#where he pissed on Daphne and then gets kicked out

[cheddertm]

Yo, the Mystery Gang lookin a little different

(Pretend their color pallets are those of the MG)

Anyways I think it would be really funny if they were like a Mystery Gang (Foolish just got dragged their somehow).

Also these two were right LMAO, thanks guys 🙏

[foundtherightwords]

Fallen Empires - Chapter 3

Pairing: Geta x OFC

Summary: Having done the unthinkable to secure his throne, Emperor Geta rules with ruthlessness and paranoia. Now, after escaping an assassination attempt, a badly injured Geta is saved by Daphne, a young widow, who takes him back to her remote village without knowing his true identity. As Daphne nurses the former emperor back to health, attraction blooms between them, and Geta discovers a soft side he didn't know he possessed. But can their love survive his thirst for revenge and his desire to reclaim power?

Chapter warnings: stillbirth, mentions of surgery and blood

Chapter word count: 4.6k

Prologue + Chapter 1 - Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Geta's convalescence was a long one. Though the fever had broken, he was still frail, and even the slightest exertion left him breathless, his chest cramping painfully. He had never been ill in his life. While on campaigns, even when the army had been struck down with plagues, he had remained in good health. He had never even been injured, save for the one time in the Circus Maximus when he'd broken his leg for a foolish dare. He always saw it as a sign of the gods' favor, and this unaccustomed weakness infuriated him. For days, he lay tossing and turning in bed, cursing the traitorous Martialis for wounding him, cursing his body for its slowness to heal, cursing the army and the Senate for their inactivity and stupidity. Useless lot! They were probably running around like chickens with their heads cut off while he lay here rotting, while his enemies might be creeping closer, and he was helpless to defend himself.

It didn't help that the healer, Daphne, was always reminding him of his helplessness. Anything he wanted to do, she would say he was not well enough. He was tired of the constant thin gruel and broth that she was feeding him? He was not well enough for solid food. He wanted a bath? He was not well enough for a bath. He wanted some privacy to relieve himself? He was not well enough to get out of bed on his own.

It was this last thing that made him lose his temper.

"This is intolerable!" he shouted, though in truth it was more like a gasp. "Can a man even take a piss on his own?" He kicked at the chamber pot, which toppled over. Luckily, it was empty, and his leg had no strength, so the pot didn't even break. He remembered all too well that it was pissing on his own that had landed him here. This only incensed him further.

"There is no need for that kind of behavior," Daphne said, calmly picking up the chamber pot and setting it upright. "Now are you going to let me help, or are you going to stay there until you piss yourself?"

There was nothing he could say to that. Grimacing, he allowed her to put her shoulder under his arm. For all her thinness, she was strong and had no trouble lifting him to his feet.  

"If you don't stop working yourself up like this, you'll never recover," Daphne said, once he was done.

"I can take care of myself!" he snapped. He managed to get back into bed, where he lay panting and wheezing.

Daphne shook her head, clearly exasperated with his stubbornness but not wanting to agitate him further. "I'll bring you some valerian to help you sleep," she said, covering up the chamber pot.

"No! No more of your witch's brews!" Those made him feel like his head had been stuffed with wool and brought his ghosts back with such vividness that he feared they would step out of the shadows and into the waking world. "I don't want to sleep," he continued. "I want to see something that is not these cursed walls. Open that window," he ordered, though the window was so high up that he knew he couldn't see anything but the sky through it.

"It is open."

"Then why is it so stuffy in here? I can't breathe!" He clawed at the neckline of his tunic.

"It's not the room. It's your lung. The wound must be deeper than I thought." Still, she obliged him by throwing open the door and keeping it open to let in some air and light. "Let me see if I can find some mullein for that," she said, bustling out.

She was always bustling. In and out of the room, bringing him medicine and food. In and out of the hut, fetching water and firewood, drying herbs, mixing her concoctions. She hardly seemed to sleep. Even on the rare occasions she sat down by his bed, she was constantly moving, checking his forehead for signs of the fever returning, checking his pulses, changing the dressing of his wounds, or waving a fan over him to chase away the flies.

Always talking as well, though often not at him. He had been quite alarmed one day when he heard her shout, "Amalthea! Get out of the garden!" until he realized she was talking to her goat. The goat bleated in protest, and she responded, "And none of your lip, thank you very much. You know you're not allowed in there." It embarrassed Geta to realize she was talking to the goat much in the same way she talked to him. Her chattering, mixed with the bleating of the goats, the braying of the donkeys, and the buzzing of some insects, grated on his ears, making it impossible for him to focus on more important matters at hand—namely, how to return to his army, discover who was behind his assassination attempt, and exact his revenge.

But even at night, when it was all quiet, he couldn't think of anything to do other than to find his way back to Edessa as soon as possible and hope that the army was still there. Strategizing had never been one of his strengths on the battlefield; he'd often relied on brute force to catch his enemies by surprise. But how can one fight an unknown enemy? He tried to come up with a list of people who might want him dead, but it soon became too long to keep straight in his head. And so he continued to agonize in futility over his own helplessness, without making any progress at all.

Another thing that annoyed him was Daphne's calmness. No matter how much he raged at her, she remained unflappable, the slightly dour expression on her face never changing, like a weary mother used to dealing with her child's tantrums. But she wasn't a mother. As far as Geta knew, she had no family and lived alone, save for her animals—the donkey and a couple of goats.

For a healer, she received remarkably few visitors. Rather than wait for people to come to her like most healers, she would, every few days or so, pack two saddlebags full of herbs and potions, put them on the donkey, make her rounds in the village, and not come back until late in the afternoon. Geta supposed he should count himself lucky, for the remoteness and loneliness of the hut meant fewer chances of his enemies discovering him. However, since Daphne always took care of closing the door to his room and warning him not to make a noise whenever she went out, it only made him feel like a prisoner.

When Daphne returned from the village, he always asked if there was news, and she always shook her head. "But we're only a little hamlet," she added apologetically. "News takes a long time to reach us." It did nothing to reassure Geta. And, because he couldn't think of anyone from his circle to pin his suspicion on, he turned his suspicion to Daphne herself. True, she might have saved him out of the goodness of her heart, but who knew what she could have heard during her travels? She might have learned his true identity already. She might be in contact with his enemies and was waiting to hand him over to them.   

These suspicions took over his mind until he could no longer rest. He started to refuse his food and medicine until she tried them first, which she obliged grudgingly. He questioned her incessantly every time she went out, hoping to catch her in a lie, but she never slipped up. Eventually, he decided he needed to look through her possessions to make sure she wasn't hiding anything from him.

One day, after Daphne had packed her saddlebags and the clip-clop of the donkey's hoofs had faded down the hill, Geta carefully sat up in bed and put his feet down on the floor. Even this simple act made his head swim, so he had to sit on the bed for a while. Once the dizziness passed, he pulled himself up. Then, holding on to the walls for support and dragging one foot after the other, he made his way into the front room, which, during all his time in the hut, he had only seen in brief glimpses and glances.

It was not much larger than the bedroom and was as crowded as the bedroom was sparse. True, there wasn't much furniture—only a rough wooden table and a few stools by a window opposite the hearth, and a little cot in the corner—but the rest of the room was taken up by shelves upon shelves of amphorae, jars, bottles, vials of all shapes and sizes. A large stone mortar and pestle sat on the table, and bundles of herbs dangled from the low ceiling, giving off their bitter aroma. In the tiny hut with its dusty walls and floor, baked by the sun, the smell was suffocating.

Any of those containers could be hiding the evidence of her treachery. Geta picked up a jar closest to him, opened it, and recoiled as the pungent smell of vinegar hit his nostrils. It would be impossible to search them all.

As he stood looking about in confusion, not knowing where to begin, his attention was drawn to a shuffling sound outside the door. One of the goats? No, it was footsteps. Somebody was coming.

With a speed he scarcely thought possible, Geta turned and ran—or rather, staggered—back to the bedroom. He shut the door behind him just as the front door of the hut creaked open.

Clamping a hand over his mouth to stop his wheezing breath from echoing through the small hut, he put an eye to a crack in the door. An enormous woman, with a torso like a barrel and arms like tree trunks, was pushing her way into the hut. She had to bump the door open with her wide hip because her arms were laden with loaves of freshly baked bread. Their warm scent wafted toward the bedroom door, making Geta's mouth water.

"Daphne!" the woman shouted, making the hut positively tremble. "You here?" Then, although it was clear there was no one in the hut to hear her, she continued, "Just taking some stomachic, all right?"

The woman dumped the loaves into a basket by the hearth, where they would be kept warm, and took down a jar from the shelf with a practiced air. She decanted a concoction from the jar into a smaller vial, put the vial in a pouch on her belt, and went out again, leaving the jar on the table.

Geta knew he should go back out and resume his search, but the incident had left him exhausted. He sat down on the bed again. I'll rest for a bit, just until I get my breath back, he thought and fell promptly asleep.

A clatter woke him. The little patch of sky outside his window was tinged with purple and Daphne was bringing him his dinner on a tray as usual. Geta was enraged, mostly at himself. A whole day, wasted. He would have to wait for the next time she left.

"I heard a woman come in today, while you were out," he mentioned to Daphne, trying to sound casual.

"Oh, that would be Tatia, the baker. She brought the bread."

"She took something as well."

"Yes, I know. She left the jar on the table."

"So you just leave your hut open for people to come in whenever they want and take whatever medicine they please?" he asked, baffled.

Daphne shrugged. "That's how we do things around here."

"But—what if they take something they shouldn't? What if they take without leaving the container out? How would you know? What if they use your herbs to harm others?"

She fixed those inscrutable eyes on him. "Are you always this suspicious?" she said.

"Are you always this naïve?" he countered.

"I'm not naïve," she said calmly. "These are my neighbors. I know them and trust them. That's different than being naïve."

It was on the tip of his tongue to point out to her that the people one knows and trusts are mostly likely to betray that trust, but he stopped himself in time. If her conviction had served her well thus far, it wouldn't be his responsibility to open her eyes.

"But how do they pay you?" he asked.

"With their own products," she said, gesturing to the bread. It was true that he had seen her return from her rounds with amphorae of oil and wine, jars of olives, and even a length of linen. "We have little use for coins around here," she added.

Geta could well believe her. He had a coin pouch on his belt, containing a handful of copper asses, a few brass sesterces, and a silver denarius, as he always did whenever he went out. One never knows when the occasion may arise to play the part of a magnanimous Emperor by tossing a few coins to the plebs. But Daphne hadn't touched it. All the better. If she had, she would have recognized her patient's face stamped on the coins.

Daphne may have little use for his coins, but still, it didn't mean she was trustworthy. And so Geta bid his time and waited until she next left for the village, so he could have a thorough search of her things, not only make sure she was not in secret correspondence with his enemies, but also to determine what kind of person she was.

Before he could carry out the search, however, something occurred to answer the question of Daphne for him.

That night, he was woken by the faint but frantic ringing of a bell, which he'd never heard before. He bolted upright, and for a moment, thought he was back in Rome—although it had been four years since he was last in Rome—and the bell was the fire alarm sounded by the Vigiles. Then the door burst open, and Daphne came in, silhouetted against the light from a lamp in the room behind her.

"There's an emergency," she said, throwing a mantle over her tunic. "I may have to go into the village, or the person needing care will be brought here. Either way, I need you to stay in this room and stay quiet." Without waiting for an answer from him, she went back out, shutting the door behind her.

She hadn't been gone for long when he heard voices, low but urgent, coming in from the outside. One was Daphne's. "Put her here," she was saying.

"I didn't know what to do," a male voice said, sounding close to tears. "She's bleeding so much—I shouldn't have moved her—but I was afeard that if I went and got you, it'd be too late—"

"Shh," Daphne said, her voice reassuring. "You did right to bring her here, Habib. Now light all the lamps and put on some water to boil for me." 

Geta crept out of bed and looked through the crack in the door. In the fitful light of the lamp, he saw Daphne bending over a figure on the cot, which had been pulled to the middle of the room. It was a woman, Geta could see that by her long dark hair and the swell of her belly, which Daphne was feeling with a practiced hand. A young man, his chubby face barely covered with dark fuzz, was lighting more lamps with trembling hands. His features were Syriac, though he was speaking Greek with the same strange accent as Daphne's. There was a large red stain on the front of his tunic.

The figure on the cot moaned.

"You said she fell?" Daphne asked the young man, who was busy stoking the fire.

"It was my fault," Habib said sorrowfully. "I should've helped her bring the sheep in... but she insisted on doing it..."

"Don't blame yourself," Daphne said. "It was an accident." She gestured toward an amphora on the table. "You've done what you can for her. Take some wine and go outside for a breath of fresh air." Habib hesitated, his eyes lingering on the figure on the cot, but Daphne gave him a little shove with her foot. "Go on," she said. "I will do everything I can."

After one last look at his wife, Habib reluctantly took the amphora and left the hut.

Daphne turned back to the cot. Her face was somber as she measured a few drops of milky liquid from a vial into a cup and held it to the woman's lips, and her voice was firm but gentle as she said, "Drink, Lenia. It'll help with your pain." Geta recognized her tone. She'd spoken to him the same way during his fever.

To his surprise, Daphne went to the bedroom and opened the door. "I need your help," she whispered.

"I don't—"

She pressed the vial into his hand. "Here. Just watch her; if she stirs, put a drop or two on her tongue. That's all. Quickly."

Geta followed her into the front room, where the patient, Lenia, now lay motionless. A spoon had been wedged between her teeth to keep her mouth slightly open. Daphne set about cleaning her scalpel and making the first incision on Lenia's belly. Geta watched, fascinated. He was no stranger to blood. On the battlefields, he had seen surgeons remove arrowheads, amputate damaged limbs, and sew up cuts and gashes, but those had always been brutal, filthy scenes, full of not only blood and other bodily fluids but mud as well, accompanied by much shouting and cursing, with the surgeon acting as a butcher as much as a healer. Never had he witnessed such a silent operation, where the surgeon was so tender and meticulous. Once or twice, Daphne gestured for him to drip the poppy juice onto Lenia's tongue, or to hand her this or that tool. There was no sound except for their breathing—Daphne calm and almost inaudible, Lenia shallow but steady, and his own wheezing one—and the soft clattering of the tools Daphne put down on the tray next to the cot.

As she worked, Daphne's face grew darker and darker, while Lenia's grew paler and paler. Geta didn't know that a woman could bleed so much and still live.

For some reason, his thoughts wandered to his father's first wife, Paccia Marciana, who had died in childbirth. Some even said she was his true mother, and that she had died giving birth to him and his brother. Geta never had any reason to believe it was the truth, but now, in this small room, in the fitful light of the lamps, surrounded by blood and grim-faced women, he was struck by a sense of superstition. What if he had killed his own mother? That would be another victim waiting for him in fiery Phlegethon.

A movement from Daphne drew his attention again, cutting off his dark thoughts. She was leaning over the pregnant woman, whispering, "Lenia? Can you hear me?" Lenia made no sound, gave no indication that she was even conscious.

"Daphne?" Habib's diffident voice came through the door. "How's it going in there? Do you need any help?"

Daphne's mouth trembled as she looked from Lenia's white, sweat-drenched face to her still-swollen belly.

"What is it?" Geta asked under his breath.

Daphne shook her head at him and bent over Lenia again. "I can't save you both," she continued, her voice breaking. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. What do I do? What do I do?"

There was no answer from the patient. No one heard Daphne's anxious question, save for Geta.

Finally, Daphne seemed to have made up her mind. Pressing her lips together, she took a deep breath. "No, Habib," she said more loudly, her voice steady. "It's all right. Just... stay out there." She took up her scalpel once more.

Geta looked away, the vial of poppy juice forgotten. Was it simply because it was a woman and thus her predicament felt worse to him, or had his own brush with death made him soft?

When he looked back, Daphne was finishing stitching Lenia up. Something small and gray and red lay on a blanket on the floor. "What have you done?" he mouthed, horrified.

Without answering, she ushered him into the bedroom. He tried to look over her shoulder at the blanket, but she blocked it from view. Once the door closed behind her, Geta put his eye to the crack. Daphne's shoulders were shaking with silent sobs as she rolled up the blanket. "I'm sorry," she whispered, though it was to the woman on the cot or the bundle on the floor, Geta could not tell.

Then she sniffed, composed herself, and opened the front door. Habib burst in. It was clear he had been waiting right outside the whole time.

There was no need to say anything—one look at his wife, now sleeping quietly on the cot, and the bundle on the floor, and the young man understood.

"Boy or girl?" he asked Daphne, his voice trembling.

"Girl." The young man's chubby face crumpled. "Lenia is resting now," Daphne continued. "You can come back for her in the morning. Bring a cart."

Habib nodded and rubbed his eyes like a child. Daphne gave his shoulder an awkward pat. "She's young and strong, so there shouldn't be any—issue in the future," she said. "I'll stop by in the next few days to see how she is."

"Thank you," said Habib. He touched his wife's cheek briefly, picked up the bundle as if it were the most precious thing in the world, nodded at Daphne, and left.

Daphne returned to the cot. She wiped Lenia's face, changed the sheet on the cot, cleaned her instruments, mopped the floor, and put everything away, before bedding down herself in a corner, wrapped in her mantle. Soon, both women were sound asleep, leaving Geta the only one awake in his dark room. Realizing he was still clutching the vial of poppy juice, he put it down on the table. His hands were shaking, though it had less to do with his weakness and more with the confusion of thoughts and unaccustomed emotions swirling through him.

He must have fallen asleep as well, for when he woke, bright sunlight was streaming through the window. He dragged himself out of bed. A hollow-eyed Daphne was sitting at the table over some bread and a jug of milk she wasn't touching. The cot was empty, Lenia apparently having been picked up by her husband.

Seeing Geta hovering at the doorway, Daphne turned to him with a tired smile. "Good morning," she said and got up, her movements slow, like those of an old woman. "Stay there, I'll bring you some water to wash."

Geta was now well enough to no longer need her help with his morning routine, though he still had to rest several times between washing and getting dressed. Daphne brought in a tray with bread and milk and a bowl of goat cheese. "Sorry, there's no porridge," she said. "I forgot to put the oats in to soak."

"This is fine," he said, more gently than usual. Somehow, he felt it would be rude to demand that she wait on him hand and foot after the night she'd just had.

Daphne sat down next to him. "Thank you for your help last night."

"Why didn't you ask the husband?" Geta asked, voicing the question that had been bothering him since the previous night.

Daphne mistook his meaning. "And let him see his wife like that? He would've been no help at all."

"No, I mean... when it came down to either saving the mother or the child, why didn't you ask the husband?"

She looked at him once, then turned away. "It wasn't his decision."

Her offhand tone astounded Geta. "It's his wife!" he said, unable to stop the accusatory note in his voice. "His child. Whose decision was it if not his?"

"Habib is a good man," she said. "A good husband."

He looked at her in confusion. "What does that have to do with anything?"

Daphne turned to face him fully. "So you believe I should force that nice, kind boy to decide which one to kill, his wife or his child?" she asked. "And force him to live the rest of his life knowing that he's condemned one of his loved ones to death?"

Her words hit Geta like a whip. He didn't know how to answer. He had never thought of it like that. In Rome, a father would think nothing of leaving his newborn child to the feral dogs if he didn't want to raise it for whatever reason, but clearly, they were more sentimental here in the East. Or perhaps it was only Daphne. When he remained silent, a look of contempt came over Daphne's face. "You're a soldier," she said, in a tone that implied it was the worst of insults. "All you do is follow orders and kill. What do you know about the choices we have to make every day, just to live?"

Geta wanted to shout at her, to tell her that he, too, had had to make difficult choices of who to kill and who to spare, and that those choices still haunted him to this day. But he couldn't do so without exposing his true identity, so he bit his tongue and swallowed the bitter taste at the back of his throat, shamefaced.

Daphne was still staring at him, her eyes hard. She picked up a piece of bread to taste it.

Perhaps a woman who saved the life of a stranger, a woman who talked to her animals like they were children, a woman who wished to spare a grieving husband a difficult choice, would not be the kind of woman who could betray or poison someone.

"It's all right," Geta said, putting out a hand to stop her. "You don't have to taste it. I trust you." And to prove it, he took the bread from her and ate it himself.

A look of surprise passed across Daphne's face, softening it. She stared at him for a moment longer, and then, without another word, she went out.

After Geta had finished eating, Daphne didn't come back for the tray or bring him a drink of water as she usually did. Wanting to test his strength, Geta picked up the tray with one hand, and, holding to the wall with the other, went to the front room himself. He found Daphne asleep sitting up, with her head on the table, pillowed on her folded arms. Now would be the perfect time to search the hut. Daphne was sleeping so soundly that she probably wouldn't wake even if he dropped a clay amphora in front of her. But he made no move to start the search. His attention was on Daphne.

With her usual dour expression now wiped clean by sleep and exhaustion, and those sharp eyes veiled by bruised lids and dark lashes, her face looked younger, more vulnerable, like that of a girl, except for a deep line between her eyes. Reaching out, he ran a finger lightly over that line, smoothing it away. Daphne stirred in her sleep but didn't wake. Geta stood looking at his finger for a moment as if expecting it to sprout wings and fly away. What on Earth had compelled him to do such a thing? He couldn't think of an answer. After a while, he, too, went back to bed, and for the first time in weeks, he slept the peaceful sleep of the exhausted, without nightmares of Tartarus and lemures to disturb him.

Chapter 4

Septimius Severus' first wife, Paccia Marciana, who died of natural causes, was rumored to be Caracalla's real mother. This seems to explain some of the animosity between Caracalla and Geta, but there is no proof of it (Marciana died in 186, Septimius Severus married Julia Domna in 187, and Caracalla was born in 188, so clearly he was Julia Domna's kid.)

Ancient Roman physicians did perform Caesarean section, though only in extreme situations.

In Ancient Rome and Greece, unwanted babies were often left exposed to the elements. Some lucky ones may get picked up to be adopted or raised as slaves (not much better, but at least that way they'd live!)

Taglist: @sheneedsrocknroll92, @justnobodynothingmore, @barcelonaloverf1life, @myotakureprieve (if you want to be tagged, let me know!)

[lily-alphonse]

Sam/Haley?

(Saley? 🤭)

Saley? Or Ham. LMAO

Hmmmmmmm this one. This one irks me. They sure would be pretty though.

I'm itching to put them in some kind of AU because my mind screams that they don’t make sense in their current context. There has to be an inciting factor like both working as camp counselors in a nearby town or going to college together or something. (Or… Scooby Doo AU? A little Fred/Daphne dynamic perhaps?)

Like maybe Haley has considered it, kinda liked the rogue skater, class clown thing Sam had going on. But she was always expected to be with the star athlete.

Ok wait maybe the inciting incident is Alex coming out as gay. That could work. Farmer shows up, we have an “oh no he’s HOT 😩” moment and Haley is left in the dust.

She’s pissed at first but then realizes she’s free. She can truly do whatever she wants. Who is going to care, now that the rumor mill is abuzz with Alex’s scandal?

She experiments with her fashion. Tries new hobbies. She goes to visit Emily at work and even gets a little tipsy and dances. And one Friday night she sees Sam there playing pool with Sebastian and she can’t help herself. He’s so fucking tall and edgy, it’s an exciting kind of intimidating. But Haley can be intimidating too, despite her size.

“Sebastian. Sam.” She greets them both with her arms crossed and an easy smile.

“Uh. Hi.” Sebastian is the first to respond, straightening up from where he was lining up a shot.

“In light of recent events I feel the need to ask if either of you are gay,” Haley starts.

“What?” Sebastian asks in disbelief.

“No,” Sam says immediately.

Haley meets his eyes with a predatory sort of smile. “Alright, prove it. Dance with me.”

Sam kind of chuckles and bites his lip, looking over at Sebastian. “Man I know we’re in the middle of something but…”

Sebastian rolls his eyes and points to Haley. “You, wait there two turns. If you still want him after I kick his ass you can have him for tonight.”

Haley chuckles. “Deal.”

It’s actually kind of torture, in a good way. She has a front row seat to watch his body move, his eyebrows furrow and tongue sticking out when he’s concentrating.

She doesn’t know much about pool, so she doesn’t care that Sebastian is right about kicking his ass. All she cares about is the man rounding the table to meet her, as Sebastian goes off to find Abby.

“Hi,” Sam says with a cheeky smile down at her. He isn’t shy, getting close and personal already.

“Hi,” she gives him her best flirty smile.

“Still up to dance with a loser?”

“Can’t really be considered a loser with the hottest girl in here on your arm.”

He chuckles at that, taking her hand to guide them to the dancefloor. She’s caught a bit off-guard by his forwardness but damn if it isn’t sexy as hell. And his hand is big 🫠

His hands move to her waist on the dancefloor and they sway with some distance between them to continue speaking.

“I don’t know how you can be so confident about that by the way," He says once their settled into a rhythm.

“Oh?”

“Yeah, I mean, just look at Pam. You’ve got some stiff competition.”

“Oh har-har very funny,” she rolls her eyes but fights a smile.

“Ooo tough crowd.”

“I’m tough to please.”

“I can imagine. But correct me if I’m wrong Princess, seems like you’re already sold on me.”

The sudden nickname almost gets her flustered. She decides to ignore it. Ignore it and definitely not file it away in her brain to obsess over later. “Not sold at all, that’s why I asked for a dance and not your hand in marriage.”

“I see. This is my test drive then?”

“You could call it that.”

“You look beautiful.”

It’s obviously a line. But it comes so suddenly that Haley does get flustered this time. “I know,” she blurts, and then, “thank you.”

His smile widens at her blush. “I’m serious, I like the new look. You seem more like yourself.”

“Myself? And how would you know?” she raises a perfect eyebrow at him as its his turn to get sheepish.

“Oh, well I just mean like, I don’t know. It suits you. You seem happier.”

She thinks about that, looking at his shirt instead of his eyes. She has been feeling happier. She sighs and leans into Sam, closing the distance between them to lay her head against his pounding chest. He stops swaying, surprised. She smiles at how fast his heart is going under his facade.

“I am happier, I think.”

DAMN OK I DONE GONE AN CONVINCED MYSELF LMAO these two are kinda fire ngl I think theyd both be sassy and flirty the banter is top tier

Send me any Stardew Valley rarepair and I will tell you how I would make them work! (Even non-marriage npcs) If youre lucky you may get a mini fic out of it. Check the list below to see if Ive already answered yours

Rarepair Masterlist

[silverhallow]

Karting catastrophe

Inspired by @bridgertonbabe’s Bridgerton Spouse Support Chat

Summary: none of the Bridgerton’s had the bridgerton brain cell™️ when they decide to go go-karting… and of course it ends as all games nights do… in catastrophe

It had seemed like a good idea at the time, they hadn’t had a chance to be competitive with one another for months since their spouses flat out refused to have more than one games night a year after Phillip had nearly had a heart attack during a Heated monopoly games night…

But as they were waiting to be loaded into the ambulance and took the hospital, they had to admit… maybe this time it had gone too far…

Anthony had arranged to hire the go-karting facility after Greg had suggested they turn the go-karting into something more… competitive and since Mario-Kart was one of the earliest games they’d ever played together as a family of 8 it seemed the most logical.

Each of them came with their own “weapon” and they’d brought frisbees and balls from the kids' play pens. Eloise had rocked up with a shopping bag full of banana peels and weirdly Hyacinth had rocked up with baby oil.

Anthony and Benedict brought their sons Nerf guns, Colin, Daphne and Francesca had water guns, Hyacinth and Gregory each had a BB gun and Eloise had brought a paint gun…

It had started out fun but after Eloise got Hyacinth in the helmet with the paint gun that things started getting out of hand.

Hyacinth had been furious that it had caused her to crash into the barrier and ended up at the back of the field.

She’d started pouring the oil onto the track and firing her BB gun at anyone and everything thing

Benedict and Colin were out in front with Anthony and Francesca close behind them. Eloise was towards the back of the field and saw as Gregory fired blindly behind him and saw the BB pellet his Hyacinth in the face through her open Visor and everyone turned their head to hear the yell of pain and swearing come from the youngest and that’s when the pile up happened.

Anthony had turned at the wrong time and he hit the back of Colin’s kart which hit Benedict causing the kart to flip and Anthony and his kart landed on his leg Daphne smashed into them as Francesca flew into Colin, her kart smashed into his leg as she smashed into her steering wheel, Gregory smashed into the pile up, Eloise having seen it but sliding on the oil couldn’t stop had at least slowed down and she had about stopped and so it was just her wrist that hurt and Hyacinth having stopped as she’d been hit in the face has scrambled out of her kart and gone over to the pile up but her vision was so blurry that when she aimed a kick at Gregory for hitting her,missed completely and hit her toe off the kart and she heard the crack and let out of yell of pain which couldn’t be heard over the yells from the rest of the Bridgerton’s who were all in states of injury.

The owner saw it all happen and grateful he had charged a full days rental and a disclosure that should they damage anything they’d pair for the full lot of the damage and with a roll of his eye called for ambulances.

And it was where they all were now as a technician asked “who should we call to come meet you at the Hospital? Your mother?”

“NO!” They all yelled despite their various states of pain and agitation.

“Then who?” He asked with a sigh

“We can’t call Kate she’ll just be pissed we didn’t invite her and refuse to come” Anthony muttered from his spot on the board as the paramedics put the neck support around him as he’d gotten serve whiplash in the crash

“Michael won’t come, he thinks I’m out with Eloise today…” Francesca hissed as the paramedic examined her ribs

“And Phil won’t come for the same reason”

“Simon won’t come cause he thinks we’re all idiots and hates it when we do shit like this” Daphne whined

“luce thinks I’m with mum so…”

Benedict grunted something barely intelligible “what did he say??” Hyacinth called out

Eloise rolled her eyes “he said to call Sophie… Penelope can’t come as she’s too far along and out of everyone then two are the least likely to murder us all”

Colin had to agree as he knew Penelope at 8 months pregnant wouldn’t be able to drive over and Sophie was the calmest in temperament out of everyone.

Since Benedict was in too much pain Eloise gave the paramedics Sophie’s number, was put in her ambulance and with the rest of the Bridgerton’s was whisked off to hospital.

Sophie Bridgerton was sitting feeding her 9 month old daughter when her phone rang, it was a number she did not recognise but as Benedict had said he was going to an art exhibition and often forgot to charge his mobile before he went, she naively assumed it was him calling from a borrowed phone to tell her a) that his phone had died b) what time he was coming home and c) to check in on Vi and the boys.

So imagine her surprise as she answered her phone with a tentative “hello” to hear a male voice she did not recognise

“Mrs Bridgerton?”

“Yes? Who is this please?” She asked politely

“My name is Andrew and I am a paramedic with London Ambulance Service” the voice replied

“Paramedic??” Sophie practically screeched down the phone, panic and worry over taking her entire body

“Yes ma’am there is nothing to worry about we’ve got your husband and his siblings and we are taking them to the Royal London Hospital, we were told to call you to meet them there” he explained

“Wait… siblings?” Sophie asked

“Yes ma’am all 8 of them”

“What happened??”

“The details are a little hazy but there was some sort of pile up and accident at Best Go Karting in Canary Wharf” he replied and Sophie’s panic and worry turned instantly into a fury.

Go karting?! On a Wednesday afternoon, when he said he was going to an art exhibition whilst she was at home with all four kids?!?

“Right… well I’ll have to gather the kids and I’ll be along shortly” Sophie said keeping her voice as calm as she could, knowing she was likely to explode but she was prepared to give him a chance to explain. To see the level of his injury as it could just be a strain or something…

the paramedic gave her some instructions and she confirmed them back and as she hung up the phone she sighed heavily.

She was furious. Not only had Benedict lied to her, the bridgerton siblings no doubt had lied to the others because of any of the other spouses knew about this they would have given the others a heads up and the last chat in the spousal support group was them giving Phillip some advice on dealing with a pregnant Eloise.

“Charlie?!” She called up the stairs, it was half term so the boys were upstairs playing

“Yes Mama?” Came the voice of her 6 year old son

“Can you get your shoes and coat on and help your brothers please, we have to get your dad and see your aunt and uncles at the hospital” she said appearing at the bottom of the stairs and looking up

“Has daddy hurt himself again?” He asked curiously

“I think so” she replied

“Is he in trouble?”

“Oh you have no idea… hurry up please, if Alex tries to fight tell him if he behaves mama will get him a McDonald’s for tea”

“Mcdonalds??” came the squeak of 4 year old Alex, his dark curls appearing at the top of the stairs as he peered at his Mama with bright happy eyes.

“If you behave and do everything Charlie and Mama say” Sophie replied.

Alex beamed, nodded his head eagerly and ran off to listen to his older brother and within 20 minutes Sophie had all four kids in the car without so much of a complaint.

It took Sophie 30 minutes to make her way through the traffic and a further 10 minutes to get parked and the three boys waited patiently as she got Baby Violet into her pushchair and headed into the hospital in search of her ridiculous family.

It was Eloise that Sophie spotted first as she made her way into the hospital and she looked sternly as her sister-in-law, but mostly because Eloise was 6 months pregnant and should have known better.

She turned to Charlie and handed him a £5 note, “take your brothers to the shop and get some sweets whilst Mama talks to Aunt El and sees Papa okay?” she said.

Charlie beamed, took two year old William’s hand and Alex followed. Sophie knew the best way to get her kids to behave was through food and bribes and as they walked away she just looked at Eloise and with a glare said “spill”

Eloise grimaced and with a heavy sigh, explained everything that had happened right down to their discussion about calling her. “I’m waiting for them to come look at my wrist, I can’t have an X-Ray so they’re working out how to figure out if it’s broken or not…” she said

“The baby?” Sophie asked knowing when she told Phillip it would be one i oh f the first things he’d ask.

“They’re fine, it was the first thing they did when I got here. I’m the least injured, it would have been Hyacinth if she hadn’t tried to attack Greg” Eloise explained but before Sophie could do anything more than sigh, Eloise was called into the room to see her doctor and another doctor walked over to Sophie to explain what had happened and the extent of the injuries to the Bridgertons.

Sophie listened and felt her blood boiling as she listened; Anthony had whiplash so was in a neck brace, Daphne had a fractured Arm, Gregory a broken one as well as a bruised coccyx, they suspected Eloise just had a sprained wrist, Francesca had fractured a couple of ribs, Hyacinth had sustained an eye injury which would leave her with a black eye and she was wearing a patch and she’d also broken her toe kicking the go-kart and Benedict and Colin had fared the worst each breaking a leg.

Sophie felt her legs nearly go at the news. Her husband. Her idiot husband had broken his leg…

Was it not bad enough that she had four kids to deal with, now she had her injured husband, and her idiot brother-in-law was about to be a father in a month’s time had broken his as well…

“I can take you in to see your husband if you wish” the doctor said as Sophie digested all the information

“I will in a five minutes i just have a phone call to make” Sophie said

The doctor nodded “he’s in room two when you’re ready” the doctor said and walked off and headed into Francesca’s room.

Sophie had had enough, she knew exactly who needed to be called, the only person who could them see sense, to realise that they’re far too old to be doing shit like this and that they had to be more bloody responsible.

Mario Kart go karting… honestly…

With a sigh Sophie whipped her phone out and dialled the number that belonged to her mother-in-law.

“Sophie dear, this is a pleasant surprise, hello dear”

“Hello Violet, sorry but this isn’t a pleasant surprise… i’m at the hospital” Sophie said

“Oh no, is everything alright? Are the boys and Vi okay?” Violet asked sounding panicked

“Oh my kids are okay… i’m calling about yours” Sophie said

“Oh no is Ben okay?” Violet asked, assuming it was just the one she was calling about

“No he is not. He’s broke his leg… and the rest of his idiotic siblings are here also…” Sophie said and as Violet made a noise of confusion “they lied to everyone and went off to go karting and not just go karting, mario-karting…”

“Please tell me you’re making this up” Violet said

“I wish i was Violet” Sophie said as she then rattled off their injuries and everything Eloise had told her

“I am going to murder them. What do they think they’re playing at??” Violet said “I will be right down. They need their heads banging together, i am sick of this”

“Thank you Violet, I suspect some of them may require a lift home as when everyone else finds out… i can’t imagine they’ll come for them and Penelope can’t even drive at the moment so…”

“I’ll bring the minivan…” Violet said

Sophie thanked her mother-in-law and decided she’d go see her husband before she told the rest of the spouses.

The boys were still down the shop so she pushed the pushchair with a sleeping Violet into room two where Benedict was sitting in a leg brace, looking sheepish as he spotted his wife.

“I can explain…” he said sheepishly

“Can you? Can you explain why you lied to me, why your siblings all lied to their respective partners and you all went off to do something childish and not to mention Dangerous?”

“Soph… please… I am sorry I lied but firstly it wasn’t my idea and I was crashed into… and secondly, if i had told you, you would have told the other and we were just having a fun day out, we used to do it like once a month and we’ve never been injured before…”

“You do this once a month??” Sophie asked incredulously.

“Used to… we’ve not been since Violet was born and it had never been go karting…” Benedict said but seeing the look on his wife’s face he knew better than to say anything more “Look I am really sorry and I know i’m in trouble but can I take Vi and have cuddles to cheer me up please?” as he held his arms out expectantly figuring Sophie would feel a little sorry for him with his injury since it wasn’t actually his fault

“No” Sophie said and Benedict’s mouth fell open as he stared at his wife “you are not getting Violet cuddles until your leg is out of that bloody cast. We are a week into the summer holidays and you’ve rendered yourself useless for the remainder of the school holidays meaning not only do I have to look after FOUR children on my own now, but I am going to have to look after you because you’re so feckless and reckless and didn’t think for one second that this was the stupidest idea you lot could have ever come up with!” sophie replied, not even raising her voice and the moment she finished Benedict burst into tears.

Sophie knew withholding his daughter from him was the worst punishment but she was sick of them all, she was fed up of them being so reckless and competitive and he had to be taught a lesson.

“Please soph… don’t… don’t do this” Benedict sobbed

“Too late… oh and your mother is on her way… she wants a word with you all” Sophie said as she turned Violet around in her pushchair “they’ll take you down for a cast shortly then we’re going home and you’re in the spare room. I’ll be outside, letting the others know about you bloody idiots” she said as she left the room leaving her husband crying and a little panicked knowing his mother was on her way and that they were all in trouble.

Sophie sat down watching as one by one the siblings were taken into one room as per her request (curtsey of Violet) and she saw the look on their faces when they spoke to Benedict and learned their mother was en route and that was why they were being gathered in one room.

Sophie knew it was extreme but as she texted the Spousal group chat, and watched Violet, the family matriarch walk into the ward, a face like thunder, her shoulder set as she threw the door open and looked at children in various states as she yelled “WHAT ON EARTH WERE YOU ALL THINKING? LYING TO YOUR PARTNERS? I TAUGHT YOU BETTER THAN THAT”

Francesca tried to speak up “mum we didn’t…”

“DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT LYING TO ME FRANCESCA BRIDGERTON” as she slammed the door shut and it muffled the sounds but Sophie smirked to herself as she watched each of the Bridgerton’s in turn jumping as they were yelled at.

Charlie, Alex and William all appeared a few minutes into Violet’s tirade and Alex blinked “Grandma is angry”

“I think Papa and everyone are in big trouble” Charlie said as Alex’s face lit up with a cheeky grin.

“What did Papa do?” he asked

“He lied to Mama, and broke his leg, so Papa is not allowed cuddles from anyone until his leg is better do you understand?” she said to her boys.

“Papa naughty?” two year old William asked “no snuggles?”

“Yes Papa has been naughty, we don’t tell lies do we?” Sophie asked

All three boys shook their heads “no or our noses get big!” Charlie said

“Exactly, or you hurt yourself like your Uncle’s and Aunties have” Sophie said.

Sophie just sat and watched smugly as Violet continued to yell and berate her children for nearly an hour. Phillip turned up half way through and Eloise spotted him through the window and mouthed “Rescue me”

Phillip just shook her head and took a seat next to Sophie “how long has Violet been yelling?”

“Half hour so far…” Sophie grinned

“Hopefully this will teach them a lesson”

“Between that, no Snu Snu and the film I've got of the first twenty minutes of her tirade should hopefully be enough” Sophie grinned.

“You’ve gotta send that to the chat” Phillip said and Sophie agreed, sending the video to the rest of the Spouses and they just hoped, beyond hope, that it would be the last time that they’d be visiting the hospital for a game night related injury.

[anarchy-n-glitter]

Bring the Pain

SUMMARY: Chucky and Daphne talk things out after he shows up in her living room unannounced. He tells her he's dying and needs her help.

WORDS: 3,649

(PREVIOUS CHAPTER HERE)

CHAPTER 2

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Chucky couldn’t help but be a bit disappointed by her reaction. 

“It’s been years and that’s how you greet me?” He gawked, feigning hurt and bringing a stubby, plastic hand to his plush chest. The way he blinked and moved so slowly unnerved her. “You made it hard to find you, by the way.”

“Maybe that’s cause I didn’t want you finding me?” She took another good look at the living doll. “You look like shit.” She remarked coldly, placing the iron doorstop on the ivory end table beside the loveseat. She watched the doll wearily as he began to comb his hand through his thinning hair. 

“Hey quit shedding on my chair! I want my place to look decent.” 

Chucky looked around slowly, holding back a laugh.

“Oh, don’t worry doll, I’ll keep the place spiffy. My hair would go great next to last week’s dirty dishes on the counter!” He howled. “Wait, wait… maybe it’ll look nice in the dirty laundry corner!” He continued to cackle obnoxiously loud, slapping his tiny knee and kicking his feet. Daphne rolled her eyes, despite the tears that seemed to flood them at the sound of his laugh again. He continued on, listing everything gross about her apartment, pointing out everything she had begun to feel insecure about lately. His laughter died down finally with a wheeze and a small coughing fit that had the woman furrowing her brow. 

“Anyway, disgusting fucking apartment aside,” he groaned, struggling to get to his tiny feet as his plastic body made popping noises she never thought she’d hear from a doll.  His sky blue eyes met her emerald ones and for the first time in 35 years she felt a spark. 

A spark with a doll? Be so for real Daphne. 

“Me looking like shit is exactly why I’m here.” Chucky gestured awkwardly to his barely two-foot tall self. “I’m dyin’, Daph.” She bit the inside of her lip. Hard. 

He had to be lying, there was no way a slimy bastard like Chucky was dying. Daphne glared at him, trying so hard to find where he would be lying. In the brighter light of the lamp she could see he was far worse off than she originally thought. Crows' feet bordered his sunken eyes and wrinkles were apparent on his forehead. In the dull, thinning forest of auburn were small strips of wispy white. He looked like he aged 15 years, which was actually better than she expected.

“I mean, you’re aging.” Daphne stated simply, shrugging. She couldn’t say why he was aging, she wasn’t as well versed in this voodoo stuff as he was, but she couldn’t say for sure that he was dying. For all she knew, this was just another one of his fucked up manipulation tactics. 

“No shit, captain obvious.” He growled. “I went to see some witch doctor-” He stopped abruptly at the sound of her giggling. Rolling his eyes, he continued: “And he said Damballa is pissed because of an exorcism.” Daphne tilted her head curiously.

“An exorcism?”

“Yeah, these asshole kids tried to expel certain parties from a certain doll. Well, certain parties are not pleased.” Oh, oh, this was too good. 

“So because of that Damballa think’s you’ve abandoned him?” The doll nodded. Daphne held back another laugh. “And you want me to risk pissing him off more to help you?” 

“Well, yeah.” Chucky stated simply. He gestured to her. “I mean, come on Daph, you look great! It’s clear you’re doin’ somethin’ right.” 

Daphne looked away to hide the way her cheeks grew red at his compliment. “Duh, that’s cause I stay away from catholics.” 

“Those kids were not catholic!”

“Even worse.” She answered as she walked into the kitchen. She heard the thud! of Chucky jumping off the chair onto the hardwood floor and the hilarious patter of his tiny feet shortly after. Somehow, despite the change in his stature and circumstance, he felt like nothing changed. Daphne still had a sharp tongue and the banter with her really got him going.

Whether that was good or bad depended… and in this context it worked him up in a bad way. 

“You shouldn’t walk away from me when we’re talking, babe. It’s rude.” An amused smile crossed Daphne’s dark lips. 

“Or what? You’re gonna kick my shins till I die?” She knew she was playing with fire, but she didn’t necessarily care. She’d love to see what he’d do.  She knelt down in front of the homicidal doll, a wide smile on her face. 

“You are treading on some thin fucking ice, doll.” He warned in a tone that used to send shivers down her back. Depending on the context it was either from fear or arousal, but now she tried not to laugh. She saw the anger boiling inside him, the frown on his cherub-like face, and it made it all the funnier. 

“Chuck, I’m not afraid of you.” Daphne stated simply, pinching at his plastic cheeks. I never have been. “If I’m being honest, I don’t know how anyone is.” She stood up straight and went back to the sink, trying her best to tidy up after he pointed out every little thing wrong with her apartment. 

Things had really gone downhill since Tess died.

Daphne scrubbed away at the dishes, one by one and placed the slightly cleaner glassware on the counter above the dishwasher. She opened the dishwasher and glanced inside, realizing she never unloaded the damn thing from the last time she ran it… which was two whole weeks ago. She shook her head as she collected the clean dishes and placed them in the cabinets, nearly forgetting the murderous doll was still wandering about her apartment.

Chucky was a lot harder to keep track of now.

She had finally gotten the dishwasher cleared when she felt a sharp, burning pain in her back. All she could do was freeze for a moment, choking on her words as her nerves were set aflame. That little fucker had climbed on her back and was feverishly stabbing her in the back - what else was new?

“Fuck!” Daphne flung him onto the counter and stood up straight, feeling the warmth of her blood trickle down her back. A shaking hand reached behind her and pulled the knife from its place, and she dizzily examined the blade. This knife was from the dishwasher! She thought to herself in a haze. Chuck, you’re in for it now.

Slowly, like all wounds, the slashes in her back began to mend on their own. Skin and muscle joining together, melting into one, as blood gushed down her back. It hurt like hell and Daphne had to grit her teeth to not scream. She found that this little party trick didn’t quite have the same effect on people if she showed them it hurt. The doll that laid on her counter slowly began to sit up, watching Daphne closely. She huffed indignantly as she palmed her back again, finding holes in her favorite leather top. 

“You ruined my favorite shirt, you little shit!” Daphne threw the knife toward the living room, not caring where it landed. Chucky looked up at her in awe, a wicked smile coming to his face finally. 

“That amulet does a lot more than just keep you young, doesn’t it?” His question came off more like a statement. He knew now, he didn’t need her to say anything. It was annoying knowing that he couldn’t threaten her when she got on his nerves now, but it did explain why she so comfortably laughed in his face. 

It reminded him of Tiffany, though she eventually paid for not taking him seriously. 

Daphne straightened up, looking all too smug for someone who was just stabbed. “No shit, captain obvious.” She spat his words back at him. Chucky howled with laughter.

“I missed you, Daph.” He finally said, wiping tears from his eyes. Daphne paused, watching him wearily and wrapping her arms around herself. She wasn’t sure how to respond to that. She swallowed.

“I missed you too.” Daphne whispered, self conscious. 

“Finish doin’ the dishes and come talk. I got a favor to ask of ya.” And with that, the doll slid off of the counter and scurried off to the living room. 

⛋⛋⛋⛋⛋

The words from his plastic lips felt surreal. A plan, an insane plan, one that only he could come up with and think he could get away with. Six souls; six sacrifices, that was the prescribed solution to Chuck’s problem according to the doctor he saw. The only problem with that seemed to be that Chuck had already taken six lives… actually it may have been more than six, he said he’d lost count. 

Cloudy blue eyes stared up at her, unblinking, as she tried to determine the best course of action. 

“So let me get this straight,” Daphne began, exasperated. “Your first set of sacrifices failed so your grand idea is to go to the White House and try again?”

The doll nodded eagerly, and in his gruffer-than-usual tone he answered: “Yeah, see? You get it.” No, she really didn’t.

“Just like that, huh?” She asked sarcastically, her arms still crossed over her chest. “What makes you think it’ll even work? What if Damballa’s really pissed at you?” There was something more to her tone this time. It could almost be mistaken for tenderness. 

Daph was a changed woman, that much Chucky knew, but he had to wonder how much of his old flame still burned under her icy exterior. 

“He wants something big, Daph. What else is bigger than-”

“It’s delusional.” She cut him off. “Yeah, you could get away with it, but you’re asking me to go with you. I’ll get caught, then what? You keep going and I rot in jail? You get to discard me again like it’s nothin’?” 

So that’s what this was about.

“I have a plan.” Chucky muttered, and despite his epiphany he was still finding it hard not to be irritated with Daphne’s refusal. 

“Oh great! You have a plan!”

“Just get me there!” He finally shouted. The doll took a moment, taking a deep breath and closing his eyes. “And if you really don’t want to stick around you don’t have to.”

Daphne took a moment to think over his words. She still wasn’t sure if he was being honest, after all, it was really easy for him to say she can leave when she wants. Unfortunately for him, she knew Chuck like the back of her hand. Of course, several things had changed over the years clearly, and if he truly was dying…

He did go out of his way to find her. He clearly needed her help desperately. Part of her feared that abandonment, that familiar feeling that came with being used and disposed of. Maybe it would be different, given that he was a doll as of right now and the reason him leaving hurt so much the first time was because she felt he used her body and left her when it was convenient. Technically he was still using her body but in a completely different way - this was more like doing a friend a favor. 

Daphne’s emerald stare narrowed.

“And where’s Tiff in all this?” There it was. The doll grimaced. 

“That’s a long story.” 

“When’s it not?” Daphne scoffed. She listened intently as Chucky explained the last twenty-ish years. He went into detail, explaining how Tiffany found him after his dismembering, how she wanted him to marry her and how that absolutely wasn’t in the cards at the time. He talked about how he electrocuted her in the bathtub, then the soul transferring, and the cross country road trip that somehow ended with a knocked up doll and a surprise resurrection from their gender fluid kid. 

Somehow, Daphne felt herself growing jealous. 

It was a weird feeling that left her all kinds of confused, but when she thought of the last twenty years for herself she felt… hollow. She wanted to rekindle some sort of love, feel the same burning passion she felt with Chuck with someone else. The closest she had gotten was when she was the third in a throuple out in Santa Carla, which even that didn’t last. She didn’t like staying up all night and sleeping all day. 

Then of course there was Tess. 

“Anyway, she swapped bodies with Jennifer Tilly and took the kids, but then we got back together and she helped me terrorize the Pierce’s one last time. Shipped me right to their house. I ended up sending Sarah’s kid to the nuthouse and from there I possessed her.” He stopped for a second, his brow furrowing, forehead wrinkling. “Then that fuckin’ exorcism happened.”

Daphne was still taken back at the mention of Sarah Pierce. That was a name she hadn’t heard in a while, and man was she pissed when she heard about it the first time. He wasn’t even the one to tell her… it was Tiff. 

He shook his head. “Anyway, Tiff broke me outta the nuthouse and helped me build an army of, well, me. I said something, she got pissed off and took my head off, and well here we are. I haven’t spoken to her in a year or so. I did hold her at gunpoint when I was Nica not too long ago but that didn’t last long.” 

“Sounds about right.” Was all she could muster. That hollow feeling in her chest came back and weighed heavily on her. She felt the lump in her throat as her mind repeated the same thing over and over again: you will never be the first choice.

There was a part of her that fought it though, the more naive part of her mind that somehow survived through it all. He probably stuck around with her cause it was convenient, it said, she was the one to find him and bring him back. Daphne sighed. You made it hard to find you, remember?

She wanted to snap back at the invisible voice, to tell it that he didn’t even try before all this, but with the risk of looking insane and vulnerable in front of Chucky she chose not to.

They sat in silence while she pondered the possibilities, the logistics of it all, and she could feel his blue eyes on her even when she turned her back. Luckily she knew as long as she had her amulet there were no risks of her being killed and waking up in a doll like Tiff, and she missed Chucky as much as she hated to admit it… maybe a road trip would be fun? 

The strawberry blonde looked back at the doll. 

“Fine. I’ll take you.” She said finally, and a large smile broke out on the doll’s face. 

“Yes! I promise, doll, you won’t regret this.” He hopped off of the couch, standing at his full 3 foot height. “It’ll be just like old times, Daphne and Chucky.” 

⛋⛋⛋⛋⛋

She was being led somewhere downtown, her hand held tightly in the warm grip of her boyfriend as they made their way down sprawling sidewalks. She was in her cutest date outfit, face done up in dark makeup and platinum hair in two ponytails. Her large boots made it hard for her to keep up with him. 

It was fall, and in her short skirt she was freezing her ass off, but she’d never say anything. She wanted to look cute for him. 

Grey skies hung over their heads, making the tall buildings of Chicago look much darker than they usually did. It wasn’t like Eddie to take her out in the middle of the day, but he said he wanted to show her something. She had lied to her parents, saying she was going to the mall with Miranda, and she found the act of sneaking around like that thrilling. She only hoped Miranda wouldn’t call the house and spoil everything. 

He led her to an old apartment building, up a few flights of stairs, and to an old, splintered door. He knocked twice and waited for what felt like an eternity. There was a sound on the other side of the door like someone was undoing a few locks, and then they were greeted by the face of a woman with platinum blonde hair. It matched Daphne’s own hair. The woman’s dark eyes scanned over both of them, and just as Eddie went to step forward she slammed the door in his face. 

Daphne furrowed her brow in confusion, thinking maybe they were at the wrong apartment offhandedly as her eyes wandered from the door to the rundown halls of the building. The beige paint on the walls was peeling and the carpet they stood on was covered in stains. It looked like it hadn’t been vacuumed in ages, and the bearding had been thinned so much it was almost down to the mat. Somewhere in the distance she could hear a baby crying. 

The woman reappeared with an irritated expression. 

“Eddie, get in here.” Her voice was high pitched and almost whisper-like, but Daphne could hear the annoyance in her tone. Eddie stepped forward, Daphne’s hand still tightly in his. The woman shook her head. “No, she stays outside.” 

The duo looked at each other, but all Eddie could do was shrug. 

“Sorry.” He said, letting go of her hand. “Gimme a second, ‘kay? I promise you won’t be out here all day.” And with that he disappeared behind the old door. 

Daphne suddenly felt all too exposed in that hallway. She had no idea where she was, or who was in the building, and there she was standing in front of this door which likewise had people she didn’t know inside. She figured these were friends of Eddie’s, but the way the woman looked at her, the way she wasn’t immediately let inside… it filled her with an uneasy feeling.

Years later she would look back on this moment and she would beg herself to leave - to listen to that feeling and get as far away as possible. There was a darkness behind that door and she knew all too well that it would swallow her if she stayed where she was.

But she did stay. 

After a few minutes she sighed and sat down beside the door, bringing her knees to her chest so she could rest her head. She was tired, a late night before all of this really wasn’t a great idea. She could see the chipped, black nail polish on her nails and began to absentmindedly pick at it, hoping she could remove a majority of it and repaint them later. 

A few more minutes ticked by slowly before Eddie peeked his head out from the doorway, looking down at her with that boyish charm that attracted her in the first place. “Hey Daph, you can come in now.”

She let him lead her through the door into the dimly lit apartment. The walls were a turquoise color with white trim that was turning an odd shade of yellow. The lamps in the living room gave off a soft orange hue that made the place seem a lot cozier than its tenants. Now she could see the woman in full, and she wore a simple black dress with a red, cropped leather jacket. She was standing beside a man with long, dark hair, and his back was turned to them.

“So, yeah, this is Daphne.” Daph gave a small, shy wave. Eddie turned back to her. “Daph, this is Tiffany and-” 

The man finally turned around, his blue eyes meeting Daphne’s green and suddenly she felt as if she couldn’t breathe. His hair was curly, and it spilled almost perfectly over his shoulders. He wore a plain, white t-shirt that was tucked neatly into his black slacks. She found herself taken by his sharp jawline and perfectly sculpted cheekbones. He walked over slowly, hands in his pockets. 

“This is Charles. He goes by Chucky now.” She wished she never met him - truly she did. Yet, that day she found herself swooning over him. He hardly said a word to her the entire time, merely watching her with intense eyes as she listened to Eddie and sometimes Tiffany. 

Charles sat across from her in an armchair, and beside him on the arm of the chair was Tiffany. Daphne, at first, found Tiffany to be nice enough. She was outgoing and complemented Daph’s outfit, and she seemed enthralled with Eddie’s story of how he met Daph. The younger woman couldn’t help but notice he left out her age. 

Sure, her birthday was in a few weeks, but that didn’t change the fact that she was seventeen now. 

Eddie stopped rambling for a moment, looking at an almost zoned out Charles. “You okay over there?” He asked finally, snapping the older man out of it. 

“Yeah, yeah.” Charles began, his voice gruff. It nearly sent shivers down Daphne’s spine. “I was just thinkin’ Daphne would look great with red hair.” 

Tiffany’s eyes lit up. 

“Wait, Chucky, you’re so right!” She exclaimed. She hopped onto her feet and traipsed over to Daphne, taking her blonde, curly locks into her hands. “I can dye this for you if you want.” 

Daphne never broke eye contact with Charles. There was a look in his eye, something unreadable. It looked like he was encouraging her to say yes. She stumbled over her words. 

“Y-yeah. Sure. I’d like that.” She ripped her gaze away from him and met eyes with Tiffany, smiling awkwardly at her. 

She had no idea what she was getting herself into. She wished she left the hallway when she had the chance.

[whatareyousearchingfordean]

A Period Drama

Summary: When that time of the month hits, Y/n wants nothing more than to curl up in bed and forget about the world. Lucky for her, Dean has other plans. 

Pairing: Dean Winchester x Reader

Word Count: 2.1K+

Warnings: Language, discussion of menstrual cycle 

Author’s Note: I guess I'm emotional this cycle, who knew? Anyway, I wrote this because I wanted to die the other day, and imagining Dean's cuddles was the only way for me to get through it. This is a work of self-indulgence and therefore the Reader is a little less non-descript than I usually try to write, but that's what these things are for! Hope this helps my fellow menstruating people lie it did me xoxo Alex

Check out Alexandra’s Library for more works by yours truly!

A nagging sensation tugged on her strings of consciousness, bringing the sleeping huntress back to the world of the living. Her mind fought against waking, knowing not nearly enough time had passed since she had retreated to her room the previous evening. As the ache deep in her abdomen became more obvious, she stopped fighting and opened her eyes to the darkness of her room. 

“Fuck,” she groaned as she tossed the covers from her body, instantly missing the heat they provided in the recess of the bunker. Y/n rolled from the bed and stood, the action occurring too quickly and the huntress felt the familiar rush between her legs. She cursed herself as she bounded off to the bathroom on the opposite end of the hallway. The socks on her feet muffled her hurried steps as she passed the boys’ rooms. 

Once inside, she went straight for the showers and turned the hot water all the way up. Steam enveloped the space as she stripped her soiled panties and old t-shirt from her body. She let the bathroom turn into a makeshift sauna as she rinsed the blood from her undergarments before finally stepping into the boiling shower. 

It was unclear how long she stood under the water, searing her flesh and scrubbing away the metaphorical grime, all she knew was the relentless heat was managing to ease the ache from her angry uterus. The tentative knock on the bathroom door snapped her back from the silent reverie she had been indulging in, and Y/n noted how the water had gone almost cold. It was likely she had been in there long enough for Sam to have taken his morning run and if her own body wasn’t attacking itself, she might have felt guilty about using up all the bunker’s hot water. 

When she walked out in just a towel, her dirty pajamas rolled into a ball in her arms, she was met with a confused younger Winchester. All she could mutter was a weak ‘sorry’ before she breezed past him and back to her room. The huntress wrapped herself into a pair of sweats and a clean tee, braided her hair out of her face, swallowed a few pain killers, and crawled back under her covers. She thanked whatever higher power had made sure they were hunt-free for the foreseeable future so she could spend the day curled up in a ball. The pills kicked in quick enough to allow her to easily slip back into a blissful sleep.

****

It was nearing one in the afternoon when Dean made his way back inside the bunker, his hands covered in grease and oil from his work tuning up the Impala. He was wiping his hands on an equally dirty towel as he walked into the kitchen to find his little brother making himself a lunch. 

“Please tell me that is not your veggie bacon?” Dean wrinkled his nose as he watched Sam putting together a BLT, the various ingredients strewn about the island. 

“Fine, then I won’t tell you,” Sam didn’t bother to look up from his task to answer his brother. The look of disgust only depended on Dean’s face as he moved around his sibling to wash his hands in the sink. 

The older hunter glanced over his shoulder as the sound of shuffling footsteps grew louder, his gaze landing on a disheveled Y/n. The sweats that hung from her body were wrinkled and she had a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. There were lines across the left side of her face, indicating she had been sleeping recently. Worry instantly flooded his system as it was unlike their hunting partner to sleep this late unless she was ill. 

“Sam, what did you do with my heating pad?” her voice was coarse as she didn’t even bother with pleasantries. No ‘hello’, no ‘ how are you’, just straight to whatever business she had in with the younger Winchester. 

“Uh, I’m pretty sure it’s in the linen closet in the bathroom?” Sam answered, completely unperturbed by her callousness.

“So you put my heating pad in the bathroom,” Y/n rolled her eyes and Sam could only offer her a bewildered nod. “What is with you guys and not being able to put shit back where you found it?” The huntress turned on her heel, not waiting for a response before heading to retrieve the item she was seeking. 

Sam looked over his shoulder at his older brother, his brows knit together in the middle of his forehead. “What the hell was that?” 

“What’s the one thing Y/n uses her heating pad for?” Dean’s lips cured up on one side as he watched the look of realization flash across his brother’s features. The oldest Winchester dried his hands before peeking in the fridge and a few cupboards. “Looks like she could use a supply run. You need anything?” 

“Nah, I’m just going to retreat to my room and pretend like I don’t exist for the rest of the day,” Sam picked up the plate that held his lunch and scurried off, leaving a chuckling Dean behind. 

****

The only light filling her room came from the laptop that was perched in her lap, playing some television show she had stopped paying attention to a while ago, and the filtered light from the hall through the slats in her door. The huntress was still curled into a ball under her covers, attempting to use what little bit of heat from her computer she could muster as she had been unsuccessful in located her heating pad. She felt bad for ripping into Sam about it, but the truth was he had misplaced her belongings, something that she found happened often around the Winchesters, and she was over it today. Pain tended to make her grumpy, as it did most people, and she wasn’t going to apologize for being pissed at their carelessness. 

A soft rapping against her door had her pausing the show as she shoved the device aside. The guest didn’t wait for a response before they pushed the door open, bringing with them a flood of light. Y/n cringed at the sudden change, hiding her face behind her hand. 

“Sorry, sweetheart,” Dean’s familiar chuckle sounded before the click of the latch indicated he had closed the door behind him. “I come bearing gifts.” 

“What?” she was confused by his words as she dropped her hand and allowed her eyes to adjust back to the relative darkness. 

“Your water bottle, half ice, half water,” he set the green canteen on her bedside table. “The heating pad Sammy somehow managed to lose behind the washing machine,” Dean handed her the light green pad folded neatly with the cord sitting on top. Y/n sighed a breath of relief as the eldest Winchester continued. “And a sharable size bag of dark chocolate peanut M&M’s.”

“Dean,” Y/n caught the purple bag as he tossed it her way, biting back a gleeful moan. “I fucking love you.” She unceremoniously tore into the bag and popped a couple of the chocolate candies into her mouth, missing the rush of blood on the Winchester’s cheeks. 

“And finally,” he mimicked a drum roll with his mouth and procured a box from his arms, placing it on her bedside table. The woman frowned, unable to make out the object at first in the darkness. 

“You bought me tampons? How,” she trailed off, not only awestruck by the hunter’s gesture but amazed at his attention to detail as she read the label. 

“There is only one thing you need your heating pad for,” he remarked as he took the referenced object back to plug it into an outlet for her. “Also, you never snap at Sammy.”

“But how did you know what kind to buy?” 

“Kind of hard not to when you have a box of them stashed away in Baby’s trunk,” Dean countered as he perched himself on the edge of her bed. 

“Hey, those are for emergencies. Besides, I’m sure Baby understands.”

“I’m sure she does.” 

Y/n chewed on the inside of her cheek as she fiddled with the bag of candy in her lap, the kindness shown by Dean throwing her off. She offered the open bag to her hunting partner, who snatched a handful for himself with a grin. 

“Thank you, Dean, seriously. This is the sweetest thing anyone has ever done for me,” her voice was low as the admittance slipped past her lips. “Want to watch some Scooby-Doo with me? You know, if you aren’t busy or anything?”

“I’d love to, sweetheart,” Dean winked at her, that shit-eating grin never leaving his face even as he stood and shucked off his jacket and boots so he could climb into the bed next to her. “Who could pass up Daphne?”

The huntress sat back against the headboard with a roll of her eyes and switched the streaming show on her laptop before unfolding her already warmed heating pad and laid it across her lower abdomen. She moved the laptop at the end of the bed so they could both see it and set the bag of M&M’s between her and Dean to share. 

The two settled into the cartoon, laughing in unison at the ridiculous parts and commenting on how the Scooby gang couldn’t have handled that monster had it been real. Three episodes passed by before a shredding cramp ripped through her stomach, the shock of it enough that she was unable to hide the groan as she had been so far. 

“You okay?” Dean shifted in his spot next to her, his head turning from the kids’ show to his friend beside him.

“No, I’m not okay. It feels like my internal organs are attempting to exit my body,” she snapped, instantly regretting it when Dean subtly recoiled. “Shit, I’m sorry. I--I didn’t mean…” Y/n was cut off as the pain returned just as intense as it had been moments ago, causing her to roll onto her side and into a ball, clutching the heat of the pad against her body like a lifeline. 

“Alright,” Dean huffed before moving the candy and laptop from the bed. Y/n could hear the hunter shift behind her, but her eyes were clamped shut as she tried to breathe through the pain like she was experiencing the contractions of labor of something. She felt the hard lines of his body lock around the curves of her own and his arm snake around her abdomen. His hand rested over hers as he pulled her tight against him, putting more pressure than she had been able to muster against her lower belly. “I’ve got you.”

The heat of his body on one side and the pad against her stomach, combined with the force he was exerting on her uterus, finally allowed her to relax fully for the first time since she had awoken that morning. She never wanted to leave this moment, utterly content in the peace that his presence in her bed brought her. The idea scared her a little, but she figured that was a problem for another day. Now she chose to just live in this moment for as long as he would let her. 

“Why?” she muttered into the dark space after she was sure he had fallen asleep as his grip had relented a touch and his breathing evened out, hoping he wouldn’t answer but knowing she had to ask. 

“Cause I wanted to,” his voice was gruff, indicating he had probably been on the cusp of falling asleep when she spoke up. “I hate seeing you like this. Figured it was the least I could do.”

“Dean Winchester, are you going soft on me?” she quirked up one corner of her lips, unable to fight the giddiness his words instilled in her chest. 

“Sweetheart, there is nothing soft about me when I’m around you,” he chuckled, earning himself an elbow to the gut. He grunted and the two of them fell into a fit of laughter. 

“I’m serious.”

“So am I.” The hunter was ready for her arm this time, his hand moving to wrap around her forearm and pull it into him so as to trap her even tighter than before in his embrace. Y/n struggled against his hold, giggling like an idiot as the two wrestled in the bed a moment before she relented that he was much stronger than she. 

“Honestly,” Dean placed a gentle kiss to her shoulder once she had settled, only encouraging her to melt further into his arms. “I’d do anything to make you smile, Y/n.”

“Well, then mission accomplished, Winchester,” she turned her head to flash him a genuine smile to which he reciprocated before planting his pillow-soft lips against hers.

P.S. I didn't even try on this title because this is just a little therapy piece and therefore no one should judge me. 

Forevers: @22sarah08​ @440mxs-wife​ @akshi8278​ @anathewierdo​ @asgoodasdancingqueen @atc74​ @awesome-badass-cafeteria-sauce​​ @briagallen​ @callmekda​ @dawnie1988​ @deandreamernp​ @deangirl93​ @deanwanddamons​ @ellewritesfix05​ @emoryhemsworth​ @foxyjwls007​ @hobby27​ @janicho88​ @jbsgirl4ever11​ @jensengirl83​ @lunarmoon8​ @lyarr24​ @mishacollins4evah @miss-nerd95​ @mrsjenniferwinchester​ @msmarvelouswinchester​ @polina-93​​ @sleepylunarwolf​ @squirrelnotsam​ @stiles-stilinski-24-dylan​ @suckmyapplejacks​ @supraveng​ @tatted-trina6​ @thoughts-and-funnies​ @traceyaudette​ @tranquility-or-chaos​​ @waywardbeanie​ @winchest09​ 

[sweetaesuga]

in your heart | halloween

pairing: jungkook x female reader

genre: fluff, lil smut, fratboy jk, ex-fuckboy jk, bookworm reader! established relationship!

warnings: language, jk is horny😐 but she lets him hit it🤠, annoying kids

word count: 2.1k

synopsis: halloween with jungkook and his cousin.

timeline: takes place after the events of in your eyes

↳ in your heart; masterlist

a/n: this is late but EYES WIDE OPEN IS A BOP. i need to start writing my next fic and stop writing drabble skdjdjd

"Fuck, you look so good. Lets just go to your place and spend the night there. Fuck them kids," Jungkook's hands disappeared under your purple dress that he adored and despised at the same time. He wasn't complaining but he didn't want any other person possibly looking up your dress to catch a peek of his favorite pink panties.

"We're not ditching Hyun. You promised him last time that you wouldn't miss out again," he groaned as he instantly knew what you were referring to. Last Halloween, he ditched the both of you for a girl he was wanting to mess around with. Jungkook wasn't going to let this opportunity pass up so last minute he notified you that he wasn’t coming.

"Stop reminding me of my shitty mistakes," he sighed. His face was buried into your green scarf that tickled you every five seconds. His slicked back hair brushed against your cheek constantly. His hands slipped under your underwear causing you to yelp and push him away. "What the hell is wrong with you? It's Halloween and there's kids around."

He pouted, his lower lip pushing out. "What's wrong with me? Not my fault, you look incredible," his eyes lingered on your purple gogo boots that he seemed to be obsessed with. Even imagined you bent over with them while he was behind you, pounding into you. You looked so angelic with them on. He wasn't sure how long he can hold himself back for. "Why would you wear this if you know how I am?"

"It's our costume, dumbass," you pointed at his white pollo shirt with the bright red tie in between. His dark jeans which tightly enclosed around his thick thighs. "I'm Daphne and you're Fred Jones," you turned away from him, waiting on his cousin to burst through those doors anytime soon so you could avoid Jungkook’s stare.

"Why couldn't we be Shaggy and Velma?" he leaned on the hood of his car, watching a child trip over his own feet. He was close to bursting out in laughter but you shot him a glare just in time. "I wasn't gonna laugh. Seriously though, we're better off as them. Appearance wise—well actually Daphne could've suited you more than Velma but whatever."

You rolled your eyes and stood next to him. His arm came around your shoulder to hold you close. His Victoria's Secret perfume was strong but you don't comment on it."Hyun wanted to be Shaggy. It would make way more sense for him to be, he has a dog."

The second you finished your sentence, a brown Great Dane puppy came running down to you from the house his owner was in. Her steps are big as she leaped to make it to Jungkook and you fast. You squealed, throwing your boyfriend's arm off of you. Jungkook would whine about it but how could he, when it's a cute puppy.

"Nala! Hi girl, how are you doing?"she wagged her tail around as you bent down to caress her fur. A red harness around her chest but no sign of a leash on her. "You don't have your leash on, go put your leash on!" she ignored you and jumped on you again.

"We should get a dog," Jungkook thought out loud from thinking about it too hard. His ears flushed a tint of red from the tip. He turned to see your reaction but you don't appear to be bothered from his suggestion. He released a breath he didn't notice he was holding in. His stupid mind wondering the impossible. There was no way you would want a dog with him.

Luckily his aunt and cousin saved him from any more trouble. He rolled his eyes when Hyun came running to your arms instead of him, his cousin. His brown hair was messy to fit the role of Shaggy. Honestly, Jungkook still thought that he would've made a perfect Shaggy.

"Aww, you look so adorable Hyun! I haven't seen you in almost a year," you hugged him tightly. Ignoring the way your boyfriend was glaring at him, he kissed your cheek. "I can't believe I missed your birthday, I'm so sorry."

"It's okay," he reassured you as his mother came from behind him. She greeted the two of you, mentioning how she was happy when she found out the news of the two of you being together.

"It was about time," she muttered under her breath, taking a glance at Jungkook when she bent down to hook the leash on Nala. He looked away, ashamed of previous actions. If Jungkook could’ve been with you over sooner, he would've stopped fooling around with other girls. "Alright, you got everything?" Hyun nodded and gave his mom a kiss. "Behave good for Jungkook and Y/N," she turned to you, handing over this pumpkin basket. "If anything happens please call me. Have him home by ten please."

"We will, come on Hyun," you held your hand for him to take. He hugged his mother again before grabbing your hand. The contrast between the two was cute, your larger hand engulfed his. Jungkook made sure that he rubbed the top of Hyun’s head gently so he wouldn't fuss about Jungkook being extra vicious with him.

Hyun waved at his mother as Jungkook clutched his free hand, watching her figure shrink. He tightened the grasp around your hand. Nala walked in front of you, sniffing all the areas. She became annoyed at one kid, dressed as a witch, coming to pet her harshly. Jungkook was close to telling the child to fuck off but you warned him.

"You're not dad material," you followed Hyun to a house. Jungkook's hot on your trail and ready to defend himself but Nala ran towards a plant to piss on it. "Seriously, don't bother trying to get me pregnant, I do not want your babies."

"Oh shut up. You told me I'm daddy material."

"I thought we agreed we weren't into that too," Hyun ran up the house with the minimal decoration. There were really no other Halloween decorations besides the basket outside with a note on it and a pumpkin on the right. Talk about being in the spirit. "It says to take one," you pointed at the basket filled with bags of candy.

"Take all of them."

"No! Just take one."

"Take all of them, who cares?"

"I care!" you turned around to give him a dirty look. He was already smiling at you, apparent that he knew that he was annoying you. "Take all of them, one of the kids are eventually going to," he shrugged when you continued to stare at him. "I'm speaking facts, bubs—oh! Nala's pooping, did you bring a bag?" he asked while having a stare down with the puppy. Her eyes stared simply at Jungkook as she continued her business on the freshly mowed grass.

"Why would I bring a pooping bag?!" you turned towards him and away from Hyun. He picked up handfuls of candy, nearly putting it in his basket before he noticed something.

"Well shit," Jungkook laughed, looking around to see if any other kid heard him. There's a group of kids coming for the house you're standing at. "My aunt didn't give me one."

"I'm not leaving the poop here," you pointed to the sign that clearly said to pick up after your dog. Jungkook groaned before becoming aware of what was in Hyun's hand. He handed him the poop bag, small poop emojis imprinted over it.

"That's so cute," you gushed over the stupid bag and the puppy too. You don't listen to the basket of candy being emptied into Hyun’s pumpkin basket, too engrossed into Nala. Jungkook shot a thumps up to Hyun, satisfied with his cousin.

Even if you do seem to notice how full his basket was despite only being to five houses, you don't mention it. His collection of candy for the night was becoming so full, Jungkook had to carry some in the pockets of his blue jeans until they eventually became stuffed. He also filled up a takeout bag of Burger King where Jungkook took the two of you to eat.

Nala's on his lap, sleeping from the almost two hour walk. Jungkook picked her up after the first hour and was pleased with how sweet she was in his arms. She clearly enjoyed his warmth the most out of the two of you. The evidence was her snoozing in the middle of noisy fast food place. Hyun was somewhat tired and ready for bed. His bedtime was nearing and the signs of exhaustion were lucid.

"Is Y/N like your girlfriend?" Hyun asked, his chicken nuggets being sloppily dipped in the ketchup. His feet swung high since he was unable to touch the ground.

"Sadly, yes," Jungkook sighed and looked over at you. He smiled at you as he watched the grin grow on your face. "We're dating now. No longer am I a free man, Hyun."

"If you marry her then does that mean she's like part of the family?" Hyun blinked. A bit of ketchup sliding down the corner of his mouth before you wipe it for him.

"Yes—actually I don't what she'll be to you but yes she'll be apart of the family," Jungkook grabbed a fry before pointing it at you. "So if you want her to become apart of the family, tell her to start proposing to me."

"Isn't it the other way around?" he asked, innocently. His curious eyes make your heart flutter.

"No," Jungkook and you respond at the same time. He kicked your boot lightly underneath the table, smiling like an idiot. "Y/N will be proposing to me, we would like to break stereotypes. I want an expensive ring too and I expect you to take care of me."

"Can I be your boyfriend too?" Hyun almost cut off Jungkook to ask his question. You could practically see the steam rushing out of Jungkook's ears the second his cousin finished. You giggled and nodded. Jungkook kicked you underneath the table, trying to persuade you to glance over at him. Hyun hugged you, eyeing your boyfriend. The glint of the sinister in there from your response.

"Well if I marry her, she's my wife," Jungkook jabbed his pointer finger into the boy's chest. "And you're just her boyfriend so you would be nothing compared to me," he leaned back. His arms crossed over his chest, his biceps flaunting out of nowhere. You mentally rolled your eyes at his competitiveness emerging. "Besides she said she wanted a big strong man not a little boy like you."

"That's not true, right?" Hyun turned to you. His eyes begging to you that you truly did not say that. You were prepared to disagree but Jungkook spoke again.

With a playful smug on his face, he rubbed the end of his combat boot against your exposed skin. "That's not she told me last—"

You kicked his leg harshly, earning a cry from him. He grunted as his small jump away from you awakened the puppy. "Be quiet, we're literally in a public place," your cheeks are warm from the information about your intimacy he was spilling out. "We should get going, it's getting late," you slid out of the booth and ignored the protests of the boys who wanted to stay longer. You poured water into Jungkook's hands for Nala to drink outside before departing.

Jungkook carried Hyun on the way back. Slumber made up its mind and took over the exhausted kid. He had poured his energy out running from door to door. Jungkook offered to also carry Nala on his other side but you didn't want to force him to bear all that weight so you suggested for him to take the basket. Once you returned to his aunt’s home, his uncle removed Hyun from his arms before thanking you for looking after him and wishing you a good night.

Jungkook's ready to doze off too tired from the events of tonight to even go to his own place. His ascot tie undone by the time he reached your small apartment complex. He almost missed it if he didn't stop to stare into the mirrors to make sure he wasn't parking on the red line. Your fingers hooked around the ends of your pink lacy underwear before pushing it down. He doesn't grasp how in a blink of an eye, you're on top of him with your buttons from your dress undone.

“What are you doing?” he asked, his hands already on your hips to direct them. Jungkook fidgeted as he watched you pull the straps of your bra down slowly. He was on the verge of taking you right then and there in the backseat of his car as you teased him.

“Giving you your sweets too.”

[couldnt-think-of-a-funny-name]

Hi, I would like to hear more about a mystery inc. buzzfeed unsolved au

you really want me to do headcanons for scooby mcfucking doo now??? fine

okay so it’s entirely Shaggy’s fault

but not on PURPOSE. He didn’t think anyone would take him seriously. He’s still not down for all this ghost hunting shit

the Gang(tm) was in the middle of their weekly routine (watching Ghost Adventurers and eating pot brownies in Daphne’s basement) and Shaggy, who was like, Far Out Man by this point, made some off hand comment that they’d be way better at ghost hunting than Zak fucking Baggins (whom he hates for legitimately no clear reason, likely stemming from a hallucination during a bad trip, but his friends find the unexplained grudge from the normally chill Shaggy hilarious and that’s why they always watch the show lmao)

anyway. he was JOKING

but when he wakes up the next morning, Fred has already created a youtube channel, contacted three different local haunted locations, and is using Daphne’s credit card to buy a shit load of equipment. alrighty.

 Daphne is All Fucking In for this idea, because she secretly never grew out of her middle school witchy girl phase, and she wants some damn validation. She’s already running a marketing campaign online and starting up a merch store. Daph. Daph it’s 8:30 in the morning. Daphne Babe I made the joke like two hours ago,

but she won’t be stopped

Scooby Doo himself abso-fucking-lutely has a legendary shitpost twitter and nobody but the gang knows an Actual Dog is running it but anyway Daphne figures out his password and starts promoting their ghost hunting show there ‘first episode dropping in a week!!!’ and it gets millions of retweets lmao

Shaggy dedicates all morning to trying to talk the two of them out of this

and when Velma finally wakes up she’s like are you guys,,,,, insane,

“Please don’t make me be the type of person who agrees with Shaggy”

at one point she was like ‘Well maybe you two can go be stupid together, this doesn’t really need to be a group thing’ but Fred and Daphne just went 🥺🥺 and her and Shaggy were like ‘Goddammit’ 

So they agree,

and by like the next damn day they’re in a decrepit building. It’s really gross. Shaggy’s desperately calling the vet to make sure Scoob is up to date on his shots gross. There’s an ominous thunderstorm. Very mood appropriate right

they’d spent the afternoon filming the bits where they learned the history of the location, because Daphne is a fast working journalist thanks, and the boys are all sufficiently spooked but Velma’s just like ‘why do I put up with all of you’ lmao

so they’re doing their walkthrough, they’ve got a mix of nice cameras and shitty shaky phone cameras, there’s a go-pro on Scobby’s head, and every single noise Velma refutes. Every single shadow she debunks. Every cold wind she hand waves away

there’s one point where Daphne is like ‘Velma honey you just need to open your mind’ and Velma is like ‘if ghosts are actually real than may God smite me where I stand’ and almost immediately the window next to her gets hit by a lightning strike and she just calmly looks up and deadpans ‘You missed’ 

during their solo walks Shaggy and Scoob come face to face with a full bodied apparition that chases them out of the house and when they’re reviewing the footage later Velma’s insisting it’s Fred in a cheap costume being a dick and Shaggy’s insisting that Fred has never successfully done anything in his life, why would he start now? And Fred is standing behind them looking offended and Daphne’s cackling off screen and anyway the first episode is a FUCKING HIT

even taking Scooby’s twitter audience into account they weren’t expecting this kind of a response 

but everyone’s obsessed with their group dynamic and how well the video managed to shift from comedy to horror so everyone’s hooked

they rush out a second episode that’s just as wild as the first

Fred, scared from seeing the footage of a legit ghost chasing Shaggy and Scoob, turns up with nun-chucks ‘‘dipped in holy water’‘ and whacks himself in the face with them while trying to show off. Daphne thinks the reported ghost looks cute in the pictures she dug up and starts getting flirty during the evp session. Fred has a great idea that they can bait the ghosts using costumes and Shaggy’s like ‘that’s the dumbest thing you’ve ever said’ and then we hardcut to Shaggy and Scooby looking like this:

Scooby: “Rye rook rike rah dick”

Velma’s still shredding everything like she Won’t believe they even get an evp that says ‘can the chick in the glasses shut up’ ksjddfskjh

look I know traditionally mystery inc unmasks the ghosts and everything but I feel like they wouldn’t be able to post that online with their following??? I feel like that might mess up some criminal trials??? so we’re just going with the early 2000′s ghosts are real angle here, deal with it 

one time Velma says something particularly mean about the ghost’s previous life and they almost immediately pick up crying on the spirit box and Fred’s like ‘You hurt her feelings :/, tell the ghost you’re sorry Velma’ and she’s like no????? that’s clearly just a cat?? and then a rock almost hits her head but she insists it was because Scooby must’ve bumped into a shelf 

 some running gags for their fans include:

Obsessing over how Scooby can talk. Almost every Q&A video they get a question that’s just like ‘how the FUCK is the dog doing that please’ and the gang is always just like ‘What do you mean?’ and then Scooby just goes ‘Reah, rwhat ro rou mean?’ and then they just move onto the next question sdkjsdf

Velma and Shaggy making the hotdogga specifically to piss off Daphne, only instead of hotdogs it’s scooby snacks

 Daphne implying in one episode that she did, in fact, manage to successfully fuck a ghost, but she chose to exclude the footage to preserve modesty 

‘spot how many joints you can see in this episode’ 

 “Shaggy Rogers Buy A New Shirt Challenge” 

Velma once referred to Fred as the ‘communal sugar baby’ and no one is capable of moving on from that statement

one episode where Shaggy went on a five minute rant, uninterrupted, about how he could totally kick Zak Baggin’s ass. Daphne slowly pans in on his twiggy arms the more heated he gets. Zak Baggin’s retweeted the video without comment.

before episodes drop they always put up polls that are like ‘how do you think Fred’s plan will backfire this week?’ lmao

Velma’s glasses falling off right before a full bodied apparition appears before the rest of the group and since she didn’t see anything she thinks they’re talking bullshit so for like a month everyone was flooding her social media just begging her to buy some contacts

bets on what absolutely impractical but killer outfit Daphne will be wearing to a condemned building each episode 

okay I’m sorry I love this but I’m getting tired right now but anyway basically the entire dynamic of this show is:

Fred

Scooby

Daphne 

Shaggy

and Velma

and it’s very iconic I love this idea lmao

[the-cult-of-russo]

Push and Pull (part 3)

Pairing: Matt Murdock x OC

Warnings: cursing

---------

"Run that by me again. Because it sounded an awful lot like you just said the private investigator knows about your alter ego, and I know I must have misheard you," Foggy pleaded. His voice was getting higher with each passing word as his panic took hold. Matt was sitting in his office as Foggy paced the room after he told him about the girl and their encounters. Matt was still stunned himself how easily she pieced it together. He tried to avoid interacting with people as himself if he had as Daredevil, but even when it happened, like with Brett and Karen, people hadn't figured it out. Yet she had.

"You heard me right," he sighed, rubbing his forehead. 

"This is bad. This is worse than bad. She knows, Matt. She knows!" Foggy shrieked. Matt wished he had a volume button or something.

"Look, freaking out won't help anyone. I don't know what you want me to do about it, Fog. I already tried threatening her to keep her mouth shut and it backfired," he stated frustratedly. Foggy stilled, head whipping to him. Matt could hear his heart thundering in his chest.

"You threatened her?! What were you thinking, Matt?! You're going to piss off the girl who knows your very deadly and dangerous secret?!" Matt winced at the volume of his voice and also from his own stupidity.

"I didn't think. I just reacted. And she had no issues putting me in my place," he muttered with a bitter tone. It had been impulsive and reckless to threaten her but panic had seized him at the time. All he could think about was Foggy and how he'd go down with him. And Karen too even though she didn't even know. It wasn't so much what would happen to him but how his secret would ruin his friends lives if it got out. He felt hopeless. Like he was falling from a twenty story building at a rapid rate.

Foggy heaved a sigh, pulling his chair out before flopping into it. 

"Okay… okay. You need to make nice. We need to get her on our side so she keeps her mouth shut," Foggy mused softly. That had been the issue. The words Daphne had used had been what unsettled him and also what seemed to bother Foggy. What would it serve me? As it stood now, she didn't gain from telling anyone and he knew she was telling the truth. Just like she had when she told him she believed he did good for Hell's Kitchen. But the second it would serve her, if she was in some kind of life or death situation and the only way she would get out of it was exposing him, she would talk. And pissing her off definitely hadn't done him any favours. He didn't need to give her a reason to run her mouth.

"I don't think making nice is going to work," Matt scoffed, remembering her attitude. She hadn't even been scared when he tried to intimidate her. She'd seemed more annoyed than anything. 

"Well we need to try. If she's on our side, you can turn on that Murdock charm and she'll realise what a good guy you are. She won't want to talk. You're both working the Italians right now, why don't you team up or something? Work together," Foggy pleaded. It would have been a good plan, letting her in and seeing that telling people would be a bad idea. But he had a feeling that approach wouldn't work with this one 

"Team up? And just how do we do that? Did you hear my story? She really doesn't like me and I haven't exactly given her a reason to," Matt bit out feeling the hopelessness eat at him.

"We could invite her here. Talk to her. I can talk to her, the whole best friend thing, you know? Maybe she'll listen to me," Foggy was reaching and they both knew it but this wasn't really a situation they had anticipated.

"No. I'll figure it out. Let's just leave it for now until I can come up with a solid plan," he said firmly. He didn't want Foggy getting involved. As far as she knew, his best friend was unaware of his double life. He knew it wouldn't take much for her to figure it out and that would only land Foggy in hot water. He wanted them far away from each other. Foggy let out an exasperated sigh, shaking his head 

"Fine. You better come up with something quick then," he muttered, standing and leaving the room. He should have noticed something was off with how easy his best friend agreed to let it go. But his head was too busy to notice.

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

Daphne was on her couch putting a new memory card into her camera. Her laptop was on the coffee table as it uploaded the pictures from the other one. Her purple hair was up in a high pony, dressed in black yoga pants and an oversized sweatshirt. She was taking it easy until tonight. Most of her work took place under the cover of darkness. Tonight though wouldn't be anything interesting. Just investigating a cheating spouse which sadly made up most of her work as a PI. Her eyes snapped to her door when frantic impatient knocking filled her apartment. She scrunched her face wondering who was practically knocking her door down. With silent, light footed steps, she crept to the door and peeked through the peephole. What the fuck?

She swung her door open, the shaggy haired lawyer, Foggy, from earlier stood there. He looked like he was about to have a panic attack and it dawned on her that she was right. She knew exactly why he was here.

"Hi! Daphne, right?" He asked, a nervous grin on his face. She quirked a brow looking unimpressed. 

"How did you find where I lived?" She asked plainly. His smile turned sheepish then and he rubbed the back of his neck 

"Uh… I may have told Brett our firm needed to hire you," he said awkwardly. She rolled her eyes heavenward. Without a word, she stepped aside, gesturing with her head for him to come in. Shutting the door behind her, she sauntered back to the couch and sat down.

Foggy seemed to stand awkwardly for a moment as his eyes flicked around the open plan apartment. Then after looking at her and her cool glare, he shuffled to the armchair and sat down.

"Matt told me that you know. And he also told me he stupidly threatened you, which was totally not okay by the way. But he was panicking and not thinking right. But he's my best friend and I need him and if you told anyone then it's game over for all of us," he blurted, face red and a slight sheen of sweat on his brow. She heaved a sigh, putting her camera back down on the coffee table as she levelled a look at him.

"I told the asshole I had no plans to tell," she stated slowly like he was a child. But he just scrunched up his face and shook his head.

"I know and that's great and all. But what if anything happened? You might not go to the cops or reporters, but what if one of the people you're investigating knows you know something? What if they put pressure on you to tell them?" He was panicked and looked ready to have an aneurism.

"And what? You expect me to just get tortured or lose my life for some dick I've met twice and who's done nothing but give me attitude and pin me to walls?" She snorted mirthlessly. His eyes widened and he shook his head again.

"Pinned you to walls? Dammit, Matt,” he muttered angrily before he rubbed his hands over his face. 

She felt slightly bad for the man. He wasn't the one donning a costume and kicking ass at night and it seemed he was dragged into this mess by being Devilboy’s friend. She could see him unraveling.

"Look… I can't promise much but as I said, I don't care enough to go running my mouth. And honestly, I don't know how much Matt told you about me but I'm a stubborn bitch. If the mafia have me, even if I told them what they wanted to know, they'd kill me anyway. I probably wouldn't say shit just out of spite," she said with a rueful smile. He snorted a little, looking only mildly relieved. She was telling the truth though. She wouldn't know until faced with that choice if she would choose to tell or not but she knew no matter what she told them, they'd kill her. They'd kill her for not talking or kill her when she did because she'd no longer be useful to them. She was petty and she'd withhold the information simply to annoy them in her last moments. 

Foggy nodded, the movement jerky as he released a shaky breath.

"I guess that helps a little," he murmured. 

"It's the best I can do," she said with an apologetic smile. Just because his best friend was an asshole didn't mean he was. She did feel bad for him. 

"Matt doesn't know you're here does he?" She asked knowingly after a moment of silence. He looked caught out for a minute and she chuckled.

"I… uh… no. I believe his instructions were to not come and talk to you and to definitely not get involved," he said sheepishly. 

"This is what I'm talking about. You're loyal to him. You're his best friend. I don't have that loyalty to him, Foggy. I can't promise anything other than I already have," she explained softly, not wanting him to have a stroke from the stress he seemed to me under.

"What about a partnership? He's working the Italian case too, in his own ‘talking with your fists’ kinda way. You do your thing, he does his. You'll make a great duo!" He pleaded with a smile. She blew out a sigh and pushed some stray hair from her face.

"I doubt that would happen. He hates me and honestly, I'd end up killing him myself having to spend time with him," she muttered with complete honesty. Foggy deflated a bit and she felt bad for him. But there wasn't much she could do at all about the whole thing. Honestly she wished she hadn't stumbled across the truth about Daredevil’s identity. It was proving far too much trouble than it was worth.

"Look, I'll do my best even under dire circumstances to keep my mouth shut. But I'm doing it because I feel bad for you and not for your asshole best friend," she stated. Foggy grinned at her looking relieved right away. They both knew it was the best she could do. Not when she had no loyalty to Devilboy. 

"Thank you," Foggy breathed, giving her a grateful nod. She stood up and he followed suit, the pair walking to her front door.

"I'm sorry for bothering you. I was just…" he trailed off, frowning.

"Don't worry about it. You're a good friend, Foggy," she said sincerely. It made his face light up. How did he even get tangled with the Devil of Hell's Kitchen? 

"I'm glad someone notices," he snorted, "and honestly, I don't know what Matt was talking about. You seem pretty nice to me," he grinned. She gave him a mock glare as she pushed him through her open door.

"Keep your mouth shut, I have a reputation to uphold," she smirked. He chuckled and nodded. The pair shared their goodbyes before she shut the door. He was certainly a character.

She had no idea how an asshole like Matt Murdock ended up with such a kind and loyal friend. She couldn't help the pang of envy. She didn't really have any friends of her own. She just never bothered to meet people or to form attachments other than the ones she already had with her family. She rolled her eyes at her own envy before plonking back on the sofa. It was time to chill out until it went dark, then her snooping could begin. 

[glitterbootsharry]

chapter one.

taglist 

The wooden door with the famous stain glass mermaid window opens as Harry walks through the threshold, jostling the bell. He’s running late, which isn’t normally like him, due to the fact that he couldn’t decide which overcoat to wear, finally deciding on the tan one instead of the navy. He wanted everything to be perfect when meeting Daphne J. His stomach turns as sheds his jacket and carries the garment over his arm while raking his fingers through his brown messy hair.  

He takes off his black flat top baker hat before scanning the pub quickly, a worried look flashing across his face until he saw her sitting on a stool that has a leg a few centimetres short of the others. She’s jostling the chair as she waits for him. He pushes the through the group of friends that are currently yelling orders to the barmaid. She doesn’t look up until he reaches the table.

“Daphne?” he asks, sliding onto the stool. He reaches out for a handshake, but a wide-eyed look takes him aback. She looks up at him with her honey eyes, and smiles at him quizzically. He is nothing like Daphne imagined. She holds onto the small glass cup between her two fingers. The man thanks her for ordering the pint ahead of time. 

“I’ve been proper shacked.”

Not the best way to start the conversation, but Daphne Jones figured it was the best to talk about the invisible elephant in the room first before they got to the good stuff. Harry sits back in his chair as he watches the blonde with the full figure take back a shot of whatever brown liquor she requested. She had worn what she promised: olive green jumper with her hair in a low side bun.

She had seemed alright given the limited messaging they had fueled back and forth. She insisted they meet in a public place, which Harry understood. She even said that she had brought along a friend in case anything weird were to happen. She had stressed the word weird out like Harry had planned on kidnapping the birdie himself or something of that nature.

Sure, Daphne was easy on the eyes to him. She might have even been his type to chat up if they had been two strangers in a pub on a Thursday night, but they were potential flatmates and crossing the lines would bring disaster upon itself.

“But I want to let y’know that I’ve got first and last month’s rent plus possibly a deposit,” Daphne smiles as Harry mulls over the newly presented fact that Daphne now has no job. “Depending on if I get my furniture back from Stephen.”

“Don’t suppose I need any of that. Just want someone to help with bills and such. Mind if I ask why you were sacked?” Harry takes a long sip of beer as Daphne rolls her mouth in. She looks to Eliza, whose sitting at the bar waiting for the signal. If Daphne blinks twice, she’s ready for action.

“I, erm, told the CEO of the company to stuff her opinion of my presentation that could bring the company thousands where it does not shine,” Daphne pouts her lips out as she looks anywhere but Harry’s green eyes. For a stranger, he had a way of making Daphne feel inadequate.

“Mm.”

“She said it didn’t have enough research to help back my idea up. The trollop has no idea how long I’ve done research. I’ve about done my head in with numbers and shit,” Daphne waves for another drink. Her smile is genuine when she looks back at Harry.

“How long have you been without?” Harry rubs his scruffy chin with his thumb and forefinger. Not quite sure how to take Daphne, he still continues to conduct the interview.

“Just today,” Daphne grumbles. She puts her hands in mid air as if she surrenders. “But I would not have come if I didn’t really want to live somewhere besides my friend’s couch. Got an interview Monday.”

Harry is pleased with Daphne’s work ethic. She stands up for herself which would come in handy. when it came to Harry’s mates. 

“Whose Stephen?” Harry remembers the name Daphne mentioned earlier. “Why does he have your furniture?”

“Arsehole of a boyfriend, I’ll tell you that. Ruddy bloke broke it off with me last week via work email because ‘it wasn’t working out’. Well, it wasn’t working out when he started seeing Miss Slag from Accounting, but he kicked me out and I’m stuck with Liza. Fucking ball-bag.”

Harry remembers Katherine from accounting at his job started seeing a Stephen a few weeks back.

“Does this Stephen work for Smith and Weston?”

“Yeah, that’s him. He’s the assistant manager to God knows and he thinks his cock is Jesus Christ himself. Why?”

“Oh, nothing. Do you cook?” Harry asks, leaning his elbows on the table. The short woman brings out the brown liquor and fills Daphne’s small glass.

“Do I need to take offense to that?” Daphne cocks a brow up before throwing back the shot of burning liquid.

“Sorry, I just...” He didn’t know what he wanted to say. “My mum used to cook, and...”

“Used to?” Daphne holds the small cup, anxiety filling her body. She must have said something wrong. “Is she?”

“No, she isn’t dead,” Harry half laughs. “She’s still very much alive. Just haven’t seen her in a bit with me working in the city and all. She’s out in the countryside running a posh little pub like this one.” Daphne sighs, a burst of wind of relief.

“Do you have a girlfriend?”

“No.”

“Boyfriend?”

“No.”

“Are you gay? Because it’s cool if you are. I just want to be prepared when you bring someone over.” Harry says, his lips forming a tight line. 

“I’m not gay.” Daphne heaves her brow up before letting it down. She looks over at Eliza again- still waiting. “Should I take offense to that?”

Daphne shakes her head. “No. Few more questions. Are you a serial killer?”

“Does it really matter at this point?” Harry takes a long look at the small black line on Daphne’s skin just above her collar bone that is sticking out from under her jumper.

“No I guess not. You’d kill me by now.” Daphne laughs as Harry’s smile widens. She was starting to feel more comfortable around him.

“What’s the view like?”

“Kensington Gardens. Sunset is quite beautiful.”

“I’m in.”

“Just like that?” Harry asks bewildered. “No background checks? No wondering if I own a sex slave? No deranged friend asking the like?”

“As long as you’re not tossing it in the main room, I do not care what you do. That’s your business. Plus, I’m desperate.”

“Well, alright then, I guess you’ll want to see the place. We can schedule-“

“None of that,” Daphne is beginning to get louder as the alcohol soaks into her system. “A round for newfound roomies.” She waves over the waitress and asks for two new shots. Harry smiles at her and watches Daphne become pissed.

☕︎︎

It was sometime before Daphne got up the courage to ask what was desperately eating at her. “Why don’t you have anyone? You’re quite handsome.” She is currently being walked to her new home after she insisted on seeing the view tonight. Daphne had warded Eliza home after much protest.

“Haven’t found the right one, I guess,” Harry hold Daphne’s arm over his shoulder as they wait for the lift to move. Her face is close to Harry’s neck and as she inhales, she smells the distant scent of expensive cologne.

“Forgot to ask you what you do...for a living,” Daphne burps and she tastes the alcohol again.

“I work at Smith and Weston.”

The lift opens up to a wide hallway as Daphne gasps. The cream walls reflect from the lighting hanging on them and the brown carpet runs along the length of the building. Harry stops at the fourth door on the level. “This is where I die, isn’t it?” Daphne giggles.

“Yes,” Harry laughs as he pushes the door open. The white walls illuminate the tile floor as a chandelier hangs down inside the main room. The view from the large windows is currently being blocked by the gray no-peak curtains blanketing the night sky. The brown leather couch sit perpendicular to the widows with the large flat screen television sitting on the wall that cuts into the hallway. Daphne turns and sees the open kitchen with the small island. The brown and grays suddenly stop where the main room begins. Two hallways on either side of the flat run down to the bedrooms and baths. 

“So,” Harry clears his throat after putting Daphne on the brown leather couch. “Your room will be there.” He points in front of him. “And mine is back here.” The hallway with the television leads to Harry’s paradise.

“Nice,” Daphne stretches out her word before smiling, “I’ll like it here. We’ll make a great team.” Daphne yawns before stretching her body on the incredibly soft leather. “Can I stay here seeing how I’m living with you now?”

“Sure, I can get you a blanket or-” Harry is cut off as Daphne speaks over him. “We can share your bed. I need the extra support.’

Harry thinks is over for a moment. “Okay.”

Harry leads Daphne to his bedroom. Everything has its place Daphne noticed. The large television is propped against the wall as it looks down on Harry’s rather large bed. The quilt looks hand made and is very rich in color. Small pictures are gathered on the funiture, but what takes Daphne’s notice is the small bottle of lotion and tissues next to Harry’s sunken side of the bed.

Daphne giggles as Harry lays her down on the right side. He looks up, eyes wide, his cheeks instantly become hot. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Daphne yawns again as she lays down. Her head hits the fluffy pillow and before Harry could peel off his coat, he heard the soft snores escaping Daphne’s mouth.

☕︎︎

“Daph, you twitch in your sleep,” Harry’s voice thick from his slumber. His knuckles rub the blurriness away; his eyes open at the sound of Daphne sighing heavily. “And you moan.”

“Sorry,” Daphne grumbled. She turns her head to face her bedmate- wild blonde hair sticking out of her messy bun. Harry stops himself from taking his fingers through her tangled hair.

“You sound like a proper sex phone operator. Didn’t know if I should wake you or not. Didn’t want to disturb,” Harry chuckled to himself as he lingered on his last word. Dark circles had formed under his new roommate’s eyes.

“Sod off, Harold. Now isn’t the time for your jokes. I had enough of them back at the pub. My head is ringing and I’m looking at an ugly bloke. Not how I wanted to start my morning,” The last bit hurt Harry quite a bit and he didn’t know why.

“I’m not ugly,” Harry sat up on his elbow. He was pleased that Daphne had made through the night alive.

“Arrogance before coffee,” Daphne rolled out of bed- the clothes from last night sticking to her body. “Just how I like my men.” The tone of her voice was what threw Harry for a loop. This wasn’t the same girl from the pub last night. No, the girl last night threw banter around like a child digging in the dirt. The girl before him was unusually cruel.

Harry sighs as he closes his eyes again. He was in it from the get go. 

[scoobydoominuscoobydoo]

An older ask had asked you how you would rewrite return to zombie island. How would you rewrite scoob?

Oh I’ve already put some thought into this while I was actually watching the movie simply because I was thirty minutes in and didn’t see it getting better.

The first change I would make is that I would get rid of the whole beginning scenes with them as kids. We didn’t need it and it literally added nothing to the story. You can convince your audience that the characters are close without needing to completely illustrate why.

I would definitely open the film up with them probably in mid-chase at the climax of a mystery because that’s just how you need to open up a Scooby movie. Right from the beginning this is where I would introduce the character conflict. Maybe after they’ve caught the guy and the police are commending them they wouldn’t really have anything to say to Shag and Scoob (who are probably disheveled and starving from running for their lives once again). Shaggy and Scooby have never felt bad about being cowards so I doubt this would really hurt them that much (maybe annoy them at the most). But it identifies where the story is going to focus.

We’d then move into some transitional scenes where you can watch how the gang’s dynamic works and this is where you sell their friendship. This ain’t just a Scooby and Shaggy movie, this is a whole gang movie (the central conflict just stems from Shaggy feeling under appreciated). So their relationships are an important part of getting the audience to care what happens. I would say you subtly show how Shaggy might break up little arguments or remind them to eat. Nothing in your face, more or less it would be weaved in with the gang’s standard banter.

Then we’d get to the gang talking about turning MI into a legitimate business by finding investors and stuff. I think this would be a good opportunity for a montage scene where we get to see a lot of other Scooby/HB characters without it taking too much out of the story (this is where I would show the Blue Falcon and Dyno Mutt). All of them seem to reject the proposition though. I didn’t have major issues with Simon Cowell because random celebrity cameos have always been a Scooby thing but I mean.... Why Simon Cowell of all people? I feel like there are way more suitable celebs to choose from. I feel like it would be funny if they brought in one of the actors from the 2002 live action film (playing themselves) and everyone is just like: “Who the heck is this?” And then Shaggy (who always knows who everyone is) just goes: “Um??? You uncultured swine??? That is obviously Linda Cardellini!” And then she’s the one who is finally willing to invest but says she’ll only do it if Shag is out (Scooby can stay because animal mascots are in and it doesn’t get anymore in than a talking Great Dane).

And the gang gets all offended at this and Linda (it doesn’t have to be Linda but for all intents and purposes I’m just saying it is) will just be like, “Fine, I’ll give you my money if you can tell me what he does for you. For your team.” 

And they’ll all stay silent, trying to think of something and that’s when Shaggy finally takes it personally. It’s one thing to be judged by people he hardly knows. But for his best friends to be given like the easiest ultimatum and they can’t even deliver on it? He wonders if he’s being taken for granted. He decides he is and explodes. Shaggy never explodes so it freaks the gang out.

I think he’d call them out for not considering his constant submission into being the bait as a contribution - despite the fact that he always states that he’ll never do it again. But of course they wouldn’t count that because they’re always too focused in on the details to miss the big picture in front of them. Because, ultimately, that is what Shag adds to the team. Daphne, Fred, and Velma tend to get so wrapped up in the small factors that they sometimes miss the obvious. And that’s when Shaggy will point out the big thing that they’re missing. Shag has always been big picture over nuts and bolts so of course he’s the one to bring up the primary detail missed. This has been an element in almost every single show so I feel like it’s funny that it’s never been spelled out.

Velma is a little hot-head who doesn’t love being demoralized by anyone so she might say something uncalled for and that’s when Shaggy walks out and Scoob follows suit. That’s a pretty major conflict to take up the runtime so there you go. 

Shag and Scoob being pissed at the gang makes a little more sense now and can be further elaborated and expand into Shag’s self-confidence issues. It’s at this point that the two of them can get kidnapped by an unrevealed villain because why the heck would I take the mystery out of it? 

It wouldn’t be by a group of semi-sentient robots because this the 70′s or 80′s and technology wouldn’t be that advanced. Instead, I’d shoot for classic, masked henchmen (maybe disguised as horrifying Greek gods or something) who swipe Shag and Scoob from the bowling alley without even giving them a chance at a comedic chase scene because the audience is supposed to feel unnerved.

We’d cut back to the gang, 1/3 of them a little steamed and the majority feeling bad for selling their best friend short. It’s revealed that they didn’t take the investment offer because there’s no way they would further exclude Shaggy from anything. They decide that they should let everyone cool down before they go and talk things out and while that’s happening Daphne is trying put together a list of all the things Shag and Scoob add to the team. She gets even more upset with herself because this is their best friend and this shouldn’t be that hard. 

In the background, Fred and Velma start arguing and it would act as a kind of callback to the beginning where we see Shag break up their bickering. But since he’s not here the fight begins to escalate and it’s only when they start yelling that Daphne comes between them. Then her face lights up and she gingerly adds that to the list. 

As the movies cuts back and forth between Shag and Scoob’s perspective and the gang’s perspective the list gets longer.

Speaking of, Shag and Scoob are being kept prisoner at the abandoned carnival because that’s always an interesting set-piece that just so happened to be totally pointless in the actual movie. At some point the two of them are split up and this is when it’s hinted that the kidnappers where originally aiming for just Scooby but Shag was also there so they just rolled with it. But because Shaggy isn’t important to them, nobody is really guarding him anymore (they were originally guarding him because Scooby was with him). 

Scooby being taken is the motivation he needs to try and escape and save his dog (in his head he’s pretty sure these whackos are gonna freaking sacrifice his dog to the powerful god of all things creepy). His escape attempts would be interspersed between scenes of the gang looking for him, and Scooby being intimidated by the masked big bad (who is of course explaining the plan in great detail). The gang’s hunt for their guys would be a lot more difficult since they can’t just Life 360 up where he is. It would rely more on visual clues, eyewitness testimonies and choppy security footage, which is overall more engaging and gives the gang an actual thing to do.

While Shaggy is formulating an escape he’s able to pick up bits and pieces of what the crazy people want to do with Scooby and this acts as him getting closer to finishing a puzzle. But he doesn’t analyze the puzzle pieces he gets and tries to guess what the puzzle will look like, that’s not his area or his goal at the moment.

In a big triumphant moment, Shaggy escaping and the gang figuring out where he is happen at the same time. This gets the spirits high before things go wrong again.

And when I say wrong - I mean the gang get capture by the villain. Shaggy isn’t aware of this as he’s sneaking around the carnival grounds trying to figure out where someone would keep the actually important prisoner. I feel like a comically large circus tent would be a cool location for the climax of a movie Scooby’s probably in there. But when Shag gets there he’s quick to hide (like under the seats or something) and this is how he’s able to finally see the whole puzzle put together.

The gang escapes rather quickly because say what you will about Danger Prone Daphne but she’s just as good at getting out of tough situations as she is at getting into them. And so begins the epic journey to find their boys (they escape and Velma just instantly goes, “It’s obviously the huge circus tent.”). And at this point it’s like a One Piece arc and all you want is the whole gang to be reunited again. But first we need a fun scene of the VFD trio trying to evade the henchmen to like a Smash Mouth song or something because remember this is Scooby-Doo.

Shaggy realizes he has to do something fast otherwise his dog is going to be used to open the Underworld. He runs out of the shadows without any real plan with just the goal of taking down the bad guy. But he doesn’t get there in time and the whole tent like erupts into green and blue flames as Cerberus stomps out of the gates and Shaggy is just frozen in place. The masked guy seems a tad surprised to run into Cerberus so fast but is quick to gain control of the beast. He orders the monster to start wreaking havoc on a nearby town something, he doesn’t care so long as he can enter the Underworld without distraction.

But before he can do that, he gets jumped by Shaggy who’s really only trying to keep him pinned down while he comes up with a step two. But Mr. Mask has some fight in him so it becomes this epic struggle between Shaggy, Scooby, and the bad guy while the place is still on fire and we have an epic orchestral score playing in the background.

Right when it seems like the villain has the upper hand, Daphne comes in and like roundhouse kicks him in the head, and he’s out cold. And before Shag and Scoob can react they’re dogpiled by the other three and it’s very heartwarming.

Fred eagerly ties the perp up and then we get our unmasking and it’s Scrappy-Doo!!! Just kidding that’d be stupid. I’m really not sure who would be the best surprise villain but if anyone has a good idea for one please let me know!

When the bad guy comes to, Velma starts shaking him to tell them how to get Cerberus back into the Underworld and how to close the gate. He reveals that all you need to do is whistle and he’ll go home (Cerberus is Hades’ domesticated puppy so obvi that would work). Maybe we get a gag where someone tries to whistle but it’s too hot in the tent for it to work and they’re like: “Does anyone have like some water?” And then Shaggy just rolls his eyes and whistles and boom, big angry puppy comes home. 

Daphne smiles and says, “I’m gonna have to add that to the list.” And Shag is like, “Like, the list of what?” And she explains that the gang has been putting together a list of all the things he brings to the team and it makes him happy that they’re putting in the effort.

We cut back to Velma torturing the info out of our mask on how to close the gates and he just evilly laughs and only a dog or dog’s best friend can close the gate. But, unfortunately, the gate will take them back down to the Underworld. The gang just sits in shock because there is no better option there.

But without missing a beat, Scooby decides he’s gonna do it and runs for the lock. He’s about to put his paw on the thingy when Shaggy beats him to it and nobody even gets a second to process before he’s sucked in and the gate vanishes.

The whole gang run to the spot where the gate used to be and Daphne falls to her knees crying, Scooby is digging at the ground trying to get to the gate and Fred has to get him to stop.

“I never even got to give him the list...” And Daph pulls it out and just drops it on the ground. Velma is on the verge of tears as she adds, “I still owe him an apology. I owe him a lot of apologies...” And as Fred is comforting Scooby he says, “We all do...” The scene ends with the gang all hugging Scooby and the list bursts into flames and disappears.

Then we cut to Shag in the Underworld and he’s just leaning against the gate and crying because what else is he gonna do? “At least I was finally useful to them...” He thinks and slowly begins to walk around and is surprised to see that the Underworld is prettier than he expected. 

“Thank my wife. She’s always looking for ways to brighten this place up so I don’t feel so miserable when she’s gone. “

Shag screams bloody murder and jumps like a ten feet before turning around and seeing a dude in a chiton. Surprise surprise, it’s Hades (Who can also be a celebrity cameo whatever). We get some nice banter before Hades holds up something and asks, “Is this yours?” 

Shaggy looks down and sees that it’s a piece of paper, he shakes his head.

“Really? Because it mentions you an awful lot.”

Evidently it got snagged on the way down and ended up in Hades’ lap - he’s certain he wouldn’t have even noticed that Shaggy was there if it weren’t for that. And then Shag’s face lights up and he realizes it must be the list, as he reads it we cut to all of the times Daphne thought to write these down on their trip. Finally he believes that he’s useful to the team, that he is a valuable part of the gang. 

Hades looks at him and just says, “How do they survive without you?” 

And Shag just shrugs and goes, “Believe me, like, I have no idea.”

Hades smiles and replies, “Then you best not keep them waiting.” Before snapping his fingers and poofing Shaggy back home.

When he gets there, the gang are slowly making their way out of the tent so they don’t see him. So Shag takes the opportunity to say, “I read y’all’s list.” And everyone instantly makes a 180 turn with their eyes super wide and he continues, “You know I think you missed a few but it’s the thought that counts.” And then we get dogpile number two of the movie.

The final scene is the gang opening up Mystery Inc. and them asking Shag where the entertainment is and he’s just like, “I asked our surprise investors to put something together for us...” And then we get the Hex Girls performance we deserve and I can totally buy them investing in Mystery Inc. because they freaking love Shaggy and Scooby so.

We get an ending shot of the gang going off to solve their first monetized mystery (we could have like a soft instrumental version of the first theme song playing) and then we fade to the end credits where we get the What’s New Scooby-Doo theme.

[dukereviewsxtra]

Duke's Monsterween: Scoob

Hello, I'm Andrew Leduc And Welcome To Duke Reviews Xtra Where We're Continuing Duke's Monsterween By Talking About The Final Scooby Doo Movie On This Year's Monsterween, Scoob...

No Synopsis Today, Let's Dive On Into Scoob..

The Film Starts With A Flashback That Answers Questions That Most Us Have Had For Decades Like How Did Scooby And Shaggy Meet And Become Friends?, How Did Scooby And Shaggy Meet Fred, Velma And Daphne? And How Was Mystery Inc Formed?...

Before Cutting Back To Now Where They're Grown Ups The Gang Attempts To Turn Mystery Inc Into A Business By Getting A Benefactor In The Form Of Simon Cowell...

Really? Of All The People You Had To Have Cameo In This Movie? You Had To Have Simon Cowell? I Mean Having One Of The Shark Tank Guys Would Have Made More Sense Than Having Simon In This Movie...

Anyway, Simon Basically Says He Loves Everything About Them Except For Shaggy And Scooby Who He Believes To Be The Gang's Weakest Links And Are..

Not Liking What Simon Is Saying Despite Fred (Played By Troy Bolton)

You Can Try To Outrun High School Musical, Zac But You'll Never Escape It!...

Velma (Played By Jane The Virgin) And Daphne (Played By Cosette? Sophie? I Don't Know What I See Amanda Seyfried As Anymore!) Defending Them, Shaggy (Played By Will Forte And Not Matthew Lillard)

And Scooby (Played By One Of The Men Of 1,000 Voices, Frank Welker) Leave Saying That They Know When They're Not Welcome...

They Go To A Nearby Bowling Alley To Let Off Some Steam While Bowling But When The Bowling Balls And Pins Turn Into Robots But They're Soon Saved By Their Childhood Heroes, The Blue Falcon (Played By Marky Mark Of The Funky Bunch) Who Is The Son Of The Son Of The Original Blue Falcon Who Has Retired

And Dynomutt (Played By Deep Wang) Who Is Having A Hard Time With His Partner's Replacement. Meeting Their Pilot, Dee Dee (Played By Kiersey Clemons)...

Not That Dee Dee, Focus!

Anyway, She Tells The 2 That The Robots Were Sent By A Supervillain Named Dick Dastardly (Played By Lucius Malfoy And Not Paul Winchell)...

And Yes, I Know I That Winchell Passed A Few Years Ago, It's Just Hard To See Another Actor Voice A Character That He Voiced Because He Was Such A Legend...

Hell, Despite How Good He Is I Still Have A Hard Time With Jim Cumming Voicing Tigger As Let's Face It He Was Tigger

Anyway, They Believe That Dastardly Is Out To Kill Them For Some Unbeknownst Reason And They Want Their Help To Stop Dastardly From Collecting The Skulls That Will Open The Door To The Underworld...

Shaggy Refuses At First But With Scooby In, Shaggy Decides To Follow...

With The Bowling Attendant Telling Fred, Velma And Daphne What Happened, She Gives Them One Of The Destroyed Robots To Analyze And When They Do They Discover A Mustache Hair Which Leads Them To Dastardly ...

Who Is Revealed To Have The First Skull Already...

But As They Drive To Him, The Robot Reactivates And Relays It's Location To Dastardly, Who It Turns Out Was Only After Scooby Who When All The Heads Are Put Together Can Open The Door To The Underworld...

Meanwhile, Shaggy And Scooby Help Dee Dee Discover The Location Of The Second Skull In The Gobi Desert But Blue Falcon Decides To Take The Advice Of One Of His Twitter Followers And Goes To Romania...

Back In The Mystery Machine, Velma Does An Information Search On Dastardly's Work And Discovers That Scooby Is The Last Descendant Of Alexander The Great's Dog, Peritas As The Blue Falcon, Dynomutt And Shaggy And Scooby Arrive In Romania Only To Discover That...

Set By Dastardly...

Who Already Has The Second Freaking Skull From The Gobi Desert?!?

Anyway, After Telling Shaggy That It's Scooby He's After, Dastardly Chases Scooby To The House Of Mirrors Where He Tries To Sway Scooby To His Side

But After Scooby's Pronouncement Of His Name Pisses Dastardly Off And One Minor Scene, Scooby And The Others Escape On The Blue Falcon's Ship As Dastardly Crashes In A Bumper Cart...

Telling The Others About What Dastardly Said, The Team Starts Paying More Attention To Scooby Which Leads To Shaggy Getting A Little Jealous Of Scooby Being More Important Than Him...

Blue Falcon Tries To Help Shaggy But This Leads Shaggy To Try And Help Falcon By Saying That He Understands The Pressure He's Under As His Father Left Big Shoes For Him To Fill But Unfortunately Falcon Doesn't Really Know What To Say To That And Leaves...Wow!...You Could Have Had A Moment There But Instead You Blew It By Having Silence, You Freaking Morons!

Back In The Mystery Machine, The Gang Start To Miss Shaggy And Scooby Only To Be Stopped By A Police Officer Who Is Actually Dick Dastardly In Disguise..

Taking Fred, Velma And Daphne Captive, They Manage To Escape Their Cell With The Help Of A Robot Whose Head Dastardly Replaced With A Mini Vac When He Believed Him To Be A Suck Up...

Searching Dastardly's Ship They Watch As Dastardly Discovers The Location Of The Final Skull Head

Before They Go Into A Room To Use A Communication Device To Tell Dee Dee About Dastardly, The Location Of The Final Skull And To Oh, I Don't Know Save Them?!? ...

But While In Said Room, They Discover Dastardly's Reason For Doing All This And It Has To Do With...

Turns Out That They Found A Backdoor To The Underworld And Attempted To Get The Treasure Of The Underworld But When Muttley Went In, He Didn't Come Out Stating That It Was A One Way Trip Because He Wasn't The Chosen One..

As Dastardly Sends The 3 Friends Back To Their Cell, Team Falcon Arrives At The Location Of The 3rd Skull, Messick Mountain (Named After Scooby's Original Voice Actor, Don Messick) Which They Enter To Discover A Mesozoic Island, Where The Skull Is Really At...

Once They Land, Shaggy's Jealousy Comes To A Head, Saying That He Wasn't Okay With Him Taking Off His Collar, Despite Giving Him The Nod For Him To Do So!

This Leads Shaggy To Give Scooby An Ultimatum, Stay With Him On Board The Ship Or Going With Team Falcon, Ending Their Friendship...

So, He Decides To Go With Team Falcon Because He Feels That It's The Right Thing To Do...

Going Through The Woods Looking For The Skull, They End Up Meeting A Native Named Captain Caveman Played By...(Sighs) Tracy Morgan...

Yeah, I Don't Know If He Was The Best Choice To Play This Character...

Don't Get Me Wrong, I Like Tracy Morgan On SNL And The Few Episodes Of 30 Rock I Saw But I Just Don't Think That His Type Of Comedy Would Work Well For This Character...

Anyway, They Tell Captain Caveman What They're Looking For So, He Take Them To The Skull While Shaggy Somehow Reunites With Fred Who Wants Shaggy To Take Him To Scooby Because He's In Danger From Dastardly...

I Think You Know Where This Is Going, Everyone Say It With Me!...

Fred Is Dastardly!

Yep, The Real Fred Is Still On-Board Dastardly's Ship And He Made A Costume Of Him So He Could Not Only Get The Final Skull But Scooby Too..

However, On The Bright Side He Gives Them Fred, Velma And Daphne Back In Return...

While Also Destroying Team Falcon's Jet In The Process...

As Team Falcon And Mystery Inc Fight About Who's Fault This Is, Shaggy Eventually Gets Everyone To Come Together And Use Whatever Parts They Can Scalvage To Get The Mystery Machine To Fly To Athens...

But When They Arrive, It's Too Late, Dastardly Has Opened The Portal And All Hell Has Been Unleashed Along With Cerberus Himself...

As Team Falcon And Mystery Inc Deal With Cerberus, Dastardly Gets Muttley From Hell And Makes A Run For It , Falcon And Dynomutt Work Out Their Differences And Fred And Velma Discover That The Only Way To Close The Portal Is For Master To Be On One Side And Dog To Be The Other...

Meaning That In Order For It To Close, Shaggy Has To Be In The Underworld And Scooby Has To Be On The Outside...

It's Honestly A Sad Scene, I Literally Almost Cried At It...

I Said...Almost...

Because Once It Happens And Everything Is Another Portal Appears With Shaggy Getting Kicked Out Of Hell...

I Guess Mephisto Didn't Care For Shaggy And Scooby's Friendship As Much As He Cared For Spider-Man And Mary Jane's Marriage...

Anyway, Dastardly And Muttley Are Arrested By Their Own Robots Who Are Now On The Side Of Good, And Mystery Inc Finally Open Their Business Without Simon Cowell,,.

This Film Is Pretty Good, It May Not Be As Memorable As The Live Action Scooby Movies But It Is Pretty Funny And It Does Have Some Good Moments, So For That I Say See It...

Next Week We Start Our Halloween Look At Disney, So Till Then, This Is Duke, Signing Off...

[duhragonball]

State of the Damn Wienerfic

I’ve finally finished the “thousand years ago” section of my OC’s backstory, which is a big relief to me.    The first 141 chapters of Luffa: The Legendary Super Saiyan were intended to develop the title character as a protagonist in her own right, and not just a guest star or supporting player to the main cast, like Tapion in “Wrath of the Dragon”.   I was always worried that I’d meet some untimely end before I finished, and no one would know how things turned out for her.  

From 142 onward, I’m flashing forward to the events of Dragon Ball:Xenoverse.    It’s not going to be a total adaptation of the game’s story mode, but I did like the notion that if I ever reached this point, the fic has a tenative ending, and a curious reader could run Xenoverse 1 on Steam and get a general idea of what happens next.   But I’m still alive, so I guess I’ll go ahead and write my version.  

It’s still surreal to me that I’ve reached this milestone.   I’ve thought about it for so long and now it’s here.   I wrote the bulk of #142 last November, and some other material that still needs to be organized, and my goal for this year’s NanoWriMo is to plow forward.   A lot of things will be different, and I think one of them is that I feel like I can be more open about the creative process.   So if you want to see how the sausage is made, click the read more.    If you’d rather see how crayons are made, watch this video below.   

There’s a Sesame Street version of this, but those are all orange crayons, and I like yellow better.    Also I like the way Mr. Rogers says “crayons”.

All right, now that those weird crayon people are distracted, let’s talk about Luffa.

I came up with the idea around 2004, I think.   DBZ was done airing in the U.S., and I wanted to write some sort of fanfic about it, but I was having trouble coming up with ideas.    I felt like the main story had wrapped up very well with Z, and GT only seemed to prove that you can’t top the original story.    So I started thinking about the lore, and that led me to the Legendary Super Saiyan that Vegeta spoke of in DBZ Episode 66.  

There were a few things that bugged me about the DBZ fandom at the time.    Mostly I was just reading the GameFaqs boards to find any hot scoops about upcoming DBZ games, and no one really knew much of anything, so the board was mostly guys shooting idle speculation back and forth.   Occasionally someone would bring up the fact that we never saw any female Super Saiyans, which led some to suspect that such a thing must be impossible.    The one explanation that stuck in my craw was that “women can’t get angry enough”.    Usually, misogynists are always saying women are too emotional to do anything else, so by that logic, you’d think it would be much easier for Saiyan women.    They’d just flip out whenever a stray laser bolt fries their hair, like Daphne Zuniga in “Spaceballs.”

The other thing that bugged me was the Broly-worship in some circles.   One way or another, Broly hype reached American fans well before the Funimation dub of Movie 8.   I remember the official promotions from Funimation acknowledging that fans kind of already knew who the guy was.    For a few years before 2003, I think Broly became this mythical figure, like your friend whose uncle works for Nintendo, or “Q” telling 4-chan all about how everyone you don’t like is going to get arrested soon.��    I’m pretty sure this is why you can still find Broly fanart where he’s beating up Galactus, Kid Buu, and Superman, to name a few.    I think a lot of fanboys got it in their head that Broly could kick anybody’s ass, which is weird because he can’t even win in his own movies.   

I think even the official stuff played into this idea, since Broly would often be used as a special bonus boss in a lot of video games, so you beat Kid Buu and then hold on, now you have to fight Broly.   So it’s not hard to get the vibe that he’s the real final boss of everything.    I’m curious how the 2018 version of Broly will affect the perception of the character, but it’s probably too soon to tell.   In the mid-2000′s, though, it felt like a lot of people believed that Broly was a more legitimate Super Saiyan than Goku or the others, by virtue of being green and irrationally violent.  

So this was on my mind when I thought about what to do with the Super Saiyan from 1000 years ago.    I felt like there were people who wanted to believe that this character was a lot more like Broly than Goku, which is dumb, because the whole point of Super Saiyan Goku was that he was taking on the same role as the last guy.   And, for my money, the moral of Goku going Super Saiyan was that he was the only Saiyan of his generation who understood the same thing all the old Super Saiyans did.   Something about his upbringing on Earth helped him reach that level.    All the other Saiyans were too contaminated by their own culture of ruthless dickery.  

And so I thought that it would really flip the script if I wrote a story about that Legendary Super Saiyan and made him very different from the fanboy perception of Broly.    And I’d make him a her, just to twist the knife.  Not only is this not Broly, but she’s one of those women Super Saiyans everyone thinks can’t happen.  I doubt anyone from GameFaqs in 2007 would even notice my fic, but I’d like to think they’d be pissed about what I’ve done. 

I tried writing some of this down in 2006, but I didn’t get very far, mostly because I was intimidated by the scope of the idea.   I didn’t think I could do a long story, but I wasn’t sure a short story could get the idea across.   So I just didn’t do it at all, and kept thinking about it from time to time.    I wanted to make Luffa as a custom character in a video game, if they ever made a game with CAC features.   Ultimate Tenkaichi had it, but you could only make a Saiyan man... which just reinforced my motivations for doing this kind of a story.   

Finally, Dragon Ball Xenoverse debuted a more robust CAC feature in 2015, and I could design the character properly.   I didn’t have much in the way of ideas, so I just sort of let the gameplay take me where it would.   The game is set in the future, and Trunks just wishes for an ally, so who’s to say that this ally couldn’t have come from the past?    You do a lot of grinding in the game, and there’s a lot of exposition, and that gave me time to think about what what Luffa had been doing right before she got to this place.   And slowly, I started to iron out what I wanted to write.   

Her costume was just a convenience, really.    I went with short hair because the long hair doesn’t “float” when you go Super Saiyan in the game.    I wanted some sort of old-school looking armor, but everything in the game was based on costumes from the show, and the “Saiyan” armor in DBZ was Frieza’s thing.   It wouldn’t have existed a thousand years earlier.    I might have gone for something like Cabba’s outfit in Dragon Ball Super, but that wouldn’t be available until a few years later.   So that left me with a choice between a baggy martial arts dogi or the skin tight Pilot Suit.    The Pilot Suit is kind of... distracting, since it’s just a skin, and the developers make you stare at the character’s ass the whole time.    On the other hand, a baggy dogi kind of made her look like Cell Games Gohan.   So I went with baggy pants and fitted shirts.  

The black and yellow color scheme was mostly so I wouldn’t confuse my character from the others appearing on the screen during fights. That ruled out purple, orange, and blue, since the Z-Fighters wear those.   I resisted yellow, because that’s my favorite color, but later I realized black and yellow is perfect, because that’s the color scheme of the giant ape in Vegeta’s flashback.   

Playing the game helped motivate me to actually sit down and write the story, because I finally had a fleshed out character that I could see and do things with.    And making her fight DBZ characters got me to consider how she would react to those concepts.   Would she respect Vegeta’s royal bloodline, or would she be unimpressed like Goku?    How would she feel about Frieza’s destruction of their home planet?   Would she even recognize it as her home planet?   How does she feel about the fact that no one remembers anything about her?   

My goal for the first 141 chapters was to build a world and a backstory that would set up the answers to those questions.  The villains in that part of the story are all misogynists of one stripe or another.   They view women as tools to be exploited, or as enemies to be eliminated, or as distractions to be ignored.    They see Luffa doing her thing and they all say “She can’t do that,” and then she does it harder.   

Now that I think about it, I suppose the appeal to the character, and the thing that frustrates her so much, is that she’s just trying to be herself, but all these buttholes in the universe are outraged by it, and yet they just can’t stop her.   They want her to die, or go away, or become something else, something they can accept, but she just refuses to do that, and she’s got the raw power to tell them all where they can shove it.   This whole thing is my ham-fisted attempt to write a feminist allegory with Saiyans in it, and I’ll never be good enough to get it exactly right, but you know, it’s not as hard as I thought it would be.    Along the way, some LBGT stuff started to get into the mix, and I thought “Well, I’m really in the deep end of the pool now.”    I’m sorry if I got anything wrong, but I think I did okay.   I’m not breaking any records, but I managed to avoid drowning, right?  

Anyway, that’s why the Saiyans hate her guts, because all the Saiyans in DBZ resented Goku as being weak and worthless.    Even when Goku surpassed Vegeta, Vegeta still thought he lacked the killer instinct to be a “““true”“““ Super Saiyan.    Luffa’s got plenty of killer instinct, but the Saiyans hate her out of jealousy and fear.    Vegeta accused Trunks of lying about being a Saiyan, because his hair wasn’t the right color.  I wanted to make a whole population of Saiyans who would quibble over those kinds of details.    “The stone the builders have rejected has become the capstone.”   

This is also why I made the Saiyan King the main villain, because I wanted to echo Goku’s conflict with Vegeta, and King Vegeta’s conflict with Paragus and Broly.    If there’s a Super Saiyan every thousand years, then what happens to the second strongest Saiyan whenever that day comes?    Does he stand aside like John the Baptist, or does he refuse to accept the changing times?  

The purpose of all of this was to explain why Vegeta remembers the legend of the Super Saiyan, but nothing about the person.   Why doesn’t he know Luffa’s name, or what color her pants were?   Because his ancestors hated her, and suppressed the parts of her story that they didn’t like.    Even as Vegeta recalls what little he knows, he thinks “I never actually believed it.”

Okay, but Luffa had friends, right?   Wouldn’t they have left a record for future generations?    Well maybe, but how long would it take to fade into obscurity?   And Luffa’s kind of a private person.    Everyone in her inner circle avoided the spotlight.   There’s a move about her, but it’s filled with wild inaccuracies.   Eyewitnesses to her battles can only describe a glowing blur.     Close-up footage just shows an irritable Saiyan woman with a strange dyejob.   Most civilians find regular Saiyans to be pretty extraordinary as they are.   A Super Saiyan doesn’t seem that much more impressive.  

What you wind up with is this legacy of battles that were fought and won by a single, mighty warrior, but no one can agree on what that warrior was exactly.   At some point, enough time passes where the Saiyans are willing to reclaim the legend.   “Yeah, that guy had to be a Saiyan.      Who else could do all those things?”   But the things she stood for and learned along the way, that’s all lost.    

I just didn’t think it’d take me 647,471 words to explain all of that.  But now I can finally write the part with all the popular characters in it.   Right now, my big problem is that I have to slap together a few more OC’s and I need to figure out just what the hell Towa’s deal is.   The Dragon Ball Wiki attempts to explain whatever happens in those Dragon Ball Heroes games, but it doesn’t seem like they wrote any of it to fit a coherent narrative.    I’d like to use as much official Demon Realm lore as possible, if only because that’s what Towa and Demigra’s fans would be familiar with, but I’m not sure how this is going to look.   I mean, they’re gonna get an ass-whoopin’, I know that part, but I’d like to flesh out their characters before the beating starts. 

Anyway, I got my work cut out for me.  But at least the soundtrack will be epic.

[velmautism]

Impressions

Tired of everyone making assumptions about her, who she's meant to be, and the way she's meant to act, Velma finally takes matters into her own hands. After all, the best way to correct someone is to prove them wrong.

I will post a warning just because I'm pissed at the weird horniness for the girls, especially Velma. Talks a quite bit about objectification and sexualization. But, there is also friendly fluff within after Velma takes matters into her own hands. Involves lots of my chaotic neutral take on Velma.

Reads/comments appreciated so I can make better stories in the future! I will work on the MH!AU later too so don't worry, I just wanted to do something else.

Maybe I'm sick of them assuming I'm something I'm not.

"Does she act as much as the rest of you? It's assumed that she doesn't need to be outside as much, so long as you could supply her with info and clues!"

"She charmed the socks off that Norton boy, she must be good with men!"

Body this, body that.

"Why doesn't she wear makeup?"

They even ask me why I'm not always as "put together" and photogenic as Daphne.

Her looks are her choice, she rocks them, but that isn't me. If I'm gonna be running around, getting dirty in order to find clues, etc. I'm not going to pretty myself for the publicity.

She was shocked and hurt when months ago, she found out people commented on her bust size and nothing to do with a case she had played a huge part in. They left that glory to Fred. They also talked about her waist and how she refused weight loss programs.

One, they're a load of bullshit. They all are. Two, why can't I just have a body? Why am I subject to scrutiny over my appearance and not something I really care about?

The aftermath of the Frankencreep case was also a nightmare because her costume while hypnotized was publicized. She didn't feel safe outside alone for weeks.

She wasn't even sure what had happened to her, but when finding out, she was incredibly embarrassed. The dress didn't leave much to the imagination, much to her horror.

It's because I'm a girl, isn't it?

She sighed, squeezing her hands into fists as she leaned over the bathroom sink.

"What's behind the bookish bespectacled girl that we don't see?"

Lots, if you care to look deeper.

It isn't fair....

I'm not even that nerdy, or bookish, and I'm certainly not sweet. That isn't for me.

She glanced up into the mirror, studying her brown hair, dark eyes, the freckles dotting her face.

What about the glasses, the sweater/skirt combo, and my hair makes them think I, of all people, am the submissive, sweet, and shy type? The quiet nerd with a secret wild side? I'm smart as hell, but I'm not sweet. And if they knew my "wild side," they would be terrified.

The truth was, in a case, she never cared much for the whims of others. She wasn't above manipulating others, but not in a "charming" way.

If they knew how many people I've blackmailed, blatantly lied to, tricked, all for the purpose of solving the mystery... Well, maybe there's one advantage to them having the wrong impression of me.

But then people assume things.

I've heard them call me shy.

Sweet.

Innocent.

Nerdy.

Curvy, if they're really gross.

All of it is disgusting to me.

They tell me to be something I'm not.

She looked down, not wanting to look at her reflection, if just for a while.

To her left, she spotted rounded blue plastic buried under a washcloth.

She grabbed the handles and stopped to stare at the pair of scissors in her hand, gleaming under the light.

"Hmm...." She finally contemplated aloud. "The best way to change their impressions of me.... Is to do it myself."

She seized the locks of brown hair near the nape of her neck before committing herself to this. She was going to be exactly what she wanted others to see.

Snip.

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

"Hey, Velma! Come get a look at this!" Fred hollered up the stairs.

Well, this is it. I can't really go back now.

.....

I can't wait.

Fred stood unassumingly at the foot of the stairs as Velma's silhouette emerged from her bedroom.

As she came down the stairs, he noticed she wasn't wearing her trademark knee socks. Or maybe she was, but the pants she wore concealed them. Instead of the red slightly elevated shoes she always wore, a pair of worn canvas sneakers covered her feet. The jeans were wrinkled and unkempt, clearly lighter and more worn near the knees. She had swapped her sweater for a black shirt and a plaid jacket, and had a watch on her right wrist. Then he noticed her new hair.

It was much shorter in the back and much less conventionally feminine. There was no fringe, only messy hair framing her forehead and dark eyes.

"Yeah?" She asked, as soon as she was standing in front of him.

"Uh, maybe another time."

"Fred, I just changed how I look. I'm still Velma, you know."

"Oh! Okay, I wasn't sure if you just needed a minute. I love the hair. Very fluffy."

Velma rolled her eyes but smirked anyway.

"Thanks, I chose it myself."

"It's better, if I'm being honest. The old hair didn't really suit you."

"You think so?" She tried not to sound snide.

"Oh, for sure! The old hair made you look more like you care about being visibly a girl, and I know you're not about that. It makes you look like you mean business. Anyway, did you hear about the robbery at this bank-?"

A loud gasp came from behind Velma. She turned around to see Daphne, slack-jawed.

"Oh, my god. You look incredible! Wow, you've really changed things up, haven't you?! Where did you go to get your hair done? I love that texture on you, it's super cute!"

"Oh, I went to the bathroom sink and lopped it off."

"Wait, really? Oh, no kidding! I was wondering if you finally found a stylist that really 'got' you. Well, no one knows you better than yourself!"

"I really appreciate it, Daphne, but that honestly wasn't the point of changing my looks. The point was to make myself look more the way I feel. People make a lot of assumptions about me that are wrong and unfair, and I'm sick of it. You pull off feminine really well because you love it, and it suits you well. But... It isn't me. It doesn't work."

Shaggy stepped into the living room and froze as Velma spoke, her voice quivering just a little bit.

"This change was for me. I don't want people to see me and tell me I'm cute, or say weird things, or mistake me for a sweet little nerd girl. They think I'm morally pure, that I'm a charmer, that I'm delicate and frail but should also be the sexy girl sitting at the computer. The gamer girlfriend stereotype, if you will."

Daphne nodded.

"I'm sorry if I came off as insensitive. That definitely wasn't my intention. Honestly, this new look is so good for you! If I hadn't met you and known you, I'd be intimidated by you. You look like you're ready to take on the entire world headfirst."

"No, you don't have to worry about being insensitive. Again, like I said, I appreciate the compliment! That just wasn't the point, you know?"

"Well, the rest of the world will think it was, unfortunately, for the first few weeks."

"I know. I'm ready to take that on, and I'm going to be different from what they believe. No more nice nerd that smiles and talks about sweaters and books and maybe the clues, if I'm lucky. No. I'm Velma Dinkley, and I'm here to kick ass in the name of solving a good mystery!"

"Amen!" Daphne high-fived her.

"Like, can I mention something else that may not be the point?"

Velma smiled.

"Sure, what's up?"

"Like, your new 'do with that jacket totally makes you, like, look like a lesbian."

"THANK YOU!"

Daphne snickered into her hand.

"Maybe now they won't say I'm good with men, because I'm NOT. I am GAY, BABY!!"

"So I'm guessing this is how you're coming out?" Fred asked.

Velma stared at him as though he were an idiot.

"You'd better be kidding, because I think it's quite clear that-!"

Fred laughed heartily. "Of course I was kidding, Velms! Look, we all figured it out a LONG time ago."

Velma shrugged.

"I'm still coming out publicly. That I've decided on."

"And we're naturally going to stand by you."

"That's why you all are the best."

Fred and Daphne sandwiched her in a hug and were quickly joined by Shaggy and Scooby.

"If I'm being honest, I also don't know if I'm a girl, but that's a whole other can of worms."

Shaggy laughed, patting her shoulder.

"Like, if you figure it out, let me know and I can get you, like, any resources you need! I've been in this game for, like, six years, and I've never looked back!"

"God, you guys are the best! I don't know what I'd do without you."

"We love you, too, Velma."

She closed her eyes, melting into the embrace from those who truly cared the most about her.

[choupichoups]

Press F (Instagram/College AU) Ch.4

Lucas swears he’s the absolute master of undetected stalking. Or: Eliott is instagram famous and Lucas is the disaster gay who accidentally likes his post.

Lucas puts a hand over his mouth, doing a piss poor job of pretending that he isn’t laughing and making goo goo eyes at the screen. Seated across from him, Daphne notices, but he hardly cares at this point. In a surprising turn of events, she’s the last of his friends to hold back from asking anything— Daphne’s practically a walking fuse about to blow and Lucas would rather it happen sooner than later.

“So!” Ah, there it is. “I’ve been meaning to ask.” 

He blinks away from his laptop, smiling at her as she works out what she wants to say. Daphne’s always so entertaining to watch whenever she gets excited over something. And she gets excited about a lot of things. So basically it’s just entertainment all around. 

“When were you gonna tell me that you’re friends with Eliott Demaury?” She fires it off so fast, Lucas wouldn’t have understood if he hadn’t already been expecting it. 

“It’s a recent thing.” He shrugs, trying for a discreet glance at the time. The closer it gets to 13h, the worse his jitters get, the harder it is to concentrate on anything else. “We just follow each other on instagram.” He has to meet Yann outside in five minutes so they can make it to the B building a little earlier. Lucas needs some time to psych himself up. 

“I see that. I didn’t know you’re like… the tagging kind of mutuals.”

“The… tagging kind?”

“There are levels of social media friendship!” Daphne sits up straighter, eyes widened like she can’t believe Lucas doesn’t know about this. “Some just follow each other, occasionally like posts,” she pauses, staring at him for a bit before, “you and him like everything from each other.”

He sputters, feeling called out. “And so?”

“And he tagged you in my post the other day, why?”

“I don’t… know?” What’s he supposed to say to that? It’s too long of a story and he doesn’t feel like telling it. Not to mention he doesn’t have time to tell it.

“Lucas, he doesn’t even follow me back. Why did he care about the fundraiser? You know what, he doesn’t really follow anyone back— how did you do it?” 

He feels a tiny bit overwhelmed with the barrage of questions so seeing Yann approaching close through the window behind her head is a god sent excuse to leave. “I really don’t know, Daphy, but I gotta go okay? Message me if you have trouble in anything else on the worksheet.”

“Oh, okay. Later!” 

“Good to go?” Yann peers down at him once outside and Lucas can only guess how nervous he must look when Yann raises both eyebrows in amusement. “Hey, think of it this way. It’s just a guy okay? Just a guy, Lucas.”

Lucas responds with a garbled noise that barely sounds human. Eliott isn’t just anything. “Sure.” 

“Don’t pass out now, I wouldn’t know how to explain that to him.”

“Shut up.”

Just a guy. 

There are quite a lot of students milling around the bridge, which does nothing to alleviate Lucas’ anxiousness. They walk close to the side, sticking by the lockers at Lucas’ prompting— he knows it doesn’t help him much. Lucas alone with his stature can probably sneak around, yes, but once Eliott spots the giant tree that is his best friend, it’s over for them. 

Funnily enough, it’s Lucas who sees Eliott first. 

“He’s there.” He stops Yann with a hand on his arm, half hiding behind him as he watches Eliott in all his beautiful, smiling glory. He’s surrounded by a group of people, as always. But this time it’s not his usual crew, so Lucas thinks it should feel less intimidating if he walks over to approach Eliott later when it hits 13h exact. 

He turns around, leaning his back against Yann’s. 

“So, do I stay here until you’re done giving yourself a pep talk or?”

“Yes, please.” 

There’s a screenshot on his phone with Eliott’s Thursday, B building at the bridge, 13h and he pulls it up, triple checking that he’s got the time right. Not that he really needs the confirmation, he’s memorized the message within the first minute of receiving it, but having the written proof makes him feel better.

Lucas number twenty has already run off, buying some McDonalds to soothe himself after being an utter failure. Lucas number fifteen is already talking to Eliott number fifteen, waiting until 13h be damned. 

Lucas number one is rooted to his spot, eyes remaining on the ground as he fiddles with the straps on his bag. God, okay, time’s moving way too fucking slow. He won’t look that much more eager if he goes now right? Seven minutes earlier doesn’t make a difference, really. It’s practically nothing, it can’t even be truly recognized as being too early—

Yann’s clearing his throat. 

There’s a shadow forming over Lucas.

“Hi,” a sweet, sweet voice greets him from above and Lucas might have jumped a little, lifting his head so fast he’s surprised his vision doesn’t tilt sideways. 

“Hello.” He hopes he speaks loud enough to reach Eliott, but that’s about all the vocabulary his brain supplies him with at the moment so it’s not like it matters. The sturdy support of Yann behind him disappears and Lucas barely resists the urge grab him back. Eliott’s smile is knee buckling but remembering the early morning conversation they had has him keeping his hands to himself. 

“Whatever happened to sneaking up on me, hm?” Eliott asks, smile warm, eyes warm, everything about him is so warm. 

Lucas takes too much time just looking at him, letting the silence go on for so long it should have gotten awkward but, through sheer force of will maybe, they manage to not make it so. A slow smile pulls at the corner of his lips, feeling a little bit of the tension lift when Eliott quirks an eyebrow, still waiting for an answer. “I didn’t…” His eyes wander off Eliott’s face, scrambling for something to say. “…recognize you. You’re wearing a different jacket.”

Eliott snorts, looking to the ceiling and then back down at Lucas. When their eyes meet, it sets off his laughter— actually turning around to lean on his knees type of laughter. The white-knuckled grip Eliott had on his bag strap loosens and he has to readjust the bag over his shoulder when it threatens to fall off.

Lucas watches him and his heart does a thing.

They stand there staring at each other even after their laughter tapers off into fond smiles. Eliott tilts his head, breathing out a final chuckle. 

“What?” Lucas asks, almost a whisper. From his peripheral view, he knows people have their eyes on them, a side effect of Eliott’s fame, perhaps. But he doesn’t pay them any mind.

“Nothing,” Eliott says, passing a hand over his lips before directing his gaze to the floor. “You just...” He shakes his head, starting to walk backwards as he mumbles something Lucas doesn’t catch. 

“What?” Lucas asks again, this time louder to cover the distance. 

“Nothing.” Eliott keeps on walking. “You coming?”

That’s a stupid question, what else is he supposed to do?

“Where are we going?” 

Eliott shrugs, “Wherever. You hungry?” 

“Sure.” 

His phone pings with a multitude of alerts and he thinks he knows exactly which group chat those are coming from. Putting his phone on silent is the best course of action to take at this point. He’ll deal with all the explaining later. 

He checks on Eliott’s post, rolling his eyes when he sees the response. “Stop.”

Eliott laughs that lovely laugh of his. Lucas just wants to bottle the sound up and keep it for himself forever.

“What time do you finish work?” 

They unfortunately had to cut their afternoon short when Lucas got called in to cover for an emergency shift at the cafe. Eliott swears it’s fine but Lucas still feels guilty about it, and more than a little disappointed. 

“Around 22h.”

“That late?”

“It’s not too bad.”

Eliott hums, hands shoved deep in his jacket pockets. "Can I wait for you?”

“Huh?” They stop walking once they’re within a few steps from the cafe.

“The original plan was to walk you home after this,” Eliott huffs out. “But now that’s been thwarted.”

“So you’re making plans by yourself, huh?” Lucas knows he’s got another dumb smile on his face but he can’t be bothered to hide it. “I’m not gonna let you wait here for 5 hours, Eliott.” 

“What if I want to?” 

Lucas bites his lip, looking up at the other boy’s stupid, gorgeous face. “Stop that,” he says softly. 

“You know, you keep telling me to stop,” Eliott steps closer, Lucas has to tip his head against the wall behind him to maintain eye contact. “I’m gonna start thinking you don’t like me if you’re not careful.” 

“Oh sorry, didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”

“You don’t sound very sorry.”

“No, I am, I’ll make up for it.” 

“Oh yeah?”

“Mhm.” Lucas digs around in his pockets. 

“How?” Eliott takes another step forward, tilting his head in that infuriatingly endearing way he does. Lucas keeps his mind off the fact that their toes are practically touching, doesn’t think about the air around him starting to smell like Eliott’s cologne with how close they’re standing. 

He whips out the two chocolate bars from his pockets and places them in between their faces. “Apology candy. They’re really good.”

Lucas can pinpoint the exact moment Eliott’s brain short-circuits and he can’t help the little laugh that escapes him at the thought of himself being capable of that effect.

“Fuck,” Eliott mumbles, stepping back with a laugh of his own. He grabs the chocolate bars from Lucas’ hand, shaking his head as he looks at them. “Okay,” he sighs. “I’ll forgive you.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, but only if you promise to see me again.”

That’s easy. “Okay.”

Eliott grins, eyes disappearing into half moon slits. “Okay?”

“Okay.” And then they stand there without moving. Lucas throws his head to the side, laughing at how ridiculous they’re acting. “Go home, Eliott.” He’s going to be late for work at the rate they’re going.

Eliott throws his hands up in surrender. “Message me when you get home, yeah?”

“Okay.”

“Bye, little hedgehog.” Eliott jogs away from Lucas’ half-hearted kick.

“Bye, weirdo,” he calls out and Eliott turns around to give him a dorky salut. 

Lucas' coworkers are stunned when he doesn’t make a single grumpy comment for the entirety of his shift. 

[stories-forthe-void]

River of Paper ~ Snowbaz

Read on AO3

Genre: Fluff, Angst, Au-Farm

Pairing: Farmer! Baz x Orphan! Simon

There was a boy at the door and I was trying extremely hard to seem uninterested in that fact. Because Father never let them stay no matter their sad backstory, no matter how hard they promised they’d work. That’s just not what Pitchs did.

I’d probably already stuffed it all up. I banged on the door too hard and now whatever old sod owns this farm is pissed off and is never going to open the door and I’m going to freeze to death out here and-

Chapter 1 - But the last few pages missing print

Baz

There was a boy at the door and I was trying extremely hard to seem uninterested in that fact. Because Father never let them stay no matter their sad backstory, no matter how hard they promised they’d work. That’s just not what Pitchs did.

The Boy at the Door

I’d probably already stuffed it all up. I banged on the door too hard and now whatever old sod owns this farm is pissed off and is never going to open the door and I’m going to freeze to death out here and-

He opened the door.

“Hello there boy,” he actually opened the door, “What’s your name?” Oh, I didn’t think that far ahead.

“Well um...you see sir I don’t exactly have one on account of me being an orphan and all and um-”

“None the matter,” He frowns and I know I’ve stuffed it up. “What brings you here?” I have to play this right. I can’t spend another night on the streets.

“Well I can’t read nor write but I’m quite good with my hands and I saw that your fence down there is broken and I’m good with the horses and would do it for no pay at all sir. I just ask that you give me a roof over my head for the night and no longer” I think I’ve rambled on for quite a while too long because he’s looking at me quite strangely but he’s opening his mouth like he’s going to say something and I just know he’s going to reject me and I’m going to die out here and my life will have been useless.

Baz

Father said yes. I can’t believe he actually said yes. Now he’s sent me down to the barn with just stew, a lantern, a jacket and a brain that still isn’t quite processing anything right due to me still being in shock. But I know something about the boy or rather these three things about the boy: He’s an orphan, he’s got no name and that he’s the most gorgeous being I’ve seen in my life. Clearly, Pitchs only accept orphans when they’re bloody attractive and are bound to be the end to there homosexual son’s very short existence.

I open the barn door and walk up the stairs to the loft of the barn and there he is standing in the glow of a candle; no bloody shirt in sight. I gave him a fright when I walked in and I think he’s looking for his shirt and I nearly tell him not to worry about it. Get it under control Basil; he’s just a boy. Indeed just a boy. I maa]nage to still my raging hormones for a moment to actually convey words.

“I bought you some stew and a jacket if you need it,” He looks like a deer caught in headlights. I don’t think he knows what to say and to quite honest neither do I so I find a stool and put the stew on it. I sit on the floor a few feet away from him. He still looks lost. I can’t even start a proper conversation. I don’t even know his name.

“Erm...I don’t know what I should call you,” And the winner of awkward conversation of the decade goes to Tyrannus Basilton bloody Grimm-Pitch. At least he looks a bit less lost and has decided to sit down

“Well I mean the orphanage never gave me a name but some of the boys called me Snow,” Snow, I like that although it seems a bit of a bollocks name for someone who looks like the human reincarnation of the sun. It also doesn’t sound like a first name either but I guess it will have to do.

“Well, Snow I guess I owe you a name now too. I’m Basilton but everyone just calls me Baz.” I decided to give him the short version. No need for another person in the world thinking I’m a prick right off the bat. I extend a hand to him and he nearly takes it but then seems to realise that he is, in fact, shirtless and goes back to looking for that.

“I’m sorry about um y’ know,” He gestured vaguely to himself and goes back to his search. As he turns around I notice a blossom of purple on his back. Crowly, what do they do to kids in orphanages.

“I mean it’s fine but how in the world did you end up with that?” I point to his back.

“Wha-oh that, er, well, um, funny story actually. You see I’m eighteen in a few days so the orphanage is not obliged to take care of me anymore so they sort of kicked me out. Literally” And that’s when I notice the rest of him. It does seem like they literally kicked him out. He’s got bruises all along his back and he doesn’t walk quite straight and when he goes to put on the shirt he finally found, thank God, he lets out a little grunt of pain.

I want to help him and there is probably one of Daphne’s oil things in here that will help him. I get up and start looking in the cupboards. Even though it’s just a barn we’ve had farmhands live here before so the loft’s got some cupboards on the wall and a bed which is just glorified hay bail with a sheet thrown over it. Daphne stores some bandages and various other medicines in here where it’s out of reach from the children. There! I turn around triumphantly to Snow and raise the vile of oil I found, “Got it!” He looks lost again and I think he’s been staring at me the whole time I’ve been looking. “For your back,”

“Erm..”He stutters and I think I’ve lost him again but then he replies, “You don’t have to do that; I-I’ll be fine. I’ve dealt with worse” He lets out an awkward laugh. I don’t want to think about the implication of that laugh. God, I’ve known him for five minutes and I’ve already got a bleeding heart over him. This will end in flames.

“No no, it’s fine. I mean it gives me something to do and the longer I’m away from my nightmare siblings the better,” and now it’s my turn to let out an awkward laugh. I raise the vile in question and he nods slowly. “I would sit down. This will probably sting”

Snow

Sting was the understatement of the century. “Alistar Crowly, Baz what is this stuff,” It hurt like an arse but I got through it with much hissing complaints at a boy I didn’t know and trying to not let my heart rate increase more than normal because Baz is annoyingly fit.

But I got through it. I threw my shirt back on and ate the stew he brought me. It was stone cold but it was still the best tasting stew I’d had in years so I told him that.

“Well Daphne is an amazing cook this is one of her best recipes,” He smiles. It’s small and barely there but I get the sense that he didn’t do much smiling. It was a beautiful smile though. I don’t think I’d ever thought about any of the blokes at the orphanage like that before. Come to think of it, I’ve actually that a lot about the more physical side of Baz since we met. Like a lot. But I don’t want to dwell on it; Baz and I spend the rest of the evening talking about the general comings and goings of the farm, his siblings which he says are: “The living incarnations of satan and should never be trusted,” But how bad could they really be?

I think he’s trying to get me to talk about what happened at the orphanage but to be completely honest I can’t remember much off it. So I try to avoid the topic whenever he tries bringing it up. I’m probably failing miserably at trying to do it smoothly. I probably just sound like some dodgy homeless kid trying to distract from his former life as an opium dealer… probably.

Baz

I think Snow is hiding something from me. Scrap that, I know he’s hiding something from me but we’ve only known each other for roughly five hours, a very enjoyable five hours it was, though still, that is only five hours. He’ll be gone in a week and then I can forget about the extremely attractive orphan farmboy and continue my life aspirations of becoming a homosexual recluse and living up to being a disappointment to my father.

But that doesn’t mean I can’t rile him up a bit first.

“Right Snow, I guess I should be leaving now. Fancy a drink before I head off?” He looked confused for a second and then nods his head slowly. I take my flask out from my coat and throw it to him. He catches it perfectly because of course he does and takes a long swig before throwing it back to me. Time to use those Pitch charms.

I look him straight in the eyes and take a long, deep drink. Something goes feral in his eyes for a moment and I think he might actually jump me before it disappears as though I was just seeing things.

“Enjoy your evening Snow. See you in the morning,” and with that, I turn around and walk towards the stairs but before I go down them a turn m head and winked at him. Oh yes, definitely wasn’t imagining the look in his eyes.

Snow

Baz Pitch is going to make my stay on this farm very interesting. The wanker