#the old man is bitter oooooh~

[2aceofspades]

Hmmmm....

*stares Leo dead in the eyes while adding another sticker to the Ace Face*

Sry bud, but Ace is absolutely the grade A cutie here, I'm legally obligated to side with them

~-- --- .-. ... . / .- -. --- -.

Haha!

Thank you, my lovely morse anon :)

[life-is-unreal]

Stranger Danger~ {Genshin x reader} Teyvat Chapter 11 - The Angel's Share

*more world building

The confusion and sheer shock when you floated down to the ground nearly made you hide in a bush. 

"The mora's worth it... The mora's worth it." You whispered under your breath. "Ok maybe not." you muttered, flinching as one of the children in the distance gaped at you. The boy's eyes were so large that you would've sworn that they would pop out of their sockets and his mouth was wide enough to fit your fist. 

You smiled awkwardly, almost sprinting away from the kids and to the Angel's share.

"A berry & mint burst please." You winced slightly as pretty much all of the mora that you've scavenged was placed on the table.

"Well aren't you a new face." The bartender, Charles laughed heartily, "Would you like a sample of dandelion wine? It's our top-seller, considering that you're new, you can have it for free." The man poured a small cup, pushing it in front of you, ignoring your frantic waving.

"Th-thanks?"

"One berry & mint burst coming right up!" He slapped down on your shoulder, "Go and talk with the fellows at the back, they're very welcoming to new faces." He placed the drink in front of you, pointing towards the little crowd near the stairs.

You weren't going to lie, but the tavern in real life was biggggg, it was like triple the size of the tavern in game.

"You there!"

"H-huh? Me?" You were going to curse yourself for all the stuttering, like why the hell were you stuttering?

"Aren't you one of the guys that chased Stormterror away a few days ago?"

"Raye! Stop scaring the poor kid." The man was elbowed hardly by one of his mates. "Kiddo, are you even old enough to drink?"

"Uhhhh, what's the drinking age?"

"Eighteen duhhh. Did you seriously order without knowing the drinking age?!"

You looked down at the drink you were given, "Yeahhh, but uh- I am over eighteen."

The man gaped. "I thought that you were like- I dunno sixteen? No offense of course."

"By the way, that drunkard's name is Raye. She's Leila, that's Nelson, and I'm Jace. There's a lot more others here and coming but I can't remember their names on the top of my head. Come on, sit with us."

Jace forcefully pushed you down to one of the chairs, sensing no ill intent you didn't bother pushing him off. "I'm Y/N. Uhhh, I'm new here."

"Yeah, we can see that." Leila rolled her eyes, throwing a hand over your shoulder. "Girlie, lemme guess, you decided to visit the Angel's share for gossip? Or are you here for intel?" She dropped the last bit to a whisper.

Raye smacked her hands off you, "Leila!"

The woman shrugged, "What? That's all what the new faces recently do!"

"That's because they're all fatui diplomats!" He hissed.

"Oh wait. You aren't one of them? My bad guys, my baaaad." She slurred, a blush creeping onto her tanned face. You weren't going to lie, Leila was hella pretty for a drunkard.

"Um, she was right for a point, the deaconess, Barbara did mention that there was gossip in here and since I wanted to get familiar with the city I just came?" You took a sip of the drink, and damn it was good. Whilst the dandelion wine was bitter with a dash of sweetness, the berry and mint burst was refreshing with a burst of fruitiness and had a nice aroma.

"Barbara? Quite surprising that she even listens to all those people that fawn over her. She has a fair share of stalkers, had she not been the sister of the Grandmaster, those dirty rascals would've probably kidnapped her."

"Leila!"

"What? That's the truth."

Raye laughed nervously, "Anyways Y/N, you wanted to listen to goss- I mean the latest news of Mondstadt right?"

Leila blinked, her misty eyes regaining focus, "Oooooh. Did you guys know? One of the knights literally cheated on their wives with another knight? Oh and the guy they cheated with was also a-"

"Leila!" All three of them scrambled to slap a hand over her mouth.

"Uh." You smiled awkwardly.

"Let's- Let's talk about other things how 'bout that." Nelson grinned.

"Uh, uh Y/N, how you settling down? And HOLY SHIT IS THAT A FUCKING SLIME?" Jace screeched, toppling over.

"Oh, I forgot about him. He's Bob, a cryo slime." 

"Yeah, no shit." Leila's were literally gleaming, "Girlie, how the fuck did you tame it- I mean him. That's legit so fucking cool."

"I didn't, he just. Uh, maybe he's a friendly slime?"

Leila raised her brows, "Yeahhhh totalllyyy."

"Um, anyways. I've found a place near the Adventurer's guild and uh, I'm an adventurer but I kinda, need another job-"

"Because they pay shit." Leila finished.

"Yeah."

"Girl, before I was a treasure hoarder I was one of those adventurer's and let me tell you. That job is like. Eugh, it seems high paying but it isn't really worth it especially when there's literally sooooo many adventurers around and inflation's happening because of that stupid dragon. Like they told me that I was too weak for half of the special commissions and quests they hand out. Since you're new you probably don't know those terms." She took a deep breath.

"You see, special commissions are like basic commissions except they pay like wayyyy more depending on the commissioner and how dangerous it is or how complicated it is. Then there's those quests that are uh, well I myself haven't received any but according to my fellow treasure hoarders they are usually super time consuming or are super dangerous. Both of them don't have to be issued by the Adventurer's guild. If you ever receive any by the guild, go to the commissioner because the Adventurer's guild takes a cut as the middle man, I mean they need to make money righttt?"

The woman took another deep gulp of her- vodka?

"Wait, you're a treasure hoarder?!" 

Leila nodded, "Jace is also one. The others are just normal citizens. Don't worry, none of us snitch, no point in it when most of the knights are pretty much useless."

You nodded in agreement, those fucking cowards that landed your ass in prison were probably the most useless of them all.

"You know, if you're reallly in need of mora, you can do some uh, not so legal stuff." Jace added on.

"Like being a treasure hoarder?"

"You can if you want. But you know, most of us treasure hoarders have another job so that the knights won't come knocking on our door going 'WhY dO yOu HaVe MoRa?' , for example, I work in one of the restaurants near the cathedral." 

Leila side eyed him, "How helpful. I'm going to be a good person and tell you actual shit."

She pulled a map out from her sleeve, "You see the map? The red spots on there are where you can make big money. I go to those places when I don't get enough mora to feed my family."

Raye leaned forward, "There's an extra spot near the hotel aye?"

Leila sneered, "Those fatui diplomats created a new place, never knew that fatui take on side jobs. Hell, the knights don't even know that any of these places exist for some reason, and even if they did, they sure did nothing."

"I went to the new place y'know. The jobs there were mainly on gathering intel and random shit. Pretty murky stuff if ya askin me. I can bring you to the red spots in the city if you're interested in making money off things like that. Dangerous? Yeah. Big bucks? Yeah. If you don't wanna risk it, I've also heard that there's a new cafe place opening up near the city gates." Jace tapped on a few red spots that were obviously a bit lighter in colour, so you assumed that the places were highlighted a long time ago.

"You think it's possible for me to get a job in that cafe and another job from the red areas?" You asked. You were it great need of accessible mora but if you didn't have a job to put on the surface, you wouldn't be able to get out the mora you've gotten in game.

Leila nodded, "I can bring you there whenever. I'm free for this entire week, just find me in the bar eh? If for some reason that I'm not here, find Jace. There's loads of scams in those red areas, if Raye or Nelson brings you there you might be stuck working for a contractor that gives nothing."

"Thanks Leila."

The woman nodded, "Leave your glass, Charles will tidy it up."

You stood up. "See ya'll soon then."

"Toodles."

"Bye."

"Nice meetin' ya and the slime."

"May Barbatos be with you."

-.-.-

You chuckled softly, Mondstadt was truly a lot more different in real life than you had expected. Mondstadt definitely would be a breeding ground for murky businesses had it not been for the vision holders and people that actually do their duties. 

"I wonder what the other nations would be like..." If Mondstadt's flaws were this obvious, it's no doubt that the other nations would have much larger potential dangers as Mondstadt is literally the starting ground for all newbie players. 

Liyue shouldn't be dangerous as long as it was in the harbour, but the outside would be unknown. Yes they had the adepti but you wouldn't exactly bet your luck on them. You shuddered at the mere thought of Sumeru and Inazuma. 

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

Teyvat Chapter 12:

https://www.tumblr.com/life-is-unreal/758119839983386624/stranger-danger-genshin-x-reader-chapter-12?source=share

[pageliveblogscomics]

OOOOOH! Tommy gets old! Can't you just turn off the ray, instead of shouting a warning?

How would you feel about your grandfather if he made an aging ray and decided to use it to take over a town?

This is contrived, but after thinking a while, I actually LIKE as a "Tales to Astonish" story, because I feel like in the pre-Ant-Man days, I can imagine this story without Ant-Man, about a bitter scientist who makes the aging ray in an effort to keep his grandson's respect, only to age his grandson, and drop the ray before being able to undo it.

It feels kind of like Ant-Man is in someone else's story, and changing it from having a sad ending to a happy one.

[queenofmalkier]

OOOOOH OKAY. SO. I actually went from hating Galad, to being meh about him, to now sort of liking him. He's not my favorite but I think he's actually a lot more complex than characters in the story - even himself! - give him credit for.

I think he's really the king of compartmentalizing, self-identifying-as-Atlas, and Not Thinking About It and it's fascinating to me.

Cut because I went bonkers.

For starters I would disagree that he's self-righteous about his rule following and trying to do the right thing. Genuinely, he just does the right things because he feels he has to because they're right. (Him being based on Galahad admittedly does color my viewpoint.)

I really wonder what happened to Galad to shape him into this Must Do Good At All Costs, very black and white thinking because it's gotta be trauma, right? He's a Damodred of course it is.

His mother left him when he was two years old. Nobody knew why, I'm sure nobody could explain it to him in a way he'd really understand, but given that it's Andor and her going missing led to a major succession crisis, I'd put good money on Taringail in the very least making comments about how all of that was Galad's fault.

After all if he'd been a girl there would have been no crisis, and Taringail is canonically a power-hungry shit.

The bitterness he must have felt, losing his power because he had a son and not a daughter, could have easily spilled out onto Galad.

I can see how a child would take that and believe wholeheartedly that he'd done something wrong - that if he wasn't Good then Bad Things happened. And nobody corrected him.

Why would they? Galad from an early age was well-behaved and always did the right thing. From the perspective of the adults they probably thought they were crushing it when it came to raising him.

Until he has siblings who are like "What the hell is wrong with you" I don't think anybody even noticed he was Like That.

Perhaps Morgase did, she does think of Galad throughout the series as her son, but she would have been so busy managing the kingdom there just wouldn't have been time to unpack his issues. Especially when for all intents and purposes, Galad having those Behave Or The Sky Falls Down thoughts were beneficial once Gawyn and Elayne got older and weren't so obedient. (Much later Morgase DOES realize they all done fucked up and tries to fix it.)

It's an interesting thing that happens to a certain subset of traumatized kids. Because they're not acting out or difficult, they get lost in the shuffle. People think it's okay because they're "not that bad" and meanwhile they're just quietly losing their shit. (Me, projecting? Nooo.)

Anyway, my point is I don't think Galad does the right thing to be a dick at any point. Gawyn might be a bit flawed, but he idolizes his brother and Morgase wouldn't have tolerated it if he was acting out of self-interest, son or not.

Elayne is the only one who really expresses dislike for Galad which I think is more an insight into her character as I believe she sometimes feels like she'll never be as "good" as Galad. He also gets her in trouble and it must be frustrating.

There is a quote about how he'll always do the right thing no matter who it hurts, which we see during the incident with the ship most clearly, and I can't help but contrast that with Moiraine and her arc in the books and the show - she also is fully committed to doing the right thing (saving the world) and will not let her think about the smaller costs.

Joining the whitecloaks is more complex than signing up with the fantasy hate group of Randland. I know as readers we're like What The Actual Fuck but the in-world perspective of the Aes Sedai is incredibly complicated, even in places that fully accept them there is fear, superstition, and mistrust.

I do think one mistake made with Galad is his age, because he comes off as a 20-something for so much of the series and therefore his actions make more sense, but having him be like, a full grown man is weird. A 20-something could be coaxed into joining the whitecloaks because they're basically a cult, they've got the nice clean uniforms, everybody follows the rules, oh and look at this nice shiny book that tells you how to live!

Direct quote from fandom but: "He claims that according to The Way of the Light, not all women who wield the One Power are inherently evil, stating that such is a mistaken tradition of the Children. Galad continues by saying that the book really says that temptation to wield the One Power can corrupt."

^ Honestly, that passage is not wrong, and I trust Galad's interpretation more than I would whitecloaks who have built up a quite hateful ideaology. It wouldn't be the first time a group deliberately misunderstood their own texts.

We don't see it, but for Galad I can absolutely see why the whitecloaks are appealing. He has no real place in the world (he's not going to stand by Elayne's side as the First Prince of the Sword, he's of high noble birth but nobody, he has some shit-tier social skills) but there's Eamon Valda telling him he's special, spending time with him specifically. Maybe he doesn't quite agree with their thoughts on the Aes Sedai, but the Tower is split, Elayne has vanished, and he's vulnerable to that type of manipulation.

I'm not saying it was a good choice, just that I can see why he made it. Just like I understand why Gawyn defended the tower.

Honestly Morgase set them up to be cult fodder lets be real.

We start to see him splinter a bit when it comes to Morgase and Eamon Valda. He's telling himself he's doing the right thing, etc. but even then... you can feel his doubts. The self-blame. That maybe he did a bad thing and now the people around him are suffering for it. His mother suffered for it. But he wants to make it right again!! And he's trying!

Like most of the other leaders of the era, he sees the writing on the wall and knows they're going to need every single body they've got to fight The Last Battle which means compromising on key beliefs of the whitecloaks like fighting with Aes Sedai instead of against them. (I do think there is a clear dissonance in his head between Aes Sedai and his family - he doesn't want to see it. Sort of like the people who rant and rail about food stamps until they need them and suddenly it's okay because it's them.)

Anyway I'm gonna stop now, but for me that's the bulk of why I find Galad to be interesting as a character.

With most popular Wheel of Time characters, I get it even if I don’t agree. Like I find Lan boring af but he represents a popular character archetype and is the love interest of a fan favorite so it totally makes sense why he has so many fans.

Galad though? I Do Not Get It. He was fun at first, with his self righteous big brother I’m telling mom energy, but then he joined the fantasy KKK WHILE having a sister who belongs to the group they want to exterminate. And it isn’t qualified appreciation like “wow that’s an interesting storyline that really illustrates how otherwise normal people can become radicalized,” it’s “Galad is a gigachad and the only good one of Morgases kids.” Do people really hate the Aes Sedai so much that they think “the group who thinks channelers should all be eliminated” makes some good points? Is it the halo effect around very good looking people, which Berelain arguably also benefits from, even though it’s words on a page and not a visual medium? Is it because Elayne doesn’t like him and a lot of people hate her?

NOTE: I get that Sanderson did his usual “Galad is a Good Person and is put in charge so the Whitecloaks are now Good too!” routine, but it really doesn’t fit with RJs style, and it doesn’t erase their foundational ideology or what they’re famous for doing.

[bootleg-sara]

Oooooh more lads! We got Cain and Lilith this time around

A intro to a new kind of human soul. Basically, old earth souls are people who lived in the garden of eden and anyone before the flood of genesis. They don't have the same kind of magic new earth humans do (technically they don't have magic at all, but all of Adam's and Eve's family is cursed. All the important old earth humans in this au have a messed up version of magic). They also don't have halos (called crowns for humans). I'll make a short post about new/old earth souls and halos/crowns eventually

Anyhow, character bios and more doodles under cut

Cain: voice claim- Pour Some Sugar on Me by Def Leppard

Cain Pain Time

One of the biggest con artists in hell that no one knows of. Always going under different identities wherever he goes to avoid being tracked. He’s an old, bitter, and greasy man who can’t stay in one place for long. Skilled with the dagger he keeps on his person. Quite the locksmith too. Is sure to only get locks that he himself can’t easily open.

Cain doesn’t trust anyone. Everyone is an enemy no matter how friendly they may appear to be. This overwhelming pessimism is to much for most people, but it’s the very thing that’s kept him alive. When you’re a traveling business man who makes a living off of stealing and bartering, you can’t afford to get to comfy with others. Not in a place like hell where people aren’t afraid to take extreme action. He’ll take any job he can get his hands on, but sworn off of murder. Last time he did that the world made it very clear that’s something he shouldn’t be doing.

He’s an absolute kiss-ass too. Cain has quite the high social standing all because he knows how to worm his way into their lives. Sure, he probably secretly hates you, but he’ll out on quite the show to prove you otherwise. With enough careful planning, you can get whatever you want by being friends with powerful people. Just don’t get involved in their drama and you won’t become a target from a rival group. Cain’s gotten good at working the system to benefit himself. From free train rides around hell to protection from any potential danger. He’s got it all. Except for a stable life where he can settle down for a bit.

Now Cain here despises Angels and Demons. He has no respect for any of them, no matter who they are. They’re the very things that ruined his family’s lives and caused the world to be flooded. He sees no reason they deserve any respect. They’ve done nothing but cause him misery. Cain will be nice for show, but if a situation requires a little betrayal, he won’t feel a thing for ruining a Demon’s well being. The only demon he have any semblance of care for is Lilith. As he did accidentally put her into torment when she was doing Cain a massive favor.

Cain’s hatred and fear of everyone has left him rather isolated. No one to really call a true friend. The person he grew closest to ended up being yet another person who wasn’t deserving of his trust. With all the constant moving around, Cain can’t find anyone to stick with him. It’s all he really wants out of his millions of years of life. Though his own anger issues have made any candidates quick to flee. Maybe he’ll find some solace in the random kid he found out in the middle of nowhere

Lilith: Voice claim- You Make Me Feel by Archive

To a character completely opposite of Cain, meet the outgoing and charitable Lilith.

She (along with basically every other important angel/demon in this au lol) is one of the original angels that roamed Eden with humans. She had sided along with Apollyon and his legion of angels who had ruled Eden for as long as they had been there. When Archangel Michael and his 6 archangels of end times had come to punish the old angels of Eden, Lilith was one of the unfortunate angels caught up in it. The event caused a change in views for Lilith, who now views her time in Eden as a blemish on her existence. Since then she’s been making a great deal of progress to become a better and more respectful person. Though her stubbornness hasn’t quite been rectified.

Lilith is a people person through and through. She couldn’t stand the thought of being kept up in a little hole by herself. Lilith has long lost her old status as a high ranking demon, though with the help of her old friends like Azazel, she’s very up to date with the royals. Most of her time is spent doing charity work in less fortunate cities that don’t offer such services. She focuses primarily on helping children, as she adores kids.

She has had quite the long family lineage, being the mother to many children who have since grown up to live for themselves. She has two kids of her own that still live with her, Eosphoros and Brim

Eosphoros is an angsty teenage boy. In the afterlife, the age requirement for being allowed to do certain things is much higher than on earth. Most places requiring souls to be at least 100 years old before they can drink. Wether he likes it or not, he needs to stay with Lilith to get stable enough to move out. His father Lucifer is someone Lilith wants to avoid as much as she can. He’s a massive jerk. Not being able to see your father, even if he is a notorious asshole, isn’t ideal. Eosphoros isn’t a fan of the constant moving from place to place for Lilith’s charity work either. Much rather be with Azazel’s giant estate than the small house Cain resides in. All the fighting between Lilith and Cain doesn’t help much either.

Brim is a baby. He does not have a personality because what did you expect from a baby. He’s cute, and is Lilith’s youngest son and child of Azazel. Azazel thinks it’d be so cool if Brim could use brimstone like he could. Lilith is not at all in agreement.

Lilith’s gets most of her sight from her incubus familiars and her natural ability to see energy as fields of light. Though sometimes that’s way too much energy for her, and chooses to get around like a regular human with blindness does. Her magic is very weak as she almost never uses it outside of her incubus. Her Incubus isn’t technically alive, but they a lot like a small cat with wings. Low energy, but cuddly and always happy to see you.

Lilith is planning on marrying Azazel in the foreseeable future for a bit of time as she gets herself settled into life again after Lucifer messed that all up.

What is their relationship like?

These two have quite the rough history. Seeing as Lilith’s group of angels is what screwed over Cain’s entire family while also inflicting Cain with a curse he can never remove. Understandably, he’s not very open to being friends. Under normal circumstances Cain wouldn’t have ever let Lilith step foot into his temporary home in Judas’ city.

A very long time ago, Lilith wanted to make up for the pain she had inadvertently caused him by helping him remove his curse. The procedure didn’t work as planned. The curse only came back to Cain, while being spread onto Lilith as well. Forcing her to lose both her wings and eyesight. Cain feels awful about it. The one time an angel tried to help him and they were both left in a worse state. Cain has a good few properties all around hell as investments and quick places he can stay for the night. He’s offered his living spaces for Lilith if she needs to stay for her work, as long as he’s there to keep an eye on her.

He’s not the biggest fan of this arrangement. Lilith likes it bring home her demon friends, much to his dismay. But he’s doing a favor for someone he had crippled so he’ll keep his mouth shut. Last thing Cain needs is to expand his list of people he cared for getting hurt in some way. Most time they are civil with one another, but they both can never agree on anything. Their personalities clash constantly which has lead to a fair few fights. At worst Cain will leave the house to gamble for a bit to calm his nerves.

Cain may never fully put his trust into her, but he does make an effort to not glare daggers every time he sees her. Lilith just wishes he’s go get some therapy for once his life. Clearly he needs it.

Aeyo the next funny guys!

The descriptions here feel a lot shorter and less interesting than the last few, so apologizes for that. It’s not that I don’t love these fellas, more of just their importance to the story makes up most of what they are in my head. And I don’t wanna spoil that in case I do ever do something with it. Plus, doubt anyone wants to read a bunch of story bullet points when just trying to look at some characters lmao

Hope this was enjoyable anyhow. I do have a comic planned for these two, but it might take a bit longer to get out because I haven’t started sketching it yet. It’ll be another 4 parter, so that’s cool. Also long. Man

[kitchenscene]

austin’s 911 / buddie fic rec

[ long post, so all fics are under the cut ]

tags: @michaelgrantnash , @bisexualbuck , @terryjeffordss

﹂cause love is whatever we want it to be by wafflesofdoom

summary: "he and buck, there was a sort of an inevitability to their relationship that scared eddie to his core, sometimes – but more and more now, he was realising that his fear was holding him back from something amazing.he –well, eddie was going to sweep buck off his feet."

personal opinion: there’s this line – ‘falling for you just felt inevitable’ –that just stuck with me. this is one of those fics that i’ll probably still be thinking about years from now.

﹂the ivory keys by tkreyesevandiaz

summary: buck didn’t think he’d come back to this one thing again. as a kid, he’d crashed into the habit like a beautiful accident. he’d stumbled upon the old instrument in the guest house where his parents usually held brunches and parties for other aristocrats in their circles, at age eight. after hearing the reverberating sound from the keys, it became an obsession to learn.

personal opinion: very very very sweet. i literally had dreams about this fic after i read it.

﹂encore by pline

summary: “I’m going insane.”

“Did something happen?”

A dark, bitter laugh bubbles out of Buck – a mockery of joy.

“Everything keeps happening, and it’s still the same fucking day. It’s always the same and every time it’s different and I can’t do anything.”

Or

Buck keeps reliving the same day, over and over again.

personal opinion: oh my GOD oh my god i love time loops. the angst !!! (make sure you read the tags though for tw)

﹂knocking on heaven’s door by MomentsOfWeakness

summary: buck isn’t sure where he is. the last thing he remembers was being out on a call. now he’s here, in a place he has never seen before surrounded by people he doesn't know. it's bright. that's all he can really tell.

based on a tumblr prompt where someone asked for buck and chris both ending up in purgatory at the same time before they ever met in life. buck has a ticket back to the living world but he gives it to chris who is supposed to die. an old man, seeing what buck did for chris, decides to give his own ticket for the living world to buck, because the world needs more people like him.

personal opinion: i included this on an old fic rec post and i’m linking it again because i love it. this is so poetic and lovely.

﹂eddie begins by malmal88

summary: these are words he’s never spoken out loud before. each experience that counts as proof has been folded up and carefully tucked away inside of himself. he spent all the time in between each one of the cornerstone moments trying to prove to himself, to his father, to anyone who was paying attention that it wasn’t true. he was almost successful at it. but there is only so long you can deny who you are.

personal opinion: this is part of a three fic series, and it’s one of my fav eddie centric fics. all three together are a masterpiece.

﹂i’ll see you in my dreams by talk_too_much

summary: in which buck finds himself inexplicably married to his best friend, but it’s fine, he’s figuring it out.

personal opinion: this is part one of a two fic series, definitely read both of them. not much i can say plot wise without spoiling it, but this is a fic that i come back too a lot.

﹂it wasn’t fate that led me to you by theskyisblue

summary: evan buckley was seven years old when his vision for the red string of fate came to life. his mother had talked with him for hours that day, explaining to him what he saw, why he saw what he saw, and how he should never breathe a word to a single soul about what he saw. he was still too young to understand that the red string of fate was more complicated than his seven-year-old mind made it out to be, that love was far more complex than a simple fated partner and a happily ever after.

personal opinion: oh it’s got a Moral at the end, which i like. happy ending, but not in the way you’d think.

﹂carnations by red_to_black

summary: evan buckley has never once been given flowers in his life. that is, until he mentions it in a fit of self-pity at the firehouse. then they're everywhere. what he can't work out is where they're coming from.

(or: buck mentions never getting flowers before, and a certain someone decides to remedy that.)

personal opinion: one of those fics where it’s so cute that i have to set my phone down for a sec and take a few breaths or else i’ll get overwhelmed. love love love.

﹂kiss me like you mean it by HaleyDingle

summary: 5 times eddie kisses buck + 1 time he really kisses him.

personal opinion: i think i’ve reread this like five times at least. very sweet.

﹂stick with you by soft_satan

summary: eddie licked his dry lips as he reached for his radio, trying to keep his movements slow and delicate to prevent any more damage to himself or buck.

“Diaz to Captain Nash.”

“Go for Nash,” came Bobby’s quick reply.

“You two okay? Where are you?”

“We’re in a bit of a sticky situation here…”

“We’re a shish kabob, Cap!” Buck chimed in. Eddie rolled his eyes.

personal opinion: oooh babey the angst. the self sacrificing bullshit. i love it.

﹂to glimpse red by tkreyesevandiaz

summary: red was the color of passion, of seduction, of happiness and prosperity. it was the color of danger, of fire, of violence, of blood. but in this moment, red was the color of pure terror.

personal opinion: oh im a slut for navy seals!buck and this delivers.

﹂the urgency of now by wayfarer

summary: buck is pretty sure the universe is actively trying to murder him at this point. there’s just no other explanation. in the last two years he has been blown up and subsequently crushed by a fire truck, suffered from a pulmonary embolism, nearly drowned in a tsunami and now this. how many times can he almost die before it stops being an accident and starts being some kind of cosmic hit put out on his life?

or, a building collapses on Buck and Eddie. confessions ensue.

personal opinion: i don’t usually cry when i read fics but this made me cry like a little baby.

﹂if i didn’t have you by rebeccaofsbfarm

summary: Eddie groans, but he gets down on his knee, setting their beers on the pavement. He works to unknot the laces, then ties them again. He goes to stand, but Buck stops him with a hand on his shoulder.

“Eddie…” he looks up to see that Buck’s eyes are the size of dinner plates. He leans on his knee, trying to understand why Buck is so flustered, and then he hears the shutter of a camera. In his peripheral, he sees that a crowd has gathered around them, and half of the people have their phones out, recording.

Eddie’s eyes connect with Buck’s, and while he is panicked, Buck is trying so hard not to laugh that there are tears gathering in the corners of his eyes. The crowd must see it and misread it as Buck being overcome with emotion, because they coo in response.

“Fuck,” Eddie curses under his breath, quiet enough that only Buck can hear him. “What do I do here?”

Buck snorts, “Sorry man, I think you’ve got to commit now.”

personal opinion: fuck dating we’re skipping straight to proposals.

﹂waves (it comes and goes) by SunSpell80

summary: evan buckley left his past behind when he left home for good at age 19. but an unexpected phone call on a quiet shift disrupts the life he's built for himself: forcing him to confront his past in order to build a new future.

personal opinion: make sure you read the tws but oooOOh the slowburn ? the family drama ? i live for it

﹂you’re gonna have a great time by waytotheend

summary: chris leaves a list of 20 things buck can do to cheer eddie up while he's at camp; somehow it turns into a 20 steps plan to woo eddie.

personal opinion: ‘i don’t know buck, i’m nine’ sends me every time.

[jungcity]

𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞, 𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐚𝐥. | iii

word count: 7k

“my soul 

chose yours 

and a soul 

doesn't just 

forget that”

— b.m.

“This is absurd!”

There was only one thing you wanted to do tonight; curl in your bed and watch korea dramas until your eyes sore from the radiation. But as you roll the wires of the hair-straightener free, all you could do was sniff the tears that was threatening to spill from your eyes.

Yuqi laughed loudly behind you, helping you unroll the knotted wires of the straightener. “Are you seriously gonna cry right now?” She cackled from seeing your frown that could almost reach your chin.

“I don’t know what’s got to my mind. I am seriously the stupidest person to ever exist in the world!” You screamed.

Yuqi’s laughed went louder while patting your back. “No one told you to grab your boss and introduced him as your boyfriend in front of your ex-boyfriend, sis,” Yuqi said, giving emphasis to the word ‘boyfriend’ before continuing, “… so yes, deal with the consequences.”

While praying for the ground to swallow you whole before you hear the honk of Jaehyun’s car in front of your house, you reminisced the insanity of yesterday.

It was a great sunny day. The weather wasn’t too hot, nor it was too cold. Wildflowers are blooming in the grass, with the wind carrying their petals into the air. You smiled, picking one and continuing your walk towards the bus stop with a flower in your hand.

It had been a month since Yuqi was discharged from the hospital. Her recovery had been incredibly fast. Unfortunately, she needed to drop her entry to the archery team— but the coach told her she could always try-out whenever she regained her full-strength. However, the topic is still on debate inside your home, since you didn’t want to see your sister looking as pale as a ghost on a hospital bed again.

Of course, you did not have any choice— again— but to stay in Jung’s Fiscals. Out of compassion or you-don’t-know-what, Jaehyun did not give you too much headache when it came to filing a loan. You were able to pay for all the hospital bills and other expenses such as medicines because of that.

You realized that this life won’t give you any chances to choose the way you wanted to live it. It had felt as if life itself decides for what was going to happen to you. You shook your head and ran from the negative thoughts. The day is bright and the sun is smiling softly at you, you have no reason to be pessimistic. Especially now that Yuqi is all well and far from danger.

There was only one thing that was persistently nagging on your system. Looking at the view outside while the wheels of the bus rolls down the highway, you think about your dreams. Nothing mysterious has happened after you dreamt about the lake— where you heard Jaehyun’s voice calling for someone named Aurora. You have no inkling about who she might be, or what she is to Jaehyun’s life. But there is a high chance that she is nothing but a part of your imagination. At first, you wanted to ask Jaehyun about the name, but his face welcomed no conversations for things other than business. And it felt absurd to ask him about your dream. He obviously has no responsibility to indulge himself to the visions that you see every time you drift asleep. Besides, you couldn’t risk him calling you delusional nor weird.

However, it’s been a month since you last had a peculiar dream. After the lake, all you dreamt about were shallow visions which you easily forgot the next day. It made everything more sinister, for you still remember every detail of the dream you had about Jaehyun. Before you lose your mind from too much thinking, the bus halted in front of Jung’s Fiscals. You gathered your things and departed the vehicle.

Surprisingly, the inside of the lounge gave off a warm atmosphere, so unusual from its grim and quiet surroundings the whole two months you have been working there. You supposed it was your mood that was taking in the bright sides; of the smiles and greetings you were too occupied to notice because you have always struggled every day to please your boss.

Soojin was on her usual place in the front desk, giving you a wave before continuing on her work.

Jung Jaehyun arrived thirty-minutes after you. As usual, he didn’t spare you a glance when you greeted him. It was not like you were expecting him to. Slowly, in the past eight weeks of working for him, you have already got a hold of his frowning, shouting, and disappointed looks. It almost felt like he doesn’t get into your nerves anymore. But sometimes, he still does. Especially right now.

“Where the fuck did you get this coffee?” He scanned the mug in his hand. You narrowed your brows at him. Surely, there wasn’t anything wrong about its taste. You have tasted the coffee for five times, resulting to five spoons waiting for you in the sink. The same taste still lingering in your mouth.

“Sir?”

“Nevermind. Book me a flight to London, send flowers to Johnny Seo— the dick’s giving me too much shit for not going to his gallery’s opening yesterday,” he said the last sentence to himself, clearly frustrated of his friend bumming him out. You quickly typed the important words into your mobile phone, careful not to misspell nor mistyped anything.

Johnny Seo owned a gallery fifteen-minutes away from Jung’s Fiscals. You knew about it when Mr. Seo visited Jaehyun to force him to go. He is a man of a great posture; tall height with lean muscles. Based from your first impression, he is the friendly-type of guy. He even invited you himself when you brought them drinks.

“And—” he paused. You looked at him, anticipating for his next command. Two minutes, of him looking at nowhere and two minutes of you waiting for his mouth to say something. He was completely speechless in his seat, his mouth a thin line and his eyes emotionless.

“Sir?” You decided to break the silence. Albeit not looking at you, his mouth said the order.

“And… make sure the painting from France will be delivered straight in my house tomorrow.”

You jotted the details of the parcel, and mentally reminded yourself to contact the delivery company for Jaehyun’s orders. When you returned to your table, you transferred the notes into the tab that was provided for you. You were halfway into the notes when you received a text from Soojin.

Yuta’s visiting TODAY! Make sure to look your best, bih! 😉

You emitted a silent gasp. Yuta’s arrival wasn’t on your to-do-list for today, and you have no plans to meet him. Soojin hadn’t given you any hint about his arrival, obviously planning to surprise you with the presence of your ex-boyfriend. And she succeeded. Darn it.

You frustratedly typed in the address of Jaehyun’s house into the mail that you created. Shutting your eyes and taking a deep breath, you think about all the possibilities of what could happen later. Soojin’s surely going to give you hell if you stand her up. And you won’t give Yuta the satisfaction of thinking that you still haven’t moved on from your feelings for him. You weren’t trying to be ‘bitter’, you just have no tolerance for cheaters. But for the sake of the friendship that is entwining the three of you, you will go.

Lunch time approached in a dashing speed. For the first time in your whole life, you dreaded the time of eating. There was a pit resting in your stomach by thinking about Yuta. Sure, there is a small part of you that wonders about his whereabouts now, but that curiosity isn’t enough to relive the friendship you once had.

The elevator door tinged, and a smiling Soojin came out. You grunted— there was no running from it now.

“What’s that face, Y/N?” she cooed before sitting on the chair in front of your table. You rolled your eyes at her, showing that you have no time for her teasing.

“C’mon! It’s been years, babe. Don’t tell me you still haven’t moved on?” Soojin raised her perfect brows at you. You threw a crumpled paper her way, earning a loud laugh from her. But it quickly receded as she realized that she was in the same floor as Jung Jaehyun.

“Of course I have moved on! But this meet up, it doesn’t sit well with me. And I don’t understand why are you so eager to see him, not like you didn’t slap him across the cheek when I told you he’s cheating on me,” you reminded her. She, indeed, slapped Yuta before that you feared his teeth would fall off from his gums.

“Like I said, it’s been years. Aren’t you excited to see our old friend?”

No. Yes. Maybe.

“Whatever, Soo. Where is he now?”

At your question, Soojin’s phone buzzed on the table. She mouthed ‘Yuta’ before sliding the green button. “Oh! Nakamoto! Yes, yes. Oooooh! I see that you’re a rich man now! Okay, I’m with Y/N now.” You winced at your name being said to Yuta. “Yes! Okay, okay. Got it!” Then she finished the call with a playful grin plastered on her face.

“He’s already here. And he’s gonna treat us to the nearest restaurant, c’mon!” Soojin dragged you to the elevator, chanting stories after stories as you both walked into the lounge and into the restaurant five-minutes away from Jung’s Fiscals.

Your heart was hammering against your chest as Soojin led you inside. As you passed the door, Soojin sharply turned on you— suddenly fixing your hair like you’re her doll.

“Alright! Let him regret letting you go.” She grinned. You were about to tell her that it’s you who practically let go of Yuta because of his cheating ass when a tall man stood in front of you.

“Yuta Nakamoto!” Soojin squealed, boxing him into a tight hug.

Yuta laughed in her shoulders but his eyes were directly looking at you. You tried to be polite and stretched your lips into a thin smile.

He looks more matured now. He does not look like the playful Yuta with studs almost covering the skin of his ear anymore, but a man who knows what he wants in life. His hair— tied in a neat man bun— is still the white that you remember. Maybe he continued to dye it that way, you will never know. When they pulled away from each other, Yuta spread his arms at you. You reluctantly spread yours and gave him a hug too.

The three of you settled in a four-seater table in the corner of the restaurant near the entrance. Yuta tried to sit beside you but Soojin pulled him beside her and into the seats in front, leaving you sitting alone opposite from them.

“Oh, I need to go to the bathroom,” Soojin said. You widened your eyes at her and she repeated the same expression while gathering her purse. You mouthed the words I’ll kill you before she disappeared from your sight.

You tried your best to ignore Yuta’s furtive glances by skimming the menu. But it was clear by the atmosphere that his tongue was going to say something soon. And he did.

“You looked good, Y/N.” He smiled at you. You chuckled at him, trying your best to sound natural. Once, those smiles were enough to let the butterflies in your stomach stir.

“Yeah, you too.”

He licked his lips, placing the menu on the table and suddenly grabbing your hands. You were too shocked to withdraw, so you let him hold it while looking straight at your eyes.

“Y/N, I know… I know I fucked up. I’m not gonna deny that. But I just wanna say sorry, for the pain that I’d caused you. And I…” He breathed before continuing, “… I came back for you. I… fuck— I still love you.”

You blinked at him, mouth going dry because of his apologies and revelations. Yuta’s eyes were glimmering with something that you could only identify as hope. But his statement didn’t even reach your heart.

It’s not even ten-minutes of you reuniting together. Heck, your butt doesn’t even feel warm in your seat yet. But here he was, ruining everything. However, even after his fucked up declaration, you still tried to gather yourself and remain composed in front of him.

“Don’t fool around Yu—”

He interrupted you by tightening his hold of your hand. “Just give me a chance. I’m a change man now, Y/N.”

Where on earth is Soojin?

“Yuta that is not the problem—”

“Please, Y/N?”

You sighed. This is what you have been telling Soojin all along the way, but she didn’t listen.

“Yuta, I don’t know about that.” You tried to meet his gaze, just so he could see that you were on your edge.

“Why? Soojin told me you’re single. Do you have anyone in your life right now?” He pleaded. You are so going to kill Soojin. You inhaled deep breaths, shutting your eyes. When you opened them, someone caught your attention.

He entered the restaurant like it was his own; with his expensive suit shouting the authority in his every step. His hands on both of his pockets— his eyes coldly scanning the crowd. A faint scowl deepened on his lips as his line of sight slid on to you, sitting and staring at him.

I’m not doing it. You told your brain, but your body seemed to disagree. For you sauntered up to Jung Jaehyun and linked your arms with his. His eyebrows creased, but you smiled widely at him, forcing him to walk to your table.

Stop, Y/N. You still have the chance to save your job and put an end to this nonsense. If your brain could scream, it probably would. But your lips seemed to have a life on its own when it said, “Yuta, this is my boyfriend Jung Jaehyun.” You turned your head from Yuta to your boss. “This is Yuta, my old friend.”

Your smile could reach your ears now, silently praying that your boss would go along this madness. Jaehyun smiled back at you— but you were sane enough to sense the danger between those pearlescent white teeth.

“Let’s sit.” You offered. He was now sitting face to face with Yuta. If your ex-boyfriend was devastated by your announcement, he showed no sign of it for he stretched his arms towards Jaehyun.

“Yuta Nakamoto,” he introduced himself, smiling. Jaehyun stared at his hand for almost a minute. Sweats started to form in your forehead but you let out a sigh when he finally took Yuta’s hand and shook it lightly.

“Jung Jaehyun,” he said. His face had an amused expression as he stared at Yuta, who is now scanning the menu.

“Damn it! I think my stomach’s—” Soojin stopped dead on her tracks, her eyes widening at the sight of her boss sitting beside you. You smiled at her, far too wide to be called natural. But she only widened her eyes.

“Oh, you’re back,” Yuta chimed. He stood up to let Soojin sit on her chair.

“We have Y/N’s boyfriend joining us,” Yuta declared. Soojin almost lost her balance.

“B-boyfriend?” She frantically exchange glances between you and Jaehyun. You swear you were going to collapse soon. But Soojin’s surprised reaction slowly receded to that of an understanding one.

“Oh yes! Ha-ha! Jung Jaehyun, right?! Long time no see!” Soojin even reached for Jaehyun’s shoulder and tapped it lightly. What the fuck? You almost wanted to scream at her, grabbing her hands away from Jaehyun. He looked at his shoulder, to the spot where Soojin touched him and you swear both of you would be dead meat later.

Your orders came— stopping Jaehyun from his quest to burn Soojin with his eyes— and the four of you shared a deafening silence with only the clanking utensils providing the sound.

“So, what do you do these days Jung Jaehyun?” Yuta decided to ask.

You glanced at Soojin, who choke on her food. She looked at you with after-this-we-are-fucking-dead eyes.

Jaehyun was silent for a moment, and you thought he was never going to answer when he wiped his mouth with a dabbing manner and said, “CEO of the building five-minutes away from here.” Then he added, “You?”

Well, that was unexpected.

“That’s cool. I am an actor and a musician in Japan,” Yuta said before biting his food.

You swear you almost heard Jaehyun scoffed, which made your head turn to him so sudden you thought your neck would snap.

“Actor, huh? Suits you.”

They refused to look at each other as they talk. You felt the tension rising up by Jaehyun’s last statement, for Yuta stopped on his chewing. Soojin kicked your shin below the table. She, too, felt the atmosphere as it thickens.

You cleared your throat before Yuta could retaliate. “The salad is good! Try it guys!”

Soojin seconded your motion. The two men snapped their heads to each of your direction.

“Try it, Jae.” The nickname tasted bitter in your mouth. You have witnessed as the same bitterness transferred to your boss’ expression.

“Thanks, chérie.”

There. That pet name again. You tried so hard not to let them notice the tremble of your hand as you leaned a little closer to Jaehyun to put salad on his own plate.

“Are you free this night?” Yuta suddenly voiced, glancing in each of you surrounding him. “Let’s go clubbing tonight. The drink’s on me.” He winked at Soojin, who excitedly shifted on her seat.

You gave Jaehyun a sideway glance, but you couldn’t make up his expression for he was drinking a glass of water. You nudged Soojin below the table. She only widened her eyes at you.

If there was one thing the both of you haven’t done together in a while, it is clubbing. You were absolutely sure that she was not going to bail on Yuta in this adventure.

“That sounds exciting!” Soojin cheered, clapping her hands together.

Yuta looked at you. “How about you, Y/N?”

“I don’t think—”

“We’re going,” Jaehyun declared.

And that is why you are wearing something out of your comfort zone tonight, with your sister straightening your hair.

“Tell me what happened after lunch,” Yuqi teased. You rolled your eyes but told her the story nevertheless.

Soojin couldn’t stop bowing in front of Jaehyun when the three of you returned to the building you thought she was going to cry. Jaehyun only waved her off without saying anything. Then she dashed to the front desk, throwing an apologetic look your way.

The ride inside the elevator was harrowing. Jaehyun’s arms were crossed against his chest, with you fidgeting beside him.

“I’m sorry,” you quietly voiced.

Avoiding both your reflections on the silvery façade of the elevator, you decided to look down at your shoes instead. He didn’t say anything, but you seriously need to make sure that he was not going to fire you.

“You don’t need to go tonight. I know you’re a busy person. And I’m really, really sorry for dragging you into this—”

“You talk too much.” He shifted to face you. Suddenly, you felt the atmosphere warming up inside the elevator.

A finger touched your chin. Then you felt your face as it slowly lifted to meet Jaehyun. You could swim into the depths of his eyes but you were afraid to drown. How could someone be as beautiful as him? You couldn’t believe someone’s face could be as flawless as his; with his perfect brows, to his nose, and to his lips. His skin bore no scar— only perfection.

“See you later,” he breathed. Only then you realized that your faces were utterly so close your lips could almost touch.

“You can stop drooling now,” he said, walking away from you. Your hand flew in your mouth, checking if you were indeed drooling. Shutting your eyes of frustration as you didn’t feel any liquid beside your lips.

But of course, you hide that information from Yuqi.

“Wow! You looked pretty!” She cheered while looking at your reflection in the mirror. Your frown never ceased. It only deepened when you heard the loud honk of a car outside.

“Oh! The CEO is here!” Yuqi singsonged, tickling your sides. You slapped her hands away before walking outside to meet Jaehyun.

Your breath caught in your throat as you see him leaning on his car wearing a casual outfit; white shirt paired with black pants. To be honest, you’d thought he was going to the club with his usual suit and black shoes. He looked much younger in his clothes now, fresher even. The tight atmosphere surrounding him seems to vanish.

You pinched your skin, diving back into reality.

“Yuqi, please take care. Call me if you need anything!” you told your sister, a silent warning exuding from your mouth. She nodded like a puppy while hugging the door frame, trying to get a glimpse of Jaehyun amidst the thick bushes of plants covering the gates.

“I’ll go now.” You shook your head. Yuqi waved you off with a flying kiss.

Jaehyun took a last sip of his blunt before tossing it into the nearest trashcan and walking around his car, not even bothering to open the door for you. You rolled your eyes and pulled the car door open for yourself.

Cigarettes After Sex is blasting through the speakers as you slump into the bullet seat. You have never imagined Jaehyun listening to music, but you guess you really can’t judge a book by its cover. And you enjoy a good music once you heard one, so the ride to the bar weren’t as horrible as you’d expected it would be.

No words were spoken the whole ride, not even when you entered the establishment. Booming electro-pop sounds filled the whole place, making your heart jump together with the speakers. You adjusted your eyes against the LED lights, trying to search the crowd for Soojin and Yuta. Jaehyun is on his way to the counter, leaving you to search alone.

A girl waved at you from the mezzanine floor of the bar. You squinted your eyes to see her face. It was Soojin. You waved back and motioned your hands to where Jaehyun was sitting, taking a shot of tequila.

“Sir—uhm— Jae, found them.”

You bit your tongue of the informality that rolled from it. That is one of the things you were not sure of tonight— formalities. And you have no idea how Jaehyun would have reacted to you calling him by his name, maybe he would really terminate you after this night. He threw you a sideway glance, one brow rising with a shot glass kissing his mouth. You quickly turned your back on him and started walking to where Soojin was.

Oh, what dread greeted you once you have reached their location. Both Yuta and Soojin were sitting on the red sofa— and because they preferred the furthermost seats, all that was left was a one-seater plush sofa. You felt Jaehyun’s presence behind you. He, himself, halted on his tracks as he noticed the only remaining seat. Both of your friends scanned the surroundings, with Soojin ploddingly covering her mouth— slowly realizing the predicament you were into.

Despite the nervousness already coating your body, you tried your best to stay calm. But Jaehyun doesn’t seem to share the same calming technique as you, for he walked to the one-seater, sat on it, looked at you, then tapped his lap.

“Here, babe.”

Babe? What on earth? You widened your eyes at him, hoping that he could see the warning against the pulsing lights around you. His lips turned into a coy smile, showing you that he was enjoying himself right now. Of course, Jaehyun would take every chance to settle your hash. You should have known better.

“There’s no more seat left but here on my lap,” he added.

You saw in your peripheral how Soojin choked on her own saliva. You swear you’d kill Jaehyun once this is all over. You really would, and probably he would do the same to you. Tightening your hands on your purse, you whispered a silent prayer  to the saints who might be watching and listening to you now, then trudged the distance between you and Jaehyun with a heavy heart.

“You can sit here, Y/N. I’ll fetch my own,” Yuta interrupted before you could sit on Jaehyun’s lap. He was smiling while tapping his seat between Jaehyun and Soojin. You glanced at Jaehyun. He had that impish look on him as he stared at Yuta; like he was a toy he wanted to play.

“Y/N, what are you still doing standing there?” Soojin waved her hands, encouraging you to snap out of your reverie and finally sit beside her.

You sat uncomfortably in the plush sofa, glancing at Jaehyun every now and then. There was boredom in his eyes as he looked at the surroundings— of dancing bodies and couples making out in the corner.

“Is he okay?” Soojin whispered. You looked at her and shrugged. Since you have never seen Jaehyun inside a bar before, you really couldn’t tell whether he was fascinated or stultified by the happenings around him. Either way, you ignored him and started drinking when Yuta came back, with a waiter carrying a seat for him.

Soojin leaned onto you again. “Let’s have some fun and leave the boys to have their manly talk.”

You answered her with a stupefied look. But she already got her arms linked to yours, pulling you up from your seat.

“It’s time for us to have some girls’ night, so I hope you both won’t mind!” Soojin flashed the two men her white and perfect teeth.

Yuta glanced at Jaehyun, and then back to Soojin. “Enjoy yourselves while the night is still young.” He smiled.

Soojin suddenly slapped his arms. “You sound like an old man!”

Then she pulled you down the stairs and into the throng of dancing bodies. Soojin screamed before diving into the crowd, pulling you with her. The both of you started to dance, leaving both Yuta and Jaehyun behind.

—

Jaehyun stared at the crowd, his eyes fixated on you. He regretted going to this awful place the moment he stepped in and heard the blasting music, but maybe his night wouldn’t be a waste if he kept on watching you losing your shit into the music.

He took another shot of the liquor, wincing for it didn’t even make his throat tighten. The boy in front of him making everything worth wincing for.

Yuta took a swig from his own bottle, gulping down almost half of its content before looking at you again. The way that he tried to worship you with only his eyes made something inside Jaehyun ticked. Nothing would happen if he won’t break the ice. Taking another shot from his glass, he decided to worsen the tensed atmosphere coaxing their surroundings.

“You’re not human.”

Yuta gave him a sideway glance. “Yeah?”

“Yeah? I can smell your fae shit from a mile so you better cut the bullshit and reveal yourself to me now.”

Yuta seemed taken aback by his words. And that was when Jaehyun knew he already caught the bird. “Are you on drugs? Listen man, I don’t know what’re you talking about,” Yuta said, looking for you in the crowd.

Jaehyun leaned closer— eyes as cold as a dead corpse as he pinned down Yuta with a stare. “You do know what I’m talking about. And I know what you are. But you, you don’t know what I am.”

Jaehyun does not miss anything. Not even the slightest twitch of Yuta’s jaw by his last sentence. He doesn’t know how this fae in front of him hides his pointed ears and he does not give a fuck. But he couldn’t let Yuta sit there and not know that he was in the presence of The Fallen, and that someone more powerful than him could sense behind his glamour.

Yuta have him a calculating look then, the fae senses of him piercing through Jaehyun’s soul. Yet he couldn’t seem to figure out what creature Jaehyun truly is. He was devoid of anything human and monstrous— not a vampire nor a lycanthrope, certainly not a warlock— that much was for sure. In the depths of Yuta’s sleuthing, he found something immaculate, hateful, and eternal. And those feelings only belonged to someone who is older than the world itself— of a creature once descended into heaven, standing beside the Almighty Himself.

“Lucifer?” Yuta whispered incredulously.

Jaehyun continued staring at Yuta until the latter shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “I see that you’re not as dumb as I’ve expected.”

The fae accepted Jaehyun’s taunting— not that he could do anything other than that in the presence of Lucifer. He should have sensed it earlier, when they ate together. But he was so enraptured by meeting you again he did not had any time to sense that something was amiss.

Giggling, both you and Soojin made your way back to Jaehyun and Yuta. Soojin was the first one to sit back on her place beside the latter. While you slowed your steps, drinking in the intense atmosphere between the two men. What happened?

Soojin was laughing merrily as she told Yuta stories about your little adventure in the dance floor. You giggled with her but before you could take another step, Soojin’s feet suddenly blocked the way, making you trip on your toes. A loud gasp escaped your lips before you closed your eyes and waited for the drop to happen. But a pair of strong hands caught your arms— balancing you. Your nose bumped against hard muscles. When you looked up, you saw Jaehyun gazing down at you.

The world suddenly stopped along with your body. You stared at his eyes, heart beating loudly against your chest. His face, mere inches away from you that you could feel his breath fanning your cheeks. Just like in your dreams— when he guided you towards the center of the hall to dance with him.

To hell with the rules, to hell with the barriers separating you and Jaehyun— for the first time in your whole life, you have never wanted to kiss someone as you do right now. It wouldn’t hurt to let those lips touch yours, right? You closed your eyes, slowly tipping your toes to reach those invitingly red lips when a pair of strong arms grabbed you away from Jaehyun.

It happened so fast. You slammed into someone’s chest yet again. You opened your eyes to see Yuta looking at Jaehyun with enough fire to burn the whole building, arms wrapped protectively around your shoulders.

“What the hell, Yuta?!” you screamed and tried to wiggle yourself free. But he only tightened his hands on your shoulders, causing you to wince. Soojin was stoned in her seat, with her fingers wrapped around the glass of vodka. The people around you started to watch the scene unfolding before their eyes with excitement which annoyed you.

“Enough of this game, Y/N.” His tone was serious, and his eyes never left Jaehyun.

Jaehyun worked his jaw. “Let her go.”

Yuta tensed but he didn’t stir. Which you think amused Jaehyun even more.

“I don’t take orders from you,” Yuta spat.

Jaehyun raised his brow, a smirk playing on his lips. His eyes bearing a darkness you have never seen before. A darkness that could summon lightning and storm or break the ground open. It sent chills down your spine. He does not look human at all.

He walked languidly towards Yuta, and only when they stood face to face did Jaehyun let himself talk.

“You dare defy me?”

Every words was slow— like he was tasting the dominance dripping from his mouth. Yuta’s grip on you slackened. Before you knew it, his fist already collided against Jaehyun’s jaw. You gasped along with the people watching on the sidelines. Bouncers ran to where you were located and tried to get a hold of the two men. Jaehyun jerked away from their hold before wiping the blood off the side of his lips.

Soojin was quick to wrapped her arms around you, but Jaehyun grabbed your arms again. The both of you walked towards the exit with you barely catching up on his long strides. He pushed the button on his keys, and his car made a sound.

Jaehyun opened the door for the bullet seat. “Get in,” he commanded.

“No.”

By your answer, he stood there, staring at you. The intensity in his eyes made your heart skip a beat, but you stood your ground. What the hell happened inside the bar? To him and Yuta? And where would he bring you? You have enough questions in your mind not to go with him now.

“Get. In.” He insisted, every word laced with authority.

“Make m—”

“Trust me, chérie. You wouldn’t want to finish that sentence,” he interrupted.

You shut your mouth, blinking. Jaehyun raised his brow, motioning you to get in his car. Sighing, you lazily sat on the bullet seat. Complete silence enveloped you as there was no music playing to carry the uneasiness away. You glanced at Jaehyun every now and then, and every time you do, he was checking on the split on his lips.

Albeit not knowing the true reasons of Yuta’s rage, guilt still rests in the pit of your stomach. You have also known Yuta as a troublemaker when you were still in college. Trouble has its way to cling onto him, and you always find him brawling with another student in the fields of the school every now and then. It is a surprised that he graduated on time despite his records. And now that you think of it, you guess old habits really die hard.

Jaehyun stopped in front of your small apartment. Both of you never said anything as you opened the door and made your way out of his car. But you held on to the door, not letting it close behind you.

You bit your lips, turning to face him, “Let me at least tend to your wound.”

“There’s no need.” Jaehyun tightened his grip on the steering wheel.

“Please.”

You were surprised to see him open the door beside him and depart his car. Maybe you have never expected him to oblige that easily. He followed you inside the apartment and into the living room. At first, he was reluctant to sit on the sofa.

“You can sit, Sir. We clean the house every day.” You rolled your eyes. Rich people are annoying.

Quickly, you knocked onto Yuqi’s door. When she didn’t answer, you gathered the first aid kit at the drawers located in the kitchen, then poured some water to the glass and served it to him.

You sat beside your boss, then you started pouring alcohol to the cotton balls and started dabbing it on his split lips.

His eyes bore into your face, making you uncomfortable. The redolence of tequila mixed with mint wafted your nose as he spoke, “You should be careful around that boy.”

“You can’t give me orders outside work, Sir.” You exerted a bit force in dabbing the cotton ball, but he didn’t even wince.

“I absolutely could, chérie.”

You snapped, “Stop calling me ‘chérie’.”

“Why? Because it makes you nervous?” He held your wrist, pinning you with his gaze. He was right. It does makes you nervous, but you would never let him see that.

“Ha! Of course not!” You scoffed.

You tried to free yourself from his grasp, but he only tightened his grip. It feels like déjà vu. But unlike the other time, there was no buzzing of phones and dreadful news to stop what was bound to happen.

Before you could even blink, Jaehyun’s lips crashed into yours. Shocking waves of electricity traveled your body. Tickles ran down your head to your toes. His lips moved, and you melted with the feeling that you moved your lips too. It felt like a spark, a slight push to drive Jaehyun mad— for he deepened the kiss, hunger and intensity mixing with it. The cotton ball fell into the ground, along with all your senses. Every ravenous kiss you answered with the same fierceness. You bit each other’s lips, tongues colliding inside your mouths—

Jaehyun immediately pulled away, with a curse escaping his mouth. You blinked at him. The kiss you shared leaving a blackhole into your system.

“Fuck.” He stood up, pacing back and forth. Then he picked up his keys and walked away.

The wheels of his car screeched against the asphalt road. You let him go, because what else could you possibly do?

—

The sound of heels colliding with the floor filled the whole of Jaehyun’s penthouse. He never needed to turn to see who had arrived.

“My prince.” The woman said mockingly.

Jaehyun scoffed, “Chaelin.”

The woman poured liquor to the spare glass lying on the table, then she joined Jaehyun in watching the cars and streetlights below the silence of the city.

“The newborns has been taken care of,” she started.

“Good.”

“Good? You didn’t even bother to visit, knowing that Taeyong is out of the country doing God-knows-what.”

Jaehyun chuckled and gave Chaelin a glance. “What did he say?”

The woman lifted her middle finger. “This.”

He ignored the vulgar gesture and walked straight to where the liquor was located, turning his back again to the woman. “Taeyong isn’t a vampire Primus for nothing. And those newborns are the result of their wanting to spread out their dying legacy,” Jaehyun stated.

“And they are doing an absolute great job on it,” Chaelin added.

Taeyong has been recruiting humans to join his clan of vampires for hundreds of years now. His newborns are usually those who became too tired to be normal. And no, he does not force and bend their necks to sip their blood. Taeyong has a peculiar sense of doing everything in order, so he made a document to be signed by the humans who wanted to be vampire before they go through the process. It’s not a secret that newborn vampires are the wildest breed of netherworlders, so Taeyong made bars that would keep them until it’s safe enough to let them roam around.

His vampires does not harm humans. No one would dare. For he vowed to chop their heads off himself if they dare lay a hand on a person. So they mostly feed from animals. But a dent was made by his newborns when Taeyong flew out of the country to attend whatever bullshit that needed his presence. His newborns almost killed a man, sending Chaelin to fix the mess until their Primus arrived to kill them.

That was the same argument Chaelin and Jaehyun talked about two months ago, the one he suspected you heard.

“By the way, did you give the ointment to the girl?” Chaelin asked, crossing her legs into the futon.

“Doyoung gave me too much shit when I asked him for that. He even forced me to pay five aurum for it. Five. Aurum.” Chaelin emphasized.

Aurum is the money netherworlders used as their currency— the Latin term for gold. And netherworlders refers to vampires, warlocks, lycanthropes and such.

The aurum has the same color as gold and it’s similar to coins, with a circle embossed on it. One aurum is enough to buy (not rent) a small apartment if used in the human world. It’s not a surprised Chaelin has gone a little bonkers to the payment Doyoung insisted her to pay.

Doyoung is a warlock, residing in the forest. He actually owned a mansion in the middle of the forest, and that is where he often does magic. And Chaelin deserved an applause for traveling there alone.

“You went alone?” Jaehyun asked.

Chaelin checked her long nails. “Of course not. I brought Jeno with me. I know it would please Doyoung to see his favorite pup.”

“But Jeno won’t be pleased if he heard you calling him pup. He could be the next alpha.”

“Jeno isn’t as easily insulted as you, Jaehyun. And you can’t talk about that while Johnny is still alive and leading the pack.” The woman rolled her eyes.

“Whatever, Lilith.”

“It’s Chaelin now.”

“Why? Does it hurt to remember how the Almighty banished you from Eden and literally replaced you with a girl named Eve?”

“Watch it, Lucifer.” Chaelin’s warning earned a chuckle from Jaehyun. “As far as I know, we were both banished.” There was enough venom in her tone that made Jaehyun halt, suddenly remembering the glory he once had.

“And you must know that I don’t bow to the wants of a patriarch,” she added.

“It’s what the Almighty wished you to do, promising to forgive and make a place in heaven for you if you oblige.”

That was true. The Almighty will forgive Chaelin and lift her punishment once she agreed to be loyal and faithful to Adam. But she refused, over and over again. She was lucky, Jaehyun thought, for the Almighty still wanted her in heaven. Unlike him, who He banished beyond redemption.

Chaelin stood up and made her way to the door. She veered the door open before saying, “I don’t want to redeem myself. He could punish me all over again. But I, I won’t falter. For my pride is higher than the heaven, itself.”

Jaehyun shook his head. But he completely understands the woman. He sat on one of the stools in the kitchen counter, breathing in the silence once again.

“Chaelin,” he called out. The woman turned on her heels to hear what he was about to say.

“There’s a fae bastard roaming around. Make sure he’s taken care of.”

He doesn’t need to turn sideways to see the silent nod the woman made. Then the door clicked close.

Chaelin and him— two creatures molded from the same clay. She was casted out of Eden, and him out of heaven. But unlike when Jaehyun was exiled from heaven— all bloodied and bruised— Chaelin had a triumphant smile in her when she walked out of the paradise and into freedom. Chaelin wasn’t even as powerful as Jaehyun, but she was way more happier.

Into the dead of the night, with only the moonlight slipping into the floor-to-ceiling glass of Jaehyun’s penthouse, he thought about you. About the kiss you shared.

It was foolish of him to let the wanting overcome his senses. But the curve and plumpness of your lips made it hard to hang on to his principles. And before he knew what he was doing, he’s already cupping your cheeks, kissing you with a hunger he didn’t know lay quiet inside him. Yes, he’s kissed and bedded women after all those years of loneliness because of Aurora’s death, but he never once felt something as he did when your lips collided with his. He kissed and kissed you, and for the first time, Aurora’s face flashed in his mind. It should bother him, but no matter what he tells himself, kissing you didn’t feel like cheating. Despite all of it, he still wanted to get rid of your taste in his mouth. So he grabbed his phone inside his pocket and dialed a number.

“Get that pretty ass on here, Mina.”

—

[twilightofthe]

Chapter Eleven liveblog of The Mandalorian Season 2!  Let’s go!!!

Yeet water episode

Ok random planet, I’m assuming this is planet whatsit where Din’s supposed to be Space Ubering Frog Lady and her (remaining lol) eggs to

Oh yeah shit Shelob really busted up the Razor Crest last time

Awww everyone sleeby and lol Mama’s keepin’ a good watch over her eggs this time

OH MY GOD YODITO I WOULD DIE FOR YOU

“Dank Ferrik” as a swear word again, huh, I’ll note that

Surprise surprise once again they gotta crash land because this is Star Wars and ships never work right

Lol this Mon Calamari dude is just like “......well then”

Bro ur gonna break those eggs

WHY ISN’T THE BABY BUCKLED INTO HIS SEAT EXCUSE ME

Pffffff another happy landing

AHAHA I’M THE MON CALAMARI

Ohoooo, The Heiress, eh?

Din Frog Lady is NOT gonna give you those five stars on Yelp for this ride

ALSKDJFLKSDK WE CAN’T GET THROUGH ONE EP WITHOUT SOMEONE REMINDING HIS SHIP IS A PIECE OF SHIT 90′S HONDA CIVIC

Awwwww yay Frog Lady’s found her husband!!!!

I’m gonna cry why the hell are they so cute

Also my hat goes off to the effects/costuming department those costumes are amazing

DIN YOU MUST FEED YOUR CHILD MORE REGULARLY

Oh I guess Frog Man is gonna give Din the Yelp review instead xD

Damn so he actually does know where some other Mandos are

Ah and there’s Whatsherface the other pro fighter turned actress on this show, why the fuck can’t I remember her name

Oop Din saw her

I always forget what the squid faced aliens are 

“My friend” BRO THAT’S YOUR SON

Aw yay goop for the babby!!!!

I’m guessing Calamari’s contact is gonna be Fighter Lady lol

OH NO BABY’S SOUP IS TRYNA EAT HIM

BAHAHAHA AND DIN GIVES EXACTLY ZERO FUCKS

Hmm yeah so I recognize Squid Face’s voice

I think this is the first big boat on water scene we’ve actually had in Star Wars, the brief bit in TROS excluded

Ohhhhh they’re called Quarren

Aw Quarren’s tryna be friendly to Yodito (or he could actually be sketchy let’s be cautious)

BITCH ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS HE JUST FED THE BABY TO A FUCKING SEA MONSTER

AND NOW THEY’RE AFTER DIN BECAUSE OF THE FUCKING ARMOR JESUS FUCKING CHRIST

WHERE IS THE BABY I DO NOT SEE THE BABY Y’ALL WHERE IS MY FUCKING SON I DO NOT SEE THE BABY

HOLY SHIIIIIIIIT

HOLY SHIT NO WAY

NO WAY

SHIT

THAT’S BO KATAN

FUCKING BO KATAN

THAT’S HER

OH MY GOD

OKAY CHILL CHILL CHILL CHILL

NEVERMIND AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH

OK BUT THAT HAS TO BE HER THAT’S HER ARMOR AND VOICE????????

THAT IS TEN THOUSAND PERCENT HER MASK

AND WHO ARE HER FRIENDS

HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT

YES Y’ALL GET THE FUCKING BABY BACK

DIN’S VOICE IS CRACKING POOR PAPA I LOVE HIM SO MUCH 

“BROTHER” OK BO WHAT THE FUCK YOU HAVE EXPLAINING TO DO

Y’ALL I’M STILL REALLY FUCKING EXCITED SHE WAS LIKE THE ONE RETURNING CHARACTER I ACTUALLY WANTED

OK HOW IS MY SON HOW IS MY SON MY POOR BABY

OH MY GOD HE’S OKAY

THANK GOD 

THANK GOD

Bo how the fuck have you not aged

Oh whooooops yep I forgot Din’s an Orthodox Mando

“Child of the Watch” ohhhh????

RELGIOUS ZEALOTS OHHHH??????

I just fucking realized they STILL fucking gave Bo her boob armor I hate this with the passion of a thousand suns HELLO WHY?

Aaaaand Din doesn’t wanna listen ok

Oh boy this guy’s gonna be trouble

Oh no there’s a lot of them

THAT IS HIS SON Y’ALL SERIOUSLY

Ohhhh so we’re finally taking credit for when someone’s death is our fault, are we now Bo? (:

Gah sorry Katee but your wig ain’t that good

HOW DID THE OLD REBELLION FAIL

BITCH HOW DID YOU LOSE THE DARKSABER

“A new Mand’alor on the throne” uh sorry but I hope you don’t mean you Bo cuz uhhhhh

WAIT A FUCKING SECOND HOW DID DIN KNOW THE JEDI’S NAME I’M--???

OHHHHH “WHAT DO YOU KNOW OF THE JEDI?”

Lol so are we gonna get an Obi Wan explanation, an Ahsoka explanation, an Ezra explanation, or is Bo gonna mention Luke?

Aaaaand she’s gonna lead him to Ahsoka fucking great

(lol I’m sorry y’all I’ve already talked about how I don’t want Ahsoka showing up in the show haha)

Oh so we’re really getting like really no explanation as to how the fuck Bo lost Mandalore again

Ok heist time?

They better explain some of why Bo’s doing what she’s doing now and yes I know it’s been like ten minutes but I’m still impatient

DIN NOOOOOOO YOUR SON WILL EAT THEIR CHILDREN 

But I’m still crying Din is so okay with babysitters now I’m--

Wait wait wait why are these guys still well dressed and supplied Imperials?  Lol I’m so lost

Ok damn fine Bo’s cool I’ll admit that she’s always been cool

Walk walk murder baby

And the Imps are tryna blast off again ok

Return of the music bombs!!!!!

Bro they’re gonna kill u

AKLSDJFLKSK THEY FUCKING SPACED THEM I LOVE IT

Ok I really wanna know why Bo’s a pirate

bitch shut up about ruling Mandalore I love you and all but you are SO FUCKING BAD AT IT

YOU’VE LOST THE WHOLE DAMN PLANET TWICE

YOU ARE NOT GETTING THE DARKSABER BACK

WHY IS AHSOKA HELPING YOU AGAIN HOLY SHIT

Ooop there’s Gideon, hello Giancarlo!!!!!!  I really love his villain theme

Oh damn they’re gonna just suicide-- yep they sure are

Aaaaand Din’s being a damn hero because of course he is

Boi you have a CHILD TO LOOK AFTER

Whoop a dead pill

At least Ahsoka’s calling herself a Jedi now

Dammit I REALLY didn’t want Ahsoka to show up

Dammit dammit dammit

Gah nvm

OMG BABY IS BONDING WITH THE FROG FAMILY AND THEIR TADPOLES NOW

MY HEARRRRRRRT

DIN’S BEING A DAD PICKING HIM UP FROM HIS PLAYDATE I CAAAAAAAN’T ;_;

Din with all due respect your ship is kind of a piece of shit don’t question what the guy was able to fix

Baby Yoda I would die for you

Oh whoop there’s the octopus again

Don’t you try to eat the baby you bitch

BITCH BITCH BITCH BITCH

HELL YEAH PROTECTIVE PAPA

NO YOU DON’T KNOW WHERE YOU’RE TAKING HIM DIN THAT’S YOUR SON, AHSOKA AIN’T GONNA KEEP HIM LMAO

Oooooh another Bryce Dallas Howard ep, I like her episodes!

Welp Bo Katan is here now and soon Ahsoka will be too

I’ve already said my piece on what I think of R*sario D*wson and I’ll leave it at that

I think Katee Sackhoff did a lovely job with Bo Katan live action too, tho I’ll say again that her wig kinda sucked lol

Welp they explained absolutely nothing as to why or how Bo Katan lost the Darksaber and Mandalore for a SECOND time, I still think it’s kinda funny she thinks she gets to go for round three 

Anyway, can’t wait for next ep, still holding out bitter hope that Sabine will show up too

Ah wait wait wait Bo Katan was supposed to be the fucking Heiress, wasn’t she

[scarletfish]

don’t worry, you will

Summary: Two weeks ago, Juno was engaged. Now he's quarantined with a complete stranger who can't operate a microwave and has no sense of personal space.  And they were quarantined (oh my god, they were quarantined!)

Pairings: Peter Nureyev/Juno Steel, background Vespa/Buddy in future chapters Word Count: 3000 Chapters: 1/5 Warnings: canon-typical alcohol abuse, depression AO3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24016468/chapters/57779629

A/N: Thanks @space-city-traffic for the prompt, and @pipis-pods for the suggestion that Juno and Vespa communicate and become friends 

Chapter 1

Diamond paid you $1520 . Your Venmo balance is now $1520.  

Fiancee. Rent. They’re the first and last things on Juno’s mind. He realizes he’s been sitting in the parking garage for over ten minutes, idling and staring at the alert on his cracked phone screen. He turns the car off.

His car with a long crack in the windshield. Everything is goddamn broken. He gets out of the car, pauses. Gets back in the car.

This calls for a detour.

***

Twenty minutes later, Juno is ready to take his newly acquired liquor to his room so he can introduce it to his newly acquired headache, but he still has one more stop to make.

Hyperion Apartment Complex twists eight stories high, and the tacky light grey brick facade is almost reflective at night. Semi-nice rooms in a mostly bad part of town. Hyperion city makes cheap look beautiful, the way fast-food commercials brush up plastic meat with shoe polish and glue. Diamond had always hated it.

Juno shoulders into the leasing office with two large grocery bags. The front desk is empty, and everything is fading or peeling. He rings the bell and sits on a peely, faded chair to wait. Might as well put the whisky to good use.

Taking a swig, he looks out the floor-length windows to the filmy outdoor pool. (Rita swears security fished a body out of it a couple years ago. Juno told her she needs to stop watching so much Law and Order.) For the hundredth time, he wonders if this is even worth it. She's going to ask questions, it's inevitable, and he doesn't know how to answer them. Doesn't know the answers himself.

He starts poking holes in the plastic grocery bags with his thumbnail. Takes another swig. Then a couple more-

“Boss!” Rita bobs into view with her tablet in hand, Cheeto dust on her bright purple jacket.

Since the police force scandal, Juno runs a small PI business from a shitty downtown office, which is where he met Rita. To this day Juno’s not sure how or when she wormed her way into a position he wasn't even offering. He’s also not sure when she sleeps. As far as he knows, the part time leasing office representative is her third job- she also does... something with computers.

“Rita,” swig, “I need a favor.” The shorter woman has already started talking, anticipating their usual back and forth.

“And I know I ain’t supposed to call you that here, but you are my boss, and I don’t think my other bosses-- wait, huh?” Confused by the change in script, Rita eyes the half-empty bottle of whisky in Juno’s hand. Her eyes jump to the clock.

“Mista Steel, are you okay?” One pro of hiring Rita: she’s very perceptive. Con of hiring Rita: way too perceptive.

“Fine. I need you to check someone out for me.” Rita’s eyes immediately light up.

“Oooooh, boss, another case already? Is it gonna be as exciting as the one with Mista Prince Julian? Are we gonna get to travel? I’ve always wanted to go somewhere exotic, like Maine, or Florida-” Juno cuts her off before she can get going.

“He was a dramatic politician with a cheating husband who ended up dead, Rita. Not everything is a Netflix rom-com.”

There's a bitterness in his tone that might not have been there a week ago, but the smaller woman doesn't notice. She's already sunk into her desk chair, head propped in both hands, sighing dreamily as she swivels back and forth. Time to bring out the big guns.

Juno reaches into his shopping bag and pulls out the chips, dangling them in front of Rita’s heart eyes. She snatches. He raises them just out of reach.

“Focus. It’s not a case. There’s this guy I need you to find. I’ve got name and place of employment. Can you do it or not?”

Rita pouts. “But boss,” she whines, “you don’t even need me for that, you can just Google his name like I showed you. I thought we were gonna do something exciting.” Juno pinches the bridge of his nose.

“Yeah, well, Google isn’t gonna cut it this time, because,” I wasn’t really paying attention when you showed me that, “because, he’s highly secretive. And, that’s potential name. And potential place of employment, my source isn’t very,” he almost chokes on this last word, “reliable .”

The gears start turning. “Secretive… hang on Boss, is this another high-profiler? Have you been holding out on me?” She lowers her voice (not much). “Boss, this is about a case, right, you just can’t tell me because they might have tapped the phones!?”

What… who does she think they are? Juno drops his head into his hands to rub his temples. When Juno doesn't immediately contradict her, Rita continues in her stage whisper.

“Don’t worry Boss, Rita’s got your back! I’ll have this secretive criminal tracked down before they even know we’re on their case!”

“It’s not a case.”

“I’ll be as quiet as… as those monsters in The Quiet Place! Except they ain’t so quiet when they’re attacking people, but neither are we when we’ve got the bad guys cornered and we’re ready to take them out-”

Besides the recent political debacle with Julian and his missing husband (that one was a high-paying scrap tossed Juno’s way by an old friend), most of the cases he’s hired for are affair investigations and insurance fraud.

He’s certain neither he nor Rita have “taken anyone out” ever ... unless you count that time he tried to teach Rita to drive stick shift. Or the Hot Tub Debacle. But those were accidents.

Juno slings the bag of snacks onto her desk. “Just find out whatever you can about the guy, okay?”

“Fresh shrimp flavored?” Rita squeals, “Aw, you’re the best Mista Steel!” She digs into the large bag and talks around a mouthful of orange crumbs while Juno tries not to vomit in his mouth.

“Shipping ish ‘aking fore’er wi’ this crathy thirus thing goin’ gon,” she swallows, “speaking of, have you been watching the news Boss?”

“Every morning with my sunrise yoga. Listen Rita, I’ll check in with you tomorrow, okay?” Juno’s limbs are… heavy, suddenly. Maybe it’s the alcohol, maybe it’s because he hasn’t slept well in that last, oh, ten years... or maybe it’s the weight of that single text, sitting in his phone for almost a week now. Looking at Rita, he thinks of telling her everything. Just spilling his guts right onto the scuffed linoleum floor.

The engagement. The text. The Craigslist ad. The man he’s supposed to be meeting tomorrow.

Rita’s still chattering on, and her voice cuts through the haze. “-but you never told me the name of Mister Criminal?” She happily shoves another handful of chips in her mouth. “Oooo, or is it so secret you need to write it down on a piece of paper and then I can read it and eat the paper-”

“Peter Ransom. Might’ve done a job for Vallas Vicky’s hotel recently.” That’s all he knows. “And he’s not a criminal Rita, he’s just a normal guy.”

Rita’s dialogue wanders around to closing borders and something about Italy, but Juno’s already moving towards the door (it shuts a bit harder than he intended). He doesn't know why he's so upset with Rita, when all she's done is try to cheer him up and offered her help. He makes his way back to the parking garage elevator. It smells like cotton candy vape and something vaguely mossy. A group of ragged kids is flying down the incline around the corner on penny boards.

Juno takes another swig of whiskey in front of the chrome doors and jams the elevator button about twenty times before he remembers.

Of course the fucking elevator is down for the weekend.

He wants to sit at the bottom of the stairwell and drink himself into oblivion. He want to wallow in this feeling for a moment, the feeling of the universe kicking him while he’s down.

Instead, he drags himself to the stairwell, drudges down the second floor hall, and practically collapses through the door.

An eager chittering greets him from the cage in the living room. “Hey, Smallfry.”

Diamond wouldn’t go near the ball of fluff (“It’s so dirty Juno,”) so when they moved in together eight months ago, the rabbit was a launching point for multiple arguments. Juno drops his grocery bag of Timothy hay and carrots by the cage, not bothering to stash it in the kitchen.

He pointedly doesn’t look in the smaller second bedroom that Diamond claimed as an office space. He doesn’t look at their shared bed either, because the sight of the rumpled sheets will just wrap around his ribcage and squeeze and squeeze until he can’t breathe again and everything is spinning-

Juno takes another swig and collapses on the couch. And then, because he wants to hate himself a bit, he thumbs through his phone to his fiancee’s most recent text. No matter how often Juno reads it, it never changes.

3:56AM: Diamond

Juno. I’ll forward my part of two month’s rent before the month is over. That should be long enough for you to find a temporary roommate, at least until the lease expires at the end of the year. Do what you’d like with the furniture.

Ex-fiancee.

***

Juno bolts upright, disoriented and confused. The decorative couch pillows left lines on his cheek, and he’s nursing the beginning of a monster headache. He gropes around for his phone. 7PM. It’s only been a few hours.

It feels like days. Months. Years.

Juno shivers. He left the door to the porch open, and a cool fall breeze is raising goosebumps on his arm. A nearby screen door slams, and heavy boots tread the balcony next door. “Hey piss-bucket, you been day drinking again?”

The green-haired nuisance next door is only loud when she chooses to be, so Juno knows she's hoping to stir him out for a cigarette or two. He wonders briefly when Buddy will be back. Vespa only gets this chatty when her partner is gone for long periods of time on work trips.

He toys with the idea of stepping out. Hey Vespa. How're the axe-throwing students? (She refuses to tell him what she does for work, so Juno assigns her a new job every night.)

She’ll respond with something like, Great. If your failed PI business finally tanks, we could always use some new targets.

Maybe if Juno gets drunk enough, he’ll tell her why he’s not planning on ever being sober again. Tell her that he’s such a fucked up human, his fiancee ghosted him three weeks before the wedding with no forwarding address. Over text.

She’ll have to laugh at that. It’s the goddamn joke of the century, and Juno’s the punchline.

He jumps violently when his phone starts ringing. “I know you can hear me, Steel,” Vespa sneers from her balcony.

Juno groans at the name lighting up his screen. He was wrong- he’s not the punchline. Fucking Mick Mercury is.

He almost sends it to voicemail, but at the last second he crosses to the balcony door, wrestles the screen closed as Vespa flips him off (“What, too busy getting wasted alone?”) and finally slides the door shut with a bang.

He leans against the wall by Smallfry’s cage.

“Whaddya want, Mick.” Juno’s brain struggles to keep up with the excited babble streaming out of the phone.

“Juno! That hit we got on your listing? The Peter guy? He messaged again!”

No one’s outright asked Juno, “Did your fiancee ghost you three weeks before your wedding over text?”, so he’s not lying to his friends, per se. He just isn’t ready for the inevitable string of I-told-you-so’s from Rita and Vespa, who have hated Diamond since the moment they waltzed into Juno’s life ten months ago and stomped all over his heart with their designer boots.

Mick, bless him, is blissfully ignorant of Juno’s recent string of unfortunate life events. He’s blissfully ignorant about most things, actually, but his unending stream of well-intentioned business ventures mean he knows how to advertise.

Juno isn’t sure who Craig is, or why he keeps lists of random shit online. All he knows is that he can't afford rent on his own, and Mick owed him a favor. A lot of favors.  

“Let me guess, he's found something better and he's not interested anymore.”

Fuck Diamond for putting him in this situation. Even if he deserves it. Even if he should’ve known better.  

“No, Juno! He says, and I quote,” he clears his throat and reads dramatically, “‘Juno, would it be possible to move our rendezvous sooner? Due to personal issues I find I’m in need of accommodations a bit sooner than expected, and your ad did say the room was available post haste.’” Mick drops his voice back to normal. “He wants to meet sooner!”

“Yeah, I got that Mick. ‘Post haste’?”

“I went for a 'trustworthy but not desperate' vibe, ya feel?” Juno is quickly wishing he read and approved the ad before Mick posted it across the internet in his name.

“All right Mick, whatever, sure, just let me know when you set it up for.” There’s a long, telling silence. “...Mick?”

“Okay so here’s the thing,” and with that, Juno knows the universe is screwing with him again, “I kinda already told him you could meet him tomorrow morning? At eight? And I gave him the address of the apartment?” His words get faster with each blow.

“You gave him the address? Goddamn it Mick, I thought we were meeting for coffee somewhere first so I could make sure he’s not some wackjob who wants to hack me to pieces and wear my skin as a suit!” Juno’s less worried about becoming a potential skin suit and more worried about waking up before noon with the spectacular hangover he’s got planned, but he’s not going to tell Mick that.

“Oh Juno, you’re so,” he chuckles, “you’re hilarious! Skin suit. Ha! You’ve been watching Law and Order with Rita again, haven’t you?” Juno resists the urge to slam his head into the wall and end it all.

“Anyways, get some sleep tonight and make a good impression on our friend tomorrow! I’ll pass him your number. And hey, maybe you could mention my new Hair-in-a-Can line? One good turn and all that. The recall went real smooth with the last one!”

“Mick, hang on, listen to me-” Juno’s cut off by a loud crash in the background.

“Sorry Juno, gotta go, the cans are a bit more,” a high-pitched scream, “uh, high-pressured than we expected, good luck pal, don’t be a stranger!”

The line goes dead. Perfect. Juno eyes Smallfry.

“Not like I have anything worth stealing, huh? Unless he deals in small, neurotic rabbits.” He restocks Smallfry’s hay before he’s too drunk to remember. Vespa's convinced that a hungry rabbit might be inclined to chew through the apartment wall and go on a carnivorous hunting spree.

“My last roommate had a rabbit. It got mad when their sister’s rabbit got a nicer cage, so it chewed straight through the bars and,” she snapped her fingers, “chomp chomp. Nothing left but rabbits feet.”

“Bullshit.”

“What are you Steel, the rabbit whisperer? Okay, maybe it was a gerbil! Whatever, same difference.”

Then he grabs an extra blanket from the hall closet (it really is starting to get cold), two bottles of liquor, and the TV remote and settles onto the couch for another long night.

***

The best mornings are the mornings Juno wakes up still drunk and pleasantly fuzzy. This is not one of those mornings.

His alarm is playing quite loudly, meaning it’s probably been going off for quite some time, and two things happen in quick succession as his brain painfully struggles towards consciousness.

He rolls over in bed to grab at his phone and realizes the bed is actually a narrow couch. He hits the floor with a heavy thump . He's blindly swiping at the floor trying to turn the damn thing off, ignoring the nagging anxiety that he’s forgotten something important... There!

Blearily, he reads the alarm label… “SOUR CREAM.” What?

There’s a sharp knock at his door. His tipsy brain stumbles around in tight circles. He set that alarm weeks ago while cooking… never bothered to re-label it.... that doesn’t explain…

A second set of knocking, more forceful this time, accompanied by a muffled voice.

It’s 7:50AM and he honestly can’t remember why he’s supposed to be waking up or who could possibly be at the door. No, wait… he vaguely remembers…

Mick. The phone call. The desperate roommate.

All at once, Juno’s certain that he doesn’t need a roommate. It’s only four months after all, and the idea of a complete stranger snooping around his stuff, asking questions about his life, getting tangled up with his job, makes Juno’s skin crawl. It’s not worth the money. He can figure that out… somehow.

It’s decided. He’ll ignore the knocking. This Peter guy will eventually give up, he’ll tell Mick to take down the advertisement, and he’ll figure something else out.

Then a noise outside the door makes his blood run cold. He knows that giggle.

“Sorry Mista Criminal, lemme just, ngh-hungh, try that key.” Rita, traitor secretary and ex-best friend, is using her spare key to let this man into Juno’s apartment. The stranger’s muffled voice leaks through the door. “Could you maybe...?”

There’s no time to think. Juno’s only on the second floor, there are bushes underneath the window. If he can get out quick enough, he might be able to avoid a meeting altogether-

“Thank you Rita, you are an absolute gem, and twice as beautiful if I might add...” the door clicks open.

Might’ve been able to. If he’d moved a little quicker.

“Hello! Juno, I presume?”

Fuck.

[avas-poltergeist]

Koschei The Deathless Portrayals In Modern Writing Ranked By Me

Kasyan Lutovich The Winternight Trilogy: Loses a few points for acting like a human, having a human origin story, insisting his name is Kasyan, and pulling a fast one on us akin to Hans from Frozen. But makes up for it in the fact that his more human qualities are a bitter love and anger for a powerful sorceress woman who rejected him and a lure to wild liar mortals. Charming to the point where when I knew he was bad news, he still caught me slipping and I wanted so badly for him to not be a prick. Fucks around with the king because ‘why not’ and because he needs to bring back the magical creatures and hide from death. That is perfect Koschei characterization. Promises the protagonist a life that will never be uninteresting. Also promise the protagonist a world of strife and constant lies. Solid. Caught me slipping with his laughter and playful malice during the horse race 8/10

Koschei The Deathless in the novel Deathless: Oooooh yeah. Here we go. Capricious, cruel, enigmatic, and positively not human. The only thing keeping the illusion up is that he wears a flesh mold so that Marya Morevna will hang out with him—but even that barely holds up to scrutiny. Clean shaven with long pretty eye-lashes. His only desires are to keep the world in balance between life and death, party hard, and don’t leave him for a guy named Ivan. His whole logic and courtship revolves around fairytale antics like speaking to the dead and getting locked in Marya’s attic. There is no value in human morality, just the movements of the world. He knows the female protagonist will be his downfall, but that’s why he chose her in the first place. Can’t die if you keep making the same mistakes, am I right boys ? Actually helps turns the female protagonist into a pseudo mythic god. 12/10 he’s not human. this is one bona fide monster wizard dude.

The Darkling, or Aleksander Morozova from the Grisha Trilogy: Despite being apparently nearly a century old, acts like the most human thirty year old man I’ve ever met. All his evil deeds are human and human motivated. Does he want to rule the world ? Does he want to make a land safe for the magically oppressed people ? Does he want to live forever ? Or does he just want to fuck around with two high school sophmores who have personalities like milk toast ? We don’t know. All the aesthetics of your favorite Russian, morally ambiguous spirit are there but they are washed away by 2010s YA discourse on if young women readers are being brainwashed by their love for the ‘bad boy’. He gets one point for imitating the process. It’s a mess 1/10

[goldenmusicmoments]

Taylor Swift - Folklore (Review):

The 1 - The album starts of with a mellow piano driven track in which the person who’s prospective the song is written from seems to be looking back at a time that once was. It seems like the character is looking back on a relationship and she thinks to herself that if things had been different that person could have been the one and that would have been a pleasant prospect. She is also letting her past lover know that she is doing fine. The track has a nostalgic feel to it which is also emphasised through Taylor’s vocal. The track sets the mood for the rest of the album really well providing the record with a strong beginning.

Cardigan - The rustic feel provides the track with a unique opening moment immediately drawing you in. Here she seems to be singing about what you can either take as a feeling/person where it/they have become older yet to this person they are new and their favourite thing regardless of that. The track lyrically has such a full circle moment taking you on journey with the person who’s prospective it is written through. Her vocal on this track has a dreamy and sensual feel to it. On top of that the production on this track is stellar. Taylor has stated that this song is from the prospective of Betty who track eight on the album is about. Taylor also released the visual for this track on the day of release which compliments the song so well.

The Last Great American Dynasty - Now we get a track with a bit more of a groove to it. The production has a really bright feel to it that lifts the mood from the previous two tracks. Here she is tells the story of the previous owners of the house that she now owns on Rhode Island. It describes the downfall of a family and the outsiders knowing nothing seem to blame the woman and claim that things could have been different if she hadn’t shown up. When Taylor moves in the people around seem to form the same judgement of her. This track doesn’t immediately strike you as you are thrown off by the change in feel from the previous tracks, however do pay attention to everything from the lyrics to the production and you’ll see how great it is. You can really get lost in this track.

Exile (Ft. Bon Iver) - This piano driven track starts of with Bon Iver’s vocal which catches you off guard as you are expecting Taylor to open the track. Here it seems like the relationship has fallen apart after them trying to make it work. You can feel the pain and emotions behind the lyrics through the pairs vocals. The build in the song is stunning making you want to bask in its beauty. Their vocals come together so beautifully here. This track showcases how a duet should be done with its conversational quality. It also seems to have been an immediate favourite of those that listened to the album.

My Tears Ricochet - This self written track begins and ends with these haunting ‘Oooooh’s’. This track seems to be about a relationship that has come to a bitter end. As the person who the prospective character seems to be talking about is dealing with the demise of this relationship in a rage filled mannerism. Death being used metaphorically here to depict that is very fitting. The person of topic doesn’t seem to be past the relationship, as much as they seem to be trying to get rid of the other from their memory, something seems to prevent that from happening in totality. Also their way of dealing with the situation is causing them harm as well. The build in the bridge gives you a sense of urgency particularly through the production. The song completely encapsulated you in its eerie feel. Again this song showcases how great of a songwriter Taylor is and it surely goes down as one of the best in her discography.

Mirrorball - This dreamy track has a very cinematic feel to it. You feel as though you are at a dance where there is mirrorball hanging in the centre. The mirrorball here is metaphorically used to describe how a person tends to vary how they present themselves depending on who they are with. Just like the mirrorball having many faces each of which show something different from the other. It also speaks to an aspect of celebrity. The bridge depicts this desperation we have to impress others or do everything possible to keep people interested in us. This song grips you in its beauty.

Seven - Here the piano opens the track and then is joined by the strings. On this song it seems that she is looking back at her former self when she was seven years old. She is remembering who she was at that age and how that age was a turning point in terms of reaching civility. It is a calm track that has a slight feel of longing which is highlighted through her vocals.

August - The opening of the track draws you in immediately. Here the prospective character seems to be going over memories or moments from her past. She compares the departure of the person of topic to that of how a month goes by. The lyrics touch on how in a relationship you get lost in love, that it makes you forget that at any moment it could fade, and you end up losing the person you thought you’d be with forever. She seems to be putting on a front that she is fine with the relationship ending. Her vocals in particular give you this light and dreamy feel that you seem to get lost in. Then when the bridge hits you are lifted out of that dreamy vibe as the vocal delivery of the lyrics here have a sense of urgency to them. The outro to the track is beautiful and really leaves you lost in your thoughts, kind of like how you’d feel when you get to the end of a memory. 

This Is Me Trying - Here she sings about being in a place of struggle where she isn’t doing so well mentally/that she feels lost in life with all its uncertainty, however she is trying her absolute best to keep herself going and getting through all that she is going through. She more so is letting the ones around her or herself know through her actions that she is trying her best. This track will surely resonate with a lot of people and it shines even brighter in the current state that the world is in right now. It is a beautiful track that will have you feeling emotional and teary. Her vocals have a very airy quality to them here that add to the nature of the track elevating the meaning of the lyrics. 

Illicit Affairs - This song kind of feels like it is giving off a warning of the bad side of having illicit affairs. However here the person who is having these illicit affairs has their doubts, however they have too strong of an attraction to this person for them to end it. Sometimes desire outdoes morality and logic which this song depicts. Plus it showcases the extent people go to in order to cover up their tracks when having an affair. Her vocals are really beautiful and have a sense of remorse to them. In terms of production it does seem a little chaotic, eluding to the nature of the situation.

Invisible String - This track has a bit of a quirky vibe to it. Here she sings about fate through this invisible string that ties her to the person of topic. It seems like this was what was meant to be and she seems to have come to a place where she feels content with life and who she is with. It is a gentle track that holds true to the calm nature of the album both through its production and Taylor’s vocals. 

Mad Woman - This track has a moodier vibe in comparison to the rest of the album. Here she sings about women being labelled as mad and how people seem to have a negative view of a mad woman. However what they don’t realise is that she isn’t mad because she wants to be but more so because someone else is the cause of her being mad. It speaks to the double standards faced by women when defending themselves, where a man defending himself would be him being defensive, yet the opposite the woman would be seen as being mad. 

Epiphany - The opening of this track gives you this feeling of vastness. Then when the vocal kicks in the feel shifts to something ethereal. This song was inspired by her grandfathers experience in the military during the war. She uses that and compares that to what those working at the frontline (doctors, nurses etc.) during this pandemic must be experiencing. Pointing to the similarities. It highlights how tough it is for them and how their short moments of rest are the only moments they seem to find relief or escape from the difficult reality. A stunning track in which the lyrics are complemented so well by the production on both the track and vocal.

Betty - After a long time we get another taste of country from Taylor Swift on this track, particularly through the instrumentation. This is written from the male prospective. Although he confesses to what he has done, he doesn’t actually apologise. He seems to think that him showing up is enough to win her back, in fact his attempt at justifying his actions seems to only dig him a deeper hole. This song also completes the tracks known as the trilogy (Cardigan, August & Betty).

Peace - This track starts with a very intriguing pulse like beat which is eventually joined a by the strings. On this song there is something very somber about her vocals. Lyrically she sings about limitations in how much she can control in terms of what she has to offer in the relationship. Her asking whether it would be enough if she could never give him peace, is her trying to see whether he’d still be interested after knowing that. Her confessing to what she can give to this relationship prior, is what provides this track with a standout moment on the album and showcases that she cares about the other person. A beautiful and somber moment on the album.

Hoax - This piano led track brings the album to an end on a rather sad moment. Here both through the lyrics and vocals you get this feeling as though she feels defeated. However the lyrics ‘Don’t want no other shade of blue, but you’ provide with a small moment of hope. The bridge to this track is one of the standout moments on the album, showcasing her talent for writing a strong bridge. The song closes the album leaving you lost in thought trying to decipher the lyrics.

The Lakes - This bonus track gives the album an alternate ending, this song was inspired by her trip to Lake District and her discovery of artists that moved to live there and create art. Here she fantasies about doing the same and what she imagines it would be like. The song has a romantic and vintage feel to it due to the production style and her vocals emphasis that feel. It brings the album to an end on a very different note to that on the standard edition.

Overall this maybe Taylor Swift’s best project to date. It’s a cohesive record as the album has a cinematic, mellow and moody vibe to it. There is something vintage about the album. The lyrics hold your attention throughout as you try and decipher the lyrics. It also feels like her most mature record. Taylor shows us that she is a versatile artist that isn’t afraid to change things up. Even though this record isn’t her most personal record, as here she writes from the prospective of other people, it still feels personal through her songwriting style. 

[that-trans-matt]

Broodmother

May has always been seen as the month of rebirth.

May was for the new life to blossom into the world and replace the old.

For guppies to hatch and learn of this bright new place around them.

For mates to come together into caves and anemones to create their first clutch together in their lives.

May was for that unquenchable thirst to fuck and breed, to mark and impregnate, to come together.

Keith knew this was what May was for, his almost black tail swaying in the swirling waters as he watched other mermaids in the distance court or be courted. Knew what that insistent itch under his skin was calling him out to do.

But with a glance down, Keith sighed as he knew that itch would go another year unsatisfied.

His tail was too dark. None of those bright, flashy colored scales most mers preferred in a mate. What with the dark violet that bled into his pale skin, a slightly lighter purple underbelly and black stripes that swirled from his spine to his flowering fins, Keith wasn't the ideal mate for another mer.

Hell, even his friend Shiro- a grey bottlenose dolphin mermaid -had found a mate in that dark porpoise named Adam and were currently in their pod with their young.

Maybe…..maybe Keith wasn't made to mate.

At least, that was the thought that ran through his head as he swam through the chilly waters of the ocean. So lost in his own brain that he hadn't noticed the shadow following him through the wreckage of a sunken ship from the upper world.

"Well. What's a pretty little fish doing here, not that I mind being graced with such a beautiful presence." The voice, low and husky but giving the feeling of sunning on a hot day, was what made Keith whirl around with a surprised gasp echoing from his pink lips, bubbles escaping his gills from the action.

There before him, with light brown and grey scales, smooth like gems but as false as fools gold, swam the ultimate predator to fear.

A shark.

Keith felt ice pool in his veins, tail thrashing in agitation as the shark before him neared his form. The shark was larger than the black and purple batfish, nearly dwarfing Keith with his caramel skin and broad shoulders.

"Well?" The shark prompted, reminding Keith of the question he had asked. With a huff, Keith took a small flutter back from the shark, only to release a yelp as the brush of a smooth tail hit his own, right where his ass was.

"I am merely passing through. I'm not taking your territory." Keith answered, voice calmer than the trembling feat he felt inside as the grey tail behind him urged him closer to the predator who smiled- revealing large white teeth that could easily take off Keith's arm the same way another shark took Shiro's.

A dark chuckle sent shivers down Keith's spine as the shark circled him, blue eyes glinting in the murky waters and staring into Keith's purple ones.

"Oh I know you wouldn't try to take my territory, little one. I am asking why you are gracing me with your presence during this time." The shark growled, lips curving into a wicked smirk as his gills widened slightly before going back to normal. "Mmmmmm, what a sweet smelling little fish you are, little one."

Keith jolted, his own gills widening slightly as he inhaled the scent of the shark before him.

This shark didn't smell like the other fish, musky and more like the iron in blood instead of sweet and gentle like an anemone.

Still, the shark smelt just as alluring as any mer Keith had ever met.

"What is your name?" Keith could see the shark was taken aback by his question, blue eyes widening while the water around them whipped his short brown hair around.

Another difference between them, Keith thought as his own long black hair was tied in a braid and swayed- tamed unlike the shark before him.

"Lance. And yours, little fish?" The shark- Lance -asked, swimming closer to Keith and making the paler mer shudder as the scent grew closer as well.

"Keith."

"It's a pleasure to meet such an alluring scent, Keith." Lance grinned ferally, the blue in his eyes fading into the iridescent gold most shark's did when on the hunt.

Boldly, Keith swam forward to meet the shark head on, his small frame curling around Lance's as he puffed out his fins.

It was stupid, performing this mating dance to a predator that could tear him to shreds, but the thought- and smell of Lance -only sent a spark of adrenaline through Keith. Maybe it was his fight or flight instincts, long buried, rising up in the face of a predator like Lance.

Instead of fleeing like his instincts cried for him to do, Keith watched as Lance's eyes skimmed down his body- gaze darkening as his pupils began to dilate from tiny slits. He watched the way Lance stared at his shimmering fins, how his dark tail contrasted with the shark's lighter one.

It was nice- but he needed confirmation to continue. He needed- ah! Keith looked up at Lance, shocked as those big dark hands gently cradled his fin between his claws, as if Keith was a gem to be worshipped.

"It's dangerous, little one, displaying yourself like this to me." Lance purred, trailing a claw to where fin and tail bled into each other before he swam closer to the small mermaid and trailed his hands onto the tiny waist. "I might not let you go if you keep this up. That would be a nightmare for you, wouldn't it? Having to be stuck with a shark and forced to be fucked until you carry his pups?"

Keith heard the slight bitterness in Lance's tone, his indigo eyes glancing from where the shark held him gently to the blue eyes that stared at him inquisitively.

"Our pups." Keith whispered, watching the shock filter onto Lance's face before he surged forward to pull the large man into a bruising kiss.

Instantly, those hands slipped from his waist to the large width of Keith's hips, tightening enough to press his claws into the iridescent purple scales but gentle enough to keep from drawing blood. Keith moaned at the feelings, sliding one hand up into the messy brown locks of Lance's hair and tugging him closer to feel those sharp teeth and soft lips.

Lance echoed his sound- albeit deeper and more like a growl than a moan -while his tail thrashed in the water, kicking up sand, until Keith wrapped his smaller body around it. Back to chest, tail to tail.

It was perfect.

Keith gave a chirp of surprise as he felt one hand release him, fingertips dusting lower until Lance's claw brushed his genital slit- coaxing the folds to part like a budding flower and reveal the pulsing pink hole and wriggling pink cock that unsheathes above Keith's throbbing pussy. Lance's claw doesn't stop there, however, the sharp tip teasing at where Keith is absolutely dripping wet with slick. Globs of the foggy substance cling to Lance's finger as he begins to push the digit into Keith's hole- the size difference making itself known in the way Keith has to stretch to accommodate one finger.

"Fuck. You're so tight, Keith. Is this your first mating, little one? Gods you're so beautiful." Keith shakes as Lance speaks, covering his mouth with one hand as tiny squeals of pleasure try to escape him. It's embarrassing, how hard and wet he is for this stranger, body trembling almost violently against Lance's front.

Lance smirks against Keith's hand, having been pushed away from the kiss at the shock of the intrusion, slowly trailing his lips lower until he begins to kiss and suck at Keith's neck. His blue eyes watch the blood rush up to the skin, leaving the area a bright red before Lance continues to assault the pale flesh while his nails begin to dig deeper.

"You'll make such a good broodmother, Keith…" Lance sighs dreamily as he begins to push in a second finger, watching as Keith finally releases his mouth with a nearly silent trill of pleasure at the stretch. The sound of flesh and scale meeting in a dull clap echo in the near darkness of the wreckage is positively filthy but doesn't deter Keith as his body relaxes enough to accept the second invading finger.

"Oooooh!" If he was more coherent, Keith would've been embarrassed by the sound that left his lips, but instead he trembles as Lance crooks his fingers inside his cunt- nails scratching just right against his velvet walls and making Keith spasm as it brushes against the opening of his womb. And that's when it hits him.

Lance's fingers were deep enough to hit his womb.

It's that thought that releases a scream from Keith's lips, that and the third finger that slowly slides it's way inside of his throbbing pink pussy. Behind him, Lance growls at the feeling of those wet walls clenching around his three fingers as if they were trying to milk him for something. The shark opens his mouth wide and sinks his sharp teeth into Keith's flesh- relishing in the taste of blood and the small mer's scream of absolute ecstasy.

"Fuck!" It's a roar this time that leaves Lance's lips as he tears his fingers out and sees the foggy fluid of Keith's cum float in the water before them, tearing his lips away from the bloody bite mark he had left on the batfish's shoulder. He gives the mer no time to relax, growl rumbling from his throat as he turns Keith to face him, Lance's large body making the pale boy shudder with arousal.

"I'll pump you so full of my cum that you'll keep birthing my pups, addicted to my seed and cock that you'll spread your cunt for me with just a look." Lance growls as his sunkissed hand slides down his own torso until it rests on a discolored section of scales on his tail that reveals his genital slit. Keith whimpers below him as he watches Lance part his own slit with his claws, gasping in surprise as he watches not one- but two wriggling masses of dark brown and grey flesh that unfurl from deep in Lance's sheath.

"Like that, little one? Wanna feel them as I split you open and wreck your pussy beyond salvation?" The shark growls, grasping one of his cocks and rubbing it against Keith's shining pink hole, growling as his other hand reached up to tweak a wobbling nipple. "Gods, you'll be so round when I'm done with you. These tiny tits bursting with milk for my pups and your hole gaping from my cocks."

"Yes! Please! Gods, Lance! Give me your pups! Wreck me! Oh Gods please!" Keith begs, reaching his tiny hands out to dig his nails I to Lance's shoulders, back bowing and mouth open wide as the shark rears back and slams in.

It's not gentle, rough and burning in a way that makes Keith thrash and scream in pleasure, nails leaving red streaks on otherwise perfect brown skin as Lance growls above him- feral and snarling as one hand holds Keith by the waist and the other wraps the smaller's red cock around his fist.

"That's it. Take it like a good bitch and become my broodmother!" Lance snarls like an animal as he begins to thrust- no buildup for the wild and savage tempo that leaves Keith crying out in joy. The cocks inside Keith nearly tear him apart as they stretch his throbbing walls to their limit, clenching and milking both of them as the heads bump against his cervix on every thrust.

It leaves Keith as a drooling mess, his hands barely holding onto Lance as the shark thrusts harder- desperate to force his clutch into Keith's willing womb and mark the mer with his spraying seed.

The waters around them are filled with animalistic growls and wails, sand swirling in a vortex as Lance humps into the mer below him. Every thrust spears his cocks into Keith and punches out small moans of "ah" from red pouty lips as Keith's pussy struggles to stretch and milk the pounding rods inside him.

It's why Keith jolts suddenly as Lance latches onto his nipple, his claws leaving his body to dig into the sand beneath the mer, surprised enough at the action that his cunt relaxes enough to accept more of Lance.

It's the moment Lance's hips smack into his own, however, that makes Keith positively wail. With that final push, his tail thrashes wildly and his pussy throbs and clenches as Keith squirts his cum onto Lance's cocks, screaming as they breech his internal ring of muscle and enter his womb.

"Ah! Lance! Fuck! Ah! F….fuck!....full!" His sentences aren't even coherent, just desperate words strung together as the shark above him grunts louder, hips moving faster and more desperate than before.

"Come for me just like that! Scream my fucking name like a good bitch! Swell with my seed and fucking take it!" The last word ends with a roar as Lance locks up, his hips flush against Keith's while his cocks both spray their cum deep inside the small mer's womb.

Soon, the sand around them begins to settle as Keith pants, dazed and slowly coming back to himself as he looks up at the painting Lance. The shark smiles slowly, sharp teeth stained red from Keith's blood, but it doesn't deter the mer as he pulls the bigger man down for a kiss that's gentler than the first.

"Probably not how I expected my first clutch to go...but I'll be your broodmother if you let me." Keith whispers against Lance's lips as they pull back, the taste of his own coppery blood strong on his tongue but it only makes the swelling in Keith's chest grow when the shark above him nods and smiles shyly.

"I'd love for you to be the mother of my pups, Keith….let's go home so I can breed you somewhere safer next." Lance mumbles happily, not bothering to pull his cocks out as he picks Keith up, their tails entangling as he begins to swim away from the wreckage.

'Home', Keith thought with a dazed smile, clenching his hole around Lance one last time to hear the shark growl in pleasure, 'Home sounds nice'.

[oftachancer]

1, 4, 6 for Aran!

Oooooh, thank you for the asks! I’ll answer for Aran in HITM and for Aran in the wonderful modern au I’m writing with YOU (@johaeryslavellan). 

1. What do they smell like?

In HITM, Aran smells... oh, man, it just depends on the day, doesn’t it? His base smell- just the underlying him - is fresh hay and pine needles on a forest floor. Atop that - he carries a heavy, musky herbal scent from the herbs he smokes for pain, in addition to the scent of sweat, leather (his armor, his saddle), and the sharp tang of the whetstone and the bitter ozone of the Anchor. Among the Dalish, he starts to smell a bit like wet sheep. Fresh from Tevinter, he smells like honey and spice. In Orlais, he smells like wine (because he drinks incessantly there). 

In the modern AU, he still has that same underlying scent that’s just him. He doesn’t wear cologne or scented deodorant, but he uses a soap that’s charcoal and balsam, so he carries that lightly on his skin. 

4. What is their most embarrassing memory?

I have been thinking about this for a while, and I think the problem is this - yes, he has a great memory, and yes, he gets embarrassed, but... The way he usually experiences embarrassment (in both tales) is so momentary? He feels it, but then usually sees the ridiculousness of the moment or learns something from it, and that’s the memory he holds onto. 

6. What do they like to wear?

In HITM, given his druthers, he wears braies, a tunic, a belted cloak, and some leather boots. (And smalls? No. Please.) With the Inquisition, though, he usually wears what he’s told, so long as he can move quickly in it. In the field, he’ll usually chuck it for braies, a tunic, and leather armor over his torso and arms, with a cloak and cowl. And wherever he lands, he wears what’s local and expected just to blend in.

In the modern AU... what does he *like* to wear? Boxer-briefs in fun colors and patterns and warm socks (usually mismatched). But since he can’t get away with that everywhere, he can usually be found in thrifted vintage graphic tee shirts or just old, wash- and age- softened tee shirts, skinny jeans (usually ripped or paint-stained), and a hoodie, with converse style sneakers. 

[silver-falling-star]

Sing me a song, o muse, of your bitter hatred against catcher in the rye bc SAME

Oooooh boy, I smell one of my long winded rants coming on. Strap in folks its about to be a wild ride.

So, Ima preface this by saying that I have NOT read it since I was forced to read it in 11th grade. For like, several fucking reasons. (the primary one being that I don’t want to, the 2nd one being I don’t know which bookshelf my dad stashed my copy on. He stashed all my required readings on various bookshelves after I was done with them. Because we were all given copies for free by the teachers that we were allowed to keep. I’ll chalk this up to private school benefits I guess? I’ve been out of the public school circuit since the end of 5th grade) So basically my memory of like, most of the events that take place in the book are foggy at best and unremembered at worst.

@ my mutuals and followers who like this book, that’s fine you do you, but I personally am not and probably will never be a fan of Catcher in the Rye. My feelings of why I dislike it are my opinions and I’m not gonna force them on you.

Problem 1: Main character is an unsympathetic asshole

My biggest gripe about the book is honestly a gripe I have about SEVERAL books. Unlikable characters, and I don’t necessarily mean written poorly (though I don’t remember being awed by how the book was written, I’ll be honest.) I mean unsympathetic asshole little bastards that make you want to just chuck the book across the room. Other books that share this problem are The Great Gatsby (that book is hot fucking garbage in terms of likeable characters and I WILL die on that fucking hill do not even @ me), Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie (Main character is an asshole little snobby bitch and despite being a murder mystery written in first person she literally figures things out at such a pace its not fun for the reader because she STILL ends up caught in shit situations she KNEW WAS GOING TO GO DOWN BECAUSE SHES SUCH A SPECIAL LITTLE SHIT- okay that’s a rant for a different post) and The King Must Die. (If you ever want to read a book with shit diction, pick it up.)

Now, as a writer/roleplayer of almost a decade, I’ve made plenty of characters that fall into the unsympathetic asshole role. My problem isn’t with the archetype, it’s often used and often done well (fandoms later trying to apologize for them aside) My PROBLEM comes when that’s either the archetype for the only character given any spotlight, or ALL the characters have that problem. (see, Great Gatsby.) Holden Caulfield(or however the fuck you spell it) is an unsympathetic asshole, and also the character who’s perspective is the only one we get to see, and the only character we really know much about. (Mainly cause he just doesn’t deign to care to give a legitimate effort in giving a damn about anyone else aside from how innocent children/his sister are. More on how creepy that shit is later.) Making a book like this means that I’m far less likely to enjoy it because I want to be able to root for someone. I can root for an asshole, so long as they’re likeable in some regard. Holden is a grade A fuckboy in the making and as such I am not a fan.

TL/DR: It’s possible to have likeable unsympathetic asshole characters, it is almost impossible to do that if that’s all you have exposure too in your cast.

Problem 2: I was really not in the best place to receive such a fucking depresso espresso lesson about life.

Switching gears momentarily from problems with the writing/book itself to problems with the timing of this book showing up in my life. High school was the time when all my trauma I’d successfully… repressed? Avoided dealing with? whatever, basically all my mental health shit suddenly decided to spring itself on me and yell “SURPRISE, YOU’RE MENTALLY FUCKED AND WILL NEVER BE THE SAME!” in 10th grade and it wasn’t until halfway through 11th grade that I even started getting a handle on shit. I almost failed high school and it was *bad*, especially for someone who was just trying to get to college so I could get to vet school and be qualified for a job that requires an ass load of education. So in walks this fucking book and it’s message of “adulthood is a sham, nothing matters and you really should just fuck around and do whatever because it’s all bullshit anyway. Childhood was where it’s at.”

Like???? Alright, that’s not what I need to hear when I’m barely passing high school. Go to fucking therapy and get some help, we all have trauma and therapy is the best path to work through it. I dunno like, yeah okay some people need to hear that message at whatever time in their life they read the book, but that message really wasn’t great to my Anxiety/Depression/ADHD struggling ass trying to just stay steady enough to get into college.

Honestly, even to this day I HATE HATE HATE books with depressing messages like that. I already deal with the struggle of being afraid of failure, getting where I want to be, all that shit. I don’t want that in my literature. Give me a person who struggles but still succeeds and finds some sort of happiness and self-worth in the end. Give me someone overcoming their traumas in such a way that they can at least have a good quality of life afterwards, even if the trauma will never leave, so long as they’re happy. I’m tired of YA novels that try and sell our generation and gen z the message that life sucks. Give me more hope, more heroes, more people making a difference because hell life is short so best make the most of it making a difference.

To quote GotG, why do I care so much about stories that revolve around saving the world, even if that world is just as small as a found family?

And my existence might as well be a happy one and have HOPE GOD DAMMIT.

TL/DR: If a book leaves me feeling like shit after reading it because it ends on a super shitty note, I’m generally not going to enjoy that book. And the fact that most YA novels these days that are given to highschoolers fall into this category is hot garbage when this is around the time they’re trying to find some sort of direction in life.

*Note: I realize that there are times and places for books that give more somber messages. Hell, I’ve even enjoyed some books with messages of such a tone. But media these days, and honestly for most of my life starting in mid to late teenage years (and maybe earlier) has started taking a turn towards the more depressing/somber stuff, and its overwhelming and just bad. And even back then when first reading it this was something I picked up on and didn’t enjoy. It just was not the right time in my life to hear a message so devoid of giving a shit.

Problem 3: Holden is honestly, super fucking creepy.

Okay, we back on the train of the actual book’s writing. Holden the dipshit is honestly, really fucking creepy. Towards women specifically. I have no direct quotes from the book specifically, but I DISTINCTLY remember the way he talked about women (or even young children/girls) being creepy as shit. Like, he waxes lyrical about his kid sister and her classmates and how innocent they are and how he wants to be the “Catcher in the Rye” to keep them innocent and to keep them from realizing how bad the world is. Great, lovely sentiment Holden. Except that the way you’re going about it comes across as being a pedophile.  You’re at the very least sexist as fuck, because you’re objectifying the fuck out of people anyway.

That scene with the sex worker in the hotel room is also one I remember making me feel super uncomfortable. Not because the sex worker is there, but because uh, just, god, that whole scene gave me the creeps. Probably because I felt bad for the woman, coming into the room expecting to be paid for work and there’s just this kid who breaks the fuck down, tells her some depressing shit, and maybe pays her? (does he pay her? I can’t fucking remember, I’d like to think he does, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he doesn’t, because he’s an ass.) Actually, bigger question IS HE EVEN OF AGE TO HAVE SEX WITH HER LEGALLY? HOW OLD IS THIS KID? HES STILL IN HIGH SCHOOL RIGHT?

…. so I looked it up, he’s 17. SEVENTEEN. HE IS A M I N O R. I’m like 99% sure that the woman he hires is like, twice his age at least. That’s straight up illegal.

god this just gets worse.

TL/DR: Holden is a 17 year old creep who comes off as a pedophile in the way he talks about kids, and also definitely hired a sex worker while he was underage. Idk if that was legal at the time this book was written, but if it was (and I doubt it), that has aged very poorly.

Problem 4: It’s got a lot of male fans who fall into that all too dangerous category of having Fight Club or Rick and Morty being their favorite bit of visual media.

Okay, again, not a problem of the book. But when the majority fanbase (or at least, the most vocal part) are a bunch of abusive men who don’t realize that the message they took away from a work of fiction is incredibly problematic? Or worse, know and don’t care because they think their take is superior? Uhhh, how do I say, big yikes.

Like, this could be your favorite book, whatever, that’s you, I don’t care, but if your reasoning for it is because Holden is, in your opinion, an unflawed idealized version of yourself/your ideals?

thats a nope from me bro.

———-

That’s all I can do off the top of my head without going in and reading the book again. Which I probably won’t do for a long time, because I don’t need to hear that struggling to make a place for yourself is dumb and proves you’re just “part of the machine, the man has made you his bitch.” while I’m still trying to y’know, get to where I want to go.

But there you go, four solid reasons why I really really do not like Catcher in the Rye.

[writing-royza]

Tainted Blood, Tainted Soul - Chapter Twenty-two - Meetings and Greetings

A/N: Happy Sunday, everyone! So you guys are special: you get two updates this week! I’m sorry I didn’t update last week; I ran into technical issues, between a tumblr glitch and my laptop beginning to die. So please enjoy!

I do not own FMA.

Chapter Twenty-two - Meetings and Greetings

MARKETPLACE, CITY OF JADAD, ISHVAL

1743 HOURS, APRIL 23RD

They had been re-searching the buildings surrounding the square for only twenty minutes or so before things went straight to Hell.

They had begun with the the bakery, where it was difficult to tell the dust of age from the dust of long-expired flour. It hadn’t mattered too much; whatever Riza’s new abilities might be, they knew that she was still capable of leaving footprints and the dust — whatever its origin — was undisturbed.

Next had been a handcrafted jewelry shop, polished coloured stones on leather thongs, once-brilliant gemstones, and worked gold alike sitting unmolested within their glass cabinets. Roy had hesitated a moment, his eyes on a pendant necklace upon a gold chain, thinking that if this merchandise could be retrieved and brought to the newer sections of the city, it would help boost the Ishvalan economy…. But he would think about that later.

Two more buildings searched, with equal results: nothing, and more nothing, aside from mouldering furniture, dust, and general abandonment.

Scar led the way down the covered colonnade, watching the shadows that had grown ever longer while they were rummaging about inside. “Not much longer before it’s safe for her to come out,” he murmured. “We’ll have to move —”

“What do you mean ‘safe?’”

Both men froze in their tracks in front of a recessed walkway that led through to the outside of the square. Roy’s heart began hammering in his chest at the sound of that familiar voice, a sudden cold sweat breaking out on the back of his neck. Beside him, Scar tensed, big hands curling into ready fists.

Halfway down the alley, leaning back with insolent casualness against the stone half-wall to one side of a doorway, was a faintly smirking Riza Hawkeye. Purple eyes gleamed in the shadows as they fixed on Roy, her lips pulling wider into a full grin as she watched his expression change. Roy knew that his dismay at being detected and seeing her in this new state were plain on his face… but there wasn’t much he could do about that now.

Clamping down hard on the emotions swirling around in his mind, he resettled his face into its most businesslike look. The one he used for facing down Hakuro or any other senior officer. “I believe what he meant was that it would be easier for you to move around after sunset,” he said mildly. “We know you can survive in sunlight, but it’s a well-educated guess that it does have an adverse effect on you.”

Her smile had lost some of its sinister light when it became apparent that he wasn’t going to play whatever little game she had devised. “You always were clever,” she said quietly. “And you were clever enough to pick up one of my… limitations. A minor one, but one nonetheless, I grant you.” She tilted her head to one side. “But have you managed to figure out exactly what you’re dealing with?”

Roy gritted his teeth, hating having to say the word. “‘Vampire’ has been batted around quite a bit,” he said, not quite able to keep the insolence out of his tone.

Riza fairly beamed with dark pride, her pointed canine teeth much in evidence even at the distance separating them. “Oooooh, well done,” she purred, sliding a step closer but still not leaving the shadows. “You boys should be proud of yourselves, all working together like this. Pooling your knowledge until you come up with the answer.”

She spoke like a kindergarten teacher, praising a particularly precocious five-year-old. Roy could see Scar’s jaw beginning to set at the patronization, could feel the red heat of a blush creeping up the back of his own neck. Both of them stayed silent, watching her warily, waiting for her next move.

When she realized that neither of them was going to respond, she dropped her stance into one of exasperation, her eyes rolling in annoyance. “Oh, for pity’s sake…. I’m not going to dive at you and rip your throats out, so you might as well relax.” She folded her arms, shifting to stand hip-shot. “You’re obviously not willing to hurt me either, or else you would have tried, so I can only assume you’re here to talk, check on me, or both.”

“The first step was finding you,” Roy said, daring a step in her direction. Those amethyst eyes flicked to his feet and then back to his face, her relaxed posture taking on the barest hint of tension. Not nervous tension; coiled spring fight-or-flight tension. He stopped. “After that, we thought we might try and convince you to come back with us. So that we can sort this out.”

For the first time, her smile didn’t reach her eyes. Riza remained motionless, watching him levelly. “You want me to go back to the inhabited areas of the city,” she said blandly. “Me. A vampire. Who’s sole sustenance is human blood and who has a stunning anger management problem that can lead to a horrifically gruesome death for whomever crosses me.” One eyebrow quirked. “You want to put someone like that back in the middle of an unsuspecting population? I think I’d like to take back my comments on your intelligence.”

Roy gritted his teeth and tried again. “Forgive me for wanting to have faith in my assistant,” he fired back. “Or for hoping that there’s enough humanity left in you that you’d be able to control yourself.”

“Oh, I have plenty of self-control,” the vampire said, her voice a self-assured purr once again. “For instance, I’m enough in control not to bleed you both dry and leave your bodies where they drop.” She wagged a cautionary finger. “But if you put me in the middle of what would essentially be an endless buffet of living, breathing bodies…. It would be like putting chocolate in front of a toddler and telling them they can’t have it. Hardly sporting at all.”

Much as it galled him to admit it, he could see her point. Time for a change in tactics. “Then why not let us set you up someplace away from the rest of the people, somewhere with little daytime light but where we know where to find you so that we can work on getting you back to normal?”

Scorn was the only thing that crossed her face. “Typical man with a god complex,” she spat, shifting to lean back against the wall. “Not happy unless you’re trying to save someone, even when that person clearly doesn’t want or need to be saved.” She fixed him with an annoyed glare. “I’ll spell it out for you one last time, though if it doesn’t get through your thick skull, you’re out of luck.” She spoke slowly, hammering the point home. “I like myself the way I am. I do not need to be changed back. You are wasting your time, and mine.”

Her eyes hardened. “Get. Lost.”

Annoyance flared hot and red in Roy’s veins, and he opened his mouth to return verbal fire… and stopped as Scar stepped in front of him.

“She is toying with you,” he said over his shoulder, still ready to face the creature in the shadows should she come for them. “She is keeping you talking until the sun goes down and keeping you angry so that you don’t notice her plan.”

Riza huffed a sigh. “You weren’t supposed to notice. That’s five whole minutes I’ve wasted, now, trying to play the long game. I should have just lured you into the shadows and taken you out.”

“If you were able,” Scar answered evenly. Reaching to the pouch around his neck, he did not remove it, but held it toward her and took a pair of steps in her direction.

She frowned. “You’re going to try and frighten me with a coinpurse? How do you —” As he drew nearer, her nostrils twitched as she sniffed cautiously… frowned slightly… and then clamped a hand over her mouth as she gagged, bending nearly double. Scar backed off by one step, allowing her to catch her breath.

With the back of her hand held to her nose, her eyes watering from the retch, she glared at him. “What the hell kind of raw sewage is in that thing?” she bit out. “You’re either braver or stupider than I thought, to walk around with that hanging around your neck.”

“Try ‘smarter,’” Roy answered, his tone only a few shades shy of bitter; her remarks from earlier still stung. “We’ve at least proven they’ll keep you at arm’s length.”

“Ugh. Gladly.” Despite the new greenish tinge in her pale face, she shot him a grin. “Though I wouldn’t drop it around me, if I were you. It’s like gaining entry to a house: all I need is the smallest possible opening.”

Standing straight once again, she took several steps backward, fading farther into the deepening shadows. “I can see that our meeting here isn’t going to get us very far, and I have another one coming up in a few hours. If you’ll excuse me, gentlemen.”

“Wait, hang on a second.” Roy made sure she had paused before looking to Scar. “Can you give us a minute? I want to try talking to her one last time… but I need to do it on my own.” He saw the doubt in the other man’s face, but pressed on. “Two minutes, no longer. And I won’t try anything stupid.”

Red eyes glanced in Riza’s direction, then back to the Colonel… and finally, the larger man nodded agreement. “I’ll wait by the street exit. Make it quick, and keep your distance.”

“Right.” He waited as the warrior moved off, watching Riza slink slowly closer without leaving the haven of the shadowed hallway, her expression full of wary curiosity. Roy put a hand protectively on the repellent charm hanging around his neck, and she stopped.

“You said, before you left the amphitheatre last night, that all the yantir did was ‘put the good girl to sleep and bring the bad one out,’” he said, trying for the same level, businesslike tone Riza herself so often employed. “Is that true? Somewhere in you in the real Riza, just… suppressed, somehow?”

She tilted her head first one way, then the other, thinking it over. “You could say that, I suppose. Think of it as… hm, how to describe it so you can understand…. Ah!” She snapped her fingers as an idea struck. “I’ll borrow one of her memories for this. You remember how that one Xingese kid, the boy, got turned into a human-based Homonculus? With Greed’s personality and his own coexisting within the same body?”

Something cold and sharp sank slowly through Roy’s chest. “…Yes.”

“It’s like that,” she answered with an airy shrug. “We’re sharing a body, but right now, I’m in the driver’s seat. Your little yantir knocked her out of commission for a while. Once she wakes up, she’ll be able to try and fight me for control, but even if she wins, I’ll be able to fight back soon after.” A smile played across her lips. “Two kids, constantly playing King of the Castle. Or maybe, as you’ve described her, Queen of the Castle.”

Taking a steadying breath, he glanced back into the market square. The sky was still darkening slowly, but he wouldn’t consider himself in trouble until he saw stars in the sky. “You said that you don’t want to go back to the way Riza was before, but if you’re sharing that body, shouldn’t you ask her opinion? You might not want to change, but maybe she does.”

“What’s the point?” She slid a few steps closer, but stopped a few metres away, her nose wrinkling as she presumably caught a whiff from the protection charm around his neck. “It’s up to whoever is in charge of the body to make the decision. It does whatever its told to, regardless of whoever is doing the driving.” She grinned. “I could get this little lady up to a whole lot of trouble if I wanted to, then leave my other half to deal with the fallout.”

“Shame that that would involve giving up control,” Roy shot back, dread crawling into his stomach. He knew the possibility had been there, but if he could prevent her from taking advantage of it. “And we both know you’d hate to do that.”

“Depending what the trouble is, it might be worth it.” She eyed him shrewdly, clearly trying to read his expression. “You told Scar you wanted to try talking to me on your own, probably so that you could convince me to work with you rather than me going off and doing my own thing. But you’re not, you’re just… talking.” Her eyes narrowed. “Trying to build rapport, so that I trust you?”

He shook his head. “Trying to figure you out. Trying to figure out this whole situation, and what it is you want.”

“Oh, is that all?” Riza’s blonde eyebrows lifted. “You could have just asked. As of right now, I have no ‘master plan,’ and I have no urge to contemplate one. In fact, aside from that meeting I mentioned, I have no concrete plans whatsoever for the immediate future.”

Roy felt his spine stiffen, the dread in his stomach swirling sickeningly. “Meeting. You mean the one who started all of this. The killer from Central and East City.”

“Mmhmm.” Her smile was close-mouthed but no less diabolical. “My… sire, I believe the term in vampire lore is. The one who made me as I am, right under your very nose as it turns out. He’ll be here….” She paused, her gaze becoming introspective as she considered it. “Likely in another five hours.”

So, the teams back home had been right; the killer was on his way here, now that his… creation had come into her own. Suddenly, Roy needed to be far away from this spot, no matter how much time was left until sunset.

“Don’t look so shocked, Colonel,” Riza admonished lightly. “You must have known he would follow you here, if for no other reason than to keep toying with you and your Lieutenant. You’re his favourite playthings, after all.” She beamed at him. “You should stick around. He’s going to be awfully hungry after such a long trip….”

Almost automatically, as if in a dream, he reached up to the protection charm and yanked sharply on it. The knot at the back came undone, the little parcel coming away in his hand. Before he could second-guess the action, he lunged forward, tackling the thing in his Lieutenant’s body to the ground and pressing the charm directly into the centre of her chest.

The fall knocked part of the wind from her lungs, and when she drew a gasping breath, she immediately gagged at the closeness of the charm. Roy gritted his teeth, keeping it pressed firm to her, all too aware of the closeness of that familiar body as she squirmed and bucked, trying to escape. He kept one hand clenched in the shoulder of her dress, willing the fabric not to tear, desperately hoping that this impromptu plan would have the effect he was gambling on….

When she went limp beneath him, her head lolling to the side, a spike of fear shot through him that it had all gone horribly wrong.

“Riza. Riza, come on….” He let go of her dress, shifting his hand to tap her gently on the cheek, dropping the charm to feel at her neck for a pulse. It was there, rapid and thrumming like a rabbit’s after the struggle, her breathing coming and going through her nose in short puffs.

His stomach clenching in worry, Roy took a deep breath and forced his tone into one of command. “First Lieutenant Hawkeye, you’re required on duty. Hop to it.”

Her eyes flashed open with only the merest flicker of re-closing… and moments later, that warm brown gaze found him.

“…Roy?”

He said nothing, merely pulled her to him as he sat up, holding her close against his chest. After a second of stunned silence, she returned the embrace, although with a hesitancy that belied her confusion. When he could finally force his arms to loosen, he leaned back, studying her face. “Are you all right?”

“I think so.” There was a haziness to her eyes that he didn’t like, but other than that, she was very much herself. “Whatever you did, it worked, but I doubt it will hold for long.” Her lips set into a thin line. “She’s not much stronger than I am, but she’s determined enough to keep control that it gives her an edge.”

“Okay.” He touched a hand to her cheek, feeling the warmth of life beginning to seep back into her the longer she was in control. “What do you remember? She said you were asleep.”

“‘Asleep’ is more like an analogy,” she said, talking quickly in case her alter ego began to assert herself. She looked carefully about as she spoke, taking in her surroundings. “It’s more that… I become the subconscious while she has control of the conscious mind. I still hear and see everything happening, but I have no say in what happens, what’s said, where I go….”

Roy frowned. “So then, if —”

Riza shuddered, shook her head roughly as though to clear it, and then looked him firmly in the eyes. “Roy, don’t talk, just listen. She’s already trying to take over again.” Her hand grasped his upper arm, imparting seriousness. “The killer is coming here, which means the entire populated part of the city is a target. They’re the only food supply for miles.” She shuddered again, her breath hitching. “They all need some kind of protection, either that pouch thing you just used, some kind of religious icon, or staying in a hol —”

Her entire body twitched violently to the left, knocking her free from his arms. She recovered, but slid away another foot or so. “- A holy place like the temple.” Her mouth tugged in a faint smile. “I’m sorry to give you orders, sir, I know it’s not exactly appropriate.”

His return grin was as weak as hers. “We’ll discuss your punishment for insubordination later.” Ignoring the risk from the returning vampire persona, he leaned forward and pressed a warm, deep kiss to rapidly cooling lips. There was a soft sound from the back of her throat that might have been the start of a moan, but she held it back. “Hope to see you soon, Whiskygirl,” he murmured, easing back to a safer distance and trying not to let the ache in his chest colour his words. “Stay strong.”

Another strong twitch rocked her, but there was one last smile that was pure, unadulterated Riza Hawkeye. “Even into Hell,” she murmured knowingly. Her eyes closed, and she sank back to lie prone on the sand-swept street.

Silence followed, except for a soft shuffling as Roy eased backward another few feet. Blindly, his hand groped for and found the charm pouch, his eyes watching the slow — too slow — rise and fall of Riza’s chest. Finally, she gave a soft sigh.

“Would you look at that,” she said, matter-of-factly. “I think the sun’s just about down.”

His head snapped back, eyes widening at the sight of the purpling sky overhead. Already, two bright points of light winked in the lowering twilight; night fell faster in the desert than he realized.

When he looked back to her, she was raised on her elbows, watching him with a mischievous smile dancing in those amethyst eyes. She lay perfectly still, watching him without fear or fondness. Her lips parting, the tip of her tongue running across the edges and points of her teeth in a surprisingly good approximation of a wolf eyeing prey.

“Better start running, fire boy,” she advised, her voice low with a casual kind of menace. “You don’t want to be caught all alone out here. Don’t you know monsters come out at night?”

Roy was no coward, but he knew when he was up against something terrifying that he had no hope of beating on his own. Rising smoothly to his feet, he slipped cautiously away from the entrance to the hallway, not turning his back to her. To turn away was to invite attack.

When he was out of her line of sight, he bolted for the side street where Scar waited. The other man saw him coming, perking to an alert posture when he saw the speed Roy was moving at… and asked no questions. No sooner had Roy drawn level with him than Scar was running too, both of them pelting back down the street toward the distant, relative safety of the inhabited areas of the city.

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

Riza waited until she heard the pair of rapid footfalls echoing off the buildings receding into the distance before she got to her feet. Somewhere in her mind, in the aftermath of the brief switch, she could feel something that felt like an impossibly tiny person pounding on the walls of an equally tiny cell, demanding release… but she ignored it. There were other, more pressing matters to attend to.

First on her list, she wanted out of this dress. The Ishvalan people mind be more comfortable showing as little skin as possible by covering it with the blandest colour in the world — honestly, whoever came up with ‘biege’ ought to have been shot on principle of fashion — but it was not for her. She craved colour, style, and something softer on the skin than homespun cotton.

She padded barefoot down the side street that the Colonel and that hulking Ishvalan had taken, the dust from their passage still settling around her. She was in no hurry, not yet; there was still time before her sire reached the northern city limits, and then she would meet him somewhere closer to the centre.

She breathed deeply, with her slow rate, of the cooling night air. Warmth lingered in the sand and stones, warming her toes as she passed, but her body did not hold to it. Her lowered respiration and pulse saw to it that her skin stayed cool to the touch, her extremities especially. Riza smiled, tilting her face to the darkening sky and letting the breeze play across her features; the night was falling all around her, bringing a peace to her after the hated brightness of the day.

Her path took her long the same street as Roy and Scar, and the rest of the search party before them. It was perhaps a forty-minute easy stroll back to the occupied section of the city, but she did not intend to follow them so far. With ten minutes to go until civilization, she turned down an alleyway and vanished into the shadows.

Taking to the rooftops was a simple matter for her, an easy climb with her increased strength and senses. She emerged into starlight with all the coiling strength and grace of a lioness on familiar turf.

The quieter residential streets lay on the outermost edges of the inhabited section, and these she passed through silently and unnoticed, until she reached a wider boulevard alive with the sounds, sights, and smells of humans.

Light and sound poured out from the streets ahead, lanterns lining the sidewalks and people talking and laughing as they went about their lives. Late-night vendors called to passersby, offering goods and food for trade or barter. Those were really the only two commerce systems in use at the moment; cash was hard to come by in a people just beginning to recover after nearly a decade of oppression.

Such trusting fools, she thought, dropping low to the rooftops as she approached the edge of the lighted area. Several prominent members of their leadership know there is danger in the darkness, and yet there’s no rooftop sentries, no one on patrol on the perimeter…. Careless, naïve fools….

Riza belly-crawled to the edge of the first rooftop, only her eyes peeping over at the array of shops below. Delicious smells of cooking meat and baking bread wafted on the air, along with the smoke from cookfires and hearths. The rhythmic ting! ting! ting! of metal being worked sounded from farther along the avenue, laughter from a newly opened alehouse rising into the air from open windows.

She followed the sounds of bartering cries from her right, keeping close to the edge, but only peering over at odd intervals, looking for the distinct signs of what she sought… there. Working her way to the roof of her desired shop, she crept to the back and dropped into the shadowed, deserted alleyway behind.

There was no lock on the door she was faced with, making slipping inside the candlelit interior an easy task. Swaths of fabric draped every whichway so as to be visible to passersby hid her from the shopkeeper as well as any customers as she entered the tiny space. It was more akin to a stall than a true shop, but it held what she was looking for.

Bolts of cloth lines the walls in a riot of colour, different textures and patterns colliding over every surface. Men’s, women’s, and children’s clothing hung on tall stands or from horizontally braced poles across the width of the interior. The voice of an older woman came from the front, speaking rapidly in Ishvalan to one customer or another, no doubt extolling the virtues of her product.

Riza didn’t waste time, simply locating the style she wanted in a colour she liked before stealthily slipping the item from its hanger and disappearing through the back door once again. The garment, she draped around her neck like an athlete’s towel for the time being, needing her hands free and her progress unencumbered.

She gained the rooftops once again, dodging from one to the next and onward, back to where the city lay dark and silent in its abandonment. All the while, her teeth glinted in the starlight in a prideful grin at her accomplishment.

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

ABANDONED SECTION, CITY OF JADAD, ISHVAL

0142 HOURS, APRIL 24TH

She was waiting on the inn’s rooftop terrace when her visitor finally arrived.

He skulked into the market square, his dark suit blending at times with the shadows while at other times, his pale skin was indistinguishable from the light-coloured stone walls. Riza made no move to call to him or otherwise make herself known… but he paused near the well and lifted his head. At this distance, she could not make out his features, but she knew his eyes were on her, perched as she was on the half-wall at the terrace’s edge.

Silently, he started for the inn’s ground floor, and Riza felt a peculiar sensation near her solar plexus. Nervousness, she determined, watching as he began to scale the building. This man had attacked her before, had pursued her from one city to the next, had made her the way she was… and she still knew next to nothing about him.

And when he finally climbed gracefully onto the roof, his face clear to her for the first time, she wished she had remained oblivious.

Reaching up, briefly lifting the fedora hat that looked so ridiculous in this desert environment, former Major Solf J. Kimblee favoured her with a smile. “Lovely to see you again, Lieutenant.”

She was on him in another instant, tackling him to the cracked paving stones of the terrace floor, the two of them somersaulting over and over in the dust until she finally pinned him. Purple eyes were alight with fury, her hand clamped tightly around his throat as she sat astride his chest, her legs pinning his arms to his sides. “You have some nerve,” she spat, pointed teeth evident as she glared at this old, hated enemy. “I don’t know how you survived the Promised Day, but I have half a mind to finish what Pride obviously failed to.”

In contrast, he was completely calm, lying relaxed beneath her with no evident intention to fight back. “Well, when one loses the ability to have a mortal human life, nerve is about all one has left.” He smiled indulgently, the words beginning to rasp as her fingers tightened slightly. “And giving you answers is one of my primary reasons for coming, so if you would be so kind as to—”

“‘Kind?’” she echoed, not quite derisively. “As though you were ever kind to anyone a day in your life.”

His form shivered and then stretched into a long string, snaking away from her and out of her reach, depositing her in a kneeling position on the flagstones. Kimblee reassembled himself partway across the terrace, dusting himself off fastidiously as his body finished coalescing. “Really, Lieutenant, flying off the handle that way is only going to slow our progress this evening. Try to control yourself.”

She got to her feet, eyes wary on him and stance ready to dodge at a second’s notice. “You mentioned answers,” she said flatly.

“Indeed, I did.” He glanced her way, his eyes straying over the dress she had stolen to replace the plainer everyday Ishvalan garment. “…Did you dress yourself up for me? Perhaps you’re more welcoming of me than you care to admit.”

If anger had not already left her cheeks tinged with red, the blush would have been much more noticeable. Suddenly, the snowy white abaya was much less of a good idea. Riza folded her arms over the soft linen, feeling the tiny bumps and ridges of the intricate emerald-green beadwork through the fabric. It was belted at her waist with a matching green sash, covered her arms and fell to her ankles, and yet with his eyes on her, she felt strangely exposed.

“Answers,” she reminded him firmly.

“Very well,” he said, almost resignedly. Walking to the edge, he leaned back against the half-wall, his arms folded. “I can see we’re not going to get anywhere until your curiosity is sated. I trust you’ve figured out what you are? What I’ve made you?” Her only answer was a curt nod. “Good.

“You were apparently told — likely by that chimera traitor, Heinkel — what happened to me on the Promised Day. First, my former employee mauled me until near-death, and then Pride had the unmitigated gall to eat me.” He smiled faintly. “I certainly taught the brat a lesson, though. I managed to retain my own personal soul using him as a vessel, until Edward Elric stripped away all that was ‘Pride,’ and left only ‘Selim.’”

Riza moved no closer, but she did relax her tense posture when it was apparent by his own that he would not be attacking anytime soon. “Yes, I’ve been told before of a human-based Homonculus retaining their original soul while their body plays host. I didn’t realize it could work in reverse.” She eyed him coolly. “Though I would have thought that, when Pride’s power was taken from him, you would have been destroyed along with it, having no body left.”

Kimblee shrugged modestly, the faint smile still tugging at his lips. “When the Elric boy invaded Pride’s soul, I thought the same thing. I was ready to disappear into the void; being part of a body as nothing but an unattached and unassimilated soul was growing boring…. So imagine my surprise when, in the late evening of the Promised Day, I find myself regaining consciousness, stark naked in the underground lair Father had built for himself.”

Her eyes narrowed. “How?”

Spreading his hands theatrically, he grinned. “Magic, my dear.” He waited, but silence and her stony gaze were the only things that greeted this pronouncement. He let his hands drop back into his lap. “You have no sense of humour. In reality, Homonculi are rather resilient beings, especially that Gluttony one. I’m sure you know that personally.

“When Gluttony was eaten by Pride, his soul molded mostly into that of Pride… but by the time Pride was destroyed, he still wasn’t fully amalgamated. His Philosopher’s Stone was not entirely amalgamated or used up either.” His smile grew to a proud one. “When I realized what Edward Elric meant to do, as I said, I was ready to disappear into the void… if what I attempted failed. I took Gluttony’s soul, what remained of his Stone, and what remained of myself… and I molded them together. Gluttony’s Stone served to manifest a new body; it remembered how, having only been grown from Father shortly before. My soul inhabits it, although the side effects have been… noticeable.”

Realization was beginning to dawn on her, things clicking into place. “The hunger,” she said. “That’s where it comes from. It comes from Gluttony’s influence.”

Kimblee nodded. “Along with other… appetites I know you’ve noticed.” He did not acknowledge the hot points of red that bloomed in her cheeks at the comment. “There must have also been some last vestiges of Pride’s soul trailing me when I reformed myself, hence the ability to elongate and reform at will. And the arrogance, of course, though I consider that particular side effect to be mild.

“Any other little quirks can, I’m sure, be chalked up to the vagaries of alchemy that still aren’t perfectly understood.” He got to his feet, bringing her abruptly back onto the alert. Drawing closer, his own pointed teeth showing in a leering smile. “Of course, now the main question is… can two old soldiers who never really got along learn to live with each other in the face of a new, unprecedented occurrence?”

She glared daggers, even though she knew he would be unaffected by such a look. “Give me one good reason why I should have to work with you.”

“It’s very simple.” Quick as she was, she did not react soon enough to dodge the hand that grasped her chin, forcing her to keep eye contact with him. He drew close enough that she could feel the warmth of his breath on her nose and lips, his eyes steady on hers in a way that signalled power and mastery.

“I did you the honour of making you into what you are. You owe me.”

[tjkiahgb]

Episode Recap: 2.24, “We're on Cloud Ten”

Boy, we’re really getting a lot of Andi and Bex cold opens.

This episode, Andi tries to make Bex coffee, but it’s bad, so Bex uses it to kill a plant. Andi intends to make Bex coffee every morning from now on. If I’m Bex, I’m making a heavy investment in flavored creamer. There’s no coffee so bad it can’t be fixed by dumping half a canister of hazelnut creamer into it.

Over at The Spoon, Buffy and Cyrus eat lunch. Cyrus works in an old planner. Buffy wants to know what it is and Cyrus says it’s a “philo-stax.”

And I’m thinking, “Hmmm, that’s interesting. Never heard of that before. Let me Google that.” And it turns out Google’s never heard about it before either.

I’ve tried like a dozen different spellings, too, in case the closed caption was wrong. (philostacks, filostax, filostacks, file-o-stacks - like a stack of files? Nothing makes sense anymore.) I have no idea what Cyrus is talking about. It seems like he’s invented a word so he doesn’t have to call his notebook a planner.

(Edit: A brilliant anon came through with some knowledge.)

Why is Cyrus using this thing and not a phone, Buffy wonders. It’s a good question which Cyrus never answers.

Amber brings food out to Cyrus and Buffy. She’s warm and fuzzy with Cyrus and surprisingly cold towards Buffy. I really didn’t know those two were in a feud, but, well, there you have it...

Buffy wants to know why Cyrus is being friendly with mean people again. First TJ, now Amber.

Cyrus thinks it’s unhealthy to hold on to such animosity, which is a good point, but then he makes a pun, saying they should call it Amber-mosity, which is awful. How can he be so wise and so foolish at the same time? Thus is the duality of man, I suppose.

Outside of Cloud 10, Bex and Andi hand out pamphlets about the new business. Bex tries out some potential slogans.

Maybe don’t do that. Feel free to pull back and give your slogan some more consideration. You don’t think “Plop Plop, Fizz Fizz. Oh, what a relief it is.” was an improv, do you?

The two head back inside where a potential customer asks them if this is a place to get makeovers and Andi says yes, but in two weeks when they open.

I guess I’m not entirely sure what they’re doing here. You want to promote the business before it opens, fine. Set up on the sidewalk and hand out your free samples and water bottles and pamphlets.

But why are you inviting customers in to walk around a mostly empty store that’s still filled with tools and such?

Why do you want people to see this? Ladders out. Paint rollers everywhere. There are probably loose nails lying around just waiting to get stepped on by someone. Exposed wiring waiting to zap someone.

“Yes, it’s an awful, unfinished mess now -- you know, when we’re making our ever-important first impression on you, the customer -- but just imagine what it’ll be like to get your makeup done here in a couple weeks, when it will probably be much nicer!”

You think this is enticing people? You want people to see your potential paint schemes and your unused wood molding and your... power generator? I don’t know what that is in the bottom left corner, but I will say, I guess it does put me in the mood to come back in a fortnight and get my hair done.

On the plus side...

Oooooh, they got the arches! Just like in the diorama! They look great.

Anyway, enough about interior design.

Celia is in a funk because Ham is on another continent somewhere. Bex wishes for a way to snap her out of it and, as if on cue, Bowie magically appears holding flowers. Bowie and flowers? That’s like catnip for Celia.

Bowie makes Celia feel much better, at least temporarily.

As the sneak preview of Cloud 10 continues, Buffy and Cyrus aggressively make themselves over.

Jonah stops by to ask Andi her feelings on trampolines. She is pro-trampolines.

Cyrus and Buffy walk by in the background and all I can think of is what kind of impression it’s going to make on potential customers out on the sidewalk when two children step out of Cloud 10 looking like they just left a European nightclub.

“What the hell is happening in there?”

Jonah invites Andi on a date to trampoline nirvana.

Bowie asks Celia if she’s heard from Ham and she says he sent her a bowl.

Andi tells Bex that Jonah’s taking her on a date. Bex gets excited that Andi’s moving on to that portion of their relationship. Then she tells Bowie to get him excited, too. Bowie determines that he must be there when Jonah shows up so he can be a stern father figure, you know, as you do.

So later, as promised, when Jonah shows up to pick up Andi, Bowie stares him down menacingly.

Which, it’s great that you want to play father figure dress-up, but you are well aware that this small child in front of you is a little ball of anxiety. You’re the one who desperately tried to help him deal with it! Why are you attempting to make him uncomfortable now?

Thankfully, Andi comes in and pulls Jonah away from this before he can start to panic and they leave.

Bex asks Bowie to stick around and make her lunch. And how could he refuse an offer like that?

Jonah and Andi head to trampoline nirvana and just... trampoline the day away.

They jump into a big foam pit and Jonah asks Andi how she’s so good at the art of the trampoline and Andi says everyone’s good at trampolining. Pfft. Tell that to the kid in my high school who tried to do a backflip and broke his neck and then the ambulance had to come and take him away and he had to graduate in a neck brace. I’m sure he’d love to hear your theories on the ease of trampolining!

Jonah and Andi are having a great time and Andi starts thinking about what they could do for their 2nd date next weekend, but Jonah can’t do next weekend. And the weekend after that? Also a no.

See, Jonah’s going to film Shaz-- er, he’s going to camp. For eight weeks. Starting tomorrow.

Andi needs to process this and she leaves Jonah in the foam pit of shame.

Jonah tells Andi he decided to go to camp a few days ago. He tells her about how he failed to make the Ultimate team but then he heard about this frisbee camp and thinks it can improve his game so he can make the next team.

I’m trying to figure out the timeline again and my brain is starting to leak. I should know better than to go down this road, but... it seems like Summer now? I mean, doesn’t it sort of have to be? Jonah can’t really be leaving in the middle of the school year to go to frisbee camp, right? That can’t be allowed as an excused absence. And frankly, it’s negligent parenting. But Andi was just planning dates only for the coming weekends, like they’re still in school. Also, everyone is sort of dressed like it’s Summer now, too, even though last episode -- which was like, a couple of days ago? -- everyone was dressed like it was very much still Winter (or a brutal cold early Spring). It’s like they live in the Twilight Zone. Time doesn’t exist in this town. This isn’t like trying to narrow it down to specific dates, or even weeks, anymore. I legitimately can’t tell you what month this is even supposed to be. I’m going to let it go, though. One, because it’s hurting my head, and two, because I have bigger complaints.

(Hey, to the anon who asked me why I was angry after the last episode: brace yourself, son. You ain’t seen nothing yet...)

Namely...

FRISBEE CAMP?! EIGHT WEEKS OF FRISBEE CAMP?! Who are the con artists who are putting this on? You can learn everything you need to know about frisbee in an hour and a half! Can you throw a frisbee? Can you run? Do you have enough basic motor function to catch a disc that’s floating softly through the air? Congratulations. You’ve mastered the frisbee. I can’t deal with this. I can’t! Jonah and a bunch of other kids going out into the woods, to a secluded spot by a lake to just throw frisbees at each other and say things like “Gnar gnar catch, brah!” What are you doing in week three? What could you possibly be doing in week three? Setting the frisbees on fire? Blindfolded frisbee catching? By week five, there’s no way you aren’t digging into nonsense metaphysical frisbee concepts, like, “Can one become the frisbee they seek to catch? Let us meditate on this.” There are master’s degree programs that don’t go on for this long. Frisbee camp goes maybe a week. A week! And that’s if you include like, some talent shows or something else to fill the time. But TWO MONTHS?! TWO DAMN MONTHS! I’m dying. And not like, crying laughing face emoji dying. I’m dying. This has broken me and I’m dying. TWO MONTH FRISBEE CAMP IN THE WOODS! Lord help me!

Anyway, Andi hears about Jonah’s frisbee camp plan and says it makes sense.

I politely disagree.

Andi’s mostly just sad about this whole time apart thing.

At Cyrus’s house, Buffy shows up. She thinks she’s there to play a game with Cyrus, like the one they used to play where they made up crazy phobias like Cyrus’s one about puppets. Cyrus says that’s a real thing. I’m with him. You know why they call it ventriloquism? Because it sounds much nicer and more quaint than calling it what it really is: using witchcraft to make inanimate objects speak.

But that’s not really the game they’re playing. The game they’re really playing is “Surprise Amber.”

Bowie and Bex hang out at her place and watch TV. Honestly, who says Bex and Bowie need to get married? They’ve already moved to the “Watch Netflix on the couch all day” portion of their relationship. That’s considered common-law marriage in a lot of places.

Jonah and Andi return home. Or at least to Andi Shack. Andi’s in need of some late night stress crafting. The two are very sad they’re going to be apart. The show seems even sadder about it than they are. This scene is being played like Jonah’s getting shipped out to the Eastern Front.

My dearest Andi.

Morale is low. Some fellow soldiers and I have taken to throwing around a decommissioned land mine and pretending it’s a frisbee just to pass the time. The Winter is bitter cold and the Germans are closing in on our position. I fear this may be my last correspondence for some time. Things at this moment, by my humble estimation, are most certainly not, docious magocious.

Give my fondest regards to the family, and don’t forget to feed Gus. He’s helpless without me

With warmest regards and love,

-Jonah “Weird Yearbook Picture” Beck.

Andi heads into Andi Shack and is scared by Celia, who’s doing well.

Sorry, did I say well? She’s doing... welp. Just... welp.

Celia was feeling lonely in the house without Ham, so she opted instead to sleep in the small, uninsulated shack in her backyard. Celia tells Andi there’s no need to worry, but I don’t know that I would say no need. Celia’s having trouble sleeping since Ham left. Andi feels like she, too, will have trouble sleeping because of Jonah leaving. The two very sweetly console each other over their missing beaus.

At Cyrus’s house, Cyrus completes his transformation into his parents and holds a therapy session between Amber and Buffy. It takes most people 40-something years to become their parents. Cyrus did it by 13. Every teen’s dream!

Also, it’s nighttime now, so he’s kept these two trapped in this room for several hours. That must have been fun.

Cyrus wants to help the two become friends. He first asks Buffy how Amber has wronged her. Buffy talks about what Amber has done to Andi, but Cyrus wants to know how Amber has wronged Buffy, which... Buffy can’t think of anything. Cyrus asks Amber the same, and Amber doesn’t like Buffy because Buffy doesn’t like her. Cyrus feels they are holding on to their dislike of each other and that feeds their dislike of each other. This reasoning is... let’s say, shaky?

But then Cyrus flips out and starts looking for his file-o-stacks to write down something and Buffy and Amber just start roasting him for it and begin to bond. No better way to grow close to someone than coming together to make fun of the person who was trying to help you. Cyrus says pencil and they lose it.

So, maybe Cyrus isn’t a full blown therapist yet.

At Bex’s, Bex has fallen asleep on Bowie’s lap. He tries to sneak out without waking her. He sets her head down on a pillow, and checks to see if she’s really sleeping, then says, “I love you.”

It’s a sweet moment, but also, dude, weren’t you just in another serious relationship like a day ago? Guy moves fast.

Bowie leaves. Well, first he pretends to leave to see if Bex was awake, but she’s too smart to fall for that and doesn’t move even though she’s awake. So then he actually leaves. And I’m not sure he locks the door behind him. Careless.

The next day, Andi tells Bex about her date. She says her relationship is like a Dr. Seuss book. Brightly colored and often nonsensical? Here, I’ve got a Dr. Seuss rhyme for you:

One fish,

two fish,

red fish,

JONAH’S GOING TO FRISBEE CAMP FOR TWO MONTHS! WHAT?!

Andi and Bex talk about things they could do to hang out together. Andi talks about going to Adrenaline City. Bex says they could go tubing or she could marry Bowie. Andi asks if that’s before of after tubing. And Bex asks Andi if she heard her. Andi wants to know if she’s being serious. I’d like to know more about going tubing, though. Please answer if the proposal will be before or after tubing. Please.

Bex confirms she’s going to marry Bowie. Andi freaks out but then asks if Bowie proposed without her there. Bex says no, she’s going to do the proposing this time. Then the two freak out together and do bee-yah bee-yah bee-yah bee-yah bee-yah bee-yah starfish! from like way back in season 1?

I’m amazed they still remembered that choreography.