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inquisition-curations-blog · 6 years ago

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Black Library: Damocles by ukitakumuki

artist’s commentary:

Black Library: Damocles

Check out the e/book here! : www.blacklibrary.com/warhammer… Illustration © Games Workshop Art director/producer: Karen Miksza ++++++++++++++++++++++ The brief for this one was a three-way melee between Kor'sarro Khan of the White Scars, Tau Commander Shadowsun, and Captain Kayvaan Shrike of the Raven Guard, amidst a mixed-force battle of White Scars, Raven Guard, and Cadian IG versus the Tau fighting atop a rocky promontory with jungle. The main focus of the show is Shadowsun, whom according to the reference and specs sent to me, often fields two shield drones. I thought that could be a perfect excuse to not end up in an awkward “2 on 1” prong attack. So that resulted in our assault marine captain Shrike pulling off a DFA and Kor'sarro timing a strike to take out her shield on one side. Given the hardback template/format I decided early on to have two back to back crisis suits behind the main trinary to visually frame the action and hopefully some narrative link to what was going on in the background. While sketching in comp ideas I was thinking of World in Conflict FMVs (yeah I watched a compilation vid of the different sequences but set to just Audioslave’s Shadow on the Sun… how apt for our Tau commander ) which inspired that jungle crossfire for the back cover (left of image), along with some physics logic I thought should be observed such as “if plasma based weaponry gets spammed in the general direction of a forest, there should be a moderate to high chance of a forest fire occurring” which kinda explains why we see the charred dirt and branches and hints of trees on fire in the back. Other favourite points of interest that I recall from half a year back: -Singed/scorched Imperial armour versus cracked/gouged tau armour -Drones buzzing a tree (near the sun) -Devastator Raven going head on with the battlesuit turned away from us, armour in the process of being seared off chunk by chunk. -White Scar reading poetry on the lawn in an admirable last stand -Unfortunate IG, now literally half the man he used to be. Courtesy of being in the open when Tau heavy artillery drops.

Check out the e/book by Joe Parrino here! :

www.blacklibrary.com/warhammer…

Illustration © Games Workshop

Art director/producer: Karen Miksza

++++++++++++++++++++++

This piece is, in my own way, dedicated to two very unique creatives whose achievements and trust in me have both inspired and helped me take my work to higher levels. Ghislain Barbe(

NOT because he is coincidentally now the art director on Eternal Crusade at BHVR

, but because when I was a kid I played a PC game called Heavy Gear by Dream Pod 9/Activision, and along with it came a printed game manual with wonderful mecha illustrations and diagrams that blew my little mind, and he was the illustrator of my favourite designs in the book.), and Peter Cooper(an incredibly kind and talented writer/director who years ago offered me the opportunity to do the illustrated set pieces for his HALO fan-film, Operation Chastity). Moreso because I think they might appreciate certain aspects of this image in their own capacities, like the pew pew lazars. Ok really its just about the lazars and the airburst munitions.

And my special thanks and apologies to my truly professional and patient producer, Karen Miksza, for enduring and evaluating a chickenscratch-sketch of mine that resembled more of a Rorschach exercise than anything. You rock!

As for the artwork:

Reading the brief, and visualising the narrative and technical approach, made me want to crawl under a rock somewhere and just go into a coma. But it dawned on me it was really about huge battlesuits and powered armour on bikes in a desert--the very stuff my favourite SF childhood memories were made of. So I put on some Bubblegum Crisis tracks to remind me of what I felt was special about the genre and what I would like to see happen again, and got back to work. "Say Yes!" by Maiko Hashimoto in particular, really helped bring back those memories.

Bearing in mind this is meant to be a triple-fold/paneled illustration; I was to illustrate a White Scars Stormseer fighting a Crisis Battlesuit with a tulwar on the front cover(rightmost third of image), looming Riptide in center third, and miscellaneous combatants filling up the remainder. The White Scars were to seem joyous in the midst of their hunt, armed with lances or tulwars in addition to the bolters on their bikes. All this was to take place on a dusty plain. I immediately thought that a scene showing a breached frontline would work best, to help put across just how fast moving and aggressive the White Scars are known to be, and for all the long distance planning of the Tau once up close and personal with Space Marines on bikes, it can quickly descend into unmanageable chaos. Troops having to divert their attention from the front to acquire stray bikers without hitting their friends, and crisis suits engaging their thrusters to quickly manoeuver along the ranks and train their guns on the bikes. Crisis suits... in a crisis of their own... aha..haha..h-

As a Chinese guy, I felt it got really hilarious at one point painting Fu Manchu 'roid mongols in sun-bleached white armour going to town on the Tau. So I just rode that wave as best I could Having my own front row seat and getting into the mentality of what it means to create a 40K flavoured illustration is making me more and more of a fan of what I think the franchise represents on different levels. When I say I find 40K really insane, I mean it in a sincerely optimistic way, and I think I am finally getting better at understanding where that balance point between grimdark outlook, cautionary tale/social commentary, and outlandish spectacle sits.

This reflection of what 40K meant to me, had me throwing out the idea that maybe in order for the Stormseer to even be in close combat with a Battlesuit twice his height, required he be presented in a way that could rival the nuttiness of the idea to begin with. So imagining a narrative, I assume these guys could have force-lances that they could also throw, using that as a medium range large-caliber stopping weapon (illustrated at bottom right) and then move into closer combat with their shorter range tulwars. (This of course sets up the visual excuse for the flapping blood-soaked hair plume on the end of the lance up front.) The stormseer would realise that his bolters might be ineffectual at getting him within close enough range so he would opt to just pop a wheelie off the frontline Tau and use the bolter riddled chassis of the crisis suit as a landing ramp and shield to buy him precious seconds to plan his next move. They're Space Marines. Seemed legit. "SAY YES!"

Other favourite details:

-Please excuse the slightly overdone prismatic effect on the Riptide's shield. I still think it looks nice and it makes some sense. Just riffing off similar idea in the previous Tau codex supplement. I also wanted to illustrate how the hexa-projection areas might be linked to individual projection nodes, and we would see how individual 'tiles' pulse under stress as opposed to having a continuous 'texture pattern'.

-I keep reading in the fluff how much advanced targetting tech the Tau pack, technically a Fire warrior would have onboard sensors and targetting aids, that eventually gets meshed with higher level networked data from sensor drones, add on to that markerlight data and more... basically it just sounds like a Tau shooter could be drunk, falling over, and still hit a fly in between its eyes having accounted for atmospheric disruption from 600 meters away. So that I felt gave me the right to imply that they can shoot incoming rounds out of the sky. Which we can see to great effect in the background and right behind the Stormseer. There of course is the consideration for fans who think its unreasonable, so they also look like they could be randomly hit because the relatively slow moving missiles are travelling through a firestorm of plasma. But I just wanted to say what the original intent was Also to the left is a inverted Phalanx-CIWS looking burst cannon drone that seems to be in charge of clearing the skies for ground troops (when I saw that design I almost stood up and clapped at the screen). And for those of you who absolutely do not buy any of that, there's this:

warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Ai…

-Poor Tau loses his head in the background-The bikes were initially block-modelled in Sketchup to help me give a sense of their geometry and what I could do with them.This took over a week to do, the longest I've spent on any of the illustrations to date and burnt a weekend or so (gladly so) getting it done. I hope it makes the Tau and White Scars fans amongst you happy and rooting for your favourites and for mech heads in general

#warhammer 40k #40k #tau #space marines #imperium #raven guard #white scars #battlesuits #ukitakumuki #combat

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ohmyohpioneer · 6 years ago

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my best friend’s brother is also on this snowy vacation queliot headcanon:

So I just got back from a snowy vacation and I was a little winedrunk on the plane and I thought (and consequently typed) a truly idiotic headcanon.

Quentin is invited (ok bullied into but with good intentions) last minute by his friend, Margo, to come on her big annual ski trip and even though he doesn’t ski because his parents never had the money he says yes because it feels nice to be invited and, well, he likes Margo. It can’t be that bad, right?

Except that it kind of can because he didn’t realize Margo’s older brother, Eliot, is also invited (why did this not occur to him because of course he is) until Eliot steps out of the car, all regal and long legs in a crazy expensive but ok pretty cute Canada Goose parka.

And he knows Eliot. It’s not like they’ve never met before. Which is kind of the problem because Quentin inexplicably just really likes him. I mean, yeah, he’s attractive, sure, but the last time he went to one of Margo’s parties they ended up talking and laughing for, well, a long time and it was all knocking knees and shared bottles of tequila. And Quentin–

But it’s all beside the point because Margo is a good friend and Eliot is off limits and absolutely unattainable for someone at Quentin’s level. Also potentially involved with that guy Mike - who has bad hair - regardless. Just. Not anyone he should be sweating.

And ok. Eliot seems delighted - which is not a word Quentin uses with any sort of frequency - to see him and gives him a hug. A big one. Like, the kind with great arm pressure? And a shoulder sniff? Fuck, Quentin is weird. God. Why can’t he be normal?

But of course Eliot is charming and immediately they’re all in the little rented chalet with hot toddys heavy on the toddy (assuming that’s the whiskey part), and he really needs to keep himself in check.

Quentin’s only frame of reference for ski lodges or ski culture or whatever is from movies, namely romcoms, and it seems exactly right that the rented chalet is tiny and there are only a few, cosy (the rich word for cramped) rooms and he ends up sharing a room with Eliot. It’s a bunk bed because sure. And Eliot immediately claims the bottom (“I am a top in all other realms” he smirks and is that flirting or just witticism?)

Josh and Margo and Penny and Julia all immediately go to the double and triple and quintuple diamond and rhombus hills (it is all utter nonsense terminology to him and maybe this is what people feel like when he talks Fillory) but Eliot stays with him while he rents skis and insists on joining him on the bunny hill (“It’s where all of the cute instructors are. All you have to do is ask about the french fry pizza technique and Marcel, who is here for the winter from Switzerland, is buying your après aperitifs.”)

Quentin falls. A lot. But Eliot laughs and picks him up and it’s sort of okay. But cold. People like this?

They call it early because “the chalet is calling, and so is an adequately made, intensely overpriced cocktail” (Eliot, not Quentin)

Somewhere around day three, with less falls and a lot of Eliot insisting he’s ready for at least one of the lesser diamonds, he starts calling him Q.

Quentin (Q) absolutely does not blush when Eliot cheers and hugs him in a clacking frenzy of skis when he makes it down his first real hill without so much as a stumble.

They’re all very drunk and playing the Forehead Game, pieces of masking tape stuck to their heads, names written in disorderly Sharpie letters (person, fictional or real rules: no you are not real, yes you can talk, yes you are animated, fine yes, you are the Brave Little Toaster, you cheater) when Josh and Margo start making eyes and not-so-subtly tell each other that Margo is Jon Snow and Josh is Kylie Jenner so that they can “sneak off” (stumble out of the room making out with disturbing vigor) to do whatever it is they plan on doing (subtle)

And Penny and Julia decide to go on a starlight walk or some uber-saccharine romantic beautiful thing

And then it’s just. Quentin and Eliot. And a lot of wine. In front of a cracking fire in a moonlit chalet and they slump even further in their chairs by the mantle and they’re talking about something so inconsequential and great (“Ugh. Margo usually has flawless taste in friends but Back to the Future III?? No one with any decency is allowed to like that movie, Q.”) and fuck Quentin is giggling and they’ve fallen to the floor (“How can you have not read any of the Harry Potter books?”) and if his head lolls just a fraction closer to Eliot’s wild curls, it’s because of some sort of scientific, magnetic pull or something.

He’s pretty sure that Eliot is leaning forward, or maybe somehow the wooden floors have slanted, or-or the world has moved and slid him closer to Eliot - his face in particular. And lips. His lips are like just molecules away, and–

Penny and Julia. Back. Snow dusted. Glowing. In love or some shit.

He accidentally calls him El. It just happens when they’re both at the breakfast table drinking coffee one morning. (“Of course you like it black, Coldwater. All tortured 50s existentialist.” “Just shut up and pass me the butter, El.”) And Eliot doesn’t correct him, just smirks and sips daintily at his coffee (no sugar, lots of milk) and nudges the butter at him.

Quentin really likes the way Eliot says Coldwater. He just. Does.

It’s Vermont during ski season so there’s a giant snow storm.

Obviously.

All that snow has knocked the power out. It’s getting increasingly cold inside the cabin the longer they’re without heating, and Penny and Julia Do the Brave Thing and venture out to see if they can scrounge up a generator or something to make this less miserable. Margo and Josh beeline for their room without a word and that’s that, apparently.

His bunk is fucking freezing.

He can hear Eliot on the bunk under him turning and turning. He wonders if he’s any warmer.

“Q. For the love of all things unholy, could you please get down here and help me generate some body heat before I go full Ötzi the Iceman. Not that a millennia of future generations wouldn’t benefit from seeing my beauty preserved in icy mummification- but I’m not that altruistic. Oh. And please bring all of the blankets you have.”

Eliot’s bed is. Really small. Well, it’s the same size as the top bunk, but with two people on it, it’s notably less spacious. Eliot is big spooning (as a verb), and Quentin is small spooning (silently freaking out), but it is really helping to keep the chill off. The four blankets Princess and the Pea style stacked on top of them probably aren’t hurting either.

Somewhere in the middle of the night, the heat must have kicked back in - or Penny and Julia had succeeded in their quest - because Quentin wakes, sweating, pushing off cover after cover after cover and Eliot has somehow lost his shirt (and Quentin quickly loses his shit), but mostly he just lays back down and doesn’t go back to his own bunk.

He wakes up again because there are lips on his shoulder.

Not like, random, disembodied dream lips. But specific lips.

Eliot lips.

It’s still dark outside.

Quentin had kind of forgotten that feeling? That one low, low in your stomach when you wake up in bed with someone, someone who is against you and kissing your skin and you feel warm and dazed and blissed the hell out.

But he definitely remembers it now.

And he turns and they are for sure, absolutely, 100% full-on making out now and it’s really small in this bed.

Somehow Quentin loses his shirt, too (Eliot is good at somehow misplacing clothing)

“Just making sure you’re warm, Q.”

“Yeah. Taking off my shirt is definitely helping.”

They wake up in the morning and it’s hot and sticky and the opposite of Ötzi and Quentin says so.

Eliot agrees and doubles down.

They decide to stay in the chalet for the day while Margo and Josh and Penny and Julia spend their last day on the slopes. They drink hot chocolate with peppermint schnapps and Quentin hates it (the schnapps), but doesn’t tell Eliot, and Eliot loves it (burrowing into the couch with no clothes, but wool socks on, next to Quentin) but doesn’t tell Quentin.

“This hasn’t been that bad.”

#queliot #quentin coldwater #eliot waugh #the magicians #queliot ff #queliot au #queliot headcanon #this is pretty random #but i am relatively sleep deprived #and i do already miss my snowy lovely iceland #thanks wine #thanks iceland #fic

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wolfpawn · 5 years ago

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Once Bitten, Twice Shy, Chapter 11

Previous Chapter

Chapter Summary - Paige finds herself in an internal argument with regards her feelings for Tom, who in turn is feeling somewhat conflicted himself. In her turmoil, she finds herself writing again, leading her to not answer messages or remember promised meetings, meaning Tom finally gets to see her home and how she does not hold on to feelings on ex's and partners.

Tag, @wolfsmom1 @sweetkingdomstarlight-blog @nonsensicalobsessions @damalseer @standing-onthe-edge

anyone else who wishes to be added to the tags, just ask :)

Paige groaned in humiliation. It was everything she did not want it to be. She thought they would simply enjoy the company of a like-minded soul for a Short time before parting ways again. She never planned to fall for the handsome and eloquent actor, but as she thought of the conversations they had, even as Tom read Sapiens, his passion for literature and his overall demeanour, she was forced to admit it to herself, she had. She had fallen for him, hard. He was everything any woman could want, caring, kind, sweet, animated, and the most attractive man. How was any man able to make scruff look that good, but he did, too damn good. More than once she thought back to their night that caused this situation. She had willingly gone to bed with him, partly because she was very much feeling primal urges, partly because he was very attractive. Not like Derek, Derek was broader built, heavier set, but Tom was uncommonly attractive in his own manner, far more attractive because to go with his body, he had the most astonishing mind.

She felt herself become upset. Tom was clearly not looking for anything like a relationship. This was all because he could not risk his name with the play and to get people off his back regarding his relationship status, nothing more. She knew what the deal was and as much as part of her wanted to tell him to stuff the deal and to make a stab at a real relationship she knew she couldn’t. All that came to mind was the sensation she felt when she saw the two wine glasses and plates in her living room, she never wanted to risk that feeling again.

Tom was not likely to do such a thing, but she did not wish to risk it. He was an incredible man, intelligent, handsome and kind. She loved talking about books with him. Sometimes she felt she needed to remind herself to cease talking, that he did not want to know every last thought she had on books and their content, his face was one of schooled patience, not interest, as no one could be as interested as her, that was the issue, she always felt she was alone in that aspect. Tom was the closest she ever felt she met to a like-minded individual. He had an incredibly similar and eclectic book collection, which made talking to him all the more fun, but she could not believe them to be that perfectly suited, she didn’t have that sort of fortune. She could only enjoy what time they were together as part of the agreement and enjoy his company and thoughts, envious of whatever woman would be the one to truly enjoy such attributes in him, she hoped whoever it would be would appreciate that aspect of him. She loved his adoration of Shakespeare, she was not as enamoured with his works personally, though she did enjoy them, but the passion and love in his eyes when Tom referenced the Bard, his hand movements increased, his eyes lit up and the creases of skin around his eyes came and went as his face became more animated as he spoke. She loved that, she loved his passion, his intelligence made her want to talk to him more and more, to never cease speaking with him. When they spoke, she felt herself become happier, more fulfilled on a personal level. He understood her in ways the man she thought she would marry never did, and that startled her. It made her realise she never really would have been happy and fulfilled with Derek if he had never cheated and she had realised what they were missing. It also scared her that she may never have known such a feeling if she had never realised the difference a meeting of minds could occur. But she had to stop there. There was a meeting of minds between herself and Tom, it was true, but it was not a relationship. Holding hands with him as they walked his dog, the small kisses he bestowed on her hand as they walked, knowing the cameras were there, it was all for show. That was an odd sensation to her, but Tom schooled her in ignoring them and always did everything in his power to not allow her to feel overly uncomfortable with their presence. It was not overly common for them to be bothered by photographers, but on the occasions they were, he did everything in his power to make her feel comfortable. She was grateful for that.

She sighed and continued to look at the blank screen in front of her. She could not write, not how she usually did. She could barely even think of a paper-thin plot. The white screen taunted her, screamed at her, even caused her to consider the contract she just signed for more books and ring Oscar and tell him to cancel everything. At that moment, she felt entirely spent of all of her writing ability. She just growled and typed a few words.

“Why the fuck did I agree to this?”

She looked at it for a moment and thought. Before she knew it, she wrote another line and another. Before she knew what she was doing, she had an opening paragraph. When the warning came up on her screen that her battery was running low, she had over a chapter done. Looking at it is startled bewilderment, she realised she had written something she had not done before, almost something along the lines of a romantic piece, but with her natural humour in it. The most startling part was, it was something like, but not notably close to herself and Tom’s false relationship. In her writing, she had the sense to not implicate that their “relationship” being a publicity stunt, but she did imply that the main character, one that for once, she wrote from the point of view of a man, found himself in an accidental relationship with a woman of considerable power. It was fun, she found herself enjoying it. So with a scour around for her charger, a quick phone call for a delivery of Pad Thai and a trip to the bathroom, she settled down again and continued.

It was midnight when she got a message on her phone from Tom, saying he was finished at the Pinter for the night and that Mark and Fiona had gone to the show. He had met them after in the crowds outside and had a pleasant evening overall. He hoped he was not disturbing her, but had promised Mark that when her mother came to London that Thursday, he would bring her for lunch, as she still felt bothered that they had done so with his mother. He remembered her not having anything planned as they planned on walking Bobby together, so that would sate her mother’s want for lunch. Though he was adamant that this time, he was paying.

Paige never even realised she gave him a response of ‘sounds good’, she ate some more of the now cold Pad Thai and continued to write. She was eight chapters in and she was on a roll. Nothing but her idea filled her mind and she didn’t fight it.

Six in the morning, she yawned and rubbed her eyes before she looked at the small-time on the side of the screen. For a moment, her eyes widened, but they went back to normal again soon after. She pulled all-nighters on more than a few occasions while writing. Getting into the frame of mind was hard, when she got there, nothing was easier.

She stretched, ensured everything saved, got the mug that she had beside her during the night for coffee and put it in the kitchen with the others before going to bed. She didn’t check her phone or indeed did she think to, she simply dragged herself to the bedroom and went to sleep.

A few hours later, she was up again and at the laptop. No housework done, no food eaten, simply typing.

When she heard a persistent knock on her front door, she frowned and looked at the time. It was three in the afternoon. When she wondered why she would receive such a knock on her door, she recalled she was meant to be somewhere at two. She rushed to the door. “Oh my God, I am so sor...what?”

Tom wondered if there was something wrong when he got a message back at such a late hour, his follow up messages the next morning and indeed in the afternoon were not answered. He did not wish to bother her, however, he had to go to an event and both Oscar and Luke thought it best for him to bring her. He needed to alert the organisers that he would need an extra ticket, but to do so, he needed her to accept or decline the offer, so with no answer and whilst in the area, he said he would see if everything was alright. Just as he came close to the house, he noticed a woman struggling with a buggy. He went over and offered assistance.

“Thank you.” She allowed him to lift the front up to get it onto the path. When she looked at him properly, her face lit up. “Oh.”

Tom prepared for one of the usual reactions he got on being recognised. “Yeah.”

“I guess we’re going to the same place.” She laughed.

Tom frowned slightly, not understanding her meaning.

“You’re Paige’s boyfriend, aren’t you? The actor guy?”

That startled him more. Firstly, he had not thought he would be referenced via Paige, and secondly, he did not think someone would call him ‘The actor guy’. “Yes, Tom.” He extended his hand before taking a moment to hamper a guess. “Nicola?”

“That’s me, I’m afraid. And this troublemaker is Alannah.” She indicated to the child in the buggy. “Did Paige triple book or double book herself today?”

“I don’t follow.”

“Did she have plans with you too? We were supposed to meet an hour ago but she never showed and she always lets you know if she forgot something or something came up or she is delayed, so I am guessing she either forgot that she planned something with the two of us or there was a third person to meet too, Oscar no doubt.” She laughed as she made it to the front door of Paige’s home and rang the doorbell before rapping harshly on the door.

It took a minute, but Paige did answer, her hair every direction, her glasses falling off her nose and her eyes red, not from tears or other such negative situations, but of tiredness. “Oh my, God. I’m so sor...what?” She looked between the pair for a moment.

“So, guess who I found?” Nicola smiled, pointing to Tom. “I guess you got into a flow.”

“I am so sorry.” Paige moved aside so they could get into the house. She looked at Tom and frowned. “I blew you off too?” she could not recall any plans she had made with Tom for that day.

“No, I just sent you a few messages which you didn’t answer but I sort of needed an answer for so I said as I was nearby anyway, I would check with you to see if everything was alright and met the wonderful Nicola en route.

“Fair enough.” She looked around for a moment. “Excuse the mess.”

Paige, from Tom’s time in her company, was always very clean, so that statement confused him slightly, but he nodded and walked further into her house, never having been in it due to there being little need for such. They met at his to walk Bobby, or she collected him to go to her parents, or he collected her outside her house if needed, but this was Tom’s first time in her home and being honest, Tom was curious. He looked around curiously, half wishing Nicola was not there so he did not have to act as though he knew the house in any way and allow himself the chance to really study her books and such.

He was startled by the state of the living room, which clearly also acted as Paige’s writing area. It was messy due to her encamping there in her writing fit. It stank of coffee and he was somewhat surprised to see that there were five coffee-stained mugs on the kitchen counter as well as the remnants of last night’s dinner. “Have you eaten today?” He asked worriedly. Her shameful face told him the answer. “And Luke rides my ass about getting too engrossed in work.”

“This is nothing, this is about twenty-four hours of a Paige writing nest, you should see her after a week. I think the Tesco delivery guy thought the place needed fumigating.” Nicola dismissed as she took Alannah out of her buggy and into her arms. “Take my daughter while I go to the bathroom.” She ordered, handing her to Paige.

Paige smiled brightly as she took the toddler. “Hey, Pretty Lady.”

Tom watched as Paige interacted with her ex-fiance’s daughter with the woman he was cheating on her with. Most people would want nothing to do with either mother or child, but it was clear, there was a true friendship between the women. He recalled Paige referencing Nicola before and there was evidently no animosity between the women but this made it all the more clear. Looking at the little girl in her arms, he wondered was she like her father, as she did not seem to resemble her mother too greatly. He did not think it his place to ask such a question, so he said nothing of the matter. When the little girl looked at him curiously, he gave her a big smile that made her do the same. “So, what’s the new book about?”

“I don’t know yet. I am seeing if what I scribbled makes any sense, I guess.” Paige looked at the computer, still plugged in though the screen was dark on the table. “I’m sorry, you said there was something you needed an answer on?”

“A gathering, for Luke’s clients, I...well he and Oscar think it would be a good thing for both of us to be there but tickets need to be booked with the promoter.” He explained somewhat timidly. He did not want to admit that he wanted her there. He enjoyed her company no end and wished more than anything to have her there with him.

“Eh, sure. Yeah, I guess.” She felt odd, she wanted to spend time with him but her thoughts went again to the conversation she had with herself the day before regarding them. She took a moment to look at him and found herself inhaling deeply. Even in a sweater and jeans, he looked incredibly handsome. She had noticed this before, she was not blind, she knew her friend’s husband had an incredibly handsome friend, but it did not cause her to feel then as she did now.

“Stop oogling your man and be something of a hostess,” Nicola ordered.

Tom, who had been looking at the decor as he pondered why Paige may sound so reluctant, looked back to see Paige looking very red-faced beside him. “Will I put on the kettle?”

“Yes, I guess.” Paige handed Alannah back to her mother. “I better clean myself slightly.” She rushed upstairs and did that.

On her return downstairs, she could hear Tom and Nicola laughing slightly. Hoping to not look like something the cat dragged in, she walked back into the kitchen. “What have I missed?”

“Nothing much, just me eyeing up another man you’re in a relationship with.” Nicola joked.

Tom looked at her in shock. He had not thought the women would joke about something so serious, but looking then at Paige, he saw her roll her eyes.

“I suppose Alannah needs a sibling.” She scoffed playfully.

“Oh yeah.” Nicola nodded before looking at Tom who looked equal parts appalled and confused before she burst out laughing.

“You get used to us.” Paige consoled. “In all fairness, we’re both mad.”

“He had a type,” Nicola added. A moment later, she and Paige laughed again.

“I know it’s weird and mad, but honestly, if there is one thing all of that gave me, is higher standards and a new friend.” Paige shrugged.

“That’s two things.” Tom pointed out.

“No, my higher standards includes better friends.” Paige laughed. “Sophie made the cut, very few others did.”

“I still haven’t met her,” Nicola commented.

“They are very private.” Paige consoled. “Really, don’t take offence. I swear, she doesn’t think you are going to try and steal Ben. he’s vegan, I told her you wouldn’t want him.”

“A vegan...Now I don’t want to meet her, how are you supposed to trust someone who willingly puts up with a vegan?” Nicola looked at her in disgust as Paige laughed.

Tom, realising it was entirely playful, laughed and joined in. “I was on a tour with him for Infinity War, I accidentally dipped his nose in banana milk. He is convinced I did it intentionally and to this day eyes me carefully with dairy products.”

“Is that what that statement is about?” Paige looked to him. “I thought he was trying to get you to stop consuming dairy, not you forcibly trying to get him to,” Paige recalled a comment Ben had made about something referencing Banana milk and Tom.

“Yes, it is.” Tom looked at Paige smiling and laughing. Seeing her with a woman she would so justifiably likely to despise showed him just how honest she was with everything she said. She did not hold grudges, or go on about something in the past that hurt her, she lived in the present, no silly arguments, nothing like that. He found himself wondering if there was a way to cease the false relationship and perhaps see if she would ever consider him in an honest one.

#Once Bitten Twice Shy #chapter 11 #tom hiddleston #tom hiddleston fic

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residentanchor · 7 years ago

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Probable Theorem Ch. 5

<<Chapter 4 Chapter 5

Summary: Patton wants to take Auntie Em up on her offer to visit, but he gets a bit nervous...

Word Count: 4184 Note: The lovely @robinsdraw made an animatic of the prologue to Practicality! If you haven’t seen it, HERE IT IS! They are also LOOKING FOR VOICES for the next part!! At least go check it out!

Virgil paced around his room and checked his pockets to make sure he wasn’t forgetting anything. He reached over and picked up a plain black backpack off of the floor and slung it over his shoulder. With one last check, he turned and opened his bedroom door before freezing.

“Virgil!” Patton stopped and smiled, though it seemed a bit forced. “Oh, are you headed out somewhere?”

Virgil nodded and closed his bedroom door behind him. “I have work. You okay, Pat? Need to talk?”

“Oh, no! Don’t want to hold you up! Can’t be late for work!” Patton still seemed a bit tense as he backed away. “It wasn’t important, don’t worry!”

Virgil took a step forward and reached out, grabbing Patton’s arm lightly as he tried to retreat further. “Pat, what’s bothering you?” Patton never dropped his smile as he shook his head. “You’re my best friend, I have all the time in the world for you, okay?” Patton’s smile finally started to fall as Virgil spoke softly. “I can get to work on time just fine, tell me what’s wrong?”

“It really isn’t a big deal.” Patton shrugged. Virgil let go of his arm and motioned toward the couch. With a nod, they headed over and Patton fell into the cushions as he let out a sigh. “I wanted to go meet up with Logan’s aunt that runs that bakery. She invited me today and I was super excited but I just kind of got nervous. What if she doesn’t like me or what if I upset her? What if it doesn’t go well?”

“Patton.” Virgil held up a hand and cut the other off. “I’m an expert at playing the ‘what if’ game, but I have complete faith that you’ll be fine. Everyone loves you, you’re such a nice person and if she doesn’t then you’ll just have to show her.” Patton bit his lip but nodded, shoulders still tense. “Want me to go with you?”

Patton shot his head up and waved his hands around. “No, no! You have work!”

Virgil raised a brow and smiled over at his best friend. “Look, I don’t have to miss work. I may not be as good as you are at being in multiple places at once but that doesn’t mean I can’t do it at all.” Virgil stood up from the couch and gripped onto one of the straps to his backpack. “Wait a few minutes for me to text you then tell me exactly where you’re standing in the apartment, okay?” Virgil gave a small salute before heading to the front door. “Just trust me on this.”

The door clicked closed and Patton remained confused as he sat on the couch. He dug out his phone from his pocket and began to fidget with it as he stared at the front door. Around maybe ten minutes later, he jumped as his phone went off, pulling him from his thoughts.

Tapping away to unlock it, a text from Virgil with a single black heart emoji staring back at him. Patton stood up and began pacing before he stopped in the middle of the living room.

“I… am… standing… in the… living room…” Patton spoke as he typed. He sent the text before looking up from his phone. “He said to describe, is that enough?” Patton typed away once more to describe what he was seeing, sending a single sentence at a time. A hand shot out and covered his phone as Patton let out a squeak of surprise. He glanced up and saw Virgil standing there, hair a bigger mess than minutes before and looking more worn out. “V-virge!”

“That was more than enough, Pat.” Virgil let go of the phone and headed for his room, his backpack stuffed more than when he had left. “Let me drop this off and we can go.”

Patton smiled and sent Virgil a quick apology along with a heart before putting his phone away. “How was work? That’s where you just came from, right? You just traveled back to this time, am I right?”

Virgil put the backpack down onto his bed and walked out. “Yeah, work was fine. It’s been tough since the move.”

“Aww, well we’re all settled in here so hopefully it’ll get better soon!” Virgil smiled and shook his head. “Are you sure you’re up to going? You look tired.”

“You’re not backing out of this. Besides, you owe me one thing from this bakery.” Virgil headed to the front door like Patton had just watched him do and smiled.

“How did I get such a great best friend?”

Virgil snorted out a short laugh before turning and holding the door open. “Just lucky, I guess.”

Virgil followed and listened as Patton rambled on nervously about a million different topics, jumping from one to another with no warning. They boarded the city bus easily as Patton double and triple checked the right path that he had taken with Logan before.

It wasn’t until after they gotten off the bus that Virgil stopped walking and was standing on the sidewalk that Patton froze.

“Is something wrong, Virge?”

Virgil smirked and jabbed a thumb to the building next to him that Patton had walked by. “Isn’t this the place?”

Patton looked back to the large glass windows that showed the inside of the bakery that was bustling with life. “Oh. Yeah, it is! Sorry!”

Virgil smirked over at Patton before heading toward the door and holding it open for the two of them. A wind rushed passed as the door opened and they were hit with a sweet smell of sugar and pastries. Patton walked through as Virgil glanced around and took in everything for the first time. Patton stuck by Virgil as they slowly made their way up to the counter where an older man with balding gray hair stood, talking with a customer. Virgil nudged Patton forward and kept a hand on his back as they made their way to the counter. Patton straightened out his shirt and fussed with his hair before Virgil grabbed a hold of his wrist. “Pat, you’re fine. Just relax, I’m right here.”

The customer in front of them moved and Virgil walked up to the counter, keeping his hand on Patton’s back for comfort.

“Well, hello there!” The man grinned at the two. “A pair of new faces! What can I get you, lads?”

“I, well, was wondering if, um,” Patton looked over at Virgil who simply nodded at him to continue. “Is Auntie Em here?”

The man frowned and sighed before turning toward the back door. “Emilia!” He walked over and opened it up, shouting into the back room. “Emilia, my heart! Why are two young men here to talk to you?” An older woman with short curly hair appeared, wiping her hands on her apron. “You trying to make me jealous again, dear? Is this because I wouldn’t let you buy that new mixer?”

“Oh hush now, Murph. I don’t know what you’re talking about, you’re the sweetest thing in this bakery.” She leaned forward and gave a quick peck to the man before turning and walking over to the counter. “Now, are you two young boys looking for me?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Virgil spoke up. “Patton here wanted to come and meet you.”

“Patton?” The woman gasped and smiled as she leaned over the counter. “Oh, goodness! You’re Patton, hmm?”

Before either could answer, Auntie Em was making her way around the counter and wrapping both of them in her arms. “Oh what an absolute pleasure! My little Logan has told me all about you!” he pulled back and smiled at them. “So, who would you be, dear?”

Virgil shook off the sudden surprise contact and smiled up at the woman. “I’m Virgil. I’m their roommate.”

“He’s my best friend!” Patton chimed in and hooked their arms together. “I told him I’d buy him something if he came with!”

“Oh dear, you aren’t buying a single thing! Pick something out, on me. Let me finish up in the back and we can sit and talk.” She turned back to the counter and smiled at the man. “Murphey, these are Logan’s friends! Let them pick anything out while I straighten up in the back, okay love?”

“Of course, dear.” The older man, Murphey, smiled at the two boys. “I’ve been saying ‘yes, dear’ for thirty years, you know why?”

“Because you love her?” Patton suggested while Virgil rolled his eyes.

“I was told to smile and agree with everything Em said, but that woman has a fire in her that needs taming. Good thing I was a fireman back in my day.” The man chuckled as he made his way back to the counter. “You heard the woman, pick anything out.”

Patton leaned down to look inside the glass cases. “If it’s anything like that tart, it’ll be delicious!”

“Logan’s weakness, we were always able to get that boy to work with Em’s special raspberry tart.” Murphey chuckled to himself. “My nephew’s quite the hard worker once he started taking things seriously.”

“Ohh, that chocolate cake looks so good!” Patton pointed to the case. “It’s calling to me, I can hear it!” Patton looked up at Virgil who kept his distance as he looked. “What about you? See anything you like?”

Virgil glanced away and shifted the weight on his feet. “I mean, I don’t want to impose, I’m willing to pay.”

“Nonsense, boy!” Murphey leaned over the counter and looked over at Virgil. “We offer because we want to and we can! A single slice of cake isn’t going to break the bank and ruin us. Take the offer, I insist.”

Virgil smirked a bit and shrugged. “The cheesecake looks good.”

“Just tell me which one and I’ll get you both set.”

Patton and Virgil were sent to a table to the side away from a lot of the customers with their desserts while they waited for Logan’s aunt to come out and pay a visit. When the back doors opened, they hadn’t expected her to walk out with a big binder in her hands as she made her way over to their table.

“I hope you boys didn’t wait too long for me!” She placed the binder down and took a seat herself. “I just had to go grab this real quick! Loganberry would never let me show you if he were here!”

Virgil and Patton leaned in closer as she opened it up revealing a plethora of old photos. She flipped through and jumped to about halfway and stopped, showing photos of strangers as she picked the page she wanted. “Are you sure it’s okay to be showing us this? I don’t want Logan to be mad.” Patton leaned back, poking at the crumbs on his plate with a fork.

Auntie Em chuckled and finally stopped on a page. “He’d just be embarrassed, I think he’d appreciate me doing this while he wasn’t here.” She flipped the book around for them to see. “Look! His first day working here at the bakery! He looked so upset once he realized it wasn’t a… a piece of cake!”

Virgil laughed and covered his mouth, surprised at the sudden joke while Patton giggled and glanced down at the book. “Which one is…” Furrowing his brow, Patton pointed to a photo. “Wait, that’s Logan?!”

“Holy shi--spit!” Virgil caught himself before letting it slip, looking at Em quickly before looking back at the photo.

“But, Logan’s all… Prim and proper!” Patton glanced at each photo, showing an angry teenage Logan covered in flour in most, glaring down at whatever he was working on. “Not… this!”

“He had an emo punk phase!” Virgil leaned back and started to laugh. “He even wore eyeliner!”

The photos showed Logan alright, but his hair was longer and shaved underneath. The shirt you could see peeking out was a ripped and torn band tee that you couldn’t make out as it contrasted with the happy blue apron tied over it. He did have eyeliner on underneath his eyes smudged out, but not quite to the point Virgil preferred. He screamed ‘scene emo punk’ as he glared down at a bowl he had been working on.

Auntie Em flipped the pages, showing the irritated look on Logan’s face slowly disappear and a smile replace it with each photo. Eventually, the shirt was replaced and he started wearing a tie in some of the photos. Each was either him working or with his aunt and uncle.

“That boy was a complete mess when he came to live with us but I’m so proud of him now, looking at how far he has come.” Em smiled and closed the book as she looked up at the two. “He’s much happier now that he’s found you all. I was rather skeptical when he said he found someone just like him in that cafe but I suppose it worked for the best.”

“Oh, right!” Patton turned and looked at Virgil. “He said he was at a cafe when he found one of us on accident.”

“He never could completely kick his habit of imposing in on people.” She tapped her head with her finger lightly, indicating what she truly meant. “He swore to me once the apartment was set he would never do it again.”

Virgil leaned forward a bit as he whispered. “He found you in that cafe, right Patton?”

Patton looked on clueless before gasping in shock. “Oh gosh, you’re right! I think I know that place, I went there all the time for lunch before I moved!”

Auntie Em chuckled as she watched the two boys prattle on in excitement. “Well, I would love to hear how my Lo-Lo has been doing since he moved out.”

“Lo-Lo,” Patton whispered to himself before giggling. “Oh gosh, that is so cute!”

“He’s your Lo-Lo now, sugar. I just want to hear what you have been up to this past year!” Virgil and Patton shared a quick worried glance before the woman sighed. “Fine, I’ll let you skip out on the good stuff this time, but please tell me this.” She turned to Virgil and smiled. “You get together with that Roman boy yet? Logan stopped talking about you two and how you needed to just get together already after he and Patton here finally came to their senses!”

Virgil groaned as he pulled up the hood of his sweater, pulling it down over his face and sinking into his chair. “Logan you backstabber!” He muttered as he stopped sliding down. “I’ll get you back for this…”

---

Patton was practically dancing in the streets as they made their way back to the apartment. Virgil could only smile as Patton twirled around and sang. “Oh, Virgil, that went so well! And to think I was worried!”

Virgil huffed out a quick laugh before responding. “I told you it would be fine! You were worrying over nothing.”

“Nuh uh!” Patton stopped and smiled at Virgil. “...okay so maybe I was! It worked out okay! Oh gosh, I should call my mom and tell her!” He reached into his pocket and pulled out his cell phone. “Maybe Logan and I can go over there and he can meet my parents!” Patton froze and looked down at his phone, his smile finally falling. “Hey, Virge.” Patton waited a moment before making sure Virgil was listening. “Do you think I’m rushing this a bit? We only just started dating.”

“I can’t answer that for you.” Virgil continued past Patton down the street. “Not my relationship, you’re gonna have to talk to Logan about how he feels.” He looked over at Patton as the other raced to catch up with him. “Honestly, he’s been pining after you for months so I think he’ll be fine for right now as long as you two find a pace to go at.”

“Yeah, but he wasn’t bad as you and Roman were, ignoring each other's feelings completely.” Patton shoved Virgil playfully with his shoulder. “I just didn’t think Logan would be the one to like me! Honestly, if I was going to end up liking anyone in the apartment, he was my last guess!”

Virgil raised an eyebrow at that. “Oh? So what, you already had an idea of who your roommate love interest was going to be?”

“I thought it would be Roman honestly.” Virgil stuttered confused as he gaped at Patton. “Yeah, I know! We just clicked when we moved in but the feelings were never there. Then he got a crush on you and that went out the window.”

“You are still a mystery to me, Pat. I don’t think I’ll ever figure you out.” Patton smiled and shrugged as they made their way into their apartment. “Well, if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll travel back to when I left to even out the timestream more and go to bed. Work is gonna be killer in the morning.” Virgil yawned and walked into his room. “I should have never taken that promotion.”

Patton waved and stopped once his door clicked shut. “Wait, what promotion?” He walked over to the door and knocked. “Virgil?” He waited a moment before opening it, finding it completely empty. With a huff, Patton shut the door and headed for his room.

Once inside, he pulled out his phone once more before quickly dialing it and holding it up to his ear. It rang a few times before someone picked up.

“Hello?”

“Hey, mom.” Patton bit his lip as he smiled nervously. “It’s just me!”

“Oh, Patton sweetie!” He heard shuffling from the other side as his mother moved around. She could never sit still while on the phone. “How are you? You better have finished unpacking! Don’t make me come over there!”

Patton laughed and relaxed a bit as she spoke. “No, we’re all done! I made sure of that. I just wanted to call and talk to you a bit! It’s been a while.”

“Oh, just making sure you check in on your mom? You’re such a good boy. How’s that boyfriend of yours?”

“We’re fine, mom. He took me on a date and made it official, just like you told him.”

“Well, at least you’re dating a smart boy who knows what’s good for him. He ever treats you wrong you tell me, okay?”

Patton paced back and forth through his room. “That’s fine, mom. I think I can handle one boy, it wouldn’t be the first time.”

“I know you can, but I’m your mother, I’m meant to worry.” The line went quiet for a bit and Patton felt the anxious ball in his chest start to grow. “You know, I was thinking about you two, actually.”

“No.” Patton bit out, a bit more harsh than he was planning. He took a moment to take a deep breath and calm himself. “No, you’re not doing this to me. I know exactly what you’re going to say. You’re going to mention my powers being a problem for the future.”

“I just worry! He doesn’t know and he will have to find out eventually! How do we know he won’t tell? What if it doesn’t work out and they take you away from me?”

“Mom!” Patton stomped his foot as he stopped his pacing. “He won’t tell, he never will no matter what happens. You can’t keep doing this to me! First, you ask me to pretend I don’t have powers then you turn around and accuse me of lying if I keep them secret!”

“I do it because I love you! What if he-”

“He already knows! He’s not going to tell!” The line went silent and Patton sighed deeply, turning and sitting on his bed. “He knows, he has for a while. He won’t tell, I promise.”

“You’ve been doing it again.” He could hear the fire in his mother’s voice as she accused him, making him flinch in response. “You’ve been making those copies again!”

Patton chose not to answer as he sat on his bed, afraid of what he might say if he opened his mouth again. The line remained quiet and he heard his mother sigh on the other end. “Mom, listen to me for once. It’s who I am, okay? I can multiply myself. Just like that hero running around town that can shoot electricity! He’s fine and he’s out in the open! I can handle one or two people knowing, okay?”

When his mother didn’t immediately answer, he knew it was another battle lost with her. Years of trying to convince her he was normal, his normal was just different than everyone else was a waste of time. She might never understand and accept that part of him and he was still willing to try.

“We will talk about this another day.” He shook his head, knowing his mother would do everything in her power to avoid that conversation for as long as she lived. “Goodbye Patton. Love you.”

“Goodbye.” He ended the call as quickly as he could and tossed the phone onto his bed. He sat there a while before falling back, stretching his arms out to the side as he fell. He stared at his ceiling and thought about how his day went. It was so up and down with good and bad emotions, his heart racing for different reasons, and it left him exhausted. The day wasn’t over yet and he was determined to end it on a high note.

With a sudden rush of determination, Patton pushed himself off of his bed and into the kitchen. He always cooked and cleaned to distract his thoughts from spiraling and that’s exactly what he planned to do until he could talk to Logan. Maybe not that night, but soon, he promised himself. He was determined to make this relationship work.

---

Margaret loved her son with all her heart. She was open and accepting of him when she realized he liked more than just girls, even if she didn’t quite understand what he was trying to tell her about pansexuality. She didn’t need to know as long as she loved and accepted him.

What she didn’t get was his need to use these abilities he had. If he just kept them hidden and forgot they existed, he could live in peace without worry. He didn’t even seem worried he had them at all! If people knew what he could do, she was so worried about what could happen to him. She wasn’t going to let her son become another missing person. He wasn’t going to just be a number added to some random statistic. She was going to protect him, even if that’s not how he saw it. Sure, if Logan had worked out and kept quiet then she had no issue of him knowing their shared secret but how could she know he would? He seemed like a nice enough boy but mama bear was out and she was going to protect her bear cub.

If there was one thing having a child like Patton taught her it was to keep an eye out for certain things. Once this Princey came out as a hero of the streets, everyone took a liking to him. Well, not everyone, but most people did. He went through a million different names before his official fan club dropped the name ‘Prince Charging’-which let's be honest was never going to stick- to simply Princey. They said they got the name from a ‘source close to the hero’ and stuck with it, though revealed nothing further.

It didn’t take much for Maggie to find out where and when these meetings were and even attended a few. It was a surprise to hear a group of people praise this random man with weird powers but she knew, they had to be the minority. People didn’t simply accept these strange powers or she wouldn’t need to protect her son.

That’s how she found them, honestly. A group of people she could relate to. They showed up to the fanclub meeting and told them all what she always knew to be true.

Which is why she had to protect her son. Because not everyone would understand. That’s why she listened to these people at these meetings. That’s why she spends her Wednesday nights hanging on the edge of her seat along with a dozen others. That’s why, as they spoke, her hands shook with fear for her only child.

“He is not a hero, he is a vigilante.” The leader spoke as he paced back and forth in the front of the room. “He is a danger to all of us. He believes to be above the law simply because he has a power over all of us, but we aren’t going to let that happen!”

That’s why she was going to do everything in her power to protect Patton from people finding out the truth.

“This ‘Princey’ must be stopped at all costs.” Chapter 6>> Taglist: @cyberpunkjinx @phlying-squirrel @equipodeleo @ace-anx @tisithelittleelephant @sanderslays @fandomsofrandom @wandering-wondering-aimlessly @thestoryofme13 @herequeerandverytired @too-random-for-me @midknight-mania @tatergator27 @sleepyssnail @dragonsight9 @queer-human-being @ab-artist @arandompasserby General: @tatergator27 @helloisthisusernametaken @entitydark @lightningbug04 @moonstonefox12 @rampantlesbian @echomist13 @another-sandersidesblog @thesynysterunknown @roo-kangas @singjoanna

#sanders sides #sanders sides fic #sanders sides fanfic #sanders sides au #superhero au #superpower au #slice of life au #ts patton #ts virgil #practicality fic #celery writes

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funkymeihem-fiction · 7 years ago

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Operation: Miracle Prawn (A Meihem Fanfiction)

“Mei? Did you hear me?” There wasn’t much to stare at, so Mei stared at the one thing that was there; a single clock on the wall, watching with a blank gaze at the black numbers on the stark white circle. The thin red line of the second-counter slowly ticked away, moving steadily with its little mechanized jerky movement, clicking one spot over in timely precision. It was odd, still having an analog clock in this day and age. Perhaps Dr. Ziegler was comforted by its irritating ticking, somehow? That ceaseless, echoing ticking, where she could hear the turning and clacking of every gear in the machine’s guts, somewhere behind that clean white and black face. She stared at the clock and she listened to it tick, and watched the red hand go the entire way around, from 12 to 12 again. Dr. Ziegler tried again after a minute had gone by, biting her lip a little as the smaller woman stared blankly at the clock on the wall above, seemingly uncomprehending. “Mei? Mei-Ling, I know this is a lot to take in…” Mei shuddered a little on the examination table. She was used to the cold, more than anyone, but the thin little paper medical gowns offered no protection from the deathly chill of the clinic. She wished she had her thermal gear and her furs, like when she was trapped in the wastelands of Antarctica. True, she had lost almost ten years of her life, been the sole survivor of her entire expedition, and had traipsed across miles of unforgiving ice with no food and few supplies; but as she shivered beneath her little paper dress, she wondered if Antarctica had actually been warmer. Dr. Ziegler was talking again, over the ticking of the clock. “Ah, I see. If you need another minute, I can step out-” Mei felt herself lifting a hand to try and signal her to stay, trying to fight her way back to the present. The open folder with the little scattering of papers was still open on her lap, though all the letters jumbled together. Licking her lips, she tried to speak, a little wheezing noise hissing out before she managed to wrangle any words. “No! No, I’m…I’m sorry. Sorry, Dr. Ziegler. I d-don’t know what came over me. It…I just..” A gentle, calming hand (though covered in rubber and colder than ice) was laid upon her shoulder. “Just take a moment, breathe.” She tried to breathe, and the cold air burned her lungs. “Nn..” “It’s all right. I must admit I was….surprised, myself. And I assure you, I double checked, and then triple checked. That’s why I called you in for the tests today, just to be completely sure. I didn’t want to say anything until I was certain but…Well, now I am certain. Your results just came back and…They are positive, Mei.” She shook her head, because the results couldn’t be positive. The doctor had just made a mistake, that was all. “B-but…but I’m not…” “They all came back positive. You’re about four weeks pregnant.”

“…No, I’m not…” “Well you were about three weeks when you first came in for your regular check-up, but the hormone levels threw me off and I wanted to run some more tests. I even thought the machine might have been broken. But no, all results positive.” Dr. Ziegler kept talking, even if she shouldn’t have been. Because she was wrong. “I know that…it’s a lot to take in. When you’re ready, we’ll start to go over the procedures and new medical schedule you’ll be on. I do apologize for the frequency, but I’ll need to keep a very close eye on things. The odds are-” “I’m not pregnant,” Mei said again, looking up a little more desperately. “I can’t be. You said so, yourself. You said so.” “I…believe the odds I gave you were a little less than one percent…And it seems that one of your tries has hit the mark in that less than one percent range.” “Tries? But we weren’t…No, we weren’t trying?” Mei held her forehead, still trying to process everything. They hadn’t been trying for a baby at all. After all, they were both quite nearly sterile. Dr. Ziegler’s own tests had confirmed it. Mei’s emergency cryostasis had killed her eggs, and Jamison’s sperm was non-viable from his lifelong endurance of radiation. Of course, that hadn’t discouraged his libido. Especially after it was confirmed they they needn’t bother with contraceptives, she had lost count of the times she’d been intimate with the insatiable junker…and she did mean insatiable. He was always ravenous for more, and often came to her multiple times a day. Most often, she had obliged him. She’d ‘obliged’ him many, many times. Could it be? After so many months and countless ‘tries’ together, had there been some stray wandering sperm that had actually managed to find a lonely stray egg? Was it possible? Angela nodded gently, her fingers tightening very softly on Mei’s shoulder to try and focus her attention. “Just take whatever time you need. May I assume that you will want to tell the father in person, or do you want me to call him in?” “N-no. I’m sorry. I’ll tell him. I think I just need to calm down a little. Can I put my things back on and go clear my head?” “Of course. I’ll call you in a few hours, all right? Let me know if you need help with telling him, or anything else.” “Mm.” Angela left the room, and Mei began pulling on her clothes again. Her head was still spinning and as she pulled on her sweater, she looked down at her stomach slowly and then reached for her coat as well, shrugging it on and zipping it up as she rested both hands on her belly. It was always too cold in this clinic. Couldn’t let the baby get cold. …The baby… She had always thought she would make a good mother. Even before she had left for her ill-fated expedition, she had made plans that included little sons or daughters one day. She’d wanted to meet someone nice and settle down with him, and have two or three children in quick succession. They would have grown up together, with lots of toys about science to peak their curiosities, sports to keep them all healthy, and candy as a ‘sometimes’ treat. And she and her husband would attend every play and pageant, every practice, every recital, and they’d love and support one another as they grew up together. She’d wanted a family. Of course, that hadn’t happened. She had been locked out from nine years of her own life, had nearly died while trying to save herself, and her insides had been left ravaged and her hopes of a family dashed to pieces. And then she had not fallen for a responsible family-oriented fellow scientist as planned, but had instead (against all odds and against all better judgments) fallen in with an explosives-obsessed radiation-addled Australian junker whose only family was a pig-masked bodyguard and mercenary killer. They were the two that she had made into a sort of misfit kind of family for her. The kind of family with less piano recitals and soccer matches, and more random explosions and hunting down enemy Talon agents. They were going to make a new, strange, good life together, her and a man who called himself Junkrat. And now that was (again, against all odds) the man who had fathered an impossible baby inside her. How the hell was she supposed to tell him?…

*** “Oi Roadie, can you loan me your communicator?” “Why?” The two junkers were lingering in the cafeteria again. Junkrat had, as usual, inhaled his meal within a minute, and impatiently waited for his bodyguard to finish the massive amount of plates still in front of him. Roadhog seemed more interested in his honey garlic shrimp than his employer, even when the latter made a face and stuck his tongue out at the little orange-pink creatures scattered across the bed of rice. “Ugh! Never liked prawns, or shrimp. Creepy little squiggly things with weird sharp faces, that’s what they are.” “…Kind of like you.” “Fuck you, Roadie. C’mon, c’mon, c’mon, give me your comm. I need it to call Mei!” He reached across with one long arm, trying to snag the communicator by the pig-masked man’s ear. “Just hand it here, would ya?” Roadhog leaned back out of range. “Use your own.” “I tried! S’weird, I think it’s not working right. She called me three times, didn’t leave a message. Then she called again, and I was there to pick up, but then she just kinda breathed into the phone, made a weird noise, and it hung up. So I tried calling her back a few times and she didn’t pick up. Think maybe the comm’s busted. Let me use yours!” “If your’s isn’t blinking red, it’s not busted.” “Then what’s the deal with Mei, d’you think? Never took her for the ‘heavy breathing over the phone’ sort of gal. That’s really more your kind of a gig.” Roadhog shrugged with a forkful of shrimp halfway to his jaws. “Hm. Doesn’t seem right.” “Yeh! I know she’s there, but she’s acting all squirrely. And usually you know how she is on the phone. Always picks it up within three rings, sits up straight, speaks real prim and polite and proper, it’s adorable.” He straightened up, pinky stuck out by his communicator by his ear, raising his voice in a poor falsetto of Mei’s accent. “Mei-Ling Zhou speaking!” “Should just go find her, then.” Roadhog said. “You just saying that because she’s not acting right, or because you just want to eat your gross-arse shrimps alone?” “Yes.” Grumbling, Junkrat lifted from his seat and purposefully left behind his own mess of plates for Roadhog to clean up, ignoring his bodyguard’s warning rumbles as he hobbled off. Shrimp or prawns or xiā or whatever anyone called those little things, he was simply not a fan. He exited the cafeteria before any hooks could be flung his way, his peg clacking noisily down the hall as he skulked off towards the direction of the dorms. Pounding on the door of Mei’s room, he received no answer. He tried the communicator yet again, and still no answer. Was she in a meeting, maybe? Maybe at another of her appointments at Mercy’s clinic? She wasn’t due out for any missions, he knew, so she had to be somewhere. The meeting room was empty. And the library. And the entertainment room was not empty, but had that creepy African omnic horse-lady-thing hanging about inside instead of Mei, and he was none too keen on sticking around anything omnic, especially horse-lady-things. Everywhere he tried was empty, and when he knocked on the door of Mercy’s clinic, she gave him a very strange look when he asked if she’d seen Mei. She’d said that she hadn’t seen her since that morning, but urged him to try and contact her quickly, and then quickly excused herself. He was traveling from clinic towards the practice grounds, when he spotted movement up on top of one of the towers over by the cliffs, by one of the old satellite comm discs. Squinting, he was fairly sure he saw a dark head of hair, and a little flash of color that might have been a red-beaded pin with a rhinestone snowflake. Brightening, he quickened his limping gait across the pavement, metal peg clacking noisily as he stood at bottom of the stairs. “Mei! Is that you, babe?” he called. “Jamie?” she called back, sounding a bit surprised. “What are you doing out here?” “Looking for you, obviously!” He started up after her, poking his head out to see her sitting by herself on a beach blanket out in the sun. “Hey! You sunbathing? Make room for a rat! I’m real good at sunbathing, got lots of tips for ya. Now you’re gonna want a nice, even, all-over tan. So, topless sunbathing’s the way to go-” “Jamie.” “Take it from me, sun-baked tits are some of the nicest-” “Jamie!” “Got a nice sun-baked pair on me, meself! One time I was in Sydney-” “JAMIE!” He blinked and looked at her. She didn’t really seem to be in the proper, relaxed state of mind required for topless sunbathing, not at all. She looked fretful and a little drained. Screwing his face up to one side, he squinted and sat down on the blanket a little more quietly. “Not really sunbathing at all, were you?” “Sorry. I was going to call you later. Again.” “Was your comm busted? Thought mine was, but Roadie wouldn’t loan me his, so I went looking for you. Looked everywhere, actually. What’re you doing all the way out here by yourself? You in some kind of thinking funk again? I know how you get stuck in the muck sometimes, eh? Well, your favorite rat’s here for you now, darl!” She managed a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Well, I guess since you’re here now, there’s no getting around it. I think…we need to talk about something, Jamison.” “Sure! What are we talkin’ about, again?” “Okay…I’ve been going through this in my head over and over again, trying to think how to tell you. And I still don’t think I’ve decided on anything so, I just don’t know what to do. So…I’m just going to tell you, okay? So please just…Okay, I’m going to tell you…” She took a deep breath…and then continued blabbering on despite her best efforts. “Just give me a second, okay? I was going to call you but then I couldn’t, and then I thought maybe we should meet at the clinic, but it’s so cold in there, and it’s a lot to-” One long, lanky arm snaked around her abruptly, scooting her across the blanket and up against his side. “Think I might have been a bad influence on you. I’m normally the one with the mouth going off before the rest of me. Take a breath, c’mon, just say it, spit it out.” “Okay, I went to see Dr. Ziegler today. I-it’s been confirmed and…uh, four weeks…I-I’m…” “C’mon.” “Jamie, she says I’m pregnant.” He froze beside her, every usually twitching muscle going stone still. Very, very slowly, he turned to look at her, his face shadowed from the sun and his yellow eyes practically glowing. She couldn’t place the tone of his voice at all. “…What?” She took a breath. “I’m pregnant.” “…No you’re not.” He looked down at her stomach like it was about to bite him, lifting a hand, his voice uncharacteristically quiet. “…You having a go at me, Mei?” She was almost relieved at his trepidation. It had been much the same as her own strange wariness, and she had been afraid that he would be as enthusiastic about it as he was about other things, with hooting and hollering and far too much celebration for something she hadn’t even fully accepted yet. Instead he sat there with doubt and surprise, repeating the same words she had said earlier. ‘No you’re not’. No, you can’t be pregnant. She couldn’t be pregnant. THEY couldn’t be pregnant. Not them. “S-she said that the odds were less than 1 percent…but we somehow hit that one percent together. It’s about four weeks.” “But my balls are no good. And you got bad eggs. I mean, we can’t…” “We could. Just, less than one percent. And…we did. I’m about four weeks in. I mean, it’s not quite a baby-” His eyes darted down at the word ‘baby’ again, looking down at her belly. It wasn’t swollen at all, and he had trouble imagining something like a human baby in there. He’d seen pictures of babies before they were babies. Ugly little things, they were, like a prawn, or a shrimp. Like the honey garlic shrimp that Roadhog had been eating for lunch earlier, one of those shrimp, floating around somewhere in what should have been a barren womb. He listed his mechanical fingers to his head, pulling at his hair. “No. Fuck…Fuck, can’t be. Tell her to test again-” “She checked and re-checked again. She didn’t believe it at first, either.” “Well she’s wrong. Fuck me, she’s the one who said we were both bodgy on the inside! She’s the one who said-” “Less than one percent chance, Jamison…” “Uh…Are we sure…it’s mine?…” She didn’t bother with an answer to that one. He put his face in his hands, mumbling expletives and something about shrimp to himself. Mei waited patiently beside him, wrapping her arms around her knees and rocking back and forth slowly as she waited for the junker to gather himself. And finally he did, peeking one eye out between his fingers. “What do we do, Mei?” “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I only found out this morning.” “Is it…I mean, do we know it’s good?” His voice sounded surprisingly small. “What do you mean, good?” “I mean…four limbs, two eyes, two ears, a nose, does it have everything? Is it okay in the brain? It’s not like me? I mean, if it’s from me-” She seemed surprised, then a little stern, pulling herself in against his bony ribs and staying there. “No, Jamie, I don’t want you to think like that. It’s not like that.” “It might be like that,” he said. “Mei, you’ve never seen junker babies. They’re not good. The radiation’s no good for babies. Even if you can have them, and there’s not many, they’re not…they’re not always right. It does stuff to ‘em.” He gave her a rather haunted look. There had been very few pregnancies in Junkertown, and news always spread like wildfire when a woman’s belly started to grow. But, news would also spread like wildfire when it was ‘just like the others’. A lot of times they’d just be tiny premature stillborns, dead before they could live. Other times they would come out withered and malformed from the poisons in their air and water. And few junker women had the resources or the werewithal to try and raise an unhealthy baby. He’d seen one of them dead once, abandoned out in the lonely desert; a dried husk of what should have been a baby, with its fingers fused together, extra limbs twisted around where its legs should have been, and its sunken eyes the size of grapefruits, too big for its skull. He usually put such things out of his mind. Not like he was ever going to have a baby, after all… “I think it’s too early to tell?” she said. “It’s not really anything yet, at four weeks.” “A lil’ shrimp…” he muttered, looking to her belly again. “Not even a shrimp,” she confirmed, even if she thought the comparison a little odd. “I guess we just…I’m not sure what we want to do? This changes a lot of things.” “If it’s not a good one, you gotta tell the doc to do something. S’not right, makin’ a baby live like that…” His gaze had gone far-off again, and she could tell that whatever he was thinking of, it was bothering him. “Heh. Figures…Everything I make, it breaks apart eventually, eh?” “Jamison, it might be fine. I’m not sure what you’re thinking, but it’s not like that. It might be good. This isn’t Junkertown,” she said gently. “Dr. Ziegler and I have already talked about all the medical schedules we’ll need, to make sure everything is good and that she’s healthy.” His head darted up abruptly at that. “She?” “No! No, no,” she said quickly, waving both hands. “I mean, um..Oh, that just came out. It’s too early to be anything yet. I just kind of said it. I mean…It would be okay, wouldn’t it? If it was a she?” His eyes widened down at her. “A little girl? Okay? What kind of a question is that? Of course it would be okay. But…it can’t be like me. It’s gotta be like you. A little baby version of my Mei running around, that’s more than okay. She needs to look just like you though. Gotta be real smart like you, too. Hell, there should be as many little Meis as possible, a whole army of them!” “An army? Oh, um…Let’s slow down a bit, there. That might be too many. Besides…She might look like you,” Mei pointed out, the edges of her lips turning up in a little smile. “I’ve always liked your eyes, she might have your eyes?” He paused at that. Slowly, the twisted husk in his mind’s eye shifted and changed, first to the honey garlic shrimp from Roadhog’s plate, and then it grew; with all four limbs, two ears, a nose, and two eyes…his eyes. A pair of orange-yellow eyes, on a pair of fat little cheeks that looked more like Mei’s than his. Maybe a little girl with his eyes would be okay, although she still looked more like her mother. Maybe she’d have his hair too? Or his freckles? Or what if it was a boy? A little boy that looked like him or Mei would be fine too. He grew up scrawny and scrangly, so that was what he imagined. A little boy with band-aids on his knees and tape around his glasses…glasses over dark eyes like Mei’s. But they had to be healthy, they had to be whole. They couldn’t be like the broken things he was used to. They had to be…good…Like their mom. And maybe, just maybe, a little like him? Mei said she’d wanted the baby to have his eyes, after all. Maybe they could be like him, and still be good. Maybe it would all be all right, if they were careful. “D’ya think…I mean, can we be sure they’d be all right?” He asked cautiously, trying not to let the little pictures in his mind turn back into the radiation-poisoned husks he’d seen before. “Heh. I said they. Like, more’n one.” “We have one of the best doctors in the world here. I think that would be okay?” She said a little more quickly than she’d meant, and shied away a little when he looked at her. “I mean…A boy or a girl would be fine. Or both. Or having more than one. I always used to imagine I’d have both, so I’m good with either. Or both. Especially both? I haven’t really thought about it in such a long time, having kids. I thought I just couldn’t, and that was that…” “Thought I couldn’t too. I mean, not just my bodgy balls, but finding someone who’d put up with me, eh? Plus, never thought I’d be a good dad. I didn’t have a dad and then there’s the way I am, and just I mean…me? I couldn’t…can’t…be a dad?” She rested her cheek against his sunburnt shoulder, the tips of her hair tickling his arm. “Well, I guess we were both wrong?” He was still having trouble grasping the concept of the whole ‘baby’ thing, much less his ‘baby’ thing. Of course, that meant he would be a father. And that whole idea still seemed pretty damn preposterous, him being a dad. He was pretty sure he was in his mid-twenties somewhere, so that part wasn’t the issue. But the radiation had eaten away bits of his mind and his memory, he had a love of pyrotechnics that nobody else understood, and only a few short years ago he had torn a path of destruction and chaos across multiple countries in a crime spree that had landed him on the telly the world over. What sort of dad was that to a baby? Couldn’t bring a baby on a heist, could you? Babies meant lots of screaming, crying, pooping, laughing, changing nappies… Although, he was honestly used to pretty much all of that, really…except maybe the nappy-changing. And he would have to change a lot of things, not just nappies. Everything would change, especially how things were with him and Mei. “It’s kind of overwhelming, isn’t it?” Mei murmured next to him. “I thought maybe Dr. Ziegler had just found an abnormality a few hours ago…and it turned out to be a baby?” “That’s a pretty big kind of an abnormality, lovey. We…We can keep it, though? Yeh?” “Well…I want to. And I think you want to? Don’t you?” “Yeh, I want to. If it’s a good one, and it’s gonna be a good one. But, what do we do with them? I dunno how to be a dad to anyone.” “Well, I’ve never been a mother before…but I always wanted to be,” she said, and there was a little glow her cheeks, and her smile seemed more steady. “It’s not like we’re teenagers or anything. I mean you’re in your twenties and I’m…I’m still technically, sort of barely thirty-one? In a way, right? That’s okay, I think. And we’ll have lots of help here, with doctors and friends, and we can always ask questions to Ana or Torbjorn or-” “Wait! You’re right, we can. Doesn’t that little man have like eighty-seven children? He’s got to know everything there is to know about raisin’ babies! And yeah, Nan will know everything too. She’s aces, bet she knows twenty different ways to change a nappy on the battlefield…Although I guess you won’t be out on the battlefield for a while.” Very hesitantly, he reached out a large, broad black-nailed hand, looking to Mei as if for permission. After he received a little encouraging nod, he went to place it on her stomach. Strange, it didn’t feel very different to him at all. “Gotta keep our little prawn safe in there.” “I thought you didn’t like prawns? They scare you?” She teased. “They do. And I gotta say, I am fuckin’ terrified of this one in particular,” he said, rubbing his palm over her belly. “Oi, that’s what I’m gonna call this whole thing! Operation: Miracle Prawn.” “Please don’t.” “Too late, it’s official. Besides…We got to go talk to Doc Angelface and make sure everything’s apples with you on the insides. D’you even realize how strong n’ smart this one’s gonna be, darl? Just think how fuckin’ determined this baby is to get born, beating those less than one percent odds? That right there, that’s from me, that’s junker determination. Or I guess that might be from you too, that will to survive against anything what comes at us? And with our combined smarts? Fucking hell, Mei, this baby’s going to rule the world.” “I guess I never thought about it that way. Maybe she…or he…maybe they really do want to be born that badly. I’m still not calling it ‘Operation: Miracle Prawn’, though.” “You’ll come around.” His lips pressed to the top of her head, and his prior fear and wariness seemed to have mostly abated, though his hand on her belly was shaking a bit. “Arright. Like I said, we gotta go check in with Doc Angelface, and then Hog, and then Hana and Lucio, and then everybody else on the whole base. And then probably the world. And then I guess I got to read up on baby things because if I think about it any I think I’m just about ready to chunder everywhere, so I’m not gonna think about it right now. In fact, right now…I’m thinking of something else?” His hand on her belly rubbed in wider circles, until it started to slip downward, his lithe fingers sliding into the top of her pants. She hadn’t quite been expecting that, eyes widening. “Jamison!” He hauled himself on top of her, tilting his lower body to keep his weight off her stomach. “At some point I’m gonna have to stop rootin’ you. Because of the baby and all, gotta take good care of the baby. So we gotta get lots of prime ‘us’ time in while we can. And before we go to the doc’s, there’s nothing I want more than to root you silly. Again. Let’s put another baby in there, make it twins.” “That’s not how it works!” she protested, even as her arms looped around his bony shoulders. “I’ll show you how it works,” he replied, already starting to peel the bottom of her shirt upward, pausing to rest a broad palm across her stomach. “Can’t believe it. Still can’t believe it. Probably won’t really believe it until you’re getting all big, heh. Less than one percent, eh? Heh, not for my girl and the little junker inside her! And all the ones after that! Operation: Miracle Prawn is officially a go!”

He grinned when he saw she was about to give him another earbashing about the name, and smothered her words with his lips instead.

***

(This is not actually my personal headcanon. I like to think that Junkrat and Mei actually come to terms with their inability to conceive, eventually. But, fanfiction is for imagining crazy scenarios and I had a few requests for this specific subject! So, here you go!)

#meihem #junkmei #meirat #junkrat #jamison fawkes #mei #mei-ling zhou #roadhog #mako rutledge #mercy #angela ziegler #overwatch #fanfiction #writing #funkymeihem

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shaniahnoel · 7 years ago

Text

Buttercup Pt 1/?

A/N: Well, this is my first time dabbling in Fanfiction, please let me know what you think! It’ll be a romance between Sweet Pea and an OC, but I wanted to actually build it so we’re not there yet.

Word Count: 1538ish

Warnings: None

Part Two

“Hey Sweets, can you do me a solid?” Fangs asked, a little hesitantly.

Sweet Pea looked up and cocked an eyebrow, waiting.

“Can you come to dinner at my house tonight? My aunt is gonna be there, and she just gets on the Southside all the time.”

“And you want me to go there why...? To get insulted?”

“No, P, me and my mom, well this is family y’know so she gets tongue tied and doesn’t want me to say anything and I gotta respect my moms. You don’t have that limit.”

Sweet Pea’s lips turned up in a smirk. “So you want me to champion the Southside? What kind of Serpent are you?”

The last words were a challenge and Fangs stiffened.

“The kind that puts his mom above anything. This is how I care for blood. Getting you in is how I care for family. I don’t even want to fight with her. I want her to get us.”

There was a moment of tension where Sweet Pea looked down at the newer member who, to his credit, didn’t blink.

“Alright Fang, for your mom though.”

Fangs’ mom fluttered nervously around the kitchen, triple checking every dish. Her long blond hair was pulled back into a neat ponytail and she hastily pulled the tag off the blouse she was wearing. Fangs was setting the table while Sweet Pea stood back and took in the scene. His annoyance of the whole thing faded as he listened to Fangs mom lecture him about the way he had spoken to his aunt before. Fangs had defended the Serpents.

“Oh, and Fang? Soph’s coming too.”

Fangs face was somewhere between a smile and grimace, like he couldn’t quite decide how he felt about that.

“She’s my cousin, P. A year younger.” He said in response to the question in his eyes.

“Great more Northsiders.”

As he spoke the gravel crunched outside and Fang ducked to grab the glass his mom had let tumble. Setting it carefully on the table, he took one last look at the settings, knowing his aunt would complain anyways. He heard his mom answer the door.

“Angela, it’s good to see you!” she tried to sound enthused.

“Yes, yes, Rachel please let me in before any of the riffraff around here get ideas.”

Sweet Pea turned to the door. Fangs’ aunt was nearly identical to her sister, except a few inches shorter and many degrees colder. His cousin shuffled in behind her, clearly uncomfortable in the South Side already. She smiled softly at her family and gave them each brief hugs. Sweet Pea came forward then and held out his hand. Sophia’s eyes widened in surprise as she looked up at him. At first Sweet Pea took it to be fear but, before he could react, he felt her hand in his.

“I’m Sophia,” she said, “and you are?”

“Sweet Pea.”

“Sweet Pea,” she repeated, clearly trying to match the name to the giant in leather before her.

“These gangs and their stupid names. Still, it’s a nicer sounding name than ‘Fangs’, Michael.”

Fangs gave a weak chuckle, as if something about that was funny to him. Sweet Pea bit his tongue on his reply. Instinct said to put the Northsider in her place, but family said to help his fellow Serpent. He would endure for now.

They made it through most of the meal decently. Aunt Angela briefly traded in her South Side comments to instead remark on Rachel’s cooking. Rachel had the best homecooked food in the South Side, so Sweet Pea was left to assume this woman was capable of no positivity. Sophia and Fangs were catching up, whatever had caused his indecision later seemed to have passed. She leaned forward then to talk to him.

“So, Sweet Pea, what year are you?”

“Junior, same as Fang.”

“And how long have you been a Junior?” Aunt Angela asked.

As he heard the implication, Sweet Pea’s face darkened and he didn’t trust himself to answer. Fang looked at him apologetically, but it was Sophia who spoke.

“Mom, what is your problem?”

“My problem? My daughter is on her way to becoming valedictorian and going to go on to an Ivy school. I don’t have a problem. That my nephew is on the fast track to joining his father in prison is my sister’s problem. One I’ve been trying to help her see since she married that Serpent.”

“James is a good man.” Rachel snarled.

“Yes, Rachel, because good men end up in prison.”

“Mom, shut up, Uncle James is a good guy. So is Fang.”

“Sophia! Only a few hours in the South Side and you’re already under their influence. Good people don’t join gangs. Fang isn’t just some stupid nickname for Michael, he’s joined the Serpents, just like his parents.”

There was a brief moment where Sophia looked at Fang and then her mother. She should have pieced it together, but she just couldn’t picture her sweet cousin in a gang. Her silence lit a match under Sweet Pea.

“Yeah, Northsider, can’t defend a Serpent now, can you?” he said scathingly.

“You see, Sophia? They’re all the same on the South Side. Belligerent idiots who think manners and laws don’t apply to them. I knew I should have eliminated all contact once James went to jail, but being good hearted I thought Michael could use your influence. But now here he is becoming this obstinate little—”

“Mom,” Sophia’s voice cut across. “The only thing I care about is how Fang feels about Buttercup.”

There was a brief pause. Angela and Sweet Pea both wore a look of confusion, while Rachel looked surprised. Fang, however, smiled and answered:

“I say to hell with the other two, Buttercup is my girl.”

Sophia smiled then and turned to face her mom.

“Mom, I don’t care if Fangs is a Serpent. I don’t care that my Uncle is in prison. I don’t care that Aunt Rachel still lives on the South Side. This is our family, and it’s time we act like it.”

“Don’t you dare talk to me like that. We are going home and we’re going to discuss your punishment.”

“No, you can go home. It’s a Friday, I’m staying the night at Aunt Rachel’s. If it’s okay with her, that is.”

“Soph, you are always welcome in my home.”

Angela’s lips were in a thin line as she stood up.

“Sophia Margaret, come with me this instant or you will regret it.”

Now, Sophia wasn’t afraid of her mother, but she hesitated. Staring uncertainly between her cousin and aunt but it was Sweet Pea who spoke.

“You’ll be fine, Soph, Serpents take care of their family.”

With renewed confidence she spoke, “Just go mom. Take your bigotry with you.”

The door of the house slammed shut and gravel spun as her mother drove away. There was an awkward silence when she left and Sophia began to get flushed as she realized what had just happened. Her mother’s threat started to sink in. Rachel came and put an arm around her.

“Hey,” she said, “it’ll be alright. Thank you, for sticking up for us all.”

Tears were forming in Sophia’s eyes.

“I shoulda stood up to her sooner. I missed you both. I just couldn’t get through to her. I thought maybe a nice dinner like we used to have would change things, but clearly nostalgia doesn’t bring miracles..”

“Hey, it’s all good.” Fangs responded warmly. “At least I got my girl back.”

Sophia bit back a laugh while Rachel groaned.

“Ugh, worrying about what the two of you are gonna be up to is worse than worrying about the Serpents.”

“I’m not sure why you’re worried, it sounds like they just talk about powerpuff girls?” Sweet Pea said with a smirk.

“Hey no, no, it’s not what you think,” Fang quickly countered.

“I think that my boy Fang just confessed to liking Buttercup the Powerpuff Girl… what am I missing here? I want the full story to tell the guys.”

“He was defending me,” Sophia stepped in with an eye roll while Rachel laughed in the background. “When I was 12, I was fighting with my friends about the best powderpuff girl. I know it was stupid, but they were making fun of me, and Fang overheard them. So, he came and joined my side and when the guys he knew asked if he really watched a chick show, he lied to them and said he did. He sacrificed his friendships to support me. It was about time I sacrificed for him.”

Rachel wiped her eyes at the remark, but Sweet Pea just snorted.

“I’m still telling them that you’re into Buttercup.”

“Well, personally I’m confused about how you immediately recognized the name as a Powerpuff Girl?”

The quip came out before Sophia really thought about it, but it had Fangs cracking up immediately. Sweet Pea’s face flashed with annoyance but something about her eyes as she said it calmed him down. His lips quirked up in a partial smile.

“Okay, okay, I’ll keep it quiet… for now.”

Rolling her eyes, Sophia turned to Fangs.

“So it seems like we need to catch up forreals, Serpent.” She teased Fangs.

A/N: Obviously I don’t own any of the Riverdale characters, but Sophia and her relationship with our beloved Sweet Pea are my personal creation as well as the plot lines herein. There may be some basis on events currently happening in Riverdale, but not necessarily.

#riverdale #sweetpea #sweet pea #sweetpea x #fanfiction #riverdale fanfiction #sweetpeaspodsquad #southside serpents #sweet pea riverdale

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inquisitors-art-gallery-blog · 8 years ago

Photo

Black Library: Damocles and Black Library: The Shape of the Hunt by ukitakumuki

Artist’s Comment

Black Library: Damocles

Check out the e/book here! : www.blacklibrary.com/warhammer… Illustration © Games Workshop Art director/producer: Karen Miksza ++++++++++++++++++++++ The brief for this one was a three-way melee between Kor'sarro Khan of the White Scars, Tau Commander Shadowsun, and Captain Kayvaan Shrike of the Raven Guard, amidst a mixed-force battle of White Scars, Raven Guard, and Cadian IG versus the Tau fighting atop a rocky promontory with jungle. The main focus of the show is Shadowsun, whom according to the reference and specs sent to me, often fields two shield drones. I thought that could be a perfect excuse to not end up in an awkward "2 on 1" prong attack. So that resulted in our assault marine captain Shrike pulling off a DFA and Kor'sarro timing a strike to take out her shield on one side. Given the hardback template/format I decided early on to have two back to back crisis suits behind the main trinary to visually frame the action and hopefully some narrative link to what was going on in the background. While sketching in comp ideas I was thinking of World in Conflict FMVs (yeah I watched a compilation vid of the different sequences but set to just Audioslave's Shadow on the Sun... how apt for our Tau commander ) which inspired that jungle crossfire for the back cover (left of image), along with some physics logic I thought should be observed such as "if plasma based weaponry gets spammed in the general direction of a forest, there should be a moderate to high chance of a forest fire occurring" which kinda explains why we see the charred dirt and branches and hints of trees on fire in the back. Other favourite points of interest that I recall from half a year back: -Singed/scorched Imperial armour versus cracked/gouged tau armour -Drones buzzing a tree (near the sun) -Devastator Raven going head on with the battlesuit turned away from us, armour in the process of being seared off chunk by chunk. -White Scar reading poetry on the lawn in an admirable last stand -Unfortunate IG, now literally half the man he used to be. Courtesy of being in the open when Tau heavy artillery drops. Check back soon for The Shape of The Hunt!!!

Black Library: The Shape of the Hunt

This piece is, in my own way, dedicated to two very unique creatives whose achievements and trust in me have both inspired and helped me take my work to higher levels. Ghislain Barbe( NOT because he is coincidentally now the art director on Eternal Crusade at BHVR , but because when I was a kid I played a PC game called Heavy Gear by Dream Pod 9/Activision, and along with it came a printed game manual with wonderful mecha illustrations and diagrams that blew my little mind, and he was the illustrator of my favourite designs in the book.), and Peter Cooper(an incredibly kind and talented writer/director who years ago offered me the opportunity to do the illustrated set pieces for his HALO fan-film, Operation Chastity). Moreso because I think they might appreciate certain aspects of this image in their own capacities, like the pew pew lazars. Ok really its just about the lazars and the airburst munitions. And my special thanks and apologies to my truly professional and patient producer, Karen Miksza, for enduring and evaluating a chickenscratch-sketch of mine that resembled more of a Rorschach exercise than anything. You rock! As for the artwork: Reading the brief, and visualising the narrative and technical approach, made me want to crawl under a rock somewhere and just go into a coma. But it dawned on me it was really about huge battlesuits and powered armour on bikes in a desert--the very stuff my favourite SF childhood memories were made of. So I put on some Bubblegum Crisis tracks to remind me of what I felt was special about the genre and what I would like to see happen again, and got back to work. "Say Yes!" by Maiko Hashimoto in particular, really helped bring back those memories. Bearing in mind this is meant to be a triple-fold/paneled illustration; I was to illustrate a White Scars Stormseer fighting a Crisis Battlesuit with a tulwar on the front cover(rightmost third of image), looming Riptide in center third, and miscellaneous combatants filling up the remainder. The White Scars were to seem joyous in the midst of their hunt, armed with lances or tulwars in addition to the bolters on their bikes. All this was to take place on a dusty plain. I immediately thought that a scene showing a breached frontline would work best, to help put across just how fast moving and aggressive the White Scars are known to be, and for all the long distance planning of the Tau once up close and personal with Space Marines on bikes, it can quickly descend into unmanageable chaos. Troops having to divert their attention from the front to acquire stray bikers without hitting their friends, and crisis suits engaging their thrusters to quickly manoeuver along the ranks and train their guns on the bikes. Crisis suits... in a crisis of their own... aha..haha..h- As a Chinese guy, I felt it got really hilarious at one point painting Fu Manchu 'roid mongols in sun-bleached white armour going to town on the Tau. So I just rode that wave as best I could Having my own front row seat and getting into the mentality of what it means to create a 40K flavoured illustration is making me more and more of a fan of what I think the franchise represents on different levels. When I say I find 40K really insane, I mean it in a sincerely optimistic way, and I think I am finally getting better at understanding where that balance point between grimdark outlook, cautionary tale/social commentary, and outlandish spectacle sits. This reflection of what 40K meant to me, had me throwing out the idea that maybe in order for the Stormseer to even be in close combat with a Battlesuit twice his height, required he be presented in a way that could rival the nuttiness of the idea to begin with. So imagining a narrative, I assume these guys could have force-lances that they could also throw, using that as a medium range large-caliber stopping weapon (illustrated at bottom right) and then move into closer combat with their shorter range tulwars. (This of course sets up the visual excuse for the flapping blood-soaked hair plume on the end of the lance up front.) The stormseer would realise that his bolters might be ineffectual at getting him within close enough range so he would opt to just pop a wheelie off the frontline Tau and use the bolter riddled chassis of the crisis suit as a landing ramp and shield to buy him precious seconds to plan his next move. They're Space Marines. Seemed legit. "SAY YES!" Other favourite details: -Please excuse the slightly overdone prismatic effect on the Riptide's shield. I still think it looks nice and it makes some sense. Just riffing off similar idea in the previous Tau codex supplement. I also wanted to illustrate how the hexa-projection areas might be linked to individual projection nodes, and we would see how individual 'tiles' pulse under stress as opposed to having a continuous 'texture pattern'. -I keep reading in the fluff how much advanced targetting tech the Tau pack, technically a Fire warrior would have onboard sensors and targetting aids, that eventually gets meshed with higher level networked data from sensor drones, add on to that markerlight data and more... basically it just sounds like a Tau shooter could be drunk, falling over, and still hit a fly in between its eyes having accounted for atmospheric disruption from 600 meters away. So that I felt gave me the right to imply that they can shoot incoming rounds out of the sky. Which we can see to great effect in the background and right behind the Stormseer. There of course is the consideration for fans who think its unreasonable, so they also look like they could be randomly hit because the relatively slow moving missiles are travelling through a firestorm of plasma. But I just wanted to say what the original intent was Also to the left is a inverted Phalanx-CIWS looking burst cannon drone that seems to be in charge of clearing the skies for ground troops (when I saw that design I almost stood up and clapped at the screen). And for those of you who absolutely do not buy any of that, there's this: warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Ai… -Poor Tau loses his head in the background -The bikes were initially block-modelled in Sketchup to help me give a sense of their geometry and what I could do with them. This took over a week to do, the longest I've spent on any of the illustrations to date and burnt a weekend or so (gladly so) getting it done. I hope it makes the Tau and White Scars fans amongst you happy and rooting for your favourites and for mech heads in general

#warhammer 40k #40k #space marines #tau #battlesuit #white scars #damocles #damocles crusade

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mgrgfan · 8 years ago

Text

Business (mini-fic)

- Approaching designated randevu point! - announced Cherie, carefully pulling engine control throttles and making the Azoth Kingdom-built airship descend.

- Still nothing, boss, - reported Levi. - All radars give clear picture. By the way, the lateral turning motor of the main parabolic radar broke once again, looks like short-circuit. Any ideas why?

- Levi, did you forget to apply varnish? - asked him Alva in exasperated voice.

- No, boss, I’ve triple-checked this before we’ve gone flight. You know, it’s kinda uncomfortable, when your main radar loses ability to turn and can only scan the last direction. Good thing it stopped at zero-zero.

- Then no ideas, beside obvious humidity build-up somewhere.

- There we are! - announced Cherie, flicking switches and putting the engines of the airship to hovering mode. - Anchored and ready!

- If not for your words and sensor readings, I’d have never noticed it, - said Alva in pleased voice. - Great piloting.

- Thanks, boss, - replied somewhat shy Cherie, checking the ship’s systems. - Everything’s normal, no scratches or like this, our girl is healthy’n’good.

- Besides the main radar. Sixth time already, - murmured Levi, then began to announce. - All radars...

Man’s voice faded when a huge signature suddenly appeared on all radars. Outside of the ship, a big airship, somewhat similar to the classic “Hunt-3R″, but bigger, with sleeker lines and more visible weaponry, de-cloaked and landed less then 300 meters from the airship of cabinet minister, two bow-mounted autocannon turrets aimed near the bridge.

- This ship looks like she was built by “Kirasawa Shipyards”, - finally managed to squeeze out a word Levi.

- But she wasn’t, - objected Alva, who was already studying the newcomer. - “Kirasawa”, most of time, puts external hangars and cargo containers, which often have more height that the ship herself, on the sides of main hull, while this one has containers half the ship’s height mounted between main hull and external engine pods. Also, bridge is too small and too deep into hull, and I never saw any ship from the “Kirasawa Shipyards” with that much weapons - those two turrets are definitely just part of point defence system.

- Boss, you know a lot! - said impressed Cherie

- I need to. After all, our kingdom continues to lose position on the airship market, and “Kirasawa Shipyards” is just after the corporations in the list of competitors. It’s like this ship was purposely built to fool those who know too little to think it was built by “Kirasawa”, but to let those who know style of those shipyards understand that it’s not... - Alva made a strange motion, as if shrugging something off. - Anyway, here they are, so I’m going in. Levi - open the hatch and prepare the elevator, Cherie - stay here, keep engines warm and ready. I feel far from good about this...

- Yeah... - replied Levi, remembering seeing records of the cabinet minister’s talks with this Hunter. While Hunter J, who has mysteriously disappeared not so long ago, was somewhat scary on her own, K...

***

- So, cabinet minister of the Azoth Kingdom, huh? I’m happy to have such a client! - said woman with a jet-black hair, slowly moving across her small quarters, presumaby onboard of her ship. Levi couldn’t explain it, but something in her made him feel wrong and, from what it seemed, Alva too. For most of people, it would’ve been impossible to spot, but Levi knew his superior for long enough to notice he was nervous.

- So am I. Miss K, - Alva took an opportunity, trying to direct this talk into where he wanted it to go, - I want you to give me Pokemon from this list.

Cabinet minister quickly pressed some keys on his personal terminal, sending a message to her. Woman sat down on chair, reading the message without any hurry, then slowly rose from it and said:

- So, perfect stats; does not matter if Shiny or not; abilities, that work great together if those Pokemon fight side-by-side; some Egg moves; does not matter, if bred or hunted and all capable of Mega Evolution? Am I witnessing revolution, that is about to happen?

- I knew it’ll be obvious... - replied cabinet minister. - Sort of. Some of them will be needed for other, non-political purposes. And, if this info gets out...

- No need to worry, I never tell anyone about the details! - said K with somewhat menacing curved smile. - Contract privacy is contract privacy, no matter what. Also, I’m not into politics, as long as they don’t touch me. So, what about payment?

- Twenty millions total, ten - now, ten - after getting Pokemon.

- Fair enough. I’ll give you coordinates of the randevu point in two weeks. K out, - finished the talk woman and cut the channel. Alva opened a drawer, grabbed a small bottle of Azoth-produced “Cog Oil” whiskey, poured himself a shot and took it in a single long gulp. From what Levi saw in this recording, minister was still nervous about this K. Something in her was just plain wrong, but neither he, nor Cherie or Alva could point out, what exactly.

- It’s not like we have other options, - commented cabinet minister, stopping the video and shutting down his terminal. - She’s our best option now - both in price and quality.

- So, cabinet minister Alva, I suppose? - said one of the K henchmen, when Alva approached her airship, still feeling uncomfortable of CIWS turrets and her henchmen, which’ve already released their Pokemon to establish defense perimeter around her airship. - Commander K will be there very soon.

- Good, - replied cabinet minister, taking a closer look on the ship. Even now, he could see several characteristic coverings of missile tubes and two retractable machine gun turrets near the opened frontal hatch. For all of her worth, this ship could be easily classified as a full-fledged heavy assault ship. Considering, what kind of team was now guarding the airship, the implications were far from good.

- Glad to see you, - sounded beautiful, but, for some strange reason, scary voice. Alva turned back to the lowered frontal hatch and saw a woman with jet-black hair slowly walking down to him, carrying a small case.

- Same, Miss K, - said Alva in gentle voice, then pointed his staff at the case. - All of them? Loyalty imprinting?

- Of course to both, - responded Hunter, opening the case and presenting it’s contents to cabinet minister. Inside, there were 15 standard Pokeballs, lying in small holders.

- May I commit a small test right now? - asked her Alva, gently closing the case and taking it from her hands.

- If it does not mean injury or destruction of my property, - replied K, pointing to a small clear zone next to the starboard of her ship. Cabinet minister travelled to this spot and, surrounded by K’s henchmen, released the Pokemon one by one, then pulled his own Pokeball out of many pockets of his coat and added his own Gengar to this team.

- You can easily assault a palace and dethrone the king with team like this, - commented one of the henchmen.

- But they are not for it, - replied Alva, changing a grip of his staff and passing two fingers above the small dark-violet stone, embedded in the unusually shaped pommel. - Mega Wave!

- ... Can you sell a device like this to me? - asked amazed K, looking at 16 Pokemon, which were all Mega-Evolved at once. - I can pay up to a billion for a such a gadget!

- Not yet, - said cabinet minister, passing the fingers above the stone again, reversing the effect, then taking out two wristbands with similar dark-violet stones out of another pocket of his coat and unleashing the second Mega Wave with one of them. - They are fragile, dependant on Master Stone - one per several devices, have limited worktime until shutdown, require some time to relax between activations to prevent malfunctions, often need repairs... In short, there are still many problems with them. However, once I iron those problems out, I might consider putting them on sale - our kingdom will really benefit from it.

- Then I’ll wait, - responded K, seeing, how Alva, after three Mega Waves and successful testing of all devices, returned his Pokemon back into Pokeballs. - By the way - do you really need to say words when activating them?

- Yes, you need to, - replied violet-haired man, putting most of the Pokeballs, bar the one with his personal Gengar, back into the case and closing it. - I’m sure you won’t like it to suddenly activate just because you waved your hand the wrong way!

- Of course! - let a somewhat scary laugh Hunter. - So, what’s about the second part of payment?

- Right now, - said Alva, taking his PDA out of one of his pockets and tapping the polarized touchscreen, contents of which were invisible to anyone bar cabinet minister, several times.

- I see, - murmured K, looking at her own PDA. - However, I thought we agreed on ten millions! Of course, it’s pleasant, but...

- But I do appreciate the great quality of the Pokemon you brought to me and want to give you some bonus for such a nice work! - replied cabinet minister, giving Hunter a gentle nod and taking a case with Pokeballs in his hand. - Goodbye, Miss K.

- Goodbye, cabinet minister Alva, - said she, ordering her troops to return to the airship with a simple gesture and walking back to the frontal hatch. - I hope that some time later, you will be my customer once more.

- ...And I surely hope not to, - whispered Alva, once his was back aboard his airship.

- Boss, the K’s ship has gone flight and cloaked once again! - sounded the Levi’s voice in the intercom.

- That’s great, - replied minister, putting the case with Pokeballs on the wall bench and taking a seat on it himself. - Levi - close the hatch. Cherie - lift off and take us back home. I’ll be on the bottom deck for some time.

- As you wish, boss, - replied his two trusted henchmen. With hydraulic whirr, the cargo platform collapsed and hatch started to close, while airship started to to gain altitude. Alva spent nearly half of hour like this, but, after it, focused and took a trip back to the bridge, where Levi and Cherie were already waiting him.

- We’re glad to see you, - greeted him Levi. -"Chancellor Cocktail”, the one you like, in the cupholder. Temperature optimal and everything.

- Do you think of me like some kind of an alcoholic? - asked him Alva, placing the case and staff near his chair and then taking a seat, though not before ensuring, that control is all transferred to Cherie.

- No, boss, but we do see, how do you feel after speaking with... her, - shuddered woman.

-... You know what? You’re damn right! - replied minister, taking a shot. - Nice. Who was one preparing it?

- Me, boss, - said Levi. - Cherie couldn’t bring herself out of her seat all the time you were ashore.

- Levi, I just wanted to get out of here ASAP! - told him Cherie. - I’m sure none of us wanted to be there anymore than needed. Those autocannons and goons...

- Uh-huh, - said her co-pilot. - Cherie, by the way - would you like to try to pilot the assault ship of this K?

- Nah, I won’t exchange our little “Kamiya” for anything, - nearly purred woman, gently stroking the surface of the pilot’s station, - She serves us well and I’m used to her. Even her little cargo bay doesn’t mean anything - “Traveller-4″ class can take three time it’s own mass into air on external, and our girl was upgraded by our boss to be able to take four times her own mass.

- And the main radar breaks every two damn weeks after this damn second scanning run, when this damn Volcanion hit us with Steam Eruption, - grunted Levi. - Boss, I was outside and fiddled with it - yep, short circuit in secondary control scheme. I've replaced it and the corresponding circuit breaker, but this is a temporary solution. I think I know how to rework it, so it will at least break once in two months instead of every two weeks. Do you authorize me to do it once we are back home?

- I do, - replied Alva, making some notes in his PDA. - By the way - after we return to Azoth Kingdom, I give you two weeks of vacation and then you start training with MWDs and your new Pokemon.

- OK, boss! - said Levi and Cherie at the same time, then Levi continued. - About the Pokemon, boss - are you really happy with your purchase?

- I am, but I don't want to do business with people like that anymore, - murmured the minister before falling asleep from lack of sleep beforehand and today's stress. His henchmen exchanged looks, then continued piloting ship like if nothing happened, alllowing Alva to silently snore right on the bridge.

#Cabinet Minister Alva #levi #cherie #azoth kingdom #mgrgfan writes mini-fics #Hunter K #This may be barely reflected here #but K makes people (at least clients) feel uncomfortable around herself #but so far #she's best replacement for Hunter J #and Alva does have some standards #and Cherie is almost like a Jeff Moreau from Mass Effect when it comes to piloting flying ships #mgrgfan does worldbuilding

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punishandenslavesuckers · 8 years ago

Photo

Caleb and Adam go to a party. It’s a nice party. The food is good. The people are chill. Then Caleb eats like three fucking pot brownies by accident. Getting snacks for your giant, high, empathic boyfriend is not the worst way to spend a night. (ao3)

Adam can honestly – for real – admit that Caleb’s teammates are not actually all humongous frat-boy assholes in muscle shirts. In fact, only one of them is wearing a muscle shirt and the one in the muscle shirt is also in Adam’s AP Calc class and, apparently, his ability to crush a beer can against his forehead hasn’t stopped him from getting a 4.0. Several of them have 4.0’s. Adam… knew that on an intellectual level of course. Something about all of them standing together in jerseys made them kind of vanish individually for some reason.

“Cheerleader effect,” says Katie McLain, who has a cider in her hand and winged liner out to her temples. “When a bunch of people stand in a group you stop perceiving the details of each person and view them holistically. This tends to make everyone more attractive. It’s why they all move in packs.”

Bobbie Kensey, the second-string quarterback and her best friend, looks up from the blunt he’s trying to light, offended.

“Hey! That’s not true.” He tries to push Katie away with his palm over her face. She bites at him. “See? She’s rabid. Don’t buy into her fuckin’ slander. We are all individually gorgeous.” He raises his voice. “EXCEPT FOR HENDERSON WHO IS UGLY AS FUCK! GAWD! SOMEONE JUST PUT HIM DOWN ALREADY!”

Faintly from the other-side of the house: “FUCK YOU, KENSEY!”

Adam, who has been nursing a plain Cola-Cola for the last ten minutes, says, “Are the migratory habits of football players really that interesting to you, Katie?”

Katie snorts. “Hell, no. I’m gay as fuck. It’s the cheerleaders I’m monitoring.”

Bobbie and Katie high-five, except Katie is drunk so her palm smacks Bobbie right in the face. “Katie! You useless lesbian!”

“HAAAAAA!”

Bobbie shoves Katie down a nearby hall and moves as if to follow her, then hesitates. “Hey, man, you’re here with Caleb right?”

“Uh, yeah.” Adam takes a drink of his soda to mask the immediate nerves that rise at the question. “I am here... with Caleb.”

“Cool, cool. He didn’t ditch you did he?” Bobbie’s eyes narrow in suspicion. “Because, sometimes, he like just jets outta these parties like a weirdo and doesn’t tell anyone he did it, so people think he’s lying in someone’s lawn somewhere. Or, people would think that, if Michaels actually drank. Which he doesn’t. Because he’s lame.” Bobbie lets that stand for a moment, looking hyperbolically annoyed, but not really. “Anyway, don’t let him ditch you like a loser.”

“Uh, he just went to get some food really quick.” Adam looks around. “Really quick… in this case meaning like half an hour ago.”

“Food’s down stairs in the den. He probably got roped into a Cards Against Humanity or something. He fuckin’ kills at that game.” Bobbie points a finger. “Don’t… let him ditch you.”

Adam snorts. “He’s not ditching me.”

“I know, like, he really likes you, dude. But he’s kinda dumb in groups. Don’t let him ditch you.”

Adam… isn’t sure why that makes him smile, but it does. “I think Katie found the cheerleaders.” He jerks his head as delighted screaming originates from down the hall. “Should you stop her?”

“Ah, fuck.”

Adam navigates the house, sipping his watery soda to deflect any misguided notions that he might want someone to talk to him. He doesn’t recognize at least half the party-goers, so they’re probably from other schools in the area. He’s already feeling pretty tapped out from meeting the team in a giant group earlier and suspects there were instructions to ‘be cool, guys, seriously, be cool’ because some of them seem to be going especially far out of their way to chat him up.

Imagining Caleb nervously negotiating with a bunch of football players to be nice… Adam logs that mental imagine away to tease him about later.

If he can find him.

After about five minutes of unsuccessfully hunting, Adam begins to worry Bobbie was right. Not about the ditching, but about the jetting away from groups thing. What appears to be random sprinting away from parties to the casual observer was likely just Caleb getting overwhelmed by the collective drunk emotions of other teenagers and peacing out. Seems weird that he wouldn’t text if that were the case. Adam triple checks his phone a few times. Scans the dark slightly smoky confines of the basement. The pool table’s been converted into a buffet line of chips, dip, mini hotdogs and desserts.

There are dark piles of people in the corners of the room, chatting and/or making out. Adam recognizes most of the defensive line-men yelling happily at each other over on the couches near the fall wall. Adam hesitates… then carefully wanders over to inspect the activities and scan for Caleb. He tries to be stealthy. Unfortunately, team captain David Yen spots him over his hand of poker cards and, of course, shouts at him.

“Hey Adam! Wanna play?”

“Uh, maybe next round. Anyone seen Caleb? I think he got lost on his way to pizza rolls or whatever.”

The groups immediately busts up laughing. Yen points at the loveseat by the TV. A very tall person in a letterman’s jacket is flopped there with their arms over their face. Said tall person is wearing the same jeans and sneakers that Caleb was last seen wearing. They are built like Caleb – improbable shoulder to waist ratio and weirdly attractive forearms. But this tall person cannot possibly be his improbable boyfriend because the tall person on the love seat looks… drunk, maybe? Or like they fell asleep in a crowd of raucous teenagers. Both impossible things.

“I think it’s kicking in,” Yen laughs.

Adam immediately goes on alert. “What… is?”

“I saw him eat like… three pot brownies earlier.”

Adam’s eyes get very large. “Say what now?”

“Pot brownies. Like… some pretty strong ones. I know he doesn’t, you know, do that. So I told him to sit down.”

Adam physically climbs over the first-string defensive tackle and the second-string running back to get to the loveseat, disturbing a bowl of Cheetos on his way across the room. He leans over and gently puts a hand on Caleb’s arm, shaking him.

“Heeey, buddy. What’s up?”

Caleb groans and rolls over. It’s very slow, lethargic kind of moving, lots of stretching and unnecessary arching. Caleb drops his arms to squint up at the face hovering over him. Then he grins. Fuck. That smile is white sunshine. Adam’s brain – easily distractible in this area – stops for a moment to admire the geometry of his boyfriend’s face. It’s like… something. A Renaissance painting. The Golden Ratio is somewhere in the way his eyes crinkle at the corners and his mouth kinks up into left-side dimple. There is divine intervention in the warm brown of his skin and the clean line of his jaw.

He’s ridiculously fucking hot. Okay?

Adam shakes himself out it.

“Caleb. You okay?”

“M’green,” he says cheerfully, running a hand over his face.

“Yeeeah. I’ll bet you are. Are you… sure you’re okay?”

Caleb laughs, a warm, sleepy sound and reaches for Adam, catching his arm. “C’mere. Hey, I need to talk to you.”

Adam heroically resists being pulled onto the couch by his giant running back boyfriend. “No. You need to stand up and probably go home.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re reeeeeeally high.”

“Maybe.”

“Not maybe. Definitely. One-hundred percent.”

“So what?”

Adam lowers his voice. “So… we might want to get away from the big crowd of drunk people?”

Caleb blinks, confused, then remembers apparently that he’s fucking empath.

“Ooooh, okay. Right.” He nods. “Smart.”

“Yeah.”

“You’re worried?” Caleb frowns, brow knitting. “Why’re you worried?”

Adam laughs. The act itself banishes some of the niggling anxiety and Caleb’s grin comes back, relieved and sympathetically cheery. Adam has a sneaking suspicion that his good mood might be contact-high (so to speak) from being around his teammates who seem to all be in relatively high spirits presently. Adam resolves to be calm and logical. It would be incredibly lame of him to fail at being an empathic true north by getting all panicky, thereby making his empath boyfriend freak out while high as balls.

“I’m not worried. You’re just a dork who can’t tell pot brownies from normal brownies.”

Caleb pouts. “They had sprinkles.”

“Oh? The sprinkles fooled you?”

“Pot brownies don’t have sprinkles.”

Yen, from the other couch, pipes up. “Yes, they do, Michaels, you fuckin’ geek.”

Adam nods. “See. Team captain says so. You were duped by sprinkles. That’s adorable.”

“Noo,” Caleb grumps.

“Jesus, you’re really high. C’mon.” Adam takes Caleb’s elbow and tugs, eventually pulling his arm over his shoulders so he gets the idea. “Let’s go. Up. We’re going for a walk. Let’s walk it off, champ. Hey! No! No – well, fuck me, I guess.”

Caleb’s on his feet, but he’s turned Adam’s helpful arm-drape into a hug. Yen and the defensive line are dying laughing, which only makes Caleb increasingly giddy. Adam tries to pry his way out of the bear hug, but gives up and tolerates the warm, nice-smelling, rib-crush of Caleb’s embrace. Mostly because he literally cannot get away, but partially because there’s a kind of rabbiting excitement jacking through his nerves because Caleb is hugging him in public and nothing bad is happening. He eye-balls the rest of the team. The team cornerback is giving Adam an enthusiastic if somewhat asshole-ish thumbs up.

“So… none of you are gonna help.”

Rogers and Masuri shake their heads. Yen is too busy taking a selfie.

“Thanks guys. You’re the best.”

Adam kind of grabs Caleb’s elbow, his arms still firmly around his shoulders, and marches through the chortling linebackers, dragging Caleb with him. Caleb’s weight falls partially against him but not quite enough to drag him down as dead weight. He hums happily and presses his face against Adam’s neck which is, you know, completely earth-shatteringly unfair. He was wrong. There is no god. Adam focuses on putting one foot in front of the other, relying on the smoke and commotion to hide how red he’s getting – and not just because Caleb is goddamn heavy.

“Hey,” Caleb says. His cheek brushes Adam’s jaw. “Hey, Adam?”

“Yup?”

“I’m hungry. Can we go to Taco Bell?”

“Jesus. Yes, Caleb, we can go to Taco Bell, you fuckin’ pot-head.”

“Yesss. You’re the best.”

Caleb kisses him on the cheek.

Adam’s whole goddamn face is now, surely, lit internally. No one cares. Literally no one is looking at them. He knows this. He can tell everyone is far too busy doing whatever they’re already doing, to notice Adam Hayes and Caleb Michaels struggle to get up the fucking stairs because Caleb won’t stop nuzzling him. It’s fine. Happy thoughts.

Adam succeeds, just barely, in lead-dragging Caleb out the front door and into the driveway, where the cool air and distance do the work he was hoping for. It takes about five blocks of walking out from suburbia toward the distinct glow of fast-food establishments, but eventually Caleb stop bear-hugging him and kind of squints around like, he hadn’t noticed the sudden change of scenery. When they reach the sprawl of streetlights and late-night restaurants, he grimaces and scrubs his face with both palms.

“Oh god,” he says into his palms.

Adam pats him on the shoulder. “Breathe.”

“Oh my god.” He drags his hands down his face.

Adam grins. “It’s fine.”

“That was so embarrassing. Oh god. What the fuck?”

“Seriously, it’s fine. No worries.”

“I’m sorry. I ruined it. You were supposed to have fun at the party.”

“Trust me, I’m wholly entertained.”

Caleb frets at the crosswalk in front of Taco Bell. “This is so weird. I’ve never… I didn’t know…”

“Know what?”

“It’s like… I can feel your emotions but its… blurry and far away? Kinda.”

“In a bad way?”

“No. Just… not as strong somehow? Everyone’s emotions felt… distant? Like There were their emotions and mine and they didn’t… mix as much.”

“So… pot mellowed out your powers?”

“Maybe? I dunno. Kinda?”

“Okay. Good to know. Live and learn.”

Caleb’s whole face scrunches up. “Fuck. I kissed you… in front of people…”

“Let’s get you a Crunch-Wrap.”

“Oh man, that sounds so good. Shit, I’m sorry.”

“I really didn’t mind and no one cared, dude.”

“But that wasn’t cool. I didn’t ask or anything. Geez…”

Adam sighs and taps Caleb on the shoulder. When he turns, Adam boosts up slightly to press a quick kiss to his jaw.

“You’re fine.” He drops back down and slaps the back of his hand against Caleb’s chest. “Feel that? Even fuzzy and distant, you gotta feel that right?” He grins at Caleb’s slow, hopeful smile. “See? You’re good. Now, let’s get tacos.”

fin

#the bright sessions #tbs #caleb michaels #adam hayes #tbsedit #tbsfic #there it did it #it wrote something adorable for this fandom #instead of some stressed power dynamics shit like always #look at this tooth-rotting cuteness #ugh #what?#rae writes #raewrites

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