#the car sales industry is fucking awful

[fayeandknight]

Buying a car is bullshit

I am very seriously trying to buy a new (to me) car.

I need a bigger car to fit crates in since that will allow me to transport more dogs for boarding. I have opted to go the used route for a number of reasons.

After much research, input from some super helpful dogblr folks as well as coworkers, and some dragging my feet - I'm ready. I'm looking to buy a 2018 Toyota RAV4 XLE.

I found one being sold at a fair price given the low mileage and went to see it last Saturday. It was a trade in at a BMW dealership. When they brought it out I was a little taken back because it's pretty dinged up. Not to the point of hindering functionally but there are dents and scrapes on every panel and fixing it would $1000 in body work easily, if not more.

Honestly, I don't give a shit about cosmetics. This car is for hauling dogs around. But it would be silly to pretend it doesn't change the value of the car.

I noticed that the front tires were different from the rear tires and asked about it. Sales dude tells me they replaced the front ones because the originals were dry rotted. I asked if the mechanic measured the new vs the old because AWD can be sensitive and different widths can fuck it up. Sales dude tells yes, it's all on paper. Cool.

I take it for a test drive and notice the brakes are a little rough. I ask if the brake pads were inspected to see how worn they are. Sales dude assures me yes, the car passed inspection and they're fine. Am told, again, it's all on paper.

Once we're back at the dealership I ask him to please get me the info on the tires and brakes cause I'm ready to make a deal and buy the car. Sales dude asks for my price and I tell him my offer is contingent on the information so please get it. Guy comes back with a manager and oops, they don't actually have that info.

Which honestly really pissed me off. You lied to my face and what? Didn't think you'd get caught not having the very specific information I'm asking for? I don't know why I expected slightly less car sales bullshit from a higher end dealership but the jokes on me.

I leave with the agreement that on Monday (today) they'll have the mechanic get the info and call me promptly at X time. An hour and a half later, I ended up leaving them a voicemail.

Finally got on the phone with them, tires are fine but the brake pads are just this side of passing and I'll need to change them fairly quickly. Fine. Given the body work and brakes, not to mention all the fluid changes I'll need to do, I put in my offer - a little less than $1000 off listed price. This puts the car at just my side of a good deal rather than fair, but honestly not by much.

They eventually accept my offer. Awesome. I am ready to pay over the phone. No. They won't take the payment over the phone or even a deposit. I have to come buy it in person.

In an ideal world, I'd go Thursday morning and get it done before work since that's my late day. But I'm concerned about the time wasting tactics dealerships use to try to get people to "upgrade" packages. I am trialing Friday and Saturday.

That leaves my only actual day with time to spare next Monday. During the in between they will not hold the car for me or pull it from their listings.

It so fucking frustrating that a high end, fancy ass BMW dealership is giving me the run around for a busted up six year old Toyota that I am willing to pay for right now!

So, fingers crossed it's still there next week and I'm able to buy it. If not, oh well I guess. There's really not anything else I can do at this point. It's just annoying because if they had the information they said they did I'd have bought the car right then.

Anyway, let this be your reminder to not take car sales folks word for anything and make them show you on paper. They will lie right to your face and blame you for holding up the sale.

[felassan]

Insights into DAI’s development from Blood, Sweat, and Pixels

The book is by game industry journalist Jason Schreier (it’s an interesting read and well-written, I recommend it). This is the cliff notes version of the DAI chapter. This info isn’t new as the book is from 2017 (I finally got around to buying it). Some insight into DAO, DA2 and cancelled DA projects is also given. Cut for length.

BW hoped that DA would become the LotR of video games. DAO’s development was “a hellish seven-year slog”

The DAI team are compared to a chaotic “pirate ship”, which is what they called themselves internally. “It’ll get where it needs to go, but it’s going to go all over the place. Sail over here. Drink some rum. Go over here. Do something else. That’s how Mark Darrah likes to run his team.” An alternative take from someone else who worked on the game: “It was compared to a pirate ship because it was chaotic and the loudest voice in the room usually set the direction. I think they smartly adopted the name and morphed it into something better.”

A game about the Inquisition and the large-scale political conflicts it solves across Thedas, where the PC was the Inquisitor, was originally the vision for ‘DA2′. Plans had to change when SW:TOR’s development kept stalling and slipping. Frustrated EA execs wanted a new product from BW to bolster quarterly sales targets, and decided that DA would have to fill the gap. BW agreed to deliver DA2 within 16 months. “Basically, DA2 exists to fill that hole. That was the inception. It was always intended to be a game made to fit in that”

BW wanted to call it DA: Exodus, but EA’s marketing execs insisted on DA2, no matter what that name implied

DAO’s scope (Origin stories, that amount of big areas, variables, reactivity) was just not doable in a year, even if everyone worked overtime. To solve this problem, BW shelved the Inquisition idea and made a risky call: DA2 would be set in one city over time, allowing locations to be recycled and months to be shaved off dev time. They also axed DAO features like customizing party members’ equipment. These were the best calls they were able to make on a tight line

Many at BW are still proud of DA2. Those that worked on it grew closer from all being in it together

In certain dark accounting corners of EA, despite fan response to DA2 and its lower sales compared to DAO, DA2 is considered a wild success

By summer 2011 BW decided to cancel DA2′s expansion Exalted March in favor of a totally new game. They needed to get away from the stigma of DA2, reboot the franchise and show they could make triple-A quality good games. 

DAI was going to be the most ambitious game BW had ever made and had a lot to prove (that BW could return to form, that EA wasn’t crippling the studio, that BW could make an ‘open-world’ RPG with big environments). There was a bit of a tone around the industry that there were essentially 2 tiers of BW, the ME team and then everyone else, and the DA team had a scrappy desire to fight back against that

DAI was behind schedule early on due to unfamiliar new technology; the new engine Frostbite was very technically challenging and required more work than anyone had expected. Even before finishing DA2 BW were looking for a new engine for the next game. Eclipse was creaky, obsolete, not fully-featured, graphically lacking. The ME team used Unreal, which made inter-team collab difficult. “Our tech strategy was just a mess. Every time we’d start a new game, people would say, ‘Oh, we should just pick a new engine’.”

After meeting with an EA exec BW decided on Frostbite. Nobody had ever used it to make an RPG, but EA owned FB dev studio DICE, and the engine was powerful and had good graphic capabilities & visual effects. If BW started making all its games on FB, it could share tech with sister studios and borrow tools when they learned cool new tricks. 

For a while they worked on a prototype called Blackfoot, to get a feel for FB and to make a free-to-play DA MP game. It fizzled as the team was too small, which doesn’t lend itself well to working with FB, and was cancelled

BW resurfaced the old Inquisition idea. What might a DA3 look like on FB? Their plan by 2012 was to make an open-world RPG heavily inspired by Skyrim that hit all the beats DA2 couldn’t. “My secret mission was to shock and awe the players with the massive amounts of content.” People complained there wasn’t enough in DA2. “At the end of DAI, I actually want people to go, ‘Oh god, not [another] level’.”

It was originally called Dragon Age 3: Inquisition

BW wanted to launch on next-gen consoles only but EA’s profit forecasters were caught up in the rise of iPad and iPhone gaming and were worried the next-gen consoles wouldn’t sell well. As a safeguard EA insist it also ship on current-gen. Most games at that time followed this strategy. Shipping on 5 platforms at once would be a first for BW

Ambitions were piling up. This was to be BW’s first 3D open-world game, and their first game on Frostbite, an engine that had never been used to make RPGs. It needed to be made in roughly two years, it needed to ship on 5 platforms, and, oh yeah, it needed to restore the reputation of a studio that had been beaten up pretty badly. “Basically we had to do new consoles, a new engine, new gameplay, build the hugest game that we’ve ever made, and build it to a higher standard than we ever did. With tools that don’t exist.”

FB didn’t have RPG stats, a visible PC, spells, save systems, a party of 4 people, the same kind of cutscenes etc and couldn’t create any of those things. BW had to create these on top of it. BW initially underestimated how much work this would be. BW were the FB guinea pigs. Early on in DAI’s development, even the most basic tasks were excruciating, and this impacted even fundamental aspects of game design and dev. When FB’s tools did function they were finicky and difficult. DICE’s team supported them but had limited resources and were 8 hours ahead. Since creating new content in FB was so difficult, trying to evaluate its quality became impossible. FB engine updates made things even more challenging. After every one, BW had to manually merge and test it; this was debilitating, and there were times when the build didn’t work for a month or was really unstable.

Meanwhile the art department were having a blast. FB was great for big beautiful environments. For months they made as much as possible, taking educated guesses when they didn’t know yet what the designers needed. “For a long time there was a joke on the project that we’d made a fantastic-looking screenshot generator, because you could walk around these levels with nothing to do. You could take great pictures.”

The concept of DAI as open-world was stymying the story/writers and gameplay/designers teams. What were players going to do in these big landscapes? How could BW ensure exploring remained fun after many hours? Their teams didn’t have time for system designers to envision, iterate and test a good “core gameplay loop” (quests, encounters, activities etc). FB wouldn’t allow it. Designers couldn’t test new ideas or answer questions because basic features were missing or didn’t exist yet. 

EA’s CEO told BW they should have the ability to ride dragons and that this would make DAI sell 10 million copies. BW didn’t take this idea very seriously

BW had an abstract idea that the player would roam the world solving problems and building up power or influence they could use. But how would that look/work like in-game? This could have used refinement and testing but instead they decided to build some levels and hope they could figure it out as they went.

One day in late 2012, after a year of strained development on DAI, Mark Darrah asked Mike Laidlaw to go to lunch. “We’re walking out to his car,” Laidlaw said, “and I think he might have had a bit of a script in his head. [Darrah] said, ‘All right, I don’t actually know how to approach this, so I’m just going to say it. On a scale of one to apocalyptic... how upset would you be if I said [the player] could be, I dunno, a Qunari Inquisitor?’” 

Laidlaw was baffled. They’d decided that the player could be only a human in DAI. Adding other playable races like Darrah was asking for would mean they’d need to quadruple their budget for animation, voice acting, and scripting.

“I went, ‘I think we could make that work’,” Laidlaw said, asking Darrah if he could have more budget for dialogue. 

Darrah answered that if Laidlaw could make playable races happen, he couldn’t just have more dialogue. He could have an entire year of production.

Laidlaw was thrilled. “Fuck yeah, OK,” he recalled saying.

MD had actually already realized at this point it’d be impossible to finish DAI in 2013. They needed at least a year’s delay and adding the other playable races was part of a plan/planned pitch to secure this. He was in the process of putting together a pitch to EA: let BW delay the game, and in exchange it’d be bigger and better that anyone at EA had envisioned. These new marketing points included playable races, mounts and a new tactical camera. If EA wouldn’t let them delay, they would have had to cut things. Going into that BW were confident but nervous, especially in the wake of EA’s recent turmoil where they’d just parted ways with their CEO and had recruited a new board member while they hunted for a new one. They didn’t know how the new board member would react, and the delay would affect EA’s projections for that fiscal year. Maybe it was the convincing pitch, or the exec turmoil, or the specter of DA2, or maybe EA didn’t like being called “The Worst Company in America”. Winning that award 2 years in a row had had a tangible impact on the execs and led to feisty internal meetings on how to repair EA’s image. Whatever the reasons, EA greenlit the delay.

The PAX Crestwood demo was beautiful but almost entirely fake. By fall 2013, BW had implemented many of FB’s ‘parts’, but still didn’t know what kind of ‘car’ they were making. ML and team scripted the PAX demo by hand, entirely based on what BW thought would be in the game. The level & art assets were real but the gameplay wasn’t. “Part of what we had to do is go out early and try to be transparent because of DA2. And just say, ‘Look, here, it’s the game, it’s running live, it’s at PAX.’ Because we wanted to make that statement that we’re here for fans.”

DA2 hung on the team like a shadow. There was insecurity, uncertainty, they had trouble sticking to one vision. Which DA2 things were due to the short dev time and which were bad calls? What stuff should they reinvent? There were debates over combat (DAO-style vs DA2-style) and arguments over how to populate the wilderness.

In the months after that demo, BW cut much of what they’d shown in it. Even small features went through many permutations. DAI had no proper preproduction phase (important for testing and discarding things), so leads were stretched thin and had to make impulsive decisions.

By the end of 2013, DAI had 200+ people working on it, and dozens of additional outsourced artists in Russia and China. Coordinating all the work across various departments was challenging and a full-time job for several people. At this sheer scale of game dev, there are many complexities and inter-dependencies. Work finally became significantly less tedious and more doable when BW and DICE added more features to FB. Time was running out though, and another delay was a no.

The team spent many hours in November and December piecing together a “narrative playable” version of the game to be the holiday period’s game build for BW staff to test that year. Feedback on the demo was bad. There were big complaints on story, that it didn’t make sense and was illogical. Originally the PC became Inquisitor and sealed the breach in the prologue, which removed a sense of urgency. In response the writers embarked on Operation Sledgehammer (breaking a bone to set it right), radically revising the entire first act.

The other big piece of negative feedback was that battles weren’t fun. Daniel Kading, who had recently joined BW and brought with him a rigorous new method for testing combat in games, went to BW leadership with a proposal: give him authority to open his own little lab with the other designers and call up the entire team for mandatory play sessions for test purposes. They agreed and he used this experiment to get test feedback and specifically pinpoint where problems were. Morale took a turn for the better that week, DK’s team made several tweaks, and through these sessions feedback ratings went from 1.2 to 8.8 four weeks later.

Many on the team wished they didn’t have to ship for old consoles (clunky, less powerful). BW leadership decided not to add features to the next-gen versions that wouldn’t be possible on the older ones, so that both versions of the game played the same. This limited things and meant the team had to find creative solutions. “I probably should’ve tried harder to kill [the last-gen] version of the game”, said Aaryn Flynn. In the end the next-gen consoles sold very well and only 10% of DAI sales were on last-gen.

“A lot of what we do is well-intentioned fakery,” said Patrick Weekes, pointing to a late quest called “Here Lies The Abyss”. “When you assault the fortress, you have a big cut scene that has a lot of Inquisition soldiers and a lot of Grey Wardens on the walls. And then anyone paying attention or looking for it as you’re fighting through the fortress will go, ‘Wow, I’m only actually fighting three to four guys at a time.’ Because in order for that to work [on old gen], you couldn’t have too many different character types on screen.”

Parts of DAI were still way behind schedule because it was so big and complex, and because some tools hadn’t started functioning until late on. Some basic features weren’t able to be implemented til the last minute (they were 8 months from ship before they could get all party members in the squad. At one point PW was playtesting to check if Iron Bull’s banter was firing, and realized there was no way to even recruit IB) and some flaws couldn’t be identified til the last few months. Trying to determine flow and pacing was rough.

They couldn’t disappoint fans again. They needed to take the time to revise and polish every aspect of DAI. “I think DAI is a direct response to DA2,” said Cameron Lee. “DAI was bigger than it needed to be. It had everything but the kitchen sink in it, to the point that we went too far... I think that having to deal with DA2 and the negative feedback we got on some parts of that was driving the team to want to put everything in and try to address every little problem or perceived problem.”

At this point they had 2 options: settle for an incomplete game, which would disappoint fans especially post-DA2, or crunch. They opted to crunch. It was the worst period of extended overtime in DAI’s development yet and was really rough: late nights, weekends, lost family time, 12-14 hour days, stress, mental health impacts.

During 2014′s crunch, they finally finished off features they wished they’d nailed down in year 1. They completed the Power (influence) system and added side quests, hidden treasures and puzzles. Things that weren’t working like destructible environments were promptly removed. The writers rewrote the prologue at least 6 times, but didn’t have enough time to pay such attention to the ending. Just a few months before launch pivotal features like jumping were added.

By summer BW had bumped back release by another 6 weeks for polish. DAI had about 99,000 bugs in it (qualitative and quantitative; things like “I was bored here” are a bug). “The number of bugs on an open-world game, I’ve never seen anything like it. But they’re all so easy to fix, so keep filing these bugs and we’ll keep fixing them.” For BW it was harder to discover them, and the QA team had to do creative experimentation and spend endless late nights testing things. PW would take builds home to let their 9 year old son play around. Their son was obsessed with mounting and dismounting the horse and accidentally discovered a bug where if you dismounted in the wrong place, all your companions’ gear would vanish. “It was because my son liked the horse so much more than anyone else ever had or will ever like the horse.”

MD had a knack for prioritizing which bugs should be fixed, like the one where you could get to inaccessible areas by jumping on Varric’s head. “Muscle memory is incredibly influential at this point. Through the hellfire which is game development, we’re forged into a unit, in that we know what everyone’s thinking and we understand everyone’s expectations.”

At launch they still didn’t have all their tools working, they only had their tools working enough.

DAI became the best-selling DA game, beating EA’s sales expectations in just a few weeks. If you look closely you can see the lingering remnants of its chaotic development, like the “garbage quests” in the Hinterlands. Some players didn’t realize they could leave the area and others got caught in a “weird, compulsive gratification loop”. Internet commentators rushed to blame “those damn lazy devs” but really, these were the natural consequences of DAI’s struggles. Maybe things would have been different if they’d miraculously received another year of dev time, or if they’d had years before starting development to build FB’s tools first.

“The challenge of the Hinterlands and what it represented to the opening 10 hours of DAI is exactly the struggle of learning to build open-world gameplay and mechanisms when you are a linear narrative story studio,” said Aaryn Flynn.

“DA2 was the product of a remarkable time-line challenge,” said Mike Laidlaw, “DAI was the product of a remarkable technical challenge. But it had enough time to cook, and as a result it was a much better game.”

Read the chapter for full details of course!

[sanchoyo]

danny phantom season 2, eps 1-5 thoughts! opening the new season with episodes like these kinda blew me away. we had multiple serious episodes INCLUDING a two parter!! also, valerie :)

see prev episode thoughts in this tag <3

-I don't know what I expected s2 to open with. but danny portal incident in more detail was not it. (also, I hate to break it to you, sam, but danny's parent's bigass ghost hunting rv def chugs more gas than those vehicles, lmao. unless it runs on ectoplasm or something...)

-WHY WAS DESIREE IN THE SEWER? HAVING TEA WITH IT DOWN THERE?? Her making the giant cow come alive is a boss move, we've almost had all of my fav animals as ghosts now <3 I also don't like how sam was expecting danny to just, haunt the place so the cars wouldn't get sold? I KNOWWW I know she's 14 (and I had a very annoying phase like this, I think I mentioned in a previous post, I GET IT) but they're HIS powers, and messing with (1) dealership will not really put a dent in sales overall because they can just move the cars to another sales lot, and it certainly wont change the industry anyway, it's more of a minor annoyance for (1) location. Also, usually people who work at car sales places work on commission, so if they dont make a sale, they don't have money to pay bills, or eat. sam baby if u wanna be an activist you need to like, actually look into these things. with as much money as her parents have, she could be doing a lot..more useful things for causes she cares about? it's frustrating to see someone with resources who doesn't know how to use them. but shes 14 so again. cannot be really upset :/

-IS THIS A PREDATOR VS TERMINATOR VS FREDDY KRUEGER MOVIE BUT THEYRE ALL WOMEN?? you know, sam is so right to be excited about this. /I/ want to see this movie. that rules

-paulina inviting danny and friends to her quinceañera, aw! even if it is just to get phantom to show up :') and there'll be a meteor shower, and we KNOW danny wants to be an astronaut!! there's not a meteor shower every night!! the tickets are non-refundable, but..she's rich? like. gotta agree with danny, they never get invited!! I KNOW it's the principle of keeping promises, but if she was that upset, she should've said something. directly. I hated how she was like, passive aggressive about it through the episode, like you SAID IT WAS FINE, THAT YOU'D GO TO THE PARTY TOO. MOVIES SHOW FOR A FEW WEEKS IN THEATERS. IF YOU HAD A REAL PROBLEM YOU NEED TO TALK ABOUT IT. WE'VE HAD THIS PROBLEM BEFORE, SAM. YOUR FRIENDS. ARE NOT. MIND READERS.

-MR. LANCER GOING AFTER THE GHOST WITH THE FIRE EXTINGISHER LMAO

-this outfit is everything . anytime the show does an over the top cutesty pink outfit i WANT IT. it looks like shit I wear JKASDHF I HAVE a bow like that and a pink sweater. I need leg warmers </3

-SAMS GOTTA RE-HALF-KILL HIM??? thats fucked up. but also, he finally got his logo!! it took until s2!!! this episode was lowkey very fucked and I felt like it glossed over a lot. does sam have guilt about like. kinda KILLING HIM?? I know, he also agreed and walked into the portal. but. she made the choice to redo it SO quickly (even if it was because someone had to beat desiree) and danny, during their fight, brought up a lot of stuff sam's done in the past, meaning he was holding onto those memories and resentment was building. (I KEEP SAYING HE LOWKEY NEEDS THERAPY, BUT I THINK MOST EVERYONE IN THIS SHOW KINDA DOES) which...is a red flag? and then they didnt even GO to the party URGH I know she tried to make up for it, but it really felt like Sam fucked up and barely faced any consequences and got everything she wanted in the end. I KNOW it's a kids show obv they aren't going to go too in depth, and she undid the damage, kinda, but...I DUNNO how to articulate it but it rubbed me the wrong way.

-but on a note about desiree, her powers of wishes were STRONG ENOUGH TO ERASE NOT JUST THEIR MEMORIES, BUT DANNY'S POWERS?! fuck, if I was danny I'd be like, trying to make friends with her. I know they always have horrible side effects as most genie-granted wishes do, but...c'mon, I'd at least TRY to be like 'I wish no ghosts would hurt anyone in my town' or 'I wish vlad would lose his ghost powers forever no matter What and also forget about my mom' LIKE. SHIT DESIREE IS SO POWERFUL. rewriting reality powerful, basically!! appreciate her. respect her.

-aww, sam helping tucker pass the nurse's office so he wouldn't see because he's afraid of medical stuff? very sweet. I also don't like medical stuff, I've gotten a lot better at handling it tho. but seeing blood and needles still makes me feel lightheaded x_x

-FOLEY, BY TUCKER FOLEY. I want to make my own perfume, that's so cool. even if his first attempt isn't good, he's pretty consistently shown to have an inventor/entrepreneur streak in the show, so like. I can see him inventing or making something (or several somethings) that make him $$$ when he grows up :) proud of my creative son

-I know the 'creepy abandoned hospital on the edge of town' is a joke and the creepy hospital trope is so Worn Out, but in my town we actually DO have a hospital like that! my dad was born in it, but its not in use and hasn't been for, like, 20 years! it needs to be torn down but I think the city doesn't wanna pay the money. the inside is horrible, spray painted and broken glass and shit everywhere. but there's still like, rusty equipment and fucking DOLLS all over the place. the cops drive by it pretty frequently to make sure no one is like, breaking in. (because of water damage, some of the areas really aren't safe. also, asbestos, but people still go in anyway) but also, some of my town was used in a filming for a stephen king show. So it's lowkey spooky all over. just a fun personal tidbit :) to lead into saying, any hospital abandoned for any period of time is NOT safe to quarantine these kids in JKSAHDKF like I KNOW it's a ghost trying to do this, but NONE of these parents are even like, 'well, why dont we keep them in the regular, working hospital'....YIKES. this hospital looks pretty accurate to the one in town. grungy and spooky.

-fentons are tax evaders confirmed by jack's fear of being audited, lol no one is surprised

-ghost sickness via ghost bugs. horrifying concept. I actually expected it to be a new villain, not dr. spectra again! this is a very elaborate scheme. her new form rules, love the new costume. the way none of the bg kids seem to recognize her as their old school councilor. did we just forget about that completely?

-dash watching romance movies in the fucked up ghost hospital. same.

-'oh please, you're ghosts, do you have any idea what YOU smell like?' no, tucker, what DO ghosts smell like? I genuinely didn't know they would even have a smell, I actually want to know now.

-it feels like a while since we've seen jazz!! i was happy to see her again, even if she was a head in a jar for most the episode. I want another jazz-focused ep!!

-we finally see danny doing space-related stuff!! him and his friends stargazing to open ep 3 of s2. cute :) until, GHOST PIRATES!!!!! ...ghost pirate captain is a small child?? VOICED BY TAYLOR LAUTNER???

-oh, the easy listening is ember's song instrumental slowed. 'vapor drone' THEY VAPORWAVED HER!!! ember in a pirate outfit tho >>>>. and the cruise being called m.bersback JKASDHJK. ember adopting a little pirate brother is also pretty cute. concerning this teen and little kid have such bad opinions of adults, like, who hurt you?? (how did you DIE ALSO?? im always lowkey curious about that. we know desiree died at an old age, but her ghost form is young, probably mid-20s, so I wonder how that sort of thing works...its a more mental thing, isn't it?) but ghost team-ups are always cool to see, even if ember bailed after danny took her guitar. I guess she probably thinks youngblood can handle it (which, he's been owning danny this far in the ep, so...fair)

-tucker got that sponsorship from nasty burger for their radio!!! again, opportunistic money maker king, love to see it!!!

-danny taking control of the kids SO FAST. he makes a pretty great leader. no one is surprised, im pretty sure I said I think he's the most mature of the trio, once again, correct, because he's taken on so much responsibility already. all the teens suiting up in the jumpsuits to go save the adults and taking the ship over with a BLIMP. OKAY LETS GO. this feels like it should be a mid finale or straight up finale.

-...speaking of finales. why is ep 4-5 of s2 combined into a 50 minute episode? I havent even clicked play and im concerned. weird placement, like, this season JUST started and we're getting a two parter? okay...why are the episodes placed like this? why not put this at episode 10 or something, for a mid-season thing?

-this is also a cute dress. possibly my fav dress so far. can her parents give ME cute dresses, I'LL wear them.

-it turns out the castle fright knight was in is called pariah's keep and there's something worse than fright knight in there! lovely! fuck off vlad wtf are you doing <3 your hubris <3 is going to literally get you killed <3 'ring of rage' and 'crown of fire' are great names tho. ...vlad turning into a super polite guy when he was scared of mr. pariah was hilarious. and fright knight doing the same...I mean, it makes sense, he's a knight, he serves a king? happy to see fright knight again either way :) vlad telling him to call him tho, lmfao. you WISH HE WOULD. (I wish hed call me, too. 😔)

-so...jack being genuinely concerned about vlad...maddie really didn't tell him what happened at the cabin, did she. damn. if I was her id immediately come home and be like 'YOU WONT BELIEVE THIS SHITTTT THIS CREEPY GUY--' like, I feel like that stuff you need to tell your partner!!! I know she didnt want Jack to think she was an irresponsible parent putting danny in danger at that time, but STILLLL. maddie spilling boiling tea on him. get his ass. how is jack this oblivious to his wife's discomfort with vlad!! ughhh

-fenton wipe (tm). trademarked toilet paper.

-DANNY AND VALERIE BEING FRIENDS??? :D that was a cute moment. 'hey val <3' and 'if you like him like him, make a move, or someone else will ;)' at sam...damn!! I love her. valerie go for it girl!!! I hate how sam and tucker treat val also, like I GET IT YOURE PROTECTIVE AND DONT TRUST but if anything him befriending valerie will help when she finds out or he tells her like I feel like she'll be more understanding that they think! ALSO I feel like her reason for not liking ghosts is valid, like you haven't really explained the full story to her anyway! she doesn't seem to have any other friends after being booted from the a-listers so im like :( but seeing them kick butt together again was nice <3

-the ghosts all RUNNING FROM PARIAH DARK IS NOT GOOD, I thought he sent them to attack or something, but no. why doesn't someone just tell desiree 'hey i wish pariah dark would die' lol. once again I think she can solve every problem <3 but seeing all the enemies in one place, being civil and hiding together? love it.

-you just know danny's gonna have to clean up vlad's stupid mess. also, jack being willing to put on the ectoskeleton pants to help maddie, as soon as vlad heard it could kill him, he suggested jack do it instead of helping maddie himself? this is why jack got the girl, my man.

-ghost skeletons. how do you end up as a skeleton ghost in your afterlife instead of a humanoid like most the ones we've seen? lmao

-the ghosts just making new homes in various stores. I'd totally be setting up in an expensive clothing store if I was a ghost.

-valerie's dad is possibly the most useful adult so far, with that ghost shield expansion!!! and valerie saving vlad and danny, even tho shes been thru it already, shes still so good!!! this family rules.

-danny: *gently caresses valerie* :)

-*then he immediately TELLS HER DAD ON HER. and his first response is 'are you okay?' :'( such a good dad...

-*me every time fright knight breathes* youre doing SO great sweetie :)

-the fenton suit thing is so silly looking. does anyone take this thing seriously

-ALL THE GHOSTS FIGHTING WITH DANNY <3 AAAAA. and the fact that pariah isn't perma-defeated, but just locked away again. yikes. he'll probably get out again, won't he? it wasn't too clear, but if vlad DID make a pact with fright knight, I am rabid. I will beat vlad to death with the fenton bat (tm). YOU DONT DESERVE A COOL KNIGHT.

-valerie being direct with sam and challenging her? kinda love that, even tho I normally don't like 'catfight' type situations. because sam has been very passive aggressive about it which is annoying. valerie knows wtf she wants and wasn't even embarrassed to tell sam, but she did tell her, giving sam time to make her own move! and sam denied it and got embarrassed/mad! and sam did have a chance when danny was about to go off and fight, and she hesitated and didn't tell him. I feel like she's hesitating because they're friends and it might make it weird between the trio (poor tucker would be third-wheeling) but if u snooze u lose, u gotta GO after what u WANT girl. smh this is a No Tsundere Zone. 😤

[dreaming-of-assclass]

AssClass Christmas Fics: Part 1

Group 1 + gift-shopping 🎁

In which Kataoka is tired, Isogai is stressed, Maehara is a wholesome idiot, and Okano and Kimura are the embodiment of chaos.

Genre: Fluff, Humor, Wholesomeness, Slight angst on Isogai’s part

Length: 3,133 words

..................

—————

In hindsight, Megu should’ve known better than to come.

It had seemed innocent at first when Maehara brought the idea up in their groupchat. He wanted all his closest friends to band together and take a trip to the mall for “some good ol’ Christmas gift-shopping.” He said it wasn’t likely they’d get to hang out all together until after winter break. Ok, fair point.

But now, as she sat exhaustedly in the dressing room of some teen store, surrounded by heaps of clothing, she realized she’d made a mistake.

“Hinano, please tell me this is the last one you’re trying on,” Megu begged as she reached for another garment. “We’ve been here for at least an hour and a half.”

“Mmm...I just have to find a matching pair of shorts,” Hinano hummed, at least looking somewhat apologetic. She gave Megu a wink. “After this, we’ll be all done!”

And with that, the smaller girl dashed off, probably in search of one of the store workers.

Megu groaned, giving a pitiful glance at the bag sitting besides her. She’d purchased one outfit, a matching belt, and a set of earrings already...while her friend was still not even close to being done.

“Might as well check what everyone else is doing.” Megu pulled out her phone and texted their groupchat. 

Kataoka: Where are you guys?

She got a reply a moment later.

Maehara: me n isogai r grabbing smth to eat rn

Maehara: but we’re gonna go to some store after

Ah...probably to get some gifts for Isogai’s siblings, Megu remembered fondly. 

“Oh, Megu, she’s still not done yet?” She snapped up to see a somewhat flustered Touka making her way into the dressing room.

The class rep sighed with a tired smile, setting her phone down. She shifted a bit to make room for the other girl. “No, not yet...did you get what you were looking for?”

Touka nodded excitedly, pulling out her gift bag. It was very small and plain-looking, nude with only a red ribbon tied around. She handed it to Megu, a shine in her eyes. “Yes. It’s perfect, exactly what we were going for.”

Megu opened up the bag and reached for the item inside. It was small yet carried weight, and was surrounded by fancy parchment paper. She delicately opened it, careful not to rip anything. “Oh,” she breathed. Touka was certainly right.

It was perfect.

Nestled within the folds of parchment paper was a lovely ornament, shaped like a rose and made of dazzling stained glass. A thousand colors reflected off of it as she gently held it up in the light of the store. 

Touka smiled softly, leaning into her seat. “I thought a rose would be fitting after, y’know, Karasuma-sensei’s love declaration in October,” she laughed. 

“True.” Megu laughed as she carefully set the gift down back into the bag. “No but really, I can’t imagine anything better than this for her. She loves roses and it’s sophisticated, but still...can remind her of our class.”

She patted Touka’s shoulder, her gaze soft. “We made such a good decision entrusting her Christmas gift to be picked out by you.”

Oddly, Touka’s face turned a bright hue of red and she glanced away, clearing her throat. “It’s no problem! I’m happy that I picked something okay.”

Before Megu could question her, their third companion came back in a flurry of more clothing. A pair of pants flew and knocked against Megu’s face, and she wiped it away tiredly. “Hina! You said one more thing!”

Hinano was already turned towards the changing stall, struggling to carry her massive load. “I know, I know, I’m sorry! But they have a sale!”

“Still-!”

“Wait, really?” Touka shot up, her eyes bright. “I gotta go look for some stuff too!” Within seconds, she was dashing towards the racks of clothing in the store, right into the massive crowds of people already scavenging for good sales.

Oh boy. Megu mentally prepared herself for a moment before following her. Might as well take advantage of the sales too, she thought wryly. She had been looking for a new pair of boots lately...

.................

__________

“Yo, how about this one?” Hiroto asked, wriggling his eyebrows and holding up a video game-themed hoody jacket. It was child-sized and looked incredibly tiny against his large frame.

Yuuma looked in his direction, still combing through a rack of items himself. “Cute.” He grinned.

He reached over and touched the material thoughtfully. “Quality seems pretty good too. It’ll last him a while.”

“Yeah!” Hiroto agreed. “It’s super cozy, and will help him a lot in winter.”

“Okay, we can put this in the cart.”

Hiroto obliged and the two boys moved on from the clothing area. “Nothing else?” He questioned, giving a passing glance to aisles around them.

Yuuma hummed. “Well, we got a pajama set for both of them...a dress...two pairs of shoes, and now this hoodie. I’d like to get more but it’s Christmas, right? They’d probably like some new toys, not a ton of clothes.” He laughed.

“Ah, true.” Hiroto pushed the cart towards the toy section, following his best friend’s steady pace. This part of the store was incredibly hectic, and the sound of children’s cries and laughs filled it endlessly. Stressed parents flew around, trying to find the perfect toys. Boxes were everywhere, and it was very much a mess.

He barely caught Yuuma’s wince. As someone who also worked in a service industry, around Christmas time no less, Yuuma was probably sympathizing with the store clerks who’d be tasked to clean up.

They reached a random aisle that ended up holding all the lego sets. “I should get a couple of these,” Yuuma mused, looking around. “They love Legos, especially the bigger sets.”

“Uh huh...” Hiroto grasped his chin in thought, leaning his forearms onto the cart handle. “What about this?” He reached over and grabbed the box set. 

Yuuma leaned over to see it. “A firetruck and station,” he read. “589 pieces.” He smiled, looking up at Hiroto. “Perfect. Let’s grab it.”

“Awesome.” Hiroto was glad he was some kind of help. He knew this time of year was always incredibly stressful for his best friend, who not only had to study but work at the same time. And Yuuma would always buy his family some type of presents, so there was that added financial stress...

Not to mention...

Yuuma would never outright say it, but Hiroto knew that his father was on his mind even more than usual during the Holiday season, a time that places so much emphasis on family. 

The thought made his chest tighten. Hiroto always swore to himself that he’d help Yuuma and his family to the best of his ability, and it went tenfold during this goddamn month. 

The two looked some more before coming up with a few more toys. There was a science kit for his younger brother, and some new race cars. And a babydoll and a slime-making box for his little sister. The two kids would share the Lego set, and their older brother would help them build it.

“Now we just need to swing by over there,” Yuuma told him, gesturing to the side of the store where mainly women’s products were. Things like fancy soap, candles, etc. 

It was definitely a gift for his mom.

“Sure.” They made their way over, Hiroto still pushing the cart. “Hey, Isogai...” The name slipped uncomfortably from his tongue, leaving a taste of unfamiliarity. 

“Yeah?” Yuuma asked, looking through some house decorations. Hiroto took a short breath.

“Your family will love and appreciate whatever you get for them. It’s always the thought that counts, and that’s like...times ten with you. You’re a really good son and big brother, and that alone means so much to them probably.”

There was a pause.

“So please don’t stress yourself out, looking “for the perfect gift,” Hiroto added quickly. “They love you so much...”

Well, so much for nice encouragement. He just blurted out everything.

The sound of gentle laughter rang out, and he glanced up to see Yuuma looking back at him. His best friend’s eyes crinkled in a charming way as he spoke.

“Thanks, Hiroto...I couldn’t have gone through all this without you.” He ran a hand through his mop of dark hair. “And I don’t just mean this past month...thanks for being my best friend.”

He continued. “It’s when you say stuff like that...that brings me back down to Earth,” Yuuma admitted. “And I can actually...relax, even for just a little bit.”

Oh...

Hiroto coughed lightly, before beaming at him. “Well, duh~what are best friends for?” He winked. “I’ve always got your back.”

“Same here,” Yuuma replied, his gaze soft. 

His phone buzzed and he pulled it out, brows furrowing slightly. “Ah, Yada texted.”

Yada: help megu almost fought some girl over a pair of tights on sale

Maehara: LMFAOOOOOO well did she win?

Yada: ya of course

Kataoka: - _ - she deserved it

Isogai: Haha

Kataoka: also sorry to interrupt but

Kataoka: where the hell are okano and kimura????

.................

_________

“I can’t believe you actually had a good idea for once,” Okano muttered, the blue light from the game reflected in her fierce gaze. “Coming to the mall arcade instead of doing some boring shopping.”

“Yeah, well, at least one of us used our brain cell today,” Kimura shot back, his thumbs moving rapidly. “If it was up to you, we’d still be circling around the penny fountain.”

Okano snorted. “Shut up.” She picked up the pace on the controllers, feeling a familiar drive to win piling up inside of her. 

Ten seconds later, “You lose!” was flashing at her on the screen while Kimura jumped up, throwing his arms up in victory. “Aw, hell yeah!”

“Fuck!” Okano hissed. “One more time!” She demanded, turning towards him.

Kimura smirked, calming down. “No thanks, I’m getting bored of this one now,” he replied nonchalantly.

Okano rolled her eyes. “Fine.” She looked around at the arcade interior, her gaze scanning around for anything that seemed interesting. 

“Oh! I love that game!” She exclaimed, gesturing to an iceball set up. “Come on!”

“Sure!” Kimura followed her towards the machine, seeing nothing else to do. “I bet I’ll win~” He sang smugly.

“You wish,” Okano scoffed, choosing the one on the left while he moved to the right. She inserted the proper number of tokens before smiling satisfied at the way the machine lit up. “I’m a beast at this game. Maehara can tell you himself how I literally destroyed everyone at this last summer.”

Kimura did the same and they both waited for the number of balls to roll down towards them. “Huh. We’ll see about that.”

“Just shut up and play already.” She had already thrown her first ball, smirking at how it fell into an 100 point slot. “Ha!”

“Lucky shot,” Kimura mumbled, tossing his first one. It fell into the Zero slot, much to his disappointment. “Shit...”

Thankfully, Okano didn’t pay attention. She was much too preoccupied with tossing her own balls, which all landed in the 100 or 250 slots. 

Kimura picked up the pace and continued his game. He groaned as all of them fell into the 10 point slots. The number of tickets coming out on his end was nothing compared to Okano’s long chain. Well...maybe my pitching is shit after all, like Sugino said. I should fix this...

“Done!” Okano shouted, throwing her last ball that fell into the 100 slot. She grinned at her list of tickets before looking over at him. “What’d I tell you, huh?” 

Kimura rolled his eyes, grabbing his final ball. Gritting his teeth, he tossed it with a carefull turn of his wrist. He watched in anticipation as the ball glided over all the slots...before falling right into the 5000 slot.

“Oh shit!”

“Woah!” Okano yelled, her eyes wide. “Oh my god, Kimura! You got the highest number!”

“I did!” He shouted back, somewhat in a daze. 

“That’s amazing!”

For a moment, it was like they weren’t rivals. Just a moment though.

Okano punched his shoulder, her lips curved. “Beginner’s luck,” she teased, but the fire never left her eyes.

Kimura laughed before his gaze fell back on his tickets. “Ah...it’s taking a while, isn’t it?”

Okano looked at it with a frown, pursing her lips. “It shouldn’t be.”

“Let’s give it another minute,” he suggested.

Five minutes later, Kimura felt like screaming. “My major accomplishment!” He sighed dramatically. “And no one was around to see it but you!”

Okano rolled her eyes, hopping off the floor where they’d been crouching. “Get up. Let’s go find a staff member.”

“Yeah...” Kimura stood up, shoving his hands into his hoodie pocket. “Uh hello? What are you staring at?” He questioned.

No answer, as Okano looked thoughtfully at the game machine. “Earth to Okano~” He sang, waving a hand in her face.

Then she did it.

Something he hadn’t expected, but really it shouldn’t have even surprised him.

Okano swung her leg out before letting it collide against the machine’s ticket base. A booming thud rang out.

And almost immediately, tickets began streaming out. 

Kimura’s jaw dropped.

“There, it’s all fixed,” Okano smiled with a shrug.

“Are you crazy?” The words escaped his mouth instantly. “You pulled out some assassin moves just to fix a ticket machine?!”

“Well yeah~You can get your tickets now!”

“How did you even know that would work?! And doesn’t your foot hurt like hell?”

Okano laughed. “Honestly, I had no idea if it would work. But it did!” She glanced at her foot. “And it doesn’t hurt. That part of the machine is pretty hollow, and my foot has hit harder things so...”

Kimura frowned at her.

“I promise it’s fine!” Okano held her hands up. “Woah...look at your tickets! I think you can get a stuffed animal with this number!”

“Yeah maybe-” Kimura was cut off by a stern voice barking at them.

“Hey! You kids!”

They both jolted up as one of the mall security guards stormed towards them, followed by as pissed-off arcade worker, who pointed at them. “Those kids broke the machine to steal extra tickets!”

Kimura felt his mouth go dry. Still he tried to shout, “Wait no! It’s a misunderstanding, I got 5000! But it got stuck-”

And then he was cut off by Okano yanking his arm away with a strength he could only imagine having. The next few seconds felt like a blur and before he knew it, the two of them were running in the lobby of the mall.

“Come on, you idiot! You’re the fastest runner in the class, act like it!” Okano yelled, purposely agitating him. Still, Kimura fell for it and his speed increased immensely in just a second. Now, Okano was trying to catch up to him. 

Kimura dashed through the numbers of people walking by, being mindful to dodge anyone, especially the elderly or some children... He shouted out a “Sorry!” and an “Excuse me!” as he moved.

It sounded odd but he could hear Okano’s footsteps behind him, even amongst the clusters of normal civilians. Probably from all the times they trained together. Her steps were light and bouncy, barely touching the floor as she kept a stable balance. He always thought to himself how Okano moved like she could walk on air.

He made a sharp turn around a mall corner, narrowly avoiding a collision with three girls just trying to walk by. “Ah, I’m so sorry!”

“What the hell- wait...Kimura?” One of the girls breathed.

Kimura’s head snapped up at the familiar tone and he realized in horror who the girls were. “Kataoka! Yada! Kurahashi!” He laughed sheepishly. “How’s your shopping going?”

“Fine~!” Kurahashi chirped, somehow balancing five huge bags on one of her arms alone.

Kimura smiled at her. “That’s good...” He laughed nervously again. “Well, I should continue on my way-”

Kataoka leveled him a sharp glare, leaning in closer. “What do you think you’re doing, running around the mall like a maniac? And where’s Hinata?!”

“Uhm...”

“There you are!” All four of them jolted, looking up to see the security guard. Standing right beside him was a very annoyed-looking Okano, crossing her arms. Ah, so she got caught...

“I’m gonna need you to come to our office,” the guard spoke sternly, looking straight at Kimura. 

He sighed, stepping forward to comply before passing a pleading glance to the girls. Kurahashi frowned, Yada sighed, and Kataoka shut her eyes irritably. Then she spoke. “Officer...we’re friends with them, so we’ll come along too, if that’s okay.”

“Alright then.”

The girls followed them warily and Kataoka leaned in to whisper to Yada. “I hope your negotiating skills will come in handy now...”

..............

________

“Oh man,” Maehara wheezed, clutching his stomach. “Banned from the mall for a month?!” He burst out laughing again.

“Yeah...” Kimura’s head was dropped into his arms, which rested on the table of the cafe they were at.

“I’m glad you find this act of immaturity so funny,” Kataoka commented dryly, taking another sip of her latte. The liquid scorched her throat a bit, but she needed the caffeine at that moment. 

“Actually, I find it hilarious,” Maehara corrected. “Seriously, how did all that even happen? Why’d you run away?”

“I’d like to know too,” Isogai chimed in tiredly.

“Uh, haven’t you heard of fleeing from the scene of a crime?” Okano snapped, but it lacked its usual bite as she reached over for her hot chocolate.

“That only works if you can’t get caught,” Yada pointed out with a giggle, adjusting her scarf.

“Aw man,” Maehara chuckled, toning it down at the sight of Okano’s pout. “It’s okay guys. We’ll laugh about this in the future.”

“You’re laughing about it now,” Kataoka muttered sourly.

Maehara ignored her. “One day, we’ll look back on this as a super fond memory,” he said confidently, throwing an arm around Kimura.

“Not to mention, it was pretty cool how you used your kick, Hina!” Kurahashi chimed in, hugging her.

“Yeah, pretty badass,” Isogai agreed, flashing her a smile.

Okano’s lips curved up. “Thanks, guys...”

“I guess the whole thing was pretty ridiculous,” Kimura said. “Sorry for stressing you out, Kataoka...”

She waved him off but her gaze softened. “Just don’t let this happen ever again.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Maehara clasped his heads behind his head. “Ah, by the way, I’m gonna have to leave sooner than I thought.”

Yada squinted at him. “...Why?”

“Well, there’s this Christmas event at another store where they need a guy in a Santa costume...and you know...the elves are all pretty girls, so I gotta help them out-”

All his friends let out a collective groan. 

[zankivich]

The Arrangement: CEO’s Son/Dom!Shawn x Black Sub Reader Chapter 15

a/n: I don’t have much to say. This chapter is short, but necessary. The world is dying. The fandom is gone. I’m not sure if there’s much of a point anymore, but y’all said you wanted it so...here it is.

*y/n’s point of view*

“Why are you here Shawn!”

“Because! I need you to be my manager!”

“Excuse me? Did you stop to smoke crack while you were running from the subway?!” You screeched.

He rolled his eyes up at you. “No ma’am, I did not. Just let me explain okay?”

“Shawn this is completely illogical! You cannot just run pounding on my door at any odd hour of the night with some half baked ass scheme--”

“Y/N!” He screamed silencing you quickly. “Stop yelling. Sit down. I’m going to explain it to you and then we can have a conversation like normal human beings, okay?”

No man, let alone a white one, had ever had the audacity to speak to you in such a manner. It had only been Shawn who seemed to lack an evolutionary response to fear the wrath of a black woman. If only it didn’t cause your back to straighten and your mouth to part. If only you didn’t like it just the slightest little bit. Asshole.

“Fine. But I’m not happy about it.” You huffed marching over to the couch.

He snorted as he got up off the floor.

“Yes, because god forbid you do something you’re not happy about without letting the entire world know, darling.”

You rolled your eyes down at the ground and tried to hide the fact that his pet names still made your heart ache. Sheesh.

He stood in front of you, towering over you for a second in a way that simply had no right to make your mouth water. But it’d been months and you were lonely and you missed him in more ways than one. Then he dropped down to his knees before you and reached for your hands, and the lust immediately melted to a gooey center. Cause beyond everything he was still the softest, kindest human you’d ever met. He still made you calm, made you happy, made you infinitely better than you ever were without him.

“I quit.” He started.

You immediately frowned. “Huh?”

“I quit my job. I walked out on all of it, y/n.”

“....Are you out of your goddamn mind?!”

You went to pull away from his hands, only for him to squeeze tighter and move closer. The fact that he could remain calm in this moment baffled you beyond belief.

“No. In fact I don’t think I’ve ever been clearer.”

“Shawn...The whole entire point was that he was going to give you your masters and your contract. Why in the entire world would you walk out on that opportunity? It’s everything you ever wanted.”

He nodded and his hands tightened around yours.

“Because it wasn’t worth it.” He murmured. “I had something that mattered to me more.”

You immediately shook your head. Your heart was pounding in your chest, and it felt like the walls were closing in. EVerything that you had gone through. All the emotional hoops you had to jump through to let him go. The pain and the heartache and the loss. All for him to squander the bigger picture. Why?

“No. No, you don’t get to do that. You don’t get to choose me over the very thing you’ve wanted since you were fourteen years old, Shawn. I’m not gonna let you.”

You tried to pull away once again but he only held you closer, only looked up at you more directly so that you couldn’t get out of being in that moment with him.

He smiled. “I know. I know now that that’s why you did it. Though I do wish you would’ve just talked to me instead.”

“I knew you’d never do it if I didn’t make you.” You whispered.

“Of course I wouldn’t...What would ever make you think that fame could mean more to me than you?”

“But...But it’s what you always wanted.” You stared in utter confusion. “Music, it’s your pulse. It’s what makes you, you.”

He let go of your hand and reached instead for your cheek, palm warm and large and all consuming.

“All I ever wanted was to be able to create music, and sing, and perform.” He explained. “And you gave that to me y/n. You. You restored anything he ever took from me. I didn’t need more. All I wanted was you.”

You didn’t mean to cry. You really didn’t. But there’s something about him choosing you that shakes you to your very core. It matters. It’s one thing to know your own worth and know what you deserve. It’s another thing entirely to have someone affirm that so fully and so empathetically. Not only had you thought you were making the right decision, you thought it would ultimately be what you wanted. You couldn’t have prepared to be so wrong. You couldn't prepare for him to love you in a way that was more meaningful than music. Because that had to mean that you meant more to him than maybe anything in the world.

“Well….shit.” You sniffled blinking away tears.

He chuckled and reached to press a kiss against your forehead. You closed your eyes and let yourself drink him in. The smell of his cologne. The feel of his curls against your forehead His warmth. He pulled back and looked you in the eye and you felt more at home than you had in weeks. Then he peered down at his watch and was immediately up off the floor.

“Shit, we’re late. Let’s go.” He muttered.

“What?”

“I’ll explain in the car. Let’s go!”

***

*Shawn’s point of view*

His leg won’t stop shaking. He keeps bouncing with his fingers interwined and crossed in front of his face so that they can’t see how fucking teriified he is. It’s a room evenly split down the middle. To one side was him, y/n, and Teddy. The otherside was all music execs at Atlantic. Every song that played seemed to cause a visceral reaction for y/n. Mostly because it couldn’t have been more for her. He kept peering over at her and watching the way she sat in her seat. She couldn’t sit still at certain moments. He knew that ninety percent of all of her expressions came from her hands, and so she sat on them mid-way through. It was a lot to ask of her, and at one point he thought maybe it was too much. Maybe he shouldn’t have gone for the shock and awe and maybe he should have just left her out of it. But then, Fallin’ All In You comes on and her face lights up and he knows that he wouldn’t have it any other way. It was for her. And therefore she needed to be in that room if it was going to be the moment that changed his whole entire life.

The final song comes to a close and there’s a beat of silence where it feels like his heart might explode out of his chest. All these weeks with these songs in his head and his heart, when all he could think, breathe, eat, was about her in someway. All of it now was on a record that might seal his fate, might completely lead him to a new world outside of his dad’s control. Enter Andrew.

“So that is...without a doubt one of the best albums of the year.” He stated.

His eyes widened, heart plummeting into his stomach.

“Seriously?”

He nodded. “Absolutely. So here’s what I’m gonna do for you. I will happily sign you, Mendes Industries be damned. It’s burning a bridge, but the impact that you’re gonna have on the music industry will cover that tenfold. Atlantic is in. We want you. We want this record. Tell me what you need to make that happen.”

His lips parted in shock and he looked to none other than y/n as his brain completely stalled. In his moment of weakness she sprang up like a fucking gazelle and launched straight into a type of professionalism that made him both weak in the knees and frankly hard in the pants.

“I will be representing him in all legal proceedings until a permanent manager has been vetted by both me and the client. I will need the contract with all monetary gains to the record company highlighted and dotted. Either you can do that now or be rest assured that I will. We will not be doing a three-sixty deal. We are only interested in a one year contract contingent on the sales of the album, which you and I both know will come through based off the strategic marketing plan for a face like that. He will retain all final say on singles, album track lists, and production rights on this album as well as future albums though that can be negotiated at a later date with another contract. We will require a minimum of seventy-two hours to review and consult counsel before any negotiations continue. So would you like to email me, or do you have a physical copy ready for me?”

Andrew looked at y/n and then looked at Shawn. And then back to y/n. And then back to Shawn. He just shrugged and nodded back in her direction. His girlfriend had always been a complete and total badass afterall. He was kind of just there to look pretty and sing.

“I will...get that drafted for you right now. One moment.”

Andrew leaves the room and it’s like he can breathe for the first time. And the second enough oxygen gets to his brain he can’t help but remember that the sole reason for this moment is her. The only logical conclusion was to jump into her chair and smother her with love and affection the way that she deserved.

“You are literally a human golden retriever!” She gasped as he crawled into her lap.

His legs spilled out the arm of the chair as he wrapped her arms around her and squeezed. For added measure he licked her cheek to prove her point. She glared at him. Apparently she didn’t like it very much.

“Never. Again.” She wagged her finger at him.

“So this is what true love looks like huh?” Teddy asked from her seat.

Shawn simply looked at y/n and beamed happily.

“Yea.”

She rolled her eyes at him but nodded as well.

“Apparently. Now get off me honkey, I need to remain professional.”

“Yes dear!” He sing-sang climbing out of her seat.

Teddy simply continued to stare at the two of them in utter confusion.

“Oh she means in with love. A love rooted in the reality of a white supremacist country that will always prioritize my life and my worth over hers simply because I’m pale and have a dick. It works to off-set the power imbalance between us.” He explained. “And she’s just incredibly cute.”

Y/n looked over at him and grinned happily.

“That’s my guy.”

***

“So...You’re not signing with your father?” She asked him.

He nodded his head.

“And you quit your job?”

He nodded.

“And he cut you off entirely?”

Another nod.

“But you’re gonna sign with Atlantic who...according to this contract is going to pay you a premium of a hundred thousand dollars for your album, all to be paid back upon royalties of course. And you’re going to do an optional clause of two additional singles after that album?”

He nodded. “That’s what I hear.”

“And you’re not gonna go after your dad for your masters?”

“Nope. I’ve realized that I’d rather put energy into the now and into my future than to dwell on the past. Also I have a feeling if the album is successful that Atlantic might take him to court once I accidentally let it slip that there’s two hundred songs of material hiding somewhere.”

“And you made this decision...when?”

“Well...My girlfriend left me despite being just as in love with me as I was her.” He paused for dramatic effect and to take in the roll of her eyes that he’d missed so much. “And at first I was just gonna quit entirely. Music. The industry. All of it. But then I realized how much I really did care about it. And I thought that...If I was gonna say fuck it, I might as well go for it ya know? Just so there were no ifs. I’m cut off and my dad will probably never give me another dime so, might as well give the whole singer thing a try, right?”

Y/n stared at him, eyes wide and tired and maybe still a little soft.

“Of all the people in the world.” She sighed to herself. “Let’s get a few things straight. I won’t manage you. I will simply identify the correct path for you to be on and then move you there. I will pay myself a generous fee for this aid, but once we find you a manager I will do no work with you professionally.”

He smiled dumbly up at her. “And why is that, y/n? What could possibly stop you from doing any professional work with me?”

There was a fly on the wall. A building sized elephant in the room if you will. She had followed him into the fire, had held tightly to his hand in the flames, all without admitting that such a notion could only be rooted in love. But he knew. He knew more than anyone the way she’d opened up her heart to him. The way she let him make himself comfortable inside her being and her spirit. He knew that she loved him endlessly in the exact way that he loved her. The only thing left to do was to get her to admit it.

“Don’t make me say it.” She mumbled .

“I’ll say it for you then...You love me my darling. And I love you. And apparently nothing can tear us apart. Not even my dad who is like the cheesiest villain of all time.”

“I mean...Yes. Obviously.”

He chuckled. “Come here.”

She moved slowly into his lap. And for a moment he just held her. Wrapped his arms around her back and hugged her fiercely. He didn’t think that the world hugged enough, and he had this thought that if she let him he’d hug her every day for the rest of forever. Her head rested against his shoulder and her fingers danced in his hair. He was complete in every sense of the word.

“Why is it so scary to admit that you love me?” He asked her honestly. “Would it really be such a terrible thing?”

Her fingers tightened in his hair and she pressed a little closer against him.

“No. No it wouldn’t. It’s just scary to admit that I almost gave up on us for no reason. I can’t believe how naive and how dumb I must have been to believe I could ever be without you.”

He pulled back just enough to look into her eyes with that soft kind of fondness that made his bones feel like jelly.

“Really?”

She nodded. “You have to know that I only did it out of love. I knew you were it for me, and I knew that it would be the most painful thing I’d ever experienced, but I still had to do it. I knew that you loved music more than anything in the world and I just wanted you to have that.”

“Hey, I know. And I’m not angry at you.” He assured her, casually squeezing at her waist. “Just know that...music was the most important thing that’s happened to me in my whole entire life. But that was before I met you. And you don’t get to tell me that I can’t choose you, alright? No one does. You’re it. I’d pick you any second of any day, and I’d be more than happy with that decision. You don’t get to tell me not to love you.”

She bit her lip and stared at him with those big ole’ eyes of hers looking more like a scorned puppy than anyone had the right to.

“You know no one has ever spoken to me like that in all of my days right?”

“Yep. Looks like you were just waiting for me to come around. I promise I’ll make it worth it though.”

“Yea?” She grinned leaning close so that their lips hovered over one another’s.

“Yea. Let me show you.”

And he closed the distance between their lips.

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[emmejo26]

Short Story

Hi all! Below is a short story I’ve had playing through my head for a while now, inspired by some of the books/movies/Webtoons I’ve been into lately. Now I am in NO way a writer so I’m sure there is A LOT of room for improvement. But I just felt like I just had to get it all down before the imagery left my head. That being said, I would love your feedback and constructive criticism (just go easy on me, I’m new to putting myself out here like this). Thanks! 

....

As a member of the Costa’s clan, life for Will had been fairly simple. He was known as The Devil to all that feared him, a lethal predator with no remorse or feeling. Until he met a girl, that is. Tessa turned his whole world upside down and now he couldn’t dream of letting her go. But to be involved with any clan is to have a target on your back. A rival clan, the Volkov’s, sought to exploit this new weakness in Will and kidnapped Tessa. Below is the story of how The Devil got his angel back. 

Hour 1

“She’s gone”.

And with those two little words, my world began to fracture.

Immediately a million what-if scenarios started running through my head.

What if they don’t want to make a deal? What if there is information that we don’t have? What if it’s not who we thought it was?

What if they hurt her?

No. I can’t start thinking like that. It would unravel me. And I needed to be whole, focused. Lethal.

I would find the monsters that took her from me, and I would make them all regret ever touching her.

I would make them all pay. Every last one of them.

“Boss…”, Ryan’s tentative voice breaks me from my murderous thoughts. “What’s our plan?”.

“It’s time to have a chat with our little friend, Nicolai.”

And with that, we head straight to the car.

I’m going to find you, angel. Hold on.

 Hour 48

We’ve had quite the productive chat with Nicolai. Took him a little while to loosen up, but eventually we couldn’t get him to shut up. Normally our methods aren’t so barbaric, but we just don’t have time for our typical finesse. She was out there somewhere, all alone, with only her twisted captors for company.

I’m coming, angel. Hold on just a little bit longer.

 Hour 52

With every last detail triple checked and confirmed by the clan’s database, we finally had a location.

Our plan was simple: send in a small team and get Tessa out. All that mattered was getting my angel out of the hell I’d inadvertently placed her in.

I can’t believe I was so stupid as to put her in danger in the first place. I know better. Being with me is like having a target on your back. I know better and yet here we are. From the moment I met her, I knew I wanted to know more of her. For the first time in years, I felt happy, hopeful. And it was all thanks to her. She made me feel.

One way or another, I will get her out.

Hour 53

Our team was truly small: Ryan, Peter and me. They are only two people I trust with my life. We’d been through it all together. These were the only men I’d trust to do what needed to be done: get her out, no matter what.

The organization that had taken Tessa has been keeping her right under our noses. We knew Volkov Industries was involved but we never thought they’d use one of their own office buildings for their perverse sale of flesh.

The three of us crept silently through the now empty hallways. Having to wait until normal business hours ended had been pure torture. We were so close now. I’m coming for you, Tess.

Methodically, we checked each room we came upon. Our little friend Nicolai had given us the building, but he hadn’t had the slightest idea where she was being kept inside. The minutes seemed to tick by, more quickly than I would have liked. I couldn’t let her sit here, trapped, for one hour more.

A singular thought keeps racing through my mind: what if they hurt her?

It’s that thought followed by the sweet promise of death to those that took her, that propels my feet forward. I would make this right.

For her, I would do anything.

It’s been about 30 minutes since we entered the building, and I’m starting to question our information. Sure, Volkov Industries is a huge complex, but to have been here this long and to have come this far without running into a single sentry is highly suspect.

If Nicolai lied to us about this, I’m going to choke out what little life he has left.

I’m about to signal the boys to stop and regroup when I hear the soft thud of footsteps heading our way. We duck into an empty room and wait for the group to pass. Looks like we found some of our missing sentries.

As they pass, I overhear their small talk:

“Last I heard, he was getting impatient. I think he thought the Costa’s would come for her sooner.”

“I heard that he’s getting so impatient, he might have some fun with her before he sells her tonight! She is quite a looker.”

“Oh! That would really send The Devil over the edge! I wish I could see the look on his face when he finds out!”

The rage that has been quietly simmering inside me for the last two days has now reached its boiling point.

I look to my team and can see the comprehension in their eyes: this group will be the first to die tonight.

A preternatural calmness schools my features into a mask of arrogance as I casually lean on the door frame.

“Looks like I’m about to make your wish come true, boys”, I smile sardonically.

The look of pure terror in their eyes fuels my rage and my body instinctively begins the dance of death, my men following close behind.

We make quick work of the group, each of us moving with precision in this perfectly choreographed dance. One by one, bodies dropped until only one man remained. I regain my composure and stalk over to the lone survivor.

As expected, he cowers in the corner and begins begging for his life. This was the arrogant fuck who had made the comment about wanting to see The Devil go over the edge. Fucking idiot.

We quickly got the man to shut his mouth with the false promise we’d let him live so long as he told us what we needed to know. Again, fucking idiot. The Devil shows no mercy.

Faster than I would have expected, the sentry gave us the location within the building where Tessa was being kept. Being a better man than I am, Peter swiftly puts a bullet in the man’s head. He’s definitely the better man; The Devil would have made him suffer. One look from Ryan reminds me we that don’t have time and I immediately jump into action.

I’m coming, angel. I’m almost there.

 Hour 54

After what feels like an eternity of stair climbing, we begin to hear the sounds of life we’ve so desperately been searching for. By the number of voices we can hear behind the door, there is certainly a large group gathered here. All expecting a show, I’m sure.

If it’s a show they want, it’s a show I’ll give them. It just won’t be the one they were expecting.

Ryan, Peter and I quickly and quietly decide on our next move. We still don’t know exactly where in the room Tessa is being held. Anything we do now could potentially jeopardize her life even more and I refuse to act rashly. Even though every bone in my body is screaming to give The Devil control.

This is it. The time for vengeance has come. They will soon remember how I received my name.

**Power is cut. The building plunges into darkness. A quiet hush fills the room. Three devils enter. And so again begins the dance of death.**

**Gunshots start. Panicked screams now fill the space. Disgusting men with fat wallets try to flee as their bodyguards fall to the ground. The power begins to flicker to life while one devil breaks from the group, unnoticed. Find Tessa. That’s all that matters.**

I am vaguely conscious of Peter slinking off to the connecting room. Good. Find her. Keep her safe. I’ll keep doing what I do best: death.

I drown out their screams and keep moving forward: aim, shoot, aim shoot, reload. A never-ending cycle, sure to continue as long as The Devil lives.

With the lights now back up and running, I can fully see all that we’ve done. There were more people here than we anticipated. Most of the suits have managed to get out by now but we were able to take out a few. I don’t see the bastard that orchestrated this sick sale, though. He must have gotten out. Or maybe he wasn’t here at all, just a master puppeteer controlling his many puppets.

But we’ll find him. The Devil always finds them in the end. 

I don’t linger long on that thought, I just keep shooting, almost as if in a trance.

Until I hear her, the voice of my angel.

 Hour 55

“Will.”

I’ve just dropped yet another body when my eyes lock with hers from across the room. I can’t bring myself to look away, even to assess if she’s been hurt. To my surprise, I see no fear or disgust in her eyes. Just…relief? Concern?  

She let’s go of Peter’s hand and begins the slow walk through the room. Our eyes remained locked.

I watch in awe as this angel steps gingerly around the fallen bodies and pooling blood, as if she were merely walking around rain puddles.

Peter and Ryan have started the process of weeding out those still alive and ending their misery.

After what feels like an eternity, Tessa finally stands in front of me. Now that I can see her clearly, I find no trace of repulsion in her features. Surely this angel must hate me for all the death I’ve dealt, for the monster inside me…

She gently extends one of her delicate hands, keeping her eyes on mine, and softly whispers, “Let’s go home.”

Home.

I nod slightly, still in awe of this beautiful angel, and take her outstretched hand as I lead her from the mausoleum Ryan, Peter and I have created here tonight.

A brief nod at my team tells them it’s time to leave. We will deal with the repercussions of this night tomorrow, and we’ll come up with a plan to take down this whole organization.

Until then, I will tuck my angel safely in my arms and chase away any nightmares that may plague her sleep. I will keep her safe, for as long as she’ll let me.

My angel, my Tessa.

[webcricket]

Thursday’s Child

Pairing: CastielXReader Word Count: 2759 (Pt. 1) Summary: Part 1 of 5 - You met Castiel during his stint at being human and knew him as Steve, a sweet, albeit mysterious, man working at the local Gas-N-Sip with sad blue eyes that seemed to light up in your presence. That was eight years ago; now the daughter he fathered during your brief time together - the girl he doesn’t know about because he stole from your bed without a word and slipped out of your life before you knew you were pregnant - is asking for him. You realize, for her sake, it’s time to face the painful truth in order to find him. A/N - Part 1 is an angsty intro to the reader, the next part brings us up to speed on where Cas is at ...

Pt. 1

You walked into the Gas-N-Sip onto a scene a match stick strike short of complete chaos. Beyond the sea of customers waiting at the counter, the grumbled volume of their impatience rising like a storm’s tide breaking on a rocky shore, you saw not the blue-eyed sales associate you sought for, but the ragged figure of the manager, Nora, as she slammed her fist against the side of the cash register to compel its cooperation.

The machine spat its contents out in a metallic ding barely audible above the thunder of discontent. Nora flung a handful of crumpled bills at the gaping man stood before her and waved him toward the door with his uncapped cup of cold coffee without a word regarding well wishes for the goodness of the day.

The frazzled blonde jabbed a finger at her temple, peered blankly over the counter, and muttered, “Can I help whose next?” in a manner that made whomsoever was next dither in presenting themselves for customer service slaughter, and two people leave without getting the gasoline they came for - one of whom had trudged there on foot through the snow uphill in a pair of threadbare tangerine Converse after their car ran out of juice three miles down the road.

As the sea swelled in murmured confusion over who was next, you dove into the crush of shoulders and shoved a path through to the front.

Pressed into the counter, you jostled a carousel display of novelty keychains, the inconvenient disturbance of which, more than your voice, caught Nora’s strained attention. “Nora!” you panted. Caging the scattering of metal rings within your elbows to prevent their clattering to the floor, you ignored the nicotine-husked scolding of a wrinkled weather-worn woman sounding in your ear about cutting the line.

“Y/N?” A flicker of hope lightened Nora’s craggy sleep-deprived aspect at the sight of you. “Have you seen Steve?” Clutching at your wrist, she asked the desperate-toned question before you could, unknowingly answering yours in its sameness. “He hasn’t been in for two days. No call out. Nothing. That’s not like him.”

Cheeks paling, you agreed – conscientious to a fault, it wasn’t like him at all to just disappear.

The sickly sense of suspicion festering in your stomach during the last forty-eight hours that began upon waking to empty sheets and fattened itself not on food, because you’d barely eaten under the barrage of worried emotions, but rather fed on a gluttony of unreturned calls and texts, shuddered and flipped with enough weight to unsteady your feet; wrist yanked from her grip, you flattened your palm to the front of your jeans as an awareness of imminent ill shot sour bile up your gullet.

You shook your head; taking a second, you choked back the throat-searing fluid and fortified your dizzied balance against the confirmation he had indeed gone without a trace. “N-no, I haven’t-” you sputtered- “I-I was hoping-”

Cutting you off, unable to hear anything beyond the unhelpful news of your weakly uttered ‘No,’ frustration rutted her sweat-beaded forehead. “Well when you do see him, tell him he’s fired. He left me in the middle of a mess of inventory and I haven’t had anyone to open. For fuck’s sake, it’s the holidays! I’m in a real lurch here.” Wheezing to reach for the final bit of breath required to bellow out her contained fury, she gestured at the crowd and flashed the one or two nearest folks shocked by her expletive outburst a conciliatory service industry contrived smile.

“If-if you see him-” you attempted to request the returned favor through the burst levy of her rage as the woman spewing insults about your impudence wedged between you and the counter to demand immediate attention. Funneled in defeat to the center of the store, you broke for the bathroom before the wet brim of heartache flooded your lashes and a renewed heave of nausea hollowed your belly of its fill of woe.

<<<>>> 

“Mama?” The girl outfitted in pastel blue and magenta feather-bedecked fleece footie pajamas curled on the bed beside you stirred sleepily in the crook of your arm; the friction of her minute movements and dry forced heat air of winter combined sparked a static shock where the soft warmth of her bare fingers brushed your own calloused cooler ones.

“Yeah, honeybee?” Swiveling your concentration from the pages of the storybook held above the both of you, you closed the pages and sniffed your reply ticklishly into the freshly washed soap-smell of your daughter’s scalp – the scent of her a welcome haven from the heady aromas clinging to you of yeasted bread, warmed spice, and browned sugar that otherwise denoted a hectic day spent toiling in the bakery and sweet shop you operated below the small apartment.

She squirmed and giggled beneath your unrelenting Eskimo kisses until, fidgeting sideways to evade and escape, she squealed mid-laugh a query so completely unrelated to the book you’d been reading aloud minutes before it took you aback. “Where’s daddy?”

Her innocent and wholly natural curiosity stilled your showering of affection, seized at the center of your chest to steal your breath, and skipped your heart a few agonizing beats, but only a few; you’d grown emotionally numb over many years to the hurt of not knowing what happened with her father, of trying to reconcile your questions with a lack of answers in order to figure out what you did wrong, if anything, to warrant Steve’s disappearance from your life – and his own - without a goodbye, a warning, or so much as an inkling of a reason.

Although you tried and mostly succeeded in tidily boxing up the train wreck aftermath of emotion in your brain, he remained nonetheless an enigma forever in front of you because she was his; she wore his smile, albeit a bit easier and more often than he did; she saw the world through that same shade of inwardly illuminated blue, giving everyone she gazed upon the benefit of the doubt; she treated everything she touched, too, with a kindness, carefulness, and consideration so like him.

He endured even in his absence as an end without an end - the only proofs of the brief love-swept spell of him having been in your life a blunted memory stonewashed by time to dull the jagged edge of loss in believing he was the best thing to ever happen to you, and the life he sparked in your womb, a little girl who turned out to be what he wasn’t – the love of your life.

Yet despite the distance of years and the layers of a life well-lived laid on top of past pain, and like the first time you met him, every once in a while, when you least expected it, in moments when you were most relaxed, his recollection had a way of taking you by surprise such that you forgot how to breathe.

Her inquisitiveness, however, did not; she asked after him on occasion, especially now that she was in school and of an age to notice and wonder at the differences between her family and those of her classmates.

“Max has two daddies.”

Her observation, spoken in an airy awe punctuated by a yawn, penetrated your reverie into the past.

“That so?” Shifting up onto an elbow to better study the seriousness scrunching up her nose, you smoothed her disheveled hair into a chestnut halo of bouncy ringlets encircling her head on the polka dot patterned pillowcase; your fingertips fondly followed a wild whorl rebelling above her ear.

“Mm-hmm,” she drowsily drew out the noise, blinking heavily-lashed eyes that danced over the neon glow of star stickers arranged in constellations on the ceiling. With a mumbled, “and a dog, too” -she tossed the blanket, burrowed face-first into the pillow, and fell soundly asleep.

Staying absolutely motionless, you praised in grateful silence the sudden seizure of slumber children are wont to succumb to for temporarily relieving you from an explanation; whatever she dreamed of would be better than the reality of not knowing you had to offer.

You slipped from the bed and into the hallway, flicking lights off as you walked the worn oriental carpet runner to your bedroom, and found yourself standing in front of the closet digging for a shoebox stuffed in the topmost corner behind a stack of spare sheets.

Extricating the box with a grunt, you sunk to the floor, pushed off the lid, and dumped the contents, those few physical scraps you possessed of Steve - notes, snapshots, and the crumbling petals of a pressed red rose he left behind besides the scars on your heart and her - into your lap.

Last season, perched on Santa’s lap at the mall, your daughter told the falsely bearded jolly supplier of holiday spirit and maker of childhood magic she wanted him to bring her daddy home for Christmas. The pitying frowns donned by Saint Nick and his helper elf upon hearing her request haunted you for weeks afterward. The bright pink bike you bought to place under the tree as her big gift that year seemed a paltry substitute for what she really longed for.

It also prompted you to hire a private investigator to track Steve down. You hadn’t looked for him before then – you’d gotten on just fine without him; but it was becoming clear she needed to know him, if not as the father figure she idealized, at least as a means for both of you to get some kind of closure.

Part of you supposed regardless of why he left he should know he had a daughter and it was unfair - however unfairly he’d treated you - to keep her to yourself when you’d created her together. Whether he wanted to be a part of her life once he knew he’d not only deserted you, but left you knocked up, heartbroken, jobless, and in deep debt holding a newly minted mortgage for a building in need of major renovations before you could bake up that first batch of blueberry scones and realize a long-imagined dream – a dream he inspired you to pursue - would be entirely up to him.

Maybe you’d hesitated to look for so long because you felt he would want to be in your lives out of a sense of obligation rather than any emotive attachment of fatherly feeling; whatever had happened, the Steve you loved was a good man – dutiful of responsibilities to a fault. But Steve chose to leave and you wondered if he’d feel more trapped than anything if he knew there was a child; that he would be there like a hare snagged in a hunter’s snare awaiting fate, but that he wouldn’t want to be there.

In terms of fairness, that consequence wouldn’t be fair to any of you.

You eyed the sealed legal-sized manila envelope folded in half and jammed in the bottom of the emptied box. The part of you that preferred not knowing and defaulted to pigeonholing pain instead of dealing with it stuck it in there a month ago when the backlogged and grandfatherly private investigator working for literal beans of the brewed coffee variety and a weekly doughnut delivery as a personal favor to you got around to handing his findings over along with the kindly-intended counsel that he’d uncovered enough of the big picture to deem the case concluded, and it was up to you to decide whether it was worth hunting the guy down for a face-to-face to fill in the remainder of the damnable details.

Tucking the document into your outstretched hand – the fingers suffering from a nervy tremble no amount of suppressive will would quiet - he strongly cautioned against the latter pursuit of an in person meet up on the basis of having had decades of not so positive experience with quote unquote, “This same sort of dead beat dodging child support.”

Bolstering your resolve to learn the truth with a lungful of air, you slid a finger into the glue affixed gap of the envelope; the flap sliced your flesh as you tore into the paper. Soothing the slash against the warmth of your tongue, you slipped free the sheets within and rotated the cover page to scan the paragraph typed thereon – it comprised a summary of the steps the investigator took, contained a list of contacts in South Dakota and Kansas – potential current states of residence based on credit card activity - should you want to trail him further, and provided a social security number along with a name in bold uppercase print: JIMMY NOVAK.

A noose of nerves cinched tightly at your throat. The last thing you expected was an outright lie.

Steve … no, Jimmy, he carried a sadness in the slouch of his shoulders, a something secretive that distanced his gaze sometimes; he told you he lost everything - his family, his home - that he started over with nothing save the two feet he landed on to build a foundation. You believed him, respected his fortitude to move forward, and loved him enough not to push him to talk about a past obviously painful to him until he was ready.

You never dreamed what he meant to say was everything you knew of him, everything he shared, was a fabrication built not to move on from the truth, but to hide it from you.

The whoosh of your pulse pounded in your ears; vision tunneled, the panicked pump of racing blood blackened the periphery of the white sheet when you turned to the next page.

Written there was the fact Jimmy had another family; had a daughter – Claire. He left them, too. He hadn’t lost his family and home, he ran out on them just like he ran out on you.

“Mama?” Dainty fingers tapped at the damp shine of your cheek; she crept in so quietly you hadn’t heard the tip-toe tread of her bare feet on the carpet. “Mama?” she said it again, a broken whisper verging on a sob, and tangled her limbs around your neck.

You shoved the papers off your crossed legs and pulled the ball of her body into your embrace. “What’s wrong, baby bee?” Blinking to staunch the sting of your tears, your piqued emotion surrendered to a roused motherly alarm as you folded the mess of her sweat-matted hair to your bosom where she could hear the reassuring thump-thump housed within.

“I had a bad dream,” she murmured and fisted the fabric of your robe.

Me, too, you thought, and snuggled her in tighter.

Glancing at the discarded report amid the box’s other trinkets, your bleary gaze landed on a glossy polaroid photo of you and Steve snapped at a holiday party you goaded him into attending with you when your original plus one ditched you at the last minute so you wouldn’t have to face alone a roomful of tipsy marketing execs you loathed.

That night, that moment, his fingers flirting hesitatingly at your waist, touches giving in to the pull of gravity as the night wore on to graze then hug your hips as if they belonged there - had always been there - a confidant and comfort tenderly testing the territory of more - you naïvely yielding like pliant putty to his touch - that was the point of no return; through the retrospective filter of the truth it became clear he seemed too good to be true, because nothing about him was true.

Part of you wished you could reseal the envelope and the truth with it and return to the comparative bliss of not knowing. Mostly you seethed, an unprocessed anger relegated to the back-burner ignited, inflaming mind and muscle until your entire frame radiated a heat of rage.

The girl quaking in your grasp, bend of her spine shivering as you skimmed it in soothing caresses, reminded you some nightmares do evolve to have happy endings; no matter what happened, or what would happen, you had her and he couldn’t take that away from you.

Wiping her fear and tear flushed features into your pajamas, she gasped a desire that plunged daggers through your heart. “I want my daddy.”

“It’s okay, I’ve got you,” you spoke in a whisper to shush her whimpers and calm the heated tempest of your nerves.

She went limp wrapped in the safety of your words and arms; you’d do anything for her, including suffer pain and swallow your pride to dredge up a monster from the past. You only prayed he wouldn’t hurt her, too.

Castiel tag list:  (Closed, if you’d like to be removed please let me know!)    @jeepangel​  @sammiesamness​  @willowing-love​  @blueicevalkyrie​   @im-the-nerdiest-of-them-a11​  @thesugargalaxy​   @bluetina-blog  @dont-trust-humanity @honeybeetrash​  @bucky-thorin-winchester​  @superwholockz​   @tistai  @wordstothewisereaders​  @gill-ons​  @mrswhozeewhatsis​  @marisayouass​  @stone-met​   @castiel-savvy18​  @samualmortgrim  @trexrambling  @magnificent-mantle  @xdifsx  @mandilion76  @rockfairy  @peaceloveancolor​  @unicorntrooper  @anisolatedship  @itsilvermorny  @aditimukul  @kudosia  @goofynerd-67babylove​  @uninspirationalsonglyrics​  @gray-avidan​  @mishascupcake​   @mishapanicmeow​   @praisecastielamen​  @roseyhxnt  @jessikared97  @let-the-imaginationflow  @warriorqueen1991   @sebastianstanslefteyebrow   @hisnameisboobear  @kristendanwayne  @fuschiarulerinthebluebox  @coolpencilpie  @jenabean75​ @luciathewinchestergirl​  @morganas-pendragons​  @heyitscam99  @fangirl-and-stuff  @selahbela  @realgreglestrade  @splendidcas  @pointlesscasey  @i-larb-spooderman​  @thewhiterabbit42​  @thelostverse​  @castieliswatchingoverme​  @beccollie18  @dragonett8  @dixie-chick  @jtownraindancer​   @carowinsthings​  @passionghost  @ladyofletters67​ @futureparent​  @gabbie7-11​  @myfandomlife-blog  @dreamerkim  @samael-has-arrived  @shamelesslydean  @earthtokace​  @neaeri  @justanormalangel​  @lone-loba​  @supernaturalymarvel​  @lilrubixx​  @wings-and-halo​  @lilulo-12​  @x-cassiopeia​ @thehoneybeecastielfollows​  @musiclovinchic93​  @81mysteriouslyme​  @the-bottom-of-the-abyss​  @jaylarkson​  @missjenniferb​  @ayamenimthiriel  @supervengerslock  @jessiekay2010​

[ryanjdel]

Am I a Failure?

Disclaimer: Now I know I’m better off than some. But I need to let this out. This is my experience, and I know it could be worse. I know. Picture yourself in a classroom, always at the front of the class because the teacher, who has had you for six years, feels you need special attention. She constantly tries to make you go to her tutoring sessions, and insults your intelligence by telling you to move from a Higher level course to a lower level, because “you’re not cut out for it”. That was the majority of my time in school. Now it’s not like I was an idiot, nor was I going to Harvard any time soon. But I was a bright kid, in my own ways. In my Leaving Certificate year I was constantly told how I wasn’t going to pass my exams. My mental health took a dive. I started smoking. I was depressed. Among all this, life long relationships were shattering before my eyes, realising I wasn’t surrounding myself with the right people. It. Sucked. 

I ended up developing an attitude, I stopped caring about my exams, and just wanted to get by. Even through my honest lack of effort, I managed to get a high grade in my higher level English exam. I was euphoric. All I wanted to do was show my result to my teacher. Stick it in her face, show her that I could do it. I didn’t even do it for me. I did it to rub it in her face. I have resented my final year of school for many reasons. Ruined friendships. Smoking. Bad experiences with relationships, and my exams.  Though I did well, I resented my results for the past few years, mostly because all my life I was told all I needed was good exam results, and I’d be able to get in a good college, and get a job. While college wasn’t a problem. (only doing a few months of Animation, realising it wasn’t me and then going on to get a diploma in Film) But I’ve struggled to find work for years, I’ve only had ONE real job. That was doing door to door sales for PhoneWatch, a house alarm company. It was a good product. But the timing was awful. Sure, the job was hard, being out in wind rain and snow, bothering people at their homes to try get them to sign a contract.

 But I was good. I made 4 grand in my first month. But then March came, and Covid-19 started to spread through Ireland. Restrictions were put into place, but not at Phonewatch. Sure they said we can’t shake hands, but they expected us to risk our health going out knocking doors. This, coupled with the fact the virus had lead to less people opening doors out of fear of getting infected, made it so I was making no money by the end of the month. I had already passed both pay days. It was a commission only job. I did a full Months free labour in the wind, rain and snow for these soulless salesmen who didn’t give a shit about me. Sure I could have made more money through referrals. But no one got back to me. While the world was on fire,  these guys saw it as “Everyones at home, lets knock some doors.” Sure they wore fancy suits and made a few grand every month. But thats before taxes. None of them drove, and the ones who did couldnt afford fuel half the time, or their car was falling apart.

So I left, then day immediately after I quit, and handed in my badge and booklet, it was announced the whole Country was on lockdown. Shit.  Ever since I’ve been trying to find ways to get work, make money during all this craziness. But I can’t find anything. I’ve been working for my mum, cleaning and maintaining the property for my mums playschool. I hate it. I studied film, I invested in cameras and lenses, I’m trying so hard to find a way to get into the industry but I can’t. Now I see classmates of mine going on to make web-series’, working for big Youtubers/TikTok stars, even shooting for big fashion brands. While I’m still living with my parents, falling in and out of taking care of my health. Getting nothing done. Growing older, fatter and more depressed by the day. I’m in therapy now. Thankfully. But I can’t feel like everything I’ve been through, everything I’ve worked for has lead to nothing. Have I gone right back to square one? Am I a fucking loser? 

[lurafita]

It IS easy to kidnap Spiderman (If Peter Parker has to go to a board meeting)

This has also been posted at AO3, but I thought it might be good to have a back-up of the story on another website. Just in case.

Summary: Slightly crack-ish, not to be taken too seriously, mostly just written for fun. Peter has to go to an S.I. board meeting. Peter doesn’t want to go to an S.I. board meeting. Peter can’t come up with an excuse to not go to an S.I. board meeting. Peter needs a miracle. … Or, alternatively, a van full of kidnappers.

“I’m going to die!”

Peter whined as he, Ned and MJ crossed the street. Ned shot his best friend a somewhat sympathetic look, while the girl in the group rolled her eyes.

“You are not going to die because you have to sit through one measly big wig meeting.”

Peter ignored her.

“Goodbye oh cruel world. How heartlessly you rip me from existence.”

MJ folded her arms as they kept walking.

“You do realize that as the official heir to Stark Industries, you are going to have to deal with this stuff all the time, right?”

Peter dramatically gripped his chest, looking up into the sky.

“The lights… are fading… Limbs… growing cold… I see… a tunnel… Mother, is that… you?… Begging me.. to go… into the light?… Must. Move. Towards. The. Light! I am… going… Home… Goodbye cruel world! … Rose…bud.”

And then he gracelessly slumped against the store front to his left, slowly sliding down. Ned clapped politely, while Michelle kept frowning.

“Really? The possum from ‘Over the hedge’?”

Peter was up in an instant.

“Don’t diss the classics, MJ.”

And there went the eye roll again.

“My point stands. You are one day going to head one of the most, if not the most, successful and important enterprises in the world. You are going to need to learn how to do it. And like it or not, that includes sitting through board meetings.”

They stopped at an intersection, waiting for the light to turn green.

“But it’s gonna be so boring! They will be talking about market value and sales figures and the development of our sister companies and the possibilities of future trading partners, and I’m going to fall asleep, okay? I’m going to fall asleep right there, and then I will slide from the chair and crack my head open on the incredibly expensive meeting table, and then I will be bleeding out on the floor, - which is probably carpeted with imported, high quality, unicorn hair. And then everyone is going to look at me all judgmental like, and Pepper and Tony are gonna rethink leaving their billion dollar baby in the hands of a super spaz like me. And if I somehow survive bleeding to death on unicorn hair carpet, I will die of shame.”

The light finally turned and the three friends proceeded.

“Unicorn hair?” Ned questioned.

“It’s so soft!” Peter answered with huge, awe-filled eyes. “And you guys haven’t even heard the worst part! Pepper said I can’t bring Hope!”

Now his best male friend looked appropriately shocked by this absolute travesty, but his best female friend just continued to roll her eyes at him. Peter wondered if she ever got dizzy from it.

“Seriously? You are not allowed to bring your overly affectionate and enthusiastic dog to an important board meeting? What is the world coming to?”

Her sarcasm went right over the brunettes head.

“Right?”

Peter and Hope, his shelter rescue Pit Bull, had been pretty much inseparable ever since the teenager adopted the beautiful ball of barely contained love. The only times you would find one without the other was when Peter went out as Spiderman, or when he needed to go to school. He had actually tried sneaking Hope into school with him on the first day, after summer vacation had ended. Needless to say, that plan had been thwarted by the ever present eyes of Friday.

It was a bit of a miracle that Ned and MJ had been able to talk Peter into trying out that new diner that had opened up a few streets away from their school, without the other teenager running home first to bring his loyal follower with them. Though that had probably to do with Peter’s unwillingness to step foot in the tower until he absolutely had to. After all, there was always the chance that Pepper or Tony would just keep him there to further prep him for the upcoming meeting.

Ned nudged him playfully in the side.

“You know, most people would be fruit loops ecstatic about being gifted the inheritance of a multi-billion dollar company for their 17th birthday, instead of complaining about having to attend a meeting.”

Peter just loved that his best friend had picked up his way of swearing.

“I’m not trying to be ungrateful here, I just don’t see the point! After all, it’s not like I will be running any of those meetings once I take over.”

This statement was met with curious stares from both of his friends.

“And how do you figure that, loser?”

Said teen casually threw up his arms and intertwined his fingers behind his head.

“Well, I thought I would just hire you as the acting CEO, so, you know, you can completely dominate the business world and make everyone your little licorice. And everyone will of course include Ned here, who will be head of S.I. Robotics department by then, and yours truly, as I will be french frying around our biochemistry labs whenever I’m not 'on the web’.”

(Which was their extremely unoriginal code for Peter’s Spiderman activities.)

Peter was only slightly surprised by the twin slaps he received to both of his arms.

“The hell, Parker!”

“Dude, that’s not how you tell someone they have an amazing job waiting for them after university!”

To which he just shrugged his shoulders.

“What? It’s pretty much how Tony told me I was the god donuts heir to his and Peppers company. Well, actually he came into the kitchen on the morning of my birthday, while me and Hope were just enjoying breakfast after our early run, and dropped a stack of papers right before me. Then he waved a pen in front of my face and tapped it onto the bottom line on the paper on top of the stack and said: 'Sign here.’ So, naturally, I did, and as soon as I had finished signing, he snatched everything back and said: 'Congrats, kid. You are now the official heir to Stark Industries. Happy Birthday.’ And that was that.”

He immediately received another slap on his arm from MJ.

“You signed something without reading it first? What kind of a moron are you? That’s not how you run a freaking business!”

Peter pointed at her victoriously.

“See! This is exactly why I need you! You are already better at it than I am.”

He looked incredibly satisfied with his reasoning. Ned, who was still not completely over the shock of the metaphorical bomb their friend had just dropped on them, still couldn’t help but agree.

“He’s got a point, MJ. I mean, can you really imagine Pete here, sitting at the head of a table, filled with twenty suit wearing people, and telling them what to do? Face it, you are just way more intimidating than him.”

Peter was nodding along quite happily, though the girl only snorted.

“Please, a marshmallow stuffed cupcake is more intimidating than Parker.”

“Hey! I mean, that does sound ridiculously delicious so I’m kinda flattered, but still!… Do you think we can get that cupcake somewhere?”

Ned smirked. “Well, seeing as you are about to die a horribly pathetic death, I guess we can at least ask when we get to the diner. They are bound to have something overly sugary to satisfy your sweet tooth.”

And Peter slumped once more.

“Did you have to remind me of my impending doom? Why is there never an uprising of the mole people when you need it? Not that I want anyone to be in danger or anything, but a minor little catastrophe, to keep Spiderman occupied long enough to have a valid reason to miss the meeting, would be really, french fruit loops frying appreciated right now.”

And for once, it seemed like some higher power had heard and took pity on the spider-enhanced teenager. Because at exactly that moment, a black, large van was barreling down the street behind them, coming to a screeching halt right next to the three on the sidewalk. Peter instinctively took hold of both of his friends arms and drew them back behind himself, as the side door of the van slid open, and three masked men with guns in their hands emerged out of it. The other pedestrians on the street fled in a light panic at the sight of the armed men.

One of the men, apparently the leader of the group, pointed his gun right at Peter.

“You! Peter Parker! Get into the van, and no one is gonna get hurt!”

Peter looked at him with wide, stunned eyes.

“Are you… trying to kidnap me?”

The leader waved his gun impatiently.

“Not trying to. In the van! Now!”

And to the three kidnappers absolute astonishment (as well as their driver’s, who was still seated behind the wheel) the kid threw his hands up in the air, joyfully whooped, and then sprinted, actually fucking sprinted, right by them to leap into the vehicle. A timeless second went by, as everyone was trying to process what had just happened. (Well, not everyone. Michelle and Ned were simply sending their friend completely unimpressed glares)

Then the teen leaned slightly out of the car.

“Look, I’m not trying to tell you how to do your job or anything, but maybe we should get going? You know, before someone calls the cops? Just saying.”

That seemed to rouse the masked men from their confusion and spurred them into action. Before the door slid shut behind the last one, Peter pinned his two friends with a very serious look.

“Don’t call him! At least not before six o'clock!”

The meeting was scheduled for 18:30, and he was supposed to be at the tower no later than 18:15. He would never make it! With that gleeful thought, Peter relaxed into the backseat and faced the group leader.

“Do you think we can make a quick stop at a drive-thru or something? I was actually on my way to lunch, you know?”

And then Ned and Michelle were left in the figurative dust, as they watched the van speed away, transporting their friend to who knows where.

The inherently more worried Ned turned to his female companion.

“Should we… like call the police? Or Mr. Stark? Or the other Avengers?”

Michelle scoffed.

“Calm down, Leeds. The loser can handle himself. Besides, our future employer has given us strict instructions to not call anyone and report what happened just yet. We will shoot Stark a text at six. It’s not like he won’t find his idiot son in a heartbeat. Until then, let’s go to that diner, I’m starving. I’m also gonna have to research some meditation exercises or something. My future self is going to need all the patience in the world if I’m expected to deal with this kind of bullshit every time I have to drag Peter to a meeting.”

“Pep, Pepsi to my Coke, Pepperoni on my pizza, love of my life! Why do I have to go to the board meeting?”

Pepper ignored her fiance’s whining, something she had tremendous experience with, and instead held up another tie against the man’s white shirt, comparing it to the maroon one in her other hand.

“Because you thought it would be a good idea to announce the heir of Stark Industries on live television. And now the board wants to meet Peter.”

Deciding on the maroon tie, she laid the other one over the back of a nearby chair. Tony huffed as Pepper expertly bound a Windsor knot.

“Exactly. They want to meet the kid. Not me. They know me! Everyone knows me! My name is on the building.”

Having finished with the tie, Pepper grabbed the dark suit jacket next.

“It’s your own fault. If you had waited to reveal Peter as the heir to the company until he finished college, like you were supposed to, you wouldn’t have to deal with this now.”

Tony shrugged the jacket on and tried to look as innocent as possible when he countered with “I had no choice! Ellen totally tricked me into it.”

The flat stare his fiance shot him spoke volumes. “She asked you what exciting new surprises the next Expo held in store for everyone.”

To which the billionaire waved his hand dismissively. “Semantics.”

Pepper rolled her eyes.

“It will be a good experience for Pete. He pretty much knows all about the inner workings and procedures in the labs, but he needs to get to know the business side of things, too.”

“Which is what he has you for. Why do I have to be there?”

She adjusted the jacket, righted the tie and gave him a quick kiss.

“As moral support. And to set a good example. Which means no playing on your phone, no snorting or groaning noises when you get bored, and no rolling your eyes when Henderson brings up project 99.”

Tony groaned. “Henderson always brings up project 99. The guy is like a broken record. It was a bad idea the first time he proposed it, and it continues to be a bad idea now. Why is he even still on the board?”

“Because he is six months away from retirement and we wouldn’t be so cruel as to demote or fire him before then. And now stop whining and get ready. The meeting starts in twenty five minutes and Peter should be here any moment now.”

With an overly dramatic sigh, the man let himself fall backwards onto their king sized bed. Much to the displeasure of Hope, who had curled up on one of the pillows to mope until his favorite human came back again. “Sorry buddy.” Tony scratched the dog behind his ears in apology. Then he looked forlornly at the ceiling. “Why is there never an alien invasion when you need one?”

Which was, naturally, the perfect moment for Friday to announce “Incoming Video call from 'Boss Junior’.”

Pepper crossed her arms under her chest. “Oh, he better not try to get out of this meeting.”

Tony’s line of thought was similar. “He better have a damn good excuse for getting out of this meeting.”

The vid-link opened via the towers holographic screens, and the couples eyes immediately focused on Peter. Who was sitting in a badly lit room, empty of all furniture save for the chair the teen was tied to (with what looked like completely normal rope, which they knew Peter could snap like silly string), and behind him a tall, well muscled man, dressed completely in black, donning a black ski mask, and a hand gun pointed right at Peter’s head.

Now, a sight like this would usually propel Tony right into heart attack territory, - if it wasn’t for the big ass grin on the kid’s face.

“Hi Tony! Hi Pepper! So, as you can see, I have been kidnapped.” (Under his breath, Tony couldn’t help but concede “Damn, that’s a good excuse.”) “It was completely unavoidable and absolutely against my own will.” (Pepper groaned. “Are you kidding me?”) “I mean, of course it was against my will! Because who in their right minds would jump into a van full of armed kidnappers, when they have an important meeting to attend later that same day? Certainly not me!” (“That clever little shit!”)

By that point Hope had recognized his owners voice and was crawling all over Tony to get a better look at the holo screen, barking happily. Peter’s whole face lit up at the sight of his dog.

“Hey Hope. Yes, I miss you too. Are you a good boy for Tony and Pepper?”

And as Peter cooed at his dog, Tony tried to not have his nose constantly slapped by a wildly wagging tail, and Pepper was burying her face into her hands, the looming, dark figure behind Peter apparently decided that he had been patient enough with his 'victim’, and slightly nudgded the teen’s shoulder. Peter looked up at the man with a sheepish grin.

“Sorry, dude. Anyway, I’m supposed to tell you that if you want me to be returned in one piece, you need to transfer one million dollars-” Then Peter turned back to the man behind him. “Are you sure you only want a million? Think about it. You need to split this up between the four of you, which is only 250000$ for everyone. And you will have to withdraw the money pretty much right away, otherwise Mr. Stark will be able to follow the money trail right to you. Also, you will want to leave the country pretty quickly after this, cause, you know, that’s Iron Man you are dealing with here. But with that much cash in your possession, you can’t use a commercial flight, cause they check your bags and stuff and 250 grand would probably raise a few eyebrows. Which leaves you with the only option of paying someone to get you out under the radar, and that probably won’t be cheap… Have you really thought this through?”

The man looked at Peter (his posture had lost it’s threatening stance long ago), then at the person who was obviously holding Peter’s phone to record the video, then at Peter again, and then he made the universal sign to 'end the call’ at the camera and with that, the feed cut off.

Friday’s helpful: “The video call has been cut off, boss.”, was followed by “You have also received a text message from 'The Scary One’, which reads: 'FYI, your idiot son has let himself get kidnapped in order to avoid shameful death on unicorn hair.’ - End message.”

And while Tony had no idea what the part about unicorn hair could possibly be about, he had long since learned not to ask questions.

Pepper did not have to look up to know that her fiance was sporting a downright gleeful look right then.

“So… looks like the Spiderling needs rescuing.” He was edging off his seat on the bed (having deposited Hope from his lap earlier) and had already taken off his tie and suit jacket. “What terrible, terrible timing. And here I was so looking forward to talking about project 99 with good old Henderson. Such a shame.” He was halfway across the room, the Iron Man armor already forming around him. “Oh well, can’t be helped. Gotta go save Pete from his evil kidnappers now. Fri, locate his watch, please. Thanks, girl. Guess we will have to postpone this whole business meeting introduction thingy. Gotta get going before the kid accidentally teaches these guys how to be real criminals. Love you, Pep. Have fun at the meeting! Bye!”

Then the sound of the opening of one of the large windows, followed by the thrusters of the suit, and before Pepper even had time to wave him off, Iron Man was flying through the New York sky.

For reasons Pepper was quite comfortable never to examine, she couldn’t help but laugh. “Like Father, like Son. Both running from meetings whenever they can and leaving me to deal with it.”

A warm, furry body cuddled into her legs and she smiled as she lovingly pet the Pit Bulls head.

“You know what? Screw it. Peter is going to sneak you into one of those meetings sooner or later anyway. (And I will get him to attend one, he can’t get himself kidnapped every time). Better to get the board used to you. And if they can’t meet their future boss, they will at least meet his dog. What do you say, Hope, do you want to go to a boring board meeting with me?”

Her answer was an excited bark and a lot of tail wagging.

“Good boy.”

The End

I wasn’t actually sure how to end this one. There was always the option of following Tony to the hide-out the kidnappers had Peter at, just for him to burst in and see Peter (free of any kind of restraints), sitting in a circle with his kidnappers (all of whom had divested themselves of their ski masks), and explaining to them various ways on how to better plan their next heist. Or how to make money without using illegal means. Or giving them advice on going back to school/getting their GED (-that is what it is called, right?), or how volunteering at an animal shelter might help them with their parole officer later on…

But then I thought, nah, leave that to the imagination of the readers, or refer to it in a later part of the series if you want.

As I said in the beginning, this was basically written just for the fun of it. Never the less, I would be happy to know if you liked/enjoyed it.

Thanks to everyone for reading!

[evien-stark]

✧I Need You✧ Chapter 43

With one less thing to worry about, that’s exactly what you did. It still bothered you. A little. In the back of your head with everything else you’d buried. It probably wasn’t healthy to carry on that way, but you had very little other options. What Peggy had said when her mind had been certain and clear disturbed you. She knew more than she’d ever say- perhaps more than she’d ever be able to say. And it was obvious she was going to lose more with every passing day. But you couldn’t bother her over it.

 She’d sent a letter asking you to come.

She’d then told you in person to let it go- because you shouldn’t do that to him.

 So you wouldn’t. Not right now, anyway.

 October first was there before you knew it, and so was the relaunch of the Stark Expo- and its weekend long celebration. This time you’d gotten Tony to opt for something a little more subtle. No landing onto a platform as Iron Man. Just a nice speech with the two of you thanking everyone for their patience as you got the Expo up and running. Reintroducing its main mission of running over the course a year to bring all sorts of technological marvels to the forefront.

Of course, you made sure to invite one very special guest. “Pepper make sure to mail Tony’s thank you and three year long Expo passes to the Parker family.” You’d tracked down their address easily, and gotten Tony to scribble his signature on a very well thought out and sweet letter- of your own design, of course. Encouraging Peter to look towards the future, thanking him for all his help and his courage, and to go after whatever his heart desired.

While you had no idea if he was attending the opening ceremony that night, you imagined his little smiling face in the crowd regardless as you and Tony welcomed everyone and promised much fun and excitement in the coming year. Especially over the weekend, where fall themed activities were happening- free of charge, of course.

With everything up and running and no foreseeable nonsense… one thing off your endless list. What a joy that was. A nice quiet celebration was called for that evening.

Of course, the end of the month heralded another straight upward rocket in stocks as sales came in.

“Iron Man costumes sold out nationwide.”

“Of course they did.”

And so you made sure at Stark Industries, “Every kid that visits gets one piece of candy. ...but Iron Mans get two.”

A little marketing never hurt anyone.

As November crept in, you made sure to do your due diligence as a citizen and get caught in a photo-op heading into a voting booth on the second. Now more than ever the next president of the United States was an important pick. The world was shifting beneath your feet. And while your interests and corporate interests had always been important before, now an entirely new problem emerged.

You needed someone your side. Someone who would go to bat for you and Tony when this superhero business went screwy- and it would. It wasn’t a matter of where, it was a matter of when. And you needed a person on your side who understood Tony was doing his best. Someone as far away from Stern as possible.

Tony had gone on a couple of good will missions to sit down and have a drink with the candidates. You’d trusted his opinion when he’d told you Matthew Ellis was the guy.

So that’s who you voted for.

It was almost no surprise that with Stark Industries backing the man, quiet some ways and obvious in others, he went on to be the people’s choice for their next leader.

With the arrival of the holiday months, things became a little bit easier. Not because the people around you were working hard or anything, just the opposite. Vacation days started rolling in aplenty, even before the actual holidays arrived. But with less people around you were able to focus on more important things. Working yourself was sometimes much easier.

Pepper had flown home to a happy family and you…

“LUNA what’s left on my schedule today?” Stark Industries was a ghost town. Quiet, blissfully, allowing you to work through a fair amount of paperwork and get a lot of things done. Interesting once how the noise was gone you were able to do just so much more.

“Nothing, ma’am.” But this…

“No- that’s not true. I have that NPR interview in twenty minutes, don’t I?” At the very least you remembered that one because your brief notes were sitting in front of you. It was mostly just going to be a soft talk about how the tower construction in NYC was starting very soon and how the company was doing well.

“Not that I see.”

Clicking over your schedule on the computer- feeling the strangeness in having to do so manually for the first time in what felt like forever- you were just as surprised to see it clear there. “Mn. No… could you do a reset? This isn’t right. I know I have that interview.”

“Sure thing, ma’am.”

Were things really going this far awry without Pepper’s guiding hand? Unthinkable, almost. You were sure she’d double checked things for you before she’d left. And even if she hadn’t, being useless now that you had a great PA looking after you was not good.

Moving to pick up the phone on the corner of your desk, you dialed into the personal line for your NPR interviewer today. You got put on hold for a few minutes but eventually she picked up. “You’re a little early! But we’ll be glad to have you on the show today.” Her segment hadn’t started, the two of you off-air at the moment.

“Sorry. If you want I can call back. I just wanted to make sure we’re still on for today.”

“That’s okay- and of course. Yes. Still on. Did you wanna go over some no-go areas?” A usual question for favorable partners. It’s what made interviews like these almost too easy. Sometimes you preferred the more combative people just to be able to put someone in their place.

“No, I think I’ll be okay. Whatever you want to ask, go ahead.” Even trusting that she wouldn’t ask anything too callous, you knew the nature of the show, and it being Thanksgiving gave you an even gentler edge. Anyone listening right now- to this station in particular- wasn’t tuning in for a fight. And your interviewer knew that too.

“Okay, sounds great. I definitely can’t wait to ask you how things have changed since Mr. Stark announced to the world he was Iron Man a year ago.”

 Dread filled your heart.

 “...I’m sorry?”

“I know it must be very difficult to believe it was only that long ago-”

“To the day?”

“Yes. One year exactly.”

You stood very suddenly. “I’m sorry- I’m so sorry- I have to go- I have to cancel- we’ll reschedule- I have to go. I’m sorry.”

She was the least important person you had to apologize to.

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

 Holidays had never been important. You hadn’t had anyone to celebrate them with in a long time, and Tony cared even less. Sometimes there was the occasional party you had to attend just to make a good impression but nothing personal. It wasn’t just Thanksgiving though- unfortunate as the date landing had been. It was November 25th. A moment of both your lives that you remembered so clearly-

  If I was Iron Man I’d have this girlfriend who knew my true identity. She’d be a wreck. She’d always be worrying that I was gonna die- yet sort of proud of the man I’d become. She’d be wildly conflicted- which would only make her more... -crazy about me.

Are you finished?

No, I’m not. Is this a good time for the talk? I think we should have the talk.

   It was impossible to drive fast enough, the heat of shame and anxiousness welling up inside you. Why hadn’t he said anything? Was it important to him? It must have been, for him to clear your schedule like that. And you knew now it definitely had been him.

Almost making it to the garage, “LUNA, can you touch base with JARVIS- quietly- and let me know where Tony is?”

“You don’t him to know you’re checking in?”

“No.”

Only a fraction of silence. “Tony is at home. In the kitchen.”

Not even in the lab. This was bad. You were awful. Terrible. Just absolutely fucking terrible. It might have been an easy excuse to make that you’d forgotten the date because was this really your anniversary? You hadn’t really put labels on things. It made it that much harder, right?

...but you knew. You knew in your heart if you’d been paying more attention you would have realized. That day was the day almost everything had started. That everything had changed.

In the driveway with the car parked, you nearly fell out of the door, taking a half tumble to the pavement, scurrying your way up the rest of the walk. The sun was setting. It was getting late.

“Welcome home.” JARVIS voiced overhead.

“Thank you.” No need to be impolite to him. It wasn’t his fault. Hurrying through the living room and around the bend, you smelled food. Breakfast food. Of course. “Tony, I’m-”

He was flipping over a pan of bacon. “Very sad to hear your NPR interview was canceled. I was really looking forward to that one.”

Standing at the kitchen island you looked at him helplessly. “Tony I’m sorry.”

Switching the stove top off he turned to look at you. His smile vanished. “Hey- will you relax? You look like you just ran fifteen miles.”

“That’s how I feel.” Shitty, basically. He wiped his hands on a dish towel and rounded the island, coming close. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you wait.” You weren’t exactly sure what he was doing- probably cooking breakfast for dinner. For the both of you.

His smile soothed your very soul. Hands over your hips, he lifted you slightly and you followed his lead, sitting down on one of the stools. “I think I remember telling you I was okay to wait.” Making it clear he’d been thinking about that day, too. Because of course he had.

 Right before you pushed that button, I made peace with that the last thing I’d ever see was you. I just have to know how much longer you want me to wait. Tomorrow? Next week? A month from now? I will- I just- ...I need to know. Am I still waiting at all?

 It was only your fucking anniversary.

You settled your hands on his chest. “Right. That’s why you cleared my schedule for me?” It hurt you to smile back. You felt like you deserved to see some sort of punishment for this. Or maybe you just wanted some to make yourself feel better.

“Figured you need a little push. Or help. Whichever one is better.” His arms wound around you and you hid your face against his shirt, if only a little bit in shame. “Will you chill out? I don’t want to start off the grand couple’s adventure with deciding who gets mad over which forgotten anniversary. Because let’s face it, I’m more likely, out of the two of us.”

“But it was meeee...” Whining a little dramatically into his shirt.

His chest shook with a touch of warm laughter. “Yeah. And next year to make up for it, I’ll do the forgetting. Does that make you feel better?” When you looked up at him, his hands reached up, palms cupping the sides of your face, grinning lightly. “Seriously- knock it off, would you? You’re making me feel bad and I was the good one.”

A sigh whooshed out of your lungs. “How many more times should I say I’m sorry?” Genuinely asking him.

“None. You’re working too hard and it slipped by you. It happens. ...although.”

“Although?”

“I guess I could ask for one apology gift.”

“Anything.” At this point? Pretty much anything in the world. Even if giving him that much power was extremely dangerous.

“Keep your schedule clear for the next couple of weeks. Let’s go somewhere.”

Ah, an anniversary vacation? Maybe that wouldn’t be so bad… you found a real smile this time. “Where do you wanna go?”

He shrugged, leaning in to kiss you briefly. “Doesn’t matter. Just be with me. And I’ll be with you.”

A tough promise to make- equally for the both of you. But if he wanted to commit, you did just as much. Reaching up you wrapped your arms around his neck and the kisses moved from brief to lingering. In between one and the next, “Are we planning on sight seeing?”

“-probably won’t leave the hotel-”

“Somewhere quiet then- penthouse suite- with- ...good room service-” His lips interrupting between each thought until there simply wasn’t any left.

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

 It was almost no surprise that the two of you landed in another penthouse suite on 5th Ave in New York City. For some reason there was just a pull there. Probably because construction started on Stark Tower in a few weeks, and if you were planning on being holed up in one place for an anniversary vacation… it was better to be right there when the presser started. Less flight time. Easier.

At least that’s what you told yourself, and Tony. But at the very least it was about the only thing you had to explain. Because the moment after the door to the high up luxury room closed behind the two of you, there was very little coherent words had.

You slipped him out of his coat, and he helped you out of yours. The chill in the city was terrible compared to your sunny California. But even out of all your clothes, it was easy to delight in the warmth of his body right next to yours under the covers. Sometimes on top of yours. Sometimes underneath. And just the one time behind, on your hands and knees, senseless to his rhythm until his hands slid up your sides and pulled you up, backwards into him. Holding you there while his hips rolled in sweet, shallow thrusts, your head back against his shoulder, while he laid long lines of kisses to your neck.

The two of you carried on for what seemed like days just tangled in each other. Something you realized you both sorely needed. Just time with each other. Only each other. Nothing to bother you or get between you. Nothing to think about but him.

Except maybe what had brought this on.

A year. It had been a whole year since you’d kissed him and since he’d put you both on the superhero track. Crazy as that was. And getting crazier all the time. It hadn’t all been bliss, either. Most of it hadn’t even been easy. But lying in his arms as the sun set, falling asleep after another long session of skin-on-skin, your reflections led you to the same place they always did.

You loved him. And you wouldn’t change your life for anything.

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

 Snow was settling over the city in a thick blanket the next morning when you finally got out of your oversized bed. Tony seemed to have been up for a while already, sitting at the cozy little table by the large windows with a cup of coffee in hand. After a quick wash of your face, a little comb of what really could only be described as wild sex hair, and a brush of your teeth, you put on a robe loosely and came over to sit across from him.

His handsome smile greeted you, stirring up the same feelings the two of you had been marinating in for days now. It was dangerous, you realized, how easy it was to get swept up by him. But for now, it was just simply wonderful. He got up without a word, leaning in to press a kiss to your cheek, and went to the kitchen, returning with a perfect cup of coffee for you.

You thanked him with a warm murmur and an even warmer kiss that almost started a path to getting back into bed. Both disappointed and relieved he ended it when he found the sense to do so. Much like you, he’d taken to wearing a robe half open, and some pajama pants you hardly recognized. Not that it mattered. Even just to see him so relaxed and casual was a blessing. He went back to reading something on his phone and you caught yourself staring at the vision of him.

He’d let more stubble grow in, unable to effectively groom while the two of you were too caught up, and his hair was messy and wonderful. Whatever he was reading, he was intently focused on it- and despite yourself your eyes dropped lower. Catching the sight of the Arc Reactor. You thought you’d gotten used to it by now, after everything. But, even so…

“You ever wonder what would have happened if that hadn’t happened?” The fact that he caught you staring without even looking at you put guilt hot and heavy into your chest.

“No.” Surprisingly, this was the truth. Maybe it was because you hadn’t had time to dwell on all the what ifs, or maybe it was just that you were too happy to do so. Either way… “Should I? Are you?”

Anniversaries often brought about reflections, you guessed…

“Not much to think about.” He was probably right about that. The future of that timeline was probably bleak. He’d have carried on being an arrogant weapon mongering jackass. And you… would either still be playing ball for his team or would have walked. Not the happiest of paths.

And yet. “But you are.” Otherwise why bring it up? “Is something wrong?” Should you take offense to the fact that the two of you had been having sex for days and now he was wondering how he’d ended up here?

“Not wrong.” He put his phone down, reaching to put his hand over yours. Soothing your feelings at least. “Did I ever tell you I thought about you in that cave?”

The words struck you hard, like a hand across the face. Such a dynamic shift in tone. That’s what he was thinking about? “No-? I don’t think so- I can’t imagine why.” Anxiety spiked in a cold wave. You hadn’t been expecting this, and you weren’t sure you were prepared for it. Tony had yet to really talk about his kidnapping. His torture. How he’d ended up like this.

“They had a man there. Yinsen. He performed the initial surgery on me to keep me alive. I was part of the problem that had burned his village to the ground. And I kept thinking about every time you fought with me. And that you’d been right the whole time.”

You were stuck in place while he spoke so softly and so intimately about what had happened to him. Unable to move, really. And you really had no idea what to say to it. But he’d said something like this to you before, when he’d come back. Now you fully understood why.

 You were the only one not looking the other way on me. Even on my payroll. You knew what was right. And you never compromised.

 He really had been mulling it over.

“Is Yinsen…?” Alive somewhere? You hoped. But you also knew that was not how this ended.

“He helped me get out. He didn’t make it.” His eyes finally broke from yours, going downcast.

You gave his hand a squeeze. “I’m sorry, Tony.” Truly.

There was a long pause that you let hang, unsure of what to say. His reflections cast a soft shade of blue around the room that you tried not to get caught up in, inevitable though it was. Even after all this time he seemed to be struggling with the very thing that had brought you both right where you were.

“Tony...”

His eyes lifted, and the bare smile he was wearing wasn’t untruthful, but it was pained. “The last words he said to me were, don’t waste it. Don’t waste your life.”

“You haven’t.” Quick. Quick because you were absolutely sure. Tony hadn’t always been a good person, but he was much better now. And getting better every day. Doing the best with what he had, and making the best choices he could … relatively speaking.

That small smile turned into a warm glow and the blue dissipated all at once. “I know.” His fingers linked with yours, just holding on to you.

It all made sense now. It was more than just the fact that he’d gotten kidnapped. Tortured. This. This that had happened to him at the same time had caused him to hit the ground running as soon as he’d gotten home. Even if it had caused a lot of trouble- and in some ways still was. But it also explained why he’d been running so hard towards you.

Until that time right before the press conference when you’d finally found yourself running in the same direction.

He’d latched on to the one constant in his life both before and after.

You.

“I love you, Tony. I wouldn’t change what happened. I know I’m where I’m supposed to be.”

His grin was light, a little quirk at the corner of his mouth as he lifted your hand closer and pressed a kiss to the back. “Me, too. Just checking.”

Tilting your hand from his, you turned it inward to cup his cheek in your palm. He easily leaned in, eyes dropping half-lidded. “Happy anniversary.”

Sliding his hand over yours at his cheek, he kept you there, turning just a little to press yet another kiss, this time to the bottom of your palm. “Happy anniversary. Back to bed?”

You sensed the jittery anxiousness in him after unloading something that heavy that he’d been carrying around. He wanted to run and put it away again. “In a little while. Let me finish my coffee.” Getting up from your spot you moved to sit right next to him, laying your head on him as his arm came around you. “Let’s just be for a little while.” He picked up his own mug, taking a slow sip, nodding in agreement. In the quiet, you let him know.

 I love you.

 Eyes closed, you felt his smile, and the soft oncoming roll of contentment. The evaporation of that nervousness.

“I love you, too.”

[eldritchsurveys]

734.

Have you ever read the Hunger Games series? >> I have, finally! Read it during my trip to Texas in January. I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would; my quibbles are few. I want to see the movies but I also don’t want to see the movies -- what I want are... not those movies, pretty much. I’ll probably give the first one a shot at least, just so I know for sure exactly what I’m protesting against, lol.

When was the last time you ran into something? >> I don’t remember, I don’t do that often.

Do you enjoy dressing up? >> Yes, absolutely, mostly because I don’t get to do it often so it’s a novelty.

Do you live in the city or a rural area? >> I live in the outskirts of a city. So, kind of the suburbs, but not quite.

Would you say you have a sense of style? >> I mean, yeah.

What’s your biggest fear? >> Being terribly aware of my every dying moment and carrying that awareness into another life or something.

Have you ever been bitten by a wild animal? >> No.

Are you close to any of your cousins? >> No.

Have you ever been lost in the woods? >> No.

Where did you last travel? >> For any significant distance? Houston, Texas.

Do you enjoy driving? >> I don’t drive. I enjoy driving being a part of my mythic self, though (my mythic self is called the Driver, you see).

What song did you last listen to? >> Sunlight by Hozier. Which was, of course, written specifically to call me out.

If you have a job, how often do you work? >> ---

What time do you normally go to sleep at night? >> Anywhere between 10.30p and 1a.

Do you watch a lot of movies? >> I do.

Do you like Tom Petty? >> I don’t.

Would you rather have snow or rain? >> Rain. Absolutely rain.

Do you own a lot of sweaters? >> No. I’m not sure I own any at all, actually -- oh, wait, I own exactly one. It’s a Hot Topic Christmas sweater and it says “Sleigher: Reindeer Blood” on it. I love it and I would live in it if I could.

Have you ever tried rock-climbing? >> Nope. Except on that small rock wall in the Museum of Science & Industry (pretty sure that’s where it was).

Ever ridden in a police car? >> Yes.

Favorite decade of music? >> I don’t have a favourite decade. I prefer listening to music from as many decades as possible.

Have any of your best friends been your best friend longer than a year? >> ---

Ever witnessed a murder? >> No.

Do you care what people think of you? >> I care what some people think of me.

Does your room have a ceiling fan? >> Nope.

Would you consider yourself poised? >> Not particularly. I never put any effort into it.

Have you ever tried blogging? >> Of course, lol.

Favorite television channel? >> I don’t have cable.

Have you ever lied under oath? >> No.

What are your religious views? >> Nebulous and subject to whim.

Are you a romantic person? >> No.

When did you last change your bed sheets? >> About an hour ago, actually. And I showered afterwards, so now I’m a clean boy in a clean bed. Livin’ the dream.

Would you consider yourself a flirt? >> No.

At what age do you plan to be married? >> 32, apparently.

Do you eat a lot of junk food? >> No. I really just don’t like a lot of the foods that are widely considered “junk”.

When did you last go on vacation? >> I guess the trip to Texas was kind of a vacation? But otherwise I’d say my wedding/honeymoon in October.

Are you resilient? >> Yeah. Like, I know I am. It’s been proven that I am. The fact I feel so fragile and wounded so often isn’t a contradiction of that fact.

Have you ever failed a subject before? >> I don’t think so.

If so, what was the class? >> Like, I should have failed English III because I got a zero on the midterm and the final, but I think the teacher gave me a D out of pity or whatever.

Do you wear more bright or dull colors? >> I don’t really wear colours at all. It’s not even an effort anymore, it really just seems that all of the clothing I’m willing to wear comes in black...

Do you know anyone who has attempted suicide? >> Yes.

What’s your favorite quote? >> DAMMIT. I totally forgot about that quotes file I was going to keep on Evernote. I gotta work on that so I have answers for this question.

Would you consider yourself mature? >> I mean, I suppose I do okay. Being post-traumatic means I have some pretty child-like responses to things sometimes, but, you know. I’m doing my best.

How many clocks are in your house? >> There’s one on my wall, although there’s no battery in it because I can’t abide the noise. It’s just a decoration. (It’s one of those records that someone cut a design out of, it’s really cool.)

Do you play any sports? >> No.

What is your biggest life regret? >> ---

Have you ever been injured in a car accident? >> Nope.

If you could be anywhere in the world right now, where would you be? >> My mind went a lot of places with this question in 5 seconds flat, and I don’t even know how to unpack any of it. Half the shit I thought of didn’t even have anything to do with this lifetime.

Have you ever had highlights in your hair? >> No.

Favorite fast food restaurant? >> Meh.

In what country were you born? >> USA.

Are your eyes more than one color? >> Nope.

Have you ever caught something on fire? >> Accidentally? Yeah, a couple of times.

What would you consider your biggest flaw? >> I don’t know.

What do you think your best quality is? >> Curiosity and open-mindedness.

Do you enjoy listening to others’ problems? >> I’m not sure “enjoy” is the right word in this context, lol.

Do you keep any plants in your house? >> Yeah, Sparrow’s really into plants. I like them, but I tend to enjoy them more when they’re outdoors. Kind of like animals.

What is your mother’s occupation? >> ---

Do any of your friends like your musical style? >> At least some of it, I’m sure. I like way too much shit for me to have no music preferences in common with the average person.

What are you most looking forward to? >> That glorious day when I can just. Walk into a bar and have a drink and some lunch again.

What was your favorite television show as a child? >> I don’t think I had one.

Are you afraid of insects? >> Not as a rule.

Are you cold-natured? >> I don’t think so, but my 485745 defense mechanisms often make me appear so.

How old were you when you got your first pet? >> I was a toddler.

Did you / do you enjoy high school? >> I did not.

What would you say was your favorite age? >> ---

What annoys you most about social networking? >> The way it’s engineered.

Are you the center of attention most of the time? >> No.

What are you currently reading? >> Staring at the Sun: Overcoming The Terror of Death by Irvin D Yalom. It’s... not really giving me anything I can use, mostly because it doesn’t address the things I actually fear (like, no, I don’t fear not leaving behind a good legacy or whatever, I literally fear the awe-ful, terrible knowledge of my organs shutting down and shit like that, the helplessness of being pulled into the abyss. Literally. Not figuratively. This is a literal visceral thing I believe in. Also, I fear persecution by cosmic forces because I have internalised the idea that I am Bad and I will be Punished. Where is my book? I do like the title, though.), so I don’t know if I’m going to finish it. I might skim through it for a few decent nuggets like that one Nietzsche quote he used, “when we are tired, we are attacked by ideas we conquered long ago”. That was a good one.

When did you last go to the library? >> It’s been a while, since I usually just check out ebooks. Oh, wait, we went to the branch for a Black History Month event, so, February.

Are you ill at the moment? >> No.

Do people tease you about anything? >> I mean, Sparrow does. And some tumblr mutuals tease me about various aspects of my Brand, hah.

How late did you stay up last night and why? >> I think I dropped off at around midnight, idk. Because that’s just how it happened.

Have you ever written poetry? >> Sure.

Curtains or shades? >> I’m not sure what the difference is.

How many people have you spoken to in the last hour? >> One.

Do you tend to text a lot? >> No.

Ever lost a great best friend? >> ---

What is your favorite kind of flower? >> Sunflowers.

Do you own any guns? >> Absolutely fucking not.

What would you say is your favorite book of all-time? >> ---

Do you think you’re living a good life? >> I am doing my best with the life I have.

What’s your least favorite part of the day? >> I don’t have a least favourite part of the day.

Are you an over-achiever? >> No.

Have you ever won an award for a speech? >> No.

Do you tend to curse a lot? >> Sure.

Have you ever played on the Ouija board? >> Nope. I’ve never even seen one in person, except for seeing the box in a store or something.

Do you sleepwalk? >> No.

Have you ever slept on the floor before? >> Yeah, I did for years. I should probably have worse spinal alignment or something now, but I guess them’s the perks of doing shit like that while I was still young.

Are you a fan of public displays of affection? >> I don’t do well with physical affection whether in public or not, so, you know.

When did you last attend a yard sale? >> A couple of years ago?

Do you wish your life were simpler or more interesting? >> I like the level of simplicity I’m at right now.

What goals do you wish to accomplish tomorrow? >> ---

When is your birthday? >> 28 May.

Which is worse: going blind or deaf? >> How would I know, I haven’t experienced either.

What was the best part of today? >> Visiting a mutual’s house in FFXIV, signing the guestbook, and then turning around and there was her character (and her girlfriend’s character) right behind me, lmao. We didn’t get to chat long because their dungeon queue popped, but it was still nice.

Do you attempt to stay away from drama? >> I don’t have to stay away from it, it’s never anywhere near me in the first place.

What liquid did you last drink? >> Gose.

Do you ever prefer to be alone? >> Often.

Have you ever had a deadly animal as a pet? >> No.

Favorite Disney movies >> Lilo & Stitch, Moana, and Hunchback of Notre Dame.

Have you ever been to the beach? >> Sure.

If you have, how many times have you been? >> Like... a few dozen? I don’t know.

What was your dream occupation at age ten? >> ---

Are you terrified at the idea of weight-gain? >> I don’t know if terrified is the right word, exactly, but something similar to that.

Do you drink a lot of water? >> Not a lot. I drink when I feel thirsty, and that just isn’t that often? I don’t know. Maybe I’m not good at recognising thirst cues, that’s a possibility.

Does your room have carpet or hard-wood floors? >> Carpet.

Do you take naps daily? >> No.

Who were you named after? >> I wasn’t named after anyone.

Do you plan on traveling this spring or summer? >> Well, we had planned...

Do you know anyone who is colorblind? >> Maybe?

Have you ever been a teacher’s pet? >> When I was a child, I guess, because I was precocious and nerdy and adults are obsessed with that sort of thing for some reason.

What is your absolute favorite hobby? >> *shrug* What’s a hobby.

How many times a day do you brush your teeth? >> One, provided I remember and have the executive function.

Ever been to a tanning bed before? >> No.

Are you satisfied with your financial stability? >> No matter what, I still have more financial stability than I did when I was literally penniless and living on the street, so I can deal.

Who is your favorite actor / actress? >> When it comes to people I’m always excited to see in a movie, Javier Bardem is one.

Are your nails painted? >> Nope.

What’s the meanest thing you’ve ever said to someone? >> I don’t know, I’ve said a lot of mean things.

Do you ever accidentally talk to inanimate objects? >> Not accidentally, no. I do it on purpose, because it pleases me.

What’s your favorite flavor of ice cream? >> Vanilla bean and matcha are the only flavours I actually like and don’t just. tolerate.

Have you ever kissed someone of the same gender? >> I don’t think I’ve ever kissed another agender person.

Do you receive any hate mail? >> No.

Have you ever sent a letter in the mail? >> When I was a kid.

If you could, would you have a pen pal? >> I don’t think I’d make a good penpal.

What color are the pants you’re wearing? >> Black with lime green print.

Have you ever had a stalker? >> No.

What is your life philosophy? >> I don’t have one.

Who last sent you a goodnight text message? >> ---

Do you own any clothes that are your favorite color? >> I don’t own any gold clothing, no.

Have you ever been in a hot tub before? >> I tried a hot tub once, at Easton Mountain. Five seconds in, I felt faint and like my heart was going to burst out of my chest, so I had to get out.

What’s your favorite comedy movie? >> Blazing Saddles and The Producers come to mind.

In which year were you born? >> 1987.

[illumynare]

Red vs Blue Fic: we are a woven thread, find the strand

Summary: Wash wakes up from a coma to find out that all of his friends are dead. Months later, he finds a lost cat in the rain, and starts to live.

Parings: Wash/CT, Yorkalina.

Warnings: Canon-typical language, borderline suicidal thoughts, alcohol abuse, aftermath of canonical character death. THERE’S A HAPPY ENDING I PROMISE.

Notes: Also available on AO3!

My entry for the RvB Reverse Big Bang at @rvbficwars! I was so, so excited to work with @blazonix; please go here to see (and kudo/reblog!) their amazing art for this story.

Story/chapter titles are from "The Breaking Light" by Vienna Teng, which was also my entire writing soundtrack for this project.

1. feel the hollow dream slip away

Every time Wash wakes up, he hopes it was all a dream.

He hopes that Connie will be tucked against his side, new pillow creases pressed into her cheek. That York will be leaning over him, calling, "Hey, Sleeping Beauty" (which usually means that he's written something on Wash's face). That Maine and Carolina will be dragging him out of bed for an early morning run. That North and South will be squabbling in the kitchen, the rich scent of Dakota family buttermilk pancakes wafting through the air.

Wash lies very still with his eyes closed, and he hopes.

But it's never real.

He's always alone.

Eventually, he gets up. Makes coffee. Sits at the little IKEA table and watches the traffic on the street below.

Wonders why he's still here, when everyone else is dead.

#

Sometimes he wakes up after having the dream, and that's worse.

In the dream, he's all alone in a vast wilderness—no, it’s an entire world without color. Gray sky, gray mountains. Gray dust and rocks beneath his feet. He's wearing some kind of heavy armor—he sees gray gloves on his hands—and he's walking, marching, endlessly onwards.

He doesn't know where he's going. He doesn't know why. But ahead of him flutters the only piece of color in the world: a brilliant, glowing blue butterfly. He knows he has to follow it.

Wash has had the dream, off and on, for all his life. But when he was in the coma? For all those six years, he was marching through that gray world, until his legs shook with exhaustion and sweat itched inside his suit. But he couldn't rest, because he knew that somebody was waiting for him. If he followed the blue butterfly long enough, he knew he would find his way home.

Then he woke up, and everyone who had been home to him was dead.

#

Sometimes, his therapist asks if he can remember the accident. Wash always says no.

That's not exactly true.

Here's what he remembers: a bright, bright blue October sky, the cold wind scraping his face raw and making his nose run. He loved it, he's always loved days like that.

He remembers York tagging along to the lab with them, even though he didn't have an internship with Church Industries and really shouldn’t have been allowed past security. South punched his shoulder and said that dumb jocks didn't belong with the cool kids, and York grinned at her and said, "Aw, c'mon. I am the cool kids."

He remembers that Connie had just washed her hair, and it smelled like lavender.

And he remembers the moment it all went wrong, when Carolina suddenly stopped laughing at York as she bent over the instruments. He remembers the soft sound of Connie drawing a quick breath—

And he remembers something after that, but it's just a blur of noise and flashing lights, billowing white smoke and burning, burning, burning.

Sometimes, very late at night, he thinks he can remember a heavy weight pressing down on him, and the nightmare smell of human flesh dissolving under chemicals: Maine, saving his life by taking most of the blast.

His therapist tells him that he needs to come to terms with the memories. Wash just wants to forget.

#

He's grateful for one thing, when he wakes up in the hospital: his nurses don't lie to him. They tell tell him the truth, straight-up.

(Sunny-side up, his brain adds, still loopy on pain medication.)

There was an accident. You've been in a coma for six years. Three of your friends died. All of them were injured.

(Uh-oh, spaghetti-o.)

Wash listens, and even through the haze of drugs, he remembers the fucking day before when Connie told him that she was worried about procedures in the lab. She thought thinks weren't quite right, and he brushed her off—

He thinks, I'm gonna make them pay.

But the next moment, the nurse tells him: A lawsuit found Church Industries criminally liable. Your medical care is being paid for by the settlement.

And that's that.

Wash does research later, when his head is clear. He finds out that Leonard Church committed suicide after losing his company. Dr. Price, the lab supervisor, was banned from ever working in the industry again; he's reduced to living off the meager sales of his tell-all book.

There's no revenge left for Wash to take.

And without that . . . there's no reason for him to be here.

#

They tell him about Connie. She survived the accident. She came to visit him in the hospital, they tell him. First every day and then every week and then every month—she was a professional journalist by then, traveling across the world to cover disasters and atrocities and injustices.

Then there was a car-bomb.

Wash finds the news story and the obituary. He reads them, hunching over and hugging himself. He can’t stop remembering that last, soft breath he heard her draw.

They tell him that York and Carolina survived too, but they haven’t come to visit him in years.

Wash doesn’t try to find them. He doesn’t want to know if they’re dead or they just forgot him.

It doesn’t really matter. Either way, he’s alone now.

#

The money from the settlement gets him a small apartment and a therapist. Wash goes to IKEA and gets a mattress, a table, a chair, a box of silverware, and three mugs. Then he stops. When his therapist prods him, he lies and says that last weekend he got posters and an orchid.

(Connie had an orchid she’d kept since she was fifteen, and it still bloomed purple flowers every year. When Wash was working up his nerve to ask her out, he got an orchid of his own. He thought he could talk to her about it, but it died in the first week.)

He does the exercises that they gave him in the hospital. He talks about his feelings with his therapist. Once a week, he gets a latte at Starbucks and fills out a single job application.

The rest of the time, he sits at his table. Lies on his mattress. Wishes he could stop.

Sometimes he has the dream again, and he wakes up furious. It’s so fucking unfair, that every time he has this dream, he believes he’s got somewhere to go. He believes there’s a reason to keep walking.

Then he wakes up and remembers it isn’t true.

The beautiful, shining blue of that butterfly—it’s just a lie.

One morning Wash wakes up from the dream, and he’s so furious that he throws his mug of coffee at the wall. The sharp crack as it shatters is like a slap to the face; as he stares at the dent and the coffee dripping down the wall, he feels like he’s suddenly waking up.

He’s done his exercises every day. He’s filled out job applications, he’s talked to the therapist. He’s done every fucking thing they told him to do, pretending to keep living, and for what?

Fuck them. Fuck everything.

His arms and legs are suddenly jangling with unfamiliar energy, and he knows what he’s going to do. He walks out of his apartment and down the street to the corner mart. He gets a bottle of whipped-cream flavored vodka, and he starts drinking it as he marches back to his apartment.

#

Halfway through the bottle, he remembers the last time he got really drunk. It was a star-watching party that York had organized, mostly in an attempt to make up with Carolina after one of their fights. But it was a good enough excuse for them all to sit out drinking under the stars, and while York tried and failed to set up the telescope, Wash and Connie snuggled together on a beach towel.

They were both pretty drunk. Connie was telling Wash why she believed in reincarnation, something about quantum entanglement and multiple timelines. Wash couldn’t follow it, his brain too fuzzy from beer and the scent of Connie’s hair.

What he did understand, what he would remember forever after, was this:

“I think there’s a reason we found each other,” she said, twisting to look up at him. “You. Me. All of us. It’s not a coincidence.”

And Wash nodded, because he believed her.

Childhood sucked. High school sucked. College felt like he was starting over, a new person. Suddenly he had friends and a future, and he was so happy, so very happy. When Connie started dating him—when Carolina nodded and said, “Well done,” for the first time—when he qualified for the internship along with the rest of them—

Looking down into Connie’s eyes now, listening to South cackle like a hyena in the distance, he thought it was worth it, all the misery of the earlier years was worth it. Just to find them.

Wash remembers that night as he drinks the vodka, and for the first time since he woke up, he cries.

Because if finding them was the reason for him to be born here, what the fuck is he supposed to do now?

#

Wash's face is covered in sweat as he leans over the toilet, elbows braced against the seat, panting for breath. His mouth and his nose are burning with the sour taste of bile, but he knows there's more to come up—

A hand presses against his shoulder. A deep voice: "Breathe."

"Seriously, rookie?" The second voice is lighter, drawling. "You thought you could out-drink Maine?"

—and it feels like a memory, but he knows it never happened, because the voices are kind of like York and Maine but they're also not, and Wash gives up thinking as he convulses again, more of the vodka leaving his system.

#

When he finally falls asleep, he doesn’t dream about the gray world for once, but starlight in Connie’s eyes.

2. listen to the breathing sea

The next day, Wash’s phone alarm goes off at 11:35. He cringes at the noise and tries to remember why it’s happening.

His 12:00 therapy appointment. The alarm was for him to leave the house, not wake up.

Shit.

Wash crawls out of bed and does his best to ignore the way the room feels like it’s very slightly spinning. He fell asleep in his clothes, so he’s able to just pull on his shoes and stumble out the door into the rain.

He misses the bus by thirty seconds. Wash stares at it trundling away, exhaust puffing white in the cold air. Rain trickles down the back of his neck and patters against his shoulders—he forgot to grab his jacket. He thinks about the not-covered-by-insurance fee for missing an appointment, thinks about his therapist hounding him for answers about why he missed the appointment, and he says, “Well, fuck.”

A shrill meow answers him.

Wash looks up.

In the tree next to the bus stop, on a low branch barely above the level of Wash’s head, there’s a cat crouched into a miserable loaf of damp fur. It’s small, scrawny, but not a kitten. Maybe a year old? It’s got bright blue eyes, and a cream coat with chocolate-tipped face and paws—definitely Siamese, maybe even pure-bred.

The cat meows again. The sound cuts through Wash’s head like a knife, but he smiles anyway. Even if he couldn’t see it, he’d know the breed from that ear-piercing yowl.

“Hey, little guy,” he says. “How’d you get up there?”

It doesn’t seem too high for the cat to the jump—up or down—but it’s not moving from its perch. Maybe it’s scared of the rain. It certainly looks scared, crouched on the branch with its ears back.

“Hey,” Wash says again, and reaches for the cat.

The meow turns into a growl.

Wash stills, his hands just inches away from the cat. “C’mon,” he says softly. “It’s okay, little guy.”

The growl continues, low and steady. Wash waits a couple minutes, but the cat doesn’t seem to be getting any more trusting, and his arms are getting really tired.

He seizes the cat firmly with both hands. It yowls, but doesn’t fight him as he pulls it out of the tree, and as soon as he holds it to his chest, it snuggles against him, purring loudly.

Poor thing just wanted out of the rain.

Wash runs the short distance back to his apartment building. The cat purrs in his arms as he carries it inside and up the stairs, but as soon as the door to his apartment swings shut behind them—

It’s like the cat turns into a living, whirling blender blade. Claws go in all directions and Wash would swear the thing’s spine curves like a pretzel before it bursts of his arms, lands on the floor, and dashes straight into the bathroom.

Wash looks at the scratches on his hands, already starting to bleed. Feels the sting of another scratch on his cheek.

“You fucker,” he says, but he’s hardly angry. There’s this warm feeling in his chest, like he hasn’t felt since he woke up from the coma, and the pain of the scratches makes him feel like he’s finally, actually awake.

He doesn’t have any band-aids or Neosporin. He has to go out to the corner store. When he gets back, he checks—the cat is sitting in his bathtub, glaring up at him. It hisses when it sees him.

“Good boy,” Wash mutters, and goes to tend his wounds.

He’s already making a list in his head. Cat food. Water dish. A litter box. Then maybe a trip to the vet.

He realizes that he’s humming to himself.

And Wash knows this could be someone’s pet, the vet could find a microchip, but even if it doesn’t last forever—he has a cat.

Right now, he’s not alone.

#

The vet tells him that the cat is male, healthy, probably about a year old, and not microchipped.

Wash names him Epsilon.

It’s a funny, pretentious name, and it feels right for a cat who alternates between hiding in corners and hissing, balancing on top of the shower curtain rod to stare at Wash while he’s naked, and draping himself over Wash’s face while he’s trying to sleep.

By the end of the first week, Wash has bled five more times, but he doesn’t care. Because Epsilon talks to him—all day, endlessly, demanding attention just as often as he rejects it.

There’s no more sleeping in till noon, not with Epsilon yowling in his ear and pawing at his face. There’s no more staying inside all day either, because Wash is continually realizing that he needs new things for Epsilon: a litter box scoop. A feather toy. A scratching-post. A cat tree. A bag of catnip.

The catnip sends Epsilon careening off the walls for several minutes. Then he staggers over to Wash and collapses in his lap, purring loudly.

The next morning, Epsilon shoves Wash’s two remaining mugs off the counter, shattering them. Wash groans, and heads back to IKEA. He gets the mugs, and a few cushions—cats like those, don’t they?—and then throws in a few posters, and a plastic orchid that won’t poison Epsilon if he chews on it.

When he gets back to the apartment, Epsilon yowls and trills and winds about his legs, nearly tripping him.

It hits Wash that this is the longest he’s ever been out of the apartment, that Epsilon missed him, and it knocks the wind out of him. He sits down with a thump, and Epsilon climbs into his lap, purring loudly.

Wash rubs the soft fur at the base of Epsilon’s ears, and he tries really hard not to cry.

#

There are still bad days. When Wash wakes up, feeds Epsilon, and then goes right back to bed.

Sometimes, on the bad days, Epsilon cuddles up on Wash’s chest, purring and kneading. Sometimes he dashes around the apartment, yowling and bouncing off the walls. Sometimes he vanishes, and Wash lies morbidly still thinking, He left you he left you just like everyone leaves you, until finally the misery and paranoia are too much. He gets up and hunts through the apartment until he finds Epsilon hiding under the sink or in a pile of laundry.

(One time he finds Epsilon in the dryer, and after pulling him out Wash sits down and panics for nearly twenty minutes. Because he’s heard stories about cats getting killed in dryers, and if Epsilon—if Wash loses one more thing—)

And there are bad weeks, when Wash spends day after day in bed. When he can’t get up the energy to clean the litterbox for three, four—one time even five days, until Epsilon pees on his bed in protest.

Wash knows what cats do, when they can smell a spot where they’ve peed before. He decides it’s easier just to get a new mattress. And when he’s back at IKEA . . . somehow, buying an actual bedframe to go with the mattress doesn’t seem like that much trouble. He gets a nightstand too, because he’s started reading in bed while Epsilon purrs between his feet.

It takes him an entire afternoon to put the bedframe and the nightstand together. But it’s worth it when he flops into  bed that night, and a moment later Epsilon jumps onto the mattress beside him with a burbling trill.

(Epsilon loves hiding under the bed, and also launching himself off the nightstand, knocking it over in the process. Wash curses at him and smiles at him and manages to sleep at night.)

Not everything is okay. Wash still has the dream sometimes, and when he wakes up, his chest is tight with longing and grief and frustration at how fucking unfair the world is.

There’s a day where the emptiness and the unfairness is too much. Wash wakes from the dream, and he ignores Epsilon’s yowling, leaves the apartment and walks right back to the corner store, buys another bottle of whipped-cream vodka and does his best to drink himself senseless.

Epsilon doesn’t comfort Wash when he’s vomiting into the toilet again. He sits two feet away, washing his paw. When Wash is done vomiting he just—lays his head down on the tile and stares at Epsilon.

Generously proud, Epsilon accepts his wordless praise.

And in the morning, Wash has a reason to fight through the headache, get up, and live.

3. feel the ground beneath sweep and sway

It’s Saturday. Wash is sitting in a Starbucks, trying to stay awake as he fills out his fifth job application of the day. He’s started caring a lot more about getting a job ever since it occurred to him that someday Epsilon was probably going to have vet bills. So he’s trying to work hard at the job search, but he didn’t really sleep the night before. First he had nightmares, then Epsilon threw up in three different parts of the apartment. Now he can barely keep awake, despite the coffee.

"Holy shit."

Wash’s eyes snap open, because he knows that voice, he—

—can only think, Holy shit.

Because standing in front of him with a venti caramel frappuccino is York.

He’s older, with scruff on his perfect chin, and an ugly scar cutting across a fucked-up left eye—and why does that seem familiar?—but there's no way Wash could ever fail to recognize the star football player who was North's best friend and Carolina's on-and-off boyfriend.

"Are you—you really are Wash, right?" York laughs a little, scratches at the back of his neck. "I'm not crazy?"

"Yeah," says Wash after a moment. "I mean. It's me."

"Holy shit," York says again. "Lina is not going to believe this. They said you'd never wake up."

Wash's mouth goes dry. "Lina?" he asks.

York is already dragging him out of his seat. “C’mon, you gotta meet her, you can have dinner with us.”

#

York is a high school math teacher. Carolina is married to him and pregnant with their first kid.

Wash isn't sure which part of that he finds more unbelievable.

But Carolina's also running some kind of world-changing software start-up out of her home office, and that part makes sense. Wash is pretty sure that this is actually happening, that he’s not about to wake up to Epsilon licking his face.

It’s still weird, finding out that they’re living only a couple miles from his apartment. That while Wash was unconscious in a hospital bed, they were getting married, renting a house, adopting a pit bull named Delta.

(York and Delta clearly adore each other—Delta climbs on York’s lap as soon as he sits down on the couch, and York scratches Delta’s ears with a gentle expression on his face that Wash has never seen before. Carolina smiles at them, and that’s new as well, the open affection on her face.)

They’re both doing okay. And Wash is glad of that, he is—he keeps thinking, they were dead, even though he never knew that, just worried—but looking at the life they’ve built together, Wash suddenly feels even more like a ghost. Even more broken.

“So what have you been doing?” Carolina asks as they sit down together with cartons of Chinese food—York ordered out, explaining that the kitchen hadn’t recovered from his last attempt at cooking and Carolina was too busy these days.

“I, uh.” Wash pauses. Suddenly the pride he took in the plastic orchid and the nightstand seems pathetic. “I have a cat.”

“Probably still recovering, right?” says York. “Physical therapy is a bitch.”

“Yeah,” says Wash, poking at his orange chicken. He keeps wanting to stare at York’s scar, but whenever he looks at it, there’s a weird, staticky feeling in his head.

Delta whines, and York slips him a piece of chicken.

“So,” says Wash, “last time I saw you two, you were covered in chemical burns.”

The words come out sharper than he intended, but next to his own shitty apartment, this house looks like a postcard. When the soft smile washes off Carolina’s face, Wash feels a smidge of satisfaction.

“Aww, it wasn’t that bad,” York says brightly. “I still have one eye.”

“We were both in the hospital for more than a month,” says Carolina, her voice low, awkward.

“Coulda come to visit,” Wash mutters.

“Dude, you were in a coma,” says York. “I mean, I know I talk a lot, but I like it when people at least say, ‘Shut up, York.’”

Wash knows that’s his cue, that’s he’s supposed to elbow him and say, Shut up, York, and they’ll all laugh just they way they did in college. But he’s six years older and a world more broken, and he can’t play along anymore.

“You fucking left me,” he bursts out, fingers clenching on his chopstick. “I woke up and Connie was dead, everyone was dead, you left me there to rot—”

sterile white walls and Article 12, restraints and pills and how does that make you feel, Agent Washington?

It’s like static screaming through his brain, and it only lasts a moment but it leaves Wash shaky and dizzy, and then he realizes that he’s cracked his chopstick.

That’s not a real memory. He was never locked up like that. He’s not crazy, he’s not—

totally, completely sane

—and then Carolina puts a hand on his shoulder. Wash startles, but manages to meet her eyes.

“Wash,” she says slowly, awkwardly. “I’m sorry. The doctors said you would never wake up. I couldn’t . . .”

“We’d kinda buried all our other friends,” says York. His voice is still light, but there’s a brittleness to his smile now.

You had each other, Wash wants to say. You weren’t alone.

But there are lines in their faces that weren’t there six years ago, when they were all kids in college together.

For the first time, Wash tries to imagine the aftermath: three friends dead, another in a coma. Federal investigators dragging all the dirty secrets of Church Industries into the light. Leonard Church’s suicide. And then—when they’d started to think the disasters were finally over—the car bomb that killed Connie.

Delta huffs and whines for another treat.

“Yeah,” Wash mutters, all the anger draining out of him, the same way it did when he woke up and found there was no revenge for him to get. “Yeah, okay.”

#

The evening gets better. York is just as funny as he used to be, and twenty percent less of an asshole, and Wash enjoys listening to his stories about the high school where he teaches and the crazy ex-army P.E. teacher named Tex. Carolina is quieter, just like always, but she lights up describing the company she’s starting, and Wash is hit all over again by the feeling he had when he met her: This woman is going to change the world.

He still feels reluctant to talk about his life, but he shows them pictures of Epsilon. York gets out a couple beers. They’re finally able to laugh together.

Eventually, York is rolling on the floor with Delta, while Wash and Carolina sit together on the couch, both of them resting their feet on the coffee table.

“I’m sorry,” Carolina says quietly without looking at him, “about the Director.”

“What?” says Wash.

It takes him a moment to realize what she’s talking about, because outside the gleaming laboratories of Church Industries, she never called him the Director. She always said my dad, or sometimes my stupid dad when they’d just had a fight.

“He said the lab was following safety protocols,” Carolina goes on, still watching York and Delta. “I believed him. I shouldn’t have.”

Wash thinks about how she has no visible scars, but she was in the hospital for a month like York; he remembers how proud he was when she said that she’d recommended him for the internship.

How thankful they all were, once upon a time, to Leonard Church.

“I’m not mad about that,” he says. “We all trusted him.”

Carolina sighs. “Except Connie.”

“Yeah,” says Wash, and the grief is just as fresh and sharp as when he woke up and heard she was dead. “Except Connie.”

4. leave the battlefield, leave her hand

Finding York and Carolina should make things better. After all, Wash isn’t alone now. Once a week he has dinner with them, and every day he knows that there’s someone else out there who was in the lab when everything went wrong. His therapist is delighted when he tells her.

Instead, things get worse.

Wash starts having the dream almost every night. But it’s different now. The anger and the sadness that used to come when he woke up are now bleeding backwards into the dream. He trudges through the colorless landscape without hope, and the blue butterfly fluttering before him feels like a mockery.

He’s never getting anywhere. He’s never going home.

One night, in the dream, Wash stops walking. He sits down, a horrible grief aching in his chest.

Beneath him, the colorless rocks tremble slightly as Wash draws his pistol. He looks down the barrel. He sets his finger on the trigger—

And he wakes up sweating and shaking.

Just a dream, he tells himself. It was just a dream.

But it felt real. And not just then in the dream, but even now, when he’s awake. He feels like he nearly died. Like if he had pulled that trigger, it would have torn his mind apart.

(It feels familiar. Like he was killed inside his dreams before, even though Wash can’t remember ever having a dream like that.)

One day he’s filling out a job application, and when it asks for place and date of birth, Wash automatically writes Leonis Minor, 5/1/2519. It takes him a minute to realize the mistake, and then his heart starts pound. Because that year is impossible, but it still feels right, more natural than 1992 even though he knows that’s the year he was born.

In Santa Monica, not Leonis Minor.

That night, as Epsilon kneads into his stomach, Wash keeps thinking the words glassed in 2537. He doesn’t know what they mean.

They don’t mean anything. He knows that.

He’s not crazy.

#

He’s going crazy.

Wash tries not to think it, but he’s getting worse and worse. Sometimes he tells himself, At least I’m not dreaming this stuff, but then his mind crackles with the memory of dreaming someone else’s childhood, of waking up alone and thrashing in restraints.

Once in a while, he remembers waking up and warm hands grabbing him, a voice telling him his name, that he’s okay—

The loneliness that follows remembering that is like a punch to the gut, and Epsilon purring in his arms doesn’t help.

He knows that he should tell his therapist about this, but every time he considers it, he gets that horrifying half-memory of restraints and needles—and then he lies, and his therapist frowns and makes notes on his lack of progress.

Wash does his best to keep going. He has dinner with York and Carolina, he fills out job applications, he talks to his therapist about everything else. He can usually keep it together when there are other people around, but when he’s alone—

He never knows what will set it off, is the problem. He’s chopping zucchini, trying to cook a real dinner for the first time, and he remembers catching a knife out of the air and smugly demanding, You think you’re the only one that’s good with knives? He’s watching a dumb movie about alien invasion, and he has to bolt to the bathroom and vomit because he suddenly remembers the smell of human flesh charred by a plasma rifle.

He sees a YouTube ad with a family singing “Happy Birthday” and he spends the next hour on the edge of tears, and he’s not even sure why.

Finally, one night Wash wakes up at 3 A.M. and can’t go back to sleep. He wanders into the kitchen, thinking of the pop-tarts he bought the day before, and—

Three days after they reach the base and Wash is trying to sneak out in the middle of the night, because they can’t really mean to keep him on their team, not after what he did. He’d rather go before he’s thrown out. But when he tries to slip out through the kitchen, they’re waiting for him.

“Oh! Church! You’re not supposed to be here until we light the candles! THIS IS A SURPRISE. HAPPY BIRTHDAY.”

Wash stares at the six pop-tarts stacked on top of each other and the two sad, half-melted candles. He can’t understand what’s happening, why they’re doing this.

“. . . you call that a cake?”

“Dude, don’t tell me Freelancers are too good for pop-tarts.”

—then the memory’s gone, nothing left but a vague sense of candles and sugar.

It’s gone, but it’s still right there, just below the surface of his mind. Wash sinks to the floor and slumps back against the cupboard. It feels like his mind is breaking and bleeding and there are two lives scraping together in his head, and why is it like this? Why is it always like this?

A voice echoes in his mind—memory is the key—but his memories are a jumbled mess that’s getting worse every day.

Wash leans his head back against the cupboard door and groans.

Beside him, Epsilon meows. Automatically, Wash reaches over to scratch his cheek. The soft, warm touch anchors him a little.

Okay, he thinks. My brain is fucked.

The thought is familiar. Suddenly he feels a little less afraid.

“Okay,” he says again, this time out loud. “I can do this,” and Epsilon purrs in reply.

#

So he remembers a life that isn’t his, that he couldn’t have lived, in a time and place that never existed. That’s completely crazy. But Wash feels like he’s had this problem before. He knows what to do.

If your mind’s in pieces, you sort them out.

Wash gets a journal and writes down everything he remembers. Often there isn’t much he can put into words—just feelings and vague images. But he writes whatever he can, in neat little bullet-point lists, and then he makes himself go through the items, one by one.

It’s less overwhelming that way. He can look at a single line and think, I never got yelled at by a drill sergeant. Because I was never in the army. That memory isn’t real.

Then he can close the journal and put it away in his nightstand.

He can’t pry the memories out of his head. But once they’re on the page—once he’s faced them piecemeal and told himself that each fragment is false—they’re not so overwhelming. He can remember who he is.

Every night in his dreams, Wash follows the butterfly. Sometimes he’s sad or angry—sometimes he yells at the butterfly for putting him through this fucking pointless death march—but he keeps going.

He keeps going.

#

Wash thinks about visiting Connie’s grave, but it’s halfway across the country. Instead, he goes back to their old college. Finds the worn cement bench where they sat on their first date.

It’s early August, between the end of summer session and the start of regular classes, so the campus is quiet. Wash leans back and closes his eyes. The soft, warm breeze strokes through his hair like fingertips. It’s so easy to imagine Connie sitting next to him, smiling the way he remembers.

It’s so easy to imagine her alive, not dead.

Maybe it’s more true, to think of her that way.

All this time, Wash has been thinking that he lost her in the accident. And he did. But Connie survived that day in the lab. She testified against Leonard Church in court and then she outlived him. She graduated, she became a journalist, she had a life.

Wash feels a stirring of that strange double memory, but this time it’s just the thought, More than she got last time.

And he decides that maybe he can believe in quantum entanglement and reincarnation, just a little. Because he wants to believe this life was her second chance. That it wasn’t just a senseless tragedy; that it was something good for her as well.

Maybe they’ll get a third chance together, somewhere in the multiverse, someday.

He’s okay with that.

5. brother, you will return

In the end, what changes his life is two cans of refried beans.

Wash gets them because on his bad days, microwaving a frozen dinner and boiling water for instant ramen both seem like too much work, but he can still get himself to make and eat a cold burrito.

He’s carrying two bags of groceries into his apartment, and he’s not worried about shutting the door behind him because Epsilon never tries to get out. But then the two cans of beans—perilously balanced at the top of their bags—fall out and hit the floor with a clatter.

Epsilon is off like a shot.

Epsilon is always bolting when he hears a loud noise, often shredding Wash’s arms if he happens to be holding him, so it takes Wash a moment to realize that this time is different. That Epsilon ran out.

A moment is all it takes.

Wash drops the bags and bolts after him, but he’s too late. He sees Epsilon’s tail whisking around the corner towards the stairs, and then he’s gone.

It’s okay, Wash tells himself as he hurtles down the stairs. He can’t open the door. He won’t get out.

But when he gets to the bottom, the front door is propped open as a group of movers carry in furniture for a new tenant.

And Epsilon is nowhere to be seen.

For one second, Wash previews hell. He imagines himself running out into the street. Roaming the neighborhood, calling for Epsilon. Putting up posters. Checking the pound. Never seeing his asshole cat again.

He can’t do it. He can’t lose a member of his family again.

Then—

“TUCKER! TUCKER, LOOK, IT IS CHURCH!”

—Wash realizes that he can’t see Epsilon because Epsilon is currently smothered in the arms of the one of the movers. But he sees the tip of Epsilon’s tail flick from under the man’s elbow.

“Hey,” he says, starting forward, “that’s my cat.”

“Oh,” Caboose says, turning around to look at him. “Hello, Wash. Church is my friend too.”

And Wash freezes, because how does Caboose know his name?

How does he know that this huge man with curly hair and wide dark eyes is named Caboose, that he has seventeen sisters and was born on the moon and is surprisingly good at repairing machines?

It’s just one of the crazy half-memories, Wash tells himself. It’s not real. Nobody lives on the moon. Nobody has ever stuck candles in a stack of pop-tarts before singing happy birthday to him.

“Caboose, what the fuck are you— oh holy shit.”

Another one of the movers has come down the stairs, and Wash sees the dreadlocks and the teal polo shirt embroidered with the moving company’s logo, and he knows this man.

“Wash came back,” says Caboose. There’s a loud meow from his arms. “And he brought Church with him!”

“I called him Epsilon,” Wash says numbly.

Tucker grins. “Heh, of course you did.”

Wash can feel things shifting, realigning in his brain, and he doesn’t dare move his head an inch because he thinks he thinks he’s about to understand, and he doesn’t want to lose it again, not this time.

Not moving his head means staring straight at Tucker, though.

His name is Lavernius Tucker and he was born in Detroit and I would trust him with my life and I DON’T EVEN KNOW HIM.

“So . . .” Tucker tilts his head slightly. “Are you crazy in this life? ’Cause that would really suck.”

“No,” says Wash, aware his voice has pitched higher than usual. “I’m not—I don’t—”

“Do you remember us?” asks Tucker, more gently.

This can’t be real. Wash can’t be standing in the foyer of his apartment building, having a conversation with complete strangers about whether he remembers them from a past life.

“It’s okay,” says Caboose. “Tucker didn’t remember me at all until he got blown up. Stupid Tucker.”

“I still can’t believe you actually saved me from an IED,” Tucker grumbles.

They were in the army, Wash realizes. Iraq, or maybe Afghanistan.

Bro, I went through Basic ages ago.

What is the UNSC motto?

“Private Tucker,” he says, and the words feel strange and awkward in his mouth but also completely inevitable.

“Dude, I made Corporal before I got out. And you’re a civilian, so you can’t tell me what to do.” Tucker pauses. “Please don’t tell me you’re some kind of deadly black ops secret agent.”

Wash stares at him.

“Oh shit, you are.”

And Wash laughs. “No,” he says. “I’m—I was a biochem major and then I spent six years in a coma.”

“Wow,” says Tucker. “That sucks.”

It’s exactly the same thing that he said the first time that Wash had told him about Freelancer.

“Why the fuck are you so intense all the time?”

“An AI killed itself inside my brain and all my friends are dead.”

“Wow, that sucks.”

“I think Wash needs a hug,” Caboose announces, dragging his mind back to the present. A moment later, Epsilon yowls as he’s dropped to the floor, and then Caboose’s arms are closed around Wash, his chin is pressing into Wash’s hair.

For a moment, Wash is rigid. It’s literally years since he was touched this much, and he doesn’t know Caboose at all—

But he does know him. He does, and Wash is relaxing into the embrace even before he realizes it.

“Yeah, okay,” Tucker agrees, closing the distance between them, and then he’s hugging Wash as well. “Seriously, dude,” he says. “Don’t ever make us wait like that again.”

Wash closes his eyes. There’s a lump in his throat. He can feel Epsilon weaving in and out through their legs, meowing for attention.

“I won’t,” he says.

He knows, suddenly and completely, that he’s never going to have that dream again. Because of quantum entanglement. Because his team is alive and here and holding him.

Because he’s home.

[woohooligancomics]

Free Stuff!

You like free stuff, right? Of course you do, and I'll give you some in a minute after we chat. You like free comic book day and free donuts and coffee while you wait for an oil-change. You like free samples at Costco, or a free ebook full of useful life-hacks like, "wake yourself up in the morning by soaking your contact lenses in coffee." If it's hot enough, the coffee will melt the contacts to your eyes, and that's a lot cheaper than Lasik surgery!

How about a free punch in the face? No? Boxers pay piles of money for that. They buy gloves, gym memberships, trainers, agents, steroids, and towels exclusively for sweat. They've paid a small fortune by the time they get a really good punch from a guy like Mike Tyson or Rocky Balboa. (Additional life hack: save on ear piercings by fighting Mike Tyson.) If they pay so much to get punched, why are you upset when someone punches you for free?

Still no? Because you don't like free stuff; you like certain things, and it's a nice bonus when they're free. Free beer is only nice if you like beer. You might think I need the Large Hadron Collider to split a hair that thin, but your relationship to "free stuff" changes when you start a business. If you want to meet your high-school biology teacher's standard of living (eating and breathing), you need marketing. That includes you, freelance artists, welcome to the glitz and glamour of owning a business and buying your own ramen noodles.

Marketing sucks. I'm just as annoyed as you when "social media marketing experts" follow me on Twitter with their inspirational quotes and their slick YouTube presentations, reminding you to be authentically authentic. "Thanks, I know it takes more muscles to frown than smile, but I'm not a lazy bastard!" Marketing makes me feel like Elizabeth Bathory, bathing in the blood of virgins. I don't want to be associated with creeps like the guy at the used car lot who only has a mustache so he can offer you a ride. "Ladies? Wink, wink!"

Even the jargon of marketing is dehumanizing and gross: target audience, market segment, and the holy grail, double-income no kids (DINK). Key performance indicators (KPI) help you analyze the ratio of Cost to Acquire Customers (CAC) and Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV) and reduce "churn" (customers leaving because they're sick of you talking about them like a fucking toaster).

It's unavoidable though, because you are that sleazy sales guy at the car lot... sort of. I'll assume you've had at least one job in your life. Did you feel dirty after selling yourself in the interview? Sure you embellished, because who doesn't want to hire a certified coffee grader? And how would they know? You can tell the difference between quality coffee and Starbucks. The gourmet coffee is named like a Senate bill, like HR61, not to be confused with the Securing the Assistance of Victims of Exploitation (SAVE) act; fitting in a discussion about coffee. Regardless, you sold yourself and your boss purchased your service. I assume you didn't resort to any awful sales tactics, like telling the interviewer, "and if you hire in the next thirty minutes, I'll throw in a free mustache ride!" Like it or not, sales is a necessity of modern life, like traffic, spam folders, or wondering how your uncle is still so racist in 2017. "No, uncle Steve, Jews did not invent jazz dancing, and stop offering my friends mustache rides."

But marketing isn't sales. Oh, look, the Large Hadron Collider! Bear with me. We don't watch Star Trek because it has robots and lasers. We watch because it tells us a story about who we are and the better selves we aspire to be. But we also wouldn't watch Star Trek if it didn't have any robots or lasers. Now that I'm a glitzy, ramen-eating business owner, sales is like that. I don't make comedy to sell books; I sell books, so I can make you laugh. It's an important distinction because I get caught up in my survival needs and forget they aren't in the driver's seat. You're the boss here, and I'm interviewing with you for the job of comedian. It's fair for you to decide I'm not right for you and I have to look elsewhere. But if we click, I hope you'll consider being my boss and also my friend.

You'll see on my resume that I quit a twenty-year software engineering career in late 2015. Most employers think I'm "overqualified", but I'm hoping you'll look past that. If my goal were to eat or to buy toys like Fitbits and vacuum shoes, then leaving tech was suicide. "Alexa, ruin my career." For me, comedy isn't about the money. I enjoyed software, but that didn't matter once I realized I was just asking my boss, "you want fries with that?" Maybe I was more skilled than the next man-shaped-cog, but when I left nobody stopped selling their cars, high-rise condos, or Bluetooth hairbrushes (fad hair day). The world didn't notice me leave any more than you notice turnover at your local Arby's. I left to make the things that burn in my soul, that keep me up at night, and that wouldn't exist if I didn't make them.

Seth Godin is right that artists need to create a purple cow (something that wouldn't exist without us). You'll never beat the industrial machine at their game. There's always a Mr Burns with a giant, faceless corporation that exploits third-world toddlers because their tiny hands and boundless energy will sew those shirts faster and cheaper (just like Santa's elves). WalMart runs real sweat shops right here in America.

After family and friends, your work should be the most meaningful thing in your life, but meaningful work has to sustain you and the purple cow won't keep you in ramen on its own. You have to market it. I've seen lots of purple cows that languish in obscurity. My friend Chris makes a webcomic called Puck, but he's said on numerous occasions that you can't earn a living with one. I think I can prove him wrong, and I think Brad Guigar, Russell Nohelty, and Tyler James already have. They earn their living making books and comics and helping others do the same (including me). Not to mention the many other creators I see earning decent livings with just the support of patrons.

So to maintain my family's ramen supply, I need to learn marketing, and then shower to get the stink off. Every time I see a blog from someone who's obviously successful, they're using tactics that make my skin crawl! "Here watch my twenty-minute prerecorded marketing tutorial and when it's over buy a subscription to my exclusive marketing club that's ONLY three-hundred dollars! But only for the next TWENTY MINUTES! HURRY! CLOCK'S TICKING, ASSHOLE! GIVE ME YOUR $300! NOW!! NOW!!!! NOW!!!!!! After twenty minutes, it goes back up to $400!" I want you to know before I say this, that I am incredibly grateful for Tyler James, who's given me a ton of great information about reaching my goals FOR FREE. Having said that, Tyler James is a dillhole. I love him and I'm super-grateful for everything that dillhole's done.

== Frustrated Rant Mode Engaged ==

Tyler: I realize somebody ponied up a bazillion dollars for your Harvard Masters, but my wife and I are below poverty (a family of 5 on $24k/yr) for the last two years now while I work this shit out. We literally paid every penny we had in the world to buy our house, and that was less than a quarter of that paper for your wall. It has nothing to do with me not wanting to support you that I can't whip-out $300 in twenty minutes. You've helped me, I think you deserve recognition, respect, gratitude and even testimonials and help from me. But even one-hundred dollars might mean not having power or Internet this month, and it'd be nice if you didn't rub it in my fucking face.

I feel guilty buying a sandwich at Arby's because the money could go toward advertising, despite knowing most of it has to be spent on food (I know Arby's isn't technically food). The silver lining is that we own our house, but after four years and two repair jobs, we still have a small leak in our basement. I personally dug a pit on the side of the house for weeks to save some money on it. (It's a real no-money pit.) And that's not even mentioning walking twenty-miles uphill both ways in the snow. Christmas is in a few days and I anguished this year over buying each of my kids ten dollars worth of used comics at Half Price Books. (They're still my kids at 16 to 22.) At least Tiny Tim hasn't lost his spirit!

So no, twenty minutes for a 25% discount on a $400 membership isn't "a great deal!" It's a slap in the face. And most of us who are trying to earn our living with comics (your "target market") are in my situation, not yours. If you'd offered me a payment plan, like I could layaway it for $50/mo, I likely would have bought it without the high-pressure tactics and told my Patrons I was spending their pledges on that instead of advertising for 6-8 months.

== Frustrated Rant Mode Terminated ==

EDIT: I want everyone to know Tyler James is a super stand-up guy! I had a brief discussion with him recently, he read this blog, and was super-chill about the roast and being called a dillhole for comedic effect. He also informed me of a related note, and I want you to know I had no influence on this, this was his plan before we talked. Tyler said:

"It's funny though... this year I am switching my courses payment structure to a monthly membership model in order to open all of my premium programs up to creators at all income levels. Price should not be a reason not to join."

He also informed me rather matter-of-factly, that I didn't have all the facts regarding his Harvard Degree. He got a special scholarship to attend Harvard in recognition of two years teaching in one of the country's most underfunded school districts. Thanks for filling me in on that, Tyler, I appreciate it!

So if you haven't met Tyler, I definitely recommend you do.

I'll be transparent here and share how my budget works, so you understand why I stay in the sleazy motel room that is marketing, (it smells of smoke and piss and god knows what happened to the toilet, but you're stuck there because of a mustache-riding convention in town). Webcomics used to support themselves with ads like network TV. That ended in 2013 when marketing peeps said "WE WANT MOAR POPUPS!" and the Internet responded with a Grumpy Cat meme in the form of a massive spike in ad-blocking technology. Woohooligan has one ad, which nets me about $1.50 per month, (twelve minutes at minimum wage). I'd earn more in an hour busking in the street like Amanda Palmer, doing stand-up comedy for tips. (See my one man show on the corner of 5th and Main titled, "No Really, I'm a Homeowner!") Most webcomics moved to Patreon for the bulk of their support, which is really online busking. Remember, before this I billed $80/hr, so I'm not doing this for money.

Why busk? Why not sell books? I currently have one print book and three ebooks in the Woohooligan store, and comic ebooks only really sell for a dollar. I love the sixty-five cents I see from that dollar after credit-card fees. You can read every page of my site and see a boat-load of ads, and the ad network (Google, etc.) pays me maybe a penny. So if you pledge just one dollar to my Patreon each month, the $0.65 I see increases your support of my work by more than a hundred-fold what I earn from ads. If we still want ramen, I need about $2,000 each month to replace my current disability income. So with a net $0.65 from each book, I need to sell 3,076 books per month, 103 per day, or one every fifteen minutes. I don't expect that, so those dollar ebooks alone will likely never support us. I've got to find other ways to supplement our income either with patron support, or by selling more expensive items like print books.

Yes, I left $80/hr to have a current monthly take-home (~$65) that's about what I'd earn in a single day at minimum wage. I didn't leave for money. You'd think I could work tech part-time, but no. My disability is thanks to an autism diagnosis in 2007. Because of that, work that I enjoy overtakes me like a Jeckyl and Hyde situation. Doctors call this blurse hyperfocus. I really never stopped working except for meals and sleep. That's not quite true, most days I didn't eat. People standing in the same room often call my name four to six times before rousing me from the fugue state that is me working. I lurch out of it like a trauma victim with a thousand-yard stare, groggy and irritated, unable to answer simple questions like "did you take your insulin?" Go away! Distraction bad! So I can't program part-time to supplement my income. The career I chose has to work, so I have to make marketing part of my comedy... I just threw up in my mouth a little.

I read all the marketing books and blogs I can. Most of the "information" in them is brain-dead stupid, useless to you personally, or both. You search Google and you find "10 Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Website." Great! Just what I need. The article begins, "Step 1: Make good content." Mind = blown! Why? You don't! Before this Einstein, I just had photos of used napkins. Hell, Twitter was nothing but lunch photos the first year. Thirty million tweets so I know you're not racked with guilt like me when you have an Arby's quarter-ton Beefenator. I can't wait to see step 2, "tell people", and step 3, "don't accidentally delete your website."

Getting back to free stuff, it's a truism in modern culture that if you're starting a business, you have to give people something they want for free. Professionals give people free consultations. Facebook and Twitter give us free accounts to share fake news and real cat videos with our friends. PornHub gives us free porn, but did you know they also give us free sex ed and free snow plowing in Boston? (Or they didn't, but it made you laugh, if only because "plow" is a double-entendre.)

I like giving people free things - free comics, free advice, free promotion. I certainly benefit from free things like Tyler James' ComixLaunch podcast or Russell Nohelty's Business of Art and Facebook group. (Russell just launched a new site, The Complete Creative.) They were more helpful than things I paid for. I bought a four-star marketing book on Amazon, it should be good, right? I'll save you twenty bucks; have a mailing list. Nothing else in 288 pages is what experts call "actionable", just shit you can read on any marketing blog like, "don't piss people off because Twitter." What would have been helpful is how to get signups on a mailing list, but that's like Baptist churches who asked PornHub to plow their back lot. The bar for marketing advice is so low, if your grandfather started a marketing blog tomorrow, he'd be Arby's VP of marketing in a week, and his number one tip for online success would be, "get off my lawn!" (There's no wi-fi there.) If you are a creative person and you'd like a book with some useful advice, here's my review of Russell Nohelty's Sell Your Soul.

But all these things we get for free aren't actually free, someone pays for all of them. Facebook and Twitter are funded by advertising. We don't consume their product, we ARE the product (and their execs talk about us like toasters). But that's not the only cost. On broadcast TV, Arby's hoped fans of Mister Ed liked sandwiches. Now that we have Internet, we know about the horse meat, and Arby's knows loads of creepy things about us, like whether we use coupons or carry a balance on our credit cards. Arby's pays more for Beefenator ads on Facebook because we're selling them our privacy. And as Adam Conover points out, you can opt out of Facebook, but good luck avoiding Google.

Shit like this is good reason to hate marketers because it's intrusive, impersonal, and manipulative. It's the reason I personally hate having to learn marketing. It's like an episode of the Twilight Zone where Disney World lets you into the park for free, but requires their guy Steve follow you throughout the park, scribbling notes and recommending giftshop items, Arby's Beefenator, and the Mustache ride. So yay, free Disney! Until you come back from the bathroom and Steve tells your mom the gift-shop has Pepto-Bismol. Thanks, Steve, it's nice to know you've got my back.

Since I don't have a choice but learn this stuff, I try to be decent about it. I choose to think of you as friends instead of a "target audience". I'm a real person on Facebook and Twitter (no bots, autoresponders or apps congratulating people for being my "top engaged followers"). I like chatting with you, without obsessing over your "engagement". (The word engagement should be reserved for situations involving a ring or enemy combatants.) I don't expect you to be in a fugue state waiting for my next tweet; fugue states are my job. I give mailing list subscribers a free copy of my first ebook, (signup below), though I'm not good about telling people that because I'm annoyed by promises of "must have tips for success" only after their mailing list signup. And I treat everyone the same, without stopping to ask, "is this person an influencer?"

I recently started introducing myself to people on social media. When someone sends me a friend request on Facebook or follows me on Twitter, I send them a brief message like this:

Hi Steve!

Thanks for the follow and for recommending the Mustache ride.

Let me know if I can help with any of your projects.

You may enjoy my new comedy manifesto, Laughter Is a Moral Imperative http://woohooligancomics.tumblr.com/manifesto

It's copied and pasted, but it's not an autoresponder. I tell webcomic creators that I also review webcomics. After I published the manifesto last month, I rifled my recent direct messages and shared it with as many people as I could. It's the pushiest thing I've done, but again, that article is totally free, it doesn't even link directly to anything I sell. I just think it can improve people's lives.

I've always enjoyed helping people. A drawing class at summer camp, unpaid articles for software journals, problem solving on mailing lists, being an Adobe Community Expert, sharing resources for managing depression. And I mentioned I also review webcomics, and write other articles to help creators, like Six Tips to Kickstarter Success, Six Ways to Earn More Commissions, and Six Reasons I Didn't Spell These Titles With Numerals. These are all free, just to help you out.

On a more philosophical note, we say the best things in life are free, but we often take the most important for granted, like privacy (see Facebook) and freedom of speech. Critics of the government in China and Russia are often jailed, beaten, or killed. If you're reading this in China or Russia, first let me congratulate you for getting past the censors (they never like my dick jokes). Second I will always fight for freedom of OMG look out behind you!

When I published a Je Suis Charlie cartoon in 2015, I was shocked how many people seemed confused about the importance of freedom of speech, as I mentioned online and in my first book. How often do you hear about the Freedom of Information Act, that helps protect our freedom of speech and uncovers a lot of great stuff like the FBI's hilariously out-of-touch Twitter slang dictionary?

Free hugs are... not always cool now that I think about it. Not from Steve the mustache guy. It reminds me that my dislike of ShamWow commercials can't be compared to old-world gatekeepers like Weinstein that you had to suck-up to because they controlled the purse-strings. Sorry to get serious on you, it's just an important subject that's on my mind, and I'll talk more about it with the next few pages of my Hellbent story. And speaking of freedom, I think the marketplace of ideas and crowdsourcing services like Kickstarter and Patreon are helping create a more open world with fewer of those sleazy gatekeepers, so it's good to see net neutrality is a freedom we rally around.

Finally there's time. There's no such thing as "free time", which implies what? "Lets hang out! Can't, I've got prison nine-to-five." You sholdn't think of your work that way. Self care is important, and the better part of self-care is creating a life you're not desperate to escape from, into a bubble-bath and a bottle of Chardonnay (or in our circles, Netflix, Jack Daniels, and a gallon of Häagen-Dazs Rocky Road). Nobody on their deathbed ever said, "I wish I had spent more time at the office", but do you think you'll say, "I wish I'd spent more me-time, chugging booze in the tub?"

Losses can be recouped, but there's no getting back the two hours you spent watching the Mario Brothers movie. (A brightly colored, whimsical game as imagined by the creators of Rain Man and the Killing Fields? Was Clive Barker unavailable?!) We have to make the most of our limited time to contribute to the world. I've made comedy for eleven years, but I didn't finally give up tech until I had cancer on my birthday two years ago. That was the second near-death experience on my birthday, following diabetes in 2013. I realized my best self wasn't the man-shaped cog asking people if they wanted fries with their website. Who knows what the next life-threatening birthday illness will inspire. Maybe I'll run for President, I hear the bar is pretty low. :P

I think any creative person will tell you, there are times when you feel frustrated by the cost of striving toward your better self. Times when I remember that none of my work has ever gone viral (not enough salt?) and the thousands of hours of comedy I've made feel unloved. While I know it's not a helpful emotion, I feel a little bitter about the effort it takes to get a handful of people to spend two minutes enjoying a comic strip I spent two days making for them. Because all this free entertainment we enjoy (and I'm not just talking about my work), is paid for with the precious time of the cartoonists and comedians who create it for us, and that's far more important than the money I've spent on advertising. That's why I share other creators' work as often as I can, because I can't afford to buy all their books, but I can tell them I appreciate them, and give them a little signal boost, or a little advice on their Kickstarter.

One day I'm thinking about how I avoid writing clickbait, but that it might get me that viral piece I've never had, if I could just roofie my principles for two damn minutes. And then I'm in a flame war with another artist because I used to post voting incentives on TopWebComics, and he says it's sleazy to put your work behind a pay wall or a voting screen. Well of course! No one pays to see Batman, or the Avengers, or Calvin and Hobbes, right?! It's totally unreasonable to expect two seconds of help from someone who enjoyed sixteen hours of my work for free. And we wonder why people don't value artists when some of us are so eager to devalue ourselves. I know I should have ignored him, but I couldn't let it go.

And then some goat sucker calls my comic work clickbait in the comments on my site while claiming he's trying to help. My first instinct is to release the Kraken, but I remember all the times I've shot myself in the foot that way and I try to calmly diffuse the situation. But he's like the squirrel in Ice Age and WON'T. LET. IT. GO. like it's the a sign of the end times that I don't take advice from an anonymous heckler like he's Spielberg. So I write another piece in frustration that becomes some of my best work and that's frustrating because I don't want an angry-ranter reputation.

When I'm feeling bitter about work and trying to avoid the stink of marketing, I remind myself that as expensive as my work is, it's a bargain compared to my previous career that only paid money. In 2007 I was a man-shaped cog that helped sell x number of cars (with or without fries). It's immeasurably more meaningful to write manifestos and essays like this, knowing that it will make lives better for friends like you. I can only say that because I choose to think of you as friends, not as a "target market" with a "cost to acquire" and a "lifetime value". I remind myself that I have no idea what my best work will be or who it will help. We shouldn't forget the best "free stuff" is ourselves. We're free to choose because we can never know the final destination.

So if you see me hawking books or promoting our Patreon, and you have that "eww, get away from me, pushy salesperson" reaction (like I do), please remember that I'm not out there giving people free comedy every day and helping other creators because I'm trying to sell books or get pledges. I'm trying to get pledges and sell books, so that I can keep laughing it forward, making people's lives better with more "free" comedy. I'm telling people about the free book on our mailing list to get more friends involved in our mission to bring laughter to the world.

I hope you'll consider being my boss and my friend, because there's nothing in the world I'd rather do than work for you. It’s a lot of work. It would be a lot easier for me to just focus on my books. But like I said, selling books chock-full o’ dick jokes is a side-effect.

I work in the service industry.

Now if my free stuff isn't your thing, I hope you do find what you're looking for.

Thank you for sharing yourself with us!

- Sam

P.S. If you believe that laughter is a moral imperative, get my first book for free, and share it with your friends!

Get Woohooligan Vol 1: Into Dorkness, Free!

[taesea]

700 Main Street - CH2

Word count: 3.6k

Genre: hitmanAU

Pairing: Bts x Reader / Min Yoongi x Reader

A/n: this seriously took so long wow. this chapter is very confusing and all over the place, but i promise all your questions will be solved in the next one! feedback is always appreciated <3 

{CH1} 

{music} {moodboard}

The car ride was silent, other than the sound of your intense heartbeat and the robotic voice coming from the gps here and there. You were sitting next to possibly one of the most dangerous assassins, who just so happens to also be in one of the most feared gangs all across the world. Bangtan, was skilled, but skilled is quite an understatement for them. To be honest you were scared. What could you expect? Anything can happen within the next hour, but you didn’t let your mind wander too long before you found yourself already walking out the car, following close by to the male in front of you, Hoseok.

He lead you into a building although, very different from the other buildings along 700 Main Street. This building was dark, not too high, and contained little to almost no windows at all.

“For such a ‘high class gang’, I would think you’d have a nicer hideout,” you sarcastically remark.

He scoffs, “Hah, you just wait till we get inside,” leading you through the front door once he got through the long security code. Walking in, a familiar darkness hit you again, reminding you of your stupidity when you entered the back door at Olètz. You slowed your pace making sure to not bump into any surroundings. Out of nowhere you felt a hand grab onto your wrist, releasing a small yelp from your throat.

“Don’t worry it’s just me,” you could hear his voice coming from the right of you.

“How do any of you get through here?” you question.

“You can say muscle memory is more powerful than you think after about five years,” he says walking you straight ahead. “Careful, watch your step,” he leads you down what you would think is a stairwell. Reaching the bottom, you hear him fiddling with a lock. The walk itself from the front door wasn’t too long, but you decided to not ask questions and keep silent along the way because you were afraid of messing something up. Again, you still had no idea what you were doing, more importantly why on earth you were still following him. You had every opportunity to just run as fast as you could away from him, but something was stopping you.

As the door unlocked and was opened, a warm light from inside dimly filled the stairwell you both were standing in. You hesitantly followed him inside the room, but as soon as your eyes scanned the room, your jaw nearly dropped. He wasn’t exaggerating when he said wait till you get inside.

Clearly the outside of the building was far off from what was inside. You walked into a room that had several doors leading out. Expensive upholstery covering sofas and couches which were surrounded by an indoor fireplace. Walking ahead of him, you examine the walls which were covered in framed snippets from magazines.

“Huh, how smart. So you use upholstery sales as a cover up,” You say whilst reading the fine print on one of the hanging articles.

“Good job, Goldy Locks. Bet you also know which door we gotta go through?” He answers jokingly.

“Furthest on the left,” you straight up answer leaving him somewhat speechless.

“Looks like you stand up to your titles of knowing everything.” He remarks quietly to himself, leading you to the door.

“Well, your cover seems legit, but that door is the only one without a key slot…” letting your sentence wander, you follow him as he enters the door immediately greeted by messy desks littered with papers and photographs. As soon as you both walk in, two heads shot up and quickly exchanged glances with Hoseok. You could see they were stressed and exhausted judging by the bags under their eyes and messy hair.

“Well look who’s back 24 hours later. What a warm welcome,” you hear one of them say as he leans back in his chair, rubbing his temples.

“We ran into some… things,” Hoseok says, trying to find the right word.

“How’s the subject?” You could hear the other male ask.

“Hah, that son of bitch. You would never believe who thought could get away with the other gang…” your mind drifted elsewhere as Hoseok was talking. Looking around the room you were in now looked like your normal office: computers, messy desks, and tired people. You had guessed that the other two men in the room had to belong to Bangtan as well. You find yourself straying from Hoseok’s side and towards a desk. You carefully examine the papers wondering what kind of confidential information could written on there.

     Five blocks from Oletz at midnight.       Dressed in black-clearly gets a good income.       Knife always strapped at thigh      Carries a gun everywhere       Applies useful: murder- 

Wait what, murder?

“-Y/n?” You quickly shot your head towards the direction of sound, well fuck look at you already on your deathbed, you thought.

 “You ready?”

You sighed, “you know it would probably be easier if I just shoot myself. Less of a hassle, really,” you say as if it’s no big deal. There was a silence and all three men look at each other questionably.

“NAMJOON HYUNG!” The awkward silence was broken by a shout and panting. The door in the back of the room swung open, showing off a younger looking boy with devilish brown hair and sculpted facial features. He ran to the older male, which you guessed whose name was Namjoon, slamming a paper down on his desk.

“I found them! I got the information and key code!” The young boy stated through panting breaths. You look at him, studying his facial features. If you thought you were young for the industry, then damn you were way off.

“Listen, Jungkook, we are kind of in the middle of something,” says the other male at the desk, motioning his head to you. The younger looks up towards the direction at which the attention was aiming for, locking eyes with you. There was a short pause before he said anything-

“Y/n? As in Y/n Y/l/n?” He asks almost not believing. You look at him slowly nodding your head up and down in confusion. You still had absolutely no clue what was going on.

“Okay, does anyone want to give me a heads up on what I’m hear for, or do I just play dumb bunny?” You finally give in, crossing your arms.

“You mean, no one’s told her what she’s here for?” The younger boy, presumably by the name of Jungkook, asks shocked. Namjoon gives you a long glare before finally making up his mind. “Call the others in for gather to the main in thirty,” he says, still looking directly at you as if searching for something.

He suddenly stands up from his desk and comes over to you, “follow me and I’ll show you to your room in the meantime.” Following him out of the office through a hallway, he stops at a closed door, fiddling with his keys to get it unlocked.

“This is your crib,” he says sarcastically, as he walks in. It was just your average room: a small bed in the corner, a desk, closet space, and a separate bathroom. “I’ll give you some time to change,” he says, motioning to your current attire which happened to still be what you were wearing to the club. You’ve been so caught up your thoughts and anxiety about what could happen to you that you didn’t even realize you were even in heels.

“There’s a bag by your bed filled with clothes, that Jin picked up from your place while you were, out” he says stretching the last word.

“Wow, how thoughtful of you to break into my apartment and steal my clothes,” you say completely taken back by what he just told you.

“Not me hun, Jin,” he says surrendering his hands in the air. “Anyways, meet us in the room at the end of the hall in thirty. It’s the last door on the right,” shutting the door behind him and leaving you alone for the first time in days.

You fall down on your bed in defeat. Yet, your question as why your presence here is needed still lingers your brain. After about five minutes of having an identity crisis, you finally decide it was time to follow someone else’s commands. Reaching over to the black trash bag near your bed, you pull out some clothes, thankfully finding your favorite black jeans. You take off your uncomfortable clothes from a few nights ago, actually realizing how annoying they were to wear. Slipping on jeans somehow felt like putting on a new skin.

Entering the bathroom you were immediately frightened by your reflection in the mirror. You literally had a birds nest in your hair and it looked like you had no sleep for weeks. Quickly freshening up, and brushing your hair, you took one last stop to your bag of clothing- which most of its contents were messily dropped on your bed now- hopefully looking for a pair of sneakers. Dumping out the rest of the contents on your bed, you were quite shocked to see the small bag you held with your knifes.

“What is my business here? With them especially?” You question aloud frustrated.

Getting up from your bed, you decided to finally put your mind at rest, heading out to the room Namjoon told you to meet him.

Walking through the hallway, you made it to the door. With a deep breath, you reached for the handle, turning and opening the door. As soon as you walk in, seven heads all shot up and stared at you. You slowly close the door, still facing them not exactly sure what to do next. Having to be be with and interact with so many people was nerve wrecking, you honestly felt more comfortable stabbing a person. As awful as it sounds. Crowds and people in general were not your forte. People never really liked or appreciated you, and because of that, you never knew what to do in cases of human interaction.

“Here, Y/n, please sit down,” says Jin, pointing to an empty chair. Everyone sat around a big dining table, papers messily scattered, the sound of pens writing as the boys took notes of what was told. You sat next to the young boy, who’s name was Jungkook, the same one who happened to run into the office earlier. Soon, were quickly engaged into the conversation and learned everyone’s names, along with a small part of why you were brought to headquarters.

“Okay, I still don’t know what to expect from the outcome of this all, but whatever is, we need a female as main role,” Namjoon spoke as he was fiddling his pen. You felt a pit of nervousness in your stomach grow. Everyone at the table was told that the important mission involved people from different parts of Main Street, all teaming together to transfer bombs on a train to a neighboring place… roughly spoken. How you came to summarize it was; a group of terrible people decided to hit each other up to bombard (pun intended) a place that no one knew yet, but that’s what your role plays in. You had to get close to the one in charge.

“You know, you could’ve just picked up a girl off the street and told her what to do. Would’ve been the same…” you say, still confused about your role.

“Well as modest as you are, your… ‘expertise’ are quite useful in the fact of knowing basically everything about everyone and everything in this line of business,” the boy across the table said. Min Yoongi, surprisingly you didn’t know much about this boy, he gave off some vibe that left you intrigued yet cautious. Knowing that, you thought it would be better to stay on his good side. He kept silent throughout the entire conversation though, and you were somewhat shocked whenever he stated his thoughts aloud.

“He’s right,” you heard Jin add, looking over Jungkook’s shoulder at the open laptop. “From what I know, I’m quite sure you’re going to know how to handle the situation, as well as the person.”

“And who might that, person be,” you say after a while of silence.

“Park Minhyuck,” Namjoon speaks first. This news was new for everyone, however you seemed to be the most stricken.

“Park Minhyuck?!” you scoff, “hah! Unbelievable,” your tongue was tracing the inside of your cheek, a habit you did whenever you were pissed.

“You know him?” Calls Jimin from across the table. You take your attention to him, noticing the small laugh of disbelief escaping Yoongi’s mouth as you did so. You gave him a side eye but decided to just ignore it.

“Well you see,” taking a deep breath, “Oh, I do know him. How fortunate for us though, that he doesn’t know who the hell I am.“  

The morning came faster than you would’ve liked. Today was the day you discussed with the rest of the boys at the table last night. Today you would be playing fox, and Park Minhyuck? The mouse.

You were put into a group chat along with all the other members, written there was your assignment for today. You look over it once more just to make sure you don’t mess up.

Apartment complex: B, floor 12, room 577. He will arrive there at around 10:30. Make sure to tell him that you’re a new neighbor from two floors up. Act friendly, and get close to him. DON’T BRING ANY WEAPONS.

You laughed to yourself at the last sentence, they knew you better than you thought. You dressed as normal as possible, trying to avoid your usual black scheme so you won’t give him any weird vibes.

You were offered the opportunity to take one of the boys with you just in case something gets out of hand, but you refused straight away. Again, you never worked with others, nor did you want to start that. You didn’t need any man to look after you just in case, you’ve been doing a good enough job at that for the past 3 years. You decided to take the bus to your destination, since it wasn’t too far. Standing on the public transport, you realized how foreign it had become. You completely forgot how cramped it can become in the mornings, you were literally standing on someone the whole ride there.

You had been so used to going on routes that avoided people just so you wouldn’t get caught when you were on your ‘missions’.

You didn’t necessarily have a plan, which probably was a terrible idea, hence the fact that you were already walking into the building. Stopping just before crossing the street to your final destination, you look up at the immensity high skyscraper in front of you. Well at least I got a ton of floors to hide on just in case something bad happens. Taking a deep breath, you cross the street.

Floor 12 okay, walking into the elevator couldn’t seem simpler, but of course there was no such this as ‘simple,’ and you ended up with walking in with another person. It would have been at least nice to ride in peace and gather your thoughts about your next actions. However the man next to you had other plans. From the corner of your eye, you see him push the bottom with number 12 on it. Fuck, now it’s gonna look like I’m stalking him.

“Oh, what’s your floor, miss?” He asks, probably noticing how weird it was to have you just standing there not doing anything.

“Fourteen. Thank you,” you quickly reply. Leaning back against the wall furthest from him, you take a deep breath trying to settle down your heartbeat. You had absolutely no idea why you were so nervous, you’ve done worse things in your life with greater ease than standing in an elevator with a stranger.

“I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you around here before?” You turn to him, panicking on how to reply.

“Oh! I just moved in, I’m renting a studio,” you say as politely as possible. He was about to answer you, but a ringing interrupted.

“Excuse me,” he calmly apologizes as he picks up his phone “Hello-”

“-Ah, Minhyuck,” you heard the receiver. 

You shoot your eyes to the floor. Minhyuck? Did you hear the person on the other side of the line correctly? You glance at your phone to see it was fifteen till thirty, he wouldn’t be this early?

“-Okay, yes I’ll come by right now.” He hangs up and you see him press the number 12 button so that it’s no longer glowing.

“Ugh, works been busy,” he says as he presses the Lobby button. You give him a small smile and nod.

“I, um don’t believe I got your name?” You finally turn to ask him.

“Oh, right I’m sorry! I’m Minhyuck- Park Minhyuck. And you are?”

“Y-Yumé,” you answer, blurting out the first name you thought of. You hear the ding sound, giving that the elevator had reached your floor and you were just about to leave when-

“I guess I’ll be seeing you around more often,” you turn around and smile at his kind words.

“I guess you will. It was a pleasure to meet you,” you say but hold more meaning behind your words, leaving the elevator before he could reply.

You nervously walk down the corridor, wiping your sweaty palms on your pants.

“Well that didn’t go as planned,” you breath out. You wish you had more time to talk with him, the faster you got to know him the faster you would finish this entire scandal and leave Bangtan. You wish things didn’t start so abruptly, why the hell did you act so nervous? It was so unlike you.

“Ugh…” frustrated with your act today, you walk over to the fire escape to take the stairs down all fourteen floors. The more flights you went down the more frustrated you were with how long this would all take. Looking back to when you both were in the elevator, you remember him saying that he needed to be somewhere, to meet someone? You stop in your tracks, I need to follow him.

You run down the rest of the stairs as fast as your legs could go, hopefully he would still be in sight. To your delight, you spot him crossing the street. As soon as you got out of the building you ran, you were tired, you could go back to headquarters and say you finished your little 'meeting’. But where’s the fun when you follow rules. Checking your phone it was only thirty minutes past ten, which meant you had plenty of time to kill.

Surprisingly however, you didn’t have to go very far. You saw him turning a corner and carefully looking around his surroundings before entering a dark building. Waiting till he was inside, you run to the door only to find a key pad to unlock it. You tried pushing and pulling the doors, hoping that they could open, but no luck.

“Damn it,” you hiss under your breath. You just missed a big opportunity of finding out what he was planning for, and you hated yourself for that. You were almost good at everything but a few things, one of those things happen to be breaking in. You were the absolute worst, you were never properly trained to hacking in locks, security systems, anything.

Out of all seven boys, one of them must know how to break a key code. You take your phone out to track your current location, checking the building out one last time before heading back to headquarters.

Once you get through the front door, you manage with the lock until you find yourself walking through the downstairs hallways looking for one of the members. Looking through all the rooms until you enter the one at the end of the hallway, stumbling on to all of them at once.

       _____

Hoseok arose from his chair faster than anyone “Y/n!?” He says sharing a confused look with everyone. Jungkook glances at his watch, “your here really early, is everything alright!?”

You let the door close behind you as you walk over to an empty chair at the table. Letting out a long drawn breath, “well it would’ve been great if things turned out as planned.”

“What do you mean? What happened, did he find out your real identity?”

“Did you even get to talk with him?” You were attacked with questions from every corner of the table. “Guys no, I did get the chance to talk with him, but it was probably for less than a minute,” you sigh.

“Does he at least know you live two floors up?” Asks Namjoon.

“Yes, that he knows. We actually ended up running onto the same elevator before he had to go somewhere,” you were unsure if you should continue telling them that you followed him to that building-

“-well where did you follow him too?” Spoke Yoongi calmly. Your head shot to his direction so fast. How did he know you followed him?

“Um, I guess that’s where I need your guy’s help?” You say shocked and unsure. “It seems I’ve figured out who the Sherlock homes is of this gang. But I needed to ask you guys, one of you must do all the hacking?” Glancing around the table, you met eyes with Jungkook.

“What is it that you need?” He asks curiously.

You smile to yourself, happy that he was willing to help like it was no big deal, “Ok so, I followed him to some building. I honestly don’t even know if it was important. Like that could of just been his doctors office?”

“Did you save the location?” He asks, but you we’re already on your phone and sending it to the group chat. After a few seconds, everyone’s phone simultaneously go off with a notification.

“Oh my god,” Jungkook’s voice was laced with fright followed by a heavy silence throughout the room. You sat anxiously in your seat, not fully understanding the meaning behind his words. 

A clearing of a throat broke the silence, you along with everyone else turned their attention to it, to Min Yoongi.

“He knows who you are Y/n.”

[hurryupmerlin]

Update from the war front even though noone cares but I don’t care

Sooooo....

Things got better after my massive clash with my boss on Friday (cos I had DARED to go home oh Thursday after 1 1/2 half extra hours that day, how COULD IiiiiIIIIiiii??)

Anyway--- the entire weekend was spent in the name of automobiles. On Saturday we went to a car flea market. And actually considered buying an old Opel Zafira, but since that one needed a lot of repairs, we decided to think it over while cruising the city in the hopes of finding a used car dealer that would have a fitting car with automatic gearbox (which is RARE in Germany).

Naturally, we missed the right exit and landed in a industrial area and there was.... a Mitsubishi dealer. Like, the entire court was full of new, expensive SUVs. But we decided to stop by anyway, for the nostalgia alone (my first car was a Mitsubishi). We were already on our way back to our car when my Mum spottet a Ford between all the Mitsubishis. And wouldn’t you know it... it was an automatic.

Sooo.... Mum went from 0 to 100 in like 0.1 seconds and fell in love right there and I was just “it’s nice, um... the price tho?” but she wouldn’t stop about how perfect it was and so we went “aw fuck it” and went inside to get a car saleswoman to let us have a closer look.

Long story short, 5 minutes later we went on a test drive and another 30 minutes later we sat at a table to sign the contract.

That evening my sister and me spent hours cleaning my old car.

On Sunday Mum picked me up around 12 and I polished a few spots on the car and we took photos. And around 4 pm we published the sales ad - and 3 seconds later the telephone terror started. Srsly, for about 10 minutes the entirety of Germany called the two numbers we had published.

One of the first guys to call made an appointment to “come in an hour” except he never showed. So about 3 hours after we had published the ad, a bunch of really sympathic guys came and another hour later my baby boy was sold to the one who had called me.

It still feels weird to have sold my car. We had 4 very good years full of adventures together.

Today after work I’ll pick up the new car. In the last 3 days I kind of developed a love-hate relationship to it but that might be cos I’ve only seen it for half an hour and whenever I look at pics of it I cannot handle how a car can be THIS unphotogenic.

Naturally, I spent the last 2 days looking for a cheap way to make it look cooler. (And put a shitton on chrome on it, cos come onnnn)

That was a very long post.

Goodbye.

[rhinestone-fries]

The band dating an S/O who is a famous rapper? Sorry for being so specific! Thank you!

I’ve… never received a request before???? This is awesome!! Thanks, anon! Just a reminder that everyone is free to do this whenever they like! That’s what this blog is for, after all. 

Russel:

-His face lights up when you rap some intense lyrics during a jam session

-Literally hollers when you finish, which is a big thing considering his quiet nature

-Wraps his arms around your shoulders and says “The world deserves to hear that.” 

-Spends weeks with you coming up with a whole tracklist of songs, which he helps you write and compose 

-they’re fucking fIRE 

-sends it to his producers anonymously, because he doesnt want to use his reputation to get you extra credit with the industry because he knows the quality of your music is enough 

-when you’re signed to his label, he throws a huge party for you. 

-always telling you how proud he is and always offers to help with new tracks. very supportive and always, ALWAYS watches your live performances. Even when he has other commitments and can’t be there in person, he’ll watch a stream or get someone on the crew to record it just for him

-so chill on the outside, but always has this dumbass grin on his face when you perform he loves you so much hes so proud 

Noodle:

-W H AT 

-when you start rapping to her strumming a rif on her guitar, she stops playing to just stare at you for a moment 

-then a grin cracks her face and she just beams at you, and keeps playing 

-you two spend hours jamming together, coming up with new songs and shes blown away by every one 

-when she asks why you never told her about your talent and tell her that you thought you weren’t good enough to show anyone, she gets upset

-shes like “did someone tell you that you were not good? They’re very very wrong, you should be incredibly proud.”

-always compliments you when you spit a new verse 

-offers to introduce you to some people in the industry, but when you say no she understands and supports you in whatever way you’re most comfortable with 

-until you’re ready, you both have frequent musical sessions together. 

-hides her blush under her bangs when you rap a verse about her aw

-when your’re ready and your music gets big, you start touring. she’s the nerd that takes huge posters to the concerts. 

-always front row. will kill a man to get to front row

-when you’re apart for long periods of time, you skype call to have jam sessions together 

-she sometimes falls asleep in a call while you’re composing new lyrics and they often end up being about her whoops 

-owns every piece of your merch possible 

Murdoc:

-no words come out of his mouth for a solid thirty seconds

-oh shit 

-hes just staring at you, bass in hand

-puts down his bass

-grabs your hand 

-oh shit he seems pissed oh shit oh shIT

-pulls you against him, hands against your waist

-leans in close 

-”if i had known your mouth were that talented, I would have put it to much better use a long time ago” 

-jesus fucking christ

-takes you to the car and fastens your seat belt for you (sneaks a little peck on your cheek he’s a sweetie ok)

-”where are we going?” 

-he doesn’t reply wtf 

-takes you to the best agent he knows 

-”don’t be a sod, sign them right now or you’re gonna be kicking yourself for the rest of your life”

-murdoC NO

-you’re a huge hit immediately, and you’re grateful to him for taking you to that agent, but he always says that you would have gotten to that same point eventually without him 

-believes in you sO HARD 

-he’s always side stage at your concerts with arms folded and a smug grin on his face 

-constantly says “that’s my s/o” and will find any excuse to do so 

-when paparazzi start following you around, he’s exceptional at dealing with them so he’s always with you when you go out in public 

-before your first concert, when you were incredibly nervous, he gave you his favourite pick and told you that it’s good luck. 

-you take that pick on stage every single show 

2D:

-he hears you rapping in the shower

-it takes him a second to process 

-”that sounds like…”

-burSTS THROUGH THE BATHROOM DOOR 

-2D WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING BOY

-”IS THAT YOU?!?!?!”

-”IS WHAT ME?”

-”I HEARD RAPPING. THAT WAS YOU”

-commence stare sequence

-the bathroom is getting steamy 

-hiS EYES ARE TEARING UP O HMY GOD

-before you can even open your mouth to say anything, he rushes over to you and steps under the rushing water to pull you into his arms

-he’s hugging you so tight 

-”That was amazing. I’m so proud of you.”

-aw, ‘D

-when he pulls away he gives you a quick kiss and smiles at you 

-hes soaked now what an idiot 

-sets up an extra mic in his studio for you 

-you’d had some low key albums released prior to meeting 2D, but they’d never gotten huge. you had a minor fanbase, but when you and stu had started dating you agreed to put work aside for the most part

-then he listened to your album on the down low and spread it like wiLDFIRE

-holy shit where did all these sales come from

-he’s so fuckin happy for you

-asks for your autograph at the most inconvenient times 

-keeps a stash of things with your autograph on them because he likes the way it looks

-whenever you rap the goofiest smile crawls across his face 

-what a dork 

 I hope this is okay!!