#wait why write a short paper on game engines

[the-delightful-temptation]

//I hate this class

[phillippadgettwrites]

Mile High Club

Rated X / 2477 Words / Posted on AO3

Mulder stretches his jaw wide until his ears pop, and the volume in the airplane cabin bursts. The persistent hum of the engine and the rush of the pressurized air, as well as the chatter of the passengers around them, are all now several decibels higher.

He turns to look at Scully curled up against the wall of the cabin, her eyes cast out the window at the patchwork landscape of the midwest, and he feels a little thrill imagining what they might get up to later. Will he fuck her up against the door inside his apartment the moment they step through? Will he bend her over the arm of her couch and take her from behind, his thumb tucked into her asshole? While he wouldn’t object if she decided to overturn her rule about sex while on assignment, he will admit that the forced abstinence leads to some pretty incredible compensation when they touch down in DC.

“Then why did you agree to come in the first place?” the man seated just behind him says loudly, his voice dripping with irritation.

Scully turns her head away from the window sharply and looks at Mulder with raised eyebrows. He smirks, cocking his head in the direction of the voice, and they wait.

Over the years, they’ve found themselves audience to all kinds of awkward discussions while held captive in the air: break ups, confessions of infidelity, the ending of long-standing friendships. At first Scully pretended not to listen, and to be offended by Mulder’s eavesdropping, but now she is nothing short of delighted when a boring flight home becomes as dramatic as an episode of Jerry Springer.

“Keep your voice down,” the woman behind Scully hisses. “I came because I thought maybe things would be different for once, but I can already tell that they won’t be.”

“What are you even talking about?” the man whispers harshly.

Mulder pulls a pen and small spiral notebook out of the interior pocket of his suit jacket, turning it to a blank page and scrawling something before he hands it to Scully.

Stock broker, always at the office, never makes time for her.

Scully smiles and flips down her tray table, and is writing when the woman speaks again.

“You’ve barely said two words to me, Tony,” the woman says, equal parts anger and hurt in her voice. “It’s like I’m not even here.”

Scully passes the notebook back to him, and he lowers his own tray table as he reads.

Car salesman, obsessed with football, goes MIA from September to January.

“I told you I was going to be keeping an ear on the game, Amy,” Tony retorts, and Scully’s mouth falls open with surprise and delight as she takes her win.

Mulder shakes his head, bringing pen to paper.

“There’s always a game,” Amy grumbles, her voice fading as she turns toward the window. “It’s always something.”

The pad of paper lands back in front of Scully with a slap.

High school football star, never got over not living his dream of playing for the Chiefs.

“That’s not fair,” Tony says, his seat squeaking as he pivots his body towards Amy. “You know how important football is to me. It’s like you and your makeup thing.”

“My makeup thing?” Amy asks derisively, her head whipping back to address her husband. “You don’t even know what it’s called, do you?”

Scully writes furiously, trying to get something out before she can be proven wrong or right.

“Oh my god, Amy, don’t make this a bigger deal than it is,” Tony complains.

Scully hands Mulder the pad, on which she has written Mary Kay!!!! I’d bet money on it.

“The Chiefs were founded in 1960. Grbac is their quarterback. Cunningham is their coach. I listen when you talk, Tony,” Amy says cuttingly.

Tony heaves a sigh, offering no response. There’s a beat of silence, and Mulder writes I might have to give you this one, G-woman on the paper while Scully leans over and watches. She smiles, satisfied, and sits back in her seat.

“What is it that you think I get from this relationship?” Amy asks, not accepting Tony’s withdrawal from the conversation. “It’s a completely genuine question; I’d like to know.”

“Um, a roof over your head, food on the table, money for your—Sally Kay or whatever,” Tony lists off irately. “I bust my ass to provide that cushy life you enjoy, Amy. And sometimes when I get home, I just want to watch the game and relax without you getting all up my ass about some fucking socks on the floor.”

“Mary Kay,” Amy corrects him, and Scully grins victoriously.

“Mary Kay, whatever,” Tony spits back. “And I mow the lawn, and I take the trash out to the curb, and there’s the sex stuff, too. So if you think you can do better, by all means, go find a man who will do all that and also listen to you blab about what happened on Dharma and Greg.”

Amy scoffs, and Scully reaches across the armrest to write something on the pad.

The “sex stuff.”

Mulder looks at her questioningly and she holds up a finger, indicating that he should wait.

“Sex stuff?” Amy repeats, and Scully grabs his forearm.

“Don’t go there, Amy,” Tony warns. “That happens to everybody sometimes.”

Mulder draws a stick-figure image of a flaccid penis with a frowny face next to it and sets it on Scully’s tray table. She unsuccessfully stifles a laugh, and it comes out through her nose as an almost-snort.

“Yeah, I know it does,” Amy says, though her tone is less than reassuring. “But I think most men satisfy their wives in other ways instead of just turning over and going to sleep, Tony. In fact, I know they do because my girlfriends all tell me about their boyfriends and husbands doing things that—”

Amy stops speaking, and Mulder fights the urge to look back and see whether the couple are in a face-to-face standoff, or if she’s turned away from him again. Scully taps on his arm to draw his attention to the pad of paper.

He’s never made her orgasm.

His eyebrows lift and he looks at her face. He thinks about the first time he made her come, curled up on her living room couch with his fingers tucked inside her cunt. He thinks about the dozens of times since, the feeling of her contracting tightly around his cock, or his fingers, or his tongue. How that could not be a man’s singular focus when entering a sexual enounter with a woman is entirely beyond him.

He takes the pad of paper and taps the end of the pen against it, contemplating.

“Are you saying you’re not satisfied?” Tony asks, and for the first time he actually sounds concerned.

Amy sighs deeply.

“What is there to be satisfied by, Tony?” she asks, defeated. “Do you think I get off from you humping me for sixty seconds?”

I’ve made you orgasm…right?

He’s quite confident that the answer is yes, but some part of him worries that he’s an ignoramus like Tony whose confidence is rooted in ignorance. He holds the pad of paper for a moment, hesitating, then carefully sets it down on Scully’s tray table. She reads it but doesn’t look up, holding her hand out for the pen. Suddenly, his chest feels tight.

“I want to ask why you wouldn’t, but I’m guessing that’s a stupid question,” Tony replies, and Mulder can’t help but feel sorry for the guy.

“Jesus, Tony,” Amy says under her breath. “This is exactly what I’m talking about. You just don’t care. About my hobbies, or my friends, or my orgasms.”

“Are you not—do you not—” he tries, but apparently can’t bring himself to ask the question.

“Sure I do,” Amy says, then adds, “but not with you.”

Scully finishes writing and hands him the pad. He steals a glance at her face, trying to prepare himself, but her expression is completely neutral.

I had an orgasm last night just thinking about all the orgasms you’ve given me lately, Mulder.

He feels blood rush to his cock and he shifts in his seat.

“You’re cheating?” Tony accuses, and Amy nearly laughs.

“No, Tony, I’m not cheating, Jesus Christ,” Amy corrects him.

“Are you saying you—” Tony says, then lowers his voice before he continues. “Are you saying you masturbate?”

Is that so? Tell me more.

He passes her the paper without looking at her, and listens to the scritch of the pen as she writes back.

“Are you saying you don’t?”

“Of course I do, but I’m a man,” Tony hisses.

“Women have needs too, Tony,” Amy hisses back. “I want to get off too, and you have proven to be absolutely no help in that department.”

I couldn’t sleep. I was thinking about last weekend. On your couch? I almost broke my own rule and knocked on your door.

“It’s not my fault you’re—difficult.”

“I’m not difficult! You don’t even try. Have you heard of foreplay, Tony? Or oral sex?!”

On the couch? Do you mean when you rode me and I snuck a finger in your ass?

Mulder passes her the pad and adjusts his trousers, thankful that the tray table obscures the view of his lap. A flight attendant hurries down the aisle, stopping just past their row.

“Sir? Ma’am? I’m going to have to ask you to keep your voices down, please. There are children on the flight.”

“Sorry,” Tony says, chagrined.

That was fun too, but on the occasion I was remembering, it wasn’t your finger in my ass.

He suppresses a groan and writes back.

So you got yourself off thinking about me fucking your ass?

Correct.

How’d you do it?

With my fingers.

Inside? Outside?

Both.

I’m incredibly hard right now.

I can see that.

Can you?

You have a big penis, Mulder. It’s hard to hide.

He looks over at her and licks his lips. Her chest is heaving, and his eyes fall down to her lap.

Are you wet?

I imagine so.

Mile High Club?

In your dreams, G-Man.

I can’t wait to get home.

Your place or mine?

“I didn’t know,” Tony says quietly, and Scully pauses with her hand resting over the pad of paper, listening. “I thought you enjoyed it. You seemed like you did.”

Scully meets Mulder’s eye and holds it. He thinks of her gasping against his mouth, her fingernails digging into his shoulders. He thinks of her wet, slippery cunt strobing around him. He’s never had to wonder if she was enjoying herself.

“Sometimes I pretend that I do,” Amy admits.

“Why?”

“Because I didn’t want to hurt your feelings.”

Scully withdraws her hand and he reads her question. His place is a few minutes closer.

I’m going to bend you over the arm of my couch and fuck you so hard you can’t catch your breath.

Scully clears her throat when she reads it and squirms in her seat.

“Can I try to make it up to you?” Tony asks, deferential. “We have three days in DC. Maybe you could…teach me?”

I look forward to it.

“I can try,” Amy answers. “But you have to promise to be patient and not get frustrated.”

“I won’t,” Tony insists. “I promise.”

Mulder’s car is parked in the far corner of the overnight lot, a lonely island in a sea of gravel. The sun had already slipped behind the horizon before they exited the terminal, and yet the evening is comfortably warm.

He gets her in the back seat, her slacks and panties on the floorboards and her suit jacket tossed over the console. She’s leaning back against the car door, one hand gripping the headrest as he sucks her clit between his teeth. He has two fingers inside her, gently stroking her front wall, and the thumb on his other hand pressed firmly against her asshole. His eyes are on her face, illuminated by a slash of light from the parking lot, and he grinds his erection against the edge of the seat as he devours her.

“Oh,” she whimpers, her eyebrows pushed together and her mouth hanging open. “Oh god, yes, right there.”

He groans, flicking his tongue furiously across her clit and moving his fingers in the same gentle rhythm inside of and on her. He just wants to see it, to feel it, to know that he can do this to her. For her. For himself.

“Oh, I’m gonna come,” she whispers, her muscles tightening.

He’s careful not to change a thing, channeling his enthusiasm instead to the grind of his hips against the edge of the seat, the head of his cock bumping over the trim on each upward thrust. He feels her clench around his fingers, but he doesn’t stop. He keeps licking, keeps stroking, keeps pressing as she falls apart. There is no question as to what he’s doing to her. He’s making her come, hard, and wet and never ending, and he’s already making plans to do it again and again and again.

She reaches for him, though his fingers are still inside her, grabbing him by the shirt collar and pulling him up. She makes quick work of his belt, fly, boxers, pushing them down just far enough for his cock to spring free before she positions him at the entrance to her soaking cunt and grabs him firmly by the ass cheeks, taking him in fully with one thrust. He doesn’t last long, already three quarters of the way there between the plane and the ecstasy of tasting her as she came in his mouth. His hips snap and residual throbs from her orgasm push him up and over, drawing his balls close to his body before he erupts inside her. She holds him close, kissing his gasping mouth, until awareness of time and place returns incrementally.

“Let’s go to your place,” he says, breathless. “Your shower is bigger.”

She smiles and sighs happily, her hands on his ass holding him in place, not allowing him to withdraw.

“I like the way you think,” she says.

“So, just to be absolutely sure, did you?...” he asks, eyebrows raised in question.

“Do I strike you as the kind of woman who would fake an orgasm to protect a man’s ego?” she asks in return, one eyebrow cocked.

“No,” he agrees. “That’s one of the things I like most about you.”

They re-dress, drive to Georgetown, shower and fuck again. He listens to her talk about string theory, about a movie she wants to see, about nothing at all. He knows he’s not perfect, but he tries to be enough. He hopes he’s giving her everything she deserves, and more.

Tagging @today-in-fic

[skyeet-the-writer]

The Love Among Us

Chapter 1-- I’d Never Snitch On Daddy

so i haven’t seen many corpse husband x reader stories on here, so i decided to upload one myself. i’ve been watching jacksepticeye’s among us videos and when i heard corpse talk for the first time, i was like, “hol up” and now i’ve been obsessed with him. also, go stream his music on spotify, it’s amazing. enjoy! x. 

 corpse husband x female!reader

summary: while playing among us, y/n watches corpse kill felix in o2. when his body is reported, however, she doesn’t tell who killed him. 

 word count: ~3.6k

warnings: swearing, mentions of death (not real death), mentions of murder (not real murder)

EDIT: before i wrote this and after i published it, i did not know that corpse did not like to be referred to as “daddy”. had i known this, i would have not even thought of posting this. and since i know now, i won’t refer to him as such in the future. thank you. (10/19/2020)

EDIT 2: this is the first part to my corpse x reader series. i will be adding chapters as we go!

next>

4 rounds before the incident

“I was in coms with PJ!” Sean exclaims. 

“He is doing the liar voice!” Felix shouts with a laugh. 

“I’m not,” Sean tries to say, but everyone talks over him and the voting time ends. Everyone left alive, though it was only four people, had all voted for him and he yells at them as he gets ejected. 

stinky was not the imposter

2 imposters remain

The round ends and everyone unmutes themselves. 

“Lizzie, you saw Felix kill me and you did nothing!” Roomie yells as soon as the round ends and the imposters are revealed. 

“Yeah, because I was the other imposter.”

“Oh. Okay, well that makes sense.”

Everyone laughs and Ken starts the round again. 

“Wait, can I invite y/n to play? She’s doing her twenty-four-hour stream and she just finished playing Monopoly with Mark, Bob, and Wade,” says Lizzie, looking down at her phone as they all appear back in the waiting room. 

“Yes,” Corpse blurts out and there are a few laughs and chuckles. 

“You were quick to answer, Corpse,” Sean teases. 

“Shut up,” Corpse mumbles and there are even more laughs. 

Lizzie smiles and taps into her phone. “I’m gonna invite her.”

~

“I can’t believe that you actually made that deal, y/n,” Wade is telling you after ending the second round of Monopoly that you’ve played with them. 

You smile and cross your legs on your chair. “Look, I was going bankrupt and it seemed good at the time. Besides, Mark was going to win anyway, he owned half of the board.” Your phone buzzes beside you on your desk and you pick it up. “Lizzie texted me.” There’s a sound effect that plays in your headset and you look up at your screen and smile. “Thanks to _lorieplays _for donating a hundred dollars, that means a lot. Thank you so much.”

“Do you want to play another round?” Marks asks. 

You shake your head, reading the text from your friend in England. “No, I don’t want to lose to you again.” You laugh. “Nah, Lizzie wants me to play Among Us with her and a few others. It was fun playing with you guys.”

“It was even though you took all of my money,” Bob snaps. 

You laugh. “Yeah, yeah. See you guys later.”

“Bye,” says Mark.

“See y--” Wade begins but you cut him off when you disconnect from the call. 

“Oops.” You put a hand over your mouth and laugh. “Sorry, Wade. Okay.” You straighten up and glance over everything, making sure it’s all working properly. “I have to pee and I think my roommate ordered pizza, so we’ll be back after this short break. Enjoy this live feed of my pet rats.” You giggle and switch the stream over to a view of your two rats in their cage where you have a camera set up. You take your headset off and head out of your recording room. 

Every two months, you have a twenty-four-hour livestream where you play games with your friends from all around the world. Despite being only twenty-five, your Youtube channel had grown exponentially in the past three years and you’ve had the chance to meet lots of other Youtubers like Markiplier, PewDiePie, and your close friend, LDShadowLady. 

Currently, you’re on hour twenty of twenty-four and you’re beginning to feel the effects of not sleeping for a whole day. You had been drinking coffee and energy drinks for the past four hours and that seemed to perk you up for two hours max. But your roommate had ordered pizza and that would hopefully wake you up. 

After going to the bathroom and grabbing an entire box of pizza, you return to your recording room and sit down. You put your headset back on and eat a slice of pizza before switching the views back to you. “And we’re back. I hope you guys enjoyed my rats because I don’t. They keep me up at night.”

You read a comment while loading up Among Us and laugh. “No, they’re not dead. They’re sleeping. They do that a lot when they’re not fighting.” 

When you finally get into the game and entire the code, you spawn in. You also quickly join the Discord chat and wince when nearly ten voices hit you at once. 

“y/n!” exclaims Lizzie and the other voices die down for a moment before rising to greet you. 

You wince again but laugh. “Jesus, you guys are loud. Hey, Lizzie.” You move your character to the customize tab and go to try and switch your color. But then you frown and realize that you’re stuck with being dark blue. “Damn, I wanted to be white.”

“Do you want to switch?” Corpse asks. 

Your eyes widen you your stomach flips. You hadn’t noticed Corpse was in this game. Immediately, your chat became flooded with keyboard smashing and lots of “omg my shipp” and “y/n rlly said ‘anna oop-’” 

“Uh, yeah, if you don’t mind,” you manage to stutter out and take a bite of pizza as Corpse’s player comes over and the white option becomes available. You select it and also select the goggles in the hats menu. 

“How’s your stream going?” asks Sean. 

You shrug. “Pretty good. I’m super tired, though. I literally almost fell asleep while playing Monopoly with Mark, Wade, and Bob.”

“You went to college, right?” You’re pretty sure that’s Roomie. 

“Yep,” you affirm with a nod even though they can’t see you. “You’d think that those all-nighters writing papers and studying for finals would make me able to do this.”

There’s a laugh in the group and the round starts.

3 rounds before the incident

You scratch your eyebrow and sigh in relief when you’re the crewmate. You mute yourself and slide up in your chair. 

“I like being the crewmate,” you say, heading towards admin as a habit. “It’s a lot less stressful than being imposter.”

After doing your tasks in admin and fueling the engines, you stumble across a dead body in the lower engine and a vent closing. 

“Oh,” you say, and press the report button. You unmute yourself and begin with, “So I saw a vent close but I didn’t see who went in.”

“Who died?” asks Lizzie. 

“Felix,” says Sean. 

You smirk. “It’s always yellow that dies first.”

“Where was the body?” Ken asks. 

“Lower engine,” you reply. 

“I was in medbay with Corpse doing the scan so it wasn’t him,” PJ says and Corpse makes a noise of confirmation. 

This makes your cheeks heat up and you smack a hand over your mouth. Your chat explodes again but you decide to ignore it. 

“And I was doing wires in cafeteria,” Lizzie says. 

“Sean, where were you?” 

“I was in reactor doing the simon says thing,” he answers. 

You sigh. “I hate that one. What about you, Ken?”

“I was with Roomie in electrical doing the power thing. You know, the one where you have to divert it somewhere else.”

“So do we skip then?” asks Lizzie. 

“No one is super sus, so I’m going to skip,” you answer. 

When no one is ejected, you mute yourself again. “I dunno why, but Sean seems pretty sus. Because I didn’t see him on the way down from upper engine. But I guess he could have gotten there in time.” You shrug and run over to the trash chute in the cafeteria. “RIP to Felix, though.”

After doing the trash there, you head down to storage, running into Corpse doing the wires in there. You wait there to clear him and once you do, you run a few circles around him to get his attention and he follows you over to the trash in storage and watches you do that. After that, the two of you head over to electric together and do wires there. 

Suddenly, there’s a body reported and you unmute yourself. 

“Sean just killed Lizzie in front of me!” exclaims PJ. 

“PJ killed Lizzie,” Sean retorts, flipping the blame. “I watched it, he didn’t realize I was there and murdered her.”

“I watched PJ do the scan in medbay, he’s cleared,” Corpse says and you find yourself smiling for no reason. “Sean, you killed Lizzie.”

“I knew he was sus,” you say, grabbing another piece of pizza. You look at the box and your eyes widen. Had you really already eaten half of it?

“Wait wait, how am I sus?” Sean asks. 

You take a moment to swallow. “Because when I was doing fuel earlier, I was running down from upper engine and didn’t see you in reactor. Sure, maybe you could have gotten there earlier, but it was super weird.” 

The discussion time ends and PJ immediately goes to vote for Sean as well as you, Corpse, and everyone else still alive. Sean ends up getting ejected. 

stinky was an imposter 

1 imposter remains

“You’re such a detective, y/n,” Sean says when he gets ejected. 

You laugh. “I just play this game too much.” You then mute yourself and smile. “I am a genius.” 

You end up finishing your tasks quickly after that and then stand in the cafeteria and eat another piece of pizza and read some of the chat. 

“’ What am I going to do after this?’ I don’t know. I might play some Minecraft. Should I have a poll on Twitter? I’m stuck between public Among Us games, Minecraft, and taking random quizzes on Buzzfeed.” You smile and hear another sound effect and something pops up on the screen. “Thank you to coochie man for donating a hundred dollars, that means a lot.” You laugh at their name. “I love your name, by the way.” 

There’s some rattling in the cage behind you and you turn around to see one of your rats drinking water. You turn back to the chat and read another comment. “’ Do you have a crush on Corpse?’” You blush and smile, biting your lip. “I mean, his voice is hot. I’ve never met him since he lives in San Diego and I live in h/t, but yeah, I guess I do. I’ve been listening to his music for the past few days and it’s really good, you guys should go check it out.”

You look up and unmute yourself when a body is reported. “Who died?” you ask. “I wasn’t paying attention.”

“Are you already done with your tasks, y/n?” Corpse asks. 

God, even the way he says your name is making you blush. “Yeah, I get them done quick.”

“She does that,” says Lizzie, “She always gets her tasks done quick.”

“Ken is dead by the way,” says Roomie and your snort, smacking a hand over your mouth. “I found him in the hallway by navigation. Where was everyone else?”

“I was in cafeteria doing nothing,” you say, leaning back in your chair and spinning around just a little. “I think I saw PJ downloading while I was in there, but I wasn’t paying attention.”

“Yeah, I was downloading,” says Ken. 

After more discussion, Corpse points out that Jaiden had been following him and it looked like she had been faking tasks. 

“No I haven’t,” she says. 

“That sounds like something the imposter would say,” you hum with a smirk. “That’s pretty sus, Jaiden.”

Everyone else agrees and you all end up voting Jaiden out. 

jaiden was the imposter

0 imposters remain

You cheer as the round ends and a blue victory screen pops up for the crewmates. “Good game, guys,” you say and play again, waiting for the host. 

~

1 round before the incident 

“Oh my god, I’m imposter again?” you groan and sigh when you spawn back in. “I was just imposter, I don’t want to be it again. I’m so bad at it,”

After another short round of you and Felix losing to the crewmates, you all agreed to play two more rounds before Sean had to leave. So you move your character to admin where PJ is and fake the card swipe before moving over to the admin security thing where you could see who was around where. Luckily, no one appeared to be near admin, so you quickly kill PJ and escape through the vent and come out through medbay. 

“Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god,” you whisper over and over, running down to storage. “That was clean.” You fake getting fuel and go back up to the upper engine. 

When PJ’s body is reported, you see that your fellow imposter, Sean, had reported it. You stay silent for most of the round and only say that you were in the fuel area when it was reported. 

“Yeah, I saw her run past electrical earlier,” Corpse says. You blush and glance at your exploding chat and shake your head. 

After everyone skips the round, you mute yourself once more and head towards navigation. “I hate this.” You drag the last syllable and watch Lizzie enter the room. You wait a moment before walking towards her and killing her, jumping into one of the vents. You let out a sigh and flex your fingers. “I’m so stressed.” You exit out of the vent into shields and your heart stops when you see someone else in there but you realize that it’s the other imposter, Sean, and you relax. 

You run past him and go to the trash compartments and pretend to unload those. And that’s how the rest of the round goes. You kill someone, someone reports it and you vote someone off. Eventually, you and Sean do a double kill and end up winning the round.

You unmute yourself. 

“Let’s go!” Sean exclaims and you smile. 

“I can’t believe you killed me, y/n!” shouts Lizzie. “I thought we were friends.”

You laugh. “There are no friends in this game. I’m not loyal to anyone in this game. You could be my best friend and I would fucking murder you.”

“That’s cold,” says Roomie as everyone else spawns back in. 

“Yeah,” you nod. 

“Wait, PJ disconnected,” says Sean, and you all end up waiting for him to rejoin. 

In that time, you look at your chat and say, “Hey, do you guys have any questions for who I’m playing with. I’m asking you, chat.”

“I swear if someone asks about my hands, I’m leaving,” Corpse says and everyone laughs. 

You laugh louder when you read a comment and read it aloud, “_Ironlady _says that you should be a hand model, Corpse.”

“Okay, I’m leaving,” you hear Corpse say over everyone laughing. 

“No, stay!” you exclaim, trying not to laugh. “C’mon, don’t leave.”

He sighs deeply and your brain goes fuzzy. “Fine. I’ll stay for you.”

You beam and your tummy turns. You ignore the whistles and remarks from everyone else and stand beside Corpse. You suddenly wish that the little bean characters could hold hands. 

When PJ joins the server again, Ken starts the round and you cross your fingers, hoping to get crewmate. 

0 rounds before the incident

You mute yourself and sigh when you’re a crewmate. “Thank god.” You let out a breath and go over to admin with everyone else. You swipe your card and go to the cafeteria to do some wires there. 

The game turns out to be rather uneventful. A few people die and two people are voted off before the game gets truly interesting. And that happens when you walk in on Corpse and Felix. 

“I’ve had this song stuck in my head for days,” you’re saying, walking from electrical over to O2. “And I can’t get it out of my head. Maybe singing it will help.” You hum the first part. “Don't go in there, you'll become one. Freaky creatures, monster party. Eyes of yellow, scales and feathers, tails in tethers. Turn the lights off. Bend the nightmare, you control it. Artful dodger, easy does it. Shut the closet, get under the covers. Snakes and lovers. Turn the lights off.” You do a little dance for a moment and continue hum the song, glancing at the chat as you go towards O2 after doing wires in storage. 

“Like, I know the song, it’s just been stuck in my head,” you explain. “And it kind of annoys me--”

But you stop as you enter O2 and watch Corpse murder Felix. Neither one of you move and you don’t know what to do. “Uhhh.” 

Then, without thinking, you turn straight around and make your way away from the scene of the murder. “I didn’t see anything!” you shout to no one. “I suddenly can’t see who murdered Felix.” You smack a hand over your mouth and stand in the middle of a hallway. “Oh my god, what do I do? I don’t want to snitch on Corpse, he’s hot.” You scratch the back of your neck and shrug, continuing on to reactor. “I didn’t see anything.”

You’re in the middle of doing the simon says in reactor when Felix’s body is reported. You unmute yourself and fidget with the sleeve of your hoodie. You know exactly who killed Felix. 

“--was in O2,” says Jaiden and you focus back into the conversation. “And I didn’t see anyone around.”

“I saw you heading that way, y/n, but I know it wasn’t you because I saw you do the trash in storage.”

You look at the screen when Sean talks to you and you chew your lip. “I know who killed Felix.”

“Who?” asks almost everyone at the same time. 

You close your eyes and swallow. It’s just a game, why are you taking this so seriously? Suddenly, a song lyric pops into your head and your stomach flips. You imagine yourself saying it and no one knows who you mean except for him. 

You open your eyes. “I’d never snitch on daddy.”

There’s a laugh in the chat and you blush fiercely, your livestream chat blowing up once again.

“I think we know who it is, then,” says Sean, laughing. 

“Yeah,” agrees Lizzie and your eyes widen. 

“Wait, what?” you ask, watching everyone vote almost as soon as the discussion time ends. “Wait, hang on, who--”

“We know who you’re talking about, y/n,” PJ tells you. 

You vote for yourself and your brain goes blank as you see that everyone voted for Corpse. He even voted for himself. They knew. They all _knew _about your feelings for Corpse. 

The round ends with Corpse being voted out and the crewmates win. There’s some talking, but you stay on the victory screen. You’re trying to decide if your mad or embarrassed or both. 

“I didn’t know you’d say that, y/n,” Corpse says, effectively breaking you out of your trance. “I thought you were gonna snitch on me.”

“You heard her,” teases Lizzie and you can tell she’s grinning. “She’d never snitch on you, Corpse.”

He laughs and you feel something in a certain place. “Oh my god, I’m gonna die of embarrassment.” You put your face in your hands, listening to your friends tease you in the chat. You suddenly want to jump out your window and run into traffic. 

“Don’t die,” comes Corpse’s voice through the onslaught of teasing. “I’ll be sad.”

“Fuck!” you shout and slam your hand on your desk, shaking your equipment and scaring your rats. “I’m so sorry, Corpse, that was really weird, I--”

“Stop.” He interrupts you and the chat goes silent and you look up at the screen even though you can’t see him. “It’s okay. It was funny.”

Your eyes widen and then narrow. Funny? He thought what you said was funny? How could he think it was funny?

But then he speaks again and he sounds oddly flustered. “Uh, I gotta go. Um, it was fun playing with you guys. Bye, y/n.”

“Bye Cor--” but then he disconnects and you’re left talking to no one. “--pse.”

There’s a long moment of silence until Felix breaks it. “I can’t believe you just watched me die and didn’t do anything about it.”

There are some laughs and you smile faintly, rejoining the game. “Yeah, uh, sorry about that.”

“Are you okay, y/n?” asks Lizzie. 

You blush and swallow. “I don’t know. God, I’m so weird.” You run a hand through your hair and adjust your headphones

“No, you’re not,” Roomie assures you. “He has a crush on you, too.”

Your eyes widen and you scoot up in your chair. “He does?”

“I mean, he called you pretty once during a game and said that he watches your videos a lot, so maybe.”

You groan and sink in your chair. “I’m gonna go, I need to run into traffic now.”

A few people laugh or chuckle and Lizzie asks you if you’re actually going to leave. 

“Yeah,” you tell her. “But not to run into traffic. I’m going to go play Minecraft to soothe myself.”

“Aw.” You can practically hear her frown. “Okay. Bye, y/n.”

“Good luck with your stream,” Ken tells you. 

You grin. “Okay, thanks, bye.”

When you exit the game and leave the chat, you scream. You actually scream and it’s loud. Your roommate even knocks on your door, asking if you’re okay. 

You look at them and nod. “Yeah, totally fine. Probably about to have a mental breakdown, but I’m fine.”

“Okay,” they say and lean on the doorframe. “But I’m not cutting bangs for you again.”

You laugh and nod. “Yeah, okay, fine.” They leave and you turn back to your stream, feeling like you’re about to cry. Corpse knows you have a crush on him. And it seems like he has one on you as well, but now you’re embarrassed because you called him ‘daddy’ on stream.

You rub your eyes. “Well, now I know what’ll be streaming on Twitter tonight,” you tell the chat. 

[thebiggestfan1]

Are you in town? - Matthew Tkachuk (part 1)

part two here

part three here

word count: 1860 words

TW: language, angst (?)

let me know if you want part two, I’m somehow still not sure

...

It was so hot that day. The movers were already gone, the place feeling empty without all the furniture. In a few hours, you'd be long gone, flying far away from Chesterfield.

Some small part of you felt sorry for selling your parents' house - the house you spent your whole childhood living in. But they moved out a few years ago and told you many times they didn't mind at all selling it.

Wiping the sweat off of your eyebrows you made your way through the blooming garden, trying to memorize every little detail. You remembered climbing this tree, you remembered the hole in the fence you made so the neighbour's dog could come play with you, you remembered the time capsule you and Matt buried here when you were fifteen.

Until now, you completely forgot about that. Even though you two didn't talk after he got drafted, it'd be a good idea to meet again since you might never see him again. You might be moving to Calgary but that city was so big it'd be a miracle to meet Matthew somewhere.

So you scrolled through your phone, praying he didn't change his number after all those years as you dialed it.

The phone rang twice before someone picked it up.

"Yes?"

Matthew's voice was so different since the last time you talked.

"Hey Matt, this is Y/N, I'm moving out today and I thought we could dig up the time capsule we buried at my place as kids before I leave. Are you in town?" It was off-season so you might get lucky.

"You are moving out already? But yeah, I can meet you in an hour if you have the time."

"Yes, I'll still be here, don't worry."

"Okay..." There was a moment of awkward silence, neither of you knew how to break it. Was it a bad idea? Of course you wouldn't be as good friends as you once were. But you didn't know it would be this... weird. He didn't say goodbye back when he left to Calgary and didn't answer to any of your calls or messages. What were you thinking? That he wanted to see you?

"So, where are you moving to?" Matt finally continued, making the conversation more bareable.

"Calgary, they offered me an amazing job there."

"Really? I've been there for a few years."

"I heard." Not from you, was what you didn't say. It seemed like he'd heard it nonetheless.

Silence. You hated how distant you've grown - once, a long time ago, you were best friends. You went together to kindergarden and since then you've been the best of best friends. But even after all you went through, you didn't know what to say.

"Nevermind, I have to get going. I'll be at your place at three, okay?"

"Okay. I'll meet you there."

As you hung up, sadness enveloped you. Maybe you shouldn't have called. Maybe it'd be better to never meet Matt again, to remember only the good old times.

But he might be already on his way and you wanted to say a proper goodbye before going far, far away.

You loved him once, you recalled. It broke your heart when he left without looking back.

It irritated you that you couldn't do the same as easily.

...

"Y/N?" a now familiar voice called, the sound of closing car doors echoing through the silent street.

Matt looked same as he did four years ago and still totally different. It was like staring at a stranger you could swear you've already seen before. The curly, those pretty grey-blue eyes and the crooked smile you remembered and thought about too often. He got taller and more mascular over the time he played hockey professionally.

"Hey," you said nervously, tucking your slightly trembling hands into the pockets of your shorts.

Again, that uncomfortable silence took place.

"How long is it?" Since you've last seen each other. Since he'd ignored your calls and messages. Since he'd left you crying as he left this town - as he left you.

"Five years," you said.

Regret flashed in those pretty eyes as he took you in. Did you look to him the same as you did the last time he saw you?

"I'm sorry I didn't call." That was it? After five fucking years of silence, this was his apology for everything. This was a mistake. You didn't think it through when you called him today. Just now you started remembering all the things he's done to you.

"That doesn't make it hurt less, does it?" You whipped around, going to the line of fruit trees where you left the two shovels you borrowed from the neighbour.

Matt's hand slightly gripped your elbow, stopping you in your tracks.

"I know that I made a bunch of wrong decisions before I left."

"I've been trying for 6 months to reach you before giving up completely. And you? You've been living the best version of your life anyone could ever imagine."

"That's not true and you know it." Matthew said and you wanted to leave right then, forget this stupid meeting.

"I do not." you hissed, trying to calm down your rising temper.

Matt sighed, not wanting to argue over this. So he made his way to the tree line, picked one shovel from the ground and started digging where he remembered the time capsule was.

You didn't help him dig it up. You were too lost in memories, clinging to the past as you thought of younger version of Matt.

The clang of metal on metal attracted your attention back to him. He grunted as he pulled up the metal box and laid it on the grass.

You ducked low next to him, dusting off the dirt of the box. It was an old, weirdly dented thing.  Your eyes laid on the lock and you nearly sighed in annoyance just when Matt grabbed at his necklace, the key dangling from it. When you two buried the capsule, each of you got a key made for it. You had yours somewhere in the boxes that had already been shipped to your new apartment and Matt's... he didn't forget. He kept it through the years, guarding it and not losing it as you expected.

You didn't say anything, just patiently waited for him to open the box.

There was a letter inside, along with a bunch of things you thought of as long forgotten. Your bracelets of friendship, the colors faded already; a puck with which you and Matthew played your first hockey game together when you were six; so many polaroid photos with your faces on them; USB with a playlist you two always danced to.

Your eyes watered - how were you supposed to say goodbye to all of this?

Silently, you looked over all of the photos - you and Matt in the rink with small hockey sticks and skates, you and Matt sticking out your tongues colored blue with slushies, you and Matt, you and Matt, you and Matt...

Then Matthew's hand found yours, your fingers automatically intertwining with his. You started crying, first silently but then the sobs shook with your whole body.

"Come here," he murmured, hugging you. His body was so soft and warm, as if begging you to lean into his touch.

"How- how could you leave this all behind?" you mumbled between the sobs.

"It's not leaving if you don't say goodbye." Matt said, his fingers playing with yours.

"Then you are a fucking coward, Matthew."

Silence. He didn't argue with you on that, so you must have been right.

You stopped crying after a while, checking your watch while wiping your nose.

Shit. It was so late already - you had to call an uber to get you to the airport in the next hour or you'd be super late.

"I'll have to go," you said quietly, but Matt interrupted you.

"You are right," he tucked on the edge of his shirt, clearly nervous. He was nervous. "I was a coward. I thought that if I didn't say goodbye to you as I left, it'd hurt less. I was wrong and I was a fucking coward for not picking up your calls or replying to your messages because it would make it so real - that I was leaving and probably never coming back. But I want to make it all right again, I want to be a part of your life - if you will let me."

You thought about his offer and still, you couldn't answer. You weren't sure about letting him into your heart just for him to storm out again without a goodbye, leaving you behind, broken.

"Can I at least take you to the airport?" To that, you nodded, picking up the time capsule, putting all the items back in. Then you gave back the lent shovels to your neighbour and with a last glance at your house, you got into Matt's car.

...

On the way to the airport Matt played the playlist from the USB that was in the time capsule and the nostalgy hit you hard.

You remembered the lyrics, the melody; you remembered everything.

The drive was too short and you started panicking as the engine stopped.

Matthew helped you with your suitcase and went inside with you. The two of you stopped at the first gate.

"Here," he said, giving you a piece of paper. "It's my adress. Hopefully, you won't live so far away, so we could meet there if you wanted to."

You tucked it in your pocket without a word.

"Also, take this. I wrote it in ninth grade so don't think much of it. But I want you to read it, Y/N."

It was the letter from the time capsule, with your name on the blank envelope.

"I will." you promised.

The silence that followed wasn't awkward this time.

"I'll let you know my decision about what you said earlier. I just... I need some time."

Matt noded, giving you the space you so desperately needed.

"So, until we meet again - goodbye, Y/N."

"Goodbye, Matt."

...

The plane took off and you finally had the time to read the letter he gave you.

You immediately recognised his scrambled handwriting and you smiled at how messy it was before you started reading.

Dear Y/N,

I'm writing this in case I leave. Dad has been telling me for some time already that if I'll get drafted, I'll have to leave. He also said that if I'll be smart, I will never look back at my past.

I don't want you to be my past. I want you to be my present and my future.

He said I'll meet a lot of girls but I know that none of them is going to be like you.

So, I promise you, I will never say goodbye to you.

I love you,

Matt

With trembling fingers, you pulled out your phone, the tears already staining the screen.

That's why he never said goodbye. Because of this stupid letter and his stupid promise.

The phone rang once before he picked it up.

"Y/N? What is it?"

A ragged breath escaped you and you laughed and cried at the same time.

"I don't want you to be my past. I want you to be my present and my future."

"Oh, that was cheesy, wasn't it-"

"No, you dumbass. That's my answer."

[thetriggeredhappy]

(I love all of your writings) one of Scout's voice lines literally broke my heart. The one in the Birthday mode which said that no one came to his birthday :"((( the fact that he called everyone his best friends make it sadder. Can you write about that a little bit. I know that you have written about his birthday before but can you do one more pleaseeeeeee

birthday boy time

(warnings for alcohol mention, mention of violence, and injury)

-

“Happy birthday, lad,” Demo greeted, clapping him on the shoulder as he passed by. Scout lit up, calling back a greeting in return.

Call him a sap, but he hadn’t quite given up on having fun birthdays yet. He’d heard it a hundred times from most of the rest of the team, that you stop focusing so much on your birthday when you get older, but not this guy. Scout was determined to actually have a nice birthday.

That being said, he knew by then, after those first few years working with the team, that they had a bit of a history of not necessarily being 100% on board with doing a whole thing purely because someone was a year older, and he mostly settled for bugging some of the team into going out for drinks or ordering a bunch of pizza and playing board games, stuff like that. A hundred times more low-key than what he’d do if they were in Boston, but hey, he took what he could get, and it usually ruled anyways.

To be honest, he didn’t even really have plans that year. He’d said as much when he was asked earlier that week. It was the middle of the week, not all that close to the weekend, so going out with everyone was pretty much off the table, as was getting drunk considering they all had work the day after. He was gonna head into town and get himself a gift, that was most of his plan, maybe hang out with everyone later on too. He’d been saving his money for a while, a just-in-case fund that he’d been working on for a few years, a luxury he didn’t have growing up, and didn’t tend to spend much money on himself outside of snack food and Bonk and sometimes comic books or little things like that. It would be nice to get himself something he really liked. That alone was plenty of excitement. Not an adrenaline kind, just a regular, nice sort of thing.

Overall, he was honestly just thrilled that apparently everyone actually remembered this year, greeted all morning by similar casual “hey, happy birthday”s, including a particularly excited one from Pyro, who hugged him and spun him in a few circles outright. He had plenty of time next year to do some really sick birthday stuff, but overall, he was just gonna chill out, treat himself for once, and relax.

-

“Alright everyone,” the Engineer said grimly, half an hour previously, casting a look around the room. “Here’s the plan.”

The team minus their fastest member were all gathered around the debriefing table, and this time, rather than Miss Pauling with official orders or Soldier with the latest new strategy, it was the Engineer standing up front holding a piece of chalk.

“We’ve been over this, Toymaker, twice weekly all month,” Demo drawled, rolling his eye.

“I know that, but this is important,” he stressed.

“It is true,” Heavy rumbled, nodding solemnly. “This is big deal.”

“We can’t afford to let this one get mucked up considering our history,” the Engineer said firmly. “Every year it’s somethin’. This year we aren’t taking any chances, especially after that catastrophe last year.”

A groan from the team as they collectively remembered. A nod from the Engineer.

“We’re lucky Firebug was the one to ask why Scout was in the kitchen combing the cabinets and not one of us, otherwise he would’ve found out for sure. If he knew we all forgot his birthday, it would crush him,” he said emphatically. The team looked embarrassed as a whole, while Pyro looked particularly mortified. “And we can’t just buy the damn kid a few pizzas and hand him alcohol like that was the plan again this year.”

“Fortunately for all of you, I’ve been so generous as to look into a few things,” Spy piped in, pausing to take a drag from his cigarette.

“As if you won’t take any excuse to snoop,” Sniper mumbled, and was glared at.

“I resent that remark,” Spy scoffed. “Regardless. I happen to know that we’re in luck, and that Scout is planning to go into town for a short period of time this afternoon. For what purpose, I’m not sure. But it should mean we have plenty of time to set everything up.”

“I trust you all have gifts ready?” Medic asked, and received a general murmur of agreement, and made a check on the paper he had attached to a clipboard. “Ja, ja, that is good. Herr Demoman, Pyro, you are done with your baking?”

“Cake is baked, iced, and decorated,” Demo nodded, Pyro giving a thumbs up of agreement.

“Soldier, how are decorations?”

“Acquired and prepared for deployment!” Soldier barked, holding up a hand in salute.

“Doc, Heavy, you two were meant to run interference,” the Engineer said, and the two nodded. “With that not a worry, how about you help with the cooking and decorating?”

“Heavy can do this,” Heavy agreed, and Medic nodded as well, jotting down a few notes on his clipboard.

“And the snake was gonna help with anything that went wrong, and Sniper, you were gonna help with headed into town for anything we needed last minute,” the Engineer said, and received nods from the two of them.

“Do we need anything so far?” Sniper asked.

“No, we’re fine for now. And I’ve got my own setup handled,” the Engineer said, and nodded a few times to himself. “Alright. Sounds like we’re golden.”

“Ja, very good. Herr Spy, would you keep an eye on Scout and let the rest of us know when we can begin getting ready?” Medic asked.

“Obviously,” Spy said.

“Alright. Now go on, get, he’ll be wondering why we’re all running late, act natural,” the Engineer said, shooing them all from the conference room.

-

Later that day after battle was over, Spy dispersed news not long later that Scout had gotten changed into civvie clothes and gone into town on his bike, and they all leapt into action. Within half an hour, the decorations were ready, streamers and balloons in every direction, the table unfolded from their storage (only used when they needed to seat the entire team, which wasn’t often) and was set up with the cake, ready to have candles lit, the presents were stacked neatly, the Engineer had set up the new sound system he’d been working on (put into crunch time to have ready for the occasion), everything was set up and perfect. The only thing they still needed was Scout.

They settled in to wait, knowing town was a good twenty minutes away, thirty if he was headed to the better one. By the time he found everyone, Spy said that it had been about ten minutes, and they took around thirty to set everything up, meaning that Scout would probably be at least another ten minutes, maybe as much as half an hour. Spy would keep his eyes open and warn them when he came back, but in the meantime, they could relax while they waited.

In the meantime, Soldier and Demo attempted a few ‘finishing touches’ (putting party hats on his more docile raccoons and setting out some firecrackers and sparklers, respectively), and some of the other members of the team sat to play cards for a bit. Pyro, easily the most antsy, burned their way through the box of matches that sat waiting next to the cake one by one and started idly playing with their lighter when they ran out, occasionally lighting some of the extra candles.

Half an hour came and went. Forty minutes. Fifty. An hour.

They asked Spy if he had any word yet. The answer was no, and the visual of a few cigarette butts littered around Spy’s feet and a scowl.

The Engineer played a few song requests on the sound system. Soldier switched around party hats on the raccoons to better suit their personalities. Demo lit a sparkler and let it burn out. They switched card games.

At the two hour mark, the concern was starting to build in all of them. Maybe Scout went even further than any of them had expected. He hadn’t told any of them to wait up for him, to be fair. But he always told them outright if he wouldn’t be back for supper, and he hadn’t said anything, and should’ve been back by then. It was getting well into sundown.

“I am preparing to declare Scout as officially AWOL,” Soldier mumbled somewhere near the two/and-a-half hour mark, just a bit angrily, adjusting the party hat on Corporal Munch where it was crooked. Demo patted him on the shoulder to console him.

“He’ll get here when he gets here,” he assured, going back to fiddling with a party popper.

“Don’t waste those,” the Engineer warned. “And no queens, Go Fish.”

A groan from Medic. Demo shrugged. “We have some extra. Here, just to liven her up.”

He tugged the string on the popper, setting it off and sending a short shower of confetti onto Soldier, and that was where it all went wrong.

Corporal Munch, startled, made a little yelp-like noise and quickly clawed up Soldier’s chest, startled and attempting to escape. Soldier tried to grab on harder, but that just made the raccoon even more alarmed, and it rushed to clamor faster, digging claws in hard. Heads turned in time to see Soldier losing his grip and the animal rushing away towards the nearest enclosed, dim space, which just so happened to be the table Pyro was sitting at with the cake.

Pyro leapt up from their seat, battle instincts kicking in for a moment, and the movement startled the Corporal, who veered suddenly and crashed directly into one of the chairs, toppling it and the one directly next to it and making the entire table jerk.

Pyro, panicked, quickly grabbed the cake stand before it could fall over, dropping their lighter and the candle in their hand. The two things landed on the tablecloth, and by the time Pyro realized their mistake, they’d already lit the thin paper tablecloth on fire.

Shouting around the room as teammates attempted to leap into action, Pyro trying to save the cake from the fire first and foremost, Soldier attempting to catch the Corporal, who was only becoming more freaked out over time. Heavy moved to snatch up some of the other flammable items off of the table, but misjudged where Pyro was moving, and Pyro collided with him, the cake tumbling from the stand and directly across the both of them. The Corporal, entirely confused on the commotion, attempted to claw into the space under the cards table, making Medic yelp as his legs were torn into, Sniper rushing to try and catch the animal as well. Demo, having found the fire extinguisher, realized he was a bit late as he tried to put out the table, most of the tablecloth gone and the fire having spread across the streamers, and he tried to put out what he could, and it was only with the Engineer’s cry of dismay that he remembered, oh, right, those streamers were on top of that shiny new sound system, weren’t they. With a final puff, the ‘Happy Birthday’ sign went up in flames and was gone, and the team was left there in the wreckage.

Spy rounded the corner into the room, eyebrows furrowed from the commotion he’d heard. When he saw the smoking, foamy, cake-y remains, all he could do was sigh, kneading at the bridge of his nose. “Something new every year, is it?” he drawled.

-

It took them the better part of forty minutes to clean up the mess, and even then, the room had a weird smell to it. By the end of everything, all they had was one of the undecorated practice cakes Pyro had baked, some party hats, and some poppers. And by the time they were done cleaning up, Scout still hadn’t returned.

“At least he doesn’t have to see what a damn mess we made of things,” the Engineer sighed, and that seemed to be the consensus.

It was much later that Spy finally let them know that he’d seen the headlights of a motorcycle coming up the road, and the team just sighed, too tired to work up much energy. Some of them at least planned to call out a ‘happy birthday’ at him, but all they could do was stare when he walked into the room.

“Hey, guys,” Scout croaked, attempting a smile through a bruised lip.

“What the hell happened to you?” Sniper demanded, taking in the sight.

Scout was busted up in a number of different ways. What looked like a former bloody nose and a swollen lip seemed to be the worst of it, an amount of blood all down Scout’s front, staining what looked like one of his nicer civvie shirts beyond repair. There was also a dampness to his shirt and hair and a stain that implied he’d been splashed with something, practically drenched by the look of it, and he carried himself just slightly off-balance and held a bag in the arm not cradled to his abdomen.

Despite that, he managed a laugh, a lopsided grin. “Man, what the hell didn’t happen to me is more like it,” he said, shrugging. “Had a weird one.”

“Are you alright?” Medic demanded, already standing up, from his chair, and Scout shrugged again.

“Just bruises and all, it’s not an emergency or whatever, but I’d appreciate a heal or somethin’,” he admitted, and Medic left the room, hurrying towards the infirmary. “Forreal, though, what a fuckin’ night.”

“What’s on your shirt?” Spy asked, entirely deadpan, looking vaguely disgusted.

“Uh, I think it’s a margarita?” Scout said, glancing down at it and picking at his shirt vaguely. “I, uh, I should start from the top. Okay, so I went into town, right? I was just gonna buy some stuff real quick, and I got, uh… I got a little lost.”

“A little? Scooter, you’ve been gone all day!” the Engineer admonished.

“Yeah, yeah, I know, I know. There was construction on the usual road, I think they’re fixin’ a bridge or somethin’. Anyways, I got pretty far off track, but I got to town eventually. Just took a while. Anyways, I do my shopping, but because I was all rattled from havin’ to take a hundred detours I totally forget that there’s this one guy at the store that hates my guts, and I’ve gotta split pretty fast before he knocks some teeth out, y’know?”

“Do we want to know why he hates you?” Demo asked, a bit of humor in his tone.

“Nope,” Scout said simply, grinning right back. “So, yeah, but on my way into town I saw at the bar they have some kinda thing goin’ on, right, some kinda weird drink special. So I figure, hey, I’ll walk in, get the new drink, then I’ll leave, y’know? I don’t wanna have to drive home after dark and drunk. So I order, and as soon as I order some guy who’s been at the bar too long already starts tryin’ to pick a fight with me, right? And it’s a whole thing, and I finally get my drink but now there’s a whole thing, and I kinda make this offhanded comment at this gal nearby, y’know, tryin’ to make sure he knows we’re in a public place, all ‘hey, you’re really gonna embarrass yourself by pick in’ fights right in front of this real pretty girl?’, right?”

“Oh no,” Sniper sighed, already seeing where this was going.

“Well, yeah, bad luck, turns out that’s his girlfriend, and he shoves me into some guy, and I get a whole drink all over me, and mine is all over some third gut, and this whole brawl breaks out—anyways, busted lip and no drink and I’m probably not allowed in that bar anymore, but whatever, I finally start headed home.”

“Right,” Spy said, suspicious.

“And, uh, I never wanna drive at night because there’s all these animals out here, right? And the roads are shitty. And I’m headed back, and it’s dark as dicks, and I think I see this rock and I try and go around it, but then the rock moves back in my way because it’s a lizard or whatever and I hit the breaks and swerve straight into a pothole and just barely manage to keep on my bike, but I donk myself on the handlebars and totally throw my leg out of wack and all that. And, uh, and now I’m here.”

“Christ alive,” the Engineer marvelled.

“Bad day to have,” Heavy said, also stunned.

“Hey, it’ll be a funny story to tell later,” Scout shrugged, still grinning. “Got those new shoes at least, though.”

He pulled a shoebox out of the paper bag, and the box was dented into some kind of new parallelogram, barely resembling its past shape. Scout, meanwhile, was still smiling.

Silence in the room. “Well. While it is unlikely you need any more excitement today,” Spy trailed hesitantly. Pyro, understanding the cue, leapt up and hurried off into the kitchen, coming back with the cake.

“Woah, seriously?” Scout asked, eyes lighting up. “You made me a cake? Mumbles, you’re the best!”

“We, uh… we had more planned, but, some things went a little wrong,” the Engineer admitted, and trailed off as well as he looked at Scout.

“Not that we get to complain,” Demo laughed, seeming to come to the same realization as the Engineer.

“Are you joking? This rules!” Scout said, and lit up further when Medic returned with his Medigun, shaking off his injuries within a few moments. “Hey, thanks guys, seriously, no idea what I did to get such cool teammates. You guys are awesome, I mean it.”

“Dunno how we got a bloke like you, either,” Sniper shrugged, voice quiet compared to the rest of them. “Not many people can laugh after a day like yours and still have the energy to be pleased with anyone.”

“Aw, hey, I mean… y’know, it’s nothing,” Scout shrugged sheepishly, glancing away for a second. “Hey, you guys are playin’ cards? Deal me in! Oh yeah, hold on, we need plates and stuff for cake—“

He dropped his bag near the door and hurried into the kitchen. The room was quiet behind him. Demo held up a party popper, glancing around the room. The Engineer took it from him, shaking his head.

[joshslater]

Quarantine & VR

5500-word story, so I used the Keep Reading feature for once. Similar stories and bonus material on my Patreon.

“Are you sure you’re OK with this?”

We were slowly driving through an eerily empty city center from my student flat next to campus on one side of town to Ethan’s flat on the other, with all my belongings stuffed in the back of the U-Haul. Not that I had so much stuff we needed one. I just moved into the state right before the semester started, but it was the cheapest rental we could get. No one is going anywhere with this lockdown in effect. We barely had time to read the syllabus before everything screeched to a halt. You thought we’d know by now how to handle pandemics, but nooo.

“I wouldn’t have helped you clear out your shit if I wasn’t. Bit late to ask now.” “Yeah, but it seemed like the polite thing to do.”

Ethan turned towards me and spoke with a more serious tone. “I’m really happy to have you stay at my place. I think I would go mad staying alone. Go mad or go home, and I don’t think being locked up with the parents would be better.”

He was about as new in the city as I was, but his aunt had moved out of an old apartment last year and his parents had decided to take over the lease. Apparently it was even cheaper than the student apartments and much larger, but further away from campus. Though where it was in the city didn’t really matter as long as this lockdown was going on.

“Someone else is out at least”, I said indicating out the window. Across the street, a police officer with a navy blue face mask followed our truck with his eyes. Or her eyes I guess. Hard to tell in uniform and mask. I don’t know why, but I found it a rather good look. I hate the flimsy paper masks, but these form-fitted ones kind of make you look more badass.

“Do you think he looks sexy like that?” he asked, as if he had the same thought. “It’s a bit dystopian sci-fi, but that’s not to say it doesn’t look good.” “Take next right. The one after is one way.”

The apartment had two bedrooms, a large living room, decent bathroom and kitchen. Ethan’s aunt had left some furniture, but overall there wasn’t that much stuff. Makes sense as he had barely been here a month. That’s how he had a sparsely furnished extra bedroom for me to use. This was only the second time I had been in the apartment. Ethan forced me to have a look in person before he allowed me to agree to stay with him. Now standing there with all my belongings in the truck outside and my student flat lease canceled, I realized we really didn’t know each other. I studied corporate finance and he medical computer science, whatever that meant. When I asked he tried to explain that almost everything in a hospital now has a computer in it, and a ton of work went into things like volumetric renderings of MRI scans and somewhere there I started to tune him out.

There really weren’t any overlapping circles between us, we studied completely different subjects, he was active in computer games and health, I was trying to get into the writing room of the student theatre company and looking to sign up in the cinema club. But both of us had the bright idea to start working in the student pub, and really hit it off during the start of school year party they threw for their workers. We decided to pick the same work schedule and found out we have the same taste in pop culture, music, books, movies.

And now I’m moving in with him.

He had the larger of the bedrooms with a queen-size bed in the middle, a desk with a few computers and screens set up, gaming computer chair, a reading chair. Basically his room was set up so he could live there except for visits to the kitchen and bathroom. My room didn’t have a desk, but a normal bed, an armchair that looked comfortable, and more wardrobe space than I would ever need. He told me that I could basically consider the living room as mine as well. It had two couches in front of a big flat screen. By the balcony door stood a workout bench and weights. Barbell, plates, dumbbells, and that kind of stuff. Apparently it wasn’t Ethan’s but his uncle’s, but that didn’t really make a difference here and now.

Moving my stuff only took a few runs up the stairs, so we were soon back in the truck, returning it to the rental place. Ethan really didn’t have to come with me, but he said that this would probably be the last adventure for a while, and decided to come along.

“You’re supposed to buy pizza and beer for everyone who helps you move, right? What do you fancy?” “I’d like… You know what? We’re not going to get out much, and you don’t look like someone on a strict diet. Oh, no offense!” “None taken.” “How about we both keep healthy macros and workout regimen while locked up. Instead of paying rent you can help me make sure I at least isn’t in worse shape when all this shit ends.” “Macros?” “Diet.” “Sure I can do that, if you show me what to do.” “It’s a deal then. I’d like one with Gorgonzola and ham.” “Come again?” “The pizza topping. I’m allowed one cheat day per pandemic.”

The pizza place was only a block away from the apartment. Just this one time it was great, as we walked back with one quattro formaggi and one bresaola. But it would be so much harder to eat whatever Ethan had in his plans knowing a real wood fire oven pizza was just four minutes walk away.

Unprompted Ethan started to tell his story over pizza. How his father was a successful businessman in Arkansas, but his hometown always felt too small for him. He talked about how he was making synth music in school. How that made him interested in computers. How, since it was such a small town, he had ended up on the football team without any desire or skill to actually play the game. How he had almost by accident found this education program and had looked forward to both leave Arkansas and to study. I too did a year be year recap of my life so far, up to how my girlfriend dumped me just before the summer. In a way that was lucky, because it made me feel free from obligations and actually do what I wanted.

It was 9:21 when I woke up from a knock on the door. I was a bit disoriented for a second until I remembered where I was. I was sleeping in the guest bed left by Ethan’s aunt. After the pizza we did continue to talk over beer all evening, but I didn’t feel any hangover. Just thirsty. It wasn’t that early in the morning anymore on the other hand. “Yep” I called out. “I’m making breakfast,” Ethan called out from the other side of the door. “Coming”.

It literally only took me seconds to get ready. Stand up. Sweatpants. T-shirt. Done. In the kitchen I saw Ethan had a similar fashion sense, but had gone for shorts instead. “Porridge is fine with you? It would be good if it is. Lots of fibers.” I couldn’t really recall if I liked porridge and told him as much. The porridge itself didn’t taste much, but with toppings I could get used to it. “With our schedule in our own hands I think it would be a good idea to start out with breakfast and work out. That way we can get it out of the way.” Sounded sensible enough.

I changed into shorts as well and made myself ready to do my part of becoming Ethan’s gym buddy. At a quick glance we didn’t look that different, Ethan and I. On one hand I never had that big of an appetite, but on the other I had never really done any sports, and had no gym experience, so I let Ethan guide me. He tested different motions and how many times I could do them with weights he selected and noted down the results in a notebook that would log my progress. It wasn’t at all as tiring as I thought it would be. “Oh, you’ll feel it tomorrow for sure.” We each took a shower, and I went back to my room to catch up on my reading.

A few hours later I was starting to think about lunch. More because I was getting tired of reading than actually being hungry, but I thought I should ask Ethan if he had a plan. The door to his room was open, but as I got closer it became apparent it was an oversight on his part. Splayed on the bed was Ethan, naked save for a pair of boxer shorts and a big VR goggles. His right hand was massaging his obviously erect dick through the fabric of his underwear. He must have followed his normal routine and forgotten I had moved in. I’m not a prude and do the occasional tug myself, like any student, so I was more embarrassed than shocked. As on autopilot, my mind decided to ignore Ethan and continue walking to the kitchen to assess the lunch situation, but another part of my brain decided to keep him in sight.

Walking without watching in an apartment I’ve been in for all of 18 hours predictably made me jam my toe into the door frame. In the corner of my eye I could see Ethan’s body spasm and ripping off his VR goggles as I yell out in pain and surprise. He stared right at me, eyes wide open and mouth ajar in an expression that was hard to read. Surprise for sure, but also something else in between horror and delight. Perhaps it was like the smiles and laughter after you have completely made a fool of yourself. My eyes were drawn to his, and I could feel my face twisted in pain. It was like time stood still, waiting for either of us to make the next move. Out of sheer momentum my mind continued ahead as if nothing had changed and blurted out “What’s your plan for lunch?” over whatever Ethan said at the same time.

“What?” and an awkward pause again. “I said would you like to try?” “I… What is it?”

Ethan put down the VR kit on the bed, quickly got up and stepped into his pair of shorts. His erection was still very much apparent. He pressed escape on one of the keyboards and the screen switched from one incomprehensible menu to another.

“It’s a virtual reality system. I’m using an open source environment system to render inputs from an interactive story engine controlled by a GAN AI system. I’ve been experimenting with regenerative NLP feedback loop plugins for it.” “I followed you all the way up to and including virtual reality system.” “It’s like a VR movie that is generated specifically for you. Here.”

He picked up the bulky goggles and held it out to me. It wasn’t just goggles, but a pair of headphones were built in, and there were a few additional sensors glued on. Hesitantly, and with a throbbing toe, I stepped forward and took the headset. It wasn’t as heavy as it looked. I put it on my head and as it settled into place a digital version of Ethan’s room wobbled into place as well. It was remarkably similar. The colors and patterns were all slightly wrong, but the layout of the room and placement of furniture was almost spot on. I assume he had measured everything at one point and put in the data somehow.

“Go lie on the bed.” Ethan told me. I very tentatively stepped towards the bed, and feeling my way there. It was somehow surprised to find a bed where the digital bed was, and although the visuals of the sheets didn’t quite line up with what I felt, if you just moved quick enough the illusion of actually being in the digital room felt very real.

“This is so weird.” “I’ll start a blank session for you.” “A what?”

Almost immediately a guy entered the room through the door frame. This must be some VR video recording or something because he looked completely real. About the same age as Ethan and I but more fit and, I’ll admit, better looking. He looked flush and sweaty, with his french crop unkempt as if he had just ruffled it. He wore a navy blue sweatshirt and sweatpant shorts. I couldn’t see further down from my position. “Fuck, that was so dope! I love getting pump like that, you know what I’m saying” He was stretching his arms in different ways. Then he zoned in on me, like he was actually looking me over. “Fuck, I love how you look, babe. Mind if I join?” I shake my head slowly. He breaks out in a big smile. I notice he has a bit of a sweatpants boner. Carefully he climbs into bed, next to me. There’s no vibrations of course, or heat or smell, but everything I see looks utterly convincing.

“Hey, are you OK?” “What the…”

I’m looking into Ethan’s face as he stands over me. Bewildered I pat my head.

“I removed it once the program stopped. Didn’t shake you from your sleep one bit. I guess it wasn’t that interesting for you.” “It was very convincing. I fell asleep?” “Perhaps moving stressed you more than you knew? Or it could just be, you know, how shit the world is right now.” “Fuck… I only wanted to ask about lunch.” “A bit late for that. It’s like four and something. Let’s wait an hour or two more and have dinner. Ok with you?” “Sounds dope.”

It was like neither of us wanted to talk about what had happened. I certainly had questions. Had I just fallen asleep like that? Perhaps he was right and I had been anxious about the move and how things would work out. And what was up with that program? It wasn’t gay, exactly, and it didn’t mean Ethan was gay, and if he was there wasn’t anything wrong with that. All of it was just so confusing. Perhaps Ethan was right to just pretend it didn’t happen. Poor guy. I walked in on him watching porn, and then I fell asleep when he tried to show his system. Watching the news on how ever more countries were shutting down was probably time better spent.

He had not joked about being sore in the morning. I woke earlier than in weeks feeling stiff as hell. I didn’t want to wake Ethan, but I couldn’t just lie there in agony, so I got up and did some bodyweight repetitions. Squats, push-ups, dips, and stuff like that just to get some blood flowing. It honestly felt great. Me doing morning gymnastics! Who would have guessed that a week ago? When I left my room I found out Ethan was already up, but didn’t want to wake me up.

“Dude, we need to sort that shit out. I’m ok with you making noise when you’re up. You live here.” “You live here too. What if whoever gets up first makes breakfast and wakes the other up.” “Yeah, dope. I’m down with that.”

We quickly worked out the kinks in our schedule. I would typically wake up first, do a quick workout routine in my room. Then set the breakfast and wake up Ethan. Then we would do workout together. We had different weights and number of reps, but we had very quickly settled on the same exercises, though Ethan was still adjusting my form ever so often. Ethan would then shower first while I did stretches. We then kept to ourselves until lunch. Ethan cooked for both of us. Depending on what we felt like and needed we would either go back to study or do something like shopping or that kind of stuff in the afternoon.

It was hard to keep track of time, but I think it was on a Sunday four weeks later when Ethan said during breakfast that he wanted to show me something he had worked on. He moved the workout bench and the barbell stuff to just outside his room and told me to lie down. The bar had no plates on it, and that’s how I’ve used it until two days ago when I started to add extra weight to it. Ethan emerged out of his room with the VR set in hand, and a trail of cables running in into one of his computers. “Here, give this a go.”

I was a bit surprised, given the last time, but I was also curious what he had to show. Once snugly fitted on my head I was transported into a real gym. It wasn’t a very large one, but a few people did their thing around me. He almost scared me, the guy with the french crop, when he called out “Hey, bro!” just to my left. He had the same navy blue sweatpant shorts as the last time, but his upper body was bare, glistening muscles. He took a step back and his eyes were scanning me up and down. “Dude, you look so fucking good! You’ve really been hitting the weights.” I smiled and immediately realized that I was smiling at an avatar that wasn’t actually there and couldn’t see me, but it’s amazing how good some positive reinforcement feels, even if it is from a program. Perhaps that was the surprise from Ethan.

“Here, show me what you got!”

He walked around me, through the couch I knew was there in the real room, and stood behind me. I leaned back fully on the bench and looked up. He stood over me, just behind my head, so all I saw was a navy blue bulge, some abs and pecs, and his face looking down on me. “Go on, I’ve got you.” I could somehow feel him standing over me. Was Ethan spotting me in the real world? Not that it matters with an empty bar. I grabbed it. It felt heavy. “Good. Give me 15.” He started counting as I lifted. “Slower on the way down. Keep control all the way. Ten more” As I was getting to fifteen he upped it a bit. “Come one! Five more!” As I sat the bar back I felt utterly exhausted. “Fucking awesome, dude!”

“You really went all out.” “What?”

I was lying on the workout bench but I wasn’t wearing any VR shit. I sat up and hit my head in the barbell.

“Fuck! Dude, what the hell!” “The idea was for it to be motivational, but you really took it to heart.” “It was fucking dope, bro. I’m so pumped. Guy was kind of cute too.” “You think?” “Fuck, yeah. I wish I had those pecs.” “You better start some supplements then, if you can’t even last a virtual session.” “What you mean, dude?” “It’s already lunch.” “Fuck dammit!”

I rubbed my head where I had hit it and looked around the room. It looked mostly like before, but the sun had clearly moved ahead. Fuck, I really felt pumped to get some reps in hard and really make a difference. Perhaps lunch, and then do my daily sets.

“You ok with shopping without me after lunch?” “Sure. You need anything?” “I… You said supplements.”

Fortunately for me I have a roommate that studies medicine, kind of. Well, he hasn’t actually gone to any of the classes yet, but he has the books, so he picked out some things for me to boost me. Some of it looked like medicine, in small plastic jars with scientific-sounding names that could just as well have been a frat house. Alpha-omega-manganese-BS-whatever. Some of it decidedly did not look like medicine. Enormous containers with lids that looked too fucking small, with names like amazing-gainz-ultra. He set up a regimen for me to follow, basically some stuff with every meal. I started right away that evening with something like a vanilla and chalk milkshake after dinner. I don’t know why, but something made me feel really good drinking it.

I slept fucking fantastic, and despite having done way more lifting the day before than ever I barely felt any soreness or anything. I probably woke up Ethan with my harder than normal pre-breakfast cardio. Lots of burpees and jumping jacks, so I almost felt guilty making breakfast while steaming sweaty, but whatever. Ethan had to remind me what supplements to take. I really should have written that shit down.

I had a strong deja vu while doing weights. It wasn’t until Ethan spotted barbell for me I realized that this was almost exactly what I had seen doing the VR shit. I looked up and saw Ethan standing over me similar to the guy, but Ethan was wearing grey sweatpant shorts and a red tank. I kind of wished he was topless as well, like the other guy.

“You ok down there?” “Fucking dope, bro”

I realized I must have zoned out a bit. What’s worse I could feel I rocked a hard erection out of nowhere. Rather than making a deal out of it, and run to the shower, I decided to pretend like everything is normal. Guys get boners all the times. He’s a guy, so he knows that. I even did a few extra exercises to really drive home that point. While Ethan took his shower I dared to lower my shorts and slowly stroke my dick. I haven’t cummed once since moving in with Ethan, which I realized was longer than I’ve gone in years. The days were blurring together. I hadn’t watched porn either since moving in. I’ve been too preoccupied with the move and everything else going on.

“All yours” Ethan said and closed the door to his room. I just froze. I was sitting on the workout bench, shorts by my ankles and dick in hand. He saw that. There is no way he didn’t see that. I could feel my face getting hot by embarrassment, yet I continued to sit there and stroke my dick. What the fuck is wrong with me. My mind flashed to Ethan, to the guy in the VR, to his bulge just above my eyes, to his abs to the barbell, to the free weights.

No. I got up and took a long shower, trying really hard to not think about anything. Just observing the tiles, the shampoo bottles, the soap. But there were the creeping thoughts that perhaps Ethan will find me a weird creep and kick me out. How would he do it? He’s been far too nice to be direct. Would he bring up this incident or would he just wait a week or something and over one lunch say something vague like we are not as good of a match as he hoped? Fuck. I needed to do something.

I couldn’t concentrate at all on the block on taxation I was supposed to read. Apart from the residual thoughts of unease I was beginning to see what a mistake it was to not cum in the shower. I was very close to surfing porn sites, but decided against it and ended up aimlessly browsing social media. I can’t really explain how, a hundred clicks that trended in that direction perhaps, but I got into the circles of fitness instagram people. Big arms, broad chests, and slinky stringers. Somehow I was hard again. Stealthily I walked back to the bathroom, locked the door, and started to jerk off in the shower. I’d been saving for a week and been hot all day, but somehow it took quite a while to shoot the load. My mind was a soup of barbells, Ethan, sweatpant shorts, vague old porn clips, and more recent instagram models. When I finally came it was like I’ve never orgasmed before in my life. Rope after rope shot out of me, the first few even hit the wall, and my hips involuntary thrust forward for each of them. I felt cleansed in a way, like a weight had been lifted from me. I couldn’t really understand why, though. Nothing had really changed.

I didn’t want to go back to my room and study. I rinsed the shower, got a pad and a pen, and went to the kitchen to get on top of the supplements. I decided to write down all the ingredients from the labels. I had just accepted Ethan’s plan uncritically. It’s probably fine, but I wanted to understand it. That’s where Ethan found me.

“Hey, dude. Already hungry?” “Yeah… No… I don’t know, bro.” “You don’t know?” “It’s like… Fuck. You saw, bro.” “Saw what? You jerking off?” He laughed and sat down. “You saw me doing it first.”

He was right, of course. I didn’t know how that could have slipped my mind.

“Was it porn?” I didn’t know why I asked that. I was curious, but it also felt a bit too personal of a question. “Yeah. Wanna see?”

Before I even had time to respond he continued “Let’s fill up your macros first and then I can show you. If past experiences are any indications you’ll take your time.” “Already jacked off today.” Why did I tell him that? “Even better”

Ethan had this ever changing dish where he would chop and fry vegetables like bell pepper, chili, garlic, ginger, onion, peas, and whatever else was around, pour in coconut milk and whatever spices you craved that day green curry or red curry for Thai, madras curry for Indian, Soy and miso for Japanese, anise and szechuan for Chinese, saffron and parmesan for Italian, and so on. Then serve it with pasta or grains or rice. I helped him prepare it, as I always do unless he started making it without telling me. This time however the air was different, filled with tension and awkward anticipation. He made it with chicken, lemon grass, and brown rice this time. We hardly spoke a word while cooking, and then continued to eat in silence. We both knew what was on my mind, and there wasn’t any question on the subject that wouldn’t be awkward. I was weirdly looking forward to trying out whatever it was he wanted me to try. I couldn’t explain why it felt so compelling to me. Just thinking about it made me hard. “You clean up here and I’ll go and set it up for you,” he said as soon as his plate was empty. “Yeah,” was all I could manage, and he left. I finished my plate as well, put the few things we’ve used in the dishwasher and went to his room.

His bed was made and on it was the VR headset and what I first though was a protein drink shaker. “Dude, is that a… fleshlight?” I asked him both with incredulity and genuine curiosity. Curiosity because a cable ran from it to one of the boxes on the floor that connected to his computers, and incredulity because I couldn’t believe he thought I would use one of his sex toys.

“Yes. No. Not exactly. It’s modified to connect into the haptic subsystem.” “Haptic?” “Force feedback” “It’s a vibrator, bro.” “Eh.. No. Well, not only. You’ll see.” “Why do you think I’d touch that, bro?” Though somewhere inside I knew I would. “It’s a brand new inset. You’ll be fine.”

I walked up to the bed and suddenly wasn’t sure what to do. I would need to at least lower my shorts and boxers to get the until-recently-fleshlight on my dick, but Ethan was still in the room. Not only in the room but almost studying me like a lab project.

“I’ll lie down?” “Got to strip first,” he said motioning towards my tenting shorts. He saw me hesitated and continued “Dude, I just saw you jerk off in the living room this morning”. I blushed and pulled down my shorts and boxers, and stepped out of them. “Shirt too,” he said. I removed that as well and stood naked in front of him. “Wow, you are making progress. Ok, on the bed and hook yourself up. Red dot up.” I climbed into the bed, as he told me, and grabbed the cyber-fleshlight and pushed it down on my hard dick with the red dot up towards my head. There was some sort of lubrication in it and it slid on with very little effort. It must have been heated as well, because the lubrication didn’t make it feel cold. I was given a nod from Ethan and put on the helmet over my eyes and ears.

The alternative version of Ethan’s bedroom was already there, waiting for me. I looked around and as far as I could tell everything looked like in the real world, except no Ethan of course. After half a minute, perhaps more, I was almost about to ask if he had started it when the French crop guy jumped in through the doorway, as if he was in a hurry. He was naked except for a pair of white, tight speedos that both highlighted his big package and created a reference point for his deep tan and made it look even deeper. There was a sheen over all his body, like he had been working out hard or oiled himself up, and he was breathing heavy. “Sorry, I’m late. I didn’t expect you so soon,” he panted. I didn’t know what to say. “You want me to help you with that?” he asked and nodded towards my dick. I looked down and saw a massive erection, easily twice my real size. “As an apology…” he continued.

“Yeah, sure bro.”

He made the cutest little jump of joy in response, and caught my smile. He composed himself and locked eyes with me. Then he started some sort of dance where all the movement was in his hips and abs. Then he added more of the upper body, still keeping eye contact. I thought I would hose him down with cum from my monster penis right there, so sexy was it. He smirked and moved closer. Still swaying he leaned forward and licked the head of my dick, which shot pleasure up my spine. He then started to circle the head with his tongue, before taking it into his mouth. The first few times were shallow, but then he stopped teasing and begun to really do down deep on the dick. In addition I could feel him alternate between stroking my hips, the insides of my thighs, and tugging my balls. Just as I was about to nut he stopped working on my dick and started to slowly run his tongue up my faint abs, circling my nipple. I was squirming in horny delight.

He was straddling me now, face to face. I couldn’t resist it any longer and reached to pull him towards me and kiss him on the mouth. There was a loud crack of plastic against plastic as our VR helmets collided. “Dude?” I was looking at the French crop guy who was moving his hands in front of his eyes. “Ethan?” I asked, suddenly realizing what was going on. The French crop guy looked bashful, did a little wave, and answered in not-Ethan’s voice “Yeah.”

“Did you just blow me?” “I wasn’t… No, it’s still the device.” I hesitated, considering briefly what this would mean. “Would you like to?”

[bella-caecilia]

#12 – power, please? 😊

Thank you for the prompt <3 I hope you like what I made of it (I only realised when I had already finished it that Robert basically isn’t in it but it does contain little hints of Cobert so I decided to go with it anyway). This is set in s1e1. Parts of the dialogue belong to JF.

Black – Power

The sun was high up in the sky and spent its heat with all its might. The brim of her hat gave Cora some protection from the burning light but it didn’t really make up for the stuffiness that was trapped under all the layers of heavy dark garments she was wrapped in. She hurried to take the few steps to the motor that waited patiently in front of the Abbey’s stately entrance.

Cora was on her way to her mother-in-law. Even in the summer’s heat, it was better to pay the Dowager Countess a visit instead of having her over and having her inviting herself for dinner when she was already there for tea. Mama might be an ally in the whole Mary business, from the entail to finding appropriate suitors, but the amount of time Cora could bear to be in her company until her snappiness bothered her too much was still limited. So, driving by the Dower House in her heavy mourning attire was without question the way to go.

Cora settled in the backseat of the motor and gathered her skirts around her legs before Thomas closed the door and the chauffeur started the engine. Her gloved hands ran over the extent of black material. Yes, they were in mourning because of James’ and Patrick’s unexpected death but Cora thought to make the best of the obligatory dress code. Today’s attire was very obviously one of complete mourning. Her gown and coat were high-closed, all she wore on her body was pitch black even the feather on her hat, there weren’t any coquettish accessories. But she somehow liked it and she had no problem posing confidently and gracefully in it. Her daughters didn’t share her attitude towards the mourning’s dressing. Edith was fully convinced that going into full mourning like that was the least they could do but Cora didn’t think her middle daughter enjoyed wearing black. Mary didn’t hide her aversion, and Sybil didn’t protest but as the sweet little sunshine she was, black wasn’t right for her either.

Cora didn’t despise the mourning’s black as the girls did, Mary especially. There was no question in wearing it the next months, and she wasn’t counting the days until the colours could return to her daily closet. Cora even liked how she looked in black. There were striking black gowns that did perfectly well on all kinds of dinner occasions, and they pulled Robert’s gaze to her exposed shoulders, arms, and cleavage in a slightly different way than her lighter gowns did. The effect of black was strong, and sometimes it felt to Cora as if this strength was something she absorbed when Robert watched her in her black dresses. When she had been much younger, she had thought at first (and maybe it had been like this in the very first years) that black made her – or any young woman for that matter – unapproachable; if it was mourning’s black or not. Though, it sometimes managed to give the wearer a strong appearance most often it was perceived as not very welcoming. Robert also had to learn that this hadn’t had to be the case. It certainly wasn’t anymore.

Now when she wore black evening gowns, she felt less like the young inferior bride but nearly like an equal to the men with might. Her power, though, was a wholly different one than the power of these men. But she liked being a bit more at eye’s level with the gentlemen and making Robert aware of the power she had over him and in their marriage.

When her thoughts started wandering into fields less grave and too pleasurable for times of mourning, the motor neared its destination and Cora tried to shake off the memories that intensified the heat under her high-neck gown.

Clouds covered the sky and the short moment of the real summer sun was gone already as she arrived in front of the Dower House.

Cora had asked her mother-in-law for an invitation because there was a letter she had received and wanted to discuss with the older lady. The letter had excited her but because it was a rather delicate matter, she had decided to approach her ally, her partner in crime, to make a real decision about it.

As soon as she walked up the way towards the front door the Dowager’s butler opened it and greeted her as obligingly as ever. With a small nod and a smile, Cora appreciated his silent effort to take care of her coat. The quietly muttered “Milady” was less talking than a necessary addition to moving around her busily, acknowledging her presence. When Cora touched her hat a little to make sure it was still in place, the knocking sound of the cane announced Mama’s arrival.

“It is nice of you to come, my dear,” she greeted. The form of endearment towards Cora was something she had used nearly since the beginning of Robert’s and her marriage but it never had anything affectionate about it primarily. It sometimes could be a way of showing a bit of empathy but that wasn’t the norm.

The Dowager Countess was in one of her all-black gowns as well. Mourning and all that came with it was something she knew better than anyone living at the Abbey. She didn't bother how it made her look as long as everything about the gown was proper. Cora thought the black attire perhaps made her mother-in-law look even more intimidating.

Cora followed her into the sitting room. She sat down slightly sideways on the armchair the Dowager offered with a rather impatient gesture of her right hand. Cora tried to adjust her skirts a little that strained slightly in the position the seat forced her to adopt. Violet repeated the nervous shake of her hand towards the butler.

“The tea,” she muttered before sitting down as well. Cora slipped her gloved hand between the folds of her skirts and brought out the reason for her visit. She handed the letter to Mama.

“Here, this arrived yesterday with the afternoon mail. Have a look at it.”

Violet grabbed her reading glasses from the small table next to her. As she unfolded the paper, she sent a short gauging look at Cora over the rim of her small glasses. All the while Violet skimmed the letter and the butler brought the tea, Cora tried to make herself a bit more comfortable on the antique seat. She was still warm in her clothes. For a moment she thought about slipping off her gloves but she wouldn’t stay long anyway. So, she just leaned back as much as possible (more would also have been improper) and held on to the cushion at her left. She enjoyed the slightest of breezes that brushed through the curls at her neck when the butler opened the door to serve the tea.

“So, the young Duke of Crowborough is asking himself to stay.” Mama had finished reading the letter.

“And we know why,” Cora inserted instantly, opening the conversation to the topic that had defined all their latest talks.

Mama provided her with a wary expression. “You hope you know why. That is not at all the same. You realise the Duke thinks Mary’s prospects have altered.” She took off her glasses and emphasised her statement by pointing to the letter with the folded pair of glasses.

“I suppose so,” Cora admitted. She had hoped Mama wouldn’t come to the same conclusion. It would all be much easier if the Duke was interested in Mary no matter what. But Cora knew best that this wasn’t how marriage and courting worked in the English aristocracy. When would a gentleman be interested in a lady just for herself first before securing his family and estate could benefit from her? Was it really always the same? No matter how rosy she managed to have made things work with her dear husband she was aware of the brutal and heartless business of marrying off one’s children, particularly daughters. She wanted her three girls to have good prospects for the lives ahead of them and apparently this meant she had to play this game of matchmaking the best she could. She would always do the best she could for her daughters even if this meant engaging in customs of the peerage that went against her beliefs. Her girls would be dependent on husbands that could and would secure them a safe and happy future. Safety and happiness were closely tied to position according to English nobility, and Cora knew that sadly there was a kernel of truth to it in this society.

“There’s no ‘suppose’ about it,” the Dowager countered with a short shake of her head. “Of course, this is exactly the sort of opportunity that will come to Mary if we can only get things settled in her favour.” She threw another short glance at the lines on the letter before she asked, “Is Robert coming round?” with a circling gesture of her hand.

“Not yet. To him, the risk is we succeed in saving my money but not the estate. He feels he’d be betraying his duty if Downton were lost because of him,” Cora explained calmly. The matter of the entail has bothered Mama, Robert, and her continuously over the last weeks, and Cora knew it wouldn’t help anyone if it was discussed with overbearing emotions.

“Well, I’m going to write to Murray.” Violet’s answer was resolute. She had made a plan with Cora and was determined to make it happen.

“He won’t say anything different.” Cora shook her head. It seemed like there were treading water and everything that had been decided for them – for her (years ago when she had to sign this stupid contract) – was out of reach to change.

“Well, we have to start somewhere. Our duty is to Mary.”

Cora was slightly baffled at her mother-in-law’s resilience. She had never thought that there was someone who would fight more for her daughters than Cora herself. Robert was very close but as became apparent once again (and Cora didn’t hold it against him) Downton was a very high concurrence to the girls. Violet, however, had a determination as fuelled as Cora’s when it came to securing what was right for Mary.

The Dowager Countess sighed, “Well, give him a date for when Mary is out of mourning.” She handed the letter back to Cora who took it with a smile. When Mama was thinking there was still something to fight for, Cora would certainly go with it. She really hoped there were good prospects for Mary. Maybe Mama and she could really achieve something if they continued putting their abilities together for good use. Cora had never thought she would be so powerful with Mama by her side when she had been the young bride she once was. That Mama and she were such a great team ironically was only one of the nice surprises the years had brought.

“No one wants to kiss a girl in black,” Mama said slightly theatrically before they started sipping their teas. Their conversation left them both with a lot to think and so they were mostly silent while drinking the warm tea. Cora was happy Violet seemed to have no other topics she wanted to discuss. She was glad to make her way home again and think about what could still be done about Mary’s situation. Dear strong Mary who shouldn’t be restricted in all her great abilities to form a promising future herself. Things didn’t seem right that way, to rob a girl of what could very well belong to her and could assure her great conditions for her future life. It just didn’t seem fair.

Cora sighed as the door of the Dower House closed behind her not much later. The challenge Mama and she had taken on wasn’t easy but Cora was sure if there was someone at the moment who could achieve something on that score it was the ally she and Mama had formed.

She walked back to the motor. The sun still hid behind a cloud but it was warm nevertheless. Cora moved sparsely therefore and gave a short nod to the chauffeur who held the car door open for her. She had power; she knew it. Strange only that out of all Mama was the one to remind her of that.

On the slightly bumpy road back to the Abbey Cora remembered a particular thing Mama had said earlier.

No one wants to kiss a girl in black.

Even if she shouldn’t, Cora had to smile remembering Mama’s words. She knew someone who didn’t object to kissing a certain girl in black. A girl that has already been kissed in black quite a lot of times.

[platypanthewriter]

Road Trip

Maybe call this your royalty/road trip prompt, @awickedplacethisis​, it’s much shorter!  Harringrove April prompt day 14, Road Trip

Once upon a time, in Westfield Indiana—not far from Indianapolis—there was a very, very large mansion, almost a castle, where there lived a family named Harrington.

There were servants inside the mansion, and servants outside the mansion; caddies to attend the golf course, and six crews of gardeners: two for around the reflecting pools, the rest for the grounds, and a tree surgeon on retainer.  There were specialists for the indoor tennis courts, and the outdoor tennis courts, the outdoor swimming pool, and the indoor swimming pool.

And over the garage there lived a chauffeur by the name of Hargrove, imported from England years ago—together with a Rolls Royce—and a son, named William, or Billy.

 It was a different world, for Billy Hargrove, watching the Harringtons through the bushes, or getting out of his father’s car—little Stevie Harrington wore suits, and rode horses, and sometimes, when his parents were on holiday, little Stevie Harrington would invite Billy to play.  

Steve was a general, in these games, or sometimes the president, and Billy was, as ever, whatever was required, whether that was a dragon, or a magic steed, or a princess.  When Steve’s parents came back from wherever they were, Billy saw him only from the garage windows, again.

The Harrington parties were otherworldly, for Billy, watching from the apartment over the garage.  Billy folded his arms over the railing, watching the orchestra, and the fireworks—and sometimes Steve would climb his tree afterwards, with stories.  

“I brought you something,” he would say, leaning to sit a folded linen napkin on Billy’s windowsill, containing three chocolates, or sometimes, “—they’re too busy to give me a kiss goodnight, Billy, so I came to you.”

He fell out of the tree, once, and Billy yelled, and then Steve was forbidden from climbing trees, and forbidden from waking the staff in the dead of night.  He tried to climb it, still, with his cast, until Billy hid with the window closed.  Steve called softly, and then more softly still, as Billy plugged his ears under the window, until finally he went away.

 Steve ignored him, after that, until Billy made a paper airplane, stood on the edge of his railing out of sight of the car pulling in, and threw it when their fathers looked away.  Steve saw it fly into the hedge, snatched it, and stuck it in his jacket, but he didn’t look over.  Billy didn’t hear anything until Steve ran into the garage two days later, looking around wild-eyed, and waved to him, then hauled him into the hedge around the side.

His cast looked grubby—probably from climbing trees—and the hand not in a cast clutched tightly at Billy’s wrist.  “Why wouldn’t you open the window,” he muttered, huffily.

“You might fall again!” Billy whisper-yelled back at him, but it was too good to see Steve to stay mad at him, so he hugged him as hard as he could, cast and all.  

“I’d rather fall than not see you,” Steve said, and Billy swallowed, squeezing him tighter.

“I—I’ll sneak out.  We could meet in your garden,” Billy said, meaning the grounds, and Steve shook his head.  

“They’ll send you away.  They caught my mother’s maid by the pool, at night, and they sent her away.”  He thought.  “I’ll write you letters,” he said, pulling away to stare into Billy’s eyes, and squeeze Billy’s hands, even though they were covered in oil.  “I’ll leave them under the driver’s seat.  You’ll have to be fast.”

“I’ll find them,” Billy told him, nodding, and that whole summer he found pictures of their games, and stories, and once, a picture of Billy himself, and Steve, holding hands.

 That was before Steve was sent away to school.  He was different, after—they were both older, but his eyes didn’t look for Billy, and he invited different people to the pool, his friends in their tailored suits, with no oil stains.  Friends who would not be sent away.

Steve would come around while Billy was fixing cars, though, and brush his hand around Billy’s waist as he bent over an engine, or slide the trolley out to pull Billy from under the Rolls Royce as Billy changed the oil, and feed him sweet and unusual fruit.  Billy stared up at Steve Harrington’s smile as he tried mango for the first time, licking it from Harrington’s fingers as he laughed, and then star fruit, and papaya.

 Billy still watched the parties—Steve’s parents’ parties—from a tree, swinging his legs as Steve laughed, and flirted, and occasionally came over and leaned back against the tree, holding a glass of champagne up where Billy could reach down and take it.  

Once, when Steve’s dance partner wandered over, he kissed her, whispering and laughing.  Billy clenched his fingers against the tree’s branches for long minutes until they’d wandered away, and then he swung down.  He went to bed early that night.  His pillow was nearly enough to block out the music, and even the fireworks, until he heard the sound of a knock at his window.  

He opened it on Steve in his suit, and Steve crawled in, right inside Billy’s room, with his creaky old floors, stained curtains, and the picture Steve had drawn of them holding hands, before he’d been sent away to school.  

Steve stepped forward and kissed him the way he hadn’t done since they were children.  Billy stared at him, half sure he was asleep, shivering a little with the open window in only his wifebeater and shorts.  Steve’s hands were warm around his biceps.  

“Wish I could dance with you,” he whispered, then brushed a kiss against Billy’s mouth again, and Billy inhaled in a quick jerk of his lungs.  Steve leaned in again, and the floor creaked, and Billy pushed him back towards the window.  

“Ssshhh,” he whispered, his fingers sinking into the silk of Steve’s cuffs, and the warm folds where his shirt was tucked into his trousers, under his jacket.  “Sshhh…” he muttered again, letting Steve tilt his head, and kiss him softly, his mouth a little open so Billy couldn’t help chasing the warmth.  

“You really want me to go?” Steve asked, laughing against his lips, and Billy snorted softly.

“Of course I don’t,” he whispered back.  

 The next dance, Steve came and leaned against the tree, held up some champagne, and said, “Meet me at the indoor tennis court.”

“...I’ll get fired,” Billy whispered, laughing, and Steve was quiet for a long moment.

“...I’ll understand if you don’t come,” he said softly, tipping back the champagne, “—but I’ll wait until the orchestra stops.”

Billy thought about what his father would do, already, if he was caught in the tree—what Steve’s mother would do if the chauffeur-in-training startled party guests, wandering around in work clothes—but he set his jaw.  When everyone gathered around to hear Steve’s father speak on the podium in front of the fountains, Billy snuck off along the hedge—inside the hedge, within view of the house, his heart pounding—and then lingered outside of the tennis courts.  

 Steve arrived a few minutes later with a whole bottle of champagne, and slid his fingers through Billy’s, tugging him inside.  “Why didn’t you go inside?” he asked, bending to sit the bottle down, and then sliding his hands around Billy’s waist.

“...I don’t know,” Billy laughed, who’d only ever been allowed near the courts to clean, or pick up balls.  “Want to show me around?”

“This is where I play tennis, to keep me occupied, when I’m missing you,” Steve told him.  “This is the wall that makes it so I can’t see your house…” he whispered, and Billy laughed, and slid his arms around Steve’s neck, holding him close.  After a few minutes of just...molding against each other, sighing with relief, Steve’s head jerked up, his smile widening in the soft reflected light from the party.  “Here,” he whispered, “—this is the song I had to dance with somebody else, when you were right there, in the tree.”

Billy laughed again, shaking his head in disbelief.  Steve grabbed his hand, lifting it like a dance, and slid the other around his waist, kicking at Billy’s feet to get them to move.  “I don’t know how,” Billy told him, squinting down at his feet, and Steve kissed him again, missing his mouth, laughing, and leaning to try again.  

“I’ll show you,” he whispered, counting.  After a while Billy realized Steve leading meant he wouldn’t get to spin him around, so he spun Steve anyway, and Steve staggered, yanking him along.

 “...he’ll notice you’re gone,” Steve said, finally, as they lay next to each other, panting in their backs, passing the champagne back and forth for swigs.  “I’ve kept you too late.”

“I stayed,” Billy told him, leaning over for another soft kiss, and then another, because Steve Harrington was his, at least for a few hours.

 The next day, Steve came out while Billy was washing the cars, and leaned against the wall in his tailored suit.  He had a weird-looking fruit—dark red, and not very...plump looking, and he carved at it with a penknife as Billy worked.  The purple juice stained his fingers.  

“You know the story of Hades and Persephone,” Steve said, idly, and Billy thought about it, wiping sweat off his face.  

“...he stole her, didn’t he?” Billy asked.  It had sounded scary, as a child, reading from the huge illustrated book in the Harrington’s massive echoing library, but he thought, now, maybe he understood.  “So they could be together.  And her parents rained destruction on them.”

Steve grimaced.  “...this is a pomegranate.”

“Oh,” Billy said, intrigued.  He rinsed his hands and head off, pushing his hair back to see Steve open-mouthed.  

“Come here,” Steve whispered, and Billy came over, and they risked just one kiss, in the middle of the garage, with their fathers both away at work.  Billy could barely make himself let go, but he backed away, after, and leaned against a car.  “...I thought I’d bring you some seeds,” Steve said, softly.  “So you’ll stay with me.”

Billy dug his fingers into his own crossed arms, laughing.  “Sure,” but then, when Steve held out the six tiny, bright, faceted seeds, he swallowed.  “...six doesn’t seem like enough, now I see how many there are.  Give me half.”

Steve grinned, glancing up at him with a wry smile.  “That’s fair,” he said, nodding, and they counted them out on two plates.  Steve held the odd one up to Billy’s mouth, and he leaned in and ate it, his tongue brushing Steve’s fingers.  He helped Steve wash the juice off, after, sliding their fingers together.

 When Steve began to work at his father’s company, Billy became his chauffeur.  He waited for Steve Harrington every morning, and every evening, and Steve sat in the back, watching him in the rearview mirror.  

When Steve bought a car, he took Billy along, and on the way home, he asked him to pull off of the road, into a field.  The stars were bright, and his kisses were warm, and Billy helped him lay out a blanket.  

Billy wondered, as he fumbled with their belts, clumsy with kissing, whether it would ever happen again.

It didn’t.  

 Steve wanted ice cream, occasionally, or dinner, and asked Billy to join him, but he worked very early and very late.  He still sometimes pressed a quick kiss to Billy’s lips—if no one was looking, if he wasn’t running late—but there were no lingering touches, except one time.

The girl Steve had kissed under Billy’s tree was the daughter of another CEO, and their engagement was announced on the local radio.  Steve stared straight ahead, his jaw clenched, and then told Billy to use the back elevator, and come up to his office, right away.  When Billy got there, Steve locked the doors, and pulled Billy along to the bed behind the kitchenette.  He didn’t say anything, he just slid his hands up under Billy’s shirt, and followed them with his mouth, kissing softly up Billy’s stomach to his chest, and then across his collarbones, as Billy wriggled out of his clothes.  

They didn’t unlock the door all day, no matter whose voice came through.

 Three weeks later, when Billy climbed in the car and suggested Steve’s favorite cafe, and then the office, Steve said no.  He sat looking out the window, his eyes far away.  

Billy waited silently, full of dread.  “...Mr. Harrington?” he asked, finally, and then, because his voice gave out, he cleared his throat.  “...do you have...something to tell me?”

“No,” Steve said, smiling—sadly, Billy thought, and he clenched his hands on the wheel.  “...I think I just want to drive.  South.”

“...yeah, okay,” Billy said automatically, and then, as was ingrained, “—sir.”  Steve snorted a laugh.

As they passed through Carmel and then Indianapolis, Steve slowly relaxed, finally asking Billy to stop for breakfast when he was already an hour late for work.  It wasn’t Billy’s place to ask, and he hardly wanted to remind Steve they were not where they were supposed to be, but something must have come across in his eyes as he chewed his bacon and watched Steve, because Steve’s smile went tense again.

“It’s all handled,” he said, sipping his coffee.  “I think we can take a little road trip, don’t you?”

“For how long?” Billy asked, his fork freezing in midair, imagining just—spending time with Steve, walking, maybe.  Going to a movie theater, he thought, huffing a laugh.  He wondered whether Steve Harrington had ever been in a movie theater.

“I’m not sure,” Steve said, glancing up at him with an impenetrable expression, and Billy’s heart hurt, a little, because Steve Harrington had never been a difficult person to read.  

 After breakfast, Steve slid into the seat next to him, instead of the back, and rested his hand on Billy’s as he shifted gears.  Billy could hardly keep his eyes off it.

“How long is this road trip,” he asked, keeping his voice even, and Steve laughed, grimacing.

“Depends on you,” he said.

I ate half of the pomegranate, Billy wanted to say.

 Steve directed Billy into the garage next to a tall, narrow blue house with a long, wide porch and white trim, and Billy’s heart started to pound.  “...is anyone else staying here?” he asked, cautiously, as Steve unlocked the door, and he shook his head, watching Billy’s face.  They wandered into a fine living room, Billy thought, though sparsely furnished.  As they wandered through the kitchen and upstairs, Billy pushed open a door on a room with a small, plain bed, and his things.  His shoes, his trunk, no longer in the little apartment he shared with his dad.  

No longer overlooking Harrington House.  

“My friend Buckley has a house near here,” Steve said.  “She told me this one was coming up for sale,” he said slowly, glancing at Billy.  “...I could afford it.”

Billy was...happy, he thought, probably.  “You’re...leaving me here?” he asked, his eyes stinging, and fixed on the plain little room.  “You—you’ll visit.  Sometimes.”

“I’m—no,” Steve said sharply, grabbing his arm, and Billy yanked away to sit on the squeaky mattress.

“You want me gone before the marriage, then,” he whispered.  “I get...a few days? A day,” he bargained, glancing up at Steve, and setting his jaw.  He wanted to swear at Steve, for—for being everything he wanted, he guessed.  And everything he couldn’t have.

“No, no, I’ve broken off the engagement,” Steve said, grabbing Billy’s hands,  “—and I’ve quit.  I have a new job, Billy.”

“What,” Billy asked him, hoarsely.  

“I’m disowned,” Steve said, laughing, his voice unsteady.  “I’ve convinced my father I’m too difficult to reason with.  I’m out of the will.  I will live here.  I bought the house with my money, from Mother.”

“Here,” Billy breathed, staring around again, and then at Steve’s face.

“I hoped you would like it here,” Steve told him.  “I wanted to show you, so you could—road trip here.  Come down on weekends, maybe—”

“You packed my things,” Billy reminded him.  “Is this a little road trip, or—”

“This could be home,” Steve told him, smiling tensely.  “Come see our room.”

“...our room,” Billy laughed, disbelievingly, as Steve drew him down the hall, and into a wide, high-ceilinged room with a massive bed.  

“Our room,” Steve repeated, smiling against Billy’s lips, as Billy took shaky, bewildered breaths.  “Who would question a single gentleman having a gentleman?”

The other Harringrove April prompts I’ve done

[wornoutmouse]

This will be a little different because I'm leaving my author's notes inside. Also have i ever mentioned the fact that I'm a ✨VIRGIN✨ so i don't know shit about the stuff i write. So any of you non virgin peeps can help a sista out with some tips that would be great

Cockwarming kinda not really this fix is really a joke since I'm low-key stick in a rut

It was your fault that you were down here. If only you had been a good girl and waited for Iida to finish his paperwork. 

"Y/N if you throw another price of paper at my head there will be consequences." You giggle as you peer through the door. "I'll only stop if you play with me Tenya." You taunt already balling up your next round of ammo.

Iida glares at you thoroughly annoyed. He loved you, truly, but you were the reason he was forced to spend so much time on his paper work in the first place.

You had just got a promotion so you had wanted to celebrate, that's fine. However your idea of celebrating was getting shit faced drunk forcing him to have to come pick you up at six in the morning after your friends contacted him.

Of course you were sick the next day so he decided to take a day off just to take care of you. That ended quickly on the third day when he realized you were lying the whole time. All in all he was fed up with his 'innocent little sugar baby' as you put it 

Your eyes narrowed mischievous as you watched Iida's face relax and go back into work mode. Deep inside your heart you knew this was selfish…… But you ✨didn't care✨

After balling up the paper, this time you wet it with your water bottle getting it nice and soggy. You took aim and did a dramatic count-down in your head. "3..2..1… Fire!"

You launch the ball and make a bull's-eye directly on Iida's forehead before the water ball flopped onto the desk splashing small drops out water on the paper around it… exactly where Iida needed to sign. 

'Ah so I've chosen death.' you thought quietly to yourself as Iida stared at the water drops dripping down his nose. You turn to crawl away finally having enough of your own games. "Get your disrespectful ass in here." You sit on the floor sweating bullets, "U-Uh honey, I just remembered I have something e-else to do." You reply crawling a bit faster.

The door to Iida's office opens completely and  the back of your shirt is gripped tightly as you're dragged into the office. Any hope of escape was crushed as Iida securely locked the door with his own personal key. 

Iida takes his seat and looks at you, dark blue eyes narrowed as they take in your trembling form. "The fact that you aren't speaking let's me know that you know you crossed the line." You looked up at Iida pulling your best ashamed look but you both knew inside your didn't regret a single thing. 

Iida smiled and pat his lap, making you perk up as you go to sit on top of him. Before you could settle Iida grabbed your arm and pulled you over his lap. "Iida?" 

You become a bit light headed at the sudden switch of elevation. "I think you don't truly understand the seriousness of this Y/N. When we met we paid down the basics so don't say you don't know the rules." You pout at the floor crossing your arms, "I'm bored."

Iida sighed, "You wouldn't be bored if you had let me do my work instead of faking sickness." (Okay mom) You roll your eyes and simply hang over Iida's lap lifelessly. 

Rolling his eyes, Iida opens a side drawer and stumbles through it as he gently massages the globes of your ass. "I wish I didn't have to do this my dear but you've pushed my hand." Iida declared making you giggle from our m how stupid he sounded. 

In the midst of your amusement, you failed to notice the gentle drag of your pants exposing your bare ass to the world. Your laughter is cut short at the sound of a loud smack and the pain that followed quickly after. "H-Hey what's your d-deal!" You say gripping Iida's knees in a attempt to lift yourself. A firm hand pressed down on your back, "Lay there, this is what happens when you don't listen."

You glared silently to yourself as Iida spreads his legs further under you forcing you to stretch out. You jump as your ass is hit again with something hard. From the corner of your eye, you see the familiar gleam of Iida's silver ruler. "Trust me Y/N this hurts me more than it hurts you."

You roll your eyes from the bullshit you were hearing. "Yeah fucking right, you sound like my mother-ack" your interrupted buy two hard blows going on your right cheek then moving to your left cheek. You could feel the threat of tears forming from the back of your eyes as Iida continues to spank you. 

You whimper trying to hide your pain. After one especially hard smack, you let the tears fall and cry out. "Oka-ay I'm sorry Daddy!" Iida stiffens (daddy chill), "While I have no need for the title, I appreciate the moniker." (Okay abraham lincoln calm down dont pull out the nine...oh wait) Iida motions for you to sit up so you do.

"Get on the floor." You go into your knees wincing at the burn burning feeling in your ass. Using one hand, Iida unzips his pants and pulls out his cock. It was completely soft try he pushed the tip towards your mouth.

You open your mouth obediently as Iida presses your head down so you swallow his cock all the way down to the hilt. For awhile you do the usual bob and weave (wtf are you talking about?) Breathing gently through your nose as his thick cock rested heavily on your tongue, you gaze up at him annoyed as he tossed his head back sighing.

Once Iida felt that he was as hard as he would ever be, he stopped your movement and gently forced your head to rest on his leg. You humm questioning but Iida makes no move to answer as he goes back to working. You suck hard on his dick making him jump. 

Iida takes his hand and pushes your face flush against his stomach forcing his cock to slide gracefully down your esophagus. For a while you allow it, basking in his (crisco engine grease) manly musk. But once the lack of oxygen travelled to your brain you began to panic.

You tap his leg rapidly and make noises of alarm as spit began to accumulate around your mouth. And just before your eyes rolled to the back of your head, Iida releases you and you pull away a choking mess. "What the hell was that for?!" 

"Discipline. Since you wanted my cock so bad, why don't you choke on it." You stand up as Iida laughs at your disheveled state. (Iida having fun? Well I'll be damned that ooc) "That's not even close to discipline!" 

Iida cleared his throat, "Well in the words of my good greetings Kaminari…" Iida holds out his hand in a cupping manor (aye bro ya ween is still out blowin in the breeze), "Spare choochie?"

[elsewhereuniversity]

Finding Joy

Her safename was Joy.

That worried people, when taken with her bubbly personality- the laughter that filled the heart, the smile that lit a room, blue eyes sparkling over freckled dimples. The silly hoodie, with huge blue ears that were taller than her head- “Easier to find me in a crowd, that way,” she’d said, and well, it’s not like she was wrong. More than once, the blue ear tips weaving through a sea of shoulders was the only way to find Joy, short as she was. The iron bell around her neck only helped a little- it’s ringing often swallowed by the noise.

Joy fit her, really.

And that was why they worried.

Her RA had spoken to her about it, of course. “Are you sure you want to go with Joy? You know the point is that they’re not supposed to fit, right?” And Joy had nodded in complete understanding, smiling brightly. “I read the introductory packet- if it starts to fit too well, I’ll change it, I promise! But I’m not too worried about that.” Another bright smile. A name, cautiously, added to the floor register. (Written in calligraphy, sprinkled with salt, locked in an iron drawer. Maybe Clip was paranoid, but she wasn’t losing any students that way ever again.)

The first meeting with the Gentry came a month in. Accidental, of course- she hadn’t been watching the trail they’d been following, locked in an animated conversation with her friend about the robotics project she’d been working on. “-so I’ve got it measuring soil conditions every three hours, now, and comparing it against the plants showing optimal growth, to match them- I think I can set up pre-programmed routines, with some more data, to keep soils on a prepared regime! The hard part will be getting the fertilizing-”

The rest of that sentence would never be heard. What was heard was a shout, crashing sounds, and a loud pair of dual thuds.

What was seen, was the gentleman who’d been crashed into and knocked to the ground, golden hair in disarray, blinking dazedly- and Joy, on top of him, where she’d crashed into the man, her papers scattered around her.

(Off to the side, her friend wasn’t sure whether to start filming or to grab Joy and run. She might have been too busy laughing, though.)

Joy had sprung away, then, like she’d been burned. “Oh my gosh, I am so- are you okay? Do you need to go to the nurse, did you hit your head? I should have been watching where I was going, my bad!” Snatching up her papers, she offered a hand down to the gentleman, who, still disoriented, took it, and pulled him to his lanky feet. Golden eyes blinked down at the girl, as he brushed dirt off his coat, clearing his throat.

“That will not be necessary, I assure you, miss…?”

“Oh! Right, Joy, you can call me Joy, I’m so- no, wait, I’m not supposed to say that, right, right.”

A gentle huff of laughter. A hand brushing dirt off a blue coated shoulder. “It suits you. No harm, no foul, as you children say. Run along, now.” A dazzling smile in return, as she ran off to catch up with her friend. Distantly, he could hear them chattering. “Dude! That was one of Them! Are you okay, you didn’t say anything you shouldn’t have, right?” “I’m fine! It’s fine, don’t worry about it, he wasn’t mad.” “You told him your name, though!” “Don’t be absurd. I told you, it doesn’t fit, that’s the whole point.”

Days passed. Her roommates watched her like a hawk. Weeks- caution started to ease. Months- and when October rolled around, it found the two girls sprawled out under a tree on the grounds.

“Coleslaw heard you crying the other night- what was that about?”

A shrug. Her stylus traced over her tablet, tracing out details. “Just a call from my godfather, no big deal.”

“You’re still homesick?”

“I guess. More than I thought, anyway.”

“Well, you know, fall break’s coming up soon. Maybe you can go visit?”

“Yeah, maybe.”

The conversation had turned, then. To the party coming up, a masquerade hosted by the drama majors- of course.

An idea took root.

Joy wasn’t much one for dancing- too small, she’d laughingly tell anyone who asked, “My partners would have to bend double to meet me!” It was an exaggeration- but not, to be fair, by that much. She contented herself, instead, drifting around the room, giddy in the face of her classmates happiness, and possibly the double-shot cookie-mocha she’d snagged from the snack bar.

It was because of her drifting that she saw the girl being led off by the golden haired gentleman, away from the courtyard, to the path leading to the Forest. Following wasn’t a decision- her legs moved almost of their own accord.

The pair went into the trees.

Joy hesitated, for half a breath- then lifted her chin, eyes flashing steel, and marched in after them.

The gold eyed gentleman grinned at her, across the ring of mushrooms. His hands rested on the shoulders of the girl he’d taken, her eyes wide and watery as she stared at Joy.

“Give her back. She isn’t yours to take.”

Teeth showed behind the predatory grin. “She came willingly, little butterfly. Stepped into my arms, to save her guardian from himself, wouldn’t you know? A life for a life. Her life, to save his from the bottle.”

Of course she’d made a Deal. Well, two can play at that game. “I’ll barter for her.”

The grin turned sly. He leaned forward, resting his chin on the girl’s head. “And what would you have to offer me, bold little butterfly? I told you already- a life for a life. Are you so willing, to trade your freedom for a stranger?”

A breath of hesitation. His grin grew. “Perhaps I’ll be generous. I’ll take your godfather, then- unless you’d care to give me your true name, Joy?”

Joy led the shaking girl through the forest, plucking her iron butterfly clips from the trees they’d marked the way from as they passed. Their absence had been noticed, by now- Clip’s eyes lit up in relief to see both students emerging down the path, Joy’s shawl wrapped around the other girl, and one of the girl’s friends ran forward to greet them, nearly tackling her in a hug. Joy stepped back to let them have their reunion, moved over to her RA. Looking up at Clip, she smiled a bit, sheepishly.

“Is it too late to register to stay over break?”

“So what do you think? Are you really going to join the Knights?”

The student traced her pen over the lines of the sign-up sheet, tip drumming against the page. It was already most of the way filled out- the reasons, the class schedule, the dorm number- there was only one thing left to write down. The question got her gaze to lift, and she nodded.

“I think so, yeah. I mean, I’ve already rescued one classmate- imagine what I could do with some support.”

“You mean imagine what they could do, with a few more engineering majors.”

“Po-tay-to, po-tah-to. I’m definitely looking into the blacksmithing elective next semester, I’m gonna build us armor.”

A laugh answered that, and her friend reached across the table, shoving her playfully. “Well then what are you waiting for? Hurry up and go turn it in!”

The student formerly known as Joy laughed, a sound like bells, as she wrote her name into the final blank. “Alright, alright! Come on, come with me- maybe they’ll know where to pick up a sign-up sheet for the Scribes for you.”

“Alright, I’m coming, I’m coming.”

Blue ink glittered as it dried, Iris written in gentle swoops across the top of the page.

x

[itsbenedict]

I didn’t post about everything I played this year, so here’s my opinions on the stuff I played that I didn’t make a rec post for:

Raging Loop 

Raging Loop is one of them twisty meta Zero Escape-y branching-path visual novels where an ensemble cast is trapped in a mysterious circumstance where people are dying gruesomely, and you have to find out what’s happening and stop it by looping a bunch. 

I can’t wholeheartedly recommend it, because... it tries to have its cake and eat it too with the supernatural elements. Clearly magic is real and has important impacts on the scenario, but then other parts are trickery you’re supposed to see through, and it’s entirely uninterested in cluing you in to how that trickery was accomplished. Not exactly a fair play mystery, in that regard- you have to kind of just be along for the ride, rather than try to figure it out.

That said, it’s a good ride- pretty strong character writing, and the central conceit of the Werewolf/Mafia-style murder scenario creates really interesting drama. It’s more concerned with making itself feel clever than letting the player feel clever, but it’s still well-paced and gripping and has a pretty decent resolution.

Detective Grimoire

I recommended Tangle Tower, the sequel, pretty strongly- and this one, while obviously a little rougher around the edges with the art and mechanics (the suspicion tracker system is a total dud; I didn’t even realize it existed until I realized I was missing an achievement for using it), it’s still pretty darn good. Really fun character designs and animations, fully-voiced, and a solid whodunit backing it all. Plus- while the two are more or less self-contained, the continuity threads with Tangle Tower raised some really interesting questions.

Contradiction - the all-video murder mystery

This one was pretty fun, largely on the strength of the actors. The main mechanic of interrogating people on evidence and using their own statements against each other was some good stuff, too. Definitely had that Phoenix Wright quality to the deductions, and Jenks is a really fun character. (Had a few points where progression was just linked to standing in a certain previously-abandoned area of the map where a clue was suddenly there for no reason, there- good thing it had a hint system.)

As a mystery, it could use a little work- most of what you end up finding out is sequel bait (for a sequel that never actually came together, unfortunately), and the actual whodunit is just sort of hiding in the cracks of all that. And... cornering the culprit just sort of happens out of nowhere once you’ve got your hands on the right piece of evidence, without much fanfare. You’re following up on leads like usual, you find a little lie in someone’s testimony, and then- oh, shit, they’re just confessing everything! Unlike all the previous times you questioned them and they were super evasive like everyone else! And then the game is over. 

All in all, it’s pretty meaty and entertaining and I’d recommend it, but unfortunately the creators have moved on to other things, so there’s not going to be any follow-up on the stuff it left unresolved.

Ikenfell

Ikenfell is a tightly-designed RPG about kids at a magic school, with Paper Mario-style action command mechanics and a battle system that makes a big deal out of careful positioning and movement, which was really enjoyable. The difficulty’s a little high (I recommend always always always speccing into max damage because killing things before they kill you is worth more than any amount of defense, speed doesn’t work, and healing is cheap), but I found it really satisfying.

There’s... something... off? About... I don’t know how to put it, it’s... doing that “yes, everyone is queer and mentally ill, deal with it” thing, which, sure, okay. But for a lot of them it’s such a background thing, like... half the playable cast is unambiguously nonbinary, but like... I don’t know if it’s trying to make some statement on how there are no rules to being NB and you can 100% perform a particular binary gender presentation but still count, or if they wrote the whole story and then changed the pronouns of some of the characters for Representation Points, or what. Probably the former? I dunno, it just feels weird. Maybe I’m just not woke enough to Get It.

(unrelatedly: why the heck is the official art they use everywhere so... off-model? none of them look like they do in-game- they look like the creator commissioned someone to draw a group shot with one reference image each and didn’t tell them anything about the characters. how much you wanna bet they commissioned a friend and it came out wrong but they were too polite to say “sorry, no, this is wrong, can you do it over?”)

Trails of Cold Steel IV

Hoo boy. It’s... not great, and it’s not great in a pretty predictable way for an even-numbered entry in the Trails series. It happens every time- first there’s a game in a new engine with new characters and a new world to explore, and it’s really nice and does interesting things... and then it ends on a cliffhanger, and then there’s a sequel game in the same engine with the same characters and the same world, reusing as many assets as possible. Also the League Of Generically Evil Anime Supervillains is there causing trouble for reasons they refuse to explain, and the plot is a storm of magicbabble and macguffin-chasing that makes little to no sense. 

Cold Steel IV is that for Cold Steel III, full stop. Welcome back to all the same places you visited last game, except this time there’s some stupid magic apocalypse happening (not that it stops you from taking the time to do random sidequests constantly, of course). The whole “oh, the evil curse mind controls people and that’s why they do stupid bullshit that’s in no one’s interest” plot point is leaned on super hard, and it’s just a big yawn the whole way through.

It’s still really fun, though, because the battle system remains really well-designed. (The same battle system that was just as fun in Cold Steel III, mind you, but it hasn’t gotten old.) And- though they’re struggling to square it with the dumb mind control apocalypse plot, the NPC dialogue continues to make the world feel believable and lived-in. They don’t slack on the parts that make Trails good- it’s just the parts that make Trails bad are making themselves more evident than ever.

did finally get to date Towa though so that’s a win

One Step From Eden

OSFE is... uh. It’s fucking hard is what it is. It’s sort of a deckbuilding roguelike, and there’s this combat that takes place on a grid, and- wait, it’s like Mega Man Battle Network, it’s exactly like Mega Man Battle Network. Man, I forgot about that, but the mechanical influence is extremely obvious. It’s MMBN meets Slay the Spire.

Except it’s super duper hard as hell, because unlike MMBN you can’t pause and swap out chips or anything- everything is just always happening so much, all at once, everywhere, and you have no recourse but to git gud and learn all the enemy patterns and the behavior of your own spells and develop the twitch reflexes necessary to not fucking die from all the shit that’s on the screen always.

(What’s the story? Uhhhh, there was some kind of magic apocalypse, and some anime girls are trying to reach a city for some reason that doesn’t really get explained ever. The game doesn’t really care to build its world at all- it’s all mechanics plus a little token character dialogue that doesn’t say much.)

The point is it’s really frickin’ hard but I am an epic pro gamer and I got ALL THE ACHIEVEMENTS, MOTHERFUCKER. If you’ve played it, I expect you to be really god damn impressed with me, okay???

A Short Hike

This one was really relaxing! It’s a platformer where you explore an Animal Crossing-y island of cartoon animal people, collecting mobility upgrades- but like, mainly it’s about straight chillin’. The flight controls are fun and there’s lots of little secrets to find and it’s just a nice time that doesn’t drag on too long. Not too much to say about this one.

Pokémon Sword

Ehhhhh.

I’m not here for the hot takes about how Dexit is good actually. Development hell happened, they had to make cuts for time, I get it. It’s disappointing and makes the game a little bit worse, but it’s not the end of the world.

Apart from that... perfectly serviceable? The Wild Area could’ve used a little more technical polish (as could most things in the game, really) but was a step in the right direction, giving the player a wider array of early-game team-building options than ever before. No HMs is good. Story and characters were kind of nothing, but that’s par for the course. “At least this time they’re not shoehorning in some kind of stupid evil-team-wants-legendary-pokemon-to-destroy-the-world apocalypse plot”, I thought to myself before they managed to shoehorn one in at the last minute with zero buildup- but, hey, beats wasting half the game on it.

It’s nothing special and it’s missing a lot of polish, but its problems are mainly due to being rushed, and presumably next gen they’ll be able to reuse a lot of the models and animations (maybe even improve the animations so they’re not so boring??? a man can dream) and make something interesting. SwSh seem like they were testing the waters for something else, and not taking too many chances in the meantime. 

(yo why would you sell all these cosmetic items and then turn them all off during gym battles, though) 

Hades

Hades is- oh, who am I kidding? Everyone knows Hades, it’s the game of the year, greatest thing since sliced bread, Supergiant are heroes, yada yada yada. I’ve played almost 300 hours of it and I’ve completed everything except all the Resources Director levels (currently a Sigma Wraith), it’s extremely fun and you don’t need me to tell you that.

Petal Crash

It was that thing the Paranatural creator helped on? It’s, uh. It’s a block-sliding puzzle game thing, sort of in a Puyo Puyo vein. It has fun character designs and some good dialogue, like you’d expect from Zack’s involvement, but it didn’t really leave an impression otherwise (besides how got dang infuriating some of its Turn Trial puzzles can be.) The story is... kinda heartwarming, kinda didactic, kinda childish, not especially deep or interesting. Hard for it to be, when it’s told through little bits of fluffy character dialogue that exist to set up a puzzle battle as quickly as possible. Not super recommended unless you really really like block-sliding puzzles.

Hollow Knight

Man, why’d I sleep on this for so long? It’s a metroidvania platformer with heavy Dark Souls inspiration, in terms of tone and difficulty and death mechanics and environmental storytelling. And it’s... apart from all that, just really good as a game, with tight controls and juicy movement and great animation. Progression is linked as much to mastery as it is to upgrades collected- I found myself in lategame areas facing down things that would’ve killed me ten times over at the start- not because I had the best gear, but because I’d learned the game’s language and understood how to move in ways that wouldn’t get me killed.

(Usually. Sometimes I’d walk into a room and sit on a bench and suddenly there’d be a boss fight and I’d get slaughtered. Ain’t that just the way it goes?)

Anyway, on top of all that it’s just charming as hell, with a really unique and well-realized world full of little bug people. I love how, like, your character is clearly some kind of eldritch abomination, but it’s small and cute and so everyone (besides enemies that attack you on sight because they’re possessed by some kinda evil mold) is like “awww, who’s this little guy? want some help, little guy?”

(except Zote, who is just an ass hole. i love him.)

[hankwritten]

TFComics Rewrite

I am currently plotting an outline for a TFComics, and I want to get my thoughts about fixes to canon and possibly get feedback. Since this is a rewrite there’s really no *spoilers* or anything, so I’m willing to answer all questions about what I plan to do. Also some characters I’m not so sure about how I want to retool them, so if your have ideas for your fav let me know!

Disclaimer:

This rewrite is intended to critique the content/choices made in the construction and telling of the Team Fortress 2 comic series. It is not a personal attack on the artists/writers/directors or any of the creatives that made contributions to this series, nor is it meant to substitute or replace the official release. This work is transformative in nature, and relies on an understanding of the source material to be understood. TF2 and its characters belong to Valve.

TFCR is working on the assumption that the audience has read the original comic, and as such will skip over scenes and plot points that are unchanged from the original. I don’t think it needs to be said, but this fanfiction will not make sense if you are not familiar with the source.

I also recognize that there are strengths within the comic’s writing and weaknesses within my own. Namely, that Valve writers are gods in the realm of comedy, and I’d rather not try to match them in the regard. As such, I will state up front that these will not be as funny as the TFComics. That is not to say there won’t be jokes (either ones transplanted from the source or some of my own) or that the tone of this will be terribly grimdark, only that my focus will be on improving story structure and character development as those are what appeal to me.

 The Broad Strokes

The goal of TFCR is to give a more engaging story for all the mercenaries we know and love, as--let’s face it--the TF2 mercs are side characters in their own damn story. These are some of the planned improvements.

There will be reason for each of the mercs to actually be there. As it stands, the motivations for almost every character besides Pauling and Saxton Hale are vague and unsatisfying. We’d usually say something along the lines of “money” for hired killers, but clearly Scout doesn’t even know if they’re getting paid, and some of the other characters are even worse. The hunt for the Australium is, therefore, boring. MacGuffins usually are, but at the very least the characters should care about the item even if the audience doesn’t. This work aims to give each of the nine mercs a motive and a reason to be in the story instead of just replaceable joke dispensers.

Explain what “Team Fortress” means, and how it relates to RED and BLU. Long and short: the nine mercenaries we see on the team are not from either RED or BLU but rotate between the two, and were the individuals selected to fight the robots. That means all things do happen to all characters. As Valve pretty much goes with “whatever is funniest at the time”, it’s very hard to make a cohesive theory about “where the hell is BLU team?”, but I’ll do my damndest. We’ll also examine Team Fortress’s relationship with the other capital T Teams, and why they’re considered the “rejects” of the bunch.

Comics 1 & 2 will be removed from the timeline as they serve no purpose, only taking what needs to be known about the plot’s setup and jumping straight to A Cold Day in Hell.

We will introduce the Classic Mercs right away so they can generate threat and play against the TF mercs when they do actually meet head to head.

We will not be killing off Gray Mann. (Not preemptively anyway.) In fact, there will be more focus on him and Olivia as villains facing off against the Admin, providing her foil as the TF2 and TFC mercs provide foils for each other.

I considered waiting until the final comic was out to begin working on this, but that may never happen. Jay Pinkerton said he may reveal what plot they had in store eventually, but considering it took Half Life over a decade to get the “I was once a Valve writer but my NDA has expired and now I can go buck wild” treatment, I’m not holding my breath. The main reason I wanted to do this is that the Administrator’s motivations are not interestingly foreshadowed, to the point where there aren’t even any good fan theories out there. That said, WritingDispenser and Riddle of the Sphinx helped come up with a pretty fun one, which was actually the inspiration for me to get off my butt and start plotting this.

There will be no queerbaiting. This refers both to HeavyMedic (which has been simultaneously used as wink wink nudge nudge joke many times and as encouragement for fans to play their stupid hat game) as well as lesbian Pauling (since femme lesbians are the preferred method for front facing LGBT representation across almost all media, but video games especially). If you need to understand why lesbian Pauling is an issue, Sarah Z coined the term “queercatching” in order to describe word of god confirmations on characters sexualities that are not followed up on in the text. I recommend the full video on it.

Due to the importance of immortality in the theming of the comics, respawn will not be a thing. Deaths we think should have happened previously will be explained as close calls, or that Medic can heal a short time after death. Medic and Scout’s deaths will be cut in the story itself, as after Sniper died and came back, them doing the same thing kinda lost their punch.

Scout

There will be no ScoutPauling hints. It doesn’t make sense to give screentime to this relationship because Valve obviously doesn’t think it’s going to go anywhere so why make Scout turn down advances from other hot women? I mean I get Expiration Date was a Thing but it feels like Scout’s whole motivation shouldn’t be reduced down to chasing a girl who doesn’t like him back.

He’s here because he lost his life’s savings in bad investments and needs the money. That’s it. Which is still somehow more than his canon motive which is question mark question mark question mark

He, Soldier, Spy, Demo, and Pyro all start the adventure with Miss Pauling.

Engages with Heavy on a genuine level when they go to collect him, Heavy doesn’t blow him off when he tries to level about dead dads.

There will be no DadSpy reveal. The way Spy treats Scout has never been “deadbeat dad feels bad about abandoning his kid” but more “this is someone I would kill without a second thought if I felt like it” which makes his reveal in comic 5 feel very disingenuous. I don’t think Valve even had this plotline in mind until comic 3, as #2 still has Spy seeming only to care about Scout’s Ma and not Scout himself. It also makes “seduce me!” retroactively weird.

Uhhh hooks up with Zhanna. This one isn’t critical I just think it’s funny.

Soldier

Soldier is going to be the Ur example of the Admin not treating her people well, as we’re going to lean into the whole “Soldier was only mildly messed up until the whole lead poisoning” thing.

He’s here because he’s blindingly loyal to the cause. He’s actually going to very little from canon because of this actually.

Might be the reason Team Fortress has a reputation of being the lower tiers of the Teams, but that doesn’t mean he’s damn good at his job. Fatal flaw is that he’s unstable, and even though the courthouse plotline won’t be in this fic, it should be noted that he actually does cause problems for the other protagonists due to his short temper. He’s a risky asset, but still essential.

There will be a minor explanation for the WAR! Comic, but I think that’s better saved for Demo’s analysis.

Pyro

Pyro is the character you could cut entirely from the comics and have the least change. Now, they’re going to be Pauling’s right hand. Let me explain.

Engineer and Pyro are implied to live together, and Pyro doesn’t have anything better to do than go with Engie after Team Fortress is disbanded. Rather than having a reveal, we will see some of what is going on with the Admin and friends early on, and see what leads up to her sending Miss P the note that kicks off the whole plot. However, while Engie needs to stay and look after her, Pyro’s skills aren’t useful here, and they are sent as a direct messenger to help Pauling.

They’re loyal, and unlike Soldier rarely mess up orders. They’re also partially mute, making them ideal for handling sensitive info. Pauling trusts them to handle the burning of “Elizabeth’s” paper trail.

Will be using they/them in the narrative voice, but other characters will refer to them as he/him. I considered going with it/its because that’s bubbled up in popularity again, but ultimately I decided against it.

We’ll get glimpses to their train of thought, but like the comics they will remain virtually silent.

Demo

Demo’s role in the cast is going to be very similar to Spy’s. The events of WAR! involved him nearly dying and Soldier taking the win, and he’s very bitter that after all those events *apparently* mercs can just be switched around teams willy nilly and don’t have to kill each other anymore. (As the audience, we know this is because the Admin found out the “make them so angry they won’t ask questions” wasn’t a long-term viable solution, and instead brought TFI forward as a neutral third party that was pretending to mediate the gravel wars.) But Demo’s suspicious, and is only along because he really has been miserable since he lost his job.

This conflict will eventually come to a head, more on that in the Sniper section.

Is fairly forgiving with his teammates. Doesn’t like Sniper but I’m willing to drop a little angst during that submarine scene. Is glad to see Medic actually. Here to be some glue to hold this merry band together.

The Eyelander will not be forgotten after 2 comics because I love this character concept and I think it was underutilized.

Drunk jokes will be kept to a minimum. What I liked about WAR! and Bombinomicon was that it took Demo and showed that they knew how to make him funny without making him one note, which they sort of did in the early TFComics but stopped in the later ones in favor of him….being asleep for the whole plot. I promise 100% awake Demo in my rewrite.

Demo likes Pauling on a personal level, but has trouble reconciling her with his feelings on TFI.

Doesn’t get knocked out by moonshine because. Seriously? Poisoning the Demoman with alcohol? In what world does that work.

Heavy

Not too much to change. Scout doesn’t accompany him when he goes to look for the secret Australium cache, and he engages with Mags and Saxton (which will be when the audience finds out what they’ve been up to) and actually cares about what’s going on with them. He thinks Darling is up to something. Which he is, he’s attempting to unseat both Gray and Helen due to long family history.

Will at least mention Medic. Their reunion falls a little flat since it mostly relies on Meet the Medic for context, as they don’t really interact in the comic. There can be a bit of a flashback to what it was like as all these mercs broke up.

I know uhhh Valve seems to think found family is really dumb, and that these murderers could ever like each other is silly or something, but the mercs do? Like each other? For the most part anyways. 

Bronislava and Yana come alone for adventures, not just Zhanna. Again, no real reason, but sometimes I get to have tacky fanfic stuff in my own fanfic because I Wanna.

Engineer

Engie ruminates on his family history of allowing all this bullshit to happen and just kind of shrugging. Basically Moss’s analysis of the Conagher themes.

Has put a lot of time, sweat, and tears into BLU and now TFI, isn’t willing to let it fall now, even if Admin is basically living on borrowed time. He’s doing this because of the ‘ole sunk cost fallacy.

Also we get to see more of Pauling and Admin’s relationship through his eyes.

Medic

Congrats on being the one merc with an actual arc, Medic! As a reward, you will not be changed much.

I’m actually going to use Medic’s section to say that the Classic mercs will be referred to by their first names in order to differentiate them, and we’ll get little previews of what they’re like from Medic’s perspective before we actually see them fight Team fortress. The battle at the submarine will be more of a fight in this sense, working it out so it seems like surrender is the only option after Sniper is killed.

Final fight with Cheavy will be...not blocked so awkwardly. I mean this is now a textual medium so my work is already halfway done, but still the pacing is so weird. Shudder.

Sniper

These are the big guns. Most changes, even more than Demo. He’s been actually hunting for New Zealand/the Australium cache on his own, and doesn’t want Pauling interfering, saying for a he knows she could have been the ones to kill his adoptive parents.

(She hasn’t, but the Admin did actually order them killed in an attempt to stop Sniper because she thought she could prevent the exact thing that is going on right now which is that Sniper is considering trying to get at it.)

Sniper doesn’t know this, but Pauling, Demo, and Spy eventually convince him to share his findings and help them get to New Zealand.

Spy

Similar to Demo but is less conflicted about it. He knows just because he likes someone doesn’t mean he won’t have to kill them later. 

Spy knows about who killed Sniper’s parents, and tells Demo, sort of as a test to see where his loyalties lie. He also knows that Pyro is Pauling’s confidant for certain things.

Demo questions him about what he’s doing here, whose side he’s really on. But you know. Spy is Spy and he was never really on anyone’s side but his own. When it comes down to it, it might be exactly as Scout thinks: that he’s ditched them all and run off when he had the opportunity. But, big damn hero, comes back in the end.

He’s here mainly to “keep an eye on things.” Also maybe because his gf asked him to keep an eye on her son :)

[sanktnikolais]

We Got Married

For @grishaversebigbang mini bang! <3 

Check out the amazing fanarts of @notbynary (x) and @ninaaswaffles (x)! 

Summary:  Waking up with a hangover in the morning without any recollection of the night before, Zoya and Nikolai are up for another headache because of their new status. 

Word count: 1821

AO3

Nikolai woke up to a throbbing pain in his head. Even opening his eyes was a challenge, everything was trying to knock him out to oblivion and slowly becoming successful, but he stood his ground.

               “Fuck,” Nikolai muttered as he brought a hand up to his temple to massage it. When he finally had the strength to open his eyes, the world was still spinning and threatening to black out, but he fought to stay awake and turned to the side.

               It was then he felt a breath on his neck from did he stop his movements, and the sudden weight of someone pressed tightly against his side snapped him awake fully. He turned his head slightly to the side and was greeted with a mess of ebony hair of a certain someone that he was sure he knew who it was.

               Almost half of Zoya’s body was perched on top of him and her arm was sprawled over his chest, pinning him down tightly on the couch. Nikolai winced through another wave of headache that hit. How had they gotten into this position, anyway? His memories were a blur of loud laughter and endless shots of alcohol of Zoya’s birthday blast. Aside from that, there was a huge blank space in between that needed to be filled.

               Nikolai carefully untangled the arm on his chest without risking to wake the raven-haired woman up because he was very much aware of her wrath when disturbed during her sleep even at the slightest state. And he was definitely going to get axed when she woke up and realize that they had been this close. He still loved his life to be cut short. Though as much as he wanted to stay in this position for much longer—probably even forever—his head needed to be soothed with painkillers.

               A few gentle tugs later, Zoya involuntarily moved away from him and turned to her side, finally putting off her weight from him all the while mumbling to herself. Nikolai gave a sigh of relief and rolled to his side, only to be met with the edge of the couch and he fell right off with a string of curses.

               It was a good thing that the floor was carpeted and it somehow cushioned his fall a bit. The abruptness of the act sent another wave of dizziness to him, making Nikolai struggle to sit up and using the glass table as his support. It had been a while since he got wasted like this. The last time he had, he woke up by the stairs of his unit, legs spread on the steps, and he spent most of the day in bed because of a terrible headache.

               Nikolai had vowed not to do that again, but the circumstances seemed to not be on his side.

               A small patch of paper on the glass surface caught his eye and he squinted to see something scribbled on it. He didn’t know if it was the font that was shitty or just his vision swimming, but he did recognize it as David’s handwriting—the messy strokes of lines adding to the swirling of his vision.

               Sorry to leave the mess for a while. We’ll be back in an hour, just went out to get breakfast. If you wake up before we come back, painkillers are in the cupboard by the kitchen. – D & G

                 P.S.

               Enjoy your new status!

               New what? Nikolai frowned at the note. It didn’t make any sense at all. Or had he missed something?

               As if on cue, a memory flashed in his mind of him taking off the chain around his neck that held his father’s ring, and the rest was blank. He whipped a hand up to his throat, feeling the absence of the necklace and sending his mind to a panic. What if he had been dared to do something crazy to it? Though he wasn’t that close with his family, the ring was still an heirloom, and Nikolai would never forgive himself if he lost it due to his own recklessness.

               He started to pat down on the carpet just in case it fell right over when he removed it from his neck. As he was doing so, he was berating himself in his mind for being so drunk to not be able to remember anything from the previous night.

               A gleam at the corner of his eye caught his attention and Nikolai turned to the direction he had seen it from, surprising him when he finally saw where it was.

               It was on the ring finger of his left hand.

               Nikolai narrowed his eyes on the band. It was just a simple gold one with a black cursive L engraved on it, the dark font of the letter contrasting with its light background and making it stand out. The blond breathed out another sigh of relief, even if he was confused on why he had it worn around his finger.

               At least the ring was still intact.

               He carefully stood up from the floor and walked towards the kitchen to try and find some painkillers, all the while Zoya was still snoring in the living room. Several minutes of rummaging through the cupboards, Nikolai was startled to a stop by a loud voice from somewhere behind him.

               “Lantsov, would you keep it down? It’s like you’re trying to go to war with—what in the fuck’s name is this?”

               Nikolai raised a brow at the sudden change of Zoya’s vocabulary and started to walk back to the living room. He spotted the woman at the side of the room, looking at the expanse of the wall that was covered with a carelessly hanged tarp.

               Zoya turned to him, eyes focused on the papers she was holding, her brows narrowed tightly.

               He tried to ignore the beautiful mess of her bed hair or the way one of her shirtsleeves almost fell off her shoulder and revealed the skin around her collarbone, but failed of course, and Nikolai was all too aware of himself gawking at the woman in front of him.

               Zoya tore her gaze away from the paper and looked at him, causing Nikolai to snap out of his daze and focus on the tarp behind her. From where he was standing, he could make out huge letters written (in spray-paint?) on its surface.

               Nikolai squinted and read the writings.

               He was mortified with what he read.

               “Married?” Zoya exclaimed, her voice still hoarse from all the drinking last night, and she hitched a thumb over her shoulder. An expression that was in between confusion and anger was evident on her face. “What the fuck?”

               The writings glared back at Nikolai, and he winced at the sight of it.

               Congratulations, newlyweds! it said in a sloppy handwriting, and Nikolai had to blink repeatedly to make sure his eyes weren’t playing games on him.

               Another memory flashed in his mind, and he turned to Zoya with a mortified look. They were absolutely screwed. “You dared David to wed us.”

               Zoya looked back at him with wide eyes. Perhaps he should savor the moment of catching her off guard, but their current situation deemed it void. “What?”

               Some of the events from the previous night came to Nikolai with a wave of headache. He brought a hand up to his head. “You still wouldn’t believe that he finished his judge training this year and you—” he gestured vaguely in the air with his other hand— “made him do it.”

               There was a complete silence in the room, with Zoya narrowing her eyes at him as if she were trying to remember if she really had done the said deed. Nikolai took the moment to glance at her hand and was able to catch a glimpse of the gold band around her ring finger.

               She held up the papers she had been holding. “Is this even legal?”

               Nikolai squinted as he made his way closer to the raven-haired woman, trying to make sense of the wordings on the paper. He gave a wince. Marriage certificate. “Maybe we should ask our friendly neighbor judge?” he offered. “As far as I remember my college days, engineering did not cover anything related to this.”

               There was another silence, and Zoya’s deadpanned expression only made his wince turn into a nervous smile. “This is madness,” she said later, breathing out an annoyed huff.

               Nikolai nodded in agreement. “Completely.” He sighed. This meant another complication, and he knew this could take a while for it to be fixed, so he decided to make the most out of it instead. “Though I wouldn’t mind calling you Mrs. Lantsov.”

               He then felt the papers get shoved on his face and he stumbled back a few steps with a light chuckle. It started to fall from him and Nikolai barely caught the material with his hand. Zoya was already by the wall, trying to tear the tarp off from the expanse in a rush. The blond couldn’t blame her—the writings were really a sight for sore eyes.

               “I wouldn’t change my last name for you in any way.”

               “Ah, that’s fine. So, you don’t mind being married to me?” He was rewarded with a glare, but Nikolai had already been used to it for years. By now, it was actually safe to say that he was fond of it. “Well, you were the one who dared David to wed us, which brings me to the idea that you’ve thought of being married to me. Did you?”

               Zoya quickly tore her eyes away from him and turned back to her work on the wall. “Whatever,” she muttered.

               A thought came to Nikolai as he stared at the certificate in his hands. “Wait, if we got married last night, did that mean you actually kissed me?”

               He saw Zoya’s fingers falter from removing the last corner of the tarp, and Nikolai almost let out a loud laugh. Maybe she remembered something about last night. “Shut your mouth, Lantsov, or I will smother you with this,” she said, voice laced with threat.

               Nikolai put a hand up to his chest and feigned a hurtful expression. “You’d hurt your husband?”

               “If he’s that annoying, I probably would.”

               “Harsh.”

               “Honest.”

               Zoya finally finished removing the tarp from the wall and began to fold it in brash movements, to which Nikolai watched fondly, a small smile gracing his lips. He’d never say it aloud, but Nikolai knew to himself he didn’t mind the thought of being married to her.

               Now he was left wondering if she felt the same.

               The blond snapped out of his thoughts and clasped his hands together a little too enthusiastically. “So, who kissed who first?” he asked with a grin.

               This time, Nikolai wasn’t able to stay upright when Zoya threw the entire tarp over to his face.

[mikaa-mina]

At Garden’s Edge- ch8: A Day in the Life of a Newt(on Pulsifer)

The lights are too bright, and Newt can’t quite hear what the lady in front of him is saying over the cacophony of beeps. His head also feels quite.... strange. He’s pretty sure that it’s not supposed to feel like it’s floating half a foot above his neck while also feeling like it’s stuffed full of cotton.

Some of the beeping suddenly stops, making it so much quieter in the ER, and Newt can finally understand what the nurse is asking. He tells her he thinks he’s fine, only he managed to hit something in the middle of the road with his bike and that sent him sailing towards the curb, which his bike tire hit at the wrong angle, and that quite firmly ejected him from his seat. And actually, he’s not at all quite sure how he got here, or why he’s here.

The nurse comes closer before he realizes she’s holding a tablet to enter his information in. By the time he realizes, it’s too late.

There’s a sound much like a mosquito hitting a trap lamp with a bright Bzzt! and then tablet goes dark in her hands. Newt grimaces.

It snowballs from there.

She shushes his apologies and uses the flip hospital phone that they use now instead of chargers/beepers to call the nurse station and request a backup one. It, accordingly, powers off halfway through her phone call. She shakes it with a frown and grumbles about the board of offices being cheap with their equipment, turns a sunny smile on him, and brightly says “well, I’ll just take down the basics and get your vitals while we wait. Do you have records here?”

“Uh. Maybe?” probably, “Which hospital is this?”

“The Brugmansia Hospital.”

“Oh! Yeah. I was born here. Uh. I changed my name though. Still Pulsifer for the last name though, figure there’s probably not too many of them around,” he laughs nervously, overly conscious of how awkward he is and how unable he is to do anything about it.

She still smiles, ever professional, and jots down his information. “First name?”

“Oh! Right. Sorry. It’s Newton now. Newton Pulsifer.”

“Thank you Newton, now I’m just going to take your vitals now.”

“Oh- I, uh, don’t really think-”

It’s too late, she’s come up to take his temperature with their new wireless, laser thermometer and it promptly errors out. It continues to error out no matter how many times she restarts it. The heavy seed of dread in Newt’s stomach grows larger. This is exactly why he tries not to go to places like this.

“I’m sorry. Uh, do you happen to have something maybe not, uh, electrical?”

She gives him a funny look for that and he shrinks back.

“Well. Let me get your blood pressure and o2 readings.”

Newt looks dubiously at the machine setup she wheels over to him. Miraculously, it goes okay when she wraps the cuff around his upper arm, and even when it starts. Everything avalanches when she puts the wireless o2 reader on him. Immediately everything in his room fritzes out, the lights even flickering before coming back, but all of the machines are still down or in the emergency boot up system restart.

“Oh bugger,” he sighs under his breath, quietly enough that the nurse fretting over all the technology can’t hear how resigned and unsurprised he is.

The avalanche continues when a nearby nurse ducks in and his tablet powers itself off. The smartwatch he’s wearing starts having three different alarms go off on it, and then there’s some shouts of alarm from outside Newt’s room that he’s really not sure that he wants to know what they’re about.

There are four people in his room now, in varying states of bewilderment and frustration, trying to figure out why everything’s malfunctioning in his room while also trying to get it back up and working. No one’s listening to Newt when he tries to explain that if he could just leave, it’d get better, but then, he’s mostly used to being ignored at this point.

More and more people trickle into the room, Newt spots the tech support guy he wished to be, frowning and scratching his head as he looks at everything. And then he looks at Newt.

A quick mumble about using the loo and Newt escapes out of the room, IV still attached to the weird metal stand and his arm but at least they’re not electronically powered. Just good engineering and reliable gravity.

He figures if he can put enough distance between him, and the rest of all that technology crammed into one small spot, that everything will boot back up just fine. And if not, Newt could write out exactly how to fix it.

So he heads to the loo, because now that he’s made the excuse, he figures he might as well try and also he’s betting on there being a whole lot less fancy technology in there. If only he could actually find said loo. Or any loo, really.

He’s waylaid by a small girl about ten minutes into his wandering of the halls.

“Oh. Hullo there.”

The girl is missing three teeth, has brown hair, and is looking at Newt as if he’s the newest attraction in the city zoo. Under her stare, Newt almost feels like one.

“Wut’er you doing?”

“Er... looking for the loo.”

She looks at him, looks in the direction he was heading in, looks back at him and matter-of-fact-ly says, “you’re going the wrong way.”

He blinks at her, which she takes as permission for her to reach up and grab his hand and start pulling him in the other direction. Bewildered, he followed.

And thus began a brand new game called “Lead the Newt” which had a revolving cast of characters, all under the age of twelve, each insisting they knew where the loo was, and each hiding him from sight any time an adult employee came near.

This scavenger hunt of a game ended at, not a loo (which made Newt extremely grateful he didn’t actually need one), but at a recreational sort of room. There was an old tv in one corner, an open treasure chest filled with costumes and toys, and a few bookshelves. The floor was spongy beneath Newt’s feat and looking down left him staring at brightly colored interlocking foam mat puzzle pieces.

For some reason, all of the co-conspirators find him funny, and really the only tech he might fry in here is a rather old tv that looks like it’s been outdated so many times it can’t recall if it’s outdated or retro at this point, so all in all... This is probably the safest room for Newt to be in. And certainly more interesting than the loo.

And that’s how he finds himself, an hour later, dressed in a paper hat of some kind (its supposed to be a jester’s hat) leaning against his iv pole, making elaborate gestures with his free hand, and telling terrible terrible jokes to a kid in a paper crown and to the amusement of the other kids around him. It’s most certainly a bizarre scene, but no one has commented on it as of yet and due entirely for the fact that the secondary game they’re all playing is ‘Hide the Newt’ any time an adult wanders by. Closets, corners, and blankets have all been heavily featured by now in this game.

So Newt can hardly be blamed for jumping near out of his skin when, after telling a particularly bad punny joke, he hears an adult’s laughter. So he jumps, jerks, and tries to turn to face the voice all in one motion and ends up somehow practically hogtieing himself in his iv cord and going down.

He ended up in a heap of limbs, metal pole, and iv cord wrapped all around him, and his glasses hanging half off his face. “Oh bugger...”

There was a snickering above him from the adult voice and the children alternating between giggles at his fall and joyful cries of “Crow Crow!”, “Mister Crow!”, and “Miss Crow!”. As Newt struggled to untangle himself, with the help of a few kids who both made things worse and better in turns, the other children began pleading with the Crow? Crow?? to pleeeeease let them keep Newt.

The stranger is crouching down to the kid’s level by the time Newt gets mostly upright, and they look a lot like they’re trying very hard not to laugh. “Now. However did you magpies manage to steal a whole person?”

Laughter sounds and they’re throwing themselves at the redhead and the two bags they set down. As the majority are immediately distracted by the prospect of sweets and the passing out of them, the stranger turns to Newt and raises an eyebrow high above dark sunglasses and says, “well? How’d they manage to kidnap you?”

Before Newt can respond the kids answer with excuses that pile over one another ranging from “he just wandered in!” to the actually mostly truthful “he was lost so we were showing him around!”.

“Oh really now?” they seem to be biting back laughter as they continue, “he was lost so you decided to help him by keeping him here?”

Some of the kids looked abashed while others look outright proud of themselves and to Newt’s surprise the stranger threw back their head with a short bark of a laugh before grinning as if proud of them.

Just in case he was reading the situation wrong, he’d done that with people more than a few times, Newt tried pushing through his embarrassment and awkwardness with an “It’s, uh, alright. Really. It’s been kind of fun, actually.”

“Ah. Yeah, they really grow on you.” The Crow glanced at the kids with a mischievous look, “like a fungus.”

Groans and laughter sounded before all of a sudden a shushing and pointing as an adult was seen wandering their way. Before Newt could blink they had him hidden out of sight shoved in a closet between some coats, puppets, and something slightly sticky that he had no intention of exploring further.

He could hear the somewhat muffled conversation of the kids pleading with The Crow to keep their secret before a new adult voice joined the conversation. The voices dropped away a bit, except for the nervous kids right in front of the closet attempting to whisper between each other, before he can’t make anything out at all. He waits, nervousness beginning to creep in because just how long was he supposed to stay in the closet? Actually, about that, he’d really had enough of closets and hiding in them. Terribly stifling and awful and much better really to be out of them.

Eventually there’s the sound of foot falls coming closer and closer to the closet and for a moment Newt’s heart picks up, certain that he’s about to be found and get in trouble. Then the doors are opened and it’s the red headed stranger who jokes, “ready to come out of the closet?”

And Newt’s still full of nervousness and it expresses itself by making him immediately blurt out “already did that once really. Was sort of hoping to not have to do it again.”

There’s a pause where the red head stares at him and the realization that he’s said that out loud crashes over Newt who flushes hotly. “Oh gods, I said that out loud...” and then The Crow tilts their head back and laughs.

“Been there, done that!” They agree with a grin and reach in to pull Newt out. “C’mon, ‘parently they’ve been running a missing patient code for half an hour looking for you.”

Newt relaxed fractionally, “you figured all that out from the nurse in five minutes?”

“Nah. Heard about it when I snuck in through one of the back windows. ‘s right beside one of the break rooms.”

“Oh, okay, that makes- wait. Did you say window?”

But they were already talking to the kids, “Alright you mischievous little magpies, you had your fun but we need to get him back now.” A chorus of “awwwws” and “but!!but!!”s sounded off but The Crow continued on, “if he’s here, he probably needs some help to get better, and I’m sure once he’s feeling better he’ll come say hi again.” Here they glanced over at at Newt expectantly, so Newt nodded since it seemed expected, and then they continued, “alright, so say bye to...”

“Newt.”

The Crow stilled, tilted their head to the side and asked disbelievingly, “really?” as if they didn’t also have the name of an animal.

“Yeah.”

“Alright magpies, tell Newt bye.”

There’s goodbyes and promises to come back and right as they’re leaving the first girl that had caught Newt comes up to The Crow and, in a whisper so very loud she might as well be talking, says “you hafta be nice to him!”

“Oh do I now?”

She nodded furiously, “he doesn’t ree-lize his jokes are reeeeally bad!”

The Crow seemed to choke on something before spluttering into a laughter the kid shushed them for.

“Sorry, sorry,” they managed, fighting back their grin and not looking sorry in the least as they chanced a quick glance at Newt.

The girl frowned, “you’re not sorry at all!”

“I am, I am!”

She looked unimpressed but when bribed with an extra pastry she let it, and them, go.

They’re on their way back to the nurse’s station (Newt didn’t even know what room they put him in) when he breaks the silence to ask, “is your name really Crow?”

“To the kids, yes. You can call me Crowley.”

“Oh. Nice to meet you Crowley. Did you really come in through a window?”

Crowley grinned at him, “trade secret.”

[yellowocaballero]

You And Me (And Your Friend Daisy)

Thanks for pushing me to finish this, Anon! This is a short, fun, and romantic story written in the verse of my other fics Bell, Book, and Candle and No Sin But Ignorance. Takes place some time post the ending of No Sin But Ignorance. That being said, this is probably very comprehensible without knowledge of those fics, so feel free to just view it as a no-apocalypse au. The majority of this was written while writing Feste - more accurately, when I needed a break from the crushing depression of Feste, so that’s why it’s so cheerful. :)

Yes, it’s named after that Garfunkel and Oates song, because that’s the plot. 

The rest of the story is under the cut!

*******************************************

“Are you going to tell me where we are?”

“You have to guess! And no peeking!”

Jon sighed, slouching in his seat. He hated surprise vacations. He hated being forced to leave work and ‘take a break’ because ‘you’re contractually obligated to use your PTO hours’. And he did take vacations, he didn’t know why everybody acted like he didn’t. He and Georgie took Gerry to Blackpool once a year for Spring Break. That was a whole week off. That was enough for anybody. 

But Martin had been pointedly sending him emails about ‘fun couple’s trips’ and ‘romantic getaways’ in an ultra-subtle act of subliminal messaging. Indeed, the three emailed promotional advertisements listing off fun, relaxing, and romantic things to do with your significant other were so subtle that Emma was forced to listen in on the automated JAWS voice reading them out and then call him a ‘fucking idiot’. 

Whatever. It wasn’t as if Gertrude took any vacations, and nobody got on her back for it. Jon was willing to bet that Dekker never sent Gertrude any passive aggressive emails. He would have to ask him later - they got boba together once a month, he was an excellent conversational partner. He was, of course, slightly insane, both for his fervent adherence to the ancient religions and willingness to come within five feet of Gertrude Robinson for personal reasons, but all the best supernatural hunters were. 

“Well, we’ve clearly been driving north for the past eight hours, judging from the angle of the sun,” Jon said, annoyed. The car radio was playing the Archers in a dull drone, which Jon had insisted upon, because he and Daisy never missed an episode. This confused and frightened Martin. A bag rustled, and Jon knew that Martin was fishing around in the plastic convenience store sack for more Jaffa cakes. “Combined with the time, that can only mean that we’re going to Scotland. I don’t have any close friends in Scotland and I’m willing to be you don’t either -”

“Hey!”

“ - so unless you assigned yourself the task of following up on the Scottish Slaughter Statement without me assigning it to you, and deciding to bring me along, I’m guessing that we’re going to stay in a hotel and do...touristy things.”

“Wrong again,” Martin said triumphantly. He liked keeping track of every time Jon was innocently incorrect about something, just to prove it to everyone else. “I mean, yes, we are in Scotland, you’re right about that, but we are not staying in a hotel. We’re staying in the country.”

“Darling, I would love to sit on the Scottish Moors and stare out into the endless, unceasing fog with you in complete silence,” Jon said lovingly, “but I thought you wanted to do something romantic.”

“That’s not romantic?” Martin gasped, horrified. “Have you even read Wuthering Heights?”

“You and Gerry are two peas in a goth pod.”

“He’s goth, I’m gothic. There’s a difference. And don’t tell me that you don’t enjoy gothic literature - you’re literally a Byronic hero.”

“Oh, here we go,” Jon sighed, as the car bumped over a speed bump. He hadn’t heard another car for hours now, and he knew that they had to be in the middle of nowhere. The weather had grown colder, more humid, and occasionally he could hear the bleat of cows. It was...calming. 

Then Martin started listing off the very many reasons why Jon was a classical Byronic hero, then Jon had to remind him that none of that stuff had technically happened, then Martin began insisting that it happened in their hearts, then Jon got deeply engrossed into today’s episode of the Archers and felt the need to inform Martin about its illustrious and aged history, which prompted Martin to put on Hatsune Miku when the episode was over and indoctrinate Jon into whatever ‘Vocaloid’ was, and by the time the car transitioned to skittering over bumpy gravel they were both entering a heated discussion about the most superior of the ‘Vocaloids’. 

“ - and she created Minecraft?”

“And she’s trans,” Martin said heatedly. 

“Good for her,” Jon said, just bemused. The car engine quieted, and keys clinked and rustled. “Are we here?”

“Yep! Seven hours later.” Martin sighed and made a quiet, satisfied noise, probably stretching, and Jon didn’t bother to fight his smile. Man was like a cat. “I want to show you around and everything, but honestly that drive was exhausting and I might take a nap first.” He sighed happily. “Peace. Quiet. No coworkers.”

“I’m your coworker,” Jon pointed out, opening the door of the car as Martin did the same. He stepped onto gravel, grinding his trainer a little into it, and breathed in. The air tasted...fresh. Clean. Pure and just a little chilly. It was nice. It perked Jon up, as the wind lightly tousled his curls. He stretched his legs too, cramped from being knitted up in the small car. Martin popped the boot and started loading packages into his arms, and Jon walked over and held his arms out so he could help Martin carry the packages. Martin dropped a picnic basket filled with snacks in his arms, and handed him his own suitcase, as Martin dropped his own suitcase on the ground with a heavy thump. “How does a teenage girl create a video game? That’s very impressive.”

“This week you are my boyfriend,” Martin corrected him, thumping the boot down. “No Emma getting on my case about misfiling the papers. No Michael concern trolling me. No Eric judging me for my taste in tea. No Gertrude terrifying me every second of the day. I am free. I am not going to think about work, or anybody related to work, for a single second. No Entities. No fear demons. No monsters, besides my boyfriend.”

“Thanks,” Jon said wryly. “Aren’t we forgetting someone?”

“Oh, darn it!” Martin opened the back door of the car, and pulled out a carrier. The wire door of the carrier cinched open and Tiresias came bounding out, barking madly and running in little circles around Jon, his tail beating against Jon’s leg. Jon laughed, lifting his burden higher in his arms, and let Martin loop his arm around Jon’s and guide him towards what he had to assume was some kind of building. “C’mere, boy. Good boy! You were so good for the trip! You’re getting a hundred snacks as soon we get inside.”

“Are you going to tell me where we are yet?” Jon asked, exasperated. 

Martin squeezed his arm happily as they walked up an incline, shoes scuffing dirt. “I got permission from Daisy to borrow it. It’s her cabin, just outside of Applecross. It’s really in the middle of nowhere, nobody around for kilometers. Just us and a great deal of cows. It’s really gorgeous, Jon, with such clean air and beautiful hills. I can’t wait to go for walks with you. You’ll get so much time to go through your audiobook collection. And we can snuggle, and I can cook for you, and we can listen to more radio dramas, and we can talk about our future, and you can pet the cows…”

“Sounds wonderful,” Jon said honestly, squeezing Martin’s arm back. They paused, Martin rustling his keys again, and Jon heard the grinding of metal before a door seemed to creak open. “I can’t wait to spend this week with you. I could use a little peace, I think.”

“Gods, me too. You have no idea how stressed I’ve been. It’ll be just you, me, and -”

That’s when Martin screamed, and Tiresias barked excitedly and ran forward, almost bowling Jon over, and a familiar voice broke the quiet of the rustic cabin. 

“Aren’t you a good boy, Tiresias? Aren’t you a good boy?” Daisy Tonner’s grin was audible through her words, but it held a familiar tint of ferociousness. “Hullo, Jon. Blackwood. What are you doing here a week early?”

“Early!” Martin squeaked. “I said we were coming up the first week of September -”

“Really?” Daisy said, voice casual. Seemingly. “Because I have it down in my calendar as the second week. This is my vacation. And I’m not leaving.”

Silence stretched between them. Jon smiled happily towards the sound of Daisy’s voice, placing his burdens at his feet, and soon Daisy walked forward and enveloped him in a bone cracking hug. 

“It’s so good to see you,” Jon said, hugging her tightly back too. “I’m sure we can share the cabin for the week. It’ll be fun, like a sleepover!”

“Oh, I think so too,” Daisy said, her voice tinged in a wolf’s grin. “Don’t you think so, Martin?”

“Good fucking christ,” Martin said. 

****

True to his word, Martin was exhausted enough that he immediately made the bed and collapsed into it. Jon lovingly took off his shoes and socks and Tiresias even, adorably, pulled the comforter up around Martin’s ears. But Martin didn’t sleep: he seemed preoccupied in angrily muttering to himself about how he didn’t get the time wrong, she did, this was all her fault, and it was also completely on purpose, devil woman, everybody was trying to ruin everything - 

“Love, if I ask her to go, she’ll go,” Jon said. 

“No! Ugh!” Martin screamed lowly, muffled, and Jon realized with amusement he was screaming into the pillow. “It’s her house, she’s doing us a favor, I don’t want to be rude! I can’t kick her out of her own home!”

“Are you going to be passive aggressive at her until she leaves?”

Incriminatingly, Martin was silent. 

“She’s more stubborn than you are. If you try to solve this with your usual methods she’ll outlast you.”

“I hate her so much,” Martin groaned. 

“Don’t say that,” Jon said loyally. “She’s really come around to you, you know. She hasn’t threatened to chop your dick off in - oh, two weeks now. That’s a new record.”

Martin groaned again. Jon kissed him on the cheek, turned the light off - “Jon, you just turned the light on.” - turned the light off for real this time, and went into the living room/dining room/kitchen to start putting away all the food they had brought. He bent over his suitcase, withdrawing Tiresias’ harness, and whistled to call him over before snapping the harness on. Tiresias stiffened into what Georgie called ‘Buisness Boy Mode’, and Jon grabbed his handle with one hand as he loaded the groceries into the other. 

“Here, let me help.” Daisy lifted the other load from the floor, leading the both of them into the kitchen and opening the fridge. “I know Georgie’s organizational system.”

Jon just sighed, slowly navigating his way to the fridge to put his own load away. They had clothing to unpack, things to set up, and arrangements to plan, but Jon had the sense that none of it was getting done immediately. 

“What were your plans for this week?”

“I normally go up here to hunt,” Daisy grunted, sliding cans into the cabinet. At Jon’s raised eyebrow, she clarified, “with guns. They’re all locked up in the gun cabinet, as is my ammo and knives. Neither you nor Martin have the keys, but the cabinet is in a closet near the bathroom. That should be locked too.”

“Goodness, Daisy, I’m not an errant toddler. I won’t play with your collection.”

“You’re my errant toddler,” Daisy said loyally, giving him a noogie and making him scowl. “Say it. Say you’re an errant toddler.”

“Goodness, Daisy, leave me be -”

Then she lifted him up, like he was nothing more than a bundle of sticks, and held him in the air as he screamed and kicked his legs, trying to get down. Tiresias, the Traitor, the Serpent, the King of Lies, barked happily. “Let me down! Daisy!”

“Say you’re an errant toddler and I’ll let you down.”

“I shan’t. Daisy, stop -!” But then she started tickling him, which was extremely dangerous, and Jon was forced to cackle out in breathless laughter, “Fine, I’m a toddler, let me down, you crazy woman!”

She tossed him lightly onto the pull-out couch, putting away the rest of the groceries herself, and Jon let Tiresias sit on top of him and lick his face as he could almost audibly hear Martin pouting in the bedroom. 

“This’ll be fun,” Daisy said, shutting the cabinet and rustling some familiar boxes. “Can’t believe Tim paid me fifty quid to do this. I would have done it for free.”

“Do what?”

“Never mind. I have your copy of Life, do you want to play?”

“Sure!” Jon sat up, feeling Daisy sit down next to him and set out the game pieces. Then something occurred to him. “Wait. What are you doing with my copy of Life?”

“Georgie lent it to me.”

“...why did Georgie -”

“I was going to leave it here for when you came up,” Daisy said easily, and Jon nodded in acceptance. “Spin the spinner to see whose turn comes first.”

Jon considered thinking deeper about this, but Daisy wouldn’t lie to him. She was the most trustworthy person he knew. She didn’t have a deceitful bone in her body. He shrugged and reached forward and found the spinner, giving it a good twist before rubbing his thumb over the braille. Something occurred to him. 

“Maybe we can ask Martin if he wants to join -”

“I’m sure he would prefer his rest.”

“Okay!”

This vacation was going to go great. Why had Jon been worried?

****

That night they had a delicious barbecue outside, cooked by Daisy. Martin ate it in angry silence, which was quickly broken by Jon’s frequent nudges and directions for conversation. He wasn’t the most socially adept person at the best of times, but Martin and Daisy were two of his best friends and he knew how to get the both of them talking. He was even able to draw them into a spirited conversation about 19th century literature - Daisy preferred Russian novels, while Martin preferred Gothic romances and Hugo and Jon tended towards nonfiction. Afterwards Daisy grabbed her gun, kissed Jon on the cheek, did something that made Martin squeak in fear, and tramped off to go hunt deer or something. Jon waved her off with a blessing, his sixth sense thrumming with satisfaction for the Sacrifice. 

He spent the night cuddled up with Martin, watching Beauty and the Beast on his laptop. Martin was obsessed with Disney movies in a way that explained a great deal about him, and Beauty and the Beast was his absolute favorite. Jon ran his fingers through his soft and feathery hair as Martin squeezed his hand, and Jon’s heart settled in complete contentment. The audio description voice droned gently about the heartwarming falling in love montages, but Jon wasn’t really paying attention: he just felt safe, and warm, and as if he wanted the moment to last forever. 

Then his mobile rang, a clear automated voice saying “Gerard calling. Gerard calling.”

“Oh, I should get that.” Jon straightened, throwing out a hand on the coffee table where he thought he had put his phone, and Martin pressed it into his hand. He accepted the call quickly, putting it on speaker and holding it up to his ear just like, he was reliably assured, ‘an old man’. “Hello, honey?”

“Jon!” Gerry yelled. “Did you get the cabin okay?”

“Oh, so everyone knew but me,” Jon said, amused. “You’re on speaker, Gerry, so say hello to Mr. Blackwood.”

“Hi Martin! Are you guys having a good time? You have to take me next time, I want to see Daisy’s guns!”

“You will not see Daisy’s guns,” Jon said quickly. 

“Hi Gerry,” Martin said, a smile clear in his somewhat strained voice. “Sure, you and Georgie should come up next time. Make it a party. Why not.”

“Told you she’d do it,” Georgie said, and Jon perked up. “Hullo, love. How’s your romantic getaway going?”

“Oh, it’s lovely,” Jon said, excited. “We’re going to walk down to the town tomorrow, check out some of their antique stores. I’ll let you know if we find any interesting art.”

“I’ve been up to Daisy’s cabin a few times with Melanie, it’s delightful. Great place for her to hunt and for me to practice my carrion photography. It’s always nice just to get away from it all! I hope you haven’t touched any work, Jon.”

“I haven’t,” Jon said loyally. He paused a beat. “Do Statements count? Because I was planning on listening to a few recorded ones as a sort of bedtime story?”

“That’s just self-care,” Georgie assured him. “Treat yourself, queen.”

“Thanks, honey. Make sure Gerry gets his homework done? Do you need any help? I have some time now -”

“I got it,” Georgie said, laughing slightly. “I can still help a fifteen year old with his English. I’ll make sure he brushes his teeth too. Just enjoy yourself.”

“Have a good time, Dad!” Gerry called, the affectionate nickname making Jon smile. “Bring me back a cow!” Slightly more muffled, Jon heard him say to Georgie, “Mum, when Jon goes on a romantic getaway, what do you think they -”

“Night, honey! Night, Martin! Love you!” Georgie called loudly.

Jon laughed, unable to stop himself from waving a little, as if they were there. “Night, you two. Love you too. Stay safe.”

“We will! Bye!”

The line clicked off, and Martin’s arm stretched across Jon’s shoulders squeezed a little tighter. Jon extended a foot and clicked the space bar on the computer, starting up the movie again. 

“You’d make a really good dad,” Martin said, almost to himself. 

Jon settled back against Martin, leaning his head against his shoulder. “I feel like one already, honestly. Obviously, I have far more experience with teenagers than babies, but they can’t be that hard. If I don’t drop them…why?”

Martin coughed a little, abruptly flustered. “No reason! No reason.”

“Do you want kids?”

“Can’t exactly have them biologically,” Martin muttered, before sighing. “Yeah, I’d love to...foster or adopt or something. I’ve had my - differences - with my parents, but I’m still glad they adopted me, you know? I’d like to pass that on. But...better. Much better.”

“Georgie is talking about fostering again once Gerard moves in with Eric,” Jon said quietly. The thought of Gerry moving out, of living full time with Eric again - it just seemed weird. Almost wrong, although it wasn’t - Eric adored Gerry, and he was a competent father. It was just that...well, technically, Gerry had been living with them since the beginning of the universe. On a purely literal level, they really had always had Gerry with them. It would be strange. “As a - recipient of the foster care system myself, I’d like to make a difference too.” He smiled thinly. “We’re very compatible, aren’t we?”

“Would it be...you and Georgie…?”

“I don’t know. Does it matter?”

Martin sighed a little. “Is it dumb that sometimes it feels like you already have a family built in?”

Hm. Jon hadn’t quite thought about it that way. “You know those jokes about me and Georgie being married are just jokes,” Jon said reproachfully. 

Martin moved away a little, leaning forward, slipping his arm from Jon’s shoulder. He abruptly missed the warmth. “But you’re partners. You’re raising a kid. And I know Daisy and Tim think of themselves as your overprotective big siblings, they aren’t even wrong.”

“Many people have siblings? And friends? Some even have kids, I’ve heard.”

“I don’t.” There was really nothing for Jon to say to that, so he didn’t say anything. “I don’t want my entire social circle to just be through you…”

“It won’t be,” Jon said firmly, reaching out a hand and brushing it against Martin’s arm. He squeezed it firmly. “You don’t have to be Lonely anymore, Martin. I won’t let you.”

“Is that a promise?” Martin said, as if he was joking, as if Jon wasn’t certain that he wasn’t. As if he needed the reassurance. 

“How can you be lonely when I’m here?” Jon said, and trailed his hand up along Martin’s arm until he reached his neck and he could cup his face. He rubbed a thumb against his wispy stubble, light and thin. “I’m right here.”

Martin kissed him, and then the movie was quite thoroughly forgotten as Jon necked with his boyfriend on the couch like a teenager. They forgot everything, and for a small period of glorious time Jon forgot everything that he knew, in all of its entirety, and his Eye saw only the here and now. 

Then the door thumped open, the wind blew into the cabin, and heavy footsteps thumped into the room. Something dragged behind the footsteps, something that sounded a bit...wet. 

Martin, who was thoroughly on top of Jon and almost done unbuttoning his shirt, froze. Jon just craned his head, trying to hear the sounds of what was likely a dead deer being pulled in through the entrance way better. 

“Hello Daisy!” Jon said, still pinned down. “How was your hunting?”

“Lucrative. We’re eating venison tomorrow.”

“Great! Need any help getting that put away?”

“No, I’m good.” Tiresias barked happily. “Here, boy, you can have a little. Good boy. I’ll probably skin and clean it outside, I just wanted to get my gloves.”

“Take your time!”

Martin sighed and got off Jon, straightening his own clothing. “Yeah, Daisy, take your time.”

“Oh, am I interrupting something?” Daisy said blithely. “I didn’t mean to.”

“You’re fine,” Jon assured her, fixing his own hair from where it had grown tangled. “Want to finish this movie with us?”

“Sure, let me gut this animal first.”

“Great! Scooch over, Martin.”

“You know,” Martin said, “maybe we want to move to the bedroom?”

“If we stay in the living room I can hook up your laptop to the television and we can watch the movie that way,” Daisy said innocently. 

“That sounds good,” Jon agreed. He patted Martin’s hand. “Is that alright with you?”

Martin sighed. “Yeah. Of course.”

That night, Jon curled up next to Martin on the creaky wooden bed, listening to the flies buzz around them and the crickets hiss their lilting song outdoors. 

His earbuds were still nestled in his ears, the soft hum of his Walkman cutting the quiet night, his own pre-recorded voice reading out a story. Martin sat next to him, and occasionally Jon could hear the soft shift of the pages of a book turning. Every so often Martin would gasp, or make a little noise at some exciting event in his book. 

Jon rolled over, throwing out an arm and pulling Martin in close, resting his head on Martin’s shoulder as he let the earbuds roll gently out of his ears. Martin was soft and warm, the cotton of his t-shirt rubbing up against Jon’s cheek, and Jon let his mind gently bliss out and drift away. 

He thought about the breakfast he wanted to make the next morning, and of the soft beat of Scottish sun on his face. He thought about the creak of cobblestones as jumped-up jalopies rolled over them, and of the shifting and groan of old wood. He thought of the bright, sharp summer smell of the highlands, and the sinking and sticky marshland. 

“We should visit the antique store in town tomorrow,” Jon murmured. “Georgie’s been looking for a new lamp, and I think they should have a nice Rococo one for cheap.”

“Oh? Maybe I can pick something up too.” Martin gently scratched Jon’s scalp, making him bliss out even further. “Nice of you to always loop us in on the best deals, you little shopping catalogue.”

They, of course, had not been to the town yet, and there was no reason for Jon to know of the antique store, or the Rococo lamp. Jon hadn’t even thought about it, the information as available and easy as the layout of the convenience store down the street and a left turn from his childhood council flat. 

Martin’s voice broke the quiet, cutting through the buzz of insects. “You know I love you, right?”

“I know everything,” Jon yawned, snuggling into Martin’s side closer. 

“Not what I meant.” Martin hesitated, almost awkwardly. “You’re a literal mind reader and everything, but I’m not, so…”

“Oh, Martin.” Jon reached a hand up and cupped Martin’s cheek. “I built this world from the bedrock of my love for you.”

“Uh - wow! That’s - it’s kind of weird how you can just say that and have it be true!”

“Our lives are weird,” Jon agreed, brushing his thumb over Martin’s lips, and he carefully leaned his head up to kiss him, and they passed the long silent minutes just like that. 

Several hours later, Jon found himself jerking awake. Martin was snoring beside him, and he couldn’t feel any sun on his face, so Jon figured it was likely still nighttime. He carefully slipped out of bed, reaching out a hand and trailing it along the wall until he managed to leave the bedroom, navigate down the hall, and enter what he was fairly sure was the living room. 

“Jon?” A voice broke the night. Daisy, who had taken the pull-out couch. “You looking for the loo?”

It was only then that Jon realized that he didn’t know why he had gotten up. Tiresias snored loudly in the kitchen, adding a subtle undertone to the noise from outside, and Jon found himself shrugging helplessly. “I don’t think so. Did I wake you up?”

“Nah. Hold tight, I’ll help you to the couch.” Sure enough, after the almost silent footsteps echoed through the main room Jon felt a soft hand on his back, and she led him towards the couch. Jon lightly kicked it, testing its height, and gently lowered himself onto it, the springs of the pull-out bed breaking through the night. “What has you up?”

Jon just shrugged again. The bed creaked beside him, and he felt calloused fingers carding through his hair with gentleness that would have been surprising to most people. 

“Am I a bad boyfriend?” Jon asked, surprising himself. He hadn’t even known he was thinking that. 

“Did Blackwood tell you that you were?” Daisy asked sharply. 

“No! No, not at all.” Jon sighed. “I just...I just have different needs than him.” He could already tell what Daisy was thinking, and he shook his head. “Not about the - the you know what thing. I just...I know how much he loves me. I know what he thinks of me, I know his dedication to me. Sometimes I just assume that he’s - capable, of what I’m capable of. Do I not tell him I love him enough? Am I not affectionate enough?”

“You aren’t as perceptive as you think you are, Jon,” Daisy said, amused. “I think you’ll find that Blackwood has quite a few more secrets than you think he does.” She untangled her fingers from his hair and squeezed his arm. “Blackwood’s insecure. All insecure people want mindreader boyfriends. But you force him to use his words and ask for what he needs, Jon. It’s uncomfortable. But it’s good for him. He needs to learn to speak up for himself.” She hummed slightly. “He reminds me of Basira, a little. She’ll never tell you that you bothered her, and she just lets it pile up and up. But then you go just a little too far, and then she explodes all of that pent up anger and frustration on you. She likes to pretend she’s a real robot, but she’s just as human as the rest of them.”

“I’m so terrified of Basira,” Jon said miserably. “Remember when I dropped a plate and she told me that the reason why my gran didn’t love me was because I was an attention seeking nine year old?”

“She’s so mean. I love her so much.” Daisy patted Jon on the back. “Buck up. I’m working on Blackwood. You focus on enjoying your vacation.”

Jon let himself lean to the side, resting his head on Daisy’s shoulder. “I’m worried that Martin will realize that I’m not capable of expressing romantic affection in a socially typical manner and leave me.”

“God, shut up, whiner.” But the bed creaked and Daisy’s head gently slid out from under his shoulder, and Daisy gently helped Jon to his feet. “I’ll get you back to bed. Bitch about your imaginary relationship problems to me in the morning.”

Translated: I love you, I’ll always be here for you, and goodnight. Jon huffed a quiet laugh. “Aren’t the lights off? How can you see anything?”

When Daisy spoke again, a quiet bass growl echoed underneath her words, and Jon grinned with her. He Knew, like how he Knew that he loved Martin enough to destroy the world, that Daisy’s eyes were flickering yellow in the darkness. “Don’t be fooled by appearances, Jon.”

She helped him back to bed, and when Jon slept through the rest of the night he dreamed of nothing but Martin’s weight on his. 

****

“What a beautiful morning!” Martin said loudly. “The birds are chirping, the Scottish highlands are beautiful, I am here on my romantic vacation away from everybody with only my lovely boyfriend for company - and Daisy Tonner!”

“Glad to be here,” Daisy said affably. 

“This is so much fun!” Martin said, still loudly.

“I think so too!” Jon said enthusiastically.

Tiresias barked. 

After a breakfast pointedly prepared by Martin, they all got dressed and saddled up to go walk into the village. It was a quick walk, only about twenty minutes, and Martin and Daisy enjoyed the scenery as Jon enjoyed the warm grip of Martin’s hand in his and the breeze on his face. 

When the trail began sloping further downhill, and their footsteps began to slide against the incline, Jon pulled what Gerry would have called a ‘pro-gamer move’ and moved his grip up until he was clinging to Martin’s arm. Martin sprayed a hand out, resting it against Jon’s back, and helped him down the trail. 

“Whoah! You alright, honey? Careful of your step!”

“Jesus christ,” Daisy muttered. 

“It’s hardly Jon’s fault -” Martin began heatedly. 

“Yeah, Daisy,” Jon said, delighting in setting them against each other like the cold, uncaring god he was, “check your privilege.”

Then they were off, because despite Daisy was allergic to social consciousness, and Jon whistled a jaunty tune, composed in the 15th century and unknown to all but its lonely shepherd creator, as they navigated their way downwards. 

The village was small, nothing more than two streets with cheerful wooden facades and swing porches set out on the decks with wizened elderly people sipping from bottles of Irn Bru and smoking down cigarettes to the dregs. At least, as narrated by Martin, who seemed to already be mentally writing his small-town murder mystery in the Scottish highlands (Martin’s poetry needed work, but his fiction held a certain massmarket appeal). Knowing Martin, the protaganist would likely be either a grandmother with his own personality, or a thirtysomething gay man who had twelve counts of arson on his record and was running from the cops. 

Wait. Wait, Jon should use his words. Ask instead of look. Display interest in Martin’s inner life - which, granted, seemed to be a waste of time when Jon could just Know and not waste his breath, but Georgie had been coaching him in this. 

“You should give the ex-con narrator a boyfriend,” Jon said supportively. “Maybe bring back the gay bar owner from the last book?”

Martin almost tripped over the gravel. “How did you know I was thinking of - Jon, I told you not to read my mind!”

“Lay off, you know he doesn’t do it on purpose,” Daisy said uninterestedly, growling at what Jon guessed were passerby on the street. 

“Daisy, stop telling me how to talk to my boyfriend -”

“Oh, he’s your boyfriend now, is he?”

“Yes! Yes, he is!”

“Let’s get some ice cream!” Jon said loudly. 

“How did you even know there was an ice cream - fine! Fine, of course!” Martin sighed loudly. “Why not!”

As it turned out, they were right in front of ice cream. Jon loved it when things worked out. 

****

Twenty minutes later, after Martin laboriously reading out all of the entirely too many flavors to Jon, Daisy growling at everybody at the store like an errant dog, fighting with the owner of the store extremely politely about his actual dog existing, and finally taking their ice cream outside to sit at a picnic bench and attack their waffle cones, Jon felt content. 

He indicated this by telling everybody everything he knew about emulsifiers, which were extremely neat and a lot of fun! Because nobody was stopping him talking by saying ‘let’s talk about something else, Jon’ or ‘isn’t that a bit boring, Jon?’ he moved onto the history of waffle cones, safe in his assumption that everybody was as interested in the topic as he was. 

“I love you so much,” Martin said, somewhat dazed, when Jon stopped to draw a breath. “Did you know that this is the second time this has happened?”

That stopped Jon short, when nothing else did. “Really? Has it?”

Martin’s spoon scraped his small paper bowl. “Yep. Uh - for my birthday, I think. Me, Tim, and - and Sasha, and you. You ordered rum raisin. I was thinking...did you actually like rum raisin? Or did you just panic?” He laughed, somewhat self-consciously. “You didn’t remember about it even before the whole apocalypse thing, so no sweat, but…”

“Oh.” Jon realized, for probably the fifth time, that Martin held years and years worth of memories in him, and that Jon had only fragments and impressions. He knew that he had everything important, that everything he needed was within him, but - did he? What if he was missing the key to everything, the key to Martin, and all he needed was to just Look deeper? “That’s - I could remember it, if I wanted.”

“It’s fine, Jon,” Daisy said quietly. “Don’t go giving yourself a migraine.”

“I could,” Jon insisted. “I’d like to remember something like your birthday, Martin. Precious memories, or - or something. Give me a moment, I can send a quick prayer, and -”

“You know,” Martin said, and he squeezed Jon’s hand. “I’d rather make new memories right now. Where we are right now, that’s - that’s the most important place, innit?”

Jon smiled at him, and he knew, in the most mundane of ways, Martin was smiling back. “I like to think so too.”

“Ugh,” Daisy teased, although perhaps to an outsider it may have sounded mean, “get that sappy shit outta my face.”

“You’re just as bad with Basira,” Jon shot back, smiling. “You two are in love -”

“Take that shit back,” Daisy hissed. 

“You want to get married -”

“Who told you!”

Jon tapped the lens of his glasses smugly. “A little Eye told me.”

“Beholding cuck.”

“No, that’s Peter -”

“Martin would know all about Peter, huh?” Daisy sneered, and the pressure on Jon’s hand intensified for a brief second before it withdrew completely, leaving his hand cold and empty.

“Jon, can you give me and Daisy a few minutes of privacy, please?” Martin said pleasantly. 

Jon raised an eyebrow, licking the ice cream dripping down his hand. It was Vast flavor. Tasted like...ozone. “Why?”

“He doesn’t know the area, you can’t send him off alone,” Daisy shot back, strangely smugly. “Come on, Blackwood. Whatever you want to say to me, you can say it in front of him.”

“You know what, fine. Fine!” Martin thumped the table, making Jon start and Tireasias stiffen. “I have done nothing that warrants this kind of treatment from you. You are disrespecting me, disrespecting my relationship, and you are insulting my fucking intelligence. I appreciate you loaning us your cabin, but if I knew that it would come with strings attached then I would have paid for my own bloody hotel! Why are you doing this!”

“Tim gave me fifty quid,” Daisy said, like the wolf that had caught the canary. “Plus it’s fucking funny.”

“Done what?” Jon asked, confused. 

“I want you out of my vacation, Daisy,” Martin hissed. “If you won’t leave the cabin, then I am booking my own Air BnB and that’s fucking final! I don’t care if I have to - to fight you in the street about it, I can and I will, you don’t want to mess with me -”

“Sure.”

Martin stopped short. Jon licked his ice cream, fascinated by the drama. “What?”

“I said sure,” Daisy enunciated clearly. “I was waiting for you to fucking say it. I told Basira I’d be home by tonight, anyway. Knew you’d snap.”

“I - what! What! What?!”

“You’re a pushover, Blackwood,” Daisy said. “Your coworkers, your friends, everyone - they just walk all over you. It’s fucking stupid. You are the archival assistant who survived the apocalypse with memories and sanity intact. You lasted longer on the position than anyone since Emma Harvey, and you didn’t have to lose your soul to do it. You looked Elias in the face as you burned his Archives down. You’re not a pussy. And I was sick of seeing you act like one. It’s fucking annoying.”

“I hate you so fucking much,” Martin whispered, somewhat in shock. 

“Well, I hate seeing my best friend date a passive aggressive loser, so we’re both unhappy.” Daisy stood up, feet shuffling against the cement, and Jon felt her press a kiss against his forehead. “You two have a nice day out. I’m going to go hunt things, and head back to London. Take care of yourself, Jon. And cut out the PDA, it’s gross.”

Suddenly, violently, with a crushing realization, the entire vacation was recontextualized. 

“I don’t appreciate any of this,” Jon said crossly, scowling in her direction. “Honestly, Daisy, you don’t -”

“Blame Tim. Love you, Jon. Love you, sweet puppy. See you later, Blackwood.”

Jon and Martin sat in silence as the sound of footsteps receded from Jon’s hearing, and the low murmur of the small village set in around them. Martin still seemed to slightly be in shock, his ice cream slowly melting, and Tiresias yawned sleepily in the sun. 

“I hate her so fucking much,” Martin whispered. 

But Jon just smiled, and reached out to brush a thumb over Martin’s close-cropped hair. He leaned in, whispering into Martin’s ear. “Hearing you yell at the scariest woman I know who isn’t Gertrude Robinson was pretty fucking sexy, love.”

“I hate her so - wait, it was? Really?” Martin coughed awkwardly. “Well, she really had it coming, and it’s not a huge deal, and I know she’s your best friend and I should be nice to her, but -”

“ - but she was right,” Jon said firmly. “An arse about making her point, but she was right. I’m working on using my words. You should too. All of the books say communication is key in a relationship. So let’s communicate, alright?” He faltered a little, uncertain if Daisy would want him to say this. “And - and it was obvious, from what she said, that Daisy respects you. It’s a very difficult thing, to win Daisy’s respect. I think she was trying to help us, in her own - unorthodox manner.”

“I hate her so much,” Martin groaned. 

“It was very sexy,” Jon hinted. 

Martin leaned in and kissed Jon lightly, and Jon could feel his smile against his own. “How about we finish our food,” he said quietly, “walk around town for a bit, buy some souvenirs for your family, and then go back to the cabin and snog and cuddle for a very long time? If that’s okay with you?”

“I’d like nothing more,” Jon said. 

And he was right. It was messy, and weird, and painfully uncomfortable.

 It was perfect.

[lunasilvermorny]

Future AU - Rowan and Luna in 2020 (Part 1)

Writing about Luna and Rowan was always my favorite part of the headcanon and now that I quit (at least for now) the game, I no longer have any reason to hold myself back from thinking about Future AU scenarios for these two.

(I didn’t mean to make Rowan such a snack, but... it is what it is.)

The year is 2020 (thank you title for revealing it already), it’s around February-March, Luna is 46 and Rowan is 47.

Hope you’ll like it!

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“Doctor Silver, there’s someone here to see you.”

Luna thanked the nurse and went toward the oddly dressed man. He was two meters tall with a top hat that added at least 10 cm to his height, he wore a Hawaiian shirt with a yellow cardigan on top, baggy three quarter pants with black tights underneath and flowery pink shoes.

He straightened up his glasses and gave her a warm smile when he saw her heading his way.

“Hello there-“

“What are you doing here?” she dragged him to the side and gave him an annoyed look.

“Careful, my back.” He said and rubbed the muscles of his lower back.

“And what, in the name of god, are you wearing?” she ignored him and gestured at the unfitting combination of clothes.

“What, no good?” he was surprised. “My students told me top hats are all the rage.”

“Rowan.” She tried to remain calm. “Why are you here, mate?”

“This is a nice hospital-“

“Rowan.” She frowned.

“I’m glad to see you too, Rowan.” He did a bad imitation of her voice. “It’s been so long, how are you doing?”

“I’m working.” Luna reminded him.

“But you were taking a little tea break, weren’t you?”

“I had a three minutes break!” she said defensively. “I’ve been on call for 38 hours now, I think I deserve a bloody break.”

“38 hours?” he raised an eyebrow. “Aren’t you the chief physician?”

“We’re short on stuff these days.” She said. “So I took the load off my colleagues, since I can manage with little to no sleep.”

“Are you sure?” he looked at the bags under her eyes.

She nodded – “I’m fine.”

“Well, since you’re fine and also on a break,“ he gave her a teasing smile when she sighed. “How about a chat?”

“Aren’t you supposed to be at Hogwarts? It’s the middle of the school year.”

“Yes, but it’s also Saturday.”

“It is?” she looked exhausted when she checked her watch. “But I’ve been here since Tuesday.”

“Wow, you are tired, aren’t you?” he gave her a concerned look. “I don’t think I have ever seen you tired before.”

“What do you want, Rowan?!” she snapped at him, then immediately added- “Sorry about that.”

“I was wondering, this whole COVID-19-“

“Oh my god.” Luna rubbed her temples. “Are you seriously still hung up on that?”

“It’s just that you never explained exactly what it is and-“

“Rowan, read the fucking paper! This can’t be the only reason you’re here.”

“Well,” he gave her a guilty look. “There might be something else. You see-“

But before he finished the sentence, Luna was called back to the ER.

“I have to go, we’ll talk about it later.” She said and hurried down the corridor without saying goodbye.

“When? When are you done?” he called after her, but she disappeared behind the ER doors. “Yep, let’s talk later, shall we?” he murmured to himself and sat back on the bench next to the reception.

--

Luna looked out of the window; it was pitch black. She considered the possibility of sleeping in the on-call room again, but knew that if she stayed here, she wouldn’t be able to leave in the morning and she mustn’t neglect her duties as a healer. She took her car keys out of her pocket while exiting the ER, saying good night to the night-shift nurse and head toward the exit, when her eyes landed on her old friend, boringly staring at an old magazine, barely awake.

“What are you still doing here?” she said and automatically checked her watch. “Were you waiting here this whole time?”

“No, I went to the loo once or twice.” He said with a tired voice and let out a long yawn.

“Come on.” She helped him stand up and they both got out of the building into the parking lot. They walked slowly, but neither of them complained. They were too tired at this point to care.

When they got to Oliver Jr., her green 2006 Ford Fiesta, Rowan said – “We’re not really taking this muggle piece of junk, are we?”

“You can apparate if you want.” She said and got into the car, but Rowan followed her. She put on the safety belt and reminded him to do the same.

“Why? What could this piece of leather possibly do if we got into a truly dangerous situation?”

“I don’t want to be fined.” She said as she started the engine. “I couldn’t care less about their ridiculous rules.”

“Didn’t you have a repellent spell against muggles?”

“That was before I started living amongst them.” She said, making sure the mirrors are in check, but it was just an excuse to stall until her brain wakes up enough for her concentrate on driving. “My deal with the Ministry prohibits me from using any type of magic near muggles.”

“Nothing at all?”

“Nope.” She yawned one last time before she pressed her foot against the gas pedal and started driving. “I even had to get a driving license.”

“That is absurd.” Rowan shook his head. “What wizard in his right mind would agree to this?”

“The kind that wanted to be a doctor.” She wasn’t offended by what he said, she knew him well enough to know that he had no ill intention behind his words. “Now shut up, I’m trying to concentrate.”

“Since when?” he raised an eyebrow.

“Since I became the person that have to tend to the injured in these kind of accidents.”

“Wow, you’re taking this muggle stuff really seriously.” He almost sounded impressed.

“You might say that.” She gave him a tired smile and then looked back at the road. “So how have you been, Professor hot-shot? Your students are doing all right?”

“They are, thank you.” He said with pride. “I don’t want to take all the credit, but most of my students were basically illiterate before they entered to my classroom. Now, my 5th year students are at least an ‘E’ level, freshly ready for the OWLs.”

“You sound more like a mother than a teacher.” She teased.

“Well, you know how I am.” He nodded. “I have this brilliant student, she reminds me of you, doesn’t even have to put an effort, everything comes so easily to her and yet she still does her best. She said it’s because she wants to make me proud. My heart nearly melted.”

“Does she protect you from the bullies as well?” Luna chuckled.

“Don’t even let me start with these rotten apples.” He scrunched his nose. “Always thinking they’re the funniest, don’t care if they lose house point. Nasty little things.”

Luna stopped at a red light behind a large car with loud music blasting out of its windows.

“There is another student-“ but Luna wasn’t paying attention anymore. She saw the car started to move slowly toward the cross road, even though the light was still red.

“Hey.” She called then pressed the car horn, but whoever was in the car probably didn’t hear her. They were still moving in a slow enough pace, but if they keep going, someone might get hurt. “Hey!” she pressed the horn again, but to no avail. She opened the car door and ran toward the other car, knocking on the window to draw the driver’s attention.

Then, with a swift move, she pulled out her wand and brought the car to a stop.

Rowan looked confused. She said she wasn’t supposed to use magic, but it all became clear when Luna opened the door and an unconscious driver fell over her. Rowan hurried out of the car to assist her.

“Can you hear me, sir?” she said loudly when Rowan reached her. She pinched the Trapezius muscle near his neck, that caused the man to jerk and let out a loud grunt, then he slowly opened his eyes.

“Can I do anything to help?” Rowan asked, but Luna shook her head and got back to the muggle, that reeked of liquor.

Luna was about to check his pupils, when the man turned to the side and vomited violently. She used that opportunity to pull out a small device, that wasn’t familiar to Rowan, from her pocket and pressed it to her ear.

“I have to take care of it,” she said to Rowan, the device still pressed to her ear by her shoulder. “Can you get my car out of the way?” she threw her keys at him and went back to the barely conscious and very drunk driver.

Rowan somehow managed to move her car to the side of the road and waited, while Luna kept tending to the man. He knew it would’ve taken a fraction of the time if she only used magic, but since he’s a muggle, her hands were tied. He always knew she had patience, but he still found it impressive.

She helped the man into the backseat of his car, entered the driver’s seat and headed back toward the hospital.

Almost half an hour later, an owl appeared in the sky and just before it landed on the road, it changed form into Luna. She gave Rowan a frustrated look when she got inside the car, obviously in an even worst mood than before. She started the engine and let out a deep sigh before she went back to driving.

They drove in silence until they got out of the city and into the highway, when Luna finally said- “This drunken fucker, I hope he’ll choke on his own damn vomit.” Rowan remained silence while she kept ranting. “Can you believe that arsehole? Getting behind the wheel in his state. Almost as if he wanted to die or he was stupid enough to think that Jesus would drive for him.”

Rowan started to doze off and before he noticed, they already arrived at her house. Luna woke him up and they both slowly headed toward the small cottage. Rowan was too tired to comment on her new house, and after she quickly made the bed for him in the guest room, he collapsed on the bed and fell asleep almost immediately.

Luna went up the stairs, trying her best not to wake Mark up, and got into her bedroom.

Finally, she can sleep.

Twenty minutes later, her alarm went off. She barely managed to get out of bed into the shower and put on clean clothes, before she opened the window and flew out in her owl form to her shift in the wizards' hospital.

--

She got back home around 7 p.m. and was surprised to discover Rowan was still there, casually taking to Mark, who was in the midst of preparing supper.

“What are you still doing here?” she said while she picked an apple and took a bite out of it. “I thought you’d be back at Hogwarts by now, isn’t it a school-night?”

Rowan gave her an irritated look. “I came to see you for a reason, remember?”

“I know, mate, but I have a shift at the muggles’ hospital in an hour and I can really use some sleep.”

“Come on, mum.” Said Mark. “He told me he was waiting almost two days to have a proper chat with you. Can’t you give him five minutes?”

“Thank you, Mark.” Said Rowan. “If only I had this kind of influence on her. She always takes my time for granted-“

“I’m too tired for this.” She said and threw the remains of the apple in the bin. “Give me half an hour, alright?” but she left the room immediately after, not letting him a chance to say anything.

“So you’re staying for supper, then.” Mark gestured at the pots on the cooker.

“Seems like it.” Rowan shrugged.