#WDS unable to Start

[techdirectarchive]

WDS server unable to start with Error Information 0xFFFFFDF0

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[josephquinnswhore]

devils antics - joel miller x female reader

Summary: joel explores unspoken territory.

Word Count: 1.8k

Content Warnings: established relationship, age gap, daddy kink, use of pet names (angel, baby, sweetheart, honey), (reader mid 20’s Joel is in his 50’s.) somnophilia, dubcon, p in v, creampie, thigh riding, reader is asleep for most of it. Joel Miller wearing reading glasses 🥵

Note: game/og Joel is the love of my life if you don’t like him, go kick rocks.

It had been a day, Joel could concede the fact as soon as you had walked in the door. Usual infectious smile was nowhere to be seen, he felt unnerved by the way your lips were pulled into a tight line, noting how your bottom lip twitched in its struggle not to slip into a pout.

You were trying to stay strong, level-headed. Joel knew you were tough, you could handle things well, and when you couldn’t you’d always communicate the problem and together; create a solution to free you of your metaphorical chain and shackle.

“We’ll talk about it tomorrow.” Is what he’d gotten from you, avoidant eyes and a wave of your hand, monotonous voice set him on edge. The stress radiated from your body like heat waves.

His hand slipped onto your shoulders, only adding to the extra pressure that they struggled underneath. “Let me at least run you a bath sweetheart, it’ll help you relax.”

Another disinterested reply, a shortened mumble of, “I’m fine. Just want to sleep it off.”

He felt stumped; you could be so stubborn. He was here offering solutions, ways in which he knew he could help and be of use and you outright refused. There was no negotiation, straight dismissal. He found it hard to admit that it hurt, god it hurt him. He felt rejected.

A voice of reason in his mind, told himself that he’d never seen her like this, that something so profoundly stressful must have happened for her to be like this.

As you’d said to him, once tomorrow would come and you were rested, they’d talk.

He spends a while in the living room; reading a few chapters of his book before he marks the page by folding the top corner over. A ghost of a smile grew on his lips as he heard your scornful voice in his head.

“You’re going to ruin the books Joel, use a bookmark for goodness sake!” He folded the paper anyway, maybe if you’d noticed it would give you another reason to talk to him.

His pointer and thumb reach up to take his glasses off, pinching them in the worn spot where the temple of his glasses meets the small silver hinge. He sets the book down, then places the glasses on top of them, he’s careful to make sure they’re leaning on the temples, not the lenses.

He feels a heavy feeling forming in his chest, like he’s worried you won’t want him there. Would you; want him there? The thought makes his hand hover above the door handle before he turns it, cursing the sound of the squeaky door hinges that could use some lubricating.

He was sure Tommy mentioned finding an old can of WD-40 on his last patrol.

You’re fast asleep, miraculously through the squeaky door and Joel’s heavy footsteps on the wooden floor throughout the house.

His heart swells when he looks at you; your lips are parted and there’s a frown strewn on your face, skin wrinkling around your eyes. God, you’d probably have crows feet before you turn 30.

“Oh baby, look at you.” He mutters to himself, shaking his head. You went to bed wearing one of his shirts and no pants.

He doesn’t bother to undress, not thinking he’ll get much sleep anyway. He lies there, turning his head to the right so he can watch you sleep, it disturbs him; how even in sleep whatever has you worried plagues you in your sleep.

Watching your chest rise and fall, his own breathing becomes synchronised with your own, heart beating at the same pace as he starts to grumble, his tired eyed begging to be closed for some rest. It takes mere minutes before he finds himself unable to keep his eyelids open.

He stirs, hearing soft whimpers coming from your lips, when he opens his eyes he sees that your lips are still parted, a small puddle of drool has accumulated on your yellow pillowcase.

He can’t help but chuckle at the sight. Until you whimper again, and he takes you in, he realises he’s in a predicament.

Your two thighs are wrapped around his own, locking him in place as your hips rut against his leg, the cause of those sweet sounds coming from your lips. He freezes for a moment; wondering what he should do.

He considers waking you up, shoving you off or even trying to pull his leg away to free himself of your devious grip on him. But he doesn’t. He feels a wave of sympathy.

Here was his poor baby, face strewn in a stressed-out frown and out of desperation, rutting and grinding her panty clothed cunt onto his rough, jean-clad thighs, like her life depended on it.

How could he deny you? He couldn’t.

He felt a tingle shoot down his spine, his cock hardened, stiff and uncomfortable in his jeans, as he watched you using his body in your sleep to get yourself off.

His poor angel is reduced to this, so stressed and exhausted from whatever you’re juggling has you so needy, so desperate and too anxious to ask him to actually fuck you to feel that release.

It was a no brainer to him-to help you. You were his angel, his baby. He wouldn’t let you suffer, you were too restless and you deserved to sleep without interruption. The peace of sleeping without stress on the back burner of your subconscious.

Desire washes over him, his large hands grip your hips, guiding you slowly to grind into his large thigh, still facing each other. His eyes flicker over your body, realising already, how you look less pent up than earlier. Calloused fingertips are soft on your skin as he grips your torso softly, pulling you closer into his chest.

His lips start kissing your neck, softly and gently, careful not to wake you. Small groans get stuck in the back of his throat as you continue to whine desperately for more friction.

He closes his eyes, voice husky with desire as he speaks. “It’ll be okay now honey, I’ll give you everything you need.”

Arousal fuels his actions, lips attacking your soft neck down to your collarbone, his hand sneaks under the material of his shirt on your delicate skin. He groans as he feels your nipples are hard against his thick fingers.

Your hips against Joel’s had slowed down, the rhythm becoming less synced, more sloppy, his heart pounded as he realised how close you were.

“You’re almost there princess, just let daddy take care of you. You know he looks after you.” He wasn’t trying to be quiet anymore, hell if he woke you up, he wouldn’t mind at all.

Moments later a string of quiet and frantic whines left your lips, body slumped and stilled as you cum from riding his thigh. The wet spot on his jeans is what drives him wild, a primal growl leaves his lips, and he can’t control the desire he has to take you here, as you slept.

“You wouldn’t mind”, he reasoned aloud. “You’d wanna help your daddy wouldn’t you angel?” He muttered as he pulled his jeans down to his knees, pulling his aching cock out of it’s containment.

His fingers peel your soaked panties to the side, cursing when he feels with his fingers that your cunt is dripping with slick. He couldn’t fight the devil’s temptation, the sin of lust had already possessed him and your sweet, sweet juices coated his fingertips.

He dragged his sticky fingers down his cock, pumping it a few times before lining himself up to your hole. He exhaled a few times as he pushes himself in, animalistic grunts leaving his lips at the feeling.

You stir for a moment, Joel stills and makes sure you’re asleep before he continues. He pumps himself into you, hips meeting yours in a slow motion, teasing himself, watching you be so vulnerable under him sent an arousal though his entire body.

He felt his orgasm coming on fast than it had ever before.

“That’s it angel..” He grunts, unable to stop the words from slipping past his lips. “I’m almost done princess, just let daddy use you.”

His body shakes heavily as he ruts into you, going deeper. His arms have moved so they’re now wrapped around you, and his voice is a little breathless and even more husky as he lets out small groans and moans.

But he's still holding himself together fairly well considering how close he is to falling apart. His body still tenses up, though, as he continues to fuck her while she sleeps.

Joel doesn’t feel bad, like he can’t comprehend why this would be such a terrible thing if you did wake up—he’s past the point of feeling guilty, he knows you’d want to be his good girl and help him finish.

“You're such a good girl.” He murmurs softly, his voice is slightly breathless and husky as he stares at her and kisses her softly on the lips.

He grunts softly and shifts his body even closer to her, so he’s flush against your chest. His legs are still shaking a little, and he feels a rush as he gets close to cumming and almost reaches it.

“Almost…” He trails off, his voice a mere whisper.

“Just... give me a minute... and I'm all done…” He adds softly, his voice cracking as he starts to come undone.

His grip on your hips tighten, cock now slamming into your hole harshly, crushing your body under his as he rams into you, Joel’s starting to lose his composure, not worried about waking you anymore.

He lets out an animalistic growl as he cums, long ropes of cum filling your spend cunt, trickling down your thighs and onto the bedsheets as his cock continues to pulsate into you.

“Fucking—Jesus baby you’re squeezing me.” He growls, feeling your cunt squeeze around him, you moan loudly and he realises that you’ve just had an orgasm.

Your eyes shoot open and it doesn’t take long to put the pieces together. Reality hits him as he realises what he’s done. Joel’s face suddenly turns to one of guilt, panic. He pulls out of you and starts breathing heavily.

“Baby—I can.. I’m sorry I wasn’t—I didn’t think.. I don’t know what came over me.” He stuttered, voice thick with emotion, his hazel eyes were soft and it was clear as day he couldn’t resist it.

You feel your face and neck warm as you take his hand in your own. “It’s okay, I like it—seriously. It’s sexy, the idea of you taking what you need and looking after me is perfectly okay with me baby.”

He starts to calm down, long arms extending to pull your body into his own, you’re both sweating and covered in cum.

“You’re so good to me angel. I dunno what I’d do without you.” He mutters tiredly, nuzzling his crooked nose into her hair.

This would need to be an in depth discussion. That could be done in the morning; for now, you were happy, Joel was happy. That’s means enough to fall asleep in each other's arms happily for a few hours.

[sharksfrommars]

ok I’ve got a bit of a crackpot knight theory.

I was trying to organise my thoughts and this is the result. Hope it makes sense.

spoilers, obviously

In undertale, we know that WD gaster “fell into his creations” and that he was “shattered across Space and Time”. We also know that Gaster was experimenting with ‘darkness’. Not regular darkness but something “dark darker yet darker”, “photons readings negative”. Entry 17 is literally the most important bit of Gaster lore, and it’s seemingly about dark worlds.

In chapter 3, Ralsei tells us about how dark worlds work. As it gets darker, things get more indistinct, until the light reaches zero and you can’t see anything. But if it gets darker than that, “darker than dark”, “take away light that wasn’t there”, things start to take form again. That’s what the dark worlds are. 

Gaster was investigating dark worlds, and got shattered across space and time. There’s a lot of evidence for this, from the wording, entry 17, the sound that plays when you use your phone in the dark world. some how, he fell too deep into darkness and it erased him from all of space time.

I propose that something similar happened to Dess. That she fell too far into the darkness and it shattered her. Not as completely as gaster , since people still remember her, but somehow it broke her apart.

The crackpot part of the theory comes from this — I think the roaring knight is Dess. Not all of her, but a part of her that fell so deep into darkness it became a sort of pseudo-titan. The thing is, we know that someone who can be assumed to be Dess for all intents and purposes, through the unused text from each chapter.

The person in the unused text clearly has no clue what’s going on. They’re lost. It’s dark and silent.

Actually, do you think they’re trapped between the light world and the dark world? Like, Ralsei said that after a certain point of extra darkness you start to see things again. Our lost soul can’t see anything at all. 

I think it’s important that the only time the knight has been seen in the light world was in the middle of the night. When things are still indistict. I think that’s the space the knight lives in.

I think they’re Dess, shattered between light and dark, unable to interact with either. She’s lost in the dark, a part of her so deep into it that it created the roaring knight we see. I think the knight just wants to be whole again.

[radioregine]

WRITEBLR INTRO xx

hey, all! i’m n.k. :-)

i'm not new to tumblr (have had a few diff accounts since 2011/2012), but i'm new to interacting with writeblr proper. 

ABOUT ME

late 20s

black & queer & disabled 

lifelong writer/musician/creative (in both professional and hobbyist capacities)

finally finishing my degree in creative writing & english! 

ARTISTIC/THEMATIC INTERESTS 

literary fiction, horror, camp, kitsch, diversity, introspection, family/friend bonds (especially nontraditional ones), romance, art rock, nostalgia, technology, diy ethos 

GOALS

connect with the tumblr writing community at large! for a while i was unable to get excited about my non-work, non-fanfic related writing projects. over the past year or so, my passion’s been renewed, and i just wanna chatter with like-minded folks about my longform WIPs, my short stories, etc – and geek over other people’s work here too <3

WIPS 

Dagmar

there’s always something going down in dagmar, an insular coastal community straddling the delaware bay. pragmatic tech geek zeke omezie-fumudoh, 18, prefers to keep her head in her books and projects – deaths and disappearances were common in her parents’ home country, too, after all. when her best friend dodie dies, however, zeke has no choice but to start trying to connect the dots & face the potential supernatural forces at play. 

[this is finna be dark fantasy/horror, romance, mystery, and queer as hell! i got a lot of worldbuilding to do, but a few months ago the twist popped into my head 1st and i’ve been working backwards. i'm sooo excited abt figuring out the narrative path(s) i gotta take]

Dave & The Family Davenport

20-year-old twin musicians dorian & daria davenport are a little s club 7, a little sly stone, & a whole lotta spitfire. as the very first act signed to holliday records, 30-something producer & label founder dave levine considers it his duty to take the family davenport under his wing. they become his pet project – and eventually something more to him. 

[i’m taking this one in a literary/drama direction! thinking found family and music industry commentary vibes. idea came from revisiting big time rush and thinking ‘what would happen if you mix btr + the carpenters + prince + mtv’s making the band??’ (for the record, dave is 100% NOT meant to be a p. d*ddy analogue re: making the band, i'm mainly thinking of the aesthetics of the young artists of color featured on the show)]

Several fun essays about my personal fandom/shipping history (one is about all the diff sites i've used over 17+ years of reading/writing fanfic, another is an old-school livejournal-style ship manifesto that i plan to make into a video! etc etc)

SHORT FICTION 

blank [literary/drama, 300 wds]

fortune teller [literary/drama, 300 wds]

hothouse [horror, 500 wds]

a certain standard of care [horror-comedy/surreal/gross-out, 1k wds]

good bones (or, an exercise in letting go) [literary/dramedy, 1.3k wds]

[writing tag: scorpio the scribe]

hmu if you think we'd get along <3 i need more ppl to follow!

[ETA: i prefer to follow/be mutuals w/ ppl 18+ only, ty!]

[allbycharles]

You are in Rivendell and somehow your laptop works? Oc insert time everybody!

Possible reactions of your new elven friends to seeing the Lord of the Rings movies:

A) they of course understand all of the elven lyrics and therefore have several times stronger emotional reactions to the movie

(sobbing elves left and right)

B) they pronounce quenya differently so they are dying of laughter in serious scenes like for example dying Haldir

(you were afraid they would cringe...you forgot they were elves)

C) they never saw a moving picture so they are unable to tell it from reality which ends in all of them running around screaming about Sauron being back.

(Elrond is not happy with you.)

D) they cannot get over the fact every historical detail is kinda tweaked and refuse to watch anything after first ten minutes

(They are horrified this is being shown to children without proper education)

E) they see it all, consider it great and ask for more. To which you promptly pull out your WD disc and promptly turn Hall of Fire into cinema.

F) after few first fighting scenes they start wildly discussing if the shown fighting strategies are correct and maybe would have been better to use or are complete bullshit.

You dont get far in the story but its fun.

G) you kiiiiinda forgot they were all in some point in a war conflict....therefore everyone has a huge PTSD attack

(congratulations, they hate movies now...you wish you had started with Love Actually)

H) nobody sees anything....elven immortal eyes are too fast to see anything else than an awkward slideshow of pictures and they all get a migraine

[louis-damien]

So when I moved in to my current apartment, I was disappointed to find that the shower is meant for someone at most 5' tall. As someone a whole foot taller than that, it simply doesn't work out. I found out that S-curve shower arms exist, meant to make your shower head sit at a taller height so you can fit. I got one of these, some teflon tape, and got to work. I took the shower head and flange off, then tried to unscrew the shower arm. Lefty Loosey is NOT getting this thing Loosey. It's not reverse threaded because no shower fitting is, obviously this thing is meant to go counter-clockwise. I look closer at the juncture- man, there's a lot of mildew/calcium build-up on the threads. Okay, I have barkeeper's friend, that stuff blasts through mineral deposits super easily. Pour it over the fitting and then leave it for twenty minutes so I can eat lunch. I get done and then bring a hot towel over to the shower to clean up the fitting. Start trying to loosen it again, man this thing is STUCK. Got a cheap wrench set- Shit. My biggest wrench is too small to get at the base. I can get it further down the arm at the bend, but it doesn't do anything there. I have some string, maybe I can use that to make a simple Strap Wrench? No. The string can't grip on the smooth pipe. Trying to use the string to make a kind of pulley broke the string. Shower arm is STUCK. What does the internet say? Cause rapid expansion and contraction by heating and cooling the fitting so it comes away from the pipe. Well, I don't own a hairdryer or heat gun and I don't think I should use my lighter in this situation, so what's our next suggestion. Wrap the pipe and hit it with my wrench- I don't own a hammer. Okay, I can do that. Not working. Next option, PB Blast or WD-40. Well, I don't have either of those, and my anger is getting the better of me, and I need to start cooking dinner soon. I can call my husband and ask him- I don't want to make him come over since he's two hours away and it's already after 3, but I also need my testosterone shot and I have such a severe fear of needles (very unfortunate for a Trans Man who wants many piercings) that I am unable to do it myself. I tell him what I need, he asks if I'll make dinner, I tell him I was planning on it. He is an absolute angel and says he will drive two hours to stab me and help me change my shower arm. I have done male task Number One of failing at plumbing.

[bakeryblood]

vampire eddie, biting kink, some sort of handcuff usage. go nuts.

Take It Easy

Pt. 1

Vampire!Eddie Munson x Male Reader

cw: Alcohol, Angst, Depression, Blood

Y/N shifted the van into park before pulling the keys out of the ignition. Starting out at the seemingly abandoned trailer home Wayne Munson and his Nephew used to reside in. Every time, every week you came it was always the same. The same melancholy mixed with existential dread washed over your body as you grabbed your bag and hopped out of the drivers seat, quickly heading up the short flight of stairs and creaking open the metal door.

No hats lined the walls anymore, no collection of mugs on display. Wayne had taken anything and everything of sentimental value out of the trailer when he left months ago. The day he finished packing and you’d come by as you always did he stopped filling the box and walked over to you.

“Y/N..please stop coming here…He’s not coming back.” You couldn’t believe what you were hearing but as you watched the older gentleman’s resolve crumble and a tear fell from his eye you knew he was just tired of waiting and hoping that Eddie would burst through that door one night. He’d missed too much work and sleep in the last weeks and he just couldn’t stay there anymore.

You bit your lip as you looked up at the tear in the roof, insulation where the black vines used to fill the space. There were still marks on the ceiling that reminded you of burns, stretching out, making vein like patterns. Wayne took your hand and placed something small and cold into it tearing you from your thoughts as you looked down at the set of keys, quickly looking back at him and shaking your head.

“Wayne, I can’t.”

“You can and you will Y/N. Along with anything else in his room, take it. The apartment doesn’t even have enough room for most of my things..he’d rather you have it than..” He trailed off with a shuttered breath, unable to finish his thought process of taking his missing nephew’s belongings to a donation center. Y/N wanted to cry but it was as if they’d run out of tears as they felt their face get hot, going into his room was so painful he could understand Wayne preferring someone else handle the task.

Walking over to the dresser that had sheets with music and lyrics written on them, notebooks with his future campaign plans. You couldn’t read anymore. You didn’t want to continue to test your body’s ability to not break down again, but as you went and sat on the untouched bed still as messy as the last day he’d managed to pull himself out of it. You leant over and hid your face in your arms as you heard the loud noise of the box tape being stretched out and placed on the seam of the cardboard box.

________________________________________

Dust flies into the air as the old Chevy van barreled down the dirt driveway of the trailer park, the couple sitting outside of their RV hollering at the driver to ‘slow the fuck down’, that there’s kids that live here despite it being close to midnight at that point.

As Y/N stepped out and slammed the car door he looked towards the flickering out of season Christmas lights and raised the hand that wasn’t holding a six-pack of beers connected at the top by rings of plastic and flipped them the bird before making his way up to the trailer, almost tripping up the steps and bursting through the door face first, thankfully catching himself before swinging it open after a moment of struggling to get it open. It always had a habit of sticking, Wayne or Eddie would usually spray the hinges and latch with WD-40 both to avoid forcing it and to keep from disturbing the other’s sleep schedule as they tended to sleep and come home at opposite times.

The old woman looked over at her husband as he tossed another old newspaper into the small fire they had in the pit in front of them. “Been a while since anyone lived there, should we ring the police?”

Her husband scoffed and shook his head. “You old bat, that’s Wayne’s place. Either it’s one of his boys friends or another shit bird coming to use it to smoke dope. Either way, it ain’t our business..” His wife glared at his insult before standing up and pulling her robe around herself in a comforting fashion. It was true that she’d forgotten, but seeing that van pull in like a bat out of hell did seem to jog her memory.

Three months. Y/N closed and locked the trailer door behind him as he walked in and assessed the condition of a place he used to spend so much time at. Taking his lighter out of his pocket he flicked it open and the small amount of light was enough to illuminate the space of the living room and some of kitchen. Dust particles along with what was likely airborne insulation floated around as he walked around looking at the graffiti littering the walls.

‘Hawkins Local Freak: Missing’

A debatably badly drawn pentagram in red spray paint. Y/N chuckled softly and shook his head as he went to the kitchen bar and placed his beer down before pulling one from the plastic. “Never were many people as creative as you where Eddie. Not here anyway..” Y/N popped the tab on the can and tossed it back, flicking his lighter closed as he felt it begin to heat up passed a point of comfortable holding as he slammed the first beer of that pack.

This wasn’t a regular hobby of his, racing as fast as he could towards getting black out drunk. In the last six months he’d only drank one other time over at Steve’s house and quickly excused himself to go sleep off the alcohol in their bed while he kept himself company. Tonight just seemed right for it. Since Wayne abandoned the place he spent a couple months visiting the home, spending time with what items of Eddie’s he’d left there. His guitar for one. Occasionally he would see that the curtain in the window had been moved to the side, bunched up slightly and he’d rush inside to find no signs anyone had really been there.

Eddie had been a big influence in Hawkins, both good and bad. The kids looked up to him so much and missed the head of hellfire dearly whilst others still considered it a good thing he had ‘skipped town’ after the cult leader accusations arose. Y/N knew he would have wanted him to do everything he could to look after Dustin, keep Steve from teachin’ him wrong. He knew he would have wanted you to take his campaign notes and keep hellfire alive.

But you failed. You gave up. You dropped out of school and slowly allowed yourself to drift away from the teens, unable to keep hearing their concerned voices as they asked you if you were okay almost every day. You could read them just as well as they could read you. They knew you weren’t okay and you knew they didn’t believe you when you said you were.

“I’m sorry Eddie..I miss you so fucking much..” Y/N leaned over on to the counter they had kept a hand on as to not get lost in the dark and they rocked. As unhealthy as it had been for him to continue to hold out hope, he felt so empty now. Like Eddie would have really let him have it if they saw him now. ‘Drinking is supposed to be fun you idiot.’

‘Wow, six months and you give up on me?’

Y/N wiped his eyes and felt for the wet, condensation covered cans of beer as he desperately held onto those thoughts. Their voice was still fresh in his mind. ‘Look on the bright side, at least you got to keep all my cool shit!’ Y/N grabbed his lighter after popping the top on the can and headed off for the bedroom, which was surprisingly in much better condition. Where the living room had been littered with cans, bottles and cigarette butts stomped out into the carpet Eddie’s room seemed untouched.

Considering how many of the people who detested him were all talk, more likely to be fearful of what might happen if they actually happened to run across the man who had been missing for the last six months, it wasn’t all that surprising. The bed was still as Y/N had left it on one of his many visits, making up the sheets. Besides his books, notes and stereo you had left everything else. Walking over to the rack of cassette tapes you set the open lighter on the tall dresser and left for your Walkman in your pocket before squinting to read the messily scribbled band names on the mixtapes.

‘1983-1986’ Pretty straight to the point for Eddie who tended to label his tapes with a silly name or label the vibe to them unless it was an actual bands tape he bought. Y/N stuck the cassette in his Walkman and slipped the headset off his neck and atop his head, listening as he looked over his shelves of things, cigar boxes he used for different little items. Movie ticket stubs, jewelry, the occasional banished DnD die or photograph.

Opening one that seemed to sit on top, first thing his eyes landed on was a tiny bag of white powder. Y/N’s head dropped as he sat the box down and picked the baggy up, rolling his thumb over the top of it. The light from his lighter disappeared as it fell over and Y/N stood up quickly from his crouched position next to the bookshelf, hands stretched out to feel his way until a faint red glow shown through the cracked bedroom door just enough for him to see his silver lighter laying on its side atop the dresser.

Y/N looked from it to the bedroom door and after pocketing it he slowly made his way over, stopping only for a moment to grab Eddie’s baseball bat from his very brief stent of little league that sat behind his door whenever it was open. Held at his side as he walked down the wall trepidation building more and more the brighter the red tint seemed to get. Like he had been transported into a photographers darkroom. It was the gate.

Y/N’s breath caught in his chest as he stared it down, part of him wanting to rush out and tell the others. So they could bring Eleven to close it. But the rest of him fought against those thought, what if he was still in there? Y/N felt the tears begin to bubble up in his eyes once again as he made his way to stand under it, gripping the metal beer can in his hand tightly before tossing it up through the portal as hard as he could as the track on the tape clicked to the next song, ‘Master of Puppets’. He couldn’t take this anymore.

Y/N ripped the Walkman from his pocket taking the headset with it and threw it against the wall of the trailer affectively smashing it to pieces as he screamed in anger. Crying was no longer enough for him to regulate his emotions, hell, it had never seemed to do much anyway. “Fuck you! Fuck you Eddie! You damn bastard! You always talked about being a coward, why couldn’t you just run!” Y/N held the sides of his head, the level of their own voice gave a headache the opportunity to start forming.

As he couched down holding himself he heard something that caused him to slowly pull his hands away from their face, uncovering their ears as they slowly turned their head in the direction of the kitchen. It had sounded like something or, someone, had opened and closed the fridge that sat currently inoperational given the trailer didn’t have electricity currently running to it. It was hard to make out anything for certain with the red cast over everything, shadows seemed darker.

“Well damn Y/N, tell me how you really feel.” Snapping their face forward at the voice coming from above them, they were finally ready to admit, they had lost it.

Eddie Munson, in all his glory, wasn’t just there in front of them. Being alive would have been enough to make them faint, but the fact that he had been levitating momentarily. You watched, shaking slightly as he slowly lowered to the floor. His black boots leaving soot and ash on the already filthy carpet as he stared down at you. “Y-You’re…alive?”

He attempted to suppress a smile as he tilted his head back and forth, his dirty hair, crunchy with dried blood swaying as he did. “I wouldn’t say that.” Y/N’s eyes scanned him over in more detail. Taking in his torn, blood stained hellfire shirt, he’d lost his outside layers they had left him there in, his bandana was tied around his neck and his injuries were healed from what you could tell.

Y/N scrambled up off the floor and leaned in closer to him causing Eddie to recoiled a few steps back as the young man made his advances. How fucking dare he. You didn’t care if this was a hallucination or what but this version of Eddie wasn’t going to just run away from you. “You— Piece of shit! Come here!” Y/N grabbed their arm and quickly pulled their hand away. He had heard the Byers youngest child talk about the upside down and how he felt like he never could quiet shake the cold it left him with.

But this was different. If you had ever once had the opportunity to feel a cadavers skin that’s what it must’ve felt like. Frozen. “Y/N..” You were now the one backing away from them. This wasn’t real.. And if it was, it wasn’t Eddie.

“You aren’t real..”

Eddie feigned a hurt expression and held up his arm, dirty with black marks. “You felt me, I’m here. I’m real.” Y/N shook his head as he felt his lower back press against the edge of the kitchen counter that separated one area from the other. “This is a sick joke my mind is playing on me. I’m..”

Eddie seemed to grow irritated at the notion that he was just a figment of your imagination. Three months alone in that hellscape and the first chance he got to escape this was his welcome home party? “I’m sorry I couldn’t do better for you Ed, I’m sorry I let them leave you there.”

In a split second he was on you, it almost was like the counter shook from the force of his hands coming into contact with it to stop himself. “Y/N, you’ve been my friend since middle school. I’m back now, so save the obituary, please.” He growled as your eyes were locked onto each others. That was true, you had been friends since middle school, and this was the first time Munson ever had made the hair on the back of your stand up.

You saw him give a hard swallow before pushing himself back off the counter and walking away from you again, he seemed like he wanted to keep a solid eight feet between you at all times. You just couldn’t do that, despite how filthy he was the moment your brain accepted the fact that he was truly there you rushed him, wrapping your arms around him as he threw his up in the air. “Y/N, stop. You need to get off of me.”

“Save it Munson, you can yell at me later.” You pressed your face against his neck and it was the same as his arm, though perhaps the shock in the moment made your senses exaggerate the feeling.

“Y/N…Why do you think that place suddenly let me leave like it did?” You lifted your shoulders in a shrug, letting them drop back to normal as he slowly let his hands creep up you, one resting on your lower back and the other coming up to rest between your shoulder blades. “It’s because it wanted me to..”

“I don’t care Eddie, that’s so far from being important right now. I don’t care how you made it out, you’re here now.” You we’re so scared if you pulled away he would just disappear. Proving to be a hallucination after all. The silence between you was so loud until Eddie finally spoke up again.

“Y/N..I’m sorry…” You lifted your head up to look at him before you felt the sharp pain of him biting into the crook of your neck, sharp teeth sinking into it you were the consistency of an apple. You grabbed a handful of his hair and surprisingly it was quite easy to pull him off of your neck, although not a comfortable feeling. Reaching up to guard the bleeding wound you stared at him in disbelief as he breathed heavily, standing there as if he was torn between making a break for it and leaping upon you like a wild animal.

“Y-you bit me!” You looked over at the front door before making a few long, quick strides for it. The wet, warm sensation of the blood slicking your hand as the man stayed where he was, licking his bottom lip as he watched you begin your attempt to leave.

“I told you to back off didn’t I?” As you pulled the handle a few times, cursing as you pulled your bloody hand off your neck to use both of them on the ‘stupid jammed piece of shit door’ until you felt him on you again, pressing himself against your back and your front against the cold metal trailer door. “Don’t make me force this, I don’t want it to hurt more than it has to—“

“Stop it! This is one of your horror comics Eddie, you don’t need—“ His hand went to the back of your head, pressing the side of your face it against the door roughly as he moved his face beside yours growling before speaking.

“Because you know what this feels like? To feel absolutely nothing for fuck knows how long and finally after getting back your skin begins to crawl.” He clenched his jaw as he nuzzled his head against yours. “Begging you to give in to your new instincts in exchange for saving you from death, you know that feeling?” He didn’t want to do it to you, out of anyone not you. But you were here. You were so warm. He could smell the remnants of cologne on your skin and the beer on your breath. He could taste the ethanol in your blood.

“Then..fucking doing it..” Perhaps under different circumstances, when his mind wasn’t overtaken by the need to feed, he would have hesitated. Lacing his fingers into your hair he gave your head a tug to the side to better expose the mark he had made earlier, giving you a small taste of payback for yanking him off of you the way you had.

As he took up the space again, mouth working over the wound you couldn’t help but allow yourself to feel a sense of hedonistic pleasure from it. Adrenaline fought the pain back while your touch starved skin was ravaged by him, once the first mark at clotted he bit down again. You only had yourself to blame being the one who stopped him earlier, now in no position to do so again. You groaned in pain as he pulled out of your flesh only for a moment to come back down, doing his best to suction as much blood from the wound before lapping at it.

It wasn’t most lucrative way for him to get what he wanted but between his animalistic urges and what he had known from his horror comics you’d mentioned, it was all he knew to do in the moment. And once he had gotten enough to finally push himself away from you the both of you realized the gate had again gone dormant leaving you in the pitch black darkness once again. He could see you perfectly fine as you turned around and looked around blindly holding your tender, painful neck.

He was truly disgusted with himself, the type of shame a young boy feels the first time they touch themselves. He felt like a monster, he knew he was a monster. He wasn’t the Eddie you knew anymore and he proved it. “Eddie..?”

You felt your pockets for the lighter you’d forgotten about until then and flicked it on, holding it up as you walked forward towards the figure leaning over with his arms against the wall of the trailer, his back facing you as he attempted to heave. Before you could get close enough to reach out and touch him he spoke up. “Get the fuck away from me Y/N!”

You scoffed lightly offended at his aggressive tone, you were past being scared of him. “You already ate, Dracula. I’m not leaving you here anyways.” You had wanted to tell him to calm down, that you were the one with multiple punctures in your neck right now, but the way he was looking at you like you were the deranged one in this scenario made you hold back.

“And what, I’ll just hide in your closet during the day?” You rolled your eyes and walked over to the kitchen bar, picking up the van keys and jingling them at him. “You don’t even know if you ‘can’t go out in the sun’ yet, But I do know that you fuckin’ smell.”

[roverjamball]

Echo/lonely

RobRaeWeek2022

“Raven is here?”

I stiffened, unable to conceal my reaction. Only one person called me “Raven.”in that tone of voice.

What is he doing here? I hadn’t seen him in weeks.

Cy had called me in as a second pair of hands on the T- Car. It needed repairs he said, and we hadn’t hung out in a while. I wasn’t doing anything better so I portaled on over. I’d not been to the Tower for a while and Cy’d also come over for some upgrades and such.

Now elbow deep in near the radiator trying to unscrew a bolt that had lost its shape and after trying wrenches of every size available, I was down to using my hands, alternating with telekinesis.

It was better a misshapen stuck bolt than a broken stuck bolt. That’s what I have been thinking when I focus on the job at hand. Why couldn’t Cyborg who was literally a machine and had built this car from hood to axle to engine to roof? Well because I had smaller hands, he’d said.

Placing the bike on its stand, Nightwing came over, bent and placed his chin on my shoulder. His clean-shaven cheek showing a hint of stubble, sliding along mine, warm abdominal mussels brushing against my back. His confident and caring aura brushing mine while his curiosity and interest made themselves known.

Dick randomly started brushing by me, gently pushing my hood back while we were talking- to better see my face, touching my hip— to adjust my stance or posture, like he knew how much the benign contact flustered me while he was the one doing it.

Everywhere he touched scorched my skin, incidental or purposeful, it didn’t matter how long it had been since we last saw each other or how little we actually spoke.

I ignored another twist in my stomach, irritated with my body for being entirely predictable.

“What you doing, Raven?” a rumble I felt through my whole body. I turned to a dark, thick slash of an eyebrow arched over a glowing cobalt blue eye as he inspected the whole bolt situation. His hands slid to my hips,

I felt the stare press upon me like a physical burden. Moments dragged by, say something Raven. But my brain refused to comply.

I cleared my throat, focus on the stuck bolt, stalling till my brain unfroze.

Dick took of his domino mask and leaned his hip near me on the T-Car. He looked me over slowly, judging, taking in the changes.

I could blush or I could do the same to him. I chose not to blush.

A minute is as long as I lasted. I cleared my throat, thought better of using words, not absolutely confident anything legible would come out and nodded to WD-40 that I’d been in the process of applying on the stubborn bit of scrap metal. Dick handed it to me, fingers touching around the can.

The bolt finally gave way, grease, answer to all of life’s stubborn problems. Helpfully, Dick leaned across me, picked up the metal tray near my hip and held it up to receive the now dripping bit of metal.

The clink of the bolt hitting the tray was followed by whoosh of the lift opening and spitting out Cy, looking pleased with himself, followed by Cassie, Bart and Kara. He’d gone up to round up volunteers from the current Titan’s to take over maintenance of T-Car.

Kara and Cassie flew and Bart - Impulse was a speedster who rarely had the patience to wait a whole car ride for getting to A to B. All in all not real promising or practical. Oh well.

Now Dick’s presence made sense. His bike was in soar need of upgrades. He did most of the maintenance himself, but Cy was not only supremely competent mechanic, he was the best tech master to ever be a Titan.

I was good on my feet, excelled under pressure, known as the calm one. Now I would spend the rest of this afternoon feeling like an imbecile around Dick, and the new Titans would get to be an unwitting audience.

I gave a tight smile in greeting and who’d turned at the sound of the elevator doors smiled at Cy in confirmation of previously made plans. The Titans Dick greeted by moving further into my personal space and inquired about how they were liking it so far.

The Titan’s surrounded Nightwing, by extension me as he’d joined us at the hip. They gushed at him. Asking him about his tech, how was Batman. All three batted their eyelashes at him.

I was jealous.

Only a little bit. I shouldn’t have been. Comparing myself to Richard Grayson, the first Robin was like comparing a diamond to coal. Both were or use, but I mean common on which one would you want.

I was happy to be a resource, no matter who was in need or whatever their reason, and I knew my friends, the new Titans appreciated me.

That said, Robin, and now Nightwing was in a Leauge of his own. A couple of inches taller than me, Nightwing gave an impression of power and patience. Easy, balanced stance. Hair, too long and overgrown, even worse than last time, so dark it shone blue.

At first glance he looked to be in his early to mid-twenties, but his build betrayed him. His shoulders strained his reinforced midnight and blue suit. His back was broad and tapered at the waist, showing power and strength a man developed in his late twenties.

Though mussel decorated him, his build was that of a gymnast, strong and lean, no flab. It was very deceptive. In his form, reinforced, temperature regulated fighting suit not a lot was left to imagination. But put him in jeans and a shirt and he would look like a normal somewhat in shit man in his twenties. Nothing special. Just incredibly handsome with dark browns, a smiling face, high brow leading to a patrician nose and interesting deep ocean eyes. The kind that cool you and heat you up, while you drown in their depts.

With him standing beside me, including me, leaning over me so protectively, all these feelings came pouring out, again. If you can't make it go away, wait it out, I always say. Applies to everything really. Bad dye job. Magical traps. Unrequited romantic feelings.

Kara was susceptible to magic, one of the Supers only weaknesses. Cassie and I worked with her a couple of times a month. I showed her various spells and magical traps. How to spot them. The deference in the air, prosaic runes, Arcane symbols. Understanding fundamentals of those spells and how to break or escape them. Due to this Kara and Cassie were attuned to me. They felt a change in me the moment Dick brushed his fingers at the back of my neck, innocently adjusting his friendly hand on my shoulder. Casual really.

I felt exhilarated, high on the charge fizzing, wizzing and magnifying between us. The energy filled me, and I struggled to contain it. I wanted to jump, to run, to do something. Instead I had to hide by reactions, lest these blond Piranhas zero in on my way I want to go for the kill.

Meditation helped and I got my breathing under control, but missed a beat in the conversation as all eyes were on me. Just great. Why me Dick Grayson. Find someone else to toucher.

When unsure be arrogant. I raised a brow in question. But luckily the conversation had moved on and Dick was leading me to the elevators.

It came back to me. Cy said “Sorry Ray I forgot to bring your tea down with me.”

Cassie had said “Oh! That’s why the kettle was on.”

Kara had responded “On the kitchen counter. Should I go get it for you Rae?”

Bart had made to impersonate a blur and get some snack as he had burned thorough his reserve and offered to get my tea while he was up there. Dick stoped him, “we’ll go. I wanna catch up anyway. Plus you guies need to learn to work your car.”

Now, somehow Dick was holding my wrist in his warn, rough calloused hand. Each step coincided with cresses on my inner wrist. His soft full lips up tilted in amusement, were moving. Pressing and stretching, as he spoke words to her.

Now those same lips were pressed in a soft smile. Polite interest shining in his eyes, waiting for her response.

The elevator doors closed.

************

Raven flinched at how close he’d come. Dick backed up, but only a step. She was too brave to be allowed to feel truly comfortable. That could cause her to think lying was an option. In the confines of this long elevator ride, Dick would get her to reveal the truth to herself and hopefully to him as well.

Raven smiled at him, nervousness evident. He’d made his interest obvious. Her eyes, heartbeat, the flush on her skin revealed her interest in him. But she didn’t take the step to confess. To give him space to declare his love for her.

Anger suffused him, followed by a stronger swell of determination.

He’d always looked out for Raven. He could not remember a time in his life when Dick had looked at Raven and not wanted her to be content and happy and healthy. At his worst, even suffering psychosis Raven had been able to reach him. Her calm matter-of-fact voice brought clarity and focus to his drugged and disoriented mind.

Dick was sure even drugged or drunk he would always be protective and only think of her well-being.

It hurt to see her put others first. To de-value herself. Accept less that absolute devotion. She was fundamental to forming the team Dick loves. Raven had saved them countless times, in her quiet and assuming way. When others did it it was flashing and evident, with Raven it always slid under the radar.

Raven was not looking for credit, fame or gratitude. Even with the life promised to her, she wanted to help and protect and inspire. And Dick admired all that. All the while Raven dismissed her-self worth.

Also, it didn’t matter that his near-pathological need to protect her made no sense. He wouldn’t let her undervalue herself, a lost as seen by Starfire in the future where Dick took on the mantle of Nightwing, leaving Robin behind.

Dick marvelled at Raven’s dedication to protect the innocent. Star, Donna, Cy and even Garfield owed her for their well-being. But each time she disregarded her safety to hunt demons, she was punishing herself for merely existing. Sins of the father, taken too far.

Raven’s sixteenth birthday was fresh in his mind. The Titans threw her a birthday party. It went well for a while but then something changed and she walked out.

Robin had followed her, to confront, console and comfort her.

“Tell me whats gong on?”

“Just trust me. If you knew about the day of my birth you’d know there’s nothing to celebrate.”

That sort of self-destructive imperative couldn’t easily be overcome. He knew this from experience. He hadn’t become Robin at age twelve, even Gotham criminals were afraid of by accident. Once, like Raven, he’d echoed the same sentiment. Felt it was all he deserved, as well.

A great emptiness, is now behind you, Nightwing silently promised his Raven.

[sizzlingpotatostix]

The four original Diamonds, created by an ancient race only known as the Reptilians. Their original purpose is a direct and ironic contrast to what they were during their reign of tyranny-- they were made to serve!        The first Diamond to be created was the supposedly flawless White Diamond. Her purpose was simple: To know better, to be better, and to make EVERYTHING better. Her main task was to essentially be a perpetual energy source for the Reptilians to utilize to power everything; their planets, their technology, transport, anything and everything that required energy.      Yellow Diamond's purpose, the second gem to ever be created, was to be a personal bodyguard of the king of the Reptilians. Whenever he didn't need her by his side, she would spend most of her time assisting White in powering the Reptilian empire.      The third Diamond to be made was Blue Diamond, and her job was to make the king happy-- but she was unable to carry out her purpose well. Blue's personality is defective to what she was ORIGINALLY suppose to be; happy, extroverted, optimistic. Instead, she was, and still is, a rather solemn and quiet gem whose far too melancholy and apathetic for her own good. To top it off, Blue didn't have a good grasp on her pathokinesis. As a result, she couldn't instill joy and positivity unto her leader. The only way she could barely fulfill her purpose was through singing and dancing for him (which he quite enjoyed, thankfully!).        Finally, we have Pink Diamond. Her story is a mess from start to finish, so let's get started! Her intended design and form was suppose to be Red Diamond. As you can see, she came out INCREDIBLY deformed, overcooked, off-color, and defective. Almost everything she was meant to be and do was unfulfilled, and her punishment was to be shattered and forgotten. Fortunately, White stuck up for her and blamed herself for Pink's flaws and weaknesses. Luckily for the Diamonds, they all were spared from the wrath of the empire. What was Pink Diamond's purpose, you may ask? She was meant to be a personal healer/repairer. Thankfully, her healing powers exceeded all expectations and that power was adored by her superiors.    Of course, this isn't the full story of the four sisters. All of the Diamonds' backstories are more in-depth with the previous images I posted. The timeline of their servitude to the Reptilians will be discussed more in a later post. If you have made it this far, I'm very thankful! Thank you for reading this post. And if you just want to skip all of the exposition, here is the TL;DR--

TL;DR: YD, BD, AND PD ALL FORMED WITH MANY FLAWS AND WERE DOOMED TO FAIL BEFORE THEY WERE EVEN MADE; WD IS THE ONLY DIAMOND MADE WITHOUT FLAW OR DEFORMITY.

Afterthought: Bro wtf is up with their poses, they're so awkward and stiff and weird. Lol. Also this is kind of an old piece of work, I might redraw it and post it. Mkay let’s be honest prolly not tho. AAAAAAND I just noticed that Yellow's fingers have been cropped off for some reason???? Plz ignore it I don't have the energy to add them in.

[ejzah]

Could you do a fanfic where kensi has to go undercover as a model?

A/N: This prompt was sent a very long time ago. I apologize for it taking so long. This is set in season 4 and may deviate a little from canon.

***

Top Model

***

“This is the best day ever,” Deeks muttered, unable to hide his wide grin. He was situated at the end of a long runway next to several other, actual photographers who snapped rapid fire pictures of the models walking past.

He peered through the viewfinder of his camera, taking several pictures as a heavy beat vibrated through the room and a woman in a mustard yellow dress with a deep slit and feathers decorating the bodice stopped directly in front of him and gave him a sultry stare.

“See something you like?” Kensi asked, sarcasm filling her voice. She was somewhere backstage, waiting for her own turn to catwalk down the runway. He wasn’t sure what strings Hetty had pulled to get his and Kensi’s aliases, Bobby Harper and Rosa Black gigs at a fairly high profile fashion show 12 hours before the event started, but he was infinitely grateful.

Not only did he get to wear a shirt that cost more than his monthly salary (a nice change from all the utility uniforms of late), but he would also get to see Kensi live out her ANTM dreams. He wasn’t sure which of them was more excited.

“Mm, not really my type.” His camera whirred again, capturing the daring stance of a read-headed model in a deep green dress. Kensi made a rude noise, not exactly fitting with her current persona.

“I thought any woman that doesn’t run away is your type.” He grinned again, holding back a chuckle, reminding himself that it would look a little strange if he started laughing at nothing. “Ooh, what about the leggy brunette headed your way?” Kensi waited for the model to stop in front of him and then added. “Her name’s Jasmine and she likes long walks on the beach.”

“She sounds delightful, but still not my type,” Deeks muttered. He had a different leggy brunette in mind who would probably gut punch him if he ever dared to call her “leggy”.

He took several pictures on auto pilot, thankful that no one would actually be scrutinizing them for quality. His photography skills were satisfactory for crime scenes, but probably not quite magazine worthy. “Did you see anything interesting back stage?”

“Other than two models getting into a fight over a pair of Louis Vuitton shoes?” Kensi said. “Not really. There was too much chaos to focus on one thing.”

“Now that I would have loved to see.”

“Creep.” He grinned again at her mild comment. Two more models stalked by, giving their own variation of the same overly dramatic stance. Lowering his camera for a moment, he quickly swept the room to see if anyone was giving particular notice to a single model.

One of them was suspected of selling sensitive information to a foreign government. Nell and Eric had traced the sales of similar information back to several other modeling events over the past two months. They were still trying to figure out how their suspects, mostly in their early twenties and without criminal records, had attained classified information.

Sam and Callen were in the audience, keeping an eye out for their buyer. So far they’d been pretty silent though.

Three more models emerged from either side of the runway amid a cloud of manufactured mist. As the fog cleared, Kensi walked out, and the beat of his heart suddenly matched the rhythm of the music. She wore a dark blue evening gown, the plunging bodice clinging to her torso until it reached her waist and flowed down into several full layers of sheer material. Half her hair was swept up to the side with the rest fell around her shoulders in soft curls.

She looked absolutely stunning, and more importantly, confident. There wasn’t even a moment of hesitation as she strutted down the runway. As she drew closer to the end, Deeks heard a rush of whispers from the other photographers, wondering who she was.

Kensi paused in front of the them, her skirts swirling around her dramatically as she stopped. She glanced to him, her eyes making contact for the briefest of seconds. In that moment see saw a hint of uncertainty and then pride as the whispers continued and a dozen cameras flashed around her. She gave an extra twirl before she headed back down the runway.

One of the photographers said something about winning an award for her pictures and Deeks smothered a smirk. Kensi would get a kick out of that. To bad said pictures would never see the light of day.

“Guys, I just saw one of the models, Jenna Martinez, talking to a guy. He looked about 50 years old with gray hair and a dark blue suit,” Kensi said a few minutes later, sounding a little breathless. “I’m sending you a picture.”

“Did you see what he gave her?” Sam asked. “Coulda been a lot of things. Drugs, money in exchange for other services...”

“No, all I could see was a white envelope. But models aren’t supposed to leave styling area in between walks without permission though. If someone caught her, she could risk getting kicked out of the show. That seems pretty suspicious to me.”

“Kens, check it out,” Callen decided. “Deeks, figure out a way to get out and back her up. We’ll see if we can find Kensi’s mystery man.”

“Got it. Deeks I’ll be back where they store the extra wardrobe.”

Deeks sat through two more cycles of models, conscious they had limited time before the area would be swarming with with even more people once the show had finished. He took the opportunity to slip away when one of the models took an unfortunate fall after tripping over the train of her dress.

Surprisingly, no one questioned why he was wandering around back stage. The stylists and make up people seemed completely consumed with making sure the show stayed on track to wonder about his motives.

“Kens,” he whispered when he found the storage area empty.

“Right here,” she answered, appearing from one of the many closets, still dressed in the evening gown. When she noticed his raised eyebrow, she added. “I didn’t have time to change.”

They passed through a couple dim hallways, taking a less direct route to the locker area to avoid running into anyone.

“You watch the door.” Kensi headed to the second row of lockers, sinking to a graceful crouch.

“Did you really bring your lock picking kit with you?” he asked, glancing through a crack in the door as she pulled something from the top of her dress.

“Nope, bobby pin,” she said holding it up with a smirk before she pried it open with her teeth.

“How very resourceful of you, Nancy Drew.” He nodded in appreciation as she inserted the straightened end into the keyhole.

“I’ll take that as a compliment.” After a minute or so of wiggling it around,

she swore under her breath. “Damn it. It’s like there’s rust or something stuck in here and it doesn’t want to give.”

“How much longer do you think it will take?” he asked, checking the door again. There was no one in the vicinity so he left his watch and crouched beside her.

“I don’t know, Deeks!” Kensi snapped, blowing out a long breath. She glanced at him a little sheepishly as she removed the pin and started over again. “Sorry. It’s just that this usually takes me about 10 seconds.”

“Don’t worry about it. You wouldn’t happen to have any WD-40 tucked in there too?” He nodded to her chest and she slanted him a wry look, but didn’t look too annoyed.

“Right next to my wrench and screwdriver. I think-“

“Wait,” Deeks interrupted, making a hushing sound. “I think someone’s coming.” He rushed back to the door as quietly as he could. He couldn’t see anyone yet, but he heard voices and footsteps, drawing closer every second. “Kens, someone’s coming. We have to get out of here.”

“Just one more minute,” she insisted. “ I think I almost got it.” The lock made an audible click and Deeks winced at the loud creak as Kensi swung the locker door open and pulled out a Dior purse and a cloth shoulder bag.

“Kens-“ Ignoring his warning, she dumped the contents of both bags onto the floor and a collection of makeup and clothes fell out along with a medium sized envelope. Kensi snatched it up, tossing it in his direction and started stuffing the rest of the things back in the locker, not taking time to worry about neatness.

Heart pounding, he shoved the envelope in the inside of his pocket, glancing around for somewhere to hide. Two men were walking down the hallway, making a beeline for the locker room.

“Ok, let’s go,” she whispered, reaching for his hand as she stood up.

“No time,” he hissed back, tugging her further into the room. Kensi made a surprised sound when he pushed her up against the lockers and added, “Please don’t hit me.”

She didn’t have time to respond before he dipped his head and pressed his lips to hers.

***

A/N: I clearly do not know much about modeling or fashion shows so I went with what I do know fairly well. Densi. Hope you enjoyed and there will be a part 2.

Thanks for the the prompt anon!

[adiwriting]

Fic: Sunday Mornings 1/?

Notes: Inspired by a conversation with @cosmicclownboy​ in which we just want to be able to see our two soft boys being allowed to be fluffy muffins together. So what I’ve created is collection of ficlets that I’ve entitled “Sunday Mornings.” It will start with their first Sunday as a couple and follow every Sunday together after that. The current plan is to post a new fic each Sunday to enjoy until the hiatus is over. Wish me luck- I’ve already got 8 weeks worth of material for you guys! 

If you want to be tagged, let me know!

Week 1: 

Michael lays in Alex’s bed, unable to sleep. It’s late enough to be considered early for some. He knows it won’t be that long before the sun starts peeking out and waking his boyfriend up. Alex is physically incapable of sleeping in. For now though, Alex is passed out and has been for several hours. And, for the record, not that Michael has ever had any doubt, he’s looking incredibly sexy even in his sleep. 

Michael has tried to fall asleep, but he just can’t. He’s been amped up ever since they got home super late from their trip to Albuquerque. Every time he closes his eyes, he can’t get his brain to slow down enough to sleep. He hears every creak, every whistle of the wind, every hum from the fan overhead. He’s highly aware of the way the door squeaks each time it moves, and sure, he could get up and close it, but then he’d just focus on the ticking of the clock. 

Instead, he lays here creating an ever growing list of home improvements that he’s going to do when he wakes up in the morning. Because honestly, Alex has lived here for a year. He doesn’t understand how some simple things haven’t been done already. The door alone is a simple enough fix, all it needs is some WD-40. The fan above needs a bolt tightened. The creaking wood is a more time intensive project, but he can’t imagine Alex will fight him on it, especially when Michael offers up his labor for free. 

He is itching to start working. If he were back at his own place and unable to sleep, he’d already be out in the junkyard tinkering with a car or down in the bunker running more calculations. Projects, he’s learned, are great for wearing him out to the point where he’s too exhausted to do anything but sleep. But he’s not at his own place, and he’s pretty sure if he moves, he’ll wake Alex up. 

And there’s not a force on this Earth strong enough to risk waking Alex up. 

He settles into his pillow and watches. Alex is, in most situations, a permanent ball of stress and tension. He’s always hyper alert, scanning every room they enter for potential threats. He thinks he’s sly about it. He hides it very well. But Michael can see it in the way he holds himself back. He notices it more than most, because he sees Alex when he’s not on edge. He gets to witness Alex when he’s relaxed and vulnerable, and so incredibly soft. That’s what he’s like right now. 

The stress in his face is gone. He’s wearing a gentle smile that has Michael wanting to know what he’s dreaming about that’s making him so happy. The lines of his back hold no tension. In the faint glow of the moonlight, his skin looks so soft and his scars are barely visible. And he’s just so fucking gorgeous that Michael cannot believe he’s allowed to have this now, whenever he wants. 

He bites his lips to keep from smiling like a total idiot, not that anyone would be able to see him beaming like a lovesick fool. 

This is the first time that they are doing this sleepover thing on purpose, and despite the fact that he can’t sleep, he pleads to whatever forces of the universe exist that it’s not his last. The whole, spending the night together and waking up in each other’s arms is a magic he’s only been able to experience a handful of times over the last twelve years. And each time, one of them — mainly him — is always surprised to see the other still there. Each time it’s brushed off as an accident because one of them was too tired to leave. Like either of them admitting that they just wanted to be held by the other in the afterglow had been anything to be ashamed of. 

Fuck that.

No. Alex had invited him to spend the night tonight. The two of them planned this, all the way down to the breakfast that they are going to make together in the morning. Michael had intentionally stopped by the grocery store yesterday before they headed to Albuquerque to pick up all the ingredients they would need for Alex to bake his homemade cinnamon rolls and for Michael to make omelettes. 

He reaches out to run his hands through Alex’s newly cut hair. Micheal loves the look on him. It’s incredibly attractive. When Michael had first seen it, he’d pulled Alex into the car and made out with him for a solid hour, like they were 17 again. But, he will selfishly miss the excuse to reach out and brush Alex’s longer locks out of his eyes. 

Then again, they are boyfriends now. He doesn’t need an excuse anymore to reach out and touch. Alex is his and he is Alex’s. 

This time, he doesn’t try and hide the goofy smile that overtakes his face. He’s still not sure how they got here or that he trusts things to stay this way… but he’s determined to allow himself this happiness and not do anything to blow this up. His self-destructive days are behind him. This time, he isn’t going to push at Alex until he leaves, he’s going to hold him close and make sure he knows that he’s loved. This time, he’s going to make sure Alex has every reason in the world to stay. 

“Did you sleep at all?” Alex whispers, startling Michael. His eyes are still closed, but he’s awake. 

He allows his hand to travel from it’s spot in Alex’s hair to rest against the back of his neck. 

“I get it,” Alex says when Michael doesn’t respond. “I have a hard time sleeping in a new place for the first time, too.” 

Michael doesn’t say anything, he doesn’t need to. Alex’s words tell him that he sees him. He knows Michael well enough to understand without any explanation. Instead, Michael’s hand moves down Alex’s back and dips under the sheet, causing Alex to hum happily. Now that Alex is awake, there’s no reason not to touch. 

“Next time, I’ll make sure I wear you out enough that sleep won’t be as hard,” Alex says, reaching over to pull at Michael. They both roll over until Michael is laying on top of Alex, cradled between his thighs. It’s only then, that Alex finally opens his eyes. 

“Good morning.” Alex smiles up at him, happily. 

Michael leans over to give him a long, slow, lazy kiss. When he pulls away, he notices Alex chasing his lips. 

“God, I love you.” 

Alex beams at him. Literally beams. And Michael decides that breakfast can wait a few more hours, because he’s got plans to make sure that Alex feels utterly worshiped. It’s Sunday, neither of them have anywhere to be. There is all the time in the world. 

[emperorofbullshit]

This is gonna be me ranting and whining about how annoyed I am at my own mediocrity and how I manipulate the people around me as a coping mechanism to delude myself into thinking I am doing pretty alright and I shouldn't complain because I have it good

Since 14 years old there has been much discord in my family. My father is an alcoholic and not just a normal one. He would go to work at 6, get off work at 12 and then come home after 6 more hours of drinking. There are 7 days in a week and out of those 7, in at least 5 I have had to hide in my room because I was scared of him. He would yell, he would call me names, he would even make threats saying things like :

"I have 2 sons. Do you see that window? I could throw you out of it and only have one son."

To a 14 year old kid who is scared shitless but can't show emotion on his face, those words were always taken at face value and I always had no doubts on him being unable to keep his words. I am the eldest of 2 sons and thus I had to take the brunt of the "parental dedication", as they call it, and was always pushed for excellence. They would always say : "Get good grades, make good friends, go outside, go study, go do this and go do that" in and out every day. From 3rd grade I have been taking courses on languages, sports and math at times and I would leave home at about 6:45 AM every day to get to school at 7:30 and I would go from school which ended more often than not at 13:30 to English courses and then to either Deutch courses or basketball practice which would end at roughly 6PM.

My parents loved achievements but did next to nothing to help me feel anything other than anger towards getting any. They would always go on and on about good grades so you can get the prize money, good grades so you can get in a good school, good this, good that and I subconsciously avoided being in the spotlight because I actually felt gratification from being able to see their dreams shatter into dust and fir a while, that was the inly thing that kept me going. Just the look on their faces, the tone on their voice, the gleam in their eyes. The gleam of someone realizing that their hopes and dreams of greatness were just turned to dust. I still have that side of me, I just choose to keep it under control but it want's to get loose once a while.

And so my life continued until 9th grade when ai decided to stop all couses because I was sick and tired of them and so I stopped going. Then came high school, this circus, part of which I am as of writing this text most if not all of you will skip because it's just way too long.

In the first year of highschool I had fun. I made some new friends and hung with them a bit and I also met the one person I thought I could trust because she was like me, except unlike me, she still had hope and she still had her parents, albeit controlling, with her, rather than against her.

I gave her counsel when she needed it and we hit it off. She was a great friend while it lasted. I knew from the beginning that she and I would most certanly not make it through the year as friends so I had as much fun as possible with her.

I told her a very tiny fraction about my life and jokingly but never untruthfully told her how my mind works and what I do to people around me, her included. I talked her about relationships once and I helped her out too because she had a guy she liked and he liked her back. This guy just so happened to also be a friend of mine so I thought : "Why not help my friend get together with my other friend?", and subtly but surely I made them get together faster.

That was basically the premise of the first year. A pretty average story but I left out the part where the alcoholism and mental abuse at home never stopped. I put focus on this one girl because helping her out was my coping mechanism.

Then came the second year. This girl had gotten together with her man and they were very happy to be together and still are, after all I am still in my 2nd year of high school writing this, but back to topic. The second year of high school was wierd to say the least because of the pandemic and our classes were split in half. Me, being the pupeteer I am, decided to pull some strings and set my annoying classmates away with sweet words and deals that sounded too good to be true, and ended up with the best classmates I wanted, part of which was my target for the second year. My target was a girl this time. She was and still is, pretty, smart, and very comfortable for me to be around but she and i had never actually talked at all. Wd had exchanged a sentence once on our 1st year and that's it. I spent a few days observing her and noticed that she was a loner, she didn't exactly have friends amongst the classmates, so I thought : "Well that's as good a chance as any.", and started talking to her and walked her home after school. We became friends and were going out daily after school to get a drink somewhere and one day, as I had planned, 2 fellow classmates show up and I tell them to sit with us and so began my act and my strategy on building her a group of friends. The group wasn't too big. It was me, her, the other 2 classmates, a friend of mine and the girl from the 1st year of highschool. We were all classmates so we all had fun and talked and we developed into a true griend group. Well, as good a group as any can be with me in it. Time passed an I noticed I was really not interested in this girl I had set as my target so I just let her go to do her thing and cut my puppet strings there.

I did all of this because I wanted to prove to myself something, I don't even know what it was anymore because it lost value in my eyes and so I just cut my strings on everyone and let them free. My social life was evolving for the better, which was good and all, but my familial life was degrading and devolving at such speeds that weren't even funny anymore.

My father would come drunk, lecture me for hours on end about the most uselss things in existence, and he would always call me names and berate me on everything. He had even come to me with a big kitchen knife pointed at my chest and said : "I will kill you and eat your heart if you dont do what I want"

I am still afraid of him and i still have trauma gron him so I still didn't doubt his words because when your father comes to your room at 10 PM holding a knife to your chest while your back is agains the wall, you then realize that bad things can really be considered good compared to other things.

I was living in fear. Every day I would pretend to be asleep for hours on end so I could avoid him and maybe be spared but that was just wishful thinking.

While my soocial life evolved, my familial life kept devolving. My father would come drunk more often, fight more often with my mother, screm more, curse more and shout more. I was honestly getting pretty fed up with his bullshit. One day, he woke up from his nap and he was still drunk and started lecturing me on what "Sons of bitches, idiots and parasites" every single member of my moms side of the family, my mother included was. I was very pissed and my knuckles had gone wbite form me clenching them that hard.

My mother got home mid lecture and thy started fighting again. First it was just verbal insults and slurs, but it got worse and worse untol my father literaly ran at my mother prepated to choke her.

That.

That was the moment I had my first meltdown in my life. I saw him run and I saw his hands on her throat and I just had one simple directive in my mund telling me one thing : "Whatever made you feel this way must be eliminated"

And that was what I tried to do. I ran and pushed him away from my mother and then punched my dad so hard he crashed into the wall and made a dent. I would probably have killed him there if it wasn't for my father's brother who came to us because of all the noise, stopping me. He tried to get me away from my father and when I did and my father got up and tried to punch me while my uncle was blaming my mom fir the situation, I grabbed both him and my dad and threw them to the wall. I would probably have been bruised because thwy are both fat and I was in complete meltdown just screaming in the rage of years and years of mental torture and violent self loathing which had build up behind the dam and only sought a way out. They eventually split us up and I was crying and yelling. I could barely breathe, my lungs just couldn't take in air fadt enough for my heart which was beating so hard that thunder would sound like a butterfly's wings beating. I opened the windows on my room and put 3 quarters of my body outside the window , risking to fall and die but I didn't care anymore. The rage had subsided, having found an exit and without it to push me, I was just a broken kid that just sought desperately the help which noone gave. Not my parents, not my friends, not even those who considered themselves and to my face said "We are best friends, we help each other". I never got any help and nobody even saw that I broke down. I dropped hint after hint after hint that I needed someone to talk to, someone to say a few words to me, someone to just listen to anything I wanted to say, yet all I got was nothing. I noticed that none of these so called friends or best friends care about anything. Thwy didn't even notice that when I took my shirt off to change for PE, I had bruises in my back and chest. Nobody said anything or did anything so i also did nothing.

Everybody just seemed to go on their own way and nobody wanted to even acknowledge what had happened or what help I needed.

I am still bitter and mad at everyone but especually at my "best friend" to whom I say the following :

V. You know who this account belongs to. You know me in real life and you know I'm not lying because I don't waste my time like that. You know damn well that if yku read this entire thing and see things just a small 1(one) percent of how I saw things, you wouldn't call youself my acquaintance, let alone my best friend.

To anyone that made it to the end and actually read it, please realize that no matter what, no matter where, you cannot rely on those you consider dear without knowing for certain that they also consider you dear.

[frisbeep]

WD*Steven New Episode Thoughts

** Warning, below the cut contains spoilers for the newest episode of @ask-whitepearl-and-steven's comic series, as well as my theories for the next episode with the title listed.

This is also a blind reaction, meaning I'm commentating on it as I am reading it for the first time!

(1-2)Starting off with Steven answering an ask! Looks like he's trying to find Garnet. I love how Steven comments on how Pearl and Amethyst's rooms are so closely connected, as it stays true to the canon, I also enjoy how Steven is unsure about how to find Garnet's room, because, just like in the canon, Steven found it by accident while trash diving with Ames.

(3)Third panel! Steven, my poor baby, mmm, lemme squish--anyways, I both love and hate his anxieties over asking Garnet about this, because, yea, it's a tough thing to have to talk about, especially after working so hard to gain their trust back after the reveal. Finding out that Coral was mostly Steven, with almost no (if any) Earl control would be a scary realization.

(4-7)AAAAAAAAaaa future vision :>

(8-9)I forgot for a moment that Jasper was poofed and was scared to see Garnet holding her bubbled gem. Maybe she didn't use future vision to see why he might think she would view him as a failure? Or maybe she's hiding it and trying to find the right words depending on what he says?

(10-11)I was sortof right? I am kinda glad that she couldn't see what he was going to ask, but, that begs the question, were there other things she saw revolving around questions Steven's going to ask? Also "ziplining across a void inside the temple" is 100% Steven XD

(12)Welp, nevermind, must have been thinking of the canon*Steven, oops ^^;;

(13-14)J a s p e r ! Bring her back! Maybe she'll get a redemption arc instead of Lapis and Peridot in this canon? That'd be so rad, and would honestly make so much sense, because basically everything is flipped on it's head in this AU, in the diamond crest, White was at the top, while Pink is at the bottom, so instead of the lowest Diamond giving birth, it was the highest. Instead of Steven learning his powers gradually, he was kinda sorta info dumped on once he realized he was still mind controlling Earl.

(15-16)O H M Y S T A R S did Garnet really just-*chokes* you're gonna make Steeb nervous qwq

(17-19)Steeb...I feel so bad for him, I really hope that Garnet can comfort him, help him, right now. Maybe she'll truly be the first Crystal Gem he really connects with (if my memory serves me correct, he's already kinda doing that with Amethyst, and Earl isn't technically a CG yet)

(20-21)Garnet help him! The look on her face though, she's confused, definitely. Maybe this was an unlikely path?

(22-24)MY FEELS!! I love how Garnet was trying to give advice, and Steven, being the anxious mess he is in this AU was all scared and is crying about turning out to be like his "past self" (because, you know, the reveal hasn't happened yet)

(25-26)Thank you Garnet, now help Steeb by telling him to talk to Earl! I know you're going to do it, I know you want to say it Garnet, just do it! Earl's the only one who can truly help in this situation, you can help with fusion, she can help comfort him!

(27-28)WHAT THE HECK! Garnet! Are you trying to help him, or crush his fragile little heart?!!

(29-30)Oh phew,,I thought this would be a lot darker, like, "your memories may be resurfacing in other ways" type shit, but, it's just talking about how powerful White was, and, yea, I get that it would be a confounding variable, and adding with the possibility that Steven may be unable to fuse with any gem makes a great story point, one that gives him the anxiety Lapis and Peridot have canon, Peridot is afraid of trying something new, or to lose herself in the fusion, while Lapis is afraid of hurting someone again.

(31)Damn straight! Sorry for the short comment, it's just, oh boy when she finds out Rose is Pink--

(32)>.> I literally just mentioned Rose, how, in, the, hell-

(Next Episode Title: Fountain of Confessions) I think this will be about Steven and Rose having a heart-to-heart at Rose's Fountain. Maybe Steven talks about Coral, how scared he feels, and how he doesn't feel like he belongs because he's the only Diamond. Maybe Rose also confesses to some things about not trusting him at first, but how he's growing on her, as well as some hints to there being more about her than just a Rose Quartz. Maybe we'll even see Greg again! Ooo! What if Greg hints at his affair with White before he met Rose :0

[tired-af-p]

Update because the past week has been chaotic to say the least.

Last Wed, my GP said that if this week if i keep on losing weight, im going to get admitted for involuntary feeding. I was in such a shock, that i didnt say or asked anything. Immediately after i had a psychiatrist appointment where she said that i wd be sectioned, taken by police to the psychiatry, then with a nurse to general (1-1) and probably afterwards back to psychiatry. I couldnt handle any of these. I became so distressed and i couldnt understand why my GP, who knows me so well over all these years, wd even consider this decision (in CY or in my case not sure, my GP has the upper hand in all the decisions for my care). I felt very broken, very let down and very betrayed. 

I became actively suicidal, my mood plummeted and couldn’t manage even the amount of ensures that i was drinking the day before. My dietitian, despite knowing everything, despite the government contacting her multiple times, she kept cancelling our sessions. 

Tuesday morning i had therapy. We talked about everything, she tried to rationalised my thoughts, she tried to calm me down. She was very understanding and validating of the whole situation. She understood the reasons why im unable to eating anything solid or high volume of liquids at the moment. She said that my past experiences in the public general hospital of Cyprus were very traumatic and another admission there, especially involuntary would be very catastrophic and my mental health would deteriorate even more. Without telling her, she completely got all the cues that i was suicidal and with plans. She said we need to start intense and extensive therapy, try to tackle trauma in order to be able to eat again. She also promised to call my GP and fight for me to stay in the community of if feeding is absolutely needed to find other options.

Wednesday morning i went to my GP. She had already talked with my therapist and she was very confused of the whole situation. She said she never said sectioning neither that she would ever consider that. Apparently involuntary feeding does not equal sectioning. We talked a lot about things and she understands how exhausted i am but as she said “i cant sit back and watch you die. It not just because is my legal obligation, its because i honestly care”. I was sobbing and i told her “maybe i don’t want you to save me”. She cried. She explained that im not like her other patients, she cares deeply and she honestly wants to protect me. She wants me alive because she honestly believes that there’s life after this, even if i dont see it. There’s life past trauma experiences and she wants me to experience it.  I obv lost. Don’t know how much but she said is more than what is safe for a week. She said we’ll have blood tests, if they come abnormal i need to go to the a&e, if they are fine then i’ll need to be admitted for feeds

Blood test came back all over the place. On the phone she explained that is probably because my body is eating whatever it can find at this point. She called the doctor of a private hospital that was seeing me through admissions last years and they agreed on admission. I’m currently here, with TPN running 24hrs and still very unsure for how long.

[sigritandtheelves]

Prompt: Mulder and Scully have their first full blown make out session at her mom's while washing her car. I am begging you please.. if you want.. I adore you and your writing. I hope today is excellent for you.

Another Beautiful Saturday

2.4k wds | PG-13 | MSR, kinda plotless fluff, post-“The Unnatural”

A/N: Anon, thank you for this lovely prompt, and I hope this is kind of what you meant? I’ve been really sick over the last few days, and I was having trouble concentrating on my dissertation, but I was able to channel some energy into fic-writing. I make no promises to its quality (see: me being ill). I realize there are about a million good fics circulating right now because of the Easter challenge, so I’m sorry for the bad timing… but here is something from my brains to yours.

—

Of course there had been the baseball. That might have counted. There’d been a purposiveness in the placement of his hands, a deliberate excess in the duration of his touch, fingers flattened to the inside curve of her hip and then brushing against her own around the bat’s solid wood. His cheek, lips, voice, against her hair.

When the boy had gone home, he’d leaned his weight atop the down-turned bat like a restless teenager, its wider end pressed into home plate, and looked at her like they’d just won some victory: all stars in his eyes and that innocent quirk of his mouth.

“You’re pretty good at baseball, Scully.”

Sly, she had worried her lip and studied the dust atop her too-formal shoes, arms crossed. “Well,” she’d said. “I’ve maybe played before.” She raised her eyes and saw that he already knew, and then they were both grinning like fools.

“I’ll walk you to your car.” He’d put his arm around her shoulders as they trekked around the dugout. Evening and mild sweat and the sweet combination of his soaps was how he’d smelled, and she’d wanted to stop them right there, to turn into the circle his arms would make, and press her whole body to his, nose to his chest. There was love of the game, yes, but there was also just love.

When they reached the car, he let her go.

Keys clutched in her fingers, she eyed him again. “Thank you,” she’d said, and her voice was lower than she’d expected, rough from laughing maybe—an unfamiliar sound in her throat these days. “I liked my present.”

He’d smiled. There had been a brief hesitation, a small internal war, before he shook his head, as if to knock loose the courage. He leaned down and snagged her lips with his. She startled, and it made her open her mouth, and suddenly she could taste him: a full sweet flavor that ignited a small fire under her ribs. Before she could parse the taste, analyze its effects on her skin and her heart and her future, he’d pulled away. One more nervous smile, and he scratched the back of his head. “G’night, Scully,” he’d said, and then he turned and he was gone.

Now she had dragged him into further outdoor activities on this, the second weekend since that singular (and only) kiss. She supposed it was a date, but again under careful guise.

“Do you know anything about cars?” She’d asked him on Friday morning.

He’d shrugged. “A little. Why?”

She gnawed on the corner of her lips. “My mom has inherited a car from a cousin—some classic, she says. She doesn’t know what to do with it.”

“And she asked you for help?”

Scully nodded.

“You want me to come take a look?” He’d leaned back in his desk chair, letting his pen fall to the blotter. His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows and his tie already loose, though it was barely ten.

It was her turn to offer a small shrug. “If you want to. I’m not sure how much help I’ll be. She wants me to look it over, maybe clean it up a little. She wants to sell it, I think.”

He’d rocked in his seat, smiling. “Mom’s not into classic cars, huh?”

She shook her head.

“What time?”

“Pick me up around eleven? She said she’d make lunch.”

He’d nodded, a little smile tugging at his lips. “Yeah, okay.”

And so she was now in uncustomarily casual clothes before him—cut-off jean shorts and a t-shirt—with her hands dipped into a sudsy bucket, hair pulled back off her neck, while he peeked under the hood (pretending he knew what he was looking at) of a 1966 Chevrolet Cheville, color: Lemonwood Yellow.

“How’s it look?” She asked.

“Ah,” he said, pulling at the oil dip-stick. “It looks good. I think.”

Scully swallowed her smile and stood from her crouched position over the bucket, bringing her sponge to the back window and scrubbing at the accumulated dust and grime.

“I mean the oil level is good. Engine looks pretty clean.” He wiped his fingers on a rag and dropped the hood. “Won’t know for sure until we start it up. Has your mom driven it?”

Soap bubbles dripped down to her elbow, and she rubbed at her forehead with the back of her wrist. She shook her head. “It’s a manual. My mom doesn’t drive stick.”

“Oh.” He scooted behind her to get to the bucket. He wore jeans and a t-shirt, too, like he had on that other Saturday, looking too relaxed. Too good. He was bronzing in the sun, but she felt suddenly hot. Scully swallowed, looked away. He brought his own sponge around to the front.

“We should take it for a drive, then.”

She thought of them driving around the block just to hear the sound of the engine, then flashed on some silly image of them parking at a secluded lookout, kissing in the back seat like teenagers in the old car. If only she’d worn her bobby socks. “Yeah,” she said, then cleared her throat. “After we clean it up.”

He smiled at her over the roof and she flushed again.

Their hands bumped in the suds bucket and they eyed each other like they both knew a secret. Mulder sprayed her bare legs with the hose and pretended it was an accident. She slapped his arm and he dropped the hose. Instead of picking it up again, he moved toward her with his hands up.

“I said I was sorry.” He continued moving toward her, so she backed up, sneakers on the driveway walking backward, until she bumped the still-soapy door. He followed until he was almost touching her, front to front.

“Are you really?” She asked.

He nodded, smiled, then shook his head no.

“I didn’t think so.”

“You know how to play baseball,” he said. “You know a North American P-51 Mustang on sight from only a blurry underwater photo of its fuselage.” His hands moved down, one to rest against his thigh and the other to find the curve of her waist, over her sweat-and-suds-damp shirt. He was hovering above her, mischief in his eyes, head cocked in playful teasing. “But you don’t know anything about cars? Not a single thing?”

She swallowed. “Well,” she said. “I mean, I know a little.”

Mulder nodded slowly, lowering his head just a bit. “A little?”

Her skin was on fire where his fingers pressed, even through her shirt. She wanted to grab his face and pull it down to hers, but that wasn’t how this game worked. “Just enough to get by,” she said. “Change the oil, change a tire, replace a battery.”

“Take apart and rebuild an engine?”

Her lips turned up. “Maybe once or twice.”

He made a low sound in his throat like a growl and then, finally, lowered his lips to hers. She was ready this time. It was broad daylight and her mother could very well be watching them through the window, but she didn’t care. She’d wanted the taste of him again so badly and now here he was, maybe better than before because she’d had time to mull over how much she wanted it. She opened her mouth and let his tongue greet hers. Oh, hello, it said. It’s been too long. She held back a whimper at the sheer goodness of how he felt, dragging his lips over hers, his tongue tasting of sweet tea and his turkey sandwich and himself most of all. She let her fingers go where they would: to his shoulders first, then one hand to his hair, so warm from the sun and just a bit damp with sweat. The material truth of his body, making itself known, drove a little moan from her lips at last. They were two humans of flesh and blood—skin that wanted touching, mouths that could do so much more than communicate their teasing wit. His other hand came to her neck, and she knew then that she would need to stop this kiss soon, lest they end up naked and writhing on her mother’s front lawn. She dove in with another swipe of her tongue, lifting onto her toes to press her hips to his encircling body (and god, holy Christ and any number of other blasphemes, was that the length of him against her abdomen?) before she forced herself to break the kiss.

He studied her with eyes like she’d never seen on him before. Gone was his teasing and cool exterior, but this was not the wounded boy of his solemn and lonely hours. This was his secret and inner self, vulnerable for how much he wanted, should he let himself want, rather than for his loss. And he wanted her—she could see that.

His left hand lifted to push her hair behind her ear, his other still clutching her waist. “That was… something.”

She smiled, still somewhat foggy and unbelieving. “Yeah.”

“Hmm, let me just check something. I need to… hang on—“ and he bent to kiss her again. His lips came down warm and heavy, swollen and wet from their previous kiss. Pressed against the car, Scully turned out her hip, lifted her knee to press it against his thigh, and raised herself up again to alleviate the craning of his neck. He pressed closer and she felt it again—the length of him at her belly. She whimpered.

“Mulder,” she said, pulling back again. “We’re out in the street. It’s daytime.”

“Sorry,” he said, still holding her like he wasn’t really sorry, and god she hoped he wasn’t. “I just… couldn’t help it.”

“Hmm. Any more of that and I’m afraid we’d end up… well, putting on a show for my mother and all her neighbors. One I’m not sure she’d appreciate.”

“Ooh, Scully, an exhibitionist?”

“Not usually, but… that was something.”

“It was.” He leaned his forehead against hers, and she was unable to stop herself from leaning up for one more kiss—just a quick press of her lips to his.

The sound of the front door swinging open startled them apart, just in time, before Maggie stepped out onto the porch with more iced tea. Mulder had quickly spun them around to swap their positions so Scully faced the house. He tugged at the hem of his jeans, the bottom of his tee, trying to be subtle about the predicament she could now confirm.

“It’s looking great,” Maggie said, all smiles. She came down the porch steps and handed them each a glass. “It’s gotten so warm—Dana, you look flushed. I thought you two must be thirsty.”

“Thanks, mom.” She swallowed a gulp, cold and sweet, and thought, It could be love.

—

After they’d washed the car down, wiped the dust from inside and vacuumed its floors, they slipped into its front seats and slid the hot metal of their buckles into place with two almost-simultaneous clicks. Mulder, in the driver’s seat, still playing this game of manly adventurer and master of mechanical things, started the engine. It came to life easily and he gave her a smile. “Sounds good.”

She nodded.

His hand found her knee and squeezed until he needed it to move the gear shift. And then they were rolling out of Margaret Scully’s driveway onto the mismatched streets of Baltimore. Scully fiddled with the ancient radio’s knobs—it still worked. Classic rock seemed appropriate—some station around 100 and they were under Jim Morrison’s spell (come on baby light my fire). Windows down, the warm late-April breeze brought the to some other time: gritty cracked pavement and the rust-belt housing blocks of downtown, under the rumble of this engine, seemed newly alive, like the promise of steel-town money and industrial investment still bolstered this place thirty years later.

“Should we drive up to the Bel-Loc?” He asked. “Get ourselves a malted?”

She smiled at him. “I just need to be home before the streetlights come on.”

At a long stretch with no traffic lights, his palm landed warm on her knee again. His face was something more serious, all of a sudden. “I could take you out if you want. We could go to dinner.”

Her heart thudded at the thought—an actual date, rather than this game of happenstance Saturdays and accidental kisses. But she looked at her state of dress and made a face. “Look at me. I’m all sweaty in these junky clothes.”

“I’ve been looking,” he said, though his eyes were on the road. It meant more than innuendo. It meant that he saw her. Really saw her, now, even if he hadn’t (had refused to look) for most of this past year. She dropped her fingers over his, just for a brief second, before pulling them away again. This was it. Now was the time to be brave, Dana.

“We could order in,” she said. “After you drop me at my place, I mean. You could stay to eat.”

She had just invited him back to her apartment, and it was not to read over a case file. She held her breath, kept her eyes out the passenger side window.

“I’d like that,” Mulder said.

Ahead, a traffic light turned yellow, and he moved his hand away from her leg to downshift.

Maggie thanked them endlessly, smiled subtly at the way they accidentally-on-purpose kept brushing against one another, and promised to invite them both back soon for dinner. “It was so good to see you under happy circumstances, Fox.”

“You too, Mrs. Scully.”

And then it was late afternoon and they were driving back to Georgetown under the heavy anticipation of evening.

When they were about fifteen minutes from her apartment, he broke the thick, uncustomary silence between them. “Hey Scully,” he said, eyes still on the road.

“Yeah?”

“Unless you tell me not to, I’m going to kiss you as soon as we get inside.”

The slow arousal that had followed them since their kissing flared inside her white hot. She swallowed. “Okay,” she said.

“I’m not going to stop this time.”

“Okay,” she said again. “I don’t want you to stop.”

He glanced at her then, a combination of mischief and open need. “Good,” he said, and they were quiet until they got to her block and into her place where they didn’t stop, not once, until they were exhausted and sweatier than ever and hungry for takeout, which they ate in the dark of that beautiful Saturday night.