#and it sucks cuz I can’t even like start conversations with people I’ve known for years cuz I still feel like they won’t care about what I h

[andiaquarium-moved]

Figured out what my issue is *bashes my head in

[dadsbongos]

late night for a sinner

Movie/Game/Show: The Devil All The Time Dynamic: Arvin Russell/Reader Warnings: religious overtones cuz it’s this movie, described and enacted violence (against teagardin), preston teagardin (and all his sexual assault-y/manipulative bs) Notes: uhm people got married at like 20 in the 50s and i assume arvin is about 20 so no i will not apologize for making you his wife, my country-accent writing is bad(?) idk Summary: Arvin’s a protective man, especially when it comes to those he loves. ~~~

“Somethin’ ‘bout that preacher don’t feel right,” (Y/n) murmured to her husband as they stood outside the doors of the church, “Gives me a shiver right up my spine.”

Arvin nodded along to her words, watching as his grandmother and sister shook hands with Preston Teagardin - fancy name for a guy like him. A guy who gave women chills. He reached into his dress pants pocket and plucked out a cigarette before placing it between his lips, “Watch yourself around him, darlin’.”

“I’ll keep an eye out for Lenora, too,” (Y/n) crossed over the creaky boards of the church's stoop as people began exiting, her hands coming out for the man’s tie, “Did you loosen this durin' the sermon?”

“Too tight,” he let the woman adjust his tie, “You know how I feel ‘bout comin’ to these things.”

“I know, I know - hey, I don’t like comin’ either, but it means a lot to Ms. Emma and Lenora,” pulling back from the tie, (Y/n) placed her hands on Arvin’s shoulders, “‘Sides, someone’s gotta watch for that blasted preacher, and I think we’re the only ones who will.”

Removing the cigarette from between his lips, Arvin leaned over to kiss his wife’s forehead, pulling away to ask, “You take my light outta my pocket when you pressed my pants this morning?”

“Maybe I did,” she shrugged, grinning, “Maybe even I think you shouldn’t be smokin’ outside a church.”

“Maybe,” Arvin nodded, “Maybe.”

Emma and Lenora finally came out of the church and started towards the family’s truck, the two women got into the back with Arvin and (Y/n) getting into the front to finally head home. Lenora leaned forward as her brother started the truck, “You shoulda been in there for the goodbyes.”

“Oh?” turning her head and leaving her cheek pressed to the headrest, (Y/n) quirked a brow at the teenager, “What happened?”

“Reverend Teagardin said he’s interested in meeting you,” Lenora beamed at her sister-in-law.

“Just her?” Arvin pulled out of the church parking lot, “Seatbelt, Lenora.”

“I got it, I got it,” the girl waved off before returning to her previous conversation, “But yeah, just (Y/n). He was talkin’ about putting together a church choir. Thinks (Y/n) would have a pretty voice.”

“She’s got a pretty voice but she ain’t singin’ for no church choir,” Arvin’s brows furrowed, white-knuckling the steering wheel at the mere idea of that damned preacher trying to get close to his wife, “Not in that man’s church choir.”

“Let the girl speak for herself,” Emma cut in, “Thought I raised you better than that.”

Pursing his lips, Arvin turned to (Y/n) for a split second before returning his stare to the road, “Sorry, love.”

“It’s okay, baby,” she looked back to her sister-in-law, “You singin’ in the choir, Lenora?”

“I’d love to try.”

Clenching her jaw, (Y/n) thought over her choices. Leave Lenora to sing in that choir - leave her sweet, naive little sister-in-law in that preacher’s hands for far longer than was typical or wanted… Or, suck it up and sing for the bastard.

“I’ll sing with ya, sweetheart.”

Arvin sighed quietly, glad none of the women in the car heard him over the rumbling of the truck’s old engine. To distract himself, and by proxy the women in the car, he suddenly changed the topic, “This damn old truck. Gonna hafta fix it up or take it in.”

“You’re gonna take it in?” (Y/n) tilted her head.

“Thing’s old; I’ll do as much as I can, darlin', but sometimes there’s only so much I can do. You know that.”

“I’ll need to go with you,” the truck jumbled with the rocky bumps of their home’s pull-in, “Pick up a few things for dinner.”

Lenora felt her heart warm and lips quirk into a smile at her brother and sister-in-law. They weren’t so into the church as her and Grandma, in fact - Lenora’s certain they only played along to please her and Grandma, but watching them was nice. Nothing to play along to, just a simple, pure expression of adoration between the couple. Arvin was never a man known for something as soft and tender as love but (Y/n), since the two were in grade school, was easily able to pull it out of him.

From high school sweethearts into married lovers. It was overjoying to know someone else was looking after Arvin.

“I’ll check up on Mr. Earskell and be right out.”

“No, no, (Y/n),” Emma shook her head, taking the woman’s hand as she was assisted out of the truck, “I’ll handle things. You and Arvin go on and stay out here.”

She didn’t bother fighting against the older woman, she was the matriarch of the family - she was just the rule maker. It was only fair.

“You don’t hafta keep callin’ em Miss and Mister,” Arvin came out and around to the hood of the truck, “They’re part a’ your family now.”

“Feels improper,” (Y/n) rebuffed, standing beside her husband, “I’m just thankful they’re lettin’ me stay here.”

“And why wouldn’t they?” he knew why she felt that way - her own family was insufferable and he could barely stand being around them for a dinner - he couldn’t imagine having to live with them.

“Let’s not open that can of worms today, huh, love?” (Y/n) placed her hands on her hips as she watched her husband look over the truck’s interior and drag over his tools and oil.

“Don’t joke ‘bout that, love,” despite his words, Arvin was smiling slightly, “Poor fishermen work hard to get those worm cans.”

“You’re right, you’re right,” she sarcastically relented, peeking over the man’s shoulder, “Wish I knew anything to help you.”

“I could teach you a thing or two.”

“Maybe not now, baby.”

Which, of course, was code for ‘I’d rather not. Ever.’ but politely.

There was silence between the married couple as Arvin worked until he sighed and planted his hands on each side of the open hood, head hanging low as he murmured, “You’re really goin’ to that choir?”

“We both know I gotta be there for Lenora.”

“I appreciate that, but I’ll still be worried to hell ‘bout you,” he turned to face his wife, restraining himself cupping her cheeks and smearing grime over her, “Both a' you,” then he finally admitted as to why he was so apprehensive, “I’ve been watchin’ him.”

“You what…?!” she whisper-screamed, coming in closer to her husband, “Arvin Eugene Russell, you been what?”

“Watchin’ him,” Arvin almost regrets the admission at the sight of his wife’s shock, “He’s a no-good-sonofabitch, (Y/n). Messin’ around with a young girl behind his wife’s back. She’s good to him, (Y/n), she cooks him dinner and she does her best to keep him happy. He’s no good to her. He’s no good, at all.”

(Y/n)’s brows furrow, “Cheatin’ on his wife?”

“A girl from Lenora’s class. He’s worse than a cheater,” he turned back to the hood of the truck and quickly said, “We’re takin’ it in.”

“Why haven’t you said anything yet?”

“Nobody will ever believe me, (Y/n), you know that. Everybody here loves that damn radio bullshitter.”

Nodding quietly, (Y/n) fisted a hand in her skirt before turning towards the home’s door, “I’ll tell Lenora we’re goin’.”

The topic is ultimately dropped as they leave into town. As they take the truck in for the shop and as they pick out items for dinner that night and even on the walk home. Reverend Preston Teagardin didn’t come up again, neither did his affairs or his disgustingly, sickeningly low age preference for said affairs.

They weren’t the only people in town on watch of their new preacher in town, they were just another young couple walking home.

Even as dinner passed and time for rest came - as they pressed into bed and huddled together in the cold night. Teagardin was temporarily forgotten, pushed to the backs of their minds as they slipped into slumber.

And when Arvin darts up from bed after another nightmare over finding his father’s body that fateful night, (Y/n)’s thoughts are solely on her husband. Bringing him back into the present, where he’s not in the woods finding his father knelt down in front of their makeshift church but instead in bed with his loving wife. With his sister down the hall. His grandmother at the end of the corridor and his great-uncle's own room across from theirs. He’s in a home that isn’t going anywhere - he’s with people who won’t leave him, not any time soon anyway.

It’s not until the next day, after Lenora’s first day back at school for the week had finished and her daily visit to Hellen Hatton-Laferty was over, that Teagardin even peeked back into the couple’s brains.

“If that sonofabitch touches you or Lenora, tell me,” Arvin whispered to his wife, hands holding hers tightly before she went into the church for choir practice, “I’ll make sure ain't got no hands to touch you, or Lenora, or any other unlucky woman.”

“I’ll come right to you, honey,” (Y/n) was quick to confirm for her husband, “Promise.”

“Good,” he cups his wife’s cheeks and pulls her into a tender forehead kiss before going to his sister and giving her a tight hug, “Be the loudest one there, got it?”

Lenora chuckled quietly, patting her brother’s shoulder, “You know I can’t do that.”

“You can.”

Shaking her head, (Y/n) goes up the stairs and pulls one of the double doors open, “You just shouldn’t, ain’t that right, Arvin?”

A teasing shrug and he’s walking off towards the car while Lenora follows her sister-in-law up and into the church.

Teagardin is sitting in one of the pews with his back turned towards the two women.

There’s nobody else in the church despite having been told this was the meeting time. It’s silent. Preston still hasn’t turned to the two.

Lenora is fidgeting beside (Y/n) the longer the man stays quiet. The younger girl nervously bunching the skirt of her dress in her fists. Her brows drawn tight in confusion and lips pressed into a thin line.

(Y/n) steps forward, ignoring the nerves urging her to run and encouraging her knees to buckle underneath the weight of her body, “We’re here, preacher.”

His head lifted, a smile coming over his lips, an unnatural smile - one she’d imagined on the devil when he tricked another soul into his claws. Preston comes to a full stand and approaches the women, “I didn’t expect both of you to come.”

“I wanted to support Lenora.”

“How wonderful.”

~~

“Preacher’s dirty.”

“What?”

(Y/n) sighed, sitting up in bed and looking down at her husband and whispering into the night air, “Teagardin. He’s just as dirty as you said.”

Immediately, Arvin was also sat up, no longer tired and now entirely focused on his wife, “What happened?”

“Tried touchin’ Lenora ‘til I stopped him. Grabbed me. I got us out of there and now Lenora’s tryin' to figure out how to tell Ms. Emma.”

Arvin stood out of bed and pulled on a pair of pants over his boxers, slipping on a shirt and his hat before heading to the bedroom door and slipping out of the room. (Y/n) followed after, eyes wide and brain springing into panic as she watched him tug on his shoes. Hurriedly, the woman put her shoes on as well while Arvin snuck out of the home, her continuing to follow after him.

Once they were in the car, (Y/n) turned to Arvin as he pulled out of the driveway, “What the hell are you doin’? It’s late, you can settle this tomorrow, can't ya?”

“No. It don’t matter if he’s with his wife or at the church, I’m puttin’ that bastard in his place. I hope that woman leaves his ass,” he shook his head, “Rotten fuckin’ bastard.”

“What’re you gonna do?”

The man was silent as he drove towards where he knew the Teagardin residence was. Every few minutes he would take off his cap and run a hand through his matted hair - if he could force himself to do so, he could almost pretend this was a nice drive with his wife. A simple late-night cruise through town with the love of his life, but then he would remember exactly why they were on a late-night cruise. A peek at (Y/n) would remind him, she must be frightened to all hell - it must’ve been awful to be in that church. Be near that rotten man.

And Arvin’s rage was freshly re-lit.

“Is this the right time?” she remembered each time her husband had repeated the phrase from his father, it was usually enough to sway him from acting out at that moment.

“Best time there is. He’s asleep - won’t be expectin’ us.”

(Y/n) settled into her passenger side seat, turning her head to stare out the window, “How’re you gonna get him out?”

Arvin was silent once again, fingers tight against the steering wheel as they pulled up to the bend at the end of the preacher’s street. He got out of the car and stormed towards the Teagardin home with (Y/n) trailing after.

It wasn’t long until Preston came stumbling out of his home with Arvin banging on the front door. Cynthia was out soon after her husband, clinging to the door frame.

“Late night for a sinner, kids,” Preston rubbed at his eyes, “Can this wait ‘til the mornin’?”

“You try touchin’ Lenora?” Arvin was blunt, he didn’t like sugar coating and he didn’t like the people who did it. Turning, he gestured to (Y/n), “Tried touchin’ my (Y/n)?”

Immediately, Preston’s eyes widened, “Now, now, I- I didn’t do nothin’ to those two.”

“Callin’ my wife a liar?”

Cynthia looked between her husband and the younger couple on her lawn, “What’s this about, Preston?”

“You just go inside now, Cynthia!” the preacher called back to his wife, “These two are full of delusions!”

“Arvin, let’s just head home now - you can take care of this tomorrow…”

Shaking his head, Arvin only approached the older man further, “My wife ain’t no liar. And those hands ain’t free of sin.”

“Go inside, Cynthia!” Preston shouted at his wife once again before turning back to the other man, “You won’t say nothing. I will have your lives ruined. Who will the town trust? Me, or two scruffy children who married straight outta high school?” he gives a forced chuckle, shaking his head and pointing at (Y/n) with a shaky hand, “Your wife… she- she… your wife is delusional. She’s crazy.”

Arvin Russell had been fighting nearly his entire life - he learned from his father and he continued on far after his father passed. Preston Teagardin had never been an athletic boy nor had he been confrontational by any means, preferring to hide in the shadows and smile his way out of trouble.

It wasn’t a mystery as to how Arvin managed to land Preston on the hard ground, chest pressing into the dirt and hands tightly wound behind his back in Arvin’s hold.

He didn’t know what he was looking for in the man. He didn’t know what he wanted from the preacher. He couldn’t kill the bastard - he still had a sister and wife to look after when his grandmother and uncle could no longer. Was it admission? Was it a promise to not even look at the women of Knockemstiff? It wasn’t an apology, he knew that - because there wasn’t a chance in hell he’d be giving out forgiveness.

“You take back what you said,” Arvin grunted out, pushing his body harshly into Preston’s back and hoping it’d hurt as much as when boys did it to him on the playground, “You take back what you said about my wife, you hear me?”

“She’s crazy!”

Arvin took a hand into the preacher's hair and smushed his face deep into the dirt, “If I- “ when Teagardin’s whining got too loud, Arvin let his head up before roughly smashing it back into the ground, “Fuckin’ listen when I talk. You listenin’?” he waited for a nod of confirmation before continuing, “If I even hear your name in the same sentence as my wife’s or my sister’s, I’ll bash your fuckin’ brains in, hear me?”

“Arvin!” (Y/n) finally screamed out to her husband, hands landing on one of his arms and pulling, “Arvin, you let him go!”

“He deserves this, (Y/n)!”

“I know, but dammit Arvin, you’re gonna get the sheriff on you, let’s go home!”

Giving one last thunk of Preston’s skull into the ground, Arvin stood and kicked the man’s ribs before nodding at Cynthia with a brief ‘goodnight ma’am’ and returning to the car.

“That was a dumb thing you just did, Arvin Russell,” (Y/n) scolded, rather lightly, as her husband drove.

“I don’t regret a damn thing about it, (Y/n) Russell.”

“I didn’t ask you to,” she reached over and snatched his cap before fixing it over her own head, “I’m proud my husband cares so much.”

“Least I could do for the woman of my dreams.”

[cruddyborderlandstheories]

I've mentioned this before a few times but seriously imagine if instead of Maya having to die (let's be real), Ava got Tyreen's powers and realizes being a Siren actually isn't as cool as it seems cuz whoops thousands of people are now hunting you for sport or experimentation and you can't touch anyone anymore without accidentally hurting them. You may now regret begging for the siren curse. Also, we'd actually get to see Maya train Ava as a Siren AND see what the phaseleech powers would have been like if they weren't broken between two people and the Phasewalk/lock powers weren't thrown into the mix.

Yes I'm still on this alt. Scenario because I think it would have been really cool and helped develop Ava as a character since her entire thing up until Maya's death was literally just "I'm going to be a Siren Vault Hunter" and then at the end of the story she just gets it without really working for any of it or even being prominent in the plot at all. She shows up, like, twice and then disappears until Troy dies. She literally just shows up at the end of the Troy fight and gets powers for that cutscene. I don't hate Ava but I will admit that was kind of a 'forced' moment for me. I knew what they were trying for, but damn they really missed the mark trying to make Ava Maya's lil trainee cuz we barely see them interact, and Maya isn't even alive long enough after her introduction to have the two of them talk beyond arguing. Im guessing a lot of their interactions were cut, and maybe also because Athenas was only a single map, but still.

And yeah okay for Ava to get powers, Maya dies and I guess that can be considered a drawback for her, but let's be real the issue I truly have with this whole thing is that Ava doesn't even work a BIT on screen to prove to the players she's a good choice (and in fact 2 of her most prominent moments are her disobeying a fan favorite character that then dies- it doesn't help her case). Maya dies, but that's not Ava's fault imo, and so Ava does literally nothing the whole story (I'm down for arguments either way, but the minute Maya decided holding Troy physically instead of using her Phaselock was somehow the better option when she knows at least one of those siblings can give others the deadly suck by physically touching them, my brain just shuts off) and she also learns nothing. If anything, she probably learns that if she just yells it enough at people, she'll get what she wants, cuz that's pretty much the extent of what she does in the main story beyond being sad and lockpicking (u wanna leave Athenas? Okay. You get your wish. You wanna be a Siren? Okay. Here's some powers. You wanna be a Vault Hunter? Okay. Here's the ship. Everything she yells about in the beginning of the game is handed to her just because um. Maya, I guess. She earns none of it herself). If, instead of it being Maya's powers, she got Tyreen's powers as one last "fuck you" to the Raiders, I think it'd make it feel a bit more like she's not just being handed everything she wants without working for any of it or learning a lesson because plot. Her character doesn't really change from the start of the story to the end, except that she's a bit sad that Maya died. It just feels so wrong. Idk. I think it'd be pretty cool if Ava accidentally hurt someone in the Raiders because she couldn't control her new powers so she could have that "oh shit" realization moment that a) being a Siren isn't all it's chalked up to be and b) she's gonna have to work to get her powers under control or risk hurting everyone around her. Her having that hurdle I think would have made a lot more people at the very least appreciate her as a character instead of calling for her death (yikes!)

Uh. Yeah. I have no idea what came over me to write this. I think Ava's biggest flaw to me is that she had Potential to be a good character but the writing fell flat under her. It started a story with her and then dropped it (like another character we know 🤔 his name rhymes with... boy), so she never really develops or learns beyond getting sad that Maya is gone. I don't hate her, but I can see why some people would, tho it's not really "her" fault, it's the writing, if that makes any sense.

Also, interesting note, I do consider Roland's death to be because Lilith ignored Angel's request and showed up, unlike Maya's. I don't think Jack would have shown up in control core Angel unless he thought there was very, very good reason to, and Lilith was Right There for the taking. He seemed to even plan that out, having the collar on him and everything, and Angel knew to warn them specifically because of that. Before that, Angel tells Jack that Maya is incapable of processing eridium like her (either due to ignorance or a desire to stop Maya from having a similar fate to her own) so Jack wouldn't have brought the collar for Maya. That said, it's fully Jack's fault Roland died and the blood is on his hands, I just don't think the situation would have played out the same without Lilith there.

Unlike that, I think the situation in the Vault of the Rampager would have happened regardless if Ava showed up or not. I always assumed the cutscene that happens when you 'leave' the Vault is actually what's happening while you're inside, and when the VHs walk out, Ava is alone.

If that's the case then Maya would have been alone when the twins showed up, and probably would have been done for like Lilith was, as Lilith is supposedly the More Powerful Siren. We'll never know for sure, but I get the feeling things would have played out pretty much the same. It's not like the twins showed up for Ava, they wanted the Rampager, and the Rampager was already dead when Ava made herself known. Maya's alone, against 2 cult leaders with no way of contacting the other VHs cuz they're in the Vault and Tannis is the only one who apparently can (since Maya does not have a freaky live action pop up ad, good for her) and echoing is a no go as it's established connection is awful down below the city. She can only Phaselock 1 person at a time, so she either Phaselocks Tyreen (if she even can) and gets dusted by Troy, or she Phaselocks Troy and gets her powers stolen (and probably killed or left to die by cultist) by Tyreen. No winning for her. It would have happened regardless if Ava was there or not, so people blaming Ava for Maya's death should probably just blame the finalized script.

I don't think it's right to blame either Lilith or Ava for their respective loved one's death. Like yeah Jack wouldn't have gotten that opportunity to kill Roland had Lilith not shown up, but Jack wasn't suddenly forced to pull the trigger because Lilith showed up. He did that all by himself. Similarly, Ava not showing up wouldn't have stopped the twins from attacking Maya. She just changed the topic of conversation a lil bit. And Ava has all the combat ability of thin air at this point, so her appearance or non-apperance made no difference whatsoever when it was Maya vs the twins.

Oh God I've been typing for like an hour BYE bed time for me

[interstellarrambles]

I’ve never requested anything from anyone but I’m in desperate need for a billy x goth!reader. Idk just how he noticed her in school cuz she is the only goth person and always asks her out and they flirt but she always rejects him until one day she agrees. Idk if that makes sense but thank u :)

a/n: so I dont know how to feel about this, I might edit and come and change it because I'm not sure of the ending, but if you like it, let me know! I tried to make it sweet at the end but this is definitely out of character for Billy, but I'm soft for him so idc. @savvy7392 I really really really hope you like this im sorry it took ages

harsh, confident and undeniably cool: everyone at Hawkins High knew not to fuck with you - you'd forged your own path in previous years and showed no signs of slowing down any time soon. there was just something about you that made people want to simply observe from the sidelines. known for dark makeup, brash music and taking no one's bullshit, you were somewhat of a divisive figure: people either really hated you and tried to make your life misery (to not much avail) or desperately wanted to befriend you.

somehow, along the way you'd made friends with the likes of Robin and by association, Steve, but you were happy with your small group of friends and didn't really care all that much for your hometown and what (or who) it had to offer.

therefore, when a fresh faced californian boy toy entered Hawkins High, you couldn't deny there was a certain allure to his cool demeanour and newness. unluckily for you, Billy found his place with the current popular kids sucking up to him and soon the rumours about you began to surface again. whenever you caught his eyes within the first few days of his arrival, his gaze would be quickly diverted by Tina or Carol as they glared at you or threw insults. that's why you decided it really wasn't worth getting involved with Billy Hargrove, even if he did have an amazing taste in music.

but God did you misunderstand the lengths to which this boy would go for your attention.

the first few days, Billy would opt for a smile sent your way, enough to make you weak at the knees but not quite enough to make you wander over to him. group projects would be announced in class and when he tried to subtly join you, you'd amble to the opposite end of the room to be with a bunch of kids you didn't even know, just to avoid him. and Billy knew you did it on purpose since after sitting down with your respective groups, you caught his eye and simply winked at him.

almost dropping his pencil in surprise, he was genuinely unable to believe you had successfully ignored him in such a blatant way. smirking back at his gaping mouth and sparklingly amused eyes, you simply laughed it off, sparking a conversation up with the boy next to you as easily as you had rejected Billy. shaking his head in disbelief, he made a promise to himself he'd make you friends with him if it was the last thing he did.

another day, you arrived at school with a too-short black skirt on and Billy felt his heartrate quicken at simply catching one glimpse of you, his blood rushing just a little faster than usual. he would never have the guts to tell you, but he absolutely adored the way you dressed and how good it made you look.

unexpectedly, you treated him to an actual wave this morning, something that fuelled his pursuits. all day, he pestered you in class, forcing those who would usually take the seat next to you to move elsewhere so he could be closer to you. deep blue and bright with attraction, his eyes would drop down to your thighs and the way they looked so amazing in the skirt you were wearing. desperately, he wanted to say something about it to you, but he knew he'd trip over his words; already he had blushed intensely when you caught him staring, though at least he could tell you were enjoying his gaze.

rather annoyingly, you did like the attention, smiling to yourself when he would ignore other people so he could walk you to your next class even if he was rambling to himself the whole time. curls falling in his face and a cheesy grin playing on his cheeks were enough to make butterflies swarm your insides and you had a terrible time trying to hide it.

in reality, you really didn't want to be cruel since it appeared he didn't really have anyone that cared about him much past the muscles and cute eyes, but you also were not about to walk straight into a heartbreak with both eyes open. billy was definitely a bad influence, even to you, the resident goth of Hawkins High, and whether he meant it or not, you knew you would eventually get hurt.

the next time, he plagued your locker with letters and notes and waited next to it, a permanent grin locked onto his features.

a red shirt clung to his biceps, tan skin visible due to the multiple buttons left undone and a silver chain dangling and catching in the light. strong and slightly overpowering yet undeniably attractive, his unique smell of cologne and liquor and maybe a little something else invaded your private space, making you way too nervous to deal with him this late in the day.

weeks of notes and smiles and blue eyes meeting yours way too often had weakened your resolve and if it didn't disgust you so much you would be able to admit Billy was slowly turning your heart to mush. you couldn't listen to mötley crüe without thinking of him and every time you picked out an outfit, you wondered if he'd think you were beautiful or if he'd like the band on your shirt. his compliments and soft gestures like driving you home and giving you his jacket when it was raining (even if it didn't fit your look) had grown on you massively. now you would even go as far to say you enjoyed his company.

"heya baby girl," he drawled, the curl of his plump lips breathtaking in the worst ways, "fancy coming along with me for the evening?"

even though he exuded pure confidence, you didn't miss the way he resembled a kicked puppy when you smiled and responded, "I've got assignments pretty boy, no thanks," shovelling the letters into your bag and turning on your heel to walk home.

unfortunately, this wasn't quite good enough for Billy, hence why he followed quickly, his voice echoing after you, "what's with the ignoring me constantly y/n? you stand at parties and complain about the music and watch me all night and yet you walk away when I come up to you. I've seen you staring at me in class sometimes or at lunch when I'm not bothering you and whenever I catch your eye, you leave. you watch me all the time and yet every time I think you'll come over, you ignore me. if you don't like me, that's okay but I need to know now."

cheeks burning with embarrassment, your eyes dropped to the ground as he pulled you away into privacy. you didn't know what to say.

"billy..." you managed, still unable to meet his chaotic gaze as he stood only centimetres away, breathing hard while he awaited your response.

"what is it? just give me a reason." he almost pleaded, relaxing slightly when you gave him a smile and finally met his eyes.

"do you realise how badly your friends hate me? because I dress weird and I listen to music they don't and I've always been different and you hate that they don't like me. I can't spend five minutes with you in public before you get nervous, I'm sick of you hiding me away! you're fine with me unless there's someone around and I don't understand it and it is tearing me apart," your outburst pulled at him, making him feel terrible for calling you out prematurely.

"I like you Billy but I can't deal with that. I like my little life of listening to bad music with my friends and dreaming of getting away one day and hanging at the mall with Steve and Robin. I love sitting in your car and sharing those moments you don't let anyone else see. I do. but I wont let you pretend I don't exist."

shifting on your feet slightly, you realised how ridiculous the whole thing was and all you wanted was for billy to scoop you up in his arms and make the world better again. you wanted him to let you do his eyeliner and you wanted to feel his hands on your hips, his touch driving you wild. you wanted him to kiss you right now in the hallway and tell everyone else to screw off.

but life isn't a dream.

so you settled for Billy whispering his sorrys and offering you his hand, which was enough to nearly make you cry since he would never usually be so open in public. content, you followed him as he led you to his car, all the while promising he'd change things for you, only stopping to talk properly when you reached it.

"promise me something Billy?" after confirmation from him, you continued, leaning against the hood of his car, him stood only centimetres away "you'll never be ashamed of me?"

"never doll, there's nothing to be ashamed of," he leaned in, holding either side of your face ever so gently, and when the kiss finally broke, he whispered, "now how about a date?"

"okay pretty boy, you name it."

that was a good enough start.

[jombocostello]

first dates (joskue x reader)

anonymous asked: omg i saw ur new and i already loveeeee your writing!! can i request a Josuke x Reader they both grew up together and never imagined themselves to end up as a couple. but then they start realizing their feelings for each other and they go on a date and at first it’s pretty awkward cuz they’ve been friends their whole life but then they finally let loose and do dorky stuff like going to the arcade or even pranking Rohan as a couple? thank u!! xoxo

hello!! this request is supremely adorable oh man, i hope you like it!! (and requests are open!)

Sometimes you resent the fact that Morioh is such a small town. When you peer outside your window every morning and watch the same several people start their morning commutes, doing the exact same thing every day, you sometimes feel a little sick, honestly. The humdrum of this small town life really isn't meant for you.

But every morning, once you head outside and meet your best friend at the corner of the street, those feelings disappear completely.

You and Josuke have known each other for your entire lives. You live three doors down from each other and your parents have always been friends, so it was pretty much inevitable that you would meet. Luckily, you get along extremely well! He's got a perfect sense of humor that you always appreciate, and you always manage to think up weird things to do to pass the time in your boring little town. Being best friends with Josuke is the easiest thing in the world for you.

That is...until it's not.

You roll out of bed, yawning loudly. It's Saturday, so you have essentially nothing to do today. You stand up and head to the bathroom, and after fifteen minutes you've hustled through your morning routine. As you're fixing your hair, you hear the phone ring. You hop up and grab it, pressing it to your ear. "Hello?"

"(Y/N)! Hey." You grin; it's Josuke!

"Hey, dude, what's up?" you ask, leaning against the wall.

"...Nothing, really." He takes a little while to answer, but you don't really pay any mind to it.

"Oh, okay." You laugh a little, furrowing your eyebrows. "Was there a reason for this call, then? You could've just jogged over and knocked on the door. Or just punched it down, I don't care."

Josuke huffs out a little laugh, rather humorlessly. This you do notice, and you frown a bit. "Are you okay?" you ask.

"What?! I'm fine! No, I'm good." The speed of his response doesn't really assure you, but you just go with it.

You start to speak again, but before you do you hear muffled whispers on the other end that don't belong to Josuke. "Hey, is that Okuyasu?" you ask brightly. "What the hell, you guys are hanging out without me? Assholes." You laugh.

"N-no, we're not. He's just... Uh, Okuyasu, say something!" The phone is passed over to someone else, and before you know it Okuyasu is borderline screaming at you.

"(Y/N), hi! How's it going?" You can hear that he's wearing that ridiculous grin he always has.

"Hey, it's alright!" You twist the phone cord in your hand. "So what's up? Are you and Josuke plotting something without me, then?"

He scoffs. "No, not really." There's a flurry of movement on the other line, and you frown. "Listen, I'm putting Josuke back on. I, uh... I have to piss." He practically throws the phone back into Josuke's hands and you can hear him scramble away.

"Um... Hi again."

"Seriously, dude, what's going on? I feel like you two are hiding some horrible secret from me. We, ah... I feel like we're close enough that you can tell me anything." It's true; the two of you are nearly inseparable. You hope that there's nothing that Josuke ever feels too nervous to come to you about.

"No, don't worry! Nothing's wrong." He pauses for a second. "I... I just wanted to ask if you wanted to go to the cafe today."

Your face lights up. "Dude, I'd love to! What time?"

He sounds a little more normal as he answers. "Uh, noon would be good."

"Great, I'll be there." You turn and glance at the clock; you've got an hour. "Is Okuyasu coming?"

"No." The answer comes way faster than you'd expected.

You laugh a little. "Oh. What, is this a date?" you ask, raising your eyebrows with a grin.

"Yeah."

You freeze. Did he just - did he just say... "Uh... What...?" you say weakly, holding the phone with both hands.

Josuke sounds panicked. "I-I mean yeah. As a date. If that's alright with you."

You really don't know what to say, but you know you have to do something. Your brain hasn't fully processed this yet. "Um... Okay. Yeah, I'll see you then."

A giant sigh startles you. "Awesome! Great. I'll see you then, (Y/N)." And before you can even try to get a word in, he hangs up.

Well, that was... Wow. You set the phone down gently and lean back, staring into space. You had never even considered that Josuke liked you in that way. Your face flushes a deep red and you step into your room, still completely blindsided. Now that Josuke has just essentially admitted to having feelings for you, you really don't know what to do.

Josuke is hot. You've always known that. You'd only entertained the idea of dating him a few times; you can recall a couple instances where he'd looked at you with the biggest, goofiest smile on his face and just for a moment, you felt like you were in love. Still, you figured that he just saw you as a friend - well, his best friend - and that he really wasn't interested in pursuing any sort of romance with you. After all, pretty much every girl in your school was chasing after him. Surely he liked one of them...?

Josuke's recent confession has thrown all that out the window. You sit down in front of your mirror and just stare at your face for a minute. Josuke had never dropped hints that he likes you. Maybe he'd just come to that conclusion recently. God, you can't stop agonizing over this. You brush your hair - again - and ponder over what you should wear.

It's odd, feeling this giddy. You're excited and terrified at the same time. As you rifle through your closet, you replay every conversation you've shared with Josuke in the past week over in your head. Now that you think about it, he had been acting a little strange when you hung out with him a couple days ago... Maybe he was already thinking about asking you out? God, this is too crazy.

You get dressed and get ready, and once you're done you scrutinize yourself in the mirror. You put on a little more blush, smiling at the way it looks when you scrunch up your nose. You try to stop worrying about how you look, though; Josuke has seen you at your best (performing at the summer festival, dressed to the nines) and your worst (crying over getting seventh place in Mario Kart in his basement at 3 AM), so he clearly doesn't care too much about appearances.

The cafe's a short walk from your house, about five minutes, so you leave with a few minutes to spare. It's a really nice day outside, and you try to pay more attention to the cloudless sky than the butterflies in your stomach. The thought springs into your mind that this might be a joke and you nearly turn around and head back home - but a moment later, you realize that Josuke would never do that. He's the nicest person you know, and he's cared about you for a long, long time. He'd never be anything but genuine with you.

You get to the cafe right on time. Before you head inside, you catch your reflection in the window outside. After subtly adjusting your hair, you suck in a deep breath and open the door.

It's not too crowded; there's probably ten people inside. You look around for Josuke's big pompadour, and it only takes you a second to find it. He's facing away from the door.

"Hey!" You walk over and put your hand on his arm, smiling. He nearly falls out of his chair before pulling himself together and smiling back.

"Hi, (Y/N). Thanks for coming."

"Of course." You sit down and hang your bag over the back of the chair, leaning back in your seat. Josuke folds his hands and rests them on the table. You feel your nerves come back with a vengeance. "So, uh..."

"So!" He cuts you off without realizing it, and his eyes widen. "Shit, sorry. Go ahead."

"No! I-I really didn't have...anything to say." Good God, this is painful. You can't help but notice that Josuke is blushing horribly, and oh man, does he look adorable. In turn you become equally flustered. You both stare at each other, unsure of what to do, until finally the waitress arrives.

"Hi. What can I get you today?"

You let go of a giant breath and smile, turning to her. "Hi. I'll have a coffee with cream and sugar, please."

She nods and jots the order down, then turns to Josuke. He clears his throat. "I'll have an iced tea." She writes down his order and leaves after setting two little menus down in front of you.

You're alone again. You brush your hair behind your ear just to do something. Josuke just watches you. One of you is going to have to speak first... You decide you'll do it. "So how's it going?"

"It's alright." Josuke also reaches up and fiddles with his hair for a moment. He really doesn't have to; it looks as perfect as it usually does. "It's really beautiful out, huh?"

"Yeah. Good day for the beach." You smile as you glance out the window; it really is gorgeous. You consider asking Josuke if he wants to go to the beach later, but your cursed brain is too flustered to even try.

"I'm sorry I'm being so weird." You blink, glancing up at Josuke. He turns his gaze downward. "I just... I don't really know how to go about this. I really like you, (Y/N). A lot."

Your face goes bright red, and you quickly look back at the window. He's being so forward...and so nice. You don't know how to respond. "If you don't feel the same way, I totally get it. But I just wanted you to know that I've liked you for a while now."

You manage to pull yourself together and you meet his eyes. "I'm sorry too, I'm really not doing a great job at socializing right now." You laugh a little, and so does Josuke. "But I - "

"Here are your drinks." The waitress is back, saving you from awkward conversation yet again. She sets your coffee and Josuke's iced tea down gently. "Let me know if you two want anything else." With a smile, she hurries away to go conveniently interrupt some other couple.

You take a sip of your coffee and wince when it burns your tongue a bit. "Ow!" you yell, setting it down hurriedly. Josuke starts to laugh at your misfortune but quickly stops himself, until you start laughing as well. You giggle together for a while before falling silent.

"I'm the biggest dumbass there is when it comes to hot drinks," you say, letting out one last chuckle before going to take another, safer, sip.

Josuke grins. "Yeah, I know. Remember when my mom made us hot chocolate and you-" he has to hold back a laugh "- you spilled it all over your shirt?"

You burst out laughing, hunching over. "Yeah, oh my God, yeah! I felt so bad cause I got it all over the carpet too." You grin, clasping your hands together. "Oh man, that burned too."

"I imagine it did, yeah." Josuke drinks some of his iced tea and glances down at the little dessert menu. You do the same, but you're not really reading it. You're relieved that you've both been able to loosen up a little bit; you feel so much comfortable with Josuke when you're both laughing. He looks cute as hell when he laughs, too. You've never really thought about it, but now that you are, you have to admit that the way his eyes light up and his eyebrows shoot up is really charming, He's really charming.

"Oh, (Y/N)!" You look up at him, raising your eyebrows. "Have you ever had the cheesecake here?" You shake your head. Josuke grins. "Oh, it's the greatest. Koichi and I tried it last weekend and it's just crazy. We should get some!" The waitress once again flexes her perfect timing by passing by your table. "Could we get two pieces of the cheesecake?" Josuke asks with a smile. She takes the order and leaves.

There's something really cute about the way he smiles. He has such a pretty face and when he grins he looks almost like a kid in a candy store. You just take him in for a moment, smiling faintly. You don't realize you've been staring until Josuke waves a hand in front of your face. "Uh, you there?" he asks, laughing a little.

"Yeah! Yes, sorry." You try not to blush as you drink some more coffee. "But, uh, what I was saying earlier..." Josuke's eyes widen a little and he watches you closely.

You smile. "I really like you, Josuke." He grins widely, almost impossibly so, and practically deflates in his chair. "You're my favorite person in the world and I'd love to spend all my time with you. I mean we practically already do."

He laughs and nods. "Yeah, that's true." His smile softens a bit and he hesitantly reaches out and takes your hand. "I'm glad. I was really nervous about this."

"Yeah, I could tell." You grin. "I guess Okuyasu was in on it?"

Josuke rolls his eyes. "Yeah, the asshole was constantly pressing me and asking if I'd finally told you. But I guess it worked out, huh?"

You nod and smile. "Yeah."

Your cheesecake arrives, and you and Josuke start eating. He was right; it's delicious. Once you two are finished, you pay and head outside.

You both stand on the sidewalk, unsure of what to do next. "So, uh... Are you gonna go home - " you start.

Josuke cuts you off by leaning in and hugging you tightly. You freeze, surprised, but after a moment you hug him back. He rests his chin on your shoulder and you smile. "Wanna head to the beach? You were right, it's the perfect day to go," he murmurs.

You part, and you grin. "Yeah, that would be great. I just have to get my stuff."

"Yeah, same here. Well, let's go, then...?" You both turn and start walking towards your street, and after a minute Josuke reaches out and takes your hand in his. You blush and turn to him, and he's looking off into space with a similarly red face. You just smile and hold his hand tightly as you head back home.

-----

It's been a week of dating Josuke, and frankly, it's been the best week of your life. He's honestly perfect; you spend all your time with him, whether it be studying, playing video games, heading to the arcade, or just walking around town, and he always makes everything so much fun. He's so sweet and loving, and he makes you feel like the most beautiful person in the world.

Okuyasu and Koichi tease the two of you about it (mostly Okuyasu though - Koichi knows that he can't say much, considering his relationship with Yukako), but all you do is punch them in the arm and move on with your life. You're not even a little embarrassed about dating Josuke - why should you be? You're pretty much made for each other.

Saturday eventually rolls around, and you're woken up by a couple loud knocks on your door. Blearily, you roll out of bed and answer it. Unsurprisingly, it's Josuke. "Hey, babe," he says, leaning in and kissing you on the cheek. You laugh and lean back, rubbing your eyes.

"Good morning. What's up?"

He shrugs. "Figured you'd wanna do something today, and I have the perfect plan. Get ready and come outside, okay? I'll lay down my master plot then."

You laugh again and shove him back outside, and he stumbles for a second before righting himself. "Be back in a second." You run back to your room and quickly get dressed, then head back to the door.

"You look stellar as ever," Josuke says sweetly, leaning in and kissing you sweetly. You reach up and run a hand over his impeccable hair, smiling.

"You're looking just as great. God, we're like the power fashion couple of Morioh." Josuke laughs loudly. "So, what's the plan?"

"Well, the first step is heading to a very important house." Yeah, but whose house...? You raise an eyebrow, but Josuke refuses to divulge anything else.

After a few minutes, Josuke stops suddenly. You nearly run into him but catch yourself at the last second. "What, is this where we're..." You look up at the home you've stopped in front of, and you're met with the residence of one Rohan Kishibe.

You turn to Josuke and find him wearing the biggest shit-eating grin. "Wait, what... What are we doing outside of Rohan's house?"

Josuke is making a herculean effort to not burst out laughing. "He's in Tokyo right now at a conference with his publishing team or something, and he'll be back tomorrow. We're here to wreck his shit."

Oh, so he wants to pull a prank on him. You're more than happy to hear that. "You are such a genius," you say, grabbing him and spinning him around. You both laugh as you skip up to his front door. "So what do you have in mind?" you ask, peering into his home through a small window.

"I've been thinking for a little while about this, and I think it's gonna be great." Josuke runs his fingers through his hair and stares at you with bright, excited eyes. "I'm gonna-" he snorts "-I'm gonna unslice all his bread."

You pause, frowning. "Wait... What?"

Now Josuke does laugh, making you jump. "Come on, come on. Let's do it." Josuke summons his stand, and you watch it wind up a punch. (You'd been shot by that freaky stand arrow a couple months ago while hanging out downtown with Josuke and Koichi. Josuke had totally freaked out, but thankfully, you were fine in moments and you had a weird new superpower to boot!) Crazy Diamond smashes through the window, and it quickly shields you from any glass before returning to Josuke.

You both climb in the window and you nearly burst out laughing as you topple onto the floor. "This is so dumb," you whisper at Josuke as you try to hold back your laughter. "What are we even doing? How the hell do you unslice bread?"

Josuke takes your hands and pulls you up, chuckling when you bump into him. "The key to unslicing bread, my dear..." He brushes some dust off of your shirt, and you smile. "Is my Crazy Diamond."

Together, through your uncontrollable giggles, the two of you fuse every single loaf of sliced bread Rohan has back into its original unsliced form. You feel like a bit of an asshole when you get to his impeccably cut homemade sourdough, but the way it looks as it floats menacingly through the air and turns back into a single loaf is so damn funny that you really can't feel bad.

Eventually you've cursed Rohan's entire house with unsliced bread. Josuke and you are barely able to stand because you're laughing so hard. You don't snoop around his house, because you're not that mean (though Josuke is tempted for a moment to fuse Rohan's latest manuscript into one giant rectangle of paper). Josuke helps you out of the window and you land shakily on your feet. You help Josuke get out and watch as he puts the window back together.

You're both a little dizzy from stumbling around and giggling, but you manage to walk back down to the sidewalk. "Just wait until he gets back, he's gonna be so confused!" Josuke wheezes, grabbing onto your shoulder and doubling over.

You wipe a tear out of your eye, taking a huge breath in to try and pull yourself together. "He's gonna lose his mind!"

You stand there together, laughing like idiots, for a few more minutes. Eventually you get it together and start walking into town. "You wanna head over to St. Gentleman's before they're sold out?" Josuke asks, checking his watch. His eyes widen almost comically. "Shit, we've got two minutes before they open, come on!"

He grabs your hand and starts sprinting down the street, and you try your best to keep up with him. You manage to reach the shop after a thirty second mad dash. You stand in front of the door to the shop, doubled over. "Jesus, you're fast," you wheeze, taking a deep breath.

"Anything for a St. Gentleman's sandwich," Josuke answers, similarly out of breath. The store opens a moment later and you hurry inside.

As you look over the sandwiches, musing over which one to choose, you feel Josuke gently take your hand. You smile and turn to him, squeezing his hand. Once you've gotten your food you walk over to the park and take a seat on the warm grass. "Thanks," you say, pressing a kiss to Josuke's cheek. "It's been a really great day."

Josuke grins widely as he opens up his sandwich. "It's not over yet," he says. "Do you wanna go to the beach later? It is our one week anniversary..."

You snort and slap him on the arm; he recoils, mockingly grasping at where you'd hit him. "One week anniversary - God, you're so cute."

Josuke sets his food down and leans over, placing his hand under your chin and pressing his lips to yours. You flush, surprised at the suddenness of the motion, but after a second your eyes slide shut. Josuke leans back after a moment and gives you one of his precious, easygoing smiles. "What can I say, it's been a really great week!"

[dlwritings]

Firecracker Soul | Dean Winchester

Chapter 12 - Textbook Toxic

pairing - mob!Dean x teacher!ofc

word count - 5,298

warnings - language, oral (m receiving)

additional notes at the end

(previous)

The week went by uneventfully for both Alice and Dean. On Monday, Dean had his meeting with Crowley. On Tuesday the pair went out for dinner, but Alice decided to forgo spending the night at his place so she could get some more work done before school the next day. On Wednesday, she woke up feeling like crap. Mother nature kicked her in the gut and made her bleed. She always hated getting her period on a weekday, because her first day was always her worst. If she didn't have school, she would lay in bed with a heating pad on her tummy, medication pumping through her system, and a Friends rerun on TV. During the school day, she had to power through it like a grown up.

But when she got home, she changed into sweats and threw herself into bed. She wasn't even through an episode of Friends when her phone went off. She groaned in annoyance as she looked at it, only to feel a little bit better when she saw it was Dean. You wanna come over tonight? Or should I say CUM over ;)

She rolled her eyes with a chuckle as she texted him back: As tempting as that sounds, I'm feeling pretty horrible right now, so I think I'm just going to whine in bed all evening like a loser

Dean: ? Are you okay?

Alice: Just thank your body for not giving you a uterus

Dean: Ah I see

She was just about to text him back when he texted her again.

Dean: Would me coming over to cuddle help or hurt?

Alice was glad she wasn't someone who got weepy during her period, because she was sure his kindness would make her lose it if she was.

Alice: You know you're the best, right?

Dean: I know. I'll be over in twenty

True to his word, Dean was at her apartment in twenty minutes. Even as she stood up to let him in, Alice found herself wincing with every step. Medication could only help so much on her first day. Dean took in her pained expression when she opened the door and frowned. "You okay, sweetheart?" he asked, pulling her in for a hug and kissing the top of her head as he kicked the door closed behind him.

"Not really," she said with a sad laugh. "You'd think after eight years or whatever I'd be able to handle this when it comes around." Dean just smiled sympathetically, and the two of them went into her bedroom. They sat on the bed, and he situated her between his legs.

"Is it your stomach?" he asked. She nodded and picked up the remote to play Friends again. "How can I help you?" he asked. "Do you want me to rub your stomach? Or do you just want your heating pad?" She thought for a moment. As nice as it would be to have Dean's gentle touch on her, she didn't think it would make her feel any better.

"Can you reach my heating pad?" she asked, motioning to where she had left the pad on the end table. He nodded and grabbed it, so she lifted her shirt and put it on her lower stomach. The controls attached to the cord had four different heat settings, and she always put it on the second highest. Dean kept his arms around her, and her head was resting on his chest.

"I'm surprised you're not watching Criminal Minds," he teased.

"Friends is part of the period routine," she said with a small smile. "No one can make me feel better like Joey Tribbiani and Chandler Bing."

"Not even me?" he asked, lightly kissing her neck.

"Don't push your luck, Winchester," she said. "You're great and all, but 90s Matt LeBlanc and Matthew Perry just hit different." She could feel his chest shake as he chuckled, and she looked up at him. When he met her eyes, she put her hand on the back of his head and pulled him down for a kiss.

Dean ended up spending the night, and he left to head home as soon as she started getting ready for work, not wanting to get in her way and mess up her morning routine. The way she kissed him goodbye with a cup of coffee in her hand before rushing off to her bedroom to put some makeup on made him feel weird. Something about it was so domestic. It wasn't a bad thing, it just caught him off guard. They had barely known each other for three weeks, but their relationship already felt like it had been going on for so much longer.

And he liked that.

-

On Saturday, Alice got to the diner before Christine. AJ brought her usual coffee, and Alice told her to go ahead and put their regular order in as soon as Christine arrived. The door opened just then, and her friend walked in. AJ went to place their orders, and Christine joined Alice at the booth.

All week, Alice had been trying to decide if she should tell Christine about Dean. Dean never explicitly told her not to tell anyone about his job, but she still felt like it was supposed to be kept on the down low. But she told Christine everything, and the last thing she wanted was for something to come up in the future that she wouldn't be able to tell her about because it had something to do with Dean or his family.

"You've got something on your mind," Christine said.

Alice chuckled. "Am I that obvious?"

"Only cuz I've known you for ages," she said. Her eyes lit up hopefully. "Is it about your masters?"

For some reason, Alice felt guilty. She felt like she was letting Christine down. Christine was a constant support, and Alice had pretty much given up trying to fill out her application. It wasn't that she didn't think about it anymore. She did. It just wasn't at the forefront of her brain. It should've been. She was free of Greg. She had Dean. She loved her job. She was happy. Life was good. Wasn't now the best time to think about pursuing something more?

She vowed then to go home and spend at least an hour on the application. If this was something she was serious about, it needed to be something she put time into.

"No," Alice said, "it's about Dean."

Luckily, Christine was equally interested in that topic.

"Oh my god," she said, leaning forward so her elbows were on the table. "You guys totally fucked, right?"

"God, Christine," she said with a laugh and a roll of her eyes. "That's so not what I was gonna talk about."

"But you have?" she asked.

"No!" she said with a laugh. Christine looked unimpressed as she leaned back and folded her arms across her chest.

"I don't know if I'm more disappointed in him or you," she said. Alice pursed her lips, and a slow smile grew on Christine's face. "You're not telling me something," she said. "What have you done? Has something happened since you rode his thigh?" Alice's eyes grew wide as she looked around, like she was afraid other people were listening. No one was.

"Okay," she whispered, leaning forward, "if it'll get you off my back, I'll tell you." Now, Christine was interested. So, Alice gave her a -quite undetailed- account of what had happened on Sunday. Clearly, the lack of details wasn't acceptable for Christine.

"Was it good?" she asked. Alice knew her face was red, and she looked down at her plate. "Oh my god, you loved it."

Alice couldn't hold back any longer.

"Of course I loved it," she hissed. "I am human, you know." Christine laughed. "God, it was so great, Chris," she continued. "I didn't know stuff like that could be that great. Plus, like-" She hesitated, the embarrassment from earlier coming back. She should've just dropped it, but she knew Christine wouldn't let it go now.

"Say it," Christine said with a grin.

Alice sighed. "Okay you can't make fun of me."

"Cross my heart," Christine said. Alice looked around again to make sure no one was anywhere nearby. She leaned forward again and lowered her voice even more than it already was.

"Because you put it into my head," she said, "I, I called him daddy."

"Yes!" Christine cheered, so loudly in fact that now people were looking at them.

"God, would you shut up?" Alice said, throwing a napkin at her, glancing apologetically at the people staring at them.

"I fucking told you," Christine said. "I knew you were secretly a kinky little bitch."

"Shut up," Alice whined, hiding her face. "It totally just slipped out."

"How'd he react?" Christine asked.

"He loved it," Alice whispered, moving her hands away from her face. "Like-" She shivered at the memory of his hard cock straining against his boxers. That was something she'd keep to herself. Some memories she wanted to just be hers. "Yeah," she said. "He really liked it." Christine fanned herself playfully.

"God," she said. "I really need to get laid."

Alice laughed. "Yeah you do." Christine rolled her eyes.

"So have you done anything for him?" she asked after taking a sip of her coffee.

She sighed. "I wish we weren't talking about this in public."

"Alice, no one is listening," she said.

She was right, of course. Alice was just trying to find ways out of this conversation.

"We talked about it the other day," she admitted. "He told me it wasn't a big deal."

Christine shrugged. "Then it's probably not a big deal."

"But shouldn't I do something?" she asked. "I feel like I'm being selfish."

"If he's not asking you," Christine said, "you're not obligated." She narrowed her eyes at Alice. "You want to though, don't you?"

"I just want him to get something out of this," she admitted. "He's so nice and selfless, and, I don't know. I want to see if I can make him feel good. But-" She hesitated. "-I've never given anyone a blowjob. I don't even know how to do it." Christine clearly was biting back a laugh. "Quit it!" Alice said, wishing she had something else to throw at her. "You said you wouldn't laugh."

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Christine said. "It's just, I swear blowjobs are so easy. You pretty much can't get it wrong. Just, honestly girl, go to the store and buy some popsicles to remind yourself how you suck one."

"Jesus Christ, Christine."

"You wouldn't have mentioned it if you didn't want my help."

Again, she was right.

Christine noted her silence and continued, lowering her voice for her friend's sake. She had no shame, but she didn't want Alice to get any more upset than she already was. "Listen, just, use your tongue and relax your throat. If you can't take him all, use your hand. Don't rub him dry though, cuz that won't feel good. Make sure you get your saliva all up in there." Alice laughed a little, which had been Christine's goal. "And squeeze his balls. They like that. And don't use your teeth."

Alice scoffed. "I'm not an idiot."

Christine smiled, and then her eyes popped a bit as she remembered something. "Okay," she said, leaning close to her friend again, "if he's a decent guy, he's gonna let you know before he cums. He might even ask you where you want him to cum."

"Where do I want him to cum?" Alice asked cluelessly. Christine tilted her head from side to side as she thought.

"You could swallow, but I swear, that shit tastes nasty," she said. "Don't believe any of the shit you read. It does not taste good. There's no way to spin it." Alice crinkled her nose, and Christine shrugged. "But some guys find it super hot if you do."

"Or?"

"Or," she continued, "you finish him off with your hand and -if you don't have a shirt on- he could cum on your tits. Or your face. Or you could just let it fall where it falls." Christine chuckled. "If you really want to please him, you'll ask him where he wants to cum." Quickly, she added, "But don't do that if you're not comfortable with all the options. Again, if he's a decent guy, he'll just want you to be comfortable, especially if he knows it's your first time."

"Okay," she said with a slow nod. "Okay. I can do that."

"Oh, and eye contact," she said. "Guys love that shit, and you'll hit even harder cuz you got that whole innocent-doe-eyed look."

Alice laughed but nodded with another, "Okay."

They finished up their breakfasts, but both of them still had coffee, so they kept chatting. After a lull in the conversation, Christine said, "So what were you gonna talk about?"

Alice furrowed her eyebrows. "What do you mean?"

"When you first mentioned Dean," she said, "I immediately brought up sex, but you said that wasn't what you were gonna talk about. What did you want to talk about?"

Right. The actual news she had to share.

"Oh yeah," she said. "You know how I said he's a businessman?" Christine nodded, and Alice hesitated. "You can't breathe a word of this to anyone," she said. "Okay?"

"Okay," Christine said. Alice wasn't completely satisfied, so she held out her pinky. "Seriously?" Christine said. Alice took pinky swears very seriously, so when she didn't respond, Christine sighed and hooked her pinky with hers. Alice leaned as close to Christine as she could over the table, and Christine met her halfway.

"Dean's a mob boss."

Christine sat back as confusion took over her features. "Here?" she said. "In Kansas?"

"No, in Idaho," Alice retorted. "Yes in Kansas."

"I thought the mob was only in big cities," she said, "like New York or Chicago." Alice shrugged.

"I know he's not lying," she said, "because I went to one of his meetings on Sunday."

"You what?" Christine said. "Are you crazy?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"If the mob is anything like I think it is," she said, "the closer you get to Dean, the more danger you'll be in."

"Dean will protect me," she said matter-of-factly.

"Don't be naive," Christine said. "Don't you watch enough Criminal Minds?" Alice just raised her eyebrows. "Could Hotch protect Haley when George Foyet held her and Jack at gunpoint?"

"Really?" she said. "That's your argument?"

"I'm just trying to speak your language," she said. "Dean can say he'll protect you all he wants, but the bad guys always go after the person closest to their enemy. What are you going to do if that person for Dean is you?"

"I'm not," she said. "He would do anything for Sam, and I'm sure Lucifer knows that."

"Lucifer?" Christine repeated.

Alice cringed, wondering if she shouldn't have used his name. Well, she was in too deep now. "He's one of the other mob bosses in the area," she said. "Dean and the other guy, Crowley, are hatching a plan to kill him."

Christine threw her hands in the air in disbelief. "None of this bothers you?" she said. "Alice, this is textbook toxic."

"No it's not," Alice snapped back. "I've already lived textbook toxic, remember? This is different. Dean would never hurt me."

"Not on purpose," Christine said. "But like I said, how's he going to stop someone else from doing it?" Alice was getting annoyed now.

"If you met him, you wouldn't be saying any of this," she said. Christine didn't say anything. Her arms were folded across her chest again, and her right eyebrow was twitching, something that only happened when she was really mad. "Please," Alice whispered. "I just want you to be happy for me. Give him a chance."

"I am happy for you," she said. "I'm glad you found someone who treats you right, but you still have rose colored glasses on. You've only known him for three weeks. I just want to make sure you're thinking all this through."

Alice had thought about this too. She wasn't naive. She knew she and Dean were still in the early stages of their relationship and that things could very well take a turn for the worst, but she was completely and utterly under his spell. There was no going back. Not really. Three weeks in with Dean was completely different than three weeks in with Greg had been. To her, that was a sign towards success.

"I know," she said to Christine. "I am. I swear." She paused. "My dads want to meet him." Christine's hard expression quickly changed to a gentle smile.

"Really?" she said.

Alice nodded. "I guess I've been talking about him a lot to Dad whenever I'm on the phone. Mark said it's about time."

"Do they know he's, like, significantly older than you?" she said.

"Actually yeah," she said with a slight laugh. "Mark wasn't totally for it at first, but Dad was able to calm him down and get him on board. He was older than my mom, so he gets it. I think."

"Nice," Christine said with a laugh. "I think my dad would kill the guy."

"Yeah well, my dads think if a guy can fix a car, he's good enough."

"And Dean can fix a car?"

"He drives a '67 Impala that he's rebuilt, like, three times."

"I don't know what a '67 Impala is, but I take it it's good?"

"To my dads it's better than porn."

"You're disgusting."

When Alice got home, she sat in front of her computer and opened up the blank document she had saved as MASTERS ESSAY. Despite the late night she had pulled at school a few weeks ago to work on it, she still only had the prompts written at the top: Why do you need this degree at this juncture in your life? What are your short- and long-term career goals? What are you most proud of?

She decided to just write everything that came to her mind, even if she knew she wasn't 100% making sense. She just needed to get all the garbage out to make room for the good stuff.

She was on a roll when her phone rang. Without even looking up from her computer, she pressed accept and put it on speaker. "Yeah?" she said.

On the other end, Dean laughed. "Well hi to you too."

"Sorry," she said, lifting her fingers off the keys and picking up her phone to put it to her ear. "I was distracted."

"Am I interrupting something?" he asked. She looked at the clock and saw that she had already been working for over an hour.

"No, you're good," she said. "What's up? Why'd you call?"

"Can't I just call my girlfriend for no reason?" he asked.

"No," she said, a smile on her face.

He laughed again. "Alright, you caught me. Was wondering if you were planning on coming to dinner tonight."

"Crap," she said, putting her forehead on her hand. "Yes, yes, I'm planning on it. I just totally forgot. Were we supposed to make anything? I still have time to whip something-"

"Hey, hey, relax," Dean said with a chuckle. "We're just in charge of drinks tonight. I'm gonna pick up a couple bottles of wine on my way there."

"Okay," she said. "Sounds good."

"You sound stressed," he said. She shrugged even though he couldn't see her.

"I guess I am a little," she said. "But it's no big deal. My neck is aching through. I feel like I've been sitting at the computer for a year."

"Let me come over," he said. "I'll give you a massage." His tone was teasing, but she knew he was being somewhat serious.

"If you do," she said, "can you promise not to distract me?"

"I cannot," he said.

She giggled. "At least you're honest. Be here in twenty?"

"I'll make it 17."

Somehow, true to his very specific word, Dean was at Alice's door in 17 minutes. She buzzed him into the building and resumed her position on the floor by the coffee table where her computer was sitting. She was still working on the application essay even though nothing worthwhile was coming out. Dean came into the apartment, confused for a moment when he didn't immediately spot Alice. He saw the top of her head over the couch and laughed. "What're you doing on the floor?" he asked, walking over to her.

"I think better," she said.

"What do you have to think so hard about?" he asked.

"Just writing," she said.

"Writing what?" he pressed, sitting behind her on the couch so her back was now against his legs.

"Shh," she said playfully. "More massaging, less talking." Dean chuckled and made her scoot forward so he could sit behind her on the floor, not wanting to hunch over as he massaged her. He spread his legs so she was nestled between them, and he put his hands on her shoulders.

They were both quiet as Alice continued to work and Dean massaged her. She told him he could put the TV on at a low hum so he wasn't bored out of his mind. He thanked her and flicked on Game of Thrones, which was perfect because Alice didn't care about it so she wasn't distracted. They were together with only the hum of the TV making noise for a full episode until Dean clearly started to get bored. He didn't play the next episode. Instead, he brushed some of Alice's hair over her shoulder so her neck was exposed to him. He started kissing her skin, glancing at her computer to see if he could catch her reflection. The screen was too bright, so he only saw what she was working on.

"I didn't know you wanted to go to grad school," he said. She bit her upper lip and shrugged.

"Yeah," she said.

"What do you want to study?" he asked.

"It's nothing," she said, shaking her head. "It's stupid."

"What are you talking about?" Dean said, squeezing her shoulders lightly. "It's not stupid. It's great." She turned her head to look at him and noticed the sincerity in his eyes.

"You're serious?" she said.

"Of course I am," he said. "Why wouldn't I be?"

Alice thought for a moment. Now was the perfect time to open up about Greg. She didn't have to go into all of it, but there was no reason she couldn't tell him a little bit. "Um, I had a boyfriend in college," she said after clearing her throat. "He didn't think it was smart for me to pursue a masters."

"Why not?" he asked.

She shrugged. "I probably won't get in anyway, and why break focus on the career I already have?"

"So he didn't want you to better your career?" he asked.

She scoffed. "Yeah. Pretty much I guess."

"Well, fuck that guy," Dean said, squeezing her shoulders again. "Tell me what you want to study. I'm sure it's great." She smiled softly and stared down at her hands. Dean started pressing kisses to her neck again while she composed her thoughts.

"Applied Behavior Analysis," she said.

"Mm?" Dean hummed. "What's that?"

"It's basically the study of behavior," she said. "Like, what causes it and why it happens and what the consequences are. Because every behavior serves a purpose, and knowing why someone does what they do helps us understand them as a whole."

Dean didn't even have to see her face to know she was smiling. It was clear to him that she had been aching to talk to someone about this -something she was clearly so passionate about- but had been holding back, probably because of her asshole ex-boyfriend.

"It's one reason I love Criminal Minds so much," she continued. "It's like, their whole job as profilers is to understand people's behaviors and how it makes up who they are."

"So you want to join the FBI?" he teased.

"No," she said with a giggle. "It's also good for teaching. Like, I'm a gen-ed elementary teacher, but I still have students with special needs in my classroom, and it always frustrates me when I don't know how to help them. I have one BD student, and-"

"BD?" Dean repeated.

"Sorry," she said. "It's an abbreviation. Behavior disorder."

"Got it," he said.

She continued. "Right, so his name's Peter, and he can get violent sometimes. Like, almost every time we're about to start our math lesson, he comes at me with anything he can get his hands on. Sometimes it's his pencil or my stapler or his scissors, but sometimes it's just his little fists. But it's not his fault he does that. Something in his brain is convincing him that lashing out will help him, and if I can understand that better, I can help him more."

Alice was barely breathing at all between her sentences, and she didn't even care that she was rambling. Dean had stopped kissing her neck and now just had his chin resting in on her shoulder. "You know how I told you I like the movie Good Will Hunting?" she said.

"Mhm," he hummed.

"Have you ever seen it?" she asked. Dean shook his head no. "It's so good. Matt Damon plays a guy with a crazy high IQ but a lot of, like, bursts of anger and abandonment issues. He starts going to therapy, and his therapist is Robin Williams, which doesn't matter but it does because he's such a good actor." Dean chuckled, and Alice continued. "The more he opens up and the more Robin Williams is able to understand and help him, the better he gets. The difference between helping adults with behavior problems and kids with behavior problems is obviously huge, but the basics are the same. And that's what I want to learn more about. I know it's cliche and cheesy and stuff, but that movie helped me realize that the more we push aside kids who struggle, the worse they get, and the more likely we are to lose them to violence and crime and alcohol and drugs."

Alice finally took a deep breath, then clicked save on her document. "Sorry," she said with a chuckle. "I totally just went off."

"Don't be sorry," he said. "I love that you're passionate about that."

"Yeah," she sighed, "well, how come I can't put all of that passion into writing?"

Dean kissed her cheek. "You'll get there."

Alice turned around and looked at Dean, resting her hand on his cheek. "You're really awesome, you know that right?" she whispered. He smirked.

"I do," he said, "but it's always great to be reminded." She just giggled and pressed her lips to his, kissing him and crawling onto his lap. He groaned against her lips and gripped her hips in his hands. Her heart was pounding in her chest as she rolled her hips against his. She started kissing across his cheek and down to his neck, smiling when she heard him let out a heavy sigh.

Dean jumped when he felt Alice fumble with the buckle of his belt. "Hey, hey, sweetheart," he said, grabbing her hands. "What're you doing?" She didn't look at him, just kept lightly kissing his neck.

"I think," she whispered, "now would be a great time for me to make you feel good." Dean wanted to keep his composure. He refused to melt under this girl's touch, but Christ, it was her fucking sweet tone that killed him.

"If you're sure," he said. She nodded, then pulled away from his neck.

"I'm sure," she said, looking in his eyes. He licked his lips before pressing them to hers, threading his fingers in her hair. She kissed him back, easily getting lost in that drunk feeling he gave her. "Okay," she said as she pulled away, escaping the kisses Dean kept trying to give her. "Okay. Sit on the couch."

He chuckled. "Yes ma'am." He moved to the couch, and she straddled his waist again, pulling her t-shirt over her head. She could tell he wanted to kiss her, but she stopped him by pushing his flannel off his shoulders.

Why did he always wear so many layers?

When he was in only his black t-shirt, she reached for the hem and pulled that over his head too. She kept her hands pressed on the couch on either side of his head and started leaving open-mouthed kisses down his body. She moved so her knees were on the ground and unbuckled his jeans, pulling them down his legs. He helped her by lifting his butt so she could get them off with more ease. His boxers came right after, and Alice had to stop herself from gasping like a weirdo.

She had seen a penis once in her life, and it was because she googled penis because she was so sick of not knowing what one looked like. So this? This was her first real penis. And she didn't know much, but she knew Dean had to have been considered big.

She ran her tongue up the underside of his cock, giving it slow kitten licks. She looked up at him through her eyelashes and locked eyes with him. When she did, she wrapped her mouth around him and took his cock, inch by inch. She kept her throat relaxed, just like Christine said, and did her best not to gag when he hit the back of her throat. She pulled away completely so she could suck the tip before sinking down on him again.

"Oh fuck," Dean grunted. His hand moved to her hair, and she looked up at him again as she pulled back.

"Should I go faster?" she whispered, swirling her tongue around him.

"God, sweetheart," he said. "Whatever you want. You're doing so good." She hummed around his cock, and he barely whispered another, "Fuck." He kept his fingers gripped in her hair, though he didn't force her movements at all.

It was taking everything in his power not to lose it right then and there. He wanted to fuck her mouth until tears streamed from her eyes, but he held back. She felt so good wrapped around his cock like that, and the way she kept looking up at him made him moan and tug her hair a little bit. She moaned as well, the vibrations destroying him. "S-Sweetheart," he said, "I, I'm, fuck I'm gonna cum, baby." She pulled back and lazily rubbed his cock, not quite enough to make him cum, but still keeping him on that edge.

"Where do you want to cum?" she asked, her voice slightly hoarse.

"Fuck, ah-" He tried to concentrate. "It's, it's up to you baby."

She had no idea why she decided this considering everything Christine said at breakfast, but Alice put her mouth back on him and continued sucking him off, now dragging her nails up his thighs so she could gently squeeze his balls. He let out a strangled, "Fuck," and came in her mouth. She swallowed most of it but pulled away towards the end so some of it ended up dribbling on her chin. Dean's chest heaved, and he leaned forward and wiped the cum off her chin with his thumb. He was ready to pull back, but she grabbed his thumb and sucked it between her lips, licking it clean before allowing him to pull it away with a pop.

"Jesus Christ, Alice," he said, chuckling in disbelief. "You're fucking incredible, you know that right?" She giggled and shrugged.

"It's nice to be reminded."

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A/N - whatever you do don’t watch sexy Dean Winchester compilation videos if you’re single and a virgin because it gives you FEELINGS that only YOU can handle because you do NOT have a Dean Winchester at your disposal

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[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #305

“you want me to be yours, well then you’ve got to be mine, & if you want a good girl, then goodbye”

Do you call the ice cream topping "jimmies" or "sprinkles"? They're "sprinkles" down here. What music are you listening to? Ha, I just turned on music before starting this. "Sex Metal Barbie" by In This Moment is on rn. If you go to school (HS or college) does your school have a rival? N/A Have you been baptized in any religious tradition? Yeah; I was born in a Roman Catholic family. My mom's mom would've probably had a heart attack if us kids weren't. At family gatherings, are you more likely to hang out with the younger or older relatives? I mean, I'd go for those my age or older, generally. I'd hang out with kids though if they wanted me to. Considering you current health, how long do you think you will live? With my CURRENT health, probably not even 80. Do you have anything in your room that would be 'weird' to others? Posters, yeah. Have you ever done geocaching? No, but it'd be cool if my body could actually handle taking a single goddamn step. What was the last game you won? Maybe Uno with my niece? I generally let her win, but occasionally I'm "lucky" to TRY to be more convincing, lol. I think she knows I let her, though. Do you know any deaf people? If so, is it easy or difficult to have conversations with them? No. Do you enjoy playing Monopoly? Why or why not? No, because I don't like board games, especially any that involve math. Is there a doorknocker on your front door? No. Do 'laugh tracks' on TV shows annoy you? They're so normal that I don't even notice them, really. Do people often mistake you for other ethnicities? If so, what do you usually get? No, I'm pretty obviously white. Has anyone famous ever attended your school? Who? I won't say his name for the sake of not connecting dots, but a well-known football player attended my high school. Have you ever had to attend an event that occurred on your birthday? Ha, my 16th birthday landed on the Super Bowl... I was at Jason's that night, and just to be "part of the family," we watched it with everyone else that came over. I was so bored and uninterested, but that's my own fault, really. I could have said something, but this was only a month into our relationship so I was too uncomfortable to speak up. What do you think makes a girl a slut? Do you believe that label is thrown around far more often than it should be? And finally, do you think it's unfair that mostly only women receive that label? I don't give a flying fuck how many people a girl is sexually involved with so long as she is safe and open and honest with her partners. I'm not a fan of the word and don't think anyone should be called it. Do you think it's bad to have sex at 15 or younger? I don't think it's smart, really. It's just too young to risk pregnancy. Yes, abortion is an option, but like... a 15 y/o girl should never be faced with that dilemma. I'ma be real tho, I don't think it's a "good" idea until you're at least 18, aaaand I don't know any non-virgin who waited that long. Just try your best to wait, ig. Favorite love song at the moment? Love songs never sit well with me anymore. I mean I can enjoy them, absolutely, I just... have a lot of bitterness. Trying to pick a favorite when you feel like that is like trying to pick the best-looking rotten apple of the bunch. Ever wondered what it would be like dating the same gender as you? I've done that already, and it was great but also scary in a massively homophobic state. Ever paid for sex? No. During thunderstorms, how does your pet react? Neither have a unique reaction; they're unfazed. What internet browser do you use? Google Chrome. Do you like eggnog? Noooo no no. How often do you see your mother? Every day, because I live with her. Do you like croutons in your salad? No, I really don't like the texture difference. Who did you last play truth or dare with? I don't know. Have you ever brewed your own mead, wine, beer or soda? No. Have you had to make any changes in your life lately? If so, what kind of changes? ugh What's the earliest popular thing you can remember from your childhood? Ummm. I mean, probably like Barney or Elmo? Do you prefer practicality or fashionability when it comes to clothes? Well, really neither. I'm the type that wears tank tops in snow, flipflops year-round, sweatpants in summer... so I don't really dress with practicality. I don't care what's "fashionable," so. Comfort pretty much reigns over my wardrobe. Which kinds of berries grow in the wild where you live? There are these little red ones that grow in little groups and somewhat resemble raspberries. I can't remember if they're edible, though... Oh, and muscadine grapes (I had to look up if they were berries lmao) can be found here, too. They're yummy. Beautyberries are another. Have you ever made an article of clothing yourself? If so, what was it? No. Do you go to arcades? If so, what's your go-to game at one? Even before Covid, I never really went to them. I enjoy them, though. I guess my favorite is maybe air hockey? When's the last time you had an alcoholic beverage? What was it? At the Cheesecake Factory for my birthday. It was some kind of sangria... Maybe strawberry and peach? Idr, but it was good. What has been the most enjoyable job you've had? You assume I've had a job I actually enjoyed. How about the least enjoyable job? Well, I barely lasted two hours in a dairy, soooo... When's the last time you had to carefully plan how you used your time? You're asking the wroooong person, 'cuz my life is never busy enough for that. Who do you usually say hello or good morning to first? My snake Venus, usually. Well, that is if her head is peeking out of her hide or is just fully out. Do you ever chat about your favorite video games with your friends? I don't really have gamer friends anymore, so not really. What do you hope you grow out of? Being so goddamn dependent. What movie made you cry the most? I can't say for sure considering it's easy for movies to make me cry, lmao. Maybe Titanic. What was one of the happiest moments of your childhood? Seeing a container of dog food in the far back behind the Christmas tree one year. It's how I learned I was finally gettinga dog (Teddy). What brings you the most joy in life? Probably my cat lmao. What's a hobby you would like to try out? I wanna get back into video editing, I just. Don't have the motivation for it anymore. As with most things. What sort of a kiss do you count as the first kiss? On the lips and with mutual intention. What was the last event you attended? Thanksgiving dinner at my sister's, ig. How about the last event you organized? Me? Organizing an event? What's the biggest insect you've ever seen? In the wild, probably like... a rhinocerous beetle or something. NO NO WAIT. I remember at least once in my life seeing a fucking GINORMOUS moth on the ground one morning. I don't know what kind it was, but jc it was huge. How about the biggest spider? Oh yikes, I'll never forget this: an orb weaver wandering across the floor of our childhood van and under the passenger's seat. Never saw it again. I was afraid to let my feet stay on the floor for a looong time, haha. What's something you'd never ever dare to ask another person? I'd never ask certain "why" questions, like "why did you get an abortion?" or something like that. I can think of valid situations to ask most things, even controversial matters, but no one should ever have to justify something like that. "Why don't you have kids?" is another. That one gets to me. Having children is not an advancement or milestone in everyone's life, and hell, you never know if the woman's had like five miscarriages or something. What's something you've always wanted to ask someone but haven't dared? Why Mom didn't raise her eldest daughter, at least for her whole life. Katie's childhood is a big mystery to me, and I want to know more, but I know the topic is very upsetting to Mom, so I'm not about to make her explain it. What's the worst/best thing you've done without your parents knowing? Saying "worst/best" makes this question confusing... but I'm guessing you mean the best thing to me that they wouldn't have approved of? I really didn't do a lot of things that would fit that description. I can only think of a certain intimate occasion where things happened where they probably shouldn't have. If you wear earrings, what does your favorite pair look like? Ugh, I don't because of the holes being too stretched out from wearing heavy earrings too long. I still haven't gotten to putting proper gauges in so it looks less stupid. Have you ever won any money from a scratch card? Maybe like, $10 or something. How about a slot machine? I've never played one. Do like playing bingo? Sure, it's all right. What small, everyday thing makes you really happy? Cuddling with my cat. Do you enjoy puzzle games? If so, which one's your favorite? Yeah, I do. I can't really pick a favorite, though... Is there a substance you avoid at all costs? If so, what is it and why? I think in a past survey I mentioned my aversion to beer because of the association it has with my dad. I'd never be able to get a sip down. Not that I really want to anyway though, it stinks. What you would you absolutely hate living next door to? Any really busy location or travel hubs, like a train station. My childhood home was near a railroad track, and it sucked, so I can only imagine a station. What would you love to live next door to? A waterfall, uggghhhh. In the woods too to hear plenty of frogs and toads and crickets... What gives you nostalgia? It is very easy to make me nostalgic. The littlest things can do it. Hearing about/seeing/playing childhood video games, like Spyro, is a biggie. Which reminds me how damn badly I wanna play the Reignited trilogy, fuck. I just don't have the proper console. Which language do you think is the most complicated to learn? Well English is supposedly the hardest objectively, but as a native English speaker, I can't say anything about that. In my experience, Latin was like fucking impossible. Is there a place that you might call your second home? I guess Dad's house, but it's not like I'm there a lot. I feel comfortable there, though. How do you imagine your later life to look like? I DO NOT want to think about this. I fucking dread the thought. What is a job you would never in a million years want to do? A butcher. There is absolutely no motherfucking way I ever could do it, even if it kept me off the streets. What's the weirdest building in your city? *shrug* How do you keep in touch with friends usually? Facebook. Do you recognize friends'/family's vehicles by sound? Not anymore. Dad had an old car that was very easy to recognize with its shitty muffler, but he hasn't had that car in years upon years. I used to be able to recognize Jason's old car too because of sound, but primarily because he drove way too fast down our path that when I heard a car zooming over rocks, I knew it was him. What's something new you've just recently learned? It was actually a topic of recent discussion that I may have high-functioning Asperger's. Very, very unusual to learn later in life, but apparently Mom's seen the warning signs in some things since childhood, like my extreme pickiness with textures, my tendency to knead and play with my hands in situations of discomfort, my social ineptitude, hyperfixations, it actually running in our family (which I didn't know beforehand), among a lot of other things. We're not really digging into it though because it just doesn't matter; there's obviously no magic treatment for autism, and me being in therapy and having a psychiatrist to handle my meds is enough. If you were in Harry Potter, which house would you be in? Apparently I'm on the Hufflepuff/Gryffindor line when I took a survey a long time ago. Are you nagged about being on the computer too much? Not anymore, at least on the average day. Mom's accepted it by now. Dad's joked about it before though and I know others have certain opinions about it. Based on your personality, what animal do you think you'd be? Maybe a deer. Shy, reclusive, and always on alert. Have you ever been in a hot tub? Yeah. What song is stuck in your head at the moment? I have "my boy" by Billie Eilish on right now because it's stuck in my head. What's your father's middle name? John. What's the last movie you saw in theaters? Yikes, good question. I think it was The Lion King remake. Have you ever vandalized? No. What's a pet you've always wanted? Most pets I want I've had at some point or another... I guess I'll say a ferret, though I've really only wanted one in concept. I could never keep up with their maintenance, but by god they are the cutest fucking things ever. Do you like mice? I love mice! What's your favorite t-shirt? My "equal in our bones" Cloak shirt. :''') The design is so beautiful and just my style in general, plus I live to support anything Fischfuck takes part in. Did you/will you get a car for your 16th birthday? I'm 25 and still have never had my own car lmaoooo. What's your favorite tomato variety? I generally don't like tomatoes themselves, but rather products made with them, like ketchup. If I'm in the mood though, I do like tomato sandwiches with mayo and bacon; I only ever enjoyed them though if they were fresh right from an old friend's garden. Which well-known person's death shocked you the most, if any? I think Chester Bennington's was the biggest surprise. Rest easy, you legend. What's the craziest color you'd dye your hair? More like what crazy color WOULDN'T I dye it... What was the longest train ride you've been on? I've never been on one. What's the coolest hobby one of your friends has? uhhhhh idk Have you ever played in a stack of hay bales? No. If you could learn any skill, which would you like to learn? Ha, cooking. How do you like your steak? Medium well.

[ptw30]

Hunk tries to teach Shiro how to cook, Shiro owes Hunk Cooking equipment.

Sorry this took so long. I originally planned to have this up for Shiro’s birthday but…life. :) Thanks for prompting! 

Fic: Cupcakes and Camaraderie 

Relationships: Hunk & Shiro, past Shiro/Adam

Author’s Notes: Shiro is still the Black Paladin here…cuz.  

Shiro flipped on the light in the mess hall kitchen and cracked his knuckles. Making a few cupcakes shouldn’t be too hard, right? With some whipped cream and what did Adam always put on top? Graham cracker crumbles?

Whatever it was, Shiro was positive he could figure out, and since Iverson was off grounds for a few days to oversee the launch proceedings, Shiro could take all the time he wanted in the Galaxy Garrison mess.

Finding the pans proved more difficult than he thought, and did he really need to use the mixer? Maybe he could conscript the blender. Just what was the difference between a tablespoon and teaspoon? Did anyone really know?

Okay, on his tablet, he found a recipe for “easy red velvet cupcakes with vanilla icing.” Easy. It was in the title. He could totally do this.

Less than ten minutes later, Shiro found himself wiping off an egg, flour, and water mixture from his nose. Maybe he couldn’t do this. He was seventy-five percent sure the batter shouldn’t be gray-green.  

“What!” a new voice screeched, causing Shiro to whirl toward the doorway. “You-You did not just destroy my kitchen!”

Shiro paused from demanding, your kitchen, but it wasn’t like Shiro knew the garrison chefs well. Then again, Shiro didn’t remember ever seeing this cadet or officer before. Dark hair, an orange wrap, and a yellow-accented Galaxy Garrison uniform – what rank did that dictate? – he seemed out of sorts, standing in the doorway, glaring Shiro down.

Shiro dropped his tablespoon – or was it a teaspoon – on instinct and raised both hands. “Look, I didn’t think anyone would notice. I was just trying to – ”

“ – paint every single surface of this place in batter, if you can even call it that!” The man stalked forward, keen eyes glaring down at the green concoction as if it personally offended him. Then he looked up at Shiro – and froze. “S-Shiro?”

“Uh…yes?” He didn’t think he’d met this person before, but ever since the Kerberos mission announcement, so many people knew his name. “I’m sorry. I don’t remember…have we met?”

“…not yet, I don’t think.” The man straightened his shoulders and rubbed the back of his hair. “I…guess that wormhole wasn’t as harmless as we thought.”

“Wormhole?” Shiro echoed.

Before he could ask the person more, the yellow-clad officer replied, “Don’t worry about it. I’m sure Allura and Pidge – um, some people I know are working on it. Anyway.” He seemed happier all of sudden, scrubbing his hands together and smirking at Shiro. “What’cha trying to do here? Don’t tell me. Muffins.”

Shiro smiled with a slight wince. “Not quite.”

“Brownies?”

“Getting warmer…sorta.”

The man huffed loudly. “Please tell me you weren’t trying to make cupcakes. You have pepper in this!”

Shiro glanced away. “I couldn’t find the salt.”

“No, nope. Uh-huh. This cannot happen.” He pointed a sharp finger at a stool near the counter. “You sit over there while I clean up the mess and make a proper set of cupcakes.”

“Can’t I help –”

“No!” The officer sucked a quick breath, offered a gentle smile, and patted Shiro twice on the shoulder. “I mean, thanks for the offer, but why don’t you watch me work for a sec and tell me why you were trying to make some cupcakes? I’m Hunk, by the way.”

“Shiro.” Shiro took his designated seat and plopped his chin upon his fist. “Had a craving. My…uh, ex used to make them for me, but…he’s now my ex, so…”

Hunk began to measure out the ingredients – eggs, milk, butter, flour, salt, and vanilla – and nodded along. “Hard after something like that. What happened…uh, if you don’t mind me asking.”

“I’m, uh.” Shiro looked away, unsure why he felt comfortable explaining to Hunk this situation. It wasn’t like the entire garrison hadn’t been gossiping about it for the last week. “I was chosen for the Kerberos mission.”

“Oh, right! I’d heard that. Congrats, man! That’s awesome. Not sure why that means you have an ex. Isn’t he happy for you? Proud?”

“He didn’t want me to go. And I’m going, so…”

Hunk glanced around the room – looking for what, Shiro couldn’t tell – before reaching for a larger bowl with high walls to pour his current mixture into. “I’m sorry to hear that. Relationships can be hard. My girlfriend and I, we’re positioned on different sides of the…world. It’s hard to send a transmission to her sometimes, let alone actually see her. But she hangs in there, y’know? Good times, bad times. That’s how I know it’s forever.”

Shiro glanced away. “…I thought it was going to be forever. I’ve known Adam since…well, our first year at the garrison. We were flight partners, and then – y’know.”

“And I’m sure in some universe, you guys are still together, but in this one – you chose the stars and Adam chose to leave. That’s actually, really mature. You both decided what you could live with and what you couldn’t, and then you moved on and found someone who wants the same thing as you.”

Shiro blinked and sat up straighter, a knot in his chest unfurling. “No one – No one has ever put it like that before. Even Commander Holt said I should try to patch things up.”

“Can’t speak for Holt but it sounds like you and Adam want different things. And that’s okay.” Hunk hooked the larger bowl up to the mixer, and a high-pitched whirling added a soundtrack to their conversation. “Better to figure that out now than after you’re married.”

“Yeah, yeah. I guess so.” He couldn’t deny he would miss Adam, though, couldn’t deny he already did.

“But y’know, might not be a bad idea to at least try to clear the air,” Hunk offered, separating the cupcake wrappers in the tin. “Maybe apologize that things didn’t work out, not that you’re taking the mission.”

Shiro leaned back on his hand and watched as Hunk poured the batter precisely into each cup, wiping the edge of the bowl with a napkin. “Maybe. It’s still a few months away. What about you? You said your girlfriend lives elsewhere? Are you looking to close the distance?”

Hunk nodded. “Yeah, one day, but it’s kinda important the work we’re doing, my team and me. Shay understands.”

“Hm. Sounds nice.”

“It is, but not everyone has what we have. And not everyone finds it as quickly, either – or at all.” Hunk slid the tray into the oven and started the timer. “But when you do – when you find people who love you for who you are, not who they want you to be – you hold onto them.”

Shiro smiled as Hunk handed him the spoon to lick. “Sound advice.”

“Eh. I have a good team leader who knows his stuff.”

As soon as Shiro finished the spoon, he joined Hunk in cleaning up the thrown batter, despite Hunk’s disapproval. Hunk told Shiro he liked his kitchen a certain way, but Shiro wasn’t about to let someone else clean up his mess without any help.

As they worked, Shiro spoke about the mission, about Keith, about his days at the Galaxy Garrison, and Hunk talked about Shay, about his friends, and about meeting new people and learning new recipes.

The oven dinged not long after they wiped down the last surface, and soon Shiro was humming around a delicious set of red velvet cupcakes. They were the best he’d ever had, and he made sure to tell Hunk such.

Hunk blushed and took a bite of his own mini cake. “Hey, y’know, it might not seem like it now, but it sounds like you have lots of people who care about you, man. If you ever want them to bake you cupcakes, you just say the word. I’m sure they would.”

Shiro laughed, though it was hollow. “Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind.”

“And maybe – you might want to tell Admiral Sanda or Commander Holt that when they start training on the Mecha Flex Exofighters, they should work with their best pilots, not cadets? That’s just…conducive to saving the world, y’know? Training the best rather than the youngest.”

Halfway through his second cupcake – screw his pre-mission diet – Shiro mumbled, “What’s an exofighter? I haven’t heard of those before – or flown them.”

Hunk winked. “Just trust me, all right? Mention it to Sam. Oh, and do the world a favor, Shiro. Stay out of the kitchen or only use it with adult supervision.”

Shiro would have glared, but he was too preoccupied with the cupcakes. He would do as many sessions at the gym as needed to finish off yet another two or three.

“Shiro? One more thing,” Hunk added just before he exited the room. “Happy Birthday – and many more.”

Shiro snorted. He didn’t know how many more there would be, but he was determined to enjoy the rest of this one. Hey, there was still a good half dozen left. Maybe he’d take a few to Keith and Matt.  

One Mission, Many Wormholes, and Two Birthdays Later

The door to mess hall slid open, and Shiro looked left, then right, before stepping inside. Immediately, the lights flipped on, and Shiro barely held in his screech.

“Hunk,” he managed once he breathed again. “You don’t have to guard the kitchen every year.”

Hunk lifted a tray of expertly decorated and undeniably delicious cupcakes. A few sported little Black Lions while the rest had the head of Voltron. “Yes, yes I do. Trust me on that. Now come on. Get your first cupcake before the rest of the garrison arrives.”

Shiro raised an eyebrow as he selected his cupcake, finger sweep around the edge of the icing. “The rest of the garrison…?”

In less than ten minutes time, the mess hall upon the Atlas was packed with the various teams, including Admiral Allura with her ship crew, Commander Adam West with his MFE Squadron, Prince Lotor with his Sincline generals, and of course, Shiro with his paladins. Black rumbled in the back of his mind, and as he sat among his teams, Shiro smiled and snatched another cupcake or three.

Eventually, he collapsed to the corner of the hall, eyes roaming over the people he held nearest and dearest to his heart. Hunk came to sit next to him and smirked at the wrappers on the table next to Shiro.

“Having a good day?”

“Yeah, yeah. Y’know, Hunk, someone once told me that if I ever wanted cupcakes, all I had to do is ask the people around me.”

Hunk blinked and then shrugged. “Well, y’know, I’m more than happy to –”

“But there’s something special about coming down to a set of cupcakes already made just for me.” He clasped Hunk on the shoulder and smiled. “Thanks, Hunk. It is nice to have people here who love me for who I am, not who they want me to be.”

Hunk smiled. “It is a nice feeling. And my kitchen stays intact. I like that.”

“That’s best for all parties involved,” Shiro laughed.

“Yeah, we wouldn’t be able to form Voltron without its head.”

Shiro let out a quick laugh, which Hunk shared, and decided to assume Hunk was joking. Still, he’d stay out of the kitchen, just to make sure. 

The End

[ladyfogg]

Cold is the Night - 2/20

Cold is the Night - 2/20

Fic Summary: You and Pat have known each other for years but this summer, everything will change. As the two of you start to grow close, your matching tempers threaten the foundation of your rocky friendship and prevent both of you from realizing your true feelings. Cold is the Night Masterpost.

A/N: I’ve watched this movie so many times in less than a week, it’s pretty spectacular. Anyway, hope you enjoy chapter two!

Fic Song: Cold is the Night by The Oh Hellos. Fic playlist can be found here.  

Pairing: Pat Murray/Female Reader

Rating: NC-17

Warnings: Language, Slow Burn, Eventual Smut, Multiple Chapters

Gif by @joe-mazzello

Your alarm went off and dragged you out of a very wonderful nap. Outside, the blazing sun had finally set, bathing your bedroom in dusk. You had to get ready for work but were far too comfortable to do so right away. 

After your roommate moved out, you had moved the AC into your room instead of the living room, giving you all the cold air. The apartment was silent and you reveled in the fact that you lived alone for the first time in your life. It was definitely stressful but so fucking worth it.

With a yawn, you rolled out of bed with a luxurious stretch. You clicked on the lamp by your bed, giving your room a soft glow.

Out of the corner of your eye, you caught a flash of red and glanced over at your dresser. Pat’s baseball cap sat where you placed it the other day. He had been in such a rush to bolt from your car he left it behind. You had no idea when you’d see him next.

Originally, you had considered giving it to Vinnie to give to him, but you knew your brother would question where it came from and you’d rather not open that can of worms.

Not that there was anything wrong with giving your brother’s teammate a ride. You just knew Vinnie would make it a bigger deal than it was. Anything to give you shit.

Murray had always been an enigma to you. His temper aside, you knew very little about him even though he and Vinnie had been friends for years. While the boys always seemed to hang out together outside of practice, Pat was rarely with them, unless it was a whole team thing.

That day, when you saw him standing in the parking lot looking miserable and sunburned, you couldn’t stand the thought of him walking home. Especially in the heat.

Then that famous Murray anger reared its ugly head.

That’s the last time I fucking offer him a ride.

You realized you had spent a significant amount of time thinking about Pat Murray and quickly focused on something else. Like getting ready for work.

It was technically your day off, but one of the other bartenders quit and you hurriedly accepted the extra shift. You hoped the boss would notice and promote you to full-time so you could quit the batting cages and have a more solid source of income.

You liked bartending. Making drinks came easy to you and you enjoyed meeting new people. Plus, the tips were usually pretty fucking great. 

When you got to the bar, there weren’t many patrons. But it was a Saturday night in the middle of summer, which meant the place would be packed later.

You lost yourself in your work, moving behind the bar with practiced ease. Drinks flowed, tips were generous, and you were having a great time.

“Oh, little sisterrrr!”

Hearing Vinnie’s voice made you roll your eyes affectionately. You finished serving the drink you had just made before turning around to greet your brother.

He, Ty, Maz, Dells, and Garvey had taken up the few empty stools at the bar. To your immense surprise, Pat sat at the very end, looking uncomfortable. You had never seen him out with the guys before, outside of any after-game dinners. 

“Hey, douchebags,” you greeted them as you wiped your hands on a towel before tucking it under the bar. “What can I get you?”

“Whoa, whoa, that’s no way to treat paying customers!” Vinnie declared. “I’m gonna have to talk to your manager.”

“You’re gonna have to bite me.”

The guys laughed, except for Murray who looked like he didn’t even want to be there. You tried to ignore him as Ty spoke up. 

“Six beers, and a food menu. Been a long fucking day.”

“You got it.”

You plopped a few menus in front of them before going about getting their beers. They chatted amongst each other about what to get. Pat was, of course, the exception again. He remained silent, barely glancing at the menu before handing it to Maz. If you didn’t know him, you’d think he was there by himself, not his friends.

Drinks were passed out and you leaned on the counter, ready for their order. “One check or separate?”

“Separate probably? Right, guys?” Dells asked. 

Maz leaned in. “Actually, it’ll probably be easier to start a tab. Pay all together at the end.”

“And maaaaybe apply your family discount please and thank you?” Vinnie batted his eyelashes at you.

“Not tonight, Vin. You know I can’t do shit like that on busy nights.”

“Worth a try.”

You playfully threw a piece of ice at him as you took everyone’s order. Pat barely made eye contact with you when it came time for his.

After that, you were called to the other end of the bar to tend to new customers. You didn’t get back to them until their food was ready. By that point, they were all engaged in conversation. Ty, Vinnie, and Garvey were arguing about some movie or something, while Maz and Dells discussed Dells' failed hunt for a new car.

They didn’t stop even when you placed their plates in front of them, only gave you nods of acknowledgment and quiet words of thanks. 

You handed Pat his food last. “You look like you’d rather be anywhere else but here.”

“Cuz it’s true.” He took a sip of his beer before pulling his plate closer. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” You made a move to walk away but something about Pat sitting there sulking drew you back. He looked downright miserable and you wondered why none of the guys were even attempting to engage him in conversation. “Alright, what’s bothering you.”

“Why do you care?”

You glared. At least you had your answer as to why the other guys weren’t trying to cheer him up. “You can be a real asshole, you know that, Murray?”

You took a step away.

“Shit! No, wait, come back,” Pat urged. “I’m sorry.”

His response caught you by surprise. Cautiously, you moved back to where you were and leaned on the bar. “Fine, but if you’re a dick to me again, I’m spitting in your beer.”

Pat gave you a small smile and pulled his glass closer to himself. “That’s fair.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“It’s nothing you probably haven’t heard already. I fucking suck at baseball.”

“Yeah, I may have heard that once or twice. Doesn’t mean it’s true.”

“Feels like it.”

You sighed and looked around. Things had slowed down somewhat so you poured yourself a rum and coke. “Then don’t think about it.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, do something other than baseball. Take your mind off it. What do you do when you’re not playing?”

“Usually working, or school.”

You waited for him to go on. When he didn’t you asked, “Really? That’s it?”

He shrugged. 

“No wonder you’re so fucking tightly wound!”

“No, I’m not.”

“Yes, you fucking are. Find a hobby, Murray. Something not baseball or sports-related. You need something to take your mind off things.”

“He needs to get laid,” Vinnie interjected. It seemed the guys had taken notice of your conversation.

You gestured in agreement. “See? That works too.”

“I don’t think getting laid will help,” Pat said.

“You’d be surprised.”

“Not that you’d know, sis. You haven’t been with anyone in years,” Vinnie teased.

“Just because I don’t have a boyfriend doesn’t mean I don’t have sex.”

“That’s true,” Garvey said. “Statistically speaking, more people engage in sex than serious relationships.”

“Oh really, Garv?” Dells smirked. “Where did you hear that?”

“I read it somewhere.”

“Sure you did,” Ty said. 

As he, Dells, and Vinnie teased Garvey, Maz turned his attention to you and Pat.

“Joking aside, she’s right,” he said. “Pat, you should find something to do outside of baseball. It’ll help.”

“I get that, I really do,” he told you both. “It’s just easier said than done.”

“Doesn’t have to be anything big,” Maz offered. “Start small, like video games or something.”

“I play video games, almost everyone does,” Pat said. “It’s just…” He didn’t finish his sentence but you knew what he was going to say.

“Doesn’t interest you anymore?” you supply.

Pat nodded. You knew that feeling all too well. You and Maz exchanged twin worried looks.

“Well,” you said. “You don’t have to come up with something right away. Start trying stuff. You never know what you might like.”

“More good advice,” Maz agreed. “I’ll help you find something.”

“See, Murray, things will get better,” you assured him. “Save some brooding for the rest of us.”

Pat smiled wider, ducking his head. “Thanks, guys.”

He seemed to perk up after that. You were called to the other end of the bar again so you had to step away from a bit. Even still, you glanced their way from time to time to check on them. 

Pat was more engaged than before, actually talking to his friends and even laughing.

Not that you noticed.

Eventually, they closed out the tab and one by one started to go home. You were busy cleaning and pouring drinks that you didn’t have a chance to give them a proper goodbye.

When you finally had time to breathe, you turned around to find Pat still there, alone.

“Hey, did you need something else?” you asked, gathering the guys’ plates and putting them in the dish bucket under the counter.

Pat fidgeted. “Yeah, actually. I wanted to say sorry.”

“You already did.”

“No, for the other day. In the car. You were being nice and I was an asshole. I’m sorry.”

Truth be told, you hadn’t expected him to bring it up. It was nice of him.

You smiled and poured him another beer. “Apology accepted. You wanna start over?”

He took the drink and smiled softly. “Yes please.”

“Hi, Pat.”

He greeted you by your first name, still smiling. “It’s nice to see you again.”

You picked up the last of your rum and coke and clinked your glass against his in a toast. Pat downed half his beer in one go before easing himself off the stool. 

“I should get going,” he said, pulling out his wallet. The tab had already been paid for so you knew he was going to try to pay for the beer you gave him.

You reached out to stop him. “This one’s on me.”

His hazel eyes were filled with confusion. “But you told Vinnie—" 

“Just accept the fucking drink, Murray.”

There were a few seconds of silence before he put his wallet away and lowered himself back onto the stool. “Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.”

He drank his beer in silence while you wiped down the bar. “So, what do you do for fun?” he asked after some time had passed.

“Why? You asking me out?”

“What?! No! God no, I was just asking because of earlier…” He glared as you started to smirk. “And you’re fucking with me.”

“You make it so easy!” you laugh, pouring yourself a regular coke this time. “You should have seen your face. Also, fuck you for the ‘God no’ comment.”

“I didn’t mean it that way. I only meant that you’re my friend’s sister and I’m not hitting on you.”

“Cuz I’m not hot or cuz of the sister thing?”

“I never said you weren’t…you’re twisting my words around!”

“So you do think I’m hot?”

Pat sat fuming, long fingers locked around his empty beer glass. “Stop messing with me and answer the fucking question.”

“I do a lot of things,” you said. “Reading, some writing, some art, some sports…whatever I feel like. Whatever interests me. And if nothing interests me at the moment, I watch Netflix and gorge myself on snacks.”

Pat studied you for a moment. “Huh…” he muttered.

“What?”

“I think this is the longest conversation we’ve ever had.”

“Bored of me already, Murray?”

“Surprisingly, no.”

“Thanks…I think.”

Pat stayed for the rest of the night. You couldn’t talk to him the whole time since you got busy again, but every now and then you’d silently refill his beer as you walked past. By the time your shift was over, your feet were killing you.

“Can I walk you to your car?” Pat offered as you removed your apron.

“Did you hang around just because you needed a ride again?”

He rolled his eyes. “No. I drove.”

“Then yes, you can walk me to my car.”

The night was mercifully cool and you couldn’t help but take a deep breath of fresh air. Pat shoved his hands in his pockets as you walked together, so close your shoulders almost touched. 

There was a comfort you hadn’t felt around him last time. Maybe part of it was because you knew him a little better now, or maybe it was something else. Either way, you kind of liked it.

When you reached your car, you turned around to face him. “Well, Murray, it’s been an interesting interaction, as always.”

“Are you going to be at the game tomorrow?”

“Yup. Cheering my brother on as always.”

“See you tomorrow then.” He opened the door for you which made you quirk an eyebrow. “Oh don’t read too much into it. I’m just being nice.”

You laughed as you climbed into the car. “Goodnight to you too, Pat.”

He took a few steps back as you started the engine. With a half-smile and a wave, he headed to his car. You followed his retreating back with your eyes, curious and amused. 

You were halfway home when you realized, he never answered whether or not he thought you were hot.

[metaphorical-love-for-a-car]

Wretched And Devine-- Aziraphale x Reader

Request; “Can I get a aziraphale x human reader? They're madly in love but aziraphale refrains himself cuz being an angel etc. but he's in pain but turns out she's one of the heavenly beings god put among humanity but she just doesn't know and really dramatic & romantic confessing scene maybe?”(@imaginesyes​) 

Warnings; reader is an Earth Angel, I recommend skimming the article just to get a general idea of what it is

Word Count; 3.2k (buckle up, folks! it’s gonna be a hell of a ride)

Notes; my last Aziraphale fic got flagged, hopefully this one will stay up 🤷🏻‍♀️

You had a relatively normal childhood. You were born to an average working-class family. Your parents called you their 'miracle baby' because just when they thought they were unable to have children, you came about.

You graduated from school with good grades and went on to search for a decent job. But as you began to experience the world on your own, you realized that you weren't quite as normal as one would assume. Things seemed to move around your small flat on their own accord. The movements were never a hassle. In fact, they were always beneficial. Yet you could never remember physically moving the stuff yourself. You brushed it off, joking that either a ghost lived with you, or you had superpowers. Either way, you didn't mind.

Your flat was situated in the middle of Soho, and you often found yourself wandering the city during your free time. One of your favorite places to visit was the park. Sometimes you would go to sit, read, and relax; other times, you would bring some bread with you to feed the ducks. Among the crowd of regular visitors, there was one particular face that you looked forward to spotting. His spiffy choice of clothing and light, curly locks never failed to draw your attention. There was something about him that you found endearing and slightly... nostalgic. You couldn't quite place your finger on it, but you made it your mission to get to know him.

It started small,  commenting on how you liked his bow tie then introducing yourself. After a while, the two of you were able to have a steady conversation with one another. He eventually invited you to his bookshop for tea. The two of you just seemed to hit it off, and, soon enough, you were popping into the bookshop on your way home from work nearly every day.

The more time you spent with Aziraphale, the more you felt yourself falling. You thought he felt the same way, but he started to grow distant. He would disappear for days on end or give excuses as to why he couldn't make it to dinner. It was all odd. You couldn't figure out why his demeanor had suddenly changed, and it was tearing your heart to shreds. He was slowly pushing you out of his life, and you wanted... no, you needed to find out why.

Crowley lounged across the sofa and warily watched Aziraphale pace back and forth across the small room. He was muttering under his breath and occasionally chewing on his thumbnail. The demon rolled his eyes. "I just don't see what the big deal is." A cynical chuckle left Aziraphale's throat.

"Oh, I'm quite sure you do." Crowley scoffed and sat up.

"Okay, so, you're in love." As soon as the 'L' word had left Crowley's lips, Aziraphale froze, staring at the demon with wide eyes. "Don't try to deny it. It's painfully obvious. But despite that, you're pushing them away. Why?" The angel grimaced for a moment. He looked as if he would discorporate at any given moment.

"Because... because they're..." Aziraphale huffed, unsure of the right words to say. Crowley nodded.

"Right. They're human, and Heaven won't be too fond of that." Aziraphale quickly shook his head. A pained expression flooded his features.

"No, it's not even that." Crowley looked confused and watched the angel expectantly. He continued to pace for a moment before stopping with his back turned toward the demon. "Earth angel. You know the one I'm talking about," Aziraphale explained bitterly. Crowley leaned back into the sofa, face darkening.

"Do they know? Have they remembered anything?" Aziraphale sank into his chair and shook his head. He could feel Crowley's gaze burning into the side of his head. "Are you going to tell them?" The angel opened his mouth before quickly closing it again. A suffocating silence filled the room. Aziraphale sighed and finally met Crowley's gaze.

"No. They can't know." His voice cracked midsentence. The angel avoided Crowley's gaze once more, not wanting any pity from the demon.

You tried to phone Aziraphale several times throughout the evening, but there was no answer. You paced through your flat like a caged animal. Running a hand through your hair, you decided that you couldn't take it anymore. You grabbed a coat and made sure to lock the door on your way out.

The sky was dark. It was late, and dark clouds were gathering overhead. Most people were either home with the family or in a pub with a glass in their hand. As you stood on the sidewalk, staring at the bookshop's sign, you wondered if Aziraphale truly did care for you, or if you had just read the signs all wrong. Either way, you were set on giving him a piece of your mind.

You first tried to open the door. Of course, it was locked. Peering inside, you knew he was in there somewhere. There was a light on in the back, and a shadow would flicker by every now and again. You raised a fist and rasped on the door. You held your breath, hoping that he would answer.

You had stood there, knocking on the door for God knows how long. The sky was growing angrier by the minute, with thunder rumbling overhead and the beginnings of a storm hitting the pavement. You huffed. Enough was enough. You opened your hand flat and pressed it against the door. Closing your eyes, you focused all your willpower on the door and its lock. Your nose wrinkled in frustration. The door swung open with a force you didn't know lurked inside you. As you stepped into the shop, thunder roared through the air. You couldn't help the smirk that formed across your face. You apparently had a knack for badass entrances.

Crowley and Aziraphale both leaped to their feet when they heard the door crash open. When they rushed into the shop, they didn't expect to see you standing there with silvery glowing eyes. Neither of them knew how to react when you waved your hand, causing the door to close behind yourself. "We need to talk." Aziraphale swallowed hard and cast a worried glance at Crowley. He returned his gaze to you, nodding.

"Yes, I suppose we do."

You stood in the back room with your arms crossed. Aziraphale filed in and closed the door. His back was turned to you. "How long have you known?" You scoffed.

"Known what? That I have superpowers? Since I moved out of my parents' place. I've been getting better at controlling them lately." You stopped and shook your head. "But that's not what we need to talk about." Aziraphale turned on his heel, giving you a shocked look.

"I most certainly think it is! You obviously don't know what you're capable of. You could—"

"I could what? Hurt somebody? I think I can handle myself," you snapped, eyes glowing even brighter. Aziraphale's jaw tightened until he noticed the tears that were beginning to spill down your cheeks. His throat tightened. It hurt him more than words can describe to see you this upset.

"I think it's probably best that you go home." You shook your head.

"Damn it, Azi. Would you just please quit shutting me out and talk to me?" you pleaded.

"I— er— I don't know what you mean."

"Stop with the bullshit. You've been avoiding me. It's like you just cut me out of your life, and I—" your voice cracked. You sniffed, wiping your nose on the edge of your sleeve. "I can't keep going like this. I love you, Aziraphale. And you might think it's stupid, but I thought you might have loved me too." The angel's shoulders sank. Before he could even process what he was doing, Aziraphale rushed over to you, sweeping you into an embrace. You clung to him as tears flowed freely.

"I love you too," his voice was as faint as a whisper, but you heard it. A weight had been lifted off his chest. It felt good to finally say it, after all these years. "But it won't work." He pulled away from you, taking a few steps back. Hurt and confusion filled your being. As he scanned your features, he noticed how red your nose and cheeks were, and how your eyes were beginning to return to normal. Aziraphale shook his head in an attempt to clear his thoughts. "This. Us. It just... won't work. We can't be together. We shouldn't even be interacting for all they care." The words rushed out of his mouth before he could stop them.

"What do you mean?" You eyed him expectantly. Aziraphale bit the inside of his cheek, knowing that he had slipped up in mentioning anything. He panicked for a brief moment, but as he stared into your teary eyes, he knew what needed to be done. Aziraphale sucked in a breath and moved closer to you. He carefully placed two fingers on your temples.

"This might hurt a bit."

//

"The Almighty has big plans for this universe, which is why we need all the help we can get. Everything has to be designed perfectly. Each of you will be assigned a task for creation," Michael announced. Various angels were sorted off and given a job. You eyed the crowd, excitedly waiting for your task. You noticed an angel with red hair and golden eyes approaching you.

"Raphael," you greeted politely. He flashed you a grin.

"Your assignment is to help me piece together the cosmos. The Almighty's already planned the major bits, but we can get creative after that." Your eyes lit up as your smile widened. Raphael laughed at your reaction. "I'm excited too. This is definitely one of the more fun assignments if you ask me. Ready?" You gave him a firm nod.

"Let's go."

The Universe was just beginning to come together. It was a hatchling... a newborn... a baby... and things were already falling apart. Lucifer and his band of merry angels were, as most liked to put it, revolting. And because of that, they were getting thrown out of Heaven. You could rationalize that. It was logical. Rebel and you get the boot. But then you heard about Raphael. It was a mistake. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time and asked the wrong questions. He shouldn't have been thrown out with the rest of them. He wasn't /evil/.

The rest of the archangels had gathered all of Heaven's angels. They recounted their version of the events. Your brows furrowed as your fists tightened. They made it out like he was a part of it all. Raphael, the angel of healing and your closest companion, was now the enemy. As they continued their spiel, you noticed a bright light being emitted from the front of the large room. It was sweeping over the crowd, and you realized what was happening. They were changing history, altering memories. Nothing would be the same after that. So you tried to slip out as quietly as you could, but a curly-haired angel stopped you. His dark eyes bore into yours. "Where are you going?" his tone was hushed, not wanting to cause a scene. You wracked your mind for an excuse.

"I was given an urgent task." He raised a brow at you. It was clear he didn't believe a word you said.

"And what exactly are you doing?"

"You shouldn't interfere with the Almighty's plan. It's ineffable." You glanced towards the front of the room. The light would be approaching your section at any moment. The angel's eyes widened, and he quickly stepped aside.

"Of course! My apologies..." he trailed off. You gave him your name, and he smiled at you. "Aziraphale," he introduced himself. You started to leave but stopped to put a hand on his shoulder.

"It's important that you speak to no one of this." He nodded solemnly. With that, you left. You disappeared for just a blip of a moment. It wasn't long enough for anyone except for Aziraphale to notice. By the time you had returned, the light was gone. The archangels were finishing their speeches. You managed to slip back in without suspicion. It wasn't long after that everyone was dismissed.

A handful of angels were put in Eden, and you were one of them. You were surprised to see Aziraphale again and even more so when he remembered you. The principality always kept you on your toes. He wasn't like most angels, and you quite enjoyed his company.

The two of you were standing guard on the East wall, watching the first storm roll in. Out of the corner of your eye, you noticed a snake slithering towards the two of you. You were vaguely aware of who it was. A demon, obviously. But it was the very one that tempted Adam and Eve into eating the forbidden fruit. You watched it carefully as it began to transform. Aziraphale pretended he didn't see it happening. He was always more strict on following Heaven's every whim. You were curious to see what the demon looked like, as you hadn't actually encountered one. As soon as you saw the fiery red hair, your heart dropped. It was Raphael, but slightly different. He had the same hair, and his eyes were still golden, but they resembled those of a serpent's. He made a comment about a balloon, but you weren't paying attention to anything he said. All you could think about was how justice failed your friend. As soon as Raphael laid eyes on you, his face fell. You quickly looked away, not wanting him to see the angry tears that were building in your eyes. "I've got to go. Important stuff. Sorry, Azi." The angel gave you a worried look but nodded nonetheless. You glanced towards Raphael and gave him a sad smile. His brows furrowed, and you nodded, just to let him know that you still remembered. With a flap of your wings, you took off towards Heaven.

You stormed down the long, empty corridor. Once you found the door you were searching for, you froze. There was only half a moment's hesitation before you pushed the heavy door open. There was a single desk in the vast room. An old man was sitting behind it, with dozens of scrolls littering the desk. Three archangels stood around him. Even though you had never met him before, you knew it was the one and only Metatron. They all snapped their attention to you. "Knocking is a common courtesy, (Y/N). I suggest you do it more often," Gabriel growled.

"Yes, we are discussing a matter of great importance. You will have to wait," Metatron huffed. You shook your head.

"I can't. I've already waited long enough." You knew you had their attention. You sucked in a deep breath and silently prayed that you wouldn't fall for any of the things you were about to say. Then you just laid it on them. You ranted about how Raphael didn't deserve to fall, how justice had been skewed, and how they were supposed to be the good guys. When you finished, an uncomfortable tension filled the air. Gabriel pinched the bridge of his nose.

"How do you remember that?"

"I left the meeting." That's when all Hell broke loose. It was almost like a screaming match, who can say the meanest thing the loudest? You folded your wings around yourself. Half of you regretted even coming here and just wanted to disappear to the stars again. The other half told you that it was the right thing to do. You clung to the hope of Raphael returning and stood firm.

"Enough!" Metatron's voice boomed. Silence fell over everyone. He stood and grabbed a scroll off the desk. His eyes scanned the document as he unrolled it. Metatron handed it over to Gabriel. "We cannot have any more outliers, but condemning another angel so soon would cause chaos. Perhaps this will be a happy medium," he muttered. Michael and Uriel leaned closer to catch a glimpse of the scroll. They all nodded in approval. "Then it has been settled." Metatron slammed his hand down on the desk, then everything went black.

It happened over, and over, and over again for centuries. New life. New pain. New suffering. Grow old. Die. Round and round you go. No end in sight. You didn't remember every single detail of your lives, but you would catch glimpses of memories. Most would consider it deja vu. You called it a curse. The longer you stayed on Earth, the more you forgot about your past. You forgot about the curly-headed angel. You forgot about the angel-turned-demon with golden eyes. And, for a while, they forgot about you too. With an ever-changing existence, it was hard to keep track of you. Who could blame them?

//

Your knees buckled. Aziraphale caught you and helped you over to the sofa. A broken sob shook your shoulders. You reached over your shoulder and ran a hand over your back, where your wings used to be. When Aziraphale placed a gentle hand on the small of your back, you bolted upright with wide eyes. "Did you see them? The memories?" Panic settled into your core. What if he saw them? What would Heaven do to him? You couldn't let anything bad happen to him.

"No, I only pulled them for you to see." You sighed and relaxed again. He seemed hesitant to touch you again, so you leaned into his side. Aziraphale wrapped an arm around you. A few stray tears slid down your cheeks. He carefully wiped them away with his thumb.

"Thank you," you whispered, "for showing me who I am." He nodded. The two of you sat like that for several minutes. You were almost too afraid to move. You didn't want to ruin the serenity of the moment. You felt Aziraphale take in a deep breath.

"Maybe..." He paused, trying to figure out what to say. "Maybe we could figure out a way for this to work." You sat up to get a better look at him. A soft smile graced his lips, and his eyes were full of pure adoration. It was clear that he meant it when he said he loved you. You could practically feel it radiating from him at this moment. You leaned closer to him until you could feel your breath mingling with his. Aziraphale closed the gap between the two of you, pressing his lips to yours. It was sweet and gentle, everything you'd imagine it would be and more. After a moment, he pulled away from the kiss and rested his forehead against yours.

"Forbidden lovers," you hummed, gazing into his eyes. "Like Romeo and Juliet. But hopefully without all the death." Aziraphale pulled away from you and laughed.

"Well, yes, I should hope so." He gazed at you with a bright and loving smile. You took his hand into your own, tracing shapes in his palm.

Neither of you knew what tomorrow would bring, but the least you could do was enjoy the moment... together.

~*~*~

Tag List;

@kawaiiusagichansan

@fatbottomedboi

[kur0kvmi]

The Menacing Mind of Felix Lombardi-Act 2

I peek through the door glass one more time, to make sure I’m not hallucinating. Yep. Ami Fujinami in the mother, fucking flesh. 

“Felix? I know you’re in there, open up” Ami said, in between repeatedly knocking

“Yea I’ll open it up in a minute” I said as I frantically searched for a clean pair of sweatpants to wear.

Ami and I have known each other for the entirety of the 2 years I’ve been living at this apartment. She and her Grandma have taken pretty good care of me seeing as I’m not exactly the best at it. 

“Hi Ami, what brings you here?” I asked, trying to push out the conversation with my brother from my mind

“Well, a strange man in a dark blue suit was here yesterday and he gave me 2 tickets to Mysticon” 

And then it call comes rushing back

“Wow that’s weird, well have fun” I said as I tried to close the door on her, only for her to stop the door from shutting.

“He said he was your brother, and that I should ask you to go with me” Ami said, slowly edging towards me like she was trying to get a good look at the reflection in my eyeballs.

“Well, I have no idea who you’re talking about. I don’t have a brothe-”

“Hello? Mr. Lombardi? He said exactly what you said he’d say. Mhmm That he doesn't have a brother. Should I hand him the phone? Ok. Ok. I’ll tell him.” 

Oh fuck.

“He says if you don’t go to Mysticon with me, I should tell Obaa-san to lock you out of the wifi for a month” Ami said, in the most perfunctory tone imaginable.

“First of all, you can’t do tha-”

“Yes. Yes I can. And to be honest, I don’t care if Mr. Lombardi is your real brother or not, I want to go to Mysticon, and I don’t care who with. So you’re going with me Felix.” Despite the fact that Ami was more or less extorting a date out of me, she did so with the gusto and demeanor of a middle schooler who just won a spelling bee. 

“Why couldn’t you just go by yourself?”

“The deal is, I take you, and I get a free ticket. Mr. Lombardi was very clear about this” 

“So I have no choice”

“None at all”

“Alright. Come knock on my door on saturday”

“It is Saturday, you bum”

“Why aren’t we using your car?” Ami moaned as we exited the building. 

“The train is faster” I said, pulling a pack of cigarettes out of my jacket.

“Mysticon is in Hells Kitchen right?” Ami asked, whilst reaching into her backpack

“Yup, and it’s...3pm, traffic will be annoying, and I don’t wanna worry about driving back if I buy weed.” I said, pulling out my lighter

“What have I told you about smoking when you’re next to me.” Ami said, pulling out a batton, then flicking it to extend it’s length. 

I put the cig back in the pack, whilst prompting her to sheathe her weapon. Throughout the journey my mind is racing. Ami and I hanging out again? It’s not that I like her or anything, it’s just that I kind of missed her. Hey I’m allowed to have feelings aren’t I? I’m sure you’re wondering “but Felix, if you missed hanging out with her, why did you stop talking to her?” Why yes fair reader, that’s a very adequate question, however the nature of our relationship isn’t that simple. Ami is kind of an all around nerd aficionado, she cosplays, she writes fanfics, she draws, she sings anime openings on youtube, it’s kind of scary how much she does all over the place. Recently she’s started to get really famous online, she’s started to devote a lot more time to it, and She started ghosting. Being distant... And you know me, I ain’t exactly a butterfly myself, so we just drifted apart. She should be making money on youtube, couldn’t she just get her own tickets?

“Obaa San wouldn’t let me” Ami said as we reached the station. “She’s against anime conventions on principle”. 

“Is this about a ‘Japan is more than anime’ thing?” I asked, shifting over to the right as I stepped on the escalator so I could walk down past the standers.

“No that’s more my parents. Baa san is a reeeeaaally old school Otaku.”

“Then what’s her beef with anime conventions?”

“She thinks they’re ‘commodified caricatures of otaku culture’ or something along those lines” Ami said as we hopped on the train.

Granny Fujinami isn’t wrong in the slightest.

“So she won’t be mad at you for going?” 

“She’s only letting me go because I’m going with you. It’s aaalways about you with her.”

“Not my fault i’m the grandson she never had” I said while making a mocking face at Ami.

“She only loves you cuz you’re a broken mess she can nurture. You’re like my dad. Ugh, you’re like all men really.”

Ouch.

“Ouch.” 

“Suck it up loser.” Ami said, shifting her direction away from me. 

“You’re so cute when you go all Tsun” I said, pulling out my phone.

“That would imply me having any ‘dere’ for you.” Ami snapped back.

So hot.

[At the Convention]

What’s going on what’s going on going on. Everyone’s looking at us. Well I guess I am walking next to Amura. Yes that’s Ami’s social media name, you try coming up with something better at 12. Mine’s [REDACTED]. This is not what I signed up for. Louis Othello Lombardi you fucking bastard. You knew this would happen. You did your homework on Ami and figured out she’d be a lightning rod for attention. Keep me around her, and I’m bound to be assaulted by nothing. But. Fucking. People.

“OH MY GOD IT’S AMURA!” Two young girls screamed. “But I heard you weren't coming? You said so on twitter :(.“ I swear to almighty Haruhi Suzumiya, if there was such a thing as a frowny face emoji in real life, whatever that girl did was damn close. 

“Well change of plans ^_^” Oh my god, Ami can speak emoji too!

“So what panels are you going to? I heard Gail has a panel about anime piracy” Said one of the fangirls, angling towards it on the con directory. 

“Gail from Crunchyroll?” 

“Sounds fun! Felix, ikimasu!” Whoever this version of Ami was, I wanted NO PARTS. 

“Sounds lame. I’m going to the arcade.” I was putting my foot down

“Ok cool. Hand me your pass then. You can pay on your own.” 

“You can’t do tha-”

“Yes. Yes I can. You want this pass?.” Ami pulled out the 3 day convention pass out of her purse and dangled it in front of me. Obviously I tried snatching at it, only for Ami to move it out of the way. Damn japanese reflexes.

“Gotta be quicker than that. We’re going to the panel. Follow me.” Ami said, tossing me the pass.

“If you sneak off, I’m calling Obaa chan.” she said, in that her perfunctory yet declaratory way.  

“...So what you end up having is an environment where it’s harder and harder for us to justify hosting servers for anime distribution, because they don’t wanna pa- *ahem* because piracy.” Or something to that effect I’m not really listening to this Gail lady.

Anime piracy is a dumb thing to have a panel about anyway, it’s not like anybody in this room even knows how to torrent off wonwons, let alone\ how find the right codec for shows with bad compression. These are a bunch of crunchycores. The kinds of anime fans so hopped up on seasonal hype that the mere thought of an anime older than 12 months makes their tongues run dry, and their eyes wire shut.

“Are there any questions?”

“You got anything to ask?” chuckled Ami. 

“Why are we here. We both know Kissanime is in your bookmarks” I jeered.

“Networking dummy. I talk to Gail after the panel, and smooth out something over at Crunchyroll” For some reason Ami’s eyes did the dollars signs when she said “crunchyroll”

“In San Francisco? You’d hate it there.”

“I’d make it there. That’s the important part. I’d really make it. I’d be in.” 

“In what?” I said with a look of befuddlement. 

“You wouldn’t understand. You’re basically guaranteed a job after graduation” 

“Hey, don’t make it like tha-”

“Don’t make it like what Felix?” Ami snapped, but less with anger, and more a tired expression.

The Panel was beginning to wind down, and folks were getting up to leave. Ami bounced out of her seat and darted towards the stage. 

“Gaaaaaiiiil! Hiii, I follow you on twitter!” Ami screamed, like a schoolgirl seeing a classmate

“Amura! I follow you too! I love your singing” Gail responded in a surprisingly similar manner.

“Thanks so much, ugh. That means alot l love you and Sailor Bee’s podcast ^_^” This whole display was just. The worst. 

I backed off from the discussion, but I knew I wasn’t gonna be able to make it far without incurring that good old Fujinami wrath. Jeez they’re taking forever. Is this a meet and greet? Or a job interview. 

“Felix? Oh shit, how you been bruh?” This voice, I recognized it. 

I turned around, and yup, it was Tyler. 

“Who let riff raff like  you in here?” I said as we shook hands

“Is that any way to treat your one black friend:” He responded dryly. 

“I have plenty of black friends. Unlike you, most of my friends are girls.” I shot back. 

“Yea right, if you ever left your yuppie ass play pad I’d believe you.”

“You’d be surprised how many of em recognize me from Ami’s streams.”

“The streams she stopped inviting you to?” 

“Low blow T.” 

Tyler is a friend from Highschool who runs in the same online circles that I do. We keep in touch through discord and trade merchandise on message boards. He’s been trying to break into the FGC since middle school and recently struck a deal with a team based out of Brooklyn, The Mash Masters. He’s pretty good, quick reflexes, consistent muscle memory, but he lacks patience, and his neutral game needs work. 

“Where you headed to after this? Tryna hit up the arcade?” Asked Tyler as he picked up his backpack getting ready to leave. 

“I’m here with Ami, I gotta check and see where she’s headed to” 

“Whooptish” Tyler said, while making a whipping motion. 

“You know it’s not like that bro.” I shot back

“For her it isn’t, for you it is.” he retorted. 

I told him to wait up for a sec as I went over to Ami & Gail. They were still chopping it up like they’d known each other since band camp. 

“Shoot me a DM on twitter whenever you get the chance, I’d love to get you acquainted with the rest of my team. Maybe even talk bringing you to some other cons around the east coast ;)” Naruhodo, it seems this Gail is also of the emoji Clan. 

“Sure thing! Don’t forget to tweet out the channel link with the picture, and tell Vicky I said hi!” Ami said gleefully. 

“I definitely will, but uhh, she hates being called Vicky. Victoria or Sailorbee are just fine.” Gail responded, with a tinge of trepidation.

“Yea, I made that mistake on twitter once, it wasn’t pretty” I said with a chuckle.

“Oh hello, and who might you be?” Asked Gail.

“This is my friend Felix I was telling you about.” Ami said. Wait, telling her about what?

“Ah yes, the animator. Ami showed me your fan animation of Diebuster. Very interesting to see a Gainax show done with heavy Yutapon vibes” This lady knows her stuff.

“This lady knows her stuff” I said to Ami. 

“Of course I do silly, I work in the anime industry” The smile Gail shot me as she said this wouldn’t be out of place in a Shaft anime.  

“You definitely have some real skills. We’re looking for someone to do a sakuga heavy promo for our new youtube ad. If you’re interested, Ami has my contact info. It was so very nice meeting the both of you, don’t forget to keep in touch.” Gail said in a warm, professional tone as she got up to leave. 

“Well she seems nice” I said to Ami. 

“You’re welcome Felix.” Said Ami, in her usual biting tone. 

“I didn’t ask you for that. If I wanted a job at Crunchyroll I’d have one already.”

“‘Thanks Ami, I really appreciate you showing my work to someone really influential who can open doors in my chosen profession, would you like headpats?’” Ami said, in a mocking imitation of my sultry ciciillian speech pattern. 

“First of all, fine, thank you, that was a very nice thing to do, and I was pleasantly surprised. Secondly, do you seriously want headpats?”

“Don’t flatter yourself, you weirdo” And there’s the Tsun again. 

“I ran into Tyler, he says he’s going to the Arcade, and I was looking to go with. You in?”

“Tyler’s here? Yea sure, let’s go” 

Ami & I leave the stage and head over to where Tyler is sitting when I get a text on my phone. 

[11:58. Text from Lou]: Having fun?

[11:58. You]: Yea

He’s just like mom. 

“Oh my god it’s Amura! Could you sign my Fightstick?” Tyler sniggered, his fightstick outstretched. He’s such an asshole I love it. 

“Knock it off, I’d actually sign it if I didn’t know you’d just flip it on Ebay” Ami sneered, arms folded and head angrily tossed to the side. 

“Aww don’t be like that, I really did want your autograph. You’d be surprised how many Blazblue players would pay good cash for one” Tyler said, packing his fightstick back in his backpack. 

“If anyone’s gonna make money off the Amura brand it’s gonna be ME!” Ami retorted viciously.

“Now that’s just anti-black business” I said, chuckling as Tyler dapped me up. 

Ami rolled her eyes as heavy as she could roll them and stomped out of the conference room, and we sheepishly trailed after her.

By this point in the day I’d grown used to Ami being a lightning rod for attention. My camera skills must have leveled up big time from all those pics I had to take, of her with fans. Just getting to the Arcade area of the convention was a whole 20 minutes of photo after photo with weeb after arrested developed weeb, and to be honest I was practicing some big time restraint to not just walk out of the center and catch an Uber home. But surely enough, through fire by force, we found ourselves at the-

Boy was this the kind of place I wanted to be. The whole area was what you’d expect from a high profile convention in a big city. What seemed to be at least 30 TVs all hooked up with consoles spanning an entire auditorium. This wasn’t an arcade, it felt more like a Bazaar crossed with a colosseum. You have your old reliables for the boomers like Street Fighter, MK, ok that’s neat, there’s Melee, 64, Ultimate, Smash 4, oh even Brawl, full house, that’s impressive. As we moved through, you could imagine that there were furrowed brows due to the smell, but in all honesty it wasn’t as bad as most invitationals I’ve been to. We couldn’t find the game we were here for though; Blazblue. Tyler directed us to the kiosk so we could get directions. 

“Nigga where the Blazblue at?” Tyler said to one of the convention attendees, 

All the way at the back, by the Under Night” The Attendee responded.

I was just about ready to dart over there when Tyler said: 

“Nah hol’ up real quick bro, I got a question I gotta ask you” uh oh, I hear the Brooklyn leaking out. 

“Yea? Is there something wrong?” the attendee said, with a befuddled expression.

“Y’all always hide the anime fighters, what's up with that?” Tyler said blankly, almost with no life at all. 

“It’s not my decision where the games are set up-”

“That’s not what I asked bro. I’ve done conventions fam, I sat where you sat. NYCC 2017, bigger con than this, and from what I know about my time there, y’all have a meeting to coordinate where the games are set up. Correct?” Oh my god, Tyler what are you doing. 

“Yes correct” The attendee responded. 

“So you were in the room when the decision was made, correct?” This is so wacky

“Yea, but like, I didn’t have a choi-”

“Nobody’s asking about a choice, I’m asking you, what was the reasoning behind the decision?” Should I stop this? Or?...

“They didn’t want the anime stuff turning folks away” Oh no, here we go

“There it is” Tyler said triumphantly as he began to walk off. 

“Hey, I think it’s bullshit too ma-” t

“Yet you said nothing. You and all your boys said nothing. Aight, I see you fam. Haruhi’s watching you” Tyler said, his back already turned and walking away.  “Let’s go guys”

“Did you have to make such a big hoopla you maniac?” Ami said laughing her ass off. 

“Because I have Principles Fujinami, you should try em some time” Tyler snapped back. 

“That was the FUNNIEST shit I’ve seen all day, I’m so happy I knew to record that” Ami said, still cackling. 

“Wait you recorded that?” Tyler said, shocked

“I uploaded it. Enjoy being a meme” Ami said blankly.

“Not again…” Tyler sighed.

We finally make it to the Blazblue section, and it’s about as serviceable as you’d expect. Two TVs both hooked up to PS4s playing Central Fiction. There wasn’t much of a crowd, about 5 or 6 people, all looked to be around college age, couple on the boomer side though. All guys. 

“This game is so hyperactive…” Ami said, in a tone betwixt judgement and bewilderment. 

“Not every game gotta be Street Fighter” Said Tyler. “Ey yo, who got next?” Tyler asked a portly asian fellow playing Taokaka. 

“Uhh, I dunno, anybody got next?” the Taokaka player asked. The crowd shook their heads. “I guess it’s on you bro after this.” 

Nobody else noticed, But Tyler’s killing intent began to spike. I get you’re excited kiddo, but you haven’t even chewed the scenery yet. 

The game was pretty hype. There it was Taokaka vs Valkenhayn. Both characters with adequate rushdown capabilities and heavy damage. The Valkenhayn was an even match, but the Tao was just catching clutch reversals at every corner. It felt like seeing a tiger beat a lion by leaving a bigger gash every time they left the scuffle. Tyler, ever the professional, was quiet as a mouse. A mouthy prick like him? Quiet? I know right? But he gets like this when it’s Blazblue. The data collection phase. See if Street Fighter is Chess, then Blazblue is Mahjong. The same level of depth, but a wider variety of dealing with situational disadvantages and advantages. Tyler sees what I’m seeing and he’s analyzing, putting his pieces together, he’s not here for fun. This is off the job training. 

“FINISH” 6 red letters on the television screen. Read em & Weep. 

“My turn now right?” Tyler asked the Taokaka player. 

“Yup. What’s your name?” said the Tao player

“Tyro, and you?” oh yea I forgot that was his FGC name, everywhere else he’s Tyrilla. He sucks at names yes I know.

“I’m Yiao, nice to meet you.” Yiao said, pushing his glasses up.

The character selection screen pops up and… Wait don’t tell me he…Oh boy, Tyler’s picking his middle school main. Hazama. Yiao on the other hand started mousing over Tao then over to Litchi. Come on pick a character already. After more mousing, his cursor finally landed on Mai... From rushdown to range spam. Just all around bloodthirst.

Both of them sat in silence as the loading screen started up, until Yiao broke that silence.

“I’ve heard of you, Mash Master Tyro. To be honest I was hoping we’d meet. I have this Mai prepared just for you.” said Yiao. Yawn. This happens all the time. Tyler’s probably got him scoped already too.

“Yiao, third runner up at Anifight Staten Island. Three. Years. Running.” Yup, knew it. Tyler lives for this shit.

“You wanna know why HowRite was able to beat you 3 to nothing last year?” Tyler said, deadpan staring at the screen.

“THE WHEEL OF FATE IS TURNING” oh shit the round is starting.

“Cuz he knew if he lost, he’d never get to face my mentor in the finals”

“But wait. Ulysses isn’t on your team?” Yiao said confused, the backstory here is really weird, I’d be confused as well to be honest. 

“REBEL 1” 

“Ulysses is my stepdad.” 

“ACTION”

Told you. 

End of Act 2. 

[unproduciblesmackdown]

prime number asks

Thank Yougd... :’-0

2:How long have you known your best friend? 

ah that’s soph nothingunrealistic........uhh i guess that was since last november! since we started talking anyways; i may have Known Of Soph’s Fics since october. i’m not sure of these dates. so yeah let’s say 10 months

3:What position do you normally sleep in?

lmao i can’t ever decide......on my back or on my right side i guess? in a perfect world i’d sleep on a giant mattress b/c i generally need to stretch my legs way out and i’m 6 ft tall. gotta be stretched out or Able to be stretched out. sometimes i sleep a bit curled up but also i’ll be lying there and seized by the Need To Extend yknow

5:Who was your favorite teacher in high school and why?

i wasn’t in high school lol........uh there was this 2-week school-ish thing i did for a few summers in a row (like middle school age) and my fave teacher in that was mr mckenna, who did History-Related stuff. he was just a really fun and friendly guy who was enthusiastic about teaching and i love that. same reason i loved this music professor in college even though i was hardly studying music 

7:Did you participate in any sports while in school?

no

11:Do you like your siblings? Why or why not?

they’re alright! we’re not really close Like Family or anything lmao, more like chill acquaintances with a lot of history of running jokes and movies we like....we all started getting along way better when we had a lot of space lmao (me and my sister starting college within the same like 2 yrs and being residential students) and were never really like, Share Everything Personal Talks close, mostly just goofed around together. now we continue to be in entirely different places so, friendly acquaintances. they’re alright. my brother tended to know me better than my sister did in later years and probably now, since we talk on twitter but i haven’t like actually directly talked to my sister in like, years. rip. oh yeah and my sister had this weird commitment to taking a Criticize-y approach to me sometimes?? and i was like, who is this for!! you’re not straight either why are you actively backing our homophobic mom’s paroxysms over my undercut........like who was this for......mysteries

13:Name one movie that made you cry.

this is hard not because i don’t cry at movies but b/c it’s like “think of movies you’ve seen” and i’m like oh god oh fuck...............see right now i’m like “you’ve cried watching lotr like a dozen times or probably more” and so now i Can’t think of anything else

17:Have you ever broken a bone? If so, how?

r/neverbrokeabone

19:Where did you grow up?

northern va, the dmv area, abt 20 mi from dc for my first 3-4 yrs of life, then 40 mi away

23:When is your birthday?

march 16. everyone is born in march. tf is up with june. great month, but like, i swear that say, february isn’t seeing these Everyone Born This Month stats as march always has. and as a month it sucks. just the miserable lingering deathwatch of winter, the shittiest season

29:What is a strange talent that you have?

man idk i’m a bit boring. i have pretty Keen color vision and also tend to be good at telling if things are Parallel / Perpendicular or not. fun!!!!!!!!!

31:Why did one of your friendships end?

uhhh they tend to fade out.....my friends from school was like, oops i’m going to college bye, never really talk to you people anymore b/c who needs facebook.....then it’s like oops we’re not in college, we’re twitter mutuals but that’s about it..........and even with the Internet Friend Circle i was around for the longest it was eventually like “oh i don’t really Like half of you that much” and i wasn’t really in the sub-friend-circles that formed there so i just kind of sidled off into my own corner. every “just say you have no friends and go” zinger fired off here by people who i guess want to make fun of people who don’t have friends is About Me. i was pwned

37:What is word that you always seem to spell wrong?

i Think i have camaraderie down at this point.....uh connoisseur?? i think that might be right now too....french things......i have to think about separation pretty much each time

41:When was the last time you got really really happy and why?

wow really Really is a tall order..........idk i can get pretty happy when i’m just excited about whatever. and if i’m also getting Interactions about it, that’s like, just further mood boost. cuz i’m actually a Social Person, i can just like only really talk about that shit i like. so when i can do that it’s like oh, fuck yes.......beyond that uhhhhhh. 

43:How do you start a conversation?

lmao..............i almost never do. over a Shared Interest though if anything

47:What is your favorite series of books?

hmm i’ve never read That many series!! i guess book for book i gotta go for the usual answer, the ya ashbury-brookfield series by jaclyn moriarty, which can count as standalones.........i related to a lot of really varied characters but it’s usually like “#me but i don’t do that” in that i don’t externally tend to act like the faves i point to to be like Mood, but if there’s any character that’s pretty much externally what i’m like it’s briony from the murder of bindy mackenzie

[frighthouseofalighthouse]

I know it's a lot! But all of the 65 questions you aren't used to!! I love getting to know the blogs I follow!

Okay love! The last one was a freebie so I guess I’ll just leave that one out haha.

1. Do you ever doubt the existence of others than you?

Na, usually it’s the opposite for me. I don’t feel important enough to be real.

2. On a scale of 1-5, how afraid of the dark are you?

Maybe a 3? I don’t mind the dark as long as my imagination isn’t getting the best of me, which it usually is. I always have my little touch-activated lamp in my room left on at the dimmest setting at night.

3. The person you would never want to meet?

Donald Trump.

4. What is your favorite word?

Drumonios. It’s an Ancient Greek epithet of Artemis, and it means “haunting the woods.” (hey, no one said English word)

5. If you were a type of tree, what would you be?

*in Monty Python voice* THE LARCH

No, but in all seriousness, I’d be a willow. So gentle and comforting, like the tree leaning over to hug you and give you shade.

6. When you looked in the mirror this morning what was the first thing you thought?

Yikes.

7. What shirt are you wearing?

A black shirt with images of moon phases that says “to the moon and back”

8. What do you label yourself as?

Is this a gender/sexual identity question??? Cuz if not I could label myself as anything. But genderwise I’m a cis female and orientation-wise I’m lesbian, biromantic, possibly somewhere on the ace spectrum?

9. Bright room or dark room?

Dark room. Or mostly dark. Dim with a yellowish lamp because I hate white lights.

10. What were you doing at midnight last night?

Talking to my gf on the phone.

11. Favorite age you’ve been so far?

tbh this year, 19. My anxiety’s been better than it ever was. I haven’t been actively suicidal at all this year. I’m just in a better place all around.

12. Who told you they loved you last?

Probably my mom?

13. Your worst enemy?

Myself

14. What is your current desktop picture?

15. Do you like someone?

Romantically? My girlfriend. In general? Everyone who hasn’t crossed me.

16. The last song you listened to?

Right now I’m listening to LA Devotee by Panic! At The Disco :)

17. You can press a button that will make any one person explode. Who would you blow up?

Donald Trump, while he’s in a cabinet meeting so it blows up everyone else there too

18. Who would you really like to just punch in the face?

Donald Trump or my ex

19. If anyone could be your slave for a day, who would it be and what would they have to do?

I don’t really want a slave? Kinda against the whole idea? But ig Thomas Jefferson bc he needs to know what it feels like (Hamilton pettiness coming out oops)

20. What is your best physical attribute? (showing said attribute is optional)

My eyes! Idk if I have a picture that shows them really well? But you can check my selfies tag. They’re deep hazel green with gold flecks.

21. If you were the opposite sex for one day, what would you look like and what would you do?

I would look like historical Alexander Hamilton and I would hang out in history museums freaking people out.

22. Do you have a secret talent? If yes, what is it?

Wouldn’t be a secret if I told you. ;) But seriously, I’m not very private about my talents because I’m proud of them. I write, read, make up codes, solve puzzles, sing, do calligraphy. Sometimes my eyeshadow looks decent.

23. What is one unique thing you’re afraid of?

Most of the unique things are PTSD triggers. The rest of my fears are just normal.

24. You can only have one kind of sandwich. Every sandwich ingredient known to humankind is at your disposal.

Grilled mac and cheese sandwich.

25. You just found $100! How are you going to spend it?

Put it towards saving up for a Switch so I can get the new Pokemon game when it comes out this fall.

26. You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere in the world, but you have to leave immediately. Where are you going to go?

The British Isles, where I will do historical tours and live in the Highlands for a year.

27. An angel appears out of Heaven and offers you a lifetime supply of the alcoholic beverage of your choice. “Be brand-specific” it says. Man! What are you gonna say about that? Even if you don’t drink booze there’s something you can figure out… so what’s it gonna be?

I don’t drink, I’m pretty against it in part because my uncle’s a recovering alcoholic, but I’d say strawberry daquiris? Idk brands, man.

28. You discover a beautiful island upon which you may build your own society. You make the rules. What is the first rule you put into place?

Socialism and if you’re gonna mess up the process and turn it into communism then you’re off the island.

29. What is your favorite expletive?

Fuckweasel. Thanks, Raven Cycle.

30. Your house is on fire, holy shit! You have just enough time to run in there and grab ONE inanimate object. Don’t worry, your loved ones and pets have already made it out safely. So what’s the one thing you’re going to save from that blazing inferno?

My phone I guess?

31. You can erase any horrible experience from your past. What will it be?

Nothing. As much as I hate what I’ve been through (assault by my ex, manipulation by my dad) it’s taught me so much strength and made me who I am. I know red flags. I came out of my shell. I know how to say no, how to cut out toxic family.

32. You got kicked out of the country for being a time-traveling heathen who sleeps with celebrities and has super-powers. But check out this cool shit… you can move to anywhere else in the world!

Scotland.

33. The Celestial Gates Of Beyond have opened, much to your surprise because you didn’t think such a thing existed. Death appears. As it turns out, Death is actually a pretty cool entity, and happens to be in a fantastic mood. Death offers to return the friend/family-member/person/etc. of your choice to the living world. Who will you bring back?

FDR. We have a polio vaccine and he was my favorite president.

34. What was your last dream about?

I was doing a crossword puzzle but, like, it never ended. And the clues kept changing every time I started to write the answer. It sucked.

35. Are you a good….[insert anything you’d like here]?

Nothing was inserted haha so yes. I am a good.

36. Have you ever been admitted to the hospital?

Twice. Once as a baby for my open heart surgery, and once when I was 4 for severe dehydration from the flu.

37. Have you ever built a snowman?

Yes but it’s been like 13 years.

38. What is the color of your socks?

Light blue and white stripes.

39. What type of music do you like?

Pop, rock, folk, Celtic, classical, old country, like, Woodie Guthrie, and some new country like Kelsea Ballerini.

40. Do you prefer sunrises or sunsets?

SUNSETS

41. What is your favorite milkshake flavor?

Cherry!

42. What football team do you support? (I will answer in terms of American football as well as soccer)

Um, I guess the OSU Buckeyes cuz that’s where I live and I hate pro football.

43. Do you have any scars?

I have a huge scar down my chest from my heart surgery, a few self harm scars left, and quite a few from old cat scratches. Also my left knee is covered with scars from being a clumsy child. And I have small birthmarks which correlate to past life injuries which is fun

44. What do you want to be when you graduate?

A librarian/history or English teacher

45. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

My weight.

46. Are you reliable?

Sometimes I flake on plans bc of mental illness, but yes. I am a strong shoulder to lean on, and I will always be there for you.

47. If you could ask your future self one question, what would it be?

Am I trying for the right things?

48. Do you hold grudges?

Not consciously. But there are certain things I haven’t been able to forgive just yet.

49. If you could breed two animals together to defy the laws of nature, what new animal would you create?

Sloth dragon. Sloth with little back scales and wings who flies very slowly and breathes fire when threatened.

50. What is the most unusual conversation you’ve ever had?

My mom and I have the funniest conversations. I couldn’t pick one. Every day between us is just hysterical.

51. Are you a good liar?

Yes. But I don’t lie anymore except when I have to.

52. How long could you go without talking?

Probably forever as long as I could write or text.

53. What has been you worst haircut/style?

When I was 9 I decided to get a shoulder length bob. My hair did not approve. Constant white-fro. I don’t have a picture of it full glory, but this is after having it styled, at age 11, as flat as it would go.

54. Have you ever baked your own cake?

Noooo I suck at baking. I’ve made cookies though.

55. Can you do any accents other than your own?

British, I guess? I do a good Hermione.

56. What do you like on your toast?

Butter lmao I’m classic

57. What is the last thing you drew a picture of?

Uhhh I sketched a flower on my church bulletin last week? Nothing fancy. I don’t draw.

58. What would be you dream car?

‘67 Impala baby.

59. Do you sing in the shower? Or do anything unusual in the shower? Explain.

I, uh give political speeches to the showerhead? It’s the Hamilton mood.

60. Do you believe in aliens?

I definitely believe we can’t live in a universe infinitely big all by ourselves.

61. Do you often read your horoscope?

I don’t read my actual horoscope, but I look at those zodiac posts a lot, and I know my full birth chart.

62. What is your favorite letter of the alphabet?

A and S.

63. Which is cooler: dinosaurs or dragons?

Both. Dinsoaurs could have been dragons, we don’t know.

64. What do you think about babies?

They’re okay til they cry or poop or throw up lmao.

Thanks bb!

[literaryspinster]

Forever Yours, Iris West

For those of you faithfully following Heart In A Cage, I have not forgotten that story and will have an update soon. 

Chapter 3: The First Day Of School

On the first day of senior year, I put on my new green sweater and tweed mini skirt, and I braid my long black hair to the side so it hangs over my shoulder, This is my last first day of school before college, so I need to make it a good one, whether Scott keeps ghosting me or not. I can understand Scott avoiding Linda the last three weeks of summer, but me? I wasn’t the one who broke up with him, yet he hasn’t answered my texts with anything more than vague, one word responses. And of course it’s at the back of my mind that we’re co editors of the student newspaper together, but I’ve never had a problem separating the personal from the professional when it comes to Scott. 

When we’re in the newsroom together our number one focus is always getting the next big scoop.This will be fine, I may not have Linda, I may not even have Scott, but at least I can’t call myself friendless. Me and Cynthia have three classes together this year. Cynthia is Felicity’s cousin through marriage, although I’m not sure who in their families is married to whom.  She said she’d meet me out front so we could walk in together, just in case Felicity tries to corner me again. 

She’s been doing that ever since she started going out with Barry Allen, and I still don’t really get why. I haven’t had those feelings for Barry in years. I’m not even sure why I ever did in the first place except for maybe the fact that he has pretty eyes, and is smarter than most guys at school. But he’s still goofy, and never really says the right thing and is completely oblivious to the fact that Felicity and I aren’t friends until I have to remind him for the 300th time.

Me and Wally pile into the car so I can drive him to his school before I drive myself to mine. It’s Linda’s car, she asked me to take care of it while she’s gone because that’s just the kind of damn good friend she is. I’m reminded of just how much I’m going to miss her yet again as I turn the key in the ignition and hear it roar to life.

“So, do you think Linda’s going to visit for Christmas?” Wally asks faux-casually as we pull out of the driveway and start down the street, the stereo playing some punk band he loves. 

“Oh my God,” I roll my eyes and smile at him. “You aren’t even subtle Wally, you know she’s too old for you right?”

“She’s only six years older, Priyanka Chopra is ten years older than Nick Jonas.”

“Since when are you so into celeb couples?” I ask, and he stays quiet. “Please don’t tell me you Googled that so you could find out if you and Linda have a chance.”

“No,” he says unconvincingly, and I shake my head as he turns up the music.

We pull up to the front of his school, and there is a girl with sandy brown hair and blue eyes standing facing the street while a horde of overexcited tweens rush around behind her. She waves as I pull up and Wally waves back. 

“Who’s that,” I ask, trying not to tease. I’ve gotten enough sisterly teasing out of my system for the morning, although I’m still curious.

“Oh, that’s Jesse,” he says. “She’s just a friend,” he adds quickly as if he’s reading my mind. 

“Have a good first day all right sis, try to meet some people.”

“I have to say I’m feeling a little dragged over here, shouldn’t I be telling you that?”

He smiles and gives me a little goodbye wave. He’s such a twerp, but I wave back.

“I love you,” I say.

“love you, too,” He says before walking off with Jesse. And I’ve always liked that about Wally, no matter how much of a brat he can be sometimes, he’s never embarrassed to say it back. 

I get to school half an hour early. Although I start to wish I would have stopped for coffee first when I realize how packed the front lawn is with students, hugging each other hello after their summers apart, telling vacation stories back and forth, flipping through Instagram photos.

Was it always like this before Linda left?

I start making my way through to the double doors in front. I don’t keep my head down, it isn’t my style, but I hope no one tries to accost me for a summer break recap that I couldn’t possibly make interesting for them. I spent most of it either hanging out with my baby brother or another couple. Deep down I know how sad that is, that Wally’s right and I need to meet people. And I used to love having lots of friends, places to go on Saturdays, but then… 

I don’t know, being little miss social butterfly again feels besides the point. Popularity just isn’t as important as anyone thinks it is. It can’t make you happy when you’re already so sad.

Speak of the Devil, I stop short when I see her there, in front of the double doors like she was planning this. She looks great as usual, her perfectly tousled blonde hair down from its signature ponytail, her horn rimmed glasses sitting on her nose like they’re meant to make her look more approachable, but are doing about as good a job as they did on Rachel Leigh Cook in She’s All That. Jesus Christ I should have went through the back. 

I turn on one heel and try to redirect before she sees me.

“Iris, hey!” she says, and I squeeze my eyes shut and curse under my breath at her fake-cheery voice. She saw me. 

I turn back around and fake a smile, feeling a bit like a hypocrite.“Felicity,” I walk up to her like I have weights in my shoes. “How was your summer?”

“Awesome,” She says, nearly exploding like she’s been holding her breath until she could tell me. “Coding camp in Tokyo was wonderful. You so should have come. I mean I know coding’s not really your thing.”

“It’s not not my thing, just kind of focused on journalism right now.”

“That’s great, and it’s so cool that you’re into old fashioned things but do you really think a newspaper reporter is a solid career path?”

“Gee, I don’t know Felicity, maybe I’ll call you from my cardboard box in ten years and let you know,” 

I start for the entry bar, but I’m told to stop by the only voice I want to hear as little as Felicity’s”

“Iris, Felicity, what’s up?” Barry says cheerfully. He always says my name first when I’m standing next to Felicity and I don’t get why. He’s so weird in every possible way and I wish Cynthia would come rescue me. already.

Barry slinks his arm around Felicity and gives me a friendly nod. “How was your summer?”

The dreaded question, I reply with a simple, noncommittal, “cool”My hand is still on the entry bar of the door.

“Just cool, no details?” Barry says.

“Nope, not a one.”

“There probably just aren’t a lot of summer internship programs or camps for journalism anymore,” Felicity says in such a way that Barry can’t detect how bitchy she’s being. Not like he’d defend me anyway, and honestly, why should he? I’m not his girl.

“That’s ridiculous,” Barry says, like he means it. “I mean, I read your articles all the time there’s no way there’s not something out there for you.”

Why does he always insist on complimenting me in front of her? He must know that it pisses her off, unless he really is that dense. I guess book smarts and emotional intelligence are two entirely different things. But I see the way her face changes, how her eyes narrow a bit. She reaches up to play with the collar of his button-down.

“By the way Iris, I’m really sorry you didn’t get an invite to my laser tag party. If I had known you wanted to go I’m sure I could moved some things around and squeezed you in,” Felicity says.

Goddamnit Barry, I think to myself, of course he told her about our asinine conversation the other day. And right now I’m finding it hard to pick who I want to strangle more.

“I never said I wanted to go, I was busy that day anyway.”

“That’s what I told her,” he says, looking a bit embarrassed. “That’s what I told you,” he quickly repeats over to her.

Felicity shrugs, “Heh, must have misheard. In any case it was a blast.”

I finally push the entry bar, ready to make my escape, when finally, by some annoyingly belated miracle, Cynthia shows up.

“What up uglies?” she says, nodding at them as she hangs an arm around me. 

“Hey cuz,” She says to Felicity. “Good to see you’re feeling better after that bug you caught in Tokyo.”

“Bug?” I say, finally curious about the summer vacation Felicity’s been desperate to lord over me.

“Yeah, didn’t your mom tell my mom that you were basically catatonic with plane flu the entire first week and you had to be separated from the other kids and you never got to finish your app or something?” Cynthia continues.

“No, that- none of that happened, I mean it didn’t happen like that,” Felicity babbles anxiously. It must have happened exactly like that, and I feel suddenly redeemed. Thank you Queen Cynthia.

“Hmm,” Cynthia shrugs, “Must have misheard, anywho, catch ya later.”

She hooks arms with me and we finally slam through the door.

“Not a moment too soon,” I say.

“Ignore her, she’s just pissy because you look amazing. I bet she was hoping you’d show up to the first day with a massive zit or a bad haircut or the herps or something.”

“You have a very odd way of lifting my spirits Cynthia.”

“I do my best.”

I nudge her playfully, feeling better. Maybe I don’t have loads of friends, but it’s nice to have one awesome one, even if I had to survive my ill-fated friendship with Felicity to get it. 

The day goes by glacially. It’s still at the back of my mind that it’s the first day of school, but it feels just like any other day, like the work is too easy and the folks in the halls are too gossipy and everything sucks and I want to go home. By the time last period rolls around, I’m relieved, not only because it’s nearing the end of the day, but because my last period is journalism. The student newspaper is my ultimate safe space, even with things being uncomfortable with Scott. 

As always he’s the first one in class, already jotting down something in a notepad. I sit at the same table to show that we’re still cool, but still two chairs away to give him his space.I take out my notebook too, even though I can’t think of any notes to write down when we haven’t even been assigned our beats for the semester. 

I look over at him, and realize he’s looking at me too.“Hey there,” I say with an uncertain voice.

“Hey yourself.” he says back. It’s quiet and nearly awkward as we both think of what to say next. He wore that checkered shirt today, with the sleeves rolled up, and I really hope one day I can look at him without picturing him laying me down on this table. I’d never go there, I’d never do that to Linda, but I can’t always help where my imagination wanders, even when I’m mad at him.

“Look,” he says before I can slip too far into my mind. “I’m sorry I’ve been distant, it’s just, the whole Linda thing and—

“Its okay, really,” I say, and I realize that it is. Maybe it’s just the thrill of being in journalism again, the smell of pulp and toner cartridges and red pens. But I’m finding it hard to stay mad at Scott, even as he still looks like he’s not sure what’s next

 “Really?”

“Yeah, it’s fine.”

Before I can say anything else, the rest of the students and Mr. Bridge start to pour in. I give Scott one last smile before turning my attention to the front of the room. I can tell there’s still tension in the air, and maybe Scott can too, because next thing he leans over to whisper.

“I missed you,” he says, and I whisper that I missed him too.

 The first day of student newspaper is always a little bit uneventful. Nothing has happened yet so there aren’t any scoops to tackle. Mostly we just get reaquainted with each other and get to know the newbies, pitch potential story ideas, and anxiously await our beat assignments.

Scott’s beat this year is the art and drama departments, not his first choice, but one he’ll happily sink his teeth into. My beat is the math and science departments, because of course it is. Mr. Bridge says that I’m too good a writer to not ever leave my comfort zone, and that important things were happening in those departments this year. But all I can imagine is having to cover Felicity’s stupid IT club. 

And I realize I’m thinking about her again when I really don’t want to be. Why does she have to be such a bitch to me all of the time? She wasn’t always. She was a good friend once, and I know that good friend is still in there somewhere. 

I head out to Linda’s loaner car, thinking that aside from gently starting to get things back to normal with Scott, this is already looking to be the quite the sub standard school year. And when I hear that too familiar voice again behind me, that feeling is instantly multiplied.

“Iris, hey Iris,” Barry calls, and I turn to face him but grab for my keys at the same time.

“I really don’t have a lot of time Barry, I have to pick up my brother.”

“I promise I’ll be quick.” He stops in front of me and I decide to hear him out. But he just stands there, looking at me.

“Well, what?” I say, breaking the pause.

“I just wanted to apologize for this morning. I guess I didn’t realize it in the moment but Felicity was being sort of not cool back there, and I just, I’m sorry. I’ll talk to her, I promise.”

“Please don’t” I say, knitting my brow in frustration. “You talking to your girlfriend about me is exactly the problem.”

“I wasn’t talking about you. You just came up and then the party came up. I didn’t know it was going to be a whole thing.”

“It’s not a whole thing. But is it really so much to ask that you two leave me alone? I mean, Felicity obviously has some issue with me, and maybe it’s not exactly one-sided but I think it would be easier for everyone if you’d just, you know, lay off.”

He sighs, and rubs his forehead before looking at me again. “That’s fair,” he says. “And I really am sorry, again. It’s just—

“What? It’s just what?”

“Nothing, nevermind. Okay, we’ll lay off. Promise.”

“Good.”

“Okay.”

There’s another long pause before I walk around to the driver’s side of my car and duck in. By the time I drive off he’s still standing there, like the conversation isn’t over.

Next Up: Chapter 4, The Sad Girl

[damijon-supersons]

Damijon Week Day 1:Slice of life? Very poor choice of words… - A DamiJon Fic

Notes:

Heyo! So DamiJon week is here and here’s my meager contribution. So this is gonna be an entire week and imma do my best to write for every day...cuz this fic right here is the first chapter of  a series I’m making that follows the prompts for each day of the week. This one is the middleschool au prompt (er, not so au anymore cuz the comics are doing it, but in my version, Damian and Jon are classmates :p) and I’ll continue this with the next prompts and days as much as I can. So yeah, I hope you guys like it, and help support the week by submitting and tagging content! ( Jondamiweek2018, or Damijonweek2018)

Part 2  Part 3 Part 4

 “Mr. Wayne,” Mr Tomas called out firmly. His tone wasn’t overly pissed as all hell, but it was definitely in the range of ‘you-are-in such-deep-trouble’.

Jon winced as he glanced back two rows to his left. Although it wasn’t his name that was getting called out for a grade-A chewing-out, he couldn’t help but cringe as he watched Damian stand defiantly, meeting the teacher’s glare with a steely look of his own.

“What have I told you about giving unsolicited comments to your classmates?” the elderly man snapped.

“That you discourage my efforts to take over your job,” Damian quipped coolly.

Jon could see a vein throbbing on the side of Mr. Tomas’ head. The young Kent buried his face in his hands as he felt what can only be explained as shame on behalf of his friend.

“I said,” the teacher declared with an even louder voice, “that you leave the teaching to me. Your preferred method of teaching doesn’t conform to our school’s…standards of decency.”

“I was under the impression that I was doing Gino a favor by correcting his mistake with a succinct explanation,” Damian countered smoothly. There was no doubt that he could match the older man’s stiff formality, albeit with a hint of insolence.

“You wrote on his test paper,” Mr. Tomas raised the sheet in front of him and adjusted his glasses, “only an idiot would confuse Steinbeck’s symbolism for the pearl as anything other than greed and avarice. How stupid can you be?”  He looked daggers at Damian, who merely shrugged in reply.

“I’m not wrong,” Damian insisted.

“Mr. Wayne,” Mr. Tomas sighed deeply and heavily as if he was regretting his choices in life, “I’ll need to have a word with your father for this…”

“And I wish you the best of luck with that…sir.” Damian added the epithet as a lazy afterthought. “My father is very busy with his work and if you can grab his attention with something as trivial as this, you deserve a medal.”

Mr. Tomas gritted his teeth. Jon knew that his teacher was just itching to give Damian a harsher punishment, but couldn’t because Damian was the son of the school’s largest donor and honorary chairman, Bruce Wayne.

Damian sat back down with a satisfied look on his face. If Damian were anyone else, the class might have laughed appreciatively. But Jon could see how the other boys and girls either glared at Damian or inched away from him. It was almost like Damian was surrounded by an invisible force field of suck.

***

Jon had been extremely excited when he’d found out that he and Damian were going to the same school. He’d fantasized about being locker buddies with Damian, eating lunch with him, doing homework, doing phys ed…everything, really. It was like Jon’s best dream come true. Everything was going to be fun, amazing, and infinitely awesome. But whatever giddiness he’d had back then had been replaced by a dull painful ache inside his stomach, one that would tug at his insides whenever Damian did…well…anything.

They’ve been enrolled at West-Reeve School for two weeks. Two Weeks. But for Jon, it felt like forever as he witnessed Damian’s not-so-simple adjustment period.

On the first day, Damian had been late, and someone had already taken the seat Jon that had saved for him. He’d been looking forward to being seatmates with Damian, too… When he’d asked Damian what the reason was for his tardiness, Damian had said that he’d gone out on patrol and ‘enjoyed’ himself before he was ‘shackled down to the education system’.

On the second day, they were grouped up in social studies to present in class. Damian had loudly protested that he should have been the leader of their group, because he was smarter than any of his groupmates. He had been voted out of the group, and the teacher had let him do the presentation alone. He’d still gotten the highest marks.

On the fourth day, some would-be bullies—some 8th graders—started to put the moves on Damian. It was nothing serious, really. They’d just started crowding around Damian and kind of coerced him to strike a conversation with them, because he was the ‘famous secret son of Bruce Wayne’. Then they’d made unflattering remarks about the fact that Damian’s mom had never been publicly identified. They’d left Damian after that, but the next day, the student body was abuzz about three 8th grade boys who’d had to be rushed to the hospital for broken limbs.

Three days ago, during an experiment in science, Damian had…almost assaulted their classmate Ben Percy. Damian had thrown a metal stirrer at the beaker Ben had been holding, shattering it, and staining Ben’s clothes with its contents. Damian had argued that Ben was about to ‘stupidly’ inhale the acrid vapor coming from the concoction like ‘an idiot’, which could have corroded his nostrils, so he’d taken action. Damian had narrowly avoided trouble because Ben hadn’t denied it, but he also argued that Damian could have used less violent methods.

Jon couldn’t do anything but wring his hands in exasperation, as Damian failed to realize that most middle-schoolers couldn’t throw objects with deadly accuracy like say, a batarang. That, and Damian’s little stunt was definitely in the list of ‘things that will make it obvious we’re actually superheroes’, which included, among other things, using their powers—Jon’s powers, mostly—for anything while in school.

He’d talked to Damian about that during one lunch period, but Damian had given him his usual stubborn replies. Today, he tried again.

“Damian,” Jon began as he bit into his sandwich and swallowed, “could you at least try to not be a jerk to the other kids?”

“Not my fault if they’re too slow to keep up with me,” Damian grunted in-between sips of orange juice. “Besides, I don’t see why they should have an issue with my attitude…I mean, you can take it.”

The pair sat on the school’s roof deck with their backs pressed against the wall of a maintenance closet. Ever since day one, Damian had refused point-blank to eat at the cafeteria with the other kids. This is how Jon found himself up the roof with Damian, eating their lunch, even though no one was allowed there. Damian had assured him that nothing will happen to them, because his dad practically owned the school—which wasn’t wrong.

“Damian,” Jon sighed wearily. “I’m used to you. We’re friends and we’ve known each other for a long time now. Our classmates didn’t have that time. You gotta be a little patient with them...just…play ball, y’know? How can you be a student in school if you make all the students in the school hate you?”

“I’ve infiltrated a school before…” Damian grumbled.

“You’re not pretending to be a student, dummy!” Jon chided. “You are one! This is real! We’re students! And you really should try better to be one…”

Damian stood up with a frustrated look. “You can’t imagine how irritated I am with all of this!” Damian snapped at him. Jon dropped his sandwich in surprise.

“When I was a toddler I was already taught resourcefulness and independence, to get what I need by myself. Under my father, he taught me the same, but also ingenuity, and not a small measure of willpower! Now, these…children,” Damian spat the last word out. “They expect their hands to be held at every turn. And they’re praised for it! Even you consent to it!”

Jon knew Damian wasn’t really angry at him. Damian directed his fury to the sky, the floor, and the horizon, as if he blamed the whole world for its shortcomings. Damian wanted Jon there to listen…and that’s exactly what he knew Damian needed.

“Damian…” Jon stood up beside Damian and joined him in staring at the landscape below them. They could see the school parking lot and the main road leading back to downtown Metropolis. Students milled around the grounds and some of the younger kids ran around chasing each other.

“You know, the whole point of school is to hold hands…” Jon began. He grabbed Damian’s hand until their fingers intertwined, and then raised it in front of them.

“W—what are you on about?” Damian asked. If Jon hadn’t known any better, he could’ve sworn that Damian gulped.

“Sure, school teaches us…stuff…” Jon said with a cheerful tone. “But even you’d say that all the things they teach us in class are stuff you can look up online—or read in books,” Jon hastily added after seeing Damian’s disapproving look.

“But the whole point of being in a place with all these other kids learning the same things is that, you also get to see and learn stuff books will never tell you.”

“And pray tell, what are those?” Damian scoffed, his hand still clasped in Jon’s and growing warmer.

“It’s hard to explain…” Jon mused as he stuck his tongue out in thought. “But it’s a lot like our hands, see? We both have the same hands, but when we put them together…”

“We have two hands. Amazing,” Damian said flatly.

“No, dummy!” Jon insisted, shaking their combined hands emphatically. “It’s bigger together, is my point! Learning together with others is better than learning alone because you get a lot more learning done by seeing how everyone else gets it.”

“What…?” Damian asked, completely confused.

Jon stuck his tongue out again. “You get to see how what you learn is important to other people by how they learn it. Like say, Pete? His family has a farm like we used to before, so when we learned about proteins and stuff in science the other day, remember he said that they grow crops with that? Now with Gene, he’s in the track and field team, so he could be interested in that because remember, they gotta have a diet in the team.”

“Okay…?” Damian replied slowly.

“Damian…what’s the point of knowing a lot of things?” Jon asked patiently

“Knowledge is power…an advantage over your enemies,” Damian said confidently.

“No…knowledge isn’t just a sword you swing at bad guys Damian…the things you learn only matter if you know how they matter to other people. And if you know what matters to other people, only then can you help them,” Jon finished and then looked straight into Damian’s eyes.

Damian tried to hold his gaze, but something in his eyes—and frankly his gut—made him feel awkward and he chose to stare at the floor instead.

“You sound like your dad,” Damian said simply.

“It took me a while to understand that when he talked to me, to be honest,” Jon said with a grin. “I asked him why I still have to go to school when he’s Superman and I’m Superboy anyway. So he gave me this whole lecture, and I just gave it to you.”

“So…” Damian started to say, “when you study, you try to see how it’ll be useful when it comes to helping people?”

“I guess…?” Jon replied, wondering where this was leading.

“Did you study me?” Damian asked in a small voice. “Is this what you’ve learned? How to help me? Because I’ll have you know that I don’t—!”

Jon gripped Damian’s hand tighter and placed it on his chest. It promptly shut Damian up.

“You’re my friend, Damian,” Jon said with a fond smile. “You can’t stop me from wanting to help you. And I always will even if you think you don’t need it.”

“Is holding my hand really part of helping me?” Damian said finally.

“Did it help?” Jon asked.

“Yeah…it did.”

[waitingfortherightpartner]

Secret Santa

A/N: AGH so obviously haven’t been writing cuz I’ve been hella busy and then I freaked out because it’s almost Christmas and this is literally my favorite holiday, so I wrote a ton on the plane...Based this on a prompt from this list.  Hopefully will manage to write a few more before the day rolls around.

Tagging: @pleasecallmecaptain​ @mattymattymerduck​ @writingbarnes​ @kissofvenom922​ @b-orderline​ @shamvictoria11​ @callingmrsbarnes​ @barnes-and-noble-girl​ @coley0823​ @redstarstan​ @badassbaker​ @phoebe-21-blog​ @marvelgoateecollection​ @palaiasaurus64​ @melconnor2007​

-

“So who’d you get for Secret Santa?”

“No one,” Bucky replies, gripping the book in his hands a little tighter as he shifts his body away.

“Is it me?” Sam asks, sitting down right next to Bucky, ignoring the super soldier’s obvious annoyance.

“No,” Bucky says.

“Steve?”

“Go away, Wilson.”

“Oh.  Is it…”  Sam lets his voice trail off suggestively and Bucky tries to ignore the panic.

“Is it who?” he says, trying to keep his voice nonchalant.

“For someone who used to be a spy, you suck at lying,” Sam chuckles.

“Wasn’t a spy,” Bucky retorts.  “Just an assassin.  I killed people.  No lying required.”

“I think that’s supposed to be a threat,” Sam grins.  “So what are you going to get her?”

“Who?” Bucky asks, although he can feel the heat creeping up the back of his neck.

“A pillow with your face on it that says ‘I Love You?’” Sam teases.  “A hundred red roses?”  

“All terrible ideas,” Bucky grumbles.  “I already ordered it.”  Sam’s eyes widen with delight.

“Ordered it?” Sam asks.  “And what is it, exactly?”

“You can find out when she finds out,” Bucky retorts.  

“Are you guys discussing Secret Santa?” you grin as you stroll into the living room.  Bucky’s lips twist up into a smile, but he keeps his gaze on the words in his book.  “Who’d you get, Sam?”

“Robocop over here,” he answers and you bite back a laugh.

“Perfect,” Bucky says, rolling his eyes.

“Sam, you weren’t supposed to tell anyone who you got,” you scold lightly, sitting next to Bucky on the couch.  You tap his arms lightly and he lifts them up so you can slide your legs across his lap.  “Specifically not the person who you got.  Watch.  Bucky, who did you get for Secret Santa?”

“What’s Secret Santa?” he deadpans.

“See?” you say, gesturing exaggeratedly to Bucky.  “Perfect.”  Sam raises an eyebrow and you narrow your eyes, giving him a death glare.  

“Sorry I can’t compare to McDreamy McPerfectpants,” Sam teases and you roll your eyes.

“I mean, your words, not mine,” you say.  “Now get out of here, we’re gonna watch Game of Thrones and you’re not caught up to us.”

“Don’t you dare spoil anything for me,” Sam says.  “I swear, if something happens to my girl Dany…”

“If you keep annoying me…” you trail off threateningly and Sam bolts out of the room.

“Wow, if I had known it was that easy to get rid of Sam, I would’ve done that ages ago,” Bucky says and you grin.

“People like to be surprised,” you shrug.  “You ready, McDreamy McPerfectpants?”

-

“All right, everyone,” Tony says.  “Secret Santa gifts under the tree.”

“Oh shit, was that today?” Clint says.  Nat punches Clint in the arm.

“Yes, Clint,” you reply drily.  “The Secret Santa exchange was today, during our Christmas party.  Obviously.”

“Right,” Clint asks.  “How much were we supposed to spend?”

“Up to $50,” Steve replies and Clint grumbles something to himself about being broke.  He dashes out of the room, returning with a small envelope that he sheepishly shoves among the others.

“Perfect,” Tony says, throwing a Santa hat on his hat and sifting through the pile.  “This one’s for you, Steve.”  Slowly but surely, Tony redistributes all of the presents to their rightful owners.  

“So how does this work?” Thor asks.

“Easy,” Tony says.  “Everyone opens it and then you have three guesses to try to figure out who gave it.”

“Interesting,” Thor says.  “Your Midgardian traditions are endlessly fascinating.”

“Noted,” Tony replies.  “All at the same time, on three.  One, two…”

Thor rips the paper off of a huge, human-sized teddy bear in one swift motion.  Tony looks at him witheringly and the Asgardian obliges with an apologetic look.

“Let’s rock and roll, people,” Tony sighs and the room comes alive with the sounds of wrapping paper ripping, the shuffling of tissue paper, and a combination of gasps and chuckles in reactions to the gifts.  

Steve pours over the art set you got him, examining the pencils and ink pens with a quiet joy that makes you smile.  You glance over to Bucky, who dumps out a box of $50 worth of magnets, as Sam dissolves into giggles on the ground.  

“What did you get, (Y/N)?” Wanda asks from beside you.

“Oh, whoops,” you laugh, reaching for the oddly heavy box in front of you.  “I wanted to see what everyone else got first.”  When you go to open your gift, the room falls silent and you realize all of the Avengers are watching you.  You carefully slip your finger under the tape, sliding it across to release the paper.

“Are you saving the paper?” Tony asks impatiently.  You roll your eyes at him and rip through a piece of the paper.

“You happy?” you retort.  “So impatie…”

You words trail off as you see the writing on the box and your eyes widen.

“It’s not,” you murmur to yourself, and suddenly you can’t unwrap it soon enough.  You open the box and pull out a brand new camera, the expensive one you’d been looking at for months online.  A collective murmur goes through the room.

“Well, someone clearly didn’t listen to that $50 limit,” Clint says.  You scan the room, trying to figure out who would buy you a multi-thousand dollar camera, but your mind draws a blank.

“Okay, the guessing,” Tony says.  “(Y/N), since you were the last to unwrap your present, why don’t you go first?”

“I have no idea,” you say.  

“Funny, I don’t think there’s anyone named that here today,” Tony says and you groan.

“Fine,” you say.  “Is it you?”

“Me?” Tony asks.  “Love you, darling, but I play by the rules.  At least for Secret Santa.”

“Shocker,” you tease.  “Um…Thor?”

“I did not purchase this item for you,” the god booms and you nod.

“I just though maybe you didn’t understand dollars,” you explain.

“I understand that this is many dollars,” Thor says and you nod.

“Well, you’re not wrong,” you say.  “Um…last guess.  Okay.  Steve?”

“Not me,” Steve says and you nod, retreating back into your thoughts as the guessing continues.  Although some people are able to get their gift-giver right, there’s several unaccounted for, leaving you to wonder.  As people start to trickle out, you head to the one person who knows exactly who got everyone what.

“Nat,” you say quietly, sitting down next to her on the couch.  “Who was it?”

“Sweetie, it’s so obvious,” Nat replies, shooting you a withering look.  “Don’t even have to be a Russian spy to figure it out.”

“But seeing as you are one, help me out on this one,” you ask and Nat sighs. “At least let me talk through it out loud?”

“If you must,” Nat says and you start.

“Okay, so it’s someone who went above the price limit,” you say.  “Like, way above the price limit.  So they have plenty of disposable money.”

“No, no, you’re reading it wrong,” Nat says.  “It’s not that they necessarily have cash to throw away.  It’s that they care so much about you that they’d want to get you something they know you’ve wanted for months, even if it’s crazy expensive and definitely not right for a Secret Santa gift.”

“Is it you?” you ask and Nat snorts.

“I love you, (Y/N), but I don’t love you that much,” Nat replies.  “Think.”

“I am thinking,” you whine.  “Can’t you just tell me?”

“It’s Barnes,” Clint blurts out from the other side of Nat.  You both whirl on him, you in shock and Nat in anger.  “What?  She was taking too long.”

“Bucky?” you ask in disbelief.  “Bucky got me the camera?”

“Obviously,” Nat says.  “Clint, we’re gonna have a talk later about you butting into my conversations.”

“Why would he do that?” you stammer.  “That’s…it’s…I should go talk to Bucky.”

“Yeah, I don’t know what you’re still doing here,” Nat says, and you hurry out of the room and to Bucky’s room, knocking before you even come up with a plan.

Bucky opens the door and his eyes immediately soften when he sees you.  

“Hey friend I was going to take a walk outside to test out my new camera,” you say.  “Do you want to come with?”

“I’d love to,” he says, immediately stepping out of the room.  You look at him and laugh.

“What, no jacket?” you grin.  “No shoes?  It’s kind of snowing.”

“Right,” Bucky says.  “Meet you outside?”

-

You’re standing outside, looking around and smiling like a dork.  You keep bringing the camera up to your eye, but you refuse to snap a picture.  You’re waiting.

“Got anything good yet?” you turn around to see Bucky walking towards you,  The lighting is perfect and you raise your camera quickly to capture the image.

“Now I have,” you grin, glancing at the screen.  You turn it around to show Bucky and his smile widens, the creases next to his eyes becoming even more pronounced.

“What else have you taken?” he asks.

“That’s it,” you say.  “I thought that the first picture I took should be of the person who got me the camera.”  Bucky’s eyes widen.

“Oh,” Bucky says.  “You found out.”

“I did,” you respond.  “Bucky, this is an incredible gift, but you shouldn’t-”

“Of course I should have,” he responds.  “You’re basically the glue of the Avengers, honestly, you love planning things for us to do and taking photos on your phone and you call yourself the mom friend, whatever that means, so I figured…I mean, you’ve been eyeing it for months.”

“And saving up,” you say.  “It’s a lot of money.”  He shrugs, eyes glued to the ground.  You shake your head and grab his scarf, pulling his face down so that you can plant a quick kiss on his cheek.  “Thank you.”

Bucky smiles and lightning quick, you grab your camera and snap a few more pictures.

“What are you doing?” Bucky laughs.  “Take a picture of something nice.”

“I am, McDreamy McPerfectpants,” you tease, looking through the photos yourself.  As you look at them, you feel your heart leap into your throat as you recognize something in Bucky’s eyes as he looks into the camera.  As he looks at you.  Bucky comes up behind you and you can feel his breath on the back of your neck.

“What’re you looking at?” he asks quietly, and you turn so that you’re facing him, your faces inches apart.

“Can I kiss you?” you ask softly.  Bucky’s eyes widen and for a split-second, you panic and think you’ve read everything wrong, but then he nods gently, almost imperceptibly.

You lean forwards and catch Bucky’s lips with your own, his lips impossibly warm against your own.  You can feel his lips turn up into a smile and you can’t help but smile yourself.  

“As much as I would love to keep doing this,” you whisper against his lips.  “I do want to take some more photos.”

“Anything you want,” he replies, threading his fingers through your own.  “As long as I’m with you.”