#regardless. this might not be very well written. my brain is swimming with thoughts and nothing is becoming understandable

[senotsuri]

how would you have written Masquerade’s darkus trial? The show had to keep the spoilers low but it would have interesting to bring up Alice’s past and Masquerade having to deal with that (and not get distracted during the battle)

This one is tricky to answer on account of Masquerade having no obvious flaws to draw from. Instead, I'm going to make the trial a little bit sideways, but it will come back to a flaw.

We're never shown Masquerade's mask in anyone's possession until his reveal, and the flashback of Alice hiding it to wear it, out of sight as possible.

So, hypothetically speaking, must he be worn by Alice?

(This will get stupid long, bear with me.)

A little bit of context before I continue, though. It's my own interpretation that Masquerade is a parasite, not a preexisting trait that got supercharged. This lends itself to the hypothetical trial better than the idea that Alice is cruel and self serving deep down, until Masquerade lets himself out of his Alice shaped hideout. Also it's straight up less interesting than the parasite idea.

Anyhow, the trial revolves around Masquerade's autonomy. Is he stuck to Alice, who he fundamentally disagrees with on her brawling stance, her kindness to his enemies, and how frail she is (though it's highly implied that his attempts to get out are causing her fainting spells). If it weren't for her knowledge on the game, he'd find someone else to latch onto.

He never says Alice by name, and Alice's face is blacked out with scribbles. Hair is blonde, like his, and for additional fogging on who Masquerade's host is, she's wearing her pyjamas, not her day to day clothes.

Regardless, Masquerade's mask is placed down, and picked up by someone else. We'll go in trial order here;

Now would be a good time to mention that I mix up the order between Marucho and Julie constantly when it comes to the trials,

Julie. He's leaning defensive in the sense of using a shield to charge enemies with, and... his strategic knowledge is drastically worse than before. He feels decently free from his shackles, sure, but his in battle performance isn’t up to his typical, strategic standards. He loses a test fight against Exedra, who simply comments that perhaps he should try something closer to what he prefers.

Marucho. His strategics are back in full swing, that’s excellent for him, but he’s not able to get the battle to go in his favour; it’s too slow and reliant on having teams, or, worse, an attribute changer. He doesn’t do these things when he’s on Alice’s face, and doesn’t have attribute changers!! He loses a test fight yet again, and Exedra comments on his lack of team versus his team-based strategy, or at least a strategy based on multiple elements on his side.

Shun. Masquerade feels spiteful joy here, since he failed to recruit Shun early on, around episode 13. He joined Dan to Masq’s face. Strategies aren’t a problem; he made the rules, and plays a high strategy attribute. If Masquerade wanted to be more hands-on intimidating, Shun’s knowledge from Grandpa Kazami’s teachings on how to restrain an enemy (should he encounter someone) can be put to use. It’s just... Shun’s so, so indirect with his brawling. Blow Away is likely a favourite card, and it is aggravating Masquerade, even though he’s still brawling darkus. He wants to be in his enemies’ face to intimidate them into hasty, anxiety driven decisions, and this indirect combat doesn’t let him do that. He wins the third test battle, but Exedra notes his frustrations. His trial isn’t over yet.

Runo. Runo is certainly in her enemies’ face, and while strategically she’s not the best, her more direct brawling is a good change to previous. Of course, Haos is not a trap-based attribute like Ventus and Aquos can be, and is instead a weak mix of Pyrus’ offense, and Subterra’s defense. The best attribute for a newbie. It doesn’t work, Masquerade can’t set traps like he usually would, Runo’s brain just won’t let him, and Exedra notices how his strategies are falling flat.

Dan. Masquerade feels itchy, in the sense that everything feels off. If he was on Dan’s face, then his greatest adversary would neither exist, nor be able to fight him off without having to take turns. Pyrus’ offense is a great thrill ride, but there’s little strategy to work with, pyrus cards aren’t aligned for that, and are mostly direct damage with some shields. Exedra notes that he can fight like that, but he looks... bored. His brain looks unstimulated.

His old posse he tries off screen. Chan, Billy, Julio, Klaus, Komba... The best he gets out of them is Klaus (only he and Chan were able to clear the test), who has his giant collection he can throw to the doom dimension in one go and super charge Naga’s silent core with all the entropy...

No, nothing feels right. He’s placed back on Alice’s face, and he wins the test battle yet again. Exedra asks why he’s so comfortable on that face in specific.

“They’re the weakest link in their group, and the weakest link in me.” he explains, “changing the link is too painful, it doesn’t work... for me.”

“You’ve been distracted by your weakest link being replaced by stronger ones?” Exedra asks. Masquerade bristles.

“They were not stronger. They were...” Masquerade doesn’t want to admit nothing felt right. He wants to be stronger, but he can’t just let go of his weakest link, even with better links who can give him everything his old one did, and more.

He doesn’t outright say what he’s figured out, keeping the spoiler up, but Exedra clearly understands what he thinks. Cut to the end of the fight with Druman and Centorrior. Alice receits it instead (paraphrasedly);

“I am only strong in battle. Outside of that, I am weak. I must strengthen myself outside of battle, or else I am unbalanced and could easily crumble.”

[juergenklopp]

I sent you numbers but then obviously forgot to include ships. So 12 or 26 for maxiel maybe? Or anyone you want, I'm here for the sheer comedy and affection of it all

Sorry it's taking me so long to get to this, Anon. And also I have only written Max/Daniel once in my life ever so it might be slightly wonky, and it's also a very loose interpretation of the prompt. Hope you somewhat enjoy this regardless!

more than I thought I did (Max/Daniel, 957 words, prompt: 26. touching feet and immediately screaming and recoiling)

-

There are many layers of absurdity in his current situation.

Like—onions. Or those Russian dolls. Max doesn’t remember what they’re called. He has one in his apartment, perched on one of his display shelves. Tucked away behind the trophies Red Bull let him keep, but there. Got it from Daniil for Secret Santa. Quite the year, 2016.

He’s here in Greenland, of all places. Roped into featuring in Red Bull’s foray into electric offroading. A one-off, sure, but shouldn’t it be left to the pros? There are enough Red Bull-sponsored rally and rallycross drivers.

Trouble is, it sounded fun.

And it fucking was, even if he nearly flipped the car over in the Crazy Race, limping home with half a bumper. Even if Catie ended up having to carry the team. He loves driving. This is something novel, exciting.

He’s here in Greenland, having raced in Extreme E, and more bizarre yet, he’s not the only Formula 1 driver plucked out of whatever sandy, pearlescent beaches drivers like to spend summer breaks at.

-

“So what did you do to piss off Christian and Helmut so much you’re banished here, mate?”

Max hopped out of his car having completed his test lap when Daniel clapped him on the shoulder, Daniel’s grin just about too bright for how early it actually was. The long stretch of daylight wasn’t helping, Max had slept terribly last night despite the blinds.

Not finding a snarky retort on the fly, Max fired back, “What did you do to piss Zak off?” He ducked to foil Daniel’s attempt at a chokehold, trying to elbow Daniel on his side, missing but just.

“Nah, Tanner’s missus is due early, so here I am. You? Come on, don’t bullshit me, you can’t be here voluntarily.”

Max shrugged. “It sounds fun.”

Always with a flair for dramatics, Daniel gasped, hand over his heart, too exaggerated Max had to roll his eyes. “Who are you and what have you done to Max?”

“Asshole.” Max flipped him the bird before removing his helmet.

-

He finds Daniel on the portside deck of St. Helena, leaning against the railing of the still-docked ship. The afterparty is lulling into a slow conclusion, the raucous, thumping dance music Daniel forced everyone to listen to replaced by smooth, almost sultry jazztronica hanging loftily in the air. A wicked grin blooms on Daniel’s face when he spots Max. It usually spells trouble.

“Want to go for a swim?”

“What?” How drunk is Daniel? “Mate, the water’s cold, we’ll freeze our balls off.”

“See, there’s a hot spring nearby. The Hansens found it yesterday, and they said it’s really quite nice.”

Daniel and his dumbass fucking ideas are, unfortunately, hard to resist. There’s just something about his relentless energy and magnetism that pulls one in. Something Max would rather not think too much about.

Well, anything to ease the stiffness in his back from his abysmal attempt at offroading. “Okay,” Max shrugs, relenting a little too easily, and he hopes he doesn’t come to regret this.

It’s a short walk—neither of them bothered to go to their cabins to pick up swimming trunks, they’re there in ten minutes flat.

“Well, I hope this spring is free from brain-eating amoeba,” Daniel remarks, stripping to just his boxer shorts with the sort of carefree unselfconsciousness Max finds himself envying from time to time still.

“A what now?”

“Eh, I’m sure it’s fine,” Daniel laughs. “They won’t survive in hot water.”

“Do you actually know that, or are you just making shit up?”

Daniel doesn’t answer, disappearing into the pool fully before reemerging in a flurry of splashes, shaking his head like a puppy drying water off its fur.

“Jump in, come on! Water’s nice!”

Max doesn’t know why pulling his jeans off is currently taking so much brain power, the way he has to concentrate on not tripping over his own feet and face planting on the rocks scattered on the shore of the hot spring. The windchill shocks him into a shudder as he eases into the water, but Daniel’s right—it’s just the perfect temperature. He can already feel the knots in his muscles start to untangle.

Daniel, for all his tendency to not know when and how to shut the fuck up, actually quiets. They descend into a companionable silence, the gentle splashing as Max swims farther into the water the only sound filling the air. It’s half ten and the sun’s hanging low over the horizon, just about to bid farewell. Everything around him is bathed in fiery hues.

It’s a breathtaking sight.

Max is here in Greenland, having just raced in Extreme E. Enjoying the drive, enjoying the easy camaraderie the drivers and teams share, something almost foreign to him. Then taking a dip in a hot spring with Daniel, because why the hell not. In theory, Max could’ve squinted through the fine print of his contract, bail out of this PR abomination.

He’s glad he’s chosen not to. It’s a nice change of pace from the hyper-competitive paddock and the bloodthirsty media he’s constantly told to tiptoe his way through.

Max can’t remember when he last felt so content.

The spell is broken when he feels something foreign brushing his ankle.

“What the fuck,” Max yelps, embarrassingly high-pitched like he’s just inhaled helium, recoiling in horror. The spring isn’t deep at all—he loses his footing and falls backwards into the water with a huge splash. 

Daniel explodes from beneath the surface just as Max too reemerges, gasping for breath, and he erupts into boisterous laughter. The droplets of water clinging to his curls look iridescent from the glow of the sunset, his wicked grin just as radiant, and something seismic shifts in Max’s chest.

[winryofresembool]

Things We Lost in the Fire, ch 43

aka Caleo uni au

Fic summary: Calypso starts studying at a new university, but to her annoyance her new flatmate is a loud mouthed mechanic who also likes to sneak his dog in whenever. But as she learns to know him better, she realizes they might have more in common than what she first thought. Eventually, even the darkest secrets come out…

Chapter summary: Small steps towards the right direction

A/N: After 3000 years I'm back. Sorry (yet again) that this has taken so long; life happened and after work I just don't always have enough energy (and time) to edit. But well, what counts is that this chapter is here now, right?

So, while I was absent, we have reached 10 000+ hits for this fic!! Huge thanks to all of you again for reading this fic, I really appreciate it 😊

Since it's been a while since the last chapter, as a reminder: in the previous chapters Calypso, Leo & co were on a roadtrip to Chicago to see Percy swim in the national championships. Calypso got very unsettled when she saw a couple of men who had close connections to her father in the audience. 

This chapter is still a pretty calm one but I swear that we /will/ be reaching more 'interesting' stuff soon. Some 'slife of life fluff' before the storm is always good, right? But now, please enjoy this chapter and let me know what you think!

Words: 4793

Genre: romance & hurt/comfort

Warnings: none

previous chapter / AO3

...

“Hey, Sunshine?” Leo knocked on Calypso’s door, trying to catch her attention. “I’m heading to Waystation to see Festus and the other animals. Jo and Emmie are out of town today so someone needs to check up on them.”

“Oh, okay. Good to know,” Calypso responded a bit absent mindedly. Her head was too full of different year numbers and names of politicians to be able to fully absorb what Leo had just told her. She was preparing for an important midterm exam, having even taken that day off from work to be able to spend it studying. She didn’t think she would have time to finish reading everything her professor had assigned otherwise.

“I also need to make sure that Georgie isn’t wrecking the whole house; she’s supposed to visit the neighbors in the evening but right now she’s alone. I asked Jo and Emmie why they wouldn't take her with them but apparently it had been her own wish to stay behind because she had some ‘project’ she wanted to work on.”

It still took her a moment to register his words. “Alright. Good luck with that.”

“Calypso? Are you even listening to me?” Leo furrowed his eyebrows as he stepped into her room. “Usually you’re a bit more involved in the conversation when I’m talking about Festus and Georgie.”

Calypso rubbed her forehead and blinked a couple of times, trying to get her focus back from the books.

“Ugh, sorry. I do love history but this book is impossible to read. That’s why I was a bit out of it,” she explained. “So… you’re going to see Georgina and the animals?”

“Yep, and I was wondering if you’d like to join me. Although, seeing you right now, I guess I should just let you stay here.”

She considered Leo’s suggestion for a moment before shaking her head. “No. I’m starting to think that I really could use a break. Not sure if any of this info will sink into my brain no matter how hard I’ll try. It feels like I’m just reading the same words over and over again.”

“I know the feeling.” Leo nodded. “It probably doesn’t help you that you’re not even reading in your first language, huh?”

“No, it doesn’t,” Calypso admitted. “Although when I did my home schooling, my books were written in English but the language in this one is far more complicated.”

“I can imagine. I’m lucky numbers are the same regardless of the language I study in. Makes things a bit simpler for me. Anyway, you coming?”

“Sure. Let me just… put something other than my pajamas on first.” Calypso looked down at her wrinkly, pink pants.

“Alright. Be ready in like 10 minutes. And don’t put on your best clothes!” He warned as she got up from her bed and opened her closet to decide what to wear. Picking a red striped flannel shirt and a pair of some of her more worn jeans, she shooed Leo away and started changing. She did wonder if she should be more comfortable with him seeing a bit more of her, but she couldn’t quite shake her variness yet due to her past experiences. When she would finally be ready, she’d let him know. She just wished that he knew he wasn’t the issue.

…

A bit later Leo and Calypso were in the car on their way to Waystation again. It was a rare bright early March day in Indianapolis, kind of crispy but sunny and Calypso enjoyed seeing some light after the gloomy beginning of the year. Not even the university buildings they drove past looked quite so uninviting in that weather. There was a thin snow cover on the ground, having just fallen a couple of days earlier, making the landscape even brighter. Back when she had been a kid she had only seen snow during her family’s trips to mountain areas so it was quite a rare treat for her.

“Hey, do you think we could stop to buy something warm to drink?” she asked. “I could use some caffeine to get the studying fog out of my brain.”

“Guess we’re not in that big a hurry,” Leo replied as he glanced at the car clock. “Although I’ll probably take something other than coffee. You know I’m not a huge fan of it.”

“Yeah, I know. I’m feeling like drinking caramel latte. And maybe I’ll have a nice chocolate-y brownie with it.”

“So that’s your way to cope with exams? A sugar crash?” Leo joked.

“I’m perfectly fine with that,” Calypso responded with a dreamy expression on her face as she pictured herself sitting cozily at the café with the drink in her hands.

“Hear that, random bypasser? My girlfriend is living dangerously,” Leo chuckled, pretending to be talking to an older woman who was walking on the sideway near them. Calypso wondered if the heater of the car had just started blowing in hotter air or if the idea of the hot drink was suddenly making her feel warmer. Or maybe it was just his laugh or the fact she secretly loved hearing him refer to her as his girlfriend. Since when had she been this kind of sap? Sometimes she couldn’t quite fathom what was going on in her brain when Leo was around.

“You better watch out, I might drag you down with me,” she joked back.

“Shit, sounds like I’m screwed,” Leo snorted. Quietly, he added: “but if you were with me, I wouldn’t care.”

While Calypso was still wondering how she should answer his comment, Leo opened his mouth again: “Hey, can I ask you something?”

His sudden serious tone got her a bit concerned. “Sure, of course.”

“How have you really been since that Chicago trip? I’m not blind; I can see it affected you pretty strongly,” he noted.

“Why do you think that?” Calypso asked, a bit mortified that Leo had noticed it so easily.

“When you live with someone for over half a year you do kinda learn certain things about them. Even I, who’s not the most socially skilled guy out there.” He shrugged.

“I suppose you have a point there…”

“Yep, but that doesn’t answer my question,” he pointed out.

“Honestly? I’ve been trying to not think about that trip,” Calypso confessed finally.

“Is that why you’ve been trying to drown yourself in work lately?” Leo frowned.

She hesitated for a moment. “I’ve honestly had a lot going on. The midterms are next week and spring is a busy time at the flower shop.”

“And that’s all?” He cocked his eyebrow.

“… Fine. It has been good to have something to distract myself. It’s just… really hard to brace myself for the inevitable, you know? I’m aware that some day the confrontation will happen, whether I want it or not. I can’t keep hiding forever… but on the other hand I don’t know if I’m emotionally prepared to face my father.”

“I think I get what you mean,” Leo said. “I would rather do almost literally anything than face my abusive aunt or my old foster families again.”

“Yeah. That’s how I feel about it. And I haven’t even told you half of the story yet.” She combed her hair with her fingers as she looked at something in the distance.

“You haven’t?” Leo questioned.

“Sadly, it’s true,” Calypso admitted. “Here’s one thing you don’t know about him yet: he took me and Zoë out of Greece without my mom’s permission. Mom and he had just made their divorce official a few weeks earlier and she had left us with him for the weekend while she was out of town organizing some things. When she came back… the only thing she found at our home was a piece of paper saying that we were on a whole another continent, the Atlantic Sea between us.”

“But couldn’t your mom have sued him for doing that?” Leo asked. “Shouldn’t that kind of thing be illegal?

Calypso shrugged. “I guess it is. I was too young to really understand everything that was going on back then – and it’s probably better that way - but I think my mom actually did try to sue him. But, surprise, my dad’s money won that fight. Mom didn’t have much left after the divorce so she couldn’t keep fighting for us. That’s why I’m still here and not in Greece.”

“Man, I wish I could just punch him in the face and…” He didn’t finish that sentence. “But here’s one but: as shitty as the way he treated you is – I know how it feels like to live in a family who doesn’t give a fuck – there’s definitely at least one person who is pretty selfishly happy that you didn’t go back to Greece.” He turned his gaze from the road to her for a second. “That would be me.”

Calypso couldn’t help but smile a bit at his comment. “Aww, thanks, babe. Maybe even the darkest cloud can have a silver lining…” Her hand briefly touched his on the gearstick before she withdrew it back to her side and sighed. “I’m just so ready to be done with this all.”

“I wouldn’t call myself the most optimistic person out there,” Leo started, “but I do know that you’re a pretty damn great person and you deserve good things from the universe. Tía Callida’s stories didn’t paint a very good picture of the Greek gods but if there’s any fairness left in them, things should end up going just fine for you. Let’s keep believing, right?”

“Alright,” Calypso said before quickly turning her face towards the side window so she could swipe a tear from the corner of her eye without Leo noticing. His nice words had overwhelmed her a bit; after being alone for so long she still wasn’t used to someone thinking so highly of her.

“Hey, look,” he pointed at something he saw by the street, which, she understood, was his way to try to distract her. “Isn’t that Percy in that bus stop ad? Advertising a blue sports drink?”

Calypso saw the ad and chuckled a little at the photo. “Oh my gods, it is. Annabeth must be happy. And Percy is looking so proud of himself there.”

“Yep, he totally is. I bet he picked that sponsorship simply because the drink is blue. That’s definitely something he’d do,” Leo noted.

“I think so too,” she agreed.

They kept chatting about random things they saw outside. A bit before they finally reached Waystation, Calypso noticed a yellow winged bird flying up from a tree. It wasn’t a Golden Oriole like the bird she had seen in her home country but the color reminded her of it. The bird flew higher and higher until she couldn’t see it anymore, but Calypso chose to take it as a good sign.

…

At Waystation Festus greeted the couple in his usual manner; jumping up and down and wagging his tail faster than Calypso thought was possible. After stopping to give him some treats, they went to check on Georgina who was cooking something in the kitchen on her own.

“Georgie!” Leo cried out, sounding pretty panicked. “What have you been told about using the stove when you’re alone? You’re not allowed to do that!”

Calypso had rarely seen Leo get really mad at his adoptive sister but this time she could tell that he was being serious. And she could understand why; Georgina was only a little older than Leo had been when the accident with his mom had happened. It wasn’t surprising to her that he would want to stop his little sister from causing any potential accidents, especially fire related. He rushed to move any potentially burnable objects from near the stove and turned the heat lower.

“Hey! I know what I’m doing! I cook all the time,” Georgina protested loudly.

“Yeah, but this time there was no one else home! What would you have done if something had started burning?” Leo asked, glaring at the girl.

“I… I would have called 911? It’s not that difficult, Leo.” The girl said after hesitating a bit, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Yeah, and the place might have burned down before they would have made it here. Listen, Georgie. I’m not saying this to be rude or annoying. I’m saying it because I once was in a situation that ended really, really badly because I was being careless, and I don’t want anyone, especially someone like you whom I care about very, very much, to go through anything like that. Do you understand?” From that Calypso realized that Leo may not have told Georgina about what exactly had happened with his mom yet. She glanced at Leo curiously but he was still focused on the young girl.

Georgina finally seemed a bit regretful. “Fine. I get it.”

“Good. Hermanita, believe me; the rules are there for a reason. It’s for your own good. And I’m saying this as someone who used to not care about the rules either.”

“Alright…” Georgina got suddenly interested in her shoe laces.

“Now then…” Leo seemed to relax a bit and a smile appeared on his face. “Now that you hopefully keep my advice in your mind… How about we finish what you started. What were you cooking, sis?” Georgina’s face brightened faster than Calypso could blink.

“I was hoping to make some crepes! Moms always say that I shouldn’t eat them too often because they are bad for my tummy but they can’t tell me what to do when they’re not home!” the girl announced rebelliously, making both Leo and Calypso burst into laughter.

“You tell them, hermanita,” Leo said between the chuckles. “There’s never a bad moment to eat some crepes no matter what our moms say.”

“I’m glad you’re taking my side here,” Georgina smiled at him, the earlier scene already forgotten. “Will you guys help me?”

“Of course we will!” Calypso ruffled the younger girl’s hair a bit and stepped closer to the kitchen counter to see what Georgina had already done. “Hey, did you remember the flour? Because this kind of looks like it’s missing something.”

Georgina went bright red as she realized Calypso was right. “Oops. I think I was gonna add it but then my friend called and I just forgot when she started explaining something to me.”

“Don’t worry about it. We can still fix this,” Calypso reassured her. She tied her hair on a high ponytail to avoid any from falling in the food and Leo went to get some aprons because he suspected that cooking with Georgina would get pretty messy. Ironically, he was the one who ended up spilling the most flour around and started drawing silly figures on the kitchen counter with his finger.

Once the batter was done, the girls had fun watching Leo flip the crepes on the flying pan (Calypso wondered how he had gotten so good at that) and after that they came up with a lot of creative fillings for them from ice cream and berries to jam and peanut butter. As the three were laying on some bean bags after eating way too much, Calypso was feeling relaxed for the first time since the swimming competition. It felt pretty good to be able to laugh again without a voice nagging in her head, telling her that she shouldn’t.

…

Once Georgina had gone to see her friend living in the same neighborhood, Calypso and Leo went to check the foster animals. Calypso had to admit that the bunny suits that were used to prevent spreading the germs around weren’t her favorite thing in existence; all the ones Leo’s parents had were really huge as Jo and Emmie were tall people and she had difficulties moving in them. Using a piece of fabric as her belt and rolling up the sleeves and the pant legs so that she wouldn’t fall, she gave Leo a pointed look because he was biting his lip trying to not show his amusement. Refraining herself from pointing out that he wasn’t that much taller than her, she followed him to the cat room where a couple of new, older cats were waiting for them.

According to Leo the new cats were more or less feral, not happy with human company and being stuck inside. Unfortunately for the felines, though, they had some medical conditions that needed to be taken care of, which was why they couldn’t be released into the wild yet even though they had already gotten their spays and neuters. Emmie had taught Leo how to use a towel to be able to give one of them the eye drops it needed due to an eye infection, but he was still slightly nervous about how it would work out. You never knew about cats, after all.

Emmie had purposefully left some hiding spots for the cats so that they would feel as safe as possible in their room, which was why Leo and Calypso didn’t see them at first when they entered. After looking around for a moment Calypso finally spotted a pair of gleaming eyes in a tiny tent in the corner of the room and pointed it to Leo. He found a towel in a cabinet and started quietly approaching the tent while Calypso stayed a bit farther, not wanting to freak the cat out any more than they already had.

“This actually makes this job a bit easier,” Leo whispered to Calypso. “Because she can’t escape from there as there’s only one small hole in that tent.”

“Don’t underestimate her escaping skills,” Calypso warned but continued following Leo’s progress. Slowly, he pushed the towel inside the tent so he could wrap it around the feline. Getting the cat out of the tent was a bit tricky but Leo managed to do that eventually. Carefully removing the towel from the feline’s face, he asked Calypso to pass the tiny eye drop bottle to him. Just when he got it into his hands and started unscrewing the lid, though, the lights in the room started flickering before turning entirely off.

“What happened?” Calypso asked. “Did the fuse get blown or…?”

“I dunno,” Leo replied, trying to stand up, which was surprisingly hard in almost a pitch black room with a feral cat on your lap. When he finally succeeded, he slowly walked towards the window and peeked out, as far as Calypso could tell from the darkness.

“It looks like the entire neighborhood is dark,” he muttered. “Guess the wind caused a blackout. And of course I left my phone… Ow! Damn cat!”

While he wasn’t paying attention, the cat managed to wriggle out of the towel and jump down from his arms with her claws out. Then she very frantically ran under a cabinet from where it would be notably harder for him to get her out.

“She got out of your grip?” she asked, trying to hide her amusement.

“Yeah,” Leo admitted. “And now I can’t catch her because it’s too dark. My phone is in the main building; I didn’t think I’d need it here.”

“I don’t have my phone with me either. This bunny suit doesn’t have pockets.” She pointed at her suit unnecessarily as he couldn’t see her anyway. “Do you know if there are any flashlights or such here?”

“I’m… I’m not sure. Maybe in the cabinet in the dressing room.”

“Anything else we could work with?” she inquired, knowing the said room was far back on another floor.

Calypso could hear some hesitation in Leo’s voice when he answered: “In the Christmas time whenever this room is empty, Emmie likes to put some candles on the windowsill. I think she may have left some in those drawers.” His bunny suit was rustling as he tried to show Calypso which drawers he meant. Opening them, she found out the first drawer only had some towels in it, but in the second one there was something that felt like tealight candles and a match box.

“Got it,” she announced.

“Oh, good. We need just enough light that we can go to find the flashlights without tripping on the stairs or something.”

The candles gave Calypso an idea.

“Hey… I get it if you’re not ready yet, but… this could be a good test situation. Want to give it a try?”

“You mean I would be lighting up the match?” Leo asked, not entirely able to hide the rising nervousness in his voice.

“Yeah. That’s what I was thinking.”

Leo remained quiet for a while. Calypso could almost hear the gears working in his head.

“Al-alright. Can’t win if you don’t try, huh?” He tried to sound brave, making her regret pushing him to do it.

Calypso attempted to find Leo’s hands in the dark and was happy to finally feel something warm and calloused under her fingers. Enjoying the warmth perhaps a moment longer than necessary, she dropped the match box into his hands and took the candle into hers.

“Alright. I’m gonna hold this candle while you light it. Remember, nothing bad is going to happen,” she tried to reassure him, running her free hand up and down his arm briefly.

“OK. I’m gonna try.” Leo took a deep breath. “Don’t judge me if this fails, though.”

“I might judge you for plenty of other things you’ve done but never that,” Calypso said playfully, trying to clear the air a bit, but she wasn’t sure if it worked.

Based on the clattering coming from Leo’s direction she could tell that his hands were shaking, but she pretended she didn’t notice.

A couple of snaps, most likely matches breaking, could be heard. Then some frustrated growling.

“This isn’t working out,” he muttered.

“Let’s not give up quite yet,” Calypso encouraged. “Try to think of this as something you have to do. The cats are depending on you and you can’t help them if you don’t have light.”

“I’ll give it a couple of more tries. If I don’t succeed by then, then clearly I’m not bound to succeed yet,” Leo decided.

“Fine,” Calypso agreed. “Remember, the cats. Also, I may reward you somehow if you do this.”

“Reward how?” Leo sounded a little curious, even with his nervousness.

“Well, won’t it be better if you don’t know it beforehand?”

“Okay, fine, keep it a secret,” Leo mumbled and focused on the matches again.

He kept scratching the next match against the box for a while until it split just like the ones before.

“Leo… breathe. You’re doing great.” Calypso’s eyes were starting to get adjusted to the darkness, allowing her to see the determination on his face, and something inside her melted. She kept whispering soothing words as he kept trying, hoping it would help.

A few more sticks split and Calypso knew there weren’t many left. He told her the next one would be the last one, taking a deep breath before going for it. Some more scratching, until finally…

“Woah!” he yelped, almost dropping the burning match in the process. Now that the flame was there, Calypso could see the surprise – and relief – on his face.

“Quickly, put it here,” Calypso handed the candle towards him and Leo didn’t waste any time, managing to make it burn, although shakily. Once that was done, he put out the flame in the match and dramatically laid down on the floor, weary from the stress reaction his fear had caused in him.

“I… Can’t believe I just did that,” he said, his hand covering his face.

“Soon you can set a fire in the big fireplace in the main building,” Calypso promised. She put the candle on a safe surface and laid down on the blanket meant for the cats, right next to Leo.

“Too soon,” he claimed wearily, giving her an unamused look.

Calypso wasn’t going to have a debate with him when he was in that state. “You’re right. Sorry. But believe it or not, I really am proud of you. I hope this will give you confidence that you can do it again.”

“Yeah. Hopefully it will.” He clearly started snapping out of his haze because a mischievous look returned to his face. “Hey, what about that reward?”

“What reward?” Calypso pretended to be oblivious for a second.

“The one you just promised.”

“Oh, right. That. I guess you deserve it.” Calypso rose to her knees and laid down on top of Leo. “I was kind of thinking of this kind of reward.”

She leaned down to kiss him on the mouth. It wasn’t one of those more passionate kisses that they had had more and more often recently, instead very light, almost teasing. With the hand that she didn’t use for support, she traced his jaw line, which he seemed to enjoy.

“I mean… I can picture better places for this than the cat hairy blanket…” Leo grinned. “But I am not gonna complain.”

“Yep, you’d better not,” Calypso grinned back at him.

“I might even consider using the matches more often,” Leo said before pulling her back for another kiss. While she wouldn’t have minded staying there a bit longer, she hadn’t forgotten that they were supposed to take care of the foster animals. Soon they got up from the blanket and Calypso took the candle from the dresser so that they could go and find the flashlights, still Leo’s preferred light source.

“Look. The flame you started.” She said proudly as she handed the tealight towards him. “Maybe you should carry it so you can show us the way.”

“Fine,” he sighed and took it from her slowly but actually didn’t seem too shaken by the flame anymore.

Within a few minutes they managed to find two flashlights from the shelter building’s dressing room. With their help Leo and Calypso found the feline somehow squished under a cabinet even though there wasn’t a whole lot of space there. After carefully blocking the potential escape routes, Leo finally managed to get the cat wrapped into the towel and pulled her back on his lap. He held her while Calypso gave her the eye drops, also daring to give her a couple of finger pets while she was still wrapped. The cat gave her a couple of half hearted hisses as a response but didn’t protest more.

“Look at that, you’re a real cat whisperer,” Leo smirked at her and threw her a high five now that he dared to loosen his grip on the cat. “That was some solid team effort, right?”

“You did most of the work, to be honest; I just put the drops in.

“Nah, without your encouragement I would probably still be sitting here in the dark wondering what I should do.”

“No, you would have found your way to the dressing room even without the candle. But fine; we do make a decent team.” She reached for his hand and squeezed it reassuringly.

“Yep, we do.” Leo nodded.

As they kept chatting, one of the cats, the younger of the two, had sneakily come out of his hiding hole and started playing with a string in the corner of the room. Only when he started jumping after it and making noise, did they realize that, and a big smile spread on Calypso’s face.

“Hey, do you think this guy might be willing to give up his feral card some day?” she asked. “Clearly he is not too afraid of our presence.”

“I think Emmie might have mentioned that this Cookie here is more open for human interactions,” Leo recalled. “Most of the ferals I’ve seen keep hiding when I’m in the same room with them.”

“Yeah, I guess that’s the natural reaction for them. How about we try to see what he says when we try to play with him?” Calypso suggested.

Leo found a feather wand toy from one of the drawers and slowly approached the cat, waving the wand on the ground.

At first not much happened. Cookie did seem kind of curious about the feathers but he remained skeptical, just staring at it. But when Leo switched it to another wand toy with a long ‘worm’ hanging from it, the cat couldn’t resist anymore. He started eagerly chasing it and Calypso couldn’t help but smile at the sight. She remembered how back when she had been a teenager, her sister Zoë had advised her to pay attention to how a guy treated animals. According to her, if he was kind to them, he was worth Calypso’s time. And Leo clearly loved animals.

Maybe not all choices she had made were bad ones.

[blazehedgehog]

Are you of the opinion that giving a character voice acting essentially robs the reader/viewer of their agency on how they imagine a character sounded like? So to put it in another way, would no voice acting be better than any? A Sonic-related example would be Classic Sonic, who isn't voiced in Generations, but the main inspiration for this question is Bill Watterson's hesitancy in giving his characters voices.

I mean this is just a different version of the argument people sometimes make where, like... there were people who were against making movies based on the Harry Potter books, right. Because some kids might imagine themselves in Harry's shoes, or retroactively J.K. Rowling said she imagined different characters in different nationalities when she was writing them (famously I believe some people interpret Hermione as african-american).

The idea that movies might damper the imagination inspired by books isn't entirely incorrect. However, in my experience, it's also just different mediums and reaching different audiences, right.

I don't read a lot of fiction. I know I should, I've made more efforts to in the past, and it just never works out. Maybe it's my ADHD brain or whatever, but I'll start a book and never finish it. Even audio books are like this for me a lot of the time.

But there are two books I've finished in my life: Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park, and its sequel, The Lost World. They are pretty much the only fiction books I've ever read purely for fun, and also, more importantly, finished reading.

I would have never tried reading those books on my own terms if I did not see the Jurassic Park movie first. The movie is what sparked my interest in the books.

And the books, for what it's worth, are VERY different experiences! By their very nature, books are longer, more detailed stories than most movies. If you translated the Jurassic Park book into a movie, as an exact replica of the novel, it would be something like 6 hours long. Maybe closer to 8 or even 10 hours. To get a watchable movie, you have to cut a lot of scenes out and streamline things to a huge degree.

The Jurassic Park book opens with this long vignette that's practically a whole short film itself -- it starts with recapping the history of the "designer genetics gold rush" of its world, and focuses on a hospital at the edge of Costa Rica that continually receives patients with strange, poisonous bite marks from unidentifiable animals. The head nurse there suspects a conspiracy, because the patients are all InGen construction workers flown in from a nearby island and they refuse tell the doctors how they were injured. Clearly something else is going on. It weaves together with Costa Rican folklore about demons that visit cursed villages in the night and steal their children, only for one of the nurses to witness a creature in the newborn ward doing just that before seeing it skitter back in to the jungle. (The implication being that it was a dinosaur, of course)

If translated to film, that entire sequence would be 10-20 minutes long, if not more. Instead, it was condensed down in to the far more action-heavy "SHOOT HER!" opening scene. It gets some similar ideas across, but it is nothing like the book. It only lasts two minutes.

And not only is there a lot of stuff like that, but characterization is often dramatically different, too. John Hammond is much less sympathetic in the book, and much more of a villain. Alan Grant is more of an Indiana-Jones-type cowboy who is deeply ignorant of even the most simplistic modern technology. It goes on and on. There's one particularly great chapter where Grant is piloting a pontoon boat down a river while being stalked by a T-Rex that swims like a crocodile. They painted concept art for it for the movie, but it never even made it to storyboarding.

There's even a level for it in the Genesis game!

And if we're talking about The Lost World, well... 80% of that book is a completely different story from what ended up in the movie. The book has dinosaurs that camouflage like chameleons! It's terrifying!

For me, at least, it means that they don't even really compare. I find it much like how comic books feature multiverses and showcase many alternate versions of a character, where Ultimate Spider-man's Peter Parker is a different guy from the original "616" Spider-man. The book interpretations of Alan Grant, or Hermione Granger, or whoever are usually entirely different people from how they are portrayed in movies, or cartoons, or whoever. Ergo, it's hard to visualize Sam Neil as the book's version of Grant in Jurassic Park.

Even in comic books. A couple years ago I went through and read all of the original Dragon Ball. I cut my teeth watching the Saban dub of Dragon Ball back in 1995 and 1996, so I knew in my head what I thought these characters sounded like, but after reading deep enough in to the manga, that all kind of faded away and it just became it's own thing. Every now and then my mind would drift back to reading the dialog in the voices from the Saban dub (or the voices from Funimation's re-dub of Dragon Ball from 2005), but for the most part it stood on its own as its own thing. I mean, that's one of those things that lead to Dragon Ball Kai, right? Because the anime ended up just that different, and they wanted to re-edit it to be more faithful to the original books.

Not everyone has a good imagination. Reading can help facilitate and exercise a dormant imagination, I guess, but representing these things in other media formats can also aid those who struggle with the original text. Again, I'd never have read Jurassic Park if it wasn't for the movies. I'd never have read Dragon Ball if I wasn't feeling nostalgic for the anime. An important bridge was formed by adapting these properties so that other types of people could also enjoy them. It all contributes to a richer overall experience for all involved.

The only thing I'd say is that giving Classic Sonic a voice is a different kind of stylistic choice, because as Sonic Mania Adventures has shown, you can still use those characters to tell stories without necessarily having dialog. The difference there is that characters like Calvin or Hermione or Alan Grant are written with dialog in mind, and you change who they are by translating them across media types. How Classic Sonic is depicted is a bit more of a strange beast because he's been left mute. I suppose it's not that different, but it's still a little different regardless.

[massacre-girlypop]

@the-one-and-only-blake-llewell @dimitrescuslustwine I hope you enjoy Petra’s encounter with the rogue’s gallery that is Alcina’s Castle. It’s not a great story and not perfectly well written but regardless I hope you like it.

Ch. 1: Heresy

A smell of iron and wine mixed with the spruce trees nearby. Such a odd welcome to the plane she had just appeared in. It was so different from Rexentrum too. Nature seemed at peace with the world instead of deception lurking around every corner. Even these poor hopeless souls were honest about their intentions rather than manipulating people to their will. Not that it helped them in the end but it was refreshing.

Petra sheathed her sword, pulled out some incense, and lit it with a sacred flame. Just outside the village where she’d stopped in for a drink after planeshifting here to find a new home, three men tried too hard to take advantage of her only to fall into a trap of her own make. With extreme prejudice as they tried to feel her up as she tried to walk away, she severed limb and head from body without a care, leaving them in a heap of flesh. No tolerance, no mercy.

A very large castle-like manor loomed in the distance. At least a half an hour walk from here, but she felt like she was being watched. Not by an unfriendly being, but like she was being evaluated. Ignoring it, she wanted for the spell to finish.

Without a beat missed, she heard a voice behind her. “Well, you certainly know how to make an entrance now, don’t you?”

“They attacked me first, you saw it. I don’t claim to understand the mind of men like this or why they thought it was a good idea to try and take advantage of me as such, but here we are.”

Petra’s 5’6” frame slightly shuddered from the cold. She was wearing her usual outfit. Cloth wrap around the bust with her trench duster and black pants now covered in blood, not that she of all people minded blood. She picked up a nearby wine bottle dropped by one of her attackers. It still had a little bit left.

“Such a shameful waste of good wine.” Petra said, drinking the last, enough for one mouthful.

The figure behind her started to inspect the carnage. She looked like a tall drifter who passes through town without making a fuss.

“So you had questions, my dear?” Nytoria, Petra’s patron asked.

“It’s nice to talk to you. Considering you’re my only friend. But yes, I have a few questions.” Petra responded.

“Well, my dearest champion, considering you’re my only follower and you’re faithful to the last, I can’t help but protect you, but you really should find some friends.”

“Friends are a distraction and I’ve been betrayed too many times.” Petra deadpanned.

“You’re worth all the time in the world, which we have considering you traded your ability to see your sister for immortality as my champion. Fall in love, see the world, live a little, my dear.” Nytoria smiled mournfully.

“My sister was happy. She found a girl and she settled down after we brought that spineless priest that ordered my death all those years ago to justice. Emotional bonds slow me down. It’s why I never told her I was alive.” Petra said, studying the blood red brand on her arm.

“You did the right thing. She never would have rested had she known.” Nytoria said, her 6’7” frame giving Petra a sympathetic hug.

“She deserves to rest. But not me. I still have work to do and loving someone just isn’t in the cards.” Petra said, her thoughts of the past swimming through her brain, reliving the trauma and pain she had gone through in her 21 years.

~~~~~

Petra grew up in a village a couple days travel from Rexentrum. Years before the war with Xhorhas, Petra grew up reviled by the very people she was born to. Her people worshipped a god of protection and being the chosen of a god no one had heard of with a brand on her arm didn’t make things any better. Even her parents refused to accept that their child was heretical by nature. Thankfully her sister, Neraia managed to sneak her out of the city and raise her properly. When she turned 14, she and her sister were separated by assassins sent by the priest, St. Morvarian and she spent the better part of 2 years searching for her. During that time she became renowned as the Heretic, a cryptic mercenary with abilities only the gods could grant, hemocraft, mental domination, and blood red wings. She eventually used these skills to hone her sword skills, find her sister who, to this day, believed her sister to be dead, and burn the corrupt town to ash.

~~~~~

“One question for you before you start inquiring of me. Why keep your made up name? Did Anezi Diasea not suit you?” Nytoria asked.

Petra smiled. “It was a name given to me by family. As an aasimar with divine blood that runs through my veins, I felt no love for a name that was given to me by a corrupt system. Plus, Petra Naverrian suits me much better.”

“Fair. Well, as the goddess of free will, I accept your reasoning. Now, how can I help you, dear champion?” Nytoria drifted in front of her.

“What plane did we land on?” Petra asked without hesitation.

“Oh come on, love, you know the rules.”

“Oh shit, sorry. Yes or no questions only for this spell. Is a safe haven somewhere close to here?”

Nytoria pondered. “Safe isn’t the word I would use, but knowing you, you’d probably think so.”

“Fantastic. The village where these poor bastards come from, will they be missed?” Petra asked, grimly.

Nytoria smiled with a devious grin. “Oh absolutely not, you chaotic little thing. Though once old toothless over here tried to put his hand on your arse, I knew his fate was sealed.”

Petra laughed. “He deserved everything that came his way. Had it under control this time, not like the day we met.” As she thought back to that traumatic day.

~~~~~

Petra was tired and hungry. As she searched for her sister, her brand burned like ashes on her skin.

“NERAIA, WHERE ARE YOU!” Petra called, trying to focus while ignoring her brand. Why did she have this? It had never helped her. She was only 14. Those assassins from a few days ago were still tracking her, but this persistent burning was starting to hurt.

“Ah, there you are.” Three shadows walked out from behind the trees.

Petra spun around. “No, no please don’t.” She pleaded, her arm now exuding a crimson red aura.

“What? We just have a gift for you. Be a shame not to grant you something only we can give.” As they rushed her. Right before they grabbed her, Petra felt time slow to a stop. Except she was still moving.

She took a second to catch her breath, a knife inches away from her flesh brandished by the men and women who separated her from her sister, when she heard a voice.

“It’s about time we met. I heard your pleas. I wanted to wait until you were old enough, but it seems you’re ready now.” A woman said.

“Who are you? And what is going on?” Petra stuttered, clearly at her wits end.

“I am the goddess who saved your life. You poor thing, I’ve watched you since you were a baby. You’ve seen and experienced so much. So much rage, so many traumas. Assaults, violations…” The woman answered.

“Why are you just showing yourself now?” Petra said, tears streaming down her face.

The woman smiled, hand on Petra’s face. “The gods don’t interfere with human matters unless we need to, but I couldn’t keep watching you suffer rape and attacks like you have been. The pantheon forbade me from acting until now and considering I’m fairly new to this, I’ve been trying to reach out since you were born. I am Nytoria and I’m here to grant you the power to take back your control.”

Petra cried. “How? I don’t know any magic.”

Nytoria smiled. “My dearest champion, you need only ask. You need not lift a finger. Have them destroy themselves. I promised the world free will, but that does not mean all deserve it. And so, my girl, you will be my arm of judgment. Take their freedom that they have taken from you multiple times and rend them in twain.” She said, disappearing.

As time slowly started to move again, Petra turned and with a flourish of her hand, the woman of the group of three, knife extended, slashed the throat of her comrade, then stabbed her other friend several times in the spine. Finally, when she awoke from her domination and saw her actions, screamed, and ran in the opposite direction. Petra, drenched in blood and holding a divine saber, which she had no idea how long she’d been holding, stared in awe and her own prowess and knew this might be enough to take her life back.

~~~~~

As Petra refocused after remembering that day, she had her final question. “Is there a person watching me and if so, are they friendly?” Petra asked. Nytoria thought to herself. “Because I like you, I’ll let that slide, you rulebreaker. Yes, there is someone watching. A very interesting being to be sure, but friendly is an operative word. But who knows. Knowing you, you might get along famously.” Nytoria said before disappearing with a wink.

Taking a deep breath, Petra called out. “I promise I won’t hurt you. These rats deserved it, but I promise I won’t attack unless you give me reason.” Out of the shadows strode a hooded creature. She looked human, but not human. Smiling with a creepy grin, but somehow, Petra wasn’t unsettled.

“You smell new, child. Something not of this world.” The creature spoke with a witch-like tone. “You would be correct. I am fairly new to this place and am looking for refuge. Would you know of a place like that?” Petra asked the hooded woman.

The woman smiled a creepy smile. “We may be able to help each other. We have been watching you since your arrival not long ago and my lady, intrigued by your demeanor and energy, requests an audience. My name is Daniela and if you would be so kind, I would have you follow me.” Petra, skeptical but interested, spoke after some thought. “I guess. I don’t see why not. Lead the way.” “Fantastic. Follow.” Daniela urged.

~~~~~

Petra arrived with Daniela at the huge castle, slowly feeling more and more nervous. She couldn’t help it. Something was sapping her self-confidence, but not in a bad way.

Daniela knocked on the large front door and said “You know, my lady does not take interest in many people, so feel honored that you have this chance. She is an imposing woman and will not accept impudence, so please try to make a good first impression.”

Petra nodded, unable to form words as the door swung open. As they walked in, Petra was unable to hide her amazement as the castle had an extremely refined nature to it. Tapestries, paintings, and decorations lined the walls as she walked into the room leading to the main staircase. It felt strangely warm in this castle, so without thinking, Petra removed her coat and slung it over her shoulder, revealing her usual lack of shirt and gauze-wrapped chest binder. Petra was a fighter, but hated clothes because they restricted her movement and hindered her fighting, so she preferred just to tie down her assets.

As she entered the main room, she beheld a fireplace, burning with an intense light, and several candles to keep the chamber illuminated.

As they travelled up the stairs, they heard the thudding of footsteps, but not normal footsteps. It sounded like wolf footsteps.

“Shit…” Daniela muttered, diving out of the way as a massive wolf leaped at Petra. Petra, in an instant, sidestepped the pounce and drew her saber and pointed it at the creature. The wolf snarled as it turned toward her, haunches bristled as it slowly crawled closer to Petra.

“Tyrian, no, down, this is a guest.” Daniela scolded in a way what seemed to be out of character for her. As Petra turned towards Daniela in confusion, the wolf changed forms to reveal a naked girl with markings and a long braid that looked a foot taller than Petra. Petra blushed bright red, not because she was naked, but because “Oh my god, she’s gorgeous.” Petra accidentally said out loud.

“Fucking make me, I do what I want.” The wolfgirl said, staring at Petra for whatever reason. Petra, having the biggest gay panic of her life, could not look her in the eyes in fear of giving too much away. She sheathed her sword and said, voice cracking like crazy, “Yeah uh I’m just here to see the Lady of the Castle is that you by chance wow I’m still talking how are you?” “No, of course, it’s not me.” The wolfgirl said, eyes still trained in pure confusion on Petra. Petra was having a really hard time keeping eye contact with Tyrian because the view was stunning and her mind was running wild. Tyrian continued. “Dimetrescu is just down the hall. And Daniela, go fuck yourself.” “Yeah, fuck you too, Tyrian.” Daniela sneered. “Follow me, Petra, ignore her. Petra followed, but, God, was it hard to leave a girl like that.

Daniela finally led Petra into a sitting room where a woman was sitting. She was as tall as Petra was. Sitting. As the woman turned towards her, she had pale white skin, just like her and had this air of sophistication around her that intimidated her. Petra was never good at small talk and especially in high class situations. As she turned, Petra had a heart attack. The second one tonight. She was attractive as all hell, but not in the same way. Tyrian was attractive in a feral, wild child, would probably strip Petra naked at a moments notice kind of way. This woman had an intense, powerful, enticing vibe that drew you in and made you want to follow her every word. And Petra hated being told what to do.m which made this all the more confusing.

“Petra. What a lovely name for such an adorable girl. I am Alcina Dimitrescu and I own this estate. Daniela, leave us for a moment while we talk. And bring back Tyrian, I want to talk to her.” Daniela nodded, leaving the room. Alcina continued. “So, my child, you have a touch of immortality about you. Care to explain?” Petra could not speak. The gay panic attack she was experiencing was too strong. “I know the feeling. As a vampire, death does not come easily and especially someone of your figure…” Alcina said, giving Petra a noticeable once over, “would garner some interesting attention.” Petra swallowed hard and finally spoke. “If you’re interested in the men I killed, I’m sorry they were being…” “Oh no worries at all, my dear. Have a seat, drink some wine.” Petra sat, trying hard not to fan herself from how hard she was blushing. God, this woman was a gift to the senses. “Those men definitely deserve it and you disposed of them so elegantly, I can’t help but be impressed.” The lady said, eyes trained on Petra.

Petra felt so self conscious. This is the second time in a row she’d been blatantly eye scanned by an attractive woman and the attention was getting to her.

Lady Dimetrescu, clearly sensing Petra’s emotional state, smiled lovingly. “I’ll cut straight to the chase, darling. I want you to feel at home here. I have dozens of extra rooms and I would be honored if you filled one of them. You’re just so adorably vicious and it would be a pleasure to get to know you.”

Petra, still blushing, finally spoke. “It would be my pleasure. I’m just so new here. I am a cleric, miss, and do have loyalty to my goddess, Nytoria, but it would be a pleasure to stay here and continue to craft my magic here.” Petra, stumbling over her words as she got shy and reserved.

Lady Dimetrescu smiled. As she did, Tyrian bounded in. “Ah yes, Tyrian, I need your help with something. Petra darling, stand up for me and take the binding off for me.”

Petra blushed profusely. “Yes, mistress.” She said and did as she was told. Lady Dimetrescu smiled with such a warm loving glow and Tyrian had this wild grin on her face. Petra should have felt self conscious but she felt loved and attractive. Something she hadn’t felt in a long time.

“What do you think Tyrian? Should we marry her?” “Wait what?!” Petra said, not hiding her excitement at all. “You called me in to ask me about something you already knew the answer to?” Tyrian said. Petra gushed with embarrassment. All of this was happening WAY too fast and she did not care. “Then it’s settled. Welcome to the family, Petra. We’re your new wives.”

Petra smiled and immediately sat down in Alcina’s lap as she gave a loving kiss on the forehead and Petra felt a presence. Nearby, in a place somewhere only Petra could feel, Nytoria was smiling in such a proud manner and could not be happier with her little champion.

[cancerbiophd]

hey julia, im really sad because after a year or so of writing for a published paper, the prof analyzing the data found an inconsistency in my database and when he fixed it the new results he got changed the outline of our paper in a big way. i'm still getting primary authorship because i did all the data collecting and initial writing, but pretty much all i wrote is gonna have to be scrapped :( i was really proud of what i wrote and having it go through editing because it was mine (1/2)

(2/2)I feel so disappointed with everything though and i know it’s my first ever real writing experience but i was hoping it would work out a bit better :c im still gonna have access to see how the paper evolves and be invited to the talks about it, but it just isn’t mine anymore and i kind of feel like i failed, i was banking on this paper to apply for grad school because being published gives me an edge but it doesn’t feel like its my work anymore :( what do u do when u have a sad science day?

Oh maria /biiiig hug/ i’m so sorry to hear you’re going through a rough time. it’s ok to feel sad and disappointed because i know it’s tough to watch something you’ve worked so hard on get scrapped like that. but you know what? you’re tougher! and i know you’ll get through this. 

Firstly, give yourself a warm hug for completing the monumental task that is writing a manuscript, regardless of what ended up happening. Finishing something so challenging is not trivial! And you know what, all those experience points you gained by going through this journey are yours to keep. So when it comes to writing another manuscript in grad school, you’ll know exactly what to do! And that’s pretty great, yeah?

Secondly, I know you feel bad, and that’s ok, but I want to slip a note into your thoughts that you have not failed, my friend. You have not failed. Mistakes happen, even to seasoned professionals, because mistakes are a part of life. I guarantee you that every single research lab in existence right now (and have existed) has had to go back to square one or two and start over at some point. And they did, and fixed what needed to be fixed, and then carried on to do great things. Sometimes you gotta erase what’s already on the paper to make room for something more beautiful. 

If you feel this paper doesn’t feel like your baby anymore, that’s ok. I totally understand why you would feel that way, and if squishing and squeezing your emotions into accepting the paper like it was before is adding to the bad feels, then you don’t have to. You can just focus on and own the black and white facts of the paper: the experimental design, the science behind the data, the major conclusions, the impact on society, etc. There doesn’t have to be an emotional attachment to go with it if you don’t want to. 

And you know what, the changes to this paper doesn’t change who you are. Maria: you are still the smart, funny, caring, kind, and passionate person that I’ve gotten to know you as. You’re still the awesome person who took the time to put together the most in-depth and hilaaarious powerpoint of fish and fauna to see while snorkeling in the Bahamas for me. You’re still the brilliant marine biologist who has a (really impressive!) CV that 100% reflects your passion and commitment to your work. You’re still a person who will leave the world a better place, and I know this because you’ve already made my world a better place. I feel so lucky to have you in my life. 

I hope you’re starting to feel better now :) If not, here are some things I do if I have a Bad Science Day:

Cry it out. There’s an odd sort of comfort that comes after a good cry. So sometimes if I feel like I’ve been holding back, I exhale softly and let it all out. It doesn’t solve anything, I know, but I do feel a teeny bit better and a teeny bit more whole. 

Write it out. Something I’ve learned about myself is that my brain tends to over-exaggerate things when it’s just swirling thoughts. But when I write it out and everything gets organized, it turns out things aren’t so bad after all. So give it a go, either in a word doc, an actual journal, or even a tumblr post (that you don’t have to publish, of course). 

Talk it out. Related, going on a verbal rant (or even written rant to someone) helps in a similar way. Even if it’s in private to my favorite stuffed animal or a pet. Just anything to get the thoughts out!

Listen to “comfort” music. I have a playlist of my all-time favorite songs and I listen to it on the drive home and I always feel a lil better. It’s hard to not feel a little happy and carefree when your favorite jam comes on. 

Sleep it off. Sometimes all I need is a good night’s sleep (or even a nap) to clear my head. Also I love sleeping, so it always feels good no matter what. 

Do something comforting. Anything to release those sweet sweet endorphins. My ideas of comforting routines are: eating whatever I’m craving at the moment, watching a favorite TV show or movie (usually something I’ve already seen), curling up with a good book or magazine, scrolling through Tumblr, doing my nails, hugging my dog and/or husband until I feel better, and walking around Homegoods, my favorite store (I’d honestly live there if I could). Doing these things also helps in that it takes my mind off whatever’s bothering me, even temporarily. 

Give myself a pep talk. Ok, oddly enough, the pep-talk-voice in my head is Gordon Ramsay. I don’t know how it manifested as him, but when he’s not yelling at chefs to get their shit together, he has a really encouraging and soothing voice! Anyway, sometimes he sits me down and tells me that everything is going to be ok, and here’s what we do next alright? Just one step at a time ok? That’s it. Good job. Good job. 

Just keep working. Sometimes my Bad Science Day starts at 9 AM in the morning, or it’s just a continuous Bad Science Week/Month/Year. So I put those feelings on hold and just stick to my schedule and try to be as productive as I can. Because even if Experiment 1 didn’t work, Experiment 2 might, and if it does, I’ll feel a little better! And if Experiment 2 doesn’t work, well, at least I finished it, and I’ll still feel a little better! And in any case, my projects aren’t gonna do themselves, no matter how I feel. So in the wise words of Dory: “Just keep swimming, just keep swimming!”

I talk to my PI. I’m super lucky to have an understanding PI, and I’ve talked to her about my frustrations on more than one occasion and she’s worked with me to come up with good solutions, or have said things to make me feel better. PIs are full of wisdom from experiencing their own fair share of Bad Science Days so they have lots of advice on how to feel better, such as looking at my results a different way so it goes form :( to :)

I let the passing of time lessen the hurt. Time doesn’t always heal, but it does make things that were terrible at the moment not so bad anymore. So if nothing else makes me feel better, at least I know “this too shall pass”. 

I hope this helps. I know things are ugh right now, but you’re going to be ok. And I’m here for you, ok? Feel free to reach out via chat or email. I would very much like to help you feel better <3

[elapsed-spiral]

Superfast Ficlet: Can I Kick It? (2Doc PWP)

Title: Can I Kick It? 

Pairing: 2Doc

Rating: Explicit

Summary: “Come down and play with your balls?”

Warnings: Written while hopped up on cold medicine. Basically a PWP ficlet about football written by someone with zero interest in football (but cunningly written from the POV of a character who also knows absolutely nothing about football). Mild sexism but for Sexy Reasons. Barely self betaed.

Murdoc wakes to thumping sounds. It takes him a second to appreciate the thumping is coming from outside and not his whiskey battered brain. He pulls himself out of bed, shoves his curtains open and looks down. Directly under his bedroom window, one floor down, 2D is kicking a football against the wall of Wobble Street's kitchen.

More than that: 2D is kicking a football against the wall of Wobble Street's kitchen in full football kit. The red and white striped ensemble looks one size too small and dated in a way that suggests it belonged to a much younger Stuart. Panning down further, Murdoc sees that he's even sporting bright red socks and daft studded boots. 2D clearly senses he's being watched, traps the ball under his foot and glances up. Murdoc opens his window and sticks his head out.

“Morning,” Murdoc offers.

“It's three in the afternoon.”

“Not sure you're in a position to be a smart arse dressed like that.”

“I look good,” 2D says with an easy shrug.

“More to the point, why are you dressed like that?”

“My mum was having a clear out, sent me some of my old stuff.” 2D starts passing the ball back and forth between his feet. “It's been forever since I had a kickabout.”

“You woke me up.”

2D goes back to kicking the ball against the wall.

“It's three in the afternoon.” He punctuates the words with strikes. “No sympathy.”

Murdoc carries on leaning out the window, watching him. 2D returns the look, smiling in a self-satisfied way.

“Come down.”

“Come down and play with your balls?”

“Just the one.”

“Not last time I checked.”

2D's smile threatens to falter. He casts quick looks at the six foot fences either side of the garden.

“The neighbours'll complain if you keep it up.”

“We're getting evicted anyway,” Murdoc dismisses. “Might as well be for over-loud conversations about your testicles.”

“Just come down and shut your gob for once.”

Murdoc throws on a t-shirt, jeans and boots and lets himself out the back. The ball goes sailing by his feet as he steps outside and 2D tuts in disappointment.

“How'd you miss that?”

“I didn't miss it. I'm not playing.”

2D strides past him, stops the ball with one foot then passes it back and forth as he comes to stand directly in front of Murdoc.

“When'd you last play?”

Murdoc pretends to consider the question.

“Er, never.”

2D's eyebrows fly up.

“Never?”

“That's what I said.”

“How've you never played football? That's ridiculous.”

Murdoc gestures to 2D's football kit silently. 2D idly starts playing keepie uppie, bouncing the ball on his thigh.

“I told you already, I look good.” He tries to pass the ball over his head to balance between his shoulder blades but it rolls away. He chases it with a grumble of “never could do that”.

“If that's everything, I'll be going back in.”

“Play wimme.”

“Is that a euphemism?” Murdoc asks, hand on the door handle. 2D gives him a slow, easy smile.

“Play and you'll find out.”

Reluctantly, Murdoc trudges over. 2D leads the way onto the scrubby grass beyond the patio.

“We don't have goals or anything,” Murdoc points out. 2D glances around.

“If you can kick it between that plant pot.” He jabs with a finger. “And that bottle of Psycho Jerry's, you've scored.” He turns to look over Murdoc's shoulder. “If I can get it between that old tyre and that.” He squints. “Thong, I've scored. Whose is that anyway?”

Murdoc casts a glance at it.

“S'not silk, so it's not mine.” 2D looks wrong-footed by his answer.

“We need a spring clean, this place's disgusting.”

“Nowt compared with Kong, you're getting too prissy,” Murdoc chastises. He gives the football badge on 2D's shirt a prompting tap. “Let's get this over with.”

2D starts kicking the ball, passing it from foot to foot. He easily sidesteps Murdoc, who mostly just watches him go. He pulls his leg back and strikes the ball with a completely unnecessary level of force, sending it sailing between the “goalposts” and bouncing off the wall of Wobble Street.

“You're paying if you put a window through.”

“Are you even trying?” 2D asks, picking up the ball and throwing it back to Murdoc. Murdoc traps it awkwardly under one Cuban heel. “You're not really wearing the right footwear for this.”

“Weird that.” Murdoc experimentally taps the ball forward. It mostly goes in the direction he intended but sure enough, 2D stops it, tears away and powers it between the tyre and thong once again. 2D spots something in Murdoc's expression and gives him a smug smirk as he throws the ball back at his feet.

“Always wanted to be a footballer. I nearly got into Pease Pottage under sixteens.”

Despite his total lack of football knowledge, Murdoc senses how dubious 2D’s bragging rights are. Regardless, it's obvious that 2D can play decently: he steals the ball time and again, controlling it effortlessly before taking powerful kicks that have his ridiculously long legs up by his hips.

“Best footballer outta my mates by a long shot. Just a bit slow.”

“What, when you play football or generally speaking?” Murdoc asks. 2D gives him an unimpressed look as he sneaks the ball out from under him again. Murdoc makes a grab for the back of 2D's shirt in his effort to knock the ball away and nearly trips himself in the process. 2D whips around to give Murdoc a playful shove and Murdoc can feel the heat radiating off him, smells the sour tang of sweat. He makes no effort to hide his hungry stare.

“You'll get booked for grabbing my shirt,” 2D warns, getting the ball back but staying close to Murdoc. Murdoc tries to swipe it at with his foot but 2D spins away with a pleased grin. He kicks, scores, and jogs off to retrieve the ball and throw it back.

“Are you really surprised I play dirty?”

2D steals the ball again rather than answer. Matters are made easier still since Murdoc is too distracted by the slightly stiff way 2D's moving to try and tackle him.

“Walking a bit funny there Stu,” Murdoc calls after him and 2D looks back over his shoulder, panting slightly from the exertion.

“Yeah, wonder why.”

“You always get a stiffy when you play?”

2D shoots glances at the neighbouring houses before looking back at Murdoc.

“No, must be something about this particular fixture.”

“Must be,” Murdoc agrees with a toothy grin. 2D kicks the ball back over and Murdoc attempts to tackle him again before, in a flash of inspiration, dropping flat on his back on the ground instead. 2D looks momentarily alarmed before spotting the way Murdoc drapes his arms above his head with a self-congratulatory smile.

“You alright Drogba?”

“I assume I'm meant to know who that is.”

“Yeah,” 2D agrees. He stands, a foot either side of Murdoc's prone body and Murdoc looks up at him eagerly. “If you were a proper man you'd know.”

Murdoc lets out an appreciative noise at the words. 2D waits a moment longer before getting down on the grass and settling between Murdoc's spread and bracketing legs. He plants a hand either side of Murdoc's head and leans down to kiss him hard. Murdoc leaves his arms above his head and lets himself be kissed, panting against 2D's mouth. After they break apart, he watches how 2D works down his shorts and shoves up his shirt.

“This kit’s out of production,” 2D explains, voice croaky with want. “M'not getting spunk on it.”

“Travesty though that'd be.”

2D gives him an unimpressed look before lining up their crotches. Murdoc feels himself get uncomfortably hard at the sight of 2D's cock, clearly outlined in his briefs by precome. 2D rolls his hips slowly against Murdoc's bulging jeans and Murdoc lets his head loll back as he groans. 2D leans forward and mouths at his neck, making Murdoc's head swim with the smell of sweat. He grips at the grass and soil as 2D ruts against him, breathing in sharp, hissed breaths.

“You wearing a thong today?” 2D gasps out. Murdoc swallows hard, only managing a shake of his head. “Shoulda done. I made an effort, you should too.”

Murdoc meets 2D’s eye then glances down, gaze roving over the barely-there muscles of 2D's stomach as he grinds down against him. 2D watches him watching, smiling with obvious satisfaction. Out of the corner of his eye, Murdoc is convinced he sees a neighbouring house's net curtain twitch. The thought is enough to send him over the edge and he comes, head thrown back with a pitiful whine. 2D quickly follows as he watches Murdoc coming apart underneath him. He joins Murdoc in lying on the grass afterwards, shirt still hiked and shorts still down, white pants practically sheer with come. Murdoc takes as many mental images as his orgasm addled brain will allow.

“Aren't you gonna congratulate me on my win?” 2D asks hoarsely, wiping one large hand over his sweaty forehead, leaving his hair standing on end. When Murdoc looks blank, 2D elaborates. “The football, not the sex.”

“Was gonna say. I think the sex was very Hot Chocolate,” Murdoc says breathlessly. It's 2D's turn to look nonplussed. ““Everyone's a winner, baby”.” Murdoc lifts one leaden arm to jab at the neighbour's window. “Including the perves at 210.”

2D blanches, hands going to cover his crotch.

“You're kidding?”

“Might've imagined it,” Murdoc shrugs. “Nevermind: we're either getting evicted or we're getting a threesome, golden balls.”

2D gives him a surprised grin.

“Was that a football joke?”

“Don't get used to it.”

Murdoc allows himself a long and blatant study of 2D as his breathing goes back to normal. 2D stretches out with a smile. 

“So you wanted to be a footballer when you were a kid eh?”

“Yeah.”

“How about a fireman?” Murdoc asks with a hopeful leer.

[akatsukibandhscenarios]

6. When You Both Confess

Pein You were watching Pein do paperwork. You didn’t mind just sitting there. You just wanted to be with him in the room. Suddenly, a piece of paper slid off his desk. You got up to pick it up for him. When you saw the paper you froze. On it was a note to you. The note said: ‘_____, my actual name is Nagato. The Pein you know is one of my bodies, in a sense. I love you, regardless of which body I show it through.’ “W-What?” You asked out loud. You were shocked and confused. “I wasn’t sure how to say that to you.” Was Pein/Nagato’s response. “I’m not sure which I’m more shocked about. That you are a different person, or that you love me…” You got up and paced around for a few moments. You weren’t sure what you were about to do or say, but then it actually hit you. You loved Pein, and you just found out that he loved you too. “Are you angry?” You walked over to Pein and hugged him. “No. I love you too, but I do want to see what you really look like.” You could feel that he slightly hugged you back. It was as if he had never touched a female before. “That could possibly be arranged.” Zetsu You and Zetsu were working hard on your garden. You wanted it to be perfect, but something was missing. Your favorite plant was not there anymore. “Zetsu, where is my flower?” You asked him sadly. He looked at you, then looked over to where he knew it was. “I’m not sure.” The white half replied. “Maybe you should look for it.” The black half said, annoyed. You glared and went looking for it. You finally found it after 5 minutes, but there was a little card with it. There were blood red letters on it that said ‘We like you a lot. Be ours or get eaten.’ You turned to look at Zetsu. “What is this?” You held up the card. “Are you stupid or something?” The black half snapped. “It clearly tells you what it is.” “Well, I guess this is sweet.” You touched the blood red letters. “Is this actual blood?” “Yes.” “Gross, but I like you too.” You were disgusted, but happy. Sasori You were in Sasori’s workshop with him. You were working on one of your puppets and he was working on one of his. It was a normal peaceful afternoon. You began to hear noises so you looked up. A little puppet was coming up to you. It was holding a necklace. You looked from the puppet up to Sasori who was now standing over you. “I made this for you. I have these feelings for you; I believe it is called love. Will you be my significant other?” Sasori asked. There was a little hint of nervousness to his voice. You couldn’t help but giggle. “Of course Sasori.” You stood up and hugged him. “I love you too.” You felt Sasori let out a sigh of relief. “That is good. Now put on the necklace.” “Can’t you be any more patient with me?” You asked, smiling. He just looked at you as if you were dumb to ask that. You rolled your eyes and picked up the necklace. It was a little wooden heart with ‘S + (First Letter Of Your Name)’ carved into it. “Do you like it?” “Yes I do. It’s so sweet.” “Don’t expect any more ‘sweet’ things from me.” “I won’t.” You couldn’t help but start to laugh. Sasori didn’t laugh, but he did smile a little bit. ~ Itachi You and Itachi were hanging out at your house. You had made lunch and now you both were eating in silence. There was clearly something you both wanted to say, but neither of you knew how to start it. So how do you solve that problem? You just blurt it out and hope for the best. “I think I’m in love with you!” You yelled suddenly. At the same time Itachi said: “I might love you.” “You what?” Both of you questioned in unison. You couldn’t help but start to giggle at the situation. You got up from your chair and hugged him. You didn’t expect him to hug you back, but to your surprise, he did. Itachi and you stayed like that until he spoke again. “You’re mine now. Understand?” Itachi told you. Sure that was demanding, but in its own way it was also sweet. You pulled back to look at him in the eyes to respond. “That means you are mine now too.” You told him with a smile. He nodded his head and pulled you back into the hug. You two were content to stay like that, until your stomach growled loudly. You pulled back, face red with embarrassment. “Uh…” “Let’s finish eating.” When Itachi said that, you could have sworn he was smirking at you. Kisame It was a beautiful sunny day, so you and Kisame were at the beach once again. You two were swimming around, trying to swim faster than the other. You guys ended up getting tired, so the two of you returned to the shore and laid down on your towels that were under a big umbrella. The two of you laid in silence until he broke it. “I’m very sure that I’m in love with you _____.” Kisame told you suddenly. You sat up and looked at him like he was crazy, or better yet, like his blue skin was now neon pink. “W-What?” You asked shocked. “I love you. I understand if you don’t feel the same.” You answered by pouncing onto him and hugging him tightly. “Wh-“ “I love you too, you silly shark. I just didn’t think you’d feel that way about me.” You couldn’t help but giggle with excitement over his feelings for you. “Oh, well it seems like we both got a good surprise.” “Yup, now let’s go swimming again.” The two of you got up and you half dragged Kisame to the water. “You’re my girlfriend now.” He informed you simply. “I am if you are my boyfriend now.” You smiled at him as you two got back into the water. Hidan Hidan and you were out sacrificing people. You weren’t able to do the ritual Hidan did, but you could still kill people and then lay in the diagram like Hidan does. The two of you were just finishing up when Hidan decided to speak. “_____, you’re my fucking girl now. I’ve been thinking and I don’t want to fuck anyone but you.” “But Hidan, we haven’t had sex yet.” “It…that was just…” He sat up, clearly annoyed and maybe a bit flustered. “Was that your way of telling me that you love me?” You sat up to look at him, eager to hear his response. “Pfft, I fucking guess so.” Hidan looked away, so you got up and went to him. You got down on the ground with him and hugged him. “Well, I love you too.” “Good, let’s start killing more fuckers so maybe Jashin will make you immortal like me.” “Alright.” You stood up. “Let’s kill more bitches!” You yelled, holding your retractable spear up in the air. Hidan laughed as he stood up with his and wrapped his arm around you. “Let’s get go, my bitch.” Kakuzu Kakuzu and you had just gotten back from a bounty hunt. The two of you were sitting on your couch and were splitting up the money. Kakuzu “accidentally” dropped money on the ground as he was handing it to you. When the two of you bent down to pick it all up, he slipped an extra dollar on the top. When you picked it up, you froze. Written on the dollar was three words ‘I love you’. “K-Kakuzu?” You looked up at him and smiled. “I love you _____. More than I love money.” Kakuzu told you. you smiled brightly and wrapped your arms around his neck. “I love you more than money too.” You giggled as you felt his arms wrap around your waist. “Will you be my girlfriend?” He whispered in your ear. Even while whispering, his voice was deep and it made you shudder. It seems like that voice will always make your brain turn to mush. “Of course I will be, as long as you’ll be my boyfriend.” “Oh yes I will.” “Good, now let’s go back to counting the money.” He nodded his head and you could see the small smile he had on his face that he thought was hidden under his mask. Tobi You and Obito were lying on your couch together. When he was calm and without a mask, you called him Obito, and when he was masked and hyper, you called him Tobi. You enjoyed your time with both Tobi and Obito. “We love you, you know.” Obito told you when he thought you were asleep. You smile and waited to see if he’d continue talking. “I wish we could come out and tell you, but I guess we’re worried that we’ll get you caught up in our weirdness and scare you away.” “Weirdness is good Obito.” He looked down at you, shocked. “Tobi, Obito, whichever you are, I love both of you. You’re honestly the same guy underneath it all.” “I’m glad you think so.” “You’re my boyfriend now.” “Oh am I?” He teased. “Yup, I’m your girlfriend and you’re my boyfriend.” “Don’t I get a say in it?” “Nope,” You sat up and smiled at him. “_____ needs to be punished then.” He put his mask back on and his childish voice was back. You’re eyes widened. He then began to tickle you. You let out a girly scream and ran off, him right behind you. Deidara Deidara had told you that he was making a special bomb that would let off a special explosion. You asked him what it was, but he refused to tell you. He told you that it was a secret and that you would find out soon enough. Suddenly, he burst in through your door, knocking it off its hinges. You looked up from the chair you were sitting on and stared at him. “_____ I have that bomb ready.” Deidara told you excitedly. “Okay?” “Come on I want to show you it right now, hn.” He dragged you out of your house and to your explosion field. “Ready, hn?” “Yep.” “Katsu!” With that, a huge explosion went off. Sparks of all different colors went everywhere. It then spelled out the words ‘I love you _____’. You gasped and looked at Deidara. He looked pretty proud of himself. “You love me?” “Clearly, hn. I didn’t spend a week on that for nothing, hn.” “You’re an ass Barbie, but I love you too.” You hugged him tightly and he hugged you back. “You’re mine now, hn.” “Yes, yes I am.”

Madara

Madara (and his falcon Tiberius) has been living with you for a while now. You have managed to get him to open up and talk rather than just reply to whatever you say. He told you his plans for the future and how he wants to rule the world. The usual things you’d expect from him. He also began to be a little nicer to you. He didn’t wear the ‘I’m going to murder you’ face much when he was around just you. It was nice, you finally felt like he was your friend. Though of course, he was an attractive bad boy mysterious type of guy and your heart decided that it was going to fall in love with him. You couldn’t tell him that though, right? I mean he would probably kill you for it. You were sitting outside with your eyes closed, enjoying the beautiful cool and rainy day as you thought about your feelings for the man. You heard a flutter of wings to your right, and opened your eyes to see Tiberius staring into your face.

“What do you want?” You questioned, a bit freaked out. He had a scroll holder on his back, which usually wasn’t there. Wasn’t that a hawk’s job not a falcons? Oh well. You reached out and took it off him completely, as he looked annoyed to have it on him. He then flew back into the house without a sound. You slowly opened the scroll compartment and a scroll fell out. You unrolled it to be able to read the writing on it.

It said:

‘_____, it has come to my attention that you feel some form of more-than-friendship towards me. I thought it best to address the situation before it got out of control. I too have begun to feel some form of more-than-friendship towards you. I suppose it is what can be called “love”. Therefore I believe this means we are “in love” and now a “couple”. Which is not something I’ve had time for in my life previously.’

“Oh…” You were shocked. Madara had just admitted he knew you were in love with him, but also said he loved you as well. In a weird, non-feeling type of way. You had grown accustomed to his behavior though. It was hard for him to feel anything but hate and negativity. You smiled to yourself. You could vaguely sense him watching you from the doorway. “Yes Madara, I love you.” You called out to the man, figuring he was waiting for some form of verbal announcement of the fact. You felt his presence retreat back inside the house, but he felt lighter, like he was happy.

[elarawritingtrash]

Fandom: One Piece

Written in 2016/2018

Summary: A girl from our world literally falls into the One Piece world. Seventeen years old, without the usual One Piece absurd physical capabilities, she... does her best.

Warnings: Canon-typical violence, implied/threatened sexual assault

                                                       Part 1

Crap, crap, crap, crap, crap.

In a horrifically anime-esque beginning, I was late. Not to school, though; to my part-time after-school-and-on-the-weekends volunteering job at the hospital. Because I was gonna be a doctor. Yeah. In ten years once I’d finished all of the schooling and my residency, anyway. Volunteering at the hospital was practically a requirement, because, with all of the competition I knew I’d have getting into medical school, I needed my résumé to be the best it could be.

But it had been storming hard last night, which had knocked out the power at my house, which had reset my alarm clock, which had caused the alarm to not go off. So it was obscenely early on Saturday, I was late, and I was running through the rain to get to the train because I didn’t have a car. I was going to be soaked when I got to the hospital – at least I wasn’t wearing my scrubs yet, so I could change when I got there.

That was about the only even marginally good thing about the day so far. And, ugh, there was a puddle in the way. It was in a large dip in the ground, far too wide for me to go around and too long for me to jump. I’d have to go through it. It didn’t look too deep, but it was probably deep enough to submerge the entirety of my feet, which would make my shoes and socks all soggy. I didn’t even have any replacements.

Ughhh.

There was a certain way it was supposed to go: I slosh my way through the irritating puddle, continue to the hospital, and have to deal with squishy socks and shoes for the rest of the day.

Because karma hates me, that was not what happened.

Instead, my first step landed in the supposedly shallow puddle – and kept going. With me unable to stop without steady footing – which, with one of my feet still falling, I certainly didn’t have – my momentum carried me face-first into the puddle. What might have been a very painful meeting between face and ground instead found me fully submerged in the dirty rainwater.

Down, down, down, I went. It must have been more than my own height deep. I knew that these were a thing, ‘puddles’ that were actually water-filled holes deep enough for people to disappear into them – there were videos of it happening on the Internet, after all. I just hadn’t expected it to ever happen to me.

Keeping my eyes closed to avoid getting who-knew-what in them, I thrashed my way to the surface. Once I broke the surface of the water, I took a deep, grateful breath of fresh air, then, my eyes still closed, flailed around in the puddle in the hopes of finding an edge. Half a minute, far more swimming than the relatively small in diameter sinkhole should have allowed me, and the realization that I was being moved around by a current later, I opened my eyes regardless of whatever might be in the water.

What I saw was definitely not the city I had been in previously. It wasn’t even a city. It wasn’t even land!

There was water as far as I could see. It was stormy and raining like it had been before, but I was in a much larger body of water. There were large waves splashing around me, dragging me around inside them. It was a miracle I hadn’t been submerged by one of them while my eyes were closed.

What?

I spun from side to side frantically, confused and bewildered and panicking and all of those other synonyms to the same thing: I had no idea what was going on. In most directions, there was just more of the same, more wave-filled water.

Finally, after spinning around almost completely, I saw something different: a ship, sailing towards me, and land behind it. The ship was kind of odd, wood instead of metal, and it had actual sails. A small, distant, oddly calm part of my mind wondered if there were actually still ships with sails. I had thought that we’d mostly moved on to engines, but apparently not.

Too relieved to question it further and too confused to care, I swam in the direction of the approaching boat, keeping a tight grasp on my messenger bag as I did. Everything I’d had in it was probably ruined, but I didn’t want to lose it. After a couple of minutes of swimming towards the ship as it sailed towards me, wherein it was doing the majority of the getting-closer, I noticed something… odd. Well, odder; it was already pretty odd. The ship was flying a black flag.

But isn’t that…?

Once I got a little closer, I was able to distinguish the flag a little better. It was, in fact, a black flag…

…with a skull and crossbones on it.

I stopped swimming, startled.

Pirates?

But that was ridiculous; even if pirates were still a thing, the skull and crossbones flag (a Jolly Roger?) hadn’t been used in hundreds of years. It couldn’t be real pirates.

…That was a lot of work to go to for a cosplay, though.

As I got even closer to the (pirate?) ship, I noticed that there was a weird, white line around the skull. Kind of like the outline of a half-circle, disappearing off the bottom of the flag.

That was weird, too. Not an important kind of weird, but weird.

Well and truly wigged out, I stayed where I was instead of continuing in the direction of the ship. To my chagrin, however, it continued getting closer at about the same speed. My swimming had apparently not been effective at all.

As freaked out as I was by the weird ship, I didn’t actually have a choice. It was either the ship or the land I could see behind it, which, judging by how quickly I’d been swimming before, would take quite a while to get to. Plus, I’d just fallen into a puddle and ended up in the ocean. The weirdness of the ship was nothing compared to that.

It turned out that I didn’t have much choice either way, though. The pirate ship continued sailing in my direction – very perfectly in my direction, and I scrambled to get out of the way before it hit me. I didn’t know what would happen to something hit by a ship in water, but I didn’t want to find out.

I did manage to get out of its path, thankfully. As I’d moved, the sailors on the ship had apparently noticed me, and a giant uproar started on the ship. Somebody dove off the ship into the water and swam up to me.

He didn’t bother with words or anything, merely grabbed me around the waist with one arm and started swimming back to his ship. His one-armed, dragging-a-person speed was faster than my alone, using-both-arms speed.

Too overwhelmed by the WTF-ery of the situation, however, I couldn’t handle his brusque, potentially pirate-y behavior. A small, logical, calm part of my brain noted that his briskness could only be because we were in the water, I probably seemed to have been drowning, and he wanted to get back to his ship quickly. All logical reasons.

The majority of my brain, illogical and far from calm, screamed that this was a kidnapping, he was kidnapping me, I should be freaking out, freak out!

So I… freaked out.

“What – what are you doing?” I asked, well aware that I was being loud and shrill and unable to help it. I started squirming and thrashing, kicking and shoving at him in an attempt to get free. “Let me go!”

But the (pirate!) man just ignored me, not responding to my words or my actions. His one arm was apparently stronger than all of me, as my attempts to get free accomplished exactly nothing.

Relatively quickly, we made it to his ship, and the others threw down a rope. Rather than scale it one-handed while carrying me as I’d been a little afraid of, the man tied the rope around my waist. Still ignoring my verbal and physical protests while doing so, of course. As soon as the rope was secure, I found myself being lifted out of the water.

I yelped despite myself and stopped trying to untie the rope in favor of holding on to it for dear life. As it turned out, the weird, wooden, old-timey, Jolly Roger-flying, actual-cannon-possessing ship was actually rather tall. Being lifted that high by nothing but a rope was really scary, okay.

The men on the ship dragged me on board and untied the rope from my waist. There were a lot of men on deck, all of them big, muscular, grimy, and particularly ugly. Seriously, they all had disproportionate limbs and other features; they were ugly in a way I’d never seen before. I was dimly aware of them dropping the rope back over the side as one man, as ugly as the rest and with a relatively impressive, unkempt, beard stepped right up into my space. He grabbed my chin with one hand before I could back away.

“Well, well, well, what have we here?” he said, disgusting, rancid breath right in my face.

The man didn’t seem to expect a response, continuing, “An attempted escapee, hmm? Hah!” With that sharp bark of laughter, which caused me to flinch, he stepped back. “I, Captain Getsu of the New Moon Pirates, have never allowed anyone to escape, and that has not changed! This little drowned rat will meet the same fate as the other inhabitants of Royal Peaks Island!”

The crew cheered as Getsu drew a sword from his waist and pointed it at me. The tip of it brushed against my throat, opening a thin cut. Ow! I clapped my hands against the wound instinctively.

Wait, what?

I shrieked and stumbled backwards away from him. Heck no! I was not going to get stabbed. I’d rather take my chances with the ocean despite my crappy swimming ability. I didn’t make it very far, though, before I bumped into the guy who’d retrieved me from the water.

He grabbed me before I could flinch away. Even with one hand, he was stronger than I was – annoyingly enough.

“You know, Captain,” he said idly, drawing a hand through my still-wet, scraggly hair. I tried and failed to squirm away because wow creepy. “She’s not too bad lookin’ underneath all that drowned rat.”

Oh no. No, no, nope.

He was a creep. I felt severely creeped on.

“Let me go!” I said again, thrashing and fighting to get away from him. It was to no avail, however, as his grip didn’t budge in the slightest. “Let me go!”

Getsu gave me a contemplative look, sweeping his eyes down and up my body lecherously. I was suddenly glad I was wearing a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt rather than anything more revealing. “That’s true, hmm,” he murmured, lowering his sword. “It’s not too common to find a looker like this ‘un in East Blue.”

East Blue? He’d said it like it was a place, but I’d never – wait. I had heard of it; it was just… fictional. It was one of the oceans of the One Piece world. But that was ridiculous; One Piece was an anime/manga. I couldn’t be in the East Blue of One Piece.

But then again… puddle-portal. Plus it would explain the pirates and their old-timey pirate ship.

Well. All right then.

It didn’t even matter what I was in anyway; whether I was in my world or the One Piece world didn’t change the fact that I’d been captured by pirates. Even worse, pirates who were apparently actual bad guys, rather than the mostly-good-guyness of, say, Luffy’s crew.

What do I do? I wondered silently, panicking.

And ohhh, crap, crap crap I hadn’t been paying attention and I’d missed the end of their conversation. Now I had no idea what was going on because I was an idiot. My attempts to get away failed utterly as one of the other crew members tied my hands together at the wrists with rope.

“Stop it! Let me go!” My continued protests fell on deaf ears as they tied my ankles together. I couldn’t protest anymore after that, however, as they shoved a piece of horrifically dirty cloth in my mouth and tied it around my head, effectively gagging me.

The guy who’d retrieved me shoved me forward, and, my ankles tied together and unable to separate, I had to hop a couple awkward steps forward to stay standing. Thankfully (?), rather than spend the time forcing me to do that to get wherever he wanted me, the guy just picked me up under one arm. He then dropped me into a corner made by the design of the cabin, where I collapsed unceremoniously onto my side.

The crew then proceeded to ignore me.

What the…?

I struggled to get upright. With my hands and legs tied as they were, however, the best I could manage was to get to my knees. But, since it was more dignified than being on my side, I stayed in that position. Surprisingly well-protected by the walls of the cabin as I was, at least I wasn’t getting sprayed with sea water anymore.

But I was far from safe. The pirates had just been planning to kill me, had just been commenting on my physical attributes; I didn’t trust for a second that they’d suddenly had a change of heart. Plus, the fact that I was tied up made it rather obvious I was a prisoner.

Since I had the time, I quietly had a panic attack. Because what was going on how had I fallen into a puddle and landed in a different world why was I kidnapped by pirates what.

When I could breathe again, I forced myself to think. There was no point in freaking out; I needed to figure out how I was going to get out of this. With my arms and legs bound, I couldn’t exactly just jump off the ship. I could probably make it to the edge, true; however, since I wouldn’t be able to swim, I’d just drown. If they didn’t fish me back out first.

Belatedly, I realized that I still had my messenger bag. They’d never taken it.

…

Idiots.

Not that I was complaining, of course. I had a knife in my bag. Of course, I still needed a plan for after I cut the rope tying my hands and legs. It wouldn’t help anything if I couldn’t actually get away. But at the same time, I really didn’t like being unable to fight back. Not that I could with my hands and legs free either, though…

I was pretty close to the cabin door. It might be possible for me to hide in there and lock them out. Except that wouldn’t really help; it was more of a stalling method. And stalling for what, exactly? I had no guarantee anyone would come. But, even so, it might be better to have something to do when they stopped ignoring me, even if it wasn’t quite an exit strategy.

With that in mind, I maneuvered my bag into my lap so it hid my hands, then went hunting through it for the switchblade I knew was in there. Once I found it, I flipped it open. The locking gear to hold it open clicked loudly into place, and I froze for a moment. None of them seemed to have heard it, so I continued.

I awkwardly twisted the knife around so that I could slide the blade against the ropes around my wrist. Hopefully I wouldn’t accidentally cut myself, since I couldn’t see it. The rope was very thick, it turned out after a couple minutes of attempting fruitlessly to saw through it. I couldn’t even tell if I was making any progress at all.

“A ship!” came the sudden shout from the – what was it called? Eagle nest? Hawk nest? Whatever, the lookout position. “There’s a ship coming this way!”

The pirates all snapped to attention.

“They’re flying a Jolly Roger!” the lookout reported.

“A pirate crew, hmm,” Getsu muttered to himself. Then, louder, “Prepare for battle!”

Well, okay. That seemed rude. I hoped the other crew won. And were nicer. It would be just awesome to be saved from my captors only to be captured again.

The pirates all retrieved weapons – mostly guns and swords – and some of them got to work loading canons. Once everything was finished, there was a long period of waiting. To make sure the other ship was in range, probably.

After what felt like a long time, they started firing their cannons. Cannons were, it seemed, actually very loud in reality. By now, our ship and theirs were apparently close enough that I could hear the other crew shouting even over the cannons. I couldn’t see what was going on, though.

The first round of cannon fire ceased, and confused, angry muttering started up in the crew.

“What the f –“

“What just ha –“

“Did they just –“

Then Getsu spoke, sounding weirdly unnerved himself. “Don’t get discouraged! Keep firing! The New Moon Pirates have never lost before, hmm? We won’t start now!”

The pirates cheered in response, though it was much weaker than the last time.

The cannon fire resumed.

I wondered idly what had freaked out the pirates so much. Knowing the One Piece world, the other crew had probably knocked all of the cannons out of the air before they could be hit. Luffy’s crew loved doing that.

I kept sawing at the ropes with my knife. Hopefully, whoever won, I could get away while they were distracted. Unfortunately, I didn’t seem to be making progress very quickly, and I didn’t know how long this battle would go on for; it wouldn’t do much good if the battle ended before I could get free.

Finally, the other ship came into view. It was smaller than the New Moon Pirates’ ship, but newer-looking and cleaner-looking. It didn’t have a figurehead (that was what they were called, right?), and its flag was, obviously, a skull and crossbones. Theirs was apparently overlaid on a… spade? Like the card suit? And had a weird line horizontally across the skull, right above its eyes, with two blue… balls? Right above the line.

Well. That was possibly even stranger than the New Moon Pirates’ Jolly Roger – which, I now realized, was supposed to represent a new moon. It just didn’t work very well.

The ship continued its steady approach. The New Moon Pirates reloaded their cannons and fired yet again. At least I’d get to see how the ship was completely undamaged despite the barrage of cannonballs.

The cannonballs flew towards the other ship. People started jumping off the ship to attack the cannonballs, causing them to blow up midair and somehow not getting hurt as they did – not to mention the insane, impossible heights they had to be jumping to manage it. They did it at different times and places, so I couldn’t tell how many there were total. A couple cannonballs blew up without any visible interference. A long-range member, maybe? Or just faulty cannonballs – I didn’t know enough about them to know if that was possible.

I don’t know why I’m surprised, I thought. I really didn’t. At least it was all but confirmed, now, that I was in One Piece.

As their cannonballs continued getting destroyed, the New Moon Pirates got more and more freaked out and worried. The other ship continued approaching.

“Keep at it!” Getsu ordered. “They’ll make a mistake eventually!”

Spitefully, I hoped that they didn’t. Maybe the other crew would be worse and I’d regret it, but I wanted them to win.

In the meantime, I continued making no progress on cutting through my ropes. And my legs were starting to hurt from the way I was half-kneeling half-sitting on them.

The New Moon Pirates, for their part, continued getting more and more frantic.

“What the f –“

“What kind of monsters –“

“No way they’re human!”

“This is getting ridiculous, fu –“

In a climactic turn of events, three people from the other crew jumped off their ship, deflected the most recent batch of cannonballs – and landed on this ship instead of their own. They were all men: a huge man sporting impressive sideburns and, in place of a left arm, a machine gun; a relatively normal sized man wearing a domino mask and an open jacket with no shirt, revealing his not unimpressive abs; and another normal sized man, this one somewhat younger than the others, wearing a bright orange hat and a button-up shirt with none of the buttons done.

I squinted at the youngest, sure that I recognized him. He looked incredibly familiar, but I couldn’t quite place him.

The New Moon Pirates got off a couple more cannon shots before catching up and turning to fight the three men. The cannonballs, however, all exploded mid-air; this time, I thought I caught bullets traveling through the air to hit them.

Horrifyingly quickly, the three men obliterated the forces of the New Moon Pirates. Within ten minutes – probably even less – all of the New Moon Pirates, with the exception of Getsu, were on the floor, the luckiest of them still conscious to groan in pain. Or maybe they were unluckiest?

Getsu and the youngest man started fighting; although it was definitely the longest fight any of the New Moon Pirates had put up, it seemed obvious that the young man was better. He had a wide, cheerful grin on his face as he dodged around Getsu’s sword strikes, occasionally dancing close enough to throw a punch. So far, Getsu had managed to block all of the punches with the side of his blade, but he was being overwhelmed quickly. Every time the younger man landed a hit on his sword, Getsu’s arms buckled, implying that the other man was a lot stronger than he looked.

The other two men didn’t interfere, instead standing back and watching. Both looked apathetic, and maybe a bit exasperated, as though tired of their crew member's antics.

Sideburns, apparently bored with watching the fight, glanced around and met eyes with me. He looked surprised, the first expression I’d seen on him, and hurried in my direction with surprising speed, skirting the edge of Getsu and the other man’s fight.

I panicked, stupidly and without reason. As Sideburns got close, remaining hand (not the gun) already reaching towards me, I reared backwards – ow, my legs – and dragged my hands from my bag, brandishing my knife threateningly at him.

He stopped in his tracks, switching to holding his hands out in front of himself harmlessly and backing away a couple of steps.

Belatedly, I flipped the knife around in my hands so that it actually pointed at him. My hands, I noticed, were already shaking, because I was a weak seventeen-year-old with too few muscles to hold the weight of my arms up this long. Or maybe it was because I was freaking out. Heck if I knew.

Also, the rope was actually most of the way cut. If I’d had a couple more minutes, I would have been able to cut it completely.

Behind Sideburns, Getsu went flying backwards as the other man finally landed a punch straight to his face. Getsu didn’t get up again, apparently out for the count after a single hit. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know exactly how strong the young man was.

“Hey, Aggie 68, what’s up –“ the young man started as he turned towards us. Once he saw, well, the situation, he cut himself off. “Oh,” he uttered.

The man with the domino mask turned too, and his eyebrows shot up into his hairline.

It was stupid to hold a knife on Sideburns, I knew; I didn’t even know if they were bad guys or not yet. Plus, if they were, it would probably just annoy them… It wasn’t like I actually had a chance of fighting them, anyway.

Yet I still couldn’t get my shaking arms to lower the knife.

The youngest man and Domino-Mask-Guy both approached. Domino-Mask-Guy stopped a couple of steps behind Sideburns, while the youngest continued a couple of steps closer than him. Almost without my doing, my arms turned to point the knife at him instead.

He crouched, holding his hands, open and empty, out harmlessly. “Hey there,” he said softly, carefully. I resented the treatment a little, but, well. With the way I was acting, it made sense. “I’m Ace. We’re not gonna hurt you, okay? You’re safe now.”

…Huh?

I stared blankly at him for a moment, the epiphany smacking me in the face that he was Portgas D. Ace. Luffy’s older brother! Well, adoptive – whatever. No wonder he looked familiar. So. One Piece universe. Definitely confirmed.

After another moment of glancing back and forth between Ace’s patient, expectant face and my knife, I forced my arms to curl in, lowering the knife. Ace beamed at me, looking unreasonably happy about something so small. He leaned forward, dorkily scooting closer without standing up straight when he couldn’t reach, and carefully took my knife. That – well. That was fair.

Then, still ever-so-careful – I was a little amazed the other two men hadn’t said anything yet – Ace reached to untie the cloth from around my head one handed, still holding my knife in the other. Once it was untied, I let it drop from my mouth – tossing my head so that it would land to the side of me.

Ace grabbed the rope around my wrists, his eyebrows raising a little for a moment before he cut straight through what was left, using my knife. I was a little jealous – he’d managed the same amount of progress in, like, a second, that had taken me several minutes. He gave my knife a funny look, then ran his thumb along the blade.

After examining his perfectly uninjured thumb, he turned back to me. “This knife sucks,” he said.

I let out a startled laugh. “Well –“ I coughed, realizing very abruptly how dry my mouth and throat were, and had to take a moment. “Well, I wasn’t really planning to have to use it, I guess.”

Ace grinned at me for a moment, apparently pleased with the pathetic retort. “What's your name?” he asked.

"Alyssa," I said honestly. My name didn't matter much. Hopefully it didn't, like, stand out as a name that didn't actually exist or something. That would be horrible.

Ace nodded. "Nice to meet you," he said politely. Somehow, it came across as rote, something he'd learned to say.

I supposed that made sense, given his backstory; hadn't Makino had to teach him to be polite?

"I wish I could say the same, but, well," I said awkwardly.

Fortunately, it seemed to surprise another laugh out of Ace.

"Yeah, no, I can see that," he said. He sobered. "What happened? Is there somewhere we can take you?"

I faltered for a moment. I flailed mentally - which direction did people supposedly look when they were lying? I didn't remember, so I just looked down.  I couldn’t exactly tell him the truth, after all. But then, Getsu had given me the perfect lie, hadn’t he?

Thankfully, Ace spent a moment cutting through the rope around my ankles with enviable ease despite still using my knife, giving me time to get my story straight.

“I’m from Royal Peaks Island,” I said – lied, shifting into a more comfortable position. Ace nodded, and I continued, indicating the fallen crewmembers, “They… attacked us.” Horribly guilty about lying and just wanting to get the false story over with, I spoke quickly, “I – I tried to get away, but I couldn’t get to any of the ships in the port without going past them, so I – stupidly, I guess – just tried to hide in the ocean, but I guess I was unlucky, and they passed by me when they were leaving and they must have seen me, and…”

I took a breath, aware that I was rambling, and finished awkwardly, guiltily, “I don’t even know what happened to anybody else.”

That was true, at least. I really didn’t know what had happened to the real inhabitants of Royal Peaks Island. Getsu had implied that they were all dead, which was horrible. I didn’t want an entire island of people to be dead, but… if any of them were alive, they would know that I was lying. That just made me feel worse.

Ace nodded again, looking solemn. He stood and stepped back, offering me a hand. When I took his hand, he pulled me to my feet and calmly let me use his hand to steady myself when I stumbled.

“Well, we have to go check it out,” he said authoritatively.

Domino-Mask-Guy smirked. “And that has nothing to do with the fact that that’s where we were going anyway, right?”

“Of course not,” Ace sniffed with a baleful look at him. He turned to me. “Want to come with?”

Well, it was either go with them or stay with the New Moon Pirates. Huh. Hard choice, that.

“Yeah,” I said, nodding.

Ace nodded back, then turned and walked away without another word, obviously expecting me – and his crewmembers – to follow. We did.

Their ship had sidled up beside the New Moon Pirates’ in the meantime, and the fourth man I’d seen was standing at the edge of it. Ace and the two others jumped across the gap to it easily – which made sense; they’d jumped a lot further before. But it was a big gap, maybe ten or fifteen feet. There was no way I could jump it.

“Umm. I can’t… really jump that far?” I called to them, twisting the strap of my bag awkwardly. Ace never had given my knife back, I noted.

They turned back, looking comically surprised.

“Oh, really?” Ace asked.

He jumped back across easily. “Is it okay if I…” he trailed off, holding his arms out towards me in an obvious message.

I glanced from him to the gap and back. I sighed.

“It’s fine,” I said.

Ace grabbed me around the waist, and the next moment I found myself midair. I very carefully didn’t make any embarrassing noises.

We landed more lightly on the other side than I would have expected. I let out a quiet breath of relief for that as Ace stepped away to a more respectable distance.

I got my first look at the fourth member of the crew, the one who'd stayed to protect their ship. Another man, of course; that wasn't even a surprise, although I was personally disappointed by the lack of bad-A pirate women. He was very tall and thin and carried an awful, old-timey rifle.

He gave me a curious look, and I shrunk automatically to hide behind Ace. It seemed these ones were actually kind-of-good-guys like the Straw Hats, since I doubted Ace would have been the captain of ordinary evil pirates, but they were scary, okay. Except for Ace himself, who had a pretty normal character design thanks to being main character adjacent, they kind of had typical minor bad guy one-off pirate designs.

"What's going on, Captain?" he asked

Ace glanced at me. I didn't know what I looked like, maybe like a sad drowned kitten, but Ace looked surprisingly sympathetic.

"It seems that those pirates--" he jerked his head to indicate the ship of the New Moon Pirates, "-- attacked Royal Peaks Island. This is Alyssa, who they... abducted instead of killing."

I couldn't help but look down at my feet, unable to meet any of their eyes as my lie was repeated. Even though I had no other choice, I found myself wishing I hadn't agreed to go with them to the island. There, we would either find people who would contradict my story or we would find an entire massacred island.

It was awful, but I found myself selfishly hoping for the latter.

The tall man frowned. "How horrible," he murmured. He circled around Ace to get to me, but stayed a respectful distance away. "My name is Mihar."

"Oh yeah," Ace said as though just realizing something. I stepped away from him as he turned to face me. That was a little too close to bare chest for me. He gestured to Domino-Mask-Guy. "That's Masked Deuce--" a gesture towards Sideburns, "-- and that's Aggie 68. And I'm Portgas D. Ace!"

It was a little weird, he introduced himself last name first, which was the Japanese order, but everybody had spoken English so far. I would have thought the name order was just because the One Piece series was originally in Japanese.

Still, I couldn't help but smile. "You already introduced yourself," I pointed out.

"Well, yeah, but not my full name," Ace said with a shrug. "Is Alyssa your full name?"

I really had to think about that one. Obviously, I did have a last name, and usually I would introduce myself with my full name, including my middle initial, like Ace had, but. Did it really matter in this world if my last name was the same? It wasn't like any of my family was around for me to be related to.

Not to mention that, while it was fine in my original world, my middle name was Diane... which did, actually, make my middle initial 'D'. Here, that meant something, supposedly, which it didn't in my old world. So, I decided, might as well just leave it at first name.

"Well, it's the only name that matters," I said belatedly.

For some reason, they all looked very sad about it.

"Well, we should go to Royal Peaks Island to check it out," Ace said authoritatively. He sent me a softer look. "There might still be some people there."

That was very true. There could be. It didn't seem all that likely that a pirate crew would kill an entire island for no reason. If it was true, I was doomed.

So all I could do was clutch my bag close to me and give a short nod.

Fortunately, they didn't seem to think it was all that odd. They went about their business, surprisingly good at managing such a big ship with only four people. Before long, we were sailing closer to Royal Peaks Island. As we got closer, I noticed that it was aptly named; it did in fact have several tall mountains.

I stayed off to the side, as out of the way as I could get. Fortunately, they left me alone. I could practically feel them talking about me, but they kept it out of my hearing range.

We were on the correct side to land at the port town, but once we got close enough, it became apparent that it was on fire. Not the town itself, but the port. The dock, I thought it might be called? In any case, since we couldn't exactly dock (?) at the... dock, the others dropped anchor (?) off to the side, far enough from the flames to be safe.

I eyed the distance to the ground. It was... far. And scary. I was already getting premonitions of falling and dying.

Meanwhile, Masked Deuce, Aggie 68, and Mihar jumped casually off the side of the ship, landing easily. I was extremely envious.

Without so much as a by-your-leave, Ace scooped me up practically bridal-style and dropped to the ground. Startled, I could not restrain a shriek as the wind blew past me on the way down, wrapping my arms around Ace's neck in a death grip. Even carrying me, though, Ace landed just as easily as the others, smoothly enough that I hardly felt a bump at all.

I self-consciously unwound my arms from Ace's neck as he let me down.

Before I could apologize or anything, I noticed some bodies that were visible even from here, sufficiently distracting me. Horror rose up in my throat, but the instincts that had led me to want to be a doctor in the first place wouldn't allow me to leave them. I hurried over, checking each person.

They were all dead.

That led me closer to the main road through the town, revealing even more bodies further in. I started making my way through. In between checking bloody corpses for life, I noticed that the town was very pretty. It was all blues and feathers and other decorations. According to some signs, it was a tourist-y party town. A lot of the decorations reminded me of New Orleans and Mardi Gras.

It was marred, however, by the bodies and blood seemingly coating the town. There was a somber air as I walked through, Ace and the others trailing behind respectfully. That made me feel bad, too; they were giving me allowances I didn't deserve under the belief that I knew these people.

As we got further, it seemed less likely that we would come across any survivors.

There didn't seem to be any form of police station, I noted. A small island like this probably relied on the World Government, and therefore the Marines, for protection. But there was no Marine base, leaving them vulnerable.

This was my world now, too. What a horrible world it was.

Whether it was the thought of all of the people who'd died or the thought that I was stuck here, I felt tears prickling at my eyes. Unable to stand this horrid funeral march, I got faster and faster until I was all but running between each body. Finally, I'd made it through the entire town and circled around to be near the burning dock.

I was in front of a small doctor's office. Inside, visible through a broken window, there was an old man with a kindly face and a white doctor's coat lying on the ground, covered in blood.

Suddenly, the tears overwhelmed me and I choked and started crying quietly. It was so stupid, I didn't even know these people. At the same time, though, their entire town was dead. Possibly everyone any of them had ever known. Didn't they deserve to have someone, anyone, cry for them?

And maybe I was crying for myself, too. My home, my family and friends, all my aspirations to be a doctor, were gone.

The others were still there behind me, I could tell. Probably, they were keeping their distance now less out of respect and more out of awkwardness. After a while, Ace, brave man, approached. After a moment of visibly struggling for something to say, he patted me on the back gently.

"I was going to be a doctor, you know," I said for no reason. It just kind of fell out.

I couldn't help staring at the dead old doctor in the building. Had he had an apprentice? Were they dead, too?

"Was that guy your teacher?" Ace asked hesitantly.

I wouldn't have thought that Ace did hesitation.

Still, I had to hesitate, then. He wasn't, of course, but I couldn't exactly say no now. There likely wasn't another doctor on the island.

"Yes," I lied, shoving down the guilt. "I was apprenticed to him, but."

But he was dead. But now any hope I had of going to my world's medical school was gone.

I swallowed around a lump in my throat. I hated crying.

"Now I have nothing," I said quietly.

The tears were encroaching again, but I forced them back. My eyes were going to be uncomfortable and achy enough already.

Ace was standing in front of me now. Though I was looking down, at the ground, I saw as he looked over my shoulder at his crew, obviously communicating. I'd always thought it was cool how people (fictional ones, anyway) could do that.

"You're a doctor?" Ace said.

I flicked my gaze up to look at his face. "I was going to be a doctor," I said. It wasn't quite agreement; the difference was, in my opinion, huge. I was a year of high school and seven years of medical school away from being a proper doctor.

Ace, however, seemed to think differently.

"Okay, so, look. We can drop you off at the nearest island, which we need to go to for supplies anyway," he added this almost sheepishly. "You can... try to make a life there, I guess."

He paused long enough that I was about to agree, since that was my best bet at this point and it was actually pretty nice of them to even offer, when he started again.

"Or you can come with us," Ace finished.

I stared. That sounded... like an offer of piracy. Like something Luffy might have said if he wasn't such a rude person. It was kind of interesting to find that Ace didn't bully people into joining his crew like Luffy did.

"Come with you?" I asked, just to be sure.

Ace nodded, seeming more confident now that I was definitely not crying. "Join my crew."

The fan in me was screaming. The chance to be a pirate! On the other hand, piracy was obviously quite dangerous and I didn't actually want to die. But then, the people on Royal Peaks Island hadn't been pirates and they'd still died. Maybe it was actually safer to be on a powerful pirate crew.

Of course, Ace had to also know exactly how useless I was. Why would he offer that? I'd be dead weight.

"Why?" I said. When Ace's face crumpled a little like he'd been rejected, I hurried to add, "Why would you ask me? I'm not... I wouldn't be very helpful."

"We need a doctor," Ace said.

"I'm not actually a doctor yet," I said.

Ace shrugged. "Closer than any of us," he said, including his three crew members with a gesture.

And, the fan in me pointed out, you can keep Ace from dying.

Because he would. If I decided to become a civilian here, Ace would go on to be a pirate captain, join Whitebeard's crew - and die at Akainu's hand in three years. But I could change things. Maybe. Either way, it might be interesting.

"Okay," I said. "I'll join."

Ace was starting to look entirely too smug, so I added, "But I still think you'll be disappointed in my abilities as a doctor."

"Nah, that won't happen," Ace said with a snort. "You need to pick some stuff up?"

I thought about it. I did need clothes, which, given I didn't actually live here, I'd probably have to steal from a store (because there was no way I was going into a house and stealing a person's clothes). Plus, my lack of actual doctoral ability meant I should probably take some, or a bunch, of books with me.

"Yeah. I do. Umm." I paused, trying to think of a polite way to tell them that I didn't want them to come with me.

"We'll wait for you at the ship," Ace said.

I blinked. That was perfect. I decided not to question it. "Okay," I said.

They were already walking away. I didn't bother staring after them, turning to go into the doctor's building instead. It was an awful feeling, tiptoeing past his dead body and the blood on the floor and looking around to find all of his books, and trying to find some kind of bag to put them in.

Fortunately, I found both of those things easily, and fled back out into the street. Not that it was any better there. And I still needed clothes. I found the least tourist-y store I could and went looking for clothes (and another bag to put them in). It took some looking to avoid all of the blue, feathery, and otherwise themed clothes, but eventually I put together a fair spread. On my way out, I saw, under the broken window where the pirates had likely stolen everything on display, a mask.

It was kind of a masquerade mask, shaped almost like a butterfly with massive wings arching out to the top and bottom away from the center. It was mostly silver, with blue lining around the eyes and blue gems set in the wings of the butterfly. It bordered on gaudy, like much of the other stuff in the store and, honestly, in the town as a whole, but I liked it. On impulse, I added it to the bag.

Then I went to meet up with the others.

I hummed to myself quietly. Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me.

[tobiologist]

swipe right (if you like me)

Keith/Lance // met on tinder!au // 9.3k+ // sfw // part 1/?

Summary: "I’m doin’ it. Lance giggles under his breath and drags the cat meme picture to the right side of his screen.

But this, friends, is why one shouldn’t tempt fate over Tinder."

or: Lance finds the most unlikely match on Tinder and (might) gain a boyfriend in the process

Lance can’t believe he hasn’t deleted this stupid app yet.

Okay… okay, maybe that’s not completely true. He knows exactly why he hasn’t deleted it yet— and why he downloaded Tinder in the first place, to be honest. Because drunk Lance makes poor decisions sometimes, especially when he’s feeling lonely and worthless.

Tonight just so happens to be one of those awful nights.

>> READ THE REST ON AO3 << 

He and Hunk planned this party in advance, as per usual. They’re only a couple weeks into the new semester and homework loads are still reasonable. Unless you’re Hunk, but that’s what he gets for having a dual major. And in mechanical and aerospace engineering, no less. Regardless, their professors have been kind, and there aren’t any assignments either of them have to work on until Sunday.

It’s a Saturday night. That’s when they usually invite people over. A couple dozen guests filter into their tiny apartment with racks of beer, bottles of liquor, and bags of pong balls. Scattered around the apartment are bowls of chips, boxes of delivery pizza, and a few stacks of playing cards; everything is there and accounted for.

Lance usually loves wandering through the crowds at parties, but not tonight. For some reason, he’s feeling kind of shitty. Which is weird and definitely unwelcome, but Lance is familiar with the daunting rain cloud hanging over his head.

“Dude, are you sure you don’t want to send these people home?” Hunk asks, for what’s probably the hundredth time that evening. “I’m sure they wouldn’t mind. We can just do this next week or something.”

“Nah, it’s fine. I swear.” Lance kicks his socked feet up and stretches out over the length of the couch. “I’ll just chill over here for now. I might get up in an hour or two and make the rounds.”

“You can always just go to your room if it gets to be too much. I really don’t mind kicking them all out, though.”

“Hunk, seriously. I appreciate it, but it’s all good. In the hood.” Lance snickers, and Hunk, naturally, rolls his eyes. “Go have fun. I heard Pidge is over there killing it at beer pong. You need to make sure she doesn’t steal your champion title.”

“I thought that was your title?”

“That hasn’t been decided yet,” Lance clarifies. “Pidge and I kick everyone’s asses. That’s why we usually play separately now instead of on the same team. To be fair to all those poor unsuspecting assholes.”

“Yeah… yeah, that’s right.”

“Hunk, buddy, have fun! It’s a party! Give me a few minutes, okay? And I’ll come watch the pong table later.”

Hunk seems reluctant to leave but winces as techno music starts blaring from the speakers in the living room. Skrillex, maybe? He flashes Lance one more concerned glance before heading over to the circle of cackling people cheering on Pidge. Lance watches with a little snicker as Hunk points accusingly at the speakers, and Pidge pretends like she can’t hear him over the pulsating beat.

That’s how Lance ends up here: perusing Tinder.

Alcohol buzzes pleasantly through his system. He opens the app and taps the screen impatiently as it tries to pinpoint his location. The dumb “There are no new people around you” line isn’t displayed, though, which is a solid start. Eventually, the first person pops up.

A pretty girl stares back at him, blond curls framing her heart-shaped face. She’s definitely cute. Her pictures include a chubby black cat and slew of sorority friends. Lance shrugs and swipes right. Again, a nice start.

He flips through about twenty more people, half of which are right swipes, before his fingers freeze.

Oh no.

He’s about to swipe left— because there’s no way he can swipe right on this guy— but hesitates. The distinct blue-purple eyes, dark hair long enough to curl at the nape of his neck, and thin lips set in an indifferent line, are not completely unattractive features. He stands in front of a motorcycle, arms folded across his chest. Lance squints at the font below, just to be sure. Keith, 21.

Definitely him. It’s the Keith from a couple of his engineering classes, the very same Keith he’s been trying to outscore for years. The Keith that Pidge has been trying to drag to parties since she wormed her way into Hunk and Lance’s lives their sophomore year. And he’s also the same Keith on Lance’s Tinder, which can only mean one thing.

Keith is into dudes.

Now, it doesn’t mean he’s only into guys, but it definitely piques Lance’s curiosity. He scrolls over and, unsurprisingly, the second picture is of his bike. The third is one of him with Pidge, who looks a great deal happier to be in the picture than Keith does. There’s a guy standing on his other side, an arm over Keith’s shoulder, and Lance distantly recalls Pidge mentioning him having an older brother. He swears the dude is best friends with Pidge’s brother, Matt.

Lance flips to the next picture and it’s— it’s a selfie. Keith stands in front of the mirror in a fitted black shirt and fingerless gloves, legs accentuated by spandex pants and, wow, Keith actually has a cliché gym selfie on his profile.

The realization makes Lance scoff and shake his head. But, at the same time, Lance has to admit… Keith isn’t hard on the eyes. The dude is sort of scrawny but certainly in-shape. Lance doesn’t know if Keith runs or does karate or taekwondo or lifts weights or— fuck, it doesn’t matter because, boy, is his body nice to look at. How has he never noticed before?

Chill out, Lance, he chides himself and quickly swipes over to the fifth picture. Keith isn’t in the actual shot and, shockingly enough, neither is his bike. Neither is Pidge or Shiro. It’s a nature shot, likely from the top of one of the lookouts at the nearest park. The green hillsides of mountains are illuminated by the sun overhead, rays of light gleaming off the surface of the river nestled between them. Was Keith into photography? Or did he just like nature? Going on hikes?

Lance hums softly to himself and flips over to the last picture. And, well. He doesn’t know what he expected, but it definitely wasn’t this.

It’s the knife cat meme. The damn knife cat meme with Keith’s face very crudely Photoshopped over the cat’s face. Oh my God? Lance would love to credit Keith for the genius idea, but the picture has ‘Pidge’ written all over it.

Lance covers his mouth to stop a stream of giggles from escaping. He finally turns his attention to the bio. There’s a list of several random items underneath his name and age.

bikes, nature, fitness, and aliens

The guy is practically begging to be meme’d.

also I like cats and knives. if the last picture didn’t make that obvious

Freakin’ Pidge. Lance wishes he could’ve seen Keith’s reaction to her additions to his profile. Although, he must not have been too upset if he didn’t take the time to change it back or make adjustments. And, boy, does Lance have a lot of questions.

Primarily: why does Keith have a Tinder?

He doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who would care about dating or (knowing how some users are) getting laid. Of course, Lance has no idea if Keith identifies as gay or bisexual or pansexual or— who knows. He certainly issn’t on the straight and narrow, though, if you catch Lance’s drift.

Lance’s finger hovers over the profile. He could do it. He could totally swipe right on the mysterious and elusive Keith. Hell, maybe he might match with the dude. Not that he expects Keith to ever swipe right on his profile. The couple of group shots from he and Hunk’s parties would likely be the greatest deterrent, especially the one with a lampshade on his head and the other with red solo cups strapped to his chest like bra cups.

But who gives a flying fuck? The alcohol is telling him it’s a good idea, a harmless idea, because it’s not like Keith will match with him. And, even if he does, so what? Lance can explain he was drunk when he did it and bam— no hard feelings. No awkward encounters in class. Just the usual uncertain eye contact in the hallways.

I’m doin’ it. Lance giggles under his breath and drags the cat meme picture to the right side of his screen.

But this, friends, is why one shouldn’t tempt fate over Tinder.

Because, by some ridiculous twist of fate, they’re a match.

Lance stares blankly at the screen, vision swimming a bit from the jungle juice trickling through his system. It… has to be some kind of joke. Right? Maybe Keith doesn’t even run his own Tinder account? Pidge probably forced him to make one and sits, sorting through strangers whenever she gets bored.

“What the fuck,” Lance mutters to himself. He shakes his head, hard, almost hard enough to give himself the beginnings of an alcohol-induced headache. He pinches his arm and winces. He looks away from the phone, back, away, and back again.

Nope, still there. Two little circles, one with Lance’s favorite selfie and the other with Keith’s bike picture. “It’s a match!” the screen proclaims much too excitedly.

Lance quickly locks his phone screen and tosses it toward the opposite end of the couch. There’s a soft thud as it hits the cushion and then it falls, flipping over. The tiny part of his brain that retains sobriety thanks his past self for purchasing a sturdy case for the damn thing.

“Wait, oh.” Lance dives for the phone and tucks it into his pocket. He moves a bit too fast, and the room turns on its axis. “Woah, buddy, you better slow down on the fucking jungle juice,” he scolds himself.

Lance tucks the phone into his pocket, hoping not to make any more regrettable decisions for the rest of the evening.

--

“Dude, I’m so glad you seem to be doing better.” Hunk pats Lance solidly on the back and returns his attention to the current game of Asshole. “You looked… gloomy. Gloomy Lance is no fun at these things. I was worried.”

Lance snorts and presses his cards to his chest. He’s constantly impressed by how Hunk manages to string together full sentences when he’s several drinks (and shots) deep.  The guy easily drinks Lance under the table. He’d kill for that tolerance. Pidge has called him a “lightweight” on more occasions than he’d like to admit. And the sad thing is she’s definitely not wrong.

“It’s fine,” Lance drawls, dragging out the ‘i’ until Hunk’s eyebrows crawl all the way up his forehead. “Just a rough week, ya know? And— and! I found some cute people on Tinder so… really, who’s winning here?”

Hunk clicks his tongue and then surveys his hand of cards. He sets two Jacks on the growing pile in the middle of their makeshift circle. And Lance curses loudly because hot damn his largest pair is a set of measly 4’s. Or maybe they’re 9’s? Either way, he’s screwed.

“Dammit, dude,” Lance sighs and reaches for his half-empty cup of vodka and Sprite. “I’m gonna be the Asshole again at this rate.”

“You’ll always be the Asshole in our hearts.” Pidge touches a hand to her chest and pretends to wipe away tears with the other. Lance sticks his tongue out at her from across the circle.

“The worst president ever…”

“I’m sorry, there’s no way I heard that right.” Pidge gestures at Lance. “Drink up, nerd.”

“It’s the tailor.”

“Yeah, no, that’s definitely not your nickname. You can’t just give yourself a nickname! Other people do that for you.”

“The sharpshooter?”

Pidge makes an obnoxious buzzer sound. She takes a healthy sip from her beer as she throws down her last card and languidly leans back. “Also a big fat nope.”

Lance opens his mouth to protest but, suddenly, his pocket vibrates.

One of the guys nearby whistles appreciatively, watching Lance unlock his phone. Rolo, that’s his name. Or at least Lance thinks. “Talking to someone important over there?” he asks groggily. Lance can barely make out the last couple words through the slur in his voice.

“Nah, just checkin’ Tinder. Probably a new match.” Lance opens the app and, yep, there she is. A pretty, tall girl with strawberry blond hair, glasses, and an absolutely blinding smile. Lance smiles back at her. “Bingo.”

He’s about to close Tinder— because messaging people after drinking this much alcohol is never a good idea— but something silent, something evil, urges him to scroll through his other matches. And there, still very near the top of the list, is Keith.

You should message him.

No, you definitely shouldn’t do that. No.

Do it.

“Shut the fuck up,” he grumbles out loud. Lance’s conscious engages in a heated war with his drunk alter ego. His finger hovers over the tiny circle for a few seconds before he finally caves and presses the screen. The icon at the top is small, but not small enough to obscure Keith’s deadpan expression.

Okay, now, Lance isn’t known for making the best decisions. He knows this. But the thought of sending Keith some ridiculous pickup line is far too tempting. What would it hurt anyway? He could always pass it off as “drunk texting” or maybe he could just unmatch Keith immediately afterward and, boomity boom, problem solved.

Lance glances around the circle, just to make sure Hunk and Pidge are thoroughly distracted, before pulling up his keyboard. There are so many terrible ones to choose from. Lance has seen some of the most cringe-worthy shit. He needs it to be relevant, but it shouldn’t be difficult. Keith’s profile provides a plethora of juicy meme material. A meme gold mine, honestly.

There is one, though, that Lance has always wanted to use.

is your mom an alien? because dat ass is out of this world

Oh God, oh God, he’s dying on the inside. He really just sent that message. To Keith, of all people. Keith, who glares at anyone who tries to take the seats on either side of him in their flight dynamics class. Keith, who refuses to go to a single of their parties, even if only the original trio members— Hunk, Pidge, and Lance— are present. Keith, who has an awkward fucking post-workout selfie on his Tinder profile.

Lance waits for a few minutes, maybe an hour, who knows, before he starts getting anxious. They’re in the middle of a round of Asshole when Lance checks his phone. Still nothing. It isn’t until Pidge has claimed her sixth consecutive presidency and instills a second player rule that Lance lets his frustration get the better of him.

Stupid Keith. Probably thinks he’s better than me or something. With that stupid, stupid mullet of his. Lance angrily scrolls through his matches once again and stares at his earlier message. Is Keith really that much of a party pooper that he can’t even appreciate a dumb pickup line?

“Fine,” Lance grumbles, quiet enough that no one else appears to hear him. “I see how it is.”

The keyboard fills the bottom of the screen, and Lance types another message.

the aliens made me swipe right

And another.

hey baby wanna take a ride in my flying saucer?

Holy shit. Typing that message alone made Lance cringe; he can only imagine what Keith will think when he opens it. Lance kind of hopes he’ll laugh. Or at least crack a smile. Does Keith smile? For safe measure, Lance decides to tack on a more serious message.

well you seem cool as fuck

This is it- this is the end of Lance McClain. He’s now sent four consecutive unanswered messages to Keith on Tinder. And the first three are a couple of the most outrageous pickup lines he’s ever used before.

“Messaging that new match of yours?”

Lance squeaks and hastily stows away his phone. He turns, wide-eyed, toward Hunk. “Huh?”

Hunk gestures at the lump on his hip, faint blue light blinking through denim. “I saw you typing away over there. Fingers of fury-“ Hunk mimics his rapid-fire movements- “that’s you. So I figured it was the girl you just matched with on Tinder. Or, well, the guy. Doesn’t matter.”

“Oh, uh, yeah,” Lance manages to answer. “Yeah, it was.” Which isn’t technically a lie, now that he thinks about it. He and Keith did match, after all. As fucked up as that is.

“Just be careful, buddy. I know how your drunk texts can be.”

“I feel you,” Lance says. He silently wills his hand to move from his bulging pocket, but it refuses to do as he wants. “I’ll be careful.”

“Typical,” Pidge pipes up. She proudly fixes her attention on the girl next to her as she sets down her last card. “Well, well, well. I won again. I’m sure everyone’s surprised. And I think the president mandates that everyone switch to playing spin the bottle now.”

Oh boy.

--

Lance can barely drag himself out of bed the next morning.

Hunk is an amazing friend and runs out to grab the two of them some burgers and fries from the closest Five Guys. One double cheeseburger and regular cup of fries later, Lance starts to feel remotely more human. He takes something for the headache rattling inside his skull and chugs an entire bottle of water. Well, actually two bottles. He’s dehydrated, okay, and they ran out of Gatorade a couple days ago.

Once his stomach is full, headache subsided, Lance slinks into his room and gets to work on his assignments. There’s a shit ton of coding involved, and Lance is ready to jump out the window. Put an end to the shitshow that is his life. These are the moments he’s especially thankful he’s friends with Pidge.

Homework keeps him distracted for most of the day. Any breaks are spent eating or staring aimlessly at the ceiling of his room. He doesn’t check social media and opts to wait to check texts before he goes to bed. His friends will survive. Plus, the most important dude of the bunch lives with Lance.

By the time midnight rolls around, Lance crawls into bed. Ten minutes is all it takes for him to drop into dreamland. He fantasizes about lakes filled with orange soda, Swedish Fish swimming around like actual fish, and canoes made of hollowed out waffle-cones.

There’s a glimpse of dark hair and- Lance can’t tell. He doesn’t know. His dreams are always pretty bizarre the night after a party. And that’s coming from someone with a vivid imagination and the ability to occasionally lucid dream.

Too bad there aren’t any candy mermaids.

--

Monday’s are the worst.

Lance almost doesn’t get out of bed the following morning. Screw his classes. Screw his professors and their garbage homework. Screw the people on campus who would probably chastise him for not showing up and make him feel like a big ole disappointment and— dammit. Yeah, that’s what finally pulls him out from under the covers.

He kicks the week off with flight dynamics. Which is just fan-freaking-tastic on days like this when he’d rather be at home, sleeping for the next… oh, ten hours. At least.

Slipping quietly into the front row, Lance sets his backpack down and folds the desk over his lap. The room is filled with the sounds of other students trudging in, equally unenthused about being there at such an early hour. They talk animatedly amongst themselves, but Lance doesn’t hear a word of it. Headphones in, he hums along to the tune of “Mr. Blue Sky” and takes the chance to stare at the blank board at the front of the lecture hall.

(Of course he’s not zoning out— that’s crazy talk.)

And, sometime during his usual Zone Out Session, Lance must slip into an alternate dimension. It’s the only explanation for what happens next.

“Hey.”

“Jesus Ch—“ Lance nearly jumps out of his own skin. A headphone slips free from his ear when he jerks to attention, eyes bulging out of his skull, as he comes face-to-face with none other than Keith. Tinder Keith. Grumpy maybe-photographer Keith. “Oh.”

“Are you—“ Keith’s face contorts into the weirdest of expressions and then his jaw snaps shut. He motions at Lance’s phone, sitting on the desk in front of him. “Do you— um?”

“Do I…?”

“Is that your phone?”

Lance blinks. “Yeah? Yeah, it’s my phone.”

He gives Keith a quick onceover. He’s wearing skin-tight dark jeans, black combat boots, and a scarlet red shirt, under a worn leather jacket. A huge NASA patch emblazons one arm and a Garrison Flight Academy on the other. He hardly knows Keith, having only watched him from a distance, and knows what little he does know thanks to Pidge.

“Don’t people usually start conversations with, like, a ‘hi’ or something? Maybe a ‘hey, dude, mind if I sit next to you?’” Lance crosses his arms over his chest and leans back in his chair.

The slightest flush tinges Keith’s cheeks. His brows furrow, regarding Lance critically. “You don’t know why I walked over here.”

“Sure, sure. But I also know you usually sit a few seats over. Down there, yeah, by that dude with the spiky hair. And yet you’re currently standing next to yours truly. So it’s not all that far-fetched to think you came over to say ‘hi,’ you know?”

Keith grimaces— he definitely knows.

“Although… you don’t like it when anyone sits on either side of you. I’ve noticed that, too. Is it because you need extra space for ‘business in the front, party in the back?’”

“Are you making fun of my hair?”

Lance shrugs. “It’s a mullet.”

“And?”

“And? And? It’s 2017, buddy. That style died years ago.”

Lance is really hoping Keith doesn’t recognize him. Casual, he needs to play it casual. He needs to convince Keith he doesn’t secretly like his hair and wonder how thick it is and what it’d feel like to run his fingers through— okay, yeah, not going there. This dude is supposed to be his academic rival. Lance just has to keep a level head, scare Keith off, and get ready for lecture. Piece of cake.

“Whatever. I don’t even know why I bothered to come over here. You were probably trashed when you messaged me last night anyway.”

When you messaged me last night.

Lance’s brain shuts down from that single sentence alone. He opts to play dumb. “Message?”  

If at all possible, Keith looks even more anxious. “Yeah… you have— you’re on that Tinder site or whatever, right?”

“Okay, first off,” Lance starts, lifting a single finger in the air, “Tinder is an app, not a website. Secondly…”

Lance wants to curl up in a ball and die. This is awful, the worst case scenario playing out in front of his very own eyes. Keith was supposed to ignore him. He was supposed to read Lance’s message, dismiss it as drunk gibberish, and carry on as if nothing happened. Never in a million years did Lance expect Keith to approach him about this. Lance has matched with countless people on Tinder who haven’t answered his messages— and even more avoid him in public.

So why did Keith have to be different?

“Secondly?” Keith prompts, glancing at Lance’s two raised fingers.

“Uh, secondly… yes? I have a Tinder?”

“You don’t sound too sure about that. Do you or do you not?”

God, when did this turn into an interrogation? Lance sighs resignedly. “Yeah, I have one.”

Keith offers a slight nod and reaches into his jacket. The leather is worn, clearly a hand-me-down, and it completes the Bad Boy image he has going on. Lance itches to reach out and touch, to brush his hand up the length of his arm and— that’s weird, Lance. Weird.

Keith pulls a phone out of his pocket and, oh no, why is he unlocking the screen?

Lance chuckles nervously. “What are you—”

“This is you, right?” Keith holds the phone in front of Lance’s face. It’s unmistakably him. The selfie, one of Lance’s absolute favorites, grins smugly back at him. Keith tilts the screen slightly. “Lance. You’re Lance.”

He doesn’t word it like a question at all. The little bastard already knows he’s found me out. Lance shrugs by way of agreement. There’s no point in arguing when his own fucking face is right there, in the palm of Keith’s hand.

“And based on these pictures… you were totally shit-faced last night, weren’t you?”

He was, but that wasn’t the primary reason he’d sought out Keith. “I was feelin’ myself, sure.”

Keith rolls his eyes. “Figures.”

Lie, Lance, lie! “I would’ve swiped right whether I was drunk off my ass or totally sober.”

No, no, no, no, what the actual fuck is wrong with you, no—

“Would you have sent those shitty pickup lines even if you were sober? Please say no. I need you to say no or I’m walking away.”

“Um…”

“Alright, well, it’s been nice. I guess. But I think I’ll just see myself out.”

“Wait!” Lance finds himself yelling after Keith. To his surprise— and delight— Keith stops in his tracks and turns. “Aw, c’mon, it’s Tinder. You’re supposed to open with a dumb icebreaker. That’s what makes it fun!”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Maybe a little, but it keeps things interesting.” Lance flashes Keith a weak smile. “Besides, it got your attention, didn’t it?”

“If by attention, you mean I read each new message, cringed harder every time, and considered deleting the damn thing off my phone…”

“Fine, geez, your definition of ‘fun’ is totally different than mine,” Lance says, “I get it if you don’t want any part of me after all that. But just know I wasn’t trying to be a dick. I didn’t do it— I didn’t do it just to get in your pants.”

Keith purses his lips, nose scrunching. Lance tries desperately not to think about how cute the gesture is but, well, he fails spectacularly. Keith scrutinizes Lance like he would one of their flight dynamics problems, like he scrutinizes their professor on a daily basis whenever the guy talks about his personal flight experience and attempts relating it to course material.

“The last message,” Keith begins, eyes fixed on Lance. “You sent all of those messages. Even the last one. About…”

“About how cool you are? Yeah, dude,” Lance interjects, “And I was serious. I don’t know you all that well, and we're kinda rivals” —Keith scoffs at that— “but Pidge seems to think pretty highly of you, which says a lot. Plus, we’re in the same major, and this professor is lowkey in love with you. Even though he also seems to hate you? Confusing stuff, but, yeah, you must be smart.”

Lance watches in fascination as this stoic, mysterious dork has the nerve to blush. Crimson floods his face and, yep, there’s no way in hell Lance can stop the word cute from popping up in his head now. Keith generally has an angry sort of air about him, the sort of attitude you expect from someone who’s always raring for a fight. But like this— Lance thinks he’s glimpsing a new side of Keith, a side not many people are lucky enough to see.

And, God, does that do things to his poor little bisexual heart.

“When’s your next party?”

“Huh?”

“When are you and your friends having another party? I could come—“ Keith hesitates mid-sentence. “I could head over with Pidge and stay for a little bit.”

Lance grins. It looks like he’s been right all along; Keith is full of surprises.

--

The rest of the week seems to pass by in a blur.

Lance pays attention in class as usual and finishes his assignments– no problem there. But it’s like he’s operating on autopilot or something. Wake up, eat breakfast, go to class, eat lunch, come home, maybe workout, finish homework, eat dinner, go to sleep. Lance feels like a robot, carrying out the days’ preprogrammed tasks.

Maybe Pidge finally built a full-scale robot and stuck Lance’s consciousness inside; he wouldn’t be shocked. And, as distracted as he’s been all week, it wouldn’t have been difficult to catch him off guard.

When Saturday finally rolls around, Lance is amazed he hasn’t gone completely out of his mind.

Hunk pours a bag of Dorito’s into a bowl and scooches across the kitchen to check the oven, peeking at the boneless wings and potato wedges cooking inside. The timer isn’t set to go off for another ten minutes, and Lance is starving.

“Hey, Lance?”

“Hm?” Lance hums. He leans his elbows against the kitchen island, propping his chin in his hands. The chips and salsa are glaring at him from their place on the counter; he’s sure of it.

“Are you okay? You seem a little… preoccupied.”

Shit. Hunk has always been obnoxiously perceptive. It’s sad how easy it is for him to pick up on Lance’s mood changes. He can practically tell when Lance is upset before Lance himself even realizes it.

“Yeah, I’m totally fine. Fine as wine,” Lance answers, sitting up a bit straighter in his seat. “You worry too much, buddy.”

“Maybe I do, but still. You’ve been acting sorta weird ever since our party last week. I didn’t notice you get any new numbers. Usually, you get at least… like, five over the course of the night.”

“Eh, no one really caught my eye this time around.” Lance shrugs. It’s supposed to come off as nonchalant. Well, supposed to. “Plus, I was having a shitty day, remember? Hard to put the moves on all the ladies and gents when I’m feeling like garbage.”

“I guess…”

“Listen, dude, I would tell you if something was wrong. You know that.”

“I do, don’t get me wrong,” Hunk says with a nod. He pauses for a moment and, thankfully, switches topics. “Oh, totally random, but did you hear about who might be coming tonight?”

Lance smirks. Now, this is safe territory. Whenever a cute girl or guy is invited to one of their parties, Hunk is the first to let Lance know. He’s quite the matchmaker when he wants to be and, ever since he and Shay started dating, he’s been even more adamant about finding someone for Lance. Double dating– he really wants to go on double dates. Well, he’s also an awesome friend who wants what’s best for Lance, but that’s a given.

“No,” Lance fake gasps, bringing a hand to his mouth. ”Who? Is it that Chelsea girl from Pidge’s physics class? Or that dude who looks like a supermodel and sits next to you in fluid mechanics?”

“Nope and nope. Guess again.”

“Uh… Jake from State Farm?”

Hunk glares daggers in his direction. “Lance, seriously? A good guess. I doubt you’re gonna get it.”

“Nyma?”

“No, not your ex-girlfriend, dude. She’s cool, but that would just be weird. Try harder.”

“Rolo? He came last time, though.”

“No sir-ee,” Hunk singsongs.

“Ugh, fine. I hate these guessing games. Please, just tell me already? I’m going crazy over here.”

Hunk motions for Lance to come closer and, of course, Lance complies. Hunk lifts a hand and shields his moving lips from anyone– the ghosts because their apartment is almost definitely haunted– who may be listening to their conversation. “You won’t believe this.”

“Okay,” Lance huffs.

“Like… it’ll blow your mind.”

“Yeah, yeah, get on with it already. The suspense is killing me.”

Hunk pauses for dramatic effect and, just when Lance is about to scream, finishes in a whisper, “Keith.”

Yes, his life is a joke, in case you were wondering. A certifiable and totally unfunny joke. The kind with chirping crickets and everything.

Lance has known Keith planned on coming since Monday. Monday. But of course he couldn’t tell Hunk. He loves the guy to death, but Lance knew exactly what would happen had he told him. He would’ve drowned in the usual slew of questions. Have you guys been talking? How long? When did it start? Do you like him?

Bleh.

It’s bad enough that Lance is crushing on Keith– because, yes, he’s accepted he has a teeny tiny crush, at this point– but toss in Hunk’s protectiveness and the whole situation goes “to hell in a handbasket,” as his mom would say.

“Really?” Lance attempts to feign surprise. “That antisocial dickbag?”

“Hey, dude, give him a chance. He doesn’t get out much, and Pidge has been trying to get him over here for ages. The least we can do is be good hosts.”

Oh, Lance plans on being a good host. The best host. “I’ll behave myself, don’t worry. He’ll probably just ignore me anyway.” Lance gestures at the couch in the other room. “He’ll claim the couch and chill there for the rest of the night. I can almost guarantee it.”

Hunk scoffs and shakes his head. “Maybe. But you never know… he seems like the kind of guy who’s full of surprises.”

Lance stifles a laugh at that. You have no idea, Hunk.

--

Lance wishes he hadn’t been the one to answer the door when Keith and Pidge show up.

He wishes he hadn’t felt his face flush pink at the sight of Keith, dressed in the kind of clothes he often wears to class. He wishes that a simple black t-shirt and skinny jeans didn’t make him weak in the knees. He wishes Keith hadn’t met his flustered greeting with a quiet, “Hey.” And, God, does he wish Pidge would stop smirking in his direction every time he and Keith are within a couple feet of each other.

The party started about an hour ago. Most of the guests have filed into the room with the pong table. Lance bought the plastic, dinky thing dirt cheap from a friend of his, and Hunk keeps it stored in his closet. On nights like this, they set it up in the living room, close to the opposite wall and as far from the television as possible.

Hunk and Shay are halfway through a heated game against Rolo and his friend. Lance never did get his name- but that’s beside the point.

“So…” Pidge slides over and trills, to be heard over the din of excited voices. “Lance, my good friend. You having fun?”

Lance knows that tone. It’s the sort of tone you’d expect from an evil villain as they explain the details of their plot to take over the world. Which, come to think of it, is pretty fitting since Pidge could be an evil genius mastermind, if she so desired.

“Uh, yeah. Duh. Why?”

“Hm, nothing. You just seemed… really happy tonight.”

“Okay? I’ve had a pretty kickass week. Finished all my homework early, got an A on my first thermodynamics quiz.” Like with Hunk, Lance tries to keep his voice neutral. “You and Hunk both need to chill.”

“Lance… I wasn’t born yesterday.”

“Are you sure? You could pass as a high school- ouch!” Lance winces, rubbing the tender area Pidge just dug her bony elbow into. “Fine, I deserved that. But, seriously, I have no idea what you’re getting at.”

“You’ve been ogling Keith all fucking night and didn’t expect me to notice?”

Nervous laughter bursts from Lance’s mouth. “What? Are you crazy?”

“Not any more than normal. Keith told me that he was coming so he could see you.”

Oh.

There’s no way out of this one– not when Pidge clearly knows the truth. Plus, his brain is pretty stuck on the whole “Keith is here to see you” thing. Because he figured Keith wouldn’t even show up in the first place, let alone seek him out.

“The mullet of truth strikes again…” Lance mutters.

“Chill, chill. Go talk to him or something! You’ve been too busy drooling to actually chat, and I think he’s starting to feel pretty damn awkward.”

“Pfft, that was my plan all along.” Lance flourishes his hand, tipping his chin toward Keith. “Gotta keep the guests happy.”

“Yeah, ‘happy’ is a word for it…”

Lance decides to let the comment slide for now and carefully pushes his way through the crowd. Keith stands on the other side of the table, closest to Hunk and Shay. His arms are folded across his chest, and his gaze is currently boring holes through the back of a particularly loud partygoer's head.

He attempts to ignore the nervous fluttering in his stomach— go away, you damn butterflies— and grins. Keith doesn’t seem to notice Lance’s approach and continues glaring.

“You know, if you keep crossing your arms like that, they might freeze that way,” Lance teases. His smile grows when Keith flinches, wide eyes turning on Lance like he’s materialized out of thin air before him. “Hey, there.”

“When did— whatever.” Keith huffs— seriously huffs— and refuses to meet Lance’s stare. The current pong game is obviously more important. “Nice of you to finally come say ‘hi.’”

“I can’t even argue that one. I’ve been making the rounds but shame on me, neglecting the special guest of the evening.”

“Special guest?”

“Most of these losers show up to all of our parties. They’re the ‘regular guests.’ Then, you have the hosts. Hunk“ –he points out his roommate– “this fine piece of ass” –he playfully smacks his own ass and Keith scoffs– “and Pidge. Because, let’s face it, she’s pretty much a host regardless of whether she lives here or not.

“And you, my dude, are the ‘special guest.’”

Keith mulls the words over in his head, brows scrunched up in a way that Lance shouldn’t find as adorable as he does. “Why?”

“Didn’t Pidge tell you? You’re on the VIP list!”

Poor Keith’s eyes go even wider, wide as saucers. “Uh–“

“Kidding, kidding,” Lance snorts, “But only a little. I mean, for as long as we’ve been trying to get your ass here, I’d say you qualify as a VIP guest. Or… the VIM? Very Important Mullet?”

“God, you’re so hung up on my hair. Does it really bother you that much?”

“It’s the 21st century…”

“Yeah?”

“I shouldn’t have to go into any more detail than that.” Lance shakes his finger at Keith. “You should know better, young man.”

Lance anticipates a good eye roll or Keith telling him to fuck off or, hell, maybe even walking away. But no. He fucking laughs. This gorgeous human being tosses back his head and laughs like a dork. Unbridled and genuine laughter fills the space between them, mostly drowned out by the surrounding cacophony of drunkenness. Lance savors the fact he’s the only one who seemed to have heard it.

“That… that wasn’t even one of my better jokes, dude,” Lance chuckles anxiously.

“You’re just so weird sometimes,” Keith explains, once his laughter dies down a bit. “I don’t even know how to describe it.”

“I’m not sure whether I should be offended or…?”

“Offended. Definitely.”

But Keith’s body language tells Lance he should feel downright flattered right now.

“We should go somewhere quieter,” Keith continues, “I mean– we don’t have to. It’s whatever you want.”

Lance’s brain is broken. Seriously, he can hardly remember his own name because Keith is  propositioning him or some shit. It’s the closest he can imagine Keith getting to the whole cliché “let’s get out of here” excuse.

“Totally. We can go into my room if you want?”

Keith nods jerkily. “Cool.”

“Cool,” Lance mimes, drawing out the ‘o’ sound.

A couple uncomfortable moments of silence pass before Lance realizes they’re standing there, doing nothing. Not moving towards his room. Not talking. Literally, they are frozen in place like pieces of furniture, while people chat and mill around them.

Before he can lose confidence, Lance reaches out and snags Keith’s wrist. Keith outright gapes at him, confusion rolling off of him in waves. “C’mon, buddy, let’s blow this popsicle stand.”

“We’re not actually leaving the apartment, are we?”

“My room? Remember?” Lance lets out an overdramatic, longsuffering sigh and tugs Keith in the direction of the hallway. “That mullet is absorbing all your memories. You probably don’t even remember what you had for breakfast this morning.”

“…”

“Oh God, you got quiet! You really don’t remember what you ate for—“

“You have a problem, Lance.”

--

This might also qualify as one of Lance’s infamous Bad Decisions.

It’s easy for Lance to act cool and like he has his shit together when there are other people around. Hunk has a knack for making Lance seem more suave than he actually is. But when he’s trapped in his room with Keith, truly alone, for the first time, none of that matters.

He fits in here. The thought crosses Lance’s mind before he can stop it. He wants to kick himself but, holy balls, it’s true.

A wide variety of posters for sci-fi shows and movies, for NASA, for the Garrison Academy, fill the walls. There are even a couple from when he was little and his mom would help him tear posters out of National Geographic magazines. The ceiling is also covered but with glow-in-the-dark stars. He remembers the day Pidge helped, handing stars up to Lance who was much taller and could effortlessly reach the ceiling from his bed.

His desk sits in the opposite corner. The shelf over his working space is filled with books, old comics from his dad, and a handful of manga volumes. There are other little collectibles scattered throughout the room. Keith circles the perimeter, peering curiously at Lance’s assortment of weird items. A moon night light, a stuffed Saturn plush, one of his most prized surfboards— the entire room is filled to the brim with items that simply scream ‘Lance’ and yet… Keith doesn’t seem out of place.

The realization stirs something inside Lance’s chest he’d rather not confront.

“Hi, I’m Lance McClain, and welcome to my crib,” Lance says. Keith pauses his inspection of the American X-Planes poster near Lance’s bed. “You like planes?”

Keith presses his palm to the picture of the X-15. “Yeah… yeah, my dad used to fly them.”

“That’s awesome!” Lance can’t help his outburst. The five-year-old trapped inside his body is dying to pilot a plane. “Is that what got you into the whole aerospace field?”

“Sort of…”

“Okay, sit down. There’s obviously more to it than that.” Lance takes a seat at the end of his bed and eagerly pats the spot next to him. “Let’s hear it, mullet.”

“My name is Keith, okay,” Keith answers with a sigh but joins Lance anyway. “And do I really have to share that? I basically just met you.”

“If we’re going to be friends, I think I deserve to know. Here, I’ll go first! I got into it because I’ve always wanted to be a pilot. And, I don’t know, there’s just something I really love about planes and space and all that fun stuff. So the thought of helping build or design an aircraft...”

The very beginnings of a smile start to take shape on Keith’s lips; Lance somehow manages to live through it.

“That makes sense, though,” Keith concedes. “But my other reason is… you’re going to laugh at me.”

“I swear I won’t.”

“We just met, Lance, but I already know that’s a load of bullshit.”

“Hey! I have serious conversations with Hunk and Pidge all the time. Just spit it out already, dude. I’m sure I have far more embarrassing stories from my past. Hell, I have a shit load from freshman year alone!” He offers what he hopes to be a reassuring smile and elbows Keith. “So go ahead. Tell Lancelot what’s on your mind.”

Keith blinks. “Lancelot.”

“That would be me. Now, explain.”

“You’re drunk.”

“It’s hardly a buzz at this point. Stop trying to distract me!”

“Says the guy who just called himself Lancelot—“

“Keith,” Lance whines and, without a second thought, lets his body slump over. He instantly feels Keith stiffen against him. Uh oh.

“You’re drunk,” Keith repeats, voice strained.

He’s so damn warm and not quite the bony pillow Lance imagined him to be. Not that he’s imagined using Keith as a pillow or anything. Nope, never. And maybe Keith is right, he’s a little buzzed. Certainly not enough to lose control of his own actions, though.

“Only a little,” Lance answers and smirks; his words don’t even come out slurred. Score one for tipsy Lance. “So, tell me.”

Keith shifts in place. “Okay, well… I want to meet an alien.”

Lance musters every ounce of self-control left in his body and contains his laughter. Keith would likely misinterpret it anyway when, in reality, Lance finds the reasoning to be endearing. “Don’t we all?”

“You’re not going to make fun of me?”

“I might slip a couple jokes in, here and there, but no. We all have dreams, dude. And so what if yours is meeting E.T.? I’d love to meet an alien, too. So whenever you finally come across one, you better let me know first. Okay? Not the F.B.I. or C.I.A. Me. ”

The air stills. Lance can practically feel the tension hanging in the space around them. “Yeah. Yeah, okay.”

“You’re the bomb,” Lance insists, and tries to subtly scoot closer. He doubts it’s even remotely subtle. “Now, since you’re the one who wanted to get away from all the craziness… what do you wanna do?”

Still as stiff as a board next to him, Keith clears his throat. “I, uh. I don’t know. There was just so much going on, and I needed some peace and quiet.”

“Ah, so that’s it.”

“…What’s it?”

“Why you never come to our parties. I used to always think it was because you thought you were too good to come over and drink—“

“What the hell?”

“—with us. But it’s really because you’re not much of a social butterfly, huh, Keithy?”

Keith shifts and, for a split second, Lance is sure he’s going to get shoved off the bed. “Don’t call me that,” he grumbles, “And, no, I’m not an asshole. I never thought I was ‘too good’ to hang out with you guys. It’s just the crowds and the drinking… it’s not my thing. At all.”

Lance hums. “That makes sense. It’s alright, dude, I get it. I have an older sister who never got into the whole party scene. And, I mean, our parties aren’t like the ones on frat row. We all know each other somehow, and we play it pretty safe.”

“I know… Pidge has told me before.” Keith pauses and groans. “Constantly tells me.”

“Well, it’s the truth. You’ve always been welcome here. And if you’d rather just chill in my room instead… that would be okay with me.”

Lance can practically feel the tension leaving Keith’s body, loosening his muscles. He definitely doesn’t seem as comfortable as Lance, but it’s an improvement.

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

“Cool, um. Thank you.”

“Yeah, no problem.”

The room goes silent. Outside, a chorus of “Kick his ass, kick his ass, kick his ass!” echoes throughout the apartment. Lance is pretty sure it’s directed at some drunk sap, seconds away from getting destroyed by Hunk and Shay at pong. He focuses on the noise rather than the far more disconcerting lack of noise inside the cramped confines of his bedroom.

“Do you wanna watch something on Netflix? Like… a movie?”

The invitation has the desired effect. Keith laughs— a real laugh— and starts rattling off all the shows he’s been watching or wanted to watch. There are a few Lance recognizes and loves, while there are others that make Lance giggle because they’re way too ridiculous to actually watch. Keith spends a solid ten minutes defending the cheesy alien movies on the Syfy channel, and Lance spends another fifteen minutes explaining the beauty of Twin Peaks. They find a common ground in X-Files and Stranger Things which Lance doesn’t find all that surprising, considering how much Keith is starting to remind him of Mulder.

Somehow, they end up sitting side-by-side on Lance’s bed, laptop between them, watching Ancient Aliens late into the night.

Lance has more fun than he’s had in months.

--

Pidge teases him for the rest of the week about sneaking off with Keith. Hunk and Shay gush over how cute they were when Keith eventually went home and Lance led him to the door. Lance isn’t sure which is worse, but he knows his friends are certifiable dicks and need to let him live.

Keith starts sitting next to him in class. It’s both a blessing and a curse because, on one hand, Lance gets a perfect view of Keith’s attractive profile. But, on the other hand, it means the professor starts paying more attention to his existence since Keith refuses to shut up. He’s always raising his hand and asking questions. And, by proxy, the professors start assuming Lance is an equally persistent student.

He’s never been called on so many times in his entire life.

Keith becomes a regular at their weekly get-togethers. As promised, Lance lets him flee to the safety of his room when the drinking games get to be too loud and boisterous for his tastes. And, alright, so what if Lance joins him every time? What if he gives zero shits about the cute new guests and cares a lot more about the dorky genius with a mullet who insists on devising theories for every sci-fi show in existence, cheesy or not?

It’s no big deal or anything.

They also start eating lunch together a couple days a week, when their schedules match up. It’s fantastic, but there’s a voice in the back of Lance’s head that keeps reminding him that he and Keith are only friends.

Friends.

Freakin’ weird. Lance loves having a bunch of friends. He prefers having a small group of close friends and a second, much larger group, of acquaintances to drink with at parties. He’s been that way since high school and yet… Lance winces every time the word crosses his mind and Keith is involved.

On one of the days he eats lunch with Hunk and Pidge, Lance can’t stop thinking about it. Keith, broody but dorky, serious but silly, realistic but out there because the dude believes in aliens and— Keith is different. Totally unique. It’s the worst.

“Are you sure nothing happened with you and Keith?” Pidge asks between mouthfuls of pizza. She always starts by eating the cheese and toppings off the top and saves the crust for last.

Right on cue, Lance feels his phone vibrate and glances down to check the notification. A snapchat from Keith.

“Like that!” Hunk points, grinning wide and much too excited. “I didn’t even know you two snapped each other. How long has that been going on?”

Lance shrugs. “I don’t know, I gave him my snap a couple weekends ago. We wanted to watch this new movie on the Syfy channel, and he got all pissy because I couldn’t wait a couple days longer to watch it so we could together.”

Hunk blinks owlishly back at Lance. Pidge freezes, a string of melty cheese dangling from her gaping mouth. Neither say a word, and a guffaw wrenches itself from Lance’s throat. “What?”

Hunk is the first to regain control of his mouth. “I don’t want to freak you out or anything, dude, but… you guys are totally dating.”

Lance almost spills an entire can of orange soda down the front of his shirt. ”What?”

“Oh, c’mon. You guys are practically inseparable. Plus, I know that Keith spent the night the last couple times he came over. Something had to have happened. You’re” –Pidge swishes her hand through the air, indicating Lance’s whole person– “Lance. You can’t tell me you guys didn’t have crazy, hot s—“

Hunk claps a hand over Pidge’s mouth. Her eyes bulge and then narrow into a murderous glare, directed fully at Hunk. “I think what Pidge is trying to say is that… we know what happens with the girls and guys who spend the night after our parties. And we’re happy that you’re actually still talking to Keith. He’s too cool to be a one night stand.”

They think he slept with Keith. Lance can’t stop the onslaught of mental images at the mere mention of he and Keith, sleeping together. Dark hair plastered to Keith’s forehead, head thrown back as moans and whimpers spill over his lips, heavy with longing. Lance, he would sigh. Lance, between bouts of breathless laughter as their lips slide together, slow and languid, fingers gliding over warm skin. Lance, whispered into the curve of his neck as their breathing eventually settles, wrapped around each other before they drift off to sleep.

Lance is so completely and utterly fucked. And not in the literal sense.

“He’s not— we didn’t— Keith and I are friends,” Lance stresses. Because they are. If he were to ask Keith right now if they were dating, he would think Lance had lost his mind. “I promise.”

Pidge turns the fiery intensity of her stare on Lance. Hunk lowers his hand and levels Lance with a frustrated look of his own. Lance has seen both expressions far too many times. His stomach sinks.

“You like him,” Pidge deadpans. Her tone leaves no room for argument. Definitive— a statement of fact. “You like Keith.”

“I—“

“You can tell us the truth, buddy. It’s not like we’re going to tell him,” Hunk explains, somewhat softer than Pidge. “But you should be honest with yourself. I’d hate to see either of you get hurt.”

“Guys, we haven’t even kissed.”

Hunk looks downright scandalized. “You haven’t?”

“Are you sure?” Pidge leans across the table.

“Uh, yeah? How would I forget something like that?”

Lance doesn’t catch his mistake until it’s a second too late.

“I knew it!”

“You do like him!”

Pidge and Hunk both screech at the same time, and Lance motions for them to lower their voices, frantically hissing, “Shhhh. Shh, shhh.”

“This is the cutest thing that’s ever happened to me?” Hunk intones, pressing a hand to his chest.

“You guys are the stupidest dorks I’ve ever met,” Pidge says between bites of pizza crust. “This makes so much sense. I can’t believe I didn’t try to set you guys up sooner.”

“Hunk, you and Shay are sickeningly cute so I don’t want to hear it. And Keith is only a friend, okay?”

Pidge shakes her head. “No, I’m serious about you both being idiots. Keith talks about you all the fucking time around the apartment. Poor Shiro has asked me, like, a thousand times if you two have started going out yet. He said he’s never seen Keith like this before.”

Lance’s heart does something weird inside his chest, flipping and flopping like a fish out of water. He and Keith have had several discussions about siblings, and Lance knows just how important Shiro is to Keith. When Keith’s parents passed away, Shiro’s family took him in and raised him like he was one of their own. If Keith values Lance enough to tell Shiro…

“This sucks ass,” Lance mutters and sinks in his seat, covering his face with his hands. “Like, wow, this sucks.”

“What, because you’re interested in someone for more than just a night of sex?”

“Pidge,” Hunk hisses. He offers Lance an apologetic smile. “I’m sure it’s tough. You could always start by asking him out? Like on an actual date?”

And that, friends, is when things get really interesting.

[blackmormonmed]

To Free or Not to Free That is the Question

I'm going to assume what you meant by the medium name is the name that I use on Tumblr which is blackmormonmed.  

I would like to start this essay by addressing your final question in the rubric for the assignment which is what are your plans for writing? well as you know before I retired and decided to become a nontraditional student at Utah Valley University, I worked in the film industry. as the court has progressed and the onset of our social distancing secondary to the pandemic at hand, I have been contacted by my former writing partner to possibly work on a script this summer. in all actuality, the script was written by us about 10 years ago and has suddenly sparked some interest from some people willing to put some financing forth to have the film produced. but if I decide to do this, And I will say it is because of this course, I'm going to allow a student here at the university to join in writing a professional screenplay. I take the shame upon myself for not being a better didactic writer, quite frankly for all the years that I did write I was mostly an idea man I could come up with a treatment for an idea no problem, however coming up with the actual screenplay itself in the grammatical effort that goes into a final product for a presentation I have greatly faltered in over the years. I never found any need to improve upon this because our agent would always pay someone to go through and grammatically correct our scripts. so today I'm taking a different view I'm going to try to turn in a final script with the grammatical corrections with the aid of a writer here at the University. Who knows, if it sells, that will take care of a couple of years of tuition for me and give a nice calling card to someone that wants to be known as a writer. Let us move on to the other questions that should be addressed in this letter. what are the reflections that I have on my free right over the course of the semester? I must admit it was very much a struggle at the beginning of the semester digesting the concept of the “free right”. I notice that these struggles were not just my own but several students in the class shared the same ideas. you might call it the elephant and the string complex. when a baby elephant comes to the circus, they tie one of its legs to a stake with a rope. As the elephant grows larger in size and tries to walk away from the stake it feels the tug on the rope. The elephant can be at full size but the same size rope that held it as an infant does the same job of keeping it in place. The reason for telling this story is to illustrate how students have been tied to a certain idea by the University teaching system. The teaching dogma of "do it my way, or the highway, or you won't get your A".  

After digesting the idea that we the students could write freely, that we could say what is on our mind regardless of grammatical formatting, and freely write down what was on our minds, truly opened up new doors for me creatively. The strings that bound me extended far beyond the University but into my former career where the stakes were a bit higher. Do it their way or the highway, except now, you would not you be able to feed yourself in the coming months. Picasso once said, “learn the rules like a professional so that you can break them like an artist”.  

As time progressed in English 2010 it revealed to us all that there were some rules, and yes, my grade would depend on adhering to some of those ties that bind to academia. Where I completely cast aside my diligence for formal grammatical correction to the point of free-flowing enjoying the comfort of free writing without penalty, I made the mistake of letting that carry over into what should be my professionally submitted assignments. My professor wrote me a note saying that my brain thinks faster than I could write. That was not incorrect. There are so many ideas that swim around in one's head, it would truly be impossible to do corrections as you freely wright along. I learned what was necessary though it did not depict it in most of my freewriting on my Tumblr blog. In the end, I did attempt to adhere to the professional rules and then attempted to break them like an artist. My favorite writings from the free-writing section of the class was my three-part piece on “I kissed a girl”. I'm not quite sure if I'm supposed to post the entire writing here but since I'm running out of space and time I will simply provide the link to the first of the three-part series.  

https://blackmormonmed.tumblr.com/post/614185173738815488/i-kissed-a-girl  

https://blackmormonmed.tumblr.com/post/614221426527961088/the-kiss-part-2  

https://blackmormonmed.tumblr.com/post/614221682421448704/the-kiss-part-3  

Again not that all the grammatical corrections are in there but it was my favorite piece because it had emotional content, and for me, it was rarity. The first time I think I've ever written somewhat of a diary to depict things that are happening in my own life. In going over these past writings In reviewing these posts I see producing my feelings on paper could have been more readily relayed had I used the proper punctuation, and even at some point gave it a quick read-through before submitting it. Though the aforementioned were my favorite free-writings that I submitted, there does pose the question of what was my favorite writing in the course?  

Although the final research project did open my eyes to a lot of things that I had not realized before, I have to choose overall the opinion paper to be my most favorite “Let's Get Affirmative About This Action”  

https://blackmormonmed.tumblr.com/post/615604398135083008/lets-get-affirmative-about-this-action  

Writing this paper gave me the opportunity to look at my subject matter from different points of view. Yes, normally we do look at papers from different points of view, but only at the hand of already published academic articles. In the case of the opinion paper, we were drawing simply on what we thought someone else might say about a particular subject and then found pieces of scholastic material to back those opinions up. I have to admit it was quite entertaining just to write, especially when I was able to write about diversity in universities from the viewpoint of a southern bigot.  

Fish, what can I say? At the end of the day you want me to write some sort of letter to explain how you can improve on being a teacher. the only thing I can actually come up with is nothing really. From the first moment of the class where you sat amongst us like one of the students and no one could figure out that you were the professor that was pretty much priceless. If if I were to give any suggestions in the future the only thing I could say is find a way to convince the students extremely early on that you're going to make this course about freeing their minds. I know that may sound a bit Matix-ey but I can think of no better terms to say it. If you find a way to do that, the experience that we all had that took several weeks to get, would come a little sooner. In the end, though we are not in the classroom, picture me standing on my desk....

oh captain my captain.

Dave

[survivingart]

IS THIS ART?

Countless figures throughout history have tried to explain this incredibly complex question: What is art? And more importantly, what isn’t art?

But still the institutions have no real answer, no common ground upon which they could define a normative of what defines art. Brut art is a problem, so are other outsider artists, and home schooled creatives that defy or just never become part of the institutional system. 

It’s the carpenters that put more than the usual love and attention to detail in building their “consumer objects”. It’s the iPhones and iPads and other designer products that always walk the thin line between art and function.

Then you have others that do not agree with the institutional idea that one needs to even be part of the system to be considered an artist. You only need to have ideas and communicate them with the world via your production.

And in the philosophy of aesthetics — the field that studies this question ontologically — there is even more confusion. A materialist philosopher that believes all reality is only material and no immaterial reality can ever exist, will tell you art is pure matter, pure reciprocity between the object and its perceiver.

But they might also say that art doesn’t even need spectators to exist — like the whole status of art is somehow imbued inside the object that it is representing. Almost comically, some believe art is a magical aura (but of course physical, never metaphysical or non-material) that lives in an object, a special part — almost like an extra organ of the body of that object — that pumps pure artistic energy through it and makes us instantly experience art, if we indeed are knowledgable and receptive enough to perceive it.

But it’s all a load of incoherent and over-theorised bull if you ask me.

For me, all of this began with Descartes, when he decided to divide reality into two connected but distinct realities: the material and immaterial world.

There are even jokes about how the common person in the street is always a cartesian — a follower of Descartes — even if they themselves don’t know it; all average people believe in a body and in a soul as two distinct entities.

Now, I won’t go into the fallacies of such beliefs too much as this is an art channel not a philosophy discussion, but just to give a bit of context, I’d like to present three interesting and extremely precise arguments for the contrary — that art is not an object, but an experience.

Because if art is an experience, we surely can come to understand that truly it is impossible to create a functional theory, a list of checkboxes that anything considered art has to tick to really become art, or even fine art.

The first is by Thomas Nagel, the author of the story titled What It Is Like To Be A Bat, who posed an interesting proposition: 

While humans can understand and imagine the behaviours of creatures, in this case a bat; merely being able to imagine how it would feel to be able to fly, navigate by sonar, hang upside down and eat insects, would never really be the same as a bat’s perspective. 

Nagel claims that even if we were able to gradually turn into bats (think Kafka, but more uplifting), our brains would not have been wired as a bat’s from birth; therefore, we would only be able to experience the life and behaviours of a bat, rather than their mindset.

To behave as something isn’t equal to being something, regardless of how much it looks, swims and quacks like a duck, the shocker is, it might just be a rubber ducky. 

And this goes for our language and communication problem too; I could paint a picture of an apple being picked by a woman somewhere in a forest. Some would see a nice lady picking apples, others would see the highly complex concept of Ancestral Sin. Same painting, same communication, immensely different results.

The next story, written by Frank Jackson is also about a woman who’s life is changed because of an apple — not because of eating it but merely by looking at it! Titled What Mary Didn’t Know, it describes a very curious lady who loved natural sciences — the field of colour theory especially. 

She knew everything there was to know about colours; their wavelengths, the numerous psychological effects colours have on us, the various types of receptors that are utilised in our bodies to see them … just about everything. But she had one issue. She had been educated about all of this in a black-and-white room.

Black-and-white books, TV screens, and furniture — for some weird reason even Mary herself is black-and-white, but it is a story and if it was OK for Little Red Riding Hood to be red, I guess Mary can be colourless too.

So Jackson argued: Even though Mary had all the same information about colours that we do, she had never really experienced them and was therefore missing one crucial piece of information; one important bit of quaila, as philosophers like to call these magical bits of subjective experience, namely actually seeing red.

Jackson proposed that when Mary stepped out of her room and saw a red, juicy apple, she not only saw colour for the first time, she in fact learned something new. Something that she couldn’t have learned through any text book or black-and-white YouTube video. 

She gained a new emotional and preceptorial experience — seeing red. (Remember all those people who told us that we can’t learn everything from books, well they were right in a way!)

And the last, and my personal favourite story curiously also evolves around red (philosophers love it for some reason). One of the greatest minds of the 21st century, John Searle wrote a wonderful tale about a talking room.

Titled The Chinese Room, this wonderful tale of speaking Asian walls stirred the lines of cognitive scientists when first presented in 1980. It describes a room, where one would input a piece of written-down information — be it a question, a statement or just a remark about the weather — and the room, after a period of time, would answer back. All in Chinese for some weird reason, probably because Searle himself said he’s awful at speaking Mandarin (The man speaks more than 6 languages fluently though!).

Well, the room wasn’t some magical artefact from a forgotten time, it was operated by one person. And the interesting fact was, that parson had no idea how to speak or write Mandarin. What he did have though was an assortment of instructions and guidelines on what to do and a giant library of cards with Chinese signs, decorating the walls of the room.

Whenever text was slid through the opening in the main wall, he would open the instruction books at the appropriate page depicting the combination of symbols (he was obviously really efficient at what he did and compensated generously for his job, probably owned a villa and a few Ferraris too).

After locating the right page in the manual, he would then find the appropriate cards on the shelves of the room, align them in the order depicted in the instructions and return the answer back though the slit in the wall. And the person on the outside would be absolutely amazed of how wonderful a computer this contraption was!

But the point of Searle’s work wasn’t to explain away computers by using miniature librarians living in our processors and memory units, he wanted to point out a simple yet profound truth about communication, computation and the mind. One that we have heard twice before, albeit in different iterations and with slightly different points.

Syntax (that is the assortment of signals; be it voice signals, written words or electric currents going to the processors of our computers) does not equal semantics (that is the name we give to meaning; the meaning of a word, a picture, a sign … anything that has some symbolical value to anyone).

The only true way to experience art is to, well, experience it. It’s impossible to not experience something if we wish to even try to comprehend it, let alone understand fully what it is about.

It’s like dreaming about something you have never experienced — I know, dreams almost never look like reality, but to be honest, our dreams don’t just appear as a beam of light from god or some bored alien on Mars that decided to give us a transcendental experience because we’re the chosen one to guide human kind into onto the next level of existence.

It’s all just pieced together by everything we experience during our waking days. Every bit of information was consciously or unconsciously experienced and internalised. It’s the same with art.

You need to be present, you are indeed the key to the question of: What art is? Without anyone to view the Mona Lisa, there is no art, just a peculiar object. 

Because to know what art is, we also need to know what art isn’t. 

But when does art stop to be? Or what if it never even become perceivable to us as art?

In the moment where there are no more men, no more women, and no more children.

And what happens to art then?

It is, like all that is created from an ego, bound to its creator. When he perishes, so does the essence of all his children, leaving behind a heap of empty material shells. But the intricate architectural dams of beavers, the beautiful patterns of various animals and the chirping and poems of all the beautifully performing singing birds. These don’t perish. 

Even if there is no man to hear the song, see the pattern and enjoy the complexity of animal life and their creations they still serve an immediate function. 

If there is a female Nightingale around, the song is heard, if there are beavers, they will enjoy and understand the dams and the tigers will comprehend their intricate skin patterns — each species forming its own personal language. 

And when they’re gone, so are all their features, all their creations.

And you know why? 

Because even if today the thought of a non-sociocentric universe is impossible for most, some things in the world actually weren’t made by us. Neither to amuse or to teach. And because of that, they can last quite a bit longer than our concept of art ever will.

Art is an experience, not an object. But it isn’t only a material experience — and no, I’m not saying it’s magic that makes us live and die, because the last time I checked nobody wrote Emet on my head and magically made me a real boy the way the golem becomes alive in Jewish folklore.

But the point to take home is, the more you know, the more you understand about the world around you, the more things will give you the same experience of art, of the sublime.

Because while surely not any object can produce the same power of artistic pleasure — for me it’s a mid-late Rothko painting, for you it might be a conceptual piece with hay and neon or a realistic portrait of Loui XV or just a nice handmade drawing of your child about how much they love you.

The object is only as important as our understanding of it. That’s why learning is paramount. To be a good artist, and even a good spectator we need to constantly expand our horizons. Because the day we stop learning is the day we create a canon in our life.

And as with every determinate belief that only so and so is an artist and the others are imposters, we inevitably become blind to the ineffable vastness of what art really is. 

Art is everything. But to the inexperienced and blind, it is less than nothing, because even nothing takes something form us, whereas a foreign object to a closed mind doesn’t even register. It is like it never even existed.

So to truly experience reality — at least a much of it as we possibly can — we need to stay humble, open and childlike in our awe towards the world. If nothing else, we owe it to either God or our parents or ourselves or just to the lovely abyss that the nihilists of us enjoy staring down.

We owe it to whatever makes us stand-up in the morning to give everything the world has to offer a chance. Maybe we will find a new thing we like, but it’s much more likely we’ll discover a previously completely hidden part of reality that was really just hiding in plain sight.

What is art then?

Everything for those of us that aren’t afraid to look.   

from Surviving Art http://bit.ly/2WJW4tG via IFTTT

[anavoliselenu]

Fueled chapter 5

“Well shit,” Tanner says, grasping Justin’s hand and shaking it vigorously. “Have a seat man.” He exhales. “I need a fucking beer after that.” I stare at both of them, mystified at how men operate. Ready to go to blows one minute, in complete understanding the next.

“I’d love to, but I’m late for my afternoon meeting.” He emits a sliver of a laugh. “Nice to meet you though. Maybe another time?” Justin turns his gaze on me. “Walk me out?”

I look at Tanner and he nods at me as if to tell me to go. I exhale, not realizing I’m holding my breath, suddenly nervous to be alone with Justin. Nervous to play the disinterested and aloof card. “I’ll be right back,” I tell Tanner, feeling like a little kid asking for his consent.

“Tanner.” Justin nods at my brother in goodbye before placing his hand on the small of my back and steering me through the kitchen and out the side door of the restaurant.

The brief time it takes to walk toward a staff exit, I think of how we ended things the last time we spoke. Of the two options he gave me, pit stop or arrangement. That I gave him his pit stop, but I still feel unsettled. That because I’ve been swimming in lack of reassurance, regardless of the term, I still feel like one in a long line of bedtime companions.

I shake the thought away, forcing myself to step outside of my overemotional, over-analytical head and acknowledge that with most, success comes in baby steps. And even though Justin hasn’t expressed wanting anything more than an arrangement with me, he took a baby step in calling ‘pit stop’. No more wishy-washy, I tell myself as I recall Haddie’s advice on how to interact with him. Aloof, unattainable, but desirable.

As Justin pushes open an exit door and ushers me outside, I’m preparing myself for the question of why I’ve not called him back. He’s called me twice and I’ve physically forced myself to not react and pick up phone.

Justin shuts the door and turns around to face me. Screw being unattainable. It takes all of my dignity to not push him up against the wall and kiss him senseless. The man makes me absolutely irrational and completely wanton.

He crosses his arms over his chest and stares at me, his head angled to the side. “So your brother’s in town?”

I give an unladylike snort. “I think we already established that,” I answer dryly, fighting the urge to gap the distance between us. “Got a short fuse, do we?”

I can’t read the look that passes through his eyes because it flashes quickly. “When it comes to you, yes. I saw his arms around you.” He shrugs—the only explanation I receive. “Is he here for long?”

I stare at him for a moment, confused by his nonchalance in regards to a fight he almost had with my brother over nothing. Finally, I glance down at my watch and rest my hips back against the retaining wall behind me, figuring I’ll let it go for now. “Yeah, just for today. He’s due at the airport in an hour and a half.” I pick a piece of lint off of my tunic sweater as a means to keep my eyes and hands occupied before smoothing it down over my leggings.

Justin leans a shoulder against the wall in front of me, and when I look up I see his eyes run the length of my legs. They travel up the rest of my body, stalling when they come to my lips and then moving back up to my eyes. “Been busy?” he asks.

“Mmm-hmm,” I answer vaguely. “And you?”

“Yeah, but this is the calm before the storm with the season just around the corner.” He stares at me, his green eyes penetrating into mine. “Did you have a good night out?” he probes.

I give him a deer in the headlights look but recover quickly when I realize he’s referring to Haddie’s little performance on the phone the other night. “From what I remember of it, yes.” I flash a sassy smirk at him, hoping my acting is convincing enough to fool him. “You know how it is when you go out…too many guys thinking they’re way too cool, too much alcohol, and too little clothes—it all becomes a blur.”

I see anger flicker through his eyes at my too many guys comment, and I like the fact that he’s bugged by the idea. I like that he’s thought about it enough to ask. And after his little altercation with Tanner, it’s more than obvious that Justin has a little jealous streak running rampant through him.

It’s kind of hot that such a streak is flaring over me.

He angles his head and studies me for a beat. For once, I don’t avert my eyes under his severe scrutiny. I hold his gaze with boredom written in my expression. “Why do you seem so distant? Unapproachable?” He grunts, surprising me with his comment.

“Unapproachable? Me? I didn’t realize I was being that way.” I feign innocence when all I want to do is reach out and touch him.

“Well, you are.” He sighs, exasperation glancing across the features of his face.

“Oh, well I guess I’m just trying to abide by your parameters, Ace. Be exactly what you want me to be.” I smile sweetly at him.

“Which is what?” He huffs, confusion on his face.

“Emotionally detached, sexually available, and drama free.” I can see the muscle in his jaw pulse as he takes a step near me, irritation flashing in his eyes at the defiance in my tone. “What are you doing here?”

He stares at me long and hard with such intensity that I nearly cave and tell him how bad I want him. Screw the mind games. “Luckily I escaped without the paps following me. Kelly let me up on the roof away from the crowd for some peace and quiet to eat my lunch.” I arch a brow at him. “The owner,” he says, breathing out an exasperated sigh at either the unease between us or for feeling like he needs to explain. Maybe a bit of both. I look down and focus on the chip in my manicure, desperately wanting to approach him. Kiss him. Hug him. “It’s a good place to sit and mull things over.”

“And what exactly are you mulling over?”

“The shit that I’m supposed to be getting together,” he responds wryly. My eyes flash up to see a mixture of amusement and sincerity in his.

We stare at each other for a moment, my pulse accelerating from his proximity. I try to read the look on his face. Is he serious? Is he really trying to get his head straight or is he just mocking Haddie? I can’t tell. “I-I sh-should get back inside. I don’t have much more time until Tanner has to leave again.” I push myself up and stand.

Justin takes a step closer to me, and our bodies brush against each other’s briefly, his touch sending sparks of need spiraling through my system. I bite my bottom lip to stop myself from leaning in against him. “Can I see you later?” he asks, trailing a finger down the side of my face.

Does that mean the pit stop’s over? Or he just needs to get laid? Either way, I need some clarity here. I fight the urge to lean my cheek into the feel of his fingertip on my cheek.

Stay strong, stay strong, stay strong, I repeat to myself. I struggle with how to answer. What to say?

“I’ll send Sammy by the house at six to pick you up,” he answers for me in my warring silence.

Wow, I guess he thinks that I’m a sure thing. And then the notion hits me that maybe all along he’s wanted his arrangement with me, went further than he’d anticipated, and used the pit stop comment to try and put me back in my place. To put distance back between us.

Haddie’s advice runs through my mind mixed with the notion that he thinks I’m going to just step back into this without a further explanation strengthens my resolve. “Sorry.” I shake my head and avert my eyes so he can’t see through my lie. “I have plans tonight.”

I feel his body tense at my words. “What?” His tone is forced but quiet. It’s obvious rejection is foreign to him.

“I have plans with Haddie,” I volunteer, afraid he might think that I’m out with another guy. And if he thinks that I’m out with another guy then it’d be okay for him to be out with another girl. My stomach twists at the thought, and I realize I’m not very good at playing these types of games because all I want to do is tell him that yes I want to see him tonight. That I’d change any plans I have to be able to see him. And then I’d press him up against the wall and take with frustration everything that I want without a second thought of spooking him or crossing imaginary boundaries.

Justin lets out a dissatisfied grunt. “We’re just having dinner at home,” I tell him, “but it’s a big deal because we haven’t seen each other.” Stop rambling, Selena, or he’ll know you’re lying. “I can’t go back on my promise to her.”

Justin places a finger under my chin and lifts my head up to meet his green irises, studying me. “Well you’re not trying very hard then,” he admonishes despite humor alight in his eyes.

Confusion flits through me, unsure of what he’s talking about. “Trying hard at what?” I shake my head not understanding.

He smirks arrogantly at me. “At being what I want you to be.” The breath I exhale is audible as his eyes remain locked on mine. “Because if you were really trying,” he explains, finishing the game I’d started, “you’d be where I want you. Wet, warm, and beneath me tonight.”

I hold his stare while I try to think of what to say next. My body quivers at his words. It takes a few seconds for my brain to recover from his comment, and when it does, I take a step back from him. Distance is essential when dealing with him.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right.” I exhale, watching the surprise on his face from my admission. “Why would I want to be someone’s beck and call girl? Predictable is boring, Ace. And from what I hear, you seem to get bored real quick.”

When he just stands there and stares at me, a bewildered look on his face, I skirt around him. He reaches out and grabs on to my arm, turning me to face him. “Where are you going?” he demands.

“To see my brother,” I tell him, looking over at his hand and then back at him. “Let me know when you get your shit together.” I shrug from his grip and yank the door open to the kitchen without looking back. All I hear before the door shuts is Justin laughing and swearing at the same time.

Fucking temperamental women!

My lungs burn. My muscles ache. My feet pound into the treadmill belt as if I’m trying to punish it. It doesn’t matter. No matter how hard I push, my head is still fucked up. Selena’s still mucking up my thoughts. Constantly.

What the fuck is wrong with me? I asked for the goddamn pit stop. Took my shot at putting it back on more familiar footing. So why am I the one that feels like she’s left me behind?

Fucking women. Complicated. Temperamental. Necessary. Fuck me.

The music pounds in my earbuds. The driving beat of Good Charlotte pushes me harder, but the pressure in my chest doesn’t dissipate. I count my footsteps when I run. Only to ninety-nine and then I start over again. I swear to God I’ve restarted the count a hundred fucking times so far and nothing has helped.

I’ve never played fucking games with women before, and I have no intention of starting now. I say when. I say whom. I give the terms.

I take what I want. When I want it.

And any and all of my previous bedside companions abide by my parameters without so much as a fucking flinch. No questions asked except for “Baby, how do you want me tonight? Knees or back? Cuffs or restraints? Mouth or pussy?”

All except for Selena.

Fucking frustrating. First, I almost go to blows with her brother today, and then she walks away refusing to see me tonight. I know she wants me. It’s written all over her ridiculously hot body. It’s reflected in those magnificent eyes that draw you in and swallow you whole. And fuck me, if I don’t want her every minute of every hour. But what the fuck? She walked away, left me there, and didn’t even hesitate at saying no about tonight.

No? Are you fucking kidding me? When is the last time I heard that? Oh yeah. Right. From Selena. Shit. Now all I can think about is her. Seeing her. Hearing her. Burying myself in her until she sighs that little sound right before she’s about to come. It’s so goddamn sexy it’s ridiculous.

I am not pussy-whipped. No way. No how. Not even close.

So why not call somebody else for a quick, uncomplicated fuck then? Why does the thought not even sound appealing? You’re losing it, Donavan. I must’ve dipped my wick in the pool of crazies one too many times, and now it’s fucking up my head.

I shove a finger at the screen and bump up the incline, forcing myself into ignoring my own damn thoughts. The song switches to Desperate Measures but the sarcasm in the lyrics I usually love does nothing for me.

Goddamnit! Nothing works. Music. Incline. Speed. Fuck! I keep seeing her in the bathtub, fingers firm on my balls, eyes heated with intensity, lips telling me how exactly she deserves to be treated. What she won’t put up with from me again.

That’s a first. Someone setting parameters for me. Has hell frozen over and no one told me? She had my balls in a fucking vice, and all I could think of was how much I wanted her. In my bed. In my office. At the track. In my life.

And not just on her back.

She must have a voodoo pussy or something. Reeling me up and snagging me in her hooks without realizing it. I’m just fucking horny. That’s gotta be why my head’s all fucked up. A week’s a long time for me to go without sex. Shit! I can’t remember the last time I’ve had a dry spell like this.

So why’d you pit stop her then the other day, dumbass? She’d have been beneath you tonight if you hadn’t. Why’d you open your mouth?

I groan in frustration at my stupidity. At my need for release that this stupid-ass treadmill is definitely not helping with.

I can’t stop rehashing the other morning. Fuck! It’s official. Rehashing shit? I’m without a doubt a goddamn chick now. I must have lost my balls somewhere in the past week.

Only chicks rehash shit, but I keep thinking about standing with her on her porch…how I was just trying to do the right thing—protect her by pushing her away from the train wreck in my head. Trying to allow her the chance to find someone else that can give her what she needs—what she deserves—but I couldn’t get the words out no matter how hard I tried. And then she stepped up and kissed me. Kissed me with such honesty and reassurance that I couldn’t breathe. All I could do was feel. The moment was too real. Too raw. Too close.

Yep. I have a pussy. No doubt about it now.

But fuck if that simple taste of her didn’t make me realize I’ve been starving for so very long.

And then I knew I had to put some distance between us and the foreign feeling of need that flashed through me. The need to covet. To protect. To care for. I had to push back from the one thing I know for fucking sure I don’t want.

Love. Love and the things required of you with it.

Crying pit stop was like crying fucking wolf. Trying to tell myself I needed space to bring us back to the only set-up I’ll accept. Back on arrangement status. I may have used her term to soften the blow, but my only thought was if I get us back to set parameters, then I’ll be able to get the control back I felt slipping away. Regain the need to rely solely on myself.

I push a finger to the screen and wait for the treadmill to stop. I stand there, chest heaving, sweat dripping, and feeling no better for the hour of punishment I just put in. I glance out through the wall of glass at the shop down below, watching the guys finish with some engine adjustments we’d decided on yesterday before scrubbing the towel over my face and through my soaked hair.

My body feels like I’m floating a little when I hit the floor after being on the treadmill for so long. I head through the door on my left and into the bathroom that connects the gym to my office. I take a quick shower, glance in the mirror deciding to forgo the shave, and throw some shit in my hair.

Does she know how fucked up I am? Does she have any idea what a bastard I am? How I usually take when I need to and then discard? I need to tell her. Somehow. Someway. I need to warn her of the fucking poison inside of me.

I’m pulling my shirt over my head when it hits me what I need to get out of my funk. I walk out into my office and head straight to my desk to grab my cell to make some calls and get the ball rolling. But first I need to send her a text. Need to give her a warning the only way she’ll hear it.

I pull up her name on my phone and type: Push – Matchbox Twenty. Then I hit send, my mind running the lyrics over and over in my head: “I wanna take you for granted. Well I will.”

“What crawled up your ass?”

Despite its familiarity, I jolt at the sound of the voice. I whirl around to see Becks sitting in one of the chairs in front of my desk with his feet propped up on another.

“You scared the shit out of me,” I bark out, running a hand through my hair. “Fucking A, Becks!”

“From the looks of it, you need to fuck a B brother. It’s got an extra hole and you sure as hell look like you can use the added release,” he drawls out, amusement in his eyes as they narrow and study me trying to figure out what’s going on.

A sliver of a laugh escapes my lips as my heart begins to decelerate. I sink down in my chair and prop my feet up on my desk, mirroring him. We just stare at each other, years of companionship allowing there to be comfort in the silence as I weigh what to say and he measures how much to ask.

He finally decides to break the silence. “It’s a lot easier and cheaper to get it off your chest, Wood, than to break the fucking treadmill, you know.” I just give him a measured nod before glancing down at the garage again, one of my obsessive habits. “You gonna go all rogue on me with the silent treatment now?” When I look back at Becks, his eyes are now staring at the guys below, ignoring the sneer I’m giving him. “Or are you going to explain why you sat through that entire meeting after lunch with your head up your ass, giving little to no input and just being a dick in general. Only to end it without a decision so you could go break the treadmill?” He slowly moves his gaze back to mine with eyebrows arched in question and an appraising look in his eyes.

Leave it to Becks. The only person that can put me in my place. The only person I’ll allow to call me on it. The only person that knows me well enough to know I’m pissed and to ask in our guy speak what the fuck’s wrong.

“It’s nothing,” I shrug.

He chokes out a long laugh and shakes his head at me. “Yeah. It’s nothing alright,” he says, unfolding himself from his chair, his eyes never leaving mine. “Since you’re so talkative, I think I’ll be on my way then.”

Fuck this. Before Becks reaches the door, I’m shoving my wallet into my back pocket, grabbing my cell, and striding toward the door. “Let’s go,” I mutter as I walk past him, knowing that he’ll be right behind me. And I’m right because I hear his quiet laugh behind me. The one that says yep, I was right.

I give the universal ‘another round’ motion to the waitress with the nametag stating Connie. If she’s just going to stand there and stare, she might as well do something to earn the free show. Shit. My buzz is humming now and I’m just starting to relax. I’m not drunk enough to push away my shitty mood, but I’m making progress.

Connie swivels her hips as she comes over to the table with our drinks in her hands. She leans over the table to set them down, making sure that I get the eyeful of tits she’s putting on display. She’s unquestionably hot in all of the right ways and in all of the right places. I’d definitely hit it—another time, another place, maybe—but I stifle back the smartass comment on my tongue about how all of a sudden from the drink request to the drink arrival her shirt just got lower and her skirt just got shorter. “Is there anything else I can get you two gentlemen?” she asks with a suggestive tone to her voice and her tongue licking over her lips.

“We’re good here,” Beckett deadpans, shaking his head and breaking her attempt at flirting. He’s used to this shit and is a fucking saint for dealing with it all these years in his subtle, calculating way.

A text pings on my phone, and I reach for the fresh bottle as I look at it. “Smitty’s on board,” I tell him. I should be happy that Smitty’s coming to Vegas with us. We’ve shared plenty of wild outings in the past. He’ll definitely help get rid of my fucked up mood.

If I’m so happy, then why am I disappointed that it isn’t Selena’s name on my phone’s incoming text?

“Cool. Almost the whole gang then,” Becks says, leaning back in his seat and taking a long pull on his beer. I can feel his eyes on me, waiting patiently for me to talk.

I lean forward and place my head in my hands for a moment, trying to shake my head out of where it keeps returning. Fucking Selena.

“You want to tell me what the fuck we’re doing here, Justin, at almost six o’clock on a Friday night? Who the hell put that stick up your ass?”

I just shake my head as I peel the label on my bottle and keep my eyes down. “Fucking Selena,” I mumble, knowing I’ve just opened the proverbial can of worms by admitting it to him.

“That so, huh?” he muses. I lift my head up slowly and meet his eyes, surprised by the lack of smartass comments that are his typical style. He peers at me over his beer bottle as he takes another sip, and I just nod my head. “What the fuck’d you do to her?”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, Becks.” I laugh. “Who says I did anything?”

He just gives me a look that says look who we’re talking about here. “Well…”

“Nothing. Abso-fucking-lutley nothing,” I bark out, tossing back my shot to help bury the fact that I’m lying to my best friend. “She’s just frustrating.”

“Like that’s a fucking news flash. We’re talking about a woman here, aren’t we?”

“I know. She’s just gotten under my skin and now she’s playing the hard to get card. That’s all.” I sigh, leaning back in my chair so I can meet Beckett’s stare.

“She told you no?” Becks coughs out in shock. “Like no, no? Are you shitting me?”

“Nope.” I catch Connie’s eye again for another round.

“Well shit, Wood. We are leaving for the city of sin in a couple of hours. I’m sure there’s a hot piece of ass there that you could tap for the night to forget about her. Or for that matter, several hot pieces.” He shrugs and a slight, antagonizing smirk curls up the corner of his mouth. “Since all you’re doing is just fucking Selena…because that is all you’re doing, right? Fucking her? There’s no commitment there to ruin. No voodoo pussy hex.”

I know he’s trying to push my buttons. Get a reaction one way or another as to where I stand when it comes to Selena. But for some reason I don’t take the bait. It’s gotta be the alcohol running through my veins. Instead, I shrug at him in agreement about finding someone else for the night, but for some reason I have no desire to. None. And why the fuck does that kind of comment—that I’m just fucking her—piss me off. This is Beckett I’m talking to. My best friend and brother for all intents and purposes—the man I discuss everything with, and I mean everything—so why does his off the cuff remark bug me?

It’s like she still has my balls in her grip.

Fuck me.

“She’s got a hot friend.”

Becks looks at me as if I’ve grown two heads. “Come again? I’m not following you.”

“Well, we can swing by Selena’s place on the way to the airport and the two of them can come with us.” The words are out of my mouth before my brain can process the thought.

Beckett chokes on his swallow of beer and starts coughing. The look on his face is one of complete shock. Apparently I did grow an extra head.

I ignore him and turn my concentration back to my beer’s label. Where the fuck did that come from? Taking Selena to Vegas with me? The one place I can most likely forget about her for a while? The ultimate place to use pleasure to bury the pain. Taking a girl to Vegas with you is like taking a wife to your mistress’ house. That’s why I’ve never done it. Never even thought about it. Avoided it at all costs. Companions, dates, whatever they’re called, always stay home. They never even know I go. No exceptions. So why in the hell did I just suggest it? And more importantly, why the hell do I want her to go more than anything?

I must be outside of my fucking mind. Voodoo pussy.

Motherfucker.

“Holy shit…” Beckett says on a long drawn out drawl. “I never thought I’d see the day that Justin Fuckin’ Donavan would say that.” He whistles out a sigh, and then I swear I can hear something click in that head of his. “You’re barebacking, aren’t you?”

I can’t help my eyes from snapping up to his with the comment. Our universal guy speak for sticking with one woman. For thinking of more than just sex without strings. For fucking without a condom because you have complete trust in the other person.

For being pussy-whipped.

Neither of us have ever barebacked. Ever. Kind of a silent solidarity we have between us. Neither of us that is, until now.

“Motherfucker!” Becks jumps up in his seat. “You are, aren’t you, you cocksucker!”

“Shut the fuck up, Beckett.” I growl as I toss back the rest of my beer and raise my empty shot glass up to Connie who hasn’t stopped waiting attentively five feet away. Becks just sits and looks at me in silence until the newest round of shots are placed in front of us. I sit and stare back at him a while longer and let my comment settle between us, get comfortable rolling the idea around in my head…and then it hits me.

Fuck yes, I want Selena to go with us. Now what the fuck does that mean? I throw back the shot, hissing at its burn before scrubbing my hand over my face as numbness spreads into my lips. Beckett keeps looking at me like I’m some kind of circus show freak. I can tell he’s biting his cheek to keep from grinning at me, from saying the shit that’s flying through his eyes at a lightning pace.

He holds his hand up to his ear and leans over the table. “I’m sorry. I don’t think I heard you correctly. What the fuck was your answer?”

I can’t help the grin that pulls up one corner of my mouth. This is being tame for Beckett, so I’m grateful that he’s keeping himself in check against my obvious discomfort.

“Well fuck me!” he says, shifting in his chair to stare at me for a little while longer with disbelief on his face. He looks down at his watch. “Well, if we’re going to take off on time, loverboy, we best be going.”

“That’s all you’re going to say?” I ask incredulously.

“I haven’t even started yet, Wood! I need time to process…it’s not every day Hell falls below zero.”

Fine by me. If I can get away with only that being said right now, I’ll take it. I nod my head at him and start typing away on my phone. “I’m texting Sammy to come get us.” I tell him. The background music in the bar is playing, and I laugh at the fucking song playing. Of course it’s Pink. Selena and her fucking Pink. I send my text to Sammy and then hover over her name on my phone. Before I know it, I’ve entered a quick one to Selena as well.

I’m in this far, might as well go balls deep.

“You really said that to him?” Haddie asks incredulously, the look on her face over-exaggerated and hilariously funny.

“I swear!” I told her, holding up my hand in testament. I look down at my phone where a text just pinged. It’s from Justin, and all it says is: Get this Party Started – Pink.

Haddie doesn’t notice the odd look on my face when I read it because she is concentrating on filing her nails. What the hell? First the text about Matchbox Twenty today, which threw me for a loop, and now this? He’s a little all over the place and a lot confusing.

“Shit! I’d have loved to see his face when you shut that door.”

“I know.” I laugh. “It felt kind of good to leave him stunned for once rather than the other way around.”

“See, I told you!” she says, pushing on my knee.

“Besides the testosterone fest with Justin, did you and Tanner have a nice visit?”