#And before long The Renegade starts to feel like an Actual Friend | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

rosenotactuallyquartz · 3 months

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Here is a Pearlrose question that I find tricky. Why do you think Garnet seemed to not care that Pearl was upset but helped Greg in We Need To Talk? I've had people tell me that she was purposefully pulling Rose away from Pearl because she believed they were so unhealthy together (1)

(the asker goes on to say: “But I preffer the opposite take: that Garnet was actually so clear on Rose's love for Pearl that she did NOT actually realize Pearl was doubting It/ insecure. To her Greg and Rose becoming closer would just add to Rose's life, she had no idea Pearl could feel replaced because It was obvious to her that that was not the case)

oh i know exactly what you’re talking about, i’ve seen this before. i can’t wait to talk about it !

—

how garnet felt about rose’s bond with pearl

first off, i think it’s incredibly important to understand how garnet perceived rose.

“We never questioned ourselves, or her!” — Sapphire, Now We’re Only Falling Apart

“She had to. The Earth belonged to Pink Diamond. Destroying her was the only way to save the planet. For Amethyst to be herself, for Pearl to be free, for me to be together. For you to exist.” — Garnet, Bubbled

during the war, there were two opportunities in which rose could have harmed her. instead she accepted her; she helped her start a new life on earth with the other crystal gems.

of course she trusted all of rose’s choices—not only did she meet her as a leader, protecting garnet was the first choice that garnet ever saw rose make. she also witnessed rose make this decision within the first few seconds of garnet’s existence.

considering that garnet trusted rose and every choice she made (and everything she did during a war) garnet would absolutely trust rose to make her own decisions about her personal, intimate relationships thousands of years later.

sapphire confirms that garnet never questioned rose at all throughout the time she knew her. she felt comfortable as herself and she trusted that, if rose had a problem, especially a personal problem, she would handle that.

garnet was also aware of the fact that there was a lot she didn’t know about their relationship.

“And there they were: Rose Quartz, the leader of the rebellion, and her terrifying renegade Pearl.” — Garnet, The Answer.

during the war, pearl was rose’s second-in-command and confidant. considering that only pearl knew rose was pink diamond, and she hadn’t been rose for long, they definitely had periods of time where they’d disappear for awhile.

in rose’s scabbard, we discovered that rose had a secret armory location that only pearl knew about. later on, when she found out about rose’s lion and garnet mentioned that “rose kept many secrets, even from us” (which could have very well meant her & amethyst) she didn’t hesitate or protest when pearl replied with, “but not from me.” when amethyst yelled, “you’re not the only one who misses her!” that was the only moment where garnet looked taken aback.

garnet would never try to pull two of her friends away from each other, especially knowing that they kept a lot of things private.

since they did—she would also understand that any issues that they had, they’d most likely be solving on their own and behind closed doors.

there was no logical reason for her to judge the relationship, or believe another relationship is “better.”

garnet was also able to see pearl + rose for what they always believed in; what their dynamic was all about. they were always rebels, they didn’t see gems or life on earth the way that homeworld did.

(she likely heard rose refer to pearl as “my pearl” a few times throughout the war and later on as they lived together. i think that early on, garnet had a positive impression of the relationship)

garnet also related to pearl and rose’s relationship. a lot.

“That’s just how I felt when I came here with Ruby.” — Sapphire, Now We’re Only Falling Apart.

in homeworld, sapphire was described as being a “rare, aristocratic” gem. rubies were considered inferior and they are “for” the sapphires, to protect them.

however, when ruby accidentally bumped into sapphire, she spoke to ruby with respect and warmth. she was different from homeworld; she thought differently. she also made small talk, and the first thing ruby learned about sapphire as an individual was that she wished she could see more of the earth.

on the battlefield, ruby and sapphire ended up being the last two out of the group they originally had. sapphire was about to be harmed, but ruby saved her at the very last moment.

she prioritized protecting sapphire over logic, over consequence, over her own life.

so, of course, garnet understood pearl.

“Back during the war, Pearl took pride in risking her destruction for another. She put Rose Quartz over everything: Over logic, over consequence, over her own life.” — Sworn to the Sword

at a time when ruby didn’t expect to escape from homeworld, sapphire ran away and took ruby with her. she was able to explore the earth just like she wanted to, and she did this with ruby.

meanwhile, pearl and rose nearly fused for the first time and had a conversation about their feelings for each other. while sapphire had a moment where she was frozen, rose was frozen in her own way, too.

everything was very new to her, and even a bit overwhelming, in a positive way. homeworld had rules on how to interact with each gem and what to feel. on earth, rose found that she was completely in awe of pearl. she admired her, she would blush because of her. pearl would argue with rose (a diamond) because she wanted to protect her in every way that she could, even when rose told her not to because she cared about pearl. they saw each other as unique, flawed individuals and it felt so natural and right.

so, why question it? the only reason it’s perplexing is because of homeworld’s guilting and disapproval.

“Please don’t ever stop!” — Rose, Now We’re Only Falling Apart

“Don’t ever question this.” — Rose, The Answer

ruby and sapphire’s fusion helped pearl and rose, and their conversation helped garnet.

many fans might claim that garnet would try to pull pearl and rose apart because of unhealthy “obsession/dependency” on pearl’s part, but what they don’t realize is that this perception of pearl often comes from her behavior in the timeline with steven.

you know, in her early stages of grief. less than fourteen years is nothing compared to the 6,000+ years that pearl loved her. often what people perceive as obsessive behavior is pearl being fixated on the, in a gem sense, devastating loss of the love of her life.

(& not because she’s a pearl, or her original dynamic with rose. they were both against the beliefs of homeworld and their love only started when they were in a safe environment to genuinely fall in love with each other. because she watched the mistreatment and abuse that rose faced from the other diamonds, then they escaped together. she watched rose almost get killed or be in serious danger on the battlefield, but she managed to save her countless times. she watched rose struggle with trauma and mental health, and only she could fully understand why. she survived so much with her and they had each other, but she still ultimately lost her.)

obviously pearl would appear to be more obsessive when she is fixated on the pain of her early grief.

however, following the war, it’s likely that pearl and rose were very attached to each other.

garnet would understand this because ruby and sapphire are the same way. with the trauma that garnet, pearl, and rose had from the war along with homeworld, there was an understanding that they all held each other extra close, were extra “clingy,” really, because they almost lost each other.

ruby often struggled to care about herself because she was so focused on protecting sapphire.

this was a quick interaction they had in jailbreak:

Ruby: “Did they hurt you?”

Sapphire: “No, no, I’m okay. Did they hurt you?”

Ruby: “Who cares?!”

Sapphire: “I do!”

apart from strong attachments, there were other problems that pearl + rose might have that garnet would understand.

sapphire and rose shared a similar problem, too:

“I keep looking into the future, when all of this has already been solved... As if it doesn't matter how you feel in the present. No wonder you think I don't care!” — Sapphire, Keystone Motel

although rose never had future vision like sapphire, both of them shared a tendency to get stuck in their own minds/daydreams.

sapphire looks into the future so much that she can’t be present, while rose had a lot of dark & painful thoughts about herself. these may not seem similar, but in both cases, sapphire and rose would become withdrawn and struggle with communication in relationships.

they had trouble really hearing and processing pearl & ruby’s words sometimes because of everything going on in their minds. “i need something right now, in the present,” or “can you understand that i love you for you, i know exactly who you are and what you’ve done and yes, you still deserve me and you still deserve love” would be hard to process when your brain is saying the opposite.

garnet would know that they wouldn’t benefit from splitting up, because she related to them. splitting up (especially without communication and making that decision on their own) is not something ruby and sapphire would want.

understanding the differences between gem relationships and human relationships make garnet’s intentions in “we need to talk” more understandable.

“Uh... I-I don't know. I don't understand your human relationships. So... uhm... goodbye!” — Pearl, Full Disclosure

relationships between gems are incredibly different from human relationships.

i think this confuses people sometimes, and i can understand why. they remember that ruby and sapphire are married, but what they don’t remember is that no other gems seemed to get married. most of them don’t understand marriage, and the crystal gems themselves had to learn about it and understand it more.

pearl and rose showed affection for each other in a variety of ways—and yes, some were things they learned about on earth. however, this is love and affection. gems are unlikely to learn about more complicated things, such as human rules and norms when it comes to love.

gems never say that they’re dating, or that someone is cheating on someone else. they do not label themselves as being polyamorous or monogamous. they just love.

gems can definitely be jealous, especially when they were someone’s favourite for a very long time and they’re suddenly becoming close to someone else, in a way that they havent been before. gems can worry about not being a favourite, but this is more difficult for others to see and much more subjective than cheating.

creators confirmed that pearl’s lyric “she chose you” in it’s over, isn’t it was only about how she saw the situation and not about what really happened. this isn’t like humans, picking someone to date over another. rose’s death was very confusing and pearl was simply trying to make sense of it. rose having a child with greg and then no longer being able to live with pearl forever definitely made her feel as if she wasn’t chosen. but both of you helped her begin to process and understand her grief more. rose loved both of them. her death doesn’t change any of that; it happened for reasons related to her, along with wanting to bring life into the world.

i think many fans look at pearl + rose’s relationship from a human perspective. this is one of the reasons why, even after the creators confirmed that pearl + rose were not unrequited, people continue to think that rose didn’t love pearl.

but even if humans can’t understand it, garnet would understand their relationship.

it’s also important to note that pearl + rose fused in we need to talk, before greg planned on trying to fuse with rose. as pearl said, fusion is the ultimate connection between gems.

“She had control when she used her power to drag their fusion into the ocean. But, a fusion like theirs is unstable, bound together by anger and mistrust. If that bond snaps, their anger will take over, and destroy.” — Garnet, Chille Tid

“I embody my... I mean, Ruby and Sapphire's love. I'll always exist in them, even if I split apart. But the strength of that love keeps me together. So I can stay Garnet for a very long time.” — Garnet, Keeping it Together

garnet witnessed pearl + rose’s fusion that day. they fused very casually (whereas the other crystal gems only fuse in deadly situations, according to pearl) and that would definitely tell garnet a lot about their relationship.

garnet understood their relationship. human relationships, not at all.

many fans say that rose couldn’t love / respect anyone until we need to talk, when greg demanded it. he asked her if she’s been in love with other humans before, and she responds with “how would i know?”

this doesn’t mean she’s never been in love before. with the confirmation that pearl + rose was not unrequited, rose being referred to as the love of pearl’s life in the movie, and many scenes in the show… at that point, rose had been in love with pearl, but never in love with any humans.

since human relationships are so different from gem relationships, rose simply wanted to know how greg, as a human, defined being in love.

“Love at first sight doesn't exist. Love takes time, and love takes work. At the very least you have to know the other person... And you literally have no idea who or what I am.” — Garnet, Love Letters

as a close friend & as someone living with pearl and rose, garnet knew and understood them well, but she didn’t know and understand greg yet.

it was only a few months into their relationship. with everything that garnet said about love, there was no reason for her to “root for” or “prefer” rose’s relationship with greg over rose’s relationship with pearl. they didn’t love each other yet, and she knew that pearl and rose loved each other.

rose barely knew him and she barely knew him; while she trusted her friends and everything going on with them, she couldn’t have trusted greg yet.

it’s interesting to me that so many fans have focused on the fact that greg was the first human who rose respected.

while that may be true, i haven’t seen anyone consider how the other humans treated rose. it seemed perplexing to rose that greg wanted to get to know her and build something meaningful.

people focus on how rose couldn’t respect the other humans, but if no one brought that up to her, it’s likely that they didn’t respect her, either. they probably saw her as a fascination, too, and they never even connected enough for rose to start experiencing human relationships.

when garnet saw that greg was trying to fuse with rose, i think she helped him because she realized that he was different from the other humans. special, really. he wanted to know rose, and this fusion/conversation could really help him build something meaningful with her.

garnet never saw pearl be jealous of humans who rose interacted with before, so she simply saw this as being another new bond between rose and a human, but this time, a nicer, more loving one.

before i post this, i have to mention another misconception i’ve seen:

garnet wasn’t looking into the future & seeing/accepting rose’s death & steven’s birth. it doesn’t work that way, especially because sapphire never looked into rose. either way:

“No one can see the future. I can see options and trajectories. Time is like a river that splits into creeks or pools into lakes or careens down waterfalls. I have the map, and I steer the ship.” — Garnet, Future Vision

“Rose hasn't shapeshifted, and she isn't trapped. Steven is a fusion. Rose could be trying to un-fuse.” — Garnet, Three Gems and a Baby

so there you have it. a detailed answer to a very tricky pearlrose question. the opposite take, as described after the question, absolutely makes more sense.

#pearlrose #steven universe #rose quartz #pearl su #prose #crystal gems #pearl x rose #pink diamond #love like you #rose quarts su #garnet #garnet su #garnet steven universe

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monodramatic-cannibal · 1 month

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Renegade!Dream

Info post about the au

(If characters seem OOC ((Out Of Character)) it's beacause I'm going off of my own interpretations/headcanons/fandom versions. So please be aware of that)

More info under the cut (Info is subject to change at any time. Info may be added to as well)

-Jobs in the group: Mix of things where ever he’s needed, often helping with scavenging, or just trying to cheer up everyone in the group and building upkeep

Weapons of choice: Bow, staff that can turn to duel blades.

-Head canon voice: ???

-Backstory similar to the og Dream (other than the fact Nm didn't eat the apples. Similar with the fact people liked him over Nm, and he didn't know about anything Nm was going through.) Unlike the og Dream he was guarding the tree for a lot longer than him (around 450+ years), guarding the tree long after the og apple incident.

-Nightmare is actually older than Dream by around a minute, sometimes Nightmare holds that over Dream just to annoy him.

-Dream and Nightmare are both trained in combat, due to being the tree guardians they’ve both had different forms of combat in them since they started existing. Dream’s fighting style focuses more on defense. When fighting side by side they fight in such a way to cover each other's blind spots.

-Dream doesn’t mind the pronouns He/Him, but also will go by They/Them. Either He/They works for him, They’re not too picky about it.

-Always refers to Nightmare as Night, the only time he uses his full name is if he’s trying to scold him, or trying to get his full attention.

-Kind of protective over Night, They knew some people pick on Night (didn’t know the extent of it), and also due to Night being shorter than them and also not really having much magic either. Even when they join the group, they still stay a little bit protective over Night, trying to be Night’s voice of reason when Night wants to do something dangerous.

-He knew Night didn’t exactly have the best mental state, though he didn’t know the extent of it. When the apocalypse happened, he noticed Night’s mental state got better, though he never talked to Night about it.

-Before the apocalypse, all the negative emotions were getting to them. Though, they tried to not let it show. No one but Night noticed this.

-Night is really good at reading Dream. But Dream can’t read Night as well, he’s better than normal people at knowing what's going on, but isn’t the same as how Night knows him. It’s just Night has been hiding his emotions and such for such a long time that It's hard to tell what he's hiding and what's real when it comes to him.

-After the apocalypse happened, Dream took note that Night would sometimes ramble to himself, mainly it would just be hearing quiet mumbles from Night. They found it weird at first, since before that they’d barely hear anything from Night. At first, they thought these mumbles were due to stress that Night was possibly having. But seeing how Night's mental state got better, Dream then assumed that these mumbles were just because Night feels more comfortable to talk. Since he feels Night is going to be talking more he uses this to try to get more convocation out of Nightmare than what he’d usually get from him.

-Night and Dream joined the group, kind of in the middle of everyone else joining. He found it easy to get along with Blue, Ink was also somewhat easy for him to get along with, though he found Ink a little weird. Dream understood that Night didn’t really want to stick around anywhere for too long nor did he want to be around people, he was worried that Night would leave them but was glad to see Night stick around.

-Dream is sort of surprised when they joined the group that Night was making an effort with people (not realizing that Night was doing all that to prove himself to the group). He’s also surprised that Night made an effort to befriend Horror (not knowing much about Horror thou), and a bit later making friends with Killer and Dust. Dream doesn’t mind Horror as much, as Horror is a bit weird but okay, whereas Dream didn’t exactly like Night being friends with Killer and Dust, due to the fact they’re both murderers. But after a bit, Dream realized they most likely won’t do Night any harm.

-Dream often tries to help out where ever they can, they like to help out Lust with (non-food-based) plants/gardening. Since they know, seeing plants/plant-life can create a sense of calm/wellbeing.

-Dream still feels like he can’t abandon his job as one of the tree guardians, he knows Night doesn’t feel the same, so never really talks about it. But he feels like it's his responsibility to fix the apocalypse by trying to fix the balance of negative and positive emotions. Even though he knows it may be way too much for him to do, he isn’t even sure where he’d start.

-He finds it easy to get along with most people, but he also understands he can be a bit draining with how he acts and the fact they’re in direct contact with positive energy. He doesn’t mind spending time with people, but he does also appreciate having time to himself. Often liking just relaxing away from everyone, since he doesn’t have to try to be chipper all the time.

-Is able to distinguish what type of positive emotion someone has, either they be happy or in love. But cannot distinguish what type of negative emotions someone has.

-Dream’s tail is constantly moving around. Either it be wagging or swaying, moving to point left or right whenever he looks that way. In contrast to his brothers tail.

-When they talk their hands are always moving, talking in hands with gestures. They can’t help it and does it subconsciously, if anyone points it out to them, they get super embarrassed and try not to move their hands around, normally holding their hands to their chest or lap.

-Is learning how to draw from Ink, Blue also joins in on these drawing sessions sometimes as well.

-Doesn’t really like modern technology, he can use it to some extent, but just doesn’t like it for some reason. He does enjoy watching movies on a laptop as long as others watch it with him though, but that's the extent of his love of technology.

-Is scared of owls, doesn’t like the fact they can turn their heads 180°, meaning they can always watch you. Freaks them out, also got shown a picture of owls without feathers by Night once and hasn’t been the same since when thinking about owls.

-When around others they tend to act somewhat innocent and try to be positive most of the time. Mainly because they doesn’t really want the others to question them too much. They tend to keep this act up around Night, but they know Night sees straight through it. But they can’t help it, due to the situation they feel they have to make sure they’re a beacon of positivity.

Kids-Guarding the tree as adults-After joining the group

How they feel about:

Nightmare: Adores Nightmare, Night is his brother after all. He’d do anything for Night, and doesn’t like it when Night puts himself in dangerous situations. He tries to do what he can for Night, but he knows Night keeps a lot of things to himself, which he wants Night to open up, but he also doesn’t want to force him to talk. Dream knows Night is trying for him, but he wants Night to try for himself to do things because he wants to do them not because it will make him (Dream) happy.

Cross: Likes Cross, appreciates the fact he’s trying to take care of Night when he can’t be around Night. Thinks Cross is just genuinely nice, often hangs out with him, normally with others as well either that also be with Night or Blue. Cross had accidentally told him that he had a crush on Night. So he (Dream) tries to help Cross where he can when it comes to Night. He wants both of them to be happy. Is basically a wingman for Cross.

Blue: Likes Blue, Blue was one of the reasons he wanted to stick around the group. He and Blue got along very well. Pretty much felt like meeting someone who is very close to your own personality, and they hit it off.

Ink: Likes Ink, but thinks Ink is a little bit strange. He sometimes doesn’t feel emotions from Ink, and Ink explained their vials to him. Was quick to find out that Ink does random stuff and has no concept of danger or what is right and wrong really.

Dust: Unsure what he thinks to Dust, since he knows Dust is a murderer, and doesn’t tend to feel much emotion from him, and he hangs out with Night. He can see that Dust most likely won’t hurt Night, but it still does have him worried since Night isn’t the biggest fighter.

Horror: Unsure what to feel about Horror, something feels off about him, but he was Night’s first friend in the group. If Night likes him, and he doesn’t look like he’s going to hurt Night in any way then he can’t really complain.

Killer: Unsure what he thinks to Killer, since he knows killer is a murderer. Doesn’t tend to feel emotions from him. Is also unsure on the fact he hangs with Night, Dust has shown clear signs of not wanting to hurt Night, whereas Killer hasn’t really shown anything to say he won’t hurt Night.

Error: Likes Error, Error acts like he doesn’t like him though, but he knows that Error doesn’t actually mind him. The only time he’s seen Error somewhat actually annoyed is when he brings Ink along to come see him.

Lust: Likes them, sees them as a good friend. Appreciates how chilled out Lust is, and that Lust acts as the only normal friend for Night. He and Lust often hang out together, he likes to help Lust with gardening, or help them make/repair clothes.

Fell/Edge: Is okay with Red, just doesn’t appreciate Red’s swearing. Red’s one of the more organized members of the group, so tried to help Red out where he can to make sure things don’t spiral out of control.

Geno: He is okay with him, he can feel Geno normally doesn’t feel okay so tries to cheer him up when he can. Doesn’t really like looking at the scar on Geno, but he knows Geno can’t really do anything about it, so just tries to ignore the scar.

Outer: Likes Outer, they get along well. Will sometimes join Outer on a night to look at the stars. Likes to listen to Outer talk about things. Appreciates how chilled out Outer is. Often him and Outer will work together on things to help other people out, since they both tend to have a lot of free time.

Sci: Likes Sci, sometimes sits with him so Sci can ramble about things to him, likes it when Night joins them too, hearing the two go back and forth with info and thoughts. Treats the two like a podcast, even though he doesn’t understand half of it he’s starting to recognize what things they talk about.

Reaper/Death: Unsure what to think really. Doesn’t like the fact Reaper is out to kill Geno, but at the same time Reaper is polite and nice to him. So has conflicted feelings about him. Tries to keep Geno away from him. They tend to be on good terms but its on thin ice.

Fresh: Night told him to stay away from him. Trusts his brother's judgment, doesn’t understand why Night wants him to stay away but after a few interactions realized he was getting a bad feeling from Fresh, so decided Night is probably right about staying away.

Gans/Echo: Doesn’t mind him, but doesn’t like it when he swears or smokes indoors, but doesn’t try to police him on these things, knowing it's not really any of his business.

Chief: Doesn’t mind him, thinks he can be a bit rude, but other than that thinks he’s okay. Tends to help him out if he thinks Chief needs any help, but knows Chief enjoys bossing someone around, so doesn’t ask half the time if he needs help.

#monoart #monos art #art #digital #digital art #undertale au #Renegade!Dream #Renegade au #Dream #Renegade ref #ref #reference #dreamtale dream #dream sans #Renegade info #Renegade refs #sans au #undertale sans au

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likeadevils · 1 year

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Have you explained your evermore cinematic universe before? I’ve see you mention it a few times but I don’t know the lore

I HAVEN’T EXPLAINED IT ALL BEFORE BUT I WOULD LOVE TO

so we start our story with champagne problems. during their first year of college, dorothea and her soon-to-be ex go home to visit their families, and dorothea’s soon-to-be ex proposes on thanksgiving. dorothea turns her down and decides to move to LA instead of continuing college. dorothea’s ex travels back alone

(brief time skip of 3/4 years)

we meet back up with dorothea for gold rush— she has met an exciting, slightly maddening stranger who i call “the cowboy” at some industry party. she is trying not to have Feelings about it

we breeze through their courtship with willow, as the cowboy cuts through dorothea like a knife and matches her trick for trick

we briefly hop over to dorotheas ex for right where you left me— dorothea has come home for the holidays and is catching up with her friends at dinner, and dorothea’s ex has Feelings about her dating the cowboy

back to dorothea for cowboy like me— her and the cowboy are in love and engaged and it’s adorable. there’s seriously no mind games being played at all it’s not like she’s waiting up at night for him to call her

and we’re back to the ex for dorothea— she’s been spending this year’s holidays in LA. it’s fine it’s whatever i’m sure she’s happier over there

and now we’re at tolerate it. there was maybe, in retrospect, some mind games being played. it’s starting to become a problem

until we hit tis the damn season— dorothea’s back for the holidays this year, without the cowboy. she has a little affair as a treat

brief optional interlude from the ex for some renegade action after they find out dorothea isn’t actually separated from the cowboy yet

the pass the first half of the year in a ivy state of mind. dorothea wants the ex to tell her to break up with the cowboy. the ex wants her to make that decision for herself. dorothea is flying back and forth whenever she gets the chance

she hits the breaking point with it’s time to go, but then, there’s also some happiness worked in there as well

we get the cowboy’s point of view with coney island— he’s realizing all the times he didnt show up for her and regrets it, but it’s too late

and then we have evermore. dorothea speands the second half of the year slowly recovering after her life in LA fell apart, and slowly finding her way back to her ex

and we conclude with long story short— it was a bad time, and she survived

i also have a playlist if you want taylor to tell you the story herself

#asks*#rip to nbnc #and it feels disrespectful to insert marjorie into the Lore #but it does gel with dorothea’s character quite well if y’all want to do that

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intertexts · 5 months

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GMORNING !!!!! u know what time it is

EPISODE 8 TRIVIA:

- the big monster they fought in the beginning was called a Crawling Apocalypse which looks like this. terrifying !!!

- bizly really liked that william banished it. he was originally not gonna let him do that but then "i realized your character can do so little and that was cool so i said fuck it" we love william pity points he is such a loser and he rolls so terribly <3

- they start talking about one piece because grizzlys saying things abt how certain parts of dakota are inspired by luffy and bizly goes "ive never watched anime" which is the biggest lie in the world

- grizzly: "yknow we were about an hour into the episode before i realized wow i havent done anything productive yet"

condi: "you just hit on vyncents mom for like 20 minutes!!!!"

- and then they start talking about how dakota and chip (bizlys pc from riptide) would either be best friends or hate each other which is really funny bc there are now MULTIPLE what if crossover episodes where they meet and interact and thats exactly the dynamic . i love them

- condi wasnt expecting his dad to be dead, he thought theyd have to fight him

- he kind of hesitated taking the sword !! vyncent doesnt really know how to feel about using something that belonged to his father

- he wasnt entirely Present for the part where his dad betrayed the party, he was sort of fading in and out of consciousness so theres a chance he didnt actually get the full picture. condi knows this out of character and vyncent knows it in the back of his mind somewhere that his dad might not actually be fully evil but hes too angry to come to terms with that yet

- hes struggling a lot with the fact that his mom.doesnt know about the betrayal. he doesnt want to tell her because "its not his fathers pride at stake, its his mother's memory of him" and that makes me so . :(

- THE GREATS!!!!!!!! THE GREATS ARE HERE i love the greats. surely nothing bad is happening to them

- they have a couple theories as to whats going on with the greats:

-- condi: theyre in this state because vyncent took too long getting them back here out of his head

-- condi: they were killed when they got transported to the other world and there was no way to get them back completely

-- charlie: something happened in the time where vyncent was transported to prime and the greats had died, so someone did something to keep them alive by putting them in his head. maybe they could only be kept alive by being in vyncents head

- grizzly tries to insight check bizly irl to see if any of their theories are close so far. this does not work . he rolled a 17 btw

- none of them trust minerva they think she might be secretly working with the lich. bizly defends her by saying "shes also in the middle of basically an apocalypse i think shes allowed to be a little mean to you"

- le frog is the only french person ever. this is brought up with NO context no explanation

- bizly is sharing some of the thumbnail art from youtube because this was right around the time the first few episodes were being put up publically !! most of them are just the same as the official refs but the most important one is le frog bc im not actually sure if youve seen his offical design yet . also tide used to be white. we dont have to talk about white tide

- bizly says pd feels more like a DC comic than a Marvel comic. hes right about this

- charlie starts talking about marissa meyer books and this is important 2 me because the lunar chronicles was an extremely formative piece of media for me . she apparently has a book called renegades thats superhero themed and i have not read it yet but i put it on my list specifically because of this. wahoo!

tgis is SUCH good trivia for this ep thank u dude... ouagh. really solid meal here. i love these last couple episodes so much.. there's so much fun stuff happening here i'm enjoying all of the greats stuff & getting like a solid Vyncent Moment for a while.

i LOVE the william pity points its great! it WAS cool as fuck!! also i gain +5 hp every time a gm goes "who give a shit if this isn't technically how the game mechanics should work, it's fun for everyone at the table & makes for something cool and makes sense narratively."

that being said. i DID take SO MUCH PSYCHIC DAMAGE from how long dakota spent hitting on his fucking mom. Please. Please king !!! sob.

I ALSO WAS EXPECTING THEM TO FIGHT VYN'S DAD???? still not unconvinced that some lich undead bullshit isn't going to happen with that. god i'm so invested in figuring out what HAPPENED there... i love this type of murder mystery situation. & i also was genuinely unsure if he would take the sword or not!! really kind of an ohhh shit! moment when he did. imo. vyncent virion sol i love u.... also it's still INCREDIBLY funny 2 me that he's still in his normal clothes. i have not forgotten that he is just doin his fantasy bullshit thing in the just some guy drip. (<- i might have forgotten something but i've been assuming they no longer have/wear Official Hero Drip since they're no longer really sanctioned or on great terms w/ them? also i've been assuming that the episode-specific clothes & shit isn't really permanent... now that im thinking about it though please tell me wiwi hardcore blue flame black leather kickass spiky biker jacket remains. it's too cool for him. but. still.)

I LOVE THE GREATS SO MUCH... i hope nothing permanently bad happens to them :( i like them so dearly..... you know they r really solid folks because they spent a YEAR and change living in a teenager's brain & came out of the experience still bein so nice 2 him.... augh. also in general big fan of the system-adjacent bullshit :] i love it when theres. guy with guys in his head. etc. will b sad ab their departure but i hope they r OKAY and return 2 Being Alive & shit!! nervous laughter. also god i can't wait to find out what Actually Happened with them. hhrhrghghgghh.

THIS IS SO TRUE ALSO???? free my girl minerva she did nothing but have Literally Normal Reactions to TERRIBLE things happening!!!

I DON'T LIKE THAT LEFROG FACT. it raises the question of is he actually even french or like, is there even a point of reference for his behavior. like. What is going on there. Horrifying thank you!!!! also man this entire degree im working on would be useless! well. maybe prime quebec exists. somehow. independently of a hypothetical europe. HIS DESIGN IS SO FUN BTW. its so cute.. i WAS kind of imagining a mutant Big Real Fucking Frog situation but i think this is a lot more reasonable. also literally ignoring white tide I Do Not See it. It Does Not Exist.

ALSO. NOT GOING TO START TALKING AB COMICS FOR EVEN MORE PARAGRAPHS. BUT. he is so so so right. (<- dc comics guy with Opinions. well. technically im not even much of a dc guy im just a vertigo guy. but. still.) hghghghbhgh.

#ALSO... i remember reading ONE book of that series u just unlocked that memory... it was the only one our library had i think </3 #anyway. this is SO LONG but what ever... prime defenders thought dump time man im free from term paper hell i can do whaddever i want!!!#also HIII ilyyy hope u had a good day :]#mac tag!#pd lb #i need 2 start tagging these trivia ones specifically so i can go back n find em easily..#pd rolled #<- :3

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paigelts05 · 3 months

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James Campbell [FNAF AR, Renegade AU]

https://www.deviantart.com/paigelts05/art/1069328144

Published: Jun 30, 2024

The vast majority of Fazbear Entertainment employees know nothing of the cult stuff. The vast majority of Fazbear Entertainment employees don't know that the murders were an inside job. But sometimes word gets around, only after you're in too deep, and the only thing you can do is try to stick under the radar as you try to save those you care about.

Kayla and James had known that they weren't long for this world since Faz Ent released thier obituaries whilst they were still alive.

James Campbell, sometimes also called Jim, had never been good at telling people how he felt. Even worse when his childhood friend was younger than him.

When he first met Steve, they were both kids. But when Jim turned 16, they begun to drift apart. It had been fine for a 15 year old to be the cool older friend and free supervision at the park for the younger kids, and Jim had generally been the best with younger kids, but after he turned 16, he felt that the very same people who saw him as just thier kid's friend yesterday were now looking at him funny, with expectations and distain, like he was just a free babysitter instead of their kid's friend, as if he was a third parent to all their kids and not a kid himself and that he was failing this unspoken parental duty. At his own 16th birthday party.

Once Jim became an adult, he decided to study IT, but due to his financial situation, he wound up taking many odd jobs before he had the financial stability to start college. In his final year, he met Steve again, who was in his first year. Jim wasn't exactly happy about this reunion, and it was all down to how he had previously drifted apart from Steve with no notice or explanation. He did wind up becoming somewhat friends with Steve again, mostly through Steve's effort, but Jim still feels as if thier relationship was strained.

After Jim graduated, he went to work for Fazbear Entertainment, and a few years later, Steve went to work for this lady named Anna who was apparently a friend of Steve's.

Jim kept in slight contact with Steve, and this is how Jim found out about the dark side of Fazbear Entertainment.

The public's knowledge of Fazbear Entertainment wasn't very deep: the average person only knew that kids and night guards routinely went missing and sometimes showed up as dead.

He was at the top of the bell curve: he had always figured that the bad reputation the franchise was just the same pick-n-mix of terrible traits that all large companies had combined with a heavy helping of negligence, and he thought that the negligence had been the cause of the tragedies and disappearances. Sure, he felt really naive after finding out the truth, but he did not expect murder to be a part of the company's core ethos.

Now knowing that his life has just gotten ten times more dangerous, Jim doubled down and made sure to keep in contact with Steve. Steve only knew because Anna had told him, and from what Steve had told Jim, Anna was the daughter of a Faz Ent Scientist. Now, Faz Ent having actual scientists was bizarre, but the mote bizarre things got, the more Jim tried to learn for himself, trying his level best to relay anything he could back to Steve.

So it made less sense when he saw Anna's company on the list of contractors working on the Special Delivery project. Steve told him that it was in part due to their financial situation, but also Anna seeming to have some ulterior motives. Something about keeping your friends close and enemies closer. It was certainly easier for contractors to track the animatronics than it was for a layman, and with what Jim knew about Anna, being free to track the animatronics seemed to be something she valued above a lot of things.

He kept on acting as Steve's contact, both professionally now that Steve was a contractor, and personality, leaking anything that may help Steve survive, but Jim had neglected himself.

One day, Jim went into work, and his boss was accompanied by a man in a dress shirt, waistcoat, slacks, and he had a gun. Jim knew he'd fucked up big time. He couldn't run, so had to listen.

Fazbear Entertainment was reporting him as dead. Jim was ordered to have no contact with the outside world.

He knew that if he refused, he'd be dead for real, so he had no choice but to go along with it.

He wound up unable to leave, but he found ways around things.

He learned to sneak around unseen, wire tap, take shorthand notes, and slip notes out undetected. One of the individuals he managed to slip notes out to went by many pseudonyms, but Jim knew the pseudonym "Whistleblower RedBear". Jim went by the pseudonym of "Dead Circuits".

The information that Dead Circuits was able to release was able to help further many investigations into Faz Ent's current projects. The construction of a megaplex, a VR environment, the resurrection of Adelaide and William, and "Vanny".

He could only investigate one without raising too much suspicion, and he only had the project names to work off of.

He decided to investigate the one he felt the deepest connection to: the "Vanny" plans. He felt as if Ness, one of Steve's friends, might be the woman refered to as "Vanny": he'd heard the word tossed around, so figured that it was his best bet if he was going to help Steve.

The plans interlaced with eachother, because of course they would, and he only managed to learn about the Adelaide Incident in post (he regretted not investigating the plans for the resurrection of Adelaide, but how could he have known), but he did his best to find out what Faz Ent had planned for Ness and how they intended to turn such a sweet lady into a psycho killer.

The information that Dead Circuits was able to anonymously leak was enough to help Ness keep a wrench in the works for far longer than Faz Ent anticipated.

After Faz Ent "obtained Vanny and put her to work at the objective location", his leaked information was able to give investigators a window into the internal goings on of Faz Ent and their "Vanny" plans, and it was such good information that it sped up the rate of collection of evidence so much that the police were prepared to launch a raid on the Megaplex far sooner than expected, and even paranormal responders who were supposed to be on medical leave were able to figure out where "Vanny" was.

After he received news that "Vanny" had "fallen through Faz Ent's fingers", he heard plans for Faz Ent to try and "bring Vanny back". He tried to gather details, but Faz Ent's plans were so hastily put together that by the time he'd managed to leak the information, he learned that the Raid on the megaplex had turned out as a success for investigators and had thwarted Faz Ent's "bring back Vanny Plan A", and that a trio of execs were currently on route to Ness's temporary accommodation to enact "being back Vanny Plan B". Needless to say, the information didn't make it in time to prevent the success of Faz Ent's plan B.

Even after the megaplex related chaos ended, Dead Circuits couldn't go back home, back to just being Jim Campbell, even though he wanted to. His employer reminded him every day that the world thought he was dead. He had been forced to bunk in the labs dormitories. He didn't get much privacy in regards to his personal artefacts. He had no idea what became of his apartment, or his things. He had been a perfectly normal guy before all of this, but now he was some kind of high-caliber informant superspy, and he hated it.

He just wanted someone to realise that he was alive. He wanted someone to come and save him. But he knew that would never happen. He knew that Steve had legitimately had a crush on him since college, and in the months up to his employer declaring him as dead, Jim had finally reciprocated that crush, and he wished that he'd told Steve instead of just keeping it to himself.

He had no idea how long it had been, but one day, he heard plans to attempt to resurrect Adelaide again. The plans involved killing their former contractors to generate enough Remnant so that Adelaide would be able to take over Anna's body. Just like the last attempt at this plan. But they were planning on kidnapping thier victims instead of making Adelaide have to puppet the situation from the shadows.

When he heard a Faz-truck pull up and saw an exec haul several unconscious people, including Steve, into the HQ, Jim knew that even if emergency services had been dispatched immediately, nobody would get here in time to save everyone. He knew that he'd have to sacrifice himself in Steve's place if he wanted Steve to survive. He was already dead to the world: he figured "so what if I really died, as long as Steve lives I'm OK".

And to Jim's surprise, Kayla, another person who had been declared dead by Faz Ent, but had taken up a mask as opposed to hiding in the shadows, wanted to join him, volunteering herself as a sacrifice as well, just to buy the kidnapped employees of CK animatronic maintenance and R&D robotics just a little more time.

#2024 #art #artwork #fnaf #fnaf au #renegade au #fnaf renegade au #renegade au guards #fnaf fanart #fnaf ar #fnaf ar emails #fnaf ar special delivery #fnaf special delivery #fnaf james campbell #fnaf jim campbell #fnaf jim #fnaf ar james campbell #fnaf ar jim campbell #fnaf ar jim

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gadgetcheat · 5 months

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i haven't been using tumplr as much so i haven't seen which ones u may have already answered but 3 5 10 12 and 21 for the rejuv asks >:^)

answered 5 and 12 in a previous post, they're under my posts tag!

renegade spoilers under the cut and this is gonna be a long one

3. favorite moment?

the karma beast battle in renegade OHHH MY GOD. holy fucking raw. all that spoiler dodging paid off because ohhhh my god guys. axiom waltz and the music transition like HELLO? they knocked this moment out of the damn parkkkk when i tell you how hard my heart sank into my ass. like i was staring at my computer mortified for a good four minutes at the battle start screen. that's what makes it so memorable to me because it's such a good staple moment of renegade i feel. for me it was easy to not take renegade too seriously when it was just pressing an evil button and dealing with m2's antics at first but seeing a guy get rifted into a horrible dying and melting poison bird monstrosity by karma just to try and stop you was such an "Oh this game isn't fucking around" moment for me. and this is in CHAPTER 0 of renegade. like that was just the beginning this oblivion shit gets SERIOUS. if the devs keep this up im probably going to be an alcoholic by the time the game is finished. im so excited

10. favorite villain/antagonist(s)?

dont even joke lad

clear + kieran (+ eden) its not even a competition. my favorite characters in the entire game unfortunately. in fact they were even my favorites before i actually played the game just from what i heard of them from my friends💀. i heard badass evil androids from another universe and i was TUNED the fuck IN. i think its because i like sci-fi too much. i love love love all three of them but clear is ever so slightly my #1 ONLY because she uses a bunch of my favorite pokemon. orbeetle, klinklang, porygon-z, and you tell beheeyemlover56 that a character's ace pokemon is a beheeyem and i will be there No Matter What

theyre just SOOO SO INTERESTING and cool and everything about them is awesome. even all of the atrocities because they looked awesome while doing it. i love the character dynamic between clear and kieran and i love their stupid ass catchphrases that they cling onto like their lives depend on it and i love the insane lore deal they have going on they occupy my brain 24/7. im sooo excited to see how much more fucked up they'll get in the future. i will support them !

on account of eden being scrap metal and having about 3 dollars and a nickel of revealed lore i can't say much about them but from what we do know oooohhhhh i am SO HYPED to find out more. doubt they'll bring eden back from the grave but i am very intrigued to see just what impact they had on crescent/A-gang/storm 9. they sound particularly terrifying and freaky. i cant wait. oblivion forever🔥

21. favorite chapter?

probably to no one's surprise its chapter 15 lmfao. all three of the routes are SO MUCH FUN and i really enjoy the focus on characters other than just Le Interceptor for a change. i kind of love lore-heavy chapters and all of the reveals in chapter 15 are so crazy and exciting. and no other chapter has platinum route in it. luv u platinum route <3

additionally the v13.5 overhaul to chapter 10 was AMAZING and now thats definitely my second favorite chapter. my jaw dropped when i saw all the new pretty updated areas and sprites

thank you for the ask!

#posts #asks #pkmnrejuv #with a modest 275 word murder android love letter

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hellsdogs · 1 year

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"Are you here for the business or the coke cause..." Dai questions, nonchalantly scratching his head, a lazy yawn following. "Well, it's breakfast time." He does look like shit a little but it is part of his charm, one would say. He is in his usual kimono, his traditional wear, open, untied for his entire torso, tattoos exposed, his hair getting longer falling down his shoulders, untamed. At least, he does have pants on - and that's a lot. In one hand he's holding Konkon, this little pigglet he considers like his son. Truly, he wouldn't treat a human better than he treats the little pet. In the other hand, a cigar travels from his fingers to his lips. The club isn't too crowded by the end of the afternoon, the party only starts when the sun goes down. Music is still playing however in the back, less loud as these hours are mostly reserved for business. Well, if Boss is in mood for it. Dai keeps on walking, Naeun is naturally expected to follow him, as he falls down his golden velvet couch, man spreading as a treat. For the guests, they could either stand or sit on the facing couch. The lights aren't fully off yet the spotlights already spinning gaving a peculiar taste to the atmosphere. Henchmen are of course, all around them. It is an escort then, who walks in and places down the table an already prepared line of fresh cocaine on a plate made of actual gold. Over the top. He did not lie, it is breakfast time at 5pm. The girl then places another plate down on Naeun's side of the table before bowing and smiling to the two of them. Park Naeun. Since Dai has opened the Octogon club, here in Seoul, the word has been out that the yakuza are back in town. An arrival that did not make most of the underground scene happy and yet, many kangpaes and gangs saw the potential of alliances with him and ended up sitting on this exact couch for negociations. Then came the ones working solo as well, the renegades the bannished, the desperate. Naeun, to Dai, is not a desperate no, but a lone wolf, a skilled one : as much as a potential friend than a potential enemy. He likes that. The ones who swear allegiance to no one. He leans down, finger against his nostril, the other snorting the white line and immediatly throws in head to the back as he's savouring this sweet sweet pleasure of the instant, his hair swaying as well. "Fuuuuuck." He actually moans. "YES!" He then shouts out loud, his eyes redicting to her, this time, filled with this manic energy that is more Him, clearly more awakened than 5 minutes ago. "God I feel like a baby crawling out of my mama's placenta, I feel. ALIVE! FUCK! ALRIGHT!" He exclaims, clapping once in his hands then slapping himself one side and then the other, growling like the animal he is. "Let's! Do! Some! Business! That one's for you by the way, come on, don't be shy." He now says, an inviting smirl on, the one that spreads from his temple to chin. "That little power made of fairies moons and stars is cleaner than a virgin sacrifice in the church of my dreams. So come on, taste it. Go, Taste, it." He says, gesturing towards the cocaine with one hand randomly, the other snapping in the air couple times for one of his clan member to approach.

for @ourcarvedsins from permanant starter call

A member, lowkey ranked, hands a big file to him. Grabbing it in a sharp move he slams the folder down the table, opening it, to then push it towards her direction. "Here." He speaks, planting his index finger down the table to enphasize the upcoming statement. "Every single motherfucker who wore a goddamn snake as a tattoo for the past 30 years in Seoul. The list is pretty damn long, turns out not only one organization wore the tattoo but many. Some did not survive, others ended up merging with bigger gangs. There are some chinese bozos too, the triad had quite a piece of territory here in Korea back in their glory days, so they get thrown in the damn mix. Who knew snakes tattoos weren't original for shit huh?" Dai comments. "If you isolate the ones particularly active between 1990 and 2000, guess the list gets smaller." Dai had a perfect knowledge of the underground scene there in Tokyo and now here in Seoul, as well. It made him the ideal person for Naeun to ask for some sort of help to track down her targets, plus he had resource. Men under his control he could send in every corner of the country and dig. The folder handed to Naeun had profiles but old pictures as well, pictures of the suspected men, locations of some of their head quarters, connections between some snake tattoos gangs and various organizations. A quite full and complete registary that still needed some dissection from her. It is a fair effort for Naeun who, Dai believes is useful on the ground when he's away. "Tell me if any names, pictures, something, rings a bell to you that's gonna be a path for us to follow." He then says, sinking down his couch. "Your turn now. I asked for the Matsushitas location. You got that for me?" The Matsushitas, a japanese smaller clan planning on implementing themselves in Seoul and who did him dirty, attempted to betray him even though they had a deal. Traitors must die. He actually killed all of them, only three got away, he needed to finish the work and hang their limbs right next to their best friends in the slaughterhouse. "I got a new axe so, I'm in the mood for a hunt tonight."

His razor smile spreads again.

#神 : 𝐲𝐚𝐦𝐚𝐳𝐚𝐤𝐢 𝐝𝐚𝐢. / interactions.#Konkon is there #Everyone's favorite little baby pig so Naeun is lucky to see him #Well less lucky cuz he just got out of bed and hasnt had his morning coke fix yet #But at least he offered her some he's a good Host #神 : 𝐲𝐚𝐦𝐚𝐳𝐚𝐤𝐢 𝐝𝐚𝐢. / the leader.

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sitpwgs · 1 year

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Hi!!! Omg I'm so sorry I am replying soo late! My phone was basically dead at the end of the show lol and my charger didn't work for some reason but I meant to reply sooner. I didn't get home until like 3AM which isn't usually late for me but was starving and also had a small drink..then I had to wait for my phone to charge. By that time, I guess I was probably pretty tired from the show too. Then I didn't reply the other day cuz I started to feel anxiety the day before the show..but everything ended up fine! we had the absolute best time ever! It feels really amazing to have gotten those surprise songs omg!!! And it was two songs she hasn't performed live before! I also had no idea Aaron was gonna be there...cuz I hadn't checked my phone so that was a fun surprise to have a guest! I almost thought she was gonna sing Renegade but I am very happy with Right Where You Left Me too. My sister really wanted that song so maybe she manifested it lol. I was shocked she sang Castles Crumbling cuz I thought she would only wanna sing it when Paramore opens..and it sounded amazing. But she had just gone to the piano without saying anything and I had no idea what song she would start singing which was fun. The whole show was just amazing and more than I could've imagined. Like even if I knew the setlist, there was still a few times during the show I was like..oh I forgot about this song lol. Like that happened with No Body No Crime actually..I was fully expecting Willow at the start, then with My Tears Ricochet and even Cardigan. The way the show was set up worked really well as far as energy and I had a lot of fun singing along to the Fearless and Red sets..even if it was mostly her hits. I loved the All Too Well 10 performance so much! The Speak Now set was amazing..and I got the purple dress and still loved it! Then fireworks from the theme park right next to the stadium started going off which is fun and unexpected! I love how Taylor really makes every show feel special..and she seemed so happy and had a lot of energy. It felt weird that I was actually there..like I couldn't believe it..but it also felt long enough..but then I was also sad when it was over. But still..it was really amazing! Now I'm watching a livestream to relive it.

good evening!! hope you had a good sunday, dear friend! please don't apologize at all — it sounds like you had the best time!! i was watching the entire stream friday night (i normally only pop on for surprise song o'clock, but i wanted to watch it to see what was going on during your show) and the energy was soooo good, just absolutely electric. i screamed a bit when i realized what she was singing and was so, so happy for you (and everyone else in that stadium)!! i mean, right where you left me and castles crumbling? what a top tier pairing! i'm so happy for your sister too!! i also found myself forgetting about what was on the setlist when i was there, and there are some songs where i'm like "oh i forgot this happened" still. the purple dress was so ethereal, and watching the fireworks go off during the speak now set was so, so magical — i can't even imagine what it was like in person! i wonder if (more like, when) the tour documentary/tour movie is coming out, because i really, really want to rewatch it 🥺

#post: answered #🩷 anon #will reply to your part two in a hot minute!

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piratefalls · 3 years

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So I had to take a break from the fandom during the hiatus because the “not knowing” was too much. Do you think you could do a rec list of just stuff posted during the break? I love your lists and thank you!

hi nonnie! i have 8 pages of bookmarks of things that were posted after hiatus started, so here's a selection of them. this got...so, so long. thank you for the request!

all rec lists can be found here.

I go back to December all the time by lesbiandiaz

Eddie leaves the 118 on a Tuesday. Buck doesn’t even look at him, doesn’t say goodbye.

calling out for somebody to hold tonight by lecornergirl

Buck’s going to find that person, one day, and Eddie’s destined to live the rest of his life watching someone else have the life he so desperately wants.

He peels his forehead off the bar and props his chin in his hand, signalling the bartender and asking for tequila.

“Everything okay?” the bartender asks.

“I’m in love with my best friend,” Eddie admits, just for the novelty of saying it out loud. It’s not like he’s going to get many other chances. Then he downs the shot.

The bartender winces in sympathy. “And you don’t think—”

“Oh, never,” Eddie says, with a laugh that sounds hollow even to his own ears. “Can I get another tequila?”

The Aftermath of Liberation and Love Confessions by ElvenSorceress

After a very long year of one terrible thing after another, Eddie has a brand new life strategy. It’s called not giving a shit.

There’s the fire of a challenge in Buck’s eyes and a clench in the set of his jaw, and come on, it’s not as if Eddie forced Buck into dating the reporter. Not like he pays it any mind whatsoever. It was doomed from the start. She’s not good enough for him. She’s a terrible fit for him. Buck’s clearly been miserable for months.

Still, Buck says, “Yeah, Eddie. Why don’t you teach us. What would you say if you were professing your love?”

You mean something besides, “In the event of my untimely death, I made you legal guardian of my child”?

Eddie stares back at him. He breathes deeply, and since his renewed life philosophy is not giving a shit and not being ashamed and finally reaching freedom, why the fuck not...

~~~

In which Eddie comes out, sexuality is complicated but coffee is not, Buck makes an excessive salad and is also roasted, everyone has a love confession, and December is the most dramatic time of year.

flash like a setting sun by playedwright

The universe has a fucked up sense of humor as far as Buck’s concerned. It took it’s sweet time leading him down the road that would eventually root him in Los Angeles with an acceptance letter to the fire academy in his hand, but all of that had been well and fine since it got him here eventually. Buck can roll with the punches better than most, so long as he’s given the opportunity to land on his feet.

It stands to reason that the universe was a lot more straightforward leading him to realize he was—is—in love with Eddie Diaz.

Buck just wishes the universe had been a little more subtle about it.

or, the one where the universe is screaming at buck and he's refusing to listen

the dancer's dance by withoutthetiger

"They make it less than a mile before Eddie points to a bar with a half-full parking lot. It’s early enough that they’ve beat the Saturday night crowd and it’ll be nice to carry on an actual conversation while they have a drink or two. It feels like forever since they’ve gone out like this, and Eddie thinks it nearly was, the past year a more complicated challenge to their friendship than he could have imagined.

But Eddie’s been back at work for a few weeks now, Bobby welcoming him back without hesitation, and spring is on the horizon, a change that feels especially important this year, even if Southern California seasons hardly matter at all.

And this night with Buck – well, maybe it’ll change something, too."

*****

Set in the spring of 2022, after Eddie is back with the 118.

renegade (if I would've known) by writerforlife

"Eddie has always felt safe, with Buck at his back. Yet that isn’t enough anymore, not when Christopher is waking up screaming. Not when Eddie hasn’t been okay for a long time. Buck is not enough to save him, and Eddie doesn’t know how to say that, especially when Buck looks up, meets his eye, and says, “Don’t go.”"

Or: in the aftermath of leaving the 118, Eddie confronts his trauma, drinks beer with Buck, and goes to therapy - not exactly in that order, though

this could be your happy hunting ground by hammersmiths

And they were okay, in the end, but they were nearly not, and Christopher’s a kid. He’s already lost his mother – he can’t lose Eddie too.

Buck just wishes he didn’t have to, either.

or, Eddie leaves the 118. Everyone adjusts. Especially Buck.

paint me a heaven with your bloodied mouth by extasiswings

Buck.

Four letters. One syllable.

Eddie knows it’s a nickname. He doesn’t know why Buck picked it or why Buck seems to use it exclusively, but he figures it isn’t really his business. And also that it probably isn’t that deep—all of them use nicknames at work or otherwise in their daily lives. Eddie himself might find it weird if anyone outside of his immediate family suddenly started using his full name regularly after so many years of only rarely hearing it from anyone else.

So. Eddie calls Buck Buck. And he doesn’t think anything of it.

At least…not at first.

Here Where We Should Be (Kiss Me, It’s Christmas) by allisonRW96

Christopher beams brighter than the lights surrounding him and Buck smirks. “Speaking of Rudoph,” he says, reaching behind him to pull something out of the pocket of his jeans.

“No,” Eddie answers before he can even see the objects clearly. “Absolutely not.”

In Buck’s left hand is a headband. A brown one with fuzzy little ears and tall antlers that Eddie is one hundred percent certain are about to light up.

It’s Christmas and Eddie decides he can’t possibly wait any longer to start kissing Buck.

must be some kind of twist, I could get used to this by soyxunxperdedor

He doesn’t remember much from last night, even less after the fourth or fifth tequila shot. So he certainly doesn’t remember bringing someone back to his room.

He steels himself for the lancing pain and cracks his eyes open.

Oh. Oh no.

This is either really bad or… Well, not really good, but just. Not really bad, and that’s probably all Buck can ask for it to be.

Because Eddie is in his bed, Eddie’s arm is wrapped around his waist, Eddie’s legs are tangled with his. And he has no idea why.

You'll Be Here In Every Memory by kitkatpancakestack

Eddie never thought the thing that would break him and Buck would be the words, "I love you," but then it's Christmas Eve and Buck is gone, and all he wants for the holidays is his family of three back together again.

you remind me of home (oh, baby, merry christmas) by catching_paper_moons

“Buck, just come here,” Eddie says, and Buck feels his heart start to pound. “Do you need me to come get you?”

“Oh.” He takes another deep breath. “You’re sure?”

Eddie laughs. “Like Christopher won’t be over the moon that you’re here.”

“For a month, Eddie.”

“So?”

or, Buck has to live with Eddie for a month, which would be fine if he wasn't in love with the guy.

you're my whole house by hammersmiths

Eddie shrugs. “Christopher mentioned to Daniel that Buck and I are partners. I mean, sure, it’s a little weird that she invited him over as well, but—”

“Partners,” Hen interrupts, “like work partners?”

Eddie and Buck glance at each other. “Uh, yeah?” Eddie says. “What other type of partner?”

Hen stares at them for a moment, before she bursts out laughing. “You dumbasses. She thinks you’re together.”

or, Eddie joins the PTA.

Just stay here and be right now by bccalling

When Eddie accidentally breaks Buck's heart at the 118 Christmas party, he knows he needs to make it right.

Buck's just trying not to fall apart.

5x10 coda.

fell on hard times a year ago (was hoping you would let it go) by ShyAudacity

He doesn’t get more than five feet away before someone- an overly dressed man in a suit with a pink purple blue heart-shaped pin stuck to the lapel of his jacket- is stopping Buck on his way to the bar and asking if he’d like to dance.

And for a moment, Eddie is so struck with jealousy that he can’t think of anything else.

“Sorry,” Buck says with a smile. “I’m accounted for, but that’s very kind of you.”

Eddie doesn’t hear anything after that. Only the roaring of his own heart in his ears as it begins to beat in triple time. The overwhelming envy from a minute is still lingering, only adding to the absolute, all-consuming panic that is flooding his system. He can’t see Buck anymore and he doesn’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.

Why am I jealous? Am I jealous? That guy was probably harmless, what does it matter if he wanted to dance with Buck? Do I wanna dance with Buck? Why would I want to dance with Buck I’m not even-?

Oh shit. Oh God, how did I not see it?

Eddie learns something about himself and takes a minute to get used to it.

takin' my time, let the world turn by archerincombat

“Hey,” Ravi says. “Scale of 1 to 10, how bad would it be if I assumed Eddie Diaz’s girlfriend was his wife in front of him?”

Lee groans. “Did you do it in front of Buckley?”

“Yeah?”

“A hundred,” she replies, turning the other direction before Ravi can demand to know why.

At three in the morning, it hits him. He bolts upright in his cot. Oh my god, he thinks. Buck and Eddie are divorced, and everyone forgot to tell me.

aka, the ravi fic (affectionate)

Your Name A Promise In My Mouth by kitkatpancakestack

She stood from her desk and hoped the expression on her face resembled something warm and trusting. She faltered a bit when the two men walked through, one brunette and the other blond, both huge and muscular and a bit intimidating. They were dressed in civilian clothes, both in denim, the blond with a LAFD sweatshirt and the brunette wearing a red and black flannel. She zeroed in on the gold wedding bands on their fingers, and took it as a good sign neither had taken there’s off in some show of passive-aggressive defiance.

"So," she said. "Let's start at the beginning."

* Buck and Eddie attend Couple's Therapy, told entirely through the therapist's POV.

forever, ceasing never by lecornergirl

Until he drifts over just a little too far and loses his balance, and instead of resting his head on Buck’s shoulder like he’d intended he overshoots and finds himself sprawled out on the sofa, his head somewhere in the vicinity of Buck’s hip.

Buck’s lap. His head is in Buck’s lap.

Somewhere in the back of his wine-soaked mind, he knows he should get up. That this isn’t something they do. That this is crossing a line they’ve only skirted before, with the tackling and the tickling—always measured, always with a pretext.

He should get up, but Buck’s hand slides into his hair, and when he looks down his eyes are impossibly soft.

“Hi,” Buck whispers.

to be idle and blessed by iphigenias

“Coming, hot stuff?” he says over his shoulder, the sun sitting just above his curls and turning them so golden Eddie’s heart hurts. Buck’s shrimp-patterned board shorts have ridden up his thighs and there’s a bruise blooming over his left knee he swears he doesn’t remember getting; his face is pink-zinced and beaming, and he’s squinting at Eddie the same way he does when he’s half-asleep, on the couch in front of a movie he’d dozed off to, in opposite bunks at the firehouse at three a.m., in their bed across the thousand thread-count sheets he’d insisted on, cheek scruffy and creased red by the pillow. Christopher’s rash vest has yellow stegosauruses on the sleeves and his prescription goggles make his eyes look strange and googly, and last night when Eddie tucked him into bed his toes almost poked over the end.

Coming Up Aces by SquaresAreNotCircles

“Earth to Eddie,” Buck says. He laughs, but it sounds confused. “You’ve been staring at me all day, man. Do I have something on my face?”

“Your nose,” Eddie says. Christopher still thinks that one’s hilarious.

Or: Buck comes out as bi, which triggers a series of events that cause Eddie to realize that maybe, just maybe, he’s in love with Buck. Except logic dictates he can’t be. Except he definitely is. It’s complicated.

gimme gimme gimme by jay(tofupofu)

When Eddie and Buck have sex for the first time, the both discover that Eddie is a little more... sensitive than originally anticipated.

might crash staring at you in the car by farfromthstars

Hey can you pick me up at chris’ school? Everything went wrong today and we’re on our way there in an uber. I’ll tell cap Less than a minute later, Buck has texted back, be there in 20! hang tight, and Eddie breathes out.

for the prompt: a kiss in which, ''we're late for work but let's be later”

woke up the girl who looked just like you, i almost said your name by rarakiplin

“You forgot this at my place,” he says, dropping a set of keys into Eddie’s hand. “Figured you’d need them to get home.”

“Oh,” Eddie says, looking down at his own hand for a second before aiming a grin up at Tommy, who’s got one or two inches on him. “Thanks.”

Tommy’s resulting grin fades into a wince when he glances over Eddie’s shoulder and catches the surprise on Chim’s face. “Sorry, is it, like, disrespectful to wear hats in here? Like in school?” He tugs the beanie off, and he’s got dirty blond curls that tumble loosely over his forehead.

Chim blinks, then blinks again, because with the hair Eddie's...friend almost looks like—No. He can’t look like Buck, actually, because that would be the funniest thing to ever happen in the history of humankind and Chimney would have to quit his job to dedicate the rest of his life to laughing about it.

Or, five times Eddie dates a guy a little too similar to Buck, and one time he dates the real deal.

a little less war torn by renecdote

“I gotta be honest,” Eddie says quietly, “you’re not really reassuring me here, Buck.”

Buck bites his lip hard. He can’t tell the truth. He can’t. Christopher is here, and Eddie will probably leave, and then he’ll be alone again, again, again. Tears blur his eyes and he blinks quickly, trying to hold them at bay.

“Hey.” Hand on Buck’s shoulder now, squeezing just a little too tight. “I’m serious—do I need to take you to a hospital right now?”

Set right after 5x06 ends. In which Buck is all kinds of not okay but Eddie helps.

tell me about despair by hattalove

eddie's not entirely sure he believes in getting help, at least not for himself. there's only so much healing to be had for a body torn apart by bullets, for a mind that's only half there, for a man who's been leaving pieces of himself behind all his life with nothing to take their place.

except, as it turns out, falling apart happens in increments, and healing does, too: it happens when you gnaw a hole in your lip trying to keep quiet only to have the words escape; when you realize that the ghost you've been seeing out of the corner of your eye is yourself; when your best friend smiles, and you allow it to take your breath away.

it happens through the smallest of things: bird feeders, and cacti, and pasta shapes.

meanwhile, the world goes on.

(or: the entity often affectionately referred to as the unrepression fic.)

it's nice to have a friend by colonoscopy

Just two dudes holding each other under the kitchen table. Laughing about an orgy with a crab involved and being in big, fat, gargantuan love.

let me stay there awhile by withoutthetiger

"Maybe it all could have started as soon as they were done yelling at each other in the middle of Bobby and Athena’s backyard, their friends and family sneaking suspiciously far away while Buck and Eddie crept closer to the truth, everyone else having figured it out long before.

Or it could’ve happened in the wake of a house fire that very nearly claimed the lives of two fathers and their pre-teen son, the 118 arriving in time to save them all, and Buck and Eddie left staring at a grateful family and their own latest reminder of why they shouldn’t wait any longer.

But if Eddie looks back someday, he’ll realize it was never going to begin with anything other than this, a quiet question and an easy smile from his best friend, a man who can be eternally patient when it matters most."

*****

A little (long) exploration into the beginning of Buck and Eddie's relationship, in which Eddie learns that his sexual pleasure isn't only allowed, but also very thoroughly encouraged.

across our great divide (a glorious sunrise) by catching_paper_moons

“We’re working on it,” Maddie explains, shooting Chimney a look. He nods seriously. “In couples therapy.”

“Huh,” Eddie says, and then he thinks about it. "Do you think Buck and I would benefit from couples therapy?"

—

or, Eddie gets Buck to come to couples therapy with him.

tingles in a silly place by farfromthstars

“No one’s ever given me flowers before,” Eddie admits, and Buck steps closer to him, smiling that smile again.

“Well, I think you deserve to be given flowers,” he says, his hand big and warm on Eddie’s waist. Eddie wants to kiss him so bad, but Buck just squeezes his waist lightly and nods towards the door. “Ready to go?”

“Yeah,” Eddie breathes. “You still haven’t told me where we’re going.”

“That’s because it’s a surprise.”

Buck and Eddie go on a date.

New Sensations by lamardeuse

“All I know is you're getting me worked up and you're going to leave me hanging – again,” Eddie growled, nipping at Buck's earlobe and soothing it with a tongue Buck had learned was extremely talented, and okay, he thought, maybe he could – no, no, he couldn't.

give me a reason (don't say no) by thatbuddy

“So they just decided to elope… On their actual wedding day?”

Before answering Eddie’s question Buck reads the note in his hands once more, just to make sure the meaning of it didn’t get lost amidst Chimney’s messy handwriting.

“Eloping would imply that they’re actually planning to get married, which according to this note is the whole reason they’re not here now. That they’re not going to get married,” Buck explains slowly, not sure if he’s doing so for Eddie’s benefit or his own.

“Well, we gotta give it to them,” Eddie says, and Buck moves his eyes away from the letter in his hands to look at him. “They know how to make their wedding a memorable one.”

maybe i’ll be brave enough by then by trippedandfell

“So,” Eddie starts, taking a long sip. “How long have I had the ring?”

Hen chokes on her coffee.

“I’m sorry,” she says, eyes wide behind her glasses. “What ring?”

or: an amnesia au (with a twist).

so come inside and be with me by orphan_account

He knows he can’t let it go—let Buck go. When he invited Buck into his life—his home, his bed, his heart—he did so with the knowledge that he would never let him leave. Him and Buck are a forever thing. Nothing’s going to change that.

Except, maybe, for the fact that that Buck isn’t here.

...

(or: dough is made. questions are asked. sex is had.)

beneath my mother tongue by archerincombat

He sits bolt upright in his seat. Jee-Yun squeals at the sudden movement. “Holy shit,” he says out loud, simultaneously praying that it doesn’t become one of those words his niece repeats until it loses its sparkle. “I told Eddie I loved him.”

Jee-Yun laughs. It feels a little like she’s mocking him. “Dee,” she agrees solemnly, placing a tiny hand on Buck’s cheek.

Or: Buck goes home to Pennsylvania. It's more familiar than he wants it to be.

my certainty is wild, weaving by tuckergreeen

“Eddie,” Carla says softly. “You could have called. We would’ve met you at the hospital.”

He shakes his head. “No. I didn’t—uh. I didn’t go to the hospital.”

He feels the way Carla’s hand goes still. “Eddie.” It’s not nearly as soft-spoken this time. “You didn’t go see him? Or Chim? Your team?”

“They’re not my team,” Eddie says, almost without thinking. He winces as soon as the words are out.

Or: Buck is hurt, Eddie is worried, and everything is broken.

i'm always left with the taste in my mouth by probieravi

“I really shouldn’t do this over the phone—on a fucking voicemail, of all things, but I—”

Eddie breaks off with a choked noise. He’s sitting in the parking lot of Trader Joe’s, for Christ’s sake. Peak of romance, Diaz, he thinks, and then laughs. Buck deserves so much better than this. Then him. But Frank said be brave, and Eddie is—really, really fucking trying.

“But I love you. I’m in love with you. And I want you to come home.”

(or, seven conversations eddie has over the phone and one he has in person.)

What's Past is Prologue by stellarmeadow

On his way home from his second deployment, Eddie finds something unexpected at the airport that ends up changing his life in ways he couldn’t have imagined.

we could follow the sparks, i’ll drive by markofalover

“Oh! You must be Mr. Diaz!” someone says from behind him, and Buck spins around clumsily, all long legs, to find a woman with a Miss Perez tag stuck to her blouse. She’s smiling politely, white teeth against red lips, and it takes just a second too long to process what she says.

...or, everyone thinks Buck is the other Mr. Diaz.

And if all the sky is falling (hold on) by Mellaithwen

“9-1-1 what’s your emergency?” Eddie asks, when the call comes through; still perfecting his phone-voice a little bit at a time.

There’s no response for a moment, but just before he can repeat the question, he recognises a sound in the distance. It’s a sound every firefighter dreads to hear; the shrill whine of a PASS device. It means firefighter down, it means one of his brothers or sisters in the service either hasn’t moved for long enough for the alarm to sound automatically, or it's been switched on as a call for help.

It’s interrupted by a cough then, a harsh one that seems as if to rattle in the caller’s chest before they take a deep breath as if to speak.

“This…this is Firefighter Buckley, from the one-eighteen. My radio’s busted, and I—I think I’m trapped.”

Eddie’s blood goes cold.

Buck's injured on a call, and so of course Eddie's on the other end of the line when he dials 9-1-1.

if you need me, call me, no matter where you are by asgardiun

“Is your radio broken?” Eddie asks.

“No?"

His face twists. “Then why are you calling me?”

“Because I’m off duty and you’re, like, the third best medic I know,” Buck says. “And I’m pretty sure giving a tracheotomy and receiving a tracheotomy are two very different things.”

or; Buck calls Eddie instead of 911 (it’s the same thing though, isn’t it?).

but your face is still my favourite view by wafflesofdoom

“You’ve got a photo of me in your wallet.”

“Oh, yeah,” Eddie shrugged, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world that he just – carried a photo of Buck around in his wallet, as though Buck’s entire world wasn’t spinning at a thousand miles per hour as he tried to process the fact that Eddie loved him enough to carry around a photo of him in his wallet.

or - the one where eddie takes a polaroid of buck and keeps it in his wallet, and buck finds out.

Five Days by maybeamystery

Buck stood in that same spot next to Hen for a long time after Eddie left. He didn’t know what he was feeling or why every part of his body was suddenly numb. He might have been in shock. He only moved when Hen nudged him and asked if he was okay. Even then, moving felt like trying to swim through quicksand.

It wasn’t until Buck got home and fell into bed next to Taylor that he started hurting. And he hasn’t stopped hurting since.

i'm reaching out to touch your voice (but baby, i'm clutching at straws) by spinningincircles

Buck knows every single one of Eddie’s voices.

Correction: Buck thought he knew every single one of Eddie’s voices.

But the one on the other end of his radio — shaky, brittle, like a strong breeze will break it into a thousand pieces — is not one he’s ever heard before.

It’s fear. He knows it. Pure, cold, unfiltered fear.

And Buck hates that he’s the one causing it.

nobody compares to you by ipretendtobesane

"They– he was always gonna come first. I’m sorry you didn’t get that. I don’t think we should keep doing this.”

Taylor laughs humorlessly.

“I agree.”

or:

buck and taylor breakup after she learns about the will.

if i'm honest, it felt like love by allyasavedtheday

“I- it felt good, right? And neither of us are really in a place to want to date right now but maybe. You said you needed comfort so maybe that’s all it has to be?”

“You mean this could be a…regular thing?” Eddie looks confused but not at all opposed to the idea which is more than Buck expects, honestly.

He nods. “Just. When we need it, y’know? Because I don’t want to go back to how I was before but sometimes it’s nice. To spend the night with someone. Or- or be close with someone. And I trust you. I mean, you’re my best friend.”

The few seconds it takes Eddie to think it over feel like the longest of Buck’s life but then his grip tightens imperceptibly on Buck’s waist and he nods.

“I don’t think I could imagine trusting anyone else with this right now.”

Buck and Eddie try friends with benefits. It's great, easy, exactly what they need. Except for the fact they're in love with each other.

#buddie #rec list #fic rec #buddie rec list #911 fox #9-1-1 #my rec list #I try not to repeat authors too many times but so many of these people wrote amazing things so just go read them all!

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path-of-my-childhood · 3 years

Video

youtube

About “Birch”: Honestly, it was like the most natural thing. With Birch we didn't actually even talk about it, it was that she had heard the song because Justin and I made Birch sort of before we started working on Folklore. So there was a version, it wasn't done but there was a pretty good version of it. And when Taylor and I started working together I showed her a lot of stuff I was working on, including Big Red Machine cause she's been a fan of the first Big Red Machine record. So she heard Birch and just fell in love with the song. And I think she much have been singing along to it, you know - she listens to a lot of music and she has a very obviously amazing mind for music and I think she just locked into what Justin was doing. So when we were finishing Folklore, it was actually the day that we recorded remotely “the 1″ and “hoax” I think, it was the last day of tracking of vocals on Folklore, and she at the end was like, 'Do you have Birch? Cause I have some ideas.' So I just opened it. Literally, that's how it happened. In one or two takes, she just nailed those harmonies and added these emphasis points.

About “Renegade”: Renegade is a different story cause it was after we had finished Evermore. By that point, I started to dive back in Big Red Machine stuff, sort of feverishly, cause with Folklore and Evermore we made so many songs over those several months and it was such a whirlwind and I kind of set aside Big Red Machine for quite a while. But then both Just and Taylor and other friends were sort of like feeling like it was so much there and I dived back into it. I think it was in Taylor's mind to write a song for Big Red Machine, so she really wrote Renegade for Big Red Machine after Evermore. And I think that the energy in “Renegade,” and the production of it, and the way it feels and what it's about really connected to this record, so it made a lot of sense. I was obviously very grateful and moved when she sent that to me and then Justin added his parts. And again, they still haven't met but they sing so well together.

On the success of Folklore and Evermore: Taylor and I do talk about it, how crazy it is that that all happened. Cause I think to her also it's crazy, not so much in terms of winning the Grammy, she's won a lot of Grammys. I think more in terms of just this weird thing of how out of nowhere, these two albums happened. And no one was influencing them or, it was like a cocoon, we were on this weird life raft, just making these things and a lot of people have heard them and fell in love with them obviously, but at that time it felt like... I don't know, I would love it if every day felt like that.

About Taylor and Matt Berninger as songwriters: Yeah, both of them are truly gifted writers, in different ways but I think they both tap into something that's human and they have a powerful way of expressing aspects of life that we can all relate to and that storytelling... I mean, Taylor is more of a storyteller I would say, Matt is more cryptic sometimes with his lyrics. But I think they are both really, truly gifted lyricists and I empathize with what they write. That's what I love the most, when you write the songs with someone and their words take on meaning in your own life and you have your own interpretation of them. With Taylor, you know... like “’Tis the Damn Season” - that's not about me in any way but like, I feel so connected to it, I can't explain it. It just feels like that feeling, it sounds like the feeling of missing something in your past or when you go home at Christmas time and there's weird longing. But she somehow captures it.

#Aaron Dessner #quote #video #about taylor #taylor swift #renegade #birch #big red machine #folklore album #evermore album #songwriting #Matt Berninger #https://www.instagram.com/p/CTFafVQCO8a/

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monodramatic-cannibal · 1 month

Text

Renegade!Reaper/Death

Info post about the au

(If characters seem OOC ((Out Of Character)) it's beacause I'm going off of my own interpretations/headcanons/fandom versions. So please be aware of that)

More info under the cut (Info is subject to change at any time. Info may be added to as well)

-Jobs in the group: ???, non? Just their resident grim reaper that acts as an omen of death

Weapons of choice: scythe, and smaller duel scythes, crows that he can summon to obscure himself

-Head canon voice: ???

-uses any pronouns, basically whatever anyone sees them as, but mainly uses he/him

-The people he can touch without killing them are: Geno, Dream, Nightmare, Fresh (providing he can touch the skeletal body, but not the parasite itself), Error.

-His main job is to help souls pass on, he never really has to kill anyone, it’s if someone somehow escaped something they otherwise should have died from is when he steps in to kill them. He normally tries to make these deaths look natural, as to have no one question it.

-Due to Geno’s luck and the fact he’s immune to the death touch, he (Reaper) tried in the past to kill Geno in more natural looking ways, before he just started to get board and started to try to kill him in dumb/funny ways e.g. dropping a piano on him (before the apocalypse). He could just kill him (Geno) himself, but he’s board and is just having fun at this point, he’s also grown fond of Geno and doesn’t exactly want to kill him now.

-Isn’t around the group too often, and when he is, he’s normally around Geno, since Geno is the only reason he’s around the group in the first place. Though due to meeting the twins he may go talk to them too.

-Loves old/antique/retro/etc board/card/etc games, especially ones that aren’t well known. Mainly due to in the past he’d play these games with humans/monsters. So often tries to find people to play these games with him if he can get his hands on those games. Due to the group he has a few people he can play these games with now, providing he can convince then teach them how to play.

-When not around Geno but is still around the group he’s normally found talking to one of the twins. He knows Nightmare doesn’t mind him, and he also knows that Dream is unsure of him. Tries to be on good terms with them anyway, it’s not every day that he gets to interact with other ‘divine’ beings such as himself, hopes that they could be friends, since he’s gonna be around for a while so may as well make friends who are also going to be around for a while.

-Likes to tell stories about his time alive. Likes to share about things he’s seen. Basically a really chatty guy once you get him talking.

-Even though he likes to tell stories about himself not much is actually truly known about him, well in the groups eyes. Reaper will overshare, but since he’s lived for a really long time it basically means nothing in the grand scheme of things. Especially since someone alive for that long can change so much as a person. (Since not much is known about Reaper this is why there are fewer notes of him, compared to the others.)

How they feel about:

Nightmare/Dream: Two other ‘divine’ beings that have been around for a while. Tries to be their friend since may as well be friends with other immortals. So enjoys his time talking/hanging out with them. Often trying to tell them about his life, he’s pretty sure he gave both of them a crisis making them realize they’re gonna be alive for a really long time. Sure the twins have been about for a good while already, but they’ve never really registered it till talking to Reaper.

Error: Knows Error doesn’t like him, so tries to stay out of Error’s way, Error has tried to attack him before.

Geno: Gets along with him, at first he was annoyed when they first met, since he had to actually find a way to kill Geno, and his annoyance only grew as Geno dodged death time and time again. But over time he became fond of Geno, finding it fun to interact and tease Geno. He doesn’t really want to kill Geno anymore.

Fresh: Doesn’t like him whatsoever. And doesn’t want Geno to run into him either, knowing it would probably hurt Geno to see what’s happened to his brother. The parasite being in the body prevents him from using his death touch to kill the parasite, a few times he’s tried to go after ‘Fresh’ but somehow ‘Fresh’ has always been able to slip away.

The others: No strong feelings about any of them. He does get along with a few of them, but mostly he can just say hes neutral about the rest of them

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cherriesfineline · 3 years

Text

Au Pair – Chapter I

It's finally here – I'm sorry this took so long, this past few weeks have been a mess but here it is, our first chapter for the Au Pair series; I kinda hate this, ngl- I always hate first chapters, a lot of introductory info and bla bla but yeah.

In the weird case you happen to enjoy this and want to be added into the taglist (starting next chapter) you can request it here.

Feedback, likes or reblogs are so, so appreciated! I'm very much new to the whole writing world so yeah it'd be really helpful to hear your thoughts about this <3

Love you all, have a wonderful week beauties!

Warnings: none specifically for this chapter – age gap.

WC: 6.6k

Masterlist

Y/N was tired, to say the least.

And it wasn’t the tiredness she used to feel after a long work shift at her previous job -where her boss was an old, grumpy lady with horrible manners- or the exhaustion felt after spending hours crying due to a fight with her mother. No, this was different. It was a tiredness she couldn’t get rid of; a tiredness no lavender smelling bath or hours upon hours of sleep could amend.

She couldn't pinpoint the exact moment her brain shifted in such a drastic way. Y/N could easily recognize and admit her life had never been an exciting one; a memorable one. Ever since she was a little girl it all seemed to fly by; graduations, birthdays, friendships – nothing ever seemed to leave an impact and nothing ever seemed as exciting as everyone else put it to be. She knew she struggled with allowing herself to enjoy things, but this far her life had been pretty average.

Maybe it was the fact that she was 22 years old and never been in a real relationship what skyrocketed her fear of dying alone. Now, she knew it might seem exaggerated – 22 years wasn’t a long life at all, but the pungent emptiness she’d been feeling felt like her inevitable destiny – like that’s how life was supposed to be for her.

England felt different, though. But in all honesty, her emotions hadn’t had switched into completely different ones like she’d expected to happen when she applied for this job as an Au Pair all the way back in February.

With a steaming hot cup of coffee between her cold hands, she sat down next to Coco (a very soft grey Scottish Fold) on the giant couch of her new home, scratching in between his tiny ears earning a low purr in response. Coco had become one of her closest friends so far, along with Anya, a three year old girl with cute blonde locks and a laugh so contagious it made the muscles on your cheeks ache after a long playdate.

Maybe moving away wasn’t the smartest choice. It actually might be one of the stupidest choices she had ever made, actually – moving all the way across the globe when she cried herself to sleep most nights due to her loneliness overcoming her (almost inexistent) self-awareness. Y/N liked to believe she had a wide understanding of her emotions, but it was a blatant lie.

At least she was distracted for most of the day – taking care of two kids and looking after a teenager wasn’t an easy task. It required a lot of mental presence; but by the time she was in bed at night, it all hit back again. She thought maybe this is how life is supposed to be for her, lonely – maybe it was not her brain playing her tricks but her brain making her see how her life truly was.

It’d been two weeks since the Lockehold family picked Y/N up from the airport, and on one side getting physically adjusted to this new life hadn't been as rough as she thought it’d be. She did have it easy, if she had to admit – a big room in a giant, beautiful home and a car to her disposal. Emotionally, on the other side, life was still the same.

She knew the moment she heard heels hitting the cold marble staircase Bella was on her way down with Ivy, the eldest of the three sisters, following close behind, complaining about a hangout she was apparently going to miss because they “are expecting a guest” as Bella announced, meaning neither of her parents could drive her. That’s how Y/N found herself sitting in her (borrowed) blue Jeep Renegade driving Ivy to her friend Lily’s house – who lived in the same rich, over-the-top neighborhood as her guest family, which meant the ride to and back was no longer than twenty minutes. During those minutes together, though, Y/N could physically feel the irritation running through Ivy’s blood because first, she still wasn’t too fond of Y/N because she is 16 and doesn’t need a babysitter -her words, not Y/N’s- and second, Y/N is still not accustomed to driving on the other side of the road.

Technically, Y/N had the weekends off. Living with the same people who employed her gladly didn’t mean working 24/7, but she hoped she could earn a couple of points in her favor if she took her free time to drive her around.

After a short conversation between the two (where Ivy refused to save Y/N’s number in case an emergency came up because she could always call her dad), Y/N dropped her off and drove back to the Lockehold’s. What caught her off guard, was the sight of someone in the driveway at the house next door getting suitcases out of the trunk of a black cab – there hadn’t been any movement in the old Victorian mansion since she’d moved in next door. A man, definitely very tall, dressed in a dark suit is all Y/N could decipher since it was already dark outside and she had to strictly concentrate on not switching to the opposite side of the road out of habit.

Alex was coming down the stairs when Y/N locked the front door – Bella’s husband was a very handsome man for his age, probably anyone could admit it. He was kind of scary sometimes, but was a true sweetheart on the inside; he’s in his mid-40’s and it was clear as day his family meant everything to him, he even treated Y/N like his own daughter, always making sure she’s comfortable and inviting her to most family hangouts – even though Y/N declined pretty often to allow them to have quality time as a family (and because being too socially involved drained her, but they needn’t have to know that)

“You wanna join us for dinner? We have a guest tonight. A family friend.”

“Oh, no, I'm good, you guys enjoy yourselves. I’ll say hello, though.” Y/N replied with a smile; and as before mentioned, even though she had the weekends to herself, they still loved to insist on her joining them for fancy dinners and whatnot. The Lockehold’s loved being hostesses, loved having people around (from what Y/N learned this past two weeks) but she really wanted -and needed- some time for herself after being with them the entire week, and even though she loved hanging out with them, she just wasn’t in the mood tonight.

“You sure? Bella made homemade pasta, from scratch. Her specialty.” Mouthwatering, Y/N thought. Bella was such an amazing cook, and even though she worked hours upon hours every day, she still came to her husband and kids in time to make dinner every night, not missing a single day.

“Sounds delicious, but I think I’ll pass, I’m just really tired.” And before anyone could make another comment, the loud bell ringing through the main floor of the house startled Y/N as it’s louder than ordinary – and sounded kind of old and creepy, in her opinion. By the time the constant thud in her chest lowered to a normal speed, she could recognize Bella’s voice in the foyer, meaning she was the one who received their guest, with a deep voice following after saying 'thank you for having me'.

"He's here!" Alex clasped his hands together, a wide smile appearing in his face. Y/N followed him into the living room where Bella was already chatting animatedly with a man; tall and with broad shoulders (but not excessively; just the right amount) his figure was leaning slightly forward as he listened to Bella rambling about all the 'good things he had missed while he was away'. His hands were clasped on his back and when he lifted his head, he made direct eye contact with Y/N without even having to search for her eyes. His brown curls were perfectly placed on top of his head looking extremely soft, and when he ran his hand through it Y/N couldn’t help but swallow harshly. He undoubtedly looked like someone who belonged in Hollywood next to a young Leo DiCaprio and he was definitely older than Y/N – probably already in his 30's, she guessed, but ageing like the finest wine. He had the softest looking wrinkles in the corners of his eyes – those eyes, forest green; reminded Y/N of what used to be home for her. His intense gaze held a lot of emotion, a lot of thought, unlike his face, that appeared stiff and cold, with a slight crease between his brows. His pink, heart-shaped lips were pressed in a line, a cute mole adorning one side of his chin.

"Harry! It's so good to see you, we've missed you." Alex's excitement forced him to drift his gaze away from Y/N, leaving her like a heated teenager salivating for him. Y/N honestly thought he might had left her speechless and most likely with increasing probabilities to make a fool out of herself if someone needed her to talk, as she was certain she wouldn't be able to formulate any coherent sentences.

Harry. It totally suited him, Y/N repeated his name a couple of times inside her head to check on its pronunciation. Alex reached him and pulled him in a big hug, patting each other's back, and Harry's lips broke into a huge smile making a line of pearly white teeth appear. And dimples. God, he had dimples.

This is how I die, Y/N thought.

"So good to see you, Alex." If sex was a sound, his voice would definitely be it.

"Your skin is glowing, Harry. Italy always does you wonders." Bella gushed. And she was right – his skin had this beautiful golden undertone, but it looked natural and radiant, almost like the sun itself kissed and caressed his skin with the softest touches. Alex snapped Y/N into reality when he turned to face her and grabbed her hand to pull her closer to them, starting a long introduction no one was paying much attention to, explaining how he’d missed her arrival, like he even cared, and how she was the Au Pair they’d all been talking about ever since February. It wasn’t until Alex mentioned something about Y/N and Harry probably seeing each other a lot she was suddenly interested in what was actually going on.

“He owns the school the girl’s attend.” Alex directed towards her. Now, Y/N assumed the moment she laid eyes on him he was probably rich – who wears a suit to a Sunday dinner with friends? Rich people are weird, that’s something we can all agree on; but owning a school which’s monthly fees per kid were worth three of her salaries? That was quite unexpected.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Harry." Y/N offered him her hand, trying to sound as casual as possible, even if her skin felt like it was burning under his intense gaze and her eyes were definitely betraying her.

"The pleasure’s all mine, Y/N." He shook her hand. His strong hold sent shivers down her spine; the cold rings making a big contrast against the heat his hand radiated and she couldn't help but fantasize about how his touch would feel in some other places.

The sudden embarrassment feeling hot against her cheeks made her turn around impossibly faster, feeling guilty at the dirty thoughts consuming her brain while around her bosses – and in front of him. Making a beeline straight to her room, announcing she was calling it a night, she sent Harry a quick -but quite charming- smile, and couldn’t help but soften at the sound of Anya running down the stairs yelling an excited ‘Harryyyy’ once she was past the kitchen.

She knew she got lucky with her commodities – an entire studio-like apartment past the main kitchen of the house, where the servant’s area used to be located a handful of decades ago; but she cussed in a whisper when she remembered half way through her making of a sandwich (four hours after she’d retreated to her bedroom and because she decided on skipping dinner that night, not having enough energy to cook) that her lazy ass still hadn’t bought mayonnaise. Her small kitchen had enough space to hold her snacks, along with some ingredients to make a few meals, since she only had to worry about food on the weekends. Reluctantly, she took the small plate holding her sandwich and made her way towards the main kitchen. There was no way in hell she’d eat a sandwich with no mayo – never in a million years, too dry to go down her throat.

I guess they won't mind if I grab just enough to put on my sandwich, she thought. The house was quiet, everyone probably already in bed, therefore she almost pissed herself when she found Harry sitting in one of the kitchen stools, looking down at his phone with an annoyed expression adorning his face. Almost as if he could sense someone was in the same room, he looked up to find Y/N standing at the kitchen threshold, his face abandoning any sort of emotion.

"Hey."

"Hi." Y/N walked towards the fridge on the far right of the kitchen, opposite from where she came in. "Sorry, I thought no one was here."

"Don't worry, just waiting for Bella and Alex to come back down to have some tea, they're putting the girls to sleep. Would you like to join us?" He offered. And honestly, she'd love to say yes and just listen to him talk with that deep, melodic voice, but her stomach was really hating her right now.

"I'm good, just grabbing some mayo. Thank you, though." She declined with a small smile.

"Next time." He sounded more demanding than suggesting, which slightly baffled Y/N. "Can I ask where you are from?" He asked respectfully.

"A small town in the Argentine Patagonia." Y/N replied with her back facing him as she busied herself with the mayonnaise container.

"Never been to Argentina. Or anywhere in South America, actually." And when Y/N turned around, sandwich in hand ready to go back to her room, their eyes met across the kitchen and she felt the heat creeping up her neck for the second time that night. Y/N wondered how his gaze was always this intense – she wasn’t a fan of how they’d barely exchanged a few words and somehow she felt so exposed.

"You should. It's beautiful." She almost, almost, choked on her own words and when she looked down at her fuzzy pink socks and back to him to try and calm her growing nerves down, he surprised her when she caught him looking up and down her body – in any other case she definitely would’ve felt creeped out, but there was something about him, the fact that he definitely didn’t do it with the intention of her catching him (she noticed how he shifted uncomfortably on his seat after the exchange) and how he simply added a “I’m sure it is," afterwards, she knew she was fucked right then and there – she wanted him looking at her. Was that something bad?

But then – then she remembered how she was wearing her soft cotton pajamas, and she began wondering if he was just laughing internally at her outfit instead of checking her out like she initially thought. And just like a save from heaven, Bella and Alex appeared in the kitchen discussing who was picking Ivy up from her friend's house. "Hi Y/N, still awake?"

"Yeah, got hungry. Stole a bit of mayo, hope you don't mind." She shyly held the plate up.

"Please, this is your house too." Alex waved her off.

"Thanks. Gonna go back now." Y/N pointed towards the small hallway that led to her room. "Goodnight." Turning her body to walk away, she caught Harry's eyes, again, still staring at her, but decided on simply walking away, breaking eye contact, making that small interaction their last one for the night.

The following week consisted of Anya and Y/N playing lots of fun games, trying to get a word out of Charlie and Ivy ignoring her for the most part. Her relationship with each of them was completely different, each trusting her at their own peace, getting used to having a stranger around. Anya seemed the only one openly excited to hang out with Y/N every day, and even though she could tell Charlie didn't exactly mind her presence, she still hadn't talked to her as much as she'd like her to.

"What are you up to, Charlie?" Y/N asked the seven year old as she sat next to her in the big playroom they had on the main floor. Charlie kept her gaze locked on her drawing with a handful of crayons on her right hand as she drew with her left. "You're left handed? That's so cool!" Bella had mentioned some time ago that Charlie had a really hard time letting people in, Y/N knew it'd take some time for her to see her as a friend -like she wanted her to- rather than someone who gets paid to hang out with her, but Bella confessed Charlie was actually really excited to meet Y/N, which felt like a small relief, knowing she actually wanted her there – unlike Ivy. Charlie spoke only when necessary and struggled with making friends but her psych pedagogue said she's just really shy and that ‘once she breaks out of her shell, she's unstoppable’. "I love the birds you drew here." Y/N pointed at some small birds sitting in a tree branch.

"Bluebirds." She murmured.

Getting a single word from her was considered progress, in Y/N’s opinion, but that’s all she got for the entire afternoon – even after constantly sending comments her way while playing with Anya so Charlie wouldn’t feel left out, not a single word came out of her mouth. Anya mentioned Harry at some point while talking about her favorite doll (which Harry had gifted her for her 3rd birthday) and the flash of captivating green eyes almost blinded her internally (she couldn’t deny she’d thought about Harry every once in a while this past week)

And it wasn’t until later that same day, after spending a long while sitting alone in a nearby park, she got the chance to see him again – even if he had scared her (almost) to death, she couldn’t help but feel an annoying flutter in her stomach.

She would like to say she loved her long walks during the most unreasonable times at night, but her reasoning behind her late night needs of distraction didn’t exactly thrill her. It was during the quietest and most peaceful times of the day when her mind seemed to speed faster than ever before; the sleepless nights and brain-wrecking thinking of how alone and empty she actually felt, along with the laziness and reluctance when it came to things that used to make her happy weighed her down like carrying a sack of potatoes on her back.

As she was walking past her neighbor's house (the one where she had seen that man with the suitcases last week) she noticed someone sitting on the large porch. Weird, she thought. She hadn't noticed any movement in the house since that night a week ago, to the point she even considered it being empty again. The silhouette seemed oddly familiar though she couldn’t quite put her finger on it.

"Y/N." She slightly jumped as she heard them call for her, in a strong and deep accent. Was that...

"Harry?" She asked befuddled. Did he live there? She watched as he stood up from his sitting position on the outdoor couch and walked across his front yard to take a closer look at him stopping at the bottom of the short staircase that leads to the porch. "What are you doing up so late?" And then something clicked in her brain – he was probably the man she saw that night, with his suitcases. It made sense, how he probably got home from vacation the same day he had dinner at the Lockehold's – the same day Bella mentioned something about him being in Italy

"Can't sleep." He simply replied, with a small sigh. He then nodded to the seat behind him, and Y/N could physically feel her brain going a thousand miles per minute. She sat on the far left of the couch as he retook his seat on the right, "what are you doing up so late?" He repeated her question.

And Y/N repeated his answer. "Can't sleep."

So they sat in silence, what felt like hours barely being a few seconds. "Didn't know you lived next door." Y/N took the time to take in his side profile - sharp and long nose, the tip curving slightly downwards when he spoke the next line.

"Never mentioned it." He replied apathetically. The unexpected switch in his tone made her immediately shut up, and even though it confused Y/N as to why he would want her joining him if he didn't want to talk, she was dreading going back to her room alone to drown in her thoughts again. She'd take uncomfortable company over being alone when her head got like this, it helped her get distracted; overthinking this situation instead of the same scenarios that constantly lived in her head.

They again sat in silence for a while, this time for longer than a few minutes, and even though it was slightly uncomfortable, there was an unspoken understanding between them. He just wanted company, and so did she. This time, however, it was him who tried for conversation. "Why did you choose England for your Au Pair program?"

"I was actually convinced I was going to choose France," Y/N shared with a soft tone, "but when I met the girls in one of my interviews I just knew I had to come here. Anya was so excited about meeting me, she thought it was already settled." She ended with a small smile on her lips. The memory of Anya smiling happily at her through the computer screen even when she hadn't had met her yet warming her heart.

It was true, the fact that she’d chosen England because of the girls. She wanted to learn French – she knew her way around the English language pretty well; but the French family whom interviewed her didn’t come close to the Lockehold’s at all – she thought maybe the experience of living in a whole different continent with a wonderful family was better than choosing a place because of the language – the experience was being experienced either way.

"Anya is a very special kid. They all are." Harry declared, the left corner of his mouth turning upwards in a small half smile.

Y/N nodded slowly before asking, "How long have you known them?" She could recall Alex saying he was a family friend – but she had no other information about him besides that.

"A while." The small conversation went for a long while, he shared the real reason as to why he was awake so late, explaining how he has struggled with falling asleep ever since he was young, but besides that comment, he kept his life very private; not sharing much information about himself during their chat, and every time Y/N reciprocated a question, he would either answer vaguely or didn't answer at all, changing the subject with another question. "It's really late" He commented, Y/N’s phone reading 1:08am.

"Yeah, I should probably go to bed." She lifted her head to look at him, who was already searching for her eyes. Y/N cleared her throat when a few moments passed by, again, with no one speaking a word. She wondered what could possibly be going through his head at the time, but he nodded, got up and said, "I'll see you around, Y/N." Her name flowed so nicely out of his lips it made her knees get weak. Locking herself in her bedroom (after entering it by the door at the side of the house – which leaded straight to her room) she laid in bed trying to understand why they’d just hang out in his front porch way past midnight when they clearly didn’t know each other very well – or at all, better said.

First day of classes came by in a heartbeat. The first Monday of September Y/N found herself getting up earlier than she was accustomed to, since the girl's sleeping schedule was different during the summer. 6:15am read her alarm when she lazily threw the soft covers off her body. A quick shower and minimal makeup application later, she stood naked next to her bed checking the weather app, as to know how to prepare the girl's clothes.

After putting a soft pink sweater on and a pair of flared jeans, Y/N left the warmth of her room to wake the girls up. Going for Charlie first (since she didn't need any help changing into her uniform and Ivy used her own alarm) she didn't give Y/N any work at all, waking up immediately after softly calling her name once. Picking her uniform from her closet and leaving it for her to change, Y/N left Charlie’s room to walk towards the next door.

"Morning, Anya." She whispered as she brushed some of her hair out of her face. Anya’s little nose scrunched up and a soft whimper left her mouth as she switched positions, now laying on her side, "gotta wake up, love." Y/N shook her arm softly, and she finally opened her eyes, a tired smile creeping up her face as she noticed it was Y/N sitting next to her. Y/N left her to rub the tiredness off her eyes while she picked her clothes (since her daycare was at the same school her older sister's attended -Harry's school, Y/N couldn't help but think- her uniform consisted of only a white t-shirt with the school logo along with any pair of bottoms she chose for the day.

After picking up her cute small rain boots and help her get dressed up, Y/N did a cute hairstyle on her with the small butterfly hair clips she chose, and went back to Charlie's room to do her hair, Anya coming along.

They arrived at their school; a big, period-like brick building with hundreds of students roaming around and a beautiful fountain at the front – which actually made Y/N’s childhood look like a big joke; the school she had attended was located in the middle of the mountains in a remote field.

"I'll be here at two thirty. Good luck, girls, I'll see you later." Ivy walked away sending a 'mhm' her way to let her know she heard her, and Charlie offered a small smile along with a wave and walked away like her sister. Y/N took Anya off her car seat and helped her get out of the car, her tiny backpack sitting on Y/N’s right shoulder as she grabbed the hand Anya offered her.

"Mommy said I have the penguins' classroom!" She said with excitement as they walked through the doors at the right wing of the building.

"That's so cool! I love penguins, let's search for the door which has penguins on it, shall we?" Y/N suggested even though she could clearly see their door at the end of the hallway.

"Yes! This one has elephants," she pointed at the door they were passing, "look, butterflies!"

"Like your hairclips!" Y/N exclaimed, and she giggled nodding her head. "Ah! Look what we found..." Y/N pointed at the next door.

"Penguins!" She skipped towards the door, dragging Y/N along. They entered the big and colorful classroom where they found some kids crying in their parent’s arms, others being as excited as Anya.

"Hi there! Anya, am I correct?" A woman who appeared to be around Y/N’s age came up to them, scrunching down to be on Anya’s eye level. She nodded frantically, excitement dripping from her smile. "My name is Miss Pia, I'm going to be your teacher this year." She introduced herself, Anya gave her an even bigger smile and slyly asked if she could go meet her classmates, to which Miss Pia agreed, asking her to first hang her small backpack in the rack at the back of the room, taking it from my hands and running excitedly to do it.

"You must be Y/N, then?" Miss Pia asked, getting back up to her feet. She was short with blonde curly hair sitting high in a ponytail, rosy cheeks and a cute teacher apron on top of her regular clothes.

"I am." Y/N offered her hand.

"The administration office said we would be having an Au Pair this year, they always give us a heads up with situations like these." She explained, and Y/N nodded as she continued, "we have the parents, nannies or in this case, Au Pairs," they both laughed," stay for the introduction, you can leave afterwards."

"Perfect, I'll sit at the back with the rest of the parents." Y/N ended up staying for about half an hour, smiling at Anya every time she turned to search for her when something exciting seemed to be happening. She won't be needing any adaptation, as Miss Pia said, and she was dismissed right before they had their first trip to the playground outside, taking advantage of the fact that it hadn't started raining yet.

Right when Y/N was walking out of the building, she spotted Harry at the main entrance, reading something on his phone. He was wearing a navy blue suit with a white shirt underneath, and he looked even more handsome in the daylight. She made her way towards him, walking up the marble stairs (marble stairs! In a school?), and when he noticed her, he put his phone away and slowly (and trying to be as discrete as possible – which he failed to, again) looked up and down her body. Something about him giving her his full attention made her insides burn, and she couldn’t help but bit her bottom lip to suppress a smile.

"Hi." She stopped in front of him, taking a moment to look at his eyes; they definitely looked a lot lighter now that there was natural light surrounding them.

"Hi." He repeated, "Dropped the girl's off?" He motioned towards the building with his head.

"Yes, just left Anya’s classroom." She shifted her weight from one foot to the other.

"Miss Pia?" He asked, squinting his eyes.

"Yes. She's nice, looks like she knows what she's doing." Y/N shrugged. She didn't exactly know her enough to have a conversation about her – and she most definitely couldn’t be one to talk, since she herself didn’t know what she was doing half of the time. “How’s the first day back been so far?” He got cut off from his next comment by his phone, and the small crease between his eyebrows grew deeper, which didn’t go unnoticed by Y/N. "I'll leave you to it." She announced, but his eyes found hers again, and it was almost like he was asking for her to not leave him to it, but Y/N didn’t trust her instincts, not with him – not when he made her so nervous her brain couldn’t process things around him, and she was scared of misreading his expressions; he was hard to read. Not like she was expert at reading people but he was frustratingly confusing.

They didn't see each other again until a week later on a Tuesday evening – the same day Charlie, Anya and her decided to go for a walk and treat themselves with ice cream from a cute shop across from (what had come to be) her favorite park, Harry and Y/N found each other's eyes across his front garden, just like that night, but this time it was easy for her to recognize him as she could see his face clear and glowing from the sunset shine. His eyes were glued to her until the fence that divided their houses blocked his view, and again, Y/N wondered what could be going through his head.

It wasn’t until after dinner, past her work hours, she decided to leave the house through the door on her room with the sparking curiosity to test if she would run into Harry. Stopping on the sidewalk in front of his house, she noticed he was not sitting outside, and even though that's exactly what she had expected -he was not going to sit there for hours and hours, right?- There still was a small feeling of disappointment that rushed through her, and when she snapped back into reality, it was too late to stop herself as she knocked on his front door.

And Y/N didn’t know where to hide – not like hiding would be less embarrassing but God she did hate herself that moment. The embarrassment running through her veins was painful and made her lightheaded – she knew she had trouble sometimes with not thinking things through, but this was beyond her. He barely knew her. And suddenly his door was wide open.

"Y/N?" Of course she was not lucky enough for him to be asleep and not hearing her knock – life would’ve been too in her favor for that to happen. Of course he was very awake with a half drank cup of tea in his hand and the softest looking pair of grey sweatpants hanging low on his hips. "Are you ok? You look really pale." His voice was calm, probably the softest it'd ever been in her presence. At least he doesn't sound mad, Y/N thought.

Harry wanted to be confused, but he was more curious than anything else. For some reason, he felt very intrigued by Y/N – how she seemed confident but insanely insecure at the same time; it reminded him of himself, if he had to be honest. He just learned how to hide the latter.

"Uh, yeah- um, I was-" she nervously turned around halfway to look behind her and back at him again. He raised his eyebrows in curiosity and Y/N really tried her hardest not to step over her words. "I was about to go for a walk, uh, I was wondering if you'd like to join me?" Stupid. So, so stupid, Y/N thought.

"No, I'm good." He replied, finding oh-so-amusing the way her eyes gave her embarrassment away – he was having fun, watching her like a lost puppy trying to think through her next words.

Her mind was, of course, over speeding. She now felt even more embarrassed. Of course he doesn't want to go for a walk, Y/N conscience spoke to her, it's a Tuesday night and he's probably tired and I'm his friends' Au Pair – he probably thinks I'm this young and annoying girl who has a stupid crush and- "would you like to join me?" He interrupted her self-beating up raising his cup and she noticed the half smile adorning his face, almost like he could tell the wheels in her brain were fast-moving.

"Wouldn't want to interrupt-"

"You're not. I wouldn't have invited you in if you were. C'mon in, now. It's kinda cold out here." He disappeared inside of his house, leaving her on his porch with an open mouth and a blank brain. After closing the door behind her and taking her black vans off, she turned on her left as she guessed that was the way Harry went – and she knew she’d guessed correctly when she stepped into a big open-plan concept living room with a giant kitchen on the far back, Harry standing with his back towards her preparing her tea, "sugar?"

"No, thank you." She sat in one of the stools at the kitchen island as she took the scene in front of her. Her very cute (and much older), very hot neighbor Harry, in sweatpants and a very thin white shirt, a small patch of skin showing on his hip, making her tea. His shoulders were broad and she could see his back muscles moving as he poured steaming hot water into the cup, the little curls on his neck so inviting, if only she could run her hand through his soft looking hair just once-

"There you go. Cardamom." He snapped her out of her (probably inappropriate) thoughts, and she thanked him as she grabbed the cup from where he placed it; he stayed in his position standing in front of her on the other side of the island, with his forearms against the cold marble, sipping on his own mug, thinking about how strange it felt to have someone he wasn’t close with sitting in his kitchen after so long. "Why are you up so late?"

"I couldn't sleep."

"I figured. I couldn't either, looks like we both have a bit of sleeping issues, huh?" He sounded playful, but tired. Y/N knew exactly how it felt, being so tired but not being able to peacefully go to bed and get some needed rest.

"I remember you mentioning it before, I figured I'd check if you were up. Walking helps me relax, thought maybe you'd enjoy it too." OK, that wasn't entirely true but her reasoning to be there was quite similar – to check if he was up so they could, maybe, share a quiet night like that one a few weeks ago. None of them understood why they found such comfort in each other’s company – none of them felt like they needed to try too hard.

At some point during their conversation they moved to the couch, where they laid with a wide gap between their bodies. "Elton John's was definitely an interesting read. Lots of crazy anecdotes, you should read it."

"Probably not as good as Keith's, but I'll give it a go." He let a dimpled smile creep into his face, turning his head to look at her from across the couch and the annoying turn her stomach made obliged her to return it, just as bright as his. Finding out their music taste was quite similar made Y/N’s insides all warm and fuzzy, he showed her his vinyl collection (which was quite large) and ranted about how the modern industry was missing a rock star with some of that unexplainable essence old rock bands have – to which she respond saying maybe that something that makes them special was the fact that they were old bands... added to the fact that even though she was an old music lover, modern pop was her guilty pleasure.

Their third teacups were long forgotten on the modern coffee table by the time he noticed Y/N’s eyes were slowly beginning to close and he, as last time, said, "it's really late." And Y/N only nodded and tiredly got up from her position, with him following close behind.

"Goodnight, Harry. Thank you for having me even though I came unannounced." She shyly said, her actions still making her embarrassed even though it had already been a couple of hours.

"My pleasure. We should- do this again," He coughed into his hand, and uncomfortably continued, "I enjoy your company." That sentence alone made her heart explode with a thousand emotions, because even though they barely knew each other and it clearly pained him to admit he enjoyed having her around, his presence made her calm but anxious in a peculiar mixture of emotions. All she did in return was gift him a big smile, face hot of embarrassment (a nice kind of embarrassment, that feeling when you just want to smile really big and tightly hug whoever is making you feel that way) and slowly pushed herself up on her tiptoes to give him a sweet kiss on the cheek. "Bye." He said lastly, and closed his front door with red cheeks and dimples on display.

- Joey.

#AP #harry styles writing #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles smut #age!gap harry #my writing

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paigelts05 · 2 years

Text

FNAF- Remote possession experiments: in the field

Deviantart Literature Link: https://www.deviantart.com/paigelts05/art/FNAF-Remote-possession-experiments-in-the-field-886470299

Renegade File Server Location: https://archiveofourown.org/works/32744335

Published: Jul 22, 2021

***🌹[{Chapter 1}]🌹***

Ness had been getting a lot of headaches recently. She had been drinking plenty of water and getting plenty of sleep, even taking painkillers, but the headaches wouldn't go away. It didn't help that whenever the headaches flared up, she'd hear a growling voice. She figured it was just the resonating sound of power tools messing with her ears, and hearing the whirring of a drill at 3 am was normal for someone who stays in such close proximity to power tools so often, but she swore she sometimes heard it speak real words.

Sometimes, the headaches would be dehabilitating and she'd hear someone speaking to her, and other times, it was a light buzz. After her second day off in a week, her colleagues were getting worried and tried thier best to help, but to no avail. The headaches stayed, and all she could do was power through it.

Ness arrived at work, looking rather worse for wear, but her colleagues were also her friends, and whilst her headaches were painful, being able to be around them helped a lot more than bundling up alone at home.

"At least if I pass out, someone will be around to call an ambulance!" Ness joked about her headaches with Luis as she made herself a hot chocolate.

Whilst she'd usually have coffee, Mark had suggested that caffeine may be contributing to her headaches, so she decided to stave off the coffee for a while to see if it helped.

Sitting down in the break room next to Luis, she sighed. A total change of tone from her joking mere seconds ago, "you know, I've never had a headache go on for this long before, and I'd feel like a burden going to the doctors for this."

"You're not a burden," Luis replied, "It might be serious. We have insurance with the one doctor in this country that's actually affordable, and with this whole animatronic delivery situation, I'm sure she wouldn't mind running a check-up on you personally to check for ghosts."

"Your right. One of the animatronics could have brought a ghost with them." Ness smiled back, happy that her dearest was there to help her think straight when she couldn't. Happy that despite the incident, he still cared for her.

Then, the conversation topic moved away from her headaches, and onto more mundane things. Ness liked talking about mundane things; it took her mind of her current situation. It let her feel normal. These just-before-work conversations in the break room were the highlight of her morning and what got her out of bed, and she was glad she could simply just chat with Luis about anything and everything, no matter how mundane. She was glad that despite the incident a few days ago, they could still talk about normal things.

Luis checked his watch, and there was about two minutes before the two of them were supposed to start work. As Luis stood up, Ness tapped him on the shoulder.

"Hey, Luis. You're working on the servers today, right?" Ness asked, slightly nervous that he would think she had become weird and clingy after the incident that had happened a few days after they had both gone out together for coffee.

"Yeah!" Luis replied, "I'll be in the server cupboard if you need me. Hopefully I can figure out what's up with the network and hopefully get a patch rolled out so that that contractee stops seeing our emails."

"Do you want help? I could help?"

Luis froze for a second before smiling back, "Sure! Just be careful, the room is kind of small and it's cable spaghetti in there, but with two if us, it should make it easier!"

Ness was a general helping hand, sometimes working with Steven on maintaining code for animatronics they were storing, and sometimes she'd work on the code that kept the servers at the maintenance firm running, so helping Luis with the cable spaghetti was something well within what she could do. Perhaps helping with some of the hardware of the IT systems may help her with some of her other odd jobs around the maintenance firm. Perhaps it could help her get closer to Luis as well.

***🌹[{Chapter 2}]🌹***

Luis and Ness headded to the small server room. There was a desk outside that was originally going to be a temporary solution, but wound up being a permanent placement and Luis's workstation for whenever he didn't have to physically touch the servers.

He unlocked the door, and walked in.

"I'm just going to get set up, then I'll get what we need to do." He said as he picked up a few cables that had one end plugged in somewhere in the server room and plugged them into his work laptop, which he then took out to his desk.

After about a minute that was spent booting up the computer and logging in, Luis had found today's thing to solve.

"Right, so as I think I mentioned earlier, me and Steven are seeing if we can deal with that email issue. It really sucks that the people that hired us can read our emails. That's, like, a gross invasion of privacy if I've ever heard one." As he spoke, he tapped away at the keyboard, programming something. It wasn't a programming language that Ness knew, but she figured it was some kind of server code. "Anna said she won't try and take them to court because if thier legal team can get a guy off the hook for 12 counts of murder, then what the hell of a chance do we stand? And to be honest, I get where she's coming from. They'd totally wipe the floor with us. She's been talking about cutting off the contact early, and to be honest, umm..."

"You're hoping that they decide to cut off the contact before we do?" Ness replied.

"Kind of." Luis shrugged, "When they signed on with us, our contact with them said if they broke contract early for any reason, they have to pay us for the time remaining for storage and any work done."

"So that's why we're logging everything we do. I get it now." Ness replied.

"Yep, they pay a flat rate for the time in storage, and extra for repair work done beyond reasonable maintenance, and these suckers had passed the point of reasonable maintenance by day two. Anyway," Luis continued, "we also need to sort out the cable spaghetti in the server cupboard. I've been meaning to do that since I plugged in a new set of switches, and the system is full of static, so it's well overdue some physical maintenance, so give me a moment to commit this code so Steven can do his bit - and we can get started on that."

"Right," Ness nodded as she looked around the server room. It wasn't that small, but if you spent a while in there, it'd probably start to feel very small very quickly. The cables running across the ground like a bunch of sleeping snakes didn't help, as they had become quite the tripping hazard, but that was what they were solving today: getting the static out the system and switching out the cables for ones that could go in the cable runners around the edges of the room.

"Ok, first things first, getting this thing backed up so we can take it offline." Luis said as he did some things that Ness didn't quite understand on his computer, "Right, should be two minutes, and the servers will power off after the backup, and then we should be good to go. In the meantime, we should get the cables. Everyone knows we're doing this today, and Steve tends to work in offline mode anyway."

Luis stood up straight and headed towards the part of the building that everyone just called the 'storage zone' as that's not only where the animatronics were kept, but also where the storage cupboard for thier own supplies were. On the way, Ness had a few questions.

"You know, why do we have so many servers if this place is so small?"

"Well," Luis replied, happy to be able to talk about this stuff, "we use a bunch of Ethernet computers so we need ports for those, and mail server hosting takes up a bit. We also have databases for clients, contract records, the lot. Also testing the animatronics to make sure they work needs a whole isolated network to simulate a standard environment, so that's a whole physical tower for just that. Sorry about the oversimplification, I tend to ramble a lot otherwise."

Luis opened the door to the storage cupboard, which was a fairly large walk in cupboard, far larger than the server room, and started rummaging through some boxes before pulling out a box and handing it to Ness.

"Usually if have to make two trips to grab the cables and ends, but with you here, I don't have to leave everything open!" He smiled as he grabbed a second box and left the walk in storage cupboard. Once Ness was out the room, he closed the door behind himself and they headed back to the server room.

Once they were back, Luis placed his box down just outside the server room, and Ness placed hers next to his.

Luis then gave Ness a pair of thick rubber lined gloves.

"Here. You'll need these if we're going to be touching the servers," he said as he put his own gloves on.

Ness put on the gloves, and to her suprise, they fit perfectly.

The gloves had a rubber exterior, but were surprisingly comfy, and to her standards, weren't heavy at all.

"I didn't expect the gloves to be so nice." She said, still admiring the gloves.

"Well, I can't really stand the usual bittyness that happens to your usual work gloves after a while, so I usually have to shop around for specific ones and always wash them after use. It's a bit of a chore, but that's the cost of comfort, you know? Anyway, sorry about the rambling. Let's deal with this cable spaghetti."

Luis begun unplugging some cables. He seemed to know on instinct which ones could be pulled out, and which were secured in and would need a screwdriver to remove later. He then pointed Ness to the neighbouring server tower.

"That ones kind of like this one. Do you think you could unplug everything in it?"

Ness nodded and got to work unplugging the cables. Remembering which ones came out cleanly and which ones would need a tug and which ones would need to be removed with more tools than just her hands later was tough, and she worked pretty slow. Luis had already completely disconnected another entire server tower before she was even half way done.

She was beginning to worry that she was becoming a burden when Luis unexpectedly said, "Wow! For a first time, that's pretty quick. I remember when I first started working with servers. Even with smaller servers, it took me hours to unplug everything, but you seem to be a natural at this!"

Ness lit up at the complement and continued to unplug the wires until the only ones left were the ones that either could not be removed, or could only be removed after unscrewing something.

Meanwhile, Luis has unscrewed the more complected server, and tapped Ness on the shoulder to get her attention, "Do you want me to show you what needs unscrewing to get the rest of the cables out or do you think you can do it yourself?"

"Could you show me?"

"Ok. Now," Luis carefully removed one of the switches that made up the server. It had about sixteen ports in it, and was pretty large, "See these screws here? These are holding that back cable in place. And these ones here? These are holding these three in in place." He worked as he spoke, unscrewing the panels and carefully removing the cables, "Those are all the ones on this model that need a screwdriver to remove."

As she picked up a screwdriver, Ness nodded, "Got it!" Before going back to the server she was working on.

Unscrewing the panels that kept the cables in place took longer than expected. "Man, Luis makes this look so easy," she mumbled as she finished with the last switch.

Luis had already gone outside and when Ness walked outside to tell him that she had finished unplugging the server, he was tinkering around with a hard drive.

"Oh! I didn't see you there." Luis said, "I've been trying to isolate the current bugs, but couldn't find anything, so I'm just wiping the server drives. Everything's backed up - so even if I do find it, who knows if it'll be in the same place on the backup, and who knows what'll end up where when we put this back together. Oh, sorry. I'm rambling again."

"No no, it's fine! I don't mind you rambling at all. I... Um..." Ness replied, her face turning a slight shade of red, "I actually find it quite relaxing..."

It was a bit difficult to tell, but Luis had also gone bright red. Someone didn't mind his ramblings? It came as a surprise, but it shouldn't. Usually he'd stop himself, but it was only that: him stoping himself. Nobody had told him that his ramblings were annoying for years; but remembering when this habit of stopping himself started wasn't something he could do.

"S-so, umm," Luis looked incredibly flustered, "we just need to leave the servers be for a few minutes, uhhh, then we should probably dust them off, and - shoot, I forgot that other thing. Sorry. I usually do this by muscle memory."

"It's ok," Ness smiled, "Just show me what to do! I'm sure I'll pick it up just fine."

After the mundane process of removing the static from the systems, Luis decided it was about time the room was dusted again.

"I don't even know why we get this static build up. I've checked all the parts, and nothing is wrong. There shouldn't be this much static, but there just is!" Luis said as he ran the duster cloth over the tops of the solid server towers.

"I wonder if it has anything to do with the animatronics Fazbear Entertainment sent us." Ness replied as she dusted out the switch racks.

"Probably," Luis replied as he finished dusting the last network switch, "And we are done."

"So how do we plug them back in?" Ness asked, looking at the empty racks and deactivated servers.

"I'll show you" Luis said as he picked up a bunch of cables, "let's get these hard disks and switches back in place. I've already got a plan on how to wire it back up better."

"Should I leave you to it?" Ness asked, looked at Luis as he set out at placing the hard disks and switches in front of the server frames in a seemingly specific order.

"I'll get the first few things out of the way, If that makes you feel better." Luis replied.

"It will. I don't want to drop anything."

Luis nodded and finished arranging the switches in the cabinets and moving some of the cables that ran behind them.

After the switches were in place, Luis plugged a few cables in before saying, "now I'll definitely need help for the rest of it."

He handed Ness one end of a cable and held the other.

"I've already passed this one around the back. I'll probably lose it if I tried to do this myself." He laughed as he picked up his end.

"Which server?" She asked.

Luis pointed to a switch cabinet on the other wall. "Starting at zero at the top, fourth switch down, port 4A." Luis told Ness.

Ness nodded and plugged it in.

"Neat! Next one. It's closer this time, so I can just point.

He pointed at a second cable and this time, it was to be connected to a server.

"Ok, so this cable needs to go into that port there. I'll get this other one." Luis said as he passed a cable to Ness and picked one up himself, plugging it into one of the many ports on one of the servers.

As Ness was reattaching the cable that had been handed to her back into the mainframe, her fingers slipped, and an audible crack of electricity filled the air. She dropped the cable and reeled back with a scream, stumbling backwards into the door.

She seemed to be standing steady for a good few seconds before she sank to the ground.

***🌹[{ Chapter 3 }]🌹***

"NESS!" Luis let out a fearful shout, fearing the worst, but he felt slightly relived when Ness begun to cry.

"Thank goodness you're not dead. Are you ok?" He asked, hoping for a response.

Ness couldn't hear. From the moment the electrical shock caused her to fall back, her head had been filled with a voice that wasn't her own. A voice that called her 'Vanny'. When the voice wasn't trying to talk to her, garbled static filled the space in-between. She tried to scream again as she clutched her aching hand - the only thing grounding her in reality - only to find any attempt at a scream choked out by her own tears.

Ness was curled up in a ball, sobbing and clutching the hand she had been holding the cable in. Either the server was more full of static than they realised, or something else was amiss, but there wasn't really time for that right now. Ness was in pain and needed comforting. She didn't respond when Luis spoke, so whilst she was alive, he was starting to get worried.

Slowly, he approached her and crouched down by her side. "Can you hear me?" He asked. It was a stupid question, but he had to make sure she could hear him.

Between the strange voice in her head and the garbled noises in between, Ness heard a familiar male voice. She initially wanted to shut it out, worried that it was tricking her, but the voice belonged to Luis. He was with her moments ago. She focused on the pain, and realised that it had to be him. She had to let him know she could hear him.

"Mark, get a bucket! I think she's going to be sick!" Luis was panicking, as Ness's only response was a tear-choked 'uhhu'.

"What's a bucket going to do when she's curled up like that." Mark replied as he tossed the contents of the bucket he was using down the sink and rushed over to where Luis was anyway.

Ness heard another familiar voice, and managed to recognise it quicker this time - knowing that she wasn't on her own in the middle of nowhere, but was actually in fact in her place of work, really helped her ground herself back into reality - and as she tried to relax a little bit, she was worried that she was going to fall. She may have known where she was, but she still felt that moving at all would cause her to tumble into an abyss.

"Try and relax. We've got you"

She felt a hand on her back, and she was certain that it was Luis who had just spoken. She tried to relax, and as soon as her knees weren't digging into her chest, something plastic and hollow was pushed into the gap. After a long moment, she realised that the object was a bucket. Specifically, the bucket that Mark always carried around with him.

"Can you still hear me?" Luis asked, his tone slightly worried.

The voices of the people she knew were getting clearer as the voices she didn't want to know had begun to fade away, and Ness nodded, and let out a weak "yeah". Seeing this, Luis took a deep breath, and begun to talk in a less concerned tone.

"That's a relief. You were reattaching cables, and you just got a static shock. By the looks of it, it must have hurt a lot. If I knew you were that sensitive to electrical shocks, I'd have made sure you were wearing thicker gloves."

Ness meekly nodded back. She heard Luis, but her head still felt fuzzy. A different kind of fuzzy. A kind of fuzzy that starts in the head, but instead of staying there, it creeps it's way down towards the stomach, before coming back up, bringing everything that had been eaten that day back up with it.

"Should I get another bucket?" Mark said, half grossed out, half concerned. For a cleaner, he was pretty bad when it came to cleaning up these types of messes. "Should I get Anna whilst I'm at it. She'll need to know."

Luis nodded before looking back at Ness. She has been sick so much that the bucket was half full already. He sat down, and tried to see if Ness eyes were open. He tilted his head down, and found they were clamped shut. She was shaking as well.

His attention was drew away from Ness when he heard Mark yell "Anna! Ness is throwing up! Where are the buckets!"

"They're in the basement!" Anna yelled back before the two of them came back with buckets that had drips of water running down the side.

"You should have told me sooner," Anna said as she looked at Ness, "This looks serious. People usually don't throw up after one static shock."

As if to confirm what Anna said, Ness thew up again, and she was shaking even more than before.

Luis turned to Anna, "They sometimes do. You remember the lady who runs the other nice robotics company?"

"Given they're are only two nice robotics companies in the area, yeah." The two nice companies they were referring too was Smith&Tea robotics, and R&D robotics. Dispite all having similar goals, they somehow got along like a house on fire due to thier different specialties.

"Her husband has similar reactions to static shocks," Luis continued, "but he's not as scared as this."

"So you're saying Ness may be posessed?"

"Probably." Luis said before turning back to Ness. "Ness, can you open your eyes?"

Ness tried to open her eyes, but it was too bright. She slowly tried again, and soon saw the bucket she was clutching. She looked around at the floor, and saw that there were people nearby. It took a bit of work, but she soon found herself able to look around.

"Luis?" She asked, tears falling down her face, "am I - am I a monster?"

***🌹[{Chapter 4}]🌹***

Luis, shocked by the question, answered, "No! No, no no. What ever gave you that idea?"

Ness immediately burst into tears. She wanted to speak, but she couldn't again, but this time, it was due to how she was sobbing so much that any words that tried to come out all sounded like distressed wailing and blended into her crying.

"It's ok," Luis tried to reassure Ness. He was worried that his words were becoming hollow as he repeated that it was going to be ok, "take your time. It's ok to cry."

With a slight snivel, Ness looked at Luis and after a faint smile, burst into tears again. She had given up on trying to speak. She sobbed and sobbed, hoping that once she had sobbed enough, she would be able to calm down, but the tears kept coming.

Months of worries, fears, and terrors rose to the surface, and each was released with a flood of tears and an incoherent wail.

She cried for what felt like hours, occasionally throwing up. Mark and Luis were able to help switch the bucket out for an empty one, as having a bucket of sick under your nose isn't exactly going to help with recovering from being sick.

Anna had also fetched some water. Ness certainly needed some after crying that much.

Several minutes of tears later, Ness finally begun to speak. It was bearly audible, and mostly masked by crying, but they were able to hear most of it.

"It called me Vanny..." She managed to mumble before sobbing again.

The name 'Vanny' seemed to make her sick to her stomach out of pure fear. She begun to cry again, but soon spoke up again.

"The voice in my head..." Ness managed to say between sobs, "he keeps telling me to do things, and when I fail, he tells me I'm worthless, but then if I even fake succeeding, I'm a monster..."

Success and failure. This was clearly about the incident that happened a few days ago, and Luis knew it. Glitchtrap telling Ness to kill him, trying to kill him himself when she didn't respond, and Ness stepping in, feigning compliance. This would explain why the voice in her head would call her a monster. This also explained her bizarre search history.

"Look," Luis said, "you did the only thing to could do to keep me alive. We were between a rock and a hard place back there. You managed to get us out alive, even if it did mean whacking me over the head with a nail bat."

Ness smiled a little, but it didn't last long. Luis thought she made a good decision; he didn't think she was a monster for hurting him. But then again, if she couldn't get the relic back, she may eventually be forced to kill him.

"A family heirloom of mine..." Ness then mumbled, "we just call it the relic. He - that voice in my head - has it. And, he'll make me ... Hurt you guys..."

She burst into tears agin.

"I'M A WORTHLESS MONSTER!" Ness cried as she curled up again.

Luis looked at Ness and begun to approach her again, but someone grabbed his shoulder.

Anna then whispered to Luis, "I think that whatevers in her head is trying to make her feel like she needs to emotionally distance herself from us. Typical high school bullying tactics. Been on the receiving end of this a few times back in the day. What you need to do is make sure she knows you're there for her and love her for who she is. Whilst saying 'you are not a monster' is nice and all, you need to take a different angle."

"How do you know all this?" Luis whispered in reply.

"Because," Anna whispered, "when you've been assigned the weird kid since preschool, you know how to spot a victim because you've experienced a thing or two yourself. I've been meaning to ask you a few things, but right now we need to help Ness."

Luis nodded and resumed his movements, sitting down at Ness side.

"Ness. I know you feel really bad, but I know you had no choice back there. You've been playing damage control the whole time, and you've done really well. Nobody has died yet, even though you were directly ordered to kill people. I know it's hard for you, and I probably don't fully understand what you're going through, but I wouldn't listen to the creature that's trying to tell you that you're a monster."

Ness then looked up at Luis, and he swear he saw a small smile.

"I love you for who you are," Luis continued, "tough decisions and all."

***🌹[{ Chapter 5 }]🌹***

Ness looked like she was about to cry again, but before Luis could begin to worry about weather he had said the right thing, Ness had wrapped her arms around him in a big hug and was crying into his shoulder.

This came as a suprise, but a pleasant one. Now that he thought about it, this would be thier first proper hug. Whilst she had kissed him on the cheek or forehead a few times, this would be the first time they had actually hugged.

"It's ok to cry," Luis said as he hugged Ness back, "I'll always be there for you."

Luis felt Ness squeeze him tighter as she mumbled "thank you". He swore that he felt like his ribs were about to crack, but Ness was a strong woman, and the fact that her hugs were crushing him was taken as a sign that she was feeling a bit better now.

After a few minutes, everyone heard the tell-tale heavy footsteps of Steve running towards them.

Steve ran into the room, panting like a dog and almost collapsing on the ground.

"Hey, you know those boards I scanned in yesterday?" Steve took a deep breath and held his head in his hands, "The ones that let in that virus I emailed everyone about? It seems to have mutated. Nothing serious, but it seems like it's just looking for something specific."

Anna looked sceptical. Her expression was not aimed at Steve though, but at this virus that had made its way onto the system, "mutated? How."

"I don't know exactly, but it seems to be acting like a living being" Steve replied, "but it's moved itself a few times and left messages around. When I try to move it to the bin, it keeps leaving angry messages there."

"Strange." Anna huffed, "any luck contacting Jim? He better know what's up, given that he's actually a member of that company and all."

"No. He doesn't seem to be replying to me. He's usually not like this, but..." Steve seemed uneasy, and looked at Luis, Anna, and Ness.

It looked like Steve was about to be sick now as he ran off to the toilet without a word.

"I've had a hunch for quite a while that Jim actually doesn't give a shit about Steve since he started working at Fazbear Entertainment." Anna said as she watched Steve run off, "and he's only just realised he's being used. I'll go make everyone a hot chocolate. I think everyone needs an extra break today. But before that, Ness?"

Ness looked up and gave a weak "hu?"

"I need to see your gloves," Anna said, "You had just disconnected everything, dusted it, and begun reconnecting. The fact that anyone could have gotten shocked is really bizarre, but perhaps what Steve said may explain it."

Anna approached Ness and looked at the gloves that she was wearing. There was no damage to the glove. Then, she looked up at Ness's wrist and saw some markings that looked somewhat fractal-like.

"No amount of gloves would have stopped that static shock. It was not a normal shock." Anna said as she more closely examined Ness's new scar.

"What do you mean?" Luis and Ness said in unison.

"Well, Steve said the virus from the circuit boards was trying to find something. Ever considered it was trying to find someone?"

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angelicmichael · 3 years

Text

renegade

Andy Dolan x reader

Summary: After another night where Hedwig abandons Andy; reader is left with no other choice but to try and help console him the best she can.

Words: 3.6k+

Warnings: vague mentions of drugs and being intoxicated, some jealous! reader, lotsss of angst, brief fluff, mainly hurt/comfort fic tbh hehe, major Hedwig slander oops, maybe a bit of unhealthy relationships (??), slowburn, some conflict/arguing

A\N: hey y’all, hope u enjoy this hehe. I was mostly going for a angst and fluff vibe when I wrote this but it just turned into hurt/comfort so.. hopefully it’s still enjoyable !! :) this takes place sometime in episode three probably lol. ALSO fic is named after the song Taylor swift has recently been featured in 👉🏻👈🏻

The town, Eden; regardless of its beauty was a force to be reckoned with.

Being practically forced to live in a town that was so.. particular was never something you envisioned for your future in the past, but now you wouldn’t want to be anywhere else; even given the choice.

After all how could you exactly complain?

If you were to ask any person- (or any sane person that didn’t know of Eden that well) they would say that living here would sound like complete fucking heaven. A small coastal town, a tight knit community that was overly abundant with beautiful people and drugs seemed beyond euphoric.. and it was. Atleast for the first week or two.

Looking back; you were purely fucking naïve, and far too much of a optimist to assume shit wouldn’t crash or burn eventually.

Your first red flag was Hedwig.

She was one of the first people you met, and you two quickly hit it off and became close but.. things never exactly felt right with her, per say. Maybe it was because of how guarded she was, or because of the drugs she dealt.. it was hard to tell. However; Hedwig was completely fucking harmless compared to the man she introduced you too.

Andy Dolan.

Just like everyone in Eden; he was drop dead gorgeous but.. oddly hostile. At first you only saw him at parties, ones that you tried your best to avoid him at since you knew he had a notorious temper but, Hedwig being the great friend she is introduced you to him.. and that’s all it took.

You two quickly hit it off after that night (mostly because you were tired of Hedwig being your only friend and branching out never hurt anyone.. right?). Your attraction towards each other at first was strictly platonic, that was clear in how he treated you and how careful you were around him. It was almost stupid to try and not think about how pretty he was but letting your gaze linger on him for even more than two seconds felt erroneous.

You saw almost daily (or atleast every other day) how quick he was to anger and how cold he was to nearly everyone he met.. The only exception at this point was you and Hedwig but your sure if you were to even show a sign that you had romantic interest in him, he would drop you without a second thought. That thought alone was beyond fucking torturous but it wasn’t enough to stop you from daydreaming about how soft his hair or lips probably were. Ones that you doubt you would ever get the pleasure of touching but- atleast it was a nice distraction from how fucking weird Eden truly was.

Sure, it was beyond beautiful and the weather was fairly nice most days but that didn’t make up for peoples attitudes; and you weren’t referring to Andy’s. It wasn’t hard to tell that people were strangely secretive and cliquey, which only really left you with Hedwig and Andy for your friends. No matter how pretty she was, Hedwig was really only surface level friendly so you never particularly trusted her. That only left Andy (which wasn’t exactly any better when it came to being friendly but you knew he cherished your company, which was way more you could say about Hedwig).

However; it didn’t take too long for you and Andy to form a routine. Every weekend he would throw a party and you would stay with him after. The first time it happened, it was purely because you were far too fucked up to go anywhere else (which perhaps is also why Andy finally started being nice to you..) but after that, it was a question you never had the heart to say no too.

How could you? It’s not like he exactly had anyone else which made the possibility of saying no, close to impossible. Just because everyone else who lived in Eden were assholes didn’t mean you were going to be one, which is what lead you to your current predicament.

Five calls you had made that had all been unanswered is what currently lit up your phone screen, as well as your room. It was far past midnight and instead of sleeping like any other sane person would be doing - you were calling Andy or trying too anyway but he wasn’t fucking answering.. naturally.

You weren’t calling for any particular reason, but that wasn’t the point anymore. The fact that Andy wasn’t answering was a huge warning that something was wrong, after all it was a weekday and you knew he wasn’t sleeping or exactly busy.

Unless.. He was with Hedwig?

The thought automatically made your blood run hot under your skin. The feeling seething and utterly consuming until you quickly found yourself going out to your car. Doing the only thing that you knew would make your sudden paranoia go away.

As you drove through the roads that were completely vacant of any other cars and drove past houses and neighborhoods that also looked vacant of any life - you couldn’t help but to think why you even cared.

Andy never really showed interest in you, so what if Hedwig and Andy were actually doing anything?? Unless you caught them in the act, it’s not like either of them would admit to doing shit anyway but that didn’t stop you from still feeling irrationally angry and a bit betrayed.

You didn’t realize how tight you were gripping the steering wheel until you stopped the car and had to let go of it. Your fingers unnecessarily clenched and stiff to the point where they physically ached. Not to mention, you were shaking with the possibility that you could really find them here together, but now that you were actually here- you quickly realized that there was no other car here.

Odd.

You quickly (and quietly) stepped out of the car and paced up to Andy’s house. Not bothering to knock as you let yourself in, knowing that Andy wouldn’t necessarily mind that you did so.. well, you knew if he wasn’t with Hedwig anyway.

The only thing you heard were your footsteps as you took a few steps into the house. Looking cautiously for any signs of life.. any sounds or anything that could indicate anyone was in the house at all but you found nothing.

It took your eyes a minute to adjust to the near pitch darkness that omitted from the large windows that sat on the vast majority of the living room walls. The only light came dimly from the kitchen but even that was too sparse to truly allow you to see anything.

You slid your shoes off and left them by the door, not wanting your steps to allude to your presence before you could see him first and say something. Your steps far more quiet and easier to control now that you only had socks covering your feet.

You made it about halfway up the stairs, originally trying to make a beeline to Andy’s room but quickly freezing once you heard something.

It was shallow and soft but, with the contrast of pure stark silence it was nearly fucking deafening. It was a whimper at first, and it was coming from downstairs on the couch.

Your heart sank once you realized what exactly you were listening too. The first sniffle you heard nearly making you jump from how off guard you suddenly felt; that was the last thing you were expecting to hear..

You looked down from the staircase at the couch; making out a very dim outline of someone slumped over and sitting on the edge with their head in their hands. Their chest and back heaving from how deep they were crying..

You stood idle for a moment, not knowing whether to continue standing or to leave silently but you felt as if you didn’t exactly have a option. Even without asking or being able to necessarily see; you knew who it was but even knowing this- you knew getting him to talk was a good first step.

“Andy?”

Your voice automatically cut off his sobs - almost stopping instantaneously.

You saw his hands move down from his face and drop down to his lap, his head turning up to look at you. Your eyes finally adjusting to the near pitch black atmosphere.

The silence only permeated the room for about three seconds but that was nearly far too long to withstand. Knowing how unpredictable Andy was, you didn’t know if the words that were going to come out of his mouth were going to be kind or purely vile.

You started to speak fast without a second thought, the silence driving you to immediately apologize and try to fix the damage before Andy completely went off on you.

“I’m really sorry. I just got worried because you weren’t answering my calls and I wanted to make sure you were okay, but.. obviously your not,” You said. Swallowing harshly after realizing that Andy was still diligently listening and not cutting you off or telling you to leave.. That had to be a good sign, right? “What happened?” You pressed on.

“What do you think happened?” Andy answered quickly. His voice rough and rugged from sobbing, as well as probably from previously yelling.

You slowly walked down the stairs, choosing to not shy away from his sudden outburst of anger. You weren’t exactly certain which direction you would go in once you were finished descending.. but atleast you knew Andy wasn’t fucking Hedwig. Not right now at the very least.

“Was it Hedwig?” you blindly guessed. Wanting to affirm what you were so desperately hoping wasn’t true and that you could finally relax a bit. That’s if Andy wasn’t mad that you practically broke into his house.. but he didn’t seem to be. Not right now anyway.

You heard him softly laugh in response which made you smile for a second. You could tell by how he was previously crying and in the tone of his voice that he was still hurt. His laugh wasn’t genuine in the slightest; but it showed that he was done crying for the moment which was worth a smile.

“Why does it matter to you if it was her?”

“So it was,” you affirmed.

Your feet stepped off of the final step, and you found yourself approaching Andy. The choice came naturally. The closer you got to him the more apparent it was how broken he truly looked. He stopped crying but his eyes and cheeks were still glossy and wet with tears. His lips red and trembling; among looking entirely and utterly broken there was a hint of agitation present as well. You started to wonder if Hedwig truly did something or if Andy once again was blowing things out of proportion.

“Will you tell me what happened?” You asked cautiously. Your voice was soft, not wanting to unintentionally come off as too strong or hostile.

He studied you hesitantly and with a gleam of uncertainty in his eye - but nonetheless he patted the seat next to him on the couch he was sitting on. Silently urging you to sit next to him and letting you know that he would probably tell you what happened.

At first he remained quiet. Awkwardly avoiding what he knew you wanted to talk about but he still remained silent.. but his voice suddenly broke through. Making you jump at the unexpected sound that suddenly sounded so loud, even though in reality his voice was still low in tone.

“She left me.”

You stared at him numbly for a second, not feeling necessarily surprised at his words (After all, since when was Hedwig not a flight risk?) but instead feeling weirdly a bit frustrated and sad for Andy.

You knew exactly how he felt; it wasn’t like this was the first time this ever happened but hopefully it would be the last. Seeing Andy this sad and broken over someone who in reality, didn’t give two fucks about him was beyond heartbreaking. It hurt even worse for you to keep witnessing him coming back to her though.

Just when you finally opened your mouth to speak he cut you off.

“You don’t have to say anything. I know it’s my fault and I’m such a fucking idiot-“

“Andy, stop!” You said a bit too loudly. You tried your best to hold eye contact with him when he finally turned to meet your gaze as he reluctantly looked at you. You fought the impulse to apologize for raising your voice but there was no need because you didn’t truly feel sorry. He needed to hear you out. “You need to stop blaming yourself. Hedwig’s actions aren’t your fault.. she’s like that with everyone, Andy. She’s always been-“

“I don’t give a fuck what she’s like with other people y/n! She should’ve acted differently with me, she was supposed to care about me and stay..” his words cut off with a deep inhale.

He was trying not to sob and failing miserably.

Andy quickly left the couch, taking a few steps away from you with his back turned. Trying to compose himself as you sat and.. felt entirely guilty.

Even though he had practically blown up at you; you weren’t leaving but you knew approaching him wasn’t the answer either, so you stayed seated at the couch. Hoping he would atleast sit back down next to you.

“I can’t control Hedwig or what she does, Andy but I know solely saying that I’m sorry isn’t enough either,” you started and then paused. The words you wanted to say next.. words that you knew were true but barely had the courage to say were heavy on your tongue. You knew this wasn’t exactly the time to even be thinking about how you truly felt for Andy but you couldn’t help it.

You wanted nothing more than for it to stop. His tears, his words and pleading with Hedwig, your feelings.. it wasn’t enough to just submit to it anymore and to be a witness to how you truly felt. If anything, it was slowly but surely driving you mad and you knew unless you atleast hinted at the fact that it was making you upset; Andy wouldn’t change his behavior.

You knew he payed for sex from Hedwig, it was the one thing that always kept her coming back no matter how he acted and well.. Even if his time was being bought, he liked the attention. He craved it.

It felt weird to admit to yourself that he was taking you for granted.. because he wasn’t really but, compared to how he treated Hedwig - you were definitely on the back burner. You didn’t blame him; why would he ever notice you when he could have someone like Hedwig?

You slowly looked back at Andy, noticing he was staring at you once again with glossy blue eyes which appeared dark in the lighting. A dark, almost midnight blue that would surely match the ocean waves that you could faintly hear from inside the house since the back door was open. He looked a bit annoyed but mostly intrigued. He was waiting for you to continue.

“But you deserve better, Andrew. You shouldn’t allow her to repeatedly do this to you because I know she knows how upset it makes you. She doesn’t care-“

“How do you know how Hedwig feels about me y/n?! You need to keep her name out of your fucking mouth. You don’t know her like I do,” Andy spoke roughly.

You stared at him blankly for a moment. Purely appalled that he was saying this to you in total seriousness; but you knew in reality that it was foolish to be surprised.. to not expect that he would talk to you like this eventually. After all; he blew up at everyone else, why wouldn’t he do the same to you?

You knew nothing made you inherently different and well.. this was just proving that assumption. Andy never viewed you differently from anyone else; that was now crystal clear.

Your hands started to gently tremble in your lap; and it didn’t take long for the rest of your body to follow suit. The sadness and self pity quickly washed away in what was quicker and more rapid than waves. Anger surged through your veins, forcing you to stand up suddenly. You could barely stand to make eye contact as you spoke, barely able to bear to witness how your words made him feel.

“Don’t talk to me like that. You don’t get to talk to me like that. If I didn’t randomly decide to come and check on you because I guess I’m the only one who actually gives a fuck about you, then you would’ve been alone again with no one to yell at. And maybe that would’ve been for the best,” You turned around on your heels. Walking fast and headed for the door, trying to quickly slip your shoes on before you heard Andy’s voice solemnly.

“Y/n wait.”

You stood still at first, weirdly feeling numb and waiting for the metaphorical shoe to drop. Andy’s voice was soft this time as he spoke, the roughness that was present earlier was long gone but.. you didn’t trust it.

You waited for him to catch his breath and to raise his voice and just say more words he would apologize for later; your throat tightened as you felt your body react almost instinctively. You slipped the other shoe you previously put on back off. Turning around just enough so that you could make eye contact, or attempt too with the horribly dim lighting.

“Yeah? Wait for what?”

Andy swallowed in response to your words. Almost bashfully looking down briefly to avoid saying anything or having to look at you any longer. You could see tears staining his cheeks, continuing to run down and nearly slid down his neck. He looked pathetic; and it would’ve almost been funny to see a grown man fully sob in front of you with no shame if it wasn’t your best friend and well.. the person you loved.

“Never mind. You were right; it’s probably best if you just go,” Andy’s voice cracked.

You wanted to believe that the best option for you was to turn around and leave but your judgment felt entirely skewed. Was it really the right thing to turn around and leave when he needed you? Probably not.

You knew if the roles were changed and you were the one who was upset that Andy would probably stay.. but that also depended on other circumstances as well, of course.

Stepping away from your shoes and the entrance of Andy’s house; you approached him. You tried to do so as quickly as possible before he could try to stop you or protest, but by the time he looked up you were barely a foot away.

You reached up, and with a shaky hand (that you hoped desperately he didn’t notice or wouldn’t swat away) you gently placed your fingertips on his cheek. Your thumb softly pressing against his skin, dragging your finger up as to wipe away his tears as the rest of your fingers lie under his jaw.

You tried to ignore how unsettled he looked at you doing this, and how he almost looked uncomfortable or as if he was on the brink of telling you off.. but he didn’t. He watched you diligently as you continued to brush away his tears.

“I’m sorry.. But I couldn’t stand to see you like that,” you said. Trying to give some rational explanation for your behavior even though, Andy didn’t look like he particularly cared why you were doing it. It was the fact you were doing it at all that seemed to have his interest piqued.

You tried to pull your hand back since his cheeks were dry, but he stopped you. His hand softly grabbed your wrist before his hand slid into yours.. your fingers slowly lacing together before you turned your gaze from your laced hands up to his eyes.

“Will you stay?” He asked. His voice was still rough and gravelly but this time, it was starting to sound a bit genuine.

You studied him for a second longer - your mouth dry but you knew the answer before you even spoke.

“Yeah. I’m not going to leave you Andy. I’m not Hedwig,” you spoke as if it were more of a promise rather than a statement.

You felt your stomach churn for a split second as you remembered how he scolded you earlier for talking down on Hedwig, but you smiled instead. The laughter you heard quickly subsiding your previous emotions.

“Okay,” He spoke almost uncertainly.

You could see the outline of him walking away before you felt him gently pull on your hand; making you follow him into the dark hallway which would eventually lead too, you could only guess, what would be his room.

Holding his hand like this almost felt weird but you couldn’t deny how almost.. right it felt too. Even perfect, you would dare say.

There was no way to guess what the rest of the night would entail but you didn’t exactly mind guessing; after all, how could you complain if you were to spend it with Andy?

You couldn’t. There was no way you could.

Whether it was platonic or not, spending the rest of the night right next to Andy, most likely in his clothes since you didn’t bother to bring any more of your own, sounded like heaven.

And since when did you ever complain about spending a night with someone that you had craved so bad?

Taglist: @michaellangdonstanaccount @langdonsexual @jimmason @blakescoven @dark-mei-rose @9layerdevilfoodcake @prophecy-is-inevitable @matildaofoz @beautyiswithinchaos @frenchlangdon @king-with-no-crovvn @melodylangdon @littledemondani @celestialrequiem @sojournmichael @ritualmichael @twilightzone24

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#Andy Dolan x reader #Andy x reader #Andy Dolan fanfic #andy dolan fanfiction #Andy Dolan #my fic #will crosspost to ao3 shortly #not 100% happy w this but oh well lol

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