#fuck me how have i gotten so trash at math

[sapnapstummy]

I have 675 posts in my queue 🕴

[mxcnliight]

baby, can you meet me tonight in detention? (cyj)

Choi Yeonjun your longtime bully has finally had enough of your and puts your in your place, but the teacher catches you guys. so you get to sent to detention with him. when you’re all alone with him, what will happen? ♫ I can feel your blood pressure rise, fuck this tension ♫

Paring: Bully!Yeonjun x Fem!Reader

Theme: One shot; SMUT, PWP, fluff (?)

Word Count: 2.8K

Warings: sexual tension; dirty talk; degradation; swearing; breath play(?); oral sex (f receiving); p in v penetration; unprotected sex + creampie (use a CONDOM)

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You yawn as boredom hits you, waiting for your math class to start. You have never been good at math nor were you ever interested in it, so you always just hope the teacher won’t call on you. 

You look out the window and see the sun shining, it’s a nice day today. No rain or clouds! You know you have to do something after school, maybe go to the ice cream shop with your friends or get a tan by the pool. 

Whatever it is, you know, you just can’t waste a day like this. Suddenly, you hear a jingle, right on time. You look over, and see your bully, Choi Yeonjun, walk into the classroom. 

He wore his signature black leather jacket with a white undershirt paired with black pants and black boots. His crimson red hair catches attention, so everybody can tell it's Choi Yeonjun. 

His eyes meet yours as you hold eye contact until he sits down at his desk. Looking away, you roll your eyes and wonder what torture you’ll be experiencing today. 

From the time you were a freshman, Yeonjun was your designated bully. He would slam your locker in your face, throw paper airplanes at you with nasty words in them, make you trip, etc. 

You didn’t know why he was bullying you, but you found out one day and it was the stupidest thing ever. You became best friends with a girl named Yuna and the reason why Yeonjun was bullying you was because he had a crush on her and you were "taking her away from him".

It was so dumb that you wanted to punch him for his stupidity, but you never got the chance (or strength). When Yeonjun first started bullying you, you were frail and fragile. 

You didn’t know how to handle him, but now as a senior year in high school, you have gotten used to his antics. You know how to handle him and protect yourself from him. 

You thought he would have stopped years ago, but he told you, “I’m not stopping until either I get caught or you go and be a little bitch and tattle tale on me, got it?” You still remember the cold glare he gave you that day. 

You would have told the school counselor, but you just felt too guilty to. Speaking of feeling guilty. Another thing Yeonjun did to you was manipulate you, but you wonder after you both graduate what he’s going to do? 

He’s not going to have another doll to play around with, unless he still keeps in contact with you, and you hope to god he doesn’t. Just then you feel something hit your head as you look down at a paper airplane now in your lap. 

You give Yeonjun a disappointed look as he gestures for you to open it. Rolling your eyes, you open it and it reads ‘You look like a witch with that makeup on you, did you even try this morning?’ You look back up at Yeonjun and he's stupidly smirking now. 

You roll your eyes and scoff before crumpling the paper airplane into a ball and throwing it in the trash can. Not cool Choi. You cross your arms and look up at the board. 

“Wanna piece of gum?” You look over and see Yuna holding out a piece to you. You nod and take it into your mouth before chewing. “Thanks.” She hums as you both look back at the board. “Alright class… let’s get started, shall we?”

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Forty minutes later and class is finally done, thank god. You barely understood any of the material, so you know you’ll need Yuna to explain to you later when you get home. 

You look to your left and see Yuna putting her folder in her bag. “Hey, could you explain the notes to me tonight?” You ask her. “I would love to, but I have a cheer meeting after school” she frowns. 

“I can teach it to you during study hall before class tomorrow?” “Yeah that’s fine, thanks.” She nods and smiles at you as you smile back at her. You begin to gather your things when you jump in your seat from hands slamming down on your desk. 

You look up and see Yeonjun towering over you and you frown. “What do you want, Choi?” “Did you do my English homework?” You smirk and scoff at him before laughing. 

“What’s so funny bitch?” He asks as you deadpan him. “Oh, I’m so sorry, Yeonjun, does it look like I’m your little servant? No.'' You begin to sling your bag over your shoulder when Yeonjun suddenly chokes you as you widen your eyes. 

Your hands go over his neck trying to pry them off of your neck. “What’d you say to me, you little bitch?” He says in a dark tone, staring dead into your soul. “I-i’m not your little servant… bitch.” You say, stuttering as he becomes enraged. 

As he was about to do something, he was interrupted. “Choi Yeonjun and Y/N L/N!” You both look over at your teacher who is fuming with anger. “I will not be having this type of ruckus in my classroom! Detention for both of you!” Yeonjun’s hand leaves your neck as you both look at each other and sigh. 

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It felt like forever to walk to the principal's office because Yeonjun was staring at you the whole time. You’re now sitting outside the principal's office waiting for him to get done with Yeonjun. If he hadn’t started this, you wouldn’t be here right now. You rolled your eyes and crossed your arms; this was not the time to do something Choi. 

Out of the corner of your eye you see a lady walking towards you. “Here’s an ice pack, sweetie.” Your eyes widen at her kind gesture as you take the ice pack.

You thanked her as she left. You then put the ice pack around your neck. Just then you hear the door open as you look to your left and Yeonjun comes out with the secretary. 

Yeonjun sits beside you as the secretary lady squats down to your level before taking off her glasses and rubbing her forehead.“Alright so we have come to the conclusion that Yeonjun was the person that was responsible for this ruckus, but you were still involved, Y/N, so I will need both of you to report to Mrs. Hans’ room after school, is that understood?” 

You both nod as she puts her glasses back on and gets up. “I will write both of you passes for your next class.” She goes back into her office while you turn your head to match Yeonjun’s deathly stare.

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Once the end of the day hits, you go straight to Mrs. Hans’ room, not wanting to be late. Once you arrive in her room, you see Yeonjun isn’t here yet, which isn’t a shocker. 

You make your way over to a desk and sit down. You then put your bag in your lap, waiting for the period to start. A minute before the bell rings, Yeonjun arrives, looking angry as ever. 

You see him take a seat only 2 desks away from yours. You look back at the board before getting your lip gloss from your bag and applying some to your lips. 

You then smack them before putting the lip gloss back into your bag. The bell rings as Mrs. Hans sighs. “Alright, since both of you are here now, we can start. Welcome to detention, Yeonjun is a regular here, so I’m not surprised, but for you Mrs. L/N, I’m rather disappointed.” She gives you a side eye as you look away. 

“Anyways, you all know the drill. Phones in the basket,” she says, holding out a small basket. You look over at Yeonjun, who is getting out his phone, and so do you. 

You both get up and put your phones in Mrs. Hans’ basket. Once you sit back down, you put your bag on the floor next to you. “Now, silence for the next forty-five minutes.” You see her open her book as you roll your eyes; this can’t get any better, can it. 

Minutes pass as you are extremely bored; you get so bored that you count the tiles on the ceiling. You occasionally sneak glances at Yeonjun, but he is just as bored as you are. He is just staring at his hand; you wondered what was on there. 

Just then you hear a teacher come by Mrs. Hans’ room. Mrs. Hans then looks over at the teacher, then back at us. She sighs before grabbing her keys. “I’ll be right back,” she says before leaving. 

That's easy, huh? Now it is just you and Yeonjun both sitting in silence. “Why do you have to be such a bitch?” You look over at Yeonjun, oh, he’s starting this now? “Oh, so I’m the bitch? Says the guy that has bullied me for four years straight,” you say, before rolling your eyes. 

“I wouldn’t be sitting here if it wasn’t for you,” he replies. “Oh no Yeonjun. I wouldn’t be sitting here if it wasn’t for your selfish, greedy, egotistical self! I have done nothing wrong, it’s all your fault, Yeonjun!” You raise your voice as you stare at him. 

He clenches his jaw and balls his hand into a fist. “No, it’s all you, Y/N. You’re the selfish egotistical bitch, you always have been!” “For what?! For taking your girlfriend?! If you really wanted her, you should have just asked her out!” He goes silent as you sigh until you suddenly get slammed into the desk next to you. 

You look up in confusion as Yeonjun wraps his hand tightly around your neck. “Who told you I liked that little bitch?” You look at him confused. “You do like her, don't you?” He then does something unexpected: he kisses you. 

Your eyes widen as he roughly makes out with you. You whimper, trying to pry Yeonjun’s hand from your neck because you can hardly breathe. He breaks the kiss and stares at you intensely. “I like you, you little brat” Your eyes widened; he did not just say that. 

“W-what?” You say as he flips you around and your hands meet the cold service of the desk. “Yeonjun, let’s talk about this-'' Just then he rips your patines off from underneath your dress and throws them away. 

He then wraps one of his hands around your mouth. “Be a good girl and keep quiet, okay?” He then removes his hand and goes down between your legs, holding them open. Your face heats up as you can feel his breath on your pussy. 

You whimper, “Y-yeonjun… what are you doing?” He then chuckles as his hands meet the sides of your thighs, “I want your slutty fucking pussy in my mouth.” You moan at his words. “But Yeonjun, we can’t… not here.” “Yes we can and you are going to give it to me.” 

You feel his tongue on your clit as you whimper; you put your hand around your mouth trying not to moan. He licks back and forth up your slit as you're trying so hard not to moan. 

He flattens his tongue on your clit and begins to kiss at it. You whimper a bit, but not too loud. You could get caught at any moment, but it feels so good. Along with him making out with your pussy. You’re still trying to process that Yeonjun apparently likes you. 

His tongue moves to your hole, slowly teasing it. “I want your fucking pussy cream on my tongue,” he demands as you moan at his words. He then slaps your thigh with his free hand and you let out a yelp. “What did I say about keeping quiet?” He growls as he begins to flick his tongue along your hole. You close your eyes in pleasure. 

“You like that?” He asks as you hum, still trying so hard not to moan. “This pussy’s fucking mine. I own it.” He growls as he starts to sloppily kiss your hole. You whimper at his words as he growls on your pussy. 

“Don’t you fucking cum yet,” he demands as he increases his tongue movements as you try not to moan. His fingers then move up to your clit, slowly circling around it, sending you more pleasure. 

“Yeonjun, please,” you cry out as you can feel him smirk. He moves two fingers to your hole and slowly pumps them inside as you moan. He continues to lick your pussy while his fingers are fucking in and out of your wet hole. 

“Shit… you feel that? My fingers in your pussy and tongue on your clit?” You whimper at his words as you nod. “I just want you to give in to me. Give it to me, yeah? Push your pussy in my fucking face.” You push your hips down a bit at him as you feel him growl at your pussy sending vibrations up your back. 

“Fuck baby, I need you inside of me.” He then gets up and puts his hand on your chin, forcing you to look at him before he kisses you. His hands sneak up your body to meet your clothed breasts, slowly massaging them. 

He then breaks the kiss and takes his pants off along with his boxers. You look back in anticipation for his cock to be inside you. “Fuck baby, are you ready?” You nod as he lifts your dress up with one hand and uses the other to slowly push his thick cock in.

You both moan at the feeling of him stretching you out. “So tight, only for me right?” “Mhm, all for you,” you say as he completely bottoms you out. You whimper at the feeling as his hands meet your hips. 

One of his hands reaches up and wraps around your mouth; again, he gets close to your ear and whispers. “Be quiet” Before he starts thrusting into you, you throw your head back in pleasure.

It feels so good, you have never felt anything like this before. “You’re mine, alright? Mine. Nobody’s else’s. You belong to Choi Yeonjun.” You moan into his hand as you feel tears in your eyes.

He then grunts out, “Oh fuck baby pussy’s so fucking good, who knew it would only take a dicking down for you to shut up?” You whimper at his words as his thrusts increase, pounding into you. 

It feels so good, yet you feel a wave of embarrassment hit you with Yeonjun fucking you in detention. “Mhm, fuck baby,” he lets out a low chuckle. “You’re going to be my dumb little bitch, hm? Gonna take all of my cum in your tight little pussy mhm?” He mumbles in your ear as your eyes close, you are so close to your orgasm. 

“Oh baby, you close? I can feel you fucking clench around me. You wanna cum hm?” he says as you nod vigorously, wanting to release the tension building up in your body. 

You feel Yeonjun smirk as he kisses your cheek. “Nobody's  stopping you Y/N. Cum for me.” His thrusts increase as you almost yell into his hand around your mouth as if it is so much pleasure. 

You then feel Yeonjun’s free hand move down to your clit, rubbing to the pace of his thrusts. “Come on baby. You don’t want to get caught, do you? So then fucking cum for me,” he growls into your ear. 

His words give you the final push, and your orgasm shoots through your body as your eyes roll into the back of your head. “Fuck yeah baby! Just like that, mhm, you’re going to make me cum too,” he says as he releases his hand from your mouth as you crash onto the desk while Yeonjun’s still trying to chase his orgasm. “Oh shit-“ He says as his cum shoots into your pussy, filling you right up.

You both try to catch your breath as you’re still lying lifeless on the desk. You feel Yeonjun slip out as he breathes heavily. “Who knew a brat like you had a good pussy?” You roll your eyes at his comments and turn around to kiss him. 

His thumb rubs on your jaw as you kiss. You break it and huff out at him, “I hate you.” He chuckles, “Says the one who just came on me.” You roll your eyes when you hear something as you both scramble to get your clothes on. 

You then return to your seats like normal as Mrs. Hans comes back in. “You two didn’t do anything while I was gone?” She asks as you look back at Yeonjun, then look back at her to nod. Once detention is done, you both finally get your phones back as you are about to walk out the door. Yeonjun stops you as you look back up at him in confusion. “Could I have your number, baby?”.

[thereismusicinmysoul]

Work was closed today because of an ice storm, so I took the unexpected day off to finally finish the pleated wrap skirt I've been working on since early November! I got really rambly about the whole thing so here's a picture of the finished product and I'll drop the rest below the cut.

This project came about because I've been watching The Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty with some friends and I DESIRE a swooshy skirt. While I didn't follow any patterns and wasn't setting out to make the same exact style of skirt, it was definitely influential. (This skirt brought to you by numerous tutorial videos, including one on Chinese mamianqun's and one on Korean hanbok's, and an absolute refusal to actually follow anyone's instructions. No pattern, we die like men)

It's been almost 10 years since I've done any sewing, so I decided to buy sheets from the thrift store so that I wouldn't cry as hard if things went horribly or I had to trash the project. (Don't get me wrong, I still cried. Because Oh Golly did things go wrong. But it wasn't as tragic as if I'd used full price fabric from Joann's, ya feel?) So from there the idea grew from "pleated wrap skirt" (my rationale: I don't have to be precise in my measurements, straight hem, but still lots of swoosh) to "make this skirt out of a queen size top sheet with as little waste as possible" because who doesn't love a challenge?

....and oh what a challenge it ended up. I plotted things out in my notebook, planned how I would cut everything, and oh let me tell you: rationally I knew how big the sheet was. But laying it out to cut it? So huge. So much fabric. It covered my entire bedroom floor. All of this going into a single skirt oh god what have I gotten myself into? But this part actually went the smoothest of the whole process! Because...

I wasn't doing normal pleats. Since I was trying to make the swooshiest dress with as much of the fabric as I had, I did "deep pleats" which is. A normal pleat but if you shove more fabric inside the pleat. No one wanted to explain to me exactly how to do this. The one person I found who did gave me MATH about it. And boy am I bad at math. Used a pillowcase to practice and wrap my head around how the math worked (the intangible makes no sense to me, I must hold it in my hands), sorted the math, started pleating for real! Measured my pinned pleats and it came up way shorter than anticipated. Have I mentioned it's been a hot minute since I've sewn? Also this was my first attempt ever at pleats. SO! I unpinned everything, made my deep pleats slightly less deep, pinned them all up again, and then blessedly listened to my Grammy's advice to baste the pleats first. Because horror of horrors, my measurements were right the first time and now my fabric was too long for the waistband I'd already put Quite A Lot Of Effort Into. Like, it's a wrap skirt. I would've just made do. But no. It wouldn't even fit.

Within this process, I sewed together my three skirt panels, put in a pocket (oh the choices I made. This pocket did not survive to the completion of the skirt because it was BAD. I was terrified that the fabric wouldn't hold up to the weight of me dripping my phone into it and covered the ENTIRE pocket in interfacing. This would be fine if I'd wanted it to fuck up the way the skirt lay, but this was not in fact what I wanted. I am however very proud of the placement I worked out for it, it sits inside one of the pleats so it isn't visible), hemmed the WHOLE FUCKING THING (look. Again. I knew it was a lot of fabric. But it did not occur to me that I would be hemming fucking 240" across the bottom, plus 30" up either side. I used ALL of my pins to accomplish this), and made a very lovely waistband and ties.

Now it is at this point that I went out of town for thanksgiving, remembered I had other Christmas crafting plans, started a new job working more hours, and left this skirt to languish until a few weeks ago when I finally had the heart to rip out all of those pleats, remembered I wanted to redo the pocket while I was here (and let me tell you, I needn't have worried about the strength of the pocket. I had that fucker in there GOOD. I think it took longer picking out that single pocket than it took taking out all of the pleats), and then set about redoing everything.

Now something you may not know about me is I exist in somewhat of a state of chaos. I try to write things down to negate this, but uh. Guess who didn't write down where she left off, and couldn't decipher the mad scientist notes that made sense in the heat of the moment, but not several months later? That would be me. Thankfully I was able to sort things out, get the pocket put back in, got the pleats pinned in record time, and praise whatever deity you may recognize, it was the right length this time! So this afternoon, I attached it to the waistband, did a very lovely "stitch in the ditch" (that I had to take out because something got fucked up in the back and it wouldn't lay right. I never regretted how closely I matched the thread to the fabric more than I did in that moment), REDID all that stitching, and now I have a skirt!

Ultimately, I don't actually know if I'll wear it. I no longer own many tops that lay well with a skirt without making me hate my body, and I don't know that I like the length. Maybe a shopping trip and cutting off several inches (...oh god I'll have to re-hem it...) will make me like it on myself better, but even if I don't and I never wear it, this has been a really fun and fulfilling project! I'm satisfied just with having completed it and I've learned a lot in the process! And hey, for going into this refusing to follow a pattern, with a goal of "use the entire sheet in the skirt" I think it came out pretty nicely. Plus, if nothing else, I can pleat like an absolute pro now.

[mickgaydolenz]

first of all-HEY YOU CHANGED YOUR BLOG YOU CONFUSED ME and second of all-here's my dream

I was at the library, but I wanted some lemonade and told myself I didn't want any the library was selling so I walked all the way from the library in the city to the market in my neighborhood which took forever, and once I got close I started smoking a cigarette. like. I pulled out an entire pack and started smoking, and when I was going in a butt-it-out and put it behind my ear because I didn't want anyone to think I was some gross smoker, just a regular one. and I got to the lemonades and I looked for the cheapest one which was I wanna say two twenty-five (sorry not good with remembering numbers in my dream) and I pulled out some change and did the math so I grabbed the lemonade and the girl ringing me up was so pretty😭😭 like. it is not fair how beautiful this girl was. and I had a cigarette on my ear with a mullet buying lemonade with pocket coins. I should've gotten knocked out fr. then next thing I know I'm WORKING there about to do my first shift all alone and the guy told me that the door didn't lock anymore, but I still kept asking him for a key so I can close it down eventually, but he just kept talking over me, and then when everyone was gone I lit up another cigarette and started smoking all of the lights went out, then they came back on and a CLOWN ANIMATRONIC WAS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROOM STARING AT ME so I kinda froze. like. what does one do in a situation like this. soon enough I grow some balls and put the animatronic in the alley and did everything. like I helped customers and stuff. then at the end of the night when I was closing down I was taking out the trash and the animatronic was gone....and I was smoking AGAIN and I looked around for the clown, THEN SOMETHING FROM BEHIND GRABBED ME AND BEGAN PULLING ME INTO THE DARK STORE BY MY HEAD??? I don't know how but I get away and run all the way to the library where I meet up with the librarian and start begging him to help me, but he just looked at me and went. "you're smoking in a library. get out." ???? how tf did I manage to not lose the cigarette in my mouth???? then I started going home but I kept seeing the clown everywhere and when I got home it began banging on my windows and then I woke up

aren't fever-dreams just fun.

👀👀👀👀👀👀👀 raya what. in the actual. fuck???? love that you just casually were a smoker the whole dream though 😂. that legit is a truly vile nightmare though, i would actually just kms in the dream if that was what was happening to me. i’m absolutely not getting slow stalked by a clown animatronic, no fucking thank you 💀. fun fact though, that exact situation would be my twin’s dream. they fucking love clowns and have always wanted to be haunted in some way…..

[rydrake6]

Vent post: TW for suicide and self harm and School maybe? Idk how to format these.

I know that I don't usually make posts like this, but I just need somewhere to express that I am incredibly fucking stressed out about school. I'm probably at least a hundred assignments behind and I was supposed to work over the break, but I just spent the whole week getting stressed out and hating myself for not being able to get on my stupid school account and actually get work done. I don't know why, but I'm terrified to do any work. Maybe it's a fear that I'm not going to be able to get anything done, maybe my account having my deadname on it has something to do with it, I don't know. Me saying at least a hundred isn't an exaggeration, by the way. Because one time I was behind on FIFTY SEVEN ASSIGNMENTS!!! I had a mental breakdown on the first day of school and wasn't able to get any work done, so I've been behind ever since. It doesn't really help that my financial math class makes no fucking sense and the one time I tried to get help from the actual teacher of that class was more concerned with my grade than actually helping me understand the material. "Do the discussion questions and you'll get a good grade." Motherfucker how am I supposed to answer the discussion questions if I don't understand what they're about? I got a math tutor and even she thinks that this class is too complicated. But I just HAD to go into financial math because I NEEDED a class that I'd actually be using in the world. My other classes aren't even that bad, they're fun even. But I'm so far behind in them and I'm so terrified of going back into that account that I don't want to do them. The fun of learning is lost when I can't think about doing it without also thinking of killing myself or self harming! That's not an exaggeration either. I literally cannot think about getting to the fucking mountain that is my overdue school assignments without thinking about killing myself. Or at the very least, it's hard to not think about suicide when I'm thinking about school. Which is a problem, because I need to be able to do schoolwork, but I can't do schoolwork when I'm thinking "I would actually rather die than do this." The thing is too, I'm passing my class. I don't have straight As, but I am passing. I've even been called a model student by the director of the virtual academy himself. There are just so many assignments and I can't possibly get all of them done and my completionist and perfectionist ass doesn't want me to leave any assignment behind. And because I'm leaving so fucking many assignments behind, I'm beating myself up for this. I always beat myself up about school stuff, because there's not really much going on in my life. Up until recently, I didn't have a life outside of school. I've always gotten good grades, good notes, good behavior, and comments from the teachers saying "Rydrake is full of life and brightens everyone's day in the classroom." I actually used to enjoy school too. Maybe it's the fact that I went to a Waldorf Charter school, but I actually felt accepted there most of the time. I enjoyed the lessons. I had friends. I remember one time in 7th grade, we were coming in from recess and the teacher started talking about picking up trash in the classroom and he picked up a piece of paper and unfolded it. It was a breakup letter and everyone in the class was arguing who's it was. Eventually the teacher wrote on the initials of the people on the board and it turned out to be King George and the American Colonists. It was an introduction to a history lesson. That was probably around three years ago now. That's my best memory from school. I have so many good memories at that school. I have so many good memories, but I can barely remember anything before covid. I still remember the last day before the quarantine, too. We were standing lined up at our classes log (We had logs, wood not documents, for every grade class) and we said our goodbyes like usual. Next thing I know we're doing classes on a screen and assignments in our google classroom. I think shortly after that I started figuring things out.

[ushidoux]

November Baby - Ushijima x Reader

Summary: Wakatoshi offers you a little more than just chocolate and flowers on Valentine’s Day. (~2.7k words)

Warnings: breeding kink, pregnancy talk, cisfem!reader, nsfw

A/N: Breeding kink and big one-track minded boy just go hand in hand. This is for @prettysetterbaby’s Valentine’s Day collab!

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Wakatoshi never told you directly that he wanted children, but he signaled so in every possible way. 

It was initially subtle - of course, he’d always loved your hips, but his eyes and hands started to rest on them more often, and soon your belly became his favorite place to plant soft kisses, and his fingers started to favor the dip in your waist and the smoothness of your hips.

In the evenings when you washed up for the night, his eyes seemed to hone in on your facial features more than usual, and while he stood beside you at the bathroom sink to get ready of his own accord as you brushed your teeth and swiped toner on your face and neck, you could see him perform a sort of math in his head, adding and subtracting from the elements that comprised the two of you. 

You took note of all these behaviors, but you declined to pick his brain because your Toshi was always direct, and you knew that if he was quiet now, it was only because he was still coming up with the proper words to express what he was feeling.

But he let you know all right, in the middle of a crowded department store in the heart of Warsaw that looked like it had been ransacked by Cupid’s battalion many times over.

“Is Poland just really into Valentines’ Day or is it this store?” You joked, as you followed your husband leisurely pushing a shopping cart you’d overloaded with essentially useless trinkets and decorative items. You’d moved into your new home just a couple of weeks ago, and still were engrossed with the task of filling the empty spaces between comfy furniture and elegant fixtures. 

You were now trekking through the realm of cribs and diapers and couldn’t help but stifle a laugh at the frankly quite excessive marketing. Red and pink hearts were everywhere, as were flowers, huge balloons, chubby angels and red crossbows, you name it.

“Oh my God, even the baby section is Valentine’s Day themed??? No wonder everyone I know is born in November!”

You were busy laughing at your own joke, but instead, he looked at you with the slightest bit of caution in his hazel eyes, leaning over the cart as it rolled to a stop and gripping the handles carefully.

“Let’s have a November baby, too,” he said, abruptly enough to stun you for a split second.

Your eyes grew slightly wide, your face growing hot at his clear and concise statement, and you quickly looked around to see if anyone else had picked up his distinct baritone. You knew in your heart of hearts he was completely serious, and flustered, you bumped him slightly on the hip.

“Why would you say it right now?” You hissed.

“Does it matter where I say it?” He asked, with a slight raise of his eyebrows. You pouted, fingers tightening on the handles of the shopping cart as well. His eyes were still on you, again, gauging your reaction, worried if he was too forward and if he had somehow made you upset with his suggestion.

“Only if you want to of course, my love,” he reassured again, his hand now covering yours. His smile was understanding, even if there was a hint of lingering hope.

The warmth was fading from your face, your heartbeat that had sped up due to embarrassment now settling with the stroke of his thumb over the back of your hand.

It didn’t take you long to think because the thought had already crossed your mind. Being heavy with his child, then eventually coming to this very store with a small little one that looked like the two of you…

It was a delightful thought, actually.

“Wine and dine me first,” you teased, kissing him quickly on the nose, “and then we can consider having a Valentine’s Day baby.”

He grinned, the slightest bit of mischief in his glance.

“I’ll have you pregnant by the end of the night.”

---

Dumping your pill pack into the trash was a surprisingly simple ordeal and you were very thankful it was mainly used for birth control over anything else. But out of an abundance of caution, you’d decided to shoot a message to your primary care doctor earlier that morning anyway and gotten the green light to start immediately, which was reassuring if not embarrassing. While you knew she didn’t take it this way, part of you felt like you’d essentially disrupted her life to say by the way, my husband’s gonna fuck me into oblivion until i pee positive on a stick, any objections?

Ushijima seemed to be taking this ordeal very seriously as he was prone to do, his diet even more regimented than usual despite being off-season and adding an extra ten minutes to his morning jog, a protein-heavy green smoothie in hand. While that was cute, what wasn’t cute was the fact that he hadn’t touched you in the past week.

When you rolled over to him in the middle of the night, slipping your hand down his boxers to try to get him to give you what he wanted, he responded with a kiss on the lips before gently removing your hand off of him and intertwining his fingers with that hand instead. 

“If I’m going to breed you, it’s gonna be special,” he murmured almost directly into your ear, a tinge of slumber in his voice making his voice even more seductive.

Breed? The thought itself had your heart racing but not as much when he added,

“I’m saving up to fill you with the biggest load possible, sweetheart.” 

With that, he patted you on the head before whispering for you to go to sleep and anchoring an arm around your midsection to snuggle with you, but the thought of what he would do to you had you wide, wide awake.

---

The fact that you were so focused on the main event made it easier for Ushijima to surprise you with the rest of the activities he had planned for Valentine’s Day.

It wasn’t the first since you’d been married, but he’d absolutely put even greater efforts into this one, starting with waking you up (after letting you sleep almost into noon) to an oversized box of chocolates and bouquet of roses and a handmade card with a haiku written in his neat script. If that weren’t enough, he’d brought you brunch to enjoy together, cozied up in bed, and topped off morning kisses with the revelation of a tennis bracelet to go with your engagement ring.

“Toshi, it’s perfect…,” you all but blubbered out, ready to burst into tears. He treated you so well.

“Not as perfect as you,” he said with a smile, welcoming you to bury yourself in his chest.

Dinner warranted more of an effort from you, and so you dressed up in your finest attire for the upscale restaurant, armed with the complete awareness that your husband planned to rip every inch of fabric off of you tonight. It didn’t help that while your meal was pleasant, you could see Ushijima grow impatient with time, adjusting and readjusting the sleeves of his blazer as night approached.

When you finally returned to the front door of your home, you were stuffed but not to bursting, and that very little bit of space left in your belly seemed to fill with new butterflies, especially with Ushijima’s hand resting at the small of your back as he opened the door. 

Why were you so nervous? You’d had sex before, many times over, but something about today felt… different? Maybe it was the looming idea of purpose, and Ushijima knew purpose very well. 

When the door clicked shut, he wasn’t on you immediately as you expected, but he was still ready, as were you. He leaned down to plant yet another kiss on your lips that seemed to whisk the nervousness away - again he was your Toshi, and you were his, and you were going to create life.

“Baby?” He asked, tentatively. 

“Baby,” you agreed, wrapping your arms around his neck to start another kiss anew. He carried you effortlessly, keeping his lips pressed to yours as he pulled off your high heels and tossed them haphazardly, leading you back into the bedroom where a smattering of rose petals along the shag carpet and in the center of the bed greeted you, along with a lightly diffused essential oil blend with heavy notes of ylang-ylang and cedarwood.

Laying you carefully on your back, his eyes shifted from soft to focused, practically to match the level of intensity you saw when he was on the court, and your pulse started to pick up again. While he didn’t exactly tear the clothes off of you as you had anticipated, your dress was pulled over your body quite hastily to reveal all of you. Inches of skin to mark, a beautiful body to fill. 

“You’re so beautiful,” he murmured again, leaning into your neck for soft bites and kisses. He was still mostly fully clothed, and you could feel his swollen length press against your pubis, thick and heavy.

He let out a sigh, and climbed off the bed to undress.

“Don’t move,” he ordered as he pulled off tie, shirt, pants, in that order, and you couldn’t tell if you were more distracted by the sculpted muscles of his shoulders, arms, chest and abs, flexing and relaxing with every minute movement or the swell of his fat cock at attention, anxious to bury itself inside you. 

You gulped. You knew this was a ridiculous thought, but for a moment, you wondered if it was somehow bigger today?

Before you even realized what you were saying, you were already pleading, “Toshi… please be gentle…”

Ushijima smirked at your wide-eyed look, then shifted back to taking in your splayed out body with his eyes, as though mapping out his strategy while he idly fisted his length.

“Of course, love. I would never dream of hurting the mother of my kids.” 

Yet, he was absolutely going to have his way with you.

It didn’t take him long to make a decision on how to attack, anyway, because he quickly resumed position hovering over you, taking a moment to appreciate the sight of anticipating, open lips, slightly knit eyebrows over a curious gaze. His lower half pressed against you closely enough that again, you could feel the entirety of his warm, girthy length pressing against the bottom of your quickly wetting cunt to your abdomen.

The sheer span of his cock reminded you that he was basically designed to do this.

The fact that he started moving first, rubbing his length across your belly as if trying out the course before he dove in also reminded you how much your body craved him always. 

His fingers entered you hastily, and he reveled in the way your cunt already made the lewdest of noises, soft audible squishes with every pump of his fingers as he prepped you.

“So eager… so sloppy, waiting to receive all of my cum, aren’t you?” He teased, withdrawing his fingers to show you some of your slick. “You’re receptive,” he added, pulling his two fingers apart to show you the stringiness of your arousal. 

“I-I want this too, you know,” your face growing hot from the tease, hotter still when he sucked your wetness right off his fingers.

“What do you want?” He said, raising an eyebrow, still moving painfully slowly on top of you, but angling his body so that he was just running the entire base of his cock against your wet slit, killing you with every second he wasn’t immediately filling you up.

“Your babies, Toshi...”

That made him smile, and you earned the slight entry of his cockhead into you, forcing a slight moan out of your throat. The stretch was intense, as always, but the fact that he slowed had you squirming for more, as fast as possible. 

“T-Toshi… please, more,” you moaned as you raised your legs to slide down further on his cock, and he held them, pressing both firmly along his side.

“How much cum can you take in this little body of yours?” he asked, pressing right at your umbilicus with one hand, as he pushed in a mere additional inch.

You let out something between a moan and a scream from the overwhelming sensation of being stretched with so many inches to spare.

“Just fill me!!! Please, just put everything inside me,” you whined. 

“As you wish, darling.”

His arms hoisted your legs above his shoulders and he did you the service of thrusting all remaining inches inside you, forcing tears from your eyes from the too full sensation, kissing your ankles beside his head as he gave you time to breathe and adjust. Once you’d settled from the sound of your whimpers slowing, he reached for the headboard behind you before he started his onslaught.

Thrust after thrust after savage thrust, you could hear his groans deepen as he plowed the grounds for his seed, his hands tightening firmly against the wood of your headboard as it creaked for mercy. 

He felt so good, so perfect, so fitting, stretching you out like this to make room for his kin. 

Your fingers etched desire into his back, as you choked up a demand for more sensation, more him, more closeness..

“More, daddy!”

“Daddy is quite correct,” he mused, his hands moving from the headboard to quiet instead the jostle of your breasts, palming them gently. 

They were so pretty to him, he couldn’t wait to see them swell. 

He leaned down again to swallow your moans in a kiss, then opted to flip you above him instead, before he continued to snap his hips, bouncing you into the air.

“T-Toshi, you’re ah- too fast!” You shrieked, barely able to stand upright, the ride too rocky and intense for you. Palming his abdomen to walk your way up despite your movement, he brought you back down flush against his chest again, holding you tightly. 

“Let me do the work,” he whispered, kissing you, making your head swim to distract from the fact that he really was rearranging your guts. “I’ll do at least this much, since you’ll be carrying our child.”

And to that promise, you came almost instantly, an impulse of shock traveling from your slippery cunt up that you could almost feel in the tips of your fingers that made your body clench, your toes curl and the sound that came out of your throat less dainty and more primal, coming from so far deep inside you, even you were afraid.

As if on cue, his fingers dug into the flesh of your waist, holding you steady as he pounded into you even further, faster, pushing past fluttering walls and soundless cries coming from your lips, until he finally came with a shudder, spurting thick, hot gobs of liquid that you could feel hitting your cervix.

And it kept coming; he held you tighter, so desperately you thought you might break under his touch, burying his face in your chest - you could feel yourself still clenching around him, so greedy, trying to milk him for even more than the generous amount he was giving you.

It would be a miracle if you weren’t pregnant.

When it finally stopped, he left an arm around your back pressing you close to him, letting out a soft, pleased sigh with lowered eyelids. You stayed against him for longer, cockwarming him, your hands languidly coming to rest on both sides of his face.

Your darling Wakatoshi…

He stayed hard inside you, slowly giving you just one more stroke to atone for the small amount of semen that was already threatening to leak out around him, then laid you on your back.

“You’re doing so well already…” he encouraged, scooping up drops of him spilling out of you. “Keep it all in,” he said breathily, a warm palm pressing on your opening. 

“I will, baby,” you nodded, and he gave you another peck on the lips, then moved to one of your mounds to take a pert nipple in his mouth and suck softly. 

His hand lingered on your hot cunt, warm and dripping; he instead focused on stimulating your nipples with the other hand and his lips, forcing another orgasm out of you with time and dedication.

He’d obviously read somewhere orgasms themselves made pregnancy more likely. Always so thorough.

“You... f-feel so good,” you mewled, your back arching with pleasure as he used a thumb to stimulate your clit gently as he kept his semen inside you. 

He smiled, stroking his already re-hardening cock in his hand, preparing for the next round. 

“Anything for my Valentine.” 

With that was implied, the love of his life, and the mother of his kids.

[silversatoru]

hi!! me again, saw that you want some bnha requests and hoo boy do i fuckin got one for ya

im a hardcore member of the fuck bakugo 🖕🏼 squad but i also wanna fuck bakugo ya know?

therefore i would like to request a smut fic where bakugo is so painfully angry at the fact that he has a crush on the reader that he ends up getting caught stealing their panties and chaos ensues 😌

anyway love you bye ❤️

compulsion

touch-starved bakugou katsuki x f!reader

tags/warnings: nsfw, oral sex (male receiving), mild obsession, dom?reader, characters aged up

w/c: 1.9k

katsuki bakugo hates a lot things.

he hates hero training, he hates his annoying classmates, and he hates the fact that it rained today. he hates living in the UA dorms and he fucking hates the overly salted bowl of ramen he was forcing down his throat right now.

bakugo katsuki hates almost everything, but he doesn’t hate you — and he hates that doesn’t.

having a distaste for the world made things easier, because if he always assumed the worse than he’d never be disappointed. he’d gotten pretty far with that logic — that was up until you waltzed into his life and fucked it all up, sending his logic hurling out the window.

when he looked at you he didn’t feel the same hate that he felt for the world around him — in fact when he looked at you he felt a disgusting urge of optimism. he liked the way your hair fell around your shoulders, the way your lips curled when you smiled, and the way your skirt rode up your thighs. he didn’t hate anything about you and that’s what he hated most.

see ya later, katsuki! you’d called to him after hero training today, your round glossy lips pronouncing his name in a way that made his heart flicker and his blood boil over. why did everything about you have to be so fucking perfect? he couldn’t find a single flaw on your annoyingly pristine body no matter how hard he searched for one.

your voice consumed his mind — everything you said to him today replaying on repeat at the center stage of his brain:

come eat lunch with us, katsuki!

hey katsuki, did you finish the math homework? number seven makes like- no fucking sense.

have you seen those chips i like, katsuki? i swear if denki ate them all again i’m gonna kill him

your voice was precious, a terribly sensual melody in his sullen ears. and the way you clung to the ends of your words for just a little too long was repulsively adorable too.

katsuki needed something, anything, to get you off his mind. sitting here and daydreaming about you was making him irate with himself — forcing intrusively irrational thoughts through his thick head. something, anything, he needed to stop thinking about you.

he tossed what was left of his shitty ramen into the trash can and exited the kitchen. the common area was filled with students right now, you included, and it was much too crowded and annoying for his liking. you were sitting with hanta, laughing at some shitty fucking joke he was spouting off.

not that he enjoyed watching that lanky scotch-tape dispenser flirt with you — but it was keeping you busy. your dorm room would be empty right now, wouldn’t it?

｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

katsuki’s not sure how he ended up here, seething with anger and digging fervently through your drawer of panties. surely you wouldn’t mind if he took just one pair, right? you have to understand that he wouldn’t be doing this if he didn’t absolutely need them. he wouldn’t be doing this if you didn’t make him so fucking angry — this is your fault, not his. 

he lifted the lacy material closer to his face for further inspection, unable to prevent his mind from wandering to how it would look wrapped around your body. fuck, they even smelled good — not that he was smelling them intentionally or anything, don't get the wrong idea. he just so happened to get close enough that the soft aroma of cherry blossom fabric softener wafted into his nostrils.

simmering with anger and foggy with unwanted lust, katsuki pocketed the panties for later and turned back towards the door — the same door that you were now standing in front of with immense confusion in your eyes. fuck. 

“uh... hey katsuki, whatcha doin?” you stepped into the room and closed the door behind you, cocking your head to the side. 

“i- uh- it’s fucking none of your business,” he snarled at you, face flushing as he tried to figure out how long you’ve been standing there and how much you saw.

“you’re in my room dude, it’s totally my business,” you raised an eyebrow at him, “and that pair of panties you took is one of my favorites, maybe you could pocket one of the uglier pairs?”

“god, fucking dumbass, this is your fault! i wouldn’t be here right now if you weren’t so fucking infuriating,” his face was so angry and flushed you could have sworn there was steam sizzling off his skin.

“me? it’s my fault you’re standing in my room with a pair of my underwear in your pocket and an obvious boner in your pants?”

katsuki grimaced, faltering for just a second as he awkwardly shifted his sweatshirt and pulled it down to cover his swollen erection, “yeah shithead, that’s what i just said. weren’t you fucking listening?”

“this is horribly desperate, katsuki, you could have just asked. i’m more than willing to help you out with this,” you stepped forward and began to shorten the distance between the two of you.

“willing to help me? are you insane? i don’t need your fucking help!” he tried to retaliate, but you were already inches from him, reaching down and dragging a hard palm over the lump in his jeans.

“quit screaming like a lunatic and let me help you, i know this is what you think about,” you pressed harder and gave him an icy stare, the boy using everything in his power not to crumble under your touch.

he’d never been touched like this by anyone, and he was so caught off guard by your sudden movements that he simply stared back at you, frozen in place. no arguments, no insults, no deflective blaming — his brain could barely compute his own name now that your hand was prodding at his bulge.

“that’s what i thought,” you cracked a small smile, “poor katsuki, always pushing everyone away and never getting any action. come sit down”.

katsuki failed to wrap his brain around the current events, wondering how his failed attempt at stealing a pair of panties had led to him sitting on the edge of your bed while you stripped him of his trousers. you were sinking to your knees now, head perfectly level with his cock that was standing flush against his abdomen.

he almost flinched when you reached out and brushed your delicate fingers over the red, swollen head of his dick. his cheeks were flushed with a deep red, and he wanted nothing more than to yell you, to tell you how much of a freak you were. but he didn’t, because as much as he hated to admit it, your touch was the best thing he’d ever felt.

your fingers were wrapped around his shaft now, pumping slow strokes as you warmed him up. he hissed and squirmed under your brand new touch — eyes squeezing shut and hands grabbing fistfuls of your comforter. katsuki had touched himself plenty of times, most of them while thinking of you, but your hand felt so much better than his ever did.

“you’ve never been touched like this, have you?” you pouted up at him, your fingers squeezing a little tighter and pumping a little faster, “poor baby”.

“i- fuck- ah,” he choked out a pitiful cluster of sounds that didn’t actually form any words but still gave you the answer to your question.

you were terribly amused, the typically angry boy was a twitching mess under your touch and you’d barely even started yet. you could only imagine how quickly he’d melt when your lips were around his cock — you were dying to find out.

you leaned forward and began slowly flicking your tongue over the puffy tip, still pumping the shaft with one of your hands. katsuki let out strings of sounds that could only be described as mewls and whimpers, his thighs shaking and his knuckles turning white. poor poor baby, you continued to think, i’m gonna make you feel better than you ever have before.

your head dipped low, the first few inches of his cock sliding across your tongue and into the back of your mouth. the blonde boy whined and bucked his hips, his eyes shooting open at the sudden burst of hot, wet pleasure.

“hng- fuck- fucking sh-shit,” his curses came out as pitiful gasps for air as he stared down at you with wide eyes.

you gradually took more and more of his length into the depths of your throat — his extensive length, by the way. for someone so blessed with such a big, pretty cock, you couldn’t believe he didn’t put it to use more often.

katsuki was cussing you out like it was his job, but each word was accompanied by a gasp or a humiliating whimper. he was so fucking embarrassed, but he felt much too good to care right now. your wet, sticky mouth was enveloping his cock in the most perfect way, jolts of euphoria spiking through his veins and fogging his head.

there was a pressure quickly building in his stomach, a tight wam feeling that signified he was going to come all too soon. but of course you expected this — honestly he’d lasted a few minutes longer than you thought he would.

when his orgasm finally racked through him, his entire body twitched and convulsed, his hips bucking wildly as strings of white liquid sprung from his cock and lined the walls of your tight throat. you milked every drop of cum from him, swallowing it down and then pulling your head back. as much as you wanted to push him and overstimulate him you decided to play nice for his first time.

“so good, katsuki. did you like that?”

his shoulders caved in and his head hung low as he finally came down from his high — the realization of all of the transpiring events finally catching up to him. he mumbled the quietest: yeah, it felt fucking good in response to your question, but refused to meet your eyes.

“we could do this more often, what you think?” you reached up and placed your hand under his chin, coaxing him to look at you.

“fuck- fine, yeah whatever, but don’t fucking tell anyone about this,” he growled, his angry eyes and twisted eyebrows finally meeting yours.

“of course,” you smiled, standing and tossing him his pants to put back on, “i just came here to grab a sweatshirt, so i better go before anyone comes looking for me. i’ll come find you later though, promise”.

and with that you were walking through the door, wiping your sticky lips on the sleeve of your sweatshirt and heading for the elevators. katsuki sat on the edge of your bed for a few minutes longer, mind blown by the curves of your mouth and the skill of your tongue.

katsuki didn’t hate you before, and he really doesn’t hate you now, but he’s coming to terms with it this time. letting his walls down for you doesn’t sound all that bad if it means you’ll keep making him feel like this.

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 288: ZOOM AND ENHANCE

Previously on BnHA: Tomura, AFO, Deku, and Nana all met up inside of OFA and were all, “wow this is awkward.” AFO talked a whole bunch about vestiges before realizing that nobody cared (EXCEPT FOR ME. I CARED!!), and was then all “anyway so just to get everyone up to speed here, Tomura is Nana’s grandson.” OFA appeared and was all “what up bro I see you’re still a dick”, and then everyone stood around for a bit waging psychokinetic war on each other and blowing up on the ground and shit. This didn’t really accomplish anything, so AFO shifted gears and started trash talking Deku instead, because he’s a whiny little punkass loser who can’t admit when his brother has gotten the best of him yet again! OFA was all “anyways Deku rules and haters gonna hate, peace”, and then everyone wooshed back out of OFA and back into the real world, Deku with his quirk still intact. Meanwhile Gigantomachia and the LoV stampeded ever closer to the city, and Toga started monologuing in preparation for a seemingly inevitable battle with Ochako! And then the chapter basically just ended there lol.

Today on BnHA: Imagine you are Uraraka Ochako. And you’re out here doing what you do best, saving bitches and being a badass, when all of a sudden some old lady runs up to you and is all “PLEASE HELP ME, MY HUSBAND IS ASLEEP OR SOME SHIT, YOU KNOW US OLD PEOPLE, WE’RE SO FUCKING FEEBLE AND HAPLESS.” And so you’re all “OF COURSE” because you’re a good fucking person, and then she speeds off like she’s got fucking wheels and it’s like damn, grandma, were you in varsity track or what, and then OUT OF NOWHERE she just spontaneously turns into HIMIKO FUCKING TOGA. And she’s all naked and shit, and it’s like damn, Toga, where are your clothes, and she just giggles and ducks into a nearby building. And so you follow her for god knows what reason, and she fucking pounces on you and starts interrogating you in like the most seductive way possible, and you’re all wtf is this. Like, can you even imagine. Anyway so Ochako is having quite a day.

okay lol so I’ve gotta kind of rush through this since I’ve got other stuff I need to wrap up today as well, so! fingers crossed that we get a nice, simple chapter with no controversies or elaborate revelations or anything like that! just give me lots of stuff to mindlessly keysmash about, Horikoshi. I’m counting on you bro

lol what

an actual fucking plane?? is that allowed?? how bizarrely normal. are we sure this plane does not shoot lasers or something or is powered by someone with like a fusion reactor quirk idk

and who tf is Takeo-san. some random guy Horikoshi is suddenly introducing after 300 chapters to come save everyone at the last minute? pretty sus. Horikoshi is this your self insert

GASP

NO WAY THIS IS ALL MIGHT, RIGHT?? holy shit I swear to god if it’s All Might this lady needs to TURN THE FUCK AROUND RIGHT NOW. stop at McDonalds, order a black coffee for herself and only herself, and drive the rest of the way back home without so much as a bathroom break. there are certain prophecies which we don’t need to be tempting right now, okay people?? holy shit

(ETA: OR, here’s a thought, WHAT IF IT’S BEST JEANIST. hope springs eternal lmao. anyways though surely it’s not actually All Might. he can’t die yet, he’s got like 5 million secret things he needs to explain to Deku, and also Kacchan is unconscious and he can’t just SLEEP RIGHT THROUGH ALL MIGHT’S DEATH like come on.)

oh look more heroes all lining up to be slaughtered by Machia

real talk, at this point their priority should just be evacuating any citizens in Machia’s path, and then getting the fuck out of his way. none of them stand a chance in hell at stopping him and they know it. the body count is already high enough as it is. regroup and live to fight another day, people

anyway, so Machia is apparently plowing through cities at 100km per hour. that... actually might not be fast enough. Gunga and Jakku were 80km apart, so at that rate it would take him nearly an hour to reach Tomura. that fight’s gonna be long done by the time they get there. huh

okay these guys are saying he’s going to reach them in about 8 minutes. ?? so are you telling me Tomura and Deku and the rest have been fighting for like 40 minutes already?? lmao Gran probably bled to death half an hour ago at this rate. Horikoshi please explain yourself. some of us spent our entire childhoods doodling comics instead of paying attention in math and science AND IT SHOWS

anyway so this is all very bad and this guy is really rubbing it in just how bad it is

I mean... yeah. obviously the villains are still to blame at the core of it all, but yeah. feels like you all could have planned a hell of a lot better for this. you knew there was the risk of Tomura waking up, and you knew there was also the risk of Gigantomachia waking up as well. and you pretty much had no contingency plan at all huh. society is really gonna be in shambles after this

lmao look at this shit. Machia is so big at this point that it looks like they’re having a picnic in the middle of some desert somewhere. at what point does it cease being a guy’s back and start being its own zip code

even has its own wifi. amazing

oh shit Compress apparently spotted someone and he’s asking Skeptic to “zoom and enhance” like it’s CS fucking I. that’s not how it works Compress you fucking boomer

anyway so OF COURSE,

was there a reason you needed to zoom in on them, other than to trigger Toga?? some people just want to watch the world burn

so Toga is now GEARIN’ UP!!

that honestly is so fucking handy. over at U.A. they have to carry their gear in briefcases like scrubs. does Compress actually have the best quirk in the world?? it flies under the radar so well that I always forget about it, but like WHAT CAN’T IT DO though, y’know??

WELL WHAT DID YOU THINK WAS GONNA HAPPEN MY DUDE

“oh hey is that the U.A. kids? Skeptic could you please zoom in on them for absolutely no reason? OH MY GOD TOGA IS RUNNING OFF TO FIGHT THEM, OH MY GOD WHO COULD HAVE FORESEEN, OH MY GOD”

now he’s all “DABI PLEASE DO SOMETHING” but Dabi is all “DABI DON’T CARE”

Dabi don’t care about NOTHING OR NO ONE!! Dabi don’t got time for this

lmao I literally forgot that Spinner was even there, shit

so are you gonna go with her then or not? because I got news for you dude, it doesn’t matter how heartwarming your speech is, nothing can stop this girl now that she’s gone full distracted boyfriend meme

AW BUT IT REALLY IS HEARTWARMING THOUGH

Spinner is the glue keeping this dysfunctional Addams family together honestly. too bad he couldn’t stop Compress from OPENING HIS BIG DUMB MOUTH ah well

lmao but he’s letting her go anyway though

Spinner for new LoV President. all in favor??

ANYWAYS LOL THIS IS BAD

“ACCELERATE EVACUATIONS” LOL WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO OCHAKO HE’S MOVING AT 100KM AN HOUR AND HE’S LIKE FUCKING GODZILLA SIZED FKJLK

“PLEASE RUN OUTSIDE OF THE VILLAIN’S PERIPHERY” well thank fucking god the people have you guys to guide them what would they even do without you lklkhlkds

NO HORIKOSHI DON’T YOU DARE

IF YOU HURT MY GIRL FROPPY I SWEAR TO GOD!! LEAVE HER ALONE YOU BRIGAND

OH THANK GOD

“sorry for SAVING YOUR LIFE” smh. anyway so how fucking badass is Ochako though?? can we just talk about this. THE GIRL POWER ARC STRIKES AGAIN hot damn

(ETA: and btw, seeing as Iida is nowhere to be found, I’d say odds are pretty good that they did in fact send him to go warn the Endeavorsquad of Gigantomachia’s imminent arrival. godspeed Iida! they need all the help they can get right now honestly.)

EXCUSE ME BUT ARE YOU TOGA

IS THIS TOGA. THIS IS DEFINITELY TOGA OMG

“I IMMEDIATELY TRUST YOU AND I WILL FOLLOW YOU TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH” noooo Ochako nooooo

damn Toga you really drained some poor old lady’s blood just so you could pull this kind of sneaky shit. I forgot how much I loved you

ohhhh lol so it’s her “husband” that is Takeo-san lol

THE BETTER TO LURE YOU INTO A TRAP MY DEAR

lmao Ochako you rube

now you’ve done it Toga. there is nothing Ochako loves more than a good old fashioned Old People Romance. DID YOU KNOW SHE HAS SEEN THE NOTEBOOK LIKE FIFTY TIMES. AND NO MATTER WHAT, IT ALWAYS GETS HER AT THE END. meanwhile I just want to watch a movie where James Marsden actually gets the girl for once but we all know that will never happen

OH MY

ngl this page would be like a thousand times better if Ochako was still blushing omg. did I ship this before?? I honestly can’t remember but I sure as fuck ship it now goddammit

(ETA: pretty sure I shipped it back during the Forest arc too but I don’t have time to check right now lol. but Toga is just so horny on main for everyone, all the time, and so like, it’s hard not to ship it.)

so now Toga is running off all flirtatiously and Ochako is barreling after her lol

plot twist, Takeo-san is actually in there. and he has NO IDEA what’s going on. WHAT HAPPENED TO MY WIFE. WHY IS THERE A GIANT MOLE MAN BURROWING THROUGH THE CITY

Ochako why on earth would you follow Toga into this dark creepy house where she could spring at you from any angle out of nowhere. just go back outside and float up over it until you have a high enough vantage point to see all the exits and just wait for her to come out

Toga says she wanted to talk to Tsuyu-chan as well, but let’s be real, you and her don’t have the same kind of electrically charged kismesis energy that you’ve got going on with Ochako though

LMAO DEKU NOWHERE IS SAFE

getting dragged like a fucking wedding train and he’s not even there to defend himself, shit

blah blah blah just ask her your question already Toga

MY WORD

would someone please inform Toga that this manga is only rated PG-13

so now Ochako is all “seriously Toga wtf”

you see that’s what I wanted to know too, lol. I really like that the characters actually think about these things and ask these kind of questions. that’s exactly the contrast between the heroes and the villains right there. the villains care about each other, they’ll give each other heartwarming speeches to please come back alive, and yet they’re utterly indifferent to the thousands of people being killed as they demolish their way through city after city. meanwhile by contrast Ochako’s first thought upon being erotically waylaid by her sexy knife-wielding archnemesis is “but what about that poor old lady is she all right.” just completely opposite energies, almost to a hilarious degree. like maybe Ochako actually should worry about herself just a little bit more lol but heroes gonna hero

and so now what, Toga!! you’re gonna pout about it?? like she’s betrayed you somehow?

anyway so that’s the end of the chapter! and I’ll just come right out and say that I’m hoping that this fight ends up being something where Toga maybe starts to see things just a little bit more from Ochako’s point of view, and not the other way around, because otherwise I’ll be a little frustrated, ngl. the manga has done an excellent job of making the villains likeable and relatable and getting us to sympathize with them up till this point, but at some point it’s got to start refuting some of these arguments and making it clear that the villains do not actually have any kind of moral high ground here

and also! I really like Toga and would like her to have some kind of redemption arc! but as of now that’s looking to be really difficult if not impossible to pull off, because Toga hasn’t exactly shown a whole lot of remorse for anything she’s done so far, you know? because she doesn’t see it as bad in any way; to her it’s just her way of expressing love, and being true to who she is. but being true to yourself really should NOT involve, you know, MURDER, and so yeah. it’s a problem lmao

but who knows! maybe this battle with Ochako will be the start of something which eventually leads to some sort of change within her! I have absolutely no idea how that could play out tbh, but even so I can hope! either that or she will double down on the whole “villains are victims and heroes are apathetic cruel hypocrites” ideology and decide she wants to kill Ochako and Izuku for breaking her heart, in which case I will be very sad, but I guess if that’s the way Horikoshi’s gonna play it it is what it is!

and lastly, so is this going to be like the final battle between them or something?? surely not, right? like this is just round 2 of 3. well at any rate, it’s sure going to be interesting

[norangeyyy]

I literally l can't think of anything because I'm just not that creative— but ummmm

idk your ocs hanging with the bucci gang?? or la squad ra. Idk I wanna learn more about them, orrr jojo villains.... watching jojo for fun :) (im shit at this oop)

A/N: Sis please— I'm actually in love this idea!! 😖💖 I'm glad to give my girls some attention so here :DDD (I made this an Everyone Survives AU btw bcs i just don't want angst for this one🤧)

With the Bucci Gang

► Alright, we're gonna start with Hiraeth since she's the only one they know.

► Her first meeting with the gang outside Passione is just like any other, pretty uneventful. But that's because they're in the middle of a mission and it just so happens that they needed a place to stay in for a night and ended at the hotel where she works at.

► Hiraeth, as usual, recognized them immediately thanks to Bucciarati being the popular one in the group. In fact, it was him that she got along with first when they checked in.

► The others followed when Mista requested her to be the one to serve them everytime they come back so he could hit on her in which Hiraeth just laughed off knowing exactly that the gunslinger is literally just old enough to be her son(She's 29)

► That's the reason why Mista almost choked to his death that night when she revealed her age^

► They got to keep in touch with her after that night thanks to Bucciarati so she'd sometimes be invited to come over on special occasions but most of the time it's just either Trish, Fugo, and Abbachio going shopping or Narancia wanting to go to the arcade and eat ice cream but everyone's too busy to go out with him.

► First time Bucciarati heard about it^ he almost gave her his whole wallet in exchange for the trouble of having to babysit the 17 y/o boy and Narancia got scolded lmao

► He and the other two torture dance boys may or may not also spam her with messages everytime they're in *real* trouble and telling Bucciarati about it is not in the options anymore (Abbachio in the bg telling them to stop dragging her into it while Giorno and Trish watches concerned in the corner lol)

► Long story short, she officially became that chill auntie that everyone trusts with their secrets.

With La Squadra

► Now we're getting real ;)

► Hiraeth has a whole ass history with these guys so she doesn't really need to hide her identity with them.

► It all started in highschool with her being in the same class as Risotto and years later they bump into each other again but this time, it's inside the mafia, which they both find quite ironic since they're both the well-behaved kids back then.

► Because of this, it wasn't that hard for Hiraeth to get into Passione and it's also why Oneira exists. Risotto knows that Hiraeth still has a life outside the mafia unlike him and strictly ordered her to never let anyone know about it.

► So what's better disguise than looking like your Capo's crazy twin sister, right?

► Fast forward to La Squadra finding out who Oneira is anyway since you can't really hide anything for that long in a group of nine men.

► Now that they know what she looks like under that cake of white face paint and eyeliner, she has to say goodbye and go solo for safety purposes.

► "Fucking great job, Illuso." "Hey, it wasn't just me! "

► Going solo and building a name for herself after leaving the gang didn't start well either since rumors are inevitable so Oneira really has to avoid La Squadra and lay-low until the rumors subside.

► But sometimes she'll slip in and surprise everyone in the hideout which always ends up with them drinking and trashing the place all night then waking up with Risotto sitting across them with a glare.

► Worry not though, Oneira wouldn't be there to suffer Risotto's wrath since she'll be long gone along with Sorbet and Gelato before their capo could even go back home.

► Cue to three of them laughing like maniacs at 6AM as they drive to Oneira's house to hide using Ghiaccio's car that's covered in pink glitter and puke, with Melone passed out naked and tied in the trunk.

► "Hello?! This is Formaggio, where the hell are you guys?! Gelato, i could hear you guys laughing, come back here you cowards! Risotto's gonna kill us!" "I'm sorry but we missed the part where that's our problem*hangs up*"

With the JoFoes

► This would be a whole another AU from the ones above since Hiraeth only knows Diavolo and Doppio but her with the other villains would be more chaotic than when she's with La Squadra.

► Since this is an AU where Hiraeth doesn't really have to be either Oneira or Maestra, she can do whatever she wants(Hell yeah)

► So if they ever watched JJBA with her, they all better prepare to be bullied for the next 5 days.

► "Dio, wHY?! " "Imagine getting your ass kicked before stands even existed. Atleast, you're sexy though. " "DIO please, you look like a banana fuckboy and you kill dogs. " "Kira, i don't even know where to start. " "Maybe if you stopped shouting your stupid villain monologue then you would've gotten the arrow. "

► Everyone's laughing until it's their turn to be bullied for the dumb shit they did in the show. No one's truly safe except for those whose parts still hasn't gotten an anime adaptation.

► "Atleast we know basic math, Hiraeth. Go back to Fugo and join Narancia, maybe you'd learn something from that 16 year old. " "HOW DARE YOU?! "

► When i said no one's safe, i meant it^

► Don't worry, they're all still buddies and would still start fires together at the end of the day.

[heathneycanon]

reasons why phobia factor fucking slaps

ok this lowkey just turned into me rambling abt phobia factor while i rewatched it. putting it under a read more bc it’s super long lmao

like, the entire first five minutes are the campers being friendly to each other?? and vulnerable, to a degree??? you know i love that shit

courtney and trent?? talk to each other?? like. okay they’re never in the same frame together unfortunately, but they do have like, two whole back and forth conversations.

also in that campfire scene at the beginning, cody and trent are sitting next to each other and there are some. good screencaps

“exSQUEEZE me?!” like cody. ur such a dork omfg

duncan vulnerability hours

lindsay asks what a standee is and trent explains it and doesn’t mock her/isn’t annoyed with her at all, in contrast to a lot of the other campers interacting with lindsay. i love them as friends SO much u all have no idea

harold’s little scene with the ninjas. i love him sm. why does he have nunchucks with him when he goes to the bathroom??

leshawna is afraid of spiders and she runs away screaming from. chef wearing a spider suit??? like i don’t love spiders but if a man i knew wearing a spider costume was calmly walking toward me i wouldn’t react the same way as i would to a real spider. anyway i think this is hilarious.

season one heather vulnerability hours.....

i mean, i really wish they’d actually shown her talking abt her fear at the campfire, rather than just having it told by gwen in the confessional, but i get why they did that. regardless that one scene right before the sumo wrestler charges at her where she’s literally shaking.... i want to give her a hug

side note i hope the sumo wrestler is okay he hit his head quite a few times

ok so. trent accidentally leaving gwen buried underground because he’s getting chased by a mime isn’t like. a sweet gwent moment. but it is one of their interactions that i remember most vividly from tdi lmfao

what is a cute gwent moment is trent like. kneeling next to her while chris is burying her. and the face he makes at chris when he jokes abt not digging her up..... i love them sm

also gwen sounds so fucking dramatic when they close the box she’s in like. “goodbye cruel world” gwen ur being buried for 5 minutes ur not dying sdfjlafskj i love her

duncan hyping dj up before he picks up the snake is so cute?? like he’s clapping for him and he’s got what i call “adorable duncan face” which is where his eyes are full circles and he’s smiling. i can remember him making this face at courtney, dj, and alejandro throughout the series and it’s just. ugh loving soft duncan hours

“ah! it blinked” “it means she likes you” sadie where are u getting this information

okay so i googled if this was true and the result i got was “snakes can’t blink” so first of all i have no clue where sadie pulled that fact from and i have even less of an idea of where chris got that fucking. blinking snake from. is that even a snake??

when dj picks up the snake and they all hype him up?????? i love the killer bass so much it’s unreal

more cute gwent moments... gwen and trent talking on the walkie talkies.. they’re so cute

when the mime pops up behind trent and he does that little scream.... it’s loving trent hours u guys

trent is so bothered by a mime literally just. being a mime. me too trent. me too.

duncan and the celine dion music store standee.... everything abt that scene

"DUDE SHE’S MADE OF CARDBOARD” tyler i love you

courtney genuinely saying that it’s okay if he can’t do it (when she was being harsh to dj about the snake earlier..... duncney is so good in tdi u guys)

and then theY HOLD HANDS GUYSSSS IM SOFT FOR THEM

and THAT is what gives duncan the encouragement he needs to go for it?? they’re so good.

his “okay, okay” right before going for it... duncan’s voice acting is so good in this episode omfg

THE MUSIC THAT PLAYS WHEN HE HUGS THE STANDEE AND THEN EVERYONE CHEERING ITS SUCH A GOOD SCENE

THE DUNCNEY HUG

“duncan, you’re awesome!” and the look of shock on his face at both the fact that he did it and that courtney’s hugging him...... have i mentioned i love duncney yet?? bc i do

i can’t believe i used to dislike duncney omfg

then when courtney realizes that she’s hugging him and steps back jafksdfjlsa she’s so cute

and then the rest of the bass come over and hype duncan up more like. i love how supportive they all are in this episode!!

trent is so excited when he finally gets the mime to leave him alone fakjldjfl like he didn’t have to ROAST the dude. but he did.

chris somehow owns a remote control hail cloud?

lindsay getting excited about the “baby cloud” and calling it over?? she’s so cute omfg

trent fucking. hates geoff. gwent has geoffphobia in tdi ig

when they dig up gwen and she throws the walkie talkie at his head but he doesn’t stop smiling..... your honor i love them

owen and izzy getting out of the plane and kissing the ground together..... adorable.

cody with a fucking. watermelon on his head and covered in trash scares bridgette out of the woods. that will never not be funny to me

THAT ONE FUCKING SCENE. WHERE SADIE AND LINDSAY HYPE EACH OTHER UP. THAT MAY BE ONE OF MY FAVORITE SCENES IN THE ENTIRE SERIES. I LOVE THEM SM

the only bad thing abt this ep- tyler should have gotten the fucking point. he completed the challenge. i love courtney, but realistically, she should have gone home this ep and tyler should have stayed.

bridgette hyping tyler up...... im soft they should be friends

“quit being such a girl” courtney im sorry but the only reason you’re still in the game rn is because ezekiel made sexist comments in episode one. what are u saying lmfao

tyler and heather’s reactions to their fears rly make me think. bc like. most of the other campers have a more outward, loud reaction, maybe scream and run away. a couple are just a little wigged out. gwen gets a little snippy and is clearly super freaked out as well. but tyler and heather just. completely shut down. like, curled up in a ball, nonverbal, and shaking. makes u think.

why did cody need a calculator to figure out that the score was 7/3....... cody is canon lgbt+ bc he can’t do basic math without a calculator confirmed

also regardless of how little sense that made. at least that screencap gave us commie cody

when gwen starts trying to psych courtney out and heather like. gasps and looks shocked..... i like to think that heather feels a little bad for courtney here. heathney real.

duncan and bridgette hyping courtney up..... i love the killer bass so much omfg

courtney looks so sad when she walks away from the jelly.......

and then in the confessional right after?? she’s like. crying a little bit :( and she’s beating herself up abt it like..... :( courtney no

LITERALLY she’s like “how could i be so weak” “i deserve to go home” “you’re pathetic” (to herself) and then tells herself to show some confidence and then. she just starts crying again. and then slaps herself?? GOD I FUCKING LOVE COURTNEY SHE’S SO HARD ON HERSELF

owen just. hangin out in the tub of jelly. i love u, u wild dude. fuckin sit in that green jelly. loving owen hours

the little look that courtney and tyler give each other when they’re the last two without marshmallows..... half solidarity half “i don’t want to be the one going home”. i love them sm :(

i KNOW i said this earlier but. tyler should NOT have gone home this episode!!!!!! only bad thing abt this ep

all the fuckin chicken puns are a little bit funny tho

“he won’t be flying high tonight” bridgette chickens can’t fly

when courtney goes “okay, that’s enough” like. tyler’s not even there at this point but she’s defending him. maybe it’s because she still feels she should have gone home instead? maybe it’s because of that little bit of solidarity she felt for him when they were the final two without a marshmallow? maybe i’m reading too much into this? but idk. i think it’s sweet

okay no i have another complaint. what the fuck was the whole boat ride for tyler?? like when sadie gets eliminated the surprise she gets is that katie is on the boat. when tyler is on the boat, CRYING, after literally none of his teammates came to see him off, after he LITERALLY COMPLETED THE CHALLENGE BUT DIDN’T GET CREDIT FOR IT. the fucking. CHICKENS POP OUT?????? tyler deserved better

also some of the challenges were a lot easier, or at the very least, harder to fail than others this ep. i love it but come on. lindsay and sadie vs like. gwen vs owen and izzy vs dj. there were very different time limits, actual fright level, ability to back out once they were doing the challenge.... not a fair challenge

also uhm. if we’re being technical tyler and heather had the exact same reaction to their fears, so why did heather get a point and tyler didn’t? if the chicken had run at him, would he have won? smh

i do love this episode so much but. i had a couple complaints

okay finally lindsay’s little confessional to tyler where she blows him a kiss.... they’re so adorable lyler rights!!

[spidercakes]

Starker high school AU featuring fem!Omega!Tony and alpha!Peter where Tony is well known for being a real bitch to anyone who tries to court him. Peter knows better than to think he hates getting gifts.

Warning for references to domestic violence (Howard).

*

Peter watches Tony from across the hall trying mostly unsuccessfully to shove his stuff into his locker. He’s already in a bad mood that much is clear but when Justin Hammer walks up looking far too confident his mood appears to take a nosedive for the worst. He watches Tony turn away from trying to stuff his leather jacket into his locker to Hammer, aggression clear in his features but that doesn’t seem to deter Hammer any. Bad sign, Tony hates that but Peter leaves him to it because its almost funny to watch Tony tear his suitors to shreds and he’s mean when he gets going. Or at least it would be funny if people didn’t keep disrespecting Tony’s very clear and well known boundaries and if Tony didn’t sometimes go a little far in his vicious takedowns.

But he doesn’t really like Justin Hammer that much and neither does Tony, he’s not shy about saying it. So when he holds out a box Peter knows he’s about to go ape on this guy. MJ walks up beside him and shakes her head, “one, stop fantasizing about being the only one to tame that beast. He’s a privileged brat, get better taste. Two, privileged brat or not he’s preferable to Hammer so I want to see this,” she says, looking satisfied as Tony glares Hammer down.

“He’s not a brat,” Peter tells her, “he just doesn’t like jewelry and no one seems to get the point.” Or at least he’s pretty sure that’s what that is anyway but its hard to tell because omegas almost never get stuff that isn’t jewelry. Peter doesn’t get why that is when he’s never actually seen an omega wear any of it. Mostly they range from irate like Tony about it to mildly uncomfortable and unsure what to do with expensive things they don’t want like Liz. Either way Peter thinks its about time someone actually paid attention to what their crushes like and give them something that’s not stupid expensive that they might actually like. But that’s probably the fact that he’s too poor to do much more than get small things talking even if Liz agrees.

“Turn the fuck around right now,” Tony tells Hammer. MJ raises an eyebrow at him but they both agree that unwanted attention should earn a person a smack so Tony is actually being really polite right now according to those standards.

“I got you-” Hammer starts but Tony cuts him off.

“You could have Nicolas II the last Czar of Russia in that box and I couldn’t give two shits. Turn around and walk away,” Tony says.

Peter doesn’t mean to let out a sharp peel of laughter but its funny, okay? Tony turns to glare him down but softens slightly when he notices that Peter isn’t laughing at him specifically. He still turns away like he’s been stuck with a hot poker because Christ, Tony isn’t supposed to see him watching. “He’s not staring anymore,” MJ tells him helpfully so he risks looking back over.

Tony is unlucky enough to have Hammer’s gift all but shoved into his grasp and oh, Tony hates that too. Peter isn’t entirely surprised when Tony makes an offended noise and walks to the nearest trash can to chuck the box into it. “For ten fucking seconds I want some time to myself to stick my jacket in my locker and you fucks can’t even give me that!” he snaps as he storms off, unconcerned with the fact that his jacket is on the ground and his locker is wide open.

“Well that was a fun way to start the day,” MJ says. “Think we’ll get more entertainment by lunch?” Given the way people seem to lust after Tony Peter wouldn’t really be surprised.

*

Rhodey is used to people asking him about Tony, it happens all the time and he’d never say anything. Or at least he’d never say anything to anyone Tony didn’t already approve of so he’s gotten a reputation for being as difficult and bullheaded as Tony. Neither of them have high standards so its pretty sad that people consistently fail them but it is what it is. So when a lanky looking alpha walks up to him at least having the sense to look nervous Rhodey isn’t surprised. He’s not the usual type, that goes to whoever is overconfident enough to think they’ll actually get something from Tony and this guy does not look the type if his blush is any indication.

“Um, hey. I’m Peter. Parker. Peter Parker, yeah, um. God, this is bad I’m so glad Tony doesn’t have to- here,” he says, handing Rhodey a small box. “Tell him its not jewelry.” He turns to walk away looking pretty harassed but Rhodey is curious.

“Why’d you give it to me?” he asks before Parker can run off anywhere.

He doesn’t look impressed about it but he does turn to give Rhodey his attention. “Tony doesn’t like being handed stuff, but he seems to take stuff from you and Pepper. You seemed less scary than Pepper but I think maybe I was wrong and both of you are terrifying.”

He doesn’t mean to laugh a little but its kind of funny and he gave an answer Rhodey likes. “If he doesn’t want it I’ll give it back to you at the end of the day,” he tells Peter.

Peter nods and walks away with a soft ‘thanks’ and Rhodey decides he likes that too but he won’t tell Tony about it unless he likes the gift. Not that he would have even got it if he didn’t like Peter anyway, he knows Tony well enough to know when he won’t like someone and he’d probably appreciate the help weeding them out. He doesn’t even know why people try at this point, not when Tony is so damn nasty about his day being disrupted. He doesn’t know about anyone else but if he watched a guy toss a twelve thousand dollar necklace in a pond because he didn’t like it he’d probably think that guy was an asshole and avoid him forever.

He knows better than to think Tony is the asshole here, but without context he’s go to wonder what the hell everyone else is thinking. Its not like they all know Tony is as rich as he is when he doesn’t hint at it, and they don’t know that he hates jewelry because his asshole of a father used to give his mother something sparkly after he beat her, and they definitely don’t have any boundaries, but he still wants to know what goes through their mind. He wants to know what it feels like to be so confident he thinks he can win over an omega who actively hates jewelry with jewelry. It must be some kind of adrenaline rush mixed with a Darwin Award and he wants to know.

The fact that its so common is so weird to him too, its like no one here has basic observation skills. Sometimes he pretends like he’s an anthropologist trying to figure out how the students in this school work because their behavior is so counterintuitive. Other times he texts Pepper so they can privately roast whoever Tony harshly turned down now.

By the time he gets to lunch Tony reports three more people- and there seem to be unlimited people at this school Rhodey swears- who have tried to give him gifts. None of them anything but jewelry and Rhodey can do with a little key change to his day so he pulls out that Peter Parker kid’s box. “Here,” he tells Tony, who frowns at it for a second before looking kind of hurt. It takes a second for Rhodey to catch on and when he does he wrinkles his nose, “look man, if I wanted to court you I would have and I don’t. I just can’t look at you the same way after that time I witnessed you triple yourself,” he says. “Its from some kid named Peter Parker and he says its not jewelry so I figured it was promising.”

“Do I even want to know what tripling oneself is?” Pepper asks, coming up behind Rhodey and sitting beside him.

“Shit, piss, and puke in sync,” Rhodey and Tony say together, both sounding dismayed and a little disgusted. The look on Pepper’s face tells him he should be ashamed that this is information he has.

“I can’t believe I associate with you two,” she mumbles, shaking her head at least until she spots the box sitting in front of Tony. “What’s that?” she asks.

Tony shrugs, “don’t know but he survived Rhodey so I assume he doesn’t suck.”

“As long as its not another Sunset,” Pepper says, shaking her head.

It earns a small sigh out of Tony and he picks up the box, probably looking for a subject change. He looks exhausted with it already so that’s how Rhodey knows his reaction is genuine. He pulls a scrap of paper from the box and snorts before he starts laughing, cracking up the the point of doubling over and Rhodey would like to know what’s on that paper.

Pepper has the same idea because she snatches it. “Nicholas II the last Czar of Russia?” she reads, clearly confused.

Tony is already distracted by something else in the box because he’s staring at it with a smile on his face. Rhodey beats Pepper to snatching it this time and he smiles when he reads the pin too. “That’s cute,” he says, handing it to Pepper.

“Ah! the element of surprise. I don’t get the Czar thing but Tony clearly did so that and this pin make for a clever combination,” she says. “So you know this one has brains. Just make sure he’s not the type who thinks being clever every once and awhile is a replacement for a personality.”

“Ew, don’t ruin the only good gift I’ve ever gotten,” Tony tells her, taking his pin and scrap of paper back. “The Czar thing was me insulting Hammer. God, can you guys believe he tried to give me anything? I’d rather stick my dick in a bee hive.”

Rhodey and Pepper exchange a look because there might be something here and Rhodey, for one, wants to figure out what it is.

*

Tony finds Peter after school and quickly learns that he’s jumpy when he all but tosses himself nearly into his locker because Tony spooked him by accident. “You’re interesting, I don’t think I’ve met you before,” he says. He’s certain he hasn’t actually and Peter’s cute, in a boyish way. And he already knows he’s not a dunce so there’s that too.

“I um, you have actually. We’ve had like three science classes and two math classes together but I um, usually sit at the back so.”

Yeah, bad excuse because that’s where he sits too but that’s sweet of him to try and give Tony a reason for not noticing his existence. “Okay, so maybe I can be a little self absorbed. Cute gift though, the element of surprise thing was kind of clever.”

It seems to take Peter a few seconds to catch on to his own joke and that’s... weird. “Oh my god, its like I’m the element of surprise! Yeah, okay, I didn’t even think of that I just thought it was kind of cute and sarcastic and you like science so...” he trails off, wincing.

Its adorable and also telling. So he did put thought into it, just not the way Tony thought and that’s actually better for him. “Think you can come up with another gift by tomorrow?” he asks in maybe a little too cocky a tone. And then he kind of thinks of the implications and winces, “I um, I don’t really want stuff I just want to know that you like, give a shit about who I am. And uh, yikes, that wasn’t an improvement. You can just forget this ever happened,” he says, for some reason feeling the need to finger gun his way out of this, passing Peter quickly as he scrambles the hell out of there.

*

Peter doesn’t really know if Tony likes vinyl but he definitely likes AD/DC so he leaves it in front of his locker and figures Tony will make up his mind. In the meantime he finds Liz so he can focus on something that isn’t losing his mind or passing out. “If you were a sandwich what would you be?” she asks as he walks up. Ned looks mad beside her and that’s weird because Ned never gets mad.

“I don’t know, a BLT I guess,” he says.

Liz throws her hands up, “the only correct answer is a grilled cheese, why do you guys like in anarchy?”

“Meatball sub!” Ned says, staking his claim but Peter frowns.

“Ned, a sub isn’t a sandwich yours doesn’t even qualify.”

Ned looks offended about this, “Peter, its meat in bread. That’s the exact same as a sandwich, just because the bread is shaped different doesn’t mean its not a sandwich.”

MJ chooses then to walk over so Peter pounces on it, “is a sub a sandwich, MJ?”

She squints at him like he’s stupid, “no. Why is this even a question.”

“Liz lives in denial that if we were sandwiches the best option is meatball sub,” Ned explains.

That gets him another ‘what the fuck’ look. “First of all I maintain that a sub is not a sandwich and obviously the only right answer is grilled cheese.”

Peter frowns, “why does grilled cheese count as a sandwich?”

“It has ‘sandwich’ in the name Peter- a grilled cheese sandwich,” Liz points out.

“What was his answer?” MJ asks.

“BLT,” Peter in Ned say in sync.

“Savage,” MJ accuses and frowns for a moment, leaning around him. “Oh, and he’s about to get his penance, we should probably check ourselves before we wreck ourselves,” she says, nodding at something behind Peter. He turns to find Tony walking towards him with the record he left at his locker and winces because he doesn’t want to like... get smacked with it or something equally unpleasant.

When he turns back to his friend group he finds that they’ve all abandoned him like cowards but in their defense he wishes he could abandon himself like a coward too. But unfortunately he’s him so he can’t. “Um, hey,” he says once Tony is in ear shot.

Tony grins, “AC/DC!” he says excitedly.

“Oh, yeah. You like them, and like... most eighties rock but a lot of sixties and seventies stuff too. Why are you looking at me like that, you wear a lot of band shirts,” Peter says. Like a lot of them, but enough of them are AC/DC shirts that Peter assumes he has a preference.

“Oh, right. Yeah, I guess I do. Sorry, I’m just not used to people noticing really obvious stuff about me- I, you know what. Uh, thanks,” Tony says, scattering before Peter can say anything. From across the hall he has no less than six people staring at him in shock and Peter frowns.

“What? It wasn’t hard to find something he liked.” Which is true, but he’s at least somewhat benefitted by the fact that his competition seems to think trying the same thing over and over again despite atrocious results will work.

“I gave him like, twelve things!” the one guy says and Peter rolls his eyes.

“Ten bucks says it was all jewelry,” he mumbles to himself and walks away. He doesn’t get why people keep trying to throw shiny things at Tony when he obviously doesn’t like it.

*

When Tony finds the box he doesn’t expect much mostly because good things don’t seem to last where he’s concerned, so he’s pleasantly surprised by its contents. “That is the ugliest scarf I have ever seen,” some alpha a couple lockers down from him says, giving the scarf a distasteful look.

Tony doesn’t remember anything about her except that he can’t stand her. “Then you clearly don’t get the reference,” he snaps, putting the scarf in his locker before he goes to class.

Rhodey raises an eyebrow at him as he walks up but he says nothing as he sits down. “What, no rant about gifts today?”

He shakes his head, “no. People seem to be picking up on the fact that Peter is doing a better job than any of them. Today I got Four’s scarf.”

“Nice,” Rhodey says, grinning and giving a nod of approval. “Now that you have a not shit suitor I feel like I can finally say that I cannot believe you threw a twelve thousand dollar necklace in a pond because you didn’t like it. You could have pawned it,” he points out.

“And get money I don’t need? Let someone else find it and cash in and I thought you hated Killian anyway.” Rhodey had been the one to warn him off not that Tony needed a warning to stay away from Killian.

“Could have donated it to charity. And I don’t, which is why I laughed when you tossed it. But damn man, twelve grand. I can’t imagine having that much money to just throw aside for a courting gift.” He shakes his head but Tony is well aware there’s more to it than that. Its not like his being on the lower end of middle class is a secret, and Tony knows that Rhodey doesn’t really believe him when he says most omegas don’t actually want jewelry. Tony is pretty sure Rhodey thinks that’s a bias on his part and it is, but only because he has an active reason to dislike jewelry, not because omegas secretly do want jewelry.

But the pressure is there and Tony knows Rhodey has avoided dating because he can’t afford that kind of thing. He figures he’ll grow out of the pressure to perform courting in a certain way but that doesn’t make things suck less for him now.

“If Killian knew anything about me he would have donated it to charity himself. And even if I didn’t hate jewelry that thing was god awful, you can’t expect me to have liked that gaudy ass thing. It looked kind of like this hideous necklace my great grandmother snuck out of Italy when she fled fascism during World War Two.”

Rhodey snorts and cracks up, shaking his head. “Okay, I will give you that it was very ugly but it was also stupid expensive.”

“I didn’t know that before it was tossed and yes, I could tell that it cost money because I know what good jewelry looks like but also I wouldn’t have paid more than ten bucks for something that hideous. Someone designed it that way on purpose and they should be fired for their sins.” And that’s before he even gets into the mess that Killian is specifically. Rude, entitled, arrogant, a mean streak a mile wide, and a total inability to not go into full meltdown mode when he’s told ‘no.’ Tony learned his lesson when he was a freshman and Killian decided to hit on him with an uncomfortable amount of aggression and then got mad when Tony agreed to meet him elsewhere to get him the hell out of his face only to not show up.

Needless to say the ensuing meltdown led to somehow deciding to win Tony back, not that he ever had him to begin with, with jewelry. It’d been the first time he’d ever been given anything and the situation resembled the cycle he’s watched his parents go through a million times so closely that he kind of lost it a little. Admittedly it wasn’t the nicest thing in the world to throw the necklace in a pond and start shrieking but he also feels like, at least in context, the reaction wasn’t totally irrational. Just mostly.

“So Four’s scarf,” Rhodey says, transitioning away from Killian thankfully. “Not a bad choice, even if you prefer Ten.”

“What are you two on about?” Pepper asks, arriving to the conversation late.

“Doctor Who,” Tony says and fills her in on the rest. She also gives a nod of approval and its almost harder to impress her than Rhodey. Rhodey only wins out because he’s grown a protective streak for Tony and Pepper has it too, but she’s a lot less likely to go ham on someone at least publicly. Usually Rhodey is good at pretending not to be an impulsive moron but there’s something about Tonys presence that makes him lose a brain cell or two and do dumb shit like get suspended for punching Killian in the face. Twice.

*

Peter didn’t really think Tony would actually like any of the stuff he got, minus the record because he knows Tony likes the band, but it turns out he’s actually really good at this. Tony liked the other pin he got too mostly because ‘UM confusion’ on a pin is pretty much how he feels about this whole thing and he figured Tony felt similarly. And its cute and matches the other pin.

The last thing he expects is for Tony to put the pins on his jacket and wear the scarf he got him. What he expects less than that is the sheer amount of people asking him for advice on how to court Tony seems how his efforts are working. Which is why he finds himself on the top of a table in the cafeteria kind of annoyed that he even has to do this.

“Hey. Um. Hey!” he says a little louder, drawing more attention that time. “So um. You guys keep asking me for advice on how to court Tony but you guys like... really don’t need advice on that. You guys need advice on how to follow boundaries and not harass the shit out of people. And also really, really basic observation skills. Tony doesn’t like jewelry you idiots, how did you not realize that when he kept throwing stuff out? Are you guys stupid?” he asks, fully prepared to continue on this rant when he notices a teacher beelining their way over and he sighs. “Whatever, point is if you can’t figure out how to court the omega you’d like to maybe you should take that as a sign that you don’t like them, you like what they look like. Courting someone shouldn’t be so hard that no one but me I guess figured out that Tony hates jewelry. Didn’t think he’d have to write that one down for you guys considering he throws everything he gets out,” he says, throwing his arms up before he jumps down from the table only to nearly run into Tony.

He looks pleased with himself so at least there’s that. Peter mostly tries to avoid looking at his legs in that skirt because its rude even if he looks good. “Peter Parker I think I owe you a date,” he says, grinning.

Peter blinks, shocked. “Um. What?”

Tony smiles wider, “I said I owe you a date and seems how you’ve been doing all the work so far I’ll handle it.”

“That’d be great, thanks,” he says. “I’m not great at this.”

Behind Tony Rhodey snorts, “you were better at it than the whole school and don’t have a problem with Tony taking the lead to boot. He’s probably gunna marry you.”

[h2bakugou]

hey! i just read your recent bakugou fic and i loved it! i hope the person requested it feels better after reading it. no one deserves to be treated like that. maybe make a part two for it? like she and bakugou are now in a relationship and theyre out on a date on a sunday, but they bumped into her mom and she was furious when she saw her daughter dating and ‘fooling around’ instead of studying but this time bakugou was finally able to stand up for her and gave her the bitchslap she deserves

a/n: awe thank you! that’s very true, i hope they’re doing okay as well, i’m sending all my love to them and anyone who’s not feeling too hot rn discipline 

summary: you and bakugou are finally together. he takes you out on a date and you bump into your mom. she’s disappointed that you’re ‘fooling around’ instead of working on getting better grades and doing better in school. bakugou doesn’t hold back this time.

key: (y/n) - your name / (f/n) - first name / (l/n) - last name / (e/c) - eye color / (h/c) - hair color / (y/q) - your quirk

warnings: swearing, angst, fluff

wordcount: 1.4k

»»————-　★　————-««

»»————-　★　————-««

The semester had gotten off to a good start. Bakugou had asked you out since your little date a few months ago, and now you were practically inseparable.

Bakugou got teased for being such a softie around you but he didn’t care. He loved you. He got angry at Kaminari and Sero for making jokes but at the end of the day, they were happy for him.

Bakugou had found someone who could tolerate his explosive energy. The two of you just sort of clicked.

You studied with Bakugou a lot, and he helped you when you needed it. But he didn’t push you. He knew you were strong, so he was only there if you ever needed it. He wasn’t going to baby you around.

That’s why you loved him so much. He knew you were capable. He didn’t make you feel like you were less than he was. He was an amazing boyfriend.

- - -

Being with Bakugou was nice. And come to think of it, you would be celebrating three months together in a few days. On Sunday to be exact. Bakugou had been thinking about it, wondering what he could do.

He’d asked, no demanded, Kaminari, Kirishima, Sero, and Mina to help him out.  He wanted to do something special.

“You should take her out on a date, something romantic, like dinner!” Mina said excitedly. Kaminari nodded, but he quickly stood to his feet.

“Take her to see a movie! And then you can pull a real smooth move where you throw your arm over her shoulder-”

“They’ve already kissed Kaminari.” Sero interrupted. Kaminari looked at Bakugou with wide eyes.

“Oh yeah, what else have you two done-”

“Shut it dunceface!” Bakugou raised a sparking open palm at the yellow-haired boy. Kaminari sat back down and shut up for the rest of the conversation.

“Just do something sweet, buy her flowers, but don’t forget you’re just as much a part of this date as she is. Try to do something you both enjoy!” Kirishima smiled. Bakugou nodded and looked down at his lap.

“If any of you say anything about this I’ll kill you.” Bakugou jumped to his feet as he stomped off.

“He’s so in love~!” Mina cheered hugging Kirishima.

“They grow up so fast!” Sero faked tears. The four of them laughed as Bakugou made his way up to your dorm.

Bakugou knocked three times before lowering his hand back into his pocket.

“Oh hey, babe!” You greeted the blonde. The nickname you’d given him made his heart skip a beat every time he heard you say it. He liked hearing his name, and dozens of other ones you called him, come from your mouth.

“Don’t make plans Sunday, we’re going out.” He said with a small grin.

“Okay, oh before you go, look at this!” You quickly showed him your grade for the math test you’d took the day before. You got a 94 on it.

“Awesome work, babygirl.” Bakugou leaned in to give you a peck on your lips. It was cut short by a stern cough.

“PDA.” Mr. Aizawa looked at the two of you.

“Oh piss off.” Bakugou waved his hand at Mr. Aizawa. Bakugou gave you one last kiss before he walked off.

“Sorry about that.” You giggled. Mr. Aizawa sighed and walked off down the hall. 

- - -

Sunday came faster than you thought. Bakugou had come to your dorm to get you.

“Do I look okay? Is this too much? I don’t know what we’re doing-”

“You look great.” Bakugou smiled softly. You liked seeing him smile. 

“You look good too. Did you comb your hair?” You smiled reaching a hand out to poke at his hair. Bakugou grabbed your wrist and looked away.

“I did now let’s go.” He wanted to look good, he didn’t want to look like a slob.

“Cute.” You said softly.

“What?” 

“You look cute.” You beamed. Bakugou’s eye twitched.

“I’m not cute, I’m badass-”

“So where are we going?” You asked, placing your hand in his as you began to walk outdoors and off toward the gate to get off-campus.

“It’s a surprise for a reason, dumbass.” Bakugou’s hand was warm against yours. The air was chilly and you could tell it was starting to warm up some. Spring was slowly peaking its head around.

The two of you walked and talked, admiring the beautiful nature as you neared closer to the chosen destination.

Bakugou stopped in your favorite cafe and the two of you got lunch.

“Thanks for this.” You thanked him for buying your lunch. The two of you ate, making small talk.

“That was really good.” Bakugou looked at his empty plate. You giggled and looked at him.

“What now?”

“You’ve got a little something-” You wiped a bit of cream off of his lip with your thumb. Your cheeks tinted red as did his.

“Do you see why I like this place so much now?” You smiled. Bakugou nodded.

“Alright, let’s go, I’ve got one more thing to show-”

“(y/n)?” Your mother’s voice filled the atmosphere. You cringed. You turned to see her standing at your table.

“Hi, mom.” You greeted, a smile on your face. Please let her say something nice.

“What are you doing off-campus?” She asked, glaring at Bakugou and then back to you.

“Well uh, mom this is my boyfriend, Bakugou.” You rubbed the back of your neck nervously.

“It’s nice to meet you-” bakugou spoke but was interrupted.

“I can’t believe you. You are honestly such a disappointment. You’re going to such a great school, and not to mention by my recommendation. And you spend your time goofing and fooling around with a boy? Have your grades improved-”

“Mom it’s not-”

“No. I’m talking. You are not dating this boy anymore. It’s over-”

“Mom!”

Bakugou felt his blood boiling. He couldn’t watch this. He couldn’t sit here and let someone, no your mother, speak about you like that. You were amazing.

“Babe, let’s go.” Bakugou stood, gathering his trash.

“No, my daughter will not be leaving with you-”

“Miss, with all due respect, your daughter, my wonderful girlfriend, is fucking amazing. Do you know what she’s ranked in the class? Third. Do you know how hard she trains? Until she can't move anymore. I’ve only seen a few people as devoted to her goals as her. You have no right to call her weak, or a disappointment.” Bakugou stood a few feet in front of you as you gathered your things.

“Excuse me?” Your mom crossed her arms over her chest.

“You’d know how well your daughter was doing if you showed you actually cared about her succeeding and showed compassion toward her. Your brooding and unpleasant parenting is why she’s so distant.” Bakugou grabbed your hand and pulled you along, heading toward the door.

“And she’s got all a’s now, no help from you that is.” He smirked, watching your mother’s face contort with anger.

The two of you walked down the street silently, leaving the scene.

“I- Sorry.” Bakugou mumbled.

“No hey, actually, thank you.” You stopped, placing your hands on his shoulders.

“Thank you for defending me.” You smiled, wrapping your arms around his shoulders, placing a kiss on his lips. Bakugou smiled and planted his hands on your hips.

“Anytime, babygirl.” 

Your kiss wasn’t long, still aware of the public around you.

“Let’s continue our date shall we?” You pull Bakugou along with you, a smile on his lips.

“You don't even know where we’re going!” Bakugou raised his voice slightly. He wasn’t yelling, he was more excited and running on the adrenaline rush he’d just been given from showing your mom up.

“Who cares, let’s go do something fun. I heard there’s a firework show tonight!” 

“Every night is a firework show with me.” 

“Oh keep it in your pants Katsuki.” You smirked.

“Hey! That’s not what I meant-”

Bakugou watched you wiggle your brows at him.

“Oh you little-” Bakugou chased after you as you broke free from his hand in yours. 

It was a small chase, nothing crazy, the two of you just enjoying each other’s company.

The sun had gone down finally and the two of you were resting on a lawn up on a hill. You could see the sky perfectly from your spot. 

The fireworks began to go off and you cuddled into your boyfriend, admiring the colors that filled the sky.

“Look at that one!” You pointed, filled with joy at the large explosions of colors and shapes in the sky.

Bakugou admired the changes of color on your face, the light from each firework making you seem more and more like an angel.

Bakugou kissed your cheek, not wanting you to miss the fireworks.

“I love you.” Bakugou whispered.

“I love you too, Katsuki.” You replied.

»»————-　★　————-««

masterlist

[merakiaes]

Comfortable - Oscar “Spooky” Diaz

Pairing: Oscar “Spooky” Diaz x reader 

Requested: Yes. 

Prompts: None.

Warnings/notes: This is really quick and really shitty, I’m sorry😭 I’ve been really stressed lately and it’s ruining my ability to concentrate and work creatively </3 But I hope you like it anyway, let me know what you think. Not proofread, and Spanish translations at the end. 

Wordcount: 2952

Summary: A part two to ‘Pussy Whipped’. You’re on your period, grumpy and really easily vexed, and Oscar makes sure you’re comfortable. 

After Oscar went out to do whatever Cuchillos had him and the Santos doing this time, you went back to bed and fired up some Netflix on your laptop in the wait of your boyfriend’s return.

Runs like these usually took between one and two hours, sometimes more and sometimes less, but never longer than three hours. So you waited, for your boyfriend to return home to cuddle you and provide you with the food you had been craving ever since waking up.

One hour passed, two hours passed, and you began coming to terms with the fact that this was one of the odd jobs that were going to take longer than usual.

The movie you had been watching was over in an hour and fifty-three minutes, and the heating pad you had brought with you to the bedroom was turning cold and not providing you with much comfort anymore.

Unfortunately, your abdomen was cramping too much for you to be able to stand up properly so you couldn’t be bothered to get up and reheat it, instead just closing your laptop and falling asleep, expecting Oscar to wake you up when the time did come that he got back home.

That, however, did not turn out to be the case.

Rather than waking up to the gentle touch of your loving man, you woke up to a not-so-gracious thud against the wall over your head, followed by loud laughing and noisy ruckus coming from the kitchen, sounding an awful lot like your kitchen cabinets were being rummaged through.

The mere sound of the repetitive thudding against the wall was enough to make your blood bubble with the already existing annoyance that seemed to constantly follow you around wherever you went whenever you were on your monthlies.

And that irritation only increased when you properly came to it after your nap and realized that the bedroom door was still closed, just like you left it, meaning Oscar hadn’t even been in to check up on you.

If he had, the door wouldn’t have been fully closed; he always left a small gap open behind him.

It would have been okay if he hadn’t been home, but with the way the boys were calling out for him from the kitchen, you knew for a fact that he was and it made you pissed because you knew that he knew exactly what you wanted at times like this, and he wasn’t there giving it to you.

Grumbling sourly under your breath, you pulled yourself out of the warm bed, pushing the pain radiating from your abdomen away to your absolute best ability and heading out into the hallway.

The headache you’d thought was gone returned in a sharp jab in your head the second you stepped out of the dark bedroom and into the sunlit hallway, which did nothing to calm your annoyance.

By now, the voices that had sounded from the kitchen a minute ago were instead speaking from outside where you from a glance through the living room window could make out Oscar and the Santos chilling on the lawn like any other day.

Throwing a glance to the clock ticking away in the dining area of the open space, the pointers were showing twenty minutes past four in the afternoon. 

That meant you had been asleep for well over two and a half hours, and who knew how long Oscar had been home throughout that time, without even coming to check up on you.

You scoffed, shaking your head, and before you could even process your own actions, you had marched over to the front door, ripped it open and stepped out onto the porch.

No one even seemed to notice you, Oscar sitting with his back to you in the sofa on the lawn and everyone too busy either drinking or checking out their own muscles to know what was going on around them.

The sight was one you saw every day, and yet on this particular day, it caused you to want nothing more than for them all to go away.

So like the grumpy party-pooper you were, you walked right up to the boombox that was placed on the wall of the porch, singing out some Spanish song, and hit the OFF button with one quick motion of your finger.

Only then did all of them turn to look at you, finally noticing your presence where you stood at the head of the porch steps with your arms crossed over your chest and your face pulled into a fierce glare.

“Buenos días, la Bella Durmiente.” Sad Eyes was the first one to speak up with a playful smirk, watching you from his seat beside Oscar on the armrest of the sofa.

All of their eyes were squinted in order to see you through the bright rays of sunshine shining right down at them, but your eyes were fine with the ceiling of the porch protecting you from the sun, allowing you to glare harshly at each and every one of them.

“Nice bedhead.” One of the older Santos pointed out before you got the chance to say anything, sending the rest of them into a fit of chuckles.

Your eyes automatically flickered to Oscar, watching as he raised his eyebrows at the comment and raised his bottle of beer to his lips in an attempt to hide his smirk. But the way his body was shaking with coughs gave him away immediately, only causing you to get even angrier.

Your hands instantly flew up to your hair to pull at the hairband holding your hair up in a very messy bun, putting it back on your wrist while ruffling your locks as you stepped down the porch.

“What’s the matter with you?” You called out to all of them as you approached them, their eyes trailing after you.

You stopped by the closest Santo and grabbed the weight he was holding just in the middle of a curl, dropping it back to the ground and completely ignoring the annoyed look crossing over his face as you moved on to the next person and repeating your previous actions.

Once all of them were relieved of their weights, you moved on to the sofa where the rest of them were sitting around, wasting no time in starting to grab the bottles of beers from their hands while scolding them.

“All you do is sit around in this nasty ass couch all day, lifting weights and getting drunk from the early hours. Haven’t you got your own houses to hang around?” You questioned, grabbing Sad Eyes’ beer just as he was about to take a sip. “Are you homeless? Or why do you insist on being on Spooky’s ass all day, every day? You’re grown men, for fuck’s sake, get a life. Go on, dip.”

Now balancing six bottles of beer in your hands and arms, you waved your hand to your best ability as a sign for them to fuck off.

They wasted no time in doing as told, getting out of their seats while grumbling under their breaths. They weren’t happy to be bossed around like this, but at the same time, they had learned a long time ago that they did not want to be in the line of your fury.

Sad Eyes gave you an amused smirk but stood up, too, bumping Oscar’s fist and squeezing your shoulder as he moved around you and in the direction of his car.

Oscar, himself, didn’t move a muscle, simply watching you boss his boys around angrily with a proud and amused smirk playing on his lips while sipping on his beer.

As he was about to take another sip, however, your hand shot out and ripped the bottle right out of his hand, and before he could even think about protesting, you had walked over to the trash can at the side of the porch and dumped all of the bottles in.

Without as much of a glance backward, you then stomped up the porch steps and back inside, leaving the front door open and plopping down on the livingroom sofa bitterly.

You listened as Oscar chuckled outside, followed by the sound of his feet dragging over the pavement path to the porch, and a second later, he was walking inside and closing the door softly behind him.

You kept your eyes set on the black screen of the TV, feeling his amused stare burn into the side of your face.

With another chuckle, he wordlessly walked into the kitchen and without turning your eyes away from the flatscreen, you could hear him opening a cabinet and rummage through something plastic.

You then heard him close the cabinet back up, the sound of the fridge opening and closing following shortly after, along with the ‘psst’ sound of a beer bottle being opened.

You rolled your eyes at the latter, but you didn’t get much time to think about it before he re-entered the living room and walked over to you at the couch, flicking on the TV on his way.

“Move over.” He told you and nudged your legs that were spread out over the couch, and you finally allowed yourself to look up at him, seeing that he was now holding a fresh bottle of beer and a bar of the chocolate he had promised to bring back for you before he left earlier.

The sight of the sweet, chocolatey goodness instantly made your anger decrease, causing you to move your legs away from the couch to allow him to sit down.

“When did you get home?” You asked, crossing your arms over your chest as you watched the re-run of ‘How I Met Your Mother’ now playing on the TV.

Out of the corner of your eyes, you caught him throwing a glance at the clock on the wall. “Half past two.” He replied simply, taking a gulp of his beer before setting it down on the coffee table and leaning back into the sofa, getting comfortable.

You scoffed, quickly doing the math in your head and figuring out that this meant he’d gotten home not long after you’d fallen asleep, and been home for two hours without waking you up.

He took one look at you from the side and immediately understood what you were thinking, his arm wrapping around your shoulders and pulling you into his side. “I didn’t want to wake you up, figured you needed the sleep.”

You pouted, turning to look at him with furrowed eyebrows.

“I didn’t want to sleep. I only did because I got bored while waiting for you.” You whined lightly, touching the hem of his tank top and looking up at him through your lashes. “I wanted to be with you.”

He chuckled at you, bending his head down to kiss your temple. “I’m here now, mamas. Bring your grumpy ass here.” He said, attempting to pull you closer.

You rolled your eyes, but nonetheless you moved into his side, cuddling up to him and sighing in contentment at the feeling of his warm hand resting on your bare upper arm.

He wordlessly reached around you to grab the blanket hanging over the back of the sofa and unfolded it with his free hand, pulling it over the two of you before leaning forward to grab the bar of chocolate and his beer from the table.

While balancing the bottle between his thighs, he broke open the plastic of the chocolate and broke off a piece, which you gratefully accepted despite still being annoyed for no apparent reason.

“You could’ve at least checked in on me, you know.” You pointed out as you took a bite, the anger slowly starting to melt off the more comfortable you got at his side.

His feet kicked up on the coffee table in front of the sofa and he sipped at his beer while his hand rubbed small, warm circles on your arm. “I did.” He mumbled lowly, both of your eyes stuck on the TV even though neither of you were watching the show that was on.

“No, you didn’t. The door was closed.” You grumbled, your face pulling into a glare again.

“I closed it.” He answered, and you turned your head to look at him, raising an eyebrow.

“You?” You asked. “You closed a door?”

Chuckling, he leaned down to press a light, quick kiss to your lips, mumbling against them. “The homies were being loud. Like I said, I wanted to let you sleep.”

At this, you couldn’t help but smile against his lips, the remaining anger melting right off and your body turning warm with contentment instead.

You shared another few kisses, Oscar clearly savoring the taste of the chocolate with the way he was humming quietly and his tongue was poking out of his lips ever so slightly.

His cheeky antics brought a chuckle from your lips and he broke apart at that, rubbing his forehead against yours playfully, smiling when it made you crack another laugh.

“The cramps gone?” He questioned, his thumb still rubbing your arms.

Only then you became aware of the pain jabbing you in your abdomen again, your face instantly pulling into a distasteful frown. “No.”

He hummed, and moved his hand down from your arm to your stomach, where he moved his fingers underneath your shirt and began rubbing slow, soft circles over your abdomen.

You instantly relaxed at the feeling, your head lulling against his chest and your legs pulling up over his lap on the couch. He pressed one kiss to your temple, and then another and then a third, all while holding the remote out toward the TV and switching channels.

Netflix popped up on the screen and he nodded to the TV, looking down at you questionably. “Clueless?” He asked, and you instantly smiled up at him,  

“You know me well, baby.” You raised your head up to capture his lips in another, longer kiss, rubbing your hands over his chest.

When you broke apart, he leaned his head down and pressed a kiss to your neck. 

“I know I do.” He mused, looking back up and turning his attention back to the TV where he typed in the name of the movie and wasted no time in putting it on, rewinding it to the start after the other countless times you’d force him to sit through it.

Once the movie was playing, he put the remote on the armrest of the couch beside him and took his beer from between his thighs, bringing it up to his lips while you continued nibbling on the chocolate.

While you stared at the screen concentratedly, he gazed at you from above, admiring every feature of your face and feeling amused at how easily pleased you really were.

You liked to convince yourself and everyone else otherwise, but he knew you like the back of his own hand and therefore knew exactly how to make you happy, and it didn’t take much.

As long as he was there, you would get happy by pretty much anything; even something as small as a bar of chocolate, belly rubs and your favorite movie when you were on your period.

Feeling his stare burning into the side of your face, you glanced away from the movie to look up at him, your glare now long gone and instead replaced with a wide-eyed, content expression.

“What?” You asked, clueless as to why he was watching you with such a soft expression. But it still didn’t fail to cause a flutter of butterfly to spread through your body.

He smiled at you, raising his thumb to your lip to rub some chocolate off. You watched with a raised eyebrow and an amused smile as he brought the thumb up to his face and put it in his mouth, and then, he took your face in his hand and pulled you into a kiss.

Your fingers automatically wrapped around the fabric of his tank top, your lips smiling against his as they moved together.

He tasted bitterly, of beer and cigarettes, two things you didn’t necessarily enjoy separately. But still, it was the most delicious taste you knew, blending together with the chocolate still on your lips.

You broke apart for a brief second but he quickly latched his lips onto yours for another quick kiss, before finally pulling back to allow you to breathe. 

His thumb caressed your cheek and his eyes searched yours, lips pulled into a fond smile.

“Te quiero, gruñona.” He told you, Spanish words tumbling out of lips so easily it was as if they were the only words he’d ever known.

The first two caused your face to break out into a large smile, but the last one automatically caused you to shoot a hand out to slap his chest. 

“Watch it.” You mused, chuckling, and he chuckled with you, grabbing your wrist to protect himself from any possible eventual hits.

His chest shook with laughter under your touch and you smiled, adoring the way he always let his guard down when you were alone.

Moving your hand up from his chest to his face, you cradled his cheek, pressing your forehead against his. 

“I love you, too.” You answered and as his chuckling died down, you pressed your lips to his in another kiss before the two of you cuddled up to each other and turned your attention to the movie playing in front of you, his hand returning to rubbing soothing circles on your stomach until the pain was completely gone, and your foul mood with it. 

He may have been a fearless gang leader that constantly needed to assert his dominance, but there was nothing in the world that would keep him from making sure you were comfortable. 

Translations (I’m not a native Spanish speaker so this might not be a hundred percent accurate):

Buenos días, la Bella Durmiente – Good morning, Sleeping Beauty

Te quiero, gruñona – I love you, grumpy

Tagged: @babienay​ @firebenderwolf​ @fairygardenss​ @moanlightbaby​ @dolanackles​ @marvelously-flawed​ @jazzwhitlockhale​ @spookysnena​ @joyrivh​ @socialistavocado​ @clemmingstylins0n​ @chaneajoyyy​ @ugh-jalynn​ @turn-diamonds-into-snow​ @bxmaaa @shadow-of-wonder

[quillsink]

im thinking of writing this fan fiction i have an idea for but i dont know if i should and i have it mostly planned out but i dont know if it will be good

you know what, anon?

do it.

fucking open the doc and start writing.

so what if it’s trash? who cares?

if first grade me hadn’t written a trash self-insert story with cowboys, i wouldn’t be the writer i am today. if my third grade self hadn’t picked up my ipad and written the plot for a movie i’d eventually delete i wouldn’t have come this far. if fourth grade me hadn’t gotten together with my friends and written the first few chapters of a book with terrible grammar and almost no plot i wouldn’t be the writer i am today.

if fifth grade me hadn’t scribbled character names and family backstories on the back of my maths notebook, i wouldn’t be writing fanfic now. if sixth grade me hadn’t taken the fanciest sounding names i knew and made a trash magical universe that was suspiciously like howl’s moving castle, i wouldn’t be the writer i am today. if seventh grade me hadn’t tried to copy historical language and fail desperately. if high school me hadn’t wanted to write a musical with terrible fucking songs and lyrics that barely rhymed. if high school me hadn’t written my first ever fanfic of hamilton that’s absolute trash.

i would never be a writer.

so will it be trash? maybe. 

it’ll take a while, but you’ll grow. you’ll become a writer, and you’ll be proud, and you’ll look back one day and think “see how far i’ve come.”

so do it.

make a new doc

and write.

[awhiskeyriver]

@eggplant8 said: I would love to see Madge’s POV of picking him up from his family and response to his blurted out confessions.

                                                      +++

   “Your grandma seems nice.” My words cut through the silent air, the first thing either of us had spoken in the twenty minutes that had passed since I picked Gale up. 

    A grunt was the only indication he gave me that I’d been heard, and he kept his gaze focused outside the window. Leg bouncing uncontrollably. Jaw clenched with tension. 

    Oookay, so he didn’t want to talk, then.

    I tapped the beat of the music on my steering wheel lightly, focusing on the dark stretch of road ahead of me leading back to Panem. 

    There’d been something exciting about the impromptu road trip when I’d first headed out to Waukesha. I liked being the person people depended on. The one that got calls in the middle of the night because a car broke down. I was curious what he was doing out there on a Thursday night, though. Last I’d heard from him he had a major test to study for. It wasn’t like I needed the play by play of his life, but it did seem strange no conversation of him going home had come up. 

    For all of the conversations we’d had, all the truth and dare games at Hoffman’s, I didn’t know all that much about his family. I knew about his three siblings, two brothers and a sister, but I didn’t even know their names. Not that I’d exactly been an open book with him either about my family. It was just that there wasn’t much to tell. We were boring in that sense. 

    There was nothing boring about Gale’s family dynamic though, and the more he kept tight lipped the more curious I became. 

    The first small glimpse I’d gotten of any of his siblings came from the little boy asleep on the couch. Even with a blanket curled up around his shoulders and face pressed into a pillow, the resemblance to Gale was uncanny. There was no denying their familial relation.

    “I can’t believe how much your little brother looks like you,” I laughed. I almost wished he’d been awake, so that I could’ve seen his eyes and his smile. Heard his voice. I wondered if their personalities were anything alike. Gale continued with his silence, only nodding his head a little and I sighed.

    “Do they live with her? Your grandma?” It seemed that way, just based on the small bit of the house I’d seen. There were backpacks and school books scattered in the dining room. An open pantry with all kinds of kid-friendly cereal inside. More than one pair of small shoes at the front entrance by the door. 

    For as little as I knew about Gale’s siblings, I knew even less about his parents. Thinking back, I wasn’t sure if the conversation had ever come up at all. If it was true, that the kids did live with Hazelle, it must’ve come with good reason.

    One of the girls in my neighborhood growing up lived with her grandparents because her mother died shortly after giving birth to her from complications. I didn’t know what happened to her father, never asked, but I remembered going to the graveyard with her every year on her mother’s birthday to place down daisy’s at the tombstone.

    For a dark moment, I wondered if something similar had happened to Gale’s parents, too.

    “Yep,” he answered, shortly, only adding to my terrible theory.

    “Oh. How long?”

    He finally looked at me, or at least turned his head in my direction. His eyes went straight through me though, lost in a thought too deep for me to reach.

    “A while.”

    “Hmm,” I hummed, trying to do the math on how old the brother I’d seen on the couch might’ve been. He’d told me his sister was eight, if she was the youngest that meant his mother couldn’t have died all that long ago. I felt a lump forming in my throat at the thought.

    “Did you grow up with her, also?” I asked quietly and then he was back in the present, eyes boring into me with irritation as his eyebrows pinched.

    “Stop,” he told me harshly, turning back to the window. “Just not tonight, okay? I’m exhausted and not in the mood for your psychoanalytical bullshit.” 

    Psychoanalytical bullshit? Wow, okay.

    “I was just asking a question,” I muttered, annoyance clear in my tone. 

    I wasn’t the only one. 

    “No, you weren’t.” 

    “Okay, why are you mad at me right now?” I shot back, unable to help it. It wasn’t like I’d dropped everything I was doing to pick him up in the middle of nowhere at two in the morning. Granted everything I was doing included hot chocolate, a face mask and a Friends re-watch, but he didn’t need to know that. I hadn’t minded the change of plans at all, but Jesus, I wasn’t going to be the scapegoat for his bad mood, either. 

    I understood his frustration. I’m sure I would’ve been stressed beyond belief if my car broke down unexpectedly in the middle of winter two hours away from campus. But everything had worked out…

    “Because you think you know everything, but you don’t,” he replied back, voice rising.

    “That’s not true…”

    “I’m not some project for you to figure out!” 

    The air was tense between us with his words and I bit the inside of my cheek, fighting to keep silent until I felt that I was in control.

    “I never said that you were,” I muttered.

    “Right,” he scoffed, tone accusatory. “You can’t help yourself, you have to get into people’s business. Well, fine, what would you like to know Dr. Undersee? That the reason my siblings live with our grandmother is because our mother is a junkie who chose drugs over her own goddamn kids?”

    His voice cracked with the confession and when I looked over he seemed on the verge of a panic attack. His breaths were shallow, as if he couldn’t get enough air in his lungs and his leg was bouncing uncontrollably. 

    “Gale,” I tried in what I hoped was a soothing tone rather than the anxiety I felt welling up inside of me.

    “Oh, maybe you’re dying to ask how many of us share the same father. Spoiler alert: four kids, three dads, two of which were such scum they wanted nothing to do with their kids and the third so bad it would’ve been better if he’d just left too!” 

    “You don’t have to--”

    “You want to get into how he used to beat me over something as stupid as a lost remote control?” No. No, no, no. “Or how I had to beg our neighbors for food to feed my siblings because no one remembered to go to the store? Go ahead and diagnose the hell out of me, tell me about all the reasons why I’m fucked up trash now that you’ve got all the pieces to your puzzle.”

    I wasn’t sure if he was even aware of the tears in his eyes, threatening to spill over, or not. He seemed lost. Floundering. Trying to find purchase to tether him to reality but coming up short. 

    We needed to stop driving. I searched the road signs passing by quickly for the nearest exit. Five miles. 

From the corner of my eye I saw him lower his head between his knees, back rising and falling with each breath, hands clenched in hair that was coming loose from his bun. 

    “It’s okay,” I promised quietly. “Just breathe.”

    I pulled over as soon as it was safe off the highway, near a farm and a cornfield because of course. It couldn’t have been a well-lit parking lot or something. 

   Gale jumped out of the car without a word, heading closer to the creepy cornfield with his head turned up towards the sky. I wanted to go after him, but reason told me to give him a moment. Let him cool off.

   His confession still had me stunned. After months and months of vague answers and subject changes, he’d poured it all in such haste I was almost positive he would have regrets over it. 

   When minutes passed, but he remained outside, I tentatively got out to join him.

   “You can go,” he told me as my feet crunched closer in the snow. “I’ll call Peeta or something.”

   Yeah, sure. I was going to leave him in the middle of nowhere at two in the morning where the children of the corn could feast on his body before sunrise.

   “I’m...not going to do that.”

   He jerked out of my reach as my hand touched his forearm and took a few steps further down the field. 

   That’s fine. I didn’t like being touched in the middle of an attack, either. I remember my mom read one time that pressure helped to calm people down and she came and wrapped her arms around my body in a hug that felt closer to a straight jacket. I couldn’t breathe, let alone speak to tell her to stop, and when I finally managed to get air out, I screamed so loudly that she cried. 

   Focusing on Gale, not you.

   Right.

   “You’re right,” I whispered to him, and he turned his head half a fraction. Listening. “You’re not a project. I’m sorry if I treated you that way.”

   “It’s not your job to put me back together.”

   “I know that.” 

   He nodded silently and turned back towards the field as the wind whipped, picking snow up from the ground with its fury. It burned my exposed skin and I hopped a little in place to keep circulation flowing but didn’t get any closer to him.

    “Truth or dare?” I asked. We could both use the distraction, and somewhere along the line the game had become our weird way of communicating when regular forms felt like too much.

    “Truth,” he said back quietly and I couldn’t help but smile in relief.

   “Tell me something you like about yourself.”

   When he laughed, like the idea was a preposterous one, I felt my heart clench.

   “Just one thing. Anything.”

   He thought about it for a few painstaking minutes before folding his arms over his middle.

   “I’m a good brother,” he croaked. “I think.”

   “Yeah,” I smiled. “I think so, too.” 

   “Your turn.”

   I took one step closer, then stopped.

   “Truth.”

   “How do you always find the best in people? Even when they don’t deserve it.”

   The real question was easy to see between the words he spoke. How do you always find the best in me, even when I don’t deserve it?

   Like he didn’t deserve it.

   “There’s very few people in the world who don’t deserve any benefit of the doubt and you aren’t one of them,” I told him sternly, chancing another step. He didn’t move, or seem to be upset that I was closer to him, so when I chanced placing my hand in his and he didn’t flinch, I gave it a comforting squeeze.

   When his hand tightened back around mine, something inside of me jolted. 

   “Wouldn’t you rather live in a world where we all saw the best things too?”

   “Reality makes it difficult.”

   “Hmm. That’s true,” I mused. “It’s not always easy.”

   He looked down at me, exhausted and broken, and frowned.

   “I’m sorry.”

   I know.

   “Come on, it’s freezing,” I said, motioning back to the warmth--and let’s be real, safety--of the car. “Let’s get back in the car.”

   Gale was silent the rest of the way home, staring out the window with his arms folded protectively over his chest. And I let him be. When we pulled in front of his apartment, he seemed surprised that we were there, as if his mind had drifted somewhere else entirely, and he waited until he was almost out of the car to turn back and say thank you.

   “It wasn’t a problem,” I promised. It was never a problem. “Gale, I--”

   “You should go, Madge,” he interrupted. “Thank you but, you should go.”

   The door shut without another word, leaving my unfinished words in limbo.

   Gale, I’m always here.

                                                       +++

    Darius was still awake when I got home. At the sound of the door opening, he wheeled out into the hallway in his chair to look me over expectantly.

    “Well?” he asked when I said nothing. “Did all your dreams come true? Did he thank you for rescuing him with sexual favors?” 

    I burst into tears, adrenaline finally giving out now that I was back in the safety of the apartment. Darius was up in a flash, coming towards me to put a hand on either one of my shoulders.

    “Did he hurt you?” He asked, like Gale wasn’t the same guy who brought me soup when I was sick. It was a reflex reaction for him, though. To assume the worst.

    I shook my head and he brought me in closer to his chest.

    “No,” I hiccuped as he stroked my hair. “Someone hurt him.”

[b4kuch1n]

The Future Is In Space! (and so is the rest of you)

Okay, so. Gordon should’ve seen this coming. 

And he did, to be fair: Joshua’s always loved space. Joshua loved the idea of flying cars when he was a tiny little thing, if the fact that all of the toy cars he had were thrown with intense force at one point or another meant something, and he clapped at the night sky once when Gordon got them both stuck at a gas station in the middle of nowhere due to… circumstances… which was super, ultra, uber cute as fuck . Especially because Gordon had just applauded him for singing along to a song on the radio when they parked, and that was very possibly the first time Joshua registered clapping as a possible positive reaction to something he likes, or whatever like that. Gordon Freeman has a PhD in theoretical physics and theoretical physics only.

The point is that Gordon loves Joshua so fucking much. No, the point is that Joshua has always liked space. He chose for himself a set of space-themed PJs when Gordon took him to the mall, and he likes food with weird colors because that’s “alien food”, and he has given away all of the toy cars he had to make space for toy space ships of many sizes, and Gordon has had to have a conversation with him once about upending a dusty fish bowl onto his own head so he could look like an astronaut. He doesn’t do that anymore, because Joshua is genuinely a really smart kid who just needs the required pieces of information to put things together by himself. 

Gordon loves him so much. 

Gordon also has only experienced a single year of relatively radiation-free, sludge-free, organic, non-Black Mesa- poisoned air and also freedom (to an extent) since. You know. Almost dying and also losing his right arm in Black Mesa. Where he jumped into a few portals, one of which leading to an alien world called Xen, where he had to kill what seemed to him at the time a spiteful god against his own existence. 

That, and not the Joshua-loves-space part, is the part he didn’t see coming. Hadn’t. Still doesn’t, if he can be honest for a minute. There are days it still doesn’t feel real, just to contrast nicely with the days when what’s left of his right arm and his right shoulder hurt, and days when power outage hit unexpectedly and the lights went out without warning, and days when he fights to not let some stupid fucked up slights against him go because that’s just how the world is that’s how things are now keep your head down and don’t think Gordon just shoot just let your trigger finger pull itself in you are in a comedy of error a laugh track a monkey on a leash just dance just move your feet j

Hey, no digging your heels in there. Throw yourself off your rhythm, Gordon. Joshua. Joshua loves space. Joshua is going to an elementary school now. Joshua just came home from a “career” day, and the parent invited to speak is a retired astronaut. 

Joshua said: “I wanna be an astronaut when I grow up!”

Joshua likes numbers. Somewhat. He’s not averse to them, at the very least, and homework’s kind of bullshit from the concept to the execution but when Gordon and Tommy and Coomer sit down to keep him engaged while he does it he has fun with math homework. He likes video games, he likes the puzzles in the youth magazines they signed up for at his school, he likes messing with shape blocks and pulls out some cool combinations Gordon doesn’t see coming sometimes. Joshua is a smart kid that enjoys a fair challenge. Joshua is totally astronaut materials. 

Joshua is going to space. 

Joshua is absolutely going to space. 

Xen is, coincidentally, also in space. 

Gordon is calm. He totally has a good poker face. He performs well under pressure, especially very specific types of pressure, e.g. when there are rules in place he can cling to and ground out an appropriate plan of action. He could improvise a presentation in class in a pinch, because he knew what presentations are and what he’s been working on and what the teacher expected. He could jimmy his car out of an ice patch, because he knew how cars work and how ice acts. He can smile and say “That’s great, Joshie! You just gotta work hard for it, and then you’ll be in space in no time.”

Gordon has an image he can provide to show how he feels.

[Picture ID: a drawing of Gordon Freeman standing in front of his son Joshua, cut off at their chest. Gordon is a tall man, a bit heavyset, with tan skin and mid-back length, messy curly brown hair that’s greyed at his temples due to stress from surviving the hellhole that is Black Mesa and Xen. He’s wearing his comfortable worn-and-faded t-shirt, which is orange with a very faded graphic printed on the front. Joshua is a young boy with brown skin and short dark curly hair, brown eyes that’s brimming with light and happiness, and a wide happy smile. He’s wearing a light green t-shirt. Gordon is smiling at him, with another shot of his face enlarged and superimposed on the drawing right next to his head. This Gordon is screaming. This Gordon is screaming his heart out, and his face is scrunched up while his mouth opens wide, and he’s screaming a silent scream and he will never stop.]

---

Contrary to how it appears to everyone, Benrey doesn’t live full time at the Freemans’. 

Well. He does “sleep” there. If he actually sleeps. That’s one of the questions that Gordon has had ever since Black Mesa that he never got to or bothered to ask, and then when they had to defeat Benrey in the final boss fight he thought that was it with his chance to ever ask. And then Benrey came back and the situation took a hard left into throw-the-whole-suitcase-out awkwardness and Gordon thought it better to never bring those questions up ever again. It’s. Ongoing. Like his climb back into being a normal, mostly law abiding, neutral good citizen, who has no ties to that research facility that blew up and opened a portal to hell in space. 

It helps that Benrey really is just… a dude. Now that he’s not eighty feet tall and clipping through walls anymore, he can definitely pass as someone who just really loves to mess with people for a laugh. Which… well, Gordon’s judgement of character is probably better discarded in the kitchen trash compactor now, but he’s not gonna lie and say that’s all Benrey seems to him. He doesn’t even mess with people for laugh, not really. He is just. Like that. He’s an alien, but in the sense that’s… 

Well, to Benrey, humans are alien. So that’s that. 

And also Black Mesa did stretch the definition of ‘human’ in the physical sense pretty thin. So, again, that’s that. It all fits together like sliced pita bread. 

The other thing that helps is that Gordon has the tendency to forget about risks or consequences when they are not directly in front of him, which he sometimes overcorrects, but this time around it helps move the sentiment into the philosophical window pretty quick, and then he can throw a brick through that one, because philosophy sucks ass. Gordon’s moving along well! He only had to change prosthetics twice because the first two were in order too heavy for his shoulder and too energy consuming, and all three are fully covered by the overlords that didn’t want Black Mesa to become a Thing in history, and now he works remotely for a uni that just lets whatever happen. It’s chill. It’s mostly chill. 

He could’ve just chugged along never thinking even an inch deeper about Benrey’s Benrey-ness again, and Benrey makes that easy, because Benrey loves walking around and looking at things and being a bit of a spectacle with a straight face. Okay, Gordon doesn’t know for sure if Benrey loves doing those things, because he’s not Benrey. He just knows that Benrey does those things, frequently, and with an expertise that baffles even him, who knows full well how Benrey is. Well enough. Awkward territory, all of this is, really. The Point Is that Benrey actually doesn’t appear at home too much! He plays games through the night sometimes, sure, and ever since he called second dibs on any cereal in the apartment he always appears at the right time to claim that, but the whole thing is. Balanced. Benrey doesn’t seem to have physical personal belongings outside of the PS3 and four copies of Heavenly Sword he lugged back one day (the rest of the game library everyone kinda chimed in here and there to build up, because console is common ground fair use for everyone, while PC is where Gordon streams and also works, so it’s off limit), and he rarely uses utensils to eat anything, so to anyone but the team it’d seem like he’s barely there at all. Except for his presence of course. That’s… a lot harder to negotiate.

Gordon’s gotten very, extremely good at it though. It’s his life. Things fit together, mostly. He can deal, he has been dealing, and it’s even been fun. It’s definitely really funny here and there. 

Gordon’s about to break the equilibrium. Introduce a nasty new specimen into the scene.

“Bro I knocked for a hot minute,” Benrey says, at the same time as Gordon’s blurting out, “I need to go back to Xen.” 

“Huh.”

“Wha- Why do you knock? You’ve never knocked. You’ve literally only ever broken in.” 

“Wanna… start now.” Benrey intones in that exact way, and then knocks on the door again. It doesn’t even sound good. These doors are all made with the weird thick composite that makes a dull plastic sound when knocked on. 

“Don’t do that, just use the doorbell if you want to-” Gordon catches himself. “No matter. I need to go back to Xen. As soon as possible, but anytime in the next… twelve years… will work.” 

Benrey just looks at him for a long time. An extended minute. Maybe even two. 

Gordon is just staring back. 

“You’re at. The door.” Benrey says, in a low voice. Gordon blinks. “Rude… rude little boy Freeman, huh.” 

Gordon takes a deep breath. “Benrey-”

“Gonna let me in? Soon? ‘s bad etiquette… greeter… doesn’t even let guests in. Bet your wares aren’t even good.” 

“Alright! Alright.” Gordon snaps, but he also does step back for Benrey to walk in, which. Really, that’s never been necessary. Benrey’s always come in and out as he pleases. Usually Gordon just walks out into the living room and Benrey’s already on the couch playing whatever game catches his eyes on that day. The decorum of knocking and walking in is simply never present. 

Well, Benrey does knock on Joshua’s bedroom door. But that’s it. 

They walk together into the living room, then Benrey situates himself on the couch, and Gordon settles on the carpeted floor next to the table to observe him. He’s never seen Benrey actually fold his limbs up into the position he’s usually already in when walked in on before. It’s mostly normal movements, which still catches Gordon off-guard a bit.

“Nice couch you’ve got here,” Benrey says, and pulls out his phone to fiddle with. It’s a Nokia 2700 Classic, with a theme downloaded from the Ovi Store, and a firefighter-themed 2D platformer that does get insanely hard in places. Tommy got him a snazzier Blackberry a while back, but he refused that one. Gordon didn’t really get it, but. Whatever. 

“It’s always been here,” Gordon replies on reflex.

“Liar… Gordon Lie… man.” Benrey seems to need to chew on that one for a second. “Gordon Lieman. This building’s like. Ten years old.” 

“That’s practically forever dude.  That’s longer than they sent me to MIT for. Joshua’s not even that old.” 

“He’s gonna. In… seven… years.” 

Gordon remembers what he needs to talk with Benrey about again. “Goddamnit,” he slaps his own face - not with the hard prosthetic this time, thank you very much. Took him six months of HEV training and a year with a prosthetic to get it to heart. “Okay, so. Xen.”

“Wait. Math’s wrong… eleven. Years.”

“Don’t distract me! Xen!” Gordon throws his arms up, finally making Benrey actually look at him proper. “Joshua wants to be an astronaut when he grows up.” 

Benrey puts his phone down. 

“Yeah,” Gordon scrubs his face, with his flesh hand. “So I need to… do something about Xen. I have a plan. I need to find materials, and then I need a way to Xen…” 

“What’s an astronaut.” 

“A- no.” Gordon sits up straight. “No, you’re fucking with me. You’re doing this on purpose. I’m fucking about to go nuts, dude.” 

Benrey looks him up and down, makes sure his head movement is clear in the dark living room, lit only by the lamppost outside the window. “Yeah,” he says, “no shit. You wanna go back to… Xen… and stuff. Freeman lost his mind.” 

Gordon opens his mouth to retort, but then closes it with a click. “Okay,” he mumbles after a moment of thinking it over, “okay. I get where you’re coming from.”

“Haha, get it. ‘cause I’m from. Xen. And shit.” 

“Not funny, dude.” It is a bit funny. “But I’m not- okay, so, listen, Joshua’s a determined kid, alright? He’s smart, and he’s healthy, and he likes space. He’s… the chance of him becoming an astronaut is not zero.” Gordon pulls his legs up to his chest. “If it’s up to me, it’s gonna be a hundred percent, ‘cause that’d make him so happy. But even if I’m not the one writing the almighty script I’m still gonna do my best to help him if he’s serious.” 

Benrey continues looking at him. “Uh-huh.”

“And… that includes. Never letting him near Xen.” 

“Mm.”

“And I know, I know Xen’s like. Ten fucking floating rocks at least a million Texas lengths away from Earth, but it’s still there, y’know? It’s still there. You’re from there! You know it’s still…” 

“Yeah?”

“... I. Want to blow Xen up.” 

Benrey settles into the draw-me-like-a-French-girl pose. “Sounds good. How’re we doing that.”

“Well, we’ll need explosives that can actually detonate in Xen’s climate, and acquiring that’s gonna put me on so many shitlist-” Gordon almost physically grabs his own hand to yank himself back to Benrey’s answer. “Wait. Are you really just… relenting? Are you actually in this now. Benrey?”

“Say more about the explosive though.” Benrey blinks innocently at him. “Please? Explosive cool. Maybe illegal. Super cool though.” 

Gordon is not doing the frog mouth thing. He’s not. He’s totally not. He sighs a long sigh; there, no more rude expression. “I am only thinking about using explosives, because it’s costly and we’re gonna have to transport it. So you have nothing to snitch about. Who would you even snitch to, anyway? Fucking- we are under an indefinite two-way nondisclosure clause, if any of us ever open our mouth to a stranger about that we’re gonna get sacked, but. Wait are you even involved in that? You came back after we signed those papers. Well Tommy’s officially ‘representing’ us, so it’s all tangential kinda, so maybe he can just add you, but why would you-”

“No explosive run huh… What’re you gonna… use. Then.” 

“-subject yourself to the law- alright, yeah uh. To be honest I was thinking raw force? Because I do have around twelve years to make this work, and Coomer has insane strength that has leveled a Xen island before, and Bubby is… I think he just isn’t aware that there’s supposed to be a limit to human strength at all. They forget to put that in when they pumped him with knowledge juice. He can- wait, Bubby can just make fire. He can maybe negate the climate conditions for us, so explosives are still in the question here, and- Darnold, last I heard he’s doing some ‘Sour Patch Kids but real’ stuff… sounds like seriously corrosive stuff… We can. We can have a plan.”

Benrey is on his phone again. “Nice.”

“Yeah. Okay.” Gordon dry swallows some dust from the carpet. He realizes he’s gripping on it pretty hard with his prosthetic; he’s close to ripping a chunk of it out. He takes a deep breath and relaxes the plastic hand. “We’re gonna need to make and test the explosives, and we’re. I need to tell everyone. Convince them to help. And we’ll need a portal back to Xen.”

Benrey’s still clicking away on his phone - probably playing that firefighter game again - but he’s looking at Gordon at the same time. Gordon looks up just in time to catch the sharp grin disappearing from his face. 

Alright. Maybe Benrey does love doing Benrey things. At least one of them’s actively enjoying this.

---

Gordon’s well aware how ridiculous he is. Is sometimes seen as. Perceived as. Terminologies.

Mostly he copes fine with that. He’s lived it for as long as he’s alive. Most decisions he makes are met with a raised eyebrow at the sublest and outright laughter at the rudest. Transitioning, that was a long, long period of his parents going from “haha funny joke but don’t tell it in public yeah” to “oh shit that’s for real huh? That’s for real” to confused, but silent, silence. Him applying for MIT and seeking a scholarship was definitely the career advisor at his high school laughing uncomfortably for a long time, because Gordon’s never held down a project properly, has he? How’s he doing this? And then him adopting Joshua officially was at least ten separate conversations with Joshua’s grandparents patting him on the back, it’s okay if you don’t! We can care for him. It’s nice to have children around the house again! We know you’re busy! We know there’s things youngsters like you want to do before getting tied down with children. Trust us, we know. You don’t have to . 

Gordon knows. He’s never had to make any of the decisions he actively made, but one, that’s why they’re decisions and not punishments , and two, in many ways including cerebral, he did. Kind of have to. In many ways those are the only steps that make sense for him to take. They were the foundation to who he is as a person, with a sense of self that must be supernaturally obscure, because he’s. He’s got a lot of things to balance. A lot of tight ropes to walk. 

Gordon’s many things, a lot of those he doesn’t fucking recall himself. Maybe that’s by itself absurd enough. He’s had a lot of time to learn, and a bit of time to relearn, being okay with being absurd. 

Black Mesa “helped”, in the same way it spared the rest of him when it got his arm cut the fuck off. It’s a horror comedy. It gave him a bit of a new perspective on absurdity. 

“Don’t you dare,” Gordon grouches, because he’s learning. He’s always learning. “Don’t use the a-word.” 

Bubby puts his arm together in front of his chest. “I’m not about to! Don’t presume you know what I will do.” 

In a way Bubby’s incredulous look stings worse than Benrey’s deflection, Gordon reasons, because Benrey has emotional (?) stakes in Xen’s existence. Maybe he has an external heart or something that’s still beating and keeping him alive on Xen, though Gordon hopes he’d’ve at least been transparent about that when they talked about blowing the place up. Bubby though, Bubby doesn’t have emotional ties to many things altogether. Bubby’s also a tube baby who sets himself on fire with his thoughts. Himself and other people and/or objects. Not as absurd as Benrey being Benrey, but absurd enough to be way above Gordon on the a-scale, and thus has no rights to call Gordon absurd. 

“You have to admit though,” Bubby says after a moment of silence.

Gordon takes a deep breath. “No, actually, I don’t have to admit shit,” he says, with what he can call patience with just a little bit of definition stretching, “you ever thought of that? I actually can just never admit that blowing up a whole planetoid system is a bit out-of-the-box thinking of me. I can just say that it’s totally normal and expected behavior of me, and what’re you gonna do with that? Huh? Do go on.” 

“Oh don’t be pissy at me,” Bubby huffs, and goes back to staring at the buoy bobbing on the water surface, tied to his fishing line. “You’re scaring away the fish, Gordon. Everyone knows you don’t talk and stomp around on the piers while people are fishing. It’s rude.”

“You’re literally only trying to see if you can set a fish on fire as a prank,” Gordon points out, more for his own sanity than to prove anything to anyone, least of all Bubby.

Benrey looks like he’s ignoring Gordon and Bubby’s exchange, just sitting at the edge of the piers, legs swinging evenly, but Gordon well knows he’s listening in. If not because he’s somewhat invested then because most things that frustrate Gordon is great entertainment to him. 

He is, maybe, a bit, somewhat invested though, must be. He brought Gordon to where Bubby and Coomer are camping, afterall. No reasons else to do it, especially when they have time to wait for them to come back to civilization. Twelve years, in fact. 

Gordon can wait (he can forget, but in his book that’s the same as waiting, really), and he doesn’t begrudge Bubby and Coomer’s “honeymoon trip”, which has consisted thus far of them trampling about in ~~nature~~ , e.g. deep ends of the world that they do not and should not have access to, but somehow end up in anyway. Gordon only knew because Coomer’s grown fond of taking pictures, and once in a while if they get wifi he sends everyone some. The most memorable one was a pitch black square except for two dots of light in the distance, with the geotag pointing to them being in the Mariana trench. 

They’re having fun, and Darnold and Tommy take effort to “decontaminate” them between trips, as well as make them learn wildlife interaction guidelines (Bubby probably already knew, but he didn’t care, and still nobody’s sure if he cares now), so Gordon doesn’t mind. Has no reason to mind. Until now, but only a tiny bit. 

They decided to stop in a seaside town somewhere up North three days ago, and wifi’s spotty at best but Coomer still managed to send them pictures again - of him fighting a dolphin and Bubby making fun of a goat skeleton in a museum - and then Gordon got tired of staying up thinking about Xen at night and shot his shot. It took them another day to check their message again, and Bubby replied saying “don’t third wheel other people, weirdo” and Gordon just sighed and resigned himself to staying up way too late for another week or so. But then Benrey asked him to go to GameStop with him, which. Admittedly that was suspicious as hell, but Gordon reasoned Benrey knocked and asked to be let in the other day, so what the fuck, right. And then he stepped through the GameStop’s door, noticing the glass being darker than usual, and ended up on this piers where Bubby’s been trying to have a laugh at some poor fish’s expense.

Bubby made fun of him for third wheeling again, despite Benrey also being right there, and despite Coomer not even being there. 

“Did you guys have a fight or something?” Gordon asked, because maybe he can be a little bit spiteful. He’s allowed. 

“No,” Bubby grumbled. “Harold impressed Gregory with his punching power, so he’s invited to the Punching Tournament. I don’t like being in water for a long time so I stayed. Their sandwich’s not even good.” 

Gregory turned out to be the giant squid that lives a few kilometers off the shore, and another few kilometers under the sea level.

“I’m gonna issue an a-word ban, actually,” Gordon declares, when he comes back to where Bubby’s sitting on his journey to wear a track into the piers. “I think that’s more conducive to real conversations.” 

He’s being distracted, he knows. And maybe he’s letting himself be a bit distracted, so he can have a minute to improvise a script. Benrey just fast traveled him here, he did not prepare any materials, he doesn’t even have his notebook with him. That’s where all of his plans are! And his doodles. Mostly his doodles, but that’s a part of his thinking process, so he’s allowed. 

“Alright, Mister Fucking-Insane-Person,” Bubby shrugs.

“Doctor.”

“Oh, my bad! Doctor Fucking-Insane-Person.”

“Also that’s a ban dodge and you know it. Also you still don’t have any rights to call me anything! I refuse to submit in this matter.”

Bubby turns around fully to put his hand on crossed legs and stare at Gordon. “You sure, Gordon? Are you very sure about that, when you warp out of thin air to where I am missing my husband very much and not torturing fishes for fun, saying things about blowing Xen up ? Is that not ragingly absurd, Doctor ?” 

Gordon takes another deep breath. For his own benefit. For his own wellbeing. “Okay, one, Benrey warped me here, I was not responsible for that. Two, you’re trying to set fishes on fire, and your husband is punching more fishes while a giant squid cheers him on, probably. And three, which part of blowing Xen up is absurd, now? Feel free to elaborate on it. I’m all ears.”

“The very idea of it!” Bubby exclaims, accidentally shoving his fishing rod off the optimal position, chasing away the few fishes not shunned by his radiating malicious intent yet. “Who even thinks of that?”

“Me,” Gordon snaps back, “and you guys kinda ruined what ‘absurd’ even means at all for me, so don’t try me at it.”

Bubby shuts his mouth with a click, but his brows are still furrowed in the exact way that claims, loudly even if soundlessly, that he thinks that’s stupid.

“No, go on, Doctor Bubby,” Gordon presses. “You’ve got the quiz. Try your hand at it again, go ahead.”

“Alright, then, how are we even doing it? If we’re doing it. And there’s no we yet, mind you.” 

“I- okay.” Gordon holds his hands up. “I’ll admit I do not have the specifics yet. But logistically at least, it’s entirely possible. We’ll need,” he calculates a number real quick, “thirteen hundred pounds of column charge slurry, but if we have something high corrosive we can wrap up safely until detonation we’ll need even less. We can. Make that much. If we have Darnold’s help. We need access to Xen itself, which Tommy has the biggest chance to get. We’ll need to put the explosives deeper into the ground than surface level, so we’ll need to dig some holes, but with Doctor Coomer’s strength we can take care of that. And then we’ll need to trip it, and that might pose a problem in Xen’s climate, but we can manage a chemical fuse, or. Y’know. Just burn it hot enough to explode, which.” 

He ends that speech with a vague and a bit jerky wave of his hand towards Bubby. 

Bubby just blinks. “Huh.” 

Benrey snickers under his breath, either at a fish or at Bubby’s reaction, Gordon doesn’t know. He wouldn’t even be able to guess, since Benrey still has his back to the entire commotion.

Gordon catches himself holding his breath, so he consciously exhales slowly. It’s okay. It’s whatever. He has twelve years. He can take some detours if necessary. He can forget, even. Maybe.

“That Doctorate turns out to be for something, huh,” Bubby continues. “That does sound pretty plausible, afterall.”

“Huh,” Gordon’s turn to blink. “Wait, that’s it? You’re in now?” 

“Yeah, sure,” Bubby swings his arm out, “even though I’d like to be testy for a while longer, I also want to blow things up. Outside is very large, but it severely lacks opportunities to see things explode, so I’ll have to make it happen myself now.” 

That’s a tiny bit worrying, but Gordon’ll take it. He’s used to Bubby being a tiny bit worrying anyway. Wouldn’t be Bubby without it. 

“Now shoo,” Bubby turns around to fiddle with his fishing rod again, carefully moving it back to the optimal position, “you chased all the fishes off. Gonna have to start my work from the beginning now. It’s hard work tricking fishes, you know.” 

“Don’t tell Coomer,” Gordon warns, “I want to let him know myself.” 

“Sure, sure.” 

“I’m serious.”

“Aren’t you ever.” 

Gordon figures he’s done all he can on that front. 

Benrey catches up with him when he’s walked away dramatically for a few minutes and is now at the main street of the town. “Rudeman.”

Gordon did forget him at the piers, so that’s on him. “Sorry, but also, do you have a plan to get us home, or what? ‘Cause I don’t have my car and I’m not hitching a random ride if I can help it.” 

“Gotta... find a GameStop first. Score some Sports Champions 2 for the. PS3.” 

“Alright.” Gordon nods. “Wait, do you need a GameStop to transport us? Is that a thing?”

“Huh,” Benrey just looks at him, and then pulls out his brick phone.

Gordon rolls his eyes, but then catches a glimpse of the screen, and sees the digital clock. “It’s- fuck, it’s almost five! Joshua’s almost home.”

“Oh look, no GameStop on the… roadside. What’re we gonna do.”

“Benrey, you- goddamnit,” Gordon frantically pulls his phone out of his pocket. He tries to yank his right arm out of Benrey’s hold to hold it steady, but Benrey doesn’t yield. “Fucking, let me,” he unlocks it and finds Joshua’s number, which is on top, because he added ‘01’ before his name, because he’s had plenty of experiences with arranging files so they don’t disappear on him, “c’mon, c’mon… Hey Joshie! Are you at school right now?” 

“Hi Dad, yes,” Joshua answers, at the same time Gordon registers that he’s walking, Benrey pulling on his arm. 

“Sorry I called in the middle of class, buddy, but we’re gonna. I’m gonna be a bit late home, okay? I’m outside right now, but I’m on my way- oh, no, we.”

They’re in his living room. Gordon puts his arm, just released, on top of the couch. This is his couch. The bowl of cereal he finished right before Benrey dragged him out’s still on the table. The PS3 lays silent in the TV cabinet, as it’s always been. He does go around the table to put his free hand on all of these things just to be sure. 

“Dad?” Joshua asks from the other end of the line. “Are you okay?”

“I.” Gordon dry swallows. “No, yeah I- I got home. Me and Benrey were out for a bit and we got? Lost? But we found our way back, and I’m. I’m home now. I was really worried I wouldn’t make it back in time to open the door for you, so I called! But I’m home now.”

“That’s good!” Joshua says, even though Gordon can still hear worry in his voice. Sweet kid, his boy is. “Thank you for telling me in ad-advance.” 

“I’m sorry I interrupted your class. Dad’ll be more careful next time.” 

“It’s okay. What are we having tonight?” 

Gordon takes a deep breath, holds it in for a moment, and then breathes it out, slowly. “We can have mac and cheese again, or we can try our hand at naan and make some soup to go with it,” he says, willing his voice to calm down. “We still have the yeast Ms. Juney gave us last month, right? We can go get bread flour when you’re home.”

“Okay.”

“Go back to class, buddy. See you soon, yeah?”

“Yeah. Can we have chowder tonight too?” 

Gordon laughs. “We’ll look into it, but sure! If we can find the ingredients for it. Alright, bye now. Love you, honey.”

“Okay,” Joshua says again, and when Gordon’s about to move the phone from his ear, he adds, “Love you too, Dad.” And then he hangs up. 

Gordon goes to the couch and sits down. He’s maybe cradling his phone a bit. It’s still warm from him gripping on it way too hard. Deep breath in, deep breath out. 

“That went well, huh,” Benrey says, from the hallway. Gordon looks up to see him closing the door behind him, what looks like a copy of Sports Champions 2 for the PS3 in hand. 

Gordon laughs, again, for real this time. “That’s- where'd you even get that?

---

They did make naan, or a version of it. Joshua likes messing with flour, Gordon caught him walking his fingers through the bowl, leaving tiny “footprints”. They couldn’t agree on a fish to put in the chowder, so they shelved that plan and bought some canned beef-and-vegetables soup instead. The naan turned out… fine. They tasted enough like naan, and Gordon only burned like two. Which was maybe thanks to the apartment’s stove top burning a bit less hot than it did the last time they used it; Gordon made a mental note to check on the gas or. Whatever one does. When that happened. He just needed to look up a number, call it, and stand next to the (hopefully) professional who would come while they did their work. 

Benrey sat at the couch while the Freemans cooked and ate their dinner, either being on his phone or scrolling idly through the PS3’s library. Joshua asked if he could try and throw naan pieces into Benrey’s mouth from the kitchen table, which Gordon allowed, but with the preset limit of only three pieces, and the condition that he picked up the ones that missed himself. He then asked Benrey very politely if he could open his mouth to catch the bread, and then made a lot of mental calculations before throwing each piece. The first one missed, but the other two were snatched up by Benrey in a somewhat shark-like display, which Joshua clapped excitedly for. 

Gordon heard Benrey come to the kitchen table, which Joshua was wiping off with the designated kitchen rag (the fourth one this month alone; it feels like someone’s eating them as they’re replaced sometimes), while he was cleaning the dishes. “Hey lil’ gamer dude,” Benrey said, and Gordon could hear him rustle around in a pocket of his puffy vest. “Scored big in the. Minigame.”

“Thank you,” Joshua replied politely. 

“Here’s your price,” Benrey said. Gordon assumed Joshua was holding out his hands to receive whatever Benrey gave him, because he couldn’t hear any noise that thing made, just Joshua’s little excited gasp. 

“It’s like the... Intarna-Internation… nal… Space Station!” 

“Huh,” Gordon could hear Benrey blink, “that’s what it is…” 

“Yeah! These are, here, they’re solar panels! They charge the batteries in here.” 

“Nice.” 

“Thank you Benrey!” 

“Yeah, GG.” And then Benrey shuffled back to the couch, if Gordon interpreted the noises correctly. 

Joshua held onto the price trinket until he asked Gordon to put it in the tool cabinet, along with the cake moulds and decoration kit courtesy of Gordon’s hectic MIT years. It was… Gordon could see why Joshua thought that was where it should go. It could be considered a cookie cutter, if the shape weren’t kinda suboptimal for a cookie. It also did look like the ISS, with wings and all. 

Nobody in this household’s baked anything sweet in this apartment for at least a year, but. Well. Never say no to free, reusable stuff.

  Gordon’s phone vibrates when he’s just sat down at the kitchen table again, a mug of garbage instant coffee in hand. He abandons it to go get his phone from where it’s charging on the living room table.

It’s Coomer. “It’s Coomer,” Gordon says out loud. “That’s weird- he’s. He doesn’t call.” 

“He’s calling. Now.” Benrey says from where he’s sitting, on the couch. Gordon takes a deep breath and doesn’t deign it worth a rebuttal. He accepts the call instead.

“Hello Gordon! I heard you want to blow Xen up.” 

Gordon pinches the bridge of his nose. “Bubby told you.” 

“He did! In great details!”

“I- alright, whatever, I didn’t expect actual results with that one anyway.” Gordon remembers about his coffee. He comes back to where it’s waiting for him on the kitchen table, and takes himself a generous sip, letting it burn his mouth. “Fuck!” He sets the cup down maybe a bit forcefully. “Oh that’s a bad decision. What did- what did he tell you?” 

Coomer takes a moment to gather his thoughts, leaving a blank minute where sounds of the wind and waves on the shore come through his mic. Gordon hopes he isn’t thinking about sleeping out there tonight, for the full nature flavor or whatever. “ A large part of his speech was about explosion! And how big and grand it would be. And also about how much he fucking hates Xen!” 

“Glad we agree on that front,” Gordon mumbles. 

“So am I! I also fucking hate Xen!” 

“That’s. That’s fair, really, it’s a garbage place. But- did he, like. Have you heard anything about the actual plan? Did he tell you anything about the actual plan I definitely mentioned to him?”

Coomer pauses for another moment, probably to recall. “Nope! Not a word about a plan-”

“I fucking knew it,” Gordon mumbles.

 “-though that is very thorough of you, Gordon!”

"Okay, listen,” Gordon picks his mug of coffee up and starts pacing. “I actually don’t… have all of it yet. I know me and Benrey are in,” he flicks his gaze to Benrey again, who does nothing to deny the statement, “and Bubby’s now in as well. I still need to- okay, the plan’s basically that we find or make enough explosive for the ten asteroids on Xen, we bury it at the core of said asteroids, and we blow that up so it blows Xen up. I have- I don’t know the specifics of how to make that much explosive yet, but I’ll convince Darnold somehow, and if he sits this one out then we’ll borrow his lab when he’s not using it. And I’ll ask Tommy about a way back to Xen, his. His dad’s done that plenty. He doesn’t seem to like Xen much, right? That’s the impression I got, so we can spin this into us doing him a favor or something. And then we transport the explosive to Xen, I can borrow a truck for that, I know someone, and then we dig into the ground there, that’s where we can really use your superstrength, and then we put the explosive in and. Set it on fire. Bubby, uh, agreed to take care of that.” 

Another beat of silence follows Gordon’s speech. He seems to have been making that one a lot recently, mostly to himself, in his room, while writing things down in his notebook. He finds himself chewing on his own lip, so he makes himself stop and takes another gulp of the coffee, which has thankfully cooled down to gulp-appropriate temperature.

When Coomer speaks again, he seems to have chosen his words carefully. “I will need to ‘sleep’ on this, Gordon. You are right in your assessment that you do not have your plan together yet!”

Gordon takes a deep breath. “It’s okay,” he says, as much to Coomer as to himself. “It’s true. It’s half-thought up right now. I still need to figure out- figure out Darnold and Tommy and Mr. Coolatta. I, yeah,” his voice’s dropped to a mumble by now, “I think I need to sleep on it too.” 

“Gordon.” The rustles that accompany Coomer’s voice gives the impression that he’s sitting down onto the pebble-littered beach as he speaks. “I would like to see Xen obliterated, and I think we can get it done.”

“That’s,” Gordon stops on his pacing in the kitchen, “That’s not. It’s okay if you’re not interested, Coomer. You don’t have to walk it back on me.”

“Please do not question my fucking hatred for Xen, Gordon.”

“O-okay.”

“But I am not in favor of hazy dreams anymore. I have gotten to see a lot during my ‘honeymoon’, and now I have broken free, and mere words on a script cannot placate me. I would like to see proof that it’s possible before I participate.” 

Gordon takes a deep breath. “Okay.”

“I believe you can do it, Gordon!”

“Thank you,” Gordon says, a little bit dazed, while Bubby’s voice comes through from a distance at the same time, “Are you reciting poetry again?” 

“In what distant deeps or skies, burnt the fire of thine eyes?” Coomer answers. “On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand, dare seize the fire?”

“Stop praising that tiger while I’m right here!” 

“I’ll,” Gordon says before Coomer can get fully caught up in Bubby’s antics again, “I’ll come back to you with. The details. When I’ve hashed it out. Thanks for,” he exhales, “thanks for holding out for me, Coomer.” 

“So it is, Gordon, so it will be!” 

Coomer hangs up there, and Gordon sits down at the kitchen table again. He finishes the mug of coffee in one long gulp. It’s gone a little bit more room-temperature than he likes. 

“Sleep on it,” he mumbles, “good advice.” 

“You should. Do that.” Benrey says from the couch. “Sleep good for body for soul.” 

“You know what, when you’re right,” Gordon says, and stands up and goes brush his teeth. He then sits down at his work table and writes down questions until four in the morning.

---

Gordon used to suck at making phone calls. He’s kind of a champion at it now.

Funny thing is there’s an epiphany to it as well: he didn’t grow up with cell phones, so making phone calls was a hierarchical thing for him until he was like. Twenty years old. Kids used the landline when absolutely necessary only, and adults used it whenever they damn well pleased, because they paid for it and they had businesses to take care of . And Gordon was… not much of a rule breaker, surprisingly enough. Oh he fell short of where rules lay plenty, but he didn’t really intentionally break them. So he took calls when his parents said he could and when he absolutely needed to, and that habit persisted well into his adulthood. 

He might also just be not very good at holding his tongue when speaking and. That was no good for phone calls. Kiddies phone calls. ‘cause he just realized one day that adults said whatever the fuck they wanted on the phone really, and nobody chastised them for it, no divine punishment, no sudden death round. 

A sermon on self-love, that was; Gordon just takes phone calls now. Worst case scenario, he just turns his brain off and lets his mouth do its work. When people don’t presume they know better than him, they don’t presume he’s talking out of his ass ninety percent of the time. 

That’s- that’s what he thought. Gordon’s wrong, a little bit. He can be wrong. Has been wrong plenty before. He can correct himself, here, he’s gonna do it right now: worst case scenario, he has to recite his plan, conceived so far in total isolation from anyone he knows and whose opinions he cares about, to the person who’s the most skittish and averse to what his plan is bringing about among those people, over the phone, where he can’t see and gauge body language and facial expressions. 

Gordon would… like to meet Darnold face to face for this. But. It’s work. It’s, well, it’s closer to work than to play, given that he’s gotten mildly stressed out over it, and their lunch at the only Taco Bell in the whole desert is strictly pleasant, not-work talk only. And Gordon really, really enjoys those lunch dates, because he never has to think about damage control or having an identity crisis in the middle of one. They’re just nice, normal, a tiny bit shouty (the Taco Bell is usually packed and the acoustic’s not good, but it’s a Taco Bell, and it’s a ritual now), mostly jovial, lunch with a friend, eating subpar food he’s learned to enjoy. They don’t talk about what happened at Black Mesa, they don’t talk about work in general, they don’t even talk about soda outside of appraising the gaudy color combinations for any new sponsored drink. They talk about Joshua, about Darnold’s cat Lumbar Support, about Coomer and Bubby’s travelling, about new game releases, about Sega vs. Nintendo, about the weather. 

Gordon doesn’t want to fall short of where the rules lie, not this time. So he calls. 

“Doctor Freeman?” Darnold answers with the title, which sets the tone pretty well. Gordon takes a deep breath and steels himself. 

“Doctor Pepper.” He pauses. “Darnold. Hey. I, uh, I’ve got a thing I wanna ask.” 

“Go ahead!” Darnold goes quiet for a moment, to finish his sandwich, Gordon’d guess. He’s called in the middle of Darnold’s lunch break. “I must preface however that we’re working outside of office hours, and I can only advise you at the moment. Anything further will have to go through the… official channels.”

“Okay, that’s alright. I just.” Gordon worries his lips. He realizes he’s tugging pretty hard on his left sleeve; he makes himself let go. “I have a. Plan. That’ll need your expertise.” 

“I’d be delighted to help then! Feel free to share more.” 

“It’s about, uh.” Gordon takes another deep breath. He’s been consuming a lot of oxygen recently. “IwanttoblowXenup?”

Darnold goes, predictably, quiet for a moment. It doesn’t sting less when it’s predictable.

When he speaks again, it’s in a clipped, professional-but-barely tone. “Please say that again, but slowly.”

Gordon closes his eyes against the sunlight streaming in from the window in his bedroom. “I want to. Blow Xen up.” 

“Gordon,” Darnold sighs. “Doctor Freeman.” 

“I know.”

“Your megalomaniacal tendencies have grown since we last met.”

“It’s not- I’m not doing it for fun!” Gordon throws his free arm up. “Okay, this is genuinely a lot of effort and stress for something I’d do for pleasure, Darnold. I also couldn’t care less about fucking Xen - okay that’s not true, I’ve lost like a week of sleep over blowing it up, that’s not not caring, but like. I can’t. I need it to not be there,” he stands up from his bed and starts pacing, “and I have. A plan. Half of one. About that much. So it’s not hopeless-”

“Gordon, please slow down.”

“-as long as I have your help and- and Tommy’s, okay, I will. uh.” He taps on his thigh with his free hand too, for good measure. Go the whole nine yard with fidgeting, why not. “I. So, Joshua wants to be an astronaut,” he intones, and for the first time in a while he’s reminded again of how this started, how it took over his life for a hot minute, and it almost gives him the hiccups, “and. Y’know. Xen is in space. So it needs to not be there anymore. So I want to. Blow it up.” 

Darnold goes silent again. Gordon thinks he can hear the epiphany punch the air out of him. Fuck, he hates phone calls. 

“As much as I want to berate you about how you’re treating this matter and yourself,” Darnold resumes primly after a moment, “my lunch break is ending in exactly fifty-two seconds, and this sandwich will take me another two bites to get through. I’ll see you in the Taco Bell’s parking lot at three AM this afternoon, Gordon. Drink water.”

He hangs up. Gordon goes drink water.

Benrey clips into the apartment when Gordon’s on his third mug of iced water. “Whoa, hydration streak,” he says, settling himself on the kitchen table. 

“I can go a bit crazy,” Gordon mumbles. “I’m allowed a little bit of funk and insanity. This is my house.” 

“It’s… actually. MFA’s.” 

Gordon groans. “Don’t fucking remind me. I tried to forget that. Also it actually belongs to the NRC, since they apparently can just scare MFA into giving employees housing, which I’m really fucking horrified by, but I’m choosing to not think about it, and you can’t make me.” 

“It can be mine soon.”

“Do not attack and dethrone Nils Diaz.”

Benrey huffs. “Killjoy Freeman.” He shifts his pose so he’s sitting up straighter. “You wanna… try out Premium Water? Free trial for a week, you can manually cancel your. Subscription. After.” 

Gordon stares at him. “What’s Premium Water.” 

Benrey opens his jaws, wide, showing his teeth. He points inside as if there’s anything Gordon wants to find at all in there at the moment. Then he closes it with a click and stares back at Gordon. 

Gordon just sighs. “No, Benrey.” 

“Guaranteed beddy bye time, no charge,” Benrey blinks at him. “Black Mesa Sweet Voice™ a hundred percent effective. Five stars… satisfaction… rating.” 

“You’re fucking lying, because I’d never leave it five stars. You get three at best.” 

“Gonna catch you when you fall off the. Chair. Gonna be romantic.”

Gordon laughs. “No, not allowed.” He sighs and finishes the mug of water like it’s mead and he’s some Dungeons and Dragons elven ranger. He gives himself brain freeze. “Ah, fuck, oof,” he slaps his own forehead, “bad decision. Bad decision. Okay, I. I appreciate you asking instead of just going for it, but that’s the reality of asking, right? The person you ask can say no. And you’ve just gotta learn how to deal with it.”

Benrey just keeps staring at him, but he’s used to that now. It’s only a tiny bit unnerving. “How’s learning’s... satisfaction rate.”

Gordon sighs again. “It sucks ass. Fucking hate learning.” 

Benrey grins at him, and then he checks his phone and it’s already time to go.

“Drink this,” Darnold says immediately when Gordon climbs into the shotgun seat of his car, and holds out a beaker of bubbling purple liquid. 

Gordon just stares at it. “Darnold, what is this.” 

Darnold sighs. “It’s the Potion of Not Telling. I also drank a sample before coming here,” he holds up an empty beaker with some of the same purple liquid at the bottom. “It blows us up if we tell our employers what we’re up to.” 

Gordon ponders this very carefully. “Does. Tommy, for example. Does he count as my ‘employer’?” 

“No,” Darnold says. “‘Employers’ only cover people and/or establishments you’re currently under an employee contract with and receiving salary from.” 

“Alright,” Gordon intones carefully, and downs the whole beaker. It tastes like… the jello packaged like seahorses Tommy brings over sometimes. The red ones, specifically. It makes him feel a bit bloated, immediately, and he rubs his side a bit anxiously when he sits down in the car. “You’re actually under NDAs at all times, huh,” he says, as an opening line.

“Same as you, Gordon.” Darnold takes the beaker back from Gordon’s hand and puts it in with the other one. “Black Mesa seeked me out and offered to find me a position in a brewery, as well as fund any of my independent ventures, as long as I do not say a word about what… transpired… back there. The official record’s that I was stranded on an island with curious dino-esque creatures for four years, instead of worked in Black Mesa’s mixology department, and honed my craft with their help, using the fruits native to that island.”

Gordon laughs, and rubs his face with the prosthetic hand. It’s like putting your face on the car’s dashboard. “Sounds like them alright. At least yours sounds exciting, instead of fucking insane. They said I was ‘chasing an entropy in the desert’ and it ‘ate my hand’. What the fuck does that even mean?”

“We attempted feats of miracle, only it was not under their accountability,” Darnold says, “and we were punished for it. No matter, we have more important things at hand. What is this plan you’ve cooked up, Gordon?”

Gordon takes a deep breath, finding it easier than it’s been for a while, and relays what he’s got down of the blow-Xen-up plan to Darnold. They never look at each other meanwhile, both staring at the cars lined up haphazardly in the lane across from them, Gordon in a barren calmness as words leave his mouth, Darnold with his arms crossed in front of his chest, his whole presence compacted into a contemplative, silent piece. 

“That is an intense reaction to a faraway threat, Gordon,” Darnold says when Gordon’s speech is over. “Xen is not only at least a galaxy away, but also a few dimensions over, if I understand the briefing right. I haven’t thought about that wretched place for almost a year.”

“Sorry,” Gordon says, not really feeling any of it, but making the effort. 

“You don’t have to. I understand where you’re coming from.” Darnold taps idly on his own arm. “I was… extracted… swiftly from Black Mesa after I met you and your friends. I did not witness what happened after, but I saw… enough.” He takes a deep breath as well. “We can all have intense reactions to anything.” 

“Doesn’t mean it’s not maladaptive,” Gordon says. He’s gone to therapy. It was really good for helping him build a system that filters out the things that actually fucks him up and makes some sense of the rest, but it doesn’t lift him out of the comedy of his life itself. It can’t. That’s not what therapy’s for. 

“Indeed,” Darnold says. “But I can’t be the judge of that. My domain lies with potion mixing, and I dare say I am a true expert at it, but I can’t claim expertise at other people’s life. Especially not yours.”

“I get it,” Gordon nods. The world kinda bobs a tiny bit when he does that. “I. Know not to indulge my impulse mostly. But sometimes decisions come back to haunt me, and those are usually just about choosing one furniture over another, or tying my shoelaces in the bunny ears way instead of the circle way and having them undone in the middle of a meeting and stepping on them and falling on my face, but this time it’s. It’s Joshua’s life. And there’s just no limit anymore to what can happen, not since.” He swallows. “Black Mesa.” 

Darnold nods. 

Gordon blinks. “I know it’s a little bit crazy.” 

“It might be,” Darnold says, “but as a famous mixologist once said: nothing ventured, nothing gained. Even if that gain is just your peace of mind.” 

Gordon lets out the breath he isn’t even aware he’s been holding. “Thank you.” 

“You do not need to,” Darnold smiles, “I do stand to gain from this as well, since I really need to test this flavouring that’s supposed to land on pleasantly tart on the taste scale but goes into intestine-destroyingly sour territory instead. I need to know what makes it that corrosive, and testing on humans is entirely unethical.” 

---

Gordon got home before Joshua. Benrey’s also not home. He lays down on the couch and takes a nap. 

He wakes to a quilt over most of him, light turned on in the living room and in the kitchen, and silent chatter. His sense of smell kicks in a minute or so into him still laying on the couch, blinking up at the ceiling; he smells fish sauce and sugar cooking. 

“Tommy’s over,” he mumbles. 

“He awakes,” Benrey says, seemingly into thin air. Gordon feels the couch shift minutely as Benrey makes to stand up from where he’s sitting leaning back on it. “Good eatin’. I’ll go get the. Food. Coloring.” 

When Gordon’s gathered enough of himself to sit up, Benrey’s nowhere to be seen. Tommy’s shifting something animatedly on the stove, while Joshua carefully carries one bowl at a time to the kitchen table. 

“Hey Dad!” Joshua says when he catches Gordon’s eyes. He puts the bowl he’s carrying down to free his hand for waving. Gordon waves back. 

“Hey Joshie, hey Tommy. What’re you guys making?” 

“Caramelized pork b-belly!” Tommy says from his stove station. “And... sautéed vegetable medley.” 

“With rice!” Joshua adds.

“A perfectly balanced meal.” 

“I picked the vege-ta-bles!” 

Gordon folds the quilt to busy his hands. This one’s definitely not his. He may have one somewhere in the closet, but it hasn’t made an appearance in… six months. He thinks. “What did you get for us, buddy?” 

“Carrot!” Joshua holds up a finger. “It has a lot of vita- vitamin… A.” 

“Awesome,” Gordon says and goes over to the kitchen table to high five Joshua. “What else did you choose?” 

“String beans!” 

“Oh?” Joshua hasn’t been much for that. 

“Uncle Tommy’s gonna teach me how to eat them!” 

“A dash of- of flavour, packed in one Kn●rr’s Complete Seasoning packet, is all you’ll need!” Tommy switches to a lower voice when Gordon peers over his shoulder at the pan on the stove. “That is not true. Kn●rr is only… fit to be- be on the floor.” 

“Are- you’re not putting that in then?” 

“No, I just use salt and pepper.” 

Joshua giggles. Tommy extends a hand that Joshua can slap on in place of a high five. 

Gordon gets out the utensils - spoon for Joshua, chopsticks for him and Tommy - and brings the rice cooker to the table once the light’s jumped to orange. He plates the pork, scooping Joshua’s helping into his personal plate first, while Tommy finishes with the vegetables. Tommy lets Joshua choose which vegetables to go on his plate; Joshua bravely gets a little bit of everything. 

They eat dinner on top of companionable conversation, Gordon and Tommy taking turns asking Joshua about school and other things. 

“I heard you want to- to be an astronaut,” Tommy asks. Joshua dutifully finishes his mouthful before answering. 

“Yes! I want to go to space!”

“Do you want to meet- aliens?”

“Yeah!” Joshua’s excitement cools down a little bit as he scoops up another spoonful of rice with a piece of string bean carefully balanced on top. “I read the Wiki-pea-dia about it though. They say there’s no dis-discernable e-vidence of aliens yet. We sent the Voyager Golden Records an’ they haven’t… answered yet.” 

“That’s how p-physical mails are,” Tommy smiles while getting himself a piece of the caramelized pork. “It used to take… weeks... before we hear from our friends who are far away. And the- the universe doesn’t have a… an Everywhere Wifi Network yet.” 

Joshua shares a conspiratory look with Gordon and mouths not yet . Gordon laughs. Gordon’s clutching his bowl maybe a bit too tight. 

“You can become an astronaut and- meet aliens. In space,” Tommy waves his chopsticks with a flourish. 

“I’ll teach them what- what e-mails are!” 

“It’ll take a- a lot of hard work, and you have to be able to eat string beans.” Tommy takes an exaggerated look at Joshua’s plate, now cleaned of food. “Oh! Would you l-look at that! Mister Joshua Freeman is… perfect astronaut materials, according to… the NASA guidelines.” 

Joshua beams with a pride that knocks something loose in Gordon’s chest. 

They finish dinner and clean up together, then Gordon sends Joshua back to his room to do his homework, agreeing to an hour of video game after if he can get it done before nine. Gordon cleans the dishes while Tommy puts the kettle on and makes them both hot chocolate. 

“I bought some-something for Joshua today,” Tommy prompts. Gordon looks back to see him hold up the exact same cookie-cutter-thing Benrey gave Joshua the other day. 

“Oh- oh my god.” Gordon laughs. “Holy shit?” 

“Wh-what’s the matter, Gordon?”

“Do you guys have like a hivemind or something?” Gordon pulls off a glove to open the tool cabinet and pull Benrey’s gift out. “Benrey gave Joshua this. I don’t even- what’re these supposed to be? Where d’you guys even get them from?” 

“It’s the- International Space Station Biscuit Cutter!” Tommy puffs out his chest, slightly indignant, but definitely bemused as well. “They’re issued by- NASA, cut from the s-scrap metal of the hulls of… prototype spaceships. They’re very rare!”

Gordon stares at the one in his hand. “And now we have two of them.” 

“They’re… very valuable! You can sell them for a high price.” 

Gordon smiles. He puts Benrey’s apparently rare and expensive gift back into the tool cabinet and puts the glove back on. “You’ve gotta ask Joshua about that. It’s for him, afterall.” 

They fall into a comfortable silence, crumbled into grains only by the click-clack of dishes in the sink and the water running from the faucet. Gordon weaves himself into a solid piece of nerve, bracing, bracing. 

Tommy’s… better acquainted with the crazies of these things than most, maybe. He’s apparently said “fuck it” to the administrative work that his dad would’ve liked to hand back to him at one point, and just. Got a PhD in nuclear physics instead. Gordon’s been through something like that, and from experience he can tell that it would’ve taken real nerve to do it. He also can tell that no matter what it still rubs off on you, and you don’t recover from that kinda consistent exposure to idiosyncrasies, because you don’t ever feel like there’s anything to recover from , really. It’s just how it is, and the world’s off-kilter, not you. Like Benrey, Tommy’s world runs on a different axis, and he and the rest of them are, in many ways, looking both through strange eyes. 

Gordon’s a little bit jealous of that. He’s honestly not sure if he can ever fully get Tommy, but then. Plenty of people never get him, and here he is. He can learn to wear it as well as Tommy, one day. 

Right now though. Tommy’s important to the plan. Gordon knows that, in a theoretical way. Ha, theoretical… 

“I would like to not be insane,” Gordon says, more to himself, at the same time as Tommy setting his cup of hot chocolate down and saying, “Benrey… told me.” 

“Oh… I. That’s? Good?” 

“Wha- you’re not insane , Gordon!” Tommy waves his hand. Gordon can hear it, even if he can’t see it. “You’re… creative.” 

“Thanks Tommy,” Gordon says with a huff of laughter that he doesn’t think reaches Tommy at all. “I. I get it though. I got Bubby to turn around on it, but everyone else did say that it’s a little bit fucked up that I thought of doing that at all.” 

“But they… agreed on helping you anyway.” 

Gordon taps on the metal wall of the sink. “That’s… yeah. Well, other than Coomer.” 

“Doctor Coomer doesn’t think you’re crazy,” Tommy protests. “He just has... boundaries.” 

“That’s fair. He’s allowed that. He more than deserves that.” Gordon blinks. “Wait- why am I arguing down on my side? I need you to be on board for the plan to work.” He laughs, bowing down over the sink. He’s shaking a little bit. “Wow. I’m a little bit gone. Can I be a little bit gone?” 

“You’re… totally allowed, Gordon” He feels Tommy tug on his elbow. With a deep breath, he lets go of where he’s gripping on the edge of the sink with white knuckles, and lets Tommy lead him to the kitchen table. He dutifully sits himself down on a chair, lets Tommy take off the gloves, and holds the cup of hot chocolate Tommy pushes into his hands carefully. “It’s your house.” 

“It’s MFA’s.” 

“It’s yours,” Tommy says, determinedly, and Gordon takes a deep breath and sidesteps every implications that has. “You can have your fears, and… and your plans, and your hopes. For Joshua. It’s your place, Gordon.” 

Gordon takes a shaky sip of the hot chocolate. Tommy puts on the gloves and finishes washing the dishes for him. 

“Sorry,” Gordon says, mostly aiming at the dishes thing, but. He also just kinda wants to put that out there. 

“There’s nothing to be… be sorry for,” Tommy replies, amidst the noises of the dishes and the water running. 

Tommy talks while Gordon drinks his hot chocolate; in the end, whether he wants to or not, he’s accepted a bit of the job the Gman holds. Gordon knows this, that’s how Tommy vouched for and kept the Science Team from a much worse fate than relative freedom except for a story no sane man’d believe anyway. Mister Coolatta Senior seemed to be impressed by the choice, aside from all the worries that come with it. 

“He’s… he’s proud of me,” Tommy says, softly. “I know he only wants what’s best for me.” 

“He’s been awfully accommodating,” Gordon says, remembering about the movie night they had after Tommy’s birthday bash last year. That man pulled a gun on him. As if he’d walk out on Tommy, if Tommy’d asked for him to stay around. 

“He… doesn’t involve me… with his problems,” Tommy says. “Some parents do that.” 

Gordon can’t find anything to say to that, so he finishes his hot chocolate. 

“I got a vote when they brought Xen up the-the other day,” Tommy says, when the dishes have all been cleaned and put on the rack to dry. He pulls out the chair next to Gordon and picks up his cup of hot chocolate. It’s still steaming, somehow. “I-they were thinking it was- it’s too risky to leave a bridging point open like that. They want to… demolish it.” 

Gordon chuckles, and then it becomes a full body laugh, and then he’s curling up on himself, the empty cup between his hands. He shouldn’t clutch it like this, it might break. He’s broken the handle off of a mug before, when one of his old prosthetic wasn’t calibrated perfectly. He can’t stop laughing though. Not enough to let go of the cup now. 

“Holy shit,” he wheezes. “holy motherfucking shit. We’re doing it. We’re doing it? Xen’s fucking going down.” 

“It sure is!” Tommy says, and claps a polite golf clap for Gordon’s victory.

---

Gordon does have shit he needs to do for the online classes he teaches, but outside of it he’s still way too idle. He and Joshua go to the aquarium and the museum whenever the schedule works out, and once in a while they drive by Roswell to catch a plane taking off into the sky, and he does grocery runs and tries to clean around the house and do laundry on a timetable, and there’s always the PS3 Benrey dragged back that’s now public good, as well as his probably too long Steam list, but. Gordon’s shit at talking himself into and out of doing things. Sometimes it just doesn’t feel right to start doing something, so there’s a black hole of time between him thinking “I should get to this” and him actually doing it. And Joshua’s life isn’t just him; his son’s going to school now, and he’s made friends at school, and he talks to them on the phone and goes hang out with them on weekend afternoons.

Gordon’s not as good at holding onto time anymore, now that things’ve. Changed. 

So figuring the explosives out’s been good for him. It’s just what he does back in uni again, except without a supervisor, without having to write anything down properly (just legibly’s enough), and without peer review. It’s mostly math, but with the spirit of two middle schoolers stealing sodium crumbs from the school lab to throw into puddles. It’s closer to play than he expected. Closer than playing Horse Simulator 3D on the PS3. 

He and Darnold spend the day building the corrosion rate equation, pouring Darnold’s concoction on rocks Gordon figures have the same make-up as the ground on Xen. Benrey doesn’t bring the venture up often, but every other day Gordon finds clumps of dirt and random rocks that weigh suspiciously little for their size in his glove compartment. He brings those in for the pour test as well, and they build a simulation based on them. 

Balancing the corrosion with the heat’s a bit tricky; Gordon needs to know how hot Bubby’s ignition can go, since their number’s high. He was about to shoot Bubby a call when Coomer’s latest photo arrived. Gordon recognized the street in it. 

They put the project on hold for an afternoon so Tommy and Darnold can have the lab to decontaminate Coomer and Bubby. Gordon spends that afternoon getting the air fryer he ordered last week out of the box while Benrey reads the manual out loud wrongly. He calls Joshua to let him know they’re having guests over that evening, thankfully in the middle of the school recess this time. Gordon tries to remember Joshua’s exact timetable at school, he really does. It’s just not fruitful a task.

When Joshua arrives home, Gordon’s in the middle of arguing with Bubby over how much water’s left in air fried food. “Hey Granpa! Hey Bubby!” Joshua waves at Coomer and Bubby, “hey Uncle Tommy! Hey Doctor Darnold! Hey Benrey! Hey Dad!” 

Gordon steals the chance to close the air fryer while Bubby’s joining in with the “Hey Joshua!” chorus and distracted. “We’re making spring rolls and egg rolls!” He calls after Joshua, who’s in his room putting his backpack away. “You can choose the filling yourself!” 

The kitchen barely fits everyone, so comes dinnertime they move the living room table up next to the TV cabinet to make space for the spare straw mat, and lay out a tablecloth on top for good measure (Gordon’s had enough experience to remember to do that). They sit on the floor in the living room together, almost shoulder to shoulder, and at some point the conversation gets away from Gordon entirely. He just nods when Joshua points at something he wants and gets some in the bowl for him. 

“I’ve heard somebody wants to become an astronaut,” He hears Coomer say at one point. 

Joshua puffs out his chest proudly. 

“Doesn’t everybody at some point,” Bubby says. “I wanted to be an astronaut too, when I was forty.”

“Oh I have seen the photos,” Coomer continues, a gentle light in his eyes, “It is very beautiful out there.” 

Joshua asks for help with his homework after dinner, and Tommy and Darnold sit down with him for that. Benrey joins Gordon at the sink while he’s pouring dish soap into one of the large bowls they used. He doesn’t know what to do but blink at him, dumbfounded. 

“Check this out,” Benrey says, and spits lime green into the sink. When the light clears, the dishes have become spotless. 

Gordon stares at the sink. “I- you- th- is that- you can do that? ” He points at the plates. leaning on the sink’s edge. 

Benrey grins. “New… new skill acquired bro. Just got the EXP for it.” 

“You spent your EXP on dish cleaning ?” 

“We should conserve water, Gordon!” Coomer declares from behind him next to the kitchen table. “Water shortage is caused by corporate greed, but with certain individual actions we can improve the situation ourselves!” 

“Please don’t kill Mark Schneider.” 

“Worry not, Doctor Freeman! His death will not be by my hand directly!” 

Gordon laughs, helplessly. “Everything happens so much,” he laments, only semi-jokingly, as he takes off the cleaning gloves and puts the plates on the rack. 

“Keep up, Doctor Freeman,” Bubby says. 

“They certainly do,” Coomer says, much more nicely. “I’ve heard your plan is soon coming to fruition!” 

Gordon nods. “Yeah, it’s. Yeah. We were,” he swallows, “Darnold and I, we were about to ask for Bubby to let us test his fire. Figure out if he can reach the ignition point we need.” 

“Well now, that sounds like a challenge,” Bubby says. 

Gordon finds a price tag still stuck on one of the bowls that he’s very sure wasn’t there when it was brought out. “Benrey,” he groans. Benrey just gives him a shit eating grin. “You’ll need to hold a temperature for about three minutes, and then the mixture takes care of the rest,” he says to Bubby, while swatting Benrey on the shoulder. 

“Just three minutes, isn’t it.” 

“Do not try and stay for more. I’m serious. When it explodes it’s gonna turn seriously corrosive. You’re gonna be sludge ten seconds after it gets on you.” 

Gordon can hear Bubby blink. “Oh- oh. This is serious huh. We are blowing Xen up.” 

“We are, darling,” Coomer affirms. 

Bubby shifts on his chair. “I’ll need. A minute.” 

When Gordon’s done with the dishes, he turns back to the kitchen table to catch Bubby letting go of Coomer after a hug. “Son of a bitch, you went for it, you motherfucker,” Bubby says, a bit too loudly, fixing his glasses. 

Benrey sings a very high note over his voice. “Language!” Gordon hisses. 

“Oh, sorry.” Bubby pats his own mouth. “Forgive a man, I’m still working through it.” He switches to a mumble, seemingly only to himself. “It’s real. I’m gonna set Xen on fire. Gonna show Black Mesa what for. It’s really gonna happen…”

Coomer pats Bubby on the back lightly, making him almost hit his face on the table. “We’ll finally move fully away from the game, my dear Professor,” he says, and he’s smiling. He’s smiling very wide. 

“I can be your Professor,” Bubby mumbles. “I can blow Xen up.” 

“ We can blow Xen up,” Gordon corrects him. “Me and Darnold didn’t agonize over a- darn modifier for a week and a half so you can set our work on fire and take all the credits.” 

“Hush, let me process things, you rude bastard.” Benrey censors bastard with another burst of pinkish light.

“I can see the other end,” Coomer says, cheerfully. “Now, Gordon, I’ve heard you need help digging into the core of a few asteroids?” 

---

They mark a date for the excursion. 

He ‘woke up’ early, and made himself and Joshua an actual breakfast for a change while Benrey finished off the box of cereal that was open. “Dad’s got a work thing coming up,” he told Joshua while scooping extra egg onto his plate. “I’m gonna have to stay on site for a night.” 

“So you’re not going home tonight?” Joshua asked, taking the plate handed to him by Gordon, but making no move to go back to his chair. 

Gordon nodded. “I’ll be home tomorrow though, but you’re gonna have to stay at your grandparents’ tonight. I’m gonna come pick you up at their place tomorrow afternoon. You should pack a spare change of clothes and your pajamas to bring to school.” 

“Okay,” Joshua said. And then, “What’re you staying on-site for?” 

“I’m,” Gordon said, “Okay, you can’t tell anyone this, yeah? I’m blowing asteroids up.” 

He could see Joshua’s eyes brighten. It was visible . “ In space ?” 

“Yes,” Gordon laughed. “But it’s very experimental, which means…” 

“It’s not ready for the public eye yet,” Joshua whispered, almost reverently.

Gordon laughed again, and took off the mitten on his hand to ruffle Joshua’s hair. “You’re gonna be okay staying at your grandparents’ place? If you don’t like that I can ask someone else to come over instead.” 

“It’s okay,” Joshua said, finally content to go sit down again. “Can I bring my skate shoes?” 

“Sure thing, put them in a bag.” 

Gordon called Joshua’s grandparents to let them know to pick him up at five (Joshua chimed in to ask them to remind him about the roller skates), and then Joshua got his backpack and spare clothes and bag for the shoes and the house was once again vacant. 

They don’t have a vehicle, but Tommy sings and Bubby joins in and Darnold keeps a beat and after a while Benrey starts playing songs out of the shitty speaker on his phone. Gordon’s even spent the day before sleepless, but that’s kind of everyday now. He hadn’t anticipated having to get used to a day having twenty four hours again, but well. He hadn’t anticipated anything while going through Black Mesa, really. It wasn’t really ideal thinking-far-ahead environment.

Benrey seems bouncier when he’s on Xen. Gordon didn’t think about it, but when he steps through the portal he has a flash of that image from what feels like a lifetime ago: Benrey giant as the Earth itself, blocking everything else in sight, his form longing to catch up with his already immense, oppressive presence. Taller than any walls, any mountains, any barriers between himself and a measly human’s fleeting existence.

Gordon shakes his head. At his least incomprehensible, Benrey’s said it was “a show”. “Like. Cable TV. A television series,” Gordon’s asked. 

“Like a cutscene,” Benrey’s replied, as if Gordon was the one too slow for the course. 

Benrey now felt nothing like whatever that was that happened to him and the Science Team last year. Benrey now felt just… like a dude. Doing a barrel roll, while saying “Ooooo barrel roll” with a straight face. While his Nokia 2700’s still crushing whatever song it’s playing into oblivion. 

Gordon doesn’t deal in implications anymore, so he starts singing along to whatever everyone else’s singing as well, and focuses on carrying their homemade Xen-specific dynamite blocks to where they’re going to dig their largest hole into the core of this wretched piece of rock.

It takes a day, kind of; he doesn’t sleep, out here in the thin atmosphere of Xen, where the stars don’t blink and red light comes in a hue from inside the dirt. He doesn’t have to force himself to go lay down at midnight like back home, he just sits down, at the edge of the portal, when the explosives have all been installed, and watch Coomer and Bubby ready themselves.

They can hear Bubby’s cackles ringing in Xen’s air and also in their comms, as he lays in Coomer’s arms and they race the fire, starting from the outer ring of asteroids to the main Xen island. They jump from rock to rock, red light trailing after them while the dirt itself breaks apart, not with a boom, but with the sound of bubbles breaking after a wave crashes on the shore. Xen glows brighter than it probably ever has, in its disintegration. 

Benrey sings a few vacant notes, standing on nothingness; the light from his mouth blends in almost perfectly with Xen’s dying light. 

“You got all of your belongings outta there?” Gordon asks, half as a jab, half serious. “Didn’t leave anything important in your old apartment?” 

Benrey doesn’t answer, for a moment. When he does, it’s just to mumble, “oh look, there’s fireworks.” 

---

They got home early from it. 

Gordon takes a nap on the couch; he only wakes up from Benrey turning the sound up to max and then shooting a rocket at a truck in Far Cry 3. “Dude,” he throws an arm up over his face, and winces when it’s the plastic arm. “What the fuck.” 

“Go pick Joshua up,” Benrey says, definitely too conversationally, and barely understandable under the noises from the game. “Gordon. Sleepman.” 

“You’re slipping,” Gordon comments as he wrestles himself out of Tommy’s quilt. He forgot to give it back to Tommy, he realizes sleepily, picking up the phone he left charging on the living room table. It’s seven already. 

The drive to Joshua’s grandparents’ place is not a long one. He finds Joshua sitting at the porch of the little house, backpack and the bag with the roller skates at his feet. Joshua jumps up at the sight of Gordon’s car, and before he can walk through the gate he’s already found his arms full of his son. 

Joshua clings to his neck with a death grip. “I’m sorry I’m late,” Gordon says. “I was tired, so I took a nap, and forgot the time.” 

“It’s okay,” Joshua mumbles, “you were tired.” 

“I blew up so many asteroids though.” Gordon says, and Joshua laughs. 

They drive home after saying goodbye to Joshua’s grandparents (Joshua’s grandpa put a wrapped up pot pie in Gordon’s hands with an iron grip and a gaze that communicated clearly what would happen if he refused it), and Joshua agreed to take a detour to the Roswell airport for the night. Gordon absentmindedly texts Benrey taking the kid to watch airplanes, get your own food , and puts his phone away for the drive. The radio’s on, but Joshua doesn’t sing along. Gordon’s vocal cord’s still tired from Xen (no more, Xen-no-more it is, there’s just a vast of empty space inbetween dimensions there now) so he also stays silent. 

They get ice cream at a drive-thru on the way, and then they’re at the highway, parking on the roadside, looking over the rail at the airport. A plane leaves the ground there and goes into the air. Gordon’s struck by how different it is from a bird or a moth; nothing about the plane communicates any internal movement, it just. Moves. Up and up. Like a JPEG sliding across the screen under someone’s puppeteering with a mouse. 

Joshua stares at the plane, unblinking. “Is it dangerous in space, Dad?” He asks. 

Gordon taps his hand on the steering wheel. “It’s.” He starts saying, but stops to clear his throat. “It can be. There’s a lot of math going into making things that bring a human into space, and a lot of different people doing different parts of that math, and. Sometimes some people do their math wrong. Sometimes they try something new, and we don’t have the good math for that new thing yet. Sometimes new things break into the old math, and we need to. Work around that new thing.” 

“What happens if,” Joshua swallows, “someone does the math wrong?” 

“We try to catch it,” Gordon says. “That’s why there are so many people doing the math. So if someone gives the wrong answer, they can spot it early, and fix it.” 

“What if nobody does,” Joshua says. He’s still looking through the car’s window, at the stroke of cloud the plane’s long flown past. 

Gordon puts his hands on the gear stick. “That’s very, very rare to happen,” he intones carefully. “They have to check, over and over, before they send a ship into space.” 

Joshua turns from the window to Gordon. He looks at Gordon’s prosthetic hand, on the gear stick. “I’ve only found books about spaceships that have gone to space,” he says, quiet. 

Gordon turns over, and holds out that hand. Joshua climbs over the gear stick to give him another hug. “Experiments are important to those ships too,” Gordon says. “They give the people who make the ships important information to make them safe.” 

Joshua just buries himself in Gordon’s arms. 

“I’m really sorry I came home late and didn’t call you, Joshua,” Gordon says, and hugs his son tighter. “I won’t do that again. I’ll always call when I’m home late.” 

“I don’t have to be an astronaut,” Joshua mumbles. 

“Oh, no- nononono, listen,” Gordon says into his hair, with all the determination he can muster up. “Listen, Joshua, you become whoever you want to, okay? You don’t have to be anything, but you don’t have to not be anything either. That’s my mistake, you didn’t do anything wrong. You’re good. You’re good. You’ll be an incredible astronaut. You’ll be the first man on Mars. Jupiter, even.” 

“Jupiter is a gas giant,” Joshua mumbles. “There isn't any land to land on.”

Gordon nods. “That’s why it’s called landing , I get it.”

---

They drive home after, and Joshua asks to sit with Gordon while he and Benrey play Mario Kart. Gordon agrees, which means he has to clamp down on any curse he almost lets out when someone bumps him off the damn road, while Benrey does some magic or whatever on his screen. Who the hell knows. 

After their third match, Benrey elbows Gordon in the arm to signify a break. “Beddy bye hour,” he says, not even looking at Gordon, “for… babies. Hattrick means I make the rules.” 

“You didn’t come first in the second match,” Gordon argues, but quiets down when he looks down to see Joshua asleep leaning on him. “Okay, don’t fucking choose Toon Link for me again while I’m away,” he points a finger at Benrey, who’s residing smugly in the to-be-chaos of his own making. “I’m fucking serious.”

He carries Joshua to his bedroom and tucks him in, and then detours to the kitchen for some water. 

“Ooh, hydration,” Benrey comments idly. 

“What d’you know about it,” Gordon mumbles when he settles back down on the couch. He looks at the TV screen to find Inkling on one of the shitty bikes. “What the hell man, this bike sucks ass. Fucking Shit Taste McGee over here.” 

Benrey laughs. 

Gordon plays the game, while thinking about the sendoff party they’re throwing for Bubby and Coomer next week, before the grandpas go off gallivanting in yet another forbidden corner of the Earth. Coomer lovingly calls it their “honeymoon”, but Gordon has full faith this is gonna be what they do forever. Or at least until they’re bored of Earth, and start aiming for the Moon instead. Probably not a bad place to be in. 

“Thinking Xen thoughts, aren’t’cha,” Benrey says, while sending a shell after some poor computer character. 

Gordon grins. “Ha! Sike! I’m not even thinking about Xen.” He pauses, catching the full force of a fireball a Mario shoots at him. “I haven’t thought about Xen at all actually. Since I got home with Joshua.” 

“Achievement unlocked,” Benrey says, and extends a hand. Gordon stares at it. 

“Wh- huh?” 

“High five, idiot.”

“Oh,” Gordon says, and slaps that hand. Benrey’s eyes widen at the noise. 

“Yo that’s a. Crunchy noise.” He claps his hands together, and he’s laughing now, light flowing out in a thread of something like baby blue. “This rules,” he says happily. 

Gordon smiles, and then some motherfucker flings a shell at him, so he falls off the road again. 

He stays up way too late again, and time doesn’t stop slipping, and when Darnold gives him a vial of neutralizer for the Potion of Not Telling at their little party the week after it gives him something like mania and he hugs Coomer like an idiot while the old man slaps his back in a motion that’s supposed to be comforting. He sleeps that off as well afterwards, and wakes up to Tommy surfing the channels on his TV, complaining about lack of daytime talk shows. When he forgets about the scheduled blackout a month after, he still calls the concierge with shaking hands and then climbs into his bed like he’s four again and there’s a storm outside. He still thinks about Black Mesa, and about Xen. 

There’s just a little addendum now, that he can remind myself of. 

It’s weird how quickly it blends into everything else, but. Well. It’s weird everything . 

He makes cookies again, comes the winter, and teaches himself how to decorate cookies, just to have something to do. Joshua throws his pencil onto the notebook one day to go dig out the lumpy, supposedly-ISS-shaped cookie cutters from the tool cabinet. 

“Careful,” Gordon calls after him. 

Joshua toddles back with the cookie cutters in hand. “Can we have ISS cookies?” He asks. 

Gordon says yes. He also looks up a buncha references, prints them out, and tries to get the cookies exactly correct, making two “outside” cookies and an “inside” one, with schematics of the inner chambers of the ISS drawn on. Joshua loves it. 

“Here’s where the astronauts sleep,” He points at the spot that’s supposed to be the service module, and Gordon’s proud of getting that part right on the cookie.

He ruffles Joshua’s hair again. “Hey, maybe you’ll sleep there in twenty years,” he says, and marvels at the levity to that sentence. Just a little bit. It’s washed away with Joshua’s smile, and then they busy themselves with folding bags for the cookies instead.