#watching that thing cross my dash and simultaneously seeing people go 'what the fuck is jellie' vs people weeping for her to win is

[galaxymooing]

the nefarious cat poll

[littlemissnoname13]

Wisps of Smoke (Draco Malfoy x Slytherin!reader) - Part 5

Summary: y/n and Draco find themselves drawn to an abandoned classroom every night

Pairing: Draco Malfoy x Slytherin!Reader ft. Theo Nott, Pansy Parkinson, Blaise Zabini

Warnings: Excessive smoking, mature language and themes, smut labeled as ⚜️, 18+ content, reader discretion is advised, also Draco is kinda soft in this one. Just sayin.

A/n: Ik this was supposed to be the final part but I wanted to wrap things up properly. The last part will be dedicated to the ball itself.

A massive thank you to everyone that has read WOS. Your feedback makes me so fkn happy. I love you all sm.

Word count: 3700

Link to Part one, two, three, and four if you haven’t read them already.

My other stories are over here. And you can join my tag list here.

As always, Smoking is injurious to health y’all.

24th December

Home was just the way you’d remembered it. 

From the Goldchild Ivy covering the white colored walls and the stepping stones leading all the way to the main entrance to the way your parents kept nagging you about your “future” with Adrian Pucey.

“You still haven’t told me what kind of dress you’d like to wear to the ball.” Your mum reminded you after taking a small sip from her wine glass. 

“I don’t know mother.” You sighed,stabbing repeatedly at the sautéed mushroom on your plate. “Can’t I wear something I already own? Like the blue one I wore last year.”

“Well, what is Adrian wearing? May I suggest some colour coordinating?” 

“I really don’t know mother.” You coughed. 

“Well, why don't you ask him?”

“I can't.” You mumbled dropping your fork on your plate. The loud clanging sound earned you an eyebrow raise from your otherwise quiet father. 

“Why not?”

“We broke—we aren’t seeing each other anymore.” You said quietly before quickly standing up and dismissing yourself from the dining table before your parents could ask you a thousand questions.

As you walked away from the table and towards the balcony, you could still hear your parents calling after you while simultaneously speculating about just what you may have done to scare Adrian away. 

You weren’t going to tell them about Draco because you weren’t even sure what to tell them.

I broke up with Adrian because I’m sleeping with Draco Malfoy.

Yes, the one that is getting engaged soon. 

No we’re not together.

I may or may not have developed feelings for him.

Yes, it is inconvenient because I have no idea how he feels. 

Did I mention he is getting engaged? 

You tugged on the sleeves of your sweater to warm your hands up as you stared up at the surprisingly clear night sky splattered with only a few clouds and shimmering stars. 

You took it upon yourself to start counting the stars to distract yourself from thinking about Draco again.

Unbeknownst to you, Draco was standing on the balcony of his room trying not to think of you too. 

The only difference for him was that the sky was a little less cloudy where he lived and he wasn’t going to bother counting stars. 

“Happy Christmas Draco.” You whispered to yourself,staring at the shiny emerald ring on your finger. 

“Happy Christmas Y/n.” Draco mumbled into the night air as he fidgeted with your amethyst ring. 

~~~~~~~~~~

25th December

It was a surprisingly quiet Christmas Morning at the Y/l/n household. 

Your parents were still fast asleep when you walked towards the kitchen to fix yourself a cup of coffee. 

It was probably because your parents hadn’t quite processed your break up with Adrian and had spent their night discussing it.

Seeing it was Christmas, you decided to put a dash of white chocolate and whipped cream in your cup of caffeinated goodness in order to feel a bit more festive.

You were feeling anything but festive. 

There was a kind of dread crushing your insides when you thought about the ball. 

You’d have to watch him dance with her and kiss her lips at midnight. 

Fuck, you’d have to congratulate him after he slipped a ring onto her perfectly manicured finger. 

Just when you were about to take a sip of your drink, you heard a knock on your door. 

You frowned and walked towards the door because it was way too early on in the morning for anyone to come over. 

When you yanked the door open, you saw him of all people, standing on the other side of the door with his white blond hair messier than usual. 

He was wearing one of his rare genuine smiles that showed his pearly whites making you feel wobbly in the knees. 

“Draco—What are you doing here?”

“Happy Christmas to you too.” He said with the smile still fixed on his lips. “Tell me y/l/n is this how you greet all of your houseguests?”

“How rude of me.” You muttered to yourself still befuddled as you stepped back to let him in. “Come in, sit down. Cup of tea?”

“I’m actually in a bit of a hurry.” He said as he fidgeted with his blazer pocket. “Just came to drop off something—ugh hold this.” 

He placed a pack of cigarettes in the palm of your hand before fumbling with his pocket again. 

“Ahh. There we go.” He retrieved a lilac colored box from his pocket and brought it back to its normal size before handing it to you.

“What’s this?” 

“What does it look like y/n?”

“But—But I haven't even gotten you anythi—”

Before you could finish your sentence, he leaned in, tenderly pressing lips against yours. 

The softness of his lips made the heaviness you were feeling on your shoulders fade away as you faded into him—only him and the way he held you firmly around the waist as he suckled on your bottom lip.

“Thank you.”  You whispered burying your face into his chest, trying to inhale a scent of his cologne. “Thank you.”  

When Draco left, you ran up to your room and opened the lilac box to find a blush coloured slip dress folded neatly with a note on top of it written in his neat handwriting.

~~~~

Dear Y/n

I really am sorry about what happened to your old silk dress but I just couldn’t help myself. 

I hope you’ll understand.

I also hope I get to see you wear this one someday.  

Yours,

D.L.M

~~~~~~~~~~~

26 December 

The day after Christmas, the boys decided to do a little cleanup. 

Quidditch and house memorabilia, novelty artefacts they no longer cared enough for and items of emotional value. 

The boys wanted a fresh start. 

A clean break.

A clean slate. 

Theo and Blaise were done with their cleaning so they were now at the Manor helping Draco who was surprisingly not very convinced about the whole “fresh start” ordeal. 

“Remember this?” Theo chuckled, clearing out all the books that covered Draco’s desk and using his wand to cast a quick spell that revealed carvings they’d made the summer before their second year.

“Oh?” Blaise gleefully raised his eyebrows walking towards Theo. “I’d forgotten about this.” 

Draco rolled his eyes and followed Blaise and the three boys stood around the table reading out everything they’d managed to carve out. 

There were some very unholy words, tally sticks and unfortunate looking doodles of Harry on the table.

“Theodore Nott was here.” Draco read out loud looking unimpressed.

“Read this one.” Theo chuckled pointing at a carving. “Daphne Greengrass + Blaise Zabini.”

“Hey! We were barely second years.” Blaise protested while his eyes kept scanning the table. 

As Blaise’s vigilant eyes trailed to the farthest corner of the table, a wicked grin started to form across his cheeks making Draco’s face turn pale. 

“Y/n Y/l/n.” Blaise read out loud smirking at Draco. “Well well Malfoy—From the second year?...Interesting.” 

“It was always obvious even though he expressed himself in questionable ways.” Theo shrugged. 

“What was obvious?” Draco quirked an eyebrow with a scowl on his face. 

“The fact that you were and are absolutely enamoured with y/n.” Theo rolled his eyes. “It has always been obvious to everyone but you. Back me up here Zabini.” 

Draco crossed his arms and looked at Blaise who just gave him an apologetic shrug. “I’m sorry but he’s right mate.”

“I am not enamoured with y/n.” 

“If you say so.” Blaise shrugged.

“And what if I were?” Draco spat, clearly irked by the condescending look on Blaise’s face.

“If you are, then I only have one question for you.” Blaise said with carefully selected words.

“And the question is?” 

Blaise went quiet for a brief second before looking at Draco, dead set in the eye.

“What is holding you back, Malfoy?” 

~~~~~~~~~~

27th December

Draco wondered what life decisions he’d taken to find himself seated at a murky little pub with Astoria reclining against his shoulders—sipping on Butterbeer. 

Pansy, Theo and Blaise were taking shots next to him and you were awkwardly seated right across the table next to Adrian fucking Pucey. 

What was he doing here anyway? Who even invited him? 

Even though he’d overheard you telling Pansy that Adrian was there only because of your parents nagging you, seeing you seated together bothered him nonetheless. 

Draco wasn’t even meaning to eavesdrop on your conversation with Adrian but he just couldn’t help but divert all his attention to your sweet voice and the way your lips moved. 

You were telling Adrian about the sweet shop next door and Draco’s lips involuntarily twitched and curved upwards when he noticed just how excited you were about sweets.

It was like you softened him—made him vulnerable. And the whole feeling terrified him.

Between smoking his fifth cigarette, occasionally chatting with Astoria and looking at you from the corner of his eye, one rather simple thought encircled Draco’s mind. 

Why didn’t he knock Pucey off his broom when he had the chance to?

~~~~~~~~~

28th December

Lightning crashed. Thunder clapped.

Fat drops of rain started to fall on the enormous glass window in Draco’s bedroom. 

You placed your finger on the glass as you watched the infinite droplets race all the way to the bottom of the window.

The howling winds brought in the scent of wet grass and sent the dark curtains flying in all different directions.

You took in the smell of fresh rain and sighed sinking blissfully into his embrace.

Lucius and Narcissa were away, preparing for the upcoming ball and Draco had owled you asking to meet. 

And so, both of you were now sitting on the windowsill in his room that was much larger than the one in the abandoned classroom. 

In fact, it was so spacious that it served as his own personal reading nook—complete with a velvety throw blanket and some cushions. 

His hands held open a book and you let yourself get comfortable between his long limbs, still counting raindrops on the window. 

“What are you doing?” He asked looking towards you and away from the worn out pages of his book. 

“I’m watching the raindrops race each other.” You said with your eyes still fixed on the glass. “infinite little droplets.”

“It's just rain.” He shrugged as his eyes went back to his book. “Quite mundane if you ask me.”

Sure rain was mundane. 

But this rain felt different. It sent you into a state of melancholia. 

You couldn’t dare to tell him but those infinite droplets resembled the amount of times you’d wanted to tell him that you loved him. 

Even though you couldn’t find the courage to tell him, it was like the look in your eyes gave it all away.

It made his features soften as he slowly shifted and got up from the nook to fully open the window.

You shielded yourself as cold drops of rain started to hit your face. “What in the actual fuck?” 

“Shut up and follow me.” He said as he climbed out of the window and onto the ledge.

“Are you mental?” 

“Just do as I say.” He said helping you onto the ledge. 

Both of you laughed hysterically as the rain seeped through your clothes as you sat on the ledge with your bare feet dangling in the air. 

One wrong move and both of you could fall to our deaths. But there came an adrenaline rush with the risk of it all. 

He pushed away the hair sticking to your face and brought your face close to his before pressing his rain soaked lips to yours. 

Theo was right. 

He was fucking enamoured.

~~~~~~⚜️~~~~~~~~

After coming back inside, you walked into his ensuite to fix your ruined hair and cast a quick drying charm to your clothes before heading home.

You had barely managed to pick at the tangles in your wet hair when an equally soaked Draco walked up behind you—clothes sticking to his toned body and hair sticking to his face. 

“Draco. Sorry for hogging the mirror. I thought I’d be done sooner but these tangles are—hmmm.”

He wrapped his arms around your waist from behind you and pressed his cold lips against the base of your neck.

Even though your hair was entangled and unruly, you looked bewitching to him.

Especially the way the thin and drenched fabric of your seafoam colored dress draped your body—transparent and accentuating all your curves. 

He just couldn’t help himself from unzipping your dress while he admired the sight of your dress slowly leaving your body in the mirror in front of you both. 

“Draco?” You whispered as you watched his lips move their way from your neck to your shoulders. His hands gently gripping and massaging your breasts. 

“Yes?” He whispered into your hair as he began nipping on your earlobe—his hands never leaving your breasts. 

You wanted to tell him that you were in love with him but the words just refused to leave your lips. 

“I—I missed you so much.” You said instead as you watched the corners of his mouth twitch. 

He didn’t say a word back.

Hips lips were too occupied with sucking love bites against your skin. 

He didn’t need to tell you that he missed you too. The deep reddish purple markings on your body said it all. 

Draco intertwined his fingers around yours and placed your palms flat against the marble basin in front of you. 

Your dainty fingers brought out the verdant tones of the emerald ring and Draco couldn’t help but admire his family heirloom on you. 

He slowly moved his hands up your arms and let them brush against your bare back—trailing lower and lower till he was barely touching your soaking wet cunt.

“You like it when I touch you here?” He murmured pushing one of his fingers inside for a fleeting second. 

“Hmmm.” You moaned gripping tightly onto the basin and pushing your hips backwards to get more. 

Draco brought his hand to your arse and struck once causing you to hiss through your teeth. 

“Words darling—use your words.”

“Yes….” You whimpered, opening your eyes to stare into the reflection again. There was a kind of unrestrained hunger in his eyes that only made you want him more. 

“Good girl...so fucking perfect..so beautiful.” 

He reached out and wrapped his left hand around your throat and brought your face close to him while the pad of his right thumb rubbed steady circles on your throbbing clit. 

He loved that you were always so wet and ready for him. 

“Draco..I want you inside me..Please..” 

He could have spent hours on end just teasing you with his fingers and tongue if he could. There was just something about you that just made him want to take his time to worship you—to ruin you. 

But time was not on his side and the reflection in front of him was making him increasingly impatient so he did not tease you any further. He simply unbuckled his trousers and pushed his cock where it belonged. 

“Fuck...yes Draco..”

A whimper let your lips at the sudden push and your knuckles turned pale as you gripped tightly onto the marble basin. 

“Look at you…” He murmured against your shoulder as he stared ahead into the mirror—his cock pounding in and out of you. “Taking my cock like such a good girl.” 

He let go of your throat and used his hands to hold your hips firmly in place as he fucked you mercilessly. 

Every time you two had fucked before this, Draco had constantly reminded himself to be a little gentle with you—but today, he wanted to wreck you.

He wanted you to scream his name in a bittersweet mix of pure pleasure and pain as he fucked you relentlessly.

“More...Draco...oh..fuck…yes.” 

Beads of tears started to slip out of your eyes and you started to squirm—clenching him inside of you as your started to feel your orgasm approach. 

“Don’t.” He growled digging his nails into the flesh at your hips. “Don’t fucking come just yet.” 

You winced when he slipped himself out before carrying you back to his room where he sat down at the edge of the bed—positioning you on his lap with your legs on either side as he slipped back into you. 

Draco let you adjust to the new position for a few seconds as you gripped his shoulders as you moved your hips, slowly riding his cock. 

“My perfect little slut.” He sighed cupping your face in his hands as you continued to move against him. 

After letting you ride him for a little longer, he gripped your hips and started to pound into you making your tits bounce up and down. 

“Feels so good Draco—feels so fucking good. Oh god yes.”

With one hand on your arse and his mouth attached to your nipple Draco kept thrusting into you till the room was filled with the sound of your screams mixed with the sound of his skin slapping against yours and the sound rain splattering against the window glass. 

“Fuck y/n...your cunt is so perfect, you take me so fucking good..god.” 

“Harder…”

“So good when you clench me in like that... fuck y/n..I need to fucking fill you up…”

“Draco please..don’t fucking stop...oh..I’m so close..”

You always submitted to him so easily, he enjoyed the control he had over you.

But your sweet moans, the way your lips moved when you sighed his name was enough to make him weak for you. 

You were completely oblivious to the power you held over him. 

He loved you.

And he wanted to say the words out loud over and over again. 

“I love—I love being inside you..I have missed you so much” He said instead. 

“Draco I’m—I’m fucking cumming.” You whined as he continued to move his hips.

“Let go. Fucking cum y/n. Cum with me.”

You let your head fall against his shoulders and dug your nails into his biceps as you succumbed to your orgasm.

He soon followed, painting your walls with his release as he murmured sweet nothings into your skin. 

You held each other close as you both recovered from your highs and and when he eventually fell asleep you whispered into his ear. 

I’ll be thinking of you too Malfoy.

~~~~~~~~~

29th December 

Once glimpse of the calendar and all the feelings you had shoved into a deep dark part of your mind trickled out in the form of tears.

Silent tears.

The kind of tears you cry when the silence of the night gets unbearable.

The kind where you suppress the sound of your wail and hopelessly try and mute any kind of sniffle by pressing your face hard into the pillow because you don’t want to wake anyone up. 

Silent tears are the most painful of tears when mixed with the sound of the clock ticking. 

For some bizarre reason, every second gets more prolonged than the other.

You had tried to hold it together for days. You tried to pretend like Draco’s engagement didn’t bother you. 

But it did. 

You turned your head on your very damp pillow and eyed the pack of smokes on your night stand. Draco had left when he came to drop off your present. 

On an impulse, You stepped out of your bed as your trembling fingers reached for the 25 pack of expensive looking cigarettes. 

The second you opened the box, the slight scent of nicotine wafted up your nose and you slowly placed a cigarette at the corner of your chapped and dry lips and lit it up. 

Like always, you coughed and wheezed the second you inhaled. 

You hated how it felt. 

But you loved how close you suddenly felt to Draco.

In a twisted kind of way, It felt like you were submerged in his presence again. 

Your lips tasted like they had been kissed by him again.

The more you inhaled the better it felt.

In a fucked up kind of way, The word felt right again.  

And slowly, the night faded into morning as one cigarette turned into another. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~

30th December 

Pansy had flooed to your hour the minute she received a letter last night in your drunken handwriting talking about how amazing cigarettes were and how pretty Astoria was.

With a mug filled to the brim with tea in between her hands, she rested her back against the armchair in your room, tilting her head to get a better look at you. 

Your face was pressed sideways against the pillow and she could tell you’d been crying by the dried mascara stains on your cheeks. 

A half smoked cigarette was pressed into the makeshift ashtray that you’d made out of your bedside table making Pansy wonder if she’d ever seen you this miserable. 

Your duvet was barely covering your shoulders and just as Pansy was standing up to pull them up, your bedroom door creaked open. 

“I just wanted to drop something off.” Draco  mumbled almost like he was talking to himself as he took a step into the room—hand in his blazer pocket.

Pansy didn't say a word as she watched Draco with her eyes narrowed. She observantly watched him pull out a tiny box from his pocket and mumble a spell to restore it to its original size.

“What are those?” 

“Assorted sweets.” He said softly, with his gaze not leaving your sleeping form once. “She wouldn’t stop talking about exploding bonbons the other night at the pub.” 

Pansy heaved out a sigh as she watched Draco place the box of sweets on your bedside table before reaching to gently push away your hair from your face. 

“Don’t get me wrong Draco, but you really shouldn’t be here right now.” 

His weary eyes flickered as he turned to look questioningly at Pansy—retreating his hand from your face. 

“You are getting engaged tomorrow—look at her, look at the state she is in. She won’t say it out loud but It’s clearly killing her.” 

As much as Draco hated agreeing with Pansy, she was right. 

Even while asleep, you looked worn out and restless with your eyebrows scrunched up indicating tension.

He wasn’t even going to get himself started on the cigarettes and wine bottles on your night stand.

“Will you let her know that I came by?” He looked half expectantly at Pansy who gave him an apologetic smile in return. “Never mind I guess.” 

As Draco reluctantly backed away from you,  Blaise’s words lingered in his mind. 

What is holding you back Malfoy?

(To be continued...)

~~~~~~

Part 6: Final Chapter Preview:

The Malfoy Manor was being decorated and every little detail of the decor screamed nothing but aristocratic, pristine, perfect.

It was like everything was just a futile attempt to conceal the dullness, loneliness and the fucked up pure blood traditions hiding deep within the manor walls.

Much like his so-called arrangement with Astoria that seemed so perfect on paper.

Pure blood families, rich family history, old money.

What could go wrong right?..

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tag list: @maybesandohnos @justfangirlthingies @lieswithoutfairytales @dracomalfoys-wh0re @hannahhobnob @sycathorn-slush @mxl-foyrecs @daringvixon @linetteyde @imbadwithunsernames @dracoswhore007 @myunngi @goawayimreadingbeach @loxbbg @icedlattewithalmondmilk @paulina1998 @fa-me @loganrwebb @nee-naw-nee-naw-beepbeep @leaveittobecca @dummythiccwitch @desiredmalfoy @badslytherin @dlmmdl @trainintersection @lilsubbyx @lunar0se10 @babydraco04 @anythings-n-everythings @sistheselenophile @louweasleymalfoy @fantasyfairysworld @malfoyxxdraco23 @thebitchybeatle @teawineaddict @fleursbabe @savagelysarcasticslytherin @emma67 @itchywitch33 @thegaudess @berriemalfoy @loloo22 @rvaldez7569 @letoof @quacksonssandtea @marrymetheonott @wh0re4blaise

[itsbeaconhillsbaby]

shatter us || tom holland x reader

a/n: hello gorgeous people. this is not the cutesy road trip fic that I have planned - the follow up for a luminous love. but instead just a little sprinkle, little dash of some angst for your casual sunday. yikes, I hope you all still enjoy (still ends fluffy bc I'm not a heathen...yet) 

since I love hearing your thoughts so much, is there anything you’d personally like to see from me, alongside what i’m working on? hit me up and I might just work on some fic for you, got a full week off work so let me know! as always, stay wonderful and come chat! x 

word count: 2166 warnings: we do have a swear and some smashed glass, some sad thoughts but nothing too dark or dangerous - very tame summary: emotional outbursts lead to some much needed conversations

6:10.

There was a lack of chirping birds that morning. The sun stayed behind the clouds, keeping itself out of view. The air cold and stale. Sheets were pulled taught at either end of the bed. Two bodies, usually yearning to be held in each other’s embrace clutching instead to their designated edges.

You were fearful to exhale your breath, one small movement and this frozen moment could all come crashing down around you. As though you were stood at the very edge of a precipice, toes hanging over the side. One tiny blow away from tumbling into a dark abyss.

Before you thought your chest was going to explode from the inside, you felt the springs next to you dip only slightly. The signs of someone moving.

He hadn’t moved all night. You wondered if he’d managed to catch any sleep at all before you felt the bed dip further as he untangled his legs from the sheets, heading into the en suite bathroom.

You reached a hand out from your cocoon, your phone lighting up as you tilted it towards you.

10 missed calls.

15 texts

You’d told your best friend that you’d screwed everything up, unwilling to reveal what happened before you let your tears lull to into a restless sleep.

You weren’t sure at what time Tom joined you. Sighing, you heard the click of your phone locking as you lay it back down.

Tom comes back out of the bathroom, slowing slightly as he sees you curled up in the corner of the bed instead of star-fished or snuggling into his pillow as you usually did when he left the room – resulting in playfighting or cuddles.

“I think we need to talk.”

His voice was rough and scratchy. You slid yourself up against the headboard, pulling your jumper sleeves over your hands and nodding in agreement. You couldn’t speak yet, you weren’t sure you knew how. Words refusing to form as your stomach churned.

“Okay, I’ll see you downstairs then.” He grabs a hoodie of his own before leaving the room, you could hear him moving through the flat.

You take a few deep breaths, taking note of the room around you. glancing over the space you had shared for the past year and a half. Something told you this could be the last morning you’d wake up here.

Exhaling, you slide your feet onto the golden wood crossing the room to reach the bathroom. You splash water over your face, fluffy towel ready to catch the droplets before finishing up.

“Here we go,” you mumble to yourself as you push against the sink counter and head for the kitchen.

////

Tom fills up the kettle, unfocussed eyes staring into the distance. He put it back on its stand before flicking down the switch.

A hand ran through his messy bed head of curls. This was all so wrong, all of it. He told you that he wanted to talk but as he routinely made two teas, he didn’t have a clue what he was going to say. But he began filming in four days and you both had to fix this tension between you. For the first time, you were both unsure of what the outcome would be. 

Taking a small brush and pan over to the wall he brushes up the broken glass, hearing it tinkle as he gathers it into the pan, releasing it into the bin, frustrated at his own outburst the previous night.

He’s against the counter stirring the two mugs when you walk in. He motions to the sofa.

He takes you in as you stand in front of him, shyer and more nervous that he’d ever seen you. He hated that you felt like that. Drowning in one of his sweatshirts and a pair of his cotton shorts, your face was tinged pink and he hoped that you hadn’t been crying in the short time it took to make your teas.

You gave a small smile of thanks at the steaming mug he slid across to you before heading to the sofa. You rolled your shoulders, caressing the mug between your hands - letting the heat warm them.

“I’m so sorry-“

“I’m so sorry-“

You both blurt out simultaneously. His eyes twinkle slightly, as he huffed out a slight chuckle.

“Well that’s a good start at least.”

You nod, stifling a nervous laugh, mouth upturned. He offers you to go first. You take a sip of your tea, letting it soothe your nauseous stomach.

Swallowing, you trace your finger around the rim of your mug. Closing your eyes for a single moment before staring into his, so wide and filled with hurt.

Last night played on repeat in your head.

“Stop saying you love me as a response for when things get too hard - it’s just words Tom! Just because you love me doesn’t mean that I feel loved by you!”

Tom’s mouth fell open, eyes wide as he stood transfixed on you. You stared at him in shock, completely taken aback by your own outburst. The room was blanketed in an unforgiving silence, your voice wobbling at the building honesty that had come tumbling out.

“Wow. I offered to fly you out to be with me before filming officially started for fucks sake! You declined! Was that not enough for you?! Does that not show you I love you? My career is important and I’m sorry that annoys you!”

“That is not what I meant Tom, and you know it.”

His brows furrow, eyes darkening with anger. You wanted to straighten them out with your fingers, lightly gliding over the uncontrollable hairs and press a feathery light kiss in the space between them. Something you usually did when he was tense or frustrated.

“Please, enlighten me then.”

“Fly across the other side of the world to do what?! Sit in silence in a room with you as you read over scripts with Harry. Sit alone in a room whilst you meet the cast and team, stay away so you can go for your lush dinners and lunches. And then fly out when things get underway, that’s unless I want to sit in your trailer day in and day out. I love you Tom and I support you and I think you’re brilliant - I always will think that. But being your hidden girlfriend is exhausting and lonely, and I don’t know if I can do it!”

You’ve never been this vulnerable with Tom before. You’d never let on before how hard it could be sometimes being his girlfriend, how utterly alone you felt. How much of a stranger you felt in regards to Tom and parts of his life.

“Then don’t! If you hate it so much, then don’t be my girlfriend then. Problem solved!”

You gasp slightly, standing completely rigid. Heart pounding in your ears, heat rising through your entire body. You can feel the moisture building behind your eyes, trying so hard to keep it at bay.

“Fine. Wow. Easy fix for the golden boy, got it.”

And with that you turn on your heel and head straight into the bedroom. Door slamming behind you.

Tom throws his beer bottle at the opposite wall. Hands going straight up to his face as he let out a cry of frustration. Glass shards littering the floor.

“Fuck!”

////

“I’m so sorry for saying what I said. It didn’t come out right and I don’t know, I think I was just being dramatic and anno-“

Tom cuts you off with a shake of his head, resting one hand on your leg.

“Don’t do that. Please don’t do that. My response was completely irrational, but you...you were honest and hurt and valid. Do not deny your emotions to make me feel better, that’s not going to fix this. You know I love you, you said it yourself, but you don’t feel loved - and that’s on me.”

You bite the inside of your lip, looking down into your swirling cup. Your heart was beating so fast, it was making you feel almost dizzy. 

“I feel pathetic, please let’s just forget it happened Tom.”

Tom takes the cup out of your hand, planting it on the coffee table in front of the couch. He pulls your legs that little bit closer, your body moving forward, closing the gap between you both.

“I can’t forget it. I’ve been playing it on repeat all night. Please just be honest with me. I want to listen. I want to understand.”

You exhale a shaky sigh,

“Sometimes it’s just so much harder than I ever thought it would be, Tom. I love how much you adore your job, you inspire me every single day as I watch you inspire millions of people. but sometimes I feel like an outsider looking in on your life. Instead of feeling like someone you want to share your life with, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t hate that.”

He nods, his forehead creasing slightly as he takes in your words, and presses for you to continue,

“And take away all that comes with your job. On the rare days when it’s just me and you, you make me feel so alive. I feel needed and wanted and loved. So loved. But it’s not enough for me to have a few gulps of that feeling. God, it sounds so selfish. I hear it from my own mouth and I sound ridiculous.”

You take a pause. wishing for your voice to straighten out. For that wobble to stop as you can see the concern on Tom’s face rising,

“Maybe there’s been a reason we’ve kept it a secret for so long, because you and I both know that the minute this gets out...everything is going to crumble beneath us, and I’m the one not going to be able to handle it.”

You let out a shaky breath, sniffling as you wipe your eyes with your sleeve.

When you didn’t start up again, Tom gave a deep sigh, before pressing ahead,

“I’ve been doing this all wrong. I thought keeping you out of things would protect you, we agreed on that being the best option. And in the beginning it was. The sneaking around, the constant phone calls, video calls, surprise visits - we did it all.”

You nod in agreement. Your heart sinking. Even though you’d brought it on yourself, letting your insecurities and loneliness take over - you still weren’t ready for the inevitable goodbye that was coming your way.

“But we’ve grown individually, and our relationship has grown. And yeah, there’s a part of me who still wants to keep you all to myself, I know what press and fans can be like. But you’re right.”

You look up at him through wet eyelashes. He catches a tear with his thumb, wiping it away from your cheek,

“I’m not losing you to my own fear. And you’re not losing me to yours.”

“Wait, what?” you whisper, confused.

“You need to talk to me. You need to tell me when I’m not pulling my weight in this relationship, when you’re feeling low like this. Sometimes I do get stuck in my own world a little...and you’re the one suffering for it.”

“So. You do still want me as your girlfriend?” More traitorous tears fall from your eyes, your body relaxing and therefore no longer willing to keep them at bay.

“Oh my god I can’t believe I said that. Of course, I do! There’s no still wanting about it, I’ve always wanted you. Never questioned it for a second. The real question is, do you want to make this public? I want this to be your choice. It’s going to be crazy, but I promise you, I’ll be beside you every single step of the way. I won’t make you feel like you’re on your own again, I promise. Or, if you feel like it’s too much…then we figure something else out.”

He cups the side of your face, thumb still trailing after the tear tracks.

“I’m just scared that it’ll break us, Tom. But we can’t keep going as we are.”  

He nods in understanding,

“I won’t let it break us. You have me, all of me, for however long you want.”

You pushed your forehead against his shoulder, his hands coming up to cradle the back of your head as you curl into him.

He can feel your body quivering against him as you finally let yourself feel all the emotions you’d gone through in the past 12 hours, feelings you’d been hiding for far longer than that.

“I’m so sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologise. I think we needed this. Now we can be better, work harder on loving each other properly. Communicate.”

“I love you. I love you. I love you.” You whisper into his chest, “I thought I’d ruined everything.”

He squeezes his eyes clothes. pressing his lips to the top of your head, releasing soft kisses in between every couple of words,

“No, you’ve not ruined anything. All you’ve done is remind me how much I truly love you. And every day I promise I’m going to show you just how much.”

[elsanna-shenanigans]

June Contest Submission #12: Boom Boom Pow

Words: ca. 3,300 Setting: mAU Lemon: lime CW: sand, alcohol, beanbags, dash of lime, language

“Do you like the stars?”

“Anna it’s fucking noon, the sun is up, it’s bright as shit. Why are you asking about stars?”

“Yo, my dude, chill. The sun is a star… right?”

Elsa rolled her eyes and turned up the radio, blasting 80’s music, but only the good songs. “I don’t know why I agree to come with you on these things.”

At this Anna laughed and danced a bit offbeat to the song that was playing. She didn’t know the lyrics, but the bass line was nice and she could vibe with that. She let the whole song play out before answering.

“Because you loooove me” She sing-songed, earning another eye roll from the driver. “You love me and we’re going to the beach and it’s going to be a good time.”

“If I didn’t love you, would it still be a good time?” Elsa asked, smirking.

As a response, Anna reached over and changed the radio. A loud, bass-heavy rap song overtook the speakers. The signer immediately spitting out questionably appropriate lyrics for the radio. Elsa’s face reddened under her large glasses and she reached to change channels so quickly that she turned it off. Enveloping the small sedan in a brief silence till Anna’s laughter filled the space.

And it went on like this the entire car ride, bits and pieces of random songs rapidly changing. Anna would allow something Elsa liked to play out entirely but when it was her turn she either skipped around or Elsa changed the station for her. The older woman apparently hated both rap and country music. The first part Anna didn’t understand and the latter, she agreed with. She was desperately trying to find a gospel station, just to see her sister’s reaction, but she found nothing but commercials.

Finally, she heard what she was looking for and turned to see Elsa’s reaction just as the other girl reached over and turned the radio off again. Anna was going to protest when she realized they were in a drive-thru.

“What can I get started for you today?” a tired-sounding voice asked over the intercom.

Anna leaned over Elsa to get closer to the open window and thus the speaker box. Making sure to be just close enough to be annoying.

“We would like to get married please, with Elvis if you have him, if not we’ll take what you have.”

“Anna!” Elsa exclaimed, slapping her on the shoulder.

There was an audible sigh come over the loudspeaker, “Ma’am this is a Wendy’s.”

“Oh right, then I’ll take a cheeseburger and a medium Coke, no ice. Thank you!”

“Anything else?” the tired voice asked. “I’ll have the same thing.”

They continued driving towards the beach after the drive-thru. Cupholders full of sodas in flimsy paper cups, and Anna’s lap full of white paper bags of greasy food. She kept sneaking a fry when she thought Elsa wasn’t looking. But it was a small car and Elsa could see every bit of fried potato Anna took.

The closer they got to the beach, the darker the sky became. Tall looming clouds crept over the horizon. They couldn’t see the beach yet as it was the east coast, and most roads took you to the beach straight on instead of winding down cliff faces like the Pacific was famous for. But still, the clouds loomed. Elsa knew there was a storm somewhere off the coast, but it seemed far away last she checked, which wasn’t today. She refused to check the weather today for fear of bad news.

On the main highway, traffic was starting to get heavy, more tourists were headed for their long-awaited vacations and the road ahead was either congested to the point of slowing down. Or there was an accident and everyone had to slow to a crawl to creep a glance at the carnage.

Thankfully the girls weren’t tourists, unthankfully they lived close to this tiny town that became a major city in the summer months. Having to deal with millions of tourists every year meant that locals had a series of short-cuts. So when traffic started building, Elsa took the next exit rather suddenly, cutting across the solid white lines and nearly missing the crash barrier.

“Elsa! Shit! What the fuck!” Anna yelled and shot out her hands with nearly inhuman speed to catch the drinks before they spilled out of their too-small cupholders. “There’s a backup, I’m not sitting in that,” Elsa replied, taking the next turn so hard that the car nearly tilted on two wheels.

“But I saw flashing lights, it could have been a firetruck!”

“It could have been a police car…”

“But Elsa you don’t understand, the hot firemen! …and women.”

“Anna I’m not sitting in traffic for 30 minutes or even longer, just for you to ogle at people in uniform.”

Anna took another fry, “Not people in uniform, F-I-R-E-M-E-N and women. It is very different.”

Elsa let out a heavy sigh as they came to a stop at a red light. “If I buy you that stupid Australian calendar will you shut up?”

“Wow, harsh.” Anna dramatically threw one braid over her shoulder. “But, yes.”

Again, Elsa rolled her eyes and continued forward when the light changed. It was only a short while later that they left the main road and turned into a small, older housing development. The narrow street lead them all the way to the ocean, coming out on the far end of the main strip. Highrise condos and hotels dotted the skyline to their left, but right in front of them was the beach, concealed behind a short sand dune. Because life is a bitch like that sometimes.

Luckily for them, there was also free parking at this end if you didn’t mind a bit of a walk. Which, for the price of 17 bucks to park next to the beach, who wouldn’t mind the walk. 17 dollars could buy many cheeseburgers, Anna pointed out.

The beach wasn’t nearly as crowded down where they were, away from the boardwalk and the hotels. The sand also happened to be rockier, rough and pitted with long-forgotten footprints and broken shells. The beach groomers didn’t come this far. Which was fine by them, they would take a rough sandy beach with fewer people over a crowded hellscape any day.

There’s nothing more relaxing than simultaneously listening to eight different speakers all playing different music. While children screamed for no reason and the air was filled with a mix of sunscreen and cigarette smoke.

So yes they will miss out on the hot lifeguards and yes there will be fewer people to watch. But you can’t put a price on the quiet and the fresh air that this section of the beach had to offer.

After crossing the highway on foot, climbing the dune, and laying out their towels, only then did they pause to look out on the water. The ocean was angry, white caps dotted the surface as far as they could see. The horizon line was blurred with fog or rain and the dark clouds from before were more ominous than ever. Why the two women didn’t notice all these signs until now was some kind of act of God. Or stupidly. Probably the latter.

The beach itself was even more sparsely populated than normal. A smart person would have gone home after seeing all the warning signs. But this was Anna’s only day off for the next few weeks. And Elsa, well Elsa was too stubborn to admit her beach idea was a bad one.

They both laid down, on separate towels, choosing to ignore the warning signs and attempting to soak up as much sun as possible before it was swallowed by the coming storm. Elsa tried not to think about it too much. Neither was sure how long it had been before they were interpreted.

“What are you two gay ass losers doing?” Came a female voice.

“Ch’yeah it’s like gonna rain bruh.” Said a male’s.

Elsa opened one eye to see her cousin and her boyfriend, or so it fiancé now? Standing over them. The sky beyond them somehow looked even darker than before, which was very rude.

“Trying to enjoy the sunshine, obviously.” She mumbled in response.

“What sun?” their cousin asked, in a weird out of place, and badly performed accent.

“Wait but what is that voice?” Anna asked, sitting up and brushing the sand off her arms. How that girl could get sand everywhere, Elsa would never know.

“It’s like our new characters,” Eugene answered, earning not an eye roll from Rapunzel but a nod of approval.

“I’m New York and he’s Los Angeles. Both strong and independent cities that you could almost say are their own character. And those characters are us.” She added

“Why though?” Elsa was also now sitting up and confused, though nowhere near as sandy because she wasn’t a dirt gremlin-like her sister.

“Because we wanted to be unique characters, otherwise we’re just boring white people and where’s the fun in that?” Eugene or rather Los Angeles answered.

“Oh boring, like you watch Star Trek and try to fit it into everything even though it has no business being there?”

Eugene shot Anna finger guns, “exactly, this one gets it… bruh.”

A boom was heard in the distance and it sent a few people running towards their cars, towels billowing behind them. A long-distance away, over the water, there was a flash and with it, the wind picked up.

“Looks like our beach day is ruined, I’m sorry Anna.” Elsa stood and began to roll up her towel. Even with the limited sun, she was already red on her front, making a stark difference to the pale skin of her back.

“Nah we just getting started, come back to our place and play some ping pong. We just pulled the table out of storage.” Rapunzel aka New York offered. The two of them didn’t live far from the beach, having taken over Rapunzel’s parent’s beach house. It was very old and run down, but the pair was fixing it up in exchange for free rent.

‘Aye New York is right, and we can take my new whip… bruh.” Los Angeles gestured over his shoulder towards the dunes. They couldn’t see it yet because that dang dune was blocking things again. But everyone knew he was referring to his new golf cart.

Reluctantly the girls agreed and a few long minutes later they were rushing inside an old house to avoid the rain that had just started to fall. Their car was left abandoned in the free parking lot.

Inside was an odd mix of old and new. Brand new stainless steel appliances dotted a kitchen with dark wood cabinets and a yellow linoleum floor. A half-torn-down wall gave way to the living room with floor-to-ceiling wood paneling and floral print furniture.

“It ain’t much but it’s home.” Los Angeles said once everyone was inside. He walked beyond the torn-down wall and slapped his hand on the wood paneling. “New York over there hates this stuff, but it’s hella soundproof if you know what I mean.” With this, he wiggled his eyebrows and finally, earned an eye roll from New York.

“How did you know we were on the beach by the way?” Elsa asked as she took a step further into the kitchen to look at the collection of magnets on the fridge.

“Your sister posted about it on her tumblr of all places. Honestly, get an Instagram like the rest of us already.” New York said throwing her hands up dramatically. The drama ran in the family apparently.

The ping pong table was in the basement, a dimly light space with concrete walls and a tiled floor. Mix-matched chairs lined the walls and a mini-fridge sat in the corner next to a shelf full of liquor bottles.

The ping pong game quickly descended into beer pong with a twist. No one had to drink from the cups the ball landed in. Because that’s gross, don’t do that. Inside if someone managed to land the ball in a cup the other team had to take half a shot of vodka. Los Angeles had wanted to do full shots but Elsa and New York talked him out of it, if only for not dying reasons.

Even so after a few games with no true stand-out winner, just a bunch of dumb luck, they were all fairly buzzed. Flushed creeks and slurred speech. Outside the storm finally hit. Rain battered the small basement windows and thunder boomed overhead.

With each thunderclap, Elsa reached for Anna’s hand and wouldn’t let go till the other girl gave it a reassuring squeeze.

Finally, everyone seemed to have enough of the game and collapsed into bean bag bars that Anna and Elsa had both not noticed before. Elsa scooted her bean bag closer to Anna’s, the other two people didn’t seem to notice. New York was hanging all over Los Angeles. Her fingers tracing the curve of his jawline down, her eyes practically boring holes into his face. He acted like he didn’t see, but it was obvious he knew.

“You guys can stay here for the night if you want since the storm sounds so bad,” Eugene said, dropping his horrible accent.

“That’s very kind, but it’s just a little rain, we’ll be alright,” Anna replied, completely forgetting their car was many blocks away.

New York stopped messing with her man and turned to them. “Anna, it’s more than a little rain. It’s a hurricane, I mean it was a tropical storm and it was supposed to miss us. But you know how it be sometimes.” She said with amazing clarity for a drunkard.

Elsa’s hand shot to Anna’s and she let out an audible gasp. She had refused to check the weather before heading out the door today, figuring what she didn’t know, can’t hurt her. Which was stupid and out of character for someone who claims to be responsible.

Another boom followed by a bright flash of lightning illuminated the room for a brief second. Elsa looked terrified so Anna took it upon herself to change the subject.

“So we will be seeing you in two weeks right?”

Rapunzel playing New York smiled and clapped her hands together, “Yes! At the church!”

“For things better left unspoken,” Eugene playing Los Angeles groaned, covering his eyes with his forearm.

Another boom and the room was suddenly cast in darkness and accompanied by an eerie quiet. You never notice how much sound your electronics make till everything is off. Elsa grabbed Anna’s entire arm, holding it so tightly Anna was worried she would lose it.

“Ah fuck the power is out. We have some candles upstairs, I’ll be right back, Rapunzel can you see if the camping lantern is over on the shelf?”

“Um excuse me, it’s New York, but yes I will look.”

Two bodies moved away in the darkness, their paths illuminated by the small light on their phones. Next to Anna, Elsa’s breathing became rapid and she clung to Anna as if she was in danger of being blown away.

“Hey, it’s going to be alright,” Anna whispered, using her free hand to pet the top of Elsa’s head. The older girl shifted so in one fluid motion she was off her beanbag and on Anna’s before curling into the young girl’s side.

“I found it!” Rapunzel slash New York exclaimed. She turned it on and the room was partly lit up. She walked back to where the other two women were cuddled together and sat back down in her own beanbag.

“Wow, that’s like hella gay.” She said, pointing to the pair.

“Oh shut up, she just doesn’t like storms, you know that.” Anna quipped

Elsa let go of Anna’s arm long enough to extend a hand and flip off her cousin, earning her a laugh in response.

Eugene returned shortly after with the candles, a tray of food, and some cards. “Anyone up for a game of hurricane poker? It’s like regular poker only there’s a hurricane.”

He rejoined the group, placing the tray in the middle of everyone and paying no mind to the two women who now shared a beanbag.

Elsa lifted her head to look, the tray was adorned with a random assortment of food. Celery sticks, M&M’s, KitKat bars, Cheetos, Grapes, and some animal crackers. She made a face.

“What’s wrong uh bruh?” Eugene asked in a bad attempt to get back in character. Los Angeles would never quite be the character that New York was.

“I’ll only eat celery sticks if you pay me,” Elsa responded.

The next few hours consisted of Eugene completely wiping the floor with everyone. They played for the M&M’s, of which he now owned all of. With the power still out and the storm still raging on the decision was made for the sisters to spend the night over.

Their room was completely unrenovated, the same wood paneling from the living room made up the walls and the carpet was a thick green shag rug. Eugene was right about one thing though, the paneling sure did dampen the sound. Once the door was shut the two women could hardly hear anything, which was good because Rapunzel had started blasting Mandy Moore music for some reason.

There was only one bed, pushed into the corner, but it didn’t matter anyway. There could have been 80 beds and they still would have shared just one.

Anna laid down on her back and traced the grains in the wooden wall. “Really makes you want to carve something in this stuff you know? Something that would be around for hundreds of years.”

“Please don’t vandalize our cousin’s house,” Elsa said before sitting on the edge of the bed. She turned the lantern off so the only source of the light in the room was the candle on the nightstand.

“You alright?” Anna asked, propping herself up on one elbow.

“Yeah, I’m just worried about the storm, I can’t stop thinking about it.”

Anna reached out and gently grabbed Elsa’s arm, guiding her back to lay in the bed next to her. “Do you want to sleep or keep your mind off things?”

Elsa paused for a brief moment before removing her arm from Anna’s grip. “I don’t know…”

“It’s your choice, either way, I’m here for you.” Anna smiled at her, a flash of lightning lit up the room but no thunder.

It startled Elsa but she remained where she was, staring at Anna. Thinking, always thinking.

“It’s just a storm and this old house seems to be built like a tank anyway.” She made a fist and pounded the wall to prove her point.

Elsa started twirling the end of one of Anna’s braids but her eyes remained locked on Anna’s. The delayed thunderclap came and Elsa inhaled sharply. Anna leaned over and kissed the top of her forehead.

“You sure this is okay?” Elsa asked and Anna nodded, running the back of her hand down the other girl’s cheek. “Let’s get our mind off of things then.”

Elsa crawled till she was straddling Anna who gazed up at her with eyes that shown like stars in the candlelight.

“What’s your favorite constellation?”

“Hmm, probably Orion, because you can find his belt so easy,” Anna answered, “Yours?” “Your eyes”

“Ew, that’s so fucking cheesy.”

Elsa leaned down, her mouth slightly agape. Anna’s eyes fluttered shut as her hands found their way to the other woman’s shoulders.

The storm, the damage, their car, all these things could wait until tomorrow. Tonight they were out of their control so for tonight they didn’t matter.

Elsa blew out the candle, and they both plunged into the sinful escape of the darkness.

[emjee]

Thank you for tagging me, @nevermindirah​!

Rules: It’s time to love yourselves! Choose your 5 favorite works (fics, art, edits, etc.) you’ve created this year and link them below to reflect on the amazing things you’ve brought into the world in  2020. If you don’t have five published works, that’s fine! Include ideas/drafts/whatever you like that you’ve worked on/thought about, and talk a little about them instead! Remember, this is all about self-love and positive enthusiasm, so fuck the rules if you need to. Have fun, and tag as many fellow creators as you like so they can share the love! <3

The amount of fic I’ve written during the pandemic is somewhat surprising to me and also not that surprising now that I think about it because I distinctly remember writing fic during other stressful periods (although hasn’t this one been the one to rule them all). So here are five things I wrote in 2020, in chronological order!

1. As Full and Fair a Bed, the third fic I wrote after seeing the most recent film adaptation of Emma. It was the last film I saw in theatres and it, along with the novel, has become a real comfort and touchstone for me this year. I had a lot of fun writing ficlets for it because I love Emma and Knightley very much and because I got to try a new narrative voice style! This fic has all the hallmarks of an MG Fic (TM): gratuitous references to the Book of Common Prayer, gratuitous references to Shakespeare (including a small misquotation), and a man momentarily blacking out the first time he sees the woman he loves with her hair down.

2. Sing Ye Praises with Understanding, a London-era Black Sails fic in which James and Thomas discuss the nature of Divine Love between rounds of Sunday afternoon sex. I watched Black Sails during the part of this year that was personally the most stressful for me, it made a huge impact and means so much to me that it’s almost hard to talk about sometimes. Even setting aside its wonderful storytelling, I will always be grateful that I found it when I did; watching it and having it to look forward to absorbed a lot of stress this summer.

3. You do not have to be good. I know I’m not the only person who saw The Old Guard cross their dash and thought, “well I’m obviously going to be become obsessed with that so I have to put off watching it until I have the mental space to do so.” I watched TOG about a month after it came out because I knew I wouldn’t be able to lose my mind over it while simultaneously losing my mind over Black Sails. And then more than a month after watching it I rolled in late with metaphorical Starbucks and this fic. I love stories about faith and I wanted to write one, and the response was beyond what I could have ever imagined and I am so grateful, the conversions I have had as a result of this fic have been one of the best parts of my year, and I have been so touched by everyone who has left a comment or DM’d me to tell me what this thing that I wrote because I miss church and because I’m a low-key sucker for a Hot Priest story meant to them. Thank you all so much.

4. don’t go sharing your devotion (lay all your love on me). This is an example of one of my favorite things about fandom, which is someone making a post and me going “oh actually that would be fun to write” and then writing it (that is how most of my TOG fics have happened). This one was the speedrun version of that; I saw the post while scrolling through my phone right after waking up, imagined this fic vividly throughout my entire workday, and had it posted by dinnertime, I think. Plus the pandemic touch starvation has really gotten to me and it was cathartic to write about Joe and Nicky being completely unable to keep their hands off each other. Plus ABBA title.

5. Verbum caro factum est. As I look back at what I’ve written this year, it’s become glaringly obvious that I’ve been working my way through some personal faith-related things via fic, and nothing I’ve written this year reflects that more clearly than this one-shot about Nicky and the Incarnation and welcoming/observing Christmas by yourself in your home instead of with people in church, which is basically how I just spent this past weekend. Again, this is one where people have left some truly lovely and deeply meaningful comments, and it really touches me more than I can say.

tagging @indieninja92​, @werebearbearbar​, @polarcell, @dearpatroclus​, @meet-the-girl-who-can​, and anyone else who sees this and thinks “hey, I wanna do that!” Do tag me so I can see it.  

[the-delta-42]

An Unexpected Turn

Inspired by [this post] by @lenoreofraven

Warning: This oneshot mentions violence, child molesting and murder. if anyone of those may upset you DO NOT READ

An unexpected turn

Ladybug watched as Hawkmoth tore the ring off Chat Noir’s finger, before carelessly tossing him aside. Adrien skidded along the floor until he hit a desk and came to a sudden halt. He was vaguely aware of Nino rushing over to check on him. Adrien opened his eyes and spotted Mayura standing frozen, staring at him.

The sound of breaking glass made everyone look over towards Ladybug and Hawkmoth. Ladybug had managed to gain the upper hand, until Lila hit her with a chair. Ladybug was stunned for a total of two seconds, but given her close proximity to Hawkmoth, that was long enough for him to grab the earrings and forcibly tear them off her.

Ladybug fell to the floor, blood coming from her ear, the other held in Hawkmoth’s grip. Marinette tried to stem the flow of blood from her ears, until Alya rushed over, tossing Lila to the side, before pressing a bunched-up shirt against the bleeding wound.

Hawkmoth only grinned maniacally, before dropping his transformation. He ripped the Butterfly Miraculous from his chest and tossed it to the side. Marinette spotted it and quickly grabbed it, Alya violently jerking when Marinette grabbed the Miraculous. Gabriel slipped the ring on his finger and shove the earrings into his ears.

“Take that off you waste of breath.” Plagg all but snarled, his green eyes narrowed. Tikki screamed and dashed towards Gabriel, who knocked her aside.

“Be silent.” Gabriel snapped, before summoning both Kwami into the ring and earrings.

Gabriel still had the sick, twisted grin on his face, before a fan knocked his head to the side. Mayura glared, drawing her hand back to strike Gabriel again. Gabriel grabbed her hand, removed the Peacock miraculous from her and tossed her aside.

“You won’t need to turn up for work tomorrow, Nathalie.” Said Gabriel, his voice cold.

Adrien was internally screaming, his father was Hawkmoth, who had torn his lady’s ears off, revealing her to be Marinette, Lila was working with him and Nathalie, the woman who had become similar to a mother to him was Mayura. A little voice that sounded like Plagg spoke in his mind, ‘At least she tried to do the right thing.’

“Now, no one can stop me.” Gabriel gloated, holding his hand up and then snapping his fingers.

“NO!” Scream Marinette, jumping up to rush at Gabriel, only for a shockwave to pass through the city, knocking her off her feet.

Everyone was disorientated, Gabriel dropping the transformation, before quietly walking over to Adrien.

“Get up, we’re going home.” Said Gabriel, his voice the signature coldness of his personality.

“Fuck off.” Adrien grunted, glaring up at the man.

Gabriel was dumbstruck by Adrien’s response, before glaring at the boy.

“I am your father and you will do as I say.” Said Gabriel, his glare intensifying, before he turned and looked at Nathalie, “Nathalie, get up-”

“Do I work for you?” The short, curt response from her actually made him freeze, “Last I checked, you still had a restraining order to stop you from going anywhere near Emilie or her son.”

Gabriel could only stare at the woman, saying nothing, giving Marinette ample opportunity to knock Gabriel down with a chair, grab the Ring, which she passed to Adrien, the earrings and the Peacock broach.

Quietly slipping the Peacock and Butterfly in her pocket, Marinette quietly put the Miraculous back on, Adrien doing the same. Tikki and Plagg zipped out of their respective Miraculouses and unceremoniously flopped into the hands of their chosen.

“I don’t get it.” Said Alya, getting to her feet, “He had them both, so why didn’t he use them?”

“That’s a good question.” Said Marinette, vaguely aware of the fabric in Alya’s hand, “The only thing that’s changed, for me at least, is I still have both my ears attached.”

True to form, both of Marinette’s ears were on either side of her head, any blood that had been there a few minutes ago was gone.

“What happened?” Gabriel snarled, whipping around and facing Marinette, who just looked down at Tikki.

Tikki gave a shuddering sigh, before forcing herself to sit up.

“You tried to make two wishes simultaneously,” Said Tikki, looking tired, “we can only do one wish per person and even then, it’s at a cost.”

“But it didn’t cost him anything.” Said Kim, before the penny dropped for Marinette, who started laughing.

“Yes, it did.” The girl continued laughing, “Tell me, tell me, how big was your fashion empire? Reaching across the globe, stocks in everything, raking in millions every day?”

“Obviously.” Gabriel grit out, before Adrien got it and started laughing as well.

“I-I think you should look yourself up,” Said Adrien, leaning back against the desk, “You’d be surprised.”

Gabriel only continued to grit his teeth, before Ms. Bustier walked into the room.

“Sorry I’m late,” Said Ms. Bustier, frowning down at her paperwork, “But last week’s incident report came in and-”

Ms. Bustier looked up and her eyes clocked Gabriel Agreste standing in her classroom. Ms. Bustier and Gabriel held eye contact for a total of thirty seconds, before she turned to the class.

“Everyone, go out to the courtyard.” All the students followed her command, Nathalie escorting them out. Ms. Bustier was the last one to leave, locking the door, leaving Gabriel alone in the classroom.

“Nooroo, Dark Wings Rise!” Gabriel snarled, but got no response. Gabriel spun and stared at the spot the Butterfly Miraculous had landed, only to find it wasn’t there. Gabriel snarled, his eyes going to his left hand, expecting to see the Peacock in his grip. Gabriel fumed, as he realised that he had no Miraculous at his disposal. Then he froze, that Marinette girl was Ladybug, and Ladybug was the new Guardian. All he had to do was wait for the police to come and release him and he could go over to the bakery and grab the miracle box, and perhaps he could have a little fun while he was there.

The last thought made him freeze. Gabriel quickly rushed over to the computer and hastily typed his name into the first search engine he could find. The results flashed across the screen.

Fashion Mogul found to be The Collector

Child rapist and murderer The Collector found to be missing from his Cell

Hawkmoth believed to be Collector under a new name

Gabriel Agreste spotted near ex-wife and son’s home

Related Articles:

Ladybug and Chat Noir confirm suspicions

Emilie Graham de Vanily marries partner of seven years

Gabriel slowly clicked on each of the articles and slowly read them. Everything he had, that he had built, was gone. He and Emilie were separated since Adrien had been two, after she reported him to the police, he’d been arrested two years later after police found DNA evidence on one of the Collector’s victims. A sudden kick in the stomach jolted Gabriel. In trying to get his wife back, he’d lost everything.

AUT

Adrien quietly focussed on Marinette’s breathing, he could vaguely hear Lila making strange noises whenever Chloe moved, as well as Alya rapidly typing on her phone. Marinette’s sister had been one of the Collector’s victims, ironically the one that lead to his arrest.

“What do you think life was like before he screwed up?” Asked Lila, her head dangling upside down, “I mean, we know he had sleeper Akuma’s-” “Don’t we know it.” Alya muttered. “myself included, but, seriously, if his life was so great in that other world, why would he look for magical jewellery?”

Marinette dug around in her pocket and pulled the Peacock and the Butterfly. Carefully pinning the Butterfly to her jacket, she tapped it twice.

A purple Kwami fell into her hands and just laid there, trembling and crying.

“Pl-please, m-master.” The Kwami sobbed, “N-no more.”

Tikki rushed over to the Kwami, Plagg unceremoniously flopped and flailed, acting like water in a balloon. Plagg eventually made it to Tikki and the other Kwami.

“It’s okay, Nooroo,” Tikki soothed, stroking Nooroo’s head, “he no longer has the miraculous, you’re free.”

Nooroo, only continued to quietly sniffle, while Plagg flopped around.

“To answer your question, Sausage hair,” Lila pulled an insulted face, “his wife was missing, or dead, one or the other. He felt he had lost everything in his life and took to manipulating people to try and get what wanted.”

“So, he ruined his own life, while making Adrien’s better?” Asked Alix, leaning forwards.

“Not just Adrien’s,” Said Tikki, “In that world Lila had taken to lying about everything and everyone, Chloe was a nightmare and any adults were complacent and did nothing.”

“Wait, so I was a Psychopath, Chloe was a Sociopath and everyone else were doormats?” Said Lila, rolling off the table.

“Yup.” Said Plagg, before looking up at Adrien, “I know you hate me complaining-”

Adrien pulled a piece of camembert out of his pocket and shoved it in Plagg’s mouth, while Marinette gave Tikki a Macaron.

“Why would their lives change?” Asked Marinette, frowning slightly.

“They were Hawkmoth’s primary tools in Akumatizing people, since he no longer needed them, the Universe accommodated their lives.” Said Plagg, swallowing his cheese, “He had no reason to use either of them this time around and, as a result, never manipulated them into his tools.”

Everyone was quiet, before Alix exhaled, “So what else has changed?”

The Kwami all exchanged glances, before the attention of the class was drawn over to the entrance.

“I don’t care if you need to question them, Roger, I need to get to my son!”

Adrien winced as His mother stormed in, closely followed by Officer Raincomprix. Marinette quickly hid the Kwami in her jacket pocket, making sure Sabrina’s dad didn’t see them.

Emilie crossed the courtyard and yanked Adrien into an embrace.

“Thank god, you’re safe.” Emilie whispered, holding her son tightly.

“I’m fine, maman.” Said Adrien, trying to save his lungs.

Emile then held Adrien at arm’s length and looked him in the eyes, “Adrien Raphael Sancoeur-Graham de Vanily, when that monster is involved, nothing is ever fine. How did he even get into the premises? I thought this school was safe.”

“That’s what we’re trying to investigate, ma’am.” Said Raincomprix, trying not to flinch when she glared at him, “We have reason to believe he had help from a staff member.”

“He didn’t.” Said Marinette, getting the eyes of everyone.

Emilie softened at the sight of the girl.

“Okay.” Said Raincomprix, folding his arms and scowling, “How did he get in?”

Marinette fished Nooroo out of her pocket and pointed to the brooch.

“He got in because he was Hawkmoth,” Said Marinette, “Don’t ask how we got the Miraculous from him and don’t ask us to hand it over.”

Roger opened his mouth, before Emilie cut in, “Where is he now?”

“He’s been locked in the classroom.” Said Lila, before Emilie spun on her heel and stalked off.

“No. Wait. Come back.” Said Adrien, as slowly as possible, “Oh dear, she can’t hear me.”

Everyone was quiet, before Marinette looked at Adrien, while stroking Nooroo, and said, “What’s the chances of your mother committing murder?”

Adrien just shrugged.

AUT

Gabriel looked up as the door unlocked and opened. Emilie stormed in and, before Gabriel could react, punched him so hard that he fell to the floor. Emilie then stood on Gabriel’s chest and glared down at him.

“You have no right, being here.” Said Emilie, her voice cold and face hard.

“Emilie-” Gabriel was kicked in the face, blood spewing from his nose.

“Do. Not. Speak.” Emilie grit out, “You brought this on yourself, all those children you harmed a slaughtered and you always wondered why I would never let you near my son. I’m amazed that Marinette didn’t try to kill you herself, given what you did to her sister.”

Gabriel only stared up at her, desperately, only for Emilie to press her foot down harder, “Where did you get the Miraculous?”

“I found them.” Said Gabriel, weakly.

“You mean you stole them from the Guardian you murdered, then you killed the others until the Miracle Box was given to Ladybug.” Snapped Emilie, her foot pressing down harder.

“We need him alive for the trial.” Said an unfamiliar voice, making Emilie turn around.

“Skye, how long have you been standing there?” Asked Emilie, looking at Marinette’s oldest sister.

“Long enough,” Said Skye, looking at her nails, “Michael is trying to get the media to clear off, to give you and Adrien some peace.”

Emilie got off Gabriel and started to head out of the room, before she looked back, “Make sure he doesn’t get off easy.”

“Don’t worry.” Said Skye, her eyes and voice cold, “He won’t.”

Gabriel watched at Emilie walked away, his heart sinking further into the bottomless abyss of loss.

Everything was gone for him.

AUT

Marinette quietly dozed next to Adrien, who rested his cheek on her head.

“Macarons are dancing.” Marinette mumbled, as she cuddled into Adrien.

Adrien smiled as the News announced the Gabriel had been confined to a lifetime sentence with no chance of getting out.

For some reason, Adrien felt as if he had everything he wanted.

Although, he thinks his mother was right about one of his thoughts, it would be best to finish school before marrying Marinette.

Adrien just hoped the ring he chose would still fit her finger in ten years’ time.

[gasp-iwrotesomething]

vivi tang as a model,, and mc being her painter/photographer. after flirting through many projects, finally mc just snaps and has to stop painting/taking pictures and just begs vivi to fuck her. preferably a fic thank you !!!!

Sure thing, anon, I’d be happy to write this for you! Thanks for requesting and I hope you enjoy!

Summary: Famous model Vivienne Tang is in the midst of being painted nude by her trustworthy painter when one particular comment sends MC into a frenzy and the task at hand flying to the back burner...

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Vivienne was impossibly beautiful and almost staggeringly sexy in her pose, slumped on a couch with a posture that reeked of strong feminine power. Her body was embellished in nothing at all unless the air counted as an article of clothing; yet she still looked better than most of the women MC had painted. On the far side of the room sat a very distressed MC, whose hands were busy painting a picture of the seductive woman in front of her. She found herself wanting to be busy touching Vivienne and not merely painting her--she wanted an in depth examination of her anatomy in ways that would definitely be a recalcitrant towards her professionalism. But the painter had fair reason to desire this when the subject of her painting continuously teased and seduced her throughout the entire painting process. “You’re taking much longer today than you did the last time you painted me,” Vivienne’s smirk is palpable even from the distance MC was sequestered in, “has my body changed overnight enough that you need a thorough viewing?” The model’s voice is a rumble so feline that MC swore she could sense her sentence nuzzling against her leg purring. MC frowns at the painting before her, the warm hues of Vivienne smiling back as if jeering. It appeared that no matter where MC turned, Vivienne’s ethereal beauty followed to haunt her mind and blot her gaze. “No, just want to get this right. It’s been a week since I’ve painted you, remember?” 

She swipes a crimson grin across the length of Vivienne’s thigh, manifesting the sublime couch beneath the even more sublime woman. Behind the canvas, Vivienne’s lips curl and she lifts a hand to sweep aside a strand of hair from her forehead. Even that brief movement persuades MC’s eyes away from the painting. “That’s fair. But you’ve painted me naked countless times and each portrait came out to be impeccably gorgeous, so that argument doesn’t exactly withstand, MC,” the artist’s name is both a prayer and a curse all at once as it dances past Vivienne’s scarlet lips, casting a spell on MC that shouldn’t have been feasible for any other person except Vivienne Tang, “perhaps your hands long to cherish what your eyes can’t?” Vivienne’s brown eyes bore into MC harder than the looming presence of her nudity, which is reimbursed each time the artist swings her eyes away from the painting to drink the model’s illustrious form. By the way, how the hell did she just vocalize the thoughts circulating in my head? Yeah, she’s a bit mysterious and reclusive but a mind-reader? That sounds so absurd. Vivienne drags a blood-tinted fingernail along the salivating curve of her hip and MC struggles to tear her gaze away. ...Absurdly sexy, apparently. 

MC realizes all too late that her cheeks are inflamed and when she speaks again, her tone is lopsided without the confidence there to bite Vivienne back. “That’s... I’m not-! Listen, do you want your painting finished or not?” The model in question grins at MC’s clipped voice and she tempts a fingernail between her teeth coyly. ‘Coy’ wasn’t exactly an adjective MC would use to describe Vivienne Tang but in this moment that was the only term that could appropriately prescribe the view. A flare of heat splashes within MC and she swallows as a rush of rouge scurries up her nape. “Of course I want this painting finished... if it entails more of your admiring stares. I feel like a subject to your wanton apodyopsis, MC.” She tucks her hair over her shoulder, simultaneously exposing more of her wondrously pale skin, and MC’s breath hitches. Her hand stills against the canvas flooded with Vivienne’s palette. “Apodyopsis? I’m hardly imagining you naked, Vivienne,” the artists keens as she gestures to Vivienne’s lack of clothing, “everything I’d want to see is right here in front of me.”

Vivienne’s grin morphs into something borderline fond and vexatious approval that unleashed a swarm of butterflies in MC’s belly. She almost expected Vivienne to rise from the couch and come over to her but the model stays posed, her posture barely shifting. Instead it’s her words that approach MC--challenging her just the way she hoped. “Oh? All of what you want on display is right in front of you at this moment, hmmm? If so, then why aren’t you acting on the easy exhibit? Why not feast from this buffet when you do so with your eyes constantly?”

There it was. The criticism that would surely tear down the walls MC had carefully constructed--the ones meant to shelter her from falling for Vivienne’s incessant flirting. All of it deflated in a matter of seconds. And Vivienne most likely knew this with the way her eyes flashed with satisfaction.

“Alright, that’s it.” MC sets her brush down roughly and hops off of the stool she was perched on, her arms crossing against her paint-spattered chest. “You talk boldly for someone who just wants to model, Vivienne. I’m starting to get the incentive that you want to walk away with more than just a portrait.” The artist’s admonishment is composed of akrasia, her dark eyes pools of irritation and desire all mixed into one. Vivienne’s brows raise in the slightest hint of shock... before her features slink inwards suggestively. “My, that’s a strong opinion to have, MC,” she says this as if feigning offense even though MC could read the show she was pulling, like a magician performing a trick able to debunked on the spot, “you seem passionate about your resolve. Tell me, darling, am I wrong?” Vivienne levels MC with a dashing look of impishness. Her question is pressing and MC gulps down the rest of her reservations, deciding that if there was any other opportunity as propitious as this one that she’d act with no questions asked.

“What if I asked you to ditch this painting and fuck me instead?”

The question is bashing the moment it breaches the air between them but MC could hardly care, her body coming to life with the thrilling promise of touching Vivienne Tang. This time the model’s eyes widen in tune with her eyebrows hiking and MC finds it hard not to feel gratified. Not many people can claim that they’ve made Vivienne make that kind of face before, can they? In the next moment, Vivienne’s face is composed in that of a mask of a seductress on the prowl. Her pose finally shatters as she whisks her long legs over the side of the couch. MC’s confidence falters as she watches Vivienne’s legs cross sinuously, as if in seldom invitation; not to mention the sudden shift her breasts experience, now solemnly unaffected by gravity. “Is that a challenge? Because if so,” Vivienne’s purr trails off as she leans back on her palms, inviting MC to gawk at her, “I won’t hesitate to push aside the painting for now.” Seeing an entrance, MC scoffs despite the flush embodying her face. “For now? How long do you plan on keeping me here, Vivienne Tang?” She asks this as she slowly nears Vivienne, her hips swaying suggestively. A sense of accomplishment blooms in her chest as she catches the model’s eyes flare with interest beyond what she had already been displaying, tracing the movement intently. “As long as it takes to make you scream my name, which shouldn’t be very long.”

“Oh? You’ve got a track record to back up that claim or what, Miss Tang? Or is that all talk for the sake of getting me naked faster?” MC taunts, her hands planted on her hips. All Vivienne gives in response is a feral grin and a sharp tug, sprawling MC into her nude arms. “I do, in fact, have a track record of just that. Under an hour in most of the woman I bed.” Vivienne flaunts as her hands slide around MC’s back, reaching for the binding that was holding her floral dress in place. MC shivers at how Vivienne’s breath feels against her neck and curls her arms around the model’s neck, her cheeks reddening. “Prove it,” is all the artist manages to murmur as Vivienne finds her vantage point into MC’s dress, her hands transcending the boundaries MC had longed her to breach for the longest time. It was almost an orgasm in and of itself--so satisfying it felt mind-melting.

And true to MC’s request, Vivienne spends the next few hours providing evidence to back her bragging; even going as far as succeeding in stroking her bellowed name out of MC in just thirty-six minutes flat.

A new record for model Vivienne Tang to flaunt to the rest of the world.

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Thank you for your request! I loved writing this for you, it was a lot of fun to write Vivienne again!

If you want to request something, here’s the Prompt List, here are the Guidelines, here’s Who I Write For, and here is where you can Request me.

[evilroselalonde]

8 + Dirk and one of the Strilondes (up to you)? Obviously platonic. Please, no Epilogues/HS^2. I don't know what to say here but my message sounds too curt/borderline impolite if I don't say something else so... I hope the prompt floats your boat! Have a nice day.

ANON I LOVE THIS PROMPT SO MUCH OOOOOOOOOOOH

i went with rose, and i set it post game (NOT the epilogues)!!! i liked writing this!

 Prompt from this! list! feel free to send me a number with two characters!

Alrighty here’s the story!

Now one can forgive Rose for falling out of her bed when one realises that knocking is a rarity in the Strilonde-Maryam-Vantas-sometimes-Calliope household. Roxy usually forgets to, Dave doesn’t care (“its sibling bonding Rose every good sister has a brother ready to barge in at a moments notice c’mon”), and her and Kanaya share a room so she can’t expect her girlfriend to knock everytime she comes into her own room for god’s sake. So Rose picks herself up, dusts herself off and goes to answer the door with an air of dignity. 

If you had made Rose guess who would be at her door her first guess would have been Karkat. Then Calliope. Then June or Jade, possibly over to hangout. Dirk would have made the list, but he would have been much further down. And yet, here he was, standing at her door looking like he thought she wouldn’t answer or maybe like he regretted even knocking. Rose allows him the dignity of speaking first. 

“Hi.” He wasn’t giving her much to work with here was he? 

“Hello Dirk. To what do I owe the pleasure?” Rose does not cross her arms over her chest, she knows the basics of body language *thank you*, but she does lean against the doorframe. Dirk fidgets in place. 

“Can I come in?” Rose permits a raised eyebrow. Wow she is off her game today. Still she steps aside and opens her arms, the gracious host she is. “The floor is yours good sir.” That gets a small smile out of him and Rose feels a ping in her heart. He is family, same as Dave and Roxy and she barely knows him. 

They stand in her room, awkwardly shuffling in place on the shag rug Kanaya insisted was purely for aesthetic purposes for at least a minute before Rose (she refuses to call it giving in, or surrender) takes a seat back on her bed. She pats the space next to her and swallows down any anxieties about how messy her room was. She’s seen his, it’s infinitely worse. Dirk takes his seat next to her, still tense, still fidgeting, this time with the edges of his shirt. 

“Dirk, it would help if you would just cut to the chase, you obviously want something. You can just say it.” Rose was never known for her patience. Dirk sits up straighter, before he sighs and curls forward. Looking at him now Rose can see their similarities. They have the same nose, the same hands. The same details carved around their mouths and eyes. The same tiredness. 

“This is gonna sound weird and out of nowhere and it’s weird that I’m asking you of all people but you’re gonna give me a straight answer, so I’m just gonna ask you. Do you hate me?” And wow Rose is o for three today. She was expecting ‘can I borrow a condom’ or ‘can you knit me a rainbow dash hat’ not this insanely deep question. Her shocked silence is clearly setting off the alarm bells in Dirk's head, because he stands up, stammering about “wow jesus that was rude I shouldn’t have, y'know what I actually have work to do-” but no one gets away from Rose Lalonde that easily, and as he’s walking away, before he can leave her space, Rose grabs his wrist and yanks him back onto the bed. Maybe not her smartest move but it shuts him up and keeps him from leaving. Rose takes a breath, and steadies herself.

“Dirk. I don’t hate you. Why would I?” Real eloquent Lalonde, but hey it's working, Dirk is still and he is very obviously trying not to look simultaneously relieved and horribly uncomfortable. ‘Hey that makes two of us.’ Rose thinks to herself. 

“I don’t know? I just know you would give me a real answer if I asked you. And I want to hear something real. God this is so weird fuck.” Dirk says it in one breath, actively avoiding looking at her. 

“That is a solid reason I *suppose* I still want to know why you think I would hate you? Not to state the obvious but we can hardly be considered “close”.” Rose may not be the best person at this whole “feeling emotions” thing but god, looking at Dirk trying to make himself appear smaller (and he already *is* small, god), pulls on her heart the same way that looking at Dave curled in on himself with a cold on the meteor did, and the same way she felt when Roxy pulled her into her room at midnight panicking because she was sure she’d woken up back in her old home alone again. She feels this deep connection to them all, and she knows the whole “blood family” idea is stupid but they are her family and she loves them all fiercly, even this boy who she needs to know better. 

Rose takes action as he tries to find his words, and reaches over to grab his hand. See she’s making an effort. See she wants to know him. Dirk’s eyebrows go up and he swallows once then breaths deep. 

“You know Dave. You know what his Bro. Did. You’re so similar to me but I’ve watched you, you’re fuller? More secure. I didn’t think that you actually hated me, I guess I just wanted the reassurance from someone. You. Not just that you didn't detest my very being but that, if you didn’t dislike me I could be more like you? Or something like that. Jesus I sound like an anime character don’t I?” Rose blinks once, processing as fast as she can. It’s not like she doesn’t know how similar she and Dirk are (Roxy brings it up *often*) but she always pictured him on the pedestal. Maybe she was wrong to ever imagine a pedestal in the first place. 

“I’m not going to lie, that was a lot.” Dirk’s mouth draws into a thin line. 

“Yes I know some of what Dave’s Bro did to him, and as much I detest him, I do not hold you to the same caliber. I’m trusting you to be better, the same as Dave is, and despite his awful taste in music and movies, I trust Dave’s judgement.” Dirks shoulders sink. Good she’s getting through to him. This isn’t a therapy session, he doesn't need a diagnosis. This is one hundred percent pure family bonding time. Rose tells herself she has this again.

“As for our comparison, I can’t deny the similarities, but I have to tell you we are both our own people capable of good and bad. Overwhelmingly I would say we are good people, but we all have horrible moments. Remind me to tell you about my grimdark period sometime, it is an interesting tale.” Rose almost goes into it then and there but Dirk takes a deep wet breath and scrubs at his eyes. Rose pales. “Oh fuck I fucked it up” she panics hands fluttering around her own face.

“No it’s just. I’m being sappy. That was something I needed to hear. So thank you? God I’m a mess don’t look at me-” Dirk pushes his glasses up as he scrubs at his eyes, smiling, a deeply relieved smile, mostly to himself. Rose lets out a breath, almost a laugh. Looking at her (brother? father?) family sitting across from her Rose feels the same bubble of warmth grow in her chest. It swells up and then she has her arms around Dirk. 

“I hope this is okay.” She whispers, bumping her head into his. “Yeah this is great” Dirk sighs out, settling against her. 

Rose may have work to do, but hey who doesn’t. But this, sitting on her bed clutching her family close to her is some sort of progress for both of them, and she’ll take it.

[the-space-above-the-stars]

good luck charm

drag racer!lucas wong x reader

Summary: Lucas Wong is your best friend. He’s also the dumbest motherfucker you’ve ever laid eyes on, a realization you come to after one faithful drag race.

Warnings: dangerous driving (wear seat belts and obey the speed limit, kids) , drinking, cussing

Word Count: 2k

Genre: fluff, angst if you squint?

A/N: I’m curious, who are all y’all biases in NCT? Do you have a bias? Is it even possible with 21 crackheads? This is also unedited, so have no expectations. 

If you drove east for 15 minutes from where you lived, there was an abandoned lot on the edge of town, surrounded by a wire fence. Something big used to stand there, but it was torn down over 20 years ago. Over that time, it became many things. A place for kids to make out, do drugs, throw up graffiti, even the focus of an ill-funded effort to clean the city up. But most recently, someone from your school had realized that this was the perfect place to race cars.

And so the tradition of Friday Night Racing started, high school and college kids bringing their cars down to gamble with money and their lives. Their was a certain level of secrecy about the whole thing, as everyone knew a snitch could land everyone in jail. Kun, the most reluctant and most trustworthy, set the dates and handled the lineups and money.

It was definitely not your style. The place always smelled like stale beer and cigarette butts and almost every other week some kid would get hurt, but every week you still waited by your window, phone charged in your pocket and backpack ready with a first aid kit for Lucas to pull up in his Mustang.

Lucas, Yukhei to his friends and Xuxi to you and you only, was your best friend since the eighth grade. You had both landed in detention and you had managed to get both you and him out with an excuse about needing to visit the nurse that the poor substitute teacher watching over you both bought. You got slushees on the way home, him paying as a thank you, and ever since then you’ve been friends.

Lucas races. When he entered 9th grade he fixed up his dads old Mustang and entered his first race. You called him an idiot, but you still fixed him up when he came back slightly banged up with the money he one clutched in his fist. He was good. You knew he never lost a race on purpose. Sometimes he fudges up on purpose to fuck with the other racers, but he’s still always the first person crossing that finish line.

He knows you hate the races but that doesn’t stop his dumb smile as he pulls up in your driveway. “Can’t forget my lucky charm,” He tells you every time, with a wink that makes you smack him on the back of the head. As if dragging you along isn’t enough, before every race starts he taps his cheek and turns his head for the mandatory good luck kiss that you’ve never failed to give him. 

Maybe it’s because you’re in love with him. Have been ever since he dethroned Jackson Wang from the spot of best racer in a one on one race. You remember how his car had barely come to a stop before he jumped out, and you could barely yell at him about safety before he had picked you up and spun you around in a big hug, placing a big kiss on your forehead. Fuck, you had thought at the way your heart was beating. Fucking hell. 

And so here you were, mid July waiting in your bedroom window for Lucas. Like always, he was bordering on being late. Your backpack was thrown over one shoulder, wearing a Nirvana t-shirt and ripped jeans. It was too hot for much else. Finally, you perked up at the sound of a car engine as Lucas slowly pulls his red mustang into your driveway, so as not to wake your parents. “Come on, Rapunzel,” he grins as he climbs out. 

“You’re late,” you call down as you toss him your bag, climbing down the downspout and jumping onto the ground. “Again.” He rolls his eyes as he tosses your bag in the bag, jumping over the driver side door as you do the same on the other side. 

“Oh, your highness I’m so sorry to have inconvenienced you, what a pity to be late to something you didn’t even want to go to-” With a laugh, you punch him in the side and he pulls out of your driveway. The Mustang purrs smoothly, Lucas steering with one of his hands wrapped around the wheel. The other one rests on the dash, long fingers tapping out the beat to a song you don’t recognize. The ride should take 15 minutes but when has he ever followed the speed limit. It’s just a suggestion, you remember him saying to you with a dumb smirk. 

The races are pretty much already in full swing, some of the newer racers already shooting off. Someone’s playing music out of their car and there’s definitely alcohol. “No drinking!” You slap Lucas’s arm as he reaches for the bottle of vodka. “Go win, dumbass, and then I’ll let you get shitfaced.”

“Nice to see your confidence in me, shortcake.”  He bends over as he speaks to you and boops your nose. You’re two seconds from jumping him when someone taps his shoulder. 

“Lucas,” Jackson Wang smirks, ignoring the girl basically throwing herself at him. “Just the man I wanted to see.” 

“Wang,” Lucas stands to his full height and you roll your eyes. “Came to see  me win again?” 

“Actually I have a proposition for you.” Putting two fingers in his mouth he whistles and the music stops. People turn their eyes to the three of you. “One on one, you and me. 2 laps around the lot. What do you say?” 

“Didn’t you get enough fun of me beating you last time? What fun do I get out of proving what everyone here already knows?” 

Jackson chuckles, and it almost sounds dangerous. “How did I know you were gonna want to bet? Okay, how about this. Loser leaves the races. Forever.” 

“Throw in the winner’s car.” Lucas interrupts, looking over at Jackson’s sleek black Corvette.

“Deal. And the winner...” Jackson looks around and you almost recoil when his eyes land on you. “Gets a kiss with L/N.” Lucas’s smile drops and your eyes widen. Jackson smirks at Lucas’s reaction, giving him a smug shrug of his shoulders. “Seems fair to me.” 

“What the fuck-” Lucas shakes Jackson’s hand, dead seriousness written on his face as his knuckles turn white. They both head to their cars. “Xuxi!” 

“Relax, Y/N/N, I’m gonna win, so you don’t have to worry about kissing Wang.” 

“This is stupid. And ridiculous, you already beat him once, you know Jackson plays dirty-” 

“You do realize all this is going in one ear and out the other. I’ll be back in two laps, and then I’ll have a new black Corvette. Might even let you drive it.” He winks with a dumb grin as he tilts his cheek. You kiss him before he can even ask. Then you give him another. “Two? Wow, I must be special.” 

“No, you just need double the luck. Go. Don’t die, or I’ll kill you.” 

Seulgi, as usual does the honors as she walks up to the starting line, red handkerchief in hand. “Racers ready?” Her response is the simultaneous revving of two engines as Lucas and Jackson reach the starting line. She raises the make shift flag, and with a wave, is left in a cloud of dust and smoke as both cars take off. 

For most of the first lap, they are neck in neck. Jackson’s obviously fixed up his car since the last time they raced. But as they reach the first turn, Lucas hits the gas and pulls ahead, drifting around the roundabout and shooting off. Jackson has to swerve to avoid being hit and regains himself before following. You can basically hear the smug smirk on Lucas’s face. 

He stays ahead for most of the first lap but as they reach the second, Jackson pulls next to him and bumps his car, making him go off the road slightly. As he pulls back in, Jackson shoots off, Lucas racing to catch up with him. Your heart’s beating in your ears, nerves builgingup with the prospect of Lucas being banned from the races. And of course, kissing Jackson Wang. 

100 feet. 80 feet. 60 feet. They’re 40 feet from the finish line when Lucas pulls ahead and turns his car completely sideways in front of Jackson’s, drifting across the finish line. He straightens himself out and stops the car before jumping out. Hey, at least he stopped this time. “What did I tell you, shortcake?” He preens, bending over to be your height as he pokes your forehead. “You’re not kissing Wang and I get a new car, it’s a win win.” 

“Yeah, shut up idiot. Come on, let’s grab slushies.” You try to ignore the dull thump of dissapointment in your chest. The bet was that the winner would kiss you. But he’s chosen to forget that apparently. 

Jackson climbs out of his car, tongue pressed against the inside of his mouth as he rolls his eyes at Lucas. “Sorry L/N maybe another time.” Lucas lunges at him, but stops as a voice breaks through the air. 

“COPS!” The whole place goes silent as someone yells, and there’s the faint noise of sirens down the street. Everything goes to hell the next second as screams break out and racers run for their cars, people who came on foot jump into other’s cars or start climbing the fence. 

“Come on, haul ass!” Lucas yells, grabbing your hand and pushing you into his car. “Seatbelts-” he cuts himself off by putting the car in drive and hitting the gas, pulling out of the lot just as the first cop car turns the corner. 

*** Lucas pulls into a stop right in front of your house, eyes wide as his hands relax around the wheel. “Jesus fucking christ, my heart’s beating so hard.” Without hesitation, he grabs your hand and places it over his chest, leaving you to ignore the less than platonic thoughts in your head. “Jesus, do you think they’ll shut the races down?” 

“No,” you speak with certainty as you move your hand. “All the racers got away, I’m positive the only people they got were the kids who got shit faced. The most they can do is fine them for underage drinking.”   A comfortable silence fills the car as you both catch your breath, but of course it doesn’t last as Lucas takes your hand in his. “Good thing you kissed me twice, huh? Or we probably wouldn’t be lucky enough to get out of there.” 

Know what, fuck just being friends. Fuck Lucas Wong when he says shit like that that makes you question if he really just likes you as a friend. You’ll never know what you both could be if you don’t try. “I love you, Xuxi.”  You’re not looking him in the eyes. You expect him to drop your hand and stutter out some excuse or an apology, but what you don’t expect is that he lets out a laugh. 

“Aww, Y/N I love you too,” He puts his head on your shoulder. “Where would I be without my best friend, huh? Now go get some sleep, it’s almost morning.” It feels like a weird dream as you stumble out of his car and climb the downspout, giving him a fake smile before he pulls out with a wave. 

Today’s been exhausting. Flopping down on your bed, you turn to see the photo on your table. Both you and Lucas on the top of the ferris wheel at the carnival last year. Your tongues are blue from slushies and you’ve got a big plushie he won at the bottle toss. His arm is around you and you’re both grinning like idiots. “Why are you such an idiot, Xuxi?” You whisper, rolling over and burying your face in a pillow. 

If anything good came out of today, it was one piece of knowledge. 

1. Lucas Wong is oblivious. 

A/N: Should I make a second part? I feel like this could be a oneshot but idk if people want a second part to this. Requests are open. 

[graciebirdie]

It’s Christmas (almost) @thisdiscontentedwinter a gift for the amazing you! I hope you like Peter cooking! (also on ao3)

Peter didn’t consider it to be a character flaw that he was a man in his 30s who didn’t know how to cook. He had a few pretty good reasons why he’d never learned how before he’d reached his 30s after all.

Not the least of which being when he’d been a part of a pack he’d been regulated to hunter rather than chef. While usually hunter just meant he was the one who did most of the grocery shopping he did, occasionally, get to hunt down deer or rabbits for when they had special dinners. That was of course his favorite part of providing for the pack. One of the few times his propensity for violence was not only accepted but also praised.

Now he had been living by himself, surviving on take out and deli made meals.

This wouldn’t be a problem except he found he missed homemade meals with a ache he could physically feel behind his breast bone.

Now he only had two options on how to sooth this newest hurt: he could either ask one of his three pack members if they could cook a meal for him or he could learn to cook himself.

The answer was obvious without even calculating in the fact neither Cora nor Derek lived somewhere with a functioning oven.

So Peter bought a cookbook and figured since he wasn’t completely helpless he would be able to figure out one of the basics of adulthood.

It turned out Peter was terrible at cooking. He could make sandwiches or any kind of egg but anything more complicated than those he always managed to royally screw it up.

He didn’t even know what he was doing wrong that make his pot roast taste like char or his stir fry to be oily when he hadn’t even used oil.

After almost a month of failures he would have given up if it hadn’t started to turn into a point of pride. Stiles had brought roast beef sandwiches to one of the pack meets and he had proudly told everyone that he’d made the roast himself.

If Stiles, who oscillated between having the attention span of a gnat or hyper-focusing to the point of forgetting to breath, could make a truly delicious roast then so could Peter.

So he turned to his last resort: cooking blogs.

One google search for ‘how to actually cook and make it taste good’ later he’d gone through five different blog posts and only learned that for some reason bloggers really liked to talk about their kids and perfect lives. It would have been depressing if Peter actually cared.

After two hours of travelling through homebodies trying to convince him to make everything vegan he found a post titled “Recipes made easy for those who are lazy, have ADHD, no time or alternately too much time, know how to cook but want to learn new things, or people who think they can’t cook but are willing to give it a try.”

What a mouthful of a title that covered all the basics of people looking at cooking blogs.

The whole blog was written in run on sentences that somehow managed to be both amusing and informative, a very narrow line to walk.

Peter might have also fallen a little bit in love with the author who gave such informative tidbits as “Why spring for a colander when you could just slap the lid on a pot and up end it over the sink while praying you won’t drop it and/or burn yourself as you tilt the lid to strain out the water but not the noodles.” and “Seriously just toss all the shit into a crockpot and forget about it for 8 hours, except you probably won’t be able to because you’ll have to keep trying to remember if you actually turned the pot on or not. (I suggest setting up a live stream camera to be on the safe side.)”

Other than an obvious good sense of humor the writer didn’t give any personal information. No name or nickname. Even the profile picture was generic. Peter thought that little touch of mystery just added the the writer's personality.

The third time Peter made macaroni and cheese from scratch – “Just cook some plain old noodles and then toss in a bunch of different kinds of grated cheese and a couple of scoops of sour cream and a bit of crumbled bacon with a little pinch of salt and bake it in the oven for a bit and bam homemade mac and cheese that people will be amazed over.” – he was so proud of his creation he brought it to that night’s pack meeting.

He set the large casserole dish down on Derek’s ridiculous table that only Stiles ever actually used and pointedly ignored the stares everyone was giving him. He settled down in his chair – the one just off to the side of the stairs that faced the door and the whole of the open living room – and pulled out his phone to feigning nonchalance while he waited for the rest of the pack to ask what he thought he was doing.

Of course Stiles was the first one to speak up. “Oh!” he said, sounding excited. “Did you make a casserole?”

He leaned forward over the table to open the dish that had been, very conveniently, placed right in front of him.

Peter watched with a surprisingly strong sense of anticipation as he watched Stiles’ eyes widen and mouth drop open in surprise.

“Is this homemade macaroni and cheese?” he asked, excitement clear on his face.

Peter gave a vague hum of agreement. “I’m trying something new.”

Stiles sprung up away from the table and practically dashed into the kitchen. He came back out only a few seconds later with a paper plate in one hand a plastic fork in the other.

Peter supposed he should be grateful Stiles took out a portion instead of eating right out of his casserole dish.

Stiles scooped up a bite and managed to bring it all the way to his mouth before Scott stopped him with a strangled cry.

“Stiles! What are you doing?!” Scott yelled as he threw himself over the back of the couch he had been sitting on. He raced to Stiles and slapped the fork out of his before Stiles could get the bite into his mouth.

“What the fuck!” Stiles gasped, cradling his hand against his chest and staring at Scott in shock.

Peter found, much to his surprise, that he had both stood up and let his claws out without a thought. He took one long deep breath and slipped his claws away before sauntering over to the table.

He oh so casually leaned his against it, back to Stiles, crossed his arms over his chest and stared Scott down.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw the front door slide open to let in Boyd and Erica. The both of them slipped past Scott and behind Peter to, no doubt, stand next to Stiles.

Stiles spluttered and yelled again. “Scott! Peter's not going to bring in poisoned food when most of you guys don't trust him!”

Scott glared darkly at Peter. “Yeah we don’t trust him because poisoning is exactly something he would do.”

“Well yeah.” Stiles said. Peter could practically see him shrug. “Of course Peter would poison someone. But he’s not going to use food to poison the pack.”

Erica snorted loudly and said “Yeah Peter’s devious but he’s not stupid.” there was a pause before she added with her mouth obviously full “And if you paid attention to anything you’d known this mac and cheese is not only totally poison free but also delicious.”

“Hey...” Stiles said sulkily. “That’s my fork.”

Scott’s self righteous expression was replaced with sour resignation. Peter gave him his best fake smile before turning his back on him to look at Erica, who was eating right out of the dish.

Boyd had found another fork somewhere and had stolen Stiles’ plate.

Stiles was glaring at the both of them and Peter felt oddly annoyed.

“You going to share?” he asked Erica who seemed to almost hunch over the dish.

She just smirked at him and pulled the dish even closer to her, effectively blocking anyone else from taking some.

He stared her down intently while Stiles made indignity noises.

Boyd, smart and dependable Boyd, held out his half full plate and a second fork for Stiles who gasped and smiled brightly before scooping up his own bite.

The loud almost pornographic moan took Peter off guard and the sudden quick shot of arousal he felt was even more surprising.

He heard Erica choking on a laugh and sent her his best blank look that the pack had long learned meant he was fighting back the urge to murder one of them.

Boyd, wise and quiet Boyd, had completely given up his plate to Stiles and had instead decided to try and distract Erica with an impromptu fork fight.

Stiles seemed to be having a small spiritual moment. “Do you know what tastes weirdly good in mac and cheese?” he asked suddenly.

“What?” Peter asked gamely.

“Tuna and Peas.”

Peter stared at him while Boyd and Erica made simultaneous noises of disgust.

Stiles shrugged apologetically. “It’s strangely hearty.”

Peter hummed in thought. He was certainly petty enough to make something that only Stiles would want to eat. It’s what everyone else deserved for being rude about Peter’s cooking.

~*~

“Chicken alfredo is so easy. Just cook those wormy noodles for a few minutes and toss in some canned alfredo sauce with baked chicken and bam! Food! Or if you want to get fancy pan fry the chicken before adding milk and actual heavy cream. But who really has time for that? (I do. I apparently.) Here’s how to do it the fancy way if you’re into that kind of thing.”

It continued to amuse Peter how the writer could give easy alternatives and complicated instructions for the same recipe.

His first two batches turned out tasting fine. Not amazing but certainly edible. It was vast improvement from where he started.

He felt an oddly strong urge to both thank the writer of the blog and get to know them better. A combination of emotions he hadn’t felt in a very long time.

This might not have been a problem for him if he didn’t have an strong suspicion he knew who the writer was.

Tiny hints here and there had given it away. He just had to get confirmation.

~*~

After a month of bringing in different dishes to pack meetings Peter had gotten a pretty good handle on Stiles’ likes and dislikes. Considering one of Stiles’ constant likes was Peter’s cooking in general he was confident in his welcome at Stiles’ apartment so long as he came bearing food.

Peter showed up right in time for dinner and Stiles blinked at him before letting him with only a “I’m not going to turn down your cooking, even if it is surprise cooking.”

Peter smirked at him as he made himself at home in Stiles’ tiny kitchen. The size of it certainly explained the latest post “How the hell are you supposed to get anything done in a 3 by 3 space: a photo tutorial by me, not a professional photographer.”

Peter had recognized the kitchen in the pictures from when he had helped Stiles move his (un)surprisingly large collection of kitchen gadgets.

“So what’s the occasion?” Stiles asked as he poked at the wax wrapped loaf of cheesy bread.

Now that Peter had gotten a better grip on cooking in general he had decided to try his hand at baking. He wasn’t very good at it yet but Stiles appreciated bread of all kinds and wouldn’t mind that it was a bit darker in some spots.

“Oh nothing too special.” he said casually. “I just noticed that your newest post got a million hits. Sounds like something that should be acknowledged.”

Stiles jumped and stared at Peter in shock for a moment before he relaxed again. He rubbed the back of his neck and gave Peter a slightly embarrassed smile.

“Why am I not actually surprised you know about that.” he said with a little laugh.

He turned back to the bread, pulling off a piece and inspecting it before spinning back to stare at Peter with huge eyes.

“Oh my god, did you get all those recipes from me?” he asked loudly, excitement obvious on his face.

“Well your instructions are very comprehensive.” Peter said with a casual shrug.

Stiles grinned at him, obviously pleased about Peter complimenting him.

“That’s a really fucking nice thing to say.” Stiles said, grin turning into a softer smile.

Peter shrugged again and turned to start pulling dishes down from the cupboard. “It’s just a fact.” he said casually.

Stiles laughed. “Whatever you say. So what you make me?”

~*~

Stuffed full of the potato soup and cheesy bread Peter was slouched down on the couch and making grocery lists on his phone. Stiles was curled up next to him, half leaning against Peter’s shoulder while half watching Leverage, half reading one of the books Peter had given him.

“Holy shit!” Stiles suddenly yelled.

Peter turned to look at him in interest.

“Are you courting me, Peter Hale?” Stiles asked eyes and mouth wide open in shock.

Peter blinked at him in genuine surprise for a moment before past behavior clicked together in his brain. He couldn’t stop himself from face palming.

Stiles laughed uproariously and leaned harder against.

“This is the best thing ever.” Stiles said breathlessly.

“Which part?” Peter asked through narrowed eyes.

Stiles grinned even harder at him and didn’t answer, just leaned forward to give Peter a soft kiss on the check.

“I’m going to milk the shit out of this.” Stiles said in amusement. "I can't believe I didn't realize sooner! You get so pissy when Erica steals food from me that it should have been obvious."

Peter supposed he kind of deserved that respond if he’d gone around trying to give gestures of romance through food and not even realizing it.

Peter raised his arm and Stiles instantly cuddled himself deeper into Peter’s side, tucking his face against the side of Peter’s neck.

“It’ll be nice not to be the one cooking all the time.” Stiles said quietly.

Peter felt a rush of protectiveness and fought a sneer at the thought of Stiles always having to be the one to talk care of himself.

He turned his head slightly and gave Stiles a light kiss on the temple. “Not just the cooking.” he promised softly and Stiles shivered against him.

Stiles took a long shuddering breath before fully melting against Peter.  “Yeah, sounds good.” he whispered and curled his hand into Peter’s.

Peter wasn’t quite sure how he’d managed to get him and Stiles to this point but there was no way in hell he was going to complain when Stiles was being so shockingly soft with him.

Peter decided that it was immensely satisfying to be the one Stiles felt was providing for him and let himself feel as protective and possessive as he wanted, secure in the knowledge that he had to be doing something right to have earned Stiles’ trust.

[allhailkingrooker51]

So, there’s this guy...

that y’all may know that I’m freakin’ madly in love with.  He goes by the name Michael Rooker. 😜 I finally got to meet him.  Here’s my story...*Law & Order noise*

Fandemic Houston Day 1 - September 14, 2018

My alarm went off at 7:30 a.m.  I was already awake though.  I had hardly slept at all.  I had hardly slept the last two months for that matter as September 14th got closer.  I couldn’t remember ever being this excited for anything in my entire life.  This was going to be the best weekend ever.  

I jumped out of bed, got ready, and packed the car, mostly with Rooker memorabilia.  I hadn’t officially decided what all I wanted him to autograph yet so I brought a little of everything – some of my Rooker Funkos, all my Yondu, Merle, and Chick Gandil trading cards, and my all-time favorite Rooker picture printed out as an 8X10.  I mapped out the directions to the NRG Center on my phone and swung by to pick up my best friend who I’ve known since kindergarten.  After a little detour to Chick-fil-a to get some breakfast, we were on our way to Fandemic Houston.

My friend doesn’t know much about Rooker.  As far as his movies, she had only seen Vol. 1 and Vol. 2.  I had sent her various Rooker videos on YouTube, though, for her to watch as “homework” like the Into the Night doc with James Gunn and the Inside of You podcast with Michael Rosenbaum.  The whole way down to Houston, I told her as many Rooker stories as I could think of.  She had a lot of catching up to do before she met the greatest person on this planet.

Things were going great.  We were making good time on the road.  My friend seemed entertained with the Doug Loves Movies podcast with the cast of Super, including Rooker and the Gunn Bros., that I was forcing her to listen to.  Then things suddenly changed.

I had been having bad feelings about this trip even months before.  Meeting Michael Rooker would be my biggest dream come true, but every time I paid for something for Fandemic, whether it was the hotel or Rooker VIPs or Sean Gunn's autograph, I was just waiting for the ball to drop and I wouldn’t be able to go.  I never really get to do anything fun ever, and in the back of my mind, something was going to go wrong.  Something always does.  And something did.

We were cruising down interstate about an hour outside of Houston.  It began to rain.  No big deal.  I turned on the windshield wipers, and we continued laughing with the podcast on the radio.  Then I noticed the passenger side windshield wiper was doing this little fish-tailing action every time it went across the windshield.  I had just had new windshield wipers installed two days earlier, but I hadn’t had to use them yet, and I thought, “You know, that doesn’t look right.”

Then I noticed the one in front of me started to do the same thing.  Just as I opened my mouth to tell my friend there's something wrong with the windshield wipers, the rain started coming down like a monsoon and both wipers flew off my car with an almost comical synchronized whoosh.  

Well, fuck.

Somehow, by the grace of God, I was able to cross over two lanes of busy interstate to the shoulder without causing a 15-car pileup.  Once the mini panic attack of trying to safely get to the side of the road subsided and after I dropped a plethora of choice curse words, I turned on my hazards and began to think. What the hell are we gonna do?  

It was raining fucking cats and dogs, and I couldn’t see shit.  Think!  Plan B. Plan B.  Wait, what was plan B?  I wasn’t expecting this.  We didn’t even have a plan B.  

Should we just wait out the rain for a bit?  Maybe it would stop soon.  But I had already checked the weather earlier, and it was supposed to rain all day.  

This can’t be happening.  The greatest day of my life and I’m stranded on the interstate in a deluge with no windshield wipers three and a half hours away from home.  And to top it all off, I have a pre-purchased Sean Gunn/Rooker photo op in a few hours that I couldn’t miss.  This was not good.

We sat there for a few minutes hoping the rain would subside enough for me to at least get us off the highway.  We started googling the nearest auto parts store while we waited.  There was one less than a mile away.  

Vehicles were flying past me in a blur, and the fear of someone plowing into the back of my car took over.  I knew we had to get off the interstate as soon as possible.  Luckily an exit was about 50 feet away, and I had to try for it.  With the rain letting up just a tad, and with my friend looking out the passenger side window and guiding me along the edge of the asphalt, I managed to creep off the interstate shoulder going about three miles per hour onto the service road.  I could still barely see, but I felt a little more relieved being off the interstate. 

The rain kept coming.  My view through the windshield looked the exact same as when I don’t have my contacts in.  Everything was blurry as shit.  I continued my snail-like pace, my eyes concentrating simultaneously on the taillights of the cars ahead of me and the fuzzy, white dashes of the lane to my near left.  

I crept through the next red light and made a left.  Not far down the road, there it was.  We had made it.  I had never been so happy to see an Autozone in my entire fucking life.  We went inside, explained what had happened, bought two new windshield wipers, this time properly installed, and once again we were on our way.  

It stopped raining about 20 minutes later.

Looking back now, the whole situation was funny as hell.

Despite our little automotive dilemma, we still got to the NRG Center 15 minutes before Fandemic started.  I parked the car, turned off the ignition, and checked in with my Rooker Hooker friends online to let them know I made it.  Then I sat frozen in my seat.  

“I don’t think I can do this,” I told my friend.  My nerves were getting the best of me.  She assured me that I could, in fact, do this.  I had to do this.  I’m so glad she went with me.  I knew she wouldn’t let me back out of anything.  I made sure I had my things, took a deep breath and forced myself to get out of the car.

We made it inside the convention center, and a woman in a red Fandemic shirt directed us to the VIP ticket window.  (Every staff member we came across at Fandemic was absolutely awesome, by the way.  Even the C.E.O. was greeting every guest with a handshake and a hello as you entered through security.)

I went up to the window and handed over my paper tickets to exchange for our Rooker VIP badges.  While the worker scanned the tickets, I looked behind her to the table along the back wall.  It was covered from one end to the other with plastic bins.  Each bin was labeled by name and full of red VIP lanyards for each corresponding celebrity – Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Norman Reedus, Bruce Campbell, Tom Welling, etc.  

The lady finished scanning my tickets and turned to get our VIP badges from the bins.  Only there wasn’t a bin for Rooker.  She couldn’t find them.  I started to panic a little inside.  I mean it’s obvious I bought them.  I had the paper tickets as proof.  They were in her hand for Pete’s sake.  She looked down at the paper again and walked the length of the table for the second time.  Still no luck.  I really started to worry.  Of course, my initial thought is the ball is dropping again. First my windshield wipers, and now this.

I couldn't hear what she was saying behind the window, but her mouth was moving as I watched her hand my paper over to another worker.  This worker checked the paper, and they both walked over towards the middle of the table. There laying between two bins was a little Ziploc bag with Rooker’s name on it with maybe four or five VIP badges in it.  I turned to my friend, who had been out of eyesight of what just happened, stuck out my bottom lip and said, “Awww, my poor baby.  He only has a Ziploc bag of VIPs, and we have two of ‘em.”  I don’t know why, but it made me love him even more.

After a bag check and a wanding from security, we finally made it onto the convention floor.  I was one giant walking ball of nerves as we went through those doors.  I was in the same room as Michael Rooker!  On one hand, I couldn’t wait to see him.  On the other, I was afraid I was gonna faint and fall out on the floor right in front of all the Deadpools and Negans and Harley Quinns.  

We decided to bypass the vendors and headed straight to the autograph booths. Granted we were still a little early, so none of the celebs had made it to their tables yet.  Rooker’s booth was already filling up.  There were about 20 people or so already waiting.  My friend asked if I wanted to go ahead and get in line.  I couldn’t.  My feet wouldn’t move.  I wasn’t ready.  I had to see him first.  From afar.  Then maybe I’d get the courage to go talk to him.  

The whole time things were going down, I was checking in with my Rooker friends online, giving them play-by-plays of what was happening and taking their encouragement to heart.  I was gonna need it all.

My friend and I decided to walk around a little more and found ourselves standing near the back row of the autograph tables.  That’s when I saw celebs start to trickle through the curtain in the corner and head to their booths.  

Every time those red and black curtains moved, my heart stopped thinking it would be him.  Sean Gunn and Chris Sullivan came out together.  There went Sean Patrick Flanery.  And then Bruce Campbell.  I knew Rooker couldn’t be far behind.  

Minutes later, the curtains moved once more, and there he was.  Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion as he walked the floor in front of me.  He wore his black leather jacket and blue sunglasses, a white v-neck t-shirt, his newest Penman hat and a giant smile on his face.  Somehow, I managed to stop my hands from shaking to take a few pics before he disappeared into his booth, his boisterous voice loud as he greeted his awaiting fans.

After my heart rate returned to a somewhat normal rhythm, we walked around towards the front of his booth.  We looked on from a distance as I stood there silently building up my confidence to go get in his line.  I told my online Rooker friends that I wasn’t sure I could do this.  They again told me I could.  I loved him too much not to, they said.  And they were right.  

I knew I needed to go get in line, but I just couldn’t take that first step.  But I had to do it.  I had come too far, and I had too many cool things to show him rather than stand there and stare at him like a creeper.  I had to jump off that cliff.  Take that plunge.  Just like ripping a Band-Aid off with the sweetest reward waiting for me right after.

One of the Fandemic workers near his booth was walking around with an inflatable pickle.  He told her he wanted to sign it.  He autographed the pickle, and as she walked away, he yelled out to her, “Don’t touch it for a little while.  It’s still wet!”  He knew exactly what he was doing, too.  He laughed and then did that little shit-eating grin while biting his tongue.  Y’all know which one I’m talking about.  Watching him laughing and joking around with everyone started to put my mind at ease. This is Rooker we’re talking about.  I’m gonna be fine.  So, I did it.  I put my big kid pants on and got in line.  

The line was moving fairly quickly, but I made sure to sneak some more pics while I waited.  I still couldn’t believe this was all real.  Seeing him right there, mere feet away from me.  Hearing that raspy voice in person.  It was almost too much.

When I got about eight people away, I pulled out his headshots from my bag.  I have several of Rooker’s old original headshots and resumes, and I couldn’t wait to see what his reaction was.  

Now, don’t get me wrong.  I was still a nervous wreck.  A million things raced through my brain.  What if I can’t talk when I get up there?  What if he doesn’t like me?  What if he thinks I’m weird?  Even worse, what if he thinks I’m a batshit crazy stalker ‘cause I have his old headshots?

Then the weirdest thing happened.  The closer I got to him, the less nervous I became.  By the time I made it in front of him at that table, it was like I was about to say “hey” to an old friend.  All the butterflies had flown away.  

One of his helpers had already taken the headshot from me that I wanted Rooker to autograph to keep the line running smoothly.  He handed it to Rooker and said, “Ohh, this is an oldie.”

Rooker greeted us as he took the headshot and he was like “Whoaaa” and smiled really big as I showed him the others.  He got a kick out of them!  He grabbed the oldest headshot, which was his first one, his hair super curly, and called over Sean Gunn and Chris Sullivan, who immediately left their tables to see what was going on.  They both promptly busted out laughing when Rooker showed them. They cracked some jokes together and then Rooker said, “That was my first headshot, this is my last.”  He walked over to me and showed me a pic of himself wearing no hat with his hair a FREAKIN’ mess on what I believe was Sean’s phone maybe, which in turn made him laugh even harder.  

He walked back over to Sean and Sully, where Sully had since pulled up his own old headshot on his phone.  Rooker busted out laughing again, and they compared their curly hair and then showed all the people in line their “white men afros” as Rooker put it.  

The whole time I felt like I was in a dream watching this all take place.  I mean I figured Rooker would think it was pretty cool seeing his old headshots and resumes, but I never thought it would have caused all this.  

He came back over to me and thanked me for bringing the headshots and picked up a blue marker to sign the one I had picked out for his autograph.

Up until then, had that been the end of our interaction, I would have walked away from his table completely ecstatic.  At that moment, I could have officially died happy.  But it wasn’t over yet.

As he was signing the headshot, I told him that I had something to show him and to pick an arm.  He looked a little perplexed and said, “Ummmm...your left.”

I sheepishly lifted up my shirt sleeve to show him my portrait tattoo of one of his Skillset magazine pictures.  He said, “OMG.....you know what that’s from, right?”  I kind of laughed and said, “Well, yeah.”  He said, “That’s from my Skillset!”  Then, I lifted up my right shirt sleeve to reveal my other Rooker portrait tattoo, this one a bald, serious-faced shot.  He glanced at it really quick and said, “Oh yeah, Thanos, very cool.”

I laughed and said, “It’s not Thanos, it’s you!”  I had to catch myself before I affectionately called him a dork at the end of that sentence.  He said, “What?!  Lemme see it again!”  I lifted my sleeve, and he said again that it looks like Thanos, totally fucking with me.  I said, “It’s not Thanos!  Why would I have Thanos?  You’re way hotter than Thanos!”  He chuckled and said “Well, yeah, I’m hotter than Thanos!  Fine, it’s a sexy Thanos.”  

He then walked around his table, grabbed my shoulders, spun me around, yanked my shirt sleeve back up and proceeded to ask the crowd, very loudly I might add, if my tattoo looked like “Sexy Thanos” all the while laughing his ass off.  Of course, the crowd agreed with him.  

I didn’t even have time to think about being embarrassed.  The next I thing knew, he turned back to me, smiled a huge Rooker smile, said I was awesome and reached out and caressed my face.  I about passed out.  

Rooker went back around his table to the headshots and started talking about his resumes stapled to the back.  We talked for a couple of minutes trying to figure out the timeline of the headshots vs. the resumes vs. the talent agency he was with at the time.    

The whole time he talked, I couldn’t take my eyes off of him.  The way he smiled and chomped his gum, his eyes behind his blue sunglasses, his curls thick under his hat, his sexy voice, his chest hair poking out of the collar of his shirt.  He is absolutely hypnotic.  I was in heaven, y’all.  

He grabbed the curly-haired headshot, smiled and said, “You know what?  Just ‘cause you’re you, I’m gonna sign this one, too.  It’s a 2-for-1 Rooker deal.”  I, of course, was over the moon.

He signed it with the same blue marker and gave me a fist bump.  I told him thank you and that I would see him tomorrow and that I had something even cooler for him to sign.  He said, “Alright!”

I walked away on Cloud 9.  Michael Rooker touched my face!  I was freaking out.  I couldn’t have asked for a better first meeting with Rooker.  

A little while later, we were standing in line for the Rooker/Sean Gunn photo op when I realized that in the headshot/tattoo craziness earlier, I had forgotten to give Rooker the t-shirt I had brought as a gift for him.  I wasn’t mad at myself, though.  That just meant I got to go see him again.

When it came time for the photo op, Rooker came strutting over from his booth, grinning while biting his tongue in his teeth again.  The whole weekend I never saw the man without a smile on his face.

For those of you who've never been to a comic con before, the photo ops go by fast. Like insanely fast.  They shuffle you quickly into the booth, you stand next to the celeb, the photographer snaps the picture, and then you're shuffled back out just as fast as you came in.    

Now don’t take this the wrong way.  I'm not knocking the process by any means.  It's completely understandable.   There are literally hundreds of fans of many fandoms that they’re trying to accommodate.  But just because it goes fast, doesn’t mean you won’t have a memorable experience.

The Gunn/Rooker photo op was my very first one of the weekend.  When I got behind the curtain, Rooker immediately grabbed my arm, and pulled me between Sean and himself with a hearty “Get over here, woman!”  I put my arms around them both, the photo was snapped, Rooker smiled really big and said “Thank you, sweetheart” as I walked away, him keeping his hand on my back ‘til I was out of his arm's reach.  

The whole thing couldn’t have lasted for more than 45 seconds or so.  But I didn’t care.  Sean’s arm had been around my shoulder!  I had touched the Rooker leather jacket!  Rooker called me “sweetheart"!  He touched my back!  I was close enough to smell his minty-gum fresh breath!  The Rooker legend that he smells of mint and leather is true!  I couldn’t wait to do more ops with him.

After the photo ops, we headed over to the concession stand.  We hadn’t gotten a chance to eat lunch, and we were starving.  We got a little something to tide us over until dinner and went and sat down at a table in the little VIP reserved section.  Not five minutes later, my phone went off with my Merle Dixon notification sound.  It was an Instagram alert.  ROOKER WAS LIVE!

I’ve seen a lot of Rooker Instagram live videos from cons before, but to see one in the making?  No way I was gonna miss this!  We jumped up, grabbed our stuff, and were off on the hunt for him.  With the help of the Rooker Hookers directing me where to go, it didn’t take long to find him.  

For nearly 30 minutes, we followed him from a distance watching him visit vendor booths, stop to play in the Batmobile and interact with fans, ending with a giant selfie back at his booth.  

After the excitement of him Instagramming live died down and his line cleared a little, I decided to go give him his t-shirt.  The lady taking the money at his booth, who was super freakin’ nice by the way and who would come to know us quite well by the end of the weekend, greeted us again with a smile.

I walked up to him at his table and said, “I'm back, Rooker!"  He said, “Hey, Sexy!”  Rooker called me sexy.  I mean I'm totally not, but.. anyways.  I only hoped my face wasn't as red as it felt.  I said, “I forgot to give you this earlier,” and I handed him his shirt.  I told him where I was from as he unfolded the shirt and spread it out on the table.  One of my favorite things about Rooker is that he supports first responders and the armed forces.  Without going into too many details, I gave him a fire department shirt from my hometown, where he's filmed a couple of things and has visited even when not filming.  He said he loved my hometown and I explained to him that my stepdad is a police officer, and he had actually met Rooker years before on the set of one of his tv projects.  I told him that my mom is a 911 dispatcher for the fire department where the shirt was from and that I had tried to get him a police department shirt, too, but I couldn’t get one in time.  

He said he loved the shirt and we talked a couple more minutes and he told me to tell my parents thank you for all that they do.  Then he said, “You know what?  You get a selfie!”  He came around his booth, stood right next to me, and held his shirt out while my friend snapped some pics.  Again, I was over the moon.  I had already gotten an extra autograph earlier, and now Rooker was breaking his rule about “No selfies" at his table.  He then shook my hand and said thank you again and I told him I'd see him tomorrow.  You couldn’t wipe the smile off my face.

Like Rooker's old headshots, I also had one of Sean Gunn and Jeffrey Dean Morgan.  I had planned on getting Sean's autograph on Saturday, but since Rooker’s headshots had gone over so well earlier, I decided to go ahead and show Sean's to him then.  After running back out to the car to get his headshot, we were off to see Seanie.  

There wasn’t anyone at his table when we got back so I went right up to him with no hesitation, which was strange for me.   I hadn’t talked to Sean yet, and I figured I would be extremely nervous.  But just like Rooker, I was completely calm around Sean.  They all really do treat you like old friends.  

When I handed Sean the headshot, he got all excited, too.  Sully came over to look at it and busted out laughing and cracked some jokes about Sean's shirt.  Sean then hollered over at Rooker and held it up so Rooker could see.  Rooker said, “OMG!  You got one, too?!”  Sean talked to me a little about his resume, too, and then asked if he could take a picture of it with his phone.  Of course, I was like “Absolutely!”  After he got his picture of his headshot, he came around the table and took some selfies with me.  I then pulled out my phone and showed him my dog dressed as James Gunn from Halloween last year.  I asked him if remembered Gunn sharing the picture, but he didn’t.  I showed him my other dog dressed as Kraglin, too.  He loved it!  Especially his little mohawk.

We talked some more, and he kept saying how cool his headshot was and asked if I wanted him to sign it.  He ended up signing it “To my friend, *my name*, I ❤️this! Sean Gunn”.  Sean was an absolute sweetheart and I love him and I hope I get to see him again someday!

Chris Sullivan’s table was next.  I hadn’t really budgeted in anything for Sully, but he was only charging 30$ for a selfie, and I thought “Hey, you only live once.”  I’m so glad I did.  Sully was a complete teddy bear!  He was so sweet!  And talllll!  

We walked over, and I apologized for not having a headshot for him to sign.  He laughed and showed us his headshot on his phone again.  Then he realized he hadn’t introduced himself and stuck out his hand and said, “Hi, I’m Chris.”  I shook his hand and told him my name, and then my friend did the same.  My friend and I have the same name only with different spellings.  Once introductions were made, Sully spent the next few minutes hilariously trying to figure out the correct spelling of my name.  He never did get it right.  I haven’t really seen a lot of Sully's roles, but he gained a lifelong fan that day.

After meeting Sean and Sully, we decided to call it a day.  I couldn’t wait to see what day two had in store.

Fandemic Houston Day 2 – September 15, 2018

Just like the morning before, I was already awake when my alarm went off.  I had a reeeeally cool thing to show Rooker, and the anticipation was damn near killing me.  

We had to get to the convention center fairly early that morning.  Rooker's panel was at 11:30 a.m., and I was hoping to get to visit him before his panel started.  When we got to his booth, however, he wasn't scheduled to be at his table until after his panel.  So, we just walked around a little until it was time to go upstairs to the panel room.

With our Rooker VIPs, we got really good seats at his panel.  We were close to the stage, even though I knew he wouldn't be up there long.  

While we waited for his panel to start, I was in a bit of a panic.  If you’ve ever seen or been to a con panel, you know that usually the Q&A session is done by fans lining up at a microphone to ask their questions to the celebs on stage.  If you’ve ever seen or been to a Rooker panel, you know he doesn’t play by those rules.  He comes to you, whether you have a question or not!  I was sitting on the end of the aisle, a prime position for Rooker to stop and talk to me during the Q&A.  And I had no idea what I would ask him if he did.

I checked in with the Rooker Hookers online and asked them for any help they could give me to come up with a good question.  It wasn't that I was nervous to ask Rooker a question, it was just I didn’t want to ask him one in front of all these people.  If I was prepared, I wouldn’t be as embarrassed.

The Rooker Hookers all had really good suggestions, but some of them involving Rooker removing various articles of clothing, propositions more suited for an “after-dark" kind of Q&A.  I love those guys.  That's another one of my favorite things about Rooker.  Being a part of his fandom has brought me together with people literally all over the world via Tumblr and Facebook.  And everyone I’ve met has been awesome.  And a special shout out to the Rooker Hookers for making me laugh over and over again, understanding my complete and utter Rooker obsession, for accepting me for who I am and being there for me even when we’re not talking about Rooker.  I’m proud to call them my friends.

Rooker's panel was awesome as I knew it would be.  He talked a lot about Henry and Merle.  He ran around the audience answering questions about Yondu and Mallrats and flexed his biceps and even sang a little.  My favorite, though, were his stories of what he was like as a kid and growing up in Chicago.  At the end of his panel, he broke the rules once again and threw Hershey Kisses out to the audience after the powers that be told him not to throw anything.  They shoulda known Rooker plays by his own rules.  He is a livewire and an endless fireball of energy.  He’s an absolute riot, and I'm so thankful I got to witness him in action at a panel.  

When the panel was over and once we made it back through the security checkpoint, we headed back to Rooker's booth.  I was so freaking excited to show him what I was holding in my hands.  

His helper said hello and hole-punched my VIP lanyard for another autograph.  I walked up to Rooker and said, “I'm back, Rooker, look what I got.”  I sat down his screen worn Bud Melks orange coveralls from The Belko Experiment on the table.  He said, “Oh, honey, let me sign those for you.”  He didn’t realize they were his.  I said, “These are the ones you wore in the movie.”  

“These are the ones I wore in the movie?”  He seemed genuinely surprised.  I told him yep and showed him the little nametag on the inside collar that read “Bud 2”.  He said, “Omg, that’s so cool, where did you get these?”  I explained to him where I got them and that it also came with his t-shirt, jeans, and boots, too.  He asked if I wanted him to sign them.  I did, but it would be even better if I got him to put them on.

“Yeah, if you want to.   Orrrr, you could cosplay as Bud today,” I joked.

He chuckled. “I could cosplay as Bud today?  Ommgg.  Yeah, I could.  Or you could cosplay as Bud.”  

I shook my head no and grinned.  “Nooo, I don’t cosplay,” I replied.  (I’m waaay too shy and self-conscious to cosplay.)

He leaned back on his stool, threw his head back and laughed.  Rooker's laugh is one of my favorite things on this planet.  And making him laugh was one of the greatest feelings in the world.    

About that time, Sean's helper came over and took a picture of Rooker holding the coveralls up.  She thought they were really cool, too.  Rooker asked her, “Where's, Sean?  He's gotta see these.”  But Sean was still in the green room.  

The coveralls have a huge rip on the backside so of course I had to know why.  I was kidding around with Rooker and asked him, “What did you to ‘em?”  He said, “Let's see,” as he unfolded them.

When he found the rip, he said, “Oh, oh, I squatted, and they ripped.  Yeah, I squatted down, and they ripped.  Like, when I was squatting down doing the door, they ripped.  My whole bottom ripped out.  And I was like, ‘Thank God the camera was on my face ‘cause if it was on my ass end my underwears would be showing.”  We all burst into laughter.  

We chatted a little bit more and he asked me again if I wanted him to sign them.  I told him, “If you want to, yeah.”  

“Where do you want me to put it?   I’m gonna sign ‘em for you.  You don’t have to pay, ok?”

I told him that I had already paid, though.  He said, ”Oh, it was part of your VIP?” We then decided the best place for him to sign the coveralls was on the front pocket.  He signed his name and said, “Bud, right?”  I told him yes it was Bud, and he wrote Bud under his signature.  Then he asked his helper to hand him the 8X10 of Bud he had available for autographs.  

“Do we have one?  Gimme that photo of Belko.  I’m gonna give her a photo with this.  This totally deserves a photo with this."  

He took the photo and started signing his name.  

“Here, all yours, baby.  Here, I'm gonna put it like this.”  He signed the pocket on Bud's coveralls in the picture the same exact way he signed the coveralls.  He then held the picture next to the coveralls and said, “There, looks just like it."  He busted out laughing and said, “That's for you.  Thank you, honey.  Oh my goodness.”  He threw his hand up for a high-five.  I thanked him and high-fived him back.

Trust me, I was elated for the handshakes and high-fives so far.  (His hands are so soft by the way).  But I was itching to get a hug.  I didn’t know how many more chances I would get so I decided to just go for it. “Can I get a hug, Rooker?  I gotta get a famous Rooker hug.”  He hollered, “Get over here woman!  Get over here!  Give me a big hug, love.”

I walked behind his table and gave him a big hug and told him I'd see him later.  He grabbed my hand as I walked away and said, “You're awesome, honey!”  He didn’t let go of my hand as I told him that he makes me forget things and that I had another present for him but I had forgotten it in my car.  He laughed and then he caught my friend recording the whole thing on her phone.  He grinned and said, “Heyyyy, no video…”  Busted.  But he didn’t care.

After leaving Rooker, we had just enough time to scarf down some lunch and then head to Sean and Sully’s panel.  When the panel started, the doors opened and there they were waiting on the other side.  They had stolen a golf cart and hilariously failed at trying to drive it into the room for their grand entrance.  So, Sully simply threw the golf cart in reverse, they both said “byyyyye” and he drove back down the hallway.  A few seconds later they both came back in the room, Sully at a sprint which carried him around the entire audience and Sean walking slowly behind to the stage, announcing he was too old to run.  Sully ended his dash with a Rooker-esque roll onto the stage, stood up and took a bow.  

Their panel was amazing, too.  They were both so, so funny.  They talked a lot about Guardians and even threw in the story about Rooker mooning Dave and Pom on set, which led Sully into a comical conversation about mooning in general.  They made me laugh so freakin’ hard.  If you ever get the chance, definitely go to their panels.  You won’t be disappointed.

We had planned on going to the Smallville panel a little later, but the line getting in the room was insane.  I used to watch Smallville back in the day, but I had no idea how huge the fandom still is.  It was pretty impressive.  Because of the crowd, we decided to skip the panel and go see Rooker again.  

We ran out to the car to get Rooker’s gift and then headed to his booth.  I also made sure to bring the Belko coveralls again so Rooker could show Sean.  I guess everyone was at the Smallville panel because the con floor was pretty empty.  I was kind of glad.  Hopefully, that meant I’d get to talk to Rooker for a good bit of time.

When we got there, his helper laughed and said, “You’re back, again?  And with another gift?”  I smiled and said yes.  She joked, “You gotta stop buying him shit.  He’s doing alright, you know.” I joked back, “I know, but I love him.”  She understood though.  I mean how can you not love Rooker?

About that time the fan talking with Rooker walked away, and I stepped up to him at the table.  His helper announced to him, “She's back with another gift.  She's like your sugar mama.”  Rooker grinned that sexy Rooker grin and said, “Hey, Sugar Mama!” I joked, “Yeah, I’ll be your sugar mama.  What you want?  Anything?  You need some more coffee?  I’ll go get you some coffee.”   He busted out laughing, and I handed him his gift.

I had gotten him a blue shot glass made from a 30mm shell casing that had been shot from an A-10 Warthog plane.  I had it engraved with Michael “Yondu” Rooker on the side.  I’m pretty sure he loved it!  I had left it in the clear packaging, and he immediately ripped it open and lowered his glasses so he could read it better.  I...saw...his...eyes...y’all.  In person.  Not hidden behind sunglasses.  Don’t laugh.  It was a very big moment for me.  

He leaned over towards me on the table on his elbows and kept saying how cool the shot glass was and how he couldn’t wait to drink some whiskey out of it.  He asked me how much whiskey I thought it would hold.  I laughed and said I have no idea.  

We talked some more and he thanked me and came around the table to give me another hug, this time trying to include my friend.  She sort of backed away trying to give me all the glory of Rooker’s hug, but he pulled her in anyway.  It was somewhat of an awkward, sideways hug, but I didn’t care.  A Rooker hug is a Rooker hug!  His arm ended up kind of across my neck right under my chin so I reached up and grabbed his arm as I hugged him.  I...touched...his...bicep.  It was..um..very nice.

When he pulled away from me, Sully walked over holding up an 8X10 of what I believe was of himself that someone had written on and showed it to Rooker.  When Rooker read it he about fell on the floor laughing.  He said, “Now, now, that’s nothing to be ashamed of!”  He snatched the picture out of Sully’s hand and laid it on Sean’s table and began writing on it, too, laughing the whole time.  Rooker’s helper asked if we had seen what was written on it.  I had been trying not to be nosy, so I hadn’t.  We told her no, and she said, “It said ‘When is the right time to talk to your doctor about erectile dysfunction.”  My friend and I started laughing.

I turned back to Sean’s table, and Rooker was still writing on the picture saying, “There’s nothing wrong with erectile dysfunction!”  Sean and I made eye contact and busted out laughing.  Rooker then turned and walked back towards me with a huge grin, looked me right in the eye, and said, “There’s nothing wrong with a little erectile dysfunction...well, I mean there is something wrong with it, but...” He trailed off into a mischievous giggle.  Y’all, I had never laughed so hard in my life.  

When he realized I was holding the Belko coveralls, he immediately took them from me and whirled around to show Sean.  “Sean, look what she has!”  Sean came around his table and said, “Whoaaa, are those the real ones?”  Rooker told him yes and explained how I got them and then held them up to show Sean the big rip in the back which made Sean laugh.  Sean thought they were really neat, too.

Rooker came back over to me and was folding the coveralls up and said, “These are really beautiful.  You know, not a lot of these exist.  Thank you for bringing them to show me.”  I told him they were my prized possession (which is the truth... they really are the coolest thing I own).  He said, “C’mere, baby, you get a double hug!”  He gave me another huge hug, this one a little longer than the first, and a little bit of my hair got caught in his scruff as I pulled away.  I’m sure he didn’t even notice, but I certainly did.  That scruff...

We walked back over to his table so I could get my bag.  I had made a little drawstring bag specifically to wear at Fandemic to haul stuff around in.  It says “I’m lost.  If found, please return to Michael Rooker”.   I showed it to him and he laughed really hard and gave me a high-five and said, “I love it!  You’re so great.”  We then said our goodbyes for the moment and off I went again.

That afternoon I had my Dixon Bros. photo op.  While we were waiting in line, Rooker came over to the Photo Ops area and saw a family with a little baby boy in a stroller nearby.  He made a beeline straight to the baby.  The little boy pointed up to the ceiling and blabbered away at Rooker.  Rooker looked up to the ceiling, too, and said, “OoooOooh,” and acted surprised at whatever imaginary thing the baby was pointing at.  Rooker then baby-talked to him for a minute and tickled the little boy’s tummy before he left to go behind the curtain.  Y’all, it was the sweetest thing I’ve ever witnessed. 

When it came time for photos, as soon as I got behind the curtain, Rooker said, “Get over here, baby,” and again grabbed my arm and pulled me in between him and Norman Reedus.  When I went to put my arms around them, my arm got caught on the bottom of Rooker's jacket, and I accidentally lifted it up about a third up his back.  I heard him make this little chuckling sound as I fumbled to free my arm from underneath his jacket, my hand unintentionally rubbing his back.  I’m not sure he knew what I was going for because the next thing I knew, he started rubbing my back.  For the entire time.  Even after the photo was taken and I was walking away, his hand was still rubbing on my back.  Let me tell you, a Rooker backrub is everything you would imagine it to be, but at that moment, I was just a tad embarrassed.  And my face in the photo pretty much showed it.  But, oh well.  If that was the only way I was ever going to get a Rooker backrub then it was worth it.

After the Dixon Bros. photo op, I went to go see Michael Rosenbaum who was super nice, too.  I paid for a selfie, and he said, “Ohh, lemme take it!”  I handed my phone over to him for what I thought would be just one picture.  He wouldn’t stop taking pictures of us though, and one picture turned into a comical mini-photo shoot.  Each time I thought it would be the last picture he would take so my facial expression changes to a higher state of silliness with each one.  They’re hilarious, but let’s just say very few people have seen those pictures.

Day two was drawing to a close, and I decided that I might go see Rooker one more time before we left.  We walked over to his booth which was empty at the moment.  He was standing there eating chocolate covered pretzels and watching an artist drawing portraits of Harry Potter characters across the way.  Anyone that knows Rooker knew what he was about to do next.  

Rooker left so fast from his booth that he dropped a pretzel on the ground.  He went directly over to the artist and asked him to play Santana over his speaker, jokingly rushing him along when the artist couldn’t find a Santana song quick enough.  Rooker then grabbed a colored pencil and began to draw on the picture the artist had been working on.  

Rooker messed around with the artist a couple more minutes before he returned to his booth.  He took the time to take a few pictures with some fans that had gathered around, joked with the little kids, and danced to the songs the artist was still playing before he finally left for the day.  I didn’t get to talk to him again, but just watching him dancing was enough for me.

When we were headed back to the car that afternoon, I told my friend, “I can’t remember ever being this happy before.  Seriously, these last two days have been the best days of my life.”  I’m like a lot of people in that I struggle with depression and anxiety and self-image and the feeling that I’ll never be good enough.  But with Rooker, he makes all that disappear.  I don’t think he’ll ever realize how much he means to me and how important he is in my life.  

Fandemic Houston Day 3 – September 16, 2018

I had been awake since 4 a.m. on day three.  I couldn’t wait to see Rooker, but I couldn’t stop thinking that this was going to be my last day with him.  I didn’t want the weekend to end.

I spent the early morning hours before my alarm rang making a detailed schedule and an even more detailed script in my head of all the things I wanted to say to him before the con closed at 4 p.m.  I still had my two solo photo ops with him, too, and one last gift to give him.  More importantly, I wanted to make sure I got the chance to tell him thank you and goodbye before I left.   And I had to fit it all in between getting my Jeffrey Dean Morgan autograph and photo op.

It was about 10:15 a.m. when we got to the NRG center that morning.  I was hoping I'd get to talk to Rooker first thing.  I had one last picture for him to sign, which had something to do with a special request for our photo op.  He wasn’t at his booth when we finally got inside, though, so I decided to get in Jeffrey Dean’s line to get his autograph about 10:30 a.m.  

A fairly big crowd had already gathered for Jeffrey Dean.  But my Rooker photo ops weren’t until 1 p.m. and my Jeffrey Dean op was at 2:10 p.m.  I figured I would have plenty of time to see Rooker before our photo ops.  

We were again standing in the perfect spot to watch all the celebs come out from behind the curtain.  A little after 11 a.m. they all started to trickle out.  And, y’all, when Rooker finally walked out?  Dayuuumm, daddy.  He wasn’t sporting his usual leather jacket paired with a black or navy or white v-neck t-shirt look.  He wore a black button-up shirt with the collar unbuttoned low and looked sexy...as…hell.  I mean the man always looks sexy as hell, but...well, y’all know what I mean.  I immediately checked in with the Rooker Hookers and told them Rooker’s wardrobe choice for the day.  Again, don’t laugh.  I just get excited when he switches things up.  

We were still waiting in Jeffrey Dean's line when they made a huge announcement around 11:30 a.m.  Norman Reedus had to leave the con early.  All the Walking Dead photo ops had to be bumped up.  I started to panic a little.  

My Jeffrey Dean photo stayed at 2:10 p.m., but Rooker and Norman were supposed to have Dixon Bros. photo ops at 3:25 p.m.  The con closed at 4 p.m. so I figured Rooker would probably be leaving right after.  But I had to tell Rooker goodbye before we left.  I just had to.  Now I was afraid with all the photo ops being bumped around I wouldn’t get to.

Noon came and Jeffrey Dean's line had hardly moved.  He had only been out at his table for maybe 45 minutes or so and now his time would be even more limited because the photo ops had to be moved up.  His line was so long that they ended up bumping the people who had pre-purchased an autograph up in line. That included me.  Whew.  We had gotten closer but were still so far away.  The minutes were counting down until my Rooker photo ops.  I was a nervous wreck.  If I stayed in Jeffrey Dean's line, I would be cutting it reaaaally close.  

I left my friend in line and went to explain my situation to one of the Fandemic workers nearby.  I told him I had Rooker photo ops at 1 p.m. and if I didn’t make it up to Jeffrey Dean would I be able to get a refund for his autograph.  I didn’t want to get a refund.  I love Jeffrey Dean and had been looking forward to meeting him and getting his autograph.  But I couldn’t miss my Rooker photo ops.  That was completely out of the question.  The worker looked at his watch and told me that I would make it, but if it got too close, he would move me up in line.  That made me feel a little better.  

I got back in line, but I couldn’t stop checking my phone for the time.  I really needed to show Rooker the picture I wanted him to autograph before our photo ops.  The minutes were ticking away and the line was barely moving.  Finally, about 12:30 p.m., I left my friend again in line and went to go see Rooker.

I went over to Rooker's table and paid his helper for another autograph.  She asked if I wanted to pick out a picture, but I told her I already had one.  She said, “Ooh, can I see?”  I showed her and told her it was my all-time favorite picture of Rooker, and I was hoping I could get him to do the same pose for our photo op.  She loved it and told me that he had done a similar pose the day before.  Aaah, there was a chance.

I walked up to Rooker holding the picture against me so he couldn’t see it right away.  I asked him, “Will you sign one more thing for me?  I was also wondering if you’d reenact it for our photo op today.”  He just grinned and said, “It depends.  Lemme see it.”  At that moment, I was so glad there wasn’t anyone else around.  I had no idea what his reaction would be.

I told him it was my all-time favorite picture of him and handed it over.  He instantly busted out laughing when he saw what it was.  In the picture Rooker has his shirt lifted, one hand pointing to his nipple and a ginormous smile on his face.  He asked me where I even got it.  I told him I found it on the internet.  I reminded him about one of the Rooker Hookers meeting him and having him sign his naked ass from Mallrats.  He laughed and said he remembered that.  “I’m just carrying on the tradition of having you sign off the wall pictures,” I said.  

He told me that he doesn’t normally sign pictures like that, but for me, he would.  While he signed it, I told him that I had two photo ops with him and that they couldn’t be the same and asked him again if he would do that same pose for one of them.  He laughed and said no.  Then he took off his glasses completely to look at the picture more closely.  I...saw...his...eyes again for a long time.  He was trying to remember where the picture was taken and what the hell he was doing.  He said the glasses he was wearing were his old ones and that he didn’t have them anymore and the shirt he had on was his old Harley Davidson shirt.  I was too embarrassed to tell him I knew the picture was taken at James Gunn’s old house.  I was afraid yet again that he would think I was a batshit crazy stalker.  

We talked about the picture a little more and then he looked up at me laughing and said, “You dork.”  Rooker called me dork.  Out of all the things he called me that weekend “dork” was definitely my favorite.  I begged him one more time to do that pose for our photo.  He just laughed and shook his head and said, “No.” again.  Unfortunately, I didn’t get to talk to him very much longer because I had to hurry to get back in line for Jeffrey Dean so I told Rooker I’d see him later.

My friend hadn’t made it very far when I joined her back in line.  By then it was pushing 12:40 p.m.  I was starting to get nervous again.  I only had 20 minutes left until Rooker photos, and the line was...moving...so...slow.  

About 12:55 p.m., there were only three people ahead of me in line.  Jeffrey Dean was right there.  Surely I would make it in time.  He finished visiting with the fan he was talking to, and I heard him tell one of his handlers that he needed to take a break.  Uh oh.  Panic mode.  I went up to his other handler and explained that I had Rooker photo ops at 1:00 p.m. which was in three minutes.  She said, “Ok, no problem.”  She went up to Jeffrey Dean and told him my dilemma.  I felt horrible cutting in line, but I got to meet him real quick before he went on his break.  

He gave me a huge hug when I went up to him.  (Jeffrey Dean gives amazing hugs by the way and is one of the nicest human beings I’ve ever met.  Annnnd even sexier...as...hell in person).  I handed him the headshot I had of him and he said, “Oh, fuuuuck, this is awesome!”   I said, “You were a baby.  Lookit you.”  He said, “I was a baby!”  He then turned it over to look at his resume, and was like “Whooa, this is a loooong time ago!  You know awhile back when everyone was sharing their first headshots for “Headshot Day” on Instagram and shit, I didn’t have one.  I shoulda called you.”  That would be the dream I thought.  I snickered and said, “Uh, yeaaah, you totally could have called me!”  He laughed and we talked some more about his headshot.  Then he asked me if I wanted him to sign it to me or just with his name.  I told him that he could put my name if he wanted and he personalized his autograph for me.  I told him “thank you” and he said, “Oh, you’re very welcome and it’s nice to meet you.” He gave me another huge, extra-tight hug, and said, “Tell Rooker I said ‘hey’,” as I told him bye.  Gahhh, I’m still gushing over Jeffrey Dean, too!

After I left Jeffrey Dean, we booked it over to the photo op line.  We were a few minutes late, but luckily Rooker hadn’t made it over there yet so the photo ops hadn’t actually started.  A few minutes later Rooker came over and went behind the curtain.  He was holding some sort of arrow thingy? With a bullet on the end?  I still have no idea what it was.

When I got behind the curtain for our photos, Rooker pulled me to him and I put my arm around his lower back right above his waist.  His shirt was so silky, and I could feel his lil’ love handles. Swoon.  He put his arm over my shoulder and kind of threw his head back with a smug look on his face for the first photo.  The Rooker Hookers say it was his “Yeah, this is my Sugar Mama” pose.  I’m not sure if that’s what he was going for, but I like that idea.

After the photographer took the first photo, Rooker went to tell me thank you like he had done the previous days.  I told him though that I had two photo ops.  (I had told my friend that if she would go with me to Fandemic I would buy all the tickets, and she didn’t want to take any pictures so I used the photo op that came with her VIP ticket).  He said, “Oh, you have two?”  I shook my head yes and replied, “What are we gonna do, Rooker?  They can’t be the same.”  He looked at me, thinking for a second, and then grabbed my necklace.  I have a necklace with a little silver bullet on it (or I did...it broke like two weeks after Fandemic.)  He held the bullet in his fingers and said, “You show off your bullet, I’ll show mine,” meaning the little arrow thingy he was holding.  So, I held up the bullet on my necklace and he held out the arrow thing for the second picture.  I personally never would have thought up that pose, but it made him laugh and that’s all that mattered to me.  And I got another short bonus Rooker backrub as we said goodbye.  

A little while later, I had my photo op with Jeffrey Dean.  He gave me a big hug for our picture.  I’m horrible at taking pictures, but that one actually turned out the best out of all the ops I had that weekend.

After Jeffrey Dean, it was pretty much time to go.  As much as I didn’t want to, it was time to go see Rooker for the last time and tell him goodbye.  

Rooker had an 8X10 of Sean as Kraglin and was drawing various funny things all over Sean’s face while casually talking to a fan who I’m assuming had met him before when we got to his table.  I wasn’t trying to be nosy I promise, but I could hear a little of what they were talking about.  At one point, the guy mentioned Rooker’s hair and how much he had grown it out.  He asked him if it was for a specific reason, like for a movie or something.  Rooker told the guy that his granddaughter had actually asked him to grow his hair out so he would have long, pretty hair like her.  My heart = melted.  He then said that it wasn’t working.  It was making him worse.  You’re wrong, Rooker.  Seriously, I don’t think you can get any more perfect.

While Rooker was still diligently drawing on Sean’s picture and talking to the fan, another guy walked up and asked his handler if Rooker was in Cliffhanger.  The handler said yes.  The guy said, “Oh man, I knew it!  I can still hear your voice!  Like when your lady fell in the beginning.”  Without even looking up, Rooker said, “That fuckin’ bitch!  I knew what she was doing up there with Stallone!” and then laughed.  

When it was my turn, I went up to him and asked, “Are you sick of me yet?”  He said, “Noooo.”  I told him I had one last thing to give him, and it was kind of a dumb one, but all my friends told me I had to give it to him.  I said, “Do you remember when James called you Winnie the Pooh in that one post?”  He said, “Yeah.”  I plopped down a little stuffed Pooh Bear in front of him on the table.  Pooh was dressed in black and white prison stripes with a ball and chain on his leg.  The patch on his shirt said “Prisoner of Love".  Rooker laughed and said, “Aww, this is for me?”  I told him yes, and that I knew it was kinda stupid and I don't normally go around giving grown men stuffed animals.  “You're actually the only grown man I've ever given a stuffed animal to,” I said to him.  He laughed again, and said, “Well, I actually love stuffed animals.”

He immediately took the tag off of Pooh's ear and then held him up towards one of his helpers and the couple of people in line at the end of the table and made Pooh “growl" at them.  He then turned to the handler standing right next to him, shoved the little bear right in the guy’s face and made Pooh wave and said, “Fuck you, bitch!” in a goofy, high-pitched voice.  

He made himself laugh, that silent kind of Rooker laugh where his head is thrown back and his mouth is wide open, his whole face lit up, and came around his table to give me a hug.  Then....it happened.  The single greatest moment of my life.  

With his smile never fading, he grabbed my face in his hands and kissed me on the cheek, an added “mwah” for sound effect.  

Time froze.  I could feel his fingers in my hair.   His scruff rough against my face.  I couldn’t believe what was happening.  My brain ceased to function properly, and I went into survival mode, struggling to simply form words.

As soon as it happened, my brain took that script that I had made up in my mind early that morning, ripped it up into a thousand little pieces, tossed them in the air, and screamed, “Haha, time to improv, bitch!”  I could no longer remember a single thing that I had wanted to talk to him about.

I was stunned.  I was in a daze.  For the first time that entire weekend I was speechless.  

My friend chimed in very quickly to save me.  “You should show him your dogs!”  As he still stood next to me, he said, “Oh, you have dogs?!”  He sounded way more excited than I would have thought he’d be to see my dogs.  I reached into my pocket and pulled out my phone.  But Rooker had broken my brain.  I was in auto-pilot mode, and I was forgetting a major detail.  

It wasn’t until I hit the home button to turn my phone on that I remembered one of Rooker’s Skillset photos is my lock screen and a picture of him laughing on the set of Brother’s Keeper is my home screen.  OMG!!!  

I freaked out a little and playfully pushed him away.  “Oh, don’t look at my phone, Rooker!  You’re on it!”  It was too late.  He had already seen it.  He backed away laughing and said, “Oooh, girl, you makin’ me look sexxxy!”  I’m sure my face was red as a tomato at that moment.

My Instagram account was the quickest way to get to pictures of my dogs, so I pulled up the app.  Rooker was so close to me.  We were standing shoulder to shoulder, our arms were touching, him looking at my phone the entire time.  It didn’t occur to me until much later that I know he saw everything on my Instagram:  my IG name which is basically the same as my Tumblr, my icon which is him, my description that says I’m obsessed with him, the memes I’ve made of him.  

I opened up the picture of my dog as James Gunn.  Rooker pulled down his sunglasses to look.  He didn’t remember Gunn sharing that picture either last Halloween, but he did say Bruce was a beautiful dog.  Then I showed him the “Rooker vs. Rooker: Grumpface Edition” meme I had made of Rooker and my dog.  I pointed to my dog and said, “That’s Rooker.”  He turned and looked right at me.  A few seconds after we made eye contact, he busted out laughing.  It was my favorite kind of Rooker laugh, the Rooker laugh where he’s trying so hard not to laugh and is grinning but holding his mouth closed until he can’t take it anymore and just lets it go.  Rooker loved my dog.  He said, “Omg!”, gave me a fist bump, then grabbed my phone, walked over to his handler and shoved my phone in his face to show him.    

When Rooker handed me my phone back, he hugged me again and then held up his hands for a double high-five.  I high-fived him, but this time he didn’t let my hands go.  He let our hands fall down together, our fingers interlocked.  He kept them that way the whole time I talked to him.  I never wanted that moment to end.  

I then told him that we had to get back on the road to Louisiana, and I just wanted to tell him goodbye before we left.  I said, “Thank you, Rooker.  For everything.  For putting up with me all weekend.  This has seriously been the best three days of my life.”  He held out his arms and said, “Awww, c’mere, baby.”  He hugged me again, and I laid my head against his chest.  It was the longest and the tightest hug he had given me so far, and I made sure to pay attention to every little detail:  the cool, silky feel of his shirt on my face, the smell of mint, the way his back felt under my hands.  I could have stayed there forever.  When we finally let go, he said, “Thank you for coming to see me.  Y’all drive safe,” and we said goodbye.

And with that, I walked away.  It was over.  Our “see you tomorrows" had become our final goodbye.  It was all so bittersweet leaving through those convention doors for the last time.  Over three days, Rooker had high-fived me, fist bumped me, called me pet names, held my hands, hugged and kissed me.  I had made him laugh more than once.  He had made me melt 100 times over.  I know I was lucky to have had such an amazing experience with him, and I couldn’t have been happier.  But knowing that there wasn’t going to be a tomorrow with him made me terribly…sad.

I had spent almost a year saving for Fandemic.  It wasn’t cheap, but I had done a lot of photo ops and gotten a lot of autographs and had the time of my life.  I had justified spending so much money by telling myself that this was more than likely a once-in-a-lifetime thing, and I’d probably never get to see Rooker again.  After that weekend, I knew I couldn’t let that happen.  I've already started saving for my next con.  That man means the world to me, and I don’t know where or when (hopefully sometime really soon), but I have to go see him again.

So that’s it.  For the ones that made it this far, that's the story of my little Fandemic adventure, my getting “Rookered" for the very first time, the best three days of my life.  Michael Rooker is the most humble, nicest, most generous, funniest, silliest, best hugs in the world givin’, sweetest person I’ve ever met.  He’s charming as hell, not to mention the sexiest man alive.  There’s a reason he’s my favorite person on earth.  There are not enough words to describe how much I love that man, and I truly hope everyone gets to meet him someday.  

The end.

And, p.s., my new windshield wipers are still going strong 😜.

[diveronarpg]

Congratulations, ROGUE! You’ve been accepted for the role of HAMLET. Admin Sidney: I’m so happy to finally say that we have a Hamlet! We’ve waited so long for someone to truly understand and grasp that softness that lies so deep within such a troubled soul such as he. But what caught my eye most was your plans for his future, for the downfall and the paranoia, for the true test to what perhaps is the most valuable currency within Verona: loyalty. Such an outstanding application, and I can’t wait to see him on the dash!  Please read over the checklist and send in your blog within 24 hours.

WELCOME TO THE MOB.

Out of Character

Alias | Rogue.

Age | 21.

Preferred Pronouns | She/Her.

Activity Level | Fairly active! I try not to leave replies too long, and keep threads moving forward. I sometimes have to leave them 2-3 days but I’m good about asking for hiatus when I need it.

Timezone | PST.

In Character

Character | Henry Zhang, also known as Hamlet.

What drew you to this character? | Hamlet is one of my favorite plays, and it’s one of the first I ever did in theater, too, so it has a soft spot for me. I have always found it interesting to dissect and disassemble Hamlet’s character, because there are so many interpretations for his actions. In the case of Henry, his addiction is an interesting layer, and one that I really want to explore. I like smart characters, the ones whose minds work too fast for even them to follow, and it would be very fun to play a character who is slowly unraveling. I also admit that I’m drawn to a drama queen. I like characters that push people out of their comfort zone, characters who have power and enjoy that power, or at the very least are hungry for more.

What is a future plot idea you have in mind for the character? | ✘ — Henry seems like he’s on his way to rock bottom, in a free-fall that he knows has an end point, but there’s nothing he can do to stop himself from crashing into the earth. What is it like when an angel of war has fallen? How does that change you? In the moment, exhilaration, and in the end only pain. I want to push him on that journey, that slow descent into isolation and paranoia that comes with being an addict and refusing to believe that you are. I want to watch him fall, watch him burn, and push him to rise again, different but no more whole than when he began. Break him and make him anew, but with the old parts still present.

✘ — Adding to the list of reasons for Henry to be paranoid, he strongly believes that someone within the Montagues may be responsible for his father’s death. I would love to test his loyalty; he’s felt strongly connected to the Montagues his whole life, certain that they are his people, people he can rely on. How does this affect his closest relationships, particularly with people like Roman and Hector? Does he reach out to any neutral, or even worse, Capulet assistance in his investigation? On the other hand, does his paranoia tarnish his reputation among the Montagues? Do people begin to think he’s gone mad? Perhaps he has, or maybe, they decide, that’s what he wants them to think. I love exploring the machinations, the inner workings of this complex and, to a certain degree, broken machine.

✘ — It would be fun to assist Odessa. That’s what they all want, isn’t it? To get to the bottom of who murdered Alvise? Henry has greater motivation than most, seeing the mirror of his own situation in the Vernon family’s tragedy. It would be cool to see him attempt to push Odessa in interesting directions, perhaps even to become suspicious of her own family, as he has grown suspicious of his. How much projecting will Henry do on his quest to help her, and will it prevent him from helping at all? Or will involving himself in this investigation more thoroughly allow him the distance he needs to look at his own Father’s murder with fresh eyes?

Are you comfortable with killing off your character? | Kill me baby. In the excellent words of Emily Horne, Henry says, “Judge if you want. We are all going to die. I intend to deserve it.”

In Depth

♜ — What is your favorite place in Verona? Henry taps his fingers against the glass of the coffee table before him, staring through it as if it has the world’s answers hidden underneath. In a sudden movement, he draws one finger up into the air, as though he’s had just the greatest idea. ❝ Twelfth Night, has to be! Culture and all that. ❞ For a moment, it seems as though he’s finished, but he barrels on once more, indecision furrowing his brow. ❝ No, no, sicuramente no. Who can beat the view from the Castelvecchio? That’s the one. ❞ It almost seems as though he can’t pause, even to breathe, desperate to convince you that these are all, simultaneously, the only definitive answer. ❝Though I do love the tower, perhaps that’s the best view… It’s really not a very good question, is it? ❞ Henry crosses his arms, slightly annoyed, now. ❝ Really quite subjective. I do hope the others will be based in fact. I’m a busy man, and this is taking up valuable time. ❞

♟ — What does your typical day look like? Leaned back in his seat, one leg crossed over the other, he begins to look every inch the prince he’s been described as. It shouldn’t be possible to look refined and cool in a turquoise Gucci suit, but that’s exactly how he comes across; every inch of him lets you know that his time is money, and every second spent here answering boring questions is time he could be spending on moving assets or ascertaining something of worth. Though Henry has humored you with his first answer, this one is shorter, clipped and irritated. His fingers tap against the armrest this time, and the beat is faster, the tempo staccato and tinged with violence. ❝ Wake late, head to my office, try not to bang my head against the wall when I find 20 new problems have cropped up in my incredibly short absence. ❞ His smile is not a happy thing, merely a flash of teeth that imitates politeness in a predatory manner. ❝ Fix it all before whatever dinner meeting I have planned, charm my way through the city, and repeat. ❞ He doesn’t mention how many times he refills his flask, or how many of his father’s network he’s had to add to his suspect list, or the properties he’s sold and traded to get the information he needs, let alone the amount of times he’s had to scream at people lately over the loss of product thanks to this ridiculous storm. A prince must never get his hands dirty, not where the world can see them, but a captain must wade through the muck when necessary. What rules must he follow, to be both?

♚ — What has been your biggest mistake so far? Lying with body language was one of his earliest lessons. Rather than tensing at the question, he lets his head fall back in a loose, breathless laugh. Biggest mistake. As if categorizing his fuck-ups in order of importance is so simple. Several moments pop sharply into his mind — his first time breaking into his father’s whiskey cabinet, not asking his father what he was working on before he died, not telling his mother how much he disliked Cristian before his father died, not standing up to Damiano for Rome when it counted — and none of them are permitted past his lips. Instead, he shakes his head, looking you in the eye and daring you to challenge his answer: ❝ Waking up too late for espresso this morning. If I’d known you’d make this so irksome, I would’ve set more alarms. ❞

♛ — What has been the most difficult task asked of you? Once again, there’s no way he’ll give the response. He thinks of his hands balled into fists at his sides, standing next to the man he was 75% sure killed his father on the day of his funeral and watching his face twist into a macabre facsimile of grief that ill-suited Cristian’s smug face. He knows better than to strike out or even to make an accusation without solid proof, his head too logical for that, but even remembering the expression in Cristian’s eyes at his father’s funeral makes Henry want to bare his teeth and snarl. Instead, he merely shrugs, glancing at the walls as if they provide more interest than whatever you mean to accomplish. ❝With responsibility, difficult tasks are asked of you each day. If I listed them all, it would bore us both to tears, and I’ve made many a vow not to be boring. ❞

♜ — What are your thoughts on the war between the Capulets and Montagues? Once, he would’ve had a thousand thoughts on his mind about this very subject, all at once. Not that he would share his strategies, but he at least could’ve taken his pick of excuses. Lately, the war has not occupied his thoughts as much as it should, though he remains devoted to his duties. If those duties have shifted, expanded, can he be blamed? ❝ As you must know, my father respected Damiano Montague greatly, just as I do. ❞ This is the response he must give, expected as much as it is true, though it’s Roman who holds his respect over Damiano these days. ❝ There are great players on all sides, but I’m sure you know this as well: I’m an intelligent man. ❞ Henry leans forward a moment, almost conspiratorial. ❝ Do you really think I’d pick the losing side? ❞

[ageeksnerdyworld]

It’s Only A Nightmare

Characters: Jett Leach, Emery Becker, Avia Carstairs, Kelly Ronan O’Connor, Isabelle Lombardi, Scribe Jenkins, Holland, and Walker

Word Count: 5,836

Trigger Warning: Swearing, Fighting/Arguing

A/N: Not much to say about this except that it’s the second part. And as always The Cyber World and the viruses therein belong to @voiceoflarka

Parts: X

Summary: People are falling victim to heart attacks all over Dashland. None of the cases are alike except for that fact. The body count is growing. And so the team is sent on their first field mission. Click the read more if you want to.

~~~

The detective had sent the group home after the fight despite their objections. He insisted that they rest up and heal. Everyone was hurt pretty bad and shaken to their core. Jett was still reeling from everything and couldn’t stand just yet. Emery sat next to him; comforting his friend. Avia had a winding crack along her forehead and small wisps of her soul began to flow out. Her eyes were shut and she leaned against Kelly for support. Holland was still passed out from over exerting their powers and so they had to be carried back to the detective’s car.

Once everyone was inside Legacy drove the group home.

Emery took up the window seat in the back of the van; leaning against the glass. Isabelle took up the other and Jett was sandwiched between them. Isabelle was staring out the window wide eyed. After a little while she looked away from the window and began pulling at a tear in her jeans. Walker, Holland, Kelly and Avia were uncomfortably squished like sardines in the very back row of seats. Holland and Avia sat in the middle, both fast asleep, and the other two flanked them. Avia’s head rested peacefully on her boyfriend’s shoulder. He wrapped his arm around her and held her close. He also held a cloth against her forehead in an attempt to ease the flow of her soul that had begun leaking out of the minor crack. Scribe sat in the front passenger seat next to the detective. She had a small pile of copies if each victim’s file. She was the only person on the team who thought to ask the detective if it was alright to take them.

“He’s probably hiding out somewhere near,” she said, after a long and uncomfortable silence.

“That’s what I figured,” Legacy responded; his voice stern and quiet.

“Then let’s fucking go back!” Emery yelled.

Legacy shot him a look through the rearview mirror that quickly shut him up. Emery crossed his arms over his chest and slunk deeper in the seat. He went back to staring out the widow; angrily muttering to himself. Obscenities and vile threats, mostly directed at the killer they were trying to catch, fell from his lips. Some were meant for the detective. Some of those angry words were directed at himself.

Walker reached over the edge of the seat and gave him a reassuring pat on the shoulder. Emery flinched in surprise, not realizing that anyone could hear him, but said nothing.

The rest of the ride was spent in total silence.

XXXXX

When the detective pulled up to their building they all filed out of the van; broken and defeated. He had offered to help those with more severe injuries inside. But, just as the words left his mouth, before he could even move to open the driver side door and get out of the van, Emery and Walker simultaneously shut down his offer. Legacy nodded, understanding that they needed to be alone for the time being, and watched the group stagger through the door. He continued to watch until they were fully out of sight.

He turned the key in the ignition, bringing the van back to life, and drove off into the night.

Once they were inside their dorm the group went their separate ways.

Walker carefully eased Holland onto the couch before going to their room. Scribe went to the room she and Isabelle shared; holding the files close to her chest. Isabelle also bolted for the room, grabbed a handful of clothes, and dashed into the bathroom. Jett went to the kitchen; head hung low. Emery followed at his friend’s heels.

Kelly led Avia to her room; nudging the door open with a hand. Her room had become a semi familiar sight since they had started dating. Sleek, stylish and neatly organized Avia’s room was an exact echo of her personality. Everything in her room had a specific place and it was entirely spotless. Upon opening the door and stepping into the room Kelly’s feet landed on the soft, white, faux sheep skin throw rug. He felt Avia slip on the rug and he immediately stopped.

If he let her fall and she got hurt any further he’d never forgive himself.

Kneeling down, keeping a hand on her back, he placed a hand under her legs and picked her off the floor. Holding her close to his chest he carefully passed by her stainless steel desk carrying Avia to her bed. Her bed was in the far left corner of the room and bookcase sat on the right side directly opposite the bed. A window sat a few above the floor, in between the two, which looked out onto the street. A long, rectangular, black ottoman sat at the foot of her bed.

The pair was nearing their sixth month anniversary and Kelly really wanted to do something for it. Avia always laughed the idea off saying it was asinine and childish. But after what happened earlier that night? He was definitely going to do something nice for her if they both survived this ordeal.

He carefully laid her on the bed and removed her heels; setting them on the floor. Then he unbuckled the strap of the scabbard at her side. Carefully lifting her up he slowly pulled the scabbard, and the rapier within, out from under her. Getting up from the bed he picked up her heels before walking over to the coat rack that stood by her desk. He hung the scabbard on one of the hooks. Then he walked across the room to the closet and set her heels down in the empty space on her shoe rack.

“Ke—Kelly?” Avia whispered; her voice weak.

“Shite,” he muttered under his breath before walking back over to her. He hoped he could’ve avoided being the one having to explain what happened. He sat on the corner edge of her bed and grasped her hand with a tight grip.

“It’s alright you—” he started to say but she cut him off.

“How’s Holland? Are they alright?”

“I’m not entirely sure. They sorta passed out after everythin’. Whatever the hell that guy did to Holly really messed them up.”

A sad look came over Avia’s face. She tried to explain to Kelly what happened when she was trapped in the shadows but he wasn’t having it. He gripped her hand even tighter and shushed her. This wasn’t a time for her to be worrying about anyone else. She needed to rest up and recover. He told her to lie back down and that he would get her something for the smaller cracks and bruises. She did.

“Get some sleep, mo ean beag,” he said leaning over to give her a kiss on the forehead. Then he quietly got off her bed and quickly crept out of her room.

He quietly closed the door behind him.

In the small hallway Kelly stopped for a few seconds, shaking his head with a sad sigh, before walking out into the living room. There on the couch, fast asleep, lay Holland. Emery and Jett sat next to one another on the other couch. Jett held a cup of cocoa in his hands, his ears flattened against his head, staring off at nothing. The other three were nowhere to be seen. It was rather normal for Walker to mysteriously disappear at random. It seemed to be a part of who they were as a person. Kelly assumed that Isabelle and Scribe were in their room; recovering from the events of the night. Kelly walked over to where Holland lay on the couch and lightly shoved their shoulder.

“Wake the fuck up.”

Holland didn’t move and Kelly smacked them in the face.

“Dude!” Emery yelled shocked.

Holland awoke groggy and confused; “What—What was that for?”

“Ye know exactly what ya big, steamin’, stinkin’, pile a garbage! Ye coulda killed her!”

Holland slowly sat up on the couch. It took a minute for them to realize what Kelly was yelling about. But eventually it dawned on them and their expression became remorseful and sad. They avoided Kelly and looked down at the floor instead. They sat with their hands clasped together in their lap.

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Ye better think a somethin’ before I hit ye again. Yer fucking stupid shadows, and damn possums, are the reason she’s got a giant crack in her fucking head!”

“Wait… what?” Jett and Emery had yelled at the same time. Jett dropped his mug of cocoa in shock. At the same time they both turned to the other for answers but neither knew what Kelly was talking about. And they were both ignored by the others as they argued. Realizing that he spilled his cocoa Jett apologized to no one and left to get something to clean it up.

“It wasn’t me. It wasn’t my fault! Don’t you get that?”

“Oh fuck my little white Irish ass and call me Shirley. Anyone else have shadow powers you lily lickin’ wet noodle? I don’t think so.”

“It was that Empath and you know it,” Walker said; seemingly appearing out of nowhere.

“Whoa, whoa, hold up there, Irish. What the fuck do you mean by a giant crack?” Emery yelled as Jett walked back into the room.

Kelly turned to Emery and began a rapid fire explanation. He started by saying that he was probably exaggerating a bit but that Avia did have a lot of cracks all over her body from the fact. There were lots of bruises too. And he knew full well that they all had minor cuts, scrapes, cracks and bruises. But Avia had the most and one of those cracks was on her forehead and looked pretty bad. He quickly corrected himself and said that he saw it, that her soul was slowly leaking from it, so he knew that it was bad. As Kelly described the severity of Avia’s head injury Jett lost all color in his face and his ears flattened against his head once again.

Kelly turned his attention back to Walker.

“Oh, now what? Yer gonna tell us not ta fight? That’d be the funniest thing to happen all night. Where the hell were you during that whole battle anyway? I didn’t see ye anywhere.”

Walker shrugged; “Getting my ass beat like the rest of you.”

“You know it is pretty damn suspicious that no one saw you during the fight,” Emery said.

“What are you the fight police or something? We were all distracted! Besides Leprechaun over here couldn’t see jack thanks to Tall, Dark, and Shadowy.”

The argument continued to escalate as the group got louder and louder. Isabelle came out from her room and stood on the outskirts of the argument. She tried to get the others to stop but it was of no use. They didn’t care if the noises bothered Scribe. They didn’t care if Avia was sleeping. They didn’t care to realize that what they were doing was stupid and counterproductive. They just wanted to tear each other’s throats out. She sighed and went back to her room.

Jett quietly got up from the couch and stood on the wood side table in the middle of the living room.

“EVERYBODY SHUT UP!”

They did.

“What happened to Avia isn’t Holly’s fault, alright? It isn’t Kell’s fault. And despite their oddness, and super shady behavior at times, it isn’t Walker Texas Ranger’s fault either. Hell, it isn’t even that, Fredario or whatever his name is, guy’s fault. It’s my fault. Mine.”

“No, dude, bro, it’s not your fault,” Emery protested.

“Yes. It. Is. You said it yourself last night, Beck,” Jett said; hanging his head sadly. “I’m team leader. So that makes this my fault.”

“I just said that to get you to do something, bro. I didn’t mean it like that.”

“There’s something else too.”

“What does that mean? Something else?” Walker asked; giving Jett a sideways glance.

“It’s a little hard to explain and it’s probably better to say it when everyone’s in the room and not actively trying to kill each other. Everybody get some sleep we’ll talk about it in the morning.”

They looked around at one another and realized that he was right. Sleep was the best thing for all of them at this point. Everyone nodded in agreement and went to their respective rooms. Except for Holland who was still in a ton of pain, both psychical and mental, as they plopped back down on the couch and fell back asleep. And Kelly who went to give Avia something for her injuries that were worse than they looked.

XXXXX

Scribe had changed shortly after arriving and was now wearing a dark maroon, long sleeved, sweater and a pair of black shorts. She sat on her bed, cross-legged, with her back against her pillows. A worn, well-loved, stuffed brown rabbit lay on the bed beside her. She pulled a sleeve of her sweater over her thumb. She was intently staring at one of the victim’s files.

Earlier that day she asked the detective if it was alright for her to take the files with her. He chuckled and lightly shook his head.

“That’s the reason for making copies,” he said. “But I guess your teammates haven’t figured that out yet.”

Her eyes read the information over and over again but nothing was jumping out. The group had only been home for ten minutes, maybe a little more, and she already ran through the five files twice. There wasn’t a file for the sprite boy they had found earlier that night. Not yet anyway. Scribe knew that they would most likely be one in the morning or the afternoon at the latest. The other files sat in a small stack to her immediate left.

There has to be something that connects them other than just the manner of death, she thought.

If there was she wasn’t seeing it.

Frustrated she picked the files up and laid them out on the floor. She flipped open each one to the first page and then sat down in the middle of the room. Then she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Scribe imagined herself in a large, empty, pool. Not necessarily swimming but floating in the water; letting it softly push her about. That’s when Isabelle walked in.

“Oh! Sorry! If you’re busy I can come back later. I don’t want to bother you.

“You can come in. Just don’t touch anything and walk quietly,” Scribe responded; eyes still shut.

“No biggie. I can do that.”

Scribe calmly listened to the empty air as Isabelle walked into the room. Isabelle stopped, paused for a few seconds, and then walked across. A soft thud reached her ears as Isabelle plopped herself down on the beanbag chair. Then Scribe opened her eyes.

Naturally the first file before her was of the first victim.

Enjay Sno. A fox virus originally from the Historical District. Female. Eyes: Blue. Hair: Brown. No veins and no powers. She had lived alone prior to her murder. The front page of the file also had two pictures of the victim. One was prior to death. It was the only picture the police could find in her apartment. It was of her and her boyfriend. He was questioned by police but proved to be innocent. In that picture Enjay was happy, smiling, and alive. The other picture was a headshot taken by the police department’s M.E.

Same old, same old, Scribe said to herself as she moved on to the next file.

Key Scotts, the second victim, was almost the complete opposite of the first. A human virus born and bred in Dashland. Male. He had green/brown heterochromia and his hair was black. His veins were a deep navy. He had no powers. Unlike the first victim he came from a well-to-do family of lawyers and had a good relationship with his parents. There were also two photos of Key. The first was a typical stylized headshot, his soul leaking through his left eye, and said nothing about the man in the photo. The other was after he had been dead for a few hours.

Her eyes scanned the second file for a connection.

That’s when the fighting in the living room got too loud. Far too loud to be ignored, far too loud to be background, and far too loud for Scribe. Scribe couldn’t handle all the noise and the stress of her investigation at the same time. She shut her eyes tight and brought her knees to her chest. Her mouth twisted in a pained grimace. Scribe brought her hands up the sides of her head and threaded her fingers through her hair. Her hands clenched and she started to pull at her hair. She pulled hard but not hard enough to pull any hair out. Yet.

“Oh no. We are not doing this tonight,” Isabelle said the exhaustion she felt audible in her voice.

Isabelle struggled to get out of the beanbag chair for a minute or two. She loved the chair but it was a hassle to deal with. It swallowed her small form. Once her feet were on the wood floor she walked briskly to the door and left the room. She was always light on her feet so she did all without making a single sound.

Walking out into the hallway the argument was even louder and she clenched her fist. Getting mad at each other after what they went through was stupid. None of this was anybody’s fault and they had to keep it together if they wanted to solve the case. Not to mention the fact that this was a pretty important part of their training. Fighting was just going to make everything worse. She turned the corner and immediately was met with the sight of everyone yelling, gesticulating, and trying not to throw punches.

Isabelle bit her bottom lip and began playing with her necklace.

Part of her wanted to take it off and throw it away after what that murderer did. But she couldn’t bring herself to do it. The necklace was too sentimental, too important, and filled with far too many memories. Nothing would make her part with it. The area on her neck where the cord sat burned and would remain a constant reminder of the earlier events of the night until it healed. She shook the thoughts away and spoke up.

“Hey, guys, all this yelling is really upsetting Scribe. Can you stop? Please? Don’t you care that you’re all making a teammate, a friend, upset?”

They didn’t listen so she tried a different approach.

“You’re going to wake up Avia. Kelly! Kelly! Your girlfriend needs to sleep you, big idiot!”

No one seemed to even notice that she was there. If truth be told Isabelle was far too exhausted to put up a real fight with the others. So she just left and went back to her room. She turned the doorknob and slowly opened the door. Isabelle didn’t want Scribe to get the full brunt of the noise since it was already bothering her.

That’s when Jett decided to scream at the top of his lungs.

Scribe’s body shook at the sound of Jett’s scream.

“Oh no,” Isabelle said; her voice full of worry. “I tried to get them to stop before but they didn’t pay attention to me.”

“It’s okay. They stopped now.”

“You sure,” Isabelle asked with a suspicion.

Scribe nodded. She went back to looking over the files; thinking that she found the connection.

Nabiyah Tomas didn’t have any powers. Sorris Daughtry didn’t either. The fifth victim, Secena Orion, didn’t have powers. Scribe knew that the young sprite didn’t either.

Isabelle wanted to do something to make her feel better after everything that happened that night. So she walked over to the shelf that sat above Scribe’s desk. On Scribe’s desk there was a replica of a human skull, a stack of notebooks, a laptop, and a small tabletop calendar. The top drawer on the right hand side was locked with a small padlock. But Isabelle knew what was inside it; a small handheld labeler and a label maker. The bottom drawer probably held more notebooks and pens. Isabelle stood far back enough from the desk that she wouldn’t accidentally touch anything. She knew that the shelf held Scribe’s dirt collection but she had to stand on her tiptoes to see the labels on the small vials.

“Don’t touch those. Those are mine. Don’t touch.” Scribe called from her bed.

“I’m not gonna touch them, don’t worry. I’m just looking.”

“Looking is okay. You can look.”

“Thank you.”

A few minutes passed as Isabelle looked at the vials of dirt. Each vial was corked and labeled. Some of the vials were labeled with small handmade tags while others had actual labels. Each label was composed of two set of numbers. The numbers were written in the same format; the first number was followed by a little circle, the second was followed by an apostrophe, and the third was followed by a quotation mark. Or at least that’s what it looked like at first glance. The longer she looked at the vials she noticed that the dirt in each vial was clearly different from the one before and the one after. It made sense since Scribe told her that she collected dirt from the places she had been to.

That’s when Isabelle realized that the markings weren’t what she initially thought.

They were a degree symbol, foot, and inch markers.

“The labels are coordinates,” she whispered to herself.

She turned to Scribe and repeated what she had said. “That’s pretty neat,” she added.

“You really think so?”

Isabelle nodded; “It’s different than just writing the name of the district but it’ll help you figure out— ”

“Where I am if I ever go back, yeah!” Scribe said with glee. “That’s why I do it! Dad understood that and said it was really smart. Mom never understood.”

“Wanna tell me a story about one of them? The vials?”

Scribe nodded. She already figured out the connection between the victims so she was done with that. The others needed time to calm down so she wasn’t going to bring it up right away. It was better to wait until the morning. So she gathered the files and began telling Isabelle the story about the first vial on the shelf. The girls spent the next two hours swapping stories of their childhood adventures, their parents, and home.

XXXXX

Jett had trouble sleeping that night.

Emery did as well.

They both found their way to the living room at same the time. Neither knew which one got up first but they seemed to be the only ones awake. Holland was still sleeping on the couch and so they tried to be as quiet as possible. Jett had changed at some point in the night to a pair of red boxer shorts and a gray tank. His hair, a complete tangled, sweaty, mess, was currently in a low pony. Emery knew why but he wasn’t going to tell his best friend that. But he also knew that he didn’t look any better. He could feel bags forming under his eyes and could smell his breath.

“You look like shit, man,” Jett whispered.

“Hilarious coming from you right now, dude. You look like a semi ran you over. Twice.”

“Harsh,” Jett said with a laugh.

They fell into an awkward silence which was new for the both of them. Then Emery pulled Jett back into their room and began rifling through his backpack. He threw what he didn’t want to the side and almost hit Jett a couple times. After a few minutes he pulled out every single pack of hair dye he owned. He told Jett to pick, or two, and then left him alone. Emery came back after a few minutes; with a pile of snacks and energy drinks in his hands. He dropped them on the floor and asked Jett what colors he picked. Jett held up two boxes. One was labeled Electric Hot Pink and the other was labeled Holographic Blue.

Emery nodded approvingly and took the boxes from Jett.

Before they left the room Emery grabbed a bottle of hair bleach. Then he went into the kitchen to grab a plastic bowl and a couple pairs of disposable gloves. He explained to Jett that the current color needed to come out first. Otherwise the new colors wouldn’t turn out the way he wanted them to. He pushed the bathroom window open and left the door ajar to attempt some sort of ventilation. He explained how to mix the bleach to Jett and then turned the shower on. Sticking his head in, he stood underneath it, for a few minutes. Emery left the bleach in his hair for a good two hours before washing it out; revealing his natural hair color. The boys spent the next hour or so in the bathroom trying their best to create some sort of an alternating color scheme of the selected colors on Emery’s hair.

“You should try and do a pink swirl or something in the patches of blue,” Isabelle called from the doorway.

“Holy shit!” Emery yelled in surprise.

The sudden sound of Isabelle’s voice had completely spooked him. In his surprise he doubled back and ended up tripping on the bathroom rug. He fell on his back and landed in between the bathtub and the toilet. Jett laughed. Emery tried to get up but he quickly lost his grip on the side of the tub and he fell again. Jett laughed even harder and this time Emery started laughing too.

“Sorry,” Isabelle said; grimacing and trying not to laugh.

“Don’t be,” Jett said as his laughter died down. “You didn’t scare me.”

“You’re fine, you’re fine. I’m doing alternating tips, anyway,” Emery said as he stood up.

“Are you two almost done? I kinda need to go.”

“Shit, fuck, sorry, I didn’t realize. Shit,” Emery said.

They were in fact done for the time being. All they had to do now was wait until it was time for Emery to wash the dye out. So the boys threw everything in the trash and took the remainder of their snacks. They apologized to Isabelle for earlier, and for leaving the door open, and left. Isabelle shrugged and then shut the door behind them.

Out in the hallway, much to their surprise, the boys saw Holland up and walking around.

“Holly you, uh… you okay?”

“Yeah, thanks for asking, Jett. I really mean that,” they said with a smile.

“You wanna watch a movie or something?”

“Yeah, I’d like that. Anyway I’m pretty sure I slept enough for the next month and a half,” Holland said with a laugh.

Jett and Emery got rid of their dye stained gloves as well as the excess dye. Holland helped when they were needed. Then the trio walked back into the living and Jett dropped the leftover snacks, and drinks, on the coffee table. Emery went about setting up the movie. Holland went about setting a few small throw pillows on the floor for those who preferred to sit there. Then they headed to the hall closet and grabbed a few blankets.

Isabelle came out of the bathroom and rushed over to the others; excited.

“Omigod, omigod, you guys! Are we having a movie night!”

“Yeah, guess so,” Jett said with a shrug.

“Awesome! Wait, wait, hold up I’ll be right back. Don’t start it without me!” she said before running off.

“Guess I should make some popcorn then, huh?” Emery said getting up from in front of the T.V.

A few minutes later Isabelle came back with her camera around her neck. She then plopped down on the couch. After awhile the smell of popcorn wafted through the entire dorm. Kelly and Avia emerged from her room and joined the others. Scribe also made her way to the living room around the same time.

Jett and Emery sat next to one another on the opposite couch. Holland took a seat next to Isabelle and then Kelly sat next to them. He patted the empty space next to him; inviting Avia to sit there. She stood on the outskirts of the group, behind the sofa, arms crossed over her chest. Her face was a mix of emotions as she eyed the others.

Avia took a moment and then sat next to her boyfriend.

“Movie night?” Walker said.

“They don’t have that wherever you’re from?” Isabelle said.

Walker didn’t say anything. But they sat on the floor on the opposite side of Scribe. The large bowl of popcorn sat in between them. Together the eight of them watched one of those mind-numbing comedy movies starring some celebrity only known for comedies. Halfway through the movie Kelly and Avia started making out and Emery threw a pillow at them. Everyone laughed.

Isabelle took loads of pictures; promising to make a collage. Walker constantly ridiculed the main character while Scribe pointed out structural flaws in the movie. Holland told them just enjoy the movie for its jokes. Emery and Jett simultaneously shouted that the movie had no jokes.

They all had fun, smiled, laughed, forgetting the earlier events of the night for a little while.

XXXXX

It was the middle of the night and the entire dorm was dark and quiet. Everyone was sound asleep. Everyone except for Walker who was preparing to go out. They opened the top drawer of their dresser and felt around inside. Soon they found what they were looking for; a small square-shaped panel. They pressed the panel in and a small hidden compartment opened up. Reaching inside they pulled out the item and sat in the middle of the floor. The item was a small dictionary with intricate gold leaf designs on the front and on the spine.

Sitting cross-legged on the floor they set the dictionary down and reached into the right side of their pants; pulling out a thin chain. They unhooked the chain from the ring that was sewn onto their belt. A small, metal, key hung from the chain. They wrapped the excess chain around their fingers and held the key in between their thumb and forefinger. A small keyhole was hidden on the side of the box that was designed to look like the pages of the book. They put the key in the lock and turned it.

The box opened.

Despite the box’s small size it held quite a few things. Things that Walker would never show to anyone; especially their teammates. But at that moment they were only concerned with the two items on the very top. One was a black leather respirator mask. The mask had become a bit tattered and faded over time but they weren’t going to replace it any time soon. The other item was a pair of goggles with a double eye loupe on both sides. The goggles had also seen better days. The leather straps were pealing in certain spots and the left side lens had a large crack in it.

Walker pulled both items out of the box, relocked it, and returned the box to its hiding spot.

They put the mask on and then pulled the goggles over their head. They moved their hair out of the way before pulling the goggles over their eyes. Walker walked over to the other side of their room and grabbed a coat from their closet. The one they pulled out was long, hooded, and made of black leather. The coat had a series of buckles along the sleeves, underneath the collar, and a belt. They put the cloak on and pulled the hood up before creeping out of their room and out of the dorm.

Once they were outside they roamed the streets for a while.

Every few minutes a sound reach their ears, and one would flick in the direction of the sound, or some passerby would catch their eye; putting them on high alert. They pulled the hood tighter around their head before ducking in an alleyway. Looking up they smiled at the sight of a fire escape on the side of the building. They quickly climbed up the ladder to the first landing and then they kept on going. Once they were at the very top landing of the fire escape they grabbed the edge of the roof and pulled themselves up.

They stood at the edge of the rooftop for a minute; looking at the people below.

There weren’t many given the time of night but there were enough to be looked at. Walker breathed deeply and took in the dusk air. Turning on their heels they started to walk across the rooftop. They could see the rooftop of the building next to the one where they currently stood. From the look of it was less than a ten foot gap. They broke out into a sprint. Then they reached the edge. They swung their arms back and jumped. Their arms swung forward as they leapt off the roof. They landed with a practiced grace. Walker used the momentum to roll a bit further onto the roof.

Walker stood up and immediately broke into another sprint.

This pattern of parkour continued as they ran across a few more buildings. They had to admit that they missed this. Doing something only for themselves. Doing something just because they enjoyed it. It had been such a long time since they had done this they were a bit surprised they still had it in them. But repetition leads to muscle memory and they would be able to do no matter the breaks they took. This was something they would always go back to. The adrenaline, the alone time, the feeling of the wind in their hair.

Everything about nights like these was perfect.

They stopped on the roof of the sixth or seventh building. Or was it the tenth? They lost count awhile back but they didn’t really care.

The building was maybe a thousand feet, maybe closer to two, Walker had no clue. But it was tall and seemed to be one of the taller buildings in the area. From their vantage point on the roof they could see the tops of the other buildings. They perched on the edge of the roof and turned the eye loupes down so that they could actually see the city below. Doing so allowed them to see more of the city below. They scanned the area for anything that would be unnatural, or out of the ordinary, for this time of night.

“Old habits die hard, huh? Seems like yours die even harder, الأرنب الصغير,” said a voice, mockingly, from the dark.

[laufire]

Name a ship that most represents your type of ship.

Isabelle and Raphael from Shadowhunters, hands down. (Beware: this turned into a long post that talks at once about all my current -and some not-so-current- otps).

-LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT. “Why are you helping me?” “I don’t know.” – Shadowhunters

Half my dash must be tiring of hearing this, but I adore this trope. I love how it moves things along: the character is already in love -automatically, the relationship goes into Intense™ territory, you get swept into its groove, whether you like it or not (another reason why these ships, when they raise hate, the RAISE hate xD). Emori and John in The 100, Matt ~sensing Elektra across the room in Daredevil, Wes seeing Rebecca for the first time in HTGAWM, Derek and Jesse in TSCC (I want to start re-watching that show soon so I have that ship very present *sniffs*), Bruce and Selina in Gotham (and IIRC, every BatCat adaptation worth something has this in some form -it is a MUST).

With Rizzy, like with other ships (Caroline and Klaus in TVD, Bellamy and Raven in The 100), it might not be literally at first sight, but the result is the same: they might know of each other, but it is the first time that they really MEET, that something HUGE happens (Raphael feeding on Isabelle, Klaus offering Caroline his blood, Bellamy and Raven’s first time), when you can feel it. I love these cases too, because it offers the possibility of including a messy history/start/etc. (something that you can see at various points of this list lol), while simultaneously giving me the opportunity of experiencing the LAFS moment on present time, instead of in flashbacks (Elektra and Matt) or references (Harvey and Scottie in Suits).

-UNPLANNED, UNFORESEEN, UNWITTING. “But it doesn’t make any sense, it came out of nowhere!!” – the fandom lol

This is somewhat related to the LAFS point, and a criticism I’ve seen time and again about more than one of those ships, but in this case is multiplied by a hundred xD 

And I wanted to make a separate point for this because, lbr -you rarely see this complaint (or at least not as generalized) when a PILOT ShowTP goes for LAFS. But that is something I love about these ships: it wasn’t in the original plan, there was no “build-up” that could have pointed at it, and it’s likely that the writing team behind it never had an inkling of the effects the ship could have on the writing. Some of my favourite cases are Bellamy and Raven, Caroline and Klaus, Bonnie and Kai, Emori and Murphy… these ships irremediably alter the foundations of their ‘verse, they re-shape the story. I love that something that came “out of nowhere” can have that effect. I love it. 

This meta by @candyumbrella does a great job explaining this (far better than I could, and besides, this post is already getting longer than I expected ^^), and it even does it through Isabelle and Raphael. Her Ted and Tobin’s posts in general have been illuminating wrt how tv writers work, and in relation to this post, I’m more aware now of what makes me ship certain things, why something that on paper should be appealing to me falls flat, etc. I’d recommend them all, but beware because they will take hours of your life XD

-STAR-CROSSED LOVERS. “If it takes fighting a war for us to meet, it will have been worth it.” – Hamilton

Was there anyone who did not FREAK THE FUCK OUT with the “at the brink of war” line? Because I don’t believe them.

Look, it’s obvious. It’s cliché. I don’t care. I live for this trope. Allison and Scott from Teen Wolf was one my favourite instances of this trope (my bbys ;_;); it was one of the things that interested me of Allison/Derek too, as a crack ship; it was the whole premise of Still Star-Crossed and I’m not even gonna pretend I didn’t shamelessly enjoy every second. It was what instantly made Rosita/Waverly my OTP in Wynonna Earp, aka the most impossible out of all my rareships xD. Priya/Sierra and Tony/Victor in Dollhouse (I never know wtf to call the people on this show istg) had this element too, even if it was in a “us vs the world” sense, more than “we’re on different sides of a conflict way bigger than us and everything is stacked against us fuck” lol. Cassian and Jyn could go there too.

And obviously, Isabelle and Raphael as a ship have this written on its DNA, given how the ‘verse positions Shadowhunters and Downworlders. Outside the 219 scene (*_*), I think 213’s meeting in the alley managed to showcase it really well.

-EX-SOMETHING, EX-MAYBE, EX-ALMOST. “Well never be done with each other.” – Shadowhunters 

I loooooove exes. Actual exes, proto exes, centuries-old exes. Something I love even more is “bitter exes that still have a special connection no one else gets or beats” (Camille and Magnus, Carlos and Kisa on FDTD, Elektra and Matt, Harvey and Scottie -and on the bitterest, most fucked up side, with ships like Katherine and Stefan on TVD or Derek and Kate on Teen Wolf. I even consider Rosita and Waverly could belong here, idc if it was one simple kiss okay xD). Obviously Isabelle and Raphael aren’t bitter, but they might get there, if I’m lucky! A girl can dream! (weird thing to say about an otp? I don’t care xD)

And one thing that is significant of these types of ships, and obviously of Raphabelle, is that, whether they’re together or not (hell, Izzy and Raphael have never really “dated”), narratively speaking, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t make any difference. They’re still connected, one simple scene where they merely look at each other across a crowded room can resurrect the ship after years not even speaking to each other. Hell, with Caroline and Klaus it only took one phone call xD 

-CAN’T QUIT EACH OTHER. “I’m just asking for a little taste.” – Shadowhunters

I guess this relates somewhat to the previous point, but I wanted to reference the addiction plot because for me it isn’t a bug, it’s a feature xD I’ve seen people say things like “I know they started out as problematic™ with the addiction, but now that they’re over that, they could be a gr10 ship!!”, and fuck that¸ tbh xD They’re a great ship because of the addiction storyline. It adds this messed up layer of wonder, of doubt, over the ship that I love. And obviously, there’s the appeal of “we’re bad for each other but we can’t stay apart!!” angst. My lizard brain likey. And it’s definitely a huge part of the appeal of Matt and Elektra, BatCat in general…

-SHARING SECRETS. “Nobody knows. Except for you.” – Shadowhunters

Things like Isabelle admitting she doesn’t feel strong, Raphael revealing the story about her sister, Bellamy telling Raven about how he felt about his mother’s death, Harvey confessing about Mike’s fraud to Scottie even if he knows it won’t make any difference, or only being capable of admitting to her voluntarily that he’s seeing a therapist… That kind of thing gives me so much joy :D

And lbr, the “except for YOU” part? HUGE draw, yup. 

-CHARGED INTIMACY. “#they might as well have been alone #were there other people in the scene? who cares. they were all irrelevant. – @magalimoons lol

Any shipper would know what I’m talking about. That moment where Isabelle leaves mid-conversation with Alec and Meliorn in 214 to go to Raphael, or when they talk at the end of 210, or when they talk in 219. Bellamy and Raven in 413, when he’s telling her how much they need her and everyone and everything else disappears of the room (that’s the scene referenced above lol), or when A.L.I.E. posses Raven, and despite everyone else being one room away without even a door separating them, this feeling of intimacy falls over the scene. Caroline and Klaus looking at each other when he appears during the graduation event in 423, Root and Shaw in PoI. Literally everything about Rizzy in 209. 

*Swoons*

–BLOODSHARING. “they have to suck your blood. And then you have to suck their blood. It’s like a whole big sucking thing.” – Buffy the Vampire Slayer

This has been one of my favourite tropes for-fucking-ever, guys. I think my first experience with it was Blade? Or Angel and Buffy? I’d say Blade. In any case: it changed my fucking life. The fact that Rizzy includes it is the cherry on top of this beautiful ship-cake.

On another note: blood transfusions totally count xD Furiosa and Max come to mind, for example.

There are other things that add to the ship for me: Raphael’s aceness (I project a lot onto him even without it so), the weird catholic/heretic themes xD, how beautiful they look together (I once was accused of “only” liking them because they looked hot together, which. LOL at the only, given this post and every other I’ve written about them, but also. OFC I like that they look hot together. That’s not only a good thing, it’s an IMPORTANT thing, among other reasons, because if the writers like your ship, they will look hot together xD).

And it’s not that if it doesn’t have any of those I won’t like a ship XD; in fact, some of my biggest OTPs lack some or even most of these traits (Gabrielle and Xena, Brigan and Fire in the Seven Kingdoms Trilogy, Clark and Lois in some versions), or that there aren’t other romantic tropes I love that don’t fit Rizzy (the Unholy Matrimony trope is one of my favourites, for example), but well. I know what I’m about xD

[alahmorah]

Imbibing with the King of Hell

Note: This is also on AO3. I decided to post it here, as well. 

Link for AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8533840/chapters/19563388

Pairing: Crowley (Supernatural) x Reader

Warnings: Will contain smut.

Summary:  You live and hunt with the Winchesters at the bunker. Crowley starts texting you, and wants to come over and drink.

Chapter 1

“Hello, darling. You seemed tense when I last saw you. If only you would’ve let me help you relax. I’ve been told I have magical hands. Anyways, could you please tell Squirrel to call me? I have something very important to share with him.”

Crowley and his damned messages…they had started innocent enough. Well, innocent for Crowley, at least—he needed Dean to call him. At the time, you were riding in the back seat of the Impala on your way back to the bunker after a hunt. The hunt consisted of a particularly tiring chase of a couple of shapeshifters who thought it would be funny to mess with an “Identical Twins Day” convention that was already chock-full of people that looked, well, identical. Luckily, casualties were kept to a minimum as the shapeshifters seemed to be causing trouble just for the fun of it. However, in the midst of the chaos, Sam and Dean’s phones and extra phones were snatched by the troublemakers and not recovered. You called Charlie to see if she could track them down, but she couldn’t, so you all assumed they were most likely destroyed.

After listening to the King of Hell’s voice message, you passed your phone to Dean. “Crowley wants you to call him. He says it’s important.”

“It better be important. Last time he called he asked me how little Dean was doing…” he grumbled, dialing the number. You laid down in hopes of passing out like Sammy who was drooling in the front next to Dean. You dozed off, not paying attention to their conversation.

A few weeks after that first voicemail, he started sending you texts.

Hello, darling. How’s my favorite hunter?

Hey. I’ve been better. Since when did I become your favorite hunter?

Since I first saw you. Is something wrong, dear?

Yep. Got a large gash in my arm. The boys are forcing me to recuperate.

Does that mean you’re laid up in bed whilst texting a handsome demon?

It does.

Mmmm….what are you wearing?

A fluffy black robe. Why do you care? What are you wearing?

I’m wearing a suit. I’d like to be wearing less, but I’m stuck in this insufferable meeting.

Why are you texting me? Go manage Hell or torture some souls, Crowley.

Is that a command, darling? I do love it when you boss me around.

You’re off your rocker. I’m going to bed now. Goodnight.

Dream of me. xoxo

Of course, you just had to dream about the infuriating bastard that night. Not that dreaming about Crowley was anything new to you. The demon was charming and elegant and strikingly attractive.

The next evening, you had just finished your fourth glass of wine and you were pouring another as your phone’s messaging tone sounded.

Thinking of you, pet.

You seem to be doing that quite a bit lately.

It’s hard not to. What are you doing this evening?

Drinking. Alone. Boys are on a case and I’m stuck here. You?

I was engaging in a bit of torture. But it just wasn’t doing it for me.

So, you were torturing someone and thought of me? How sweet…

Yes, well. I’ve had a long day, and I need a drink as well. Would mind if I joined you?

I’m not sure how the boys would feel about that.

I visit them all the time, dear. I just want some intelligent company.

Fine. Just don’t, ya know, kill me.

I couldn’t kill you. Even if I did, it wouldn’t be worth it. Moose and Squirrel would kill me, you know?

Oh, I know. Bring booze.

Of course.

And, of course, you had forgotten about the warding that didn’t allow him to just pop in. So, you made your way to the front door when you heard the incessant knocking sound. When you opened it, there he was, as dashing as ever in his damned suit. The handsome bastard was holding a bottle of his beloved Craig in one hand and a sweet-red wine in the other.

“I brought my favorite and your favorite. Where shall we imbibe?” he held up the bottles, questioningly.

“Imbibe, “you laughed, "…always so formal, Crowley. I’m drinking in my warm, cozy bed and listening to music. That’s where I’m imbibing. Follow me for the party, fellow imbiber.”

Crowley seemed slightly amused. “Are you going to make fun of vocabulary all night, darling?”

“Maybe. But, you’ll probably like it, right? Don’t you like me because I’m entertaining?”

“That’s one of several reasons I enjoy your company, I suppose.”

You could feel his warmth close behind as you walked down the hallway to your room.

“I’ll just have to see if I can get you to disclose some of those other reasons,” you thought as you opened your door. You gestured for him to go in first and got a breath full of pure, clean masculine scent that contained a slight tang of whiskey. You grabbed a few tumblers that you kept by your mini-fridge and handed him one. He grabbed the other one from your hand with a smirk and poured you both a drink while you turned on some music.

You propped yourself on your pillows at the head of the bed and got comfy. He tilted his head in question as he handed you your drink and you patted beside yourself, inviting him to get comfortable.

“Already allowing me into your bed, love?” he said, taking off his shoes.

“I’m not going to sit properly in a chair right now. I want to relax and drink. I figure you need to relax, as well. You should take off your suit jacket, tie, and belt while you’re at it,” you replied.

To your surprise, he sat his whiskey on your bedside table and began to loosen his tie. You watched his hands as they worked the tie off, and his throat as it was exposed. You sipped your wine and kept eyeing him as he took off his jacket. When he touched his belt, you felt a pleasant twinge of excitement. He didn’t move to take it off, so you looked up at his face. He was smirking at you. There was a devilish twinkle in his now darkened eyes. They looked like they were on the verge of turning into their demonic red, like they were stuck in the transition between normal and evil. And all that did was turn you on more. You drank down the rest of your wine in a few too-large gulps and quickly stood up to break eye-contact with Crowley and pour yourself another drink. You brought the drinks to your bedside table to avoid repeatedly getting up for refills.

“So, darling, do you know of any good drinking games?” Crowley was propped casually in a nest of pillows, his feet crossed at the ankles.

“Umm, I don’t play many, but one that the boys and I play sometimes is ‘One Truth, One Lie’. Basically, you tell a truth and a lie, shocking right? The name pretty much spells it all out. If the other person guesses the lie, then the person who said it has to drink, and if they incorrectly guess, then they have to drink.” You sat back down next to him, careful to not get too close. He smelled delicious, but you didn’t want to make any rash decisions and start cuddling him or anything.

“Okay. I’m game. I have a picture of a dog in my jacket pocket. I have a picture of a moose in my trouser pocket.” he stated matter-of-factly.

“Well, I’m going to say that the dog picture is the lie. I can totally see you carrying a picture of a moose just to taunt Sam,” you laughed.

“And you are correct in your assumption.” He drained the little bit of Craig left in his glass and refilled it.

“My turn, then. I’ve never flown in an airplane. I’ve never gone scuba diving.”

“Well, let’s see. I have no idea, but I’m assuming more people have been in an airplane, so I’m going to say that one is the lie.”

“Wrong. The boys and I went scuba diving last year, but I have flying anxiety. Not that I should have told you that…”

“I’m not going to use it against you, darling. We’re just getting to know each other, right? I don’t want to harm you.”

“Sure, sure. Now drink up.”

“Ok. I have slept with both men and women. I participated in an angel gangbang once.”

“Well, I doubt many angel gangbangs occur, but I could totally see you in bed with a man or a woman.”

“You’re right, actually…the gangbang was all in my head. So, you’ve imagined me in bed with different genders before, hmm?”

Of course you had, but he didn’t need to know that. You just blushed and he smiled at you, draining his glass yet again.

“My turn…and, since you’ve gone and dirtied our questions, I guess I’ll follow your lead. I’ve never had sex with a non-human. I’ve never had two men in me at the same time.”

He shifted closer to you in the bed, causing your heartbeat to quicken. “So, my little innocent hunter isn’t so innocent, is she? Let me guess. You’ve had multiple partners simultaneously, but you’ve never fucked a monster.”

Instead of answering him verbally, you downed your full glass of wine. It went straight to your already buzzed head, and it felt like your face was flushed crimson with warmth.

“Darling. I could remedy that for you, if you’d like.” His eyes darkened and flashed red.

You stared at them, wanting to gaze into them while he pleased you. You wanted him to watch you with those otherworldly eyes while you pleased him. But, this was the first time you had been alone with him. You didn’t want to throw yourself at him just yet. You always enjoyed the chase, the anticipation of things to come. So, as much as your body reacted to this man—scratch that, demon—you weren’t going to give in just yet.

You stood up, moving towards the door. “I’m going to head to the bathroom while you think…so, make the next round a good one, okay?”

“Sure thing, darling. Though, I think we’ll stay on the path that we’re treading on now. It certainly has made the game more interesting.” He winked. You tried not to react to it.

You slipped out and hurried down the hallway as quickly as your tipsy brain would allow. You just needed to put some space between the two of you for a few minutes. I mean, fuck. You already wanted him, and now, here he was, playing a drinking game with you, getting you all worked up. Your highly aroused state seemed to make you feel even more inebriated, like the natural high of arousal was layered with the altered state of being slightly drunk. Every sense seemed heightened, which did not help your plan to not fuck his brains out immediately. Why did you ever agree to drink with him? Oh yeah, to hang out and relax. Like constantly fighting against yourself is relaxing. Your damned traitorous body wanted him, and it wanted him now.

Once in the bathroom, you soaked a washcloth in cold water and placed it on the back of your neck in an attempt to cool your body down.

“Get a grip on yourself, woman.”

“I’d like to get a grip on him.”

“I know that. But, we can’t just jump him.”

“Why not?”

“Because…”

“You don’t even know why.”

“I’m not a slut who’s going to fuck someone just because I’m attracted to them.”

“You’d totally be Crowley’s #1 slut. Slutbags.”

“Damn, my inner voice is being a bitch today,” you told your reflection.

A few cleansing breaths and splashes of cold water on your heated cheeks had you feeling more in control. You made your way back to your room with a tiny bit more composure and confidence. That is, until you opened the door.

“I’ve seen Sam’s cock and I’ve seen Dean’s cock.”

“Well, hello to you, too.”

“The game, darling. Which one do you think I’ve really seen?” He cocked an eyebrow up, the bastard.

“Hmm…I guess it can go either way. Neither one of them has said anything to me about it. Sam?”

“A few months ago, I popped into Dean’s hotel room while he was touching himself. He didn’t even know I was there, at first. So, I watched him until he came all over his stomach, and then I thanked him for the show and popped back out. The look on his face was priceless.”

“So, why did you watch him finish first?” Damn. That question came out a little more breathy than you would’ve liked. But, you had to admit. Imagining Crowley watch Dean stroke himself was hot.

“Are you kidding, sweetheart? It’s Dean-Fucking-Winchester. The man is gorgeous. Don’t tell him that I admitted to that.”

“I’m not telling either of them about any of this, to be honest. I don’t know what their reaction would be.”

“So we’re to be secret friends, huh?”

“For a little while, maybe. I kind of like it, though. I mean, who around us would suspect it? The sweet, innocent little human hanging out with the King of Hell? I mean, variety’s the spice of life, right?”

“I suppose it is.”

“So, did Dean have a nice cock?”

“He certainly did, darling. Otherwise I wouldn’t have stuck around to watch. So, does that mean you’ve been working with them all this time and you’ve never seen them naked? I would’ve thought you three were going at it all the time. In fact, I have thought about it.”

“I guess they aren’t attracted to me. I don’t exactly get much action apart from the thrill of hunting. We don’t really have a lot of down time for pursuing relationships, either.”

“Oh, sweet little hunter. I’ve seen the way they look at you. Trust me, both of them would love nothing more than to feel you writhing beneath them…to taste your arousal, to shove their cocks down your—”

“Okay, Crowley, I get it! You—talking like that—is not helping my predicament right now.”

“Oh? And what predicament is that?” He waggled his eyebrows. The cheeky son of a bitch.

“Oh, no. We are not opening that can of worms tonight.”

“I thought we were friends now, darling. You can tell me. I’m not shouting anything from the rooftops, you know.”

“I’ll tell you another time, I promise. Now, do you want to play the game anymore or just drink?”

“How about we finish our current glassful and you dance with me?”

“I don’t really dance, Crowley.”

“I just want to move with you, darling. It’s relaxing to me. Just two friends swaying to the bloody music, okay?!”

“Fine. SassyMcHellPants.” You rolled your eyes and finished your glass as you stood up and sauntered over to the middle of your room.

He stood up and stalked towards you as the next song began to play.

“Why. Why this song? Did he use some demon mojo to select this track?”

The slow, velvety tune permeated the room. His eyes were fixed on yours, and you couldn’t find it in yourself to look away. Crowley brought one hand gently to your waist, softly griping it, as his other hand fit into yours. The bass kicked in, a smooth and gentle bouncing of notes, and he started to sway.

“See, pet. There’s nothing to it.” His voice had dropped, his tone lower. You could feel the muffled rumbling in his chest as he spoke, and you wanted to rest your head against it. But, you couldn’t be the one to break eye contact first. You were transfixed by his expression. He looked like he had finally figured out a difficult equation, like he had been searching for an answer for ages, and it suddenly dawned upon him. He almost smiled, but not with his mouth. It was all in his eyes. You watched as he shut them, perhaps to savor the moment. That’s when you pulled him closer and buried your face into his warm chest.

He hummed to the music, like he knew you wanted to feel the muted vibrations of sound coming from him.

“You know, I don’t get enough of this. A little down-time with a beautiful woman…” He moved his face closer to your hair and inhaled. “You smell delicious, sweetheart.”

You were torn. You wanted to savor the sweet caress and sway that you were currently engaging in, but you also wanted to push him down onto your bed, strip off his clothing and taste him.

Apparently, the song and your brain were in tune, as the lyric “you’ll go to hell for what your dirty mind is thinking” was sung.

And, you would. You’d go to hell. Crowley would be there, and in this moment, that fact made hell seem downright heavenly.

The music drifted off, coming to a close, and you felt a faint vibration coming from Crowley’s pocket. His face was still close to yours, partially buried in your hair, and he let out a growl that made your body throb pleasantly.

He retrieved his cell phone and checked to see who was interrupting.

“I’m terribly sorry, darling, but unfortunately I’ve got business to attend to.”

You pouted.

“I should very much like to meet with you again soon.” He rubbed his hands down your arms, warming you, careful not to disturb the bandage on your arm. The thought of being alone made your insides cold.

“Yeah. I want to hang out again, too. Anytime. You’ve got my number, so…” “Wow, way to go. Sound desperate why don’t ya?”

“I do.” He gathered your hands in his and brought them to his lips, kissing them softly.

With a snap of his fingers, his belt and suit jacket were on. His silver-grey tie hung from his hand.

“A little something to remember me by, darling.” He slipped his tie on your neck and tightened the knot until it rested against the base of your throat. His thumb brushed across the pulse in your neck, and you caught a glimpse of his signature wink just before he disappeared.

It took you a few minutes of savoring the memories of the evening before you realized that he must’ve tinkered with the warding while he was there. That damned, infuriating bastard.

You ran your hands through your hair, stopping when you noticed that the bandage on your arm was gone—as was the wound that it covered.

“He can heal?!”

Chapter 2

[worldsandcenturiesfunposting]

Late to the party: Should Video Game Journalists be good at video games?

You might have seen that cuphead video where some video game journalist spent over a minute trying to get past the tutorial and then proceeded to get railed over and over in the first level. The video is a little less than 27 minutes long and he doesn’t get through the first level in those 27 minutes. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=848Y1Uu5Htk Take note that the original title was Cuphead Demo at Gamescom: It Isn’t Easy

What you probably didn’t see was the description in the video. No one reads those but I think there’s a lot to pick apart and ramble about at 4:30 in the morning because I’m a lonely sack of shit with nothing better to do

But here’s the man himself writing to his defense: https://venturebeat.com/2017/09/08/the-deanbeat-our-cuphead-runneth-over/

My game crime: I was so bad at playing I was deemed unfit to be a game journalist. My Cuphead gameplay video from Gamescom blew up, inspired rage, and spurred discussions about the death of game journalism across Reddit, YouTube, and Twitter.

Don’t flatter yourself that much. People were talking about how game journalism was dead well before your video. Hell, you even mention GamerGate later in your article. 

It was a failure to communicate.

In the description of the video, they mention that the guy playing the game isn’t good at platformers in general and the video was uploaded as a joke. I don’t know how true that last part is, but assuming it is, they’ve apparently put in 0 effort to make that clear. No tongue in cheek title like “Let’s Fail at Cuphead!” or giving context in the description. Only after shit hit the fan did they edit the description explaining why the guy sucked so bad. 

I only wish my two books on the Xbox business generated as much attention as the Cuphead story. It is a humbling experience.

It would help if you books were available to buy at the store. I’ve been in plenty of book stores and haven’t found anything about Xbox business practices. There are ones partially written by Anita Sarkeesian though so I guess that’s close enough.

The more people looked at my poor gameplay, which I myself labeled shameful, the angrier they got. I played the tutorial so ineptly — failing to read the onscreen instructions to jump and dash simultaneously — and then went on, failing to conquer a single level. I said it was hard, and the fans saw my gameplay and decided I was a poor judge of difficulty. By a ratio of more than 12-to-1, the ratings on the YouTube video are negative. It wasn’t just the troglodytes of the internet who hated it. Most people hated it.

You failed an incredibly simple puzzle, one that literal children can figure out, and you want to throw out insults like “troglodytes” at people saying you were shit because they either didn’t see or don’t buy the “lol it’s just a prank bro” deflection.

Another game journalist (and some say “shitlord”

Including you or someone from your website in the description of the video itself:  A shitlord on Twitter also linked to this video and claimed these are the same people doing reviews. 

The guy they’re talking about is Ian Miles Cheong. Once a turbo feminist switched sides to a more pro-gamer stance during the whole GamerGate thing. Outside of that, I don’t know much about him and I don’t give enough of a shit about him to find out. 

He clipped it to the 2.5 minutes of the most damning inept gameplay, and he posted it to his followers. He used me to condemn all game journalists

The guy is literally a video game journalist though so it wouldn’t be a condemnation of all video game journalist. Just pointing out that you (and presumably others) are awful at video games despite being paid to write about them. Which is true. Like if this was a video of some 4 year old failing the tutorial, there wouldn’t be this ire. 

Raising the smoldering issues around Gamergate and its focus on game journalism ethics. His post was political propaganda for the disenfranchised gamers, the sort who went from Gamergate to the alt-right and elected Donald Trump as president.

At least you admit GamerGate was about ethics. The fact you then went on to then claim that its proponents went on to support the alt-right and got Trump elected is fucking horse shit for a few reasons. 

1. GamerGate was comprised of various people of various different political backgrounds. Yes, some members were what we’d now call the alt-right, but a lot of its members were also incredibly left leaning. A few political compass tests were taken over the course of GamerGate and it seems a huge portion of its membership were what’s described as left libertarians. 

2. Of all the reasons Trump was elected, gamers aren’t one of them. The shit system that is the electoral college. Mass propaganda efforts from Russia. A bunch of idiots who’d literally vote Republican even if Hitler rose from the dead and was the nominee simply because they’ll always vote Republican no matter what....but not a bunch of gamers upset over poor practices in video game journalism and attempts at shaming and censoring from SJWs. 

Get fucking real, Dean. You’re out of your element. 

Before he got to it, my video had maybe 10,000 views. Afterward, the Gamergaters, or hardline reactionaries — or whatever we would like to call them 

How about people who know how to play video games. I wonder if there’s a name for that. 

Crying conservative boogyman doesn’t help your own personal cause and it certainly doesn’t help your political side either. 

— believed this narrative fit into their views about game journalists just fine

That’s because even before this clip, there was a general negative opinion of video game journalists and here you are proving that it’s pretty well founded. Not only are a lot of them unethical, but some of them fucking suck at their jobs objectively. 

I despise how this was triggered by a viral post that represented the worst of fake news

Fake news is a Trump term. ALT RIGHTIST! ALT RIGHTIST! DEAN TAKAHASHI SUPPORTS DONALD TRUMP! 

Hmmmm, maybe that’s a stupid line of reasoning. Tell you what. I won’t use it if you don’t either? Deal? 

So he continues on whining about haters, giving his own life story, and he actually has the balls to say this: But during all of the time I have written about games, none of my bosses cared about exactly how good I was at playing. They required basic knowledge and competence, but not skill on an esports level.

He whines frequently about how mean people are for saying he shouldn’t be a games journalist if he sucks so bad at video games....and then goes on to say that the thing his bosses cared about was the very thing that people were pointing out he utterly lacks. 

Not a skill on an e-sports level? Nigga, you were playing a tutorial! Stop acting like people are demanding the world of you and realize that people require you have basic knowledge and competence. 

So blatantly dishonest. 

Guess what? Unskillful gaming is authentic.

That’s literally the excuse DSP uses to justify being bad at video games and leaving in all of the footage of him bumbling around not knowing that he’s doing. 

Here’s where my nonapology starts. Gamers need to stop being mean to those who aren’t skillful. They don’t need to put others down to elevate their own subculture. Games have gone viral. They’re more popular than ever, reaching 2 billion people around the world. They have become a $108 billion industry. It’s silly to look down on games.

No one’s looking down on games and no one’s looking down on people for no other reason than their lack of skill. For a lot of people if they’re having trouble, people will be more than willing to provide advice and pointers. Just ask any question about how to do something in a game on a game related subreddit and people will be perfectly fine to tell you how things are done without insulting you.

The fact that you’ve spent so much time playing and reviewing games, and it’s literally your job, is where it starts to cross the line. Games are 2 billion people and 100 billion dollar strong industry as you’ve said so clearly the ire thrown at games journalists who suck ass at their job isn’t a problem within the industry. 

That industry will grow bigger, and gamers will get better games, if we embrace the new gamers. 

You. Are. Not. A. New. Gamer. 

Stop acting like you’re defending other people getting shit when it isn’t other people who are a problem. This deflection is as apparent as it is pathetic. No one’s going after Minecraftkid2003 because he couldn’t figure out redstone when he first came across it. They’re pointing out that Dean  Takahashi, a video game journalist with 18 years worth of experience and has himself boasted he was playing video games since Pong isn’t able to figure out a simple problem solving exercise any faster than a goddamn pigeon. 

We don’t need to dumb games down. 

And then he says 

We can have adjustable difficulty, so that the unskilled and skilled alike can play. We can make tutorials even easier than the one that I failed at so miserably.

Alright, dumbass. I’m sure everyone reading this has seen the video I linked. Here’s what the tutorial required. It required you to jump on a box....and then jump in the air...and then use a dash move to get over a pillar that’s too high to jump over from the ground. 

There’s no losing conditions. Time is infinite. There’s no enemies. There’s no bottomless platforms of thing chasing you...it’s literally the easiest part of the game second to moving around map itself. How the fuck can it get easier? Does it need to outright say “Alright Dean, now comes the doozy. You need to press this button and then this button afterwords to solve the exact same problem. Here’s an animation of what it should look like. Can you follow it, Dean? I’ll play the animation over and over on the top of the screen so you can see what you’re supposed to do. If you do it, you get a gold star and Anita will give you the good boy award!”

No, I’m not blaming the developer for my own shortcomings. I respect the designers, even if I didn’t truly understand at first the games they’ve made. I would just like to make sure that they make their games for people who are new, or noobs, as well as hardcore fans.

Cuphead is specifically designed to be a challenging platformer for gamers who like more challenge. Designing it to be easier, especially a tutorial that has no losing condition, is counterproductive to what the devs want to achieve. It’s like asking Stephen King to tone down the horror in his books so that non-horror fans can enjoy them too without being too scared. 

If you want an easy platformer designed with everyone in mind, there’s plenty of great games that will fill that roll. Not every game needs to be made for everyone.

As Nolan Bushnell, cofounder of Atari, said, games should be easy to learn and hard to master. (Yes, I know Cuphead’s tutorial isn’t that hard to learn).

Then what’s the fucking issue, ding dong? 

No, I’m not celebrating mediocrity

You literally just did when you whined that Cuphead wasn’t designed for noobs in mind. Here’s one big thing though: You were’t even mediocre at it. Garfield is mediocre. You were just awful. 

like the Antonio Salieri character in Amadeus. I’m arguing that all gamers, casual or hardcore, deserve recognition.

They do, but not in cuphead. And all gamers aren’t paid to write their opinions on video games. 

We are not all going to be esports stars who rake in millions of dollars. 

You’ve been at this for 18 years and got money for it. You got to play a demo that a lot of people much more skilled and much more deserving would have liked to play and you did poorly at it because you couldn’t figure out how to do 2 step logic. 

But we’re going to be the masses of unskilled players who make the game companies, including the makers of Cuphead, as rich as they can possibly be.

If there’s one happy ending, it’s that Cuphead did do well on the market showing that contrary to what Dean believes, it isn’t a good idea for all games to be dumbed down to the point where even video game journalists are able to play. 

The rest is more sob story and personal history. 

---

So what are my final thoughts? Well first of all, if you can’t solve a simple 2 step logic puzzle in part of a game with literally no losing conditions, you really are stupid. Pro or noob, there’s some point where you have to wonder how dumb the person with the controller is. There’s plenty of cases like the previously DarkSydePhil and also this blast from the past from IJustine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkYxfjJ72k4 Like seriously: use your eyes and brain homie!

But what about being just generally bad at games or just not knowing how to play well? It doesn’t matter. Contrary to what Dean thinks, tons of people aren’t going to be major assholes to you just because you picked up a game for the first time, don’t know the ropes, but decide to record yourself playing and slowly learning them. Plenty of let’s players do blind runs where they go into a game with no prior knowledge of it and yeah, they make mistakes but people are generally cool about it. 

However, there’s a point where making these silly mistakes over and over becomes...something of an issue. I’ve been driving for several years. If I legitimately couldn’t figure out which pedal is the break and which is the gas after all this time, it would be fair grounds to call me a dumbass or wonder if there’s something seriously wrong with my brain. As people do something more and more, it’s expected that they’re better at it than someone completely new. When someone does that thing for a job, it’s expected that they’re better at it than the average joe. 

And that’s the big thing here that Dean never addresses: it’s his job. He writes more about the tech than he does actual gameplay, yes, but he still boasts in his own article that he’s been in the industry for 18 years and have been playing games since Pong. 

It’s not even the rest of the video that was the issue but instead those 2.5 minutes (which he complained about Miles Ian Cheong trimming the video down to as a highlight) where he’s unable to solve that simple two step logic puzzle in a tutorial level. I drove cars for years because I have to get from point A to point B and it’s beyond walking distance and it would already be stupid if I couldn’t figure out the absolute basics of it. If I reviewed cars for a living and drove cars for longer than most car drivers have been alive for and I couldn’t figure out the basics of starting it, that would be beyond pathetic. I don’t think there’s a word in the English language that would be able to describe that amount of disconnect between the experience I should have and the amount I display. 

He constantly hides behind the idea that we’re not all professional e-sport people and gamers come at all skill levels...but he’s not at all skill levels. He’s literally a professional. Playing and reviewing games is literally his profession just like writing code or cooking meals is a profession.

You know how on Kitchen Nightmares Gordon Ramsey gets so pissed off at people who don’t know the basics of cooking and how to handle a kitchen even though it’s their job and they should have learned that in training? It’s like that. We’re basically Gordon Ramsey here watching some guy call himself a chef and his output is microwave heated frozen mac and cheese that’s somehow still raw and yet also on fire. And he wonders why people are yelling at him over the internet. 

Should video game journalists be good at video games? Yes! Just like food critics should understand how to cook a meal or reviewers of literature should know how to read! I don’t even know why video game journalists are trying to make this a contestable point. If you suck at your job, either get better....or don’t have you job! Get another one! 

I’m aware that this whole thing is a bit of old hat and I’m rambling on more and more than this guy deserves, but it is indicative of a larger problem within the industry. Just like the Zoe Quinn thing or the doritos pope thing was indicative of issues in the larger industry. Video game journalism has an effect and if some of them aren’t able to beat a simple tutorial level and then without any hint of irony, whine that video games should be easier when people call him out on it....it’s just baffling. 

It’s now 5:45 and I still have nothing better to do lol so I guess I guess it’s time for a few final words

I don’t think this event will lead to GamerGate 2. Hell, one article defending this guy had the title that GamerGate 1 never really ended. I don’t know how true it is but it seems over three years later since it started, the issues and arguments that were the foundation of GamerGate are still a bit relevant. But now there’s a new one: Some video game journalists are not only unethical....but they’re also utterly incapable! 

Anyways, join me next time as I’m even more late to the party and write my epic response Martin Luther’s 95 Thesis followed by a point by point breakdown of Oag the Caveman’s declaration of “Fire bad!”