#dude was having a breakdown when he realized they can’t go back

[opennwindows]

HIII!!! Can you do masky as a father figure to emo/scene kid teens headcanons <33

A/N: OMG as i’m posting this i kinda realized i read the ask slightly wrong and wrote it as Dad!Masky with a emo/scene child and got carried away *sobs* but if this doesn’t hit the particular spot u need it to, i’ll totally rewrite it just for you!! just lmk and i’ll type away ( ◠‿◠ ) but i brought out my boy Suburban Dad Tim for this one.

Dad!Masky/Tim with a Emo/Scene kid hcs!

- tim’s a bit confused, but he’s got the spirit!!

- when he was in his teens he was around a bunch of trad-goth and punk friend groups, so he totally understands the importance of the alt community. i mean, dude was neck deep in mental trauma so he def wasn’t hanging out with the cheerleaders lol

“so i know this isn’t bring me the chemical romance or whatever, but this t-shirt is mine from highschool and i want you to have it. they’re called the cure-“

“dad i know who the cure is.”

“ohhh well aren’t you so dark and brooding.”

- will 110% pay for your hair dye and is always amazed with whatever styles you come up with.

- he can be quite sassy with his opinions though lol

“look, i’m just saying last time you did the blue roots with black hair it didn’t look like gerard way. it looked like gerard do not enter.”

“dad??????? what the hell”

- he’ll go to concerts with you pretending he’s just there to protect from a distance, but you both know he’s “secretly” vibing to the music. a true emo dad at heart.

- definitely will take vids to spam brian with.

- cannot understand scene genres like crunkcore to save his life though.

“why the fuck are they screaming over techno beats?????? put back on that pierce the veil band i like.”

- might have a mental breakdown when you ask him to take you to go get your first piercing though.

“YOU WANT A NEEDLE???? SHOVED THROUGH YOUR TONGUE???? slow down buddy, why don’t we start with a uhhh nostril or something.”

- he just wants to make sure that you can properly take care of it……. and he hates the thought of his little rockstar having to sit though any pain regardless of how small it is. will absolutely make fun of you if you cry after it though.

“haha you cried like a baby.”

“i got my septum pierced, it was a natural reaction”

“*already has brian on speaker phone* yeah dude they sobbed like a fucking LOSERRRR”

- you better pray no one dares to bully you at school, because masky and hoodie will be planning on scaring the compulsive normativity out of their boring teenage brains.

“dad why is brian by jacob’s car with a baseball bat?”

“don’t worry about it, he’s just gonna talk to him.”

“i’m literally watching him swing at the passenger side window-“

“it’s just a little chat, do you wanna go see a movie?”

- genuinely is invested in listening to all the emo band lore

“you can’t put the mcr poster next to your the used poster, why would you disrespect your wall like that?”

“i’m going to kidnap ryan ross and lock him in a studio myself if he doesn’t release some new music soon, i’m tired of hearing you cry about it every night.”

- tim knows how important it is to be fully accepted and loved for who you are growing up and he will fully embrace every part of it. he just really, truly loves you.

[wajjs]

I think the funniest things that could happen if Hal fucked Kyle and Wally are the ensuing mental breakdowns.

Wally is developing catholic guilt in a non-catholic way about it and it doesn’t stop him per se, but it drives him nuts.

I could see Kyle using Roy as like a way to confess because there’s no way he’s telling any sane person, but he also can’t tell Guy because that’d be a whole thing. I feel like Roy would be the type of friend to get dragged into this type of shit all the time.

Hal would not spend a second dwelling on any of this. He would not unpack or try to process anything about it until months after. He is deeply unwell and about to get drunk and burst and about to unload it all on some poor random bartender.

Wally is going crazy. Which is not a rare thing, but it is a thing nonetheless, and it is happening to him, to Wally, which in turn affects Kyle, and Kyle does not like that. He does not like that one bit.

Wally is going crazy. He's vibrating through the walls faster than he can eat to replenish his energy. Well. Almost faster. Even in the midst of a crisis Wally doesn't forget to keep up with his needed calory intake.

Kyle drums his trimmed fingernails over his phone screen, waiting for Roy to answer to his text. Of course Roy takes three to seven business day to reply. Of course. Typical Roy, to always be busy with his own things to get back to them when they are having a crisis the size and shape of one Hal Jordan who casually sneaked out the window when no one was looking.

"It's just," Wally starts with the exact same phrase he's used to start his previous ten sentences. "He's my uncle!"

Kyle's right eyebrow twitches. "So?"

"I fucked my uncle!"

"He's not really—" his phone buzzes. Kyle lifts his index finger, ordering Wally to wait, which of course makes Wally irate, because as Kyle checks the notification to see it's spam, Wally is also snatching Kyle's phone and throwing it on the messy covers all bundled up at the end of the bed. "Hey!"

"I fucked my uncle, Kyle!" Wally screams at him, and it is also when Kyle realizes it's kind of funny that they're still naked with Hal's jizz cooling up their asses. "I fucked a guy!"

"Well, that's an improvement from uncle." Kyle leans back until he's back to laying down on the bed. "So you fucked a dude. What's the big deal? We fuck all the time."

Turning around, Wally starts the process of looking for his clothes. "You don't count."

"I don't count," Kyle nods first, thinks the words through after. "HEY. What do you mean, I don't count?!"

"You're just some idiot!" He's got his pants on and his underwear in his hands. Kyle glares at him, sitting back up again, and throws a drooled on pillow at his face. "Hal is! Hal is... he's Hal."

Kyle huffs, rolling his eyes as he does. "Big deal. He left us without even a wet towel to clean ourselves with. I'm still here, aren't I?"

"You were just texting Roy. I saw."

"Yeah, but I'm here. Hal isn't."

"I wouldn't stay here with you either."

That's it. Kyle jumps at Wally, hands aimed at his throat, and they both fall to the ground with one loud and painful thump!

[galahadwilder]

Marry Me AU

Look, I liked the webcomic way back when, but I loved the movie. It’s been rent-free in my head all day. Sue me.

*

Marinette is a chronically single up-and-coming designer who had an extra ticket to fashion week after Alya had to back out. She’s not a particular fan of Gabriel designs, and she knows very little about his son except that he’s the guy from the perfume ads and he’s friends with the girl who used to bully her in middle school. Her school friend Wayhem, however, is obsessed with Adrien, and when he found out she had a spare ticket and nobody to go with (Zoe already has a ticket and will be meeting her there) he begs her to let him come and also to go to the Gabriel show with him.

Adrien Agreste is a full-time model who has never really had any control over his life. Everything he does is dictated by his father and his brand team. He’s been told that he will be marrying Chloé Bourgeois to unify the two fashion empires, but he’s really not looking forward to it because Chloé is kind of awful. But he can’t go against his father.

After Marinette finishes a rather successful show, she sets in to enjoy the rest of fashion week, with the singular exception of suffering through the Gabriel show. Wayhem brings a “Marry Me” sign to Adrien’s catwalk run, which—while bizarre—Marinette can’t exactly fault him for given that she did something similar for the Clara Nightingale concert back in 8th grade.

Wayhem and Zoe, who should not have been allowed to meet, spend most of the Gabriel show talking to each other, since Wayhem has finally met someone who actually personally knows Adrien Agreste and has kind of gone feral. Zoe insists he’s actually really nice. Marinette could not give a single crap. Dude’s Chloé’s fiancé. He sucks.

Adrien comes out on the catwalk, and Wayhem hands Marinette the sign so he can take out his phone and start filming.

Partway down his walk, Adrien stops.

His entire life has been managed, set, staged by other people. If he marries Chloé, it’s going to keep being like that—he’s never going to get the chance to make his own decisions, just living the life other people tell him to live. He’s staring into the faces of this crowd, into the face of a life he’s never wanted… and has a full-on mental breakdown.

He sees the girl in the second row—she’s beautiful, one part of his mind notices—holding up a sign that says Marry Me. And before he knows it, he’s making the first decision for himself that he’s ever made—he’s pointing at her, telling her, yes. Yes I will marry you.

Wayhem is screaming. Zoe is screaming. They both bundle a confused and terrified Marinette onto the catwalk, and since Zoe got ordained for the Kitty Section Julerose Wedding Concert she’s able to officiate right there and then. Marinette’s too caught up in the moment to say anything—and then she sees the sadness in Adrien’s eyes, and how excited he seems to be at the prospect of doing this, and she can’t bring herself to say anything other than “I do” when Zoe asks.

The wedding isn’t, technically speaking, legal. But in the eyes of the public… well. The Adrien Agreste just grabbed some nobody out of a crowd at random and married her onstage instead of his glamorous and wealthy fiancée. It’s all anyone in Paris is talking about.

And Marinette is starting to realize that this sad, kind, and—oh yeah, sculpted-out-of-marble hot boy may actually be just the kind of guy she’d given up on looking for…

[prismuffin]

Major Triggering warning for Self-harm (I just wanted to give you the notice before you read. I know it's not everyone jazz)

So I'm noticing an increase of horny asks with the new followers. So let's do an angst ask to balance some shit out!!

How about Batman getting the empty nest feaver again and impulsively adopting a teen in Joker's "care." And without realizing it, he starts to project Joker's image and shit onto the teen. The teen senses this, turning to self-hatred and trying to stop everything that looks like a mannerism of a joker. They Reader starts to wear more black and grey, jumping away from purple n green. Just wanting to be loved. Trying to find a way to make Bruce happy.

So! How would the batboys + Batman/ Bruce Wayne react to finding out the teen was self-harming and, during the breakdown, scream, ' When you look at me, all you see is him! What can I do to get out of his shadow?? I just want to be loved!' while crying.

Dick and Jason notice the teen is becoming more withdrawn, always wearing long clothing, etc. All of the red flags.

Dick wanting to help, confronts Reader about the behavior change, and Reader gets defensive. At some point, Jason yells for Reader to remove his shirt to prove he's not self-harming. (less out of anger, more out of concern and fear). When Reader does, everyone sees that there isn't an inch of skin that isn't scared. Some being as fresh as yesterday.

DUDE I HAD THIS WHOLE ASK WRITTEN AND IT DELETED RIGJT AS I WENT TI OOST IT OMG I’m so mad genuinely ong TW SELF HARM I’m gonna try and write this from memory ok sooooo I think that-

Dick notices it first, the way you start to pull back from the family. He tries to help indirectly but it doesn’t seem to be working. He can’t help but get more worried the more you start to withdrawal yourself.

Jason sees the signs next but he tries to brush them off. Initially he thought that you’d begun to embrace the Batman and that’s why you’d switched to darker clothing. Still, he couldn’t shake the feeling that it was something deeper than that. After a while he talks to Dick, asking him if he’s noticed anything off about how you’d been acting recently and that’s when Dick opens up about everything he’s been noticing. It doesn’t take them long to reach the same conclusion and their hearts sink as they try and come up with a plan to help you out.

At first they try and get you to reach out first by reminding you constantly that they’re there for you if you ever have something in your mind or want to talk but you always brush them off and say you’re fine. Tim notices what they’re doing and confronts the two of them and they open up about everything they’ve noticed. He quickly tells them that they should talk to you directly before it’s too late.

Dick confronts you one day as softly as he possibly could but of course it still doesn’t go over well. You just denied everything immediately even after he tells you that he’s not mad at you for it. He continues to confront you until you have enough and walk away from him. He chases after you, still trying to talk you through everything but you continue to deny his claims as you speedwalk away. Eventually you run into Jason who immediately knows what’s going on. He tried to help Dick by telling you that nobody was mad and that they just wanted to help. The bickering turned into arguing which caught the attention of everyone else. Jason was sick of you denying what was so obvious in his eyes that he told you to prove it to him. Take off your sweatshirt, prove that you weren’t self harming and he’d apologize and leave you alone.

Backed into a corner, you angrily ripped off your hoodie, tears clouding your vision as you heard the horrified gasps from everyone. You breathed heavily as you heard Bruce ask why. Angrily throwing down the jacket in your hands, you screamed. You screamed about how he’d projected onto you, how you were afraid to turn out just like the Joker and how you couldn’t stand it when they all looked at you with accusing eyes. It made them all cry that day, seeing you so helpless, and the scars, there was way more than they’d ever imagined. Most old, but many fresh, and surprisingly Bruce is the first to take initiative in comforting you. He dismisses all of your thoughts immediately, telling you how your fathers actions don’t define you and that he’s sorry that he’d made it seem that way. It’s shocked everyone but eventually they all joined in, comforting you and telling you how they really saw you.

You were simply their sibling and that was it. You were their struggling sibling and they were here for you.

( Dude if this feels rushed in sorry I had to rewrite it completely💀 )

———

Directory

[oliverreedmasterass]

Jake being nervous before performing with Mirador and Josh comforting him…

Addison!! Here ya go :) (My first draft of this was like 10x goofier than this, hopefully it's more touching than stupid now)

Must I Go Bound?

Words: 4.5k

Warnings: language, mental breakdown, Sam's feet

“Jake!” Josh hollered from the backstage area of the St. Louis arena. “Shit,” he cursed under his breath. “Where could that fucker be?” 

Josh had been pulled to the side by one of their roadies, asking if he could snag Jake to get his in ears fitted. Josh figured it would be relatively easy to track down his twin but, after twenty minutes of searching to no avail, he was starting to get worried. 

In the lead up to Jake’s debut with his pal, Chris Turpin, as the band Mirador, Jake had seemed like he was more excited than nervous. Compared to the shy teenager who had to turn his back to the crowd, this older version of Jake commanded the stage with such ease and grace that Josh knew it was only right that he start a new band. 

Josh had even shared a nice breakfast with Jake that morning at a local cafe, cracking each other up while brainstorming monologues Jake could give during his performance. 

“You’re gonna have to thank Greta Van Fleet for letting you guys open,” Josh had told Jake, which made him boom with laughter, wiping fat tears from his eyes. 

So, when they went their separate ways, Josh to get fitted into his jumpsuit, and Jake to practice his guitar a bit more, Josh assumed that things were going great. But, after practically tearing the arena apart searching for his brother, Josh knew something was up.

Jake was the master at masking his emotions, afterall. 

On his third loop around the concourse area, Josh ran into Chris, who looked equally on edge. 

“Jake?” they asked each other. At that, they both frowned. 

“I can’t find him,” Josh shared. 

“Me neither,” Chris shook his head, his eyes darting around in the hopes that he would catch a glimpse of his missing bandmate. “We’ve got our final soundcheck coming up soon. I really don’t want to go out there by myself.” 

“You’re not going to,” Josh promised him. He gave Chris a pat on the back and then hustled for the doors leading inside the arena. The hoards of seats surrounding him were all empty and, through the flashing lights, Josh could barely make out any of the sections above him. 

Stupid Jake always wearing black, Josh grumpily thought to himself. If only the guy could wear neon and a sign above his head that read, “HEY JOSH, I’M RIGHT HERE!” 

With a sigh, Josh started to walk up and down the rows, hoping he would eventually stumble across Jake. 

It took about ten minutes of wandering until he literally stumbled over his brother in section 117 row 4. 

“What the?” Josh hollered as he sprawled to catch himself. After regaining his balance, he fumbled for his phone so he could shine a light on what had tripped him up. It was frankly a concerning sight. Jake, still dressed in his street clothes, was curled up on the floor, next to a pile of discarded french fries that had been missed by the janitorial staff the previous night. His hair swirled around his blank face that was gazing at the seat in front of him, unblinking. “Jake!” Josh attempted to get his attention, waving his hand in front of his eyes. He remained motionless. “Shit,” Josh thought aloud. “Are you dead?” It was hard to see through Jake’s loose-fitting clothes if he was breathing or not, so Josh opted to kick him in the stomach. 

“Oomph,” Jake coughed out. 

“Come on, dude,” Josh softened his tone. “You gotta get up for your soundcheck.”  

Jake continued to lay stiff on the concrete. Josh was desperate to get some kind of reaction out of him, so he plucked a cold and soggy french fry from the ground and started to poke it into Jake’s left nostril. His brow furrowed when he realized that Jake’s mouth didn’t even curl into a frown at the sensation. 

“He’s entirely catatonic,” Josh realized. “Fuck.” 

Josh first started to run back to the concourse to grab Chris, but then decided that it would be better if he took Jake with him, so he squatted back by his side. With a loud grunt he managed to lift Jake’s ragdoll body over his shoulder and started the tough trek up the stairs. Well, at least Josh didn’t have to worry about doing any additional cardio before their set. 

He did a half-lap past the shuttered food stands before he stumbled across Sam and Danny, who were playing with Rosie. 

“Why are you holding Jake like a sack of potatoes?” Sam called to Josh after throwing Rosie’s tennis ball over Josh’s head. Josh squatted a bit to avoid getting pelted with the ball and, in his moment of weakness, wound up juggling Jake in his arms. Danny and Josh both gasped as they watched Jake tumble from Josh’s grip onto the floor in a tangled mess. To the surprise of no one, Sam burst into laughter. 

“God, is he okay?” Danny gaped at Jake. Josh kneeled by Jake’s limp side and carefully cradled his head in his hands, guiding it over to his lap where he could lay more comfortably. Josh snapped his fingers in front of Jake’s eyes, but the guy didn’t even blink. 

“I think he’s going through it,” Josh decided. Sam approached his side and squatted down so he could be closer to Jake. 

“I remember him pulling something like this the first time we played at Fischer Hall,” Sam nonchalantly remembered as he stroked his mustache. “I had to stomp on his foot to get him to snap out of it.” 

“I just shoved a french fry in his nose but that didn’t work,” Josh looked at Sam in sadness. 

“You did what?” Danny’s voice shook before collecting himself. “We need to get him back to the green room before anyone finds him.”

“He’s got soundcheck in, like, fifteen minutes,” Sam said after glancing at his Hello Kitty watch. “At Fischer Hall I had to do an entire line dance on his feet. I don’t know if I’ll have enough time to do that now.” 

“You’re not gonna do that,” Danny corrected Sam. “We can’t go breaking Jake’s feet.” 

Sam hung his head in disappointment. Josh had zoned out through their bickering and, when he came back to, he realized that he had been absently combing his fingers through Jake’s long hair. Jake must have really been out of it, because he was usually unbelievably sensitive about people touching what he called “God’s gift.” 

Danny looked around at his band and huffed. He hated how he always had to be the one to take the lead. The Kiszkas were frankly a mess more often than not. 

“Come on,” he ordered as he leaned down to grab Jake and stretch him over his shoulders. Josh, Sam, and Rosie trailed a few paces behind him as he led the charge towards the backstage area. Danny had a plan. 

The three men huddled in the bathroom, surrounding Jake who was flopped over on a folding chair, his eyes still glazed. “Are you sure this is the best idea?” Josh whispered to Danny. Danny tossed the shower head from hand to hand while staring Jake down. 

“I think it’s the only way,” he decided. “Pull the lever, Sam.” 

Sam twisted the knob, letting a powerful stream of cold water release from the nozzle in Danny’s hands. He took in a deep breath and then raised it to Jake’s eyeline, releasing the flood of water straight into his face. Danny, Josh, and Sam all watched, their breaths hitched to see if Jake would come back around. While his eyes flinched at the water and he sputtered every so often, he showed little sign of life. 

“Stop it! Stop it!” Josh waved his arms over his head. “This isn’t doing anything. And now he’s soaked.” 

“He was kinda smelling bad though,” Sam pointed out. “So it wasn’t entirely for nothing.” 

“There’s got to be another way,” Danny grumbled, deep in thought. Then, his eyes brightened. “I’ll be right back,” he excused himself, and then hurried away. 

While Danny was gone, Josh attempted to pat Jake dry with a towel and Sam grabbed a blow dryer to fix his hair. “Hey, I’m pretty good at this!” Sam called out as he pointed the blow dryer towards the back of Jake’s head, making his wet hair fly out in all directions. Josh wanted to point out that Sam was transforming Jake’s hair into a frizzy mess, but he kept his thoughts to himself. 

A few minutes later, Danny rushed back into the bathroom, holding Jake’s old reliable out with one hand. “You see this, Jake?” Danny asked his friend, slightly out of breath. Jake gave no response. Danny shot Josh and Sam a concerned glance. Jake usually lost his mind if he saw anyone other than his road tech handling his guitar. “I’m gonna mess with your guitar, Jake,” Danny tried again. Sam couldn’t help but bug his eyes. Danny was really putting his life out on the line in order to get Jake back. When Jake didn’t even bother to raise an eyebrow in Danny’s direction, he cursed to himself. “Okay,” he tried again, “you leave me no choice.” With a trembling hand, Danny reached into his back pocket and retrieved a pair of wire clippers that he had found laying by the sound board. He maintained eye contact with Jake as he opened the clippers and hovered them over his E and A strings. “I really don’t want to do this,” Danny warned Jake with a firm tone, hoping to get any kind of response from him. Nothing.

Snip. 

The room went silent. Danny’s chest heaved up and down as he braced himself for the worst, but nothing came. Jake continued to stare at a spot just above Danny’s head, looking like there wasn’t a single thought behind his eyes. 

“I think we need to call an ambulance,” Danny decided.

“Wait, hold on,” Sam cut in. Before anyone could stop him, he sent his bare foot flying heel-first down on Jake’s toes. 

“Sam, no!” Josh and Danny both hollered at him. 

“If it worked once, it has to work again!” Sam huffed out in determination. “I’ve got this!” 

Danny placed Jake’s guitar on the bathroom sink and had to physically pick Sam up to move him and his dangerous dogs away from his brother. “I said quit it!” Danny groaned out in irritation. Sam decided it was in his best interests to flail his feet around in the hopes that he might make contact with Jake again. 

“I’m gonna lock you in a closet, Samuel!” Danny warned his friend. 

“I dare you!” Sam called back, his feet still flying. With a scowl on his face, Danny hauled Sam out of the room. The sound of a heavy door slamming shut echoed through the bathroom, followed by cries and scratching noises. Danny stomped back into the room, wiping his hands off on his pants. 

“I need a cigarette.” 

Josh arched his head up to study his friend. “But you don’t smoke, Danny.” 

Danny sighed, leaning up against the sink. “It seems like a good time to start.” 

A knock rapped on the outside of the door, and Danny and Josh whirled around to see who it was. Danny was about to yell at Sam to get back into the closet when he saw that Chris was standing in the doorway, gaping at the sopping wet Jake. 

“Oh, that doesn’t look good,” Chris murmured. Josh’s stomach dropped; he had really hoped that Chris wouldn’t have to see Jake in his catatonic state. It was sure to make him feel all the more on edge before their big debut. 

“It does look bad,” Danny acknowledged, “but we’re working on it.” 

“By ‘working on it,’ does that include locking Sam in the broom closet?” Chris asked, jutting a thumb back out towards the hallway. “Because I heard him yelling some pretty rude things about you in there and wanted to see what was going on.” 

Josh hated to be the bearer of bad news, but he figured that Chris had already put most of it together. After releasing a deep sigh and smacking his hands together to get everyone’s attention, Josh motioned towards Jake. “He’s going through it.” 

“Obviously,” Chris deadpanned, staring at his bandmate. Before Josh or Danny could say anything else, Chris moved up to Jake’s side and kneeled in front of him, grabbing his damp hands. Briefly, Chris turned back to address the rest of the room. “You sprayed him with the showerhead?” Danny and Josh both shrugged. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Chris sighed and focused his attention back on Catatonic Jake. “Hey,” Chris softly spoke to Jake. “I know you can hear me in there.” 

Jake stared forward. Josh was pretty sure he hadn’t blinked in well over 20 minutes. 

“I get that you’re nervous for tonight, and that’s a totally reasonable thing to be feeling,” Chris continued. “Hell, I’m scared shitless too. But those people who are lining up outside right now love you. Like, cult-levels of love. I’m serious. You’re one of the most talented guys I know, and I’ve been looking forward to getting out there with you and showing everyone what we’ve got. We’ve been working our asses off for this, and you deserve to be in the spotlight. Whatever you’re afraid of, it’s entirely in your head. You’re a rock star.” 

Josh could tell that the weight of the situation was starting to take a toll on Chris. He had been praying under his breath that Chris’s heart to heart would break Jake’s spell, but it didn’t seem to be enough. Chris came back to his feet, straightened his suit, and let his shoulders fall. 

“I’d better get out there for our soundcheck,” he excused himself. As he walked past the sink, he stopped in front of Jake’s guitar and gaped at the cut strings. “And I better restring this thing,” he added, taking the guitar with him. 

“Thank you!” Danny called after him, but Chris gave no other response. 

“Hey, Danny,” Josh broke the silence in the room. Danny turned to look at him. “Can I have a moment with Jake alone?”

“Of course,” Danny was quick to oblige and made his way back into the hallway, where he could make sure that Sam and his feet hadn’t broken free from the closet. Josh shut the bathroom door and took a seat on the toilet across from Jake. 

“It’s just you and me,” Josh spoke levelly to his brother. “No Danny, no Sam, no Chris. Just us.” 

He stared deep into Jake’s whiskey-colored eyes, trying to signal to him that everything was going to be okay. 

“This is a step way out of your comfort zone,” Josh continued. “But that’s how we grow. I mean, you were the one who told me back in high school that my doubts and fears were the only things holding me back. The same thing applies here.” 

Still nothing. Josh turned his gaze away from Jake and focused on studying his hands, which he was twisting around in his lap. 

“I don’t know what’s going on inside your head right now, but I’ve been there too. I’ve had those scary thoughts before, that I’m not good, that I’m wasting people’s time, that I should save the humiliation. But, Jake, you have to remember: you love to play. And people love to watch you play. You’ve got this unspeakable talent, and you don’t give yourself enough credit. You’ve built this life for not only yourself, but the rest of us from the ground up, which is, like, insane. Watching you play out there, whether I’m on stage with you or not, is what makes this all worthwhile. Seeing that big smile of yours, there’s nothing like it. Don’t you want Chris to get to experience that too?” 

Josh could have sworn that he saw Jake’s eyes shift. Suddenly feeling empowered, Josh kept sounding every thought on his mind. 

“I’m not sure if it’s about singing in front of people, playing songs that you haven’t put through rehearsal a whole lot, or what, but you’ve got absolutely nothing to worry about. You’re gonna go out there and blow everyone away.”

“It’s not that,” Jake’s voice surprised Josh. With a short gasp he snapped his head up to face his twin. Jake’s eyes were now studying the ground, his shoulders hunched. 

“What was that?” Josh asked, scooting to the edge of the toilet seat to get closer. Jake seemed to be thinking, and then spoke a dial louder. 

“It’s not that,” Jake repeated himself. “I’m not worried about singing or playing new stuff.” 

“Then what is it?” Josh tried to meet his eyes, but was unsuccessful. Jake looked as though he was trying to spot every speck of dust on the tiled floor beneath his feet. The silence hung between them, but then Jake wiped his hand down his face. 

“It’s about playing without you.” 

Josh’s heart dropped. 

“Jake, I’ll be there with you for our set.” 

“I know,” Jake huffed, raking a hand through his frizzy hair. “I just know that it will feel wrong, like there’s a part of me that’s missing.” 

“I’ll be in the wings the entire time you play,” Josh promised. “But this is your time to explore the unknown, Jake. We’ve been at this rodeo for a while. I think it’s about time that we change things up.” 

“You’re right,” Jake murmured. 

“The second you get out there, you’re going to have the time of your life,” Josh assured him. “You and I both know how much you love seeing the audience eat up your every move. Well, you’re gonna get that on steroids. And, it’s not like you’re going out there alone. You’ve got Chris and your band with you too.” 

Jake nodded and his eyes finally met Josh’s. Josh gave him a sad smile when he saw that Jake had some tears welling up. 

“I almost feel like I’m leaving home all over again,” Jake admitted. “This is really hard.” 

“Oh, come here,” Josh motioned for Jake to join his side. It was a relief to see Jake comply and stand to his feet, shuffling into his arms. “You’re gonna be okay,” Josh soothed him, stroking his back gently. Jake placed his damp head on Josh’s shoulder, and Josh didn’t have the heart to tell him to move it since it was ruining his jumpsuit. “Man, if I had known that opening for us was gonna put you through this much, I would have vetoed the whole idea,” Josh tried to joke. He was glad that he heard a light chuckle come from Jake, in between his staggered breaths.  

“I’m surprised you didn’t put your foot down,” Jake said into Josh’s shoulder. Josh had to frown at that. 

“And summon Super Bitch? I would never do that to my brother!” 

“You do it to Sam all the time.” 

“That’s because Sam deserves it.” 

Jake let out a laugh that Josh could tell meant he was going to be okay. He released Jake from his grasp and, as Jake stepped away from him, he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror above the sink. “Oh god,” Jake stopped in his tracks to gape back at his reflection. “What the hell happened to my hair? It looks like a lion’s mane.” 

“Sam blow dried it,” Josh tried to carefully explain. Jake turned back and glared at his brother. 

“You let him do that?” 

“You were literally catatonic, Jake. I figured if anything would make you snap out of it, maybe it would be that.” 

Jake tsked as he fingered through his poofy hair, and then he let his hand drop to his side, defeated. 

“I’m gonna have to take another shower,” he realized. 

“I’ll leave you to it,” Josh offered, making his way to the door. As he was about to turn the handle, Jake called to him.

“Hey!” Josh whirled around to face him. “Thanks,” Jake gave a small smile. 

“Anytime,” Josh grinned. And with that, he stepped out into the hallway and gently shut the door behind him. He breathed a sigh of relief when he heard Jake click the lock on the handle and turn on the shower. Danny was quick to join his side. 

“Did you break through?” he was unable to contain his curiosity. 

“I’m a miracle worker, darling,” Josh joked. From inside the bathroom, they could hear Jake going through some of the vocal warmups that Josh had taught him. 

“Oh thank god,” Danny heaved. “I was bracing for the worst. I told Chris I could step in for Jake if he needed a hand, but we both knew that wasn’t gonna end well.” 

“Jake definitely owes us financial compensation for emotional distress,” Josh agreed. 

“Me-me-me-ME-me-me-me,” Jake belted from the shower. 

Josh and Danny both seemed committed to waiting outside the bathroom for Jake to make sure that he didn’t run on them again, but it didn’t take long for their attention to shift elsewhere. They had been in the middle of discussing what jumpsuit Josh could change into since the one he was wearing had gotten soggy when they saw Rosie run down the hall. Danny bent down to pet her, but she trotted straight past him, towards the closet where Sam was still locked. Rosie made her way to the door and let out a short bark. 

“Atta girl, Rosie!” they heard Sam’s muffled voice congratulate her from inside the closet. Josh and Danny both watched with their mouths hung open as Rosie dropped a key from her mouth and used her paw to swipe it under the gap at the bottom of the door. Within seconds, Sam had jiggled the handle and freed himself. “SUCK IT!” he hollered the second he stepped foot back into the hallway. “YOU CAN’T CONTAIN SAMUEL FRANCIS KISZKA!” 

“It didn’t take me 28 years to learn that one,” Josh grumbled to himself. 

Seemingly entirely unbothered by the fact that his best friend had manhandled and thrown him into a closet, Sam plodded back to Danny’s side and rested an arm on his shoulder. “So,” he started, looking between Josh and Danny. “Where’s Jake? I gotta get back to stepping on him.” 

“He’s showering,” Josh answered at the same time as Danny said, “You wouldn’t dare.” 

Sam glimpsed between the two of them and shook his head with a chuckle. “So which one of you opted to do the line dance on his feet?” 

“Neither of us!” Danny called out. “What the hell is wrong with you?” 

“You can’t blame me for devoting my time and energy towards something that I know works,” Sam stated like a know-it-all.  

“You’re gonna end up on a watchlist one of these days,” Josh mused to himself. It was a miracle that Sam had only been arrested once. His younger brother seemed entirely unbothered by his observation since he gave Rosie one more loving pet, and then pointed towards the green room. 

“I need to get my camera set up for Jake’s set,” he excused himself. “I’m gonna be Mirador’s tour photographer by the end of this shit.” 

“You wish,” Danny called after him as he sauntered away. 

It was good timing that Jake got out of the shower after Sam had left the vicinity. Otherwise Sam probably would have found himself in an unfriendly headlock as penance for what he had done to Jake’s hair. Jake opened the bathroom door in nothing but a towel and gave Danny an apologetic smile. 

“Hey,” he greeted the tall drummer. “Sorry about everything,” he added, while making a grand gesture with his hands. 

“I get it,” Danny reassured him with a shrug. “You’ve got a lot on your mind right now.” 

“Actually,” Jake countered, “the only thing that’s really on my mind is where my Mirador stage outfit went.” 

“That’s what I like to hear,” Josh congratulated him. 

About thirty minutes later, Jake was back in the green room with the rest of his bandmates, tuning his guitar that Chris had fixed. Across from him, Josh beamed at Jake in his loose black suit and silk top that exposed the string of pendants around his neck. Jake looked like he was entirely in his element, that he was exactly where he needed to be.  

Chris, Sam, and Danny were in the middle of an intense ping pong match that involved playing with bananas instead of paddles, but that was cut short when their tour manager popped his head into the room. 

“Ten minutes to stage, Mirador,” he shared before whisking away. 

Josh could tell that Jake’s body language stiffened ever so slightly at the realization that his performance was coming soon, but he tried hard to hide it from the rest of the room. While it worked on everyone else, Josh could see straight through his facade. That was one of the perks of being twins with the guy. 

“Can you step out with me for a second?” he stared at Jake and nodded towards the hallway. It didn’t take much coaxing to get Jake to follow behind him. 

The second they were out of the sight of everyone else, Josh engulfed Jake in a tight embrace, which Jake was quick to return. “Whatever you’re thinking right now, get rid of it,” Josh sternly told him. “Even if I’m not out there on stage, I’m always with you, okay?” 

Jake squeezed him tighter. “Okay,” he agreed. 

“You’re Sir Jacob Thomas Kiszka,” Josh reminded him. “And don’t you fucking forget it.” 

“I won’t,” Jake couldn’t help but laugh. “I was knighted and everything.” 

“Damn right,” Josh released him from his grasp to look him down. They had grown so much, even in just the past few years. Josh couldn’t formulate into words how proud he was of his brother. They had overcome so many hurdles and came out much stronger than he could ever imagine.

The roadie from the start of their drama-filled evening came up behind them and cleared his throat, holding out Jake’s in ears. “I’ve been looking all over for you,” the guy said through grit teeth, obviously at his wit’s end. “Can you let me know if these fit okay? Not that I can do anything about it, I’d just like to feel like I did some part of my job today.” 

“Oh god,” Josh clutched at his head in embarrassment. “I’m so sorry about that one, Ralph. We kind of got caught up in some other stuff.” 

“Whatever,” Ralph grumbled. 

Jake quickly tucked in his in ears and gave Ralph a big thumbs up. “They fit perfectly,” he told him. “I’m all good to go.” 

“You bet you are,” Josh pulled Jake back into his side. Jake leaned into his embrace and couldn’t help but let a wide grin stretch from cheek to cheek. 

[byeoltoyuki]

↳ Pairing: Changbin x You

❧ Genre : Fluff / rommates to lovers

❧ Words : +3k

“This can’t get any worse, can it?” “Sure it can - just give me a minute.”

Whoever said that going on a trip in the middle of the winter in mountains was a mind-blowing experience had it all wrong. Of course, when you saw pictures of mountains covered in snow, beautiful, blue, clear sky, you found it extremely pretty and appealing, therefore when your amazing (right in that moment you hated them) friends suggested to have a week in a wooden cottage you said yes without thinking twice. Better yet, when your hot, adorably annoying roommate for who you harbored a tiny (ridiculously big) crush said he would come, you were beyond yourself.

That of course didn’t last.

By the time all of you reached the cottage, after six long hours of driving, you realized that this little holiday could turn into a mess. It wasn’t that you didn’t love your friends or that you were scared of spending so much time with them, but some of them brought plus one which shouldn’t have bothered you as much as it did. But honestly, who could blame you when some of them were pretty girls and that your crush happened to notice it too.

“Damn she’s hot.” Changbin commented the moment he stepped out of the car and was greeted by a pretty brunette who came out of the cottage, smiling at him.

It was definitely not your fault that after six hours of car, this tiny, almost innocent comment drove you mad. It resulted in you scoffing loudly, attracting very unwanted attention on you. Both Changbin and the said pretty brunette looked at you with quirked brow. If the brunette (she did say her name but you didn’t bother to remember, yes, you were that petty) thought it was rude, she didn’t comment. Changbin, on the other hand, nudged you playfully. Sadly for you, the dude didn’t know his own strength which resulted in you almost losing your balance and falling face first.

“The hell, Changbin!” You whined

“Why so cranky, old woman?” He joked, unbothered and then turned back to look at the brunette. “Please ignore her. She’s old, she needs a moment to recover.”

“Asshole.” You cursed under your breath. That was it, you were so going to ignore his existence for the rest of this trip.

You lied, obviously. Your attempt at being petty and grumpy lasted approximately ten minutes, just the time to get to your room and realize in pain that there were two beds which meant that you had to share the room with someone else. Hopefully with one of your friend. Better yet, with Changbin.

Karma had a name. It was Mina, the pretty brunette and your new roommate. No, really, what kind of luck was that? You wanted to scream your frustration, instead, you ruffled your hair. Much less noise and still as dramatic.

Mina watched you in silence for a short moment, maybe trying to decide if you were some crazy woman or just someone who was having a mental breakdown. It was both, but she didn’t need to know that either.

She cleared her throat to grab your attention. “So,”

You were thankful, you weren’t facing her, like that she couldn’t see your wince. Obviously, you had to make small talk. You took a deep breath, put on your best smile and turned to face her. “About earlier, I’m sorry. I didn’t want to sound rude. Just got tired, I guess.”

Luckily for you, one of your (not so useful) talent was that you could control your face, your voice and play pretend without being caught. Well, minus Changbin who somehow always saw through you which shouldn’t be allowed.

At your words, Mina beamed, genuinely happy. Apparently, she wasn’t that bad which meant you were the bad guy here.

“It’s okay. No offense taken.” Then she looked at your bag, surprised with how little you had taken with you. “Is this all you have with you?”

You looked down at your bag, genuinely confused. “Yeah? I mean, we’re staying only a week.”

She chuckled at that and pointed at her suitcase near her bed. “I had to bring a whole suitcase. I mean, we never know what we might need.”

You blinked, once, twice. “Oh. Guess I’m practical?”

“Definitely more organized than me.”

**

By the time you all gathered in the main hall, it was already past nine in the evening. You had to admit that this place was amazing; it was big and accommodated easily the ten of you and leaving room for more. The main hall, despite being huge, felt cozy with its fireplace in the center, two big coaches, two armchairs and a big table.

The fire was burning brightly, warming the place and giving an atmosphere worth of a good Christmas movie. You sat in the armchair the closest to the fire, enjoying its warmth along with your glass of wine. It didn’t take long to all of you to start drinking, playing games and enjoying your time together. It felt nice, you could almost relax. But just almost.

You didn’t want to be that annoying friend that would get all grumpy in the corner of the room and you tried really hard to control your feelings, to control your face but the more you drank the harder it got. You couldn’t help but feel bitter as you watched from your place Changbin laughing with Mina. It was his right to get all comfortable with a girl, you were just roommates and friends. It wasn’t like you didn’t know about the girls he saw, you were very aware of his late night activities but you didn’t need to face them, to see it happen before your eyes.

Mina, apparently, wasn’t that indifferent to him either. She was smiling brightly, laughing at his jokes, not minding how loud he got. But your breaking point was when she put her hand on his strong arm - you saw red. You had to get out of there as fast as you could before you would betray how you truly felt, before you started something you could potentially regret later.

Without a word, you put your glass back on the table and left. You didn’t look back. You didn’t see how Changbin glanced your way, a deep frown on his face. You didn’t see him gently reject Mina’s touch. No, all you needed was some fresh air and clear your mind.

***

Maybe going outside in the middle of the night while it was snowing wasn’t your brightest idea. No, you could add it was even a catastrophic idea but at the moment it felt right. Now, to add to the list of the brightest (dumbest) thing you had ever done, you chose to go outside without your scarf and your beanie - clearly, you had a death wish.

You walked without thinking, without really checking your surroundings. All you cared about was how you felt and frankly the cold air and the falling snow did help to ease the burning sensation inside you. You weren’t feeling as dizzy as when you were inside the cottage watching your crush with another girl. You could almost say that your jealousy had vanished. Almost.

“Stupid Changbin.” You cursed as you walked. It was easy to blame someone who wasn’t at fault. You knew it was stupid of you but it didn’t make things better. “Stupid me.”

You sighed in defeat. No matter how much you appreciated your time alone, you had to go back and face reality. You came to this place to have fun and not to brood around.

There was no way of telling how long you stayed outside. Lost in your thoughts, you lost track of time and your way at the same time. And as the realizing of your situation had finally dawned on you, you groaned in despair at your own stupidity. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

You spun around yourself trying to find your footsteps in hope to find your way back except the snow had covered it. You were doomed. Completely, utterly doomed.

Taking a deep breath, you tried to regain composure. Panicking was pointless, you had to keep your head up and think of a way to get back to the cottage. You tried to see if there was any light that could indicate the way - there was none. You walked around but still no cottage in sight.

“I’m fucked.”

To add to the falling snow, the wind was getting stronger and so much colder. Quickly, you realized that it was getting dangerous for you to stay outside.

“Y/N?” A familiar and warm voice came from the woods.

Your heart missed a beat in both hope and happiness. He had come for you, you were saved. “I’m here!”

“Oh thank god!” The moment Changbin saw you, his face relaxed in relief. Without hesitation, you ran, jumping in his opened arms. Not only you were cold but you were also terrified of what could have happened if he hadn’t found you. He caught you easily and wrapped his strong arms around your body.

“You’re okay?” He asked, patting your head.

You sniffed and unwillingly let go of him. “Yeah. Just freezing.”

“Good.” He said and then the frown was back. He put his arms on your shoulders and squeezed - not hard enough to actually hurt, but enough to make his point. “What the hell were you thinking?! Do you know how dangerous it is by night? What if I haven’t found you?”

Now that he put it like that, your idea of having a moment for yourself was indeed very bad and stupid. A tiny part of you wanted to protest, to defend yourself but one look at Changbin’s face was enough to stop you from saying anything other than “I’m sorry.”

He huffed in return. “You better be.”

Changbin eyed you from head to toe and clicked his tongue in disapproval. Without a word, he put his own beanie on your head and wrapped his scarf around your neck.

“Come on. Let’s go back.” He took your hand and led the way.

**

Maybe thinking that Changbin was the perfect knight in shining armor was a mistake on your part. While you were so happy seeing him, you forgot a tiny detail: Changbin was not the kind of guy who thought things through.

You walked for what felt like an eternity and still no sight of the cottage. You didn’t want to make any comment in case Changbin would snap at you and remind you that this whole disaster was of your own making, but you were getting worried all over again.

“Changbin?” You tried, your voice coming out weaker than planned. You cleared your throat. “Are you sure you know the way back?”

“Of course.” He answered too quickly for your liking and didn’t look back at you.

You wished his answer was comforting but it wasn’t. After five more minutes of walking in the darkness, you finally tug on his hand and made him stop.

“Let’s be honest: we’re lost.” You stated the obvious.

“No, we’re not.”

“Changbin, we’ve been walking for a while and no cottage. We’re lost.”

“Fine!” He groaned, defeated. “Yes, we are. But I’m trying to find the way back. Once again, why the hell did you need to leave?”

“Oh, so now it’s my fault?” You dared being sarcastic when really, it was entirely your fault.

“Yes.”

“Well, I’m sorry! But you’re no better! Talking about a savior.” You muttered the last part.

It wasn’t your intention to snap at him but Changbin knew how to push all your buttons.

“Say that again.”

There was definitely something wrong with you. Instead of feeling intimidated as he definitely intended, you couldn’t stop yourself from thinking that angry Changbin was hot. You shook your head, scolding yourself silently.

“Nope. You heard me the first time.” You finally said but stubbornly looked him in the eyes, daring him to call you out again.

Changbin ruffled his hair in frustration. “You’re driving me crazy and not in a good way.”

You shrugged (even if his comment brought some unholy images to your mind). “What can I say? I’m charming!”

**

If your first day on this vacation was already that bad, you couldn’t imagine what the rest would look like. You walked in silence some more, both freezing. Luckily for the two of you, you came upon a place that could, hopefully, save your life. It wasn’t your cottage but it looked like an abandoned cabin. It was small and a tad gloomy but at least it would protect you from the snow and the wind.

There wasn’t much inside, not to say there was absolutely nothing, but at least it had a roof and walls and enough space to make fire without burning the whole place. Changbin surprised you with how easily, and despite the darkness outside, he gathered the woods and made a small fire. It wasn’t perfect, far from it, but it helped to warm your frozen muscles.

After your little fight, the tension got so thick you could cut it with a knife. You, too stubborn and petty, while Changbin preferred to keep to himself until he calmed down. It didn’t last. The moment Changbin noticed how you kept shivering despite the fire, his resolution to ignore you crumbled.

“Come here.” He sighed and patted the spot next to him.

You knew, at least the rational part of you, that it was a good idea but the stubborn you refused to give in so easily after his accusations.

“Y/N, I swear to god,” Changbin’s patience was running thin. Usually, he would indulge you, but he was tired and cold – he was ready to snap at you. “Stop being so damn stubborn and come here.”

A ‘fuck you’ was on the tip of your tongue but you restrained yourself on time.

“Fine.” You accepted just because the spot beside him looked warmer than yours. You crawled as quickly as you could but Changbin got you by surprise. Instead of letting you sit beside him, he pulled you right between his legs. “What-“

You found yourself trapped in his arms, between his legs. Your back pressed against his chest, Changbin pulled his coat over your bodies. You couldn’t tell whether the sudden warmth was coming from the fire or the fact that you were pressed so hard against him.

“Better?” He hummed against your head.

For your body? Definitely. For your heart? Not so much. Scared that your voice would betray you, you chose not to answer and instead simply nodded your head and pressed yourself a little further against him.

“Good.” Changbin rested his head in the crook of your neck, nudging it gently with his nose. His warm breath fanning over your skin – you wanted, desperately, to feel his lips on your skin. There was no way you could survive spending the night in his arms. “This can’t get any worse, can it?”

You snorted at that. “Sure it can – just give me a minute.”

“Please, don’t.” And with that his hold on you tightened as if it could stop you from summoning another disaster.

“Now that you’re trapped – Mind to tell me what got you so pissed, you had to leave in the middle of a storm?”

The safest thing to do would be to get out of his arms (as if you were strong enough) and ignore his question. But truth to be told, it felt way too nice to be in his arms. In his arms, you could be delusional for a moment and pretend that he wasn’t just your roommate, that he wasn’t just your crush, but something more.

“Y/N…” You shuddered at the way he called your name. Dark with a hint of a warning. His lips were dangerously close to your ear, you could almost feel his teeth on your earlobe.

“It’s-it’s nothing.” You stuttered and you cursed yourself for being so affected with Changbin’s presence.

If you thought the cold would be the death of you, you were wrong. Changbin would.

“Nothing?” He repeated, not buying your little lie.

Changbin knew exactly what was wrong with you. He had known it for a while. It wasn’t his intention to trick you and make you believe that he was just a friend and nothing more but he had to admit that driving you crazy was a tad amusing and he couldn’t resist. Until tonight at least. The little game could have turned into a real disaster – he regretted it the moment you left the safety of the cottage.

“I think you don’t like Mina that much.” Changbin finally said. It was game over. “I think, you left because you saw her touching me.”

He placed a kiss right bellow your ear which gave you goosebumps all over your body – you completely froze in his arms, unable to breath, unable to think.

“You’re cute when you’re jealous.”

“Changbin-“

“But also, incredibly dumb for putting yourself in such a dangerous situation.”

“And the moment is ruined.” You groaned and tried to free yourself from his arm. For a second, he let you believe that you had the upper hand by letting you stand up. He quickly grabbed your hand and pulled you right on top of him. You were ready to protest, to curse him for being such a little shit, but your words died on the tip of your tongue as you realized that one, you were straddling his thighs and two he was hard.

“Why the hell are you hard?” You couldn’t stop yourself from commenting.

Changbin was torn between the wish to laugh at your comment or groan – and they said he was the slow one. “Why? Because, believe it or not, I’ve been dying to fuck your brain out.”

A part of you had heard him, loud and clear, however you couldn’t believe it. Changbin had never showed any sign of interest in you, right?

“Ha ha, very funny.” You averted your eyes from his face, unable to look at him without actually imagining what he could do to you. If only it wasn’t a joke.

Changbin groaned at your reaction. Before you could even think about pulling out of his laps, he gently grabbed your chin and forced you to look back at him. “You’re such a dummy.” And just like that he pressed his lips against yours. A kiss that took you completely off guard. In fact, you couldn’t believe it was happening. It was soft, gentle but so sweet.

“What-“ You tried to find your words but Changbin shut you up with another peck as if he had found the perfect way to shut you up and to make you speechless.

You blinked, realizing that he was half playing with you half teasing you. “Changbin!” Another peck. “Can you-“ and another. You groaned and threw your arms in the air in despair before grabbing his shirt and pulling him closer to you, crashing your lips against his for a much stronger and needier kiss.

Changbin’s hands went to the curve of your ass, giving it a strong squeeze that made you groan into the kiss, made you press yourself harder against him.

Overwhelmed, you broke the kiss, only to press your forehead against his. You closed your eyes to fully enjoy the moment. You were in his arms, kissing him. Maybe those holidays were a benediction.

“So,” Changbin started, “Are you going to admit that you were jealous?”

“Fine! Yes, I was. Happy?”

“Yes. Can we date now?”

[beans-core]

I finally got around to watching season 2 of Invincible (great show btw) and… oh my lord.

I need to ramble. I MUST.

spoilers after the cut! (If there’s still people who haven’t watched it lol I’m late to the game)

Oh my good god. There’s so much, but this is just the stuff that’s lurking near the front of my brain.

First off, Allen the Alien is the pookiest pookie to ever pookie. He’s so sweet and so determined. He literally risked loosing a battle on purpose to try and be taken to prison, a prison of the enemy, on the off chance that Mark’s dad would be there. And even then it was still a maybe that Nolan would even want to help the cause! Allen still trusted Marks word completely, even though it sounds crazy... “yeah dude okay I believe you, your mass-murdering Viltrumite father who totally tore up Earth and a bunch of other planets has changed his mind and feels bad. Good to know, I’ll make sure to find him and make sure he isn’t executed. I also understand you not wanting to ditch your planet and loved ones, and even though I’ll get in trouble with my commander I’m not going to force you to come to space with me. Bye now, sorry for breaking your bed, nice seeing you man!” And this was all in season 2. Even in season 1 he was still a bro. Allen is the Bro Code personified and I love him for that.

Eve and her family always makes me tear up. Because I can understand how her father, a hardworking man who was probably raised on the saying ‘money doesn’t grow on trees’ — who now has a daughter who can literally make money grow on trees— would feel so upset. It doesn’t make up for the fact that he’s yelling at his family like a dickhead, but it’s still a whole shitty situation. It’s always a grand ole time when Eve is back with her parents… ha ha. The little pep talk from Rex was an awesome little insight on their relationship through the years too.

Rex… my boy, how do I even begin. He’s been a reluctant fav of mine since season one, but he’s also such a douchebag! Sucks that it took being shot in the head and watching your superhero friends/coworkers die in front of you to realize that maybe the whole douchebag thing isn’t really the way to go. But yeah. Good for him! Want more of his backstory tbh, think that’d be cool. And yes, I know I could probably look through the comics and see if there something in there if I really wanted to. But what if I spoil something for myself :c

The Immortal grieving and confused on why he feels so much… the parallels to Nolan with that… not to mention the reveal of Kate being alive! The way he stood there stunned before hugging her was so beautiful. Ugh. Was a bit weary of their relationship until Kate said ‘he knows what it’s like to die over and over’ and then it was like bam they’re in love your honor new otp.

And man. Amber and Mark were my old otp… I knew it was going to end sooner or later (I accidentally got spoiled bruhhh) but I really had hope for them. Sad but honestly Amber deserves the world and if Mark can’t give that to her (and he’s so sad about it too he just wants to go to college and be normal and love his bae) then literally no one can fault her for putting her needs first. That’s another thing I love about the show, there’s no shame when people put their own lives first, and the tough conversations are organic. Magnificent. Anyway Amber is amazing I’m going to miss herrrr T-T hopefully they stay friends and she shows up in other seasons!!

Have I mentioned that I love the gorey fight scenes? Because I really really do. It’s the whole reason I started watching Invincible. So the scene with Mark beating the life out of that slimy megamind with the name I don’t remember? AMAZING. For me, anyway. Mark experiencing the panic and mania right after was still not so great for him, but for me? Good soup. I like my soup seasoned with extra angst, morality struggles, and mental breakdowns. Yum.

Mark hugging his mom so so tight after he gets back to his dimension and curling up crying on the hospital bed next to her? Hitting a little too close to home. Had to pause to wipe my eyes. Also grape baby Oliver has all my love. If something happens to that child, I’ll want to burn the world down. Mark Grayson probably will.

Mark telling his mom he needs to get better so he’s leaving college. ouch. “I need to learn to control myself”… “I can’t be like dad”… gods above. And also “what am I going to do, become a dentist?” LMAO it sucks but he’s right, unless some crazy shit happens and his morality suddenly crumbles to dust, he’ll be a superhero. Because with great power comes great responsibility and all that. There’s usually a bonus savior complex included in the package, but everybody doesn’t learn about that until later womp womp. He and Amber talked about it too, she said something like “if you were the type of person who didn’t immediately leave to go save people, we wouldn’t be dating”. PERIOD.

Don’t even get me started on that last line from Nolan. Caught me by surprise, came out of nowhere. “I think I miss my wife.” STRIKE ME DEAD… I actually shed tears. After everything he’s done, after getting a new wife and having another child and seeing Mark again,,, this bastard is just now missing his wife?? He’s so fucked up fr. But the pain in his voice, BRO, he sounds so confused and heartbroken, like he’s wondering how after everything he’s done to earth and their family, how can he still miss his wife when he doesn’t even deserve to think her name??

Man. This show. So many different subplots and they come together like *chefs kiss* it’s amazing. This show makes me FEEL, even for the characters that I thought I’d always hate… the writers and actors and everyone make all of the characters so human it hurts. EVEN WHEN THE CHARACTERS ARE ALIENS—

[aerodaltonimperial]

(@perhapswhoknowsvamp and I have the best slash worst text threads ever. We realized that Danhausen isn't following Jack on IG today and spiraled.)

Danhausen follows Orange Cassidy. Danhausen follows Hook. Danhausen follows most people on the roster, really.

Danhausen does not follow Jack Perry.

++

Actually, he used to. Danhausen follows and unfollows Jack once a week, just so Jack gets the notifications. Since he’s bored and couch-bound currently, he’s upgraded to doing it every half hour like clockwork. He sends bitchy messages at 3 AM and then blocks Jack so he can’t reply.

Hope Jungle Jack gets some sleep. Would be a shame if someone STOLE that from him.

Jack, whose phone dings for the third time that morning: “THIS MOTHERFUCKER”

++

When he’s on the pain meds, he sends more messages. Has Jack checked his brake lines recently? and This picture of you is quite nice and it’s a cockroach wearing a top hat. (Danhausen doodled the hat on the cockroach.) Behind the cockroach is a jungle, and a large bird of prey with red black and white head feathers.

Jack forwards the message to Hook, with the text: WILL YOU PLEASE JUST TELL HIM THAT WE AREN’T DATING AND ALSO THAT WE AREN’T EVEN TAG PARTNERS ANYMORE

Hook replies with sorry the number you have sent this to is no longer in service R.I.P.

++

Hook sends a follow-up text: the hat does look nice on you.

Jack: “They fucking deserve each other.”

++

Darby eventually slides into Danhausen’s DMs. dude could you stop he is profoundly unsexy when he is this stressed out.

Danhausen: whatever he is profoundly unsexy ALL THE TIME. You should get one that looks sexy more often, then. Darby obviously has poor taste. Perhaps he should talk to Hook. The two of you could become best friends with your new jungle infatuation.

Darby: Is that what this is about? Hook?

Danhausen blocks Darby.

++

Jack finds Hook. He hasn’t slept in days. He is mid-mental breakdown. “PLEASE. I can’t even ask him what he wants! He keeps blocking me before I can tell him that you and I are not a thing. Call him, for fuck’s sake.”

Hook: “I don’t got reception.”

Jack: “YOU HAVEN’T EVEN LOOKED AT YOUR PHONE?”

Hook, cupping a hand over his ear: “What? Sorry. You’re breaking up. They must be updating the towers around here. Anyway, I’ll talk to you later.”

After he walks away, Jack stares. “This fucking guy.”

++

Darby drops down from the fucking ceiling. Jack has a heart attack.

Darby, unaffected: “Sounds like things aren’t going any better on Team Chips. Man, these guys are dense.”

Jack: “….what??”

Darby rolls his eyes. “I’m on Team Teeth, you’re on Team Chips. What, did you think we were going to be on the same side? Over my dead body.”

Jack: “….I—”

++

Darby makes a decision. “Actually…” He looks Jack up and down. “Yeah, I take that back. You can be over me any time you’d like. I’d let you top.”

Jack: “...wha—”

Darby: “I’ll call Danhausen the next time he unblocks me and see what I can do. Again. Idiots.” He fucks off down a hallway on a skateboard that seemingly materialized out of thin air.

Jack: “I…I am so tired.”

++

Danhausen ends up blocking half the roster as they try to get him and Hook back together. By the end, he’s only following a handful: OC (who doesn’t give a shit), MJF (who also doesn’t give a shit but for different reasons), and RJ City (who actually did attempt to get them back together but after he got blocked, he stood crying in Danhausen’s front yard until Danhausen unblocked him. He has not brought it up again).

He also still follows Taz. Taz sent him one message last summer: Sorry. He’s an idiot. He’ll come around.

++

Taz has not been cursed since he sent the message.

++

Jack considers checking himself into the psych ward because they’ll take his phone on intake and maybe he’ll be able to sleep. He walks into the lobby and spots an attending nurse wearing a face mask and hovering nearby, shoulders hunched…and arm in a sling.

Jack nearly cries while leaving the building. He just wants to sleep.

++

Jack, texting Hook: HE FOLLOWED ME TO THE PSYCH WARD.

Darby: sounds hot

Jack: FUCK WRONG NUMBER

++

Jack, texting Hook: HE FOLLOWED ME TO THE PSYCH WARD.

Hook: sounds hot

++

Hook: wait, who followed you?

Jack: DANHAUSEN

Hook: Oh…

Jack: OH? THAT’S ALL YOU CAN SAY, OH? NOT, WHY WERE YOU GOING TO A PSYCH WARD IN THE FIRST PLACE, JACK?

Hook: Sorry

Jack: You’re a shit friend.

Hook: yeah

Jack: He was pretending to be a god damn nurse in the lobby.

Hook: a nurse?

Jack: Yes.

Hook: what was he wearing?

Jack: I hate you.

++

Jack goes to Home Depot. He just wants to sleep. He breaks into one of the outdoor sheds in the parking lot. It’s cold.

++

There’s no cell reception in the shed.

++

Jack is happy.

[archive-of-note]

I finally figured out what my personal issue/usual squick with large age gap fics is even though I know I’m personally attracted to older men.

It’s the pretty regular lack of real acknowledgment of the implications outside of sex and what the relationship is beyond that.

And I’m a horny dude don’t get me wrong, but I realized what was missing from the fics (for me anyway) was attraction beyond sex.

A good example is @frannyzooey ‘s In the Dark

There’s actually chemistry between the reader and Ezra, there’s mutual enjoyment of things outside of breaking each other’s bed frames, the fear of getting caught is also tinged with the fear of real loss, because they do really enjoy each other’s company.

Anyway I’m rambling, and here’s more of it as I couldn’t sleep and was feeling a way.

Joel Miller x younger!Reader (about 20ish years) no outbreak, really calling it a TLOU fic feels a bit off but he’s who I was thinking about when I wrote it. Also it was like 4am, and seeing as I feel asleep with the notes app open, there’s gonna be some mistakes and clunky writing.

———

You can’t keep doing this.

You look into your own eyes as the realization hits you, the humidity of the shower fogging up the streak you’d just wiped away.

You can’t keep doing this.

But you can’t have a breakdown here, in the shower of a man twice your age with a daughter you could’ve easily gone to elementary school with.

Your stomach rolls, and saliva fills your mouth. You’re going to be sick.

Somehow, you hold it back, at least long enough to get dressed, but when it won’t stay down you flush the toilet as you hurl, hoping he won’t ask questions as you leave.

You breathe in, hold it, and let it out in a stream, before opening the en suite door and rushing out of the bedroom.

He’s in the kitchen, and he tries to say something as you rush past, but you just wave him off, muttering something vague about needing to leave, not even putting on your shoes properly as you rush out of the front door and down the street to where you parked.

You’ve been terrified to park in front of his house, terrified to get caught, terrified of being found out.

Terrified of it being real.

You start the car, thankful for the habit you’d developed of hooking the keys to a belt loop.

A habit you’d picked up from him.

Your stomach twists again, your vision blurs as tears form, and a part of you just wants him to hold you.

A tap against the driver side window makes you jump.

He has your wallet.

Cracking the window open enough for him to slip the fake leather billfold through the crack isn’t enough, he shakes his head and points down, wanting you to open the window properly.

You shake as you do.

“Can you tell me what’s wrong darlin’? You ran out-!”

A cry breaks from your lips and suddenly you’re sobbing, the loud panicky sort, the kind you can’t pretty up in a few seconds or lie about convincingly.

He doesn’t look scared, he just looks worried, and for some reason that makes this worse.

He walks around the front of the car, and you’re already double checking that the locks are open, more out of habit than really thinking about it.

He fits a bit awkwardly into the passenger seat.

“Now I need to know what’s wrong, cause I can’t leave you alone like this, not in good conscience.”

You hiccup, engaging the parking break for something to do with your hands and excuse a few more seconds of silence.

The words stick in your throat.

“Baby?”

His hand cups your cheek and you flinch, he pulls away, shocked. Shocked and hurt.

“What are we doing?”

His brow furrows, confusion and concern coming off of him in waves.

“What do you mean?”

“What is this?” Your voice cracks, “What are we?” It feels like something is trying to choke you, “What are we doing? Really?”

His mouth opens, but words don’t come out, and you’re fighting your body to keep yourself from hyperventilating.

“I-“

“What do you want, Joel?” Pressure is building like something pushing on your chest, forcing the words out, “What do you want from me?” The question ends with a crack, and it just emphasizes the following silence.

“I— can we talk about his inside?” He points out the window, head tilting in that way that makes the light catch the errant grays.

“No.”

If it doesn’t happen here, it won’t happen at all. You need some sense of control and your car is better than his kitchen.

He sighs, pushing your wallet in what would’ve been an ashtray, before turning to more properly face you.

“What do you want me to say?” This whole thing already feels like it’s falling apart, which hurts, but it’s better that it happen somewhere somewhat private.

“The truth.”

He looks down, eyes flicking over the center console and a part of you wants to take it back, take it all back and return to where you were not even twenty minutes ago.

“I don’t know.”

“At all?”

“Not-“ he sighs, turning to look out the windshield, “it’s complicated.”

“No shit.”

He huffs in something that sounds like amusement, and even on the verge of a panic attack you can’t help but crack a small smile.

“You make me happy,” he presses a point between his thumb and forefinger, “and that’s all I’ve really been thinking about.”

“Really?” You can’t believe it, because you know he’s a worrier.

“Been putting everything else on the back burner, it was easier.”

You sink a bit into your seat, most of the tension moving to the back of your neck.

“We can’t keep doing it like this.”

He sighs, “No, we shouldn’t.”

You both sit in the car, silent as you consider what to do now.

He suddenly speaks up, “Made French toast.”

Your stomach rumbles in interest, “With the little maple bacon bits?”

He laughs like that was a stupid question, “is there another way to make it?”

You giggle, sniffing as the sound cracks in your throat.

———

This is where I fell asleep, and honestly I don’t think I could write anymore for this, cause it’s bringing up a lot of feelings I don’t wanna deal with rn.

[toothlesshat]

Series rewrite imminent cuz you have so many goddamn good points about the '22 universe

OH MY GOD ANON YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU’VE RELEASED aksjshdjdkgk um I think the only problem are my opinions don’t seem to be very popular in the fandom 😭 but I’m gonna use this post as a way to lay out some changes I’d really like in a rewrite, but I should mention that its been a few months since I saw the series and my memory is fuzzy rn, but I distinctly remember what I did and didn’t like, so here we go.

Major changes here

Make the series shorter omfg. I know not everyone is going to agree with this, and that’s fine, but I feel like the time travel stuff, the space stuff (the triceratons in general. I know they’re older villains but Jesus dude they came out of nowhere and felt like a replacement to the Kraang) was so unnecessary and it really killed the pacing, which killed a lot of the show for me. I feel like the show has too many fucking villains when the focus should be on Shredder and the Kraang. If I could rewrite the series, I would take all that out and focus more on our main characters and fully flesh out others (like April, Casey and Karai). I feel like the time travel arc happened mostly to show us Splinter pre mutation, but there’s a thousand more clever ways to do that that don’t wear the show down. I really just want to keep the pacing consistent, keep the plot and conflict constant, and work more on the characters, which I think would be better done with a shorter series so they have to use their remaining episodes wisely yk?

Have Leo step down as leader for half a season. I made a post about this, but idk where it is so the gist is that after Tigerclaw is introduced in s2 and they had that huge altercation where they had to choose between calling Splinter or letting Mikey die, Leo has a breakdown and completely pulls away from the team despite everyone’s wishes, but he continues to do vigilantism on his own. I want this because I want Leo to have time away from his role as leader and explore who he is, what he wants, and what he really needs. It’s also a good time for the brothers to come together and learn how to be without him but also realizing they need him! (I also think this would be a fun time to have Leo get closer to Casey since they’re both doing the same thing at that point and flesh him out as well) this would blend into s3 and the farmhouse arc would be when he finally comes back as leader.

Have?? All the brothers defeat Shredder??? It honestly makes me mad that Leo killed him in the end and the others helplessly watched when the Shredder conflict affected all of them! This wasn’t like a Leo specific problem, they all should’ve killed Shredder.

Make the farmhouse arc more impactful character wise. I swear to god it was all filler when this was the perfect time to take each character out of their environment and explore who they are and what growth they need to make. The wasted potential is so frustrating to me omfg

Smaller changes

Cut out the love triangle entirely. That shit was so unnecessary and it wasn’t even interesting and it made Donnie and April hard to enjoy. Make them close friends since they clearly have the potential to be and abandon the romance since the show can’t write it for shit

Same with Leo and Karai, they should be parallels of each other as Splinter’s eldest children.

LET MIKEY FUCKING DO SOMETHING oh my god he’s done so dirty all the time I just want him to actually do something cool and be acknowledged for it. He’s already incredibly skilled, expand on it!

Let Raph keep his character development?? Every other episode he’d be like okay Leo :) I understand why leading is hard now :) then the show will make him bitch about it in the next episode! Raph is a good character and a good person, let him grow ffs

STOP TREATING CASEY LIKE GARBAGE literally nobody gives a fuck about him ever and it makes me sooo mad. Just fleshing out Casey in general please please PLEASE

Call out and work on Splinter. I wouldn’t change how he raised them because that’s a fundamental change in all the characters, but let them actually call him out on it I swear. He plays obvious favorites, demands more out of his kids than they can give, treats them like soldiers more than his sons and it’s just- frustrating that they never really call him out on it. It’s not even that he has to be a demonized character forever, he has his own motivation for doing what he does, but he never fucking tells them! And it explicitly messed them up! Raph is so insecure and resents Leo because of Splinter’s favoritism, and that shouldn’t go unresolved.

And uh that’s all I can think of right now. Maybe I’ll do a post about a full rewrite another day but off the top of my head, these are my ideas and what I want out of the series.

[unicorpseboi]

Aw shit I think my former manager was gaslighting me after he found out I’m schizoaffective and in remission.

I haven’t been able to trust myself with money counting ever since quitting this job 4 years ago, and it just hit me that I think that motherfucker did this on purpose. Second summer coming back to this fireworks store, love the owner, the love the day manager, loved my coworkers, it was a really great job. I was brought back that year as a cashier supervisor, lower tier management, I was in charge of all cash registers and I b was damn good at my job. Karen’s couldn’t pull their shit, my cashiers were the most well trained the owner had seen, he even gave me his code for bypassing shit in the computer he trusted me so much.

Notice how I said day manager? There was a different closing/night manager. On top of the fact this dude was transphobic af towards me (a thing that shook ALL of us to our core, given there was no issue the previous year when I was an associate and this guy was just a back room stocker) I swear this dude was trying to get me fired. He was pissed that he had to train me on closing procedures as per the owners request.

I didn’t have a single accurate count on my cashier drawers once. Scratch that, I did. Until he started training me. And mysteriously every time my drawers would be off, he’d tell me to put it in and we’d fix it in the morning and either the owner would mysteriously find all the money in the drawer, or he would recount it after sending me home and it would be fixed.

Here’s why I think he was doing it on purpose and what u think he was doing: already transphobic, number one problem right there. I know he didn’t like closing with me but that was my shift bruh idk what to say I’ve always worked closing there. There was an incident that was especially wired, where it kinda confirmed in my mind this guy is taking cash out of my drawers to make me look bad. One of my cashiers couldn’t give a lady her $18.37 in change before the customer darted out of the store. Whatever, no big deal, me and the morning manager did a count of the drawer to make sure it was otherwise accurate (it was) then we made a sticky note with the amount over to expect it to be that night. Even logged it so technically once my count was perfectly correct. Later that night, someone took $15.75 from the drawer because the amount over at the end was all over the place. Closing manager even “helped” and I think he realized he might’ve fucked up when he saw we had put the count earlier in the system cuz suddenly I found five more dollars recounting. I texted the owner, and honestly said I think someone is taking money from my register when he left for the day. Sure enough the next morning the entire extra amount was back. (Note, even though I was supposed to learn proper closing I never once did cuz this guy would send me home to finish up whatever shit he was pulling after successfully giving me another panic attack).

Idk if the owner actually looked into what he was doing but after that incident the guy made my life a living hell and pushed me to the point where I had a breakdown and a seizure on the floor while working. I knew it was shitty, I knew it was some kind of hostile retaliation but I was not gonna risk my psychosis staying in remission to prove it, so I unfortunately had to quit the best job I’ve ever had on the spot. Could not return, did not pass go. I haven’t been able to trust myself working a job that handles money ever since. (Also didn’t have insurance at the time so I couldn’t just hop and skip over to the psychiatrist to get put back on my meds or change doses around, where did you think I lived? A first world developed nation? Naw dog, dying empire collapsing around us America is my prison for life cuz I’m disabled and can’t afford to move let alone find another country that would accept me since schizophrenia/schizo conditions automatically disqualify you from most countries when applying for visas or citizenship or asylum, fun fact)

How about we don’t gaslight and manipulate the schizophrenic just for funsies y’all?? I did love the doubling down even after the opening manager also got sus of CM’s bullshit. Gaslight gatekeep girlboss your way to the top, Jarred. You go queen! You bullied a schizophrenic for *checks notes* working the same shift with you. Get fucked Jarred.

[boomblebee-420]

Snowflakes: A Renga Fic PT 2

Fandom: Sk8 The Infinity

Pairing: Reki x Langa

Content: Mostly just angst

Warnings: Small breakdown

A/N: This took me a g e s. My procrastination game is on-point  

PART 1: https://www.tumblr.com/oliverwashere420/710164831610748928/snowflakes-a-renga-fic?source=share

“No, I’m not! Shut up!”

Langa looked over to where Reki, Joe, and Cherry were standing, wondering who was shouting. Looking at Reki’s red face and Joe’s loud belly laughs, he guessed it was Reki. Was he okay?

Curious, Langa excused himself from his debate with Miya to ask them about it.

“Is everything okay?” Langa asked, concerned. “I heard yelling.”

“E-everything’s great! We were just talking! About, uh, cars!” Reki said, smiling awkwardly and scratching the back of his neck. “Just cars!”

“Cars?” Joe blurted, clearly amused. 

“Yes, cars, Joe!”

“Oh, okay. I’m going to go talk with Miya then. I want to race him” Langa replied, not fully believing the car excuse. He may be oblivious, but he can tell when someone’s made up a story on the spot. He decided to leave it. 

“Have funnnn!” Reki exclaimed, waving wildly. Langa gave a small smile and waved back, heart beating slightly faster at Reki’s smile.

Now to convince Miya to beef with him.

~Time Skip~

Langa was worried. Reki’s small changes in behavior towards him hadn’t gone unnoticed. The nervously bouncing leg, the quick glances, the excuses he made whenever Langa stepped into a conversation. Reiki was avoiding him, too, just a bit. S, which used to be a nightly thing, had become more two or three times a week, Reki making up reasons why he couldn’t go. Too tired, missed homework, errands, chores, the list went on. Langa went alone most nights now. 

Did he realize that I like him? Is that why he’s being strange? He isn’t usually like this. Does he not like guys? Am I giving too much away? Does he not want to be my friend anymore? Did I do something wrong?

He didn’t want to think too far into it. It was probably nothing, right? Reki’s a strange person in general, this most likely doesn’t mean anything. They aren’t fighting. Reki’s not avoiding him, he’s just busy. That’s all.

Nonetheless, he kept thinking about this while waiting at the intersection for his red-headed friend. And a few minutes later, there he was. Riding his board down the street, smiling like crazy and his hair blowing around wildly. 

“Beautiful.” He whispered, not taking his eyes off the boy in front of him. 

“What’s up, my dude! You ready to go?” Reki said, stopping his board and giving Langa a fistbump-high-five-combo they did everytime they saw each other. “Heard you convinced Miya to beef with you today!”

“Yeah, it took a bit of coaxing.” He laughed lightly. Reki looked away with a small blush across his cheeks. But even with this seemingly normal interaction, Langa felt that Reki looked at him differently than before. 

“Well, let’s go! I’ll race you!” 

“You're on!”

And there they went, speeding down the lit street, laughing their asses off.

~Time Skip to the next day~

It turns out Reki and Langa are more similar than people think. Because here is Langa, sitting in Sia La Luce after hours, talking to Joe about Reki. Joe must be some sort of love guru.

“I like Reki.” Langa says, looking up at the tall green-haired man.

“Yeah, I know, kid. It's pretty obvious.” Said man replies, sitting down next to Langa. 

“Really?”

“Yes.” He laughed lightly. These kids, so clueless and naive.

“Is that why he doesn’t look at me the same anymore? Does he know I like him?” Langa felt like he was going to cry.  

“Nah, kid. He’s about as clueless as you are.” Joe says.

“What does that mean?”

“Just go talk to him about it, Langa. Things will work out fine.”

“But how do you know it’ll be okay? What if he doesn’t…like me like that? What if he doesn’t want to be friends anymore? I can’t lose him!” Langa really was about to cry. A tear escaped his eye, rolling down his cheek and dripping onto the table. He quickly wiped away the salty streak it left behind on his face. More tears welled up in his greenish-blue eyes, swirling around like water down a drain as he tapped his fingertips on the wooden table. 

“Woah- hey! It’s okay, Langa, there’s no need to cry. Everything’s okay, alright?” Joe, normally a care-free individual, was genuinely worried about the Canadian boy. He had never seen Langa cry before. He hesitantly patted him on the back as Langa struggled not to completely collapse into a ball of tears. Joe thought about telling him of Reki’s feelings, but decided against it. This was something they had to work out themselves. “Everything’s alright.”

“He doesn’t look at me the same anymore. He avoids me. And he always has an excuse ready whenever I ask him about it. What did I do wrong?” His voice cracks, and the tears in his eyes come crashing down all at once. He brought his hands up to his face, body shaking with his sobs. 

“You didn’t do anything wrong, Langa. And Reki’s just…conflicted right now. It’s not your fault.”  Joe got up, stretching out his back. “How about I make you some poutine? It’ll make you feel better, I’m sure.”

Langa sniffed, looking up at the green-haired man. “Thanks.” 

After eating and thanking Joe for the comfort and food, Langa left Sia La Luce and started back home. Once he reached his window, though, he changed his mind. There was no way he could sleep with his mind running like this. He turned around and started skating towards the park that he and Reki frequented, stopping at the 24 hour gas station for a drink.

Once he arrived, he set his board down and sipped on the gatorade he bought. He wanted a monster, but it was too late for energy drinks. He swirled the red liquid around in its bottle, watching it spin. It reminded him of Reki’s hair. He continued this for a while, just thinking about Reki. His laugh, his smile, his eyes, his voice, his hands…the list went on. Reki’s amazing. 

Langa just sat there on his board, looking at the red gatorade and occasionally taking a sip. He was so engrossed in his thoughts that he didn’t notice the red-head coming up behind him.

“I wonder if I’ll ever be able to tell him how I feel about him.” The green eyed boy whispered.

“Tell who what?” Reki asked, poking Langa in the back. Langa yelped, jumping up from his skateboard and accidentally spilling his drink. Reki laughed, picking up the now-empty bottle. “Sorry about that.”

“I-it’s fine, Reki. You surprised me.” Langa replied, trying to catch his breath a bit and taking the bottle from Reki.

“Yeah, I kind of guessed.” He laughed again. “You okay? You seemed pretty lost in thought.”

Langa sat back down, sighing lightly. Reki followed suit. “Yeah, I’m okay.”

“You’re hardly ever out at 4am on a school night, dude. Did you ever even go home?”

“Couldn’t sleep.”

“Any particular reason?”

Langa paused, looking down at his shoes. His socks were mismatched today, one green, one white. 

“Actually, yeah.” He said, looking back up at Reki’s amber eyes. “I have something I need to tell you.”

Going to try to finish this in part 3 :D also please send in requests! Just please check my pinned post for guidelines. I have no idea what I’m going to write after finishing this fic 

[kitkraft1]

TOH SPOLIERS:

.

.

.

IF GUS USED THE SPELL TO SEE MEMORIES ON BELOS THAT MEANS HE SAW ALL HIS MEMORIES

BRO IS FUCKING 12 HOLY SHIT IM NOT OKAY

[maedaex2combo]

More Than Pale

Chapter Two: When Feelings Go Unspoken

Post-retcon / Post-sburb

[CH 1] ==>

———————————————————————

Pairings: Dave x Karkat x Reader (GenderNeutral!Reader Human!Reader)

Warnings: Strong language, Alcoholism, Angst.

Word Count: 16.3k (itsmorethistimeimsorry)

Summary: After sobering up and getting your music career up and running again, you reconnect with an old friend from your tour. This causes more than a few issues between you and your two "platonic" best friends. Is it jealousy or is it for your well-being?

A/N: Holy shit I finally finished this chapter LMAO. God this took me forever y'all I'm so sorry. I'm literally in a foreign country right now for study but I'll be damned if I let that stop me (I only let it slow me down significantly). Anyways I was kind of struggling with what direction I wanted to take the story to get the boys to realize their feelings, but this is what I came up with! I hope it's good because I can't keep reading over this monstrosity of a chapter anymore. But we've got a new character and high high tension in this one. Sorry for all the angst! But it'll be worth it in the end ;) Enjoy!

———————————————————————

Lets get into it x2

It’s been a month!

A month of sobriety. A month of working on your new album. A month since the breakdown video, which ended up getting cleared up with both the public and your friends. The dinner with Rose and Kanaya was awkward, you’ll admit, but they actually helped with their advice about staying sober. The picnic with Roxy, Calliope, and Jade was helpful as well and encouraged you to spend more time with your other friends. All in all, you were doing a lot better now! You even wrote one of your songs about your journey towards recovery and self-love so far. In a livestream, you ended up crying at how supportive your fans were. Things were really looking up for you.

The album was maybe about halfway done now. At the moment you’re currently working on your track with Dave as a feature and writer. He’s been having trouble with his own writing, despite all his work being very good, as you continue to tell him. You think he’s just being especially hard on himself since he knows this will be largely produced and listened to by millions. You’ve been patient though, always, for him.

The room is scattered with papers, whole ones and crumpled ones. Really, this was not very eco friendly. You probably could’ve written in a tablet or something. All the tech though was being used for recording, beat making, mixing, etc. There's cords everywhere like a death trap. It’s a mess.

You’re reading over one of the verses for the thousandth time when Dave walks back in again with AJ and a water for you.

“so what do you think?”

“Dave. Every time I tell you it’s perfect! You’re the one who’s nitpicking.”

“yeah but if it’s perfect then why do you keep giving me feedback?”

“Because you insist!!!” You laugh a little at the ridiculousness of the past several hours spent going back and forth like this. You stand up and hand the paper towards him for the last time. “This is it, Dave. This is the final draft. I officially have no more comments.”

“but-“ he starts to protest.

“Nope!”

“ok just-“

“Nuh-uh.”

“dude-“

“No!”

He finally breaks out into a smile. “okay! okay. but just for the last line. I think that-”

“What was that?? I think someone’s calling me, I can’t hear you. One second.” He sighs as you clearly answer a fake phone call. “Hello? Who is it?… Oh my gosh, Barrack Obama???… Wow, such an honor to talk to you sir. To what do I owe the pleasure?-“

“hey. don’t bring him into this.” He says, but there’s still that little amused smirk on his face.

“Oh, what’s that? You read the copy of Dave’s verses I sent you? Thank you, sir! And what’d you think? Oh, wow…. Really??? You think it's THAT bangin?? That’s great! I’ll let him know!” Dave rolls his eyes behind his shades as you pretend to give Americas greatest president your farewells.

“thats not funny. identity theft is a crime (y/n).”

“You know what’s not a crime? Being confident in your bomb ass work. Seriously, why are you so anxious about it? You like your own music, don’t you?”

“of course bro. i write the fucking sickest raps on this planet.”

“Then why-“

“this is different. im not just posting this on my shitty little personal noisecloud account. this track might end up playing in every goddammed mall, cafe, club, and whatever else is on earth c. this is gonna be like- my own official debut. if i put this song out there on your album, its gonna be the whole planets first real look at my music. people are gonna search me up- and if it’s too good then theyll look at my old songs and be all ‘aw shit dude this guy actually sucks’. but if its not good then theyll just assume my music is ass and wont even bother-“

“Dave.” You cut off his rambling suddenly, taking a step closer to him.

“what??” He snaps, clearly stressed, as he whips his head around to look at you.

“It’s good. I promise it’s good.” You take one of his hands in both of yours. “It’s just as good as all your other music. I promise you. Your debut will be a huge success, I already know it. You don't have anything to worry about.”

It’s silent after that. He just stares at you for a while, and the assumed eye contact feels weirdly intimate after a moment passes. From your point of view, you think maybe you went too far. You just wanted to reassure him, but you probably made him uncomfortable. 'I really have to draw the line for this stuff somehow' You think. You start to blush a little out of embarrassment, and quickly let go of his hand to turn away and clear your throat. Not that that makes it any less uncomfortable.

From Dave’s point of view, well, he’s not even quite sure what he’s feeling. He's had these weirdly intimate moments with you ever since he found out you had feelings for him. Did he ever get this flustered around you before that? He cant remember. It’s a good thing that he doesn’t usually blush very much, because it must’ve been unnoticeable to you. He wishes it was unnoticeable to him too, the way his heart started to beat faster when you touched his hand and comforted him, and even faster every second your eyes stayed connected. It felt so nice, it left him speechless long enough for you to think he was uncomfortable. this is weird… this feeling… i have a matesp- boyfriend. so why do i feel-

And then you’re pulling away. And he shakes off the weird emotions he doesn’t want to address as quickly as they came.

“Anyways.” You quickly add onto that comically awkward cough as you make your way back to your own desk with your own writing. “If you want to keep perfecting it, that’s fine. But y'know that one saying… Uhh what was it… Don’t fix what isn’t broken? Right?”

Dave nods. “yeah i guess.” He replies as he goes to sit back down at his desk. Right before he can take a seat, someone knocks on the door of your workroom. You both know who it is of course.

Karkat opens the door before either of you even get to say anything. “HEY. SORRY TO BOTHER YOU TWO WHEN YOU’RE ‘IN THE ZONE’ OR WHATEVER. BUT SOMEONE'S AT THE FRONT DOOR ASKING FOR (Y/N).”

“Huh?” This catches your attention, turning your body in your chair to look at him. “Who is it??”

“NO FUCKING CLUE. HE SAYS YOU KNOW HIM.”

Your heart sinks a little, immediately assuming the worst. “Oh, shit. Is it one of the guys I’ve dated?? Tell them I’m not here!!”

“NO, (Y/N). UNFORTUNATELY FOR ME, I THINK I WOULD RECOGNIZE THEM. IM PRETTY SURE IM SO TRAUMATIZED BY ALL THOSE DATE NIGHTS, THAT THEIR FACES ARE ENGRAVED INTO MY FUCKING THINKPAN FOREVER AGAINST MY WILL. BUT I'VE NEVER SEEN THIS DOUCHE BEFORE.”

Now you’re curious. And apparently your two friends are as well, when they follow you into the hall and quietly peak their head out from behind the stairs to see who the mystery man is.

When you open the door, you need to take a second to get a good look at him. He has curly black wolf-cut hair, and when he takes off his expensive-looking maroon shades, he’s got really well drawn black eyeliner on. You immediately recognize him now that you can get a good look at his face. He was one of your openers on tour! You spent a couple months together and he was really cool from what you can remember. You can’t believe you forgot to keep in touch! Then again, a lot happened for you.

“Rael!!!” Your face lights up and you excitedly pull him into a hug, taking him by a bit of surprise, but his smiles big when he returns the hug.

“(Y/n)! Hey! I missed you, dude!” The two of you pull back, grinning. “How you been? I saw all that stuff that happened last month and got worried. Thought I’d come check on ya!” Karkat and Dave share a confused glance with eachother.

You laugh a little, embarrassed that he had to read/see about that. “Ooohhh yeah… that was crazy! Haha.. But I’m doing a lot better now! I’m working on my next album!”

“I heard! I bet it’s coming along great.” He compliments, putting his hands on his hips. "Your tracks are always groundbreaking."

You blush. “Hahah.. Thanks! But yeah, it is coming along really well." You’re smiling bigger than you have in a while. It feels so good to see another artists from your tour again, brings back good memories, as exhausting as the trip was. There were people who made it worth it. “Would you… like to come in?” You suggest suddenly on a whim.

“Oh, that’s okay! I know you’re busy. I just thought I’d come by and say hello, since I was in the area.”

“Are you sure? I'd love to have you over for a while! Maybe I could show you what I’ve been working on?” You suggest, a little bashful. You haven’t shown anyone but Dave and Karkat your work so far. It’d be good to get another artists opinion as well.

“Hmm…” He takes a second to think, looking off to the side. “Well, alright! Since you insist!” He agrees suddenly, and the two of you laugh, chatting some more as he walks in alongside you into the house. Dave and Karkat go back into the workroom when they notice you coming in.

When you two enter to see them, Rael is the first to speak. “Hey! These must be the god-friends I heard you talk about so much!” He announces, and you blush a little. “Its nice to finally meet you two! The famous Dave Strider! I heard your beats are nice!"

"sup." Dave nods in resonse, his hands in his pockets.

He looks over to Karkat. "And uh… Wait don’t tell me… Kitkat?”

“KARKAT.” He sneers, immediately put off by this guy.

“Oh right! Haha, funky name.” He totally misses the aggravated response. Humans sometimes have a hard time with troll names, but it comes off as xenophobic if they don’t even try or apologize. It’s one of Kar’s many pet peeves. He only didn’t go off on the guy because Dave immediately took his hand behind his leg to calm him down subtly. You laugh a little awkwardly to fill the short, yet thick, following silence.

“and who are you?” Dave asks, melancholy.

"Oh right. Guys this is-"

“Name’s Rael! I’m a friend of (Y/n)’s. We were on tour together!” He cuts you off, but you don't think much of it.

“His music’s really good! I thought he could help us out a little bit. Maybe give us an outside view for editing purposes?” You smile, intentions good, totally forgetting Dave’s thing about privacy and how much he would and does think that's an awful fucking idea.

“im good.” Is his short reply.

“What? Dave!” You immediately retort.

“It’s okay, I can just take a look! I don’t have to give any real criticism if you don’t want it!” Rael offers, but Dave’s cold expression doesn’t budge. There’s a very tense air in the room right now. The silence unfortunately pushes Rael to continue his paragraph. “Hey, I get it man! Some people just can’t take it, I’ve had a lot of friends go off on me for-“

“yeah. really. im good.” Dave reports again, cutting him off in the same tense tone. “you two can knock yourselves out though. think im all written out for today anyways.”

Then he’s grabbing all his writings that he can see and walking out of the room. Karkat follows behind, not without his signature dirty look glaring directly at your friend. The door slams after him.

Yeah. They’re never really elusive or subtle with how they feel, are they? As much as Dave tries to be. This doesn’t surprise you, but you’d be lying if you weren’t a little upset. Also, it was a little bit out of character for Dave to be so cold to someone new. Why was he acting so weird?

“Well then!” You say, clapping your hands together and faking a smile, trying to forget that strange interaction. “Shall we get started then?”

You two spend the next several hours in the workroom. Every laugh from behind the door seems to vibrate throughout the whole house. The intense air followed the two boys into the living room where they’ve been biding their time doing whatever the hell they could think of. Mostly video games. Theres no real one set reason to why the events of today seem to put the two in a bad mood. Karkat of course didn’t like this 'friend' of yours based off first impression, but he doesn’t ever like new people honestly. He’s also just pissed he has to deal with him being in the house for this extended amount of time, even having to see him walk out to use your bathroom once. It was silently pissing him off. Or as silent as he can get, only warranting a few angry outburst rants to Dave saying things like “HOW LONG IS THIS ASSHOLE GONNA STAY IN THERE?” and “HE MIGHT AS WELL FUCKING MOVE IN AT THIS POINT.”

Dave on the other hand didn’t really have a problem with the guy, other than the way he greeted Kar earlier, which also set a bad first impression for him. He’s more-so annoyed with you, for suddenly bringing in a stranger and offering to share his personal work with him when you know- or should know- he wouldn’t like that. He was already struggling with the track, and now he can’t even work on it for today. But it’s whatever. (It’s not.) At least that’s the conclusion he’s come to.

Finally, after what feels like forever, at 11:48pm, Rael finally gets escorted out into the front hall. He says goodbye to your friends, which grants him what sounds like a muttered goodbye and a headnod without eye contact. (I’m sure you know who’s who.).

You hug him in the doorway and send him on his way, satisfied with how tonight went. Other than maybe one thing.

You walk into the living room and stand in front of the TV as to get your best friend's attention. They both look up at you.

“Hey… I’m sorry about earlier. I know what he said was maybe rude, and a little intense. But I promise he’s a cool.”

“YEAH RIGHT. THAT GUY SEEMED LIKE A SHITHEAD.” Karkat says immediately, sitting tucked into the corner of the couch.

“Karkat.” You frown at his never-failing bluntness.

“its cool. just maybe dont bring him into the workroom again.” Dave says from his spot chilling on the floor, looking at something on his camera.

“Why not?”

“because dude. i got my work in there too. you know i don’t want some random people seeing my personal feels-jam shit.” He says plainly, glancing up at you now.

“Okay, well, he’s not just some ‘random guy’, he’s my friend.”

“big emphasis on ‘your friend’.”

You sigh, moving forward to sit on top of the coffee table. “Okay, I’m sorry. I just thought maybe he could help you get inspired! If you gave him a chance, I'm sure you’d see he’s really great and you two would hit it off… Artistically, I mean.” You say the last part glancing at Karkat nervously. He didn’t care of course.

“maybe. but i just met the dude today.”

“AND HES AN ASS.” Karkat adds again, arms crossed.

“He is not. You’ll see. I’ll bring him over again and you guys can actually talk this time.”

“PLEASE DONT.” He chimes.

“Karkat, can you at least try to give him a chance? This could be good for us.”

“FOR US? WHAT THE HELL ABOUT THIS IS GOOD FOR US? NEITHER OF US WANT HIM OVER.”

“But you guys should really be meeting more people! I finally have the chance to introduce you to someone you don’t know, but I do! This could be a chance to maybe socialize? I think you guys need it.-”

“and i think you obviously have a thing for this guy.” Dave suddenly adds.

“What!?” You blurt out, very thrown off by this accusation.

“cmon (y/n). you were putting on the happy-go-lucky ass demeanor you always have when some dude youre into is around. and you were laughing like every minute.”

“LOUDLY. IT WAS INTERRUPTING MY GODDAMN THOUGHTS.”

You frown at this sudden accusation, and blush intensely at their teasing. “I do not have a thing for him!! He’s my friend!! And I’m trying to make him your guys too!”

“hard pass.”

“DAVE!” You shout in protest. He finally has to let out a snicker at how insistent you were being about this. It really couldn’t be more obvious. You blush harder.

“alriiiiiiiight alright. fine. if it means that much to you then ill try.”

Your smile finds its way back again slightly, still blushing. “Thank you.” Then you turn to Karkat.

“NO.” Is his immediate response as soon as you make eye contact, because he knows exactly what you’re about to ask.

“Karkaaaaatttttt” You plead. “Pleeeeaaaaaseeeeee!”

He glares at you, and you keep strong with your pouting, waiting for him to give in. This is held for a weird amount of time, as Dave watches, pretty amused by it. And then-

“UUUUGHHHHHHHHHHHHH” He groans loudly and throws his head back, signaling that he's given in.

“Thank you!!!” You immediately respond to his groaning. You go over and give him a big hug, to which he weakly tries to retract from, as an attempt to show how much he did not want to agree to this.

“OH WHATEVER! GET OFF ME!!!” He yells, starting to blush lightly, but you can tell by his weak squirming that he didn’t actually dislike it. If he really wanted you off, he’d be clawing at you like a cat or something. You’ve seen it happen. 

—————————————————————

And so your fate was set.

After that night, Rael comes over and tries again with the two boys. It goes better than last time, but they’re still not quite convinced. So, he comes over again, and again. And again. But it unsurprisingly becomes less and less for their sake.

One day, the two of you actually go out on an official “date”. To which the boys are very skeptical of, considering past mishaps. You insist to them it’ll be fine.

“We’ve been hanging out with Rael for a few weeks now! It won’t be any different than how it usually is hanging out with him! I’ll be fine.”

So, hesitantly, they let you go. They’re silently anxious and impatient when they wait for you that night, trying to bide their time in a way that tried to make it seem like they weren't both feeling this way.

To their surprise and relief, you come back totally sober. And happy! They haven’t seen you this happy in a while. Maybe this is a good thing after all… Right?

It’s an hour since you got back from your date with Rael and you’re in the bathroom doing your nightly routine. When you hear a knock on the bathroom door, you give your permission for them to enter, and in walks Karkat. “Hey Kar. What’s up?” You say, only glancing at him for a moment before going back to applying toner.

“SO… TONIGHT REALLY WENT WELL? LIKE YOU’RE NOT LYING AT ALL?”

“Yes. I promise you it went well.” You assure him again, despite having done so ealier.

“OKAY… YEAH. BECAUSE YOU SEEM REALLY HAPPY… ITS KIND OF WEIRD.”

You hold back a laugh, but it comes out anyways kind of like a snort. “What’s that supposed to mean?! It’s not like it was a date with just any random person like before!” You exclaim and he nods, leaning against the door, arms crossed. “Plus, you should know since I’m totally 300% definitely sober. Do you still want to test me just in case? I’ll walk in a straight line, look!” You start to do so as a joke, but realize after a few seconds that something is off with him. He looks lost in thought. “Kar.. What’s up? Is something wrong?”

The question seems to snap him back to the moment suddenly. “WHAT?! YEAH. I MEAN NO!! IM FINE.”

You frown, titling your head a little. “Are.. you sure?”

It’s quiet for a moment.

“…YOU REALLY LIKE HIM THAT MUCH?”

You smile, making sure once again that he knows you’re very serious about this. “Yes! I really really do. Seriously.” You reassure him, but you don’t realize that’s not at all what he wanted to hear. “I’m actually thinking about asking him…” You continue, but trail off.

“TO BE YOUR MATESPRIT???” Karkat shouts, eyes widening slightly and arms dropping.

“Well… yeah. I mean…“ You look away sheepishly. “Do you think I shouldn’t? I know how you guys feel about him, so-“

“YEAH. GO AHEAD. DO IT.”

Your head shoots back to him, surprised, not noticing the tensity of his response. “Really?!”

“YEAH. DO WHATEVER THE FUCK YOU WANT. GO BE HAPPY WITH HIM OR WHATEVER.”

This time you notice the harshness, but you brush it off as the usual grumpy commentary you get from your friend, not reading much into it. “Oh!… Okay! Thank you! I-“

“IM GOING TO BED. NIGHT (Y/N).” He says and he’s leaving before you can even protest.

“..Night..” you say weakly, even though no one’s there anymore. You hear a door slam down the hallway. Something in your heart sinks as you replay what just happened and analyze the look on Karkats face that whole conversation. It was almost…

You don’t even know. Really, what was that?

Anyhow, after that night, you two do make it official. Rael is over more often. Then, suddenly he’s spending the night “since he stays so late anyways”. The boys get used to him, but no closer to him at all. They more-so just put up with him for your sake. It’s what they had figured they might have to do when you eventually made it official with someone unfortunately. But there’s still always been something off about Rael, the way he’s so “chill” and “happy” all the time, to the point where it seems almost passive aggressive. There was a time where they watched while you disagreed with what they were ordering for dinner, and it almost seemed like he manipulated you into agreeing. But he was so subtle and upbeat about it that it was hard to point out. Plus, it’d be weird to address that they’re being that observant. Things like that happened pretty often, but they never decide to address it outwardly.

Work on the album continues as well. You’re more inspired and motivated than ever. Dave and you finalize your collab together, and all that’s left now is recording. What could go wrong?

… Lol.

—————————————————————

A few weeks pass since you got into your new relationship. You, Dave, and Rael took today to go to the studio together. Karkats been alone at home for a few hours, not wanting to tag along. He decided to actually try and bake you two something as a surprise, being the romantic yet non-physically-affectionate troll that he is. He knows the baking is done when the oven starts smoking. That’s definitely how this works.

As he goes to take the (basically burnt) pastries out of the oven, the door swings open with a loud bang, and then slams close with the same volume. Karkat nearly drops the container when the sound comes out of nowhere, followed by his clearly aggravated boyfriend flying into the room. He takes a seat on one of the dining room chairs. It stands quiet for a moment as Karkat stares at the blonde in shocked-confusion, oven mitts and pan still in hands.

“…DAVE?” He finally says to get his attention. 

Dave quickly whips his head around to face him. “yeah? whats up?” He asks without hesitation, acting as if he didn’t just make a scene, and isn’t home earlier than expected.

“WHAT HAPPENED?? WHY ARE YOU HERE??”

“what? a dude can’t fly into his own home and take a seat on his comically high dining room chair?”

Karkat blinks a few times. “ISN’T IT EARLY FOR YOU TO BE HOME? ARE YOU FINISHED DOING YOUR-“

“yep. we finished early.”

“OKAY… WHERES (Y/N)-“

“probably still recording.”

“PROBABLY??? BUT-“

Another unnecessarily loud bang as the front door opens, and you come flying in.

“CAN WE NOT JUST OPEN THE DOOR LIKE NORMAL FUCKING PEOPLE?!” Karkat yells, now very aggravated after almost dropping the baked goods on the floor for the second time.

“Dave!!” You yell, remaining hovering above ground when you come to a halt in front of him. “What the hell was that about?! What do you mean you won’t do it?!”

“WONT DO WHAT??” Karkat asks from behind you, still confused.

“i just don’t feel like doing it anymore.”

“What?! But we spent so long working on the song! What happened?”

“YEAH SO IM SURE ITS A BIG FUCKING SURPRISE TO ALL OF US, BUT IM WONDERING THE SAME THING!!” Karkat interjects between the two of you, really desiring some type of answer.

You sigh, looking over to Karkat. “Dave suddenly said he didn’t wanna do the song anymore after we spent like not even a half hour trying to record it. He just said he didn’t want to do it and flew out!” You turn to look at Dave again. “I had to leave Rael at the studio to come chase you!”

“yeah well why don’t you go back to him then?”

“UGH! Why are you being like this??! I thought you liked the song!”

“i do.”

“Then why?!”

“i just don’t want to produce it anymore.”

“But!… but…” You trail off, not sure what to say anymore.

Silence. The three of you stay still for a moment, Dave looking to the side, you staring at him, and Karkat staring back and forth between both of you with—you guessed it— a still very-confused expression. You guys usually never argue like this. If you fight, it’s always lighthearted, but this felt different. None of you know how far you can take this. You take a deep breath, trying to calm yourself down before you speak again. You lower yourself so your feet touch the floor, slowly.

“Fine.. fine. We won’t release the song.” You say as calmly as you can. “But… can you please tell me the actual reason why?”

“…”

You and Karkat both stare at him, waiting for his response. The silence is deafening.

“i don’t want him working on the album.” He says, finally turning his head back to face you.

“What??”

“your boyfriend.”

“Why not?”

“because he ruins my flow.”

“Your flow.”

“yes.”

You turn your head from him to roll your eyes.

“Dave. He’s been helping me with almost this entire process. I can’t just not credit him or exclude him from production suddenly.” You tell him, crossing your arms.

“then i don’t want my song on the album. ill release it on the next one or something.” he says, mirroring you by crossing his arms, and leaning back in his chair.

“Are you serious right now?” You say, totally taken back at how stubborn he was being.

“yeah.” The two of you glare at each other, him straight-faced and you just straight-up pissed off.

This is really the first time things have ever gotten this heated between you guys, surprisingly, and it felt so weird. This never even happened when you three were stuck in the same building on a meteor in space for three years. There was bickering, sure, but never actual heartfelt aggression. The worst it’s ever gotten was when Karkat and Dave first met and fought all the time. But you’ve never actually fought with either of them in a serious light.

At this point Karkat’s had about all he can take while being silent. “ALRIGHT.” He finally drops the pan on the counter, and whips back around to address you both. “CAN YOU TWO JUST FIGURE OUT A GODDAMN SOLUTION? WITH ALL OF THE FUCKING BARELY-ANYTHING I KNOW ABOUT THE SITUATION, FROM MY POINT OF VIEW THIS IS PAINFULLY STUPID AND POINTLESS.”

“Tell him that! He’s the one who’s being totally unreasonable!” You retort, gesturing with one hand to Strider.

“i just don’t want my song on the album, is that such a big fucking deal? you have plenty of other ones. just make one with him or something.” He says coldly.

He’s never been this heartless to you. His words sting. You really wanted to release this song with him. It felt special, since you two put so much into it, it’s one of your favorite pieces off the whole disk.

Your frown gets deeper. “I want to release our song Dave. We worked so hard on it!”

“okay let’s just release it as a single then.”

“BUT WH-“ You take a sharp inhale. “Yknow what?” They both watch you as you carefully calm yourself down. “Fine. Let’s just release it later then! If that’s what you want.” You finally get out, in the most passive aggressively upbeat tone.

“okay.”

“Okay.”

“cool.”

“Great.”

“awesome.”

“Amazing.”

“rad.”

“OH MY FUCKING GOD. CAN ONE OF YOU JUST FUCKING LEAVE OR SOMETHING?! MY EARS ARE GOING TO START BLEEDING.”

“Gladly!” Are your parting words as you take his advice and fly up to your room. That’s when you know you’re upset, you don’t even bother using the stairs.

Karkat looks over at Dave somewhat sympathetically. Dave avoids eye contact with him, already knowing the look he’s getting.

“YOU WANNA TELL ME WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED NOW?” He asks, walking over to take a seat next to him.

Dave sighs hard and slumps into his seat, sinking into the hoodie he’s wearing. “i just cant fucking stand that guy. i dont even know why. i hate that i have to work with him. i already feel uncomfortable enough releasing my shit officially.”

Karkat nods along. Usually it’s him ranting, so he does take special care to be a listener when it’s Dave’s turn, which of course he's still good at with his history of people relying on him with their problems.

“-and like. he didn’t even say anything specifically. i don’t even know what it was dude. something just ticked me off and it was the last fucking straw i swear. like if i told you youd be like 'wow thats a fucking stupid thing to get pissed and quit about' but its not just that-“ He continues to rant for quite a while.

Meanwhile, you’re upstairs ranting to Rael over the phone. He only lets you talk for a short amount of time before he has to go, but he promises he locked up the studio and everything before he left. Still, you can’t help but feel discouraged about the whole thing as you lay on your bed, listening to your unreleased album through again with your headphones. Why was he being like this? Things were going so well… What happened?

You decide to go to bed early.

Time goes by too quickly for your liking after that. Dave stays stubborn, despite your pleading. And you really do end up releasing the album without one of its best pieces you were hoping to showcase.

Still though, it does incredibly well. It hits all the top charts, and passes record streams in less than a week. You’re getting bombarded for interviews, music video shoots, magazine features, etc. And yet, you haven’t taken any offers. You still barely go outside. You spend most of the day sleeping and just scrolling through the stats and comments on your phone. Things have been tense and awkward with your housemates ever since the argument. You’re not sure anymore if you’re still upset at Dave or upset at yourself that you actually went through with the release without him. Is that what he really wanted? It seemed like it. Karkat won’t talk to you about it either. It’s kinda been like the silent treatment.

You hate it.

Your boyfriend tries to beg you for some publicity, which he’s very rarely successful in. It gets a few appearances from you, but fans are still not satisfied. The little publicity you two do together, though, also gets him a lot of attention. Everyone wants to know more about you two and how you met.

You’re so tired. Why are you tired? Your boyfriend tells you that maybe you need to get away from your environment for a while. Maybe he’s right.

——————————————————————————————

It’s been about two weeks since the album release. Tonight there’s a dinner party being held at Kanaya and Rose’s gigantic house, to celebrate the album’s success and discuss deals with professionals interested. There’s lots of people there, musicians, producers, artists, directors, etc, and of course your friends. No reporters were invited, per your request stemming from past events anxiety. Karkat and Dave show up as well, to your surprise. You’re silently glad they still decided to show support in some way, despite not actually talking to you in several days. They came after you, and when you spotted them you got excited and nervous as hell at the same time. You never feel this way with them, it's like they're strangers suddenly?

You’re greeting all your friends as you make your rounds through the giant event hall. Everything is decorated so beautifully, of course the married couple always having an incredible eye for interior design. You make note to thank them again for all this later.

“Roxy! Calliope! June, so nice to see you!” You exclaim, making your way over to the group of three familiar faces. 

The black-haired girl in thick glasses and a blue dress stands up to greet you. “(Y/n)! Big congrats on the release!! I listened to it when it came out and I love it! Really inspiring stuff.” June says happily, beaming that toothy smile.

You mirror her reaction. “Thank you so much. I appreciate the support guys, really.”

“Of course babe!! We got you no matter what.” Roxy smiles, giving you a sly lil wink.

“Yes.. I’m happy to be of sUpport to any of my friends.” Calliope adds. “I hope to see yoU continUe down yoUr road of sUccess!”

You keep conversing with them for a little while before moving on. You talk to Terezi and Vriska, Dirk and Jake and Jade, and many other visitors for a little while. Eventually you get pretty exhausted from all the social interaction, and decide to take a break at the snack table you've been eyeing for the past half hour.

Your boyfriend accompanies you as you approach the table, decked out with insanely delicious looking treats. You don’t even know where to start.

“Hey sweetheart. How’s it going? How you feelin?” He asks, placing a hand on your lower back.

“I’m great! The album and the party have been such a success... What wouldn’t there be to be happy about?” You reply without looking up at him, placing a few fruits on your small porcelain plate.

“You say that, but I know something’s been buggin' you. You know you can talk to me, right?” He replies. You feel a pang of guilt for masking your feelings so much around him lately. You’re scared to complain to him about how much not being able to talk to your best friends is effecting you.

“Yes! Yeah. Of course." You try to shake off the awkward feeling of secrecy with someone you're supposed to confide in. "But.. I promise, I’m okay! I’m more than okay! I just can’t believe this is all really happening.” You insist as you move right to grab some small cakes, putting on a half-fake smile. You really are happy with how things are going. Everything besides that. You wish it weren’t bothering you so much.

“Yep! ...It’s all really happening, just for you. You deserve it, babe.” He reassures you. You smile, your heart warming at his words, finally looking up at him, but see that he’s actually looking around. Your smile wavers. He turns back to meet your gaze a little late.

“Well… I couldn’t have done it without you! You’re the best.” You say half-heartedly.

He smiles fondly, and gestures at a glass of champagne in his free hand. “You sure you don’t wanna celebrate with some booze tonight?”

“You know I can’t.” Is your automatic response.

“Yes, I know how you feel about it. But really, you’ve been so good about being sober. You deserve to let loose for just one night!”

You bite your lip a little, cursing yourself in your mind for even thinking about taking the validation as permission. But still, you shake your head. “I can’t, really. But I’m still enjoying the party! Don’t worry!”

He nods, not bothering to push anymore for now. “Well, I’ll be making the big announcement in couple hours. Make sure you’re ready, cus I’m gonna get some people to record, okay?”

You nod, smiling. He leans down to kiss you quickly before saying he’s going to socialize some more, leaving you to your snacking. You wave as you watch him go, long after he’s already disappeared into a crowd of people.

He’s so sweet. Really, it’s all you could’ve asked for.

So… Why did it still feel wrong?

Rose later approaches you as you’re dipping your 4th marshmallow into the chocolate fountain. “(Y/n). May I talk with you about something?”

You finish popping the whole thing into your mouth when you muffle back “Mm? Myeah, whasshup?”

She chuckles a little before continuing. “You'll have to forgive me for asking, if it’s somewhat out of line, although I can't imagine it being so. But is there something going on between you and Dave and Karkat? …Davekat? You three haven’t talked all night. Usually nobody can get you to separate.”

You feel your stomach sink a little at the unwanted question, and take a moment to finish swallowing your snack before you respond. “Oh, it’s nothing really. We just had a little argument a couple weeks ago and-“

“An argument? What about?” She inquires, keeping a calm gaze with your eyes even when you start glancing around awkwardly. Oh boy.

“Ohhhh Dave and I just had a disagreement about the album I released.. But It’s really not a big deal. We’ll get over it.”

Rose’s eyebrows perk up a little as she becomes more intrigued. You usually know when to keep quiet, but to be honest, you haven’t really had anyone to talk to about this. You haven’t even wanted to talk to your boyfriend about it, since it involved him for some reason, so you’ve kept it to yourself. So, in your early defense, you were probably just desperate for someone to rant to.

“So yeah...” You think maybe you shouldn’t continue.

“And what did this disagreement entail?” She pushes again in her subtle way.

“Okay so, we were supposed to have this track together on the album, right? And we spend sooo much time-“ aaaand you’re spilling. Man, that was easy. She didn’t even have to pry it out at all, you were like an open book sitting on a teachers lap during story time.

As you’re telling the story, you come to realize you’re not even mad anymore. You’re just sad. It starts out frustrated, but becomes a little depressing and self-depreciating as the explanation goes on. “And now I’m not even sure where to go from here. Do I apologize? Do I wait for him to apologize? Should I just be the bigger person and say something? But what if they don’t want to talk to me or-“

“I fail to see what else there is to do besides talk about it.” She bluntly cuts off your ranting a bit early.

“Huh?” 

“Lets say, hypothetically, you decide not to bring up the fore-mentioned subject again. I’m assuming talking to them at home is quite awkward right now because of the lingering elephant in the room, correct?-” You nod in response, which she knew was the answer, because she immediately continues. “-So, you continue to avoid them, and they continue to avoid you. But then, really, what’s next?”

You take a moment to think about it. What’s next?

“Well… I don’t know. But what if they don’t continue to avoid me?” You retort genuinely. 

“In that quite unlikely situation, knowing my brother and my practically-brother-in-law pretty well, then it would probably warrant the same outcome as if you were to be the first to speak. But the point is that someone needs to initiate some type of communication about the situation, or this unusually awkward train isn’t going anywhere. And like I mentioned, we both know well how stubborn those two are." She watches your expression become more discouraged for a moment. "If you feel so guilty about going on with the release without Dave, then I see no good reason it can’t be you to initiate. Why don't you just apologize?” You start what is about to be a protest, but she holds up a hand to silence you before you can. Then she takes a brief moment to bite into an orange slice she's holding in her other hand, from an orange you didn’t even realize she had been peeling. She looks to the side for a second to think while she snacks, then turns back to you. “Even if you feel like you did the right thing, or were only doing what he said he wanted, you still feel guilty about it regardless. If it’s bothering you that much, which I know it is since you just avoided using a chocolate fountain for several minutes to rant the subject to me, then I say you rip the damn bandaid off.”

You take her words in for an even longer moment again. She’s… right. Of course. “Yeah...” You sigh.

She places a kind hand on your arm to comfort you for a moment. "I'm aware of how much you all care about each other. Don't let something so fickle be what pulls you apart. That'd be a disappointing situation to see play out in this timeline."

You smile just slightly at her encouragement. “Thank you, Rose. I guess I’ll have to work up the courage to talk to them about it this week somehow.”

“Or how does right now sound?”

“What?!” You only look up for a second to see her smirking, staring at something behind you, before suddenly she’s taking you by the arm and leading you a few steps backwards.

Karkat and Dave are walking and chatting, looking at each other, before turning forward to see you two, at the same time you turn to face forward and see them. Your expressions of awkward-surprise are mirrored, not including Rose of course, who looks entirely calm and satisfied at how perfectly this moment just played out.

“Hello, Dave. Hello, Karkat. I don’t think I’ve gotten to speak with you tonight yet.” She greets. You avoid eye contact with them.

“HEY ROSE.”

“yo.”

“How are you two enjoying the party? I know it’s not your usual scene.”

“nah, its cool. you always throw sick ass events in your unnecessarily huge mansion.” Dave replies, ignoring the awkwardness of you being right beside her.

“Again, not a mansion. And interesting of you to say so when you hardly ever come to these so called ‘sick ass’ events in mention.”

“hey. im a busy guy, what can i say?“

“Is that so? Please enlighten me on such things that keep the great Dave Strider busy.” She jeers.

“oh yknow. god stuff. big responsibilities. nuff said.” He adjusts his glasses, smirking a little. Then he puts his hands in his suit pockets. You hadn’t failed to notice earlier that Dave actually dressed up a little for the dinner party. Karkat is wearing a sweater and black jeans, but it’s different from what he wears around the house at least.

“How mysterious.” Rose and Karkat both roll their eyes. You feel her nudging you forward a bit. “Well, it’s all for (Y/n) today. But I’m sure you’ve already congratulated her on the release and such related subjects, yes?”

“yeah sure.” “YOU COULD SAY THAT.” They respond at the same time, overlapping words. You’re still not looking at them.

Rose turns her head to the left to spot her wife waving to her. Taking this moment to complete her mission, she waves back and lets go of your arm. “Well, I’d love to stay and chat, but a host has her duties to attend to, doesn’t she?” She doesn’t miss when Dave smiles at the word ‘duties’ to no surprise. “I’ll see you all later.”

And then, to your dismay, she’s walking off in the opposite direction. Leaving you and the two men who you haven’t properly talked to in a couple weeks despite living in the same house.

It’s… uncomfortably quiet for a handful for seconds.

“UH.. YEAH CONGRATULATIONS ON THE RELEASE BY THE WAY.. (Y/N).” Karkat says carefully, and you look over to finally make eye contact with him. You notice that Dave’s looking off in the other direction when you take a quick glance at him.

“Thanks, Kar. Have you guys listened to it at all?” You ask, giving a weak smile.

“YEAH. IT WAS GOOD. I REALLY LIKED HOW TRACK 3 CAME OUT HONESTLY.” He replies genuinely.

Your smile also grows genuine now. “Oh yeah.. that one was your favorite, right? I’m glad.” 

Karkat nods, and when there’s an awkward silence afterwards, he nudges Dave a little bit to say something as well.

“i mean if you want me to be honest, i didnt yet. but technically i was there for the whole process of making it, so i already know what the tracks sounds like.” Dave comments flatly. Of course he was lying, he still listened to it when it came out, but he didn't feel like making small talk and half-assed compliments with the way things were with you at the moment. He just wanted to get to that snack table right now. Karkat scowls at him for his attitude, and continuing to make this conversation as awkward as possible.

You try your hardest not to get upset at this comment. “Well. I think it probably sounds a lot different now that it’s all put together… Maybe you could give it a listen?… Sometime?”

He finally turns to meet your gaze, pocker-faced. “yeah. sometime.” The seemingly cold response sends chills down your spine. It’s quiet again for a beat. “damn, im fiendin for a chocolate covered miscellaneous fruit right now to be honest.” Dave breaks the silence, completely changing subject and demeanor suddenly. He doesn’t bother looking at you again as he walks right past you to towards the table. Karkat follows hesitantly, and his eyes linger on you for longer than you’re able to notice.

Staring at the floor, you’re not sure what comes over you next. You start to feel a wave of emotion, everything from the past few weeks seeming to come up in your mind, everything you’ve been trying not to think about- and failing. You’re so sick of this. You have to say something. You remember Rose's advice, and it suddenly pushes you to blurt out:

“I’m sorry!!!” You say it out of nowhere, just loud enough for them to hear you. Dave stops, Karkat stops. They both turn over to look at you, and you slowly turn around to meet their eyes. “I’m sorry, okay?” You repeat.

“FOR WHAT?” Karkats the first to respond.

“What else?? For not including the song on the album!”

“dude, im not mad about the song.” Dave’s calmer than you expect when he replies.

“You’re not?”

“fuck no. we can release that shit whenever.”

“But.. then what…” You trail off. Karkat and Dave exchange a subtle glance. It’s really not an easy thing to explain to you. “Was it just the fight in general? I’m sorry I just stormed out and never said anything it was just-“

“yeah its not that either.”

“What??” It goes quiet again. You look very confused. Then you remember. Of course. “Oh. Is this about Rael?” You glance around a bit to make sure he’s not around when you ask this. The silence that follows tells you your answer.

You’re not really sure what to say, because you’re still not sure what exactly you have to be sorry about at first, regarding him. All you did was bring your boyfriend into your project. It made you happy. But you can think of one thing that maybe you crossed the line with.

“Okay well… I’m sorry then that I brought him into our song production. I shouldn’t have made you share that process with him. It was my mistake, really.” You’re looking at Dave the whole apology, so he knows you're being genuine. “Can we please just stop being so awkward around each other now? We can talk more later in private, if you want. I just hate having it be like this between us... So awkward, like you guys haven't seen me do a plethora of embarrassing things before, and vise versa. We're best friends, so why is our first instinct when we fight to ignore each other?” After a second, the two nod slightly in agreement.

“YEAH THIS IS FUCKING AWFUL. I HATE HAVING TO AVOID YOU IN OUR OWN HIVE. ITS SO WEIRD.”

“yeah this blows.”

“…So?” You wait for their response, mostly Dave’s, since he’s the one who has to accept the apology. You and Karkat both look at him.

“what? i just agreed that this is stupid.”

“So you'll forgive me? For now?”

“wait hold on. let me think about it. give me a second.” He says holding his hand out, and then bringing it to his chin to over-exaggerate his thinking. He takes a deep breath. “hm… yea i dont know im not convinced. how much AJ are you offering if i do?” He says in a way where you can obviously tell he's teasing, but it flys over Karkat's head.

"DAVE!" He elbows him, and Dave holds his side with a "what! i was joking!"

But then you're laughing, and they both turn to you curiously. It's the first time they've heard you laugh for a little while, and it puts you all at ease, making all the tension suddenly disappear. The other two smile slightly at you after a moment, and Dave joins in lightly chuckling with you. You beam, walking up to pull both of them into a hug. They’re both taken off guard at first, but then melt into it, hugging you back. You really needed this, and it was literally so easy to just talk to them that you feel stupid being so overdramatic about it this whole time.

“Thank you! I’m so glad you guys-“

“(Y/n)!!”

You turn to the sound of your name cutting you off. When you turn around, you see your boyfriend leaning out of the dining room doorway, waving you over. You nod and wave back, gesturing that you’re coming. You turn around a little sheepishly. “Sorry.. I should go see what he wants..”

“go ahead.”

“YEAH ITS FINE.”

“Thank you. I’ll talk to you guys later though, okay?” They both nod and you pull them into one last quick hug before quickly making your way over to the kitchen. They watch you go for a while, exchange a glance, and then turn to serve themselves some food.

It’s been over an hour and Karkat and Dave have been sitting on the couch on their phones for longer than probably acceptable at a social event. They’re leaning on each other, slumped, a sign that they haven’t moved for a while. There’s been no sight of you since you walked off earlier, which could be their fault. Still, they figured maybe you’d come find them. Finally, Dave leans back from his phone, his head pushing back onto Karkat’s arms, blocking his phone.

“yo i think im gonna go hit the bathroom and then grab a drink. you want anything?”

“NO IM FINE.”

“you sure? youre not thirsty?”

“YES STRIDER I ASSURE YOU IM NOT FUCKING LYING TO YOU ABOUT THE STATE OF MY HYDRATION.”

“aight. just checking. that shits important.” He responds, waiting for Karkats eye-roll in response before standing up and heading off.

On the way to the bathroom, Dave says hey to June and Jade and a couple other people. He forgot that there were actually a lot of people he knew here and not just random artists and whoever else Rose invited. The closer he gets to the bathroom, the less noisy his surroundings get, the chatter slightly fading to a muffle as Dave closes the door behind him into the hallway.

“jesus this place is a fucking maze.” He mumbles to himself, despite being alone. When he gets up to the bathroom door, he can hear a voice from inside. Figuring he’ll just wait until they’re out, he leans his back against the wall. Though it’s weird someone is talking in a one person bathroom? He ends up eavesdropping a little. That’s when he realizes the voice is familiar. It takes a few seconds and then… it’s Rael. He wasn’t going to think anything of it, just going back to minding his business, until he hears your name.

“Yeah (Y/n)’s party is going great! It’ll be announced soon and we’ll get to start the next project together. It’s all going hella smooth.” Dave doesn’t notice when he’s subconsciously leaning his ear to the wall for a better listen. “Dude what? Nah, it’s fine. When I break up with them, they’ll still have those two dorks they obviously like. I just need to get this part over with so I can start making bank. But it’ll be fun.” Dave’s eyes widen more with every word. There’s no way. He has to be imagining this. “Yeah, I’m good. I mean, like I said before, the other perks of the relationship aren’t bad either. You should’ve seen the way they-“

“no fucking way.” He mumbles to himself, and he feels sick listening to the rest. The anger and shock is so overwhelming, he’s not even sure what he should do right now. Should he confront the guy? Should he tell you? No, no way, it’d ruin your night. And would you even believe him?

Despite his burning urge to punch the shit out of your ‘boyfriend’ when he walks out, instead he starts speed walking back into the event room and to his previously designated couch. Karkat feels a sudden hand on his shoulder from behind the couch and a voice right in his ear “karkat!”

He jumps and swings around to face his boyfriend, his hand on his chest from shock. “JEGUS CHRIST DAVE YOU SCARED THE EVERLIVING FUCK OUT OF ME!!” He shouts.

“dude. you won’t believe the shit i just heard.” He says, ignoring the previous comment, his voice a little quieter than normal.

“WHAT? I THOUGHT YOU WERE GOING TO THE BATHROOM?”

“yeah yeah i was. but (y/n)’s boyfriend was in there, and he..” Dave goes on to explain everything he heard.

Every word Dave continues with, Karkat’s face gets noticeably more pissed off. His eyes widen, his sharp teeth start to show more as his mouth opens in disbelief, he clenches his fists. “NO. FUCKING. WAY.”

“thats what i said.”

“YOURE KIDDING, RIGHT? YOU’VE GOT TO BE PULLING ONE OF YOUR DUMB IRONIC PRANKS ON ME RIGHT NOW.” He insists, despite knowing he must be telling the truth.

“no dude i would not joke about this. honestly i wish i were joking.”

It’s silent for a moment, and Dave just watches as Karkat seethes with rage, staring at nothing.

“so... what… do you think we should do?” He asks cautiously. But instead of saying anything, Karkat's standing up and darting off like he’s on a mission. Dave quickly tries to follow behind him, startled.

“wait. wait! karkat.” He shouts, catching up to him and grabbing his shoulder, making him stop.

“WHAT?!” He says, whipping around to face him.

“what are you doing??”

“GEE I WONDER. I’M GOING TO TELL THEM THAT THEIR BOYFRIEND IS A HUGE DOUCHEBAG!! WHAT THE HELL ELSE?!”

“you cant!” He replies immediately, and he’s not even sure where it came from, it was so automatic.

“WHY?!?!” 

“because!… i dont know. maybe its not the right time. cus yknow itd kinda suck if i got told my boyfriend was using me at a party im supposed to be enjoying and celebrating my success at and shit. right?” He explains, even a little unsure of his own words. Karkat takes a second to think about it, and it seems to resonate with him a little, but thinking about what the guy said again, his anger returns and he shakes the previous thought off.

“DAVE. WHO GIVES A FAT FLYING FUCK ABOUT TIMING!!" He argues, throwing his arms up to emphasize. "I GET HOW YOU FEEL, BUT IF I WERE THEM, I WOULD WANT TO KNOW. AND I DON’T KNOW WHY YOU’RE SO OVERPROTECTIVE WITH (Y/N) ANYWAYS. YOU SHOULD’VE TOLD THEM WHAT THEY SAID THAT NIGHT THEY WERE DRUNK TOO, BUT THEY STILL DON’T EVEN KNOW. DON’T THEY DESERVE TO KNOW IMPORTANT SHIT LIKE THIS??”

There’s a silence. He knows that Dave agrees, but he doesn’t understand why he’s being so careful anyways. “IM TELLING THEM.” And with that, he continues to stomp around looking for you, Dave somewhat anxiously following behind him.

They finally spot you from behind, talking to some people they’ve never seen before.

“(Y/N)!” Karkat shouts when he’s a few feet away from you, making everyone in the circle turn. When you turn around though, your face has a bit of a pink hue, and there’s an empty bottle in your hand. An alcohol bottle. Not only that, but when you see the two of them, your face immediately lights up and you smile that big, goofy, drunk smile. You stumble a little bit to meet them when they both stop in their tracks at the sight of you. Karkat reaches out to hold your arms, steadying you when you get to them.

“(Y/N)?? WHAT THE FUCK?! I THOUGHT YOU WERE GOING SOBER?!” He says and Dave nods, still in a bit of shock.

“Yeahhhh! I was! Butt yknoww Raelie said ‘ohhh come onnnnnnnn its ur night! u should be celebrating with booze!! dont be lame’ And I thought ok YEAH! I mean what’s one…. Or ah fwew drinks gonna make a big differance.. rhight?” You ramble, making big gestures as you speak. Both of their hearts sink as you talk, realizing what’s going on.

“he seriously peer pressured you into drinking again? even though he knew you were trying to stay sober?” Dave says, feeling disgusted at the thought of him again.

“Huh?? No i chouse to-”

“NO YOU IDIOT HE MADE YOU FEEL LAME FOR TRYING TO BE SOBER. THATS WHAT FUCKING PEER PRESSURE IS!! AM I REALLY HAVING TO EXPLAIN THIS SHIT TO YOU? ARE YOU A WRIGGER OR SOMETHING? DID YOU JUST HATCH??”

You frown. “I know what peer presure is!!! He didn’t preshure me!!” You shout back defensively.

“karkat chill. its not their fault.” Dave says, trying to calm him a little. Of course, those were not the best words he could’ve chosen.

“CHILL??? FUCK NO!! IM NOT GONNA SIT BACK AND WATCH MY BEST FRIEND GET ABSOLUTELY FUCKED OVER BY SOME DOUCHEY GARBAGE CAN IN A HUMAN FLESH SUIT. HE CAN SUCK MY GOUGING BONE BULDGE!! I DONT GIVE A FUCK ANYMORE.” He’s yelling louder than normal, and quite a few people have started to stare now. Dave looks around awkwardly. You are now confused and a little shocked at the sudden outburst.

“I’m sorry, I can do what now?” Comes a familiar voice from behind the two boys. They turn their heads to see Rael.

“YOU HEARD ME MOTHERFUCKER!! HOW DARE YOU WALK THE EARTH I CREATED JUST TO BE SUCH A FUCKING BULDGEWAD TO SOMEONE WHO ALSO FUCKING CREATED IT!!! I LOATHE WHATEVER KIND OF SORRY EXCUSE IS ABOUT TO COME OUT OF YOUR IGNORANCE TUNNEL AFTER THIS!” He shouts, pointing in his face, as Rael puts his hands up in defense- a little jokingly. Rael holds somewhat of a smug look on his face, faking surprise, which only pisses Karkat off more.

“Woah! Woah! Calm down, man!” He starts, moving past him with his hands still in the air, to be next to you. He places a hand on your back, and Dave has to hold Karkat back by the arm. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m just trying to throw my partner a good album-release-dinner-party.”

Karkat shakes off Dave’s grasp to get up in his face again. “YOU DIDN’T THROW JACK SHIT. ROSE AND KANAYA PROBABLY PLANNED THIS ENTIRE THING THEMSELVES. AND YOU KNOW EXACTLY WHAT THE HELL IM TALKING ABOUT YOU TWO-FACED BLITHERING FECULENT SHITHOLE!!” A few people in the crowd of people gasp at this, and Dave sighs, putting a hand up to shield his face slightly.

“What are you talking about?!” You finally shout back, extremely confused.

“(Y/N).” Karkat looks deep into your eyes, with a gaze more gentle than he was just staring up at your boyfriend with, placing both hands on your shoulders. Your eyes widen, and Rael stares down at you two blank-faced. “THIS GUY IS USING YOU FOR YOUR FAME. WE HEARD HIM SAY IT. WELL… DAVE HEARD HIM SAY IT.”

You glance over his shoulder at Dave, and he nods slightly, reassuring the statement. You go back to eye contact with Karkat, and he looks dead serious. “BREAK UP WITH HIM. TRUST ME ON THIS.” He tells you suddenly, and your eyes widen again, bigger this time.

“What?!” You say immediately, shocked, but Karkat keeps the same serious face. You want to trust him but…

You look up to your boyfriend, who’s not even looking at you, he’s making some kind of intense eye contact with Dave. “Rael… Whaht are they talking about?? You’re.. ushing me?” You mean to say as a firm question, but it also comes out a little nervous.

He turns to make eye contact with you, and for a half-second you can’t see any emotion in his face. Then he melts into a sweet loving tone “No, baby. Of course not.” He takes your cheek in one hand. “I would never do some lame shit like that. Why would I go through all that just for some clout?? I really don’t know what they’re saying.” You immediately feel comforted by this, but there’s still a doubtful gut feeling in you. Your mind is a little clouded from drinking, but you know you always trust your best friends. Why would they lie to you? They have never liked him though… But they still wouldn’t lie… Right?

Karkat, on the other hand, is about to go off the rails. “ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME RIGHT NOW? I MEAN I KNOW YOU'RE A LIAR BUT COME THE FUCK ON?! WE HEARD YOU SAY IT.”

“Say what?” He says, turning to them, looking genuinely confused.

“that youre using them!” Dave cuts in suddenly, finally having enough of this conversation. “you said you were only working on the album for the fame and you were gonna break up with them! i heard your whole sleezy ass conversation in the bathroom. why would you even go to the bathroom to take a phonecall if it wasn’t for something you were trying to hide?”

Your heart pangs. Why are they so genuinely upset if Rael said they were wrong? Maybe it’s a misunderstanding?

“In the bathroom?? I was never talking to someone in the bathroom. And why would you even be trying to listen to my conversation if I was? That’s just weird." Dave opens his mouth to retort, but Rael cuts him off again. "But anyways, I’d never screw them over like that! You guys are making ridiculous assumptions!” He starts to get defensive now. It’s a really believable act, because you’re not sure who to believe at all. Although, you’re starting to lean towards Rael, despite your better judgment. Even if these two are actually telling the truth, then this party would just turn into a big scandal event and the next few months of your life will probably be hell again. You don’t want to believe it.

“seriously?!” Now Dave’s getting actually pissed, as he moves in closer to the rest of you. You can feel the heat rising.

“JUST TELL THE FUCKING TRUTH YOU FUCK. SERIOUSLY WE’RE GIVING YOU A FREE FUCKING PASS HERE.”

“I don’t know what the hell you two are talking about, I told you! I wouldn’t do stupid petty shit like that.”

“ARE YOU SURE?? BECAUSE IT SEEMS TO ME TO BE RIGHT UP YOUR DAMN DECEIVING ASS ALLEY.”

“I’m sorry, do you two have any kind of proof of anything? Because this is a lot to be accusing someone of suddenly. Is this a publicity stunt?”

“what?? no-“

“WHY WOULD WE NEED PROOF? WE’RE (Y/N)’S CLOSEST FRIENDS WHY WOULD WE HAVE TO LIE?! YOU'RE THE ONE DOING THE PUBLICITY STUNT WITH THEM!!”

So many people are looking right now. You start to hear whispers. Glancing around, luckily you don’t see anyone recording, but you start to remember the articles again, and you’re getting more anxious by the second.

“HEY. IVE GOT AN IDEA. HOW ABOUT INSTEAD OF DEALING THIS USELESS BACK AND FORTH WITH THIS FILTH SPEWING TAINT-LICKER, WE JUST FUCKING DROP HIM ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE DAMN PLANET OR SOMETHING!!! THEN MAYBE HE’D STOP FUCKING UP OUR LIVES!!”

“ALRIGHT!!!” You shout, matching Karkat’s volume, immediately silencing him and making them all turn to you. You look around again anxiously before you continue, lowering your tone now. “Look. I don’t know what the hellss gotten into you two toniight but this is reaaally REALLY annoying and ridiculous!!! Ok!! I get yew dount like him!! Fine!! I know it everyday becushe you make it super obvuouhs always!!!! But can you not make the dinner party a huge fugcking scene! This ise embarrassing!!” You all hold eye contact for a few beats. You’re breathing heavy from the sudden outburst, and now some people are starting to try to pretend like they aren’t looking, to your slight relief. Then, you spot Kanaya and Rose looking over at you with concern. You look to them, and then the bottle in your hand, and suddenly you’re very embarrassed. The anxiety continues to build.

“(y/n)… do you not believe us?” Dave’s the first one to break the silence. The two of you now hold an intense stare now. Your eyebrows are furrowed, but they slowly lift as your expression softens. “I!… I don’t know. All I knouw is thaat you two have neever been supportive of us!! So… Ok yeah maybe itss kinda haurd to believe you now!” You cross your arms.

When you look at Karkat, your heart sinks again. He’s looking at you with hurt and disappointment. You don’t think he’s ever looked at you that way, not even when you had the addiction. Though you suppose you started that again as well. You feel more guilty. “I… I can’t do this right now.. Can we just talk about this later?” You say, tone suddenly much sadder from before.

Karkats expression phases back into an angry one again. “NO. NO YOU KNOW WHAT? ITS FINE. THERES NOTHING ELSE TO TALK ABOUT IF YOU DON’T EVEN WANT TO TRY TO BELIEVE A WORD WE’RE FUCKING SAYING. DO WHATEVER THE FUCK YOU WANT THEN. FUCK ME FOR LOOKING OUT FOR YOUR WELL BEING!!.” He shouts and turns, starting to walk away from you.

Your eyes begin to water, but for some reason you're getting angry at the same time. “WELL… FINE. I WILL THEN! I NEVER ASKED YOU TO DO ANYTHING FOR ME ANYWAYS!! ALL I WANTED WAS YOUR SUPPORT!!” And you don’t even let them respond before you dart off behind you into a crowd of people.

Only Dave watches you go, and Karkat stops and stares at the ground with his arms crossed. He also can’t decide whether to be sad or angry, but angry is easier for him to show.

Rael continues to stare at them after you leave, keeping his place. The two boys both look over to him when they notice he’s still there.

“what the fuck are you still standing here for??” Dave snaps at him, exhausted.

Rael looks around to make sure no one was watching anymore, and they weren’t. In fact, most started to walk in the direction you ran off in, since the drama might presumably follow you. He then flags down one of his buddies and whispers to him to start the announcement. Dave and Karkat watch in confusion as the other guy runs off and Rael turns to make eye contact with them again. He’s smiling now.

“WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU SO SMILEY ABOUT, ASSHOLE?!”

“Haha! You guys are a damn riot, I’ll give you that. (Y/n) sure knows how to pick em.” He says giddily, suddenly changing demeanor so drastically.

“whatever dude.“ Dave comments flatly, not wanting to keep talking to this asshole.

“Hey, you got me, alright? I’ll admit it.” He runs a hand through his hair. “But it doesn’t matter anyways-”

“WHAT?!” ”what?!” They say in unison.

On the speakers a little further into the room, an announcement starts being made.

              [Hey everyone! Thanks so much for coming out to celebrate (Y/n)’s Third album release! There’s a few things we want to-]

“Yeah, look, they’re not gonna believe you. It’s too fucking wild of an assumption. Because really, why would someone go through all that for fame?”

“YEAH THATS EXACTLY WHAT IM WONDERING. YOU’D HAVE TO BE A REAL FUCKING DICKHEAD.” Karkat snaps back sarcastically.

              [-If you discussed any possible offers for (Y/n) tonight please make sure one of their managers has your contact information as well as-]

“Exactly. But I’m not like everyone. I’ll do anything to achieve my what I wan-“

“OH MY GOD PLEASE SHUT THE EVERLOVING FUCK UP.” Karkat groans, cutting off what sounded to be the start of a cringy self determination speech.

Rael laughs again. It rumbles over the announcement that continues to overlap their conversation. “Alright alright. I know you guys are sick of me now. But hey, think of it like this-"

              [-I mean truly, we're all so proud of the success that has continued to skyrocket from this long-awaited release, and there's sure to just be more great works on the way-]

"-You can have (Y/n) after the tour now, so it's not all that bad for you guys. Since you’re so obsessed with each other, I’m sure that’s what you wanted!”

“WHAT?!” They both say again in unison.

“Oh, I’m sorry did you not notice yourselves yet? Even if I did actually like (Y/n), which I almost did in the beginning by the way, how could I not see the obvious tension between you three? It would be impossibly awkward to be around you together all the time, and I can never seem to get them away from you either. You’re all they ever talk about for gods sake.” Rael even chuckles a little at the thought of it, clearly not even that bothered by it, just amused.

Dave and Karkat side eye each other for a few moments, trying to read each other’s expression about this accusation, and feeling slightly more guilty about the situation now than before. Were they really preventing you from having a relationship, even if this guy hadn't turned out to be a douchebag?

Then something clicks in Dave’s head. “hold on… did you say tour?” He asks suddenly, and Karkat looks at him confused as it starts to click for him too.

Raels smiles again at this, and he starts walking backwards towards where the announcement is being made. “Well. Maybe I’ll catch you guys later!” He shouts nicely.

“GET BACK HERE YOU FUCK!! YOUR PLAN ISN’T EVEN GOOD PEOPLE ARE JUST GONNA FUCKING HATE YOU AFTER!! YOU’RE A BUMBLING IMBECILE!!!” Karkat shouts after him, but he only laughs as he turns around and disappears from sight again.

“hey, it’s fine. i got that all on recording.” Dave says calmly, holding up his phone that still continues to take a video, and holding Karkat from going after him with his other arm. 

“WHAT? REALLY?”

“yeah. he was talking all that shit earlier about having no proof. but they have to believe us now, right?”

              [But anyways, enough of me! We’d like to tell you all some big news that we’ve finally made official! And I’ll pass the mic over to Rael so he can share it with you all!]

Karkat and Dave turn toward the speakers. There’s a lot of people gathered around a small platform where Rael's friend was just making the announcements. They can barely see over the amount of people, but then Dave spots your face as you walk up and stand behind Rael. There’s no readable emotion on your face.

              [R: Thank you all! Really! This has been such a great event. And I want to especially thank the lovely Rose Lalonde and Kanaya Maryam for knowing how to throw together such a great dinner party on such short notice!] 

Karkat rolls his eyes and huffs.

              [R: Now I’m sure you’re all curious what this big announcement is!]

Everyone cheers and claps a bit as confirmation.

              [R: Well… It took a lot of string pulling and quick planning, but (Y/n) and I are proud to announce, we’ve decided to go on a world tour!!]

Gasps and applause ring throughout the room. Karkat and Dave’s face change to a look of absolute horror. He wasn’t bluffing.

              [R: This will be (Y/n)’s second ever tour, and I’ll be accompanying them on stage! Please come and show support if you’d like to! Everyone here will revive a free ticket so-]

Karkat suddenly feels sick as he turns away from the stage, covering his mouth. This was a nightmare. A world tour. You’d be gone for such a long time again.

Dave puts his arms around Karkat to support him, and he looks over his shoulder to search for your face again above the crowd. When he does, you both make eye contact at the same time. Your slight smile immediately turns into a frown, and you're the first to look away again, almost shamefully.

You were going to tell them before it was announced, but everything happened so fast. You knew they’d be upset if they didn’t hear it from you.

Dave frowns and turns to walk towards the door with Karkat. Tonight was a lot, so maybe it’d be better to just go home.

But there’s no reassurance or making up afterwards this time.

They go home, but you don’t follow.

You don’t come home that night. Or the next night.

—————————————————————

The house’s atmosphere is intensely gloomy. The two boys can barely talk about anything other than what happened that night. Pent up anger they can’t express to you, since you won’t come home or answer your phone, ends up coming out at each other sometimes. They start fighting about small stupid things, and the arguments always eventually turns into something along the lines of “WHEN THE HELL IS (Y/N) JUST GONNA COME HOME ALREADY?”

When three days pass since the party, the anger dies down a little and worry starts to take its place. Calls are made to a handful of other friends asking if they’ve heard from you. No one says they have until they talk with Rose, who says you had come over briefly the day prior to thank them for the party.

At least they knew you were okay. But now they know you’re definitely ignoring them.

From your point of view, you had been spending the nights at Rael’s place, and your unsureness of the situation also caused you to be quite cranky. You tend to snap at Rael a lot, which causes him to just leave you alone most of the time. He goes out a lot as well, so you’re usually by yourself.

But you miss them.

You want to go home. But you’re too exhausted to want to deal with this, especially right before tour. You don’t even know what you’d say to them. You’re upset at them, but you feel bad at the same time, because you know they’re upset at you as well. Plus you can't stop beating yourself up about the relapse. You broke a promise to your friends, but more importantly, yourself.

You unlock your phone and go to look at Dave’s text messages to you for the hundredth time.

Tuesday 1:34pm     Dave™️💿: yo can you at least tell us where you are    Dave™️💿: and that youre like safe and not dead maybe? Tuesday 3:53pm    Dave™️💿: i mean i doubt that something heroic or just happened for you to actually be dead    Dave™️💿: but you never know    Dave™️💿: maybe you decided to push an old lady out of the way of a big truck headed straight for her because you realized shes blind and couldnt see it coming    Dave™️💿: or because maybe she just had like    Dave™️💿: really ass peripheral vision or some shit    Dave™️💿: you just fly in like superman and    Dave™️💿: wait fuck we can fly i always forget we can fly    Dave™️💿: yeah i guess that wouldnt happen since you could just fly away with her instead of pushing her out of the way which would probably still put her in the hospital anyways    Dave™️💿: but you get my point    Dave™️💿:  like i doubt something like that happened but itd be nice to be reassured Tuesday 8:20pm    Dave™️💿: karkats still super pissed off im ngl but im willing to talk about it if you want to    Dave™️💿: plus i have something you really need to see    Dave™️💿: but i dont want to send it to you cus i dont know where you are or where your heads at right now    Dave™️💿: ok ill stop spamming you but seriously text me asap    Dave™️💿: its like the damn twilight zone up in here

And that’s just from today.

You sigh. It’s really hard to stay away from them like this. You remember what Rose said that night, and you know you should really talk to them.

Rael walks into the room, looking dressed to go out.

“Hey.” You greet, melancholy. “Where are you going? Don’t we start practicing tomorrow? The tour is really last minute so we'll probably be rehearsing all day.”

“Yeah I’m just going to this party my friends invited me to. It’ll be fine.” He says, fixing his hair in the mirror.

“Again? Do you always go to parties this often when you’re not with me?”

“Yeah, why? Is it a problem?”

The attitude in his voice makes you feel sad, but you shake your head. “No.. I just didn’t know.. Sorry.” You respond and go back to your phone, not wanting to make a big deal. You're already exhausted.

He walks over to you and places a kiss on the top of your head, which permits a range of conflicted emotions inside you. “It’s alright babe. I’ll be back before midnight, okay?” You nod and he grabs his coat before leaving the room.

You stay staring at your homescreen as you hear the front door close. Your finger lingers over the 'phonecalls' application for a while. You reluctantly press it.

There’s still a ton of missed calls from Dave, and a few from some others. You linger again over the call back button next to Daves contact name, biting your lip. After what feels like a couple minutes, you press it, but the second it starts ringing you hang up again.

You grip the phone tightly, and then toss it to the end of the bed with a loud groan, falling back onto the pillow behind you. This is annoying.

Suddenly you hear a vibration, and you body shoots up to look at your phone a few feet away from you, but it’s off. Looking around curiously, you spot another phone on the dresser. It’s Rael’s. He forgot it.

You crawl over, hovering over the screen to read a name you don’t recognize. Eventually it stops ringing, and the screen fades to the lockscreen photo of Rael performing during your tour. You slowly take the phone in your hand, swiping up on the screen to the passcode input. You look cautiously around the room even though you know you're the only one here. You know his password. You saw him put it in once and laughed at how stupid it was, but maybe he changed it after? Only one way to find out…

No.

You stop put the phone down, scolding yourself for even thinking about snooping through your boyfriends phone. Why would you need to do that? You trust him, right? You trusted him that night so...

…

It’s not like he should have anything to hide…

Yeah. There’s nothing suspicious that should be there, so what’s the harm in looking? He wouldn’t mind.

You quickly pick up the phone again, rapidly sliding up and typing ‘6969’, the screen making a click sound and opening to yet another homescreen photo of him. You immediately go for the texts app, scanning the messages. You don’t find anything weird though, everything seems normal to you.

Of course.

You click on the photos app. Nothing weird here either. Screenshots of random things, photos of random things, a few photos of you two, and tons of selfies.

Okay…

You click the phonecalls app now, scanning through the recent calls. There’s not anything strange here of course, since it’s not like you would recognize any of these names. However, there is one number that isn’t registered as a contact. You’d brush it off as a spam call, but it was ongoing for almost 20 minutes. Then you notice it was the day of the party, and it was an outgoing call. Why would he call an unknown number and talk for 20 minutes with them? On the same day Dave and Karkat accused him of saying those things on call in the bathroom…

You can’t be sure.. but it is the only call made that day.. so what if..

You hear the front door unlock and open, and you immediately snap out of your daze you got caught up in. Hearing the footsteps down the hall start to get closer, you quickly throw the phone back on the dresser and try to sit natural like you weren’t just snooping through his history.

“Hey babe I think I forgot my-“ He stops in the doorway, raising an eyebrow at your weirdly composed position with your phone sitting at the foot of the bed. “Uh.. Phone.”

“Oh really? How’d you manage to do that?” You smile, which is out of character for you the past few days.

“What are you doing?”

“Huh? Oh nothing, I was just thinking about stuff..." Your eyes drag over to the television. "Like what I should watch on the TV! There’s.. so many channels.... ha.”

“Okay…” He gives you a weird look, and then glances over to spot his phone. “Ah! There it is. Alright I’ll see you later.” He grabs it and immediately starts doing something on it as he leaves the room again. Luckily he doesn’t seem to suspect anything.

“Okay! Bye!” You shout to him and you hear the front door open and close again. You let out a sigh of relief.

…

Your phone starts to ring, surprising you again. You look over.

It’s Dave.

—————————————————————

Tuesday 8:21pm.

Dave is chilling on the couch after just sending you todays ‘last text’, even though he knows he’ll definitely text you again tomorrow if you still don’t respond. Karkat sits on the other side of the couch, with one hand in his hair probably squeezing the color out of it, and the other tapping away on the down arrow of his laptop (husk-top). Really, he could not be hitting the button any harder. It’s practically ringing throughout the whole house.

CLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICK.

CLICK. CLICK. CLICK.

CLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICK.

“dude. take it easy on the keys. i can hear them begging you for mercy at this point.” Dave comments, staring over at him. Karkat hasn’t spoken a word since yesterday. Which is honestly impressive, but it is starting to scare his boyfriend at this point. He just turns to make eye contact with Dave, looking just as pissed off as he has since they got home, and continuing to hit the keys like he’s trying to break them. Then he goes back to whatever he’s looking at.

“ok. cool. forget i said anything i guess.” He says passive aggressively, but also at this point he can’t seem to care anymore. He goes back to looking at his phone.

CLICK. CLICK. CLICK. CLICK.

CLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICK.

CLICK. CLICK.

CLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICK.

CLICK. CLICK. CLICK. CLICK. CLICK. CLICK.

CLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICK-

“AUGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!” Karkat finally shouts out in aggravation, grabbing his face and throwing his head back, making Dave jump in his seat. “AAAAUUUGHGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!” And then he throws his laptop (HUSKTOP.) across the room. Wow.

“wow.”

“GIVE ME YOUR PHONE.”

“what? why?”

“BECAUSE IM CALLING (Y/N).” He says and he starts to reach over for Daves phone.

He pulls his arm back to hold it out of reach. “i already did today and they wont answer. why dont you just call on your phone?”

“THEY WONT ANSWER IF ITS ME IM THE ONE WHO CUSSED THEIR BOYFRIEND OUT.”

“ok well if you havent noticed, theyre not answering me either so were both shit out of luck right about now. hate to break it to you.”

“JUST GIVE IT TO ME!!” He shouts hysterically, starting to climb over him to grab the phone.

“dude calm down!!” Dave shouts back, startled, holding the phone up over his head now.

Kartkat continues to fight for the phone, and Dave continues to move further to keep it out of his reach. Eventually, Dave ends up sitting up on the couch and just holding it to his chest, buried in his arms to shield it from grabbing. Karkat gets on his lap and tries to grasp for it, but then Dave suddenly puts his arms around him, locking Karkats arms to the side of his body. Karkat squirms around in this position with all his might.

“LET GO OF ME STRIDER!!!! LET GO NOW OR I SWEAR!!!”

“nope! were staying like this until you chill the FUCK out.”

“THIS IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE STATE OF HOW ‘CHILL’ I AM!! I NEED TO TALK TO THEM!!!”

“no shit we both do!! but they wont answer!!! you know they wont!” Dave protests, still keeping a tight hold on Karkat, his head tucked into his side as well.

Kakat’s struggling starts to get weaker and weaker after Dave says this, until finally he relaxes, letting himself drop his weight down and his head fall onto Daves shoulder. Dave lets out a subtle sigh of relief. 

“theyll call when theyre ready dude. itll be fine.”

It’s quiet for a while as they both stay in this position, breathing a little heavy in the beginning from all the struggling, and then calming down.

“man. they cant go on another tour. or at least not without talking to us.”

There’s more silence as Karkat just lays dead still on his shoulder. Dave clicks on his phone to check for a notification, to which there’s still just a blank screen. He sighs. The air stays still and calm like this. He starts to lightly rub Karkats back after a while, comforting him silently. Karkat begins to purr after a couple minutes of this, to his further relief.

“you okay?” Dave asks, breaking the silence as he moves his head a little to try to see his face.

“…YEAH.” He responds in a tired sounding tone, not moving at all. “SORRY.”

“its cool.”

…

“do you miss them?” He asks, and even he thinks it comes out a little strange after it’s left his mouth. When there’s no response, he tries again to get a look at his face.

“hey.” Dave says, shaking him slightly to try to get him to sit up. “look at me.” Karkat reluctantly raises his head a little to face him.

“WHAT D-“ Dave cuts off whatever he might’ve said by pulling him into a kiss. It shocks him, but he doesn’t pull away at all, and eventually he’s kissing back. He starts purring again. When Dave pulls back, he’s got a sweet smile on his face, and Karkat is blushing intensely, his bright red blood always making it so noticeable.

“WHAT WAS THAT FOR…” He asks a little sheepishly.

“what? a guy cant just kiss his boyfriend? are you homophobic?”

“NO! I MEAN-”

“thats fucked up karkat. to be homophobic in this day and age. honestly. you should be ashamed.”

“OH JUST SHUT UP ALREADY.” He crosses his arms, and looks away, still flustered. Dave laughs a little, and then leans back onto the couch, closing his eyes.

“things have just gotten so intense. i think we need to chill.”

“…YEAH…” Karkat looks back over and stares at him for a little longer, blush still lingering, and then eventually leans forward to lay against his chest.

There’s another long pause. Karkat sighs.

“I JUST…” He starts, but is still seeming to try to find the right words. “I JUST DONT WANT THEM DATING THAT ASSHOLE ANYMORE. AFTER WHAT HAPPENED. I DONT CARE IF THEY WANT TO GO ON TOUR OR WHATEVER. WHO ARE WE TO STOP THEM IF THATS WHAT THEY REALLY WANT? BUT WE KNOW THIS SHIT IS ALL HIS IDEA. HE WANTS TO GO ON THAT TOUR SO HE CAN GET ALL THE PUBLICITY AND MONEY AND THEN HE’S GOING TO LEAVE THEM.”

“i know..” Dave frowns as he starts to rub Karkats back again. “but theyll definitely talk to us before they leave. theres no way they wouldnt.”

“BUT HOW DO WE KNOW THEY WONT STILL GO?”

“well they might. but i mean they have to at least believe us about him? ive got the video.”

“I DONT KNOW. THEY SEEMED SO FUCKING HELLBENT BEFORE ON NOT BELIEVING US. EVEN IF THEY WERE DRUNK.” He sneers, still bitter about the way you doubted them that night.

Dave is silent for another minute before he speaks again.

“you remember what the douche said to us right before he made that announcement about the tour?”

“HE SAID A LOT OF IDIOTIC BULLSHIT BEFORE THE ANNOUNCEMENT.” Karkat responds.

“yeah but i mean when he was saying that stuff about uh..” He pauses out of awkwardness of what he wanted to say next, not even sure if he should bring it up right now. “like.. that we should date them or whatever? he said we must have a thing for them.. but thats...”

He waits for Karkat to finish his sentence, thinking maybe he could get his opinion without having to directly ask. To no avail, however.

“THAT’S WHAT?”

“i dont know…” He blushes a little, turning his head to stare at the wall. “what did you think when he said that?”

“I THOUGHT… THAT THAT’S IMPOSSIBLE.”

“oh.. yeah? why impossible?”

“I MEAN WERE BOTH ALREADY IN A MATESPRITSHIP. TO ALSO BE IN A ROMANTIC QUADRANT WITH THEM IT’D HAVE TO BE BLACK ROMANCE. AND I FEEL FAR FROM BLACK FEELINGS FOR THEM SO...”

“i mean yeah. but are matespritships always with two people for trolls?”

“OF COURSE? THE ONLY QUADRANT INVOLVING MORE THAN ONE PERSON IS AUSPISTICISM USUALLY, UNLESS YOU HAVE FEELINGS FOR MORE THAN ONE PERSON FOR ONE QUADRANT BUT…”

“..but?”

“BUT THAT'S NOT A GOOD THING. YOU USUALLY ONLY HAVE ONE PERSON IN ANYTHING OTHER THAN AUSPISTICISM. I MEAN IVE NEVER HEARD OF MORE THAN TWO TROLLS IN ANY OTHER QUADRANT…” This thought seems to have him pondering hard about whether that would be sustainable. He had never considered it before, and surprisingly it had never been in any of his RomComs. He sits up a little to look at Dave, who turns his head to meet his gaze again. “DO HUMANS HAVE MORE THAN TWO PEOPLE IN YOUR ONLY QUADRANT?”

“i mean im probably like the last person to ask. hell if i know anything about human relationships, obviously i was never in one. but yeah im pretty sure people did that. polyamorous and like… quad.. amorous? i guess? no wait that doesnt sound right.” Dave now is pondering what the fuck a four way relationship is called, not to mention five, six, seven…

“DAVE. WHAT EXACTLY ARE YOU TRYING TO IMPLY?”

He snaps out of his thoughts. “huh? nothing.”

“NOTHING...” He's not convinced.

“i mean i was just thinking like… its weird that hes not the only person to have said something like that right? rose and kanaya asked us before and it made us super awkward. june and roxy asked me once.. dirk mentioned it but not even as a question he was just like ‘your two partners blah blah blah’ which totally threw me off? plus we never even talked about when they confessed to us that one night. we both know they have feelings for us but we never talked about how we feel about it. whats up with that?”

Karkat takes a moment to consider all of this. To be quite honest he hasn’t really thought about this subject in a lot of detail, but it is a little troubling. With everything happening lately, he's been realizing he's always felt for you the same he's things he's felt for Dave. You both meant a lot to him, and he cared for you both in the same way. 

“THERES NOTHING ‘UP’ WITH IT, WE JUST HAVEN’T HAD TIME TO TALK ABOUT IT.”

“dude. we have literally nothing but time, all the time.”

“OKAY! FINE. LETS TALK ABOUT IT THEN.”

“okay.”

…

…

…

The silence is deafening.

“WELL?”

“what”

“YOU SAID YOU WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT!”

“okay yeah but-“

“THEN HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT (Y/N)? DO YOU HAVE FLUSHED FEELINGS FOR THEM? OR ARE THEY STRICTLY PALE?” Karkat suddenly asks bluntly.

Dave's pokerfaced for a beat, like he’s loading. “…how... do you feel about them?”

“MOTHERFUCKER I ASKED YOU FIRST!”

“yeah but! if i feel one way about them and you dont then thats kinda awkward… and its gonna be a problem later on right?.”

“FOR FUCKS SAKE.” He rolls his eyes. “FINE I…” He stops, starting to think hard again. He knows how he feels, but at the same time he's not sure. Having feelings for two people at once, like he said, is usually not seen as a good thing. It's normally conflicting and problematic. Granted, it's usually not a good thing for humans either. They're both struggling with the concept of polyamory.

“I… I DONT KNOW.”

“you dont know?”

“IVE NEVER THOUGHT ABOUT IT OKAY!!”

“really. youve never thought about being in a relationship with (y/n)? like all of three us?”

“HAVE YOU?”

Dave purses his lips for a moment, thinking hard trying decide if he should just come out and say it. 

“yeah. ive thought about it honestly.” 

“OH.”

Karkat's short response suddenly makes Dave a little anxious, and he sits up a bit to get closer to him and make eye contact. “oh shit but you really havent?? fuck... im sorry i just meant because we all live together i just sometimes think ‘we all might as well just fuckin date with like how much we sit around together all day and-’ man im sorry-“

“ITS FINE DAVE I DIDN'T SAY IT WAS A BAD IDEA. RELAX YOU DIDN'T HURT MY PRECIOUS FEELINGS.”

“oh. right. okay.”

“I JUST MEANT THAT I NEVER… I MEAN I JUST DIDN'T WANT TO…” He groans at how much he struggles with talking about how he feels about this. “I THINK IVE ALWAYS HAD SOME TYPE OF RED FEELINGS… FOR BOTH OF YOU. BUT WHEN (Y/N) WAS GONE AND WE GOT CLOSER... IT JUST ENDED UP LIKE..”

“oh.”

“SORRY NO I DIDN'T MEAN IT LIKE THAT.. I MEAN.. WELL OKAY ITS JUST-“

“its cool i get it.”

"YOU DO?"

"yeah of course."

Insert awkward pause of silence.

“so… we both feel the same way about them?”

“I GUESS SO?" He gives a troubled look. "BUT WOULD A RELATIONSHIP LIKE THAT REALLY WORK?”

“i dont fuckin know. but im sure we could figure out a way. weve already lived together this long.”

“YEAH. THATS TRUE.”

Dave chuckles a little. “fucked up that raels the motherfucker that made us finally talk about this shit.”

Karkat snickers back at this. “YEAH ITS THE ONLY THING HES BEEN GOOD FOR AT THIS FUCKIN POINT.”

They laugh for a bit before letting out a sigh of relief, all this finally being off their shoulders. Feels like a huge weight is gone.

“god. we really need to fuckin talk to them now.”

“YEAH NO SHIT.”

Dave picks up his phone from the couch, going into his contacts yet again to click on your name. He puts it on speaker.

It rings…

And rings…

And rings….

No response.

The phone goes to voicemail and Dave hangs up again.

“GOD FUCKING DAMNIT (Y/N). PICK UP THE PHONE!!”

And then, as if replying to him, the phone lights up with a text notification.

[ 1 New Message Notification:    (y/n): ill be over in 5.]

The curtain closes again on Chapter 2, bringing it to a cliff-hanging END.

There are curtains this time. Imagine them. You’re imagining them, and they are closing.

See you soon for the finale!

[phoenixyfriend]

Uncle Ben and Little Luke

AKA we combine several types of time travel for maximum Soft Chaos, let’s go

EDIT NOW THAT I’VE WRITTEN THIS UP: jfc this ended up much angstier than initially intended uhhhhhhhhhh sorry

So a common enough thing I’ve seen in time travel fics is characters getting de-aged when tossed back physically, to neither the age they should be in that time, nor the age they were from the time they left, but whatever is most convenient. This is usually de-aging OT Obi-Wan into his TCW self, for reasons relating to, chiefly, removing the damage of Tatooine absolutely destroying his body alongside PTSD-driven alcoholism, but also because fic writers are horny, and Ewan McGregor playing a late-thirties negotiator is on average more appealing to people than Alec Guinness playing a vaguely feral desert hermit.

So, here’s how it plays out:

We take Luke and Ben from some point in the OT. There are a variety of options depending on how angsty we want it to be. My first instinct is ‘right after Owen and Beru die’ but I want to have that sweet angst where Luke knows that his dad is Vader and that Obi-Wan was trying to convince him to kill his own father without telling him that.

We’ll go with shortly after Bespin, and then they end up significantly before TPM. The Obi-Wan of the timeline proper is, eh, let’s say eighteen. Not really ready to be a knight, but old enough that we don’t have to worry about “if we go save Shmi, do we somehow wipe out Anakin?” which is absolutely a worry. Anakin is a toddler, and is in no place to be evil, on account of being literally two years old. He can’t even explode people with his brain yet.

Now, Ben finds himself mid-thirties, as is traditional. He’s not upset at this, because his joints hurt so much less than they used to! His knees aren’t exactly teenage-perfect, but by the Force are they better than they were in the years before he died! His hair has color! He doesn’t have arthritis! And, goodness, no physical withdrawal symptoms! The psychological aspect is still there, but nonetheless, he’s in much better shape than he last remembers being.

Luke looks like he’s about six. He was recently twenty-two. This is not an upgrade. Ben keeps having to carry him. He can’t see over the counter when they enter a bar for information. He can’t enter the bar in the first place. He’s very annoyed by all of this.

Ben is not annoyed. Ben is having a lot of emotions, actually, but annoyance isn’t one of them. He didn’t get to help raise Luke the way he might have if Anakin hadn’t lost his shit, okay, he sees a small Luke and he wants to hug him and cry.

Luke would like to be able to purchase a speeder part without the lady at the stall asking him if he needs his “dad’s” permission.

Once they figure out when and where they are, they need to decide where and how to leave. There are general shenanigans to gamble their way into enough money to hire a ship. They are in the ass end of nowhere, but definitely not Tatooine. There appears to be a jungle. There appears to be a significant variety of man-eating creatures. There appears to be a temple to the Force of questionable origin. None of this is actually helpful, except for the moment they find a “baby’s first lightsaber” in the temple.

Luke only has one hand and, being a six-year-old, his body is growing too fast for him to bother with getting a wired-in prosthesis the way he could as an adult. He can get a more basic prosthesis, but nothing that attaches to the neurons. He’ll outgrow it too fast.

He’s tiny and he’s not used to doing things with just one hand. He uses the Force to do what one hand can't, and every time someone tries to tell him he's misusing the Force he whaps them with the empty sleeve.

So, you know, they find out what year it is. Ben has a breakdown. Luke is upset that he left behind his friends. Ben admits to him that Leia was his twin. Luke stares in horror because dude, she kissed him, you couldn’t have mentioned this earlier???

Ben points out that Beru and Owen were keeping Luke away from him for nineteen years, and then they had about three days of awkward travel to find Leia in the first place, and then Ben died. He didn’t have a whole lot of time to figure out how to tell him.

(This sparks an argument that lasts several days. All onlookers assume that Ben’s son is throwing a tantrum. He doesn’t correct them, even though this is a very valid reason to be upset, because the truth is much harder to explain.)

Sooooo they travel. Mostly, Ben plays Sabacc, cleans house, and pays their way towards Coruscant. Luke still really wants to learn to be a Proper Jedi, even though Ben is pretty sure that Luke would have... a lot of difference of opinion with the Temple, but sure. Coruscant. They can at least stop by, and see Qui-Gon, and Mace, and Quinlan, and Bant, and everyone else that’s still alive and not tragically deceased in the horror following the start of the Clone Wars and then the birth of the Empire, and Ben can have a nice sob over all his dead friends being alive again.

Ben is only barely holding it together while Luke is in the room with him at any given point. But it’s fine! It’s fine. He’s fine. All of his loved ones have come back to life! It’s great! HE’S FINE.

He is not fine.

Luke is also grieving all the people who haven’t been born yet, but he’s... significantly more okay than Ben is.

The closer they get to the Core, the more often people just assume Ben is Luke’s father, and then look shocked and uncomfortable when Luke flatly calls him by his name, and they just... compromise. This is the point at which Luke starts calling him “Uncle Ben.”

Ben cries in his bunk later that night. Luke overhears it and wonders how the HELL Ben is more unstable now, when there’s a chance to fix things and no Vader or Empire trying to kill or capture both of them, and all his friends are alive.

(Luke will later learn a lot about PTSD and realize this is actually a fairly normal situation, to process significant events and emotions only after gaining safety or catharsis.)

(Twenty years on a ball of sand with an alcohol addiction and debilitating fear of the man you raised as your own brother is not, in fact, safe or cathartic.)

At any rate, they’ve settled into that pattern by the time they reach the Inner Rim. The Inner Rim is the part of the galaxy at which they’ve collected enough money (and mental stability) to travel a little better, and to take a few more risks.

Risks like “manipulate people with those baby blues.”

Ben tells Luke that he’s a menace, after he pouts so cutely that he gets a free scarf added on to a purchase that Ben makes. Luke responds that Ben has no room to talk, since he flirted a free breakfast out of that one inn owner.

Also, Luke is currently physically six. That is objectively a situation that sucks. He deserves to use it for all it’s worth if he’s stuck like this.

“You know, if you keep wearing all-black and looking longingly at the velvet cape and Space Chanel boots, the temple is going to worry that you’re a darksider.”

“Uncle Ben... you told me, yesterday, that I sparkle so brightly in the Force that it’s almost blinding.”

“Yes, but the gloves--”

They don’t agree on this, but Ben relents. He does actually understand good fashion, unfortunately, and he’s not unaware of how much Leia taught Luke about such things.

Luke’s about forty years ahead of the curve, of course, but Skywalkers are prone to such things. It’s usually in regards to technology, granted, but...

They get to Coruscant. Ben is very obviously a Jedi. He knows all the right words and walks like a Soresu master and feels warm and comforting in the Force. They let him in with minimal questions. They note down “my first padawan left the order to have a child, but died shortly after; I consider Luke here to be my nephew, and have raised him as such,” and move on.

Luke is vaguely annoyed because he already had an uncle (and aunt) that raised him, but he admits that a person can have more than one uncle. He can live with this. Ben was more family to Anakin than Owen was, in some ways, so it’s kind of true. Luke is even working on feeling more childish affection for Ben instead of the complicated mess of emotions that come from being lied to about some very large and important subjects, and then seeing the person saying those lies have regular emotional breakdowns due to something as small as Luke saying he likes the curve of the hull on that freighter.

(Apparently he sounds just like his father did as a child. This is almost heartwarming.)

The thing is! The thing. The thing is, they almost make it to the Halls of Healing to get looked over for weird viruses, or Outer Rim Parasites, or whatever the hells needs to be happening. They almost make it without Ben having a flashback to dead younglings or brainwashed troopers or the declaration of a Sith Empire. They almost make it without incident.

Then Ben sees Qui-Gon, and freezes, and does not move again.

Luke cannot get him to restart.

People are staring.

They haven’t even made it to Medical, Uncle Ben, come on.

Young, local Obi-Wan comes over and asks if there’s something he can do to help. Or maybe this “Ben” knows Qui-Gon? Master Jinn doesn’t recognize Ben, but maybe Luke knows more?

Luke does know more, but what Luke actually says is “he probably needs a mind healer.”

(Ben will not appreciate this.)

(Ben is unfortunately standing in the middle of the hallway and completely unresponsive, and is unable to argue with this assertion.)

(Ben is pretty much proving this assertion entirely correct, actually.)

Obi-Wan is helpful, if a little bitchy in the manner of most late-teens individuals, and offers to help get Uncle Ben down to the Halls of Healing. It involves Obi-Wan gently pushing on Ben’s shoulders, and Qui-Gon offering to carry Luke so he can be in Ben’s sights (because Ben is a Mystery, and Qui-Gon is quite fond of those, so he wants to stay involved). Ben kind of just... shuffles on down.

There are medical tests. They ask about how Luke lost his hand. He refuses to talk about it. They ask how Ben got all his scars. Luke says he doesn’t know. They ask if he knows why Ben looks like he’s been through a war. Luke says it’s because he probably was.

They check for foreign viruses. They find evidence of thus-far-unpatented vaccinations. They ask Luke if he knows what he’s vaccinated for.

“How would I know? I’m six.”

They agree that this is a good excuse.

(It is not. He’s lying. They do not know this.)

They do some more tests. They find a lot of questionable medical bullshit in Ben’s body. Most of this is from the clone wars, but they don’t know this. Someone realizes they haven’t gotten a ping back from the Shadow Network regarding “do we have permission to pull the medical file of a Jedi that isn’t in the normal database? We’re assuming you know who he is, since we don’t.”

The Shadow Network does not know who Ben is.

The healers, of course, go “huh, that’s weird, but maybe the name he gave his nephew was fake. We can’t exactly ask ‘Ben’ for more details right now. We already had to sedate him. Let’s check the DNA!”

The DNA pulls up as Obi-Wan Kenobi.

The padawan who brought this guy in two hours ago.

“Huh, that’s weird. Let’s call in Kenobi and ask if he knows what’s going on.”

Obi-Wan absolutely does not know what’s going on.

They ask Luke.

“Oh, I don’t know,” he says, lying through his teeth and not even pretending otherwise.

“You’re not a very good liar,” teenage Obi-Wan tells him.

“I’m not trying to be,” Luke says. “Can you get Master Yoda? I feel like we’re going to need him.”

They normally wouldn’t get Yoda on the request of a six-year-old, but they also normally don’t have a catatonic thirty-something Jedi who looks like he’s been through a war popping up in the medical database as the pimply teenage padawan that broke his pinky trying to do a Badass Ataru Flip last week.

Or... whatever Luke i... is... oh dear.

“Young one,” Qui-Gon asks, while people whisper-shout behind him, not realizing he’s cutting the Correlian Knot and just asking the kid himself. “Do you know why your midichlorian count is so high? It’s almost unheard of.”

“Uncle Ben said my dad was the Chosen One,” Luke says, because he is capable of being a little shit and is actually really eager to let Ben deal with some of the fallout. He feels for the man, really, but he’s also tired of being the one to field every single question.

Also, the expressions that pass on Qui-Gon’s face are hilarious.

(Luke may or may not be more affected by his six-year-old brain than he would like to admit.)

“Thank you,” Qui-Gon says, sounding more than a little strangled about it.

It takes another three hours for Ben to wake up.

He listens to the questions. He hears what they say his ‘nephew’ said. He looks at Luke.

“Is this revenge for not telling you about Leia?”

“It’s not revenge,” Luke does not lie. “I just don’t know how to explain it.”

“It’s pretty easy to explain.”

“It’s not my secret.”

“This is revenge for the Leia thing.”

“No,” Luke says. “Revenge for the Leia thing was when I ate a live frog in front of you.”

This is the point at which someone interrupts and points out that they appear to be stalling.

“Oh, he is,” Luke tells them. He gestures at Ben. “I can’t tell you more, because it’s more his story than mine.”

“I’m afraid, Master, that I am very likely to have an emotional breakdown if I allow myself to consider the reality of this situation for longer than the fraction of a second I already have,” Ben reports, full of false cheer. “Suffice to say, I am far from stable and have only held out this far for Luke’s sake.”

“Can you explain why you have my DNA?” Obi-Wan asks, as the person who’s most concerningly involved in this situation.

“You can,” Ben says, smiling like there is absolutely nothing wrong in the slightest, ever. “I’m you, from the future. I actually died and spent a few years dead before coming back. I’m not sure why I’m younger than I was when I died, but I appreciate being able to put on my shoes without my knees attempting to mutiny.”

“He needs a mind healer,” Luke reiterates, in case the strained grin hasn’t made it clear. “So do I, but not as much.”

“I have felt literally every person in this Temple save for Luke and Yoda die,” Ben reports, looking a shade more manic than a few seconds earlier. “It’s very overwhelming to feel you all being alive again. I may be approaching a mental breakdown, and I’ve been rather strictly advised against using alcohol to treat my traumas again.”

Luke kicks him in the thigh. It’s not a very hard kick, because he is very small, and he does actually like Ben. “I’m not letting you turn into an old drunk again.”

After several seconds of silence, a healer quietly suggests that everyone clear the room, and asks if someone could fetch Master Yoda as the youngling requested.

(THIS IS ALMOST THREE THOUSAND WORDS. I started it less than two hours ago. Why am I like this.)

[awake-my-oceans]

Kaito as the detective and shin as the Kid (shrinking optional)

(Send me an AU and I’ll tell you five headcanons about it)

Robin, you‘ve talked about how the Phandom makes you write like you‘re possessed, and I‘m starting to get what you mean. Literally nothing in DCMK comes to me without it turning into A Monster. Anyways, roleswap Kaito and Shinichi!

Ok so the thing is this could actually work with canon backstories. Kaito’s whole thing is about honoring his dad and catching the guys who killed him, which translates fairly easily into detective work—particularly if he doesn’t know about the Kaitou Kid bit right away. Shinichi is……a bit harder, but he canonically rolls with the weirdest stuff. If you get the right setup, him being Kaitou KID isn’t that much of a stretch.

I know it’s headcanon time but shhhh this is an interesting premise and I have to figure out how we got here.

Ok, so Kaito doesn’t always pick up nuanced crime scene clues, but he reads people really really well. So when he accidentally runs into Jii, and the mention of his father comes up, Jii winces, pained, and Kaito goes “what do you know you absolutely know something and I won’t drop this” and doesn’t let Jii rest until Jii admits that Kuroba Toichi was murdered. Boom, off we go. Nakamori Ginzo half-raised him ever since Toichi died, so it’s a reasonable jump to go straight into detective work. Kaito can’t always read a crime scene, and frankly, the bodies are unsettling to the point of nausea, but he sure can read everyone’s reactions to the body, and, well, some people are only pretending to grieve. What does this madlad do? Does he teach himself to carefully examine all evidence for clues? Well, yes, but that comes later. Right now, he jumps straight into impersonating the deceased’s voice and mannerisms and accusing everyone and, well, people do tend to have nervous breakdowns and confessions when suddenly confronted with their victim’s ghost. Good, Kaito thinks, remembering how much he’s mourned his father. They deserve it.

Off he goes. He’ll get more and more relevant information over time, but that’s about as slow-burn as canon. Meanwhile, he’s making a name for himself as a medium for the dead.

Meanwhile Shinichi’s come across the reports of Kuroba Toichi’s death, and, well, this is definitely a cover up. A few too-close runs later, he realizes it was a cover up from inside the legal system, and that those people are still very much in power. He has a crisis for all of like two days before realizing that Sherlock Holmes took a legally “flexible” approach to confronting in-house corruption, and, well, if Sherlock Holmes can do it then he can too. Sufficient off-the-record digging, plus talking with his dad (who is also, ah, legally flexible), brings up the whole Kaitou Kid thing and look, playing Kaitou Kid was supposed to be a one-time thing to bait people out of the woodwork, but one thing led to another, and here Shinichi is, moonlighting as a dead thief.

Shinichi isn’t more than competent at magic tricks, but he has a few things in his favor here. 1) both Agasa and Jii are helping him, and their team up is a force to behold. Jii keeps the ideas practical, and Agasa makes the ideas work. 2) Shinichi’s dad absolutely knew the last Kaitou Kid inside out, and he’s giving Shinichi helpful pointers. 3) Shinichi may not be good at doing magic, but he’s absolutely incredible at reading and anticipating the police, having a flawless alibi, and leaving no evidence on-scene. Plus, he’s still working his “day job” as a detective, so he also gets stupidly easy access to department gossip, security layouts, and other classified information.

Headcanon time!

Kaito has his beginning of canon meltdown of “EXCUSE ME, this thief is claiming to be the best magician around and he’s WRONG because my DAD was the best.” This is even more vehement because his dad is a more painful topic overall, given that he was murdered. That said, he’s not going to give this thief the time of day because he’s got more important things to do, like catch the murderers. However, Shinichi-in-disguise is casing a building when someone gets murdered there, and Kaito’s like “what is up with this guy.” Shinichi does pause and lend a hand when Kaito gets stuck, because murder is murder no matter what face he’s wearing. After the case is solved, Kaito’s trying to figure out who on earth this is when he realizes it’s Kaitou Kid. But the guy did just help solve a murder. And when he snarls that his father was the better magician, Kaitou Kid just bows his head and agrees. So Kaito has no idea what to make of this dude. Meanwhile Shinichi’s inner dialogue is just “it’s Toichi’s kid, does he know—NOPE HE SURE DOESN’T, UH, WHAT DO I DO??!”

Kaitou Kid respecting Toichi and admiring Kaito’s magic is a recurring thing, much to Kaito’s bemusement. Like. He can tell that it’s genuine, not a way to throw him off guard, although it’s sure doing that, too. One time Kaitou Kid pauses a heist to help with a case, which leads to Kid almost getting caught. Kaito’s still got a lot of complicated feelings around Kid, but it’s not fair that Kid’s getting arrested just because he had the decency to help stop a murderer. So Kaito covers for Kid with a rather good magic trick that “Kid” performs. Kid escapes, but not before giving Kaito the strangest layered look Kaito’s ever seen. He doesn’t even know what was in all those layers, just that there was a lot of grief and that there were upwards of ten layers in there.

Kaito and Shinichi catch onto each other faster than in canon. This is mainly because their weak spots are more obvious to an expert—Kaito’s definitely not talking to ghosts to solve cases, thinks Shinichi the Savior of the Police Force, and Kid’s definitely got a hidden agenda that’s only almost perfectly covered up, thinks Kaito the Undisputed Expert of Poker Face. Kaito has a very rough go of things when he finds out in rapid succession that 1) Kid’s trying to hunt down murderers via a system that might actually be stranger than talking to “ghosts,” 2) Kid’s looking for who killed Kuroba Toichi specifically, and 3) Kuroba Toichi was actually the original Kid. After that, Kid being a teenage detective is just—whatever. Sure. Why not.

There’s a huge police betting pool on what will happen when Kudou “everything has a rational explanation” Shinichi, and Kuroba “I literally talk to ghosts” Kaito meet. Everyone’s sure there will be conflict—people are just trying to work out how it will go down. Turns out that they get on like a house on fire, but to everyone’s great surprise, the houses they set on fire are all criminals, and they don’t try to set each other’s houses on fire at all. Except for Megure. Megure makes bank.

Turns out that when you have two detectives and two phantom thieves on hand, things get done with furious efficiency. Kaito and Shinichi take turns being Kaitou Kid, depending on whose skill set is most useful. Kaito’s better at dodging bullets and at doing insane magic. Shinichi’s better at forcing the snipers to reveal themselves and at getting the police to notice exactly the right things about the snipers. On a detective front, half the Organization’s convinced that 1) their dead victims are actively sabotaging them and 2) if their victims don’t get them, Kudou Shinichi certainly will.

Honestly, from an outside POV, the back third of this series would just be “there are GHOSTS and we are going to DIE and also reality is bending anytime Kaitou Kid shows up—“

RIP to all the undercover agents in the Organization. They’re about to have a Ride.