#and then. I thought about it for an extra pico second

[swainconnors]

This tracks so hard. Nina is entirely the sort of person to do mushrooms once at a festival and be Really annoying about it for the rest of her life

[angelicdonuts]

We're on the final stretch! This is part 5!!

Back with the Pico's School/FNF stuff from here on out!

AND FURRY AAATTTTAACKKKK AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA

But before that you have some nene doodles! Spot where I got lazy on the second one (EXTRA MEGA SUPER HARD 0.0001% PASS RATE)

I don't think I have to explain much since everything else is kinda self explanatory?

But I will be yapping about my thoughts and decisions >X3

I JUST WANNA SAY.. I don't consider myself a furry. I don't purposefully interact with the community, I don't have any straight-up furry ocs (unfortunately), and I don't have a fursona (also unfortunately), BUT... I love furries and would LOVE to draw anyone's fursona/furry oc if you're willing to let me 🙏 I'm seriously so desperate for more excuses to draw furries dude

ANYWAYS!

I MADE PICO A CAT!!!! There's like... hella reasons for it.. but it goes soooo far into autism territory that I'm not ready to disclose. BUT the short answer is because I think it fits :3 ALSO FUN FACT that drawing is technically my first like... legit Pico drawing LMFAO. And you know what?? I'm damn proud of it !! I think he looks fucking awesome >□< !!

Nene is obviously a seal! SPECIFICALLY A HARP SEAL!! FUN FACT!! I was going to make her some sort of bunny until I REMEMBERED and I'm so SO glad I did. If I didn't, I would 10000% let all of you crucify me and revoke my pico's school fan license. I don't even think I have to explain anything?? nene loves seals??

AAAAAAAA then there's Darnell :3 as you can see, I had a lot of fun LMAO I needed an excuse to draw a bare chest and abs. MY. BAD. Anyways! I made Darnell a dragon because..?? Fire?? Hello?? ALSO I love him and I think he deserves something awesome. ALSO ALSO I needed an excuse to draw more dragons.

As for the other doodles here, the bird in the last doodle is Pricko X]

ALSO! made this TODAY! Yippie!!

Context?? Nene.. going koo koo crazy?? I don't know how to explain the things that I make in the midst of my autistic moments </3

THERE'S. STILL. MORE.

[bearkkyou]

Thunderstorms and Late Night Kisses

And the degeneracy starts! You’re in my world now, stay or get out lmfao This is some Boyfriend x Pico shit that I can’t stop writing, it’s just a ton of fluff because i have none in my life! 1389 words total.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------The weather forecast this morning was sunny, with no clouds in sight, but holy shit were they wrong. It was raining so hard that the drops sounded like someone knocking forcefully knocking on the window instead of tapping like how it should sound. Pico had taken off his headphones various times just to get up and make sure that no one was at the door. Pico loved when it rained hard, it made his house feel cooler than usual, and it was always relaxing. He continued to watch some videos on his laptop before hearing pounding once again, but this time it was on his door. Startled, he stood up, grabbing his Uzi, making sure that his footsteps were quiet and swift, as he swung his front door open and pointed straight ahead, quickly lowering his guard when he saw Boyfriend standing on his doorstep, soaked in rainwater, shaken up and nervous. “Babe, what are you doing here?” Pico ushered his lover inside, worried for him, as all Boyfriend did was stand there and shudder, clearly not in a good state. Pico immediately became concerned, and went over to Boyfriend, slowly putting his hand on his lover’s shoulder to try and snap him out of it, and the second he made contact, Boyfriend jumped and clung to Pico, hugging him tightly. “Pico… Don’t let me go, please…” Pico hugged his lover back tightly, slowly caressing his head, kissing it softly. “It’s ok, I’m here. Let’s get you in the bath, ok? You can tell me what’s wrong once you’ve calmed down. I won’t let go, ok?” Pico walked Boyfriend to the bathroom slowly, making sure not to shake him up more than he already was. He sat Boyfriend down on the toilet seat and ran a warm bath, before stripping his lover down, and setting him into the warm water. Pico rolled up his sleeves before he began to gently wash Boyfriend, planting small, soft kisses along his arms, neck and face in an attempt to calm his lover down. “Are you okay now, babe?” Pico questions softly, as he rinses Boyfriend with warm water, making sure it wasn’t too hot or too cold. “Mhm… Thank you, Pico… I just… I don’t like storms like this… The thunder and the lightning really scare me, especially if I’m home alone, and I just can’t be alone when they come. I would sleep through it if I could, but the rain is just so loud…” Boyfriend answered softly, still shaken up, but he looks calmer than before. Pico helped him out of the tub and wrapped him up in a towel before bringing him over to his room, getting a spare change of warm clothes, dressing his lover up before changing his own wet clothes. Pico had showered about 20 minutes before Boyfriend showed up, and he wasn’t about to leave Boyfriend alone just to run some hot water on his face. “Next time, I’ll go over to your house, ok? You don’t have to come here and get soaked and potentially get sick just because you don’t want to be alone.” Pico pulled out a hairdryer from one of his dresser drawers and plugged it into the wall before turning it on, softly blow-drying Boyfriend’s hair. He tried to be as calming and kind as possible, not accustomed to giving care. Pico never knew that Boyfriend was afraid of thunderstorms and he really wanted to try and do his best to calm his lover down. After a while, Boyfriend’s hair was finally dry, and Pico put the blow-dryer down on his desk. “There, now your hair is nice and dry. If you want me to do anything else, or need me to do anything else at all, let me know, ok? For now, let’s just stay in bed.” As he spoke, Pico moved Boyfriend over from the chair he was sitting on, to the cozy bed right behind them, placing him down softly. The storm only got worse as Pico laid down next to Boyfriend, opening his arms wide, accepting his lover with warm cuddles and a kiss on the head. He could feel Boyfriend’s nervous shaking, his heartbeat racing against his lower chest, and he heard how Boyfriend’s breath would hitch in his throat as the lightning struck, waiting for him to weakly exhale when the sound of booming thunder came to haunt him. Boyfriend held onto Pico tightly as if he was the only thing keeping him from blowing away in the storm, and Pico couldn’t help but blush excessively at the adoring affection, making sure to hold onto Boyfriend just as tight as a way of saying that he wasn’t letting him go anywhere. Pico rubbed small circles into Boyfriend’s back, watching him slowly but surely relax. At some point, Boyfriend had fallen asleep, and Pico stayed awake, making sure to keep him in this state of calm, not wanting his lover to wake up in a state of disarray and start panicking. The rain had significantly calmed down, the once harsh drops now becoming a quaint little patter against the bedroom window. Pico wanted to do something nice for Boyfriend before he woke up, and he didn’t know what to do, until it hit him. What’s the best thing to have on a rainy day? Soup, of course! Chicken soup, preferably, but Pico doesn’t know how to make chicken, so he thought of the closet thing that was soup related and came to the conclusion that tomato soup would work just fine. Tomato soup with a grilled cheese sandwich, who wouldn’t love that? Pico had made up his mind and decided that he would only be gone for a little bit. He slowly let Boyfriend go and covered him with a warm blanket before heading off to the kitchen to try and cook something nice for his boyfriend. He put on the apron that Nene bought him and got to cooking. Pico put the tomatoes he bought and cut in a deep oven dish, seasoned them with salt, pepper and olive oil, and stuck them in the oven while he diced up some onions and garlic. When the tomatoes were done baking, he threw everything into a pot with some butter and added some extra seasonings before letting everything simmer. While he waited, he quietly walked to his bedroom to check up on Boyfriend to make sure he was still sleeping and covered with the blanket. He opened the door just by a little crack and took a peak inside. Seeing that his lover was safe, warm and sound asleep, he closed the door and went back to the kitchen. After the tomatoes simmered for a while, he added milk and flour and stirred continuously, watching the aromatic, red liquid thicken immensely. He left it to simmer once more before making 2 grilled cheese sandwiches, one for him and one for Boyfriend. Grabbing the handheld blender, he blended the tomatoes together before pouring the soup into 2 different bowls, setting the tray on the table. He looked over at what he did as he took off the apron, and he felt extremely proud of himself, he can only hope that it tastes as good as it looks. Pico slowly walked to his room and opened the door quietly, before sitting on the bed next to Boyfriend. “Hey, babe?” He whispered softly, as he softly caressed Boyfriend’s cheek, waking him up as nicely as possible. “Mhh?” Boyfriend opened his eyes before stretching, rubbing them softly, “What happened…?” He questioned, still half asleep. “I made you some food, yeah? I bet you’re hungry, so come meet me in the kitchen when you’re fully awake.” Pico kissed Boyfriend softly, before walking to the kitchen, watching his lover soon follow behind. Pico explained that he decided to try his hand at cooking for once, and when he mentioned that he wanted to care for Boyfriend and do something nice, it made Boyfriend light up with joy as he sat down to eat. They had decided that the food that Pico cooked came out surprisingly well, considering he almost never cooks. They spent the rest of the day cuddled up in Pico’s room, stomachs full of good food, and arms full of each other’s love and care.

[albarrancabrera]

. Art is said to heal, but it does so in our spirit. For viruses, we need much more. . As we strongly believe that if everybody #stayshome helps, here comes our contribution to encourage you to do so: As many people ask us about what our influences are, we’ll share with you what and who inspire us: writers, designers, painters, books, cinematographers... We hope this triggers your curiosity to know more and do some extra research. . Please, #staysafe, #stayathome, reduce your stress and increase your curiosity. Let curiosity guide you in these difficult times. . Photographers 2/2 . We continue with the second post about photographers who have been an important influence on our work. It's important to point out that we are not talking about a direct translation of style. What really influenced us what their work as a whole and the philosophy behind their ideas. As a tip, again, we will include comments on the post with some of their thoughts or texts about them in order to understand their ideas a bit better. Do not stop here and continue researching! For those asking about originality, do not miss the comment about Shoji Ueda.😉 . 1.2.3. Georgui Pinkhassov  4.5. Vivian Maier 6.7. Alex Webb / Rebecca Norris Web  8.9.10. Shoji Ueda 11.12. Araki Nobuyoshi . #read #learn #watch #find #beinspired #triggercuriosity #photographers #GeorguiPinkhassov #VivianMaier #AlexWeb #RebeccaNorris #ShojiUeda #ArakiNobuyoshi

“My photos are my diary. Every photo is no more than the representation of a single day. And each day contains the past and the projection into the future. That’s why I feel compelled to indicate the date on every picture I take.” — Nobuyoshi Araki

“Photograph because you love doing it, because you absolutely have to do it, because the chief reward is going to be the process of doing it. Other rewards - recognition, financial remuneration - come to so few and are so fleeting...Take photography on as a passion, not a career.” - Alex Webb

"A few years ago, Pico Iyer wrote, in the afterword to our joint Cuba book, “Violet Isle,” that our work sometimes rhymes. Alex and I love that notion. At times, I can pinpoint these subtle echoes or slant rhymes—such as a shared palette or an affinity for surreal or surprising moments. Other times, why two of our photographs work together remains somewhat mysterious." - Rebecca Norris Web

“Well, I suppose nothing is meant to last forever. We have to make room for other people. It's a wheel. You get on. You go to the end. And someone else has the same opportunity to go to the end. And so on. And somebody else takes their place.” ― Vivian Maier, Street Photographer

"The power of our Muse lies in her meaninglessness. Even the style can turn one into a slave if one does not run away from it, and then one is doomed to repeat oneself. The only thing that counts is curiosity. For me personally, this is what creativity is about. It will express itself less in the fear of doing the same thing over again than in the desire not to go where one has already been." - Georgui Pinkhassov

"...It is important to keep in mind that Ueda began his career as a creator of Art Photography, at the very time that the doctrine behind this tendency was crumbling in the face of New Photography. He took to heart the fundamental philosophy that "photography is art."... he did not approach the photograph as most postwar photographers did, as an exchangeable symbol meant to convey a social message of some sort. Instead, to Ueda, the photograph was itself a complete, discrete world (a work of art). ... Ueda did not place great weight on the content. Rather, his goal was to create a controlled, discrete world via a certain clear ordering of aesthetic." -Lizawa Kotaro, "On Ueda Shoji: The World as Object"

"Ueda Shoji first appeared before me suffused with the air of a stranger... In fact Ueda occupies an unmistakable unique position in the history of Japanese photographic expression.  The distinctive style of his photographs appears at first glance to be easy to imitate (and there are, in fact, crowds of imitators), but he has charted a unique territory that on one has been able to approach.  In this sense he is an indenpendent singularity. If asked to name a photographer with a similar style, I am unable to offer even one." -Lizawa Kotaro, "On Ueda Shoji: The World as Object"

[ace-does-stuff]

emotional scars

distracted by the somewhat shrill sound of his phone ringing, boyfriend begrudgingly turned his attention from girlfriend to his phone, checking the number seeing it was... someone he hadnt seen in a while, the picture that came up was one he couldve sworn he deleted and the caller id made him feel sick to the stomach.

"i love you gf, but this might be important." boyfriend as he got up, grabbing his green sweater.

"come on, we where this close to getting it on..." girlfriend whined as she leaned back a little bit.

"i wont take to long." boyfriend said as he left the room.

"you better not take to long." girlfriend said with a disappointed sigh.

"this better be good." boyfriend sighed before answering the call, holding the phone to his ear as he took a seat at the table.

"hi." he said over the phone, somewhat gingerly.

"i thought i deleted your number." boyfriend began with not even bothering with a simple hey.

"guess you didnt, anyways-" he tried saying being cut off by boyfriend.

"i thought i told you to never speak with me again during our last meetup." boyfriend growled.

"you did, but i thought you might want to hear my voice again." he said somewhat cockily.

"why would i ever want to hear your voice again?" boyfriend countered with.

"i dont know, just thought i would make sure your slut is treating you good." he said with a slight chuckle.

"shes treating me fine, but why did you call me?" boyfriend answered with a sigh.

"nothing better to do..." he said.

"look, you already know what you did to me, so please leave me alone now." boyfriend said with a sigh.

"this is the first time weve spoke with each other in years." he explained.

"what do you want from me, pico? youve already taken so much from me, i dont see what more you could possibly want." boyfriend said, a little bit teary eyed.

"i was wondering if we could meet up at the DQ we used to go to tomorrow for a blizzard and chat." pico said giving light, nervous chuckle.

"fine, your going to keep bugging me if i dont say yes." boyfriend said with a sigh.

"alright see you tomorrow then." pico said.

"bye, i have to attend to some... things." boyfriend said before hanging up, not even giving pico a chance to make a snarky remark.

"you almost done?" girlfriend asked over the house.

"yeah, im coming." boyfriend said as he walked back, mood dampened only slightly.

boyfriends dreams seemed to be working against him tonight, not in a hellish, deformed, mutated, post apocalyptic, everyone you loved died kind of nightmare, just bittersweet memories flashing through the void of his innermost psyche, tormenting him, screams stuck in his throat as tears slowly rolled down his face dropping into the void as each and every single memory he had with pico flashed by, as real as the day it happened, swirling around him like a vortex in the empty null realm.

he snapped awake with a start, slowly taking in his surroundings and having the fact he was safe and none of it was real slowly sink in, he sighed in relief at the fact before getting up and putting on his signature t shirt and the green sweater, pulling on some jeans and deeming himself ready for whatever fates about to throw at him even it means a foot of snow.

"fuck." boyfriend groaned under his breath, sloppily writing a note for girlfriend before putting on his snow boots and making his way down the streets of the city in the general direction of the DQ.

"he better be paying for those blizzards..." he uttered under his breath, rubbing his arms for extra warmth, breath fogging a bit in clouds of steam whenever he took a deep breath to steady himself for whatever was going to happen, his internal mental stability slowly collapsing in on itself as he made his way closer to the DQ, tears starting to gather at the corner of his eyes mere seconds before he recognized pico in the small crowd of people, looking like the fallen angel he fell in love with so many years ago.

"nope, i cant do this... i cant..." he muttered to himself before going to turn around stopped by the sound of pico calling him over, having no choice but to just walk over and eat a blizzard.

"your blizzard." pico said handing the minty blizzard to boyfriend who had to repress a mental breakdown, only shaking slightly. "im assuming you still like mint, if not you can have mine." pico offered placing a hand on boyfriends shoulder near instantly removing it, remembering that touching him in this state was not a good idea.

"no, its fine i still like mint blizzards, been a long time since i had one though." boyfriend said as he took a small spoonful of the frozen treat being barraged with the taste, normally like heaven bringing more memories from the depths of his mind causing him to flinch at the taste.

"i kind of wanted to talk with you." pico said a little bit sheepishly as he led the two of them to the red bench near the water fountain at the side of the building, taking a seat after wiping away some of the snow.

"you told me last night over the phone." boyfriend said as he took a seat placing the blizzard at his side.

"i just wanted to say im sorry, for everything." pico said as he took another bite of his blizzard.

"yeah, and you should be." boyfriend said huffing a bit, unamused at what pico claimed.

"i shouldntve done what i did, i admit shooting that bastard wasnt my best move, but i wouldntve continued to do so if i wasnt given a fat stack of cash, i just, im sorry, boyfriend." pico said with a light sigh.

"anything else?" boyfriend asked, knowing their was so much more pico had to try and apologize for, but most of it couldnt even be put it into words at this point, the memories blurred and slightly cracked.

"i fucked up big time when i went to that club, and when i accidently did the mom thing where they clip you in the back of the head hitting weaker than a punch in the gut but hurting more, and when i grazed your shoulder with a bullet." pico said, few tears gathering at the corners of his eyes, he felt extreme remorse for his actions, hating himself for it on more than one occasion, he had been deficient in serotonin for who knows how long since then.

"i dont forgive you for it, but, i can accept the apology." boyfriend said as he took a few more deep breaths.

"good enough for me." pico said as he leaned against the side of the building with a satisfied sigh, a weight from his shoulders having been lifted.

"here." boyfriend said as he pulled off the sweater. "i never returned it to you." he said handing it off to pico.

"how often do you wear this rag, youve had it for years by now." pico said as he grabbed the sweater.

"its my go to sweater, but thats beside the point, just take it back before you have to lose it to me again." boyfriend said.

"your chick will look at your weird if all of the sudden your go to sweater is missing, so you can have this one." pico said as he yanked off his sweater handing it over before putting on the other one.

"thanks i guess, i should probably get going though." boyfriend said as he slid on the green sweater.

"dont get hurt." pico said before taking his leave in the opposite direction of boyfriend.

"i guess he isnt that bad... he still smells comforting..." boyfriend said as he took a deep inhale of the potent yet comforting scent, his gait faltering, slightly losing himself in it, memories flooding back, a bit more sweet than bitter unlike his nightmares.

....................................................................................................................

[awkward-radar-tech]

Kylo Ren, The Rising Star

Summary: You are Kylo Ren’s personal assistant. The rising star doesn’t know how to cope with his sudden popularity. You let him take sanctuary in your apartment, and help him return to who he was before, Ben Solo.

A/N: I’m stating this now, no romantic relationship blooms in this. But, the seeds are planted. And I will write more where the relationship does grow, if requested.

Prompt, from an anon:  But I got an idea, how about worn out actor Kylo Ren aka Ben Solo has been doing to much lately he doesn't even know what time zone he's in sometimes. Reader is average Joe lucky enough to be his PA in his new film. With the stress of everything and fans following him everywhere Ben hides out at your house, were he sleeps all day in your bed and you feed him lots of food, cos you like to cook?

Chapter 2

🌟🌟🌟

You didn’t know what you were getting into when you applied to be an assistant for a local movie shoot. But being the new personal assistant to the biggest rising star was not it at all. And you weren’t always local like you expected. Being Kylo Ren’s PA meant you had to go with him on his other press tours during breaks in shooting. Caffeinated anything had become your friend, and today was one where you were dependant. You had jumped across every American time zone in a day and a half, and now you had crossed the Atlantic, only to turn around in twelve hours and fly home.

You checked your watch and went to knock on Kylo’s dressing room door, “Twenty minutes until you’re on, sir. Do you need anything else?”

He opened the door, still in the t shirt and jeans he wore on the plane, “I just have one question, where are we?” 

You looked at him, concerned, “We are in London, sir. You’re doing an interview for ‘the rom-com’ right now. Your suit should be hanging up for you.”

He yawned, “I told you to call me Kylo, not sir. And it is there. Could you step in real quick?”

You nodded and waited for him to step aside, following him inside, “Sorry, Kylo. So used to using sir. Now, what do you need?” 

He closed the door and sat on the couch, “First, no need to apologize. Second, can I have a caffeine pill?”

You pulled out a packet from your bag and handed it to him, “You can hold onto these. But, uhh, Kylo, you didn’t need to ask me in here for that. Nobody cares how you stay awake.”

He hummed, “Thank you, (y/n),” he quickly took a pill, “and that isn’t why I asked you in here. I have an unconventional request, that nobody can know about.”

“Yes?”

“This movie, people are going crazy over it. They have surrounded my building at home, waiting for my return apparently. It is exhausting having to go through all these people, some have even found ways inside my building and to my door. I need a break. Could I stay at your place? I’ll sleep on the couch.”

“Kylo, sir, I live in a run down apartment. You wouldn’t want to stay there. And my couch is only a bit longer than this one, you wouldn't sleep very well."

"I'd much rather stay there than possibly anger fans. Please, think about it."

You gave him a pointed look and checked your watch, “Fifteen minutes, Kylo. Now get changed.”

You left the room, closing the door. Kylo was, but also wasn’t, your boss, and he was asking to stay at your place? He had bodyguards, couldn’t they tell the fans to leave? No, he cared too much about his fans’ feelings to have them told to leave. Maybe you would let him stay. Once back he was off for a week, so he wouldn’t have to leave. It would be fun to hang out with somebody for once, even if it was the person you worked for.

The interview went well, and before long you were being taken to a hotel for the night. 

You followed Kylo outside to the car and he looked at you once inside, “Woah… It is already night?”

You nodded, “Yeah, it is almost eight. I think we are here for like ten hours then we head home to rest for a week.”

As you pulled up at the hotel, there were clearly a bunch of fans waiting for him, and you heard a muttered “shit.”

You looked at him, “When we get home, you can stay at my place, okay?”

He smiled wide for once in his life, “Thank you, so much, (y/n). I’ll give you a bonus.”

You shook your head, “We’ll talk about it later. I don’t want any extra money. Think of it as a kind gesture from a friend.”

The door was opened and Kylo was escorted into the building. You stayed in until the car parked before grabbing your own stuff and going up to your room; there were shrieks from girls, obviously he decided to stop and talk. You went up to your room and got ready for a bit of sleep. 

As you washed your face you heard your phone ringing in the other room. When you went out to check it, you read it was Kylo calling, so quickly answered it.

“How can I help you, Kylo?”

“What time do I have to be ready by? Need to set my alarm.”

“Six. Hopefully the crazies won’t be awake then.”

He groaned, “Hopefully. Thank you. Goodnight, (y/n).”

“Goodnight, Kylo. Text me in the morning so I know you’re awake please.”

He hummed in acknowledgement and hung up. 

In the morning he clearly hadn’t slept much, or well, he was a living zombie in a somehow oversized sweatshirt, clutching to a cup of coffee.

He looked at you in the hallway, “Oh, I forgot to ask if you wanted a cup. Security brought it up to me. They said everybody left at like 2 am, so the coast is clear.”

You gave him a warm smile, “It is alright, Kylo. I’m fine. Let’s head down to the car then.”

You thankfully got to the airport and onto the plane without incident, people have better things to do between 6 and 7 am on a Tuesday apparently. Landing back in Los Angeles was a different story, people don’t care that it is noon on a Tuesday. 

Kylo still looked exhausted, and you hoped nobody followed you. As the car pulled up to the studio you knew you would be safe. You showed Kylo to your car and got in to drive to your apartment.

He looked at you as you pulled out of your spot, “Hey, thank you so much. I appreciate it, more than you might think.”

You nodded, “You’re welcome, Kylo. Do you want to listen to some music?”

“Sure. Listen to what you normally do.”

You turned on your radio, the bluetooth connecting and automatically playing your playlist. You tapped along to the songs on your steering wheel as you drove. After twenty minutes you pulled up to your run down building and parked in your spot.

You turned to Kylo, “No crazy fans it seems. That is good.”

He hummed, “Yeah. But there are still people around that could recognize me.”

“If they ask if you’re Kylo Ren just tell them no and give a fake name. I don’t talk with my neighbors so they don’t know what I do. And none of my friends know who I work for.”

He nodded and prepared himself to step out. He messed up his hair so it wasn’t as perfect as his normal style, put on the hood of his sweatshirt and stepped out, slinging his duffle bag over his shoulder.

You stepped out and got your bag from your trunk. You looked over at him awkwardly looming next to the car, “Let’s go, sir.”

He followed you like a lost puppy, and then you heard the voice of your annoying neighbor from the floor below yours, “Hey, 32! Is that Kylo Ren?”

You turned to her voice, “No. This is my friend.”

She acted like you were lying, “You sure?”

He stepped in, “Uh, yeah. I’m Ben. But I get that a lot. It is a bit tiresome.”

You tried to pull him away and walk inside, but she wouldn’t relent, why did she have to be out? And why did she care? She has always been vocal about despising everything about Hollywood, especially celebrities.

“Do you have ID to prove it?”

Kylo stopped and you turned, “Ben, don’t pay her any mind, let’s go get some lunch.”

He didn’t move when you pulled, “No, she wants proof I’m not stupid Kylo Ren, I’ll prove it,” he pulled out his ID and showed it to her, “See? Benjamin Solo. Now, can me and my friend go have some lunch? I’m rather hungry and I have a short fuse when I haven’t eaten.”

She just walked away after reading his ID. He looked to you and you just walked in, taking the elevator up and getting him in your apartment.

You threw down your bag as soon as you closed your door, “I’m so damn sorry Kylo. She is so annoying, and thinks she can know anything she wants. She isn’t even on this floor, she is in 21. But, uhh? You aren’t really Kylo Ren?”

He sat on your couch, “Well, I am now. I legally changed my name last year when people started recognizing me, but I still have my old ID, which I had just renewed a few months before I changed my name.”

You nodded, not wanting to pry further, "Alright then. Can I get you anything to drink?"

"Can I get some water please?"

You went and dropped your stuff in your room then got him a glass of water.

You sat on the floor after you gave him the cup, "TV? Food?"

"Watch whatever you want, (y/n)."

You turned on Netflix and turned on the show you were currently binging, then your belly grumbled, “I’m going to go fix some lunch, any requests?”

He looked at you hopefully, “Tacos?”

You thought for a moment and nodded, “Yes, I have everything to make tacos.”

You left the show on, you could rewatch the episode later, and went in to cook. You cooked some carne asada you had prepared for this week, some rice and beans, then prepared all the toppings you needed. Assembling Kylo's tacos were easy, he liked his tacos almost plain, just meat on the tortilla with some fresh pico de gallo. When everything was finished you fixed each of you a plate of your preferred tacos with some rice and beans then brought the plates to the living room. 

"Here you go, Kylo. Just as you like it."

He took the offered plate and began to eat, "Did you make all of this right now? This is amazing."

You nodded, "I did most of it. I had the carne asada marinating to fix this week, and the salsa I just made. The beans and rice are pre-packaged, but I try to make them myself too, when I have the time. And the tortillas I buy fresh from a neighbor."

He hummed, "Well this is all delicious. Thank you so much."

You smiled and ate your meal. When you finished you took your plate into wash along with all the items you cooked with once you stored the leftover food.

After a moment Kylo sheepishly walked in with his plate, "Excuse me, (y/n)? Is there anymore?"

You turned to look at him, "Yeah! I just put it away in the fridge. Help yourself."

Kylo took out the containers and fixed himself more tacos, then stood at the counter to eat them while talking with you. "Where did you learn to cook like that?"

"Mostly self taught. I had to learn how to stretch my food budget when I moved out. Cooking from bulk purchases helps. So I had to learn how to use the same ingredients in as many ways as possible so I wouldn't get bored."

He handed you his now empty plate, "Can you be my personal chef and my PA?"

You laughed, "You don't want to see me 24/7 Kylo."

He walked out of the kitchen, "Maybe I do."

You just shook your head and finished washing everything. When you walked back into your living room, Kylo was passed out on your couch. He looked so uncomfortable, he was almost bigger than the old thing. You went to your room, changed all your bedding, then hid all the embarrassing things you had out. 

You gently woke up Kylo once you finished, "Hey, go sleep in my bed. It is a lot more comfortable than this small thing."

He groaned and stretched, voice heavy with sleep, "No. That is your bed. You sleep in it. I'm fine here."

You crossed your arms, "No. Kylo. You are sleeping in my bed. I don't need to sleep right now anyways. You do. You've been working so hard recently. Go sleep in a damn bed."

He stood up and pat your head, clearly still mostly asleep, "Whatever you say, my dear. Goodnight."

Your cheeks burned and you just shook your head as you watched him shuffle into your room and unceremoniously flop face first onto your bed, snoring within moments. You went and shut the door most of the way, but first you placed his bags in plain sight in case he woke up and wanted to change out of his jeans. 

You worked around your apartment, not letting the fact you had an unplanned guest keep you from your planned chores. You swept and dusted, set your bedding on to wash, the one nice thing about this apartment, you had a washer and dryer in your unit. While the wash was on you sat down and restarted your show and went through your social media. One of your friends shared a tabloid article theorizing that Kylo Ren is in a secret relationship since he has yet to return home after landing earlier today and has spent a lot less time interacting with fans these past few months. 

You mumbled to yourself, “He’s staying away from you pricks. You’ve exhausted the poor man.”

You continued perusing, finding nothing else of interest, then paused your show before moving everything to the dryer. You continued watching until it was time to make dinner, pasta is what you had planned for tonight, so you doubled everything to have enough for Kylo.

As you were cooking you heard Kylo enter the kitchen, “Good evening, sleeping beauty. Are you hungry?”

Kylo was still a bit groggy, but rapidly waking up, “Yeah. The smells woke me up. What are you making?”

He sat at your kitchen table and you brought him a glass of orange juice, his favorite, “Pasta. Specifically homemade cheese tortellini with meat sauce. And garlic bread.”

He took a sip and hummed, “You make pasta?”

You nodded, “Only filled pasta, it is cheaper that way. And I made the sauce and garlic bread. Including the bread. But I freeze a lot of stuff so I didn’t actually make any of it tonight.”

He held up his glass, “And this juice?”

You laughed, “That is store bought. I can’t make it as well.”

“You’re lying. I’m sure you can.”

You hummed, “Yeah. I can. But only when oranges are in season.”

You turned back and began to stir the sauce and added the pasta to the now boiling water. You pulled out the garlic bread and shut off the flame for the sauce. After a few minutes you drained the pasta and added a bit of the water to the sauce, then added most of the sauce to the drained pasta.

"Alright, food is ready Kylo. Come help yourself."

"It smells amazing."

You handed him a plate and he served himself then sat back at the table. You followed suit and served yourself, then sat across from him. 

You shared pleasant conversation, taking turns asking about the other's life. While you worked for him, and were around him more often than not, neither of you knew much about the other, but this time together would change that. 

When he finished he looked up and smiled at you, "Now for a more personal question, if you want to answer it. Are you dating anyone?"

You smiled back and chuckled, "So asking about my parents and childhood isn't personal, but asking if I'm dating is?" You paused to take a sip, "No, Kylo. I'm not. Haven't dated in awhile. What about you then? There is a tabloid article out there theorizing you're in a secret relationship since you haven't come home yet and aren't interacting as much with fans."

He groaned and covered his face, "No. I'm not. Same as you, haven't in awhile." He rubbed his face and looked at you again, "And you know that tabloid is wrong. I'm here with you."

"But what about the fan interactions? Just the burn out?"

He nodded, "Yeah. I've really just wanted to go to bed recently, or get into work. They're great and all, but I don't want to be on at 7 am or 9 pm, especially if I just came from a different timezone."

"I can't even imagine. But you don't have to be on at all this week. Stay here for as much of that time as you want. Be Benjamin Solo again, if only for me."

His eyes lit up, "Yes. Call me Ben. Please. Only my mom and dad call me that anymore. I need to be Ben for a week. I'll order some plain clothes online to be delivered here too. I’m going to be Ben Solo again."

You nodded, "Okay, Ben. Let me clean up, and you can work on ordering everything you need. Then tell me when you're checking out and I'll fill out my address."

He stood up and grabbed both plates, "Let me help you please."

"Alright. You can help me Ben."

He grinned and had a tiny celebration, "Yes! Thank you."

He set to work filling up the sink with water, placing the plates and utensils in the sink, then turning to you, "Uhh, the leftovers need to be put away. Where are your containers?"

You moved to the right cabinet, "This one, Ben. But I'll put it away. You focus on washing."

He nodded, "Okay, (y/n)."

You put away the food and Ben grabbed each empty piece and cleaned it. Once the food was put away you sat up on your counter.

You looked to Ben, who was meticulously scrubbing the saucepan, "I had no problem cleaning up, Ky… I mean Ben. I do it all the time."

He turned to you, "I'm your unplanned guest. I want to do has much as possible to help and not throw off your schedule and routine. I'm sure you have one here too."

You looked away, feeling your cheeks warm a bit, "Well I do. But I'm fine doing it all myself."

He pointed a stern finger at you, but his face held a small smile, "No. I'm washing the dishes. Go relax. Put on a movie. Pour yourself some wine if you want, and have any. I'll be out in a bit."

You just nodded and listened, going to turn on some super cheesy rom-com your friend told you to watch. After a while you heard the sink draining and footsteps coming back out. 

Ben plopped down on the couch right next to you and outstretched his arms across the back, then groaned, "Really, (y/n)? You like rom-coms too?"

You paused it, "Shit, sorry. Wasn't thinking. I just think that they are funny, especially the real cheesy ones. And one can dream about randomly falling in love with a stranger. But I'll change it to something else."

Ben shook his head, "No, you can keep watching. I'll order those clothes."

You started playing the movie again and he pulled out his phone and wallet to find clothes with rush shipping. After twenty minutes he silently passed his phone to you and you typed in the address information then handed it back. Once the order was placed he put his phone away and again stretched his arms out. You didn't know if he was actually watching or just zoning out, but you were happy he didn't mind. 

As the credits rolled, you let out a yawn, “Alright, time for bed for me,” you tapped his thigh, “That means it is time for you to move, Mr. Solo. You’re on my bed.”

He turned to you, “No. I’ll sleep here.”

You grabbed his arm and stood up, “Nope, this is not an option. You are sleeping in my bed,” you began to pull on his arm, “Now come on you big oaf. You are going to sleep in my bed, just like you did earlier.”

He stayed planted in his spot, chuckling, “You’re gonna have to pull harder than that. I’m almost all muscles.”

You pulled harder and then tried to pull both his hands, starting to laugh, “Come on Ben. Go sleep in my damn bed.”

He stood up suddenly and caught you before you fell back, “Fine. Just this once.”

You crossed your arms, “This will be the second time, Ben. You slept before dinner.”

He smirked and walked away, into your room, “That was Kylo Ren, thank you very much. Now, do you need anything from in here before I close the door?”

You ran in, “Yes!”

He chuckled and just sat on your bed, pulling out his pajamas from his duffle bag. You grabbed everything you needed and went out.

You paused in the doorway, turning to Ben before closing the door, “Goodnight, Ben. See you in the morning.”

“Goodnight, (y/n). Thank you again.”

You nodded and closed the door then went to change and grab your bedding from the dryer. After setting everything up you crawled into your cocoon of blankets and pillows on the couch and fell asleep.

You were awoken a couple hours later by the sound of whining and screams, coming from your room. You quickly got up and knocked on the door, “Ben? You okay in there, sir?”

He didn’t respond, just more whimpers, so you opened up the door and walked in to find him asleep but thrashing.

Carefully, you approached him, reaching out to rub his arm, “Ben. Kylo. Wake up, sir. You’re having a nightmare.”

He woke up and clung to you, wrapping his arms around your waist. He was panting, repeating your name, “I’m so sorry. So sorry. For waking you up. Sorry.”

You ran your fingers through his hair, “Ben. It is okay, Ben. I promise.”

He nodded and slowly calmed down, “Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thanks for waking me up. I normally have to fight for much longer to wake up.”

You softly scratched his scalp, “Lay back down. I’ll stay until you’re asleep again.”

He hummed, “Can you keep doing that, and playing with my hair?”

You chuckled, “Sure.”

He moved back to laying normally and you moved to keep petting his head. It didn’t take long for him to get drowsy again, and he began mumbling to you.

His voice was barely audible and clearly full of sleep, “I like this. I like you. Don’t tell though.”

You felt your cheeks warm and continued until his murmurs turned to snores. You got up again and softly kissed his forehead, “Goodnight, Ben Solo. Sweet dreams.”

[jdclee]

Philosophy Class for Rock Bottom Demons: 3/3

Every morning starts the same. After his shower, he takes Jason for his morning walk, rain or shine (though it's usually shine in Arizona). He always stops at the pet-friendly coffee shop just a few blocks from his apartment complex.

It's got nothing on Friends, but Michael finds it charming in its own way.

The early morning patrons are a cross section of humanity. There's the bleary-eyed students with their green hair and nose rings, cramming or killing time with surprisingly affordable coffee. There's the elderly regulars, including the couple who always argues in Spanish, yet at the same time, he always remembers to pick up her extra sweeteners and she always dabs away his espresso-stache. There's the dog walkers in their jogging pants, happy to have a place to relax with their pooches.

Then there's Michael, who's a bit of all three.

To his fellow patrons, Michael Realman is friendly if slightly eccentric, with an equally friendly dog. He can't help himself from talking to whoever will listen. He loves to weave together the story of his human life, sprinkled with embellished little half-truths, like the disapproving, stern father or the love-hate rivalry with his actress sister.

One day his favorite barista, Kelsey, asks if he's married.

Michael tells them that he met his wife a lifetime ago, when he was in a "bad place." He was practically a different person then, one he's not proud of. He can tell they don't believe him--that they can't see him as anything but an enthusiastic and kind old man--but he insists all the same. He says that his wife brought out the best in him, helping him to become the person he is today. She was his partner in crime, who'd gone with him to hell and back, and he's been a little lost since she died.

When Kelsey asks her name, she says, "Eleanor."

Since Chidi left, Micheal's spent his evenings at the clown house. Eleanor has other distractions during the day, like visits with Mindy and Tahani, or strolls down a Senegalese street, but the evenings are for them. The only two non-Janet members of Team Cockroach left in the Good Place. Sometimes he brings chips and queso, and sometimes he brings tubs of Chunky Monkey. Sometimes their watch list is Chidi-approved and cerebral, sometimes it's pure reality TV trash.

"How is it," Eleanor says, scooping a dollop of sour cream and pico, "that crap like Love is Blind is still addictive in Heaven, where I can literally spend my days soaring on a freaking eagle? I keep thinking that I'm going to, like, lose twenty points or something."

"Love is Blind isn't that bad," Michael says. "Okay, the Messica stuff is, but I for one think Cameron and Lauren's relationship is precious. They're love is so pure--" he catches himself, wincing. "Sorry, Eleanor."

"Dude, what are you sorry for?" she says through a mouthful of nachos. "I'm not some fragile little girl who'll collapse because other people are in love. Does it suck that Chidi's gone? Fork yeah it does. But I'm dealing with it."

"Okay," he says. "Then I'm sorry for making it weird."

"You are making it weird by apologizing so much!" Eleanor says, laughing a little. She grabs a throw pillow and whacks him in the chest. It feels like nothing. "So knock it off. We can gush about our feelings and shirt another time. Right now, I just want to unwind with a classic Eleanor and Michael trash bag hangout. That cool?"

"Completely," he says. "Let the trashiness commence."

They sit with his arm around her shoulder and her head resting on the crook of his neck. Michael's relieved they still have this. Though he feels guilty for the thought, he can't help his relief that out of all the humans, she's the one still with him. He misses Chidi and Jason and Tahani every day, but he'd gladly trade them if he can still have Eleanor.

As the episode credits roll, Eleanor peers up at him. "You know, there is something I've been missing since Chidi left, that I think you could help me out with."

"Oh?"

"I've got a certain itch that needs scratching, if you're picking up what I'm putting down."

Michael snaps his fingers excitedly. "Yes! I actually think I am!"

She laughs. "Dude, reign in the adorkableness, or I'm not going to be able to contain myself. But seriously," she adds, voice going low. "Are you interested? Because I know it might be more...complicated for you, and I don't want to ignore your feelings."

Oh, right. In his excitement at finally mastering human coyness, he brushed right past the actual implication.

"It wouldn't be weird for me," he says, stammering a little. "If it's not weird for you, I mean. I just want you to be happy."

"I can think of a few ways you can make me happy," she says, running her fingers through his hair.

He bends down, crashing his lips to hers. He's become quite good at kissing over the Bearimys, or at least, at kissing Eleanor. While the old Michael would've been disgusted by the mere thought, the new Michael craves every touch, from the pressure of her teeth around his lip to the way her thumb glosses over his cheek bone.

"It sounds like you really loved her," Clare says, near the end of their guitar lesson.

"More than anything," he nods.

"You never completely get over loss," she says. "I had the hardest time accepting it when my Frank died. I kept expecting to find him drinking his coffee at the kitchen island or pulling up weeds in the garden. It was a struggle, coming to terms with the fact that I'll never see him again."

"Oh, I think you might," Michael says. He knows that she's heard these tired platitudes ad nausea, but it's true. She will see Francis DiSandro again, once they both pass their Good Place tests. They have that to look forward to. Whereas he knows that he will never, ever see Eleanor again.

He tries to push that thought aside. He doesn't want to think about that now, not here in his friend's dining room, surrounded by her potted plants and twin grandkids' scattered possessions. He spots Ben's open book and Abbie's solitary discarded sock and wonders, fleetingly, what it's like to be a child. That's one human experience that will always be a mystery to Michael.

"That's a lovely thought," she says diplomatically. "Same time Thursday?"

"I wouldn't miss it."

He wonders what it's like to sleep, as he watches Eleanor lying naked under the covers. Eleanor certainly looks peaceful. Innocent, too. The way the sunlight hits her hair makes it almost seem to glow.

She murmurs a happy little sound. Her blue-green eyes flash open.

"This has to be so boring for you," she yawns. "Watching me sleep. I wouldn't be offended if you left."

"I want to stay," he says, stroking her hair. "Besides, what's the rush? I have an eternity of time on my hands."

Eleanor sits up a little. "Are you sure this is okay? I mean, don't get me wrong, the sex is way better than okay--you can it get, demon buddy." His chest swells with pride, despite himself. "But you'd tell me if there were any issues right? Like if it's not cool with you?"

"Of course," he says, smiling at her worried expression. "But you don't have to worry, because I'm way more than cool with it."

He's not sure how she can think that it's anything less than bliss for him.

Dreams are some of his favorite human things (at the very least, they're in his top 200 favorite things) but he could do without the nightmares.

Sometimes he's in the Bad Place during his apprentice days. He hears the familiar soundtrack of screams as he tortures his assigned human, only to realize after he's ripped off its fingernails that it's Jason or Chidi or Tahani or Eleanor. Sometimes his friends are being tortured by Shawn, Trevor, and Vicki while he watches in helpless horror. They beg him to save them, but try as he might, he can't reach them in time.

He wakes up in the dark, panting. It's just a bad dream, he tells himself. He saved his humans, and all of them lived out their best existences in the Good Place.

But it's not enough to stop the flood of bad memories. Michael at his desk, mapping out his grand neighborhood scheme. Michael cackling evilly in Eleanor's face. Michael gleefully tossing humans into the lava pits. Of all of the souls that he tortured, how many actually deserved it? Maybe ten. Ten, out of millions. The kindly, harmless Michael that his friends and neighbors know has tortured more people than any human war criminal.

He remembers what Jason said about guilt versus shame.

Gingerly, Michael gets out of bed, careful not to disturb Jason (the dog) curled up at his feet. He puts on his slippers, stubbing his toe in the process (an experience that's both delightful and painful). He pours himself a glass of water because that's what they always do in the movies whenever they have a bad dream.

He's had so many human experiences now, the kinds he could only dream of before. That peculiar chemical tang in his hair after swimming in a chlorinated pool. Waiting forty minutes on a customer service call. Feeling his stomach rumble with pesky hunger pains, his bones ache whenever he was exhausted yet couldn't sleep, the sweet release of a pee break after a two-hour road trip. Some days it's enough to make him forget that he was ever anything but human, until nightmares like this remind him that he was a demon once, too.

Maybe one day he'll come to terms with being both.

"Eleanor?" Michael asks.

"Sup, demon bud?" Eleanor flashes him a classic Shellstrop smile. "Or should I say, soon-to-be-human bud?"

"That's what I want to talk about," he says quickly, licking his lips. They're in the clown house, waiting for Janet to escort him to the portal. In fifteen, maybe ten minutes time, he's going to leave the Good Place. Who knows when (or if) he'll ever be back? "How do I know this is the right decision? What if I go to Earth, realize it's a mistake, and then it's too late to go back?"

"Having second thoughts, I see. How very human of you," she says. "Let's talk this out. How are you really feeling?"

"Nervous," he says after careful thought. "But also excited. It's an equal mix of both."

"Michael, that's like the most human combo ever," she says, patting his back. "I don't think we ever go through any major change without feeling both nervous and excited at the same time."

"Really?"

She nods. "That's just how it is. Look, I arranged this whole thing because you deserve to be happy. If you really don't want to, don't. But if you're just grappling with the whole all-change-is-scary-even-good-change deal, than I say take that leap."

A leap into faith. That's what this is, isn't?

"You're right," he says. "I'm just being silly."

Her smile is so bright. He wishes he could freeze this moment forever, so he can always see her smiling like this. "You're just being human."

The door opens.

"Michael?" Janet says. Her voice is as pleasant as always, but something's a little off. "They're ready for you now."

The finality hits him like a runaway trolley. He looks into Eleanor's eyes into a momentary panic, because they both know that this is it. Unless he's hit by a truck the second he gets to Earth, Eleanor will have already walked through the door by the time he dies. This is it for them.

Without breaking eye contact, she cups his face into her hands.

"I love you, Michael," she says.

He knows it's not the same kind of love that she has for Chidi, or that Michael has for her, but it means everything to him that she said it.

"I love you, too," he says. His eyes sting. There are tears in her eyes, too, threatening to spill over.

"Look at us saps," he sniffles. "Getting all weepy."

"Pretty pathetic, huh?" he says, dabbing at his eyes.

"Michael, promise me that you're going to live it up down there. That you'll be the most adorkable, bad ass, awesome silver fox that you can be."

"I promise."

That's his last image of Eleanor: her standing in the doorway, rubbing the the tears off of her face.

Today's lesson is on Clare's front porch. It's a warm, breezy day after a week of blistering heat, so they're savoring it together. From the window they can see Abbie and Ben in the living room, watching cartoon dinosaurs. From what Michael gathers, the little T-Rex is friends with the group of herbivores, though they don't all trust him yet.

"Congratulations, Michael," Clare says. "You've officially made it to intermediate level."

He might not be selling out stadiums any time soon, but he's flustered with pride at how far he's come since his first artistic fumbling. If only his friends could hear him now.

"We'll still have lessons, right?" he asks, plucking at the guitar strings.

"Well, I certainly won't refuse if you want to continue paying me," she says. They chuckle.

"You know," Clare says, as Michael strums along to a half-remembered tune. "We could always see each other outside of lessons. We can have dinner sometime, if you want. I know this Italian place I think you'd like, if you're free this weekend."

He looks at her and smiles. "I'd like that."

[rezdogsyonder]

Not Like You Think

Pairing: The Powered!Reader is married to an OC the marvel characters come in later.

Summary: You and your family are in trouble. What lengths will you go to keep them safe? Go against the Avengers? A gang infamous among CIA?

Warnings: Robbery, breaking the law, lying, murder, cheating

A/N: the reader is like early 20’s, married young to high school sweetheart. With a 3 year old. The reader has super strength, is bulletproof, and is influential. Like kilgrave but can turn it off. Also: didn’t expect it to be so long.. sorry! Couldn’t get back to present day in this chapter

**********

**********

You don’t know how it got to this.

That’s a lie. You do, but you didn’t mean for it to get this messy.

They’re almost here. You need to leave. They’re not close to being done though. The car is waiting. It’s running. They’re probably gonna see you leaving if they’re here quick enough.

We could hide. Blend in. Yeah, that could work.

**********

2 weeks before.

“Honey? What time you gonna be home tonight?” You yelled from the kitchen. Your preparing your babies diaper bag for daycare.

“Right around 8:30 ish? Maybe 9. They pretty much don’t let you take more overtime after 9.” He peaked out the door while doing his tie. He walked over to the counter and began eating the food you prepared for him.

“I’ll keep some food in the fridge for you.” You walked by kidding him on the cheek.

You walk over to the bedroom and to the bed, “Come on baby, time to wake up.” She just rolls over and shoved her face in the covers. “Come on sleepy buns, it’s early enough that you can have cereal.”

That got her sitting up, she reaches out to you and you oblige, bringing her to the kitchen.

“How’s my nakey baby?” Christopher smiles poking her belly. She giggles a little bit but she’s still trying to fight it, still wanting to go to sleep.

You put her in her chair and pour some cereal in the tray. You grabbed her soft little brush and put her hair in two little pigtails.

“See you tonight. Love ya. Love you too my little bean.”

“Love you. See you.” You say halfheartedly, grabbing Leia’s clothes for today.

You hear the door slam. Getting her dressed quickly and grabbing her diaper bag and an extra outfit, you’re soon following.

**********

“Leia is at daycare, they close at 4:30, so I’ll need to leave at 4:15, drop her off with Joey, and head back to work.” You say to yourself in your car. You park in the one employee parking spot that is left and walk inside. 

It’s not much, but this restaurant has been the only place that would hire you. It’s kinda like a subway, but for burritos and tacos, and the place tips well. Especially in the Summer, which is approaching right now. Pretty soon you’ll have to find a different place for Leia to stay. The daycare you go to only works during the school year. 

You have your apron on and hat to cover your hairnet, but you see your day going down the drain when you see your least favorite person. The store owner. The one person you hate because, for some reason, he sees you as a threat. Maybe because the franchise owner almost gave this place to you. Yeah, gave. Guessing he found out from another manager in another store, he went to the franchise owner and laid down daddy’s money. 

Why was he even working here if he was rich? Honestly you think he just has a personal vendetta against you. He has hated you since junior year. 

“Ugh what are you doing here?” He said in disgust.

“How professional, Jamie.”

“I don’t need to be professional, I’m the boss Y/N.” He smirked smugly. “Just in case you’ve forgotten.”

A customer walks in, saving you from having to speak to him. You try to serve them fast, but slowly too because once they’re sitting at their table, Jamie is just gonna berate you for nothing. Like always.

“Who is the one that worked shifts last night? Hmm?”

“That was me and Matt.”

“What is this?”he holds his hand up.

“A bill?” It was 100. We catered a small party yesterday, probably about 20 people but that 20 brought guests.

“A counterfeit.”

“Well we used the pen thingy on every big bill that we get.”

“No you don’t. Cause then you would have realized it was counterfeit.” The door swings open and you expect a customer but Matt walks in.

“Matt tell him we always use pens on big bills”

“We use the pen on big bills. Every time, a habit we’ve gotten from you docking our pay a billion dollars.” Matt said immediately jumping on your side. A bit monotonous and you suspect it’s because of the bags under his eyes.

“If you used the pen then you would have known it was COUNTERFEIT.” He’s starting to lose his shit. Unprofessional as always. “I will dock you both 50 from your paychecks.”

“You’re so... ugh. You know that $50 is nearly a full shift.” You pinch the bridge of your nose. “Give me the bill.” Holding out your hand. He looks at you suspiciously before handing it over. You grab the pen from the register and write over it.

You hold the bill out in front of you mockingly. “Did you use an actual marker?” Showing the yellow marks.

His face goes beet red and Matt is about to laugh, trying to hold it back. Jamie just took out his own marker and marks the bill, the color turning a dark blue.

“See?”

“Well then this is on you. Maybe you should quit being cheep and get us more detector pens.”

You cross your arms, and Matt can’t can’t hold it back and he’s giggling quietly. You know Jamie is trying to find a way to pin it on you.

Jamie opened his mouth to say something, but he sighed and walked away. Matt fist bumps you.

“You know one of these days he’s gonna get what’s coming to him.”

“That would be the dream. But right now he is our boss so we gotta dream while we work, come on. We gotta prep the pico and quac.”

The two of you continued your days work in peace, getting a couple regulars. It was a bit busier today than usual, you don’t know what caused it though. You even had to ask Christopher to pick up Leia.

Pretty soon the last group of people left their table and were leaving the restaurant. These guys were really polite, cleaning up after themselves too.

“You get front, I’ll get kitchen and food?” Matt offered.

“Yep, I’ll get the ice ready for you.” You grab an empty bean bin and a plastic knife from your station and walk around to the fountain machine. You jam the knife in the ice dispenser and go to get the mop bucket from the back.

Once back there you hear arguing, they’re shouting and it sounds like they’re through the back door. The door to drop off garbage. You try to hear better by pressing your ear against the door. One of the voices is Jamie.

“Excuse m—”

“JESUS!” It was just Matt. He has a bag of garbage.

“Huho sorry Y/N. ‘Xcuse.” You put your hand on his chest stopping him.

“Here I can take it.” You hold your hand out, he shrugs and gives you the bag. It was warm from the unused meat from today. You scrunched your nose for a second before heading outside.

The arguing stopped as soon as you opened the door. You saw Jamie and a man you recognized as a regular. He’s kinda too attractive to forget. Long brown hair, but it suited him, especially in the man bun he has right now. He was actually apart of the group that just left.

“Hey.” You wave to the customer, “what are you still doing here Jamie?” You said in a less enthusiastic tone. You walk over to the garbage can. Quickly before the meat burned through the heavy duty bag. It wasn’t fun to clean up.

“Just dealing with business Y/N, just head back in.” He snapped. You heave the heavy bag over the edge and into the garbage.

“Whatever you say,” you put your hands up in mock surrender. “Have a good night.” You say to the man with him.

“You too, ma’am.” He took his hand out of his pocket to wave, his shiny glove glinting in the moonlight. ‘It’s nearly summer.’ You thought, but he was still in a long sleeved jacket and gloves apparently.

You went back inside to continue your work, but that weird altercation stayed in your mind. Consuming your thoughts. Matt has the beans cooled back down, good thing because you had forgotten about the ice, he caught it before it started overflowing.

You’re done with the food heaters, the steamer, the tips, and the till. You’re pulling out the garbage from by the front door when you hear a loud bang outside. You go in the kitchen to see Matt.

“What was that?” You keep walking towards the back.

“Y/N I don’t think you should go out there, they’ll probably hit you in the face with a fircracker... Shitkids.”

“Well, yeah but the garbage.” You open the door, or try at least. Something was blocking it.

“Matt? Can you open this?” You push on the door to emphasize your need, even though he can’t see from where he is. Whoever it was probably stacked stuff on the other side. Garbage most likely.

“Yeah, coming.” He walked around you and tried pushing on the door. Even he struggles with the door, which kind of surprised you with him being kinda buff.

The door is open just enough for you to get out and the two of you hear a groan. You and Matt exchange a glance before you squeeze through the door, him trying to pull you back in.

It’s too dark to see anything, the moon had moved higher and maybe behind some clouds, you can’t make out many shapes. You’re holding the heavy bag with two hands so you swing it into the garbage can and grabbed your phone.

“Turn on your flash, cause holy fuck I can’t see anything.” Matt asks, he’s just getting through. The door closing behind him, making it even darker than before.

“K just a second.” You get it on but the phone is having trouble reading your fingers. Whatever liquid was on your hand preventing it. You wipe your phone on your boob and your hand on your hip, it finally reads.

Once you see, the sight has you and Matt standing in shock. It was a body, face down and covered in blood. A good ten seconds has passed before Matt reacts and jumps to the other side of the person.

“Y/N call 911!”

“Yeah.... right.” You dial the number while keeping the light on the two of them. Your slow with your actions, this situation feeling as if it weren’t real. Not paying attention to the monotone voice at the other end, “Get to TacoTacos on main please hurry, send an ambulance.” You keep them on the line, answering the woman’s questions absentmindedly.

“Does he have a pulse?”

Matt’s hands were already on his throat feeling for one. After a couple seconds he shakes his head.

“No, he doesn’t.”

Matt tucks the man’s arm and rolls him over. It was Jamie. He begins cpr.

“It’s my boss. His name is Jamie Ness. I.. I think he was shot.”

“Don’t worry ma’am help is on the way. They should be there in a couple minutes.”

Yep, this wasn’t real. You look away. At the far corner of the shop is a man standing there. He was the man that Jamie was arguing with. He brought one finger to his lips, smiled, and disappeared behind the corner.

**********

“Do you know anybody that would want to do harm to Mr.Ness?” The police officer asks.

“Who wouldn’t?” You look at the paramedic then at the officer, “Sorry, I know it isn’t good to say, but I haven’t seen one person that got along with Jamie.” You pull the blanket tighter around you.

“Do you know what Jamie was doing back there?”

You look the the corner where you saw the man. The paramedic straps that tightening thing around your arm. “No, he might’ve been coming back, but after yelling at us I wouldn’t think he would.... he’s not the kind of person to apologize or say he was wrong. Yenno?” You feel a stethescope being pressed to your chest.

“Mmhmm” he hums, writing in his notepad before slapping it shut, “I should let you go for now, here’s my card. If you remember anything, call me.”

His card said Carl Cohen, and had his number. You nod and tuck it into your apron.

“You’re good to go. I thought you had shock, and you’re blood pressure was a little low and your heart rate was a little high, but nothing too bad.”

The paramedic takes his cuff off of you and you hand him back the blanket. You walk over to Matt who was sitting on the curb. He was looking at the blood on his hands.

“Come ‘ere.” You pull at his elbow. He looks up, you see the tears looking in his eyes. He stands up reluctantly.

You lead him back into the shop. Through the front this time. Bringing him to the sink. You wash his hands for him. It seems he’s the way you were earlier. The blood stained his skin. You do what you can for now.

You lead him back out the front and tell him to get in the car. He usually hitched a ride with you anyways. You run back and switch off all the lights, also writing a note for the opening crew that said call you and you’d explain why the closing didn’t close all the way.

Running back to the car you’re heart breaks when you see him. He’s just looking out the window as tear roll down his cheeks. You shut your door and his attention switches to you, before switching back to the window.

“Do you want to come over to my place?” You offer, thinking he shouldn’t be alone right now.

He nods back to you.

The ride was quiet.

You get to your driveway and notice that an unfamiliar car is parked in front. You park beside Chris’s car.

You open the door for Matt and usher him to the closest bathroom. Grabbing hydrogen peroxide from the mirror, you spray his hands with it. The stains washing away with it. You could tell he feels a little bit better now that he can’t see it, but it’s still bad.

“Hold on.” You rush to your room, upstairs, as quietly as you can so you don’t wake up Leia. You burst into your room, only to find Christopher and a woman in bed.

You stop for a second and you’re shocked, honestly, but Matt is downstairs. You glare and point at your stammering husband “You’re fucking lucky that I can’t deal with this right now.” You grab the shirt you stole from Matt when you were roommates a couple years ago and a pair of your pajama pants from when you were pregnant and huge.

You run back down to Matt. He’s still in the same spot you left him. You place the clothes in his lap and step past him to turn on the shower.

“Clean up. Take as long as you need. I’ll just be outside. ‘Kay?” You kiss him on the forehead.

You leave and softly close the door. Upstairs, the first door on the left is Leia’s room. She’s still in her crib, sleeping face down. You grab another blanket and place it on top of her. She’s practically in a coma if she’s warm.

You close the door softly before going back to your room.

“Well good to see you clothed!” You gesture to the other woman. You know it’s not really her fault, but you’re angry. You pull her closer. “Did you know he was married? Tell the truth.” Using your powers on her.

“No, and I’m really so sorry. He just told me he was a single dad.” She rushed past you, seemingly embarrassed.

“Are you serious?” You’re trying to stay calm. Not wanting to get to angry. “In our house. In our bed. With our baby in the next room?” Each sentence accentuated with one step closer to him.

“You said you couldn’t get out of work, that you were gonna have a late close.”

“So this is justified?” You gesture to the bed.

“I—ugh, I—“ he steps back for every step you take closer.

“Spit it out.” venom lacing your words. He’s backed into the corner.

“We—ugh—we haven’t been together in a while. Um and just, I—”

“Get out.” Not wanting to hear more. You’re backing away now, knowing what happens when you get too angry. Not even he knows, but now you guess he never will.

“What?”

“Get out. It’s that simple. Leave”

“Where will I go? What about Leia?”

“I don’t care, and if you cared about Leia so much then you wouldn’t have done this.” You said matter of factly.

“But—“

“Nope!” You cut him off. “Get out, and don’t you dare think of waking her.”

Knowing him, he’ll stomp throughout the house just to make things hard for you. He seems to always do that when he loses the argument. You watch him step past you and out the bedroom door. You follow, making sure he actually leaves.

Once downstairs you can see he heard the shower going. He grabs his keys and turns to you.

He points to the door then back to you, “Youre such a fucking hypocrite.”

“No, I am not.” You whisper yelled. You began pushing him out the door.

Once he’s fully out you close the door behind him, trying not to slam it, and lock it. You turn around and lean against the door, you hear his car start up and leave. You feel tears welling up in your eyes, you shut them tightly.

This isn’t going to be easy.

[jayascorner]

lights part 1

tyler joseph x reader

•

•

•

touring with many bands was the best thing that could ever happen to you. being a professional photographer made it so fun traveling around the world with many artists. especially if it’s your favorite artist or band. you’ve gotten to tour with panic! at the disco, fall out boy, twenty one pilots, my chemical romance when they were still together, and many more.

you recently got to go back on tour with twenty one pilots again, for their newest album. they know you fairly well, and vice versa.

[now this is just background information, let’s get to the story]

you’re meeting them at an airport, because they’re first stop is Nashville, Tennessee, conveniently where you live.

you arrive at the airport, kinda nervous since these guys are super popular and successful. i mean, you know them so it shouldn’t be that nerve racking.

they don’t show up for another 30 minutes, so you have some time to think this through.

ok. so i’ll say, “hey! long time no see! i mean if you remember me.” eww no that’s just cringy.

maybe.. “hi tyler and josh! wow it’s been so long i almost didn’t recognize you there.” nOPE no no no. what if they haven’t changed?

i could go like, “hey guys. i’m so sorry about the death of your grandfather, tyler.” okay no. we’re getting too personal here.

alright at this point ima just stick with improvising. yeah... watch me make a fool out of myself. ok now i’m nervous. this is gonna be-

“y/n l/n. that’s you right?”

oh there they are... shoot what do i say?

*i’m thinking....i’m thinking....*

oh yes time to put on my acting skills.

“uhhh yeah? who are you guys?” you ask, trying your best to sound bewildered by random people knowing your name.

“wha- you know who we are.” tyler says.

“maybe it’s been so long i didn’t recognize y’all... twenty one pilots right?” you start to ponder out loud, obviously acting.

josh laughs. “i think you should be an actor.”

“yeah, you got me. i was kidding.” you say.

tyler shoots josh a look of ‘how’d you do that?’

“what?” josh whispers.

“never mind.” tyler shakes his head.

you take some time to think of what to say next.

“so how have y’all been?”

they both take a seat at your bench.

tyler sighs. “oh y’know, i’ve been better. i had a pretty rough morning.”

“why?” you ask, growing more and more curious about his morning.

“well actually, he just hates getting up that early. he’s not used to it.” josh chimes in.

“yeah and i didn’t get my coffee.” he crosses his arms.

“now that sucks.” i point a finger in the air.

it really does.

josh laughs. “you don’t drink coffee, tyler.”

“oh you’re right! i don’t drink coffee.” tyler announces. josh just looks at him and facepalms.

“sorry y/n. he does this when he sees pretty girls.”

tyler laughs sarcastically.

“shut up josh.”

oh shoot he’s right. i’m pretty? he never acted like that last time...

~~time skeep

since you’re the one who drove out there to get them, you have to drive them to their bus.

“nice ride you got here.” tyler says as you hop in the driver seat of your jeep.

“thanks. any of y’all wanna sit in the passenger seat? or y’all good back there?”

“yeah we’re good.” josh replies.

they buckle up in the back, since nobody wants to neglect anyone alone in the backseat.

you guys get to catch up on your lives a little bit on the ride back, and you realize how much you’ve missed touring with them. they’re really cool dudes to be around. this is going to be an exciting 8 months. you thought to yourself. although tyler didn’t seem as talkative....

“is this it?” you ask, driving up to one of the tour buses in the area.

“yeah.” josh says. you guys hop out of the jeep.

you all get settled, and unpack your bags.

“this is by far, the nicest tour bus i’ve ever seen.” you say, astonished at how high quality it is.

“comes from the best.” tyler adds.

“yeah i can see that.”

since there’s really nothing to do, and it’s about an hour past one, you ask them if they want to eat.

“sure.” josh says.

“yeah i’m starving. is there a taco bell around here?” tyler asks, while the two of them look at you, knowing that you live here.

“well yeah, but there aren’t around this specific place.” you announce.

tyler purses his lips.

“how long?”

“oh i dunno,” you wave your hand in the air. “maybe half an hour.”

“i mean, i can go with you. tyler will wait here.” josh suggests.

“ok i guess that would work. what about you, tyler?” you ask him, to make sure he’s okay with that.

he shrugs, but then says sure.

“okay then, we’re gonna go now.”

~~~~

“so what does tyler eat here?”

josh shrugged, “anything, really. he loves all of their food. he wrote a whole saga about this place.”

oh. so he’s that person...

“oh so i’ll just call him.” you state to yourself.

you pull in to the driveway of the chain restaurants, and when you guys get to where taco bell is supposed to be, it’s as if it’s under reconstruction.

you stop the car.

“well crap.”

josh sighs. “yeah tyler’s gonna be pissed.”

you turn over to josh, “so...plan B?”

“yeah.”

you drive by in the nearest parking lot and park in one of the slots.

you pull out your phone from one of the cup holders.

“what’s tyler’s phone number?”

“you wanna contact him?” josh asks.

“well yeah, i’m gonna make a quick phone call.” you say.

he recites tyler’s phone number and you type it on your keypad.

ringggg

ringggggggg

ri-

“this is tyler joseph.”

“oh good josh gave me the right number.”

“who is this?”

“a complete stranger that found josh dun in a parking lot.”

josh chuckles at that.

“no seriously who is this?” he asks once more.

“it’s y/n.” you say with a eye roll.

“oh ok, can i have a cheesy gord-“

“no i’m not taking your order, taco bell’s under reconstruction.”

“oh great.” he mutters under his breath.

“do you like chipotle?” you ask, hoping his answer is yes.

“sure, y’all can get that instead. but just know, i’m suing.”

“no, tyler you’re not suing.”

“well i can because i’m-“

“nuh-uh just because you’re tyler joseph, does not mean you can sue taco bell.” you interrupt him.

“alright, mom.” he says jokingly.

“i ain’t ‘cho mom.” and with that, you hang up.

josh laughs a bit. “it’s a good thing you hung up, because he could’ve said something else.”

...what?

“what might that have been?” you ask, totally not having any idea as to what he’s hinting at.

“i don’t think i would like to specify.” he adds, as you turn around to drive out to chipotle.

“is it bad?”

he stays silent for a few seconds.

“no it’s not bad.....actually yeah it’s pretty bad.”

“oh. oh i think i know.” you say, once you get the idea. “is it the opposite of mom?”

“yeah.” he says with some guilt.

“oh that’s terrible. i thought he had a girlfriend.”

“no, actually he hasn’t had one since...geez i have no idea.” he chuckles.

“it’s been that long huh? that’s surprising. he’s kinda cute.”

he doesn’t say anything, so you guys sit there in silence for the rest of the drive.

you arrive at chipotle, since it was only a couple miles away.

“so what does he eat here?” you ask.

he tells you what tyler likes so you get an idea of what will satisfy him. after walking in the doors and fighting the line, it’s finally your turn to order.

“good afternoon, what would you like to start off with?” one of the employees says.

“hi, i would like a bowl, and a burrito as well because i’m ordering for someone else.”

“sure thing ma’am. would you like rice?” he recites, well used to taking people’s orders.

“yes please.”

“brown or white?”

“uh...” you look at josh for any preference. he mouths ‘white’.

“white please.” you smile friendly.

“alright, ma’am. now do you want the same for your bowl?”

“actually i’ll have brown rice in the bowl, thank you.” you say as politely as possible.

“now what would you like, ma’am?” he asks again.

“uh may i have some chicken in the bowl and in the burrito as well?”

he nods and does exactly what you asked.

“and some black beans in the bowl, and pinto in the burrito.”

“yes ma’am.”

“extra pico with red chili salsa in the burrito , and guac in the bowl. and also lettuce and extra cheese in both.” you finish.

the employee is finishing your order while you wait for the rest. josh is almost done with his while you get to the cashier with the food.

“would you like a drink with this, ma’am?” the lady asks.

“yes please, may i have a water and a soft drink?”

she hands you the cups, and you say thank you.

she gives you the total and then you pay.

after a few moments she gives you the card back. “thank you ma’am, have a nice day!”

“thank you so much! you too.”

you grab the food and the cups and head to the soda dispenser.

josh follows a little bit after.

“too bad there isn’t any red bull.” he says, jokingly.

you laugh, “yeah, what should we get him?”

“maybe a coke or something.”

“ok cool.”

once everything is settled you leave and get back to the jeep.

to be continued...

[1nn32dem0n5]

A good spot

The ambition and determination he once felt had faded away, slowly at first, then suddenly. Drinking, partying and fucking were the only things that he still found some modicum of pleasure in, but even these were slowly starting to lose their appeal, and this frightened him. At no point in Marc’s life did the pursuit of new vagina hold such a low priority. The town had finally gotten to him, and it made it clearly apparent that his flame, his passion for studying physics, didn’t really burn from within because it would’t have so easily been extinguished. In five years time he went from aspirations of Nobel prizes and solving the problem of high temperature superconductivity to complete self-loathing and apathy about life and all the promises of happiness it held, especially those in the field of physics. Days crawled by painfully dragging behind them precious hours that could be spent working on his thesis but instead were spent doing anything but. The only remnant of his highly ritualized work schedule was lunch at fiesta, which somehow survived through the mental trauma of the last few years.

Charlie Zou was late as always. He came from a well off Chinese family and was used to having people wait around for him. He avoided discussing the topic of his family since he hated most of them and tolerated the ones he didn’t despise. Against their wishes he left to study physics at a prestigious American university, but instead he found himself in the festering hellhole of North Lydsville. He was Marc’s office mate, and shared his uneasiness with their current predicament. He recently found the writings and teachings of Buddha, and was more content with the current level of despair in the universe than Marc.

“Let’s go fat fuck, I’m starving.” “Hello!” his eyes opened widely as if this was a look he practiced in the mirror many times and determined that the full meaning of the “hello” was lost without this eye maneuver.

Mark took one last drag from his cig and shot it towards the nearby garbage bin, missing, and they were inside together. The entire staff knew them as they ate there religiously, with the exception of sundays of course, because Sunday is God’s day and fiesta is closed. It’s a sin to drink and make burritos on Sundays in Lydsville.

“The usual?” Bill asks. Bill was recently hired , and although his burritos during the first week were meek and lacked ambition, his skill was improving. It helped that we had become acquaintances too. He threw in a few extra pieces of meat once in a while.

“Yup” “How are you guys today?” His cheerful mood annoyed me on most days, today included. “Same shit. But the weather is getting better” “Oh man, hell yea. This town is unpredictable as fuck. One day its nice and sunny and out of nowhere it can just right up thunderstorm on you. It looks like its gonna rain today I tell you” “Really?” “Oh yea. Definitely, I’ve lived here my entire life and I know these things. It definitely looks like rain. I was telling my buddy the other day it was gonna rain and he didn’t believe me cuz the skies were clear as fuck, and what do you think? Thirty minutes later: rain!!” “Good to know.” “For you sir? Steak or chicken today?” Charlie often changed the regular order of steak enchilada burrito to grilled chicken, since he would often complain that the steak was too well done and he liked his medium well. He had only one serving of taste in everything, meat included, but at least five of arrogance. “Steak please.” Amidst the never ending cornfields, further in from the ghetto of South Lydsville where you wouldn’t wanna go except to visit the single “mall” in an 80 mile radius there was the Ivy League of the midwest, Peru University, and right on the edge of campus the true gem of the town - an out of place mexican food restaurant. Surprisingly good too Marcus would say and Marcus knew about such things, since he was a New Yorker. He liked to think he knew about most things, and about most things he did know a good deal, especially women. They paid and sat near the window, because those are the best seats since they allowed for watching the hot young coeds tramp by in their leggings and Uggs. Fucking leggings and Uggs, oh and the Starbucks of course. The trifecta of white sororowhores all across America, or maybe it was just Lydsville.  

“So tell me about your encounter with Yuri? What the fuck was that about?” “What?”

To say Charlie was absent minded would be an understatement. His body was here but his mind, to this day, I have no idea where it was. Often he would forget entire conversations, introduce himself to the same people dozens of times, and lose his personal belongings almost on a schedule. He only carried the minimum amount of possessions on himself at all times.

“Oh yeaah! I remember now… So I was walking in the hallway umm walking to the bathroom and Yuri was walking towards me. Maybe he was umm like 20 feet away. And he saw me umm and he looked down, but as we were getting closer together. Or wait is it gotten closer together? Tell me what’s the correct thing?” “Closer together works.” “Are you sure? Isn’t the correct syntax ‘as we HAD gotten closer together’?” He asked triumphantly pointing his finger up in the air and tilting his head slightly to the side, as if he made an enlightening discovery. “Umm. Yea that works too, both are fine. Whatever go on!” Mark said impatiently. Charlie often had the habit of not only speaking in fragments, but often interrupting stories at the most inopportune times. “Okay. Anyway. Then we were like 2 meters away from each other ummm and he stared up at me for umm one moment and then he looked back down and passed me. I tried to say hello but it was so awkward.” “That’s it? That was the most awkward thing that ever happened to you involving Yuri?” “Yeaaah!” he remarked much more excitedly than before. “He just completely ignored my existence.” He said as he burst out in his usual wheezing sounding laughter. “Really? This is surprising to you? How many physicists do you know that are socially competent?” “Meh.”

They devoured the burritos like starving hyenas scouring a fresh kill, eating as if they had only seconds until the lions returned with the pack to claim what was rightfully theirs. Mark always cut his width wise first, and then lengthwise, leaving pieces that were just slightly larger than bite sized as to experience the feeling of having his mouth overly full of delicious freshly baked flour tortilla, succulent steak, cheese, hot enchilada sauce and crisp cold sour cream all at the same time. He quickly followed each bite with a scoop of pico, topped with cillantro and lettuce cut into thin squares. Charlie cut his almost into thirds, and bend over his plate as he stuffed as much as much as could possibly fit into his mouth, and letting the rest fall back down. The hot sauce could coat his massive Asian lips, which he didn’t wipe until the end of the meal. This was a very typical manner of eating in China, but most Americans observing would think of him uncultured and manner-less. He could hardly give a fuck. He hardly gave a fuck what anyone thought of him. His response when people would point out that the outline of his cock shows through his thin Chinese sweatshorts would always be a courtesy “Ohh I see”, then start laughing his second laugh, a loud raucous laugh, and then just go on wearing them day after day. One pair he had since he came to America.  

They barely spoke as they ate. Marc propped his phone on his wallet and was reading something on it. Charlie just stared into the nothingness of his rapidly vanishing burrito, occasionally throwing out a single snicker which would catch the attention of his companion, thinking it was another pair of see through yoga pants walking past. Most of the time it was nothing.

“You know what the problem is with asian girls?” “They squeal during sex?” “No. They don’t shave their pussies. In China only the prostitutes shave. I like America.” “I don’t mind a little bush, but a full bush is too much, especially when the hair goes down all the way to the thighs.” “It does that?” “Yeah.”

They sat in the cubicle a few more minutes of silence, their bellies full and minds empty. Then they went out, walked across the street into a pothole-ridden alleyway between the buildings and sat down outside against the wall of a parking garage, not too far off a way from the dumpsters, but far enough that the awful smell of from the “used cooking oil” container didn’t permeate through to them. They each smoked a cig and the silence was broken by Bill who came out on his smoke break too.

“Hey, wassap guys. You know this spot too?”

It was after all, a good spot.

[pachinkowashere]

#I'mNotChangingTheirStoryI'mNotChangingTheirStoryI'mNot--

Doitdoitdoitdoitdoit- *shot*

OK LOL DON'T DO THAT. Actually, I say that but I honestly love this idea a lot and it'd make Keith's reaction to Pico's sudden break up with him even more heartbreaking in retrospect.

After all, the friend you thought was dead this entire time suddenly shows up alive again after all of these years. Pico not knowing him can easily be handwaved as the ginger not having kept up with his old childhood friend's life (partly because he was more focused on making sure his family was okay and somewhat because he might've not trusted himself to not try to reconnect with his old friend perhaps? Who knows! You decide~!); Keith most likely hadn't had his transition back then so he still looked like a girl and went by his old name so makes sense Pico wouldn't recognize him. As for Keith not bringing it up, perhaps he wasn't fully sure this cranky ginger was the same friend he had known all those years ago. It'd make sense he'd refrain from informing Pico until he was absolutely certain.

Also this scenario would give more pain to Otis because in this verse Keith and his family would've kept in touch with Pico's family right? True there might be some unintentional distancing from those on the ginger's side but I imagine that's more in response to all of the shit that happened. ANYWAY back to Otis, imagine his reaction if Keith were to call him up soon after his first encounter with Pico to inform him. Perhaps Otis would confirm albeit not outright that perhaps it IS Pico (because let's be honest he wouldn't have the heart to fully lie to Keith there so make sense he'd hint at it). Maybe this bit doesn't happen but still something to think about! After all, just imagine the extra douse of angst here~

Oooooh. Consider Pico's reaction when he learns who Keith is too! I don't know if Keith will reveal who he is at some point or if he refrains for whatever reason (perhaps some part of him is worried about being accepted?? Maybe he still was hesitant for some reason??? IDEK). Since Pico later becomes convince Keith is a figment of his messed-up mind, it's very possible he would end up believing Keith isn't his old childhood friend. I can see him faltering for a moment, wanting to believe Keith is actually really and perhaps even almost giving into that hopeful side, only to shove it aside because of those stated reasons you gave before on why the breakup even happened.

Now imagine him, unlike before, mentioning a bit of Keith to Darnell and Nene, telling them about this supposed illusion of their old pal. Now imagine Darnell's and Nene's reactions later upon learning that the supposed illusion wasn't actually some figment of Pico's messed-up mind but ACTUALLY REAL. Now, not to say they wouldn't be understanding, but let's be real a part of them would still be like "Pico wtf".

Also please consider Grammy's reaction to seeing Pico again after he got reconciled with Keith and got together with him and Amelia. I dunno about you but I can't unsee her being accepting of him but also giving him a good smack with a slipper. Okay that last bit is probably ooc but wanted to mention because it was stuck in my head lmao

ANYWAY WOW THIS GOT VERY LONG LOL. SORRY ABOUT THAT.

As much as I'd love you to make this a part of their canon, I know you've already established quite a bit of stuff here already and I know all too well how frustrating it can be to go back to change stuff up. So don't worry about it okay? You can just make this like a one-shot thing or just something fun to ramble and imagine about.

I would love to make this an official thing, but I feel like I would have to change just enough stuff that it'd bug me, which friggin sucks. I also don't know if Keith would want to be with Pico again if this was canon, because to lose him a SECOND time would hurt. A bad part of his brain might make him believe that Pico was hiding from him with ill intention or something, so to have Pico yell and hold a gun to him that he's some fake illusion? That'll hurt

"Twice.. twice you're leaving me, and it doesn't make any sense!"

It's a great backstory, but it might have to be saved for another person's version of BF and Pico

[ilovenachos]

Pandemic: Taco Bell Nacho Party Pack

Taco Bell Nachos Party Pack

Rating: 2

Drunk Rating: 2.5

Cost: $9.99

Location: Everywhere

Customization: Beef, Extra Guac

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On a long enough time scale, the survival of everything drops to zero. In this instance, we are talking about my integrity. Sometimes, outside influences affect your resolve. First, we have quarantine. Second, we have Taco Bell announcing a new Nacho meal. I thought I was done with Taco Bell... but this required me to venture out and subject myself to their particular interpretation of "Nachos." Being drunk didn't help my willpower either. They claimed it was their largest Nacho ever, and at $9.99, how could I not be skeptical. So, I’m sure you are wondering if these Nachos were any good? Don’t worry, I got you. For added accuracy, I waited a whole day before writing my review so I could muse on it both with a sober mind, and to gauge how it affected my stomach afterwards.

The Nacho Party Pack is a bed of chips with ground beef, jalapenos, liquid nacho cheese, sour cream, beans, tomatoes, and guacamole. There are multiple customizations available, and I strongly suggest you make them, as many do not result in an upcharge. You can actually see all the customization options on the Taco Bell website. I'm fond of Extra Guac myself. It should also be noted that their hottest sauce was also liberally consumed during this experiment. 

I had trouble holding back my shock and laughter as the employee handed me the Box. The Taco Bell Nacho Party Pack is ridiculously Huge. The box is comically similar to something you would expect from a Pizza restaurant. When I opened the lid, I was greeted with what was essentially a Much larger version of their already existing nachos. Right down to half the toppings being stuck to the roof of the box. I'm just going to say it, for $10 I think they are punching above their weight, at least in terms of quantity. But how do they taste? Well, they taste like Taco Bell Nachos, which can mean a lot of different things depending on who you are, or how drunk you are. Lets start with the chips. Chips are one of the things I rarely criticize in nachos. I think its because tortilla chips are a robust enough snack that they usually taste good as long as they aren't stale or burnt. Taco Bell chips are the exception to this. These chips are hot garbage. They are paper thin, break when you look at them wrong, and have all the flavor of warm water. Honestly, the chips are the worst part of these nachos, and possibly the worst chips I have ever eaten. Contrasting this is the liquid nacho cheese, which is a serious guilty pleasure. It tastes fake, but in all the ways that I like. The only problem is that there is nowhere near enough. There are far too many chips without cheese on them, which is doubly disappointing since the chips are so bad. The sour Cream is mild and inoffensive. It could be better, but it doesn't piss me off either. The meat they use tastes like School Lunch caliber grade, but to be honest, it works really well with the low quality ingredients around it. I'm cool with it. The Guacamole is similar to the cheese. Its not good, but I still find myself enjoying it quite a bit. I always ask for extra so I can get an acceptable amount (they gip you otherwise). The Jalapenos are average quality, but at least they are pickled like they should be. The tomatoes they add are kind of a Pico De Gallo, but not really. They have spices and onion bits, but no cilantro flavor. Its actually one of the nicest parts of the nachos, and feels like a step above all the other ingredients. I could do with a lot more of that on here. 

Bottom Line - For $10 at 2AM, there are few things that are going to beat this. That doesn't mean its good, mind you, just good enough.

[darkgreiga]

Wishes, Dreams, and Memories Chapter 6

Fandom: Rune Factory 4 Rating: T (to be safe) Genre(s): Adventure, Hurt/Comfort Characters: Lest, Dolce, Amber, Dylas, Leon Summary:  She had a wish to see him again. He had a dream of her last moments. They had their memories of having only each other. The amnesiac Earthmate never knew that by bringing his best friend back wouldn’t make his daily life go back to normal. Nor did he know she was the key to his and his ancestors’ past. Chapters: list Navigation: <<prev   |   next>> Author’s notes: An extra bonus chapter to catch up with FFN’s update. Please enjoy!    

Chapter 6 – The Guardians’ Feelings

The late summer breeze blew throughout the empty streets of Selphia at night. The hazel-haired Earthmate had been standing in front of the castle for some time, looking up at the castle’s roof. With the next season coming, the temperature had started cooling down and the leaves falling from the trees, blown away by the wind all around town.

Lest caught one of the blown leaves and looked at it for a moment before it was blown away from his fingers. Lest looked around the empty town square before turning towards the east side of the town, “This isn’t the end,” Lest reached for his chest where some green feathers from a charm given by his first friend was, “There must be another way to save Venti. We just have to believe it and try again. I need to check on the Guardians for now.”

Lest headed towards the Carnation where Amber had been staying since she woke up from her long slumber as a Guardian. Judging by the light coming from the side windows of the flower shop, the Earthmate could tell that at least one of the residents hadn’t fallen asleep yet. Lest raised a hand and knocked on the door a few times before the door opened to reveal the self-proclaimed detective of the town.

“Good evening, Illuminata. I’m sorry for bothering you at this hour, but I was wondering if-” Before Lest could finish his sentence, the older elf had cut him off.

“Is there an emergency mystery that needs me to investigate?” Illuminata reached for her monocle.

“N-No, is Amber-” Once again, Lest’s sentence was cut off in the middle.

“Is there something you need from my assistant?” Illuminata asked with a serious look on her face, but softens when she saw Lest sighing and shaking his head, “Hm? That’s not it either?”

“I’m here to check on Amber if she’s okay,” Lest let out a sad smile, “I don’t know if there’s anything I can do to help, sadly.”

“I see,” Illuminata looked at Lest confidently, “Worry not, the Great Detective shall uncover the truth behind Amber’s condition! Have a good night!”

With Illuminata’s last words for the knight, she closed the door on Lest's face, “Uh… thanks?”

In the building, Illuminata had walked up the stairs to the second floor and approached her friend’s door. Soft sniffles could still be heard until she knocked on the door, “Amber, are you okay?” There was no answer coming from inside, but the sniffles had stopped, “Let me know if you need me, okay?”

The younger female was lying on her bed in her room with her eyes wide awake. Hearing her elven friend outside her door worrying about her had stopped her from crying even more, just to prevent her from being more worried. The silence she gave her had left Illuminata with nothing else to do other than leave her for the night. The sound of footsteps was heard and was stopped by Amber’s response, “Thanks Ellie…” Illuminata smiled after hearing Amber’s response before continuing her walk towards her own room, finally turning in for the night.

Meanwhile in the restaurant, the male Guardians were sitting together on the table near the counter. It was already past closing hours, making it the best place for the two males to have a chat. A pitcher filled with milk was sitting on the table along with two drinking glasses on each of the Guardians’ sides. The glass on Leon’s side was left untouched, compared to Dylas’ glass which had already been empty.

“Once you stop crying, you fill yourself with milk. Interesting,” Leon let a small laugh while he watched Dylas pouring another glass of milk.

“There’s no way I’m crying, Sir Red-Eye!” Dylas glared at the older Guardian before finishing his glass of milk.

Leon’s smile turned into a smirk, “You’re one to talk, Mister Sniffle-Nose!” Leon let out a sigh before turning serious, “So, what now?”

“We can’t quit, that’s for sure,” Dylas poured another glass for himself and stared at the glass for a moment, “We all want her back while having our own reasons for her return.”

“True,” Leon nodded in agreement, “That and because she’s our friend.”

“Yeah…” Dylas finished another glass and poured more on his glass, “I don’t know how many centuries it has been for her, but I feel like it was just yesterday that Venti and I went fishing together,” Dylas looked at Leon with determination on his face, “We’ll do whatever it takes to take Venti back, even if we have to rip that dumb gate open!”

Leon nodded before fanning himself with his feather fan, “I agree.”

The restaurant door creaked open, getting the attention of the two Guardians in the room before Lest popped his head into the room, “Hey, both of you are here.”

“What are you doing here?” Leon asked as he saw Lest walking towards the table they were sitting on.

The Earthmate took a seat next to Dylas, “I’m checking on you guys. Are you two okay?”

“Hey, that’s what we’re supposed to ask you,” Dylas replied worriedly, “Is your body all right? Feeling better?”

“I’m okay, Mister Sniffle-Nose,” Lest replied with a laugh.

“Y-You heard that?” Dylas asked in embarrassment, getting a laugh from Lest and Leon.

“Since Sir Red-Eye said so,” Leon turned to Lest with an eyebrow raised.

“So you heard that too,” Leon commented before turning to the two, “Well, what should we do for now? You two know that we shouldn’t be giving up on Venti just like that.”

“We’ll wait for what Arthur finds,” Dylas replied, “I asked him to look into this too, so let’s hope that he finds something.”

“Right,” Leon nodded before turning to Lest with a sly smile, “Now you know what to do next, right? We’re doing fine here, but I think there’s someplace you’d better be right now.”

“Yeah, I know,” Lest rose from his seat and smiled, “I need to check on Dolce and Pico as well.”

“I wish I can eavesdrop on you lovebirds, but I think I’ll let you off this time,” Leon laughed mockingly before Lest sighed in annoyance.

“It’s better if you don’t eavesdrop at all,” Lest replied, feeling both annoyed and embarrassed.

“You better go now, don’t keep a woman waiting for too long,” Lest completely ignored Leon’s comments before turning to Dylas.

“I’ll get going now. Good night guys,” Lest left the building, leaving the two males on the empty restaurant once more.

“Those two seems happy together, don’t you think?” Leon turned to Dylas, who had finished half of his glass already.

“I thought those things aren’t your interest,” Dylas replied flatly, before his expression turned into worry, “Hey, Leon?”

“What is it?” Leon looked at the other Guardian questioningly.

“Do you feel anything strange lately? Like there’s someone or something calling you?” Dylas asked, but the expression on Leon’s face hadn’t changed at all.

“No, I don’t think so. Have you checked yourself at the clinic?” Leon replied with another question.

“Physically I’m okay, but I hear some voices echoing in my head sometimes ever since I come back from the ruins to get some materials to upgrade my fishing rod,” Dylas’ response started the silence in the room before Leon finally spoke up.

“That’s strange…” Leon put the feather fan he was holding on the table and folded his arms before leaning against the chair, “I heard Amber had been in that similar situation lately after returning from Yokmir Forest…”

“We’ll have to look into this, once we’ve got Venti home,” Dylas responded in a serious tone.

Meanwhile, Lest had made his way from the restaurant towards the clinic to check on the last Guardian, only to find out that Dolce and Pico had already left once more. Getting the vague directions Dolce and Pico had headed from Nancy, Lest excused himself and headed towards the lake where the two was supposed to be heading.

The first thing Lest noticed when he made it to the area was a figure in purple standing by the bridge leading towards the mansion’s back door. As the Earthmate approached, the figure noticed him coming and turned to him, “Lest! You’re here!”

“Pico?” Lest looked around the area, but he found no sign of Pico’s human friend anywhere until he noticed the worried look on the ghost’s face, “What’s wrong? Where’s Dolce?”

Pico turned to face the Obsidian Mansion’s back door, “Dolly is in there, but she wouldn’t let me in…”

Lest turned to the back door, “I should check on her then,” Lest turned his gaze back to Pico, “Come with me. I don’t think she’ll be mad if you come in with me.”

“Uh…” Pico hesitated for a moment, before noticing the smile on Lest’s face that made her feel better, “Okay, let’s go!”

Lest and Pico went across the bridge before Lest pushed the old wooden doors open to reveal the biggest room of the mansion. Two lanterns had candles within them to help with the room’s lighting, although the old chandelier hanging from the ceiling provided most of the room’s lighting. The old tables and chairs were still in their places throughout the room, surrounding the place which seemed to have been a big stage many years in the past.

Colorful runeys were flying around the room, giving the warm atmosphere despite the old, run-down look of the room. The ghost and the Earthmate approached the big stage, where a single familiar figure stood in the middle of it with her back turned to them. Even once the two of them was near the stage, the figure stood still as she didn’t notice the uninvited guests coming for her.

“Dolce,” Lest called out softly and worriedly, “Are you okay?”

Dolce turned around and saw her ghost best friend along with her boyfriend standing just below the stage, “Pico? And Lest?”

“What are you doing here at this hour?” Lest climbed on to the stage to join Dolce, while Pico simply floated to Dolce’s side.

“I…” Dolce opened her mouth to speak, but turned her head to avoid eye contact, “I just want to be alone here, that’s all…”

“Milady felt sad that we still can’t bring Ven back even after everyone worked so hard to find a way,” Pico explained.

Lest turned his attention from Pico and back to Dolce, who had a slight sadness on her face, “I knew it…”

The female Guardian slowly moved from her spot and walked a few steps towards the back of the stage to reveal the floating rune sphere Lest had previously placed, “Have I told you before?” Dolce’s voice turned into a whisper, “That day, when I decided to become a Guardian to save Venti… I only thought of saving her, nothing else…”

“Of course, I was against the idea,” Lest’s attention turned to Pico, “I understand how Ven means to Dolly, but I can’t imagine living so many years without her…”

“Initially, my parents were against it as well,” Dolce continued while looking at the floating sphere, “However, this has always been my choice. By becoming a Guardian I can save Venti, whom I always consider as a precious friend other than Pico. This is the place where I had been sending rune energy to Venti for hundreds of years.”

“Although that choice seems to be a hard one for Pico and your parents…” Lest added before his expression turned into sadness, “Even for Venti…”

“So this is how it feels…” Dolce’s voice turned into a whisper, “To be left alone, knowing that precious friend might never come back…”

“But she will,” Dolce and Pico turned to Lest, whose sadness had turned into seriousness, “We will bring her back, no matter what.”

“Wait, you’re not thinking of doing that again, are you?” Pico asked in a serious tone.

“I can feel that it’ll work next time, I just need to train harder and-”

“No,” Dolce’s short but stern response had cut Lest’s sentence and the two turned to the female Guardian, “We can try other ways, but I cannot allow you to risk yourself like that again,” Dolce’s eyes once again avoid contact with Lest’s, “What if… if things turned out to be worse the next time? I… I don’t want to lose you too, you know…”

Lest noticed a shade of pink across her face before he nodded and smiled at her, “Okay,” Lest walked closer to Dolce and gently grabbed her shoulders while trying to look at her in the eyes, “Rest assured, I’ll always be by your side.”

Dolce looked at Lest in surprise, before she let out a smile, “Yes…”

Pico let out a fake cough, “I’m still right here, you know!”

The two of them turned to the frowning ghost girl, back at each other, and noticed the distance between them before Lest let go of her shoulders in embarrassment, “S-Sorry.”

There was a short pause before Dolce turned her head slightly to look at the embarrassed Earthmate, “You should be, you idiot,” The Guardian’s response had confused Lest while Pico was grinning slyly.

“Huh?” His embarrassment slowly turned into confusion as he saw Dolce’s expressionlessness.

Pico let out mocking chuckle, “Milady is just jealous when Amber happened to hug Lest back in the room.”

“Is this another way of you asking to die again?” Dolce questioned the ghost with a smile, but the smile was terrifying enough for Pico to slowly back away.

“Uh… gotta go now!” Pico quickly flew away before Dolce could grab her and went straight through the mansion’s doors.

“That pervert…” Dolce’s smile had faded, feeling disappointed that she couldn’t catch the ghost before she got away.

“I think I can see that you’re doing okay now,” Lest stated with a chuckle, getting Dolce’s attention, “Shall we head back?”

Dolce nodded and smiled, “Yes.”

Lest easily went down from the stage before offering a hand to the female Guardian, “Now, give me thy hand, milady.”

The pink color returned to her cheeks, “Knock it off, idiot,” Dolce hesitated a bit before she took Lest’s hand and went down the stage. Still having her hand in Lest’s, both of them walked towards the doors to leave the mansion.

“… come… give me…”

The strange voice had surprised the female Guardian, who let out a gasp before stopping her tracks and turned to look at the rune sphere. The loud gasp had gained the attention of the Earthmate, who watched as the female Guardian looked at the rune sphere while clutching her chest. Lest approached Dolce and tapped her shoulder in worry, slightly startling the Guardian.

In response, Dolce turned to look at the worried face of her Earthmate boyfriend, “There’s…” Dolce turned back to the rune sphere, which was still floating normally with colorful runeys flying around in the room, “Nothing. Let’s head back.”

“Okay…” Lest replied while still feeling that something was wrong, but decided that it was best for them to head back.

[floryalfonso]

Love in the Time of Shelter-In-Place Pt. 2

 We don’t get to have a real conversation until day 23. In part because my boss can’t understand how little we’re accomplishing during our mid-morning conference calls, we’re always going over, but mostly because she seems to be avoiding the possibility of sighting another dog on her walk with Pretzel. By the time I switch off the video and look up from my computer screen, she’s dragging Pretzel around the corner while he longingly looks back at the baby pink blooms he just soiled. I haven’t attempted my own front-of-the-house gardening to tempt her dog just yet. I’ve been burned by my lack of green thumb twice already during this time of shelter-in-place, and my even weaker attempts at reviving said plants are withering on the ledge of my back porch.

 Our first conversation, I’m happy to say, happens purely organically. I’ve been patiently awaiting a speaker system I ordered (two weeks ago!) for the house to pretend that my living room is not just my living room. I have every intention to play a different playlist daily so it feels like I’m hopping to a new coffee shop every time I sit down to work on my couch. It’s the first brand new thing I’ve bought for this place. I step outside the minute I get a notification of delivery. Immediately, I hear a “Pretzel, NOOO!!!” and look in the direction of the voice. It appears Pretzel may have gotten into the neighbor’s lunch delivery, as his paw is currently pushing around an open container of pico de gallo across the front porch. As if the dog couldn’t get in any worse trouble with Tim. I hop over to run interference without hesitation and realize how close the pretty lady is once she speaks up (safely six feet away, but close enough for me to notice her dimples). “Oh my gosh. This man is going to officially hate me. First, Pretzel ruins his gorgeous daisies daily, and now he’s eaten half of his lunch,” she sighs.

 “Tim isn’t home yet if that helps,” I say, pointing to the empty driveway. “Y'all could make a break for it, and he’d never know you two are to blame.” She pretends to furtively look around, contemplating this as she strokes her chin, but then shakes her head laughing. She then looks down at Pretzel, who is now panting happily with sour cream stuck to the end of his snout. There are wrappers scattered everywhere behind him. She pushes her mask (which matches today’s red sundress perfectly) back up and gets to work cleaning up Pretzel’s mess while I keep my hold on his collar. “This dog has a mind of his own, huh? Seems to really like Tim’s favorite things.”

 “Ugh I’m just terrible at controlling him. My friend told me I should foster a dog, so I don’t get lonely while I’m stuck working from home, and I thought it was a good idea. I still think it is, mostly. Until we get to this street, and Pretzel can’t help himself around your neighbor’s mailbox. If it’s not pretty flowers causing a problem, it’s other dogs. I know he doesn’t look like it, but he’s still a puppy. He gets so excited to do just about anything,” she explains as she gathers the scraps of everything and places it in the large kraft paper bag the lunch was delivered in. “I’m Elena, by the way. Sorry I haven’t introduced myself yet! This dog makes me forget my manners.”

 “Frank,” I say, holding up a friendly wave with one hand, while I try to wipe the sour cream off of his snout with the other. “No judgment. I can barely maintain a house plant. He’s also too cute to be mad at.” I think she’s smiling (her eyes are twinkling anyway) while she listens to me talk and then looks to the bag’s side for the lunch receipt. A second later she’s typing in Tim’s order into a food delivery app. Ah. So thoughtful.

 “There. Lunch will still be served to Tim, even it’s a bit late. I hope he likes extra chips and salsa. I’ll wait here until he gets home so I can explain to him what happened. He can’t be too long if he got hot food ordered.”

 “I’m sure he’ll understand. He’s not that grumpy if his daisies are safe. So are you new to this neighborhood? I don’t think I’ve seen you around before,” I ask while she settles down on the top step. I realize I’m still holding Pretzel’s collar even though she has the leash reattached and let go sheepishly, moving down to the front of the lawn to maintain a safe (and not too creepy) distance.

 “I’ve actually been here for a year now. But before this shelter-in-place business, I was rarely, if ever, home. Especially never early enough for a walk. You’re the fifth neighbor I’ve met in the past two weeks!”

“What kept you away?”

“Work. I’m in interior design. I do mostly restaurants and bars within the metro area, but sometimes I venture a little further. What about you?”

“I’m home for the usual amount.”

“But what do you do for work?” she laughs.

“Oh heh,” I give her an awkward smile, “I do research and development for Beans.”

“Just to be clear, do you mean Beans as in the local coffee chain or the food group?”

“Coffee!” My smile is much more genuine now. “I basically get paid to follow drink trends, read up on the "it” coffee bean and come up with new ideas for menu items.“

"Whaaaaat,” she stretches out the a’s in the word in the cutest way. “That sounds like so much fun.”

“It is until you remember more people than you’d think only want some variation of pumpkin spice or caramel to flavor their coffee with. But I’m trying to get the company to branch out a bit. You know that whipped coffee trend?”

“Not worth the carpal tunnel,” she shakes her head, laughing.

“Right? Well, I figured out a way to make it a little more worth it by adding cardamom, black pepper and cinnamon to the coffee before whipping it.”

“Now that sounds much more intriguing. When can I try this concoction?”

“How much more time do you have to wait for Tim?” I counter, and she ponders this while I look down at my phone, making sure my boss hasn’t left me any messages during this now twenty-minute break I’ve allowed myself. What’s a few minutes more?

“Probably ten more minutes. I have a client call at two I need to prepare for.” she decides, smizing (I hope!) when she looks back up at me.

“Be right back,” and I walk briskly towards my own front door as Pretzel starts to bark at the sudden movement.

[sawyersscribbles]

Eden’s Horizon (My WIP) Part 3

What’s up my new homies (honestly there have been like five new followers in the past couple of days thank you so much) So I thought to celebrate you and the start of NaNoWriMo (to those of you concerned I’m pretty sure I slept like seventeen minutes last night so I’m doing pretty great). I’ve made great progress since the last time I’ve updated, so I hope this new (and long omg) part is as good as I think it is :) Enjoy!

Lieutenant Patch was one of those no-nonsense get-stuff-done kind of lieutenants, but Cylo knew that those didn’t exist. He had worked with several generals over his two years of service, mostly because most of the people he worked with thought his skills would be better suited “in a less-disciplined area” or a “location where Mr. Maruzzo’s enthusiasm and rambunctious nature will be separated from our stealth informants.” Cylo didn’t get that feeling from Lieutenant Patch, even though the lieutenant stood with hands clasped behind the back and feet in a “V” position together at the heels, like everything he had seen before. Entering the bunker, it seemed more serious than any bases he had been in before, but that may have been from the silent soldiers in two even rows leading al the way down to the control room, he couldn’t know for sure. Although he had met the man by the door yesterday on his manhunt, the soldier with downcast eyes still asked for his ID. Cylo didn’t argue, only rolled his eyes and scoffed, pressing his hand into the pad held up by the soldier, idling an awkward moment before allowing him to enter the room. In any other place, Cylo may have made small talk with the soldiers outside, asking them how their day was or if any of them had seen Slice and Dice 7, the newest installment of his favorite franchise. “It takes place on the moon this time, even though everyone knows the Terazorgs like to use the earth to turn into their weapons in cities, but that’s okay, I liked it anyway.” Cylo explained when telling the receptionist of his second base about Slice and Dice 3: Antimatter, back when they were still naming them. The lady at the desk at least pretended to be interested in the adventures of Deka and her trusty animal sidekick Pico, but this soldier seemed more like the dead-eyed cashier from the megamarket than a soldier ready for duty. “Good morning, sir.” Cylo leaned in a bit and nodded once, tapping his foot to double the beat of the computers around the room which were thumping in rhythm together. The lieutenant didn’t turn around right away, waiting to acknowledge Cylo’s entry only after the lines on the screen had slowed enough that there were long pauses between memos. “Good morning, Major Maruzzo.” The Lieutenant turned around and faced Cylo and revealed that he wasn’t a “he” at all. Lieutenant Patch must have been a woman of at least five foot seven, only right below Cylo’s own height, but she wasn’t anything like the ladies that Cylo liked to sway on a night out. She had thick and powerful arms with thighs to match, and her jaw was hard set like stone, as if she’d been looking at people like that all her life. Cylo grinned and squirmed a bit excitedly. “I’m a major now?” He whispered excitedly, “So that means…” “…Level seven clearance.” “Level seven clearance!” Cylo couldn’t contain it any longer. It had been his dream when he joined the military to some day get above a level four. If he could do that, he would have made it. Being a first class private meant he had been sitting around level three for ages. He had finally made it. Lieutenant Patch didn’t yell at him or tell him to quiet down like the other generals Cylo had dealt with, but she did look at him coldly, like the silent treatment. After punching the air a few times and chanting “Yes!…Yes!…Yes!” He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he opened them again, he set his jaw just like the Lieutenant’s, only staying serious a moment before smiling again. “Major, I know this is all very exciting for you, but your reasons for being promoted so quickly are really very serious, and I’d like to ask you as your superior to take this position very seriously. Have I made myself clear?” Cylo looked at the ground like the man outside and shuffled his feet. “Yes, Lieutenant.” “Yes ma’am.” She corrected, “I earned this position after years of extra work to gain the authority of my male co-workers, and I am to be reminded every day.” The set of her jaw twitched only a little, just barely enough to be noticed, but Cylo noticed these things. It was the suppression of a smile. “Now, this underground structure was built in order to block incoming internet signals and viruses due to the mercury and radiation levels in the soil, so I suggest that any metallic body parts of yours should be treated carefully as such. “Well, I guess I’ve just got one, but I don’t think it’ll be a big deal.” Cylo lifted his pant leg to the metal skeleton taking the place of his foot coming up to halfway up his leg. “It’s not really a cool story, I just sliced open my foot with a rusty playground toy, and it would have gotten taken care of, but that playground was covered in radiation, so…I mean, I’ve got a robot foot now, so that’s fun.” Although the Lieutenant didn’t look amused, she didn’t look disinterested, either. “Well, hopefully an incident like that won’t happen in my base. I’ve heard from your past officers that you didn’t do well with field work, so this place will hopefully suit you better. If you look around you, this is the atrium of the facility. Meetings will be held here at 0700 hours each morning to inform you on the day’s activities and to brief you on new developments…” The Lieutenant didn’t finish her sentence, but kept walking anyway. The atrium reminded Cylo of a college hall, or what one would probably look like if he ever went. There was a table in the front with a large screen from behind, surrounded by maybe a hundred chairs all facing to the front. He had never had so many colleagues in his life. “So…am I going to get to meet all these people? Because I love meeting new people, everyone I’ve met says it.” He beamed. The Lieutenant didn’t look back until she was sure that Cylo was behind her following into the next room. The base was situated like a star or a snowflake, With the atrium in the center and several hallways protruding from it, with rooms attached from there. It felt almost like a video game, with so many different areas to explore. Lieutenant Patch carried herself as if she had seen every room a dozen times, and then a dozen times more. She glanced into the rooms periodically, but didn’t enter any but one at the far end of a particularly well lit hallway with the occasional art piece hanging on the otherwise white walls. It was clear that they had been whitewashed many times before, as brown stains were already starting to grow where the fresh coat was set. “Since you now have Level Seven clearance, I’ll situate you with the other majors. I’ll tell you now, woman-to-man, that these people need abright young kid like you to keep their spirits up. They may not seem like it at first, but I would trust none other than these people to solve a national crisis, which is…basically what’s happening now.” She mumbled to herself quietly and pushed open the door, allowing Cylo to enter first. There was not miles of cubicles like Cylo thought there would be. The majors were not hunched over some computers typing out documents without light in their souls. Instead, it was a group of people around his age, maybe a bit older, who were slingshotting eraser caps into each other’s mouths. “Ow! You hit my tooth!” One groaned and held his face. Another, shorter than the rest, laughed and set down her mechanism. “It’s because you suck at this game!” The Lieutenant’s posture became lax as she leaned against the frame of the door, watching these antics play out. She didn’t even seem upset by the lack of work, only amused at what was going on. Neither did she stop what was happening to introduce Cylo. She waited for the group to collectively stop what they were doing and listen on their own terms. “Majors, this is your newest comrade, Major Cylo Maruzzo. He’s been stationed here from the city of Vela and is very excited to be here, am I incorrect, Major?” She turned to Cylo, who was still surveying the group. He smiled softly and slowly nodded. “No, ma’am. Not at all.”

Zenith hadn’t ever been inside a church before and never expected to, but the glass above the altar looked so pretty that she felt she needed to at least look inside. The inside of the church looked like it hadn’t been too heavily cleaned in years, save for the occasional sweep. Although the polished wooden pews were sturdy, they weren’t without their scratches and markings that reminded Zenith more of a couch chewed by a dog than by a place of worship. The seats had cushions on them, but even some of those were scattered on the ground like leaves. The desk at the front was without papers or an open holy text, just sitting solemnly below the intimidating cross that seemed to watch over the room. It felt quiet. “Oh, hi there!” Zenith whispered excitedly to a girl who appeared to be staring blankly forward, and it was no longer silent as it had been before. The girl had orangish red hair, a peculiar color choice, if you asked Zenith’s stylist, who loved her vibrant royal purple. “I tell you, honey, science is stuff of the gods!” He cried and held the ends of her hair as if he were giving them up to the sky, which always made Zenith giggle. The girl didn’t stiffen right away, but after looking Zenith up-and-down twice, she froze into place. Her mouth was ajar in terror, and her breaths came out in puffs. Suddenly, the girl bolted up from her seat and made a break for the door, but Cylo had tried to snatch Zenith from the couch enough times to learn evasive maneuvers. The orange haired girl screamed as Zenith made a bee-line towards her and grabbed her by the shoulders, still shaking. She seemed as if she couldn’t see, her eyes were blank and searching for something to look at. At the same time, they were tearing up and overflowing onto her cheeks where they virtually disappeared against the light. “Hey!” Zenith barked, “What the heck, man? Is it something on my breath?” As much as the girl avoided eye contact, Zenith still struggled to maintain it. “You’re… oh my god.” Zenith mumbled the last part under her breath so quietly that the other girl, Paige Diamond, she realized, couldn’t hear it. She was the very girl from the picture, Zenith was confident. No one else had that heart shaped face paired with those non-enhanced blues in her eyes which had, quite frankly, gone out of fashion. Paige gave a sigh and let her shoulders wilt, but in that second of Zenith’s weakness, she broke free once more and backed away further into the church. Her eyes were not calm and interested like in the photograph, rather wide and afraid, and her hands were no longer loosely gripping her bag but trying to find something around her neck. After a few moments of stammering and mumbling, Paige held a smaller version of the cross that was hanging above the altar in the direction of Zenith. “Unclean spirits, I command you to come out and manifest in the name of Jesus!” She cried and slowly approached Zenith again, but this time keeping as much distance between her and the cross as possible. “Demons, I command you to come out of the mouth now and never come back in Jesus name!” When Zenith didn’t move and demons did not, in fact, come out of her mouth, she kept repeating the same phrases until she was incomprehensible. “Paige!” Zenith said in a voice as strong as hers, “Paige Diamond, right? I’m not here to curse you or something, and to be honest, I only kind of know what just happened there. But I need you to calm down, okay?” She held her arms out and tried to coax Paige down, but all she managed to do was get her to sit down. She still didn’t lessen her grip on the cross pendant, rather tighten it as Zenith sat down closer. Paige’s eyes stayed on Zenith as she sat down, feeling more like a hostage than someone following instructions. Slowly, her fingers inched closer to Zenith’s hand and jabbed at it quickly before Zenith could stop her. “Ow! The one that can’t feel is on the other side, you scrap! Jeez…look at what you did!” Zenith held her limp arm up to Paige’s face to see the red mark spreading slowly from the impact point. “Scrap? The hell is that supposed to mean?” Paige said over Zenith muttering about blood clots. “You know…like, ‘Oh, that person is such scrap!’? Like the insult? I was trying to be mean to you.” Zenith’s voice was flat and unamused, and when she looked back at Paige, it seemed that she was just as concerned as Zenith was about her poor bicep. “Since when have you used city slang? Is that where you were for the past three months, wasting away in…never mind.” Paige grew uncharacteristically calm and shut her eyes and breathed slowly three times. “I am calm, I am a steadfast stream…I’m good.” She exhaled the last words and met Zenith’s confused gaze one more time. “Who are you really?” Paige said quietly and faced forward so that Zenith couldn’t look at her face. She shuffled uncomfortably and turned the same way. “You’re real…I felt you. I think I may have bits of your skin, human skin, under my nails…” Her voice was drifty and flighty, but Zenith started muttering angrily again about how she broke the skin, which officially made it unfair. “But you’re not who abandoned us three months ago.” Zenith tried picking up the conversation after it had fallen down. “Zenith Maruzzo, I guess? You’re Paige Diamond. I know you. From…well duh...” Over the two years that Cylo had been in service, Zenith was at least smart enough to know that keeping that picture from the car quiet is probably the best for the both of them. But it was hard for her to lie to peoples’ faces, especially after Paige nearly smote her. She had to fidget and turn away during the delivery, a definite no-no if you were to ask her big brother. “Yeah, I know you know me from somewhere. We’re friends. Or at least I think we are…” Zenith didn’t flinch when Paige drew a cross next to her face with the cross around her neck. “Okay, I’m gonna tell it to you straight, I’ve never, in all my days, seen someone try to cast me out.” Zenith chuckled and folded her arms. “So…what is this place, exactly? It’s a church, right? I’ve got to say, though, after never setting foot in one, I think I like it.” Zenith nodded at the cathedral dome overhead coated with biblical art. Paige audibly took a deep breath. “Yeah, you never were religious, were you?” Paige mumbled and took out one of the thick books from behind the pew in front. She flipped to a random page and didn’t make a sound. “You know, I thought you were gone, Zenith.” Paige was trying to keep her voice steady, but it was clear she was still afraid. “You just ran into the woods and then…we didn’t see you again in weeks, you know that. You could have been dead. No, not could have been, you were dead, Zenith. So you come back to me, shiny new city-arm, and expect me not to do what my grandfather taught me? You must be on gator…” Gator was some weird combination of crushed sleeping pills and marijuana invented by Logan that you snorted. Made so poignantly clear by Ms. LeBlanc, “Gator is going to happen like fetch is going to happen. Don’t even ask, it’s not a movie from your generation. Get that SOB to my office so I can slap those drugs out of his hands.” If one were to use a direct quote, that is. Zenith wasn’t quite sure what Gator was, but tried to laugh along like she had been taught anyway. Paige lifted her head. “'The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.' That’s Psalm 34:18. I learned it about a month after you were gone. It was the first time I picked up a bible on my own terms.” Paige’s arm twitched like she was about to reach something, and her breath was coming out in short, white puffs. Before her fingers could dig into her coat pocket, she dropped her hand entirely and let it twitch loosely on the pews. She held her head back and kept her dull eyes entrapped on the colors of the cathedral above. The iris looked washed out, like a stain that had been on a tablecloth for many years. “What happened to you, Zenith?” She whispered to no one in particular, making eye contact with each of the angels one by one. For the first time in her life, Zenith was idle sitting in that pew, having nowhere to look and nothing to say. But it was quiet. One of those important quiets that end up meaning something profound later, she figured. That’s how, she reasoned, silences with Paige were supposed to be. “What are you guys, my parents picking me up from kindergarten? You’re late, turds!” Kinza had been standing outside the archway of the church for way-too-many-for-my-damn-liking minutes with her arms crossed. When Zenith and Paige finally looked up from the pews, Paige immediately began laughing, and her tears from before had since dried and been replaced by newer, happier ones. Some air that Zenith didn’t know she had in her lungs was let out, and her body returned to normal. “If you have some sort of highly specific memory you need to share, I’m always here to talk!” Paige called out to Kinza. Her foot tapping only quickened and motioned to Zenith to yank Paige out of her seat. Of course, not understanding the sarcasm, she did exactly that. “Hey, hey—whoa! Robot arms make you stronger, robot arms make you stronger! Oh my god, stop!” Paige began to laugh so hard that there wasn’t even noise coming out of her anymore, just long wheezes. Kinza looked entertained now and nearly reached to pull Paige along but stopped herself. “There’s a meeting, like, right now. Zenith, you especially have to come, but we gotta go.” By the time they left the chapel, Paige was finally able to breathe. “Meeting about what?” Zenith asked. “Hell if I know. I guess I would have if I wasn’t sent to fetch you like a handmaiden girl, yeah?” Kinza was still bitter and wouldn’t look Zenith in the eyes as she spoke. “Meetings are always held here, and the whole school attends them. Usually they’re about someone flushing their tampons down the toilets again or to give out Zika vaccines.” “Zika…is that a teacher or something? Why is everyone so mean to her…?” Zenith mumbled. Her homeschooling didn’t involve learning about things that didn’t matter, like curable diseases. If it couldn’t kill her, it didn’t matter. “Stop messing around Zenith,” Kinza jokingly hit her on the arm, right above where Paige had stabbed her just minutes before. Everything about Kinza’s demeanor was casual, the mood of the situation hadn’t changed before, but Paige’s step had faltered a big, lagging behind the two and holding her arms. Kinza looked back and when she was sure Paige was far enough behind, she widened her eyes just slightly and hit Zenith one more time. “What…what did I do—“ “In here!” Kinza blurted and swung open the door, to which hundreds of students drew their eyes to. Paige had stopped entirely, waiting outside the view of the door in horror. “Sorry…carry on, Miss LeBlanc…” Kinza stopped acting like herself when Miss LeBlanc was involved. She had some silent authority over the students that was strong as it was mysterious. In some ways, Zenith could feel herself obeying to it, too. From her podium next to the wall, Miss LeBlanc peered outside the doorway, and then looked back out to the crowd. “Paige, honey, are you in there?” She called without her booming voice so the students in the audience needed to struggle to hear. “Two minute break. Two!” She called and held up two fingers. The students remained quiet at first, but then resumed their conversations. Paige was crumpled against the wall with her hands over her ears, staring blankly at the open door. When Miss LeBlanc appeared through it, Paige sagged and removed her hands from her ears. “I’m sorry, it’s just that all the people were looking at me.” She half-expected Miss LeBlanc to cut her off, but she waited patiently for Paige to run out of things to say. “Humans are drawn to noise and sound, no matter what. It’s an instinctive reaction, just like knowing to give me a high five when I hold my hand up, am I right?” Paige laughed and sat up straighter. “The point is, I’ve got kids to inform in there, and you’re one of those kids. They’ll be talking, so no one will notice you sitting down. How does that sound?” Paige took a second to nod and followed Miss LeBlanc into the room. She was right, the students were chatting and didn’t even look, compared to when Kinza practically kicked open the door. Her boyfriend had stood up and waved his arms frantically. When he noticed that Paige’s eyes were on him, he switched from varying dance moves like the robot or the YMCA dance. She laughed as she jogged up to the very top row, which didn’t have many students. She sunk into her boyfriend’s arm and let him hold her hand from around her shoulder. “You did me a frighten,” Logan said as he knelt his head onto hers. “Okay, this is going to make it sound bad…but I was able to see you…” “Ugh, no—“ “…In the doorway, but I was so far up that I’m pretty sure it was only me.” Logan found his train of thought after Paige had interrupted him. “…But I was about to go after you, Paige. I get worried when you get scared, you know that…” His voice had gotten gentler, and he kissed the side of her head and held Paige closer. “Well I’m fine now… and thank you. You’re very sweet.” She declared and kissed his cheek. He grinned softly and sighed. “Excuse me, miss?” He tapped the shoulder of the girl in front of him, to Paige’s dismay. “Oh my god, don’t do the thing!” She moaned, but smiled wider than she had all day. The girl turned around, confused. “I just wanted to tell you that that’s my girlfriend over there, and I love her very much. She’s smart and pretty and funny, and I can’t believe she’s with a scrub like me…” That was when Paige managed to pull him away and explain to the girl, “I’m so sorry, he deals with affection in ways that I functionally cannot comprehend. He does a thing where he can’t say it to my face but says it to someone else’s…I’m sorry.” Luckily, this was one of those times where the third party involved found it as a joke, too, and soon they were both laughing. “Oh, don’t worry, I think it’s sweet! Love always finds a way, right?” Paige looked back to Logan, who shrugged. “Yeah…” she said absently, “I guess it does.” “And we’re back! Everyone find your seats!” Miss LeBlanc had made her way back to the podium, and in the minute and a half between when Paige had saw her last and now, she had touched up her eyeliner. “Alright, serious-Darla-time. It’s now September, which means a start to the new year and a fresh new batch of rookies, and to them I say, welcome to Eden Academy.” There was some cheering, but it was mostly focused around the rookies themselves rather than Zenith’s grade, who looked disinterested. Suddenly Paige’s phone buzzed. It was from her mother, probably asking how she was doing. As her thumb was about to press the decline button, Logan moved her finger over the answer command. “You should take this. You know how she gets.” He said quietly. Miss LeBlanc was eerily silent, looking up to the top bleachers to see Paige, still in the amphitheater. “I guess…but aren’t you supposed to say something later in the assembly? I don’t want to miss that.” Logan nodded and helped her out of the seat. “It’s just this student’s address thing, it’s really no big deal. I tell them the code of conduct of whatever because I break it so many times. Trust me, you’d get bored.” Paige chewed her bottom lip and ground her toe into the hardwood, but she left the audience anyway. In silence, all eyes watching her this time, including the principal’s, she exited the room. Miss LeBlanc sighed and turned back to the audience. “Alright, the important stuff. But first, a history lesson. In March of 2057, an AI program similar to the ones you will create this year dubbed “Mudskipper” was created. Its original purpose was to be a sort of therapy bot for its creator to tell her problems to. However, in June of that same year, Mudskipper pulled what they did in the movies and realized he didn’t have to be someone’s emotional crutch for the rest of time. So at the same time Mudskipper was learning how to manipulate human emotions, it was using that human personality to learn how and why it was coded in the first place. In January of 2058, Mudskipper managed to hop onto a public school’s mainframe using a flash drive taken from the source computer. Now there’s no telling where it is. A small, contained portion of Mudskipper is kept on school grounds, but the drill you experienced before was only a test. The purpose of this school is for you to learn how to best handle a cyberattack crisis, and the final project for senior year, which you will begin soon, will be to manufacture an anti-program to combat Mudskipper.” Some impressed murmuring came from the freshmen in the front, but all Miss LeBlanc could do was smirk and nod. “Mhm, you heard me right. We’re teaching you how to build cyberweapons here, welcome to high school.” As Miss LeBlanc laughed at her own joke, the students cheered, but while they were engaged, Miss LeBlanc made eye contact with Logan and motioned him down. “Ladies and gentlemen, you might be wondering what an anti-program is, so I have a volunteer who’s ready to show us his. Logan, take it away.” She motioned to him like a magician and exited the stage, where Logan was left alone in front of all those kids. “Uh, hi everybody. Like Darla said, welcome to Eden and all that, so…yeah.” There were cheers, but mostly from his grade. “My anti-program is called Horseman, and trust me, picking the name is the best part.” He said while signing into his account and pulling up his lines of coding. “I’m not gonna go into how to do all this because it’s lame and I want you to like me, so I’ll just let her run…” When Logan clicked the run button, the lines disappeared and the screen went black, leaving only one blinking line at the top. “Since I’m cooler than you, Horseman is so advanced that she responds to your voice. Yeah that’s right, gawk at me.” Logan chimed over the surprised newcomers. The voices in the audience grew louder, and just as Miss LeBlanc was about to step in to quiet them down, Logan pulled the microphone close to his face and said slowly, “I’m going to need complete silence. And a volunteer.” Instantly, all the frontmost hands shot up in 90 degree angles. Logan selected the closest student with the coolest t-shirt. “What’s your name, kiddo?” He called everyone kiddo despite being one of the youngest in his grade. “I’m Cassidy…” “Cassidy, wonderful name. Now stand right up here, yeah just like that. I want to introduce you to Horseman. Say hi, Horseman!” Instead of text, Horseman pulled up a gif of a human manipulating a cat’s arms to make it seem like it’s waving. The audience gasped, laughed, and clapped, in that order.  Cassidy was surprised too, but she loosened up enough to allow her arms to hang limp by her sides instead of fiddling with her rings. “Go on, talk to her. She’ll only be mean if you talk about her weight.” Logan said on the side. “Hey, 517 kilobytes does not make me fat!” Horseman fired back. From the chatter of before, the students were not stunned into silence. “Oh…sorry, did I say too much? If anyone out there weighs 517 kilobytes, you’re beautiful and don’t let them tell you otherwise!” Nervous laughter from the audience led Logan to steer Cassidy towards his computer. “As you can tell, Horseman can probably handle anything you throw at her, and that includes untrained freshmen.” He set a hand on Cassidy’s shoulder. “Which is why I’m employing the help of my friend Cassidy here to show you how powerful Horseman really is. So Cassidy, I’m going to need you to try to rip apart Horseman. Delete entire lines of code if you have to, just get her to stop working, if you please.” Logan gestured elaborately to the keys, and Cassidy went pale. “No…no, I could never do that, she’s so wonderful…” Cassidy began to stammer when Logan moved her hands to the keys for her. “Trust me, no one is going to judge. Write random things in the lines, take out whatever you want, even try to put a picture in there. I promise it’ll be okay.” Slowly, Cassidy started deleting letters here and there, hesitant to break something so fragile. “Pretend like Horseman is about to remotely shut off your grandma’s life support. You can do this.” Cassidy inhaled and exhaled slowly and finally got to work. She cut and pasted whatever she pleased, wiping out several lines of code at a time only to replace them with random thoughts coming in and out of her head. But every time she made an edit…the program fixed itself. Each error Cassidy made was instantly corrected right after she made it, to precisely what it had been before. “You picked a good one, Logey, this must be what a workout would feel like if I was…well you know.” Horseman told the crowd, who were so dumbfounded that they hardly whispered to each other. “You could do this all day if you wanted, Cassidy, but let’s give Horseman some rest. And another hand for Cassidy, shall we?” Enormous applause followed Cassidy down the steps and back into the audience, where people immediately began asking her questions. Soon, some members of the audience rose to their feet. “Aw, you’re all the cutest!” Horseman squealed and pasted a “sending virtual hug” gif onto the big screen behind Logan, who was busy taking bows. It was a good thing Paige wasn’t here to see this.

[un-enfant-immature]

Product lessons from building our subscription service Extra Crunch

Subscription has been all the rage in media circles as the industry searches for new, sustainable business models. We’ve seen companies from infrastructure plays like Substack and Pico to brand verticals like Holloway and The Athletic receive venture funding, all with the goal of changing the economics of news, information and entertainment.

Every day, I get the fortune of talking with founders about their startups and writing about them on TechCrunch, but I’ve also been something of an intrapreneur myself, building out product in the form of TechCrunch’s membership service Extra Crunch as EC’s executive editor over the past two years.

This month, I am transitioning to work on new projects at TechCrunch, and my co-editor Eric Eldon is now going to lead the charge on Extra Crunch as executive editor working in tandem with our new EC senior editor Walter Thompson.

So given the changing of the editorial guard, I wanted to write down some thoughts about editorial product strategy as well as some of the hard-won lessons learned about what worked and what didn’t in building a subscription product in today’s media environment.

The art of building an editorial product strategy within constraints

Before we get into some lessons though, I want to talk about product strategy a little bit. Every startup needs a product strategy, and Extra Crunch was no exception. The difference is that we are fundamentally an editorial product, which means that instead of transforming lines of codes into functional software, we take ideas, interviews, research, and analysis and transform them into articles and other media that users (hopefully!) want to pay for.

Product strategy involves devising a plan within constraints, and TechCrunch was no exception.

The first constraint was that we were not starting from scratch. Unlike a startup, TechCrunch has been here for years and has a strong brand name in the startup community, millions of passionate readers, a successful advertising and events business, and an editorial org that knows how to be productive. We couldn’t just throw out the playbook that has worked for years in the pursuit of a new business model that was untested. And so from the beginning, we had to have an attitude of evolution rather than one of revolution.

Second, we had limited resources in terms of capital and talent. TechCrunch is not a venture-backed company with millions of dollars in funding waiting to be burned in our bank account. Instead, we are a successful, sustainable and sometimes ridiculously efficient media business owned by a telecom that rewards proven financial performance. So when we launched, I was the only dedicated editorial position for Extra Crunch, along with a smattering of freelancers. As we have proven our success since launch this past February, we have since expanded to three dedicated editorial positions for EC. Throughout, we’ve had to have a strategy that was careful about spending our resources.

Third, we had to design a strategy that encompassed the talents of our existing staff. TechCrunch has consistently avoided the “hire a bunch of people and then fire a bunch of people” waves that hit New York media companies again and again and again by relying on smart reporters who can adapt with the changing tides of media. Extra Crunch was no exception — we wanted to build a product that every one of our writers could contribute to.

Those were the constraints. On top of that, I had a couple of personal rules for the product.

First, I hate metered paywalls (i.e. any model that charges you after reading a set number of articles) with a fiery passion. It has never made sense to me that articles could be free for some people, paid for others, or that the article that tries to force a conversion could be a news brief and not one of the best articles a site has published. To optimize for conversions, you want to trigger a conversation around moving from free to paid at just the right time, and not because the article clock has ticked down to zero.

Second, I didn’t want any of our writers to be placed entirely behind the paywall. Everything in subscription (media or not) should be focused on guiding users through the conversion funnel. If a writer is entirely behind the paywall, how can anyone sample their work or start to engage with that voice?

Third and finally, we had to charge for the right kinds of content. People don’t pay for news. They don’t, they won’t, and every time we as an industry ask users to do so, we fail (minus maybe the NYT and WSJ). At TechCrunch, our startup news coverage drives a huge loyal following and is a major credibility point of pride for many early-stage founders. It’s not good business to put that core offering behind a paywall.

With all those constraints and rules in mind, what we ended up centering Extra Crunch on was solving the problems facing founders in building their startups. That included how to raise venture capital, recruit talent, grow, pay themselves, work with PR agencies, and much, much more. I was previously a VC, and so I essentially channeled all the questions my founders would ask me into articles that solved those problems. Since launch in February, we’ve published about 600 articles on these topics.

Fundraising 101: How to trigger FOMO among VCs

This approach has allowed us to maximize our existing audience, which already encompasses a large number of founders, designers, builders, and product managers, but also has allowed our writers to write to their strengths, building on their relationships to research and answer new questions.

The great news is that one of our core metrics — engaged reading time — has been very strong, averaging upwards of 5 to 10 minutes per piece depending on its length. Subscribers don’t just read, they read closely and deeply that is not typical of a web surfer stopping by the site for a few seconds.

Now, on to some lessons from this whole product launch and early-growth phase.

Mistake: setting the wrong expectations around content length

I really despise the terms “longform” and its diminutive cousin “shortform.” Articles should be exactly the right length — no longer and no shorter than what is necessary to communicate their ideas. Longform articles are not fundamentally better because they are longer, and in fact, can actually be a lot worse if they convey little with many words.

One of the biggest concerns I heard from TechCrunch writers early on was that they would have to leave their beats for weeks at a time in order to produce “in-depth” subscription content — code for really, really longform pieces.

This fear was exacerbated by a mistake I made right at our launch: we published the Patreon EC-1 package as the very first set of articles on Extra Crunch. Eric Peckham, our media columnist, wrote nearly 24,000 words on the company after conducting many interviews with the startup’s leadership and others in the music and maker industries. A lot of folks on our staff looked at the gargantuan work involved in that package and basically thought “I just don’t have the time to do that” on top of all of their other duties.

The Patreon EC-1

Over time, we learned through data that article length has almost no correlation with the number of conversions or the readership of an article. People pay for short articles, long articles and everything in between so long as it meets their needs. That’s a major reason why we don’t have word counts or reading times listed on our content.

Frankly, it took months to emphasize that EC was a change in tone and focus in reporting, rather than just a refuge for extremely long pieces of content. A big part of that was trying to make a splash from day one, rather than just diving right into our day-to-day editorial. I would not take that approach a second time through.

Do: be very mindful of the number of premium articles

Beyond just content length, there was a huge debate early on around how many articles we should publish on EC each day. The obvious argument is essentially “the more the merrier,” since more articles get more readership and therefore more chances to convert users. Of course, there are real constraints, and writing more articles for EC meant drawing resources away from our news coverage on TechCrunch.

The approach that we’ve taken is to keep EC frequent but not overpowering. I have always believed that our core users are extremely busy and overwhelmed by the amount of media they feel a need to consume. So I have pushed hard, in line with my thesis around brainjunk, to try to force us to write a very small number of high-quality articles and simply ask that people pay for them. We ended up targeting about 2-3 articles per weekday, or roughly 5% of TechCrunch’s total volume each day.

Brainjunk and the killing of the internet mind

Do: Completely ignore users who compare you to Netflix

I have talked a lot about subscription hell, or the sheer number of subscriptions that consumers are being asked to sign up for these days (and that was back in 2018 — hello Disney+!). Hundreds of millions of consumers subscribe to Netflix, or Spotify, or Amazon Prime, or Apple Music, and so invariably, you start to see comparisons of different subscription offerings against each other.

Subscription hell

Here’s the thing: Extra Crunch (and really any niche media subscription publication) is not Netflix. We aren’t a general video entertainment service. Instead, we are a service that tries to help founders, builders, and other tech leaders do better in their jobs every single day. That’s just a completely different value proposition.

So when users start to do the comparisons with us (“you’re priced the same as Netflix!!!1”), I flat out ignore them (well, I try to educate, but you get my drift). If a user doesn’t find value in the product, then move on and find the users who do.

Mistake: ‘misunderestimating’ the timeline of product launches

Editorial is our product, but of course, we still have software that drives EC.

Unlike a startup that can just build a stack from scratch, we have software — sometimes really legacy software — that powers our platform. The approach we took on product had to take these constraints into account.

Our product team always gives reasonable timelines, but I have been guilty of just assuming that things will work faster than expected (and yes, I have a technical background and should know better). Unfortunately, I massively underestimated engineering timelines, and that has made communicating with our editorial staff and our readers challenging.

Pocket watch silver swinging on a chain black background to hypnotize

I’ll give two choice examples. First, identity is just tough for us. We have multiple internal identity providers thanks to a legacy of mergers and acquisitions, plus on top of that, we have identity in the context of our content management system as well as our paywall provider. It is a sheer programmatic chore to keep identity information synced across all of these databases, not to mention that each of these identity layers incorporates new changes that break the existing flows. If I had a magic wand, I would create the ultimate “one true identity source of truth.” But I don’t have a magic wand, and instead have code that needs to continue to function.

Second, launching internationally is extremely challenging for us as well. Extra Crunch is available in a handful of countries, but launching elsewhere can require dozens of people to work together to handle tax, accounting, legal, policy, and security reviews across multiple corporate entities and regions. We have thousands of users requesting access from dozens of other countries, but it just takes a lot of work to launch any specific country, making promising a timeline very hard.

The lesson for me here is to work with the timelines you are given, and realize that the world around subscription law is getting ever more complicated.

Do: give your writers huge room to experiment

We are blessed at TechCrunch to have a great editorial team, but as with any new editorial product, there is always a healthy fear of change.

One of the biggest challenges of launching a subscription media product within an existing brand is convincing writers to write for you. On a site where a top-trafficked article can get a million reads, it is hard to convince anyone to put their work behind a wall where only a few thousand people might read it (even if those readers are heavily engaged). Plus, some of our writers have been successfully producing content for a decade or more — some of our staff have literally written thousands of articles on TechCrunch. Any change to that formula is going to take time to be accepted.

On top of that, TechCrunch’s newsroom is very decentralized and bottoms-up. The reason we catch the next startup wave in a space is because our writers don’t have to go up and down the editor stack to get permission to chase a story or a trend. Instead, they can keep their ears to the ground and hunt for the best stories.

So we built structures to ensure that EC can be part of every staffer’s work when they are ready to engage with us. Every writer at TC has their own Slack channel that connects them to the EC editorial team and functions as a place to circulate ideas and get rapid feedback. As good ideas have worked, we’ve then circulated them to other writers as possible models for them to consider.

This approach has afforded us much more experimentation in the early phase of the product than if we had simply set out three buckets of content and demanded that everything fit perfectly inside of them.

Do: Integrate paid with the rest of the editorial product

Extra Crunch is a special, members-only place, but we also wanted to make sure that the product was integrated into everything else that we do. We took a couple of approaches here.

First, we integrated our content into other parts of TechCrunch. For example, Kate Clark and Alex Wilhelm host our VC-focused podcast Equity, which discusses the venture rounds of the week and the startups behind them. When we have published our in-depth EC-1 business analyses, we have also tried to do a special episode of Equity called an Equity Dive where we discussed some of the takeaways of the EC-1 piece for the Equity audience (for instance, here is one on Patreon). Those episodes are packed with interesting tidbits, and also act as marketing for EC.

An Equity deep dive on Patreon

Danny Crichton, Mailchimp Co-founder & CEO Ben Chestnut and Kabbage Co-Founder & President Kathryn Petralia speak onstage during TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco 2019 (Photo by Kimberly White/Getty Images for TechCrunch)

Second, we created a whole “Extra Crunch Stage” at our flagship conference Disrupt, again focused on solving the challenges that founders face every day. Among the panels we hosted were how to build a billion dollar subscription business, how to get into YC, how to build a startup culture, how to iterate a product, and how to exit your startup. What was great was the balance between our news-breaking Main Stage and the more skills-orinted EC stage. Plus, we also had a special members lounge for EC subscribers at the event, which proved even more popular that I would have predicted (yes, members want to feel exclusive!)

Discover the Extra Crunch stage at Disrupt SF this October

Finally, we also offer EC members a discount on our events, which has driven more attention to our Sessions events and to TechCrunch Disrupt Berlin, where we will have another EC stage this coming December. We love it when members show up in person, and so we wanted to incentivize that as much as we could could. It’s a nice way to say thanks to our most enthusiastic customers.

Do: have a free newsletter for your paid content

This is one we accidentally stumbled upon but has worked really, really well. We have a free newsletter called the Extra Crunch Roundup (example issue) that summarizes the pieces we’ve published on EC.

Top VCs in Edtech, Dropbox, first mover advantage, India’s Netflix, scooters, and more

Here is something crazy: we have about a 4:1 ratio of free users to paid users subscribing to the newsletter. In other words, roughly 80% of the users reading the subscription-focused newsletter don’t subscribe to Extra Crunch.

I can’t stress enough how useful this is. In some cases, these users don’t have access to EC because we haven’t launched in their country, or they haven’t made a purchase decision about us yet. By allowing them to stay tapped into our community, we keep them engaged and hopefully in the long run, turn them into customers.

Mistake: failing to fully integrate real-time analytics into editorial decision-making

Extra Crunch faces a typical business intelligence problem: our core user and analytics data is scattered across a number of data silos, and we don’t have a data lake (a term that, if used in an email sent to me, automatically sends the email to spam by the way). Like many smaller media companies, we lack the data science team and data pipeline engineers required to build out a full BI function.

I code, and I have been able to cobble together some Python scripts to pipeline some of our data into an Airtable so that we have at least decent visibility on what our readers like and what they don’t (in some cases involving manually scraping our own sites since some of our tools don’t have API access). But it doesn’t allow us to make real-time decisions about our content, and that acts as friction to delivering the best possible experience.

While analytics is obviously important for our business leaders, it’s really editorial that needs the data the most. As I was building out the editorial strategy, I would have put even more time into thinking through our analytics strategy to ensure we had the right feedback mechanisms in place from day one to do quality data analysis.

Focused, steady progress against the media maelstrom

It’s been exhilarating watching a product start on a whiteboard and now being enjoyed by paying customers.

Media, and particularly New York media, loves the ambitious editor that wants to shake things up and shoot for the stars with massive budgets and a huge vision. But the reality is that the gyrations in the media industry in Manhattan are entirely avoidable by focusing on users, getting the basics right, using feedback properly, and being sure to walk before you run.

TechCrunch has watched as new publications have jumped into covering the tech industry, old publications have withered and faded away, and every format of media has come and gone. What has ultimately worked for us is to stay true to our founding mission: to fairly cover the startup world and all of its facets. That’s why we’ve always been here, and if the data we have is any proof, a heck of a lot of people are willing to pay to ensure that focus continues for us. So to our early Extra Crunch members — thank you. And of course, the best is yet to come.