#.... i think i got an auto fill tag on that third tag

[eveningdove]

Left: Self-Portrait November 2022      Right: Self-Portrait April 2017

A love letter to myself

On a whim I went back through everything I had tagged ‘art’ on this blog and was filled a unique feeling of love for my younger self and everything they drew and accomplished. I tagged a lot of things as being crappy, but i would also go back and appreciate any detail i made that i loved, and all of it made me kind of emotional lol. I really made art for everything and it was frankly delightful to see me make art of people I had crushes on, of myself asking “fuckbois” if they had a death wish for touching me, and the little drawing i made of how i felt realizing i wasn’t straight. I know my younger self would be floored to see that not only am i a gay space scientist, but also that im a phenomenal artist who finally figured out that sort-of-painting shading they kept trying to do.

I think this is what is actually gonna get me to start posting my art on tumblr again. I want to be able to do this again many years down the road and see all the things i enjoyed drawing. I have a few ocs and a dnd pc i care deeply about and make just a fuck ton of art for, so tbh tumblr will be a great place to show them off to any remaining mutuals from times long past and also my future self haha.

[ssuperficialspacecadett]

Pollen and Plottin'

Chapter Five of the Through the Scope series | Chapter Six

Rating: Mature

Word Count: 4K

Chapter Overview: You have a morning out of hell and all signs point to Frankie to bail you out.

Notes: I fucking knew i would be back this week LMAOOO,, finals next week and then i'll finally be free from the shackles of uni !! this gif was playing on repeat in my brain while i was writing and lorddd it made it so hard to concentrate,, i updated the tag list so i hope i added everyone that was kind enough to ask to be on it ((: as usual .. my asks are always open & happy reading <3

*no use of y/n & female presenting reader*

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

You must have done something truly heinous in your past life to warrant this series of unfortunate events this Tuesday morning. The first issue makes itself known to you when your alarm doesn’t go off this morning. Your body must have known that you were getting a suspicious amount of sleep because thankfully it wakes you up with an hour to get ready. Issue number two comes in the form of empty bottles. You jump out of the shower in record breaking time. Body wrapped in a towel, skin still littered in water droplets, you scour your bathroom counter for your hair products. A frustrated sigh leaves you when you notice that your products are in the trash can. You knew that you should have left yourself a note to go pick up more the second you ran out. 

“Bright side. Bright side. There's always a bright side.” You repeat your new mantra down the hall to the kitchen.

As you wait for your coffee to brew, you try to change your way of thinking. Yes, you woke up late, but at least you had an hour to get ready. Yes, you didn’t have any hair products, but at least you got to shower. See? Not so bad looking now, huh? When the coffee is done you remove the pot from its stand and set it on your counter. You make your way to the fridge to pull out your creamer and then your cabinets to retrieve your favorite mug. Unfortunately, your depth perception is off because as you bring your mug and creamer to the counter you knock the coffee pot into the sink. It must have been right on the edge and you just didn’t realize it. Tears prick your eyes as you watch the third issue of the morning disappear down the drain. You don’t think there is a bright side to this problem. With time not acting as your friend, breakfast will have to take a backseat. Before you head out the door you grab your keys and your tote and pray that whatever higher power is fucking with you has had its fill. But that would be too easy, wouldn’t it?

You hop in your car and start it up. No. And start it up. Oh God no. Third time's the charm and…

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!” You wail. 

The panic is setting in now. You can feel bile gurgling in your stomach and trying to claw its way up into your throat. This sort of thing usually wouldn’t bother you this much, but coupled with all the bullshit from this morning, you were at your wits end. Before anxiety completely envelops you, you pull out your phone to call Benny and explain the situation.

“Oh shit, are you alright?”

“Physically? Yes. Mentally? Ask me tomorrow.”

“At least your sense of humor is still intact,” He offers. “Don’t worry about coming in today. I had to learn how to hold it down before I hired you so I’m not worried about that. Just take today to figure out what’s wrong with your car and keep me posted. Maybe you can give Catfish a ring? He works at an auto body shop that shouldn’t be too far from you.”

“I can’t thank you enough, Benny. Yeah, he mentioned that. I’ll call him and then let you know what happens. Talk to you later!”

You toss your phone into your passenger seat and rest your head on your steering wheel. The panic you were feeling has subsided now due to a solution presenting itself, but nervousness began to blossom in its place when that solution turned out to be Frankie. The first time you called him isn’t supposed to be like this. You aren’t really sure how you wanted the first time to go, but you definitely wanted to have a better reason to talk than your fucked up car. A buzzing sound next to you announces the arrival of a text. You take a deep, centering breath and lift your head up before grabbing your phone. It’s Benny sending you the address of Frankie’s shop. You click the link and it takes you to your phone's map. It really isn’t too far from you; only 10 minutes down the road. 

You pull up Frankie’s contact, but hesitate before you press it. A small twinge of guilt rolls through you as you surrender to the idea of calling another man for help with a job that has always been done by your father. The one thing he loved more than looking at cars was fixing them up. He had made you watch him work all through your childhood, so you knew how to change your tire, your oil, and both your head and tail lights. This felt like a betrayal when, in reality, it wasn’t. There wasn’t anything he could do in his current situation to help you. And telling him what was going on would only hurt him as he would inevitably come to the same conclusion you did. With your guilt temporarily satiated, you call Frankie. 

He must have been concerned when he saw that it was you calling because he answers on the second ring and his voice is higher pitched than normal. “Hello?”

“Hey, Frankie it's me. Well obviously you know it's me. I’m sure you have caller ID. I’m sorry, I’m rambling, but I think I need to cash in on that car help you offered earlier.” 

“Are you safe? What happened?” His tone is panicky.

“Yes. I’m completely safe.” You hear him sigh quietly on the other end of the phone. “My car just won’t start and I can’t figure out what's wrong with it. I didn’t leave any lights on last night, my gas tank is half full, and, for once in my life, my check engine light isn’t on.”

“I like your little run down, but it's going to be hard for me to figure out what's wrong with it until I actually see the vehicle in person. Tell you what, I’ll drive out to see you right now and have one of my guys bring out a tow truck to pick it up.”

“Wait no you don’t have to do that! I don’t want to make you leave work over something silly like this. I can just wait until the tow truck gets here and takes me to the shop.”

“And I don’t want you to have to deal with this alone, silly or not, got it?”

“Got it.” 

You’re sitting on the curb to the left of your car when you see Frankie pull into the parking lot with his white pickup. He waves at you through his windshield as he parks in the open spot to the right of your car. You figure that it's now or never and dust yourself off as you walk over to his driver's side. 

“So, are you going to be able to fix him?”

“Him?” He says skeptically, stepping out of his truck. 

“My car? He’s a boy?”

“You know most people refer to vehicles as women, but you know what, to each their own.” He looks over the hood of his truck at your car. “My apologies sir. I’ll do everything in my power to get you up and running again.”

Frankie has you pop your hood while he goes back and pops his own and grabs jumper cables from the backseat. Although you offer to help him, he insists that you relax while does it himself. The way he says it makes you feel cared for rather than pushed to the side because he doesn’t believe that you’re capable. He is able to jumpstart your car, but each time the engine dies after idling for a few minutes. When he realizes that no matter how many times he tries to jump it the engine won’t stay on he unhooks the cables and puts them away. 

“See anything?”

He’s taking a closer look at everything that's under your hood. The gray shirt he's wearing is doing a beautiful job of showing off how defined his arms really are. The cotton material stretches over his bicep as he moves his arm to reach something. It dawns on you that he rarely wears shirts, or clothes in general, that allow his body to be visible. Your heart aches when you think about him feeling insecure as he stands next to the other men. Even though you haven’t seen them without their clothes off, Benny excluded, you can tell how toned each of them are. You wish you could tell him that it doesn’t matter to you. You wish you could tell him that the way his stomach is currently peeking out from under his shirt is incredibly sexy to you. There’s nothing you would change about him because if you did there would be less of him for you to look at. 

“Everything looks good up here.” He sighs tiredly and shuts your hood. “The issue must be your undercarriage.”

“My what?”

“Your car’s undercarriage!” He couldn’t have spit those words out faster. “I’m sure there isn’t anything wrong w-with your undercarriage.” 

“Frankie, I’m just messing with you.” Your hand comes to rest on his arm as you laugh. “I knew what you meant.”

The Florida sun did a good job of blurring the line between him blushing and him standing out in the heat for too long. 

“Hey, do you want some water? It’s the least I could do since you’re helping me out so much.”

“It’s really no big deal.” He reassures you. “But water would be great.”

You turn and start heading to the staircase that leads to the second floor of your apartment complex. You make it up about three steps before you realize that Frankie isn’t following you. 

“I thought you wanted water?” You ask turning to face him.

“In your apartment?”

“Last I checked, that's where I keep it? Come on, Frankie, I’m not gonna bite you.”

With a small smile from him, you face back around and continue to make your way up the stairs. When you reach your door you suddenly become self conscious about the way your apartment is set up. You haven’t had the time to decorate since you got here and the lack of personal touches in your apartment made that painfully obvious. 

“Sorry my place is a little bland.” You open the door and lead him inside to the kitchen. “I want to get some art for my walls so the place can really be brought together. It’s a little dumb though since I’m only here temporarily.” 

“I don’t think it’s dumb, but I like the way it feels in here.”

“Oh yeah?” You pull the brita out of your fridge and set it down on the counter. “What does it feel like?” 

He sees you reaching out for the cabinet that's next to him. He turns around to open it and hands you two cups without missing a beat in the conversation. “It’s kinda hard to explain. Maybe the best word I can use to describe it is…homey? I know you said you wanted more things in here, but I don’t really think items make a place feel like a home.”

“That’s way existential, Frankie.” You look up at him while filling each of y’alls glasses. “But, that does mean a lot since you’re my first guest.”

“Fuck off, no I’m not.” He says grabbing his drink.

You nod in confirmation while you take a sip of your water.

“What about your dad?”

“I actually go visit him. He’s in a retirement home, his own choice, but he had a stroke a little less than a month ago. It was bad enough to have him start physical therapy so he could retrain the muscles in his legs.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry.”

“Fortunately, he’s doing better. He’s a stubborn old bastard that's for sure.”

“That’s good,” He holds out his glass to you. “Cheers to your dad and cheers for me being your first house guest.”

As you clink your glasses together you realize how much better the place feels with Frankie’s presence. The walls don’t look as bare. The sink's constant drip isn’t as loud. And the sunlight shines a little brighter through your perpetually cloudy glass windows.

“The place isn’t all bland.” He motions to the vase full of white lilies sitting on your small kitchen table. “Those are nice.”

“They didn’t have my favorite ones at the store when I went a few days ago,” you say as you walk over to smell them. “But aren’t these just beautiful?”

“Yes. Absolutely beautiful.”

Soft brown eyes meet yours when you shift your body to face him again. You can’t help but feel flustered under his intoxicating gaze.

“What?” There was no sun to explain away the heat radiating off your cheeks now.

“You have some pollen on your nose.” He takes his finger and points to his own. “Just there.”

“Aw fuck.” You rub off your nose as quickly as you can. Embarrassment courses through your veins as Frankie stays quiet and simply watches you. “Did I get it all?”

Pink lips part into a smile as he shakes his head at you. “It might be easier if I get it for you. Is that okay?”

“Y-yes.”

He sets his cup down on the counter behind him and starts walking the few feet over to you. As he closes the gap between y'all, he rubs his hands down the sides of his jeans. He looks so much taller when he’s this close. You try to focus on controlling your breathing as he raises his hand and lets it hover over your nose. As soon as he brushes the skin, your eyes flutter close at the sensation. His calloused hands caress you so delicately that you feel as if you are made of the finest of china. You only open them when you feel his touch leave your body. He’s staring down at you with pupils blown out.

“Is it-is it all gone?” You don’t know why you're whispering when he's standing right in front of you. 

“You’re pollen free.” He whispers back.

Neither of you make a move to escape the close proximity. You watch his eyes slowly travel from your own eyes to your lip and back up again. You hope he can see by the way you’re looking at him that you’re begging for him to touch you, to kiss you. He takes a half step closer. His hand brushes against yours down at your side. 

Honk! Honk! Honk! 

Frankie closes his eyes like he's in agonizing pain and steps back from you. “I think your car’s ride is here.” 

“Well umm,” You clear your throat. “I guess we shouldn’t keep your coworker waiting, huh?”

***

“So we got some bad news and we got some good news. The bad news is that it looks like one of your cylinders misfired and it’s going to be out of commission until it can be fixed. The good news is that we are having a slow day today so it should be fixed by this afternoon.”

“I really wish you would have led with the good news.” 

“Where's the suspense in that?”

“Thank you again for helping me with this, Frankie.” The two of you exit the shop and stand in front of his truck. “I don’t know what I would have done without you.”

“Probably would have called some other loser who works in an auto body shop.” He shrugs.

“You’re not a loser.” You wrap your arms around your body. “At least not to me.” 

“I uhh-thank you for saying that.” 

You return his shrug with a soft smile. 

“Did you want me too-umm-drop you off at the gym?” He checks his watch. “You’ve only missed about an hour and a half of your day.”

“No, don’t worry about it. Benny said I could take the day when I talked to him about what was going on this morning. I’ll probably uber home and find something to occupy myself with until my car is ready.” 

Your stomach choses now to loudly make its presence known.

Frankie raises one of his eyebrows at you. “Have you eaten today?”

“I was planning on it, but then the universe decided that it wasn’t in the cards for me.”

“Want to go get breakfast? With me? I could eat.”

“As lovely as that sounds, I’ve already taken up so much of your time already! I don’t want to get you in trouble at work!”

“Oh, come on. Playing hooky isn’t fun when you do it by yourself. Plus, I’ve got some vacation time racked up that I can use for today

You knew your answer even before you spoke it. The opportunity to spend more time with him is one you would have to be crazy to pass up. It may not be a date, but it was a start. And everything has to start somewhere.

“Fine, but you’re driving.”

***

“Please tell me you didn’t call us here to help you close up, Benny.”

It was unusually quiet in the gym today. It wasn’t the lack of grunting from the weight lifters, or the obnoxious sounds coming from the washing machine, or even the chatter of patrons in between their boxing rounds. It was the lack of you. Benny thought that he could handle it just like before, but he was wrong. He found himself wandering up to the front desk to share each and every miniscule thought that popped into his head only to find it empty time and time again. You had completely enmeshed yourself into his daily routine and he didn’t notice until now. It seemed that even the guests noticed your absence. He found himself getting asked where you were or when you would be coming back. You did so much around the gym that he didn’t even realize and he cursed himself for taking you for granted. The next time you had car trouble he swore he would pick you up himself because he could do this alone. He couldn’t do this without his friend. But, that isn’t why he called them in.

“Yeah, what gives?” Pope adds to Will’s previous statement. “And where’s our girl?”

“Number one: no I didn’t call y’all to help me close. Number two: I gave her the day off because she was having car trouble and wouldn’t be able to make it in.” 

It takes him assuring his friends multiple times and showing them your update texts for them to stop worrying about you. 

“Alright that explains her, but where's Catfish?” Will presses.

Benny sighs deeply and walks around to sit in your empty chair. He closes his eyes and leans his head back before he answers his brother.

“He’s actually the reason why I called y’all over. I found out that he’s been talking to Rochelle again.”

“As much as we don’t fuckin’ like it, we knew that she texted him about getting back together.”

“You were there that night. This is old news.” Pope sounds annoyed, but Benny can’t track if it's aimed at him specifically or at the contents of the conversation.

“He’s been talking on the phone with her. I feel like thats a bit more serious than a fuckin’ text, Pope.”

Benny’s quick retort is enough to silence him, but Will starts panicking. An emotion that is just as foreign for him to feel as it is to see him display. 

“No fuckin’ way, man. No fuckin’ way he would do that.”

“That’s what I thought too, but she overheard him talking with Rochelle when she saw him out a few weeks back. Why would she lie about that? She had no knowledge of Rochelle before then.”

“Fuck! FUCK!”

Will fists his hands behind his head and starts pacing around the gym lobby. The two other men can only stare as they watch him slowly unravel before their eyes. Pope was, and still is, Frankie’s best friend, but Will was the most affected by what happened. It’s his job to scrape vets off the street when they come back after tours, legal or not, and get them the help they need. What kind of man, what kind of friend is he that he let one of his own slip through his fingers? When the metaphorical shoe finally dropped and Frankie got busted, as much as Will wanted to say ‘I told you so’, he just held his hand through recovery. The feeling of being right was only second to seeing his friend get better. It took every ounce of strength Will, Pope, and Benny had to drag Frankie back into reality. Now that he is teetering on the edge again, Will is terrified that he doesn’t have enough left in him to save Frankie. Pope cuts in to attempt to stop Benny from causing Will to have another Publix level freakout. 

“What exactly did she hear?”

“She just said that he got a phone call and he immediately tensed up when he saw who was calling. Then, when he answered, he said her name.”

“Let’s not lose our heads, boys.” Pope turns toward Will who is still pacing. “We don’t know the context of the phone call, alright? Rochelle was the one that called him, not the other way around.”

“Does it matter?! She like a fuckin’ drug to him!” 

“You’re not fucking helping, Benny.” Pope seethes. 

Will regains some control over his emotions and pilots himself over to the front desk.

“Pope is right. We don’t have all the facts yet.” He lets out a weighted sigh and white knuckles the edge of the desk. “Let’s just keep an eye on him and this situation until we know, for sure, what’s really goin’ on.”

The suffocating tension in the room is shattered when Benny’s phone chimes with a text. 

You: My car is as good as new! Frankie and I even stopped to get some new air freshener scents for you to test out for the gym! See you tomorrow (:

“Ho-ly shit.” Benny lets out a low whistle.

“What?” The two other men speak in unison.

Benny just laughs to himself as he tosses Will the phone. 

“Well would you look at that?” Will echoes his brother's tune.

“Let me see that, huh?” Pope snatches the phone and reads the message you sent. “So that's why that pendejo hasn’t been answering my texts all damn day. He’s with her!”

“That sneaky bastard!” Benny laughs. “Yall think he likes her? He’s got to, right?”

“You really should get someone else to fill in for you at the fights every now and then.” Will snickers, all tension gone from his body. “Of course he likes her. He told us last Friday.” 

“I miss everything! Why didn’t anyone tell me?” He complains.

“Nevermind that.” Pope says as he returns the phone. “She might be the solution to our problem.” 

How’d you reckon?” Will inquires. 

“If we can get them together, there won’t be any room for Rochelle.” 

“We aren’t pimpin’ her out, Pope. That’s fucked up.”

“No, no.” He shakes his head. “We aren’t pimping her out, dumbass. Not if she likes him back that is. I mean, come on, you saw the way she was looking at him when they shared that beer the other night.”

“They shared a beer?!”

“Not now, Benny.” Will hushes. “Damn straight I saw that.”

Pope turns to Benny who still looks in shock because of what he just learned. 

“Can you do us a favor?”

“Anything if it means getting Rochelle out of the picture. Again.”

“Good man. Now we need you to keep your ears open for anything she says about Fish. We need to know where she stands before we do this and you’re the one that sees her everyday.”

“Hell yeah! I’m gonna be all over her!”

“Don’t be weird, Ben.” Will groan.

“Then it’s settled. When we figure out if she likes him or not…operation ‘catch-a-fish’ is a go.”

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

{tag list: @cutesyscreenname @rsquared31 @smol-beb @bitchwitch1981 @avastrasposts @hoeslingz @saltybutteredtoast @javicstories @c-justhere @pimosworld @modernperplexity @beboldbebravethings @modernperplexity  @mxtokko  @moonliqhtszn @tanzthompson @megcads @myloveistoolittle @casa-boiardi @jitterbugs927 @partyofone3413 }

[entityverse-utmv]

Content Warning: Fictional depictions of: Auto-Cannibalism, Disordered Eating/Thinking, Unreality, Body Horror, Self-Mutilation, Gore. Continue with caution.

Let me know if I should tag anything else!

Void's Origin.

For as long as I can remember, I've always been hungry.

My bones ache with it. My magic is tight against my bones as I feel the yawning emptiness swallowing me from the inside, out. I'm starving—the hunger is maddening. I raise my fingers up to my mouth, feeling saliva pool in my mouth before overflowing. In this great emptiness, there is no sound as it drip, drip, drips down my jaw and into the dark infinity.

There is no sound. Nothing to look at. Nothing to smell, taste, or touch. Just me—just as it has always been.

...

I'm not sure how much time has passed in this Great Nothing. What brings me back to awareness is a sensation—new, strange, in this sensationless existence. Pain, my mind whispers. Sharp, stabbing, warm. Like my saliva before, something drips from between my fingers. The flavor of it is strange, the smell...metallic. Blood, my inner voice supplied. I become enamored with all of the input- the pain, the smell, the taste. Three sensations I'd never experienced before.

I relish the experience, as the new, new, new liquid falls into eternity. Shoving more of my hand into my mouth to be consumed, desperate to feel full—first my right, then my left. The pain is all-consuming, but I can't stop myself. No matter how much I devoured, I still felt hungry.

I twisted to consume my legs next, contorting awkwardly to reach them as my body slowly drifted through the Nothing, as if suspended in space. Soon, they were as my arms; but still I felt no fuller.

The pain was now in the stubs where my arms and legs had been. But it was also in my stomach—just as crampingly empty as it had been before.

I screamed. In rage, in agony, in despair. There was no sound—for there no were walls, no friction for my cry to bounce from. But my agony was felt all the same. Would I ever feel fulfilled? Would I ever know anything other than this emptiness?

Suddenly, a flash of blinding light cut through the darkness.

I blink open my eyes, a third liquid that leaked from them rendering my sight blurry. Tears, my thoughts helpfully informed me once again.

The light was intense; blinding, to someone who had never known it before. It was first white, and then there were so many colors—more colors than I could count. First it was everywhere, and then, like something was stealing it—eating it—it all sucked inward, and then imploded.

The first star.

The first thing to appear in this endless Nothing aside from myself.

Suddenly, the Void was no longer the only world. There was something new.

Perhaps it had something in it to eat. Something that would finally fill me.

The blood that poured from my sundered limbs writhed around me, twisting, hardening into a grotesque approximation of new limbs. I don't know how long it took. It could've been mere seconds, or years—but I reached in front of myself, flexing my digits experimentally, before willing myself to fall.

I fell through the air; there was no resistence, no sensation of momentum as I plummeted. My new toes gently touched flat, invisible ground. I wobbled unsteadily, having never used my limbs for their intended purposes before. A shaky step forward, then another. And another. I started walking, then running, dashing towards the new star.

I didn't know what I would find once I got there...but I had the feeling things were finally going to change.

[spencers-renaissance]

this heavy humanness

Summary: Spencer leaves the oven on overnight, and Derek - whose pent-up emotions get the best of him - loses it, exposing secrets neither of them expected to be spilled, for two very different reasons. They get there in the end.

or; Spencer's suffered far too much abuse in his life and Derek knew about none of it. He shouldn't have found out like this.

Tags: est. rel., past abuse, arguing & making up, hurt/comfort, miscommunication, angst with a happy ending, hurt spencer TW: implied/referenced - child abuse, abuse & csa. trauma response that could be perceived as dissociation. misplaced frustration at neurodivergence. nothing graphic but message me for more info if needed.

Pairing: Derek Morgan x Spencer Reid

Word Count: 3.9k

Masterlist // Read on AO3 // Bad Things Happen Bingo

This fills the "Domestic Violence" square of my Bad Things Happen Bingo. It's a heavy one folks so please heed the tags, but fear not, as always we have a happy ending ahead of us! <3 Title by Rainer Maria Rilke.

Spencer knows it’s ridiculous. Derek will not hurt him: this much he knows for certain. Derek is safe, he is home, he is his person. Derek would die before laying a hand on him.

This objective knowledge does not stop the fear from building in his chest, fizzling through his veins until his whole body is alight with it, simmering under the surface of his cold skin as Derek shouts, his face contorted in anger. Spencer might know that Derek won’t hurt him, but that doesn’t mean he can forget what’s happened in the past when he’s put that same expression on crueller people’s faces.

“How could you be so irresponsible, Spencer?”

He doesn’t know. The sinking feeling of failure, of disappointing someone he loves so much settles deep in his stomach as he watches Derek pace up and down the living room while he stays firmly planted on the sofa, pressed as far into the corner as he can.

He didn’t mean to leave the oven on overnight. Again. It’s just that sometimes he gets so lost in his head, in the studies he reads just before bed that getting ready for bed happens on auto-pilot, and small things like turning the oven off slip through the cracks. Derek’s never got this angry over it before, but that’s probably because he’s never said “yes” when Derek’s sleepily asked him if he remembered to turn it off, not when he actually didn’t.

He answered on auto-pilot. He didn’t mean to lie, but that doesn’t seem to matter that much to Derek as he wears down the living room carpet with his pacing, visibly seething. He tracks him with his eyes. He can’t afford to not see the blow coming.

The blow isn’t coming, he tries to tell himself. It’s not all that convincing when Derek stops mid-pace, turning to look at him dead in the eye.

“We could’ve died, Spencer! Does that mean nothing to you?”

Spencer doesn’t reply. He wants to, he really does, but the words are stuck in his throat, choked by fear and confusion and emotion and regret, God why didn’t I turn off the oven, I should’ve been better, it’s all my fault—

“Do you seriously not have anything to say?”

Spencer stares. He has so much to say. All of it is trapped in his throat, tangled in a mess of please don’t leave me and please god don’t hit me.

“You know, I can’t deal with this right now,” Derek mutters, throwing his hands up in the air, “this is unbelievable.” Spencer watches as he shrugs a coat over his shoulders, pulls on his shoes, pauses only to grab his wallet and keys, and walks out the door without looking back.

The door slams behind him and Spencer jumps at the loud noise, jolting out of his fear-ridden stupor, wincing as he’s forced out of his head and thrust back into reality. It’s only ten past ten in the morning; a nice, sunny Saturday in late Spring, and maybe in a different universe, Spencer and Derek are packing a wicker basket with a picnic, heading off to their favourite park to feed each other strawberries and enjoy jam-filled sandwiches.

In this universe, though, Spencer drags his heavy bones to the bathroom, and peels off his clothes. He feels weighed down, tied to some point of gravity far below his feet as he avoids the mirror at all costs and lets his pajamas lay where they fall instead of gathering them into a ball and throwing them into the hamper like he usually does. He turns the water on and steps under the spray, allowing himself to revel in the warm rivulets of water caressing his cold skin.

Shampoo bottles stand untouched in the caddy to his left. He’s not there to get clean, he’s there to forget and to think all at the same time. Slowly, he sinks to the floor, leaning against the wall as the water cascades down his front, but not before he turns the heat up. It’s a small comfort: the water just on the right side of too hot running down his face and his torso and his legs, pooling at his feet momentarily before sliding down the drain, never to be seen by him again.

Today shouldn’t have started like this, and it’s a hard pill to swallow that if he hadn’t left the oven on, it wouldn’t have. Derek would have smiled when Spencer stepped into the kitchen, pulled him into his arms and kissed him gently before making them pancakes while Spencer sat on the counter-top and told him everything running through his head. Derek would listen, enthralled, whether to the sound of Spencer’s voice or the words he’s saying, and he wouldn’t shut him up, not even when they sat down to eat.

They’d finally get ready for the day late in the morning, they’d decide what they would do that day, and they’d make a point to steal as many kisses as they could; making up for the affection lost during long cases.

Spencer knows this because it’s happened so many times before. They may have only been dating for just over six months, but they already live together, having fallen hard and fast; Emily teases them for it, calls them her favourite lesbian couple, and they don’t care because they’re in love.

Despite that, though, Spencer still hasn’t told Derek.

There are nights he lies awake pondering how unfair that is. He’s held Derek as he sobbed over memories of Buford, as he spilled every awful detail of the abuse he endured; he’s comforted him after he’d tried and failed to bottom, falling into a flashback every time, no matter how much he wanted to try it.

But Spencer stays silent. He doesn’t tell him about his dad beating him, or his mom getting confused off her meds and smacking him, shoving him, even punching him that one time. He doesn’t tell him about Matthew, his first real boyfriend, trapping him in an abusive relationship that took him months to get the courage to leave. About how when a third person hurt him, he began to wonder whether it really was his fault. Whether that was the only kind of love Spencer Reid deserved.

He stays silent now, staring at the shower wall. The fear has left him now the threat has too, and a cold type of numbness replaces it, and even once the water runs cold, he doesn’t leave. He traces the same four tiles with his eyes, drawing the same pattern with his gaze over and over again as his thoughts turn to an endless cycle of he’ll leave me, he’ll stay, he’ll hit me, he won’t, until he’s not really sure what he believes.

Derek is a good man, but Spencer knows how he can be. He messes up, he forgets things, he doesn’t read situations right, he doesn’t behave the way people think he should, he doesn’t think like a neuro-typical person does. And a good man can only put up with that for so long.

The proof is in the pudding, after all. Derek has always been understanding of things like this in the past. He’s given him a hug and told him not to worry about it, that mistakes happen, and no one can be expected to remember small things like this all the time. But this morning, he was furious. Spencer’s not sure he’s ever seen him so angry in all his years of knowing him, and it was directed at him. All because of an oven left on.

Eventually, a sound from the upstairs apartment drags him from his head again, and he’s suddenly aware of the cold water, of the way his body is trembling and his fingers are pruning. He pulls himself out of the shower, turning the water off, but he stands in the middle of the bathroom, aimlessly, for a long time. By the time he finally has the sense to wrap a towel around his body, he’s basically dripped dry. His hair is soaking wet and the dripping water is freezing, but he doesn’t have the energy to find a towel for his head, too, so he leaves it.

He walks towards the bedroom and climbs into bed, pulling the fluffy duvet over his damp skin and laying his wet hair on the pillow. It feels awful, being wet and damp under the dry bedding, but he doesn’t have the energy to move, so he stays there, towel still wrapped around his legs, hair still soaking the pillow, and he stares at the wall.

He doesn’t know what time it is, and he doesn’t know when Derek will come back home. If he ever will.

⭐️

Derek slams the door behind him as he storms out of the apartment, rage consuming his every move, his every thought. The force of it rattles the door frame, echoing down the empty corridor, but he can’t find it in him to care as he marches towards the elevator. The buttons are pressed with perhaps a little more aggression than socially acceptable, but the woman already on board takes one look at his face and has the sense to stay quiet.

He gets in his car and steps on the gas, the squeal of his tyres against the floor of the garage as he speeds out satisfying him more than it probably should. His jaw is locked and tight as he drives through the streets of DC, his thoughts going a million miles an hour, quieted only when he turns the radio up loud, a blasting soundtrack to his ferocious getaway.

Adrenaline pumps through his veins as he speeds down the highway, heading out of the city towards Baltimore. He doesn’t have a destination in mind: he’s just driving straight. Straight away from the apartment. Away from Spencer.

It’s after more than an hour of driving that his jaw finally loosens and the anger that had simmered in his blood so fiercely fades into reluctant rationality. He’s somewhere in the middle of Baltimore, and the traffic — the tangled road system he actually has to focus on — drags him from the absent headspace the highway had allowed him to slip into.

“Fuck,” he mutters, and turns off the road he’s on, onto a quieter one. As soon as he’s able to pull over, he does, and he hits the steering wheel angrily. “Fuck!” He leans forward, pulling off his sunglasses and burying his head in his hands. It’s not the same kind of anger he’d felt earlier, no. This time it’s directed purely at himself, fuelled by dismal regret.

Before he can stop it, his brain replays the fight with Spencer over and over, the wall he’d put up to block it out crumbling down as images of his boyfriend flood his mind. He hadn’t registered it in the moment, but looking back, God. There was something on Spencer’s face, something so broken, so scared and he feels nauseous at the realisation that he put that there.

Over something as fucking stupid as an oven.

Truthfully, he wasn’t really angry at Spencer. Waking up to see the oven left on again, even after Spencer promised he’d turned it off, was just the straw that broke the camel’s back.

He’d fought with both his mom and Penelope yesterday, and he went to bed feeling like an utter failure, made even worse when Spencer had declined to join him, deciding instead to keep reading the series of papers he’d started earlier that evening. He woke up in a foul mood, and not even the sight of his peacefully sleeping boyfriend could make him feel better.

It’s his own fault. He should have communicated with Spencer: he should’ve told him about letting his mom down and saying the worst thing he possibly could have in his conversation with Penelope, but he didn’t. He silently stewed, and felt irrationally angry that Spencer wasn’t reading his mind. He knows for an absolute fact that if he’d asked Spencer to join him in bed last night, he would’ve dropped his studies immediately, and cuddled him until he felt better.

But he didn’t. And then he’d screamed at Spencer, in a way he never has before, over something he simply forgot to do. Derek swore to himself that he would never shout at or put Spencer down for his neurodivergent traits. Not in the way he’s seen so many people — regrettably, far too many of them on their own team — do before.

He’s always been understanding in the past, kissed Spencer’s hair and promised that it wasn’t a big deal, and he has always meant it. Because as dramatic as he’d been this morning, leaving the oven on wasn’t really the end of the world. He remembers ranting about the electricity bill, about how they were going to afford the house they were going to buy if he kept this up, about lying to him — even though he knew that was clearly an auto-pilot thing — about how dangerous it was. It’s a fan oven. They were never really in any danger.

What a god-awful way to let off the steam he’d built up and chosen not to let go.

As if he’s not already feeling shitty enough, though, his mind won’t stop circling back to the fear on Spencer’s face. The way he shouted back, but instead crammed himself into the corner of the sofa, never taking his eyes off him as he paced angrily back and forth.

He feels sick.

He digs his phone from the pocket in his sweatpants. He’s still in the clothes he sleepily pulled on in the dark this morning, and he hadn’t thought to bring his phone out with him, but luckily he’d picked it up off the kitchen counter that morning.

He clicks on Spencer’s name, listens to it ringing out as he desperately begs him to pick up. “Come on, baby, please,” he whispers, ignoring the tears burning behind his eyes. “Pick up, please.” He tries three more times before throwing it angrily on the seat next to him, allowing one more second of feeling the blind panic and the fury at himself before forcing himself to calm down.

Reaching over to his phone with one hand to turn the ringer up, he turns the ignition on and pulls back onto the road, heading back towards DC.

The traffic infuriates him, cursing as it takes thirty minutes to get back on the highway, but finally he’s back on the open road. It takes everything in him not to speed past the other cars, knowing that getting pulled over would only slow him down in the long run. He doesn’t turn the radio on. He just replays the fight again and again, each time remembering something new: something he said or something Spencer did.

He doesn’t wipe the tears away as they fall, lets them slide uncomfortably down his neck, under his collar, lets them drip into his lap, lets his nose run. It’s the only punishment he can afford himself right now.

Finally, finally, he pulls into their apartment building’s garage, finding their spot and parking roughly, abandoning the car as quickly as possible in favour of sprinting towards the elevator. He curses at the slow moving carriage, but it eventually spits him out on his floor, and he’s walking down the very corridor he stormed down just a few hours prior.

He pushes open the door to their apartment, closing it behind him softly. Suddenly, the nausea swimming in his gut isn’t just borne from regret, now fuelled by nerves and dreaded anticipation.

“Spence?” he calls softly.

He doesn’t know what to expect: he doesn’t know whether Spencer will be sad or angry, whether he’ll be screaming or crying. The kitchen and living room are empty, and the bathroom door is wide open, so he ventures into their bedroom.

Whatever he was expecting, it isn’t this.

Spencer’s tucked up in bed, duvet pulled up to his neck, facing away from the door. He doesn’t move so Derek thinks he might be sleeping, but when he circles the bed to check, he finds his eyes wide open, staring vacantly at a fixed point on the wall. They don’t flicker or blink or move when he steps into his field of vision, and Derek’s heart sinks, panic beginning to grip his chest.

“Spencer? Baby?”

When he still doesn’t move, Derek crawls onto the bed, and the movement or the sound or something must finally catch his attention, because all of a sudden his eyes are widening — in shock, surprise, fear, Derek doesn’t know — and he’s shifting under the covers.

“You’re back,” he says, and it’s so uneasy that Derek wants to cry.

“Yeah, baby, I’m back,” he says gently, “and I’m so sorry about earlier, I—”

He cuts himself off, because when he reaches to tangle his fingers in Spencer’s damp hair, he flinches. His hand freezes, but his stomach twists, because this is the confirmation he was both expecting and dreading. This is the confirmation of everything he prayed he had wrong, everything he wished he’d misinterpreted the whole drive home.

“Spence,” he whispers brokenly, withdrawing his hand, “I would never— never do… I’d never hurt you, God, I—”

A choked sob cuts him off this time, and another follows when he sees a tear sliding down Spencer’s face. A previously blank, emotionless canvas, his face is now full of sadness, tinged with the fear and guilt Derek hates himself for even suggesting was warranted in the first place.

“Derek,” he says softly, and his voice is so mangled with emotions he couldn’t even begin to decipher, it breaks his heart a little. He doesn’t say anything more though, eyes sliding shut instead as tears continue to stream down his face.

“What do you need, baby?” he asks, because it’s the only thing he can think to say. “Anything, I— anything you need, you can have, Spence, I’d give you the world, you know that.”

Spencer’s quiet for a long time, and Derek sits there on the bed anxiously awaiting a response while trying to summon all the patience he doesn’t have as he stares at Spencer’s crying face.

“A hug,” he decides eventually, and Derek almost collapses in relief because, God, he can do that.

He crosses the small space between them, and carefully folds Spencer into a hug, sighing in relief as he melts into Derek’s side, placing his head on his chest and cuddling into him. Their legs tangle together and Derek holds him as gently and as closely as he can, carding his fingers through Spencer’s damp curls while his other hand rests on his waist, his thumb caressing the bare skin there.

He’s still in his towel, he thinks sadly. He didn’t have the energy to properly dry himself before crawling into bed. As if Derek could possibly feel shittier.

They lay like that quietly for a while before Spencer finally speaks. Derek wishes he hadn’t. The words “I’m sorry”, uttered so brokenly, so miserably, have no business leaving Spencer’s mouth.

“Baby, you have nothing to apologise for,” he says fiercely. “This is all on me. I’m sorry. Sorrier than I’ve ever been, Spencer, because this is completely my fault. I wasn’t actually angry at you, that’s the first thing you need to know, and I know that makes what I did so shitty, because you hadn’t even done anything wrong, but I was so pent up and frustrated with myself and I didn’t communicate that with you and— fuck, I’m doing such a bad job of explaining, I just. I need you to know, Spencer, that I’m not angry, okay? And I’m so sorry for losing it like I did, that never should have happened.”

He pauses and takes a breath in, burying his face in Spencer’s hair as he holds him even tighter, trying to keep his grip as gentle as possible.

“I never told you,” Spencer whispers after a couple beats pass.

Derek’s heart seizes tightly and he swallows. Prepares himself. “Never told me what, sweetheart?”

“My dad, he… he wasn’t a good man and he… you know, he hurt me a lot. And then my mom, when he left and she stopped taking her meds completely, she’d get so confused,” Spencer admits, voice so quiet as he murmurs into Derek’s chest that he has to strain to hear him. “She didn’t mean to, but she’d… And then my last boyfriend, he—”

He cuts himself off as a heaving sob that seems to come out of nowhere strangles his words and it’s all Derek can do to hold him tightly as Spencer cries, whispering every reassurance he can think of through his own tears. It shouldn’t be like this, he thinks. I shouldn’t know this just because of an argument we had; just because I lost control. Spencer should’ve been able to tell me on his own terms, in his own time.

He tries to cry as silently as possible, but it’s not easy when the grief of knowing the pain Spencer’s suffered in his life is weighing heavy on his chest, and the acidic taste of guilt abounds.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers into Spencer’s hair. “I’m so sorry, baby.” He’s sorry for so many things he’s not sure he could list them all out, neatly and coherently, if he tried.

Spencer fists his hands in the soft cotton of Derek’s t-shirt. “I’m sorry I never told you.”

Derek balks at the guilt in his tone, as if he actually believes he has anything to apologise for. “Baby, you could’ve waited until we were old and grey to tell me and I wouldn’t be mad, okay? Trauma like this… it comes out in it’s own way in it’s own time. I’m not sure how or when I would’ve told you about Buford if everyone hadn’t found out the way they did. And if I’d waited to tell you, you wouldn’t be mad at me, would you?”

Spencer shakes his head.

“I’m so sorry that I triggered you the way I did, Spencer,” Derek says seriously, gently twirling a loose curl around his fingers. “It was inexcusable, and it was a problem of my own making. I know you didn’t mean to leave the oven on and I know you were operating on auto-pilot when you told me you turned it off last night, and nothing I said was true. I was mad about stuff that happened yesterday and I failed to communicate that. It’s all on me. Nothing about this is your fault, you hear me?”

“Really?”

The way Spencer cranes his neck to look up at him, the trusting innocence in his eyes both breaking and warming Derek’s heart. “Really.”

“I want to tell you, Der, it’s just—” He sighs. “I’ve never talked about it with anyone, and it’s hard. I don’t… I don’t know where to start.”

“We have all the time in the world for you to tell me, baby. You can tell me everything all at once, or drop tiny pieces of information when you feel like it, or never tell me anything else ever again, and any of that is perfectly okay. I just need you to know that what happened this morning will never happen again, okay? I promise you.”

Spencer shifts, moving from his position curled around Derek to prop himself up with one arm, facing his boyfriend properly. “Thank you,” he says earnestly, before leaning down to kiss him. “I love you.”

“I love you, too, baby. More than anything.” He kisses him again before moving the duvet and making to get up. “Now, how about I order us some pizza for lunch and we spend the afternoon in bed. You can read or we can watch some documentaries or a movie, whatever you want.”

A small smile crosses Spencer’s face, and nothing’s ever felt more like a win.

“I think that sounds like a plan.”

taglist: @criminalmindsvibez @moreidtrash @suburban--gothic @strippersenseii @takeyourleap-of-faith @negativefouriq @makaylajadewrites @iamrenstark @livrere-blue @hotchseyebrows @reidology @i-like-buttons @spencerspecifics @bau-gremlin @hotchedyke @tobias-hankel @goobzoop @marsjareau @garcias-bitch @oliverbrnch @enbyspencer @im-autistic @thataveragenerd @anxious-enby

[fieldtomatoes]

I was tagged by the besties @frogeye-pierce and @yaroantheo to fill out this lil questionnaire ❣️ I have decided to not put this under a read more bc it’s my blog and I can do what I want 💋

Nickname: my sister calls me bunny :) when we were little my mom would call me Corynnie but my sister couldn’t pronounce that so it came out closer to Binny and once we got devices with auto-correct it would always change it to bunny so now I’m bunny 🐰

Zodiac: Virgo sun / Cancer moon (most things associated with virgos don’t apply to me but everything I’ve seen about cancer moons is scarily accurate so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ )

Height: 5’8’’

Last movie: Chef (2014)

Last thing I googled: “what days does US mail deliver” - you guys get mail on Saturdays???

Favourite musician: I could debate this for hours but at the end of the day it’ll always be Elton John <3

Song stuck in my head: Come Back From San Francisco by The Magnetic Fields. yes I am thinking about [redacted].

Other blogs: like a third of you are here bc of my mash blog (btw Rob you were my second follower I have no idea how you found it asdfghjhgds), I’ll tag my ocean sideblog @seafoamfemme which I’ve kind of abandoned but haven’t given up on. and of course of course the murdoch sideblog I was forced to make bc I was getting a little too unhinged on main which has far more followers than there are people with correct murdoch mysteries takes and I can’t wait to alienate them all come season 15

Blogs following: 116

Amount of sleep: usually seven hours?

Lucky number: I don’t (consciously) have one

What I’m wearing: roots sweats and my Alan Doyle concert t-shirt

Dream job: teacher! grade 2 or 3 ideally

Dream trip: roadtrip around the maritimes with my mom and sister :)

Favourite foods: tomatoes. grocery store cheese bread. cambozola cheese. asparagus. blackberry jam. PC brand green goddess salad dressing. fresh corn. mango kombucha. raw tuna. tomatoes again.

Instrument: piano but not super well, mostly by ear - I’ll just put my library on shuffle and sit down and try to figure stuff out

Languages: I can still understand French and I can still pronounce things I read but I’ve lost the ability to easily form my own thoughts and express them :/

Favourite songs: The Mary Ellen Carter by Stan Rogers. The Only Living Boy in New York by Simon & Garfunkel. Madame George by Van Morisson. Amelia by Joni Mitchell. Graceland by Paul Simon.

Random fact about me: Rob I’m gonna steal yours bc I too have all my wisdom teeth 😳

Describe yourself in aesthetic things: antique glass telephone insulators. lavender oil. wild blackberries. a fluffy cat. a well-worn cookbook with notes in the margins. a cedar chest that makes your clothes smell nice.

this takes a bit of time but it’s really fun so @ohtinylove and @spacelesbians if you’re interested, I’m tagging you 💛💚

[chilling-seavey]

Heartbreak Hotel (d.s.) - Chapter Five

A/N Not me listening to Greased Lighting while writing this

The fact that Christian insisted on driving separately to the auto shop had Daniel in immense confusion but Christian was half down their street before he could protest. So Daniel drove himself farther into the city and parked on the industrial lined street outside the shop for his first shift. He only got a job at the very bottom of the ladder – washing cars and vacuuming the interiors – but it was better than nothing and certainly better than Jack and Zach’s terribly uniforms.

The young men in the shop had Daniel nervously hesitating in the entrance, eyeing their light grey mechanic overalls with oil stained white-shirts underneath and facial structure to make anyone feel emasculated and Daniel ran an anxious hand through his hair before walking inside. The boss was an older man with a big belly and he literally did nothing but sit in the office in a cloud of smoke and pump through a few cigars in one day.

Daniel’s presence seemed to hinder his terribly important day as he got up from the old office chair was a grunt and led him back out into the shop to show him what he was expected to do on his shifts. Christian glanced up from one of the cars, his arm working under the hood and a single dark strand of his hair falling over his eyes. He looked away.

“We like to shine ‘em up pretty before sending them home with customers so once our men finish the hard work you can wash them over here.” the boss gestured to one of the empty corners of the garage, his words muffled from the cigar that was stuck in his mouth. “Hose and buckets are on that shelf. Soap’s here. Vacuum is in that cupboard. Sometimes it needs a good tug to get started, but don’t we all?”

He let out a gruff laugh and Daniel only blinked at him, confused, but offered a nervous chuckle and a “yeah” just to humor him.

Daniel was soon left alone, told to wait until a car was ready to be cleaned and just sit in his corner and not bother anyone. So he did, sitting on top of one of the boxes and scanned the shop to familiarize himself with his surroundings. He watched his brother for a moment, how he worked on the car like it was easy, his arm flexing under the rolled up sleeves of his grey uniform and when he stood back a moment, Daniel could see a rectangular patch above his right breast pocket that read Seavey. Christian brushed his wrist across his forehead to get his hair out of his face but he smudged a bit of grease over his skin, unknowing.

Suddenly, the garage was filled with music and Daniel glanced across to the other wall where another young man had just turned on the radio. He looked about Christian’s age too with slicked back brown hair and oil and grease covering his hands. He wiped them on the towel that was draped over his shoulder but some still managed to stain his t-shirt and when he turned back around from the radio, Daniel’s eyes dropped to his name tag, half of it covered in oil but he could still read Marais in block letters. He caught Daniel’s stare, sending the younger boy a furrowed glance through hazel eyes and Daniel looked away quickly.

The third employee was near the back of the garage and Daniel recognized him as the guy from the diner the other day, the same blonde streaked hair and light eyes that were narrowed in concentration as he worked. Daniel couldn’t help but think of the girl again, wondering how such a coincidence occurred where his taste lined up with what she was eating but yet, she already had a soulmate. Or so it seemed at least.

When lunch break came around, the four employees gathered around the table in the breakroom to eat their packed lunches. Daniel was left with a seat empty between him and Christian as the three older guys sat together and the new boy was on his own. Daniel didn’t mind; he was slightly intimidated by the others anyway and he ate quietly while they talked in their little group.

“Leftovers again, Corbs?” Christian laughed teasingly as they all took out their lunch.

The boy from the diner scoffed, shaking his head through a smile, “Yep. Mom’s the queen of leftovers and she’ll be making my lunch until I get Loretta to get herself in the kitchen.”

“Until you get the balls to propose to her more like.” The second boy corrected.

“I’m in no rush.” Corbyn smirked.

“Right, right.”

“Just cuz you popped the question fresh out of high school doesn’t mean I’m going to.”

“Get it over with.”

“Loretta wants it be special.”

“And mine wasn’t?”

“You asked her in the middle of a drive-in movie, Jonah. That’s hardly romantic.” Corbyn retorted.

Christian chuckled into his cup of water.

“You’re a liar, Corbyn.” Jonah tisked, “We weren’t even watching the movie.”

The three guys laughed.

“Whatever. I couldn’t care less about a proposal but you know how my girl is; she loves that mushy shit.” Corbyn leaned back in his chair.

Daniel frowned into his sandwich, keeping his eyes on the tabletop as he just listened.

“Maybe by the end of the summer.”

“At least you have a girl to propose to.” Christian said.

“Ah, you do to.” Jonah assured him.

Christian shrugged.

Daniel glanced up at his older brother before looking back at his lunch without a word.

“You gonna have some fun before she comes back?” Corbyn asked.

“How do you mean?” Christian asked.

“Little thing on the side? Swipe up a random girl and get a night or two.”

“Nah.” Christian shook his head, “I don’t roll like that.”

“Well me neither, my girl and I are going steady just fine, but she’s also not in Europe for who knows how long.” Corbyn said, taking a sip from his bottle of Coke. “A man’s got needs.”

“Cut the gas, man.” Jonah scoffed through his eyeroll. “Not like you would know anything about that.”

“I do so!” Corbyn retorted, leaning his elbows on his knees as he turned towards his friend. “I just don’t go blabbing about it like you do.”

Their lighthearted argument was interrupted by someone ringing the bell to the garage in need of assistance, so they all packed up to get back to work. Daniel didn’t know much about these two new guys after only meeting them that same day, but he didn’t know if he was much of a fan. 

This was only proven when he returned to his corner and was handed over the keys to one of the cars that was finished being fixed up and Corbyn nudged his leg with the bumper of the car as he drove it into place. Daniel stumbled only slightly and Corbyn got out to ruffle a hand through his hair and smack the keys into his hand,

“Make her shine, buddy.”

[esabri]

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watch Farbe color Gesicht face Holz wood Haupt- main geöffnet open scheinen seem zusammen together nächste next weiß white Kinder children Start begin bekam got gehen walk Beispiel example erleichtern ease Papier paper Gruppe group immer always Musik music diejenigen those beide both Marke mark oft often Schreiben letter bis until Meile mile Fluss river Auto car Füße feet Pflege care zweite second genug enough Ebene plain Mädchen girl üblich usual jung young bereit ready oben above je ever rot red Liste list obwohl though fühlen feel Vortrag talk Vogel bird bald soon Körper body Hund dog Familie family direkt direct Pose pose verlassen leave Lied song messen measure Tür door Produkt product schwarz black kurz short Zahl numeral Klasse class Wind wind Frage question passieren happen vollständig complete Schiff ship Bereich area Hälfte half Stein rock bestellen order Feuer fire Süden south Problem problem Stück piece sagte told wusste knew passieren pass seit since obere top ganze whole 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cow Arbeit job Rand edge Zeichen sign Besuch visit Vergangenheit past weich soft Spaß fun hell bright Gases gas Wetter weather Monat month Million million tragen bear Finish finish glücklich happy hoffen hope blume flower kleiden clothe seltsam strange Vorbei gone Handel trade Melodie melody Reise trip Büro office empfangen receive Reihe row Mund mouth genau exact Zeichen symbol sterben die am wenigsten least Ärger trouble Schrei shout außer except schrieb wrote Samen seed Ton tone beitreten join vorschlagen suggest sauber clean Pause break Dame lady Hof yard steigen rise schlecht bad Schlag blow Öl oil Blut blood berühren touch wuchs grew Cent cent mischen mix Mannschaft team Draht wire Kosten cost verloren lost braun brown tragen wear Garten garden gleich equal gesendet sent wählen choose fiel fell passen fit fließen flow Messe fair Bank bank sammeln collect sparen save Kontrolle control dezimal decimal Ohr ear sonst else ganz quite pleite broke Fall case Mitte middle töten kill Sohn 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instant Markt market Grad degree besiedeln populate küken chick liebe dear Feind enemy antworten reply Getränk drink auftreten occur Unterstützung support Rede speech Natur nature Angebot range Dampf steam Bewegung motion Weg path Flüssigkeit liquid protokollieren log gemeint meant Quotient quotient Gebiss teeth Schale shell Hals neck Sauerstoff oxygen Zucker sugar Tod death ziemlich pretty Geschicklichkeit skill Frauen women Saison season Lösung solution Magnet magnet Silber silver danken thank Zweig branch Spiel match Suffix suffix insbesondere especially Feige fig ängstlich afraid riesig huge Schwester sister Stahl steel diskutieren discuss vorwärts forward ähnlich similar führen guide Erfahrung experience Partitur score apfel apple gekauft bought geführt led Tonhöhe pitch Mantel coat Masse mass Karte card Band band Seil rope Rutsch slip gewinnen win träumen dream Abend evening Zustand condition Futtermittel feed Werkzeug tool gesamt total Basis basic Geruch smell Tal valley noch nor doppelt double Sitz seat fortsetzen continue Block block Tabelle chart Hut hat verkaufen sell Erfolg success Firma company subtrahieren subtract Veranstaltung event besondere particular viel deal schwimmen swim Begriff term Gegenteil opposite Frau wife Schuh shoe Schulter shoulder Verbreitung spread arrangieren arrange Lager camp erfinden invent Baumwolle cotton geboren born bestimmen determine Quart quart neun nine Lastwagen truck Lärm noise Ebene level Chance chance sammeln gather Geschäft shop Stretch stretch werfen throw Glanz shine Immobilien property Spalte column Molekül molecule wählen select falsch wrong grau gray Wiederholung repeat erfordern require breit broad vorbereiten prepare Salz salt Nase nose mehreren plural Zorn anger Anspruch claim Kontinent continent

[thorsstorms]

Abroad pt 16

(Chris Hemsworth x Reader)

Summary: Being the Hemsworth Kids’ Nanny, you were vowed to keep it strictly professional for their sake, but do the stolen glances go unnoticed between you both?

Word count: 5.3k

Warnings: injured pregnant reader. 

A/N: if you want to be tagged, PLEASE SEND AS AN ASK. Y'all should know by now that this fic is pretty inspired off my real life. well let me tell you something. my brother just dropped out of college. that means he quit baseball too when he had a full ride to the best baseball lead college in the state. i got back from mexico and he dropped it that morning and moved back home while we were gone. needless to say it was a major shock for my entire family and my mother cried for hours. we were expecting major leagues from him. he had so many scouts watching him from Orioles, Pirates, and Marlins. He said he didn't enjoy it anymore and he didn't want to do this with his life. its been a tough week. it was out of the blue and we don't know what had gotten into him. all we can do is pray on it really. the back up for him is now Welding school....anyway. 

Masterlist

Chris saw you go down the first time, knowing it was a hard fall and started in your direction. A breath escaped him when he saw you break the surface, seeing that you were okay. He started moving faster when he saw the second wave coming. The water was swallowing you above the shoulders, that or you couldn’t stand up straight. He watched you moving in slow motion to reach the board but he knew you wouldn’t get to it in time. He called for you, but you couldn’t hear him.

The wave came and you were gone, the only sense of your location was the board floating a few feet from where you presumably were. His arms were straining against the current of the water, trying to get there faster, waiting for you to break the surface.

When you did, he could see the panic on your face just barely above the surface while your arms ripped at the ankle wrap. Sporting a dripping red down the side of your face while watching the next wave come seemingly faster than any others, it gave him a clear view of the hit.

He screamed your name again, not necessarily to get your attention but more out of shock, Ty finally running in towards you as well. Chris was close enough, just barely out of reach, but close enough to see the third hit harder than the first two. His wrap was off and he was in the water in a split second grabbing ahold of your arm under the surface.

He expected you to react in some way at least. But what he got was nothing but limp weight when he tugged you forward. He spoke your name again with urgency, wrapping his arms around you, headed to the shore when another wave crashed around his shoulders. His hand came to your head, to turn you so he could see where the rush of red was coming from. A knick above your temple shone when he pushed your hair back. A thin gash on the underside of your chin, a bruise already forming. Your eyes were fluttering and unable to come to your senses, like a fog had been placed over your brain. His steps grew faster, lighter when he neared the shore. Ty meeting him in a panic at your limp body tagging along.

What ever words Ty was speaking, Chris didn’t hear them. He was zoned in, laying you on the ground, watching, waiting for you to move. He moved on auto pilot, checking your pulse, checking for breathing.

Chaz’s voice came clear, Chris replayed his address to a woman on speakerphone who was trying to get answers to send help. He felt a current rip through himself when you turned your head, coughing, wincing at the pain flooding through your head.

Though you still were not responding to him, to his hands, to his voice, nothing.

Chris listened to the emergency operator coming through the speakers asking him questions. There was one answer he knew she needed to have for the first responders. Chris looked to the others defeated, sitting on his knees, his hands propped under your shoulders to hold you up and closer to him. He whispered an apology to you, but there wasn’t much he could do. He had to. There wasn’t a choice, and he almost hated himself for having to say it, steal your moment.

“She- she’s pregnant,” he directed towards the phone, not looking up to your looming brother. “12 weeks.”

He didn’t move from you, watching you slip in and out of consciousness for the next few minutes, whispering apologies hoping that you some how could hear them. He didn’t react to Tyler’s panicking, his yelling. He didn’t react to Chaz as he dragged the boards out of the water clapping against the sand at the shore. He didn’t realize that there wasn’t three other little bodies standing beside him as Emily herded them into the house. He didn’t drag his eyes away from your lacerated skin, or his ears from your labored breathing until the paramedics made their way through the sand.

He stood flat against the wall of the room while others worked their way around you listening to your lungs, starting an IV for the pain in your head you were bound to have when you woke again, checking your eyes for dilation to rule out serious injuries inside.

The room almost vacated after a few minutes of him answering yes and no questions, Chaz shoving a shirt and shoes into his hands from the house and exiting the small room just as soon as he had entered.

“Press this button when she wakes, shouldn’t be too long, when she does we can remove the IV and determine the grade of injury.” He merely nodded at the nurse while pulling a chair to the bedside.

He had a few seconds, laying his head in his hands before Ty came through the door. He stalked over to the bed waiting for Chris to lift his head and look at him.

He didn’t.

“It’s not your fault,” Ty’s voice broke the silence of the room.

Who could be to blame then, who else promised that she would be fine, that it was okay for her to do so?

“I didn’t think she would actually do it, but I was wrong. Not like it was a fuckin’ competition or something.” Ty tore his eyes away from him. Bruises were sporting purple where you had come in contact with the board repeatedly, a sight he couldn’t stand to look at for too long. “Of course I didn’t know she was pregnant. I almost joked some dumb shit about, about- God I dont even know- about lettin’ herself go. That wouldn’t’ve gone well.”

Chris sat up straight and looked at the bed. “She only told me this morning. She wanted to tell you. She was so excited, nervous to tell you. Wants you to be there when she tells your parents.”

“-oh fuck, my parents!” Ty stalked back out of the room, reaching in his pocket for his phone.

You started to come to, recognizing the throbbing pain your head was in. As soon as he sensed the movement in your hands, your face, he was pressing the button. He stood from his chair looming over you.

“Hey princess wake up, stay awake this time please.” His hands were careful to avoid the steri-strips on your skin, avoiding the two darkening discolored bruises that looked worse every minute.

Your chest still felt like it was under bricks, making it hard to breath, almost painful to inhale. “Can you hear me?” You could but you didn’t want to move your head to add to the pain. Your hand lifted from the bed and found his arm, he felt it and reached for it, breaking his resolve, melting his demeanor.

“My head,” the sound croaked from your throat, the salt water drying you up.

“Yea,” he let out a breathe hearing you speak, “I know, I know. The nurse is on his way in, I’m going to get you some water.”

The next hour was filled with questions. You were concussed. No driving, no screen time, no reading. Moving your eyes to fast set you off, speaking to loudly felt like your brain was a balloon that was going to pop. Normally they would have let your leave after waking and being able to speak, but because of your pregnancy they advised you to stay over night just to monitor.

It felt like it was hours before the ultrasound tech came. She was flushed coming in, merely saying hello and introducing herself before hooking it into the wall. Your hands rested on top of where your little bean (well, more like a lime now, but lil bean was going to stick) was being held captive. All you could do was stare at Chris, all he could do was stare at you.

You heard her words and you moved on auto pilot, slowly lifting the gown. Listening as she wiggled and pressed against you, her eyes and ears drawn to the screen as Chris’s were. You could take the time and pain of drawing your head towards and your eyes up to the screen but you wouldn’t know what you were looking at anyway. In return you watched his eyes trail the screen, keen to listen for a heart beat.

You heard it. It was small, delicate little thumps coming through a speaker on the monitor.

“Is that-?” You questioned him, a breath escaping you. You didn’t know what you were expecting, but the reassurance of the anthem coming to your ears was enough to break a smile on your face.

“It is,” he said. His hand was in yours, burying his face in the bed sheet that rest upon your legs. His shoulders rose and fell as he took a deep breath of relief, lifting his head again.

She left you with another ultrasound picture at his request. He held it quietly in his hands, pondering his thoughts to himself when Bri came through the door. Ty followed slowly behind her, making his way in and shutting the door behind him. She came and sat on the bed looking at you with tears in her eyes.

“What did you do this time?” You forced yourself into a slight snicker that turned quickly into a wince.

“Don’t make me laugh,” you muttered, laying your head back and closing your eyes.

“When Ty told me to come to the hospital, I- I was so worried. Is, Is the baby okay?” Her hand hovered over yours with hesitance, resting it slowly on top of yours. It became a small repetitive action that you took on, laying your hand where you were bound to start growing so people other than yourself could tell.

“Yea,” you whispered. She nodded looking back to Ty, seeing the relief wash over his face. They both turned to stare at you like they were thinking of a million things to say but they didn’t speak.

“Hi Chris,” she chuckled, finally acknowledging his presence in the room. He strained his smile back to her, quickly back to avoiding conversation unlike his usual self.

“I called Dad,” you snapped your eyes at Ty, “he didn’t answer, probably sleeping. I left him a message.” Probably better that way that he called him first instead of your mother. “I didn’t say much. I was pretty vague, I’m sure he’ll call when they wake up.”

Painful minutes passed until you told them both to leave, go home, eat and sleep. There was nothing exciting going on here. They left with promises of bringing clothes and food when they came back. Promised to bring the kids. A lazy thumbs up was thrown at them before they closed the door.

The sulking quiet man in the corner was the next to conquer, though the energy was becoming hard to find. You were tired.

“Will you come squeeze up here?” You asked him. Your eyes were getting heavy.

“I can try princess.” You inched yourself to the side, throwing your head back into the pillow from the rush, but it was worth it. He laid on his side while you tucked the blanket over his hip. You propped up on your shoulder, without help while he watched amused as you situated yourself. You tugged his arm to go under your neck, ready to go for the other hand but he knew where it belonged.

You melted into the now somewhat comfortable position while he tugged the blanket farther up to your shoulders, knowing you were probably cold at the moment. He watched you relax, caving into a sleep that was hopefully free of all the pain he knew you were in. He couldn't help but stare your face. The skin there was so pure, decorated lightly with freckles that he had memorized from the moment he laid eyes on you. The fresh delicate skin was now tainted with colors of torment. The purple shades reaching their deepest hues in the dim lighting of the room. It became the new markings to memorize, one that would paint his nightmares in shades of bruising and hues of red that symbolizes a much more morbid out come.

A concussion and bruising, that he could live with, but nothing more.

It was a feeling that catered deep inside him today, one of fear, he had never known fear like that. The happiness that the morning had brought was quickly sealed behind the looming fear of your unconscious body. When he had loomed over you trying to detect how bad it could be, how much worse it could have been. He could have not reached you fast enough, your injury could be worse, the trauma could have caused a loss that he knew you would never shed the weight of.

He reached for his phone after coming to a loosely set up plan in his mind. His weight shifted under you, freezing when he feared you might wake. You needed the sleep, deserved the sleep. He was sly, pulling from under your head slowly, shutting the door quietly behind him.

The clock was only displaying the time of 7PM. He took a small walk down to the food court, settling for trail mix and a drink before find a table in the corner, he faced the wall to avoid staring. He might have settled for the ‘I can’t see you, you cant see me’ fallacy. He couldn’t talk on the phone in your room and risk waking you anyway.

He didn’t know what time it was wherever she was at, he didn’t care to pay it any mind anyway. He pressed on the contact, hearing the ringing sound through the speaker pressed to his ear. She owed him this at least.

“Hello?” Elsa’s voice was groggy through the phone, but he paid no lingering attention to the thought that he may have woken her up.

“I need you to come stay with the kids.” He said quickly to the point. She didn’t question why but recognized a desperation in his voice instead. She didn't say anything, but waited for him to continue, there was obviously more he wanted to say.

“We had an accident this morning, Well, (Y/n) did. She’s pretty banged up, has got a bad concussion. And I’m here until next Thursday but I have to leave again and she cant stay with them alone right now. If you can’t, I’ll call my parents but before I do that you should know that the kids miss you, a lot. You can have the house to yourself, but India has to go to school.” He spoke quickly, his voice low. The stress was radiating off of him and she could tell.

She started to wake up at the information. “What happened?”

He wanted to tell her and was going to until his voice got caught in his throat. If there was someone he was going to talk to this about, it was going to be her. And not for any special reason other than the fact that she would understand. He held on to a love for her, but it was so different that it had been long ago. It was the type where a friend was there with similar life experiences. She held a free spirit surrounding her life, there was not a sign of resentment among her soul when he spoke of you.

He took a deep breath pulling himself together. It was not the end of the world, he knew that this was minor in the grand scheme of things but he held on to the fault. His hand fell over his face in a way to wake himself from the long days events. Maybe he needed to sleep more than he thought.

“We were surfing this morning and her brother is in town. She was always too chicken to try it but he finally got her to try.” He scoffed a laugh at the thought of Ty being able to get her out there but not himself. “She did good for a while but got caught in the waves after she fell. She couldn’t keep up with it and the board got her twice in the white caps. Knocked her clean out.” His nervous laugh fell out.

“She,” he closed his eyes a minute to take in the information for himself. “She’s pregnant.” His words were quick to avoid a wavering voice. “And when I pulled her out, she couldn’t stay awake.” He pulled the phone away from his face to take a deep breathe to clear the stupid tears that wanted to keep coming. It was over with, you were okay but his head didn’t seem to care.

He picked the phone back up to his ear just in time to hear her say his name filled with sorrow for him. “Can you- can you come or not? I’m going to take her back to the states with me.” He didn’t want to hear the pity yet. He just wanted a yes or no answer.

She said she would be here on Wednesday and that was all he needed to hear before quickly wrapping the phone call.

You woke slowly to a nurse coming in the room. Your eyes scanned the area but it was empty of anyone else. No one was here. You knew that much. You weren’t going crazy. “Your brother will be back in a minute so you just rest a while. He brought you some clothing to change into over there. As soon as he gets back we can sign these papers and get you out of here.” She informed you and was out of the room almost quickly as she came.

Scooting to the edge of the bed, merely sitting up by yourself sent a head rush that made you want to vomit on the spot. You grabbed the handle on the bedside before pulling yourself to your feet. You teetered to the window sill, taking the clothes with you to the bathroom.

The first look in the mirror was hard to see. You examined the bruised skin along your jaw, it was ugly. You shy your eyes away from the reflection, no more looking at it. All it will do is make you cringe at yourself. The glass was avoided while you dressed yourself.

You slipped the gown off your shoulders, it pooled to the ground. There was no way your were bending down to pick it up and risk the blood rush to your head. Looking downward at the discarded scratchy gown, your tummy was one to notice. The small protrusion was catching your eye. Seemingly growing more and more every time you admire it. From what you could tell, you were smaller than average at the 12 weeks mark, but you didn’t worry about it.

When you emerged from the doorway, you sat back on the edge of the bed and looked around. Your phone wasn’t anywhere to be seen, not that you were allowed to be looking at it anyway. You took your time folding your stuff and putting them in the bag that was brought with the new clothes. You brush your hair out and pull it into a loose ponytail slowly, it was not without major difficulty. You huffed in the silence of the room. You didn’t like it. Being used to the never ending noise at the house was comforting compared to this lonely feeling of an empty hospital room.

The door pushed open, it was your brother coming through. If you had the energy, it wouldn't have slipped past you to roll your eyes at his annoying sympathetic look when he sees your face. You sat defeated and ready to go home. He hugged you with his arms around your shoulders while you sat painly on the edge of the bed.

“Im sorry,” you mumbled into his shirt.

“For what?”

“I’ve probably ruined your whole trip down here. I had stuff planned for us to do, I wanted to show you around…”

“Whatever, shut up. Let’s go already, paperwork is done.” He pushed aside your comment and was silent till we were pulling from the parking lot when you gave him directions on how to get back home.

“He was taking India to school, it’s Friday. I told him I would bring you home. He’ll probably be back by the time we get there.” You hummed in response. You weren’t angry that Chris wasn’t there when you woke up this morning. It would be selfish of you, he has kids that he hasn’t seen in weeks as well. But there was a stupid whiny feeling, wishing he was there, wishing he was being your own personal heater in that god awful cold room. It was stupid, so you didnt mention it anymore. You had voiced many times before that you hated waking up alone when he was able to be there, he knows.

“I talked to dad, I told him what happened and that you were fine. But I didnt-didnt tell them, uh that you were, like, like… that.” He swiped his palm over his forehead, not liking to say it outloud.

“Say it Ty,” you teased him. “Say it. I'm pregnant, say it.” You forced a smile at him while he just looked at the road with a stressed facial expression. “I'm pregnant,” you said again looking back out your window. Your eyes were squinting through the sunlight, a nagging throbbing in your head was ever present.

~

“Chris, I can walk by myself.” It came out more harsh than you intended, admittedly. When Ty pulled in the garage, Chris was out the door and opening yours instantly. A simple hello would have been nice, rather than him trying to guide you like a child into the house.

You walked past him and Ty, not waiting for the reaction and not looking up at the three waiting in the kitchen, but went straight to his bathroom and locked the door behind you. It’s not like you could go retreat to your own space with your guests here. You needed a shower anyway. You needed more minutes to yourself so you don’t come out being snitty again. Chris didn’t deserve it.

You pulled your shirt over your head and threw it on the counter. Catching yourself in a mirror almost made you cringe. You very much looked like death itself. You turned away, kicking off your shoes when there was a knock on the bathroom door.

Two minutes, you silently prayed. All I need is two minutes.

“Can I come in?” His voice was polite, more polite than you probably deserved for your nasty remark earlier. You sighed, leaning against the counter. You were sure it was the headache that was affecting your mood, but you might as well learn to control that now because it won’t be going away so soon.

“I just need a few minutes. Im, I’m gonna take a shower.” You were unsure if he heard you through the door or not. Your voice echoed through the room even at such a quiet tone, courtesy of the white marbled tiles.

“Okay just be careful of the water on your face, Princess... Can you just let me in?” He was right, what if it hurts? You were half dressed in a bra and shorts, but you made your way to the door anyway. How much worse could you look? Pretty sure it was bottomed out at this point.

You unlocked the door handle and pushed it open but didn’t meet his eyes, instead turned around and reached to put your shirt back on.

“Hey, how about a bath instead? So you don’t have water beating down on your head?” Once you nodded he retreated to turn on the bathwater. You dropped your shirt back on the counter and tried to shimmy your shorts without bending down, your head already angry at the movement of your shoulders dipping in the slightest.

You winced, closing your eyes and leaning back against the counter when they dropped to your ankles. “Hey…” you heard him, then felt his hand touch your neck so you would look up at him. The touch was nothing pleasing.

“Nu uh,” you winced away from him, nowhere else to go against the countertops. The gentle touch causes a not so gentle reaction that you are at the receiving end of. His hand jerked away while you opened your eyes and pushed his arms away slightly.

“Just tell me what I can do to help?” Chris didn’t like seeing you in pain. Most of what you felt wasn’t even visible, which made it that much harder for him to comprehend… dont touch you there, or here. He didn’t know.

You blinked back tears, looking past him to the right. “Help me undress,” you muttered. Your voice was small, any louder and you were sure your ears would burst from a weird pressure.

He didn’t say anything else but helped slide your sports bra over your shoulders, him trying to not react to your own grimace.  His hands silently worked as he pulled your panties down your legs, holding his shoulder as you stepped out of them. You would have normally blushed, or atleast thanked him for helping you but you didn’t have the energy for both. Your mind felt void of the emotion. All that was left up there was snark and grimaces.

You lowered into the hot water while he pulled the kids’ step stool from under the counter and over to the edge of the tub to sit on. You wanted to tell him that he didn’t have to stay here but who are you kidding, the attention was nice regardless of the circumstances. You slowly washed your body, listening silently while he talked softly to you, distracting you. Talking to you about anything while you lie your head back against the tub wall.

You both came to figure that washing your hair was not going to be an easy task, but it needed to happen. It was nappy enough from the salt water drying up and not being brushed out. Your hands were white knuckling against the edges of the tub while he repeated apologies over his gentle hands that were coated in shampoo. He was gentle, you could tell that much but it didn’t seem to make a difference.

He tried to work fast, not bearing to be the cause of the hurt look on your face or the tear on your cheek that could have passed as bath water. He just wanted to help, wished you would tell him what he could do to make this better.

It was best to ride it out for these few minutes and sit still for the rest of the day, trying to avoid quick movements and speaking to much.

Not an hour later you were sitting up on the couch with your head laying back on Chris’s outstretched arm. This was only uphill from the pain of forcing Bri to brush your hair for you and braid it loosely so it wouldn’t get tangled. She was afraid to hurt you even more but you were stubborn enough to talk her into it.

Hiding away in bed and sleeping or staring at the ceiling did not seem appealing at all. Your brother was here, Chaz and Emily too and your were not going to be rude and hide away. They wouldn’t have thought you as rude, but pretended to appreciate you joining them. Even though Emily sat at the table coloring with Sasha and Tristan sat on the floor with his eyes glued to the tv, you were glad to be in their presence.

You stayed quiet, listening to them bicker about stupid things. Talk about what they should do while here. Hearing what Chris suggested. You were thankful no one tried to engage with you. You were content to catch it all by ear, sitting silently with your head back and hands rested low were the little one would start to show themselves more.

Your eyes were cast out the window behind their heads, staring outside into the back yard. You were listening, just not looking. Bri was sat across from you, next to Ty with a tea in her hand, watching your own mannerisms closely. She smiled at you, at how it was completely subconscious of you to hold your hands over your bump. It tugged your navy t-shirt dress tight downward, where she could tell her future god child was waiting. She had a trained eye, not sure a stranger would be able to recognize it as a pregnancy bump at this point, but she could.

The minutes passed and your eyes grew heavy. It was merely 10 oclock in the morning, but sleep sounded inviting enough for your eyes to close whether you wanted them to or not.

~

“You have a ring?” Ty’s voice shot up a few octaves at Chris’s confession. He had carried you to the bed almost half an hour ago. Everyone but those two were in the pool while they sat on the patio chairs.

Ty’s eyeballs about bugged out of his head. “You have it here?”

“Yea I picked it up a few weeks ago and have had it with me.”

“Wow. Sorry, but this is just weird.” Ty shook his head and looked out at Tristan trying to copy Chaz by diving into the pool.

“Do you want to see it?”

“Hell yea?!”

Chris walked back out the patio doors with it in his pocket. He had snuck into the room and sluthed around to not wake you up. His suitcase was not unpacked and open in all its messy glory. He had reached inside a shoe and pulled it out. Not very smart of him considering you dislike disarray and the suitcase was perfect bait.

“Okay you have to tell me what you think. I kind of designed it, or picked everything out. Its original-”

“Just show me the damn thing already!” Ty urged him to quit talking and get on with it. Chris was so nervous he could talk his ear off and never even show it to him.

[xb-squaredx]

B-Squared’s Top 10 Games of 2019!

2019 was a year full to the brim of GREAT games, and as is the custom at the end of the year, people love to rank their favorites, so…I’d like to do the same! Of course my own tastes might be different from yours so if you don’t see a thing on here that you liked, chances are I didn’t like it…or more likely, there’s just too many great games out this year, and I couldn’t get to everything. I’d like to stress to that the rankings don’t really matter all that much, especially the farther down we go. Everything on here is an easy recommendation. Without any further ado…let’s take a look at my Top 10 Games of 2019~

#10 - River City Girls

I love action games, but 2D beat-em-ups never really clicked for me. They were largely before my time and I was thinking that it’d be impossible to get me into one in the current era of gaming. And then I saw Marian’s redesign for River City Girls and bought the game. What can I say? Abs are a great sales pitch. But seriously, getting Wayforward on the helm of a beloved classic franchise is already a great way to pique my interest, and while there’s SOME aspects of this game that I don’t quite gel with, it’s a fun, colorful romp through a ridiculous universe that I’d LOVE to see more of down the line. Featuring a role-reversal, with the girlfriends saving the boyfriends this time, River City Girls has gorgeous pixel art, an AMAZING pop-synth soundtrack that’s worth the price alone, and it’s a game that clearly had fun with the concept and that fun rubs off on you. From the stylish animated boss intros, to the co-op fun that can be had with a friend, everything in this game is brimming with charm. Basic NPCs have great designs in their own right, being able to recruit enemies as assists is a neat idea, and it all adds up to a fun, bite-sized adventure with a bit of depth under the hood if you’re willing to give it a look. Can the character designers get a raise for this game, please? And let Megan McDuffie just do all the songs from now on. ALL OF THEM.

#9 - Astral Chain

Most people assumed if we were going to get a Switch exclusive game by Platinum this year, it’d be Bayonetta 3 but instead Nintendo surprised us with Astral Chain, the anime cop action game we didn’t know we wanted. The game boasts great visuals and is probably the most content-rich Platinum game ever made for starters, but for me the true draw is in the combat. Playing as your police officer in tandem with an alien creature known as a Legion, this tag-team action game is unlike pretty much anything else on the market. While the game starts off very simplistic, the Legion itself moving and attacking with no input from the player, over time more and more options unlock and things get considerably more complicated. By game’s end, you’re drowning in options, and once things clicked, combat was always a treat. With plenty of enemies to practice with, Legions to master and a gigantic post-game filled with challenging encounters, I had more fun with the combat in this game than I did with a lot of other games this year. That said, I do feel that Astral Chain could have benefitted from trimming some fat or rethinking its overall structure. For being a new IP with some bold ideas, I’m willing to accept these as kinks that can hopefully be ironed out in a sequel. Oh, and add Lappy to Smash already. You know you want to, Sakurai.

#8 - BABA IS YOU

Puzzle games are hard sells for me, since I don’t like the frustration that often comes from being stuck. You feel dumb, you get embarrassed and turn the game off in shame, or at least that’s my experience. But then sometimes you get a game so clever, so…weird, that you can’t help but be sucked into it. BABA IS YOU is a block-pushing puzzle game, with the twist being that the “rules” of a particular stage are often physically present in levels and are in fact blocks that can be pushed and manipulated by the player. ROCK is PUSH, WALL is STOP, FLAG is WIN and BABA is YOU. But what if you can’t touch the flag because the wall is in the way? Well, make it so WALL is PUSH to move it aside, or maybe make it so that BABA is WIN and you become the win condition itself. As the game goes on, more modifiers and rules are slowly introduced and absorbed into your own internal logic of the game, logic that increasingly has to be broken and remade to suit your needs. It’s a very empowering experience when the solution clicks and the results can often be hilarious and surprising. This game also GOES PLACES the further you go in, and I’d rather not ruin that surprise for anyone who might be looking into the game. Definitely one of the most innovated titles I’ve played in a LONG time. BABA is GOOD.

#7 - Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid

OK, so…hear me out. Power Rangers was a franchise I was obsessed with as a kid, and while I don’t follow it anymore, there’s still some love for it flowing in my veins. So when a small, no-name studio puts out a Power Ranger fighting game that takes the simplified controls of Smash Bros. and the tag-team craziness of Marvel vs. Capcom and slaps it all together for a cool twenty bucks or so? Well you got yourself a purchase and it ended up being WAY more fun than I expected. Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid is far from the best looking fighter on the market, it’s single-player content is lacking, and it’s roster, while interesting, isn’t as big as a lot of the competition, but damn if it isn’t fun to play. With characters taken from across the franchise’s long history, from the live-action movie reboot to the comic books, each choice has been inspired and resulted in an incredibly varied cast. With no crazy inputs for special moves, combined with a tagging system that lets you cycle through your three-Ranger team quickly, the game is the best kind of chaotic fun, but true masters can command that chaos and channel it into cool combos that make you want to say “Morphinominal!” Considering it’s a budget title, it’s also received a fair amount of updates throughout the year to pad out the roster with both free and paid DLC fighters, a full story mode and improvements to the netcode and overall presentation., so if you passed on it at launch, it’s much improved now. It’s not gonna be a fighting game on everyone’s radar, but I’d rather support it than the grind-heavy slog Mortal Kombat has become…Now just hurry up and add that monster that baked the Rangers into a pizza!

#6 - New Super Lucky’s Tale

If your name isn’t Mario or Sonic, 3D platformers are effectively dead. That said, there’s been a few up-and-comers in recent years that are trying to revive the genre. Hat Kid from A Hat in Time, the duo of Yooka-Laylee, and now Lucky from the folks at Playful Studios. The cute fox has quite the history, starting from the Oculus Rift title, Lucky’s Tale, to a full-fledged platformer on the Xbox One X, Super Lucky’s Tale and now the enhanced port/reimagining New Super Lucky’s Tale on Switch. Halfway between a full-blown sequel, and enhanced edition, the game takes assets from the Xbox original game, tweaking and refining everything from visuals to controls to level layouts. The result is a game that is incredibly well-polished. It looks great, Lucky is a treat to control as he moves from jumping, burrowing and sliding around fluidly, and the variety on display keeps things interesting. We’ve got full 3D levels, 2D levels, auto-runners, and even some marble maze levels and puzzles thrown in for good measure. It’s not a hard game, but it IS incredibly fun, and well made. We don’t get many 3D platformers these days, so cherish what little comes of the genre. I hope Playful and Nintendo continue to collaborate, as they really seem more at home here. Just…maybe don’t add more words to the title of the next game, guys.

#5 - Katana Zero

There’s no nice way to say it: there’s too many pixel-based, side-scrolling indie games out there, so the ones that DO stand out deserve to be celebrated. Katana Zero has a real ‘80s flair for starters, using bright neon, TV and VCR visual effects, and a synth soundtrack to give it some real style. When a game kicks off with you slowing down time and reflecting a bullet back at an enemy with your katana, you make a good first impression! Add in the trial-and-error that is planning the perfect route through a stage, the satisfying slicing and dicing of enemies, the unique, challenging boss encounters, and you have a game that was on my radar for a while, before I finally got into it at the end of the year. Its storyline is pretty interesting too, with some slight variances in how events unfold depending on your words and actions, though it ending on a bit of a cliffhanger is a bummer. That said, when a game leaves you wanting more, there’s worse problems to have. At the very least, there’s some DLC hinted at that might be interesting, as well as the implications that this is the merely the first in a trilogy, and at this point I’m game for whatever developer Askiisoft has in store.

#4 - Luigi’s Mansion 3

The GameCube was an odd era for Nintendo, as they attempted to innovate and try new ideas rather than rely purely on their old standbys. Case-in-point, rather than launch the console with a new Mario platformer, his second-banana brother Luigi got his first starring role in what would become the Luigi’s Mansion series. While not making QUITE as big of a splash as maybe Nintendo hoped, it’s garnered a decent fanbase, and when a sequel was announced for 3DS, people ate it up. Considering the gap between the first and second games, I think many people were surprised at the relatively quick turn-around for the third installment. I was also surprised at the overall quality and how much I enjoyed digging into it. For starters, Luigi’s Mansion 3 is easily one of the better-looking Switch titles, boasting some great lighting and particle effects, with some fun physics implemented for just about everything in the massive mansion. Luigi and company are animated with a lot of expressiveness that never gets old, and the music sets the tone perfectly too. From a gameplay standpoint, the toolset Luigi gains gives him ample options to poke at every nook and cranny, with the slimy doppelganger Gooigi being the clear stand-out. Some of the floors of the Last Resort hotel that Luigi must ascend are particularly massive and intricate too, some floors feeling like Legend of Zelda-style dungeons. While not a particularly challenging game, it’s still really satisfying to poke and prod at everything in sight, sucking in all the coins, gold bars and stacks of paper bills you can handle, not to mention slamming the ghosts around like the Hulk does to Loki. There’s also multiplayer! That I…haven’t really touched but…hey! More bang for your buck, surely!

#3 – Dragon Quest XI S

I don’t consider myself a huge fan of JRPGs. Or at least that’s what I thought before I tried out the Dragon Quest XI demo on Switch. I ended up falling for the game hard and bought the full release, carrying my demo data over and not stopping until I hit credits. Despite having never touched a Dragon Quest game before, outside of an hour or so of VIII, I was overcome with this feeling of nostalgia when it came to this game. That’s because Dragon Quest is THE quintessential JRPG game, the originator of all that we take for granted today. It was nice to feel right at home with a simple, effective combat system, rather than having to watch games re-invent the wheel in an attempt to stand out from the pack (sorry Xenoblade), and the story itself, while predictable and a little basic at times, was told well and told earnestly. It really nailed the feeling of going on a grand adventure, with enough twists on the formula to keep things interesting. The turn-based combat was elementary, but always presented me with fair challenges and lots of ways to solve the encounters laid before me, with enough quality-of-life features added in to minimize grind and make things more convenient. The Switch version of Dragon Quest XI featured a bunch of new content on top of a game that had more than enough going for it, and it’s clear a lot of work was done to make this port as faithful as could be, and it stands out not just as a great port on a system known for some shoddy ones, but as a title that’s brimming with as much polish and quality to rival first-party Switch titles. Don’t ban Hero in Smash and don’t miss out on this game if you haven’t taken the plunge already!

#2 – Devil May Cry 5

The Devil May Cry franchise has had its share of ups and downs over the years. For every game that’s considered a success, you have another game that doesn’t quite measure up. For years many thought the franchise was dead in the water after the attempted reboot, DMC: Devil May Cry failed to grow its audience, but when Microsoft’s E3 2018 show revealed to us a new installment, fans were ecstatic. Devil May Cry 5 boasts crisp visuals, deep combat and trims the fat, removing the wonky platforming and puzzles of earlier games to create a high-octane action experience that ultimately exceeded fan expectations. Its storyline firmly plants Devil May Cry 4’s Nero as a main character in his own right, wraps up the story of the Sparda brothers neatly, and if this ended up being the last title in the series, I think it’s that rare ending that ends up being totally satisfying. Combat is the real draw here though, the game giving players three distinct characters to learn and master. Nero’s robotic Devil Breaker arms allow him a decent amount of variety, while having a balanced, beginner-friendly combat style for new players. Dante remains the king of variety, having more weapons than ever before combined with his signature style switching, though the game is actually designed with all these options in mind so he doesn’t end up breaking the game like he did in 4. Newcomer V ends up being a breath of fresh air, controlling up to three demonic summons at once, forcing players to really think more strategically. The music is incredible too; Nero’s own theme, Devil Trigger, has been stuck in my head since last year and I don’t see it leaving any time soon. All things considered, Devil May Cry 5 might be the best game in the franchise, and a worthy contender for game of the year personally. Now if only we had a special edition with Vergil and the ladies playable…

#1 - Fire Emblem: Three Houses

I got into the Fire Emblem series with Awakening and really liked it a lot, however Fates, the next installment, left a bad taste in my mouth. I couldn’t really get into Echoes, itself a remake of the second game in the series, and I began to wonder if this franchise was really for me. I was willing to give Three Houses a shot, but I was not prepared for the game to blow past all my expectations. Fire Emblem: Three Houses isn’t just a good game, it’s a game that’s redeemed a franchise that’s stumbled a bit in recent years, and it likely cements Fire Emblem as a core Nintendo franchise for years to come. It has class, depth and real heart...with only minor creepy or pervy elements! Making a grand return to home consoles after more than a decade on handhelds, it goes big and it ultimately paid off, on track to become the best-selling entry in the series. The school setting might seem weird at first, and I wondered how well I’d adjust to it, but being able to instruct your units and influence their growth in battle was worth the learning curve. Things are introduced slowly enough that the flow of the game becomes relatively easy to manage, if a bit time-consuming overall. With four distinct storylines you can explore, TONS of character interactions and some interesting tweaks to the strategic gameplay the series is known for, I’m confident in saying that Three Houses is well-worth a purchase for newcomers to the franchise. Divine Pulse is a great quality-of-life addition that lets you undo mistakes, rather than force you to start over from scratch, and overall the UI and layout of the game gives you enough information to make informed decisions without overwhelming you. Makes me wonder how we survived before the games showed us who enemies would target on their turns before now. Admittedly, some aspects of the progression have some issues, especially at endgame, and visually the game really is not up to par most of the time, but these end up being tiny blemishes in the long run for me. They certainly weren’t bad enough to prevent me from starting a new path the instant I finished my first route. If I have one request…just make Claude a gay option. Give the people what they want, Nintendo!

Honorable Mentions

I’d like to add on some honorable mentions here before we close things out, though most of these are things I didn’t even get a chance to play, but they certainly might have made this list. For one, Resident Evil 2 Remake seems like a high-quality reinterpretation of the survival-horror classic, but I can’t do horror so I’ll likely pass it up. It’s also for that reason that I might not get to Control but I might try jumping out of my comfort zone for that one. The confusion surrounding both The Other Worlds AND The Outer Wilds is funny, but they’re both space-based games I’d be keen on getting to at some point down the line; the former is a great Western RPG by the folks who made the GOOD Fallout games, while the latter is an interesting space-faring puzzler with some interesting mechanics I’d rather not spoil for those not more in-the-know. Indie titles Sayonara Wild Hearts and GRIS definitely caught my attention with their great visuals, and in the case of the former, its soundtrack, even if the gameplay wasn’t quite there for me, and the weird fighting-game-but-kinda-RPG that is Indivisible demands my attention sooner or later. Bloodstained is the Castlevania follow-up I keep forgetting is out, and I hear great things about Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair. The team behind the Yakuza series recently made a spin-off of sorts, Judgment that hit the West this year and while I like the Yakuza series for its quirky tone and fun combat, there’s still six other games I’d have to sift through, so going with Judgment, which is set to possibly begin a new franchise, seems like a good alternative. And how could I forget the likes of Shovel Knight as we finally receive the last expansion that’s been years in the making? I haven’t touched the King of Cards expansion yet, but I have the upmost faith in anything Yacht Club makes, so that’s surely a game of the year contender. 2019 was crazy good! Glad to close the year out with so much quality, and tons of great stuff to add to the ever-growing backlog.

Hope you had some good gaming memories made this year!

-B

[alteredphoenix]

Untitled WoW/Jak and Daxter one-shot (WIP)(Belf!Jak/Nelf!Keira)

A/N: (Warning: very brief spoilers for the end of the Nya’lotha raid and 8.3 in the preview below, please be advised.)

I’ve never played Jak and Daxter. Growing up, at the height of the console wars, the only games I acquainted myself with were strictly from Nintendo and the PSX (my father was of the mindset that if you had to choose between the Gamecube, the PS2, and the Xbox, you were going stick with the one you got, no ifs, ands, or buts), so I never had the opportunity to try popular games such as Grand Theft Auto until I hit my early twenties.

But I love sci-fi mixed with my fantasy, and I love my elves that aren’t small and cute and are confined to shelves during the Christmas holiday season (and I refuse to believe the J&D cast are humans - not with ears like that) but are tall, lean, and ass-whooping killing machines. I also love WoW (if that isn’t plainly obvious), and J&D had been on my mind at work the past couple days, wondering if we will ever another game that clearly addresses what became of Gol and Maia Acheron 300 years later or a series reboot from Naughty Dog if they ever decide to get off their high horse regarding their stance on the inability to tell mature stories in an over-the-top cartoonish world.

So this is the first thing that came to mind, and I set about plunking away at this before my shift yesterday. There are other ideas I have in mind, but none as thorough as this: a one-shot in which the cast of J&D are reincarnated in Azeroth long after the events of The Lost Frontier. Here Jak is a blood elf and Keira a night elf with loose ties to the Horde and the Alliance, both of whom remember their past lives and meet again upon a chance encounter in Gadgetzan.

Obviously I don’t ship much if at all, but Jak/Keira is canon in-universe (although, from what I’ve seen of the occasional Jak II playthroughs I’ve watched on YouTube, I found Jak to have better chemistry with Ashelin over Keira) and, for this fic at least, I wasn’t about to reconsider given the context.

-

It feels like a thousand-thousand lifetimes before they realize where they are. What they are, after so much time spent together.

He’s the first to remember. For the man that had previously been Jak of House Mar, it happens long after the Scourge swept through Quel’Thalas, long after Lor’themar is made Regent-Lord and interregnum that is the Council of the Sun is hastily formed, right when the battles that’ll come to comprise the Blood War (“The Fourth War,” High Examiner Tae’thelan Bloodwatcher will remind him and everyone in a twenty yard radius with an indignant sniff) ends with N’Zoth’s demise in the realm of Nya’lotha.

He doesn’t call himself by the name his parents gave him at birth anymore. Even with the return of his memories, he still can’t recall if he ever learned he was truly the Mar of legend or a descendant meant to honor his namesake (for all the fat lot of good it did for him; the thought of Veger and Haven City burns bitter at the back of his throat). Perhaps it’s sheer coincidence, or a stroke of cosmic irony, to be called Marellius and his last name be Clearwater, bringing up memories of the tides that always broke over Sandover Village’s coasts, the ruins of the Precursor facility looming ominously on the horizon.

Marellius—Jak—takes a moment to appraise his coworkers as the morning crew punches out for the day and the second to third shifts are filing into the building, lunches and toolboxes in hand. There’s been a lot more talk than usual: word on the street has been making the rounds that Gallywix has been up to no good at Crapopolis and went on the run, presumably traipsing the world for wherever Sylvanas is currently holing up at. Gazlowe is gone, too, but for another reason: the leadership gathered at Orgrimmar have decided to make him Trade Prince, and they should like to have him present in Stormwind for when they will convene with King Anduin Wrynn and the Alliance to sign the peace treaty signaling the end of the war and the reparations the Horde must pay for the next several years. Steamwheedle and Marin Noggenfogger have the run of operations while he’s away, keeping security tight and inspecting everyone for signs of SI:7 saboteurs seeking to undermine them. Tae’thelan balks at them but doesn’t comment on it, focusing on overseeing that all their supplies are loaded onto the ship and the paperwork transactions have been double-checked for discrepancies and authenticity before handing them over to the quartermaster.

He blinks. They are not Reliquary archaeologists and researchers, but Underground scouts and operatives preparing to slink back into the shadows of Haven’s streets and raise some hell while he and Daxter (sometimes with Sig tagging behind them) take advantage of the chaos and hit up the next point of interest that has Krew’s eyes tinkling or Torn’s barely restrained bloodlust needs to be slaked. Those aren’t crates full of telescopes, shovels, picks, and other utility; they are filled with rifles, pistols, energy cells, vibro blades, scrap metal jacked from Metal Heads and Krimzon Guard junkyards on the edge of South Town. Those are not Tae’thalan Bloodwatcher and Cyrme Brightblade standing out on the docks but Torn and Ashelin, discussing not how to get lost in Gadgetzan’s streets but hitting the bongs, reminiscing about the old days before the world went to shit, and what they would do once Praxis was overthrown and they could rebuild Haven City into an image that would do its name justice.

Why me? Why am I here?

Could it be...I’m the only one that was reborn?

“Hey,” a voice calls. Then, more loudly, “Hey.”

Jak jolts with a start. “What?”

Fingers snap, causing him to look down. Reena Cogscrap stands before him, peering up at him intensely. “I said, are you ready to go? Last call just sounded. Better get on board, ‘less you wanna get left behind and your ass chewed by Belloc.”

“Oh. Alright. Thanks for letting me know.” He bends down to grab the toolbox he had set at his feet and adjusts a strap of his backpack, filled with his coin purse and books to take notes and sketches, that’s slipped over one shoulder.

When he gets back up, Reena is still there. “Come on,” he says, gesturing at the boat.

“That’s not like you, Mar.”

“What isn’t?”

“Staring off into space like that. You don’t do that sorta thing. You’re always moving around.” She shrugs, hands raised with palms up. “Get what I’m saying?”

“Yeah.”

“You worried we won’t make our quota?”

‘Quota’ being ‘how many newly unearthed artifacts can they pawn off to the highest bidder at the auction block before Remy Starminder and his merry band of sticks in the mud kick up another fuss about the philosophical differences of historical value and financial value’. The Big Three Families—the Grimy Goons, the Jade Lotus, and the Kabal—are going to be there, and Jak will be damned if they won’t try to rig the bids against the Cartel to funnel their own operations against each other. That means little to the High Examiner so long as they procure the artifacts that can be salvaged and shipped off to Silvermoon for restoration and – if Rommath can keep Lor’themar and the others distracted long enough – off-plane experiments, in the worst case scenario that the Alliance will break the armistice and plunge Azeroth into a crusade of kaldorei vengeance and human retribution. It also means little to Jak himself; the closest he’s gotten to participating in the war is doing smuggling runs for the Bilgewater Cartel in Ratchet under cover of night, and rarely did he ever have to club an Alliance marine cold before word got out. The paychecks were decent, a helluva lot better than what Krew could bother to give away from the comfort of his greasy paws, and that put food on the table at the meager little cottage on the coast of the Great Sea west of Fairbreeze Village. He needn’t involve himself anymore than that.

Jak shakes his head. “No. It’s not that.”

“Then what?”

He starts walking, molding himself among the crowd of Steamwheedle excavators and Reliquary knights heading for the ramp. “I was just thinking about the past.”

[unfortunate-rp]

Congratulations, CLAIRE! You have been accepted as your original character, KITTY OSWALD. Please be sure to complete the steps listed on the NEW MEMBER CHECKLIST and send in your account within the next 24 hours.

Well, young lady, have you been good to your mother?

OOC INFORMATION

Name: Claire

Age: REDACTED

Pronouns: she/her

Time zone: cst

Activity Level: 8 (I will endeavor to be on at least once every day.)

Tumblr account (for contact purposes): REDACTED

How did you find us?: search through the tumblr rp tags

Triggers: none

Anything Else?:

IC Information:

Name: Kitty Oswald

FC: Chloe Bennet or Phoebe Tonkin

Date of Birth: September 5th

Age: 24

Character Quote: “She was like the moon – Part of her was always hidden away.”

Pronouns: she/her

Sexual Orientation: Bisexual Biromantic

Occupation: waitress at Hungry’s Diner, mechanic, car thief

Affiliation: Civilian

Neighborhood: Downtown, apartments above Black Cat coffee

Personality: (charismatic, resourceful, pragmatic) (Stubborn, tempermental, vindictive)

Biography:

Kitty Oswald was born in the Hinterlands. A place which here is synonmous with prison, or with hell. There were three things she loved about her home. Her mother, her uncle, and a blue toolbox with chipped paint. The first of these boarded a train two week after her tenth birth. The second taught her work a car. The third she took with her when she left home at eighteen. The identity of her father was a mystery her mother never revealed and rarely spoke of. After her passing (as they would come to call it) she became the responsbility of her Uncle Otto.

She grew up with greasy hand, overalls, and a pragmatic head. Work came first, then homework, then dinner, and occasionally (on third sundays and fourth thursdays) there was ice cream. She tutored well under Otto’s instructions, leaning how to fix a car up like new and how to mess up the job just enough that the customer returned one month later. In that junkyard with her uncle, she blossomed. Blossomed is a word that here means grew into a headstrong, occasionally visious, and confident young woman. One that had outgrown the hinterlands. So on her eighteenth birthday she got carrot cake (courtesy of a neighbor), stamps, and a bus ticket to the city.

Ambition was for others. Kitty spent her years waitressing, occasionally searching for her parents, and avoiding drama. She took up rent in a one bedroom apartment, adopted herself a (vicious) cat, and spent her days in Hungry’s Diner. Her nights were spent in a much less noble profession of procuring stolen vehicles for her uncle to sell or breakdown into parts. And, in bed some nights, she could not shake the sensation that she was missing something, something obvious, and it was just out of reach.

Connections:

Daughter of Jefferson Oquassa

This is a fact that is unknown to both father and daughter. They had not even met until Kitty was nineteen and came in Kakao. As a chocolate fiend, she is always splurging at the restaurant and has made passing acquaintance with the owner. If anything his staff finds her a bit annyoing as she loves the food, but does not make enough to tip them well.

Acquaintaince of Farrah Abassi

A regular customer at Hungry’s Diner, Kitty enjoys bantering with the woman and can sense that she’s not your typical late night guest. She makes sure to keep the woman’s coffee topped off and finds time to sneak across the booth and snatch a few minutes of easy conversation with someone who wasn’t born with a silver spoon in their mouth.

Friend of Cassidy Cantrell

Originally a professional arrangement to garner insights into the families in the city and possibly her own heritage, Kitty has grown actually fond of Cassidy. They share a similar thirst and stubborness that endeared her to the woman. When she needs someone to bounce ideas off of, Cassidy is her go to gal.

Headcannons:

She is allergic to bees and once got rushed to the hospital after being stung. Doctors say if she is stung again she could die in less than a minute.

She doesn’t know how to swim. Growing up in the Hinterlands there was little options for swimming lessons. This is a fact she hides and is ashamed to admit.

She can do long division in her head and like her mother has a head for numbers. Multiplication, calculus, whatever it might be she can do without paper or pen. From the age of ten, she managed the books for Otto’s Auto Sales.

Plans: I’d love for Kitty to be recruited into the VFD and have her flirt with the ideals of the firestarters, even join their ranks. She is the daughter of two VFD volunteers, raised literally at their doorstep and I think it will take time for her to find her footing in that world. Eventually I’d like her to be swayed into the status of a volunteeer and to become Jefferson’s protege.

Roleplay: Kitty, despite her pragmatism, is a bit of a loose cannon. She’s smart talking, confident, and yet more vulnerable than most. She has built herself up on quicksand and when the time comes she will find out about her family and her history. I hope to bring someone that evolves over time, that grows and strengthens from being able to access her truths and flex her muscles.

Writing Sample

OO,

            Midnight. Orion’s Observatory. Bring chocolate.

                                                          Secretly,

                                                                 JO

She’d found the note pressed between two random pages in Uncle Otto’s books. It was yellowed, worn at the edge, and still bore the marks of being folded twice. At twelve, only two years removed from her mother’s passing, she’d held the message reverently. She’d traced the long dried ink, and felt along the creases. The date on the bottom, written in the man’s spidery scrawl was exactly 365 days before she’d been born. As Oona Oswald had been fond of pointing out, there are no coincedences only people to blind to see the connections.

She’d slipped the note into the back pocket of her overalls and then into a drawer in her bedside table. Uncle Otto would be none the wiser. The books, the numbers, the mathematics of a business were beyond him. He lived for greasy hands, sticky fingers, and warm bathes in the evening. He was always saying his big sister Oona had passed, always collecting sympaty, and never explaining more. In this context, passed meant less death and more packed suitcase, train ticket, and no goodbyes. She’d stuck around long enough to fill Kitty’s head up with something other than gasoline and then made for the hills.

Never one for attachments that Oona Oswald. And yet she’d kept that message.

She rolls back into the Hinterlands that weekend with minestrone soup, oysters, truffles, and vehicle relieved of her plates. (and her previous owner) The shop looks empty, with crows perched on the rusted sign, and dirt encrusted on the front door. But she sees a pair of legs in jeans and mismatched boots poking out from under a car. As she idles to a stop in front of the garage, her Uncle slides out squints in the yellow evening sunlight. She slips out from behind the wheel, gifts in hand, and nods a greeting.

“Uncle.”

“Not much Hinter left in you is there?” He spits and stands. Six years since she left to go live in the city. They haven’t been kind years on him. He’s greyer, fatter, wrinklier. “You look like a posh city girl.”

She snorts. She doubts any of the uptown girls she sees could pop open a cars dashboard and jumpstart it in less than four minutes. “And you look like a rotting piece of fruit,” she bites back.

There’s a pause. She stares and him, he stares back and then …in a flash he tips his head back and laughs. The Oswald laugh. Head tipped skyward, neck bent back, hands on hips, one leg tilted forward. A family trait shared by them all, and offered only sparingly. “Kitty, Kitty, Kitty.”

She steps forward, wraps and arm about his shoulders and squeezes. “I’ve brought you gifts you old bastard.”

“You got it all?” She nods. “Soup?” She nods. “Oysters?” She nods. “Chocolate.” Eye roll and a nod. When have I ever forgotten something. “And what about the wheels.”

She tilts her head back. “The owner won’t miss her. She’s got four others just like it.”

“What about her heart?”

She smiles. He means her engine. She took a look last night after stashing the car in an empty parking lot three blocks from her apartment. One hand on the warmth of the battery and she could tell just how young the model was. “Young,” she says. “Strong. Expensive.”

Maybe she should feel bad about stealing cars for her Uncle’s shop, but she doesn’t. Next month when she rolls in for her monthly visits he might have gutted the beauty and tossed her parts into many different cars scattered about the junkyard. He sees dollar signs in every part and she can rattle them off in her head with just as much ease. And yet, she’d much rather take her apart, get at her mechanics and then stich her back together. Uncle Otto would say that’s the city’s influence, making her soft. Or her father’s blood.

“Christmas in July.”

She nods, looking to her boots and the dirt below them. “I spoil you rotten.”

He guides her gaze back to him with a hand beneath the chin. “You ain’t still looking for him are you?”

“No.” But that’s a half-truth. The thing with having a mystery in the place of a parent is that you are always looking for them. Even when you’ve given up, even when you’ve put the puzzle pieces down they are still there. Here’s what she knows:

His initials are JO

He lives/lived in the city

He once snuck into Orion’s Observatory with her mother at midnight.

That’s not much to go on. When she first moved out and into the city she looked up every James O'Brien, Jeffrey Ocasto, and Joseph Owens in the phone books. Now the urge comes to her like a rising tide. She’ll look at some gentleman in uptown with a suit and top hat and think, is that him? It’s not. It never is. It never will be. But still …

“Or for her?”

She huffs under her breath. “She can be eaten by the Lachyrmose Leeches for all I care.”

[gobydana]

Liar part 2

A/N: There is a three year time skip between Liar and this part. The reader is still living in London at the beginning. Warning this is long. I almost split it in two. The problem was were I was going to split it would just leave more angst. Sorry the end got a bit rushed. 

Part 1

Y/N came home late to their flat. Groaning their kicked off their work shoes and headed to the kitchen with their takeout. Rounding the corner they about jumped when they saw Jon sitting on the table.

“I see you still work stupid late hours.” Jon replied while munching on a muffin he must have found in the flat. 

“Says a superhero.” Y/N replied while sitting down. “No warnings anymore when you come?”

Ever since Y/N left, Jon tried to visit once or twice a year. He had to be sneaky so that Damian would not find out. He swore he never told anyone where they were. Well minus Lois. He gave updates on all the teammates minus Damian, so it hurt them too much. 

“Emergency reasoning.” 

Y/N quickly shot up with worried plaster all over their face. 

“Is Damian okay? He didn’t die did he? Why didn’t you call me!” 

“Physically he is okay. His wife umm well she cheated on him often with a new person. They are going to get a divorce. He is going to need all the support he can get.”

Y/N just sat there unable to process it. All they could think about was how happy Damian was whenever he was with him. 

“When is the next flight to Gotham?” Y/N said as they abandoned their food. They were already texting their boss saying a family matter arose and would be gone for a bit. By the time Jon caught up to them, a bag was already out and clothes getting thrown in it. 

“Here I had a whole speech ready to convince you to come back to Gotham. Wast of time. I can get us there quicker then a flight.” 

With that the two of them packed quick. No matter that it had been three years without so much as a peep from Damian, in the end he was their best friend. He was going to need both Jon and them there for him. 

Y/N had a small duffel packed and ready to go. Jon flew as quick as he could. The deal was to leave Y/N in Gotham. From there they would talk to Bruce. Damian was taking missions to keep him distracted, but was due back tomorrow. Bruce might be able to get him to stay put for a bit. The big question would be if Damian even wanted to see Y/N after all this time. 

They got to Gotham by early morning. Y/N asked Jon to let them down near their old place. They wanted to walk around their home for a bit before facing an angry bird. 

Not much had changed in the time they were gone. Gotham was still Gotham. While most people hated the city, to them it brought some peace. They ventured to the docks to kill some time. There old memories came floating back. 

The first patrol they did together was at these docks. Robin insisted upon doing it by himself. Y/S/N just sat on the roof nearby until he got himself in a sticky situation. Then they came to save his ass. Of course him being him, no thank you. Over the years they had learned never to except it from him. 

Slowly though they came to a pattern. Y/N always brought the snacks for stake outs. Robin use to say that they had so many snack that there was no way anything useful was in their utility belt. Yet he would always swipe something. Time spent on the roof as he moaned and complained about the latest addition to the team. Both of you would take turns ranting about the family treating you like babies. Dick was always super protective. 

It was on the roof of the warehouses that they would meet up after both sneaking out. They would play tag when killing time. More often then not they would race to see who would get there first. Making things a competition was a favorite past time of theirs. 

Y/N was drawn out of their daydream by the smell of smoke and screaming. It didn’t matter they hadn’t put on a uniform in over three years. Their senses kicked into auto pilot. They ran towards the sounds. 

What appeared to be an abandoned warehouse was up in flames. The fire was growing quick. A child about 12 was coming out of the smoke. 

“Who is all in there” Y/N called as they ran towards them. 

“Some kids are still in there. A lot of us were sleeping there tonight when a trash fire got knocked over.” The kid said between coughing. No doubt the smoke would kill all the kids before the fire reached them. 

“Here is my phone. Call 911 and get as far away as possible, but still close for the medics. Find any other kids around this area. I will get the ones out of the building.” Y/N said as they rushed towards the fire. Whatever response the kid said was drown out as they got closer. 

There was still an opening. Y/N directed the kids they saw get out towards the older kid with their phone. Once in the building the smoke was thick. This time they had no mask to help them. Only covering their face with their shirt. 

They saw a few young kids behind some barrels, no doubt too young and scared to know what to do. Quickly they grab the kids and ran as quick as possible outside. Once outside the kids raced to where other kids were out. Y/N kept this up. 

After the third trip out with kids, they saw Damian. Only instead of the Robin outfit, he was wearing Nightwing. Their eyes met for a quick second before Y/N ran back inside to get more kids. Damian ran after them. 

He meet up with Y/N as they came down some stairs, with a 3 and 5 year old clingy to them. 

“What are you doing!” Damian yelled

“Take these kids outside. There is one left and I know where he is.” Y/N yelled back while coughing. 

“You are going to get yourself killed! You have no protection.” Damian yelled back as he took the kids. 

“Trust me!” Y/N replied before running back. 

Damian ran out quick to Batman. He handed the two kids to the medics. All of the sudden a loud crash could be heard as part of the building collapse. He went to run towards it. Batman held him back. 

“Father let me go. Y/N is in there.” Damian said as he struggled against the bat to get loose. His eyes filled with horror as he saw the entrance was gone. 

“You can’t go in there. Until the fire department can control the blaze you will get killed.” Batman replied. 

“No. I lost Y/N once, it is not happening again. I don’t care.” Damian replied as he finally got out of the bats hold. He ran as fast as he could towards the building. Batman ran after him despite the yelling from firemen on not to go in the building. 

He got through some burning parts to the inside. Once there he saw Y/N struggling to keep going with a kid in their arms. The kid was facing them so not to inhale as much smoke. Y/N on the other hand could barley walk as the coughing got too bad. Parts of their arm had burns where they most have caught on fire only to be put out quickly. Ash covered their face and body. 

Y/n saw Damian and Batman who had caught up to them. They handed the kid to the bat as they finally passed out due to the smoke they inhaled. They struggled to keep their eyes open. 

“Y/N, Y/N” they heard Damian yelling. 

Next thing they knew they felt like they were floating. 

“You are not coming back after three years only to die on me now. Please stay awake please. I promise I won’t be mad you left. I will even take you out for all the ice cream you want. I will get Alfred to make your favorite cookies and not let anyone else eat them.” Damian promised as he ran with Y/N in his arms. He would promise them the world if that meant they wouldn’t die. 

Y/N could feel being put on a something hard and other voices. After that everything went black. 

Y/N could hear voices but couldn’t open their eyes. 

“Why were they back Jon. Tell me. I know you know why they left.” Y/N faintly heard. It sounded like Damian’s voice. The next one sounded like Jon. 

“They are going to kill me if I do.”

“Kent” 

“Nope”

“I will tell your mother you kept a secret from her.”

“I told her, I ain’t stupid.”

“Kent”

“No way”

“You always tell me not to lie to you.”

“Fine only because they will never tell you. They fell in love with you a long time ago. They saw how happy you were with your ex and didn’t want to ruin it, but seeing you get married was too hard. They have been living in London for the past three years working non-stop in hopes of forgetting the pain.” 

Y/N wanted to open their eyes and respond to Jon. Let him know that they knew where Bruce’s kryponite was and were not afraid to use it. They couldn’t though as the blackness consumed them once again. 

When they woke up again, all they could hear was snoring. It sounded like two people. Once again they struggled to open their eyes. Only this time they finally got them open. 

The first thing they noticed was the amount of pain they were in. One arm was bandaged completely. Most likely the one that got burnt. The good arm had Damian’s head on it. When they looked around they saw Jon there too hanging out of a plastic chair. 

They nudged their arm a little to get Damian’s attention. He jumped which made enough noise to wake Jon up. Both at once started talking. 

“Are you okay”

“How could you be so stupid to run into a burning building without backup”

Y/N pointed to the mask they were wearing to show that they couldn’t respond. Damian hit the nurse button so the mask could come off. 

The nurse came in and checked them over. He took the mask off and then turned around as he told Y/N to take it easy. No doubt that was also directed to the two boys. Judging by their looks, they had been in the hospital for awhile now. 

“How long have I been out?” Y/N asked. Their voice quiet. They found talking hurt. Jon handed them a glass. 

“Two weeks. You might not want to talk a lot. Focus on recovering.” Jon said. 

Damian just stared at Y/N. 

“Just yell at me, or something already” Y/N said while looking at Damian. The suspension was horrible. 

“Kent was right focus on healing. We have a lot to talk about, but rather you be better.”

“I know you are mad.” Y/N replied. 

“You should have told me.” was Damian’s response. 

Y/N went to argue only to be cut off by Damian. Jon just sat back in the chair ready to intervene when needed. 

“You are my best friend. Weren’t you the one who always told me to work on talking about my feelings to others? Instead you went and hide yours from me. Then to run off for three years without a word? Do you know how much that hurt? I come back to find out you are gone and no one knows where you went. Only father and Kent knows and the two are too stubborn. Both just tell me you needed to work things out. Next time I see you, you are being stupid and running into burning buildings. The same person who always told me to have backup is doing something that is going to get themselves killed. How do you think I felt when I finally saw you again only to about lose you? You flat line on the way over. The doctors said chances weren’t good due to the amount of smoke you took in. Todd smokes and still probably had less smoke in his lungs then you.” 

“Are the kids okay” was Y/N only response. 

Jon face palmed. “Yes” 

“That’s all you have to say after everything.” Damian about yelled. Surprisingly no nurse had come to check out the yelling yet. 

“I didn’t want to make anything worse for you. I am sorry.” Y/N finally responded after a few minutes of awkward silence. 

“Well I wish you did. Maybe I wouldn’t have married a woman who cheats and only wanted me for my money. Then I wouldn’t have almost lost my best friend who I was stupid enough to not know I loved the whole time. “

At those words Y/N froze. 

“Finally” Jon yelled. He about fell out of his seat with excitement. 

Both Damian and Y/N gave him an evil glare. If looks could kill, he would be in trouble. 

“I am going to umm go let Bruce know you are up” Jon said as he went out the door. 

As Jon left, Y/N yawned and struggled to stay awake. 

“Go to sleep. You need to rest.” Damian said. With that Y/N was fast asleep. 

When they awake again, the whole bat clan was in the hospital room. They wonder if there was a rule on how many people could be in one room. No doubt they broke it already. 

It was jumble of people talking all at once. Bruce and Damian told everyone to be take it slow. The rest of the day was spent catching up on all that happened in the three years. Everyone was happy to see them back. Many said they weren’t letting Y/N sneak back to London. 

After everyone left, Bruce and Damian stayed behind. The three of them talked on what to do next. They decided it was best for Y/N to stay at the manor until they healed completely. Damian even offered to stay behind from patrol with them. 

Jon later told Y/N that when they were still unconscious in the hospital, Bruce and Damian got into a an argument.  Dick had to keep them separated. Damian was mad that Bruce knew and never told him. He couldn’t get over being left in the dark. He even almost punched Jon at first. It was only once they were awake that Damian finally started talking to his father again. 

The next few weeks was filled with lots of visitors and recovery. While in the hospital, it seemed all their old teammates came to visit. Everyone was happy to see the two together. 

Staying at the manor allowed more time to heal. There were enough people to help out when Y/N needed it. Damian watched them like a hawk. Everyone of the doctors orders had to be followed. It was funny seeing as he never followed orders to take it easy. 

During that time, Damian also had his divorce court dates. Jon and Y/N were there the whole time. The ex tried to take a lot from him, but they forgot Bruce had her sign a prenup when they got married. The League also kicked her out. 

Bruce offered Y/N a job as a lawyer at Wayne Enterprise. They took it since they missed being back home in Gotham. Damian and them decided to move into the penthouse together. Jon became a frequent visitor. Between him and the batfamily, it was hard to get alone time. Y/N didn’t mind though, after three years it was great to not be alone anymore. 

Y/N never did pick up the cape again. The burn on their arm made it harder. The burn remained their whole life and often would hurt after a day of work. They did help out often though. The family called them the in-house detective. Often helping solve cases without needing to go out on the street. 

Both took things slow. They mainly enjoyed being around each other again. They had three years to make up. Sometimes Damian would take time off from both Wayne Enterprise and Nightwing to be with them. After almost losing them twice, he never wanted to waste time. 

Tagging:  @kyrra-chan

[hermine30m2092]

Don’t Rent Your House - Lease Option The Following!

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Most new cars come along with a three year warranty; a lease within that time will ensure no overhead car maintenance fees. Also, a car's age becomes more apparent within the perimeter of third year due to general wear and tear of the vehicle, to be able to mention new styles and technologies.

[thing-you-do-with-that-thing]

Everything

Characters: Y/N Winchester, Dean Winchester, Castiel Novak, Sam Winchester, Benny Lafitte, Bela (Talbot) Lafitte, Bobby Singer, Jody Mills, Jim Murphy.    

Pairing: AU Mechanic!Dean x Wife!Reader

Warnings: suspense, language, implied smut, mention of sex, and another one but I putting that in the tags cause I don’t wanna give anything away.    

Word Count: 3400ish

A/N: So I have been listening to a lot of James Blunt lately and this song hasn’t been able to leave me alone. When I started thinking about @deansdirtylittlesecretsblog aka mommy Mimi’s romcom fluff challenge it came roaring back. My prompt for Mimi’s challenge was You’re going to be bad for business. I can tell from the movie Moulin Rouge. Because I felt I might have been one of the people that Mimi glared at in her challenge post I chose to challenge the premise of the challenge a bit. It is fluff! I swear! Mimi don’t hurt me :P And also sorry for being a little late.

Thanks to my sweet amazing lil sis Rach aka @mysupernaturalfics for betaing this one.

***My fics are not to be saved nor posted on any other sites without my express written permission.***

Dean didn’t hear the customer yelling after him as he rushed through the front of his auto repair shop. He didn’t register his uncle Bobby hollowing from the scrap yard for him to drive safe and that he would be no good to you dead. All Dean could think about was the call he had gotten 2 minutes earlier. A call that he had been expecting but it had still knocked his wind right out of him. He was pale as a ghost as he got in behind the wheel of his 1967 chevy impala. Nothing in that moment mattered to him was getting to you.

Dean’s entire body was on autopilot as he got behind the wheel of his car, pulling into the street and heading towards the hospital. Memories of you were all that occupied his mind. Memories of how his nights had been calmer and sleep filled after you came into his life. Your presence made everything better and sleep wasn’t a task that needed to be conquered anymore. It came as natural as holding you tightly against his body. Memories of how you would be humming in the kitchen every morning before work making him breakfast because you didn’t have to be at the coffee shop until an hour after he had to be at work. He loved wrapping his arms around you from behind and feel you lean back into him. He loved the way you’d always tilt you head, silently asking him for a kiss, which he would happily grant you.

As Dean drove through the streets he knew so well, with his foot heavy on the gas, he couldn’t help but think about all the days he had wasted away from her. You had been his high school sweetheart. You had been his world back then. All through college you had been his rock and true constant. But when Sam had wanted to go to a college across the country Dean had followed his brother. Their parents had died when they were kids and the two of them were inseparable. You had cried the night that Dean left, but you had told him that you understood and you had, even if it had felt as if half your heart was being ripped from your chest and left with him. You had tried to make things work, but Dean had been an idiot not fighting hard enough for the best thing that he ever had. He had been an even bigger idiot for not realizing what he had been losing until it was gone. For the longest of time he saw you every street corner, in every smile of beautiful women that just never measured up to you. You had been the one and Dean had let you slip away. Fate had smiled on him years later when his best friend had set him up on a blind date a couple of years after returning to Kansas. Y/N was long gone or at least so Dean had thought.

“Come on Benny this is stupid,” Dean grumbled at his friend all but pushed him out the door. “I don’t need a damn blind date. I do fine on my own.”

“Really and how long has it been since one date got you a second or a third,” Benny raised an eyebrow at his friend, who just shrugged. He wasn’t really looking for a relationship like that. Dean loved women. He dated a lot, it was just very few of them that made it past the first month line. To be honest he was still not over the one, he had let get away. He would just never admit that fact to anyone. The only one who knew his secret about him was his little brother and that wasn’t because Dean had told it. Sam was just a goddamn mind reader or so it seemed at times.

“So you want me to call the poor girl who is probably already halfway to the restaurant by now?” Benny asked, making Dean groan. He didn’t want that either. He wasn’t out to make anyone feel bad about themselves or ruin their night. Surely Dean could play along with this and give the girl a good time. So he went. Grumbling the entire way just to get it out of his system but he went, only to get the shock of his life.

The girl he was meeting was going to wear a red dress and he would wear a red rose on his tux. The only woman in a red dress in that restaurant was Y/N. His Y/N and it took every ounce of courage Dean could muster to even walk up to your table.

“Hi Y/N/N,” Dean spoke softly, not sure how you would feel about him after all this time or if he even had any right to talk to you at all.

“Dean!” Surprise was written all over your face and it only grew when you saw the rose pinned to his jacket. “Oh.”

Dean nervously ran a hand behind the back of his neck and he lowered his eyes, “I didn’t know, I swear. If you want me to leave then…” he mumbled. Dean felt a jolt of electricity cause through him as you reached out and took his hand, smiling tenderly at him.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Dee. Stay. Actually I hate blind dates and Bela just talked me into it because apparently her husband knew this guy, who could use a real date for once,” you teased and Dean let out a small chuckle as he sat down across from her.

“Really? Cause Benny said his wife had asked him to find a date for this girl who was too busy starting up a new business to go out and have any fun,” Dean winked at you, causing you to blush slightly before mumbling you were going to kill them both.

If you or Dean had ever doubted how you felt about each other after years of being apart, your date confirmed it. You still made his head spin and Dean still caused the butterflies in your stomach to go crazy. You made him laugh and he made you feel like you were the only person in the room, even when your waitress tried to flirt with him. Dean was everything and more than you remembered him to be. You hadn’t even realized how much you had missed him until he offered to walk you home.

Dean was sad the night was almost over but at least you took his hand. Taking him up on his offer to let him join you on your walk back to your place, which apparently wasn’t far. He loved the way your hand still fit in his, like it belonged there and it had never left. His heart skipped a bit when you leaned into him slightly as you walked and he smiled as he realized just how much he still loved you. He hoped that there was still a small chance that you felt the same way.

Dean quietly watched you fiddle with your keys and unlock the door before you turned back to face him. There was no need to tell each other that you had both had a good time, you knew each other too well for that. Still, time had passed and Dean knew he had broken your heart along with his own when he left you behind. He gently tugged your hair behind your ear, smiling when you leaned into his touch and Dean slowly leaned forward.

“Can I kiss you goodnight,” Dean asked you hesitantly, only to have his heart shattered into a million pieces when you shook her head no. Dean quickly took a step back, running his hand nervously behind his neck not sure what to do, other than just leave and cut his losses.

You giggled softly taking a step forward, wrapping your arms around his neck, clearly surprising the hell out of him. He had hurt you, but he had never meant too. He had done what he thought was right. You didn’t hold any of it against him. You were both older now and you still loved him with all of your heart.

“I didn’t say I don’t want you to kiss me. Just not goodnight because the night is not over yet,” you sent him an almost shy smile as you watched the realization dawn on him and you  giggled when his lips crashed against yours.

You were both laughing, still trying to kiss each other, when you pulled him backwards into your home with you, silently vowing to yourself you’d never let him go again.

Dean managed to smile through his worry as he remembered how dazed he had been for weeks after that. You had been so busy with the opening of your coffee shop, that you had barely gotten any more than stolen moments and late nights at your place when he stopped by unannounced. Yet he had been happy. He remembered the person he had been with you. The person he always wanted to be and you seemed content and relaxed whenever he was around. You were two pieces of the same puzzle finally reunited after having spent years apart.

“Dean! I need to finish up. The customers will be coming soon,” you laughed as he grabbed your hand with a cheeky grin on his face, pulling you into the back office with him, kicking the door shut and pushing you against it. You moaned into his kiss and any objections you had tried to make left you as you wrapped your arms around his neck melting into him completely.

You closed your eyes enjoying the feeling of his hands roaming your body and his lips moving down your jaw to your neck. It took all of your will power to even attempt to get him off you.

“Dean,” his name came out more as a moan than an objection and Dean smiled knowingly against your skin as he continued his ministrations. “DEAN!” you laughed pushing at his shoulders, when his hands were dangerously close to move up your skirt.

His head fell down against your shoulder with a groan, making you laugh even harder. “You’re trouble.”

“And you are no fun,” Dean smirked, before pressing his lips against yours again. His kiss was more tender and loving this time, not searching for anything else that the joy of kissing you.

“Well, I’ll be a lot of fun later if you help me get the sign up out front,” you grinned pecking his lips, before dashing through the door, letting out a slight squeal when his hand landed with a satisfying smack against your ass.

You twirled around ready to scold him, only to see him grabbing a chocolate muffin of the tray on the counter throwing you a wink as he headed for the front door to do as you had ordered.

“You’re going to bad for business, Winchester. I can tell,” you called after him, making him laugh and you couldn’t help but shake your head with a loving smile on your face. Bad for business or not, you loved him and he belonged in your life.  

Dean had barely put the car into park before he was out the door and across the street. He ran through the hospital doors and down the hallways to the right wing. As he was running his mind wandered to the happiest day of his life. The day you had agreed to be his wife.

Dean laid on his back still completely dazed and blissed from the orgasm you had just rode out of him, loving the feel of you still straddling him, with your head resting against his shoulder and his arms wrapped around you.

He groaned a bit when you pulled yourself off him letting you fall down next to him. All thoughts left him as he looked looked over at you. Pure euphoria on your face as you smiled softly at him. Your skin was flushed and your hair a mess. You were absolutely breathtaking and without any thought what so ever the words fell from his lips. “Marry me?”

“What?” a surprise expression washed over your face and Dean wanted to kick himself, but the words were out and he couldn’t stop now. Dean quickly moved off the bed, finding his pants and pulling the ring from his pocket, before moving over to you now sitting up staring at him in confusion. Dean knelt down infront of you opening the box and your hands flew up to cover your mouth as you realized it wasn’t a moment of passion thing.

“Y/N/N. I love you. This wasn’t how I wanted to do this, but your just so damn perfect and I couldn’t hold it back any longer. I am sorry for all the time we wasted being apart. I don’t want to wake up another day without you by my side. If you’ll be my wife I promise you I will spend every day for the rest of my life proving to you how much I love you. I’ll never leave you again. Baby you’re my everything. Please marry me?” Dean looked up at her, smiling as you nodded.

“Yes. Of course I’ll marry you,” you laughed and Dean slid the ring on your finger, before letting you pull him him back into bed. Dean rolled on top of you, kissing you deeply, pouring all the love and adoration he held for you into it.

“Dean Winchester, did you just propose to me butt naked after sex?” you laughed and Dean couldn’t help but join in.

“Well, you agreed sweetheart. Whatever works right?” he teased kissing you again, before his hands started to roam your still naked body, causing you to moan against your fiancee’s lips.     

“Can you tell me where I can find Y/N Winchester,” Dean asked the nurse at the front desk, slightly out of breath from his run and from worrying.

“You’re Dean?” the nurse asked and Dean nodded. “Y/N will be so happy to see you,” the nurse smiled guiding Dean down the hall and into a room that held his angry wife. She was leaning on the bed, her hand squeezing her brother’s so hard it was turning white and Cas’ face was contorted into one of immense pain, but of course you were too stubborn to scream as the contraction hit.

“Hey, look Dean is here,” Cas spoke softly, but clearly relieved the moment he spotted Dean in the door and your eyes shot up and a strained smile spread across your face. Dean felt the tears press behind his eyes. He hated seeing her in pain like this but he was here. You were having his first child. He smiled softly back at you as you spoke.

“You made it,” the relief and joy in your eyes evident and Dean’s smile grew as he nodded a thank you to Cas, who was leaving the room mumbling something about getting a doctor to see to his hand.  

“I wouldn’t miss this for the world,” Dean smiled as crossed the room, taking your hand in one of his, gently rubbing circles on your back with the other. “What do you need, sweetheart?” Dean asked her, hating he didn’t really know what to do with himself and that he wasn’t able to take your pain away.

“Tell me a story of us. Anything. Just take my mind off this,” you grumbled hitting the bed with your fist as another contraction made you almost scream. Dean held your hand, not caring about the pain you caused him as you squeezed down hard around it. He just started talking. Reminding you of the day he proposed, adding a memory too it he wasn’t sure if you were aware of.

“Did Cas ever tell you I asked for his permission to marry you?” Dean asked her softly and she looked up, surprise written all over her face and her pain all but forgotten. Dean chuckled kissing her cheek. “He told me that you were all he had left and that if I was to hurt you again, he would hunt me down and smite me, whatever than means.”

“Yeah, my brother was always a little odd,” you giggled letting Dean help you back onto the bed, where he sat down behind you, gently messaging you back as he reminded you of you wedding day.

Dean remembered how sad you had been your dad wasn’t there to walk you down the aisle, but luckily for both of you, your brother had stepped up. Cas offered to do it without either of you ever having to ask. Since that day there had been an unspoken bond between Dean and Cas. You were the most important person in both their lives and Cas intrusted your happiness with Dean.

Dean had been so nervous right until the moment he saw you. It looked as if you were floating towards him as you moved down the aisle on Cas’ arm. Dean felt a single tear roll down his cheek but he didn’t care. He barely even noticed the friendly pat Sam placed against his shoulder. His entire attention was on you. He had never seen anything as beautiful and graceful in his life as you and you were all his.

The vows were spoken and you both promised yourselves to one another, both knowing what life without the each other was like. Neither of you wanted to ever go through that ever again. Dean had never been more in love and you had never been happier. The words uniting you forever, had barely left Father Murphy’s mouth before Dean had you wrapped in his arms, kissing your breathless and dizzy, to the roaring applauses of your family and friends.

You had been blind to everyone around you as you stared up into his beautiful green eyes, laughing from happiness as you realized he was yours forever. You were Y/N Winchester and you couldn’t wait to begin the rest of his life with him.

Dean stopped his story once or twice to help you through your contractions, but he managed to keep you somewhat distracted and even smiling once in a while until Dr. Mills told you it was time to push. Your husband never once left your side through the whole thing. He made up stories about the future and your son, causing you to smile through the pain in between pushes. He praised you. Telling you how much he loved you and how proud he was of you, never letting you see how much your pain actually hurt him. Dean felt more useless that he ever had in his life, even if the complete opposite was true. You weren’t sure you could have done this without him. He made it all bearable and knowing he would always be right by your side no matter what life would throw at you, made the thought that you were about to become a mom a whole lot less scary.

A scream rang through the air and you fell back against the pillows, completely exhausted but happier than ever as you newborn son was place on your chest. Your eyes found Dean’s glassy tear filled ones and you instantly reached out for him. Dean, careful not to hurt either of you, sat down next to you on the bed, gently running a finger over his son’s cheek. Completely in awe of this little human, he had helped create. Your eyes teared up looking at him. The love shun from his face as he fought to hold back his tears. Your son was the luckiest little boy in the world to have Dean for a dad.

“We made him,” Dean’s eyes found yours and a smile split across his face with your words.

“Congratulations daddy,” Dean leaned in pressing his lips against yours, pouring all his love for you and your child into that kiss. He would always be there for you. The two of you already made him a better man than he had ever been before and he would never stop trying to be the best husband and father he could be to the two of you. Dean had never felt this happy before in his life and he was going to spend every day making sure you and Josh, knew just how happy you made him.   

Dean Tag Team (CLOSED)

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[betweenstories]

CHAPTER 24

“Girl, you know what winks and then fucks like a tiger?”

I arch a brow and try not to grin at LeRoy, the resident charmer currently holding court behind the Jade Bar.

LeRoy flashes me a wide smile. His brilliant white teeth shine bright against his blue/black skin.

As if he’s posing for the cover of Muscle and Fitness magazine, he arranges himself in an Atlas pose, flexes a massive bicep, and delivers an exaggerated, cheeky wink.

At that, I laugh out loud.

“I’ll give that one an eight. Actually, make it a nine. The bicep action was a nice touch.”

LeRoy chuckles as he pulls a small note pad from his back pocket. Plucking the pencil from behind his ear, he jots down the number.

I sip my Ginger Fig Martini—yuck! too sweet!—and try to hide my reaction.

“What’s the score now?”

After a moment of silent calculation, LeRoy announces, “In the World Championship for best corny pick-up line artist, I’m up by three.” He points at me with the pencil. “Time to bring your A-game, babe.”

I wrinkle my nose.

“I’ve never liked that endearment. Every time I hear it, all I can think about is the pig from the movie.”

LeRoy laughs. “Okay. Time to bring your A-game, chica. Is that better?”

I wobble my splayed fingers back-and-forth in a “so-so” motion.

We’d met LeRoy our second night in town when we’d stopped in for a nightcap at the Jade Bar. The moment I’d heard his thick accent, I’d bonded in the manner of all true southerners “abroad”—instantly and loyal unto death. Taking in the sheer mass of the male specimen, I’d known he had to be an ex-linebacker. Standing on the bar rail, I’d raised my palm high, and in my best southern drawl, I’d shouted above the clamber of the bar,

“Hey Georgia! How ‘bout dem dawgs!?”

His face had instantly split into a wide grin, and then he’d nearly taken my arm off with an overly exuberant high-five.

Once the bar rush had ended, he’d parked a rack of clean glasses on a nearby cooler and begun polishing wine stems before sliding them into the overhead rack.

Reading bartender code for, “I’ve got time to talk, I’d motioned to his name tag and asked if he went by LEE-roy or luh-ROY, because I had no desire to insult royalty. He’d smiled huge and flashed his pearly whites.

“My Mama called me her little king. She was the only one evuh’ called me luh-ROY, but you can call me anything you like.” With a wink, he’d added, “You can even call a ride for ol’ LeRoy when he leaves yo’ bed in the mawnin’.”

I’d decided right then, that LeRoy was unique in all the world. How many people could get away with speaking about themselves in the third person? None I’d ever met. LeRoy had just made it seem easy.

Just then, you’d returned from the restroom. I’d thought the Georgia boy would have the good grace to be embarrassed. Not so. He’d flirted with you as aggressively as he had with me. I think it was just his personality.

I’d wondered how you’d react to this male attention, but you’d handled it with the same aplomb you handled everything else.

When LeRoy had leaned on the bar and said, “I heard you English are the biggest freaks in the bedroom. How ‘bout you? Wha’s yo’ kink?”

You hadn’t missed a beat.

Grinning wide, you’d said, “I’m into listening to a southern woman tell me knock-knock jokes while she braids her hair before bed. Is that a kink?”

LeRoy’s laugh had been hearty, infectious.

Back in the present, I think, “Down by three!” and my competitive spirit kicks in.

Clearing my throat, I sit up straight and crack my mental knuckles.

“You might want to brace yourself for this one.”

LeRoy chuckles.

I catch a glimpse of myself in the back bar mirror.

Tonight’s hair is “concert style”: slicked back ponytail high atop my head (good for if it’s hot inside the venue) with the entire length braided into a long, loose fishtail.

With slow, exaggerated movements, I lift my hand. My silver bracelets chime as they tumble down from my wrist to my elbow. Circling my fingers around the top section of the braid, I lower my eyes to half-mast and slide my fist slowly down the length. I move back up to the top and stroke down once again.

When I reach the end a second time, I bring the tip to my mouth and slide it back and forth over my bottom lip. Pitching my voice an octave lower, I let my words roll out slow. For LeRoy’s benefit, I inject as much of the south into my accent as possible.

When I see the pulse point in his neck kick into high gear, I deliver my entry for best corny pick-up line.

“Hey, Big Guy.... I hope you got a good lawyuh...”

I close my eyes and softly moan. When I open them again, I lean forward and whisper,

“ .... ‘cause you just caused a flood in my basement.”

Immediately, I fall out of character. Dropping my braid, I’m all innocence as I sip my too-sweet martini.

LeRoy blinks once and then there’s that grin again.

“Day-yum, girl. You bettah get a permit for that voice, ‘cause you can slay fo’ sho’.”

I smile and wonder how much of LeRoy’s twang is fo’ show.

After writing in his note pad again, he points at me. “Up by seven.” He smiles. “You might wanna brace yourself for this one.”

In a move I’m sure took countless hours to perfect, he stretches his arms up to grasp the top edge of the overhead glass rack. His shirt comes untucked revealing three inches of finely chiseled male.

Before he speaks, I jump in, “Ten! Tens across the board for the best v-cut I’ve ever seen!”

Trapezoids dancing, LeRoy grins at me. “You sure you ain’t hittin’ on me? ‘Cause it feels like you’re hittin’ on me.”

“I’m sure.” I tap my chin as I look to the ceiling. “Actually, I’m ninety-two percent sure.”

LeRoy shakes his head.

“You might be worse than I am.”

“Entirely possible.”

As LeRoy clears away my plate, he tells me he likes a woman who cleans her plate. I thank him for the compliment.

For me, food is gas for my vehicle. Having dessert and high sugar alcohol for lunch had been low-grade fuel. I’d needed every bite of the simple grilled chicken breast and steamed veggies to get something better in my tank. When he starts to take my martini glass, I start to protest.

“I know you doan like it.” With a wink he adds, “You doan hafta be gentle with ol’ LeRoy.”

“In that case, luh-ROY, I’ll try the Ruinart. Where I’m from, nobody sells it by the glass.”

Just then, my spidey-sense tingles. I feel as if I’m being watched. I scan the room for the source until my gaze lands on you.

Casually leaning an elbow on the far end of the polished oak bar, your gaze is locked on mine. I can just make out the faint smile that always hides at the corner of your mouth, the one that peeks out whenever our eyes meet.

You’ve shaved. The line between your beard and cheek is sharp. I watch as you take in my thick braid, my deep red lips. I see the way heat flares in your expression as you track down to my skin tight black leather pants. When you raise your gaze, I don’t miss the way you zero in on my thin white tee, the black lace demi-bra, or—more specifically—the two tight points visible underneath.

Tucking a hand in the front pocket of your jeans, you hook your black leather jacket on a finger and drape it over your shoulder. My body hums, electric, as you slowly stroll my way. I glance at your midnight blue cashmere sweater, the sweater I’d once told you I loved to rub my bare breasts against. Your sleeves are pushed up to just below your elbows. Wicked man! I know you’ve done this on purpose. I know because I see your smirk when you see me notice.

Pre-you, I hadn’t noticed forearms whatsoever. Now, I wish I had a “forearm of the month” wall calendar featuring you in twelve themed vignettes. I smile and silently deem this look, “Mr. October.”

A few months earlier, I’d texted you, “I’m currently imagining riding you till I’m slick with sweat. I want to pin your arms over your head, wrap my fingers tight around your forearms and suck on your tongue till you buck beneath me, till I scream, till you fill me up with... compliments.” I hadn’t realised auto-correct had struck again until you’d texted back,

“Yes, please! 😋 But is “firearms” a euphemism? Even if it’s not, my answer’s still yes!! We’ll have to explore this whilst on your side of the pond though, as they’re basically illegal for civilians here.”

Suddenly, you’re in front of me. You bend and kiss me slow and sweet. Your mouth is soft and warm. You taste faintly of peppermint.

I smile. “You can do that again if you’d like.”

Draping your jacket over the back of a bar stool, you slip your hands around my waist and kiss me again.

“Y’all need to get a room, for real.” LeRoy slides a wine stem from the overhead rack, holds it up to the light to check for water spots, then pours a generous glass of your new favorite Merlot.

At that moment, a server appears, dome-covered plate in hand. LeRoy takes the plate and places it in front of you. With great ceremony, he lifts the lid to reveal ...

Brows furrowed, I lean in for a better look. It smells fantastic, but I have no idea what he’s revealed. Since you’d talked to LeRoy about food for more than an hour a few nights earlier, I’d left your meal selection up to him.

Reminding me of a big-eyed puppy, LeRoy looks at you, eager, clearly seeking your approval. He announces, “Braised oxtail tacos with chef’s special sauce.

You unroll your silverware.

“Thank you, my friend. It smells delicious. What’s chef’s special sauce?”

“It’s his secret. All I know is it’s good. It’s what I imagine it would taste like to go down on Charlize Theron.

While you chuckle, I raise a forefinger, “I’ll have a plate of that please.”

At that, you and LeRoy both laugh. While you tuck into your meal, you pepper LeRoy with enough compliments to send him into service personnel ecstasy.

“LeRoy and I were in the middle of a contest for best corny pick-up lines.

At that, LeRoy’s expression turns mischievous. “Okay, I got one.”

Propping an elbow on the bar in front of you, his bicep bulges as he pinches the material of his shirt and rubs it between thumb and forefinger.

“You know what kind of fabric this is?”

Fork suspended in mid-air, you shake your head.

LeRoy grins. “Threesome material.”

I never thought I’d live to see the day, but you’ve actually been rendered speechless. A fine blush spreads over your cheeks.

LeRoy maintains his grin. “Think about it. S’all I’m sayin’.”

Still shaking your head, you take a large bite of oxtail.

Twenty minutes later, you take your last sip of wine while I take my last sip of champagne. When I turn to look at you, your eyes are suddenly fierce.

Seizing my hand, you press a kiss against my palm. Your lips are soft and warm.

“What was that for?”

You raise my hand to your face, close your eyes, and press my palm to your cheek before covering it with your own. You inhale deep.

“I’m happy. That’s all.”

Such a simple statement. In this moment, I realize I’m happy as well. I raise your other hand to my cheek, smile as I cover it with my own.

“Seriously, don’t y’all have somewhere to be?”

With a look of feigned irritation, LeRoy clears away your plate and wipes down the bar.

I check the time on my phone while you look at your watch.

I lean over the bar and speak low. “Just put this on mine with thirty percent. Kay?”

He nods. We’d discovered the easiest way to handle travel expenses was to split the room charge and keep separate accounts for additional charges. We took turns paying for food. We didn’t have to clear personal purchases with each other, and it made my accounting easier since I could write off some expenses on my taxes.

Thanking LeRoy, you reach over the bar to shake his hand. “Have a great night. Maybe we’ll see you later? Are you closing?”

He shakes his head. “I’m here till Volume, so probably not.”

Flashing his mega-watt smile, he adds, “But y’all have fun and tell Teddy I said hello.”

[shitty-check-please-aus]

What do you think about an “i picked up your bag at the airport but i can’t find your number so i’m about to embark on the largest scavenger hunt of all time by using your strange belongings to track you down” au with charmer or nurseydex or zimbits or something??

Well, I don’t know if you expected three mini fics, and I didn’t fully follow the prompt, but here we are.

1. Charmer

Look, Chris knew it was dumb. He knew that everyone on earth had a plain black suitcase, he knew he should have double-checked the luggage tag, he knew it was important to be sure abut these things. But knowing what he should have done couldn’t help him when he finally got his suitcase home and opened it up to find mostly yoga pants and sundresses. 

Fuck.

He zipped the bag back up and flipped open the luggage tag. It was cute, pink with some metallic lettering saying “I’m outta here!” in a handwritten font. Chris blamed jetlag and the redeye flight for making him miss the fact that it wasn’t his Sharks tag. He blamed the bag’s owner for not filling out any of the information on the tag.

Dammit.

Well, sorry random girl, he thought. He opened the suitcase up again to try to see if he could find anything that would give him a clue as to who the suitcase owner was. He moved a makeup bag aside, and hit gold immediately. Well, Samwell red. A Women’s Volleyball tshirt– mystery suitcase girl had to be on the volleyball team.

“Hey Ransom!” he yelled. “You’re facebook friends with all the volleyball team right?”

“He’s friends with everyone on campus!” Holster yelled back.

“Ask their captain if anyone flew in from the Bay Area and lost their luggage!”

_X_

“Is Justin here? My captain said he’s got my suitcase.” Chris overheard her at the door. He grabbed the bag and started hauling it downstairs. As he set it down at the bottom and caught sight of the girl in the doorway, he froze. She was pretty. Like, really pretty. 

“Um, hi,” he said.

“So you’re Justin? Oh my god, I’m so glad it wasn’t some total rando who got my bag.” 

“I’m actually Chris, Justin was just the one who was friends with your captain. Um, I’m sorry, but I kind of had to look through your stuff? Your luggage tag wasn’t filled out.” The girl laughed.

“Yours wasn’t either! Me and my teammates were like one minute away from googling the record holder for most San Jose Sharks merch, but it totally makes sense that you’re on the hockey team.” 

“Since we both forgot to write our numbers down, maybe we should do that now?” Chris suggested. The girl grinned, grabbed his phone out of his hand, and opened up a new contact. She punched in a number, and when she handed it back he saw a text of several random emojis addressed to the new contact of “Caitlin Farmer” with a girl farmer emoji and a volleyball emoji.

“Text me sometime, and maybe we can get dinner?” she said, and she was gone with her suitcase. 

Chris collapsed on the couch, a dreamy look in his eyes.

“Chowder? You get your suitcase back?” Bitty called out from the kitchen.

“Yeah! and I think I’m in love now!”

2. Nurseydex

“Cheryl, I’m telling you, I had a ton of inspiration on the plane and I wrote some great stuff for act three. No. No, it wasn’t just me thinking it’s great because I popped some melatonin and got really sleepy. It’s like, legit. Yeah, I’ll send it over as soon as I get home and–”

Derek slammed into something. If he’d been holding his phone in his hand (bluetooth is a blessing when you drop stuff easily) it would have launched across the airport. As it was, his post-flight latte was soaking through the nice white shirt of the handsome stranger in front of him.

“Shit,” the stranger said, looking down to survey the damage.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have trusted myself to make a phone call and not be clumsy after such a long flight,” Derek said. He set his briefcase down and pulled a wad of napkins out of the outside pocket. The guy took a deep breath, going from murderous to calm in a few seconds. 

“I wasn’t looking where I was going either, it’s not your fault,” the guy said, setting down his own briefcase and accepting the napkins. He blotted at his shirt.

“Let me pay for the dry cleaning. Or a replacement,” Derek offered. The man shook his head.

“It’s fine, it probably needed to go to the cleaners anyways.” He checked his watch. “If I run, I can probably get a new one before my meeting.” He wadded the napkins into one big ball, picked up his briefcase, and walked towards the exit with a terse nod. Derek, feeling terrible about the whole thing, picked up his own briefcase and walked to baggage claim.

By the time he was reunited with his home office, a cozy bookshelf-lined room in his brownstone, he had almost forgotten about the coffee incident. He was focused on sending the manuscript to Cheryl. Unfortunately, that was going to be difficult, considering he pulled a PC laptop out of the bag instead of his Mac.

Derek stared at the computer for a full minute. He almost couldn’t believe that this was happening to him. Hesitantly, he opened the laptop. On one side of the keyboard there was a weird thing that a few seconds of phone googling told him was a fingerprint scanner. Shit. He hit the space bar experimentally. Something flashed on the screen, and then was replaced with just a plain black screen with red text: ACCESS DENIED

Derek swore. He started to look through the rest of what was in the briefcase, but was disappointed to find it empty except for the laptop’s charger, three packs of gum, and receipts from a lobster shack in Maine. Shit. Nothing in here would tell him anything about the redhead he’d launched a latte at. 

He closed the laptop dejectedly, ignored his editor’s text messages, and went into the kitchen to make himself lunch and feel sorry for himself. This was the universe punishing him for covering a cute guy with coffee. If he had just kept his focus and waited to call his editor later, he could have sent the draft along and saved it and not be desperately trying to remember his inspiration.

Just as the self-pity spiral was really taking off, the doorbell rang. Derek sighed, put down his tea, and walked to the door. When he opened it, it wasn’t Girl Scouts or Jehovah’s Witnesses, but the guy from the airport.

“Cancel whatever you’re doing today, I need to teach you the most basic principles of digital security,” the guy said, pushing past Derek into the dining room. He shoved a stack of papers onto a chair and pulled Derek’s laptop out.

“I’m Will, by the way, I make software that’s hopefully a step ahead of viruses.”

“Is the draft still there?”

“The draft of what?” The guy looked confused.

“My third act breakthrough. I’m a novelist, I need to get it to my editor and I couldn’t remember if I saved it,” Derek explained.

“You know you can set up an auto-save every five minutes or so, right?” Will asked.

“This might be surprising to you, but I’ve never had a cute guy storm into my house and yell at me about computers before.” Will looked up from Derek’s computer, blushing.

“I haven’t had a cute guy dump a gallon of coffee all over me and steal my laptop before, either, but here we are.”

“Maybe you can yell about computers over lunch with me?”

3. Zimbits

Button downs. Tank tops. Slacks. Shorts. Three rolling pins. A pie tin. A half-emptied multipack of sharpies.

No lucky puck. No clothes in his size. No jerseys.

Jack sighed. It would just be too much to ask for anything to go well today. He picked up his phone to call someone with the Falconers, in the hope that they could talk to the airline and sort all this out. At the same time, his phone lit up with Tater’s face.

“Zimmboni! Look on twitter. Small internet baker has your suitcase!” Tater hung up before he could reply, so Jack just opened twitter instead. 

omgcheckplease: A bunch of pucks, some dirty jerseys, and a history textbook. Either I’m back in college or this isn’t my suitcase.

omgcheckplease: .@falcsofficial please tell your #1 player to DM me and come get his shit

omgcheckplease: and @falcsofficial tell him to give me my shit back. my hockey days are in the past, I need rolling pins, not a mouthguard

Jack smiled and laughed in the way a person laughs when they’re alone, just blowing more air than normal out of his nose. He looked through the twitter for a minute– the guy, Eric Bittle, was a Providence-based chef, whose latest tweets were mostly greetings to the various cities he’d been visiting on tour. Jack clicked the media tab on the account, and looked through the pictures. Bittle was cute. He wrote a reply.

zimmboni: .@omgcheckplease how do I send u a DM

omgcheckplease: .@zimmboni you don’t deserve to be verified, oh my god #verifybittle2k17

A few seconds later another notification popped up, and he tapped it to be brought to a DM window.

omgcheckplease: hey! sorry about the mixup. I can only imagine how confused you were to find all my book tour stuff.

zimmboni: Probably as confused as you were finding hockey stuff?

omgcheckplease: I wasn’t joking in my tweets, I did play hockey before I got into the whole cookbook/food show thing

zimmboni: Exactly, I did a book tour last year in the off-season :-)

omgcheckplease: oh my gosh, isn’t it the best and the worst?

zimmboni: I know. It’s great to meet people and talk about your work, but it’s exhausting.

omgcheckplease: that’s why I’m so excited to be back in Providence! at least until the next cookbook.

zimmboni: Well we should probably meet up to trade suitcases. Want to meet somewhere for dinner?

omgcheckplease: don’t trust me to learn where your house is?

zimmboni: I mean, if dinner goes well enough…

omgcheckplease: OH. okay, then, Mr. Zimmermann, it’s a date.

Jack smiled to himself, and got ready for his date.