#Scribbles is failing lately in creating machines

[noelianoe1]

Spending more time with the rabbids has its consequences

(no es una proyección se los juro)

[alittlegiraffe]

Title: "Whispers in the Studio"

Chapter 1: The Quiet Heart

Warnings: None, just fluff and romance. Mutual pining, and idiots in love

For years, you had worked as Eminem’s assistant. You’d seen him at his highest highs and his lowest lows, witnessed the whirlwind of fame and the intensity of his lyrics, but despite your proximity to him, you had remained mostly invisible—silent in the background. Your role was simple: keep the schedule, manage the chaos, and stay out of the spotlight. You knew Eminem better than anyone, but he had no idea how deeply her heart had come to know him.

You had always been shy, the type to keep your feelings hidden behind quiet smiles and brief glances. So, you had admired him from afar, respecting his brilliance, his art, and the pain he poured into every verse. He was raw, unapologetic, but you also knew the man behind the fame—the one who cracked jokes in private, who had moments of vulnerability that no one else saw.

It was late in the evening when you'd found yourself once again in the studio, organizing papers and quietly watching him work. The hum of the machines and the occasional beat drop were the only sounds that filled the room, aside from the soft tapping of her pen as you jotted down notes.

"You're still here?" His voice cut through the silence, a little softer than usual.

Y/N froze, your heart skipping a beat as you looked up. Marshall—Eminem—was leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed, a slight smirk on his face. His blue eyes twinkled in the dim light, but there was something more vulnerable in his expression tonight. Something different.

"I—yeah, I was just finishing up some things," you said, your voice barely above a whisper. "But I'll be done in a few minutes."

He stepped inside, his presence larger than life, but there was a certain gentleness in his movements tonight, like he was trying to create space for her to breathe. "You know, you don't have to stay so late. You’ve been working your ass off."

Y/N felt a warmth flush her cheeks. "It’s fine," you muttered, busying herself with another stack of papers. You didn’t dare look at him directly.

He watched you cautiously for a moment, then casually leaned over the desk, placing a hand on the edge. His fingers were so close to yours that you could feel the heat radiating from them, and it made your pulse quicken.

"Are you alright?" His voice was quieter now, more sincere. "You seem... distant lately."

Your heart clenched. Of course he noticed. He always noticed everything. You were careful with your emotions, but the truth was, you’d been struggling with your feelings for him for as long as you could remember. The boundaries you maintained, the professional distance—everything you did to keep yourself composed—was becoming harder to uphold. It had taken years, but you had finally accepted that your feelings for him were real.

"I'm just... tired," you lied, your eyes flicking nervously toward the door, desperate to avoid his gaze. "It's been a long week."

He didn’t seem convinced, but he didn’t press further. Instead, he pushed off the desk and walked over to the couch, dropping onto it casually. "You want to talk about it?"

Y/N’s heart thundered in your chest. You wanted to, but words failed you. You couldn’t talk about your feelings for him—not like this. Instead, you nodded absently, trying to keep your cool. "Maybe another time."

The two sat in silence for a while, the only sounds the occasional scribble of your pen and the faint beat of a song playing in the background. Marshall seemed lost in his thoughts, eyes distant, tapping his fingers on his knee. And though the space between them was small, the emotional distance felt unbearable.

It was then that he spoke again, his voice low and hesitant. "You know, you’ve been with me for years now. I trust you, more than anyone else, really."

Y/N’s breath caught. He trusted her. He always had, and you had always been there—steadfast, loyal, helping him through the ups and downs of his life. But somehow, hearing him say it out loud made you feel like the walls you had built around your heart were finally starting to crack.

"Thanks," you murmured, your voice barely above a whisper.

There was another long pause, but this time, it wasn’t awkward. It felt like the kind of quiet that filled up the spaces where words weren’t needed. He didn’t speak for a while, but you could sense him watching her—studying her.

You glanced up, and your eyes met his brilliant blue. For a moment, everything around the two of you seemed to fade away. The world outside the studio didn’t exist anymore. Just the two of you, in that small room, sharing a moment that neither of you could explain.

"I’ve noticed you," he said quietly, breaking the silence. "You’re not just some assistant to me, you know."

Your heart raced as his words sank in. Your heart screamed that it wanted to respond, to tell him what was inside of you, but the words were tangled in a web of nerves and fear. What if he didn’t feel the same? What if it ruined everything?

"I..." You swallowed hard, but the lump in her throat wouldn’t go away.

Before you could say anything else, Marshall stood and walked over to you, his eyes never leaving yours. He reached out, gently lifting your chin with his hand, his touch sending a shock of electricity through your.

"You don’t have to say anything, Y/N," he whispered. "I just want you to know that I see you. I’ve always seen you."

And in that moment, all the years of silence, all the moments of longing and unspoken words, collapsed into a single truth. He saw you. He saw you in ways no one else had, and you realized, with a sudden clarity, that he had always been there—just waiting for you to see him too.

The air between them crackled with unspoken emotion as his gaze softened, and before you could stop yourself, you whispered, "I’ve always seen you too, Marshall."

A flicker of something passed through his eyes, something tender, something real. Then, without another word, he leaned in, his lips brushing gently against yours.

It was the beginning of something neither of them had expected, but it was something they both needed. A quiet, unspoken connection, finally giving way to the love they had both been holding back for far too long.

And as they stood there, in the quiet of the studio, it was clear: their story had only just begun.

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Tagging Bestie, just to share that I'm writing again 💜💜💜: @tumblin-theworldaway

[lhs3020b]

“Nightfall”, by Asimov and Silverberg

I haven’t picked a book apart in a while, so have some mildly-disjointed thoughts on Asimov & Silverberg’s 1989 novel, mostly focused on the somewhat-ropey astronomy, but looking at a few other things as well...

"Nightfall" is a late-1980s novel-length expansion of the 1950s story of the same name. The basic premise is, "what about a world with no night?"

The planet Kalgash (Lagash in the short story - no relation to Ur or Sumer insofar as I know!) orbits the G-type star Onos, which is in turn one part of a complex multiple system containing six stars in total. With that many stars, there is always one in the sky somewhere. The other five suns are Trey and Patru (a co-orbiting pair of A-type stars), Tanu and Sitha (another co-orbiting pair, this time B stars) and lastly Dovim, a red dwarf. You can see several oddities immediately - note that the stars have neatly sorted themselves by spectral type! And there's only the one red dwarf (Dovim, implied to be an early-M-type object), when you'd expect loads as a) star formation is an efficient machine for making red dwarfs and b) ~75-80% of all stars are red dwarfs.

As for the system architecture, I've struggled to come up with anything sensible. The below scribbling would make (some) sense, but fails the "always a sun in the sky from anywhere on Kalgash" test, as Dovim will often "fall behind" Onos on its orbit around the barycentre:

Presumably Onos has to pass quite regularly between the Patru/Trey and Sitha/Tano pairs - what this implies for Kalgash's climate and thermal balance I'll leave as an exercise for the reader! Also, the formation history of this system must be weird. Kalgash's complex biosphere implies an age of several billion years, but A and B stars have far shorter life expectancies. Is Onos actually a star that formed elsewhere, which was captured into the system later on?

Anyway. Kalgash orbits Onos, supposedly alone, and there is no night - even if it's only reddish inadequate Dovim, there's always a sun in the sky. Always. Forever. And this sentence is 100% certified to contain no lies, evasions or elided truths of any kind. *Ahem.*

The native Kalganians - supposedly some sort of non-terrestrial non-humanoid life, though the book flip-flops this many times - apparently cope very poorly with darkness. Even as little as 15 minutes in complete dark is apparently enough to induce permanent psychosis. This makes it just as well that Kalgash is a loner object, with no moons or nearby planets or other local bodies that could cause eclipses ... ooops.

Basically, the plot of the novel concerns some scientists who discover evidence of Mass Effect-style periodicities in the collapses of historical civilisations on Kalgash. About every 2000 years, *something* happens that seems to cause people to go collectively go mad and burn down any settlement they might be living in at the time. It seems to be sudden - it stops as soon as it starts - but the destruction is near-complete. And guess what? It's almost 2000 years since the last time civilisation toasted itself.

Meanwhile, Kalganian astronomers have recently developed a theory of universal gravitation, based on studying the motions of the suns (plausible; you'd have a lot of data to work with there). Only there's a problem. Kalgash itself is stubbornly not-quite-conforming to the predictions of the models, and in fact the deviations seem to be getting larger. The theory seems to be wrong - what horror! what sadness! gravity fails!

Or does it? In fact some Kalganian theorists notice something odd - you can explain the planet's motion perfectly if you assume the presence of a second planetary-mass object. Once you plug this in, you can figure out where this body would have to be. The results are ... worrying. You see, this hypothetical Kalgash Two is apparently closing in on Kalgash-Prime. It won’t collide with Kalgash Prime, but it will get close enough to block out sunlight.

Now, the book isn't 100% clear whether Kalgash-Two is a moon or another planet. I think it has to be a planet - its orbit apparently takes 2000 years, which would certainly take a moon entirely outside Kalgash's Hill sphere; Onos would have "snatched it away" onto a stellar orbit. Another oddity is that no-one can see Kalgash-Two - even here on Earth you can see the Moon clearly by day, and given what we know of the dynamics of this system, Two would present a large disk when it enters opposition with Kalgash-Proper. In the book it's speculated that Two's surface rock might be bluish in colour, which might "camouflage" it against the sky. I'm dubious about this - yes, Turquoise-The-Mineral Is A Thing, but an entire planet made of it? To me, this feels a bit "off", geologically.

Anyway, the astronomers realise that if it exists, Kalgash-Two is only a matter of weeks away from by-passing Kalgash itself. And when it does, it will arrive when half the planet has a rare "one-sun" day. That sun is, of course, the red runt Dovim itself, and Two will pass between Kalgash and Dovim. Depending on how big Two is, it could entirely block the sun out. Things are about to get dark! The other five suns will all be on the other side of the planet, but Kalgash rotates, so the other hemisphere will apparently get a taste of darkness too.

Now, note how odd the dynamics of this eclipse are. Apparently the umbra - the region of full shadow - is bigger than Kalgash itself, and the eclipse takes an entire Kalganian rotational period to pass. The book never - IIRC - tells us how fast Kalgash spins. It's certainly possible that a Kalganian "day" is far shorter than a terrestrial one, but it's implied to be at least a dozen or so hours. (The suns don't "move" fast enough against the sky for anything less.) So just how big is Kalgash-Two? To create an eclipse lasting multiple hours, it must be large. Honestly I think it would be hard to do this at a size smaller than that of a gas giant. Is something bigger than Jupiter swinging by, just outside the Roche limit? (No-one on Kalgash notes any seismic events - there's no upsurge in tremors, no disruption to tides or odd behaviour from gravimeters, like you would expect if a super-Jovian body was closing in on you, which is an inconsistency.) Anyway, sure enough, Kalgash Two shows up on queue. Suddenly the reddish gloom of a one-sun day starts to darken, and the horrified masses look up to see a massive bite eating into the side of Dovim! Rapidly and with maximum fuss, the sun goes out! Basically what happens next is like "Pitch Black", except with mad people instead of cannibalistic alien monsters. You'll note I haven't said a lot about the characters yet. There's not a lot to say - they're all very much "straight from central casting". They aren't objectionable, but they're not particularly memorable either. The plot itself has two threads - the astronomers' growing concerns about the impending disaster, which in turn puts them into conflict with a politically-influential cult, who claim to be preparing for the imminent return of "the stars". While the book is formulaic and the characters are fairly-average, it is a fun read; the pages turn without too much difficulty!

In case anyone's wondering about where exactly the authorities are in all of this, well, on eclipse night they prove completely useless. If I remember correctly, the government fails to take any warnings seriously and officials dismiss the astronomers as cranks. Basically they’re running on “January to March 2020″ rules - sadly I can no longer dismiss this pattern of behaviour as unrealistic, depressing as that is! When the night itself arrives, IIRC, the staff at the local power company manage to go mad ahead of almost everyone else (apparently there were no bulbs inside the turbine hall, or something) and their rampage plunges Saro City into the worst-timed power outage ever. Also, making matters worse, Saro probably didn't have any municipal lighting (because why would it?) and apparently most people don't have much in the way of torches or candles at home. So the darkness-maddened people react by torching everything that will burn (fire = light = MASS PYROMANIA!). How they're all able to find matches while a) utterly-demented and b) fumbling around in the dark ... yeah, that never gets explained.

Now we arrive at another oddity: on the night itself, people actually are able to see. They can see the stars without any trouble - which makes no sense. Why would their eyes be evolved to function in low-light conditions? But see the stars they do. There are several pages of the astronomers (those who survive the first few hours of the eclipse-chaos) boggling at the sheer scale of the universe they find themselves in. (In fairness, this is quite a cinematic moment ... basically the ~400 years of the Copernican revolution, which wasn't really "complete" here until Hubble demonstrated that the Great Nebula of Andromeda was a physically-separate galaxy in the 1920s? Kalgash's scientists get the entire thing, mainlined into their stunned brains in about 1 hour.

Their disorientation is certainly understandable.

Incidentally, there's another astronomical oddity here. Kalgash Two should be visible - a dark disc blocking out the sky in the direction where Dovim "should" be - but no-one remarks on it. Also, Two seems to have no atmosphere at all, because Kalgash-Proper doesn't experience any total-lunar-eclipse style blood-Moon. (What exactly is Two? It has to be at least as large as a gas giant, but it's also airless? What is this thing? Is it a planet at all?) Anyway, the eclipse does eventually end, after a few hours. While there are survivors, society has essentially collapsed. The damage is roughly the same as a median-scenario Great Powers nuclear exchange would be here on Earth (except minus the craters and radioactivity).

Just think - if the utilities provider for Saro City hadn't pulled an ERCOT, it's quite possible they could have got through the night without a mass casualty event. While people would have been frightened, if they'd had working lights to huddle around while Two passes by overhead, they might have been able to ride it out. But that didn't happen, of course. (If I was a cynic, I might say the real story of "Nightfall" is the cost of inept/crony-coddling infrastructure policies when the once-in-a-century event pays you its rare-but-inevitable visit.) Anyway, the ending of the book, unfortunately, is pure Silverberg. That is to say, it's rushed, lazy and addresses none of the themes, character-development or even some of the earlier plot-events of the book. On the last two pages of the book, the surviving scientists decide to join forces with the menacing theocratic star-cult, because apparently religious totalitarianism is somehow the only way to save the world, post-nightfall. Yeaaaaaaaaaaaah. Incidentally, here we see some of the typical narrative ticks of a certain sort of mid-century SF writer. Note how any sort of change (nightfall! social chaos!) just *has* to be BAD and SCARY, and they instantly seek refuge in anti-democratic authoritarianism. You see this tick a lot in so-called "Golden Age" writers - it's almost a trope of their behaviour. (It's also interesting given the cross-links between people like Heinlein and the military/industrial complex, or Pournelle and the GOP.) So the TL;DR summary ... "Nightfall" is a novel that follows the spirit of hard SF (if not the letter, as seen above) and has some iffy ideological/mimetic moments ... but, it works as a potboiler and (disappointing ending aside) is definitely a fun read. Just don't expect the celestial mechanics to be in any way workable.

Oh, and here comes Kalgash Two...

[maviemesregles]

Once I was an Eagle

Angst is around the corner, brace yourself.

Anne @eclecticstarlightconnoisseur​, thanks once again  💜

X

Read on AO3

A/N: ghràdhach aon - dear one M'eudail - my treasure

Chapter I: The beginnings

Chapter II: Sassenach

Chapter III: Catharsis

Chapter IV: Lovestruck. Part I

Chapter V: Lovestruck. Part II

Chapter VI: Flecks of Sun

Chapter VII: Mince pies & baubles

Chapter VIII: Home

                                  Chapter IX: Once upon a dream

Claire's face was pale and her forehead clammy. Despite her telling Jamie that she was "totally fine," did nothing to reassure him. He dismissed her weak attempts to convince him that she was okay and carried her through A&E doors. Before he could ask for help, Joe Abernathy appeared in front of him like some sort of a wizard from Harry Potter.

“James?” Joe queried while scanning Claire’s limp figure in his arms, he pointed towards the stretcher. “Put her down there. What happened?”

Carefully lowering her down, Jamie felt he was finally able to breathe for the first since he found Claire crouched on the floor in their bathroom.

“I found her, pale as a sheet of white paper, laying on the bathroom floor.”  Nervously Jamie ran his hand through his hair.

“Alright, don’t worry,” Joe patted Jamie on the shoulder, “It doesn’t look like an emergency since our Lady Jane can swear and protest.”

And that was true. Claire who was now pushed on the stretcher down the hall cursed, demanded them to let her go all while threatening to vomit if they continue bouncing her.

Doctor Abernathy turned to Jamie examining his face. The thin line of sweat glistened on his forehead as he nervously kept fidgeting his hands.

“Right, my lad. You need to calm down,” Joe waved his hand, summoning a young nurse that observed the scene earlier. “Katy, please, bring this gentleman to my office.”

Joe smirked at Jamie, lowering his voice. “There’s a bit of whisky in the first drawer. Please, help yourself. And don’t worry, I’m going to check on Claire and not let her out of my sight.”

* * *

I exhaled happily feeling the steady surface of the bed under me, instead of moving nightmare called a stretcher. The escalating desire to vomit had passed and now only slight nausea kept lingering in the pit of my stomach. The door opened and blonde nurse I’ve never seen before casually strolled to my bed, her trainers shuffled over the linoleum.

“How are you feeling, Dr. Beauchamp?” Flora as her name badge said, smiled at me, wrapping a blood pressure cuff around my arm.

“Like I was run over by a bloody train” I grunted, closing my eyes. It felt as if ages passed before she finally scribbled down my blood pressure along with pulse and respiratory rate.

When Joe stepped in I was a prisoner to the IV fluids and the blasted pole, it was hanging on. He got the same answer that I had given the nurse before.  “It’s that sushi, Joe. And you know what? It’s entirely your fault. I should have chosen something else for lunch.”

“Is there any chance you might be pregnant, Claire?” Joe looked at me tentatively. I almost choked on the glass of water. For whatever reason, I felt a deep flush creep up my neck, all the way to my cheeks.

“I...No,” Shaking my head, I put the glass aside. “No, it’s not possible.”

Joe raised his eyebrows, clearly showing that I didn’t sound convincing enough.

“I can’t be pregnant. I’m on the pill.”

It was one evening a few months ago when on the way home I made a stop at the pharmacy. I found Jamie in the bathroom, loading the washing machine. He asked “What’s this?” when I casually placed a pink pillbox on the shelf. Jamie never pressured me with anything. And that time as he brushed his lips over my temple he said I did not need to take them. I shushed him, catching his lower lip between mine and confessed that I wanted this. I wanted him.

“Well, we’ll make the test anyway, just to make sure. Pills do fail sometimes” Joe squeezed my hand gently.

* * *

The cold, sickening feeling crawled up from my stomach and took residency in my throat. I could not breathe, feeling the tears snake down my cheeks.

"Repeat what you just said,” I whispered as Frank turned around, hands bracing the windowsill. I  could see the muscles under his shirt tighten and his hands curled into fists.

“I said, how can we ever be a proper family if my wife cannot give me a child?”

My heart hammered in my chest, replacing a painful lump with awakening anger.

“Are you saying it is all my fault? How can you be so sure it’s not you, Frank?”

“Sassenach?” Jamie’s hand rested on my knee startling me out of vague memory. “Are ye alright?”

I nodded, staring at a piece of paper with the HCG test in my hands.

“Weel, will ye tell me, Claire?” Jamie turned right, parking the car on the side of the road. He turned to me, those blue eyes staring deep into my soul. My palms were damp as I reached for his hand. My heart was beating frantically in my ribcage, I only managed to open and close my mouth, with no sound coming out. I was shaking.

“Claire, fer God’s sake, please tell me.” He leaned closer, the early morning sun dyeing his hair in rich amber. “Ye scared the hell out of me tonight. What is it? Are ye sick?”

“I’m pregnant.”

The universe had stopped then. Everything suspended around us and the only thing I could hear is my heart thumping in my chest. I wasn’t sure if my vision blurred or Jamie was really crying until he pressed me closer, my body melting into his. I could feel his wet cheek under my lips and I realised I was crying too. I kissed his face until his ragged breathing stopped and he took me by the shoulders, looking at me as if I wasn’t real. I did not see him cry before. He hadn’t said a word and fear started creeping up, crawling into the tiniest, fragile corners of my being.

“Jamie,” my whisper raspy “Are you happy?” He leaned down then, to lay his head on my perfectly flat stomach.

“I never thought I could be happier. But you’ve just made me so, Sassenach.”

I thought I had forgotten how to breathe, my mind swimming in a cocktail of emotions.

“I’m going to be a Da .” He smiled, thumb smoothing the rumpled jumper fabric at my belly.

He asked me if I was happy. I said I’ve never been this happy.

I was pregnant. Days later when my mind learned to live with the thought that there was a part of Jamie inside me, a new spark of life he and I created, I started realising. How could I not notice it? During the last few weeks, I’ve been so terribly tired. I dismissed it, thinking it’s all because of the stress. Our hunting for a flat, moving, trying to settle in. Adso running away and my busyness at work. I did not pay attention when captured under Jamie’s body I mewled a sound of protest. His hand froze hovering over my breasts that became too sensitive. It’s just a precursor of my upcoming period I thought. Jamie laughed at me when curled up together on the sofa, I suddenly broke down crying after seeing a commercial on TV with little puppies in it. I never gave too much attention to dizziness that was coming back to me each morning for the last two weeks. Feeling awful nausea creeping in, I cursed at the contraceptives and bent over the white toilet surface. Telling myself I had to change them to different ones because these were definitely messing up with my hormones. So when my uterus decided to riot I was sure this pink pillbox was the reason for my late courses. I just could not be pregnant.

The morning we came back from the hospital I closed myself in the bathroom, tearing off the packaging from a home pregnancy test I’ve kept just in case. I had to be sure. I cried and sat on the bathroom floor when ClearBlue stick confirmed those eight letters that formed Pregnant. When Jamie knocked softly on the door I was a hot mess. He kneeled down, reaching for my hand where a promise of a future froze between my fingers. “Don’t” I protested, as he gently kissed the back of my hand. “My hands are all in pee.” I sniffed, but he only laughed, saying he didn’t care. “Sassenach, I will change diapers for our bairn, I dinna care about yer pee.” Jamie pulled me to his chest, keeping me so impossibly close, I thought I’d drown in him. Nose buried into his woolly sweater tightening my grip on him, I whispered. “We’re going to have a baby.”

“Aye,” He nodded, brushing away a loose curl on my cheek. There was something in his eyes, the very colour of them changed, as he looked down at me. “I’ve already thought of names for the wee one.” Jamie fished his phone from the pocket, shining the screen on me. “Scottish baby names” stood there and I dissolved into uncontrollable sobbing. He laughed softly, cradling my face in his hands, thumb smoothing the tears away. I had to laugh myself when my nose conjured up a snotty bubble and I saw a glimpse of myself in the mirror. Red-faced, racoon-mascara circles under the swollen, bloodshot eyes. “Oh, Claire, ye do break my heart with loving ye” He whispered kissing my mouth.

I stood in the locker room, topless, in my scrub pants, fidgeting the strap of my bra. Turning sideways the mirror reflected my bare, still flat, seven weeks stomach. The door swung open, Geillis storming in. Smiling from ear to ear she almost knocked the breath out of me, as her arms wrapped around my neck. “Oh, how much I wished ye’d never cried because of that arsehole Frank! I told ye it’s him!” She kissed me on the cheek patting my front. “Jamie lad did not waste time. I’m so happy for ye, ghràdhach aon. For both of ye.” Then she demanded that I have to make her godmother or our friendship will be at stake. From then on Geillis decided that she was my patron and no day has passed by without her endless care for me. I was thankful but most of the times rather annoyed at her hovering as a bee over me. My friend decided it’s her duty to make sure I had enough fresh air so every coffee break we spent outside. My lunch was under her steadfast gaze. I wasn’t allowed to eat my beloved beef burgers anymore and was replaced with green smoothies. “Christ, it’s full of vitamins and such, yer burger is full of fat.” I also was relieved of coffee but kindly handed herbal teas as a replacement.

But what Geillis didn't know wouldn't hurt her. Little did she know that at two in the morning Jamie, voice still groggy with sleep, pulls his jeans on as I wake him up. He cursed stubbing his toe in the darkness, promising to bring me a Big Mac. He laughed at me while I sniffed into my phone calling to tell him of my latest craving for a Cinnabon.

Jamie had his ways of making sure that I and "our wee bairn" stayed healthy and safe. On Sunday as I plodded down the hallway to start usual weekly tidying up, he had snatched a mop and solution for the floors from my hands. “Ye dinna ken it’s bad for ye to breath all these chemicals?” He declared, nudging me towards the couch. I said that I’m pregnant, not disabled but Jamie shot me a look that I obediently laid on the couch in the company of Adso.

One night I thought my heart would burst with tenderness for this man. Putting my book aside I turned to Jamie, elbow supporting my head. He scrolled through something on his phone, and I noticed that sexy crease between his eyebrows making my stomach turn into a warm pool. I scooted closer to him, hand running up and down his bare torso. He hummed “hhmmm” as my lips planted a kiss over his ribcage. When my hand suggestively ran along the waistband of his jogging pants he did not show the usual interest. I sat up, leg-crossed in front of him, securing my curls into a top knot.

“Is there something more fascinating than this?” I smiled cheekily at him, pulling one strap of my nightgown down the shoulder. He gave me a quick glance, eyes glued back to his iPhone.

“Ye ken that our bairn is the size of green olive,” He brought up his hand, folding his fingers to show me. “About one inch long”.

“What?” I lifted my brow as I leaned to grab his phone. My heart was on the edge of breaking into a million pieces with love for Jamie. It was an app on his phone, with information week by week about the baby. “Where did you get it from?” My voice shook just a bit as I fiercely fought an upcoming wave of pregnancy-hormonal tears. His hand reached my stomach, he drew me closer, giving it a soft kiss. “Weel, I googled it.” I whispered that I loved him covering his body with mine.

From that point on it became a nighttime tradition when Jamie would read to me every week the size of our baby, what developments had happened over time. As we were sitting one evening in front of the TV, watching the British Bake Off, I almost dozed off. Jamie’s hands were busy working out all the knots in my aching feet when he suggested something that made me awake instantly.

“I guess I should get rid off that engine ye hate so much, Claire.” I raised my eyebrows at him in curiosity. “What so suddenly changed your mind?” I asked scratching Adso who seemed to be fascinated by my condition. My cat found my stomach the perfect place for his naps and never left my side as soon as I entered our home. I was thinking it’s very cute unless he was just jealous of the new addition to the family. My body turned into melted wax when Jamie’s thumb pushed on that nagging spot on my foot. “I thought we should think about that storage room, my Da could help with a makeover. For the wee one,” Jamie explained, gently patting my ankle. I thought there wasn’t anything else my pregnant hormonal self would cry about but there I was again. Snotty and clinging to Jamie, saying that he’s a bloody bastard who made me turn into a hysterical creature.

Jamie’s reminder of uni days was taken away to Broch Mordha. Day by day our storage room turned into something that started resemble a nursery. Watching Jamie and Brian paint the little bedroom gave my heart fluttering sensation as I leaned against the doorframe. I haven’t admitted to Jamie yet that him being a dad made my toes curl and my heart race a marathon. I still could not believe it was happening with me. My life seemed to be unreal and the fact that I was going to be a mother was something out of this universe.

Jamie tucked a curl behind my ear, as I embraced my dear friend in the shape of the toilet almost every morning. I was hitting the milestone of twelve weeks and felt like bloated, nauseated, sensitive all over penguin. I huffed and puffed with my high waisted jeans that did not want to close over the growing baby bump. Finally, sweaty and red-cheeked, I sat on the edge of the bed, jeans dangling around my knees. When Jamie found me I felt defeated by rough denim fabric, laying on the bed like a fat sea cat. Pulling the jeans down my legs and fishing out my black leggings from the depth of the wardrobe, he kneeled down, taking one of my feet helping me to dress. I said that I am not a child and don’t need to be dressed. Jamie just ignored my hateful remark and suggested that we buy some maternity clothes for me. As he lent me the laptop “There, Sassenach, order what ye like,” I felt as an awful, hateful human being. His cheek was warm and smoothly shaved under my palm. “I’m sorry. I’m being horrid to you.” I whispered kissing the corner of his mouth. He smiled reassuring me it’s okay.

Though I looked rather as if I gained some weight around the middle rather than pregnant, Jamie had a habit of talking to my stomach each night. One of those I got particularly teary-eyed when he laid his head over my bare skin, my fingers running through the silk of his curls. All day I fought with waves of nausea mixed with heartburn that tried to take over my body. Jamie’s thumb placed tender caresses over the swell of my belly. “Ye should let yer mum rest, a leannan.” He whispered softly as his lips brushed at my skin. “Yer such a gift, m'eudail.” When that first tear broke free my hands drew him closer. Fingers smoothing his marble-carved back, he swallowed my quiet confession with his lips. “I need you, Jamie.”

His mouth sealed over the peak of my breast, as my hand traveled down his navel. He stopped then suddenly, looking up at me. “Claire, are ye sure? I…” The tips of his ears turned scarlet red while he tried to find the right words. “I wouldna wish for the bairn to be bounced around.” I laughed then. With that hearty laugh that was only for Jamie. Leaning to kiss his upper lip, I smiled, covering his hand with mine that laid on my stomach. “She won’t notice, I promise.”

Our lovemaking took a totally different meaning since the day Jamie and I learned there is a new life our love created. Jamie’s gentle awareness of “little olive” inside my womb as his body moved atop of mine, the way that small swell of my belly was sheltered between us.

One morning as I went through the post and bills while Jamie poured hot water into the two cups of Earl Grey I hesitated but asked him anyway. The last couple of days he’s been unusually quiet. He sat down, facing me on the other side of the table, fingers circling the cup rim. After long minutes of silence, he finally confessed.

“What if I am a bad father?”

Voice quivered with nervousness and worry Jamie said that if he can’t manage a cat (the time Adso ran away) how could he even manage a brand new human being? I stood up, circling him from behind. Nose buried in his soft curls, I pressed a kiss to his hair. “You’ll be the best dad in the world. Do you know how I know it?” He shook his head as my hips took residency on his lap. “It’s how much you love your nieces and nephews. The way you worry about Jenny and Ian. Your commitment to calling Brian every day, making sure you two talk enough.” My hands wrapped around his neck. “It’s the way you take care of me, Jamie. Of us.” His palm splayed atop my stomach and then he smiled.

It was true. Jamie has taken such good care of me like no one before. He decided it was his mission to learn everything about our pregnancy and he lived with his Iphone glued to his hand. Jamie googled how to get rid of nausea and was brewing a potion like a magician every evening. It was ginger tea with a tinge of lemon. Simple enough but it always calmed the wave of nausea that visited me frequently. Jamie made sure I stayed hydrated, downloading an app on my phone to remind me about my water intake. He never protested (only internally) when I had a particular night time craving for strawberries or Nandos. Even when I was a fierce, angry future mum tired from endless night visits to the bathroom, morning vomiting and all-time fatigue, Jamie never complained. He managed to soothe me every time his arms wrapped around me. “Yer just tired, Claire.” His forehead leaned against mine. “Ye may be angry and frustrated, ye may even be furious with me for no reason.” He laughed softly. “But yer carrying my child and for that alone I owe ye my life.”

After a doctor's appointment when we heard the heartbeat of our baby for the first time it suddenly felt so real. Walking hand in hand along the busy Edinburgh streets I watched Jamie’s face. It was as someone spilled a bucket of happiness infused paint all over him. He grinned like a Chesire cat and kept debating with me over the baby names. “Ye canna name a lass Mary or… Or Kate!” I rolled my eyes at him as Jamie opened a door for me. “Oh, neither do you get to call the baby Morag! Over my dead body, James Fraser.” I hissed, stepping into a store with handmade baby furniture. He mumbled something about great Scottish Gaelic names but I only waved my hand at him, noticing gorgeous white baby crib.

“Dinna listen to him,” Jenny smiled, handing me a pastel pink onesie. “Men rarely understand anything when it comes to names. Ian would gladly call all our bairns with the names from Lord of the Rings.”  I laughed setting the presents she brought next to the baby crib that now was a perfect fit inside the nursery. It was the only thing we’d bought so far, besides Jenny’s kind clothing gifts. We still had a lot of time for purchasing baby things. Jamie’s sister also shoved prenatal vitamins in my hands, the extras she had from her last pregnancy. Adso decided it is his toy. For the last week my cat slept only in a crib with my vitamins securely between his furry paws.

I hummed appreciative “mmm” as Jamie’s warm palm soothed my aching lower back. “Are ye sure ye’ll be alright, Sassenach?” Jamie ran his thumb on the bridge of my nose. “I’ll be just fine.” Cupping the back of his neck, I leaned in t0 kiss the reddish stubble on his jaw. “If I need you, I’ll call.” He nodded but worry swam at the bottom of azure ocean as he looked down. “I need ye and the bairn to be safe and healthy.” Turning my back to spoon him, his hand laid on my waist, face pressed at my nape I smiled into the pillow. “We are.”

Next day Jamie headed off to Glasgow to open up a new brewery with his uncles while I myself awaited three surgeries at work. At the end of a carotid endarterectomy I felt an awful backache but had no chance to sit down for longer than five minutes in between starting with the other patient. Thinking that I probably should reschedule my working time another hour has passed. I wanted to call Jamie on my lunch break but as my feet walked towards the cafeteria suddenly my body folded in two. I groaned, hand braced on the wall. Claws-digging, cramping pain shot in my lower belly. Feeling faint I noticed Geillis’s ginger head as she grabbed me by the arms. “Claire, what on earth is happening?” Her eyes traveled down my body, mouth frozen with whatever she wanted to say. There was a bloody spot on my scrub pants, growing like spilled wine glass.

It's funny the things you remember - like spilled coffee making a stain on my coat, chilly November morning and memory of hot whisper sending goosebumps down my skin, "I love you" said in an agony and fear of losing him, losing us. Or the vase that Jamie had bought me and it found its place on the top shelf in my bedroom.

“Geil, what… what is happening? ” My voice shook. So small and fragile, not my own.

I knew well enough what was going on. But my foolish, tender heart hoped that it's not true. That Geillis will smile and tell me it’s nothing, nothing serious. I saw her green eyes swell with tears as my own closed. I’ve never seen her cry before.

* * *

“Ye bloody Scottish bastard! Pick up, Jamie.” Geillis’s voice rolled as thunder inside hospital walls but cold, robotic one kept repeating “The number your dial is out of range. Please, try again.”

[juleswolverton-hyde]

Confessions of a Coffee-Eater | 02

Genre: Smut, College/University AU

Pairing: Student!/Poet!Namjoon x Student!/Poet!

Warnings: sub!Namjoon gets a handjob in the classroom during a lecture, allusion to smoking

Summary: It is in hard times beautiful things can occur and the addiction of primal instincts be suppressed in their proximity. However, when two souls from different social worlds meet in a poetry class, any former urges gain a new direction.

Some of which are sensual in emotion.

And may not be reciprocated.

Masterlist

Previous part / Next part

There is a lyric which dictates that “sorry” seems to be the hardest word and last night while pondering a way to offer sincere apologies for the unintentional harassment the true meaning came forth as the song played on the radio. Replayed itself again and again as a pen twisted between fingers free from the engraving ink on skin, waiting for any potential customers. The last of the twilight cigarette smoke dissipated before settling into the corner of the back office to catch a few hours of sleep since the last hours of the night shift are dead in business.

The sole idea is offering a cup of anything but fantastic coffee from one of the machines spread around the building and hope a listening ear will be given to a remorseful poor man from Ilsan. A concept that becomes more and more terrifying with each step advancing towards the university building outside the city centre that both students and professors complain about, especially with having to attend and give morning lectures.

The cafeteria is bland like the rest of the dated interior which makes one think more of a high school than a proper academic environment, the only attempt at enlivening the area being the crisp white picnic tables standing in a neat row against an ugly brick wall between the stairs and the guard’s booth. Across from the still empty benches sits the wronged woman, engrossed in noting something down and thus not paying any attention to the anxious onyx beanie passing by towards the tiny coffee corner.

Ignorant to the split second of stopping to simply gaze for a little bit at how flowing hair falls over the shoulder clad in nighttime fabric, the outfit of the day not out of place in an office as the blouse on top of monotone pants and made more interesting with golden accents in the form of a belt and watch radiate a chic mood.

She’s way out of my league. But still, I have to apologize.

Bearing the thought in mind, begotten in that instance of allowing romantic fascination without perverse intent to overtake body and soul, the debit card with little money on it is used to pay for two cappuccinos. Fortunately, last night’s tips make up for the expense so some groceries, later on, will have to be paid for in cash.

The coffees in hand, slowly the table at which Y/N is still working on something is approached while trying to keep breathing under control and composure steady. Notwithstanding, it crumbles to reveal a hint of panic when the busily scribbling pen is put down and eyes look from the page to the steaming cup of caffeine to a well-meaning man in a denim jacket beneath a grey vest with a brown collar.

A slim finger points at one of the bright yellow cups on the table. ‘Is that for me?’

‘Y- Yeah.’ A hand automatically rises to rub the back of the neck, gaze slightly averted to hide cheeks burning as the temperature inside seems to rise. ‘I want to say sorry. For yesterday, because what I- I shouldn’t have done what I did bu- but I couldn’t-’

‘Namjoon. That’s your name, right?’ The inquiry halts the apologetic stammering waterfall likely leading nowhere, a brief nod confirming the assumption. ‘It’s fine.’

‘But I looked at-’

‘Really, it’s okay.’ A welcoming hand gestures casually at the chair of which the back has been unconsciously gripped tightly, knuckles turning white. Strangely, though it could have been due to still being half-asleep, the same motioning fingers appear to want to reach out but can barely withhold themselves. A silly idea, judging by the even voice continuing to speak. ‘Have a seat. We still got a bit of time before we need to go. If you want to, of course.’

Without a second thought, any outerwear is draped over the offered seat before rapidly plopping down. Apparently doing so with much eagerness for a stunned breathless laugh escapes the girl about to take a sip of the peace offering. ‘Thank you, Miss.’

‘Miss?’ An inquisitive eyebrow raises, the unconsciously made mistake only realized too late.

Lips part in panic, wanting to protest yet all words fail to string themselves into a proper excuse. ‘I- I mean- I didn’t mean to- Y- Y/N, I swear I-’

‘Namjoon,’ kind digits wrap around the nautical map covering tensed muscles bared from beneath denim, ‘take a deep breath. Like that. There you go. Good b- Good.’

The slip of the tongue is laughed off, locks shaking slightly in unjust embarrassment fueling a heart truly wanting to shrink before vanishing from the earth entirely. 

Or so it did want to, the warmth in the chest now spreading its rosy glow throughout while repeating the error over and over mentally.

I’m pleasing her. She wanted to say I’m her good boy. I can be. I am. I am your good boy, Y/N.

‘Uhm, are you alright?’ The digits that retracted in a fashion wrongly perceived as trembling reach out again, slightly shaking the feather resting eternally on skin. The warmth of the palm perfectly enveloping it is comforting, a steady beacon guiding consciousness back to reality. 

Away from the perverse thought of that same hand pinning an absent-minded poor soul to the mattress in the same manner. Henceforth, albeit with a suppressed jolt of surprise as if waking from a dream, sight gradually focuses on the beautiful woman wearing a concerned expression. ‘Huh, what?’

‘You were spacing out.’ A whimper can barely be silenced before being made audible at feeling the light squeeze asking for attention, fast-beating heart skipping beats. Once again distracted by the contact and the lips that want to be experienced from up close instead of far away. 

Yet sharply sane enough to muster a half-hearted excuse blaming the morning for the ridiculous behaviour. ‘Oh, ehm, yeah. I’m fine. It’s early.’

What am I doing? She doesn’t know me and I don’t really know her. I need to get a grip on myself.

‘Fortunately, there’s coffee to wake us up.’ The worry melts away into gentle kindness, leaving digits creating a cold wake as they wrap around the bright yellow cardboard cup bearing the university’s logo. But not chilling the honest man turned into a lovesick puppy mimicking the normalcy of drinking coffee while ignoring the pooling heat below.

We still have some time and I can’t move until I’ve calmed down. She shouldn’t know what she does to me, not yet. Not... ever.

‘Can I ask you something?’ To keep the conversation flowing, an innocent desire appears to form the lead to follow. Awkwardly shuffling to hide the strain in jeans, voice is kept as steadily as possible regardless of shyness overtaking demeanour slowly. 

‘Sure. Fire away.’

‘What were you penning down earlier? I- I saw you... uhm, just now- I saw you write something in your notebook.’

Why did I stutter? Why is she looking like that? Oh God, what do I do?

‘And you don’t suppose it actually has to do with the course?’ The sarcastic chuckle on the rim of the cup has a strangely flattered undertone, almost to be called endeared. 

Withholding innermost personal emotions. 

That circulate beneath the indecipherable surface of breathtaking affectionate irises locking gazes with genuine curiosity. ‘Why would it at this hour? It’s just a random thought more than a poem but then again, so is all my poetry. If it can be even called that.’ However, all playfulness fades into under-the-breath muttering as melancholia takes over and Y/N’s focus moves away to finish the cheap warm drink. ‘Just an amalgamation of thoughts.’

A loathsome sight to a boy with love for a woman whom he barely knows yet wants to ensure the happiness of. 

Without being aware of it, a hand glides over the thigh clad in obsidian as speech becomes urgent. ‘Hey, don’t talk like that. I’m sure it’s good.’

And moves away as if burned by fire when the intimacy is noticed thanks to a tilt of the head, enchanting eyes leaning to the side in rather odd fascination. ‘Oh God, I’m so sorry. Still, may- No, what am I saying? Y/N, I didn’t-’

‘Namjoon, it’s alright.’ Softly smiling fingers brush over shivering honey skin, gliding over it and drawing intricate calming patterns over inked stories to still the panic. ‘I don’t mind.’

‘Y- You don’t?’

‘No, I don’t. Please, say what you wanted to say.’

The bottom lip is briefly worried between teeth, a sigh rolling off the tongue when deciding to speak up at last in spite of wanting to disappear, be swallowed whole by the onyx beanie hiding earthly brown locks in dire need of a cut. ‘May I read it?’

‘Promise you won’t judge? You seem to know a great deal more than I about the genre.’ Mayhaps unaware of it, the palm resting on the place formerly deemed forbidden is enveloped as much as possible by a smaller one as a tiny thumb caresses the back of it.

Thus for a few seconds stretching into moments we sit, newly met strangers already of a bond with one another that does not touch grounds with that of lovers nor mere friends. It is of a different indescribable nature, testing the waters of uncharted territory.

But it feels safe.

Trusted.

Like a safe haven the map on the arm leads to.

She is my anchor. 

Which is shown by flipping the tables enough that Y/N’s hand rests between those of a poor sod from Ilsan on foreign soil. And it takes all inner strength to not put it on the cheek, to bask in the kindness. ‘Tell you what, I’ll let you read mine if you let me read yours. ‘Fair?’

The last sip of coffee is quickly gulped down before answering with the same confidence that shines bright in illuminated irises. ‘Fair.’

That dim when noticing the time. ‘We have to go.’

For nine o’clock on a September Tuesday will always be too early to analyze poetry.

But never too soon to see her.

‘Let’s go.’

Nine o’clock on a September Tuesday will always be too early to analyze poetry.

But never too soon to see him.

To lean against the deep-voiced mixture of nicotine and cologne wearing glasses with a thick black frame that others shun, ignorantly afraid of the person they deem a delinquent. However, they cannot see the gentle soul beneath a prejudiced exterior, not feel the fast stiffening of muscles that melt away at a pleased hum.

‘Are you still awake?’ A low giggle resonates in the baritone inquiry, having a chance to talk in a short ten-minute break after processing a ton of poetical and theoretical analysis. 

Judging by the sloth-like sensation spreading throughout, the information might not be committed to memory until notes made on the automatic pilot are read through. ‘Barely.’

‘Want to get another coffee?’

‘Mhm, I’d rather sit here.’ A pleased smile naturally carves itself into lips. An odd thing to happen, but there is something in the subdued scent of soap beneath the heavier aromas of musk and tobacco or perhaps the combination of the three that creates a small piece of happiness. ‘Thank you.’

‘For what?’ Regardless of not being able to see Namjoon’s face, lashes fluttering shut, the quizzical look can vividly be imagined behind closed eyes. And it enhances the sense of kind joy, glad to be in the company of a good friend.

Or more. No, less. What are we? What do we mean? Hm, doesn’t matter now. Gods, should have drunk another espresso before heading out the door.

‘For letting me lean against you like this.’ As a sign of honest appreciation and to be more comfortable, the warm tribal jungle of aquatic blue and emerald green is further snuggled up against. ‘I like it.’

‘Don’t fall asleep, though. We’re halfway there.’ For a split second, there is the curious wish or, rather, expectation for the statement to be sealed with a chaste kiss on the top of the head. Withal, to unjust disappointment, it does not come for. It would have been absurd if it had, of course.

And yet the desire keeps gnawing on the inside. 

‘If I do, please wake me up before the professor sees.’ Fortunately, inner sensations can be suppressed by taking on a playful tone barely shy of badly lying. Nevertheless, a sudden memory of a promise erases the thought of being like this outside of the university, huddled together on a couch.

Or between the sheets.

The timid giant spent in the arms of a girl turned weirdly mischievous as of late.

Eyes languidly open, brought back from the equally as sudden and vibrant recalling of the awkward shuffling to apparently hide the endearing hardened shape in jeans. Voice remains even, luckily, when reminding the buff sweetheart of what is due to him as well. ‘Oh, right. I promised I’d let you read my new poem. Hold on, let me grab my notebook.’ 

Perhaps thanks to the fear of being caught red-handed with furiously blushing cheeks, locks immediately duck under the table to rummage around the backpack that is hardly filled with anything. Notwithstanding, the opposite is acted out until the rampant thoughts of a racing heart have calmed down. 

Only to almost start anew when bumping into Joon’s hand upon rising from beneath the piece of furniture.

‘I- I didn’t- Just making sure you wouldn’t get hurt.’ Swiftly, composure crumbles appealingly into haphazard helplessness as the shield against injury is retracted while actively trying not to stutter. 

‘Much appreciated. Truly.’ To quiet the doubt in the fellow poet’s behaviour, an assuring tone naturally slips into soft-spoken smiling speech. And works effectively as a rapidly breathing chest falls slower. 

Once more, comfort is sought by leaning against the jungle-shaded arm, leafing to the correct page before closing eyes again with the risk of falling asleep. ‘Here you go.’

Without waiting for another cue, Namjoon starts reading the poem in the only manner one should read poetry.

As much shame as it may cause.

It has to be done out loud.

‘Youth shouldn’t think

About Death yet it

Contemplates its very

Existence and the relation

Between them.

Why fear something distant?

Distant.

But incredibly close.

Lurking in effervescent ever-

Present shadows.

Waiting patiently.

For Age.

For Chance.

For Fate. 

For Opportunity.

For Time.

For Me.’

A breathless laugh attracts the tall man’s attention. ‘What?’

‘Nothing.’ In spite of partially meaning to mock oneself for the quality of the writing, the sudden outburst is mostly due to the surprising effect a voice, Namjoon’s voice has on the piece of writing. A hand unconsciously comes to rest on a muscled thigh, basking in the warmth and the slight movement leaning into the touch by pressing it against the one secretly wanting more. ‘I just like the way you read poetry. You have a good voice for it. It’s nice to listen to.’

‘Y/N,’ breath hitches in a beautiful whimper when the palm moves slightly upward, ‘people are looking.’

A shrug dismisses the worry, not bothered whatsoever by the ones who have silently cast a peer out on grounds of appearance. None would admit this outright, of course, but it is obvious in behaviour during seminars and lectures. ‘Don’t care.’

‘What if they think we are... you know... together?’

‘We’re all adults here, grownups with a sense of what a relationship entails. Besides, does it matter? Let them think whatever, Namjoon.’ As languidly as a cat, eyes open again to blink a few times before looking up at a flustered tanned face. Mayhaps a misperception, but it seems closer than before. 

He looks adorable. No, what am I doing? Focus! He read your poem, so this is not the time for fantasy.

Moving away a little bit from the intoxication caused by the combination of musk and tobacco, enhanced by the sensation of a big palm enveloping the one wandered more towards the inside of denim, speech is endeavoured to be made steady. Nevertheless, the attempt only succeeds in part as careful guidance testing the waters beneath the table leads to an intenser heat. ‘But what did you think of it?’ 

And ends in boldly being spread out across clothed hardened skin of which the ego rapidly grows breathless. Especially more so when willingly applying pressure, thoroughly enjoying the parting of plush lips risking being heard and expression contorting into laboured concentration. ‘Come on, don’t be shy.’

‘I- Is this what you, ah, ehm, think about in the morning?’ Hips slowly rock against the offender, seeking the desperately needed friction as skin begins to pass the state of glowing and grows dewy.

‘“I was a woman who thought of dead things. All the time. I couldn’t help it.”’ Enough mental stability can be gathered to manage a blank stare signifying ignorance as to where the applicable quote stems from. Forcefully, the ability to pay attention is compelled to be enhanced as the waist is suppressed with a smirk into sitting quietly on the chair. ‘Ah, ah, ah. Sit still before someone catches you. Lidia Yuknavitch said this in The Chronology of Water: A Memoir. And I’ll be honest, I got that quote from Tumblr.’

‘D- Don’t stop.’ All attention is returned to the movements below that have not stopped in the meanwhile, teeth biting down on the lower lip succeeding in nullifying the groan that wants to become audible. 

‘Break time is almost over.’ Time for contact is running out, the chatty professor pacing back towards the lecturer with a steaming cup of cheap coffee. Every second ticks away faster, but the steps in the race towards craved oblivion are too little. On the other hand, it would be a just punishment for the public brashness. 

‘Could we- Can we g-get lunch? Together?’

‘Is that what you want? What you think about?’ The absurdity evokes an amused low chuckle, truly finding joy in seeing the tough yet submissive poet struggle. ‘We just met, Joon.’

‘Y- Yet you let m- me do this, Miss.’ Digits free from tribal ink wrap around the wrist, willing it to remain out of sight beneath the table without stopping. 

What are we doing? We’re basically strangers. But... he held my hand and now we’re doing this. We both want this. This is ridiculous and yet, with the way he calls me that, the power is intoxicating.

And held onto a tad longer, mischief triumphing long enough to find pleasure in the whine at being left hanging high and dry after the squeeze that could have invoked embarrassing euphoria. ‘Not for long, bad boy.’

‘Alright, so! Where were we? Ah, right, why rhyme pleases.’ The professor has returned from the momentous coffee break fully, yellow cup empty and the little caffeine forming enough fuel to make it through the last three quarters filled with poetic analysis. 

Forty-five minutes of swatting away secretive undecorated hands trying to find release, as shameful as it is, by themselves.

To, perhaps, play the part of the devil to the end.

And maybe, just maybe admit to something.

To desire bordering on young love.

To a tribal jungle and nautical map on muscled buff arms.

To him who is clearly struggling.

To Namjoon. 

[spaceskam]

in some other life

ao3

Day 5: freaky friday  This is my 15k word monstrosity that has been haunting my brain for a month and that I’ve been hinting about here and there so I hope it was worth my efforts 

Inspired by tyler blackburn in hello again

"Fuck off, Guerin."

Michael watched helplessly as Alex walked away, walking back to that guy he came to the Wild Pony with no shame. Panic tightened in his chest as he watched them until he couldn't, until seeing them touch hurt him, until seeing them kiss killed him. Then he watched a little longer. He deserved it. He did Alex and Maria both dirty and Liz and Isobel were both still mad that he wasn't helping them revive Max.

Except he was.

After almost puking from watching the buff Airman grope Alex under the guise of helping him play pool, Michael decided it was time to leave. He couldn't let all this discourage him. He had to let it fuel him, fuel him to fix things before it was too late. If he watched too long, it'd be too hard to do that. He'd feel too guilty to take away what Alex had made for himself.

Michael returned to his bunker completely sober. even though he'd just been at the bar. In the last six months, he'd managed to get completely sober. It hadn't even really been on purpose, he just got so lost in his work that he'd forgotten to eat or drink or do anything. There wasn't time for that. Even when he craved it, he craved having Max and Alex back more, so he focused everything on that.

That night six months prior, Alex had given him the last piece of his ship and kindly made it clear he wouldn't care if he left. Michael had dropped it, had ran after him. He had been so tired of watching Alex walk away without going after him that doing it that time just wasn't an option. But Alex had looked at him like he was crazy and got in his truck and left. That was a pain he hadn't known possible.

So he got fucked up. It took a positively lethal dose of alcohol, acetone, and weed to get him to the point to completely shatter to console. He didn't remember all the details of it, but there were vague memories of crying on the floor surrounded by alien glass and was enough to make him cringe. However, he woke up the next morning with pages strewn about the bunker, all drunken ideas on how to use the console to construct a time machine. It was the best idea he'd ever fucking had.

They were looking at everything all wrong. They were trying to figure out how to revive the revivalist instead of working with their strengths. Michael knew mechanics and he knew physics and he had alien technology at his disposal‒why should a time machine be out of the question?

It took him a while, but he was almost done. Michael wasn't really good at the coding part of it and had to read up on it, which added another month to the entire process. It was a constant stream of trial and failure, trial and failure, trial and failure.

But not tonight.

Tonight, he'd figured it all out. Before he'd gone to the Wild Pony, he'd placed the final piece, flipped the switch, and watched a portal open in his bunker. It was really happening, he just had to dial in the time and the coordinates and he'd be off. He just wanted to see Alex one last time just in case it malfunctioned and killed him. He didn't have the time or company for a test subject: he had to just hope his brain wouldn't fail him.

More than that, he hoped that his last memory of Alex wasn't full of anger and rejection.

Michael stepped down the ladder into his bunker, combing his hands through his hair as he gazed at the portal. His hair had gotten longer considering he hadn't cut it in pushing a year now and it fell recklessly at his shoulders. The last couple months he'd become sort of accustomed to wearing it pulled back so he could work, but tonight he'd wanted to look a little decent for his goodbye to Alex. That hadn't worked. He was more eager to get back in time than ever.

He set the coordinates and all the excess numbers on the machine, watching it swirl and turn a dark shade of purple instead of the black that it had been. Anxiety rippled through him, tearing at his stomach and squeezing at his throat. He didn't want to die, but it sure felt like that's where he was headed. This was easily the most dangerous thing he'd ever done and he was about to do it with no regrets. Maybe that was sad. Or pathetic. Or both.

But he'd created a fucking time machine, so who cared?

Before he went, he pulled out his phone. If he did die, he wanted to make sure they heard one last goodbye. He'd gone to see everyone today, but he had to make it seem like it was just another day. He didn't need them questioning him. He also didn't want them finding out he'd killed himself only through his journals that explained the entire last six months.

To: Liz, Iz ICE, Alex ICE, Deluca, Dr. McDreamy

Hi. Sorry for the group message. Basically I'm leaving tonight. You probably won't see me again and if you do then I've failed. I didn't want to go without saying goodbye, but I also didn't want to freak you all out today when I came to see you. I know I've let you all down and I hope what I'm doing makes up for it. Thank you for being around me even though you don't like me. I'm sorry for all my fuck ups and for hurting you and for generally being a bad person. I hope it's better in another life. Love, Michael

He stared at it for a while before he sent it and then immediately turned his phone off once it had gone through. He didn't want to see what they had to say. It'd either be a ton of guilt-tripping so he wouldn't want to risk his life, or it'd be them not giving a shit. He didn't want either.

Except, as he took a step towards the portal, he realized he had more to say. This was a 50/50 chance that he'd never see Alex again. Actually, worse odds than that. It could explode and kill him, it could send him to a completely different time all together, it could just send him straight back to his home planet where he'd be reprimanded for using their ship for something else. There was a teeny tiny chance that this would work and he would find himself nine months in the past and, instead of going to Maria, he'd go to Max and then he'd go to Alex. It was too small to leave Alex thinking… whatever he thought.

Michael quickly ripped a page from his notebook and wrote 'ALEX' in big block letters at the top. He did his best to scribble out everything he felt, every little tidbit of his feelings for Alex. How much he loved him, how he wished things were different, how he regretted everything. He wrote about how he missed him and the way he felt when they kissed and touched. He wrote about how he wanted to go back in time and make sure Alex knew that he loved him and that he would wait for Alex to find the right words. That was the problem. He never let Alex find his words. Next time, he would. He would let him and he would listen and he would love him.

Once he got it out of his system, Michael was ready.  Ready to go and get his brother and his man and hopefully not die before he can. If he dies, then Isobel is genuinely fucked. He'd hate that.

"Okay, I can do this."

A heavy breath later, Michael found himself right in front of the portal. He placed his hand against the alien glass, closing his eyes as he reached out with his mind to connect with it. He felt it and he hooked himself in, taking one more heavy breath and focusing completely on Max and Alex as he slammed his hand down to lock in his coordinates and dates.

And he stepped inside.

Michael wasn't sure what he expected to happen, but it definitely was what he expected. His whole body froze midway inside and he couldn't move, stuck with half his body in his world and half somewhere in between. His body slowly started heating up from the inside and for a moment he could tolerate it, but the more he started panicking about being stuck, the more it burned. And burned. And burned. And burned.

He tried to scream, tried to pull back, tried to stop it from hurting so bad by sheer force of will, but none of it worked. It was a pain he couldn't even comprehend, a pain that no man should be able to stay awake through. Just straight pain.

And then it was nothing.

-

Everything hurt.

Michael's eyes very reluctantly dragged open, only for the world to spin around him. Every movement caused pain to ripple through him. He couldn't remember the last time he felt this sore. But, hey, at least he was alive. Or something like that.

Somehow, he managed to pull himself into a sitting position and looked around. He was on the floor of a studio apartment he didn't recognize.  He'd never actually seen a studio apartment in real life, but whoever owned this one clearly cleaned up well. Everything was meticulous, from the way the bed was made to the way the walls were covered in framed articles. The only thing that wasn't, was the giant, shattered time machine that was against the wall beside a very neat desk. Okay…

Groaning, Michael pulled himself to his feet. He was covered in soot and his limbs were still tingling from whatever the hell that was. He wiped off his arms and looked around once again, trying to figure out where he was because it clearly hadn't sent him to where he wanted. Maybe he got the coordinates wrong or something.

However, his eyes zeroed in on a framed newspaper picture on the nightstand. It was him, Isobel, and Max, only they were children in it, none of them were smiling, and all of them had shaved heads. Anxiety pooled in his stomach as he grabbed it, his hands shaking as he took it out of the frame. It clearly had been cut, removing it of anything informative, but it had all their names written in a handwriting very similar to his own. The back of it was some article about the Rodeo coming to town. Why were they in the fucking newspaper?

More importantly, where the fuck was he?

Michael looked around for anything that would tell him anything. There was a phone on the desk. He raced toward it, his mind pulling it to meet him halfway. That had to tell him something, right? It had to have more information.  It was one of the really fancy iPhones that he had basically no idea how to use other than the things he learned by looking over Isobel's shoulder.

But his fingerprint unlocked it so that was a start.

The background of the phone was a picture of a little Isobel and a little Max. It wasn't the same one as the one in the frame, but it just a blurry. It rubbed him the wrong way. Still, he pushed past the uneasy feelings and went to his contacts. There were only five: AAA, Dr. Anagonye, Bank, Work, and Dr. Wyatt. Okay.

Clearly, he was somewhere else where he was him, but nothing else was like it was supposed to be. He was going to get more information before he allowed himself to panic. So he called Dr. Anagonye.

"Dr. Anagonye's office, Gina speaking, how can I help you?"

Michael licked his lips, "Uh, hi… This is… Michael Guerin?" He really didn't mean for it to sound like a question, but what if that wasn't the right name? What if he didn't exist in the same way here? Wherever the hell here was. Nowhere in his world would Isobel shave her head, regardless of her age.

"Oh, Michael! How are you, honey? Do you need to reschedule?" Gina said, her voice even more kind than it was when he originally answered. Michael blinked.

"Um, yes, yes, reschedule my…"

"Your session? Honey, you know you can just text, I know you struggle with the phone," she said. Okay, so in this life, he's got phone anxiety. Good to know. "Is everything alright? Are the nightmares back? Do you need me to get Dr. Anagonye?"

"Oh, no, I'm alright. Thank you," Michael said, hanging up before she said anymore or clarified when he wanted to reschedule.

Michael fell into the chair at the desk, doing his best to piece together everything in his mind. The phone proved to be a whole lot of help, though, and within thirty minutes of fucking around on it and finding information, he discovered that he was in Manhattan, worked for the government doing fancy tech engineering bullshit, and that he couldn't find anything that said his friends might know him in this world. He even used Google. There was legitimately no trace of Max or Isobel despite him having childhood pictures of them, Liz was some bigshot biomedical engineer in New Zealand, Maria had nothing but an Instagram to promote the Wild Pony, Kyle had two published medical theses, and Alex… Alex was also hard to find.

That was frustrating. Nothing came up really for Alex Manes, nothing for Alexander Manes, nothing for Manes in general outside of his father. However, he did eventually find Alex. This version of Michael did have an Instagram, but it wasn't one that had his name or his face attached to it. It was just an anonymous place he posted science memes and he didn't want to think too much into that loaded situation. However, going through the few people he followed, it was basically only famous scientists and then someone named Alex the Angel. And clicking on it made him fucking melt into his chair.

It was absolutely Alex or just a version of his Alex that was a gogo dancer at someplace called Hitchcock's. There were hundreds of pictures of him posing all perfectly, occasionally half-dressed and drenched in glitter. Some of them were normal, him having lunch with friends or him in a Starbucks barista uniform. But there were definitely more of him dancing on a platform or in a cage or posing half-naked or completely naked with nothing more than strategic placement keeping his modesty. Heat pooled in Michael's stomach and he eventually had to put the phone down to register it. Whatever had changed in this world had resulted in the universe's most confident Alex, one that smiled more and one that radiated a level of sex appeal that his Alex never did. That was a lot to take in.

However, he also was the only one that was also in New York. He was the only one that Michael might be able to talk to. If he had to stay here all by himself for too long, he might fucking lose it. So, the first step is to see if he can fix the not-time-machine and see if he can go back home. If he can't, then the next step is to find Alex the Angel.

For the next three hours, Michael sifted through all of Other Michael's journals. He learned that he was apparently he was apart of something called the Roswell Three and, instead of being adopted out, they were taken in by government agents. He skipped ahead whenever it oh so elegantly started mentioning years and years of being science experiments. Page 47 mentioned that his main drive to build a time machine was to go back and get Max and Isobel. That made Michael that much more eager to go home.

Home he at least still had Isobel. He didn't want to live in a world where we had neither of them.

But it wasn't long until he realized he was in way over his head. Whatever the other version of him was doing with his coding made no goddamn sense to him, even some of the engineering parts of it didn't make sense. Maybe they both had fucked up so monumentally that, combined, just made them fucking switch places. Imagine that.

Once he realized mindless tinkering wasn't going to get him anyway, he decided to clean himself up a bit before heading to Hitchcock's at midnight. A weird level of excitement was rippling through him as he used Other Michael's phone GPS to lead him to the place where Alex had to be. He had posted on his story that he was there like an hour ago. He had to still be there.

Michael had somehow gone his entire life without entering a club. Even when Isobel wanted to when they turned 21 or when Liz tried to originally cheer him up by bringing him to a gay bar, nothing beforehand had prepared him for what he was entering.

The building was so bright and loud that it made itself known before he saw the line of people waiting to get inside. Surprisingly, he didn't have to wait too long because he apparently was just good looking enough to slip past. He decided not to think too much of it, focusing on finding Alex. The place was packed, filled with half-dressed men dancing on each other and for each other. It was bright and loud and sticky and he really wanted to get out of there. Not that it wasn't full of gorgeous men to look at, but it made it hard to find his gorgeous man.

Until he did.

On one of the little platforms stood Alex. Danced Alex. Alex dressed in nothing but a pair of tight little hot pants and a vest, his tan body glistening in the strobe lights and sweat. And he was smiling. Suddenly, Alex the Angel seemed to be the perfect title.

Michael's chest felt heavy as he pushed his way to him, unable to stop looking. He was gorgeous. His hair was a lot longer than Alex had ever been allowed to have his, perfectly fixed in a windswept type of way. His body was thinner than his Alex's, closer to how he looked before the military muscle, and his face looked more youthful. Perhaps he didn't have as much stress here. That was good. This was good.

"Hey!" Michael called once he got to the platform, trying to get his attention. He hadn't really thought everything through, like what he was going to say or how he was going to convince him of the situation. All he knew was that Other Michael clearly thought he was hot enough to stalk him on social media and that the only way he was going to get home was if he had someone to fucking talk shit through with. The only option other than Alex the Angel was his fucking therapist and he wasn't about to get thrown into a mental institution. This just had to work. "Hey!"

Alex may have glanced his way, but he didn't give him the time of day. Michael was about five seconds away from reaching out to get his attention, but he remembered this wasn't his Alex and, even if it was, that was a bad move. That's a quick way to get kicked in the face.

"Alex Manes!" Michael called. That got his attention. He looked down at him, never stopping his dancing as he made eye contact. He raised an eyebrow and his smile slipped off his face. Okay. "I need to talk to you!"

"I'm working."

"I'll wait!" Alex stared at him for a minute, but slowly that smile grew on his face.

"My break is in twenty minutes, find me then."

Michael let himself find the bar and leaned against it, politely declining the drinks men of all shapes and sizes offered him. His eyes stayed on Alex, watching this boy who was just a version of the man he loved and trying to weigh the morality of it all. Was it wrong to be attracted to basically a clone of someone you love? It wasn't like it was the same person or anything and they had no history but was it still weird when Michael was aware of all the feelings he had for someone who was basically him?

He decided that alternate universes were too fucking confusing and just enjoyed the beauty of Alex Manes.

Eventually, a large man helped Alex off the platform and then helped another man step up. Michael instantly started wading his way through the crowd to get to him, meeting him somewhere in the sea of people. Alex touched his chest with a smile and his mind went blank. His Alex hadn't done anything other than push him away no matter how hard he tried for months now. This was otherworldly. Literally.

"I need to talk to you," Michael said eventually.

"You can buy me a drink."

"I'm serious, I‒"

"Buy me a drink," Alex said, his hand slipping off his chest.

"If I buy you a drink, will you listen to me?" Michael asked. Alex looked over him and gave him a condescending little smile.

"Maybe. Why don't you find out?" Alex said, walking away and towards the bar. Great. Fantastic. He’s the worst.

Michael complied, though, and bought him a drink that was way too expensive. He assumed Other Michael had a bomb bank account if his apartment and job said anything. Still, Alex elegantly sipped on the blue drink, looking over Michael without any sense of shame. He let it happen.

“Okay,” Alex eventually said, turning to face Michael completely and reaching up to adjust his curls, “Tell me what’s so important that you tracked me down and called me by my full name that no one in this place should know. Are you a cop trying to arrest me or something?” He seemed way too into that idea.

“Okay, this is going to sound insane,” Michael started, pausing as Alex took a step closer and really started playing with his hair, “So, uh, I’m from an alternate reality and I’m kind of stuck here and, in my reality, you’re the love of my life and I figured if anyone could help me get home, it’d be you.” Alex cocked an eyebrow, snorting a little laugh.

“That’s not the weirdest pickup line I’ve gotten, but you seem the most convinced by it,” Alex said, combing his fingers through his hair and pulling out knots in a way that made his eyes fluttered closed. This was absolutely not helping. “Come dance with me.”

“N-no, I don’t have time, I really need help getting home,” Michael said, melting into Alex’s touch as he slid his palm over to cup his cheek.

“You have all the time in the world until you don’t. Dance with me.”

Michael had little ability to reject him, allowing himself to be led to the dance floor. Alex cupped his face and brought their foreheads to meet before sliding his hands into his hair, smiling that satisfied little smile as he moved his body against Michael’s. It was more than a little overwhelming. And stupid. He was legit stuck in a completely different reality where he didn’t have Isobel or Max and instead of working to get back, he was just fucking dancing with another version of Alex.

“You’re a really bad dancer,” Alex laughed, rubbing over his chest.

“Yeah, well,” Michael sighed, keeping his hands securely on his hips, “I really can’t stay long, I really need to get back.”

“You’re still going with this alternate reality routine?” Alex sighed, giving him those big puppy eyes that Michael hadn’t seen since he was a teenager. Fuck.

“It’s not a routine, I swear. I-I can prove it to you,” Michael blurted before realizing he literally couldn’t prove it to him. He had no idea what was different from his reality and what was the same.

Still, Alex tilted his head back and raised an eyebrow. “Try me.”

“Okay, uh… You were born in Roswell, New Mexico, your dad’s name is Jesse Manes, you have three older brothers, you‒” Alex’s hands slipped off of him as he stopped moving, confusion written on his face.

“So, what, you’re my stalker or something?” Michael’s eyes went wide.

“No! No, no, look, I don’t know what’s the same or different from my Alex, but his best friends are Liz Ortecho and Maria Deluca, his favorite movie is Rocky Horror when he wants to name something people know and In The Mood For Love when he’s being honest, he really hates yogurt because it’s not a liquid and not a solid and, quote, ‘basically a sin’, and his favorite band is Panic! At The Disco and Weezer and a million really obscure indie bands that have stupid names, but they make him wax poetic for hours so I don’t mind, and I need to get back to him,” Michael vented, ending his speech with a few heavy breaths. Alex was staring at him with a completely unreadable expression.

Then he was kissing him and it made even less sense than before.

"Whoa," Michael breathed, just barely peeling him away. He wanted to kiss him back for the sheer fact that he hadn't kissed anyone in nearly eight months and who better to kiss than someone who was basically Alex, but it didn't feel right. At least not right now, not when he had no idea what Alex the Angel was thinking.

“What? You don’t like me? You know all that stuff and you don’t like me?” he asked, just the slightest bit of insecurity showing its face. It was gone as soon as it came. “I have to get back to work. I get off at 2:30. If you’re still here, I might keep listening.”

Michael stayed.

The entire situation was more than a little insane and, regardless of the confusion his heart was dealing with, his mind knew he needed Alex. He couldn’t do this alone. Home, he at least had some buffer with Isobel and Liz occasionally. Here, Alex was all he had. So, even if he was confusing and frustrating, he needed him. If he got lucky, Alex the Angel might be as smart as Alex the Airman.

“Damn, you’re giving me a lot of mixed signals,” Alex the Angel laughed when he exited the now dead club to see Michael waiting for him. Michael stood up straight, his hands shoved in his pockets.

“Look, I’m not joking, I need to get back home and I need you to… I don’t know, give me motivation or something. I’m sorry I turned you down, but that’s not really fair to you because you look like my Alex, but you aren’t him and that…” Michael trailed off, watching as Alex neared him with that simple little smile. He reached up and tucked his curls behind his ear.

“You look stressed. You can use me. It’s less creepy than a blow-up doll look-alike,” Alex said, grinning and slowly backing him up against the wall, “You seem to know me well. I bet you’re good in bed.” Michael felt his cheeks flush. The more this Alex spoke, the more it became clear this absolutely wasn’t his Alex. Which, honestly, made it easier when his eyes locked on his lips.

“So you believe me?”

Alex hummed softly, cupping his cheeks and placing a heavy kiss on his lips. Michael reluctantly let it happen. This definitely wasn’t his Alex. Nothing about this situation was his Alex. And yet, his hands still fit against the small of his back like it was made to be there.

“Take me home, Michael,” Alex whispered against his lips and that was pretty much all it took for him to agree. He didn’t let himself wonder how Alex knew his name.

Alex the Angel moaned a lot when he kissed. Even when they had gotten into the back of the cab and the cab driver gave them dirty looks, he never bothered to quiet down. Part of Michael was embarrassed, but the part of him that missed Alex and missed sex loved it. On top of that, every touch he gave felt skilled like he knew every single thing to make him tick. He’d arch his back, he’d pull on his hair, he’d bite at his skin. He was heavenly.

And he didn’t stop until they stumbled into the apartment.

“Holy shit,” Alex said, pulling away and momentarily dropping the suave facade. Michael followed his eyes towards the broken time machine/alternate reality portal that was surrounded by the papers Michael hadn’t picked up before he left. “You… you were serious.”

Michael furrowed his eyebrows. “You came home with me thinking I was using an elaborate pickup line?”

Alex didn’t answer as he neared the broken machine, running his hands over it with a fascinated expression written all over his face. Michael leaned back, watching him look over the machine and mess with the panels. It sparked, but the portal didn’t appear like before. Alex looked over at him.

“Tell me about him.”

“Hm?”

“The other me, the one you’re in love with. Tell me your epic love story,” Alex the Angel urged, stepping up and leaning against his chest. Idle fingers traced up and down his arm.

“Okay,” Michael agreed.

For the first time in his life, Micahel got to recount every single detail about his relationship with Alex. It was borderline therapeutic to talk about it without having to watch what he said. HE could tell him about their first time, the aftermath, the decade of seeing each other randomly and falling in love over 24 hour periods of fucking and cuddling before Alex inevitably left again, and even the depressing argument they’d had only two months before Alex lost his leg. Michael had pleaded with him to stay in touch since he was now well above his father in rank and DADT was no longer in place. They could be a real couple. Alex had said no only because he was going on a really dangerous tour and didn’t want to make a commitment before that. The more Michael pressed to get him to stay in touch, the more Alex pulled away. Instead of leaving him with a kiss and a promise of coming home, he left with an angry ”you’d get it if you did something with your life”.

Alex the Angel made sure to console him the entire time, massaging every inch of him that he could reach and kissing in just as many places. Sometime during the story, Alex had led him to the bed and the tale became even easier to tell. Even the alien reveal really only garnered an, "oh, that makes sense."

Michael told about their reunion and six weeks of heaven through hot kisses. He relived the pain of being shut down twice by the love of his life, comforted by the weight of a man on his chest. The massaging turned into cuddling infused with kisses which were honestly the best thing he had experienced in months. It made it to where he could tell the bullshit of watching his mother die without having a breakdown. He finished the story with a heavy heart and a whole new perspective on the situation. Something about hearing him say he stood him up for his best friend out loud made him feel like shit. Maybe he should stop trying to get him back. Maybe Alex deserved someone else.

“Shit, you really do have an epic love story,” Alex the Angel said, turning Michael’s chin and capturing his lips in a slightly-more-erotic-than-expected kiss. Michael hummed mindlessly into it. Alex broke it when he rolled on top of him, perching elegantly on his hips. God, he was gorgeous. “We need to get you your man back.” His hands slid over Michael’s chest.

Michael was basically putty in his hands, agreeing with a soft, “yeah.”

“Well, you’re in luck,” Alex said, leaning down so, so nicely, “I went to MIT for code and mechanical engineering, I bet I could help.” His voice was a whisper and seriously how does someone make their schooling sound seductive?

“And you’re a go-go dancer?”

“Technically that’s more of a hobby, I’m a barista,” Alex said, his hot breath caressing over Micahel’s unshaven face and he pressed a swollen-lipped kiss to his cheek, “But I got kicked out.”

“Why?” Michael asked, letting his eyes close as he settled his hand on the small of Alex’s back.

Alex smiled against his skin, nudging his nose against his cheek. “I got caught hacking into the school’s system.” Michael smiled dumbly at the ceiling. “Which is a good thing. Better than getting caught the few times I hacked into an FBI database.”

“Why’d you do that?” Michael snorted, slowly moving to try and steal a kiss. This was the most intoxicated he’d felt since the last time he downed a bottle of acetone. Only this time it was just on Alex and his intelligence and his… everything.

“To see if I could,” Alex said hotly, smirking so prevalently as his hand slowly slid between them and down his chest. Michael let his eyes close. God bless.

It was only when Alex stopped above his hips and pushed himself up that Michael opened his eyes again. He was left feeling cold as Alex stepped off the bed. He watched him, his heart thudding in his chest in desperation. He knew he was probably being a little too expectant, but he was stuck in an alternate universe with a version of Alex who wanted him. It was hard to not want everything.

“Where are you going?” he asked, holding no shame in the pathetic tone in his voice. Alex looked over his shoulder with a little smile.

“I was gonna look over Other Michael’s journals to see where to start in rebuilding that portal,” Alex said. He was standing in nothing but low hanging sweatpants, body glitter, and that stupid little vest and he knew he looked good. He had to.

“We… we don’t have to do that right now,” Michael said. Alex raised an eyebrow, that smirk taking over his face as he turned towards him.

“Michael,” he cooed, “How long’s it been?”

“Since what?”

Alex slowly started walking towards him, mischief in his eyes that had Michael melting into the bed.

“Since you left Maria, since you last got some love?” Michael gulped, excitement striking him in the chest and shooting all the way into his fingertips.

“Eight months.”

Alex’s bottom lip protruded in a pout, the mischief never leaving as he knelt beside the bed. His fingertips traced over Michael’s jaw before combing through his hair and Michael chased the feeling.

“Poor baby. He’s touch starved,” he said and Michael didn’t have anything in him to get defensive. It sounded like an accurate description. It felt like a weight was lifted off his shoulders when Alex climbed back on top of him. “Let me take care of you.”

“Yes, please.”

-

"Do you go home with strangers a lot?"

Michael sat on the floor, watching Alex work as he ate. It was early in the morning, but Alex didn't have to go to work until 12 which left some time to look over the journals. Most of the work wasn't far off from what he'd done on his own, so it was mainly Alex who had to get himself up to speed.

"No, usually not ever. If I hook up with a stranger, I do it behind the club. I really don't even do that unless I'm super fucked up," Alex admitted, using delicate fingers to tear off a piece of toast and bring it to his lips. He was disheveled from sex and sleep and had only been awake long enough to throw together a breakfast from what Other Michael had stocked, but he still looked like something out of a magazine you'd hide under your bed. It was insane. "There was just something about you." Alex spared him a glance and a smirk before flipping the page of the journal, leaning closer once it started getting into the real complex coding part.

"Oh, okay. Just… be safe when you do stuff like that," Michael said, trying to coax the flustered feeling away. It was draining almost to have an Alex that used his words like that. He wasn't used to that.

"I'm always safe," Alex said, bending his body forward to grab a pencil. He scribbled some notes in the margin. "You're the one who should watch yourself."

Michael sat up straight as his stomach dropped, eyeing the boy in front of him who paid him no mind. For a moment he considered that he wasn't in an alternate universe at all, that he was instead stuck inside his mind as a coping mechanism and this was a little signal that he was actually being tortured or something. It wasn't that ridiculous to think. Why else would his words sound like a threat?

"I mean, how is Alex the Airman going to feel when he finds out that the first move you made when you woke up in a parallel universe was to go get fucked by a different version of him that didn't have 11 years of pent up rage towards you?" Alex teased, that little smirk in place as he flipped the page. Michael managed to relax.

"It's not like we're together and you're a perfectly consenting adult who knew all of the context before it happened. There was no using," Michael replied, but he didn't know who he was actually trying to explain it to. He did feel a little guilty about it, but it also felt too good to feel really bad. He needed it. He hadn't had so much as a hug in months, surrounded by people who were angry at him. He needed someone to be touchy-feely with.

"I know this, you know this. All I'm saying is if you were mine, it'd put some things in perspective," he said, leaning over just enough to press a kiss to his shoulder. Michael smiled slightly, fiddling with the papers. He tried not to put much thought in the fact that he was happier than he'd been in months and all it took was someone being sweet.

Except he stopped being so happy whenever Alex got up and announced that he was going to go and would be back after his shift ended.

"You're leaving? I thought your shift didn't start until noon," Michael pointed out, trying to hide the desperation in his voice. He was reluctant to be left alone again, primarily because he wasn't sure Alex was actually coming back. He didn't know this Alex that well.

"I have to shower and get my uniform and shit," he answered, rinsing his plate in the sink. Michael looked between the papers and Alex. Logically, he should let him go and just get to work with what he could.

But he was feeling lighter than ever and he didn't want to stop.

"You can shower here, wear some of Other Michael's stuff," he suggested. Alex turned to face him, leaning against the refrigerator and becoming the front cover of GQ.

"You are so needy," Alex said and it felt like rejection. Michael let out a slow breath as he leaned against the bed. He was needy, pushy even. It was too easy to forget that this wasn’t his Alex, he couldn’t just fall into a silent agreement on what was okay and wasn’t. Maybe he was going too far.

“I’m sorry.”

“Jesus Christ, who messed you up?” Alex laughed, letting his hand drag across the wall as he walked towards the bathroom. This was confusing. More confusing than Alex the Airman spending weeks telling him why they couldn’t be together only to show up and say he shouldn’t have left him behind. Apparently, Alex in every reality gave mixed signals. “Michael, are you just going to sit there or are you going to come here?”

That familiar tight feeling grew in his stomach, watching him cautiously and wondering if he should take him seriously. He wanted to. He wanted to be smothered in affection more than he wanted to get home. He knew his priorities would get fixed soon enough, but, right now…

“That’s why you want me to stay, right? Come on," he urged, an unfamiliar look in his eye. It was similar to the one Michael had seen last night. It was that one that Alex the Airman never had. Something like insecurity and lust all in one. "Stop looking at me like that, Michael. You're not using me. I want you. Seriously, do you know how good in bed you are? You bring power bottom to a whole new level.”

A smile pulled at Michael’s lips as he rolled his eyes and scrambled to his feet. Alex gave him that satisfied little smile, grabbing the back of his neck and pulling him in for a kiss. They fit easily into the little shower together, finally stripping themselves of the glitter and sweat from the night before.

Over the next two weeks, Michael had found it shockingly easy to slip into a routine. They’d get up, have breakfast together, Michael would make notes and do some of the physical engineering while Alex was at work, Alex would come home and make them dinner, and they’d work together until they eventually fall into bed. It was oddly the closest thing to a stable relationship he’d ever had. He liked being able to do a fuck ton of science and math with him and then be able to fall into bed with him at the end of the night. His happiness being with him hadn’t been waning, even if he did find himself missing his Alex every now and then.

He made sure to put a little work into Other Michael’s job as well, not wanting to fuck him over when he got to come back. Besides, it was pretty easy since he worked from home and just overviewed other peoples’ tech babble. All of his bills were paid by auto withdrawal which was so cool. Micahel himself never had enough money to have that as a safe idea.

Still, life had never felt better. He was certain that what they’d created together was turning out to be better than the one he created before. It also helped that they were actually trying to construct an alternate reality portal this time, merely keeping the dials and such the same, as a way to avoid the whole near-death thing that happened the first time. The hope was that if they kept the dials the same, it’d open to his reality.

“I’d heard about the Roswell Three when they were found and for like a week you guys were in the news, but then it pretty much went off-grid afterward. You were like an urban legend in Roswell, so I’m sure that’s why he fucked off to New York after his siblings died,” Alex explained one day as he typed questionably fast on the computer. Michael felt blessed that both Alex’s were into coding. He was sure his bad coding was what got him here in the first place.

“I think it was more than that, honestly. His journals say that they were kept in a facility as experiments for most of their lives. I don’t know how he got out, but I’m guessing that when he did, he just wanted to get as far away as he could,” Michael explained while he tinkered with the mechanical part of the portal, reaching his foot out to nudge Alex’s knee. He didn’t look up as he smiled, nudging back.

“Don’t you wanna meet Other Michael, see what he’s like? Ask about his life?” Alex wondered. Michael sighed as he put the wrench he was holding down.

“A little bit, but I mainly just want to get home,” he admitted. Alex nodded, his smile fading.

“You miss the Airman?”

“Yeah, I do, a lot. Even though I’m really sure he even wants me. Actually, I’m sure he doesn’t. Last time I saw him, he told me to fuck off,” he snorted, but it hurt. It really, really hurt.

He liked Alex the Angel, he really did. He liked their routine, he liked their time together, he liked learning about him, he liked everything, even down to things like washing dishes and going grocery shopping together. But it wasn’t his Alex. There wasn’t the history, there wasn’t the cosmic feeling, there wasn’t the feeling of family, and, while the sex was mindblowing, it didn’t make him dizzy with love. Somehow, being in a world with Alex the Airman hating him was better than not being in a world with him at all.

“I want you,” Alex the Angel said, closing the laptop to the side and crawling towards Michael. The sad feeling of missing his Airman was slowly being overcome with appreciation for his Angel. Alex straddled him effortlessly, combing his fingers through his hair. “I want you every moment, every day. I can’t imagine seeing you and not wanting you. I want to kiss you and touch you and…” Alex rested his forehead on Michael’s, both men becoming completely infatuated with the other.

“Me too. I want you too. God, I want you,” Michael said, letting Alex lean down to kiss him.

If he got stuck here and could never go home, he couldn’t say he’d have a problem staying here forever with Alex the Angel. He missed Alex and Isobel and Max and Liz and everyone else, but he was happy. He had love and affection and a stable job and respect. Things were easy.

“Why do you look at me like that?” Alex suddenly whispered as he pulled out of the kiss, resting their foreheads together. His index finger rubbed over Michael’s stubble, easing any stress the question might have caused.

“Like what?” he murmured even though he could feel the absolute adoration that showed on his face. He couldn’t help it.

Alex’s eyes flickered around his face for a moment before he shook his head, bowing for another kiss. It was lighter than its predecessor, a fluttery feeling exploding in Michael’s chest. It was that type of feeling he got as a teenager and Alex had kissed him so lovingly that it made him never want to leave the comfort of that kiss. That was this. This was it. This was safe. Maybe not home… but welcoming.

“Do you look at me like that because I look like him?” Alex asked as he broke the kiss suddenly again. Michael furrowed his eyebrows for a moment before he pieced it together and slowly let himself smile.

“No, not even kind of,” Michael mused, placing his hand on his cheek. His thumb grazed his cheek and Alex leaned into the touch. “Look, the more I spend time with you, the more you become someone else entirely. Maybe at first, it was confusing, but you’re nothing like him. You honestly don’t even look that much like him. You carry yourself differently, you dress differently, you speak differently. I look at you the way I look at you because you are you. You aren’t him. He isn’t you. I promise.”

Michael decided he had chosen his words well when he was pushed to the floor with his hands pinned above his in order to be kissed senseless.

-

"Try this, tell me if you like it," Alex called, walking in from the kitchen. He only had on a pair of sweats that he'd stolen from Michael, the fabric hanging off his slim figure in a way that was certifiably obscene. It was damn near impossible to get any work done, but Michael couldn't find it in him to complain. He moved his computer to the side.

In a move that was entirely Alex the Angel, he brought the spoon to his own mouth and seemed to think nothing of the steaming sauce that dropped onto his skin during his taste test, trailing over his neck and down his bare chest. Something in Michael’s gut twisted and turned, his heart leaping into his throat as he stared.

"Doesn't that burn?" Michael asked as Alex stepped between this thighs, the sauce still slipping and tracing the faint muscles on his stomach.

"Not really," Alex said, placing his foot on Michaels chair and pulling him closer. "Stop looking at me like that. Taste."

Michael stared up at him. Alex's eyebrow was raised and hardly a trace of a smile was on his face, but his eyes were littered with mischief and how could Michael say no? His hands gripped the back of Alex's thighs, staring up still as he slowly licked the sauce off his abdomen. Something akin to pride covered Alex's face as he watched.

"Is it good?" he asked when Michael got to his neck.

"Mmm, so good," he hummed, letting his eyes close as he tugged Alex closer and kept kissing on his neck and chest well after the sauce was gone. Alex's free hand slipped into his hair.

Times like these made him really believe that everything was going to be okay. After nearly a month here, Alex the Angel was starting to feel more like home with each passing day. It wasn't his Alex and that hole in his heart wasn't completely fulfilled, but this was the closest thing to love he'd felt that wasn't Alex. He knew it was weird and fast, but he couldn't help himself. These two men were so different that there was no confusing them for each other and it somehow made falling in love that much easier. He didn't see his Alex when he touched, kissed, loved this one. It was all here, now.

Alex the Angel tugged Michael's hair, pulling his head away from the crook of his neck.

"You're going to make me burn the food," he said simply, stepping away as if he hadn't just made something totally mundane into something painfully erotic. But that was Alex the Angel. While Alex the Airman was private and subtle with most of his affection, Alex the Angel liked to make a performance out of every move he made. He wanted a reaction, he wanted the attention, he wanted the awe.

The only thing that was the same was the desire for control and Michael was unwaveringly willing to give that to them both.

So Michael sat back and watched the man cook. Alex wasn't very outwardly vulnerable and it was damn near impossible to get him to show any emotion that wasn't vague amusement or annoyance. He was hard to read in a way his Alex wasn't.  It was very rare that he’d let him in and it’d quickly be shoved away. The moment he felt his motives were questioned, he went back to stoicism or used sex as a distraction. He didn't want to have feelings. That's how they got hurt.

Instead of prying, he let him cook and clean and coddle and code. Michael understood not wanting to be hurt, not wanting to get too close. He took the doting and made sure that he knew he cared for him back without scaring him.

Soon enough, Alex finished cooking and sat on his lap rather than the floor. Michael pulled him close, eating off the same plate as Alex relaxed into him to begin eating.

“What happens if we can’t figure it out?” Alex asked suddenly, feeding him a fork full of noodles, “Are you gonna, like, stay?” Michael smiled at him while chewing.

“Where else would I go?”

“I meant with me. Are we just fucking and coding or, like, are we a thing?” Alex wondered, avoiding eye contact as he took his own bite. The question had a familiar feeling bubbling in Michael’s stomach, one he hadn’t felt since he was a teenager and having an ‘are we boyfriends?’ talk with Alex in the UFO Emporium. It was giggly and it was light and it made his heart beat a little faster.

“Do you want me to stay with you if I’m stuck here?” he said. If the question put him on the spot, Alex didn’t show it.

“I don’t care.”

Michael snorted. Alex the Angel cared.

“So, like, you had a pretty similar childhood to the Airman, didn’t you?” Michael asked, tucking the Angel’s hair behind his ear before taking a bite. He would allow the subject to change, but he was taking advantage of the vibe. Alex eyed him cautiously.

“I guess so.”

“Where’d it go different? Because he went to war and you came to New York,” Michael pointed out. He was trying to be as casual as possible, but he did want to know. It didn’t make sense that they both ended up in New York from Roswell and, at that, within the same few blocks. It didn’t make sense.

“Uh, well, if I had to guess, it changed when I didn’t meet you,” the Angel admitted, his voice a little bit quieter than usual. His head was tucked against Michael’s shoulder, making eye contact unnecessary. “My dad wanted me to join the Air Force, but he didn’t have anything over me. The Airman had seen him hurt you, had him threaten you if he didn’t join. I would’ve gone too. When my dad tried to get me to go and told me if I didn’t, he would cut me off, I just… ran away.”

“I mean, you must’ve done well for yourself. You went to school, you live in one of the most expensive cities, like, ever,” Michael pointed out, taking a bite. He was really going to miss his cooking when he went home.

Alex stopped answering, grabbing the fork out of his hand and turning his chin to capture his lips in a sweet kiss. Michael wasn’t really shocked, melting into the kiss with ease. He was more shocked he got that much information. But it was okay, they were making progress.

Progress, progress, progress, progress.

“Hey, did you finish the coding for the, the B section, I think you called it?” he asked suddenly. All this thought of progress reminded him that they hadn’t actually made much in the way of getting him home. For the first two weeks, it was going by quickly. He thought he would’ve been home by now. But The Angel had been working on some part of the construction for over a week now which was unlike him. He was fast.

Alex’s eyes scanned over his face, his tongue parting his lip and pulling the bottom one between his teeth. He didn’t have time to think about what that was supposed to mean as he was being kissed all over again. Michael merely assumed he’d pressed too far. The Angel and The Airman both preferred to kiss and touch to using their words to be vulnerable. It was only annoying sometimes.

A series of kisses later, Alex moved the bowl of pasta to the side and adjusted himself on his lap. His moans were loud, his back was arched, his habit of being over the top was on full display. Well, it always was. But now it felt even bigger, a purposeful move. If Michael didn’t know better, he’d think he was trying to distract him.

“You know you don’t have to do that,” Michael whispered as he pulled away from the kiss just barely, nudging his nose against Alex’s. He raised an eyebrow, tilting his head back. Michael rubbed circles into his hip.

“Do what, exactly?”

“Perform. You… you have this wall up even though you literally spent every day with me for a month now. It’s like you need to be super, super erotic and picturesque all the time. And, like, I’m not complaining, I just… I want you to know I love you regardless. You not doing that won’t make me feel any different,” Michael tried, doing his best not to be offensive. Alex furrowed his eyebrows, a little smile making its way onto his face. He looped one of his curls around his finger.

“That’s just who I am, Michael,” he said, “Maybe sometimes I amplify it, but it’s not much and it’s only because I want to.”

“Okay, then what’s wrong?” Michael asked. Alex’s smile dropped. “You amplify it when you want to distract me. Talk to me.”

Silence. Complete and utter silence.

-

“I lied.”

“Hmm?”

Michael tried his best to tear his eyes open when he heard the door close. Alex had picked up a shift at Hitchcock’s and Michael had tried his best to stay away, to try to do some of the coding himself since progress really hadn’t been made as of late. Then he’d passed out. Thankfully, the door closing sort of woke him and he opened his eyes to see Alex standing over him, his nervousness clearly written across his face. His foot was tapping against the floor, his hand fidgeting against his thigh.

“I said, I lied.”

“Lied about what?” Michael rubbed his eyes, groaning as he sat up.

“I knew Other Michael,” Alex said, crossing his arms over his chest before uncrossing them and then crossing them again.  Michael blinked hard a few times.

“What?”

“Okay, I didn’t know know him, but I saw him nearly every day. He came to Starbucks every weekday at 1:37 PM for a chai tea latte with seven pumps of vanilla and blueberry muffin, not heated,” Alex admitted. Michael felt his eyebrows slowly pull together, but it suddenly made sense why he’d been following him on Instagram. “We never spoke and he never even looked at me, but… I thought he was gorgeous. I tried talking to him once a couple years ago, but he basically ignored me. When you came up to me at the club, I thought it was him finally noticing me. That’s why…”

Michael stared at him for a moment, fully taking in his weird but apparently stressful admission. He rubbed his eyes again before dragging himself to his feet.

“Are you gonna say something or are you just gonna stare at me?” the Angel asked, frowning. Michael took a step closer to him. “He-he never gave me the time of day.”

“Listen, I think he wanted to,” Michael said, “Other Michael stalks you on his Instagram. Him knowing you makes that much less creepy.” It didn’t seem to ease the tension in Alex’s shoulders. In fact, tears brimmed his eyes.

“You’re not angry I lied?” Alex asked, sniffling through a shaky breath. Michael neared him with a confused smile, cupping his face in his hands.

“No, of course, I’m not mad,” he said sweetly, wiping a glittery tear off his cheek. “Look, I’m pretty sure that every version of us is meant to be. This just proves my theory.”

“I just, I didn’t want you to think I was keeping it from you or something,” he said, gulping hard, “I really like you.” Michael nodded slowly, the confusion slipping from his face in favor of an outright smile.

“How drunk are you?”

“Very,” Alex responded, letting out a soft laugh. Michael snorted and gave him a chaste little kiss. “I don’t wanna lose you.”

“You won’t.”

Michael let his eyes close as he pulled Alex close into a hug. They both relaxed a little more with the contact. For the first time, Michael wondered if he even wanted to go home. Or maybe Alex the Angel could be his home. Maybe he already was.

It was a little different, going to bed and just curling up without sex as a predecessor. He didn’t mind it in the slightest. He watched Alex fall asleep against him, combing through his hair and admiring his beauty. Which was when he realized he’d lied too. And it was much worse than his Angel’s lie.

The fact of the matter was he was going to lose him. They were almost done and, like the last time, it would either kill him or he’d be successful. Whatever happened, he’d be leaving. Unless he didn’t. Unless he stayed.

Michael’s eyes flickered down to the man on his chest. He could see a life here, he could see a life with him. He was happy. Maybe it wasn’t cosmic, maybe it wasn’t heart-stopping, but it was safe and easy. This is what he’d wanted when he chose not to go to Alex.

But he wanted cosmic. He’d probably never get it, but knowing it was possible made it hard to settle. And Alex the Angel deserved more than being settled for. He deserved the world and nothing less. Besides, being in a world where Alex the Airman hated him was better than not being in a world with him at all.

Michael pulled the Angel close, weaving his fingers through his hair as best he could without pulling on it due to the sweat and glitter that doused it. He didn’t even mind Alex’s sticky body as he clung to him. They could take a shower when he was sober and not crying over the fear that he’d be angry and leave.

It took him longer than he wanted to admit to having a revelation on the circumstances. No wonder they weren’t making much progress with the coding. He wasn’t fucking working. Michael could pinpoint nearly every moment in the last two weeks where he would try to distract him from work, trying his best to steal all of his attention. On top of that, he couldn’t remember the last time he saw him doing much in the way of coding or engineering. He was trying to keep him here.

Michael was so fucked.

The next morning, he woke to Alex coming out of the bathroom, damp skin glistening and nothing more than a towel wrapped around his hips. Michael pulled the pillow close as he watched him move. He was a thing of beauty. It wasn’t hard to understand why he was called the Angel. Without an audience, he still navigated around the apartment like he was being filmed.

He dropped the towel and grabbed a pair of Other Michael’s sweats. They hung low on his hips as he walked to the kitchen and grabbed a large bowl of batter out of the fridge. It gave Michael time to go over the night before.

They needed to talk about it, but Michael knew he would shut down the moment he pushed too hard. Then he wouldn’t get anywhere. Honestly, there was no way to get any information out of him without getting him drunk. That wasn’t an option.

“Hey,” Michael groaned, pushing himself off the pillow. Alex looked over his shoulder, giving him a sweet smile. Michael sunk back into the mattress.

“Morning. I’m making crepes. You like bananas, right?” he asked. Michael hummed his agreement, letting his eyes scan over him and take him in before he did something that might entirely piss him off.

Eventually, Michael managed to pull himself off the bed, gravitating towards his Angel. He wrapped his arms around him from behind, nuzzling his nose into his neck. He smelled so good, like vanilla and lavender and everything amazing. It made it hard to make his decision again. And again. And again. How many seconds of the day would he have to remind himself that the Airman was his choice?

“So, do you want me to take over the coding?” Michael asked softly, peppering kisses over his bare shoulder. Alex snorted, craning his neck to try and look at him.

“What? You don’t think I’m good enough?” he snorted. Michael hugged him a little tighter.

“Nah, ‘s just something you said last night,” he whispered.

“Oh, yeah? Probably shouldn’t take that too seriously. I don’t even remember coming home, I was so fucked up,” the Angel said, pressing his lips to Michael’s forehead before returning his focus to the crepe batter.

“It’s okay, really. I can do it myself,” Michael assured, giving his thin frame a squeeze before letting go to work on the coding himself. At this point, it was basically all he had left to do. It shouldn’t be too hard with Google at his disposal.

“Do you not trust me or something?” his Angel asked, his voice hard to read as he kept himself firmly in the kitchen.

Michael found it hard to find an answer. On one hand, he trusted that Alex cared about him and he trusted that, on some level, he really did want to help him. But he also had enough evidence to support the idea that he had no intention of actually fulfilling his promise in finishing the coding. He’d stopped helping.

And apparently, his silence spoke.

“Wow, okay,” Alex said, not even bothering with any emotion in his voice, “Fine, I’ll finish the fucking coding tonight. Tomorrow, maybe, if that’s okay with you.”

“Alex‒”

“I’m making you breakfast and then I’ll do your work,” he said simply, letting the skillet hit the stove with a loud clatter. Michael chewed on the inside of his cheek as he watched him. Who knew you could angrily make crepes?

The 20 agonizing minutes of watching him cook somehow didn’t hold a candle to when Alex handed him a plate and, instead of eating, took the laptop and sat on the other side of the apartment to work on the coding. In the two months, they’d spent together, Michael couldn’t remember a single time that they hadn’t at least been touching while eating. It was something that made him feel loved and fuzzy and having it taken away really hurt in a way he hadn’t anticipated. He couldn’t eat.

“It literally took me 50 minutes in total to make those, are you actually not going to eat them?” Alex asked, again in that monotone that hadn’t really rendered its head since they met and the few times he tried to push his buttons. It was worse than anger. It was emotionless, detached, impersonal. Not meant for someone you loved.

“I… I will, I’m sorry.” He took a few bites.

Alex managed to stay completely focused on the computer in front of him, hardly sparing him an extra glance. Eventually, after finishing the plate, he excused himself to go take a shower. Like eating, he’d become accustomed to not doing that alone. Maybe he shouldn’t have pushed. Maybe he should’ve just asked him when he planned on having it done. Making it clear you didn’t trust the man you’ve spent all of your time with proved to be a very bad decision.

The shower curtain ripped open.

“Listen,” Alex started, standing in his barista uniform and looking as gorgeous as ever, “I’m sorry.”

“No, I’m‒”

“Hush, I’m talking, listen,” he said and Michael obeyed happily, “You’re not wrong. I hadn’t really been making any progress lately because… Well, when you do just one thing all the time, you start to get bored with it. But that isn’t fair to you at all because I know you want to go home. I get it. I really will finish it by tomorrow. I promise. I want what’s best for you.” Alex gave a small little smile as he reached up and moved a few wet curls off his forehead.

It was these tiny little moments that made it hard to choose the Airman. He was so, so sure that if the Angel just asked him to stay, do what Alex never did and put himself out there in blatant words, he wouldn’t be able to say no. Part of him already didn’t want to say no.

“I’ll see you after work, please eat the rest of those crepes,” his Angel requested softly with a teasing grin, leaning in and stealing a kiss. When he pulled away, he was somehow completely dry. The Angel could clearly work miracles.

Which Michael already knew. He had gotten him to fall for him.

“Okay, I will. See you after work.”

-

“Well. This is it, I guess.”

The portal stood so black that it felt like it was playing tricks on their eyes. It seemed like nothing more than missing space in the wall‒but it wasn’t. It was a portal. It was a way home. And Michael was more sure than ever that he wanted to go. As much as he loved his Angel, it paled in comparison to his desire to see his Airman. Even if he spit in his face… as long as he could see that he was still okay.

“Thank you, Alex, seriously. I could’ve have done this without your help. Maybe I’ll be able to get through it without it trying to kill me,” Michael said, sending a smile over to his Angel. After he finished the coding, it had only taken two days to double-check everything before they turned it on. It was actually going to work.

“I know I’ve been working on this with you for two months, but it still kind of freaks me out this is real,” Alex answered, his voice monotone and his face emotionless, “So, what, you going now?” Michael blinked a few times, a confused smile taking over his features as he took a step towards him and away from the portal.

“I figured I’d stay one more night. Make sure I spend a couple more hours with you if that’s okay,” he said softly. He kept his hands to himself and let Alex look him over to make his own opinion on what was happening. Eventually, he nodded.

“I’ll make you dinner.”

“Wait, c’mon,” Michael urged, grabbing his hand to pull him close. He didn’t even smile. “Let’s make it a good last night.”

“I will by making sure you don’t die from starvation,” he said, taking his arm back and heading straight to the kitchen. Michael reluctantly let him go.

The next morning, he would be home. He wouldn’t have his Angel anymore. He just wanted to spend these last few hours, cuddled up in bed with the man that he loved. Was that so much to ask?

Except it was a lot to ask and he knew that. He knew that his Angel didn’t want him to leave and he knew that he was going to spend this night doing nothing but rebuilding walls, but he was hoping that they didn’t have to go through that. He wished he could be like the Airman and just be open and loving up to the moment they had to stop. But it was unfair to ask that of him. They weren’t the same person.

So, Michael accepted this and sat on the floor beside the bed, watching him cook fully clothed for probably the first time ever. He seemed to be just throwing together everything he had left from the last time they’d gone to the store. It was ungodly hard not to touch him. That’s all he wanted to do. He wanted to soak in his Angel, memorize him from head to toe so, when he got home, he’d have something positive to think about.

Michael was pretty certain that they would all either be angry at him or not have even cared that he left. Yeah, he sent that text, but it was more than likely that Liz and Isobel would be the only two there and dealing with Other Michael. He would get back and they’d be angry that he was trying to escape the situation instead of helping them. They’d leave him. He’d probably be worse off than he was here.

And yet he couldn’t bring himself to stay.

While it hurt to know his Airman was probably securely in bed with someone else who he trusted more than he ever trusted Michael, he still wanted to be able to make sure he was safe. At any point, something bad could happen. He wasn’t there when Alex lost his leg‒he didn’t intend to let anything else harm him like that. Even if he had already harmed him himself. And he wasn’t about to hurt his Angel even worse than he would by leaving. Depriving him of something cosmic would be a crime.

“Chicken fettuccine alfredo,” his Angel said, handing him a large bowl and sitting close. Michael let his head fall against the bed, watching him with a smile. He would like to stay, to spend his life with his Angel. God, why couldn’t he have both? Why couldn’t he bring his Angel with him? Well, aside from the fact that he wasn’t his to take.

“I’m gonna miss your cooking,” Michael whispered, scooting closer once he finished half the bowl. Alex eyed him slightly, but let him come closer. “I’m gonna miss you. A lot. Badly. It’s gonna hurt.” He placed the bowl on the side, laying his head on his shoulder.

“Okay,” he answered softly. Michael moved closer, his hand reaching up to cup his jaw. He tugged his jaw towards him, capturing his lips in a kiss.

It didn’t matter that they were short, it didn’t matter that their breath reeked of alfredo sauce, it was Alex the Angel and that’s all that mattered. He wanted to burn the feeling of his lips into his brain, to store it for his dreams. He really loved him. He shouldn’t love someone that wasn’t his Alex this much.

“I don’t really want to kiss,” the Angel whispered and it very quickly shut down all the feelings Michael was having and replaced them with panic. He moved back without a thought, making sure he wasn’t touching him in any way.

“I’m sorry,” Michael insisted, watching as Alex clambered to his feet.

“It’s okay,” he said even though it absolutely wasn’t and took both of their plates towards the kitchen.

Michael looked down at the floor, slumping his shoulders. He couldn’t actually remember the last time he misread a situation like that. Go figure it’d be on his last night with him. Way to fuck it up.  His head dropped into his hands.

“Just-just give me a moment and we can, can… whatever,” his Angel said. When Michael dared to look up at him, he found him looking impossibly small in the doorway to the kitchen. He furrowed his eyebrows.

“No. No, don’t just force yourself because you don’t want to upset me. And-and I’m not upset. Well, I’m upset I misread that, but that’s it. I don’t care that I’m leaving tomorrow, we don’t have to do anything that you don’t want to,” Michael insisted. Yeah, he wanted to kiss and cuddle and have really good sex, but none of it was necessary. If Alex wanted to, he could leave right now and never come back. He just hoped he didn’t.

But Alex still came over and sat in front of him. It was odd, not seeing him perform. It really helped Michael see the resemblance between his Airman and his Angel. It was like he was staring at the 17-year-old boy he’d fallen in love with too many years ago. Timid and nervous, but ballsy nonetheless. For a moment, they were the same.

“Are you really gonna miss me? Or are you just saying that so I’ll get in bed with you?” Alex asked. Michael’s eyes went wide, furrowing his brows.

“Of course I’m actually going to miss you. Not because you look like him, not because you’re good in bed, not because you only show what you think I like. I’m going to miss you because you’re you and that’s everything,” Michael said. It felt good to get it out of his system.

Besides, he was leaving, so he might as well.

“Okay,” his Angel said, pulling his legs to his chest and resting his chin on his knees. Instinct told Michael to move closer, to pull him into his chest and try to show him how fucking loved he was. Because he was loved. He just deserved better than what Michael could give. However, he kept his hands to himself.

The two of them sat in silence for a while, not touching required as the atmosphere filled with something close to melancholy with a lot more dread. It was hard not to look at the portal that was a giant symbol that this was their last night together. They wouldn’t get any more. Two months of creating the most stable relationship both of them had ever had, now culminated to a harsh ending.

It shouldn’t be so harsh. They knew it was coming. It still felt like torture.

Michael continued to keep his distance once they climbed into bed. They faced each other, staring and soaking up the shared space. It was comforting in itself. Then came a point where Alex closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he opened them again, he was the Angel.

“We really don’t have to,” Michael whispered when his Angel came close.

“I want to. I don’t wanna forget you.”

Alex pressed in close, his kisses slow and methodical. The heavier it got, the more Michael began to question if cosmic was immediate or if it was grown. This felt really fucking close to cosmic. Every kiss, touch, caress made his head spin. Fuck.

He didn’t sleep that night. Even once Alex fell asleep, even once his heart rate had steadied. His eyes stayed on the portal, on the black nothingness that would directly bring him home. He’d see Isobel and Liz and his Airman. Staring at it reminded him staying here wasn’t fair. Maybe he wanted his Angel, maybe he could convince himself that it was just as good as seeing his Airman smile, but at the end of the day, it wasn’t. As long as he had a path home, he could never want the Angel as much as his Airman. He needed to see if there was any chance he could get him back.

He had to leave even if maybe one day he could make it into cosmic.

Michael got up before Alex for once, deciding that, as a goodbye, he’d make him breakfast. He didn’t know how to make anything special like Alex did, but he could make bacon and eggs. Alex was sitting up by the time he brought the plate to him in bed.

“Oh, to what do I owe the pleasure?” he hummed, the blanket falling and exposing his bare body. Add that to the list of things he’d miss.

“You’ve literally made sure I’ve eaten every day for two months, I can at least return the favor for once.”

They ate in silence, though Michael found he could barely eat. He was getting more and more eager to get through the portal. He was ready to see Isobel and he had spent the last few hours gearing up to approach his Airman again. He planned to tell him of his two months, of how he’d found someone that was what he wanted, and that he still wanted him. He would always want him.

There was a downfall to that, though. He very reluctantly watched as his Angel returned to the timid teenager from the night before.

“Are you ready?” Alex whispered as Michael typed the numbers into the machine, watching the black swirl into that deep purple.

“Yeah,” Michael answered honestly, heaving a sigh, “I am.”

The two shared a hug and a kiss. Alex did his best to keep his stoic facial expression on as he took a step back. Michael gave him one last look before he stepped towards the portal. One deep breath, two deep breaths, and he reached out and‒

“Wait!” Alex the Angel’s arms grabbed his shoulders, yanking him back. Michael was more than a little shocked to find his face covered in tears. He’d just been fine.

“Alex, wh‒”

“Hush, listen! Listen. I lied, okay? I lied. I do care, I don’t want you to go. Stay with me, please. I love you. I love you, you can’t leave me,” he begged, choking on his sobs as he held Michael’s cheeks between his hands. He couldn’t himself as he stared, wide-eyed. This can’t be happening. “I have spent my whole life trying to find someone who makes me feel safe and-and I found it. You took so long for me to find, you can’t leave me. I thought I could let you go, but I can’t.”

“Alex,” Michael whispered, grabbing his face right back. He could feel the tears pricking at his own eyes just watching him. He had to put him in this stupid situation. “You know it wouldn’t be fair to you if I stayed. I love my Airman. You deserve so much more than me.”

“I don’t care!” he insisted, gripping him hard and not-so-subtly trying to put distance between him and the portal, “What you give me is more than enough. I’ve never felt like this before. Please. I know you feel it.”

Michael closed his eyes. What was he supposed to say to that? He couldn’t lie.

“You said he doesn’t even want you, you’ve told me that a million times. I do! I want you, I need you, please. I’ll take care of you forever, Michael Guerin, I swear to God, I’ll be everything for you. Don’t leave,” Alex sniffled, a shaky breath pushing out of his system. Michael licked his lips, forcing his eyes to open as he stared him dead in the eyes. Lies weren’t going to work, but maybe excess truth would.

“Alex, I firmly believe that we are meant for each other in every universe, every life‒but for the version of us in that universe. And I believe it even more now that I’ve met you and I’ve loved you and I know without a doubt that he will love you even more,” Michael pressured. Alex shook his head, his bottom lip protruding in a pout.

“I don’t want him, I want you.”

“Alex…”

“He doesn’t even want me! He never gave me the time of day!” Alex argued, staying firmly in his denial. Michael moved his hands from his cheeks to the small of his back, tugging him in close.

“Maybe this was supposed to happen. This is what the universe did to force him to acknowledge you and force me to realize just how much I need my Airman and to not give up,” he whispered. Alex’s shoulders dropped and his head bowed.

“Maybe it was supposed to happen so I could have you,” he tried softly and part of it hurt Michael to hear the fight leave him. But, as much as part of him wanted to stay, a much bigger part needed to go.

“I don’t know. But I have to try,” Michael said, nudging him up with his nose. Alex moved in with a salty, wet kiss that Micahel accepted happily.

“Promise me you’ll come back if he doesn’t want you?”

Michael smiled sadly, wiping a few tears off his rosy cheeks.

“Don’t wait up.”

-

Michael fell through the portal much smoother this time and basically straight into a pair of strong arms.

It took him a moment to really register what was going on, but he was clearly being checked over. Hands palmed over him as his head and vision spun, slowly adjusting to the different reality.

“He seems okay, he’s conscious. Guerin, are you with me? Hey, can you hear me?” A hand snapped in front of his face while another stayed firmly around his torso.

When it finally settled, Michael found his face a few inches away from his Airman.

“Alex?” he said, his voice a little more sluggish than he would’ve hoped. Worry was written all over Alex’s features, even as he combed back Michael’s sweaty hair and cupped his face. Their foreheads met and he felt more at ease than he had in a while. “Alex?”

This wasn’t easy or simple. This wasn’t almost-kinda-maybe cosmic. This wasn't something he'd regret leaving his Angel for. This was Captain Alexander Manes and this was everything.

“Do not ever scare me like that again, Michael Guerin, or I swear to god I will go through that thing and kill you myself.” A dopey smile found Michael’s face at the violent exclamation of love. Alex's thumb fiddled with his earlobe, chills running down his spine. “You’re so fucking stupid, oh my god.”

“I missed you too,” he said softly, feeling lighter than ever. Alex was here, he’d been waiting for him. Maybe this whole thing was the universe just trying to force them back together on top of his other theories. Thanks, Universe.

Alex held onto him, occasionally feeling over his body to double-check that he was actually alright and actually the correct Michael. Neither of them even realized how strange it was that he was given all that time to hold him until he properly regained his footing and was immediately pulled into Isobel’s arms.

“You scared the shit out of me, Michael. I can’t lose you. Seriously, I can’t,” Isobel whispered, cradling his head against her shoulder and rocking back and forth. It really made him realize just how much he missed her. Yeah, he really could’ve never stayed. He needed his Isobel hugs. He needed his Isobel. How had he gone two months without her?

Michael was more than a little surprised to find himself passed around and smothered in hugs from Liz, Kyle, and even Maria. He was almost brought to tears by it. He couldn’t actually comprehend how much they cared about him. Had they always cared? It didn’t make sense.

“Liz, let him go so I can get a hug in.” The voice startled him and actually did make tears fall from his eyes. “Yeah, turns out Other Michael is really fucking powerful.”

Michael all but body slammed into Max, hugging him as tight as he could allow. They clearly had a lot to fucking talk about. Namely just how powerful the other version of him clearly was. He hugged Max for a solid five minutes before he eventually really wanted his Airman again. His heart was admittedly still aching for his Angel, but the reason he’d left was for the Airman.

They needed to talk.

“Look, we’ll all get the story out of you on what happened over there, but… We’ll give you a moment,” Max said, peeling Michael off when he noticed him and Alex staring.

It didn’t take long before he found himself alone in the bunker with his Airman. He moved in close, finding solace in their foreheads resting together and Alex’s hands on him. He loved this.

“So… how’s the boyfriend?” Michael whispered. Alex rolled his eyes.

“Fuck you, Guerin. Don’t leave me like that again,” he said. Michael closed his eyes, thinking of his Angel and how everyone’s biggest issue is they don’t talk. He was going to talk.

“You told me to go.”

“I’m sorry. I pushed you way too hard.”

“I deserved it.”

“Not that much.”

“I don’t know.”

They stood in silence for a while, taking in the moment. It was so nice holding him again. He wondered how much luck he’d have in getting him to stay the night. He wasn’t really looking forward to sleeping alone again. Or eating alone. Or showering alone. Fuck.

“So, uh, how did you like Other Michael?” Michael asked, fiddling with the back of Alex’s hair. It’d grown a bit, landing softly in his fingertips without any effort. Not as long as the Angel's but long.

Alex snorted, “Honestly? He wasn’t that bad, but I never realized how much I could miss you. He’s not sarcastic, he’s not uncomfortably honest, he’s not you. I missed you so much, Michael.”

His heart skipped a beat. Or two. Or eight.

“I, uh, I sort of fell in love with the other you,” he admitted. Alex smiled wide and rolled his eyes as he stared, but soon the smile fell once he realized just how serious he was. He started to pull away.

“Oh… do-do you want to go back?” Michael’s eyes widened and he pulled him close again.

“No, no. I want you. Yeah, I love him, but… I’m so in love with you, Alex. If there’s a way to be in the same reality as you, the real you, then I want to be there. Even if you don’t want me and somewhere someone else does. I chose you. I told him I chose you even when I knew I might not be able to have you,” Michael vented. Alex the Airman licked his lips, letting his hands slide up into his curls as he moved into his space. Michael wanted to melt.

“Listen, we need to talk. Get everything out in the open, clear everything and work on being extremely honest and willing to explain any misunderstandings we might encounter. I never want to feel that scared of losing you ever again. I need to know you’re safe,” Alex said to him, his eyes more sincere than ever.

Michael prayed his Angel would find his safe place. This was better than anything under the sun.

“Absolutely. Now tell me about Max.”

[wonderland-irwin]

Paper Airplanes ~ Lily

Word Count: 1711

Warnings: N/A 

Author’s Note:  I have six characters I have created, each with unique personalities and stories. They all have struggles and successes, and since I can’t quite figure out how to write them into one large story (nor was I able to complete the fics they were originally supposed to be in), short stories about their lives will have to do for now. Not that I mind! I love them all so much, and they’re dynamic is quite fun to explore. Paper Airplanes is the story that began their tale. I will be setting up a place on Wattpad where you will be able to find the stories there as I post them. If you would like to be tagged in other short stories, let me know. You can “sign up” for one character if you like one specifically, or all stories in this world.

Summary: After a disastrous study session in the library, Lily starts folding her notes into tiny paper airplanes when a stranger comes up and offers advice on how to make them more efficient at flying.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Lillian sat in the back of the campus library in her little study group, barely paying attention to the argument going on about stock prices and exchanges. There were a thousand other things Lily could think of doing instead of studying - reading or working or sleeping, for example - but the members of her group were quite strict in their schedule, and so at seven on a Friday evening, there she was studying for a midterm that was three weeks away.  

She watched them argue with a blank expression, their words passing over her head. There was something about finance that didn't click with Lily's brain. Maybe it was that the professor who taught the three hour lecture was dry and boring, or that she didn't have a particular interest (no pun intended) in stocks or bonds, but nothing made sense to her. She had read the textbook, the words and theories all confusing her, and the only reason she was doing well in the course was because she knew from the homework how to manipulate the numbers into the equations. If she didn't know how to work the formulas, she was sure she would be failing. Still, it would be nice to know what all those numbers meant instead of operating them blindly.

The argument got louder and Lily placed her chin on her fist. She sighed, glancing around the mostly deserted corner of the library. There was another group working on what looked like a large model of some organ, which one specifically was hard to determine; it was mostly just a mess of clay and paper. They were at least laughing though, and Lily would have loved to be laughing and joking around instead of tuning out to things she really should have been paying attention too. 

She watched the group of biology students for a while, a small amused smile forming on her face, then realizing she should look away before she was caught, turned to see if there was anyone else interesting to look at. Sure enough in one of the leather chairs under the window was a boy. He had tucked his feet up under him, a textbook open in his lap, however he had his phone in one hand and was lazily scrolling through it. With his other hand he played with the hoop in his nose, a feature Lily found intriguing.

"Lily!" A voice yelled, causing Lily to jump. She turned to the group of irritated looking girls that was supposed to be her friends and her study group, and swallowed the lump in her throat.

"Y-Yes?" She stammered. Heat rushed to her cheeks and she looked down to her now folded hands in her lap. 

"If you're not paying attention, maybe we should end this," Claire barked at her. Lily instantly felt like she'd shrunk to the size of a peanut. Claire was one of those people who always had a way of making you feel worthless and she was also one of those people who always had to be correct. There was no way to correct her or even suggest an idea that might be different than hers. Lily had struggled to make a good friend the first year of university, and Claire had sat beside her in their managerial accounting class and quickly offered friendship. Lily now felt obliged to be her friend, even though she wasn't fond of her.

"I'm sorry," Lily muttered, "I'm just tired. It's hard to focus."

"You know what, yeah," Peggy said softly, "it is late and I have to catch the nine-forty bus. We should head out." 

Claire protested, but thankfully the other girls began to pack their bags and pull their coats on. Lily sat staring at her unopened textbook and untouched notes, listening to Claire's protests as the four girls started to the staircase without her. The floor got instantly quieter and Lily let a long breath out that she hadn't realized she was holding in. She never felt more stupid than after a study session with those girls. They had a way of over-complicating topics that Lily had barely become comfortable in understanding, and the only way they seemed to be able to speak was through an intense debate. Lily mostly remained quiet when around them, and when she did speak her ideas were either determined stupid, or they found a way to belittle her. It always took a moment after being around them to settle her thoughts and regain composure. 

She wasn't mentally ready to pack up her things and leave yet, and she got a strange desire to construct a paper airplane out of one of her notes. Every so often she got this desire, however she was unsure what drove it except that maybe she was subconsciously looking for something to do with her hands, and there was something calming about folding paper.

Nonetheless, she snatched up a note about rates and returns beginning to fold it. Eventually she had a wonky looking airplane, and she held it up. She cocked her head to the side and frowned, knowing she hadn't done something right, but decided to fly it anyways. Pinching it between her thumb and forefinger, she gently sent it off with the far fetched thought that maybe it would fly in a straight line. It barely got any lift before it spiraled to the floor and crash landed. 

Instantly Lily's heart sunk. Like somehow her inability to produce a nice paper airplane was directly related to her not being able to understand finance and making poor decisions in who she selected as her friends. 

Lily sighed, leaning her forehead against the table. She closed her eyes, willing for it to be over. School, that is. Lily had decided that once she got her Bachelor of Commerce, she would be done with school. School was a means to an end, and she had two and a half years left. Sometimes, like now, she wasn't convinced she would be able to make it through. A good night's sleep, and possibly a good cry later, and she'd gather herself up and tell herself she had to, and would be able to continue. 

Sometimes that was easier said than done.

"Hey," a voice spooked her again and she bolted upright. The boy from the leather chair stood awkwardly in front of her. She stared at him, her eyes taking in quick details like his eyes were hazel, he had tiny black gauges in each of his ears, and that the black knit sweater he wore looked soft and comfortable.

"Are you okay? That looked pretty rough." He adjusted the strap of his backpack on his shoulder, his hand going to poke at his nose piercing.

Lily shrugged, "I suck at making paper airplanes."

The boy gave her a puzzled look before amusement took over and he laughed. The wonderful sound made Lily's heart jump and her face heated again. Why was he laughing at her?

"Sorry," the boy chuckled, "I should have been more specific; the group you were with. They were absolutely awful."

"Oh, yeah," Lily looked away, "they're like that a lot. It's okay."

"It doesn't really look like you're okay."

Refusing to look at him, Lily shrugged again. She wasn't sure how to respond, and she was sure there were more interesting things that he would want to do than talk to her, however he surprised her. 

"This isn't that bad of a plane. I think you may have missed a fold."

Lily looked back up to him. He held her airplane and was examining it.

"I can show you how to make a really good one if you'd like?" He glanced up to her, one of his eyebrows quirking up.

Lily smiled at him, "I'd like that." 

He grinned at her, walking quickly to the empty seat beside her and lowering himself onto it. His bag hit the floor with a thud and he set her plane on the table to roll up his sleeves. His arms were heavily inked with tattoos and Lily blinked at them in amazement. There was something so calming and beautiful about his arms that Lily couldn't help but admire them. Each image was outlined in black, then filled in with the wildest and brightest of colours. Nothing looked out of place or forced. She didn't know him, but somehow she knew they all fit with him. From the piano tiles that wrapped around his wrist like a bracelet, to the tiny gumball machine on his forearm by his elbow, they all had their place. 

Lily could have spent all day looking at his tattoos, however he was staring down at her with an amused smile, and so she had to stop.

"Do you have a piece of paper?" He asked, his eyes locking with hers. She nodded, passing him a note with equations scribbled on both sides. He glanced at it, and then looked to her, "you don't need this?"

She shook her head, "I mean I do, but I have the PowerPoints and the textbook. They're all there." 

The boy nodded, then lay the paper on the table.

Lily watched him as he shifted the paper around, partially folding the it in a plan. She shuffled closer, leaning over his arm to watch as he began to make smooth folds and creases turning the paper into a plane in a matter of seconds.

"Ta-da!" He held it out to her proudly, "you can send it on its first flight."

Lily laughed, shaking her head, but she took the plane as she had with her own, and gently released it into the air. It sailed in a smooth line, then landed softly on the floor and rolled to the side.

"It works!" She gasped.

"You sound surprised," he laughed.

"I've been trying to get mine to fly like that for years!"

"Years?" His eyes widened.

Lily nodded, "years."

"Well," he smiled softly, "I'm glad you know how to do that now."

"Mm," Lily hummed absentmindedly, reaching over to grab another note to make her own plane, "can you watch and help me make one?"

This time the boy shuffled closer to her and leant over her shoulder to watch, "of course."

[windup-dragoon]

Tonight I tried something different! I created a more modern AU. Everything is about the same, the Scions and Warriors of Light are working to uncover Ascians, to stop the threat of Primals, and put an end to the Garleans reign. Kugane and Doma have been completely under the Garlean rule when Hien’s father is killed and the prince is assumed dead. The magitek soldiers are more machine than man and act as security throughout Kugane. 

Thank you @ishgard​ for the prompt! Probably not what you were expecting but I wanted to change it up a bit after writing last nights piece. 

【Ｈｉｔ　ｏｒ　Ｍｉｓｓ】

Hien x Kirishimi 

Word Count: 2,189

It had definitely been a day. Her body felt sluggish as she weaved her way through the bobbing crowd of hopelessly lost youths. To music with bass that could mimic a heart attack and ear splitting electronic tones they swayed and danced, as if kelp in the tide. Beneath a cloud of glittering smoke and lights that made her eyes hurt. Just how she wanted to spend the remainder of this dismal day. 

Heels clicked as she marched through the throngs, all but stomping along illuminated tiles on the floor to reach her destination. A large bar with an endless expanse of colored drinks lining the wall. Beneath the dance floor lights each bottle seemed a vibrant neon, poisons with fruity names. One day she would know the taste bottled inside each one that lined these shelves, surely she was already half way there with how often she frequented the club. 

Kirishimi leaned against the glass top bar, drumming agitated fingers against the rhythm of music. “Mix me somethin’ strong tonight, Isho. I’ve had a rough one.” Miscolored eyes shut as the music shifted and sent the crowd into a delighted frenzy. 

“My apologies,” A soft voice spoke out to Kiri amid the chaotic drumming. Kiri immediately shot the bartender a look of bewilderment. Instead of her typical contact, a hyur male with raven hair stood in the Au Ra’s spot, cleaning a glass as if it were business as usual. “Isho isn’t here tonight. What can I get you instead, my friend?” 

She squinted against the dizzying lights. Many of her months now had belonged to this club and its patrons. Although ultimately under Garlean control and influence, Kirishimi found it a prime location to gather information. Occasionally, when wayward guests would find themselves enticed by silken words and gilded visions of a grand future she would intervene. The Garleans and their ilk had found new ways to replenish their ranks in a diminishing army. All it took was empty promises and a single dose of Black Rose, the latest ‘medical’ advancement magitek corporations could offer. Those charmed by such beautiful words would be rallied into their army of mechanical soldiers, no longer themselves and replaced with metal. 

But of all her time frequenting this location, never had she encountered this particular bartender. Her contact had always been Isho. No matter the time, no matter the date. He had always been her safety net when things went south. So then, who was this fresh face? 

Despite the lack of fair lighting she could visibly see various patterns of ink scribbled across both his arms, tucking neatly beneath the rolled cuffs that came to his elbows. Thick ebony hair, longer than her own, and a clean cut beard trimmed close to his jawline. Certainly not a difficult sight on the eyes, if she were being honest. Even the scar over his left eye, splitting his eyebrow at a slant, seemed rather charming. Or perhaps this was just her type? 

Kirishimi blew out a sigh after taking in the mans features, two fingers rubbing her temples to shoo away a rapidly approaching migraine. “I’m not your friend. Where’s Isho?” 

The man chuckled. “Actually, I believe he put in his resignation and quit this place.” The cup in his hands squeaked as he continued to clean it. Kirishimi quietly wondered if he knew that only scratched the glass. “As should you. It isn’t safe for a pretty face.” 

The woman blinked but kept her attention to the various bottles of liquor displayed just out of reach. “...Is that a threat?” 

“Ah,” Another laugh slipped. “No, you’re misunderstanding my attentions. And normally when someone calls another ‘pretty’, it’s a compliment.” 

“Get to the point, kid.” 

The tone shifted, as did the music as if on cue. All bass with the tiles of the dance floor beating in rhythm. Almost matching a heartbeat. The bartender at last set aside his glass and splayed his hands across the bars pristine surface, leaning close to her. An air of rosewood and sake tickled her senses. 

“You’re one of the Warriors, aren’t you? Well, word on the street has it that some big wigs are here tonight. They’ve got hounds that want your head.” 

Kirishimi tilted her head to better gauge the mans expression, noticing much too late just how close he had gotten in order to whisper over the music. “And why are you tellin’ me this and not Isho?” The whole situation seemed off. A set up perhaps? Not even Alphinaud had mentioned hunters on the prowl. His information was often straight from the source. There was no way he wouldn’t have heard about it. Unless...? 

Her eyes widened as a sudden urgency stirred in her breast. They had found him out. Not just Isho, but traced the roots all the way back to Alphinaud and his ragtag crew of information suppliers. The gods were determined to make the day even worse for Kirishimi it seemed. Fools. 

The man offered a small smile before drawing himself away. “Don’t worry, your secret identity is safe with me. If you don’t mind working for me.” 

Kiri huffed and spun on her heel, her back leaning against the bar now. Over the vast and endless sea of the dancing crowd she could see them. Crimson eyes that pierced through the strobe lights and mechanical bits that sparked with reflected light. Magitek soldiers. Often they were disguised as everyday bouncers but not these particular models. If she had to bet, they were fresh off the assembly line. No doubt armed to the teeth with fun toys that would shred flesh like tissue paper. 

“Work for you, huh? I dunno ‘bout that.” Brushing aside stray locks of white hair, Kiri contemplated her options. For all she could tell this man was playing her like a fiddle. A Garlean spy who knew the right words. If that were the case, the situation seemed grim. No escape. The magitek soldiers would have her surrounded and he would have the emergency exit covered. 

“What do you have to lose? You said it yourself, you were having a rough day already, right?” Without granting the man even a curious glance she could hear the smile in his voice. A fool trying to play at chess. When she failed to answer, she heard the gate of the counter click and lift from its lock. “Time’s ticking, Warrior. You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. Deal?” He moved beside her, an idiots grin tugging at his lips. 

But it was his movement away from the counter that now drew the attention of the very guards they so despised. A whirling of clicks leaked into the speakers, static that disrupted the music. None of the party goers seemed to take notice however, and simply adjusted to the new diluted sound. 

“Get us out and I’ll consider it.” Kirishimi shot the man a dangerous look. If it were all but a trap, she wouldn’t go down without a fight. A cornered animal is often worse than one found in the wild. 

“Perfect! You really have that ‘I’ll kill you’ look down to a science, huh? Or am I special?” The man teased. But before she could grant him a response, his hand latched around her wrist. Warm and worked, his palm calloused. Just who was this man? 

His right hand raised in the air just as the automatons flooded the floor, guns and various blades drawn. A spark of light ruptured from his outward facing palm and extended in an almost straight line, just a touch longer than his arm. His fingers clutched the burst of light and it shattered, materializing a katana in its wake. 

Alerted buzzings and panicked alarms rang out now from the soldiers at the sight of a drawn weapon. Chaos unleashed itself upon the couple in a hail of bullets. Bottles with intoxicating contents broke apart in tiny explosions of liquor and shards of glass. The man brandished his blade with ease, despite the lack of a second free hand, repelling the advancing forces while breaking out into a run for the exit. Kirishimi, close at his heels, kept close and ducked accordingly when swords swung out to stop them. 

The impostor bartender keenly delivered them to the front doors. Bullets ricocheted on either side of them, shattering the glass of a floor to ceiling window that held the clubs logo and Garlean symbol. Like rain in a storm shards of glass poured at her feet, clattering and crunching beneath her heels. The raven haired man knocked aside a bit of remaining glass with the hilt of his katana before dragging her through to the cool night air. 

Silence greeted them. The city of Kugane had grown empty under Garlean control, or perhaps compliant was the better word. Except for a number of night clubs like this, civilians rarely ventured out at night. Magitek soldiers littered the streets, roaches ever scouring. 

“Here!” The man shouted, already aware of more soldiers shambling out of alleyways and opening fire upon them. With a tug of her wrist he encouraged her to follow, leading her to the street where a black motorcycle was left unattended. He released his grasp only to throw one leg over the machinery. A twist of the key left in its ignition and it roared to life. A tiger growl in the empty night. “Get on and hold on tight.” 

Sure, she could have run opposite of him now and down an alley to escape her pursuers. It would have been easy enough. But the man cocked his head over his shoulder, green eyes alight with an unfamiliar glow. His jaw tensed. No. She wouldn’t break their deal off just yet. Not until she found out what happened to Isho and if the Warriors and Scions were in jeopardy. He was her only clue to the answers. 

A bullet skimmed by. She felt the wind tear several strands of her hair before she made her decision. Kirishimi lurched forward to the bike, throwing her leg over as he had done and coiled her arms around his waist. Beneath the vest he wore and white button down, she noticed this man was no ordinary bartender. His stomach felt as hard as rock itself. Or perhaps he truly enjoyed lifting weights? 

Her thoughts abandoned her as the bike jostled forward. A feral rumble of the engine and they were off, a blur in the night that faded down the street. Magitek soldiers tried to hold pursuit and give chase. But before long Kirishimi could no longer make out their blinding red eyes in the distance. Or the flashing neon light of the club dubbed ‘Seventh Heaven’. 

-- 

“Here. Lemme get you something for that pain. It’s got to be killing your shoulder.” 

“I’m fine.” 

Over an hour they spent driving around that evening. The wind had blasted her face, leaving her cheeks red and icy to the touch. But it was in efforts to throw off their enemy, a price she would willing pay considering it seemed to work. The magitek outside the small complex staggered down the road, oblivious to their hiding spot. 

He threw open a cupboard over the sink and rattled a bottle of pills. “At least let me get the bullet out. It could be a tracker. Or worse, you’ll bleed all over my sofa.” 

Kirishimi sighed and leaned herself forward so she sat on the edge of the couch. He was partially right. Since the soldiers outside seemed unaware of their presence, she had her doubts that the bullet lodged in her shoulder was a tracking device. But the old couch would definitely be stained if she remained untreated. 

“... Hurry up then, chief.” 

“The least you could do is ask for my name. You know, like a civilized person. It’s Hien.” Footfalls approached behind her and stopped at the back of the couch. The wood of the furniture squeaked while cushions beneath her caved beneath his weight. Like a bird he had perched himself on the back, legs on either of her sides. 

“Hien...? Why does that sound familiar?” She leaned further away from Hien, lost in thought. 

“You probably know me as Hien Rijin. My father was the lord of Doma before it was taken over.” 

This news had her mismatched eyes grow wide in surprise. The prince of Doma was alive?! Kirishimi twisted at the hip to look up at her rescuer but screeched at the sight of a knife in his hand. 

“What are you doing?! Don’t point that at me!!” She wailed, snatching up a throw pillow to defend herself. 

Hien puffed his cheeks and strained against his desire to laugh at her. “I’m going to preform an operation. If the scary lady will tell me her name, there may be some pain killers to be had first.” 

Pouting, Kirishimi reluctantly gave in, even sitting up straighter to give him better access to her bloodied shoulder. “Kirishimi Yasuragi.” 

“Ah. Cute name for a pretty and terrifying lady. Now, take your shirt off.” 

Smack. 

[adobe-outdesign]

Re-Created: Chapter 2

(Quick announcement: As you can probably gain from the title, the Studio Living/Henry Saves Everyone AU is being renamed to the Re-Created AU, as Studio Living was always a placeholder name. The new tag is #recreated AU.)

After Joey passes away, Henry finds a way to make everyone look human again, one by one, using the Ink Machine. And this story is going to have a happy ending, even if he has to write it himself.

[Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6]

“Mind if I join you?”

“Of course not.” Allison shuffles some papers off the table and Henry takes a seat, tossing various notes from Joey down with a thud. “Long night, huh?”

“Joey’s always been a messy note taker. It’s hard to even figure out what he’s talking about sometimes.”

A few minutes pass. Henry frowns. “You haven’t seen Boris lately, have you?”

Allison looks at him, confused. “You mean Tom?”

“No, not Tom. The actual Boris.”

“You mean the perfect one?”

“Yeah. Usually I’ve found him by this point, but we meet near the Music Department-”

“-and you haven’t gone down there yet,” she finishes for him. Henry nods.

“I’m just worried about him. It’s not safe here.”

Allison laughs slightly. “No kidding. I haven’t seen him, but I’ll keep a lookout. If he doesn’t show up soon we can always look for him ourselves.”

“Thanks.” He nods at her own stack of papers. “You find out anything interesting?”

“Kind of. It’s all just... a blur.” She picks up a letter, smiling. “I can’t believe Tom and I got married. The way the wedding’s described here - it sounds like a dream.”

“Well, maybe Tom will propose to you sometime. He clearly cares about you.”

Allison closes her eyes, mind clearly elsewhere as she rests her head against her fist. “He doesn’t seem like the type. Then again, who knows?”

She pulls herself out of her daydream. “Speaking of Tom... he told me he wants to try. The ritual, I mean.”

Henry sits up straighter, surprised. “I thought he hated me. And he seemed terrified when you...”

“He didn’t trust you, and he was worried about me. I think he only let me go through with it because he would feel guilty if it turned out it worked and he didn’t let me try.” She leans forward. “But now he knows it works, so he’s willing to give it a shot. Plus I think he feels a bit weird now that he knows what he used to look like.”

“I mean, as long as he’s okay with it. I can start getting everything together whenever he’s ready. Might take a few hours though.”

“I’ll let him know. I’m guessing he’ll want a little time to prepare anyway.”

Henry looks back down to the papers in front of him, scanning over the titles.

“FAILED ATTEMPTS” the sheet in front of him reads in Joey’s clean handwriting. The paper is an absolute mess, with entire sections scribbled out and sticky notes tacked all over it.

Henry tucks it back into the notebook. I’ll read it later, he promises himself.

“You can’t just use the one you drew last time?” Allison asks, watching Henry work. Tom pretends to read one of the many newspapers lining Joey’s apartment, but watches him eagle-eyed over the top of the paper as he works.

“Ink has to be fresh,” he mumbles, focused on his work. He runs the brush over the taped-together papers, leaving a smooth black line in its wake.

“That should do it.” He checks Joey’s notes one more time, just to be sure. “Ready when you are.”

Tom stands up from the chair he had been sitting in, putting down his newspaper. He looks at the pentagram, flexes his robotic arm, then puts his remaining hand on Allison’s shoulder. He looks at her with a concerned expression.

“Henry? Can we have a few minutes alone?” she asks, putting her hand over his.

Henry smiles grimly. “Of course.” He leaves the room, catching them pulling into an embrace as he does so.

He sits back down at the kitchen table, looking at the various items he had found of Tom. It was mostly letters from Allison mentioning him, though one had included a photo of them on their wedding day. The man in the photo was short, with an equally short beard and a hardened look to his face. Despite his gruff appearance, he was beaming at the camera, his one remaining arm wrapped around Allison’s shoulders.

“Henry?”

He jumps, startled. It hadn’t felt like it had been very long. “Ready?”

Allison nods, wringing her hands. “As ready as we’ll ever be, I guess.”

They both walk back to the living room where Tom is pacing the floor. Allison approaches and whispers something to him, pulling him into a final hug.

They pull away after a moment and Tom moves to stand in front of the pentagram, staring at Henry. Henry nods, and Tom closes his eyes, taking a deep breath before stepping into it. Within seconds his form starts to melt away, the ink dispersing like foam on the sea.

“That’s supposed to happen, right?” Allison breathes. While she had remained confident before this point, she was now clutching her arm, looking more than slightly panicked. The Machine roars to life before Henry can respond.

“Wait at the door!” he reminds her, yelling over the noise. She stops at the doorway, clutching the frame. By the time Henry catches up there’s already a figure under the spicket, moving out from under the gushing ink. He coughs violently, wiping ink away to reveal the same face Henry had been studying in the photograph earlier. Allison approaches him slowly, as if she wasn’t sure it was him.

“Tom?” she asks. She reaches out her hand, then pauses. The man coughs again.

“...Allison?” he asks in a low, gravelly voice. Allison’s face lights up in recognition and she jumps forward, pulling him into an embrace as she starts to cry in relief.

“Calm down, calm down! You’re getting ink all over yourself!” he declares, laughing. He returns the hug, pulling her into a kiss. Henry slips into the room, handing him a towel as they pull away.

“Thanks.” Tom reaches out to take it, then stops mid-gesture, staring at his newly formed arm. “I thought this would still be gone.” He flexes it experimentally.

Henry shrugs. “This is mostly about intent, and I wanted you to have it back.”

“Thanks. Not just for the arm, I mean... for everything.” Tom takes the towel, wiping the excess ink off himself.

Allison nudges him, grinning. “You’re smiling! I can’t remember the last time I saw you happy.”

Tom laughs. “Don’t get used to it.”

“I have a plan.”

Allison and Tom had taken a break from working on a broken ink maker. Tom looks at him from his spot on top of the bench and Allison leans against it,  grinning at the statement. “That’s a first.”

“I’ve been thinking about it for a while now, but I’ll need your help.” Henry takes a deep breath. “I want to help everyone. I mean, as many people as I can, at least. All of this-” he gestures vaguely, “needs to end, and now we know how to do it.”

“Everyone here would try to kill you if given the chance,” Thomas reminds him. “Are you expecting to just walk up to them and ask them if they want to be human again?”

“We don’t need to approach anyone directly. We just need to explain how this works and have one of you show yourselves as proof. Anyone who wants to will show up, and-”

“-word will spread as more people change back,” Allison finishes for him.

“No offense Henry, but I don’t think the Searchers are going to be interested in having a nice little chat while they’re trying to rip our your heart.”

“I was thinking the Lost Ones, actually,” Henry muses. “Sammy’s still around, so they won’t attack us.”

“Sammy? That crazy cult leader? I don’t think that’s safe.” Allison crosses her arms, frowning as she thinks over it.

“He should still be in the Music Department right now, I think. That’s where he was during the last loop. And we don’t need to stay long - just long enough to explain what’s going on.”

Allison sighs. “I don’t like it, but I don’t think we have many other options. We can head over there tomorrow morning.”

They step off the boat and onto the pier. Henry watches as the giant hand slowly disappears back under the ink with a strange moaning sound. “What the hell is that thing?”

“There’s a hand like that in the Bendy Land development area,” Tom offers.

“But why is it alive?”

Tom shrugs.

“Let’s make this quick. I don’t like this place.” Allison rests her hand on the hilt of her sword, watching the nearby shanties suspiciously.

“Right. How do we get them to come out here?”

“We could knock on their doors.”

“That would take forever. Aren’t we trying to be quick?”

Tom brushes past them, stepping into the middle of the room. “ANYONE HERE?” he yells. The silence is quickly replaced with chatter as the Lost Ones start to emerge.

Allison shrugs. “That works.”

Henry clears his throat as the Lost Ones group around him. He had already went over his speech in his mind before, but actually giving it with a few dozen pairs of glowing eyes watching him was a different story. “Uh... hello. I’m Henry, and this is Allison and Tom. We, uh-”

“We have a way to free everyone,” Allison cuts in, glancing at Henry. He gives her a grateful nod in response. “Henry figured out how to do it using the Machine.”

An uneasy set of murmurs runs through the crowd.

“Who are they?”

“Sammy said that only Bendy can free us...”

“What if they’re lying?”

“We’re not lying. How do you think Allison and I became human again?” Tom objects, stepping forward.

“How do we know you were one of us to begin with?”

Henry freezes.

A crack in a nearby house starts oozing ink, like a wound. The ink moves upward, shaping itself into something that looked vaguely like a person wearing suspenders and holding an axe. A grinning Bendy face stares at them.

“I thought you said Sammy wouldn’t be here,” Allison hisses. Henry looks at her helplessly.

“It is... rare that we get visitors down here. But I’m afraid we’re not interested in your offer. We have already found salvation in our Savior. Isn’t that right?”

A few soft murmurs of agreement come from the crowd of Lost Ones, who quickly part to make room for Sammy as he walks over.

“The Ink Demon’s not trying to save you, Sammy. He’d kill you if you ever met him face to face.” He has to resist adding “like he did before”.

Sammy suddenly reaches forward, grabbing Henry’s chin and tilting his head up. His hand is cold. “You look familiar to me. Have we met before?” He lets go before Allison has a chance to react, shaking his head. “It doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is our Lord and his wishes.”

He turns to address the crowd. “These outsiders were sent here as a test, my sheep. Our Savior is testing us, to see if we will be so easily tempted away from his will. If you follow them, you will never be saved.” A few quiet agreements rise from the crowd.

“Listen, I don’t know what your deal is, but you have proof standing right in front of you that this works,” Tom snaps. Sammy turns around, ink dripping from his frame.

“Let’s assume that that you are telling the truth and that you are not simply outsiders that this man-” he gestures to Henry -”brought with him. You say that you are freed. And yet-”

Sammy raises the axe and slashes Tom with it before anyone can respond. The mechanic swears and places a hand over the wound, which is already seeping ink.

“Tom!” Allison rushes over, kneeling by his side and moving his hand aside to look at the wound. Tom mutters something about being fine, glaring at Sammy.

“Do you see, my sheep?” Sammy turns back to the crowd, raising his arms. “These people are still made of ink, just like us! Our Lord is the only one who can truly free us from this dark prison, and Our Lord is the only one who can restore our flesh and blood... May he forgive our sins one day. Can I get an amen?”

A chorus of soft “amens” arise from the crowd. Many of the Lost Ones were watching Sammy intently, but some of them were instead staring at Henry’s group, whispering to each other, glaring. The former curiosity they had shown earlier was quickly being replaced with skepticism.

“Henry, we need to leave. Now.” Allison puts a hand on Tom’s back and guides him to his feet, his wound already bandaged with some cloth from her dress.

“Right.” Henry turns his attention back to the crowd. “We’re leaving. If any of you are interested, we’re just down the river, past the boats.” They work their way back to the docks, the Lost Ones watching them.

“Goodbye, my sheep,” Sammy mutters as they leave. “Pray that our Lord does not find out about this.”

[ivyandink]

Without a moment’s hesitation, I got started. Just as Zach had said, my tasks for the day were all related to learning about publishing. When I had taken the position, all I knew about it was that writers sent in manuscripts and somehow they ended up on shelves. What I was learning about was all the various steps in the process-- from sifting through mountains of pitches, to reading and reviewing fulls works, to editing, to production, to marketing and selling. Each piece was essential, a small cog in an immense machine.

With each word I read, a small glimmer of excitement grew in my stomach-- I would get to work with all this stuff? I would get the opportunity to witness the progression from words scribbled on a paper to a hardcover bound book in a store? It seemed too good to be true. For as long as I could remember (or at least for as long as I could read), I had always gravitated towards books. No matter where my mom and I lived, they were always constant. No matter how things might be going in my life, there was always solace to be found within their pages.

Many afternoons and evenings and weekends and late nights and early mornings were spent with my nose in a book. Exploring new worlds, meeting people I’d never actually see, experiencing situations I could hardly even dream of, and feeling more than my heart could hold at times. Sure, reading could serve as a means to escape reality sometimes, but I saw it as so much more-- it was a means to drink up every drop of it. The endless stories to be told in books were like endless lives to be lived.

Much like I had lost myself in the words of authors throughout my life, I had lost myself in the words of what made them who they were. The hour Zach had designated for my research ended swiftly.

“So if I quizzed you, do you think you’d pass?” I jumped as the sound of Zach’s voice pulled me back into the office. He took a seat on the sofa which sat nestled up under the window-- a design choice a true reader would never fail to make, to create the perfect sunny nook.

“Oh! Uhm-” I said, still startled by his sudden appearance.

He laughed, “I’m just teasing-- I’m sure you’d pass. But anyways, I hope you’re learning a lot.”

“Uhm, I am..” I offered slowly. An interesting effect of him sneaking up on me was that my mind didn’t quite get the chance to build up any more annoyance at the thought of him. I tasted the softness of my words, but couldn’t make up my mind on how I felt about them.

“Good, good… I just wanted to come out here and chat a bit about Friday. I have a woman coming in for a meeting. She sent in a pitch to me, and I wanted to meet up with her and discuss her manuscript. See, that’s one of the many benefits of a smaller company. My old job? It was so clinical. Everything was done over email or the phone. We hardly ever had face-to-face meetings with these people whose dreams we were in charge of fulfilling-- or destroying. Some people would call meeting them inefficient, but I call it personable.”

I held in a sigh-- of course he was personable, too. Why did I expect any less? The sleeping resentment in my belly had finally awoken and started clawing its way up my chest.

“I know it’s a little soon, but I want you to sit in on the meeting. The best way to learn how to swim is to jump in the deep-end, right? Here is her pitch,” he placed a stack of paper-clipped papers on the corner of my desk, that I hadn’t noticed he had until then, “Go ahead and read over it, familiarize yourself with it, and since you’re new at this, I’d also recommend doing some research on the genre-- you want to know things like what’s popular right now, what’s there too much of, what’s there not enough of… I’m sure you get the gist.”

My gaze fluttered over to the unassuming papers on my desk. On the front, there was a succinct title centered on the page in a clean typeface, with a matching first and last name right beneath it. Just those few simple letters exhilarated me-- discovering the contents behind them was my first real challenge, the first of (hopefully) many journeys inside the minds of talented writers.

“O-okay… y-yeah, that sounds… amazing, actually,” I said softly.

Zach grinned, “That’s good to hear, Penelope.”

[fullyautomated-luxurycommunism]

Mass job losses caused by advancing technology could lead to a rise of Marxism, the governor of the Bank of England has warned.

Mark Carney said the automation of millions of jobs could lead to mass unemployment, wage stagnation and the growth of communism within a generation.

He warned “Marx and Engels may again become relevant.”

Speaking at the Canada Growth Summit, Mr Carney said increases in artificial intelligence, big data and high-tech machines could create huge inequalities between the high-skilled workers who benefit from the advances and those who are sidelined by them.

He said: “The benefits, from a worker’s perspective, from the first industrial revolution, which began in the latter half of the 18th century, were not felt fully in productivity and wages until the latter half of the 19th century.

“If you substitute platforms for textile mills, machine learning for steam engines, Twitter for the telegraph, you have exactly the same dynamics as existed 150 years ago – when Karl Marx was scribbling the Communist Manifesto.”

The industrial revolution saw a then-unparalleled growth in production during the late 18th and early 19th centuries – but wages failed to increase for decades as machines meant the jobs created were low-skilled.

Many believe the resulting inequalities were a direct precursor to the rise of both left- and right-wing extremism across Europe.

Mr Carney, who is due to leave his post in 2019, said the years of weak salary growth since the financial crisis suggested this 19th-century experience was already being repeated.

The governor also added there were signs of “hollowing out” in the job market as mid-level workers find computers able to complete specific tasks – even some previously considered skilled work.

He said: “There is a disconnect in expectations. In surveys, over 90 per cent of citizens don’t think their jobs will be affected by automation, but a similar percentage of CEOs think the opposite, in the number of jobs which will be materially affected.”

He pointed out how law firms were already using artificial intelligence to comb through documents and read evidence, something traditionally done by junior lawyers. And he added that banks have used a combination of artificial intelligence and big data to computerise large swathes of customer service departments, resulting in staff being made unemployed.

Jobs such as a taxi or lorry drivers could also be scrapped, as self-driving technology improves, he added.

Mr Carney said the trends go against previous ideas which suggested only manual tasks would be given to machines.

The end result, he indicated, might mean more workers need to prepare for jobs which require a higher emotional intelligence, in sectors such as care and leisure.

[lievbios]

Angel || Fred Burkle

Name: Fred Burkle

Age: 23

Relationship: Single [Verse depending]

Sexuality: Pansexual

Job:

Faceclaims: Amy Acker

Winifred “Fred” Burkle is a physics student and member of Angel Investigations, and later the head of Wolfram & Hart’s Science Division.

Born in Texas, Fred moved to Los Angeles to attend graduate school at UCLA until one fateful day when her jealous physics professor, Oliver Seidel, used dark magic to banish her to the demon dimension Pylea, where she spent five years as a human slave; the time there took a serious toll on Fred’s sanity. In 2001, Fred was finally saved and returned to Earth when the vampire Angel and his friends arrived in Pylea and liberated them from the control of the Covenant of Trombli.

Upon recovering from her mental trauma, Fred joined Angel Investigations, adding her smarts and scientific knowledge to the team. Unfortunately, when Angel Investigations took over Wolfram & Hart in late 2003/early 2004, Fred met her end when one of her coworkers, Knox, brought in an ancient sarcophagus which infected her with the essence of the Old One Illyria, and despite her friends’ best efforts, Fred perished and her body was taken over by Illyria itself; though her soul was apparently completely destroyed in the process, Illyria retained Fred’s memories and some of her emotions and personality traits.

However, after Illyria’s death and the reversal of the end of magic, Fred was resurrected in London, actually Fred and IIlyria share the same body.

Fred was born in Dallas, Texas to Roger and Trish Burkle. When she finished San Antone High School,[1] she moved to Los Angeles for graduate school at UCLA. Originally majoring in history, Fred took a physics class with Professor Seidel which inspired her to take another path. Around this time, she began working at Stewart Brunell Public Library. On May 7, 1996, while shelving a demon language book, a curious Fred recited the cryptic text out loud and was accidentally sucked into a dimensional portal to Pylea. Her future friend, Lorne, was sucked into the same portal on his side and ended up in Los Angeles. The portal was actually opened by Fred’s jealous college professor, Professor Seidel, who had sent every promising student to it, essentially sending them to their death. Fred was the only one of at least six to return.[2] While still in school, Fred was a marijuana user and was something of a conspiracy theorist.[1]

For five years, Fred spent an arduous life as a “cow,” the Pylean equivalent of a slave. The harsh life of solitude and serfdom took a serious toll on her social skills, as well as her mental health. When Angel met Fred, she was curled up in a cave, scribbling on the already-covered walls, having seemingly convinced herself that her previous life in Los Angeles had not been real. Fred had once been forced to wear an explosive shock collar. However, Fred’s salvation came when Angel and his crew arrived in Pylea to find Cordelia Chase, who had become trapped there. When Angel’s demon came fully to the fore, it attacked just about everyone but Fred, including Charles Gunn and Wesley Wyndam-Pryce. Despite this shocking display of violence, Angel never seemed to scare Fred and even at his most demonic, he never attacked her. In fact, she seemed to have a calming effect on him.

After Pylea was liberated, Fred accompanied Angel and the rest of the gang back to Los Angeles and stayed in the Hyperion Hotel to re-adjust to life on Earth and regain her mental stability. Despite several traumatic instances, such as being held hostage by Gunn’s old vampire-hunting crew, she adjusted quite well to “normal” life. Her knowledge of physics and mathematics made her an excellent asset when researching and developing strategies. Fred’s ingenuity and resourcefulness also allowed her to create several constructs and contraptions that helped her adapt to stronger and more powerful enemies. After some time, Fred’s parents came to Los Angeles looking for her, but Fred avoided them and appeared afraid of them, briefly leading the rest of Angel Investigations to believe that the Burkles were abusive. However, Fred’s reluctance to see them was a result of her trauma from Pylea and the Burkles were in fact loving and supportive. Though she initially decided to return home to Texas with her parents, Fred ultimately decided that her place was in Los Angeles with Angel Investigations, a decision which her parents respectfully accepted.

Everything changed for Fred when she and the rest of Angel’s crew joined Wolfram & Hart. A spell removed all of her memories of Angel’s son, Connor. Fred received her own laboratory and became the head of Wolfram & Hart’s Science Division. She was a major asset to the team. Angel consistently relied on her department to quickly and efficiently solve problems. At this time, Fred was concentred to help to materialize the new member, a ghostly Spike. During a mission paired with Wesley, she was almost killed by Emil’s henchmen. Angel blame Wesley for it. After going on a few dates with co-worker Knox, Fred began to have feelings for Wesley again. The two paired up for about a week, but the couple’s happiness was not to last.

As she lay dying, Fred’s mind began to give way. Nearing the end, she panicked, stating that Feigenbaum, a stuffed rabbit named for mathematical physicist Mitchell Feigenbaum who studied chaos theory, should be there. When Wesley asked her who Feigenbaum was, Fred replied that she did not know. Cradling her in his arms, Wesley stayed with Fred until the moment she died, after which her body was taken over by Illyria.

Shortly after these events, Angel used Fred’s death to his advantage in order to infiltrate and ultimately destroy the Circle of the Black Thorn, the Senior Partners’ primary source of power on Earth, by making it appear that he himself was the one who arranged for Illyria’s sarcophagus to be transported to Wolfram & Hart.[3]

Some time after Illyria’s death, Angel encountered what appeared to be Fred walking along a street in Magic Town, London.[6] Talking with Fred as she is assessed by Nadira, Angel determines that Fred was apparently restored by the restoration of magic causing most of the old rules to be ‘reset’ as things that were lost were brought back. Fred explains that she remembers Illyria’s time in her body, such as her attempt to awaken her armies, but is still aware of Illyria within her, granting her access to Illyria’s older memories and occasionally allowing Illyria to take over when she is exhausted or stressed (Although they both sleep when Fred sleeps). Thanks to these flashes, Fred is able to reveal to Angel that Eldre Koh’s tribe were killed by Illyria centuries ago to frame him so that the cult he belonged to would be disbanded.

Fred was a normal human woman with no supernatural abilities. However, her brilliant mathematical mind, immense knowledge of quantum physics and science, and a natural ability in designing inventions made her an important asset of Angel’s team.

During this time, Fred also acquired some moderate fighting skills, mainly using a crossbow as a weapon, but even sword and gun. Later, when Jasmine took over Los Angeles, she was forced to face down all of Los Angeles on her own and was also able to hold her own unarmed, taking out a few armed Jasminites, including one armed SWAT member.

Following her resurrection, Fred has acquired a 'Jekyll-and-Hyde’-esque dynamic with Illyria, with Illyria able to manifest from Fred with her full powers and abilities while Fred only has the potential of those powers rather than being able to use them herself.

Fred was a fairly kindhearted and sweet individual, perfectly willing to help others. The most notable example was perhaps her interactions with Spike. When he confided in her that he was being slowly dragged into Hell, Fred worked tirelessly to build a machine that would restore his corporeal body. She was the first to believe that Spike was “worth saving” and though her efforts ultimately failed, she nonetheless earned Spike’s perpetual gratitude. Her personality was, in a sense, similar to that of Willow Rosenberg.

Just as Fred was willing to help others, she was also fairly vengeful against those who threatened her or her friends. When she and Gunn realized that Connor was responsible for Angel’s three month disappearance, Fred berated him while repeatedly hitting him with a stun gun. Another example was when Fred pursued revenge against Professor Seidel, an act which nearly came to fruition, if not for Gunn’s intervention.

Fred was also an innocent, unassuming young woman which often led people to underestimate her. On many occasions, she used this to her advantage, such as shocking Connor with a stun gun and knocking out a suspicious lab assistant at Wolfram & Hart. Also, she showed signs of great inner strength and an innate ability to survive on her own despite overwhelming circumstances. This was shown as she attempted to flee from Jasmine’s followers and earlier with her experiences in Pylea. In fact, while conversing with Illyria, Spike had said that Fred was one of the strongest people he ever met, solely based on the fact that she could still be able to love as after everything she had gone through in her life.[7]

Due to her traumatic experiences in Pylea, Fred briefly suffered from an undiagnosed mental disorder, although she fully recuperated. Although that it return brievly when she was attacked by an intedimensional tentacle demon, invocated by Seidel.

VERSES

[itswomanswork]

$1,000,000 on Amazon in only 9 months? (Insanely Powerful Tools for Amazon Sellers)

How would it feel to make $1,000,000 on Amazon in only 9 months?

That’s exactly what Manny Coats did! While I was at the Amazing Selling Machine event this past year, I had the pleasure of interviewing Manny, who is the Founder of the AMPM Podcast.

Manny is a super successful Amazon seller, who made $1,000,000 on Amazon in his first year of business. Since then, he has gone on to create a software company, called Helium 10. This software suite contains over a dozen insanely powerful Amazon SEO tools that are designed to help Amazon sellers grow their online businesses.

If you have a desire to start selling on Amazon, Manny’s story will inspire you to do so. Are you ready to learn how you can make $1,000,000 on Amazon? This is an interview that you don’t want to miss!

Watch the video below:

(Click here to watch on YouTube)

Want the tools you need in order to make millions selling on Amazon? SIGN UP HERE for my webinar with Helium 10!

This page contains affiliate links. If you purchase a product through one of them, I will receive a commission (at no additional cost to you). I only ever endorse products that I have personally used and benefitted from personally. Thank you for your support!

How would making $1,000,000 on Amazon change your life?

Do you want to share with people a little bit about your story?

It’s a long story. I started out in Finance and I hated it. The fun part of it was trying to break goals at the company, and I consistently did that. I was pretty valuable to the company, but at some point, I wanted to travel more and do things that I wouldn’t be able to afford on the salary that I had with that particular business. I decided to go off on my own. This was back in the late 90s.

I started a physical products business related to working out. It was a protein powder company. At the same time, I also started TwistedHumor.com, which was a humor site, and back then it was super simple to get a website domain.

My protein company ended up failing, but TwistedHumor.com ended up becoming the largest humor site in the world for a couple of years, until the .com bubble burst.

I then went through a variety of online businesses, which eventually lead to mobile games a few years back. From there, the market started to get crazy competitive. You started to need really big budgets in order to compete with the big companies that were out there. I dabbled a little bit in Amazon, and I knew somebody who is now my business partner, who had also dabbled in it.

We tried it out, it did really well in the first two weeks, and then we said, “Let’s go full speed with this.” In December of 2015, we started the AMPM Podcast, an Amazon FBA business, and then everything exploded from there.

When you first started on Amazon did you know what you were doing, or did you go through ASM initially?

Yes and no. My first product failed. I didn’t know what I was doing. The ASM course was closed, so I couldn’t get into that. I decided to learn everything on my own. My first product was more of a passion product. It did okay. I ended up using that product as a test bed to test keyword strategies and different things, instead of using it on my main product.

To answer your question, there are two things that I came in with that gave me a really big advantage over other people. The first thing was that I had a software team in place, so I started creating tools that eventually became the software platform that we use now. The other thing was the keyword strategy that I was using on mobile games, which was very similar to Amazon.

With mobile games, you have your title, bullet points, descriptions, backend keywords, and then Amazon just takes it one step further.

With mobile, you have localization for like 20 different countries which with Amazon, unless you are selling in those countries, you don’t need to do. I just applied that, and immediately I started to see insane rankings that my competitors were not seeing.

You mentioned that your first product failed. What mistakes did you make, and how did you prevent against that when you launched your second product?

With my first product, I was a newbie Amazon seller, so I was still learning how to write copy correctly. I was doing the keyword part pretty well, but I think what’s really important with a listing is your imagery, and mine was okay. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great. I could get people to come to my page, but I couldn’t close them. The conversions weren’t there, and people would see other products that had better imagery and better pricing than mine did.

Amazon also had a 3-foot drop test for every product, in order to make sure that they didn’t break if they dropped. I remember dropping my product and seeing pieces of it go everywhere. I had to redo everything before Amazon closed that product.

However, with my second product, I went all in with the photography, videos, and reviews. Everything was set up correctly.

Is there a certain criterion that you follow when you look at a product that you are going to launch on Amazon?

I do it a few different ways. I try not to get into a market where every single product has 5,000 reviews. I think that’s setting yourself up for a really steep hill to climb. I’ll look take a look at the top keywords, and if there is a product that I’m interested in, I’ll figure out how many sales I think I need to get for a specific keyword in order to out-rank that product for that particular keyword phrase.

A lot of people think, “Oh man, I’ve got to outrank this product, in general.”

They go on a site like Jungle Scout to see how many sales a product has, and they soon realize that they can’t compete with it. Well, if you want a piece of that pie, all you have to do is beat your competitors, using a pretty significant keyword phrase, and then get sales from that. You can still generate a 6-7-figure Amazon business based off of that strategy.

How do you typically launch your product on Amazon? Is there anything that you do in order to rank your product high, right off the gate?

There are legitimate services out there that you can use that will help you get your product ranked. People will say to us, “I get to the #1 spot and then I start falling”. If you are using services for a specific keyword, and you are in the #1 spot and are displacing everybody, ask yourself, “Who am I displacing, what does their main image look like, and what are their price points?”

If your product is there and you asked ten people, “Would you buy this product over the other 15 products on the first page?” and they say, “No, I would buy this one because it is $10 cheaper or because of this image”, then you are going to fall down in the ranks.

When you are launching your product, you need to make sure that your price point is going to be as good or better than the other people on that page.

I always do a giveaway as well. For keyword phrases, I’ll pick the top 10 and figure out how many I need to give away. Then I’ll do an 80-90% discount, where I will give away enough units during one week in order to actually rank to the #1 or #2 spot for that keyword phrase. To get to #1, you have to be out-selling everyone for a keyword phrase.

A great side effect of it all is that you will oftentimes get the best seller badge from Amazon for that particular product if you are driving enough traffic to Amazon.

Sometimes you’ll even get the Amazon choice badge for that specific keyword phrase, so either one of those gives you that super social proof from Amazon that tells consumers that your product must be really good if it’s Amazon’s choice.

People think, “Wow, Amazon is saying that this should be the product that I buy on the search term.” A lot of people think it’s per product, but it’s per keyword phrase for the Amazon choice badge. If you get those, your sales will jump through the roof.

You mentioned that you guys develop software. I know that one is called Helium 10. Can you share with people a little bit about that software and how it helps Amazon sellers?

Helium 10 started from our mobile site. Alongside some developers, we created some tools that I wanted, that I didn’t see on the market. Or, if they were on the market, they didn’t do what I wanted.

I think a lot of people do this now. They will get a keyword tool and then they need an optimization tool and something that tracks, and then they need a hijacker tool, and they end up jumping all over the place.

I said, “I want one place where I can do everything, and if I do keyword research and I click a button, it then moves into some kind of keyword clean-up tool, and then I click a button and it moves everything into an optimization tool for Amazon, specifically.”

We created that and because we have the podcast, people kept asking, “What tools do you use?” I would recommend other tools, but I would also say that we use our own, and eventually, we found that a lot of people wanted our tools.

We didn’t know that our podcast would grow to the size that it has today. We worked on our business for 6 months, released it, and it’s been on the market for one year now and is available to everybody. We’ve got 10 tools in there currently and it’s growing.

What would you say are some of the top tools that people can use?

About half of the tools that we offer are free. Scribbles is is an Amazon keyword listing optimization tool that assists Amazon sellers with adding more valuable keywords to product titles, descriptions, and more. When you use this tool, you can be sure that you’ve optimized everything.

We have a keyword research tool called Magnet, and one of our most popular tools is called Refund Genie. If you are already selling on Amazon, you know that Amazon loses products, and they don’t tell you about it unless you dig deep into your reports.

With our tool, it is free to check and see how much money that Amazon owes you. Then, if you want to have a system in place that creates the files, our tool does it for you automatically. Some people get back $20-30,000 dollars back from Amazon.

It sounds like you guys really focus on optimization. Can you talk about why this is so important?

We have a tool that was created specifically for this, called 5K Checker because that’s how many characters Amazon gives you on the back-end for your keywords. I tell everybody that at least once a month, you need to run something similar to our tool.

Basically, grab all of your backend keywords and check it against your Amazon Standard Identification Number (ASIN).

Our tool does this automatically. It does 4 hours worth of work in seconds. Don’t forget to do the front-end as well. A lot of people don’t do this. They will check and see if they are indexed by their title and their bullet points, and then in the next month, Amazon will change something, and they will no longer be indexed.

See if you are de-indexed for specific keywords because Amazon will de-index you for stuff. You may notice that a search phrase that is super awesome is not even showing up on Amazon. For example, you could take that and move it from your description to your bullet points.

It’s a constant game of tweaking things and making them better. If you do this, you will see your sales either stay steady or continue to grow.

Do you have any final advice for someone who wants to grow an Amazon business?

You don’t need the perfect product to start. I didn’t have one, and you also don’t have to be passionate about the product at the onset. If you are passionate about it, that’s cool because you will know about it. However, it’s not necessary.

Just launch, get going, and don’t go too wide at the onset. That was one of my problems after my first failed product. If you have one product, you only have to deal with one of everything. When you have 4-5 products, you have to deal with way too many things. It multiplies your work tenfold.

If you are just starting out it could become a nightmare, especially if you are working on your business part-time and are in the process of transitioning from your day-job to your full-time Amazon business.

Start with one product, learn the process, and figure out how things work. You can read all about how to build an Amazon business, but until you actually do it and make the mistakes you don’t know.

This is how Manny made $1,000,000 on Amazon in only 9 months!

I hope his story has inspired you to start building an Amazon business. If you have the desire to create financial freedom for yourself, there is no better place than Amazon to get started.

I encourage you to check out Manny’s website, Helium 10, where you can find all of his insanely powerful tools for Amazon sellers. Manny and his team have graciously put together a bonus for my audience. If you head on over to their website and type in the coupon code, MASTERY, you will get a 10% discount on their products!

Take action and start creating a business that will give you a freedom lifestyle, where you can be your own boss, travel the world and, spend more time doing the things that you are passionate about with the people that you love. Are you ready to build the foundation for an online business that could transform your entire life?

Want the tools you need in order to make millions selling on Amazon? SIGN UP HERE for my webinar with Helium 10!

The post $1,000,000 on Amazon in only 9 months? (Insanely Powerful Tools for Amazon Sellers) appeared first on Project Life Mastery.

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[worldfurnitureandbits]

Character Development Questions: Hard Mode

2xCross. WritingMeme.

Link to meme.

Questions: 1-5. 

Date: 4/30.

Does your character have siblings or family members in their age group? Which one are they closest with?

What is/was your character’s relationship with their mother like?

What is/was your character’s relationship with their father like?

Has your character ever witnessed something that fundamentally changed them? If so, does anyone else know?

On an average day, what can be found in your character’s pockets?

Subjects: Lina & 114N

@ page 1.

1. Siblings

Lina-  Her older brother J.J. is roughly her age, but they’re at different points in their lives.  He’s married to a career woman, has a kid and a full-time job (works from home to save on child care money).  She’s in grad school and has found herself single again after a two year relationship with an older woman.

Lina gets along better with her much older brother Ricky, who provides a better sounding board for her problems with their mother.  They’re also at similar stages in life- freshly broken up with same-sex partners, feeling a little lost, worried about mom...

There are cousins on Lina’s father’s side, but she’s not particularly close to them.  She has little in common with them.

114N- They have one surviving sibling. The only other survivor from the N collection.  They go by Irene and live in a cottage in the middle of nowhere.  114N does not know that Irene is still alive and believes Irene to be dead.

114N and Irene do not speak.  They did not get along before Irene left/faked their death.   They hated each other due to the intense rivalry cultivated by Maker and their very different coping mechanisms.

2. Mothers

Lina- Christine is a good, but complicated woman with an alcohol problem.  Her children love her, but struggle to cope with her more destructive tendencies.   This is especially difficult for Lina who feels that she has a lot in common with her mother, but fears becoming her.  In fact, Lina has made it her life goal to not be her mother.

While Lina doesn’t appear to have many similarities to her mother mentally or physically, there are key commonalities that make Lina particularly concerned.  There’s also social expectations.  Simple being related to her mother causes people to make dangerous assumptions.  So, Lina hedges her bets by not mentioning her mother... Thankfully, Christine understands and gives her space and enables the ‘not like mom’ approach.

On the whole, they get along as long as it’s before 9pm, which is when Christine slips into darker moods.  Lina cannot handle the paranoia, anger, and depression that emerges at those late hours.  She does her best to keep her distance at night and only comes over in the event of an emergency.

114N- They have vague recollections of their mothers which they pieced together into Hollie. A robot.  Their relationship with Hollie is complex and fraught, because they created her, but she is a manifestation of what little they understand to be mother.  Eventually 114N decided that the only way to manage Hollie was to make her an autonomous AI.  This has made things less complex, but only slightly.   The power disbalance is awkward and difficult.

There is also the primordial alien goop that technically formed and nurtured the 114N using the traumatized and mutilated bodies of several children.  But it’s hard to think of alien slime as a mother, particularly when it can not provide comfort or council.

3. Fathers

Lina- Another complicated relationship. Lina used to be much closer to her father, but as she became more aware of his career choices she started to move away from him.  While Lina always despised her mother’s choice of occupation, her father’s decisions always seemed logical and right when she was young and impressionable.

It was only when she was older and started to understand exactly what her father did and how it impacted other people on a global scale that she became uncomfortable.  They became somewhat estranged in Lina’s early high school years.  When her father’s enemies started to treat her as a way to get to him, he sent her to live with her mother, which furthered their separation.

She still loves her father and the older she gets the more she understands and respects his choices, but she still disagrees with them.

114N- They had many fathers, but only two are relevant- Maker and Voltaire.

Maker was a horrible, despicable, abusive monster with a human face and a mind full of careful, logical justifications for his actions.  He was a scientist who experimented on human subjects to “further evolution.”

114N was a surviving failure of these experiments, which meant that Maker kept them for further studies and testing (unlike the successes who were handed over to the militant training branch of the organization). 114N survived the continued experiments, tests, and training to become one of Maker’s prized soldiers.  Once they figured out how to extract the explosive Maker implanted in their skull, they imprisoned Maker, wiped out the organization, and sought vengeance on everyone who had ties to the organization.

Maker eventually died from 114N’s slow, horrible revenge. 114N wishes that they’d kept him alive and in agony longer, in honor of all of 114N’s siblings...

Voltaire is like Hollie, an amalgamation of fractured memories of fathers from the time before Maker. Also a robot.  114N finds him equally difficult to deal with, since he is a creation based on several father figures and the obvious power imbalance between maker and ‘father.’  But things are easier, because Voltaire is always somewhat distant.  114N actually has to go out looking for him if they want fatherly advice or time.

4. Witnessed something that changed them?

Lina- When Lina was 8 she watched one of the greatest and most loved/respected parahuman in her city die. His powers of flight failed him and plummeted to his death. She never forgot that.

That was the moment she learned that even people with amazing abilities could be hurt and killed. That was when she learned that death could even happen to people who were supposed to be heroes.

114N- Hard to pin down. There was so much horror... but it wasn’t the horror that did it. It was watching a machine mend their arm and realizing that they had memorized the machine’s precise mechanical movements and were capable of copying those movements perfectly. That was when they realized that they could defeat anyone, they just needed to watch them long enough to memorize how their opponent moved. One or twice.

They stopped losing after that. That was when they started winning and planning the destruction of the organization.

5. Pockets

Lina- Wears stylish, affordable clothing for women, which is typically devoid of pockets (she hates this). If she does have convenient, functional pockets, she might have a few odd pieces of paper with notes scribbled on them, at least five paperclips (secret emergency lock-picking set), a stray pen, and a spare tuning fork.

114N- Has pockets, but rarely used them. All their clothes are very nice so they hates letting them get mucked up with things. The few items they do carry include a custom “Swiss Army knife”-like tool for fiddling, a shiny silver Spanish coin from the 1400s, a pencil, and a tiny notebook that they replace on a daily basis. There’s also the gloves and pocket watch, but they view those items as part of the ensemble.

[originaldetectivesheep]

A Life of Riley Part 1 - The Problem With Grinckles ch 1

I

As these things go, at least this time of the year, around here, this wasn't far off a perfect day.  The sun was still coming up, but there was enough light that Wybert Avenue was a pure riot of orange and red and yellow all the way down the long hill out of West Campus to the slough where the old rail trail crossed, and there was just the right amount of cool, damp autumn fog in the air to give the smell of the fallen leaves the right zing.  It was a good feel – the kind of day you hoped your classes were light, that you didn't have a lab due, that there was a good game on late, that one of your un-tenured profs might want to come out and invest a couple pitchers in good reviews at the end of the semester, that somebody on scholarship might have a spare roll of quarters for the pool table.  It was as good a fall day as you could ask for; nearly good enough to make up for the fact that I was up and walking through it at seven in the morning on a weekend, or that I'd gotten kicked out of bed because of having to get up – or more accurately, of who I had to go and see.

I couldn't really blame Fred – hookups are kind of like this – but he could have stood to be a little nicer about it.  I had my pants half on and was trying to jam a foot into one of my boots when he rolled up on an elbow and rubbed me on the shoulder. "Leaving so soon?  Do you really have to?  Can't you stay a little longer… and then we can go get breakfast somewhere after?"

I thought a little, and set my boot back down on the floor with a clunk.  "Yeah.  I can stay. We can stay in for a little.  I do still have an errand I have to run this morning, but I can do it after, on the way over if we want to go to Rhoda's Cafe on the other side of the eng campus.  It won't take a second – I just need to go up to the AP lab and check in with a friend there about this wire-run list."  I set my hands on my belt to push my pants off again, but when I turned all the way around, Fred was backed into the wall, his mouth hanging open in shock and horror as if I'd said "I lied about not having herpes" or something, not "I need to go run an errand sometime".

"AP," he said, struggling to speak, his thin beard and moustache twisting around into rope-lasso contortions.  "AP – the Applied Physics lab?"  I nodded.  "And your friend, your friend who asks you to check their harnesses, your friend is Riley Kannacheskis?"  I nodded again, slowly.  None of this was news to anyone – Riley was probably the most-well known lab head on campus, and if you asked some rando freshman linguistics major or whatever to name a specific lab, they'd probably say "Applied Physics".  But that was kind of the problem – it was why Riley, and the AP, and the stuff they got up to were infamous all over campus that was the problem.

Fred leaned past me and picked up my boot, then shoved it into my lap. "I'm sorry, sweetie," he said, "but if you're really involved with those AP people you're going to have to go."  Now it was my turn to sit there dumb and shocked, mouth hanging open. "Don't get me wrong, Leo, I like you, you're still a cutie, and the sex was good, but I'm not going to stay hanging around with you and risk getting attached and then worry when you get roped into something mega-stupid and might get killed.  The sex wasn't that good.  And I definitely definitely don't want to hang out with you and get involved myself.  No way. Period.  Those people are too weird, and anyone who gets too close to them gets stuck in their weirdness too.  I had a fun time, but this is it for us."  He raised an eyebrow, and pointed over at the door.

That was that, and so here I was out too early in the morning without a kiss goodbye and a half-lie to maybe do it again sometime or even so much as a goddamn cereal bar, but even though I was still sore about it, you had to admit that Fred had a point.  The AP lab was a weird place where weird people built very, very weird machines, and Riley as lab lead had a weird personal magnetism that without fail,  always drew lab members, their friends, and any innocent bystanders who got too close in to the very heart of whatever fundamentally bizarre problem the lab had created for themselves, or decided to tackle for some desperate no-hoper.

Because that was the Applied Physics lab's thing: they applied physics, and built machines.  Weird machines, but sometimes amazing ones – like the quantum-state dislocator that should probably have won Riley and Yuping a Nobel Prize if the power supply hadn't slagged itself into a slurry of molten copper and burning motor oil the third time they turned it on.  But because they weren't an engineering lab, and thus not always building really practical machines, they had a hard time getting funded, and so Riley was always on the lookout for some kind of back-channel, back-alley deal for parts, or favors, or just future goodwill to stretch the lab's budget and let them keep doing cool experiments.  But because the AP lab was what it was, and Riley's solution to virtually every problem seemed to involve doing something extremely weird, usually with a machine that was liable to explode or set itself on fire or polarize everyone's dental fillings in a three-block radius, it pretty quickly got to be that only the very, very weirdest and least solvable problems got brought over; everyone else did something more productive and less likely to result in major property damage, like calling the police or lighting a candle to St. Jude.

The last time that I'd gotten involved with one of the Applied Physics lab's problems, back in the spring, I'd ended up face down in the mud of a drained pond while Riley fired a DIY autocannon over my head at a giant lizard cosplaying as a washing machine.  And this wasn't a one-off: there was that time where I'm pretty sure I mugged myself and stole my own wallet in the state dislocator, and that time where Carolína went to deliver some notes and got like stuck inside someone's math problem for three days, and if that thing where Remy's ex-girlfriend drank a gallon of ham and had to get her stomach pumped wasn't strictly an AP lab thing, he had been doing something for Riley when his bike – which we were fishing for when the lizard thing happened – somehow went into the Horse Pond, and he still hadn't really told me what the hell was going on with that at all.  I could go on. This was the kind of lab where they ought to have "Abandon All Hope of a Normal Life, Ye Who Enter Here" over the door, instead of just "Danger – High Voltage Equipment In Use, Knock Before Entering".

And yet, here I was still going over there.  It's not like Riley and the rest were bad people, not really, and nobody'd gotten badly injured or permanently poisoned yet, and Carolína was able to get herself out of that demogorgohedron pocket dimension or whatever, and nobody'd even gotten arrested after that cannon thing, which had to be like a billion times illegal each way.  There was never a dull moment around the Applied Physics crew, and usually everything was safe enough; Fred had freaked out over nothing – he probably thought I was going to beg out of treating for brunch – and was worrying about nothing at all.

I followed the bike path off the street, keeping to the side as it wound its way through the Back Yards of cheap dorms, un-managed woods, and half-maintained rec facilities in towards the main engineering campus, idly looking over the flyers and stuff posted to the trees and lampposts, which always got thicker once you got onto actual campus again.  Learn Serbian Today with the Jevrem Obrenović Society.  Sydney Pollack complete filmography marathon at the A.T. Burlton, continuous running no readmittance.  A protest from yesterday against the validity of the last Kenyan presidential election.  Volunteers wanted for an experimental scabies treatment. When you really got down to it, there was a lot of weird stuff going on at this school that didn't have anything to do with the Applied Physics lab.  I hitched my shoulders up, thumbs in my belt; I was coming up on the Horse Pond, re-flooded and lizard-free, but still a reminder of how unrelated weirdness could quickly become the Applied Physics lab's weird problem.

The pond was looking healthier for the cleanup, but was ringed in a whole array of new signs, one after the other like those flipbook ad posters you sometimes get in the subway: University Property Sensitive Habitat Please Respect; Vulnerable Wetland No Dumping; Please Do Not Dump Active Nuclear Materials (This Means You Riley, someone had scribbled onto that one in laundry marker); Clean Up After Your Pets; Do Not Use Pet Waste Bags To Dispose of Grinckle Offal; Do Not Re-Release Caught Grinckles. The last couple looked new, and there were a couple buzz-cut freshmen from China or Vietnam squatting by the water's edge with fishing poles and a bucket – so at least somebody thought that the grinckles had gotten over here too.

I'd been working over the summer, back home, and nobody I was friends with from school was really interested in fish or fishing, so it was kind of weird, getting back on campus, to find this weird thing happening where there were these grinckles, which I guess was some kind of spiny invasive fish that I'd never heard of before, in all the ponds and lakes that nobody had ever cared about before, let alone ever found any fish in back in the spring.  But now like every third email alert was about grinckles, grinckles as a wading hazard, grinckles possibly contaminated, do not just throw piles and piles of grinckle guts into your dorm trash bags.  There was a rumor that they tasted like rutabagas, but I'd never tasted one of those either, had never seen let alone tasted a grinckle, and had no interest in ever doing so.  I was just glad that this was an inextricably weird thing at school that was never going to come up in the AP lab; I mean, it was a fish.  It's biology, not physics, and it's just a stupid fish, even if it's getting in somewhere it shouldn't.  It was someone else's problem, and it was going to stay that way.  I checked my phone as I cleared the last bunch of trees onto the eng quad; too early for the bagel stand, but maybe, if Riley had been working overnight, I could borrow something for breakfast at the lab along with my circuit diagrams.

Chapter 2

[tteastains]

the tension of opposites

Life pulls alternately back and forth, like a wrestling match. Love, he says, always wins.

  All my life, I have been a writer. I have always filled notebooks and journals with all kinds of stories. I have always been eager to share them with people. Writing has always been a deep-seated and essential part of my identity—the way I see myself, describe myself and place myself in the world.

All my life, I have had the idea that creative passions and careers are simply not worth the time or effort thrown at me nonstop. I have heard that creative fields are not “real jobs” and that making a living from creative passions is something that takes nothing more than privilege and a stroke of luck that is not afforded to most people.

I have now finished my first year of college, in which I took two vastly different writing classes that I thoroughly enjoyed. Having already completed two semesters of College English in high school, I’m technically “done” with it. And as my second semester wrapped up and I needed to make a schedule for next fall, I started to have this creeping feeling of something I wouldn’t quite call “dread,” but it was definitely building up to that.

I’ve always told myself (and frankly, have always been told) that writing is something I’ll always “have.” Something I can always “do,” after I find something “better.” After I find A Real Job.

But after this past year, I’ve realized something that makes my heart hurt. The minimal writing that I have been doing since finishing high school is already suffering. As an undergraduate student who did not work, I still didn’t have time to sit down and commit to writing. Because—brace yourself—writing does require discipline and commitment. Especially in my second semester, that discipline and commitment was almost exclusively applied to my schoolwork.   

So I’ve had a lot of days (and very late nights) that I just get lost in the thought of letting writing go, completely setting it aside and saving it for when I do have the time. Devote myself to this obscure concept of a “real job” that everyone talks down to me about all the time.

During the past year or two, I have taken a genuine interest in psychology. Now that’s what I call A Real Job, right? There are so many places you go with psych! So many well-paying options! All I have to do is pursue a career in psychology, land a decent job, and then all the sudden I’ll have the time and funds to commit myself to writing again! Maybe I can even write a book about psychology!

That’s not how it works. And it’s so not the point.

I am tired. I’m tired of creative people being forced to stifle their creativity and their passions because they are told that they don’t count. I’m tired of hearing the same story over and over of artists pursuing a degree in a field that they hate because they have been taught that that’s just what they have to do to survive. I’m tired of the people who do honor their creativity being stepped on by others for doing so.

Now, I understand that doing sitting at my desk alternating between scribbling in a notebook and tapping furiously at a keyboard is not a valid career option in the eyes of many. I understand that maybe it’s not a valid career option, period.

What I want to know is what the point of life is if all you’re doing is setting your passions aside for the promise of money.

The prospect of starving to death or being stuck in one miserable place (physical or metaphorical) is the only thing that has ever stopped me from completely diving into writing with everything I have. Toward the end of last semester in my writing class, we were given an assignment that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about. It was a question that we had to respond to in something like 200 words.

What would we do with our lives if there was a universal basement income and no one had to work anymore? This was part of a whole discussion we’d been having about our future of work becoming overrun with technology to the point of there being no work for human beings.

It seemed like a lot of people in my class were stumped or hadn’t really thought about it that much. I don’t know that for sure because I never saw what they wrote or spoke to anyone about it, but I understand why they might have had trouble. It was a Writing for STEM class, so it’s safe to assume that a lot of the people around me were set on a very smart-sounding and impressive career that they had always wanted to pursue. Chemical engineering, professional hacking, things like that. Various jobs that people don’t really think about being taken over by robots someday very soon.

It didn’t take me very long at all to finish my assignment because it was a question I had already thought about extensively. If I didn’t have to worry about surviving anymore, I would create a space for myself that I could write until my fingers fell off and my eyes fell out. When I ran out of ideas or hit a slump, I’d keep going to school and learn about all the other things that interest me. I’d take a breath and commit to reading more.

The most refreshing part about that whole discussion was that the professor brought up the topic of music that had been composed by robots and screenplays written by computers. Most of the class agreed (only after the professor said it more than once) that humans in creative fields like music and writing and painting technically can be replaced by machines, sure. But when you listen to that music, or look at that drawing, or watch that screenplay being acted out… it’s just not right. “It’s just very obvious that it was not written by a human being.” After that, we had a brief discussion about how screwed up the publishing process is for writing a book after someone made a comment along the lines of, “if you’re a good writer, you sell a million books, you’re set for life.” The professor and I both cringed because frankly, I wish that were true.

But anyway. For some reason, the reflex of so many people is to stamp out any spark of creativity and spit on people who study the arts. They don’t take into account that discouraging artists will soon make movies, books, music, and interesting clothing disappear. 

They don’t take into account how much damage that does to someone, to be told constantly to find something because what they love doesn’t count.

College has brought me many things, not all positive, but I’m grateful for most all of them. Recently, I was granted the choice between statistics and creative writing.

Since go, I’ve understood college in perhaps the most incorrect way possible. I had the idea in my head that picking up classes because they sounded neat was somehow wrong. I also know that an understanding of statistics is a pretty useful tool for most things. Those two things were all it took for me to tell myself, “yeah, math sucks but this is useful and it’s better to just get it over with.”

I didn’t know at that time that a creative writing class was an alternative until a third party stepped in and laid my choices in front of me and started asking me questions that I already knew I was failing to ask myself.

And the fact is that knowledge of statistics is useful and often even required. Another fact, however, is that there is not a shortage of opportunities to pursue a statistics course. I’m not running short on time, either.

Dropping statistics in exchange for a second creative writing course was not a hard choice. In fact, it was kind of terrifyingly easy. When it comes to choosing between writing and something else, writing is my first choice most of the time. However, since about my sophomore year of high school, I’ve had to set it aside and focus on other things, and I guess you could say that my brain is hardwired that way now. Meaning, I tend to just assume that writing needs to go on the backburner until “later.”

Coming into summer and reflecting on the things I’ve learned over the past two semesters has lead me onto a weird thought train. 

I’ve learned that it’s not okay to leave the things I love on the back burner or in the margins of my life. That’s why I’m so excited about the classes I’m taking in the fall, and yet I’m still harboring a weird feeling, something that almost feels like guilt.

 Because like I said, my brain feels hard-wired into thinking that writing is something that needs to wait. It brings me back to the ideas about “real jobs” that I’ve been taught forever, that have always scared me so much for so many reasons.

Maybe writing isn’t a real job. Maybe I’ll take this next creative writing course and love it, and find the time and motivation to finish the YA novel I’ve been working on for three years. Maybe after that, I’ll be satisfied and never want to write another thing ever again.

That last one may be very unlikely, but I won’t know for certain until I get there. Nothing is certain, especially not when it comes to things like this.

I don’t want to spend my life stifling my creativity and my passions for the sake of not facing criticism or for the sake of money or because I’ve convinced myself that it will make my life easier. 

I will start my second year of college in the fall, and I will be starting it with a new mindset. I don’t want to deny myself the enjoyment of pursuing courses that seem cool just because I won’t “use” them.

I had to take a Geometry and Trigonometry (twice!) in high school and I suffered all the way through. It’s safe to assume I won’t be using those in my everyday life. So, forgive me if I’ve realized that now’s the time to take a few classes that I enjoy, even if I won’t “use” them or don’t “need” them. Because I no longer believe that those two things are or need to be mutually exclusive.

I’m not ready to be “done” with writing or English classes, and that’s something that I have always known but I had to be pushed toward realizing. Especially realizing that it’s okay, and that if I don’t go for it now, I will probably grow to resent myself at some point down the line. 

Because, of course: in the end, love always wins.

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