#they’re like bugs I’m gonna squash them

[catdile]

scaredy cats all of them

(Image was made by @jess-tra after I sent her the sprites 😭)

[ask-nyc-boroughs]

Tony/Brooklyn & Lynn/Manhattan going on vacation, Lynn said she’d also help carry bags…alas. Anyways they’re in a Leyendecker color study I did & that I am very proud of how it came out ! Tony & Lynn are only married for legal purposes cause of the 1898 amalgamation of NYC (which gives us 5 boroughs).

Also I haven’t talked about the boroughoes in ages! I’ve been very focused on my Alfred & states lore that I haven’t touched my NYC lore 😭❤️ my OG lore. I’ll share some major changes and other thoughts below the cut. Also scroll the bottom for a little doodle of the boroughs :D

I do love my borough ocs dearly they’re my oldest babies (9/10 years and going ❤️). And I love working on their lore BUT I feel a lot of the depth of their lore can be better discussed if I also work on lore at a state (Jennie/ New York State) and a national (Alfred/USA) level. Don’t worry I haven’t casted them aside, just cooking and learning new things as I work on Jennie & Alfred so I can better understand how different relationship dynamics impact each borough (especially as Lynn/Manhattan is basically their boss).

Before I delve into major changes in my lore, for newer folks, I’m gonna give a brief description of each borough oc:

Manaháhtaan “Lynn Cooper” / Manhattan borough is essentially the “boss” of all the boroughs. She’s born slightly before European colonization to Ms. Munsee Lenape and Mr. Mohican. For various reasons, she’s not particularly close to her parents nowadays. Lynn is a bit like a princess. She expects only the finest things in life, and she’s known to be perhaps a bit greedy and definitely cut-throat ambitious and will squash you like a bug if she deems you unworthy, but she’s quite charming. Her loud, bold, intense, no nonsense, but with perhaps a flirtatious smile makes her someone people wanna be around. She’s close friends with her fellow boroughs, Jennie/ New York State, and Alfred/ USA.

Anthonij “Tony” Cohen/ Brooklyn is a proud man who is always been rather peeved his best friend and greatest rival is essentially his boss and his legal wife, but he can’t ever really hate her. However, Tony will absolutely dig in his heels and give Lynn a hard time like pretending he’s a separate city still. His gregarious nature, and his interests in many topics from fashion to politics makes him someone you want to get know better. On another note, Tony was born to human parents during the New Netherland period, and he’s of African-American and Ashkenazi Jewish descent. Tony began to connect more with Judaism in the late 1800s specifically Reform Judaism. Tony is dating Andy/Queens, and he likes hanging out with his friends (and also making fun of them). Tony is always a bit peeved at Jennie for making him and Lynn marry, but they mostly get along, and they often celebrate Jewish holidays together (alongside with Jennie’s sister Elise/ New Jersey). Tony is also good friends with Alfred.

Andrew “Andy” Perez/ Queens was born to human parents some point during the late 1800s and is of Dominican and Chinese (probably Cantonese) descent. He’s a rather reserved man. He does have a bit of a bitch face, but he’s honestly quite friendly if you get him talking. He enjoys a more quiet pace of life. You’ll find him hanging around his neighborhoods, playing chess or helping folks out or just yapping. During the summer, you’re highly likely to find him at Rockaway beach catching some waves.

Rodrick “Rodrigo” Madden/ The Bronx was born to human parents in the late 1800s and he’s of Puerto Rican and Irish descent. Nowadays, he does try to act like Mr. Tough guy, but that’s to hide the fact he doesn’t wanna be hurt again. He’s not been treated well by Lynn as a friend in the past and he somewhat blames his more naive and rather naturally friendly nature as the reason why. But Rodrigo is a sweetheart. His heart has almost always been in the right place. He’ll give you the clothes off his back even if it hurt him. He has a pet calico cat named Teddy that was once a barn cat from he used to be farmer (also I randomly decided the cat also immortal cause I can’t mentally kill off this cat).

François “Frank” Russo/Staten Island was born to human parents during the New Netherland period and is of Walloon and Italian (probably Neapolitan) descent. He can be rather intense especially when he’s passionate about something, and often thinks of himself as the center of universe. He may off as an annoying asshole but if you put aside the self centered attitude, the extreme bouts of passion and stubbornness, and maybe his lack of manners- you’ll find he’s not a bad guy.

Also why borough ocs, Egg? Uh cause I can. When I made them, no one else was doing this and I felt a New York City character can’t be explained in just a character alone plus culturally and politically the boroughs are actual entities thus for me mentally justifies why I could personify them.

OK also one of the more major changes to the lore is that Lynn & Tony are now legally married due to the 1898 amalgamation. As I mentioned numerous times on this blog, I want to explore more serious and complicated themes especially as I’ve gotten older. I now interpret the amalgamation a bit like a marriage between New York City (then just Lynn) and the city of Brooklyn. They’re still friends/rivals. Also Tony is gay. But I’m interested in exploring the idea of these personifications being public figures and how aspects maybe like tokenization, homophobia, misogyny can also impact them. I’ll expand on this another time as I don’t want to take away from the point of this post.

The other major update is that Andy/Queens & Rodrigo/the Bronx only come into existence as aeterni (borrowing term from a pirenaia on twitter) when they’re older kids and at some point btwn 1870s-1890s. This just changes their aging timeline a bit is all. I made this change cause I really want my borough ocs to reflect the inhabitants and groups that have had significant influences on the culture of this city. As Rodrigo is Puerto Rican / Irish in his ethnic background and Andy is Chinese / Dominican, the most significant beginnings of the migration of these groups to the city started in the late 1800s (picked up x1000 post wwii). It wasn’t like impossible before but I felt the explanation was too loose ++ the Bronx & Queens were just beginning to urbanize at this period & beforehand I’m gonna argue did not have much of a major cultural thing. I need both a major cultural aspect and some sort of political aspect to create ocs. Alsooo eastern Bronx as a character no longer exists in this universe- Frances rip 🙏

hehe that’s all (for now)- here’s a boroughoes doodle

[puppetsoftomorrow]

Personally if I was thinking about avalance in regards to an Olympic sporting event, I’d probably go fencing, like they regularly compete against each other, but come Olympic time they’re on the same team. I would have gone with some sort of martial arts, but I’m not sure how the weight classes are (with the height difference it seems unlikely that they would directly compete against each other). Archery or biathlon could be contenders (I have a hard time not thinking some sort of weapon or fighting event for them as my first reaction), but I think those lack the face to face/sizing up your opponent intensity that those two had in their early adversarial relationship. I don’t actually know like anything about fencing so I could be completely wrong about styles and strategies, but I could see Ava as the type of person who would absolutely study all of Sara’s fights (is fights the right word for fencing matches?) to try to find any patterns that Sara tends to rely on and would be as technically perfect as possible while Sara is great at reading her opponents on the fly and improvising.

lmao okay first off the martial arts one wld be hilarious. ava being like?? u want me to fight her?? she's tiny. i'm going to squash her like a bug. and sara's like i'm gonna fight you regardless!! square up!! and the olympic officials decide maybe this wasn't a good idea after all

i think fencing would be fun because it seems such a rich people sport, so i can imagine ava had been doing it since she was three or something but sara's come by it almost accidentally and is super good all of a sudden, and everyones saying ava Finally has a real challenger for gold, and ava is both parts impressed at sara's raw talent and also annoyed that she's so good and maybe a tiny bit scared she's going to lose to sara and not be the top anymore.

and then there's something devestating like they're friends (and maybe something more...) and they have to face off against eachother to see who gets a place in the olympic final. and both really want it and they both want the other to get it yknow?

[princess-of-the-corner]

Toontown Rewritten Recap: January 2003 (Selfie Saga)

Okay so, whenever something happens in the real world, I’m gonna use the ACTUAL date. Otherwise, I’ll use the in-universe date. That's  gonna be relevant here in a second.

January 15, 2014

Sir Max’s real world counterpart/”actor”, Joey was interviewed for an article about Toontown Rewritten, and Sir Max posted a few of the questions and answers in the news blog. Click here to see them.

January 16, 2003

Sir Max snapped some photos of butterflies and mused about how interesting photography is thanks to how sights can change from day to day, especially in the tooniverse.

Especially when it comes to bugs that need to get squashed (not the butterflies).

On a related note, this update came with two bugfixes, and a new sound effect: taking screenshots now made a camera shutter sound.

January 17, 2003

Sir Max added a new camera angle (Front) and used it to take selfies. He then decided to add two more camera angles (Left and Right) to take better pictures.

He had done nothing but take selfies with these new camera angles for the past day.

He wanted people to get excited about these new snapshots, just not “angry mob” excited (unless it was related to those robots some of the players had been talking about). He even asked for feedback on how they could help toons make better photos and videos.

In terms of gameplay:

Hitting F3 would now hide the GUI for better pictures, but it was suggested that players turn the GUI back on before going back to gameplay.

Also, dog noses no longer appeared in camera from the first person POV.

January 18, 2003

Sir Max started off the blog post by listing off the three main milestones of development for Alpha. The first was the loading system (completed in 2002). Second was the Estates (done). Third and final was the battle system (still not implemented, as Toontown is a peaceful and happy place).

But yeah, the Estates have been completed. Each Toon is getting a house and some land around it, plus neighboring homes for close friends and family (read: the five other toons a player can make on their account).

However, furniture hadn’t yet been implemented, nor was the Cattlelog players could order from. In short, all of the houses are completely empty. Plus, the fishing ponds hadn’t been filled yet either. Essentially, it’s just an empty place where toons can chat with their friends.

(The fact that, much like in Toontown Online, Estates don’t have any music in Toontown Rewritten just made them kinda eerier, actually.)

In other news, a “Snapshots” page was added to the Shticker Book, allowing toons to store all the screenshots they’re taking. Sir Max has been filling his up pretty quickly! You can rename and delete your snapshots from here, and there’s even a button to open the folder in your file browser!

But yeah, the next few updates would be dedicated to the Estates.

January 19, 2003

45 minutes passed the normal news blog posting time, Muddy Paws made a post asking where in the name of Walt Sir Max had disappeared to.

In-game, portable holes could now teleport their users to their friends’ estates. Plus, when you left your own estate, your friends would be kicked out after 15 seconds instead of 5.

Aside from that, not much happened on this day.

January 20, 2003

Hawkheart revealed where Sir Max had disappeared to. He had basically been zipping all over Toontown (from the rooftops, to the mountain visible from Acorn Acres, to several underwater locales), and taking selfies. 452 selfies since the Silly Saturday Update that added the new camera angles.

They had found him half frozen in the Brrrgh.

Hawkheart then turned the news blog post into a PSA about selfie addiction.

January 21, 2003

Sir Max came back from Selfies Anonymous a changed toon, completely cured of his selfie addiction.

As soon as the others leave, Sir Max reveals the truth, he didn’t sit in on a single meeting. He broke out after 3 minutes.

How did he get away with that? Selfie Support Groups don’t have cameras of any kind on their premises, including security cameras, allowing Sir Max to have a cardboard cut out of himself sit in on the meetings while he left to do literally anything else.

He then went on to show off some of the selfies he took:

1.      Underwater at Donald’s Dock (he nearly drowned).

2.      On top of the roof of the home of Hawkheart’s friend, Spyro.

3.      At the peak of the mountain visible from Acorn Acres. He got frostbite, but didn’t pass out until he got to the Brrrgh after several hours.

And he still had 449 more selfies to show off!

He was cut off by the patchnotes. The only relevant here bit is that fishes were introduced to the Fishing Ponds at the Estates, meaning that all species could FINALLY be caught.

-

Rip because this was doubled (I edited it to have just a single so people don’t go ??? like I did lmao)

Fuckin Selfies Anonymous though!!

[ambrossart]

Hi, me again. I hope you’re having an amazing July thus far! I know you’re busy, so only answer if you have the time, but I’m just dying to ask. How are you so good at writing Patrick and making me, as a reader, root for him despite all his wrong doings. As we know, he has solipsism disorder…. and for me that’s difficult to understand so I’m genuinely so impressed how amazingly you write him. Like can you share with me how you approach that kind of character. There’s so many layers and yet somehow you’re successfully writing some sort of story with him as a love interest (I don’t think it’s possible for Patrick to truly love someone). You’re amazing!

Boy, that’s a really tough question to answer. I don’t even know if I can answer it, but I’ll try:

I’ve said this before, but writing Patrick Hockstetter as a love interest is the most difficult thing I’ve ever attempted. It’s like walking a tightrope. Obviously, I have to soften him a little by introducing some element of sympathy, but I can’t lean too far into that; otherwise, Patrick becomes unrecognizable as a character. On the flip side, I can’t lean too far into his dark side because then he’ll be completely unromanceable, especially for someone like Evelyn. She would never date a murderous psychopath who thinks he’s the only “real” person in the world, not unless she saw a glimmer of something more. That’s why I don’t think of Patrick in those terms. I’m not approaching him like I’m writing a psychopath or even a villain. In this story, he’s not any of those things. He’s just Patrick.

The solipsism is tricky to fully grasp, so I had to break it down and put it back together in a way that makes sense to me. I’m departing a bit from canon here, but the way I’m approaching it is, Patrick feels seriously detached from the rest of the world. He was born that way. Nothing he can do about it. Because of this, he sees himself as the only fully conscious being. Other people may be alive in the sense that they’re living/breathing, but he doesn’t recognize them as thinking, feeling creatures like himself. They might as well be insects to him. Like all the dead flies in his pencil case. That's why Patrick doesn't care if he hurts someone. Why would he? Most people squash a bug without giving it a second thought, don’t they? In his eyes, it’s the same thing.

As we know, this mindset opens the door for a lot of dangerous behavior, but it also reveals a very sad, lonely existence. Because Patrick’s so disconnected, he gets little to no pleasure from everyday things. All food tastes bland to him. Music might as well be radio static. Setting his violent tendencies aside, that's a pretty miserable life.

That's where Evelyn comes in. She's a very emotional, empathetic individual. Patrick describes her as colorful, and that's a huge compliment coming from him, probably the best, most genuine compliment he can give a person. He's not gonna call her beautiful because he doesn't care that much about traditional beauty standards (Patrick's sexuality is incredibly complicated, but we'll get into that later), but calling her colorful says a lot about how he views her. Up until now, Patrick has only experienced "color" when doing/observing something violent and cruel, so for him to experience a similar sensation with her... that's a pretty big deal.

But can someone like Patrick love? Eh, I think that depends on how you define love, but I do think he can develop strong attachments toward certain people. Are Patrick and Evelyn at that stage? No. Right now, I'd say they're in the mutual fascination stage. Patrick is fascinated by her color and she's fascinated by his lack of color. There's an emptiness there that she's undeniably drawn to... probably because she wants to see what, if anything, is on the other side.

Holy shit, I just fell even more in love with this pairing.

And I'm rambling 😅

I don't even know if I answered your question. If I didn't, just throw me a follow-up question and I'll try to clarify.

[the-firebird69]

Cloverfield (8/9) Movie CLIP - Hud Meets the Monster (2008) HD

 they see that it's a preacher eventually and they understand that they have to do something but it's not till much later when it happens when this happens and they see them everywhere and they shoot them and blood comes out and if you get squashed and they're looked at it's like some sort of weird bug and an intelligent bug and they get really really afraid. And this starts the alien series.

Nuada Arrianna

We have a lot of stuff to talk about and we're doing a lot of projects and we're gonna get into this stuff and we're gonna start doing it now and this is awesome I needed help and I'm getting it.

Thor Freya

It will heat up this goofball trump and his people and they will get hit and we really need it right now it is necessary and we're moving on them shortly. And they're up in New York and they're going to go down there again to the Fitchburg area lancaster and they will get hit. The movie actually takes place now and it happened to him before now they want it published and he's gonna go to hell this guy talks a lot and we don't tolerate it.

Nuada Arrianna

She we have to think before you do these things and he says my son has a suit he's seen it in the movie he's a little babies making these funny noises and yelling at people. Yeah that's terrific I gotta go about my business and he says thank you for exposing your stupid exo suit I say you're welcome and we need to shut up and he says you can go **** **** it's so **** dumb. You got both of them running around out there what does that mean about your son **** ****. Yeah I get that **** **** stuff d I P S H Itrump

Olympus

have fun in prison dan you fuck

Zues

[lanternkiwi]

a collection of my favorite incorrect bllk quotes my friend and i have made, directly copy and pasted from our texts

bllk manga spoilers

context: social media au! mainly featuring pxg (rin, loki, shidou, karasu, nanase, & zantetsu)

karasu sends a rin edit karasu: rin you lookin kinda ngghhh here rin: ??? zantetsu: What is "ngghhh" in this context? nanase: um shidou: ....listen i can take two itoshis rin: WHAT THE FUCK loki: You look good, Rin! rin: Thank you

shidou sends a rin edit shidou: brother hopper till i die karasu: REAL zantetsu: brother hopper? nanase: it just means he’s doing hopscotch with the itoshi brothers! zantetsu: i see… i too would like to brother hop karasu: ZANTETSU MY BOOYYY rin: ABSOLUTELY NOT shidou: HASHFFKDHFKJ

someone posts “Loki is so bbg” and karasu sends it shidou: now that you pointed it out.. karasu: right?? hes the perfect height for it too zantetsu: What is bbg? nanase: big brother guardian!! zantetsu: oh i see.. karasu, you are a bbg and then he just hears explosive laughter from the other room

and then it becomes a regular thing for pxg members to call each other bbg they’re playing in a game against bastard like karasu: BBG PASS IT HERE shidou: NICE KICK BBG nanase: that was a nice goal, bbg zantetsu rin: i’m not calling any of you bbg karasu: don’t be such a downer bbg isagi: do they… know what bbg means …? yukki: i’ve learned to stop questioning karasu’s antics

.

context: nagi cosplayers- reo comments on one accidentally on his official acc w a “woah” and the internet explodes and pxg finds out about it

shidou: sends the nagi cosplay shidou: NAH REO CAUGHT LACKING karasu: RHATS WILDDDKKF nanase: guys leave him alone karasu: nanase, beloved, DID YOU LOOK AT IT nanase: no..? nanase, after looking at it: OH MY GOD NOOO karasu: AKSKFKS shidou: THIS IS AMAZINGGG zantetsu: why is that person dressing as nagi? nanase: it’s a hobby zantetsu: a hobby…? rin, after looking at it: oh damn that is kinda bad..

SHIDOU WETS HIS HAIR BEFORE GOING AGAINST MC AND GOING “do i look like nagi?? what does he sound like OH OH AHEM.. hey lovebug~” karasu HOWLS and reo DIES

karasu: hey nanase come here nanase: what? shidou: we need you to dress up as nagi for us nanase: uh… why? shidou: reo might give you money karasu: we need funds for a team outing shidou: take one for the team, yea? nanase: guys he’s not gonna fall for it… an hour later nanase: so he fell for it..

.

context: now pxg (shidou & karasu) is just fucking with the other teams the same way they fucked with reo LMAOO

and then when they go against bastard they target isagi and bachi karau’s the one doing it this time “YO ISAGI CHECK THIS OUT” flattens his hair “i’m gonna follow the monster inside me”

AND SHIDOU LOSES HIS MIKDDJFKF isagi’s like “FIRST OF ALL BACHIRA DOESNT SOUND LIKE THAT” SHIDOU HOWLLSSS “PROTECTIVE MUCHH??” “I LITERALLY JS SAID HE DOESNT SOUND LIKE THAT” karasu: i got a monster inside me but i actually just want isagi inside me shidou: AHHAKKDLGPVOWKKDKX isagi’s jaw DROPPPSSS

when they won against ubers they had karasu fuck with aryu while shidou moaned in oliver’s ear constantly

they come across an annoying team and loki just sighs and goes “karasu.. shidou…. do it” and they just smile cause they now they know nothings holding them back AKSKFKCKDKSKDK “got master’s permission~~” “stop calling me master!” from a distance LMFOAOSKFKSKSK nanase looks at loki in betrayal and loki sighs “listen here nanase, it may be dirty looking, but getting under your opponent’s skin is a strategy”

shidou: you’re a real annoying guy huh?! kaiser: says you antenna freak. gonna squash you like the bug you are shidou: oh yeah? that’s kinky kaiser: what- karasu, from across the field: OH HARDER DADDY kaiser: WHAT?!

kaiser: the curtains about to close on your performance boys!! karasu: OH YEAH??? you know what DIDNT CLOSE?? shidou: YOUR MOMS LEGS ASSHAT kaiser: NESS GO HOME AND GET THE GUN

loki sends shidou a pass and shidou fucking MOANS “you always do me right master” “FOCUS” kaiser stops in his tracks: WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU karasu: chill dude RELAX… (he gets up close to him) loosen up a little, yea~ AND KAISER JERKS AWAY FROM HIM AND SWATS HIS EAR LIKE ISAGI DID TO HIM SKDKXKSK kaisers like “what kind of PSYCHOPATHS is ego cooking up in blue lock?!”

loki sends shidou a soft pass cuz of strategy trying to get away from noa and he says “sshhhiiit aftercare already daddy?” and noa stares at loki loki sighs “I don’t know.”

shidou walks up to noa like “you’re a BIG guy huh? bet you’re real big in the-“ loki steps in “SHIDOU GOOD GOD” “whaaattt i was gonna say soccer leagues, don’t worry master you’re the Big one” WITH A WINK

shidou is so clingy but not the affectionate type more like his chin is on loki’s shoulder as he explains their formation just to make disgusting tongue sounds rin SLAPS shidou and loki dodges downwards knowing it was coming hes like “mmmm~ i like that position” and loki can FEEL rin coming and he moves so rin can smack him

ego asks for team update and loki’s just “well shidou and karasu are literally the same person” and ego cant help but know exactly what that means and put his hand on his shoulder and goes “you are very brave”

omg imagine kaiser taunts loki midway through the game, he walks up to him where he’s sitting and goes “come on out clown, i’ll make you cry” loki just tilts his head saying “you can only do that if you make me come out on the field” shidou whines “masterrrr why don’t you talk to ME like that” and loki acc returns the energy “guard kaiser until he can’t say those words to me then i’ll consider” and shidou GRINS

.

shidou: we're connected sae sae: well i hope my internet is bad

.

context: desperately in search of a therapist

mini bllk reunion is where they’re talking abt this and bachira says “you should talk to lavinho!” everyone disagrees and makes it known shidou: “steal rin’s therapist” “rin has a therapist??” reo sighs “just anyone but prince will do” chigiri nods aggressively in agreement

and chris goes out of his way to try and be a therapist for them too “you know when i was in high school-“ “when you were in high school you got suspended for streaking” “HE TRIPLE DOG DARED ME REO”

noa sees them and goes “do not listen to anything this fool tells you”

but when it comes down to it the only good advice noa gives out is soccer related 😔 “noa… i need some girl advice” “girls? when i was in high school i never talked to girls. now that i think about it… there were a few that asked me to prom but i had practice (practice he could’ve easily skipped) so i turned them all down” “…. you know what.. nevermind..”

.

context: pxg after party

loki snuck them out somehow IDCCC ego only found out cuz of shidou and karasu’s stories

like that scene in do revenge HELEPVJN “ego how did you-" “shidou has me on his close friends story" “shidou!" “WHAATT i talk shit about him on my close friends, its only fair hes on it” “DUDE”

everyone’s getting lit cuz they’re pxg then there’s loki being rin’s therapist in the corner but then shidou comes over, instigates and they run off screaming nanase hot on their heels, “GUYS PLEASE PUBLIC!! WE’RE IN PUBLIC!!!”

karasu’s trying to pick up girls like “uh… isn’t that your team?" “who them? never seen those guys in my life." “KARASU PLEASE HELP ME" “…?" “coincidence”

loki silently wonders if he should talk to nanase too that night

nanase gonna hit the shinji pose on the way home in the backseat fr

.

context: raichi "gay? i thought you were japanese?"

ppl bewildered that reo carries nagi around cuz from the manshine city vs bastard munchen match it seems that nagi is like the strongest hoe on the field then just clings onto the mikage heir then one day bllk reuinion reo flat out drunk and nagi carries him home and everyone shocked cuz nagi is so LAZY “wait they share a house?”

raichis def the oblivious one

bachi “yeah dude you didn’t know? they’ve been together since blue lock” “WHAATTTTT” chigiri “dude…”

and now they have to sit the poor dude down and explain how half of them are dating

“me and bachira just kinda clicked and now we’re together” “it was rough for kunigami and i but hey we made it” “shidou’s gay for my brother..” “not my fault your brothers HOT” “DIE” “i’m pretty sure i saw karasu and otoya kiss once” “it was practice” “not gay if it’s with the homies” raichi 😧😧😧

.

context: karasu "id fuck you if i was a girl" tabito

shidou: sae can get it rin: what? shidou: what? karasu: if i was a girl, i would agree with you shidou

“you know rin if i was a girl i’d be all over you” “excuse me?!” “never mind” shidou chimes in “i totally see it” rin turns around “WHAT?!”

bro probably had a “man crush” on yukimiya when it was straight up just a crush “yukimiya, i gotta say you are VERY attractive.” “oh? why thank you” “like i’d fuck you” “wait what” “if i was a girl, obviously” “oh”

“yukimiya kinda… in a bro way” “bro way?” “yeah bro way” “dude…”

"its not gay if its with the homies" otoya nods “yes.. yes.” aryu somewhat agrees, but he genuinely had a crush on chigiri and isn’t in denial of it reo’s like “that’s a thing?? i thought we were all gay” and yukimiya knows exactly why he says that and just “😒”

yukimiya: Sure yeah, because thinking of fucking your friends and telling them is normal. karasu: absolutely

karasu: just hear me out this one time yukimiya: absolutely not. your argument about this during the second selection was actually ridiculous! karasu: hey man.. i cant argue with socks being on during sex okay ITS UNIVERSAL LAW yukimiya: SAID NO ONE EVER

.

context: GET THESE BOYS OFF TWITTER

nah but zantetsu def made some dumbass comment on twt and reo replied with “open up schools again” 😭😭😭😭😭

reo commenting on nagi edits and cosplays imagine him going on his usual spree never realizing that was his official account and it gets PINNED ON EVERY TIKTOK HE COMMENTS ON

reo commenting on nagi edits and cosplays imagine him going on his usual spree never realizing that was his official account and it gets PINNED ON EVERY TIKTOK HE COMMENRS ON “oh my god he’s so hot” “the way i’d lick his abs” “you look sm like him?? wow?? come over??”

chigiri: aint NO way you were caught lacking THIS BAD reo: I KNOW HOW IT LOOKS

he has to jump on twitter “GUYS ITS NOT WHAT I LOOKS LIKE” in the replies bachira: caught in 4k is insane shidou: HASJCNJJFEWFN and @’s the WHOLE PXG TEAM karasu: NAHH AGAIN bachira: AGAIN IS WILLD rin: reo just log off shidou: THIS IS HILARIOUSKDJFNJ isagi: reo you have to stop doing this

reo tweeting “he’s here…..” thinking it was his private one and getting exposed AGAIN shidou’s def the one that calls him out when he thinks he got away w it @/reomikage: i really do love nagi seishiro shidou, in replies: check @ dude reo: FUCK then shidou sends a ss to the pxg group chat SKJJSNVJKD shidou has his notifications on for reo for this exact reason

HE SEES A NAGI COSPLAY AND TAGS REO “@/reomikage stays on during sex right???😘😘”

shidou in a nagi edit: “looking for reo’s comments" “here before reo 😜” “wheres reo when you need him huh”

SIMILARLY I BET KARASU GOT CAUGHT LACKING WHEN TALKING ABOUT YUKKI karasu on a yukki edit: “damn you made him hot i mean he was hot before but damn" “HES SO BAAADDD” “friend? bitch i said YOU BAD” and shidou sends it to the gc shidou: karasu ayo???? karasu: what i said what i said

karasus like “dawg have you SEEN yukimiya” and shidou’s like “mm you right”

they’re all over yukki in the pxg vs bm game when kaiser isn’t acting up

.

that's all me and my friend are ridiculous LMFOASKFNNAF THERES PROBABLY A LOT MORE i'll another post if we come up with more

[skriveting]

A bunch of different writing prompts MASTERLIST #1

updated 12.3.22

“Hate to break it to you, but …”

“Ok, this whole thing you’re doing? I’m gonna need you to stop.”

“I can’t help but feel jealous when you turn and smile at anyone else”

“So now what? You’re just gonna chase after them with a flashlight and righteousness?”

“To save you the time and me the breath …”

“Blackmail is more powerful than money. Once you have them with blackmail, you have them forever.” “I just asked you if I could borrow five dollars, I-”

“I can teach you something else if you want”

“Does anyone care what I think?” “I know I don’t!”

“Toss me!” “Toss you?!” “Do it!!”

“Hold my beer.” “This is a Capri-sun.”

“Wow that was so wild. Crazy”

“I hope common sense is the next cool trend”

“You think you can take me?”

“Bring it on.” “Enough with the movie references, can we just fight already?”

“Relax, there is no problem/we have no problems!” *B walks in* “Ok, one problem!”

“How did you even learn how to do this??” “It’s probably best that you don’t know.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.” “I guess that would be difficult.”

“You really think you can stop me? Adorable.”

“This is ridiculous, why did you make me carry you on my back?” “Stop complaining, I need a good vantage point!” “You can literally FLY!”

“Band-aids don’t fix bullet holes, *B*!” “Listen, I love a good Taylor Swift reference as much as the next guy, but now is probably not the time-”

“Don’t you have to be stupid somewhere else?” “Not until four.”

“Alright, fine. If I can’t get around you, I guess I’ll have to go through you!”

“So, you know how in _______, ___________ _______? That literally makes no sense.” “IT’S 1AM. Go to sleep!”

“For most people it goes, observe, think, speak. For *B* it goes a little differently.”

“This would be a lot easier if you weren’t so hot.”

“I don’t want your help, I want you safe!”

“Who buys 25 packs of balloons?!” “Leave me alone, it’s been a rough day!”

“Can you turn up the heat in here? It’s freezing in here!” “Sure baby, come on over here-” “nOt what I meant!!”

“Keep talking and maybe one day you’ll blurt out something intelligent.”

“I wish I was who you think I am”

“Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it.” “How?” “That’s not your department.”

“An asteroid could hit Earth right now and I’d still be more upset about this”

“Could you please make an effort with them?” “I don’t care about them, I only care about is you.”

“Why not?” “Because I don’t want to die!” “You can be so boring sometimes why do I even hang out with you?”

“You know that’s never gonna happen, right?” “Just let me have this”

“You’re the Ethan to my Hila.” “You have to stop using modern references I have no idea what any of them mean”

“Rules are meant to be broken.” Actually, that’s not-“ "Come on!!”

“If I get shot, will you have my back?” “…. Well…” “Say yes!!”

“He’s the embodiment of everything wrong with the world. I’m kind of into it”

“Wow that was awful. Truly.” “Thank you.”

“I’d die for you.” “Please live for me instead.”

“I don’t know, it could be worse!” “But it could definitely be a whole lot better too.” “You have a point there.”

“I think I just met the human version of a dubstep remix.”

“You’re a mess. But you’re my mess.”

“If you don’t stop now I’m calling your mom!”

“Every time I see your face I go crazy.” “Crazy in a bad way or crazy in a good way?” “Undecided.”

“Love is like a plant. It has to be watered and nurtured and eventually it’ll grow and become stronger and stronger.” “Can our love be the plant that eats bugs and stuff? That one’s really cool.” “… sure.”

“If they don’t kill you, I will.”

“We’re going on a trip, in our favorite rocket ship-” “Please don’t sing the song-” “ZOOMING THROUGH THE SKY!!!”

“I can’t believe you’re scared of spiders, you’re massive.” “THEY’RE SMALL AND UNPREDICTABLE AND RUN REALLY FAST, OK?”

“My therapist won’t be happy when she hears about this.”

“You look awful. You look like someone drove you over, backed up, squashed you under their tyre and did donuts in an abandoned parking lot with your face in the ground. You look like someone crumpled you up and forced you down the garbage disposal. You look like someone played a game of Operation on you and didn’t clean you up afterwards. *pause* You look terrible.” “Yeah, I got that, thanks.”

“It’s not a big deal, don’t worry about it.” “You’re literally bleeding out!” “It’s fine-” “nO it’S NOT!!”

“I just wish you’d asked me first.”

“Poopity scoop.” “… can you please just-” “Poopity scoop. Poopity scoop”

“Can I please tell you-” “No, please don’t.” “… I love you.”

“So fight me, then!”

“Everything is going as planned!” “That’s because you have no plan.” “Exactly!”

“I love you.” “You shouldn’t.” “I know/I don’t care”

“I wish this thing came with an instruction manual.”

“You’re the only drug I need, baby” “That’s sweet but you still have to take your prescription”

“That’s not very professional”

“Argh, I broke a nail!” “Is that really your main concern right now??”

“That can’t be good.”

“Yet another day of oppression and agony. When will it end?” “We’ve been married for a week stop being so dramatic.”

“If anyone else asks me if I’m ok I’m going to go ballistic.”

“This doesn’t align with my morals.” “What morals?” “… fair point.”

“Shut up.” “..I didn’t say anything?” “Shhhh.”

“I just want to throw up and die”

“You make me wish I’d never been born.” “Funny, I was just wishing you’d never been born too!”

“What are you gonna do, sing about it?” “I might!!”

“I can’t keep going. Not like this.”

“What’s that?” “What’s what??” “That thing!!”

“Hey, so, uhm-” “What is it this time?”

“You make me wish I was better, I want to be better. But I don’t know how.”

“You’re the worst person I’ve ever met.” “Aw, thank you. That means a lot.”

“Did you know that during Prohibition, moonshiners would wear shoes with wooden blocks carved to look like cow hooves under them to leave hoofprints instead of footprints, helping them evade police?” “No, I didn’t, but more importantly, how did you know that?”

“Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? Caught in a landslide …” “…*begrudgingly* No escape from reality.”

“Calm down, I don’t see what the big deal is.” “You stabbed me!!”

“What’s you excuse this time?” “I’m a little bit stupid :)”

“If you were a car, you’d be a BMW.” “Why?” “Cuz I want you to Be My Wife !” “…are you trying to propose to me?” “… Please say yes.”

“Oh no. That can’t be right.”

“You’re not allowed to do that!” “Says who?!” “Your mom.” “I can’t believe you called my mom.”

“You’re gonna have to stop narrating everything you’re doing, you’re gonna give us away.” “Sorry.”

“I’ve never wanted anything so much in my entire life.”

“He’s my worst enemy. My nemesis.” “Didn’t you meet him like five minutes ago?” “Yes.”

“This is it. This is my sign!” “… That’s a cereal box.”

“I’ve done my fair share of stupid things in my day, but this is just ridiculous.”

“I hate you. But I hate them more. So I guess my hatred for you can wait.”

“What? I told you it was going to be dinner with my parents.” “Yes but you didn’t tell me your parents were like that!”

“Whether you like it or not, I’m your only hope. So what’s it gonna be?”

“Can you stop it?” “What? I’m just looking at you.” “I know, it’s creepy, stop!”

“I don’t remember that, that doesn’t sound like me.”

“You think you can stop me? That’s so cute.”

“Can you just-” “CaN yOu JuSt-” “Stop!” “StOp!” “One of these days I am going to kill you.”

“I’ve never been this happy before.” “Not even when you had to wait at that burger place so they ended up giving you extra large fries for free that one time?” “Not even then.”

“Uhm, I fell.” “Upwards?”

“I feel like you’re not hearing me; I don’t want more flowers. I just want you here, at home, with me.”

“This is not how I thought tonight would go.” “I know, isn’t it great?!”

“Is it supposed to be able to bend that way?” “No, definitely not, this is bad.”

“How are you able to do that?” “I honestly have no idea.”

“You need me for something, don’t you?” “Oh please, like you don’t need me for something too.”

“Silvia…” “Yes, Mickey?” “How you call your loverboy?” “Come here, loverboy!” “And if he doesn’t answer?” “Oh, loverboy!” “And if he STILL doesn’t answer?” “Yo loverboy, you better listen up when I’m talking to you!-” “No babe, we practiced this”

“I’m not angry, just disappointed.” “For the last time, I didn’t know we only had one doughnut left or I would have asked you!”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” “Do you want to …sing about it?”

“You truly are one of a kind.” “Thank you.” “I didn’t mean that in a good way.”

“I know you think I’m the villain, but I’m not.”

“I just want you to be happy. Whether that’s with or without me.”

“Let’s never speak of this.” “Agreed.”

“You can’t pay to get this kind of entertainment, baby!” “You catching fifteen grapes in a row is not entertainment.” “Says who?!”

“Where are we?!” “What makes you think I’m any less lost than you are?”

“Let’s go back to our place.” “Our place?” “Yeah. If you want it to be.”

“I thought I could trust you.”

“Hey, uhm, there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you…” “Oh, no, don’t tell me you’re gonna go all sappy and confess your love and everything to me now, are you?” “Well now I’m certainly not gonna to do it!!”

“I don’t need your protection, I just need you!”

“This is making me really upset.” “I’m sorry but we don’t really have time for you to be upset about this right now.”

“Ugh, that kid is being so annoying.” “Isn’t that your daughter?” “Yeah, so?”

“I want to speak to the manager, please.” “Dude, this is a frat party, I don’t think they have-” “The manager!!!”

“What are you doing?” “What are you doing?” “Don’t change the subject!”

“Babe, we agreed to only use that code word for emergencies.” “I know, but-” “And a video of a turtle and a duck being best friends is not an emergency, is it?”

“I’m very easily upset and very outwardly aggressive, which is a terrible combination.”

“Wow, I’ve been really annoying today, haven’t I?” “Not any more than usual, sweetie.”

“Hey-” “No!” “Why are you groaning like that?” “No offense, but you’re the last person I wanted to see today.” “What, why?” “Cause I actually wanted to have a good day.”

“If I die on this night, then so be it! You have been a good friend, a trusted-” “You’re just going to a gas station, it’s not-” “Silence!!”

“I want you to stay. I’m asking you to stay.”

“Can you stop yawning, please?” “Sorry, but this is just so boring.” “It’s your daughter’s dance recital!”

“I don’t want to shoot you, but I will if I have to. Step aside.”

“You’re the most poorly written character I’ve ever met.” “What?” “What?”

“I don’t want to die, please don’t let me die!” “I’ll do whatever it takes to get you out of here alive, I promise.”

“I’m in love with you.” “Wow. I don’t know whether to thank you or give you my condolences, honestly.”

“What happened here?!” “I tried to catch a spider.” “With what, a flamethrower?!”

“This is amazing! How did you know I wanted this?” “What do you mean? I listened to you.” “You what now?”

“Over my dead body!” “Hm, shouldn’t be a problem.”

“Explain yourself!” “…I honestly don’t think I could even if I wanted to.”

“What are you doing here?!” “What do you mean? This is my house.” “You were dead two days ago!” “Oh, right, that. Well-”

“I don’t understand what you’re trying to tell me.” “Would it help if I presented the information by way of dance?” “No but it would be funny”

“Hey, is this a bad time?” “Yeah, actually-” “Ok, great, so-”

“Unless they can hoedown, I’m not interested.”

“I can’t, I’m allergic.” “To water?” “… Yes.”

“Not to be rude but you’re the stupidest person I’ve ever met.” “Look who’s talking!!”

“I hate your guts.” “That makes two of us.”

“Do I know you?” “You will momentarily.”

“I didn’t come this far only to come this far.” (source)

“You can’t just say ‘yo mama!’ as a response to everything!” “Yo mama!” “no!!”

“Aren’t you supposed to help me?” “What do you mean? I am helping!” “You making paper airplanes out of the wrapping paper is not helping.”

“What are you thinking about?” “Wouldn’t you like to know?” “Yes, that’s why I asked dumbass”

“I don’t know how you’re gonna top this. Hopefully you won’t”

“This is gross, and illegal.” “So?” “Just thought I’d mention it.”

“Please don’t be mad”

“Why did you do that?!” “I don’t know!!”

“A good friend wouldn’t let me do this.” “It’s lucky I’m not a good friend, then.” “You’re right about that.”

“You know, you make being your guardian angel very difficult.”

“Every time I look at you I can only think of one thing.” “Oh yeah, what’s that?” “The Boney M 1994 smash hit that inspired an entire generation-” “Oh no” “Ra-Ra-Rasputin!!!!-” “PLEASE STOP”

“Don’t you think I’d love you back if I could?!”

“I’d rather eat a whole bag of pecans than spend another minute with you.” “…” “And I’m allergic to pecans.” “Yeah I got that.”

“Grief is the price we pay for love. Ask yourself if it’s worth it.”

“Get me out of here, now!” “What’s in it for me?” “Your head.” “… Alright.”

“I can’t do this anymore.” “You don’t have a choice.”

“I just want to make sure you’re ok.” “That’s very sweet of you but please stop flashing that flashlight into my eye every two seconds.”

“You want to what now?” “Open a bakery.” “That’s weird, I never saw you as the bakery type.” “Why not?” “Well for starters you’ve killed fifty people over the last two days.”

“I’m going to make you go first.” “Of course you are.”

“This makes no sense.” “Shut up.”

“I’d rather be stuck in a time-loop playing Monopoly forever than do that again.”

“Don’t take it personal, they always argue with people they like.” “I do not!”

“It’s of elvish make!” “Look, I don’t care if Elvis made it-” “… I’m going to pretend you didn’t just say that.”

“Look upon me and fear!” “You’re 5'2” I could stomp you to death with one foot.“

"I’ve never used this before.” “It’ll be fine, just don’t- Don’t do that.”

“Can you cook me some-” “No.” “You didn’t even hear what I wanted you to make!” “Doesn’t matter. I’m never going into that kitchen ever again.” “What happened in there the last time?” “Horrors. Horrors you can’t imagine.”

“Careful!” “I’m always careful.” “That’s the biggest lie I’ve ever heard.”

“It’s just personal preference.” “Whether or not to kill someone is not personal preference!”

“I wish you’d stop doing that.” “And I wish you’d stop being so annoying. Guess neither of us are getting what we want anytime soon, huh?”

“I hate you.” “I hate you too.” “… So, want to be friends?” “Sure.”

“I can’t believe you actually spent your money on this.” “I know, right?! You can’t put a price on this thing, baby!” “That’s.. that’s not what I meant.”

“Look, it’s obvious we won’t come to an agreement on this.” “Right.” “That leaves us only one choice, doesn’t it?” “Yes.” “Fight to the death-” “-Dance off.” “…”

“What would make you think I actually cared about you?” “Oh, please. You and I know both know the truth. You’re just too much of a coward to admit it.”

“Hey, are you listening to me?” “Sorry it’s just really hard to focus when you look like that”

“This is… interesting.” “No, this is wrong! This is vile, it’s disgusting!” “… Interesting.”

“For the hundredth time, constructive criticism about your cooking is not a personal attack-” “Then why did you say it in that tone?!”

“Don’t make me choose. Please don’t make me choose.”

“Well, they’re certainly sprightly, aren’t they?” “I don’t know what that means but yeah it sounds right.”

“Why do you always think the worst of people?” “Just saving time.”

“I just want you to push me up against the wall and shake me real good!” “Can this please wait we’re at Costco”

“Do you think they’d christen the baby with a squirt gun if we asked?” “… Why would we ask them about that?” “Do you think they would or no?”

“You wanna know what I think?” “No, but you’re probably going to tell me anyway.”

“I love you.” “Yikes, let’s not get into that right now.”

“Don’t talk to me!” “Please it was just a game of Monopoly-” “Silence!!”

“To save you the time and me the breath,”

“I know who you are.” “Oh, so you’ve heard of me?” “Your face is everywhere it’s kind of hard to ignore.” “Right.”

“Ye shall not pass!” “Please I just really need to pee!”

“I can’t believe they’re gone…” “Good riddance if you ask me!” “NOT at thE FUNERAL!”

“Don’t worry, I put the ‘fun’ in 'funeral’!” “I don’t want to find out what that’s supposed to mean.” “Oh, don’t worry, you will!”

“Look what you did!!” “You’re saying that like it wasn’t the point?”

“Every moment with you is a living nightmare.” “I’m glad.”

“Everyone has a weakness. Yours seems to be that you think you don’t have one.”

“There is a darkness deep within me… No matter my efforts it never ceases to claw at my heart, filling me with dread and despair day and night as I sleep and wake in a never ending cycle of doom and disaster, knowing I shall never be set free from the traps of time and torture within me..” “… Are you ok dude?”

“May I presume that you are, indeed, an idiot?” “Yes, you may.”

“I have to talk to you.” “Ok.” “And you need to actually listen.” “Oh..”

“Why on earth do you think I’m into you??” “You always use that sweet nickname for me, remember?” “'Stupid moron’ is not a sweet nickname!!”

“Don’t worry, nobody’s gonna see me.” “Someone is definitely going to see you.” “Why?” “Look at yourself!”

“Why are you so heinously incompetent?” “Can you please calm down, it’s only Monday morning.”

“Why are you smiling? I’m not dead yet, you know.”

“Hey babe, can you let me in? I forgot my keys.” “What’s the password?” “Can we not do this again we’ve lived together for five years-” “The PASSWORD!!!”

“Life is like a game of Monopoly, sweetheart. Equally chaotic and confusing with or without a plan.”

“I’m sorry I can’t go, I avoid any social situations at all costs.” “It’s our wedding-”

“Why are you so annoying?” “Why are you so mad about it?”

“Here are my final thoughts: You are stupid and this plan was dumb.” “Thank you.” “You’re welcome.”

“I’m sorry, I tried, I really did… I’m so sorry. Please forgive me.”

“Please go away.” “We’re handcuffed together, how am I supposed to-”

“I love you with every fiber of my being.” “You’re a ghost so that really isn’t saying much sweetie.”

“Wait, you like me?” “Yeah, isn’t it obvious?” “You sure have a funny way of showing it!”

“I hate you!” “Well now we at least have one thing in common.”

“Listen, if ABBA could come together after both of their divorces and make more music together afterward, you can do this!” “Well after that passionate speech I guess I have no choice.”

“Sure, he’s handsome, but can he cook pecan pie without a recipe?” “Why would that matter?” “Answer the question!”

“You can disagree all you want but that doesn’t make me any less right.”

“You can’t make fun of me.” “Says who?” “Your ugly face, that’s who!”

“This has ‘This Will End Badly’ written all over it. Ready to go?”

“What happened in here?” “See, you ask me that but I don’t really know where to start-”

“Stop always asking me questions you know I don’t know the answer to.”

“I just wish things would make sense for a change.” “I wouldn’t count on it.”

“That’s *name*, otherwise known around these parts as the big dipshit.” “Oh, nice.”

“I’m not qualified to do this, but it’s never stopped me before, so I guess here goes nothing!”

“Oh, trust me, I can dance!” “Is that you or the tequila talking?”

“I don’t know what I thought was going to happen, but this was definitely not it.”

“What was that noise?” “What noise?”

“Gimme, gimmie, gimme a… serotonin.” “Are you ok?”

“Hi, nice to meet you. Prepare to be killed.”

“Where are we??” “Gee, I’m so glad you asked. Let me just activate my google maps implant and-”

“Hey, do you remember that time when-” “No. No, I do not. No further questions, please.”

“Why are you so upset all of the sudden?” “You killed my dad!” “Right, that.”

“I love you.” “Are we playing a game of telephone I don’t know about? What’s going on?”

“Don’t be stupid, I’m not in love with them! Why would you think that?” “Well for one thing you haven’t been able to close their facebook page from your browser in five weeks, so-”

“I just need someone to tell me they’re glad I’m alive.” “I am. So unbelievably glad, more than you could ever imagine.”

“Why aren’t you talking to me?” “Because I’m mad at you.” “Why?” “Need I remind you–”

“You’re everything I’ve ever dreamt of.” “So you’ve only ever had nightmares, huh?” “Yeah.”

“Isn’t it time for you to go to bed?” “Isn’t it time for you to mind your business??” “… Ok. Bed, now.”

“Are you drunk?” “Nooo, whyyy?” “Because you just told me you want to carry me around like a sloth baby.” “Ooooh my little sloth babyyyy!”

“Hon, it’s 4 am, why are you up?” “I… I just have to organize this bookcase…” “*sigh* ok, which is it, by height or color?”

“What did you say?” “WhAt DiD yOu SaY?” “STOP!”

“AHH!!” “What?? What is it?” “Why can you bend like that?!”

“I love you.” “YOU TAKE THAT BACK RIGHT NOW- Oh, wait, hold on-”

“That’s interesting.” “… You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?” “Not a clue.”

You come here often?“ "I- … We both live here.”

“I’m sorry but looking like that has to be a punishable offense.”

“Are you lying?” “Why would I lie?” “Because we’re sworn enemies and hate each other’s guts?” “Oh, right, that. Forgot”

“What are you doing??” “Bold of you to assume I’d have an answer to that question.”

“… Are you singing to yourself?” “Oh, yeah, sorry, I didn’t notice.” “No, please, keep singing. It’s nice.”

“Are you okay?” “No. But I will be, with time. I hope”

“Should we do something about this??” “… Or we could just do nothing?” “Yeah let’s do that.”

“How was the cult meeting?” “For the last time, family dinner is not-

"If you so much as look in their direction again, I will kill you, is that clear?”

“What are you doing here? I thought you were dead.”

“How long have you been having these nightmares?” “For months… I just need them to stop. I’ll do anything to make them stop.” “Anything?” “Anything.”

“I haven’t seen you since you blacked out and threw up in my shoes at that party last year.” “… So is that a ‘no’ to the date, or…?”

“Bro you must have the most selective hearing known to man.” “… Sorry, did you say something?” “AAARRRGH!!”

“I miss you. Please come home. Please.”

“He’s got a stick of something stuck up somewhere is you know what I mean.” “Nice.”

“I love you more than I love Ewan McGregor.” “Wow, babe, do you really mean that?” “…. yes.”

“Bro I’m pissed, you really can’t have s#!t in Detroit.” “…I gotta be honest, half the time I have no idea what you’re saying.”

“You really should get a grip.” “You’re one to talk!”

“Why did you do that?!” “I was just trying to be cool.” “Well, it did not work.”

“I gotta tell you, I don’t like our odds on this one.” “Since when has that ever stopped us?” “Just thought I’d mention it.”

“So, about last night…”

“How do you feel?” “Torn apart.”

“And you can be sure of this: I will never cry over it. Never.”

“This isn’t a competition, you know.” “Spoken like a true loser.”

“Hey, it’s me, hope you’re doing well.” “My dog died last night.” “Aw. Anyway-”

“I’m sorry, ok? Here, I brought cookies!” “You killed five people.” “Not a raisin person I see. Noted.”

“Where’s the kid??” “The what?” “You remember that you were supposed to pick them up today, right?” “… I gotta go real quick-” “I’M GOING TO KILL YOU!”

“I can’t do it, I can’t…” “You don’t have a choice.”

“And whatever you do, don’t-” “Don’t what?” “… Do that.”

“I haven’t wanted anyone this bad in a long time.” “I hate that I have to ask this, but do you mean that in a romantic or violent way?” “Both.”

“How do you stay so good, even through all of this?”

“I need you to stay alive… please… I don’t know how to live without you.”

“I’m really glad you feel that you can be honest with me.” “Well you drugged me so I didn’t really have a choice-” “Shh. I really love the growth our relationship is going through.”

“Are you ok? And don’t lie to me.”

“Taken your meds today?” “Yeah, why do you ask?” “No reason.”

“I feel like I’m gonna throw up.” “Please don’t, this car’s new-”

“I think I’m ok now…” “You’re not.” “Why do you care, anyway? Aren’t you supposed to hate me?” “Be quiet. Lie still.”

“Ok bestie, I see what you’re saying.” “Please stop talking like that.”

“Ok, fine, it’s on. You. Me. Karaoke at eight.” “What kind of threat is that??” “You’ll see.”

“Did you just kick that guy in the nuts for no reason??” “Yeah, that’s feminism, baby!” “No, no, it’s really not-”

“Inhumane. Disgusting. I can’t believe you’d do something like that.” “Give me a break-” “Say hello to Geoffrey RIGHT NOW.” “He’s a dog, why do I have to-” “SAY IT!” “…. hello, Geoffrey.”

“Citation needed, please.”

“I don’t like the cut of their jib.” “Do you have to talk like that?” “Talk like what?” “Never mind.”

“We shouldn’t do this, it’s not right.” “Ok Mr. Geneva Conventions.”

“Now, kneel before me. Kneel!”

“Hey, come here a sec.” “Are you going to serenade me about how I’m the love of your life and how your universe would have no light if I weren’t in it?” “No?” “Then no.”

“You got what you wanted, didn’t you?” “I didn’t want it like this! Not like this…”

“I know it’s not much, but, maybe I could hold you, just for a little while.”

“If you want even the slightest chance of surviving this, you have to do exactly as I say, got it?”

“If only one of us is can make it out of here alive… it’s gonna be me.”

“Honey, what’s going on? Why are you crying?” “*sniffs* What if they don’t like the wrapping paper on the gift?” “They will, honey, don’t worry. Go back to sleep.” “Are you sure?” “One hundred percent. Trust me.” “Okay.”

“This is outrageous!” “Sweetheart, you have to calm down.”

“Back then I honestly didn’t think it could get any worse. But then I met them, and I thought, uh oh.” “And we’ve been inseparable ever since.”

“How was your day?” “Nice. Why do you ask?” “Because I wanted to make sure you had a nice last day before I kill you”

“Where are the others?” “You mean the scum you call friends?” “Yes, now where are they?”

“You’re an idiot.” “Takes one to know one.”

“Why did you do that?? I got what you were saying, I didn’t need a demonstration!”

“Listen, we don’t want any trouble.” “Well I guess that’s too bad, cuz I do.”

“What are you laughing at?- Actually, I don’t wanna know.”

“If only one of us is can make it out of here alive… it’s gonna be me.”

“Honey, what’s going on? Why are you crying?” “*sniffs* What if they don’t like the wrapping paper on the gift?” “They will, honey, don’t worry. Go back to sleep.” “Are you sure?” “One hundred percent. Trust me.” “Okay.”

“This is outrageous!” “Sweetheart, you have to calm down.”

“Back then I honestly didn’t think it could get any worse. But then I met them, and I thought, uh oh.” “And we’ve been inseparable ever since.”

“How was your day?” “Nice. Why do you ask?” “Because I wanted to make sure you had a nice last day before I kill you”

“Where are the others?” “You mean the scum you call friends?” “Yes, now where are they?”

“You’re an idiot.” “Takes one to know one.”

“Why did you do that?? I got what you were saying, I didn’t need a demonstration!”

“Listen, we don’t want any trouble.” “Well I guess that’s too bad, cuz I do.”

“What are you laughing at?- Actually, I don’t wanna know.”

“Happy birthday!” “My birthday was a month ago.” “Yikes.”

“So what are you doing to celebrate this year?” “The same thing I always do.” “Wallow in loneliness and self-loathing?” “Yup.”

“Tomorrow would’ve been their twenty-first birthday.” “Would have been?” “Yes. As in I’m going to kill them so they won’t live to see it.”

“I never thought I’d live to see this day.” “I’m so glad you have.” “Me too.”

“Happy birthday.” “How’d you know it’s my birthday?” “Just a lucky guess. Anyway, here’s your ID.” “Where did you get that??”

“I hope you like it, baby.” “Aw, this is so sweet, you shouldn’t have-” “… Well?” “Sweetie, what is that?”

“I know you usually hate celebrating your birthday, so I thought I’d make it a little bit extra special.” “By kidnapping me?” “Now you’re being a little dramatic.”

“Happy birthday!” “Didn’t we celebrate my birthday last year?” “Birthdays are kind of an annual thing.” “Oh.”

“I just want this day to go by in silence, ok?” “Sure, whatever you want.” “Thank you.”

“Do you know what kind of cake they’d like?” “How am I supposed to know that? Cake-preference isn’t really a common topic of conversation on the battlefield.”

“I need a reason to stay.” “I can’t give you any. Not any good ones, anyway.” “A bad one will do.”

“Want to know why everyone hates you? It’s because you are so obviously the envy of everyone in this room and yet totally unaware of it. It’s infuriating.”

“Remember that summer by the cabin when we stole your grandad’s boat and got stuck in the middle of the lake?” “I remember you being the reason we got stuck because you dropped one of the oars in the water.”

“Come, dance with me.”

“I don’t regret a single second I’ve spent with you.”

“You make me miserable, you know that?” “Then how come you’re smiling?”

“Don’t open your eyes yet!”

“You can’t tell me what to do.” “Listen, normally I’d let you do what you want, but when that thing involves holding a knife to my face, I feel like I should get to have some say.”

“Now, I’m not saying if I saw them in a burning building I would leave them in there, but-”

“Why does every outing with you have to turn into some sort of ethical dilemma?” “More fun that way.”

“So, yeah, anyway. Where was I?” “You’d just killed your brother with a teacup.” “Right. So, he comes back to life-”

“Boy, have I got news for you!”

“According to my sources, that’s a load of bullshit.” “What sources?” “How about my common sense?”

“Never you mind!”

“I’m not mad, she had to do what she had to do.” “She kidnapped your mom!” “I’m just saying,”

“I’m not so sure about this…” “That’s why you’re not the one in charge!”

“Suck it up buttercup, we’ve got work to do.”

“That’s interesting, but have you considered this…” “… what?” “Therapy?”

“I’d like to suggest a heart-to-heart conversation about this, but considering you don’t have one, that’d be difficult.” “Quite.”

“What happened here?” “I-” “No, stop, I don’t want to know.”

“You’re the eager kind, I see.” “No, just impatient.”

“I had no time to think, so I made a judgment call. But, as I should have known from previous experience, I have very poor judgment.”

“Well, what if you-” “No.” “What?” “I don’t want advice, I just want to complain.” “All right. Go off then, I guess.”

“I’m so single even my mom won’t return my calls.” “Your mom is dead, sweetie.” “I know, but still.”

“Just get it done; it doesn’t much matter how.” “… Machete?” “Yes.” “Gun?” “Yes.” “Lazer gun?” “Yes.” “Rabid monkey?” “Yes.” “Hm… what about a voice-activated fighting drone that shoots lemon juice into people’s eyes-” “JUST GET IT DONE!”

“How was your day?” “Oh, you know, the usual.” “I doubt there’s much ‘usual’ about your usual day.” “I won’t fight you on that one.”

“Well, what do you think?” “He’s nice.” “And?” “And I hate him with every fiber of my being.” “Why am I not surprised.”

“What are you doing?” “Waiting for inspiration to strike.” “How’s it going so far?” “Not good.”

“Crap, what do we do?!” “I don’t know! I majored in physics not in fighting big ugly monsters!” “Look, I don’t think calling it ugly is helping!”

“If nothing’s killed me so far, I doubt this will.” “One can only hope.”

“If we lose this-” “It’s just a game of Capture the Flag honey, it’s not that serious-” “If we lose this, I’m divorcing you.”

“What do you want from me?” “You’ll see soon enough.”

“Can I ask you a favor?” “Can you ask me? Yes. Will I do it?” “… you haven’t even heard what I was going to ask-” “No.”

“Never underestimate the power of a well-timed prank, young padawan.” “See, this is why I never introduce you to people.”

“Not to sound desperate, but, we’re desperate.”

“Don’t ever ask me about that again, is that clear?”

“Hear that?” “Hear what?”

“There you are! I’ve missed you!” “What- What’s going on?”

“Am I supposed to know who you are?”

“I’m bored, wanna do something?” “Sure, what do you want to-” “Bank robbery.” “…” “…” “Should I be concerned?”

“Please, tell me what’s wrong.” “*sigh* Lately, I don’t know, I guess I just don’t feel seen.” “Well, I am blind, darling.” “Yes, of course, sorry. My bad.”

“I love you.” “I don’t believe that.” “Doesn’t change the fact that I do.”

“What’s it going to take to convince you?”

“I’m in love with you.” “… What in the world for?”

“I would prefer death to this.” “I really wish you’d stop talking like that.”

“Why is your face purple?”

“I haven’t felt like this in a long time.”

“But I’ve realized that I’ll never be enough for you. And as much as it hurts me to say it, I’ve realized that you’ll never be enough for me, either.”

“I’m so nervous.” “It’ll be fine, don’t worry.”

“I was fine on my own, and then you came waltzing in with your long eyelashes and beautiful smile, and now look at me, I’m a mess of epic proportions. And it’s all your fault.”

“Something tells me I’m going to regret this.”

“This will be a lot easier for the both of us if you don’t fight.”

“Fighting is a lot more intimate than undressing, don’t you think?”

“What, you’re not hungry?” “Not hungry enough to eat whatever that is.”

“Why do you have to be so difficult? Sit still!”

“Get out of the way kid, this is none of your business.” “Oh no you don’t. If anyone’s going to kill her, it’s gonna be me.”

“This is getting ugly. We have to leave, now.”

“Don’t you realize that I’m only trying to protect you?”

“I want to stay with you.” “You know I’d never let you do that.” “Why?!” “Why do you think?!”

“Wait, were you worried about me?” “Don’t flatter yourself, I just didn’t want to have to deal with your corpse.”

“Look, I’m sorry I burned your house down and eradicated your entire family, but I think it’s time for you to stop holding a grudge.”

“Don’t give me that. You meant what you said and you know it.”

“All of that to say… I hate you and I wish you were dead.”

“Man, what’s up with that guy?” “He’s just like that. You get used to it. I hope.”

“Don’t you think you’re being a little overdramatic?” “I will literally set you on fire right now.”

“Don’t you think you should reconsider your copious intake of *insert food/drink*?” “Don’t you think you should shut your mouth?”

“This seems like a needlessly complicated way to do this.” “Well I’m in charge so if you have any better suggestions you’re free to keep them to yourself.”

“You want to tell me what’s going on here?” “No, no. Definitely not.”

“Will you stop that?” “Stop what? I wasn’t doing anything!” “I know. Just thought I’d save us the time for when you eventually do something.”

“I haven’t let a man speak to me that way since 2005, and I certainly am not about to now.”

“I promise you’ll be okay.” “What about you?” “Don’t worry about me. Just get out and don’t look back.” “But-” “Promise me.”

“We’re gonna need a whole lot of glitter glue to get out of this one, ladies.”

“That’s my girl.”

“You’re crazy!” “Oh, honey, rest assured, you don’t even know the half of it.”

“How can you be so calm right now?!” “Worrying won’t change anything. You need to calm down.” “Don’t tell me to calm down! You just blew that guy’s head off!!”

“Why are you wearing that thing?” “What thing?” “For goodness sake- YOU’RE WEARING A TRAFFIC CONE ON YOUR HEAD!”

“Don’t you realize how much is at stake?” “You know I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.”

“That’s embarrassing.”

“Look, I’m not any more thrilled about this than you are, but can we pretend to like each other for one night?” “All right, fine. But just know that I’ll be wanting to throw up the whole time.” “Likewise.”

“Wait, are you saying what I think you’re saying?” “That kind of depends on what you think I’m saying. But, yeah, sure.”

“What’s wrong with your face?” “What do you mean?” “Oh, wait- You always look like that? Yikes.”

“I would strongly encourage you not to do that.” “Why?” “You don’t want to know.”

“Come with me, please.”

“What’s that smell?”

“You kiss your mother with that mouth?” “Well, your mom never complained.”

“Just admit defeat, you’re completely powerless.” “Maybe. But that doesn’t mean I’m defeated just yet.”

“I’m here to do a job. Feelings have nothing to do with it.” “How naïve. Feelings have everything to do with it.”

“So how do you two know each other?” “We’re married.” “Oh!”

“How dare you speak to me that way?”

“I can’t go in there! Are you crazy?” “And why on earth not?” “Look how I’m dressed!” “Darling, you could wear a potato sack and still be the marvel in any room. Now let’s go show them, shall we?”

“Trust me, you’re doing great, just keep going.” “I’m so scared, I can’t do this!!” “Yes, you can. Trust me, you’re almost there!”

“I’m quite proud of you.”

“How do I know I can trust you?” “Well you’ll be dead in about two minutes if you don’t, but it’s up to you.”

“I would be lying if I said I didn’t see the signs… But then again I’m dyslexic, so-”

“Man, not this guy again…” “What?” “I’ve killed that guy five times already but he keeps coming back, it’s really starting to get on my nerves… Wait here, I’ll be right back.”

“You’re not scared of me. I like that.”

“What’s going on??” “Be quiet.” “Why?” “I’m grieving.” “Grieving what?” “My dignity.”

“Well I might not be the smartest guy around, but even a broken clock is right once a day!” “No, that’s… That’s not…”

“Do you see now why everyone hates you?” “Yes, isn’t it marvelous!”

“Are you ok?” “Please don’t ask me that.”

“Where are you going?” “I don’t know yet. But I’ll let you know when I get there.”

“Just because I’m not allowed to do it doesn’t mean I can’t do it. There’s a difference!”

“Enough talking. You came here to play, didn’t you? So, let’s play.”

“He’s dangerous.” “How? He seems nice.” “Exactly; he’s charming. And charm is a man’s most effective weapon.”

“Stop talking, please. Your voice is shrill and piercing and thoroughly unpleasant.” “A simple ‘shut up’ would suffice, you know.”

“I’m having murder thoughts. Come back later.”

“I can’t do it!” “Just shoot your shot, dude. One day they’ll be dead and so will you.”

“I’m so sorry I hurt you.” “Don’t sweat it, I could’ve just as easily have hurt you.” “Well, it’s cute that you think that.”

“May I thunder victoriously against him in the battle for your heart, my sweetest one.”

“What’s going on?!” “Just do as I say and ask questions later!”

“All right, that’s it! Your bloodline ends here!”

“This doesn’t look very promising, does it?” “In my humble opinion? No.”

“Is that mistletoe I see?” “I’m pretty sure that’s poison ivy, actually.” “Well, I’m not picky.”

“Am I crazy, or-” “Yes.” “… You didn’t even hear what I-” “Don’t need to.”

“I’ve loved you from the first moment I ever laid eyes on you.” “Wasn’t that at that party when I was hurling my guts out into the toilet?” “Okay so maybe not the very first moment,”

“Hate you.” “Hate you too. Have a nice day, sweetie.” “You too, babe. See you after work.”

“You followed a recipe this time, right?”

“Are we really about to have this discussion again?” “Yes, and we will keep having it until you realize that I’m right and you’re wrong!”

“How did you end up way out here?”

“Let me tell you something.” “Hm?” “If anyone were ever to write a biography about you, it’d be called The Life of a Dumbass. And situations like this are the exact reason why!”

“Why?” “I don’t know why, and I don’t care why!”

“I’ll give you a word of advice: never wear two pairs of socks.”

“I learned at seventeen why you should never ever wear two pairs of socks.”

“I’m a little kerfuffled.”

“That’s a good example of childhood trauma she hasn’t recovered from.”

“Maybe the oldies are onto something with this.”

“I’m forever in your debt, my friend.” “Just buy me a burger and we’ll call it even, okay?”

“I’ve given this a lot of thought, and I think you may be overthinking this.”

“I just want to be with someone who makes me want to live. Someone who makes me glad I’m alive, who’ll make me see the beauty of it. Right now, all I can see is the pain. I want to smile again.”

“I thought you didn’t care about me.” “Only you would be stupid enough to think that.”

“I know you’re a little behind the times, but that’s extreme even for you.”

“It’s scary.” “All of life is scary, sweetheart. But you can’t give up.”

“He’s a complete and utter grump and she’s a precious ray of sunshine. It’s meant to be.”

“Whew, glad that’s over!”

“Everyone’s going to see straight through this.” “No way, I paid top dollar for this!” “Where, the dollar store?!”

“I’m really nervous.” “Me too.” “Yeah?” “Yeah.”

“I had a really good time tonight.”

“You look gorgeous. As always.”

“Look, kid, this isn’t personal. It’s just business.” “You stole my grandfather’s ashes!” “Again, nothing personal.”

“Wow, I’ve never seen such a terrible bowler in my entire life.” “Shut up!”

“But just so you know, I intend on being as confusing and annoying as possible the entire time.”

“In terms of sense, there is none detected.”

“I can fix this, I can fix this!” “How?!” “I don’t know, but I can!!”

“Whatever you decide, whether I agree with your decision or not, I’ll support you.”

“Have you seen my bee-jar?” “Your what-now?” “My jar full of bees. Thought that’d be pretty self-explanatory.” “Yeah, I got that part,”

“Being a rational person, I’d strongly advise you against doing this. But I’m also a curious person, so by all means, go ahead.”

“Down, boy.”

“I feel conflicted.” “Why?”

“You obviously aren’t able to take care of yourself right now, so, just for now, I’m going to do it for you. But just know I’m not happy about it.”

“Maybe, just maybe, this was a bad idea.” “You think?!”

“I’ve done a lot of stupid things, but that was by far the stupidest.”

“This is not an insult, just an observation,”

“Oh no! … Anyway.”

“Just seems like everyone’s coming after me these days.” “Wonder why.”

“Room’s a mess, just the way you like it.”

"Don't be fooled, what you're witnessing is a crime."

"Just you wait."

"Deep breaths, come on. Deep breaths."

"This stuff is intoxicating." "Thanks!" "As in poisonous." "Oh."

"What do you mean 'why am I laughing'?!"

"Don't ever say I never do anything for you."

"You thought I wouldn't notice, huh?" "Shut up."

"I don't want to talk about it."

"What's so funny?"

"Is that a fact or are you just guessing?" "Do you even have to ask?"

"Look what I found!" "Oh, wonderful honey, wonderful, let me see. What is that...? IS THAT A SNAKE?!"

"Why are you doing that?" "I'm a little forgetful these days, so I need these notes to remind me of things." "You won't forget me, right?" "Oh, never! And if it ever seems like I have, I'm just playing a game, so you just play along, ok?" "Ok!"

"Look at my dress!" "Spectacular. Stunning. Slay."

"Have you seen my glasses?" "You mean the ones on the top of your head?"

"I picked you these flowers." "Daisies! My favorite!"

"I'll tell you, the world's a lot different now from when I was your age." "How?"

"Tell me a story!" "I think you've heard all of my stories, honey... Well, except one."

"I'm not interested in that stuff anymore, grandma/grandpa." "Pity me, I guess I missed the newsletter in which that announcement was made!"

"Did you really make these?" "Yes, I did." "Can you show me how?"

"Why are you walking like that?" "I put my leg on the wrong way this morning, I think!"

"I will not accept defeat. You either win, or you die." "All right, calm down, dude."

"Over my dead body."

"Why are you doing that?" "I'll give you a hint: Revenge."

"You have to leave. Now!"

"This is without a doubt going to have international implications." "It's just pie, honey-" "Just pie?!"

"Don't you think they're a little young for this?"

"Why did you do this to me?"

"You shouldn't be here!" "Neither should you!"

"Let's have a glass of milk and calmly discuss this like adults."

"Together?" "Together."

"Watch this." "Do I have to?"

"Like braids in short hair, I too am barely holding it together."

"I'm burnt out." "We just started!"

"I actually hold a world record." "Oh, cool! In what?" "Dumbassery."

"What's that smell?"

"How's that fair?"

"When I wake up I'm afraid of the idea of facing the day." "I'm sorry to ask this, but, are you... are you quoting Adele?"

"Take no pity, take no prisoners."

"If I'd known I'd have brought some flowers!"

"Meet me at the hotel room." "Ok, Mr. Pitbull."

"He's an evil prick." "Isn't he-" "My husband? Yes."

"I've come to steal and plunder, fellas."

"Smile!"

"As they say, sharing is caring." "I don't think it applies in this situation."

"Play me something." "I haven't played in so long, I don't know..." "Please."

"If I'm going down-" "I'm going with you. I know, I know."

"I'll do whatever's necessary." "I hope so. For your sake. And for the sake of your loved ones."

"How's that even possible??" "We don't know."

"It's always excuses with you!"

"Out of all the people I hate, I hate you the most." "Aw, you really mean that?"

"I haven't been this stressed since I led the conga-line at Uncle Larry's wedding."

"You know... maybe I'm the problem." "You think?!"

"Now what in the fresh-" "My mother's here!" "-homemade bread is going on here? Roberta! Good to see you."

"It is as I suspected, he's a moron."

"Uh oh." "What do you mean 'uh oh'?!"

"Why are you shaking?"

"You're making it really hard for me to play nice right now."

"Tomorrow, he dies."

"Look at this plant!!"

"I'm hearing a lot of accusations and not seeing a whole lot of evidence!" "The dishes are right there!" "... Touché."

"It's time to get the old noggin' joggin', fellas."

"You're coming home with me."

"Please go buy some furniture, I'm begging, this is so sad."

"I suggest you get my name out of your mouth with quickness and haste, honey."

"He just told me I'm Corbin Bleu-ing it, what does that mean?" "I'm so sorry, he means to say that you're pushing it." "... To the limit?" "...Yeah."

"Does he always talk using movie references, or...?" "For my own sanity's sake, I'd prefer not to answer that."

"It's crime time, boys!"

"We're on the same page here." "Yeah, in different books!"

"It's time for you to step up."

"I'll take it from here."

"I'm trying my hardest not to be creepy here." "Yeah, well, try harder."

"Poor baby."

"How you like me now?"

"For once I'm going to need you to work with me instead of against me." "What's in it for me?"

"Come again?"

"You heard what I said."

"Can I ask you for some advice?" "Sure, but there's no quality guarantee." "Obviously."

"Why is she doing that?"

"I fear this is a real threat to my mental stability." "What mental stability?"

"Given the choice of failing on the cautious side and failing on the risky side, I've found the best place to land is in the middle."

"Be forewarned: I'm about to become ten times more insufferable."

"Since when do you knit?" "Since when did I give you permission to be all up in my business? Exactly. So shut up."

"Get in here, right now!"

"And I've been clear on that since the beginning."

"Give me the keys!"

"There's no way, there's just no way."

"Since when?"

"Is this what love is supposed to feel like?"

"I'm not going to let how I look, dictate the way I live my life."

"I feel like I'm gonna throw up." "It's cuz you're always on that phone!"

"I hate you." "Marry me."

"Life is a highway, and I'm always stuck in traffic."

"Bestie I will tear you to shreds."

"Your mother didn't carry you for nine months for you to behave like this." "You don't know my mom at all, do you?"

"Great, so out of two hundred-and-sixteen passengers there's not a single pilot/captain/doctor on board, but we've got five marine biologists, two graphic designers, ten chefs, one Banksy impersonator, and four composers. Fantastic. We're all gonna die." "Anyone here a funeral directory by any chance?"

"Why would you lie about something like that?"

"Stop being so dramatic." "There's a bone sticking out of my arm!" "And?"

"¿Como es?" "I don't speak french, sorry." "*visible confusion*"

"Boo, you psychopath."

"Make no mistake, vengeance will be ours." "Grandma-"

"I know you don't mean to, but sometimes you come across as very villainous."

"Do I regret it? Absolutely. Would I do it again? Without a doubt."

"You've got a real attitude problem, kid." "That's just his personality, sir."

"This isn't a competition, dude." "You're right, it's not even close!" "That's not what I meant."

"I want to go home..." "I know, I know. We will, soon, okay?"

"I've decided to be nice." "... Why?"

"Could you please shut up and stop being so annoying?" "Sorry, you're gonna have to pick one, I can't do both."

"Do you recognize this?" "Where did you find that?"

"Here, you're gonna need this." "Is that a machine gun? Who brings a machine gun to lunch??"

"And when I rule the world,-" "Don't you mean 'if'?" "... As I was saying, when I rule the world,"

"Why is no one dead?"

"Riveting."

"Fascinating."

"I hate that I can't tell whether you're joking or not."

"Why are you doing that? This is not a thumbs-up situation."

"You better watch your back!"

"This is feminism, baby." "It's really not..."

"Who still asks for permission?"

"Lighten up, it's tradition!"

"You hungry?" "Famished."

"That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard, and I’ve been listening to myself speak for twenty years."

"Let’s just say we have unfinished business."

"You're in my way. Move."

"Don't worry, it'll all make sense later." "I sincerely doubt that."

"Do you have to wear that?"

"You drugged them?!" "Yeah, what's the problem?"

"Are you always this jittery?"

"What are you doing?" "Tidying." "...Why?"

"Listen here, ugly."

"Let me throw up real quick-"

"Since when are you part of the group?" "Since I can beat up all your asses, that's when." "...I'll give you that."

"Any questions?" "Several. First of,"

"Pay attention, this is important."

"I get the feeling that you don't like me very much." "I don't."

"This feels illegal." "It's not, I checked." "That doesn't make me feel better."

"Are you two fighting again?!"

"On the bright side, it can't get any worse." "I strongly doubt that."

"You can keep telling yourself that, but it won't change what happened."

"And who's going to pay for this?"

"Coming from you, that doesn't really mean much."

[cozy-possum]

Love Death and Robots ‘Season’ 3

Overall thoughts (spoiler free) and per episode (spoilers) below the cut

Overall:

Much preferred the varied visuals to the second season, it felt like there was so much obvious cgi/3d stuff in the second one many blended together. Each of the stories were interesting and captivating in their own way. I enjoyed bringing back the robots from series one. The soundtrack for all the shorts was really good

Trigger warnings: 

Three robots (dead bodies, dried blood, doomsday prepers)

Bad Travelling: Blood, gore, dead bodies, mutilation, murder, vomit

The Very pulse of the machine: Gore, dead body, blood, hallucinations, unreality, space

Night of the mini dead: sex, blood, zombies, death, war, nuclear threat

Kill team Kill: nuditiy, war, guns/weapons, blood, dead bodies

Swarm: Aliens, bugs (bug like aliens mostly beetle-esque) trypophobia, sex, body horror, blood, gore, vomit

Mason’s rats: Rats, guns, war, blood, dead bodies (rats) flashing lights (lasers) alcohol

In Vaulted Halls Entombed: war, guns/weapons, fighting, spider/bugs, gore, blood, body horror

Jibaro: Unreality, blood, violence, drowning, screaming/distorted sounds, reching/gagging, death, assault, gore

Three Robots: Exit Strategies: I enjoyed the tour around the various survival attempts of humans in the post-apocalyptic world. The humor and little digs at humans was cute and clever, a few of them could have been left off. Love how that one robot kept switching his hat. I also enjoyed how Elena clearly wasn’t as aware enough to know they were other robots. ‘Democratic cannibalism’ that’s an interesting concept, did they have reports on who was doing the best/worst? would it have gone farther than the secretary of Agriculture? Why is this US based, would love to see them going to other parts of the world at some point

Bad Travelling: Very visibly dark, made it hard to focus on the short. Enjoyed that the ‘monster’ was a big crab, it makes sense for it being in the ocean, can all of them speak like the one on the ship? I really liked the animation for this one. While very obvious cgi/3d it felt similar to the Secret wars from season one. Okay the little baby thanopods were cute. Did enjoy the twists of everyone voting x and Torrin blowing up the ship at the end really interesting.

The Very pulse of the machine: Not a huge fan of the people animation it looked like someone was trying to go for the ‘comic book’ angle but the lines felt too thin combined with the 3d made it look bulbous, the backgrounds and the elctromagnetic/hallucinations are beautiful. So they’re on Io one of Jupiter’s moons, it looks pretty cool. I do enjoy Martha casually arguing with Burton to start the ‘hallucination’ part. Relly enjoyed the ending and the surreal visuals they added.

Night of the mini dead: okay hands down fav episode, I have a weakness for minatures IS THIS A MODEL RAILWAY/TOWN IM GONNA DIE HAPPY NOW, the hockey scene made me cry laughing, in fact this whole short did, the little high pitched helium voices got me THE POPEMOBILE!!!!! the garbage truck zombie killer, ahh toxic waste zombies niceeeee; not the penguins 😭

Kill team Kill: Like the animation style, enjoyed the idea of the terminator grizzly bear, maars-bot is great it’s like stabby on steroids, it was an okay action short, the animation style is what saved it for me, not very interesting otherwise

Swarm:  Ooo centuar aliens they look soft, like a peach. The animation is that hyper realiztic 3d/cgi which I’m not a fan of for humans. I do love a good swarm/hivemind concept, and i’m digging the various alien species seen so far, also hell yeah space fungi!! Not surprised that the swarm took over a human, similar to the thanopod from Bad Travelling, fun horror concept; “intelligence is not a winning survival trait” thats a raw ass quote my dude

Mason’s rats: If Chicken Run and the Rats of NIMH were squashed together but Scottish and with a slightly ‘happier’ ending than i was expecting (well i saw the twist but nice to know it happened) really enjoyable and cute premise and ending

In Vaulted Halls Entombed: more hyper realistic cgi/3d, still not my fav for humans; feeling very generic war/action scene with like ‘spooky elder god’ to mix things up; digging the little spider things, the little faces they had was a cool touch, didn’t really care for the whole “elder god brings vision of end of world thing”

Jibaro: Visually chaotic, there’s a lot going on, cgi and sharp movements and shaky cam all gave me a headache, the cgi of the people got a little too distorted (although I suppose thats the point) the fashion was cool though, although I felt it could have been far shorter, i liked the twist of him gaining his hearing back as a punishment of sorts for what he’d done

[drabbles-mc]

Okay, so I wanted to bounce off of the anon's imagine for a juice spider fic, but I also want to see the guys' react to this situation. I know that would be asking a lot, so maybe a headcanon for how the boys would react? Can you imagine Tig's cheekiness/horniness, or Happy's deadpan reaction? Hell, even Chib's would be hilarious. I leave it to you

Since we’re doing this HC for multiple characters, I figured a list might be better than multiple fics. Hope that’s alright! Also threw Opie into the mix because I love him haha. Based off of This Fic

(Also currently drafting a fic that is a different version of this for Kozik for a different request which is why I didn’t include him in this)

Reaction to finding you screaming and naked outside the bathroom because of a spider- 

Tig:

For sure bursts into the room with his gun ready to shoot someone because he doesn't think that there’s any reason someone would scream that loud except if they’re about to be murdered

When he walked into the empty room he was insanely confused, but that confusion only lasted for about three seconds when he saw you standing outside the bathroom naked, dripping water all over his floor

He doesn’t even bother to ask what happened or what’s wrong as he makes his way over to you. You can see it in his eyes that he only has one thing on his mind, and it has nothing to do with the spider on the other side of the door

You push him back, telling him that he doesn’t get to lay a finger on you until he takes care of the monster living in his bathroom.

“It’s not going anywhere, c’mon, we can be quick,” he reached out to touch your hips. But you’re firm, keeping him at arm's length, “You don’t get to touch me until that spider is dead.”

He tries to protest, to sweet-talk you into forgetting about it, but you step away from him and point at the door. You make it very clear that the vibe in his dorm isn’t going to be a sexy one until you know that the eight-legged nightmare is dead and flushed down the toilet.

He rolls his eyes with a sigh but he begrudgingly opens the door to take care of the problem. You can hear him mumbling under his breath about how he can’t believe that you would really push him away over a spider and that he couldn't believe you expected him to see you standing there like that and think about anything other than having his hands all over you.

Despite your annoyance, you had to laugh at his frustration. He made quick work of the problem and came back out, a smirk on his face. He backed you towards the bed and both of you had to laugh at the entire situation

“Y’know, I might start keeping other weird shit in there if it means I get to walk in and see this all the time,” there was a cheeky grin on his face as he thought about it.

You shook your head, “I find any more spiders in there I’ll never be naked in this dorm again. You can count on it.”

Chibs:

If he had heard the scream coming from anywhere else, he would’ve been concerned. But he knew that there couldn't possibly be anything that terrible happening inside the shoebox of a room that passed for his dorm.

He found himself chuckling when he heard you yelling his name, telling him to “get the fuck in here now.”

He walked in and found you sitting on the bed, knees pulled up to your chest. He saw the trail of wet footprints leading from the bathroom to the bed and he had a million questions he felt like he should be asking.

“Do I even wanna know, love?” he was trying not to smile and failing miserably at it. You looked at him, “Do you like company when you shower?” Confusion came across his face, “What?” You repeated yourself, “Do you like company when you shower?” He laughed, “Only if it’s you.”

You shook your head, “Really? Because you have quite the friend hanging out in there waiting for you!” He couldn't even try to pretend that he understood what you were talking about, “Ye gotta start talkin’ sense to me. What the hell--” You cut him off, “There’s a giant fucking spider in there!”

Once he realized that that’s what it was, his laughter continued. He came over and stood by the edge of the bed, pushing the dripping hair back out of your face. He didn’t want to say what he was about to, but he couldn't lie to you, “Aye. I know. Keeps all the other bugs away.”

“You know?” in that moment you contemplated leaving him. If you hadn’t been naked you would’ve stormed right out of the room and left the compound. He held his hands up in mock surrender, “I hardly ever use the shower here! We leave each other alone!”

“Go kill it. Now.” It was plain as day on his face that he was amused but also didn’t really want to do what you were asking him to. He tried to reach out and caress your face but you pulled away, “C’mon, love. That just don’t seem fair. He’s just tryin’ ta do his job.” You started daggers at him, “Filip. I swear to god--”

“No need to bring God into this,” he chuckled as he made his way over to the bathroom, “I’ll take care of it for you.” He opened the bathroom door and took his boot off so he could squash the creature causing the issue.

A few moments later you were rewarded with the sound of his boot banging against the wall. He walked back out, pulling his shoe on as he did so. He shook his head as he walked over to you, “All taken care of.”

You allowed him to drape a fresh towel around your shoulders, “If you want a pet we can get a fucking cat or something. Or a dog for the clubhouse. But no more spiders.”

Happy:

He swung the door open to the room, the same angrily neutral expression on his face that he always had. He could hear the shower still running, and it made him wonder why exactly you were standing outside the door to the bathroom. He looked back and forth between you and the doorway, waiting for you to offer something up about what was going on.

“Why’d you scream?” his voice was gruff. You pointed towards the shower, “There’s a spider in your shower!”

His brows furrowed in confusion, “So? Kill it.” Your eyes went wide as you shook your head, “I’m not gonna kill it!” He tilted his head slightly, “Just gonna stand there naked and waste all the hot water, then?”

You huffed. You loved the man but sometimes you wanted to smack him repeatedly with a rolled-up newspaper. There were downsides to being with someone with a bloodlust like his, one of them being that he would never be able to wrap his head around being afraid of something like a spider.

“Can you just go kill it for me, Hap? Please?”

He didn’t say anything else to you about it but he did go over and walk into the bathroom. He shut the shower off and after a few moments of him looking around, he lifted his foot and kicked the wall of the shower where the spider had been, a brief grunt falling from his lips as he did so.

He walked back out to you, “It’s dead now.” You had to laugh at his deadpan delivery of the statement, “Thank you.” He grabbed a towel and handed it to you, “You should get used to killing stuff. You chuckled, “Yea. I’ll get to work on that.”

Opie:

He walked in and saw you frantically waving him over. He shut the door behind him, not wanting anyone to walk by and see you. You were holding the bathroom door shut like you were trying to lock someone inside.

“Who you got in there?” it was hard for him to not find the situation at least a little comical. He reached and grabbed a shirt off the top of his dresser and handed it to you. “Not who,” you shook your head as you quickly pulled his shirt on, swimming in the fabric.

“What’s going on?” he reached for the doorknob but you beat him to it. You waited for him to look at you, “There’s a spider in there.” The confusion and concern melted away from his face as he laughed, “A spider?” You slapped his chest, “Don’t laugh! Thing has legs as long as yours.” He smiled and shook his head at you, “I doubt that.”

You hand him a shoe that had been cast aside by his dresser. He shook his head and waved you off, “I think I’ll be alright.” You stepped back as he walked into the bathroom and shut the door behind himself. There were the quiet sounds of him scuffling around on the other side of the door.

A minute later you heard the flush of the toilet and let out a sigh of relief. He opened the door and smiled at you, “All gone.” You peaked around him and did a quick scan of the room, as if to make sure he was telling you the truth.

He pulled you against him and pressed a kiss into the dripping wet hair on top of your head. You could tell by the look in his eyes that he was thinking of another smart comment to make so you quickly started pushing him back towards the door. He laughed as he allowed himself to be escorted.

“Just bring me in to do your dirty work?” You laughed as you stood on the other side of the doorway from him. You didn’t justify the comment with a response as you shut the door on him. His laughter made it’s way through the walls between you, “I love you!” he called to you. You rolled your eyes despite the fact that you couldn’t see him, “I love you too, even though you raise monsters in your shower.”

These were super fun to write!! Hope you enjoyed them. xo

[cellard0ors]

Fic: Movement (2/?)

Still dedicated to the wonderful @peachworthy. you read part one than you know - GMM Rhink AU - College Student Link/Pornstar Rhett AU

“Got it right again, man! You’re going to ace this test!” Rhett crows as he tosses down another notecard and Link pumps his arms in triumph. The two of them are settled in the kitchen, piles of books and notecards spread around as well as few bottles of beers and some bowls of chips.

Link picks up one chip and pops it into his mouth, grinning at his roommate fondly, “Well, couldn’t’ve done it without you, pal. You are, without a doubt, the best study buddy I’ve ever had.”

“Aw shucks, gonna make me blush,” Rhett laughs even though it’s Link who feels his cheeks actually grow warm, his friend’s laughter a common cause of the occurrence.

They’ve been living together for over a month now and it’s been beyond amazing. Link would’ve never guessed a guy like Rhett and a guy like him would work so well together.

It’s like they’re the world’s weirdest, most convoluted puzzle yet all the pieces click together to form a full picture that is nothing short of a masterpiece. True, there’s a lot about Rhett Link doesn’t know yet (and gosh is there a lot he wants to know) but their friendship is running smoothly.

Well, smoothly save for the massive crush Link has on the guy, albeit he’s doing his damned best to squash it. Yes, Rhett’s attractive and yes, he’s the first guy Link’s ever met that he’s felt a real zing for, but the fact of the matter is – Link would much rather have him as a friend and roommate than lose him as a…well, Link’s not sure if he’d lose him, but the mere possibility keeps Link’s lips sealed.

Besides, it’s okay to crush on someone and never act on it. People do it all the time. Not to mention that it’s a bit…odd to crush on someone in Rhett’s line of work. Isn’t it?

Link can’t think of too many people who will admit to crushing on an adult film star. Regular, mainstream film stars, sure – but adult film stars?

Yeah…

Although, to be frank, Link’s sure there are some that do. And, hopefully, some of them are not the creepy internet troll-y kind of people, but genuine salt of the earth folks like himself. Because, okay, he is crushing on one so…

Rhett is toying with the cards, maybe looking for the next question to quiz Link on when he asks idly, “Y’know, Link – I gotta say, I admire your stamina.”

That remarks makes Link choke on the drink he’s just been consuming, a cough clearing it up some as he croaks, “I’m-I’m sorry?”

Rhett hums noncommittally, as if not noticing the gaffe, “You’ve had yet to grill me about my job. Normally, once folks hear about it, that’s all they want to talk about.”

“Oh,” Link breathes out loosely, “Well, ah-? It-? It just…seemed rude to-to ask…”

“Been over a month living with me now. You telling me you ain’t interested?”

“I didn’t say that!” Link quips back much quicker than he would like, but Rhett just gives him the most perfect smile. All sincere and warm beneath his beard and remember, Link, you’re doing you’re best not to crush on him!

Rhett is still toying with the cards, eyelashes downcast, the very visual definition of shy as he murmurs, “Just sayin’…I don’t mind if you wanna ask some stuff.”

Link’s eyebrows rise in such a way as to damn near bump his glasses off, “Y-You sure?”

Rhett draws in a deep inhale and then sits the cards down. He crosses his arms and leans back in his seat, looking quite serious even despite the casual red flannel and jeans, as if this was more of an interview (or perhaps an interrogation?) than anything else, “Shoot.”

The a million and one questions that Link has kept at bay about Rhett’s job and more personal life threaten to cave his skull in as they crash about in his mind. However, he has to go with the obvious, “Know this’ll be predictable, but…why?”

Rhett just bobs his head in an understanding nod even as Link pushes on, “Why and how?”

Rhett sucks on his teeth before picking up his own beer and taking a fortifying sip before continuing, “The two are kinda interconnected to be honest. Had a fallin’ out with my family. Think I mentioned it in passin’ to you once. But, to clarify; they weren’t too happy with my chosen living destination nor with the fact that I’d come to terms with the notion that I’m attracted to both the ladies and the gents.”

Link’s mind immediately (and joyously) clings to ‘the gents’ remark, bookmarking it for future reference, even as Rhett continues his tale, “You grew up where we did. So you get it.”

Link does. And then, to nail the point home, Rhett adds, “Probably get it a lot more than others. If my…instincts are to be believed.”

Shit.

SHIT.

Link’s whole body immediately bursts into flame, the tips of his ears so hot he’s sure they’re glowing bright red.

Rhett knows I’m gay. He knows. I thought having a radar for that kind of thing was bullhonkey, but he knows and oh, lord, oh lord – do I give off some sorta vibe? I know that girl in my screenwriting class, Stevie, she teased me about being an A-Level twink or something, but I didn’t think-!

Rhett’s laughter carves right through Link’s insecurities, “Take a breath, brother! Look like you’re about to pop!”

Link does and Rhett just shakes his head, still grinning, “Point being – I was pretty much a babe in the woods when I came to LA. Not two nickels to my name, so I took whatever gigs I could get. Managed to snag a few commercials and things of that nature, but you know the drill. Jobs are hard to come by. And a guy of my height?”

He blows out a big breath and tosses all of those luxurious curls about with a rueful head shake, “Yeah, most people fingered me for a baller, so – again – jobs were hard to come by. But then, wouldn’t you know it? A friend of a friend of a contact told me about this part they thought I’d be perfect for.”

Another deep barrel chested chuckle emerges as he reminiscences, “Mighta been nice of ‘em to let me know it was actually a part of me they thought would be perfect.”

Do not zero in on his crotch! Do NOT zero in on his crotch! Charles Lincoln Neal the Third DO NOT-!

Link keeps his eyes so steadfastly forward he probably looks like some bug eyed zombie. If Rhett notices, he doesn't comment, “Anyway, when I found out what the role was, I had planned to politely decline but, y’know, the money they offered…”

There’s an easy shrug and this Link can look at. He looks at Rhett, who looks a bit sheepish as he scratches at one side of his beard, “I mean, again, you grew up where I did. So, you know how the whole ‘wait until marriage’ thing was drilled into your head, but I figured it wasn’t like anybody would know. My family’d cut me off, my friends were few and far in between, and the people on set…”

Now he looks a bit happier and Link can’t help but smile along with him, “The people on set were all right. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard the kind of stories people tend to spin – the exploitation, the drug abuse, other questionable stuff…place I was at wasn’t like that. I mean, maybe I just lucked out or something, but it was…”

Another shrug and he goes for his beer again. Link figures this is as good a time as any to get in another question, “So, you did that and then you…? Just kept going?”

Rhett nods as he drinks, the bottle leaving his mouth with an obscene pop that Link is going to do his best to forget all about right now and certainly not recall at any point in the future (and most certainly NOT when he’s jacking off later), “Yeah, I did the one and the director really liked me. He pull me aside and told me about this company he was trying to set up with a couple of buddies of his. They wanted to go in a classier direction – know how funny that sounds, but he was serious.”

“So, what? No, like, blockbuster porno knock offs? Like ‘Sex in The City and ON the City’ or ‘Arma-get-it-on’?”

“Think you stole that last one from an episode of CSI.”

“I did, doesn’t change the question.”

They’re both smiling like a couple of fools, but the mood is good and the atmosphere light as Rhett sighs, “Yeah, nothing like that. I’ve actually worked with a few female directors, shot some things with great budgets, nice lighting, good costumes…”

“Oooo, costumes,” Link teases in the silliest voice and Rhett swats out at him. Link avoids the hit even as Rhett rolls his eyes, “I’m serious, dude. Some of the things that department pumps out looks better than anything you’d see in Hollywood.”

“Hmm, some kinda wood,” Link snickers and this time Rhett’s swat makes impact, brushing Link’s shoulder and Link would be embarrassed by the giggle he lets out, if it weren’t for the way Rhett’s nose is all scrunched up, making him look beyond adorable, “You’re sucha brat!”

Link sticks out his tongue and Rhett just laughs. They turn their attention to the drinks and chips for awhile before Link circles around to another question, “You like it then?”

“It’s a living,” Rhett confirms, not really answering one way or another, “Like I said – make great money, work with some really nice people.”

“Uh,” Link scratches behind one ear, “Hate to ask, but, um…clean people?”

Rhett doesn’t seem offended, “You bet. Have to be. Another reason I’ve done this as long as I have. Money's great, but the safety is even better. I’m currently under contract with that same company I told you about – the one that director brought me under. On top of wanting to,” he air quotes his next words, “be classier’-”

He drops the quotes, “They wanted to provide an excellent work environment. Heck, me and the other actors and actresses probably have a cleaner bill of health than the entire state. Can’t shoot scene one until you’ve got the A-Okay.”

“Huh,” Link absorbs that with some surprise, but then, he supposes it really shouldn’t be. The adult film industry is a big lumbering beast right alongside it’s more recognized counterpart. No reason one shouldn’t be as cautious as the other. If anything, one has more right to be cautious.

Thinking on this, Link suddenly feels an odd pang. It’s a shame in one way that’s one viewed as more reckless than the other, more questionable. But, when viewed through a mostly puritan lens…

Not wanting to get too philosophical, Link switches gears, “You been in a lot of films?”

“My fair share.”

Another dodge, but Link will let him have it. However, he can practically feel devil horns rise as he asks with a naughty gleam to his eye, “Win any awards?”

Rhett’s practically preening, “Several.”

“Really?” Link asks with some surprise, but Rhett suddenly looks quite naughty himself. Naughty and…a bit too hot for Link’s liking as the heat that always seems to surround him when he’s near Rhett rises and woo boy, he’s really failing at this squashing-the-crush thing.

“If you’re a good boy, maybe I’ll show you one of my trophies some time…”

Everything in Link melts into a puddle and he’s not sure what expression he’s wearing, but it’s one that makes Rhett’s whole face light up, “…or maybe, just maybe, I’ll show you a little somethin’ else…”

If it’s possible for a melted puddle to also explode, then Link’s just done it. Rhett bursts into guffaws as he reaches forward and, very smoothly, pushes Link’s jaw up because Link’s jaw? It dropped. He didn’t even feel it drop.

And then, to just add more fuel to the fire, Rhett rubs the pad of his thumb along the bottom of Link’s chin, right below his lip, “Damn, son…you’re just too much for words.”

“I…”

That’s it.

That’s all that Link can offer.

Just one sound, one vowel.

Silent and stunned and Rhett draws back, looking like the cat that ate the canary as he lets him go and rises up from his seat, “Think you need a moment. I’ll be back in a bit.”

And – just like that – Rhett saunters out of the room.

[beskarberry]

Valkyrie

Bargaining with Beskar, Chapter 4

(The Mandalorian x f!reader)

“What... did you... do?”  You hissed between clenched teeth. “Did you poison him?! Give me the antidote right now or so fucking help me I’ll tear every limb off your ugly little body!” You were seething, fear and fury stoking fire behind your eyes. The bounty only laughed harder.

“Antidote?There’s only one antidote for that one, sugar, and I sure hope you like him enough to give it to him! Bwahaha ha! Good luck!”

Rating: Explicit

Word count: 7.8k

Content warnings: Canon-typical violence, SEX POLLEN + rough sex, oral sex (m receiving) and kink talk (not gonna list all of them but they’re all very common.) There’s another filk song reference in this one that I’ll link in the replies.

A/N: VERY IMPORTANT TAG! The bounty uses she/her pronouns so if girl on girl violence makes you squeamish please read ahead with caution! Also know that I >>do not<< use any gender-specific slurs (b*tch, c*nt, etc.)

<-Previous Next->

Everything. Was. Purple.

Purple! The grass, the sky, the trees, if you could call them that. The pulsating, gelatinous towers that spiraled into the sky were definitely alive, but you weren’t sure if ‘tree’ was a fitting word for them. Their branches were long and hanging, weighed down by some kind of berry or fruit that glowed with teal streaks. Your next bounty was on a habitable moon orbiting an enormous gas giant that took up the entire skyline. It was lush with vegetation and sparsely populated, a perfect hideout for an Ardennian.

The Razor Crest was parked in a meadow of lavender grass, though once again you questioned your choice of words, watching the way the long wet leaves wiggled in the breeze. You breathed deep, letting the rich, humid air fill your lungs while your traveling companions followed behind you down the old ship’s ramp. Baby beans trotted right past you on stubby legs, picking things up off the ground that he probably shouldn’t be putting in his mouth, but was too sneaky for you to stop him from doing so. You heard the Crest’s access door shut, and turned to see Mando eagerly trotting along to join you.

No, not ‘Mando’... Din. Mr. Mystery finally had a name, though you were still conflicted about using it. The man had spilled so many secrets into you in such a short amount of time that the butterflies in your stomach were breeding many-legged worms. Squirming, creeping things that quickly metamorphosized back into their illustrious true selves, and you weren’t sure which part of their cycle was making you more nauseous. But they were your secrets to keep, your heart wearing his name like a locket; safely hidden where nobody but you could see.

You had slid the heavy beskar bucket back up the ladder to him while he stayed in the dark of the cockpit, the knowledge of his facial features still kept by your hands alone. The pair of you had then stood close together at the armory, him with his helmet back where it belonged and you with your bright eyed mask protecting your crown. At the equipment cache he couldn’t stop talking, pointing out and picking up a variety of weapons and traps that would work particularly well for this simian quarry. Everything had a story, and he told you all about the bounties he had pulled trophies off of, or things he had gotten as rewards for helping someone else. He’s giddy. You could only listen along as he prattled away, handing you grapple after snare until you had to start putting things back in the armory, just so you could have your hands free again.

Hands. Every time he gave you another tool of the trade to add to your ever-growing inventory his hands brushed somewhere on you. Leather tipped fingers glancing quickly on your wrist, a lingering palm on your shoulder; each fleeting touch lasting just slightly longer than the last. He was struggling to keep his hands off of you, reluctant to give up the intimacy you had both been working at in the void-black darkness of the flight deck before atmospheric reentry tore you both apart. What other prayers of devotion could he pour into you, if you’d just had a little more time? ‘You belong to them, that is The Way’. The oath he had made to you was followed coldly in your mind by another string of words, ‘I’m not asking you to do the same, you’re not Mandalorian’.

You couldn’t think about all the words that you still needed to unpack, it was hunting time. The six-limbed simian was wanted for, checks puck notes, chemical warfare. She had blasted her way to the Guild’s Most Wanted list by lobbing incendiary bombs and poison gas grenades through a meeting of outer rim parliament, and the price on her head might have been higher than yours. The bounty puck specifically stated she was to be taken alive. Super. The droid-face mask wasn’t going to be much protection for your lungs, but it might at least keep your eyes safe. You took time to pack extra bacta and some quality rations, plus one of your new bantha-wool blankets. You woke up that morning on Tatooine, and the voice of your tortured circadian rhythm wondered if you would be sleeping rugged tonight somewhere on this heliotropic hellscape.

A bounty fob blinked lazily from the larger hunter’s belt, indicating that the quarry was on-world, but not close enough to catch. The three of you would have some walking to do. The child tried to make friends with every wiggly thing, running on his short little legs from fern to fern, hunting for treats. The little beastie’s adopted father chased him through the grass, trying, and failing, to keep him from getting into trouble. The sight of the mighty metal man being defeated so easily by a baby made you laugh, and the sound of your melodic giggles drew his attention.

“What are you laughing at?”

Oh no, I’ve been caught!  “I’m laughing at you, rust bucket! The scariest person here isn’t either of us, it’s him!” You pointed to where the child was tearing through the reeds after some kind of amphibian, and started laughing harder when Mando cursed and flew after his impish son. The rowdy child had a frog-like creature hanging from his mouth that vanished the second his dad tried to pull it away.

“Stop eating things you find on the ground!” The baby only squealed at the scolding, earning himself a grumpy, papa-patented sigh. Mando picked up the potato-sack of a child and dumped him unceremoniously into the hover-crib that floated along behind. “You can get back out when you learn your lesson! I don’t want you to get sick.” The baby made huge, sad eyes up at his dad, but Mando turned away quickly to avoid their hypnotic powers. You were doing your best to hide your giggles, covering the part of your mask where your mouth was, as if that would help. The Mandalorian strode up to you with a swagger. “Oh, you think that’s funny, cyar’ika?”

“You don’t?” You caught your reflection in the black gloss of his visor as he sauntered up to you, and your bug-eyed doppelganger only made you laugh more. A wall of beskar stood in front of you, eyeing you with slow tilts of his helmet while you got it all out of your system. When your breaths returned to normal you looked down at your hands and found that they had made friends. You had reached out for him without even thinking, and you were a little embarrassed that they had gravitated to him so naturally. He squeezed your hands gently before letting them return to you, and you heard the songs of star-lost sailors whispering in the back of your mind. The nights are long between the stars, and lonely, too, for me. I wonder how I might have fared with home and family.

“Night’s coming fast, we should keep moving.” Hunting mode reactivated, your companion started towards the undulating wilderness. He wasn’t wrong, within a few hours the massive planet that hung above you drifted out of view, replaced with a sea of glittering stars. The foliage around you glowed with otherworldly colors, teals and violets splattering their dense leaves and curling down their jelly trunks. Their loveliness made it easy to distract yourself from the task at hand, your eyes chasing the occasional yellow and red flashes that blinked from insects high in the branches. Ahead of you a large old tree had fallen over, and between its trunk and its upturned roots the spot was easily defensible.

Mando busied himself with clearing squishy sticks and leaves from the area to make a campsite while you looked for something to start a fire with. Nothing looked burnable, everything had a gooey, wet consistency, but some dead leaves under the log were dried out. They would have to do. You made them into a neat pile and pushed some rocks in a circle around them for safety, now you would just need a light.

“Hey, tinman, I need some heat!” He followed your pointing finger with his helmet and waltzed over to you, happy to be of assistance. He started up his wrist mounted flamethrower and used the pilot light to set the tinder ablaze. Not even fire could escape the overwhelming purpleness of the estranged moon as the blaze kicked up a bright indigo with a low heat. You got to work getting dinner around, pulling savory Tatooine treats out of your pack, pushing some of them towards the heat source so they would be warm. At the bottom of your bag you found some soft, squashed thing, and pulled the remains of breakfast out into the light. It was mashed, but it was still probably edible. “Mando, you never ate your breakfast.”

“What?” He looked at the sad excuse for a meal that you were offering him, eyeing it with curiosity. “You got me breakfast?”

“Yes? I told you that I would, though I guess it’s dinner now. Here.” You waved it at him so he would get the hint, and he took it carefully from you with timid hands.

“T-thank you. You’re very kind.”

“And don’t you forget it!” You whooped with overwhelming confidence, but the sweet words made you blush under your mask. Before he could turn and leave the safety of the fire to find a private eating area you reached for his hand again, pulling the armored paw to your forehead and knocking it softly against your mask. Kov'nynir. A wistful sigh escaped his modulator, and you knew the act of affection was well received. He bent himself down to where you sat at the fire and pressed his own forehead against yours, rumbling with contentment. The gentle sound made your heart swell, such a simple gesture that carried so much meaning. A bounty hunter’s life was fast and dangerous, why should finding companionship be any different?

You pushed your heads together just a little harder before he pulled himself away from you to go eat. You lifted your own dinner and the baby’s from the hearth, poking at it with your fingers to make sure it wasn’t too hot for Mr. Green Beans to eat. The child took it from you eagerly, content in his protective pram and making gross little noises while he ate. The food tin you had was much better than day one’s menu: bantha meat and Tusken hardtack with a side of more mystery mush. Your partner chose to take his meal elsewhere, fading into the darkness behind the fallen log where he could remove his helmet and eat in peace. Someday he might make more sense to you. The clank! of an empty food tin hitting the ground brought your attention back to your campsite buddy, the baby having thrown his clean plate at you.

“What’s wrong, booger? You bored? Alright.” There was a tiny bit of energy still left in your bones, and what better way to spend it than entertaining your precious audience. You pulled yourself to your feet, taking a moment to dust the spores from your pants and pull your backpack on before launching into song.

“When we pulled into Naboo’s Port in need of R&R,

The crew set out investigating every joint and bar.

We had high expectations of their hospitality,

But found too late it wasn't geared for spacers such as we!”

“And we're banned from Naboo, everyone!

Banned from Naboo, just for having a little fun!

We spent a jolly shore leave there for just three days or four,

But Naboo doesn't want us anymore!”

Green baby hands tried their best to clap in time with your sailor song, accompanied by adorable cooing noises while he tried to sing along. Your rambunctiousness summoned Mando back over to the fire, and he sat down on a large rock next to his foundling, watching you through his visor as you danced around the fire with flailing limbs.

“Our Engineer would yield to none at putting down the brew;

She outdrank seven space marines and a demolition crew!

The Navigator didn't win, but he out-drank almost all,

And now they've got a shuttlecraft on the roof of City Hall!”

You ran through the chorus again, taking a second to notice that tinman was tapping his foot to the beat along with you. You wondered briefly if they ever sang on Mandalore. You took a deep breath to continue-

“-KABOOM-!”

The fireside exploded just meters from your spinning dance, and you were hauled backwards to safety by your oathsworn protector,along with his foundling, and ushered towards the safety of the trees.

“-BOOM! Ba-BOOM! KERPLOW-!”

Trees and plants exploded on either side of you as you ran through the luminous dark. The Ardennian! Neither of you had been paying attention to the bounty fob, blinking fast and red under his cloak. Above you the sound of something swinging through the branches caught your ear, and you pulled your blaster and fired behind you.

“Bwahaha! Missed me missed me now you gotta kiss me, two-arms!” You couldn’t see her, but her taunts gave you a better idea of her position, firing several more shots towards their source. You knew you had to take her alive, but that didn’t mean intact.

“Go go go!” Mando was at your back, doing his best human shield impression while he hurried you away from the bombardment, the child’s bulky pram tucked uncomfortably under one arm. Your flight through the forest was haunted with vicious cackling and the sound of serene foliage being obliterated by the explosives that rained down around you, choking you with incendiary fumes.

A clearing materialized ahead, and the three of you rushed out from under the unmerciful trees. When you had gotten far enough from the tree line you both turned your eyes to the canopy.

“There!” Picking up her heat signature on his visor’s infrared sensors, he pointed to your target, his other arm still occupied with protecting the foundling. You grabbed the barrel of the pulse rife that was still slung over his shoulder, aimed, and fired. The ball of electricity arced from your little trio and collided with the trees, the sound of pained screams and crashes followed the wounded pyromaniac as she fell hard to the ground. Bullseye.

”Stay here, Mando, I got this! Keep him safe!” You stormed into the woods after the sounds of distress, snare at the ready to take the bounty alive. You were angry, rage powering your stride as you chased after her like a Corellian tracking hound. Angry that your sweet moment had been ruined, angry that she’d put the foundling in danger, angry that your partner had been pulled from the comfort of the fire to fulfill his duties as guardian. You sprang over roots and fallen branches, catching the sight of movement where the Ardennian was making a run for it. 

“Oh no you don’t! Get back here!”  Your words boiled with so much fury that they almost weren’t your own. Balls of fire exploded around you in a last ditch effort by the primate to kill you first. You dropped a knee into the loamy soil to steady your shot.

Woosh! The net sailed past her by mere inches, and you flew to your feet to begin the chase again.

“Ha! Grow some more arms and maybe you’ll have better aim!”  Fire erupted around you again, but the flames that seared at your eyes came from inside, burning with fuel siphoned from your heart. You took another shot.

Woosh! Miss! FUCK. You had one shot left on the snare-slinger, and you had to make it count. The trees were thinner here, how long had you been running? The simian was struggling to get away now, the long slimy branches too far apart to swing through. Behind you the sound of thunderous armored boots told you that Mando was hot on your trail, and you were glad to have the back up even though you had specifically told him to stay put. Nobody listens in this crew. Something green and gaseous poofed next to you, and the terms of the bounty puck came back to you clear as day: chemical warfare. The Ardennian was out of bombs and had switched to gas canisters, hurling a variety of brightly colored poisons at your face. Third time’s the charm.

Woosh! The net flew true, tangling in the many limbs of the fleeing quarry and throwing her to the ground. Gotcha! You bore down on her as brightly glowing vials sailed over your head, landing on something behind you with a crash! You were on her in an instant, shoving a blaster in her face.

“You’re done, chuckles! It’s over!” The fear in her eyes vanished as quickly as it had appeared when she glanced back behind you.

“Ha! I don’t think so, stinky. You’re gonna have yer hands too full with that to deal with little old me.” You followed her gaze, and froze from the ice crystalizing in your veins. Mando stood a ways back, still as a statue. Bright neon pink goo slimed its way down his helmet and dripped onto his chest plate. You turned on the Ardennian again.

“What... did you... do?”  You hissed between clenched teeth. “Did you poison him?! Give me the antidote right now or so fucking help me I’ll tear every limb off your ugly little body!” You were seething, fear and fury stoking fire behind your eyes. The bounty only laughed harder.

“Antidote? There’s only one antidote for that one, sugar, and I sure hope you like him enough to give it to him! Bwahaha ha! Good luck!” She was howling with laughter in your grasp, and the sound of her mirth was like nails on chalkboard to your ears. You practically threw her to the ground, running back to your incapacitated partner. He hadn’t moved a muscle.

“Mando! Hey hey can you hear me? Tell me what’s wrong!” The glowing pink slime was still on his helmet, and you hunted for something to wipe it off with. The closest thing was his cloak, so you reached for it and went to clean the pretty pink sludge from his helmet when an armored claw shot up and caught your wrist. The action startled you, but you were happy to see him still able to move. “Mando? You ok?” Slowly, with almost robotic precision, he turned his gaze to you.

“Cyar...’ika....?” His words were long and labored, the strain of them sending a chill through your bones.

“Yes! It’s me, Mando. I’m right here, I’m gonna get you taken care of. I- I’ll find some bacta or-” Your words were cut off by another wicked claw on your shoulder.

“So... Beautiful...”  The lustful words made the gears in your head grind to a halt. Really? Right now?

“Ok great, glad to see you’re fine, now can we get back to hunt-” He cut you off with a hand at your throat.

“Beautiful.. and mouthy. So... fucking... mouthy.” A leather tipped hand snaked up your neck to your lips, grabbing at your jaw and pushing a thumb in past your teeth. You tried to spit him out but his other hand latched on to the back of your skull. “I’m going to put that mouth to good use, mesh’la.”  Your mask was tossed to the ground, and the ‘good luck’ the Ardennian had wished you now made sense. Whatever was oozing down the front of his helmet was driving him into an uncontrolled sexual frenzy, and you were the sole outlet for all his desires.

“Mando! -Blech-! Man- Din!” He stopped trying to get down your throat at the sound of his own name, hearing it for the first time from your lips. “Din! We don’t have time for this right now! Get a grip!” Oh, but he already had a grip, and it was tightening on your scalp.

“That’s right, sweetheart, say my name.”  The command dripped from his modulator the same way the poison dripped down his face, and he started walking you backwards by the hair until you bumped against a squishy tree. The change of emotion from rage to fear to confusion made your head spin, and the new contending feeling of heat building in your guts was making itself known.

“Knock it off! Fucking hell, she’s going to get away if we don’t do something right now! ”

“Let her. You’re the only one I want.” The weight of his arms on your neck and shoulders became too much, and the man who you had shared a such a sweet moment with not too long ago was now forcing you to your knees. You dropped to a kneel, and your face was hard pressed up against the solid bulge that was trying to rip its way out of his pants. He took only a second to free himself, pushing his throbbing cock against your teeth. “Open wide.”

You wished you were meeting with mini-mando under better circumstances, but if getting him off would get you back to the hunt, you were happy to help. The taste of him on your tongue sent electricity through your body, spooling up fresh heat between your own legs. Above you Mando was making deep, guttural groans as you took his cock all the way to the back of your throat, wrapping a fist around where you couldn’t reach without gagging. You glanced around his leg to where you could see the hover-crib, floating a good distance away with the shield closed tight. Good, he doesn’t need to see this. A swift thrust brought your attention back to where it was demanded.

“That’s a good girl, take it all in. Let me make a mess of that pretty little mouth of yours.” He had a death grip on the back of your hair and the side of your jaw, pushing up to keep you open enough to take his length. Inside you were swirling your tongue around the tip every time it slid past, making sultry praises flood from his modulator. Most of the words were garbled, raunchy and alien, probably Mando’a. Spit leaked from the sides of your mouth, making good on his word to make a mess of you. The claws in your hair pulled tight, forcing your nose into the tuft of soft hair at his base so he could pump your throat full of cum without you escaping. “Ahh~! That’s it, mesh’la, drink it all down.”

The hot spunk made you choke and gag, tears rushing to your eyes, but you still swallowed as best you could. When he finally let you pull away you gasped for air, coughing on the ground at his feet.

“There! *cough!* is that... -blech-, better? Can you hunt now? Are you done?” The potionmaster was probably long gone, you couldn’t hear her fucking cackling anymore.

“Cyar’ika, we’re not done until I say we’re done.” The spear at your cheek was still hard as beskar, ready for round two. The armored man yanked you to your feet, shoving you face first towards the nearest tree. The tree’s flesh was soft and squishy, a fact you would be grateful for soon enough. Your hips were pulled backwards, and a buzzing sound told you he had pulled a vibroblade from his belt, stabbing under your pants’ edge and pulling down the crack of your ass until your clothes were cut away; leaving just the legs and your boots to protect you. The cold air hitting your cunt gave away your arousal, and he zoned in on it like a falcon, pressing still-gloved fingers to your wet slit. The roughness of the leather invading you made you cry out and your knees buckle, squirming under the intrusion of one finger, then two; pumping in and out of you to stoke your flame.

“You’re so pretty. So fucking pretty, and strong. I’m gonna lose myself in you, fierce little thing, and I never want to be found.” His hands ripped away from your swollen cunt, and the head of his cock was pressed to its lips. Both of you made delicious, filthy noises as he buried himself to the hilt, the slick of his own cum making a wonderful lube. “Fuuuuuck, you’re hot inside, lovely girl. My cock was made just for you.” He barely made it a few inches out of you before he was slamming back into you again. The force of him behind you smashed you face into the soft, forgiving tree, though you wished you could find somewhere for your hands to grab hold. He fucked you like a man possessed, and you were sure there would be bruises on your hips and thighs when he was finished.

His mouth ran like surging lava. “Fucking.. Maker... beautiful girl, beautiful hunter! Hunter-killer! I knew you would be a challenge to hunt, but I never thought you would be the one to capture me! You’re a work of art on the killing field! Mmph! You are mine and I’m going to fill your belly with my warriors ‘til you’re fit to burst. They’ll be so ferocious! Born with daggers in their teeth.” Vulgar words between thrusts made your entire body hot with a mix of embarrassment and lust. You might never know if the neon goo had given him the desire to breed you, or if he adored you so much that he wanted more of you to care for, but you did know your contraceptive implant would be having none of it either way. Still, his damning words flowed. “Nobody will ever put their hands on you again but me. I’ll give you everything you desire, cyar’ika, anything you ask for will be yours. I’ll bring the stars down from the sky if you ask me to! I- I’ll- I’m gonna...”

The Mandalorian stilled behind you, twitching as his cock spilled into you and ran hot down your thighs. His breaths were gasping, broken and desperate for air. His fingers digging into the soft skin on your hips would leave their mark for sure, and though he’d done a fantastic job of scrambling your insides you still felt warmth in your chest. Even in his poisoned, delirious state of mind, all of his thoughts were of you alone. The grip on your ass loosened, and the sound of a heavy thud hitting the ground told you he had fallen down into the soft purple grass. You struggled to peel your face from the jelly tree, standing like a newborn fawn on shaky legs. The bright pink streak on his helmet had lost all its glow, and your human rust-bucket was slumped over on his side, still as the grave. Not again, fucksake. You clambered over to him, digging under his cloak with your hands until you found his pulse. Still alive.

“Alright Mando, fucking stay here this time like I told you to.” You glanced around the meadow, but the Ardennian was nowhere to be found. Fuck! All that work for nothing. You groaned, looking down at what was left of your pants. You checked all the pockets, finding your lucky krayt teeth and a bacta patch before kicking the ruined fabric off over your boots. You dropped down to the spent form of your comrade, tilting his helmet up and slapping the bacta patch on one of the hickies you had left there a few days ago. You took a moment to stuff the teeth into one of his many pouches since you no longer had pockets of your own. With your ass in the wind you made your way over to the floating pram to check on your tiny pal. “Hey beans, you doing ok? Your dad and I were just having a little-” you spun the cradle around. Empty.

“No! Fuck! Fuck fuck FUCK!” The bounty had made off with Din’s infant son, your little buddy! You couldn’t stop the fear that dried your throat and brought tears to your eyes. Get a hold of yourself! Find him! NOW! Familiar rage welled up behind your eyes, and you raced back over to your unconscious guardian, still laying in the dirt and making it extra difficult to untangle the pulse rifle still slung over his back. Your hunting instincts were on high alert, and the sound of shouting caught your ears. “I’m gonna get him back, Din! Just... just fucking stay here!”

You tore off after the noise, every horrible scenario running through your head at once. Would she steal him? Would she hurt him? Would she kill him? Rage flared hot in your chest and threatened to burn you alive, your feverish skin icy with sweat. Wet leaves slapped past your bare knees so fast that their thin edges left vicious paper cuts. You didn’t care, nothing else mattered but the foundling. The sound of shouting grew louder, and you thundered though the trees to another clearing by a narrow wine-dark stream. 

“Help! This thing’s got me! Get me down, please! Get it away from me!” The simian terror was hanging in the air ahead of you. No, not hanging, floating. She was thrashing her arms, but all that did was slowly spin her in place. The sight was magical, but more important was the safety of child. On the ground near her, he stood with one fat little paw in the air, pointing at his abductor and concentrating with all his might. You didn’t know how he had escaped, or what the actual fuck he was doing, but you didn’t hesitate. You pulled the pulse rifle from your back and fired, once, twice, three times until her limp body was hanging in the air, knocked out cold. Or dead.

Baby beans crumpled to the ground, and the Ardennian followed suit, the ugly noise she made when she hit the ground brought a wicked smile to your cheeks. The baby’s little eyes were bleary and tired under his big droopy ears, and you scooped him carefully up off the ground to pull him in for a good, strong hug.

“Did you get the mean lady, sweetie? Good job! I don’t know what the fuck you did but hey, no questions asked, alright? I’m just glad you’re ok.” He smiled up at you with his tiny toothy grin before conking out in your arms, leaning heavily against your chest. You set him back down on the ground, just long enough to tie that six limbed asshole up tight, using everything you still had above the waist to keep her captured. You tied her arms to her feet and slung her limp body over you like a rucksack, then picked the foundling back up. With your bounty, baby, and bare ass you started the hike back to your fallen man.

Mando still laid where you had left him on his side, and you were annoyed to realize that, out of everybody involved, you were the only one left awake. Fantastic. You returned the baby to his floating bucket, pulling it closer to the pair of you this time, and dumped the Ardennian in the dirt. There was no way you could maneuver three bodies at once, somebody was going to have to get up and walk.

“Mando! Mando get up, we gotta go.” The man in question didn’t budge, soft, muffled snores your only response. You tried everything you could think of, pulling on his hands and legs and shouting, anything to wake his ass up. You knocked on his helmet, “Ground control to Major Mando, time to get up! Rise and shine, bucket boy!” Nothing, he was going to have to sleep the after-effects of the potion off, so he was staying right where he was.

You had no idea how far you had gotten from the campsite, and the cold night air on your bare booty made you remember your half-nakedness. On the ground scattered around the pile of living beskar was your backpack and the remains of your pants, along with the rest of your trap gear. Start packing more clothes. You went for the gear first, pulling another set of cuffs and a good strong rope out, and added a few more knots to the half-dead quarry so she wouldn’t be pulling any bullshit in the night. The backpack still had the bantha-wool blanket wrapped up tight, and you tied it around yourself like a skirt. Better than nothing.

Kneeling on the ground next to your Mandalorian, you cleared yourself a space to sit down, taking an extra second to make sure all his bits were tucked back out of view. You leaned back against the crook of his hips, feeling the slow rise and fall of his belly at your back. You were so tired, how many times had you been on the run in the last cycle alone? Your body desperately craved sleep, but you couldn’t take your eyes off the bounty. Anger crept its way back into your eyes again, and you wanted to take it out on her, channel your inner rancor. No, she’s already lost. Go to sleep.

But the merciful tug of sleep didn’t come, and when you realized why you felt foolish. The child’s pram was on the ground where you had pushed it next to his fathers’ armored head. He was sleeping like a little prince, and didn’t move at all when you pulled him out of the crib. When he was situated in your arms you pulled Mando’s cloak around the three of you for extra warmth. Sitting upright was a horrible way to sleep, but with the baby safely in your arms and a blaster at your side, you were able to catch a handful of winks.

You woke up many times that night, worried that something might happen to your baby or your partner, and each time your eyes shot open you glared at the dark form in the grass; though not once did it move. Still, you didn’t trust that you were safe, and only when the rim of the planet that dominated the sky drifted over the horizon could you actually keep your eyes closed. But the blissful comfort of real sleep was torn from you by your lounge chair trying to get up on its own. The rush from trying to sit up too fast knocked Mando right back down on his back, and his hands went to his armored temples to try to stop the world from spinning.

“What...where am... where’s....” He shot up like a bolt of lightning “WHERE’S MY SON?!”

“Right here!” You turned yourself to show the bug-eyed bundle to his father, letting him see that the child was safe. Mando wrapped his arms around you and the child, and you could hear his quick, shuddering breaths coming out from under the helmet. The hug was tight, a comforting fortress around your shoulders.

“Are you ok? What happened? Why are we in the grass? Where’s the bounty? Did she get away?” His questions gushed like a river, urgent and frightened. You pointed at where the Ardennian was still on the ground, far enough away that she was out of earshot. She was awake now, but still immobilized. Her eyes were fixed on you, and you could see the edges of her mouth turning upwards into a snarl to bare her teeth. Din’s hands were all over you, inspecting you for damage, and his breath caught in his throat when he reached your waist. Big, ugly red and purple fingerprints were swelling up between the scrapes on your skin, and he pushed the edge of your makeshift skirt down to follow their horrifying trail; they were everywhere.

“Who did this to you?”  The volcano behind the beskar threatened to erupt with molten malevolence, “Did she do this to you?”

“No Mando,” you sighed, a little hurt that he didn’t remember. “You did.” The wall of metal armor went stiff as a rail, his visor locked on your eyes, looking for the truth. But the truth was right in front of him, and he couldn’t accept it.

“What? N-no.. I would never... I could never hurt you, cyar’ika! Please... please tell me that I didn’t do this.” His fingers ghosted over your marks, but never touched them, his hands afraid of dealing more damage to your lovely skin. “I-I couldn’t have... I’m... I’m so sorr-” You cut him off with a hand on his helmet where his mouth might be.

“It’s not your fault, you were poisoned. I’m just glad you’re alive, Din.” The sound of his own name made his shoulders droop and his hands come up cradle your cheeks. You couldn’t meet his visor, the closeness of the distraught hunter making you flustered, so you tried to crack a joke. “I’m just glad you wanted to fuck me instead of the Ardennian.” The way his helmet snapped backwards made you realize he didn’t remember that part either. “Oh don’t look at me like that, I took it like a champ! You’re gonna have to do better than bruises to hurt this mighty hunter!” Your attempted words of comfort didn’t seem to work, and he pulled you and the wiggly child back to his chest in a world-erasing hug.

“Please just tell me you know I wouldn’t do this to you on purpose, I never want to hurt you again. Please.”

“Mando! I’m fine, really.” He held your head firmly, the blackness of the visor trying to bore though your very soul. You nodded in his grasp, “I know you didn’t, it’s alright, Din. I forgive you.” The force of his helmet knocking against your forehead almost made you see stars. His hands were wrapped around your head, holding you as close as he could in the intimate gesture of his people. You didn’t blame him at all for what happened, but it would be a while, if ever, before he could forgive himself.

“Oh isn’t that puke. Spare me the lovey-dovey crap and take me back to the Guild already! Buncha bucketheads.” You didn’t want to address the Ardennian that hollered at you from from the grass, but the beskar bucket turned on her in a heartbeat. He sprang to his feet in a flash, pulling the pulse rife from the ground and firing, stunning the target for the fourth time, fifth time, sixth, seventh.

He’s gonna kill her. You grabbed at his arm, demanding his attention “Mando, you got her, it’s over! It’s done.” Stance wide and chest heaving, the barrel of the long rifle stayed trained on the bounty for what seemed like an eternity before being lowered back to the ground. “Good, good, see, everyone’s ok. Let’s get back to the Crest and get out of here, sound like a plan?” He nodded, still watching the limp-again simian for signs of movement. When he was sure there wouldn’t be any more argument he stalked over to the quarry and slung her over his shoulder, ready to make the long march back to the ship. You set the baby back in his pram so you could take a second to grab everything off the ground, making sure you had your pack and your mask, and followed Mando back through the woods.

After hours of silent hiking, the Razor Crest came into view, and you had never been so happy to see the old girl, pretty as a plum in the violet haze. Once everyone was aboard, the fog of the carbonite chamber filled the tiny cabin to the brim, and left a new dark block in its wake. The Ardennian’s body was limp, though thankfully still alive; but the mischievous sneer couldn’t be erased so easily. You took a deep breath, sighing with relief that this hunt was over. Two down, one to go. Then Nevarro.

Your Mandalorian hadn’t spoken to you the entire trek back to the ship, and he was distracting himself by placing all the weaponry back in their spots in the cabinet. He’s still upset with himself. You still wore the bantha-blanket skirt, and its soft edges swished around your ankles. Gently you placed your hand on his shoulder, and he jumped violently under your touch as he was brought back to the present.

“You know I’m not mad at you, right?” He didn’t meet your eyes, but his hands stopped fussing with the armory. “Really, Din, I don’t blame you at all. I’m ok.” You tugged on his waist, bidding him to turn and face you, but still he couldn’t lift his eyes from the floor. You ran your hands from his shoulders down his chest, trying to bring him comfort with your touch, but when you saw his utility belt you remembered what was in his pockets. A flashbulb of an idea lit up in your skull, and clear as day the reason for your frivolous purchase on Tatooine made itself known. “You know what, I’m so not-mad at you that I have a present for you.” You grabbed his belt to dig through the pouches, but strong hands shot up to carefully take your wrists.

“Mesh’la no! Not after.. not after I- I can’t. I don’t deserve your affections.” Your eyes met his visor, its gaze no longer staring down at the floor and instead watching you with intensity. A smile broke it’s way out past your teeth, followed by a knowing laugh.

“No, that’s not what I meant, good thought though. No, Mand-...Din. Din, I have a gift for you.”  He hesitated to release your arms, but when you were free of his delicate hold you went back to the pockets on his belt and pulled the opalized krayt teeth from one of the pouches. Your companion’s visor followed the glittering treasures as they were brought into the light, and you wished you could see his bewildered face under the beskar. You handed them to him, and he carefully turned them over in his palm, letting the fossils catch the light and revealing their intricate patterns. His helmet tilted slowly, baffled that such beautiful things could be pulled from anywhere on his body, but the way his beskar sent streaks of light over his armor gave you a fantastic new idea.

Taking the treasures back from him you unscrewed the button fasteners that protruded from their backs, revealing the small, strong magnets hidden underneath; and pressed them up to his helmet. The teeth fit perfectly in the recesses of his cheeks, like they had been made just for him; and though you knew hunters didn’t wear adornments, they still looked lovely. “I know you can’t keep them on, especially when we go hunt, but they still look nice on you. Now you get to be my lucky charm.” His soft leather fingertips rubbed gently at his cheeks, feeling the way the indents had been filled with the precious jewels. The ship didn’t have any mirrors, and he would have to see how the swirling pools of crystalized moonlight looked the next time he took his helmet off. 

Wordlessly he reached out for you, taking your face in his hands and pulling your head to his so he could press your foreheads together. You were becoming fond of the mysterious gesture, letting the butterflies in your stomach stretch their iridescent wings and fan contentment into your heart. You pushed back against him, wrapping your own arms around his shoulders, locking his helmet to you. The whole galaxy could fly apart at the seams and you knew you would be alright, as long as you were right where you were, shielded in your Mandalorian’s embrace. I wonder if he feels the same. Tiny claws on your leg pulled your attention to the floor, and you were overjoyed to see big black orbs staring up at you.

“Little Beans! C’mere you, get in on this.” You hauled the foundling up between your bodies, letting him get a good look at you and his father. He chirped away, happily patting his papa’s fancy new trinkets, mesmerized by their shine. The little creature was full of energy, but you had been on your last leg for hours and you couldn’t stifle your yawns any longer. “Boys, I can’t keep this up anymore, you’re both awful cute, but I need sleep.”

“Of course, cyare, you’ve earned it.” Mando reluctantly stepped away from you and rolled out the Tusken sleeping mat that you had purchased. It was much thicker than the sheet originally on the little cot, and a hundred times more forgiving. You were comfy in seconds, and the warm embrace of sleep started pulling on your limbs and shutting your eyes. A different touch was on your arm, and you lazily opened one eye to see an armored hand pulling the bantha blankie up snug around you. Sweet, thoughtful murder-machine is what you had thought of him that first day, and the stupid pet name made you chuckle.

“What does that mean? That word, sire-eeka or sigh-air, they’re Mando’a, right?” You wouldn’t let sleep win you over without a fight, even if it was a fight you wanted to lose.

“Cyar’ika. The closest translation in Basic would be sweetheart, or darling.” Here we go again with Mando’a 101.

“Sweetheart, huh? Pfft... sounds like you like me or something. What’s the other word mean? You’ve never used it before now.” He sighed, long and tired, and you could see the foundling on his lap, still enthralled with the glittering opal on his fathers' metal face.

“I...I don’t know how to translate that one, but it’s more than cyar’ika, stronger, with more depth.” Something about his posture told you he might be lying, he knew exactly how to translate that word, but he wasn’t ready to tell it to you. He might, though, when he was ready.

“Alright, tin man, if you say so.” Your eyes finally let themselves close all the way, but even in the darkness behind your lids your devious hands still found their way to him, giving his hand a good squeeze. “Teach me more someday?”

“For you, ner cyare’se,” Your hand was pulled up from the blankets until the backs of your knuckles rested on the cool beskar of his brow, “I’d bring you the stars down from the sky, if you asked me to.”

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[businessbois]

hello blue :D i would like to know everything you would like to tell me about your favourite fic you've written

lyssie shrugofgod weirdly-enough this is the kindest thing ever i hope you're ready for vaguely comprehensible ranting.

okay so i couldn't choose between two fics "once i called you brother" and "the art and (mine)craft of war" because i could talk forever about both, but im gonna talk about "once i called you brother" because its the less popular one

heres the link :)

so i basically wrote this fic because i thought that the song "the plagues" from prince of egypt (or at least the opening lines) were incredibly perfect for c!tommy and c!techno and it was a shame that no one did an animatic for it yet. i cannot draw so i just wrote a fic for it.

once i called you brother once i thought the chance to make you laugh was all i ever wanted

is that literally not tommy with techno though?

and then the rest of the song can read as like doomsday or november 16th, you know, them arguing about selfishness and betrayal and all that. the song fucking slaps.

but anyways the fic itself? the opening is inspired by how like, if you didn't know who technoblade was during the beginning of the smp, he would just be this mysterious figure of legend that tommy, wilbur, or dream occasionally talked about. it hit me during the dream v technoblade duel stuff that since techno had never been on the smp before, he was just this invisible dude with a huge reputation and that was so cool to me.

"Alrighty, I've been here before, right?"

"Listen, Techn—Dream..."

these are quotes from tommy that i quoted in the fic. i used to do this a lot, just stick quotes with no context into fics because i assumed everyone had the same precise memory of everything that went on the smp that i did. the first one is referring to tommy being surrounded by people outside the community house and "i've been here before" is him remembering a similar scenario on smpearth and therefore technoblade. the second is when he accidentally calls dream techno (about 30 seconds into this comp) again adding to techno's thing of being just this widely alluded to figure.

"Who do you think will win? My bets on our boy, Dream, but feel free to be wrong."

Niki stays quiet, a small frown on her face.

i feel bad for cutting niki absolutely owning dream with "well, techno's my friend" but it simply couldnt stay in for fic purposes

waking up to a frantic Bitzel muttering about hypothermia and something heavy and red covering his shivering frame.

smpearth is canon because i Want it to be canon and in my canon there's a moment where tommy passes out in the middle of a fight and techno brings him back to business bay wrapped up in his cape because he's technosoft and all their fighting is more like play fighting anyways

Tommy knows that love is earned. That if he does well in some Championships, then his place in the family is secured.

this is inspired by the bet that wilbur and tommy had in like mcc8 that if they placed fifth or higher tommy could be in sbi. in tommy's pov it becomes, "you have to earn your place in this family."

“Because I’m not the vice president.”

this is from one of his exile streams where he's talking to dream about why people won't visit him anymore

Tommy is 10 and too big for his boots.

this section is inspired by tommy's story of how he met techno as told in this storytime.

there is something that flickers at the back of his mind when the ratty zombie child calls him The Blade.

i think it's so incredibly special that everybody calls techno The Blade but like,, that's tommy's nickname for him. theres this moment where tommy's talking about giving techno a nickname and techno's like "you call me The Blade!' again, everybody calls techno The Blade, but he tells tommy "you call me The Blade." like i don't know how to articulate this but, that's tommy's nickname for him. they're brothers.

Tommy's been to war with soft, pale blues.

ae reference because again, smpearth is canon cuz i said

Tommy is 13 and standing over the remains of Business Bay's storage area.

this is an smpearth thing. wisp and vop did a whole grief of business bay, it was very dramatic very tragic. the thing with techno coming to business bay to talk to tommy is from this comic and i hold this headcanon close to my heart.

"Tommy, if anyone gives you trouble—and I mean serious trouble, not the kind we have—you tell me.”

Tommy hears an echo of similar words from the man who just burnt down everything he’s worked for.

"Tommy, anyone that touches you fucks with me... I will kill Techno if it takes me all of my life to prepare for it, you understand me?"

im so proud of this parallel between wisp and techno man you have no clue. okay, so like i said before, the ae versus bb thing in my head is very much like play fighting. sometimes it gets serious like the scenario which is happening in the fic where things actually get destroyed. that's because they're stubborn teenaged boys and conflicts can go from fun to actual trouble real quick. these "similar words" and the following quote are references to one of my favorite wisp moments ever. wisp, for anyone unclear on smpearth backstory, was a part of business bay before he betrayed them for the antarctic empire. he was also the one who burnt down the storage area which is why tommy's remembering this quote so bitterly.

Tommy rolls his eyes. "I pinky promise, Technoblade." He sticks out his little finger like a challenge.

the pinky promising is Canon from like the post-exile streams i think and i headcanon it as something tommy just does with people

and so this is to put context to the "using techno" thing. because i've always kinda viewed as like calling in a friend (or a big brot—[gunshot]) in for help so this part of the fic gives it the background to be like that

But then, Tommy is 16 and standing in a cataclysm, once again watching everything he’s worked for get destroyed by a man who swore to protect him.

this line solidifies that parallel to wisp where techno made a similar promise to protect tommy and now he's destroying everything tommy's worked for (business bay in wisp's case, lmanburg in techno's case) im very proud of this parallel.

His tall brown-haired friend from competitions past

wilbur of course, the competitions past being mcm

He collects titles like music discs

i asked my friend for things that people collect and they said "records" and i said "wait—"

Technoblade is 17 and he has no family. He has a friend who makes sure he sleeps. He has a friend who creates bridges and mischief. He has a bug that he still hasn't squashed.

i've always loved the idea of sbi becoming this little found family on smpearth. like they're not super lovely dovey "we're like brothers" but they're so fond of each other and they hang out when they're not pretending to be at war. and so theres still that room to say that they're not family, but like they totally are

Bright blue eyes beg him for some entertainment, so Techno sighs and grabs The Complete Works of William Shakespeare off the shelf.

this headcanon that techno used to read them shakespeare comes from wilbur's offhand comment asking techno to recite king lear to them

Wilbur's planted himself at Techno's side for the duration of the finale, something that he's grateful for. Wilbur's always been his person to lean on for things like this.

inspired by i think wilbur saying that he was techno's like designated extrovert during mcc's and i really love that aspect of their relationship. because techno is looked at as "the older brother" in so many ways, but like in this way, when wilbur's guiding him through social situations and supporting him, he gets to be wilbur soot's little brother.

Technoblade never says I love you, but he reads his baby brother The Twelfth Night instead of Hamlet and ends Theseus' tale after the Minotaur.

this was one of the first things i had written for this fic. so obviously hamlet is a tragedy while the twelfth night is a rocking good time. so like going back to that shakespeare headcanon but techno protecting tommy in the little ways. the theseus part is inspired by me not knowing the rest of theseus' story after he gets home and his dad jumps into the ocean. like the exile and death stuff i didn't hear about until the dsmp so that's where that came from. techno, even though it kind of goes against who he is, leaving theseus' story as a victory where the hero slays the monster, just to give his little brother something with a happy ending

"Do you want to be a hero, Tommy? THEN DIE LIKE ONE!"

i did always think this could be seen as like "well if you want to be a hero, then you can die like one" and leaving off the unspoken "but if you don't want to be--if you choose not to be, then you get to live. so don't be a hero. please don't be a hero." and theres like that little tragedy there that i really love in techno and tommy's relationship. like, i love you, you love me, all i ever wanted was to make you laugh, but we don't speak the same language. we don't understand each other. everything you are is against everything i stand for. so yeah bedrock bros feels. i wrote this long before exile and all that so its even more complicated now gosh.

[ceealaina]

Title: Crashing Through Your Door Ship: IronHusbands Rating: Teen Major Tags: Pre-Iron Man 1, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Friends to Lovers, Mutual Pining Card Number: 5023 (Tony Stark Bingo) 3002 (IronHusbands Bingo Square: R4 - Mutual Pining (Tony Stark Bingo) B4 - Fake Dating (IronHusbands Bingo) Link: AO3 Summary: To give himself a break, Tony's been using a made-up boyfriend to get out of meetings. He gets to stay home and tinker, the board things he's settling down, it's a win-win situation. Right up until Obie decides he wants to meet this boyfriend that's taking up so much of his time. 

But what kind of best friend would Rhodey be if he didn't step up to be Tony's fake boyfriend? Tony’s nothing short of relieved and so Rhodey dresses up to be his date to the gala-of-the-week except wow, pretending they’ve secretly been in love for the past year is way easier than it should be... Word Count: 9237

Rhodey jogged down the stairs of Tony’s shiny new Malibu “beach house” (the thing was ridiculously large if you asked him, but Tony hadn’t) and let himself into the workshop. “Honey, I’m home!” he called out, blinking when he was met with a dark room. “Tones? JARVIS said you were down here.” 

There was a faint groaning noise from the far corner, and when Rhodey turned the lights on, he found Tony sitting in a chair, slumped over his desk with his face buried in his arms. 

“Oh no,” Rhodey deadpanned, picking his way through bits of machinery to kick Tony’s foot. “What did you do now?” 

“I fucked up,” Tony moaned, the words muffled by his position. He lifted his head to peer at Rhodey, looking bleary in the face of sudden brightness. “Your concern for me is overwhelming, by the way. Really feeling the love here, Rhodes.” 

Rhodey shrugged, unperturbed. “Your world is ending like every other week, and I was promised pizza and beer -- which I even brought because I’m an amazing friend -- so… If you’re gonna have a breakdown can we at least do it where there’s food?” He gave Tony a broad grin and a wink, and Tony rolled his eyes, trying to hide his own fond smile as he pushed back from the table. 

“Yeah, alright, let’s go.” 

When they were upstairs and he could get a better look at him, Rhodey had to admit that Tony was looking a little more frazzled than usual. His hair was extra fluffy, like he’d run his hands through it about fifty times, and his fingers were tapping out a constant jittery rhythm against his thigh. Rhodey waited until they were settled in front of some action movie, but when Tony wasn’t forthcoming with any information, Rhodey nudged his side. “Hey. You gonna tell me what’s bugging you?”

Tony groaned again, burying his face in his hands. “You’re gonna make fun of me,” he whined.

Rhodey smiled, even if Tony couldn’t see it. “Probably,” he agreed easily. “Tell me anyway?” 

Tony huffed and pouted and squirmed but eventually he relented, shifting to sit sideways on the couch and face Rhodes. “Okay, so.” He sighed heavily. “You know, I’m head of SI now.”

“Really?” Rhodey drawled. “I hadn’t heard.” 

Tony elbowed him hard in the side. “So there’s all this… Stuff that goes along with that. Like I wasn’t looking forward to the board meetings, but at least I expected those? But there’s all these other meetings, like fifty a day were nothing actually gets done, and there are the charity events, and the gladhanding, and the ‘come meet a friend of a friend of a friend of mine,’ and I have to be on all the time and -- Obie wanted me to learn squash, Rhodey. Squash.” 

“Aww, come on. Bet you’d be cute in those little white shorts.” 

“I hate you.” Tony told him. “Anyway, it’s a lot, and sometimes I just want to take a break and go hang out in the lab and build stuff, you know?” 

“Do I know that you’d rather be a reclusive little lab gremlin? Yeah, I’d noticed that once or twice,” Rhodey teased. 

“Whatever.” Tony squirmed again, clearly embarrassed, and Rhodey waited. “So, you know, to get out of doing stuff when I just really, really wasn’t feeling it, I, uh… I maybe told Obie that I was seeing someone?” 

Rhodey blinked at him. “Oh no.”

Tony sighed heavily. “Oh yes.” 

He sounded so forlorn that Rhodey couldn’t help but laugh at him, only laughing harder when that made Tony whine and try to smother himself with a throw pillow. “Tones, I say this because I love you, but how is someone this smart this fucking stupid?” 

“I know, okay?” Tony wailed, accidentally throwing the pillow across the room as his arms flailed in emphasis. “I don’t know, it seemed like a great plan at first. It’s not like I was hurting anyone. The board even liked the idea that I was maybe settling down a little. So they’re relaxing a little, I get a night off… Everyone’s happy.” 

“Until it blew up in your face, like your hare-brained plans always do?” Rhodey guessed. 

“I resent that,” Tony told him. “JARVIS turned out fine. Didn’t you, J?” 

“I haven’t started taking over the world yet,” JARVIS agreed. “Although I do have several contingencies in place.” 

“Everyone’s conspiring against me,” Tony sighed, head tipping backwards to pout up at the ceiling. 

Rhodey laughed, poked him in his side. “So what went wrong? Now Obie wants to meet this amazing boyfriend of yours?” 

 “Insisted on it,” Tony agreed. “Wants me to bring him to the firefighter thing next week. I’m pretty sure he’s on to me. He’s probably trying to force me to confess. Humiliate me so I learn my lesson. So obviously, I can’t give in.” 

“Perish the thought,” Rhodey told him dryly, although really, he’d seen the effects of Obie’s brand of tough love. He couldn’t exactly blame Tony for not wanting to admit the truth, especially given how harmless the whole thing really was. God forbid Tony get a break every once in awhile. 

“I just don’t know what I’m gonna do,” Tony groaned, scrubbing his hand through his hair again, leaving it standing up in all directions. “I can’t tell him. I thought about faking a breakup, but Obie’s not dumb. I break up with my long-term boyfriend days before he’s supposed to finally meet him? I might as well just tell him in that case. So my only option would be to get someone to fake it, but there’s no way that doesn’t blow up in my face. It can’t be anyone from work, and I don’t really know anyone else. I guess I could hire an escort, but how would they learn everything they’d need to know in time? You know that Obie would try and get them to slip. Plus, it’s not like I can get legal to just write up an NDA here. With my luck I’d end up blackmailed or something…” 

Tony was working himself into an epic ramble, and Rhodey nodded along before shrugging. “Or I could just do it.” 

Tony had already been off on another tangent, but as Rhodey’s voice caught up to him he stopped mid-word, staring at him. “I -- what?” he asked and Rhodey could already see his mind working overtime, trying to parse out what he was saying. 

He laughed. “Or I could just do it,” he repeated. “Come on, dude. I already know everything about you, so I’m not gonna slip. And let’s face it, if I was gonna blackmail you, I would have done it ages ago. We went to college together, I’ve got way better shit than a fake boyfriend.” He nodded as he thought through the logistics. “Yeah, this’ll totally work.”

Tony blinked at him. “Really? Really. You think so. You have met Obie, right? No way he’s buying that. He’d be all, ‘Tony m’boy. I’ve known Jim since you first brought him home for Thanksgiving. You expect me to believe he’s this secret boyfriend of yours? No reason to hide that away!’”

Rhodey snorted; Tony’s Obidiah impression was a little too spot on. “Yeah, like he wouldn’t have had a shit fit if he thought we actually were dating. All the more reason to tell him it’s me. We’ll make him squirm a little. And, I don’t know. Just tell him because it was new, and a change in our relationship, we wanted to keep it under wraps. Have some time to ourselves, get a feel for what this meant…”

Tony scratched the side of his nose. “You’re weirdly smart sometimes, you know that?” he asked, which wasn’t exactly a no. 

“The same excuse will work when we ‘break up’ later. Just tell him that now that we’re in the public eye, we’ve realized we’re better off as friends. No hard feelings, no big drama, no ‘it’s not you, it’s me,’ just… Friends.”

“I…” Tony considered this, closed his mouth, blinked, and opened it again. “But…” He closed his mouth again and then sank back into the cushions. “You really think it’ll work?” 

Rhodey laughed. “Have I ever let you down?” 

“Constantly,” Tony replied immediately, but he was grinning. “Shit. I mean… You make some good points.” He drew a deep breath, mind still running over all the outcomes, and then nodded, a smile growing over his face as he got onboard. “Yeah, okay. I think this’ll work.” 

***

One week later, Rhodey was meeting up with Tony in an all-night coffee shop a couple blocks away from the gala, like some kind of Cold War spy fantasy. Apparently Obie had been planning to hang around Tony’s place beforehand, and Tony thought things would run more smoothly if they ‘introduced’ Rhodey at the gala, where there would be lots of wealthy investors to distract him. 

There was a little bell over the door that chimed when Rhodey stepped in, and immediately he saw Tony’s head snap up from a table at the far end of the shop. “Rhodey! Hey!” he said, bouncing with nerves like this was an actual first date and not his best friend. Rhodey arched an eyebrow as he reached the table and spotted the two mugs of coffee. 

“You sure you need those?” he asked, grinning to try and set Tony at ease. “You already seem jittery enough for the two of us.” 

“One of them’s for you,” Tony grumbled. “Leave me alone, I’m kind of stressed right now.” 

“I don’t think coffee’s gonna help, man. You look like you’re gonna bounce through the roof.”

“I hate you,” Tony informed him, huffing as he folded his arms across his chest and hunched over in his chair. “You’re doing a terrible job so far, by the way. I thought the deal was you’d pretend to be besotted with me, not tell me how dumb I look.” 

“You do look dumb,” Rhodey told him. “That’s what I like about you.” Then, when that finally got a hint of a smile on Tony’s face, “You want me to do besotted? I can do besotted.” He made a show of looking Tony up and down, eyes lingering over his chest and arms and the peak of thigh that he could see slipping under the table before sliding back up to make eye contact again. He tilted his head a little, letting a slow smile spread over his face as he glanced at Tony from under his eyelashes. “You look good tonight, Tones,” he purred, letting his voice drop down to his flirting voice, low and velvety. Then he grinned wide, shifting his voice back to normal. “That besotted enough for you?:

“Uh.” Tony blinked at him and swallowed hard, before shaking his head. “Yeah. Yeah, that’s… Good. Great. Yeah.” He jumped to his feet then, not seeming to notice the untouched coffees. “We should go.” 

There was the usual flurry of paparazzi outside the event, but Rhodey had been to enough of these events that his appearance wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. He knew this was more for SI than the media (the last thing Tony would need was a bunch of reporters hounding him about his breakup later) but he figured it couldn’t hurt to start selling it on the way in. Tony jumped a little when Rhodey’s hand settled on the small of his back, even though they shared casual touches about a million times a day, but he looked over at Rhodey with a small smile as he steered him past the cameras and the questions and into the building. 

“Hey,” Rhodey leaned in close so they wouldn’t be overheard. “You really do look good tonight, man. That suit suits you.” 

Tony snorted at that, but he seemed to relax a little too. “Wow, Rhodes,” he drawled. “Such a way with words.” He laughed though, and his eyes were sparkling and pleased. Then he shoved Rhodey and Rhodey shoved him back and they made their way down the hotel hall like that, laughing as their shoulders bumped together. 

As soon as they stepped inside the ballroom though, Tony stopped. Rhodey’s hand had resettled on his back and Rhodey could feel him tense as he spotted Obie, standing across the room and chatting up a bunch of rich-looking men in expensive suits. 

“Deep breaths, Tones,” Rhodey told him, shifting his hand slightly in a barely-there rub of Tony’s back. Tony glanced at him again, but his smile was tight now, eyes pinched at the corners. 

“Come on. Let’s get this over with,” he muttered -- but he did take a deep breath. 

When they joined the group it took a minute before Obie spared them a glance (though Rhodey had no doubt that he knew they were there and was just pulling yet another Obadiah power move). When he spotted Rhodey, his expression shifted, souring slightly before settling into something almost smug. He excused himself with a jovial smile, walking in the direction of the bar without waiting to see if Rhodey and Tony were following him. Rhodey heard Tony sigh softly, and he gave his forearm a quick squeeze.

Obie came to a stop, looking back and forth between them like they were misbehaving children, and finally settled his gaze on Tony, arching an eyebrow. “What’s this? I thought you were going to bring your boyfriend, Tony. Hmm? We had an agreement.” 

Personally, Rhodey thought that an ‘agreement’ was an odd way to refer to meeting your godson’s significant other for the first time. 

Beside him, Tony shifted nervously. “I, uh… I did.” 

Obie blinked and made a show of looking around the room. “And where is he, then?”

“Um, well. I… I mean…” 

Obie cut Tony off with a heavy, exaggerated sigh. “Tony, we’ve discussed this. You’re too old to be pulling this kind of nonsense. You’ve got responsibilities, you can’t just run around doing whatever you want. If the board --,” 

“It’s Rhodey!” Tony blurted out suddenly, eyes wide. He grabbed Rhodey’s hand half a beat later, tangling their fingers together as he held Rhodey’s hand up for proof. Rhodey gave his hand a quick squeeze in return. “Surprise?” 

Obie stared back at them, actually looking taken aback for once. “You’re kidding,” he said flatly. But Rhodey could tell that Tony’s nervousness was actually working in his favour, that Obie wasn’t quite sure that it wasn’t true. 

“Nope,” Rhodey told him, meeting Obie’s gaze head on before turning back to Tony with the softest smile he could manage. It wasn’t too difficult with Tony looking as nervous as he did, and the sweet little smile that Tony gave him in return looked a lot more real than it had before. “You know how it goes,” he added. “We were just hanging out late one night, playing video games, everything normal. And I just looked at Tony and thought, ‘wow, I have to kiss that man.’ So I did and it was everything I didn’t know I’d been missing.” He rubbed his thumb over Tony’s hand, obvious enough that Obie would track the movement. “I guess it’s been simmering for awhile, you know? Just didn’t realize it until right then.” 

Apparently Rhodey had his smitten face down pat because Obie’s posture eased slightly, though he still looked somewhat suspicious. “Alright,” he said finally. “I suppose congratulations are in order.”

He didn’t sound particularly congratulatory. 

“Behave yourself, boys,” he told them before abandoning them in favour of a potential investor across the room. 

Immediately, Tony sagged against Rhodey, the air leaving his lungs in a rush. “Oh god,” he groaned, head falling against Rhodey’s shoulder. “I need like seventeen drinks. Jesus Christ.” 

Rhodey huffed out a laugh. “Come on, sugartits. I’ll buy you a drink. I know how to take care of my man.”

“It’s an open bar, asshole,” Tony protested, but he let Rhodey tug him over to the counter. “Also, I object to ‘sugartits’ being my nickname, what the fuck?” 

“Hey man, I’m just trying to sell the bit.” 

“Seriously though. Sugarass maybe, cause, I mean, look at me. But sugartits? Come on Rhodes, do better.” 

Rhodey snorted, automatically placing Tony’s drink order along with his own. “Just think of it as payback for all the dumbass nicknames you’ve given me over the years,” he offered. 

“But those come from a place of love!” Tony insisted, laughing at Rhodey’s eyeroll. 

“Sure, Tones. Whatever you say.”  He turned to pass Tony his drink and found him watching him with a look on his eyes that he couldn’t quite place. “What? Something on my face?” 

“No,” Tony told him. “I just… I like the story you made up there. About how we got together? That was… Nice.” Then he shifted, clearing his throat. “A nice touch, I mean. I think you really sold it. Anyway! I think they’re bringing out dinner soon. Should we go sit?” 

“Yeah, sure,” Rhodey said, a little nonplussed; Tony seemed even more frenetic than usual. “Let’s go.” 

**

Dinner could have gone better. Tony was jumpy and twitchy, hyper focused on his food and constantly losing track of the conversation. Rhodey knew it was nerves, but that didn’t mean much when the board members they were seated with kept giving them odd looks and Obie’s expression was growing more and more suspicious. 

They were waiting for dessert when Tony’s arm twitched and caught his (thankfully mostly empty) wine glass, sending it wobbling precariously on the tablecloth. Rhodey’s hand snapped out automatically, catching it before it could fall and ruin the tablecloth along with everyone's fancy clothes. And then, because Tony was going to blow his own cover before the dancing even started, he curled his hand over Tony’s on the table, threading their fingers together. Tony turned and blinked at him, and Rhodey gave his hand a quick squeeze but didn’t let go. He grinned at him and a beat later Tony was grinning back, tension easing out of his body. 

They’d decided beforehand that they’d keep it simple, no PDA or soppy love declarations, wanting to be believable. But Rhodey figured that it wouldn’t hurt to turn up the romance a little, so he kept hold of Tony’s hand, only letting go when dessert was served and Tony needed his hand back to eat. 

They’d both chosen different dessert options, and Tony’s French chocolate-whatever looked absolutely delicious. Rhodey eyed it, consideringly, and after a few bites of his own dessert, he leaned over and stole a not-insignificant piece of Tony’s. The absolutely scandalized look that Tony gave him had him laughing, nearly choking on his bite -- which was just as delicious as it had looked. 

“What?” he asked, giving Tony a sugar-sweet smile in return. 

“That’s my dessert!” he protested. “You’ve got your own.” He gestured wildly at Rhodey’s plate with his fork, and Rhodey just shrugged back at him. 

“Perks of dating,” he told him, leaning in close and dropping his voice. “Sugarass,” he added, getting a snicker out of Tony in response. 

“You’re an idiot,” he grumbled, and then snatched a bite of Rhodey’s dessert in return. 

“Hey,” Rhodey protested right back at him, slapping at Tony’s fork with his own. Tony huffed at him, slapped his fork in return, and a beat later they were in a mini fork battle. Out of the corner of his eye Rhodey could see Obie glaring at the two of them, looking utterly unimpressed, but it was worth it for the way Tony was laughing, finally looking at ease. Rhodey’d always thought that Tony had a great laugh, so anything he could do to make it happen was a win in his book. 

Obie lasted until the instant the music started up for the dancing and then he was gripping Tony’s arm, pulling him to his feet with just a little more force than necessary. “Tony. I have some contacts for you to meet. I told them you’d be here, and they’d be a real asset to SI, so…” He trailed off, leaving whatever his implication was supposed to be hanging, and Tony turned his head enough to give Rhodey a truly epic eye roll. 

“Alright,” he sighed, not even pretending that he wasn’t completely put out by the idea. Rhodey winked back at him, and the pinched look around Obie’s lip tightened. 

“I trust you can occupy yourself for a few minutes,” he added, giving Rhodey a pointed eyebrow raise. 

Rhodey gave Obie a bland look in return. “Yup. I’ll manage,” he drawled, barely getting the words out before Obie was dragging Tony away. Tony shot him a pained look over his shoulder and Rhodey offered a commiserating eye roll. 

These events were always truly boring when Tony wasn’t around to occupy his attention. Rhodey polished off his own dessert and then finished the last few bites of Tony’s just for good measure -- he could consider it payment in kind for the entire night. Then, when the rest of their table had cleared out, he grabbed a drink and made the rounds, chatting with the few SI employees that he knew, getting hauled into conversations with a few people that he didn’t. He’d fended off no less than three horny old ladies (they were always a sucker for the military dress uniform) when he decided it had probably been long enough that he could rescue Tony again. 

He found him sitting at an empty table, nursing a half full glass of scotch and looking absolutely drained. Rhodey sighed briefly and then moved over to join him, taking the seat beside Tony and nudging his foot against his ankle. “You alright?” 

Tony looked up quickly, giving him a smile that was just a little too bright. “Yeah, yeah, I’m good. Just… You know…” 

He didn’t have to specify what, but Rhodey nodded anyway. Then he pried the glass out of Tony’s hand, setting it on the table, and tangled their fingers instead. “Come on,” he said, standing up.

Tony resisted him a little just because, leaning back in his seat and arching an eyebrow up at Rhodey. “Where are we going?” 

Rhodey winked at him. “Come on, now. What kind of boyfriend would I be if I didn’t ask you for at least one dance, huh?” 

Tony smiled all soft and sweet, like he could hide how happy that made him. “Yeah, alright,” he agreed, slowly getting to his feet with his hand still tangled in Rhodey’s. “Let’s dance.” 

There was a brief moment of confusion when they landed on the dance floor, and Tony, who had apparently never been led before (which was something of a tragedy, if you asked Rhodey) wasn’t quite sure what to do with his hands. But Tony wasn’t the only one who could dance, thank you very much, so Rhodey got him settled and led him over the dance floor in a fast-paced waltz. Their form was terrible, Rhodey was pretty sure, but he didn’t particularly care when Tony was beaming, giggling into his shoulder when they nearly took out an older couple on their way by. 

They made it through two and a half songs before the music shifted into something slower and softer. Tony tensed for a bare second, but Rhodey didn’t let him go, just tightened his arm around Tony’s waist, and a beat later he was sinking into it, relaxing in Rhodey’s arms. 

“Thank you for this,” Tony said softly, eyes somewhere around Rhodey’s collarbone. “This is… This is nice.”

Rhodey just hummed and pulled Tony in a little closer. “Yeah,” he agreed, something warm and familiar settling in his stomach. “Yeah, it is.” 

There was another beat and then Tony shifted and leaned in, resting his cheek against Rhodey’s shoulder as the two of them swayed slowly to the beat of the music. The warm feeling in Rhodey’s stomach grew, something familiar and comfortable settling deep inside him. Tony sighed softly, breath fluttering against the base of Rhodey’s neck, and Rhodey felt his heart stop. 

Oh shit. He was in love with his best friend. 

Tony must have felt him tense slightly because he pulled back to look up at him. “This alright?” he asked quietly, and there was something in his eyes, something nervous and wanting. 

Just like that Rhodey felt his heart start up again, comfortable and easy and exactly how everything was supposed to me. “Yeah,” he said, pulling Tony in closer still until they were pressed chest to chest. “This is just fine.” 

***

The rest of the night passed in a blur of drinking and dancing and schmoozing and more drinking, and every time Rhodey looked over at Tony he could feel his smile growing wider. Now that he’d realized, it seemed so obvious; of course he was in love with Tony. He had been for years. He’d always known he’d felt different about Tony, that he was special. He just hadn’t been able to put a finger on exactly how before. And now that he had, everything felt right. 

And he was pretty sure that he wasn’t alone in his feelings. He knew what Tony looked like with a crush, the little smiles, the nervous giggles, the way he got so sweet. Rhodey had just never expected to see those signs directed at him, so he figured he could be forgiven for missing them until now. But now that he had seen it, he was going to take full advantage. 

When the night was over the two of them slipped outside, arms wrapped around each other. Rhodey hadn’t realized just how drunk he was until he hit the fresh air, stumbling a little down the steps, and he let Tony pour him into the car they were sharing home. There was no actual  reason for them to go back to the same place so Happy would drop Rhodey off at his apartment first, and he couldn’t help being a little disappointed about that. He thought about suggesting that they both go back to Tony’s place anyway, in case Obie decided to check up on them maybe, but coming up with a valid reason felt like too much effort. Instead he looked over at Tony and grinned wide. 

“What?” Tony asked, laughing a little at Rhodey’s expression. Clearly he hadn’t drunk as much as him, or at least he was handling it better if he had. 

Rhodey just shook his head. “I’m gonna date you so hard,” he declared. 

***

When Rhodey woke up the next morning, it was with a wicked hangover. But after a hot shower, greasy food, and a few hours of mindless television, he had a plan. Really, Tony had given him the perfect opening with all this fake boyfriend stuff. Rhodey just had to… Take it up a notch or two. 

So once he was feeling a little more human again, he called Tony. It took a few rings for him to pick up, and when he finally did there was loud music blaring in the background that had Rhodey smiling.  

“Hey baby,” he drawled into the receiver, grinning when that got a snort out of Tony. 

“Obie’s not tapping the phones,” he told him. “You don’t have to keep playing boyfriend when he’s not around.” 

“Well see, there’s the thing,” Rhodey told him. “I figure we can’t ‘break up’ right away, otherwise Obie’s gonna know the whole thing was a fake and then what would the point have even been, right?” 

“Okay…” 

“Okay,” Rhodey agreed. “And I should probably go to a few more events with you too. Now that he knows, he’s gonna be even more suspicious if I just keep leaving you to attend things solo, right?” 

“I guess,” Tony agreed, sounding more confused than anything.

“Exactly,” Rhodey told him. “So I was thinking, if we’re gonna pull off something a little more long term, especially now that he’ll be over the surprise of it, we should probably get together and practice.” 

“Practice,” Tony repeated, sounding even more confused. “You want to practice being my boyfriend?” 

“Well, you know…” Rhodey hedged, because yes, that was exactly what he wanted, but he didn’t want to give all his cards away here. “Figure out pet names, and who sleeps on what side of the bed. Stuff like that.” 

“Are you still drunk?” Tony’s confusion had given way to amusement. “You think Obie’s gonna ask what side of the bed we sleep on?” 

“Well, no,” Rhodey admitted. “But somebody else might, and he could overhear it. We should just be prepared, is all.” 

Tony hummed on the other end of the line. “You know, if you wanted to hang out and have me buy your pizza, you just had to say so.” 

“You’re an asshole, Tones. I’m helping you, remember.” 

“Yeah, yeah, whatever you say.” There was a faint clatter from somewhere across the room, and Tony huffed out a laugh, low and warm. “I’ll be in the lab, come over whenever.” 

***

Rhodey showed up at Tony’s place a couple hours later, wielding the t-shirt that hugged his biceps just right and a bouquet of flowers. The doors opened for him automatically, but when he made his way down to the lab Tony was distracted by whatever he was working on and didn’t even hear him come in. Rhodey leaned against a table and waited, and when Tony showed no signs of even looking up, he finally cleared his throat. 

“So are we gonna hang out, or should I go away and give you and your screwdriver some alone time?” 

Tony turned then, a grin on his face, but whatever response he’d been going to give died as he took in the flowers in Rhodey’s hand. “Uhh…” He arched an eyebrow and met Rhodey’s eyes. “Did you bring me flowers?” 

Rhodey shrugged lazily, holding the bouquet out towards him. “I told you. Practice.” 

Tony blinked at him, a pleased little smile playing over his lips. “You’re weird,” he said, but he took the flowers and held them up to his nose, inhaling deeply even though they were just grocery store daisies and didn’t have much of a scent at all. 

Rhodey shrugged, and gave him that slow, easy grin that was his go-to pick up move (and that he’d practiced in the mirror before, not that he’d admit it). He held eye contact until Tony blinked away first, clearing his throat and squirming a little at the attention -- a definite good squirm. 

“Um, thanks,” Tony told him. “I’m gonna…” He trailed off, waggling the flowers a little, and headed for the stairs. “You thirsty? Hungry?” 

“I could eat,” Rhodey admitted. 

Tony nodded as he headed up the stairs, not waiting to see if Rhodey was following. “Wanna order in?” 

“Obviously,” Rhodey teased. “I’ve seen your kitchen. Pretty sure there’s been nothing edible in there for weeks.” 

“Wow, rude.” Tony’s protest was half-hearted and he shot a grin at Rhodey over his shoulder. “But probably not wrong. I should hire a life coach, or an assistant maybe.” 

“I thought that was JARVIS’s job.” 

“Alas,” JARVIS sighed. “I can only order the food, I have not yet developed the ability to get Sir to eat it.” 

“Okay,” Tony protested. “Now you’re both ganging up on me? So rude.”

Since he didn’t want to freak Tony out, Rhodey dialed it back down once they were in the kitchen, and Tony had tracked down a crystal pitcher that probably cost more than Rhodey’s rent to shove his grocery store flowers into. They bickered good-naturedly over the food like always, finally settling on Thai, and then Tony showed him the latest mods to his current favourite car while they waited for the food to arrive. Tony tipped the delivery guy an amount that took generous to a whole other level (something Obie constantly gave him shit for, but Rhodey happened to love about him) and then they settled in front of the enormous television to bicker some more over what movie they were going to watch. A normal, perfect evening.

He waited until they were both full and satisfied, the half full containers of leftovers littering the coffee table in front of them, and Tony was fully absorbed in the movie they’d finally settled on (Ghostbusters, again). Then, as subtly as he could manage and feeling a little like he was fourteen, Rhodey sank back into the overstuffed cushions and then stretched his arm out to hook over Tony’s shoulder. 

There was a beat, and while Tony didn’t quite tense up, he did go still. “Um.” 

When Rhodey chanced a glance over at Tony, he was looking back at him. His lips were pressed together,  but he looked amused again. 

“Whatcha doin?” 

Rhodey shrugged, and since Tony wasn’t giving any indication of being uncomfortable, he tightened his arm slightly, pulling him in against him a little. “Practice.”

 There was another beat and then Tony seemed to shrug as well, settling more comfortably against him, head pillowed against Rhodey’s shoulder as he went back to the movie. 

***

“H’lo?” 

Rhodey’s voice was slurred as he answered the phone, squinting at his alarm clock. It took a minute for his blurry eyes to reconcile the display into actual numbers: 4:38 am.

“It’s me.” 

Tony’s voice sounded off slightly, softer, and Rhodey blinked a few times, trying to force himself into wakefulness. “Tones? You okay?” 

“Yeah!” Tony answered quickly, laughing a little. “Yeah, I’m fine. Promise.” 

Rhodey looked over at the clock again, suspicious now. “You just going to bed?” 

“Maybe?” Tony laughed again, and Rhodey could hear the genuine smile in his voice. “Sorry, I should have waited to call, I know. I just… I had to ask you a favour, and it’s really late notice already so even though it’ll probably be no, I thought if I don’t ask now then it’ll really be too late. And I meant to ask you before, I just… Didn’t.” 

“Tones.” Rhodey was laughing as he interrupted, rubbing at his eyes. “What is it?” 

“I, um… There’s another event tonight. Some charity something or other that I have to go to, and Obie’s been making comments about you, I don’t know if he really totally believes me, so uh…” There was a strange note in Tony’s voice, one that Rhodey was too tired to decipher. “I don’t suppose you want to come with me?” 

Rhodey grinned up at the ceiling, letting his eyes fall shut. “Yeah,” he hummed. “Course I’ll be your date tonight.” 

***

What with their conflicting, hectic schedules, Rhodey hadn’t actually seen Tony since the day after the gala, almost two weeks ago now. It was always good to see him when they’d been apart for awhile, but this time was even better, Rhodey taking an extra minute to take in the cut of Tony’s suit, the perfect way it fit when he showed up to pick him up. 

“You look good, man,” he told him. 

Tony rolled his eyes a little at the compliment, but when they got into the car, Rhodey could see the reflection of his pleased smile in the windshield. 

The gala could have been a repeat of the one before, the same people, the same food, the same tasteful, boring decorating scheme. This time, however, Obie was near the door when they came in, excused himself with a slight frown to meet them. 

“Tony,” he said in lieu of an actual greeting, looking him over with a critical assessing eye that made Rhodey want to tell Tony again just how good he looked -- doubly so when he noted the tiny little self-conscious ankle twist that Tony let slip under his godfather’s inspection. “Jim,” he added when Tony had apparently passed muster, turning to him with an arched eyebrow. “Tony didn’t tell me you were joining him tonight.” 

“Yes I did,” Tony grumbled mutinously, making Rhodey grin. 

They made it through the obligatory Obie small talk without Rhodey punching anything, and once he’d gone off to schmooze some more rich people, Rhodey elbowed Tony in the side. “I thought you said Obie was asking questions,” he teased. “I thought that was why you wanted me to be your date tonight.” 

“Shut up,” Tony grumbled, and Rhodey thought he could see a flush trailing up the back of his neck. “Come on, I’ll buy you a drink. Since you’re so hung up on being my date.” 

“It’s an open bar,” Rhodey huffed as he followed him, not caring that it was a repeat of Tony’s joke from the last time. “The drinks are free!” 

Tony grinned at him over his shoulder. “Guess that makes you a cheap date then, huh?” 

Rhodey managed to talk Tony into three slow dances this time, holding him close because he had to sell it, obviously. The flutter of Tony’s breath on his neck sent shivers through him every time, and by the end of the third dance, Rhodey was feeling a little drunk from it. Tony seemed more comfortable this time too, laughing and smiling at Rhodey more than usual, fluttering his eyelashes and playing up the boyfriend aspect, and the weight of all his attention and affection left Rhodey reeling. 

They had both drunk enough that, when the night started to wind down, Rhodey convinced Tony not to drive home. It was hot, the two of them flushed from dancing and drinking, and they headed outside to wait for the car he’d called. The air wasn’t much cooler outside, but it was a rare, misty night, and Tony turned his face up to the rain, eyes closed and a faint smile on his face at the refreshing sensation. Rhodey watched him, and wanted so badly to kiss him that he could almost taste it. He hadn’t yet, and while he probably could have pulled it off as part of the whole fake boyfriend thing, that felt like cheating somehow. He wanted Tony to kiss him, not some fake ruse version of himself. 

“Um…” Tony had looked back over at him, and Rhodey realized he had been caught staring. “You doing okay there, honeybear?” 

“Yeah.” Rhodey grinned at him, aware that his face was doing something a little dopey but not particularly caring. “Just tired.” 

“Well let’s get you to bed then, huh?” Tony asked before giggling as the innuendo caught up to him. “I mean home. To your bed. I mean…” He cut himself with a snort. “You know what I mean.” 

“Yeah, I know what you mean.” Rhodey agreed easily. 

Tony beamed at him and then nudged his arm. “Come on,” he said, wrapping a hand around Rhodey’s wrist almost without noticing. “That’s our car.” 

Rhodey grinned at the touch, even if he couldn’t help regretting that the night was over. “Hey Tony?” he asked as the two of them slid into the backseat of the car. “Want to grab lunch tomorrow?” 

***

Tomorrow ended up being three days later, because the both of them were entirely too busy, but that was nothing new. Tony was already waiting when Rhodey got there, doodling equations on a napkin, and he grinned at the sight of him. 

“Whatcha working on?” he asked, dropping into the seat opposite him. “Saving the world?” 

“Something like that.” Tony winked at him and then nodded as a server came out from the kitchen, balancing a tray laden down with burgers and beer. “Sorry,” he said, not sounding it at all. “I was starving and didn’t want to wait for you to get here, so I ordered for you.”

“So impatient,” Rhodey teased, kicking his ankle under the table. 

“Hey! It seemed nicer than making you sit there and watch me eat.” Tony stuck his tongue out at him as their plates were unloaded, immediately digging headfirst into his fries. Rhodey snorted as he reached for his own burger, grinning when he found it onion-free with extra pickles, just the way he liked it. 

“Thanks, man.”

The food was delicious, and Rhodey hadn’t realized just how hungry he was until he was digging in. Tony had ordered a massive amount of fries for both of them, but Rhodey couldn’t resist stealing some of Tony’s anyway. Of course then Tony had to retaliate by stealing Rhodey’s entire beer (before immediately ordering him another one). 

When they’d finished the majority of their food, they settled into talking and picking at their leftover fries. Neither of them was quite ready to leave yet, pretending they were still eating so they’d have an excuse to keep talking. Tony was in the middle of describing an idea he’d had to make cell phones better, eyes all wide and bright the way they got when he was really excited about something, and Rhodey couldn’t resist reaching across the table, curling his hands over Tony’s where it was resting against the laminate. Tony stuttered a little over his explanation, coming to a stop as he looked up at Rhodey with a small smile. 

“Practice?” 

Rhodey nodded, beaming at him. “Practice,” he agreed, feeling Tony’s hand squeeze briefly against his. 

***

They kept on like this, and although Tony didn’t make any moves himself, he didn’t seem to mind Rhodey moving on him, and Rhodey was pretty sure he was making progress. He seemed to expect the hand holding now, looked forward to it, even. He didn’t question Rhodey about it anymore, would just teasingly ask, “practice?” as their fingers twined together. The last time they’d been out for dinner, Tony’s hand had settled palm up on the table without him even seeming to realize, waiting for Rhodey to take it. 

They cuddled all the time now too, and while Tony had always been touchy feely, this felt like more. As soon as they had a chance to sit down together for more than a few minutes, Rhodey would wrap an arm around Tony’s shoulder and immediately he’d settle in against him with a soft little sigh like this was exactly where he belonged. It never failed to set something pleasant thrumming through every inch of Rhodey’s body. 

And while Tony had never been shy with the pet names, Rhodey had started adding his own. Nothing over the top, just slipping a ‘baby’ or a ‘sweetheart’ into conversation here or there. The first time he’d done it, not as a joke but as easy and natural as he said Tony’s name, Tony had actually stammered over whatever he’d been saying, an adorable flush colouring his cheeks before he regained his train of thought. He’d looked so ridiculously kissable in that moment that it was all Rhodey could do to stop himself. 

Progress. 

***

Rhodey slung an arm around Tony’s waist as they headed into yet another charity event. This one was more lowkey than normal, which Rhodey definitely wasn’t complaining about. Tony looked amazing in his jeans-and-leather-jacket combo, and Rhodey had never been happier to ‘pretend’ to be dating because there was now way he was going to be able to tear his eyes off Tony’s ass. 

They made it through a round of drinks before Rhodey realized something was missing, eyes narrowing slightly as he scanned the other attendants. “Hey Tones?”

“Mmm?”

“Where’s Obie? Don’t you usually want to get that over with first thing?” 

“Oh, uh…” Tony looked away quickly, acting like he was also scanning the room, but Rhodey knew him well enough to tell when he was faking it to avoid eye contact. “He must be running late.” 

“Late,” Rhodey repeated dryly, not believing a word of it. “That’s more your scene, last I checked. In fact, I’ve never known Obidiah Stane to be more than a second late in his life. He’s a stickler for it, it’s kinda his whole deal.” 

“Oh well, you know.” Tony shrugged, still not quite meeting Rhodey’s eyes, but there was a hint of a sheepish smile curling over his lips. “Things happen, traffic in LA, freak storms… There’s a first time for everything, right?” 

Rhodey snorted. “Is he even coming?” 

“Uh, you know…” Tony scratched at the back of his neck, and now there was a definite smile on his lips. “Maybe I got this event confused with another one?” 

“I don’t believe it!” Rhodey crowed. 

“Oh my god.” 

“Oh no, don’t you ‘oh my god’ me. I specifically remember you telling me that Obie insisted that I come tonight. Obie’s not even here, Tony.” He gave him his best grin then. “You know, if you wanted a date, all you had to do was ask.” 

Tony rolled his eyes, but he was grinning a little stupidly like he couldn’t help himself. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he insisted before curling his hand around Rhodey’s forearm and tugging. “Come on, Rhodes, dance with me.”

“Ohhh,” Rhodey teased, although he was already moving toward the dance floor, his arm back around Tony’s waist. “So now you want a dance.” 

“People will talk,” Tony offered lamely, still fighting back a smile. “Wonder what kind of asshole I’m dating if he won’t even give me a dance.” 

“Oh right, of course.” Despite his teasing, Rhodey didn’t hesitate to wrap his arm around Tony, drawing him close for a dance. This time Tony didn’t even pause, drawing in just as close until they were pressed chest to chest, Tony’s breath hot on his neck. Rhodey adjusted his hold, shifting them until his lips were almost pressed against Tony’s ear. “Well,” he offered, voice pitched low and smooth. “If Obie’s not even here, you wanna slip out early? Go back to my place, maybe, watch a movie?” 

Tony shivered as Rhodey’s breath tickled his ear. “Yeah,” he agreed, sounding out of breath. “Yeah, let’s do that.” 

***

Tony was uncharacteristically quiet in the car, peering out the window and lost in thought. He didn’t seem upset though, and when Rhodey finally caught his gaze in the window reflection, he gave him a bright smile. A beat later he slid a little closer on the bench seat, even though the cab driver hadn’t even recognized Tony and certainly wouldn’t have cared if they were supposed to be dating or not. 

The stillness went away as soon as they stepped through the door of Rhodey’s apartment, his typical manic energy coming back tenfold. He threw himself down on the couch like he belonged there before immediately getting up again. He went to peruse Rhodey’s movie shelf about five different times, every time getting distracted by nothing, opening cupboards and drawers and wandering away without closing them again and while rambling on about nothing the entire time. Rhodey watched him in amusement for a few minutes before coming over as he moved to open yet another drawer, curling his hands over Tony’s and holding them still. 

“You good, man?” 

Tony went silent, staring at him for a long minute, and then nodded slowly. “Yeah,” he said before blinking and turning abruptly toward the kitchen. “I’m hungry,” he announced. “Are you hungry? I want cupcakes. Chocolate cupcakes. Do you think there’s somewhere around here that will deliver chocolate cupcakes? Who has the best chocolate cupcakes in LA?” 

Rhodey snorted and shook his head. “Pretty sure all the bakeries are closed by now, but I’ve got some Duncan Hines cake mix in my cupboard somewhere. Will that do?” 

Tony grinned at him, a little sheepish. “Yeah,” he agreed. “That sounds good.” 

The cake mix, it turned out, was easy to find, right next to the muffin tins. The electric beater his mother had gifted him, however, was a whole other story. Rhodey set Tony to work measuring out the additional ingredients while he went rooting through the cupboard under his sink, finally emerging with dust in his hair and a triumphant, ‘ah-ha!’

Tony huffed out a laugh at the sight of him, his smile fond. He’d pulled off his suit jacket, leaving it draped haphazardly over a kitchen chair, and his sleeves were rolled up to his elbows. Rhodey got distracted for a moment, staring at the muscles in his forearms, and then shook himself out of it, nudging Tony away from the mixing bowl with his hip. 

“Move over, hot stuff. Time to let the master work.” 

Tony rolled his eyes. “It’s cake mix, it’s pretty hard to fuck it up. You’re not special,” he grumbled. He was grinning though and hopped up on the counter, kicking his legs against the cupboards beneath him while Rhodey mixed and then poured out the batter.

With the muffin tins safely in the oven Rhodey stepped back over, giving Tony a kick of his own before he lost his security deposit. “Knock it off,” he told him, unfastening the beaters from the mixer and extending one to Tony. “Want one?” 

“Fuck yeah!” Tony beamed, making grabby hands. “Pass it over, honeybear.” 

Rhodey did as requested, stepping closer so the batter didn’t drip on the floor, and Tony took it with a contented little noise. Rhodey laughed at him, and then almost immediately forgot about his own beater as Tony started licking at the chocolate, head tilting to get just the right angle, tongue wiggling between the metal spokes. Rhodey had not thought this through. 

He didn’t know if he’d made a noise or what, but then Tony’s eyes flicked up to meet his. He lowered the beater slowly, eyes locked with Rhodey’s. Without quite meaning to, Rhodey took a step closer, heard Tony’s soft inhale in response, his tongue running self consciously over his lower lip. There was a fleck of chocolate there, and it took everything Rhodey had not to lick it off for him. He wanted to kiss him so badly, but something inside him stopped. He needed Tony to be the one to make that final move, needed to know that they were on the same page here, that Tony wanted this too, wasn’t just playing along with the world’s worst joke. 

And for a minute he thought Tony actually might. His lips parted on a soft exhale, upper body leaning in that much closer, this look on his face, like he wanted to just as bad as Rhodey. And he may have been the dumbest genius Rhodey had ever met, but he wasn’t this dumb. He had to know what was going on, that this was real. 

But then, abruptly, he was tilting his head away, sliding off the counter to pull back entirely and head across the kitchen. 

“I, um… I should go,” he said, not quite meeting Rhodey’s eyes. “Early day tomorrow.”

Rhodey arched an eyebrow at him, felt his heart sink. “The cupcakes aren’t even done! I thought you wanted cupcakes?” 

Tony gave him a pained smile. “Maybe next time,” he said, grabbing his suit jacket. “See you later.” 

He was gone a second later and Rhodey sighed, then thumped his head against the counter for good measure. Clearly, impossibly (although nothing was impossible when it came to Tony, he should have known that by now) Tony had missed every sign that Rhodey was serious about this. Which left the one thing he should have just done in the first place. 

Using his words. 

***

Rhodey was more than familiar with Tony’s tendency to dwell, so first thing the next morning he headed over to his place. It was early enough that the sun was barely up, fog rolling over the water below the house, but he wasn’t surprised when JARVIS directed him down to the workshop. 

Tony had clearly been working all night, his jacket abandoned just inside the door, and Rhodey winced as he stopped beside it, waiting for Tony to acknowledge him. His back was to the door, but he clearly knew Rhodey was there, body tense as he hammered away at something on the work table. He’d changed into sweatpants, but was still wearing his dress shirt from the night before, untucked and sleeves rolled up with a large grease stain above his right elbow. 

When a good thirty seconds had passed and Tony still hadn’t said anything, Rhodey sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face. “Look man, I’m sorry. I thought… Well, I wasn’t thinking, obviously. But I’ll knock it off. I was never trying to make you uncomfortable, Tones, I promise.” 

Tony cursed under his breath as he missed, hammering the table instead, but then he put the hammer down, finally turning to face Rhodey. He looked absolutely destroyed, dark bags under his eyes, but he offered Rhodey a wan smile. 

“Well.” He shrugged one shoulder. “We can’t split up now. The bots have accepted you as their mother. U will be devastated.” 

He was playing it off as a joke, but Rhodey knew Tony. He could see the fear in his eyes, the worry that he might lose Rhodey completely, but even more than that, a bit of hope in his smile. Drawing in a deep breath, Rhodey crossed the room. 

“Okay, no more faking it,” he told him. “I like you, Tony. I mean, you’re my best friend in the entire world, but also, I like you.” 

Tony snorted at that, but he ducked his head and when he looked up at Rhodey again his smile was shy and pleased. “Yeah?” 

“Yeah,” Rhodey confirmed. “A lot. I kinda think about it all the time.” 

Tony was flat out beaming now. “So all the cuddling, and the hand holding, and the ‘practicing’?” 

“It was practice. It was… Practice for what I really wanted. And I probably should have said something when I first realized, but I’m saying it now. I really like you, Tony, and I want to be with you, and I don’t think I’m crazy in thinking that you might feel kind of the same--,”

Tony shook his head quickly, eyes wide. “No. No, I do.” 

Rhodey grinned. “Great. And I think we could really be something great. So, you know…” He took Tony’s hands in his, meeting his eyes so there could be no confusion. “Tony, go out with me, so we don’t have to break up.” 

Tony burst out laughing at that, bright and open and happy and Rhodey couldn’t help laughing with him. “Yeah,” he agreed after a minute, hand squeezing over Rhodey’s. “Yeah, that sounds pretty perfect.”

“Great,” Rhodey agreed. And then, because he’d been waiting for what felt like years, he used his grip on Tony’s hand to tug him in close, until they were pressed chest to chest. Tony yelped at the sudden movement, staring up at him with wide eyes, and while he was still caught off guard Rhodey leaned in, pressing their lips together. Tony made a startled noise, like somehow after all these he still hadn’t expected kissing. But it only took him a second to recover and then he was kissing Rhodey back, hands wrapping tight around Rhodey’s back as he parted his lips, tongues sliding together. 

They kissed until Rhodey thought he might actually pass out and pulled back, panting for air. Tony leaned back against the table and blinked up at him, a dazed smile on his face. “Wow,” he breathed. “That was… Wow.” He grinned wide when Rhodey just snorted at him and settled his hands on Rhodey’s hips, holding him close. “Hey, you know what I think we should do?” 

“What’s that?” 

Tony’s grin grew impossibly wider. “Practice.”

@ironhusbandsbingo @tonystarkbingo

[immortalecstasy-blog]

The Man From Willow Creek - Time Stamps - Chapter Four

Pairing: Mountain Man! Dean/Author! Reader

What happens after his happy ending? Come back and visit Y/N and our favourite mountain man as she returns to the remote cabin in the clearing of Willow Creek.

First Chapter / Previous Chapter

WC ≈ 35,000 Total A/N: Thank you to@redweddingsandbowties for checking for typo’s, and to everyone who left a comment on the original work for fuelling my ego and creativity, both of which are normally in short supply!

Warnings: 18+, Character Death, Alcoholism, Smut, Fluff & Angst Read on AO3

Or...

“Dee, pack it in!”

They were about five hours away from their final destination, and after a two-hour pit stop were finally back on the road.

Hughie had spent a good portion of his life on the road and had been content to stick his head out of the window (squashing Y/N’s legs). Dipshit had somehow found his way into the footwell and decided he was better trying to sleep through the journey in an attempt to get it over with. Between the two of them, Flash and Delilah were becoming downright insufferable.

The truck probably wasn’t the best idea, but the rental Y/N had tried to secure for them had been refused when the rental company saw all the dogs. So Delilah was pressing in as close to Dean as she could get, Flash was pacing up and down the bench, alternating between bugging Hughie and trying to run them off the road by climbing on Dean.

Delilah yawned right in Dean’s ear, making him wince, and then backed up the bench, her hind legs digging into Y/N’s ribs.

“Ow!”

“You okay?”

“’M fine,” Y/N grumbles, assessing the sore spot on her ribs tentatively.

Their pit stop seemed to have made things worse rather than better, and Dean has to lose his temper with Delilah to finally get her to settle down.

“Dean, they’re not used to it.” Y/N chastises him, as they pass the state line.

Dean didn’t reply, and after a minute or so of watching him, Y/N smirked.

“You’re pulling that face.”

“What face? I’m not pulling a face.”

“The pouty grumpy face.” Y/N explains in a silly voice usually reserved for Flash when he was being extra cute.

“I don’t pout.” Dean protests, shaking his head exasperatedly.

Y/N watched as Dean moved his jaw back and forth and then stretched his lips, trying to get rid of his pout.

“Not gonna happen.” Y/N laughed.

Shaking his head, Dean reaches over and squeezez the top of her knee, making her yelp and laughingly slap his hand away.

The dogs were out like a shot when they finally pulled up on the edge of a non-descript road.

“Here?” Y/N asked, slipping from the truck, and looking around. There was a monstrous old factory all boarded up on one side of the road, with nothing else to be seen for miles in either direction.

Dean grinned, whistling for the dogs to get on the grass verge and out of the road. Even with their early start, it was dark, and it wasn’t until Dean started to lead the way that Y/N could make out where they were going.

“It’s like a little hobbit hole!”

Dean glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, smirking. “Little?”

“From the outside!” Y/N defended, bouncing down the steps to join him.

Dean pushes the door open, and the old metal hinges groan and whine, before Hughie squeezes himself through the gap. The rest of the pack push through in front, and from the thunderous sound inside, are hurtling along a metal staircase. Dean steps back, his hand resting on the small of Y/N’s back as he moves her inside.

Y/N stood frozen in place, and Dean had to awkwardly squeeze past her to shut the door behind him.

Y/N recognised the room below her from Jack’s picture, but to actually see The Bunker in person was something else entirely. There was a small Christmas tree on top of the table, but she could see the edges of the world map on the tabletop beneath.

Below, the noise of the dogs had alerted Sam to their arrival, and he was currently flat on his ass being smothered by Hughie and Flash. Dipshit doing his best to join in.

“Sammy!” Dean yelled in greeting, “The cavalry has arrived!”

“I can see that!” Sam called back, scrunching up his face and trying to keep Hughie at bay. Y/N laughed, threading her fingers with Dean’s as he took her hand to lead her down the stairs.

“Hey Sam.” Y/N greeted warmly, letting go of Dean’s hand so he could pull the dogs off away and drag Sam back onto his feet.

“Hey trouble.” Sam greeted in return, giving his shirt a quick dust down. He opened his arms, and Y/N stepped into his giant wingspan for a hug.

Y/N barely had time to swap from Sam’ arms to Eileen’s before Dean was pulling her further into the labyrinth of 1930’s architecture. She was confident she could find the main room as you came in, the kitchen, and Dean’s bedroom, but she got totally lost after that as he led her around. His sure footsteps and the dogs following behind reassured her, until at last they reached a gargantuan room that seemed to be being used as a kind of underground garage. Dean led her past an array of old bikes and vintage car and pulled her to an abrupt stop in front of a beast of a jet black all American classic car, thick and chunky with chrome shining from every edge and groove.

Y/N wasn’t exactly an expert on cars, but she realised immediately that this was the Chevrolet Impala Dean had drove for so long, the one mentioned in the one ‘Supernatural’ book she had read before they had ceremoniously burned them all in the shot-up barrel outside of the cabin.

“This is her?”

“My baby.” Dean pronounced, beaming at the sleek car. Petrol head she was not, but Y/N could appreciate the appeal of such a vehicle. Even if it has been a lump of twisted metal, she would have still loved every twisted scrap because of the way Dean talked about her. But it wasn’t just that. She really was a beautiful piece of engineering. A total antithesis of streamline and proportion.

“She’s… Dean, she’s fucking beautiful.”

Dean’s grin split his face wide, his eyes crinkled into slits, teeth flashing.

“Isn’t she?” He asked reverently, stroking along her side so lovingly that Y/N has half a mind to be jealous.

“Explain why we go around in the truck?”

Dean laughs, a full belly laugh that sends his head tipping skyward.

“You think I’m going to leave her outside in the snow?”

“We can build a garage.” Y/N points out, her fingers twitching to get behind the wheel of such an amazing piece of American history, of Dean’s history.

Dean shook his head, “She’s a rambler. She can’t just sit and do weekly shop runs,”

“What’s she doing here?”

Dean narrows his eyes at her good naturedly and then scrunches up his face.

“Sammy uses her some. Claire too.”

“You let Claire drive her?”

“Don’t.” Dean shudders, but he’s still grinning, bending in closer to examine her for any blemishes in the paintwork.

“Can I drive her?”

Dean walks over to her, linking their fingers and tugging her closer so that they’re chest to chest.

“You’re the love of my life.” He tells her, “I would take a dozen bullets for you, but you can get fucked if you think you’re driving my car.”

Y/N throws her head back and laughs, squeezing his fingers. Dean is grinning at her, pulling his bottom lip though his teeth – and whether or not he’s joking about driving his car – she can see the animalistic darkness in his irises, and her body responds accordingly, sending a flood of heat and lubrication straight to her pussy.

“I can what?” She asks.

“Get fucked.” Dean repeats, towering over her.

“Is that a promise?”

Dean shakes his head, grinning as he bowed his head to capture her lips. “Any time, sweetheart.”

Y/N rests her hands on Dean’s chest, her entire body growing warm and pliable in response to his words, his lips, the coarse fingertips skimming her waist.

There’s an amused cough and they break apart to see Eileen by the entrance to the garage, smirking.

“The pizza’s here.”

Dean nods, ducking his head back down to nudge Y/N’s nose before taking her hand and leading her towards Eileen.

“Meat Lovers…” Sam reads out, sliding the box across the table towards Dean,

“Ham and Corn…”

That box gets slid over to Eileen.

“Corn? On Pizza?”

“Don’t knock it ‘til you try it.”

“Veggie Supreme… with pepperoni?” Sam says, his voice raising into a confused question. Y/N raises her hand.

“Really?”

She shrugs, “Don’t knock it ‘til you try it.”

“It’s actually pretty good.” Dean tells him, “Textures and stuff.”

Sam looks vaguely impressed Dean is complementing vegetables and pulls the last box towards himself.

“What did you get?” Y/N asks.

“Plain old cheese.” Dean answers for him.

“It’s a classic.” Sam defends, flipping open the box, “and anyway, it’s actually five different cheeses…”

Dean shakes his head in feigned disappointment and throws back the lid, breathing in the spicy aroma of the pizza inside and diving straight in.

They’re all a few slices or five deep before the conversation picks up. Enquiries about their trip. A vague overview of what Sam and his network of hunters are currently up to.

“Garth and Bess came up.” Dean informs Sam, updating him on the slim comings and goings of the absolute back end of nowhere that was Willow Creek.

“Oh yeah? How are they doing?”

“Good.” Dean acknowledges, “Yeah, real good. Brought the kids and everything.”

“How were the dogs with them?”

Dean shuffles uncomfortably in his seat. “I mean, they’ve not seen them for a while. You know what these guys are like with strangers.

“Yeah, but, werewolves. I can’t imagine Hughie would take to them no matter how long it’d been.”

Dean looks at Sam sharply, his jaw tight, eyes widening as if to say ‘stop fucking talking’.

“What?” Y/N asked quickly, eyes widening.

“W-What?” Sam stammers, his eyes shooting up to Dean who looks like he could hit him. – no, not could. Would. Would hit him. In the next thirty seconds, for sure.

“They’re werewolves?” Y/N demands, rounding on Dean, “You said nothing supernatural could get in!”

Dean opens his mouth to speak and then closes it again, “Uh…”

“You said we were safe – and what, now we’re have fucking werewolves round for dinner?”

“Sweetheart…”

“Don’t sweetheart me - what the fuck?”

Sam looks horrified, until Dean can’t keep a straight face anymore and starts laughing, pointing at Sam as Y/N cracks up beside him.

“I told you, didn’t I tell you?” Dean tells her.

Y/N nods wordlessly, feeling a little guilty about the storm of emotions she’d just put poor Sam through, but enjoying Dean’s amusement too much to stop laughing. Sam had reacted exactly as Dean said he would.

“Did you see his face?” Dean wheezes, his hand clasping Y/N’s back. The laughter keeps peeling out of them, Eileen joining in and Sam looking vaguely impressed but largely amused. Y/N finally understanding Dean’s revelation about the fact she and Sam shared a ‘bitch face.’

Evening turns to night, and Eileen calls it a night just before eleven, and Y/N wasn’t far behind.

After only ten minutes or so after Eileen had bid them all good night, Y/N stood up and looped her arm around Dean’s shoulders. His arm snaked around her waist automatically, skimming her ribs and making her wince, hissing through her teeth.

“Shit. Sorry.” Dean said quickly, moving his hand further down to rest on her hips. Sam’s brow furrowed in concern.

“You okay?”

Y/N looked up and grinned at him before lifting her shirt to show him her ribs. Through the mess of blood, ink and cling-film, the anti-possession symbol she’d had tattooed earlier that day was clearly distinguishable.

Sam smiled, nodding approvingly. “Smart.”

“It puts this one’s mind at ease.” Y/N explained, as she let her shirt fall back over the fresh tattoo before giving Dean’s beard a gentle tug.

“Yeah, that’s the reason.” Dean retorted, rolling his eyes.

“I mean, not getting possessed by a demon is good too.” Y/N shrugged, grinning at Dean’s expression, and dipping down to peck him on the lips.

“Goodnight puppy.”

“Night.”

“Night Sam!”

“Night Y/N.”

Y/N gave them a little wave and walked away from the table, and there was a sudden rush of jangling collars and clacking claws as the dogs rose to follow her out.

“Puppy?” Sam teased once it was just him, Dean and Delilah.

“Shut up.”

Sam chortled, but he was not-so-secretly pleased that Dean had found someone to settle down with. It was never something he could have envisioned for Dean, and he doubted Dean would ever have been ‘selfish’ enough to do it if it hadn’t been for the spinal injury taking him out of action for good.

He would never admit it, but Sam sometimes thought that it was the best thing that could have happened. The recovery had been horrendous, and the dark cloud of depression that had haunted Dean in the years that followed had filled Sam with a crippling anxiety. But they had learnt the hard way that you couldn’t change the past, and to see Dean now, it made it all worth it.

“I’m happy for you man.”

Dean raised his eyebrows and snorted, looking down at his beer bottle as if examining the label.

“I’m serious Dean.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“What?”

“Nothing, just…” Dean frowned, looking around at the cavernous room he used to call home. “I never expected it, you know? I figured… blaze of glory, and that’d be it. I never… uh, I just never thought I’d be off hiding in the mountains somewhere while you carried on fighting the good fight, you know?”

“But… you’re happy, right? With Y/N?”

“Yes!” Dean said quickly, “Hell yes. I don’t what I did to deserve someone like that Sammy.”

“I dunno, you saved the world a couple times, I guess?”

Dean snorted. “Nearly broke it a couple times too.”

“I hear that.” Sam replied, lifting his beer bottle up loosely by the neck. Dean clinked their bottles together.

“To not breaking the world.”

They both drained the last few drops from their bottles, and Sam rose from his chair to get more. When he returned, the conversation turned to hunting – as it so often did – and pretty soon there was a spread of unpleasant photographs and police reports littered across the table.

“At first I thought it was a Poltergeist, then a Soul-Eater, but now I’m not so sure…”

It took a while for the old cogs in Dean’s brain to start turning, but once they started spinning he was invested. He had been a much bigger fan of the actual monster killing rather than the research side of a hunt, but just because he hadn’t enjoyed didn’t mean he wasn’t really good at it, and it seemed a fresh pair of eyes was all the case needed, because after a dozen questions and a re-read of the mother’s witness statement, Dean slammed his hand down on the table.

“Goku.”

“What?” Asked Sam, as alarmed at the sound of Dean’s palm loudly hitting the table as he was at the proclamation.

“A Goku. No! Baku.”

“Huh?”

“A Baku, man. They’re this Chinese dream eater weird ass mother fuckers, I read about them in Bobby’s – OG Bobby’s – journal. He took one down with Rufus in Alabama – no, Alaska.”

Sam frowned, deep in thought and then disappeared for several minutes, returning with a decrepit looking diary.

“When?”

“Damn if I know.” Dean shrugged, “Pre-Hell, I think.”

“Me hell or you hell?”

“Me hell.”

Sam started to flick through Bobby’s journal, and Dean sat back in his chair, resting his feet on the table, and watching Sam, waiting for the crease of concentration in his brow to disappear in a eureka moment.

As if on cue, Sam’s eyebrows shot up, and Dean couldn’t help but say “So get this!” in unison with his brother.

Sam stopped talking, staring at Dean in disbelief. Then shook his head and read out the passage from the journal.

When he’s done, Sam whistles. “Sounds like that’s our monster.”

“Told ya.”

“I better scan the page and get a copy sent over to Krissy.”

“Krissy? Lee’s Krissy?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“She’s hunting? I thought she retired.”

“Uh yeah.” Sam nodded.

“So…?”

“No, right, yeah. She just keeps an eye on the local stuff.”

“You’re not going to send anyone out to help her? Someone, I don’t know, more experienced?”

“Who do we know – alive – that’s dealt with a Baku?”

“I don’t know, don’t you have this whole little network thing going now?”

“Krissy’s a good hunter. She’s got Walt right round the corner. She’s not stupid.”

Dean throws up his hands in surrender.

“It’s late, we should get to bed.” Sam offered when he returned from scanning the page of Bobby’s journal, reaching out to collect their empty bottles.

“I got it.” Dean told Sam, standing up and waving him away as Sam made to tidy the table.

“You sure?”

Dean smiled at him and nodded.

“Well alright then.”

They hugged goodnight, slapping one another on the shoulder, and Sam gave Dean’s biceps a squeeze before letting go and heading off the bed. Dean finished the last dregs of his beer and then scooped up the empty bottles and headed for the kitchen.

He noticed the recycling boxes against one wall and figured he’d save Sam getting pissed at him, it wasn’t hard to spot which box was for glass, as there was already a dozen or so beer bottles lines up neatly inside. Dean added their spoils to the box and then made his way to his old bedroom.

When he opens the door he hears the jingle of a collar as one of the dogs lifts their head up from the bed to check what’s going on.

“Only me.” Dean whispered, closing the door, and plunging the room back into darkness. Dean would have thought he could find his way in this room in the dark any day, but the same cannot be said for navigating climbing into a bed full of dogs.

He ended up having to use the torch light on his phone and looked down at the bed in dismay. It was smaller than their bed back at the cabin, and there was next to no room left for him.

“Move over.” Dean hissed at Flash, who was stretched languidly across his pillow. Flash ignored him.

“Hey. Move.” Dean told him, a little more forcefully. Flash still didn’t listen, but both Hughie and Delilah slunk onto the floor, the mattress bouncing as their weight left the bed.

“You too Flash. Move.” Dean told him again, unwilling to give up his pillows and have to lie awkwardly halfway down the bed.

Y/N hummed, and her arm snaked out behind her haphazardly, finding Flash’s scruff and patting him awkwardly, “Shift.” She grumbled, and Flash dutifully stood up and joined the other two on the floor.

“He never listens to me.” Dean complained as he put his phone torch-side up on the shelf behind the headboard and grabbed his pillow, shaking off the worst of the dog hair.

“Where’s Dipshit?”

“On my side.”

When his pillow is as Flash-free as it’s ever going to be, he puts it back on the bed and slips out of his flannel, boots, and jeans, leaving them on the floor beside the bed as he climbed in beside Y/N and scooted closer so that the warmth of her back could be felt through the thin cotton of his t-shirt.

“Light.” Y/N mumbled, and Dean cursed, shifting up from his incredibly warm and comfortable position to turn the torchlight off. Once he was lying down again, his comfy spot eluded him, and in the shuffle to find it, he found Y/N’s ass instead.

He smirked. Even after all this time he still loved that all she had to do to seduce him was arch her back so that the curve of her ass was on his side of the bed.

“It’s like that, is it?” He asked, moving her hair out of the way so he could nuzzle at her neck.

She wriggled, rubbing against his already semi-hard cock, humming in confirmation as Dean’s hand slid over the soft curve of her ass.

“You want your present early, huh?”

He can hear the grin on her face as she replies, “It’s after midnight.”

“Oh.” Dean says, pretending he hasn’t realised as he pressed open kisses along her neck and shoulder. “Merry Christmas.”

“Fuck me.”

“That’s not the usual response… you’re supposed to just, y’know, say it back.”

“It back.”

Dean chuckles, tugging at the sleeve of her oversized t-shirt – no, his shirt – to get better access to her shoulder.

She wasn’t wearing anything but the shirt, and it was easy to bunch it up around her ribs – carefully avoiding the fresh tattoo.

Y/N’s arm reached awkwardly behind her, elbow bumping into Dean’s chest, tugging at his shirt.

Dean’s hands left her long enough to hastily pull his shirt off before they were on her again, sliding up and around her ass to snake beneath her shirt and cup one breast as his other hand slipped under her pillow to rest over her throat, before having to retreat again when her next tug was at his boxer shorts.

“So demanding.” Dean mock-complains as he tugs them down and kicks them off.

He accidentally skims the clingfilm covered tattoo on his journey back, but the ass wriggle he gets tells him Y/N couldn’t care less. He loved her like this. In fact, he’d had her like this at the dog friendly hotel last night too. It was like she had a fetish about christening a new space, and fuck, he didn’t mind one bit if that’s what it was, would get on a place and take her on a world fucking tour if it had her like this every night.

Her thighs already slick with want, her muscles contracting beneath every touch.

“You know I’ve never fucked anyone in here.” He tells her, knowing what it would do to her.

“Your room?”

“The Bunker. Any of it. All those rooms.”

He can feel the muscles of her ass ripple as she clenches her thighs together.

“So many rooms.” He purrs against her neck, grinning as she reaches behind her to dig her fingers into the back of his neck, twisting her spine as she turns her head towards him. The kiss is barely there, just a whisper because of the angle despite her desperation and Dean is rock hard now, teasing her with his length by sliding it along the crack of her ass.

“So many bedrooms,” He tells her, his hand leaving her ass to clasp her jaw and hold her in place so he can kiss her properly. “All those hallways, storerooms…”

She whines, their tongues sliding against one another, lips millimetres apart despite their efforts.

“The table?”

“Huh?”

“The map table?”

“You want to fuck in the war room?” Dean asks breathlessly, leaking pre-cum all over her ass.

“You want me to bend you over the table?” Dean continues, rutting in earnest now. “I want to hear your pretty cries bounce all around that room.”

Y/N groans, arching her ass even more, trying to angle Dean’s heavy cock into her waiting hole.

“Impatient.” Dean mock-complains, his hand sliding from her jaw to slip two fingers into her mouth, expecting her to suck them. Instead she bites him.

Dean grunts, finally taking the hint and prying his other hand away from her breast to wrap around his cock and angle himself into her as she lavishing his fingers with her tongue,

Despite her whining, she’s suffocatingly tight when he pushes against her, and he goes to backtrack, but she releases his neck and takes a fistful of his ass instead, pushing him inside, moaning in relief as he sinks inside.

Once he’s nestled inside she releases his ass, gripping the side of the mattress with both hands to give her leverage and starting to move back and forth.

“That’s it baby.” Dean whispers, looking down despite the darkness, imagining the sight of her impaling herself on his cock. “Fuck. So good. Such a good girl.”

His fingers leave her mouth, first trying to nestle around her throat, but her jerky movements make it awkward, so he wraps his first around her hair instead, keeping her face safely in place while her hips rock frantically back and forth.

“Kiss me.” He tells her as her neck arches up into him and her hair grows slack.

She twists, sacrificing her momentum to find his lips and Dean takes over, thrusting into her and swallowing down each moan and whine that escapes her lips. She finds her rhythm again, meeting each thrust, the bed groaning and creaking beneath them as their movement s grow more frantic, both of them fighting to get the other one there first on some sort of twisted point of pride.

Y/N had managed to coax him there first on a few occasions… those times where she had riled him up for hours first. But she couldn’t hold the build up back much longer. Both too much and not enough at the same time.

“Shit, fuck, Dean – please.”

Dean shushed her gently, releasing her hair to clasp his hand over her mouth. He had no idea what the acoustics were like in the bunker, and though Eileen was safe, he didn’t want Sam to hear them, and he didn’t want to dogs to start howling – poor bastards, unable to escape.

With his free hand, he slipped between her folds, grazing her clit. He felt her quiver, and ran his finger gently over her clit again. And then again.

Y/N put all her willpower into not crying out, biting into the ball of Dean’s thumb as he covered her mouth with his hand. He let out a soft moan, his hard, slow thrusts becoming more erratic as her whole body tensed and the orgasm that has been treading just below the surface broke free and attacked her every nerve ending.

There was a sharp snap, and for a fraction of a second Y/N thought it was her back – she couldn’t feel her legs after all. But then, as if in a cartoon, she registered that it had been the bed frame beneath them, and then a second after the realisation dawned, they fell to the floor with a painful jolt.

Immediately, the dogs started barking.

Dean groaned in frustration, pulling out and away from her as he tried to shush the dogs and scramble for his phone to shed some light (literally).

“You okay?” He asked breathlessly, turning the torchlight onto Y/N and frowning at her shaking shoulders. Realising she was suppressing laughter, he turned his attention to the damaged bed, pushing Delilah out of the way when she tried to ‘help’ with his investigation.

Both of the legs at the end of the bed had buckled and snapped, but the frame seemed okay. Y/N had given up on trying to stop laughing and was giggling her head off, and Dean couldn’t help the growing smile as he fought not to join her.

“Stop laughing.” He laughed, which only made her laugh harder.

Dean was worried they might have woken Sam, especially when Y/N started hiccupping but when no one seemed to come and investigate the noise, he figured they’d gotten away with it. The legs beneath the headboard were bowed and he wasn’t sure they’d support them, even just to sleep.

“Babe – get up a sec.”

“Huh?” Y/N asked, but she seemed to register what he’d said before he’d even opened his mouth to repeat himself and slipped from the bed.

His phone in his mouth, Dean worked the leg free and then went around to Y/N’s side, she took his phone from out of his mouth without a word and shone it down on the other leg for him. The light jolted slightly every time she hiccupped, and their laughter would start again.

When Dean was done, the frame was resting soundly on the floor. He took his phone back and went to the little sink in the corner to get her a glass of water.

He attempted to hold her nose for her – swearing it would work – but apparently her laughter had reached unstoppable proportions and all he managed to do was slop water down both of them.

“You’re such a dick.” Dean laughed as she wiped her chin, theatrically holding her breath with her cheeks puffed out.

They managed to get the dogs settled back on the little green couch against one wall, but each time one of them got their laughter under control the other one would start, even after Y/N’s hiccups seemed to have subsided.

Y/N mopped herself up with the edge of the shirt she was wearing, and after Dean had safely put the splintered legs on top of the desk so that the dogs wouldn’t hurt themselves, they climbed back into the much lower bed.

“How do you want me to finish you off?” Y/N asked with another little hiccup, resting her hand on his bare stomach.

“I’m good.” Dean replied and she frowned.

“Your back?”

She saw the flicker of surprise in his eyes and wondered how on earth he could still be surprised by her insight, considering how long they had been together and how attentive he was with her.

“You want me to get your painkillers?”

“If you wouldn’t mind.” Dean admitted, wincing a little as she climbed back out of the bed and padded bare foot across the floor to get to his duffel bag.

When she returned, she got awkwardly into the low bed and snuggled up beside him, handfeeding him painkillers between little kisses and sips of water.

Dean thanked her quietly as she settled down on her side of the bed, following her as soon as the painkillers has kicked in so he could feel her body heat radiating against his side,

“It’s really quiet here.” Y/N whispered, just as Dean was beginning to drift of.

“What do you mean?”

“Like… at the cabin, you can hear the wind in the trees and stuff, at the motel you could hear the traffic and people’s TV’s… In Seattle you can hear everything…here it’s just… silent.”

“You don’t like it?” Dean asks, shuffling onto his side so he could rest his arm over her waist.

“It’s just weird.”

Dean’s phone was still close by on the bed, and he reaches for it.

“You want whale sounds or ocean sounds?”

Y/N laughs, “No…”

“Thunderstorm?”

She doesn’t say anything for a moment, and then he feels her nodding her head. Dean selected the audio that promised four hours of uninterrupted thunderstorms and tucked his phone under her pillow as the quiet sound of heavy rain seeped out across the room.

* * *

Christmas morning, Y/N managed to cajole Dean into getting up early with her to walk the dogs. They had put Dipshit on a lead – not trusting him enough to let him anywhere near a road without one. But the others roamed free as usual.

There was no traffic to be seen, and they hadn’t had the kind of white Christmas they would’ve had at home, but the ground was hard and glittering with a light frost. The morning air smelt different here, less pine, perhaps. Or even just the lower altitude. They trudged hand in hand until Y/N’s nose was turning pink and then headed back, the expansive rooms of the bunker feeling cosy in comparison when they got back inside.

Eileen had made them all French toast for breakfast. Dean forgoes the fruit on offer and simply soaks his in half a bottle of syrup. They eat in the kitchen, and Sam had found Christmas songs on the radio to torture them with.

“You’re lucky.” Dean tells Eileen around a mouthful of the eggy bread, as he and Y/N both groan at the next that comes on.

Dean and Eileen have ‘Irished’ their morning coffee, Y/N has a perfect latte courtesy of Eileen’s bells-and-whistles coffee machine, and Sam is drinking a weird green monstrosity he insists is a smoothie.

They tidy up, and as the last lines of ‘Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas’ ring out, they make their way towards the tree, carrying fresh drinks.

Sam and Eileen - nerds that they are, had gotten one another largely practical gifts. New running shoes, rare books, luxury toiletries.

They’d also gotten practical gifts for their guests.

A pack of treats each for the dogs, a beard care essentials kit for Dean and a Remington Noiseless Model Seven 1935 Typewriter for Y/N.

“Oh my god, it’s beautiful! Where did you get it?”

“We found it.” Eileen explained, “Here. Bobby fixed it.”

“Bobby?”

“The one who came over from Apocalypse World.” Dean explained, “Not our Bobby.”

“It’s amazing, Thank you!”

Y/N and Dean open their presents from one another next. Y/N opens hers first and laughs, “Open yours.” She insists, holding onto the box her present had came in.

Eyebrows knit, Dean does, and joins her in laughing.

“What?” Sam asks, smiling but clearly missing the joke. As one, the two of them direct their presents at him. They had both gotten each other the same thing.

Cowboy boots.

“Do I want to know?” Eileen asks, and Y/N shakes her head. “Probably not.”

Eileen nods, purposefully averting her eyes.

“I love them.” Dean tells Y/N, his hand looping round the back of her neck to bring her in for a kiss.

“I know.” Y/N winks, before nodding to Sam.

“Are you going to open yours?”

Sam raises an eyebrow, and lets Eileen open hers first.

Dean hadn’t been very helpful when Y/N has asked what they should get Eileen. She was a woman of little needs and a lot of bad assery, in the end they had gotten her a collection of little presents rather than one big one. A few toiletries, a travel mug that read ‘Deaf Not Decaf’, a collection of British candies, and a dressing gown, as Dean had noticed her wearing one of the old men of letters ones that last time he had visited.

Sam on the other hand.

“Barbie?” Sam asked, pulling his bitch face as he unwrapped the dollar store doll.

Dean grinned, “You remember?”

“I remember.” Sam admits, rolling his eyes, before explaining the gift to Eileen.

“When we were kids, Dad didn’t make it back for Christmas, so Dean stole me some presents and pretended they were from Dad. But they were girls toys.”

Eileen laughs, her mouth is already full of a slab of chocolate so she signs something in response and Sam laughs, but doesn’t share with the group.

“I’m just kidding.” Dean says, pulling another gift out of thin air, and handing it over.

Sam takes in wearily, his eyebrows jerking up in surprise when he opens it.

“But this is…”

“Mom’s watch.” Dean fills in for him. “I didn’t think you’d want to wear it, but it’s not exactly girly… and then I found this…” he reaches over for it and shows Sam the customisations Mary Winchester had made.

“That’s silver…” He explains, touching the circle of metal framing the clockface, “and then… don’t do it now – the dogs will go nuts - , but if you press the centre for a couple seconds it sets off this high-pitched ringing thing. We can’t hear it – but the dogs, and anything with supernatural hearing – won’t like it.”

“Dean, this… this is amazing, thank you.”

Dean knows it’s because the watch belonged to Mary and not because of its features. Honestly, it had been a total fluke that she had left it at Donna’s cabin all those years ago. But he nods anyway, and Sam pulls him into a giant bear hug that lasts long enough for the girls to slip away and start prepping Dinner. Which – when Dean finally finds them in the kitchen – causes outrage.

“I’m cooking.” He scolds them, “Now get out of my kitchen.”

Eileen opens her mouth to protest that actually it’s kind of hers, but Dean mimes at her to zip it and sends them on their way. Next Chapter

[yfere]

if they’ve been resisting all along: more unhinged blumendrei talk

this is sort of a quasi-speculation potential AU I’ve been daydreaming about but..... look, I’m increasingly attached to the idea that what if Caleb’s breakout was a sort of botched rescue attempt from astrid and eodwulf. and trent knows and found out about it, and is using that knowledge to fuck with all three of them.

so consider: looking at the mechanism of how the scourger abuse seems to work, I don’t imagine it would have been long before astrid and eodwulf discovered or were told the truth of what they did. Maybe a year, maybe less? It’s just to compound on the shame and isolation from having traitor parents, from killing those parents..... to finding out that they were lied to from the start, and are just criminals, dogs to the assembly whose crimes can be brought out to light at any time to sunder them from society completely. by the time astrid and eodwulf would have found this out, they would have still been far too powerless to do anything about it. Trent is an old man, but he also has connections, an insane amount of political and personal power. Enough magic to squash them like little bugs with but a word.

not only that, but at this point trent has bren. a person who they love, maybe the only one left, who broke, and who would function as good as a hostage for their continued good behavior. I imagine astrid and eodwulf confronted with this situation, their impotent fury (that astrid admits to harboring in her conversation with caleb), and I think they thought something along the lines of what abuse survivors like josefina rivera or the like may have thought--they’re gonna play by the rules. In fact, they’re gonna be the best goddamn proteges trent could ever hope for, his best friends, most relied-upon associates.... they will do this, acquire power, and from there put themselves in a position where they can tear his whole world down around his ears. It is, in a sense, the power game and dependence trent was going for all along, and is encouraging still with caleb. but it’s also in many ways the clearest and best path ahead of them, given their situation, the circumstances they were presented with.

so they work hard, they gain power. it’s probably not an accident eodwulf gets himself involved with the experiments at the asylum. he’s there most likely because bren is there, and if there’s one thing they need to do to get the upper hand on trent, it’s to rescue the hostage he’s been dangling just out of their reach for so long. maybe they tried a rescue before, and failed. maybe they tried several. they work hard, and then they do it, and--

things go wrong. or right? their calculations likely didn’t account for how their bren would react to all of this, how he would want to fight and hide, how it wouldn’t make sense or cross his mind to play the social chameleon by trent’s side. it goes maybe half-wrong and then bren is in the wind, not quite under trent’s thumb but also not safe, and not with them. astrid has a burn scar on her neck--when did she get it, exactly? and trent finds out, because of course he does, and finds out about caleb too. and it’s the same thing again but also not, and then....

bren comes roaring back into their lives.