawel’s friends a decade ago.

Yeah. That is a complicated mess that he has no desire to go into detail about.

They go to bed late, but Pawel still wakes early on Tuesday to get his own kid on the bus. He figures it’s the least he can do, letting Dad get to work on time on a regular basis again.

Alone in the house again, Pawel feels refreshed and awake.

And bored.

He puts the phone on speaker as he putters around the kitchen, pressing to dial the number for Pels. She picks up after two rings, her voice gravelly and low. “What? Did we burn your house down?”

“I’m assuming you would have called me, rather than the other way around, if you burned my house down. Since you’re the one staying there.” Pawel rifles through his father’s cabinets until he finds a slow cooker. It’s dusty, but he’s pretty sure it’ll be functional. There should be enough ingredients for chili around.

He looks into a cabinet, and nearly bare shelves stare back at him.

Okay, maybe not.

“What?” Pels asks again. “You woke me up. Are you looking for my mom? I thought you had her number.”

Pawel finds tomatoes and beans, and starts emptying them into the slow cooker. “I do. I thought she’d be at work, so I called you instead.”

“It’s too early and—Dad, Dad, no, I’ll talk to him. Give me back my phone.”

“Hello, Ammon.” Pawel might not be able to hear Pels’s father, but he’s well aware by now that the ghost can hear him.

“He’s leaving, and I’m not putting this on speaker,” Pels mutters. “I thought he was going to start spending more time with Mom now, after the whole unbinding ceremony last weekend, but apparently she told him not to follow her to work.”

“Can she see him now?” That would be an interesting development. Pawel sets the empty can on the counter and reaches for a pad of sticky notes so he can scribble a reminder to himself to look into more detailed information about the ritual that the Burlington community performed for Pels and her mother in order to remove the bindings from their Talents.

“I think so. I mean, I’m pretty sure she can, but we’re not really talking about it. But seriously. Did you call for a reason? Cheyenne’s got these final projects to finish up since she left school a couple weeks early, so she’s not bothering me. Dad wasn’t bothering me. I was sleeping.” Pels grumbles under her breath.

“I just wanted to see how things were going.” Pawel peels off the sticky note and tapes it to the fridge, where he might see it later. Another search of the cabinets turns up chili powder and a few other seasonings. “Now that you’ve had a chance to settle into the house.”

“We’re fine. We’re figuring out how to be a family again without Peter.” Pels hesitates. “I’m learning how to see the world a whole different way now that I can see everything my Talent lets me see. Shane and Jess and I are talking a lot, and I’m going to figure this Mage thing out. So… thanks. For everything. Including letting us stay in your house while you’re gone.”

Pawel shakes some cocoa powder into the slow cooker, before adding a handful of dried onion. “Someone’s got to water the plants.”

“The plants were already dead when we got here.”

He laughs at Pels’s dry words. She’s not wrong. Pawel was gone for a month; everything went to hell, while his son went to stay with his dad.

Which, yeah. That brings him right back around to where he is now.

Pawel stares at the slow cooker. “If you need anything, you’ve got my number.”

“I’ll tell Mom to check in with you periodically. Oh and—” Pels hesitates before asking, “Cheyenne wants to know if it’s okay if she uses your backyard to practice flying?”

Pawel thinks of the time they used Alaric’s dragon to summon a Shadow in that same backyard. “That would not be the strangest thing the neighbors could have witnessed. But she should try not to break anything, including herself.”

“I think we can do that. Gotta go. Dad says there’s someone at the door.”

The line goes abruptly silent, and Pawel looks down at the screen of his phone as the connection is lost. “Okay, then.” He gives the vegetarian chili a quick stir, then puts the lid on, plugs it in, and switches the appliance on to cook on low. “That’s set, at least.”

He feels a little better, knowing that his home is in good hands, or at least, it’s not burning down. It sat empty for a month before; having someone live there for the summer should be better.

As long as none of the newly powered Mages set the place on fire.

Fire.

That reminds him.

Pawel checks one more time to ensure that the slow cooker is on and set to low, then heads back to the living room to dig out his laptop. He starts it up and finds the tab he’d left open for the outdoor music festivals, with a list of dates.

That’s what he thought: the festival that Rory and Thorne’s band, Phoenix Rising, is touring with will be in Buffalo this weekend.

Pawel buys four tickets. He figures Dad will come with them, and Conor will want to bring a friend. Probably Alan. And if Dad doesn’t want to go, Alan’s mom, Emily, might join them instead. He’s not worried if the tickets don’t all get used; he just wants options.

Conor will be pleased by the surprise, anyway.

He closes the laptop and looks back to the kitchen.

How the hell does his dad live like that, anyway? And what has Conor been eating?

No, he saw the answer to that this morning. Toaster pastries and cereal, and Pawel’s pretty sure that the last of the eggs were finished off as well.

Fine.

If Pawel’s going to be here all summer, squeezed into his dad’s small space, the least he can do is lay in supplies.

Pawel spends the day scouring the cabinets, making a long list of everything from prepared garlic and ginger for easy seasoning, to pantry staples like pasta, to critical items like various forms of protein for the freezer. His dad has a standing freezer in the garage, and even that seems woefully empty.

He loses time going through the sites online for each local grocery store, poring over the ads to determine which store will have the best value for this shopping trip. He types up the list to rearrange it by food type, so that as soon as Conor’s home they can head out and maybe they’ll be organized enough to get the trip done quickly.

“Dad!” The door bangs open. “What’s for dinner? I’m starving and something smells really good.”

“It’s not dinner time.” Pawel folds up the printout of the list and shoves it in his pocket. “We’re going shopping. Grab a snack.” His own stomach growls and he’s not sure how he made it from early morning to half past three without a meal. “I think I saw a box of granola bars.”

Conor lifts the lid to the slow cooker, inhaling deeply, while Pawel finds the last two granola bars. He tosses one to his son.

“Let’s get some food.”

“Can we get meat for the chili? That looked like it was all beans,” Conor grumbles. He buckles his belt, then directs Pawel to the grocery store.

Pawel already knows how to get there, but he’s not going to tell Conor that. Not when Conor seems comfortable in this place and is enjoying showing off that comfort level. He stays silent while Conor points out the entrance to the parking lot, then finds them a space close to the door.

Conor grabs a cart from the corral and pushes it into the store. “Emma’s Papa picks her up after school, so she doesn’t have to take the bus. She said they’re doing stuff today, so she couldn’t come over. I thought we could work on our—Emma!!”

Pawel catches the cart, stopping it from rolling when Conor takes off into the produce section. Emma’s answering shout is sharp and loud as Conor skids to a stop near a display laden with peaches. Pawel pushes the cart there, half an ear listening to the kids talking as if they weren’t together a half hour ago in school.

“Dad!” Conor waves at him, so Pawel picks up the pace.

He’s not sure who Emma is with. She stands next to an almost empty cart, except for a bag of peaches sitting in the seat. There doesn’t seem to be any sign of an adult.

“Emma’s shopping.”

Emma rolls her eyes, pushing braids back over her shoulder. “Obviously,” she says quietly. “Jennie had to pee. He’ll be back soon. She forgot to go before we left school.”

“Does your Papa have two carts? We can help you,” Conor offers. “You and me can do one cart, and Dad can do ours, and your Papa can do the other one.”

“You can call me Leo. I don’t think your dad would like it if you started calling me Papa like the rest of the kids.”

Pawel knows that voice.

He hasn’t heard the voice in a very long time, but there are certain phrases still etched in the deep recesses of his memory.

He exhales, and very deliberately makes himself look at the man who has joined him.

He looks good. Older, yeah. It’s been more than ten years since Leo graduated and left town for college. Apparently he’s back now, and from the police uniform, this would be Emma’s foster father that works for Pawel’s dad. He has the name ‘L. Papa’ embroidered on his uniform, just above the pocket, and his badge is still visible. Leo stands with one hand on the handle of the cart and reaches without looking to take a package of donuts out of the hands of the small girl sitting in the basket of the cart.

When he smiles, Pawel’s heart twists.

“I was glad to hear you reappeared,” Leo says quietly. His voice is a warm, low tenor, as careful and even as Pawel remembers.

“You’re fostering a Weather Witch.” It’s maybe not the best reply. Pawel refuses to wince when Conor snickers.

“I told you he’s single-minded sometimes,” Conor whispers loudly to Emma. “He’ll help find your parents. I know your Papa’s a police officer, but Dad’s a Mage.”

Emma’s brown eyes are furrowed and dark. Her lips purse, but she doesn’t say anything.

Leo takes two sheets of paper from his pocket, then hands one to Emma. “You know which cereals the boys like best. Pick one for yourself and Jennie that they won’t eat before you get a chance. Since you’re the one with me, you get to pick the pasta. I know it says twenty boxes of mac & cheese, but we only need ten. We’ll be shopping again next week.”

Emma takes the list and reads it over solemnly. “Nevaeh said we need more tuna, but it’s not on the list. I’ll get that, too. C’mon, Conor. There were some cookies on sale. Help me pick out ones that the boys won’t eat before we can.”

“Popcorn,” Conor replies. “Remember, we used the last of it last weekend? Did that get on your list?”

They roll away with the almost-empty cart before Pawel can protest.

The small girl in Leo’s cart has the box of donuts in her hands again. She opens the plastic carefully and takes one out.

“Jennie,” Leo says softly.

“I need sugar to sparkle,” she whispers around a mouthful of chocolate cream.

Speechless feels so strange. Pawel can’t remember the last time his tongue has been this tangled. “I—” He tries to break his own silence, and fails miserably.

“Things get chaotic with five kids in the house,” Leo says. When he smiles again, his pale green eyes crinkle around the corners with tiny lines that definitely weren’t there before. They match the faint hints of salt in his dark hair. “Conor’s got a lot of energy. He probably keeps you on your toes.”

“Dad says I’ve been cursed with a kid that’s just like I was,” Pawel says. He pushes his hand through his hair, trying to figure out how to recover his balance. “He didn’t tell me you were one of Emma’s foster fathers. Just that she had two of them. Foster fathers. And two missing parents.”

Meeting his ex-boyfriend shouldn’t be this unsettling.

Pawel blames it on the fact that he’s probably still in a sleep deficit��two weeks is not enough time to catch up on missing sleep for several months.

“There’s a local teacher who works with a group that finds placements for Talented kids who need Talented families to stay with.” Leo has the second page of his list in his hand, and he refers to it while picking out produce.

Right. Shopping.

Pawel looks at his own list and tries to focus on that to give himself a little distance and wrangle his brain back into working order. Salad. They definitely need things for salad. And fresh vegetables for roasting wouldn’t be bad.

“Alice asked Colt if he knew anyone who might be able to take on kids about four years ago, and when he said we would, she put us in touch with Lucy and Rowan, and that’s how we got Matt, our first foster kid.”

Leo’s voice rolls over Pawel, dropping tidbits of information that he struggles to grab onto.

“Matt’s not bad,” Jennie says around a mouthful of donut. “Sometimes.”

Pawel latches onto the names, his fingers closing around a broccoli crown and holding it a little too tightly. He fumbles with the plastic bag. “Lucy and Rowan? And… Colt?” He had to have heard those wrong.

He manages to get the bag open and shoves two broccoli crowns into it, dropping them in the basket of his cart.

Leo is silent.

When Pawel looks at him, Leo stands with his fingers wrapped around the handle of the cart, his grip tight. “Colt Harrison,” he says. “My husband. You—”

“Dated him in high school, yeah.” Pawel finishes Leo’s sentence for him.

That’s… too much information. Pawel is struggling to assimilate it.

“Dad did not mention that,” he mutters.

“This doesn’t have to be weird.” Leo grabs the container of donuts and moves it to another area of the cart. Jennie could still get to it, but she pouts instead, slouching down in one corner of the basket, her lower lip sticking out and flecked with chocolate. “Colt and I met when he was interning at the law office where he works now. We’ve been married about three years. We didn’t even know each other back in high school.”

“It doesn’t have to be weird,” Pawel echoes. He’s right, of course. It shouldn’t be weird. It’s not weird at all. People meet. They fall in love. They get married. They have kids. Sometimes there’s a small world effect and it turns out that they may have already been connected beforehand.

That’s all Pawel is in this; an ancient history connection.

“Your dad talks about you all the time,” Leo says. He pulls a napkin from his pocket and cleans Jennie’s fingers. “Try not to touch anything else,” he admonishes gently before tucking the dirty napkin back in his pocket.

He’s so careful with her. Pawel remembers when Leo used to take care of his younger siblings. It only makes sense that he’d be good with kids now. As big and scruffy and rough looking as he is, he’s gentle, too.

“I need to—” Pawel holds up the list, showing just how long it is. “Dad’s cupboards are empty. I’m not sure what he and Conor have been eating, and I get the feeling that it’s takeout so I really don’t want to know. I need to stock up.”

“So do we. Matt’s eleven and Clan, and Duke’s fourteen. We go through a lot of food in our house.” Leo heads toward the back of the store. “Come on. We’ll catch up with the kids if we get moving.”

Pawel exhales and trails behind Leo. Jennie peeks around him, her thumb in her mouth as she looks at Pawel. Small brown brows furrow deeply before she turns away and curls up.

Her snores are adorable little rasps of sound. He can’t think how she’s sleeping through the rattle and squeak of the cart she rides in. Still, she’s silent as they work their way through the aisles, collecting items from their respective lists.

They turn down one aisle and spot Conor and Emma from a distance. Conor has sparks around his hand while Emma reaches for something falling from the shelves.

Pawel coughs, and Conor turns to give him an innocent look.

Wait. That reminds him.

“You’re taking in Talented kids,” Pawel says slowly. “So you or Colt must be—”

“We both are,” Leo says, glancing at him sideways. “I grew up Clan. Colt’s Emergent, but that’s his story to tell. I heard about you being a Mage from your dad. He’s proud of everything you’ve done at PHU.”

Pawel waves that away. “Youngest dean. Newest department. Only real expert on Talent as a whole because I’m the only person who’s bothered to go down the rabbit hole far enough to study it formally.”

“It’s still impressive.” Leo huffs.

“I just… I never knew.” Pawel thinks back and tries to catalog Leo’s family based on what he knows of Clan. He didn’t interview them for his thesis; they weren’t on his radar as a large Clan community. They grew up as a part of the town.

“You weren’t meant to.” Leo dips into his pocket and hands the napkin back to Jennie, who has somehow woken from her nap and polished off a second donut while they weren’t paying attention. “That was before the Emergence. We took a lot of care to be able to live here without anyone knowing.”

“But your community—”

“Widespread and buried within this town and the surrounding ones. We never really wanted to withdraw from the rest of the world. Which is what makes us good candidates for fostering. We don’t have those same prejudices that some might have.” Leo drops a hand to the top of Jennie’s head, and she looks up at him, smiling brightly.

There are, indeed, sparkles all around her, the air shimmering with her contentment and happiness.

“Conor wants me to help find Emma’s parents,” Pawel says quietly. “At the same time, I’m not sure if he really wants me to get involved, after everything that happened this last year. What do you—”

“I think they’re dead,” Leo says quietly. His hand still rests atop Jennie’s head, but his gaze is fixed on Emma. “I can tell you what little we know, but everything points to them being dead. The question is what happened to their bodies.”

Unfortunately, Pawel’s had experience with issues like that and can think of at least one scenario.

Which might mean they’re not dead.

They also might not be prepared to be parents anymore, either.

Leo pitches his voice louder. “You should come over for dinner some night.”

Both Conor and Emma turn to look at them. Emma grips the side of the cart, stepping up and holding on while Conor gives it a good push before jumping up himself. It sends them racing towards Leo and Pawel, until Pawel puts up a hand, throwing out a gentle cushion of magic to stop them before they crash.

“Yes!” Conor yells. “Dinner!”

“You could come over and meet everyone. If you want to.” Emma’s gaze drifts away, like she really doesn’t care about the answer.

“They’re like my second family. Third, maybe, because of Alan, but my second one here,” Conor insists. “And Emma’s dads are really nice.”

“They aren’t my dads.”

“I’m sure Colt would love to see you, too,” Leo adds.

Thanks for the gut punch.

“He says yes,” Conor says quickly. “Right dad? You say yes.”

What else is he supposed to do?

“Yes.” Pawel fishes out his phone, unlocking it and staring down. He doesn’t resist when Leo slips it from his fingers, opening up his text app and sending something.

Leo places the phone back in Pawel’s hands. “The first number is mine, the second is Colt’s. In case you don’t still have them.”

“I fried my phone and lost everything,” Pawel admits. “Back when I Emerged. So. Thank you.”

“It’s good to see you.” Leo’s touch is heavy and warm where he claps his hand against Pawel’s shoulder, then squeezes.

Pawel could hug him, but he thinks that might be awkward. He’s never had this situation. He has three exes—two of them he hasn’t seen since they broke up, and the other one is Chelsea. Which is just complicated.

“Yeah, you too.” He watches as Leo walks away, Emma pushing the second cart beside him. Pawel wonders just how distracted Leo must feel since Jennie looks like she’s grabbing her third donut.

Or maybe that’s just how it is. Maybe he spoils his kids with plenty of sugar.

It’s not like Pawel knows anything about how Leo’s life is now.

Conor tugs sharply at Pawel’s shirt. “Dad. When are we going to dinner over at Emma’s house?”

Pawel looks down at his phone, at the new conversation sitting there. All it says is, this is Pawel.

He locks his phone and shoves it in his pocket. “I don’t know yet, but not tonight. Let’s go find that meat you wanted for the chili. Chicken might be good. We could sauté it up quickly and add it so it’ll get a couple hours in the slow cooker with the rest. Or we could cook it up with spices and add it afterwards.”

“You’re just saying that because chicken is healthy,” Conor grumbles. “I got more toaster pastries. Dziadziu lets me eat them.”

“I let you eat them, too, just possibly not in the same quantities,” Pawel protests. It’s not an argument he’s going to have right now, anyway.

He’s going to focus on finishing up the shopping, and finishing cooking dinner.

He’s going to focus on anything other than the fact that somehow both of the boys he dated in high school grew up to meet each other and end up married.

Yeah, he’s going to do his damnedest to focus on anything but that.

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#welcome to phu #welcometophu #the meaning of home

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thebestpersonherelovesbucky · 4 years ago

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Hangover Well Worth It

Summary: Bucky wakes with the worst hangover of his life. All he wants is some breakfast. When he gets to the kitchen for some, he has a slight problem. He’s in the wrong apartment.

Characters: Bucky Barnes x Steve Rogers

Word Count: 1.5k

Tags: Alcohol mention, hangovers, embarrassment, fluff

written for @captain-rogers-beard‘s Flex Your Writing Muscles Challenge.

Prompt: Hangover

Bucky wakes with a groan in the back of his throat and a sandpaper tongue and a person inside his head that has the nerve to jackhammer against his skull. It takes Herculean effort just to get his eyes opened and when he does, he just shuts them again. Too bright. Much too bright.

Ugh, why he let Natasha convince him to do shots of Jager is beyond him, but he’s certainly paying for it now. Thank god he doesn’t have work today. No way could he drag himself all the way to Stark Industry-NYC and do any sort of advertisement.

All Bucky plans on doing today is eating breakfast--if he can stomach it--and popping some aspirin and curling up in a Bucky Burrito on the couch to binge Netflix. Sounds like a good idea. It’d be even better if he had someone to hold him through it. Guess breakfast will have to do.

In fact, from the smell of it, Clint is already up cooking breakfast. Pancakes. Eggs. And...bacon, oh dear god, thank you. Coffee, too, and since this is Clint making it, it’s gotta be perfect.

Rolling out of bed in just his boxers, Bucky barely even opens his eyes as he ambles into the kitchen. He smacks his lips and moans and plops into the nearest seat at the end of the table. Bucky drops his head down and pillows them in his arms.

“Mornin’, sleepyhead.”

Okay, well, now his eyes go wide because that’s definitely not Clint’s voice. Bucky lifts his head just enough to look up and realizes that there’s some blond guy in his kitchen. In a pair of pajama pants and T-shirt that’s probably a size-too-small, he’s at the stove cooking the bacon.

“Wh-who’re you?” Bucky asks. “And why’re you in my kitchen?”

Frying pan in hand, he chuckles and turns to scoop some scrambled eggs on a plate next to a stack of pancakes. When Bucky gets a good look at him, he realizes that he’s the hot guy who lives down the hall. Steve Rogers. The guy that Bucky’s attempted to ask him out several times only to sputter over words and manage, at most, a hi, how are you or nice weather we’re having, huh. Majorly embarrassing. Even worse since when he’s not trying to ask him out, he’s perfectly capable of having a conversation with him.

They’re always fun, too. They like the same movies. Music. Shows. They spent over an hour hanging out on the rooftop during random get-togethers.

Steve does graphic design for SHIELD, an LGBTQ Organization and volunteers as a counselor for LGBTQ youth and paints and apparently makes breakfast for his neighbors when they’re having one of the most horrible hangovers of their life.

“I think the better question is what you’re doing in my kitchen.” Steve places the full plate in front of Bucky. “And to answer it, I awoke last night...” He pauses and snickers. “Well, more like this morning since it was after four, to someone desperately attempting to get into my apartment. And when I opened the door to see what was going on, someone called me a waste of a door and shoved me out of the way and then stumbled into my bedroom, stripping as they did, and then passed out in my bed.”

Face burning red, and by extension making his stomach turn and his head hurt even more, Bucky doesn’t even know how to respond to this. He’s not sure if there’s a stronger word than humiliated but if there is, that’s him right about now.

“I...I’m so sorry, Steve, I...” Bucky sighs. “I...”

Realizing that he’s literally sitting there in his underwear, Bucky blushes even more, and even if he figures out something to say, he won’t be able to say it. This has got to be the worst morning ever.

“Here’s some water,” Steve says, placing a glass next to the plate. “I have aspirin, too, if you want.”

For someone who got woken up at four in the morning by his asshole neighbor drunkenly mistaking the wrong apartment for his and then passing out half-naked in his bed, this guy is awfully generous.

“Thank you,” Bucky whispers. “I’m...I’m really sorry about this.”

“Nah, it’s okay. Who hasn’t forced their way into a neighbor’s place when they were drunk?”

“You’ve done this?”

“No. Never.” He laughs at his joke and just it makes his baby blues twinkle. Bucky’s belly twists again. Nothing to do with the hangover this time. “But, really, it’s okay. I have done some crazy things when drunk.”

Appreciative of the sympathy--while somehow not sounding like he pities Bucky either--Bucky grins, sheepishly.

“Oh yeah?”

“Once, my first year of college, I was walking back to my dorm with some buddies and decided it would be a great idea to moon a bunch of cops.”

Bucky, having just taken a sip of water, nearly spits it out. He needs to clap his hand over his mouth to keep from doing so.

“Yeah,” Steve laughs. “So, I kinda have a record. Hope that doesn’t ruin your breakfast.”

“Not at all,” Bucky laughs. “Makes me feel a little bit better. A little bit.”

This gets him a soft smile and Bucky scoops up some of the eggs, awkward and unsure. Steve made them for him, so no matter how embarrassed he feels, it’d probably be rude not to eat them. Plus, he’s starving. Plus, it’s a really sweet gesture. Plus, wow, these’re really good.

But he still feels totally ridiculous, so maybe it’d be better if he just left. Although, he really wants to finish the food.

“Um, these are really good,” Bucky murmurs. “But, if you want me to leave, I totally understand.”

“No, no!” Steve shakes his head very quickly. As though the idea of Bucky leaving right now is the very last thing he wants. “That’s fine. Finish your food.”

Steve sorta blinks like he’s suddenly shy and after clearing his throat, he gets up from the table and starts washing the dishes. Shit, Steve is hot. Even standing by the sink washing dishes in pajamas with water splashing onto his shirt and suds dripping onto the floor.

“Th-thanks. Um.” Bucky pushes some food around on the plate. “I can’t believe you’re being so cool about this.”

This time, Steve blushes. He blushes so hard that it reaches the tips of his ears and he folds in a smile.

“Well, I just figured I could hold it over your head forever.”

"Oh, gee,” Bucky scoffs a laugh. “Thanks a lot. And here I thought you were just awesome.”

Eyes squeezed closed, Steve pinches between them and laughs to himself with a shake of his head.

“There is also that other thing.”

“Which is?”

“I...kinda wanted to ask you out on a...date...” Steve laughs again, this time, Bucky thinks, a bundle of nerves. “But I chickened out every time I tried. So...”

Still reeling in that pretty smile of his, Steve lets it out and turns it on Bucky, and hot damn, that’s a smile that’ll make Bucky go weak at the knees whenever he sees it.

Heart skipping a beat, Bucky nibbles on his lip and almost can’t believe his ears. Given the hangover, he really wouldn’t be surprised if he’s hallucinating that the hot guy that he’s had a crush on for months just told him he’s been trying to ask him out on a date.

“So you made me breakfast after I practically broke into your apartment and demanded I sleep here?”

Steve chuckles and sits down again, this time with a cup of coffee. He scoops some sugar into it and shrugs.

“I mean...” He giggles. Outright giggles and Bucky didn’t think he could be more smitten with the guy. “I, uh, yeah. I figured, why not?”

“Um, maybe...” Bucky holds in a delighted chuckle. “Maybe, later, I can make you some lunch? When I’m not in my underwear.”

“I dunno.” Steve shrugs. “I kinda like you in your underwear oh my god, I’m sorry!” He hides his face in his hands. “I’m sorry! That was horrible, I shouldn’t’ve--”

“It’s okay, Steve.” Oh, Bucky really likes to say his name already. “That’s was...awesome. And not at all embarrassing.”

Looking over the tips of his fingers, Steve is clearly trying not to burst out laughing.

“Am I uninvited to lunch?”

“Not at all. In fact.” Bucky bats his eyes. “I think lunch’ll be an even better way to get rid of my hangover.”

Steve smiles some more, and yes, that smile’ll pierce Bucky’s heart every time. Without a doubt.

“I could...maybe wrap you in a blanket?” he offers. “Hold a cold compress over your head. Get you water. Stop me anytime.”

“Actually, I’d really like that.”

They smile at each other. The last thing Bucky expected to do when he first woke up this morning was going out on a date with Steve Rogers, the guy he’s been crushing on for months.

Hangover well worth it.

#bucky barnes #steve rogers #stucky #marvel #flex your writing muscles challenge #kellsficlet #marvel fic

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parvuls · 4 years ago

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fic: in the space between (2/2)

word count: 6.6k

rating: teen

tags: space, science fiction, enemies to friends to lovers, pre-relationship

notes: due to length and tumblr's formatting, reading on ao3 is recommended

(part 1 | part 2 | read on ao3)

“Just a month till we’re home, boys,” Holster announces as he climbs into the bottom bunk across from Eric, addressing the dark room at large. Eric can hear him shift around in his bed, sheets rustling with his movements. “Can I get a hallelujah?”

“You can get pizza,” Ransom replies dreamily from the top bunk above him. “Because Holtzy -- The Real fucking Pep God. You and me, Matty Matheson pepperoni. One month.”

There’s one month left until landing back in Houston and disbanding for three weeks of leave. It’s been creeping up in conversations for weeks now, nestling itself in crew breakfasts and mission briefs and downtime. Shitty waxes poetry about things like dipping his toes into the ocean and breathing that sweet Terra air as often as he talks about smoking three joints at once the moment they set foot on the ground. Holster and Ransom talk about the heaps of food they’ll be shoveling to compensate for a year of outer space cuisine. Jack doesn’t talk about much other than the missions, and Eric thinks about organic chemistry and molecular modeling on good days, thinks about crying on bad ones. He talks about almost anything else to distract himself and hopes to Jesus that no one can tell.

The picture frame on the shelf by his bunk wobbles on its back stand as the ship tips into Krer orbit for the night. Krer itself is dim and murky, obscuring the shining lights of its neighboring planets and cloaking the crew quarters’ portal window in darkness. Jack said that the last mission of this tour should be coming in from Flight Director Hall sometime during the night.

Eric sighs quietly, turns onto his side, and stares blindly at the blank white of the wall as he mentally runs through the primary structure of proteins once more. Holster and Ransom are arguing about the best Toronto pizza in the background, the sound of their voices weaving in with the beeps of the ship’s machinery and the creaking noises of it when in motion.

“You gotta come too, Bittle,” Holster says, drawing Eric’s attention. He rolls his head to the other side, watches Holster’s blurred figure move in the dark to lean over the edge of his bunk. Eric must’ve missed a change of conversation. “Getting together over leave? We spend the last day before launch together, all of us. Y’know, hitting some bar, maybe watching a game, then catching the plane to Texas in the morning. Last time we went to Shitty’s -- man, that was fucking wild sauce.”

“And you gotta meet Lardo,” Ransom adds. “Crew bylaws. Sorry, rookie, everyone’s in.”

There are ten densely-printed pages about prokaryotes crumpled in the back of Eric’s personal locker, that he’s riffled through maybe twice. Eric chews his lip raw, tries to think of a carefully-masqueraded way of brushing the invitation off, but Holster grumbles lowly before he can. “Well, not everyone.”

“Right,” Ransom says, his enthusiastic tone turning slightly hesitant. “But. Us and Shitty and Lardo and probably her trainee Ford. It’s almost everyone.”

It’s almost everyone, plus ground team. “But not Jack,” Eric concludes, unintentionally dismayed. He should know better by now than to be disappointed, probably. He should, but doesn’t.

Holster sighs and throws himself back onto the mattress, bed springs groaning loudly. “Jack doesn’t really do social things. He’s too cool for them. Which -- whatever, man, who cares, it’s probably more fun for us that way. So you in?”

What Eric’s in for is a world of trouble. Eric’s in for the sweltering heat of the Texan desert, he’s in for submerging in textbooks all the way up to his ears, he’s in for never being quite enough for this world. He turns his head back to the other side, facing the wall, and stifles a sigh.

“I’ll think about it,” he promises, and knows that he will, also knows he’d never be able to say yes. He doesn’t leave them enough time to round up on him before he adds, “Now shut your pieholes, gentlemen, some people need their beauty sleep. And by some people I do mean y’all.”

“Really, he means you,” Ransom tells Holster, and there’s the distinct sound of Holster reaching up and whacking the top bunk with a pillow. Eric buries his face in his sheets and tries to think distracting thoughts loudly enough to drown out the constant screeching noise of his worries. That, at least, is something he’s an expert at.

Eric wishes he could say that he spent his entire life looking up to the stars. That would be a lie.

He spent most of his childhood looking at the ground, instead. At the toe picks beneath his feet; at the dough rising in the oven; at the floor of his school’s hallways, trying to avoid eye contact. The sky in Georgia was ordinarily clear, stars blinking in and out of view, but they’d never held much of Eric’s interest. He wouldn’t have known what to search for even if he’d tried.

Eric, aged eighteen, went to college mostly for the going and less for college. New England was as much an escape as it was a destination. He liked some of his classes, didn’t like others -- remained undeclared for most of junior year, bouncing around between classes about food and culture. He put off doing his work for too long and preferred baking to writing essays too often, but it was fine, most of the time. His days were filled with more people than papers and he found that it was exactly the way he liked it.

College was the point Eric realized that, once he’d stopped being too afraid to try, he was really good with people.

“You could charm mountains into moving for you,” his sophomore year roommate told him, not without a hint of exasperation, when Eric fretted about meeting his first boyfriend’s parents. “Literally everybody likes you.”

And Eric laughed nervously, said, “Come on now, that is certainly not true,” because he couldn’t charm thirteen year old bullies out of forcing him across the state, couldn’t make small-town Georgia like him for who he really was. Those seemed a lot like immovable mountains to him.

But people flocked to his vlog, kept telling him he was so charismatic, and his hockey team kept turning to him for advice with their problems, and in November of junior year he reviewed his credits, expecting to see every food class his college had to offer, but found Populism and Norms and Deviance and Inequality and Social Change, instead.

He got his B.A. Got his master’s, too, not particularly fond of academia but not too keen on leaving the shelter it provided, either. He accepted an offer to work as a consultant for a big company right after grad school, spent a year expertly tailoring trade relations and marketing techniques to partners and customers from foreign cultures. He understood people, liked people, and people, apparently, liked him. It wasn’t the job of his dreams but it was a decent start, and once the one year mark came and went he began considering PR work, maybe putting his people skills to a smaller-scale use. He was twenty-five and definitely not unhappy and his eyes were, always, firmly on the ground.

And then -- well. Then, one day, NASA called.

Jack gathers the four of them outside the flight deck to inform them that their crew has been tasked with the last Human-Islik Intergalactic Treaty info exchange of the quarter, in time for the summit meeting at the end of August. He tells them Flight Director Hall is counting on them, tells them to wear clean suits, and when Holster and Ransom begin chanting last mission, last mission, last mission, he sternly reminds them that being assigned to the Treaty IE is an honor. Still, when they all scatter and the two of them practically skip down the bridge, Eric thinks he sees the corners of Jack’s mouth twitch.

The mission takes four days, requires a series of security checks before entering each room and short transmissions to Houston for green lights at every step. Islikaru has the largest concentration of humans outside of Earth, but protocol must be followed nevertheless. Eric shakes hands, shakes paws, shakes tentacles, makes pleasant small talk and smiles brightly and lets Ransom ramble about science and Jack deal with bureaucracy. It feels at last like a familiar dance, and Eric tries not to think about how much he doesn’t ever want to stop dancing.

By dusk of the fourth day Shitty convinces Jack to wrap it up at a local eatery, the crew crowded around a small table in a pressurized O2 pod with their helmets thrown on the seats by their thighs. Eric finds himself squeezed between Jack on one side and Shitty on the other, a cool syrupy drink emitting translucent wisps of steam in his hand. Holster orders for all of them in rusty Isli that may or may not actually result in food, but they’re all just too jubilant to care.

“Alright boys,” Shitty hollers, banging his coaster on the table several times for effect. The glass containers holding all of their drinks jiggle with its force, creating a cheerful ringing sound. “A toast to this fucking beaut of a year. Being stuck in a cramped metal case floating in nothing for three hundred sixty-five days has been a great pleasure with your rockin’ bods for company. Fucking cheers!”

Ransom whoops, Shitty pretends to wipe a tear, Holster belts out the chorus of Cheers’ theme song passionately. Eric watches them, helplessly indulgent, and thinks: he’s actually making a home here.

On his other side, Jack shoves one of the food baskets towards Eric with his knuckles and says, “You should try the octo-bacon, if you haven’t.” His eyes meet Eric’s for a brief moment, make Eric’s lungs expand in his chest. He can’t remember the last time Jack spoke to him for no good reason.

Jack’s face is uniquely relaxed, his jaw convulsing as he fruitlessly tries not to laugh at something Shitty says, and Eric’s former thought continues, completely unbidden: gracious, I’m going to miss these boys so much. Their bickering and their worst habits and their dumbest moments. Holster’s booming voice, Ransom’s midnight thesis writing, Shitty’s insistence on nudity, Jack’s continual ability to confuse him.

“Holy shit, man,” Ransom says, slamming his emptied drink onto the table and staring at its last drops in awe. “What the fuck is this shit. I need another one ASAP.”

“Not it!” Holster calls, and then stretches his arm across the table, fingertip of his index finger pointed mere inches from Jack’s face. “But I just know our commander would love to buy his best crew another round. Right, Zimmermann?”

“You’re my only crew, Birkholtz,” Jack rolls his eyes, mostly good-natured. Holster’s wiggling finger and Shitty’s foot kicking at his shin beneath the table must goad him into action anyway, because he puts his helmet back on, disappears out of the pod and towards the service counter without further protest.

While Eric watches him go, Shitty slides closer in the booth and flings his arm around Eric, tugs him right into the crook of Shitty’s body.

“This is it, Bittle,” he sighs, eyes closing dramatically. “Once this tour ends, you will no longer hold the title of rookie. Finally, you will graduate to the same titles everybody else gets -- mainly bro, or fucker, or, if I’m spectacularly schwasted, yo, what’syourname. This is a monumental day for all. You might even get a nickname. Are you appropriately emotional?”

Eric is emotional about many things. He can't stop thinking about this crew and what they've come to mean to him, can't stop hating keeping secrets, can't stop dreading the moment they cross back into Earth. Eric is emotional about the possibility of seeing his mama again, and what it'll mean if he does; Eric is emotional about life in general, right now, so he says, “Sure thing, Shitty,” and shoves a ring of octo-bacon into his mouth. It seems, for lack of a better option, like the smartest response.

From above Ransom’s head, Eric spots Jack reappearing just beyond the glassy walls of the pod, carrying a tray with four containers between both hands. He then keeps watching, helpless and open-mouthed, as another astronaut rises from a nearby booth and slams into Jack shoulder-first, tipping the entire tray sideways and nearly knocking its contents over and to the floor.

“Oh shit, sorry mate!” the man exclaims, immediately reaching out to catch Jack’s hands and help stable the tray. His Australian accent is thick, the ASA pin decorating the shoulder that knocked into Jack glinting under artificial lights. The two of them grab the tray with three hands, containers sliding back into place still intact, before the man’s eyes flick up and catch on Jack’s face. He then jerks back, his eyes widening and his hands yanked away from Jack like he’s afraid to catch on fire. “Fuck, Zimmermann! I didn’t see it was you! Fuck my life, uh -- here, I’ll pay for the drinks --”

Eric watches, crestfallen, as Jack’s previously relaxed expression gradually darkens back into his usual scowl, lips disappearing between his teeth. “It’s fine, don’t --”

The other astronaut shakes his head vehemently, shoving his gloved hand into his utility pocket and fishing out some local coins that he then throws onto the tray haphazardly.

“Fuck no, mate, I’m not taking risks with you,” he hurries backwards, flat palms raised up, like he’s under some kind of threat Eric can’t read in Jack’s distressed body language. “For real, it was an accident, don’t get your dad to kick me off the program, yeah?”

The man backs off, scurrying back to his pod and to his whispering crewmates. Jack remains standing, shoulders rigid and tray held in clenched white knuckles, vacant stare fixed on the floor. Eric glances away from Jack for the first time since he saw him approach and notices that his whole table is silent and tense. He catches Shitty’s furrowed eyebrows and Ransom’s worried look, and becomes slowly conscious of the fact that unlike him, everybody else already know what just went on in front of them.

Jack’s mood seems to fracture, then. He steps through the pod’s sliding sealing and sets the tray down on the table too forcibly, glass containers knocking together. He doesn’t sit back down. Shitty parts his mouth to say something, but Jack latches his helmet closed before he can, muttering, “I’m done for tonight. I’ll see you guys back on the ship.”

His face is almost blank, valiantly trying for imperviousness, but Eric has never seen him look so decidedly miserable before. Instinctively, he reaches out to grab Jack’s wrist; he doesn’t know what to say, doesn’t know what just happened, but he does know that Jack shouldn’t leave like that. He manages to stammer out, “...Jack --” before Jack tears his hand away from Eric’s grip with the same excessive aggression that rattled the drinks, and says curtly, “Excuse me.”

Eric stares at his back stalking off until he's entirely out of view, feels unjustly hurt and primarily very confused.

Jack Zimmermann is --

Jack Zimmermann is one of NASA’s Arctic Project’s best pilots and ship commanders, Eric learned his first year in the program. He’s exceptionally committed to his job, loyal to his crew, unwaveringly focused on the mission. He’s direct, sometimes brutally so. He’s good at following orders, makes tough decisions under pressure, and never takes the opportunity to rub elbows with the higher ups. He just loves what he does, and does it notably well.

The name and the legend is a lot to live up to, but when Eric met Jack he realized that the man is exactly as he’s advertised. Jack, in the role of Jack Zimmermann, is straightforwardly that: an amazing astronaut, an amazing ship commander, an amazing pilot.

It’s unfortunate, then, that Jack in the role of a human being is sometimes an enormous asshole.

The ship’s lights are all off when the boys straggle themselves back on board later in the evening, their boots dragging sluggishly against gravity. When Jack left, the celebratory mood followed his footsteps out the door; no one seemed the least bit inclined to talk about it, so Eric didn’t ask. Though the four of them did their best to recover, cracking halfhearted jokes and staying for another couple of rounds, even Shitty’s mustache seems to droop lower than normal by the time they finally find their way back to the ship.

Shitty passes airlock and walks straight towards the pilots’ quarters without saying a thing, so Eric wordlessly follows Holster and Ransom into their own quarters, brow still creased with puzzlement. He watches as Holster starts stripping by the door and Ransom sits down on the bottom bunk to take off his gear, and waits, and waits, until the silence is just too strange to handle.

“Alright, can anyone tell me what in the deep-fried hell was that?”

Holster glowers, rips off his support strap with gusto. He doesn’t answer, so Eric turns his frown at Ransom, who sighs as he removes the tough overshoe off his boots. “Ignore him, Bittle. Jack just gets real bitchy when people mention his dad. Which happens pretty often because, you now, his dad.”

“His dad…?” Eric prompts, desperate, because it seems like he should know something that he doesn’t. It’s not in the least a foreign feeling these days, when concerning space and science and always, always Jack.

Ransom looks up at him, one boot dangling from his left hand. “Yeah, you know, his dad. It’s a lot of pressure, living up to that. It’s probably most of why Jack is how Jack is.”

Eric doesn’t believe daddy issues are any excuse to be so surly, and he thinks, rather bitterly, that he would know something about the matter. But he pushes, still, because it’s always one step forward and three steps back with Jack, and any scrap of information making his commander seem a little more human could go a long way right now. Or even not human; Lord knows Eric can figure out nonhums just fine. “What does he have to live up to?”

Holster pauses peeling off the suit’s hard upper torso to squint incredulously at Eric. The lower torso assembly of the suit pools around his thighs. “You don’t know who Mad Bob is?”

“Uh,” Eric deflates, taking a tentative step back, the crown of his head hitting the frame of the top bunk. The tone of conversation begins to sound a lot like the time he disclosed that he doesn’t really know the periodic table or has, at any point of time, known it at all. “No. I don’t.”

Ransom throws his other boot to the side and leans forward, elbows resting on his knees and face contorting into an expression that closely mirrors Holster’s; surprised, scandalized, disbelieving. “He’s like -- Mad Bob. He was the first commander in the original Avalanche Project. He was the first pilot to leave the Solar System and come back alive?”

“They say he was the first to meet extraterrestrial life!” Holster gestures grandly with his hand, yanking off the EV glove to have free use of the other hand as well.

“That’s actually not true,” Ransom clarifies, “No nonhum races were recorded until almost a decade later --”

“Not the point, dude,” Holster waves him off. “The point is, Mad Bob is a legend. His ship nearly burned on the way back to Earth and he totally saved everyone on board. Made the first round trip, you know? He’s a big fucking deal. Can’t believe you’ve never heard of him.”

Eric blanches, digs his nails into his skin to hold his instinctual reaction at bay. Eric spent the first twenty-five years of his life with his feet planted firmly on the ground, his eyes never straying upwards. Later, Eric spent every moment of his time at Houston scrambling to prove his worth in an environment so wholly alien to him that the irony in the metaphor was no longer funny. Eric wouldn’t be able to tell Neil Armstrong from Adam, just like Eric can never really remember the difference between Newton’s and Einstein's theories, doesn't know the primary structure of proteins even now. Eric doesn’t belong here, and he’s quickly running out of time to pretend like he does.

“Oh,” he says finally, weakly. Holster and Ransom haven’t looked away from him yet, so he averts his eyes, turns to face his bunk. “Must’ve just missed it somehow.”

He can almost hear Holster and Ransom hem and haw for a few long, silent moments, before the sound of nylon rustling resumes. Eric takes a deep breath, and does his very best not to regret ever asking. It’s made worse by the fact that this hasn't really helped him understand Jack any better than before.

So Jack had spent most of Eric’s first few months on the ship treating Eric like an inconvenience. That was okay -- it hadn’t been the first time he’d been perceived like that, and it wouldn’t be the last. He hadn’t been a fresh-faced teenager from the South in a long while; he’d been older, tougher. He’d been places and had met people, nicer people and smarter people and even meaner people than Jack Zimmermann. He hadn’t really needed a pat on the shoulder or an encouraging smile, just the opportunity to do his job, and do it well.

The real problem was that Eric had always been good at his job because he understood people. And Eric, despite his best begrudging efforts, cannot make sense of Jack.

Jack, who clearly had not understood Eric’s job at all until, suddenly and out of nowhere, there was Evor. Jack who, after Evor, told Eric good work and sounded like maybe he even meant it. Jack who, after Evor, was sat by Eric when Lardo radioed to tell them that Jack’s report had made the deputy administrator call to congratulate Eric specifically.

Jack who, also after Evor, stopped meeting Eric’s eyes unless absolutely necessary. Jack, who Eric sometimes caught staring from the corner of his eye, looking lost in thoughts. Jack, who roughhoused with Shitty in the flight deck, and arranged Holster a private DSN connection for his mom’s birthday, and listened to Charlie Rich on late night piloting shifts -- but whose glimpses of personality disappeared the moment Eric tried to study them for too long.

Missions transformed into something different in the aftermath of Evor. A month after the crew’s return to action they were sent to do testing on the magnetic field of Pladora, and Jack put Eric in charge of communication with the local scientists without preambles. Eric choked, floundered, but grabbed the opportunity with both hands; he still couldn’t shake the weight of Jack’s gaze on his shoulders whenever he spoke with the Pladoran team.

Later, Jack pulled him aside and asked, “Are you capable of confidently explaining to me the exact kind of testing we’re doing here?”, stared at Eric until he was fidgeting uncomfortably in place. “It’s important that you can do that,” he added, like Eric didn’t already know, like Eric didn’t think about it every night before he fell asleep, like he needed Jack’s eyes on him for that, making the nape of his neck burn and his palms tingle with sweat. But Jack frowned at him, then, took a step back, like he didn’t understand why Eric was flushed with embarrassment. It almost seemed for a moment like he wasn’t actively gunning for humiliation.

And then it happened again. Two weeks after that they were helping ESA fix a satellite on a German space station, and Jack left Eric to discuss mission parameters unattended, but also ordered him to watch Shitty install a new GPS chip for three hours. During the strategy session for a recon mission in the Austra System, Jack insisted on hearing Eric’s opinion, but also accosted him after it to demand that Eric read about the complication with the wavelength disturbance. In a charged encounter with destitute merchants from a dead galaxy, Jack remained two steps behind Eric’s right shoulder and let him conciliate them, but when Eric later babbled about the civil turmoil caused by the demise of the galaxy, Jack asserted that he should understand the astrophysical process leading to such death.

So Eric generously thought: maybe Jack was trying, poorly. But three months after Evor the two of them returned to the ship frazzled and peeved, had spent most of the day wrangling with diplomats on Uzeru, and Eric scrubbed a hand over his face, resolved to try one more time. He offered Jack a friendly, tired smile, and said, “Wanna share bad coffee in the kitchen to drown our sorrows?”, but Jack only shook his head once, sharply, before immediately walking away.

The inability to make any sense of it consumes Eric's thoughts for much longer than he's comfortable with. Jack pushes and then pulls, hovers over Eric professionally but disappears the moment it’s interpersonal. A week before they're off for leave Eric looks up from his plate to see Jack taking his dinner into the flight deck, ignoring Shitty’s offer to join him, and thinks that maybe he can never peek past Jack's mask because Jack makes sure to turn away whenever it comes off. He thinks that maybe this is what loneliness looks like, thinks that he should still know better than to care, thinks for the first time that maybe Jack’s silent treatment is nothing more than not knowing what to say to Eric after Evor. Thinks that maybe Jack’s inept solution to not knowing what to say is to just say nothing at all.

The impact crater chipping Vylos’ surface is visible from two-hundred thousand miles out. It’s the nearest planet to the jumping point back to Earth, and its crater serves as a parking lot for all ships on their way to or from there. Its chaotic layout strongly reminds Eric of the QuikTrip station just north of Atlanta, but he bites his tongue and keeps that to himself. Jack and Shitty have probably never seen a QuikTrip, anyway.

Jack grumbles about finding a parking space on the night before leave, body curved over the control wheel and eyes squinted at the windowpane. Shitty leaves him to it, drapes his legs sideways on his armrest to tell Eric about the long claws of capitalism stretching into the cosmos, and how this has resulted in Vylosian beer being the best there is this side of the Milky Way, “Even though it’s like, totally not a real beer, dude, but -- marketing ploy!”, and how its atmosphere was chemically engineered, “To be breathable for all us Earthly suckers passing by ‘cause of the jump point. Filthy fucking marketing plot, I tell ya -- and the beer costs like my goddamn kidney.”

“Your goddamn kidney’s not worth much with the amount of Vylosian beer you regularly consume,” Jack interjects, lowering the ship into a vacant spot skillfully. Vylos’ terrain, reflected at Eric from the three surrounding windows in the flight deck, is grainy and blue.

The Vylosian bar Shitty buoyantly pushes them into is decorated in mismatched memorabilia, posters of Uma Thurman and Justin Bieber and a life-size stormtrooper suit personally signed by George Lucas looming by the wall. The AI pouring the drinks is a hologram in the shape of a Western saloon bartender, the beer is thick and neon green. Eric’s been outside the Kármán line for nearly a year and feels caught by surprise, still, almost daily; but tonight he gets to wear denim shorts instead of nylon spacesuits, gets to clink his glass against Ransom’s, gets to pretend that tomorrow isn’t possibly the end of it all. It has to be enough, he thinks, and takes a determined drink.

Their group starts out leaning against the wooden countertop, skin sticking to its surface. Later, Holster and Ransom chat their way into the table of two local girls, and Jack disappears from view. Eventually, their group winds up scattered across different corners of the bar, red-faced and loose. Eric catches himself repeatedly looking up from the bottom of his glass to the open door, at the pale glint of the sky just outside it, and after a thorough sweep around he takes his drink, gets up, and starts walking.

The bar overlooks the vast expanses of the crater sprawling beneath it, and Eric finds himself sitting outside at the edge of the cliff, thighs bare over the rough azure dirt and beer glass tilting in his hand. Vylos’ three moons are out of sync, rising and peaking and setting in a simultaneous cycle, and Eric is busy watching them when he hears heavy footsteps coming up behind him.

He’s surprised to find Jack standing there, suspended in motion with his hands deep in his pockets and his hair windswept, figure backlit by the lights of the bar twinkling behind him. He seems just as startled to see Eric; his expression wavers out of its usual stoic façade to betray some semblance of emoting.

“Oh, Bittle, I -- I thought you’re inside with the boys,” Jack blinks, a hint of a frown wrinkling his forehead.

“No,” Eric blinks in turn, unsettled by this strange creature wearing the face of his commander. He looks so different in jeans and an AsCans training program t-shirt, out of the bulky spacesuits they spend most days in. “Uh -- no. I’m not.”

“Right.” Jack nods stiffly, glances at the ground and then at a spot somewhere over Eric’s shoulder. His body language is guarded, and he looks misplaced, painfully awkward. They still haven’t exchanged more than two or three sentences in private since Evor and Eric, typically the chatterbox, wouldn’t even know where to begin. “Well, uh, I didn’t mean to interrupt. I’ll go.”

“You’re not interrupting,” Eric says, before he can think too carefully about why the heck he’d say such a thing. Before he can recall the snapshot memory of Jack turning to eat dinner in the flight deck, alone. “I mean. I’m just sitting here. Drinking alien beer,” he raises his glass, the bright green liquid sloshing around, leaving traces of neon on its rim. The ridiculousness of the situation may be slightly lost on Jack, but not on him. Space still is, and probably always will be, kind of weird.

“Right,” Jack repeats, the line of his back tightening and his eyes narrowing at Eric. “Be careful with that. Don’t want you to throw up during descent tomorrow.”

Dear Lord. One step forward and three steps back. “Yes, Commander,” Eric sighs, swallowing the chagrin out of his voice. His shoulders sag as his body curls towards the view, away from Jack. God forbid Jack Zimmermann think about anything other than the mission for a single flippin' moment. Eric should know better than to be disappointed, but the sour churn of his stomach is unmistakable. Eric should, but doesn’t.

The footsteps behind him pick up again, and he expects to hear Jack walking farther and farther away. Instead, he’s shocked into silence by Jack sliding into his peripheral view, sitting down beside him on the cliff. His shoulders are rigid, his mouth pressed thin. His expression looks like he’s as bewildered as Eric by his own actions.

“Are you excited to go back?” Jack asks after a long, uncomfortable minute, during which they both sit mutely and watch the pits of Vylos before them. Its second moon has finished a full rotation and is now shining down in soft lilac beams. Jack’s voice is tense, flat; this boy, Eric thinks almost pityingly, really is terrible at small talk.

He’s been asked this question a dozen times that month, but mustering his practiced fake enthusiasm now seems hard. Maybe it’s the alien alcohol; maybe it’s that Jack could regress into not speaking to him again at any moment. “I guess so. Home sweet home, ‘m I right?”

Jack shrugs one shoulder, a short and angular movement. “It doesn't feel like going home to me,” he says, honest and plain. “I spend most of my time out here. It’s more like -- a summer vacation. Some people go to the Caribbean and we go visit Earth.”

Eric nods, absently, unsure of how to respond. He brings his glass to his lips and takes a long swig of it, tastes green all the way to the back of his throat. It’s almost impossible to imagine that in twenty-four hours he could be drinking locally-produced white wine in the Washington Corridor. Earth feels so darn far away.

“What’ll you do on your vacation, then?” Eric asks after another long stretch of silence, mostly out of politeness that his mother persistently lectured into him over years.

Jack’s attention is fixed on the moons, his profile sculpted by the sharp lines of his nose and cheekbones and chin. His eyes are so pale under the lilac moon -- big, slanted, annoyingly beautiful. He remains quiet for a moment, leans his weight on his palms and considers Eric’s question. His gaze is still flickering over the view when he says, finally, “I usually go see my parents. Read. Buy groceries.”

Eric snorts inelegantly. If he didn’t know any better, didn’t know Jack any better, that could almost be mistaken for a joke. “Buy groceries?”

“Yes,” Jack says, perfectly serious. His eyes flit over to meet Eric’s, and Eric holds them for only a moment before quickly looking away. His cheeks grow inexplicably warm. “I don’t really miss anything when I’m up here -- I mean, not really -- but I guess sometimes it’s nice to remember people. Stupid human stuff, eh? Supermarkets. Banks. I always think I'd catch a movie in the theatre but somehow I never do.”

He appears to be uncomfortable with his admission, face closing off once the words are out of his mouth. The sharp lines of his features twist back into a familiar scowl, but Eric watches them, him, thoroughly transfixed. The authentic snippet of personality cannot disappear under the reapplied mask this time; Jack has put something truthful on the table, a hint of something charmingly sentimental. A mundane humanity space can't recreate, newspapers and laundromats and coffee stands and taxes. Grocery shopping. Eric doesn’t know if the fast, erratic beating in his chest is at the sweet tinge of it, or the mere thought of Jack paying attention to such things.

“You should,” Eric finally finds his words somewhere in his strangled windpipe, slowly facing forward. Jack, and his continual ability to confuse. He can see Jack from the corner of his eye, turning his head to subtly raise both eyebrows at Eric. “Go to the movies. You should do it this time.”

“Yeah. Maybe I will,” Jack says after a long pause. “I'll tell you how it went when we’re back here.”

“If I come back,” Eric sighs before he can catch himself, and then freezes, fingers clenching around his glass. Dang it. Dang it all to hell.

“What?” Jack asks, confused, and when Eric refuses to meet his eyes, shoulders squaring and chin dropping to his chest, Jack’s voice sharpens and he repeats, “What? What do you mean? Bittle. What do you mean.”

Eric exhales unsteadily, rubbing his forehead with the back of his free hand. He thought he'd have more time. He thought -- like he always does, and is always wrong -- that he’d successfully outrun his problems by denying their existence. He could try shoving those four incriminating words back into his mouth, but Eric can feel Jack’s intense attention focused on the side of his face. Once Jack stepped back into the professional boots of Commander Zimmermann, no denial will make him let this go.

“I’m spending all of my leave in Texas. I gotta pass evaluation for the clearance to come back here with y’all. These past six months were my test run -- I’ve never passed the written exam.” Eric drags his shoe through the sandy ground, watches as the grooves he makes are swept away. “Y’all know I’m no good at the sciency stuff, Jack, alright. I don't need to hear it from you as well. If I don't get an adequate score I'm off the program for good.”

Eric chews the inside of his cheek and chances a side glance. Jack looks outraged, his thick brows drawn down and his entire face devoid of color. Eric’s immediate reflex is to flinch away, but Jack speaks before he can make a move. “What subjects?”

“What?” Eric asks, thrown completely off-balance. He was expecting a thundering reprimand at worst, an indifferent dismissal at best. He doesn’t know what the quiet, heated response he's gotten even is.

"What subjects are they testing you on?”

Eric hesitates, body still braced for the blow that isn't coming. “Uh. All of the introductory subjects. Basic physics, geobiology... mostly modern astronomy. But I swear --”

“Alright,” Jack cuts him off with a single sharp nod, his chin sticking out slightly, like Eric has somehow pushed him to make up his mind. His expression, typically impassive, is now staggeringly transparent. “I’ll help you study for the written exam.”

“What?" Eric blinks several times, glances down to see if he's had more to drink than he thought, but the glass is still half-full and Jack's figure is still corporeal by his side, intense expression still in place. He doesn't fade away like the hallucination Eric is so sure he must be. "Jack -- what --?”

Jack doesn't seem to pick up on the astonishment that has Eric stumbling over his words. “We’ve got two and a half weeks, right? You need entry level stuff to pass that exam. If we study hard, you can do it.”

Eric thinks he might be gaping, his mouth hanging open and growing dry in the arid air, but he apparently isn't capable of collecting his jaw off of Vylos’ ground. “But… what… but you’ll be in Canada…?”

“I’ll stay in Huston,” Jack looks determined. “Bittle, we're a team. You should’ve told us before and we would’ve helped you. You’re a strong crew member, you’re smart, you’ve got an edge that none of us has got. If that’s the only thing holding you back we’re going to get you over it. Study clinic, day and night.” He pauses, the self-assurances faltering for only a moment, and the lines of his mouth soften somewhat. “Just trust me, okay?”

Eric is absolutely floored. The only foolish thing that manages to leave his mouth is, “What about going to the movies?”

Jack almost smiles. Eric has spied that expression on rare occasions before, but never directed at him, and never from up close. It does something to Jack's face that Eric can't put in words. “I’ll catch one on the next leave. Which you’ll be taking as well, ‘cause you’re not leaving the program. We've got each other's backs, Bittle.”

Under the moonlight, purple shadows carving his face from marble and a mellow half-smile twisting the corners of his mouth upwards, Eric could almost let himself admit how handsome Jack is. Jack rubs the dirt off of one palm and slowly curls his fingers, holds them up in a silent offer. Eric can see the thin veins beneath the surface of his skin. He looks at the hand, looks up at Jack, and lets a tentative smile blossom on his face. He brings his clenched hand up to meet Jack’s, and bumps his fist.

#zimbits #omgcp #omgcheckplease #zimbits fic #it is the space fic! they are in space!#i cleaned up the first chapter if anyone wants to reread or catch up #check please!#jack x bitty #pavfics #okay great this is a series now. i'm SORRY

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maximumsnow · 4 years ago

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Chapters: 8/? Fandom: Half Life VR But The AI Is Self Aware, HLVRAI - Fandom Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Characters: Gordon Freeman, Tommy Coolatta, Dr. Coomer (Half-Life), Bubby (Half-Life), Benrey (Half-Life) Additional Tags: Canon-Typical Violence, Canon-typical swearing, Basically an au exploring what if HLVRAI followed Half Life a little more closely, Au where there isn't a betrayal in that one spot, Mainly was wondering what would happen to the others if they hadn't been in on it., Some things change some don't, Oh also this is sort of intended as a not a game au

Summary: Anyone who knows original Half-Life knows that the ambush happens in that spot no matter what. What would have happened if the ambush was as rough for the others?

There was a lot to unpack involving the full realization of just how inhuman Benrey was, but all of it was shoved aside thanks to the current problem.

Which was that Benrey was horribly injured and trapped in a room that was full of a poisonous gas, and, if Coomer’s continued explanation from Wikipedia was anything to go by, it was really, really bad. Gordon did not know the limits of Benrey’s ability to heal, but if he looked this bad while getting poison shoved down his lungs, Gordon wasn’t sure about Benrey’s chances of bouncing back if he stayed for too long.

The worry cranked up to eleven when Benrey suddenly collapsed below the window.

Gordon ran over to the control console and anxiously glanced over all the buttons and levers that clearly had something to do with the environmental room. “Shit, is there like, an emergency release button?!”

Tommy wasn’t far behind. “There should- there has to be one. It’s gotta be OSHA compliant!”

“No offense, Tommy, but given everything else you’ve said followed OSHA, that doesn’t mean shit.”

“I was joking then, Mr. Freeman.”

The conversation was cut off by Bubby yelling, “Look for ‘Emergency Ventilation!’ They might be idiots, but they don’t want to waste that much space and money on a bricked room.” He had taken Tommy’s place at the tank of poison and was fiddling with something over there.

Now that he knew what to look for, Gordon renewed his search, but Tommy was already reaching over him and slammed a fist onto a button. “Woah-”

A sound not unlike an air conditioning unit but much louder kicked in, and there was an immediate change in the enclosed room as the green started to clear out. With the fog fading away and the lack of a large rainbow body covering the floor, it was much easier to see what the room used to be.

The rocky terrain was mostly barren by this point, with the remains of possibly alien plants dotted around pools of water. Corpses of headcrabs were also strewn about, but, shockingly, they were mostly still intact despite Benrey’s presence.

Most notably, though, there was the body of a soldier, and Gordon could not say the same about it. It was in more pieces than Benrey’s still alive body. There was an arm in the corner, a leg by that murky pool, and Gordon had to look away from the torso with organs leaking out of it.

That was enough nightmares for today.

He anxiously waited for the door to unlock, but despite the toxin being flushed out by fresh air and vented elsewhere, there wasn’t a click or a hiss or any other sound he would associate with an unlocking pressurized door.

“Uh, why-”

The overhead sprinklers in the sealed room turned on; the hiss of spraying water was immediately covered up by a sharp scream that could only have come from Benrey.

Gordon slammed against the window as he tried to see what was going on. “Benrey? Dude, you okay?” He knew the question was stupid, but due to where Benrey dropped, it was difficult to see the security guard from the angle the window allowed.

“What are you doing?” The tone would be called whiny if it wasn’t for the gasps of pain that punctuated each word.

The implied accusation stung. “I don’t know! We hit the button to clear out the gas and-”

Tommy interrupted, “Sorry Benrey! That stuff- That gas residue can stick. The room has special surfactant laced water in the sprinklers and… yeah. Just hold on a little longer, okay?”

The explanation was met with silence.

“Benrey?” Gordon couldn’t help but call out.

“Oh. Okay. I can chill a bit.” The voice was strained, but at least he spoke at all.

The tension left his shoulders a little. As long as Benrey was still talking, they knew he was fine. At least it sounded like his voice wasn’t as raspy this time.

Unfortunately, all they could do was wait until the room went through a complete clean cycle if the book Tommy had pulled out was right.

Feeling bad for their stuck companion, Gordon turned the intercom on and panicked when he didn’t have an immediate topic to bring up. Latching onto the first question his mind thought of, he asked, “So uh, was this why you kept disappearing on us earlier?”

More silence.

“Benrey?”

“Hey bro. Appreciate what you’re doing, but please no talking? Pretty please? I’ll be fine. Promise.” Benrey’s voice was barely audible over the fans getting louder.

The pained plea immediately made Gordon feel guilty, so he turned the intercom off and started to pace in front of the window. The sound made it difficult for any of them to hold a conversation, even if Benrey wasn’t involved, so Gordon was stuck alone in his thoughts as he waited for the door to finally open. From a different perspective, it looked like he was all but bouncing between Bubby and Tommy, but he didn’t get to appreciate that mental image due to worrying over the condition Benrey was in.

He was still reeling over the full understanding that Benrey’s one off line about not being human was not an impulsive gag, but a truthful statement. Sure, he probably should have guessed by now given Benrey’s apparent powers, but Gordon still thought that he was more in line with Bubby or Coomer. An… Enhanced human, if anything else.

But nope, Benrey was apparently a shapeshifting monster that had a human form. The scientist in Gordon was intrigued at the apparent alien life form, but the empathetic part of him knew that outright asking shit like that would be rude at best. De-human… Depersonalizing at worst.

Sure Benrey gave him hell, but it wasn’t like Benrey had been outright malicious. Hell, he had even rescued Coomer.

… Actually, he was probably also the thing that slammed into Bubby’s tube to release him.

Damn, Gordon really felt bad for being a dick to Benrey earlier, now.

His thoughts were interrupted as a loud hissing sound brought his attention back to the room, and Tommy all but yanked the door off its hinges before catching himself. “Mr. Freeman, you have to, uh. You’re wearing an HEV suit. You have to be the one to pull him out.”

Nodding, Gordon quickly passed him and entered the now supposedly cleaned environmental room. Benrey was huddled under the observation window, and when he looked up at Gordon, he actually had more than half of a face.

The sight of muscle and bone still made Gordon recoil in horror. “Holy shit, dude. Doesn’t that hurt?”

Benrey half-heartedly gave a one-armed shrug. “I’ll regen soon, don’t worry about it.”

“That doesn’t mean this doesn’t suck ass!” Hell, just looking at him was making him queasy. But the half-drowned puppy look compelled him to at least try to ease the poor guy’s pain. “Come on let’s get you out of here.” He knelt down and tried to figure out where he could potentially touch Benrey without hurting him.

“Need a hand?” Benrey rolled over, and clutched in his remaining hand was a now very muddy arm.

Needless to say, the visual equivalent of a non-sequitur gave Gordon pause as he tried to process just what he was looking at.

“Why the fuck do you have a random arm?”

“Wasn’t his.” He lazily waved the arm like it was a magic wand and pointed the hand end towards the dead soldier.

Gordon could feel his stress headache building. “What do you mean it wasn’t his?”

In lieu of saying anything, Benrey shoved the other end of the arm into Gordon’s face, and the movement startled Gordon into falling on his ass.

He was so glad that he couldn’t feel the mud through the HEV suit.

“Dude, what the fuck?”

“Look, it’s not, uh, natural.”

“I don’t want to look at the bony end-” He stopped and stared at the place he knew there should be blood and bone, but there were bits that looked shiny under the mud. “Metal?”

“Yeah. Not his. He’s kinda made of meat.”

“Is this… Dr. Coomer’s arm?”

“Think so. Tried to get it back for ‘em”

… That’s right, Benrey was the monster that chased the soldiers that had taken Dr. Coomer apart.

Gordon shook his head as he got back on his feet. “You can show him when we get out. Come on...”

Given Benrey’s current state, Gordon finally decided to just try picking him up bridal style. Other than a few grunts of pain as he was shifted around, Benrey kept mostly quiet.

Exiting became a problem since the others had all elected to stand directly in the doorway to peer in like children trying to snoop on their parents. He rolled his eyes, but before he could say anything, Benrey shouted, “LET ME OUT OF THIS BOX!”

The sudden volume actually made Bubby and Tommy scramble out of the way, but it took a not so subtle yank from Bubby to make Coomer move.

With the path clear, Gordon walked in and found a relatively clean spot next to a wall to put Benrey. “Here we go. Sorry, can’t do anything more comfy for ya.”

“It’s fine,” He said before shoving the arm into Gordon’s hands. “I gotta. Gotta nap.”

While the thought of staying too long made him nervous, Gordon couldn’t help but agree with him there. They could afford to take a break for a while. “Alright, I’ll get you up before we leave.”

“Sounds good.” The one eye was already drifting shut, but the steady breathing soothed Gordon’s fear.

Despite still being worried, he could see some of the skin regrowing on Benrey’s face, and, frankly, Gordon didn’t want to get sick. Instead, he turned to the others, nearly bumped into Tommy with how close he had been standing, and asked Coomer, “Hey, your arm-”

“Look, Gordon, you found my left Extendo-arm!”

“-Your arm is dirty. Do we have to do anything special to clean it?”

“Nope! It’s perfectly waterproof even when unattached. You’ve even seen me swim with it.”

“The chemicals in the water should have- should have made it safe to use. Even after exposure to- Even after being exposed to the poison.”

“Okay so just some good old soap and water to get off the dirt should be fine.” With that, he walked over the bloodstains to one of the sinks built into the counters. He tested one of the faucet handles, and sighed in relief when water flowed out of the tap. Grateful that the water was still working, he started trying to wipe off all the mud.

Progress was… Slow, however.

“How the HELL did this get so fucking dirty?”

The clunky gloves of the HEV suit didn’t make it any easier, either. As he scrubbed at a particularly stubborn clump of dirt, he glanced over towards Tommy and Benrey.

Tommy was practically standing over Benrey. Like he was guarding him.

But before he could say something to him, Bubby and Coomer’s movements caught his eye as they wandered towards Gordon’s other side.

Coomer had moved first. Something had caught his attention, and he was walking towards the other sink. Then Bubby’s examination of the poison tank ended, and he joined Coomer in looking over what was left on the counters.

They both stood in front of a strange egg-like thing, and when Gordon looked over his shoulder to do a quick headcount, he had to ask, “Uh, what the fuck is that? Please don’t poke it.”

“Hello, Gordon! I have no idea what this is!” Given his current lack of upper limbs, Coomer had settled on nearly shoving his face into it as he tried to examine it.

Bubby, of course, decided to pick it up, and before Gordon could stop him, the egg appeared to hatch on contact. “Oh. I uh. Didn’t expect that. Does this mean I’m a parent now?”

“What a beautiful child!”

The creature in question was an insectoid creature not much bigger than Bubby’s hand with a large faceted eye. When Bubby brought up his other hand to presumably touch it, a beak snapped shut very close to his finger and nearly caused him to drop it.

“Careful, before it bites your hand off!”

“I’m not that stupid.”

Gordon chose to not rise to the bait and start a fight there. “We can’t take it with us, so figure out what to do with it.”

Turning back to his task at hand, he continued scrubbing mud away, and he couldn’t help but notice that the artificial skin on the arm sometimes made it look far too real.

Don’t think about it. Don’t think about it. Don’t think- Wait where the fuck did that thing go?

When he looked back over the counter, the creature Bubby had picked up was nowhere to be seen.

He had to ask, "What did you do?"

"Tranq'ed it."

Gordon blinked a few times before yelling, "HOW?"

"With tranqulizers Gordon use your goddamn brain." With that, Bubby turned away and walked over towards the desk.

"Where did you- you know what? I don't need to know." He knew a lost cause of a conversation when he saw one, and he did not want to deal with it anymore.

Once the arm was sufficiently cleaned, he placed it on the counter and nearly ran into Coomer.

“Hello, Gordon!”

“Hey, Coomer. Does this need to dry before we reattach it, or can it just go right on?” He waved towards the drying arm.

Coomer mused for a second before saying, “It is waterproof, but I’ve never tried attaching the arms while they’re still wet. Maybe we should sit it in rice for a few minutes?”

“Uhhhh, we don’t have rice, dude. But we can let it air dry for a while. Don’t think we’re going anywhere soon.” He pointed his thumb over his shoulder towards the resting Benrey. In a quieter voice, he asked, “How’re you holding up?”

Matching his volume, Coomer responded, “I’ll be much better when I have my arms again. At least we’re almost halfway there.”

Gordon reached over and patted Coomer’s shoulder before going back to the others. “How about we just. Take a breather for now?”

“Best idea I’ve heard all day,” Bubby said before promptly dropping to the floor. At least that spot was clean...

“… You okay?” “I’m fine!” Despite the claim, Bubby was removing the shoe on his bad foot and was checking on the injury.

Before Gordon could go over and repeat the question, Coomer lightly shoulder checked him as he passed by and gave Gordon a look.

As Gordon understood it, that was an unspoken, “Let me handle it,” gesture, and he backed away from the older scientists as they settled.

Coomer lightly leaned against Bubby on his way down to a sitting position; the ease with which he went through the motions spoke of years of practice.

How often had Coomer been armless before?

Gordon knew the question would be unappreciated at the moment, but it hovered in his mind like an annoying fly. He tried to distract himself by taking a seat not far from Benrey and Tommy, but Benrey was still obviously regrowing shit, which Gordon still didn’t want to focus on.

So that left trying to get Tommy to relax.

“Yo, Tommy, uhh. How long before I can sleep?” He nearly slapped himself on the forehead with how dumb that was. Wow, great conversation starter, Gordon. Bringing more attention to their group's various injuries was a great way to ease Tommy’s worries.

The expected reaction of Tommy managing to tense up even more made Gordon vaguely wonder when the theoretical string would snap. “I don’t- It’s not an exact science. Just. If you-” Tommy cut himself off. “-I know we can’t keep you up forever.” The admission was followed by a drop in Tommy’s shoulders. “Can you stay up until night- until the we have to stop and sleep later?”

The correction was appreciated. Sometimes they didn’t see the sun for a while, and at this point, Gordon didn’t even know what time of day it was. The lobby had ambient sunlight shining through the skylight, but with everything happening, he couldn’t even begin to guess how long ago that was.

Right, he needed to answer that question before Tommy wrung himself into a spiral of anxiety. “Yeah, man, I can do that.”

Tommy’s face lightened up into a faint smile, and while that gave Gordon some relief, he couldn’t help but feel sad that the normally vivid expression had faded so much.

Deciding to take the conversation back to what he actually wanted to talk about, he asked, “Wanna take a breather? The rest of us are. Can you mess up the door like the last one?”

Tommy bit his lip as he appeared to weigh the options. “This door doesn’t- This room doesn’t have a Tesla charge. So it doesn’t have the same-” Tommy waved his hand in frustration, “-Things. That the last door we blocked did.”

Gordon groaned, “OSHA Compliance?”

“OSHA Compliance.”

Sure, he knew why most automatic doors didn’t have an auto-lock on them, but it made things really inconvenient right now.

“How about we just block the door with something? We’re all hanging out on the ground.” Despite that last statement, Gordon adjusted himself so that he could stand up and help.

“Take it easy, Mr. Freeman, I can get it,” Tommy said before putting a hand on Gordon’s shoulder to keep him seated.

“But-”

“It won’t take me long, just keep- Watch out for the others.”

He wasn’t entirely sure just what he meant since Bubby was already faintly snoring, and Coomer was loudly snoring, but didn’t argue as Tommy breezed past him.

Gordon would swear he only blinked before Tommy had come back and settled near him and Benrey.

“You already done?”

“Yeah, just took some- Took a few chairs and made a barrier. The counter already blocks us from view. And the- the uh, blood trail should be a warning sign...”

Tommy sounded like he was trying to convince himself more than Gordon, and it didn’t look like it was working.

“I believe you.”

The look Tommy gave him conveyed incredulousness and gratitude.

“We’ll get through this, okay? But don’t burn yourself out. I can keep an eye on things for an hour or two, if that would help?”

Sure, Gordon knew he would be an alarm system at best, but Tommy looked so tired. Even if Tommy would only take a short nap, it would be better for him in the long run.

Honestly, it would be better for all of them since he was the only one not physically fucked up in some way, but Gordon’s primary concern in the moment was Tommy’s mental wellbeing.

The quiet after the question stretched for an uncomfortable minute, but Gordon knew Tommy needed to think this through on his own terms. “Sure, I can- I can take a nap. Will you wake me up in-” Tommy then seemed to notice the lack of functioning clocks in this room, “-In a little while.”

“Poggers,” Gordon nearly died as the streamer lingo slipped out. Sure his interest in video games had slipped out earlier, but the residual fear of exposing his private interests to professional colleagues never went away completely. “Sounds good, I mean.”

Tommy shrugged before handing over the assault rifle and sliding down from his seated position to a laying position.

“G’night, Mr. Freeman.” “Goodnight, Tommy.”

#My writing #HLVRAI #Half Life VR but the AI is Self Aware #gordon hlvrai #Dr Coomer #Bubby #Benrey #Tommy Coolatta

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