#Can I get a Steven Emoji face please

[neutron-stars-collision]

Deadlines & Commitments

Neil x F!Reader

Chapter 1 - Stratford Underground Station

Masterlist Summary: Everybody knows anything can happen on London tube. That includes meeting a handsome stranger with a strange name, who doesn't mind saving a ballerina in distress. Chapter playlist Warnings: Swearing and E-rated language (as the preview already shows). Author's Notes: So it's finally here, my opus magnum. Or so I hope. As I've hinted before, this project is the love-child of a few things - my unfading obsession with Neil, fascination with London and the love of public transport. Or something along those lines. I've no idea how long it'll be, or the exact details of what's going to happen, but I know that it's going to be fun. For both me, and them. And you, too, I hope. Chapter titles come from station names (in case you've been wondering) and I decided to go wild and attach a short, chapter-centric playlist to each of them, because why not. Enjoy and please, let me know what you think 💕 Taglist: @hollandorks, @kristevstewart, @stargirl25 (let me know if you want to be added)

The discovery that it would be a day came a mere two hours after the harsh sound of your phone alarm. Its harbinger took the form of Liam – a moderately tall, dark-haired man with an acceptable face and an ability to make you come that did not seem to get the hint.

Instead, he continuously nagged you for days after the (absolutely intended) ghosting you have implemented. While you would admit it was harsh, it was also not your fault that you had enough of him after the hook-up no 5. It was just fine, nothing spectacular and, most importantly, it was getting predictable. Solution? Ending the situationship before it could become a chore rather than a pleasure. Problem? Liam did not seem to think the same.

So, when, this morning, you finished the lukewarm coffee and picked up the phone to check the socials before leaving, only to find another string of texts with pathetic emojis, the mood has soured. It was nothing new, just more hearts, pleading eyes and invocations to your goodness, all culminating in the same way. With another proposition of date, with another love confession he could not have possibly meant. This time, you’ve had enough. You ignored the urge to smash the phone and instead broke the silence by sending him a simple message – Fuck off. With that, you let out a string of curses that probably made poor Miss Stevens next door recoil in disgust and blocked Liam. The triumphant spark did not outweigh the annoyance, however.

The second blow of the day came not that much later and could also easily be blamed on Liam. Or so it was easier to believe. There was no sense of distraction as you tied up the ribbons of your pointe shoes and started warming up. And, at first, it was all just as it was supposed to. You welcomed the opening notes of the coda enthusiastically, happy to go through the steps just as you were supposed to be. As you were taught. A turn after turn, the burning in your legs felt like a benediction. That was what you were always supposed to do.

Until it started to feel different.

One misstep was instantly noticed by Jane, who danced alongside you, perfecting the same choreography. You could hear her quiet gasp, wordlessly pointing out the mistake you would never have missed anyway. In a split second, you knew it was enough to throw you off, losing the tempo and balance, barely managing not to sprain your ankle and topple onto the parquet. Refusing to look at Jane, you slid down the wall by the barre and let out a frustrated groan. Not long after that, you decided to check out of the studio. One humiliation was quite enough.

By the time you had set onto Southwark station, intending to catch the tube back home, you were half contemplating unblocking Liam to sue him for mental damages. And the cost of reparations of your dignity. It seemed like a fair deal, considering everything. On autopilot, you descended the steps to the station, welcoming the cooling air of the metal-plated hall. While the whiteish subway tiles in most stations felt like home, the futuristic tinge of Southwark had always felt special. Even if the afternoon bustle could sour your mood and make you throw daggers at any human in your path. There was a dose of relief in the knowledge that it had already been done. You were pissed off beyond measure.

Any innocent bystander could probably see it in the angry square of your shoulders as you strode through the ticketing hall and past the gates. After all those years, there was no need to check the signs; your body knew where to go. Down the escalator, following the graphite signage leading towards the correct platform. Once you were there, you looked up at the timing screen to check the ETAs. Stanmore 2 mins. Thank fuck. Moving down the platform like god intended, you got lost in the chaotic ambience. Sometimes, especially on those difficult days, the noise was better than any music you could listen to. The babbling children, the chatting adults, and, if you were lucky, an odd bark or two in between. That, combined with the PA overhead, was enough to ground you. To take in that deeper breath.

Only that tell-tale whoosh of the approaching train could pull you back into the moment, the body yet again taking the needed steps without you ever telling it to. One step back, not crossing the yellow line. Two steps to the side, aligning with the platform edge doors, yet not standing in the way of those leaving. By the time the train arrived, you were exactly where you were supposed to be. A surveying look inside the cart told you the crowds had been avoided. Luckily. With only a handful of people occupying the space, you stepped aboard and zoned in on one of the empty seats by the window.

It was then that fate chose to intervene again.

You barely stepped in the right direction before the train started again, the sudden movement throwing you off balance and making you drop the bag hung precariously on your shoulder. You watched it fall, unzipped pouch spilling the insides onto the dirty grey floor. Another string of curses lodged in your throat as you knelt among the wreckage of personal items. Before you could reach for the notebook, another hand appeared on the edge of your vision. Long, fair-skinned fingers met yours over the moleskin cover, making you look up and follow the outline of a person. Up over the legs, clad in black jeans and over the bare forearms, revealed by the rolled-up sleeves of a dress, pinstripe shirt. Until you met the striking blue eyes of the man kneeling in front of you, having joined the fray. The stranger stared back, his piercing gaze roaming over your features, seemingly just as struck as you were.

A beat passed, and neither of you moved. You glanced up, taking note of the dirty blonde hair falling over his forehead in disarray. The announcement over the system began calling up Waterloo. It was the wake-up you both seemed in need of. He was the first to shake off the stupor, snatching the notebook to place it in your waiting palm. He shot you a friendly smile, the expression brightening his stunning features.

“Bad day?” his husky voice was another pleasant surprise, shooting through your brain like the restart to the systems you seemed to have been missing.

You looked up to find him one step ahead again. There was something mysterious in his handsome face, instantly making you forego the suspicions against strangers. This one did seem at all dangerous.

At least, you hoped he wasn’t.

A sardonic smile invited itself onto your face. For the first time since the morning, the expression was not forced.

“You could say that” picking up the bag, you accepted the belongings he had collected from the floor and hoped to convey the gratitude through a simple word “Thanks,”

“No worries. Hope that’s everything…” the stranger threw a final glance at the cart floor and got up, brushing the dust off his knees.

The nagging feeling in the back of your head did not ease off, helping you decide what the next step should be. After all, there was no reason to cut the interaction short. One glance out the window told you there was still time. The train had just left the Waterloo station, giving you at least a quarter of an hour till you had to get off.

Perhaps, that was your sign from the petty destiny to get your shit together. Strictly speaking.

“Looks like it,” dropping the remaining items into the pouch, you extended your hand in greeting, “I’m Y/N,” raising your head to find his gaze, you were welcomed with yet another bright smile.

Judging by the lines around his mouth and crinkles in the corners of his eyes, your mysterious saviour did smile a lot. The realisation only strengthened the conviction, pulling you into his orbit effortlessly.

His warm palm engulfed yours in a firm handshake. It lasted just a second too long, yet no complaints were to be raised.

“Nice to meet you. I’m Neil,” the gleam in his eyes was like the poisoned edge of a dagger, a fatal weapon to strike you down should you be reckless.

You knew for sure that face would be hard to forget. Even if you were to never see it again after today.

“You don’t look like a Neil,” catching onto the peculiarity of his name, you shot him a cheeky smile.

Finally remembering what started the ordeal, you took the seat you had been hovering over and motioned for Neil to join you. He did not hesitate.

It only made you like him more.

“Elaborate, please,” the curious tint in his voice, completed by a deadpan look, made you grin, unable to defy his charm.

Not that you were trying to, anyway.

Making a show of giving yourself time to think of an answer, perfected by the loud hum and a hand stroking your chin, you measured him critically. Still amazed by the man Transport for London put on your path. By the seemingly faultless features, harsh lines of his cheekbones and the kind eyes that still held uncertainty that you were all too familiar with.

“You know… a little more geriatric. A little less dashing,” you sent Neil a wink, watching with fascination as the pinkish blush spread over his cheeks.

That sort of reaction was always a compliment. A sign that you should keep going because it could only get better. The frustrating morning had been almost forgotten, having stood no chance against the unpredictability of the interaction.

You could see Neil process the compliment with rapidly blinking eyelids and a parted mouth. Westminster had been called before he spoke again:

“That’s a new one, but I’ll take it,” the blush had faded slightly, yet the disbelief in his pretty eyes told you he was not used to the flattery.

Which was a surprise considering the way he looked. But that, like all the other discoveries you had made within minutes, would have no application. You would likely never see him again.

“You should. I don’t hit on complete strangers every day,” you sent him a pointed look, meaning every word and hoping Neil would see that.

The amused smile he cracked along with a chuckle, were the rewards for the risks you had taken. Being that forward with a stranger could backfire terribly. You had first-hand experience of that. This time, though, no alarm bells were to be heard as you waited for Neil’s response, with your gaze fixed on his face. If only because it was hard to look away.

“Now I’m flattered,” the sparks in his blue eyes burned bright as he took a cursory look out the window and then back to face you with complete focus, “So… do you want to tell me about your day?” the lack of judgement in his gaze helped you decide before you even knew you were considering it.

Usually, confiding in random people met on the tube sounded like a bad idea. Not entirely off-brand for your poor judgements, but still. But this interaction was anything but usual. The temptation was too big to be ignored. You twisted in the plastic seat to face him properly and channelled the anger dormant beneath your skin. It was all too easy to do.

“There’s this guy… We’ve had sex a couple of times, and it was quite good, but now he wants more, and I- I’m not even sure I believe love exists, let alone feel that way about him. Trouble is he doesn’t get the hint, so…” becoming aware you unloaded the whole speech without taking a break to breathe, you took a greedy inhale and spit out the conclusion with a frustrated huff, “He’s just pissed me off” it was a lot.

You could tell Neil was slowly coming to the same conclusions from the dumbfounded look on his face as he processed your rant. He blinked, unseeingly staring at the Jubilee line plan above the opposite seats. The apology was ready on the tip of your tongue when he finally spoke again:

“Overeager?” the sympathetic wince in his face made that same affection stir in your heart.

All because he understood. He got it. And that was rare. Yet again, you contemplated unblocking Liam. This time, to send him Neil’s phone number with an annotation – This guy gets it. He can explain.

But it was hard to say whether Neil would be up for such a task.

“Mm, yeah,” you offered him a tight-lipped smile and a nod, confirming the theory.

“Sorry,” it was your turn to suffer through a double take.

With incredulity filling every inch of your soul, you stared at him in confusion:

“What for?” as the train arrived at another station, you glanced up to check you had not somehow missed your stop.

But it was fine. There was still enough time to continue what was slowly becoming the most fascinating conversation of the previous couple of months, if not years.

It was Neil’s turn to be amused. His eyes roamed over your face as his lips quirked into a smirk. The cheeky expression sent your heart tumbling through the ribcage. You knew he could be dangerous. You were right. Again.

Yet, no sense of foreboding danger could make you look away. That was for the weak. Or the smarter.

“Being a representative of the male species,” Neil shrugged as if his answer did not leave you agape with amazement, “I know almost everything is our fault, one way or another,” the slight grimace passing through his face told you he knew that was an understatement.

But it was better than nothing. Better than the load of self-entitlement and egocentrism displayed by most of the men you had ever met. It sure did set him apart.

“Guess that’s true,” nodding in agreement, you chose to forego the subtlety and reached out to pat his hand, “Thank you, though,” yet met his eyes, not trying to hide the extent of impression he had left on you “I can already tell you’re a better representant of the species than Liam,”

The fading anger at that man seemed so distant now. Like a dream that you could no longer remember, except for how it made you feel. Liam would stay blocked and hopefully never seen again, but now you could finally see yourself having a pleasant evening. That felt like a reward in itself.

“And he’s called Liam? Good god,” Neil’s dismayed tone was the one to bring you back to the present.

The smile played in the corner of his lips. The amused expression was fast becoming your favourite. Which could be problematic, but you were never the one to search your soul if that was uncalled for. Which it definitely wasn’t.

“I know” sharing an eye-roll with your companion, you chose to focus the attention on that second part of the shit day, “The other thing that happened was how I fucked up the ballet practice” almost automatically, you winced, self-consciously rolling the right ankle as if feeling the phantom pain of the twist that never came (thank god) “But it also can be blamed on him,”

Too caught up in the thoughts of vengeance you would never actually implement, you missed Neil’s surprise, reflecting through the widened eyes and an intense stare boring through your temple.

What you did not miss was a question uttered with so much disbelief that your head swivelled in its direction faster than you thought possible:

“Hold on, ballet practice?” Neil’s scrunched-up face, complete with a frown between eyebrows and mouth agape, was the reason for your giggle.

“Yup, I’m a ballerina at the Royal Ballet,” there was an unusual sense of pride in the proclamation.

Probably because it had been a long time since you got a reaction this stunned. You did not remember the last time someone looked starstruck when hearing about your occupation.

“I’ve never met one before,” his blue eyes still roamed over your face with amazement as Neil confirmed the obvious.

While attention was always pleasant and a reason you got into professional ballet in the first place, this kind of focus felt different. It made the rare blush dust your cheeks as joy surged in your veins from the sheer force of being noticed. From being seen through the best you could offer rather than the multitude of shortcomings that were all easy to find.

“Well, now you have,” you opened your arms in the ta-dah motion and added, “A second soloist, to be exact,” the hierarchical promotion was still an additional point of pride.

A result of years of practice and mental conditioning to try and improve. The culmination of hours of pep talks, pleading to your strength not to give up. To keep on trying. A proof that you were good enough. But it was also a reminder that you were not there yet. That there was still more to achieve.

“I’ve no clue what that means,” the apologetic tone in Neil’s voice was another reason for a smile.

Without thinking, you nudged his shoulder with yours and grinned upon noticing the bashful blush creeping back onto his cheeks. That alone was a reason to delve into the explanation:

“That I’ve still got a long way to go if I want to get promoted to principal dancer. Which is the dream,” hope waged war with scepticism as you chose to stare at the window opposite the seats, taking note of the passing darkness of the tunnels outside. That moment of wistfulness inspired the next thing you said, “You could come to see me if you wanted to,” it was another risk taken.

Another potential to end the conversation prematurely by misjudging the limit. Before you could find the tenacity to see the reaction, Neil’s question got rid of the doubts:

“Are you hitting on strangers again?” the smile in his voice was matched by a cheeky grin on his face.

The brightness in his eyes told you he was enjoying the conversation, that it was not just you who been silently wishing for more time. For more opportunities to continue the back-and-forth, testing the limits of what was acceptable within an unusual connection like yours. Because, surely, there were limits. Right?

“You’re not a stranger anymore, Neil,” instead of searching for the lines drawn in the metaphorical sand, you laid a careful hand on his shoulder and watched with the breath caught in your chest as he glanced at it and back at your face. The only indication that too was not a misstep was the darkening shade of pink on his cheeks and the persistent smile, motivating you to land a double strike, “I am, though. Is that bad?” innocently batting your lashes, you signed off the move with a quick stroke of fingers, tracing the collar of Neil’s shirt.

He swallowed hard, clearly reacting to your risqué move. The goosebumps rose on his skin following your touch, making your smile widen. Unwilling to stop the fascinating game just yet, your fingertips skimmed down the front of his shirt to strengthen the invisible lines in the collar and encircle the tortoiseshell button. As your fingers drifted ever so closer to the bared sliver of the chest revealed by the two buttons left undone, Neil gasped and met your searching gaze with an intense look of his own. It was easy to see the curiosity there, brewing underneath the composure. Not for the first time since you met, you wondered what else was hiding behind that steel-like grip of control. What else was there to discover?

“I’m not complaining,” answering your question with ease, Neil did not flinch away from your taxing gaze.

It was good to know. Just because.

Unable to look away, you realised that your hand was outstretched with the fingers lightly touching the collar of his shirt. The heat from his skin radiated onto your palm, making your fingers flex unconsciously. It was your turn to swallow against the sudden dryness in your throat, as yet again you found yourself arrested by his gaze. Like then, the time seemed frozen, leaving you stranded between one heartbeat and the next. You were content to stay there.

Only the familiar announcement over the PA system could wake you up. The train is now approaching St. John’s Wood. Your body jolted awake with the curse ready on your tongue:

“Shit, that’s my stop” a spiteful glance at the darkness of the tunnels outside was a reflex, born out of the annoyance for the world that did not seem to care about your happiness or the desire to stay in that Jubilee line train cart till the very end of times. The anger passed quickly, yet you knew the frustration would persevere long after you made it home. The only way to push back against it was to turn your focus back to Neil, “It’s been a pleasure. I’d say I won’t forget you, but I’m not sure I can promise that,” the exaggeration in the statement, and the knowledge that it was unlikely you would forget him, were better left unsaid.

As much as the chance meeting was everything you never dreamt of experiencing, it was just that. A pleasant outlier. The one-off happening, that would never happen again. You could feel the sharp prickle of that realisation stab at your consciousness as you checked whether all your belongings were accounted for and got up from the seat. The train was slowing in the approach at the platform, forcing you to grab onto the nearest railing.

“Try your hardest,” Neil’s response made you whip your head back up to stare at him in confusion until the meaning of his words caught up.

Then you could only grin, willing to stretch the limits one last time.

“Or?” the question was accompanied by the tip of your tongue running over your lower lip as your eyes traced Neil’s gaze.

He caught the hook. The intrigue and hunger in his stare proved the point as he glanced at your mouth, not even trying to resist the obvious trick. You were glad it worked.

One look at the world beyond told you there was no time to lose. The familiar voice called out to make sure everyone minded the gaps, and you could not help but throw one final glance at Neil. His dirty blonde strands caught the fluorescents and created a washed-out halo-like effect. The blue eyes were still fixed on you, observing and calculating. Yet again, a wayward thought begged you to stay. To say fuck it and check what could happen if you had more time. But the courage was not quite there when the train came to a stop, and the doors slid open.

Before you could take that decisive step outside, Neil replied:

“I’ll be disappointed,” the smile in his voice was an easy trigger, bringing a breathless chuckle to your lips.

You still laughed as the doors closed behind you and the train started moving away from the platform. You did not look back, letting the crowd of commuters carry you along the tunnels and towards your apartment. It was better that way.

Only once you got back home did you realise one crucial fact. One simple observation easily missed in the rush of thoughts about striking blue eyes and sharp cheekbones. It had been hours since Liam crossed your mind. And somehow, it all made sense.

[aspiringtrashpanda]

PANDA MY LOVE! I have so many questions for you so please bear with me while I get all these emojis out of the way

💖 -> which fic is ur pride n joy?

🤩 -> what’s the most meaningful comment u have ever received?

🙌 -> what’s a line or para that ure proud of?

🤔 -> what are some words or phrases u find urself overusing?

🤷‍♀️ -> what’s a fic u didn’t expect to be popular but rly took off?

🍎 -> what’s smth u learnt while researching for a fic?

😱 -> what’s ur greatest fear as a fic writer?

🛏️ -> what’s a trope u haven’t written but want to?

🌷 -> what’s one of ur fic that isn’t as popular but u hold dear?

I am very curious 🫵🫵🫵🫵🫵

HYOOOO thank you for the ask 💕 I'm always happy to yap about my fics so I appreciate this so much! 💖 -> which fic is ur pride n joy? HM. Right out of the gate with the tricky questions. The answer changes with each new fandom I write for, as I feel my writing continues to improve, so I'd say my baby right now is The Speedrunner's Guide to Romance (Leviathan x F!Reader). Though, I have big plans for an angsty story that I think will usurp the throne 👀 🤩 -> what’s the most meaningful comment u have ever received? Any comment that points out my writing style, or the characterization of canon characters means the world to me. Of course, I love all comments because I can't believe people take time out of their day to read my trash? but the ones that hit hard are when people point out the little foreshadowing hints, or link a theme together, or just get what I'm trying to do. I think too much about a lot of my fics, so it's nice to feel seen, you know?

🙌 -> what’s a line or para that ure proud of?

Obey Me month had a lot of my best writing, I think. This is probably one of my favorites:

The days go by, Simeon silencing the intrusive thoughts ruminating inside his skull, clinging to the interior slope like a fungus festering from pious neglect. Roots were planted deep in his brain, curling around memories of his brothers’ faces as they tumbled from celestial light, shadowed tendrils tugging at their limbs and stitching up their wounds. The Devildom wove sutures of sin through once heavenly flesh, and now Simeon sees the own red of his wounds turning dark, rotten, evil.

🤔 -> what are some words or phrases u find urself overusing? HAHAHAHA ANY KISSING CLICHES 🤷‍♀️ -> what’s a fic u didn’t expect to be popular but rly took off?

I wrote a SUPER self-indulgent Steven Stone fic and it spiraled into a whole Discord server.

🍎 -> what’s smth u learnt while researching for a fic? Yo, my search history is so sus. I think the most recent fact I learned was that catfish can remember a voice from 5 years prior. 🐟

😱 -> what’s ur greatest fear as a fic writer? Starting fics that I can't finish. There are a few on my Ao3, unfortunately. Stories that I lost inspiration for and can't bring myself to continue, even though I know there's so much potential there. I like to think I've been better at it recently, but I still worry whenever I start something new.

🛏️ -> what’s a trope u haven’t written but want to?

Okay so, I have an idea for an Arranged Marriage!AU. I'm not usually a huge fan of that trope but there's something that tickles me about that trope with a certain OM character... Also anything very very angsty. I write angst often but I'm excited for my upcoming project because it is definitely darker than most of my work.

🌷 -> what’s one of ur fic that isn’t as popular but u hold dear?

One of my early Inuokko (JJK) fics - Portrait of His Sisyphus. I wrote it for an event week, and mashed up every prompt in a reincarnation sort of fic. It has art by @4laurus in every chapter, and I think it's really funky and interesting. THANKS FOR ASKING HYO 💕 Sorry for the rambles, haha.

[initiala]

Also, as someone who does many emails, all day every day, with Gen Z students and creeping in to Gen Alpha....

COMPOSE YOUR THOUGHTS BEFORE SENDING THE EMAIL PLEASE. ONE EMAIL. ONE!!!

I frequently receive two or three emails, one right after the other, because younger folks tend to treat emails as texts. They are not. They are independent messages coming into my Outlook inbox one after another and taking up space and possibly brain power. You also get made fun of (in private, by me, to myself usually)

For example, I had someone recently email me THREE TIMES in fifteen minutes. It was on a Friday, after 5pm. I was no longer clocked in or looking at emails. It went like this:

5:02pm, Friday i do not understand this thing can you send me a video how to do it

5:04pm, Friday do i need to submit this form by a certain date or is it open

5:17pm, Friday i need to submit this by (date) please send me information on how to submit this

I am not working again until Monday at 8am

All of these could be one message. In fact, the last one was the only part necessary

If they had opened the website I had indicated in my first email, the process of submission and the deadline was listed step-by-step, so also please research before you send emails asking for something. I promise it's listed somewhere.

It's not professional to send multiple emails with one line. It's generally frowned upon to include emojis in correspondence with an admin or employer (though since I have to deal with a lot of stressed students I will use some smiley faces to let them know that the tone of my email is not 'i'm mad at you' it's just 'the language i have to use is dry and boring, here is a moment of levity to let you know i'm not mad at you'. The key is that I'm the senior admin in this conversation. I can break the communication rules first and make it easier to use more casual language. It's one of those dumb unwritten rules of interaction)

Compose your thoughts. Write the email. Read through it and ask yourself if it sounds like you're talking to your bestie or if you're talking to someone you hold in high respect (if not in actuality, pretend to), and then send it if it doesn't need some adjustments. The online jokes about "Removing seven exclamation marks from my email response so John in finance takes me seriously 🤪" are a reality in a lot of places. One exclamation mark is fine. Two is questionable. Three is not good.

This is a skill. It's learned. It's okay to mess up. Just try, and hopefully the person on the other end of the email gives you grace when you do mess up. (and yes, I still send emails prematurely all the time. I have sent my fair share of "Dear Steven, I am afraid" emails and then a quick follow up of "Oh my gosh, sorry, I hit send on accident. Anyway, I needed to pick your brain about this" and then continuing with what the email was supposed to be. It happens!)

not to sound like a boomer, but I need some people to learn how to write emails in a semi-professional (at the very least) format so you're not cold emailing a business/potential employer/any other stranger about formal matters in the exact same way you'd DM a close friend on instagram

the formality/language can loosen up in the email chain once you've established a rapport and you match the other person if they're being less formal, but please don't have the very first email you send a stranger be written in all lowercase ultra-casual sms slang with no greeting or signature and a billion emojis

[pagebleeds]

• i literally wasn’t even trying that hard.

• tell me that didn’t just happen.

• it’s not that deep—wait, maybe it is.

• this is so not what i pictured in my head.

• i think i need a do-over. of the whole day.

• can you just—i don’t know—be normal for five seconds?

• i swear, this is the last time i let you talk me into something.

��� don’t look at me like that, you know i’m right.

• okay, but in my defense, i didn’t actually see the sign.

• you ever just wanna crawl into a hoodie and disappear?

• i didn’t cry. it was the sun. and maybe a little crying.

• someone please remind me why we’re doing this again.

• he smiled and my brain forgot how to work.

• i wish i could just unsend real life.

• are we ignoring the obvious or just pretending it’s not there?

• please don’t make me say it first.

• i had a whole speech prepared and forgot all of it.

• just…don’t leave without saying goodbye this time.

• i wasn’t snooping. i was exploring.

• this is a bad idea, but i’m already invested.

• steven, if you keep talking i might actually lose brain cells.

• remind me again why taylor isn’t banned from making plans?

• i swear i’m fine, i just—needed a second.

• did you hear yourself just now?

• this felt easier in my head.

• don’t act like that didn’t mean something.

• can we pretend this conversation never happened?

• i will literally never forgive you if you forget my fries.

• you’re not even listening, are you?

• sometimes i think the beach is the only one who gets me.

• i could’ve handled that better. probably.

• stop looking at me like that, i’m not gonna cry.

• i hate that you still know exactly what to say.

• you remember what you said that night? i do.

• we don’t have to talk about it. just… sit with me?

• you smell like sunscreen and heartbreak.

• this dress? yeah, it’s revenge-coded.

• taylor, if you post that i will haunt you.

• i should’ve kissed you when i had the chance.

• no one asked for your commentary, jeremiah.

• conrad, you’re being weird again.

• do not say ‘i told you so.’

• i’m not dramatic. i’m emotionally expressive.

• you wanna know the real reason i came back?

• if i trip, i’m blaming the universe. and you.

• i kinda wanna disappear for like… two weeks.

• why does everything taste better at the beach house?

• don’t you dare start playing that song.

• this sunscreen smells like memories i’m not ready for.

• you ever love someone so much it makes you stupid?

• this is what romantic comedy trauma looks like.

• i’m gonna need, like, three hours and a popsicle.

• okay but technically i didn’t break the rules.

• i feel like i’m in a deleted scene.

• you have to stop looking at me like that. seriously.

• i will never emotionally recover from this, fyi.

• can someone please validate me right now?

• if i start crying, no one mention it.

• i’m over it. totally over it. (i’m not over it.)

• i had a dream about you and now everything’s weird.

• he said my name like it meant something.

• i’m gonna need five business days to emotionally unpack that.

• can we just not do feelings today?

• this whole summer is a fever dream.

• do you think the ocean remembers us?

• i swear i wasn’t eavesdropping, i was just… adjacent.

• who let me get this emotionally invested?

• that’s not a heart emoji, that’s a warning sign.

• you have resting heartbreak face, it’s not my fault.

• this feels like a flashback in a sad movie.

• i wore mascara today so you’re not allowed to upset me.

• it’s always the quiet ones with the ocean eyes.

• i’m not jealous, i’m… narratively inconvenienced.

• do not let me text him. i mean it this time.

• if i vanish after this conversation, it’s your fault.

• what if we just… stayed in this moment?

• you had your chance and you picked silence.

• that wasn’t just a hug. don’t lie.

• you only call me by my full name when i’m in trouble or you’re in love.

• how do you expect me to be normal after that?

• do you remember what it felt like? because i do.

• you ever cry to a playlist you made for someone else?

• i miss you in ways i don’t say out loud.

• i didn’t ask to be the main character today.

• this is giving summer 2019 and i don’t know why.

• you can’t just say things like that and walk away.

• convenient how you always show up when i’m about to move on.

• this isn’t an apology. it’s an admission.

• i liked you before you became a metaphor.

• you still smile like you’re hiding something.

• tell me you didn’t feel it too.

• if this ends badly, i’m blaming the stars.

• i just wanted you to fight for me. that’s all.

• you ever think maybe we were always a little too late?

• don’t say my name like it’s goodbye.

• it’s not that i still love you. it’s that i never stopped.

• do you think we’ll ever be just… okay again?

• you ruined me for anyone else, and i let you.

• this was supposed to be our safe place.

• i wish you’d just say what you mean.

• it’s not fair how much of me still belongs to you.

• you always leave before the good part starts.

• i don’t want perfect. i just want you.

[anime-kia]

Internet Lover

If you don't know, Twitch is a platform where people can broadcast and livestream things from gameplay to "just chatting". Its a dope platform (of course there's trolls, but I mean what social media app doesn't have those?).

Twitch Terminology: 

Raid: When a streamer brings their channel viewers to another persons stream (happens once they've ended the stream)

Sub: Subscriber (they pay to be subscribed [or they can use Twitch Prime for free] to a channel: which gives them access to custom emotes, badges and other things as well)

Bits: 1 bit = 1 cent (these are like tips)

No warnings.

Relationship: Twitch Partner Erik x Reader

Word Count: 9k

King.Killmonger, also known as Erik Stevens lived up to his name. He was a big name in the Twitch community, mainly known for his highly skillful Call of Duty gameplay, but is also good at many other games. 

You discovered him from your little brother, Kai. The both of you were gamers, and he put you on to Twitch. Before that, you mainly used YouTube to watch other people's gameplay. 

One evening when you were babysitting your younger brother who was suppose to be doing his homework, you caught him on his iPad, and confiscated it away from him before he could even protest. But what stopped you was the smooth and low voice that vibrated your eardrums so pleasantly. Even better was the chestnut coloured male in the bottom right corner of the screen, his face so focused with his eyebrows furrowing slightly, bottom lip pulled between his teeth.

"Who's this?" You asked Kai.

"King.Killmonger. Now gimme it back!" 

"Not until you finish your homework. I ain't getting the blame if your ass does bad in school."

"I ain't gonna do bad!"

"I don't care."

"Give it-"

"Yoooooo! I know y'all seen that trick shot! Oh my God, bruh!" Killmonger's voice sounded through the tablet. "Please tell me someone clipped that."

"You made me miss it!" Kai yelled in frustration. 

"If ya homework was done you wouldn't have." You shrug and walk into the kitchen.

"You're so annoying, holy shit!"

"Cuss at me one more time and I'll show Mom your browser history."

You could hear him gasp in the other room. A smirk of success graced your lips.

Sister: 1 Brother: 0

Now to present day, you never missed one of his streams. You even snuck to watch him if he streamed while you were in class. 

Erik was very confident and some people could easily mistake that for cockiness. There was one time where this other streamer decided to start beef with Erik for no good reason other than jealously. 

"Aight so here's the story. I said, 'Honestly, bruh you really ain't even worth my time. You doing this shit for clout. You do what you do and imma do what I do, aight?'" His tone was calm, but you could see it in his eyes, the irritation. "Then this nigga goes, 'You're not shit, you never will be shit.' I had to fuckin' laugh, nigga don't even have a third of my followers and got some nerve to talk about me. Anyways, so he says, 'I wouldn't be nothing without my followers.'" Erik bursts out into laughter as he gets up from his gaming chair. 

There was shuffling in the background for a little while until he returned, plopping back down into the chair with a piece of paper in his hands. 

"Y'all can see that right?" He asked with humour in his tone.

The comments flooded with laughing emojis, his emotes, and different variations of comments that applauded him.

"Erik Stevens. PhD in Engineering." He stroked his beard, in fake thought. "Hmm... I would be nothing? Look, y'all my niggas, but I'd be flourishing regardless of Twitch."

Not only was he handsome and talented, but he was also educated. To say you had a crush on him would be an understatement. 

Maybe you had a chance, but there was this one female who he would often play with, she was pretty good at gaming as well. Everyone thought that she was his girlfriend for the longest time, you included. 

She was pretty; light skin, curly medium length hair, slanted hazel eyes, full lips and a slender figure with meat in all the right places. She too was an Internet personality, part time Instagram model, full time YouTuber. Yes, you did stalk her on Instagram. 

They had a bond which seemed inseparable, but other than the assumptions from everyone, they kept their relationship private. 

Erik had a very large male audience compared to females. Because his chat was incredibly active (even in slow-mode) he wouldn't always be able to read messages or notifications, but more times than none, he would thank his viewers for their support and contributions.

There was one time when you subscribed to his channel and he said your username as he thanked you. You clipped it just for yourself, completely ecstatic hearing him say your nickname. 

Seeing Erik stream and how much he enjoyed it motivated you to start streaming. You played a variety of games from first-person shooters to RPGS. Your following was small with an average of ten people showing up, some of them were your online friends and sometimes you would get random people too, but it all depended on what game you were playing and if your webcam was on or not. 

It's not that you would have your cleavage in the camera or a full face of makeup with your hair done to attract the viewers, but you were a female. Some guys enjoyed seeing female gamers play things like Call of Duty, and others did not. You normally kept your webcam off for first-person shooters, but this time you decided to keep it on.

"Hey Tracey, yes I do have my camera on this time." You smiled, getting ready to start the match. "How was my day? My day was alright I guess. I had to go to the supermarket, and y'all know I hate that. Picked up Kai from school and got some... Unfavourable news, but overall I'm doing okay."

The match began counting down, so you adjusted the volume on your gold and black headset. 

As soon as you would join a lobby, you would mute all of the other players unless they were your friends. For some reason, CoD lobbies were just so toxic and you did not have the time to curse out a caucasian child (hell, even the adults) for using the N-word or harassing you because you're a female. 

The viewers in your stream chatted amongst themselves and sent some messages out to you. You would glance over every now and then to read the chat.

Your thank you alert dinged in your ear, signalling that you just received a new follower. It was the clip from Master Chef, season 3 episode 1.

"Thank you for the follow MysticBubblez. Welcome to my channel!"

The kill confirmed match was going fairly well, except this one person that kept getting kills off of you from camping. "Fucking annoying ass, dirty, cheating ass bitch." You raged. "I swear I hate campers, like get the hell off the game if you're so scared. The fuck?"

Kai scream something from his room, but the game audio drowned out his words.

"I'm sorry if y'all can hear my brother screaming in the back, the kid is a maniac I swear."

The match was close to an end and your team was up by two. 

"Come on y'all, collect the tags!" You yelled to no one in particular, considering you muted them all.

You were so focused in on not losing the game which was neck-and-neck, but you were caught off guard by the continuous follower alert going off in your ears and the one that told you someone just raided your channel.

"Oh shit, whoa whoa, hold on! Sorry y'all gimme a second." 

At first you thought it was just another small streamer that had raided you, but your chat was flooded with emotes. Killmonger's emotes.

Your heart began racing like crazy. 

"Oh my God. No way! No fucking way!" 

You completely set your controller down and watched as your chat was flooded with new names. All of your regulars were being drowned out. The thumping of your heart was so intense, you could swear that it was about to jump out of your chest. Then you saw his name pop up with the purple verification check. 

Your eyes grew three sizes while reading his comment. 

King.Killmonger: Wassup lil mama? 😈

You covered your mouth with your hand, staring in absolute shock. 

Traceyyy: Ma'am the alerts, mute them LOOOL

"My bad." You laughed, silencing the alerts. "Um, hi everyone! What the hell is actually happening? I know my favourite streamer didn't just raid my little ass channel."

You had to put the chat in slow-mode because it was going insane. You couldn't even see your moderators' comments and even a few of Erik's comments got lost in the chaos too.

King.Killmonger: I'm ya favourite? No surprise heheh.

"Wow, oh my God. I didn't even know you were streaming today, I've never missed a stream before, but I can't even be mad." Your voice was light as you spoke.

The bedroom door bursted open with Kai flying in. "Yo, Killmonger just raided you!"

"I know Kai, what the fuck!?" 

He went into the webcam, "Hey King K, I love your streams! Raid me next, my sister is trash at video games, I'll make it worth your while I swear."

"Kai, get outta here!" You pushed him out of your room and locked the door. You sat back down and apologized, "Ugh, sorry about him. Anyways, thank you so, so, so, so, so much for the raid. I definitely just hit affiliate thanks to you too, wow!"

King.Killmonger: LMAO 😂 Np lil mama 

Then your annoying little brother commented.

Kuickscope_Kai: This wouldn't be possible without me

"Kai shut up before I tell mom about your math grade."

But he is right, you would've never found Killmonger, thus you would've never started streaming if it weren't for him. You could thank him later though.

Kuickscope_Kai: Thats why your ugly 

King.Killmonger: @kuickscope_kai you cappin' she ain't ugly bruh

Kuickscope_Kai: YO @King.Killmonger 😱

Your little brother was freaking out in his bedroom, yelling in excitement because Killmonger just replied to him. You were also freaking out because he basically called you good looking, even if you were dressed in your university's sweater, a pair of tights, no makeup and hair slicked back from two days ago. Your profile picture was nice though, snapchat filters were truly a life saver.

"First of all, it's y-o-u-r-e. But anyways, once again thank you so much for this raid you don't even know how happy I am right now, like my cheeks are hurting from smiling. I'm really in shock."

You were so thrilled, even after ending your amazing stream. Before going to sleep, your phone had so many notifications about different followers on all of your social media platforms. What blew you away even more was that Erik really followed you on everything. 

"There is no way this is happening, I'm about to wake up from a dream I know it." You sighed, sliding your body underneath your covers and retiring for the night.

You ended up dreaming about playing online with him, so when you woke up you were certain that it was all just a vivid dream. But that was until you lifted your phone to check your notifications and saw an Instagram DM from Erik.

King.Stevens: wassup? Your stream was super dope yesterday, I enjoyed myself.

So it wasn't a dream... The beating in your heart picked up once again.

It took you the whole day before you could respond to his message. You were too nervous and afraid to answer back. He was so intimidating, so powerful and so handsome. What could you say to a man like that?

You contemplated leaving the message alone until you could collect your thoughts together. He sent that message at 1 a.m. and you responded just before midnight stuck.

You: Thank you so much. I really appreciate that! 

He replied within five minutes.

King.Stevens: Lmao dang it took you the whole day to get back, I thought you were never gonna respond

You: Ah, sorry I just was too nervous

King.Stevens: No worries... Aye can I get your gamertag tho, wanna play together? 

You: I'm not that good tho, you're in those elite squads lmaoooo

King.Stevens: I aint even worried about nun of dat, just you and me, not competitive. Plus I wanna talk to you, hear more of that pretty voice

You could feel your cheeks heating up at this point.

You: I guess so 😅

So you typed your gamertag and sent it to him.

King.Stevens: You got time tomorrow or am I gonna have to wait another business day cuz I make you nervous

You: 😂 we can play tomorrow

King.Stevens: Aight bet. Don't stand me up either 

You: I won't! I'll be on around 3 your time

King.Stevens: Oh yeah, I forgot about the timezones. Where you stay?

You: New York

King.Stevens: That's dope, I was hoping TwitchCon would be held there this year but they doing it up here again

You: Of course :/ I been wanting to go

King.Stevens: You never been?

You: Nope, I got school that I'm paying for so I barely have time. And Cali is expensive! A plane ticket, plus a hotel, plus the event is more than I can afford atm.

King.Stevens: Dang, I feel that. Them student loans be expensive as shit

You: Tell me about it omg

King.Stevens: Aight, hold on. I don't want to get to know you over DMs, so imma hit you up tomorrow and like I said, don't leave me hanging

You: I won't LMAO! Talk to you later.

King.Stevens: Night lil mama ;) 

The next morning you woke up extremely excited. You even contemplated getting on a little bit earlier just in case he was on early as well. But judging by his Instagram story, he was at some club in LA celebrating his friend, Roger's, birthday, so he was probably still asleep. The time differences would have its affect as well.

You were sure he had a hangover too, there was so much booze in every single clip of his story. He looked mighty fine though. His beard and hairline were both nicely lined up, dreads hanging loosely on his forehead,  gold caps peeking from his mouth every time he rapped to a song or smiled for a picture, tight fitted black t-shirt showcasing his muscles and a gold cuban link resting over his broad shoulders, not the typical chain he wore with a unique ring looped through it. 

Unfortunately he didn't show off the rest of his outfit, but you could only imagine the name brand sneakers he had on. 

You decided to catch up on the rest of your notifications with a bowl of cereal for the rest of the morning. Your Twitch following grew three times more than what you originally had, a lot of thirsty guys flooded your DMs on both IG and Twitter, and even your Snapchat was going off. Something told you to ignore all of the new video and picture messages though.

Does Erik even know the impact he could have on someone's life, you wondered. 

Just a day ago you were practically no one, and now all of sudden, hundreds of thousands of people knew you. Killmonger rarely raided anyones channel, so what made you the special one? It couldn't have been random selection.

Three p.m. his time seemed like it took forever to come. You hadn't realized how much of a difference there was with the timezones, but then again it could be because you were anticipating playing with him the entire day. It felt like watching water boil.

You went to the mall with a few friends and then to a restaurant to kill even more time. Usually when you do that the time flies, but you checked your watch so often that it felt like time began reversing. 

Finally the clock hit six p.m. and you turned on your system and slipped on your bluetooth headset. Like clockwork, you got a notification: King.Killmonger has invited you to a party.

All of your nerves spiked right back up, heart beating so incredibly fast. This was really happening.

You accepted the invite with a shaky hand. 

When you got in it was quiet at first, noticing that the party was on private.

"H-hello?" Your voice came out smaller than you expected.

About ten seconds later he finally turned his headset on, "Aye, wassup lil mama? You accepted that invite real fast. Thought you'd be a day late again." He teased.

His voice ran smoothly in your ears, and it was a bit rusty like he had just woken up.

"Wow, it was just that one time." Your eyes rolled.

"I'm just fuckin' with you. What you tryna do?"

"I mean we can play CoD." You suggested.

"Modern Warfare?"

"Yeah."

"Aight bet." He agreed, placing the disk into the system. "Think you can run with the big dogs?" 

"I'll try. I ain't shy."

He chuckled, "Nah lil mama, you came in here on some, h-hi. I heard that, sounding like you scared or some."

"I did not!" 

"It's aight, don't trip." He was laughing. "I don't bite... Unless you want me to."

Your eyebrows jumped at his suggestive remark. 

He sent you another invitation to the game.

"Team deathmatch, kill confirmed, domination?" Erik asked.

"I'm cool with anything, just use 'quick play' so we can play whatever."

"I like that, you decisive. I hate when folks can't make up they mind."

"I know, you always get mad at your friends for not choosing something."

"Only reason I let they ass choose is cuz they say I'm selfish if I make all the calls." He huffed in annoyance. 

You could relate, just like earlier when you were out with your friends. You spent an extra hour in the mall deciding on where to eat. Some wanted seafood, others wanted chicken. You gave them suggestions of restaurants that carried both, but for some reason they didn't want to eat at those restaurants either. The funny thing was you all ended up getting pizza.

You explained this to Erik and he was amused. 

"At that point I'd just go home." He said.

"I would've, but we were all starving and I'm out of groceries."

"It's a dude coming on your left with a shotgun."

"Thank you." Before the other player could shoot you, you threw a stun grenade and shot him with your AUG. 

"So y'all don't got bread and butter at least? You could've ate that and called it a day."

"That's something my dad would say." You rolled your eyes. 

"Daddy knows best." He was smirking.

"Sure, whatever you say." You let out a silent laugh, "I'd rather deal with them being indecisive than eat some dry ass bread and butter."

The match ended and Erik of course dominated the leaderboard with way more kills than deaths. You were sitting just above average.

"That lobby was full of try-hards, bruh." He sounded annoyed, which is funny because the whole time you were talking he seemed cheery and relaxed.

"You had the highest score out of all of us though." 

"I did, but I actually had to lean forward for that damn match. Niggas was camping and shit."

"I know, they piss me off the most."

"I'm saying." 

It was amusing how you forgot you were talking to an internet celebrity. He didn't make you feel uncomfortable or intimidated, it honestly felt like you've known him your whole life. So that brought up your question for him that you had earlier.

"Why did you decide to raid my channel?"

"I was just browsing through Twitch and I saw your channel pop up. The name looked very familiar, and you were also playing my favourite game. I thought, why not share the love, you know?"

"So I got very lucky I guess."

"You can say that." He chuckled, "...A pretty thang like you playing a shooting game, what nigga could resist?" 

Your eyes widened once again, suddenly you felt shy and nervous again. "Th-thank you."

If you weren't already hot before, you most definitely were now.

The next few months were nothing you expected. Erik and you formed a friendship with flirty undertones that were unspoken. Getting to know more about Erik was interesting. He told you about things he never told his viewers before, clearly he trusted you enough. You too told him things about yourself that you never really talked about with other people either. 

Never in a million years did you think he would notice you, much less befriend you. He was on the other side of the country and you were just one of a million living in the city. Plus, LA had tons of beautiful women, and some were also gamers too. Just like his hazel eyed, light skinned friend. 

You must've accumulated enough good karma in your life for this to happen. 

You were in bed, binge watching episodes of Dr. Stone when Erik sent you a text.

E: FaceTime?

You paused the episode and replied.

You: Sure, gimme a sec

E: Aight

You took your bonnet off, and pushed your twists over your left shoulder. Your face was looking a little tired, so you washed and moisturized it, finishing off with a bit of lip gloss. There were bags under your eyelids still, but they weren't too noticeable.

You opened the app and clicked his name, and by the third buzz he answered. Your jaw almost hit the floor. Sexy wasn't even the word to describe the man staring at you with a grin.

He was relaxing in bed, dreads hanging messily over his forehead, pecs slightly making an appearance.

"My eyes are up here, lil mama." He teased.

"I hope you didn't call me naked." You lied.

His camera flipped, but all you could see was a blanket covering his lower half. Hopefully the covers were just ruffled so much that it was creating shapes, but if not... Lord pray for any girl who has been into contact with him.

Eyes wide, you gasp. "You are-"

He started laughing as he flipped the camera back onto his face. "What, you tryna see sum?"

"I- no! I said I hope you didn't call me naked!"

"You want me to get dressed?"

"I didn't say all that." You shyly said.

"Good." He smirked. "So what you up to?"

"I was watching Dr. Stone before you texted me."

"Oh word? All these months of knowing you and I'm just finding out you watch anime?"

"I could've sworn I told you this before."

"Nah, shorty. I remember everything you tell me."

"Is that so?"

"Mhm, test me."

"Where did I go on vacation last year?"

"Barbados. But you also mentioned it was for school, so it really wasn't a vacation, but you still had fun." He recited your words.

Oh wow, he did remember. When you returned from your trip, a lot of your family members and friends constantly asked, "How was Bermuda?"

Goes to show that they either don't listen or have poor geography skills.

"I'm impressed, Erik."

"I know." He cockily agreed with a wink, "But I been wondering. When is your birthday? You never told me."

"It's in two weeks on Saturday. I been busy with making plans and stuff."

"That's why you got them bags under your eyes. You need someone to put you to sleep, huh?"

He made your cheeks heat up in embarrassment. Erik often teased you with suggestions, but you tried to pay no mind to them.

"Well I am kinda busy. Plus, my brother and me share the same birthday so I been planning for him and myself."

"Ain't you nice? How's he doing by the way?"

"Better, but I'm still tryna push him to achieve higher because he's smart, but all he wants to do is play video games and skip school with his delinquent friends. It's hard cuz my mama is at work pretty much every day and she's barely home. My dad doesn't live with us, so he lacks that male role model in his life. Then me, I'm always busy, especially with school."

Erik hummed to himself, stroking his beard. "Lemme talk to him, I'll see what I can do."

"No, you don't have to, E. It's okay."

"Nah, nah. I mean he looks up to me, right?"

"Yeah."

"I might be able to push him to do better. I mean look at me, I grew up rough, a young nigga from Oakland and I made it. I ain't using my degree or whatever, but I still got it."

You smiled, "Alright. But he's sleeping right now."

"Oh, well I didn't mean right now. I'm tryna talk to yo' fine self."

You bashfully looked away again, he constantly made you feel some type of way.

"Stop. Oh my gosh." Your voice went up a few pitches higher, "You're just saying that."

"I mean it, girl."

"Lemme ask you a question then." He nods at you to proceed, "Okay so, you keep flirting with me, but aren't you dating that girl."

His eyebrows furrowed, "Who?"

"The light skin one."

Erik chortled, "Hell nah. We cool, but she got a man. Some nigga from Ethiopia."

"But I thought-"

"I know. But it ain't like that..."

You nodded. Their chemistry was so good though.

"What about you? Who you got keeping me from cuffing you?"

He was so bold.

"N-no one. I been single for a while." You moved a twist behind your ear.

He sat up, and now you could get a full view of his defined chest. He caught you staring and flexed them both. Your eyes rolled.

"A while?"

"Yeah, my ex cheated on me with this girl I use to go to school with." You sighed, "They didn't even last longer than a month- and she got pregnant too, by someone else!"

Erik eyebrows were raised, "Damn."

"Then he tried coming back to me." You let out an airy laugh. "I almost felt bad for him, dude was crying, snot and everything."

Erik chortled, revealing his pearly whites. "He a whole clown yo."

"Right. My life is a movie, I swear."

"You're telling me. I thought my life was wild, but the shit you tell me got me cracking up, on God."

You both laughed and continued to converse together for a while, until you yawned.

"You tired, lil mama?"

"Yeah, I am." You were now resting on your side, blanket pulled up to your nose.

"I wish I could talk to you some more, I ain't sleeping for another five hours at least."

Damn the timezones.

"Me too." Your eyes were half lidded, and his silky voice was lulling you into a deep sleep.

He watched your eyes slowly shut down, enjoying the peaceful look on your face. It's interesting how these quiet moments on FaceTime were some of the best. It was a bonding experience.

Your social media platforms continuously grew and you even started collecting money from Twitch. People were actually curious to know more about your life and the secretive relationship that was forming between you and Erik.

Every time he streamed, the viewers would inquire about you. Every now and then you would leave a comment, but then you would be harassed by tons of comments. Someone dropped a ten dollar tip donation with a question attached to it.

"Trip, thank you for the ten dollar tip." Erik said, pausing the game to read the message. "When will you guys be meeting up? Well imma be at TwitchCon this year, ion know if my girl's gonna fly out too." He replied.

As much as you really wanted to, you couldn't. You had to get your priorities straight, like putting your money towards school and helping out with the house bills and groceries. Anything you made off the internet, you set that aside into your savings.

Some streamers would set up donation goals so their viewers could help fund various things like trips to different conventions, but you didn't feel all that comfortable doing that. If people wanted to donate money to you, they absolutely could, but it was never mandatory. 

It was funny how Erik calling you his girl blew up into a huge thing. Not even on Twitch alone, but Instagram too. You were now known as Killmonger's girl. 

People kept talking about you both. Some YouTube channels even went as far as posting videos based around it. Of course you knew how big Erik was on the internet, but you hadn't realized the real calibre of it all. If he made music, he would probably make it to The Shade Room. 

You talked to him about it, considering the two of you weren't actually dating, but he said let them believe what they want. Erik didn't care at all.

The only annoying thing was when people mentioned his other female friend. The light skin. She was still there, but you didn't really converse with her or anything. 

She was annoyed as well, and posted a video on her Instagram ranting to her followers.

"I don't know why y'all think I'm bothered by this. Erik and I are just friends, and I have a boyfriend. There is no drama, aight? Thank you, next!" 

You agreed with her, and you also wanted to make a similar video to explain things, but Erik insisted that there was no need to. Maybe he was right.

Two weeks later, Kai, your mom and you went down to the Cheesecake Factory to celebrate your birthdays. 

Kai was so excited because it was his first time going, and your mom was just glad to finally get time off of work to celebrate with her babies. You too were happy. Cheers to another year of life!

The smell of food wafted into your nose as the waitress sat it on the table. Your mouth was already watering. The plate of truffle-honey chicken was yours, Kai ordered the chargrilled bone-in New York steak and your mom got shrimp and chicken gumbo. 

Kai kept stealing pieces of shrimp off her plate so she poked his hand with the fork. He retracted it quickly, "Ouch, ma what was that for!?"

"Don't touch my food, boy." She warned him.

Your mom did not play when it came to food. 

You laughed at the interaction, "If you take a piece of her cheesecake you better say goodbye to your arm." 

Years ago when Kai was just a baby, you tried to take a piece of her cake, but she grabbed your arm so fast and rough you thought it was gonna come off.

"You better know it, tuh." She scoffed, while eating another piece of shrimp.

The rest of the dinner was filled with chatter and more food. You loved seeing your mom finally relax and enjoy herself. Around this time of the year, she was usually so stressed out because she was the one to plan your birthdays with her busy work schedule, and she somehow always managed to make it happen. 

At first you were going through the hassle of throwing a party, inviting lots of family and friends, until you decided that it wasn't worth it. You wanted it to be quality family time. Kai was cool with it too, as long as he was getting presents. 

Your mom was relieved when you told her that a small dinner at the Cheesecake Factory would suffice. She hadn't gone out to eat in a long time too. 

"I am stuffed." You leaned back against the booth, patting your stomach.

"Me too." Kai agreed, "I'm taking my cheesecake home."

You nodded, "Same." 

"This was a good choice." Your mom praised you, placing her fork down. 

You thanked her feeling proud.

The waitress came back so your mom asked for takeout containers and the check. 

"Oh and one more thing." She pulled two small gift bags out of her purse and handed them to each of you. 

"Thanks, mama!" Your brother and you both said.

In yours was a beautiful gold necklace with your name on it and a little diamond dangling on the side with a preloaded gift card of $100. Your brother also got the same gift card and Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot. He's been wanting the game ever since it came out. 

"This is so dope, ma!" He cheered and gave her a hug.

"Yeah, I love it! Thank you." You added and also gave her a hug.

"I'm glad you like your gifts." She mused and collected the bill from the waitress. 

"Another gift?" You raised an eyebrow at the package at the front door.

"Maybe it's from Dad." Kai suggested, taking the keys from you to open the door.

You picked up the package and read the label, completely shocked to see Erik Stevens printed out on the sender label. 

"Nah, it definitely isn't Dad." The box wasn't too heavy, and when you shook it, nothing really moved around.

Your mom looked at the label, "Oh it's from ya boyfriend, huh?" She cheekily grinned at you.

"He is not my boyfriend." You rolled your eyes.

How in the world did he get your address?

"It's from Erik." You told Kai.

He gasped excitedly and ran over to the package, "He was serious!" 

You frowned at your brother, "What do you mean by that?"

"Just open it!" He was very excited so clearly he knew about it. "Killmonger is the coolest man alive, bruh!" 

Carefully, you opened the package and there was a black and gold card on top that said 'Happy Birthday!' in fancy bubble letters with a drop shadow. 

The inside of the card read, Happy Birthday to you! For many more years to come, I wish you all the best. 

Cliché. You thought.

But underneath the standard greeting was his hand writing. It wasn't sloppy at all, but very sharp. 

I hope you enjoy these gifts. You're a Twitch star now, so of course you need one of these. (At this point you open the rest of your gifts- and there's one for Kai too).

You removed the packaging and pulled out two packages, one with your name on it and one with Kai's. 

"Here." You handed Kai his and in no time, he tore it open. You also opened yours, revealing a lovely purple sweater with the word 'Twitch' on it, plus the logo.

"Yo! And he got my size right!" Kai enthused, slinging the hood over his head.

You were about to try yours on, but there was a white envelope at the bottom of the box. His hand writing was also on top.

I hope I got the right sizes. So now that you got the sweater, you need to wear 'em somewhere. Go ahead and open the envelope. (P.S. Using paper is primitive, but I wanted to surprise you.)

Kai was watching your face and trying to keep his composure. 

"What-"

"Open it!" He demanded. If his complexion was lighter, he would be as red as a tomato.

"Alright, damn."

You pealed it open and slid out two pieces of paper. Flipping it over, you almost dropped them in complete shock.

"Kai..."

"Yeah!?" 

"We're going to TwitchCon!" 

"Yes!" He yelled enthusiastically. 

Your mother ran into the kitchen to see what all the commotion was. 

Kai was jumping up and down for joy. You were still in complete shock that this man you befriended over the internet went to these lengths just for you.

Later that night you FaceTimed him.

"Thank you so much, Erik oh my gosh! You really didn't have to, like it's too much!" You bashfully exclaimed.

"Never too much for you, birthday girl." He grinned. 

"Dude, you bought us plane tickets! Who does that!"

His smile was so big, almost rivalling yours. "I do, for special people like you."

"You really didn't have to, I feel like I owe you something now."

"You do."

Your eyebrows shot up, "I-I do?"

"Of course you do. When I see you, you owe me a hug." He joked, even though the look in his eyes were serious.

"But I mean I was gonna do that anyway." You giggled. 

"Oh word? Then you owe me a kiss." 

Your jaw dropped, "Erik!"

"I'm serious, baby girl." He smirked, running a hand through his dreads.

Well you did plan on doing that too as well, but you wouldn't let him know. 

"I'll think about it." You challenged. "No promises."

"Aight, but don't do too much thinking." 

Trust me, I won't.

Kai and you were anticipating the day to come and it finally did, two months later. Erik too was excited to finally meet you. No more seeing him through your computer or phone screen, you would finally be seeing him through your eyes. 

You hailed a taxi, waiting for it to stop so the both of you could get in. You gave the driver the address to the air B&B. Erik also wanted to pay for your hotel, but you refused. He already did so much.

Kai had on his sweater, but you reminded him the event was happening tomorrow.

"I don't care, imma wear it the whole time we're here." He insisted with a shrug.

"It's 78 degrees, Kai. Take it off, I'm not tryna smell your sweat the whole time we're here." 

This was your first time in Cali as an adult. The last time you visited, you were just a baby, and Kai wasn't even born. You were excited about everything. The weather, palm trees, plastic bodies, beaches, a possible chance at a celebrity sighting! 

Erik promised to give you a tour after TwitchCon since you would be staying a week in Cali.

When you checked your phone, he already sent you a text. About the same time your plane landed.

E: Welcome to Cali! 

You smiled, he must've had that flight tracker on his phone.

Sending him a quick 'thank you', you slipped your phone back into your carry-on and pulled out your camera. Kai was snapping every single moment.

"Ayo, look at that shorty." He zoomed in on her wide behind while snickering. 

You were driving by an outdoor pool and Kai was busy ogling at the females and their tiny bikinis. It was a sight you rarely saw in New York, so you could understand his giddiness, but still. Gross.

"See what you not finna do is that." You snatched the phone from him and deleted the video. "Nasty ass."

"Bruh." He glared at you, taking his phone back.

"Do stupid shit like that again and I'll send you home."

"You wanna be mom so bad, B."

You sharply cut your eyes at him, and he settled down looking back out onto the streets.

The cab driver was silently laughing to himself the entire time.

The air B&B was small, but nice. It was an apartment with two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a cute kitchenette and a living room area that had a large TV, a PS4, an Xbox One and a Nintendo Switch.

"Check and see if they have Mario Kart." You told your brother while wheeling your suitcase into the first bedroom.

"They do!" He turned on the system and set up the game.

You put on a pair of shorts because the jeans you were wearing became too hot, ordered pizza  and picked up a joy-con. "Ready to lose?"

"Who losing, you?" He challenged.

You playfully shoved Kai's head as you selected your characters. 

The two of you spent the rest of the night playing various games while eating pizza from a California native restaurant that you've always wanted to try. It was hyped up on social media, and after your first bite you definitely understood the excitement behind it. 

Several hours later, you woke up on the couch. The TV was still on and your brother's foot was in your face.

"Ew." You pushed it out of the way and sat up, realizing what had happened. You felt both jet lagged and hazy. 

It was pretty bright outside, like it was the afternoon.

"Oh shit, don't tell me we're late!" You ran into your room and checked your cell phone, but became instantly relieved when the time was only showing nine a.m. There were still another four hours before you had to get to the event.

The timezone differences were no joke! 

There was a text from your mom and Erik.

Mama: Good morning, baby. Enjoying Cali? You're probably not up yet. The time will throw you off, especially Kai. Lol.

She sent that an hour ago. 

You: Morning, it's great! The weather, the air B&B, everything. I might have to move after grad ;)

Then you checked Erik's text.

E: GM, princess. They just told me I got a panel to speak so I invited u to come up w/ me. Is that cool?

He texted you two hours earlier. Why was he up so early?

You: That sounds scary, what am I gonna do up there?

You set your phone down onto the bed and headed into the bathroom to take a quick shower and to brush your teeth. There was a supermarket five minutes away and you needed some groceries for the week. Pizza would not be sufficient enough for seven days.

The weather was gonna be in the high sixties for the morning so you slipped on a pair of shorts, a tank top and a pair of Nike slides. You got goddess braids styled into a pony tail, so you didn't have to worry about fixing it up too much. Maybe a retouch up on the edges, since you fell asleep without protecting your hair.

You left the apartment, leaving Kai to catch up on his sleep.

At the grocery store, Erik had replied.

E: U just gotta answer questions, no biggie.

Easy for him to say considering he's been doing this for a while now, you were still brand new to it. And that's what you replied to him. 

He sent three laughing emojis. 

E: It's easy, I promise

You were walking through the isles, picking up various items. You could feel stares on you, it was strange, but you carefully looked around to make sure no one was racially profiling you or that a weird man hadn't been following you around. It was relatively empty too.

You gathered your groceries quickly and brought them to the checkout. As you waited for the cashier to finish scanning you called up and uber so that way you weren't left waiting with the possibility of someone harassing you.

Six grocery bags and twenty steps later, you finally made it back into the apartment. Your phone vibrated once again. The shower was on, indicating that Kai was occupying it. He was lucky, you couldn't grill him for not answering his phone when you needed help.

You put all the groceries down and checked the message.

E: Lol u real famous now huh?

You: Wym?

He sent you a picture of yourself holding up two Ben & Jerry's ice cream carton.

E: Some lil nigga took a picture of you at the store. Check ya Twitter

So you did, and there were tons of notifications that were linked to the tweet with the same picture Erik had sent you. 

The caption read, "I saw @_____ at the Market, but I was too afraid to say hi 😓"

Someone afraid to say hi to me?

So you wrote back: @Maverickthegamer1800 don't be shy to say hi to me, I don't bite lol. Plus, I'm a normal person! 

You would much prefer a hello versus someone taking random pictures of you in public. 

For the remaining time you had, you packed away the groceries and made breakfast for you and Kai. Erik said there would be food vendors there so you wouldn't have to eat too much prior, and apparently there would be an after party as well.

There was a two hours left and the event was a thirty minute drive away, but with the famous LA traffic you knew it would take at least an hour. You took another shower, moisturized your body and dressed up in ripped high-waisted denim capris, a black long sleeved crop top, full black converse, gold hoops and the necklace your mom gifted you on your birthday. You shoved all your belongings in a small backpack and tied your purple sweater around your waist. 

"Ready, Kai?" You called to him from the front door.

He emerged from his room, dressed in shorts and his sweater.  "Been ready, let's go!" 

"Thank you." You said, closing the door to the blue Honda Civic. Your uber driver was quite friendly. She was a middle-aged lady who was telling you how her son wanted to come to the event, but he ended up getting too sick to go. You felt bad for the kid, but she did mention that it would be his fifth time going. She also complimented your hairstyle. 

"It's really beautiful, I wish I could get my hair to do that." She had said.

You would've lied to her and said it was possible, but hey, cultural appropriation exists!

"We're really here!" Kai said in awe looking up at the large building. There were so many people, even cosplayers!

A few people waved at you or shouted your name, so you waved back and said hello to them. Being recognized in public more than once was certainly a new feeling that you'd have to get use to.

Your heart was beating as you sent Erik the text. 

You: We're here 😅

Within seconds he responded.

E: Fr? Where u at?

You: We're walking through security now. Gate A

E: Stay there 😈

You: Okay

Him and that damn emoji.

You pulled Kai to the side and told him to stay put.

He huffed before speaking. "Your hand is shaking. What are you nervous for?"

"I-I dunno, I'm just excited." You explained.

The truth was you were nervous to meet Erik in person. You really had no idea of what to expect. But also, you were being acknowledged a lot more than you were use to. There were people from all around the world here, and some of them were fans. Your fans.

It was an odd thought, people actually came to these events to meet other people like yourself. 

Kai went to sit down on a nearby bench and pulled out his phone to post on snap again. He was pointing out all of the Twitch streamers that he followed, almost leaving his seat to go take pictures with them, but you didn't want him to get lost in the big crowd. 

"Just wait a little while." You sternly commanded him. He dramatically rolled his eyes.

"H-hi, can I get a picture? I'm a big fan." A shy female voice said. You looked to your right and saw a girl standing there with her and behind her back. 

She was about fourteen, dorky looking, but very cute. She was the first black girl you had seen considering the humongous crowd of males, and the lack of melanin. 

"Of course!" You smiled at the girl, and bent down a little to level with her. She snapped the picture and thanked you.

"What's your name?" You inquired.

"Arusi." She grinned.

The more she spoke, the more you could hear an accent. "Where are you from?"

"Tanzania, we moved to the US about a year ago." Her voice was so soft and gentle.

"I hope America's been treating you well."

"It's been good so far. Especially since I discovered your Twitch channel. You really inspired me to start my own." She beamed. 

Your heart almost melted. 

Me? Inspiring others!

It was truly amazing. 

"That makes me feel really special." You blushed at her, "I'm glad I could inspire you. Keep doing what your doing, okay?" 

"I will, thank you so much!" 

You gave her a hug and watched her disappear into the crowd.

"Ain't that cute." A familiar deep, and smoky voice came from behind you.

Your eyes widened and you turned around immediately. "Oh my gosh!" As if the beating in your chest wasn't already pounding enough.

He was really there. Standing in front of you with that signature grin on his lips and arms wide open. 

Of course he was attractive online, but in person took it to a whole other level. Your head craned upwards because he was so tall. You admired his smooth brown skin, dark eyes, straight nose and full lips. His hair was freshly re-twisted and lined up, beard and moustache both looking very healthy and kempt.  

His body was so large and muscular. You were sure once you went to meet his embrace, your body would be lost within his. And that's exactly how it felt as you rushed into him. He smelled so good!

He wrapped his arms around you, rebalancing himself after you threw it off. There were many reactions of awe from people around, but you drowned it all out, relishing in the moment. 

You knew the pictures and videos would be all over social media, but honestly you did not care.

He began pulling you away, getting a better look at you. It felt like an eternity as you both stared into each others eyes. 

"Hi." You shyly said with a bright smile on your face.

"Wassup?" He cockily smirked, flashing his gold caps.

You felt someone roughly tap your shoulder, "Can I go now?" Kai begged.

You glanced over and looked at him, "Yeah go ahead, but please do not get lost. And do not lose your pho-"

"Okay, mom! Hey Erik, Imma come back to you aight?" He promised and rushed off into the crowd. You sighed as Erik laughed.

"For sure." Erik agreed then turned back to you, "He was right, you do act like his mama."

You gasped, "When did he tell you that?"

Erik let go of your arms then wrapped one of his heavy arms over your shoulder, "Don't worry about it." 

"Ah, there you are!" A lady dressed in all black, carrying a clipboard hurried over. "The panel is starting now, come on."

"But we wanted pictures!" The audience whined. 

"Pictures after the panel, now let's go." She demanded.

"I got y'all later, no worries." He said and followed the lady to a stage area with seats set up and everything.

There was a seat for you, and your name was on a card beside Erik's. You greeted a few other streamers who were sitting at the table. 

"Don't be nervous, aight? You got this." Erik reassured you, patting your thigh.

The seats filled up very quickly, some people had to stand outside of the area and listen in.

The announcer came on stage and greeted the audience, "Hello and welcome to the annual TwitchCon, I hope you are all excited to be here! Today we're bringing you more updates and things to come in the future for Twitch." He looked back at the table, "Some of your favourite streamers are here to talk to you today and answer any questions you have and we even have a few newbies here too. So without further ado, I'd like to welcome everyone!" He began reading the names off as the audience cheered and clapped. 

The whole time the announcer was talking, Erik kept playing footsies with you and smirking at you. He'd poke your side, and one time he actually poked a really sensitive spot causing you to yelp. Everyone looked at you and you blushed terribly in embarrassment. You mouthed a sorry as Erik laughed. 

He would also whisper jokes in your ear, and you wanted to laugh so badly, but it would be impolite. 

"Honestly, this part is the boring shit that nobody really cares about." Erik admitted in a low tone. The blonde haired guy sitting beside him agreed and you made an amused noise with your nose.

A while later, the announcer finally opened up the floor for the audience to ask questions. You were nervous again because you haven't been interviewed like this other than for a job.

Luckily though, majority of the questions went to Erik and the other more popular streamers.

You figured teenage white boys didn't really know what to ask a black adult female. 

There were a good number of females in the crowd and one of them inquired about how it felt being recognized for more than just a pretty face in the Twitch community.

"Well thank you first of all." So many compliments, it was overwhelming. "It feels good, ya know. I'm really grateful that my viewers don't question my ability to game because I'm a woman. Of course I get the occasional troll, but my moderators usually handle that."

"What about you being black?" Erik added in. 

You smiled, "Well being a female is one thing, but being a black female is another. There will always be trolls, someone trying to bring me down, but I don't let it get to me. I'm very happy with where I'm at in life right now. I'm not hurting anybody, not causing drama with anyone. I'm doin' me." You commented. "In fact, when I got in here this girl- shoutout to you Arusi- said I inspired her. Do you know how good that made me feel?" You gushed just thinking about it again. "All I know is the gaming community can be harsh, but it's also an amazing thing too."

"Great response!" The announcer applauded, the audience also clapped as well. 

You knew that this crowd wouldn't be able to completely understand what it felt like to be a female gamer with African heritage, so there was no point in breaking it all down. Even though there were all kinds of people in the audience, but it mainly was teenage white boys. You were still happy to express some of yourself though. 

"Alright and we'll take a few more questions... Yes you in the back, blue hat."

The guy in the blue hat was handed a mic, "I have a question for Killmonger."

"Wassup, bro?" Erik rested his arms on the table.

"Is she your girlfriend?!" 

Your eyes widened at the boldness of this guy. Erik however, leaned back and stared at you. You tried to avoid looking into his eyes.

"Ion know, you gon' have to ask her." He slyly said, putting you on the spot. 

This was an asshole move.

You shielded your face and turned away. The purple haired female streamer beside you guffawed. 

"Come on, you guys always keep secrets from us!" Blue Hat complained.

"It ain't me bro, I just respect what the lady wants." Erik shrugged.

You finally lifted your head after you felt your heart rate calmed down slightly. You leaned into the mic and inhaled before looking at Erik and then saying, "Yes."

The audience erupted in different forms of cheer and celebration. Many "I KNEW IT's!" and "I TOLD YOU SO's!" filled the air as you and Erik glanced at each other during the madness. 

Who knew so many people cared?

"Alright, settle down. Settle down!" The announcer interjected.

Blue Hat still had the mic, "If you really are dating then kiss!" 

The audience went wild again as they chanted, "Kiss!" repeatedly. 

You already admitted that you were Erik's girlfriend in front of hundreds of people, might as well go the extra mile and seal the deal. Besides, you owed him that much for all he's already done for you. So you pulled him in and gently connected your lips.

Judging by the way he was preparing to move his lips, you could tell it would heat up quickly so you pulled back before TwitchCon turned into PornHubCon. 

Erik licked his lips, impressed at your boldness. At first he believed the furthest you would go was a kiss on the cheek, but you really kissed him on the lips after just meeting him for the first time. 

"Happy?" You asked Blue Hat. 

But Erik answered under his breath, "Most definitely."

"Yep, I just won $100 dollars. Thank you!" He cheered.

Everyone laughed. 

There are really some crazy people in the world. Making bets on other peoples relationship. 

At the end of the event, you, Kai and Erik were tired. You both more than him, Erik was use to this. Though you were grateful for the many people who were excited to meet you, taking that many pictures and signing that many autographs was exhausting.

"You still wanna go to the party?" He asked running his thumb over your knuckles.

"I do, but I'm kind of in the mood to sleep as well." You admitted. 

"You won't be missing much to be honest. I usually show up for the hors d'oeuvres cuz they fire, but other than that I bounce."

"I guess I'll head back to the air B&B then. Kai looks like he's gonna pass out anyway." You looked at your brother who was leaning against the wall, eyelids halfway open.

"I can drive y'all."

"No, no it's alright. You've already done so much."

"Baby, why you always quick to say no to me? I want that sam energy from the panel."

You made up an excuse, "It's gonna be a long drive."

"I ain't worried about no traffic, girl. That just gives me more time with you." Erik brought your knuckles up to his lips. Your knees felt weak. 

You sighed and gave in, "Fine. Come on, Kai."

Erik helped you into his silver Range Rover, locking the door before getting into the drivers side and Kai helped himself.  

Another hour and you were back at the air B&B. Your phone was blowing up with notifications about the whole event earlier. Even your friends and family had texted you about the kiss you shared on stage with Erik, mom included.

He walked you to the front door of your room. 

"Goodnight, Erik. See you tomorrow." Kai sleepily said and walked into the apartment leaving you two alone.

"Goodnight, Kai." He replied before fixing his attention back onto you. 

"So how did you get my address?" You began, it's been on your mind since you received the gifts from him. 

"Remember when you gave me Kai's number." You nodded, "Well I told him about my plan to fly y'all out here to LA so we could go to TwitchCon together. I knew you wanted to go, but you kept telling me why you couldn't. So I made a deal with him."

You beckoned for him to keep going.

"If he kept his grades up, I would get both of y'all out here for TwitchCon. And he held his end of the deal." Erik stated with a shrug. "I would say you should thank him, but I was gonna do it either way. It was a good motivator though."

"It was." You agreed. Kai's grades did change over the course of him talking to Erik. You were unaware of this happening, but you're glad that Erik did it.

It was silent again, Erik was staring at you with this calculated look on his face. It made you shy. 

"What?" You timidly questioned him, feeling small under his gaze.

"Nun, I'm just taking in how fine you are." 

He always knew how to wake the butterflies in your stomach.

"I'm also thinking about that kiss." He added in a husky voice. "I wanted a part two, and I still do." His fingers lifted your chin up and your eyes fell onto his lips that were closing the distance. 

You met in the middle, lips clashing together. Erik's arms wrapped around your frame, your hands holding the sides of his face as the kiss deepened even more. It was soft at first, but grew stronger with need and passion. You clung to each other, not wanting to let go.

You both dreamed for this moment for months and it finally was a reality.

The man that you use to watch behind your computer screen caused your legs to feel like butter, the butterflies in your stomach to go rampant and the beating in your heart to rival the sounds of a drum.

You couldn't have asked for more.

Yes! Finally finished! 

I have no idea how this became so long, but it did lol!

I'll be honest, at one point I felt like this story was super boring (and I was considering deleting it 3000 words in- there's 9000 excluding this authors note), but as I kept writing I grew to like it more, so I really hope you all enjoyed it. Even if video games aren't your thing.

Thanks for reading!

(Start/Finish: March 14-19, 2020)

[the-official-account]

I HAVE BEEN INFORMED THERE'S A NEW EPISODE HERE'S 26 LIVEBLOG BABEEEEYYYY

my podcatcher is cool and great and open source and ad free and all that shit but I haven't set up my notifications good and because this is my first episode as they come out (my inner fanatic is all grown up) im not used to the schedule but HHHASD;LPIG AHIP'LSF AG THE WAY I SCREEEEEAMED AND ACTUALLY DANCED FOR JOY HERE WE GO!!!!!

oh opening music my beloved. Oh shit I got so obsessed with Blorbos I briefly forgot exactly where we are in the story. Coping mechanism (slash joking slash lighthearted) im 👀👀👀👀 very hyped bery concerned

"you need to be making eye contact to be frozen" means it's vry easy to free spar!!! ahhh so they somehow duplicated the pendants....or found more??

BACKUP THINGS 👀👀👀👀👀👀👀 IM ON DESKTOP AND I CAN ONLY HAVE ONE EMOJI COPIED TO MY CLIPBOARD AT AT TIME ASJKDLHFASDFH

also the title of this episode is making me excited

Ila's stress about spar's condition is such a mood

THIS TELEKENISIS NECKLACE THING IS SO BANGER.

ooh. oof. this drive. CRIT?????? NICE FUCK. WHEW.

SUUCESSED THE FUCK OUTA THAT.

Voracity fucking sucks sorry about your lineage bestie i do hope you die though

SPAR BALANCED HALWAYD ON A CATWALK, FROZEN, SNUGGLED UP TO AN AWFUL AWFUL VAMPIRIC ASSHOLE UHHHH

......that joker.

OH I FORGOT VELLUM CAN TELEPORT FOR A SEC with the power of looking INCREDIBLY sexy. I like this plan I'm feeling good about this plan

Jordan's clearly plotting some shit and i am HERE for it

"normally you are not conscious during it" NORMALLY???

Spar depersonalization crash course. OH WAIT NO SPAR STEVEN UNIVERSE MOMENTS. IM OBSESSED????

viscious spar.....hmmm......im making a face it's not a great face LASDFALHFAHS

I love that spar's first thing is to just get the gist of what he's got going on <3 LJSADFLKJAHSDJFKHASD HE GOES TO VELLUM A;LKSDFLJSHDFLJSADGFLJSHADFKAHSDFKLASDF SCOOBY DOO ASS LOVE BIRDS

Oh shit is Vellum gonna think spar is fucking dead???? VORACITY GOES TOPPLING WHICH IS HILARIOUS BUT SPAR TOO??????? HOLY SHIT????? LMAO????

we are thirteen minutes in.

IF YOU DIE IN YOUR BODY YOU DIE IN REAL LIFE ALKSDJF;LAKSDJFASKLD;FJALSDFJ

Essay protesting Voracity's stats is such a mood. What if...what if ya jus didn???

As spooky as this whole situation is, the mental image of spar having royallllly biffed it is sending me

Okay when I was very young, I used to play chess with a younger sibling of mine. And I did this thing where I would just take one rook and systematically go around capturing all their pawns because they didn't know how to protect them, while just kinda giggling. And that's the energy ipswitch is bringing right now, tkaing out all their backup.

EIGHT FUCKING CARDS

AD;ISFLG;ALKDSGASLDFK RING TOSS SITIONATION wasn't jakub with ipswitch? or going to him? and yeahhhh lunevella is an important ally.

Diamond? friend? mmmmmmmmmmmmnahhhh

YEAH LUNAVELLA!!!! MASSIVE WITCH LADY COME IN CLUTCH!

nooo fuck PLEASE dont make it diamond please please please LUNEVELLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA lesbiamb...YEAS

I forget what beloved does but mechanical nonsense is my favorite

NO SUCESSES ONE JOKER there are not emojis on this computer that describe...you know that one image of the hot cook guy from Queer eye looking traumatized? that.

"I'm having fun being a useless ghost boy" VALID i am also having fun. sometimes in a ttrpg you just wanna be/add to the problem for a bit!!! And that's ok

Voracity being pissed about being launched off the catwalk is SO Funny.

"so I could accomplish my goal without violence" BITCH YOU THREATENED TO MURDER SEVREAL-----FJHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

NO NO NO VORACITY ISNT ALLOWED TO CRIT LEAVE VELLUM ALOOOOOOOONE!!!!!!!!!

oh shit but vellum's turn now.......kick them back off!!!!!! asjdhfakjsdhfasdkflakdhf

TAEKWONDO!! switching instantly for a drive does seem like a good balance I like that mechanic

god I love my gay rule-abiding detectives who for some reason keep trying to fight the ONE being that EVERY rule is like don't fucking fight for the love of god do not fight them for the LOVE OF

"I imagine that vellum gets a cat stance, which is like an L stance" i know there is more informaiton here but my brain has already shifted into the "someone i know is talking about something they love and i understand very little of what's happening here but I'm just excited to listen" mode. But no i do need to know what cat stance is because this is so art in my brain. ill look it up later.

im so *chinhands*

OOOOOH BUT THIS DESCRIPTION IS SO GOOD i CAN SEE IT IN MY BRAIN SO WELL OOOOHAS;DFHKLASEHFASKDFHA VELLUM IS SO COOL

there are no ascii emojis for doing a silly stupid little happy stim but that's what's happening

oh shit luna can fly!

Lune deserves to be condescending to her enemies, she's dealt with so much bullshit.

Ooof we have the AA and now the bramble guard with MOTORCYCLES????? ugh!!! organizations!!!!! Lore!!!!!!!! im swooning. there is nothing sexier in my mind that good worldbuilding

tatiana related plans but not htis episode 👀👀👀👀👀👀👀????

yeah lmao fuck diamond.

okay but in my brain Desdemona was suuuuuuper pretty. Oh no!!! Don't make her endearing!!!!!!!

(sweetly) "So uhhh, people of cindershore as you can see....we have the people of theee passion fruit festival held hostage <3"

THEY WANTED TO DO THIS NON VIOLENTLY god fuck i hate fucking misinformation goddamn.

"side with crystallis of againse you own wellbeing" bestie how is that fucking nonviolent?????

"get your gummy jello fingies in here" hello i am uncomfortablleeee AHSDL;FHASDFHADJSFLHAKDSFJH

TERRORIST TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES

I like to imagine that Kit's comments was ipswitch being genuinely helpful

oh god. there was a SPLIT second moment when my entirely world lit up with the GLEE that was Voracity biffing it off the catwalk again.

vellum pulls them...up? NOOO I MEAN THATS SMART BUT AHHHHH IM STAKING THE PROTAGONISTS LIKE A MIRACA (how the FUCK do you spell this im pretty sure i knew that) STOP PUTTING YOURSELF IN HARMS WAY AHHHHHHHHHH

i swear to GOD the host have an uncanny ability to say the joke i was thinking and I think we've just all got the same internet brain rot. my FIRST thought here was "None successes? left beef." and there we go. no funny left for the rest of us.

oooh what's jakub up to

WITCH TIME WITCH TIME WITCH TIME

"leave diamond where they are" you know, cause fuck em.

LUNA VELLA COMING IN FRIGGGGGING CLUTCH.

"Lunavella casts a spell that was taught to her by tara. Lunavella later taught it to jasper, who used it to talk to a god at a very crucial time"

the VOLUME at which i just sais "HUH?????" is IMMENSE.

WHAT DOES THAT MEAN??? HELLP???? NO DONT MOVE ON HELLO??? HI! hIS I HAVE QUESTIONS?

Did jasper do the untethering???? Did jasper PERSONALLY speak to mommy magic???? Is that was Tara did to sacrifice her connection to magic for Merim & Josepha's freedom????? what...what does this mean....

SHE'S TALKING TO KRONOSAVA SHE CALLED THIS RELIC'S FUCKING PARENT. SHE SAID SHE'S GOING TO THE MANAGER. AJSHDFAJSHDFLKAJSHDF

An animatronic giant....HMMMMMM

okay but what is the triple threat if not just a small, minimalist mech suit?

"oh i do like information" "I know!!! Me to!!!" Oh my god they're suchhhh fucking nerds i fucking love them HASKLDJHFASDHFAKDJLFH GET ME TO A CLOSET.

AND JAKUB BLUSHES. AND OF COURSE IPSWITCH DOESN'T NOTICE CAUSE ITS IPSWITCH. THIS IS CUTE AS FUCK

I WANNA TRY TO POSSESS VORACITY Spar has been a ghost for like 2 minutes, and he was already like "When in rome!!!"

Kronosava manifests as a NINE FOOT TALL CLOCKWORK PERSON WITH MANY CLOCK FACES OF IMPOSSIBLE GEOMETRY????? COOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLL FUCKING RAD RAD RAD

Spar's ALONE with the TIME GOD al;jsdflkasdjfasdjlf

he did NOT just introduce himself....holllly shit lmaooo. "those who may be frozen by my eye are unworthy by my sight" oh so Spar is like. Time daddy's favorite blorbo. This makes sense to me. or maybe somewhat.

KRONOS SAY YALL KINDA SUCK SO I MADE YA DIE, CAUSE FUCK EM

Spar is NOT fucking out logicing this GOD im So here for this. fuck em up bestie FUCK EM UP!!!!!!

imagine your last name being considered by the GOD OF TIME now that's what I call clout.

"relative innocence" yeahhhhh. peace and lvoe on the planet earth, but emphasis on "on the planet earth"

Mayor lipton is the mayor of cindershore.

Okay I understanbd this scene im loving the vibes but MERIM FELSPAR THE SECOND IS NOOOOOTTTTT THE JUSTICE SYSTEM MR. TIME DADDY!!! He can't awnser for the crime and bigroties of Extra #8 and 13

YOU MAKE A GODDEX CHUCKLE that line will be living in my brain as something that can be so symbolism

I....I...I don't like this. wow i HATE how fast spar just traded off year of his fucking life span noooooo. fuck. fuck. fuckity fuck fuck fuck im in distress. ughhhhhh spar being spar.......I will have thoughts but first I need to sigh a lot ......Ugh.

but also fuck the gods im not vibing with this barter situation. is it good for the plot YES is deicide always an aspiration of mine also yes

"it feels like licking a battery with your hand' oooh mental sensory imaginings not good but very very cool

Like sourpatch kids watermelon flavor colorscheme.

*sadly, with hesitation* midtro dance midtro dance....

guhhhh spar....Spar why. Like I understand the choice but that was SO fast. HE DIDNT THINK ABOUT IT AND THAT'S WHAT I --UGHHHHHH

happy late birthday to essay!

ESSAY PLEASE STOP ASTRALLY PROJECTING PLACES ALSDFL;ASHFDLASHDFLKASF

Spar is a snacker and habituatally hands people snacks to keep them sustained.

God yall are just begging for me to write a communion (slash literary term related to chrstian, not christian practice itself. for as much as i say the words lord and god i like barely know who jesus is) fic....soon my toils will be over and my backlog will sing so my like the sirens lulling me away from an approaching storm, so instead my hyperfixation can crash violently upon the rocks and. it. will. be. GLORIOUS.

VELLUM WON A LEETLE KEETY <3<3<3

KIT CAME OUT SWINGING WITH THIS????? ....HUH????? BESTLJHAS;DIFHASDHFASJDFALKDSFKJASF. KIT SAID "IPSWITCH LOOKS AT SOME GAY SHIT END OF SENTENCE" IM DEAD. Im just imaginging Jakub looking at the performers, and at ipswitch, and at the performers, and in his head he's like "why does he look contemplative?"

Xbala, hilde, grey, anya play shoots and ladders at the safe house while knowing Spar, Vellum, ip, Jakub, and Luna are risking their lives fighitng voracity....that was me typing for speed but "Ip" as a nickname is really cute imo.

*much more enthusiatic end of midtro dance*

ILA I DON'T THINK THAT'S GOOD NEWS. DODGE IS ONE. AH. OH NO. HHHHH.

i made i sound like ID been bitten. Voracity. Rancid bestie, what if we like....didnt...

LIASDFASDJFASDF VELLUM'S BLOOD TASTES WIERD?????

*A deep sigh as I realize by having Beloved as a ultimate Vellum is, in fact, another self-sacrificial blorbo for the lot.*

Oh fuck he's so determined and valliant but i want him to STOP.

People should be reinvigorating and spar should be around soon??? im....spoooked. I know being unconcious isn't the end of the world though....

I think some of the gumw as given to Anya and may not have ever been returned? Which i only mention as a brief note for efforts and because these eps are recorded long ahead of time: i aint a snitch

spar to the recsue <3 <3 <3 king I'm imagining spar like Baseball-sliding in, swinging the sword like he's going to a home run, in slow motion. It's VERY cool.

SPAR IS AJUDSHLKJSAHGFKLJSADFGHAS THIS IS FO FUNNY I FUCKING LOVE THIS.

OHHHHH JUST ONE SHORT.

OH. OH SHIT. OH. PLEASE FLIP GOOD OH MY GOD. ID WOULD BE SCREAMING BUT IF I START SCREAMING i CAN'T HEAR.

AHHHHH;LFRGHA jumped so hard I pulled my chair up off the floor and keysmashed irrespocibly enough to put my compter to sleep. I'm SO normal.

The Animaation of this that exists in my brain through. Vellum gets bitten and Voracity reals back enough for you to see, between their faces, spar sprinting towards them reaching for his sword. The Camera whips to a side angle for spar's baseball swing. Slice! Spray of blood as vellum gets up a bit. Shot from below spar's chin to show his determined face and the long line of his arm and Bang! Bang! They all drop until his gun clicks empty. As there's a zoom in on the bat going for the window. One last bang and as Spar looks down the Camera does too, to show Vellym propped up on one arm holding His derringer high for a beat before his arms fall when he slumps in relief and he just smiles as ash rains down around them. Spar falls to his knees, and vellum slides over to kiss him...augh. AUGH!

Spar with a subtle scar over his hear that after 26 is raised and more obvious. For you know. Eventual shiftless art that WILL happen

Oh shit Jakub's getting a fucking promotion, huh?

LKJUAHSFGKJAHSKDFAHSDFKLASD IPSWITCH FINDS TERRORISM TAX FRAUD EVIDENCE I LOOOVE THAT FOR HIM OH MY GODDD <3.

Okay but Jakub being attracted to that is SO dorky and i love them and they're such sillyy guyssss. IPSWITH STARTLES.

"i have one more thing to end on!" [the episode has twnety minutes left]

Governor thorn middle ages. violet haired. carries a spear. CLEARLY need to pack her ass up and fuck off before she messes with Hilde, Anya, Grey and Xbala. I was only gonna mention my favoirites out of that grpup but not yeah they're all good. So throne need to like. go. I don't trust this.

"What's this about? how do you know where this is?" GOOD QUESTIONS.

FUCK. OFF. UNDER ARREST FOR WHAT. BITCH?

NO. NO. YOU DONT GET TO FUCKING END CREDITS MUSIC AFTER THAT FUCK YOU. FUCK OFF. WHAT. WHAT?

What.

i HEARD KEVIN AND I ACTUALLY GASPED. ITS MY FAVORITE CRINGEFAIL KING!!!!

CATBOY ASCE!!!!!!

OH WAIT im realizing....If SUITS has been abolished that Spar did retire after all, huh? Huh. Good for not having to report info about clovenheart. BAD news for whatever the fuck is happening to jack. Interesting news for Vellum's blood theirvery theories. And damn, I just sort of assumed Mayor Thorne was just like...Good Guy(TM) until....well until chapter 3 of tempest and teapots yesterday. God i love stories where things only get bigger. crunchy as hell.

THEY HAVE TO BOTH WEAR HIS CLOTHES STACKED ASJLDFALSDJFADF

I'm in love with Asce's himbo ass, he should NOT be enabling this and YET.

Iris has jury duty and then she's getting a massage and then she's going to therapy and then doing her therapy homework: considering new employment.

DOES CASEDYWM FUCKING STICK THEM IN HIS ACTUAL POCKET??????? OH NO.

ARE THEY JUST GONNA KEEP THE PIXIES IN HIS POCKET THE WHOLE TIME?

"I just need to know whose on top and whose...whose...whose the legs" Ah, when nature denies us our low hanging fruit

oh god I hope asce is left handed because otherwise Caedyn';s hand is occupied and Asce only has access to his non dominant hand

SDLFASDFAJSDFLASDF "I DONT KNOW HOW IT HELPS BIT I WANT IT"

"IS CADEWYN'S noSE PIECED" "IT IS NOW"

ASDKJFA;LSDJFASDF FUCK

added together they look like a great mintaur, yeah!! If someone shakes their head back and forth very fast

peer pressure confusion...sweet jesus.

JSADLFJALKDSFJAS just look abnormnal and blend in!!! This stratedgy would work in many of my social circles to be fair.

Not CALHOUN (just finished reading the 1619 project, that's the last name of the probably most cartoonishly evil & racist person in that entire book. Which, if anything, makes this mor funny for me

HE GIVES CADEWYN MORE ALCOHOL. NOOOO LMAOOOOOO

A BRILLIANT TACTICAL PLAY YOU'RE NOT HIGH LEVEL ENOUGH TO GET FULL DETAILS ON.

I was gonna make a joke about xbala getting arrested in the background but then it hit me: anya is a defense lawyer. A defense lawywer who already fucking hates Thorn. A defense lawyer who already hates thorn who has made up with spar and befriended Xbala and in all likelyhood has the support of the Harrington's behind her. She might. She might fuck it up. Take no prisoners, but like, the opposite way that's usually meant. still just as fuckign rad tho. my brain is turning. rotating like a microwave plate. mmmmmmmmm.

That scene was so funny though. cherry on top of a wonderful episode. i have...i have things to consider.

@threeheartscast @citrusandsalt @ilaalexei

[tom-whore-dleston]

Jordan's 23rd Birthday Sleepover

My actual bday isn't until the 4th but imma just milk out the celebration as much as I can skskskdfghaa 🤣 this sleepover has nothing to do with Michael Jordan or basketball (I mean other than my name is Jordan and I am turning 23 lmfao)

Even tho Tumblr is a weird and oftentimes crappy place, I have met some pretty cool ass people on here and I wouldn't want it any other way :') Y'all make this place less dark and I wanna celebrate this special day with my besties!! Here's to another year of friendship, love, and unhinged hoe vibes 🤪🥂 let's pretend that I'm not recycling some stuff from my last sleepover 💀

Party Itinerary:

Starts: April 3 @ 12am (PST)

Ends: April 6 @ 11:59pm (PST)

You are welcome to send in asks before the sleepover starts, but I won't start responding to them until the start time.

As always, please be 18+ to participate! Y'all know how I feel about minors being on my blog so please don't give me a reason to block any of y'all. Please have some indication of your age in your bio.

You don't have to be following me to participate. Everyone is welcome 😊

I disabled anon feature to avoid meanies and minors.

Please send one emoji per ask. You don't have to worry about spamming my inbox, I will see everything ;)

I will not write/discuss anything revolving around non-con, underage, a/b/o, bathroom kinks, blood kinks (only exception is vampire AU if applicable), incest, step-cest, foot fetish.

I only write for female reader inserts with no specific race/ethnicity, hair/eye/skin color, body type, etc.

I reserve the right to deny writing/discussing any other things that make me uncomfortable.

Overall, let's just have fun and spread some love!!!

Thank you for the gift 🥰:

🍨 - Let's get personal. Ask me whatever you want.

🎂 - Let's play an ask game (cym, fmk, wyr, etc). Feel free to spice it up to your liking ;)

🍾 - Send me a hottie not on list and I'll rate them based on the scale below.

Yikes, I Don’t See The Appeal || Not My Type || He’s Alright || I See The Appeal But I’m Different™ || Cute But On Alternating Wednesdays || He Has A Kind Face And That’s Good Enough || Pretty || Gorgeous || I— I Love? We Don’t Deserve Him.

🥳 - Send me smutty, fluffy, and/or crack concepts that you think would fit in any of my AUs (Honey Baby, Teach Me Tonight, Rolling Dice and Rocking Hips)

🎉 - *Send a prompt from this list + hottie and I'll write a quick fic. Feel free to add AUs/tropes/etc.

🎈 - *Send me a movie + hottie and I will write a quick fic based on the movie

ex. Tangled + Xu Shangqi

🎁 - *Send a pic of one of my hotties and I will write a quick fic based on the pic.

🕯️ - *Send me a song or song lyrics + hottie and I will write a quick fic based on the song/lyrics

*Please note that the asks involving quick fics will take some time, so be patient as I write them! Remember that I reserve the right to deny any requests that 1. involve anything I previously stated I do not write for 2. I generally do not feel comfortable writing

You know who will be at the party 😏:

Real life hotties -

Simu Liu, Tom Hiddleston, Tom Holland, Austin Butler, Barry Keoghan, Andrew Garfield, Harry Styles, Oscar Isaac, Michael B. Jordan, Benedict Cumberbatch, Hayden Christensen

Fictional hotties -

Marvel: Loki Laufeyson, Xu Shang-Chi/Shangqi, Peter Parker (any variant), Xu Wenwu, Erik Kilmonger, Scott Lang, Thor, Druig, Eros/Starfox, Sam Wilson, Pietro Maximoff (Age of Ultron), Joaquin Torres, Bucky Barnes, Marc Spector/Steven Grant, Stephen Strange

Star Wars: Din Djarin, Anakin Skywalker, Obi Wan Kenobi, Poe Dameron

Other: Kim Jung (Kim’s Convenience), any Sim Liu’s SNL characters (don't be shy, I know we all simped), Adam (Only Lovers Left Alive), Johnathan Pine (The Night Manager), Robert Laing (High Rise), James Conrad (Kong: Skull Island), Nathan Drake (Uncharted), Arvin Russel (The Devil All The Time), Ransom Drysdale (Knives Out), Jefferson/Mad Hatter (Once Upon a Time)

Gifts on the Table (oldest to newest):

🎉 - “Reality is even better than my dreams.” + Tom Hiddleston (@/huntress-artemiss)

🎈 - A Court of Mist and Fury + Simu Liu (@/littlestatesman)

🎈 - Meet the Robinsons + Xu Shangqi (@/blackbat05)

🎁 - Simu Liu (@/tonystarksfavoritedaughter)

🎁 - Adam OLLA (@/poetic-fiasco)

🎁 - Loki Laufeyson (@/frostbitten-written)

🎁 - Oscar Isaac (@/wint3r-h3art)

🎉 - “I’m not necessarily hungry for food right now.” + Stephen Strange (@/wint3r-h3art)

🍾 - Stephen Strange (@/wint3r-h3art)

🎉 - Austin Butler + “How about we stay here all day and cuddle?” (@/beakeoghan)

🥳 - Teach Me Tonight concept: prof! Shangqi testing your knowledge on X subject (or whatever major/minor is being tested) while testing you and your self control? (@/potatos-main)

🍨 - 3 things you want people to know about you (@/yummymatcha)

🎁 - Simu Liu (@/cyborg-cinderella)

🎉 - "You remembered my favorite food" + Adam OLLA (@/give-me-a-moose)

🕯️ - "So, baby, can you eat it from the back? Got me purrin' like I'm Doja Cat" + Simu's SNL character of choice (@/tmholland)

🎉 - “I know I should care about the reason why you’re naked in my bed, but I will just enjoy it for a moment.” & “I’ll take it that you like what you see.” + Xu Shangqi (@/hollandparkersx)

dividers by @firefly-graphics

[freddyjoncs]

ᴛʜᴇʀᴇ'ꜱ ꜱᴏ ᴍᴜᴄʜ ᴛʀᴀᴜᴍᴀ ɪɴ ᴍʏ ʟɪꜰᴇ ɪ'ᴠᴇ ʙᴇᴇɴ ꜱᴏ ᴄᴏʟᴅ ᴛᴏ ᴛʜᴇ ᴏɴᴇꜱ ᴡʜᴏ ʟᴏᴠᴇᴅ ᴍᴇ

statistics

inspired  by :  fred jones (  mystery incorporated  / live action scooby doo ) / added inspo ! ,  fox mulder  (  x-files  )  ,  michael emerson  (  the lost boys  )  ,  dean winchester  (  supernatural )  , steven crain (  the haunting of hill house  ) , conrad fisher ( the summer i turned pretty ), sebastian valmont (  cruel intentions  ). inspo for coolsville : fear street trilogy, IT ( 2017 / 2019 ) , stranger things & scream the tv series. 

full name. frederick herman jones jr.  faceclaim. dacre montgomery ( future : tom hardy ) dob. november 22 zodiac. sagittarius occupation. leader of mystery inc. birthplace. coolsville, ohio. orientation. bisexual/biromantic song. teeth - 5 seconds of summer. film. scream education. graduated walt university with a degree in parapsychology. temperament. choleric ( leader-like, argumentative, practical ) mbti. estj ( strong willed, judgemental, difficulty expressing emotions ) alignment. chaotic neutral abilities. n/a. hogwarts house. gryffindor emoji.  ( 🧐 )

present !! ( bio can be found here )

freddy came to elias to figure out the truth behind the note left for him. he was told here that all would be uncovered, so far it has.in his time in elias freddy has discovered the truth about his father and the truth about coolsville being cursed.

with the help of mystery inc, freddy plans on saving their town. it’s the first real mystery the gang has come face to face with. the dangers are real.

he’s still atoning for who he was in the past. he doesn’t expect the gang to completely forgive him but he’s trying.

he’s a little nicer. the old freddy shows sometimes. now that he’s not in the shadow of his father he’s shedding the image his dad expected from him and trying to live his truth. it’s hard for him to remember who once was or figure out who he actually is to his core. he’s trying to be better but the thing is he doesn’t know how. ( therapy frederick therapy )

while he’s worked up the courage to open up to daphne, he has yet to tell shaggy and velma the whole truth as to why they were brought to elias.

there’s a lot of trauma he’s experienced whether he knows it or not and a lot healing freddy needs to go through. he’s yet to do so. he’s no longer in his denial stage. he’s now in his anger stage. it’s mostly directed towards his father. how he deals with that anger ? isolation.

he’s all but thrown himself into work. while he tries to get out more and make friends, freddy’s completely consumed and obsessed with the case.

mickey / maleficent debate ? he doesn’t care. unless there’s someone here who can help him freddy doesn’t care. though, he teters the line of good and dark. swayed the wrong way and freddy could easily walk the path maleficent has set. will he ??? who knows !! not me !! he’s got a dangerous book in his possession

songs associated with this time frame : jason - the midnight & nikki flores, running up that hill ( a deal with god ) - kate bush, same guy - jack harlow ft. adam levine, out of time - the weekend, hayloft ii ( smashup ) - mother mother

past !!

tw: freddy’s past touches on kidnapping, cheating & neglectful parent. please read with caution.

born jason chiles to brad chiles and judy reeves, freddy was taken as ransom from his parents and as an heir to frederick jones, sr.

you see, long ago before freddy was even a glint in his mother’s eyes, his adoptive father’s ancestors made a deal with the devil. the jones family would prosper the only catch ? sacrifices were to be made. this is how the coolsville we know today formed. mysteries, murders and more. freddy’s birth parents had gotten too close to the truth which lead freddy to be taken from them.  ( more about it here. )

freddy’s father had no kids of his own so when he took freddy he planned to mold freddy into the perfect son. the jones were powerful people in the town of coolsville. being the mayor’s son meant that freddy was always held to a certain standard not only by his father but by the people of coolsville. 

he lived a lonely childhood, his father often tossed him to the side. he rarely spent time with freddy. his closest companions were the butler and his nanny. they raised freddy more than his own father did. the only time he ever saw his dad was when he was scolded. 

however, there was too much of his real parents in freddy. the boy was had an interest in the paranormal. he would sneak books in and read them late at night under the covers, stay after school to watch horror movies and when he met daphne, velma and shaggy he finally felt like he had found people who understood him. the people his father associated with, the elites of coolsville, they didn’t get him. the kids often found freddy weird. who liked to build traps for fun ? who knew that much knowledge about ghost and ghouls ? it was embarrassing. he wasn’t one of them and it showed. 

eventually word got back to the mayor about his son’s interest. not only did he not need his son snooping to the truth too soon, the jones family also had a reputation to uphold. he let freddy have his little gang of misfits until high school came around. he didn’t give his son a choice or an ultimatum, he forbid freddy from seeing any of them again, except daphne since she came from a family with power, and removed all of freddy’s beloved books, movies and anything to do with the paranormal. from that day on freddy played the part his father expected of him. it was also the second time he had come to fear his dad.

freshman year rolled around and freddy was no longer the innocent and nice kid he once was. he was corrupted by power and popularity. he dropped velma and shaggy without a single word, just cut them off completely. his relationship with daphne wasn’t the greatest either. when they were younger he was oblivious to her feelings until he wasn’t. they were sweet and cute. typical childhood friends to lovers and high school sweethearts but once freddy began to get older he realized he didn’t know how to love someone. not the way someone deserved at least and daphne deserved better. he never received love or affection from his father. he had no mother, only a photo that was claimed to be her ( it wasn’t even his mom it was a cut out of a model in magazine ), daphne loved him so much and held on so tight and that scared freddy. it caused him to push her away, to close himself off and destruct. because of his popularity and name, girls often threw themselves at freddy. he didn’t give in at first but he knew daphne would leave if he did. so he broke her heart, if only to save her from himself. 

freddy never cared for the popularity. he didn’t care he was the golden boy, the star of the lacrosse and football team & the king of coolsville high, none of it mattered to him because deep down he knew how alone he was. people only wanted to befriend him because of his name and what he could get them. the only genuine friends freddy ever had he threw away. 

along the way freddy began to resent his father. he finally saw the man for who he was and their relationship was turbulent at best. anytime the mayor actually acknowledged his son the it always ended in a fight. even with freddy doing what he wanted it wasn’t enough for him. freddy wasn’t enough for his dad and that was a hard pill to swallow.

one day after coming home he expected to be greeted by the same empty home he always knew but instead he found a note taped to his door. within the note it gave details of his true origins telling young freddy that if he wanted to know the truth of who he was he needed to travel to Elias, California for answers. it was mystery for sure, one he knew he couldn’t solve alone. there were only three people who could help him solve this and they were no longer in his life. it was then freddy knew he needed to renuinte mystery incorporated 

songs associated with this time frame : i’m just a kid - simple plan, closer - nine inch nails, super rich kids - frank ocean, the family jewels- marina, youngblood - 5 seconds of summer, daddy issues - the neighbourhood

future !!

in the future, freddy and gang will hopefully break the curse of coolsville and free their town. it also means freddy would have to face his father. how that ends i don’t know. only time will tell.

freddy would continue to run mystery inc in the future, make it a whole business that travels outside of elias. the gang would probably travel all over the world solving mysteries.

he would write a book about his experiences. from his true origins to the biggest case of his life. a movie would be adapted, like a whole franchise could come from mystery inc. 

the biggest thing is .. i want freddy to heal man has so much baggage and pain. he deserves to love and be loved. he deserves to have some peace. would love to see a therapy arc. he would discover who freddy actually is since he’s played a part his whole life.

the idea of family and being a parent would scare him. he would think he wouldn’t be at being a husband or father because of his upbringing but it think because of it freddy would work hard to break the cycle. he’d also have to work hard to be a good dad and father. he’d have doubts, of course, but if he grows like i hope it won’t be as hard.  

songs associated with this time frame : self care - mac miller, once in a lifetime- all time low, seventeen going under - sam fender, therapy, all time low,  i still believe - tim capello

taken connections

brad chiles & judy reeves / birth parents .

frederick jones, sr. / adoptive father .

daphne baykam / ex-girlfriend, 1/4 mystery inc .

shaggy rogers /  friend , 1/4 mystery inc .

velma dinkley / friend , 1/4 mystery inc .

serena fain / friend .

wanted connections

fellow paranormal lovers : if your characters loves spooky things hit up elias’ resident detective  [ open ]

hookups : freddy’s been in elias for a long ass time. it’s only natural he’d meet with some people here ... and there ... trying to fill a space that be ... craving the touch of another human aha... [ open ]

enemies : he’s not always the nicest so i’m sure freddy’s ruffled some feathers here and there [ open ]

sibling ship : freddy’s an only child so i’d love for him to have a relationship with someone that’s like a sibling to him whether it be older or younger [ open ]

drunk friends : aka two people who do not spend time together sober but get along only when drunk. [ open ]

( PINTEREST BOARD , PLAYLIST & MUSING TAG ( PT. 2 )

[clawsandblood]

5 - Betrayal

link to ao3

first part on Tumblr  previous part on Tumblr

It was only sometime next morning that Borna’s phone lit up with the notification of a message from Dorian. The actual message was read even later, after both Borna and Steven dragged themselves out of their beds into the kitchen to eat their breakfast.

animal carcasses bleed a lot 🤷

was hauling it off the road 💦 💦  with the other guy 😑  and got the worst of it 😭😢

thanks for pretending u dont know me 🙏🙏 

lowkey saved me 🙏🙏🙏 

ur a real bro 👊 💯

Borna showed Steven the messages after explaining the events of the previous night.

“Did he just bro-fist you?” Steven asked incredulously.

“That’s what she said,” Borna replied automatically. “But yeah, apparently he did.”

Steven threw his hands up. “Why must everyone be so shady?” he complained loudly.

His hand narrowly missed his mug, which Borna automatically moved further away from the edge of the table.

“Do you think he’s got anything to do with Madam Reid and her organization?” Borna asked.

Steven shrugged. “There’s only one way to find out,” he said.

Borna nodded. “Go to that super secret meeting.”

“No!” Steven was looking at him, scandalized. “We can just go over to his place, corner him again and-”

“Torture him for information?” Borna finished the sentence.

Steven snorted. “Sure, we can have a karaoke night until he caves in.”

They ate in silence for a minute.

“But for real, what do we do?” Steven asked. “Shit is getting really weird.”

Borna shrugged. “We’ve got two leads, you could go bug Dorian and I can go to that meeting.”

“We can both go bug Dorian and you won’t have to go there.” Steven was looking at Borna hopefully.

“You really don’t want me to go, do you?” Borna asked.

Steven huffed. “I just don’t like the idea of you going by yourself to a shady event hosted by shady people.”

“The whole werewolf thing necessitates some degree of shadiness,” Borna pointed out. “They can’t advertise this shit without getting caught.”

“But-” Steven sighed. “Why do you think this is so hush-hush? It’s not like existing as a werewolf breaks any laws.”

Borna gave him a long-suffering look. “Because why would people react badly to people that are different from them.”

“Ah.” Steven deflated. “Nevermind, that was dumb.” He chewed his lip. “I’ll ask Dorian to meet up,” he finally said. “Friday is soon and I’d like to do this before the… meeting.”

“Okay,” Borna said, defeated.

Steven’s fingers flew over the screen and then he put down his phone. He barely set it down when it buzzed. Steven picked it up and showed Borna the message.

yea 💯💯

im free after 4

just say where

loved hanging out with u 2 👌 👌  despite the bar fight n shit 😀 👊

“He’s got no idea, does he?” Borna asked after reading the texts. “And why does he text like a fuckboy?”

Steven sighed deeply. “Who would have thought a self-proclaimed caveman would be prone to overusing emojis.”

“We could go tomorrow?” Steven suggested. “I’d run then straight to work.”

Borna nodded. “I’ve got the morning shift, I’ll be free by then.”

Steven took his phone again and typed the message. “Asked for tomorrow at half past,” he announced.

The phone immediately vibrated. Steven unlocked it and made a face.

“He can’t?” Borna asked.

“No.” Steven showed Borna the screen, his face screwed up in distaste. “It’s just the fucking emojis.”

totally 👌 💯

cant wait 😁 😘

“Jesus,” Borna said.

---

They met up at Dorian’s apartment again, Steven all winded from climbing four flights of stairs. Dorian welcomed them both awkwardly, but enthusiastically, showing them in.

“What’s the occasion?” he asked cheerfully, taking out some glasses from the cupboard. “Anything to drink?” he offered. “Beer? Coffee?”

“Just water, please,” Steven replied, still wheezing slightly.

Dorian rambled as he filled up Steven’s glass, a jittery quality to his motions. “I hope you don’t mind that it’s kinda messy, I never have guests, and I didn’t have time-”

“It’s fine,” Borna said. Aside from one wayward blanket on the floor and an overflowing ashtray they were sitting in an almost pristine room. It looked like an aged up, scaled down, mismatched version of rooms from furniture catalogues. Almost as if a child would try to make a collage of their dream home with expectations based purely on 70s soviet interior design.

Dorian finally settled down on the sofa.

“We need to talk,” Steven said without a preamble.

Dorian’s face fell. “About what?”

“Start with why were you sitting in a car, covered in blood, pretending not to know Borna,” Steven said.

Borna pulled out Madam Reid’s business card. “Does this mean anything to you?”

Dorian’s eyes widened. “So she is here!” he exclaimed. Taking a moment to compose his face into something resembling neutrality, he gave the card back. “She’s…” He stopped, closing his mouth and opening it again. “My boss?”

“Is she your boss or is she your boss, among other things?” Borna asked.

Dorian gave him a long look. “She probably told you, didn’t she?” he asked.

“Told him what?” Steven cut in.

“She probably didn’t tell you,” Dorian said. “You’re not… you know.”

“A werewolf?” Borna asked bluntly.

Dorian nodded. “I don’t know if I should talk about this with-” He gestured to Steven. “Sorry, man,” he added sheepishly.

“If you don’t tell us both now I’ll tell him later,” Borna said.

Dorian met both their unmoving stares. “Okay, okay,” he mumbled. “So you know that there’s this organisation connecting all the werewolves, right?” 

They both nodded.

“Well, we need to make sure none of us gets revealed to the general public.” Dorian sighed wearily. “And this also includes taking care of the feral ones.”

“Feral?” Steven had concern written all over his face.

Dorian shrugged. “Some get so caught up in the euphoria of the wolf form they don’t want to change back,” he explained. “With time they completely forget who they are. Can cause a whole lot of trouble.”

“And what do you do with those?” Steven asked, voice low and wary.

“We shoot them.”

Borna placed a hand on Steven’s shoulder, who was already ready to launch himself at Dorian.

“And when were you going to tell us about that, huh?” Steven snarled. “Don’t you think that’s an important detail to mention?”

Borna pulled him to lean back on the couch. “How common is that?” he asked.

Dorian shook his head. “Not very. Last night was the first call in months.”

“So that’s why you were covered in blood that night.”

Dorian nodded. “We accidentally hit him with the car and then Gary finished him off with a bullet. It was quick, but burying the body was messy.”

Borna nodded thoughtfully. “Is that all you do under Reid?”

“No, not at all.” Dorian’s face cleared up, his demeanor losing the gloom. “It’s kind of like a… support network, you know? There’s things that we have to take care of for the good of the whole community, but if you’ve got problems, even if they’re completely unrelated, you’ll get help!”

Steven and Borna exchanged dubious glances. “That sounds very good,” Borna slowly said.

“Too good,” Steven concluded. “Where’s the catch?”

Dorian rolled his eyes. “There’s no catch, we just have to stick together, you know?” He shrugged. “Like we all immediately decided to stick together after finding out we’re all trans!”

“Sounds legit,” Borna said.

Steven huffed indignantly, but refrained from commenting.

“Is the interrogation over?” Dorian asked. “I was actually really looking forward to spending some time with people that aren’t my coworkers, but not like this.”

“One last thing,” Steven said.

Dorian groaned.

“Do you know about anything happening on Friday?”

Dorian nodded. “We’ve got the monthly meetup. Why?”

“I’m invited,” Borna answered.

“Shit.”

“And why is that bad?” Steven asked sharply.

Dorian took a deep breath. “Turning other people without any consultation within the group is generally… frowned upon,” he said. “It would be best if we pretended that we don’t know each other.”

“And why don’t they want you to turn people without their approval?” Steven asked.

“Recklessness. Bad characters.” Dorian shrugged. “Better to have others take a look to make sure no one too problematic ends up with powers.”

Borna nodded. “And if it happens anyway?”

“I don’t know, never saw anything like that happen.”

“Until you did me.”

“Until I did you.”

“That’s what she said,” Steven mumbled absent-mindedly. Then he looked upon the clock on his phone. “Shit, I’m gonna be late!”

He got up, making sure that he had everything he needed with himself. “Work,” he explained when Dorian shot him a puzzled look.

“You too?” Dorian asked, looking over to Borna who also got up, getting ready to leave, but Dorian’s question made him pause. “No.”

“Then you could stay for a bit?” Dorian asked. “If you don’t have anywhere to be?”

Steven shot him a glare, but Borna shrugged and put down his jacket. “Sure,” he said, ignoring Steven’s tightly pressed lips.

Dorian and Borna walked Steven to the doors, saying goodbye, Dorian valiantly trying to melt Steven’s icy demeanour.

“Stay safe,” Borna said, patting Steven on the back. 

“You too.”

Steven didn’t need to give Dorian an extra glare to demonstrate what he meant, but he did it anyway.

After the doors closed Dorian let out a breath. “He really doesn’t like me, huh?” he said awkwardly.

“Biting people, turning them into werewolves and failing to explain key elements tends to invoke that reaction, yeah,” Borna replied dryly.

Dorian shot him a sheepish gaze. “Sorry?”

Borna snorted. “It’s alright, he’s taking it way worse than I am, honestly.”

They returned to the living room.

“You sure you wouldn’t like a beer?” Dorian asked. After a moment’s thought Borna nodded. “If you’ll have one,” he said.

They sat down on the couch again, much less tense than before.

“So what is it like?” Dorian asked.

Borna took a sip. “It’s still so early,” he said. “Spent last few days feeling like shit.”

Dorian nodded in sympathy. “Those weren’t fun for me either.”

“How long has it been for you?”

“A few years,” Dorian answered, his face growing more solemn. “They found me at a… bad time. Helped immensely.”

Borna nodded wordlessly. Dorian was staring in front of himself, fingers toying with the edge of the label on his bottle.

“I was stuck with my shitty family, failing my studies, closeted as hell. Would start fights with people just to feel something.” Smiling wryly, he looked up back at Borna. “One night I started a fight with one of the wolves but we somehow befriended each other. It was him who suggested to turn me.”

Borna nodded. “It sounds like they really helped you.”

“They did, it’s just so…” Dorian trailed off. Then he leaned forward, smiling conspiratorially. “Don’t you feel more in charge of your life?” he asked, voice low, but fervent. “Don’t you feel like you own your body more than you ever did before?”

“I…” Words died on Borna’s lips.

“I’ve seen how you two came here today,” Dorian said, sounding a touch more like his usual self. “You didn’t break a sweat, meanwhile Steven was huffing like a steam train from all the stairs.”

“You’re right,” Borna realized, brows knotting. “That was weird.”

Dorian smiled smugly. “That’s just a start.”

---

They ended up chatting for hours, exchanging stories, jokes, music recommendations, veering away from heavier themes after Dorian’s little confession. It got late by the time Borna got back home, though Steven was still at work. As he worked the morning shift the next day, he went to sleep without much preamble - as curious as he must have been, Steven would get mad if Borna lost sleep waiting for him to come home so he could report all the details of the hangout.

---

Dorian woke up with a swooping sense of excitement in his stomach. He had to survive his mind-numbing shift first, but then it was the time for the meeting, and meetings were good. The time in the store dragged like never before, the usual anticipation exacerbated by the fact that Borna was coming too.

His phone started vibrating, the screen showing three poop emojis. Dorian sighed, picking it up. “What is it?” he asked.

“Am at the back doors,” Gary’s voice crackled through the tiny phone speaker. “Let me in, I’ve got a package.”

“Coming,” Dorian replied and put the phone down. Casting a glance at the store windows, he left his chair, disappearing through the curtain to the back.

Unlocking the doors, he was greeted by the sight of Gary’s bulging arms wrapped around a giant cardboard box. He stepped aside, holding the doors open.

“It’s a big one,” Gary said needlessly. “Natalie will send someone to collect it.”

Dorian nodded. “Just put it on the floor there so it won’t get in the way.”

Gary put down the boy with a dull thud, pushing it towards the wall. “Did you talk with Natalie these days?” he asked.

“No, did she hear any new gossip?”

“She said there’s a new wolf in town.”

Dorian carefully schooled his face into an expression of surprise and interest. “Oh, really?” he asked, voice almost not wavering at all. “Does she know anything more?”

Gary smiled slyly. “She said he was one of your sort.”

The resulting eyeroll was completely genuine. “And what does that mean?” Dorian asked sarcastically.

“I don’t know,” Gary said innocently. “But she said he was kinda cute.”

Dorian shooed him towards the exit. “Out!” he yelled, slapping Gary lightly.

“I’m going, I’m going!” Gary exclaimed, cackling loudly. Dorian shut the door behind him, laughing despite himself.

---

Dorian freshened himself up, making sure to put on one of his nicer shirts. He had a bit of patchy stubble, but after a moment’s thought he decided to leave it. He didn’t have much time anyway. Once he’d get embarrassed by the desire to make himself look nice for the meetups, but he spent too many days wearing whatever he grabbed from the wardrobe in the morning, too sleepy to really care. It was nice to feel pretty once in a while. Shrugging his jacket on, he left his apartment.

Gary was waiting for him with the car, honking once when he saw him get outside.

“Hurry up, pretty boy!” he shouted.

Dorian jogged to the car and got in. “Sorry,” he said, out of breath. Then his face screwed up. “What the fuck is this smell?”

“It’s my new cologne,” Gary replied defensively.

Dorian shot him a pitying look. “I still can’t believe you’re a wolf,” he said. “Can’t you smell-”

“You’re the one to talk,” Gary grumbled. “You smell like cheap soap and stale cigarettes.”

“Why do we need to come early anyway?” Dorian asked, ignoring Gary’s remark.

“We need to set up some things.”

“Okay, why do I need to come early?”

Gary snorted. “Maybe Madam thought you could do with some extra workout.”

“Fuck off.��

---

They met up at a café, small and secluded, but most importantly private and owned by another  wolf. It was warm, walls covered in wood panels from which photos of nature and a few hunting trophies hung. The windows had white curtains, allowing the patrons extra privacy, and the patio was lined with large potted plants. Natalie was already waiting for them at the entrance.

“Hi!” she chirped. “Samara needs some help with hooking up the projector to the laptop, and someone needs to rearrange chairs and tables.”

“I can help Samara,” Gary said quickly, earning a stink-eye from Dorian.

“Great!” Natalie exclaimed. “After you’re done Madam will want to speak to you.”

Gary and Dorian nodded, exchanging looks.

Dorian felt his palms sweat. “Let’s get to work, then,” he sighed and they entered the café.

Miles, the café owner, was already waiting for Dorian. He was an older man, with a weathered face and salt-and-pepper beard of an admirable length. “Come on, kid,” he said. “I’m too old to move these things by myself.”

Dorian looked miserably at heavy solid-wood tables and chairs. “Me too,” he mumbled.

---

A sweaty while later Dorian and Gary reconvened at the back of the room.

“How was doing some real work like?” Gary asked smugly.

“Sucked,” Dorian replied. “How was getting rejected by Samara for the millionth time like?”

“Sucked,” Gary admitted.

Dorian cackled, earning himself a rather massive elbow to the ribs. They walked through the curtain behind the counter, stopping in front of the doors to the office. Gary knocked.

“Come in,” Madam Reid called from inside.

They entered, closing the doors behind themselves. Madam Reid shut her laptop and put away a stack of papers. “Thank you for helping Samara and Miles,” she said.

“Anytime,” Dorian mumbled.

“You’re probably wondering why I wanted to talk to you two,” she said.

They nodded.

Sighing deeply, she stood up. “It has come to my attention that there’s a new wolf in town.”

Gary nodded. “Heard it from Natalie.”

“Yeah,” Dorian added hoarsely.

“It’s always very risky to turn someone without the help of the community,” Madam Reid continued. Then she fixed her steely gaze upon Dorian. “So you can probably imagine how shocked I was to learn that one of my own did that.”

“Dorian?”

It’s been a while since Dorian heard Gary’s voice this fragile, this hurt. He wanted to do something, to turn around and tell him that it’s not like that, except that it was, and that Dorian was too frozen on the spot to do anything other than just stand there and stare back at Madam Reid.

“You must understand we have to tell others about it,” she continued. “Things like this must be dealt with communally.”

Dorian nodded mutely. He wasn’t sure if he’d be able to make a sound if he tried.

“And I think that it would be best if you didn’t take part in the meeting today,” Madam Reid said gently. “Some might get… upset after being told the news.”

Dorian nodded again.

“Gary?” she said, finally releasing Dorian from her gaze. “Can you stay with Dorian?”

“Yeah,” Gary replied hoarsely.

Madam Reid looked at Dorian again. “I know this is scary, and we’re upset, but we don’t want you to do anything rash that could hurt you,” she explained. “We can find a way to solve this constructively.”

She put her papers and laptop in a bag. “Wait here, please?” she said. Exiting the room, she gave Gary an encouraging squeeze of the shoulder. The lock clicked behind her and then Dorian and Gary were left alone.

“Don’t you trust us?” Gary asked, and Dorian’s vision blurred with tears.

“It’s not that,” he whispered, sniffling lightly. He felt a heavy hand on his shoulder, gently pulling him to turn around.

“We’ve been through so many things,” Gary quietly said.

Dorian avoided looking at his face, staring at the wall instead. He took a deep breath. “I know.”

“Why did you even do it?”

Gary’s hands now gripped his shoulders and Dorian could feel him trying to catch eye contact. More tears sprang up to his eyes and he finally looked at Gary who was just a smear through the tears.

“I’m so scared,” he confessed and then Gary scooped him up in a hug.

“You know how lone wolves usually end up,” Gary mumbled into his hair.

Dorian nodded, wiping his tears in Gary’s shirt. The wetness on his cheeks felt too much like blood.

[corvidry]

All About RP Icons For Beginners by Birdy

Hi OP, I’m not sure how experienced you are with all the nonsense surrounding the making and using of RP icons, so I’m gonna come at it as though you don’t have any experience with it at all and I’m sorry if that’s too simplified for you, but also if I’m gonna write many paragraphs about one topic I may as well make it accessible for as many people as possible ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

This post goes into what tools are out there for the popular methods of finding/making RP icons in the first half and my personal methodology for choosing and using them in my RP for the second half. This is a very surface level answer to the question and is not meant to be an in depth tutorial for the more labor intensive aspects of the process, but if you guys want more information and can’t find it elsewhere, please ask and I'll know what I should be talking about next. 

Also I’m also contractually obligated to mention to the masses that I do take commissions both for the drawing of RP icons and the service of capping, cutting, recoloring, and framing canon icons. Sometimes I even post batches of canon character icons for free on this blog so like,,,,, hit me up if you want. But!! You don’t need me, you can absolutely do all of it yourself!!  I go into the broad strokes below.

Question 1: “How do you get icons?” 

This is kind of a broad question and the answer depends on what your needs are. The right answer for you is gonna live in one of two camps 

Find some that already exist that are free to use

Make them yourself / commission somebody else to make them for you. 

What you'll choose is gonna depend a lot on your character first and foremost.  The big determining factor in most cases is whether or not the face you want has been in anything you can take pictures of. 

If you have a canon character who exists in visible media--

--you're in luck! The chances of you finding some resources that exist already is higher when you have a canon character who is in at least a few pieces of media. OP asked about Pearl from Steven Universe, and she's a great example of a character with a lot of resources. Searching for rp icons of a popular character will often yield packs of icons on Tumblr, Dreamwidth, Livejournal, etc. Most of these will be completely free to use or have very reasonable conditions for use (like credit the person who made them for example.)  It's often a good first step to see what preexisting resources are available to you even if you still plan on making your own icons. 

If you have an OC or a character that's not all that popular--

--you're gonna fall into the second camp. If you want icons, you have to have them made. So what are your options?

Help! My character appears in no media! What are my options?

If your character appears in no media you're in a tough spot. Different people approach this problem in different ways. 

Face Claims

One option you have is to choose a face claim to represent your character. In roleplay a face claim or ‘FC’ is a person or character whose appearance you use for the physical description of your character. I personally am not big on doing this, I prefer drawn icons and I tend to RP as animated characters, but some people really like using celebrities and stuff to represent their characters.  When I was playing Angus McDonald he hadn't appeared in any visual media yet, so I sometimes used Bryce Clyde Jenkins as the face claim for certain types of threads.  

If you're somebody who likes to use face claims there are loads of resources out there for finding the perfect one, including here on tumblr. Try searching up RP Faceclaim Directory and playing around with some of the ones that pop up.

DIY RP Icons

The other option you have is to create those icons from scratch. Draw them yourself based on icons you like or commission an artist to draw some for you.   If you can't draw yourself, I've seen some people get really creative with this. Some people create their character in the sims, dollmakers, or their favorite RPG and then take screenshots of that to use for icons.  There's also no law that says every icon you use has to be your character's face. When I was writing a trashy mermaid AU I got a lot of mileage out of icons that depicted harbor and oceanic scenes with no actual faces. Get creative, go nuts, have fun.

Icons Aren’t That Important

The other thing to remember that icons are not a must in many RP circles. It's perfectly possible to have a great time and write cool stuff without any pictures at all. Depending on your platform of choice there are probably also other interesting ways you can make your posts unique to you by formatting the text or using symbols or emojis or otherwise denoting your personal style in text.

Help! My character appears in lots of media! How do I make icons?

Again, there are a million and one answers to this question and it really depends on what tools are available to you and what your preferences are. This section is not a tutorial but it will outline some of the options you can look into.

The icon making process is typically in 2 stages-- stage 1: get all your images of your character, and stage 2: edit all of those images into icons.  

If you have access to the source material, any version of Photoshop, and software that automates the collection screencaps from video (KM Player, VLC, etc) you're pretty much gucci. You're gonna have no problem getting loads of nice icons in a reasonably short amount of time and there are a million different tutorials on how to use those things whichever way you prefer. 

If you don't have access to those things you still have options. 

You can still screencap things manually, and you can screencap in batches by holding down the windows key and pressing PrtSc any time you want to save an image. They should be saving to >pictures>screenshots unless you’ve set things up differently. It’s a good way to take a lot of screenshots without stopping in between.

( EDIT / UPDATE: to say that if you use automation for taking screencaps remember to turn that shit off when you’re not using because it oh mylanta it WILL continue to take images without you realizing. Figured out where all my disk space has been going with this rookie mistake, thanks OP)

Additionally, PhotoScape X is a really great little tool for windows and mac that I've never seen anybody talk about, but I use it sometimes and it's totally free with the exception of a few paid features I’ve never once needed or wanted. This program is not as efficient as using Photoshop but it has presets for cropping images easily as well as batch editing options for some basic borders and color retouching.  While it’s not as powerful as Photoshop, you can get a lot done with it reasonably quickly compared to other choices. You can also take and edit snips of anything on your screen with it, which is really really useful if you don’t have access to the video or image files you would need on your hard drive for other version of this process.  The program looks like this:

Also, not to be like a minimalist about it, but you can also just fucken use Microsoft Paint or whatever you have. Like, whatever, there’s no law. You graphics dont have to be comlpex or deep fried. Half of my icons have been made or edited in paint at some point. It wont be as fast as some of these other methods but a lot of us aren't out here making icons in batches of 100 at a time. 

Anything that you can use to make smallish images of your characters face will work to make icons.

If you want more information about any of these methods of icon creation let me know and I’ll talk about them.

Question 2: “How do you make your icons ‘work’ in posts?”

I'm a little confused on what you mean by "make them work" so I'm gonna cover my bases here. I'm assuming what you're getting at is a sort of sense of cohesion in the icons I use, or having the "right" expression for the scene I'm writing. Either that or them not stretching and looking weird thanks to tumblr. I’ll get to both of those.

And before I go into my own rationale for icon choices I feel I should point out that a lot of people who aren't me do successfully manufacture cohesion out of their images by doing fun stylistic things like recoloring their images all the same way or putting cute borders and stuff around them or making them fun shapes, and that's totally something you can learn how to do if it interests you.  I do this for icons commissioned by other people and I’m not against talking about how to do those things, but I don’t really bother with them for my own icons all that much. That stuff is all fun and it’s a neat thing you could get into that can make your icons all look really nice together.

BUT ANYWAY --

Since the character you asked about is Pearl, I’m going to focus on her. Nearly all of my Pearl icons are completely unedited and a lot of the credit I would have to give regarding icon quality goes to Pearl herself and the consistently good lighting that the show uses. I don’t have a huge need for editing or color retouching beyond making memes or whatever other goofy things I might be getting up to. Pearl is extremely expressive compared to other characters I have written and since she's in nearly every episode, I've managed to collect…

...oh god, that’s too many icons.

Pearl is a main character and I've been RPing as her for over 6 years now so I have a fuckload of images to choose from and I'm not gonna pretend that doesn't help when I wanna “make things work”. She gives me a lot of options.

That said, you absolutely don't need 3000 images to make a good post. The way I've collected and organized these images may be of use to you even if you dont have as many icons. I've done a lot with my setup to make finding the right icon very easy. 

For starters, a minor subset of my Pearl icons are grouped by a particular defining feature. I have one large Pearly folder full of icons and then a few smaller folders inside for icons I thought worth grouping separately. For example, all icons of SUF Pearl in her new jacket are in the same folder. All icons of Pearl in short term alternate outfits are in the same folder. Anything I sourced from Attack the Light is in its own folder. I do this with anything that has a very specific use, such as writing AU content or flashbacks to specific time periods. If I can picture an icon in my head, I usually know where in my ridiculous hell collection to go to find it. 

This folder was originally just for her pre-canon outfit but now all of her outfits that only appeared temporarily are in there.

Perhaps more important for the sake of cohesion is that nearly all of my icons that aren’t squirreled away in some smaller folder are loosely arranged by episode. What that means is that most of the time I have icons from the same scene right next to one another. It makes it incredibly easy to make my RP replies appear as though it's all one cohesive scene even if I use more than one icon. When you do it this way it becomes very easy to choose icons that have the same lighting or that appear to lead from one expression seamlessly into another. Exhibit A:

While the vast majority of my icons are numbered, I do take the time to name ones I find myself using a lot or that have particularly unique expressions. Usually I'll choose names that I'll find descriptive or easy to remember based on the context of the icon. You can have a lot of fun with that and never lose your favorites.

Also don't be afraid to lean on icons you got from weird places if you like them.  The icons of Pearl from the official comics run don’t look like most of what I have. I think them being different would turn a lot of RPers off, but I use them a lot because I like the style and I almost never see other Pearl RPers using them.  It either makes me stand out or it makes me tacky, one of the two, haven’t figured out which, but also I’m not stopping.

And just to reiterate, you can use icons that aren’t your character if they’re thematically relevant or vague enough to look like them. When I’m capping I’ve started saving a folder of miscellaneous environments of interests, hands, and other everyday types of scenery that appear in the thing I’m taking screencaps of.

You can use any size you want for RP icons but the most common is 100x100 or 150x150 pixels.  Any smaller than that and the image gets to be difficult to read and work with in my opinion. That doesn’t stop people, of course, but I’m elderly and need glasses now, so no tiny icons for me.  On that note, I rarely see RP icons larger than 300x300. Any larger than that it tends to get bulky and be in the way of other people’s comfortable internet browsing experience, especially on mobile.  Of course, these are just my suggestions. What you choose will ultimately be up to you, but somewhere in that 100 to 300 px range is pretty safe.

A very tumblr specific thing to know is that any image that is wider than 300 pixels will be stretched to hell, so you probably want to keep it smaller than that.

Thanks, Tumblr, I hate it!

Also, don’t be afraid to make trash images for fun if you’re so inclined. People love that, or at least I do. Not having the right icon can be fun and lead to a very silly solution. Lean into being a shitposter if that’s what you’re called to do. 

So yeah, that’s basically what my suggestions are. Collect your images in a way that helps cohesion and ease of use. Keep them a good size. Don’t be afraid to get unconventional with your choices or make memes or whatever. It’s all for a fun time.

Anyway, that’s all I can think of right now, but more info on any of this can be obtained at the price of one ask, I know it was a lot of different moving parts.

[wetookanoath]

mmm can I ask for a "In The Moment Kiss" with shane/ryan? [eyes emoji]

This was going to originally be a 5+1 things kind of fic, but then I looked to myself and went “no, bitch, chill”. But regardless, enjoy! From this prompts list! Edited by my one and only aka @chaostheoryy ~

(Read on AO3)

“You guys are a rom-com.” Sara commented as they all sat in Shane and Ryan’s living room during their housewarming party. 

Jen chuckled at the accusation. Ryan looked at her in anticipation of her response. “Holy shit, they are a fanfiction trope.”

“They are!” Kristin said excitedly. “Oooh, we should make a video with them!”

“Oh! No, no, no! They are mine! I already asked them to let me produce that video!” Curly announced, making everyone in the living room groan. “And we are making it so gay, so, so gay. ¿Verdad, Ryan?”

“Yup.” He answered, cheeks probably red.

But who gave a fuck about red cheeks when their coffee table was filled with empty plates asking for more of Shane’s handmade strawberry pie. Shane was serving it with Andrew’s help, sitting on the carpet as he put fresh slices on the awaiting plates. He laughed each time Steven took a strawberry from everyone’s plates.

“It’s gonna be the gayest.” Ryan sighed, watching as Shane drew a hand through his hair. “So gay…”

Shane got on his knees, suddenly concentrated again on cutting the pie into pieces for those who had asked for more. Ryan saw him smile at Kelsey, laughing with Andrew at his side as the man kept helping him with dessert while praising how fucking delicious the pie had turned out despite it being his very first attempt.

Crap.

“Oh, Ryan,” he heard Curly say. Ryan looked at him for a moment. “You are so far gone.”

“So in love!” Daysha chuckled. “I’ll need you back in the podcast, you know. People will want to hear this update.”

Ryan chuckled, nodding as his friends mocked him for being so damn distracted by the image of his boyfriend surrounded by their co-workers and friends with pink cheeks and shining eyes. He was so incredibly happy that it seemed impossible to tell they had been separated before.

It had been months since that. Their anniversary had passed just a week ago and now they were living together. 

And shit, Ryan bit the inside of his cheek.

He was going to marry this man.

“Shane?” Ryan called. Shane looked up as he let his back hit Ryan’s legs. 

Without thinking, Ryan leaned down and kissed Shane softly as everyone around them either cheered or groaned. 

They had never really participated in public displays of affection before, and Ryan wondered if the giddiness he was feeling as he felt Shane’s warm tongue gently touching his had something to do with the sudden change. The feeling spread to every corner of his being. It was new and welcomed, and Ryan couldn’t stop smiling down at Shane as they parted ways slowly.

“Uh…” Shane turned, still sitting on the floor. Ryan smiled at him after seeing his dumb expression, cheeks pink and just a slightly nervous smile on his face. “What...what was that for?”

“Mmm.” I’m gonna marry you, he wanted to say. Instead, he just smiled. “Nothing…”

**

“I can’t wait for Curly’s rom-com video for us.” Shane said as they prepared to sleep. “He is gonna make us look like a dream couple!”

“You are such a weirdo…” Ryan smiled. Shane’s smile was wider though. “Amor, close the bathroom door.”

“Uh, yeah.” 

Ryan sighed, getting into bed as Shane closed the door and turned off the lights, leaving the room illuminated only by his bedside table’s lamp. He watched the man get out of his slippers, and get into bed with him before he kissed his cheek, making him smile.

“I’ve been thinking about this year’s holidays.” Shane said, Ryan looked at him and moved his head to one side. “Uh, I know it’s a little soon but I was wondering…”

“What is it?”

“You think your parents and brother would like to come to Schaumburg to spend Christmas with us and my family?”

“Oh, that’s a huge family right there.” Ryan said. Shane laughed at his side but sank into the mattress. Ryan leaned on his chest, looking at his face as he spoke. “I can ask. But what about your parents?”

“Mom’s excited with the idea, and dad always does everything she says, so…”

Ryan chuckled. “Mr. Madej setting the example, huh?”

“Oh, yeah.” Shane put an arm on Ryan’s waist, holding him against his body as they laid together in bed. “I mean, don’t I always do everything my baby says?”

“Not always!” Ryan reminded him. Shane arched an eyebrow. “But in the important things, you do listen to me.”

“I always listen to you, kochaine.” Shane said, caressing Ryan’s cheek with his fingers. “My gorgeous angel.”

Ryan closes his eyes, smiling wide before opening them again and pressing a kiss to the tip of his nose. “Mi más amado.”

“I like how that sounds….” Shane murmured, turning off his lamp.

They moved together on the bed, getting in position to sleep. Shane tangled his legs with his, spooning Ryan as the man let him interlock their fingers, hands on Ryan’s chest, over his heart.

Definitely. He was definitely going to marry the big guy.

**

Because, even when he talked nonstop, Shane was too beautiful and too wonderful. 

Ryan couldn’t help but smile, watching as Shane waved his hands excitedly while he explained to his mother about the dance plague in France. Linda seemed interested, her expression changing with each detail Shane revealed and wow, there was his future husband, father of his future children and dogs, peaking his mother’s interest in historic mysteries.

“You got a good one there.” His dad told him as he passed by, headed to the living room where his brother and uncle were watching the game.

“I know.” Ryan answered, eyes still on Shane as he talked with his mother. “I’m gonna marry him.”

His father chuckled behind him, patting his shoulder gently as if approving and encouraging him to hurry up. Ryan smiled at his dad, letting him go back to his game. He sighed, walking slowly towards his boyfriend and his mother, hoping he wouldn’t interrupt too much, but he just needed--

“I’ve told Ry, we should make a video about it some time.”

“But it has to be perfect.” Ryan added, his mother looked at him with a big, beautiful smile. “Right? If we can one day convince management again. Preferably if we get to travel to France.”

“Yes, please.” Shane said, putting a hand on Ryan’s lower back. 

“Linda?” They heard. Ryan’s uncle was standing in the kitchen’s entrance. “Phone for you.”

“Oh,” She looked at them, smiling at Shane. “I’ll be back, darling. I wanna know more about that!”

“Sure!” Shane smiled, cheeks pink. 

Ryan chuckled, calling for Shane’s attention. When the man looked down, Ryan pulled him towards his face by the neck, his hand caressing the hair at his nape as he kissed him without a care.

He felt Shane’s hands on his waist. The small and needy sound he let out as he went to respond to his kiss only made Ryan want to hurry up and get home so they could have a moment in private where they could share more of this.

But right now, he needed this. And the way Shane smiled down at him when they opened their eyes and looked at each other told him Shane needed it too. 

Ryan was on his tiptoes, but he felt like he was floating.

“What was that for?”

“I love you.”

Shane laughed, cheeks now red. Beautiful. “Uh, I love you too.”

“I’m gonna marry you.”

“Well, that’s interesting.” Shane laughed. “You are gonna make me tie the knot?”

“Absolutely, sir.”

“Make me wear a pretty ring so everyone knows I’m yours forever?”

“God.” Ryan closed his eyes, sighing deeply as he held Shane closer. The man laughed, the vibrations of his voice making Ryan open his eyes and smile. “Yes.”

“Alright.” Shane winked at him. “But you better be mine, too.”

“Fuck,” Ryan sighed like a school boy in love, his cheeks feeling warm. “I’ve been for years.”

“Uhm!” Shane leaned down, their noses touching gently. “I’m the luckiest, then.”

Ryan was certain he was. Their lips met again.

[captainillogical]

Devil’s Ballroom ch.1

A year after the events from the earth’s final attack, Little Homeworld is finally complete, and there’s a new jazz bar where gems and humans mingle and drink. - As you’re typing back a reply, someone pulls the stool out next to you and takes a seat. You see a sliver of pink out of the corner of your eye as you try not to actually Look. Oh god. It’s her. God can’t help us now.

Spinel/Reader

collab with my lovely wife @firstofficertightpants

Beach City was a small, lovely town, where pretty much everyone knew each other from the inner city to the boardwalk. You've lived your whole life there, and you loved it. It was home. It was also a really strange town, and you're pretty sure the world almost ended like six times in the last 4 years. Although honestly, you never had to worry about that much, since Beach City was also home to the Crystal Gems, and that Steven Universe who just always managed to save the day. So you’re told. Steven was a fun kid, and grew to be one of your good friends (he’s so insistent on being everyone’s friend. It’s very charming and you love him for it), but you’ve mostly spent your time at work this summer.

One of the easiest jobs to get is Funland, since that always tired Mr. Smiley is chewing through people constantly as the pay is shit, the hours are long, and it’s so hot. Like Mr. Smiley says, "Funland is funderstaffed". You feel like he says that to mock you a bit, since there’s just the two of you here. You really only cared to work there on your off season to help dad out with bills, and to see your best friends. Except THIS summer you guess, since all (2) of your best friends had to go out of town for summer either because of family get togethers or romantic getaways. Those bitches. And you were finally of drinking age this summer. You weren't about to let that get you down, or ruin any plans you’ve made yourself in the next upcoming weeks though.

You’re on the last forty minutes of your shift doing the work of four people. Emptying tills around the food court, cleaning tables, emptying trash cans, and jesus christ this task list seems longer today. It feels ever so fucking slow. And warm. You’re melting, you feel disgusting, and you just want a shower. Thank god it’s payday and you have the next two days off, because you seriously wanted to go out and unwind. See, there’s this newly renovated piano bar you’ve wanted to go to for weeks here locally in town, and you had planned on going with your friends.. but. You know what? Screw waiting on them. You’re going tonight. And besides, who knows! Maybe you’ll meet some new people and make a friend, or show your best friends that you can finally get a girlfriend!! Haha.. or at least get drunk enough to ignore the growing loneliness you’ve been feeling as of late, and desperately trying to ignore.

Funland never truly got busy, so you quickly closed the food court that had been dead for hours down. The last 15 or so minutes you spent sitting at the ring toss booth, and very thankful for the protection from the beating sun on your face. 

"YOOOOO (Y/N)!!!" You hear a familiar voice shout from your left. You put down your phone (obviously looking at memes) and lean over the counter just in time to see Amethyst, accompanied by Steven, jogging over to your booth. 

"Oh, thank god. Finally some human interaction." You responded to the purple gem as they reached your booth. Steven smacked down some tickets for the game and grinned.

"Just spending some time away from the temple". He says, and you nodded as you handed him two stacks of rings. He joyfully pulled them towards himself as Amethyst snickered. 

"He means to say his A/C broke, and Pearl got tired of hearing him groan about it so she kicked us out." The short gem elbowed Steven playfully. 

“Us? Why’d she kick you out too?” You say, giving Amethyst a pointed look. “That’s because Amethyst brought up like 7 of the junk fridges from her room to try to create some sort of.. open fridge cold air whirlwind right in the middle of the living room. It didn’t work as intended at all, though. I’m pretty sure those fridges were really old, or something, because 3 of them caught on fire and now we have scorch marks all over the floor. Anyway, Pearl was pretty mad about it. Sooooo, now we’re here!” Steven says while laughing, and attempting to toss the rings onto the obviously not rigged bottles. 

"So anyway," Amethyst turns to you and leans her elbow on the counter. "Any big plans for tonight?" She steals half the stack of rings from Steven and starts chucking them in the most violent way possible without actually breaking anything. She somehow gets 3 perfect.

 “Ughhh, yeah actually. I sort of convinced myself I’d go out and drink tonight.” You say with a tired grin. “I’ve been kinda daydreaming about not being here all day, and I’ve been wanting to try that one place.. the uh.. piano bar. That new one.”

“Isn’t that the place Bismuth helped fix up, and now bartends at?” Steven says to Amethyst. “She said this place was 1930’s themed with a stage, a spotlight, a piano and everything! It sounds like fun and I want to go.. a lot of the gems from Little Homeworld hang out there. Bis says I’m too young.” “Yeah,” You say, “You’re what, 17? You’re still just a baby, dude. If you want, I can try convincing Bismuth to let you in sometime just to sing.” You say to him and wink. Amethyst bursts out laughing. “You can try!! Bis won’t even let Peridot in!” She laughs. “She says her maturity ain’t the right fit. Whatever that means. She lets Lapis work there sometimes though when she wants, and Peri is still mad about it.”     You watch Steven miss every single shot. How can this kid be the person who saved the planet? His aim is terrible. Amethyst also misses the rest of her shots. 

“Have you guys actually ever won anything here?” You say out loud. “Only when Amethyst cheats.” Steven says. “And anyway, I really want some food. Amethyst. Pizza?”

“Duuuuuuuude. I could eat at least 10 pizzas right now. PLEASE.” She slaps her hand down on your booth. “Y/N. Go out tonight. Have some fun for the both of us, because it’s my turn to clean the kitchen, and if I skip out again Pearl WILL make me do my own laundry.”

“Wooooow, jeez, it must be so terrible to be self-sustaining and clean your own shit,” You’re smiling while chiding her, “and yeah, I will. Maybe next time come with me?” “And leave me all alone!?” Steven whines while starting to walking away. “Go hang out with Connie, you turd. At least you HAVE a girlfriend!” You reply. “You’ll find one eventually Y/N!! Maybe tonight!!” He yells back while waving before they both disappear from your field of vision.

“I really fucking doubt that.” You say to yourself, alone.

You busy yourself cleaning up, and walk over to the main building to clock out. You check your phone, and it looks like the group chat pinged. It’s Harper. FINALLY. Harper has been MIA for the last week. Well, not missing, per se, but she’s been on a roadtrip with her girlfriend of 6 months and didn’t invite you..or your other best friend, Alex. And yeah, you would’ve had to decline because your dad needs you to pick up some slack while he’s out on business, but.. STILL. Shit kinda hurts. But it seems like she finally got service and remembered you guys exist. It’s actually just a selfie with her and her girlfriend with a mountain in the background. She captioned it “I wanted to dive right into mt st helens but she wouldn’t let me get close enough.” You grin and decide to reply with, “Maybe next time Leah won’t let you pussy out”. Honestly, you really didn't mind being the 'single' friend most of the time, but sometimes you wished you could finally meet someone. Then you could also be sending cute couple pictures to your idiot friends, and finally feel like maybe you’re worth someone’s time.

Alex just responds to the chat with 14 flame emojis in succession. Before you can send any knife emojis back, your phone lights up with a call from your father. You answer on the second ring.

“Hey dad. What’s up?” “HEY KIDDO!!” Jesus. Your dad is enthusiastic and as loud as ever. “HOW ARE YOU TODAY, my sweet, dear offspring?”

“I’m chill. Getting off work. You?” You smile to yourself while grabbing the rest of your things to leave for home.

“Just got out of like, my fifth meeting today. It’s awful. I think they’re trying to kill me over here? I’m pretty sure they only paid for the plane ticket because they’re going to reap my organs after they LITERALLY bore me to death. I’m 100% sure my presence isn’t even needed for any of this.” He rants into the phone.

“Dad. You’re the lead project planner. You have to be there. It’s like.. your entire job.” You laugh into the phone. “I thought my entire job was so sit there and look pretty?” “Really? You think they’d choose you for that when they have Brian? Dad, come on. You know how beautiful he is.” You hear your dad sigh wistfully. “Yeah, that gorgeous bastard. Anyway. I’m real sorry in advance, but they’re extending my stay for another couple of days, and instead of being back tomorrow, I’ll be back next thursday.” He says, sounding apologetic.

“Oh, okay. That sucks.” You try not to sound disappointed. “Kiddo I’m sorry! If I could come home tonight I would get on that plane in a heartbeat. I hate this as much as you do.”

“I know. And it’s alright. I’m going out tonight anyway, and I’ll hold down the fort until next week yeah?” “You know you’re my favorite kid, right?” He says. “Dad, I’m your only kid.” You scoff into the phone. “That YOU know of! Love you!” and he hangs up. You roll your eyes, stuff your phone into your pocket, and head out.

Your house wasn't very far from Funland, meaning you could walk home alone safely even at night. Not that Beach City was ever an unsafe town.. if you conveniently happen to forget the aliens trying to destroy the town several times. 

Within minutes you were unlocking your front door, toeing off your work shoes, and heading up into your room. You drop all your shit onto the floor, and flop on your bed. You wonder to yourself, should you be putting more effort into your appearance tonight? Steven did say it was 1930’s themed.. you don’t have very many dressy clothes. You feel like the only color you look good in is black, so you get up and open up your closet. Flowery dress.. God no. Overalls? Noooooo. You swipe through too many sweaters, honestly. There’s a couple decent things in here to put an okay outfit together, or.. wait. Ha! There. That cute black dress you wore 2 years ago for your aunt’s funeral. It’s the best you’ve got, you admit to yourself. And you even still have those black flats! Look, like basically zero effort involved.

You head to the bathroom with your things for tonight and take a shower. It feels nice to scrub off the layer of sweat and grime that come specifically from working at Funland. Oh and, not having to smell like carpet deodorizer and stale caramel popcorn is always a plus. Once out of the shower, you dry off and get into your clothes. You style your hair in your favorite way, and just put on a small bit of makeup. You know, small efforts help to feel less like a paper bag. You look nice for once, you admit to yourself. 

You head downstairs, stuffing your phone and wallet into a small shoulder purse. Grabbing your keys, you put your shoes on, say goodbye to your cat, and walk out the door, making sure to lock it behind you. With your keys safely stored in your bag, you headed into town. The bar was roughly ten to fifteen minutes away, so you decided to hoof it. No need to waste money on a taxi when you had two perfectly toned legs, ya’ll.

[keyofjetwolf]

GIFTENING Bonus Rounds

For each category, I included a “bonus round” question. YOU GUYS KILLED IT. I loved all the answers, but listed below are some of my particular favourites.

Haruka Tenoh is trapped in the wrong anime! Which would you have her visit next?

I want her to earth shake Kyubey out of existence, please and thank you

My bride is a mermaid. She can relate. :P

i think she would THRIVE in bodacious space pirates. gay teenage space pirates whose job is to dress up, be Dramatic, and rob the wealthy??? that shit is RIGHT up her alley

Hamtaro

Princess Tutu - where the world is finally as dramatic as her

PGSM (and Michiru is trapped with her, for REASONS)

Pokemon because everyone deserves to be happy

Any moe-style series so hijinks can ensue at her being baffled by everyone's ages

1960's Speed Racer

is is this a captcha or something i missed oh god

Free! so she can be indifferent to all the hot men and slightly uncomfortable because she still can't swim. 

Stick Haruka in a Gundam!

Dump her in Pretear or one of the Precures! It would be hilarious! She's never in the genre she wants to be!

Revolutionary Girl Utena, so she can be offended by misuse of roses.

Initial D, she will out-drive and out-drift all those guys and steal all their girls.

Evangelion. I would feel bad to watch her suffer, but it would be so, so funny for her to be the comparatively most normal person around.

Yakitake Japan! SO SHE CAN HAVE A SNACK OF DELICIOUS RIDICULOUS BREAD BEFORE THE NEXT INTERDIMENSIONAL ANIME STORM WHISKS HER AWAY.

The Holograms or the Misfits? DISCUSS

Holograms

both? both. BOTH IS GOOD

misfits bc Evil Ladies Hot

Steven and the stevens

Misfits.  How dare you make us try to think about anything in our lives.

Both, you mad fool. Those combined songs were the best.

The Misfits, their songs are better

The Misgrams: A group of girls who form a singing telegram start up company, but constantly deliver the telegrams to the wrong people.

kimber & stormer

Neither. Limp Lizards all the way. BROKEN GLASS.

I do not know what these things are

Misfits because guitar motorcycle

The Isle of Misfit Holograms

Holograms is just arguably better

I mean, I’m told the Misfits’ songs are better, but my true answer is the band Kimber and Stormer made in that big gay episode you liveblogged (checks) almost four years ago.

I've no idea what these words mean and I hope this does not make me TOO uncool.

this is about jem, right? right?? im hip i swear

Misfits, because Jasper is a member apparently

I don't know from Jem, but I mean...I certainly prefer holographic material to Glenn Danzig? So I guess there's your answer ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The Stingers

LIMP LIZARDS FOREVER

Senshi Band

You can make me liveblog a full series of any show you want! You also hate me. What do you have me watch?

Pick a GoT rip-off, any GoT rip-off

The Bachelor?

The Bachelor :(

depends on how much i hate you, but....probably the bachelor. quantity AND lack of quality

Critical role, it would take forever

If I were a horrible person who sought only malice?  Big Bang Theory.  Entire series.

Toddlers and Tiaras

The Mandalorian - Disney would come after you and kill keyofjetwolf just as dead as keyofnik.  We would all be very sad, you would have to go through a second round of restoring things to a new tumblr account, and your organizational heart would weep over adding yet another hosting site out of chronological order.

You are liveblogging Eva, and must discuss in full detail Shinji's emotional state at all times.

Hannity & Colmes

The Kardashians. And all of their spin offs. *kisses*

The price is right

the bachelor

Probably something with lots of romance and no friendships. Soap operas are like that, right? My college roommate used to watch General Young Light Restless Hospital of Our Lives (which one had Like and Laura?) And it was torture.

One Piece, because it's over 900 episodes so you could maybe do 10% before you die, also you will hate how the women are treated most of the time.

Fushigi Yuugi. Not only do you hate it but it also comes with you squirming when you admit to watching the whole thing. ;) 

Plus belle la vie. It's an ongoing French soap opera that has been airing five days a week since 2004, they're nearing their 4000th episode and there's no end in sight. Imagine all those hours upon hours submerged in French drama, mwahahaha!!

The Bachelor.  Or the Bachelorette, maybe - more straight dudes in that.

The Young and the Restless - IT IS THE LIVEBLOG THAT NEVER ENDS. IT WOULD OUTLAST THE INTERNET.

The entirety of the Bachelor franchise.

You can only play one game for the rest of your life. Which game would it be and why?

Kingdom Hearts Complete Collection. A) I love them. B) I beat the system and get like 10 games instead of one.

Gemcraft. This game actually takes a lifetime to finish.

Hatoful Boyfriend. It is the best game ever created. Feel it in your heart.

that's a mean question and you can't make me answer it

Pathfinder, which you could play for the rest of your life and still never finish.

Civ VI , so I can rule the world without leaving my house.

I am legitimately perturbed by this question and refuse to answer it.

Pokemon Go. I would have nothing else, but I would catch them all.

The Elder Scrolls Skyrim: I'll never run out of side-quests.

Mass Effect--it's the only way I'll get full completion. 

The dinosaur game on Chrome when the internet doesn't connect because my life is monotonous and it's a welcome relief. 

Stardew Valley. Peaceful farmer life and turning my children into doves when I'm bored with them.

Crabs Adjust Humidity

Oh my! A number of things come to mind, not one of them fit for print. Just, you know...*gestures vaguely* sex shit. 

I can't even stick to the ones I play now.

This is the worst of all possible things and I refuse to answer. 

Monopoly, I hate myself :(

Probably Minecraft! I haven't gotten into it because I know if I start I will NEVER STOP. Who would do things like build a hundred foot tall statue of Mako-chan? A-THAT'D BE ME.

the game. Of LIFE! *shrug emoji*

I don't believe I'll tell you, because I AM a salty little fish and it was HARD to cut that 11th choice off my vote.

Holligay and I are going to be the leads in a new buddy film. What's the premise? How does it end?

Be gay do crimes. Thelma and Louise. Duh. :P

I have no idea but only just surviving disaster is how it ends.

You break down in a small town during a roadtrip- your stay is full of hijinks and ends with you teaching the townsfolk the true meaning of friendship.

Doctor Holligay, Esquire, PhD, renowned Jewish femme of many talents, is assigned one Operative Jet Wolf as her bodyguard on a foreign diplomatic mission/vacation/culinary tour of the world ("same difference, shut up, narrator"). One problem: Operative Wolf needs a bodyguard herself, as the good doctor discovers when in one night her toilet is destroyed ("IT WAS A SECURITY THREAT") and Operative Wolf nearly breaks a leg falling down a small set of stairs ("THEY PUT A CLIFF OUTSIDE THE DOOR"). Worldwide shenanigans ensue as Holligay and Operative Wolf learn the true meaning of friendship, and also how to take care of themselves... by taking care of each other.

I’m not sure about the premise, but DEFINITELY it ends in murder.

Someone posted a major spoiler during one of your liveblogs. The two of you track them down seeking revenge. It turns out it was the original creator of the series trying to stop you. For some reason Holligay is a CGI badger.

It's clearly a buddy cop movie, and like all good buddy cop movies, it ends with Doc almost dying, and you saving her, and slapping her wound in the hospital as the credits roll.

It ends as it began: with Holligay roasting you.

A straight detective and her lesbian partner have to solve the case of the missing cinnamon buns.  It ends with nobody getting the guy OR the girl and you drive off into the sunset together, perps behind bars sans cinnamon buns.

I don't know what it's about but I know it will be the only movie that ever existed. 

Holligay is the lesbian chief of staff to you somehow being elected President and she's basically running the country while you're the charming face of the administration

Nerd and cowgirl meet at a bar, justifyingly murder some gross dude, go on the run from the law and have a life-changing road trip, on the way Nazis are punched

carrying a delicate object through a forest after your helicopter goes down

Thelma and Louise, but instead of dying, your deaths are clearly faked and you live on a ranch in Montana with your respective spouses and animals. One time a cop comes by the restaurant/bar you joint own with Doc and says, "You look familiar." Doc, in perfect lesbian, answers, "Jet's just got that criminal look, on account of how much she'd love to steal my cheesecake recipe. More pie?"

Queer Eye with a Straight Goy. The two of you do the show but in your own special ways.

Doc Holligay is the wild-west no-nonsense sheriff. Jet Wolf is the all-fun cyberpunk cop from the future. They punch nazis and argue about food. It ends as a tv series ala B99.

Your lives are already a buddy film, don’t get greedy.

Hands and socks.  You know how it ends.

See Grumpy Old Men for details.  How does it end?  Badly.

I can't imagine the premise, but I'm pretty sure the planet explodes.

A Coen Bros film. It ends poorly.

Wait? You're not already living this now? 

REI HINO

REI HINO

Sure. Why not?

HINO REI

<3<3<3<3

REI HINO!

Rei who? ;)

REI HINOOOOOOOOO

Plush Is being hugged by Zoisite in your banner.

MINAKO AINO

MAKOTO KINO

The best

SOCKS

MICHIRU KAIOH

It's time tooo.... REI! THAT! HINO!

sponsored by Here! curry

LOVES USAGI LOVES REI LOVES USAGI LOVES REI LOVES USAGI LOVES REI LOVES USAGI LOVES REI LOVES USAGI LOVES REI LOVES USAGI LOVES REI LOVES USAGI LOVES REI LOVES USAGI LOVES REI LOVES USAGI LOVES REI LOVES USAGI LOVES REI [THIS REPEATS A LOT A LOT AND IS GLORIOUS] [...] LOVES USAGI LOVES REI LOVES JETWOLF

(THE REAL ONE)

Isn't how you spell Makoto Kino!

THE REAL ONE™

obviously

IS NOT A RHINO

In conclusion: Rei Hino

Rei Hino is giving this Giftening finger guns

BEAUTIFUL, STUNNING, SHOW-STOPPING, TALENTED, AMAZING, WONDERFUL

Hot stuff, lights my fire, blazes it regularly. I am out of fire jokes.

PASSION FLAME, SAILOR MARS

These hot feelings are C'EEEEEST LAAAAA VIIIIIIE c'mon rei-chan why aren't you singing along

IS THE BEST (I know who I'm talking to)

Ara!

DID DOCTOR HOLLIGAY PHD NOMINATE THE OPTION OF TALKING ABOUT MICHIRU KAIOH FOR 6 HOURS!!

If Hot Pocket were to plan One Last Heist, what do you think would be his objective? What would be Mina's role in his master plan?

Master Hot Pocket seeks BREAD. His friend and loyal companion, Mina-pup, acts as a distraction, as he has learned the humans are easily distracted by cute. While she does her sworn duty as Best Friend and Cutest Goodest Girl, probably with lolling tongue and glee at all the pets she receives, he picks the locks on the newly childproofed pantry, and Master Howard H. Pocket FEASTS AS NO CAT HAS BEFORE.

Every bag of flour in Montana; Mina runs distraction with her adorable puppy eyes

Open every container, leave none unmarked. Mina is the lookout who greets whoever comes and is completely ineffective at her job.

TAKE ALL THE FLOUR. Do it straight from the source: FlourCo Inc. What does a 10-pound cat do with eighty thousand tons of flour? If you can't figure that out, there's a reason he's the brains of this outfit. Mina would obviously be the bumbling lovable distraction to security or other people.

Bread.  Mina is The Face who provides distraction to the Keepers of the Bread by walking up to them and being herself.  Mina has absolutely no idea that Hot Pocket is using her in this manner because Hot Pocket is that Machiavellian, but Mina is a pocket full of sunshine in canine form and probably would just be happy to help out.

Hot Pocket knows that no mammal of the floor believes in flour anymore. It went away a long time ago. It doesn't exist. But what he also knows is that they're wrong. A lack of opposable thumbs won't hide the truth from him. He'll find the stash, and when he does, he'll stick his paw in it. Mina, with her limited climbing skills, will lick its remains from his claw and prove his discovery. As well as provide a warm place to curl up on for the aftermath of their adventure.

His goal is to sample every edible thing he can get his teeth on. Mina pulls triple duty as step stool, distraction, and scape goat

The Silver Crystal. Mina would play the role of Sailor V.

He is getting ALL THE FLOUR. Mina is a lovable distraction.

Looting all the carbs in the pantry. mina is distraction.

mina's role would be the "dopey" but talented best friend who it looks like HP is going to betray for the sake of the plan but then it all comes together when HP mounts a dramatic rescue. i dunno i'm still in film mode from that last one.

The Holy Bread Locked Within the Cupboard.  Mina would be the distraction, but she'd forget what she was supposed to be distracting from and end up leading you to him.

I am the Void. I am the Night. I am the Darkness with no hope of dawn. The Flour trembles before me in it's bleached fluffiness. It shall not escape my chaos, which will descend upon it like the Terrors of the Deep, claws and teeth and gnashing. It will howl at my claws. It will scream for my teeth, sharp and white, stars in the night of my fur. I shall tend and tear and -- Dammit, Dog-thing! How am I supposed to be terrible and terrifying with you wagging your tail and panting at me!? Oh, you found a good warm sunbeam? I guess I can stalk stuff later. I am the Void. I shall absorb the Sun's light and warmth and bring it into my Darkness where it cannot escape...

I'm new here and don't know all the complex lore of Jetwolf(fairly sure Mina is dog), so I'm going to assume that Hot Pocket is an actual hot pocket and his heist is robbing Fort Knox using Mina as his loyal stead/get away car. Then he explodes a microwave or something.

i lik the bred

Mina as the distraction while he takes one last tastes of EVERYTHING 

objective--stealing more chips; Mina--surprise betrayal 

The scene: Mama Jet's pantry The Objective: the bag of cake flour Aunt Doc made Mama Jet buy but she's never used Mina: confused but excited escape vehicle and/or scapegoat

RAIDING THE KING ARTHUR FLOUR FACTORY. Mina is of course adorable and keeps everyone's attention while Hot Pocket swan dives into the flour like Uncle Scrooge

Hot Pocket would definitely try to steal a monument, Carmen SanDiego style. Mina, of course, is the multi-talented and super cute face of the operation.

I have no idea who Hot Pocket is

HP would try to scale the tallest building in the world. Not to steal anything, just to be up there. Mina would be the adorable diversion.

It would be to get whatever food you've left on the counter. Preferably bread. He would tell Mina that he'll give her some of she acts as a distraction. She's a good dog so she does. He's a cat so she gets no food.

Truly, truly, THE GIFTENING winner is us all.

[jennifersylvesters]

not so subtle - part eight

Pairing: Harrison Osterfield x reader Word Count: 3.3k~ Warning: swearing A/N: this was supposed to be posted in january. i am...bad with deadlines. i’ll be honest - it’s slightly a filler but important for the impending valentine’s day part. no surprise here but, feedback is always appreciated/loved wink wonk nudge nudge please gimme

Things dramatically shifted in the group dynamic after Vegas. It was painfully obvious that you and Harrison were no longer on speaking terms. Well, he wasn’t speaking to you while you assumed he hated your guts. Not that anyone wanted to talk about it. Tom and Emma refused to bring Harrison up around you, carefully tiptoeing around the subject. Occasionally Tom would almost slip up - almost dropping his best friend’s name - until he remembered better or Emma nudged him before the word could leave his mouth.

Despite their worries, you weren’t particularly sensitive about Harrison. It didn’t matter how many times you repeated that you were fine and that it wasn’t a huge deal; they viewed you like a delicate creature that was more fragile than you let on.

How many times did you need to remind them you were fine? Or well, you would be. Eventually. Hopefully. You didn’t have the luxury of mulling around in your thoughts, discussing your feelings about Harrison. No, you had schoolwork. You weren’t going to fail your education because you were pining like a Victorian character. Not on your watch. Deuces, bitches.

You knew Vegas in some ways had been both a wake up call and a fluke. It was the ever-so-polite reminder how you and Harrison weren’t going to be a thing. Ever. For real this time. Someone always ended up being an idiot - usually him though sometimes you - and someone got hurt in the process.  Apparently you were never going to attain happiness through a love life.  But what was more exciting than an affectionate and healthy relationship? Good grades! Well, hopefully.

So once again you threw yourself into your studies, not really bothering to go out unless Emma or Kimberly invited you. With how things ended, it was no surprise that Tom never brought along Harrison to movie premieres in the States. You hadn’t even seen Harrison - both in real life and social media - until you were tapping through Instagram stories one night.

In the story Tom was filming himself at some party, excitedly chatting about how he couldn’t wait for people to see his new film. If you hadn’t been paying attention, you wouldn’t have noticed the small detail that would sucker punch you in the stomach. But you did. And boy, you were not ready for that at all.

There in the top right corner was some blonde straddling Harrison, his hands glued to her ass and sucking face like it was no one’s business. Waves of jealousy crashed into you. You weren’t even sure why. Maybe because she was hot as hell? Possibly. Perhaps because he moved on so quickly? Potentially. Was it because you didn’t like seeing him with someone that wasn’t you? No, that couldn’t be right.

But there was one thing you were certain of: you really wanted to figure out where she got her cute top from. What kind of person thinks that? Apparently your dumb ass would.

A couple hours later your inbox was flooded with apologizes from Tom. He texted in all caps how he didn’t realize what was in the background, but that he couldn’t erase the footage. If he deleted that certain part, the video wouldn’t make sense as a whole. Yet if he deleted all of it, speculation would build up that something terrible happened.

“I didn’t realize that H was in the shot!” he sent you.

Huh. You couldn’t help but grunt at how Tom still wouldn’t use his best friend’s name in front of you. Was he afraid that you would somehow spiral? You contemplated messing with him, sending him crying emojis and telling him how terrible he was.

Tapping the buttons, you paused as you stared at your dramatic message. No, Tom didn’t deserve this. As funny as his reaction would be, you’d never hear the end of it from Emma and you knew he was coming from a good place.

You waved it off, telling him he had nothing to worry about. After all, mistakes happen all the time. Sometimes Tom made them more than most. Nothing wrong with that. Because it was fine. You weren’t dating Harrison. Whoever he chose to make out with wasn’t any of your business. He wasn’t any of your concern and never had been.

Yet something about the scene lingered in the back of your mind. There was this voice inside you whispering that things might’ve been your business if you had done things differently, if you had put in enough effort. Why didn’t you put in enough effort, Y/N?

The thoughts tugged on you despite your attempts to ignore it. You should’ve played it cooler on Halloween, Y/N. Why didn’t you? Should you have just worn lingerie and animal ears like he suggested? Or had you completely embarrassed yourself in that gigantic costume? You should’ve flirted with Noah to make Harrison jealous. Then he might actually have been interested in you. There was no way Harrison could ever get jealous about you. Plus you couldn’t flirt to save your life. But still. You could’ve tried. You thought you put in enough effort. Had you really given it your all? You didn’t do enough, Y/N. You should’ve done more.

Sometimes you fought with the voice, pointing out you tried your hardest. It just hadn’t been enough. Did you though? And somewhere down the line the voice won. Maybe if you had put in enough effort things with Harrison would’ve been different. You should’ve been better.

With that thought constantly nipping at you, you felt like giving up on dating. What was the point? You put all this effort into people only for things to fall apart. Why bother? So you dismissed your need to put in effort to things besides your studies. Who cared about looking good for class? It’s not like you were being graded on how sloppy you dressed. Who cared about what you ate? There wasn’t anyone to impress anyways. And you stuck firm to this new mindset, accepting the idea that you would die alone (and potentially eaten by wolves).

A couple weeks into the new semester, you shuffled around campus in an oversized sweatshirt and comfortable leggings; it was your preferred clothing choice for most of January. While you wouldn’t openly admit it, you’d been in a funk of just tossing on the same garb. What did it matter anyways?

Finishing off a bag of chips, you tossed the empty container into a nearby trash can. Your diet consisted of mainly take out and junk food, consuming whatever you wanted to eat. As you licked the residue your fingers, you wondered if it was appropriate to spend the rest of the day laid in bed marathoning a show on Netflix.

“Hey” a familiar voice called out, causing you to freeze in your tracks.

You turned around to see Steven politely smiling at you. It was as if the Devil and Steven decided to team up and catch you at your worst. How wonderful.

“Long time no see” he greeted you, taking a couple steps forward. You tensed up, unable to step back like you wanted to. Your brain screamed for you to take a step back - even if it was just one - but your body ignored the plea. Fuck. Him getting closer meant he could inspect your current state, something you weren’t ready for anyone to do. Someone like him didn’t even deserve that opportunity. Yet here he was.

The two of you hadn’t talked about what transpired Christmas night. When he texted you a couple days after the incident, you just texted back “sorry I’m busy”. The rest of his messages were left on read, unable to find the right response. It wasn’t like you could simply message “I know you made out with some chick even though we had something going on”.  No, it was easier letting the messages just sit there. Because avoiding problems was what grown adults totally did.

“How are you?” Good question, Steven. A part of you wanted to curse him out, scream at him about how terrible he treated you. But deep down you knew you’d never have the nerve to say anything. You just wanted to forget about the night and memories of Steven altogether.

As his words looped in your mind, you couldn’t think of a response. It was as if your brain went blank, unable to think of anything intelligible to say. So you ended up humming a sound in response. It wasn’t an answer, yet it told him everything he needed to know.

“You look...Good” he managed to get out as he surveyed you. He was lying. Both of you knew it. You didn’t have any feelings for him anymore, but it still hurt. You didn’t want to care about his judgement, but his glance felt so disparaging that you wanted to crumble. What an asshole.

You wished that you didn’t look terrible, that you actually bothered to do your hair and clothes that day. Glancing down at your sweater, you screamed internally. Of course there would be Cheeto stains on your sweater. How glamorous could you get?

“Hey, babe. Sorry I’m late.” Steven stopped smiling while you tensed up once again. God help you now.

A strong figure wrapped their arms around your waist, pressing their front gently against your back. You turned your head before your eyes bulged out slightly. You stopped breathing for a second, taking in that beautiful face next to you. Oh. So he still had that effect on you apparently.

It was Harrison looking better than ever. You avoided social media, so afraid that the voice would come back, that you couldn’t believe how much he changed. Of course he still looked gorgeous as ever, but he had a shorter haircut now which you surprisingly liked. Not that you planned on telling him especially now out of all the times.

You hadn’t realized that he was in town. Usually someone warned you, giving you time to deal with the impending chaos. Or with how things had progressed, you planned on avoiding him. Perhaps it was a surprise visit, some potential acting gig or meeting up with Tom at a set. You certainly hadn’t expected him to come to your rescue. After all he didn’t owe you anything. So why was he helping you out now?

Despite holding you, he wasn’t actually looking your way. Harrison refused to make eye contact with you, only staring down Steven.

“Oh, so you’re with him.”

Harrison’s arms tightened around you slightly as he glared down the other boy. “Yeah, she’s with me, mate.”

The Brit pressed a kiss to your cheek to confirm his words. It caught you off guard, making you bite down on your lip. Oof. Even if it was a ruse, the sign of affection was still sweet.

He wiped cheeto dust off your cheek, and you wanted to die. Less sweet. God, of course you would ruin an absolutely cute moment. Playing the part well, he didn’t let it deter him. “Isn’t she the cutest?” he asked, kissing you once more. While the affection made your heart beat quicker, it caused Steven discomfort to watch. Good. You deserve it, bitch ass Steven.

“You know what I like about Y/N, Stevie?” he started with fake smile on his face. Steven grimaced at the nickname, which seemed to fuel Harrison. “She’s real. She’s honest with others, sometimes to a fault. But she’s never afraid to be upfront about her feelings.” You weren’t sure where he was going with this, raising an eyebrow. “That’s what I appreciate about her.

“And it’s nice to know she didn’t string me along with another guy.” Oh shit. “She didn’t make fake promises to me and then make out with some other person in a grocery store just because she had the options. She actually fucking committed.” Holy shit. Steven’s face paled as Harrison glared at him, words digging in with every syllable.

“Wait a-” Steven tried interjecting, but Harrison wasn’t having it.

“And she certainly didn’t need to be polite to others, especially when they didn’t deserve it. But she’s got a big heart and doesn’t treat others like garbage even when that’s what they are: absolute shit.”

“You c-”

“Because people who go around expecting everyone to fall on their knees and act like they’re amazing are usually total divs. Complete idiots really.”

Steven said nothing, only bowed his head as his hands balled up. His knuckles turned white, and you worried that this might get violent.

“Y/N isn’t some high and mighty twat. She doesn’t need to prove anything to anyone because it’s a fact that she’s amazing. She’s not some self-obsessed, narcissistic arsehole who misses out on great opportunities. D’you know what I mean, mate?” Harrison held nothing back, practically attacking everything about Steven in a fatal blow. What could he even say to that?

“Now if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to spend some private time with my girlfriend.” Harrison tightened his grip around you. You weren’t sure why, but you hands reached out to touch his forearms. He tightened at your surprising touch before relaxing slightly. You felt him kiss your head and you sighed lightly at this comforting gesture.

This was enough for Steven to understand his presence wasn’t wanted in the slightest. He said nothing, only walking away and refusing to look at either of you.

Once Steven was out of range, Harrison immediately dropped his arms. You turned, finally getting to take in his whole appearance. He was wearing a simple outfit of a hoodie and jeans, yet you couldn’t help but bite down on your lip. Even though it would take a little bit of time to adjust to his new haircut, your mind wondered what it’d be like to run your hands through his hair now. Not that he’d ever let you do that.

“You look like a fucking mess.” Ouch. The honest criticism stung. You probably needed to hear it; you just didn’t want to hear it from him.

You wanted to play it cool - possibly even snarky - like his words didn’t bother you. “I...like cheetos” You winced hearing the words leave your mouth. You couldn’t even register on the coolness spectrum.

He scowled, shoving his hands in his pockets. You expected him to walk away and leave, but instead he pulled out a tissue. Without warning, he began wiping the cheeto dust off your face as he grumbled how messy you were.

He was so close, brows furrowed as he rubbed off the orange residue. Your heart pounded as you watched him shake his head in irritation when he got the last of the grime. You nervously asked if he was visiting someone, expecting that he must’ve assumed that Tom was on campus or that he needed to speak with Kimberly for some mysterious reason.

Tossing the dirty napkin in the garbage, he shrugged in response. “Something like that.”

“Kimberly’s at work right now” you pointed out. Harrison stared at you with a blank expression. “Thought...You might want to know.” He said nothing, just continued staring. “And I think Tom’s shooting on some set so...Also not here” you added, flustered by his manner.

Harrison looked like he wanted to say something important, but he simply brushed off the thought. “Don’t worry about it.”

Neither of you said anything for a moment, both just standing in the awkward silence that currently consumed the space. There was a lot that you wanted to say - wanted to ask even - but you didn’t know where to begin.

“Tom’s getting worried” he finally spoke again now glancing at the pavement. “He’s asking about us.” Us? What did that mean?

“He and Emma...They’re being nosy. None of their business, really. But they’re afraid we might affect the group dynamic.” Oh. So that was it. “I think we should do what’s best for the group...Just pretend what happened didn’t happen.”

Oh. You weren’t sure why, but his words hurt.

You agreed quietly, nodding your head.

“We can just...Just go back to the way things used to be. Nothing but two acquaintances with mutual friends. That’s it.”

Oh. That comment felt like a slap in the face. Why though? It was smart to go back to the old days when things were so much simpler. You swallowed, trying to process everything. Why were you so upset? It wasn’t like he was being terrible, yet you were on the verge of crying. You sniffled, blinking back tears.

“Right. Sounds good” you agreed, voice slightly strangled.

“Okay” he nodded, finally looking at you.

“Okay” you echoed, your turn now to look at the ground.

“That’s what you want, isn’t it?” he asked. Was that what you wanted?

How could the two of you even go back to normal? Because now you didn’t hate him. You weren’t even sure how you felt about him.

“How do we do that?” You wanted to sound normal, like it was just a simple question with an easy fix. Yet your voice came out meek, strained, and so unsure of itself.

Harrison called your name, trying to get you to look at him. His expression softened as you continued sniffling, continuing to stare down. He called your name again, but you shook your head. You didn’t want to look at him when you felt so confused. Harrison let out a slow sigh before he took your hand, holding onto it tightly.

“Y/N, will you please look at me?”

When you finally turned towards him, he looked at you with a soft expression and a wistful smile on his face.

“We’ll just forget about Vegas, okay?” He made it sound so easy, like you could just dismiss those memories away without a care. “It’s like you said, right? ‘It didn’t matter to either of us’ so it should be fine.” He squeezed your hand, doing his best to comfort you.

“We’ll just go back to being Lil Skunk and Lil Shit. Things will...Things will go back to the way they were.” You weren’t sure if he was trying to convince you or himself.

“It’ll be weird at first, but...That’s how it always is, isn’t it? Weird starts.” You nodded your head, not quite sure what he meant, but it sounded right. “Things will just...Fall into place” he concluded. You stared down at his hand still holding yours. Even though hand holding would be off the table again, this felt nice. It felt comforting with your hand in his. You wanted to savor this for a moment longer.

“Obviously I can see why you’d have worries. After all, I was...Really amazing that night.” You looked at him, cocking an eyebrow. Was he actually bragging? “I’m probably the best shag you ever had, and it’s totally fine that no one will ever live up to that” he joked.

You couldn’t help but burst into laughter. “Oh my God! Shut up!”

“It’s okay. You can admit it. I have that effect on the ladies. Apparently not even you’re immune to me like you thought.”

“Shut up, Lil Shit!” And just like that, the two of you were back to some sort of normalcy. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to know it was possible let go of the incident.

He finally dropped your hand, and your smile vanished. So this was it.

“You, uh, heading out now?” You weren’t sure why, but you wanted him to say no. You wanted Harrison to stay for just a bit longer.

He nodded his head. “Just have some business I need to take care of.” He leaned in and for a moment you thought he might kiss the top of your head again. Strangely enough you wanted him to. But he pulled away at last second, and you remembered that normalcy between you and Harrison didn’t include kissing.

“Take care of yourself, Lil Skunk.” Right in that moment, the nickname felt more loving than it ever had.

tags list: @sleepybesson, @tomhaz | @almostrosadiazz, @alt-ernativewonderland, @blackstarryroses, @butithasntkilledyouyet, @chims-kookies, @choke-me-sweet-pea, @deleteidentity, @divosterfields-deactivated20190 / @bbk8lin (?), @highladyjel, @hollandhearts, @jessiq31, @kateelyse96, @kayla-m1996, @mylifesucksbuthereiam, @otheenglishsetters, @sadnoelle, @sarcasticvodka, @sleepwalkingdragon, @soccerstud004, @spider-mendes, @thefallenbibliophilequote, @wolvesofthewinter

part nine

[wickedsingularity]

Christmas Miracle [one-shot]

wickedsingularity’s Christmas Stories 2018 Masterlist

Fandom: MCU Pairings/characters: Steve Rogers x reader (but not really), Wanda Maximoff, and all the Avengers post AOU/pre CACW (and @iguess-theyre-mymess starring as Sam Wilson's girlfriend/baking-partner) Words: 3747 Warnings: Angst, fluff, overworked, stress, nagging family, kissing, almost smut

Prompt/summary: When work and Christmas and sleep deprivation just becomes too much… Steve comes home from a mission and sets off a miracle. (Inspired partly by my own life and partly a Norwegian commercial.)

The busiest time of the year was busier than ever. It was also supposed to be the most wonderful time of the year, but with all the rogue HYDRA agents running around it was just stress, stress and more stress. They'd been fairly quiet all year, but now, right before the holidays, they were everywhere. Steve and Natasha had been sent away to deal with the larger of the suddenly active groups, and I was running around at home, working my ass off.

As the IT manager to the Avengers and what was left of SHIELD, I shouldn't be too busy, Tony made sure we had state of the art equipment, and I was pretty damn good at my job if I could say so myself. But it seemed that everything went wrong lately. I barely had time for my usual duties, as I was called here and there to fix the most ridiculous problems. And in the middle of it all, our servers crashed and I tried my best to get it back online as it was vital to Steve and Natasha's mission, even though everyone else felt their buggy printers or out-of-battery-mice was more important.

After a long day of fixing screens that showed everything upside down and saving a hard drive from someone accidentally opening a malicious attachment to an email and fixing the server temporarily and not doing any of the maintenance I was supposed to do, I dragged myself home to an empty apartment. Dry toast was my dinner and the couch was my best friend. That was also where I was reminded of all the other things I had to do at home. The lists were there in front of me on the table after one panicked evening when I decided I needed to write it all down in an orderly fashion. All the Christmas presents I had to buy, I had even figured out what to get everyone. All the baking I had to do. All the cleaning and decorating.

I groaned and reached lazily for the remote and turned the TV on. I don't know what channel it opened on because at that moment I got a text. I touched the fingerprint scanner and saw that it was from my mom. Have you decided what to do for Christmas yet? Your old room is waiting for you!

Another groan and my heart rate sped up. I glanced for a moment further up the thread.

I don't know. I don't know when Steve will be home.

If he can't come, you're welcome to come alone. Though we'd love to see you both!

Have you talked to Steve yet? Your grandparents are eager to see you too!

I hadn't replied to the last two, prompting her to send the current one. Steve's mission was on radio silence and no one knew how long it would take. I contemplated chucking my phone out the window.

Someone bursting into a Christmas song on the TV caught my attention. A family was gathered around their open front door, a group of cheery carollers standing in the driveway. I don't know what movie it was, because I tuned out before the guilt could overwhelm me. Instead, I remembered all the laundry I had to put away and dishes I needed to clean and the windows that needed to be cleaned because I could barely see through them, but I couldn't move from the couch. I just stared blindly at the TV for a long time, my mind going over all the things I had to do in an endless loop until another text dragged me back to reality.

This one was from Wanda. Want to skip work tomorrow and come with me to help me find a present for Vision? He's not easy to shop for.

I was able to reply to this one. I wanted nothing more than to get away from everything for a bit and spend some time with Wanda, maybe even get started on the Christmas presents, but I couldn't. I would have loved to, I need to get some shopping done too, but I'm still swamped with work. Everyone is useless. Laughing emoji.

Wanda's reply was quick. Oh, I'm sorry. Just let me know if you can get away, or if I can do some shopping for you while I'm out. Followed by five hugging emojis.

Thanks, I'll let you know!

A flash of guilt for saying no to Wanda went through me, even though I knew I was being ridiculous. I had just said no to her too many times the last few weeks.

I was done for the day. It was about nine, but I still turned off the TV and got ready for bed. On top of everything, whenever Steve was gone, it took me ages to fall asleep, and when I did sleep, I slept poorly and woke up early. So, I figured, the earlier I got into the bed, the earlier I would sleep and maybe long poor sleep was better than short deep sleep.

A few days later, nothing had changed, except I was now working alone. I had a few people working under me as the IT manager. Good people too. But all of them had applied for time off before Christmas and I'd granted it to all of them, except the one who was out sick. I worked better on my own anyway, it was faster and easier than getting more people involved. It was a flaw I had, one I was very aware of and one I should probably work on right now. It would have taken a lot of weight off my shoulders.

But I just couldn't do it. Not now. I did my best to fix everyone's problems and make sure the makeshift fix on the server didn't buckle under the strain and tried not to think of all the things I never got around to.

I was sleep deprived and stressed. My entire body was a tight knot of muscles, every time I turned my head my neck protested and pain shot through my head, my brain worked a million miles a minute, and my heart rate was probably through the roof and I nearly had a heart attack every time the phone rang or someone called my name in that please help me-tone of voice. I kept thinking about all the things I had to get done at work before Christmas but seemed to never have time for, and all the neglected tasks at home. The holidays were just days away. I decided to force myself out to get presents after work.

But when I got out, I was starving and exhausted, so I went home and would try to find all the presents online. With express shipping, I might get them all in time. And then I could spend a little bit of time every day the rest of the week, getting the apartment ready. I was proud of this idea and felt some of the burden lift from my shoulders.

But all I could find online was one present. Everything else was sold out. I was just about to throw my laptop into the toilet and cancel Christmas when my phone went off. I jumped half a foot off the couch, but my heart nearly exploded when I saw Steve's contact picture grinning up at me. I answered right away.

"Hi, doll." His voice was like a balm for my soul.

"Hi... I miss you." I felt my voice almost break, but I swallowed it down and hoped he didn't notice.

"I miss you too. How is my best girl?"

"Busy. So busy. But it's that time of year. When are you coming home?"

"Couple of days. We're just finishing up now. Did you work out the server glitch?"

"Sort of. It's online for now, but it's only a temporary solution. I suspect HYDRA has something to do with it though, given all the other things happening. But I'm doing my best."

"I believe in you, sweetheart."

"Fingers crossed." I grinned into the phone, trying to sound hopeful, but was glad he couldn't see how my lips twisted into a tight line instead.

We were silent for a few moments. I could hear him breathing at the other end, and I tried to imagine us curled up in bed, him the big spoon, his breath on my neck and his arms tight around me.

"I really miss you," I said.

"Are you okay?" Steve sounded concerned now.

"Yeah," I lied. "I just miss you. It's Christmas after all."

"I'll be home in two days, three tops."

"I can't wait."

"Me neither. Nat is waving me over. I got to go. I love you, okay?"

I felt the lump in my throat. "I love you too, Steven Grant." The line went dead and I dropped the hand holding the phone into my lap. "So much."

Steve hadn't been entirely truthful. He was already on his way home when he called, and he wanted to surprise her. But the call worried him. There had been something in her voice, something that told him she wasn't just busy, something was wrong.

After he had relieved Natasha as pilot, letting her get some sleep, he had called Wanda. If anyone knew if his girl was hiding something, it was the Scarlet Witch.

"She's been working really hard, Steve, everyone is on her tail," Wanda had explained. "According to Maria, her entire staff is gone for the holidays, and she's been doing everything herself. She is everywhere trying to help everyone and everything seems to be buggy. And whenever I see her, she gets paler and stiffer and there's a pained frown on her face. I don't think she's sleeping well either."

It was just as Steve expected. "Have you picked up on any of her thoughts?"

"You know I try not to do that." Wanda had hesitated for a moment. "But I couldn't have even if I wanted to. There are many thoughts in there, bleeding out. I couldn't pick out one from the other, without putting my hands around her head."

Steve pushed the Quinjet a bit faster after he had hung up. The hours flying back went by too slowly for his liking. Even slower was the medical check-up and the debriefing after. He tried to reschedule the debriefing for the next day, or at least a few hours later, but no such luck. By the time he went back to the apartment at the facility, she had gone off to work.

Steve stood still just a few steps inside the door, looking around. Next to the couch stood a basket of laundry that needed to be folded and put away. The dishwasher door was open and the inside was filled to the brim with dirty dishes. There were no Christmas decorations, no sign of anything Christmassy anywhere. Kicking off his boots, he walked further in and saw the handwritten lists and sticky notes on the coffee table. She had made orderly lists, and it made him crack a small smile, it was so typical her. They were sorted into what needed to be done around the house, what presents to buy for everyone, what Christmas decorations were to be put up, and what cookies to bake. Each list had a checkbox for "started" and "finished". The only thing checked off as finished was one of the presents for Tony, with a yellow sticky note next to it saying "online, estimated 23rd". No check marks in the started-columns.

He sighed and went into the bedroom to unpack his bag and take a much-needed shower. As he sat the bag down on the foot of the bed, he noticed that her side of the bed was barely slept in. Instead, her pillow had replaced his, and his was further down as if she'd been holding it while she slept. Steve's heart broke as he just imagined how these weeks had been for her. He knew she didn't sleep well without him, he didn't sleep well without her either. And she'd been so busy and she'd not had time for anything, she hadn't even answered her mother about Christmas judging by the texts Steve himself had gotten with questions about why she hadn't replied.

He set his bag on the floor, that could wait until later. And then he put the pillows back in their rightful place, pulled the covers up as neatly as he could.

"FRIDAY, are the others in and available right now?"

"Welcome home, Captain Rogers. Miss Romanoff is in the shower. Everyone else is in and available."

"Could you ask them to meet me here in half an hour? And could you call in Tony too? Say it's sort of a family emergency."

"Of course, Captain Rogers."

Steve tore off his uniform and went straight into the shower to wash away the grime of the mission. It was the quickest shower he'd taken his whole life. Body barely dry, he pulled on the first clothes he could find and got straight to work on the dishes, getting the machine started and handwashing the rest he could find.

Half an hour almost on the dot, there was a knock on the door. He told FRIDAY to open the door and Vision floated through before it was halfway open. Shortly after him, Wanda, Sam and Rhodey came in. And wet hair blowing behind her, a newly showered Natasha came running inside seconds later.

"What is this about a family emergency?" Rhodey asked.

"My poor girl has been working her ass off and has been running left and right to help everyone else but herself. I haven't been home to help out either. I was hoping we could all help her now. Before she gets home?"

They all nodded to a chorus of "of course".

Steve breathed out a sigh of relief. He would have tried to do it all himself if he had to, but he was glad they all wanted to help. He walked over to the coffee table and the lists there. "Sam, can I ask you to bake some cookies? You don't have to make everything on this list, but at least the ones that take the least time?"

The Falcon nodded and took the list Steve handed over. "I know just the person to help me with this," he said with a grin getting his phone out and walking over to the kitchen to make a call.

"This is a shopping list?" Wanda asked, grabbing one of the lists. "Vision and I can get this."

"Thank you, both of you. I can cross out what she's getting you, and get them myself later," Steve said.

"No, no, we'll look appropriately surprised."

Steve nodded and found his wallet, pulling out a credit card for them. "Rhodey, Nat, could you help me clean and decorate? If Tony shows up, he can help with that too."

"Sure, anything you need," Rhodey replied and Natasha nodded.

Steve looked around at them, and he had never been more grateful for each and every one of them. "Thank you, all of you. I know it's a lot of work and you probably have better things to do this close to Christmas, but I really appreciate this."

"It's no worry, Steve," Sam said, having just hung up and walked over while folding up the baking list. "We've all seen her getting more and more stressed lately. She's family, we're all family."

"This is what family does," Wanda added.

Soon, the apartment was filled with the fresh smell of soap. Dishes and laundry were dealt with, and Tony arrived with a gorgeous, plump spruce. Down the hall, the smell of baking made everyone salivate. Wanda sent pictures when she couldn't find the exact thing on the list and asked Steve for advice about what to get instead.

Decorating was next and everyone came in to help out a bit, while the gingerbread cookies were cooling before frosting, and when Wanda and Vision had finished all the gift shopping and placed them neatly wrapped around and under the tree in the common area.

It had been some long, hard hours, but the place was transformed. Steve had made sure everything was just the way she liked it and he couldn't wait for her to come home to this surprise. He didn't know how to thank everyone, but they assured him it was their pleasure as they left to let him rest for a little bit before she came home.

Steve sat down on the couch and looked around. It was almost perfect, there was just one thing left. He grabbed his phone and dialled a number.

"Hello?"

"Hi, this is Steve."

"Oh, hi, Steve, dearest! How are you? How is my baby girl?"

"We're good, thank you. I just called to let you know what's happening for Christmas. I'm really sorry, but something has come up at work for both of us. We can't make it."

"Oh, what a shame... It's been so long since we've seen our precious daughter, and there are so many people who are dying to finally meet you."

"I know. We're really sorry. We'll try to take a few days after New Year's if that's okay with you."

"Yes, please do! Have a Merry Christmas both of you and try not to work too hard!"

"We'll try. Merry Christmas to you too, say hi to everyone for us!"

Another day of being pulled in every direction. Another day where I could barely get a moment to spare for what I was supposed to work on, instead I was helping everyone else with silly things, and no closer to a permanent solution on the server glitch. Another day closer to Christmas and nothing was done. And still two days until Steve came home. I didn't even want Christmas anymore.

The halls in the building were quiet. There was a lingering smell of baking, and I felt a stab of guilt at all the baking I had yet to do. Tears pricked at the back of my eyes.

"Well, I can always try again next year," I mumbled to myself as I pressed my hand to the scanner next to the door and it swung open. The apartment was dark, I was sure I had left at least the kitchen light on. I frowned. "FRIDAY, could you please turn on the lights?"

"Of course."

The whole apartment was flooded with light and I gasped. A tree, lights, stars, tinsel, Santas, it was all there. And from the couch, a figure emerged.

"Steve?"

"Hi, doll."

My purse dropped from my hands and I ran across the room and jumped into his arms. He made a sound as if the air was knocked out of him and then chuckled, his arms wrapping around me. But seeing him and feeling him after the past three weeks of hell without him and what he had clearly done for me, just made the damn burst. His name was wrenched from me in a whine before I buried my face in his neck and the tears fell freely from my eyes.

"Oh doll," he said and sat down on the couch with me still wrapped around him. "It's okay." His arms tightened around me, holding me as close as he could. He whispered in my ear, probably all the reassurances he could think of, but he could have been reciting all the numbers in Pi for all I cared. It was his voice and his warmth and the safety I felt around him that I cared about at that moment as all the stress and worries bled out of me. I hadn't wanted Steve to know how hard it had been, but somehow, he always knew, always found out. He could read me without seeing me, just like I could read him.

I don't know how long it was before I calmed down. But when I did, I was starving, and it was the growling of my stomach that had me pulling away from his drenched shirt.

"Don't worry, I've got dinner in the fridge, it just needs warming up," Steve said, his hands cradling my face, thumbs wiping at the wetness below my eyes.

"I thought you said you'd be home in two or three days," I said, frowning. "Not that I'm not happy to see you."

"I wanted to surprise you."

"Well, colour me surprised. How did you manage all this?"

"Everyone helped. All the gifts are bought and wrapped. There are cookies in the jars and boxes on the counter. The place is sparkling clean and festive."

My breath of relief turned into a chuckle and then laughter, and I couldn't stop. Steve's smile grew and grew until he too started laughing. I fell sideways on the couch and off his lap, lying on my back and heaved for my breath.

Steve leaned over, planting a kiss on my cheek and that finally made me stop. "I'm sorry," I said, my voice shaky. "You just came home from a mission and you're probably so tired and you haven't even had time to process it because you had to do all this and I just cry and laugh and I'm just a mess."

"I'm just glad to be home again and I'm happy I could help you get this done." He climbed in between my legs and finally pressed his lips against mine. The last bit of stress rolled off me and I hummed. "Oh, and if anyone in your family asks," he whispered against my lips, "something came up at work for both us," his lips moved down to my neck, "and we can't visit for Christmas."

"Oh, how I love you, Steven Grant Rogers," was all I managed to say.

His lips moved lazily against my neck, finding that spot just below my ear that turned me into putty in his arms. I raised my hips, grinding them against his, feeling the need for him bubble up inside me. But then he pulled back and sat up. "I love you too. But go take a quick shower and I'll warm up dinner. Your stomach is still growling."

I groaned and tried to kick him, but he dodged my legs and was up and by the fridge before I could say "bastard".

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[psychospeak-blog]

Won’t Go Slowly // 23

One // Two  // Three // Four // Five // Six // Seven // Eight // Nine // Ten // Eleven // Twelve // Thirteen // Fourteen // Fifteen // Sixteen // Seventeen // Eighteen // Nineteen// Twenty // Twenty One // Twenty Two

A/N:    Yay, it’s a he or a she! Also, this is the gift that I envisioned that Tyler sent :)

You knew that the sex of your baby didn't really matter, of course.  He or she would be whomever they were meant to be.

But you were still curious and excited to find out, knowing that somehow that would make it that much more real.  It was another milestone you'd been waiting for.

You were laying on the exam table, waiting for the ultrasound tech to arrive, after already having had your appointment with Dr. Stevens and gone through all the routine appointment stuff.  Both your sister and Danielle were with you, and you were pretty sure Tyler would be there too if he was in town, but you had promised you'd let him know. In anticipation, you pulled your shirt up, scrunch the fabric up right underneath your bra.

"Wow," Nicole said, "you've got, like, the cutest little belly."

"I know," you smiled, smoothing your hand over it.  It wasn't really noticeable, probably, unless you were looking for it, but it was definately there.  When the tech came in and introduced herself, you couldn't wipe the smile off your face.

"Alright," she said, spreading the cold gel on your belly, "we'll take a look at baby's organs first and take some measurements.  You wanted to know the sex, right?"

"Yes, please," you said, still smiling.

"Alright, we'll see if baby cooperates and let's us see between its legs."

Oh.  That part hadn't really occurred to you, that you might not get to find out today, when you'd been looking forward to it.  You were mentally trying to connect with the baby inside of you, as if you could somehow encourage it to open its legs.  And then the profile image of your baby popped up on the screen, and you forgot it all, because it didn't matter.  Your breath was immediately taken away, tears springing to your eyes, because it actually looked like a baby, not like a....well, like a blob.  It had a visible head, and nose, and lips, and legs and arms.  

The tech started poking at your belly gently with the wand.  "C'mon, little one, move your hand so I can measure your head."

You laughed, although it seemed to work, the baby's hand floating away from its head.  You turned your head to look behind you, "Could one of you guys take a video on my phone?" you asked, "Please?"

Your poor sister, however, had tears running down her face.  "Awe, Nic," you said, reaching for her hand.  She sniffed, taking a sniff and stepping closer to you, placing a hand on your shoulder.

The sound of the heartbeat filled the room, which was quickly becoming your favourite sound.  You couldn't take your eyes off the screen, or believe how much the baby was moving around inside of you. You couldn't feel it, yet, of course, but you were pretty sure that would be amazing, too.

"Okay, let's try and take a peek in between the legs," the tech said, and you could feel the wand moving around on your belly, watching the screen, looking at what you assumed was the baby's bum, judging by the legs and the little feet and the toes.  Oh god, your baby had toes.

"Oh wow," the tech said, like she was surprised, like she'd never seen anything like it before. Your head immediately snapped towards her, trying to interpret her face.

"Is everything okay?"

"Oh, yes, yes," she said quickly, like she was sorry for making you worry, like she'd gone off script, smiling down at you, "Baby's just...he's making it very apparent."

"He?" you asked, your eyes filling with tears once more, and you could feel both your sister and Danielle's hands on your arm.

"Yeah," she said, "he's most definately a boy.  No question."

You were now crying and laughing at the same time, watching him move on the screen.  Him.  He.  He was an 'it' no more.

You barely even noticed what the tech said after that, other than the fact that he was healthy.

Once she left, and you were getting up, wiping the tears from your eyes, you looked both seriously at Nicole and Danielle, "Don't either of you dare say anything to Tyler about her reaction," you said, "he'll never shut up about it."

"I'm not talking to him about his dick," Nicole said, her face looking utterly disgusted, and Danielle had a rather similar look on her face.

You were planning to call Tyler to tell him, but it was...rather obvious from the pictures, so you instead took a picture of that, texting it to him as your sister drove you home, although you were a little surprised when he texted you back almost immediately, because you thought he was in...New York?  Or was it New Jersey? You figured he should be doing something.

Tyler: Is that a penis??!!!!

The next text then had approximately 15 eggplant emojis.

Tyler: Told ya, good genes.

You rolled your eyes, setting your phone back in your bag, and your sister smiled over at you.  "Guess I can say I have a nephew now."

"Yeah, you can," you said, as another piece clicked in that made it all the more real.

You were unlocking your front door, when Nicole reached down behind the planter on your front steps, pulling something out.  "You've got a package," she said, handing you the box, and you frowned, because you didn't remember ordering anything. But, you recognized the writing immediately  without even needing to look at the return address to see who it was from.

"It's from Tyler," you said, with a slight eye roll.  At least the box was fairly small, so there couldn't be that many Dallas Stars baby clothes inside.

You went to the kitchen, pulling a knife from your knife block, carefully slicing through the tape.  You may not be a huge hockey fan, but you weren't going to cut the fabric,  knowing just how happy it'd make him to see your baby wearing green and white.

But, once the box slipped open, you were taken aback to see black and white.  And then you teared up, hand going to your chest when you noticed the patterns, black outlines of little Labrador retriever faces, on white fabric.  You started pulling the items out, which were so soft: a little hat which was so small you could hardly believe it, leggings, and a receiving blanket. All perfectly unisex.

"Okay, that's adorable," Nicole said, looking over your shoulder.

"I know," you said, folding it back up, setting the hat on top, fixing the little knot.

"He actually has good taste," she said, and you laughed, already pulling out your phone to call him.

"It's so cute, too, because his dogs follow me around like crazy," you said, "like they know I'm pregnant."

"Hey boy mama," Tyler answered the phone, and you couldn't help but smile.

"Hey," you responded, "So, I just got home, and there was a package here."

"Oh, really?" he asked playfully, "And do you like it?"

"Like it?" you asked, running your hand over the fabric once more, "I love it.   He's wearing it when he comes home from the hospital."

"Really?" Tyler said, "Isn't that, like a big deal though?"

"Yeah," you said, you supposed it was. "It's perfect though. Thank you."

"Good.  If you didn't like it I was going to say it was from the dogs.  But, since you do, it was all my idea," he said, and you laughed, "Can dogs be uncles?"

"I don't know," you laughed, "I mean, if you want, I guess?  I don't think there's any rules."

"I don't want," he said adamantly, "If your kid's anything like you, he'll probably like them more than me, and I really can't compete with that.  They can be cousins, or whatever."

"Okay," you laughed, starting to clean up the packaging, "Did you remember my address?"

"Nah, I asked my mom."

"You asked your mom?"

"Yeah, she's got it in her address book thingy," he said, "and since you wouldn't give me your address...."

"I'm glad you did.  I love it so much."  You ran your hand over the fabric again.  You hadn't even bought any baby clothes yet, because you'd been thinking it was too soon (not to mention the way you were feeling wasn't very conducive to shopping), but you couldn't think of a better first outfit. "I thought it was going to be Stars stuff."

"Oh, don't worry, babe, I've got tons of that,"  Tyler said, in a way that made it sound like you might need a separate dresser just for that, "baby clothes are really confusing, though.  Like, there's different months and newborn and  everything.  So I just bought it all."

"Tyler!"

"He needs it." Tyler insisted, "Also, they don't make jerseys for kids until they're, like 12 months, but I'm seeing if I can get a custom one made.  They even have little hats, like the ones for grown-ups but so tiny. I'll bring it all with me at Christmas. "

"Tyler, you don't need to do all of that.  I love what you sent already, it's so thoughtful."

"Yes, I do.  He needs to represent his favourite uncle," Tyler said, "Anyways, with the other stuff, I got, like, three months, I think? The lady at the store said it was better because newborn doesn't fit all newborns? And they can wear it longer? So hopefully it fits."

"I'll duct tape it on if I have to," you said, looking at them again. "I can actually probably put a onesie over them rather than underneath if they're super big. I'd rather him be able to wear them for a longer time anyways.  And the blanket? Everything's so soft."

"Organic cotton," he bragged, and you heard a sound like he was pushing open a door, probably heading down to the bus.  "How was the rest of your appointment? Everything good?"

"Yep.  I gained a pound." You were quite proud of this fact, because you'd been losing or maintaining your weight up to this point with how sick you'd been.  Hopefully now that you into your second trimester, things would start to turn around.

"It's probably all your kid's dick."

"Tyler!"

He was giggling so hard you could barely make out the 'sorry', hearing a rush of activity behind him, and then a few voices.  "Hey, babe, I gotta get going."

"Okay.  Have a good game."

"Yeah, I'll try to 'skate around with the puck and stuff'," he said, "are you going to watch?"

" Well, Nicole's staying for dinner and  I think she wants to watch The Bachelor or Bachelorette, whatever it is," you said, lowering your voice a little, "I'll probably fall asleep though."

"Maybe the baby wants to watch the game though.  Don't deprive him of that," Tyler said, and you could hear more chatter surrounding him.  "I'll text you when I'm back at the hotel alright? If you're up from your nap, we can watch Grey's."

"Okay," you said, and Tyler made an extremely exaggerated kissing noise before hanging up the phone.  Settling your phone in your pocket, you gathered up the gift, walking into the room that was now your office, but wouldn't be for much longer, placing these new items in what was your soon-to-be child's room.  Your son's room.

**

It took probably a good week for it to actually sink in that you were having a baby boy.  You were just getting to the halfway point of your pregnancy, which seemed crazy, even though you were still having a bit of a tough time believing this was all real.

You'd been trying to sleep for the past 90 minutes, but all you'd accomplished was just rolling back and forth from side to side, trying to find a comfortable position.  Your hips had this dull, deep, constant ache, and you could swear you could feel your hips widening,even though you knew, logically, that that wasn't possible.

Your elbow hit against the mattress and you groaned with frustration. You almost want to cry, because you were tired and you just wanted to rest, cozy up and shut your eyes, but it was like the mattress was too soft or something.  You vaguely wondered if your couch was firmer, but then a much, much better idea came to mind.

You sat up, throwing your robe over your pyjamas and shoving your phone and charger in your pocket.  Taking a quick detour through your kitchen to grab a bag of chips and a bottle of juice in case you got hungry, you picked up your keys, and slipped your feet into your slippers, heading out to your car.

It was dark, obviously, when you pulled up, but you managed to unlock the front door using the light from your cell phone.  Locking the door behind you, you walked throughout the house, turning lights on and opening windows just a because it was kind of stuffy.  You were putting your juice in the fridge when you noticed lights from the next door neighbour's house and paused, wondering if they would notice, so you pulled your phone out and sent out a text.

You: I broke into your house.

You went into the bedroom next, the blankets still messed up on the bed and dog toys strewn across the sheets, and you'd remembered coming to his house before you'd had to take them all to the airport, and the dogs had abandoned their toys when you laid down on the bed, opting to give you attention instead.  Everything was still in the same place.  You left the toys where they were, laying down, as your phone vibrated.

Tyler: ?????

Tyler: You have a key?

Tyler: what the hell

You laughed under your breath, typing back a response: I used the key.

Tyler: Oh

Tyler: No boys allowed  😉

You: Just the one I have inside of me.

Your hand ran over your face when you realized what you said, rolling onto your back and typing back a response quickly: I meant the baby.

Tyler: 😂😂

Your face was still flaming red when Tyler's name flashed across your phone.  Of course he was calling. Maybe he would only interrogate you about why you were in his house.

"Hi," you answered.

"How's that boy inside you?" He asked immediately.  

"Uhh..."

"The baby," he said, as if he had to clarify.

"I don't know," you said, smoothing your hand over your belly. "I can't, like, see him, but I assume he's good."

"So you miss me that much that you had to go over to my house?"

"No, my hips hurt and your mattress is firmer."

Tyler laughed. "So you're just using taking advantage of our friendship so you can sleep in my bed?"

"Maybe..." you mused, and then you reconsidered, thinking you probably should have asked him first. Even though he used his key to get into your place without asking all the time. "Is that okay?"

"Yes," he laughed, "Just clean up after yourself.  I spent hours cleaning the whole thing before I left.  Don't trash the place. Is it helping?"

"Yeah," you answered, "I ordered a pregnancy pillow, that should help, but it's not here yet."

"Yeah, well at least you know where to find a good mattress until it gets there," he said, "How are you though?"

"Good."

"Babe...." he whined.

"What?"

"I want a real answer."

"That was a real answer," you said, "I'm good."

"You've been sick," he said, "It just magically went away?"

"Well, no," you said, "But it's kind of better?  Most days.  I just have to make sure I eat regularly or it gets bad.  And I've been getting headaches, but they're not really that bad.  I'm good."

"You can complain, you know," Tyler said. "You've got to feel like shit.  And you barely say a word."

"Because I'm good.  It's a good sign," you said.  It had been rougher at first, but now that you were past the first trimester and had been able to find out what your body did and didn't like during pregnancy, it was easier.  

"And you've been keeping busy?" he asked, and you had to laugh, because it sounded like you were talking to your grandmother.

"Yes," you answered, "And how are you?"

"Me? I'm good."

"But Babe...." you mimicked.

"I'm not pregnant," Tyler said, "Although, now that you mention it, it has been awhile since I've had my period."

"You should get that checked out," you said, "How was your day, though?"

"How was your day?" he responded.

"Why do we always have to talk about me?"

"Because your life is so much more exciting than mine."

"What? No it's not," you said.  You literally did the exact same thing everyday.  Did he forget what he did for a living?

"Yeah, it is.  You're having a baby. What's more exciting than that?"

"Well, he's not here yet," you said, "I want to hear about your day."

"I mean, I'm at home, so it was pretty boring.  We just had practice."

"All day?" you questioned and he huffed.

"Well, no..."

"What'd you do after?"

"Ummm...I...talked to my mom for a bit actually," he said, "Oh yeah, I meant to ask you, what are you doing for American Thanksgiving?"

"Being Canadian?" you said.  You hadn't even really done much for Canadian Thanksgiving though, either, because you'd been way too sick at that point.

"Ha ha," Tyler said, clearly unamused, "We're doing American Thanksgiving at my Mom's this year because I couldn't come for the Canadian one and I have a couple of days off.  She was going to invite you, I don't know if she has yet? But, you coming?"

She hadn't invited you yet, but you were sure she would.  Truth be told, you'd kind of been avoiding her a little bit since you'd seen her at the game.  Not because you didn't want to spend time with her, of course, but because you were worried about slipping and giving it away.  And it was pretty hard to avoid when your symptoms were so apparent, so you'd had to come up with excuses the couple of times she'd invited you to dinner.  You felt kind of bad about it, but you knew if Tyler was there, he'd cover for you, and you wouldn't be the only one there who knew.  "Yeah, sure.  Should I bring anything?"

"Uh, no," He said firmly, "Unless you want to bring your own grilled cheese, I guess."

"I can eat other stuff now," you said.  At least mashed potatoes, you could handle.  And definately pumpkin pie.

"Good," Tyler said, and he made an oof noise and you could only assume the dogs had just jumped on him, "Oh yeah, I'm bringing the pups, too."

"Oooh, you are?" you asked excitedly.

"Yeah, I'm just going to pretend that you were that happy to hear I'm coming."

"I am," you said, "It's just been longer since I've gotten to see them.  And I get to talk to you, I don't get to talk to them."

"Yeah, I'll try to teach them to text," he offered, "They're gonna be so psyched to see you."

"And you're not?"

"I mean, I'll try not to jump all over you but no promises," he said, "It'll be nice to see when we can actually hang out other than stand around in a hallway though."

"Yeah, it really will," you smiled even though he couldn't see you.  "What else did you do?"

"Uh, I don't know.  Made dinner?"

"What did you have?" you asked, settling your side and curling up, pulling the blanket around you.

"Steak, and vegetables, and some rice."

He was about to ask you what you had when you interrupted him. "What else did you do?"

"I mean, I took the dogs for a walk."

"To the park?" you asked, letting your eyes fall closed, a yawn escaping your mouth.

"Yes," he laughed lightly, like he couldn't believe you were asking him so many questions.  "You sound like you're going to fall asleep.  Should I go?"

"No," you said, "I want to hear about your day. What happened at the park?  Did they make any friends?"

"Well," Tyler said, and you pictured him settling back into the couch, his feet probably propped up on the coffee table, scratching dogs behind the ears with his hand, "There was this other dog there, a whippet, I think, that they were playing with for awhile.  And then this golden retriever showed up..."

You let your breathing grow deeper, as you listened to him speak, your responses become less and less frequent, until you finally fell asleep.