#SORRY IF THESE GOT SHORTER I JUST. SHORT CIRCUIT WITH LOVE SOMETIMES

[owlight]

Hi! I'm not going to lie, I love your blog and I was thinking about making a request, because, why not?

Sooooo, I don't really know if you do like, full headcannons for a character but, if you don't mind I would like to request one with Yamato as a boyfriend :)

Have a nice day! ❤️

IGIGUF THANK U SM ur so sweet ,I'm so glad you like my blog! Thank u smmmm ,sorry it's short ,my brain Short circuit at the mention of him, baby fr

yes I do all kind of headcanons full ones nd all

Warning: non ,some suggestive stuff if u squint

Yamato as a Boyfriend , general headcanons

He is the kind of boyfriend that will worship the ground you walk on cuz he is so smitten by you and cuz you're his first ever serious romantic relationship

You're shorter than him (naturally) so he pick you up all the time if you both need to make a run or simply need to go somewhere,he just swoop you and run ,you just gotta get used to that

He will always hold your hands cuz he like the size difference between you two like you're so precious to him,he must protect you

He will fanboy about Odin with you all the time ,it's so sweet to hear him talk about it , his voice is always so soothing to listen to

you don't mind it Truly,but sometimes ,he pick the wrong time like that one time when he was railing you and it really went like this

" You think This an odin Worthy experience?" He asks huskily against your ear "get ur fingers out of me rn" you tell him as you push his face away with a chuckle

MF does not know how to flirt ,he have no idea how he pulled you ,the baddest baddies out there with someone like him?? He is so glad you picked him as your boyfriend fr

The kind of boyfriend that gives you piggybacks all the time ,he just love holding you sm

Yeah...He is pretty touch starved really ,he take every possible chance to hold you ,or for you to hold him

He is big on PDA,please let him hold you closely and kiss you and hug you all the time

He is always trying to impress you,flex his muscles,Fight the biggest guy to assert dominance,Start a revolution,you know anything that will get you all over him

He want you guys to be a power couples ,if you don't fight ,then he want you to cheer for him as fight ,Just want to have you as his partner in crime

He like to take you on dates to restaurants usually,he loves food and he enjoys seeing you eat

He absolutely too eager going into this relationship, would asked you to marry him the moment he feel a sparkle between you the two ,You told him to ask you again after you both got to know each other more...he asked you again two weeks later..smh

He have puppy kind of love and it's very precious,He will always be trying new things with you ,he will always be impressed by everything you do ,He just in love with u smmm....please agree to marry him already

He is as a whole 10/10 ,Still pretty new in this dating thing but he is absolutely ready to do everything and anything to impress you and make you fall for him even harder

[badatusernames]

the entire insect squad (kamakiri, mitsubachi & chouchou) & the surviving cursed swords trio (azekura, konayuki & kiguchi)

DAM YOU MAKING ME WORK FOR MY LIFE HERE

hope you like these squares

i'll be putting the rest under a read more but...here we go

KAMAKIRI

was kind of astonished i didnt get a bingo but. god. god. don't look at me. this man and his pals put down 20 minutes of screentime as a down payment to live in my mind for the rest of eternity. once again fallen victim to the Dead Side Character Curse. written so much about this bug man. i am insane about him.

EDIT: REALIZED JUST NOW I SAID NOTHING I LIKE ABOUT HIM + HIS SQUAD IS CANON BUT THAT IS. NOT TRUE THINKING ABOUT IT it's just the overwhelming ratio of non-canon stuff ive crafted to the stuff that initially drew me in oops

MITSUBACHI

re: fans? not like he has much but anyone who doesnt recognize the nuanced balance of Polite and Sweet v. Little Shit v. Absolute Badass Terror bc they see a soft spoken pretty boy can eat rocks

in retrospect might have been better to change 'i would marry them' to 'i would be best fucking friends with this dude' but whatever it would be of convenience and we'd have a nice time.

and of course. why does he fucking look like that.

CHOUCHOU

WIFE GUY SUPREME MY LOVE

honestly i feel i actually COULD carry him like a tiny dog but only bc he'd allow it, and he would because he's the chillest little dude out there.

AZEKURA

DAM ITS OUR GUYSSSS

listen. is a suit of armor that is Technically a Sword absolutely insane and goofy? yes. does he make it work? absolutely.

look if a massive pirate man with a dolphin helmet talks about being fundamentally anti-government, anti-establishment and you don't stan him instantly idk what to tell you

KONAYUKI

thats my FUCKIGN DAUGHTER RIGHT THERE. i’m so glad she ended up okay by the end of the show bc my god she really been through it...

sure would be nice if there was a concocted found family cooked up and ready to be made an amazing dynamic eh? wild. 

KIGUCHI

the elegance...the earnestness...the SKILL....the unexpected cute side....she’s EVERYTHING. really turned what could have been an irritating concept of an episode into something so enjoyable and memorable... (alongside togame constantly losing her mind that’s always good) she deserves the WORLD but you know she wouldn’t take it....so humble....sighs.....

[kikilefangirl]

Old Ties

Oscar “Spooky” Diaz x Reader

(Word Count: 1629)

This was your first time back from school since Christmas, and you missed home. You had elected to stay in an apartment near campus for the summer and rarely went back.

This was your birthday weekend, and you had to see your family and old friends after going so long without. Sometimes your mom joked you were too slippery to answer the phone, let alone stay on for long. It was true, with one notable exception: your baby brother Jamal.

“Y/N!” He hollered excitedly. You laughed when you pulled up because he had a fake neck brace on as his injury of the month. And his friends were there, all grown up.

“‘Mal! It’s so good to see you.”

“What about me?” Ruby asked incredulously.

“You too, Ruby. Monsé, look at you!” You praised. Then you were one off your count.

“Where’s Cesar?”

He was the only one missing from the group. Each kid had different emotions flash across their faces. Oh. You knew the feeling.

“Well get in, we’re going to get him.” You declared. They let out a chorus of protests and excuses, but you had already started the car.

“A seat has some of my bags in it, so one of y’all sitting in the middle.” You added.

You hadn’t been home five minutes and were already on your way to him. Indirectly, of course. All three kids piled in, and you drove off after a moan from Ruby about sitting in the middle seat.

“How do you know the way there?” Jamal asked skeptically. You gave him some throwaway response and put on some lip gloss.

You knew damn well why you expertly made the short drive to Spooky’s house, but they didn’t need to know that. Sooner that you were prepared to, you pulled up and hopped out.

You never once broke your stride past Santos and hynas. You heard your car doors slam, so the others were behind you, but you pressed on without soaring them a glance.

The music blasted along with the roar of engines and laughs from partygoers and clinking bottles. Your breath caught in your throat as you headed farther back in the driveway.

There he was, sitting down smoking a blunt next to him was Cesar. Damn, the kids had gotten older.

“Never thought I’d see you here.” Oscar said, finally.

He exhaled, and stood up not two feet away from you. Plump lips, intense brown eyes, no. You were never able to turn away from him.

Oscar was still fine as hell and you were losing focus.

“I came here to get Cesar.”

Not you.

The unsaid words were heavy between the two of you. Everyone who wasn’t drunk or oblivious could see the battle of wills going on. Even Cesar looked confused, and it was technically about him.

“He goes.” Oscar started, bringing a hand to your cheek, “You stay.”

Closure, you decided, was some bullshit because after two years of heartbreak and your determination to stay away...You accepted his trade.

Jamal, of course had heart palpitations the second a yes flew out your mouth. Ruby paled at the idea, and Monsé was staring at Cesar.

As soon as they left, it gave you some peace watching the four of them go off like they used to. Oscar struggled with the worst hand he could’ve been dealt, but his brother didn’t have to go through the same. Cesar was a different kid; Cesar was still somewhat allowed to be a kid.

Oscar put out his blunt and brought you inside.

You filled your eyes at the hoots and whistles from outside as you shut the screen door and then the real one.

You and Oscar were truly alone, now.

“How long before you’re gone, again.” He lamented, pulling out two beers from the fridge.

You winced at his words.

“The weekend.” You admitted. Spooky scoffed at you as he popped the top off of either bottle. He slid one over to you as you tapped your nails on the counter.

“Got over your little cholo phase and dipped, huh.” He spat out. You slammed your hand on the counter. Your palm stung from the impact, but your anger was more pressing.

“You know good and goddamn well that wasn’t it. Do I look like some white girl who took the wrong bus and got lost!” You roared at him.

He made it seem like an easy choice for you. That it was easy leaving everyone and everything for a whole new world you’d never even really seen before.

You flared your nostrils at Oscar, mostly to keep the tears at bay.

“I told myself I wasn’t gonna do this shit, Osc. You gonna keep doing your Santo shit, and I’m supposed to what? Sit here popping out your babies so twenty years from now they supposed to do the same shit? You go down, and I don’t got nothing to stand on? No.”

You shook your head violently. No. No, no, no. You spied where he kept his good liquor and grabbed it. You guzzled as much as you could in one pass.

Oscar stood there watching you with a look you couldn’t care to decipher.

Modesty wasn’t exactly a priority between you two. You and Oscar dealt in the raw, honest truth. It was what cooled the two of you, and it was doing so now. You knew it and he knew it.

“You messing with anyone up there?” He asked. Oscar was steady in his slow, rolling voice. Never tentative, always patient.

“Nothing serious.” You admitted. There was a fling that lasted a couple weeks in May, a failed date or two, and a car hookup once. In short, no one was ever him.

“You?” You stared intently at him, searching his eyes for any hint he was holding back.

Oscar’s list of names was shorter than yours. And to your surprise, you let out a sigh of relief.

He smirked and put his hand over yours, squeezing it for reassurance.

“We’re okay.” He said and against all reason you believed him.

He leaned in closer, and pulled you into a hug.

But like the ass he was, Oscar chose a less romantic course. His breath fanned your neck, and you short circuited. You always went blank when Oscar was so close to you and he took full advantage.

You had the willpower of a goldfish.

You hopped up on the counter, the two of you exchanging hungry, passionate kisses, desperate to make up for lost time and old grievances.

...

You stayed at the house well into the night.

You sweated out your edges, smudged your makeup, and damn near limped back to your car. By the time you left, the party had gone somewhere else and the lot was quiet. Not even Cesar had returned.

You sat in your car and Oscar leaned into the window.

“Happy Birthday.” He said. You smiled and gave him a long kiss, savoring the memory of him. When you pulled away, you deflated.

“I’m going back to school on Monday.” You said softly. You drummed on the steering wheel.

“Then come back tomorrow.” He suggested. It wasn’t the same anymore. You two weren’t teenagers sneaking away during football games. His life was as real as yours, if not more. You held in the tears threatening to spill over.

“I’m sorry, Osc. That doesn’t seem like a good idea.”

The silence that came next was deafening. You stared straight ahead and let the tears stream down your face with no abandon. A gentle hand wiped them away.

“No crying. You gotta go see the world for the both of us, ‘kay.” He told you. There was no bitterness or sadness in his eyes. Just love. Love for you, for him, and for everything the two of you went through together.

You let your forehead rest on his.

“I promise.” You whispered to him. At that, Oscar stepped back and you saw him in full view.

He nodded one last time, and you pulled off into the night.

...

“Oh. My. God. Is that a hickey? That’s a hickey. You let Spooky give you that! You could be infected with all kinds of diseases that will haunt you for the rest of your life!”

Jamal’s freakout made you crack a smile. He had only seen Oscar as the Santo Spooky, Cesar’s scary ass older brother. But you had known him since you were twelve and had been with him since you were fifteen.

“We had history, it’s over now. Chill out.” You replied.

“Damn it, Y/N you know I can’t fight, why would you put me in this position!” He barked out. You smiled.

“Oh I know you can’t fight, you know being a D1 athlete and all.” You teased. You knew he’d eventually work up the nerve to tell your parents the truth, but it was fun messing with him in the meantime.

“Okay seriously, are you and Spooky gonna keep--ew, I can’t say it.” He rambled. You put your hands on his shoulders.

“Jamal, listen. I love Oscar and I always will. But we’ve outgrown each other. We grew up here, this our home, but you and I have stability and a way out that Oscar never had. Neighborhood will drag you back in and I can’t afford to do that. Grown decisions, ‘Mal.”

You plopped down on your bed, and stared at nothing. It really was over.

Jamal hugged you tightly, and you hugged him back. You hoped Cesar wouldn’t share his brother’s path. You had given up hope a long time ago that Oscar would. He couldn’t.

And it was cruel of you to hold onto him any longer, so you didn’t.

[blxetsi]

modern levi ackerman dating headcanons

lowercase intended !

levi ackerman x gn!reader

- firstly, lets get love language out of the way

- i think his love language would be acts of service

- so like, he'll brew your coffee for you and set out your favourite mug when he goes to the kitchen to make his tea (bc we all know he'd wake up earlier than you 🙄)

- or he'll pick up a muffin from your favourite bakery on his way home

- or if you ask him to remind you to do something later, he's immediately writing it out on a sticky note and sticking it somewhere youd notice

- he notices youre getting low on your favourite moisturizer ? or lipbalm ? he's taking a picture of the packaging and getting it the next time he drives past walmart or smth

- he just does little things that help make your day better

- now i feel like a lot of people say this already, but he is NOT very comfortable with public displays of affection

- its not that he doesnt like it when you touch him, or hold his hand, or kiss his cheek, he just gets flustered and feels like everyone is watching you two

- but one thing he does allow is looping your arms together while you walk, especially in crowded streets

- it doesnt mean he doesnt like being close with you, he just hates doing it public. when youre alone ? hes ALL OVER YOU.

- "will you play with my hair ?"

- "levi im working."

- "okay can you multitask ?" motherfucker 😐

- doesnt matter if hes the big spoon or little spoon, just being close to you is enough.

- also would try and get used to your love language

- if your love language is physical touch hes genuinely surprised by how many times you put his hands on him each day (NOT in a sexual way) like even his mother never touched him as much and he's a momma's boy 😳

- when you wake up your coming out to the kitchen to fill your coffee, but not before kissing the top of his head as you walk past

- then youre guzzling down your coffee like its water before putting it in the sink and walking back, petting his head in the process

- you'll hug him while hes cooking, or brushing his teeth. youre giving him kisses before he leaves and when he comes home, just little small acts of love, but it happens so frequently that levi cant help but notice it

- your love language is verbal affirmations ? youre getting your coffee while saying "goodmorning beautiful"

- "i love yous" are thrown at him a lot, they never fail to make him feel better

- youll compliment this man and he short circuits for a second, quickly gets used to it as time goes on

- also too i think he'd be taller in a modern au, but not very very tall like erwin, im talking 5'7" to 5'9"

- and he's fine with his height, it doesn't bother him that much, he's the average height of a man so what's the big deal ?

- also he really doesnt care about height either. youre shorter than him ? cool, that means he can bend down to give you little forehead kisses. around the same height as him ? awesome, that makes it easier for him to give you a peck on the lips. taller than him ? mf he'll climb you like a tree if he has to. really doesn't care.

- also doesn't have a preferences for body type or anything. he thinks that character is way more important than looks 100% and he'll always find different things about you beautiful. your laugh is weird ? k now he's making you two watch a john mulaney special to so youll laugh. hate your belly and wanna lose weight, he's holding you and telling you to only lose weight if you genuinely want to be "healthier" and not so you get skinny. your acne scars bother you ? he's kissing your cheeks a lot more than usual, but you can't complain. literally Loves Every Part of You

- also i think his family would absolutely ADORE YOU and his friends for that matter

- miss kuchel is pulling you into a hug the first time she sees you, and is so accomodating and sweet. shes genuinely interested in your interests and what you do for a living, and will NOT hesitate to get levi's baby pictures out if you ask.

- his uncle ? he probably wont be there for the family dinner, but then kuchel's gonna call him up like "levi's s/o ?? absolutely spectacular !!" and then hes like "huh maybe i gotta come visit to see the runt and his lover"

- also i think in a modern au, kuchel wouldve gotten really sick when levi is a boy, so kenny would have came home to take care of his sister and try and take care of levi. in the end she got better, and he went back to his own home, but now she requests that he come for at least one family holidy so they can all spend it together

- BUT back to mr. ackerman

- idk what he'd do in modern times, i used to think he'd be a good english professor for a university, but then i saw a headcanon that he'd go into law school and become a lawyer, and honestly ?? it makes sense

- after a long day at work he just wants to come home to you, he'll find you on the couch reading or doing some of your own work, so he'll just slip off his coat and blazer and undo his tie while slipping off his shoes by the door. before plopping his head in your lap and requesting you to play with his hair.

- if you don't live with him hes taking a shower and then immediately calling you asking to come over. if you can ?? great he'll be in bed waiting to be spooned. if not, thats fine, but levi would like to facetime and rant.

- also has the absolute WORST road rage

- "that little prick cut me off !"

- "levi he's taking his driver's test !"

- "so ? i hope that instructor doesn't give the idiot a pass 🙄" and then will immediately honk his horn at the poor kid.

- also wouldnt be a clean freak like in canonverse. his whole "everything has to be spotless" stuff stems from trauma, specifically being left in an apartment with his decaying mother for weeks on end, but since kuchel is alive that never happens

- were things a little hectic during the time she was sick ? sure ! but kenny always tried to tidy up a bit when he saw it was getting to levi.

- levi just likes things to be neat and tidy, he doesnt do a deep clean of his apartment every two weeks, but always makes sure to clean up his messes as soon as they happen

- also doesnt like to fight

- his mom raised him with the idea that communication is key, and always encouraged him to "explain why hes upset" so they could work together to come up with a solution

- its something hes taken with him to adulthood, and even though sometimes he sounds like hes talking to a child when hes trying to get you to "use your words" he really doesnt mean to

- if youre yelling at him he'll stand there like 😐 and wait until youre out of breath so he can say "okay lets talk about this"

- is also very handy

- have a hole in your wall ? hes coming over to fix it

- need a lightbulb changed ? hes got u dont worry

- you need to assemble a piece of furniture ? he glances at the step by step guide once before hes putting it together

- hes so great at that stuff, and you only have kenny to thank

- literally when kenny first came to stay with levi and kuchel when she was sick, the kitchen light went out and he asked levi to screw another lightbulb in, the poor kid stood there like 🤨 and when kenny said "what ? you don't know how to change a fucking lightbulb ?" levi shook his head and said "uncle kenny im seven 😐"

- kenny was APPALLED. and immediately made it his mission to make levi as handy as himself.

- also, dates with him are rlly lowkey.

- he likes being in your company, so staying home and ordering take out is AWESOME in his opinion. sometimes he'll dress up and make a fancy meal with you.

- if you like going to carnivals and stuff, he's reluctant but eventually caves. wins you a lot of the prizes.

- "fuck. this shit is rigged y/n"

- "sorry levi, lets go do something else !"

- "what ? no. give me another dollar im getting you that fucking turtle"

- hange always wants to see you. levi makes it his life mission to keep you away from them as much as possible. not because he doesnt want you to get along with his friends, just because he knows that hange will spill some embarassing secrets from his college days.

- erwin ? hes okay but hes on thin fucking ice.

- also is very gentlemanly. will not only hold the door for you but for everyone. hes waiting in line for his order and someone comes up behind him and asks him to scootch so they can get some napkins ? mf its grabbing a handful himself and handing it to the person, wishing them a nice day with a small smile. hes just like,, a genuinely good person

- his singing voice ? immaculate. will he sing for you ? no.

- he also loves playing board games with you. like chess or checkers. you love playing board games with him and his friends, specifically monopoly. hange makes moblit form an alliance with them. mike is a lone wolf, and erwin and levi are always helping each other out until erwin betrays him. lots of trust is ruined between these game nights, but you literally cant bring yourself to care because its so fun to watch it unfold

this is my first headcanon thingy !! im v excited !! hope u all enjoyed 🤩✨ should i do more headcanons like these ???

- all in all, levi is a cool guy, and a cool bf.

[oh-my-may]

Kuroo having  a crush on a girl playing for Fukurodani

requested: Hello!! can I request Kuroo having a crush on someone who's in the Fukurodani girls vb team and she's one of the best players in the team, and being super close to the guys vb team such as Akaashi and Bokuto. Like maybe Kuroo is invited to her game or something and he sees her play and he just :0 . It can be a scenario or headcanon if you'd like.whichever is fine, thank you!! sorry if this is too much 

Don’t worry, it’s not too much! It gave me a lot to work with and I tried my best, so enjoy! :)

Volleyball has always been a part of your life. You learnt it in primary school when you were on vacation with your family, and ever since you couldn’t stop playing it

So of course, it was only natural that you’d get into your High Schools volleyball team once you turned 15

It was your second year and with all these nice people around you found that your play has become better and better every month, last year you even made it into the starting line up in no time

Very quickly some of the boys also took notice of you, especially since the boys and girls volleyball team had a shared practice once a week

You were in the same year as Akaashi and got to know him outside of volleyball already, but you quickly noticed that he was also a very talented setter

Bokuto, his third-year friend was a lot different than him, but he was nice and funny and you grew fond of both of them in basically no time

You’d meet with them every other day after school and practice and you’d practice some more but also just joke around

And you also started to spend more time together during school, meeting for lunch and Bokuto would come over to hang with you and Akaashi during shorter breaks

One day when you get to your little extra practice though, someone else is present. A boy about as tall as Bokuto, dark messy hair and he wore the Nekoma uniform

“Y/N! This is Kuroo, one of my best friends!”, Bokuto explains in joy of his friends meeting

“Friends with the enemy?”, you joke, but smile as you greet the stranger who was frankly speaking quite attractive

He was a Middle Blocker and very quickly you got to know him better, because he seemed to share a lot of personality traits with Bokuto, but he was calmer and more collected at times

Sometimes he’d even bring other members of his team along, Kenma who looked like he’d rather be somewhere else, Lev who was very enthusiastic about the whole thing but still had to learn a lot, and also Yaku and Yamamoto made appearance occasionally

But Kuroo always came and it was him who very quickly caught feelings for you

He admired you a lot, having enough patience as a girl to hang around with Bokuto

But also you were very pretty and your smile really bewitched him, sometimes he short-circuited when you threw him a smile at practice and then he missed a ball and the others (Bokuto) got mad

But he just accepted his feeling for you and tried to get closer to you, helping you with certain techniques you couldn’t quite get behind, joining your side when you had an ‘argument’ with Bokuto, complimenting you every time etc…

But you were quite oblivious to his behaviour, thinking he was just being nice

But Akaashi, who was one of your closest friends at this point and who knew both you and Kuroo quite well, took notice of Kuroos behaviour

“Hey, Kuroo. Y/N and her team have a practice match tomorrow, maybe you could come and watch?”

“Ooooh yesss, it’s gonna be epic, she’s gonna smash the other team!” Bokuto already cheered you on and you could already imagine him screaming tomorrow, shouting “Hey, hey, heeeyyy” when you scored a point

Kuroo froze for a second before he quickly nods (maybe a little too enthusiastically) “Let’s see if she can actually make use of the blocking techniques I taught her.”

And for whatever reason you felt a little more nervous about the game, now that you knew Kuroo was going to be there and watch you play

But you didn’t have to worry about that because your team totally aced the game and even though it was only a practice match your supporters were ecstatic at the end of it, cheering for all of you very loudly

Amongst them was also Kuroo, whose eyes had a certain shimmer in them you haven’t seen before

Your captain had to drag you away so you would stop staring (I can’t blame you though he’s a pretty boy)

After you shower and get dressed again you step out of the gym feeling somewhat different… It was not the usual feeling you had after a practice match

“Y/N! You played amazing today-“, Bokuto starts, but he gets interrupted.

“Y/N, you need to go out with me, please. Or else I’ll combust.”

“Did you just threaten her to go out with you?”

“Well there’s no need to combust, Kuroo, I’d love to.”

[dreamscapefics]

This isn't a prompt just can't really talk to anyone in real life about it so I've come to you 😂 Imagine Jaskier convincing Geralt that friends let each other use each other for a quick hard fuck and Geralt doesn't want to lose his only friend and he hasn't had any before to disagree with that. So he let's Jaskier use his hole whenever he wants and it's often hard and messy but he really doesn't want to lose Jaskier. Queue Jaskier forcing kinks on Geralt

Oh. OH. Damn, anon, I love how your mind works 👀

This is definitely happening in a Modern AU setting, you can’t change my mind. And I’m gonna use Netflix!Geralt for this because he’s perfect for this scenario oh my god.

Also, I know this isn’t a prompt but but I really got carried away 😂 Also sorry for the length and the grammar, I didn’t bother editing this 😂 

Geralt, who’s always had a difficult time establishing relationships (platonic or otherwise) with people and a harder time maintaining those relationships would definitely feel - hm, not pressured, I should say - inclined to appease Jaskier because Jaskier’s his best friend. They’ve been best friends since college and ten years has passed and they still live together. Jaskier is a successful writer who’s just released the first book of his series (I’m thinking fantasy as a genre for him) and Geralt owns a vet clinic and his business is booming.

They’re both flourishing in their careers but there’s a downside to it: both of them haven’t had a good fuck in a horribly long time.

Jaskier had no problem going on dates before but now that he’s a famous published author, it seems that all these people want from him is his fame and fortune. Well, he didn’t think he would have a problem with that, but after the second attempt of his date trying to sneak a picture of his room, Jaskier had had enough. And on the other spectrum, there’s Geralt. Geralt, who loves Jaskier as more than a friend, and hates seeing his best friend miserable and sad. He wants to cheer him up but doesn’t know how because it’s not like he has a good track record of romantic relationships, too.

So it definitely comes as a surprise when a month later Jaskier comes to him with a proposition.

“I had an interesting discussion with Renfri.”

“Yeah? What about?” Geralt raises an eyebrow, his curiosity piqued.

Jaskier bites his lower lip, and there’s a faint flush on his cheeks that endears Geralt further to the other man.

“You know how Renfri and I are, our topics zigzag a lot, but there was something that she mentioned that’s, hm, very intriguing.” Jaskier pauses. “It’s this thing called ‘friends with benefits’.”

Geralt’s brows furrowed, a bit flummoxed. “What kind of benefits? Health insurance?”

Jaskier laughs out loud, but instead of feeling embarrassed, Geralt finds himself smiling fondly at the other man, bright blue eyes crinkling in mirth as he leans forward to press his head against Geralt’s shoulder. Geralt rolls his eyes but brings up a hand to pat his friend’s head, fingers gently massaging his scalp. He hears Jaskier mumble something against his chest.

“What was that?”

Jaskier lifts his head, so his big blue eyes are trained on Geralt’s as he dips his head to maintain eye contact. The proximity doesn’t help matters at all.

“Friends with benefits meaning two consenting adults who like and respect each other enough have mind-blowing sex,” Jaskier says, and Geralt’s brain short circuits at the candid explanation.

“Um.”

“Geralt,” Jaskier continues, long lashes fluttering as he takes a step closer to Geralt, arms wrapping around the white-haired man’s hips. “I know I’m not the only one here who has a dry spell for god knows how long.” They both swallow inaudibly, Geralt’s amber eyes tracking Jaskier’s tongue as he wets his lips. “And since we’re both attractive, consenting adults, I’m wondering… if you would be amenable… if we can--”

“Yes,” Geralt blurts out a tad quickly. He ignores the blush creeping up his neck, ears, and cheeks. He ignores his heartbeat quickening and instead focuses on Jaskier’s surprised blink, the breathtaking smile on his best friend’s face making Geralt smile back. He doesn’t want to lose that smile, he thinks. He doesn’t want to lose Jaskier’s friendship, doesn’t want to disappoint the man who’s brought nothing but joy and laughter and love in Geralt’s bleak world. Jaskier has turned his life upside down, and for the better, and Geralt would be a goddamn fool to say no. To pass up this excellent opportunity. “I’m fine with it.”

Jaskier’s smile slowly turns seductive. Geralt’s breath hitches when the slightly shorter man presses closer to his front and he can feel the considerable bulge pressing against his own hardening length.

“Perfect,” Jaskier says, his voice husky, “What do you want to do first, darling?”

Between the feel of their erections pressed against each other and Jaskier’s blue eyes blown wide with lust and want, Geralt gulps and says the first thing that immediately comes to the forefront of his mind:

“I want you to fuck me.”

So Jaskier does.

They don’t even make it to the bedroom. Jaskier has Geralt bent over the arm of the couch as he quickly preps Geralt. When he pushes his cockhead past the tight ring of muscle, Geralt has to grit his teeth to stop himself from shouting at his friend to stop because it hurts. But the pain was brief, and in no time Geralt found himself thrusting back against Jaskier, his best friend gripping his hips as he plows into Geralt’s hole. Their coupling doesn’t last long. Jaskier thrusts forward and cums deep inside Geralt, who moans like a whore when he feels Jaskier’s load painting his inner walls. He cums untouched, his cock flushed against the brown leather of the couch.

Geralt and Jaskier have a ton of sex after that night.

Sometimes Jaskier would knock on his bedroom door and Geralt would toss him the bottle of lube as he got naked. Then he’d go into bed on his hands and knees, presenting his delectable ass for his best friend to use and play with. Sometimes, Geralt would barge in when Jaskier is in the shower, his hole already loose and wet, and ready for the taking. After sucking Jaskier to hardness, Geralt would be fucked silly against the wall, and they end up taking a shower together instead.

But deep down, Geralt absolutely loves it when Jaskier no longer has to ask for his permission for sex. Like, Geralt would get home from work and Jaskier would order him to strip and take a shower. Then he’d bring Geralt to his room and end up fucking the vet on the carpeted floor, one hand wrapped firmly on Geralt’s nape as Jaskier presses his face to the ground, muttering filthy praises as Geralt moans and whimpers.

There was also this time, and it was a weekend, when Geralt was preparing their lunch. He didn’t see Jaskier approaching from behind, because between one breath and the next, he found his upper body bent over the kitchen table, his shorts and boxer briefs quickly shoved down to his ankles. He feels one of Jaskier’s calloused hands on his ass, spreading one cheek apart while the other slowly removes the anal beads the writer inserted in him earlier that morning.

“So fucking wet for me, darling,” Jaskier purrs.

Geralt moans and shamelessly spreads his legs wider so Jaskier can see his pink-flushed hole, gaping and fluttering and waiting to be filled.

“Please, Jask.”

Then Jaskier slicks up his cock with the lube he seems to always carry with him, and he quickly presses his cock inside Geralt, burying himself to the hilt. He’d pull back until it’s just the cockhead inside before sliding back in the vet’s warm, tight channel. Then Geralt hoists one leg up the wooden table so Jaskier can get in him deeper, and his best friend would murmur filthy praises at Geralt, the obscene sound of skin slapping on skin loud in their small kitchen.

“Such a good boy,” Jaskier praises. “My good boy Geralt.”

Geralt whimpers and he comes untouched on Jaskier’s cock. And after Jaskier shoots his cum inside Geralt, he pulls out only to shove a thick anal plug in his fucked-out hole, keeping Jaskier’s cum inside him.

“How do you feel about a vibrator next time, darling?” Jaskier suggests as he kisses a trail up Geralt’s sweaty back.

Geralt, bless him, shivers at the prospect of having his prostate stimulated. He turns his head to meet Jaskier’s affectionate gaze and shyly nods his head.

“Wonderful,” he purrs, and they share a filthy kiss, all tongue and lip biting. When Jaskier pulls away, he looks pensive for a moment before his gaze turns dark with want. “Perhaps, if you’re amenable, and if you continue to be a good boy, I’d love to fuck you while you’re sleeping.”

Geralt’s breath hitches, and he feels his spent cock give an interested twitch.

“Yes,” he breathes out, the first simmer of arousal pooling low in his gut, amber eyes almost pleading.

Jaskier’s answering grin is breathtaking.

[lordxgrinnyxboy]

watching london tgm! pt 2!

they actually carry clarence in in his coffin????

Kupsak sounds Different

OOOOOOOOOOH THAT WAS OSRIC’S VOICE THAT DID THE “Will our land at last be free” LIKE THE LINGERING ECHOES OF THE TRELAW SPIRIT. NICE.

the voice he used leaves me with no doubt he could’ve been another amazing Gwynplaine.

“Get out” WAS OSRIC LITERALLY THERE DID OSRIC STRAIGHT UP GO BUST A FUNERAL

 OOOOH IT’S THE TRELAW REBELLION NOW. SPECIFICALLY THE TRELAW REBELLION. THE REBELLION BELONGING TO TRELAW.

for just a second i was living in a world without Barkilphedro but there he is, man, there he is. i was surprised to see him.

ooooh. oooooh “Angelica has not emerged from her chambers for almost exactly 20 years, during which time, she has not uttered a single word” WHAT?

DON’T SEND SPIKE TO GO GET HER WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU

off topic but getting back to the previous post if the “father she’ll never see” was part of the inscription and Ursus gave it to her then he’d know about it so it can’t be that did the MOM get her a necklace that said she’d never see her father??? was the mom like “ope we gotta pack up and sail away without your dad but lemme get you a cool trinket first” or was there no inscription and Ursus is just assuming that it was the dad who gave her the necklace but it was actually the mom and the mom got a necklace for Dea without telling Ursus but hold up aren’t they poor? wouldn’t somebody have known? do they have separate bank accounts? did the mom say “well I got our unborn child a present but it’s a surprise you’ll find out later” why a necklace that says “dea”? did the mom name her without consulting Ursus? how’d she know wh-? was she going to name the baby ‘Goddess’ regardless of gender? (valid?) was she asking a goddess to protect the baby??? did she have the baby, immediately go get her a little trinket, and then freeze to death? was ‘Dea’ a deliberate move or was it just the last name trinket in the shop? Were all the  “Makynzeiye” necklaces taken? I Have Questions About This Necklace

anyway

the other version always makes me feel almost like Barkilphedro murdered the king himself. i don’t get that so much in this one but i do get the impression he Knows What He’s Doing with this speech and is Doing It On Purpose. Having A Good Time, as it were.

angelica????

oh my

“SWWIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINE” uhm

b-bird noises?

ooh she’s actually. calling out the corruption of her father. good girl angelica.

“I will make this country great again” did they. have. to say that. did they have to. was it necessary. why make me think about that man. why do that to me. london has no rights u-u

wHAT we’re back in the cart? No JoJo?

london gets rights for the fact that Gwyn’s crouching. that is a very good crouch sir, perfect.

“with mojo and father...GAH” oh gwyn :(

that hit him so hard so sudden like :(

FIDDLIN WITH THE BANDAGES IS CANOOOOON IT’S CANOOOOOOOON I AM VALID! I’M VALID! I KNEW IT! I THOUGHT SO! YES. YES. WOOHOO

gwyn your arm

the drama of that dismount. the delicate self-yeet. incredible.

WHY IN HEAVEN’S NAME IS YOUR SHIRT TUCKED IN YOU STOP THAT THIS INSTANT

“please help me find” gwyn what is she supposed to do, google it?

CROUCH

oh here we go

that was terrifying jojo

jojo that was terrifying

the dance is. worse.

pleeeease no please no please no pl

where did she get that

i am scared for my life rn

JOJO STOP

ohhh i’m dreading Brand New World. can’t believe i’m gonna have to watch Gwynplaine Trelaw literally be killed for sport. she’s gonna snap him like a twig 😭 

JOJO I AM BEGGING YOU TO PUT THAT DOWN

i am so scared of this jojo i am so

oh JOJO’S gonna offer to make the scuttling dream a reality???

book canon right there

😱😬😭

in this one she literally warns david personally to his face he’s got no excuse let’s go david wygd

but sure let’s go to the fair

i don’t hate this david but he’s like the mellow, zero-energy edition.

he bouncin

he’s turned into a starfish???

i hate Bristol!Jojo’s costume so bad but dang if i haven’t gotten used to it and now this one’s a little weird

i’m not strong enough tbh

dirry-moir just crouched and i’m gonna have to sue for copywrighte on gwynplaine’s behalf. i’ve apparently lost my ability to spell

idk man these people are just incredibly scary

oh thank goodness that part’s over

london!gwyn looks like a hobbit that’s been stretched out. like a screenshot of Mr. Elijah Wood in Unexpected Journey, but it’s been pasted into MS Paint and then stretched out a bit and then squished down and stretched out again and somehow pasted back into the movie.

i am genuinely so grateful we get another cart scene. i need time to recover from never seen a face.

the dynamic feels different in this version

awww the shoulder pat :3

this Gwyn is a whole other person. he’s both Calmer and More Wound Up. at the same time.

😭 he just 😭 literally choked 😭 i can’t 😭 he just fell right over 😭 wilted like a flower 😭 howm i supposed to cope with this 😭 

Don’t pat him so hard Ursus for pity’s sake DX

aw we’re not doing Born Broken in front of an audience this time? rights are evaporating.

is Gwyn even alive rn i think he straight up died

did he take the medicine yet?

Ursus are u touching his face?

HE’S HAVING A WHOLE SEIZURE

What Was That Move

i have lost my ability to exhale

i think Gwyn’s doing a physical impersonation of a fish being mercilessly dragged from a lake by a grappling hook thrown from a moving speedboat

i do like how Ursus crouches down to their level while they’re on the ground

love how Mojo looks over like “are y’all seeing this”

LOOK AT THE SMILE OF YOUR MOTHERL

THAT’S WHY URSUS FREAKIN SNAPS

Ursus is holding Gwyn by the wrist and just shaking his arm as punctuation like “I CANT tell you ANYthing you DON’t already KNOW” URSUS STOP

GWYN TRIED TO PULL AWAY AND URSUS YANKED GWYN’S ARM

URSUS YOU HAVE NO RIGHTS

i mean i always thought the near hysteria was valid and acceptable but you know what Gwyn is MORE than allowed the “NOOO NOT TODAY” line. he can HAVE IT. understandable. he did nothing wrong.

someone’s drinking a beer

i’m sorry but the way he just climbed through that curtain was hilarious

it’s too calm. mr. maskell you’ve got three seconds to lose your damn mind and go absolutely OFF

BOING BOING BOING BOING BOING

CLAP

twinge

this one doesn’t have enough hysteria but it gets points for being even more boneless

lost an elbow again

here we go his brain’s going AGSHAFUIABNAVSBKJAG AGFYAIAFIguAI here we go it’s happening i can see the sparks

MR MASKELL PLEASE

GWYN YOUR ARMS

YOUR SPIN GWYN

that right there was what medical professionals commonly diagnose as a Religious Experience.

his pantlegs are even shorter in this version

OH HE JUST YANKS THE BANDAID RIGHT OFF.

jojo please

hangon i gotta go back and see him in Zero Bones mode one more time that was actually so personal

i must say that rewind was Flawless. without even looking i took it back exactly to him coming through the curtain. at myself goodjob man

i would like to formally apologize to myself for just having the “talent show au” thought. stop that.

WIGGLY FINGERS ON “WALKS IN THE NIGHT”

can’t believe i’m in love with an overcooked linguini noodle

he is So Floppy it genuinely hurts to even look at and honestly i love that for me. I’m living. i’m about to watch this scene a third time in a row see if i don’t

it really is a little low on the sheer manic vibe but at the same time it kinda has the energy of if you climbed into the washing machine or maybe dryer while the appliance is on? or if you got in the washing machine but you brought a toaster with you. and threw your phone in separate.

another perfect rewind let’s go I’M THE STUUUUUUUFF OF YOUR NIGHTMARES WAS I

his voice sounds like it’s coming from a vintage record player and it’s definitely in black and white with a smattering of static and just a slight flavor of tin and honestly i love that for me

Gwyn’s literally one of those old door stoppers you know like the little stick on the bottom of the door and sometimes you pull it all the way to one side and then let go and it’s like FWOBBLEFWOBBLEFWOBBLE and you’re like “OOOOOOH”

JEAN VALJEAN

ARMS UPPPPPPPP GO BACK AND BOIIIIIIIIIIING

LOVE that dude. Amazing.

did he just spit actually? he physically can’t? at least traditionally?

steppy leggies!

one more time and then i’ll move on. just one more.

rewound too far i’m now back at “Ursus If You Don’t Let Go Of That Boy’s Wrist”

come on through that curtain Gwynlit i am Ready for You.

I’M THE STUUUUUUFFFFF OF YOUR NIGHTM

i want this played at my funeral and i want mr. maskell to be there to dance to it

so i guess in this version his limbs just short-circuit at different times huh because i mean genuinely for real his elbows just seem to nope out every now and then

this right here is what mr. hugo meant when he said, if not in as many words, that you were a ten.

ARRRMMMS UP! ANNNND BAAAAAAACK AND

B O U N C E

he has the x factor

love how he just shuffles back through the curtain like that one gif of the yellow dude being absorbed into the bushes

JOJO I LOVE YOUR DRESS WHAT

Dirry-Moir’s voice is nice even if it’s Very Different

fr jojo that’s actually kinda cute

Osric my dear i Love You

and now they’re all dirilious

dilirius

dilirious

dileros

d e l i r i o u s ?

that

Dea and Gwyn just dropped out of the sky

awww mojo came to check on him

Mojo’s nudging at Gwyn’s arm and Gwyn’s Not Having It

Ursus you’re banned from touching him i am Mad At You

Gwyn’s having another attack in this version it is constantly happening. has this boy sipped any sauce yet?

he just stood up and now he’s like

HE’S DOING HAND FLAPS HE’S GOT FLAPPY HANDS HE’S ACTUALLY. WHAT. FLAP FLAP FLAP I LIKE IT I AGreE WITH THIS

ooh he reacts a little bit to “all the other fairground freaks”

FIDDLING WITH THE BANDAGES

Ursus sounds Angery

 oh. gwynlit :( he’s cryin :( on “I don’t believe you” :(

😭💀😭💀

these two have PROBLEMS in this version and i am Hurt

he’s doing hand things again

VOCAL THINGS

this is canon now

DEA JUST HELPED HIM WITH THE CRIMSON LETHE

it looked like he was too jittery or something so she puts his hand over his and helps him bring the bottle of crimson lethe up to his mouth

im really just filling up a shopping cart over here

did quake just clock ursus over the head or did someone get shot boy golly that was loud

wait though with the little noise that Gwyn did a second ago, we hear it after the crowd starts doing it but in-universe did they hear him do that at some point and now they’re imitating it 👀 

THAT CRISMSON LETHE JUST KNOCKED HIM OUT HE JUST FLOPPED FORWARD AND DEA HAD TO CATCH HIM 📝👀

oh. “The Grinning Man Is Not To Be Disturbed” is because he’s straight up out of it after having the medicine. oh no

Mojo just growled as Gwyn stood up and i heard it wrong and thought there was like a cartoon sound effect like “LOOK HOW FAST HE JUST STOOD UP. WOOSH.” but no it was a growly bark

he held onto Dea’s hand and kind of hopped over to the door that was neat

i’m gonna start holding everything i read Like That

shjshgsj he just held it Like that and Stared before switching to holding it normally and actually opening it

random Itch

her outfit really is cute though i like this costume

“who I aaaaaaaaaam” stop the voice is too good sir

okay but that maneuver really is illegal y’all ought not to have done that

wait wait lemme go back and

i don’t know how i feel about that

one more time lemme check lemme just ch

*phil collins voice* oh lord

there is no reason

gwyn sweetheart you are not strong enough. she will kill you.

i now know what song this reminds me of now and i’m so upset

why do they have the outside of the cart looking like a happy meal box

GWYN WHAT WAS THAT

he just did the squawkiest laugh oml

HOLD UP

“you must see or you’ll never know” “YOU’RE RIGHT! Something is changing! She wants to meet me!” WHAT IS THIS CONVERSATION

HE SOUNDS HAPPY

SHE KNOWS HE’S GOING TO MEET SOMEBODY AND SHE ACTUALLY KISSES HIM LIKE “You must go!” WHAT

boy i know you did not just finger-gun goodbye at the blind girl

he’s walking in place now and i’m crying

she told him he must go now and he took it so literally he left while she was still talking

THE WALKING IN PLACE THOUGH. IT’S IN SLOW MOTION. I AM DISTRAUGHT

did you just wave at someone Gwyn

he’s so doped up

i think he thinks he’s about to get beat

okay in this version he doesn’t Let Osric grab his hand Osric just kind of grabs him and then Gwyn snatches his hand away and Osric’s like “i’ve got a funny feeling in my hand” meanwhile Gwyn puts his hand up and looks at it for a second and shakes down his sleeve and then he’s all hands-on-hips and looking at Osric like >:?

i think he just did the sound with them

and he’s having another attack.

he just fell back and they caught him and one person grabbed his hand and yanked him forward and now they’re picking him up

idk think he knows he’s alive in this version

AJSHFAJGAH THEY’RE DOING HIM LIKE THE PUPPETS IN THE BEAUTY AND THE BEAST DANCE SEQUENCE THEY JUST TOSSED THAT BOY LIKE A FRESHLY-LAUNDERED BEDSHEET

he ain’t well sir

that’s all for now!

[aprettystrangeblog]

Heya! I really love your fics! I saw a prompt you posted awhile back for IronStrange week and I keep thinking about it. Would you be willing to write it? The prompt was “Stephen’s magic goes haywire when he gets nervous, excited, or embarrassed around Tony and chaos ensues as a handful of mischievous Avengers continually set the two up AU”.

Sure! I’m always happy to do requests of my own prompts!! Ya’ll are always free to send me some!

Word Count: 1051

Tags/Warnings: #slightly explicit, #mild cursing, #an abundance of pda

——————–

The first time it happened, Stephen nearly portaled the two of them away.

Tony had been asking about his hands one afternoon, curious and concerned. It had been a completely casual, sweet moment as the other man examined them– but as Tony brushed his fingers over Stephen’s, a shower of orange sparks appeared above and fell around them like rain.

Tony yanked his hand back, staring at Stephen’s sling ring.

“Did, did I do something? Did I activate your ring? Shoot, I’m sorry..”

Stephen was equally as surprised, his face the color of the sun as he hastily closed the portal that appeared above them, not bothering to see where it led.

“No, Tony, you didn’t do anything,” he reassured him, twisting his ring, his eyebrows furrowed. He’d never opened a portal on accident before. He’d never done ANY kind of magic on accident before– if only it were that easy, he thought with a rueful smile. He held out his hands to Tony again, and when he leaned forward to hold them this time, his scars glowed a barely noticeable orange.

“That just… can happen sometimes, when a sorcerer feels particularly emotional or flustered. I’m sorry for scaring you like that.”

Tony merely smiled and ran a thumb over Stephen’s palm. “I… made your magic go haywire? Like, like a short-circuit?”

“…if you wanna call it that?”

“…whoa.”

The next time it happened was during a meeting with all the other team members in the compound. Stephen had grumbled something sarcastic in response to another teammate’s suggestion, and Tony laughed and leaned over to ruffle his hair, adding some snarky comment onto his. The touch was casual again, but gentle and sweet enough to fluster Stephen just a little. And before anyone knew what was happening, a sound like shattering glass filled the meeting room as the wall behind them was smashed into a thousand pieces, making everyone at the table descend into panic.

It took a moment to restore order to the meeting, and another very embarrassed minute for Stephen to gather himself, apologize, and repair the wall with a twitch of his fingers. But by then several of the attendees were eying Tony and him suspiciously; Nat in the corner even had a wicked smirk on her face. And though Stephen excused himself for the rest of the meeting and offered no explanation, he was almost certain the others had figured out what was going on.

His theory was proven correct when the evening afterwards Natasha came by to ask for a cup of his ‘infamous’ herbal tea and chat about Tony.

“He seems to really enjoy being around you,” she suggested casually, her eyes watching him sharply, most certainly taking note of his blush. He rubbed his chin, looking away from her gaze.

“Do you think so? Tony–”

Without further word, the mug on the table next to him crumbled into sand, the tea inside floating away in a sheen of mist.

And Nat looked as though she’d just cracked a secret code.

***

The next week was a blur of magic and pure embarrassment.

On Tuesday, Clint ‘accidentally’ bumped into Tony in the kitchen, conveniently knocking into him sideways into Stephen’s arms. Every appliance in the room went off at the exact same time as the sorcerer helped Tony up, both of them cringing as the microwave shrieked alongside the kettle and the toaster oven.

Only later did Stephen spot Wanda hiding behind the wall, giggling as she rewatched a recording of it on her phone.

A day and a half later the pair found themselves stuck in an ‘experimental web’ of Peter’s, struggling pointlessly against the sticky, sappy formula that had bound them together. Tony begged for the kid to free them, trying to save Stephen from further embarrassment, but it was too late– the room was flooded with huge purple bubbles that only seemed to grow larger with each movement Tony made.

Stephen got rid of them eventually, but the hall outside still smelled of lavender bubbles for the rest of the week.

On Friday Stephen discovered that even his own cloak was getting in on the game; while his back was turned it reached out to fondle Tony, and when the shorter man behind him jumped and whispered, “Did you just grab my ass?!” it started snowing right then and there in his lab.

The miniature blizzard was nothing, however, compared to the fact that the entire compound turned a frightening shade of sapphire blue for the rest of the weekend after some of the team caught Stephen with his arm around Tony on the couch.

And so the pair learned to keep things a little more private.

It didn’t always stop Stephen’s haywire magic, though.

The first time their lips brushed against each other in a gentle goodnight kiss outside Tony’s room, flowers grew between the cracks in the walls and roses sprouted from the floorboards, blooming and blossoming and wilting in time with the touch. The first afternoon Tony’s hands found their way to Stephen’s lower hips, every pane of glass in the Sanctum shattered with his sigh. And when the sorcerer cradled his tired boyfriend in his arms, the bed beneath them dissolved away into the misty softness of a cloud.

It was still nothing compared to the first night they spent together.

The feeling of butterflies was quite literal when Stephen gently pulled off Tony’s clothes, his blushing face lit by nothing but a small glowing flock of them. Their delicate wings brushed his face and dissolved away into fireworks as Tony pulled him down onto the mattress, chuckling. And all around them the walls broke apart into trillions of stars and galaxies when his back arched and Tony whispered his name, the light of a thousand suns making his eyes glow with love Stephen never knew existed before.

When they were no longer wrapped in the fabric of space itself, the sorcerer drew Tony close, wrapping him sungly in his own blankets and warmth and affection that no magic could ever replicate. And as they held each other through the night, Stephen drifting off to sleep as his magic faded with him, Tony decided that there was nothing else he wanted more in this world than what he had now.

Magic.

[staircasttext]

Ep 28 Transcript: Adam Sandler as Darkstripe

Episode 28

[intro music]

PAZ: Hi everyone, welcome back to Stairway to StarClan, a Warriors cat reread pawdcast. I'm Paz. 

JULIAN: I'm Julian.

LIZ: And I'm also Paz.

PAZ: You can't be– you [splutters].

JULIAN: You got to impersonate me sometime.

PAZ: Yeah, why am I the only one being impersonated?

JULIAN: Switch it up.

LIZ: Shorter name to spell in the Discord nickname bubble.

JULIAN: I see.

PAZ: Stop impersonating me.

LIZ: Fine, fine.

PAZ: You can be Graystripe British or American.

JULIAN: For those of you who are not in our Discord and can't see this– 

PAZ: Which is everyone. 

JULIAN: Which is everyone, Liz just changed her name to Julian.

LIZ: Who's that? Anyway, back to our podcast.

PAZ: Yeah, our Warriors podcast. We read Rising Storm, chapters four to six. They're pretty short. Not a lot happened, but we will discuss them. That was my bad in picking chapters, but it's fine.

LIZ: We need some time for segments. Quite some time.

JULIAN: Maybe we'll have some animal googling or something.

PAZ: Oh, we do love to do that.

LIZ: Oh my god, a mosquito just landed right outside the window. You're not getting in. Okay, sorry. Let's go.

PAZ: Okay, I'll go into the summaries. So chapter four. Fireheart dreams about Spottedleaf. Instead of speaking to him, she just keeps walking away from him as other ThunderClan cats try to get his attention, most notably Bluestar, Cloudpaw, and Whitestorm. Whitestorm wakes him up, telling him the patrol is waiting and that Bluestar wants to see him. Meanwhile, Fireheart wonders if Spottedleaf has abandoned him. 

In her den, Bluestar tells Fireheart that StarClan has summoned her to the Moonstone and that Fireheart is the only one she trusts enough to take with her, despite Fireheart's protests. Whitestorm takes over patrol organizing and looking after the camp per Bluestar's orders. 

In Yellowfang's den, she gives Fireheart and Bluestar Yellowfang– she gives Fireheart and Bluestar traveling herbs. She also chides Cinderpelt for forgetting parts of her medicine cat training, knowing that she still feels guilty about Silverstream's death. Before Fireheart and Bluestar leave, Fireheart argues with Cloudpaw about not respecting the warrior code and the rest of the clan, ordering him to stay behind and hunt with Runningwind.  

Chapter five. Fireheart is concerned about the circuitous route Bluestar is taking to the Moonstone and potentially meeting hostile cats from other clans. Bluestar takes them deeper into RiverClan, and Fireheart hopes he can catch a glimpse of Graystripe despite himself, and realizes that Bluestar must wish to see Mistyfoot and Stonefur too. They narrowly avoid the RiverClan deputy Leopardfur. 

Bluestar reminisces about training Fireheart, saying that she's proud of him and how trustworthy he is. But she becomes bitter when Fireheart protests that the other ThunderClan warriors are trustworthy too. Fireheart realizes how much lasting damage Tigerclaw's betrayal has done to her. Bluestar says Graystripe also sucks for not warning her like Fireheart did. True. 

They make it to WindClan territory, and Fireheart worries about how tired Bluestar looks. Three WindClan cats find them and refuse to let them pass because ThunderClan previously gave Brokentail shelter. Bluestar is insistent that StarClan gives them the right to travel to the Moonstone and seems ready to fight. 

Chapter six. Fireheart convinces Bluestar to return home, saying they can't fight three cats at once. The WindClan cats escort them as far as Fourtrees, but Fireheart swears that they won't be stopped next time. On the way back, Bluestar says StarClan must be angry and not want to share dreams with her. It reminds Fireheart of what the elders said about his own naming as deputy, and he wonders if StarClan is truly angry with ThunderClan. 

Everyone is shocked at Bluestar and Fireheart's early return. No leader has ever been turned back from their journey to the Moonstone. Fireheart then finds out Cloudpaw left to hunt without Runningwind. When Cloudpaw does return with freshkill, Fireheart suspects he ate while he was out and criticizes Cloudpaw again for not respecting the warrior code. Fireheart punishes Cloudpaw by saying he won't be going to the gathering with the other apprentices. He fears Cloudpaw will not become a true warrior. And that's the end of our readings this week.

Bluestar... 

LIZ: The vibes are troubling.

PAZ: Yeah, Bluestar's vibes are troubling.

LIZ: You okay, queen?

PAZ: Pick your head up, queen.

JULIAN: Very worried about her. 

LIZ: You okay?

PAZ: Yeah, she's very paranoid. Very, like, I don't know. Just worried about things that don't seem to be a problem.

JULIAN: Right, and not worried about things that are actively very concerning.

PAZ: Yeah, and the chapters really go out of their way to point out physically she is not doing well either. She's like, very old and frail all of a sudden.

JULIAN: Yeah, like when they're climbing– we'll get into it, I think– but like when they're in Windclan territory, and like climbing up some rocks, it's like specifically mentioned that she's very, very slow.

PAZ: Yeah, like she's out of breath and almost not landing her jumps. She's not doing good.

LIZ: Yeah, it's sad.

PAZ: Yeah, it is sad.

LIZ: I did like the bit of not retconning, but there's a part where she's like, remember all the times I trained you or something? Like it was more than one paragraph.

PAZ: I think the text is convinced it was more than one paragraph. But I've read the books. I know it was one paragraph.

JULIAN: All the days they spent together or something.

PAZ: I feel like the book is convinced Bluestar's been like on screen more than she actually has been. Like I mean, she's been on screen, but not as much as you would think.

LIZ: No. I don't mind it. I'll take this rag spinning.

PAZ: Yeah, it's fine. 

JULIAN: Yeah. I definitely am surprised reading these at how little she's actually on screen, because I remember her being a lot more on screen. And I think that's because of the narrative.

PAZ: Yeah, I feel like she'll be a lot more on screen this book. So that's something. But like previous books, she kinda only showed up in and out of scenes to like, do some leader stuff. And that was like it really. Definitely on screen less than Tigerclaw I feel like.

JULIAN: Yeah, Tigerclaw is on scene constantly.

LIZ: Tigerclaw stole the fucking show.

PAZ: Bring him back.

LIZ: No, he already wants– he's gonna come back. You don't have to bring him.

JULIAN: Yeah, I was gonna say, I don't know that we have to do any bringing. I think he'll make an appearance.

PAZ: Well, tick tock. Where is he?

JULIAN: Can we talk about the Spottedleaf dream?

PAZ: Yeah, let's go back right to the beginning.

LIZ: Ugh. 

PAZ: Spottedleaf, she was too busy walking away to be sexy this time. It's very concerning to Fireheart.

LIZ: It's very serious.

JULIAN: "Fireheart waited eagerly for her gentle greeting." But she didn't press her nose to his cheek.

PAZ: How could this be?

LIZ: She's mad at him.

JULIAN: Yeah, I love that his assumption is that StarClan has sent him this dream. But it's like, yeah, StarClan sent you an anxiety dream about not being a good deputy.

PAZ: I guess he just hasn't had normal dreams for a hot second.

LIZ: I mean, does he just have anxiety dreams all the time, maybe, and he just thinks every single one is also like a vision?

PAZ: Oh, no. 

JULIAN: That sounds hellish.  

LIZ: I think he has. Like what good dreams does he really have?

PAZ: Well, maybe he dreams a lot about like little mice and we just don't hear about it.

LIZ: Yeah, but like, he's constantly on the verge of starvation. For the last three books, something's tried to kill him, and that was his gym teacher. He's worried about his mother figure dying like all the time now. Lost his best friend. Has just the rowdiest nephew. Is a feral cat, just like in a cult. I don't know

PAZ: Yeah, he gets so worried over this, mostly over Spottedleaf not being close to him with her sweet scent anymore. It does make the point, which I found extremely funny, that it just like pointed out that "Spottedleaf had always been closer to him in dreams than she had ever been in life." And it's like yeah, cause she died literally halfway through the first book. He knew her for maybe like two months.

JULIAN: There's one line here about like "the pain of the medicine cat's death so many moons ago was as raw as ever." And it's like was it? Because you forget about her constantly.

PAZ: Yeah, I forget about her constantly. 

LIZ: Spottedleaf who? 

PAZ: Sometimes I can still hear her voice.

LIZ: Spottedleaf is in a real like Dishonored heart of the empress situation.

PAZ: Yeah, can some other StarClan cats step in here and give her a break? Why's she gotta be the one to do all this? Not like– this is not a StarClan dream. But you know.

LIZ: She's the sexiest cat. You've got to give the fucking visions to whoever's the next chosen one or whatever.

PAZ: Damn. You're right.

JULIAN: Whitestorm is carrying the whole clan on his shoulders.

PAZ: Oh my god. I know. And he's so chill about it, too. He's never like, Fireheart, what are you doing? Or why do I have to do all this work? He's just like, let me help, buddy.

LIZ: It's like, it's so helpful. It's almost like a bit too convenient for me, but I'm just relieved. Like, God, thank God. Not too convenient like suspicious, but you know, just convenient like narratively. but I'm fine with it. I'm happy for this.

PAZ: Well, we know he's very normal and competent and that he was like– I think we knew from the first book, we knew that people thought he would be deputy when Tigerclaw was made deputy, so.

LIZ: He's just like a stand up guy. 

PAZ: He's just so normal.

JULIAN: Real logistics guy.

LIZ: He knows how to use Excel.

PAZ: Absolutely.

LIZ: He bought the subscription for the clan.

JULIAN: God, Chickpea's scratching at the door. I think it's fine. 

PAZ: Sorry, what?

JULIAN: Oh, Chickpea's scratching at the door.

PAZ: No, Chickpea. 

JULIAN: Han has class tonight, so she's blocked from both rooms, which means– 

PAZ: Oh no. 

LIZ: No. You've got to get her the toy we got for Kip.

PAZ: It's great.

LIZ: She'll destroy it probably. But it'll be worth it.

JULIAN: She has really enjoyed– thank you for turning me on to worms on strings, because she loves the worm on a string that I got her.

PAZ: Oh hell yeah.

LIZ: Who doesn't? 

PAZ: I feel that, Chickpea. Oh, also want to point out that we did get some queens going back to being warriors, which I think is a first on screen. 

LIZ: That's good. 

JULIAN: Oh, I missed that. 

PAZ: Yeah, they can still advance their career after childbirth. 

JULIAN: Which queen was that? 

PAZ: It was two of them. Brindleface and Frostfur are now both back like being warriors. 

JULIAN: Hell yes.

LIZ: Maybe a new workplace romance? 

PAZ: Oooh.

LIZ: It's like oh, we came back at the same time. Hey! Wow, your cubicle's right next to mine? Oh, we brought in freshkill at the same time. Oh, this is so awkward.

PAZ: Yeah, I mean, we're still in the period of Warriors when it's like, I don't know who the dad is, unless it's Bramblekit, in which case we do know, cause he's evil and looks exactly like Tigerclaw.

JULIAN: Right, assigned evil at birth.

PAZ: Yeah, so this is a period of Warriors where I'm like, I feel like these cats are all just polyamorous. It's not clearly defined yet.

JULIAN: Oh Bluestar, this is such a bad idea.

PAZ: Yeah, then we move to Bluestar being like, I need to go talk to StarClan pronto. It's just me and you. They need to invent cell phones to StarClan.

JULIAN: Everyone else in the clan is like, are you sure? This seems like a bad idea. Longtail does it racistly, but you know, some of the other warriors are like, uhhh, is that wise? No, it's not wise.

PAZ: Yeah. But when Fireheart tries to convince her, she just loses it, so.

JULIAN: Oiiii. You would think she would have learned that listening to Fireheart is a good idea, but I don't think she's...

PAZ: No, that has not quite sunk in.

LIZ: It's the whole point of like, why she trusts him. But like... and yet....

PAZ: And yet.

LIZ: Ugh. It's like, you're my favorite child. Fuck all my other children. I won't listen to you anymore, though.

PAZ: Her paranoia trumps over her trusting Fireheart because she distrusts everyone else so much that like, only him.

JULIAN: She trusts Fireheart except for when he says that she should trust other people. 

LIZ: It's very frustrating to read, but in a way that is good. It's like, this is very painful.

PAZ: Yeah, I also got the sense that she was going because she hadn't heard from StarClan, which is like, that's also pretty sad. Like, desperation move.

JULIAN: Oh, StarClan hasn't showed up in my dreams. So I'm gonna go knock on their door, basically.

LIZ: Is that what happens when like, you fuck up as a leader is like, you just–

PAZ: Ghosted.

LIZ: You don't– it is like ghosted. But it's like, oh, do I not have my divine thing anymore? Is it just gone? My divine authority?

PAZ: Well, didn't we read at some point that leaders can't lose their lives unless they give it up willingly? So we know that, which is very funny.

LIZ: God. 

PAZ: But I guess StarClan can just ghost you at the very least if they're not happy with you.

JULIAN: It's also like– I don't know. Reading this like through Fireheart's POV is, like you were saying, Liz, very painful. Because we're seeing this person that he really looked up to, who's still reminiscing, oh, remember when I was your mentor? She's reminiscing one moment and then the next moment kind of irrationally paranoid.

PAZ: Yeah, it's very much periods of more and less lucid. 

LIZ: And yeah, specifically about that scene you talked about, Julian. It's so like– I joked about how abruptly they mentioned all the training sessions, because it was one paragraph. But I think the narrative really does sell it, because Fireheart is so sad. And seeing her be slightly confident for a second makes him so happy. And then he's so happy too when she says she's proud of him, because he's definitely not getting that right now from other people. And then it just switches immediately into suspicion and bitterness.

JULIAN: Yeah. I mean, I think it really– this is very clearly kind of– like the real life implication here is that she's starting to have dementia or something. That there's some sort of something going on. And like, it is written very realistically for how that works with people.

PAZ: Yeah, it's sad. It's sad on a personal level, but now also Fireheart is kind of in charge but with no warning, so it's very stressful too for him.

JULIAN: Oh, there is, before they leave, the moment where Yellowfang is like sneaking chamomile in there.

LIZ: Oh god, it's so sad.

PAZ: Yeah, Yellowfang I think has an idea what's happening.

LIZ: It's an interesting reaction too because I think it's really consistent with her character that she's not going to talk about this. She's just gonna slip you extra herbs that she won't tell you about.

JULIAN: Right? We're not gonna have a conversation about this. I'm just gonna slip you like anti-anxiety herbs.

LIZ: And it's just like chamomile, but like, nope, I won't tell you at all.

PAZ: They're cats, though. That's hard stuff. I don't actually know. I don't have the fucking herb guide.

JULIAN: I mean, that's what it does for humans. I don't like– or has a mild effect that way for humans. I don't know what–

PAZ: I gotta google it on Warriors wiki. I need to know the exact effects.

JULIAN: "Eating too much of it can cause diarrhea, vomiting and a lack of appetite. But a small amount can be okay."

PAZ: What the fuck is herb called blazing star?

LIZ: That's my Warriors OC obviously. It's a cat that fell to earth.

PAZ: Oh. 

JULIAN: Ooh.

PAZ: Okay, the Warriors wiki says the effect is "strengthens the heart and soothes the mind. Also given to traveling cats for strength."

JULIAN: I'm unclear whether they mean heart like, metaphorically or physically.

PAZ: I think metaphorically, because it also soothes the mind. 

LIZ: I think that's just the tea effect, right? There's no extra cat effect being written in, maybe.

PAZ: I guess not. 

JULIAN: Yeah.

PAZ: Yeah. I don't know how much it helped her.

LIZ: No. 

JULIAN: Yeah, it doesn't seem to have done a lot. God, does she mistrust Yellowfang too?

LIZ: No!

PAZ: I don't know. 

LIZ: Nothing that registers so far. This is just taking your cool doctor wife for granted now.

PAZ: But the Yellowfang scene also includes more of Cinderpelt being anxious over her doctor performance and like, messing up a bit. And at this point, Yellowfang is getting kind of annoyed with it. I'm like, she needs more positive reinforcement, Yellowfang.

LIZ: Like again, there's only so much you can do with slipping people chamomile and like being affectionately like acerbic instead of talking about stuff at all. I think Fireheart is also like, just tries to make eye contact or something with Cinderpelt and just doesn't have a chance, and it sucks. These three chapters are short, but they're very tense.

PAZ: Yeah, I mean, this whole book has been very tense so far. The vibes are pretty bad in ThunderClan camp I would say. And then Cloudpaw also comes back after that scene–

LIZ: Oh my god.

JULIAN: Oh my god. 

PAZ: –to be a little nasty teen.

JULIAN: Cloudpaw, fucking read the room.

PAZ: Truly.

LIZ: Cloudpaw going to shelve some Bibles in the fiction section.

PAZ: God.

LIZ: But also, like Fireheart's internal thoughts about him are so mean. Just–

PAZ: He's so mean.

LIZ: So mean.

JULIAN: I get that Fireheart is under a lot of stress. However, he does not handle Cloudpaw at all well.

PAZ: No, no. I think just being mean towards him is not gonna solve the problem because that's what you've already been doing, and he is not listening to you. So maybe try a different approach.

LIZ: This is like your fucking precious nephew from your beloved sister that you risked your whole thing for to bring him here. It was like a book ago that you were like worrying about, like, oh, is he gonna fit in? I hope he does well. What if the other kids make fun of him? Stuff like that. What happened to that? 

PAZ: I think a lot of it is like Fireheart doesn't want to be embarrassed by Cloudpaw being rowdy because now he's deputy and it's like– and he's already feeling very insecure about his position. Because I think later in the last chapter, he gets really stressed out about having to publicly scold Cloudpaw for not following his orders.

LIZ: Yeah, absolutely. 

JULIAN: Yeah, I think it's very much more about Fireheart than it is about Cloudpaw.

PAZ: I think Kip wants to leave. I'm gonna go let him out in case he needs to go to the bathroom.

LIZ: Okay. I can't wait to see him. I can just see Paz talking.

KIP: [tiny mew] 

LIZ: Hey. Hi Kippy. Pss pss pss. Wait, is he turning around? Sitting in front of the litterbox. Look at the window. Thinking. I think he just came out here to take the air.

PAZ: Okay, hi. 

JULIAN: Taking a turn of the room.

LIZ: He does that a lot, and I always think about the fucking like, Pride and Prejudice scene, you know, where they gotta walk around the stuffy horrible living room? 

PAZ: Yeah. 

LIZ: Oh no. Kip is just like sitting outside of the room now looking at the door.

PAZ: Well, he shouldn't have stood at the door like he wanted to go out. Well, he has to sit out there. 

LIZ: Sooo sad.

PAZ: He has to live with his decision. 

LIZ: So sad. Just staring at the door. Okay, let's podcast. Oh no, he's lying down.

PAZ: It's fine. Then they go. They start their journey. Bluestar decides we gotta go real close to RiverClan. So close.

LIZ: Into it, actually.

PAZ: I don't know. They don't go deep into it. I think it's like she kind of crosses the border like, very briefly a few times. Fireheart, desperate to see Graystripe. 

JULIAN: Oh, God. 

LIZ: [sighs] What are you gonna do if you see him?

PAZ: Not worth it. Yeah, what are you gonna do?

LIZ: It's gonna be so sad. He's with all those other gray cats where he belongs. There's only like, three of them in your clan.

JULIAN: We do find out that Leopardfur is a tortie, I think.

PAZ: Aw.

JULIAN: She's described as like, speckled in a way that makes me think, like speckled brown, that makes me think tortie. Although maybe I'm wrong.

PAZ: I like that idea.

LIZ: That's really cute. We'll get more Leopard...fur. Forgot her name immediately after you said it.

PAZ: She has a great name. Why does she get the other cool, great cat name besides Tigerclaw? 

JULIAN: Right?

LIZ: She's got her own thing going on.

JULIAN: There was Lion whatever the fuck, who died. Who got murdered.

PAZ: Yeah, whoever the fuck. Who cares?

LIZ: Lion... heart? Lionblaze, I know you don't like that guy. 

PAZ: Lionsnooze. 

LIZ: All right.

JULIAN: I think it is Lionheart. Yeah, it was Lionheart. 

LIZ: That's very cliche actually. I take it back.

JULIAN: Oh my god. Sorry. The picture of him is so busted-looking. 

LIZ: Oh no. 

JULIAN: Look at the way they drew him.

LIZ: Why does he have the–

PAZ: He looks like patches of grass.

LIZ: It looks like the lineart is underlaid with like, just like a very, very low res JPEG of like some macaroni and cheese.

PAZ: Yeah, it's beautiful.

JULIAN: Yeah, it's the wiki sprite. And because he has "thick fur like a lion's mane," they've drawn it as like, tufts.

PAZ: It looks like how you draw grass as a child. 

JULIAN: Yep. It's incredible. He's also got this ruff that makes it look like he's wearing a fancy coat.

LIZ: Grandma, it's me.

PAZ: Rest in peace.

JULIAN: Lionblaze walking through the Upper East Side on his way to get a bagel.

PAZ: Why didn't he come back to be the sexy StarClan cat? They died at like the same time. Missed opportunities.

JULIAN: Damn. 

LIZ: Fireheart didn't meet him, though. Did he?

PAZ: I assume he met him as much as he met Spottedleaf. 

LIZ: Fair enough. 

PAZ: He was alive when Fireheart showed up.

JULIAN: Oh, he's Cinderpelt's dad. 

PAZ: What? 

JULIAN: He's Cinderpelt's dad. 

LIZ: What?!  

JULIAN: Yeah.

LIZ: That sucks.

PAZ: It's fucking lawless what they decide who's what's father in the early series.

JULIAN: I know. They just sort of assign dads at random.

PAZ: Like I said, all the cats were like polyamorous back then. And also the don't kiss don't tell policy.

JULIAN: God, the RiverClan stuff is rough. It's also a little bit– Fireheart spends like a good page or two being like, why does Bluestar want to go to RiverClan so bad? And then remembers her kits.

PAZ: I know. They needed a, it's a new book, we need to do the exposition again segment.

JULIAN: I think it's just funny that he forgot about them.

PAZ: He has a lot going on, you know? They do almost get caught, and Bluestar's very like, like dismissive of it. Bluestar, you are weak and sickly.

LIZ: She's so old.

JULIAN: She's very dismissive of the fact that anything bad could happen to them this whole journey.

PAZ: Yeah, she's also very dismissive of Graystripe, which was extremely funny. The exchange is like, Bluestar is like, I can't trust anyone.I can only trust you. You're the only one who told me about Tigerclaw. And Fireheart's like, I'm the only one who knew. And then she's just like, Graystripe knew and he didn't tell me. And Fireheart cannot respond, because she's right. It's so fucking funny. 

JULIAN: It's so funny.

LIZ: Yeah, like the very objective summaries say, Graystripe also sucks.

PAZ: It's so funny the narrative pointed it out because yeah, he did also  know and literally washed his little hands of it

LIZ: Just like, not my business. Not looking. I'm looking in the other direction.

PAZ: You know, Bluestar may be losing some of her reasoning skills, but she's spot on with that.

LIZ: It is very funny that Fireheart for like a hot second is like thinking, why does Bluestar also want to go to RiverClan? Does she also want to see Graystripe?

PAZ: No, Fireheart, you're the only one who wants to see Graystripe. The only one in the whole forest.

JULIAN: We don't even want to see Graystripe.

PAZ: No, I don't think RiverClan wants to see Graystripe. 

JULIAN: Oh god. How do you think he's doing?

LIZ: Bad.

PAZ: Probably bad. I was like, Fireheart, I don't think he's gonna be on patrol. He's probably on house arrest.

LIZ: Babysitting. I mean, not babysitting, because he's a dad. He's just looking after his own children, I hope. 

PAZ: I hope so. 

LIZ: Maybe if they're like his own children, he won't just fuck off.

JULIAN: I think he will. It sounds like he is very invested in taking care of the kids. So I think he will be good about that part.

PAZ: His one saving grace.

LIZ: Yeah. I think the narrative is like, definitely positioning him to go on the up from the very, very, very, very, very low that he was before.

PAZ: Yeah, yeah, for sure.

LIZ: Oh, there's also like, another cute little cat saying from when Fireheart does realize that Bluestar does not want to see Graystripe. It's "then it hit him like a fledgling dropping into his paws."

JULIAN: Aw.

PAZ: I love the cat sayings.

JULIAN: They're so good. 

PAZ: Kitties.

JULIAN: I did do– we hadn't done a said count for this book yet. 

PAZ: Oh, how could we forget?

JULIAN: So I did do a quick search. And we have 29.

LIZ: Oh! 

JULIAN: One of which is a dialogue tag. 

PAZ: [gasps] Is this is our first? 

LIZ: Who is this one?

JULIAN: It's our second, because Mistyfoot got to say "said" last book.

PAZ: Did she? I thought it was just like– I thought it was like not as dialogue. Wow.

JULIAN: No, it was an actual dialogue tag last time. 

PAZ: That's two "said" as dialogue tags across four books, everyone.

JULIAN: Do you want to know who gets to say "said"? 

PAZ: Yes. 

JULIAN: It is... let's see. It's Fireheart.

LIZ: [gasps] Protagonist.

JULIAN: Yeah, it's his protagonist privilege. He gets to say "said."

LIZ: Fireheart and Mistyfoot.

PAZ: Mistyfoot got to do it because she's old. 

LIZ: That's true.

JULIAN: She's not old.

LIZ: No.

PAZ: Oh, wait, I'm thinking of Graypool. God, fucking all the RiverClan cats with their stupid mermaid names.

JULIAN: Mermaid names?

LIZ: You heard it here, folks. Okay, now that you've mentioned the "said" thing I'm looking at all of Bluestar's dialogue tags like in the scene, and she goes through a lot of them.

PAZ: She gets a "panted" as a dialogue tag.

JULIAN: Warned.

LIZ: She gets warned, snapped, remarked, went on.

PAZ: Demanded. She's going through a lot of emotions.

LIZ: Murmur. They're really mixing it up. It was pretty seamless to me, someone who's been reading I think four of these, right? So I may not even notice anymore.

JULIAN: Yeah, yeah. At this point. I don't notice anymore. 

PAZ: Yeah, it's just that–

LIZ: It's just "said" now.

PAZ: -that beautiful house style. Then we get to WindClan. Didn't go too well.

LIZ: Mm-mm.

JULIAN: Yeah, went pretty badly I would say.

PAZ: I was hoping they'd meet Onewhisker but no such luck. It was just three randos.

LIZ: One of them was– the apprentice was like, the baby that Fireheart helped.

PAZ: Was it? 

LIZ: Yeah, I think it mentioned that like the baby that Fireherat helped, like carry across.

PAZ: They mentioned the baby, but I don't think it was the apprentice. I think he was just reminiscing about the baby.

LIZ: Wow, Fireheart. That means you're old now.

PAZ: Yeah, they're still pretty pissed about Brokentail, which is fair.

JULIAN: Yeah, it's like it's understandable. It's also like, I get that you're pissed about Brokentail, but you shouldn't block off people's spiritual practices.

PAZ: Yeah, they are violating international law. So maybe don't do that.

JULIAN: Like, again, very understandable to be angry.

PAZ: Yeah, you can't just break the important like, land right spiritual role, though, just because you're angry.

LIZ: Such a stressful situation. Just imagine being Fireheart.

JULIAN: Oh my god. Reading this, I was like, just like imagining like, just him trying so hard to deescalate the situation that Bluestar has no interest in deescalating. 

LIZ: She was ready to throw down. 

PAZ: Yeah. She was like, if I die here, I die here. Let's go.

LIZ: Bluestar to the warriors, meet me in the snake hell pit. No, meet me in the rat pit, which is canonical. 

JULIAN: God. She can't go back in the rat pit. That's what got her last time.

LIZ: She doesn't care. 

PAZ: Yeah, she really doesn't at this point. He does manage to deescalate, though, by saying, we're just gonna leave. Good call, Fireheart. Yeah, but like I was saying earlier, I think Bluestar's desperation here to like the point of her not caring about her own safety does suggest to me she's like, being ghosted by StarClan. Because she just keeps repeating like no, like, StarClan, I have to speak with them.

LIZ: It's really sad. Oh, there is a part at the end of that, where Fireheart does just say like Brokentail died, and it doesn't really make a difference, because WindClan is just like, but you didn't kill him, did you? And Bluestar's like, of course not. And they're like, fucking knew it.

JULIAN: Oh my God, yeah.

PAZ: You should have lied. 

LIZ: You could have.

PAZ: You should have been like, yeah, we all fucking executed him publicly.

JULIAN: I mean, they still probably would have been mad about that because they like weren't allowed to participate.

LIZ: Yeah. I guess technically they did. If Yellowfang you know hadn't done it in secret and stuff.

PAZ: Yeah, only Fireheart knows that it was actually a murder. Like, for real. 

JULIAN: Right? 

PAZ: About that, Bluestar, I think ThunderClan are murderers. They get back to camp. Everyone's racist to Fireheart again.

LIZ: Ugh. 

PAZ: Fucking Dustpelt and Darkstripe show up and be like [whiny racist baby voice] why didn't you do anything, Fireheart? 

JULIAN: Hate them.

LIZ: He didn't want the President to die. 

PAZ: Yeah, right. 

LIZ: He didn't want his old lady mom to die.

PAZ: Yeah, I think it's also only him and Yellowfang that know that Bluestar only has one life left, though. I'm pretty sure. 

JULIAN: Yeah. 

PAZ: But still, you don't want your leader to just lose a life without needing to.

LIZ: For like a really stupid reason like, oh, we couldn't fucking just make the trip.

JULIAN: Right? Some real toxic masculinity coming out of Dustpelt and Longtail.

PAZ: For real. Oh my god. There's also a part where Darkstripe comes back with his apprentice, Fernpaw. And she's described as looking really tired. And it says like her fur is clumped and dusty. I'm just like, why did you give this poor sweet child this awful racist teacher?

JULIAN: Right. And she was like, she was the one who looked really nervous about having him as a mentor, too. Baby.

PAZ: Poor baby.

LIZ: What's he even teaching her?

PAZ: How to be mean.

LIZ: How to be mean and also racist

JULIAN: Dustpaw's racism lessons.

PAZ: It's Darkstripe, although I'm sure Dustpelt's also giving some racism lessons. 

JULIAN: I get the D names so mixed up. 

PAZ: I know. And they're both, like, shitty. It's like, not enough differentiation.

LIZ: I think we should have some like fuckin like, not like beautiful fancy cats also be like, evil. Instead of just like, very–

PAZ: Yeah, like fucking Dirttail.

LIZ: Yeah. Let's have all the dark cats be evil. This will be fine. 

JULIAN: Yeah. Yeah.

LIZ: Where's my evil orange cat?

PAZ: I guess Warriors really prescribes to evil names makes you evil, because that's just all ShadowClan. 

LIZ: I'm assuming like, it gets a little mixed up later.

PAZ: Yeah, I think so. I mean, we know they just get more and more with the names later. 

LIZ: So looking forward to that.

JULIAN: Right, there's no color assigned to Appledusk.

LIZ: Appledusk just sounds like some sort of fun cider.

PAZ: Yeah, it's like Halloween drink.

JULIAN: I would drink that like craft mead or whatever.

PAZ: Runningwind also shows up to be mean, but not racistly, more just like your student sucks. 

LIZ: Does Runningwind have an apprentice? 

PAZ: Yeah, Brightpaw. 

LIZ: Oh, I think I've already asked this. Sorry. But that's understandable. It's like, I'm busy.

PAZ: Yeah, then Cloudpaw has to get scolded for being a rowdy teen. Cloudpaw says something like– Fireheart's like, oh, why didn't you go hunting with Runningwind, and Cloudpaw's like, I prefer hunting alone. I'm like, you know what, I would also prefer hunting alone in this shitty clan where everyone wanted me to die exposed on a hill as a child.

JULIAN: Right. Do you think he knows or remembers about that?

PAZ: Well, I feel like some people still are pretty shitty towards him. 

JULIAN: Oh, yeah. People are definitely shitty towards him. I just, I don't know, does he know the extent of it?

PAZ: No, I think he was too young. I don't even know if his eyes were open when he was brought.

JULIAN: Aw.

LIZ: Aw. 

JULIAN: That's too little.

LIZ: I'm envisioning it. He's just like a little, like, white bean. 

PAZ: That's right.

LIZ: Like you put in chili. Do you put white beans in chili?

JULIAN: You can.

PAZ: You can. Fireheart's threat is Ashpaw and Fernpaw will become warriors before you if you don't step up your game.

LIZ: The ultimate like, teen threat, I think.

PAZ: Yeah, that'd be so embarrassing. You don't want to be a super senior, Cloudpaw.

LIZ: Fireheart should tell him about the time he was like, demoted from being a warrior to becoming like an apprentice again.

PAZ: But I think Cloudpaw was around for that.

LIZ: He was probably too young.

JULIAN: Yeah. Cloudpaw was like a kit at that point.

LIZ: He needs to remind him about it, like hey, buddy.

PAZ: What if Fireheart demoted Cloudpaw  to Cloudkit? He has the power.

LIZ: Demotes you to baby.

PAZ: That would teach him a lesson. That's kind of the end of all that reading.

LIZ: Yeah, they're slow chapters. They're just real tense.

PAZ: Yeah. A lot of emotional stuff happening, but not a lot of actual stuff happening.

JULIAN: Yeah. 

[meow]

JULIAN: What do we segment?

PAZ: I was saying we should read some of those casting lists, given the timeliness of Chris Pratt announced to be Mario. Beautiful casting choice, of course. No problems to be had. Exactly who I wanted to be Mario.

LIZ: Ugh. 

PAZ: But haven't you always wondered, well, what live action actors should be cast as a Warrior Cat? People online have answered this question for us.

LIZ: Extensively, actually. Where do we begin to start?

PAZ: Well, you were the one looking at them, Liz. Which one do you think we should check out?

LIZ: Apparently this is a thing you can do on IMBD, and I found a few of them. I don't want to spend too much time on this first one, because at the bottom is like just a summary that says, "I made this list to prove that literally anyone can make an IMBD list."

JULIAN: Oh, I see. 

LIZ: "Don't believe everything you read on the Internet, people."

PAZ: Well, this is a beautiful– this list is very funny. On the topic of Chris Pratt, I do wanna point out that–

LIZ: Yes?

PAZ: [laughing] They have cast Chris Pratt as Darkstripe, and I think actually that is correct.

LIZ: Yeah. God.

JULIAN: Logan Paul is Fireheart.

PAZ: This picture of Logan Paul, he's doing the I had to do it to 'em. Okay, you got to read the one below that too, of course.

JULIAN: Right, and then of course, Logan Paul as Fireheart, the counterpart for Graystripe would be Jake Paul.

LIZ: The way you said sounded a little like Jakepaw.

PAZ: Oh my god.

JULIAN: Of course for the MILF herself, for our beloved elderly cat, we have Ariana Grande.

PAZ: As Bluestar. That's right.

JULIAN: For our villain, you know, the actor you think of when you think of a villain, Drake Bell for Tigerclaw.

PAZ: I'm gonna be 100% real. I don't know who the fuck this guy is. Oh, Drake and Josh. 

JULIAN: Yeah. 

PAZ: Wow, he looks different. He looks– 

LIZ: Cause he's old. 

PAZ: It's... oh, the years have gotten to him.

JULIAN: He was born in 1986. So like, he's up there.

LIZ: Oh my god.

PAZ: Looking a little haggard.

LIZ: Um, we can go on. This one hurts a little. 

PAZ: Yeah.

JULIAN: For our sweet gay baby boy Ravenpaw, we have Tom Holland.

LIZ: Ugh.

PAZ: That's a microaggression.

LIZ: Someone wants that. 

JULIAN: For Sandpaw, we have Billie Eilish.

PAZ: Was Billie Eilish in a movie? Sure, I guess.

JULIAN: Apparently she was in X-Men: Apocalypse. 

PAZ: Speaking of Lionheart, who we revisited today, Lionheart is Dwayne– sorry. Dwayne The Rock Johnson as Lionheart.

JULIAN: You know, they do say he's pretty big.

PAZ: Yeah. They do say that. See, that's what I'm saying about Lionheart should have been the sexy StarClan cat.

JULIAN: I can't stop laughing about their casting choice for the actual sexy StarClan cat. For the queen of sweet scents herself, Spottedleaf, we have Taylor Swift.

PAZ: Oh god. I definitely don't know who this next person is.

JULIAN: I've never heard of this person. Noah Monk as Smudge? He's from The Goldbergs, apparently.

PAZ: Hope someone gets a kick out of that.

JULIAN: Nic Cage is Longtail.

PAZ: I actually think their casting for Longtail, Darkstripe, and– 

JULIAN: I don't think they actually gave Chris Pratt a role.

PAZ: Oh, Chris– I guess maybe Chris Pratt's just there.

JULIAN: I think Chris Pratt is "I made this list to prove that literally anyone can make a list."

PAZ: Okay, we're sorry. Darkstripe is actually Adam Sandler.

LIZ: Yes.

JULIAN: Also very good.

PAZ: I'm choosing to believe Chris Pratt is Dustpelt then.

LIZ: Ugh.

JULIAN: Oh, there we go. 

PAZ: Oh, yeah. Incredible list. I don't know. I don't even know.

LIZ: If this was like 2000, let's say like, 15, and Warrior Cats was a bit more mainstream, this would have just been like a Buzzfeed listicle. I mean, it's a very successful book series, but it's not like, you know, bleep out Harry Potter here. But I think that's what it would have been. 

JULIAN: I'm scrolling down through the other IMDb one that you linked. And it's actually not bad, I would say.

PAZ: There are some funny ones here.

JULIAN: Like, I think Sigourney Weaver would make a great Bluestar.

PAZ: She would, it's just very funny to imagine.

LIZ: She came up multiple times when I searched for Warrior Cats movie fancasts for Bluestar.

PAZ: Is this a different Andrew Garfield as Graystripe? Oh my god. 

LIZ: Yes. 

PAZ: This is what the people want, apparently.

JULIAN: Um, I don't know a lot of these actors. Aaron Paul is Stormfur. That's so funny.

PAZ: We got to shout out Tallstar's actor. 

LIZ: Liam Neeson.

PAZ: That's right.

JULIAN: Are they just imagining Tallstar having like a very strong Irish accent?

LIZ: I don't see why not. 

PAZ: Good for him.

JULIAN: I think that could be fun. I think Ian McShane as Brokenstar is an incredible casting.

LIZ: A lot of these are just like voice actors that would probably make sense.

PAZ: Yeah, yeah.

JULIAN: You know, it's nice to see a fan cast that actually shouts out some voice actors.

PAZ: Yeah, like Laura Bailey is Princess.

LIZ: I'm sorry, I can only think of– that's the Critical Role lady, right? 

PAZ: Yeah, yeah.

JULIAN: Well, if we scroll a little further down, we do have Matt Mercer as Mudclaw?

PAZ: That's the WindClan cat.

LIZ: Oh, right. 

PAZ: Who was mean in these chapters. 

LIZ: All right, then we're fine.

PAZ: [laughter] Oh my God. They have cast Darkstripe as Tom Hardy.

LIZ: Why? 

PAZ: Gonna do his fucking Bane voice or whatever that Batman villain was.

JULIAN: Um.

PAZ: Yes?

JULIAN: Vic Mignogna as Onewhisker. How could they do this to us?

LIZ: Hate crime. This is a hate crime.

PAZ: That is homophobic. You can't. Also why is the picture of Vic Mignon– how do you say his last name? I don't know. 

LIZ: You don't have to.

JULIAN: Mignogna. 

PAZ: That guy.  Why is the picture of him a Star Trek picture?

JULIAN: I think he was– it looks like he was in Star Trek.

LIZ: Double hate crime.

JULIAN: Bryce Papenbrook, who apparently is a voice actor in Attack on Titan, is Cloudpaw, which is awful to me.

LIZ: Ugh.

PAZ: No, don't do that to our little atheist.

LIZ: Ugh.

JULIAN: [yelps] 

PAZ: People are really going hard for these Lionheart castings.

LIZ: Is Lionheart the one who died in this series?

JULIAN: Yes.

PAZ: Yeah, no, no, no, the first book. 

LIZ: Yeah. 

PAZ: Yeah. 

LIZ: Hello? 

PAZ: This person has decided Lionheart should be Viggo Mortensen.

JULIAN: Right above that we have Diane Keaton as Yellowfang.

LIZ: What the fuck? Diane Keaton opposite Sigourney Weaver as cats.

JULIAN: Honestly, incredible.

PAZ: That's right.

JULIAN: Emilia Clarke is of course Spottedleaf. She's even wearing leopard print in this picture of her that they've chosen.

PAZ: Perfect.

LIZ: They worked so hard for this.

JULIAN: Oh my god, the um– oh well. Nevermind, that's spoilers.

LIZ: All right. 

JULIAN: Sorry. 

LIZ: It's the channel I can't get into.

PAZ: There's some powerful pulls in this one, I would say.

JULIAN: I'll just say that the dad from Supernatural does make an appearance. And it's not who you think it should be.

PAZ: Our listeners can guess who that is.

JULIAN: Shall we go through the Wattpad?

PAZ: What is the Wattpad one? Hold on.

JULIAN: The Wattpad Warrior Cats Dream Cast. 

LIZ: You have to click on every name to see the fan cast.

PAZ: Oh my god. Wattpad is an evil website. What is this?

LIZ: I don't have any idea how it works.

JULIAN: It's so that you have to load more ads because there's more pages. It's like listicles. 

PAZ: [snorts]

JULIAN: Yet another Sigourney Weaver as Bluestar.

LIZ: Again, yep.

PAZ: Wow, these Fireheart castings. Let me just run through them. So this person has suggested Tom Holland as Fireheart. "(American accent or British. Either one is fine.)" But they have some other suggestions. "A happy middle could be Jake Gyllenhaal. For a more mature version, Ewan McGregor, Scottish or American accent.) 

LIZ: [laughter] Fireheart? 

PAZ: That's right, yeah.

LIZ: Okay.

JULIAN: Obviously for Sandstorm. I say obviously. It's Emily Browning.

LIZ: She's shown up a lot, too.

PAZ: I'm so bad at actors. I'm not really sure who that is. 

LIZ: I don't know. I've heard her name a lot.  All I know from–

JULIAN: She's in– 

LIZ: Yes?

JULIAN: She's in Devil Wears Prada. She's like the other assistant.

LIZ: Oh, okay.

JULIAN: I mean, I'm sure she's made other stuff also, but um.

LIZ: I said oh like I've seen– I've never seen the movie in my life. 

PAZ: Oh my god. This casting for Tigerclaw.

LIZ: Yes?

PAZ: It's Clancy Brown. I'm choosing to believe that this is not like– we're not like VAing cats. They're just dressed up like in Cats the musical. 

JULIAN: Yeah, this is Cats the musical CGI. 

PAZ: Yeah, that's right.

JULIAN: James Earl Jones's face will be on screen as Lionheart.

LIZ: We're skipping the one that brought us here, though.

JULIAN: Right, of course. 

PAZ: Of course, go ahead.

LIZ: Graystripe... is... Andrew Garfield British or American.

PAZ: God. 

LIZ: That's his whole name. Andrew Garfield British or American.  

PAZ: Oh my god. That's his full name. I always love to see who people cast as Darkstripe. Darkstripe, according to this person, should be Hugh Jackman.

JULIAN: Um, Cloris Leachman, who I don't know, is Yellowfang. But she looks like a real–

PAZ: She looks old.

JULIAN: A real grande dame. I think she would be good.

PAZ: Yeah.

JULIAN: I don't know this Spottedleaf. Bryce Dallas Howard? Who is she? Oh, she was the lady from Jurassic World.

PAZ: I'm sorry. I know this is jumping into the next series, but I had to see who they were casting for Ashfur. 

LIZ: Yes? 

PAZ: It's Dylan O'Brien from Teen Wolf.

LIZ: The vibes of this.

JULIAN: No!

PAZ: Oh man. Oh, that took it out of me.

LIZ: That's some Wattpad vibes.

PAZ: Wait, what?

JULIAN: They've cast Chris Pratt as Cloudpaw!

LIZ: What?!

PAZ: No!

LIZ: What?!

PAZ: Oh no.

LIZ: This wasn't the day for this. This is too close. I don't like it.

JULIAN: For my little boy? 

LIZ: Evil.

PAZ: Don't you dare. 

LIZ: Evil casting. Chrispaw. 

PAZ: Chrispaw, no. Well, wow.

JULIAN: Wow. 

LIZ: I can't go on.

PAZ: The fact that Chris Pratt showed up on a joke list but also then a legitimate list really, really gets you.

JULIAN: Horrifying. 

PAZ: What was the other thing you linked?

LIZ: Okay, it's like this thing called Ideas Fandom Wiki, which I think is just like, you make wiki pages for things that are your ideas, so it's just like fanon but in the style of a wiki page. And this is a wiki page that is at least six years old, because one of the comments is from 2015. And it's for a Warrior Cats film by Disney, to be released in 2026. If we're all here, can we just have a look at the mock up of the cover? Like poster?

PAZ: Very Disney cats.

JULIAN: Extremely Disney. Um, I mean they said on their logo that it's Disney's Warriors, based off the series. Fireheart looks very determined. Bluestar has eyeshadow.

LIZ: And eyebrows. She's real sexy for some reason.

JULIAN: Well, so is Sandstorm. Look at her down in the bottom right. 

PAZ: Yeah, she has more intense eye shadow.

JULIAN: She has very intense eye shadow. She has eyelashes, and she has the sexy head tilt.

LIZ: She's got like, she has the thing too that artists who do the Disney style on DeviantArt do with like, animals and stuff, where like it's not boobs. It's just fur. But it is boobs.

JULIAN: Right. Graystripe looks incredibly dumb. 

PAZ: Good.

LIZ: Accurate.

JULIAN: He's got his little mouth open, and he's just very perky. He's here to help. 

LIZ: Best friend.

JULIAN: He's your protagonist assistant JRPG best friend. Tigerstripe– Tiger– 

LIZ: Yes? 

JULIAN: We're four books in. I know the villain's name.

LIZ: It's really hard.

JULIAN: He's got a real growl going. He's growling. 

PAZ: Looking a little evil. 

JULIAN: Real eye glint red eyes situation. I hate that the whites of their eyes are tinted the color of their regular eyes.

PAZ: Not on Graystripe.

JULIAN: No, his are tinted a little yellow. It's just harder to tell because it's yellow. 

LIZ: But it does make him look like he has more human eyes, which I hate.

PAZ: This is just written in like, this is a real wiki article style. Completely made up facts. It's fascinating.

JULIAN: They've cast KJ Apa as Fireheart.

LIZ: Can we fuckin read the supporting roles? 

PAZ: Please. 

LIZ: Ansel Elgort, Estelle, Hugh Jackman again, Michelle Fairley, Gina Rodriguez, Giancarlo Esposito, and a bunch of other people who I don't know because I don't watch movies.

PAZ: Okay, who do you think– they don't attribute any characters to– 

JULIAN: Oh, they do.

PAZ: Oh they do? 

LIZ: All right. Oh boy. 

JULIAN: Scroll down and click on Cast.

PAZ: Oh boy. Oh my god.

LIZ: Liz, there's spoilers.

PAZ: Oh my god, this is so long. Holy shit.

JULIAN: There's spoilers, so.

LIZ: Basically every single person, right?

JULIAN: Yeah, don't look at it, Liz.

LIZ: I know, I'm rattling the bars of my no spoilers jail.

JULIAN: I'm sorry. Oh, this is a different cast. 

PAZ: What?

LIZ: Yeah, this is a wiki page that anyone can edit. So it has been edited since at least 2015. Last edited 17 days ago.

JULIAN: They've cast Mila Kunis as Sandstorm, Jeff Bridges as Jake, and Hugh Jackman as Tigerclaw.

PAZ: Hugh Jackman as Tigerclaw, you know, I could see it.

JULIAN: Who the fuck is Ryan Malgarini? Best known for his role as Harry Coleman in Freaky Friday? 

PAZ: What? 

LIZ: What? 

JULIAN: That's who they've cast as Fireheart. 

PAZ: What? 

JULIAN: Don't worry though, Paul Rudd is Graystripe.

PAZ: That's right. Oh my god, I'm sorry. I think somebody invented a villain. Invented a villain for this film. "Jim Cummings as Borzen, the blood hybrid of various clans that attacks the clans and Fireheart's archnemesis."

LIZ: Excuse me, what?

PAZ: "The film's hidden true main antagonist."

JULIAN: Yeah, they've also invented somebody called Embit. "A super dangerous tom and often nicknamed the forest assassin and also Graystripe's archnemesis."

LIZ: Graystripe's archnemesis? 

JULIAN: "The film's true secondary antagonist."

PAZ: I'm losing it.

LIZ: I'm still– I can't get over how their made up antagonist is someone who's a blood hybrid? Excuse me? You can't do that.

PAZ: I know some 12 year old has written this like fic or this RP with their friend, and they realized they could edit this to make their dreams come true. And they did with Borzen and Embit.

JULIAN: "The film also shared some similarities to Far Cry 3."

LIZ: Excuse me?

JULIAN: Ah yeah, there's a bunch of characterization things that they've apparently pulled from characters in Far Cry 3. I don't know anything about Far Cry 3. This seems like bad mental illness takes. 

LIZ: Can we read the ones for Borzen though?

JULIAN: Yeah. "Some true facts of Borzen are: he is often nicknamed Fraglans which one of the Latin translations of monstrous." 

LIZ: You know, cats love Latin. 

JULIAN: "There were myths, and legends focusing on Borzen." [shrieking]

LIZ: What is it?

JULIAN: I'm crying. [increasingly hysterical]

LIZ: Anyone?

PAZ: Go ahead, Julian.

JULIAN: [just absolutely losing it]

LIZ: Go on, Julian. You can do it.

JULIAN: I'm crying. Okay. I got it. Okay. [laughing] "His abilities are based off the Indominous Rex (another hybrid but from Jurassic World.)"

PAZ: What is this hybrid lore?

Oh my god. 

JULIAN: And then the last, the fourth one, in case we didn't already know, "Borzen is a blood hybrid." 

PAZ: That's right.

LIZ: Don't call someone that. Also realistically for cats, that's fucking everyone in Warriors.

PAZ: Hold on, I got to do a Google search. I gotta see if Borzen appears anywhere else. Gonna search Borzen blood hybrid.

LIZ: There's three comments.

JULIAN: Also, fraglans does not mean monstrous. It means, well, I mean, mostly it means like burning, like passionate. Scorching. You can use monstrous but that's for like a crime, like an outrageous crime. It's not like monster.

PAZ: I only got one hit for that search and it was this wiki article.

JULIAN: Oh my God. 

LIZ: This is the only place.

PAZ: Wait, holy shit. Disney Fanon Wiki, Borzen. "Borzen is the true main antagonist of Disney's 2021 animated film Warriors."

LIZ: Wow.

JULIAN: I have to–

PAZ: Holy shit. Holy shit.

JULIAN: Hold up. I got to go into the edit summaries. And I need to find out who added Borzen. 

PAZ: Can I please read Borzen's little bio on the Disney Fanon?

JULIAN: Yes please.

PAZ: Okay, "background information. Inspiration: Scar. Character information. Goal: to attack the clans (failed). Enemies: Fireheart, Graystripe. Paraphernalia: his teeth and claws."

LIZ: Wait a minute. Hey, that's taken. Tigerclaw.

PAZ: "Fate: gets killed by Fireheart." No, his paraphernalia. You know, his outfit. His teeth and claws.

LIZ: The Lion King song that Scar has, that's in it, isn't it?

PAZ: Is that what he says?

LIZ: I don't know.

PAZ: Oh my god, this is killing me.

JULIAN: Borzen is not here as of 2015.

PAZ: I feel like I'm assembling like a conspiracy board. Paper trails of Borzen. Oh my God, why won't this website load?

LIZ: You have to accept it for what it is. Borzen was a flash in the pan, a shooting star. Just for this, just for us? Isn't the appeal like also the mystery?

PAZ: I just got to know more about Borzen.

JULIAN: The mystery of Borzen. 

PAZ: I think that's the end of Borzen, is those two wiki articles. Wow.

JULIAN: Oh my god. This one has songs. 

PAZ: What?

JULIAN: Muppetlover16 I think is the person who has added Borzen.

LIZ: Nothing but support, except for the fact that you shouldn't call someone a blood hybrid.

PAZ: I don't understand, because– 

LIZ: Yes? 

PAZ: Who's the blood– the fucking another hybrid from Jurassic World? What is this intricate, like cross universe reality that Muppetlover has created?

JULIAN: Oh no, I'm sorry. It was not Muppetlover.  This is xxDinoflamerxx. 

PAZ: Oh my God. 

JULIAN: The creator of the original page.

LIZ: Wow.

PAZ: Oh my god.

LIZ: Did Borzen just get like– is Borzen like a sabertooth tiger, and then they like–

PAZ: Fuck yeah.

LIZ: Inserted his DNA into like a little kitty.

PAZ: Oh my god, you might be right. If it's from Jurassic World. Holy shit.

LIZ: But I think he's still like the size of a regular cat. He just looks like one of those sabertooth tiger thingies. Because I think if he was a regular size sabertooth tiger, just all the cats would get eaten.

PAZ: Yeah, he wouldn't have failed in attacking ThunderClan. 

LIZ: No. Maybe the enormous size of his teeth is like weighing him down when he's such a little guy.

PAZ: Yeah.

LIZ: That's definitely not the opposite of how it works, right?

PAZ: I need to also read the development and production section. "The film's development and production started when director Rob Minkoff talked to Max Charles on his Twitter video chat. He stated, 'hey, I remember that you were in Mr. Peabody and Sherman. Apparently, I am planning to make this film based off this book series. Care to join in?' And with Max accepting, the crew was assembled and the film was in active development." That is definitely how films are made. 

JULIAN: Uh-huh. 

LIZ: Yep. 

PAZ: Uh-huh.

LIZ: Yeah, I don't see any problem with that. 

JULIAN: Borzen appears on 18th January 2016 by Attackofthecatpeople69. Borzen gets the musical number "Why Me?" a song that was originally featured in Aladdin but later cut from the film. 

PAZ: Oh my god.

LIZ: Wow. Wait, Attackofthecatpeople69. 

PAZ: Nice. 

LIZ: This person is one of the three comments on this article. And what they comment is, "Disney wouldn't make the Warriors movie because Warriors is a ripoff of The Lion King (even though I like Warriors.)" 

PAZ: What?

JULIAN: Well, what do you mean– you have to believe in this project. 

LIZ: Hello?

JULIAN: You invented Borzen. 

PAZ: How?

JULIAN: They really wanted the release date to be July 23rd, 2021.

LIZ: Aw. 

JULIAN: When they first added Borzen in 2016.

LIZ: Aw.

PAZ: Hasn't happened yet.

LIZ: You know, keep hope alive. Just don't give up.

JULIAN: Oh, they do have Michael Jackson's "Bad" as part of the soundtrack when Tigerclaw appears.

PAZ: I'll have you know, this film was nominated for several Academy Awards.

LIZ: Fucking makes sense to me. Right? Obviously. 

PAZ: Obviously. 

LIZ: Obviously. 

PAZ: You know, "it generally received positive reviews from critics, though it also received criticism for its vague plot, cumbersome amount of characters, and efforts to combine several storylines into the film." 

JULIAN: Oh my god. 

PAZ: Wow. 

LIZ: Okay, I can't– this is– you can leave this in if it's not true. But if it's true, there's this part in like the big wiki summary thing that says "Barley, a former member of BloodClan."

PAZ: Why are you reading that, Liz? We said don't read that.

LIZ: Is BloodClan real?

PAZ: Liz! We told you not to read it.

LIZ: Fucking Borzen's in here. How do I know what's real or not?

PAZ: We told you! It's on recording, and you said, okay, I won't read. 

LIZ: Listen, I don't know shit. I can't tell Tigerclaw from anyone else.

PAZ: Anyway, I think what you read is fanon. But still, why did you read it? 

LIZ: I like to read. 

PAZ: I'm gonna come in there and take your computer away. Well, Liz can't contain herself, so I think we need to end it.

LIZ: This was a mistake.

JULIAN: I have one final casting choice here.

PAZ: Okay, please. 

JULIAN: Keegan Michael Key is Dustpelt.

LIZ: [muffled] I'm covering my face. Today, you can't do this today. Why did we do this today?

JULIAN: Because of the psychic damage dealt to us by the Mario casting?

LIZ: I'm crying.

PAZ: Oh god. 

JULIAN: We were in a weakened state.

PAZ: We need to stop recording. It's spiraling out of control. This is all Borzen's fault.

LIZ: We had such energy last recording. I'm like turning into dust.

JULIAN: I'm sorry also at how much I must have blown my audio out when I was faced with the fact that Borzen was based off of Indominous Rex, which I'm still like literal tears in my eyes about.

LIZ: Did you guys ever like– obviously not on wiki, because I think– I don't know. Are we all too old to do that? But was there a point in your little child life where you're like, what if this book was made better by putting a different person in here from this other thing I like?

PAZ: Probably, I don't know. I don't remember. 

JULIAN: Oh, yeah.

LIZ: Who would you want to put in Warrior Cats?

PAZ: I have no memory.

JULIAN: Um, I've suddenly forgotten every character I've ever known.

PAZ: Fero. No.

LIZ: No, I think he fits in perfectly.

JULIAN: No, he does. He's a real rowdy boy. I think he'd really shake up the clans.

LIZ: He's definitely a rogue, and everyone is like, who's this guy?

PAZ: Um.

JULIAN: Um.

LIZ: I know what I'm gonna put in, but.

PAZ: [confidently] Winston from Overwatch. 

JULIAN: Is that the gorilla? 

PAZ: Yes. 

JULIAN: I'm not a gamer. I would put in Christopher Robin from Winnie the Pooh. I want him to wander into the forest and be confronted by the cats. 

PAZ: They would kill him.

JULIAN: I think it would be a learning experience for him.

LIZ: Fucking battle-hardened Christopher Robin.

PAZ: Who would you put in, Liz?

LIZ: One owl from Guardians of Ga'hoole. 

PAZ: Which one?

LIZ: Any one, but don't tell them it's gonna happen. Just have it happen like in their sleep.

PAZ: You mean, like the owl when they get transported?

LIZ: Yeah, just drop them in the middle of like ThunderClan or something. 

PAZ: They'd just kill all the cats. 

LIZ: They're not going to sleep with all their like, owl gauntlets on, maybe.

PAZ: We just read the beginning of Rising Storm about how owls eat all the kits.

LIZ: Bluestar voice, why is this owl fucking talking to me?

PAZ: We have to end this. Mistakes were made.

LIZ: I'm too weakened to go on. 

JULIAN: You're the one who ends things, Paz. Pull the trigger, Piglet.

PAZ: You can find the show @staircast on Twitter. You can support the show on Patreon at patreon.com/staircast. You can send us emails to stairwaytostarclan@gmail.com. That's it. Bye, everyone. May StarClan light your path. Bye.

LIZ: Is it lighting ours?

JULIAN: No.

PAZ: No.

JULIAN: We've been abandoned. Bye, everyone.

[outro music]

PAZ: Liz, you betrayed our direct orders.

LIZ: Fuck the warrior code.

PAZ: You'll never become a warrior.

LIZ: I'm not gonna remember shit in like three episodes. Don't worry. Paz, I asked you last night what did we have for breakfast like two nights ago and I didn't know? 

PAZ: That's different. 

LIZ: Is it?

JULIAN: Fucking Chris Pratt as Cloudpaw over here. I'm sorry, Liz.

LIZ: That made me feel all icky.

PAZ: We didn't even check what date that was like posted.

LIZ: I think the Chris Pratt one was from at least two years ago.

PAZ: That's different from Chris Pratt being cast as Mario in 2021.

LIZ: It got so dark while we recorded.

PAZ: I know. Let's clap.

[devilsofficialfanfic]

The Purple Flame

Chapter 23: Dramatic Irony Continues To Be A Bitch; More At Eleven

A/N: I’m vibrating with excitement. The next few chapters.... So many of the tropes that I love and also angst. So... *Jeb Bush Voice*: Please Comment

Content Warnings: People Who Are Jerks, Lying & Manipulation, I Don’t Have Strong Feelings About Sendak But I Needed A Convienent Villain

Keith tugged at the restraints again, despite knowing that it would do no good. The magnetic handcuffs were stronger than he was, and unless he wanted to dislocate his thumbs -something he was not entirely sure he could do on purpose -there was no getting out of them.

Not that there was a point to it. Sendak hadn’t thrown him in a cell. Instead, he had taken Keith to the bridge, to be displayed like some kind of trophy.

In addition to the regular bridge crew, Sendak had posted extra guards, presumably to discourage Keith from trying anything.

Keith might have been reckless -sometimes -but he wasn’t stupid. He knew he couldn’t fight through them all.

That’s why he’d sent Urvok away. By now, Urvok had surely gotten to the castle-ship, and they were no doubt making plans for his rescue.

He’d prefer it if he didn’t have to be rescued, but some things couldn’t be helped.

“Commander?” one of the bridge crew asked.

“What?” Sendak’s temper seemed shorter than usual. A side-effect of over a year in the cryopod? His distaste for having to work with the witch? Hard to tell.

“We’re being hailed. It, uh… It’s Prince Lotor.”

Keith fought to keep the surprise off his face. Lotor? But…

“Patch it through.”

The crewperson did, and a second later, Lotor appeared on screen.

He looked terrible, but anyone who didn’t know him wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. He slouched diffidently in the chair of his Sincline ship. “Sendak, a pleasure as always.”

“Lotor. What do you want?”

“I want nothing. I’m merely contacting you out of professional courtesy. By now, Voltron knows that you have one of their former paladins, and they are quite loyal, these humans. I suggest you let him go.”

Sendak laughed. “Let him go? Just like that? Have you been drinking?”

Lotor smiled, all fang and no humor. “Unfortunately, no. You, on the other hand, seem quite sure that you can defeat Voltron, despite having lost once already, in a disaster that cost you your entire crew. The worst part of your failure is that they were just children then, Sendak. Two years later, and you think you can defeat them when one of their own is on the line? Would that I had half the confidence in my abilities that you have in yours; perhaps I would have killed my father millenia ago, and saved us all this mess.”

“What. Do. You Want.” Sendak ground out.

Lotor shrugged. “Let my husband go, and I’ll take his place. Voltron won’t come after me, and the witch has been interested in me for some time now.”

“But what’s in it for you?”

Keith had kind of been wondering the same thing. On the one hand, he didn’t want to believe Lotor would betray him. On the other, Lotor was quite protective of his own skin.

“I have been thinking about what you said to me while we fought at the Kral Zera,” Lotor began. “But I think you won’t need to resort to keeping me as you slave, when I could choose to serve you. A strong commander like you, with me at your side? This rebellion would not last the year.”

“I can’t become the emperor until the old one is dead.”

Lotor shrugged again. “Accidents can be arranged. It would be best not to implicate yourself; I would not wish to risk Voltron’s vengeance.”

Keith gritted his teeth. Lotor wasn’t looking at him; Keith wasn’t entirely sure Lotor could see him from where he was.

The words, though? They made sense. They sounded sincere.

Keith didn’t want to believe it. Had everything been a lie? Had Lotor actually been using him?

A small movement drew Keith’s eyes to Lotor’s hand. He wore gloves, as always, so it was difficult to tell, but Keith thought…

Well, it looked like he was rubbing at the spot where his ring was. The ring Keith had given him, the night before their wedding.

If it all meant nothing to Lotor, wouldn’t he have removed it as soon as Keith told him to get out?

It all fell into place then. Lotor had a plan. Keith just had to trust him, and he did. He trusted Lotor. He only hoped his instincts were right.

“There is still the matter of Haggar,” Sendak said. “And your former companions.”

“Don’t worry about that, Sendak. I will handle it.”

“Very well.” Sendak gave Lotor instructions for boarding, as if Lotor needed them, and then the screen went dark.

“Nothing to say, Your Majesty?” Sendak asked with a mocking bow. “Not even to defend your honor? What kind of husband must you be, that yours feels the need to seek out better companionship?”

Keith did not have Lotor’s way with words, so he kept silent. He wouldn’t have to put up with this much longer. Lotor was going to do something -presumably involving Voltron, because he’d been right; Voltron wouldn’t just leave him here -and they were going to get out of this, and then-

Then, he’d apologize to Lotor, because he’d been kind of a dick, and maybe they’d talk about it, and everything would be alright again. There would probably be some make-up sex in there somewhere, and that would probably be pretty good, too, because Keith hadn’t gotten laid in a month. Lotor (hopefully) hadn’t either.

But Keith really couldn’t let that last comment go. “If he wanted better companionship,” Keith said quietly, “he wouldn’t have come to you.”

That earned him a blow across his mouth, but it was worth it. He grinned, bloody, up at Sendak. “That’s the best you can do?”

Maybe Sendak could have done better, except that, at that moment, Lotor was led into the bridge. “Commander. It would be best if you left your prisoner unharmed. The paladins’ sensibilities are different from ours.”

In person, Lotor was as imperious as only the son of one emperor and the husband of another could be. He was shorter than everyone in the room, except Keith, but he still seemed to tower. Keith was going to have to ask him how he did that.

“In fact, I believe I know more about human physiology than you do, Sendak. Let me examine him to ensure he will survive his journey back to Voltron.”

Sendak crossed his arms. “He wasn’t harmed. Much.”

“Nevertheless.”

Sendak hesitated, then nodded. “Fine. But be quick about it.”

Lotor crouched down in front of Keith. He smiled, a small smile, but genuine. “I’m sorry,” he said in an undertone, so his voice wouldn’t carry.

“We’ll discuss that later,” Keith replied. “What’s the plan?”

“This is the plan.” Lotor patted the outside of Keith’s legs, ostensibly to make sure his bones weren’t broken. Maybe. Keith didn’t know. “I just wanted to tell you that I meant what I said, that last night.”

“That’s a terrible plan. I’m not leaving without you. Voltron should be here soon, right? So let’s…”

Lotor shook his head. “I tried, Keith, I really did, but they aren’t coming.”

Keith’s mind went blank. “But-”

“It’s just us, so you should go. Don’t worry about me.”

“Give me that,” Keith said, nodding to his knife in Lotor’s belt. “Can you get me out of these cuffs?”

“Keith-”

“I’m not leaving without you,” Keith hissed.

“Stubborn. Can you fight?”

“If you get me out of these cuffs.”

“Alright,” Lotor said after a moment of study, “I have a plan. When I signal, get your hands above your head, as far apart as you can.”

“What’s the signal?”

Lotor tucked the knife up Keith’s sleeve. “You’ll know.”

It was at that moment that Sendak growled, “Well?”

“I suppose you have left him in fair enough condition,” Lotor said smoothly, rising. He sauntered over to Sendak, so slowly that Keith felt his own impatience like a tangible thing. He said something to Sendak, low and sultry, and Keith was glad he couldn’t make out the words. Maybe he didn’t want to think about his feelings, but he knew that he didn’t like his husband flirting with someone else.

For that was surely what Lotor was doing: flirting to get Sendak’s guard down, distract him, whatever. And it was working, a least a little, Keith thought.

Lotor laughed in response to something Sendak said -using his fake laugh -and casually, smoothly, unhooked a small blaster from a passing guard’s belt, then brought it up in one motion.

Keith got his arms up, and Lotor managed to shoot directly at the force-field between the cuffs.

The shot left Keith’s hands tingly, but the energy of the blast must have disrupted the magnetic field, or short-circuited the cuffs, or something. Pidge would know, but she wasn’t here, and Keith didn’t care.

Lotor had his sword unsheathed just as Keith activated his blade.

Across the room, their eyes locked, and they nodded -acknowledgement of something connecting them, deeper than the ties of marriage- and then the fight began.

[sindearlyconnormurphy]

My Favorite Person [Connor Murphy x Reader]

Title: My Favorite Person Pairing: Connor Murphy x Reader Fandom: Dear Evan Hansen Requested: by the lovely @rinzix Summary: College!Friends with benefits | You’re thankful to have a friend like Connor, for more reasons than one, but you’re fun may soon be coming to an end, and Connor isn’t feeling like himself Warnings: mentions of sex | Connor has a potty mouth | mentions of mental health relapses and recovery | brief allusions to domestic violence | first person reader A/N: This was such a wonderful, fun prompt and it reeaallly got away from me, so I apologize in advance. Essentially, the summary is I will probably never let Connor Murphy be happy. As always, it’s really rushed and I didn’t proof read. Enjoy?

It never starts the way I expect it to.

Don’t get me wrong–I’m not complaining. It just doesn’t work out the way it does in the movies, ya know? I’ve never gotten a text at eleven pm asking me to sneak across the campus to his conviently empty dorm room, never received anything remotely similar to a booty call. It started on accident, like everything else Connor Murphy does. He doesn’t understand the sort of pull he has on people.

Connor Murphy was an absolute octopus, first off. I woke up early–much earlier than he ever would–underneath a pile of pale, lithe limbs that seemed to tangle around me in a number of places. I was sticky–definitely sweaty from sleeping too close to Connor, who apparently fell asleep on top of me like some kind of animal, but I also felt an uncomfortable squish between my thighs that reminded me of the drastic turn of events that happened last night.

To be perfectly clear, this wasn’t the first time we had done this. The first time had been planned–an accidental mishap that had spiraled out of control, beginning with texts (“Hey, would you mind to model for a piece I’m working on? I can’t find any decent reference poses online.”) and ended with some not so appropriate banter (“Are we sexting? Is this sexting? I mean I’m horny but like it’s gotta be smoother than this, right? Shit, do you have nudes??) that had snowballed into an agreement: we could fool around, platonically, because being in college and being ridiculously horny all the time and balancing a decent relationship was one thing too many.

Still, our first few times had been planned: I’d come over for pizza when Connor’s roommate was out, we’d play video games and watch a movie, and, at some point, Connor would lean over with little to no warning and kiss me much too roughly, taking me off guard–it usually either dissolved into a fit of giggles or ended up with me on my back staring up at the smooth column of his throat, watching his pale adams apple dip briefly as he groaned into my hair.

The sun was up, shining obnoxiously through Connor’s too thin quilted curtains, filtering across our tangled bodies. My shirt was still on, thankfully–I had no idea when his roommate would be back–but Connor was entirely nude (save for a pair of tie-dye tube socks, I can’t believe I slept with him while he was wearing that), sprawled on top of me, all pale skin and angles. From here, I could see the knobs of his spine pressing against the thin, pale skin of his back where my hand rested. One of his hands was fisted tightly in the fabric of my shirt, just over my stomach, and the other was dangling off the edge of the  bed, his thin wrist almost comically looking as if it would snap.

The smell of him was overwhelming, of course, it always was. I could still taste him if I ran my tongue across the backs of my teeth. I’d need a long shower to scrub away the smell if I wanted to think coherently today–Connor was definitely my favorite person, the only real  friend I’d made at school so far, but the very smell of him was going to make my brain short circuit.

We needed to have a discussion, needed to stop doing this every time we hang out. A limit. I sighed, remembering. We were going to have to have a talk anyway.

Reaching up gingerly, I ran my fingers against the knots on his back, tracing the triangles of his scapula and cupping the back of neck to run my fingers through the curls. His hair needed washed, badly, but I didn’t mind, just continued to soothe, feeling him sigh in his sleep against my neck. I grinned, feeling his nose press more firmly against the juncture of my neck and shoulder.

"Why are you awake?” He slurred, lips wet where they brushed my skin. His limbs went taunt, stretching before rolling over off of me, his arms slinging against his eyes.

“Ugh, can you cover up?” I groaned, sitting up and pulling a blanket to pool in my lap, trying to look anywhere but Connor. “It’s daylight now, it’s too vivid.”

He just chuckled, running his hands to scrub at his face in an attempt to wake up, pushing tangled curls out of his eyes, grinning at me. “Sorry, geez. Didn’t hear you complaining last night.” Nonetheless, he yanked the blanket over his lap, rolling over to look at me with a smirk.

“How’d you sleep?” He asked, tapping my forehead with his thumb, before leaning over to kiss me there. He didn’t move away, just hovered over me on an elbow, and surrounded by his scent left me vaguely dizzy. I’d miss it when I left here, I knew.

I scrunched my nose, letting him know that the affection was unnecessary, but he kept leaning over, pressing another kiss to my temple.

“I don’t remember,” I sighed honestly. “You kinda kept me up till two am.”

“What time is it now?”

“One.”

“Christ, sorry,” he laughed, sitting up immediately and pushing his hair back. “Guess I tired you out, huh?”

“Don’t get cocky. We were talking until twelve thirty, you only last half an hour, bucko,” I said, crawling quickly out of the bed and tugging on my panties.

“Ouch! Didn’t hear you complaining,” he chuckled, pulling his hair back into a ponytail holder. He was planning to let me shower first, then.

“Yeah, yeah,” I muttered, and I could tell that was the end of the discussion. We had a habit of skirting the topic during the daylight hours–if we talked about it, then we thought about it, and if we thought about it, then–well, you get the picture. “I’m gonna shower.”

——

By the time I’m out, my hair combed in wet strands sticking to the back of my neck and dressed in a clear pair of panties and one of Connor’s bigger shirts, Connor is sprawled on the bed, fully dressed, staring at a worn copy of T.S. Eliot poems, the green cloth binding fraying between his lithe fingers. The steam from the shower followed me in the room, making it look like a hazy 1970s Polaroid, accompanied by the warm light trying desperately to filter into the room through Connor’s quilted curtains.

He’s brushed his hair, I noticed, and there’s a lingering scent of cologne in an attempt to mask the smell of him–of us, if I’m being entirely honest–without showering. I nearly snorted aloud when I saw what he was wearing.

“That’s my shirt, you know,” I choked out between laughter, unable to believe that Connor fucking Murphy is wearing my tie dye crop top with a pair of ratty grey sweatpants. It was big on him, with a little pink embroidered heart stitched messily over the chest. The sweatpants rode high on his square hips, so all I could see was the slope of his ribs into the flat plain of his stomach, his belly button barely peaking out over the elastic waistband of his boxers, which rode a little higher than the sweats.

He looked up from the book, grinning lethargically, letting me know he was still barely awake. I probably should’ve let him sleep longer, but I needed to leave soon, and I wanted to tell him goodbye.

“I know,” he sighed lazily. “You left it here last time. It’s really soft.”

I bit back my smile, crossing the room to sit beside him. “Fair enough,” I conceded, tucking back a piece of hair that was beginning to slip from his ponytail.

“You’re wearing my shirt,” he pointed out, pouting his bottom lip.

“I forgot to bring a clean one,” I lied.

“You know you have extras here,” he said, suddenly frowning and returning to his book. I paused, unsure what had caused the sudden mood shift, and wanted to be careful moving forward in the conversation. “I mean, you can always borrow mine, I don’t care or anything–”

“You don’t want anyone to see me wearing it, I get it, I’ll switch back before I leave,” I said reassuringly, scooting away half an inch to give him space. It was easy to overload Connor–it wasn’t his fault, I really did understand. Sometimes social interaction was too much, especially when I’d spent almost twenty four hours with him, and we’d been so intimate.

“Fuck, I don’t care about that,” he hissed, flipping the pages of his book much too rapidly to be actually reading them. “Do you care about that?”

The second statement was shorter, softer, almost as if he didn’t want me to hear. It made me nervous–Connor had been doing better, a lot better. Throwing himself into school, into art, made him better. He wasn’t recovered–it was hard to tell if he ever would be, and I’d only ever seen a few of his episodes, but any form of relapse that I couldn’t help him control was unwanted.

“Of course I don’t care, Con,” I said softly, reaching up to soothe his hair softly, feeling him stiffen and relax beneath my fingertips. “Jeez, we’re in college. I couldn’t care less what people think.”

He nodded, eyes creased before closing, his lips pressed together in a frown. “Right, right, you’re right, sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” I muttered, feeling nervous. He certainly wasn’t in any mood to hear my news. Something was on his mind. “You good?”

“Huh? Yeah! Great, don’t sweat it!” He some how managed to morph his deer in the headlights expression into one of enthusiasm.  It was more than concerning, and I hadn’t noticed when he’d developed the ability to swallow back his feelings. I didn’t know why he felt like he needed to. “What’s the plan for today, kiddo? There’s a Clark Gable marathon on TCM tonight, I know you like that black and white crap.”

Shit. I swallowed thickly, realizing I needed to tell him, and now. I was hoping it would wait until at least after we had food in us, or at least until Connor was awake enough to reign in his emotions and think with a level head.

“When’s your roommate getting back?” I asked instead, scratching at the back of my neck and not meeting his gaze. I felt him squint angrily at me, aware of my avoidance. “Don’t want him to walk in on anything unseemly,” I laughed.

Connor was still watching me, I felt it, with a pinched, calculated expression. “We don’t have to fool around tonight,” he said softly. “We can just hang.”

His voice was that soft, melancholy tone again that made my heart constrict. He wasn’t feeling good, I realized. He clearly thought that I was upset with him–I wasn’t, but I realized with a jolt that my news certainly wasn’t going to help his sudden self conscious streak.

I shifted on the bed again, feeling his eyes on me as I delayed, and I could practically see his inner turmoil. I should stay here with him. He wasn’t doing well. But, I’d promised….

“Um,” I mumbled, pushing back my wet hair with my hand. “About that. I, uh, have plans for tonight.”

His eyebrows took a quick hike into his hairline, his slate eyes wide, before he horrified me by neutralizing his expression again before I could read him properly–he gave me a small smile, one that didn’t reach his eyes.

“Oh,” he said hoarsely. “That’s chill. You could’ve just told me that.”

I smiled gratefully back at him, reaching out to rest my hand on his knee. “You’re sure?” I asked softly, tracing a pattern out on the grey cotton knee of the sweatpants. He swatted my hand away, and I felt a sudden dip in my stomach. He was upset.

“Yes, geez,” he grumbled. “I am perfectly capable to spend a day without you, you know. I probably need to check in with my folks, anyway.”

“You’re sure?” I asked again, leaning back, a bit more skeptical. Connor saying he wanted to check in with his parents was the boldest lie I’d heard in a long time.

“Yes, Christ, shut it,” he hissed, flopping onto his back, the crop top riding comically up on his stomach, and, without thinking, I leaned forward quickly to press a wet kiss to the cluster of freckles on his ribcage, earning a loud swear from Connor, followed by a slew of giggles, his thin hands pushing at my hair to pull me away from his ticklish sides.

“Stop it! Stop! Christ–st–” he sat up abruptly and tangled his hands into my hair, yanking me down against him, his bare chest trapped between us, soft against my palms.

What had started as a gentle joke, just a silly peck, escalated as it tended to. It was slow–Connor’s laughter dying quickly in his chest, his breath hitching in the back of his throat instead. I opened my eyes to glance down at him, his eyes closed, his eyelashes flickering against his cheeks. I pulled back, just for a moment, amazed to find his lips parted, head tilted back, obvious that he expected me to move my lips to neck. I just chuckled, pressing a soft kiss to the cleft of his chin.

“Not this morning, Con,” I whispered, kissing behind his ear.

“Just kissing,” he whispered, letting out a shuddering breath into my hair. Eyes still closed, his hands tightened in my shirt in an attempt to keep me against him.

“You know it won’t stop there,” I laughed. He pouted beneath me.

“But–I’m not wearing a bra. I’m all ready to fool around!” Connor snorted, hands digging harshly into my sides as he laughed.

I smothered my laugh against his jugular, fighting to control my breathing, before pushing myself up against Connor’s chest.

“Not now,” I sighed sadly, giving him a closed mouth kiss against his lips, watching his eyes fade as he chased me for another kiss.

“Okay,” he sighed. “Sorry, my fault.” Throwing a hand over his eyes, he groaned, tangling his fingers in his pretty, pulled back hair.

“Don’t be sorry,” I mumbled.

“Later,” he smiled against his fist, slate eyes staring up at the ceiling with amusement. “Later. Christ, no one told me my libido would get a second wind after fourteen.”

“You’ve always got your hand,” I reminded with a chuckle, rising from the bed to stretch. Distance, I needed distance to think. He wrinkled his nose in disdain.

“Yeah, no thanks, not the same.”

There was a beat of silence, where I caught Connor watching me from the bed, before turning away with a pinched expression. It triggered an oddly sick feeling in my stomach–I shouldn’t feel guilty. I shouldn’t. This was just fun, Connor was just my friend, nothing more.

“So, uh,” he coughed. “What was your plan for tonight?”

I stiffened, turning around to sit on the edge of the bed with my back to him, beginning to braid my hair. The bed dipped suddenly, and Connor’s leg was flush with mine, the other folded behind my back, and Connor’s fingers wove into my wet hair, beginning to plait it silently.

“I have a date.”

His hands stilled, just briefly, and I felt myself relax when his fingers began again. He hadn’t taken a single breath.

“Oh?”

“Yeah.”

“Who with?” Cold. Uninterested. I growled low in my throat.

“Not sure. Some guy my mom set me up with–they’re pissed I don’t have a boyfriend, you know,” I reminded, and Connor just grunted in affirmation.

“You have no idea who he is?” Connor groaned in disgust. 

I shrugged. “He goes to school here–I think his name is Jared? He’s a business major. My mom is very impressed.”

Now, Connor really paused, his fingers abandoning the braid to snap his hands down into his lap.

“You know him?” I asked.

“Jared Kleinman?” Connor hissed, not looking at me.

“I think?” I said skeptically, unsure what about this kid had Connor in such a state.

“He’s an ass,” Connor growled. “An absolute asshole, bully, short-stack, scum bag, and you can’t go out with him. You can’t go out with that jerk off, trust me, okay? As your friend, I forbid you.”

I’d been taking everything Connor said seriously up to that point–it took a lot to make Connor that verbose, let alone that enraged–he’d been working on getting better, he really had–but his final statement made my eyes snap open, throwing my body off the bed.

“You forbid me?” I hissed, spinning with a wicked laugh. “I’m not your girlfriend, Connor. You can’t stop me from doing shit, okay?”

His eyes widened–in shock or shame, I wasn’t sure–sliding back up onto the bed. “I didn’t mean, fuck, I’m just trying to look out for you, okay? He’s bad news. He was–fuck, he was such an ass in highschool, okay?”

“And people can’t change, right?” I laughed crudely, watching the muscle twitch in his jaw. I’d pressed a button. Good. His eyebrows furrowed down over his glare, and I saw his hands clench and unclench in his lap. He’d caught my eyes flickering to them, and immediately looked helpless, wiping them on his jeans.

“I’m not having a fit,” he promised. “I’m not gonna hit you, I fucking swear to–”

“I know,” I lied, softening my posture and  looking away from him. “I know, Con. You’re not gonna hurt me again.”

Truth be told, he might. Relapse was easy–I knew, I’d seen it in teaspoon sized doses, whether be him throwing me against the door with too much force or be it a fist coming to connect on the wall behind my head after I gave a particular nasty comment. Connor had never hit me, not hard, but he almost had, and he’d said a few nasty things, broken some things of mine.

We were friends because I trusted him, because I didn’t want to leave him just because this felt hard. But I wouldn’t let Connor talk to me like that again, I’d promised myself. It meant a time out–no sex, no talking, not until he could calmly apologize and talk through what he was feeling.

“I’m sorry,” he sighed, scrubbing his hands over his eyes–he’d forgotten to paint his nails this week, I noticed, but his wrist had flowering patches of indigo and lavender peppered along his arm like blooming bruises–they were just left over from his last art class Friday. He really needed a shower, I realized.

“Don’t be sorry,” I said again, leaning against the bathroom’s doorjamb in lieu of joining him on the bed. If I sat on the bed, I’d want to touch him, and as much as he deserved reassurance, he didn’t need the positive reinforcement. He had to learn I was a finite fixture. “That Jared kid–he said something to you, right? In school. You didn’t like each other.”

Connor laughed mirthlessly, filling my stomach with lead. “Yeah, you could say that. He’s one of those weasely kids, ya know? With just shitty underhanded comments they get out of Mad magazine. Gets under your skin.”

It was too easy to picture, embarrassingly so, I thought, watching Connor now with his eyes downcast and his mouth pursed, I could still see him, just a year ago, and some punk kid whose comment landed on its mark. He probably sent Connor into fits.

I tried too hard not to picture Connor those nights, crying disgustingly in the shower, banging his head too hard against the tile, replaying over and over in his head what that little shit had said to him.

I didn’t want to go out with him. I hadn’t wanted to to begin with. But, I had to. I’d promised.

“I’m really sorry, Con,” I sighed softly, thunking my head against the doorjamb in punishment. “I’m sorry you had to go through that.”

“Don’t be,” he laughed bitterly again. “’S over now.” He held his arms open, silently asking me to come back down to him, just to make up. “Just because you’re sucking his cock now–”

He froze, eyes bugging out of his head, staring at something on the ceiling I couldn’t make out from here. My stomach churned uneasily, and the tips of my ears got uncomfortably warm. Connor sat up slowly, bracing himself on his arms, staring at the wall with a horrified expression. He was vaguely green around the collar of my shirt.

“You wanna stop. That’s why you told me. You wanna stop.”

I swallowed thickly. “Con–”

“Christ, kid! What happened to relationships and sex and school are too much? We said–”

“It’s out of my hands!” I gasped, Connor’s glare finally snapping to mine, melting me into the floor. “I don’t want to go out with him–you know my mom expects me to–”

“Fuck, I know, you’re parents want you to be a fucking baby factory with a rich husband, I know, okay?” He groaned, shoving his hands into his hair and dislodging the ponytail holder, his dark hair cascading around his shoulders, his whole expression pinched.

I flinched, shutting my eyes, wishing desperately to be somewhere else. He didn’t mean it, he was angry–it didn’t mean it didn’t hurt.

“It’s just to appease my mom,” I sighed quietly, disgusted to realize how wet and broken my voice sounded. “Just to say I have a boyfriend, to keep her out of my hair. Otherwise she’d be down here every week, and I’d never be able to see you–”

“What if I pretended to be your boyfriend?” He said suddenly, making my gaze snap to his, despite my discomfort. He was staring seriously at me, and I felt sick to realize he was sincere.

“Trust me, Con, you don’t wanna do that.”

To subject him to that kind of scrutiny would be unfair. Connor was my favorite person in the world right now, and, despite coming from a good family, my mother would be less than thrilled to hear I was involved with an art major with a juvenile record.

He snorted. “I know I’m no Jared–”

“Don’t,” I glared. “Don’t. I’m sorry, but yeah, we can’t have sex for awhile, okay?”

“Fuck,” he hissed.

I felt sick–like crying. “I’m sorry if that ruins our friendship for you. I thought you might be able to tolerate spending time with me when I’m not getting you off.”

Connor’s horrified expression let me know he hadn’t actually thought of that, but it didn’t mean he hadn’t known.

“Hey,” he said softly, rolling off the bed to stand, his hands out stretched as if he was scared to spook me. “Hey, that’s not–hey, don’t cry.”

“Fuck off.”

“No,” he growled, coming forward to wrap his arms around me, still wearing that stupid crop top, pressing his face into my neck. “Fuck, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that,” he murmured, his lips brushing my jaw. “You come first, you always come first. I’d rather have you than sex, you know that, right?”

His fingers scraped under my shirt to press against my skin, pulling me tighter to him, his fingertips tripping with friction.

“I know,” I sighed, going limp against him and wrapping my arms around his neck–it felt nice just to be close. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Fair enough.”

He pulled back, reaching up to cup my face, his fingertips burning where they thumbed my cheeks, wiping away the stray tears. He stared down at me so intently, and I realized he was still scared.

“Before your lame ass date, you wanna get some take out?” He asked with a crooked grin, leaning in to kiss my forehead quickly.

“Fine, but you have to change,” I giggled, pulling away despite his protests to grab my purse from his desk.

“I refuse to change–this color looks too good on me.”

——

“I can’t believe you’re gonna wear one of my shirts on your date with that wank,” Connor groaned, watching me button up one of his shirts over my chest, shaking his head. “He’s gonna try to cop a feel–it’s like he’s grabbing my boob, kid. That’s the worst violation of all.”

I rolled my eyes, brushing my hair back from my forehead. “First off, they’re still my boobs, but I promise I’ll bring the shirt back in mint condition. I doubt I’ll be kissing him tonight.”

Connor grinned around a mouthful of rice–he was cute like that, I realized, cheeks full and eyes crinkled with a smile. His mood had flipped swiftly, thank goodness, despite the fact it had started to pour outside, the sky pitch black despite the fact it was still early in the afternoon.

“Maybe he’ll buy you something nice,” Connor grinned. “I’m sure he’s loaded. If he brings a friend, make sure you hit on him.”

I snorted, but pulled on my slightly dirty skinny jeans anyway. “If he brings his friend on a date, I’m walking out and taking you home for thanksgiving.”

Connor grinned again. “God, that’d be rich.”

Thunder pounded through the room, making Connor’s hair products shake on his desk, causing me to jump back onto the bed to be near Connor.

“Don’t tell me you’re scared,” he teased softly, glancing out the window to see the downpour. “Christ, maybe you should stay in tonight. Last thing you need is to be trapped in some shitty French restaurant with mademoiselle rat face.”

“You’re hilarious,” I said bitterly, watching the leaves paste themselves to the window pane. “But, maybe I should reschedule. That’s not a shitty thing to do, right? It looks awful out there.”

“Nah,” Connor said around another mouthful. “Plus, if you do, we can have one last hoorah–okay, you’re right, sorry.”

I just grinned, hitting him lightly upside the head. “You can finish up in the shower, pretty boy.”

He frowned. “Fine.”

I pursed my lips, glaring out into the storm again. “I should call Jared ask him to reschedule,” I sighed again, feeling only vaguely guilty. I mean, what were the odds Jared even wanted to go on this date? Our parents set us up, for goodness’ sake.

I wondered briefly if Connor had worn this shirt in highschool, if Jared would recognize it.

“I highly recommend standing him up,” Connor said chipperly. “Allow me to hand you your phone–”

Connor froze, still half stretched across the bed, staring at my phone on the nightstand.

“Oh my God.”

“What?” I asked, concerned. “Is everything okay?”

“Oh my God,” Connor said again, this time dissolving into a fit of giggles, yanking my phone off the charger and throwing it on the bed. “I can’t believe this!”

“Connor, if you don’t tell me–”

“He stood you up!”

“What?” I screeched, fumbling for my phone, surprised to see a few missed texts on my home screen.

From: Jared To: Me Srry 4 the short notice, do you think we coukd meet some other time? Don’t wanna get caught in the strom

“He can’t even spell,” I muttered in disgust, throwing my phone onto Connor’s bare stomach that shook with laughter.

“This is hilarious, oh my God. It’s so sad, you look so cute and everything! You were gonna put on mascara for that asshole!”

“I’m gonna dump this soy sauce on your shirt, Murphy.”

“Sorry, sorry, geez!”

He put down his plastic fork, reaching across the mattress to stroke his hand across my bare arm. For a minute, I thought he might ask me how I felt, but instead just asked, “Are you up for a round of Battlefront?”

I grinned, beginning to undo pearline buttons of Connor’s nice navy shirt. “I’m gonna kick your ass.”

He grinned, eyes crinkling at the corners and his lips cracking with the force of his smile. “I look forward to it.”

[starryeyed-char]

No Surprises Here

Why don’t I ever post writing at a normal time.... *sigh into oblivion*

This is the fic which is kinda shorter than usual but still decently long don’t worry other long stuff on the way prompt: so some kind of college au where lance and keith have been dating for like a couple of months and it's almost keiths birthday and lance learns that keith doesn't like his birthday bc he had a horrible memory tied to his bday?? and then he let's lance throw him a party for him bc keith feels bad but then when he first gets there it's like too much for him and he freaks out and lance has to comfort him and it gets all angsty and fluffy!! :)) -anon

I don’t know if this is exactly what you were hoping for, hopefully you (all of you) enjoy! Sorry this is so late... I got this prompt at the beginning of my vacation ;-;

“SURPRISE!”

The shout was so loud, it had Keith stumbling backwards into Lance, who had turned on the lights to reveal numerous people hiding in his and Hunk's shared apartment.

“Lance,” Keith hissed under his breath. “What did you do?”

“I invited them over to celebrate your birthday!” his boyfriend declared happily, gesturing at the people in the room. Shiro, Allura, Pidge, Hunk, and Shay had all gathered around excitedly. “I know you don't normally do anything, but I wanted to make it special for you. Since, you know, this is the first one we're celebrating... together? I thought you said you were okay with it?”

“Oh. Right.” Keith knew Lance's intentions were pure, but he really didn't feel comfortable in social settings, even with just his closest friends. Lance had invited all these people, and sure he'd told Keith he wanted to have a few people over, but he didn't expect a party party. There was cake, decorations, and everything. Despite liking Hunk, Shay, and Allura, the only people Keith felt genuinely close enough to celebrate his birthday with were Shiro, Lance, and Pidge.

The latter cast a sympathetic smile his way. “I tried to talk him out of it,” she whispered under her breath. “But he really wants to show you how much he cares. Just humor him?”

Keith sighed. At least Pidge understood. Back when he lived on campus, they'd been roommates. Well, until Pidge was discovered to be hiding the fact that she was a girl, but that's a whole separate story. Now, Keith lived in his own apartment off campus.

Keith had tried to talk Lance out of it himself, but he should've realized that with such a big family, birthdays were not something the Cuban boy took lightly.

He was really grateful that Lance was trying, but sometimes he wished that he wasn't so affectionate, especially since Keith felt guilty for not being as good at grand gestures.

“Do... do you not like it?” Lance's smile was wavering, and he wrung his hands. Keith shook his head immediately.

“No, no of course I do! I was just... surprised, that's all,” Keith explained.

Lance's grin was back full force. “I did tell you about it. I just didn't tell you when! Time to cut the cake,” he decided, heading over to the food table. At Keith's panicked look, he snorted. “Don't worry, we're not going to sing.”

A loud knock sounded at the door, and Keith whirled around towards Lance. “Who else did you invite?” The small apartment already felt cramped with just seven people in it.

Lance looked just as bewildered as he was. “N-no one? Just these guys.”

“I invited some friends,” Hunk smiled nervously. “Was... I not supposed to do that?”

“I told some people to come as well,” Allura spoke up. “You did say it was a party, Lance.”

“I call everything a party!” Lance pointed out, exasperated. “You weren't supposed to—”

The door swung open, and several people Keith didn't even recognize filtered in. Maybe he would've been able to handle just a few more, but the groups just kept coming, and soon there was blaring music and red solo cups in the hands of most people there.

The noise was becoming overwhelming, and Keith realized he couldn't find any of his actual friends in the crowd, so he instead pushed his way toward where he knew Lance's bedroom was, and slammed the door behind him.

He sat on the bed, bringing up his hands to cover his ears, just wishing for quiet. The door opened, and he turned to tell whoever it was to get the hell out of Lance's room, only to find his boyfriend staring back at him with a grin.

“Keith, come on, we're about to— ” his smile faded. “Keith?”

He was sitting on the bed, shaking slightly and struggling for breath. Lance was at his side in a second.

“Breathe with me, Keith. In, out. In, out,” Lance encouraged, placing a hand on his back. “There's no one here but you and me. Just focus on catching your breath.”

Soon enough, his erratic breathing had calmed down. “Thanks,” Keith said, blushing, even though Lance had helped him with panic attacks before.

“Do you know what triggered it?”

“I just wanted to be alone,” Keith mumbled, turning back to face the wall.

Lance rolled his eyes. “Keith, come on, no one wants to be alone on their birthday—”

“I do!” Keith blurted, and Lance drew his hand away in shock. “I thought you knew that! I didn't want a party at all! I just wanted it to be us, to watch a stupid movie or something! Not any of...” he gestured wildly. “This!”

“But you said—”

“I told you to throw a party because I could see how much it meant to you. Because you wanted to do something special for me! But did you ever think about what I wanted? If you wanted to actually do something nice, then you should've just left it alone!” Keith snapped, but regretted the words as soon as he said them.

Lance's eyes widened. “I'm sorry... I thought maybe that it would... that I could make you happy,” tears started to well up, and Keith tensed. “I j-just thought that... I dunno. I guess I was just being selfish. And... now I've ruined your birthday.”

“Hey, Lance, don't cry,” Keith protested. “You didn't ruin it.”

“Yes I did!” Lance insisted. “I always... I always wreck everything with you, Keith! I'm not good at being in a stupid relationship! And I'm so scared that I'm going to screw this up like I do with everything, and now—”

“I never really celebrated birthdays when I was a kid,” Keith interrupted, and Lance's eyes shifted up to meet his.

“Wh-what?”

“I was in the foster care system for a few years before Shiro's parents adopted me. Was with some pretty rough families, didn't have time to celebrate the birthday of a kid that wasn't theirs. I don't like doing anything for them now because it just reminds me of everything I missed back then. Better just to keep birthdays from being a big deal altogether, it's the way I like it.”

Lance was staring at him thoughtfully. “You don't have to tell—”

“I wanted to,” Keith wrapped an arm around his shoulders. “This isn't your fault, Lance. Hell, you're doing what a normal boyfriend would do. I'm getting upset because you wanted to throw me a party. What kind of messed up logic is that?”

Lance laughed softly. “Your logic is always messed up, but at least you have good reasons. I tend not to question it.”

“And here you are worried about screwing everything up,” Keith shook his head. “I'm horrible at stuff like this! I'm always scared I'm going to mess everything up with you.”

“I don't think you could,” Lance mused. "I love you too much.”

Keith was taken aback, sure he must've misheard him. “You what?”

Lance froze in his arms, as if finally aware of what had just come out of his mouth. “I... I mean, um... you see,” he stuttered, before finally bringing his gaze back up to Keith's. “Well, I do. I love you.”

Keith's brain short-circuited. “We've... we've never said that to each other before.”

Lance frowned. “Well, technically we still haven't, since someone hasn't said it back yet—”

Keith interrupted him with a kiss, short and sweet before drawing back again. “I love you, too," he breathed, staring into those ocean blue eyes. “I love you, Lance.”

Lance's smile was so bright Keith felt he was looking at the sun. He might as well have been. “You wanna ditch the party and go watch a movie at your place?”

“You know I do.”

[shenanigumi]

If ever you feel like doing a prompt with Shiranui and Harada, I'd love to see what you come up with using "i bet you kiss your knuckles right before they touch my cheek"...

It all started when Shiranui’s elbow collided with Harada’s face.

Maybe it was an accident, and maybe it wasn’t, but one way or the other, Shiranui was going to pay. Harada’s face was no stranger to unexpected impacts, but he was usually able to shrug them off just fine. Thing was, after a day like he’d had, he wasn’t feeling as resilient as usual. In fact, he wasn’t feeling much of anything, anymore.

Shiranui didn’t seem to be trying to pick a fight, since Harada didn’t hear any taunts, so assessing the damage took priority over getting even. Slowly, Harada wiped his mouth, then ran his tongue along his teeth. That was definitely blood he was tasting, but at least he still had teeth. Given that Shiranui was possessed of demonic strength, that was a pleasant surprise.

Where’d he get off to, anyway? Cheek beginning to throb painfully—that lip would probably start getting fat real quick—Harada glanced around impatiently. Ordinarily, Shiranui never would’ve been able to land a hit that high up, since he was a few inches shorter than Harada, but he’d been getting up to go… somewhere. Outside? Already? Shit, was he seriously skipping out on the check?

Figures. The one time Harada ever agreed to have a drink with Shiranui, and the bastard ran out on him. Getting to his feet in a hurry, and making sure not to elbow his neighbor in the same way he’d just been hurt, Harada stormed outside. It wasn’t like Shiranui to miss the chance for a fight.

To his immense surprise, he discovered Shiranui staring up at the sky just outside. In the dark, Harada couldn’t see his expression, and his tone of voice was equally as inscrutable: “Hey,” he said, not turning to face him, and Harada curled his fingers into fists. “I thought you’d follow me.”

“Yeah,” said Harada, approaching, and came to a halt beside Shiranui. He didn’t seem interested in fighting, so there was plenty of time to prepare: he’d better make his first punch a good one. Raising his fingers to feel along his swelling lip, Harada winced at his increased sensitivity. Yeah, that wasn’t going to look too good once he got back into the light. He’d better call it a night as soon as he forced Shiranui to settle the tab.

Glancing sideways to assess his chances, Harada realized that Shiranui appeared perfectly unconcerned with his condition, and anger rose within him like the dragon of Shiranui’s tattoo. Acting on his previously suppressed impulse, Harada twisted sideways, throwing all his weight into his fist so that it slammed into the bridge of Shiranui’s nose at full force.

It was the only real hit he’d ever managed to land on a demon, and Harada was proud of himself for it. It was a solid strike, too; he could hear the bone crack. Shiranui yelped, raising his hands defensively to hold his nose in place as it healed with an odd crackling sound. (Damn, it’d be nice to have demon healing right about now. Swollen lips weren’t anything to scoff at.)

Assuming a defensive position, Harada braced himself for Shiranui to complain about how unsportsmanlike that was, or otherwise continue their fight and put on a show that would get them thrown out of Shimabara—but instead, his reaction was as far out of the blue as everything else he’d ever said: “You kissed your knuckles,” gasped Shiranui. “I saw you.”

Harada frowned, caught completely off-guard, before he realized what Shiranui was implying. “I was wiping my mouth,” hissed Harada. “Because you elbowed me in the fucking face.” And that shit hurt, he added privately to himself. Not that he’d ever admit as much to the man who did it.

“Did I?” returned Shiranui, giving his nose a couple experimental tweaks before deciding it was straight, and wiped the blood from his face with an unexpected grin. (Harada would have thought he’d be a little angrier about someone spilling his precious demon blood, but maybe not all demons were as weird about that as Kazama?) “Sorry, not sorry. Didn’t even notice.”

“You didn’t notice?” Bull-fucking-shit. He must have noticed. He’d been messing with him all night in less-than-subtle ways. Elbowing him accidentally-on-purpose was right in line with what he’d already been doing.

“I had other things to think about,” said Shiranui, shrugging, and turned toward Harada. Oddly, he looked completely in his element with a smear of blood still on his face. “Still do, actually, only you just gave me a reason to follow through. After all, I gotta get back at you for mussing up my face.”

“If anything, we’re even,” snapped Harada, patience completely depleted. “You mussed up mine fir—!”

Shiranui moved so fast Harada didn’t even have time to react, seizing his lapels and pulling him into a swift, shallow, and painful… kiss? What the actual fuck. Harada’s mind went blank for a second out of shock and disgust—albeit less of the latter than he expected—and he couldn’t even muster the strength to shove him away.

…Until Shiranui’s hands entered his hakama, anyway. That was when Harada’s automatic defenses activated, but they still kicked in a second too late. As gracefully as if they were dancing, Shiranui withdrew his hands and stepped back, standing a safe distance away to regard his confusion with an amused smirk and the hint of a crimson blush.

Clenching his fists as he felt himself flush too, Harada took a step forward in preparation to beat the shit out of Shiranui… when a coin fell through the leg of his hakama. Distracted by the clink, Harada looked down, registering for the first time the extremely uncomfortable sensation of metal coins jangling in his fundoshi. Had Shiranui seriously… just…?

Harada’s mind short-circuited, trying to process too many things all at once. The elbow in his face, the kiss, the hands, the sake pounding through his head… how was he supposed to deal with this? Weren’t demons hard enough to handle already?!

“That should be enough to cover both our tabs,” said Shiranui, eyes sparkling in the lantern-light. “I’d meant to stay a little longer, but I guess I got too clumsy and missed my chance. Oops.” He flashed the dumbfounded Harada another shit-eating grin, swaggering toward the gate. “I’ll see you around sometime, Harada. Maybe then we can finish what we started.”

Harada opened his mouth to ask whether he means the sake, the fistfight, or the kiss—but Shiranui only tossed him a last, roguish wink, and vanished on the spot.

[melto]

hey idk if ur fine with writing bmc fics but i love ur writing so if u do could u maybe write something where jeremy gets jealous and figures out he likes michael?

im gonna start this off with saying sorry on behalf of michael “vore jokes” mell (ao3 link bc readmore on mobile is being dumb as hell)

The morning seemed like it was going to turn out to be as normal as ever. Michael was leaning against the lockers, sipping away at a can of monster he picked up on his way to school. The music from his headphones that were hanging around his neck could be heard if you got close enough, but Jeremy was the only person who ever did. Speaking of Jeremy, he was animatedly explaining to his best friend why Animal Crossing was a top tier game.

Michael is about to call Jeremy a furry after his long monologue about how much he loved every single villager in the game, especially his dog girlfriend Isabelle, but someone is calling out for him.

“Mikey Mell!” comes from Rich, laugh booming through the hall as he quickly makes his way to the pair of geeks. Jeremy is suddenly on edge, and is to consumed in his thoughts to see the way his best friend’s face heats up slightly, pushing himself off the lockers with a strangled noise in the back of his throat.

“Had a lot of fun last night.” The shorter boy stated, much quieter than before. Michael just nods with an awkward smile that’s usually reserved for Jeremy, and he doesn’t flinch as Rich’s hand reaches out for a place on the other’s arm.

”I’d love to do it again sometime?” He continued, barely paying any mind to Jeremy, who’s face was twisted in mild discomfort and confusion.

“Uh,sure– I mean, yeah. Yeah totally. And I’ll supply the weed next time.” Michael’s voice cracked during his response, but Rich just grinned.

There’s a laugh from Rich as he smacks Michael’s shoulder lightly. “Sounds like a plan. Y’know how to find me.” And with that the shorter boy spins on his heel and takes off to find his friend group.

Michael doesn’t watch him walk away, instead turns his attention back to his best friend, who seemed to have short circuited or some shit.

“Jer?” Michael huffed, frown coming to his face as he snapped his fingers next to his friend’s ear. “Earth to Jeremy?”

“You got high with Rich?” He says suddenly, and Michael just shrugs.

“Yep. In my basement and everything.” He rolled his eyes, and Jeremy felt his hands begin to shake as he clenched them into fists.

The next words from Jeremy’s mouth came out in a whine. “But that’s our thing.”

A laugh and another eye roll. “Pretty sure we don’t own the rights to that one buddy.”

“Yeah but, you did it. Without me.” Jeremy huffed, and Michael couldn’t help but think about how cute his best friend was when he got all pouty.

“Mmmmhmm.” Michael replied plainly, quickly downing the rest of his energy drink and slowly crushing the can in his hand.

“And with Rich, of all people.”

“You aren’t wrong.”

“Richard.”

“That’s him, Jer.”

“Richard Goran–”

“Dude, I definitely know the name of the guy whose dick I had in my mouth.”

Fuck, Michael totally said that too loud. His best friend’s face was completely red and his mouth hung open in shock, and the hall almost went silent at the confession. All that came from Jeremy in response was a few unintelligible noises. Michael could felt the familiar sensation of tears gathering up in his eyes, so with a soft ‘fuck this’, he swiftly made his way out of the school, feet stomping all too heavily on the floor.

Everyone picks up their conversations like nothing had even interrupted them. Above all the noise, you can hear Jake slapping his friend on the back with a smug “Nice one bro!”

Jeremey doesn’t see Michael for the rest of the day. He catches a ride home with Chloe, walks right past his dad without a ‘hello’ and flops on his bed, staring at his phone intensely. No texts from Michael. It’s nearing 9pm and there hasn’t even been a shitty meme tossed his way. Jeremy can feel anxiety bubbling up in his gut as he impulsively hits the call button by Michael’s contact name (it’s Player Gay; he would have laughed over it with the new found information if he didn’t feel like he was going to barf).

Surprisingly, Michael picks up.

There’s a hum on the other end of the phone and Jeremy starts rambling, vomiting up his words. “Michael, I’m so sorry I didn’t like say anything in the moment. I’m not homophobic– you know that right? And I have no problem with you being gay obviously and you’re still my best friend, again obviously. I was just kinda jealous that you did our thing with Rich– and I know he’s not the same guy now that the whole Squip thing is over but he still kinda sucks. And then I just wasn’t ready, again not because I’m like, homophobic or anything but because you’re my best pal and you didn’t tell me you liked dudes and then like, dude I find out via you telling me you sucked our exbully’s dick so I’m a little hurt that you didn’t feel like you could tell me before? It was just kinda wild and unexpected and I hate these like 8 hours I haven’t been talking to you and I don’t want you to hate me and shit because of a misunderstanding because like–”

“Jesus Christ, Jeremy, take a breath.” Michael interrupts his best friend, loudly sighing over the phone. “Don’t sweat it, I’m really not mad at you or anything. I honestly just went straight to panic mode after I blurted it out. Not at all how I planning on coming out.” He laughed, waiting a moment as he listened to Jeremy take a couple of deep breaths.

“I’m just– Why’d Rich know before me?” Jeremy squeaked, and Michael could picture the nervousness washing over him. The way Jeremy’s face would go red. How he’d tug at his sleeves, pulling them over his hands. Shoulders bunched up, head tilted slightly down, lips tugged into an uneasy, quivering smile.

Michael shrugged as if the other could see him. “Dude just kinda came up to me like ‘so you like guys? Chill, I do too.’ and so I was like, since he already seems to know I guess I’ll tell him.”

“How’d you guys, uhm, you know, end up, uh doing, I mean….end up hooking up?” Jeremy stuttered out, confused as to why there was some level of anger mixing in with hs anxiety at the moment.

“Shared the look. You know, the one where it’s like ‘you’re hot enough that if willing I’d get with’? Ha, nevermind, of course you don’t know that look Jer!” Michael laughed loudly, and he could hear Jeremy pouting over the phone via the whiney ‘heeeeeeey not cool’.

There’s a long pause in which only the way Jeremy is shifting around in his bed can be heard.

“And you– and you were willing? With Rich?” He mumbled, voice so soft that Micahel barely caught it.

“Jer, I’m just as honry as you are. Difference is that I don’t let it rule my life like some people.” This earned another whine from his best friend, and Michael was grinning.

“So you and Rich are like, dating now?” The idea made Jeremy’s blood boil. He’ll tell himself later that it’s just because he thinks his best friend could do better.

“Fuck, God no dude. Just vored his dick is all.” Michael said defensively as a strangled noise came from the other end of the line.

“Hey Michael do me a favor and never speak to me again.”

The both burst into a fit of laughter; Jeremy wiping the tears away from his eyes and Michael holding his gut in pain. When they both manage to calm down, they move on from talk of Rich and how Michael is gay to other things. And the topic isn’t brought up again.

That is, until about a week later when Jeremy finds himself in his usual beanbag chair in Michael’s basement.

His fingers aren’t moving fast enough on the controller and he can’t stay focused on the game. Jeremy’s eyes keep drifting over to where his best friend is sat, engrossed with what was happening on the screen. For some unknown reason, Jeremy couldn’t stop thinking about his best friend…and Rich. It’s been in the back of his mind since he first found out, and again, he’s not homophobic or anything– no way, but it’s been grinding his gears.

He can heard his character die onscreen, and small laugh coming from Michael, but Jeremy couldn’t be bothered to care. He just kept staring at the other, his fingers automatically moving.

Jeremy doesn’t know what Rich is like when he’s high, but he knows how Michael is. His best friend’s hair would be more tousled, seeing as he had a tendency to play with it more when under the influence of pot. At first his voice would be more hoarse, but soon it would smooth out and Jeremy hates to admit how it makes his heart melt. Michael would say weird shit that only Jeremy ever found funny.

He’s sure Rich didn’t appreciate it like he does. He’s sure Rich probably brushed off anything that came out of his mouth. He’s sure Rich said something flirty that made Michael’s mouth go dry and his palms get sweaty. He’s sure Rich just gets in his best friend’s personal space and climbs into his lap. He’s sure Rich doesn’t notice how beautiful Michael’s eyes are, how expressive and big they are. He’s sure Rich is a better kisser than he’ll ever be. He’s sure Rich was able to find out just how to make Michael go crazy in a matter of seconds. He’s sure Rich got to hear all sorts of noises and groans and whimpers that Jeremy will never get to. He’s sure Rich kissed Michael’s neck, tugged at his hair and pressed himself against the other in ways that Jeremy never would. He’s sure that–

“Helllllllllloooo?” Michael’s voice snapped Jeremy right out of his thoughts. His face was red and his pants definitely weren’t as comfortable as they were at the start of the day and Michael was way too close to him and Jeremy’s fumbling with the controller and all words seems to be caught in his throat.

“You okay, man? You like, blacked out for a second.” His best friend’s tone is dripping with worry and Jeremy sinks into the beanbag chair a bit.

“Uh, yeah…yeah I’m fine, just– just thinking.” He mumbled in response, and Michael’s face softened. He knows his best friend’s brain can be pretty shit at times, so he’s ready to go into what they call ‘Double O-Mode’ aka Overbearing and Overprotective Mode.

And now Jeremy’s fucked because he’s a terrible liar and even if he wasn’t Michael would know he was lying and he’s totally sporting a slight hard on at the moment and oh God, his heart is racing and his knees feel like they are going to give out– thank fucking God he’s sitting down.

So he has to be honest.

“You and Rich–”

“Christ, not this again Jer.” Michael huffed with a roll of his eyes but Jeremy keeps talking.

“Never hooked up again, did you?”

Silence. An intense stare between the pair. Michael briefly wonders if he could have suppressed it; liking boys that is. Maybe this newfound openness was throwing his best friend off, maybe he should have at least stayed more lowkey once he was out, maybe– no, fuck that shit.

“No.” He said shortly.

“Why?”

“He hasn’t been free?” Michael shrugs, adding on in an attempt to lighten the mood. It’s kinda funny, I swear Jake has been making sure that Rich is always busy.”

It didn’t work. Jeremy looked just as serious as before.

“Would you? If he was free?”

“I dunno, probably? Dude, why the fuck do you even care so much?” Michael was getting anxious now, his hand were starting to shake and he could hear his heartbeat thumping in his chest, ready to break with Jeremy’s next words.

What comes flying out of Jeremy’s mouth isn’t what Michael expected though. Nor is it what Jeremy expected, he just blurted it out without thinking.

“I don’t want you hooking up with someone who isn’t me, Michael!”

Silence again. This time Jeremy is looking anywhere but his best friend, and Michael’s mind is blank.

Michael blinks once, then again, plus a few more times before a soft laugh escapes him. Jeremy’s about to cover his face with his hands but Michael quickly surges forward, pressing their lips together sweetly. Jeremy instantly throws his arms around his best friend. Michael has to squirm out of the taller boy’s grip for air, face flushed and a grin stretched across it.

Jeremy is about to say something, but Michael resumes the kiss, moving so he can straddle his best friend, who’s hands are on his hips. Michael threads his fingers through his friend’s hair as he moves his lips against his, earning a moan as he presses Jeremy further into the beanbag chair.

They break apart and Michael’s laugh is loud as Jeremy feels the tips of his ears go hot.

“Need me to vore your dick there, baby?” He snorts, and Jeremy makes a face, but pulls Michael back down anyways.

[ask-will-and-nico]

Hi! Could you write this kind of prompt?: ‘im egging your house for a dare but your parent is a cop and they’re yelling at me so i told them that you were my ex and you wronged me and now you’re coming outside and please go along with this i don’t want to go to jail’ au thank you!💗

Sure

“What the fuck?”Hades pinched the bridge of his nose, clearly just as unhappy with hisstatement as Nico was. Nico wasn’t unhappy, per say, just more confused. Sincewhen did he have an ex? More specifically, one that felt the need to egg hishouse? As far as Nico could remember, all of his relationships had ended onamicable terms.

“What you do with your love life is of your own accord,Nico,” his father sighed, casting Nico a look that clearly told him; and I don’t wish to know it, “but whenit interferes with the law, we have a problem.”

By that point, Nico was more curious with who the mysteryex-lover was that egged his house then the fact that they had done somethingillegal. Setting his laptop aside, Nico pulled on a pair of shoes and followedhis father downstairs and to the front door. Standing in the doorway lookingvery much like he had just been caught doing something illegal (which he had), was none other than Will Solace,the current holder of Nico’s affection.

“What the fuck?”Nico hissed for the second time, and from Hades’ pinched expression, it wasclear Nico had reached his maximum amount of swears allotted in one day. Nicoknew that Will Solace was a golden boy. The perfect student that got straight A’s and was always the teacher’s pet. Thestar of the baseball team and rather open about which team he played for (Nicowasn’t talking about baseball), he was the obvious object of many people’sadmiration and adoration.

In short; Nico’s crush. Even shorter; definitely not one of Nico’s ex’s.

Why he had egged his house was completely beyond Nico. “I’mreally sorry, sir, but I just-” Will looked over at Nico and Nico gotcompletely lost in those blue eyes for a moment and almost missed the pleadinglook that Will was giving him. He knew he was in some deep shit, and he wasasking for Nico’s help out of it.

“It’s okay, dad,” Nico stepped in, and this time, he didn’tmiss the relief that washed over Will’s handsome features. “I don’t blame him. Iwas a jerk. I’ll make sure the house gets clean, so, no damage done. You can goback to your study.” Hades gave Nico a hard look for a moment before huffingsomething about “teenagers who think they’re in love” and receding inside thehouse, presumably to return to his work in the study.

When Hades disappeared down the doorway, Nico fixed Willwith a cold glare. “Why the fuck did you egg my house and then claim to be myex?” Will at least had the decency to look embarrassed, his cheeks flaming adark red as he scratched the back of his neck.

“It was a dare. I didn’t think your dad was home, and I certainlydidn’t know he was a cop.” Nico had to fight the instinct to roll his eyes. Whowould be stupid enough to accept that dare? Who would be even stupider to makeup that dare? Almost everyone knew that Nico’s father was a cop. That’s why noone ever picked on Nico, even when they wanted to.

“That makes absolutely no sense. Why would you accept it?”

“It was Percy’s idea,” oh. That made much more sense. Nico knewthat Percy Jackson was a mutual friend between he and Will, but he hadn’t knownhow close Percy and Will actually were. “It was either that or,” Will hesitatedfor a moment as his blush returned full force, “or I had to man up and ask youout.”

Nico’s brain short-circuited for a moment before a singlethought pushed its way out of Nico’s mouth before he could think enough to stopit. “Why didn’t you just ask me out then?”

Immediately, Will’s cheeks turned beet red as he seemed tofumble over himself. “Oh,” he stammered, as Nico’s mortification slowly rose. Hadhe really said that out loud? “I didn’t know you, um, do you want to go outsometime?”

Again, Nico spoke without thinking. It had worked for himthe first time. “Sure, but you’re going to have to help me clean my house.”

This was a lot longer then expected, but I actually really enjoyed writing it