shinyrock6498

[shinyrock6498]

Knight Duties by La Draws

[shinyrock6498]

Old habits die hard

[shinyrock6498]

Happy birthday!!! PJO please? Dealers Choice if not

Spring break freshman year, he agrees to go home with Jess to meet her family. The consensus among their friends is that she’s insane for asking and he’s equally insane for saying yes, but he and Jess are on the same page. They fell into each other instantly, a comfort and familiarity with one another that feels like it should have taken decades to build instead happening in mere months. He’s nineteen and in love and he’s trying not to be stupid about it, but every time Jess smiles at him he feels like he’s looking at the rest of his life. He hopes he is, anyway.

“They’re going to hate you,” Brady says. “Don’t take it personally. They hate everyone.”

“They’re scary,” Zach says plainly.

Becky elbows him and corrects, “They’re intense.”

Zach and Brady give her equally dubious expressions.

Luis claps him on the shoulder. “It’s okay, Sam. If it’s any consolation, my dad loves you.”

“My mom would love you if she met you, but I can’t really recommend the experience,” Brady says.

“Our parents probably wouldn’t like you, but they don’t even like us, so I wouldn’t take it personally,” Zach says, then high fives Becky when the rest of them make various noises and expressions of distress. Sam’s pretty sure describing his childhood as neglectful is being kind about it, but at least he never felt like his father’s absence was due to disinterest.

He’s faced down ghosts and werewolves and witches and a whole host of things that were actively trying to kill him at the time. He can handle an uncomfortable weak with Jess’s parents. It helps that she’s already told him straight out that their opinions of him won’t change how she feels about him. Which unfortunately supports the idea that they’re going to hate him, but at least takes some of the pressure off.

Jess comes from money, something he already knew, but driving up to a freaking mansion is still pretty intimidating. Nancy greets Jess warmly and he puts on his most charming smile for her, but it only garners a sniff of disdain. She can probably smell that his clothes are from Walmart and Goodwill, but there’s not anything to be done about that. Besides, he’s used to be looked down on for being poor. Even in those brief periods when Dad was working, hell when all three of them were working, he’s pretty sure they never made it over the poverty line.

Jeff smiles at him like a shark scenting blood in the water and shakes his hand with a crushing grip that Sam refuses to return no matter how badly he wants to. By the time they sit down for dinner, Jess is already irritated and snapping at her parents, who are ignoring it and talking around it with an ease that almost reminds him of Dad.

Jess is an inch shy of six of feet, so her mother being of similar height and her father being several inches above that doesn’t surprise him, although he notes with some vague smugness that Jeff is still a couple inches shorter than him. Jess is athletic, playing several sports and in high school and able to keep up with him on his morning runs when she can pull herself out of bed early enough to join him, and it seems that’s something else she got from her parents.  

“So, Sam,” Jeff says. Jess pauses with a spoon halfway to her mouth to glare. “Do you have any hobbies?”

Sam blinks, because he’d been expecting questions about his family or his degree, not his extracurriculars. “Well, I work at a coffee shop near campus, and tutor on the side, so outside of that and classes and studying I don’t have much time. But I like to read.”

“Read,” he repeats like Sam just cursed at him. “I don’t suppose you speak any foreign languages?”

He almost laughs, but manages to keep a straight face. “Some Spanish and a decent amount of French.” And Latin, Ancient Latin, Ancient Greek, a decent amount of modern Greek, and varying amounts in a smattering other languages long dead and some Japanese curse words he’s picked up from Bobby. But he knows better than to say that.

Jeff’s mouth twists down at the corners. “I see. Have you done any hunting, Sam?”

Wow. He has to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from breaking into tears or laughter. Has he done any hunting? What a question.

He’s about to say he has, because he really has hunted plenty of non-supernatural game, when Jess’s spoon falls to her plate with a clatter, her glare in place. “Dad! Stop it!”

“What?” he says mildly. “I’m just making conversation.”

“You said you were serious about this boy and we’re treating him seriously,” Nancy says, giving her daughter a hard look over her glass of wine. “This is what you wanted.”

“This isn’t what I wanted, I wanted to have a normal dinner with my boyfriend, not,” she cuts herself off, scowling. “That’s it. Sam, come on, we’re leaving.”

“Sweetheart,” Nancy says, while Jeff frowns, “Now there’s no need to be dramatic,” and something clicks into place.

No. No way.

If Dean were here, he’d laugh himself sick.

“My brother and I took down a wendigo last summer,” he says, because if he’s wrong he can pass it off as a joke, but if he’s not then –

Everyone falls silent and their focus is instantly on him, almost burning in intensity. Well. That answers that.

“Sam?” Jess says uncertainly.

On one hand, so much for getting away from the hunting life, on the other, he’s so relieved he’s almost giddy with it. The guilt for not being completely honest with Jess has been sitting heavy in the bottom of his stomach, going back and forth on whether telling her the truth was the right thing to do or if it would just make her think he was crazy and dangerous, and now that pull-push is gone.

She’s like him.

“We thought it was werewolves and found out the hard way we were wrong,” he says. “Luckily we’d packed a lot of lighter fluid.”

Nancy almost looks impressed and this time the smile on Jeff’s face looks real. “Jessica, why didn’t you tell us you’d found a nice, proper boy to bring home for once?”

She looks at him, equally shocked, and then her face slowly morphs into the same relief he’s sure is on his own. She puts a hand on his thigh and squeezes. “We went to school to get away from hunting, Dad,” she answers, easily filling in the blanks about his life based on what he’s told her. He puts his hand over hers.

“A distraction,” Nancy says with disapproval but then some of that dissipates. “Well, graduation will come, and then you can focus on things that matter.”

“Mom,” she says, frustrated, but then drops it with a sigh. “We’ll deal with it then.”

“In the meantime,” Jeff says. “We have a rash of hauntings we were going to pass off to someone else, but since you’re not one of those useless college boys, we can head out tomorrow.”

Jess groans.

“You have to keep your skills sharp, dear,” Nancy says. “There’s no reason to get complacent. Sam, do you have summer plans? Jess always complains about our summer trainings, but if you’re there–”

“If that’s what she wants,” he says. Jess’s parents have a house and a family and stability and if they’re hunters too that’s – well, he’d wanted out of the hunting life, but it doesn’t seem so bad like this. Not if Jess is with him too.

“Not the whole summer,” Jess says, grinning at him so wide her eyes are crinkling in the corners. “I want a normal camping trip where we don’t have to kill anything too.”

“A waste of a camping trip,” Jeff says and at the same time Nancy sighs, “If you insist, dear.”

[shinyrock6498]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!! Merlin or FMA please 🙏

a continuation of 1 2 3

"Just concentrate, Prince Merlin," Gaius says. "You are capable of this, it is within the realm of your powers and abilities. All you must do is focus."

Right, sure. Except that pretty much every magical feat is within his capabilities and focusing is very much not. It's just that the magic is so distracting, buzzing underneath his skin and all around him, all of it begging for his attention, for him to do something with it, and as soon as he manages to narrow it down to just one bit of it, another one pops up. It's not as easy as just focusing.

But he takes a deep breath, focuses on the target on the opposite side of the room, and feels his eyes flare gold.

The door opens and Arthur walks in, to his horror. "Merlin, there you-" He rolls into a dive to avoid the fireball that nearly takes his head off then pops right back up, unruffled, "-are, you're supposed to holding an audience in the public chamber." He turns and squints at the smoking and smoldering circle where his head had just been to the target about ten feet to his left. "Your aim is just atrocious."

Merlin's legs are jelly and he nearly trips over his feet as he stumbles over to Arthur, grabbing onto his shoulders and shaking him. Or trying to, anyway, since Arthur is big and solid and Merlin's only ever able to move him when he wants to be moved or if he uses magic. "Are you okay? Did I hurt you? I'm so sorry, I didn't mean-"

"Shut up, Merlin," Arthur says, another one of those things Merlin really isn't supposed to allow, except he'd nearly killed him through his incompetence and Arthur is smiling and rolling his eyes like it's nothing.

He takes several steps to where Merlin was just standing, reaches down to take a knife from his boot, then turns his back to the target and tosses the knife over his shoulder.

It hits dead center.

"Show off," Merlin says, but he's smiling. If Arthur weren't so good at this, after all, he'd have gotten his throat slit.

"What good is being able to magic up a giant fireball if you can't aim it properly?" Arthur demands. "This is just a waste. We should grab some bows from the armory and go hunting. You need to learn how to hit a target."

Great, because going out in the woods while Arthur bullies him sounds like such a great idea. "What if something out there tries to kill me?"

"Duck," Arthur says dryly then jerks his head to the blackened circle where his fireball had hit. "I can teach you that too."

[shinyrock6498]

Happy Birthday! Fern & Zuko please?

a continuation of 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25

The only one of them that isn’t absolutely terrible at dragon riding is Sokka.

Aang is too jumpy, Toph can’t see and holds on too tight because of it, and Katara can mostly manage to stay on but she’s terrible at communicating what she wants so she’s mostly just along for the ride rather than directing any of the dragons in meaningful ways.

They’d all ridden Fern before. He legitimately hadn’t realized how much work she was doing to make them look not terrible at it.

An unfortunate side affect of this is that when it comes to training the dragons, it’s down to pretty much him and Fern because they’re the only ones who can stay with them for any length of time in the air. But it means he’s training the dragons and training the others how to ride the dragons and it’s leaving him more exhausted than he’s been since he was trying to hide Fern as a hatchling aboard the ship.

Sokka’s getting there, he tells himself. He’ll be able to help soon.

Please, let him be able to help soon.

[shinyrock6498]

Happy birthday Shana!!! I hope you have an awesome one!!! WWX and Jiang Yanli run away please?

a continuation of 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22

When Lan Xichen hears that the juniors' night hunt that his brother was supervising hasn't arrived back when expected, he's mostly unconcerned. There are very few things that Wangji is unable to handle on his own and he assumes there's some sort of benign, logical explanation for the delay.

When he hears that they've spent the past couple days at Lotus Pier, that peace is instantly broken.

Jiang Cheng is not inhospitable to his brother, exactly - he mostly leaves that to Li Shichuan - but their mutual hatred means they spend as little time as possible in the other's presence. While a night hunt headed by any other senior could have multiple explanations for why they might choose to stay at Lotus Pier, for Lan Wangji to do so must mean something dire. He has to hope that if his brother were grievously injured or ill, the Jiang would send notice to him, if only to get him out of their keeping, but perhaps they're preoccupied or -

It does him no good to speculate. He can get to Lotus Pier faster than correspondence can get there and back, so he'll just see for himself.

Seeing guards at Lotus Pier's entrance where there usually aren't any doesn't do anything to east his anxiety, especially when they refuse to let him enter.

"We cannot allow any foreign disciples entrance without Sect Leader Jiang or Sect Heir Li's permission," she says, less patiently than she'd said it ten minutes ago. "We apologize for the inconvenience, Sect Leader Lan."

"My brother's in there," he begins, frustrated.

"We are not at liberty to discuss the goings on of Lotus Pier with foreign disciples at this time," she interrupts.

He's really very close to losing his temper. He and Jiang Cheng get along well enough, but certainly not well enough for him to forgive him trespass without a very good reason, which unfortunately he doesn't think this qualifies. If only he could -

"Aw, don't be like that," says a familiar voice that he hasn't heard for thirteen years as a lean man that he would have sworn was dead bounds up to them, a large grin on his face as he throws his arm around the Jiang disciple's shoulders. "It's okay, Lan Xichen, I'll walk you in."

The disciple sighs deeply. "Senior Brother Wei may also grant permission for foreign disciples to enter Lotus Pier."

No wonder Wangji hadn't returned home.

[shinyrock6498]

A happiest of birthdays upon you Shana! 🍰🎁 Time travel Percy cont. pls and thank you!

a continuation of 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

Thalia stays in the Zeus cabin alone and tries not to feel too resentful about it.

She's always known that she would be considered a freak even among demi-gods, a forbidden child of the king of the gods. She's got power than she should and more life than she should and no one seems to know what to do with it. The only ones that don't treat her like a freak are Annabeth, Luke, and Percy.

As suspicious as she'd been of Percy in the beginning, she can't help but be grateful for him now. He's the only one that seems to get it.

He's a child of Persephone, a goddess who has never strayed from her husband, or at least not in any way that's resulted with children. People are almost as wary of him and his strange, unknowable powers as they are over her and her knowable, terrifying powers.

More than that, he just seems to understand it, all her frustration and anger and isolation over being a forbidden child that even sometimes leaves Luke flummoxed. He always seems to know when she's right on the edge of calling lightning to her hands whether she wants to or not and brings her somewhere high and barren where she can't do too much damage.

However, the way he seems perfectly comfortable in the middle of a thunderstorm probably speaks to some sort of mental balance. It's a good think Luke seems to like them crazy.

[shinyrock6498]

Happy birthday! Secret identity porn? With secret wei wuxian is the Yiling Patriarch and married to Lan Zhan?

a continuation of 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

"What happened?" Lan Wangji asks carefully. This is a political marriage. He is not entitled to his husband's secrets in the same way he would be in other circumstances. If Wei Wuxian refuses to answer him, he'll have to accept it.

He agreed to marry Wei Wuxian in exchange for him winning the war against the Wen. Compliance he is practiced in, but obedience has never been his forte. However, if Wei Wuxian demands it of him, he will learn.

"I had to save Jiang Cheng," he says and relief floods through Lan Wangji. "He's - we were raised together, you know? I was the first disciple but I grew up in their house, we even shared a room when we were kids. He's my brother in every way that matters. I couldn't let anything happen to him. I couldn't. I wouldn't be able to live with myself."

He stops, as if waiting for a reply, and Lan Wangji says, "I understand," because he does. There is very little he would not do to save Xichen. There is very little Xichen would not do to save him.

Wei Wuxian closes his eyes and swallows. "I made them follow me into the Burial Mounds so he could get away. I thought that I would die there."

"But you didn't," he says.

"Well," Wei Wuxian smiles and it is a terrible thing. "I guess that depends on who you ask."

[shinyrock6498]

happy birthday, shana! some zuko plz?

a continuation of 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Sokka loves Aang. They all love Aang. He's a lovable guy.

But he sometimes gets so excitable and filled with an abundance of energy to the point that he's practically vibrating in place and Sokka thinks the closest comparison would be an untrained puppy who'd just snorted a line of coke.

Toph has gotten to the point where she's considering smothering him when Zuko walks in, takes one looks at Aang, and starts taking his clothes off.

"Hng?" Sokka manages.

Zuko either doesn't hear him or ignores him. "Aang, I haven't had enough coffee to deal with you like this. Strip."

"HNG?" Sokka tries. Words would be good right about now. He wishes he knew how to make some.

"Okay!" Aang says, kicking off his shoes and losing his shirt.

Sokka actually forgets that Aang is some some sort of crazy monk blackbelt because he won't so much as squish a bug. Watching him and Zuko spar is so insane that Zuko's abs isn't even the most impressive thing about it.

[shinyrock6498]

Happy birthday grandma!! The untamed?

a continuation of 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 17 18 19 20

Lan Wangji sees Wei Wuxian on the battlefield and despite the death and danger and defeat threatening to press down onto them, he can't help but smile.

She's beautiful.

She's always beautiful, but here, in her element and after so long without the sight of her, it's distracting to the point of nearly being a hazard.

Her hair is elaborately styled, Jiang Cheng's work, and she's in ornate purple robes and he hair ornament is solid gold and inlaid with amethyst, trappings of her station that she'd always rejected but were no longer an option now that she was Madame Jiang. The rough sheathe of her sword almost appears out of place against the grandeur of her appearance, but there's nothing incongruous with how powerfully and gracefully she moves, with how enemy after enemy falls beneath her blade.

Later, blood soaked and exhausted, he finds her in her tent alone and hesitates.

She brightens when she sees him, drawing him closer with her stained hands, getting blood on his white robes, and he doesn't care, he's never cared, and he cares even less when she kisses him.

[shinyrock6498]

day out with mama!

[shinyrock6498]

The Podcast Villain

Summary: You know better than anyone that words matter, especially considering every time you raise your voice something explodes. It’s time some people learned to watch what they say.

The day you decide to become a villain is sunny. Your parents are alive and so are all three of your siblings. You have a full belly and a full bank account, the roof over your head is paid for through the next three months, and you have plans to grab drinks with some neighbors on Friday.

You’re throwing your life away. Not really. Villains have secret identities for a reason. So long as you wear the mask you sewed from last year’s swimsuit, your day persona will be okay.

You’re planning to hurt people. Yes. But the way you’re doing it is more fair than what they’ve done, right? Because you’ll be coming at them on a day like today; sunny and bright. Not through paperwork and fancy words and the power of money.

You make it sound like justice. Isn’t villainy justice to someone? Would anyone become a villain if they regretted it? Do villains sit weeping over their crimes, or do they justify them? Justification and justice use a lot of the same letters.

You’re talking about murder. No. See, that’s the thing. Just like how they didn’t commit murder, you won’t be either. When you kill someone with superpowers, it’s not a homicide. It’s collateral damage. It’s villainy.

Just because the words are different doesn’t mean – Yes it does. Because if you were going to kill someone, you’d feel bad about that. Thankfully, you’re just becoming a villain.

Villains tend to be a little messy.

----.

You’ve always loved the ebb and flow of a good song. You grew up near the ocean and your earliest memory is of sitting alone on a beach, listening to the sound of the waves. Your parents were taking your siblings to the car first and you, being the least likely to run off without supervision, had to wait patiently for them to come back and fetch you. The sun was below the horizon and the light was fading fast from the sky. When you looked down the beach, a gloom had swallowed further than a quarter mile. The waves rolled in and in and in. You inhaled them and the encroaching chill into your lungs. When you breathed out, you tried to mimic the sound of the water.

 Ssh, sh, sh, shhhhhh.

The air swirled like ripples in a pond and it carried the gentle hum of your voice with it.

You thought about going to college for music. Sorry, you dreamed about going to college for music. But your siblings were older and you watched their hands dip into that basket first. When it came time for you to apply, your parents smiled and encouraged but were quietly relieved when you asked about gap year(s).

Social media seemed like a good alternative after that. You wrote a few songs and made plans for when you posted them and they went viral. Would a label reach out to you? No, you needed to be a little practical about your expectations. Once you hit 50k followers you’d take your cobbled-together album and approach them. Then they’d sign you.

You set up your phone to record your first video. Your guitar like plastic under your hands ($30 at the thrift store and strung with gifted strings just as expensive) and the room slightly stuffy because of the blankets hanging over your walls and door. You still savor the memory. Feeling like you’d written something worthwhile, your heart beating quick and hard, the way your voice caught in your throat for a moment.

Then—

The first note shot through the air. The blankets whipped as if caught in a storm and your phone toppled from the stand. When you picked it up, the recording was pure white as if it’d been wiped by a solar flare.

You applied for a coffee shop job a week later.

------.

It’s an assassination if you target one person.

You don’t know the solution to that moral objection. Does your conscience want you to target a crowd instead?

You look up into the sky. There’s an optical illusion that happens when a building is too tall. The skyscraper crashes down over you like a tsunami, falling and falling and falling. It makes you unsteady on your feet. It makes your head spin.

You close your eyes and breathe deeply. A song is stuck at the back of your throat. Absolution. A grandiose title for a one minute and forty-five second melody about realizing your first ex-boyfriend being happy after your breakup didn’t make you want to die. If you’re honest, it still feels like a revelation.

“Are you okay?”

You turn your head towards the woman before you open your eyes. New York blooms into focus before she does, crosshatched streets filled with yellow cabs and fleets of cars in boring, muted colors. Your hometown was filled with eyesore cars – cars spotted with the sick burgundy of rust or painted bright orange with racing stripes. Nobody tells you that New York looks pretty in pictures but turns grey the longer you live there.

The woman is very New York. Her long grey coat is buttoned up past her collarbones and the collar is hidden by a thick plaid scarf. Her hair is hidden by one of those ill-fitting beanies that have become so popular. Her black eyes show genuine concern, though. That’s why you answer.

“I don’t get to see my family often,” you say. The revolving door you’re standing in front of is the largest you’ve ever seen. You watch as it spins slowly. Every time a compartment moves from the outside towards the inside, there’s a soft whuff of sound as the air resists being trapped. “Holidays are hard to get time off, but they always expect me. They don’t understand that I work in food – holidays are our busiest times. All my siblings have 9-5s and my parents are retired and it just—they’re all free, you know? So when I can, when I have the money, I make it work. I work a lot of overtime to earn holiday privileges.”

“Uh…huh…” the woman says slowly. If she walked away, you’d stop talking, but she doesn’t. She’s still watching you with those black eyes. “It’s good you make time for your family.”

You nod. “It is good. I manage it as often as I can, but Thanksgiving is about the only day I get to see them all together. I just got back actually.”

The woman politely asks, “Was it a good visit?”

“No.” You smile as a man wearing the same grey coat as the woman sprints towards the revolving door. He tries to push on the glass wall to make it spin faster, but it’s not that sort of revolving door. It’s too heavy. A machine is what keeps it spinning. He hops from foot to foot impatiently, as the behemoth spins slowly, trapping him in glass for at least thirty seconds. A steady stream of people enter the building through the door to the left of the revolving one. “My brother started listening to this podcast. Never heard of it before Thanksgiving. He’d told the rest of the family about it though. They were all up to date and excited to talk about the latest episode.”

The woman nods slowly. “It’s hard to be left out like that.”

You think of sitting alone on the beach, watching the water and waiting for your parents to come back. “I don’t mind it, actually. I like catching up and hearing stories. I thought that was why my brother didn’t send it to me, because he knew I’d rather hear him retell it to me. Imagine my surprise it was because he knew I’d disagree with the content. Can you believe that?”

The woman’s weight sinks to her heels as she considers leaving. “…sure?”

“I work two jobs,” you say. “I have to to live here. I don’t even like here very much—”

“Who does?”

“—but my parents were so proud when I moved out to pursue songwriting and eventually, I got too comfortable. Moving would cost more than two months’ worth of rent even before the cost of finding a new place—” Your hand clenches as if it’s what’s physically cutting off your words. Quieter, you continue. “It was supposed to be good to see them. But instead they talked about some guy named Joe Smith or whatever the entire time and about how he thinks people like me are lazy and entitled and stupid.”

“Jonathan Smithsonian?” The woman’s voice sours. “Ugh, he’s the worst.” She blinks and her head tilts to the building. “Isn’t he supposed to record here?”

“Everything they said was straight out of his mouth,” you say. You shove your hands in the pockets of your own grey coat. Your fingers brush the neoprene of your thrifted mask. “I tried to tell them they were wrong. I told them all about my two jobs and never getting enough sleep and they – they told me to just invest my money. Be smart. I tried to explain why a lot of people can’t do that and it was like they went rabid. It felt like they were smiling as they told me I was brainwashed and self-victimizing and—  I tried, right? To deny it and explain my experience, maybe show them the numbers that prove them wrong. But they kept speaking over me louder and louder. Just waves of their insults and jeering one after another. So I? I started to get loud too, but I can’t, I can’t get loud like that because I love them--”

The woman presses a hand over her ear. Her eyes shutter. “Ow. Do you hear—”

You speak softer. “Long story short, it was like I was talking to Joe Smith and not them. Four hundred dollars wasted on a plane flight, another two hundred to help food costs, a missed week’s of wages…all of that to talk to my family. And now we’ll probably never speak again.”

“Jonathan Smithsonian,” the woman corrects. When you look at her, she holds up her hands. “Just saying. And not to make things worse, but he says a lot worse things than the class warfare stuff. He completely denies that the prison industrial complex exists to oppress minorities and that doesn't even touch the stuff about women—”

You listened to a few of his episodes on the plane ride back. The woman’s right – the rhetoric he regularly airs is like pure poison. But killing him because of what he symbolizes seems like something a hero would do. Creating-villainy-in-proximity-to-him-until-he-dies-because-he-ruined-Thanksgiving is a better villainous motive.

“Thank you,” you tell the woman. You’ve interrupted her, but you don’t care. You smile. “I was wondering how that little moral conundrum would resolve. Villains are selfish.”

Assassination or not, you’re not doing this for an altruistic reason. You’re doing this because you can’t see your family ever again, afraid of what might come out of your mouth if you do.

“Uh,” the woman says and looks down at her bare wrist. “Look at the time! I definitely didn’t hear the word villain come out of your mouth. You’re going into his building?”

You nod.

The woman spins on her heel and walks back the way she came. “Have a good day!” As you watch, she pulls out her phone and sends a voice note, calling out of work.

The other grey thing about New York. The woman won’t even remember your face by the time she gets back home.

You breeze into the building with the next whuff of air, tying your mask between the glass panels where the security cameras can’t see you.

-----.

“Recline, relax, and revolutionize, my friends,” Jonathan Smithsonian announces, spreading his arms so wide that his fingertips brush either side of his makeshift sound booth. The sound foam is stiff and unpleasant when his nails catch on it. The air is stale and sour, slowly heating as his body heat fills the small room. The office isn’t much bigger. He smiles broadly. “I have a treat for you today.”

He doesn’t have a treat for them today, actually. Another guest has backed out of his show, intimidated by his no-nonsense interviews and hard reality checks. That’s why he’s in the shithole he rents in the Wendell Building rather than the studio he runs out in the warehouse district. But it looks good to be seen coming out of the Wendell Building with his suit pressed and a briefcase in his hand.

“But first…Another weak-willed liberal worm has capitulated to the climate hoax,” he says. His audience doesn’t like long openings. And, even if they don’t understand them, they like long words. He pulls up the news article he’s ripping off on his phone. “I’ve investigated personally, my friends. Senator Archer has—”

There’s a knock on his door. The camera outside shows a young woman, about five foot three with a mask over her face. She’s wearing an ill-fitting long, grey coat and if she had a burlap sack with a money sign on it, it wouldn’t be out of place. The costume is so cartoonishly bad that he knows immediately who she is.

Chuck pulled through.

“Sorry, folks,” Jonathan says.  “Actually, truth is that I had to cancel the treat today. The studio’s been receiving threats from one of them, you know who I’m talking about.” He barely knows who he’s talking about, but his audience loves feeling like they’re in on the secret conspiracy. Jonathan grins and makes sure his hair looks right in case the security footage of this leaks. “My producers actually have me in a borrowed studio right now to avoid her, but…I’m afraid it didn’t work. Who wants to hear from my latest stalker?”

A flood of comments come in, chiming across his phone.

Don’t open the door!

She can’t resist you, man.

Yeah! Show her how a REAL American handles a threat!

LOL does she even watch your show? She should know better

She’s unwell, Jonathan, you can’t put yourself in harm’s way!

Kill her!

Smirking, Jonathan puts his phone back in his pocket. He grabs his mic, shaking out the wire so it doesn’t pull as he slips out of the sound booth and towards the door. He would’ve preferred Chuck find a beefier actor to get escorted out by security, but he can’t be picky. Chuck’s just saved him from having to adlib for an hour and a half.

“Ma’am, this is a closed studio,” Jonathan calls.

“Mr. Smithsonian,” the woman says from the other side of the door. “Please let me in.”

An actress? Jonathan might recognize her voice. It’s stronger than the average person’s, smooth and round. She knows how to project too – he’s sure his audience heard her through the door judging by the amount of notifications buzzing on his phone.

“If you agree to sit down with me for fifteen minutes and tell me your side of the story, I will,” Jonathan says in his brave reporter voice. The brave reporter voice once got him an anchor spot on KT78 before they stole the spot away from him.

There’s a pause. “You want to hear what I have to say?”

Jonathan frowns. That’s not the usual script Chuck gives. “I want us to have a conversation.”

“I see.”

Does she sound disappointed? Or was that agreement?

Jonathan opens the door

The woman looks up at him with static-laced eyes. She says, “I’m sorry, but I don’t really want to hear what you have to say.”

Jonathan stutters. “W-what?” He scrambles for his composure. Chuck always finds the weird ones. “You do. You’re the one who came here.”

The woman steps into his space. Unnerved, he steps back. He’ll need to cut that part of the footage out later. She closes the door behind her.

He holds the microphone in her direction for her response.

The woman cocks her head. “That’s not necessary.”

“Both my audience and I are curious about why you’ve hunted me down, ma’am,” Jonathan challenges. “What’s got you triggered today?”

Rather than rile, the woman seems amused. “I meant it’s not necessary because it won’t work in a moment.”

Was this a hacker bit? “We have great security here. Nothing will compromise my broadcast.” Jonathan squares his shoulders and thrusts the mic into her face. “Now who are you? Why are you here?”

“I’ve written a song for you,” the woman says. “Would you like to hear it?”

“I’d rather talk—”

The first note out of the woman’s mouth is followed by darkness as the studio lights explode. Jonathan sways on his feet, hands flying out as he loses all sense of direction. He feels as though he’s falling.

“What—a black out—”

He blinks and there’s daylight. Which is odd because his window is blacked out for privacy. Sluggishly, he considers the sound of breaking glass, the grind of concrete and the screaming of rebar. Is the floor shaking?

No, it can’t be shaking. He’s not even on the floor. He’s falling.

He’s falling a long, long way.

-----.

You rush out of the Wendell Building with everyone else as the fire alarm shrieks. People want to know if there was a fire. No, it must have been an earthquake and some metal beam was giving way. There are gasps when they pour onto the street and turn to see a blackened hole in the side of the thirty-fourth floor.

An explosion, they realize. Then, with rising panic, the word attack begins to go around.

You slip away into the subway system and your grey coat matches everyone else’s.

----

Thanks for reading! If you'd like to support me and what I do, please consider checking out my Patreon (X)

Next week's story is based off this prompt (X) from writing-prompt-s:

The Princess can only be awoken from her slumber by her true love, but countless Princes have failed to do so. When a poor townsman is successful, the royals try to dispose of the man and convince the Princess that one of the Princes is her true love.

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All three of my new Minecraft skins are featured in my new episode: • Captain Curator Juppet (Inspired by Kris Straub's Memnon Vanderbeam)

• Professor Beetlejhost (An academic parody of Beetlejuice)

• Fleshbound Joe (the form I take when appearing at conventions)

Also, Jevin shows up and makes a land claim to build a memorial for Sal!

It's live now! I hope you like it!

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IT’S MY BIRTHDAY WOOHOO!!

For today and the rest of the campaign you can get 10% off a Hoshi plush! If you were wanting to do something for my bday, grabbing a plush or even sharing the campaign would be wonderful. Thank you for all your support thus far ⭐️

10% OFF Code: MS-XBYACQG1ZCBK

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this is me if you even care 😔🖐️₊✩‧₊

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