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hearts4hughes · 6 days ago

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DUE DILIGENCE ~ CHAPTER THREE

wallstreet!rafe x assistant!reader | warnings: emotional manipulation, unhealthy power dynamics, obsession-coded behavior, implied violence, brief mentions of death (no graphic detail)

monday starts late. not for the firm, but for you. your alarm goes off, and you ignore it twice. the gala lives on as a blur behind your eyelids—champagne and city light, the ghost of his hand at your hip. it shouldn’t matter—it didn’t matter because you didn’t kiss him and you didn’t touch him. he just danced with you like he’s done it before. like he’ll do it again without another doubt.

still, you’re in by ten. the office is fluorescent and airless, and you’re greeted by a stack of revisions that weren’t there when you left friday. your inbox has bled red. there’s already a message from rafe waiting at the top, sent just before six a.m.

“need numbers rerun. slides 4–7. triple check the EBITDA margin on all of them.”

no greeting, no thank you, but that’s the language he speaks. he’s fluent in clipped urgency and indirect need. you haven’t heard his voice since the gala. he hasn’t summoned you…not yet.

it’s only after noon that he emerges with a black shirt, charcoal slacks, sleeves rolled, top buttons undone like even his clothes are tired of being restrained. he walks past your desk without stopping, but his eyes catch yours like a snare. it lasts less than a second. and still, your pulse trips.

the pitch meeting is at two. a $40 million acquisition. boardroom full of suits and shark smiles. it’s your job to ensure the presentation runs seamlessly, to hand him the right packet before he even asks for it, to sit silent and poised in the seat beside his and make him look more terrifying just by looking pretty.

you do all of that. what you don’t expect is the spreadsheet error on slide five. you triple checked it—you know you did. but there it is, projected on the fifteen foot screen in all its cruel, traitorous glory. a miscalculated margin that makes the entire argument fall apart.

rafe sees it right away. he doesn’t say anything, not at first. he just goes still, all the heat pulled out of the room like a storm sucked the air dry. his jaw tenses, the vein in his temple pulses, and you brace yourself for whatever is about to be unleashed.

“stop,” he says to the room, voice low but lethal. “that’s incorrect.” someone blinks. another stirs. he turns his head slowly, deliberately, and looks at you. “we’ll pick this back up in ten,” he says to the room but his eyes never leave yours. “out.”

the boardroom clears like a bomb’s about to go off. the door shuts behind the last vice president and then it’s just the two of you.

his silence is violent. he turns toward you with that calm, murderous control you’ve seen in him before. although, it’s usually directed at competitors, not you. “you told me the numbers were clean,” he bites, swallowing harshly to compose himself.

“they were,” you reply, too fast, too defensive. “i triple checked that deck. that error wasn’t there this morning.”

he takes a step toward you. “so what happened?” he stands tall in front of you. like usual.

you don’t shrink. confidence courses through your veins like blood. “i don’t know,” you say evenly. “but it wasn’t my mistake.”

his nostrils flare. “then whose was it?”

you fold your arms, eyes still locked onto his. it’s a duel and you’re both waiting who will shoot first. “the analyst team compiled that model. maybe check with the person who actually-”

“don’t get cute with me,” he snaps. his hand comes down hard on the table. the loud slam bounces off the walls.

you flinch, but only slightly. “i’m not,” you say. “i’m telling the truth.”

he’s right in front of you now. heat vibrates off of him. you can hear your heartbeat, feel the blood rushing through your body. “you’re responsible for what gets in front of me,” he growls. “you want to sit at my table? earn your fucking seat.”

your spine straightens. “i do earn it.”

“not today.” his words are a slap. your face stays still, but inside something fractures. and you let it show—just enough.

“fuck you,” you breathe, stepping back.

his eyes narrow and he stills. he doesn’t say anything at first. almost like he’s hoping you didn’t just say that. “what did you just say?”

“you heard me.” your voice is low, sharp. you step toward the door. “i’ve worked my ass off for months fixing shit i wasn’t supposed to fix, staying hours past when i should’ve left. i have cleaned up every mess, anticipated every mood swing, and the second something goes wrong, you treat me like i’m disposable?”

his jaw tics. his hand balls into a fist at his side. “you think you’re special?” he asks quietly. “you think i don’t have a stack of resumes from girls who would kill to sit in your chair?”

you smile, but there’s no humor in it. no warmth, no softness. just the bitter curl of a challenge dressed in lipstick. “go hire one of them, then,” you say, and your voice is steady in the way a sword is before it slices.

for a second, he doesn’t move. doesn’t breathe. he expected you to crumble. he wanted to win, to watch you break, but you don’t. you merely turn and you leave.

your heels click against the polished floor, echoing louder than his silence. the conference room door swings open with a whisper and shuts with a soft click. not a slam, but god, you wanted to. you wanted to throw it off the hinges, to shake the glass in its frame. to make him feel just one ounce of the rage clawing at your chest.

instead, you keep your spine straight and your head high as you walk back to your desk like you didn’t just tell off the most powerful man in the building.

he doesn’t follow you nor does he call.

you stay at your desk, hands shaking as you type out a polite, professional email to the analyst team asking for a timestamped copy of the model. you find the version from sunday night. it’s clean of any error.

you send it to him without commentary. twenty minutes later, your phone rings. it’s not rafe. it’s security. “we need to notify you that mr. cameron’s requested restricted access to level nine for the next hour. do not enter.”

you frown. “what’s on nine?” you pick at the skin around your maroon fingernails. blood draws from the scratch eliciting a wince from you.

“just one of the closed meeting rooms. he also requested that i send you home.“

you hang up without responding. your hands shake as you throw everything into your bag. pens clatter, your charger tangles, papers crumple under the weight of your fury. your jaw is tight, eyes burning, throat locked like your pride’s trying to hold back something messier. you don’t care. let it look messy. let him see it on your desk tomorrow, how you left in a rush, how you didn’t bother to make it neat for him.

he held you like he meant it. there was something fragile and precious in the way his hand rested against your back, head dipped to your shoulder like he’d finally let himself need someone. and then, with that same mouth that didn’t dare kiss you, he tells you you’re replaceable. like none of it meant anything. like you’re a body in a chair, not the girl who’s been silently pulling the strings behind his entire goddamn empire. your heels hit the floor like punctuation and you don’t look back.

an hour later, the headlines break. it lights up your phone when you’re in your pajamas, tea in hand, glasses resting low on your nose. you blink twice when you see it.

individual found dead in financial district parking garage. cause of death under investigation.

you reread the article, finger near your mouth as you chew on the reddened skin. the name jumps out first. then the photo, blurred and cropped like even the press didn’t want to look too closely. your stomach turns cold. no cause of death listed. no suspects. just the usual jargon—tragic, sudden, still under investigation.

you throw your phone onto the cushion next to you, a little harder than you mean to. it bounces once, lands face down like it’s ashamed. your body slumps sideways, elbow buried in the couch, and you squeeze your eyes shut like that’ll stop the spinning. you can try to pretend you didn’t notice the date…or the neighborhood…or the last name. but you did and he was the analyst lead. the one who likely tampered with the numbers. the one you cc’d on the email.

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#nora’s writings 💐#⋆. 𐙚˚ due diligence #wallstreet!rafe #ೇ wallstreet!rafe au #rafe cameron #dark rafe cameron #rafe cameron blurb #rafe cameron obx #rafe cameron imagine #rafe cameron smut #rafe cameron x reader #ceo!rafe cameron #ceo!rafe

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myeyebagsaredesigner · 2 months ago

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Tim and Damian piss Jason enough that the next week Jason is their Literature teacher in the School

HAHAHAHAHSDFSHKSD OMG YES

Tim and Damian may not be close, but they're always willing to team up and mess with Jason. They think it's funny. Jason does not. His frustration has been slowly building throughout the past few weeks until finally, he gets glitter bombed after a rough patrol. Post clean up, post shower, about to get into bed, he opens up his clothes drawer and BOOM. Glitter. He has had enough.

He sends a text to them reading 'I'm done with this. Pray for your fucking lives' and gets to work on coming up with a revenge plan. Beat them up? A classic, but too basic. Screw with their patrol routes? Nah, that would just piss Bruce off, and he's not interested in that right now. He knows a few of Black Mask's goons.. maybe he can use them to mess with them? No.. the last time he used Mask's henchmen for revenge behind his back, he was sent a very strongly worded text message. He had to apologize with freshly baked cookies.

He remembers Tim and Damian talking about a literature project. Something about having to choose a book to read for class work. Apparently, Tim is struggling with his book and Damian hasn't even started his. He can steal the books? Tear out a few pages so they don't get the full story?

Wait.

Wait just a minute.

Jason has a degree in English.

He.. he can use this.

He does end up getting help from Mask's goons (with permission, of course), and suddenly their teacher is nowhere to be found and they're stuck with a substitute. They think it's great. Damian uses that time to draw and Tim brings his switch to school for the week and it's awesome.

On Monday the next week, Tim gets a very bad feeling while walking into school. He asks Damian if he feels weird, and he admits that something feels a bit off. They wander into class and find it completely rearranged. Where there used to be a silly alphabet poster, there is now a Hamlet quote. The bright red curtains were replaced with black. On the desk, two books- are those Tim and Damian's books??- are stacked on top of each other, a skull resting on top. The sub isn't there. In fact, Damian swears he saw them walk into a different classroom.

They sit down at a desk, not their usual one, seeing as the desks were moved from groups to lines, and wait. The bell rings and the door slams open, Jason strutting in. They both sit there in shock as their brother sets his stuff down and writes 'Mr. T' on the board. He turns around and smirks at them before turning to the rest of the class.

Jason: "Hello everyone, you can call me Mr. T. I will be your new English Literature teacher for the year."

Student: "You don't look like a teacher.."

Jason, narrowing his eyes: "And you don't look like you're going to pass my class."

Student:

Jason: "That's what I thought.. everybody up. I'm assigning seats."

He switches everybody around, placing Tim and Damian in the front row on opposite sides. He claims he heard something about a project, and he will be collecting it now, seeing as the due date was that day. Tim and Damian watch as the majority of their class hands in the work in shame and slight fear. Jason calls on them for their work and they have to admit to the class that they didn't do it. They receive ten fat F's.

When Jason begins his teaching year, he uses it to torment his brothers. He makes them read aloud, calls on them to answer questions they don't know, curves the lessons to ones they struggle with, etc. Eventually though, he finds that he actually enjoys teaching. His class seems to like him too. He's a fairly young guy who doesn't try to act like he's all professional, and he teaches the lessons in a way that makes them interested. Tim and Damian hate it, and are the only ones who seem to not like the new teacher.

When he leaves at the end of the year, he receives a bunch of flowers and gifts and cards from his students. He cries.

Years later, the kids will come up to him when they see him on the street. He gets told about what new books they're reading, what they're majoring in, how they're doing. A couple kids tell him that he inspired them to study English Literature, and he feels like he's on top of the world. He gets invited to the wedding of two of his students who he assigned together for group work. He's invited to college graduations. They even have a book club that he occasionally goes to.

Tormenting his brothers is the best

#jason todd #tim drake #damian wayne #dc #jason uses his english degree for chaos #change my mind

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paradiseismine · 9 months ago

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Instant Chemistry (part 1) - Finn Wolfhard x reader

Pairing: Finn Wolfhard x actress!reader

Warnings: none yet, but of course, this fic will be packed with smut in its future chapters.

Summary: reader is an actress and her agent has a surprise for her - a hot scene in an indie film with one of her favorite actors, Finn Wolfhard.

Format: This is NOT a one shot like the ones I usually post, it’ll likely be a 4 part story (maybe longer).

Love note from Nina: I had a dream about Finnie recently and decided to write it down into a fic. Hope you like it 🫰🏻

Everyone in the industry plays an archetype: that was a given. Some actresses were the goody two shoes, some were femme fatales, some were girls next door. And as crazy as that might sound, you were growing into a femme fatale. That meant that showing some skin and partaking in more sensual roles was bound to happen - and it’s not like it bothered you.

Leo, your agent, had gotten you pretty far for a 22 year old with your background: you had gone from model, to extra in some bigger productions, to main star in a few indie films. You had started acting classes a couple years ago, and was trying really hard to become an actual actress, and make a living solely out of your acting.

One day, you made Leo a huge favor by preventing his future husband of figuring out Leo’s proposal before it actually happened, as it was meant to be a surprise. “I owe you one” he had texted you later that evening, “and I’ll make it count when I pay you back”.

Several weeks had gone by and a project you were once dying to get your hands on was finally going strong. You had gotten home after a long week of shooting your new indie film - a complex and delicate story about a young marginalized prostitute whose dream was to have a romantic relationship and live a normal life. It had some intense sex scenes, but lots of dramatic charge that would surely put your name on the spotlight. With your body exhausted but with your heart smiling, you fell asleep in your new apartment in L.A.

“Morning, rising star” you woke up to Leo texting you, your phone buzzing with his messages. “Remember that one I owe you? Just paid it”.

“lol what did you do?” you responded, the tips of your fingers rushing through the keyboard on your phone screen, curious. Leo was always full of surprises, and you loved that about him.

“You’d told me your fav tv show was stranger things, right?”

“Yeah, so?”

“Well, I think I just got one of the ST kids to be with you on a spicy scene next week hehehe” he texted, and your mouth went completely agape. “You’re welcome in advance, darling” he added, his jokingly cocky tone nearly audible.

“omg who????”

And… he didn’t text you back.

Your head was cooking for the entire weekend, trying to figure out which ST actor Leo had convinced to partake in the movie. He had said “ST KIDS”, so it was one of the core four, for sure. You crossed them out in your head after some extensive online research: Noah Schnapp is gay, so he probably wouldn’t be comfortable with such intense sex scenes with a woman… Ok, he’s not it. Gaten Matarazzo is probably busy with some Broadway play, he always is. Not him as well.

Finn Wolfhard is always juggling twenty different gigs at the same time. You wanted him the most, but it was very unlikely he’d take the role. So, Caleb McLaughlin was your best chance. He was surely a darling to work with, you’d heard, so you were still excited to meet him, of course.

As you entered the set on Monday morning, your mind was hung up on the idea that Caleb was your special guest. You’d rehearsed in your head how you’d introduce yourself to him, the things you’d say, everything.

Your brain turned into complete putty once you spotted FINN WOLFHARD sitting on a foldable chair, holding a stack of paper, eyes roaming through the script. Fuck. It was him.

You’d get to kiss him, to rub your body all over him. Not for a minute. Not for an hour. But for a whole day. Heck, maybe even two days. And you’d still get PAID for it. It seemed nearly illegal that a job would do that.

You approached him slowly, trying to gather words into your mouth to simply greet him. Soon, he raised his eyes from the script and spotted you.

- Hi - he smiled sweetly. - You must be y/n, right? I’m Finn, nice to meet you.

He shook your hand politely, and you tried your best to give him a firm handshake (Leo always says that a good handshake is important in a Hollywood career), preventing your fangirl reaction from shining through.

- Oh, hi - you smiled back at him, still trying to seem normal and unimpressed. - That’s me. Should we get to the chemistry read? I’m so excited for this project, you have no idea.

- Me too! I loved the script so much, this is just great - he flipped through the pages, his teeth showing through a cute shy smile.

- Quite a departure from fighting inter dimensional monsters, isn’t it? - you joked.

- Definitely - he laughed, standing up to follow you towards the chemistry reading table.

Once everyone was sat down and settled, the reading began. Finn would be one of your character’s clients, and was only supposed to be in a scene or two, in a cameo appearance type of thing. But at the end of the reading, that seemed likely to change.

The chemistry between the two of you was electric, the director had said. The whole crew was amazed at how naturally you seemed attracted to each other just through your words, how easily the scenes would develop. From a small role, Finn was now asked to play your character’s main love interest.

He called his agent on the spot and pushed back a few band gigs on his schedule and said yes to being half naked with you for a few more days. I mean, the project itself was an indie film, so it wasn’t even good money. His main reason to take the part must’ve been you.

#finn wolfhard x reader #finn wolfhard smut #mike wheeler #mike wheeler x reader #miles fairchild #trevor spengler #imagine #smut #trevor spengler x reader #finn headcanons #finn wolfhard fluff #boris pavlikovsky x reader #ziggy katz x reader #ziggy katz #finnverse #finn wolfhard #finn fluff #Finn wolfhard fics

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thewitchblue · 6 months ago

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HELLO MS/MR/PERSON!!! I have came to you with a request 😈

Ok imagine Wally west (ma boy need all the love he can get💔) dating reader, right and so they get a condo (basically a fancy apartment). And so he and young justice are fighting a villain, the justices league are in space doing wtv.

And young justices are basically getting their ass kicked (sorry for my language)

So they need a place to hide, for a little while. It yk stack back up on weapons and stuff, medical attention. right and so Wally is just like

>My condo is just down the road, we can hide out there<

RIGHT and you’re probably wondering where reader is right now um she’s at work (she’s a personal assistant of a CEO 😶 cough Wayne cough)

right so she’s staying at work late working out some extra things, and she gets home early than expected. Unlocks the front door. just to see like 5-7 hero’s in her living room.

dick: who are you?..

y/n :I’m the owner of this house who are the you??🤨

Thank you if you do thissss!! 💗💗💗

"We need to retreat and regroup."

Wally heard Aqualad say in his mind. You have to love Miss Martian's telepathy link.

"I have a condo a few streets away."

Wally thought before he could really notice he told them. You took first aid courses in university when you were trying to decide what to do with your life.

It's a very useful skill to have, and it became infinitely more useful when you gained a superhero boyfriend. Why does he let his villains hit him? You'll never know. It might be for the ego of the villains.

He just hoped you didn't pull out the pepper spray when you come home to a bunch of superheroes using the first aid stash. You were quick to pull out the pepper spray and grab anything nearby that could be used as a weapon.

Wally, admittedly, did not think you'd be coming home so early from work. You told him you're staying behind to finish some last-minute projects that came up. Unfortunately for him, you were sent home by Bruce Wayne after he noticed you were almost complete with the work for the rest of the week. He told you to go home and relax.

You did not expect to come home to several superheroes in your condo and a sheepish Wally awkwardly avoiding eye contact. Poor Tim got hit in the head with a lamp due to your fight-or-flight response. A warning would have been appreciated.

"Who are you?"

Connor asked rather rudely. All of the heroes got into a fighting stance except Wally. You told him with raised eyebrows,

"I'm the person who owns this condo. Walls, what the hell is going on?"

Wally gave a sheepish smile and explained to them further,

"Guys, this is my partner."

You frowned at the heroes. They all looked injured, some worse than others. You sighed as you headed to the medkit you keep in your bathroom. You knew the drill.

While you were gone, outrage and chaos emerged.

"When did you get a partner?"

Tim borderline demanded to know. One of his best friends never told him about this secret lover. The betrayal. Wally nervously smiled and said,

"Three years ago."

He was actually going to propose on the holidays, but he decided against tell them the wonderful news. He had no idea how long he would have kept you a secret. Until you were happily married and they started to hound him about the sudden wedding ring on his finger? He had no plans to tell them about you.

You were his paradise. You had kissed every injury, past and present, while telling him he's doing a great job as a hero. He was always a tad self-conscious about his hero life. He felt he could do more, but he was always a tad too slow. He needed to catch up.

Everyone shut up when you came back with your arms full of all the medical equipment you had stockpiled.

You started to patch everybody up without saying a word. You were still slightly mad at Wally from bringing in his hero friends without warning, but you can't stay mad as Aqualad hissed and cringed as you stitched a wound on his thigh.

You murmured apologises as you moved between the heroes while patching them up.

"How did you two meet?"

You frowned at the amazed tone Tim had. Tim genuinely thought his friend would never get into a relationship due to his constantly running mouth.

"He ran into me when I was travelling in a different country. Quite literally."

Wally rubbed the back of his neck with a timid smile. He didn't like admitting it. He was in a fight with Godspeed, and he didn't have time to dodge you.

"It was love at first accidental tackle."

You chuckled. He was lucky he didn't kill you with his superspeed tackle, or you would've haunted him for eternity.

"He asked me out pretty much on sight without realising I would see his civilian self, not his hero self."

You smiled and shook your head in amusement. The team could believe it. Wally's mouth runs faster than his brain.

You stood up from your spot of the floor and said,

"It would be for the best if you avoided fighting for a few days. You can let the big guys handle it."

Aqualad agreed, and the team thanked you for the medical supplies. Tim told you to bill him for the medical supplies.

"Either way, I'm replacing the medical supplies."

You frowned but agreed to let him pay at his insistence. You cuddled into Wally's side with a smile and a quick kiss.

"One of these days, I'm going to tackle you as retribution."

He laughed,

"You have been saying that for three years, babe."

And just like that, you tackled him to the ground and peppered his face with kisses. You love this man dearly.

Your soon-to-be fiancée had laughed under your love attack and wrapped you in his arms as if you were a precious gem.

A/N If you want, I can do a part two about the engagement/proposal. I agree that a lot of DC characters need more love.

#gn reader #wally west x reader

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mochatsin · 2 years ago

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THE BROTHERS ACCIDENTALLY INJURING MC (mildly)

Despite all their efforts to technically baby-proof the house, the school, or even the entirety of Devildom if they could for their human… accidents do happen after all. They’re just glad that you’re not more hurt than they initially thought!

MC is not gravely injured! Just some scratches and bruises at most. Not sure if I’ll write something for more serious injuries scenarios but we’ll see, that will be definitely super angsty for sure.

------------

Lucifer

He was not having it that day. Stacked reports full of complaints in regards to Mammons behavior, property damages caused by Beel’s hunger, and his pen cursed by his brothers to wail and cry whenever it’s used, Lucifer can feel himself about to explode at the next sign of inconvenience in the house while he replaces the pen to go back to work.

It’s when he hears a loud crash in the living room does he feel like he’s going to snap the pen with just his fingers. “I swear when I get my hands on those idiots…” he basically stomps his way to the door before slamming it open.

He heard a loud THUMP! From the door, but not against the wall as he expected. He paused and closed the door only to find you on the floor, rubbing your forehead. You were on your way to see how the eldest was doing and just as you were about to open the knob, the door slammed against you with enough force to make you fall back.

All that anger immediately dissipates when he finds you and immediately kneels down on the floor to check on you. “MC! Are you alright?!” Thankfully the impact wasn’t too much to draw any blood, though you’re certain you’ll get a bruise and it still hurts like hell that it’s making you dizzy.

Lucifer doesn’t want to be the cause of your tears. He helps you up gently with a worried look on his face “Come, rest in my office chair. I’ll get that treated before it starts to bruise.” it hurts him more if you struggle with standing straight.

He’ll come back with an ice pack in hand, locking the door behind him as he goes next to you to inspect your forehead and how much damage he indirectly caused. Of course he didn’t mean it but he still feels bad regardless.

He makes up for that by treating it, and he’s very gentle with you when he slightly dabs the ice pack on your forehead. His words are soft as he asks if you were okay before placing a kiss on your head.

“How come you locked the door though?” you would ask and before Lucifer can even speak, you hear the brothers banging on the other side when they heard you hit your head. “... Ah”

Mammon

There’s not a quiet day in Devildom when Mammon is always stirring up things. Demons and witches are always on his tails until he pays any of his debts that he never seems to have the money for.

There was one particular incident where you were trying to look for him in school since you have so much schoolwork to do, and Mammon was the one who insisted you both be partners for this project. Yet he’s nowhere to be found.

Of course he was running away from a few students who owed a few Grimm from. He’s grateful for being really speedy since he can use this to his advantage, but when he’s got his eyes on the coins on his hands it’s hard to pay attention to where he’s going.

He takes a sharp turn by the halls and he accidentally bumps into you, who was carrying all the project materials. Given his strength, you stumble back harder than you thought and drop everything on the floor.

“ACK! Shit– MC?! Come on, they’re on our tails!” He held your hand so you both could start running but you winced. Mammon paused and gasped when he saw the scratches on your delicate soft human skin from when you hit the concrete floor.

Mammon had no choice but to carry you all the way while avoiding the demons running after you both. When it was all safe, he checked you in case of more wounds head to toe. Would panic if there was any blood. Luckily you just got a few minor scratches on your hands and nothing too bad.

“Asmo’s gonna kill me if he saw what happened to your hands… ya okay though? Tell me if it still hurts and let's find em angels to patch ya up” he would beg Simeon not to tattle on the brothers, since they would not let him hear the end of it if they found out you got hurt. Lucifer would punish him for this happening under his watch (and his actions), even if it was an accident.

If your skin can get so damaged from just falling, Mammon can hardly imagine the worst case scenario. He keeps a close eye on you whenever there are large crowds, making sure you hold his hand the whole trip so he’s sure you won’t fall like that again.

There are times you can feel his thumb brush against the skin of your palms where it was previously damaged. You know he feels a bit guilty for that, so you intertwine your fingers as a way to reassure him.

Levi

Levi has been waiting for this package and now that it’s by his doorstep, he’s absolutely ecstatic. It was a VR set complete with this game from one of his favorite franchises. He hasn’t stopped talking about it for weeks at all and his brothers can finally get some peace and quiet in the house… they were wrong.

One would say that Levi looks a bit silly walking around the house with the headset on. The VR game was about slaying demons (ironically) but he gets to interact with the characters in 3D so whenever he sees his favorite, he would let out an excited squeal.

Lucifer instructed you to follow him while he plays to make sure he doesn’t wander off somewhere or break anything. You just have to make sure to gently turn him to the right directions or hide the glassware away from reach.

It was doing fine for a while until you took your eyes off him for a second and he’s already walking dangerously near the stairs. You know that demons can survive a stumble like that but that doesn’t mean you’ll let that happen to him! So you dive in, grabbing the sleeve of his hoodie and yanking him away from the steps.

Unfortunately, you both lost your footing and fell backwards on the floor with Levi landing on top of you. Levi was surprised and a little disoriented as he took off the headset, only to find himself above you. “W-WHA—!! MC?!?! What’s going on?!”

You hit the back of your head hard with that fall and he noticed with the pained expression on your face. That embarrassment was switched to worry. Levi helps you up and after you explain everything to him, he assists you to the kitchen to find some ice to numb the pain.

“I-i um… I'll make sure that I play this game somewhere safe, s-so you won’t have to worry about me!” Levi promises next time, already planning on searching any equipment or set up he needs to make his gaming experience much safer. He doesn’t want to burden you more than he already has.

He’s clumsy with the ice pack because he’s too nervous of hurting you more than he already did. What if he presses too hard? What if he’s doing it wrong? You’ll have to hold his hand to guide him on what to do or where to place it, and he’ll need all the self-control he needs to stop trembling from your touch.

Satan

Even from the outside of the house, you could hear all the commotion and rapid footsteps. You thought you could leave them for at least one hour while you went out to grab the groceries, and apparently they already started fighting in your absence.

It started when Satan bought a limited edition book signed by the author himself, with only 50 signed copies available. Mammon found the package first before Satan could and decided that maybe he could sell it, but he was caught before he could make any Grimm. In an attempt to get it back, Mammon accidentally tore a few pages. Now they’re both in demon forms running around the house.

“I WILL TEAR YOUR LEGS OFF YOUR BODY WHEN I CATCH YOU” Satan snarled as he tried to capture the one that ruined his precious book. Unfortunately their speeds leagues apart and only Lucifer ever has the power of catching up to his no-good older brother.

In a desperate attempt, Satan throws the book towards Mammon and hopes that maybe if he’s lucky enough it would hit him in the head and slow him down. But that wasn’t the case here.

Mammon saw the incoming projectile and took a sharp turn to avoid it. The moment you opened the door to see what was going on, you weren’t really prepared for the flying book and next thing you knew, it hit you straight to the face.

The force was enough to make you fall back, dropping all the groceries at hand. You expected to hit the floor, but you felt two hands hold you to stop you from falling.

Satan saw the moment you got hit square on the face with the book he threw and ran to catch you before you could fall and hurt yourself further. You open your eyes only to see his eyes completely filled with worry. All his wrath was completely over washed with concern for you.

“I-i’m so sorry MC! Come on, I'll get that treated quickly” He would carry you to the living room, groceries be damned, and cast a small healing spell to ease the pain and discomfort.

Satan makes sure to be more aware of your presence. Just because his outbursts can get intense doesn't mean he'd want you to get involved in the crossfire. Never does he wish to be the cause of your pain, accident or not. It took you quite some time to reassure him since he didn’t mean that in the first place.

Asmo

Asmo was excited to find that the shoes he wanted for so long had finally been released and he’s been dying to try them on. The shoes made him a few inches taller and he loves that since he was the smallest brother in the house. The heels were crafted perfectly when decorated with gems and glitter, it’s practically made for him!

One would find him strutting down the halls with his heels or putting on all kinds of glamor and clothes to match. Asmo could’ve knocked your door down with all that giddiness when he entered your room to show off his new shoes.

He makes running in heels look so easy and you listen to him go on for a while on how the color matches his eyes. By the end of his speech, he grabs your hands and practically wants you to twirl him around like a princess in the spotlight of the ballroom.

With the excitement in each step, Asmo was not careful enough and accidentally stepped on your foot. Normally it doesn’t hurt you but the sheer cheerful energy Asmo had brought about enough force to make it painful. And what’s worse… It was heels.

You wince and take a step back, letting go of Asmo’s hand in the process. He looked at you with a pout until he saw you were in pain, clenching your foot “Love? Oh gosh– Did i?”

He immediately sits you down and checks how hurt you were. Since humans are so fragile and squishy, he worried if he broke a bone or even worse! But you assure him that you’re alright.

“The reddening skin says otherwise! This is not good. We should go get that taken care of in a spa! We can get you those luxurious foot scrubs while I get a pedicure to match my new heels! Come on, I'll get your clothes ready!”

Whether or not you planned to go out today, Asmo is already rummaging through your closet to find the perfect outfit for you in the salon. You can’t exactly say no to a day off to relax, plus he won’t let you stay cooped up in your room like one of his older brothers.

The spa really was rejuvenating and the scrub made your skin so smooth. You’re not sure if this was his way of apologizing or just an excuse to bring you here but it's a win either way right?

When he brought up how you should also wear heels like his to match, you immediately decline with no room for negotiation.

Beel

Beel has brought home some rolled cigar cookies for you and Belphie to eat. They were a new flavor being sold in madam screams, Beel had already eaten several boxes and he’s made sure that he doesn't end up consuming all of the cookies he bought for you guys in one go.

He knew that these sweets would go perfect with some devil’s hot chocolate so he wanted to brew some before he brought them up to the attic.

He had two mugs at hand with the box of cookies in his arms. It’s taking all his concentration to not eat and drink all this food in his reach, especially when his stomach is already empty by the time he left the kitchen. He was so focused on trying to take his mind off his hunger that he failed to see you around the corner.

By accident, he bumped into you and one of the drinks spilled on your arms. Thank god that Beel made sure that the temperature was safe enough for human consumption (since they could probably drink at hotter temperatures), though it still hurt you regardless.

The cookies and drink was left forgotten at the nearest table he can place them as he tends to you. No blisters at least, but your skin started turning red from all that heat that Beel kept panicking as he took you to the sink to get it treated.

“I-I just wanted to bring you some hot chocolate… sorry MC” he has that sad puppy look on his face that makes it hard for you to be angry, not that you were ever mad at him in the first place. Beel spent his time running your arm by cool water to treat it, and even asked Satan to take a look at your skin.

As sweet as he was, if the burns on your skin were actually that bad then expect that he will never let you near any sort of hot drinks. He treats it as if they were poison to you. Your morning coffee? Now it has ice. Your hot chocolate? It’s iced chocolate. It took your brother’s intervention so he doesn’t ruin the soup for dinner for your sake.

Belphie

Belphie was by your side as you watched a local Devildom film in the living room. At first it was both of you watching together since the movie date was his idea, but he fell asleep for the first 20 minutes. To be fair, it was his longest record of keeping himself awake.

There are times that he sleeps so well that he unknowingly shifts into his demon form. It’s just his powers responding to his own dreams, and he’s having a really nice one at this point since it has you and Beel in it, two of his favorite people of all the realms.

You paused the movie to use the restroom for a while when that happened. While he was sleeping, his tail popped up and you didn’t know it until you tripped on it when you came back to the living room.

It wasn’t the feeling of someone stepping over his tail that woke him up, but it was the sound of your pained groans that got the youngest born open both his eyes quickly as he shot up from the couch.

If it were any of his brothers he would’ve been laughing, but he cares about you a lot. So seeing you in pain on the ground brought back some… ‘unpleasant memories’ from before. He goes to your side so check if you’re injured or hit your head too hard when you fell to the floor.

After the incident at the attic, Belphie tried his best to make sure he won't hurt you. He promised you that when you both forged a pact, and it took so much time to gain your trust again after all! Much like Beel, he is all over you in making sure you’re okay. Belphie wants to keep you safe, even from himself.

“I don’t want to watch the movie anymore… Can we just cuddle instead?” He says with a cute pout on his lips. The twins really got the same puppy eyes, making it really hard for you to say no to his naps. This time, Belphie lets your head rest on his beloved soft cow pillow to compensate for what happened.

Takes notes from Satan on how to keep his tail still, since the older demon has more control over it by keeping it wrapped around his leg. Belphie never usually worries about shifting into his demon form, but he just wants to make sure this time!

#obey me #obey me shall we date #shall-we-date-obey-me #obey me lucifer #obey me mammon #obey me leviathan #obey me satan #obey me asmodeus #obey me beelzebub #obey me belphegor #obey me headcanons #obey me scenarios

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canmom · 1 year ago

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how much power does tech really use, compared to other shit?

my dash has been full of arguing about AI power consumption recently. so I decided to investigate a bit.

it's true, as the Ars Technica article argues, that AI is still only one fairly small part of the overall tech sector power consumption, potentially comparable to things like PC gaming. what's notable is how quickly it's grown in just a few years, and this is likely to be a limit to how much more it can scale.

I think it is reasonable to say that adding generative AI at large scale to systems that did not previously have generative AI (phones, Windows operating system etc.) will increase the energy cost. it's hard to estimate by how much. however, the bulk of AI energy use is in training, not querying. in some cases 'AI' might lead to less energy use, e.g. using an AI denoiser will reduce the energy needed to render an animated film.

the real problem being exposed is that most of us don't really have any intuition for how much energy is used for what. you can draw comparisons all sorts of ways. compare it to the total energy consumption of humanity and it may sound fairly niche; compare it to the energy used by a small country (I've seen Ireland as one example, which used about 170TWh in 2022) and it can sound huge.

but if we want to reduce the overall energy demand of our species (to slow our CO2 emissions in the short term, and accomodate the limitations of renewables in a hypothetical future), we should look at the full stack. how does AI, crypto and tech compare to other uses of energy?

here's how physicist David McKay broke down energy use per person in the UK way back in 2008 in Sustainable Energy Without The Hot Air, and his estimate of a viable renewable mix for the UK.

('Stuff' represents the embedded energy of manufactured goods not covered by the other boxes. 'Gadgets' represents the energy used by electronic devices including passive consumption by devices left on standby, and datacentres supporting them - I believe the embodied energy cost of building them falls under 'stuff' instead.)

today those numbers would probably look different - populations change, tech evolves, etc. etc., and this notably predates the massive rise in network infrastructure and computing tech that the Ars article describes. I'm sure someone's come up with a more up-to-date SEWTHA-style estimate of how energy consumption breaks down since then, but I don't have it to hand.

that said, the relative sizes of the blocks won't have changed that much. we still eat, heat our homes and fly about as much as ever; electric cars have become more popular but the fleet is still mostly petrol-powered. nothing has fundamentally changed in terms of the efficiency of most of this stuff. depending where you live, things might look a bit different - less energy on heating/cooling or more on cars for example.

how big a block would AI and crypto make on a chart like this?

per the IEA, crypto used 100-150TWh of electricity worldwide in 2022. in McKay's preferred unit of kWh/day/person, that would come to a worldwide average of just 0.04kWh/day/person. that is of course imagining that all eight billion of us use crypto, which is not true. if you looked at the total crypto-owning population, estimated to be 560 million in 2024, that comes to about 0.6kWh/day/crypto-owning person for cryptocurrency mining [2022/2024 data]. I'm sure that applies to a lot of people who just used crypto once to buy drugs or something, so the footprint of 'heavier' crypto users would be higher.

I'm actually a little surpised by this - I thought crypto was way worse. it's still orders of magnitude more demanding than other transaction systems but I'm rather relieved to see we haven't spent that much energy on the red queen race of cryptomining.

the projected energy use of AI is a bit more vague - depending on your estimate it could be higher or lower - but it would be a similar order of magnitude (around 100TWh).

SEWTHA calculated that in 2007, data centres in the USA added up to 0.4kWh/day/person. the ars article shows worldwide total data centre energy use increasing by a factor of about 7 since then; the world population has increased from just under 7 billion to nearly 8 billion. so the amount per person is probably about a sixfold increase to around 2.4kWh/day/person for data centres in the USA [extrapolated estimate based on 2007 data] - for Americans, anyway.

however, this is complicated because the proportion of people using network infrastructure worldwide has probably grown a lot since 2007, so a lot of that data centre expansion might be taking place outside the States.

as an alternative calculation, the IEA reports that in 2022, data centres accounted for 240-340 TWh, and transmitting data across the network, 260-360 TWh; in total 500-700TWh. averaged across the whole world, that comes to just 0.2 kWh/day/person for data centres and network infrastructure worldwide [2022 data] - though it probably breaks down very unequally across countries, which might account for the huge discrepancy in our estimates here! e.g. if you live in a country with fast, reliable internet where you can easily stream 4k video, you will probably account for much higher internet traffic than someone in a country where most people connect to the internet using phones over data.

overall, however we calculate it, it's still pretty small compared to the rest of the stack. AI is growing fast but worldwide energy use is around 180,000 TWh. humans use a lot of fucking energy. of course, reducing this is a multi-front battle, so we can still definitely stand to gain in tech. it's just not the main front here.

instead, the four biggest blocks by far are transportation, heating/cooling and manufacturing. if we want to make a real dent we'd need to collectively travel by car and plane a lot less, insulate our houses better, and reduce the turnover of material objects.

#ai #energy #environment #physics

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hummingbird-games · 1 year ago

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2023 In Review (Indie Games)

Last year's! | 2021

I apologize in advance for how long this might be. As a reminder, I don't bash games here so even if I hated something with every fiber of my being...I ain't sharing. As a second reminder, my more in depth reviews and live blogging has moved to Gem's Game Gems so I don't clutter the HBG's main blog. Okay. ON WITH THE REVIEW!!

DEMOS

Diffraction (Demo)- A rainy day otome indeed. I love the quiet gentleness of this game, the two romance options, and the fact that our MC is a photographer and struggling with her art and stack of life "failures" (because...SAME!!)

Alaris - I was asleep and now I am awake: I came late for the advertised fae and dragon lore, stayed seated and waiting for Fenir zjgjdf. Oh, and I guess the mystery surrounding our MC's abilities LOL.

The Summit Library - When I say I was maaaaaad when I realized I blew through chapter 1 and would have to go back to waiting for more content??? LOL, I was very miffed. Anyhoo, check out this title for the gorgeous art, another intriguing mystery (like what is *up* with the magic in the poor library?? who or what is to blame?? 👀) and of course the lovely characters we've been introduced to thus far.

Of Sense and Soul - I'm a regency romance girl. Like after you strip away the other stuff, I am but a poor woman with simple needs: a good ass love story 🤧💛 It's about the yearning and the slow burn and the will they/won't they/PLEASEEE they...I've never been so charmed by a demo, and the full game is going to be amazing I just know it!

Made Marion - This project is a game I've been keeping tabs on for a hot minute but hadn't taken the time to sit and properly enjoy the demo. I'M SO GLAD I DID!!! It's in early access now, so I'm hoping eventually I'll be able to carve out some time to play, but guysss Velvet Cupcake is doing the Thing?!? No idea which love interest I'll go for first, but I had a fun time meeting the Nottingham peeps in the demo.

Herotome (Super Demo) - Oh gosh. Oh gosh oh gosh oh my GOSHHH. Where do I even began?? (Really the question is where the hell do I end because this is one of those projects I talk about a lot/think about a lot and surprisingly haven't run out of things to say zkjfksjd). Another game I've been following for a while, it 100% lives up to the superhero genre in its aesthetic, the characters you interact with, the music and sound design, and of course the slowly unfurling story. Jade and Mia had come out as my top faves, Warden is still there, like hovering in the backgroud, shhhh but I have a special place in my heart for Griffin too (that conversation we have with her?? I have so many screenshots just so I can go back and reread and sear the words in my brain. Like a weirdo. Yup.)

Celestial Crowns - Stats building, celestial royalty, dating sim where you fuck around and find out your choices directly affect your MC's personality?? I'm sat. I supported the Kickstarter and now I try to practice patience for the full game's release siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiighh.

OTOME/JOSEI JAM

Please note this is a SUPER abridged list for my sanity and I fell a little more in love with these 2 jams with each entry I played...

Intertwine - As embarrassing as it sounds, I've never given much thought to the "red string" thing, and I consume more than enough romance media LOL!! But Van is suuuuuch a beautiful man, the UI for this game is so interactive and lovely, the music is ALSO lovely, just lovely-love all the way around teehee. (Also this game encourages replayabillity so like, do with that info what you will.)

Spring Boy [Demo] - I believe this game is going through a complete rehaul, so my thoughts and feelings refer to the original jam entry I played. The art is bright and cute and it's a super super short demo, but I was intrigued by the other student we meet on our mission to plead with our professor about our bombed exam lol!

Assignment Due: Project Blue - IRl group projects??? Suck absolute ass. Group projects with a guy name Asher?? Suddenly it's my new favorite thing in the world 😁

Cryptid Campaign Manager [DEMO] - Remember the last time I looked over a cryptid dating sim??? Remember how I was SUCH a fool?? Good thing I didn't make that mistake again!! The prologue is such a tease but you get an idea of what the full game is gonna be like, and I'm excited to see where my career involving love (and politics) goes!

Heart Cage [Demo] - Yoooooo I stay my ass far far far away from yanderes (could never get into the trope or the character type). WELP. Guess I just needed to keep searching because I really downloaded this off a whim--well, the whim being one of my fellow dev peers playing and rating-- and proceeded to get sucked in 🤧I thought being a detective would be the highlight, but I guuuueeesssss I was more into the romance options than I thought. Oops.

Evernight - I tried to explain what this game meant to me on the side blog, but words failed me. I still don't know what to say other than I loved it?? Which is like ummm I say I love everything, and yeah I'm easy to please BUT Y'ALLLLLL if you play no other game, play this one. Please. Date a werewolf. Or a vampire. Or a fae. Plz. Also figuring out the mystery of your MC's abilities and past is just delightful, ugh.

Bright Oak (demo) - Anotha one I wrote about on the side blog!!! Play this one!!! The writing is lush and atmospheric and the characters are all delightful and it's another game with a mystery to untangle!

The Faithfulness of the Universe- This one gets the award for most unique all around entry that I played. Theeeeee prettiest pixel art to bless my eyeballs, and this tasty mystery concerning Fate and witch Faustina's future (or lack thereof 👀) and what it all means. As a player I very much want to know what it all means!

A Cup For All Seasons - Another game that needs its flowers y'all. It's short but super healing and super cozy and the voice acting and music really tie the gaming experience together???

The Working Woman's Guide to Burning Bridges - DEMO - It's the way I played the demo twice and I've been thinking about it ever since 😭😭😭🙃 obviously life happens and things come up, plus this was a demo. But. BUT!!! I am on my hands and knees prayinnggg the team gets together again to finish the game. I love playing as a stressed, lowkey bitter hot mess who doesn't have her life together 😂somehow the fictional version is soooo much more entertaining!!!

Keyframes (Spring Demo) - After the game College Craze, this is legit THE college, slice of life visual novel of my dreams. I cannot wait for the updated demo next year, and the Kickstarter whenever that rolls around. And now that the developer is on Tumblr, I've definitely been stalking the account and reading each new post like it's my day/night/weekend job 🤧

Hello Counsel 💋 - Okay I take it back, Evernight is like a 20/10 but Hello Counsel is like an 100/10 👁️👄👁️ This game is necessary for my mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual health, alright? The banter ✅ the character designs ✅ the music ✅ the sizzling chemistry between Poise and Salem ✅ I wish this game had more buzz because IT'S SO GOOD!!! (also the dev, Miseri, is who I wanna be when I grow up. I've made it through almost their whole backlog of games and there are no misses and EVERY game is different from the rest and it makes it hard for a toodler dev--ME--to cope LOL)

Candied Hearts - Isekaied into a candy themed game?? Sign me TF UP!!! (Peppermint I love you dearly, you must understand.)

Fully Released & Played (at least 1 playthrough)

The Knight's Dilemma - I don't even know how I originally stumbled upon this??? I just know it had been in my backlog for a hot minute and I was intrigued enough to save it way back when. Y'ALL WHY DIDN'T I PLAY SOONER SKJFHFJFH! There's a couple different endings, I loved the voice direction, AND it's such a simple concept of a game that was just executed beautifully.

Trouble Comes Twice - If I had to make a top 5 list of romance VNs, guess who makes the list?? Guess. Guess guess guess. Have you guessed yet??? LOL! I have been in love with TCT since it's development days and with each passing month, waiting in anticipation, playing the Pateron beta builds, screaming on the main blog about every single thought I had about Jace and Hazel (shoutout to Jace for helping me figure out *me*) Lol if you're curious about said thoughts, those posts are on this blog and not the side blog.

Aelfric the Wondrous - 10/10 would love to forget my first play through JUST to have that experience fresh again 😭😭💛Cute and funny and a wonderful parody type game all around.

A Summer's End - Hong Kong 1986 - Goodness, there's no excuse for why this took me years to finish but anyhoo, I finished, I loved it, I recommend it! It's romantic and achingly authentic and the art is soooo gorgeous I literally can't stand it 😭

The Things You Do For Love - Unhinged yandere manages to entertain and garner sympathy and laughter from Gemini. And that poly ending is chef's kiss too????

Band Camp Boyfriend - There are a handful of games I found and loved before I began my game development journey, and this is one of them. BCB is so dear to me, because of the story and characters but also because of the Dynamic Duo creators and their team behind the scenes. I was never a band kid I was a chorus kid but just as the band geeks loved this game to pieces, us normal folks do too!! Even the boys who I didn't like I STILL managed to find joy in playing their routes (still have a few more to finish at the time of this posting lol, GOTTA GET THE FINAL ROUTE YO). Anyway, this game more than delivered for me and I hope more people keep discovering it!!

Belle Automata: Chronicle I [RELEASED] - While only Chronicle 1 is out at the time of this posting, I already know that the 2nd and 3rd parts are going to be just as amazing???? I wrote about this one on the side blog, so here's my copypaste that still rings true:

I love TNP (The Nightmare Prince) but Victor’s route hit the sweet spot for me. Maybe it’s the slow(er) burn nature of this route, maybe it’s the reserved nature of Victor and watching him slowly start to care (AND NOT KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH THOSE FEELINGS TEEHEE) for me.

A Date with Death - I wrote about this on the side blog--again--. The demo. And then right after finishing a route. And then again where I was fully awake and still managed to sound deranged. No copypaste for that, I shall be nice. But yeah!! Another game where I was screaming at the sky about how much I love it and how I'll never know peace as long as I live.

Our Life: Baxter DLC - I need to offer an official apology to both Cove and Derek because falling head over heels, down the stairs, crashing into the parking lot, falling again but down a manhole for Baxter's infuriating ass was NOT on my 2023 bingo board??? HELLO???? I bought his DLC just to complete my OL collection. Was not expecting to love it this much. Was not expecting to be called to write fanfic and abandon all responsibilities to do this. WHILE DOWN WITH COVID TOO. Allow me to play the song of my people. *Send in the Clowns plays*

Our Cinderella - (this is so funny I'm taking about a side game before the main game LOLOLOLOL) Guys. Guysss. You guyyyysss 🥹if you're looking for a cozy, hilarious, equally oddly and wonderfully sweet short game, this is the one!! You may have your personal favorite Iggy ship (like me) but all the pairings are so amazing and just make sense lol!

Wylde Flowers - This is the only non visual novel game on here but it gets the spotlight because I did NOT spend 90+ hours on this game to gatekeep this beauty. No. It the coziest, the funniest, the funnest, the most addictive Switch game (after Teacup) I've ever played.

Fully Released (& still on 1st playthrough)

Garden of Seif: Chronicles of an Assassin - Life kicked my butt and then sat on me SO while I finally got my grubby hands on the full copy, I still have only played the entirety of the demo. But. We will return to this in 2024 and hopefully I'll have a full review for the next wrap up!

Our Wonderland - I looked back at the side blog and I can't believe it was only THIS year that I started OW??? Because I'd known of the game and the dev for longer than that??? So basically what I'm saying is that I was chicken shit for longer than I've been in love with this world that Developer Carrot has created kjzhhshggj. But OMG to get me, who is scared oh so easily to get hella invested in this clearly labeled horror game??????????????? And even with shit gets super absurd and hella disturbing, I cannot stop playing. At the time of this post, I'm only in Act 4, hence the category above, but it's only because I play each act in a sitting and lose track of space and time and myself. That's a compliment btw.

...

Okie!! That's 2023 in a nutshell! I played a looooot of really good games this year and while I would have liked to talk about them all, I think this list provides a nice overview.

Let me know if we share any favorites!

- Gemini 💛

#gaming year in review #gamedev rambles #yeah no I cannot keep creating more work for me #2024 I am GOING to make a shorter list 😭🤧#hmmmm fun drinking game:#take a shot every time the word 'mystery' is used ☠️

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geniusboyy · 4 months ago

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Covenants and other Provisions

Chapter 35

Beautiful Boy

Fidds pushed the door open with his foot, duffel heavy in one hand and a plastic bag of gas station snacks in the other. He had a half-smoked cigarette held between his teeth as he pushed himself inside along with his load, barley managing to drag it all in before the screen door swung closed behind him. The house lay in quiet suspension, broken only by the low, steady hum of the furnace coming to life can Fidds’ clumsy entrance. The air smelled of stale dust and lingering heat, as if time had left its residue on every surface.

“Ford?” he called, his voice echoing down the silent hall. No answer came.

He trudged toward the kitchen, tired legs on autopilot, until something caught his eye.

Light. Thin and yellow, bleeding from the crack of the basement door and stretching long across the floorboards like a stain.

Fidds frowned. The lab. Of course.

He sighed through his nose, shaking his head as he trudged forward. The floor creaked beneath his step, familiar and grounding. Ford was probably elbows-deep in some half-finished project, oblivious to the hour, to the state of the house

Still, the quiet itched at the back of his neck.

Fidds kept moving, brushing past the clutter in the hallway without much thought. It was the same mess they’d left it in—papers stacked on the entryway table, a half-empty coffee mug balanced on top, Ford’s coat slung over the back of a chair like he’d shrugged out of it mid-thought.

But the closer Fidds got to his room, the more that itch grew. The air sat wrong. Stale, sure, but thick too. Close. Like someone had shut all the windows and forgotten to let the house breathe.

He stepped into his room and stopped cold.

It hit him the moment he crossed the threshold—that vague, crawling sense of off. Not loud, not obvious. Just wrong, tilted.

His eyes landed on the box of tapes first—kicked out into the middle of the floor like someone had gone digging and lost interest halfway through. It sat there, flaps open, a couple of VHS tapes scattered like loose change.

Fidds frowned. That box usually lived in the closet, tucked behind old coats and spare blankets. He hardly thought about it, let alone touched it.

He lingered there, smoke curling from the last drag of his cigarette as he tried to recall if he’d pulled it out himself. Maybe? Hell, he’d been half-asleep when he packed. He could’ve bumped it, knocked it loose without noticing.

He turned away, mechanically tossing the cigarette butt into the ashtray on his nightstand. In that same motion, he noticed the lamp on his bedside table was tilted, its shade askew, as if it too had given up on order. His eyes wandered further, over the small artifacts on the table—trinkets and mementos that had shifted, moved ever so slightly, out of place. A quiet voice in his mind whispered, “What the hell…?”

Without another thought, he dropped his bags and left the room, the door closing behind him with a soft click.

Back in the kitchen, Fidds called down the stairwell, a half-hearted attempt to reach Ford. “Ford, did you go into my room?” His voice echoed down the empty corridor—again, no answer came.

Fidds opened the fridge, half out of habit, half expecting to see it full of the same leftovers he’d shoved in there before he left. And he was right. Almost nothing had moved. The bread was untouched, milk sitting at the same quarter-full mark, and the container of stew he’d made? Sealed tight, shoved to the back—two weeks, and Ford had barely eaten a damn thing.

“Oh, great,” he mutters, slamming the door shut.

Frustration simmering, he stomped down the basement stairs, each step creaking under his weight. The lab smelled of cold coffee and stale cigarettes and the musk of sweat.

Ford slumped over his desk, head resting on one crooked arm, an old cup of coffee sitting by his elbow—its surface skimmed with an oily film, like he’d nodded off mid-thought.

Behind him, the chalkboard was chaos.

Half-finished equations tangled with scratched-out diagrams, frantic and directionless. Arrows looped back on themselves, notes scrawled over other notes until it all bled together, unreadable. The floor wasn’t much better—crumpled papers kicked aside like fallen leaves, some balled tight, others flattened underfoot.

“Goddammit, Ford,” Fidds snaps.

Ford stirred at the noise, blinking sluggishly. He straightened with a wince, his hand going to his lower back, joints cracking with the movement.

“Fid…?” Ford rasped, voice rough with disuse. He blinked again, owlish and disoriented, before pushing his glasses up his nose with the heel of his hand.

Fidds opens his mouth for another scolding—What the hell’ve you been doing while I was gone?—but it dies on his tongue when Ford shifts into the light.

Dark shadows pooled beneath his eyes, not just from exhaustion but bruising, like thumbprints smudged deep into the hollows. A scab split his bottom lip. His hands, now clumsily scrubbing at his face, were mottled with bruises and scrapes, knuckles red and scabbed over like he’d punched something harder than sense.

“What—Ford, what the hell happened to you!?”

Ford grimaced, the corner of his mouth tugging tight as he pushed himself upright. He swayed for half a second, hand darting out to grip the desk edge, knuckles blanching under bruised skin. Fidds nearly grabbed him by the shoulders, instinct kicking in, but Ford’s arm shot up, halting him mid-step.

“I, um…” Ford muttered, voice rasping like sandpaper. He fumbled for an excuse, the gears in his head visibly grinding, but after a long, dragging pause, he gave up. His shoulders sagged, and he waved a hand dismissively, already half-turned away, like brushing past a nosy neighbor. “I’m alright—just a couple bruises.”

“A couple—alright!?” Fidds’ voice spiked, sharp and incredulous, layered thick with anger he hadn’t fully decided where to aim. “You call this ‘alright’? What the fuck, man?”

Ford did little more than mutter under his breath in response. He moved stiffly through the lab, his limp was barely noticeable, but Fidds caught it—caught everything, now that he was looking. The tense set of Ford’s shoulders, the way he kept his weight off one side.

“Ford,” Fidds barked, following after him. “Quit screwin’ around and talk to me!”

“Fidds.” Ford’s tone sharpened, brittle and tired. “Drop it.”

“Who did this?” Fidds pressed, trailing him through the mess of the lab. “Don’t tell me it was that old drunk from town again, you gotta let that shit go—”

“I said drop it.”

Fidds stopped dead, caught off guard by the snap of authority in Ford’s voice. It sounded like something he’d practiced.

Ford just kept moving, half shuffling, half stalking across the room. He snatched up a roll of blueprints from the workbench, a stack of loose notes from under an old coffee cup, a half-finished schematic pinned down by a soldering iron. Fidds just stood there, slack-jawed, staring. His mouth opened and closed, but no words came out. His eyes followed Ford, unable to tear away, drawn to him like a magnet.

But then—then his gaze dropped to Ford’s neck, and the room seemed to tilt. His heart stopped for a moment. The bruises were unmistakable. Fingerprints, dark and purple, wrapped around Ford’s throat, standing out in stark contrast to his pale skin. Fidds’ heart stuttered in his chest. He almost said Ford’s name—again, he almost did—but the words stuck in his throat. The sight made him choke up. The air in his lungs evaporated, leaving only a suffocating tightness.

Not that it mattered. Ford didn’t give him the chance to inquire anyway.

“Would you quit hovering?” Ford grunted, shoving the whole mess into Fidds’ arms without warning. “Here. Make yourself useful.”

Fidds caught the stack on instinct, nearly dropping the lot when a thick roll of paper slipped free and unfurled at his feet. He frowned, glancing down—and froze.

Blueprints—but not for the usual gadgets meant to aid them in the lab or new types of hardware for his computer.

No, these were hard, ugly things.

Sketched with precision and a soldier’s practicality. Some were half-finished, others labeled with terse, scrawled notes: lethal deterrents—adaptive targeting programs—AOE suppression. Beside them, designs for perimeter monitoring systems, compact and vicious. Guns of various sizes, but redesigned, capable of far more than shooting mere bullets.

Fidds flipped through the stack, his mouth going dry.

“Ford…” His voice dropped, stunned and uncertain. “These are weapons.”

Ford, already turned away, paused mid-step. He glanced back over his shoulder, eyes flat and dull.

“Correct,”

Fidds blinked, momentarily speechless. He had expected pushback, an argument, hell, even some convoluted justification about safety or progress—but this? This was nothing like that. No defensive rhetoric, no quip about how it wasn’t what it seemed. Just Ford, standing there—shoulders squared, hands clasped stiff behind his back, like he was bracing for inspection.

“Why?”

Ford exhaled through his nose, a sharp, irritated sound, like Fidds had just asked him to explain the sky’s blue hue. He turned fully, rocking back on his heels, and launched into one of his explanations, voice slipping into a lecturing cadence. That tone—dry, pedantic, the one he always used when he wanted to bulldoze past the obvious and keep control of the conversation.

“Too many close calls,” Ford said, gesturing absently, “the town’s unstable. We’re sitting on an anomalous hotspot. If I’m going to keep this place running, and more importantly, if I intend to continue my work, I need defenses. Automated sentries, perimeter alerts, deterrents. It’s standard protocol for high-risk environments. Really, it’s remarkable I didn’t start sooner.”

Fidds just stood there, mouth dry. Ford sounded like he was reading off a goddamn manual. Like this wasn’t the same guy who used to gripe about government contractors and their “scorched earth” approach to things. Like he hadn’t spent years painstakingly building a life meant to understand the intricacies of the world, not mow them down.

But Ford kept going, words piling up like sandbags against a flood. About threat assessments, inevitable encounters and necessary precautions. His hands moved restlessly as he spoke, sketching invisible diagrams in the air, but his eyes—his eyes kept flicking away. To the wall, to the desk, anywhere but Fidds.

Fidds didn’t hear half of it. He just stood there, staring, gripping the blueprints like they might suddenly make sense if he held on long enough. Melee weapons and blasters. Drones set to shoot first and ask questions never. Various types of equipment more suited for the battlefield than a laboratory. Ford was pacing again, words flowing like water over slick rock—technical jargon, efficiency metrics, anything but the truth.

“Ford,” Fidds interrupted, voice tight with disbelief. “You’re not—“ he shook his head, stammering a bit. “What the hell are you really building all this for?”

Ford froze for a fraction of a second. Just a blink. But it was enough. He turned away, rummaging through a nearby cabinet.

“…I’d be a fool if I didn’t plan for contingencies,” he said eventually.

Fidds scoffed, dropping the blueprints onto the desk with a slap before planting his hands on his hips. “You’re… unbelievable. I come back home to find you beat to shit—” he snapped, biting down hard on the last words, “—and you think we’re just gonna start, what, arming for war? And I’m supposed to go along with that like there’s nothing more to it?”

Ford slammed the cabinet shut hard enough to rattle the hinges.

“Yes.” he said, turning his head. “That’s exactly what you’re going to do.”

Fidds stepped forward, voice softening despite himself, disregarding his terse command. “Ford, please. What happened while I was gone—who did this to you?”

That hit a nerve. Ford’s expression twisted, his lip curling on one side as something sharp and bitter flickering behind his eyes. He turned away with a muttered curse.

“Fuck this,”

He shoved past Fidds, boots thudding up the stairs.

“Ford!”

Fidds followed, frustration boiling over as he took the steps two at a time. He caught sight of Ford at the top, moving through the house like a man trying to outrun his own shadow—pacing the kitchen, cutting into the hallway, heading toward his room. Fidds was steps behind him now, but not fast enough.

“I not gonna waste my time with one of your little therapy sessions,” Ford bit out, not bothering to turn around. “I have work to do.” The door slammed behind him, its heavy impact rattling the frame.

“Fine!” he barked, voice cracking with frustration. “Stay in there, then, you skunk-hard—!” He bit the words off, pushing out a hard breath as his hand curled into a fist against the wood. A muscle jumped in his jaw. He dragged his palm down the door in a rough swipe, like wiping away the urge to hit it again, before scuffing the sole of his boot across the floor.

With one last glare at the closed door, he turned on his heel and stalked into the living room, eager for space to think. His boots thudded across the worn rug as he paced, muttering under his breath, teeth worrying his bottom lip.

Contingencies. Like hell.

Ford could dress it up however he wanted, wrap it in fancy terminology and cold logic, but Fidds knew panic when he saw it—knew the way Ford’s shoulders had drawn up, how his voice had gone cold and clipped, like a man backing into a corner. Hell, Ford always got mean when he was scared. Barking orders, shutting down, pushing people out until the only damn person left to argue with was himself.

Fidds bit the inside of his cheek until he tasted copper. He hated this—this circling, this standing around like an idiot while Ford—that hard-nosed mule, what’s his fucking problem?

He walked and walked, the back-and-forth motion blurring into a single, anguished rhythm, pacing the length of the living room—until the motion stopped working. The anger that had fueled his strides began to recede, leaving a hollow worry in its wake.

Fidds exhaled sharply and stopped dead in the middle of the room. He raked a hand through his hair, grumbling under his breath. Hell with it. Let him stew.

And it was then—when his heart had slowed enough to see—something caught his attention.

At first, it was barely noticeable—a scattering of tiny, dark droplets on the arm of the couch. They clung to the fabric, dried and rust-brown, like a slow, fading bruise on the surface of the world. Fidds stopped, his eyes narrowing as he squinted at the delicate pattern. He drew closer, almost as if afraid that moving too fast might erase the subtle evidence.

There were other things, too, now that he was looking. A scuff mark along the coffee table’s leg, its rough line suggesting that something had been kicked with force, scraping the finish raw. The room, once filled with the echo of his heavy steps, now whispered secrets in the language of displaced objects and subtle marks. Each imperfection was a quiet indictment, a silent clue that something was deeply amiss.

Slowly, as if guided by an unspoken insistence, his eyes drifted to the end table. There it sat, exactly as he’d left it—the ashtray resting in its usual place, unassuming and ordinary. Perched on the end table, filled with the usual cigarette filters—orange-tipped, half-burned, familiar.

But there, in the center, amid the detritus of Ford’s habitual smoking, was something that didn’t belong.

A cigar butt. Stubbed out and forgotten.

Fidds frowned, stepping closer, plucking it from the glass dish. He turned it between his fingers, brows knitting as he caught sight of the label near the base—

Gold foil. Black cursive.

He knew that brand. He’d seen it before, seen in the corner of a smirk, crushed beneath a show heel. Always paired with that gravel-rough voice, the same sharp laughter that sounded more like it was coming down at you—the same tension in Ford’s shoulders, the same dismissal, the same agitation.

“Son of a bitch—“

He turned, two strides down the hall. Then three. His boots pounded the worn carpet like hammer blows, rattling the picture frames in their fragile perches along the wall. In a burst of raw anger, he slammed the side of his fist against Ford’s door.

No answer.

He hit it again, harder this time, the heel of his hand catching the wood with a dull, solid crack. “Ford, open the damn door!”

The latch turned, and Ford yanked the door open, sharp and defensive, like he’d been standing there the whole time, waiting. His brow was furrowed, jaw tight, “What?” he snapped, voice low and flinty, already braced for a fight.

“Your dad was here…wasn’t he?”

Ford’s lips parted—denial, excuse, or a rehearsed line—Fidds didn’t know, he didn’t give him time.

Fidds just raised the cigar butt, holding it between them like a silent indictment, an accusing token. It hovered in the space for a long moment.

“Wasn’t he?”

“Don’t start,” Ford muttered, already turning away, like ending the conversation was as easy as shutting the door again.

Fidds shoved his boot into the gap before Ford could swing it closed. “Don’t you fuckin’ start.” he shoved his shoulder against the door, pushing it back open.

Ford let it give way, then stood there. No sharp retort, no dismissive scoff—only a lingering, almost imperceptible flicker in his eyes as they traced the curve of the cigar’s burnt edge. Slowly, Ford turned; his face shifted into a cold indifference, a mask he’d worn many times. He gave a half-hearted shrug—a flat, detached gesture before crossing his arms over his chest—he murmured, “What of it?”

Fidds shook his head, a bitter exhale escaping him. “Jesus, Ford…”

Just a flicker—shock, shame, maybe resentment. But it was there. For one suspended second, it looked as though it might seep through the cracks, like he might say something honest, but it never rolled in.

“I can’t believe this,” Fidds muttered, shaking his head. “He comes all the way out here, busts you up, and you’ve been, what, sittin’ here buildin’ booby traps—whats this, the fuckin’ Alamo?”

Ford didn’t rise to it. Just stood there, silent and stone-faced.

Fidds scoffed, raising a hand to slide over his mouth, trying to stifle the shock that surged inside him. He took a step back, struggling to regain his balance. “Okay. Okay.” he went on. “We can call someone. Get a restrainin’ order, report him for trespassin’, somethin’. Hell, if he’s after money, we can talk to the sponsors—maybe get the Fed involved to—”

“No way.” Ford said.

Fidds blinked. “What?”

“I said no.” Ford’s voice cut sharp, each word carved from stone.

“Ford, listen—”

“No, you listen!” Ford jabbed a finger into Fidds’ chest. “You don’t call the shots, here—Understand?”

Fidds recoiled slightly, the force of the gesture almost knocking him back. But instinct took over, his anger flaring hotter. With a swift motion, he smacked Ford’s hand away, his body inching forward as the heat in his chest only grew. But Ford—damn him—didn’t even move. Didn’t flinch, didn’t so much as twitch. He just stood there, the same cold, stubborn defiance in his eyes. His jaw was clenched, daring Fidds to make another move.

“You cannot keep doing this to yourself, Ford. I—I can’t watch,” Fidds said, his voice strained. “Always carrying that crook on your back—running from whatever hell he’s got you in.” The words cracked in his throat, but he didn’t back down. “You’re not some…martyr, Ford—”

Ford’s eyes flared with a sudden rage. “What would you know about it, huh?” he spat, his voice a venomous hiss, each word dripping with bitter scorn. “Not a goddamn thing!”

Fidds threw his hands up in frustration, his head jerking in tight, angry nods. “Alright, that’s great, Ford. You’re very brave.” The words oozed with sarcasm. “But what about me, huh? What if I don’t want your thug father showing up here and—”

“He’s not coming back here.” Ford’s voice cut through the air like piano wire. “I dealt with it.”

Fidds blinked. For a moment, he thought he’d misheard. Ford’s tone was…flat. Like he was reciting a fact. There was no heat behind the words. No pride, no self-defense. Just a plain, mechanical finality.

Fidds stared at him—at the faint flush around the scrape on his cheek, the half-moon shadows carved under his eyes, the white-knuckled grip he had on the doorframe. And underneath it all, something off-kilter. Not adrenaline. Not fury. Something quieter. Colder.

“What the hell does that mean?”

Ford’s jaw flexed once, twice—then, like someone flicked a switch, the tension drained from him with eerie precision. Shoulders dropped. Hands loosened. Like a puppet’s strings had been cut, and whatever was left standing was muscle memory.

He stepped back behind the threshold. Just enough to make it clear the conversation was over.

With both hands, Ford smoothed down the front of his sweater, like wiping emotion off a chalkboard.

“Ford,” Fidds said, voice quieter now, the fight bleeding out of him as dread pooled in its place, cold and oily. “What does that mean?”

For a moment, Ford didn’t speak. He just looked at Fidds—through him, really—like he was assessing the weight of a problem, factoring a risk, and clean margins.

“I said leave it alone,” Ford muttered, cold and final. His eyes, when they met Fidds’, were hollowed out, stripped down to the steel beneath. Like there was nothing left to reason with. Nothing left to argue. Just bedrock and sharp edges.

“If you’re so concerned,” Ford continued, already turning away, “then start working. Plenty of projects to choose from.”

Fidds stared at Ford, heart racing hard and stupid in his chest. The fight had already lost its meaning—Ford’s face, set in a hard line and glazed with emptiness, spoke of something vital burned away, leaving only ashes behind.

Fidds swallowed hard and stepped back. “Right,” he muttered, voice flat and brittle in the stale air.

He waited, just a moment, like maybe Ford would change his mind. Maybe he’d crack a joke, shoot him that dry little smirk. Drop the cold act, and talk. But Ford didn’t move. Just stood rooted to the spot, gaze fixed somewhere over Fidds’ shoulder, already a thousand miles away.

Fine.

Fidds scrubbed a hand over the stubble along his jaw. His eyes drifted toward the window, where the last light of day was waning, weak and strained as it filtered through the dirty glass. “I, uh… gotta make a phone call.” he said, his tone resigned.

Turning down the hall, his boots scuffed against the worn floorboards in a slow, measured cadence. With each step, the unease coiled tighter in his gut, mutating into something darker—a subtle, inescapable foreboding.

Because it wasn’t just the bruises, or the signs or wreckage, or even the finality in Ford’s voice. It was the way Ford had closed the door on the conversation without slamming it—just shut it quiet and clean, like he’d done it a thousand times before. Like this wasn’t the first problem he’d solved by carving out the part of himself that could feel something about it. Just the cold efficiency of someone who’d learned that survival meant subtraction.

Fidds reached the end of the hall and rounded into the kitchen, his hand already reaching for the phone.

He didn’t even know why he needed to hear the kid’s voice. He just did.

And Ford—Ford never saw him off. Without so much as a backward glance, he turned away, slipping into his own shadowed retreat.

—

Ford sat slouched over the desk in his bedroom, elbows braced against the worn wood, the pale glow of the desk lamp catching the sharp angles of his face. Shadows carved deep hollows beneath his eyes, and the soft hum of the bulb filled the silence between breaths. Draft paper sprawled across the surface, edges curling where coffee rings had dried into faint, sepia halos. A half-drained mug sat forgotten to the side, the last inch of liquid long gone cold.

In one hand, he held a pencil, loosely balanced between his fingers, tapping an irregular rhythm against the margin of a half-finished schematic. Some circuit design for a stabilization module—something he’d meant to finalize days ago. He’d redrawn the same pathway twice, each iteration more impatient than the last, until the paper beneath his palm had turned soft from erasure.

Ford grunted, adjusting the calculation without glancing up. The pencil scratched the page in short, frustrated bursts. He jotted down the resistor value, circled it, and underlined the whole thing twice. But his mind wasn’t on the work. Not really. It kept snagging on the memory of Fidds—how he’d stood there in the doorway, jaw tight, eyes rimmed with something that looked uncomfortably close to resignation.

The anger had drained from him since then, like air hissing out of a tire. He just felt tired, despite sleeping most of the day.

“Still with me, Specs?” Bill’s voice softened, threaded with knowing.

Ford blinked, shoulders slumping further as the tension bled out of him. He dragged a hand down his face, the heel of his palm pressing into one eye until the dark spots burst across his vision.

“Yeah, yeah—I’m here,” he muttered, but even he didn’t sound convinced.

Across the house, something stirred the silence: a faint, tinny twang, like a rubber band plucked and left to tremble.

It caught Ford’s attention. He froze, listening.

The sound came again, clearer this time. The unmistakable warble of a banjo, tentative and searching, like someone feeling their way through an old habit. Ford glanced at his coffee cup—empty. “I could go for another cup, actually.” he said, standing from his desk.

He moved quietly through the house, following the thread of music as it unwound through the dim hallway. The sound grew steadier, the hesitant plucking knitting itself into something with rhythm, with shape—like hearing someone speak a language they hadn’t used in a while. Halting at first, vowels bent strangely, then gradually finding fluency.

But it wasn’t the usual clawhammer-style back-porch picking Ford had heard from Fidds before. This was gentler, the notes drawn out and deliberate, like someone smoothing wrinkles from an old quilt. Something meant to lull.

By the time Ford reached the kitchen, the melody had settled into something easy, like rain tapping along the eaves. Ford’s eyes flicked to the phone cord stretched taut across the entryway, trailing out of sight into the living room.

Fidds’ voice, soft and half-laughing, drifted from just around the corner.

“Which one you wanna hear?”

A pause. Ford could picture him perfectly—phone cradled between shoulder and ear, thumb brushing idly over the banjo strings. Not really thinking about the motion, just feeling it out. Muscle memory.

“Oh, that’s a good one, Mama. Alright, let’s see if I can remember…”

The banjo hummed under his touch, the melody unfurling like something pulled from the back of a drawer—worn soft by time, but still holding its shape.

Ford recognized the melody.

It was a John Lennon song, the one he wrote for his son—Though Fidds’ accent softened the edges, rounded the vowels, made the whole thing sound less polished, more sincere. He always sounded more like Harrison—plainspoken, almost absentminded in his timbre. Never like he was performing, just saying something true.

Ford reached for the coffee pot, flicking the element on to rewarm the long-cold brew. Then he just stood there, hands curled around the empty mug, staring at the countertop without really seeing it.

It drifted through the house, soft and unhurried. Fidds’ voice dipped into a quiet rasp on the lower notes, but the picking stayed steady, like the heartbeat of the house itself. There was something intimate about it, the way sound filled the cracks in the silence—how it bridged all those miles.

He should’ve moved. Should’ve just poured the coffee, gone back to his desk, kept busy. But instead, he stood rooted in place, just listening.

The hum of the phone line, the faint squeak of the couch as Fidds shifted his weight, the soft catch in his breath between verses. It was such an ordinary moment—small, unremarkable, the kind of thing Ford might’ve walked past without a second thought on any other day.

But today, he closed his eyes.

Fidds’ voice was quiet, roughened by years of shouting over machines and mountain wind, but soft now, smoothed out by affection. There was a lilt to it—something peaceful, sweet and loving and sincere—the kind of moment people built lives around without even realizing it. But now, to Ford, it was something that felt more like grief.

Ford swallowed hard, jaw tightening against the betrayal of his own body. His head ducked lower like that might somehow stem the tide, but it was no use. The thing inside him—this hollow, aching thing—didn’t care for logic or reason.

The picking slowed, softened, drifted into something more like absentminded plucking than a song.

“Is he sleepin’?” Fidds asked, voice low and amused. The couch creaked as he shifted as he laughed softly. “Works every time,” he mused, the smile clear in his tone. There was a pause, a quiet murmur from the other end of the line, and then—

“Night, Tate,” Fidds said gently. “Talk to you in the morning…”

The words were so gentle Ford almost didn’t catch them. But he did. And something inside him buckled.

He clamped his jaw shut, shoulders curving inward, as though he could fold himself small enough to hide the uninvited swell of emotion. It was stupid, really—this bitter taste. This envy. How it bent him.

He barely had time to swipe at his eyes before Fidds rounded the corner, phone hanging loose from his hand. He stopped short at the sight of Ford standing there, stiff-backed and brittle as old glass. His gaze flicked down, caught the way Ford’s fingers dug into the countertop, the way his shoulders hunched inward, like something had cracked along his sternum and was struggling to hold its shape.

“Ford,” Fidds said, voice gentling like he was approaching a skittish animal.

Ford turned his face away, like the conversation was already over. He reached for the coffee pot with too much force, the glass rattling against the burner.

He cleared his throat. “Didn’t mean to interrupt,” he said, the words rasping out like they’d been dragged across sandpaper as he grabbed the pot, pouring into his cup without looking up.

Fidds didn’t move. His gaze swept over Ford, taking in the tension carved into every line of his body, how he moved, the way he stood like a man bracing for impact.

And then he saw it—the sheen clinging to the edges of Ford’s eyes, the glassy brightness standing out starkly against a purple bloom.

Ford glanced up, quick and sharp, like a dog caught mid-flinch, eyes meeting Fidds before he could stop them. His mouth pressed into a thin line, and for a second—just a second—he tried to harden, to set his face into something firm.

But it didn’t stick.

And Ford hated it. Hated that he couldn’t bite down on the emotion fast enough to keep it from leaking out at the corners.

But Fidds wasn’t looking at the hardness. He didn’t see the struggle. He saw that worn-down kid—eager to prove something he didn’t need to, craving something that never came to him. The one who didn’t know when to ask for help—too proud, even when he did.

Fidds didn’t think about it, he reached out, his hand finding the back of Ford’s shirt. His fingers curled into the fabric near his shoulder. He gave it a tug—firm, deliberate, like he was pulling him out of quicksand.

Ford let him.

Fidds held him steady, unspoken words hanging in the air between them. He didn’t need to say anything—didn’t need to fill the space with empty comfort. He just held on. And Ford couldn’t help the shutter that wracked his breath, the way it tore through him. Ford bit down on the sound, never let it make it past his teeth.

Fidds gripped the fabric tighter, offering a steady warmth that Ford couldn’t escape. “It's alright,” Fidds said softly in the midst of all this silence.

For a moment, nothing moved. Then Ford’s arm came around, sudden and clumsy, but the strength in it surprised them both.

Fidds didn’t pull away. Instead, he patted Ford’s back, then firmed his grip as Ford trembled, his breath leaving heavy against his shoulder. “It’s alright, Ford…” he said again. “I gotcha—”

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[Read the Entire Work Here]

#billford #stanford pines #bill cipher #gravity falls #covenants and other provisions #ford pines #billford fanfic #my writing #fiddleford mcgucket

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mstarcreates · 4 months ago

Text

Special: Someday I'll Get It

I was flipping through TikTok, which kept feeding me pet grief videos for some reason with this song (and don't ask me how) it led me down this path of angst. So...enjoy crying I guess? Lol

Trigger warning: Grief/Loss

Pairing: CaydexCrow

Crow is dealing with the loss of the man he fell in love with in the Pale Heart.

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At first he buried himself in a mountain of paperwork. It was never ending. And yet somehow…it never numbed him enough. Because he was still in Cayde’s old office. He avoided pretty much everyone, unable to stand their judgemental gazes or their hushed whispers.

He probably killed Cayde a second time. They muttered under their breaths, as if Crow wasn’t blaming himself enough. As if the thought of losing Cayde hadn’t gutted him too.

It didn’t matter that it had been Cayde’s choice this time.

That he had made his own fate.

The pain was still there. This ever present thing that followed Crow around like a ghost. Not like Glint, who did everything he could to help Crow manage his grief. Sometimes even giving into Crow’s desperate need to see Cayde by projecting a hologram of him.

This wasn’t the same as the real thing, of course. In all reality it was just another way for Crow to punish himself.

Then he went home, to an empty apartment. Bits and pieces of the man he loved still in the same places Cayde left them. His Hunter’s hood strewn across the back of his favorite worn leather chair. His scuffed up boots by the door. A stack of playing cards on the living room table, the last two cards lying face up.

An Ace of Spades and a King of Hearts.

Their cards, Cayde once said to him on a dark night, when the rain and wind was howling outside and the power had gone out.

His glass cup remained by the kitchen sink too. It was still half full…or was it half empty? Crow wasn’t sure any more. He just knew that’s how he felt all the time now. Half there. One foot in the now and one in the past.

Now and then he’d hear the sad tune of a harmonica when he tried to sleep in his single bed meant for two. Or Cayde’s laugh when he sat down at the dinner table with his Hellfire ramen, the chair now vacant on the other side.

Crow ran a hand through his hair, his fingers brushing against the band that held the little bun in place. He wondered what Cayde would think of the new hairstyle.

“Thought you said my hair cut was stupid?”

“Well it is good for one very specific thing.”

Then Crow touched his lips, swearing Cayde’s kiss was still there. A silent promise, meant to outlast the Darkness they’d faced together while in the Pale Heart. Darkness they both saw in one another.

And yet they still held on in that tent, under an oily starless sky, they pretended like this didn’t have an end that would shatter them both. Cayde had never told him how he had planned to play that hand he’d been dealt by that damn Wish.

He never needed to.

Even when they exchanged slow, soft kisses and wandering hands. When warm hot gasps were the only sound in the space between them. And Cayde’s name left his lips for the final time.

Crow had always known.

“I’m here for a good time, but not a long time.” That was what Cayde had told the Guardian. And still.

Still, Crow stupidly allowed himself to fall in love. To memorize every part of Cayde’s Exo body by tracing it with his fingertips. Drawing idle patterns into his metal skin in the early hour mornings while Cayde slept soundly.

He had allowed himself to love a man that wasn’t going to be there for him. There wasn’t regret in any of that. If the chance presented itself, Crow would do it all again. He supposed he was a glutton for punishment.

But if he was truly honest, for a moment…he’d give anything to look into those fractal eyes again. To hear that soft low drawl over the comms or in his ear. Telling him to stay in the moment, take a breath. We’re almost there.

Almost where? Crow wondered.

#destiny the game #destiny 2 #cayde 6 #crow destiny #caydexcrow #destiny fanfiction #snippet

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not-she-which-burns-in-it · 6 months ago

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A Study in Emerald - Chapter 2

2nd chapter up! A deep look at Martin Blackwood, unsurprisingly his brain is not a great place to be.

AO3 Tags:

Character Study, Canon Compliant, Martin Blackwood Has a Crush on Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Martin Blackwood Needs a Hug, Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist Needs a Hug, Not really a plot here, Internalized Fatphobia, Internalized Acephobia (kinda), Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Worth Issues, Everyone is doing bad

Check it out and maybe give it a kudo or leave a comment, even an emoji would be delightful, I need applause to live.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/61894225/chapters/158428984

Martin Blackwood spent most of his life trying to take up as little space as possible. He felt most comfortable when he was invisible in the corner of the room, which was quite a feat at 6ft 1in with broad shoulders and a round figure. He was the tallest person working in the archives, much to Tim’s 5ft 11 annoyance, and he practically towered over Jon at 5ft 8in. He had been “too big” since he was a teenager, and even though he was deceptively strong, it wasn’t in the useful sporty way. No, Martin was too soft. His large upper arms made button down shirts uncomfortable unless he went up a size, and his trousers often got holes in the thighs from friction. On top of that, his bulk in the crowded and narrow basement meant he was always pressing past a stack of files desperately hoping the sleeve of his jumper or the curve of his ass wouldn’t topple something to the floor. He had seen exasperated looks when that happened, and it happened a lot. He had even heard a whispered invective from the highly critical Head Archivist a couple times. Those cut especially deep since he wanted nothing more than to be good at this job. Or least good enough to not stand out as a disappointment. It wasn’t just his body that was soft, his mother had spent decades telling him he was too emotional, too prone to fits of crying. That liking poetry and small animals and quiet walks were what made him soft and gay and useless. And those words followed him every time he bumped into something, or ate a sweet, or worried that he might break a delicate chair.

Martin spent a lot of time trying to forget his appearance. The best days were when he was so caught up in a research project that he could forget he had a body at all, and just exist as a floating consciousness in the archives, helpful and unobtrusive. When he was forced to look in the mirror he hated his round boyish face. Popular media insisted that a smattering of freckles over your cheeks and nose were supposed to be cute, but Martin had a hard time distinguishing them from faded teenage acne scars, so all he could see was mess. He’d tried growing a beard to hide his imperfect skin and soft chin, but it came in patchy and uneven and sprawled more down his neck than up his full cheeks where he wanted it. No, he was stuck with the clean-shaven, cherubic, peaches and cream complexion that made him look even younger than his twenty nine years. Thirty-three according to his embellished resume, of course.

His sandy-colored hair didn’t help him look any older either. When he was a child, his hair had fallen in angelic gold curls that somehow annoyed his mother, since she had him crop it short. Now as an adult, it fell in soft fluffy waves that he kept above his ears, though when it got long the ends still started to curl. The bright gold had also faded to an unremarkable muddy mix between dirty blonde and mousy brown. He had continued to list it as “blonde” on dating apps until he got enough annoyed or disappointed reactions in person. Apparently his blonde wasn’t blonde enough, and his eyes were too grey to be called blue, and of course “You seem heavier than your pictures, no offense”. God, Martin hated the Grindr scene.

It’s not that he never dated, the relationships just didn’t last long. He had learned through rejections after rejection that he was good for a hookup and not much else. The encounters left him feeling a little used, and often unsatisfied, but just having the touch of another person staved off the dark places his mind brought him. It also gave him a break from fantasizing about his boss and the really terrible crush he’d been nursing for a couple years now.

He’d always had a thing for the lanky bookish types, the hot professor aesthetic really did it for him. Even better when that professor was strict and withholding. Something about it made Martin want to beg for approval. It was the difference between a dog's affection that’s handed out freely to anyone in the room, and winning over the judgemental cat in the corner. Martin dreamed of being chosen, being examined and found worthy. Or maybe it was just latent daddy issues stemming from his father’s abandonment at age 8. Either way, Jonathan Sims hit every one of those buttons. It had been just an attraction until the worm attacks. When Jon went out of his way to protect Martin, and when they started spending time together late at night when Jon worked late and Martin was sleeping in document storage, that attraction had blossomed into a full blown infatuation.

Even though Martin’s favorite tea was Yorkshire Gold, Jon drank Hampstead Earl Grey, so switching over gave Martin an excuse to drop a cup on Jon’s desk whenever he refreshed his own. Martin had even spent a fruitless two weeks researching youtube tutorials on making an authentic chai blend, until he convinced himself Jon would find that presumptuous and accuse him of being racist.

Martin spent a lot of his time divining ways his coworkers could hate him. Years of practice had taught him that the best way to avoid getting yelled at was to anticipate every possible need and either meet them or get out of the way. He learned that lesson young. The marks of a troubled childhood were easy to spot on him. He was quick with stammering apologies, flinched at slammed doors and raised voices, and spent valuable time double and triple checking his work anxiously. He could see those very qualities getting under people’s skin, but seemed to be unable to stop.

The only place he could relax was his cramped flat in Stockwell. Most of the furniture was thrifted, the gaming console was two generations old at this point, and the landlord hadn’t fixed the leaky sink or cracked floorboard since Martin moved in - but it was his. The paycheck from the Magnus Institute was the best he’d ever had, but it took a lot to keep his mother in her care home in Devon. He had been living with her out of financial necessity after dropping out of school to become her carer, but about a year before he’d been hired at the institute she’d decided to put herself in a home far enough away that Martin couldn’t visit regularly. Now she barely answered his calls, and sometimes pretended to be asleep or sick to avoid seeing him when he did get down to visit.

His financial struggles were easy to see on him. His slacks and jumpers were often secondhand, and Martin had learned to sew and patch things to get as much use out of them as possible. It also meant his clothes were often ill-fitting since plus size shopping at thrift stores was damn near impossible. He always brought his lunch, and on days when he was too rushed or his bread had gone moldy, he would make up a reason he couldn’t go out with Tim or Basira. The unhelpful voice in his head usually said You can stand to miss a few meals anyway, but he had learned not to say that part out loud. On a few dire occasions, Martin had accepted a Grindr date he knew would end poorly just because the guy would buy him dinner first.

Sasha had caught him walking with a slight limp one Monday morning after just such an occasion and had cornered him about it. At first she was convinced Martin had a secret boyfriend and wanted details. Then she’d given a mild talking to about being safe when he’d admitted to making poor hookup choices. He couldn’t remember now if that had been Sasha or NotSasha. It was strange to think the monster would have cared if Martin was ok, but maybe it just wanted him to stay in the Archives more.

And for the most part he did. Especially now that Jon was away more, and Tim was angry and distant, and Basira and Melanie seemed to be trapped here against their will, Martin felt like he was holding down the fort. He just wanted to avoid a fight, but it felt like the entire team was slowly boiling. He just needed to make enough tea and keep things organized and he could prevent someone from taking their anger out on him.

If he could just be good enough. If he could just be good enough. If he could just be good. Then they could prevent the apocalypse. Then Jon would be safe. Then Tim would be safe. Then Jon would love him back. Then he could be worthy of someone loving him back. He could be worthy.

#tma #the magnus archives #tma fanfic #martin blackwood #Martin shocker I have self esteem issues Blackwood #internalized fatphobia #internalized homophobia but it's really quick #ao3 link #shewhich stuff

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rocknrollsalad · 12 days ago

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Written for @corrodedcoffinfest's Somewhere Over the Rainbow event

Feels like I've been ready for you to come home for so long

Prompt: a song featuring the word "orange" Song choice: Orange Juice by Noah Kahan Word Count: 1500 Rating: teen+ Tags: alcoholism, rehab, bad decisions, family support, returning home, anxiety AO3: here

There’s an old adage about not being able to go home again. Actually, there are a lot of adages about a lot of things and people love to spout them like facts but the one about going home again rang particularly true for Eddie right now.

His car idled in a turn out, the turn to the trailer park was maybe twenty yards ahead, and all the cars that drove past hit their brakes because this was where the cops sat. They had it out for the residents of the trailer park, something Eddie had to take a bit of the blame for. He’d tore up and down this road countless times and had a stack of tickets to prove it.

Except he wasn’t here to perform some civic duty and make the drive home safer for others. No, this was because he couldn’t drive those last twenty yards to his former home. The place he’d always call home, despite having lived in several other places at this point.

It wasn't just the home but that was a big part of it. Eddie wanted to be here but, more importantly, he was supposed to be here today, at this time.

The boys in the band were acting his stand-in. Wayne’s annual birthday barbecue was at full rager status. At least as close to a rager as Wayne got, ten people minus his absent nephew who couldn't get his shit together in time enough to attend.

Not like it was a milestone or anything but this was Eddie's real civic duty. Making the old man celebrate himself. He hated every part of it. Eddie excitedly made him suffer through it year after year.

Last year, he’d really made him suffer, though. Not in the fun “we got you a piñata” or “wear this silly hat” sort of way but in the kind of way people referred to as “the incident at Wayne’s birthday”. Never the legacy Eddie wanted to leave and it hung heavy over every appearance home thereafter.

Making an ass out of himself at someone else’s party, in the middle of butt fuck nowhere, wasn’t even the first wake up call. Eddie went on to create a few more “incidents” before the offer of rehab came. It was, however, the top of the regrets list.

No one cared about trashed hotel rooms or slurred performances, his manager had been paying every tab Eddie had just walked out on, and no one cared that he insulted that realty star on the red carpet, least of all Eddie.

What Eddie cared about was the damage done to Wayne and the embarrassment he and the rest of Corroded Coffin suffered. His amends list started and ended with those crimes.

The hurt he was causing others and himself hung over mundane, day to day actions like those dark rain clouds that make everyone talk about storm cellars. So his manager issued a statement, the band found other projects to bide their time, and Eddie disappeared into the best resort money could buy.

Something he’d call a perk of fame but that was the same monster that encouraged excess, that provided liquor without Eddie asking for it, and pushed for him to stay out for just one more. Fame wasn’t to blame, of course, but it played as much a part in this as it did in getting Eddie into some posh spa situation.

Six months was twice as long as he’d planned to stay in the place that made his skin crawl at arrival but you can’t rush perfection. Or, at least, that’s what the poster in the hall on the way to therapy said. It felt necessary at the time but sitting here on this particular piece of Hawkins he’d been on millions of times before, six months felt like a lifetime.

What if they weren’t going to want him there? After last year, who could blame them? A worry that was more an excuse than anything, something to ruminate on in order to avoid the real worries. Namely, what if they didn’t like him now that he was sober?

For as long as Eddie could remember, he was the life of the party. Finding some kind of inner peace or lacking the lubricant that allowed him to let go might make him insufferable. Eddie couldn’t count how many people they’d parted ways with rather than support through those twelve steps. He could be another victim of that. (He should have been better before now)

All the doctors, the repeat patients, and the too invested nurses would say that if they were truly Eddie’s friends, it wouldn’t matter. They’d support him either way. Sitting here, taking the leap to find that out felt like asking him to leap over the Grand Canyon in roller skates. Entertaining but impossible.

While Eddie worried if he was still entertaining or if the mellow version was still wanted, as he chain smoked and picked pieces off his steering wheel cover, an answer came in the least expected way.

Jeff walked his way out to the car Eddie had finally shut off. The absence of the engine's purr was comforting in its own way and he was pretty sure the gas gauge was a little too close to empty. Though it did make his stay here feel more permanent.

The crunching of gravel came like a comforting warm wind on a chilly fall day. No other gravel sounded like the stuff they had leading back to Wayne’s trailer. Eddie was sure he’d recognize those over-traveled rocks anywhere.

Same with Jeff’s footsteps. Not always as comfortable but as easily recognizable as picking up Eddie’s favorite guitar.

“Good to see you,” Jeff said as Eddie cranked the window down.

“Yeah.” was all Eddie managed.

Behind it was everything Eddie had wanted to say for the last six months. Apologies, stories, and honestly, more apologies. Somewhere in there was how much he’d missed the man too but all he managed was a single syllable.

“You’re looking good…better.”

Eddie’s hand held the door handle but he didn’t pull it.

Jeff continued. “We weren’t sure you were coming but we got soda for you just in case. Wayne’s drinking that mud he insists is coffee and I’m sure we can buy some juice off the neighbors. It’s about the time in the month where her kids get tired of apple juice.”

“Thanks, man.”

“We get it and, ya know, we got you. Whatever you need.”

Eddie let out a sigh so heavy he felt tears well up, something he didn’t want to look into now as he easily blinked them away.

“Don’t sit out here all night, we’ve got a couple of burgers with your name on ‘em when you’re ready.”

There was no need to try and find a response to that, Jeff patted the side view mirror awkwardly and made the slow walk back the way he came.

He wasn’t even out of sight before Eddie lit a cigarette and dropped back against his seat. All he had to do was turn the key, put it in drive, and go up there. Three little things. Yet he couldn’t do any of them. Soon, though. He’d manage it soon.

One cigarette led to another but something in that second one gave Eddie a bit of courage. Though he framed it more as preventing them from sending people out.

The thought of a steady stream of people coming out to let him know everything was okay sounded worse than torture. If only because Eddie couldn't stomach that many heart-to-hearts right now. He couldn't give that many apologies at once.

And it would be a matter of time before Gareth made the same trip Jeff had. The Freak would be next and if shit got real bad, Wayne would come out. None of that needed to happen. It was time to rip the bandage off.

Gradually. Even after starting the car, Eddie sat through a couple of songs for good measure. Wishing now more than any time in the last few months that he could have a drink. Something to take the edge off.

Heading down that gravel road meant there was no turning back. Literally but also figuratively. If they knew he was there, they would know when he moved. So Eddie crept up to the one place he thought he'd always want to return to. He parked in the same spot he always had and got out.

Wayne greeted him with a burger, fresh and warm somehow. No one asked any questions or stopped what they were talking about. Though the festivities had died down some the party went on like nothing had changed.

Gareth tossed over a can of Mtn Dew after Eddie got settled and as he chewed the familiarly charred meat, Eddie realized all this worry was for nothing. These were the people who loved him no matter what. He’d always have a place at their table.

#UNDER THE WIRE HERE #but i did it!#now to do yellow!!

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