#this is an old block; i had a hell of a time printing it originally bc it was before i switched to oil inks

[mildmayfoxe]

SEABIRD, SEABIRD, FLY HOME

three color 5x7 print for february patreon backers | shop

[shuckinbeanz]

SCREAM (Yan!GhostFace!Baku)

He also comes maskless! So check out his spoopy mug! 👻

warnings/notes: NSFW, college!au, implied sexual harassment/molestation and planned rape(but it doesn't happen, cuz Kats splodes & kills him and his lackeys), implied drugging, Katsuki goes insane(quite literally), Katsuki is a yandere(who knows his obsession is wrong, but he ends up snapping. and getting worse.), Katsuki's POV, nerdy reader, death, blood, gore, stalking, and murder. 👀 This is gonna be a two or three part fic because I couldn't resist the cliffhanger, but i wanna say reader is a bit fruitloopy, too.(just because of what i have planned for the end. this is a consent blog, sooo)

~Masterlist~

Underage characters are Aged Up!

MINORS 👏 DNI! 👏 AGE 👏 IN 👏 BIO 👏 OR 👏 DNI! 👏 Head on over to @candybowbeansies please for my SFW pieces, or be blocked if you interact here! 😇

This was originally supposed to be a tl;dr fic, so I cut back unnecessary parts(who cares how the minor bg characters croak ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ we're here for the opening, the ending, and the lovin'), but there still is movie spoilers/references. Enjoy! (not me shamelessly promoting the other parts 😂)

This wasn't like those bitches who cornered you and degraded you in an empty space. They'd get a warning to fuck off. This wasn't like those pimpled extras who thought they even so much as had a chance with you. He'd scare them off and they'd run off with their tail between their legs. The braver ones who'd try cheesy things with you, like trapping you against something with their arms, and oh, especially the dumbass few who tried to cop a fucking feel would get a solid thwacking.

He remembers the old fucking retard office worker in the train who felt you up. It was extremely cathartic to beat that perverted extra shitless. He regrets not turning that asshole's face into a bowl before authorities had to come and pull him off the man before arresting him.

No, this was not like any of those. No, no, no, not at all. He remembers those damn extras and what they had planned.

And he was fucking seething. Seeing red, borderline frothing at the mouth, seething.

See, it takes a lot for Katsuki to really want to kill someone. He may be boisterous and loud, and somewhat violent, but he had self-restraint practically in spades. He didn't want to scare you, after all. If anything, he wanted to protect you. The sweet little studious thing he discreetly pays attention to in the peripheral of his vision whenever he hangs out with his friends. He didn't want to come off as stalkerish. Your cute sweaters and shirts, your cute bottoms you liked so much. He knew your favorite place to sit during lunch, he knew your favorite color(s), he knew what genres you liked, and he even knew what food(s) you enjoyed most. Hell, he even knows which neighborhood you lived in because he couldn't help but give in to his desires. He doesn't know the place you live in, because after a big fat internal war with himself he finally managed to pull himself away from you that one time. He didn't want to scare you.

He wanted to protect you. And he remembers every fucking word those perverts said.

The four were planning to get you alone with them, 'cordially invite' you to the club, and slip you a fucking roofie before hauling you off to God knows fucking where to rape you because one of them took a liking to you. Katsuki fucking snapped.

So here he was, buying a cheap ghost mask from the holiday section decked out with costumes and candy. "It's for my brat brother. He forgot the mask." he easily lied through his damn teeth when the cashier eyed him. When he came home, he opened his wardrobe to fish out clothes he's never worn before. He slips on a printed tank top that read "DIE" and pulled on fishnets and some black ripped skinny jeans, and the cropped hoodie he'd gotten but never wore, before securing his voice changer onto his mask before putting it on and pulling up the hood and securing it. He pulled on a pair of those blue latex gloves, pocketing his burner cellphone, and grabbing a steak knife before heading to the mudroom to pull on and tie up his black combat boots, then he headed out.

He already had that bastard's hangout and their residences scoped out; he also knew who they lived with. And luckily, tonight, one of those bastards was the last one there, deciding to finish up whatever was on their phone before leaving. So he made his move. Katsuki walked up to the man, his boots thudding. "Oh, hey, man. Come back for something?" he asked nonchalantly, but Katsuki remained silent, soon arriving right behind him, glaring down at the shorter man through his mask. He huffs in annoyance as the man continues looking at his phone, and he turns around then shouts, "What the fuck?!" and falls onto his ass, his phone clattering on the cement a distance away. Katsuki cracks his neck before lurching forward to knock him unconscious, nabbing his phone. After securing and muffling that extra, he swipes through his contacts, recognizing a face. One of those bitches that bullied you.

He wants to not only scare that bastard who pulled his friends in on a sadistic scheme, he wants to terrify him. He lifts his gaze to the poor unconscious sap, wearing a feral grin behind his mask as he plans.

That extra's bimbo sister will make the perfect opening scene.

A low, deranged chuckle escapes him.

~~~

He makes sure his voice changer is on before he scrolls through the contacts slowly until he sees a familiar face. Leaning back in his seat, he presses the call button, then puts it on speaker. It rings a couple of times before someone picks up. "Hey. Your brother lost his phone. I thought I'd just call to let you know." he says. 'Really, again?!' she sighs in exasperation. She fell for it. "Where would you like me to drop it off?" he asks, his tone friendly. 'Really? You one of that derp's friends? You're a lifesaver! I wouldn't hear the end of it.' she says, before giving him the address. Stupid little bitch. He could feel the corner of his mouth tick in a semblance of a smile, fingers lightly drumming on a pair of binoculars. "Cool! I'm nearby. I should be there in a couple minutes." he says, glancing up to the rearview mirror to her unconscious brother. Might as well have a little fun before he kills both of them. "Would you like to chat in the meantime?" he asks. 'Sure.' she snorts, and an alarm goes off a few times on her end. "What's that noise?" he asks. 'Oh, just something to snack on while I watch TV.' she replies. "Ooh," Katsuki hums, going along. "What are you watching?" he asks. 'Well, it's October, duh, so I'm watching some scary movies.' she says. "You like scary movies?" he hums. 'Yeah.' she says. "What's your favorite scary movie?" he asks, then she hums in thought.

'Dunno. Maybe Scream?' she says. 'It's got a bunch of sequels. I won't spoil it, but basically a psychopathic killer wearing a ghost costume goes around stabbing and killing students for the LOLs.' she explains. How ironic. He can't help the chuckle that escapes him as she asks, 'What's your favorite scary movie?'

He hums, taking a long moment to pause. The killer that inspired him. "Would it be bad if I say I liked those movies, too?" he asks. 'Nah~ A lotta people like it.' she giggles as he lifts the binoculars, looking through them between her windows. Wide-open. "I'm almost there." he lies. "Is your brother home?" he asks. 'No, he isn't. He usually stays out late, gets drunk. I wouldn't be surprised if he had to call me up and ask me to bail him out of jail, again.' she says. A soft snort escapes him. After a few moments, he asks, "What's your name?" spying her through the living room window. He could see her on her couch, sitting still. 'Why? Did he never tell you or something?' she asks after a moment of silence on her end. "Nah..." he sighs. "I just wanna know who I'm looking at." he says. Her end stays silent for several moments, and he watches her form tense up.

'What...did you say...?' she asks, her tone unsure with a twinge of fear. "I wanna know who I'm talkin' to." he says, watching her get up and peek out of a window. 'No. No...you definitely didn't say that.' she says, staring out the window. Too bad he was camouflaged in darkness a distance away. "What'd you think I said?" he snorts, playing dumb, watching her whip her head around. "What?" he asks. She remains silent. "Hello?" he calls to her. 'Oh, um...I gotta go.' she says hurriedly, moving to close the windows and lock them. "Wait, I still need to deliver the phone." he tries. He could hear her soft bangs through her rush on her end of the line. 'Uh, no, don't you come here.' she says, pulling her phone away from her ear to hang up, sending a pang of anger through his veins. "Don't you dare hang up." he growls, hearing her line end not a moment after. In a fit of rage, he throws his binoculars towards the passenger door with a loud thud.

After tossing the phone on top of the dash, he grips the steering wheel tightly, before inhaling deeply, then exhaling. He could hear a faint shuffling and a soft groan behind him in the backseat.

"Alright." he growls, looking up to the rearview mirror, snagging the phone. "We'll play it like that then." he hisses, opening his car door and getting out, then opening the back door as the terrified man begins to squirm and scream-his pathetic voice muffled by a cloth gag and layers of duct tape. He checks for his knife, before dragging the bastard out. "Shut up, will ya?" Katsuki grunts, knocking the man out again. "Persistent fucks." he hisses under his breath, raising the phone to redial the number. "I told you not to hang up on me." he says the moment she answers. 'Look, what the fuck do you want?' she snaps at him. How cute. He chuckles sinisterly. 'Just don't come here, okay?! Or I'll call the cops!' she exclaims before hanging up.

"Two can play at that game." he says as he takes the roll of duct tape before hauling the shorter man into a fireman's carry with a grunt. Again, he presses redial with his free hand, carrying the unconscious bastard to his sister's back door. And again, she answers.

'Listen here, you asshole--' "No, you listen to me, you fucking bitch." Katsuki seethed angrily through his mask, as he speed-walked to her back door. "You hang up on me one more fucking time, I'll gut you like a fish, ya understand?!" he raises his voice threateningly. He could hear her gulp on her end. "Yeah..." he sighs in relief when she doesn't hang up. "Not so hard, is it?" he almost coos. 'A-Am I a jo-oke to you...?' her voice wavers. He hums, long and low, setting his sight on a plastic lawn chair outback. "Nah." he says, finishing the last bit of distance with a few quick strides, dropping the duct tape onto the grass, and putting the phone into his other hand to take and lift the chair and bring it right before her back porch before setting it down. "More like..." he hums, taking the phone into his free hand again. "A game." he grunts, plopping the man down onto the chair upright. He takes a deep breath. "Can you handle that?" he asks, heading over to pick up the duct tape. "Kitty?" he references her cat-themed t-shirt, chuckling lowly when he can hear her thudding around her house in a panic to lock her doors.

While she pranced around inside, he made quick work of taping her unconscious brother securely to the lawn chair. 'I am like, seconds away from calling the cops...' he heard her weep fearfully through the phone. He snorts, picking up the phone. "They won't make it in time." he tells her, pressing the button to mute his side. "Hey, bastard. Pst." he slapped the man's face with his gloved hand. He stirs groggily. 'The fuh-fuck you want...?' she hiccupped fearfully. "Wake up, you damn perv." Katsuki grunts, standing and lifting a leg to kick him, startling him awake. Katsuki lifts the phone to unmute it, seeing that she'd hung up.

So he walks around the house, leaving his first victim behind, temporarily. When he arrives, he jabs his thumb against the doorbell a few times before removing himself from the peephole's view, chuckling at her shrill shriek. 'Who's there?! Stay away...! Who's there, I--' she goes off, sobbing, as he presses redial, the ring of her phone silencing her. "You should never ask who's there, you asking to die or something?" he asks when she answers, releasing a chuckle. 'Look, you've had your fun, why don't you just leave or something, or--or else.' she tries pathetically. He snorts. "Or else, what?" he asks.

'Or else my brother will be here any moment, and he'll be pissed, so your ass better be gone!' she tries to threaten him. "Sure~" he hums, rounding the house again, his tone disbelieving. 'He practically lives in the gym, so he's strong!' she wails fearfully. "Oooh~" he coos, "I'm shaking in my boots." he says sarcastically. 'You b-better just leave...' she whimpers. "His name wouldn't happen to be..." he pauses for the suspense, "____, would it?" he asks, standing away from the door's view.

'How...do you know his name...?' she asks after a few moments of silence. He shrugs. "I'm his friend, remember?" he hums, chuckling lowly as she softly denies what he said. "You know the little window beside your back door?" he asks. "Turn on the light, and push the curtain aside~" he rasps in a singsong. "And look out." he commands her.

He found sadistic joy in her sobs as she did as told; going to the back of her house, turning on her backdoor light before hesitantly pushing aside the curtain. He almost found catharsis as the man strapped to the lawn chair attempts to squirm and scream through his gag to his bimbo sister. 'God, no!!' he heard her scream, both through the phone and from inside her house, and he threatens her as she unlocks the door to open it for the bastard.

"I wouldn't do that, if I were you." he spat icily. 'No...no...' she sobbed, hurriedly slamming the door shut and locking it, making her brother shake his head fervently and cry out, in an attempt to have her save his ass anyway. Katsuki knew that wouldn't happen. 'Why're doing this...?' she cries fearfully. "I just wanna play a game~" he singsongs creepily. 'No...don--' "Then the fucker dies now." he threatens, reaching for the knife. 'No!! No!' she shrieks, "Then which is it, huh?" he asks. "Which. Is. It?" he growls, his fuse merely seconds from blowing.

'Oh God...' he heard her whimper. 'What...kind of game...?' she asks hesitantly. Fearfully. That's more like it, he thought. "Turn off the light, and you'll see what kind of game~" he coos. Moments later, the light turns off, and he releases a soft sigh of relief. "We're going to play...a little movie trivia." he says. "Answer the question correctly, and he'll live. Easy as that, alright?" he asks. 'Please stop...' she begs. "Oh, come on. It'll be fun. Promise." he chuckles.

"I'll even give you an easy warm-up question." he says. 'No, please don't do this...' she begs. "Awe, but it's from your favorite scary movie." he coos. 'No....' "Who were the killers in the first Scream?" he asks. 'I d-don't know...' she hiccups. "Yes, you do." he says. "Who were they?" he asks again. He hears her gulp. 'Billy and Stu...' she answers, hesitantly. "Yes! Correct answer." he grins sadistically from behind his mask. "Now, to the next one. In Scream 3, how did Cotton die?" he asks. 'Um...shot...! He was shot!' she answers hurriedly. "Oooh, sweetheart. You can't be even more wrong." he says, condescendingly. 'No! I'm right! I've watched the whole series like a hundred times!' she tries. "A hundred times? Then you should KNOW how everyone was killed!" he seethes. "That was the wrong answer. Now, your poor big brother...I'm afraid he's out~" he chuckles sinisterly. 'Wh-What are you--no...no, no! NO!' he hears her come to an epiphany as he takes his sharpened knife out. The light turns on and he can hear her desperate pleas, her banging from the 'safety' of her home, and the muffled voice of his first victim. "Not sorry, man. Perverts can go to hell~" he drives the knife inside the man's gut, then upwards vertically, splitting him open with rough, jagged jerks of his arm. The bloodcurdling screeches that came from the woman inside, and the fact that the first bastard was now dead brought Katsuki great catharsis.

He doesn't bother turning around to face her, knowing she was still watching while he lifted the phone up to speak into it again. "I'm in a really good mood, right now." he growls. He could hear her hiccups. Her pathetic sobs. "So guess what?~" he hums. 'No...no...please...'

"You get a bonus round!~"

He was so gonna enjoy killing every last one of those fuckers.

[nothorses]

sorry if this is a stupid question, but what's printmaking? it looks cool but all google brings up is something about. blocks and also japan

It's not at all a stupid question! Printmaking is definitely one of the lesser-known mediums, and it deserves more love, tbh.

Printmaking is a broad term, but wrt fine art it refers to the process of creating art by transferring an image from a matrix (like a carved block you roll ink onto, a piece of plexiglass you paint, or a piece of copper with lines etched into it to old ink) onto another surface.

The most common form you'll see is relief printmaking; carving a flat surface, rolling ink across the raised areas, and then transferring that ink to paper. I used relief printmaking to create this:

And you can check out some gifs I made of the process here!

Another common version is Intaglio, which is sort of the opposite of relief; instead of carving away the blank space, you can cut, scratch, or etch (i.e. use acid to eat away) lines in a plate (usually copper) which will then hold ink, and then transfer that ink to paper.

I used Intaglio (etching) to create this:

And you can check out my process video here!

There are a ton of mediums that fall under the printmaking umbrella (lithography, monotype/monoprint, screenprinting, etc.), and oftentimes artists will mix & match and layer different methods on top of each other to get the result they want.

A big draw for a lot of people (aside from the process and look of it) is that prints are all hand-made, but (usually) still repeatable. Unlike a painting which can only have one "true" copy and maybe some reproductions, plus photos/digital images of the original, each print is considered an original itself.

That means you can show your prints in multiple galleries at once, sell them as originals for less, give originals away, keep originals for yourself even if you do also sell them/give them away, etc.

It's also got a lot of history as a way of providing access to art, literature, and information that poor and illiterate folks wouldn't have had access to at the time, which @thequeer-quill has written about here! It's kinda punk as hell.

[darwin-xf]

SSSSStakeout

Stakeout. Baltimore. Not an X file. Skinner had assigned them.

He called them in the day before. Immediately, he had Scully’s complete undivided attention. Mulder was predictably peevish. Pouting. God, why was he always like this?

“You have been carefully selected to be part of this team. The human trafficking task force here in DC has been working to get these guys for two years.”

“It’s just that, Sir, we’re the only two agents assigned to the X files. What if a case comes up while we’re on this other thing?”

“Mulder. Last week I found you a mutant in California. Don’t be a pain in the ass. We’re closing in on arrests here. And we need experienced agents. It’s only a couple days. One mistake could make it all go boom.”

Scully was raking him over, pinning him with some serious side eye. Skinner shut up and ducked down to pretend to get something from a bottom desk drawer. Allowing her the space to persuade him with those peepers. God knows they had worked him over once or twice. Maybe three times. Jeepers creepers.

These two. He was something. But she, she, she? She was something else.

Skinner’d gone to high school with a kid named Brett Miller who was a freakishly good athlete. And he played basketball with this guy. Class of 1970 and to this day, he still held a handful of school records. He’d gotten a full ride at Villanova then played a couple of years in the NBA, plus ten more overseas. Their coach was old school, never one for gratuitous praise. He ran their asses off in practice, had them drill on defense ninety percent of the time.

One day they were working on mastering a full court trap press. Nobody was supposed to shoot the ball. An inviolable rule. But Brett, once he quit holding back, he singlehandedly broke the press with ease. Then he skittered out of double coverage with a behind the back dribble and launched a shot from forty feet. When the ball was in the air, everybody gasped. Then it fell through the hoop, nothing but net. Brett fell to his knees and grabbed his head.

“Sorry, Coach. Sorry guys,” he said, and fell down prostrate on the court. “Glad he’s on our team,” their coach quipped. Gruff old guy.

Then had them all run five suicides before sending Brett to the showers and resetting the press. Supposedly it was a punishment, but Skinner knew even then that coach wanted them to practice against normal human boys. They won a state championship six weeks later.

That’s how Skinner felt about Mulder and Scully. They tended to muck things up. But all in all, he was glad they were on his team.

“OK, Sir.” Mulder said, when Skinner was back in his seat and facing them thirty seconds later. He was gripping the arms of his chair.

Scully nodded. She’d won this round. And she’d seemed relieved and pleased, Skinner thought, her pigheaded partner had knuckled under.

Thirty-six hours later, they sat on a squalid block in outside a row of strip clubs. One way street, narrow and dim. Parked in a ‘68 Mustang (special issue motor pool) equidistant from three pertinent businesses demarked by tawdry awnings inked in flagrant fonts: Norma Jean’s, Pussycat, and Club Hustler.

Fifty yards from the front entrance of the Charm City Suites, with a view also of an emergency exit up a narrow alley. Eyes trained on doors, tracking comings and goings. Nothing yet.

Inside, a trio of Albanian bad guys were allegedly holding between ten and twelve women from all corners of the globe against their will. Seduced with promises of opportunity and liberty, then stowed, stashed, and shifted to this small seamy corner of the supposedly free world. They were displaced and disempowered, lacking a common language or a lay of the land. Forced into rough trade.

It was a delicate operation. These guys had reach, and assets, a dozen identities between them and links with organized crime, plenty of cash in offshore accounts. If they were tipped, they’d simply disappear. Never be brought to justice.

Not a X file. But a handful of real assholes who needed to be off the streets. He knew this. Lately, he’d been trying to, you know, grow up. With the new year coming up, hell, a new Millenium in fact, he was considering a resolution. Change is hard.

They had drawn the midnight to 8 am shift. Their cover was, she was a dancer at Norma Jeans, and he was her boyfriend. If the subjects —they had extensive dossiers on all three— took interest or noticed them, she was on a break, visiting with him outside in his car.

She was Scarlett, he was Mulcahey. That was it. They were to improvise from there, as necessary. There were lone agents posted in all three titty bars, plus a pair staying in the hotel, all original members of the task force.

Scully was next to him, an arm’s length away across the bench seat of this seriously sweet ride. Not that he was a car guy, but Gawd.

Two hours in, a silence had settled between them. Not uncomfortable. Scantily clad as per their cover, she hummed as a shiver ran through her. Mulder eyeballed her and turned over the key. The engine roared to life. Soon a weak plume of heat seeped out from the floorboards and pooled around their ankles.

“If we could take her for a spin, I could warm you up properly, Scully.”

She quirked an eyebrow at him.

“What? V eight and all. Kind of irksome, just to have to sit here idling. Makes me feel... impotent.”

Beside him, huddled around her cup of lukewarm coffee procured on the way over, she began to shiver.

“Aw, Scully. Crap.”

He stripped off his black leather jacket and she sat up, allowing him to drape it over her shoulders. He still wore several layers. A long sleeved slub cotton white v neck tee, a chambray dress shirt, slippery and moss green. Stiff jeans dyed dark indigo. Black boots.

She eyed his outfit. Shook her head. Unfair. She wore only a leopard print mini dress. Straight from central casting. Really.

“Thanks,” she said, glad for the warmth. And the masculine creak, the almost alive redolence of hide. She snuffed her nose against the collar, breathed him in. Thought of his sofa.

“Skinner warned us,” he said, imitating him. “This is not a warm body stakeout, Agents.” She smothered a laugh.

This pleased him. He smiled.

Read the rest at Ao3

[otp-holic]

The one place (where something happened) (A03)

“In your life there are a few places, or maybe only the one place, where something happened, and then there are all the other places.” Alice Munro. (or the one where they receive a letter from a familiar name and we go into 4Ks of fluff around a lost afternoon in France)

4K. Lamely explicit at one point. Fanfic + Pictures Inside. Trigger for FLUFF as the main plot. Part of the Never let us lose what we have gained series (AO3)

This was supposed to be a manip with 200 words of bantering and it's now 4Ks of fluff with a few pictures. I've decided to leave them inside the cut because I feel they work better with its context there. I'm sorry for the hassle, but I really hope you give this a chance... unless you have cavities, only like fics with amazing plots or are allergic to shameless fluff.

Please do not repost the pictures, I know this is futile, but… I try :)

DAGUERROTYPE, France 1944 Private Collection.

Steve is cooling down from his very early run, enjoying the feeling of the pink sunrise looming over the awakening Brooklyn streets as he walks the last couple of blocks on the way home, when his phone beeps.

“Check your actual mailbox, we dropped something for you there. I think you should appreciate us making it old-fashioned just for you, grandpas!”

Steve smiles at Sam’s text and as soon as he arrives at their building he snaps a picture of the very common and flat envelope with “Barnes&Rogers” scribbled on top of a Stark Logo, to send along his response.

“Nice try, but this is inaccurate. A letter would have never made its way to us without an address or stamp. We’ll send you a proper thank you card to show you how it’s done.”

He can’t help but chuckle at his own joke rereading the text while he opens the door, and when he looks up from his phone and into the kitchen, he is received by a sleepy Bucky looking at the coffee machine like he looks at Steve during their most soft and embarrassingly cheesy moments.

“You love that thing more than you love me, confess it.”

“In the mornings? Yes. I don’t even like you in the mornings most of the time,” he answers matter of factly. “Want some?”

Steve playfully wiggles an eyebrow.

“No way. Your sweaty self is tempting, but coffee smells better. I might join you in the shower later.” Bucky offers him one of the two cups he has poured and he notices the envelope Steve is holding. “What is that?”

“We’ve got mail!” He hands it to Bucky. “I have no idea what's on it, but Sam texted me to say they had something delivered to our mailbox and there it was. Open it.”

Bucky leaves the cup on the counter, face sparked with a curiosity that makes him look twenty-one (and Steve weak on the knees), and goes for it.

The content is a bit underwhelming at first glance: Another envelope, white, no Stark logo, but topped with a bright green post-it with a note on Pepper’s script.

“This got to me via PR. We analyzed it and checked with the source (no peeking, I swear) and it seems legit. With that return address, it’s likely to arouse your interest. Love, P.”

Bucky tears off the post-it and the letter is revealed to be addressed to Steve Rogers at the Stark Tower, but it is when they turn it around when everything goes still for a second.

The return address is some street in Marseille, but what has Steve’s mouth dry and Bucky’s hand trembling just a bit is the combination of the place and the name written on top: Emmanuelle Jaques Dernier.

“Boom?”, Bucky says, trying to cut through their heavy hearts and taking Steve’s hand. It’s a terrible terrible joke, but Dernier would have loved it and he grins.

“That’s a terrible terrible joke,” Steve verbalizes, “but I think at least we’ve reached the same conclusion.”

“Elementary, my dear Steve,” Bucky answers as he opens the second envelope, only to reveal a folded letter and yet another envelope. “It’s a fucking vault of paper!”

Steve takes the letter from him, unfolds it, and quickly scans it (normal office paper, printed, hand-signed) before he starts reading it out loud to Bucky’s undivided attention.

“Dear Mr. Rogers,

My name is Emmanuelle Dernier and I am the great-grandson of Jaques Dernier of the Howling Commandos.

First, let me tell you that we all in our family grew up with amazing stories and praise for you, Sergeant Barnes, and the rest of the team. I never got to meet my great-grandfather or any of them (you), but I’ve always felt like I did.

In fact, that’s the ultimate reason behind this letter: I ached to honor him and I’ve been putting in order all his remaining letters, pictures, and memories so they don’t get lost forever, and there are many things I’m discovering through this journey. So many pictures and tiny details… and amongst them, you and the rest of the Commandos appear at the most random and memorable moments. Nothing that’s going to make it into history books, more like the stories my grandpa used to share with us over and over again, those important tidbits that make him more human.

Anyway, I was going through the pictures he kept when I came across some war photos that didn’t seem to match the 40s timeframe. Typical daguerreotypes from the 20s in a very bad state, probably taken with a camera from the era in 1944 and developed on a later date by somebody who clearly didn’t master the technique.

They were in a very bad state and hidden inside an envelope that said “Terribly drunk soldiers in France making idiots of ourselves in unique and creative ways. Fun evening, horrible hangover. About 20 miles west of the Maginot Line. Autumn ‘44”. I’m attaching a photocopy of that, I hope you can understand my decision to keep the original.

After restoring the daguerreotypes with some experts, all I got were five very bad pictures with silhouettes of people apparently having fun…. but there was one that got a lot better in the cleaning process that feels important somehow. I’m sending the original, as well as the restored version I got.

I, of course, don’t have the whole context, but I hope it brings back a good memory. My great-grandpa might be in the picture, but I don’t think this one belongs to my family or to a museum.

Thank you for your service, I really hope this letter finds its way to you.

E.Dernier.”

“I can’t believe… Steve, most days I’m convinced that day and that place are a figment of my imagination,” Bucky smiles, remembering. “When I think of a moment of pure joy during the war, I think about that afternoon in France, and it always feels unreal. A bubble of air and laughter while we were so surrounded by death.”

Steve nods, reminiscing about that warm and humid September morning when they arrived at yet another abandoned and destroyed little village, this one about twenty miles west of the Maginot Line. They had orders to lie low and wait for twenty-four hours before they started the maneuver to wipe another Hydra base off the map, and that little town was perfect for that.

Among bomb debris and fallen walls, they found one small building miraculously standing next to the remains of the church, so they decided to set camp under a roof for a change since the weather was being a little flickery with the rain, and they had the rare luxury of time.

The inside of the tiny house was as unusual as the outside: nothing was destroyed beyond being dusty and worn by time, and everything they found (furniture, kitchenware, and even fabrics) belonged more to Steve and Bucky’s early childhoods than to 1944, a living museum frozen in time.

Only it was not a museum, but the parish house left untouched and non-raided: old-fashioned clothes, outdated church books, yellowing clergy collars, and, of course, the wine cellar. Oh, that wine cellar… the havoc it unleashed.

“I remember the absolute excitement when Falsworth found all those bottles of old unscathed mass wine from the parish,” Steve brings his memory to words, looking at Bucky, “I’m still a little convinced that we are going to hell for drinking them.”

“Not for that, probably, but it was a wonder nobody died on the spot of wine poisoning, it tasted like sweet vinegar, ugh.”

“But it did his part, right? Took our minds off things; got us drunk, bold and silly.” Steve answers.

“Apparently not all of us,” Bucky says very seriously, looking at Steve.

“Technicalities… I got drunk by proxy. Seeing you all so happy made me giddy and tipsy, too.”

“I came and went… I remember being a little surprised at the clarity of my thoughts at some moments there when some of the guys were basically drooling on the floor. Now I understand, of course.”

Steve squeezes his hand, not much to be said there.

They were already way too drunk by the early afternoon, drinking to the sound of a sudden rainstorm pouring outside. All of them scattered across the small dusty living room and its adjoining kitchen while they went through all the bottles of wine they had been able to find. Cheering for the foregone priest every time somebody raised a glass, and laughing as if there were no ruins or war on the other side; just silly men (boys, really) laughing their hearts out.

“Earth to Steve… I don’t know about you, but I’m dying to see what the hell that envelope is hiding. Especially now that we know about its time stamp.”

“I’m sorry, me too! Gabe drunkenly handling that old camera and those glass plaques the way he did? I’m honestly impressed that he was able to take any pictures at all,” he muses. “Shit, is it weird that I’m nervous?”

“I’m gonna save us the bantering because I’m nervous, too,” Bucky answers in all sincerity. “Truth is, Steve, I remember everything about that day.”

It’s a new admission, a newly opened door for them because for some reason, they have never talked about that peaceful surreal afternoon, and Steve nods in recognition as he silently goes for the envelope one-handed, not wanting to let go of Bucky’s hand because his surface is way cooler than his wrenching insides. Maybe the picture is an overexposed french wall but maybe…

The photo he extracts from the envelope is clearly the original and damaged one Emmanuelle specified in his letter. Anybody else looking at it would see nothing beyond Dernier’s blurry profile, but since Steve and Bucky were there when this was taken, they know exactly what moment Steve is holding in his hand.

“Buck,…” is all Steve can say, struck by the blurry keepsake.

Later in the afternoon when they had already consumed most of the wine and there was not a single coherent thought left in the room, one of the guys took the parish books and besottedly announced that there was a wedding set for today… thirty years ago. Alcohol fueled a goofy idea that escalated at the speed of light, with Morita saying they were going to a wedding because they deserved a celebration, Dernier confessing that he had once considered becoming a priest, and Dum-dum bringing out all the old fashioned clothes from the wardrobe and deciding they were getting nice and clean for the festivities.

“That’s clearly Dernier in the picture killing it in his priest role, right?” Bucky says, half smiling and interrupting Steve’s thoughts. “You know, I went all-in with that fake wedding party. I was laughing to tears when I saw you put on that ridiculously long and ill-fitting jacket from the 10s, feeling weightless and silly for the first time since sailing off, and God knows we all deserved that. And it was all safe and light-hearted until fucking Morita decided you had to be the groom, and...”

“Were you jealous because I won the dashing groom competition?”

Steve’s attempt at a joke is weak, but there’s truth behind it: Morita chose Steve as the groom (“Cap, you are the most dashing and the least drunk”) to a chorus of excited voices cheering for him. Somebody else, most likely Dum-Dum, chose the rest of the roles (Sarge, best man duty; Jones, camera; Morita, keep the wine flowing; the rest of you, misbehave!) and in the blink of an eye, they were all going outside laughing under a light rain, and about to celebrate Steve’s fictional wedding to nobody.

“How could I be jealous?” Bucky cuts in. “Do you remember all you said to me that afternoon? During World War II and in front of a battalion of men?”

“I was drunk.”

“Fuck you!” Bucky disentangles his hand from Steve’s to use both of them to hold Steve’s face and kiss him with violence. “Tell me. Do you remember what you said?”

As if he could ever forget. He can recall every step he took from the house to the makeshift wedding spot amidst the trees where his best man (looking dapper even in that ludicrous jacket) was laughing along Dernier. He can still smell the petrichor, can still sense the blush coloring his cheeks while hoping nobody noticed and can still hear the beating of his heart when Bucky handed him a battered umbrella (“You don’t deserve to get rained on your wedding day, punk”) and a fucking ring made out his shoelaces (“You’ll have to buy something a little more permanent.”). And then…

“Dernier started the ceremony and he wanted to know if I had somebody in mind and I said ‘of course’.” He replays, his voice barely a whisper. “I said I’d had my eyes on a brown-haired Brooklynite since before I could remember. I said that I was pretty sure those blue eyes were set on mine too and that hopefully those eyes would be set enough to want to marry me even if I had never dared to ask.”

He’s been holding Bucky’s gaze the whole time, and he’s far from over yet, but he needs to fucking breathe before he goes on. Neither of them has moved a muscle for the past minute.

“Then he asked me to repeat the wedding vows after him and…”

“And you said Buck, right?”, Bucky interrupts, voice winded. “You fucking whispered I take you, Buck, as my lawful wedded husband till the end of the line. I heard, Steve. Even if the rest of the world didn’t, I did. But you never said anything, so I always deemed it impossible, a product of the corniest nook of my mind trying to outweigh all those bad things, because not even you could be as bold, reckless, and mushy as to do that,…it’s my fucking fault, I should have known better!”

“Not completely reckless, pal. I was scared shitless as I said those words, but what else could I do? You were right by my side about to put a ring on my finger as my “best man”, everyone, including you, supposedly drunk past recollection, and everybody else too far away to hear my whispers. It was such an easy choice in the end because truth should always win over fear. And those vows were. The truth.”

“You have always been too honest for your own good, Rogers,” Bucky is breathless and exasperated and goes for his mouth again, bringing in all he (they) couldn’t in 1944. “You destroyed me, Steve. My knees were as weak as a teenager’s in front of his first crush. I wanted to kiss you so badly when I heard you say all that there in the open… and I couldn’t even acknowledge it.”

“I know. And for what it's worth, I really thought you didn’t remember.”

It is too much. Is it normal to feel this much? Steve would blame it on the serum enhancements, but he was already overwhelmed at 16, so that’s clearly not the answer.

He craves, no, he needs touching, grounding, closer. Bucky. There’s too much space between them even if they are back to kissing like they would have that day in 44, and at any other time if their own lives wouldn’t have stolen those moments from them.

“It happened.” Bucky whimpers, biting on Steve’s lip who abandons his own stool to straddle him, both of them gasping in sync at the feeling of their cocks, hard against each other’s through their soft pants.

Bucky soon ups the stakes by carding his metal hand through Steve’s hair pulling his head backwards to help himself into that spot on his neck.

“Same two moles as when you were tiny, as when we were at that war... Your cute vampire bite. Favorite spot.” He licks on them with the tip of his tongue. Steve growls on cue and Bucky giggles. “Favorite chain reaction.”

“Buck, you cheater, you know what that does to me!” Steve cries out followed by Bucky’s evil chuckle.”Bed, couch, countertop,…I don’t care, but naked. Now. Stained pants due to heavy petting are too much of a trip down memory lane for me. Let me keep a bit of my dignity.”

Steve stands up liberating Bucky from his grip but aching at the loss of contact.

They are naked and making out in the middle of the kitchen in no time; Bucky steadily pushing him against the refrigerator while fiercely grinding against his crotch.

“Hey, ‘teve,” Bucky pants. “The way this is going, it’s my dignity now that's at risk. I don’t think I can make it further than the floor before I come.”

Steve groans into his mouth just at the thought and they start sliding to the floor the best they can until he’s a human blanket moving over Bucky. With no lube at hand, and no time, that’s their best option.

They kiss and kiss and kiss, his hands not leaving Bucky’s sweaty hair. Bucky’s hands on his ass, forcing their groins closer with one while he (almost absently) plays around his hole with the other, driving Steve crazy in the process. Dicks left to do their own thing through pressure and friction. Everything is working. And fast.

“Oh, fuck!” Bucky exclaims “Can you promise me all this stuff with the letter was real and not a long-con plan to assure your fragile masculinity that I love you more than I love that espresso machine?”

That. That silly unfunny excuse of a joke that screams Bucky all over is what pushes Steve all the way over the edge. He fucking laughs as he comes making absolutely embarrassing sounds, pressing their foreheads and noses together until it hurts, and shaking from head to toe without stoping his pressure on the stupid and smug man under him. His lover. His partner. His unofficial husband. His best friend.

His Buck.

“There’s still too much blood in your brain if you can play that dirty,” Steve states, placing one hand between them grabbing Bucky’s hard cock. “Let’s see if I can do anything about it.”

“Your hand, usually so helpful, but I was already following you after that sound you make when you come and laugh at the same time, shit, it always goes straight to my dick, I’m,…” he keeps talking with difficulty between breaths and moans until he leaves his speech unfinished coming all over Steve’s fist.

They kiss on the lips breathing into each other before Steve rolls over. They are sticky and panting in silence, spread on their kitchen’s floor, Steve’s shoulders crushed between Bucky’s and the dishwasher. Domestic bliss at its most literal.

One lavish fuck and two showers later they reemerge into the kitchen in search of something to eat: Bucky is in charge of the food today, while Steve cleans the mess they left a couple of hours ago.

He’s decluttering the counter when their damaged picture laying there puts a smile on his face but also reminds him of the restored version presumably still waiting inside the disregarded letter, so he grabs the envelope to retrieve its contents: one photocopy (from Dernier’s original writing), and the promised photo.

And it is restored. Everything is clear where it was blurry before: Dernier (so deep into his priest impersonation that he’s not even looking at them), the trees, the battered umbrella, the ridiculous jackets… and them.

“You had the nerve to call me reckless and mushy, Buck?” Steve laughs as he stares at the picture where a very young Bucky is about to put a ring on his finger with the least subtle lovestruck expression he’s ever seen (“and it’s for you”, his brain proudly reminds him) “Wow, you might as well be kissing me there, anything would be more subtle than this!”

“Don’t shame me, you punk, especially not when you were the one responsible for breaking my brain back then!” Bucky answers coming from behind and stealing the picture from his hands to scrutinize it. Goofy grin and raging blush quickly taking over his face. “But you’re one to talk, Cap. You are gazing at that shoelace’s ring as if I were handing you a diamond tiara!”

Steve laughs softly at that and moves his right hand to his pocket, feeling the weight of the little compass he had retrieved earlier from one of his drawers. He used to carry it with him everywhere for comfort, but he has a better option now.

“Didn't you know that shoelaces are forever?” He asks, taking the compass out of his pocket and holding it in both hands as he opens it, nudging Bucky with his elbow to get his attention.

Bucky is confused for an instant while he looks at his young face staring at them from inside the little box. Of course he knew that (he made fun of Steve for days and days) but Steve detects the change in his expression when he notices the other thing.

“Wow, you gigantic sap,” Bucky says, taking the compass out of his hands to double-check he is seeing what he thinks he’s seeing. “You saved my shoelace.”

He had. While they were all celebrating his wedding under the rain dancing to no music, he quietly slipped the little string off his finger and tied it to the most secure place he had back then.

“It’s not a shoelace, you jerk, it’s a symbol. A declaration.” He laughs, stealing the compass back to safely pocket it again.

“You are delusional,” Bucky snorts, kissing the top of his head. But he’s widely smiling and lost in thought as he goes back to their sandwiches.

Steve stays on the spot enjoying the peace in their silent companionship, his focus on the latest news showing up on his phone, the text he’s writing to Sam and the comforting sounds of Bucky moving around the kitchen.

“You might have married me, but I never actually married you.” Bucky blurts out of the blue a bit later, sitting by his side as he hands him a plate with a sandwich and some grilled greens on it. “Do you want mayo with that?”

“Uh?” Steve forgets all about the news and the text and looks at Bucky in confusion.

“Mayo, do you want some?” Bucky repeats nonchalantly.

“No mayo, thank you; but I was actually more interested in the other part, you know, that thing about marriage?”

Bucky looks him in the eye: earnest, blushing and with the same look of smug adoration he had on the picture.

“Oh, that part.” He jokes. “You apparently married me in 1944, but I never married you back. And I would like to.”

“Marry me?” Steve asks and Bucky visibly nods.

“I’m sorry for throwing the idea at you like this, books tell me I'm supposed to have candles, music, and a ring, but you showed me that restored picture and I couldn't stop thinking about it, about proof,” Bucky speaks uncharacteristically slow and very softly, voice trembling here and there while he claps his hand with Steve’s finger by finger for reassurance and as a distraction. “A single photo had the power to transform a moment that existed just as a made-up happy place inside my mind into something tangible and real. Something that would be tangible and real for anybody getting a hold on it and looking at our stupid faces.”

“So stealthy,” Steve says, and they both laugh together.

“Proof, Steve. I was slicing tomatoes and thinking how there’s so much evidence, thousands of files! out there proving that all the stuff that fuels my nightmares were real, but nothing solid about this. Us.” Bucky stops for a moment collecting his thoughts, still smiling even with the heavy subject he just dropped into the mix. “Sorry, I believe I put more time into these sandwiches than into thinking this all the way through so I’m…”

“Take your time, we’ve gone from mayo to marriage to nightmares in five minutes so don’t worry, you have me hooked here.”

Steve makes Bucky laugh again as he intended, and he feels their calloused laced fingers immediately squeezing closer.

“It’s stupid because it doesn’t change anything for us but,.. I don’t fucking know, Steve, I think that picture has messed up with my mind! I instantly found comfort in the idea of people finding facts beyond the nightmares now or in the future. An easy to understand, universal and oversimplified proof of how much I loved you and how much I was loved in return.” Bucky takes a breath and stares at him sporting a million-watt smile. “Marrying you,… I would really love that. And for real this time.”

“Ok, Buck.” Steve instantly replies, eagerness winning over thoughtful and heartfelt declarations. He tightens the grip on their joined hands to drive them to his lips and seals the easiest answer he’s ever had to give.

And it's done!Sorry for the cavities, for going on with the fic when it should have ended and for ending it where it might have had to keep going. It was painful and fun. I'm free!

[mayra-quijotescx]

Right, I said I was going to put some drawings up on here.

Short Background: It’s Free Art Real Estate.

Long Background: behind the cut. (oh my god I missed these so much, why are they only seemingly a thing On Here)

[Image description: First image: Illustration of an old Western Union telegram on a library checkout card bearing information for “Wheeler, E.; Tested Telegrams and How To Write Them.” The telegram in the drawing bears the message “Fuck you; strong letter to follow.” Second image: Illustration of a bunny looking at an open book on a Due Date checkout card covered in date stamps. End description]

I worked for the Houston Public Library System during The Great RFID-Taggening of 2017-2018, in which there was a systemwide push to program RFID tags onto every circulating item in the system’s collection for ease of material checkouts, and also for ease of the security gate to loudly narc on anyone who forgot or “forgot” to check something out before walking through. (Which one I believe to have been the system’s primary motivation can be left as an exercise for the reader.)

The original system of using checkout cards like the ones shown here had fallen out of use by some point in 2005 in favor of barcode stickers on the front of the materials and metallic strips embedded somewhere in the item to alert the older security gates if something hadn’t been properly desensitized. That being said, once the mass tagging effort reached the closed stacks of the central location, we suddenly ran across scores of the cards, some of which had been patiently resting in the back-cover card sleeves of their respective books for actual decades. I asked my supervisor what, if anything, we should do with them.

“We don’t really use them anymore, so they can go in the trash,” he said, adding after a moment’s thoughtful pause, “or recycling.”

Tangentially relevant to this, I at this point had been struggling with art block for a good year and a half, and a bunch of 3.5″x5″ pieces of card stock with sketch prompts printed directly on them in many cases, to be thrown out at that, was too much to pass up.

I spent the next several weeks sifting through as much of the stacks collection as I could get my gay little hands on, sneaking decks worth of free art real estate down to my locker in the basement. The supervisor said they could be thrown out or be recycled. He didn’t specify how, did he?

I started taking a few cards with me every time I was stationed at a desk to fill downtime with drawing, both as a way to keep boredom from further sharpening the edges of my already unfortunate personality and to take back a few small moments of time when possible during a point in which I didn’t feel like I had any control over my life. Even though I have mercifully gotten into much better circumstances (partially due to finally leaving that job in the fall of 2020 after one too many rounds of Let’s Use The Library Grunts As COVID Cannon Fodder from the city), I’ve managed to stick with a semi-regular drawing schedule, and I’ve even noticeably improved over the years!

They can go in the trash. Like hell.

[writingsbychlo]

starry night | chris beck

word count; 9241

summary; chris beck delivers flowers to you five times.

notes; this was originally called ‘candy cane lane’, but I changed it up a little.

warnings; none!

When Chris had started working in a flower shop, it was to pay his way through college. He was getting a degree in medicine and it wasn't cheap, and he needed a simple and easy way to make cash that wouldn't take too much out of him. He wasn’t big on anything social, and so working in a bar or restaurant didn’t seem like the best fit, and unfortunately for him, all the library jobs had been snapped up at the beginning of the year. Supermarkets were a no go, he hated the people that came through and how rude some of them could be, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to get a job in a coffee shop.

Working those machines might as well be rocket science.

The little flower store on the end of his campus road had been hiring, and eventually, he’d become desperate. It wasn’t his usual gig, he wasn’t sure how he felt about it, to begin with, but it offered decent money, reasonably flexible hours, and the boss actually let him study on shift when it was quiet, and so it actually gave him more free time than he had before getting a job.

Then, he’d started to warm up to it. It was always cool in the summer and warmer in the winter, keeping it temperate for the plants, and it always smelt good. He made friends with a man named Mark who came in every so often to buy new plants to study, he was becoming a botanist, and they bonded over the serene quietness of flower shops for studying and bad jokes.

Little old ladies pinched his cheeks, the tips were good, and it helped him clear his thoughts to be able to do menial tasks like spray the flowers with water every other hour to keep them wet enough, and to sit behind the cash registers. It was a simple Christmas present from said botanist friend that really inspired his passion, though. More of a gag gift, he was sure that was its intention, but he’d started to take it seriously. Chapter after chapter on the meanings of flowers, how to send hidden messages through plants, and something about the way of communicating in ways other than words had spoken to him.

After that, he’d been able to offer a service of sending messages through flowers. He’d become a more popular salesperson, and he’s shifts had increased, and he loved doing it. He loved the physical way that a message could be conveyed, beautiful explosions of colour to mean ‘I love you’ or ‘Happy Anniversary’, and so he’d started to invest his time in that. Nobody had been all that surprised when the older man who ran the shop had left it to him when he passed, not even Chris himself, and so he’d finished up his degree and started working at the flower shop full time.

Mark had taken on a part-time job there, as well as his internship in a clinical research lab, and they’d hired an extra hand at the register. It made him happy.

Less so, when he had an influx of orders overnight, and instead had to focus on building bouquets to be shipped instead of the garden expansion he was making, but happy nonetheless.

He was twenty-seven custom orders in, Mark already out running the standard bouquets for delivery, and he was stacking them by the garage door, wrapped in ribs and pretty vase-boxes, all ready to go. Licking the tip of his finger to flick the paper over, he let out a sigh, two sets of flowers on one page, his rows raising. It wasn’t unusual for there to be multiple sets on one order form, but as his eyes scanned over the list of preferences, scents and colours, as well as the messages they were wishing to convey, one of his brows rose up.

One request for the pretty set of pink roses and lilies that he’d loving crafted himself, a collection of flowers that signified an apology, and he was always happy to offer advice to any guys who came into the store to buy that set. It was usually a guy fresh to a relationship, messed something up by refusing to unfollow another girl on Instagram, or just saying the wrong thing in front of his friends, introducing a girl as his friend, that one always made him giggle. The second was curious, though, and it made his lips quirk up in a slight smirk at the insinuation of it. Red roses and tulips, a darker and more seductive bunch; new beginnings and early love, and he was willing to place his last dollar on it being an affair.

It felt even more sure when he noticed that the delivery address was that of an office block, and not a home address, a man’s name instead of a woman’s. In the personal notes section, there were no names, and so that was an option ruled out for getting to the bottom of the situation, but he wrote out gift cards, one with swirling writing for a heartfelt apology and the other with a sickly-sweet pick-up line and what he assumed to be an inside joke.

Curled ribbons and plastic wrapping, and the two bouquet were standing side by side for delivery, the van chugging as it was pulled back into the driveway, reversed up, and his blond-haired friend rounding the vehicle, looking utterly worn out, and it was only halfway through the day.

“You’d think it was Valentine’s Day, or something. This is crazy, it’s November!”

He took off his cap, running a hand over his hair and scratching lightly at his scalp, before placing the embroidered garment with the company logo back onto his head. “I’ve got something that’ll cheer you up!”

“Oh, yeah? Is it the rest of the day off?”

“Uh, no.” He deadpanned, his friend laughing as he came to stand by him, and he motioned towards the collection. “However, it is a rather exciting combination. These two-” He tapped at the boxes holding them firm at the base. “-are going to the same place.”

“And that is exciting why, exactly?”

“Because one is supposed to symbolise asking for forgiveness and all that, and the other symbolises new love and beginnings and all that. They’re being delivered to an office block, not a home address.” It took Mark a minute to process it, and Chris watched the gears turn in his friend’s head, before his jaw was dropping, and he let out a disbelieving laugh.

“Oh, and you think it’s a.. y’know.” He only nodded, and he began to load up the other orders into the van, a printout sheet of new addresses and order numbers on the tags, the delivery sheets loaded onto a clipboard to be signed for at each location. The empty van was once again teeming with bright flowers and artfully arranged bundles. Securing them all down and making sure they wouldn't tip over or get crushed during the ride there, he was confident they were ready to go, almost all of them set up, before he was staring at the two he’d recently made once again, his curiosity getting the better of him. “You want me to try and find out while I’m there?”

He almost agreed, it would have been so easy, a simple way to put his questions to rest, but he was invested in it now, and so he already knew what was coming. “No, I’ll deliver these ones myself.

Mark only nodded, slamming and locking the back of the van doors, double-checking the hatches for fresh air were open to stop them from wilting in transit, and then he was back up into the main cabin. The loud sounds of disco music exploding from the van radio as he started it back up, reversing from the driveway and setting off on his next round of deliveries.

Scooping up the first set in his arms, Chris patted down his pockets in search for his keys, finding them in his left side back pocket, unlocking his car with a click of a button, and setting the first batch on the passenger seat. The second soon followed, and he used the seatbelt to secure them in place, rolling the windows down as he set off, programming the address into his SatNav.

It was a short drive, twenty minutes maximum, even with traffic, the tall and shining office building one that he was vaguely familiar with towards the inside of the city, harsh rays of winter sun reflecting off of clean glass windows, all the way up to the top floor, and it was so tall that as he stared at it, he swore the building was swaying. With a bouquet in each arm and the clipboard tucked under one, he backed his way through the polished glass doors, a company insignia printed onto the glass, and he almost wanted to check his shoes for traces of at the appearance of the clean white lobby.

Large tiles of marble flooring, specks of grey flickering throughout them, and white leather couches along some of the walls on one side of the lobby, a waiting room. The other had various coffee and tea machines, recyclable cups and sugar packets, as well as a range of fruits and muffins, and he wanted to scoff a little at the ostentatious nature of it all. The desk was empty as he finally approached, though he could hear chatter in the background, behind reflective glass panels that he couldn’t see through, one-way glass he assumed, and as he balanced the bouquets up on the counter, an older woman, approaching her fifties he presumed, came out, a wide smile on her face as she brushed down the material of her skirt.

“My, my, aren’t those beautiful? Unfortunately, I don’t think they’re for me.”

“Well, ma’am, unless you’re a ‘Mr Robert McKinley’, I’d have to agree.” She chuckled, nodding her head as she looked at them before picking up the phone, and typing in an extension. Lifting it to her ear, she balanced it there against her shoulder, smiling at him once again.

“I’ll just have his assistant come down to collect them and sign for them for you, lovely.” He nodded his head, turning away to be polite as she chatted away on the phone for only a moment, confirming that there was a package to be sorted out, and he twisted back to look at her as she put the phone down. Manicured nails tapped at the desk for only as second, an awkward silence forming, and one of the elevators let out a small ‘dinging’ sound as it was clicked into use, the numbers on the screen above the floor counting down, coming all the way from the twenty-eighth floor. “Would you like a candy?”

He jumped a little, turning back to look at the woman who had now sat down a little distance from him, behind the computer at the desk, and she turned to him, raising up a bowl of neatly wrapped candies, and placing it up on the glass counter for him to reach. He didn’t, but she was staring at him expectantly, and so he plucked the first one from the bowl, offering her a simple nod of his head, and tucking it into the pocket on his shirt.

When a chime sounded throughout the lobby, the sound echoing off of every hard surface, Chris’ attention was drawn to the clicking of heels on the smooth stone flooring. A pretty blouse that looked like it cost more than his entire outfit and a fitted pencil skirt that was sitting just below your knees, your were a professional vision. Except, your hair was a little messy, and there was a wide grin on your face as you typed rapidly on your phone, not even needing to look up to do the walk, but your expression made you look much more approachable than the usual businesswoman.

You clicked off your phone only a few feet away from him, looking up as your gaze went straight to the flowers at his side instead of him, but it gave Chris the chance to take you in just for a moment, and fully observe you, Up close, you were even prettier, soft skin and pretty hair that shined under the lights, and whatever the shade of lipstick was that you were wearing was perfect, because it suited you like it had been made for you.

You reached out, straight past him for a second, and the receptionist gasped, reaching for the bowl of candy, but you were quicker, your hand scooping up a little collection of the sweets and pulling them back, a sound of victory sounding from you, and she mumbled under her breath playfully, rolling her eyes and threatening to start hiding the treats before she ran out, but you only chuckled, unwrapping one and placing it against your tongue, lips brushing your fingers as you turned to him, and he forced his eyes away from your mouth, a blush on his cheeks.

“Oh, wow. Check these out.” You turned to the receptionist, motioning to them, and she only nodded her head, the sounds of a printer firing up in the back room, and she disappeared to collect the sheets, leaving the pair of you alone. “For Mr McKinley?”

You leaned over the counter, snatching up a pen from the other side, and he only nodded, producing the collection sheet, and pointing out the spot that needed singing, the scraping of the pen on paper filling the silence as you signed in both boxes, handing it back to him and tucking the pen behind your ear. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Fire away.” You grinned, unwrapping another candy, leaving the wrapper on the glass alongside the other one, a cheeky move he was sure you’d get reprimanded for by the receptionist who kept a beautifully organised and clean desk and foyer.

“There are two bouquets here, both with flowers that have very different meanings. Can I ask why?”

You hummed, staring at him for a minute as you chewed slowly, before swallowing the sweet in your mouth and smirking slightly. “I’ll answer your question, but only if you answer mine first; what do the flowers mean?”

Chris grinned, unable to hold it in, because he loved getting to talk about his passions, especially when he could show off a little in front of a pretty lady, and he nodded his head. “Pink roses and lilies are an apology, but red roses with tulips are for new love.”

“And do you have any theories?”

“Just the one, but I’m waiting for it to be confirmed.” He chuckled a little at the devious look that flashed over your features as you pulled the red roses bundle toward you, nose pressed into them for a second as you inhaled deeply, a little sigh leaving you afterwards.

“I’m trusting you here, but you’re cute, so I’ll tell you.” Heat rushed to his cheeks, head ducking for just a second, before he was looking back up to catch your gaze, brows raised as he waited excitedly, leaning in to meet you as though a scandalous secret was about to be told, and he supposed that’s exactly what it was. “There’s another receptionist, and intern back in there, fresh out of college, just a year below me, and he’s definitely fucking her.” You tapped a finger against the red roses, before your gaze was flicking to the second bunch, still by his arm as he leaned on the counter. “However, a couple of days ago he had a lunch date scheduled with his wife, and he missed it. I couldn’t find him anywhere, and I couldn’t find the intern either. Not hard to connect the dots.”

“Oh, so he’s covering both of his bases?”

“For sure.” You grinned, backing up a little bit to grab the second bundle, and adjusting them in your arms for balance. “Angie had probably realised too, and dashed in there to tell the girl that she’s got flowers coming.”

You were making your way over to the elevators, and he followed after you, pressing the button to summon the lift, and it hummed to life behind closed metal doors. “You know, since we just became partners in crime, maybe I should get to know your name?”

“Well, that was smooth.” You laughed, the doors opening up, and you stepped inside, placing one bouquet on the floor at your feet and holding onto the other. You caved, giving him your name as he placed his hand over the door to stop them from closing, ad he repeated the name to you, testing it on his tongue as he learnt it. He gave you his own in return when he asked, and when you said it back, his smile widened, already liking the way his name sounded coming for you.

You typed a code into the pad on the wall of the elevator, the screen flashing green as your programming was accepted, and he stepped back, grinning as you waved your fingers at him, the doors closing as you disappeared from view. He snatched up his clipboard on the way out, unable to contain the smile on his face.

Chris Beck hated making deliveries, but this one hadn't been so bad.

There was a genuine smile on his face as he stepped through the glass doors of the lobby, smaller and simpler bouquets this time, both matching and nothing special, but he’d tasked himself with delivering them personally because he’d recognised the name and address immediately, his encounter with the cute assistant he’d met only two weeks prior flashing through his mind as he’d insisted on delivering this order himself, Mark smirking and helping him gather the flowers as soon as he’d spilled all about you.

Now, he had two sets of pretty pink flowers in different shades, and a single red rose in a sleek plastic wrapping, all wraith ribbons wrapped around them were bundled in one arm, the other holding onto his clipboard, and the desk was once again empty as he approached. A bell, sleek and shining silver, and it was a new addition, definitely not present last time, and he eyes it suspiciously for a moment, before pressing a finger against the top lightly, just twice, a little ringing sounding out around the lobby.

A head of curly hair popped out from around the glass, much younger than the previous assistant, and wearing a much tighter skirt, and she grinned widely as she stepped forwards. He couldn’t deny that she was beautiful, fiery red hair and a wide smile, lips painted with red lipstick, and she seemed sweet, but far too intimidating for him to ever consider. Her heels were so tall that he wondered how she even walked in them, long and thin points creating the stilettos.

“Flowers?”

There was an eager tone to her voice, and he put the pieces of the puzzle together, assuming this to be the intern, his eyes flicking down to her name badge for a second, reading it as ‘Clara’. “For Mr McKinley. Is his assistant free tom come and sign for them?”

The woman paused, rolling her lips a little and nodding her head, a coy look on her features before sitting down in the chair and spinning in it to face the phone, lifting it up to her ear and dialling a short connection number. He didn’t seem to need to wait long, before she was summoning you, a ‘flower delivery’ to be claimed, and she was far too excited, only confirming his doubts that this was definitely the mistress. “She’ll be right down.”

“Fantastic.” He wasn’t sure she even processed his words, before her eyes were closing in on the flowers, and he ignored it, turning back to look at the elevator, waiting for the number on the twenty-eighth floor to light up, a number flashing over the screen. It paused on its descent this time, stopping at the eighteenth floor, and then again at the twelfth, and he assumed that somebody else had joined the journey for a short while.

When the doors finally opened, you weren’t built typing away this time, a grin on your face as your eyes swept over the entrance for him, and he waved his fingers again, straightening up from the desk.

“It’s my partner in crime, back again.”

“Missed you too much, just had to return.”

“Of course, you did, because I’m awesome.” You came to a stop before him, peering up at him through bright eyes, and he swallowed thickly, a little nervous but very excited, and he tried to remember any of what Mark had taught him, his friend being far better with the women than he was, and everything from the last-minute crash course he’d been given upon leaving the shop forty-five minutes ago seemed to have gone blank. “So, what really brings you here today?”

You gasped a little as he shifted to show you the collection, sliding the clipboard closer, and you were presented with a pen from him, floral patterning woven along the body, your thumb clicking it on to sign for them. When you passed it back, you shared a look with him, both of your glances flicking over to the intern who was still admiring the flowers, completely oblivious.

“Hey, Clara?” Her head snapped up, pale skin heating with colour as she flushed, and he suppressed a chuckle. “Mr McKinley is in meetings all afternoon, but he’ll want to approve these flowers. Can you put them in water, and I’ll call to have them sent up when he’s ready?”

She only nodded, more than happy to take a gift that she knew one of was for her into the back, hands reaching over to gather them all up. He almost missed it, watching as all of the flowers were taken, too busy watching the way you rolled your eyes at her when she looked away, fond but still a little cool, and he bit at the inside of his cheek to contain his amusement. It was just as she was leaving that his mind cleared, and he cleared his throat.

“Wait, wait, hold on!” She turned back, brows raised, and he reached over, letting her take a step forwards so that he could reach, plucking the single rose from where it was laying over the top of the two. “This, uh, this is actually for you.”

He presented it to you, your eyes widening a little, and you looked between him and the flower several times. His heart was in his throat, worry you were going to reject it, before you were giving him a different smile than he had seen yet, something softer and more endearing, and you plucked it from his hands, bringing it to your nose. “You’re just a big flirt, huh, Chris?” Your eyes fluttered for a moment, before you were looking back up to him through your lashes. “Thank you.”

“It’s no problem, honestly. I own the shop, the least I can do is give my partner in crime a pretty flower.”

You scoffed, but it was out of friendship and playfulness, not judgement or rejection, and silence fell between you both once again. The plastic in your hands wrinkled as you twirled it, wrapping the curled ribbon around your finger for a second, and letting it jump back into place when you let it go. “You busy? Got a packed store to run back to?”

Your question caught him off-guard, and he struggled to find words for a second, before clearing his throat and shaking his head. “No, uh, no. Clear day, actually. This was the last order.”

“So, you’re free for an hour or so?” Chris nodded his head, licking at his lips as he became a little nervous once again. “Well, why don’t I give you a tour? We’ve got some pretty cool stuff here, and I’ll fix you up with a drink from the coffee bar before you go.”

“This building has a coffee bar?”

“You bet it does.” You teased, turning on your heel as you took his question as acceptance, and he scooped up the clipboard, following after you as you made your way to the elevator, and this time when it opened, he stepped inside with you. As soon as the keypad lit up, prompting you to enter your four-digit authorisation code and make a floor selection, and you paused, finger hovering over the electronic selections. “What do you wanna’ see first, then?”

“You got an office?”

“I sure do.” You grinned, tapping for the twenty-eighth floor, and the machinery soon hummed into life, gears jerking smoothly into motion and soft music playing over the speakers in the background.

The ride was quiet, and he twisted his head as though the walls were interesting, just to take them in and hide the expression on his face as he watched you twirl the rose he’d given you between your fingers. There was a tag, one that he hadn't yet seen you read, and while all it contained was his number and a sign of his name, he was still a little nervous for your reaction to it, so he was glad to watch you place it onto your desk to be returned to later as you showed him around.

The building truly was impressive, large floor to ceiling glass windows on one wall of your office, staring out at the city below and giving a view so stunning and far that he could see all the way out to where the concrete faded away into greenery along the horizon, and he was a little taken aback by it all. Dipping the rose into a mug of water from the office kitchen, you promised to transfer it to a vase when you got home that evening, and you showed him all around.

Up and down on the elevator, proudly showing him every aspect of your workplace, and somewhere between the in-house gym and the coffee bar you’d boasted of in the staff food courts, you’d made him promise a tour of the flower shop sometime.

Way over an hour had passed in total, and he would’ve been more than happy to let that go on and on, for the rest of the day until the sun was setting, just to sit on the stools at the high tables at the coffee bar, getting refills on his coffee as he watched you drink herbals teas and chat about everything you got up to in the day, but your boss was paging you again to ask where you were, and he had his own job to return to at some point. You seemed hesitant at first, but had eventually divulged him with a guest security code for the elevator, logging him under your name, so that in future, he would be able to bring the flowers straight upstairs to you, and come and see you whenever he stopped by.

With a to-go cup in hand that had your number written on the cardboard holder, you’d escorted him all the way back to the lobby, pressing a friendly kiss to his cheek as he stepped between the doors, waving a little with what he knew was a goofy smile, waiting until he could no longer see you as the metal doors slid shut to reflect his image back at him, before he was bidding the two women at the reception desk a goodbye, and pretending not to know that they were eavesdropping, because he was floating far too high to care right now.

Chris hadn't been surprised at all when the next batch of flowers had come through, because you’d told him days prior that he could be expecting another batch of apology flowers to come through. Your work had been busy lately, you’d told him so yourself the few weeks that had slid past since you’d exchanged numbers had been filled with an abundance of texts.

Sharing texts had rapidly become phone calls in downtime, exchanging social media and sending one another dumb jokes and funny pictures throughout your workdays. He knew that your job had been getting harder lately, the run down to Christmas making everything a little more difficult, and that you’d been swept off of your feet because your boss had been, too. Eight-hour shifts had become twelve, day through to night, never seeing the light of a winter day unless it was through the windows of your office as you worked, and he had a sympathetic guilt twisting in his gut.

Two bouquets to make up for the lack of time that your boss had been able to spare for either of the women in his life and you’d looked positively exhausted as you came out of your office to greet him at the top of the elevator. You had a frown on your face that barely lifted into a smile as you saw him, even though he knew you were happy to catch sight of him. The usual shade of lipstick that projected boldness and power was gone, your face free of makeup entirely, and styled hair now just pulled up into a bun.

He wondered how long it had been since you’d had a full night’s sleep.

“Hey, sweetheart. How’re you feeling?” You only shook your head, sniffling a little as you suppressed a yawn, before taking one of the bouquets from his arms, and inspecting it carefully.

“These are beautiful.”

“I put a little extra ribbon on them, just for you.” He winked, and that had earned him a little chuckle, glancing at him over your shoulder as he followed you through to your office, and placing them down on the cabinet near the doorway to be distributed when your boss had a free second to look at them. Chris felt his own eyes widen in shock as he looked around, the stacks of paperwork littered around the surfaces were astonishing, and there was other mess scattered among that.

Stationary littered the desk, clearly trying to get everything sorted, and almost every draw in the room was half-open, your heels kicked off by the edge of the desk and there was a clear spot against one of the walls where you’d been sitting, a patch clear with papers spread out around you, wording and statements on them that made his head spin as he looked at them. Business definitely wasn’t his forte.

You rubbed a hand over your forehead, cursing a little as you tried to find a pen that wasn't a highlighter, and he didn’t miss the crack in your voice as you scoured the paper stacks. Leaning down to pick one up from the dropped pen pot on the floor, and offering it to you. A little sigh passed your lips, before you were taking it from him, clicking it into action and signing your name on both of the forms to confirm the delivery, a simple ritual of habit by this stage, as he knew that even if you didn’t he wasn’t risking any legal action from you.

You rubbed a hand over your forehead afterwards, rolling your shoulders and shaking yourself down as you tried to hit that reset button on your mood, but it wasn't working, it didn’t take a genius to see it, and so he reached out, placing a comforting squeeze to your forearm, fingers slipping a little lower to latch onto your wrist loosely.

“Okay, you’re a little overwhelmed in here, huh?” You let out a weak laugh, glancing around yourself and nodding. “It’s time for a break. Take your lunch break now, we’re getting out of here.”

“I can’t leave, I have too much to do. I’ll just get something from the food courts, a sandwich, maybe.” You slumped down into your desk chairs, the wheels on it carrying you backwards slightly, and he placed his hands on his hips, shaking his head at you.

“You have to go. It’s doctor’s orders.”

“Which doctor?” You scoffed, rolling your eyes at him, and he gasped a little, hands finding your own and pulling you to your feet, despite the whine that you let out.

“This doctor. I went to medical school, I get to give the orders. You, my dear, need one hour of rest and relaxation from your workplace, stat.” You started up at him for a second, seeming to weigh it out in your mind, but he wasn’t backing down, and he swore he saw that realisation click within your eyes, because you caved.

Slipping your heels on and grabbing your jacket from the back of the door, you logged your timeout of the building in the lobby with Angie, who cooed at you a little as she watched you go, a pitiful look on her face as she knew just how hard you were working too, before his hand was settling on your lower back.

A ten-minute walk, finding a table in a small pizzeria on the corner of a street, one that he’d been dying to try for months now, and a quick order, and you were slumping down tiredly against the table. The workload always increased at Christmas, sales shot through the roof, all the expansions of your company were filing for Christmas bonuses, parties, annual reports and then, of course, there were the usual rises and falls in statistics over the year that needed to be dealt with.

It was chaotic, to say the least.

Over a hot and freshly baked pizza, your selection of toppings, and a soda that made you wrinkle your nose from the fizziness within, you looked like there was a little more life within you when you’d been leaving.

You spilled it all to him, telling him every struggle you’d been facing, and while he didn't understand half of what you were saying, he was more than happy to just to listen. He couldn't offer much advice, or anything of the sort that might be helpful, but it seemed that just being able to talk to someone had made the day a little brighter.

The chill in the air and the biting winds had made you wrap your coat around yourself even tighter on the walk back to your work, but there was more of a pep in your step and a lighter tone to your voice, a little more chipper and slightly less drained as you began to make your way back across the carpark. His arm was sitting around your waist, keeping you pulled up to his side against the cold of the winter. Instead of guiding you over to the door, though, his first stop was his car, ensuring that you couldn't see what he had placed on the passenger seat until he was ready for you to see it.

Leaning yo back against the cold metal, he unlocked the car, making you promise to cover your eyes, and while making a few jokes about how you were sure this was how friendly guys would kidnap a girl, you did as he’d asked. You gasped a little at the rustling of fabric in the wind and under his hands, seeming to guess what it was before ever seeing the gift, because a wide smile spread over your features.

“Is that what I think it is?”

“Depends, what do you think it is?” He teased, making you wait a little longer, and you dragged your lower lip through your teeth, a hopefully look spreading over what half of your face he could actually see.

“Flowers, maybe?”

“Then you would be correct!” Your hand fell away from your eyes, taking a second to blink back into adjustment of the rays the winter sun gave off, before you were brightening up even further at the bundle he was holding in his hands.

Soft petals in different shades of yellow, some duller and some standing out to shine like the sun, but it was a stunning bunch all over, and he’d been sure to pick the freshest and best-looking plants from each pot as he built the bouquet especially for you before leaving for his delivery. He let you stare at them for a second, running a finger over some of the petals, sniffling the collection carefully, and admiring each individual plant, before finally looking back up to him, a brow raising as you waited for an explanation on the plants.

“I just thought yellow was a bright colour. Nothing particularly special about these ones, I wanted to cheer you up.”

He scratched nervously at the back of his neck, and you hummed happily, bringing them up to admire once again, before letting out a happy little sound from the back of your throat, one that made his cheeks flush with embarrassed warmth, bringing a pink tinge to the pale skin. “Don’t yellow roses mean friendship?”

His stomach dropped a little, but he swallowed thickly, and nodded. He was impressed that you knew that, a random fact to know, but he almost felt like he was being friend-zoned by the statement, even though he was the one who’d given you the flowers. It was only a few days ago that he’d realised he might have feelings that weren’t going away any time soon, the original fascination and infatuation was becoming something a little deeper, he often found himself thinking of you when he was at work and filling or orders, or at home cooking, or even letting his morning coffee. You seemed to be on his mind a lot nowadays, and he was beginning to regret the yellow rose choice, worried he’d sent the wrong message. How ironic.

“Well, I’m really glad you consider us friends, Chris. I think you’re great, and I hope we’re friends for a long time.”

He tried to contain his disappointment, nodding his head as he stuffed his hands into his pockets. Walking you up to the front door, both of the receptionists made a point of fawning dramatically over the flowers in your arms as you signed back in, exactly an hour later and perfectly on time for the end of your lunch break, but with a lot more joy and a rejuvenation for the work you were doing, enough to carry you through the rest of your day.

Standing at the elevator and waiting for it to arrive, his cheeks were warm enough as it was, the attention you were getting front he not-so-discreet spying of the receptionists making him even more nervous, but if Angie and Clara were watching then that's their choice, because he didn’t have much left to lose, now.

Cupping your cheeks in his hands, he made sure that you were looking at him, a soft and shy smile on your lips as he thumbs smoothed over your skin, trying to reassure you without using words. “Chin up, sweetheart. You’re gonna’ be just fine, okay?”

“Okay, Chris.” You nodded your head, words whispered as you agreed with him, and when he pulled you a little closer, you tipped your head to meet him, his lips pressing to your forehead in a tender kiss, his heart leaping in his chest as you did. The elevator dinged, and he snapped away from you, both of you lingering for a moment longer, something unspoken laying between you, but it was broken as a colleague stepped out of the box, excusing himself as he squeezed past you, and the moment was over.

Waving goodbye, he wiggled his fingers in response to you, and he took a moment to himself to steady his racing heart once the doors had closed with you inside. He bid his farewell to the two women ogling him with wide eyes from behind the desk, trying not to let his nervousness show, to be confident like Mark had taught him to be, and it lasted all the way to the car, before he broke it with a ragged sigh and a little cheer to himself, immediately dialling his best friend on the car’s phone as he pulled out of the parking lot.

It was the kind eyes of Angie that met him as he stepped into the building, palms sweating a little and a shake to his breath, and the flowers in his arms were practically vibrating with nerves as he approached the front desk. Placing them down on the glass surface, she admired them quietly, taking a look at them all before he was being offered the candy dish that she usually had hidden, and he took a peppermint gratefully, red and green swirls along it through the clear wrapping, the festive theme of the late December days was shining through.

“Only the one bouquet this time?”

“They, uh, they aren’t for Mr McKinley.” He mumbled, unwrapping the hard sweet and shoving it wrapped into his pocket, placing the treat on his tongue and sucking on it lightly for something to do, sweetened mint flavours exploding over his senses.

“Oh, so these are a pretty bouquet for our lovely (Y/N), then?”

He could only nod, wondering absently whether or not sweat was beginning to physically show through his shirt, and just how fast his heart was going, because he felt like he was about to pass out. “I think she’s in a meeting right now, but I can get them sent up for her, if that works for you, my dear?”

“Can I just go and drop them off in her office? It’ll make a nice surprise for her to come back to.”

She considered it for a moment, mulling over the security risk and all other options, and he was ready to give up, before she eventually agreed. “Alright, but only if you tell me about the flowers. She’s been telling me all about the pretty bouquet you make with meanings, even showed me your website.”

“She did? She does?”

Pride flushed through his system at that knowledge, and Angie seemed to pick up on it, her face cracking in an even wider smile. “Yes, and they were all beautiful, but I don’t remember this set on there.”

“It’s new, I made it. It’s a personal one, I suppose.”

“It got a name, yet?” He mulled it over, staring down at the pretty bunch in his hands. Dark shades of blue and black, splashes of purple that were speckled with white, and he decided it resembled the night sky rather nicely.

“What do you think of ‘Starry Night’?”

“Very fitting.” She confirmed, and his heart managed to slow a little in his chest as at least one thing on his to-do list became sorted. “So, blue roses, but what are the rest?”

“They would be black pansies and gypsophila.” She hummed, continuing to fix him with that curious gaze, and he knew that wasn't going to cut it. “The blue roses are for mystery, and gaining the impossible. I dye them myself. Black pansies mean broken love, which, I guess isn’t totally suitable here, but combined with the gypsophila, it’s more like the chance of a new beginning, and not necessarily unrequited feelings.”

“You really like her, huh?”

“That obvious?” He grinned, knowing that his feelings may as well be lit up with a neon sign above his head. “You’ll get them to her after her meeting, then?”

“Of course, I will.” She took them over the desk, writing down a memo on her notepad so that she didn't forget, and he watched as the pretty bundle was carried away. “Did you leave a card, or do you want to write a note?”

“Just tell her to text me if she likes them?” She beamed, nodding her head, and he backed away, turning on his heel, a little disappointed that he didn’t get to give them to you himself, but simultaneously relieved at the fact, because he could feel his pulse racing right to the tips of his fingers with how intense it was.

You’d clearly had a busy day, because it wasn’t until Chris was shutting up shop that he finally felt his phone buzz, doing his last check over of all the systems and machines, when a text from you came in, diverting every ounce of attention that he had.

[stardust 🌌 ✨] so, do these flowers have a hidden meaning, or did you just put them together because they look good?

He grinned at his phone, shaking his head slightly as a laugh left his lips, and he leaned on the wall, fingers hovering over the keyboard as he thought out his response.

> a little bit of both.

It was a few minutes before you replied, this time, a photograph coming through, of you carrying your flower out of the building, setting off towards the elevators from your office, if he was depicting the background correctly.

[stardust 🌌 ✨] gonna tell me what it is, or do I have to google it?

He paused, not quite having got that far, and the relief of not having to explain his feelings or you before had drowned out the fact that he’d have to tell you at some point, and his heart was leaping into his throat.

He gave himself a minute, checking over the locks and windows to make sure everything was sealed up, setting the thermostat and setting the alarm, not yet activating it, but making sure that everything was done, right down to holding his keys for the main door in his hands. Locking up the building, he sealed down the metal guard, triple checking the padlock, and making his way to the car.

Engine on, heaters up, his lights being the last to flood the parking lot as he tried to man up, before finally bringing back up the unopened message, taking the notifications and opening his texts.

> long story short, I’m trying to ask you out. using flowers, because words normally fail me in times of importance.

He let out a slow breath, running a hand over his face and just hoping that it was acceptable, his phone buzzing before he’d even managed to start up the car property for his journey home. His hand hovered over where it was laying on the passenger seat, considering whether or not to pick it up, before forcing down his nerves and reaching for it.

[stardust 🌌 ✨] friday night work for you?

He stared at the message for a few seconds, confirming that they were real, and he wasn’t just making it up because it’s what he wanted to read, before letting out a loud and victorious set of cheers for only him to ever know about.

> I’ll pick you up from your work at 5.

Chris was sitting in one of the white leather chairs that had been scattered around the lobby, shifting slightly awkwardly, nerves getting the best of him. He knew you wouldn't stand him up, but as the clock ticked over past 5:10 PM, he worried a little that you were trying to find a way to let him down, having decided that you’d changed your mind on wanting to go out with him, and he tried to steady his nerves.

Brushing over the flowers in his hands, he adjusted his grip on them a little, not wanting the plastic to become damp with his sweaty palms, and swallowing thickly again. Finally, the elevator doors chimed, and he let out a nervous sigh, taking a deep breath and sliding his eyes shut as he calmed himself down, certain that his heart no longer had a rhythm and was just beating erratically and rapidly like the seismograph in a disaster movie.

Twisting his head a little, he let out a deep breath, watching as you came toward him, looking far more casual than he had ever seen you ever had before. Jeans and jumper, a striped scarf that looked suspiciously handmade in the sweetest of ways, and sneakers on your feet instead of heels, dropping your height down by a few inches, and he was so used to looking straight at you, never needing to look down, that it caught him a little by surprise.

“I’m sorry I’m late!” You looked a little flushed, sounded slightly out of breath, and he realised you must’ve been rushing, not stalling, and he felt a little calmer at that thought. Placing down the flowers on the chairs, he stood up properly, letting out a slow breath.

“Don’t worry about it. You look beautiful.”

“I thought I’d change, heels and pencil skirts are great for work, but not so comfy for a first date.” There was a bag on your arm, which he assumed your business-wear was stuffed in, and he gave himself a moment to take you in. He liked you better this way, you looked more like yourself, the version of you that he knew you to be from hours of late-night calls and texting, weeks of getting to know one another, both in-person and via messages, and the formal outfits he was so used to seeing you in were just a cover for the real you.

He realised he’d been staring too long, jumping slightly in his panic, before turning away and grabbing the bundle that he’d brought with him. “I brought you flowers. Not as special as normal guys, since I own the flower shop and it's not the first time, but I did create this bouquet design just for you.”

“I think it’s pretty special.” Your words were whispered, taking the bundle of flowers and bringing them into yourself to admire delicately, a combination of red and white roses, with green bells peppered throughout. “Okay, so, let me guess on this one.”

He only nodded his head, watching as you considered the bundle, licking over your lower lip and taking it hostage between your teeth as your thoughts whirled before his very eyes.

“White roses are innocence, right? Seems fitting for a first date. Red roses are romance, of course.” You smirked a little then, glancing up at him through your lashes, and he grinned, feeling totally at ease now that he was under your gaze. “What about the green ones?”

“Green bells. They’re for good luck.”

“Well, I don’t think you’ll need any luck, you’ve pretty much already got me wrapped around your little finger, Chris Beck.” You adjusted the flowers in your arms, taking his hand with your other one, and lacing your fingers together, and he squeezed back in security as heat flooded over his face in a warm blush. “However, I do think it’s sweet, so I’ll accept it.”

“I wanted to do something Christmassy for you, but I didn’t want to go with any of the typical ones. Holly, mistletoe, poinsettia, they didn’t feel unique enough.”

“I don’t know, I think mistletoe can be good.” You leaned in a little, his brows raising slightly as your wide smile dimmed down, the humour of the moment changing, and his free hand found your waist, fingers playing with yours on the other, and he pulled you a little closer, taking the hint that you were laying down.

“Maybe just this once.” He teased, nose bumping against your own, and he could still taste the sweet honey on your breath from the herbal teas you were always concocting, warm breath shared between you. As your head twisted to close the gap, he became acutely aware of the lingering feeling of not being alone, the both of you jumping and snapping apart a little when the loud crashing of a mug on the floor sounded out loudly.

Two sets of voices cursing followed it, Angie’s and Clara’s heads both ducking down behind the desk as they looked at the mess on the floor, and his jaw dropped as he released the two had been watching on eagerly this whole time, and he’d been so wrapped up in you that he hadn't realised there’d been an audience all along.

He would’ve been embarrassed, had it not been for the way your face pressed into his shoulder as you tried to contain your laughs, and he found the amusement in it too, his arm slipping around your waist as he matched your laugher, shaking his head as he watched the two women try and clear up the split coffee and smashed mug.

“Hey, ladies, I’ll see you Monday!”

The popped back up, sheepish looks on their faces as they nodded, and he gave them both a little wave, letting you tug him along by the hand that was still connected to your own, towards the open doorway of the building, a chill rolling in. As you stepped out, a chill took over, and his hand slipped from yours to sliding around your waist instead, pulling you closer to him, and you guided him over to where your car was parked, and he was more than happy to simply follow.

“So, what do you have planned?”

“I thought something a little more relaxed would be fun. How do you feel about a tree lighting ceremony, and some street food?” You curled into him a little more, a happy sigh leaving you.

“Sounds perfect to me.”

Unlocking the car, he let you go, long enough to put your back in the trunk and lay your flowers out on the front seat, locking it back up as you deemed yourself ready to go. “Ready to go?”

“Yes, but just one thing, first. Something I’ve been waiting weeks for.”

His brows raised, lips parting to ask you waist it was, but your hand latched onto the front of his shirt, tugging him forward as you leaned up, and he groaned a little, a soft sound but vibrating through him as your mouth closed over his, soft and warm, lips pressing together, and a shock ran along his entire body. His hand slipped to your waist, one cupping your cheek as he pulled you a little closer, pressing you back into the car as your bodies came flush up together, and he felt like his legs were going to give out underneath him as you sighed out against his mouth, a breathy moan carried with it.

Twisting his head to the side, he barely pulled back for breath before he was diving right back into you, more confident and passionate this time with his movements. He took control, feeling the way you sagged into his hands as he did, lips working with yours in an intimate dance of their own making, slow and teasing movements, before finally he was pulling away, just far enough to press his forehead to your own as the two of you panted lightly, trying to catch your breath.

“Worth the wait?” He mused, feeling your breathless giggle wash over his lips, before you were leaning up just enough to peck his lips once more, and his lips were still pouted, chasing after you as you backed away for a second, before he was licking over them and cracking his eyes open to look at the adoring expression on your face.

“Definitely worth the wait.”

[lifeofroos]

A/N: A mortal AU about Nico getting therapy from Dionysus because… hell yeah. Also This Might Be Crazy clearly can’t stay over.

AO3 - KoFi

Elevators and boys keep me awake

Careful not to wake my parents, I tiptoed through the living room. As soon as I was out of our apartment, I legged it down the hall, to the staircase. 

The wise voice in my head told me that I should take the elevator. I pushed it aside. I was already anxious, I shouldn’t make it worse. 

Three levels higher, I dragged myself to apartment 612. As I held up my hand to knock, the door already flew open. Dio was standing in the frame. 

‘Come in. I’ll put the cattle on the stove.’

‘I’m sorry it’s so late...’

‘Don’t be.’

Dio’s front door led straight into the kitchen. I sat down at the dinner table while he filled the cattle. While it was boiling, he took the cups of the shelf. As always, he pushed aside a few cups with a flower pattern, before getting out to cups with a cat print. 

‘Why don’t you just put the cat cups in the front?’

‘Because Ariadne gets up first. She can easily get out her cups this way.’ He got the teabags from another shelf. ‘Yet what brings you here, at 3 A.M.? Most teens your age are either partying or playing video games right now.’ 

‘I was trying to sleep. To no avail.’

‘That’s because you don’t play enough video games.’ He poured water into the cups. ‘Camomille. It’ll help you sleep.’

I thankfully took it. I always had a hunch that Dio put something stronger than camomille in the tea, but I never asked. 

‘Tell me what is keeping you awake.’

I looked down at my cup. ‘I don’t know.’

‘You do though.’

I pursed my lips. ‘Anxiety.’

‘Anxiety is the umbrella term. I don’t think you laid awake because you kept thinking about the elevator.’

I sighed. ‘It’s…’ I tilted my cup forward. A little tea splashed over the side. 

‘Stop that.’ Dio stood up, walked to the cutlery drawer and took out a teaspoon. ‘Fidget with this if you need to. I don’t want to mop again.’

I took the spoon. ‘It’s… I mean, I think it’s… eh…’

He sat back down, with the look in his eyes that told me he could wait all night if necessary. 

‘...it’s a boy.’

He snickered. ‘That’s a thing more teens lay awake about.’

I felt my cheeks burning. ‘He lives a block over.’ He didn’t need to know any more than that. 

‘Then he’s not on the other side of the world. That should help.’ 

I wouldn’t have minded if he had been on the other side of the world. Then I wouldn’t have to worry about him. 

‘I reckon you are laying awake because of more than just a crush. Do you want to tell me?’

‘What would mama have thought of it, Dio?’ I whispered. I fidgeted with the spoon. ‘What would mama have thought if her only son fell in love with…’ I cringed. 

‘You mean Maria?’

‘Persie doesn’t care enough about me to be angry. Of course I mean Mama Maria.’ 

Dio gave me a sad little laugh. ‘You have heard, either from me or from others, about my past, I reckon? You know I had a husband and a mother presumed dead?’

I nodded. He told me some of it and I heard the rest through the grapevine. One had to love neighbourhood gossip. 

‘When… when she returned, I was already remarried. Ariadne encouraged me to explain my past to my mother. At first, I was afraid of how she might react. Would she be disgusted, sad, angry? I just didn’t know.’

‘That! Exactly that! I…’ I stopped. ‘Sorry.’

‘After enough encouragement, I collected all the courage I had and told her the whole story. And all…’ he sighed, ‘...all she said was that she wished she could have met him, because he sounded wonderful. She was only happy that she finally had me back, happy and healthy. She was proud, even though she didn’t know half of the mess I made.’ 

He looked up. ‘Your mother knew you until you were five years old. You know she loved you. A lot. Don’t you think she would feel the same? So happy that you got to be yourself, that you have a promising future, that she wouldn’t care about your sexuality? Because you were still you?’

I thought about the memories I had of my mother. How she took me to the park whenever I asked, how she would buy me peppermints and the hoops she jumped through in order to ensure I would get a good education, even when she knew she was dying and dad was wasting away. I slowly nodded. If she really loved me as much as she showed, why would that stop just because I liked boys? ‘I think… yes, maybe.’ Not that I could be sure. 

‘I am always right. You should know that by now.’

I chuckled while I took a sip of tea. 

‘Who is it?’

‘It’s…’ I stopped. ‘Bastard. Figure it out yourself.’

Dio grinned. ‘You like giving me a challenge, don’t you?’

‘You’re smart. You can find out. You dated more people in forty years than I will meet in my entire life.’

Dio took a sip of his tea. ‘You don’t have to be jealous of that. Anyhow, do you feel calmer?’

I nodded. ‘Yes. I think I can sleep now.’

‘Very well.’

‘Were you really still awake, at this hour?’

He looked away. ‘Bad dreams.’

‘Oh. Right.’

He blinked. ‘Doesn’t matter. Drink your tea and go to bed.’

I threw back the last of my tea and got up. ‘Thanks. For the tea, and for your time.’

He stood up to take me to the door. ‘Whenever.’

As he opened the door, a call came from the back of the house. ‘Dio?’

‘Teen’s here!’ He yelled back. ‘I’ll be back in a second.’

‘How sweet, she wants you to sleep. You should, people say it’s healthy.’

‘Shut up, teenager.’

I skipped out the door. ‘Bye.’

‘Goodbye,’ he sighed in return. 

|

I stopped when I put my hand on the banister. Slowly, I turned around to the elevator. 

A voice in my head told me I was being hubristic, but I didn’t listen. It was easier than taking the stairs. 

Way easier, I thought, as I got out on my own floor. 

A/N: At this point, it is more an original work that uses pjo as a frame, mostly because I gave Nico and Dio these entire backstories that are only loosely based on canon. You could easily scrap out Dio and Nico for other names. Anyway I hope you enjoyed it.

[sootygoggles]

Parent!Paranoia Sanders Sides AU!

No explanation, but I'll probably give the backstory later. For now: memes of Paranoia being an A-class parent and a chaos gremlin. (okay it started as memes but then just ended up as fleshing the AU out)

~~

Paranoia, worried abt his kids: I'm uhhhh gonna go to my room see ya later light sides

Paranoia, sneaking back into the subconscious to check on his now teenaged children: I'm gonna leave duke a r a t that I found and thought looked cool

Duke, waking up the next morning and yelling for 'Nesty bc "HOLY CRAP NESTY LOOK AT THIS RAT ISN'T SHE ADORABLE I WANNA HANG HER ON THE WALL": !!!!!!!!!!

~~

Paranoia gets a habit of sitting on the fridge because his children were wild as kids and sometimes duke comin at you with a knife warrants jumping onto counters

~~

Nesty, who doesnt get paid to deal with duke: I'm raiding dads liquor cabinet it's my due for putting up with this

Paranoia, physically manifesting: put the key to the liquor cabinet D O W N, Honesty

~~

The lights are confused as to why he disappears at random times of the day and night and he just "leave me TF alone before I leave you a goshdarn diddly P R E S E N T while youre sleeping I'm tired"

~~

patton: my child! my dark strange son!!

paranoia, who has children: ,,,,yea ok

~~

Patton ticks him off so he leaves a big halloween decor spider on his bed and nobody sleeps for weeks after that bc pattons too scared to touch it and paranoia maybeperhaps glued it onto his cover

~~

He's like one of those people you know might mean well but ooooooo boy theyre pushin buttons

~~

Paranoia, whos fav animal/insect is spiders and whose children have tarantulas and snakes on the regular: hes not even realistic!! You need to learn to get along with mr sparkles patton!! look at him. he's fluffy!

~~

He has googly eyes and glitter on him at all times of course hes named mr sparkles

~~

paranoia gets to be a little petty. as a treat

~~

Paranoia just carries bags of glitter around and whenever mr sparkles gets duller he takes mr sparkles to the kitchen counter and he dumps glitter on him

Logan and patton are tired of cleaning up bc paranoias just petty enough to make their counters eternally sparkly

~~

"why is there glitter all over the kitchen?"

paranoia, holding mr sparkles: :)

~~

Paranoia, after AA: I hate purple but they dont know that now do they

Paranoia is actually orange the last side is purple lol

~~

Chaos Gremlin dark sides and nobody is surprised bc paranoia raised them

~~

paranoia, going back to see his teen children after acting like a teen all day: what is up, fellow kids

honesty: i am going to lose it

~~

Wrath, coming to yell at them to keep it down: why are you purple I'm purple

Paranoia, cackling bc finally I can get out of this horrible color: *snaps fingers * I'M PARANOIA MOTHERTRUCKERS HAVE FUUUNNNNN I'M GONNA BE MAKING YOUR LIVES LIVING HELL FROM THIS POINT FORWARDS

~~

duke and nesty, pumped for halloween bc u l t i m a t e s p o o k: :D

paranoia, coming out in a traffic cone costume with a shit eating grin on his face: :D

~~

Paranoia, decorating for halloween bc "oh I'm sorry it's just the *sniffles * homesickness and we a l w a y s decorated for halloween" knowing full well all of his decorations are spider and witch themed bc they all like the salem witch trials

~~

He leaves ONE fake snake in romans cereal and the lights just. Lose it. Hes kicked back into the subconscious to be chaotic with his kids, no new side, just the hours upon hours of film hes gotten from the bugs hed placed around the unconscious and a plan for the next several movie nights

He gets back and honesty is w h e e z i n g bc he was watching through the cracks and they make a fail compilation of the light sides

It takes like two months for the lights to just go insane with him around not due to yknow paranoia but bc hes such a gremlin

~~

Patton asks if he was raised by wolves and he shoves mr sparkles at patton saying "take the issue of how I was raised up with my father, a-hole!!"

He doesnt actually curse he just yells "A-HOLE" so loud his kids can hear

~~

They dont find out he's a dad until hes summoned and hes making cookies or smt with the kids and hes in a bright orange stereotypical witch outfit,,, corset and all and an apron that says "worlds most chaotic dad" on the front

And hes talking to one of the kids like "duke you can only put dish soap in your batch nesty cant digest it like you can"

~~

Patton has an apron that says worlds least chaotic 'dad' courtesy of paranoia he made it himself(read: he stole pattons good apron and scribbled over it in sharpie)

~~

Paranoia is always close to cackling when around the lights bc theyre newbs to any chaos

~~

Roman and remus are twins but roman is the kind of kid to promptly forget abt anyone and logan n patton knew remus less than a day before he "disappeared" aka ran to the subconscious to explore and theyve just kinda blocked him out

~~

Logans fine with it and actually likes the decorations tho he has asked if they had to be so brightly coloured and if there had to be so much glitter

I say decorations but hes a secret gremlin at heart and is super close to snickering at all times bc of the pranks

~~

Also yes paranoia mildly dads roman it's great but he dads in an older sibling type way

~~

So pat and logan are all "hes fitting in as an older brother well" and they tell him abt their approval of his older brother chaos and hes just like "no this is how I am deal with it nothing to do with brothers" bc hes not telling them abt his kids he doesnt trust them

~~

Hes up at like midnight complaining with logan abt how patton doesnt let him be full chaos gremlin and logan says "mmmhmm did your parents in the dark side let you go wild with the chaos" and paranoia just,,,,, looks at him, dead in the eyes, and says "I dont have parents"

Cue logan being confusion

Paranoia, who genuinely didn't have parents: my parents are mr sparkles and the cat we've had for my entire life

Logan, who doesnt know they had a cat and is now worried bc "are you taking care of it???": ???

Paranoia: it's great for keeping the Others in line tho I just say "do your chores or no snuggle time with ms peregrin" and they do their chores while I'm making dinner

logan, incredibly confused: i don't know what you mean but ok

Paranoia: yeah theyre dumb but it's the level of dumb youd expect from my idiots

~~

Or he slips up and refers to them as his children/kids and logan, not realizing they have an Actual Father/Sons relationship/age difference(paranoias abt.late 20s early 30s, remus defies all logic and has been about 9-10 for a few years now, and dees like early teens) just says "huh how.interesting would it be to have to deal with people your age that immature" and paranoias just. "Y e a h t h e y r e t o t a l l y t h e s a m e a g e a s I a m"

~~

Duke is very much baby and upon seeing duke eating glue paranoia and honesty the idiots decided to try it too

theyre so dumb dsdhdhdhjsdh

They AREEE and paranoia, after discovering that duke has the h a r d i e s t immune system they decide to test exactly what he can and cannot safely eat bc he may be dumb but hes also def a Dad and he just wants to take care of his kids and if that includes making sure that duke can safely consume toilet bleach then so be it

Duke can eat almost anything short of actual cyanide but cyanide just makes him sick like stomach bug sick

He somehow gets a fever,,,,, he has it for like half an hour and paranoia is amazed

Hes in bed,,,,, paranoia makes him soup,,,,,, hes all better and running around again

~~

Paranoias parenting rules:

Dont murder your brothers pls

Do your chores or no snuggle time with ms peregrin

Glitter is always a yes

Insults are fine just make sure you dont overstep and make your brothers insecure

all of them are printed and then the last one is scrawled at the bottom in

If you get sick, tell him immediately bc he will find out and he will be the most obsessive parent to make sure you feel better ASAP

If your pronouns/name/function change, tell him immediately, he'll make sure you dont feel uncomfortable as well as he can

Duke dont put dish soap in honestys baked goods you know he cant digest it

It's a nice system for making chaos but keeping it manageable

They're all printed then the last one's scrawled in glitter gel pen and duke wrote a reply that said (I'm sorry yall dont have as good an immune system as I do)

There was a whole passive aggressive arguement on the bulletin for the next week before it got taken down to make room for dukes art

They eventually started just putting them up over each other and using magnets instead of thumbtacks

The entire bottom portion of the walls are painted in chalkboard paint so theres no unerasable drawing on the walls and the rest of the paint is magnetic so they can hang pieces everywhere

Dukes improving rapidly tho and doesnt like looking at his old art all the time so paranoia holds onto the drawings in several filing cabinets in case he ever wants to do redraws or needs his original prints to make something in the Imagination

also bc,,, sentimental

jus a little

Yeah bc "yes my child draws nothing but blood gore and new animals but hes a creative genius and I love all of his art"

~~

Roman: anxiety I can see why you left

Paranoia: ??? What?? It's spoopy season??

Roman: there was BLOOD on the WALLS

Paranoia, internally: oh!!!! Duke perfected his blood recipe!!!!

Paranoia, externally: how did it taste?

Roman: WHO TASTES THE BLOOD ON THE WALLS?!?!

Paranoia: if it tasted like lemons or citrus you need to stay off of most foods, stick to crackers and broth- don't eat anything heavy until you're sure you wont throw it up

Patton, who was making cereal: ????

~~

Also!!!! @iliveinprocrasti-nation Thanks for helping me flesh this AU out!!!

[qqueenofhades]

Aziraphale and Crowley decide to go travelling.

They have been on Earth for over six thousand years, but they’ve not actually seen that much of it. They’ve been soldiers posted at a garrison, responsible for the blessings and/or temptations despatched in the British Isles for jolly well most of that time, and they can’t just faff off whenever they please. (As well as, of course, the unspoken fact that neither of them will stray too far from the other. Aziraphale’s had to handle the Irish-related bits since the fifth century, when a killjoy bloke named Patrick chucked the snakes out. Pity, that – Crowley, being red-haired and fond of drink and trouble, would love to come back, but alas.) They have moved out of London and to that cottage in the South Downs, itself a change after living in the city for almost five hundred years, but it doesn’t take long for them to realise that without constant marching orders to await and no destruction of the world to avert, they’ve got… time. And one morning Crowley suggests, and Aziraphale somehow finds himself agreeing, that they just bugger off and see the lot of it. Or at least make a start.

They don’t travel like humans who want the big flashy commercial bits: the Eiffel Tower, the Great Wall of China, the Sydney Opera House, Disneyworld. Aziraphale thinks at first that they’ll just ride in Pullman cars, something he has always rather wanted to do, and is dismayed to learn that Pullman cars went the way of the dodo in 1968. Failing that, they should just fly, or miracle themselves. He’s taken aback when Crowley thinks it’s funny to insist on human transport, though Crowley himself was responsible for many of the recent innovations of the airline industry and has to admit, the first time they’re stuck in economy class aboard an over-booked jetliner with a screaming child behind them, he may have overdone it. They are subject to delayed trains, packed buses, leaky ferries, and the delights of something called a moto, which Aziraphale might have enjoyed more if he wasn’t screaming the whole time. Course, Crowley loves it. Nothing but respect to any mad bastard brave enough to drive that fast in Rio de Janeiro.

(‘Oh,’ Aziraphale says softly, as they stand at the very top of the hill, beneath the vast shadow of Christ the Redeemer, and think back to that promising fellow they saw nailed to the branch in Golgotha, and gaze down, down, down at the green mountains and the glittering city and the sun-blazing sea. ‘Oh, my.’)

They argue about where to go next. Crowley thinks Russia is too cold and Aziraphale thinks India is too hot, but they end up in both anyway. Aziraphale is entranced by a night at the Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow, and they wake one morning in the thick air of a humble guesthouse along the Ganges, smelling the burned offerings of the temple and listening to the splash of bathers and the chittering of the monkeys that stole their curry. They are generally pegged for gormless Englishmen wherever they go, or at least Aziraphale is; something about him just screams bum bag and floral-print shirt. Crowley manages to deter any local trouble by being himself, or if need be, flashing a strategic glimpse of his eyes. Not that that always works. A bunch of clubbers in a neon disco in Rome think it’s very chic.

(Crowley doesn’t like Rome much. He can barely walk round the city without looking like a jitterbug, and Aziraphale refuses to let him pop in on the Pope one morning in his skivvies, give the old man a good jolt. Supposedly it’s romantic, and watching a sunset over the Colosseum, hand in hand, Crowley can admit it’s got that going for it, memories of the lions that used to be big here notwithstanding. Nonetheless, he is relieved to leave.)

‘Look at me,’ Aziraphale beams, having ordered them a scrummy spread in Greece a few days later. ‘Real gentleman of the world, don’t you think, my dear? Pity we can’t see the Parthenon from here, but I suppose I can always – ’

‘If you say so, angel.’ Crowley lights a cigarette and tempts the loudmouth bastard blocking the view to go home and rethink his life. ‘Take another look now.’

They go to New York so Aziraphale can see a Broadway show, whereupon Crowley wonders how America has got into such a mess even with nothing whatsoever to do with him. Wants no part of that, thanks. They pop up to Canada after, which turns out to mostly be more Canada, though Crowley nearly hits a moose driving at ninety miles an hour down an empty highway and that would have good and discorporated both of them. They wind up at a tiny roadside motel where the only sound are the crickets and the distant sigh of passing cars, where it is deep summer and green and slow, and they lie on the bed with Aziraphale’s head on Crowley’s chest and neither of them say a word.

They drive down to San Francisco and fly from there to Tokyo, which delights Aziraphale with its proximity to sushi, clean and precise public transport, and miles of convenience stores to supply every imaginable item. Everyone looks somewhat surprised when he speaks Japanese. Crowley is just tall enough to regard doorways with suspicion, and cannot slack his vigilance when going through them. One such mishap leaves him with something of a lump when they arrive in Istanbul. Aziraphale’s wallet gets pinched in the Grand Bazaar, then after a brief and exciting episode involving a snake head, hastily returned. ‘Mesopotamia,’ Crowley remarks breezily. ‘Always an adventure in these parts, isn’t it, angel?’

They make their way down into Africa, where Crowley insists on paying homage at Freddie Mercury’s hometown in Zanzibar. Aziraphale snaps a photo of him at the sacred site and supposes that will be going into pride of place in a frame back at the cottage. They’re both burnt brown and riotously freckly, at least in Crowley’s case, and Aziraphale has acquired, under his dearest’s expert tutelage, a succession of fashionable sunglasses. They walk along a deserted beach in Cape Verde and sleep curled together in a hammock with waves lapping soft on the sand. Get on a boat headed to some island in the middle of the Atlantic, out in the arse-end of absolutely bloody nowhere, and gaze up at more stars than either of them, a pair of celestial beings, have ever seen in their lives. These do not fall, or burn, or break. The heavens do not brim with fire, nor does hell rise up. The world is at a point of perfect stillness.

‘We should get married,’ Aziraphale says one night, as casually as if it’s something that has only just occurred to him. ‘I mean… for the tax purposes.’

Crowley turns to stare at him as if it is the stupidest thing he’s ever heard. ‘Tax purposes?’

‘I just…’ Aziraphale opens and shuts his mouth. He still owns the bookshop, since he couldn’t bear to part from it, though he’s hired a couple of bright young things to run it. But of course, tax purposes do not actually have a rum thing to do with any of his reasons for asking. ‘If you didn’t… didn’t want...’

Crowley kisses him, hard and sharp and hungry. They don’t say more about it then.

They narrowly escape a hurricane in the Caribbean. They go on a trek through the Andes of South America, whereupon Aziraphale does not enjoy himself at all and has to shout at Crowley to stop leaping up hills like a lizard. They go up to Norway and putter along the fjords, and Crowley gets very drunk and pretends to be Thor. (His hair is growing out again, and he could throw lightning and thunder if he wanted to.) They hop to various cities in Europe on weekend discount-airline deals and go to the Christmas market in the Old Town Square of Prague. The really delightful thing about all this travelling, they discover, is the ability to come home together. Pop along on the train from Luton or Stansted or Gatwick or Heathrow, crunch up the walk with their bags, unlock the door and collect the post on the mat and go into the kitchen, make a nip of supper and crawl into bed together, half-packed suitcases dropped on the floor. It’s a lovely cottage. The houseplants are verdant and properly terrified, and the books cover every flat surface.

‘We should get married,’ Crowley says, on a flowering spring night in Vienna. ‘Horribly antiquated human institution and all that, but…’ He trails off, then shrugs elegantly. ‘Tax purposes.’

‘I thought, my dear,’ Aziraphale says, taking a sip of his wine, ‘that was originally my suggestion.’

Crowley’s yellow eyes sparkle at him. In this light, they are almost gold, rich and depthless, and Aziraphale would be very happy indeed to spend the rest of forever drowning in them. Placidly the demon says, even as his fingers interlock with his angel’s under the table and hold on tight, ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

[rae-is-typing]

Scars

Original request from @sorrybutimtrying: Can you do one where Chris Evans or Paul Rudd meets a fan, sees her scars and tries to help her. Or something like that

Description: You win one of those contests where you and some other people get to meet and fraternize with a celebrity. This time, it’s Paul Rudd. He notices something you wished he hadn’t.

Characters: reader, original female and male characters (Sophia the Marvel person, Olivia the other teen girl, and a lot of unnamed men and women), Paul Rudd

Warnings: swearing, implied self-harm, self-harm scars, being sexually harassed at work, mentioned cat calling

Word count: 3.8k

See Ant-Man three weeks early, hang out with the one and only Paul Rudd, play laser tag, and pizza together on an all expenses paid trip to LA! Enter now! 12 lucky fans will be chosen. Entries close in three hours. 

You take a moment to stop scrolling. Your heart speeds up; it always does when opportunities arise. You always apply, but you never win. Glancing at the clock, you see you still have ten minutes on break. 

What the heck, might as well enter. There's nothing to lose. 

Entering takes the rest of your break. You were asked questions, and had to enter your phone number and email address a few times. You submit your entry as soon as your break ended. Sighing, you push yourself to your feet. Back to serving customers and getting yelled at by your manager. 

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

Life gets hard and you completely forget that you ever entered in the first place. 

You aren't proud of what you do to cope. Hell, you've managed to stop doing it completely for a few months. But sometimes it's so hard. Too hard to do anything else. 

You don't show off your scars. By sticking to long sleeve shirts, concealer, and strategically placed bracelets, you can easily make it seems like there are a few birthmarks on your wrists instead anything self-inflicted. 

Unfortunately, you can't afford to see a professional. Both you and your mother are working multiple jobs so you can eat and have a place to live. Deep down, you know you should tell her. Deep down, you want to tell her. But you can't bring yourself to. It'll only stress her out. Between two jobs and going back to school to finish her degree, you don’t want to bring her more stress. But your always hopeful for the day where she'd be able to help you through your hard days. 

Speaking of hard days, you hate being a waitress. You work in a particularly sleazy part of town where the guys like to call out anything resembling a female body. Walking down the street brings you one cat call after another, and waitressing isn't any better. You get called every pet name under the sun. Sweetie, babe, baby girl, jujubee. Someone even called you, a 16-year-old wearing some of the baggiest clothes imaginable, sugartits. Your manager had fun with him. 

After getting home, you flop on your bed and fight the urge to cry. You made a whopping fifteen dollars in tips that night for working 4 hours, a customer yelled at you for giving them iced tea with ice in it, and a guy started following you home until he got bored. It was not a good night. 

Then your phone starts to ring. Maroon 5 reverberates in your room, simultaneously annoying you and making you feel a tiny bit better. Without looking at the caller ID, you pick up the phone. 

"Hello?" You ask, voice muffled by the pillow your head is still buried in. 

"Hi there! I'm looking for a Y/N Y/L/N." A feminine voice chirps through the phone.

"Yeah, that's me." You roll onto your back so you can speak clearer. 

"Great. My name is Sophia Ramsey, I'm the one organizing the event with Paul Rudd. I'm so excited to let you know that you won! You will be one of twelve to be flown out to LA to meet with him and spend the day with him."

A huge smile tugs at your lips, so much so your face starts to hurt. "What?" You laugh. "Are you serious?"

"I sure am! Some blank documents have been sent to the email you provided in your entry. I need you to fill them out and either fax them to the number listed on them, mail them to the address listed, or scan them and email them to that same email address."

"I-I can totally do that!"

"Now this event is an all expenses paid, so everything will be provided for you. You'll be flown out the day of and flown back home after it ends. It will be held June seventh."

"Thank you so much!"

She laughs at your enthusiasm. "Of course. Once we get those documents we will be organizing your flights. We will be in touch."

"Awesome, wonderful. Thanks so much!"

"You're so welcome. Bye bye now."

You pull the phone away from your ear, sporting a grin that could rival the Cheshire cat himself. You won! You won you won you won! You're going to meet one of your favorite actors!

You pull up your email on your phone immediately. Spotting the email, you skim through the PDFs quickly. Since you're a minor, there are a lot of things your mom has to sign. 

I need to print these. You think, biting your lip. You don't want to wait for the next at school, you want to fill these out now. Grabbing your wallet and apartment keys, you run (yes, run) down to the library that's a few blocks away. A lot of students gather there for studying and the free wifi.

You wave at a few of your classmates, and they nod back. You print the documents off quickly, paying a small fee for the paper, and you run (yes, run) back home. 

You bounce into your apartment, still giddy (and sweaty). 

"Mom! Mom, you'll never guess what happened!" You exclaim upon seeing your mother sitting on the couch in the living room. 

She looks up from the book she was reading with a tired smile. "What happened, sweetie?"

"Remember that thing I entered? That event Marvel was hosting?" You ask, vibrating with excitement. 

"I do."

"I won! I won Mom! I get to meet Paul Rudd!" 

A grin broke out on your mom's face. "Oh, Y/N, that's awesome."

"I know! I have to fill out these documents. Do we have somewhere we can fax things? Do you know how to fax? I don't know how to fax."

She laughs. "I'll teach you how to fax things, don't you worry." 

------

You get everything taken care of the day after. After another call with Sophia, you manage scheduling flights and times for the drivers (you get a driver! how awesome!)

In the weeks leading up to the event, all your extra effort is put into a gift for Paul. You have a knack for art that you don't have much time for anymore. Between school and work, it's also hard to find energy to put into it. 

However, you said 'screw school' and began an art project: a hand-drawn collage of all Paul Rudd's characters, including Ant-Man. It takes all the time leading up to the event, but you manage to make it look amazing. Along with the collage, you write him a letter. You don't believe it to be anything very special, but you hope he will appreciate it. You detail your own struggles and how much looking up to him has helped you. 

Then the day comes.

You barely sleep at all the night before. Adrenaline and an unhealthy amount of caffeine replace any semblance of rest you may have gotten. 

The driver arrives at your apartment at 4:30 AM to take you to the nearest airport. After triple checking your stuff and a quick goodbye with your mom, you're off.

The car is so nice. You have no idea what make or model it is, but you're sure it very expensive. The drive doesn't take a long time; the roads are practically empty and there is little traffic, which is great. 

However, you're left on your own in the airport, which is not great. A lot of zombie-esque people are there, a few crying children, and some drug dogs even joined the party. You bite your lip, scratching at your concealed wrists. It's something you always do when you're nervous. 

You don't have any bags other than a backpack, so you don't need to check anything. Looking around, you try to spot someone that looks like they know what they're doing. You eventually do, and follow them to security.

The line is long, and after moderate hassle with the agents, you're through and on the way to your gate. Once you get there, you closely examine your ticket. First class. Your eyebrows shoot up. The first time you're flying and you get first class. Damn. Okay, you'll take it.

The flight was good: no babies cried, the flight people were all super nice, and you even got the entire row to yourself.

After the flight, you're off to the venue. You meet your new driver at the exit and get to another very expensive looking car. 

LA traffic is everything you've heard and more. The streets are packed, and it takes quite a while for you to get where you're supposed to be. But when you do, it is incredible. 

The building is huge. It's wall to wall one way glass. The sun bounces off the silver accents, almost blinding you. Out of pure impulse, you take a picture. You almost don't believe that you're here. 

After thanking the driver, you hop out of the car and walk into the glass building. The interior is even prettier. 

It's clean, with dark oak floors and chairs and tables lining the wall. A small group of excited people are gathered by a longer table full of stuff. Your anxiety spikes. This is actually happening. You're going to meet one of your heroes and give him some of your art. This cannot be happening. You nails find your wrist again.

After making your way to the small group, they immediately welcome you into the circle. They each introduce themselves for probably the millionth time, and one of them informs you that everyone is here. 

After a few minutes of pure small talk, a woman walks into the lobby area. 

"Hi everyone!" You all turn to her. She's dressed in a red sleeveless blouse, black slacks and high heels. Her face is done up nicely, as is her hair. She stands proudly with a charismatic smile gracing her face."I'm Sophia, the manager of this event. I'm so excited to get started! First things first, we'll start with the meet and greet. Each one of you will get 15 minutes with Paul. After that, there'll be a few games of laser tag, and finally, the screening of the new Ant-Man movie! We at Marvel ask that you keep all the movie details to yourself so everyone can enjoy the movie when it comes out."

Murmurs of agreement spread through the room. 

“If you all follow me, we can get started," Sophia leads the group to a different room. Paul is sitting at a table with an empty chair next to him. 

Excitement spreads through you. He looks so much more real in person, as weird as that sounds. You bite your lip, keeping your mouth shut. Excited calls from the other fans make him smile widely. 

You keep your place near the back, slowly building up courage and thinking out what you're going to say. You certainly don't want to look like an idiot when you meet one of your heroes. 

"Nice bracelets." The voice of a girl pulls you from your thoughts. 

"Oh, thank you." You say, turning to see her. She has short black hair, blue eyes and pale skin. 

"Yeah. I love Panic! At the Disco. Their music is amazing."

"For real, they're so good!"

The two of you share small talk until it's her turn. For twelve people each getting fifteen minutes, time went by very fast. She talks to him excitedly, something that he reciprocates. Another wave of anxiety comes over you. Your heart speeds up, your hands get a little sweaty. Holy shit! You're actually meeting him.You fight the urge to scratch at your wrist.

Finally, it's your turn. 

You go up to the table with an anxious smile on your face. He smiles back. 

"Hi there!" He says. "I'm so glad you won."

"Thank you!" You say, sitting down in the chair. "I actually brought something."

"Oh thank you! That's awesome."

You pull out the small framed collage, placing it on the table with the enveloped letter on top. There's a small stack of stuff on the other side of him. He carefully sets the envelope to the side, now examining the poster. 

"Wow! This is so good!" He exclaims. "Did you draw this?"

You can only nod shyly. 

"This is great, really. Thank you." 

"You're welcome."

The two of you talk for the rest of the time. He signs a couple of things for you, and you take a few pictures. At the end, you want to take a funny selfie for your instagram. While taking the picture, your bracelets slide up your arm. Your heart stops for a split second when you see a fresher scar. You pull back the bracelets immediately, and play it off as soon as possible. 

But it was too late, Paul saw some of the scars. His face falls into something more solemn, concerned almost. He opens his mouth to say something, but he was interrupted. 

"Alright everyone! It is time to move on to the next event."

Paul put a smile on his face, but he gave you a worried glance at you while he stood up. He walks by Sophia as you're led through the building. The interior continued to take your breath away. Postmodern design flooded your sight as everyone crams into an elevator. 

You're taken up a few floors and the elevator opens to a small room with vests and guns attached to said vests. A blank scoreboard hangs proudly above everything. You glance around. Everyone is sporting grins. 

"Let's do girls against boys!" Olivia, the girl you were talking to before, exclaims. 

"You sure?" One of the guys pipes up. "I think there are more guys than girls," 

"There's like one more guy. We should do at least one battle of the sexes." She grins. 

"I'm cool with it," A woman in her mid twenties smirks. 

"Me too," You shrug. More murmurs of agreement spread through the group.

“Alright, suit up everyone. Girls will be red and boys will be green." Sophia says. 

"I will leave you to Ralph, he is our resident lazer tag expert." 

"Alright everyone, your goal is to destroy the other team’s base. You do that by destroying the power supply in the deepest part of the opposing team’s base. It looks like a dinosaur egg off of Jurassic Park, and it lights up. I have a few ground rules. No fighting, no sprinting, no food or drink near the equipment. But most importantly, have fun! There are large towers on each side where you have to charge your gun. Your vest will beep at you when you need to recharge. Good luck. Boys, enter to the left, girls on your right." With Ralph ending his spiel, everyone hustles into the room. 

You follow behind one of your teammates to the back of the base. The room is absolutely massive. There's a large structure running through the middle of the floor with at least four sets of stairs. The supporting poles are lit up by green and red lights. You clutch your gun to your chest. It's not the very first time you're playing laser tag, but it is the first time in a long while. 

You go off on your own, jogging up the stairs on the large structure. You speed walk quietly, ducking behind large foam covers that were spread sporadically throughout the entire floor when you suspect one of the boys had spotted you.You climb to the top. You hold your gun by your thigh, keeping your finger on the trigger. Slowly walking in circles, you try to spot the egg like power supply that Ralph had described on the ground below. 

Suddenly, someone bumped into you. You jump, barely holding back a yelp. 

"Oh, my god. I’m so sorry." Olivia quickly apologized. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, you just scared the shit out of me though," You laugh. 

"I'm sorry... Y/N, right?" 

"Yeah yeah yeah, and you're Olivia, right?"

"Mhm, what are you looking for?"

"I'm trying to find the power supply." 

"Same girl. I think I saw it over there." She says, gesturing to your left. "But I'm not sure."

"Let's go check it out."

The two of you venture to the left, moving as quickly and quietly as before. Soon enough, you're able to spot the power supply through the guard rails. Only one guy is standing guard. You share a small low-five and split up to attack it. 

Olivia jogs down the stairs to ground level and you go to the second floor for better range. 

You crouch close to the floor, poking your gun through the guard rails and wait until you see Olivia come up behind the guard and start shooting. You join her immediately, and together you almost destroy it. However, your gun runs out of charge. 

Cursing under your breath, you jog as fast as you can (almost running) down to a charging base, where you run into Olivia again. 

"Dude, that was fucking crazy." She laughs. "We almost had them."

Laughing breathlessly, you agree. "For real though. We got them this time. Same plan?"

"Hell yeah,"

"What plan?" A new voice cuts in. The woman in her mid twenties pops up out of nowhere. 

"We found their supply. I went low and she went to the second floor. If we have one more person, I think we got this. We'll have to hurry though."

A grin spreads on the woman's face. "Let's do it. I'll head to the first floor on the other side."

The three of you jog together back to the same place as before. You show the woman where to go, then you leave to go up one floor. 

Once again, you start to shoot when Olivia does. The woman joins in soon after. 

You hear the guards frustrated cries as he tries to fend off all three of you at once. A few of the other guys come running back, but it was too late. Girls won! 

You laugh, throwing your hands up. "Hell yeah!" 

Olivia cheers, and the woman whoops. The lights come on, making you wince.

"Game over. Red team has claimed their victory! Congratulations, ladies!" Ralph's voice comes over intercoms you didn't know were there. 

You make your way down to ground level, meeting up with the other women. You congratulate each other. 

"Let's do it again! Same team?”

The lot of you end up playing three more games: girls vs. boys, old people vs. young people, and Paul vs. Everyone else. Boys won, young people won, and the last one was a tie. (You and Olivia ended up teaming up with Paul anyways, but no one else needs to know that.)

After that, everyone was crammed into an elevator yet again. This time smelling a lot less pleasant after running and sneaking around.

All of you are lead to another floor. This one resembled a movie theater more than anything else. A huge table of food is set up in front of the door to the screening room. 

Everyone begins to get their dinner, most of them being hungry from the hour and a half spent running around in the dark shooting at each other. 

Before you could grab a plate, however, someone places a hand on your shoulder. You turn to see Paul standing behind you.

You smile up at him. "Hi."

"Hey. I wanna talk to you, could we step out?" That look of concern from before is etched onto his face. 

"Sure," You say, the slightest bit of hesitation seeping into your voice. You step into a smaller, unoccupied corner of the hall. Before you can ask any questions, he starts speaking. 

"Look, I don't know your situation, I don't know you, and I don't know what you've been through, but I saw your wrist. I know what it's like to be low, and I just wanted to tell you that it gets better. Everything is going to work the way it's meant to. Everything is going to be okay. And if you need help, don't be afraid to ask. Mental pain is just as serious and debilitating as physical pain is. I hate to see anyone go through this, especially my fans."

Tears prick at you eyes at his words. No one has ever taken you aside and spoken to you like this before. All the anxiety and trepidation leaves your body, and your left with this warmth and reassurance. 

You can only bite your lip and nod. He smiles again and opens his arms. You hug briefly before leaving the corner and getting your food. 

Everything after that is all smiles and laughter. The food is some of the best you've ever had; they certainly spared no expense. 

The movie is incredible. You have no doubt in your mind that you'll save your tips and take your mom to see it one night after it comes out.

Truth be told, you're sad this is over. You want to do more with everyone, but you're so undeniably grateful that you got this opportunity. More pictures are taken, social media is exchanged, and soon you're all on your separate ways home.

When you get home, you pass out on your face, shoes barely kicked off your feet. You never expected to wake up to what you did though. 

A DM from Paul Rudd. 

Hey Y/N! It was so nice meeting you! I'm so glad you had the opportunity to attend the event. It's always so wonderful to spend time with fans. I wanted to tell you that your collage is amazing! You have a real knack for art. You should definitely keep it up if you can. Thank you for sharing your story in the letter. It really moved me. I also wanted to let you know one last time that things do get better, things do improve. Stay strong for yourself and your future. You got this.

[piermanwalter]

I had a dream that I got myself a shapeshifting Nicki Minaj makeup set as a birthday present. I just got home from a long trip and impulse-purchased the makeup set at an airport duty-free shop. It was pitch black outside and felt very late at 9:30 like when you are a little kid and feel 9:30 is late. When your time is controlled by someone else, staying up late feels like a luxury. I’m not sure how old I was in my dream, since I travelled alone but still felt as though someone set a bedtime for me. 

The makeup set was a mystery box from the newly released “Nicki Siren” collection, which was mostly mermaid and sea-themed clothes and accessories. It cost 900 dollars, but the crushing sadness of being stuck in an extended layover on my birthday and the Fear of Missing Out since it was the last Nicki Siren set in the store compelled me to buy it. It was the volume of a shoebox. Top-down, it was square and slightly taller than it was wide. I opened it in my bedroom. The cardboard box was white with dark blue gouache-like writing and the front of the box had Nicki’s face in the corner wearing a pearl and seashell studded tiara and a teal wig with a surprised expression. The overall mood was bright, fun, and unusually unsexy. 

Inside the box was a teal plastic cube with gold accents. Inside the cube was custom light blue bubble wrap flecked with gold glitter. Under the bubble wrap was a 30-inch gold chain necklace with pearls at 3-inch intervals and two huge clamshells hanging off it. The clasp of the necklace had an 8-cm long flat silver pendant in the shape of a fan coral on it, studded on one side with tiny white crystals. Upon closer inspection, it wasn’t a real chain and instead gold beads fit together like a chain strung onto braided teal leather. The information packet in the box under the cube said the beads were 20-ct gold-plated sterling silver, the clasp pendant was cubic zirconia and platinum-plated sterling silver, and the pearls were cultured. 

Despite being quahog type clams, the clamshells had the color and texture of a teal turbo snail shell. This is biologically impossible and I assumed the shells were fake or some weird manufacturing technique was used. Luckily, the shells could be removed from the necklace. which made it much more wearable. I was worried about the shell toggles being right on the pearls, since pearls are fragile, but the pearls were extremely slippery and couldn’t be scratched. I spun the clamshells around the pearls until I got bored. The shells were hinged containers. The smaller clamshell I could close my hand around and had 13 loose non-slippery pearls in it, while the big clamshell was the volume of two double cheeseburgers, extremely heavy, made sloshing noises when shook, but couldn’t be opened. 

The giant clamshell also had a big rectangular magenta sticker on it, which looked very good against the teal shell. Peeling the sticker off, there was product and copyright information printed directly onto the shell, which was ugly as hell and the opposite of normal giant stickers.

When I gave up on opening the giant clamshell, I noticed the necklace chain had grown a cigar-like steel tube around one of the pearls. The tube unrolled into a 3-inch-long hamsa charm with a cloisonne enamel design of white birds flying over fields and forests on it. I went downstairs to get a string and a chair. When I hung the hamsa on the ceiling fan in my bedroom, it started bending again and the birds had left the forest and were now flying over the sea. Although the design changed, I never saw the birds or the hamsa move.

After I got down from the ceiling fan, the pearls were sprouting like seeds, growing into cubic zirconia pavé coral like the one on the clasp. Unlike the hamsa I could see them grow and change in real time. As an experiment, I pinched one of the sprouts until it broke. The broken sprout withered until it disappeared and instead of faceted gems set in perfect prongs, the pearl started producing cloudy industrial accident crystals and twisted wires, before slorping it all back into itself and turning black. 

I felt bad about that and grated a block of parmesan over the pearls to atone. I had to clean cheese out of the prongs afterwards but it felt like the right thing to do. I noticed the coral was “eating” the cheese calcium crystals and growing little pearls so I put them back into the cheese and by the time all the parmesan disappeared, they were twice as big as the original with a seed pearl at every place the coral branched. When the coral pendants stopped growing, the pearl “eggshells” crumbled into powder and flowed back into the little clamshell, which grew a mirror and became a highlight powder compact. 

I looked back in the box and found a little redwood box taking up the remaining space. In the wood box were sheets of stickers made of dyed suede leather, more cubic zirconia, and metal foil. I put some on my phone case and decided to cover the product information on the giant shell with stickers because it looked so bad. This caused the big shell to open. In the shell was a bottle of “Cali Coast” Nicki Siren perfume, a mini lip palette, a mini eyeshadow palette, three tubes of mascara, a teal lipstick, a magenta lipstick, and a sea salt bath bomb. There was a dent in the shell the exact size of the stunted black pearl so I put it in and closed the case. When I opened it again, the black pearl turned into a pearl-handled powder brush.

I looked up the makeup set on the internet and there was a #NickiSirenChallenge on instagram where people bragged/commiserated about what they got. Always, the pendant on the clasp was some kind of immobile sea animal like an anemone or sea pen or sea star and there were always two teal turbo-patterned bivalve containers, like scallops or oysters, one big and one small. The necklace also varied from choker to floor-length, some with real chains, some beads set with larimar cabochons, some with solid gold chains, some with no metal and all natural pearls. Instead of stickers, some people got sample-size vials of different perfumes, keychains, silk scarves, or vouchers for free Nicki Siren clothes. One in 150 makeup sets had clasp pendants with real diamonds and solid platinum. 

To open the big case, you must cover it in stickers, put a key on the keychain, wear the scarf, or redeem the vouchers, depending on what you got. The big case always contained normal makeup and the little case contained 5-30 pearls which turned into different things depending on how you treated them, usually more makeup if you broke them, jewels if you didn’t. It was discovered breaking pearls before they sprouted turned them into applicable products like face creams or nail polish remover. Breaking pearls after they sprouted turns them into tools like nail files or lash curlers. Naturally people cared more about the pearls than the makeup even though it’s technically a makeup set. 

The little case could turn into anything with a hinge, usually corresponding to what the pearls turned into, like my compact and brush. Most people got jewellery boxes but some people got phone cases. 

There was a small chance of getting a bonus animated lucky charm. Someone got a clear resin horseshoe with a functioning ecosystem of malachite seaweed and peanut-sized copper sea urchins in it. Someone else got a palm-sized glass nazar which changed eye patterns before fading to a solid blue disc, then a brass goldfish would jump out of the center of the disc (not literally, it was a flat sheet of brass embedded in the surface which was etched using perspective to make it look as though it were leaping out of the nazar) before falling down, creating ripples that looked like an eye again. Another person got a blue faience ceramic Egyptian fish amulet that changed poses like it was swimming and sometimes moves to different rooms by itself. There were only 20 lucky charms in the world.

In one video, a pole dancer did a routine to Nicki Minaj songs and opened the box on stage. She got vouchers for a cameo in a music video and an entire free outfit. When she pulled the necklace out of the box, the strands of pearls just kept coming and when she turned the box upside down, the stage was engulfed in pearls like a giant shimmering mop.

In another video, someone poured Veuve Cliquot champagne on their case pearls and they hatched into huge round life-size faceted topaz sea apples encircled with braided gold wire instead tube feet, sprays of diamond-tipped gold as feeding tentacles.

Someone was able to score a rare full size Nicki Siren SuperBase foundation tube and she made a video where she applied the foundation, then complained it didn’t match her skin tone. The foundation immediately darkened to match. Later she made another video proving SuperBase foundation was like holy water because it could be refilled with different foundation but still be the same no matter how diluted it gets. SuperBase was the only product that behaves like this.

Someone ran over a case pearl with a Ferrari and it exploded into an 80-piece skincare set. 

I felt bad because aside from the hamsa, I got the second cheapest versions of everything. But as I scrolled through instagram, I became grateful that I didn’t incur Nicki’s wrath. 

Someone bought ten Nicki Siren sets and when she opened one, the stickers were paper, the necklace chain was that weird golden alloy that turns your skin green, the clasp pendant was a lead picoroco barnacle with a giant chunk of plastic for its beak, the small cockle had two pearls in it which turned into another lead barnacle and a sea salt bath bomb, and the big cockle had 8 sea salt bath bombs in it. When she tried to open the other boxes, there were more boxes inside and the boxes grew as though they were being put into more layers of boxes. She resold a box to someone else and in it was one of the rare larimar necklaces and a plate-sized bronze disc with the face of Medusa molded on one side and a shifting mosaic of an ancient Greek harbor on the other side. Consumed by greed, she kept opening the boxes until they were the size of refrigerators. Nine boxes in her garage, she now parks outside. She makes increasingly desperate unboxing videos and with every update her comments are filled with “i can buy a box for $3k dm me i’m serious” and “Ma’am. Please give up.” and “pouring out my superbass foundation for u when u cant fit in ur house ne more LMAO”.

Someone smashed open her big shell instead of opening it properly and it was filled with moths which followed her around eating her clothes. 

An influencer who infamously bugged Nicki into giving her a free set for promotion was crying next to a 10-foot-wide crater in her house because she broke all the sprouting pearls in her little mussel case and the pearls became so heavy they broke the table, broke through the second floor, broke through the first floor, broke through the foundation, and sank into the earth. Then the little mussel turned into a 2001 flip phone and Nicki called her through it and said she was a “fake-ass copy-ass jealous-ass bitch”. She still wore Nicki Siren eyeshadow in the video.

Someone lied about getting a lucky charm for clout and it turned out she strung sea-themed Pandora beads on a mass-produced dreamcatcher. After she redeemed her voucher for a silk dress, when her big freshwater oyster case opened, there were 8 sea salt bath bombs in it and also moths. The moths ate her new dress.

There was a news article about the finder of the resin sea urchin horseshoe being banned from casinos because it increased his luck in gambling but most importantly made his bets on horse races always win. Since the hamsa is a hand, I assumed it would make me unbeatable in card games. 

There was also a news article about German material engineers trying to get as many Nicki Siren pearls as possible to study their previously unseen anti-friction properties. 

Not to be one-upped, Megan Thee Stallion announced the “Hot Girl Eternity” line of hoodies, t-shirts, and booty shorts which will allow the wearer to be immune to fire, heat, and radiation (hoodies), conjure flames (t-shirts), and absorb power from things they burn to add to their own lifespan (shorts). Even though they have yet to be released, it’s already impossible to get Hot Girl Eternity hoodies because they have all been preordered by hazard area workers and x-ray technicians and also stans. 

I think in my dream all rappers are powerful enchanters because that makes the most sense given everything that happened. 

[ladyscribbles]

Crow: Chapter One

I was just walking down the street when I saw some kid my age thrust a knife into her forehead. 

Now, isn’t that a hook? Really cuts through your short attention span and gets to the point. Alright, alright, I’ll stop with all these totally cleaver puns (but considering my ultra-writer-nerd-ness, can you really blame me for making them?).

Alright, so back to the crazy girl.

She was pretty lanky and had wild, unruly auburn hair. She also had a crooked nose that looked like it’d been broken several times. She was wearing a black cloak over a black dress with fishnet sleeves. Connecting the cloak was a bright red brooch, a stark contrast to the rest of her clothing. There were also weird, wire-thin horizontal stripes on her skin that I’d originally mistaken as part of her outfit.

Other than the knife sticking out of her head, the whole image made her look hot, not gonna lie. 

“Oh, hello there,” she greeted nonchalantly as she thrust the blade out, black blood gushing out. Yeah, black blood.

“And I thought my middle school fanfiction was weird.”

“Yeah. You weren’t supposed to see that.”

I walked up and stopped a foot away. “So you gonna say I’m special or something and take me to some magical world to defeat some tyrant ruler?”

“That’s awfully optimistic.” She then placed her hand onto my forehead. “Especially when it comes from a corpse.”

“Wait, what-”

Then there was a flash of white, and the next thing I knew, I was on the ground, throwing up my lunch. Aw man, the old man’s gonna be worried, I thought dazedly. Then I noticed the black combat boots in front of me. I had the irrational thought that they were mine for a second before I realized they were too big. Plus, they were a hell of a lot more worn out than mine.

“Get up.”

I wiped my mouth with my sleeve and slowly rose to my feet. The girl was staring at me with narrowed eyes, her arms crossed. Well, actually, only one black eye was narrowed. The other was hidden under messy bangs swept over the left side of her face.

“What the hell was that?” she demanded, and she sounded angry.

I frowned. “What do you mean?”

The girl let out an aggravated sigh and placed her hand on a nearby bush. I watched in horror as each individual leaf shriveled up and died, leaving nothing but a wooden skeleton. “I kill with just one touch,” she growled, sounding much more intimidating than me (and I was the one with the deadpan, gravelly voice).

I then widened my eyes as the color drained from my face. “You...you were going to kill me.”

Holy shit.

“So why didn’t you die?”

I shook my head to snap myself out of my stunned daze. “You were going to kill me! What the hell?!” I yelled, my voice shaking. “Just who the hell are you?!”

“Crow,” she said after a few moments.

“No last name?”

“No.”

“Alright, then I’m Red. Now just what in the hell is going on here?”

Crow rolled her eyes and cracked her neck. “I’m dealing with another freak, it seems.”

“Don’t call me a freak when you freakin’ stabbed yourself in the head and tried to kill me!”

“Well, I’m not going to kill you now.”

“That’s reassuring,” I muttered. I then looked around. We were standing in the middle of a desert with black sand. As if that wasn’t strange enough, there wasn’t anything around for miles. “What the actual fuck.”

And to top it all off, I probably just made this beyond PG-13. Unless I’m allowed to have one more f-word up my sleeve.

I then took a deep breath and pulled out the tiny pad of paper I always kept in my sweater pocket. I checked my right ear for a pen and found one. I began to scribble furiously, letting my frustration pour out onto the white canvas in harsh, impulsive strokes. 

“What the hell are you doing?” Crow questioned as I felt her gaze over my shoulder. 

“Managing my emotions in a god-damn healthy manner.” I then closed the notebook and put it away, having released my feelings. “There. Now I’m better equipped to face shit.” She placed her hand on my shoulder. “Uh, what are you doing?”

“I was hoping that was only a fluke. But no. I still can’t kill you.”

I backed away from her, uneasy. I seriously didn’t like how she talked about death with such ease. In fact, it unnerved me to my very core. It was like being in the same room with a serial killer. You know what? She probably is. I shivered. 

“Uh, so where are we?”

“The desert.”

“Really? I couldn’t tell.”

“If you must know, this lies just beyond the outskirts of Jakraut. Now come.” Crow walked several steps right, but I didn’t move. Why the hell would I? She turned around. “What are you waiting for?”

“Why would I go somewhere with someone who tried to kill me?” 

“Suit yourself. I figured you wouldn’t want to deal with the sand lards on your own, but I don’t care either way.”

“Sand lards?”

“Farewell. Perhaps they won’t be able to kill you either.”

I bit my lip and ran to catch up with her. “Alright, fine! You win!”

She raised her brow. “I wasn’t aware I was in a competition.”

“So, um, how long will it take to get to this Jakraut place?” 

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t?”

“I don’t pay attention to the time. It hardly matters. Minutes and hours are all the same to me.”

“Uh, okay. What is it like? Jakraut, I mean.”

“It’s a small village. The only thing of worth there is the poison shop.”

“Poison? Are you an assassin or something?”

“No. It’s for me.”

“You...you poison yourself?”

“Enough with the questions. They’re annoying and serve no purpose.”

“Sorry if I was curious about why someone would voluntarily poison herself.”

Crow ignored me and continued onward at her brisk pace. Her long legs covered much more ground than mine, making it nearly impossible to keep up with her. Plus, I wasn’t exactly in peak condition. Several minutes later, she stopped without warning, and I bumped into her.

A few seconds passed, and then she quickly jerked me out of the way right as a giant cloud of dust and sand rose up from the ground. When both cleared, I gaped at what had been hidden.

It was a giant - and I mean giant - blob of what looked like fat. Sand lard. Definitely a sand lard. 

“Make sure not to touch it,” Crow warned. 

Why the hell would I voluntarily touch a thing like that? 

As if she thought I was dumb enough to do such a thing, she set out to prove her point. She reached her hand into the sand lard’s side and swiftly pulled it out. Her hand had been reduced to its skeleton, dripping with acid, and I had to bite back the bile that rose in my throat.

“I think I got the point,” I replied, unnerved by both the lard’s acidic effects and Crow’s complete lack of concern.

The lard then melted before my very eyes until it had been reduced to a mere puddle. Oh, yeah, death touch.

“I believe we’re close now,” Crow announced as she began walking again.

“Now hold on!” I cried as I grabbed her arm. “Are you just going to ignore-” I then stared at her hand. It had completely healed itself. “Oh, you have healing powers?” I think I wrote a story about a girl with healing powers once. 

“Obviously,” she replied before wrenching her arm free from my grip. “Otherwise the stab wound from before would still be there.” Stab wound…? Oh, yeah, the knife in the forehead.

“Are you immortal?”

“Yes.”

“So nothing can kill you?”

“Unfortunately.”

“Uh, okay.”

“I’m tired of the delays. Let’s get going already,” Crow growled impatiently.

I nodded in agreement. After all, I figured it wouldn’t be wise to stick around and wait for more of those creatures to show up. 

Maybe five minutes of awkward silence passed before I simply couldn’t bear it anymore. “So...where’d you get your powers?”

“I was born with them.”

“You were?”

“Yes,” she growled impatiently after cracking her neck.

“So you’re immortal. Do you feel pain?”

“Unfortunately, no.”

So that explained why she reacted so calmly when she stabbed herself and plunged her hand into an acidic substance. “Why is that?”

“Don’t know, don’t care.”

“Before, you said I was a freak like you. Does that mean people don’t usually have powers here?”

“As far as I know.”

“Could you maybe answer with more than just five words?”

“I don’t give a rat’s ass.” 

“Well, that’s six, so I guess that’s an improvement.”

“I wasn’t aware my behavior was being critiqued by an annoying-ass earthling.” She then heaved a sigh and gestured in front of us. “Look, town. Get distracted.”

I turned away from her to gaze at Jakraut. Like she’d said, it was pretty small. There were only maybe ten houses in sight. Plus there was a store with a large sign that read in big, block letters: POISON! GET YOUR POISON HERE AT KILL-ONE, KILL-ALL! Then in smaller print underneath it, there was a little caption: Cyanide and belladonna half-off this week only. Get it while supplies last.

“You’re right. The only interesting thing here is the shop.” Though I’m sure as hell not interested in buying anything. Hell freakin’ no. 

Crow slammed the door open, a little bell chiming at her entrance, and she hurried in. I followed her inside and stared at the shelves upon shelves of bottles that surrounded me. Whoa. That was a lot of poison. 

I watched uneasily as Crow picked up a large bottle covered with danger labels all over. She peered at it closely before grabbing another one and placing both into a basket. I followed her around the store as she snatched several more poisons of different shapes and sizes. Crow didn’t stop until the basket was nearly full. I followed her to the counter and watched her plop the basket down, and several loud clinks sounded from the countless bottles. 

“How much do I owe you?” Crow asked the man there. 

He stared at her for a few moments before looking over each and every item. A few seconds passed as he ran the math through. “Th-that comes up to about twelve hundred.”

Crow dumped a large sack down. From the sound of it, that thing was filled to the brim with coins or some shit. “This should cover it.” 

He nodded vigorously and snatched the bag away. “H-have a nice day!” 

Crow rolled her eyes before taking off a backpack I hadn’t noticed until now and dumping the bottles into one of its compartments. All but one, anyway. As we walked out, I watched with dismay as she opened it and started chugging it. 

“That really won’t affect you, will it?” 

“Only if I’m optimistic,” she replied before returning to guzzling the liquid. 

“Where are we heading now?” 

“Away from Jakraut,” she replied between drinks. 

“Where, exactly?” 

“Does it really matter to you?” 

“Well, I do appreciate knowing where I’m going whenever I travel with immortals who guzzle poison for fun.” 

Crow rolled her eyes as she downed the last few drops of the bottle and reached inside her bag for another. “I am not forcing you to accompany me. You’re making the decision to follow me.”

“Because I don’t want to be left out in the middle of nowhere alone with no idea where I am or what’s going on!” I snapped. I pinched the bridge of my nose and took several deep breaths. “Look, if you were in my shoes-”

“Then I would have a higher chance of dying and this conversation would be over in an instant,” she replied before taking a shot. She then sighed. “If you must know, we’re heading to the station.”

“As in a train station?” Crow nodded in response. “Where is it going?” 

“A town down south. I have a contract there.”

“Contract? It’s not a killing one, is it?” I asked worriedly, hoping that I wasn’t stuck with an assassin or something horrible like that. 

“No.”

I waited, but she never added anything. “Are you going to clarify or what?” 

“Why would I feel the need to clarify myself to a stranger I couldn’t give two shits about?” 

I let out a groan. The one time I was sucked into a different world, and I got stuck with an apathetic asshole with no clear goal in mind. Where was the whimsical feeling of experiencing a whole new place full of fantasy and wonder? Where were the heroes that fought for truth and justice and defended the weak with their awesome power? Where were the vibrant, fantastical creatures that either helped or hindered the heroes on their quest? Speaking of which, where was the god-damn quest?!

“Damn it! If I was going to get dragged to a different world, it could’ve at least been better than this!” I took a deep breath. “Well, maybe I just need to experience it more,” I muttered to myself. “Surely, this isn’t all there is to it.”

And it could be worse. I could be alone. And though she’s a total asshole, Crow seems willing enough to protect me from stuff like those sand lards. Hmm, maybe she’s only an asshole because she has a dark past and/or hasn’t had anyone show her compassion or love. Considering her awful power, it fits. If I was gonna write a character with her kind of personality and abilities, I’d probably go either route or even both.

“Do you have a dark and tragic backstory?” I queried. Crow ignored me, instead taking several drinks. “Would you share it if we became closer?”

“I’ve heard drinking together is an activity that can bring people closer,” Crow commented drily as she held out the bottle. 

I grinned nervously. “Uh...I think I’ll pass.”

“Then shut the hell up,” she replied before taking yet another swig.

I sighed. If I didn’t know better, I’d say I’d be better off alone after all. 

My stomach then grumbled. “Can we stop somewhere to eat?” I asked, ignoring the learned instinct to just not ask at all.

Crow heaved an exasperated sigh. “Right. I forgot you have mortal needs. Luckily for you, my train isn’t scheduled to leave for a few days, so I can afford the delay to the nearest town.”

“Gee, thanks,” I muttered. I then stumbled and fell. A brief feeling of fatigue washed over me before I shoved it away and got back up again. I’m alright, I’m alright. “So how far away is the nearest town?” I asked after a few minutes of walking.

“A few miles.”

“Okay.”

Since Crow wasn’t exactly a conversationalist, I was left with my thoughts. I decided to think about the story I was working on - well, one of them, anyway. 

So far, it was about this elven girl who leaves her village to explore the world, as well as learn more about the human race, which kind of dominated most places. The only reason she’d never come across them before was the fact that her village was in a very secluded, hidden area. Maybe some enchantment is involved too. She also has sacred tattoos that’d been passed down from generation to generation, but what she doesn’t know is that they also contain some hidden power. And that was all I had at the moment.

Maybe elves are on the brink of extinction, and part of her quest is to discover them. Maybe humans don’t know about the elves’ existence since there’s so few of them left. Maybe...

After becoming lost in my thoughts for maybe a good half hour, I collapsed. Just like before, fatigue washed over me, except much stronger. I shook my head and shakily rose to my feet. I can handle this. Surely, it isn’t too much farther. Once again, my weakened legs collapsed from underneath me. I tried to get up but couldn’t find the strength to do it.

Aw, shit, I’m going to pass out, aren’t….I…?

END OF CHAPTER ONE

[elizabethan-memes]

Can you elaborate on Erusamus and the reformation please, or at least point me toward sources? Politics make more sense than philosophy to me, so I see the reformation through the lense of Henry VIII, or the Duke of Prussia who dissolved the teutonic order, or France siding with the protestants during the 30 Years War because Protestants > Hapsburgs

So sorry to take so long!

If you needed this answer for academic reasons, given that summer term is pretty much done I’m probably too late to help, but I hate to leave an ask unanswered.

HELLA LONG ESSAY BENEATH THE CUT SORRY I WROTE SELF-INDULGENTLY WITHOUT EDITING SO THERE IS WAY MORE EXPLANATION THAN YOU PROBABLY NEED

Certainly religion has been politicised, you need look no further than all the medieval kings having squabbles with the pope. Medieval kings were not as devastated by the prospect of excommunication as you’d expect they’d be in a super-devout world, it was kinda more of a nuisance (like, idk, the pope blocking you on tumblr)  than the “I’m damned forever! NOOOOOOO!” thing you’d expect. I’m not saying excommunication wasn’t a big deal, but certainly for Elizabeth I she was less bothered than the pope excommunicating her than the fact that he absolved her Catholic subjects of allegiance to her and promised paradise to her assassin (essentially declaring open season on her).

I think, however, in our secular world we forget that religion was important for its own sake. Historians since Gibbon have kind of looked down on religion as its own force, seeing it as more a catalyst for economic change (Weber) or a tool of the powerful. If all history is the history of class struggle, then religion becomes a weapon in class warfare rather than its own force with its own momentum. For example, historians have puzzled over conversion narratives, and why Protestantism became popular among artisans in particular. Protestantism can’t compete with Catholicism in terms of aesthetics or community rituals, it’s a much more interior kind of spirituality, and it involves complex theological ideas like predestination that can sound rather drastic, so why did certain people find it appealing?

(although OTOH transubstantiation is a more complex theological concept than the Protestant idea of “the bread and wine is just bread and wine, it’s a commemoration of the Last Supper not a re-enactment, it aint that deep fam”).

I’ve just finished an old but interesting article by Terrence M. Reynolds in Concordia Theological Quarterly vol. 41 no. 4 pp.18-35 “Was Erasmus responsible for Luther?” Erasmus in his lifetime was accused of being a closet Protestant, or “laying the egg that Luther hatched”. Erasmus replied to this by saying he might have laid the egg, but Luther hatched a different bird entirely. Erasmus did look rather proto Protestant because he was very interested in reforming the Church. He wanted more people to read the Bible, he had a rather idyllic dream of “ploughmen singing psalms as they ploughed their fields”. He criticised indulgences, the commercialisation of relics and pilgrimages and the fact that the Papacy was a political faction getting involved in wars. He was worried that the rituals of Catholicism meant that people were more mechanical in their religion than spiritual: they were memorising the words, doing the actions, paying the Church, blindly believing anything a poorly educated priest regurgitated to them. They were confessing their sins, doing their penances like chores and then going right back to their sins. They were connecting with the visuals, but not understanding and spiritually connecting with the spirit of Jesus’ message and his ideals of peace and love and charity and connecting with God. Erasmus translated the NT but being a Renaissance humanist, he went ad fontes (‘to the source’) and used Greek manuscripts, printing the Greek side by side with the Latin so that readers could compare and see the translation choices he made. His NT had a lot of self-admitted errors in it, but it was very popular with Prots as well as Caths. Caths like Thomas More were cool with him doing it, but it was also admired by Prots like Thomases and Cromwell and Cranmer and Tyndale himself. When coming across Greek words like presbyteros, Erasmus actually chose to leave it as a Greek word with its own meaning than use a Latin word that didn’t *quite* fit the meaning of the original.

However, he did disagree with Protestants on fundamental issues, especially the question of free will. For Luther, the essence was sole fide: salvation through faith alone. He took this from Paul’s letter to the Romans, where it says that through faith alone are we justified. Ie, humans are so fallen (because of the whole Eve, apple, original sin debacle) and so flawed and tainted by sin, and God is so perfect, that we ourselves will never be good enough. All the good works in the world will never reach God’s level of perfection and therefore we all deserve Hell, but we won’t go to hell because God and Jesus will save us from the Hell we so rightly deserve, by grace and by having faith in Jesus’ sacrifice, who will alone redeem us.  The opposite end of the free will/sola fide spectrum is something called Pelagianism, named after the guy who believed it, Pelagius, who lived centuries and centuries before the Ref, it’s the belief that humans can earn their salvation by themselves, by good works. Both Caths and Prots considered Pelagius a heretic. Caths like Erasmus believed in a half-way house: God reaches out his hand to save you through Jesus’ example and sacrifice, giving you grace, and you receive his grace, which makes you want to be a good person and do good works (good works being things like confession of sins, penances, the eucharist, charity, fasting, pilgrimages) and then doing the good works means you get more grace and you are finally saved, or at least you will go to purgatory after death AND THEN be saved and go to heaven, rather than going straight to Hell, which is what happens if you reject Jesus and do no good works and never repent your sins. If you don’t receive his grace and do good works, you won’t make the grade for ultimate salvation.

(This is why it’s important to look at the Ref as a theological as well as a political movement because if you only look at the political debates, Erasmus looks more Protestant than he actually was.)

There are several debates happening in the Reformation: the role of the priest (which is easily politicised) free will vs predestination, transubstantiation or no transubstantiation (is or isn’t the bread and wine transformed into the body and blood of Jesus by God acting through the priest serving communion) and the role of scripture. A key doctrine of Protestantism is sola scriptura. Basically: if it’s in the Bible, it’s the rules. If it’s not in the Bible, it’s not in the rules. No pope in the bible? No pope! No rosaries in the bible? No using rosaries! (prayer beads)

However, both Caths and Prots considered scripture v.v. important. Still, given that the Bible contains internal contradictions (being a collection of different books written in different languages at different times by different people) there was a hierarchy of authority when it came to scripture. As a general rule of thumb, both put the New T above the Old T in terms of authority. (This is partly why Jews and Muslims have customs like circumcision and no-eating-pig-derived-meats that Christians don’t have, even though the order of ‘birth’ as it were goes Judaism-Christianity-Islam. All 3 Abrahammic faiths use the OT, but only Christians use the NT.)

1.       The words of Jesus. Jesus said you gotta do it, you gotta do it. Jesus said monogamy, you gotta do monogamy. Jesus said no divorce, you gotta do no divorcing (annulment =/= divorce). Jesus said no moneylending with interest (usury), you gotta do no moneylending with interest (which is partly why European Jews did a lot of the banking. Unfortunately, disputes over money+religious hatred is a volatile combination, resulting in accusations of conspiracy and sedition, leading to hate-fuelled violence and oppression.) The trouble with the words of Jesus is that you can debate or retranslate what Jesus meant, especially  easily as Jesus often spoke in parables and with metaphors. When Jesus said “this is my body…this is my blood” at the Last Supper, is that or is that not support for transubstantiation? When Jesus called Peter the rock on which he would build the church, was that or was that not support for the apostolic succession that means Popes are the successor to St Peter, with Peter being first Pope? When the gospel writers said Jesus ‘did more things and said more things than are contained in this book’, does that or does that not invalidate the idea of sola scriptura?

2.       The other New Testament writers, especially St. Paul and the Relevation of St John the Divine. (Divine meaning like seer, divination, not a god or divinity). These are particularly relevant when it comes to discussing the role of priests and priesthood, only-male ordination, and whether women can preach and teach religion.

3.       The Old Testament, especially Genesis.

4.       The apocryphal or deuterocanonical works. These books are considered holy, but there’s question marks about their validity, so they’re not as authoritative as the testaments. I include this because the deuterocanonical book 2 Maccabees was used as scriptural justification for the Catholic doctrine of purgatory, but 2 Maccabees is the closest scipture really gets to mentioning any kind of purgatory. Protestants did not consider 2 Maccabees to be strong enough evidence to validate purgatory.

5.       The Church Fathers, eg. Origen, Augustine of Hippo. Arguably their authority often comes above apocryphal scripture. It’s from the Church Fathers that the concept of the Trinity (one god in 3 equal persons, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit) is developed because it’s not actually spelled out explicitly in the NT. Early modern Catholics and Protestants both adhered to the Trinity and considered Arianism’s interpretation of the NT (no trinity, God the Father is superior to Jesus as God the Son) to be heresy. Church Fathers were important to both Catholics and Protestants: Catholics because Catholics did not see scripture as the sole source of religious truth, so additions made by holy people are okay so long as they don’t *contradict* scripture, and so long as they are stamped with the church council seal of approval, Protestants because they believed that the recent medieval theologians and the papacy had corrupted and altered the original purity of Christianity. If they could show that Church Fathers from late antiquity like Augustine agreed with them, that therefore proved their point about Christianity being corrupted from its holy early days.

Eamon Duffy’s book Stripping of the Altars is useful because it questions the assumptions that the Reformation and Break with Rome was inevitable, or that the Roman Catholic Church was a corrupt relic of the past that had to be swept aside for Progress, or that most people even wanted the Ref in England to happen. Good history essays need to discuss different historians’ opinions and Duffy can be relied upon to have a different opinion than Protestant historians. Diarmaid MacCulloch’s works are good at explaining theological concepts, he is a big authority on church history and he’s won a whole bunch of prizes. He was actually ordained a deacon in the Church of England in the 1980s but stopped being a minister because he was angry with the institution for not tolerating the fact he had a boyfriend. The ODNB is a good source to access through your university if you want to read a quick biography on a particular theologian or philosopher, but it only covers British individuals. Except Erasmus, who has a page on ODNB despite being not British because he’s just that awesome and because his influence on English scholarship and culture was colossal. Peter Marshall also v good, esp on conversion. Euan Cameron wrote a mahoosive book called the European Reformation.“More versus Tyndale: a study of controversial technique” by Rainer Pineas is good for the key differences in translation of essential concepts between catholic and protestant thinkers. The Sixteenth Century Journal is a good source of essays as well.

[theres-a-goldensky]

Good Omens fic - God Complex

Length: 1061 words Rating: General

*

She visited on a Sunday, because She had a sense of humour, and because She did most of her business on Sundays anyway. She never had to wait in line at the store then, since everyone was busy at church.

So it was a Sunday, sometime after the first averted apocalypse. Aziraphale was strolling through one of the aisles, his fingers grazing the spines of the books, while Crowley lounged on a leather couch in the corner, watching him avidly. 

When the door opened, both of them turned towards Her. Crowley dismissed Her immediately, his attention returning to Aziraphale, while Her angel did a poor job of suppressing a sigh.

“Oh, hello,” he greeted Her politely. “I’m afraid we’ll be closing for lunch soon.”

“I won’t take long,” She answered.

“Did you have an idea of what you’re looking for?” Aziraphale asked. “Chances are I won’t have it, I’m afraid.”

She made her way to the closest row of books, a whole shelf dedicated to largely inaccurate old maps of the world. 

“You know, Aziraphale,” She said, ignoring his surprise, “say what you will about penicillin and automobiles and computers and all that. The invention I’m most proud of has to be the printing press. Humans with their incredible, limitless imaginations somehow managing to fit it all neatly on the page.” She paused and then added, “But, of course, you, of all people, understand that.”

As She spoke, Aziraphale slowly moved closer, his face the familiar mixture of awe, fear and devotion that she was used to seeing directed Her way. 

“It’s…” He put a hand on the wall to steady himself. “It’s been a long time.”

“Has it?” She asked. “For you maybe. Since I was in the neighbourhood, I thought I’d drop in and see how you two were doing after that whole dust up.”

Crowley walked over to stand shoulder to shoulder with Aziraphale, his hips moving in a way that was definitely not part of Her original design. 

“Sorry, I don’t think we’ve met,” he said with a caustic, ingratiating grin, causing Aziraphale to make a choking noise beside him. “I’m Anthony Crowley. What’s your name?”

She accepted his handshake and watched with amusement as his eyes widened behind his glasses. 

“My name? Good question,” She mused. “I guess it depends on who you ask.”

She released his hand and watched him stumble back, the arm that had touched Her clutched protectively against his chest.

“Crowley!” Aziraphale shouted, rushing over to him.

“Oh, he’s fine,” She said. “It’s just shock. It’ll wear off in a second. Excellent work, by the way, you two. Especially you, Crowley. That baby swap went off without a hitch.”

The gurgling sound that came out of Crowley’s mouth was fascinating but not very attractive. She let them pull themselves together while she had a look around.

“I like this shop. It’s nice. Cozy. Just being in here makes Me want a warm cup of cocoa. And I’ve never even tried cocoa,” She admitted. “I’m more the apple juice type.”

“You…” Aziraphale began, dumbfounded. “I...You...But…” Finally, after several seconds of indecision, he settled on, “You’re American again.”

“Wha…” She started and then listened to Herself. “Hello? Hello? Hello? Huh. I guess I am American now. I had kind of a Queen Elizabeth thing going on for a while there.”

“I remember,” Aziraphale responded faintly.

“Sure,” She said. “But this makes sense, because I’ve been really getting into American television lately. Did you know that Grey’s Anatomy is still on the air? It’s crazy, but they keep thinking up new plot lines, so...Hey, do you want me to tell you how it ends? No, no, I won’t spoil it for you.”

“What are You doing here?” Crowley asked, regaining some of his bravado. “What do You want from us?”

“Like I said, I’m just visiting,” She replied. “You both were always my favourites, so I thought I’d stop by, check in.”

Crowley looked poleaxed, as if She had hit him with a steel pipe. “Liar,” he hissed. “I always knew You were a liar.”

“Crowley, no,” Aziraphale said frantically. He touched Crowley’s arm, but the demon shrugged him off. 

“Your favourite? You cast me out!” he cried.

“Oh give Me a break,” She said with a roll of her eyes. “You hated Heaven. You complained constantly.”

“And that’s all it takes, is it? A bit of workplace whinging, and it’s straight down to Hell?” 

“To Earth, you mean,” She corrected.

Crowley crossed his arms over his chest. “You didn’t station me here, Lucifer did.”

She snorted and then did it again because She’d never tried that before and it tickled pleasantly inside of Her nose. “Really? That guy? You think he has that kind of foresight? Come on.” She waved the idea away. “No, I put you on Earth, in the Garden. And then gave everything you ever wanted.”

Crowley’s eyes cut to the side to look at Aziraphale, who was gazing back at him softly.

“Oh shut it,” he said to Aziraphale and then turned back to Her. “That is certainly some revisionist history. It took over six thousand years.”

“Don’t be such a drama queen,” She responded. “You’re immortal! Six thousand years is basically like a bank holiday weekend. And how is it My fault you two took so long? I mean…” She clapped Her hands for emphasis. “How…” clap “many…” clap “times…” clap “could I…” clap “slam…” clap “you two…” clap “together? I locked you in an elevator. Take the hint.”

“That was You with the lift?” Aziraphale cried.

“It’s always Me. Honestly, you guys were more stubborn than the ancient Mesopotamians, and I had to drown them. Anyway, glad it’s all sorted out now. I’ve gotta run. There’s a bingo tournament happening in the church down the block, and I promised at least a dozen of the players that I’d help them out. I’ll see you around.” 

She opened the door and turned to see them both staring at her, their mouths agape.

“So long,” She said. “Farewell, auf Wiedersehen…” 

She raised an eyebrow at Aziraphale, who finished meekly, “Goodbye.”

AO3

[thanksjro]

Children of a Lesser Matrix: It’s Like A Saturday Morning Cartoon, But With… Genocide

Children of a Lesser Matrix is by no means a complete work- more of an outline that never got past the “slap some ideas in as they come to you” stage. Fun fact: you don’t have to write in sequential order if you don’t want to. It can actually help with writer’s block to jump around.

Let’s take a look at the writing process, shall we?  

I wasn’t kidding when I said the self-insert got the shaft in Eugenesis.

It turns out that back when the Transmasters UK club was a thing, it was pretty common for the members to have a sort of mascot for themselves, a character that would show up in their work repeatedly. You see it nowadays with fanfic writers too, so it isn’t exactly an odd phenomenon, but it’s something I found interesting.

You know who else shows up repeatedly in Roberts’ other works?

Throwback.

But that’s a topic for another day.

This story takes place in the year of 1990. No peering into the future here; this was probably set in the modern day at the time of writing. Seeing as Eugenesis was first published in 2001, it’s safe to assume that we’re looking at the work of a very young Roberts.

Our focus at present is an asteroid in uncharted space.

Oh!

Oh.

Looks like these guys are Autobots, and their ship crashed into this space rock, killing them instantly. These must be the equivalent of Transformers’ red-shirts, because it usually takes a little more to take them out. There’s also a Decepticon, but we’ll get to him in a second.

What else is on this asteroid? Oh, y’know, nothing special. Just the Creation Matrix.

AND IT’S EVIL.

And everyone knows that green is the color of EVIL.

We’ve got an interesting take on the Matrix here, in that A) it’s evil, and B) it’s sentient. Like, really sentient. Also, it can summon demons, and is gonna stuff them in these Autobot corpses it found in the ship.

No mention of what it does with Thunderwing, if anything at all.

Yep. Thunderwing. If you read the IDW Stormbringer miniseries, or the MTMTE Revolutions one-shot, you know about Thunderwing at least a little. In the Marvel UK comics, his whole shtick was that he was obsessed with obtaining the Creation Matrix, believing himself to have an affinity with it. Guess that sort of backfired on him here.

This is the first time I’ve seen something bolded like this in Roberts’ work, and I really couldn’t tell you exactly why, but it’s oddly endearing. Maybe it the mental image of this 14-year old kid just furiously getting this outline down, underlining the word “will" so hard the lead in his pencil breaks off.

We get hit with an interlude, taking place inside a robot grandpa.

Of course, I’m being facetious, but this is a little interesting. Perhaps this is referring to his base on Cybertron, and not Alpha Trion himself. It seems more likely than Roberts mistaking the name for a place.

And who’s inside Delta Triton? Why, it’s Skimmer!

You probably don’t know Skimmer.

Skimmer was actually in MTMTE #41- or at least, he was mentioned. Hailing from Caminus and serving under Thunderclash, the comic doesn’t even know what gender he is. He’s male. Probably can’t put that on the wiki, seeing as this is about as far from “canon” as it gets- an unpublished, basically unwritten fanfiction. It’ll be our little secret, just between you, me, and James Roberts.

Skimmer runs into his boss Quillion- who does not show up anywhere else, as far I can can tell- who doesn’t look terribly happy at the moment. There’s a huge blip on the radar, and it isn’t anyone they want to have over for tea.  

Language!

Quillion orders for these massive rocket boosters they’ve strapped to the moon be turned on so they can get the hell out of the way of this honestly preposterously large pile of Decepticons coming their way. They flip the switch, and moon #3 blasts off.

Oh hi, Luna 01, didn’t recognize you there!

Back at the asteroid, the Matrix went and brought the Autobots back from the dead, and proceeds to wax poetic  on the nature of life, and how its new underlings will serve it.

That’s the royal we, baby. The Matrix is making no bones about it, this thing is KING. Seems like the Omniforce is a Roberts-original idea. Wonder what that’s all about. And what of this new force of evil?

Oh my fucking god his name is Genocide.

If I were a middle-school kid reading this outline, I’d be losing my mind over how cool and edgy this was. Roberts is trying so hard here, and I’m all about it. You go, tiny JRo. You go full cowl on these evil robots.

Our Omniforce have personalities to match their new looks and identities, and it’s about what you’d expect- these boys are a drop of blood in the water away from going completely feral. Also, Thunderwing’s starting to wake up. So, that’ll be a thing soon.

Back at the interlude, everything’s settling down as the gravity rights itself. The moon almost hit light-speed- which, holy shit- but it looks like the laws of inertia in a vacuum are on vacation today.

Not that I expect a kid from the 90’s to know about that.

They’re roughly 7000 hours away from Cybertron, so they better start heading back now. Assuming that there’s still a Cybertron to go back to.

Back with the first plot, Thunderwing’s having a seizure- Roberts’ prose characters seem to do that a lot- and the Matrix is freaking out, because if he dies, they won’t have a ride off this barren space rock. There’s only one thing to do!

The Matrix zaps Thunderwing with green (evil!) lightning, saving him from the brink of death. Thunderwing is less than enthused with this turn of events.

You get redundancies like this when outlining, it happens.

Thunderwing is pissed, and the brand-spanking new Omniforce isn’t super sure how to handle the current situation. The Matrix, thinking quickly, merges with Thunderwing.

This does not help the situation.

You’ve had them for five minutes, and you’re already killing them. I know you’re new to this, Matrix, but come on now.

TWENTY THOUSAND YEARS LATER, it turns out that Quillion’s estimate of their arrival back at Cybertron was off by just a smidge. The moon runs into a tomb of all things in the depths of space, and brings it on inside to see what all the hubbub’s about.

It’s got a Mind-Krell in it.

No, I have no idea what a Mind-Krell is. Another Roberts original. He’s always been rather ambitious as a writer, it would seem.

Jumping back in time, Thunderwing’s throwing out his rawest lines, and it’s amazing.

Like holy shit, I unironically love this. I wish he’d decided to do more with this, it’s fantastic.

We get our first taste of action. Theres a lot going on here: Genocide is apparently a necromancer, capable of controlling the dead, which Thunderwing currently technically is. However, this takes time to set up, so it’s Black Fusion’s turn to step up to the plate. He shoots off a volley of Black Fusion from his eyes, knocking Thunderwing over.

Yes, they’re named after their powers. Or are their powers named after them? Anyway, they’re about to head for the shuttle, when Genocide orders Kaos to use his- you guessed it- Kaos Energy.

We’re also dealing with the “can’t just use said” phase that every young writer goes through. Kaos’ staff, which he’s had this whole time, turns into a gun? It’s not clear, but he shoots Thunderwing and then dives into the shuttle at the last possible second, Indiana Jones-style.

As the shuttle takes off, Genocide warns their resident possessor Daemon to not do the thing, even though he really, really wants to. With that, they train the onboard weapons systems on Thunderwing below- all of them.

And that’s all we got for Children of a Lesser Matrix.

Clearly there would have been more if he’d continued with the ideas, but as is we have a fascinating snapshot of what was probably one of Roberts’ first forays into writing. You don’t get to do this with very many authors, where you can go this far back and see what they were doing, what changed, what stayed the same. I wasn’t expecting to see ideas from MTMTE pop up here- and certainly not ones that were as big as the moon thrusters.

If this entry seems a little soft around the edges, it’s probably because it is. I’m of two mind about covering this at all. On one hand: it was published online for others to read, which makes it free game, and it’s a part of his growth as a writer, so of course I’m going to look at it! On the other hand: Literal. Child. I wouldn’t make fun of a kid just starting out now, and I’m definitely not trying to rag on a young writer retroactively. That being said...

I’m not gonna lie, this is kind of a rough sit. I mean, other than it being an idea springboard that never went anywhere. There are some neat ideas, but… look, anything that’s truly made from the bottom of one’s heart, out of pure love, is always going to be at least a little cringe-inducing. That’s just how it goes, even with the best writers, and this is an outline written by a kid who grew up on 80’s-era media and was just starting out.

Still, there was a lot of potential here. It’s ambitious, it’s over the top, it’s silly and earnest. I like it. It makes me smile to read it and think about the person creating it and having fun doing it.

It just goes to show that no one starts out amazing at what they do.

Up next, a relic of a bygone era- the ‘zine! It’s The Mystery of the Transformer Decoys, a ‘zine that was printed out and sent via snail mail. We truly are spoiled by the internet.