#Hazel isn’t so much dressed for Halloween

[afrophunk]

My DnD girls are from different campaigns so they’ll most likely never meet, but if they did they’d have fun

[hazelsmirrorball]

Rockstar Girlfriend IV. | Hazel Callahan

Rockstar! Hazel Callahan x Popstar! Reader Summary: Hazel Callahan and Y/n L/n have to be in a pr relationship, but both of them can stand each other but recently things are starting to look up.  Warnings: Enemies to lovers! Enemies to lovers! Enemies to lovers! Angst , slight jealous! Hazel. Sad! Fight (not physical) Not proof read. Sorry for any mistakes, English isn't my main language.  a/n: It’s friday so it’s time to be sad in bed! Here you guys go, thank you so so much for all the support. I love reading your comments, they really make my day. Thank you for reading 

part one. part two. part three.  part five

Hazel Callahan was never a jealous person, why would she be? There was no reason to be jealous. She had everything she could possibly think of, fame, money, talent and the list goes on and on. She could talk all day about all the things she had but aside from those material things Hazel knew she was attractive, she could have anyone fall at her feet in an instance. So she couldn’t understand the wave of jealousy hitting her body as she saw Y/n from afar flirting with someone. Hazel gripped tightly  on the beer she was holding glaring daggers towards  Y/n  as she threw her head back laughing at some joke the person next to them. 

“I bet it wasn't even that funny” She muttered to herself while taking a sip of her drink, her eyes never leaving Y/n ‘s way. 

“Who isn’t that funny?” Josie asked, popping out of nowhere behind Hazel causing her to jump, almost spilling her drink. Hazel rested her hand on her chest trying to push away the fact that she had scared the living shit out of her. Josie turned towards her unconsciously blocking Hazel’s view of Y/n.  

“What the fuck, Josie? You can’t jump out of nowhere. I could’ve spilled my drink on this lovely white couch. This is a million dollar couch. We can’t afford to ruin this couch” Hazel rambled reaching towards the couch pushing herself up so she could see the interactions Y/n was having with the unknown stranger better. Josie rolled her eyes, still not noticing Hazel's true intentions. 

“Have you seen your net worth? You could fill a house just with those damn couches and still have money. But that’s not even the important thing. Today’s the perfect day to scare people.” Josie responded by pulling Hazel by the arm, making her sit next to her on the couch. 

Josie was right, today was the perfect day to scare people. October 31st had rolled around really quick and this year people were more excited than ever. And people being excited by something made management want to hop on that train. That’s how Hazel and everyone else found themselves at a Halloween costume party in honor of B/n’s album launch. As much as Hazel wanted to deny it, she actually wanted to be at that dumb party. She had seen how important that album was for Y/n and her career. She had worked hard to get it out and the least Hazel could do was support her. 

The past few months as a PR couple weren’t as bad as she thought it would be. Being forced to go around town to be spotted by paps and fans so turned into dates where they could talk countless hours about things that didn’t make sense. Movie nights, sleepovers, late night dinners, they outings started transitioning from public to the privacy of their house. Hazel had learned every inch of Y/n’s apartment and every incho of her heart. It was hard for Hazel to see the line of where their pr relationship ended and their relationship started. She had found herself wanting for her phone to light up wishing it was a text from Y/n or how everything reminded her about Y/n. She was falling and she was falling hard.  

All she could think about was Y/n. Every ounce of inspiration started with Y/n.  She made Hazel feel complete. Yes she had “everything” but nothing in the world could make her feel the way Y/n did. Hazel wanted her to feel happy and if she had to go to that party and dress up, she would do it in a heartbeat. So as soon as the theme of the party got revealed, Hazel found herself at the nearest halloween store. 

Hazel was actually excited to go to the party and see Y/n, knowing that she was going to love her ghostface costume, but never in a million years she would’ve thought that she would see Y/n, her Y/n, snuggling up to some random person. 

“Hello? Earth to Hazel. Are you here?” Josie exclaimed concerned, snapping her fingers in front of Hazel’s face. Hazel shook her head turning to face Josie finishing the last sip of her beer and placing it on the small table in front of them. 

“Shouldn’t you be…I don’t know making out with your girlfriend or bothering PJ? Don’t we spend enough time with each other as it is?” Hazel snapped, taking Josie's drink and taking a sip. She waited a few seconds before turning her head once again on the pair a few feet away from them, noticing how they hovered against each other a few inches of locking lips. 

“Rude much? I have you know, Isabel is currently talking with this agent about a modeling gig and PJ is desperately trying to get a girl which leaves me no option to spend time with you. So, what’s up your ass. You’ve been moody ever since we got here.” Josie said getting more comfortable on the couch in front of her. She followed Hazel's gaze, noticing what she was looking at. “Oh, you found out about them?” Josie asked Hazel, making her snap her head towards Josie quickly. 

“Them? What do you mean about them?” Hazel responded quickly, not trying to hide her true emotions or intentions. She was going to find out who that person was and why she was wasting her time with them instead of spending time with her. Y/n didn’t even think of sending a hello towards Hazel’s way being too busy making googly eyes at the unknown person. 

“That’s Y/n ex, they were together before the pr thing between you two started. I guess since it’s over they are rekindling their relationship.” She continued while resting her legs on the coffee table in front of her. Hazel furrowed her eyebrows trying to process the information she had heard. 

“Wait. What do you mean now that it’s over?” Hazel asked, placing Josie's drink down completely facing her this time, her body almost on top of hers. 

“Didn’t you receive the constant  chained emails? They have been updating both of the bands about your guys publicity stunt. ” She replied, searching for her phone so Hazel could read the emails their manager had sent both of the teams. 

“Who the hell even reads email anymore? I thought G sent the important updates via message. Why did no one tell me that they were sending things via email.” Hazel replied, taking Josie's phone scrolling down to read the messages in front of her. 

Hazel felt her world spin as she read the words in front of her on the flashing screen. Her eyes quickly  scanned the twenty emails and all the responses. Everytime she read one more word she could feel the high she had with Y/n slip away, it was all fake. 

Without even thinking it twice Hazel felt herself move up from the couch heading towards Y/n not before handing the phone back to Josie. Her stomps were strong as she pushed past the  crowd of people. When she finally got next to the pair she grabbed  Y/n’s arm ignoring the disappearing smile on her face. Before her or her ex could say a word, Hazel pulled her outside. The cold breeze hit Hazel's face, but she could feel herself getting hotter by the minute, pissed off out of her mind. 

“What the hell,Hazel? I was trying to have a conversation” Y/n exclaimed annoyed, pulling her arm away from Hazel’s touch. Hazel looked at her pissed off, something unfamiliar to Y/n. She was used to seeing cocky Hazel and as of recently sweet Haze; but angry Hazel was a new thing for her. 

“When were you going to tell me about the emails?” Hazel said roughly, not breaking eye contact with Y/n. She could feel how just by her choice of words Y/n confidence turned down. 

“The emails? What emails?” Y/n asked clearly about her throat while playing with the ends of her skirt. Hazel laughed sarcastically, taking her by the chin, making her look at her. 

“What emails? Let me help you out and refresh your memory. The email where you claimed that going out with me was a way for you  to get me to write the songs for your album. An easy way to get on top of the social ladder. I thought you said that you wanted to write things for yourself? To make a name for yourself in the industry, why the hell did you use all the songs I fucking wrote for my bands album. I showed them to you in confidence and you stole from me. What the actual fuck, L/n” Hazel exclaimed letting go of her chin not wanting to hurt her due to the fact that she wasn;’t in control of her anger.

“I didn’t know you were going to read the emails. It was just my team a…” Hazel looked at her shocked, feeling her heart break at the choice of Y/n’s words not believing that this was the same girl she had fallen desperately in love with. 

“You didn’t know that I was going to find out about the fact that you were fucking me over and leading me on these past months for a stupid album. Are you hearing yourself right now”

“No, Hazel. You don’t understand! You’ve always had everything I just wanted to see what it was like. You knew from the beginning that it was a pr thing really, but now I..” 

“Honestly, I actually thought you were actually a good person. I felt like shit being around you, I didn’t think I was worthy of being next to you. But now, I guess it was the other way around. I really hope that using me for that damn album was worth it. Because right now you gave me inspiration to write a new one” Hazel turned away as tears started forming on Y/n eyes. As Hazel walked away Y/n could feel her only inspiration slipping away. 

Hazel was gone and out of her life, like she always wanted, but why didn’t it feel good. Why did she want to see her face and the constant reminder that she was there? Hazel Callahan had an effect on her that she couldn’t lose but now it was too late, she was slipping away.  

...

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Thank you for reading

[callsignspark]

soft-tober | 15 | Pete Mitchell

soft-tober is about experiencing the joys of October with loved ones. each day is a fall-related one-shot for one of the couples from my Dagger, Sword & Shield universe, plus a few extras! today is Pete and Penny with “It’s never too early for Halloween music!" from this prompt list.

If you’d like to be tagged for soft-tober, please send an ask!

word count: 1.5k

soft-tober masterlist | main masterlist | divider credit here

warnings: bashing of Monster Mash, Penny putting Mav on the edge of a Halloween-related meltdown, mentions of pregnancy, Mav plotting to break the Hard Deck jukebox

callsignspark disclaimer: my blog is an 18+ space; minors do not interact - you will be blocked. I do not consent to my work being copied, run through an AI generator, translated, or posted elsewhere. I do have an AO3, where I eventually will be cross-posting my works.

15. "It’s never too early for Halloween music!"

“From my laboratory in the castle east.”

Pete’s eye twitches; it's the seventh time this song has played since he walked in the door.

It’s been an hour.

He watches his wife hum along to the world’s only Halloween song as she pours drinks and jokes around with the regulars lining the south side of the bar. He loves his wife; he’s so grateful for her love and the way she understands him. But they’re in the middle of their yearly Halloween standoff, and he has no love to spare for her at the moment.

“To the master bedroom where the vampires feast!”

Penny loves Halloween. It’s always been her favorite holiday; Pete learned that almost forty years ago when he first ran into Admiral Benjamin’s pretty daughter at the Officer’s Club Halloween celebration. She was dressed like a vampire, and he was instantly smitten, plastic pointy teeth and all. Goose made fun of him for weeks over crushing on the girl who looked like she had been in a fight, fake blood splattered all over her clothes and skin.

They had been on and off for decades, before she got married and after the divorce was finalized, but whether or not they were together, he always thought of her on Halloween. There had even been a few drunken, desperate calls on the 31st, just wanting to hear the voice of the woman he loved.

It had been something they talked about before getting back together this time, the final time, the time they got married. It had been an excruciating conversation. Pete isn’t great at expressing his feelings but tries for Penny. Admitting that he had loved her for years, but he wasn’t in a headspace where he could be there for her. It’s why he hadn’t done anything when it was announced that she was engaged to Todd.

But after the uranium mission, he started to heal. Making up with Bradley had been a big part of that. He still misses his best friends; it can be overwhelming how painful their deaths are, but it’s not as debilitating as it used to be. The healing and talking about his feelings let Penny know he was ready to be with her.

And so she was the one to propose. An early morning roll in the sheets suddenly paused as her big, hazel eyes blinked down at him, a soft look on her face that he’d never seen before. She asked, and he said yes, letting her know that if she had waited until that night, he would have asked the same question. I would have given the same answer; she has whispered against his lips as he flipped them over.

Pete had never regretted saying yes.

”The ghouls all came from their humble abodes.”

Except when it came to Halloween. Because as much as Penny loves him, she also loves to torture him. And her favorite way of doing that is by playing Monster Mash over and over again until he gives in. Every year, Pete bets her that he can make it until October 2nd without complaining about the song.

It’s been four straight years of losing.

The longest he’s made it is until three in the afternoon, but that’s only because Penny was visiting her aunt that day.

Mav has done the calculations; if he can make it through the next hour at the Hard Deck, he’ll win the bet. He can do it. This is his year. He can feel it. That new surround sound 4k television is as good as his.

“To get a jolt from my electrodes!”

Pete jumps as the entire bar starts singing along. He has no idea how, but she’s coordinated some thirty-odd strangers into joining her campaign to break him.

Unfortunately for him, it works.

“Okay! Okay! I give! Turn it off!”

“No! It’s never too early for Halloween music!”

“Penny, please-”

“They did the Monster Mash!”

The night keeps getting worse for him as his daughters - well, step-daughter and daughter-in-law - stroll into the bar, kissing him on the cheek before joining his wife next to the jukebox, all three of them dropping quarters in to keep playing the song.

A big hand slaps his shoulder. “You know, if we tried hard enough, I think we could throw that thing into the ocean. Your wife would never have to know.”

“Good thought. Penny already threatened me if I even look at it wrong.” Bradley snorts, making no effort to hide the laughter. “Yeah, go ahead - yuck it up, kid. How’s the campaign going to get your wife to take some time off before the babies come?”

“It’s not…” His nephew frowns, eyebrows furrowing as he watches Mary take a break from dancing to a song that’s thankfully not Halloween-themed, both hands supporting her lower back as she takes deep breaths. “I wish she would just sit down and relax.”

“Is she in pain?”

“No, not pain, but she’s uncomfortable most of the time, and she gets tired so easily. Her bump is making is harder to do things, but she still won’t let me help her.”

Pete hums; he’s never supported a woman through pregnancy, but he can’t imagine it’s easy for either party. “It’s gotta be difficult to lose your freedom like that. To just wake up one day and not be able to put your shoes on by yourself.”

“I know, but I just want what’s best for her and the girls.”

“Girls?” Pete echoes, his chest warming.

Bradley stiffens, eyes wide and panicky as he turns to his uncle. “You didn’t hear me say that.”

“Okay.”

“You did not hear me say that.”

“Bradley. I understood the first time. I didn’t hear it.” Both men pause, smiles taking over their faces. Pete leans in, unable to hold back his excitement. “Two girls?! Bradley, that’s amazing!”

“I’m so scared.” The big, brawny man giggles, his cheeks flushed with happiness. “Do you wanna hear their names?”

“I thought you weren’t telling anyone.”

“We aren’t.” Both men jump, Mary somehow sneaking up on them. “But we thought the grandparents would like to know before they’re born.”

“Grandparents?” Pete asks, getting choked up at the title.

“Of course, Mav. Hope the two of you are ready to be grandma and grandpa.” Bradley smiles at Penny, who has joined them.

“Oh! You two!” Penny envelopes the parents-to-be in a hug, happy tears filling her eyes.

Pete is frozen on his stool, overwhelmed and overjoyed. Just a few years ago, he thought he’d never even get to talk to Bradley again, and now he’s going to be grandpa to the next generation of Bradshaws. His chest clenches, thinking about his best friends and how they're missing another big event in their son’s life. He vows to be the best grandparent, to tell the kids all about their biological grandparents. To keep Nick and Carole’s memory alive.

“So… do you wanna know their names?” Mary asks, her cheeks pink just like her husband, smile growing as both newly minted grandparents nod. “Even before we found out what we were having, we decided that we were going to use names of people important to us. Baby A is Alice Theresa Penelope Bradshaw, named after my grandmother and you, Penny.”

“Me?” Pete holds his wife close as she blubbers, wiping her tears away.

“You’ve been like a mother to both of us, Penny. It’s the least we could do.” Mary hugs her pseudo-mother-in-law. “Do you wanna tell them Baby B’s name, honey?”

“Lily Nicola Carole Bradshaw.” Bradley rasps, blinking back tears. “For mom and dad.”

Pete pulls his son off his stool and into a tight squeeze, holding him close and whispering how proud he is of him, both laughing through tears. When he pulls back, he hugs Mary as close as he can around her six-month twin bump.

“Thank you.”

“For what, Pete?”

“Loving him.”

“It’s the easiest thing I’ve ever had to do, Mav.” Her face is serene as she pulls away. “I know things were rough for a long time between you, but I hope you know how much he loves you.”

“I do, thanks, kid.” He smiles as Bradley whisks his wife towards the jukebox, muttering something about playing their wedding song.

“Well, grandma and grandpa. Did you ever think we’d get here?”

“A few years ago, I would have said there was no way anyone would call me grandpa. But, after he met Mary, I knew it would only be a matter of time.” Pete wraps an arm around his wife, pouring love into the kiss he presses to her lips. “Hey, you’re gonna be a pretty foxy grandma.”

“Foxy?”

“Oh, yeah. Foxy. We’ll have to get you one of those necklaces.”

She blinks at his big grin, digesting the suggestion. “I’m gonna assume this is a weird reaction to the happy news.”

“Probably for the b-”

“I was working in the lab late one night!”

“Amelia!”

Pete can’t even bring himself to be mad as his entire family laughs, too excited about the future to care about the stupid song they’ve been using to torment him. He hugs his wife close as they watch Bradley and Mary tell Amelia the news, heart melting when the teenager hugs her sister-in-law before jumping into her brother’s arms.

I can’t believe this is my life… maybe Mickey can help me break the jukebox; he’s good with computers, and Penny would never suspect him.

@gretagerwigsmuse | @hangmanapologist | @hangmanbrainrot | @princessphilly | @hangmanssunnies | @thesewordsareallihavetogive | @a-court-of-roscoe-and-baby | @katieshook02 | @hellojameshowyadoin | @aristotles-butthole | @atarmychick007 | @whatislovevavy | @kmc1989 | @sometimesanalice | @laracrofted | @yuckosworld | @mika-darling | @bradshawsbaddie | @bobblebobsbae | @ohtobeleah | @withahappyrefrain

[smalltownw1tch]

I think it’s about time I start posting my thoughts/theories about ROTPL… so here goes

SPOILERS 🚨 Part One

Starting with this photo and the whole Nancy/Potato relationship..

My theory is that this is right after Nancy finds out that her parents were the ones to dedicate that song to her on Halloween and NOT potato like she currently thinks

So of course she feels defeated because now she thinks Potato was telling the truth and he isn’t keen on her and she’s thinking damn I was wrong. no boy likes me for who I am

BUT little does she know that Potato’s falling madly in love as we speak

Speaking of…

I can’t get over how overjoyed Wally looks for Potato in this photo ⬇️ he’s so happy that he’s about to drop Hazel 💀

More about Wally later in this post ❗️

The corsage that Nancy has on her wrist has to have been given to her by Potato right??? It doesn’t match her dress so I’m assuming it was his choice 😭 but AAAA THEYRE SO CUTE ALREADY

The poor guy is having an out of body experience while Nancys reevaluating everything she stands for

(Also I’d like to point out that Nancy has her own face on her skirt which makes me love her even more. Know ur worth girl)

pink ladies who hand jive together stay together :’)

It makes me sad that Cynthia isn’t wearing a suit too but there are a couple things I have to say about that-

1. Even though we all know she probably would’ve wanted to- wearing a suit would’ve caused a lot of trouble for her and even though that makes me sad to think about, it IS the 50s… so better safe than sorry

2. The dress is not a reflection of her character’s journey because clearly she’s having trouble figuring out her identity, plus there’s that whole does Cynthia become a T-Bird and a Pink Lady debate. But at least she looks like she’s enjoying herself!! That’s the least we could ask for

I am curious if Lydia is there though…

OK BACK TO WALLY

The fact that he’s at the Frosty Palace with Hazel when Buddy and the others are nowhere to be seen makes me think his song is about what Hazel said in one of the earlier episodes about whether he actually likes the dance/his friends even tho he’s known them forever

Plus he’s just watched her act her heart out as Juliet so he’s pretty much head over heels

We’ve been getting a lot of character development songs, esecially with Buddy in episode 7, and the fact that Wally’s singing in the rain? You can’t get much more angsty than that 😭

OKOKOK LOOK AT MY BABIES

If we don’t get a kitschy montage of the Pink Ladies and the T-Birds getting ready for the dance then what’s even the point tbh

They’re matching too 🥹 kind of

The scene where Richie gives Gil his blessing to ask out Olivia in the last ep gave me such huge relief I’m so glad we’re getting our bbg away from that vile criminal teacher

Also I see Shy Guy there in the background busting some moves so I’m glad he’s having a good time even if he doesn’t have a date

Is there anything I’m way off with?

I have more to point out so I might make a part two if people want to discuss theories??

[multiversxwhore]

WARNING: ⚠️⚠️⚠️ The fic you are about to read has a lot of gore, violence, manipulation, blood, strong language, explicit sex scenes, and did I mention gore? THESE ARE FICTIONAL CHARACTERS AND A FICTIONAL SLASHER. IF YOU ARE A MINOR DO NOT READ THIS 21+ ONLY

TW: Sadist, Masochist, Degradation, Dub-Con, luring, and trapping. Mentions of racism.

*please do not re-share my work anywhere else*

𝙷𝙰𝙻𝙻𝙾𝚆𝙴𝙴𝙽 𝚃𝚁𝙴𝙰𝚃𝚂- American Psycho One Shot

Cameron is a huge fan of Halloween aside from it being her birthday, it’s the only seasonal holiday she celebrates. Patrick on the other hand, well doesn’t like much of anything, yet he decided to have a costume party at his place this year.

“Patrick…you have to dress up as someone for Halloween.” She groans, he does this every year, and every year Cameron has to lure him into wearing a costume.

“I don’t like dressing up Cam, I mean what’s the point? So we can pretend to run around being someone else?” He continues to flip through his magazine and occasionally looks up to bark orders at the workers who're putting up decorations. Cameron took the magazine from his hands, sat in his lap, and wrapped her arms around his neck.

“But Patty, it’s my birthday.” She pouted as if that would be a solid enough argument to partake in such foolishness. His hands rested on her thighs and hip. Cameron held his face in her hands, she squashed his cheeks gently, but the unimpressed look in his eyes remained.

“I’m throwing you a party, and letting you trash my house, isn’t that enough for you?” Patrick groaned, if it wasn’t for her being hot and smart, he’d probably kill her by now. Though he is impressed by how long she’s hung in there with him, if Cameron was any regular woman, she’d be crying back home long ago…or dead.

“Of course not.” Cameron had a surprise plan, that she knew Patrick probably didn’t think about because he was too busy being a dickhead.

“Don’t you wanna have a good time Patrick, I mean think about it. Halloween night is naturally the most violent night of the year, it’s almost like you can get away with anything.” Cameron purred, her head tilted downward as she peaked at him from underneath her long lashes. The corners of her lips pulled back, and her lips parted showing her perfect white teeth.

“Aren’t you a sneaky one?” Patrick mumbled, the gears in his head turning as the words she just spoke to him were inspiring all types of ideas. Now it all made sense as to why she chose such a fucked up theme, Cameron had the decorators hang fake dead bodies outside in the front yard from the tree. There were fake blood splatters in the bathrooms and some random bloody handprints on the walls. There was one section of the house set up like a crime scene, that part was cut off, but he had a feeling no one would listen to that.

“You know…I heard Paul might show up, I know his assistant, and she said that he didn’t believe you’d throw a party.” The grip Patrick had on her thighs tightened, and his jaw clenched.

“Paul Allen? What do you mean he didn’t believe I would throw a party?” It was cruel to use Paul as bait like this, but Patrick made it way too easy. His eyes locked onto hers, his nails digging into her exposed skin, and Patrick did not blink once.

“I didn’t hear this from the source directly, but I wouldn’t put it past that pompous asshole. Paul doesn't think you have it in you to have any type of fun…because and I quote, Patrick Bateman is the stiffest suit on two legs walking the New York streets.” Patrick’s facial expression appeared extremely dull. His relaxed facial muscles didn’t reflect the same energy in his eyes, his pupils shrunk the size of pinpoints, and the grip he held on Cameron tightened. The stinging sensation from his nails digging into her skin didn't bother her, she pulled her bottom lip between her teeth in an attempt to bite back her laughter.

“What’s your costume?” He asked, his voice monotone, and deep. Patrick’s hazel-brown eyes finally met Cameron’s, he watched the way her full luscious lips pulled back into an arrogant smile.

“I went through a few choices, and for a minute I couldn’t decide. But now that you said you’re going to wear a costume…I think Cat woman would be an excellent choice.” Patrick rolled his eyes, he can recall several nights Cameron came over just to watch Cat woman on his tv because he had the bigger tv. He never understood her obsession with the movie, it’s not like it was even half as good as it could have been.

“And I assume you have a costume planned for me?” His head tilted, and his lips pressed together in a thin line. He had a feeling, whatever it was she was going to choose, he was going to hate it.

Some hours later

“Cameron, I can't move my damn head in this mask,” Patrick complained, I stood on the opposite side of the room messing with my cowl. I couldn’t help but smile, he looked so damn good in that costume. If it wasn’t for all the effort I put into this party, I’d cancel, and fuck him for the rest of the night.

“Duh Patrick, Batman’s cowl isn’t made for comfort, but if you must complain, you could just take it off.” I offered, I crossed the room to meet him where he stands in the doorway. I wrap an arm around his neck, and one of my gloved hands caresses the side of the mask, and down to his espoused chin.

“Although, if you take the mask off…it ruins the fantasy for me.” Patrick silently watched me, analyzing my face, and more than likely fighting himself on his decision. He was taking too long, so I decided for him. I pressed my lips to him, instantly Patrick pushed his tongue into my mouth, and his arms closed in around my waist. Just before things got too exciting the doorbell rang, I pushed away from Patrick and licked my lips.

“Save some for later Patty.” I blew a kiss at him, then moved past him, and out of the bedroom. The bell rings a few more times by the time I reach the door, I pull the door open to reveal Meadow and a few other people on the other side.

“Let’s get this party started then”

After another hour or so passed, Patrick’s house was full of people, strangers, and some “friends” from work mixed in. The music is blasting so loud, you could barely hear yourself, or the person talking to you.

Just as Cameron said, Paul Allen did show up, and he was thoroughly impressed. He brought his assistant as his date. He did have a fiancé, but he wouldn’t be a traditional rich white man if he weren’t cheating. The assistant, Kelly Heston, had a major distaste for Cameron. She made it known any chance she got, though she never confronted Cameron directly.

“Woooo take that shot bitch!” Meadow could be heard cheering Cameron on from the middle of the dance floor, she stood over her Mistress with a bottle of Tequila. She then turned to Kelly who spectated from the side, nursing a drink—probably nonalcoholic, it’s been rumored that Kelly was court-ordered to AA meetings—she shook her head turning Meadow’s offer down.

“Aw come on Kells, don’t be a downer, you came to the party, you have to drink, them is the party rules.” Cameron stood folding her arms, Patrick admired her efforts to smite her enemies, but if it were up to him Kelly would have been done away with. She’s nosey, bland, and broke.

“So, Cameron Fulton…that’s what you’re into?” Paul turns to Patrick who had been intensely watching Cameron and Meadow grind, and hump each other to the music. She came dressed as Harley Quinn, her ass cheeks hung out the bottom of her shorts. They were cut damn near into panties, and her shirt was so thin you could see her red and blue bra underneath.

“What?” Patrick snapped, he wished he could have rolled his eyes harder at Paul’s choice of costume. Captain Jack Sparrow is probably Patrick’s least favorite character, but he doesn’t like anything Disney.

“I mean she– she’s your girlfriend right? Just doesn’t seem like your type…Black girl, and you know…wide, you know…um hips. But main– ly she’s Black. All that attitude, blah blah blah. How do you deal with that?” He stumbled through the whole thing, every other word came out slurred, or in between a hiccup.

Cameron had been feeding him tequila shots, and any other liquor she could find since the moment he got here. By the time she was finished, Paul was already hammered halfway to hell, and there was nothing nobody could do about it.

“You drunk bastard, I don’t even fucking like you. Cameron is a goddam smoke show you shithead, you know both her parents are doctors? She has a degree in business, can speak four languages, and graduated at the top of her class. She came from a high-class suburban neighborhood, she’s in shape, she’s got a great rack and gorgeous ass.” Patrick dropped his glass half full of whiskey, he did not like it when anyone tried to talk down to Cameron. Because if they’re talking bad about her, then they might as well be talking bad about him, and Patrick can’t have that.

“Yea…but she’s still Black.” Paul slurred, and without blinking, Patrick reared back his leather-clad fist and punched him square in the jaw. Paul went flying out of his seat onto the floor, his pirate hat fell off his head, and landed in front of Meadow’s feet.

“You son of a bitch, you’re such a fucking wanna-be!” Paul drunkenly shouted as he tried to pick himself up off the floor, Cameron rolled her eyes and stood there looking down at Paul.

“Pathetic.” She sighed, people stopped for a brief moment to see what was happening but didn’t give it much thought.

“You could at least help him up, you know Cameron I’ve been hearing people say what a bitch, and mean girl you are.” Paul’s assistant, Kelly, hissed, she also had more than a few drinks. Not nearly as many as her boss though, her words slurred but she still stood on her own two feet.

“And?” Cameron turned her full attention to Kelly, a hand on her hip, and an unimpressed look on her face.

“And you're a fat cow that nobody likes, you think you’re all that, but the only thing you’re good at is sucking Patrick's dick.” She hissed, taking half step forward, Paul was still struggling to pick himself up off the floor, and Patrick stood off to the side watching the whole thing unfold.

“Is that so?” Cameron grabbed onto Paul’s arm, and helped him the rest of the way up off the floor, Kelly scuffed trying to think of something to say. She came up empty.

Cameron pulled Paul off in the direction of the bedroom, she struggled with him the whole way there.

“Where are you taking him?” Kelly quickly followed the tow down the hall, and Patrick followed after that. He took a look around the house, nobody noticed they left, people were either dancing or drinking.

“He needs to go home.” Kelly protested, she took her pirate hat off and tossed it to the ground. Beads of sweat lining the edge of her hair, she seemed to be a bit out of breath despite not walking that far.

“You need to calm down, wino.” Cameron chided, she looked over to Patrick who stood in the corner brooding but remained silent. He was mostly curious to see what Cameron was going to do, she had been waiting for this for a long time. It’s no secret to him that she and Kelly pretty much hated each other. From what he’s observed Cameron won’t join Kelly and her cult. There’s a handful of women in the office that lived under Kelly’s thumb, and Cameron is the only one that wouldn’t crack under the pressure.

“What did you call me?” Kelly stumbled a little, her words slurring, and her eyelids droopy. She tried to fight against the drowsy sensation by shaking her head and squeezing her eyes shut.

“I know about your relationship with the bottle Kelly, I know a lot about you in general. But let’s talk about that later, I have a confession to make. Even though I fucking hate your guts, and you’re poorly misinformed about me. I’ll let it slide since you’re pretty, and you’ve got a sharp mouth on you.” Cameron walked to Kelly who had plopped down on the bed next to a dazed Paul. She grabbed a fist full of her blonde hair, pulled her head back, and licked her tongue up the side of Kelly’s face.

“Now be a good girl, relax your body, don’t ask anymore questions, and no more complaining. You will have fun, and allow me to do whatever I want to you.” Cameron whispered, her eyes dilated, and the whites of her eyes turned a deep red. After a moment Kelly’s body relaxed on command, her mind void of all previous questions, and thoughts.

“Okay, I have a confession.” Kelly giggled, the alcohol flowing through her, the last bit of her logic dwindling. “I think you’re so fucking hot, I hate it, and all I think about is putting my face between those perfect tits of yours.” Kelly moaned, this tickled Cameron, but it didn’t surprise her. Sometimes she’d catch the prissy woman stealing heated glances when Kelly thought no one was looking.

Cameron’s lips kissed up the base of her neck to her lips. Kelly has always been jealous of those naturally juicy, luscious lips of hers, and it made everything that came out of her mouth seem sexy.

“Hmm you’re so gorgeous Cam,” Kelly confessed in between kisses, her hands moved up to Cameron’s full breast, and grabbed a handful of each one over her leather catsuit. Cameron pulled away first, grabbed Kelly by the chin, and tilted her head to get a better look at her eyes.

“You’re going to be a good little slut, and eat my pussy. For your sake, I hope you make me cum.” Cameron giggled mischievously, she turned to Patrick who had taken off his mask and was leaning against the wall watching Cameron work. Slowly she unzips her catsuit, her hips sway, and her head slightly pointed downward as she watches Patrick back through her eyelashes.

She shimmied the rest of the way out of her costume, as she stepped out of it Patrick pushed himself off the wall, and made his way over. Roughly he pulled Cameron into him, pressed his lips to hers, and gripped onto her ass tightly.

“You get down here,” Cameron ordered Kelly, without hesitation she got down off the bed, onto the floor, and on her knees. Patrick turns his back to Cameron so she can unzip his suit for him, Paul starts to stir a bit, and for a second he starts to panic not knowing where he was.

“Alcohol must have worn off some,” Patrick muttered, he rolled his eyes and continued to shimmy out of his outfit.

“Where am I? How much did I– Kelly? What–” He was cut off by Cameron who had climbed on top of him, and slapped him across the face.

“Cameron!” Kelly gasped in shock, her body felt too heavy to get up and stop the assault so she just sat there on the floor.

“Look at me, just shut the fuck up okay? Don’t say another fucking word.” Patrick grabbed by the chin, his eyes dilated, the whites of his eyes turning bloody red, and veins crept up his under eyelid. She wanted to resist, everything in her said to run, but no matter how hard she wanted to fight against it, his words were stronger than her will.

“What the fuck is wrong with you! You bitch!” Paul shouted, he held onto his stinging cheek with one hand, and tried to push Cameron off him with the other.

“Cameron…” Patrick rolled his eyes, he was starting to get impatient, and extremely agitated. He hasn’t eaten in hours, this was taking longer than necessary at this point.

“Shut your fucking mouth, and let me enjoy this you whiny bitch.” Cameron hissed at Paul, she grabbed him by the chin and forced his eyes to look into hers. The veins that crept up her bottom eyelids, and the crimson red that appeared in the whites of her eyes had his heart racing with fear.

“Don’t make a fucking sound, just lay there, and don’t move till I tell you to. Nod your head if you understand.” On the inside, his brain was telling him that he was going to die, but he couldn’t resist her commands. He nodded his head silently and laid back on the sheets. His breathing is heavy, tears start to form at the bottom of his eyelid.

“Cry all you want, it’ll do you no good.” Cameron turned to Kelly and Patrick who were in the same spot she left them in. His costume was deserted on the floor, even his boxers, and socks were off. Patrick held his dick in his hands, slowly stroking himself to not build up too much too soon.

“Let’s make our mouths useful, lay down on the floor.” Cameron lightly pushed Kelly onto the floor next to the bed, she then positioned herself over Kelly’s face. She sucked Cameron into her mouth, stuck her tongue into her slickness, and lapped up any juices that came from her greedily.

“Open that pretty mouth of yours gorgeous.” Patrick grabbed Cameron by the head with one hand, and with the other, he guided himself into her mouth pushing as far back as possible. He continued to thrust into her warm mouth, as spit began to spill down her chin, he looked over at Paul who has been watching this whole time.

“Yea you fucking wish you had a woman like mine you jealous asshole.” Patrick pulled his dick out of Cameron’s mouth and stood her up.

“C’mon I’ve got a better idea.” Patrick breathed, he walked her over to Paul’s side of the bed, half of her body on top of Paul, and the other half off the bed, facing Patrick.

“Lucky for you, you get an up-close show baby.” Cameron moaned, one of her nails grew longer into a sharp point, then she dragged it along his cheek slicing the skin open. He tried to move away but found he still couldn’t no matter how hard he tried. With her long tongue, Cameron licked up his crimson red blood, at the same time Patrick roughly entered her from the back.

“Ooo fuck! Hahaha.” She laughed evilly, pulling down her bra, and exposing her perfectly round, large breasts. Patrick pounded into her relentlessly, her creaminess coating him. She raised one leg up on the bed, and leaned down more, putting her ass out. Patrick’s deep growls mixed with Cameron’s moans, and whimperings filled the air.

Cameron rips open Paul’s shirt exposing his skin, she licks him from his navel to the base of his neck. He looked at her with half-open eyes, he’s sworn to never have been attracted to Cameron, or women like her. The erection in his pants suggests otherwise, he was excited, because he thought maybe he would get his turn next, but he couldn’t have been more wrong.

Patrick pulled out of Cameron, and she was about to complain when she watched as he came all over Paul’s chest. She burst out into laughter, tears brimming her eyes, and a hand over her chest.

“Bitch.” Patrick spat at him, he watched the disgust in Paul’s eyes and the feeling of satisfaction built inside Patrick. Finally, he’ll be getting rid of him after tonight, he would have done it sooner, but Paul Allen never puts himself in a situation where he has to be alone with Patrick. He came to the party assuming he’d be safe because there were so many people around, but not a single person noticed when the four of them disappeared.

“Hmm, you wasted your nut on him. What am I supposed to have?” Cameron pouted, she loved it when Patrick would come inside her. He’d continue to pump into her even after they both came, he was obsessed with the gooey feeling.

“Don’t be so goddamn greedy okay?” Patrick rolled his eyes, his dick still hard, and ready for a second round. His appetite is starting to eat at him, and he couldn’t wait any longer.

“You, get the fuck up and come over here.” Patrick snapped his fingers at Kelly, on command she got up from the floor and walked over to the bed.

“Now…clean up the mess.” Patrick tilted his head down, his features seeming more melicious than ever. The bite of hunger more intense than ever as the veins under his eyes appeared again, he was on the brink of losing his self control.

“W–what?” Kelly stutters, she takes a step back from the bed, but before she could fully turn and make a run for it, Cameron was already at her side. She wrapped the leather whip that came with the Catsuit around Kelly’s neck, and slowly tightened the grip. Her body began to struggle, and her heart pounded wildly as panic set in.

“I know you didn’t think you’d get away that easily did you? Now, do what the man said, AND CLEAN THE SHIT UP!” Cameron shoved Kelly forward onto the bed, and did as told, she licked the cum up off Paul’s chest with her tongue. If this was any normal situation she may have tried to enjoy the salty taste, and creamy texture. Paul’s eyes looked at hers, and he was just as confused as she was, but if she thought about it, maybe she deserved this. All the times she, and her “friends” were so bitchy to Cameron. The rumors they spread, and the lies they told. This was Kelly’s karma, being humiliated by the one woman in the office she was jealous of.

“N–now what?” Kelly whimpered, Cameron cackled as she pulled her up by the sandy tresses she was so proud of. When Kelly watched Cameron’s eyes turn the same red as Patrick’s, the veins under her eyes, and now sharp fangs growing out of her gums, Kelly screamed at the top of her lungs.

“Now you fucking die!” Cameron roughly bit into Kelly’s neck, her crimson red blood spilling into Cameron’s mouth, and she gulped it down greedily. Kelly was too shocked, and her blood drained faster once Patrick latched on the other side of her neck. The whole time his eyes were on Cameron as she fed, she was always so vicious about her bite, ripping flesh, and tearing open veins. Cameron wished she could have seen life leave Kelly’s eyes as her soul left her body. Feeling her shoulders slump, and her body go slack was good enough for her this time.

They dropped Kelly to the floor with a heavy thud, her skin pale, and cold. Patrick pulled Cameron in by her waist and licked the blood off her chin, neck, and chest. This only caused the blood to smear more around the both of them, but the mess didn't bother them, especially not Cameron.

“You got room for more?” Cameron asked, climbing onto the bed, Paul’s eyelids widened, tears streaming down his face, and as the reality of his situation set in, his heart felt like it was going to explode.

Patrick snatched Paul up by his collar forcing him to look into his eyes, Patrick flashed his bloody fans at him. A deep animalistic growl rose out of his throat, Paul tried to turn his head away, and squeeze his eyes shut.

“Look at me when I’m talking to you. LOOK! AT! ME!” Patrick commanded, Paul reluctantly opened his eyes, his body shaking like a leaf, he was mumbling something like a plea, but it fell on deaf ears.

“Turn to Cameron, and tell her how amazing she is. Tell her how her body is fucking perfect, tell her she is the most beautiful Black woman you’ve ever lairs eyes on. Worship her as if your life depends on it.” Patrick turned Paul to Cameron who was laying on her back, naked, and bloody. She looked more like a wild Lion as she licked the blood off her skin, and picked her teeth. A bored expression on her face, she never cared too much about Paul Allen, he was boring.

“You–you're the most b–beautiful Black woman I’ve ever seen, the best body I’ve ever seen.” Paul cried, his bottom lip quivered, and snot dripped down his nose.

“Beg her, fucking beg her to spare you,” Patrick whispered in his ear, Paul flenched, he choked on his spit, but the tightening grip on the back of his neck encouraged him.

“Cameron…please, please, please don't kill me, I-I’m sorry, God please.” Paul pleaded between sniffles, and hiccups as he tried to hold back the tears best he could.

She put her hand up to her ear pretending to listen, a cackle fell from her lips, a cruel action at a time like this. “I don't think God is listening.” Then she launched forward, and pounced on top of him, ripping a chunk of his flesh from his neck. The scream died in Paul Allen's throat as he instantly died, and his warm blood sprayed all over her, and Patrick. At this point he just let her have it, he never intended to feed from Paul anyway. He took a step back, inhaled deeply, and exhaled slowly. Sharing food with Cameron is always exhilarating, and intense. By the time she is done, Cameron is covered in blood. He tilted his head backward, back in the living room, he could hear people starting to leave, and drive away. Meadow was just starting up her fun, she's not as messy, but more so barbarous. She liked to decapitate her victims after she drains their blood, it’s something you never would have guessed looking at her. Patrick Bateman sure did have his hands full.

“You two better clean your shit up when you’re done.” He said walking away and into the bathroom to run a steaming hot shower. After a while, Meadow, and Cameron joined him. Eventually, they called the maids in to clean up the mess, compelled them to forget, and slept the day away.

a/n: hiii spooky spooky skeletons! I hope you all enjoyed this, I just wanna make my spooky sluts proud😭🫣. Btw, new tiny font theme lmao idk why I like it so much. Please feel free to show me love by nice comments, reblogs, and likes….maybe also a follow 🫣🫣🫣 Kay bye! HAPPY HALLOWEEN! 🎃💀

[isthisthingeven0n]

starting over, with you : s.r

after everything you went through with spencer, life decided to give you another shot. and this time, neither of you took the opportunity for granted. (3.5K)

we’re finally here, the epilogue to this little series. thank you for reading and supporting it. i hope you like the ending as much as i enjoyed writing it. 

knowing you / forgetting you / remembering you / with or without you / starting over, with you 

“She truly is just wonderful,” Maggie happily sighs as she rests her head in her hands, staring out dreamingly to the front door whilst you clean the spout of the steamer. “what did I do to find someone so just,” Maggie trails off and you quickly notice from the corner of your eye her standing up straighter.

Following her line of vision, you clear your throat as the woman in question walks in. Her blonde hair flows behind her shoulders as she slips her jacket off, resting it over her tote bag.

“Hey, sunshine.” She beams to Maggie who suddenly has lost the ability to speak. “Hey, Y/n.” She waves over to you as Maggie chuckles under her breath nervously.

Moving to stand beside Maggie, you nudge her playfully. “Use your words Mags,” You mutter.

“Yeah, I know that,” Maggie retorts as she focuses on the woman she’s been seeing, Delilah, for the past few weeks. “what can I get for you, D?”

Raising your eyebrows, you just catch the smirk on Maggie’s lips before you busy yourself once again, not wanting to get involved.

Slipping aside from the counter you pick up two plates and the muffin you kept from this morning. “So, this is the girl then?” Sitting down opposite him, you can’t help but smile at the excitement in his gaze as he focuses on you.

“That’s Delilah,” You tell him, passing him a plate as you split the muffin in half. “you were in such a rush this morning I thought I’d keep this as a treat when you finished.”

Smiling brightly at the muffin in front of him, he shifts for a moment before taking a bite. “Nothing beats your blueberry muffins. Did you know that blueberries are filled with antioxidants and phytoflavinoids. They’re a top choice for doctors and nutritionists as they also contain high levels of potassium and vitamin c.”

Chuckling under your breath, you poke your half of the muffin with your knife. “I don’t think it counts as much once they’ve been baked though, Spence.” You state, glancing up as Spencer chews another piece of muffin, his eyes not leaving yours.

“True, but you’re a benefit of these muffins too.” Spencer mutters, tearing his eyes from you as your lips part, humour filling the space around you.

“Did you just try and use a line on me?” You remark as Spencer shakes his head profusely. “Because if so, it was shocking.”

Spencer shyly smiles up at you as a small laugh leaves his lips. “Well, something worked clearly.” He reaches out, taking your hand in his just as Maggie rushes over to you.

“Sorry to interrupt lovebirds, but we’re out of pumpkin spice syrup.” Maggie sighs heavily, focusing on you with endless apologies in written across her expression.

Taking your hand from Spencer’s, you rise to your feet. “If you’re gone before I get back, I’ll meet you at mine?” You ask as you rest your hand on Spencer’s shoulder.

“I’ll wait, Y/n.” Spencer tells you as he turns his head, kissing your hand gently before you follow behind Maggie. “Don’t you worry.”

*

You could already see kids rushing around in various costumes as parents ran frantically behind them. Giggles of excitement and evident sugar rushes fill the air as brown and orange leaves coat the ground.

Leaning behind the counter the all-consuming scents of cinnamon, hazelnut and pumpkin spice filled your nostrils, acquainted by the occasional breeze of fresh air whenever a customer entered or departed.

Halloween always came around too quickly as you busied yourself with seasonal treats and limited edition beverages that brought new customers in every year. Yet, this year it was different. Usually, you’d spend the holiday working through the evening and spend time with Gary or your friends. It was always a quieter holiday compared to others, but this year things weren’t going to be the same.

“Come on, you have to tell me what your costume is.” Maggie practically begs you as you shake your head once again.

“It’s a secret, Mags.” You remind her for the twelfth time this week. “Besides, Spencer picked it out.”

A loud groan escapes Maggie's lips as you glance over your shoulder as she crosses her arms. “That means it’s going to be all nerdy and not slutty.” She rolls her eyes, watching as you nod along, knowing it’s true.

“There’s some slutty element to it.” You shrug a shoulder, trying to convince yourself moreso than Maggie. “I personally love it,” You comment under your breath before returning to work in the hope of distracting your mind a bit longer.

“Are you nervous at all?” Gary emerges from the far side of the cafe, his left arm still trembling as he grips onto a tray tightly.

Looking between them both, you roll your eyes. “You two trying to push my buttons tonight?” You feign anger as Gary shakes his head whilst Maggie nods. “Of course I’m nervous, I’m shitting myself!” A laugh escapes your lips involuntarily as you lean against the counter with your back turned to the entrance. “This is my chance to make a good impression on the people who pretty much watched me for months whilst Spencer was,” You trail off, it’s still something you both struggle to openly discuss.

Maggie’s eyes dart over to the open doorway, Spencer standing proudly as he removes his purple scarf, his wild curls fluffing up outwards. “Y/n,” Maggie tries to interrupt, but you carry on regardless.

“It’s just, I really care about him, I, I think I might be in love with him.” You finish as a light sound follows as a smile graces your lips.

Biting his lower lip, Spencer steps forward whilst you remain oblivious to his presence. “I always thought I’d be the first to say it,” Spencer can’t help himself as you whip your head around like a deer caught in headlights. “shall we Miss Y/L/N?”

Stuttering silently as you focus on his hazel eyes, you feel a gentle nudge from Maggie as you mumble in agreement.

“Wow, this isn’t at all awkward.” Maggie jokes, causing Gary to give her a fatherly look as you move out from the counter, removing your apron and throw it back in Maggie’s general direction.

“Yes,” The word barely leaves your lips as you walk closer toward him, taking his hand as he guides you towards the exit.

Quickly you glance over your shoulder, receiving thumbs up from both Maggie and Gary before you step out into the Autumnal breeze, wishing you had brought another layer with you.

“Do you wanna talk about it?” Spencer asks as he struggles to hide his smile, but he can sense your worries as you focus on the browning leaves as you shuffle down the street.

“I didn’t intend on you hearing that,” You admit shyly as Spencer’s grip on your hand loosens. “I mean, sorry, that sounds dreadful.” You force a laugh, looking up as Spencer keeps his eyes fixated on the street ahead, knowing there are two hundred more steps to take until you reach your car around the corner beside the lamp post with the missing cat poster that’s faded entirely.

“It’s okay.” Spencer mutters, but it doesn’t take a profiler to know he doesn’t mean it.

Pausing, you take a hold of his arm, causing Spencer to turn around as his long legs guide him back to face you.

“It’s not okay, Spencer.” You huff as you sigh into your hands, oblivious to the loving way Spencer is looking at you. Despite having barely made it back in time for Halloween and sleeping on the jet, Spencer couldn’t have been happier to walk in at that precise moment.

Taking your hands from your face, Spencer brushes his fingers across your cheek. “It is, Y/n.” He hushes you, his hand now cupping your cheek. “Because I think, no, I know that I am in love with you too.”

“Wait, you do?” Your immediate reaction is to deny it, but as Spencer dips his head closer towards yours and his lips brush against your skin, you listen to him mutter a simple yes before kissing you affectionately.

Leaning into his embrace, you deepen the kiss, only breaking as the sound of children giggling increases from down the street.

“Ew, they’re kissing!” One child calls out and you shyly bury your face into Spencer’s chest, hiding behind his scarf as you feel the vibrations of his laughter.

His hand rises to rest on your back. “They’re gone, Y/n.” Spencer mutters to you as you step backwards, trying to suppress the heat rising through your body as you carry on walking to your car as if nothing had happened.

*

“Oh my god,” Penelope squeals as she opens her front door, clad in pumpkin dress with her mouth ajar as you stand besides Spencer who is unable to stop his smile from growing. “you look amazing!”

Looking up at Spencer you can’t help but laugh as butterflies flutter around in your stomach, even after all this time he still can muster this effect on you.

You have to admit, despite your initial uncertainties about the costumes Spencer suggested they have turned out better than you envisioned.

“And Y/n, you look well,” Penelope stumbles over her words as she brings you into a tight hug. “and I, I want to apologise about well,” She looks up to Spencer and back to you.

“It’s all good, Penelope.” You tell her as she reaches for your hand, her eyes softening. “I should thank you really, I mean, without you I don’t think we’d be here.” You admit as Spencer wraps his arm around your waist, and it’s enough for Penelope to lose her mind as she sighs happily.

“Come on in lovebirds, god.” She huffs as you both walk in and pause as several pairs of eyes greet you.

“I have to say, it’s hard to find profilers intimidating when they’re all dressed up for a Halloween party.” You admit, and Spencer chuckles, nodding along as he pushes his goggles further up from his forehead.

The first to step forward is a blonde woman wearing a Super Woman costume. “Hi, I’m-”

“JJ?” You ask as she nods, glancing up to Spencer as your smile brightens. “I’ve heard so much about you! Well, I’ve heard a lot about everyone, but you’re Henry’s Mom!” You happily tell JJ who warms to you instantly, having only ever seen footage of you previously down in the dumps and unsure of everything.

Instantly, you are swept away by the women of the BAU, leaving Spencer watching in awe as Luke pats his shoulder. “You really got her to agree to this?” Luke motions to Spencer’s outfit.

“It was the first movie we watched together,” Spencer states. “and she makes a cute Marty.” Spencer half-smiles as he lip-reads your conversation with Emily and JJ.

“He really got you to dress as Marty Mcfly?” Emily chuckles into her drink as you nod along, taking a sip of the concoction Penelope created before everyone arrived.

“I’m not sure if I like it or if it’s the number of chemicals I’ve inhaled making Spencer’s hair white with dry shampoo.” You joke, and the sound of laughter spreads through the group as you glance over your shoulder, watching as Spencer is sat with Rossi and Luke, flashing you a reassuring smile.

“Gives you an idea on how he’ll look in the future.” Penelope nudges you, and JJ rolls her eyes.

“A mad scientist sounds about right.” You nod in agreement. “So, what’s it like, on the field? Spencer only tells me so much, but I’d love to hear more from you guys.”

Rossi interrupts your conversation shortly after Emily explained the latest mission and how she managed to get the cut across her forehead which conveniently was covered by her fringe.

“May I?” Rossi asks as he holds out a glass of wine to you, which you gladly accept.

Walking with Rossi, you follow him into the kitchen as you lean against the counter, feeling somewhat at home here as the music plays faintly in Penelope’s living room.

“You know, when Spencer was inside I heard your name mentioned countless times.” Rossi begins.

“Sorry ‘bout that.” You force yourself to joke, and Rossi senses the change in your stance as you hide your left hand in the pocket of your bodywarmer, picking at the tissue buried inside.

Rossi shakes his head. “No need to apologise. It’s never an easy thing to talk about, but we both know Reid well enough to know he can talk for days about anything and everything, but often miss the most important thing.”

You nod along with Rossi as you take a sip of your drink as a temporary distraction.

“Do you talk about it? What happened when Spencer was inside?” Rossi delves deeper, knowing the answer before you shake your head. “Something changed in him, but what didn’t change was his determination paired with his intelligence and though he can be an ass about it, he often is right about things.” Rossi chuckles to himself. “I listened to everyone talking about this girl in a cafe for months before Spencer went away, waiting for him to make a move.”

Listening intently, these were details no one had ever shared. This was the perspective you were missing in your story.

“Penelope offered countless times to march in and talk to you, but an old friend, Morgan, refused to let that happen.” Rossi sighs, remembering it like it were yesterday. “And he told us on the flight back to Quantico that he was going to see if you were open that evening and ask you on a date.” Rossi trails off, not needing to fill you in on the rest of the story.

“And he did.” You finish. “What was it like, knowing he was in there all that time?”

Your eyes follow Rossi’s as he looks out into the living room where Spencer is lost in conversation with JJ. “Difficult, knowing he was in there for something he wouldn’t have ever done. We all worked tirelessly, trying to find a way to get him out.” Rossi explains as he places his glass down on the counter, finding a spot amongst Penelope’s various trinkets. “Do you wish you knew? If you could go back?”

“That’s the million-dollar question.” You huff as you finish the last of your wine. “I don’t think I would, no.” You reason, thinking back on the heartache you went through, the unknown reason Spencer never called you. “It hurt, and I think everyone here knows that firsthand, but I don’t think I would’ve forgiven him if I knew without the full story that was to follow.”

A smile forms on Rossi’s face as he steps forward and kisses both your cheeks. “I can see why he’s so fond of you.” He pats your arm, leaving you alone with your thoughts for a moment before you step out, resuming the evening with everyone.

*

Hearty laughter echoes throughout the apartment as the hours roll on. Children have long gone home and have dealt with their sugar crashes as the adults roam the streets in search of a very different kind of candy.

Leaning against Penelope’s balcony, you welcome the fresh air as you run your fingers through your hair, thankful for the warmth the costume provides unlike the girls below.

The sound of the door opening and closing catches your attention as Spencer stands beside you, his arms resting on the railing as he looks out at the city below and the drunken chatter climbing up the walls of buildings.

“Did you know Halloween is one of the more dangerous holidays?” Spencer asks, and you raise a brow to him as his smile widens before he carries on. “Between 2009 and 2013 the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reported 40% of deaths were caused by drivers who were intoxicated from 7 pm to around 1 am.”

“Cheerful, Spence.” You mutter as a chill spreads through you once more.

“Here,” Spencer speaks up, wrapping his arm around you as he kisses the top of your head as you watch girls stumble over their heels as they yell for one another. “I’m glad you came tonight.”

Glancing up to Spencer, you push his goggles further up onto his partially white hair. “Oh yeah?” You tease, something you can’t help but do as Spencer nods.

Spencer watches as you rest your head against his shoulder, your thoughts clearly elsewhere as you hum contently.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Interrupting your daydreams, you straighten up.

“When did you know that you loved me?” You ask the question that’s been circling in your thoughts all evening.

Pausing for a moment, Spencer turns to face you, his eyes darting over to the balcony doors as everyone remains occupied.

“Truthfully, Y/n,” Spencer starts as he exhales shakily, something you weren’t anticipating. “the night you came over and wanted to give us a go.”

Your eyes widen in surprise, that night was filled with mixed emotions.

* that night *

You weren’t sure how your feet had guided you to his front door, but here you were.

Crumbling the piece of paper back into your pocket, you force back any worries as you knock on his front door and step back, preparing yourself to turn back and run if necessary.

Yet, the door swung open, revealing Spencer in comfortable attire as he tiredly rubs his eyes before focusing on the figure before him.

“Y/n?” He mutters, shocked to see you after how you dismissed him days prior. “What’re you doing here? I mean, how did you get my,”

“Penelope.” You tell him, cutting him off as he nods, who else could it have been?

Silence settles over you both as neither of you are sure what to say. On your drive over, you had a vague plan in place, an idea of what you want to say. Yet, standing in front of Spencer up close, the stubble lining his jaw and above his lip, you were lost for words all over again.

“Would you like to come in?” Spencer steps aside from his front door, revealing his slightly messy apartment as books are scattered across the floor.

“Okay.” You force confidence to strive through your voice as you step inside, your eyes wandering over his vast library as the front door closes behind you. “What I said the other night,”

“Was perfectly valid.” Spencer comments, holding his hands up before resting them in his pockets.

You suppress your sigh as you focus on anything but him and your eyes lock on a beaten copy of a book in front of your feet, ‘The Narrative of John Smith.’  

“I heard you, but I wasn’t truly listening. I mean, it was a lot to take on board.” A short laugh leaves your lips as Spencer nods. “If you’ll let me, I’d like to hear about it, all of it.”

Lifting your head up, you see Spencer focusing on you with a perplexed look crossing his gaze. “But, why? You made it clear that night that you didn’t want to see me again.” Spencer reasons, fighting against his heart as it yells for him to shut up.

“I don’t know.” You admit, lifting your arms up as you sigh. “I just, for peace of mind, please? I waited three months to hear from you, and now I have I, I don’t want to just let it go.”

Stepping closer, Spencer hesitantly reaches out for your hand and squeezes it lightly. “Okay.” He whispers before guiding you to his sofa. “Well, I guess I’ll start after you drove off.”

*

Looking in awe at your boyfriend, you can’t help but notice how he retreats into himself after his statement.

“I just knew if you were willing to give me a chance after all of that, after listening to my story I wasn’t just interested in you, Y/n. I knew I loved you.” Spencer tells you as you nudge closer into his embrace, rising on your tiptoes.

“Want to know a secret, Spence?” You whisper into his lips. “I knew I loved you the moment you opened the door.” You chuckle, closing the distance between your lips as you kiss him, only to be interrupted as the doors slide open.

“Love birds, come on we’re about to play say it or shot it!” Penelope calls out as Spencer’s cheeks burn up and his goggles fall down onto his face.

Chuckling to yourself you force his goggles back up. “Shall we?” You ask, stepping forward as Spencer nods, taking your hand and following you back inside to join everyone else.

We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies. - Martin Luther King Jr. 

The end. 

TAGLIST (for this mini series) : 

@koc-help​ @bellomi-clarke​ @castbyfox​ @http-cherries​ @easygoingtheatre​ @tomorrowmeansoportunities​ @rainsong01​ @rexorangecouny​ @radtwinkie @eldahae @l0ve-0f-my-life​

[xlostinobsessionsx]

An Unforgettable New Year’s Eve | Charlie Gillespie - 1/3

Pairing: Charlie Gillespie x fem! Reader

Warning: none

Word Count: 2,213

Plot: (Y/N) doesn’t want to go to the new years eve party where her ex would be with his new girlfriend. Sadly, she promised her best friend she’d go. But instead of letting her wallow in self pity, Charlie makes it his mission to give her a new years eve she will never forget, which makes her ask herself one question: Can you fall in love in just one night?

A/N: A big thanks goes to @bass-ic-deaky and @a-tomb-with-a-view for proof-reading this part. I don’t know what I would do without you!

I wish you all the best for the next year! May 2021 be better than this year.

Masterlist

Normally (Y/N) loved the holidays. She loved dressing up for Halloween and going to parties with her friends. She loved seeing her family on Thanksgiving, eating turkey and telling them what made her feel thankful. She loved decorating the Christmas tree and singing christmas carols. She loved celebrating the beginning of each new year...well, normally she did. This New Year’s Eve was going to be quite different. Her friend Colin was throwing a party in his big loft like he did every year, and normally that would be alright. (Y/N) loved traditions, and celebrating New Years Eve at Colin's place felt like a tradition by now. A tradition she had always attended with Noah. But this year she would go by herself. Of course (best friend's name Maya, her best friend, would come with her but it wasn’t the same. Once they got the party Maya would probably disappear into the celebrating crowd, leaving (Y/N) to fend for herself. In any case, her friends decided that it would be better for (Y/N) not to drink during this New Years Eve Party. “It just ends messy when you drink and already feel miserable.” Maya tried to explain to her. (Y/N) would’ve preferred to just stay at home all by herself in all honesty but her best friend was against her plans.“The company will do you good.” Maya argued until (Y/N) had agreed to go with her. 

“Someone will also have to make sure that you get home safely.” (Y/N) shrugged, trying to persuade herself that going to the party might be a good idea. She would just go to keep an eye on Maya all night long. That alone would be enough for a distraction.

However, it turned out that was easier said than done. Her friend immediately grabbed herself a drink and joined the crowd on the packed dance floor. (Y/N), on the other hand, got herself some water. Her gaze drifted through the crowd from each drunk partygoer to the next. She spotted Colin who was standing in front of one of the big big paintings, which decorated his loft. He seemed to be chatting animatedly about it to a couple standing next to him, who, even from across the room, were obviously sloshed from how they swayed from side to side, and it was only 7:23pm. A laugh cut through the music, pounding from the large DJ speakers. It didn’t ever matter how loud a room could be, she’d always hear that laugh no matter what. That’s when her gaze landed on him, wearing one of those silly New Year’s Eve party hats. The shirt he was wearing, that had been a gift from her for their last anniversary. He had broken it off with her a few weeks later, right before Thanksgiving, leaving his seat empty during family dinner. 

(Y/N) could still remember their conversation. It seemed like it was forever embedded in her mind. “I can’t do this anymore!” He had said while packing his belongings he had left at her place. 

“Why?” She sobbed, trying to get a hold of him, trying to get him to look at her, but he had shrugged her off. 

“It just won’t work between us. Not for the long run at least, we’re too different.” He had said nonchalantly. 

“But...how? Why?!” She whimpered “A few weeks ago you talked about us moving in together for god’s sake!” She had grabbed him by his arm forcing him to turn around to look at her. The look on his face had changed. 

He looked sorry for her. Why was he taking pity on her? “I met someone else.”

And this particular ‘someone else’ was standing next to him, with Noah’s strong arm wrapped around her waist pulling her close. Her golden wavy hair fell elegantly over her shoulders as she stood there with her stupid perfect makeup and stupid perfect dress. The tears began to form in (Y/N) eyes again. Not here, she told herself and took a deep breath, trying desperately to steady herself. (Y/N) had promised to herself that they would not ruin this party for her, she had promised Maya she’d have fun and that would try to do that now. Like trying to keep an eye on Maya, that turned out to be easier said than done. That’s why (Y/N) found herself in a corner of the room, sitting on a bench and staring at her cup with a blank expression on her face.

“Either you just really hate New Years Eve parties or someone’s here you don’t like that much.” (Y/N) turned her head to look at the brunette guy who had sat down next to her a few minutes prior. She hadn’t paid him any mind, she went about her business and he with his. Like most of the guests, he was wearing funny glasses and a party hat. His curly brunette hair hung to his shoulders and his hazel eyes sparkled happily at her. She was grateful to him for trying to save her evening, but her desire for company was waning by the second. 

(Y/N) sighed looking back down at her lap. “It’s alright, don’t worry about it.” She tried to shrug him off to wallow in her self-pity once again. 

“Doesn’t look like it’s alright. Maybe you need a drink?” He suggested. 

She slowly shook her head “I can’t. I promised my friend I’d bring her home safely.” (Y/N) pointed to her best friend, who at the moment tried to drink as much as she could out of a beer funnel. 

Charlie chuckled at the sight. “Well she’s a messy drunk, isn’t she.” 

“Also...I’ve heard you only should drink when you’re in a good mood.” She mumbled, not knowing if the guy next to her was even able to hear her over the loud music. 

“And you aren’t in a good mood because…?” He treaded carefully. 

(Y/N) sighed as she looked up to the guy next to her. His eyes were gazing at her, a friendly look glinting in them, not intrusive like she had expected it would’ve been. More honest and seemingly genuinely interested in making her feel better. “I don’t wanna pull you down with me.” She answered truthfully. 

The guy chuckled “You won’t, I promise. It’s gonna be my mission to pull your mood up no matter what.” 

This made her smile. “I’m sure you’d have a better night if you spent it with someone else.” 

“Well, I know most people here but I like to make new friends. It’s like this saying: Always start a new year with new friends.” He smiled brightly. 

(Y/N) chuckled “I’m pretty sure it’s not a saying.” 

He laughed slightly “Well it might not be one but it made you smile. So one step closer to making this a better night for you….uh…” He looked at her expectantly. 

“(Y/N).” She replied with a wide smile. 

“One step closer to make this night better for you, (Y/N), way better.” He said as he held his hand towards (Y/N) for her to shake. 

“I’m Charlie, by the way.” He introduced himself. She took his hand and slightly shook it. His hand nearly entirely engulfed hers and felt warm around hers. “Now that we’re on a first name basis, you should really tell me who put you in such a foul mood.” He took a sip from his cup and looked at her curiously. 

(Y/N) sighed. Her gaze fell to a tall guy standing in a group of people. “You see him?” She pointed slightly at the guy. “That’s my ex. We were both invited to this party when we were still a couple.” she explained “But then he broke up with me for the blonde girl standing next to him. Obviously, for whatever reason I still thought it would be an excellent idea to come here because we’re in the same circle of friends. I didn’t think for a second he would bring her.” She spat with a bitter look on her face. 

“And now instead of partying you’re just sitting here all sad?” Charlie asked. 

(Y/N) nodded “As I said, I promised my friend I’d bring her home safely and I wouldn’t be able to if I were drunk. Also I promised before I knew how the night would turn out for me. Believe me whenI say I really regret this choice.”

Charlie frowned. Suddenly an idea came to mind. “What if I told you I have a plan for how this night could turn out good for you?” 

(Y/N) snorted. “How?” 

“Let’s get out of here. I know some really good places. They’re incredible on New Year’s Eve!” He suggested, smiling and his eyes shining brightly. 

“I can’t. I promised Maya...” She started but Charlie interrupted her.

“...That you get her home safely. I know, I know. We’ll be back by midnight. That could be at least 4-5 hours full of adventures!” He emptied his cup with one big sip and stood up. “Come on!” he rose from his spot holding his hand out towards her.

She eyed him suspiciously. “For all I know you could pull me into an alley once we leave this building, stab me and run away while I bleed to death” 

The guy next to her chuckled. “Nah, don’t worry about that. I only do that on the first tuesday of the month. Come on, it’ll be fun!” He looked at her with his best puppy dog eyes, which behind the glasses made him look ridiculous. 

(Y/N) playfully rolled her eyes “Fine! But we have to be back by midnight.” She took his hand and stood up. They wove their way through the crowd before (Y/N) pulled on his arm. “Wait, I should tell my friend that I’m coming back.” She made her way towards her friend, who was rocking her soul out to ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ on the dance floor. (Y/N) slightly touched her shoulder to get her attention 

“(Y/N)!” Her friend screamed her name. “There you are! Let’s party!” 

(Y/N) chuckled “I’m going to leave for a few hours but I promise I’ll be back before midnight.” 

Maya’s eyes went wide when her gaze landed on the guy behind her best friend. “Oh, oh I get it. Of course. Don’t worry about me.” She pushed (Y/N) towards Charlie “Just you know...stay safe, if you know what I mean.” She winked at both of them. 

(Y/N) felt her cheeks heating up. She chuckled slightly and nodded “Alright fine, and you my dear don’t drink too much!”

“You know I’m really bad at keeping promises.” Maya winked at her. 

(Y/N) laughed and nodded as she turned to Charlie. “Shall we?” She asked him. 

Charlie took her hand again and gave it a light squeeze. “Yeah, let’s go!” The cold December air hit them like a bus as soon as they made their way outside. (Y/N) expected them to go to the subway station but instead Charlie pulled her towards a red motorcycle. “Have you ever been on a motorcycle?” He asked her as he fetched a second helmet out from under the seat holding it out for her. 

Hesitantly, she took the helmet from him as she shook her head “No, and you might’ve also had a little too much to drink to still be able to drive.” 

Charlie laughed “Well, honestly I was looking out for one of my friends too, so I wasn’t drinking either.” (Y/N) looked at him suspiciously as he put on the other helmet. He held his hands up in defense. “I swear, you can even smell my breath if-” 

“That won’t be necessary!” (Y/N) exclaimed, which made the guy in front of her chuckle. She eyed the helmet before she put it on. “Is this how it goes on?” She asked him with a brow raised in confusion. 

“Wait, let me help you.” Charlie took a step towards her. Slowly, he pulled her hair away, which had fallen into her sight. “Can’t have your helmet falling off.” 

Her eyes drifted up to meet his, which sparkled brightly in the moonlight. She felt her hands getting a little bit sweaty. It must’ve been because of the thought of riding a motorcycle for the first time and not because of this cute guy in front of her, she tried to tell herself. Her thoughts were interrupted by his soft voice, “Now it’s good.” He smiled at her. “All secure and ready for an adventure. Shall we?” He asked and made an invitational gesture towards his bike.

(Y/N) took a deep breath and nodded. Charlie climbed onto the bike putting up the kick stand before nodding at her to get on behind her. “Hold onto my waist. Tightly. I promise I’ll drive carefully.”

She nodded and nervously put his arms around his torso. She could feel the heat radiating from his body in front of her, it was quite soothing actually. She pressed into him a bit more….for safety, she told herself. Charlie started the engine. “Ready?” 

“As I’ll ever be.” 

He chuckled softly. “Excellent, hold on tight now.” Slowly, the wheels underneath them started to move and brought them away from the party. From stupid ex-boyfriends. From a dull new years eve party. “We’re going on an adventure.”

[phykios]

honesty and promise me part 9, co-written with @darkmagyk [read on ao3]

He doesn’t text her later. He doesn’t text her for two weeks. On day fifteen of no contact from Percy, Annabeth begins to accept that whatever they had might be over now. 

That’s alright, she reminds herself. She had been working up to breaking it off with him for a while, and he just went ahead and did it for her. Saves her the trouble, really. 

October rolls on, wet and cold, inching ever closer to Halloween, and Annabeth finds herself seeking refuge at Piper’s, lending her body and her skills to help her friend finish her collection before her self-imposed deadline. At least the work provides a nice distraction from her silent phone--when Percy stopped texting her, Thalia did, too. Well. That’s that, she supposes.

Still, the fact that they were never officially dating doesn’t stop Annabeth from scrolling through his Instagram at 2 AM like some pathetic ex-girlfriend, screenshotting all her favorite photos so she can look at them later without the threat of accidentally liking them. He’s been posting a lot of stills from that fucking music video again, the divinely crafted muscles of his body on full display in cool, blue light, brown cheekbone and jawline sharper than ever. Beyonce herself even liked a few of them. 

God damn she’s a fucking idiot. 

It must be the self-pity that’s making her crazy, because when Luke calls her up to be his date/eye candy to some fancy semi-costumed party that weekend at an art gallery on the Lower East Side, she agrees without even thinking about it.

The gallery isn’t that far (certainly much, much closer than the Lincoln Center) but Annabeth has not worn heels in probably up to a calendar year, and she just cannot make herself walk that far. She will not. Her tiny-ass cross-body bag isn’t big enough to hold a separate pair of walking shoes. So she ponies up the exorbitant cab fare to the Lower East Side, asking the driver to drop her at the Seward Park Library so she can elegantly sashay down the sidewalk with the rest of the rich and glamorous. 

No one spares her a second glance, which is both relieving and strangely disheartening. She’s become too used to turning heads, she thinks.

Well. One head in particular.

“Hey, Annabeth!” Luke appears from thin air, dressed immaculately as always. His sandy hair has come a long way since business school, now tamed and laid perfectly, but with the faintest touch of dishevelment, like he couldn’t completely fix it after someone’s hands had been all over it. He looks even more handsome than he had on her birthday. He kisses her on the cheek, right on the sensitive skin of an old, failed piercing, and she shivers. “You look incredible.” 

Before she left Piper’s apartment that day, Annabeth had raided her small stash of designer clothes and had rediscovered her old faithful that Piper had tried to bury, the midi-length Valentino dress she had worn to the unveiling of her and Leo’s collaboration. It’s a light, powder blue, which can’t be helped, but the lace collar and three-quarter sleeves cover most of her tattoos. She had dug out her tiara, too, making herself a low-key Halloween costume out of the spring season dress. Though the dress doesn’t fit like it did a year ago, Which is depressing as all hell. “Thanks. You, too.”

He beams at her, holding out his arm. “Shall we?”

“Who did you say was the artist, again?” she asks, taking it.

“I didn’t. Something with an ‘L,’ I think. Levelle? Levique? I don’t remember.”

The white gallery walls have been draped in shades of inky blue and midnight purple, all the better to see the crystal sculptures on display: beautiful renderings of swords and skulls, deadly weapons and human bones. There’s something mind-numbingly obvious about holding a spooky, macabre-themed gallery show on Halloween night, entitled “Death and Riches,” but she has to admit, the artwork is stunning. The crystals take what little light is cast from the weak ceiling lamps and multiply it, casting the dark velvets in rainbow reflections. Annabeth feels like she’s walking through the night sky, like she could reach out and rearrange the stars in the constellations. “Look at this,” she murmurs to Luke, stopping them in front of a sculpture of an ancient cavalry sword. “This is incredible.”

He grunts. “Yeah, it’s cool.”

Annabeth fixes him with a look. “‘Cool’? Seriously?”

“What? It’s just a rock.”

She shakes her head. “You are wasted on an art gallery.”

“I am,” he agrees, swiftly. “I wouldn’t even be here if it weren’t for my bosses.”

“What do you mean?”

Luke steers her away from the sculpture, moving them onward. “One of our assistant executives, he’s about to close a huge deal with some big wig from Europe who runs this massive import/export, but before everything is made official, he wanted to meet all of us.”

“Why here, though?”

“He’s in town for this gallery opening; the artist is his niece, or something.”

Ugh. This is why she swore off business bros: always an ulterior motive with these people. “Hey, I’m going to go look for something to drink, do you want anything?”

“No, I’m good,” he waves her off.

Annabeth, teetering on her towering heels, has to make her way against the current of the crowd towards the refreshments table along the edge of the wall. She feels ten pounds lighter without all the metal in her face, her center of gravity completely out of whack--not to mention she’s having trouble seeing with all this hair in her face. To better disguise her undercut, she had brushed all her hair over her head in one big, voluminous side ponytail on the wrong side of her face. It’s disorienting, to say the least.

Her stomach roils at the display of food, even as her mouth waters a little bit at the bruschetta with olive tapenade. Rather than risk it, she decides to just go with a glass of sparkling cider. She’s been feeling sick and anxious all day long, dreading every moment of this gala; the last thing she wants to do is exacerbate it with champagne. 

Before she makes her way back to Luke’s side, however, she wants to take another look at the actual art. Or at least find out who the actual artist is. Whoever they are, they are phenomenally talented. 

“Excuse me,” Annabeth says to the staff member manning the food table. “Do you have any more information about the artist? I’d love to see more of their work.”

“Sure!” she chirps, turning round to grab something off a stack of pamphlets beside her. “You can read more about Ms. Levesque here.”

“Thank you,” says Annabeth, taking the glossy brochure. Levesque. Levesque Levesque Levesque. She knows that name, she’s sure of it. Penny in the air… 

Slowly, like she’s walking a labyrinth, she makes her way around the gallery. The booklet has descriptions of each piece of art on display, contexts and histories and prices that make her sweat a little. But by the time she returns to the cavalry sword, her head is swimming--probably from the lack of food--her eyes straining in the dim light. She has completely lost track of Luke. She has completely lost track of the time. Annabeth puts her hand to her head, pressing her fingers against the bone of her forehead.

“Hey, are you okay?”

She jolts at the feel of a hand on her shoulder. The owner of the hand pulls away immediately, holding it up in a placating motion. 

“Whoa, hey, it’s okay. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

Annabeth blinks at the person in front of her. He’s blond, tall, with glasses and a scar on his upper lip, and she cannot shake the bone-deep feeling that she’s seen him before. 

“You look a little pale. Do you need to sit down?” he asks, electric blue eyes shining with concern. 

She shakes her head. “No, no, I’m okay, just a little… the light, you know. Makes it hard to read.”

“I know how you feel,” he says, nodding sagely. “The lighting setup here is absolute murder on my glasses.” Then he sticks out his hand, proud and jutting. “I’m Jason.”

Furiously, she blinks away unbidden tears, turning her sudden sob into a light laugh at the thought of the last time she had met someone named Jason. Or, someone she thought had been named Jason. “Annabeth.” His grip is firm and congenial, like a senator. “Are you with Mercury Exchange, too?”

“Oh, no,” he says, “I’m just here to support the artist. She’s my cousin.”

“Well, congratulations to your cousin on a beautiful gallery opening,” says Annabeth, inclining her head with a smile that he returns. “These sculptures are incredible.”

Jason follows her gaze, and when she looks at him again, he’s smiling. The scar gives his smile an adorable edge. “Hazel is very talented.”

Penny drops. “Hazel Levesque?” Annabeth asks. “Your cousin is Hazel Levesque?” 

“Yeah!” Jason beams. “You ever listen to a band called Pluto’s Daughter?”

“You’re Jason Grace?”

That takes him aback, blinking in shock. “Yes… how did you--oh, you know Thalia?” he asks.

No. No no no, this cannot be happening. “Um, not-not really, I just--”

“I just saw her, like, ten minutes ago--”

No no no, she cannot be here, she can’t see Annabeth, not like this-- “Actually,” Annabeth cuts in, “I should really get back to my date, I’m sure he’s worried sick, it was nice meeting you!” And she bolts from the conversation in the general direction of the exit, leaving a very confused member of the cousin consortium in her wake. 

Stupid, so stupid, how did she not look this up beforehand, how did she not put it together sooner? She can’t let anyone see her like this, dolled up and--and downright clean. The crowd has turned into an impenetrable wall, the gaps between patrons too small for her to slip between. The dark walls close in around her, suffocating her, and her panic rises, stomach churning, bile crawling up her throat.

From the crush of people, a hand shoots out to grasp hers, and she jumps a foot in the air. “There you are!” says Luke. “Come on, I want you to meet the big wig.”

“Oh, Luke, I don’t know,” she stammers, “I’m-I’m not feeling very well, I think I had a bad burrito earlier, and--”

“It’ll just take a minute,” he wheedles, “We just gotta show up, make some small talk for a few minutes, then I’ll get you home. Sounds good?” But she can’t resist as he pulls her deeper into the gallery.

Like fucking Moses and the fucking Red Sea, the crowd parts before them, laying out a clear path to the three very well dressed men in the center of the room. Even from behind, she can tell that they’re all related: three copies of the same broad build, the same thick, black hair, peppered with grey, the same radiating aura of power and influence, engaged in deep, important conversation. 

“Mr. Olympianides?” Luke politely interjects. 

As one, the three of them turn to face him, identical gazes sizing them up, pinning them in place. “Yes?” intones the oldest-looking one, his earth-brown eyes cold and dispassionate. 

“I think he means me, brother,” says the middle-looking one, jovial. “You’re with Mercury too, if I’m not mistaken?”

“Yes, sir,” says Luke, holding out a hand. “Luke Castellan, it’s an honor to meet you.”

“Ah, of course!” he says, taking Luke’s hand. “I’ve heard great things about you from Prometheus. I understand I have you to thank for the success of the Saturn deal?”

Luke, wholly in his element, smiles his perfectly practiced sycophantic smile--just the right cocktail of humble and arrogant, gracious and gregarious. You can tell he double majored in theater. “It was no trouble at all, really.” 

Then he turns his gaze to Annabeth, and she just about faints. 

Those eyes. She knows those eyes. Perfectly blue-green, like the waters of the Mediterranean in the sunshine, beneath thick, black eyebrows, with an aquiline nose and a full, salt and pepper beard--she is, without a doubt, looking into the unimaginably handsome face of Percy’s father. 

“May I have the name of your lovely lady?” He takes her hand, bringing it up to his for a kiss. 

Annabeth’s eyes practically bug out of her head. This is what Percy will turn into in twenty years? Good lord.

“This is my…” Luke trails off, sparing her a glance. “This is Annabeth Chase. She’s an architect here in New York. Annabeth, these are the gentlemen I was telling you about: Hades, Poseidon, and Zeus Olympianides.”

Oddly enough, part of her relaxes, even at Luke’s little fib. If Percy’s father is here, then that means that Percy might not be. She would still have to duck Thalia, but if Luke lets her leave within the next few minutes, that shouldn’t be too hard.

“Chase--like the Boston Chases?” the oldest brother asks. She’s seen those dark eyes, as well, lined with black, and sometimes with glitter. 

Annabeth smiles, just a little vacant. She hasn’t had a conversation like this in two years, but back in Boston she’d had them nearly weekly. “That’s the one,” she agrees, letting a giggle out at the end. With business bros her age, they preferred a little bit of a too cool attitude, they’d loved her with all the metal in her face. But the older ones like a giggle. From the corner of her vision, she sees Luke give her just a little bit of a side eye. 

“You’re Randolph’s daughter?” Asks the other brother. His eyes are electric blue. Even if Annabeth hadn’t just met Jason, she’d have known this was Thalia’s father from twenty paces. 

“I’m his niece,” Annabeth says. “Frederick is my father.”

“The middle one?” Percy’s father says, with a little bit of a grin. 

“Yes.” So far, so good--and no one has asked about her mother. It doesn’t exactly take a genius to see that she is not her stepmother’s daughter.

There’s maybe the slightest hint of snideness when Zeus says, “Another Harvard graduate, I assume.”

So there are a lot of Chases at Harvard. On a whim, one night while she should have been writing her Modernism final instead, Annabeth had spent several hours making an academic genealogical chart, inordinately pleased when she found out that her old, decrepit freshman history professor had also taught her father, way back in the day. 

“Guilty,” she titters, “but I did attend Miss Minerva’s here in the city.”

“So your Randolph’s niece,” Thalia’s dad asks again, “And Frey Vanir is married to your aunt.”

“Yes.” She bites down on the “sir.” She’s got to have some standards. 

“Good families,” Nico and Hazel’s father says, nodding at her, “Chases and Vanir.” 

Annabeth has some very, very hazy memories of meeting her own fabulously wealthy extended family, just after her little cousin Magnus had been born. She doesn’t recall much, but she can remember the high, vaulted ceilings of her aunt’s apartment on Commonwealth Avenue, the view of the Public Gardens just down the block, and the very big, very sharp-looking sword hanging above the mantel. The Chases are a well-off family, it’s true, but the Vanir, old money from leftover Nordic peerage are very much on the Olympianides' level, even if Annabeth is the one wearing a tiara that allegedly once belonged to the crown jewels of Sweden. 

Athena Pallas is on that same level, too, but Annabeth would rather run into Thalia then talk about her mother. Especially with these people.

Then Poseidon’s gaze fixes on something behind her, and he breaks into a broad, heartbreakingly familiar grin. “Ah, Percy, there you are!” he calls. 

The smile drops from her face, and her blood freezes. Caught in the gravity well of a black hole, she turns. 

A huge mistake. 

Her only thought is How dare he be so handsome.

He’s in a suit she’s never seen before, crisply pressed, but comfortable, simple black but with pearl cuff links, to match his father’s. The sharp lines of the suit hide his beautiful form beneath them in a way that makes Annabeth understand the appeal of lingerie like she never has before. He looms, back discipline-straight, his face scrubbed clean and eyebrows perfectly shaped, and to cap it all off, a pair of simple, classy diamond studs in his ears. Percy Jackson remains, as always, unfairly gorgeous, the perfect specimen of male beauty, and Annabeth is powerless under his gaze.

And he’s just heard every word of their conversation.

“Percy,” his father says, “have you met Annabeth Chase?”

Percy stares at her, mouth open a little. She watches those eyes take her in from top to bottom, hairstyle to clean face to conservative dress to high heels. Never, ever one to hide his emotions, she can see his inner monologue playing out on his face: shock and awe, bewilderment and confusion, jerkily transitioning to… to a politely blank face. Like the surface of the ocean, the wave of his feelings disappear beneath his skin, leaving no trace that they were ever there. “No,” he says, in a tone that broaches no argument. “No, I don’t believe I’ve ever met Annabeth Chase before.”

He takes her in again. Percy was never above leering, but he was always pretty situational about it. He would wait until sex was explicitly on the table, wait until she wanted to see him go just a little bit crazy for her. He doesn’t leer now, cataloguing the dress, the shoes, the tiara.

“Cinderella?” he asks, before the conversation can become awkward and their audience can notice something else.

“Yes,” she says, unable to force the smile she’d used on his father just minutes before. “What girl doesn’t want to be a princess for Halloween?”

“Cinderella was always your favorite, wasn’t she?” Percy’s father asks him. Then he laughs. “Once we went to Disney in Paris, I think, and Percy, all of ten years old, cried because he didn’t think he was going to be able to meet her.” 

Percy’s face stays blank. “I was six, Dad.” 

Annabeth winces, internally. That was the year, he’d told her, that he’d spent in shoes that didn’t fit because his new ones had been destroyed by bullies taunting him over ballet, and he didn’t want to tell his mother because trying to buy him a second pair of shoes would have been a struggle. She wonders if maybe he was crying because he’d spent the day walking around Disneyland in shoes two sizes too small, and no one had noticed.

His father laughs again. “Still,” he says, “Cinderella is your favorite.” 

“I don’t have much use for princesses anymore,” Percy says. “Fairy tales and true love are kid stuff.”

His uncles laugh along with his father, and Luke just frowns at Percy, like he’s not sure what to make of him. But his family seems convinced it's the wisdom of youth.

“Oh,” says Poseidon, “You never know when you can find someone special.” He does leer at Annabeth, just a bit. There isn’t a lot to leer at in this dress, but it's unmistakable. He’s very handsome, but the leer is perhaps the first time she’s thought he didn’t favor his son. 

“Were you the one who dated the princess of what it was called?” Thalia’s father asks. “Or was Triton? Or was it both of you?” 

“No,” Hazel and Nico’s father says, “no, they both dated Atlas’s girl. Right?”

“Yes, Uncle Hades,” Percy says. 

“Zoe?” 

Calypso, Annabeth thinks, just before Percy says it out loud and they all nod. 

“Is she here?” Thalia’s father asks, glancing around. “Or do you have a different date tonight?”

Annabeth hasn’t even considered Percy having a date. But the idea of it causes a wave of nausea to come over her, of a beautiful woman on Percy’s arm, one of his fellow dancers, or perhaps some heiress, who he could take to fancy parties and show off to his father and uncles.

That could have so easily been you, says a voice in the back of her head. 

I’m no one’s arm candy, she wants to yell at herself. 

But she can’t, because she’s literally resting on Luke’s arm, while three powerful businessmen ogle her. 

She breathes through her nose, and tries to keep from throwing up. Or crying. 

“Percy knows its best to come to events like this stag,” Percy’s father winks at him, and then unmistakably at her, “you never know what sorts of lovely creatures you might run into.” 

Percy frowns, clearly uncomfortable. “I think Miss Chase definitely came with her boyfriend.” He nods to Luke, and gives him a smile Annabeth has never seen. So forced and fake and clearly unhappy. 

She wishes she could stop everything and scream at Percy that Luke’s not her boyfriend. That he could never be. That she does not want Luke, not the way she wants Percy. 

But time goes on, and so does Percy. “I don’t like coming to these sorts of things alone, if I can help it.” 

And the world nearly collapses out from under her feet. 

“The buddy system is important.” He turns his head, clearly searching the milling crowd for someone. Annabeth doesn’t follow his gaze. She doesn’t want to see the woman he willingly shows off to his father. She glances at Luke instead. His face is still placid, but she’s known him a long time, in all sorts of states. He’s clearly uncomfortable. 

“Thalia,” Percy’s voice says, not a shout, but a request. Annabeth doesn’t look over at him, or the direction he shouted, but Luke does. He breaks away from her gaze and actually unlinks their arms. His mask slips a little bit more. 

At the last possible second Annabeth looks over too. 

Thalia Grace looks exactly like the Thalia Annabeth has always known. Her hair is slicked down in some old fashioned pin curls, and she’s wearing a cocktail dress and red soled heels that are too big for her, but you can see the tattoos up and down her arms and legs, underneath her ripped fishnets. Her facial piercings are all still in, and her eyebrows and ears are full of safety pins and the necklace around her neck is made of them too. She’s wearing the same beat up leather gloves as always. 

For just a second, Annabeth hates her. Because Thalia is clearly so Thalia, so comfortable in being Thalia, and she can walk around this fucking gala, with buisness bros and old money, and look totally comfortable and confident. 

And Annabeth keeps adjusting her sleeves and hair, worried that somethings going to move wrong, and it's going to become obvious that she’s… something? 

Then their eyes meet, and it's almost as bad as when Percy showed up. Thalia looks lost, and then she glances to Annabeth’s side, at Luke and her face settles into a frown not unlike Percy’s. 

She stops beside Percy who smiles at her, “Thalia and I always use the buddy system.” He says. Then, as he holds out his hand to her, his smile becomes the closest she could ever refer to as cruel. “Thalia, have you met Annabeth Chase? Of the Boston Chases? Her uncle is Frey Vanir.” 

Standing tall, bright eyes ringed in black, Thalia takes in all of Annabeth. She’s done this before, when Annabeth was drunk and crying on a dirty bar floor, with a couple hours old tattoo on her arm and a couple of days old ring in her eyebrow. Annabeth had seen her mother on Wednesday for lunch and had destroyed her life by dinner. She doesn’t really remember what they’d talked about, in the wee hours as Friday became Saturday: not being good enough for your family, how New York took your dreams, chewed them up, and spit them out, how your father would never understand you and your mother would never love you. That sort of thing.

She’d been a gross, pathetic mess. But Thalia had seen something in her that night. Had lifted her off the floor and out the door and eventually onto the mattress in the place she’d been renting weekly at the time. She’d taken Annabeth into her world.

Now, it doesn’t look like she sees anything good in Annabeth Chase of the Boston Chases, in designer heels, with a designer bag, wrapped in a designer dress and dripping in jewels. Annabeth knows she looks like a dozen other girls at this event, girls that Luke’s (and maybe Thalia’s and, God, maybe even Percy’s) eyes have wandered over with interest. 

“Miss Chase, despite being from Boston,” Percy says to Thalia, “was mentioning some of the schools she went to in New York. I thought maybe you might have known each other through one.” 

Percy’s face has gone perfectly blank, but Thalia’s… Thalia’s is angry. 

“No,” she says, “we did not go to school together. But Luke and I did.”

It’s Annabeth’s turn to gape, eyes wide as she turns to him, shocked. 

Luke tries to smile. “Yes, we did, but--” 

Thalia doesn’t let him finish. “Are you still sending weekly audition tapes to Lorne Michaels?” she asks, a snarl that only an idiot would mistake for a grin on her face. 

Annabeth would laugh, if she felt like laughing at anything right now.

Luke tries to speak again, but Thalia talks right over him. “No, of course not. You’re doing some business thing.” She eyes his suit and then her three older relatives. “Why else would we be here? I know you never really had the brains for the arts. You were always more interested in the carnal passions of acting.” 

Annabeth actually does laugh, just a bit, both because that’s clearly something Luke had once said (and Annabeth remembered him coming straight out of NYU, a Yankee transplant to Boston, she could totally believe it) and because Thalia got Luke’s cadence and tone down perfectly. 

But it does nothing to relieve the tension. If anything, it's gone up. 

Percy’s father forces his own laugh. “It is so much fun when you run into old friends like this.” He offers, clearly sensing the storm brewing. Percy has at least tried to force it down. “And it's good to see you, as well, Thalia. It's been a long time.” 

“It has, Uncle Poseidon,” She agrees. 

“Mr. Castellan has left the world of acting for our bland business and finance meetings, but are you still acting?”

Thalia goes very still. 

Annabeth, in the two years she’s known Thalia Grace, has never even once heard her so much as allude to acting in anything. She set up equipment and tended bars for cash. The only acting she ever did was pretending not to be hungover. 

It’s a slight movement, but she sees Thalia reach out and grip Percy’s arm. He meets it, holding on. Steadying. 

He understands what’s going on here.

“She’s not,” Thalia’s father says. He’s been polite so far this evening, but now he sounds annoyed. “All that talent and all that promise, and she’s thrown it all away.” He looks at Thalia, electric eyes to electric eyes, and shakes his head. “You could have been just like your mother.” 

Percy, Luke, and Hades all let out a sharp breath. 

Thalia’s smile, sharp, turns acidic. “I can't be,” she says. “I don't drive. So I couldn't drive myself into a tree.”

Her father narrows his gaze, mouth tight. Annabeth has actually seen that look on Thalia’s face before. Poseidon looks suddenly very sorry he ever opened his mouth. 

Thalia turns to Percy. “Do you think Hazel would mind if I committed a murder and ruined her big night?” 

It's a very Thalia thing to say, but Annabeth has never really considered the theatricality of her before. This is an artist working her craft, taking words and turning them into daggers.

“Hazel loves performance art,” Percy says. “And it is on theme.” 

Thalia nods and then looks at her father. She smiles. “That sounds like a lot of work, so, instead, why don’t I do just what you want. I’ll be my mother. I’ll go get fabulously drunk and embarrass you horribly. Unfortunately, this is a 21+ event, so I won’t be able to endanger any children in the process. But you never know.”   

She spins on her heels, and walks away. 

“I'm going to make sure she doesn’t enganger any children just to prove a point,” Percy says. “I'll see you later.” He nods to his family, and then offers Annabeth a very formal handshake. “So nice to meet you.” 

She’s missed his hands on her. She doesn’t want to let go. 

But she lets him, and he moves over to give Luke one, too. He leans in, just a little bit, and lowers his voice so only Luke and Annabeth can hear. “You shouldn’t make a scene in a public place. But you deserve to know, she’s been cheating on you since May.”

Annabeth can’t breathe for a moment. The perfect man, handsome and charming and crueler than she ever believed possible.   

Her stomach rolls again. 

Behind her, she hears Poseidon say, “Do you often tell women whose mothers’ acting career dried up and then descended into substance abuse that you hope they have the same career as said mothers? Because wow."

“I’m sorry,” Luke whispers. “I’m not sure what’s going on, but I’m very sorry.” 

He turns to speak with the three brothers, to formally and probably seamlessly untangle themselves from all of this, and she tries to turn too, but the effort to spin gets too much. 

She’s still nauseous, feeling light-headed. The stiletto heels only add to the problem. She shakes and stumbles, right into Luke, who catches her on one arm, Poseidon on the other. Annabeth has to work very hard not to yank herself away from him. 

“Are you alright?” Poseidon’s accent isn’t the same as Percy’s at all, his hands too smooth. There are differences between the two that she can focus on. 

“I haven’t been feeling well tonight,” she admits, if it will get her out of here faster. 

“Do you need to sit down?” Asks Poseidon. “I’m sure there is a medical professional around here.” 

“No, no, thank you,” she says. “I should probably head out, If that’s okay,” she tells Luke, apologetically.

He nods, finally complying with her need for escape. “Of course.” 

When Poseidon lets go of her arm, she basically falls into Luke. It's embarrassing. Her eighteen year old self is probably cheering. Unfortunately for her, that crush was killed two great heartbreaks ago. Now, it’s just quiet and awkward as they walk away. “Sorry,” she says. 

“Sorry? I should be thanking you. That was a really good excuse.” Then he looks at her--really looks. “It wasn’t an excuse, was it?”

She shakes her head, miserable. 

“Is it because of that guy? Percy? Do you know him?”

She nods.

“Why does he think you’ve been cheating on me since May?”

“Because he thinks you and I are a couple, and I’ve been sleeping with him since May.” 

Luke lets out a low whistle. “You and those business bros.” He shakes his head. Sometimes he doesn’t quite have the self-awareness that he should, she thinks. “I blame myself. If I didn’t invite you to that MBA party, maybe you wouldn’t have lost your virginity to that asshole in my cohort.” 

“Percy’s not a business bro,” she says, defending him, though for the life of her she doesn’t know why. “He’s a ballet dancer with NYCB. It… ended about 3 weeks ago. I’d tell you about it, but I do actually feel pretty horrible.”

Luke frowns at her. “You want me to get you a cab?”

Annabeth shakes her head. “I know you have more business bro things to do. I can get myself home.”

He waits several seconds, before giving her a hug and a kiss on the forehead, wishing her goodnight, leaving her in the middle of the mingling crowd and the crystal displays. 

Annabeth shuffles towards the exit, passing the food table. Even the smell makes her feel like she’s going to throw up. Walking faster doesn’t exactly help. 

Eventually, she manages to get out of the main gallery, where the lobby and coat check had been set up, very much regretting letting Luke go. Right now, walking outside and finding a cab might as well be like attempting a quick little jaunt up Mt. Everest. Head aching, stomach rolling, she slumps against the wall outside the coat check, laying her warm cheek against the cool wall. 

That’s when she hears the muffled shouting. 

Two voices she knows intimately. 

“How can you say that?” Thalia whisper-screams. “In what possible universe are they the same?”

“How are they not?” Percy quietly shouts back. “They’re exactly the same.”

“I can’t even believe you’re defending her. She lied to us--she hurt you, just like--”

“Don’t you dare try and tell me you’re doing this for me. This is about you and your problems. Like always.”

“I don’t have to listen to this shit.” Then comes the telltale clacks of Thalia stomping about in her high heels. She flings open the door of the coat closet, and comes face to face with Annabeth--who probably looks about like death warmed over. Thalia takes one look at Annabeth, sneers, then stalks away, anger sparking off of her like static shock. 

Hot on her heels comes Percy, equally furious. "Then find someone else’s couch to crash on tonight!" He shouts at her retreating form.

Then he sees Annabeth.

She hopes she never has to see him that angry ever again. 

It takes a couple of pounding heartbeats, but he visibly dials it back down, rage giving way to something a little less intense, the bitterness bleeding out of him until he’s only just annoyed. “Oh,” he says. “It’s you.”

There’s a million and one things she wants to tell him; her mind is a hurricane, every thought and feeling moving at a hundred and fifty miles per hour, sentences forming on her tongue in one second and ripped away the next. She wants to tell him that she never meant to hurt him, but all that comes out is, “Luke isn’t my boyfriend.”

“What, he dump you already?”

“We’ve never dated,” she says. “He’s just a friend. I haven’t cheated on anyone.”

“Oh, so you’ll get all dolled up for some guy that isn’t your boyfriend, but you couldn’t be bothered to find a pair of jeans without holes in them to come see my show?”

Her stomach lurches, in both anger and regret. She did do those things. “You told me that you didn’t care what I wore.”

“And I didn’t, because I thought you didn’t either.”

“I don’t!”

“Oh yeah? Is that why you parted your hair on the wrong side? Because you didn’t care if someone would see your undercut?”

She can’t say anything to that, because of course, he had hit the nail on the head. 

“I mean, Thalia may be messed up, but at least she has the guts not to hide it, but you--” he sputters, gesturing angrily to her head, “you put on a tiara and pretend you haven’t been gutter trash for the last two years.”

Indignation rises in her. Gutter trash? “You’re one to talk--you can’t go anywhere nicer than Antonio’s for dinner but you own a custom fucking Italian suit and diamond earrings?”

He scowls. “Oh, I'm sorry, just so we're clear, Kym got me this suit so I would stop, and I quote, 'embarrassing her with my poverty.' I borrowed the earrings from Nico. But you're right. The same Christmas I had my power and heat turned off in Paris, my dad got me these pearl cufflinks.” He raises his hands, brandishing them. “Just what I always wanted!”

“Don’t give me that--the man takes you, his bastard,” she spits, “on the family vacation to the Greek islands every goddamn summer! You think he wouldn’t drop a couple million for you if you asked? Meanwhile, I had to grovel at my mother’s feet for years for even the barest hint of support--”

“That is not even remotely the same thing, and you know it!”

“It isn’t?” She laughs, cruelly. “Because from where I’m standing, we were both left at the mercy of our shitty parents, but you’re too much of a coward to tell your father to fuck off when you really want to.”

That just about sets him off. His eyes darken like sea storms, raging and thunderous. “Don’t you dare try to pin this on me. You’re the one that lied to me for months, to Thalia for years--Jesus, Annabeth, was any of it real? Was everything you said to me over the last five months just some game to you?”

“How dare you,” she hisses. “How dare you even ask me that when you know full well you’re the only person I’ve shown my designs to in years.”

“Oh, really,” he says, and she goes cold. “What about the one that won the Eta Industries award? Did you not show that to anyone? Or did you get that one because they knew you were Annabeth Chase of the Boston Chases.” 

Clenching her fists, she growls, standing up against the wall. “Leo and I put our hearts and souls into that project, and we won, fair and fucking square. I wouldn’t expect you to understand, seeing as you probably only got into NYCB because someone cashed a seven figure check.” 

She doesn’t know if she’s ever said anything she believes less. 

Percy laughs, an ugly, bitter thing. “If it had been that easy, I would have asked him to do that five years ago.”

Then he frowns. “Are you… feeling okay?”

She is not, as a matter of fact, but it’s no longer his fucking business, now is it. Annabeth opens her mouth to tell him so, then abruptly closes it as a little bit of vomit erupts from her esophagus. She covers her mouth, pressing against her teeth, trying to will it back inside. 

Warm hands encircle her shoulders, holding her up as her legs threaten to buckle beneath her. “Come on,” he says, gruffly. 

Together, they stagger into the single-stall bathroom, when Annabeth rips himself from his grasp, dropping to her knees before the toilet, and hurls. Faintly, she hears the lock of the door click behind her, then jumps at the feel of his hand on her back. “Leave me alone,” she spits, hocking bile into the toilet.

He doesn’t answer, only gently repositions her braid behind her shoulder so she doesn’t get any vomit on it. 

She will not admit that his hand on her body is the best she’s felt all day. She will not. 

“Ugh,” she moans, in between bouts of bile. “Fuck me.”

“Jesus, what did you eat?”

Annabeth has barely eaten all day, so it’s mostly sparkling cider and a bit of the olive tapenade from earlier. 

Finally, after several excruciating minutes, it subsides. She feels twenty pounds lighter, like she’s vomited up all of her organs. Now if only she could have barfed up her heart as well. She’s sure Percy can feel how hard it’s beating, just from being around him again. 

When the hell did she let herself get this worked up over a fucking guy, anyway? She hasn’t felt like this since she was nineteen, moping over a missed connection. But she’s not nineteen anymore, she’s a grown woman who doesn’t need anyone taking care of her. She can handle it herself.

“Feeling better?” he asks. 

She coughs, attempting to clear her throat, throwing him a glare over her shoulder. “Leave me alone.”

“I’m not leaving you alone like this.” 

“I said,” she growls, fingers tightening around the bowl of the toilet. “Leave me al--” Her genius retort is, sadly, cut off by another bout of vomiting, so forceful that her tiara comes flying clean off. It would have landed straight into the bowl, were it not for Percy and his lightning reflexes, snatching it out of the air before the crown jewels of Sweden landed in a puddle of barf. 

When she comes back to herself, she realizes that she’s crying. 

The second wave passes, and she can breathe again. Her awareness returns to her in pieces, starting with the pinch in her knees from kneeling on the cold, hard floor for too long, then the cool porcelain of the toilet, oddly soothing against her flushed skin. Her mouth tastes like you’d expect, and she spits, trying to clear it in vain. 

“That’s it,” Percy murmurs behind her, rubbing gentle circles on her back. “Just let it out.”

Her chest heaves on a sob, quickly disguising it as a cough. Why won’t this man just leave?

When another five or so minutes pass without any more upchuck, she pulls away from him, practically crawling back until she hits the bathroom wall, the floor pressing up against her bones, and she kicks off her heels. Everything is too cold and too hot, Annabeth practically shaking out of her skin, taking in huge, gulping gasps of air. Faintly, she hears the door open and close, softly and carefully. 

Good. He’s gone. 

Her whole body shudders. Stubborn tears force their way out of her, crawling down her cheeks, mixing with the taste of vomit and lipstick. 

But she can’t wallow in it for too long, because a minute later, Percy comes back, crouching down next to her, offering her a plastic cup of water. “Here.”

She takes a swig, swishing it around her mouth. Staggering to her bare feet, she shambles over to the sink, spitting it out. 

There’s no way Annabeth can avoid looking at herself too closely in the mirror, but she tries, her eyes skating over her smeared mascara and running foundation, taking in her (thankfully) vomit free braid and her bare head. “Where,” she coughs. “Where is my tiara?”

“I got it.” In the mirror’s reflection, Percy holds it up. “Wouldn’t want the crown jewels of England to wind up in the toilet.”

“Sweden,” she says, on reflex.

“What?”

Why can’t she just shut her stupid mouth, for God’s sake-- “They were part of the Swedish crown jewels.”

He stares at her in the reflection, his eyes unfathomable. “I just don’t understand.”

“Understand what?” She asks, a question to which she really doesn’t want to know the answer.

“How I keep letting this happen.” Percy closes his eyes, shaking his head, raising his chin to the fluorescent lights of the bathroom. Like this, all the angles and contours of his stupidly beautiful face are thrown in sharp, brutal relief. He looks thin, somehow, the quiet sadness of his expression carved into the lines of his frown, of his squeezed shut eyes and the grim line of his lips. “I thought I was done with letting rich girls fuck me to make a point.”

Funny, how a simple sentence can feel like a knife in the stomach.

Percy, always so tall, slumps his shoulders, running a hand over his face. In seconds, the sadness is gone, replaced with a blank void of expression. “Will you let me call you a cab to take you home?” He asks, because of course, he’d never leave her alone like this. He’s too fucking good.

Annabeth nods into the mirror. 

He sidles up to her, slinging her arm around his shoulder. In his other hand, he carries her shoes and her tiara, dangling limply from his fingers. For a wild second she wants to turn and kiss him. She’s wanted to do that for weeks. She wants to wipe the tears and vomit off her face, stick back on her tiara, and go back to the party on his arm. They could make a beautiful picture, she thinks, Poseidon Olympianides’ son and Annabeth Chase of the Boston Chases. But when she tries to move, maybe to make a big mistake, she sways, unsteady. His grip on her waist tightens, holding her close, but his face is turned stubbornly out. He won’t even look at her.

The cool night air and the smell of city dirt is a welcome balm on her flushed face. In no time at all, Percy has hailed a cab, letting her hang off of him as she falls heavily onto the seat. With the utmost care and precision, he gently places her shoes and her crown on her lap, as controlled and careful as when he puts down a fellow dancer. There is no mistake here, she knows. Their little dance together is over. It feels like the end of one of those romantic movies from the 50s her dad used to love to cry over.

“Take her home, please,” he informs the cab driver, giving him her address, then without even sparing her a glance, he closes the door on her.

But greedy for one last look, Annabeth presses her face to the window as the driver pulls away from the curb. The night is dark and the streetlamps are unhelpful, but she can still see him as he cups his hands to his face, glowing like he holds a little star between his fingers, can see him tilt his head up and exhale, sending cigarette smoke up into the heavens.

[blazedgraysons]

Pumpkin

You and Grayson try to help your daughter find a Halloween costume.

A/N: Hi hotties. Here’s a short blurb since school and internship have been kicking my ass, but I wanted to do something after seeing Kylie and Stormi’s cookie video. I have zero inspiration right now so if yall have any requests you want, just send them my way!

Word Count: 910 (this is so short, I’m sorry)

Warnings: nothing, just an overwhelming amount of fluff and me wanting to have babies with Grayson

"Okay. 1, 2, 3, … come show daddy!"

Your 3-year-old, Lola, comes barreling from around the corner, in her miniature pumpkin costume. She stops in front of where Grayson is seated on the couch, twirling around to hear his approval.

It was only October 3rd, but Halloween has always been a massive deal in the Dolan household, even more so with the arrival of your eldest daughter. What once consisted of cheesy couple costumes and going out with friends has turned into cheesy family costumes and trick-or-treating. You personally were beyond excited for this year, seeing how Lola was finally old enough to understand how Halloween works.

Your husband finally uncovers his eyes, and coos at the sight of his daughter. He leans down to pick her up, both laughing from the happiness of being in each other's presence. It was no secret to anyone that Lola was a huge Daddy's girl, only wanting to be around her father from the minute she was born. It was no different on Grayson's side, having wrapped him around her chubby, miniature finger the moment he looked into her wide, hazel eyes. The two are inseparable, and while jealousy might creep in from time to time, you're still undeniably grateful that Grayson is as overwhelmingly devoted to Lola as he is.

“You two are so cute!" You melt, watching the two mess around.

"So cute, Mommy!" Lola confirms, giggling at the raspberries Grayson is blowing onto her cheeks. Grayson reaches out for your waist, pulling you to join them on the couch.

"What do you think, Lola? Do you like this one?" You ask, watching as she tilts her head in thought. She's always been annoyingly independent for her age, so this year, you allowed her full control of picking her costume. You bought a ton and figured you could always just return the rejects. So far, she's on costume 6 out of 10, and you're just praying she makes a decision soon so you don't have to make another trip to the Halloween store. Unfortunately, she shakes her head no and hops out of both your laps.

"Why not, bug? I thought you wanted to be a pumpkin like Charlie Brown." Grayson asks gently, hoping to sway his daughter into making a decision. He had given up his Saturday to watch his daughter play dress up, and while there wasn't much that he wouldn't do for Lola, he was more than ready to move on with the day.

"No, Daddy. I want to be a ghost like Charlie Brown." Lola corrects, rolling her eyes like she couldn't believe her father's mistake. (Grayson swears she picked up that habit from you.)

"But you didn't like the ghost costume either." Grayson whines, growing frustrated with the toddler's indecisiveness. He loves his daughter endlessly, but three hours of costume-picking is enough to irritate anyone.

"Okay, Lolo. Why don't you go to your room and put on the next costume? It's the Tiana one, remember!" You suggest softly. Lola perks up at the mention of her favorite princess and runs back into her room, leaving you and Grayson alone. You settle into his side, twisting his wedding band out of habit.

"You know she gets that from you, right?" He says. You snort, turning to look at him.

"That's funny because she's your shadow. If anything, she's all you." He laughs at your response, pulling you so you're even closer to him. You both look at each other for a moment, before he lets out a breath of air.

"Is it crazy that I want another one?" He asks softly. You pause, not saying anything to interrupt wherever your husband's mind is headed. "Like, I love the three of us, but what if we could do it again? You know the diapers, the first words, first steps, arguing with them over their own Halloween costume?" He gestures around him at that.

Your heart swells. Admittedly, you had been thinking about having another baby now that Lola is starting to get older. You've started missing having a newborn in the house, but were unsure how to bring it up to your husband, worried that he might reject you. However, you should've suspected that Grayson "I want a football team of children" Dolan would be itching to have another kid soon.

"Do you really want this?" You ask, making sure this isn't a whim before you tell him what you think.

"Well, I mean, really, it's up to you. But yeah, it would be nice to have another Dolan running around here. Plus, Lola would love to have a friend." He offers, already placing his hand over your stomach.

"I have always wanted a boy." You muse, already picturing future siblings and matching Halloween costumes. Grayson brightens at this, pulling you into a hug with small tears forming in his eyes. He pulls away to slightly wipe his eyes before he hears the tiny pitter-patter of feet coming down the hallway.

"What's wrong, daddy?" Lola questions, concern written all over her tiny face from seeing her father's tears. She walks towards Grayson in a green, sparkly dress with a plush frog under her arms, reaching up for him to pull her into his lap.

"Nothing bug, just happy I have everything I've ever wanted." He admits, pulling Lola up to join your two's huddle. And with the two loves of your life in your arms, you agree.

[feralrosie]

"holding the other’s chin up" for vasya & kent? 🥰

Thank you babe! Inspired by this ask, this other ask and the absolute fuckery of our Rat Circus server, I give you.... this. Way to go with my first MB fic.

**

“Kent!” Vasya called from upstairs, “Are you ready to go?”

“Yes.” His voice wasn’t loud enough, but he was too busy making sure both Annie and Cass were comfortable in their outfits: a vampire cape for one and bat wings for the other. They looked adorable, and it should be enough for a perfect Halloween night, but Vasya insisted on also having matching costumes with him. 

At least she let him choose his own, although he didn’t put much effort into it. A few weeks ago, when she prompted the topic for the hundredth time, he just said he was going as Apollo. An old, yellowish bedsheet wrapped around his body and some dollar-store props would do the job. So there he was, looking like laundry, holding a plastic lyre and waiting for Vasya. 

She didn’t tell him what was her plan and instead made him wonder for two days how she was going to be dressed. He guessed it would also be some Greek deity. Maybe one of Apollo’s lovers? Hopefully not Daphne. Cyrene would be a better fit. 

“Alright!” She called again, jumping two stairs at a time down to his living room, giggling like a child. Halloween was her favourite holiday, after all. 

But when he turned around, she wasn’t wearing anything like a deity’s outfit. No bedsheet was contouring her body. There were leaves in her hair, but not a flower crown. She was dressed as—

Gods know what.

She had huge black goggles on top of her head, almost lost in the middle of curly hair along with two leaf-shaped antennas. Around her neck, she was wearing the furriest yellow scarf he’d ever seen in his life that matched the equally fluffy outfit. A cream-coloured crop top and shorts with a black pantyhose underneath, and a pair of knee-high hairy socks and matching long gloves. Still chuckling, Vasya turned on her heels, showing him the rest of her costume: huge fuzzy wings on her back. What the fuck.

“What do you think?” She asked.

Kent couldn’t answer. He wasn’t a guy of many words, but somehow he had even fewer ways of describing what he thought of it. “What are you—”

“I’m a moth! Not Mothman, just a regular moth. Vasya Wisemoth, if you will.”

“Why?” He couldn’t stop staring. Somehow, even dressed as an insect, she was still cute, but some primal instinct lost in the depths of the human mind was telling him that he shouldn’t trust her. Vasya was a tiny woman, but as a moth she was giant, and that can’t be right. 

“Oh, you know. You said you were going as Apollo, and by the way, you look great.” He tried to mumble thank you but she kept rambling, “So I thought of going as Daphne, but I don’t want to run from you or turn into a tree, so I thought perhaps Cyrene was a better option. But then I figured, Apollo among other things is the god of light, and moths are drawn to light! Isn’t it funny? Sometimes I have great ideas.”

As she spoke, her hands ran along her body, pointing details of her costume and fixing the fur. She explained what species of moth inspired it, a Venezuelan Poodle Moth, and how she made eighty per cent of the entire thing herself.

Kent approached her, confused but intrigued, and before his fight or flight instinct was triggered, he held her chin up to look at him. His eyes must have been intense as he frowned, since blood rushed to her cheeks as soon as her hazel irises met his. They were so close, enough for her furry scarf to tickle the exposed bits of skin of his chest, and for a moment neither had the courage to speak again. 

“Vasya—” he whispered, thumb almost reaching for her lower lip, and she looked like her heart was racing as much as his own, but his next words would make both of them burst into laughter. “Can I pet you?” 

[amanda-glassen]

spooky/autumn Jerena prompt: Jamie and Serena’s first Halloween together

This isn't exactly Halloween night, but it's their first October together. I know these are supposed to be drabbles so I'm sorry that this turned out to be over 2,000 words.

The best summer of Jamie’s life had come to an end. With Serena having summers off, it gave them an opportunity to spend every moment of their free time together－as long as Serena was home by the time the streetlights went on. Now that Olivia was 11, she was allowed to go for bike rides with her best friend Elliot and have other outside adventures with her friends without parental supervision the entire summer; however, just as Serena had a summer curfew, so did Olivia. Jamie had yet to meet Serena’s daughter, but it warmed her heart to hear Serena talk about her.

She had met Serena in late April and, although they had been seeing each other for five months now, she still found herself in disbelief that Serena was really hers to kiss whenever she wanted. Jamie admired how intelligent and sophisticated she was－mixing designer labels with vintage finds and always looking straight out of a magazine with perfectly applied makeup and not a strand of hair out of place. Serena had traveled to more places before age five than she had in her entire life and Jamie loved hearing stories about the places she had been and even the stories about her day-to-day life as a professor. Jamie was in awe of this woman and, it was during a picnic in the park one summer afternoon, that Jamie realized she was in love with this woman－even if she wasn’t officially her girlfriend yet.

She hadn’t heard much from Serena throughout the past week and Jamie had chocked it up to Serena being busy with work and Olivia’s after school activities now that the summer was over. Olivia was her priority and Jamie was never upset about Serena having to cancel a date because Olivia wasn’t feeling well or she had a last-minute emergency, but with Serena cancelling a second date, Jamie worried she had done something to upset her.

Jamie was ready to apologize even if she wasn’t sure what to apologize for, so she picked up some flowers and made her way over to Serena’s apartment. She was going over unannounced and she wasn’t sure if Serena would be receptive, but she didn’t care. She missed her and, if there was a possibility that she was sick, Jamie wanted to be the one to take care of her.

Jamie knocked on the door, flowers in hand, ready to surprise her, but when Serena opened the door it was Jamie that received the surprise of her life.

She looked wide-eyed at the woman who answered the door in black sweatpants and a Texas Chainsaw Massacre hoodie. Her curly hair was in a messy ponytail, but the icing on the cake were the black framed glasses and retainer she was wearing. “Serena?”

Serena looked at her in absolute terror before motioning for her to come in. She hadn’t said a word regardless of how much Jamie tried to talk to her. Instead she reached for her phone and texted, “Have a seat. I’ll be right back.”

Jamie looked around at the Halloween decor in Serena’s apartment. She had expected her Halloween decorations to look like the ones she saw in magazines－minimalist and classy. Instead she saw fake blood smeared in random places, some demonic-looking statue in the corner, and the crowning jewel: a replica of Leatherface’s chainsaw with the words ‘The Saw is Family’ engraved on it. It may not have had a chain on it but it still scared the hell out of Jamie. Who is this woman?

Serena was gone for a little over a minute, but when she came back, Jamie noticed she was no longer wearing her glasses and retainer. She cuddled up to Jamie on the couch, wrapping an arm around her waist and resting her head on her shoulder. “Thanks for the flowers.” They were now lying next to the chainsaw and Jamie found the contrast between the two funny.

“Oh, now you’re talking to me,” Jamie teased. “I’m curious though. How would ‘thanks for the flowers’ sound with your retainer?”

Serena playfully pinched Jamie’s side. “When you’re dating a woman, you’re supposed to warn her before you come over. You don’t just drop by unannounced, but now that you’ve seen my true form, I’m going to have to kill you.”

Jamie looked around. “Judging by all the blood everywhere, I doubt I’m the first person you’ve killed today. Is that why you didn’t text me back this morning? Too busy hiding the body?”

“Dismembering it in the bathtub,” Serena said nonchalantly. “I guess you can say it’s a regular bloodbath in there.”

Jamie couldn’t help rolling her eyes, especially when she saw how pleased Serena looked with herself. “I’m trying not to humor you because I know it’ll only encourage you, but I can’t get over this.”

“Get over what?”

“How you look right now.” Jamie leaned in to kiss her. “I know you’re usually immaculately dressed but I like this version of you. You’re so relaxed and cute. Where’s Olivia? I hope I’m not ruining some mother/daughter time.”

“She’s at a sleepover with some girls from her volleyball team. I just broke our date because I felt like being alone today.”

“Oh,” Jamie tried to hide her disappointment. “I can go. I was just worried that－”

“No, don’t,” Serena interrupted her. “I haven’t been in the best mindset and I think it’d be better if you were here with me.”

What she was going through, Jamie didn’t know, but those big hazel eyes pleading with her to stay, there was no way Jamie was going to leave her. “Of course, baby. I’ll stay as long as you want me to.”

Jamie didn’t know what they’d spend the rest of their time doing, but she decided to let Serena take the lead. It was early October and, although it wouldn’t last until Halloween, Serena decided it was time for them to carve pumpkins. Jamie used a scooper, but when she looked over at Serena she noticed her scooper was untouched and she was taking out the insides with her bare hands.

“I love the feeling of pumpkin guts,” Serena told her and Jamie had to admit she looked adorable with her hands all slimy and full of seeds and pumpkin insides, so adorable that she became distracted and touched her fingertips to a small knife they used for carving instead of a scooper.

“Ow!” Jamie immediately rushed over to the sink to rinse the blood.

“Let me get you a Band-Aid.”

“No, it’s fine,” Jamie insisted once she realized how she must look right now. She had always tried to be tough around Serena, but she could no longer hide that blood made her squeamish.

Serena rushed over to wrap her arms around her from behind. “You’re squeamish, aren’t you?”

“No,” Jamie scoffed, but she could tell Serena wasn’t buying it. “Yes, a little. Judging by your decor, I take it blood doesn’t bother you.”

“Not really,” Serena led her back to the table. “I’m the mother of a tomboy. Olivia is always coming home with some type of new injury. Plus, I was a really rambunctious kid, myself.”

“You?” Jamie asked in disbelief. “I don’t believe it.”

Serena lifted up one of the legs of her sweatpants just slightly above the knee. “This looks way smaller than it did when I was 10, but I got this from falling off a skateboard.”

“You know how to skate?”

“No,” Serena rolled her pant leg down. “Hence the scar.”

“Okay, I got one for you,” Jamie lifted the hem of her t-shirt a few inches. “My cousins and I were taking turns pushing each other in a shopping cart and we were going so fast that it toppled over and that’s how I got this scar.”

“Impressive,” Serena smiled at her. “I love a woman who walks on the wild side.” She took off her hoodie and pointed out a round scar on her arm that Jamie had seen before but never asked how she had gotten it. “I got this from a roman candle on the fourth of July when I pretended to be the Statue of Liberty.”

“Your parents let you play with fireworks as a kid?”

“Not exactly,” Serena chuckled. “It was three years ago and I was drunk off my ass.”

They continued trying to one-up each other until Jamie noticed a deep horizontal scar on Serena’s left wrist. Serena usually wore a watch or bracelets and, because she didn’t want to get it ruined by the ‘pumpkin guts’ she had taken it off. She had told Jamie stories about skateboarding, pretending to be the Statue of Liberty and the many scars she had gotten from performing her own Jackass stunts with her siblings when they were in middle school, so Jamie knew this deep scar had to have a good story to go along with it. She’s probably saving the best for last. Jamie gently grabbed Serena’s wrist and pointed out the scar. “What’s this one from, babe?”

“Jamie, stop,” Serena mumbled, trying to pull her wrist away.

“Can I take a guess?”

“Stop!” Serena forcefully pulled her wrist away from Jamie’s grasp and rolled her sleeve down. “I knew this wasn’t a good idea. I think you should go home.”

She had never seen Serena upset before and Jamie didn’t know how to react. She was covering her face with her hands, but Jamie could tell she was crying. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Get out!” Serena yelled. “I don’t want to see you anymore!”

But Jamie didn’t leave her. Instead, she walked over to Serena and sat down in the chair next to her. “I’m not going to touch you until you give me permission to and if you really want me to leave I’ll leave.”

Serena reached for her hand and Jamie noticed the pleading look in her eyes. “Please don’t leave.”

“I’m not going anywhere. I promise.”

Jamie laid on the couch with Serena on top of her. The woman who was so vibrant just moments ago now looked so fragile and all Jamie wanted to do was hold her for as long as she’d allow.

“Girls aren’t supposed to do it this way.”

“What, baby?” Jamie asked as she caressed her back.

“I heard it on some stupid TV show that girls take pills and boys slit their wrists. I was 13. I didn’t know how to swallow pills yet. The only way I could swallow pills was if my mom put them in ice cream. This seemed like the logical alternative.”

“Babe, you don’t have to answer this,” Jamie gently caressed her. “But, what was the－”

“You’re going to ask what my reason was,” Serena interrupted her. “I’ll tell you that in time. For now, I’ll just say something happened to me repeatedly when I was 13 and I felt like this was the only way to get him to stop. My brother Kyle was the one who found me. He was only 11 and it took years for him to get the image out of his mind. I’ll never forgive myself for the damage I caused him.”

“Baby, no,” Jamie tried to hold back her own tears. “I’m sure he’s just glad you’re okay. I’m sure we all are. Is there anything I can do to make it all better for you?”

Serena lifted her head up so she could kiss Jamie’s tears. “I’m okay now, Jay. I promise. It takes me awhile to open up. Sometimes I live inside my head and need to be alone, but I’m the happiest I’ve ever been. I have my family, my career, my Olliegator who is my entire world, and now I have you. I know the pace I’ve set for us is slow, but I want to be your girlfriend someday if you still want me to be.”

“There’s no one I’d rather have as a future girlfriend. We can take as much time as you need. I’ll always be here for you.”

Jamie spent the rest of the night holding her as they watched movies and talked. The woman she had gotten to know over the summer was just an act because she thought she had to be perfect, but that day she met the real Serena and, as she fell asleep in her arms, Jamie knew without a doubt that this was the woman she wanted to spend the rest of her life with.

[cottoncandyreaper]

((Undertale story I started working on featuring my classic girl Winny!))

I wasn't really trying to be popular at school, I did that on purpose to keep a low profile yet even after 6 years of human public school it did eventually fail me only because if I hadn't used my magic someone would have got seriously hurt at school. The teacher for some reason trusted them on a ladder to hang decorations from the ceiling to go with the nice autumn weather but the shoes worn had no traction and of course I wasn't going to let them hit the floor even as the ladder crashed down. Everyone had gone dead silent with many not knowing about the magic part of me with the purple wisps enveloping the individual...but now as my kindness was my weakness I agreed to be a tour guide of sorts into the underground for the group of friends the girl belonged too so they wouldn't air out what had happened to the entire school. They wouldn't leave me alone for the rest of the week after seeing what I could do, it seemed like my only option even though I could hear Daddy in the back of my head warning me about how unstable the underground had become after monsters left. But we walked here so frequently to see Mom, I was pretty positive I could do it alone with a group of other twelve year olds.

"Its pretty creepy down here Winny, you said it was beautiful."

"I said it use to be beautiful, monsters have been on the surface for six years now and no one is really keeping up with maintenance down here anymore. There isn't really a need."

"Wow okay, sorry I asked then."

I just rolled my eyes and bit my tongue; that girl was Macie and she believed herself to be queen bee of the whole middle school. Yet her soul held no kindness unless you kissed her butt and worshipped her. She was the youngest amongest us having just turned twelve a few days ago and on her birthday in school...I would have rathered had a picnic in Hotland then be around her in that ugly fluffy dress she wore. Yet people loved it and were jealous. I was glad that I didn't have to deal with her much.

"Its kinda cool Macie, the capital I mean. It's huge! And the buildings are still so spectacular!"

Kloey, Macie's best friend since elementary and the exact opposite in her sweet nature and trying to always get along with everyone. I liked her, we had good conversations and she was the one that I saved from the ladder so she was extra sweet to me and even invited me to her parents house for dinner. Daddy really liked her too, she stopped and talked with him when he picked me up from school even before the accident. If I could be her best friend instead of Macie that would probably be the best outcome for all of us in the end.

"Kloey you're so freaking weird. They're buildings, what's so amazing about them? The brick?"

"Of course! The fact that they're so well designed and sturdy still standing on their own. My dad is in construction, you know that. So this is really awesome to see."

"You're a building nerd."

Hearing Kloey giggle let me know she didn't take Macie seriously at all but holy crap I wanted to throw a snowball so bad at her when we arrived in snowdin!

"You think it's haunted down here?"

The last one to our group was Nicole, she was also nice but was a bit on the edgy side liking hauntings and ghost and all things spooky. We talked about Halloween alot recently, she wanted to be a vampire and I hadn't decided yet so she offered to help me figure it out whenever we had class together. All in all, two nice people and one sour apple...I was managing.

"We have to go through the lab to get to hotland, it's been cleared out mostly but nothing in there works if it's been left behind."

"There's a lab?"

Slowing down so I could walk between Kloey and Macie as Nicole asked on the other side of Macie.

"Yep! My Dad use to work there. It was used to try and figure out how to break the barrier before Frisk came and helped us."

"Thats pretty cool."

"It is, Alphys built all kinds of things. She's the little yellow dinosaur who built Mettaton."

"That crazy robot thingy that's been showing up on tv?"

I couldn't stop the glare towards Macie but managed to have nicer words.

"Mettaton is amazing and super sweet, they come over for dinner so they can hang out with my Uncle Papy. They aren't a thingy Macie."

"Oh my god you're getting your feelings hurt alot today aren't you? Maybe being back in the underground is to traumatic for you."

I stopped constructing whatever bit of kindness I had close together to not go completely off as I turned and stared her in the eyes. The glow of my magic reflected off her skin as it flared to life in my normal hazel eyes.

"I spent the best six years of my life down here with my Daddy, Uncle and extended family. So hearing you speak so unkindly about one of them will set me off...and I suggest you don't do that anymore. If you want to leave go ahead, have fun walking the capital alone back to the surface."

With that out and some weight off my chest I went right back to walking having found the elevator impressed that it still came when I called for it as I stepped past the threshold looking at the others.

"So? Who's coming with me?"

Nicole stepped foreward immediately joining my side but I could see the fight going on over Kloey's features. I knew she was just as excited but she was also to nice to even think about abandoning Macie regardless of her yucky attitude. Her decision was almost made when I saw the tiniest step towards the elevator just for Macie to cut her off and get in.

"I'm not going back up...you said you would show us the underground and we've barely been here so...sorry...Kloey come on!"

The smile that came on was so cute, she ran in as I pressed the button closing the doors and sending us down. Being without Daddy for the first time gave me so many possibilities to explore alot more of the lab at last! He wasn't the biggest fan of it and there were several occasions where he would teleport past it to the front doors so we could at least walk around hotland. Of course I was curious of the place thanks to how he reacted around it always wanting to know what else was being held here that may have been left behind all along.

[bubblegumlover99]

Tia's Bio ^^ (tw suicide and death mention)

Name: Tia Mitchell Species: Cat Age: 21 when the show started, 27 when the series ended, 52 in the 25 year reunion Height: A little shorter than Mordecai Eye Color: Hazel Hair Color: Dark brown with purple streaks Fur Color: Tan Outfit: It varies, but she usually wears a white tank top and jeans. Sometimes she doesn’t wear shoes, but when she does, they would be sneakers that turn to roller skates and jet boots, or high heels. Also known as: Tiana (her real name), Kitty boo (Benson), Night Cat (Detective name), Tee (her mom and her friends), Sweet T (Benson), Nerd (Rigby and Muscle Man), Kitty Puff (playfully from Benson) Date of Birth: July 22nd, 1989 Family: Tiffany (mother), Connor (deceased father), Clyde (stepdad), Leah (older twin sister by 5 minutes), Ryan, Chloe, Tony, Carol, Penny, Johnny, Kyle, Sam (all cousins as seen in another version of Family BBQ), Andy, Stanley (uncles as seen in another version of Family BBQ), Kimberly, Samantha (aunts as seen in another version of Family BBQ), Benson (husband in the finale), Stephanie (Tia and Benson’s daughter in the finale) Personality: Caring, playful, affectionate, tomboyish, smart, funny, aggressive, hot-tempered, adventurous, determined, sneaky, hard-working Friends: Mordecai, Rigby, Benson, Skips, Pops, Muscle Man, HFG, Thomas/Nikolai, Margaret, Eileen, CJ (stopped being friends with CJ after the events of 1000th Chopper Flight Party, but reconciled with her after they worked it out with Margaret and CJ), Techmo, Gary, Starla, Celia, Pam, Death (sometimes), Katrina Kittyhawk (My OC, only when Fifi isn’t around), Janet Sweetington (My OC), Megan (@paulichiwi’s OC), Becca Luna (@flufflepops OC), Fifi (eventually in the second half of Season 6) Enemies: Death (mostly), Fifi Quinn (My OC), Vivian (My OC, the daughter of Susan from Benson Be Gone), Natalia, Audrey, Gene, Party Starters Vince and Tommy, pretty much every villain she encounters xP Talents: Tia can run a little faster on all fours than Rigby, so she’s labeled as one of the fastest members of the park. Being a cat, she has retractable claws, sharp feline teeth that can be seen whenever she’s angry, enhanced agility and a fluffy, yet strong tail she can use to hang upside down on a tree branch. When she wears her shoes, they can turn into roller skates or jet boots with a click of her heels. Tia can also play the acoustic guitar and rap a few bars, since she mostly picks it up from Mordecai and Rigby. And despite having a deep, but still feminine voice, she uses it as an advantage to sing some low notes, but she can still sing some high notes as well, though not as high as Mariah Carey could go. xP Tia learned Chinese and Japanese in her school years and she can mainly speak Chinese fluently, which helped when she went to China with Benson in “Hello China.” Likes: Hanging out with her friends and family, playing games, drawing, singing, rapping with Mordecai and Rigby, playfully teasing Benson, Wing Kingdom, skating in the park, catnip, fighting her enemies, chocolate, soda, burgers, dressing up for Halloween, music with bass, breaking the 4th wall Dislikes: Asparagus, being insulted, the Unicorns, having to deal with Fifi, Mordecai and Rigby slacking off, CJ’s constant misunderstandings about Mordecai and Margaret, Quips and his jokes, Thomas (Death’s child), being criticized for the clothes she wears (her mom usually tells her that her pants were too tight, even though they weren’t to Tia), Muscle Man’s pranks, mostly dogs, cucumbers Fears: Bees, the dark, the thought of losing her friends and family, losing all of her 9 lives Catchphrases: “OHHHHHH!” “Hmm! Hmm!” “Yeah-yuh!” “Aw what?” “Ah sick!” “Dude.” “Bruh.” “YEET!” “Hell yeah!” “Fffffffffuck me.” (in frustration) “Well shit/fuck.” “Ohhh... my god!” “Suck it!” (in triumph) “(name), you son of a bitch bastard!” “You stupid (insult)!” “You wanna go, gumball? >:3” (to Benson whenever they start a playful fight) “I swear, if you (something), I’ll (threat)!” “Why me?!” (in despair) “WTF?!/WTH?!” “WHOOOO!!” “Sup?” “Shut up!” “Shut the

hell/fuck up!” “Dammit”

“I’ll kill

‘im!” “HOODY HOOOOOO!!” (sometimes uses it as a battle cry) Weaknesses: I don’t think she has any weaknesses atm, but yarn balls and laser pointers will distract her, no matter how hard she tries to resist it.

Extra info (if any):

Tia never had a graduation party after her senior year, because of a fight that happened between her and Fifi, but everybody turned their back on Tia ever since while Fifi pretty much got off scot-free. Nobody invited her to the graduation party, which lead to her deep depression and her near attempt to commit suicide by slitting her throat with her claws, but thankfully her sister Leah stopped her before she could do such a thing to herself. After that, Tia’s family and friends helped cheer her up, making her feel like she had her own graduation party, which made her feel so much better.

Her father was killed in a bank that Tia was trapped in during a robbery attempt when she was 19.

She secretly has a blanket from her childhood that she never let go of.

While not as strong as Skips, Mordecai or Muscle Man, Tia is strong enough to fight her own battles, and will not be afraid to stand up for her friends.

Tia is Autistic.

When Tia was 18, she worked as a delivery girl for the post office, but it doesn't go well when dogs were involved.

She actually had 6 fingers on each hand when she was a newborn, until the doctors took the extra fingers off, leaving a bump on the side of her pinkies.

In an envisioned episode of Skunked, instead of getting sprayed by the were skunk, Tia got bitten by it, yet the bite is still active in her even after she splattered tomato paste on her at the end of the episode. So she would use her werecat ability again in a different version of Real Date. Though Tia can’t use the ability on command; only when she’s completely enraged, that’s when she’ll turn into a werecat.

(If u want me to change anything, plz DM me :3)

[jessicajonesrp]

Family reunion

Jessica, texting Luke: who the hell let a Phillip Jones in the building

Jessica: if it’s Trish she’s way more fucking blonde than I thought

 Luke texting back: Que? What the heck are you talking about woman and since when did I become your doorman?

Jessica: PHILLIP JONES FUCK HELLOOOO

 Luke not having a clue what’s going on just calls her.

 “What are you talking about, am I suppose to know this person?? Seriously how am I supposed to know what the hell you’re talking about Jessica?”

 Jessica is talking very rapidly, her breaths shallow as she answers, pacing back and forth.

 “My fucking brother, that’s who. The one dead 16 years now? Only not because he just left my office. Probably he did anyway, since I opened the window and jumped out of it after my whole fucking world imploded.”

 “Oh your brother….Ooohh your dead brother?? Now your insane rantings make sense now..Shit Jessica I’m at a lost of words right now..What are you going to do?”

 Jessica laughs, but it sounds far from humorous. “I don’t fucking know, I kinda just freaked out and bolted. It isn’t a ghost, and it was him, as soon as he said it I could tell it was. They said he was dead, why the fuck would they tell me that, and where the fuck has he been all this time?”

 “Wait backup, you jumped out your window? And why would someone lie about him being dead? I think I have as many questions as you do.“

  Jessica is still pacing the rooftop. “I mean, it was open already. The window. I dont know, but I’m definitely awake right? This is real? This isn’t….I don’t, another fucking hallucination thing?”

 “Well I don’t know baby, how about you go back and crazy thinking here..Talk to him! Make sure he’s not some crazy fanboy..Do your detective thing..Get his fingerprints and some DNA, if he’s telling the truth, he shouldn’t object to proving it. I’ll wrap up things here and come to your office..And if he’s a nut, let’s just be happy you didn’t work from home today.”

 “Whatever, you don’t have to,” Jessica muttered, exhaling. “I got it. I’ll go back and see if he’s still there. Hell, if he really is Phillip, he’s waited sixteen years to show himself, he can wait ten minutes for me.”

 “You sure? Cause twenty…thirty minutes top and I could be there..I’m mean if you got family out there I’d like to meet them.” Looking down at his desk at the pile of boring papers. “Honestly I could use the break, I’m sooooo damn bored! We should have stayed on our honeymoon longer.”

 Jessica huffed another breath, shaking her hair back from her face. “I’m stopping by the liquor store first, then I’ll go back. I mean…I guess it could be a trick, or some of my crazy head games with myself. But.. What if it isn’t? He looks like him. Like He would have looked.”

 “Come on Jessica if it is your brother do you really want his first impression of you as a person that jumped out her own office window and his second you’re drunk off your ass, Look I’ll bring home a bottle of the good stuff but go back a face him with your wits intact.”

8

It was a good point. Fuck it, why did Luke always have to talk logic when Jessica was ready to run away and shove aside anything that tried to stop her or make her feel?

 “Well, it wouldn’t be all that surprising to him, since his last impression of me before showing up on my doorstop was how I caused the accident that killed our parents because I wouldn’t let him have a fucking video game,” she muttered, and damn if her eyes aren’t getting a little wet.

 It’s something that she’s always harbored, and never voiced aloud before, that it is her belief that she is the reason that her family had died. She had been too selfish, too loud, too much of a bitch, she hadn’t shared with her little brother and had made her father angry, she was the reason he took his eyes off the road. If it wasn’t for her, it never would have happened, her family would still be alive.

 She had always pushed those beliefs far down; Dorothy certainly hadn’t encouraged her to talk about her family, and Trish had always been so tentative around the subject, not wanting to hurt or anger her, that it had become far too easy to blank out memories or feelings about them for someone already inclined to repress anything too painful. Now, the possibility was presenting itself that for all these years, she had actually had a little brother out there, orphaned because of her, needing her, maybe not knowing what had happened to her. Or had he? Had he known all along that his sister had been adopted by a celebrity, while he was left behind, and she was told that he was dead?

 “Fucking Dorothy,” Jessica muttered, more to herself than to Luke, because whatever had happened all these years to her brother, she was almost sure Dorothy Walker’s hand was somewhere in the mix. In response to Luke, she said begrudgingly, “Fine, I’m going back. I’ll show up sober, but no promises I’ll stay that way once I’m there.”

 Hanging up, she ran a shaking hand over her face, fighting to slow the escalation of her breathing. She manages to stave off enough anxiety to avoid a panic attack, even as memories flicker through her mind. Waking up at fifteen in the hospital bed, frightened, in pain, wanting nothing more than to see her parents’ face, only to overhear the angry voice of teenaged Trish, blurting out that all of her family is dead. Asking about funerals, about memorials or any sort of service she could take part in, only to be told that those had already taken place, that she had missed them all, and there was not so much gravestones for her to visit instead. Picturing her family cremated, as Dorothy had so blithely told her, decimated into pieces small enough that they would all together fit in a small box or vase.

 If Phillip was alive, then whose body had they cremated? Or was even that a lie? Were her parents still alive out there somewhere too?

 Hope mingled with dread as Jessica started jumping rooftops, making her way back to her office building’s. She swung herself back down inside the open window, unsure whether she was relieved or not when she saw immediately that the man who had introduced himself as her brother was still present inside, now sitting somewhat uncomfortably on her beaten couch.

 “I figured you had to come back some time,” he muttered, not acknowledging the fact that her rather nontraditional entrance through the window. After her exit out of it, perhaps he expected that she preferred using it to doors. “Even if you do run your own business, you’ve gotta touch base at office eventually.”

 Jessica didn’t move any closer towards him, even when he stood, angling his body to face hers. Leaning back against the window, as though prepared to make another hasty exit if needed, she crossed her arms over her chest, narrowing her eyes at him.

 “So you’re my brother,” she said flatly, eyes looking towards his forehead, rather than the hazel eyes that so closely matched her own. “Prove it.”

 “What do you want, my birth certificate, my DNA?” Phillip shrugged, sounding unsurprised. “I could get both or either. Mouth swabs can do the trick these days. But I’m guessing you’re wanting words. Well, let’s see, my middle name is Brian, after Dad, but I guess anyone could look that one up. Your middle name is Campbell, after Mom’s maiden name. I know anyone could look that one up too, but what they couldn’t look up is you used to hate it, because I would call you Campbell soup, to the point that you wouldn’t eat any kind of soup at all, even if it wasn’t actually Campbell brand.”

 Jessica’s eyes widened, and she tried to cover her shock by pressing her lips together in a thin line. Phillip wasn’t finished. He seemed to actually enjoy throwing some of the old, mostly forgotten information about her long ago history back towards her.

 “Hm, you used to watch Xena the Warrior Princess a lot, you wanted to dress like her for Halloween but Dad didn’t want you wearing the skimpy costume, so you were a ninja turtle instead. I think that was when you were maybe eleven? You lost a tooth when you were nine on the playground because you were trying to do a full flip on the monkey bars and bashed your mouth against a bar instead. I was crying, scared because of all the blood, but you didn’t even cry. You were just mad because Mom made us leave and wouldn’t let you try again.”

 Jessica couldn’t speak. She tried, but her throat was closed up, and she couldn’t seem to form words or thoughts. Everything Phillip was recounting was true, memories she hadn’t touched in nearly two decades, and as they flooded back vividly, she stood frozen between pain and hope.

 “Uh…oh, you had some troll dolls, and I hated them, because their eyes and those weird little jewels in their belly buttons glowed in the dark. So of course, you used to sneak them into my room and hide them in my bed or in a dresser drawer or something, just to make me scream. And of course, I did my part by waking you up when you were a teenager by burping or farting in your face, then running for my life.”

 Phillip chuckled slightly, then intensified the easy, laidback tone of his voice, taking a slow step forward. “Take the DNA test if you want, Jessica, but you have to know it’s me. Don’t you.”

 And she did. She knew before he said any of it, knew as soon as he identified himself aloud the first time. This was her brother. Her brother….alive.

 “You’re not dead,” she said aloud, her voice small and dry. “They said you were dead.”

 Phillip shrugged, one side of his mouth tipping up in a smirk, very similar to one Jessica’s own face often showed.

 “Guess news of my demise was greatly exaggerated then.” More seriously, he said, “Technically, I guess I did die, they had to shock me back a few times, or so I hear. But in the long run, I survived. And I’m here. I wanted to see you, Jessie. Once I could find you, and get to you….I wanted to see my sister.”

 Jessie. The name sounded different in his mouth than it did in Dorothy’s, or any of the other people who insisted on saying it and whom Jessica refused to accept it from. She had thought the only three people allowed to call her by her childhood name were long gone, and the privilege to do so gone with them. But this man, this person with her brother’s features on a grown man’s face, called her Jessie so easily and naturally, and it sounded right.

  In a few jerky steps Jessica came forward, putting her arms around Phillip in an awkward but intense embrace. They had been fifteen and ten the last time they saw each other, and their relationship ship been far from one that showed physical affection; any physical contact with each other generally involved pinching, slaps, and shoves. It felt strange and strained to touch someone so familiar and yet so unknown, but as Phillip put his arms around her in return, with almost equal levels of awkwardness, his responding lack of ease only intensified her knowledge that he was the real deal.

 “Ease up, Jess,” he said lightly, flinching slightly. “Not all of us have super strength.”

 When Jessica jerked back, eyeing him, he shrugged at her. “What, how else do you think I found you? You were on the news constantly after that mind control guy, and everyone going crazy trying to kill each other. And then Dowling Investigations ads, it might be Trish Walker’s face, but she says your name and your title, and everyone in the world with any sort of TV or radio access knows you’re her adopted sister. Yeah, there are like, a million Jessica Joneses, and I didn’t know if you’d stay in New York or not earlier, but once the mind control guy happened, and Trish talking about you on her show, it wasn’t that hard to find you. I just…kind of took a while to get up the balls to actually go to you.”

 He shrugged again, giving her a somewhat self conscious smile. “I guess now that we’re here, we have to get to know each other all over again. We’ve kind of spent more time living apart than together, you know? A lot can happen in sixteen years.”

 He was right on that. And truthfully, Jessica had no idea where to start, so she focused back on him.

 “So if you weren’t dead all this time…where have you been? What the hell happened?”

[autisticarachnid]

#2, #3, and #5 in Domestic Life for Samara and Rowan? (And Salem and Merula, if you’re up for it!)

Sowan-

2. Samara and Rowan marry in December of 1995- specifically, December 22nd. Voldemort had returned by then, so the wedding was a bit more secluded than they had hoped, but it was actually held on Hogwarts grounds during the Holidays. The entire curse squad was invited, along with a few of Rowan’s students. Samara wore a white tuxedo and Rowan wore a white, indian inspired wedding dress.

3. They have one child- a daughter Rowan carries, that they named Hazel Cordelia Khanna. Hazel is a curious, sweet and inquisitive young girl, sorted into Ravenclaw. She’s also an aspiring historian.

5. I would say neither of them are quite strict, but probably Rowan. Samara, given her poor relationship with her father and the neglect they suffered as a child, is an extremely nurturing and loving parent who prefers not to use much discipline. Rowan, however, being a professor for longer than Samara, was more adept as using discipline and would not hesitate to discipline Hazel if she ever acted out of line. They are both exceptionally caring, though.

Serula-

2. Salem immediately goes for a wedding right around Halloween- to be specific, October 30th of 1993. Salem wears a long sleeved dreas, while Merula wears a white suit. They invite all of their friends, no matter how close they are, along with Salem’s parents and many of their siblings. It’s a fun event, with a few halloween-themed decorations and a color layout of white, black, orange and purple.

3. Initially after the war, Salem and Merula adopt a pair of orphans- Ainsley, who was 14 at the time, and her younger brother Mason, who was 10. Eventually, Salem and Merula decide to have more children, upon the agreement of Salem being the more nurturing one. Their daughter Willow Drew, Merula’s biological child, was born September of 2000. Salem then had a daughter from the same donor, Marina Claire, born in November of 2002. Their final child, Theodore Riley, was born February of 2005 and carried by Salem. Ainsley, having lost her parents in the war, was a serious, reserved and protective Ravenclaw who fiercely guarded her younger brother. Mason was a bit more talkative, but was still somewhat reserved. Willow was an introverted, curious and creative young Slytherin, Marina is a more talkative and energetic young Ravenclaw, and Theodore is a warmhearted, sociable Hufflepuff.

5. Merula is absolutely the stricter parent, though that isn’t to say she’s harsh. Given her own rough upbringing and her neglectful, criminal parents, Merula strived to be a kinder mother to her children than her mother was to her. Merula isn’t afraid to discipline the children whenever they act out in any way, while Salem is much more fond of positive reinforcement and finding productive ways around punishment.

[animation-recaps-by-sean]

DuckTales-The Trickening! Recap

Halloween comes to Duckburg as Team McDuck deals with the holiday in their own way. Spoilers below.

I love Halloween. I love ghost stories, haunted houses, and pumpkins. I was excited when DuckTales announced that they were doing an Halloween episode and it did not disappoint.

Webby dresses as a monster she believes inspired halloween, Huey is dressed as Gizmoduck, Dewey is in an eyepatch and a hawaiian shirt or as he calls it ‘pirate on vacation’, Louie just wears Huey’s hat. The four of them go trick or treating and I’m a little sad Della isn’t going with them. I get that they're properly old enough to go on their own, but this is Della’s first Halloween with her kids.

Scrooge meanwhile, shuts down the manor having no hand outs; he does leave an empty bowl with a take one sign. Scrooge is going trick or treating as he never misses an opportunity for a challenge or free stuff. This leaves Donald and Della, who rock angel and devil respectively, in a pinch as they wanted to hand out candy and host a haunted house. They decide to hit up Launchpad.

Meanwhile, Louie talks everyone into going to the Hazel House, a haunted house where all the kids drop their candy in terror. The house is named after the witch from the classic Donald Duck short Trick or Treat. Louie figures since they have a ghost butler, other ghosts shouldn’t be any trouble. That assessment is quickly proven false when they run into evil puppets of themselves.

Back with Donald and Della, they go to Launchpad to find the place barricaded. Launchpad has don a hockey mask and is attacking anything that gets close. He realizes how it is and lets them in. He tells them that as a child he wandered into the Hazel House and read a spell and unleashed demons. He actually read the ingredients off a candy wrapper and noticed trick or treaters. I guess that Launchpad parents kept him sheltered since he doesn’t know what halloween is. Della thinks it’s great since Launchpad actually attacking children will make them much more scared. Maybe it’s a good thing she didn’t go with the kids. She does have a change of heart once she sees Launchpad attack kids with actual power tools.

Meanwhile the kids are attacked by a monster clown, a puppet, the girl from the ring, and a bunch of tentacles. But it turns out that it is actually a werewolves, a puppet, a witch, and the tentacles were Frankenstien’s limbs in costumes.  They are dressing up as more modern monsters to keep up with the times which is a fun idea. I’ve seen classic monsters complain about new monsters but I’ve never seen them try dressing up as them. It’s a fun idea.  

They scare kids to drop candy but since the kids went here first they have no candy to drop. So the monsters decide to eat the kids.

Launchpad busts in along with Donald, Della, and Scrooge. And the monsters surrender. The kids teach Launchpad about Halloween, and Scrooge does give his candy to trick or treaters and the monsters. He charges them of course.

I really enjoyed the Halloween episode. Great moment between Huey and Louie where Huey is mad at Louie because he doesn't want a lifetime of candy. It’s about the trick or treating. It was one of their first adventures they could do before they met Scrooge.

3 ½ out of 4