#worried about my dog because she's my closest buddy and i love her and i want her to be ok

[rubenesque-as-fuck]

Velma's left rear knee (or dog equivalent of a knee) has started making a worrying clicking sound lately and I'm worried that she may eventually need costly surgeries that I can't really afford. Wondering if I should cancel my birthday trip plans in case I need that money for her down the road 😥

[friendshipsprig]

A Tale of Friendship amongst the Broken Hearts

"Life!!!" Many people told me that life is not at all easy, you have to take it serious or else you'll fail, the least. But some people say failure is the first step to success in life. Some people also argue that success is the only way and once you fail, the whole world would turn against you. Some quotes talk about success, that it is a journey, rather than a destination.

But according to me, In each and everyone’s life, success and failure, both are equally provided by the divine power and the one who overcomes all his failures on the hope of success, is the successful person in his own life. But there are few who give up on themselves and do not even want to fight because they lost their hope. There are few more, who try a lot but don’t have a good chance. That tough fight they would cause them to get tired and they soon, would stop fighting. This doesn't mean they are complete losers. They need some more time to prepare their fist, for the fiery punch. Now, I too am a person who's heart exhausted after a lot of battle. And yet, I didn’t give up because I got my fist craving for more... that extra punch, that extra pain, to hold onto the grip, thought it throws me in vain.

Before that, let me speak about myself, I'm quite emotional always, worried about others, because I prefer to carless about myself. Honestly, I don’t know my strengths and weakness. Usually, I used to always think about my family and about my friends. Most of my time, I would bottle up my feelings, hiding it form them. I'm a bit rude, a straight forward dude, but believe me, I also know how to make a person smile. I am talkative. I love and care for the ones closest to my heart. I treat them with importance. I hate it if they break my trust. And this is me, loving the way I live as my bloodiest self, no matter what the world would think of.

Definitely, I am not the only one in the fire ring. There are stories of every person, even stray dogs fighting their days. But many difficulties and problems kicked me in my school days. I was jealous of the good looking and charming dudes in the school, even of the ones who are talented. But in the growing years of my teenage life, I began to realize that looks, talent are nothing in front of a good heart. Slowly I started to change myself but still I don’t exactly know how to live with the people from the outside. I just go on ignoring the persons whom I don’t like and because of that, people around me distanced me and mocked me, which was a frustrating walk in the school corridor.

It was then when I met four people, who changed my life, completely. I would like to talk with you about the @unmentioned4....

The first guy, who's always chill like a beer taught me how to live according to the other person. He thought me to survive and to adapt myself to the situation. This step made me not very close to people, but really far from being mocked.

The 2nd, a fallen philosopher from the sky, he's packed with a lot of stories and philosophies. I wouldn't agree to all of his philosophies, but some of them are best and I even follow them. Moreover, he is the one who made me to step into spirituality by which I changed a lot. I literally love to talk with him a lot and thank you so much mate, you are one of my special persons in life and one of the chamber of my heart is filled with you.

The 3rd, a person who is just as emotional as me, talkative, short and sweet, but brave. I could say she is the quirky child of the most silent God. She too faced many hurdles in her life and lost the persons whom she trusted the most. But that quirky penguin never gave up on life. She is girl who stood her ground in the toughest times of her life and overcame everything. She inspires me at times and thank you so much, Quirky for coming into my life and I don’t know whether I would be the best buddy for you, but I can promise that I will stand with you in each and every difficulties forevermore. Only because we laughed together, I will not let you cry alone. Love you very much.

At last, a girl, straight from the books of annoying fairytale, who helped me a lot to know about myself. She was by my side in each and every situation of mine. I even took some decisions with her by my side, and wonder or what, it never failed to put me on the right track. I would never want to miss her in my life. Thank you for making my life beautiful and for now I miss u a lot. Isn’t it the moon lovely?😉

After all that has happened so far, I got to know quite a lot about myself after meeting these people. I understood responsibility and got a good bestie who will always be there for me. Moreover I got a found family which would kick my ass with no second thoughts, to keep me walking on the right track.

I thank my @unmentioned4 friends, and all the ones in my life, good or bad. Because it was you all, that made me what I am today.

Love you all, guys.

This is @jashhoodlife, signing off tonight.

[obey-me-mammon-lover69]

Hi!! I love your work🙂 how about some of your favorite Mammon headcanons?

I’m glad you asked!!  Thank you for the ask, babey!  You didn’t specify if you meant nsfw or sfw, so these are sfw headcanons

Warning:  Some minor angst mentioning Lilith and lesson 16 Belphie

MAMMON:

He needs glasses, I HC his sunglasses that he wears INDOORS are prescription glasses and he’s worried he’ll look like a nerd if he wore actual lenses, so he got sunglasses instead and it makes him look stupid when he wears them indoors XD

I think Mammon is the closest of his brothers to becoming an angel again, but I doubt he’d ever go back if he was given the choice. He’ll do something on purpose to get flung back into the pit so he can stay with his brothers

I mentioned it in my other post, but I think of greed as one of the most powerful sins, given its connection to other sins. Lust is just greed for sex, gluttony is just greed for food, and sloth is just greed for sleep. Type beat. This is why I think Mammon is stronger than everyone thinks

I like the HCs where Mammon raised the brothers, especially Satan, and the ones where he’s buddies with Luke. I think big brother Mammon is adorable and he deserves it

Mammon’s love language is quality time, and gift giving

I think some part of Mammon resents Belphie for what he did to MC, but another part of him probably hates himself for not being fast enough. He probably feels bad for resenting Belphie, I mean...that’s his little brother he’s known for aeons. But at that moment that human he knew for only like half a year meant more to him, and it tore him apart

Mammon texts and drives, it's the most terrifying thing because he takes his eyes completely off the road and drives with his knees to reply to a text

Mammon is a dog AND cat person, this is canon he mentions liking both.

Constantly feeds random birds in the human world and gets followed by a hoard of ravens and Pidgeon whenever he’s topside 

The ravens give him presents, he loves their offerings 

Mammon misses Lilith...but he never really..KNEW her. She was closer to Belphie, and Beel. He never got a chance to hang out with her too much, always tailing after Lucifer and trying to get his attention, it never occurred to him that the small times they had spent together would have been their last.

Despite not being super close with Lilith, I imagine he was still an extremely protective older brother to her, and most likely tried would have tried to give the human she loved the shovel talk if he had the chance

He was the one who gave the descriptions of his brothers to humans, he’s the reason why the depiction of Belphegor involves a toilet, and Asmo has 3 heads.  He still thinks it's the funniest damn thing

None of the brothers have seen Mammon mad since the war, none of them want to see him that angry ever again...

[hhhecates]

After the fushiguro and maneater!reader as the slandering duo of Jujutsu High, I hereby come back offering you the soft version of this headcanon cause now I can't get it out of my head, so let's cry together.

Megumi was never the type for affection. He doesn't know if it's because of his family history, because of a father who was never there in the first place and a mother that died too soon, or for whatever else reason. Megumi doesn't like thinking it's because of his parents, because of his family. He doesn't like giving his dad too much credit when he can't even remember his face in the first place, he doesn't like putting his mother at fault when she had none. He doesn't like the thought of still being affected by things happened so long ago and that should just stay in the past. Because he especially doesn't like the thought of having unresolved matters, of holding a grudge for how things "could have been", because he knows he holds no resentment at all. So, why, why would this affect him?

He, instead, likes thinking that he's just like that. Megumi knows he likes having his boundaries, maybe that's all.

He's just like that. Wrinkles his nose at the mere mention of affection, and when his friends tease him about how obvious he's being about his distaste, megumi even rolls his eyes, muttering about how he was never trying to be subtle in the first place.

Fushiguro prefers it when people keep their distance from him, both physically and metaphorically. When young he would swat away his sister's hands trying to mess up his hair, and in the same fashion now he turns away more than a little miffed by his sensei's antics or pinches between his fingers the arm gojo ever so often throws over his shoulders with a grumpy mumble of "please get off".

It's a surprise to everyone, to megumi himself too, when he allows itadori and nobara a little closer, just a little closer to his heart and his mind.

Fushiguro takes nobara's annoying poking and yuji throwing his arm over him with little more than a playful scoff (to which ofc gojo is outraged, but megumi merely ignores him).

And not for surrender (cause admittedly the two of them are just as annoyingly touchy as gojo) but because for the first time megumi truly doesn't mind.

He listens to kugisaki rambling about whatever little thing upset her for hours to no end, offering little hums of acknowledgement from time to time (which would probably piss off nobara if megumi were anyone else, but coming from him? It's already a big achievement and nobara knows he's actually listening to her intently). He even gives in (and every single time too) to yuji's pleads to let him play around with his divine dogs.

Megumi has learnt to stand a little taller, not minding anymore when his shoulders brush into itadori's or when he sits close to nobara. Fushiguro even relishes it, when they're all together. It's comfortable, he would dare say.

And then megumi realizes that it's different, he doesn't know what is, but it just is. It feels different, a little more safe: when Inumaki senpai pats his shoulder or when maki senpai bonks his head with one of her weapons after training.

It feels a little safer. But still not secure.

Fushiguro still doesn't let anyone even step in his room, smacks itadori across the head when he does as much as peak inside. He still sits two steps away from all the others when they eat together, he does it every time, and every time maki and nobara yell at him to sit closer, and only then he acquiesces.

And sometimes it's so downright ridiculous and hilarious that's borderline painful, because fushiguro still gets all cross eyed and defensive when nobara gets too close to him when she tries to "tame that damn porcupine on your head, girls won't even look your way looking like that", but the same fushiguro won't even flinch when in every battle he gets the most bruises, when blood trickles down his temple or out of his mouth, when he doesn't esitate one second to push itadori out of the way and take the blow in his place.

Megumi doesn't like affection, soft touches that might be deceiving, you never know when they can turn sour. Hell, fushiguro is ashamed to admit that probably he'd take a punch over a caress, because at least with the former he'd be sure of what's coming.

Maybe that's why he gets along so well with reader after all.

Reader whose words can hurt much more than a punch, and that even when courteous or sugarcoated, they're still never fake. Reader who is caustic and sarcastic but attentive and caring if they choose to care about you.

It starts with fushiguro just following on their words and attitude, his growing habit of teaming up with them in discussions is his own way to get closer to them.

Then he allows himself closer too, because reader too, sits two steps away from all the others at lunch, but when inumaki or maki point it out, they just say it's fine and don't worry about it, now it's fushiguro who takes it upon himself to sit in the middle, to sit in between those two steps away that now just make him one step closer to both reader and the rest of the group.

Fushiguro is the one that notices that reader not only steps away but flinches when you get too close, and reader is the one that asks megumi if it's okay for them to touch his hair and brush off the leaf that got tangled in it.

It's not a surprise, when reader is the first one allowed in fushiguro's room, because megumi just can't fucking sleep, and he asks reader for comfort, and reader nods understandingly, the dark circle under their own eyes telling of their own troubles sleeping.

What instead comes as a surprise, is how the two most pissy and introverted and sarcastic individuals of Jujutsu High, i.e. reader and fushiguro, actually turn out to be the most soft and touch starved. The two of them probably become cuddle buddies and always nap together because they find so much safety and comfort in each other. Also they're probably the only ones that never mind each other touch (like brushing hair out of theit eyes, getting an eyelash from the other's cheek) because while they always have their guard set on high, fushiguro and reader know that when they decide to do something like that for the other it's always out a place of utter respect and care (and not to be a menace, looking right at you gojo).

This would prob leave everyone dumbfounded, inumaki and yuuta first and foremost since they are the closest to reader: especially yuuta because he is reader's best friend, but they're prob still pretty awkward around each other (pliz, shy babies) he's not jealous or anything though ofc, inumaki though, yeah he's jealous and really open about it.

Itadori and nobara, instead, probably end up joining the nap times because they are annoying little shits like that and reader loves them too much to say anything. Fushiguro tries to act annoyed but they can't even take him seriously.

Also please, naps become so chaotic with nobara and itadori, they probably end up all in tagled limbs and tumbling on the floor, the blanket nowhere to be seen.

With time though, more people join, cause inumaki is a menace and won't be left out, so naps time become chilling sessions with all the second and first years laying on the floor and talking or just resting, especially after missions.

And now? Now megumi thinks that maybe he doesn’t mind affection after all.

[chrisevansjellybeans]

Ransom x fem!Reader

Warnings: none (yet) some swearing

Part One

You’ve never wanted to punch somebody in the face so bad until you met Ransom Drysdale. The smug, arrogant, jerk-face had been a thorn in your side since grade school. You both grew up in the Boston area, your parents sending you to the same private schools all the way through high school. You had run in similar crowds but no matter how much your mutual friends tried to get the two of you to get along you never could. For good reason though.

Your family owned and operated Cloak and Dagger Publishing, the direct rival of Ransom’s family’s publishing house, Blood Like Wine. Unlike you and Ransom, your families liked to keep the rivalry in business and not in life. Your father, Jackson Y/L/N and Harlan Thrombey were actually great friends who just liked to rib each other when it came to business, but were proud of the other’s success regardless.

But for some reason you and Ransom could never get to that level of friendship. And you weren’t in any rush to fix that.

Especially when he was pulling shit like this.

You groaned as you opened the door to your office only to see the smirking son of a bitch sitting in your chair, feet propped up on the desk and your favorite fountain pen twirling between his fingers.

“Maria, you’re fired.” You joked to your assistant who nervously looked at you from her desk right outside your door.

“I’m so sorry, Y/N! He just-”

“It’s fine. I know.” You sighed before walking fully into your office, letting the door close behind you.

“Good morning, honey.” Ransom’s voice was sickly sweet.

“Is it?” You snapped. You walked around your desk and pushed his feet off. “Get up.”

“You’re not being very kind to your guest, Y/N. What would dear daddy say about your terrible manners?” Ransom teased but stood up nonetheless. You glared up at him as he stood to his full height.

“Guests are usually wanted and invited, Ransom. Neither of which you are.”

“Honey, you hurt me.” Ransom feigned pain as he gripped his chest. You wanted to stomp your expensive Manolo Blahniks on his toes every time he called you that. It started your junior year of high school and maybe if it was anyone else you would have thought it was a term of endearment but he said it in such a condescending tone you knew it was anything but.

“What do you want, Drysdale?” You let out an exasperated breath.

“Is it so hard to believe that I just wanted to visit an old friend?”

“Ransom, please. Unlike some people I actually have work to do.” You moved around him and sat down, pulling out your laptop. You looked up at him as he watched you with intense blue eyes that made your stomach flutter, annoyingly so.

“I’m actually here for business and not pleasure, honey.” He smirked as he sat down at the chair across from you. “I’m here to formally and personally invite you to Bleeding Hearts.”

You resisted the urge to roll your eyes. Bleeding Hearts was the Thrombey annual charity gala that they hosted at Harlan’s expansive, hidden mansion. Your parents had been going every year since Harlan first hosted it and you had started going about five years ago. You would never tell Ransom, but you loved Bleeding Hearts. It gave you an excuse to wear a beautiful ball gown-albeit rented-and to feel like a beautiful princess like the ones you had read about growing up. Harlan always hired a full orchestra to play the most beautiful classical pieces throughout the night and it was like stepping into a time machine. You didn’t understand why Ransom had to come all the way down to your office just to invite you to something that you were already going to.

“I’ve already had Maria send in my RSVP and donation, Ransom. So thank you for the courtesy, but it really wasn’t needed.” You rubbed at your temples, a tension headache now forming from all this ‘excitement’ so early in the morning. And before you’ve even had a sip of your coffee.

“I know. And you gave a nice amount this year. Did daddy finally up your monthly allowance?” He smirked.

Just one punch. Just one and then I’ll be satisfied. Technically he’s trespassing, it could be called self defense.

“Goodbye, Ransom.” You blocked him out as you opened your email and began typing away. You got about two sentences out before you felt your laptop being shut against your hands.

“I wasn’t done.” Ransom whispered, you didn’t realize how close he was until you looked up. He was now leaning over your desk, one hand on your laptop and one hand on the edge of the desk closest to you.

“Shame.”

“I’m here to ask if you wanted to come...as my date.” You snorted out a laugh and laughed even harder as a look of annoyance crossed over his face. He stood up and straightened out his shirt almost nervously.

“God, you’re funny. Now please leave. You’ve already wasted so much of my time with this little joke.” You rolled your eyes as you opened your laptop again.

“I wasn’t kidding, Y/N.” His words were sharp and his eyes blazing.

“Neither was I. Get out of my office, Ransom. Or I will call security.” You glared right back at him.

Ransom looked like he was about to say something but decided against it. He tapped his fingers against your desk and gave you a mock salute.

“See ya around, honey.”

“Close the door on your way out.” You muttered.

You clenched your fists as he left your office, leaving your door wide open. You could hear him laughing his ass all the way down the hall.

Damn you, Ransom Drysdale.

“Y/N, I am so sorry. He just kind of walked in.” Maria rushed into your office, almost tripping over her far too high heels.

“Ria, it’s fine. I know how he is.” You waved her off, giving her a sympathetic smile. “Please, don’t worry about it.”

“Okay…” she said nervously. When you gave her another reassuring smile she relaxed her shoulders. “I have to say though, he is really sexy.”

“Maria.” You sighed. “Get out.”

“Sorry.” She squeaked before exiting your office, closing the door fully.

You leaned back in your chair and let out a long breath. How had today already been the longest day and it wasn’t even nine?

“Good afternoon, sweetheart.”

“Good afternoon, dad.” You smiled as your father snuck his way into your office.

You and your dad had always been close. When you were younger he called you his “little shadow” because you loved to follow him around throughout his day. You would sit in on meetings and you loved when he would let you pretend to lead the team briefings in the morning. It was only natural that you would follow in his footsteps and work for Cloak and Dagger.

Your father always pushed you to be your best. He didn’t let you take shortcuts to get where you were today in the company. You worked your way up and proved your worth and made your father proud.

“What’s this I hear of Ransom Drysdale stopping in this morning?” He sat down across from you.

You rolled your eyes. “Because he doesn’t have anything better to do than irritate me.”

Your father laughed as he slid in his glasses up to the top of his head and then pinched the bridge of his nose. “You two have been fighting like cats and dogs since you were kids. Will this feud between the two of you ever end? And can it be soon? I made a bet with Harlan that you two would finally stop by the time you were twenty-five.”

“Glad to see that my torture has been amusement for you and your little buddy.”

“Just teasing, sugar plum.”

“Please, let’s talk about anything else besides Ransom Drysdale. I’m begging you.” You gave him a warning look over the top of your computer.

“Fine by me.” He clapped his hands together and leaned forward. “How’s it going with Brooke Archer? Has she committed to C&D yet?”

Brooke Archer was an upcoming mystery novelist. Critics called her “the Agatha Cristie of our time” and rightfully so. You had read her first two novels and finished them within a day, completely entranced by her style of writing that had you guessing till the end. She was notoriously self-publishing but now that her books were blowing up she had finally made the decision to sign with a major publishing house. And your father had tasked you with landing her.

“I have a lunch meeting with her tomorrow. I think this could be the closing meeting.” You said confidently.

“Good. I’m proud of you, sugar plum.” He tapped his fingers on your desk. “And please text your mother back. She’s freaking out over what to make for dinner tonight.”

Confused, you pulled your phone out of your bag. You sighed when you saw that you had thirteen missed texts from your lovable but definitely eccentric mother.

“You’d think she’d know what I like by now.” You joked.

“What can I say, she’s a perfectionist.” You dad laughed before saying goodbye and exiting your office.

As you were typing out a response your phone dinged with a new message.

I hope you’re thinking about my proposal from earlier. Wasn’t kidding around this time honey.

Your thumbs hovered over the screen. How the hell had Ransom even gotten your number?

And like I said earlier, neither was I. The answer is no.

He responded only seconds later:

No ugly colors, don’t want to clash with my suit.

You had to give it to him, the man had tenacity.

You’re annoying.

Ransom only responded with a winky face. You shook your head as you exited his chat and went back to responding to your mother, barely noticing the smile that was covering your face thinking of that annoyingly handsome pain in your ass.

[greengrayeyeswrites]

shit-faced in love (chapter one)

Title: shit-faced in love

Pairing: Corpse Husband x OC (fem!youtuber!reader)

Word Count: 1,630

Warnings: Mental Health/Mental Illnesses are a big topic in this story. Mentions of depression, bpd and other mental illnesses. Angst, Fluff.

Note: This may be a Corpse x OC story but feel free to insert yourself into the main girls role. If Corpse ever announces that he doesn't like fanfics about him, I'll delete this.

Prologue — Chapter 1 — Chapter 2

— — —

„You did what?!“ Baylee screeched into the phone and Imogen sighed. She was standing in Ballinlough Community Park and watched Buddy run around in circles, greeting the other dogs. 

„Baylee, please don’t yell… This is stupid enough even without you screaming in my ear.“ Imogen rubbed the bridge of her nose and Baylee sighed. „I just can’t believe you pinky-promised on taking Pole Dancing classes when reaching two mil… Imogen, you know you’re depressed and suffer from BPD, right?“ Imogen chuckled. 

„I know, Bay. I was diagnosed often enough“ she quickly rolled her eyes and watched Buddy stumble over his feet. „To my defense, I was shit-faced hammered when we made that plan.“

Remembering the drunk game of Proximity Among Us a few months prior, where Imogen had a playful banter with the deep-voiced Youtuber Corpse Husband, send a shiver down her spine.

She was already tipsy. Tipsy and the imposter and running around like a maniac, killing everyone who came across her, when Disguised Toast asked her, what she wanted to do once reaching two million subscriber.

Her drunk laugh had ringed in everyones ears as she promised to document herself taking Pole Dancing classes like Seán and Mark had once done. 

„Do it in San Diego“ Corpse had chuckled and Imogen had pursed her lips. „You want me to fly all the way to the states to take Pole Dancing classes?“ She had asked before killing off his little astronaut.

Once back in the lobby Corpse, whom she was getting to know at that time, started talking about the weird and drunk induced idea.  „You wanted to visit your best friend in Houston anyway, right?“ The man spoke and Imogen had nodded—even if no one except her chat could see it.

„Then come to San Diego. I bet there are good schools here.“ And after taking another sip from her Vodka Imogen grinned. „Sure, why not!“

But Imogen had low-key forgot about this situation and when Corpse tweeted her this morning, her whole face flushed and she remembered everything about the drunk Among Us session.

„But are you doing it?“ Baylee’s voice brought Imogen back to the reality. „Are you really coming to the states?“ Imogen bit the inside of her lip. „I’m meeting my therapist later today. I will definitely talk about this with him and see what he has to say.“

Imogen heard Baylee hum in the background. „I would be happy if you’d come and visit me“ she started and Imogen pouted. „Me too!“ She watched Buddy run towards her, with a stick in his mouth.

She knew she had pinky-promised Corpse that she would fly over to San Diego and document her Pole Dance classes. But was she brave enough to actually do it?

— — —

Two months later, it was a hot and sticky day in June and Imogen was looking at the suitcase in front of her. She still couldn’t believe what she was about to do.

With a one-way ticket to Houston and Buddy’s pet passport in her hands, nothing was in her way to travel over the pond. She got tested negatively for Covid and was ready to embark on this new journey.

She had a good talk with her psychiatrist about the upcoming journey and he told her that she was currently stable enough to travel. He stacked up her medication and told her that she could always call him, when she felt like the mood swings were too much to handle.

It took Imogen two months to prepare Buddy for the upcoming trip, and a lot of meetings with his vet to check if the fluffy dog would be okay in two eight hour flights. 

Imogen had her phone at her ear and was currently talking with non other than her internet friend Sykkuno. „Do you think Buddy is going to be okay?“ Imogen asked, fumbling with the hem of her pajama top. „You’ve prepared him well! You checked his health with the vet and talked with airline. You also got a letter from your psychiatrist, that Bud needs to be with you at all times!“ Sykkuno spoke and Imogen sighed.

„I know, Sykk… But I’m a little anxious that he’s going to get sick throughout the flight.“ She looked at Buddy, who was still sleeping on his cushion. „I just read so many horror stories about pets dying during flights.“ - „I feel you, Imogen. I would be super scared if something would happen to Bimbus.“ 

Imogen sat down on her bed. She still had a few hours before she had to head to the airport. She was happy Sykkuno had picked up the phone, otherwise she would’ve freaked out.

„I’m seriously happy that there are no size requirements for emotional-support-dogs… I already booked business class seats so Bud and I can have more space.“ She sighed and Sykkuno chuckled. „Just imagine the faces of all these business men wondering why there’s a full grown Siberian Husky in business class“ his laugh rang in her ears and her heart jumped.

„Not gonna lie, Sykkuno, but I can’t wait to finally meet you in person!“ She grinned and looked at all the documents, that were sprawled out on her bed. 

There was the letter from her psychiatrist, stating that Imogen needed the animal for psychological reasons; a prescription of why Imogen needed said animal and all the other veterinary documentations.

Imogen could hear the one year older male laugh. „Me too, Imogen!“, his voice was as soft as usual. „I can’t wait for Bimbus and Buddy to meet!“ He chuckled and Imogen nodded.

She had contacted almost all of her closest Youtube friends and had asked them if they wanted to meet, once she and Buddy set foot in America. 

Sykkuno was one of the first to tell her, that he wanted to meet her and Buddy. Then came Rae, that invited her to do a collab or something for their channels. Poki also contacted Imogen, asking if she wanted to hang out with her.

But the one, Imogen hadn’t believe would approach her, was Corpse Husband. Corpse had called her—it had been one in the morning in Ireland—and told her that he wanted to meet her, once she was in San Diego for her Pole Dance class.

„You want to meet me?“ Imogen asked him. „You never show your face and yet you want to meet me… in person?“ His deep laugh rang in her ears. „Yeah… is that weird? We’ve been texting everyday and I really want to meet Buddy!“ Imogen rolled her eyes.

„You want to meet the dog, not me?“ He laughed even louder and Imogen was worried for a second. His breath hitched. „Are you okay?“ - „Yeah, you just sounded as if you were jealous of your dog.“ Imogen rolled her eyes and bit her fingernails.

„You know he’s not just my dog, but my companion, right?“ - „Yet you’re jealous of me wanting to meet him.“ Imogen knew that it was no use talking to him and sighed. „You know what? Let’s meet and see if you really only want to meet Buddy.“

Imogen shook her head as she remembered the late-night calls and texts from the faceless YouTuber. And she could only fathom how stressful it must be for him to actually invite Imogen over.

„When’s your flight?“ Sykkuno asked and Imogen sat down on her gaming chair, overlooking her room and sleeping Buddy on the floor. „It’s in few hours. I still need to dress properly, I’m still in my pajama. And I still need to head up to Dublin.“ Imogen laughed. „Your layover is in Washington right?“ - „Yes, I wanted to stop in Washington because Buddy can only hold in his pee for about nine hours.“ A chuckle left the black haired girls mouth and Sykkuno laughed. 

„It’s his usual sleep duration“ Imogen looked at her wristwatch. „Dang, Sykk… I’m sorry but I really need to hang up. I definitely need to get ready. Sorry Bub!“ The YouTuber on the other line laughed. „It’s okay, Imogen. Get ready. Text me once you’re boarded and in case you need anything!“ 

Imogen grinned. „Thank you Sykkuno. Really, thank you!“ She said her goodbyes and hung up. Looking at the watch one more time, she took a deep breath. 

Imogen stood up and put her phone on her desk before rushing to the pile of clothes she decided to wear for the journey. She decided on a simple black skinny jean and an oversized black print tee. 

It was one of her go-to outfits and one she felt the most comfortable with. Even if people on the internet were sometimes thirsting over her posts and pictures; she still didn’t give them thirst traps by choice.

 She would’ve never imagined people nutting over her posting a picture of her legs covered in cuts and bruises. 

Imogen never thought people would find her scars hot. And she always exclaimed in her videos, that it wasn’t pretty, that she wasn’t romanticizing her illness. She wanted to spread awareness that it was be ugly. That’s why she posted pictures of her legs. 

She wanted to show, that it wasn’t pretty, having legs covered in self-inflicted cuts and bruises. But people still thought it was hot and edgy because she dressed like that. 

Imogen straightened her hair and checked herself in the mirror. Her eyeliner had the perfect wing and her usually dark eyebags weren’t as prominent as usually. 

She took a deep breath. „Americas… here I come…“ she looked at her dog, before taking her phone and posting one more tweet, before getting ready to head up to Dublin for her first flight of the day.

to be continued...

Taglist: @wineandionysus

[orionares]

BTHB: Comatose

BTHB: Comatose 

Law and Order: SVU

@badthingshappenbingo​

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“Can I ask you something?”

He flinches at the small voice from across the room. Blue eyes similar to his eyes stare at him blankly beneath brown curly hair with the same tenacity and strength he'd worked side by side with for twelve years. 

Elliot nods slowly, prompting the ten year old to slide out of his chair and cross the room to stop inches from the foot of his mother's bed. Noah Benson rests his hand on the foot of the bed and eyes Elliot cautiously. "Did you do something to my mom?"

Elliot chokes on his breath and pushes himself from the huddled position in his chair to face Noah. He stifles a need to burst into tears and instead answers in a cracked voice, “What do you mean?”

“If you were the one that got her hurt,” Noah muses, “you’d be in jail. But- but you aren’t arrested and you have a badge. So you're a cop. Right?”

Elliot can feel his heart shatter as the boy eyes his mother, lying unconscious in one of Sanai’s hospital beds, hooked up to a handful of wires. He himself can’t bring himself to look at her- no, not after what had happened. The guilt alone-

“Do you work with my mom?” Noah’s question comes as he steps closer to Elliot, causing the older man to flinch. “I’ve never seen or heard about you before.”

“You're inquisitive,” Elliot stammers. Noah cocks his head to right and mutters, “What’s itiquative?”

“Inquisitive,” Elliot corrects. He scratches the back of his neck and sighs, “It means you ask a lot of questions. You also like to ask the right questions. Like your mom.”

“That’s what Uncle Fin says.” His face falls as he turns towards the bed and sniffles, “Is she going to be ok?” 

A knuckle raps on the door as Fin Tutola ducks his head into the door before stepping in. He pauses to stare at Olivia for a moment before shaking his head in disbelief. Even though he had dropped off Noah an hour earlier, he still finds himself shaken at seeing her in this state. “You ready to head out, Noah?”

Noah doesn’t peel his eyes from the bed. “Why hasn’t she woken up yet?” he answers softly. Behind him, Fin and Elliot exchange a worried look. 

“Do you remember what we talked about yesterday?” Fin asks. He walks to the side of the bed opposite Elliot and Noah. He places a hand on Olivia’s forehead and sighs as one of his closest friends doesn’t react to his touch. Noah nods slowly and furrows his brow as he recalls the day prior’s conversation. 

“She hit her head on the sidewalk when she and-” Noah quickly whips his head back to Elliot, “Detective Stabler was trying to leave the hospital. It’s a….it’s called a…”

“Cerebral edema,” Elliot finishes. “Brain swelling. They induced a coma to help the swelling go down. It’s going to take a few days for her to heal, buddy.” Using the word ‘buddy’ stings for Elliot- hell, he doesn’t deserve to use that term for the son of the woman whose heart he broke. 

 Noah shakes his head. “Oh, yeah. Can I stay a little longer? ‘Cause I want to be here when she wakes up.” 

“Well, Elliot will be here-”

Noah’s eyes widen and he turns once more to Elliot. He mirrors his mother’s investigative scan at his badge and face. “My mom says your name in her sleep. A lot.” 

Fin snorts unexpectedly at the boy’s comment. “Okay. Maybe this is a conversation for another time-”

 Elliot finally pulls himself out of his daze and holds up a hand in defense. “No, I-I can head out and-”

“You didn’t answer my question,” Noah counters. “Can I talk to Elliot, Uncle Fin?”

Elliot glances up to Fin, who’s staring at Noah with contemplation. Even after ten years, Elliot can recognize the planning in the sergeant’s eyes. After a minute, Fin looks down to Olivia and whispers to her, “It’s your kid and you know I can’t say that to that face. He’s going to ask a million questions unless we nip it in the butt.” 

“Fin-”

“Why don’t you take Noah down to the cafeteria?” Fin suggests, cutting Elliot off. He checks his cellphone to see 7:36 on the lock screen. “I think the cafeteria closes by 8 and he hasn’t had dinner yet.” 

“Wait, maybe-” 

Noah’s already moving towards the head of the bed where an empty chair sits close enough for him to climb onto the bed. He sits on his knees and begins chatting to his mother, “Mom, I’m going to be right back, ok?” 

“She heard you,” Fin says. “I’ll keep an eye on her.” 

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

In the cafeteria, Noah slides into one of the cafeteria’s booths with a plate of a hotdog and French fries. Elliot stands next to the table and watches the boy slide off his jacket and begin eating hungrily without a word. The detective hesitates before easing down into the booth and sliding across to sit directly across from him. 

“How’s the food?” Elliot finally asks after a few minutes of silence. 

“Good.” 

“I’m glad.” Elliot rests his hands in his lap and asks, “So your question about if I did something to your mom….what made you think that?”

“I heard Auntie Amanda and Uncle Sonny talking about you when I stayed at Auntie Amanda’s apartment,” Noah answers. He takes a bite of his hot dog and continues, “They were talking about how her ex-partner came back and how someone….named Chief said that she should stay away from you. What’d you do?”

“I- '' Elliot inhales and exhales slowly, replaying the many ways he had predicted having a conversation with Olivia’s son. “I was her partner at work for twelve years. We were inseparable and then I left her….without saying goodbye.” 

“Why?”

Elliot pauses to formulate his answer. “Adult reasons.”

Noah moves onto his French fries and mumbles, “Adults always say that. It’s dumb.”

“Touché. I was married until a couple of months ago when my wife died,” Elliot explains. Saying the words ‘my wife died’ still stings. “When your mom and I were partners, I…..um…”

“You loved my mom?” Noah’s eyes widen before he shrugs his shoulders at Elliot’s sudden look of disbelief. “What? It happens in the movies all the time.”

“You are too smart for your own good,” Elliot chuckles. “I did but I was married. That’s a complicated line even for adults.”

“Then….why’d you leave?” 

“Because I was afraid. Things became complicated so I did what cowards do and ran, Noah.” He ignores the instinct to stop spilling his guts to a ten year old and pushes on. “ My family and I moved to Italy and I cut her out of my life.” 

Noah suddenly stops eating, pushes the plate towards Elliot and scowls at the man. “That’s stupid.”

“What?”

“I don’t get why adults do stupid stuff like that. My friend Phillip’s parents hated each other but they stayed married. Philip said they should have gotten a divorce  a long time ago but didn’t. He moved away last year with his grandparents,  I think. It’s dumb that you left.” 

Elliot settles back against the booth, speechless. The observations and opinions shared by everyone in Olivia’s life spilled out by her son in a ten minute conversation. “It was and will be one of the greatest regrets in my life.” 

Noah takes another fry off of his plate. His next question comes in a timid voice. “Do you still love my mom?”

Elliot swallows hard and feels tears forming in his eyes. “Why do you ask?” he chokes out. 

“Because you keep staying with her at the hospital. And you look like people do when people they love are hurt.” 

Elliot nods and chuckles. “You should be a detective when you grow up.”

“I want to be a dancer. Do you?”

Elliot smiles for the first time in days at Noah. “More than anything. More than anything.”

Noah takes another fry before stifling a yawn. “You should tell her...if she...if she…”

“Hey,” Elliot quickly slides out of his side of the boot and moves to sit next to a suddenly tear eyed Noah. Elliot rests a hand on his shoulder and says softly, “Your mom is the absolute strongest woman I ‘ve ever met. She’s going to be ok. You can’t give up hope, okay?”

Noah buries his head against Elliot’s shoulder and whimpers, “Okay.” 

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

"They're letting me stay the night," Elliot says softly as he settles back into his chair he had been sitting in for the past two days. After parting ways with Fin and Noah, he had returned to the hospital room to find a blanket , a pillow and a nurse giving a nod in approval. "I think they assume that we've..that we're…together, I guess."

Hw can't bring himself to look at her battered form in the bed. The moments of leaving the hospital after the Chief and IAB had dismissed Bell, Olivia and him to go home replays over and over every time his mind wanders.

"Elliot, I don't need protection!" Olivia growls as the three head towards the parking garage. 

"Wheatley got to Angela in a hospital! I'm not going to let him get near you!" Elliot counters. Behind him, Bell's eyes are occupied on her phone, brow furrowed at the information she's just received from Jet. 

“I know how to protect myself and my son. I’m a police captain,” she argues back. There’s an anger behind her statement that he can’t quite place but-

Bell suddenly holds up a hand and exclaims, “Hold up! Jet’s just sent me a-”

His sergeant doesn't finish as a concussive force slams into his body , propelling him and the two women across the pavement and into unconsciousness. 

Elliot shakes off the memory and continues to talk. “I think it’s because I’ve spent a total of six hours away from you since the explosion. Liv, I can’t- ever since I’ve come back, I’ve put you in danger, caused you stress and….got Kathy killed.”

In the back of his head, he imagines the Olivia of ten years ago, sitting next to him with a cup of coffee and a comforting hand on his shoulder, saying, “El, you can’t blame yourself for something that was out of your control.”

“But I left you and that was in my control,” he answers the voice. He rubs a hand over his face in frustration. Another bit of memory- the briefest moment of consciousness after the explosion replays in his head. 

He’ll never forget opening his eyes to her lying unconscious a foot away from him on the pavement with blood running from her ear onto the ground. 

“I know I don’t deserve this but,” Elliot whispers, “but don’t leave me please. I didn’t deserve Kathy and I sure as hell don’t deserve you….but” he finally looks up to the bed and can’t stop the sob of guilt that comes. The tubes, cuts and her stillness break him. Elliot stands up and walks to her side, letting the tears fall. The tears don’t fall only for her, but for his wife, his kids, Noah and everyone he’s impacted since returning to New York. 

“I love you,” Elliot whispers. He rests his forehead against hers and repeats the words he hopes he can say one day again. “I love you.”

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh S5 Ep 18: A Series of Ecological Disasters

Booting up ye old Yugioh, booting up a new aesthetic playlist to type to. (today’s playlist is webcore, which would feel like such a damn fake aesthetic, if it weren’t that every single one of these -core aesthetics are pretty damn fake and everyone knows it.)

Anyway, it’s been so long that, I’ll be honest, I thought I booted up the wrong episode:

I usually skip the anime intro, but I try to watch it once each arc, cuz the intros change, and this arc was like “screw it, here’s all the other villains, just pretend this arc isn’t happening.” They had Pegasus, they had Marik, they have Bakura (who is kind of in this shot as well, you can see him phasing in there.) And like...I guess they’re hiding the villain of this arc or something because that was it. Alexander the Great got just nixed from this villain list and that’s a shame.

Just a real weird choice, but since apparently this arc didn’t air in Japan they probably had to outsource this anime intro and whatever studio in charge of it just cobbled together stuff from every other season and then a couple of shots of capsule stuff.

Speaking of capsule stuff: get a load of how many freakin lines the animators have to deal with every time they draw Grandpa.

Bro saw this and was like “oh yeah, this is a Shonen Jump” and yeah. The hair does give those vibes. We got a good look at what Vegeta would look like if he really let himself go.

(read more under the cut)

Sorry, my playlist started playing a song where every single line of the song is “Adrien Brody” and it took me like a few minutes to realize I was listening to “Brodyquest” completely seriously.

Damn it, webcore, don’t betray me like this.

Anyway, this arc does something super surprising: Yugi actually hugs somebody and doesn’t look like he’s going to pass out standing up.

It is pretty fitting that the good Yugi hug would go to Grandpa.

And, as night falls, Joey Wheeler has gotten hungry, and there is nothing to eat but his new best friend and spirit animal, baby dragon. Unfortunately he shares life points with the dragon, and I think if you eat it that just instakills you.

And directly underneath him--since this world is like 100 feet wide and things just conveniently happen--Tea has told everyone that they needed to stop worrying about Joey. Which is a lot coming from Tea, because her worrying about Yugi/Yami getting hurt is most of what occupies her headspace in this series.

But even Tea was like, screw Joey, I guess.

Who kinda just falls directly into them upside down, and shows us what Joey’s hair looks like when it’s sticking straight up.

For reals, admire how long Joey Wheeler’s hair is. If Tea were upside down, she would have the same length of hair.

Also speaking of Vegeta, I am low key concerned that Joey has what appears to be a significant amount of male pattern balding going on for a teenager.

Apparently getting set on fire many, many times did have an effect on Joey, and this massive pompadour he wears is a combover. Poor baby.

Holy crap, if this is what card stress and getting killed multiple times did to Joey Wheeler, can you imagine what’s going on under Seto’s bangs? That’s probably why his bangs ride so low, Seto likely wears a freakin toupee.

Guys, Joey’s gonna lose his hair at 25 at this rate. Those locks just aren’t long for this world. Poor baby.

After Joey rejoins the party, he immediately eats all of their food. Not sure why they can’t just have Baby Dragon eat like...whatever Baby Dragon naturally eats...and then transform that into shared Joey Wheeler life points, but it’s not clear exactly how much of a life-connection they have with their Yugioh monsters. Not like it matters because Joey Wheeler is default starving all the time anyway.

Tristan has decided we should start laying blame, I guess because Duke Devlin isn’t here anymore to be the local kill joy. This doesn’t seem to be important at any point, and most of the characters are just ignoring Tristan because like...once you’re in the haunted game in a haunted tomb in a random part of India--it’s kind of moot to argue about who’s fault that is, youknow?

Joey reminds us that he found this quest item in a treasure chest under a secret waterfall. No one says “that was convenient that you landed there after getting chased through a ravine by man-eating birds after you got your dragon from when you got your crotch injury from getting spliced by that tree.”

Which is when Tea says “Wait! We haven’t had a plot thing happen in like 4 seconds! Wait!”

Hey what degree of “I don’t trust nature” do you have to be to assume that all the flowers are trying to eat you?

Like what level of anxiety is Tea where she not only is like “pretty sure the flowers are going to destroy us?” but also...she’s correct? Like she’s not wrong.

They set the dog flowers on fire, but unlike the Jungle Book this doesn’t solve any problems (which apparently got taken off the Disney+ kid’s menu so...yet again, I make a Disney reference in these recaps that future generations will not understand because so much of the Disney library has been banned from the vault. It’s almost like Disney should let go of that copyright they held on for like a hundred years, because what they’re holding on to is only going to get more racist with time. But nah. Gotta hold on with their greedy mickey mouse gloves.)

So instead of using fire, Tristan used his monster to electrocute the air (?) and blind the dogs. Wisely, the animators quickly jumped to this other scene so we wouldn’t have to analyze why it’s suddenly daytime or why that plan would even work.

Joey and Tristan do a lot of buddy buddy stuff this arc. Usually we see a lot of Joey and Yugi’s bottomless friendship, but we don’t get this much Tristan/Joey love. So shippers rejoice, these two seem to have several coordinated dances and songs...and I’d say that teens don’t typically do that, but I went to summer camp, there are situational places where teens will sing the entire vacation and make coordinated dances.

Weirdly, since Joey and Tristan share so much time together, this also means Tea and Yugi actually sit next to eachother for a lot of this arc, almost as if they were a couple. Mind you, they’re chaperoned closely by Grandpa, but youknow...that’s a different energy than I’m used to seeing.

That and like, they can’t have Tea dance with them because last time she did a dance, it was like a DDR fight and she elbowed some guy like it was a fisticuffs situation. Like there was some sort of dance war going on behind the scenes of Yugioh’s card war, and it came up once and I guess Tea resolved it and the dance fights haven’t come back since.

Overall, if they did a dance with Tea, they would get kneed in the face, so that’s probably why they insist on doing cancans as a duet and not a trio.

After Joey and Tristan freak out over having no food, Tea decides to just start eating in front of them.

and like...didn’t Joey eat that food yesterday? Like last night? The short term memory loss on all these fools.

Immediately after this we realize something weird in the water. That’s right, it’s a massive head.

Yugi seems to have forgotten they lit this turtle on fire and electrocuted the entire sky the night before. Not that it mattered.

There were like...nesting birds on those trees on that island. What the hell? They just killed so MANY of those man-eating dogs that are flowers.

Seriously are land turtles allowed to just...dive underwater for long periods of time? How does that ecosystem even work? It’s like...That’s wild to think about.

Inside the temple, they have to fight a genie or something.

In case you were wondering, the only reason Tea and Grandpa got iced is because they were the closest to the door. The two who were actually standing out of harms way were the closest to harm the whole time.

Bro tells me this is also what will happen to you if you are in the front or the back of the party while playing Cthulu D&D

Anyway, Pharaoh decides to disclose that his big problem of feeling guilty all the time and taking all the blame, which he did all of last season...is still a huge problem he will probably never tackle.

Straight up, don’t be fooled by my caps, everyone else has completely forgotten about Alex, who is still running around that temple up there. They haven’t even asked Grandpa “hey is this your protege? Is this your mentee you never told us about?” Nah. They already forgot. 

How wild is it that Pharaoh thinks this is all his fault when he was the only one who was like “YUGI IT’S A TRAP DON’T GO IN THE- well...OK I guess we’re doing this, fine.” Is he upset he didn’t take control from Yugi and walk back to the plane? Because that’s the only way he could even be partially responsible, He was the only guy who was like “I see the end from the beginning on this y’all, and it’s the massive pyramid in India.”

Speaking of forgetting, they came across this language Pharaoh has decided to have nothing to do with.

This was actually a riddle and it was like...it was a riddle, sure, I guess.

And so Joey Wheeler does not hallucinate his dead wife from a previous incarnation and get on the back of his Baby Dragon to sail away into the sunset. Instead they’re just gonna walk.

Too bad Tea’s orb covered in wings only seems to hover a bit. Every single wing on that weird orb is absolutely useless.

And then Pharaoh’s pokemon is just a fire--which is hard to sit on--and Celtic Guardian...who would allow it, sure, but probably doesn’t fly (I think. He might fly)

And then Tristan’s Pokemon kinda seems like if you sit on it, you will get electrocuted. It can probably fly though. It’s very round. Seems like an anime thing that the more round your mascot character is, the more likely it can at least bounce a good distance.

So, next time, I’m just going to assume that we are going to do even more camping. And youknow, if you told me exactly HOW MUCH CAMPING was in this card game show with super future tech, I would not have believed you. But like...a lot of this series is set in the woods right? Like a lot a lot? I have grown to appreciate the woods.

Anyway, as always, if you just got here, this is a link to read these in chrono order:

https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/yugioh/chrono

See you next time!

[amelinksanatomy]

can you write something where amelia is pregnant and they’re trying to take scout on as many days out as they can before she gives birth so they take him to the zoo?

Day Out

A/N: Thank you for the prompt! Sorry for not posting in a while, I've been so busy and had very bad writers block! This isn't great but I hope you enjoy!

Amelia watched her 3-year-old son in the mirror with a smile as he bounced around in his seat in the back of the car.

"Are you excited, Scout?" she asks, laughing as she carefully turns her body in the front passenger seat to be able to look at him. Scout cheers and kicks his feet happily in response.

"What animals are we gonna see, buddy?" Link asks, eyes staying focused on the road ahead.

"Lion! Lion! Lion!" Scout shouts from the back of the car causing his parents to laugh, both aware of his new found obsession with this particular animal, "Mama, can we see lions?"

"Of course, baby." she smiles, "Whatever you want to do!".

Amelia meant it. Whatever Scout wanted to do today, they would do it. They had decided to give Scout one last day out, doing whatever he wanted to do, before they became a family of four. Of course, he had chosen to have ice cream and donuts for breakfast and to then go to the zoo. She turned back in her seat and placed a hand on top of her huge baby bump, letting out a deep breath.

"You sure you're gonna be okay to do this? Walk around all day?" Link asks, glancing over at Amelia with slight concern in his eyes.

"Yeah, I'll be fine. She's just in my ribs right now but she'll move, she always does." Amelia smiles, rubbing her hand across the top of her stomach, "This is Scout's day.".

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

After purchasing their tickets at the entrance, the family start making their way around the zoo. Scout walks between his parents, each of them taking hold of one of his hands, knowing that when he gets excited, he tends to run off.

"Look, buddy!" Link exclaims, bending down to lift Scout onto his hip, pointing at the enclosure.

"Ooh ooh ah ah!" Scout imitated loudly, causing his parents and the family next to them to laugh.

"That's right, baby!" Amelia giggles, running her hand down Scout's back, "You're so smart, huh!".

The family of three stood and watched the monkeys for the next few minutes. Scout continued imitating them; pointing and laughing every time they move. Link spotted one in the tree closest to the fence, moving closer before pointing it out to his son. Scout suddenly started bouncing on his Dad's hip, his arm reaching out and pointing excitedly to the monkey as it swung to a lower branch.

"Mommy!" Scout squealed, "Can we have one?".

His serious tone set Amelia off into a fit of laughter, not expecting that to come out of his mouth. She held the bottom of her bump as she giggled, "I think we should see how things go with baby sister first before we try pets."

"No, Mommy! I want a monkey!" Scout pouts dramatically.

Amelia rubs his back and laughs, "How about, we have baby sister and then maybe, we can think about getting a dog?".

Link's eyes widen at Amelia's suggestion, unsure of how they'd handle two kids, a dog, surgical careers and general life. Scout, on the other hand, was ecstatic, immediately starting to smile and clap.

"Right," Link starts, changing the subject swiftly, "Let's go and see the meerkats!".

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

After another hour of walking around, they had made it to the halfway point. Scout had begun complaining that he was hungry so, they decided to stop at the mid-way cafe.

"Scout, come and sit down, your food is here." Amelia tells her son, who was across the room and had become fascinated by the animal themed toy selection.

Scout was a slow eater, a trait he had inherited from his Mom and so by the time Amelia and Link had finished, he was only half way through. Amelia leant back in her chair, resting a hand on top of her bump, rubbing back and forth softly as she watched Scout eat, wondering just when her baby got so big.

"Ames, how you doing?" Link asks, smiling at her from across the table, one arm resting on the back of Scout's chair.

Amelia diverts her attention to Link, smiling and circling her hand around her bump, "I'm good. She's settled down in there now and finally moved away from my ribs." she laughs.

"Mommy!" Scout shouts loudly. For such a small person, he sure did have a loud voice.

"Yes, angel?" Amelia turns back to her son, "I'm done!".

Scout pushes his plate towards Amelia and starts to bounce in his seat, having refuelled his energy. He suddenly stands up on his chair, "Can we go and see the lions now?".

Link grabs hold of his sons arm carefully, supporting him as he stands, "Let's let Mommy rest for a few more minutes before we go back out, okay?".

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

"Lions!" Scout shouts, seconds before he starts running away from his parents.

"No, Scout!" Amelia shouts after him, always worried that something will happen if he runs off. Link runs after him, his longer legs allowing him to catch up to the toddler in only a few strides. He scoops Scout up into his arms and holds him against his side. Now ahead of Amelia, Link stops in his place and turns towards her. Amelia slowly waddles her way to catch up with them.

"Scout, we told you baby, you can't just run off like that." Amelia says softly as she gets closer.

"You need to stay close to us, okay?" Link adds, bouncing him on his hip, "But Mommy's slow! I wanna see the lions!".

Link chuckles as he sees the look on Amelia's face, "Scout, be nice."

"She is slow!" Scout reaffirms, never one to hide his thoughts.

"You try having a full size baby against your pelvis and walking quickly." Amelia says, unamused, as she catches up to her boys.

Still holding Scout on his hip, Link reaches his free arm around Amelia's waist, rubbing his hand up and down her back as they began walking towards the lions. Link took her hand in his, his thumb rubbing the back of her hand gently.

"RAWRRRR!" Scout yells as they reach the lion enclosure.

"Daddy! RAWR!" he points to one of the lions laid out on the grass, "Mommy! Look!".

Amelia lent her back against a wooden sign pole, her hand clasped together on the underside of her bump for support, starting to feel how exhausted she was becoming. She smiled at her excited toddler, "Wow! They're so scary!" she says dramatically causing her son to laugh, "They can't get you, Mama!".

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

Now back in the car, Amelia leans against the back of her chair, trying her best to stretch out her back. Her hand runs in circles around her tight bump. They had only been driving for 5 minutes but, when she turns her head to the backseat, she notices Scout has fallen asleep.

"I think we tired him out." Amelia chuckles, her heart feeling full as she watches his chest rise and fall and his lips pout as he sleeps, "Do you think he had a good day? I feel bad that I couldn't keep up with him towards the end"

"Babe, you're 39 weeks pregnant." Link smiles sympathetically, reaching a hand across and placing it on her thigh, "He had a great day! He loved all of it!"

"You sure?" she asks softly, "I'm positive. And, I'm sure he'll tell us all about it when he wakes up as if we weren't there with him.".

Amelia laughs quietly, "I just wanted to make sure he knows we love him and that he doesn't feel like he's gonna be pushed aside when the baby comes because that would break my heart.".

Link squeezes her leg gently, "Love, I promise he's gonna be okay. He knows we love him. Nothing is going to change when she comes." he reaches up to her bump, running his hand across it, "They will both get just as much love as each other and while she may need a little more attention from you in the beginning, we will do our best to make sure Scout doesn't feel left out. Okay?".

Amelia nods, smiling softly, "I'm glad we had this time with him because I really don't think it's going to be long before she comes.".

She turns back to look at her little boy as he cuddled his new lion stuffed animal close to his chest and smiles, "He's going to be the best big brother.".

[nicknellie]

Anonymous requested: an enemies to lover shot for Juke please

Seeing as you asked so nicely, I couldn’t not do this. This trope, man. I love it so much. Thank you for the suggestion! Also, I gave Julie my own comfort song (it’s held that title for about two years now lol) and I highly suggest you all go listen to it.

Rhythm in my Heart

Julie was beginning to wonder whether joining a band on a whim purely because the boy she had known for twenty minutes had asked her to was really the best idea.

It had gone like this: Julie had been looking for Flynn in the lunch hall but hadn’t been able to see her anywhere. That was weird, mainly because Flynn’s tendency to dress in colours brighter than stars usually made her recognisable anywhere, but also because Julie had seen her just five minutes ago. They had been stood in the line together, Flynn had got her food and hurried off to find a table, but now Julie just couldn’t seem to spot her anywhere.

So, Julie had begun wandering the lunch hall in search of Flynn. Granted, she could have been a little more careful as she did so instead of paying very little attention to her surroundings, but she couldn’t help but be a little worried. Flynn didn’t just disappear like this; normally it was hard to prise her from Julie’s side.

In short, Julie hadn’t been paying attention to what was going on around her as she meandered through the lunch hall. Which was why it was partially her fault when she walked right by somebody just as they jumped out of their seat and threw their arms in the air, knocking her tray from her hands and sending food flying.

Flying right into Julie’s face.

As she blinked tomato sauce out of her eyes, Julie could feel the eyes of hundreds of Los Feliz’s students on her, could practically hear them gawking and taking photos of her as she stood there covered in spaghetti. She was dimly aware of somebody apologising over and over again, but all she was really conscious of was the fact that she was angry. Really angry.

Julie wiped furiously at her face, picked a long strand of spaghetti off her jumper, and glared at the person stood in front of her, the one who had knocked her tray. It was a boy, maybe a year or two older than her, and she had to admit that he did look apologetic. But that wasn’t the point – all the puppy-dog eyes in the world wouldn’t get sauce stains out of her best jumper.

“I am so sorry,” the boy said when Julie locked eyes with him. He picked up a napkin with fumbling fingers and began dabbing at the hem of her jumper. She yanked the material away from him and, if possible, glared harder. The boy shrank away a little.

She swiped the napkin from his hand. “I got it,” she hissed.

“Um, I’ll, um… I can buy you another lunch?” the boy offered, scratching at the back of his head. “It was my fault, I shouldn’t have whacked the tray, I… Is there anything I can do?”

“Yes,” Julie seethed. “You can leave me alone.”

With that, she picked up the tray off the floor, dusted herself off a little more in an attempt to retain some sort of dignity, then tried to brush past the boy.

“My name is Luke, by the way,” he called after her. Julie didn’t respond, she just kept walking.

Luckily, even through all the stares and jeers and people getting in her way purely to laugh at her, it didn’t take Julie too long to find Flynn afterwards. She was sat right at the back of the hall at what appeared to be the only empty table, scrolling on her phone. When she saw Julie heading her way, she gave her usual bright smile, but it melted into mingled confusion and disgust when she saw that Julie was in fact covered in pasta and sauce.

“You got a little something there,” Flynn said, pointing to her own cheek. She was very clearly trying not to laugh, which Julie didn’t appreciate it.

“Thanks,” she deadpanned, “I hadn’t noticed.”

“Is there a reason you’re wearing your lunch instead of eating it?”

“You didn’t see?” Julie asked.

Flynn shook her head then scrolled down a little on her phone and said, “Ah. Now I see.”

Julie’s eyes widened and she grabbed Flynn’s phone in a panic. Sure enough, multiple pictures of Luke knocking her tray and her being covered in food had already made their way onto Instagram. With a frustrated sigh, she handed Flynn’s phone back to her.

“I hate this school,” she said.

Flynn patted her arm comfortingly. “At least you have your amazing and supportive best friend by your side.”

“You’re still trying not to laugh.”

Flynn snorted, but quickly tried to mask her amusement again. It didn’t work.

“I’m sorry,” she said in between laughs, “but it’s hard to take you seriously when there’s spaghetti in your hair.”

The whole incident had taken up enough time that there was only five minutes left of the lunch period anyway. Julie put her tray away and headed to the toilets to clean up as best she could – all she could really do was wash her face with the scalding water that came from the school’s taps, but it was better than nothing.

She tried to let the rest of the day cheer her up, but it just wouldn’t work. Not even the fact that she had dance class with Flynn and Nick could brighten her mood. She really needed a miracle.

Whenever Julie was feeling down, music was the one thing that could cheer her up. That had always been the way. When she was young, it had been the soothing, melodic voice of her mother Rose that had been the thing to calm her down; as she grew up, her comfort songs had been ballads by her favourite bands; nowadays, Julie’s own music was what she used to cope. Making her own music, her own sound, it felt so personal and freeing that it just made sense that it would help her out of any dark place.

So, when school finished, she headed down to the music rooms instead of going back home. Usually, if a student wanted the use of a music room after school they’d have to book it in advance, which Julie hadn’t, but she figured that she would only be in there for a few minutes so it wouldn’t matter.

She slipped into the closest and smallest music practise room – it housed only a piano, an amp, and a strange array of sheet music ranging from Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 8 to Jingle Bells. Julie quietly shut the door behind her and settled herself at the piano.

Just like that, she felt herself begin to relax. She could forget that her jumper was still stained, she could forget that even dance class hadn’t cheered her up, she could forget that anything bad had happened that day at all. She let her fingers rest atop the keys for just a moment before she began to play what was her current comfort song, Einaudi’s Nuvole Bianche.

She lost herself and the bad feeling all in one go.

It wasn’t until she heard the door to the practise room opening that she stopped and remembered that she wasn’t actually supposed to be there.

She abruptly turned to face the door, standing up and grabbing her bag, ready to leave. In the doorway stood a boy with a bass guitar slung over his shoulder. His eyes were wide, his mouth open, and he was staring at Julie like he’d seen a ghost.

“Sorry,” she said hurriedly, “I didn’t realise somebody else had booked this room, I’ll go and you–”

“Dude,” the boy interrupted, coming into the room and letting the door fall shut behind him. “That was awesome! You shred on the piano, man!”

Julie recognised the expression on his face then. It was awe.

She laughed nervously. “It’s nothing. Thanks, though. I need to get going.”

The boy frowned as Julie tried to move past him out of the room. “You can stay if you want, I don’t mind. We can jam together! Or you could teach me piano – I’ve been trying to learn by myself, I only know a few chords so far, but I’m getting pretty good. Watch this!”

He put his bass down, readied his hands above the piano, and plonked out a basic chord pattern. When he was done, he turned to Julie and beamed proudly. She couldn’t help but smile.

“That’s great,” she said. “Well done. Are you sure you want me to stay? You booked the room, I don’t want to get in your way.”

The boy waved her away. “No, come on. It’ll be fun. We can write a song or something! My name’s Reggie.”

Julie hesitated for a moment, but then made up her mind. She smiled and said, “I’m Julie. Nice to meet you.”

For the next twenty minutes, Julie and Reggie sat side-by-side on the far too small piano stool as Julie tried to teach him how to play the piano. He was a quick learner, and within that time she had managed to help him block the chords for a country song he was wanting to write.

She was about to move on to telling him about basslines (which, she thought, he should have been pretty good at already since he had shown up with a bass guitar) when he gasped loudly and hit her arm.

“You should join my band!” he exclaimed.

“You have a band?” Julie asked.

Reggie nodded excitedly. “Yeah! We’re called Sunset Curve, we’re a rock band. Our rhythm guitarist just left and we’ve been looking for somebody to take his place.”

Julie pointed to the piano. “That’s not a guitar.”

“Well, no,” Reggie admitted, “but we don’t have a piano either and we’ve always talked about finding someone who could do it. It could be you, Julie! Think about how much fun it could be!”

“Who else is in your band?” Julie asked. She couldn’t believe she was actually considering it.

“It’s just me and two of my buddies, they play lead guitar and drums. We have a really good sound, but it would be awesome if we added a piano. What do you say?”

Julie didn’t know whether it was the stress of her bad day getting the better of her, or the relaxation of playing the piano, or just the fact that Reggie was impossible to say no to, but she found herself shrugging her shoulders and saying, “Sure. When do we rehearse?”

She was regretting that now.

It was the following weekend and Julie had just arrived at what Reggie had described to her as a studio. She wasn’t sure the dimly lit garage with a low-tech amp and half a drum kit could really qualify as a studio, but she supposed that the homely touches like the dartboard and some drawings hung on the wall made it feel a little nicer. She shrugged off her coat and then regretted it because it was freezing cold in the ‘studio’.

“Hey Julie,” greeted Reggie excitedly. He waved at her from his perch atop the amp, beckoning her over. “Come and meet the guys!”

Julie headed in his direction and saw that he was sat with two other boys. One of them, a blond with a shy smile wearing a thick pink hoodie, was sat behind the incomplete drum kit – he gave a little wave with a drumstick in his hand and said, “Hey, I’m Alex, how’s it going?”

“Nice to meet you,” she replied. “I’m Julie.”

Julie turned to the other boy and immediately felt her face fall. The last time she’d seen him she’d had tomato sauce in her eyes but there was still no chance that she would forget those stupid puppy-dog eyes and that ridiculous haircut – it was the idiot who had spoiled her lunch.

“You,” she seethed.

The boy – what was his name? Lucas? Lydon? Larry? – looked utterly terrified. He took a step back from Julie with a nervous laugh and hit his back on Reggie’s amp.

“Hey… Fancy seeing you here!” he said, trying for a smile but failing miserably.

Reggie and Alex looked between each other, confused.

“You two know each other?” Alex asked.

“Know is a strong word,” the lunch-ruiner said nervously. “We’ve met.”

“Unfortunately,” Julie growled. She turned to Reggie. “I’m not sure this is going to work out, Reggie. I’m sorry.”

Reggie looked hurt, which was the only reason Julie didn’t walk out of the room right that moment. “Oh, come on, Julie! You’ve got him all wrong!”

“I’m sure whatever Luke did to upset you was stupid and entirely his fault,” said Alex (to which Luke – Luke, that was his name, she remembered now – weakly protested, “Hey!”), “but from what Reggie’s told us we could really use you in the band. We’d love to have you and we promise to try and keep Luke on his best behaviour.”

Julie sighed heavily, frowning as she looked between the boys. She knew that Reggie was an absolute sweetheart, and Alex seemed to be kind and sensible – maybe she could hold a grudge against Luke and the other two band members could make it work.

“Fine,” she huffed, pointing a finger at Luke. “But I’m not promising that I’ll like you.”

He shook his head, eyes wide. “It’s cool. Thanks for sticking around.”

The rehearsal went… interestingly. The piano they’d got Julie was hardly a piano at all – it was a little keyboard that only ranged two octaves and its keys were tiny, although it did have a delightful range of demos and sounds that Reggie spent ten minutes trying out. When they got to playing, Julie could hardly even hear herself, but the others all seemed to think it sounded good.

Julie found out that Luke was on lead vocals with Alex and Reggie backing him. He had written out a score for all their parts including his vocal line, but when he sang part of it Julie realised it was wrong – he was singing an E when it very clearly stated on the sheet music that it was supposed to be a C-sharp. She wasn’t going to say anything (it was her first day with the band and she didn’t want to overstep by correcting the boy who seemed to be their unofficial leader) but eventually it got too annoying.

“You’re singing that line wrong,” she told him flatly. Everyone looked to her, eyes wide.

“What?” Luke said, smiling but sounding insulted. “I’m pretty sure I’m not.”

She shrugged lightly. “I’m pretty sure you are, but go off, I guess.”

Luke’s smile widened even more but didn’t reach his eyes - definitely fake, definitely passive-aggressive. “What do you think I’m doing wrong?” he asked through gritted teeth.

Julie pointed to the music. “You’re singing an E on this line, but you’ve written a C-sharp. Want me to demonstrate?”

“I got it,” Luke snarled, snatching the music.

“I’d like to hear Julie demonstrate,” Reggie piped up, raising his hand. “Please, Julie?”

“Happily,” Julie said. “You’re singing this: I got a spark in me.” She ended on an E. “You’ve written this: I got a spark in me.” She ended on the C-sharp.  “Personally, I think what you’re singing sounds better than what you’ve written, but you’ll need to change one of them.”

Luke scowled. “Thanks. But I told you, I’ve got it.”

Julie turned to Alex and Reggie - both of whom had been watching their back and forth like a thrilling tennis match, heads bobbing in one direction then another - but now both of them were staring at Julie with their mouths ajar, seemingly unable to close them. 

“Woah,” Reggie breathed.

“You’re amazing, Julie,” Alex said. 

Reggie flung his hand into the air. “All those in favour of making Julie our new lead singer?”

Alex’s hand joined Reggie’s and slowly, just to annoy Luke further, Julie raised her own hand. Luke looked furious and betrayed.

“Hey,” he said, wounded, “I’m our lead singer.”

“Dude, that girl has the voice of an angel,” Reggie told him matter-of-factly, pointing at Julie who beamed back at him. “And if we make her our lead singer, you’ll be able to focus on things like neatening up your guitar solos.”

Luke gasped indignantly. “My guitar solos are perfectly neat!”

“Actually,” Julie interjected, “I wasn’t going to say anything but you’re coming in late on bar twenty-eight.”

Luke ignored her. “I’m our lead singer,” he repeated.

“Why don’t you share it?” Alex suggested, standing up. From the way Reggie and Luke immediately paid attention to him, Julie got the impression that Alex often had to act as a mediator when it came to band-based arguments. His unimpressed expression hinted that maybe he’d had to do this same thing one too many times. “You can both be lead singers. I think that’ll work - both of your voices are too good to omit completely.”

“You’ve heard her sing one line!”

“And she did it better than you,” Alex said flatly. “Now can we please carry on with rehearsal?”

Luke grumbled something, but readied his guitar again. Julie began playing her chords and, assuming they’d made their decision that both of them were going to be the lead, began to sing.

*

“So what you’re telling me is that you have a huge crush on this guy.”

“I have absolutely no idea where you got that from.”

Three weeks had passed since Julie’s first rehearsal with the boys. After a suggestion from Reggie and a heated debate that had transformed into a full-blown argument between Julie and Luke, Sunset Curve had been renamed to Julie and the Phantoms. Julie would now sing the melody with Luke on harmonies (an arrangement that had been painful to reach), and Alex and Reggie were happy to stay on backing vocals.

Julie was at her favourite ice cream parlour with Flynn - they were both tucking into enormous ice cream sundaes that both had claimed they would be able to finish but likely wouldn’t, and Julie was trying to tell Flynn about how annoying Luke had been at rehearsal the other day.

“I got it from the way you talk about him,” Flynn said, accusingly pointing her spoon at Julie. “And from the way your face looks when you talk about him. And from what I saw when I picked you up from rehearsal the other day.”

Julie shook her head. She did not have a crush on Luke.

“You’re going to need to explain a little better than that,” she told Flynn.

Flynn sat up straighter, smiling brightly. “Gladly. First of all, the way you talk about him - you may be describing your arguments, but you throw in compliments that are disguised as insults.”

“I do not do that,” Julie scoffed.

Flynn raised an eyebrow. “I can give examples. Like ‘He would be a lot easier to like if he didn’t have such a distractingly perfect smile, it gets in the way’. Or how about—”

“Okay,” Julie said, raising her hands. “I don’t need more examples. Just... just carry on explaining.”

“The way your face looks when you talk about him,” Flynn continued. “It’s kind of gross, actually. You go all starry-eyed and you smile like a dope, and if I’m honest I don’t understand how you don’t realise you’re doing it. Like, surely you feel your cheeks hurt when you smile that wide?”

“Ha ha,” Julie monotoned.

“I’m not joking.”

“Whatever. What else makes you so sure I like Luke? Which I do not.”

Flynn looked triumphant, as if whatever she said next would be the end of the discussion.

“The other day, when I came to the studio to walk you back to mine, Alex and Reggie came out way before you two. And when you and Luke finally emerged, you were both doing the heart-eyes-and-smile combo. And you were punching each other all playfully, which is definitely flirting. Then you tried to play it off like it was an actual argument!”

Julie rolled her eyes and crossed her arms, leaning back in her chair.

“That doesn’t mean anything,” she said. It was Flynn’s turn to roll her eyes. “It doesn’t! Just because he wasn’t unbearable that one time, it doesn’t mean I like him. In any way.”

“If you’re sure,” Flynn said, half defeated and half resigned.

“I am.”

But the thing was, Julie absolutely was not sure.

The band rehearsed the next day. Luke had managed to line up a gig that would take place in a fortnight’s time, so they were trying to get as much practise in as possible. In Julie’s extremely biased opinion, their set sounded fabulous - she had grudgingly worked with Luke to write most of it, and though she hated to say it, when they wrote together their songs were phenomenal.

As usual, Alex and Reggie headed out first. Really, that shouldn’t have been the case seeing as Alex’s instrument took the longest time to disassemble and Reggie was easily distracted, but Julie and Luke normally ended up being the last two there. It had started when Julie had reluctantly hung around to apologise to Luke for stealing his role of lead singer, and had become something of a habit.

“I was thinking,” Luke said to her as he packed away his guitar, “if we get Reggie and Alex to add echoes to the chorus in Great, it could sound really good. What do you think?”

Julie smiled. “Yeah. It’s a great idea, I’m surprised you thought of it.”

“Very funny,” Luke said, rolling his eyes. Julie noticed the tiny smile playing about his lips and couldn’t help but fight a smile of her own. “You are so hilarious it’s unbelievable.”

“I try,” she said with a shrug. And then her mouth didn’t consult her brain before saying, “Are you doing anything now?”

Luke looked at her, bewildered. “Why? Are you?”

Julie blinked, caught off guard by the situation. She hadn’t meant to say that. Now it sounded like she wanted to do something with him. She wasn’t meant to want to do something with him because Julie and Luke didn’t like each other. That was their whole relationship - dislike! She couldn’t ruin that by spending time with him.

Again, her mouth spoke before her brain could catch up. “No. Do you want to hang out, do something together? Just the two of us?”

Luke looked as confused as Julie felt.

“Yeah,” he said. “Sounds good.”

They didn’t end up leaving the studio. Instead, they sat together on the couch that Luke and Reggie had dragged in off the street one day (Alex and Julie had both refused to sit on it until they’d disinfected it thirty times and checked it for any number of animals, ranging from spiders to rats (god forbid)) and tried to work on some new songs.

Luke pulled his songbook out for inspiration and handed it to Julie to skim through. She skipped past the songs they had already performed or rehearsed to some further back. Luke, unlike any sane person, didn’t use his notebooks chronologically, so there were new songs and very old ones mixed in throughout.

Julie found herself not turning one page for a while. Eventually Luke realised that she wasn’t listening to him talk about chords, and looked over her shoulder. When he saw what she was reading, he snatched the book away.

“Why don’t we just try and think up something completely different to our usual stuff,” he suggested, clearly trying to change the subject.

Julie didn’t want to press.

She did anyway.

“That seemed pretty different to our usual stuff,” she said softly. “Luke... who’s Emily?”

She knew she didn’t have a right to be upset. She didn’t know why she was upset. It wasn’t as if she liked Luke; if he had a girlfriend or someone he fancied enough to write a song about then that was none of her business. She didn’t get to fret over the love life of a boy she didn’t even like.

Luke looked at her for a long time. She held eye contact. She could see the cogs turning in his head, see him considering whether or not to tell her.

Finally, he sighed and said, “Emily is my mom.”

Julie tried not to react. She hadn’t been expecting that response, and upon hearing that Emily wasn’t Luke’s girlfriend something inside her did a happy little jump. But Luke’s face was solemn and tense, so Julie knew that she had to be sensible right now. Obviously, whatever Luke was saying wasn’t something easy.

“Your mom?” she prompted.

Luke nervously tugged his beanie a little lower. “Yeah... she’s my mom. I wrote that for her last year. She... I... We... We had an argument - well, we had loads of arguments - but this was the worst one. I ran away from home after it happened and I’ve not been back or seen her at all. I... I wanted to do something for her or at least get some stuff off my chest, so I wrote that song.”

“Do Alex and Reggie know?” Julie asked tentatively.

“About the song or the argument?”

“Both.”

He nodded. “Yeah, they know. They’ve played the song with me before, and our old rhythm guitarist Bobby did too. It was really cool of them - they don’t bring it up unless I do first. It’s kind of hard sometimes. Like, I want to talk about it, but I don’t want to be the one to start. I wish they would sometimes.”

Julie nodded. “I get it.”

He shook his head. “And they let me sleep at their houses before I found my own place - here.” He gestured vaguely around the studio.

Julie felt her eyes widen. The draughty roof, the leaky walls, the way that the couch and thin blanket was the only bed in sight.

“You live here?” she said, astounded.

He shrugged. “It’s not much. It’s all I’ve got. And... well, I’d like to go home one day, anyway. It isn’t permanent.”

Julie had no response. Luke was practically homeless, living in their studio. It was nothing. Nothing. He had nowhere to go.

“You can come and stay at my house whenever you want,” Julie said quickly. “My dad won’t mind. He won’t want you sleeping in the cold.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“I’m worried about you.”

“Don’t be.”

“I am.”

There was silence for a moment. Luke looked at Julie and Julie looked at Luke. She felt on the edge of something, she didn’t know what. Being there with Luke felt... exciting, even despite the conversation they were having. Just the two of them, alone, talking without walls built around themselves.

“I really do get it, you know,” she said quietly. “How it feels not to see your mom.”

Luke straightened up, his face scrunched in curiosity. “What do you mean?”

Julie took a deep breath. “My mom passed away about a year ago. Music was our thing... it took me ages to play again without her. I still haven’t been able to face writing about her or anything like that. But my point is that I know how it feels to have the most important person in your life missing. There one day and gone the next.” She huffed a mirthless laugh that turned into a sniffle.

She felt Luke take her hand.

“You are not alone, Julie.”

She held his hand in return.

“Neither are you.”

*

“Oh please, you two are so in love!” Flynn exclaimed when Julie told her the story. Julie smacked her arm.

“It’s not love,” she insisted. “But... fine, maybe I like him. He’s a lot different to how I first thought.”

“What are you going to do?” Flynn asked excitedly, her legs bouncing up and down.

Julie sighed. “I have no idea.”

*

It turned out that Julie didn’t need to have any idea of what she was going to do. It happened naturally.

Julie and the Phantoms finished their set at the gig Luke had booked them - with a flourish and a fancy trick of the light that Flynn and Julie had helped Reggie sort out, the boys disappeared off stage in the blink of an eye, and the audience applauded Julie as she instructed them to, “Tell your friends!”

It had gone swimmingly. Julie had hit the high note in Bright perfectly despite struggling with it in almost every rehearsal; Luke’s harmonies had been on point; Alex had more confidence with each song, adding more complicated drum fills as time went on; and as usual Reggie’s incredible stage presence had the audience howling and enjoying themselves. Julie was proud of all of them to an almost dangerous degree.

Elated, she hurried off stage after the boys. They were all huddled together backstage and grinned when they saw Julie coming towards them.

She didn’t think. It happened automatically. Running on adrenaline, she flung herself at Luke, crushing him in a tight hug. Luckily it appeared that he was ready too, because he hugged her back with ferocity and lifted her off her feet, spinning them around.

“You were incredible, Julie,” he said, laughing, “they were loving you!”

“They loved us,” Julie said as Luke put her down. 

She had intended to congratulate Alex and Reggie too, but suddenly found herself unable to look away from Luke. His hands were still on her waist, and hers on his shoulders. She didn’t want either of them to move.

Distantly, she heard Alex and Reggie shuffle away.

“Listen, Julie,” Luke said, voice raspy. “Ever since... I was going to say ‘ever since our conversation in the studio’ but actually I don’t know when it started. Ever since sometime, I’ve been wanting to tell you something.”

She swallowed. “I’ve been wanting to tell you something too.”

“I hope it’s the same as what I have to say,” Luke laughed. Then he turned a little more serious again. “It’s... I really like you, Julie. I think you’re an amazing singer and you improve the band a ton and you make me a better writer. You make me a better person. I just... I really like you.”

Julie couldn’t help but smile. “I really like you too, Luke. I really, really like you.”

“Really?” he asked, beaming.

“Really.”

“Thank god,” he said, and Julie couldn’t help but laugh. “The guys said you did but I wasn’t sure.”

“Tell me about it,” Julie said, “Flynn’s been on at me about this for ages.”

He laughed, smiling and ducking his head. “You really are something, Julie.”

She playfully punched his arm. “So are you.”

[megastarstriker]

✯𝒞𝒽𝓇𝒾𝓈𝓉𝓂𝒶𝓈 𝒲𝒾𝓉𝒽 𝒴𝑜𝓊✯

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NIKKI SIXX  X  READER

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Requested:

Contains: FLUFF 

𝙋𝙖𝙞𝙧𝙞𝙣𝙜: Nikki Sixx  x Female Reader

𝙒𝙤𝙧𝙙 𝘾𝙤𝙪𝙣𝙩:

𝙏𝙖𝙜𝙡𝙞𝙨𝙩: @metalheartofgold, @ginny-rose-sixx, @xxqueencolourxx​, @littlemisscare-all​,

💕MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! LOVE YOU GUYS AND LET ME KNOW IF YOU WANNA GET TAGGED TOO💕

Keys:

(Y/N) - Your Name

(L/N) - Last Name

(D/N) - Daughter’s Name

============================

“Dada.....”, The little 3 year old baby girl that I held in my arms babbled as she looked at her father over my shoulder with her cute curious eyes who was already walking towards me with a small smile on his face, looking at the small child as he looked at her excited (E/C) eyes with his warm hazel ones. 

“I’m here, sweetie....”, He murmured softly as he kissed the girl sweetly on the forehead making her giggle and coo happily at her father,” Good morning.”

“Good morning,...Nik...”, I said as I leaned into Nikki’s touch as he wrapped his arm with security and warmth around me and the little bundle of joy that was right next to us.

“Morning, beautiful.....”, He whispered in my ear kissing my forehead and then my cheek, only then to plant his warm and slightly chapped lips unto mine. The kiss was short but despite that it had a burning taste of passion in it that I couldn’t describe but either way... I loved it. 

The embrace was then interrupted by a small barking sound from the floor, as I felt a tug on my nightgown. I then departed my eyes from Nikki to see two small set of brown eyes looking at me energetically as the small pup wagged its tail with joy as he looked at the baby with wonderment. 

“And you too, bud....”, He said with a laugh as he picked up the dog from the ground, making the dog yap at him and his tail wag with speed. I giggled at how cute the two of them were as I then looked at (D/N) tiny form as she leaned gently into my shoulder giggling at the pup that was in Nikki’s hands. 

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

‘Buddy was new to the family once (D/N) was born. It wasn’t just an early Christmas present but it was also something that Nikki and I talked about when she was born. I thought about what it would be like if we did have a pet and if it would be nice that our daughter got to play with it. Nikki of course agreed same going for me as we both had our fair share of love for animals especially dogs. And he couldn’t say not to his newborn daughter too. We wanted to buy and get a pup especially for her, but I then heard about an option for adopting one from one of my closest friends. I overhead from her that these pups were homeless or abandoned and needed homes, as well as it would be an amazing idea to have one. It wouldn’t just be a good decision but rather an amazing way to spread awareness about these animals who need love and attention. Thinking about that made me think of Nikki and his past. It always left me thinking that Nikki deserved better. A better family to have raised him, a better childhood, and a better life. Nikki of course was happy now and would always remind me that I was always there for him and that things have changed now because of me and the people that supported him aka the crue as well as other people and to not worry about the things that happened to him in the past, because he already has his two most greatest things: His Band and His Family. But those exact same thoughts made me wonder. 

“Those animals deserve the exact same thing.

Love, attention, and a Family.”

Not Hatred, Loneliness, and Abandonment.

Just Like Nikki needed it and has it now.

As I rethought the decision in my mind, I smiled as I then went and talked it over with Nikki about adopting a pet. He of course was shocked to see me talk about my reasons for it especially since he was mainly the reason for it. Of course after finishing he gave me a strong embrace and a kiss, and accepted on a adoption for a pet. Afterwards, He told me that I had such a heart of gold and teased me about it for the rest of the day......

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

‘Ughh’, I thought in my head as I groaned at Nikki’s teasing remarks that day, as I saw him play with ‘Buddy’, as well as (D/N) joining him in the floor of the living room. ‘What a dork.’ I smiled with a blush as I looked at them as I went to the kitchen to start on breakfast, as a few moments later my two devilish angels a.k.a Nikki and (D/N) decided on wanting to join in and help me with it.  

  But at least he’s my dork.

8 hours later

“Mommy.”, (D/N) asked me as she tugged on my party dress I picked out for the dinner party  looking at me with cute baby doll eyes.

“Yes sweetie”, I said softly as I picked her up gently looking at her as I awaited for her response.

“When are my aunties and uncles going to come.”, She said her eyes a bit sad as she looked down, as she already had her clothes ready for the Christmas dinner party we were holding at our place. 

“Oh, honey...”, I started to say my heart breaking at her expression she gave me, “Your aunts and uncles will come....Even some of the kids too so you can all play....There are just running a bit late....But don’t worry....Okay.”

“Really?”, She said as she had hopeful eyes gleaming, rubbing her eyes.

“Yeah, princess.”, Nikki said as he appeared next to me, wearing his formal wear, looking as handsome as always, taking (D/N) in his arms and hugged her, “Everything will be ok.”

Then as soon as he said that a door ringing was hear from the front door.

“Speaking of the devil.”, I muttered jokingly to Nikki as he chuckled rolling his eyes a bit playfully as he patted my shoulder as he gently put (D/N) on the floor next to Buddy who was now wagging his tail in excitement. 

“I’ll get it.”, He told me as he went over to the door opening to reveal...

You guessed it.

The breathing, living, and rocking crue....

Standing at our door...

My Parents , my friends along with their husbands and daughters , and.....

My brother!

Looking at him standing there I was shocked.

“Surprise!”, He said as he had his arms out ready to hug me and a huge smile on his face.

“(B/N)!”, I said with wide eyes open as I hugged him tightly a happy smile reaching its way on my face, deep down believing this was all a dream. 

“ In the flesh.”, He said with a chuckle as he broke free from the heartwarming embrace. 

“But- How.....”, I asked him still amazed at him standing here in front of me, “I thought you couldn’t come because of your job.”

“Well..., let’s just say a little someone gave me a nice talk through the phone and told me to come here and meet you as a surprise.”, He said as he looked at me trailing off a bit.

“When I mean a ‘little someone’ I mean Nikki.”, He then said as he gestured towards him who was busy welcoming Tommy, Vince, and Mick, “And when I mean a nice talk, I mean he was going to beat and murder my ass if I didn’t come here.”

“Oh no....”, I said as I felt a bit guilty thinking that he came here because of Nikki’s threat., “Didn’t Nikki really force you to come here-”

“No no no, He didn’t....”, He said as he understood what I was trying to say, “I mean a bit but, no. Don’t blame him for anything though, I only came here because of you and about what Nikki said when he called me up.”

“What did he say?”, I asked him as I quirked an eyebrow.

“Well, He told me about how much you missed having me visit for the holidays and well that he wanted to change that by bringing me here....”, He started to say as he stood in front of me, “.......And then he told me about how you were incredibly special to him and lovey dovey stuff as he liked to put it.”

I gasped hearing this..

Did Nikki really just..?...

“But that’s all I can say for now......”, He finished as he then gave a smile, “Other than that I am happy to see you and mom and dad again here together. I know I haven’t been the best bro for not coming for the holidays, but I guess I feel happy now that  I’m here. Huh? Now that I’m thinking about it, I feel like with Nikki being around with you its a miracle for him.... He really cares about you, I can tell......”

Still a bit taken aback by all of this information, I saw as I small girl and a woman came walking beside my brother.

“Oh yeah, I didn’t came here alone of course.”, He said as she then said a small ‘hello’, sending me a welcoming smile holding her daughter in her arms.

“I guess I already told you about them in a few occasions over the phone, but this is my wife Donna, and this little munchkin over here is my daughter Annie.”, He introduced as they both said hi, Donna shaking my hand as she said it was nice to meet me, her daughter giving me a shy wave as to say hello to me.

“Its Nice to meet you too,” I said with a warm welcome as I told them to go ahead and make themselves comfortable at home. 

I then said hello to my parents and my friends who brought over their husbands and daughters...

And of course couldn’t forget about the jolly ol’ crue....

“Hey Tommy, Vince!”, I greeted as I then walked over to them both as they enveloped me in a warm friendly hug.

They both said hello to me before releasing me from the hug, I was about to greet Mick only to find he wasn’t there. 

“Where’s Mick?”, I asked as I tried looking for him around where I stood.

“Mick is with Nikki in the kitchen talking about something... code word ‘ private’....”, Tommy said as he held out the quotation marks in the air whispering the word to me. 

“And He doesn’t want us in on listening to their small chat, thinking we are gonna gossip about it to the fellas around here......so yeah here we are.... trying but also not trying to ‘eavesdrop’ on them.....”, Vince continued as he rolled his eyes a bit. 

I giggled at them both as I shook my head, “Well good luck with that. ”

After a couple of minutes of introduction with everyone including Mick who came out with Nikki after their so called ‘private conversation’ , we all went to the dining room, Me and Nikki being the last ones as he looked to me.

“So your brother came.”, Nikki commented as he stood beside me. 

“Yeah, I noticed.” I said as I tried to play along with his game although already knowing it was his idea all along for him to come here,” I’m really happy he came.”

“Um, I sort of called him to come here. I know how much he means to you as family.”, Nikki said nervously as he looked at me coughing a bit.

Damn it why did he have to be so cute!

“So yeah....”, He said with a chuckle ,” I’m gonna go and head over-”

I cut off his sentence with a warm kiss as I gripped his coat.

He was shocked but slowly kissed me back.

I then pulled away with a sigh.

“I know you called him over and why. He told me everything”, I said with a smile as I noticed him look a bit surprised to hear me say this.

“What you did was really sweet and the best gift I could have from you, I love you.”, I said as I hugged him tightly, not wanting to ever let go from him.

Before long he hugged me back, saying those same words.

“I love you too, Merry Christmas baby.....”

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

{AUTHORS NOTE}:

Hey Guys and Merry Christmas to everyone who is reading this or not!!!!

Hope you guys have an amazing holiday whether it is with your family or friends or whoever you celebrate and however you do it!!

🖤I HOPE ANYONE THAT’S READING LIKED IT AS WEll AND LOVE YOU.🖤

IF ANY ONE WANTS TO ASK ME FOR SOMETHING TO WRITE WITH THE MEMBERS OF  MOTLEY CRUE OR THE DIRT VERSION OF IT.  HERE’S THE LIST FOR ANYONE THAT WANTS TO REQUEST SOMETHING FROM ME.

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[avengerscompound]

The Tower: Family - 8

The Tower: Family An Avengers Fanfic

Series Masterlist PREVIOUS //

Pairing:  Avengers x OFC, Bruce Banner x Bucky Barnes x Clint Barton x Wanda Maximoff x Steve Rogers x Natasha Romanoff x Tony Stark x Thor x Sam Wilson x OFC (Elly Cooper)

Word Count: 1534

Warnings:  Pregnancy

Synopsis: With new powers, Thor now living on Earth full time, a wedding to plan, and Natasha and Wanda expecting, a lot is changing for Elly and her large and rather unconventional family.  When Elise’s parents try to reestablish connections, Elly questions what being a family actually means.

Chapter 8: Return to the Tower

Our honeymoon was over too soon, though I couldn’t pretend I wasn’t missing my babies like crazy.  We picked them and the puppies up from Sam’s sister and took them straight to the tower.

It was strange going back to the tower but not in a bad way.  I had a lot of happy memories attached to the building.  This was where I fell in love with my family.  Going up in the elevator, all of us crammed together - we were going home.

The elevator opened up right into the penthouse.  It was a huge open space, the ceiling seemed to start at what would be normally two stories above us and funneled up as it got to the window on the opposite side, so it was several stories of glass overlooking the city and acted as the focal point of the room.  Closest to the window was an open circular sitting area that had a modern chandelier hanging over it.  It was slightly raised and there were plenty of seats for all of us and more to sit around, and despite how large it looked, it also looked cozy and inviting.  In the center of the space, a glass spiral staircase led to the upper floors, and running down the middle of it was a glassed-in fountain, the water running right down the glass.  My immediate thought seeing it was that it would be a great place to put the glass Thor and I had inadvertently made.

Directly to the left and right of the elevator were rooms split into two levels each with stairs running up in a curve along the lower level.  The bottom level of each was a solid wall with large dark wood doors, while the top levels had glass walls.  Along with sculptures and other decorative pieces, there were various paintings, photographs on the solid walls.  None matched and yet they all worked together.  It included things like a Monet, photographs of the city skyline from the early 40s, artwork featuring the Avengers that you could find in poster form at Walmart, and photos we’d taken of each other or the kids, printed onto canvas.

“Alright, so,” Tony said as we spilled into the entryway.  The puppies immediately just took off, running around and sniffing everything.  “On the left, there’s a cinema room on the bottom and games and playroom on the top.  On the right is the kitchen and above it a home gym.”

He led us toward the sitting area.  “The bedrooms are all upstairs,” he said as we passed the stairs.  “I cut the number for us down to just three.  One big family one and two spares for when we might need space.  There are more kids’ rooms and a nursery.”  We reached the sitting area which brought the rest of the space into view.  On the right was a dining area with a large glass table and a bar at the far end.  To the left was some more entertaining space. Couches, a big-screen TV, and a grand piano.  “There are bathrooms at either end and obviously more upstairs.  What do you think?”

“It’s perfect, Tony,” Steve said.

Clint collapsed down on one of the couches and put his feet on the coffee table.  “I think to celebrate our triumphant return to the city, we should order a bunch of pizza.”

“What a surprise that you’d suggest that, Clint?”  Natasha said, sitting down next to him.

“What?  Pizza is good,” Clint argued.

“You heard the man, FRIDAY,” Tony said.  “You know what we like.”

“Yes, sir,” the AI replied.

“Where’s dis?”  Riley asked as she walked over to the window and pressed her face against it.

“This is our new home,” Tony answered.  “What do you think?”

“Dis isn’t home,” Pietro said.  “No…”

“Oh, honey,” Bruce cooed, going down on one knee and drawing Pietro close with one large green hand.  “We still have the other house and this one means you get to go to a nice school.”

“But I wike da outside.  Dis too high up,” Pietro sobbed, his lip quivering.  “And my books.”

“Come here, bumblebee,” Bruce said, scooping him up.

Pietro started crying and hid his face in Bruce’s arm.  “I wanna go home.”

Bruce carried Pietro over to the window.  “Your books and toys and clothes are all in your bedroom.  We can take you to the park and look - look at all the things you can see up here.”

Pietro poked his head up from where he was hiding it in Bruce’s arm.  “So much,” he said in a hushed voice.

“Pretty cool, huh, buddy?”  Clint said.  “And there’s a garden just downstairs with a slide and even a pool.  We can go there every day with the puppies.”

“This is where your new brothers and sisters will be born and where you’ll start making lots of friends who are your age,” Bruce soothed.

“Kids?”  Riley asked.

“Daddy Tony worked really hard on your bedrooms too,” Bruce said.

“It’s true,” Tony agreed.  “Your bed is up in the roof and has a special walkway to it, so it looks like your bed is in a tree.  And Riley’s looks like a pirate ship.  And if you don’t want to sleep in different rooms, that’s okay, because the wall can move the wall and you’ll be in the same room.”

“An’ my books are hewre?”  Pietro asked.

“Yeah, all your books are here,” Bruce assured him.  “Will you give it a go?  For us?” 

“Otay,” Pietro said, softly.

“Why don’t we all have a nice movie night?”  Steve suggested.  “We can make some popcorn and eat our pizza while we watch Frozen.”

“Yeah!”  Riley said, bouncing over to him.  Steve scooped her up and spun her upside down, making her squeal loudly and a breeze pick up in the room.

“Then let's go make some popcorn!”  He carried her out to the kitchen, and Bruce followed after him carrying Pietro.”

“So, how’s this gonna work?”  I asked, taking a seat on the couch.  “I mean, staff wise and going into work.”

“Well for starters, you’re not doing Avengers stuff while you’re pregnant, so you don’t have to worry about going into work,” Tony said, folding his arms over his chest.

“If I knew you were going to be such a pest, I wouldn’t have said yes,” I snarked.

Clint snorted.  “Like you didn’t know he was going to be like that.”

“We all do agree though.  You guys need to take it easy while you’re pregnant.  No missions and backing off on the training,” Sam said.  “Even Nat.”

Natasha shrugged.  “It’s true.”

“Traitor,” I pouted.

“The labs are still here, including your one,” Tony said.  “You can still do that, and I’m going to focus more on R&D over Avenging too.”

“Fine,” I huffed.

Clint started laughing and he put his arm around me and pulled me close.  “You’re worse than the twins.”

“The landing bay for the Quin is directly under the garden,” Tony said.

“And there are offices here as well as the training arena.  So we’ll keep up with what we can here, and when we’re needed we’ll use the Quin,” Sam said.  “Probably one or two of us will go over to the compound every day, but by Quin, it’s only a half-hour.  Hopefully, it starts running without us being there all the time and we’ll just be desk-jockeys unless it’s something big.  And then with all the new enhanced popping up, hopefully, we can basically bow out of the hero-ing game and focus on the training and parenting game.”

“That’ll be good,” Bucky hummed, stretching back on the couch and putting his hands over his head.  “Maybe I can go back to school.”

“That would be wonderful, Bucky,” Wanda said.  “This could be a chance for all of us to get the things we missed out on.”

I smiled and hummed, curling into Clint’s side.  “We’ll almost be normal.”

“There ain’t nothing normal about us,” Clint said, pulling me close.

“We may not be normal, but we are happy,” Thor said.  “That is better.”

“Yeah, it is, you big softie,” Sam teased.  Thor laughed, pulling Sam close and kissing his cheek.

“The pizza has arrived, do you want security to bring it up?”  FRIDAY announced.

“Yes, please, FRIDAY,” Sam said,

Steve came out holding both the twins and he was followed by Bruce who had a huge bowl of popcorn in one hand and a box of soda’s under his arm.  “Come on you lot,” Steve announced.  “Time to have some family time with our kiddos, who we missed so much.”

The kids giggled and kicked their legs and we all got up and followed after them.  The pizza arrived as we were heading into the cinema room.  Clint and Sam collected it and Bucky called the dogs along.  They immediately followed him into the darkened room thanks to his new powers and jumped up onto the recliners with the kids.  As I settled into the large reclining seat and Wanda tucked herself into my side, pulling a blanket over both of us, I relaxed.  It was good to finally be home.

// NEXT

[hankwritten]

Litany

Gen, 2k

Part of the DontNeedADiscord Pride Week, Day 1: Flag

“And what is the meaning of these?”

It was a good idea not to make Miss Helen pissy. She was the Boss around here, and not in the way Miss Pauling was the boss, but like the Boss with a capital B. I wasn’t exactly sure if she owned the building, or maybe the company, or maybe she was just our lawyer so we shouldn’t tee her off because of that, but the way Dell had explained it making her mad was a good way to have your desk packed by the end of the day.

So, I’d have to be very delicate about this. “They’re pins, Miss Helen,” I explained extremely politely. “It’s the first day of Pride Month; I thought everyone could do with a little company spirit!”

“Spirit?” The T on the end of the word popped like a firecracker. Miss Helen could make nice words like spirit or rainbows sound like she was actually saying dog doody. “And how exactly do these pins make you…prideful?”

“They’re fun!”

When she didn’t react, I at first assumed it was because she couldn’t hear me so well through my respirator, but then I considered what I knew about her and wondered maybe she simply didn’t know what fun was.

“Look,” I said, placing one in the palm of her hand. “It has a flag on it! I was thinking as people are coming in during the day, they can pick them out and wear them if they want to, just to show off a little color. See? This one is the bigender flag.”

She held it up and examined it like a jeweler inspecting a diamond. “And you find this…fun?

“Yeah!”

She waited, as though expecting the fun to start radiating out of the pin like a hand warmer. “…You certainly have quite a few of these.”

It was true. Along with the usual lollipops and stickers I kept at the front desk (the former being exclusively for clients and never-ever for sneaking myself one, no siree), the scattering of buttons took up a good chunk of counter space, with as many varieties as I could find. I didn’t want anyone to feel left out, so I’d just kept on printing until I had over three dozen.

“Very well,” Miss Helen said finally. “If it is good for company spirit.”

I clapped my hands in delight, glad the party wasn’t going to get shut down before it even started. So palpable was my relief, I didn’t even notice that Miss Helen hadn’t given the button back.

I didn’t have time to worry about it though, since just then Dr. Ludwig came in through the glass doors. He was normally the first one after me, as he always liked to get an early start down in the lab, and we’d developed a morning routine as fellow early birds.

“Dr. Ludwig!” I said, waving my hand, partly to get his attention and partly to show off the new gloves Dell had gotten me. The rubber ones had been so hard to type in, but these were nice and concealing as well as colorful. “Happy Pride Month! Do you want a pin?”

“Guten Morgen,” he greeted warmly. “Ah, buttons?” He picked up the closest one. “Pride buttons, I see.”

“Here you go!” I said, shoving a bi pin in his general direction since he’d shown interest.

But, to my surprise, he didn’t take it immediately. “Ehrm…” he said, staring down at the circle of metal.

“…Is this not the right one?” I withdrew my hand. Was I misremembering? “I’m so sorry, I guess I forgot…”

“No, no I did say that, didn’t I.” He ran a hand through his hair, sending its usual prim style haywire. “It is just…” He coughed lightly into his fist. “…Would you allow me to confide with you for a moment?”

Immediately, I pulled out the spare footstool I kept behind the counter, patting it as Dr. Ludwig came through the counter doors and took a seat. Our early morning chats were normally something to look forward to, shared over a donut or coffee he’d brought into the office, but today he just seemed run down. As he tucked his heels onto the stool’s crossbar, he rubbed his face.

“You know I am not as…up on all of this as some of your generation, ja?” he began.

“Millennials scare you,” I nodded, pulling my legs into my swivel chair.

“I wouldn’t go so far as to say that,” he huffed. “It is…well when we had our first conversations, and it was explained to me, it seemed to fit. At the time. Having to reconcile beginning a relationship with Mikhail when I still was not quite over Frida, nor really sure why things had fallen apart with us there.”

I remembered. “At the time? But not anymore?”

He sighed, ruffling his hair even more. “Now…now I am not so sure. Being with Mikhail is…quite different than any of the thirty years Frida and I spent together. I am starting to wonder if it was more just that I held extreme affection for her, and I was inexperienced enough that I was able to mistake it for attraction.” He chuckled humorlessly. “I thought I was so in love with her, and that’s why I never even looked at another woman. Töricht.”

“I don’t think that’s dumb,” I shook my head. “Everybody’s learning new things all the time. You can’t be expected to have everything sorted right after coming out.”

“Yes, I suppose,” he said. “But I still feel…guilty I think. Several of our coworkers are proudly attracted to both men and women, and I am aware that treating such a label as a ‘phase’ is a crude stereotype they have to deal with. I’d rather not have anyone think I was making a mockery of them.”

“It’s not a stereotype if that’s what’s really happening.” I patted him on the shoulder. “No one’s going to see it like that. If you think that’s where your journey is taking you, then there’s no shame coming out a second time.”

Dr. Ludwig responded to my words with a hopeful, if not entirely convinced, look behind his spectacles.

“Here,” I said, handing him both a bi and a gay pin. “You don’t have to wear either of them, this is just for fun after all! But if you change your mind…”

He looked at the two pins in his hand, then smiled tiredly up at me. “…Thank you mein friend. You are always helpful to talk to.”

“I try to be!”

After a few more assurances, the Doctor did eventually leave for the lab. Right on his coattails, Dell and Marcel came through the front door.

“Hey there, firebug,” Dell greeted. “What are you gettin’ up to here?”

I gave the quick rundown, pulling my shirt to highlight my own pin since I’d forgotten to show it off to my first two customers. “Pick any one you like!”

“Bear in mind I am saying this as a queer person,” Marcel said, sniffing down at the massive mound of multicolored circles, “this is all quite tacky.”

“Aw, learn how to have some fun, Spook,” Dell said, elbowing him in the side. To show him up, he claimed a pansexual pin for himself, and shot me a wink.

Marcel did nothing but sniff; but, when he thought no one was looking, I saw him discreetly sneak one of the pins off the counter as he left.

After that, the morning’s influx picked up too much to greet every person individually, but during lunch people saw fit to swing by and check things out again.

“Hi buddy!” Miss Pauling greeted. “I heard you were giving out Pride pins and wanted to see if- why are there so many lesbian ones?”

“Well!” I said, ecstatic to launch into an information dump. “The oldest of these is actually the ‘lipstick lesbian’ flag which, in absence of a more generic one, was used without the kiss mark in the corner. The one with the orange stripes wasn’t created until 2018, to be more inclusive all different lesbian groups.”

“Okay, but why does this one have an axe on it?”

“That’s the labrys!” I took the purple and black pin from her hand, pointing as I described, “the double bearded axe was used by the Amazons in Greek myth, and reappropriated in 1999 for its symbolism in female empowerment.”

“Wow,” she blinked down at the five different designs. “That’s really cool, except for the fact I have no idea how to use an axe.”

“I bet Tavish could teach you, he loves his Skullcutter.”

“…I’ll think about it. I’ll just take this one for now.” She picked up the orange five-stripe variation and pinned it to her purple shirt.

“Looks good!”

“Thanks!” she grinned. “And it was really nice of you to do this.”

“Honestly, the pleasure’s all mine. I just like seeing everyone happy.”

And everyone was! At least it sure seemed that way, even if it was kind of hard to tell with Mikhail. After lunch, he lumbered past my desk, picked out a gay pin, and put it on without so much as a smile. I took the muted grunt to be that of satisfaction

Tavish was next, dropping off half a roast beef sandwich since I’d forgotten to eat today, and instantly becoming my favorite person. While I was chowing down, he swiped two trans and two bi pins from my collection.

“Wadda you need two of each for?” I asked, quite a feat with my mouth full of roast beef and my respirator hanging halfway around my chin.

“Haven’t you heard?” Tavish asked with a raise of his eyebrow. “They just dropped a new identity: double bi. It’s twice as potent as regular bisexuality.”

I tilted my head, blinking perplexedly from behind my lenses.

“Ah, just a joke duck,” he assured. “The spares are for the husband.”

“Oh, right.” I swallowed down my mouthful. “I actually haven’t seen Jane at all today?”

“Ach, he came in earlier than you. Left at five this morning.”

“What? How?” I shook my head. “I’m the one who unlocks the doors.”

“Said he was tired of waiting for your ‘lazy, unpatriotic behind’ to start the day at seven. His words, not mine.” Tavish smiled apologetically. “He broke into one of the lab side doors.”

“…I bet Mikhail had something to say about that.”

He sighed. “That he did. They’ve been at it for hours. If there’s another office-wide prank war tomorrow, you’ll know why.”

Oh no. That’s how we lost our last two coffee makers, and our last seven office hamsters. Tavish assured me that it wouldn’t get out of hand, but by the time Mick showed up near the end of the day, my mood was somewhat dampened.

“Everything alroight, Campfire?” he asked me. “Ya look glum.”

“Just thinking about the impending damage to all those nice posters I put up in the breakroom,” I said sadly. “But! If you’ve come here to pick out a pin, that might cheer me up a bit.”

Mick chuckled in that cute little way of his, and already I was smiling. “Might have.”

We were close enough that I was ninety-five percent certain which one he wanted, but I’d learned my lesson with Dr. Ludwig and didn’t try to pick it out for him. Still, I let myself entertain a self-satisfied grin as he picked up the aroace flag.

“Hey uh,” I said. “If that’s the one you like, and uh…since I know you’re into archery…”

Carefully, I opened one of my drawers and extracted the special pin I’d made earlier, Mick watching me curiously all the while.

“Someone on the internet made this design,” I explained. “It’s for an aroace, arrow-ace!”

The flag was blacked out in several places to make a bow and arrow shape, and Mick grinned as he took it from my glove. “Clever.”

“Do you like it?” I asked hesitantly.

“Well, let’s see.” He pinned it to his vest. “Looks pretty good ta me.”

I couldn’t keep my stomach from doing a little flip at that. When Dell showed up, the last to leave the office for the day, he could tell I was smiling even through the mask.

“Everything go well, partner?” he chuckled. “You look pleased as punch.”

“Everything went great! Even Scout came by, although all he did was say ‘hey, free crap!’ and dumped a bunch of pins into his pocket.”

“I’m glad to hear the attempt at company spirit was a success,” a voice from behind Dell said, making us both jump. Miss Helen emerged from the shadows, her purple jacket an entire mass of pride pins, nearly one of every kind. When had she gotten all those? Had she been paying Marcel to sneak them out while I wasn’t looking? “A happy work environment is a productive work environment, as I always say. Well done, secretary.”

“Can’t remember you ever saying that, ma’am,” Dell admitted blandly.

“…Why do you have so many?” I asked.

“These are…fun…are they not?” she sniffed. “I am having…fun.”

Huh. Maybe this is just what she looked like when she was having a good time. I shrugged. “Glad you enjoyed yourself Miss Helen! Does that mean it’s okay to do it again next year?”

“…You have my permission.”

With that, she strutted out, and Dell shot me a grin. I scooped the remaining pins into my bag and closed up the front office, chatting with him on the way to the parking lot about how we could mix things up next year.

[anotheronechicagobog]

The Crackship Sails to Molly’s - Hailey Upton x Kim Burgess - Strain

written by @anotheronechicagobog​

Instead of her alarm clock, it was the sound of retching in the bathroom that woke Kim up. She sighed, pinching her brows together. She didn’t need to ask why Hailey didn’t wake her up when she wasn’t feeling well, she’d been dating her long enough to know the answer. She grabbed a glass of water, a ginger ale from the fridge and a hair tie from their dresser. After tying back Hailey’s knotted and sweaty hair she sat on the bathtub next to her, rubbing her back. “Do you think you’re well enough to try some water? A ginger ale? We should get some fluids into you.”

“I’m-”

“And don’t you dare say that you’re ‘fine’.”

“... Let me wash out the taste of vomit in my mouth and then I’ll try the ginger ale.”

“Okay.”

“Thank you.”

“Of course, Hailey, you know that-”

“No, I really just... Thank you. For taking care of me, for loving me, for everything. I love you.”

“I love you too.”

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

The ginger ale did not help, nor did the medicine she’d been able to keep down. Her fever spiked, she was so flushed her skin was an irritated pink, she’d gotten dizzy, and she started to hallucinate a talking dog wearing a lion costume. Kim had managed to corral her into the car but nothing, not even Dr. Choi when they got to MED, could calm her down. Her fiance was getting sicker and sicker and nothing was going to be able to quell the panic and fear inside of her. So she sat at Hailey’s beside, curled up in an awful chair, letting her tears flow freely as she cradled the hand of her unconscious soulmate. “Hey, Kim. I got your text. And pizza for you.”

“Pizza, Jay? Really?”

“Hailey would maim me if she found out I didn’t take care of you when she couldn’t. Seriously, we actually made a pact. So eat your food, drink this bottle of water and get ready to be fussed over. She’s gonna make it.”

“How do you know?”

“She’s my best friend, we’ve been through so much together that there’s no other option for me. She’s going to make it, she has to.”

“She has to.”

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

Hailey had woken up the next day, but only momentarily. She’d mumbled something about dancing tulips and promptly passed out again. Kim and Jay laughed lightly at her expense, but they were mostly just relieved that she was getting better. Her fever was down and according to Dr. Choi that was really good news. They wouldn’t be able to tell if the dizziness or nausea had dissipated until she woke up, but the fact that she was waking up was amazing. She’d caught a nasty strain of the flu, it was so bad and unusual that the CDC had to get involved. Study her treatment, interview close friends, get samples from Hailey. The works. They were actually starting to get pretty concerned about all the blood tests and tissue samples they needed when Will showed up with an explanation, the strain of flu that Hailey has isn’t from the U.S. so it was slightly different than the strains they’re used to treating, at that point they were just trying to determine where it was from and if they needed to be concerned about an outbreak. 

So Kim and Jay calmed down a bit. They were still worried, but having Will there to decipher all of the doctor speak, it was a little easier. When her fever broke they were approached by one of the CDC doctors who had been observing Hailey’s case. They could both tell from the look on her face that this was not going to be a pleasant conversation. “Detectives Burgess and Halstead, I’m afraid I have bad news. We have determined the origin of the strain that has infected Detective Upton. It’s from England, and it’s a unique strain because it appears to have been formed overtime from a few different strains from different countries, not uncommon in people who travel frequently without adequate vaccinations. We have determined a course of action, but unfortunately might be too late. The antibiotics that she needs need to start being taken within 72 hours. It’s been 61. And the closest antibiotics we could get are in London, England. It’s an eight hour flight and they have to go through customs and the FDA and they just might not get here in time. I’m sorry.”

“No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. She can’t- Why- No-” Tears were streaming down Kim’s face and she fell back into her chair. “This can’t be happening, we’re supposed to be together, have more time together. More time. Just a little more time, please.” Jay was standing beyond Kim’s chair, watching with a fractured soul as she stroked his best friend’s face and begged her to wake up. When suddenly, it dawned on him. “Dr. Tamara, do the antibiotics have to arrive on a commercial plane?”

“Well, no, but a private plane wouldn’t be faster and would cost a lot more money.”

“What about a military plane?” Hope was starting to creep into his desperate features, and instead of meeting sorrowful silence, he was met with mirroring spirits. “I don’t have those kinds of connections to make that happen, but if you do that would absolutely work.”

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

Jay managed to get the antibiotics on a military passenger/cargo flight from London to Chicago, almost halving the time everything would’ve taken. Kim hadn’t stopped hugging and thanking him since he got off the phone with an air force buddy he’d done a couple of operations with while he was in the rangers. The meds had been given with four hours to spare, so now both detectives were just a pile of nerves, antsy to see Hailey open her eyes. “For the last time Kim, you don’t need to thank me. Hailey’s important to me too, okay? I haven’t been holding onto that ring for her for the past four months for nothi- Shit.”

“... Ring?”

“Yes.”

“An engagement ring?”

“Yeah.” Kim turned back to the love of her life, happiness shining through for the first time in days, “you better wake up, Hailey Ann Upton. How am I gonna say ‘yes’ if you don’t even ask me?”

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

Hailey woke up, and was lucid. Kim and Jay were trying so hard not to overwhelm her. So when Intelligence and firehouse 51 had stopped by they just smiled gratefully and accepted all of the get-well-soon gifts that were offered and sending everyone on their way. When Jay re-entered the hospital room after accepting a batch of cookies and containers of lasagna from the ever angelic Cindy Hermann, he found Kim and Hailey curled up in bed together. Smiling, whispering and just enjoying being in each other’s arms again. Kim blushed at his chuckles and Hailey grinned sheepishly. “I needed a cuddle from my favourite girl, Jay, what can I say?”

“She gave me her puppy-dog eyes. I had no choice.”

“Yeah,” he looked at Kim meaningfully, implying her to remember their conversation about Hailey’s not-so-secret intentions, “you didn’t really stand a chance.”

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

Jay dropped the two women off at their apartment a week later after Hailey had finally been discharged. “Thanks for dropping us off Jay, I appreciate it. And Hailey, you still have to take it easy, I’ll go put your hospital bag away and order some food and after Jay heads out we’ll have a Mamma Mia! Marathon, okay?”

“Alright, well my work here is almost done then.” He was met with two sets of raised eyebrows, so he turned his teasing smirk to his partner. “Someone has to make sure you don’t get up unsupervised while Kim’s in the other room.”

“Smart thinking, Halstead.”

“Hey! I’m capable of taking care of myself.” Kim jogged to the bedroom in a fit of laughter, leaving Hailey and Jay alone for a few moments. Jay leaned his body out to look down the hallway and make sure that Kim was out of earshot before he turned back to Hailey. She looked better than she did before, her pallor was back to normal, her eyes were vibrant, and she was glowing in happiness and relief, though her movements were still lapsed and slow. Jay reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the navy velvet ring box and placed it into her confused but waiting hand. “I accidentally let it slip when you were in the hospital. You should’ve seen her face when she caught on, she loves you. So much, and if these past couple of weeks have taught us anything, it’s that you don’t have the time you think you do. Ask her, she’ll say yes. I guarantee it.” After a one-armed hug with a shocked Hailey, Jay shouted a goodbye to Kim before taking his leave.

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

They’d finished the first movie and were about to put in the second, but Hailey hadn’t even noticed, she’d spent most of that time staring at Kim.

“Hails? Are you okay? Do I need to call Dr. Tamara?”

“I... I’ve tried writing speeches and planning exactly what to say, but I can’t because you’re too amazing to capture with words. Nothing ever seems good enough. And I have to be honest, I love that, because it means that I love you so much I can’t even fully comprehend it. And I know that you feel the same way, too. Kim, will you marry me?”

Hailey revealed the box from behind her and opened it up to show her the ring. Her heart was hammering in chest so hard and she just couldn’t force her eyes away from Kim’s face and the wistful tears accumulating in her eyes that mixed with the beaming smile she just loved to see.

“Yes!”

[hello-im-not-a-possum]

It takes a pack to raise a pup

“This is bad... What am I going to do?!” The gofer nervously paced around the infirmary, clutching the bitten arm in his hand before turning to face the Janitor “Please tell me that this is just a bad joke!” He pleaded “Please tell me that this is just a mistake...”

“Sorry ta break it to ya Bud.” The janitor lowered his cap down in sympathy. “But I ain’t jokin’ and I ain’t wrong about this: dat ova here is definitely a werewolf bite. I should know, I saw what my table an’ chair legs looked like after my first few full moons.”

As this was a very serious situation, he forced himself to hold back his laughter at the intrusive memory of his wife telling him that her solution to keeping him from turning the furnature into his chew toys was to swat his snout with a rolled up newspaper every time he ignored his bones and squeaky toys in favor of the table legs. This resulted in him letting out a noise that sounded like a cough.

“B-but what about my Ma and Grandpa?! They don’t even know that monster stuff goes down in the studio! How am I supposed to explain to them that every month, I’m going to turn into a blood-thirsty monster!?”

“If ya don’t wanna tell ‘em, they don’t have ta know.” Wally shrugged. “A lotta wolves don’t tell even their closest family members.”

“What if my Ma questions why all my clothes are getting ripped up?! What if Grandpa finds out when he sees me turn for the first- Oh no... WHAT IF I BITE THEM?! WHAT IF I EAT THEM AFTER I TURN?! WALLY, WHAT IF I END UP KILLING THEM?!”

Buddy felt sick to his stomach as he slumped down to the floor, Wally sat down next to him and patted his back.

“Hey Buddy, you’re gonna be fine. Trust me! There’s a ton of werewolves here at dis studio, none of us would mind showin’ ya the ropes or givin’ ya some good advice for dealin’ with this. Who knows, it might even be a little fun ta get a new pup in the pack.”

“Uuuugggggghhhhhhhhh...”

The Janitor’s words and smile didn’t reassure the nervous gofer, if anything, hearing that he and Wally weren’t the only wolves in the studio made Buddy wonder if the monster that bit him last week was one of his own coworkers. As he thought about it, The wiry music director who was in a constant state of irritation seemed like he was a good candidate to be the wolf who bit him...

He would be lying if he said he couldn’t imagine the man sinking those sharp teeth of his into a human being’s flesh.

“Buddy, c’mon, look at me. It’s gonna be okay, I’m not gonna lie to you, changing is always scary the first few times but you don’t have to do it alone. I can rally up the pack if ya need all of us or I can just keep this between you and me, but no matta what happens, I’ve got your back.”

“Thanks Wally...” He sighed as he still dreaded what was to come. “How soon can you get them?”

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

“Ta-daaaaa! Welcome to werewolves not-so-anonymous!”

Wally unfurled the crudely-made banner as Buddy walked into the break room, Susie clapped, Henry smiled and gave a friendly wave, and Lacie looked bored and unamused but gave a thumbs up and a half smile.

The gofer let out a sigh of relief that he didn’t know he was holding in. Wally alone could’ve been an outlier among werewolves but not all of them. He knew most of these people; the voice actress was hands down one of the most infectiously cheerful people he’d ever met, The Head Artist was a patient and kind man who the gofer looked up to as both an artist and a father figure, and while he didn’t know the mechanic very well aside from the facts that she wasn’t the most friendly or social of people, she didn’t seem half bad.

These people weren’t monsters, he wasn’t a monster.

“Alright, I know a some of us here already know each other but others don’t so lets start ourselves off with some introductions. Who’s going first?”

“Okay. Hi, I’m Buddy, I’m the studio’s gofer and I got bitten pretty recently so I’m kinda scared about all of this...”

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

On the day of the full moon, Henry rented a van with the intent to take the werewolf pack to a cabin in the woods so that Buddy’s first transformation would be in a secluded area.

“So how’d your folks take it?” Lacie inquired to break the silence. “They didn’t look happy when we picked you up.”

“They took it better than I expected, I guess?” The gofer sighed “I mean, my ma seemed pretty scared, but she seemed more scared for me than scared of me.”

“Yeah, that tends to happen...” Henry nodded.

“Guys, I have a question”

“Go for it.”

“If Sammy’s not a werewolf, then why is he coming with us? Wont he get turned?”

The music director rolled his eyes and took a very long sip from his coffee, he also wasn’t looking forward to tonight but for a very different reason.

“Nah... Don’t worry.” Lacie laid back and stuck her boots up on the dashboard. “Hell’s Songbird is cursed with something else so he’s immune to lycanthropy.”

Nobody noticed that the man had flinched at Lacie’s statement.

“...Is he basically an unofficial member of the pack?”

Wally and Susie’s eyes lit up at the question and they smiled at each other before answering.

“Yes.”

“Definitely.”

“Absolutely.”

Wally broke down laughing as Susie broke out her stage voice, even Buddy let out a soft chuckle at her dramatic movements.

“The grumpy banjo man is indeed the pack’s loyal brother, not by blood or spirit, but by true love-”

Said grumpy banjo man turned to face the back seat, the regular irritation in his voice gave way to a sarcastic, deadpan tone.

“If you people genuinely think I ‘love’ getting chewed, slobbered on, roughhoused with, pounced on, and ripped apart by a pack of near-mindless wild animals almost every single month, then you’ve probably been huffing too many ink fumes.”

“Yeah, yeah, so bein’ the ‘designated driver’ of da group isn’t always fun... But ya do it ‘cause you looooooooooove us!”

Henry sighed in a mix of annoyance and acceptance in a way that implied he knew exactly what was going to happen next.

“I’m a married man.” Sammy continued to deadpan. “I thought you knew that by now.”

This response only egged Wally on.

“Psssst! He’s not denyin’ it!” The janitor stage-whispered “So it must be true!”

“Shut UP Franks.”

Sammy huffed and crossed his arms, but not denying Wally’s statement, which led to a loop of Wally’s teasing and Sammy’s fruitless attempts to shut the conversation down, which was only ended by reaching their destination.

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

Buddy felt goosebumps as the van pulled up to the cabin and the sun slowly started to dip down.

“Here we are.”

“Finally! I swear, every single car ride I have with that. walking. headache. becomes the longest one I’ve ever endured.”

“Hey!”

The cabin itself probably looked like a much more warm and inviting place during midday, but as the shadows of the trees started to cast down on the humble little abode, it looked almost sinister. Although, that could’ve just been Buddy’s imagination working against him.

He hoped it was just his imagination working against him.

“Fuck, it’s gettin’ dark real fast.” The mechanic remarked as she looked at the sky. “Should we slap the meat on the grill now or just wait after we change and eat it raw?”

“We should wait.” The animator replied. “At this rate, if we try to cook it we’ll change before it’s halfway done.”

Buddy helped carry things into the cabin; a cooler, a couple of blankets, a duffle bag filled with dog toys and bones, they all seemed like reasonable items, but he couldn’t deny he felt something was missing.

“Hey Sammy, you’re looking out for us after we change, right?”

“Unfortunately.”

“So where are the ropes and chains? And isn’t there supposed to be bear traps and tranquilizers or something like them?”

The musician raised an eyebrow at the gofer.

“...Why would we need those?”

“...To tie us up and keep us from killing people?”

Sammy’s Jaw dropped at Buddy’s suggestion.

“Holy fucking shit... kid, you’re not turning into a monster, you’re just becoming a glorified puppy.”

“But you said it yourself, you get ripped up!”

“So?” Sammy scoffed. “That’s just what all dogs do.”

“He’s more of a cat person than a dog person.” Susie called out from the kitchen “Take everything he says about werewolves with a grain of salt.”

“Easy for you to say!” Sammy called back. “You’re not the one who had to cover over ninety-seven miles in different directions to round up a bunch of whimpering wolves because SOMEONE decided to set off a bunch of firecrackers just as the moon rose!”

“Hey!” Wally called out. “I said I was sorry!”

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

It was time.

Like it or not, he was going to become a beast.

He knew the others’ own transformations were happening right now, he heard their bones snapping and cracking, the changing shadows cast on the floor as he dashed to his own room praying that he’d make it in time.

In the madness, he saw a glimpse of what Sammy’s curse was. He wished he didn’t see that, it would’ve so much easier to trust Sammy’s protection if he didn’t know that burden of the musician’s curse was like a werewolf’s curse except the ‘wolf’ part was scratched off and replaced with something else. The chill that ran down his spine when his eyes met the monster’s also didn’t help.

Buddy locked himself in his room, quickly taking off his clothes so they wouldn’t get ripped during the change and wrapping himself up in the provided blankets to keep himself from seeing his own transformation.

His heart pounded against his chest as he heard someone whimpering and scratching at the door on the other side.

“Focus, Buddy...” He tried to reassure himself. “Deep breaths, don’t get scared...”

He highly doubted he’d be lucid for his first full moon, but the idea of losing his mind and becoming a ravenous monster just didn’t sit well with him, So he tried his best to stay ‘awake’.

No matter how hard it was.

The curse started off his own changes with either his skin, his senses, or his mouth. He didn’t know for sure as it felt like all three were happening at once as he spat out a bloody mouthful of his own teeth into his hands and watched fur sprout up all over his arms, the taste and smell of blood in his mouth and on his now paw-like hands, as well as the smells and sounds of everything else in the cabin was overwhelmingly nauseating. 

“D-don’t freak out... the others have been through this lots of times... this is completely normal... Stay calm Buddy...”

He tossed aside the teeth and threw himself deeper into the blanket pile in spite of his body’s increasing temperature and new fur coat. The gofer couldn’t tell if the whimpering he heard was coming from the other wolves scratching at the door or from him.

The next thing the curse went after was everything else; muscles, bones, etc.

It was painful, but at the very least it was fast, he didn’t even have the time to whine for mercy before the malevolent force of the werewolf curse stopped. Buddy let out a sigh of relief as he dug himself out of his blanket cocoon.

He looked at the mirror and saw a frightened looking young wolf, his eyes still looked human and his fur seemed to match the color of his hair. While he didn’t like looking at this and calling it his reflection, he couldn’t help but feel a little bit proud of himself. In spite of fear trying to drive him to the same level as a wild animal, he was still him.

Or so he thought as he was startled by the sound of his door unlocking itself and creaking open.

He let out a yipe and started to bare his teeth and growl at the weird beaked creature that poked its head into his territory. The said creature was not impressed in the slightest and simply came into the room.

Buddy growled louder and snapped his jaws at the creature, his ears laid back and his hackles bristling straight up. While the creature did move away from his bite, it was still not impressed. Out of desperation, he lunged at the black-feathered beast, desperately trying to scare it out but the monster looked like it had dealt with this before as it glided out of the way of his attack and picked him up by the scruff of his neck.

The young wolf flailed, bit, clawed, and snapped at the creature. But he could swear that the beast’s only response to Buddy’s last-ditch efforts to keep himself alive were to roll its eyes and toss the wolf out of the room.

And into the line of sight of two other wolves. Both adults, one of them had pitch black fur, the other one had dark gray fur, but both of them had curious almost human-like eyes.

Thankfully, they smelled familiar to him. Even as a human, he could always recognize the smells of cleaning supplies, bacon soup, and ink. As he got a little bit more used to his new senses, while most of the smells and sounds were still new, and there was too much of it, he could at least identify what they were.

The black wolf came closer to him and sniffed his face before licking it. The other wolf pawed the first wolf’s face away from his own. Assuming that this was just some kind of greeting, Buddy sniffed the first wolf’s face and licked him back, the second wolf let out a noise that sounded like an amused snort.

THUNK

A loud noise from the kitchen that came with a new smell made him realize how hungry he was. Assumingly all thinking the same thing, the three wolves dashed into the kitchen to see the toppled-over cooler being raided by two other wolves. The bird like creature was biting and flapping its wings at them, clearly trying to keep them away from the coveted red meats the cooler held.

“STOP. EATING. PLASTIC!” The creature cried out to deaf ears of the pack. “YOU’RE GOING TO GET YOURSELVES SICK! JUST WAIT FOR ME TO UNWRAP THEM FIRST!”

This tyranny would not stand with the wolves, united as a pack, the five starved beasts joined forces against the giant bird-monster that stayed between them and their food.

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

Buddy woke up groaning with a headache, sore muscles, and an upset stomach the next morning.

Last night was a blur to the gofer, like a dream, the most of what happened during the full moon quickly faded from his mind as he woke up. If it wasn’t for the fact he could still see the bird-monster form of the music director looming over him in the cabin’s rafters, he would’ve chalked the whole thing up to just be a bad dream.

“Sammy?” He groaned. “What happened last night?”

“As soon as I opened the door, all of you ran to the fields instead of the woods.” The music director sounded like he was too tired to be irritated. “I tried to steer you back towards the woods because there was a barn over there, but as usual, none of you listened to me.” Okay, maybe he was still a little bit irritated.

“Oh no... Did I eat anything there?”

“No, but you did get your head stuck underneath a fence and whined until I let you out.”

Buddy blushed in embarrassment as he wrapped his blanket tighter around him.

“Don’t beat yourself up about it, everybody does stupid things the first time they change.”

“So how come you didn’t change back?”

“My curse isn’t determined by the moon, it’s determined by... other things. I don’t like talking about it.”

Sammy wrapped himself up in his wings, ending the conversation.

“G’morning.” Wally set down a fizzing glass of water by Buddy, the Janitor looked more exhausted now than he did after a 12-hour deep clean of the studio. “Ya might wanna drink that, it’ll help with the headache.”

“Thanks Wally.”

He smiled as he sipped down the liquid, while the gofer knew that the changes weren’t going to be easy for him to adjust to, at least he had other people who were willing to help him through it.

[thebookwormfairy]

What if Marinette had a Retired Police Dog as a Pet

@ozmav

This is going to be another Daminette with an au of an au, but Damian doesn't come in until a ways in the story just bare with me.

It's been 2 years since Lila the Liar came back to class and she has successfully turned all of Marinette's classmates against her

Her crush on Adrien has officially fizzled out thanks to him doing absolutely nothing to stand by her as he once promised

She couldn't even turn to Chat because of his increasingly bad attitude towards her when ever she rejects him

He's not even showing up to half the akuma attacks

It's a good thing the attacks are becoming more spaced out

But the Akumas seem to be stronger the more time that passes between attacks

On the bright side with all her new free time she was able to work more on her designs that lead to more work worh Jagged Stone and Clara Nightingale who after seeing Marinette's work with Jagged decided that she needed a piece done by her too

Her parents noticing that their lovely daughter who once was full of sunshine was getting duller by the day so they wanted to try and do something a little bit crazy to cheer her up a bit

So one Saturday they went to the local animal shelter to get Marinette a new friend

Marinette didn't know what to expect when her parents were going to take her but she wasn't expecting the animal shelter

She has to say she's not mad about it

Her life has gotten really lonely lately

She usually would just hang out with Luka and Kagami her only true friends but they've been pretty busy lately

So when she saw the animal shelter she got pretty excited

Marinette: really?

Tom: Really you can get any animal you want?

Tom and Sabine were expecting her to get a cat or maybe one of the rodents that people dropped who didn't realized how much work they were but know so some reason she went to the scary looking German sheperd that was laying in the corner

Marinette couldn't explain it but she just felt drawn to this dog

He seemed just as sad and lonely as she was

Marinette slowly walked up to the giant dog

Marinette: hey there buddy

The dog just raised his head gave her an unimpressed look before laying his head back down

Marinette: I guess you've been here a while huh. I've been alone a while too, but maybe we can be alone together.

The German sheperd looked at this funny little girl that's sitting next to him, not many people even bothered giving him a second look.

They mostly just want to see the puppies the older dogs rarely get adopted, and he wasn't sure he wanted a human not after what happened to his last human

But looking into this girls eyes he saw something in them that was similar to his own. She has seen some much stuff just like him

So even though he may not have wanted a human but it looks like he has one now

He gave the girl a lick on the cheek to show that he wanted to be her dog

Marinette: I'll take that as a yes

Marinette gave him a big hug

Tom and Sabine could see the writing on the wall Marinette has found her dog and he's huge

Sabine waved down an employee to let them know they found the dog they wanted

Employee: oh are you sure? That's Captain he was a police dog.

Tom: Was? What happened?

Employee: He was on the force for 2 years before he lost his partner in a drug bust gone bad. After that he kinda just shut down he wouldn't work with any other officers. And nobody would take him so he ended up here.

Tom and Sabine were a bit worried after hearing that but hearing their daughter laugh as Captain plopped down on her lap washed away all their worries

Tom and Sabine: We'll take him

Captain's bond with Marinette only grew since that day

They did everything they could together

He would even wait for her outside of school when they got out for lunch and to go home

Tom even put a doggy door in so that Captain can pick up Marinette from school

He even has his own dog bed in the bakery where he would lay down while Marinette was at school

Marinette would make him tons of bandanas

Each of them different

A lot of them are police themed

His favorite is a black bandana with a yellow sheriff's badge on it but instead of saying sheriff it says Captain

Captain enjoys just laying on Marinette's lap as she sews and design new clothes

He can always tell when Marinette is down, and would give her a kiss to cheer her up

Captain has tons of toys

He loves squeaky toys and hard toys

He does have a few plush toys but he is a known toy destroyer when it comes to them

Kagami and Luka love him

He tolerates them in return

They make his girl happy so they're okay in his book

Captain loves Tikki though and vice versa

Tikki loves cuddling on top of him and Captain enjoys her belly rubs

She also sneaks him treats when Marinette isn't looking

The class also knows about Captain but they don't like him because he growled at Lila once

Captain can tell a bad person when he sees one he spent his whole puppy hood learning to do that.

He also really doesn't like Adrien

A year and a couple of months after Marinette and Captain found each other Marinette's class was chosen to take a class trip to Gotham

They'll be there 2 weeks at the end of the school year so that they wouldn't miss much work

Marinette was so excited

She gave Luka and Kagami their miraculous to hold for the 2 weeks while she was gone just in case an akuma shows up, but that would be unlikely considering there was an attack just the weekend before she left

The only downside is that she couldn't take Captain with her

They really haven't been separated from her for more than a couple of hours apart, and he is super protective of her so that might stress him out if she just wasn't there one day.

It was decided that Captain would come with her parents to say goodbye at the airport

Captain knew what was going on

They were sending away his girl for who knows how long, and he wouldn't be there to protect her.

Well Captain wasn't having it. His girl isn't going anywhere without him

While Tom and Sabine were distracted he slipped out of his collar (keeping his favorite bandana on) and slipped onto the plane with the TSA agent that was walking on the plane.

He made sure to stay close enough to make it look like he was with the agent but far away enough that the agent didn't notice him.

After he hid under the table in the back of the plane

Captain didn't make his presence know until 2 hours into the flight

If asked he would say it was his plan so they couldn't turn around and take him off the plane but in reality he fell asleep back there and just woke up at the time.

There was chaos when Captain came out

The class was not happy and Lila was crying about how Marinette was just looking for attention and snuck her dog on the plane

Marinette: He's more than half my size how exactly would I be able to sneak him on the plane? How did nobody notice a big random dog on board?

The flight staff feeling a bit embarrassed about being called out on such a big mistake decided to leave it there for now, and luckily for Marinette she had an open seat by her that Captain could sit on.

Once they landed Marinette had to be held back at customes the make sure Captain wouldn't cause a plague to any dog he met while there

One of the teachers stayed behind with her so she wouldn't be alone at the airport in a foriegn countey

After 2 hours and a fax from her parents, and a bathroom break for poor Captain she and Captain was free to go, but thanks to the hold up Marinette missed not only the group dinner they were going to have but was also forced into a room by herself cutting herself off from her classmates even more.

After Marinette had everything unpacked she found her teacher and asked if she could go to a near by pet store so that she could pick up stuff that Captain needed

Ms. Bustier said she could go if she got a buddy to go with her

Marinette tried to ask her classmates

She thought for sure Adrien would at least come with her but no

Everybody said no

Nobody took pity on her

They all agreed with Lila and thought she snuck Captain here for attention

Adrien even lectured her about trying to cause problems for Lila

Well fine then she'll just go by herself

Captain WAS a police dog

He would be able to protect her if something happened

Not the mention she was ladybug she could take care of herself

So leaving the hotel with Captain by her side Marinette felt no fear going out on the night

It was a bit of a walk to the closest pet store, but when they got there it was worth it

The store had absolutely everything that Marinette needed, a collar, leash, dog bowls, dog food, poop bags, dog shampoo, and even had enough money to get him a squeaky toy in the shape of a robin

Marinette spent a lot more time in the store then she thought she would so by the time she left it was way past the time it was consider safe to be out on the streets of Gotham especially when you're a 16 year old girl with her dog and arms full of bags

That's what Damian Wayne was thinking when he saw her walking on the street

He was on his patrol root when he saw the most beautiful girl he ever seen with a dog connect to her hand via a leash

Well Damian couldn't just let a beautiful girl like this walk to wherever she's going by herself so he swung down to the alleyway so he could escort her

Marinette was on high alert

Gotham was a lot different then Paris, while she felt safe even comforted walking through the Parisain nights

But here all she felt was jittery and scared

While passing one of the many dark allies in the city Captain started growling

He got in front of Marinette and growled at the person in the alley

Captain refused to let anybody harm Marinette while he was still around

Damian: Hold of your dog I come in peace.

Damian walked out of the alley with his arms raised to show that he didn't mean any harm

Captain kept growling

Marinette: Oh your Robin aren't you one of Gotham heroes

Captain kept growling

Damian: yes can you please call off your dog

Marinette:oh of course! *Marinette bends down to pet Captain* it's okay Captain he's a good guy. You can stand down

Captain stopped growling but he made sure to stay between his girl and the boy in tights

Damian: you know miss it really isn't safe to be wondering the streets alone at night maybe I can walk you to where you're going

Marinette: Well I wouldn't say no to the company

As they walked back to the hotel the talked about everybody and nothing the conversation just seemed to flow between them. Though Captain made sure to stay between them he was happy that Marinette seemed to found a companion even if it was just for one walk

They said goodbye once they reached the hotel as Marinette went up to his hotel room Damian raced home to hack into her school's itinerary and see if he could somehow meet her again

Jason: What are you doing Demon Spawn

Damian: None of your business Todd

Tim: it looks like he's hacking into some sort of school's schedule

Dick: A French school at that. Are you planning to leave us little bird?

Damian: No and it's still none of your business.

Dick: I know let's hack into into the street cameras and and see if something came up on his patrol

Damian spun around

Damian: YOU SHOULD NOT SO THAT

Jason: Now we have to do it!

Damian: No!

Dick: I'm in! Oh ho who do we have here a little girly stole dear Damian's heart

Tim: Oooo a pretty girl too, and french going by the schedule

Dick: and with a dog definitely an animal lover

Jason: What's her name Demon Spawn?

Damian: Stay out of it you idiots!

Dick: Wait I recognize that school I'm giving them a tour on Wednesday of Wayne Enterprise

Damian: So she's going to be at the building this Wednesday?

Jason: Aw Demon Spawn so happy to see his girlfriend

Damian: SHE'S NOT MY GIRLFRIEND!!!!

Tim: but you want her to be

Dick: you know since she has a dog with her she'll have to walk him, meaning she'll head to the closest park which is just across the street

Jason: And according to this schedule they have a free day tomorrow probably to sleep of the jet lagged

Damian got a look on his face like he was coming up with an evil plan

Bruce who has been in the bat cave with them all this time just shocked his head

That poor girl has no idea what she's accidentally got herself into

The next day Marinette took Captain to the park across the street to give him a nice walk

There she ran into one Mr. Damian Wayne who have been there for an hour now hoping to run into her.

Captain recognize this boys smell from last night and was a bit more calm around him

Damian and Marinette spent hours in the park talking a getting to know each other

It felt like they've know each other all their lives, and not just a couple of hours

Captain even warmed up to him enough to let Damian pet him on the head

For a minute

That's it

Their meet up at the park lead to a coffee date, which lead to an exchanged of numbers

Marinette: Maybe this trip won't be as lonely as I thought

Bonus

Of course Damain's brother were spying on him at the park

Jason: OMFG I CAN'T BELIEVE HOW WELL THIS IS GOING!!!

Tim: I know it seems like she really likes him

Dick: Shut up they're going to hear us!

Damain did hear them and when Marinette wasn't looking he glared in their direction with the clear message that they needed to leave

Bonus Bonus

At one point Marinette and Damian were in a mugging situation with 2 guys

Captain looked down one and Marinette took down the other

At that moment Damian knew he had to marry this girl