#girl went from making jokes about it to theorizing for him

[starkwlkr]

Could I request a Hugh Jackman x Reader (in the same universe you have set up with their 3 kids, I love that sm) Where the reader is pregnant with their first baby (Alex iirc) and they haven't told anyone, but there'a rumors, so the paparazzi swarm Hugh and Reader, trying to get a good picture of any supposed baby bump so they can break the news and Hugh gets super protective-

little secret | hugh jackman

an: thanks for the request!! we finally get some baby alex even if he technically isn’t born in this fic lol BUT OMG THIS GIF IM DEAD DYING GONE

1999

When Hugh told you the news that he had gotten the part of Wolverine, you were so happy for him. In a few months, he would leave to go get fitted for his costume, train, film. You weren’t worried, but Hugh was.

You were pregnant with your first child and he obviously didn’t want to leave you alone. You assured him you and the baby would be fine. You had friends and family that called and visited you regularly so technically you weren’t alone.

After two months of being away from each other, you finally made a visit to the set. You were amazed with everything from the props to everyone’s costumes. It wouldn’t take long for you to join the same hero universe, just with a different team.

Your bump was somewhat visible. Only your families and close friends knew. And now, of course, Hugh’s new cast mates knew. Halle and Famke were so happy to finally meet you and your bump.

“Oh, you guys are going to be the best parents! Do you know the gender?” Halle asked.

“It’s a boy.” You confirmed with a smile.

“His name is going to be Alex.” Hugh added.

For a while, only a couple knew about baby Jackman. You weren’t taking any acting jobs at the moment and the media was starting to wonder. Did you retire? Or maybe it was a short break? You went from wearing your normal clothes to wearing Hugh’s clothes or oversized sweaters. It didn’t take long for talk show hosts to start theorizing about your sudden change in wardrobe.

You didn’t pay attention to the media. You hardly did. It didn’t phase you until one day when you were out with Hugh on a walk in Los Angeles. It was a day off for him and a walk seemed like a good idea at the time. Both you and Hugh wore sunglasses. Since it was sunny out, you wore a flowy dress. Again, your bump was somewhat noticeable, but you didn’t think the paparazzi were going to shove cameras in your face. You just wanted a peaceful day with your husband.

“We should’ve stayed in bed.” You whispered to Hugh. You were currently in a clothing store with Hugh. The paparazzi weren’t doing a very good job of hiding, they were waiting outside for you ready to capture pictures.

“I would say let’s make a run for it but I don’t want you or Alex to get hurt.” Hugh placed a kiss on your lips.

“Let’s go home. I’ll just put my bag over my stomach.” You sighed. So much for having a peaceful day …

So after paying for your items, Hugh took your hand and made sure you were ready to face the flashing lights. He made sure you were ready before you headed out.

Immediately the flashing lights hurt your eyes. This was hell.

“Show us the bump!”

“Is it a girl? A boy?”

“Can I get a picture of the bump?”

Hugh held you close to him. When it came time to protect you and the baby, he was ready to fight whoever got too close. Eventually you made it to the car. Hugh made sure to get you in first so he walked with you to your side and opened the door, letting you in quickly. Still the paparazzi followed. After shutting the door, Hugh warned the paparazzi to not get any closer.

“Just show us the bump!” A man said.

“Shut the fuck up!” Hugh pushed past the paparazzi and walked to the driver’s side of the car. If it were legal, he would’ve definitely run someone over. “You alright, love?”

You nodded, taking a deep breath in. “You think we’ll make the cover? I think ‘baby on board!’ is going to be the headline.” You joked, cracking a smile.

[mdhwrites]

I believe the villains in Owl House got screwed over because Dana disliked writing them. Belos was stripped of his complexity, ignoring his lore, Kikimora was reduced to a joke, and the Collector was transformed from a malicious, cruel person to an innocent kid who only wanted friends. It feels like Dana doesn’t enjoy writing villains.

So I don't think it's that Dana hates villains. I think it's that the TOH writers had no interest in writing an adventure series. Because of how much time is wasted, even in S2B, purely on romance and schoolkids being schoolkids (Them's the Breaks still has no point to exist after all) and how the villains are barely there outside of something to beat at the end of an episode, it kind of feels like the crew just wanted to do a magical school show which makes the supposed claim that Hexide was Disney mandated hilarious.

This actually also goes for the characters too though. A real adventure show would care about its power levels, its tricks and tools and actually showing the growth of our characters as fighters, not just as people. TOH... doesn't. Willow's big gimmick when she's first introduced is that she is incredibly powerful but can't control it. Then THREE EPISODES LATER, in the first episode that has Willow in it for more than a minute, it's resolved. Period. Until fucking S3. At that point, she is all powerful. Luz is all powerful by the beginning of S2, literally three episodes after she got her last glyph. Arguably, by Young Blood, Old Souls because she kicks the shit out of the entire Conformatorium in that one.

Even before then, most villains show up, cause a slight problem and then are quickly defeated after the character moment that the show setup with the conflict is resolved because their purpose is not as villains, it's just for the sake of it being an adventure show. Even the creatures of the Isles are for this purpose. That's also why most villains in TOH get like MAYBE three minutes of screen time at most. This would actually be okay if interesting things were being done with the characters but... Well, Luz goes through the same lesson multiple times in S1 about not taking cheats for magic and listening to Eda, almost ALL of King's plotlines in S1 are just repetitions of "Maybe don't see people as disposable pawns?" until S2 it's all "FAMILY!" until he's unrecognizable from his S1 counterpart. Then Gus has shades of self confidence issues in ALL of his episodes and never anything else. Then in S2 we have Hunter who is just mostly there in his episodes and learning constantly, "Maybe... Maybe friends are nice?" rather than actually challenging his world views and making him grow that way. That's also why I claim the show actively ships him with every girl his age.

It ironically makes the fact that TOH is so split in its identity feel like a necessity for the writers to have had more than at best two season's worth of material. With how much they recycle plot points, characters, etc. like that, of course it wastes time because it has no idea what to do with the amount of time it had.

Ignoring Belos' lore though is a different problem that has to do with his role as the big bad clashing with this, because he can't just be a slight obstacle to be overcome or else he looks like a joke like Kikimora or the coven heads came off as, but also that... Well, the show was ending.

So because they had nothing to do in S3 to keep audience interest because S2 had wrapped up too much, they leaned hard into saying "We have a complex villain, we swear," to keep people theorizing and invested in the show until the third special came out and the show went "JK LOL! We need to wrap this shit already. BYE!" Like they KNEW they didn't have the time, it's ENTIRELY on them to have focused so hard on Belos and then pulled the rug out from under everyone but...

But that's also just the normal trick of TOH. Here's the golden guard. No wait, he's a sad but mad boy, let's wrap this up. Here's a bully character who has deep ties to wanting the status quote to stay and should have a dozen anxieties about liking Luz. Never mind, none of that mattered, she's actually a good girl and has no issues getting into love besides the basic question of 'will she say yes?' Here is the ex-coven head for the EC who got betrayed and hurt by Belos while trying to just be a good sister fi- ISN'T HER TRAUMA HILARIOUS!?

If Dana disliked writing the villains, frankly, that means she disliked writing 90% of the show because most parts of the show aren't actually any better than the villains. They just got more screentime.

========

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead, If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

And finally a Twitter you can follow too!

[lyssiesleakedmemos]

My first mmf threesome (Walter & Cullen)

Real life 🌶

It was in the years of seemingly endless firsts, maybe too many for any 19 year old girl to experience without losing her mind and weaving life-long fixations into her core.

I felt the first taste of intoxicating freedom, and I did so alongside the most unusual characters. My bf Walter was a walking contradiction in every sense. All American boy who would channel gg Allen if there was a full moon.. The unappreciated nice one of the group who was secretly more vicious than the crowd combined. The less desirable "fat one" who would teach you that he only needed the attention of 2 women to be a relentless heartbreaker. But I was every bit as toxic. In those days, I was a bleach blonde wannabe porn star who was addicted to attention and lived for drama. When he betrayed me, I'd return the favor. If i showed him crazy, he'd show me a medical emergency. I often wondered how we ever were a couple when we both seemed so self consumed that it couldn't have left room for love in any meaningful way. It took a mutual friend to theorize we both unknowingly used each other to experiment at a time where we were young and figuring everything out and that perhaps we needed that.. it eased the discomfort of the blood-stained memories.

And experiment we did for all we lacked in chemistry we made up for in the bedroom, living room, and public pools. There is nothing he wouldn't try at the drop of a hat, and most everything he ever did, he did well. Sex, blood, and rock n roll were a way of life, and I regret to this day never appreciating it for what it was.

Let's revisit toxic. Enter Walter's best friend Cullen. The one I was in love with. Now, before anyone passes judgement, I wasn't knowingly being deceptive, wasn't emotionally cheating, I was, however, deeply in denial. I gave every excuse in the book for why I hung on his every word and got lost in his eyes. He was attractive if you liked slightly older grunge guys in bands who looked the part. Remembering him as a "big deal" in the halls of HS did make me feel some sort of way now sitting in his garage drinking till the sun came up. That made it easy to hold on to denial.. I just "felt cool, and he's nice to look at" Id protest. If only I knew then how many attractive men of status I'd go on to leave unread.. I would have known the real trouble I was in.

It was him. Something mostly indescribable in the way he spoke to me. The way his kind words seemed to be carved out of this brooding cold shell from a warm secret place and his cruel ones always felt like a challenge I could take. When we argued, it felt like looking in a mirror. I knew we'd be a nightmare together but it didn't stop me from picturing us like an 2000s rock music video, fucking and fighting. My mascara running while he smashes a bottle. There was something about him that had a hold on me.

So when I found myself between them after everyone else left the party liquor still blurring reality, would you blame me for not thinking of the consequences of tomorrow? Would you blame me for not thinking of the angel on earth who was Cullens GF?

*You should blame me, of course. I did and promptly confessed in the weeks following. I was given more understanding than I was worth, but I paid in the end for being so selfish.*

I sat torn and tingling between them after Cullen brought up the idea of the 3 of us having a little fun. I was so caught off guard by the suggestion that i thought it might be a joke that went on a bit too long. He never indicated any interest prior to this moment, but now he was shamelessly begging to experience me. I protested multiple times, but I knew the temptation was in the inflection of my voice and written on my face. I wanted it. They each put a hand on my thighs, sliding them higher, watching with satisfaction as my defenses crumbled. "Come on, it'll be fun" Of course it fucking would be. They toyed with me until I was trembling, I stood no chance in this game.

Briefly, I thought I escaped their grasp, Walter had to run downstairs, but before I could sigh in relief, I was face to face with Cullen on the sofa.  The look in his eyes, he cornered his prey. "So if I kissed you right now.. you wouldn't kiss me back?" Despite my heart racing, I managed to muster "why don't you try and see?"

He did not hesitate grabbing the side of my face and pulling it towards his, he won, but rather than devouring me, he kissed me with agonizing passion. His tongue tangled in mine and sent chills down my body. I could have kissed him for hours. That kiss ruined me forever.

It was over too soon, pulling away to greet Walter, who was now standing in the doorway. I was ready to negotiate, I mean, essentially, he walked in on me kissing his best friend, and it didn't feel right to not include him in the fun.. right?

"Okay.. but not all the way, " I asserted as if I could get away with a moral misdemeanor and avoid the felony charge.

They didn't argue leading me to Walter's bed in the dimly lit room I knew all too well. I laid myself down in the middle, aching to be preyed upon, Cullen wasted no time asking Walter's permission to taste me. It was dark, but attentively I watched him disappear between my thighs. The man who always seemed "above it" and disinterested in everything became a desperate frenzy of tongue and fingers between MY thighs. It wasn't enough anymore. By the time he emerged, I was ready for him, I let him slide himself inside me, thrusting while he kissed me, and my fingers got lost in his hair. Fuck how many times did i picture running my fingers through his hair? Now I lay under the weight of him buried inside me living out my wildest fantasies.

Now Walter was ready and I braced myself for the rougher fucking I was used to he flipped me over and shoved his cock into me while Cullen put his in my face, I was noticeably louder and through my gasps and pants I managed to get Cullen in my mouth. The challenge of trying to keep sucking while being pounded from behind thrilled me. I watched Cullen intently, "don't you love her tongue rings?" Walter boasted. "Fuck, I do now." Was all he managed to say.

Eventually, they couldn't resist marking "effiel tower" off their bucket list, realizing the opportunity bent over between them, high fiving over me. "Oh God" I muttered only for Walter to order me to "shut the fuck up and suck his dick." So I did, those words in that domineering tone flipped a switch in me forever. Walter had the power, Cullen had the passion and I was a merely a quivering puddle between them.

They took turns cumming on me and I loved the feeling, the filth in that moment of being used, enjoyed and discarded. Paired with the very different feeling.. a bond that formed from being a first we all shared together that night, like criminals decompressing in the safe house after the heist. We gathered on the couch to watch... oh who the fuck cares until daylight crept through the windows. Oh, how I despised the sun.

That not where the story ends.

That's not where these characters die off especially not Cullen.. no, those stories lead right back to the present day.

I said I'd never tell them, but he said a lot of things too.

So I ask you? Can you keep a secret?

[i-will-change-this-someday]

MAG 10, Vampire Killer

Trevor was 13 when his father died, in 1956; the statement was given in 2010, so he was 67, making him roughly 77 when he died.

“While I have witnessed them avoid direct sunlight if possible, and wear generally more covering clothes when moving around during the daytime, they seem to have no significant problem doing so.” Is there a reason for them to avoid sunlight? I really don’t think vampires are Dark.

“I just lay there watching as its stomach began to distend and swell, the now bulbous belly straining against the black dress it wore.” I’ve seen it theorized that vampires are Web, and this does remind me of the descriptions of Mr. Spider.

“I certainly don’t believe in wild tales of vampirism, but I can’t help but notice that the statement above appears to be a photocopy of a photocopy, and can’t find these supposed vampire teeth anywhere in the Archives or the Secure Containment Room.” Where are the teeth?

To be honest, I’m not really sure what entity the vampires are, like I said they’re theorized to be Web, but I see an argument for Flesh or Slaughter. Trevor is a Hunter.

MAG 11, Dreamer

“It was there, sleeping on my friend Anahita’s sofa, in the depths of my misery, that I first started to have the dreams.” I wonder why The End picked him, most statements have some explanation why they encountered an entity, but Oliver was just trying to sleep.

Another John this episode, John Uzel.

“It was your face and the expression upon it was far more fearful than any I had seen in eight years of wandering this twilight city.” We literally hear Gertrude die, and I don’t think she was that scared. Also, poor Oliver, dude hasn’t slept well in eight years.

“I had Tim look into it, as I don’t entirely trust the others not to have written it as a practical joke and slipped it into the archives.” Sometimes, I think about this too much.

The dreams are End.

MAG 12, First Aid

“I followed him asked what he was he was doing. I got no answer, but he seemed to know the code to the door immediately and strode right in, scanning the shelves for something.” I wonder how aligned Gerry was with The Eye, not enough to save him, but enough to Know some things, it seems.

“I just stood there and watched as he took out the scalpel, muttered some words I couldn’t make out, and plunged the blade into the centre of the chanting man’s throat.” Does he actually have to say something to be able to kill him? Or is he just being dramatic?

“Admittedly, if Martin speaks Polish in the same way he “speaks Latin,” then he might be talking nonsense again, but I’ve looked it up and it appears to check out.” Does Martin actually speak Polish? Also, I wonder if Jon knows Latin, he seems like the sort that would.

The unnamed man is Desolation, Diego Molina, I think; Gerry's Eye.

MAG 13, Alone

The first live statement giver, and, right off the bat, she insults the institute.

Jon was originally going to leave her to make her statement, I wonder if he chose to stick around for the later ones, or they all asked him to stay. Maybe Elias made him stay with the statement givers.

I'm guessing Evan never actually died, just "starved" himself until he went into a coma; Naomi's loneliness at his funeral gave him enough to call out to her, but he probably had to stay away from her, and go back to feeding The Lonely.

Girl, you probably should go to a qualified care professional, you lost the love of you life, all your friends, and then got hit by a car, and you decide to vent to research institute.

Obviously Lonely

[lampmanliveblogs]

Episode twelve! Now… I have been warned about this episode. I don’t know yet what it’s about, but I know it’s gonna be big. I’ve even been lucky and managed to avoid seeing the title so as of this writing I have practically no spoilers. A comment left by a certain theorist cat makes me think it might be about Hunter and/or Belos though.

Regardless of what it’s actually going to be, I know it will be big. So let’s not waste any more time and get into it.

We open with a shot of Luz own version of my conspiracy corner. Except hers is cooler because it’s cork board and not just a wall, she is better at drawing than me, she has a glove soaked in an ancient Titan’s life blood powerful enough to pierce dimensions, AND she has red string! I wish I had red string.

She is trying to figure out how to make a new portal door that will actually work and won’t collapse. We see her theorizing about whether there is more Titan’s Blood to be found and asking why Belos needs the portal. We can also see the photo of her, Eda & King from the Grom episode, as well as a helpful reminder from King to hydrate. She also made a note to buy a new glove for Amity, which, while sweet, is probably unnecessary. Amity’s rich, I think she can buy a new glove on her own. Heck, she probably owns more than one pair of gloves to begin with.

Lilith spotted! Gwendolyn spotted! And… is that… what’s his name, the potions guy… Morten? Morten spotted!

That bowl Hooty is holding with the eyes made me think of a joke. I was going to tell you it… but then I realized it only works in swedish. Whoops.

Anyways, this looks like a birthday. Is it Lilith’s birthday?

Judging by how uncomfortable Lilith looks as opposed to everyone else looking happy, I’m guessing it really is her birthday.

So in addition to Gwendolyn, Morten (whom she might’ve befriended now that she need elixirs from him), Eda and King, there is also Tiny Nose (who I guess is friends with Lilith?), and, uh… whoever that is on the left. I think I’ll call you call you… Blueish Purple. A very self-explanatory name, please don’t ask me why I went with that.

Lastly, there is the Emperor’s Coven scout. Not gonna lie, I saw him and started laughing, he looks so out of place. But hey, Lilith was in the Coven for what, thirty years? She’s bound to have (had) at least some friends. Most of them probably don’t wanna associate with her now that she’s a traitor, but I guess this guy stuck around.

I’m gonna go ahead and guess that’s Steve? He was with Lilith in one scene in an episode in season one. And to be honest, I probably wouldn’t have remembered that if it wasn’t for my sister. She’s a big fan of The Owl House (thanks to me, I’m the one who gets her into all the good shows) and she mentioned Steve once.

(oh, and Lilith is wearing glasses. I quickly went back and checked, and she wasn’t wearing them in episode four, but she was during her short appearance last episode and I didn’t notice)

If I had just waited a few more seconds, I would have not only seen Steve’s shirt that helpfully informs us of his name (I actually have a shirt like that; our grandparents gave me and my siblings shirts with our names on them for Christmas last year), but I would’ve also known that is, in fact, not Lilith’s birthday, Instead, she has become the assistant curator of the Supernatural Museum of History.

…wait, where did Tiny Nose go? And why is King’s glass knocked over? The shot-reverse-shot was literally less than ten seconds, what happened? Did we accidentally stumble into another timeline again?

The character I dubbed Blueish Purple turns out to actually be names Floar DeSplora.

A quick google search tells me her actual name is Flora D’splora. She is Lilith’s former mentor and a ”bad girl historian.” I don’t know what that is, but what I do know is that she is extra as can be. She used a whip to grab one of Hooty’s delectable appetizers, only to throw it to the side. She then used her whip to pull a griffin out of the sky to fly off on. Oh, and I guess she also said something about the Emperor wanting Lilith to stay out of trouble.

I say I don’t know what a bad girl historian, but between the historian, the whip and the adventurer part, I’m thinking this character might’ve taken a few cues from Indiana Jones.

(Edit: Future Lampman here. I realize Flora’s namesake later on)

So history is being brought up. There is a lot of interesting history that I would love to learn. The history of King’s family is one thing that comes to mind. Another is the history of Philip Wittebane, his brother, and Belos. We did see Luz working on the second portal door as well as the Echo Mouse Musse. Maybe this episode will be about Lilith going on an adventure (to show that she can be a bad girl historian too) and we end up learning something important.

[kingluffy5]

Psychic Kids and Otherworldly Monsters Pt. 2 (Stranger Things OCs)

With Will Byers missing the town is sent into panic and turmoil. His mother and siblings are worried sick, the Chief is throwing his all into this case, and his friends disobey direct instructions to remain home so they can go and search for their friend, instead they find a girl with no hair.

Oliver Reed’s P.O.V.

We got back to Mike’s house with the weird girl, we’re in the basement asking her a bunch of questions.

“Is there a number we can call fro your parents?” Mike asks

“Where’s your hair? Do you have cancer?” Dustin asks.

“Did you run away?” Lucas asks.

“Where did you come from?” I ask.

“Are you in some kind of trouble?” Mike asks.

“Is that blood?” Lucas asks reaching out to try and touch the blood but Mike slaps his hand away.

“Stop it, you’re freaking her out!” Mike yells at him.

“She’s freaking me out!” Lucas retorts. It is kind of creepy how we just found her standing alone in the rain.

“I bet she’s deaf.” Dusting thinks, he claps his hands in front of her making her flinch back. “Not deaf.”

“All right, that’s enough, all right? She’s just scared and cold.” Mike defends her from anymore questions or inquisitions. He runs over to a basket and grabs some clothes for her. “Here these are clean, okay.”

She then gets up and nearly takes her shirt off right in front of us. Holy shit. We all turn around except for Mike who stops her.

“NO, NO, NO!”

“Oh my god.”

“Holy shit.”

“What the hell.”

“See over there? That’s the bathroom. Privacy. Get it?” Mike shows her where to change. All right seriously though what the shit was that, she nearly got naked in front of us, like what the hell. Mike tries to close the door for her and she says her first word, no. That’s totally not anticlimactic.

Mike gets back to the main area of the basement. “This is mental.” Dustin accurately describes the situation.

“At least she can talk.” Mike says optimistically.

“She said no and yes. Your three year old sister says more.” Lucas points out.

“She tried to get naked.” Dustin says, at least someone’s thinking about the important things here.

“There’s something seriously wrong with her. Like, wrong in the head.” Lucas says.

“She just went like.” Dustin then mimes taking a shirt off.

“I bet she escaped from Penthurst.” Lucas theorizes.

“From where?” I asked.

“The nuthouse in Kerley County.” Lucas explains.

“You got a lot of family there.” Dustin jokes.

“Bite me. Seriously though, think about it. That would explain her shaved hair and why she’s so crazy.”

“Why she went like.” Dustin again lifts a fake shirt off of himself, alright seriously dude I think we moved pass this.

“She’s an escapee is the point. She’s probably a psycho.”

“Like Micheal Myers.” Dustin adds

“Exactly. We should’ve never brought her here.” Lucas says.

“So you just wanted to leave her out in that storm?” Mike asks him.

“Yes. We went out to find Will, not another problem.”

“I agree with Mike on the fact we couldn’t have just left her out there. I do think we should focus on Will.” I throw in my point of view.

“I think we should tell your mom.” Dustin says to Mike.

“I second that.” Lucas supports.

“She could get the girl help.” I support.

“Who’s crazy now?” Mike says to us.

“How is that crazy?” Lucas asks.

“Because, we weren’t supposed to be out tonight, remember?” Mike reminds us. Oh shit, I see his point now.

“So?” Lucas asks.

“So if we tell my mom and she tells your mom and your mom and your dad…” He says.

“Oh man.”

“Our houses become Alcatraz.”

“Exactly. We’ll never find Will.” Mike finishes explaining why we shouldn’t tell our parents about the mysterious bald girl who was alone in the woods during a storm, it sounds crazy I know. “All right, here’s the plan. She sleeps here tonight.”

“You’re letting a girl-” Dustin exclaims.

“Just listen. In the morning, she sneaks around my house, goes to the front door and ring my doorbell. My mom will answer and know exactly what to do. She’ll send her back to Penthurst or wherever she comes from we’ll be totally in the clear. And tomorrow night, we go back out and this time we find Will.”

“You know you can actually be very clever when you need to be.” I say. “To bad you usually don’t need to be.”

“Shut up.” He says.

Me, Lucas, and Dustin grab our stuff and start leaving, we stop and look back at Mike talking to the girl.

“Do you really think she’s psycho?” Dustin asks.

“Wouldn’t want her in my house.” Lucas answers before leaving.

“You literally just met her.” I say shortly before following.

Dustin sighs. “Mental.” He then leaves too.

— — —

Sarah Reed’s P.O.V.

Me and Sasha are sitting on the couch, reading books, we’re not actually reading, we’re waiting for Oliver. He snuck out and hasn’t gotten back yet.

“What should we do when he gets back?” I ask my twin sister.

“What do you mean?” She asks me back.

“I mean, do we tell dad, or do we tell him not to go out again, or whatever?”

“I say we ask him what he was doing, and we listen, and decide then.” She answers. Sasha’s always been the more level headed twin, she and Ava are the ones who make sure our friend group don’t go around doing anything stupid. I on the other hand have always been a bit more reckless, I once tried to jump from my bike to hers, that’s actually the story of how I broke my arm, the first time at least.

We then hear the door open and close.

“And where have you been?” Sasha asks Oliver without looking up from her book.

“Are you guys reading?” He asks us.

“Why does that matter?” I ask him.

“It’s just that in all my life, I’ve never seen either of you read.” Oh that son of a bitch.

“We asked the question first, where were you?” Sasha asks, keeping the conversation on track.

“I was nowhere.”

“That’s impossible, you can’t be nowhere, you always have to be somewhere.” I point out.

“We were looking for Will.” He answers, slightly defeated. Oh, shit.

“All right.” Sasha replies, casually.

“You’re not upset?” He asks. Ever since mom died we took up more of a parental role for him, driving him from place to place when he needed a ride, making him breakfast and dinner.

“If you went missing, we would’ve done the same.” I tell him, to which Sasha nods.

“Thanks, I love you guys.” He says before walking upstairs to his room.

“Love you too.” We say at the same time.

— — —

Judith Byers’ P.O.V.

“All right, breakfast is ready.” Jonathan tells us putting plates down on the table.

“What? No, be careful of the poster.” Mom tells him.

“Yeah, okay. All right.” He replies. We’re all a little tired after last night, especially mom.

“I can’t eat.” She says.

“We just need you to eat mom.” I tell her.

“Listen. Listen, the Xerox place opens in, like, 30 minutes. And I don’t want you guys to go alone.” She tells us.

“Yeah, we got it.” Jonathan tells her.

“So, I’m gonna have Kern take you, ‘cause I should be here.:

“Okay.”

“And we need to make 200, 300 copies. How much is a copy?”

“Okay, mom. Mom.” We try to calm her down.

“10 cents?” She asks.

“Mom.” Jonathan finally manages to get her attention. “You can’t get like this, okay?”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” She apologizes. I wish she would stop doing that, it’s not her fault.

“No, it’s okay.” We comfort her.

We then hear a knock at the door. Mom opens it up and Hopper’s there. “We’ve been waiting for 6 hours.”

“I know. I came as soon as I could.”

“Six hours.”

“A little bit of trust here, all right. We’ve been searching all night. Went all the way to Cartersville.” He explains.

“And?” Mom asks.

“Nothing.” He answers. Shit, shit, shit, SHIT.

“God.” Mom starts crying a bit. I hug her.

“Flo says you got a phone call?” He asks.

“Oh, yeah.”

We all walk over to the phone, Hopper picks it up and looks at the burns. “Storm barbecued this up pretty good.”

“The storm?” Mom says.

“What else?” He asks.

“You’re saying that that’s not weird?” She asks.

“No, it’s weird.”

“Can we, like, trace who made the call? Contact the-” Jonathan begins to ask.

“No, it doesn’t work like that. Now, uh, you’re sure it was Will?” Hopper asks. “Because Flo said you just heard some breathing.”

“No. It was him. It was Will. And he was scared. And then something-” Mom tells him.

“It was probably just a prank call. It was somebody trying to scare you.” Hopper tells us.

“Who would do that?” I ask.

“Well, this thing’s been on TV. It brings out all the crazies, you know. False leads, prank calls, uh.”

“No, Hopper, it was not a prank. It was him.”

“Joyce.”

“Come on, how about a little trust here? What, you think I’m making this up?”

“I’m not saying that you’re making it up. All I’m saying is it’s an emotional time for you.”

“And you think I don’t know my own son’s breathing? Wouldn’t you know your own daughter’s?” Okay, wow. I did not think that mom would go there.

“You hear from, uh, Lonnie yet?” He asks after taking a second.

“No.”

“It’s been long enough. I’m having him checked out.” Hopper says turning to leave.

“Oh, come on. You’re wasting your time.” Mom tells him. Jonathan walks out after him. Probably to ask to go to Lonnie’s himself.

“It’s going to be okay, mom.” I tell her, hugging her again. I say it without even really knowing whether or not it will be.

— — —

Anthony Reed’s P.O.V.

We got another search party going again, we’ve got dogs out and volunteers.

Hopper comes back from the Byers’. “Hey you got anything?” He asks.

“Nothing. You?” I ask.

“No, nothing but a dead phone.” He answers. “

“How’s Joyce?” I ask.

“About one step from falling off the edge.”

“She’s been a few steps for a while now, hasn’t she?” Powell replies.

“Kid’s missing, man. Show a little class.” Hopper tells him.

“All right. Come on, let’s go. We got a lot of ground to cover.”

“The chief and her, the’ve screwed before, huh?” Callahan asked. Me and Powell give him a disgusted look before going back to looking for Will.

— — —

Sasha Reed’s P.O.V.

Me, Barb, and Nancy are going over study cards for chemistry in the halls.

“When alpha particles go through gold foil, they become?” Barb asks Nancy.

“Unoccupied space.” Nancy answers.

“A molecule that can-” Barb begins to ask another question when someone grabs the cards. It’s Nancy’s new boyfriend, Steve, the asshole.

“Hey.”

“I don’t know, I think you’ve studied enough, Nance.” He tells her.

“Steve.” She starts to protest.

“I’m telling you, you got this. Don’t worry. Now, on to more important matters. My dad has left town on a conference and my mom’s gone with him, ‘cause, you know, she doesn’t trust him.” Steve tells her. I’d almost think that’s sweet if I didn’t know he just wants to get into her pants.

“Good call.” One of his annoying friends says.

“So are you in?” Steve asks Nancy.

“In for what?” She asks back. Oh come on Nance, even I know what he’s implying.

“No parents. Big house.” The other friend tells her.

“A party?”

“Ding ding ding.

“It’s Tuesday.” Nancy says.

“It’s Tuesday.” One of the assholes says mockingly. “Oh my god.”

“Come on, it’ll low key, we’ll be quiet, it’s just going to be us. What do you say? Are you in or are you out?” Steve asks.

Nancy hesitates before one of the assholes chimes in again. “Oh, god. Look.” We all turn and see Jonathan putting up missing posters of his and Judith’s younger brother Will. Judith is probably somewhere else in the school putting them up.

“Oh, god, that’s depressing.” Steve comments. Dude, come on.

“Should we say something?” Nancy asks.

“I don’t think he speaks.” The girl asshole says.

“How much you want to bet he killed him?” Boy asshole asks Steve.

“Shut up.” Steve tells him. At least he has a bit of humanity.

“Hey he just lost his brother. Show some respect assholes.” I tell them. Me and Nancy go up to Jonathan.

“Hey.” She greets him.

“Hey, Jonathan.” I say.

“Hey.” He says. Jeez, he looks terrible. Which I guess is to be expected.

“We just, wanted to say, you know, um. We’re sorry about everything.” Nancy tells him.

“Yeah, if you guys need anything just tell us.” I say to him.

“Everyone’s thinking about you.” She tells him. Not all nice thoughts though. “It sucks.”

“Yeah.” He replies.

“I’m sure he’s fine. He’s a smart kid.” I tell him.

The school bell rings and me and Nancy say goodbye since we have to go to our chemistry test.

— — —

Oliver Reed’s P.O.V.

Me, Dustin, and Lucas are sitting in science class, Mike isn’t here.

“Oh, this is weird, he’s never this late.” Dustin panics a little.

“I’m telling you, his stupid plan failed.” Lucas says.

“I thought you liked his plan.” I point out.

“Yeah, but obviously it was stupid, or he’d be here.”

“If his mom found out a girl spent the night.” Dustin says.

“He’s in deep shit right about now.” Lucas says.

“Hey, what if she slept naked?” Dustin thinks out loud.

“Dude.” I look at him weird.

“Oh my god, she didn’t.” Lucas says.

“Oh, if Mrs. Wheeler tells my parents.” Dustin worries.

“You think you’d be in trouble, my dad would kill me.” I tell him.

“No way. Mike would never rat us out.” Lucas tells us.

“I don’t know.” Dustin panics.

“All that maters is, after school, the freak will be back in the loony bin, and we can focus on what really matters, finding Will.” Lucas says.

We open up our textbooks and get ready for class.

— — —

Judith Byers’ P.O.V.

Me and Jonathan are in the car heading over to Lonnie’s right now. The song Should I Stay or Should I go starts to play on the radio, Jonathan and Will always liked this song so I can only imagine how he feels listening to this song.

I can’t believe I have to see Lonnie again. He’s a dipshit who hates what his kids are like, he hates that Will is into nerdy stuff and he hates that I’m a girl and he hates that Jonathan is a loner who doesn’t like hanging out with the other kids. But there is another reason he hates me, one that proves just how much of a shit he is. One time when me and my friend Rebecca were at my house and we thought we were alone, we kissed, nothing crazy just a small quick one. But Lonnie was home and saw it, he yelled at us and kicked her out. After that she called it a mistake and never talked to me again. He said I should only like boys because that’s what normal people are like, then he had some beers and called me a mistake.

I really don’t want to see him.

— — —

Anthony Reed’s P.O.V.

We’re out by the reservoir still looking for Will. Me, Hopper, and Callahan are standing looking out over the

Callahan gets close to the edge of the cliff. “Whoa, careful. I need you alive for the next few days at least.” Hopper tells him

“Oh, hell, I could survive that.” Callahan says. Hopper laughs at that idea. “What? George Burness made the jump. And he was drunk as a skunk, he did it on a $10 bet.”

“George is a liar. You make that hump from this height, that water turns into cement. Hits you like a ton of bricks, break every damn bone in your body.”

“Nah.”

“Chief you copy?” Flo asks over the radio.

“Yeah, Flo, talk to me.”

“Hey, Chief, we got a call from over at Benny’s. I think you need to get there right away.”

— — —

Anthony Reed’s P.O.V.

We all get to Benny’s burger place. We step inside and see Benny’s body slumped over the table with a gun in his hands and flies buzzing around his head, apparently a suicide.

“Ugh, Jesus.” Callahan gags at the sight

“Suicide?” Powell questions. Hopper hums in agreement. I can’t believe this, I just took the kids to Benny’s last week, he never seemed like he would do this.

“Missing kid, suicide, you must feel like a big city cop again, huh chief?” Callahan says.

“Well, mostly dealt with strangers back then. Benny was my friend.” Hopper tells him. Benny is, was, a good guy and the idea that he would do something like this is crazy. There has to be more to this than that he would just blow his brains out. It can’t just be that.

— — —

Judith Byers’ P.O.V.

Jonathan pulls in across the street from Lonnie’s house, he takes a quick look in through the window before banging on the door.

“Hello.” He shouts.

“Yeah.” A woman responds, walking to the door. “Can I help you?” She asks.

“Yeah, is Lonnie around?” I ask her.

“Yeah, he’s out back. What do you want?”

“To look around.” Jonathan says before barging in.

“Sorry.” I whisper to her before following him.

“Hey, what do you think you’re doing? Hey!” She yells at us.

“We’ll be fast.” Jonathan.

“Will!” I shout.

“Hey, Will. Will, here?”

“Will.”

We look around the house for a few seconds before Lonnie runs in from the back yard and slams Jonathan against the wall.

“Get off.” Jonathan tells him, pushing him back a little.

“Damn, you’ve gotten stronger.” He pats Jonathan on the arm.

“Will someone please explain what the hell is going on?” The woman asks.

“Jonathan, Judith, Cynthia. Cynthia, this is Jonathan and Judith. My oldest. Come here.” He explains before hugging us.”

“Get off me, man.” Jonathan says before he pushes him again.

This is going to be a fun trip.

— — —

Oliver Reed’s P.O.V.

We rode over to Mike’s to find out why he wasn’t in school today. Turns out the plan has changed and he’s keeping the girl with him.

“Are you out of your mind?” Lucas yells at him.

“Just listen to me.” Mike tries to explain.

“You are out of your mind.” Lucas tells him.

“She knows about Will.” He tells us.

“What do you mean she knows about Will?” I ask.

“She pointed at him, at his picture. She knew he was missing. I could tell.”

“You could tell?” Lucas asks skeptical.

“Just think about it. Do you really think it was a coincidence that we found her on Mirkwood, the same place Will disappeared.”

“That is weird.” Dustin points out.

“And she said bad people are after her. I think maybe these bad people are the same one that took Will. I think she knows what happened to him.”

“Then why doesn’t she tell us?” He asks before turning to the girl. “Do you know where he is?” He asks. “Do you know where Will is?” He shouts at her while shaking her.

“Stop it, you’re scaring her!” Mike defends her.

“She should be scared!” Lucas yells back. “If you know where he is, tell us! This is nuts, we have to take her to your mom.”

“No! Eleven said telling any adult would put us in danger.” That’s a pretty weird name.

“What kind of danger?” Dustin asks him.

“Her name is Eleven?” Lucas says weirded out.

“El for short.”

“Mike, what kind of danger?” Dustin asks again.

“Danger danger.” He says before making a gun with fingers and pointing it at each of us. I always thought that if I was going to be shot it’d be because one of my sisters got annoyed by my sarcasm and decided to steal our dad’s gun to kill me, not a bunch of random people doing it, I think I’d prefer my sisters killing me. Once Mike put the gun to Lucas’ head he slapped it away.

“No, no, no!” He yelled. “We’re going back to plan A. We’re telling your mom.” He runs to the door but when he opens it it slams shut, he tries again but the same thing happens and it locks. We turn to Eleven who’s nose is bleeding.

“No.” WHAT. THE. SHIT.

— — —

Judith Byers’ P.O.V.

Lonnie took Jonathan to look at his new car, I’d really of liked to take a look at it but apparently since I’m a girl I should talk about ponies and princesses with Cynthia. At the very least she managed to get me the one thing that could actually make today feel somewhat good, coffee. When I was a kid I had problems getting up in the morning so Lonnie had me drink coffee, when mom found out she was pissed and they yelled at each other. She’s upset that I still drink it but by this point I’m completely addicted to the drink.

“You’re dad’s not a complete asshole.” She tries to reassure me.

“Thanks, but I’ve known Lonnie my whole life, you’ve known him a few months. I think I can decide whether or not I think he’s an asshole.”

“Why do you hate him?” She asks.

“I think he never really wanted kids, or was just never ready for what they meant. So there was a mutual resentment from the start. He hated us for taking away his fun, we hated him for never really being a dad.” I answer before taking a sip of my drink.

“Come on, we’re leaving.” Jonathan says angrily after walking in. I nod my head before saying bye to Cynthia and walking to the car.

— — —

Anthony Reed’s P.O.V.

“Just doesn’t make any sense, Chief.” Earl tells Hopper.

“You notice anything odd about him the last few weeks?” He replies.

“No, we’re fixin’ to go fishing down the Etowah next Sunday. I mean he was looking forward to it, I know it.”

“He got any enemies you might know about? I mean, people who might not want him around?”

“The exes didn’t like him much. That’s for sure, but… nah.”

“When was the last time you saw him?” I ask.

“Yesterday. Lunch, same as always.”

“Just you and the boys?” Hopper asks.

“Yeah. Me and Henry… Well, there was this, uh, this kid. No kid did this.” Yeah, no shit. But what was a kid doing around Benny’s.

“Kid?” Hopper asks, already having the same thoughts running through his head. “What are you talking about?”

“Yeah. At lunch, uh, there was this boy that, uh… I mean, he was trying to steal food out of Benny’s kitchen. Can you imagine that?” Ballsy move, there was nothing Benny took care of more than his kitchen. Callahan stood up to grab one of the missing posters for Will. Could it really be him? Why would he be stealing food?

“This kid… what’d he look like?” Hopper asks.

“Well, he was about yea high. You know, tiny like.” He held up his hand at around five or so feet. “I didn’t get a good look at him, though. He was back in the kitchen.”

“He look like this?” Callahan asks.

“Oh, no, that’s… That’s Lonnie’s missin’ kid. No. This was a different kid. This one had really short hair. I mean, it was buzzed nearly down to the scalp.”

“Yeah, well, let’s… You know, let’s forget about the haircut. I mean, if this kid had a buzz cut… could it be Lonnie’s kid?” Hopper asks again.

“Well, I… I didn’t get a good look at him. About the right height, though. I mean, could’ve been.” Oh shit, a god damn lead.

— — —

Oliver Reed’s P.O.V.

We’re all eating dinner at Mike’s house. Well, eating is generous word for it. We barely touched it.

“Something wrong with the meatloaf?” Mrs. Wheeler asks.

“Oh, no, I had two bologna sandwiches for lunch.” Dustin answers. Damn, that was a good one. I should’ve come up with that. “I don’t know why.”

“Me, too.” Lucas says.

“It’s delicious, mommy.” Nancy, who I’m sitting next to, tells her. Huh, my sisters only call dad ‘daddy’ when they are buttering him up for something, that’s how they got the car.

“Thank you, sweetie.”

“So, there’s this… special assembly thing tonight… for Will at the school field. Barb’s driving.” Huh, I never heard about any assembly. Oh.

“Why am I just hearing about this?”

“I thought you knew.”

“I told you, I don’t want you out after dark until Will is found.” Alright Mrs. Wheeler, don’t let yourself be fooled by your children.

“I know, I know, but it’d be super weird if I’m not there. I mean everyone’s going.”

“Really, my sisters aren’t going.” I tell them. I then give a ear to ear smile to Nancy. I’ve always enjoyed annoying her, it’s easier then the rest of the older siblings in our friend group.

“That’s because they’re busy with homework.” She then kicks my leg and glares at me, that makes me realize that if I keep this up she’ll make my life a living hell.

“Yeah, essays and shit.” I reply.

“Hey language.” Mrs. Wheeler scolds me.

“Sorry.”

“Just… be back by 10:00. Why don’t you take the boys too?” Oh, shit.

“NO!” We all shout at the same time.

“Don’t you think you should be there? For Will?” It’s at that moment that Eleven walks downstairs, which leads to Mike choking on his drink. To distract everyone Dustin slams his fists down on the table.

“Sorry. Spasm.” He lies.

“Oh. It’s okay, Holly. It’s just a loud noise.” Mrs. Wheeler comforts the young girl as she starts to cry.

“Nice.” Nancy sarcastically says to Dustin. The bitchiness is another reason I love annoying her.

— — —

Anthony Reed’s P.O.V.

We’re out holding another search party for Will, this time closer to Benny’s. One of the volunteers blows there whistle and we all run to them. It’s Mr. Clarke.

“Hey, what do you got?” I ask.

“Not sure.” He says. “Maybe nothing.” He holds up a small piece of fabric right by a sewer drain. “I found this, in there.”

“No way a kid crawls through there.” Powell says.

“I don’t know… a sacred enough one might. His brother said he was good at hiding.” Hopper says, standing up. Shit, what would make a kid want to crawl in there.

We then start walking along the path where the drain would go, and it leads us to a fenced off piece of land belonging to the Hawkins National Laboratory for the U.S. Department of Energy.

— — —

Oliver Reed’s P.O.V.

After dinner we decided to take some meatloaf down to Eleven.

“El.” Mike calls to her. She’s messing with the radio in a small fort. “No adults. Just us and some meatloaf.” She looks at me, Lucas, and Dustin with fear. “Don’t worry. They won’t tell anyone about you. They promise. Right?”

“We never would’ve upset you if we knew you had superpowers.” Dustin tells her, which makes Mike hit him.

“What Dustin is trying to say is that they were just scared… earlier. That’s all.” Mike tells her.

“We just wanted to find our friend.” Lucas apologizes.

“Friend?” She asks.

“Yeah, friend. Will?”

“What is friend?” Oh that is just sad.

“Is she serious?” Lucas asks, to which I shrug my shoulders. “Um, a friend is-”

“Someone who you would do anything for.” Mike explains.

“You lend them your cool stuff, like comic books and trading cards” Dustin adds on.

“Dude, if she doesn’t know what friends are, I don’t think she know’s what those are.” I tell him.

“And they never break a promise.” Mike says.

“Especially when there’s spit.” Lucas says.

“Spit?” She asks.

“A spit swear means…” He then spits in his hand, then he shakes mine. “You never break your word. It’s a bond.” I look at him disgusted as I wipe the spit of on Dustin’s shirt.

“That’s super important, because friends… they tell each other things. Things that parents don’t know.” Mike tells her.

— — —

Oliver Reed’s P.O.V.

Eleven sits down at our D&D table.

“What’s the weirdo doing?” Lucas asks.

“El?” Mike asks.

She then picks a piece up from the board. “Will.”

“Superpowers.” Dustin says.

Mike sits down next to her. “Did you see him? On Mirkwood?”

“Do you know where he is?” I ask her.

She slides all the pieces off the board which makes me breath a sigh of annoyance, we were in the middle of a campaign. She then flips the board over and puts the Will piece back on. “I don’t understand.” Mike says.

“Hiding.” She answers.

“Will is hiding?” He asks. She nods. “From the bad men?” She shakes her head.

“Then from who?” I ask.

She puts down the demogorgon piece. And we all look at each other afraid.

— — —

Judith Byers’

Me and mom are at home in the living room, she’s half asleep sitting in the chair while I wait to see if anybody calls. All of a sudden the phone rings, mom gets to it first and picks up. “Hello?” I walk up closer to her to hear what the other person is saying. “Hello? Who is this?”

We then hear some breathing and sounds, a voice, coming from the phone, they almost sound like Will. “Will?” I say.

“Will, it’s me.” Mom says into the phone, breaking down, I’m in tears at this point too. “Talk to me. I’m here. Just tell me where you are, honey. I can hear you. Please.”

“Mom?” Will answers in a creepy, distorted voice. We both gasp and I take a step back, I cover my mouth in shock.

“Will! Yes, it’s me. It’s me. Where are you? Where are you? Just talk to me.” She sobs before the phone sparks with electricity. She drops the phone and screams, she tries get the line again but fails and she throws the phone. We fall to the ground, crying and hugging each other as she repeatedly cries ‘no’.

Then the lights start flickering. Not all at once, but one at a time. We get up and start to follow the trail until Will’s radio turns on randomly, blaring that song they love. The lights in his room start shining brighter then ever before.

“Will.” We both whisper, as mom walks towards the lamp, grabbing it. “Will, is that you?” She asks. At this point I don’t know what to think anymore. One person experiencing this would be insane, two is crazy, but at least they can believe each other.

The light burns out and we go back to crying. Until a sound came.

It sounded like snarling and growling. And then this shape started coming out of the wall, pushing against it, it looks like a person, a big one. We scream and run out of the house and get into mom’s car.

“Oh god, oh god, oh god.” I panic as she starts the car. The song began playing again.

“Will.” Mom says again. She looks at the house and gets out of the car. She walks back to the house. And for some unknown, stupid reason, I follow. Probably because my brother is dealing with that thing, my little brother. We need to protect him.

A/N: Sorry, Pt. 2 was out later then expected, but hopefully the next part will be out sooner. Once again, we didn’t see a lot of some of the characters, I kind of shot myself in the foot by introducing so many, I have an idea for one that I’ll introduce in season 2 and one that I might use in season 4 but I’ll decide if I get there. Judith is involved in the demogorogon plot this season, so that’s cool. I’m hoping to have more Oliver and Nancy interactions in the series, the plan is that when she’s less bratty his enjoyment of annoying her will turn into mutual roasting between friends. Well that clears this up, I’ll see you next time.

[onlyhereforangst]

you guys, not everything is a kingpin movie...okay i see you, i see your trauma, i believe you why would they want the compass?

[thestoryden]

Stalker

Eddie Munson x Reader Warnings: Language, Stalking, Obsessive Behavior, Ep. 1 Spoilers, Death Word Count: 1.5k

You stand at a distance, staring down the object of your affections. Three time super senior Eddie Munson, his long loose curls fell around his dark eyes framing them perfectly. He was beautiful. His hold on you was absolute. Not that there was anything wrong with your absolute love. Maybe it was an issue that he was a “freak”, but your popularity gave you leeway to leer without question. He was everything you ever wanted. Of course, at first it was just a crush, but then you could not help yourself. 

One year ago  

You fell down the stairs after getting out of cheer tryouts and freaking wrecked your arms on the pavement. You could not help but sob from the pain as you sat there. Then he burst out of the doors like some knight in shining armor laughing and joking with his friends. He wore a shirt that read Hellfire club. 

“Oh, shit!” he exclaimed. He descended the stairs with ease. “Are you okay?” He asked. 

You brushed away the tears, they stung like hell as they ran into your scrapes. He took both your arms and looked them over. The rest of his friends had begun to disperse. 

“Let’s get this fixed up.” 

He guided you back into the school. You reached the nurses office. 

“The nurse is not here though”  

He fiddled with the lock for a second before pulling the door free. 

“Not a problem for me.” 

He tended to your arms with gentle care. You studied his face closely as he worked. 

“Do you do this a lot?” 

“No, I just had to patch myself up a lot, you know.” 

Then you felt it. Ba-bump. You breathed out and tried to focus then there it was again. Ba-bump. 

He looked up at me, “You doing okay?” 

Your heart started hammering inside your body. You nodded. 

He pulled back, “Well, I think you can probably get home safe without bleeding out now.” 

You piped up, “I will.” 

You smiled and hopped down from the counter. And gave him a little wave. You got on your bike and rode home.

Now

One of the girls at the lunch table asked you a question. 

“Hello? Earth to (Y/N).”  You snapped back to reality. 

“I said, did you want to practice at my place tonight?” 

“Yeah totally,” you replied. 

“What about you Chris?” 

You both looked at her. She seemed spaced out at first, but then you followed her gaze. She was staring at Eddie. No fucking way you thought. You gave her a little push with your hand. 

You sweetened your voice, “Chrissy, what the hell are you doing staring at that freak. Answer Samantha’s question.”

 She looked over at me, completely out of it. 

Samantha retorted, “Jesus, Chrissy what are you on.” 

“Yeah, yeah, whatever that sounds good,” She said, vaguely nervous. 

You were pissed at what she was doing, staring at your Eddie. As if she had any right. The stupid shrew already had a boyfriend. Your face began to heat up as your blood boiled. You were about to say something then suddenly Chrissy got up and rushed away. 

“Seriously, what is wrong with her?” Samantha remarked. 

“She’s been seeing the counselor.” You said. 

Samantha made a face, “Maybe there's trouble in paradise.” 

Sam was a ladder climber for sure, but she just wanted Jason as her own. You could not blame her though You would do anything to make Eddie yours. Even if that meant following him to the end of the earth.  

The next day

Chrissy did not show up for lunch at all. Samantha immediately went to theorizing with the other girls on the team as to what could possibly be going wrong. You added on bits, so as not to draw attention to yourself as you watched Eddie. He was reading from a copy of Newsweek to his club. His face was all you could think about that and his funny quips. You wanted to be a part of it all. Breathe every moment of him in, but you could not if you wanted to stay popular you just needed to keep admiring him from afar. You could not hear what he was saying over the lunch room chatter, but you so desperately wanted to be right next to him hanging on to his every word. Suddenly he popped on to his lunch table. It gave you a start, but he started yelling. He hollered toward the basketball team's table. 

Jason got up, “You want something Freak!”

 Eddie made a ridiculous face at him, and you burst out in a fit of giggles. Eddie got louder and scared some random sophomore. Then he let by two of the girls on the team with a smile as they headed to our table. You started to seethe that smile should have been for you, because Eddie is yours. Those two freshman freak shows did not deserve his attention. First Chrissy and now these two. Samantha had no reason to go after them, so naturally you would give her one. You mulled over the thought of getting the team to rip these freshmen to shreds. Nothing mattered but you were not going to let these girls pull his attention. They approached the table smiling and giggling, no doubt at his little show. 

“Girls, care to tell me why you two messed up at the rally this morning even though we went over everything at Samantha’s last night. You two truly must not care about cheering on our boys at the Championship.” 

They both started to stammer. 

You grinned, “I don’t want to hear it. Perfect your moves or you're off the team, right Sammy?” 

She appraised them swiftly, “Of course, We have to be perfect for our boys.” 

You smiled sweetly. Your attention was pulled quickly as you saw Eddie yank up two of the boys at his table and shove them. Interesting. Chrissy still had not come back from the counselor and after yesterday you wanted to make sure she was not going after your prince. 

You watched her cross the school, then the practice track, and then into the woods. What was this girl doing? You followed her close behind and she kept snapping around like she knew you were following her. She stopped once she got to a picnic table. 

She started looking around and then she called out, “Hello?” 

Then her attention snapped to a tree and she began to approach it staring intensely. She began to quiver. Then Eddie appeared kinda out of nowhere and bumped into her. You had been so transfixed on her you had not noticed him. You watched as he smiled for her. He performed for her falling to the floor as he spoke. They were just out of ear shot. You wanted to be jealous as you had felt before, but all that melted away when you saw him smiling. How could it not. He was perfect. He pulled the neckline of his shirt down exposing some of his tattoos. Chrissy eventually got up to walk away. Shit she is going to see you. You can just meet her on the track. You headed back there quickly. You waited on the stairs for her. You saw her approach. 

“Chrissy!” You waved. 

“Y/N, are you here to...” she trailed off. 

“To what?” You laughed, “We hadn’t seen you all day and we need to practice for the game.” 

You pulled her along, “No worries, ‘kay.” 

You were pissed that the championship game was tonight. Usually you would be watching Eddie play that weird game with his friends. He was the leader of it because of course he was. Because he was perfect. You would admire him from the rafters of the stage. But tonight you had to cheer on the basketball team. You have to do this to maintain your popularity, you thought. It is not that you did not love cheering on the team. They just were not as important as your Eddie, with his dark hair and wistful smile. 

The game ended. Everyone was gearing up to celebrate, but Chrissy started heading off on her own. You decided to follow her. She was waiting out by the practice track again, and then Eddie showed up. 

“Do you have it?” she asked. 

“No, it’s back at my place.” He responded then they headed for his car.

No fucking way you thought. You did not want them to think you were following them so you waited and hopped on your bike. You knew they were heading to Eddie’s trailer, You had been before watching him through the blinds that he so often forgot to close fully. your mouth watered at the thought. After a while you bike toward his place. Once you got there the porch light was flickering and the lights inside were going crazy. There was a bang you rushed to one of the windows. Chrissy is dead on the floor contorted in every which way. You run to the door and jimmy it open. 

“Eddie? What the fuck did you do?” 

He looked up at you, “What the shit are you doing here? This wasn’t me, you have to believe me.”

[uselessheretic]

Calico Jack as *That* Shitty Ex

Calico Jack is the odd pirate fratboy masquerading as a booty call. Serving as the last-minute jealousy arc and an excuse to have Stede go into daddy mode with "Get off my ship," Calico Jack operates as a necessary friction, peeling away at the veneer of Edward's person. I've seen a handful of really good meta focused on how Jack not-so-subtly bullies Stede, but not much on the way Jack uses emotional manipulation to isolate Edward throughout the episode. If we dig deeper into these interactions and apply a wee bit of theorizing, episode 8 can provide a lot of information about who Edward was when younger.

So, let's start with a simple question:

Who is Calico Jack to Edward?

Calico Jack is unique in that he's one of the few characters who have known Ed since he was presumably much younger. It's likely that he has known him longer than Izzy as well since Ed and Jack met as shipmates on Captain Hornigold's crew and there isn't any indication that Izzy was a part of their friendship.

What makes Jack especially interesting is that he has known Edward before the mythology around Blackbeard had formed. Yes, Edward still went by Blackbeard at the time (or "Blackie" which is a real unfortunate choice of nicknames, but whatever!) but he wasn't yet Captain Blackbeard. Calico Jack and Edward knew each other as peers, ones who started at the bottom of the food chain on Hornigold's ship. The two reminisce on their time of being treated as worst than dogs and beaten down daily. This means they have a relationship with each other as equals where there's not anything to suggest that Jack was ever captained by Edward either.

And then there is also the, ahem, buggering. David Jenkins has already stated that Stede is the first person Edward has fallen in love with, so the two clearly didn't have a whirlwind romance or anything.

But, even if they weren't romantically involved or even if Ed wasn't ever "in love" with him, doesn't change the fact that Jack is someone Ed cares about deeply and who he also buggered on the reg. Calico Jack is someone who also saved Ed's life at least once before. He's someone Ed is comfortable touching, that he can be playful with, and will even temporarily push Stede aside to accommodate him better.

What all this leaves us with is: Calico Jack is someone that should be Ed's friend. He's someone that knows Ed intimately and someone Ed cares for deeply, not as Blackbeard the Captain or Blackbeard the legend, but as Blackbeard the beaten-down eccentric youth.

With this in mind, it’s easy to see why Calico Jack was so sucessful in manipulating Ed.

Jack the Manipulator

Straight from the beginning, we see Jack acting in subtle (and often not so subtle) ways of manipulating Stede and Ed. He’s very clearly trying to isolate Stede and get on his nerves to drive a wedge between him and Ed. It’s interesting though because we can see him calibrate his strategy throughout the episode where there’s moments when he adjusts and pulls back to make sure he doesn’t push Ed too far.

When Stede comes out, for example, Calico Jack immediately remarks “who’s the big gal” a very clear way of setting the tone for their relationship. Edward’s reaction is surprisingly very middle of the road. We don’t see him jump to defend Stede, but he doesn’t actually join in on the mocking where it’s likely that he wants Stede and Calico Jack to get along. Edward laughs at the joke, but he quickly assures Stede that Calico Jack is joking, and affirms that he’s not a girl. This is a no win situation for either, where Stede doesn’t feel supported, but Calico Jack isn’t validated. what Calico Jack does gain, however, is a quick understanding of where Stede/Ed’s relationship standing is. He pulls back from mocking Stede openly from then on, and instead is far more passive aggressive and only openly hostile when Ed isn’t around.

His entire time on the ship, Calico Jack is in complete control of the situation where he relies on his knowledge of Edward specifically to cause the rift. Even after he’s mildly rebuked when making fun of Stede, he then turns to inside jokes as a form of showing his closeness to Edward and shutting Stede out when they go for “brekkie.” Jack drops reminders of who Edward is, a two pronged approach that exposes the more violent and cruel aspects of Blackbeard’s personality, while also affirming that Calico Jack is someone he can trust to accept Edward at his worse.

When eating breakfast he doesn’t just push Stede to the side, he specifically cuts him off when sharing a story about himself and Ed, and instead focuses on reminding Ed about how much the two of them suffered together under Hornigold, and the vulnerability Edward has. He makes him feel small first, and then switches to isolating Ed further by exposing the murder by arson he committed. This is to show Stede that he’s not the person who he says he is, but also to remind Edward that he, himself, is monstruous as well. OFMD often uses dinner tables as places of discomfort, and when Jack brings up the fire, Edward leans back into his chair, mirroring Stede’s isolation in his family. The shot pulls back to where it’s just Edward, and his tone shifts to match. But Jack doesn’t want to push him too far, he makes sure to be aware of this, and suggests yardies as a way of lightening the mood, while also reaffirming their position as companions through the shared inside joke and expressing that only Jack can know Ed and not flinch.

Basically, Jack reminds Ed of a time when he was weak, ostracizes him by bringing up his violence, and then finishes it off by making himself out to be a place of safety. Honestly? It’s kinda brilliant.

This seems to be the primary way he manipulates Edward, but he also relies on Edward’s emotional response as well. He waits until Stede finally snaps and says something even a little bit rude to him before bursting into tears. This fascinates me, because this plan only works if he can be sure that Ed will immediately jump to his defense from seeing Jack be emotional (which he does!) He isn’t only playing off of Ed’s self image, he’s also banking on Ed caring for him enough to disregard Stede. For Blind Man’s cove to work as a plan, he has to be reasonably certain that Ed would bring up the time he saved his life before. He has to be sure that Ed will play around with him, joke with him, and touch him to ensure that Stede is sufficiently jealous.

And it works! It for real actually works! The only reason this gets fucked up is because Jack has a big fucking mouth and let it slip that Izzy sent him.

What does this say about Edward?

Honestly? A lot. This is partially theorizing, but if you look at how Ed interacts with Calico Jack and assume that this is a peak into who Ed was when younger, we actually learn a lot about Ed’s nuances.

Edward thinks Calico Jack is emotional, for example. When Calico Jack cries, he immediately jumps to his defense and talks to Stede about it. He doesn’t tell him to back off really, but he does try to explain Jack to him, showing the audience how Ed views Jack. He describes him as emotional and compares him to Stede, but throughout the episode we don’t see Jack express any earnest emotions or any care to Ed either. He wasn’t being genuine when he cried, but Ed thought he was, which draws into question how well Ed actually knows the true Calico Jack, and whether he’s more acquainted with a mask.

For me, these reads as two things: 1. Edward, deep inside, is actually a rather empathetic person fueled by emotions. We see him have outbursts of anger throughout the series and know he’s hotheaded, but that extends farther than that. He can be persuaded by the emotions of those he cares about. And 2. Edward isn’t actually that good at reading authenticy in people. The fact that Edward in episode 5 said he never seen passive aggression before, and then spent all of episode 8 not recognizing Calico Jack’s clear bitch behavior like literally gives me brain damage.

Still, it doesn’t seem common place for Ed to get played this way. I’m willing to bet that Ed compensates for his lack of ability to determine genuine from falsehood by just… assuming everyone is lying and manipulating all the time. If you’re easily swayed by your emotions, then just lock them up and forget about it. I doubt Calico Jack had ever been able to manipulate Edward to this degree before because Edward wouldn’t had let him. Honestly, I’m willing to bet that Edward’s in the habit of fucking Jack over before he can do the same.

Calico Jack also offers more complexities to Edward’s claim that he has no friend. With the way he interacts with Jack, you would assume that he and Jack are friends, but that isn’t stated. In fact, Jack outright confirms that pirates just don’t have friends. Still, Edward is physical with Jack, he’s playful, and he’s even emotionally grateful to him in front of the others. It’s a lot to boast about how Jack saved his life, showing a vulnerability and gratitude that you wouldn’t expect.

It’s possible that Calico Jack is someone that Ed would want to consider a friend, but Ed knows pirates don’t have friends. Him being more vulnerable and susceptible to manipulation is possibly a side effect of his time with Stede, even. Jack says that the old Blackbeard would’ve seen him coming a mile away, but this one didn’t. This Blackbeard, the one he exists in by Stede’s side, has friends. If he’s hurt, he’ll be comforted. If he’s vulnerable, he’ll be protected. This Blackbeard is happier, but also, this Blackbeard has had his ability to sense danger dulled. In the end, habits of evasion and pulling away from others aren’t done for fun. It’s learned behavior survivors of trauma and abuse develop to keep themselves safe.

One other thing we’re able to learn about Edward through Calico Jack is that Edward is actually a very social being. It’s funny watching him interact with Calico Jack, because although the tone of language changes, he’s mimicking a lot of his behavior from the French party. He adapts himself to fit within the culture, and acts in a way that’s almost a performance. Episode 8 is the only time we ever see Edward interact with the rest of the crew just for fun. He’s playing games with them! He’s telling stories! Any other time he’s around the crew it’s either because Stede is there, or Ed needs something specifically. With Jack, there’s no immediate material benefit for him to be playing around with them, other than potentially looking for Jack’s approval.

Also, a note, but I think it’s possible we could see hints of The Kraken’s possibility in episode 8. It’s interesting to me that throughout the episode, Jack consistently keeps Edward drinking. Adding it to his tea, playing drinking games, and even bothering him on the beach when he complains that it’s too early. Maybe Calico Jack is aware that Edward becomes noticeably meaner when drinking.

Conclusion?

Calico Jack knows Edward. Honestly, Calico Jack knows Edward more than Stede does. The way he interacts with him throughout episode 8 takes a certain level of confidence. Confidence that Edward likes him enough to act out. Confidence that Edward is sentimental enough to care that he cries. Confidence that Edward insecure enough to pull away when he feels too seen.

The plan was never to get Stede pissed enough that he kicks Ed off his ship. The plan was to make Edward scared enough that he’ll leave willingly without even noticing what’s going on.

Through Calico Jack, we can get a small peek at a younger version of Ed, one who is cruel and crass, but also social and defensive of others. We can see how there is a desire within him to be close to others, where him admiting that he doesn’t have any friends is something that is deeply troubling to him and he views as a reflection of something inherently wrong with him.

When The Kraken comes out, it’s not a complete surprise. We’ve already seen how desperate Ed is for companionship, and what that looked like before Stede came along. Something tentative and incomplete. Relationships that come with stipulations of “it’s okay because it’s at sea,” and warnings to not get too close because pirates are always just in various stages of fucking each other over. Stede offered a reprieve from that, and when his promise of companionship fell through, it greatly injured an Edward who at his core wants to be wanted.

[madamebaggio]

Notes: Previously...

Still not hot, but getting warmer ;)

***

Chapter 3

Jon felt like shit.

Now, if anyone asked his few friends –especially Tormund – they’d say it wasn’t something new. They enjoyed saying that Jon liked to brood.

It wasn’t true. He had his moments –he’d admit it –but he didn’t make it his life or anything.

But the way he had talked to Sansa earlier… Yeah, he felt like shit.

He had some pretty good excuses to justify himself –what she did had been foolish and could’ve gotten her into a lot of trouble –but it was a lie.

The truth –the embarrassing and shameful truth –was that Jon reacted so badly because of how he felt upon reading that message.

It had been past one, the night had been calm so far and he and the other men were playing cards when his phone chimed, indicating a message had arrived. He opened it, without really paying attention to it, saw it was from Sansa, read the part about helping her. He was wondering if she wanted some kind of furniture done for her apartment, because Lord knew they rarely talked to each other socially, so he couldn’t imagine any other reason for her to contact him.

Then he opened the link.

It was… A sexual bucket list. 30 something items in it.

Jon went back to properly read the message. Yes, it was from Sansa and she was asking his help with it. How did she even know he was good at oral? He was pretty sure he never talked about his sex life with her.

Unbidden and unwanted, an image came to his head: Sansa splayed on his bed, legs spread wide, her fingers clutching his hairs and he licked her…

The image was so strong he had to literally shake his head to get rid of it.

It had to be some kind of sick joke. Sansa would never proposition him like this.

“What have you got there, Snow?” Tormund demanded, when he failed to answer a previous question.

Jon cleared his throat and put his phone away, clearing his throat. “Nothing.”

“Nothing, hn?” Satin arched an eyebrow. “Got a new girl, Snow?”

“Jon?” Turmund snickered. “Swear to God, his pecker’s gonna fall off from disuse.”

As the rest of the night proceeded with no big emergencies, the men started theorizing about Jon’s hypothetical girl, they made jokes and crude suggestions.

He knew he shouldn’t feel offended, there was no girl. They had no idea who was that on the phone, if there really was someone. They all had no idea how ashamed Jon was feeling about his reaction, and most of them would never make jokes like those if they really thought there was someone.

It was just… It was Sansa! Her father had raised him, her brother was his best friend; and said brother would kill him slowly if he ever dreamed that he’d thought –for a fucking second –of Sansa like that.

He needed to talk to her as soon as possible.

However, the closer he got to her apartment, the more his embarrassment was replaced by some misguided anger. How could she send a message like that to anyone? Did she have any idea how some men talked to each other about women? Jon knew some guys from the station that would have made a show of passing that message around.

Sansa was better than that.

In the end he’d been as much of an asshole as most of those guys. He hadn’t meant to fight with Sansa, but he had anyway.

And who the fuck was he to tell her what to do?

Jon put down the hammer he’d picked and never used. Arya liked to tease him saying that wood carving and designing furniture really completed Jon’s lone brooding mountain-man lifestyle. She sometimes asked him if he had adopted a bear yet. Never mind there were no bears –or mountains, as a matter of fact - around there.

Jon liked carving and working with wood, he even sold some of his pieces online. Besides, it was relaxing.

Not today.

He sighed and decided to quit while he was ahead, before he destroyed some project. He had just gone back to the living room of his small cabin when the headlights lit it from the outside.

He walked to the door and opened it in time to see Sansa getting out of her car. To say that he was shocked would be an understatement. He hadn't expected to see her so soon, but this was actually good, because he could apologize now.

She was really serious and stopped even before reaching his porch. “Hey, Jon.” Her voice was small, tentative.

Jon gave her a small smile, trying to reassure her. “Hey, Sansa. Wanna come in? I’ll make us tea.”

She nodded and made her way to him. He held the door open for her. She stopped in the middle of his living room and he watched as she took the place in.

Sansa had grown up in a big house, with every bit of comfort that could be given to a child, and that made Jon wonder how she’d view his place. This cabin was all he had left from his parents and he liked it, but it probably looked too… Bare, for someone like Sansa, who worked with interior design for a living and had always loved pretty things.

“Is this one of yours?” She pointed at the coffee table.

Jon cleared his throat. “Yes. One of my first ones.”

She hummed something, eyes still on the piece. “You should consider selling more of those.”

Was this some kind of compliment? “I like to do them in my own time; no pressure, no demands.”

Sansa just nodded her head softly, looking at the table, but Jon was pretty sure she wasn’t seeing it anymore. “I’ll go get us that tea.” He said, just to break the silence.

She finally turned to him. “I’m not here for tea, Jon.” She sighed. “I just… I came to say sorry.”

“Sorry?” Jon was caught by surprise. “Why would you say sorry to me?” He asked, completely confused. “I should be the one apologizing.”

“Yes, you should and I was planning on making sure you would.” She admitted with a small grin. “But you were worried about me and I guess I shouldn’t get exactly angry about it. Besides, it wasn’t like you were expecting to get a porny text from me.”

If she thought that was porny she had a few things to learn.

Not that he wanted to be the one to teach her.

He had nothing to teach her.

He shouldn’t even think about….

What the fuck was wrong with him?

“You’ve said it yourself, Sansa. It was a joke, I got the text by accident.” He hurried to say, eager to let her off the hook, so he could start forgetting about this.

He had re-read that list. He shouldn’t have, but he couldn’t stop thinking about it. He told himself it was just curiosity.

And it was.

He chanced a look at Sansa and saw that she was biting her lower lip.

Jon knew that face, he knew it very well and it never boded well for him, Robb or basically anyone that wasn’t a sadistic bastard –or Arya.

That face meant she was about to ask something, and Jon knew –from previous experiences –that he wouldn’t be able to say ‘no’. That was how she tricked him and Robb into playing Barbie with her.

When Sansa blinked those blue eyes at people she always got what she wanted.

“I’ve been thinking about something you said earlier.” She started.

“OK…” Jon agreed carefully.

“About how men talk about women they have sex with.” She clarified.

Jon just nodded, not sure where this was going.

“I do know that guys can say… Stuff.” She sighed. “And even lie about this, just because people always believe them.”

Something in her voice made Jon pay even more attention to her. She did know because it had happened to her. “Who said what about you?” He all but demanded.

He hadn’t realized he’d growled until Sansa looked a bit alarmed. “Nobody.” She lied quickly. “That wasn’t my point. What I wanted to say is that –as a guy –you know what guys say.”

Jon let go of the lie –for now –and arched an eyebrow at her logic. “So?”

She bit her lip again, which meant she was getting ready to ask whatever she wanted to ask. The way she was delaying it meant it was something she didn’t think he’d want to do. By the tone of this conversation he was pretty sure he wouldn’t.

“And you work at the fire station, with a lot of other guys…” She continued.

He really didn’t like where this was going. “Sansa…”

“Maybe you could introduce me to one of them.” She finally asked.

“Why?” Jon asked shocked. Sansa only dated those preppy boys and idiotic lawyers, why would she want to… “Is this about the list?” He asked, beyond shocked.

Sansa pressed her lips together and didn’t answer, which was answer enough.

“No! Absolutely no.”

“Jon, just listen to me…” Sansa started.

“I’m not going to hook you up with some guy that I work with just so you can do this stupid list with...”

“It’s not just about the list!” She argued. “I mean… Yeah, sure, it’s a bit about it, but not only that.” She admitted. “It’s just that everybody keeps saying how amazing sex is and I have yet to see it. So maybe I just need something different and completely out of my comfort zone.”

“Wait a second.” Jon was still caught in another part of her speech. “You’ve never… You didn’t…”

Sansa arched an eyebrow and dared him to finish that sentence.

“You dated before.” He knew the answer to that, but still felt like he needed to check it.

“Yes.” She crossed her arms protectively in front of herself. “I’m not a virgin, Jon.” She said defensively.

No, but apparently she’d had seriously crappy sex. Not that he was about to tell her that, because… Well, this was Sansa and he shouldn’t even think about her and sex at the same time.

Like ever.

If he really thought about it, it wasn’t that shocking. He remembered two of her boyfriends: Joffrey Baratheon and Harry Hardying, both were arrogant pricks, that felt like the world belonged to them because they had fancy last names and money. They were the type of men that thought only about themselves, it was logical it’d be the same when it came to sex.

When his silence stretched too long, Sansa started to squirm. “Look, I don’t want anything serious. I just want a guy that it’s going to treat me nicely and… Well…” She made a vague gesture with her hand. “And maybe you know a guy that’d be okay with this.”

“No!” Jon repeated. “I’m not going to pimp you out to one of my coworkers, Sansa. This is crazy.”

Just the idea of something like that left a bad taste in his mouth. There were many men in his station that were good men, that he knew would treat any woman with respect, but he wasn’t going to introduce Sansa to them.

No!

Yes, her idea had its merits. He knew the guys and knew how they talked about the women they went out with, he could tell which one of them he’d never introduce to any woman, because they were pricks.

But not Sansa! Not even to the best of them and he knew many of them would love this idea of hers.

But no!

Sansa rolled her eyes, like he was the crazy one. “Okay, fine.” Her voice was sharp. “I’ll just have to find someone myself then.”

That was even worse!

Sansa went to pass him, so she could leave, and Jon grabbed her arm to stop her. Her eyes snapped to him, widened in her surprise. Jon couldn’t say he wasn’t surprised himself, he never touched Sansa like that.

Thinking about it now… He was sure he hardly ever touched her at all.

He was going to say he was sorry, but then he’d explain to her all the reasons this was a ridiculous idea. Sansa was a smart woman; she’d see he was right. She was sensible, he’d be convincing.

Then they could all forget the last 24 hours had happened at all.

That was what Jon planned on doing, he had the words sorted out in his head; but what actually came out was something completely different.

“Then let me do it.”

[enduracarrotchips]

YouTuber AU

Hello welcome to Dating Scandal but with Twitter Involved (nightmare)

A little exposition here: 

Link, Zelda, Sidon, Revali, and Riju are the most popular group of youtubers on the internet and have a huge fanbase that likes to theorize, draw fanart, and write fanfiction about them. Disclaimer, I don’t actually interact with real-person fandoms myself lol there’s just too much potential for drama and misunderstandings & they’re always bound to end in a dumpster fire but that is sort of what this au is about so.

Impa, Mipha, Daruk, and Urbosa are family friends that appear in a lot of their videos/streams. 

(This is an art blog I swear)

enter vidcon 20XX

Link: 

blows stuff up/sets stuff on fire with a side of cooking vids and gaming

most are filmed outside, he does those challenges where you try to cook stuff with limited ingredients/materials

has the largest fanbase of all of them, but not the most…intimidating.

does a lot of collab videos, mostly with Impa, Daruk, and Riju because they have similar interests/channels, but Zelda appears in his videos and is seen filming and the stans read too far into it

simps. i’m pointing at you.

Most popular videos are “shield surfing on rock!—how I broke my leg” “can Daruk eat Impa’s motorcycle?” and “how to inhale ranch dressing.”

Twitter handle is @ arsonistslullabye because he’s a hozier fan

45m subs

Zelda:

theories, analyses, conspiracies, and the occasional e x p e r i m e n t

she once got link to eat a frog for 50 bucks.

most people argue that she’s better than more popular YouTubers because she actually has quality content to give to the world and she has a lot of defensive supporters

She used to get a lot of hate before Urbosa spoke up about it and scared the bejeezus out of everyone

has an actual posting schedule

“Happy Sunday everyone, it’s Zelda Hyrule and today we will be talking about cryptozoology and why blupees exist, you cowards.”

Twitter handle is @ zeldaofhyrule and she is pan. just so you know. One of those calm extroverts that mystify me to this day.

18m subs

Sidon:

fashion/life hacks. Like gourmet troom troom but if they were real people.

Has the 2nd largest fanbase

most of them are girls

Sidon has a boyfriend though, which he told everyone at VidCon a few years ago

cue the drama and shipping and the entire fandom trying to figure out who the boyfriend is. A well known reddit thread emerged that presented the common guesses being Link, Sidon, and Zelda.

“But it can’t be Zelda, Sidon’s gay.”

“I’m not in the fandom but I thought Zelda was a boy??”

“Did you just say Sidon? Is that a typo? Are you saying that Sidon’s dating himself?”

Sidon x Sidon became a fandom joke.

Don’t look at me I’m just setting up all the worldbuilding. every fandom has their weird dark sides and Sidon x Sidon is the Linkcest of the Sidon YT fandom.

Mystery BF is actually Bazz, a pretty inconspicuous guy who appeared in a few of his videos. This was confirmed a year ago, but everyone still ships him with other YouTubers because they’re convinced he was lying to throw them off his scent. He really can’t catch a break and this is why you should not ship real people.

Twitter handle is @ officialprincesidon

says “beguiling” a lot

21m subs ᕙ( ͡❛ ▿ ͡❛)ᕗ

Mipha:

Sidon’s sister, hasn’t posted a single video but just has the channel for show because she appears in so many of Sidon’s videos as a model for his makeup tutorials and whatnot

has 328k for that. Everyone loves her, she’s great. @ mimipha

Revali:

Link’s sworn rival

Link thinks they’re friends

He kept popping up in link’s Twitter threads and making snarky comments until zelda called him out for not even following link (so why was he stalking his acc) which kept the Twitter drama to a minimum

Revali was the catalyst of a few popular memes and that’s where most of his subs come from.

drags link into a few challenges that always get a ton of views because of how competitive they get

“ITS JUST ASININE” is a running joke that everyone tries to get him to say. His @ is itsjustasinine as well

Urbosa is the only person who can win an argument with him

5m subs and growing rapidly. newer to youtube than everyone else.

Impa:

Doesn’t have a channel she’s just a mutual friend of Mipha, Zelda, and Link

Rides a motorcycle, so she is used in a few of Link’s videos.

@ ihaveamotorcycle because she thinks having a motorcycle is a personality trait. the most unruly on Twitter when it comes to replying to fan’s stuff, leaking upcoming videos and generally causing chaos.

Mipha’s girlfriend. That’s how she met Zelda and Link.

Urbosa:

Is actually a model, but she has a ton of YouTuber friends because she’s known Zelda since birth.

when she entered the youtube community she didn’t realize she would be adopting like 15 children

5m subs. her videos are professional & related to her modelling career. @ urbosasfury

I feel like she would do unboxing vids. I’m not sure what she’s unboxing.

Daruk

Just a friend of Link’s, fun guy. yells a lot. once ate a rock and had no reaction.

people are scared of him for that reason

Riju:

yoga & gymnastics & “ha look at how flexible I am its eAsY” videos

you know the type

she also does reactions and is sponsored by save the sand seals charities which she is very enthusiastic about. She’s also Urbosa’s niece and the only minor in the gang (15). I like to think that the champions YT community is actually not creepy so everyone respects her a ton

doesn’t post frequently, she mostly appears in Link’s videos to jump out of airplanes or whatever. And sometimes Zelda’s if she’s interested in the topic. 500k subs, but she’s always really popular when she appears in Link’s videos.

VidCon:

In the months leading up to VidCon, some fans on the internet made a few discoveries: first of all, that the inside of Link’s house is painted green. This is a big deal because all of his videos are filmed outside either in his backyard or on trips that he and the brosquad go on to do…whatever bros do. explosions. idk. The point is he had some announcement about VidCon and filmed it inside. Only the wall and a potted plant were shown.

However, the colour was similar to the the shade of Zelda’s living room. Fans dug through years and years of old videos and found a clip of Zelda walking through a hallway, where there was an open door and a glimpse of a houseplant.

There were 2 types of responses to the theory:

“They could just be roommates guys calm down”

“and they were ROOMMATES?”

others pointed out that Link could just not have a house and had to crash in Zelda’s

Some guy on reddit claimed he had a botany degree and declared that the houseplants in the clips were not of the same genus. Normal people pointed out that the plant would have grown 4 years between the clips and would look considerably different.

#Zelink trended on twitter for a while and people posted other old clips from both of their channels and the frog video blew up again

Impa retweeted a post tagged as #zelink with “rofl” and later publicly apologized for causing confusion.

Fans noticed that in the “can a motorcycle drive over my arm” (it was clickbait he’s fine) episode 2 years ago, Link was eating out of a paper lunch bag with his name written on it in handwriting that a few people claimed to look like Zelda’s, leading people to believe that she had packed him a lunch.

However, this theory was shot down with the counterargument that Zelda can’t cook. although. i mean how much skill do you need to make a sandwich.

No one knows what tumblr is doing at this time

Zelda wore a scarf in her “Save the Sand Seals” video that matched identically to the scarf Link wore when he travelled to Hebra to film a shield surfing video, but it’s been debated wether it’s actually the same scarf or not.

Neither Zelda nor Link has spoken up about the theories, and besides Impa’s one slip on twitter, neither has any of their friends. Zelda received a lot of backlash for the assumption that she was dating Link because he has a lot of delusional fans that didn’t want her to “steal their man” or whatever the hell that type of fan would get mad about

Oh yea and bolson & karson run a zelink fanpage on twitter sorry I forgot about that

after that whole mess, everyone was even more anticipant of VidCon in the hopes that some of their questions would be answered.

The whole batch went to VidCon this year: Link, Impa, Daruk, and Riju are a gang while Sidon and Mipha go together and Zelda & Revali each go separately. Urbosa is there for supervision moral support

Zelda has always been much better at dodging questions that she doesn’t want to answer than anyone else, so her Q&A went without a hitch. When asked to confirm the rumours she said “which one?” and then moved on to the next question (without actually confirming any rumours).

Link is generally a more awkward person but eventually said that he had filmed the video in Zelda’s house because it was nicer and didn’t realize it would cause such an uproar. Fans were disappointed, but Bolson claimed he saw Link and Zelda exiting the hotel elevator on the same floor after Link’s Q&A session. No one believed him.

Fans went back to theorizing over who Link, Zelda, and Sidon were all dating, because apparently they can’t just be dating unknown people and have to be with other YouTubers

Sidon and Bazz got engaged about a week after VidCon, making at least 4 preteen girls cry

actually try 4 million

Sidon x Sidon made a brief comeback but Sidon spoke up about his fandom for the first time ever on twitter and told everyone that no, he was not dating himself. eventually, everyone settled down and accepted that none of them were in a relationship save for a few loud fans.

Link and Zelda still got the occasional “when will you tell us who you’re dating?” comment but most of them were joking and the people who still hardcore shipped them were generally frowned upon. Zelda’s popularity went up after VidCon and she regained the 200k subscribers she’d lost after the first theory dropped.

Two months after VidCon, Link posted a video titled “Zelda and I’s House Tour!” and gave around 45 million people a heart attack

as revealed in the video, they had actually been dating since they were 16 and everyone’s just a fool.

the potted plant is named Hestu.

[randomshipperhere]

The Heist That Happened the 30th of October in 2019

This one is more focused since I have proper records of events and I was actually highly active prior, during, and after the release.

I had fun with the title. I also want to say this about the endings. Even the earliest folks took a minimum of 2 hours. 3rd hour was when a lot of the super active fans finished. So if anyone says they took one hour, obvious hyperbole but it’s just a minor annoyance I have.

ISWM Countdown- 1 day.

Let’s start at the beginning or at least... an easily traceable date for this mess.

2019-05-03

Since Damien came out around this time it was put on hold for fandom topics until a later date but fans are already aware of an upcoming project. Said later date was around May 20, 2019 where people began speculating the what ifs and could be of the series. It’s really funny since Mark’s post already told us what happens in the actual Heist when you look back on that picture.

A common joke told at the time is how we were gonna steal the museum itself. Made jokes on how we’re all gonna side with Dark the second we have a chance to switch sides. Even speculations how we might play a bigger role in the Heist by calling out Actor on his bullshit.

Then came the June 24, 2019 stream. Most well known as the one where Mark told us to shame him for locking out Amy and the stream where he wore a yellow shirt. Someone made a good summary post of the events (op deactivated). By openly talking about it and how excited he seemed, it created hype.

Late July, Mark began doing weird things to his channel banner. I just put this one since there is a mention of third Sunday and use of a moment in ADWM.

August not much to comment on outside of the Dark with demonic and religious art depictions n’ stuff. Really want that fan art era to be brought back... My gothic heart needs it. Uhh, yeah and September was focused on The Edge of Sleep but boy, when October hit? We went wild.

Before I go recalling the events leading up to the day. It is necessary that I show you this reblog from  2018-03-01.

Keep that in your head.

October 08: This is probably the first day when things started to turn suspicious. If you’re part of Jack and Mark’s fandom, the spooky month is when we go into overdrive. Like what could October 30 mean...

October 10: Mark uploaded this on his tumblr. And would you look at that. Actor exists in the video. What could the portrait be for? Looking back, I don’t quite remember those exact sound effects being used in the actual youtube original. It may have just been for promotional content and considering there was an activity level spike. I’d say the video do its job.

We do love our speculations. And I want to say this, a lot of predictions were off the mark. In the sense that a lot of us assumed that the Heist itself would take about 2 or 3 videos before going off course, instead of the one it ended up being. That was our mistake. The actual date did only happen for one video because the next options went off the rails. There were other, angstier and bold takes people had as well. Even with the inaccuracies, I still like reading old posts of what we thought could and would happen.

October 12: And look what we have here, a post theorizing that the long awaited white suit. If you can imagine gossip girls at the lunch table that is what talks about the white suit felt like. Also being in both fandoms was a wonderful kind of hell. Content for days! Content for weeks! Upcoming content to last us til the end!

October 13: Of course, Mark won’t allow us to rest and let our attention stray far away from him. So what does he do? Laugh at the size of our beloved ADWM’s flowchart. Mark’s “heh“ is a signature response. Keep that info locked in your brain because we still see him respond the same way.

That 11 word response threw us into chaos which we both revel and thrive in as a community, and make us go to the deepest levels of insanity. I did like the joke about making 69 endings. 

October 14: This day starts the unexpected leak spam.

October 15: The leak’s origins can’t be traced and left a lot of us confused and/or enjoying the show.

I find this one to be the most cursed of all the no context leaks. This one also got spammed but I’m not sure if anyone has a screenshot of that. Oasis of galaxies made an incredible post summarizing the shitstorm that brewed on this day.

Over on youtube, another teaser for the Heist which we know comes from the Dark Tunnel section.

October 16: After what happened the previous day, this one was rather chill. Just a few edits here and there about October 30.

October 17: We can’t have peace for long because there’s only two weeks left before the release. So time to spice shit up. What is hilarious about that poll is Mark made us believe that he was going to betray the viewer and we were all on board. Because Mark/Actor has been a bitch but then you look at the videos we have after release. Mark never betrays you, he has wanted to split up a couple of routes but Mark was an incredibly loyal, maybe dumb, but reliable enough partner throughout the Heist. And you see that bit shine in the route to Ending #6 The End. This was a red herring.

More teasers.

October 18: We’re getting overwhelmed and high strung not knowing when this man would strike next.

Ehehe... that link uhh... may have happened to me when ISWM released which led me to doing all of this.

October 19: More pain and suffering continues for the multifandom fans.

October 21: The man spoiled us Illinois before telling or even showing him.

October 22: Mark will not allow us a moment of respite if he can help it.

October 23: The trailer is officially released and people could check the keywords of the youtube video and learn which youtubers were going to be part of it. Abe stans on their way to jail.

If you were active enough, you would’ve known that on this day, the number of videos and endings were leaked in an article.

October 24: Six days left. Have you theorized enough. Have you prepared yourself physically, mentally, and emotionally for this? Without knowing the length of the entire show but equipped with the knowledge of the endings.

This is single handedly the most important spoiler filled teaser that Mark gave to us. It’s a compilation of the whistling clips. Without the knowledge of it being a music number or coming from a new ego, there were theories of it being either Heist/Actor or even Dark’s voice. With the info we have now, it’s safe to assume that the clips the whistling were taken from is the path you took to get out of prison with Yancy. That was a popular speculation.

October 25: The fucker just won’t leave us alone. Even on youtube he was terrorizing the fans.

The most wholesome thing to come out of the chaos he created is when he announced that the crew would be watching the premiere.

October 26: Forgot to mention but even though it was stated in an article, there was a bit of division amongst the fans until Mark himself confirmed that there are indeed 31 endings.

October 27: One of the excitable fans decided to try a little something out. This led to an early discovery of the site: https://www.aheistwithmarkiplier.com/

Surprise surprise. You can figure out what the fandom talked about that day.

Actually, it wasn’t that talked about because Mark did a diversion by creating RABID MARKIPLIER. And THAT flooded the tag. His diversion tactic worked.

Soon after, the website was locked and when you tried to access it, it would say “Private site”. Looks like someone poked their nose into some top secret stuff. Also for the dumb and/or lazy here is the password.

October 29: Dad Mark is back from the grocery store and won’t accept compliments.

October 30: THE Day. A lovely day to rob a museum. Now we better take good care of our sweet little tuckus before heading off to the Heist.

Here are some of my favorite within the first 24 hour posts:

Very subtle Mark. Veeery subtle. This was a neat visual trick that I kept in my memory bank. And this one and that one were just us never being satisfied. We were high on the adrenaline and serotonin that we just wanted a much harder puzzle. Still those bloopers are incredible.

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Aftermath...

October 31: The day right after. We made him speechless. Maybe you shouldn’t have challenged your fans. It was an incredible experience for sure and seeing how happy he is about the success of the project makes us as a community happy as well.

Oh-! and you know how earlier I told you to keep a certain info in your head?

Truly a King of fan service

The fan reception was overwhelmingly positive. Yancy and Illinois became quick favorites. Wilford and Dark’s outfits made everyone scream. Ending 6 has an incredible storyline. Theorists were staying up overnight. The musical got us dancing. It was an entertaining experience. Watching Heist gave the same reactions one would get when they got out of the cinema after watching an amazing film but it was done in the comfort of one’s home.

Here are some of the fan interactions and other related things he did after.

Just Mark and the fans being proud about everything: x | x | x | x 

AHWM Explanation stream stuff: x | x | x | x | x The first two are the summaries. And here are the bloopers and BTS before they were public.

Amy is the best! x | x | x | x | x |

Fandom’s week in review: We were on the list twice!

A fan compiled the entire show and it’s great. Really interesting.

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Personal experience:

Tried to be as objective as much as possible above. Now I can talk about my ideas and experiences about the Heist. The bullshit that came before, during, and after.

To start off, I am incredibly lucky to have met someone in my life that also likes Mark at this point in time. I could actually share this excitement and hype with someone. We talked a lot about fandom stuff. Specifically Mark and Jack since it is October and they were up to bullshit. A lot of what we talked about is lost in time because they were 1 to 1 conversations but I have a significant amount of stuff that we talked over on messenger.

I was always in the know and frequently updated them. They were super excited when they heard that the Game Grumps were gonna be a part of the project. I told them about the site, they managed to access it but when I had the time to get to it, the site was already in private. They were the one who told me about Mark kinda challenged us on how fast we can finish the youtube original. Sent each other memes, so on, and so forth.

As we’re fangirling we still have lives to live and the release date of Heist just so happened to be the day of an event we had to go to as well. We talked about how we’d just be dying in a corner talking about the show.

And the anticipation of what bullshit Mark is going to do next, what will he make the members do, what things did the fandom talk about that will come true. All of that pent up energy just made me feel like a bouncy person and I am not much for overwhelming feelings. Not good at all with handling emotions. Kind of why my ships and favorite egos post is a mess despite my best efforts.

As a fan, living through October 14-15 was a nightmare. Living through October 27 felt like I was being gaslighted into thinking it never happened and rabies mark is the only thing that matters. And oh my god the fanfic ideas were on fire that month.

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So what about the day itself? Well. I had my laptop set up, got myself cozy and made sure there weren’t any distractions. Had a tab open to live chat my friend and rewatched WKM, ADWM, and the AHWM trailer before it went live. 3 minutes before it went live, I was watching ADWM, HORROR. 2 minutes, switched to the AHWM trailer. Before it released, I even told (lowkey bet) my friend I’d get Dark’s ending on the first try because “I trained myself for this”.

From the first option it was obvious which one led to which kind of ending. Sneaky like was more lowkey, it went somewhere dark, it was a logical choice! Did not hesitate to jump in there. Split up options were very obvious death ends so I just didn’t split up with Mark. Had a laugh from our sheer will to stay with Mark. I screamed about the suit being similar to ADWM.

Also trust you me, I almost didn’t get Dark’s ending because a. the thumbnail for don’t split up was incredibly click worthy and b. I once again almost misunderstood the assignment.

I had to reason with myself that “We have to split up because I don’t want the tunnel to fall since it said only 1 person at a time” and “Split Up is 4 minutes long... If it’s a death end then so be it”. That was my thought process. I knew Dark’s ending was in the general path I was on but I didn’t know if this was it. I took a risk.

Then my surprise is shown in this video. The hallway, I was just freaking out. So happy about my decisions and even though I didn’t capture it in recording, I fucking flipped and had to pause while fangirl screaming the very second you see Dark in full view with the white suit. The white fucking suit. Instead of letting it play out and then going back to it later, I just paused every other second so I can appreciate everything. The fit, the editing, his dialogue, the auras. Those glitches. Shit.

I didn’t get through the entirety of Ending 31 in 4 minutes. In the middle I just fangirled so much that I threw myself to the floor and curled into a ball while being a blushing mess. There may not be anymore videos but I have the photo and it’s was definitely the “Maybe you just missed my pretty face” that got me.

This gif is how I fangirled in my head. In reality I screamed for like 2 seconds, lied down on the floor in the comfort of my blanket and went “OHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGODHESSOHOTFUCKWHYISHECALLINGUSOUTMARKIHATEYOUBUTFUCKWHYDYOUMAKEDARKSODAMNHOT” inside my head. With a couple of audible excited squeaks coming out. I was down BAD.

After that I sat up and asked my friend if they were alright with a bit of spoilers and said I got Dark’s ending. Went on to finish the route, read through the early comments section and it was just the Dark fans being super happy, a couple of confused first timers, and theorists that were glad this was their first ending because of the hint. My friend meanwhile got the Fresh Meat ending.

I had to calm down after that. Recover from the fangirl mess I became and opened up a document to begin listing down the codes to start the hunt. Told my friend I’d send them the code once I was done. They did a few more routes before getting tired but I just stayed up all day to finish it. I was super dedicated to this god dang it.

Finished the Dark Tunnel, went to light tunnel. Got super excited about Cranbersher’s animation. Was very much stranger danger when Captain Magnum showed up. Laughed at how stupid his endings are. Met Matpat and was very confused the entire time. After clearing All Sneaky Like, went to check on tumblr a bit but not so much that I’d see heavy spoilers. I just saw Yancy but nothing else.

Did the Helicopter route. Became awestruck with the musical. Got super confused if that was still our Mark or a new character and realized it is a new character in the next video. Fell in love with Yancy. Then I decided fuck that shit, I’m going to the car option. Met Illinois first and said Indiana Jones rip off. Ended up liking this flirty son of a gun. Went on to fall in love with Heist Mark in the other option because holy shit is this motherfucker sincere in this route. When he defended you from the Professor, ah, my heart. Had to take another rest because boy was I getting sleepy but my fandom pride won’t let me so I pushed forth and did the rest.

If my first ending was Dark’s, my last ending’s was Wilford. Kinda poetic. And even though I’m tired as shit I opened up tumblr and read through what people thought. Went through my heist codes and looked at the things I missed or maybe mistyped something as an upper case when it’s supposed to be lower case and voila! Got to open the secrets of the website and rested peacefully.

It was an incredibly exhilarating journey and I have never felt so much more satisfied with my day. I woke up with a pep in my step, happily scrolling and even talking about it with my friend later that day. How we felt, what we liked, what we hope for the future of these characters.

Like everyone else Yancy just managed to worm his way into my heart. The tag was just filled to the brim with new egos. I read up on quickly made theories. Read through posts about the show. I was just incredibly happy the next few weeks. It had such an impact and it’s not an experience you can recreate so easily. 10/10 I loved every moment of this mess. P.S eat shit Mark for clowning on us Dark and Yancy fans.

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And you’ve finally reached the end! With under 24 hours left before ISWM’s release I hope you guys are ready because I can’t wait to feel that rush all over again. Even thinking about it is getting me pumped up!

Last time I went cozy but this time I prepared a fit for the event. Hell, I prepared it 3 weeks in advance. If we’re going to space, I gotta look good and I just treated this like a formal event. Hehe. 

[fatefulfaerie]

Domesticity

Zelink Week 2021 prompt #5/7 @zelinkweek2021

Word Count: 1,951

Incarnation: Breath of the Wild 2 (post)

Additional Prompts Followed: Hearts, Family

No Trigger Warnings

“Is one of us dying?”

The feast was definitely unsettling to Wendie, and although she was mostly joking, she couldn’t help but think that such a nice dinner at such a random time of the year was odd. Of course her dad was a great cook, but this was a step above, despite there being no family birthdays for at least three months and no holidays for five.

“No,” her mother said as she placed on the table a large bowl of goat-buttered mashed potatoes, one of Wendie’s favorite foods. She had said it with a slight motherly laugh and a warm smile. “No one is dying. We’re just having a family dinner.”

The mother, who went by the name Zelda, had aged gracefully over the past twenty years, blonde hair highlighted with streaks of white that her husband would often call angelic and ethereal when she would doubt her beauty. At the moment, her age-hued hair was swept into a single braid behind her head, messy yet secure.

“Our family dinners aren’t usually this elaborate,” Wendie observed. “You made mashed potatoes and seafood rice balls—which is Elyjah’s favorite food—grilled carrots, meat pie, mushroom skewers and you have an apple turnover on the counter for dessert!”

“Nothing gets past you,” her father said, putting a bowl of baked and salted radishes on the table. His blue eyes looked over to Zelda. “I think we raised them too smart.”

“Nonsense,” Zelda said, walking forward and using the rag that was just draped over her shoulder to wipe a smattering of flour off of Link’s forehead. “Where’s Elyjah?”

Wendie made a sound that sounded a lot like a lazy “I don’t know” while shrugging her shoulders where she sat at the table.

“He can just eat when he gets home,” Wendie reasoned. “There’s more than enough food.”

Wendie didn’t see her parents exchange glances, the seventeen-year old not caring in the slightest that her twin brother wasn’t here to ruin her first dibs on dinner.

“I’ll try and find him,” Zelda said with a sigh, Wendie looking back up at her parents. Link nodded as Zelda departed. Wendie once again questioned what was going on.

“Ly!” The father and daughter heard outside, Zelda from just the doorstep of their modest Hateno home calling out to the entirety of Hyrule. Link sat down across from his daughter, elbows on the table and arms folded into each other. The deep thought he was in concerned Wendie greatly. He wouldn’t even meet her glance. Was she in trouble?

“Okay, okay, I’m coming.”

Elyjah.

Of all the people to be in trouble, surely it was him. He had never gotten into anything truly bad but he was the biggest prankster in Hateno. The only shop he wasn’t banned from was the dye shop. The green-eyed troublemaker was here nonetheless and Wendie prepared herself for another fun show. Zelda moved to sit down next to Link at the table but Elyjah stopped as soon as he saw the table, mouth popped open and body frozen.

“Is someone dying?”

He had looked over to his sister when he asked the question.

“Yeah,” she said. “You.”

“What?” Elyjah asked, almost believing it.

“Wendie, that’s enough now,” Zelda said, before looking over to her son. “No one is dying. We would just like to talk to you both.”

Elyjah sat next to Wendie with the same bewildered look as her, trying to figure out what it was before their parents spit it out. It was like Hylia’s Day presents except they didn’t have a good feeling about this, especially when Link took Zelda’s hand and looked at their children, ready to address them.

And yet it was Zelda who started.

“Do you two remember the fairytale we used to tell you?” Zelda inquired, her voice shaky. “The bedtime story? Of the princess and the knight?”

Neither Elyjah nor Wendie had any clue of the relevance, but they both remembered the tale well.

“The one with the weird ending?” Wendie asked nonetheless. “Where he rescued her and then that was it?”

“Yeah,” Elyjah said. “Didn’t they just stare at each other in silence? After all they had been through, it seemed like there should have been more.”

Link dove his hand into his forehead.

“Zelda, you could have given them a better ending,” Link suggested.

Zelda scoffed and put her hands on her hips.

“It was a lesson in imagination,” she said. “And clearly none of you have any.”

“But that’s besides the point…” Link said, prompting Zelda in a different direction.

“Yes,” Zelda said, nodding at Link and returning her gaze to their children, confused as ever. And yet she smiled at them.

“You both have grown up so fast,” Zelda said. “We both love you very much and cannot believe that you have blossomed right before our eyes into adults.”

Zelda’s smile became sad and she bowed her head.

“You see it’s a lot easier to lie to children.”

Wendie’s brow furrowed.

“Lie…” she repeated from her mother.

When Zelda’s head tilted back up, green was glazed with waves of coming tears, making the emeralds that Link fell in love with a hundred years ago shine even brighter.

“That fairytale…” Zelda said. “The princess who used her sealing power to keep away Calamity Ganon and the knight who slept in a ruined Hyrule for a hundred years in order to recover from his injuries and save her…”

Zelda stopped herself. Twenty years of keeping it in and it seems it wanted to stay in. She wrestled with her conflicted heart, kept it at bay long enough for her to blurt it out.

“It’s true,” Zelda said, no weakness in her voice, no lie, no apprehension. “The knight and the princess really did fight the calamity, really did survive a century to see it through and then some. Once they tracked down the cause of the anomaly, destroying the true form of Ganon, they settled down in Hateno. They got married and eventually gave life to twins, a boy and a girl.” Zelda’s eyes were proud as she looked upon her children, although they glistened with tears. Her heart hurt to see their faces in shock, but the outspoken truth felt better than she could have imagined. She felt Link’s grip tighten around her fingers.

“You both have royal blood in you,” Zelda said. “Even though I stepped away from the throne in the search of a simpler, more fulfilling life, you both still have claim to the titles of Prince Elyjah and Princess Wendie. We wanted you to know in case that path would prove fulfilling for you and…well, now that you’re adults you have the right to know the truth.”

Wendie stood up and walked out of the house, her parents not daring to stop her. Elyjah, however, just sat in shock, piecing it all together in his mind. Link and Zelda both could see his green eyes working, much like his mother’s did when she went over schematics or theorized about plant life.

“The story,” he finally started, “everything you went through…the pressure…you wanted to protect us from that…you wanted to give us the childhood you never had…that neither of you had.”

Link nodded.

“That’s right.”

Elyjah pursed his lips and nodded. Sometimes he was just like his dad. He shrugged.

“Okay,” he said, replacing his empty plate with the one filled with the seafood rice balls meant for the whole family. “Cool,” he continued, or at least it sounded like the word “cool”, his mouth mostly filled with rice.

Link raised his eyebrows and looked over at Zelda.

“Apparently we’re…cool.” Link said the last word as if it were completely foreign.

“Not all of us,” Zelda reminded her husband. She started to stand up. “I’m gonna go talk to her.”

Yet Link placed a hand on her arm.

“I’ll go,” Link said. “You stay and enjoy the food.”

Link found his daughter on the banks of Firly Pond, knees hugged close to her chest and water lapping at her bare toes.

At first he waited with his hand on the bark of the near apple tree, pursing his lips. Sometimes he was thrust back in time twenty years, when he felt he had no idea how to be a dad. This was one of those moments.

Link saw in his mind’s eye Wendie’s big blue eyes staring up at him, stubby arms reaching for him. He smiled. She grew up so fast.

“I know you’re there,” he heard Wendie say. She didn’t turn her head away from the pond. “Did you come to give me a speech?”

Link walked towards her.

“Maybe.”

He sat down next to her and Wendie only gave him the smallest of glances.

“I feel like I don’t know my parents at all,” she finally said.

Link nodded.

“I understand.” He said. “I don’t agree, but I understand.”

Wendie looked over to his profile, trying to ascertain how he could be serious. The calamity was real and her parents fought it. Sheikah technology really could heal fatal wounds and the goddesses power really was wielded by a mortal, not to mention her own mother, who never seemed like a princess in the slightest. Her father was a knight in a kingdom that really did exist and she?

Well she was a princess. This whole time, she was a princess. The girl who was called the “ugly duckling” of the family as a child was a princess in peasant’s clothing. She almost wanted to go brag to the town, but that seemed petty for just a small ounce of appreciation from the people her age who used to tease her when they would play as children.

Her parents were legends and in comparison, what was she?

Definitely not a princess.

“You know us as what we became after everything we went through,” Link finally said, having taken the time to get his words together. “The people we were before…”

He hesitated.

“We were nothing more than what the kingdom wanted us to be…statues, legends, weapons…we were never fully ourselves, and we could never afford to be ourselves with an entire kingdom looking at us to save them from a calamity. The slivers that were left of us found a friendship in each other, one that grew into love in time. After everything was settled, we began to truly find ourselves, basking in the freedom to do so. It’s something that usually occurs in a fifteen year old but your mother and I were a hundred and twenty years old when we solved the identity crisis. She did not want to be royalty and I did not want to be a knight. When we finally did not need to be those things, we took our first breaths as Link and Zelda. We wanted our children to take those breaths from the very second they were born, and that is why we let you grow up before we told you the truth. We wanted royalty to be an option for you two, not a necessity. We wanted you to become yourselves, not tiny versions of us. I only hope we have…at least I think we have.”

Wendie smiled.

“You have,” she said. “If you want your daughter to have absolutely no idea what she wants to do with her life.”

Link brought his daughter closer by hugging her far shoulder, bringing her close enough to kiss the top of her head.

“That’s exactly what I want,” he said. It sounded strange but Link didn’t mean it as a bad thing. “Because finding out your passion for yourself is the most exciting thing in this entire wild land.”

[bikerjongho]

santiago | choi san

genre: realistic fiction, humor

characters: restaurant waiter!san ft dancer!wooyungi and dancer!stray kids 

description: San is a charming and popular waiter at his local Mexican restaurant. But when a rival Mexican restaurant opens nearby and steals many of his customers, San finds himself needing to expand his talents in order to keep his beloved workplace in business.

word count: 6.9k

warnings: N/A

author’s note: HAPPY BIRTHDAY SAN!! you’re atiny’s stage demon and sweetie pie. I hope you have a lovely birthday and have lots of fun on your special day <33 also this post was inspired solely by this deadly post so thank u for sending me into outer space with your charisma mr choi

taglist: @itsapapisongo​ @mangomingki​ @irehlevant​ @blueprint-han

Once San had heard the giggling from the front of the restaurant, he knew that his shift that day was going to be substantially more exciting.

Dressed in a long-sleeved red button-down with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows and straight black slacks that matched with his polished and shiny black shoes, San was the perfect waiter at El Diablo Caliente, a local Mexican restaurant in his town. He sauntered over to the welcoming podium and gave a blindingly charming smile to the four girls that had just arrived.

And the smile did not disappoint. One of the girls burst into giggles while the rest of them managed to keep their blush to a light pink. "A table for four lovely ladies?" He said, and their blush increased as they nodded. "Wonderful." He slipped four restaurant menus under his arm and motioned for them to follow.

The restaurant interior, like San's shirt, was a wonderful ruby red. The lighting that casted over the booths and wooden chairs gave the restaurant a cozy and comfortable vibe. San enjoyed the vibe, it was one of many reasons why he loved working there. The other reasons were more superficial: his black hair matched perfectly with the color palette of the restaurant and he could swoon and charm as many customers as he liked as he worked. These girls were no exception to his magic and not immune to his allure.

"I'm San," he said as the girls sat down at the table he assigned them. "But you ladies may also know me as-"

"Santiago," a girl breathed, finishing his sentence for him. She looked a minute away from passing out onto the floor. San thought a beverage could fix that.

"Santiago," he nodded, and it was true. He had been working at El Diablo Caliente for so long that he had forgotten where the nickname had come from, but it was a nickname that was bestowed on him nonetheless by a few of the regulars. It had caught on, and he was then known as both San and Santiago. He quite enjoyed the name.

"You can call me either," he said, then took off the cap of the pen he was holding with his teeth with a flourish and quirked an eyebrow. "And what refreshments would you ladies like to start off with?" He asked, hovering the pen over his notepad.

The girls whistled off drinks, and when San went away they began to giggle. San smiled knowingly as he walked away from them and checked in on other tables that he waited for. His charm was something he was able to exude easily while at work, and the age of the customer didn't matter. San charmed older couples with his perfect manners and sweet smiles the same as he did with sugary compliments and alluring looks for younger crowds.

San finished up a humorous conversation with an older woman and her husband before strolling back to the girls with their drinks in hand. Once he was in sight, they sat up straighter and put on smiles. He returned them. He wondered if his presence or the food that would soon come would make them happier.

"Ladies, are we ready to order?" He asked as he dished out their beverages. "And let me know if there's anything I can help with regarding the menu."

"How hot is the habanero salsa?" One of the girls asked, looking up at him with curiosity and a little bit more.

San whistled and twirled his pen in his hands. "One of our hottest," he said, pursing his lips. "It's good, though. Quite delicious. Do you think you could take it?"

"I think I could," she said, staring through his eyes with a grand smile.

"As you wish," San murmured and scribbled it down with the rest of her order.

He finished taking the orders of the rest of the girls, all of whom had many questions to ask San about the menu. He theorized they just wanted to talk to him. He saw their faces fall in the corner of his eye when he walked away to place their orders.

"Santiago!" A familiar voice called out to him, and San turned to it with an enormous dimpled grin.

"María!" He returned and gave the older woman that was approaching him an enormous and warm hug.

María, or Tía María to San, was a long-time customer to El Diablo Caliente and an even longer friend to San. But despite their age and cultural differences, they found great joy and solstice in spending time together.

"¿Cómo estás, mijo?" María asked with a soft smile after they had broken apart. "Is the restaurant treating you well?"

It was a question that Tía María asked almost every time she saw San at the restaurant. San returned the smile and nodded. "Por supuesto, Tía María." He led her to her favorite spot in the restaurant, a window seat where the sun hit the vase of the flowers on the table and refracted a perfect rainbow onto it. San immediately pulled the chair back for Tía María to sit in, which caught the attention of the group of girls he was serving. He could hear them swooning from halfway across the restaurant.

"Those girls certainly love you," Tía Maria murmured as she settled herself in the seat and eyed the girls.

San shook his head with a smile. "They all love me, you know that. Everyone that walks into this restaurant does."

"Well, because you're charming," Tía María complimented. "Y," she continued, "guapísimo. You're a rare treat for them to be both kind and good-looking."

San felt a small blush creep up on his cheeks, something that only a few people could do to him. "Thank you," he murmured, then gave her his signature smile that he reserved for older crowds. "The usual, I assume," he said, tucking his pen behind his ear. There was no use for it when he knew Tía María's order better than his own. She nodded with a hint of a smile, and after a few more minutes of conversing, San went back to satisfy other customers and their orders.

It was finally time to deliver the group of girls' food when the cook signaled to him that the food was ready and neatly arranged on his serving tray.

"I suppose I'm not the only thing that's sizzling hot, eh?" He joked as he approached their table with the food, one of the items, a fajita, literally smoking.

"Oh, truly," the one that ordered the habanero sauce said, trying to stifle a smile. He gave her a captivating stare as he slid her food in front of her.

"Enjoy your meal, ladies," he said, adjusting his red collar as he said it. As he walked away from the girls and turned his attention to other customers, he watched the girl that had ordered the habanero sauce out of the corner of his eye. Focused on the food and not him for once, she spread it generously over one of her tacos. San had to bite his lip to keep from saying anything. He watched her, in slight amusement, as she took an enormous bite of the taco stuffed with the spicy salsa from hell.

The expectation San had for her reaction was fulfilled. Her eyes got incrementally bigger as the spice danced on her tongue, and her friends giggled as she began fanning her mouth and taking a large sip of her water beside her. "Perhaps it was too hot for you, after all," San murmured to himself with a smirk. "That's why we're called El Diablo Caliente."

And that day was not unusual of how San's waiter shifts usually went. While sometimes busy, San found happiness and pride at his job.

But that reality had all been turned upside-down when Ana's Taqueria surfaced.

Ana's Taqueria had snatched El Diablo Caliente's customers with a flourish of its hand even though it was only a few days old. With its lavish green walls and modern interior decorating, El Diablo Caliente customers flocked there like a moth to a flame. San's busy days as a waiter dropped dramatically, which meant that the lavish tips he had once received downsized dramatically. The mood of the restaurant dropped with the amount of customers as well, and San was plagued with the wistful thought that things would go back to normal. But it had been almost a month, and El Diablo Caliente's best days seemed to be behind him. All of the employees saw this. Tía María saw this. But most importantly, San's manager saw this.

"San," his manager began, sitting across from San in one of the restaurant'c chairs. She had called him to talk during an hour that wasn't busy - which was turning into most hours at El Diablo Caliente. Her hair being pulled back into a bun only accentuated the stress and tightness on her face as she spoke. "You obviously have seen and felt the effect of Ana's Taqueria. I've been thinking, and we have to make a few changes as to how we market ourselves if we want to gain back some of our customers." She sighed and shook her head.

"The restaurant owner, Ana, runs a tight ship. But it's effective, obviously. Their waiters are all just like you, bursting with charisma and passion. The place is cleaner than a biologist's laboratory. Their food, of course, is good. I tried it a few days ago." San's manager rubbed a tired hand over her face. "But," she said, raising her eyebrows, "it's not as good as ours. It's not as authentic. We still have a chance at coming back."

"That's all very hopeful," San said, "but why are you telling me this? Alone?"

"I'm telling you this," his manager smiled, "because you are our customer favorite. If anyone knows how to keep customers, it's you. Would you look at a few ideas I have for improving business?" She pushed a piece of paper in front of him.

San scanned the paper. His manager had certainly thought out of the box - from a an inflatable dancing balloon parked out in the front to weekly mariachi bands, San was thoroughly impressed. But the mariachis were expensive, and the balloon could only satisfy so many children. San read through the rest of the options and stopped at a dance team.

"A dance team?" He pondered, looking back up at her.

His manager smiled. "Just dancers from the town. We could ask the high school's dance team to perform every now and then."

"And the college students, since it's summer and they're home," San felt the need to note, being a college student himself.

His manager nodded. "Precisely." She then looked at him closer, like she wanted him to say something. San had a feeling she knew what she wanted him to say.

"Yes, I danced competitively in high school," San said after a minute. And though he was in college and wasn't a dance major, San was a part of a non-competitive dance team that did flash mobs in festivals and parades in the town.

His manager leaned closer to him. San leaned away from her, giving a nervous smile.

"You could really bring a lot of business if you danced, Santiago," his manager grinned. "I'm not trying to force you. But I've seen how you light up when you work with the customers. I've seen how customers light up with you. And if it doesn't work out, we'll come up with something else. But it's worth a shot, isn't it?"

San pondered his options. Accepting this would mean being around the restaurant a lot more. And although it was true he enjoyed working there, he found equal satisfaction in relaxing by himself at his home or walking around the town in the evening. It would also mean recruiting other members of his dance team. A few of them did live nearby, but it would still be work nonetheless to get them to cooperate.

But San thought of Tía María and the giggly girls he had served only a week before Ana's Taqueria had opened. He thought about the older couples that couldn't stop fishing bills out of their pockets for San after one of his usual waiter performances. This restaurant wasn't just a restaurant. It was important to both him, the other employees, and the customers that frequented there, even if they had found a new love as of late. San could have refused, but Santiago had an obligation to his place of work.

"Then let's do it," San said, and the manager's face erupted with joy.

"Thank you," she sobbed, and San smiled with the obliviousness of a person that had no idea what they had got themselves into.

Within a few days, San had contacted three dance college friends that lived close by to set up a few performances. All three of them were a part of the dance team at his college and seemed eager to get out of the house to do something fun. Yunho, San's friendly and sweet as sunshine friend from college, accepted with no problem. Mingi, another college friend, was just happy to not be cooped up in his house anymore. Wooyoung, his final dance friend from college, was eager to accept on the term that San provided them with food from the restaurant during their practices.

So when he met up with them outside the restaurant for their first practice, he had a bag of takeout containers filled with fajitas, tacos, and enchiladas. Wooyoung scurried up to San when he was in view and took the bag from his hands. "Thank you," he said cheerfully.

"Nice to see you too," San said and rolled his eyes good-naturedly. But Wooyoung simply put the bag of food on the ground and bounced back up with the energy of a newborn kangaroo. "Hello, Yunho, Mingi."

Both of them waved back, Mingi with his eyes wide and an even wider smile, and Yunho, who laughed as he waved. "So, what's on the agenda?" He asked while Wooyoung eyed the bag of food he had placed on the floor. Although San had briefed them all with the basics, none of them knew exactly what they were doing.

"This is dance for a Mexican restaurant," Wooyoung said logically. "We could salsa dance with each other." Mingi, who was standing next to him, took a few steps away from him.

"No," San laughed, and then pulled out his phone from his back pocket. "I was thinking of something a bit more... exciting." The three of them had their eyes on him while San scrolled through a playlist he had created a few hours earlier. "We can do a few songs that we already know from dance team, but like Wooyoung said, this is a Mexican restaurant. So I think it's only fair that we dance to some Latin artists." He clicked the song, and the sound of acoustic guitars filled the air.

Mingi began to nod his head and tap his foot. Wooyoung had gotten himself into the tacos and was eating one while swaying to the music.

"Oh, this is groovy," Yunho smiled. "What's the song?"

"This is La Camisa Negra by Juanes," San said with such a perfect pronunciation that the three of them whistled in awe.

"Ah, so this is why you're the hot and popular waiter," Wooyoung grinned and wiggled his eyebrows. "You really know how to get them-"

San turned up the volume of the music to drown out Wooyoung. "So I was thinking we could dance to this song in black shirts. And perhaps we could have roses in our mouths to make it a little sexier."

"Business is going to boom," Mingi surveyed, and Yunho nodded in agreement.

"And a few more songs by Juanes and other artists as well. We can definitely don't have to do all of them, but we can survey them tonight and think of some light choreography. These will just be fun interludes for our practiced dances."

He must have looked optimistic, because the three of them smiled back. Mingi now had an enchilada on a plate. "Excelente," he said and raised his fork with a smile as if he was toasting them. "Let's do it."

Their dancing experience was an asset for the choreography. It didn't take long to come up with a small dance routine, and before San knew it, the sun was setting and all of the food was eaten.

"Thanks for making this easy," San said gratefully as the other three of them packed up their things. "And fun."

"No problem," Yunho smiled. "It will be a lot of fun. Especially when we pick up Wooyoung and shove a rose into his mouth."

"I will be incredibly sexy," Wooyoung chimed in, completely serious.

"And hopefully that will be promising enough for customers to come," San laughed, but he couldn't ignore the knot that was in his stomach. Despite their preparation and his confidence for himself and his teammates, he couldn't help but worry that they weren't doing enough. What if the restaurant had to close?

"I'm sure people will come," Mingi reassured. "And if they don't, then we can burn down the other restaurant."

"I don't think we'll need to do that," San laughed, but Wooyoung seemed more intrigued in this idea than San would have liked him to be. Even if business only increased by a little, San was certain that the business would at least be able to stay afloat for a few more months.

So two weeks later on the small outdoor stage of El Diablo Caliente, endless amounts of hungry audience members sat in front of the four of them. Dressed in black shirts that would come in handy for La Camisa Negra later, hair slicked back to give a more flattering and attractive look to the audience, and hidden roses in the corner of the stage, they were ready to completely rock the stage with their performance.

In the back of the audience stood San's beaming manager. San returned a smile to her, which caused a large group of girls to swoon.

"His smile simply makes me melt," one of them said, and Wooyoung snorted beside him.

"Let's not keep them waiting," Wooyoung then whispered to San with his eyebrows raised. "We've got an audience to entertain."

And entertain, they did. The customers of El Diablo Caliente were satisfied by the food that was brought to them and the incredible performance that the four of them displayed for their viewing. The crowd, mostly younger people, erupted when the roses appeared on stage and San felt the spiritual need to wink to them. The amount of tips and phone numbers that the four of them received was insurmountable. The show could confidently be marked as a success.

San was beaming at the end of their performance. Because even if this didn't change their business, they had still raked in a hefty amount of money from this night. Subsequent nights would only be bigger.

But across the street, Ana's Taqueria was taking notes. Sitting at a comfortable distance from El Diablo Caliente was Ana herself. She was only a few years older than San, but she had the drive and determination of someone that had 40 years of entrepreneurship under her belt. A mischievous smile danced on her lips as she pressed her phone against her ear and let it ring. The recipient picked up after a few rings.

"I'm going to need a favor from you," Ana said softly as she watched San saunter off of the stage and into the crowd of customers with a rose in his mouth and a smile on his face. The smirk struggling to appear on her face broke through onto her features. "You know how to dance, right?"

If the drive home from the dance concert was exhilarating, the drive into work the next day was unparalleled. San walked into El Diablo Caliente feeling like he had just won the lottery.

"You were spectacular," San's manager said as greeting. He hadn't seen this big of a smile on her face in weeks. "The other three were also amazing. But San, you were truly possessed with some kind of dance God." She pulled out a piece of paper and handed it to him. "These are the earnings from last night."

San's mind bobbled at the number. It was bigger than what they had received in a week ever since Ana's Taqueria opened. "That's phenomenal," he said breathlessly.

"You're phenomenal," the manager countered. "San, you saved the restaurant."

Needless to say, it was one of San's best days as a waiter. Customers that had fallen in love with his performance appeared today to have more of their delicious food and see the handsome waiter and dancer.

"Do you still have the rose?" A young man asked with stars in his eyes around midday. San was more than happy to oblige - when he brought the food over to him, a rose hung in his mouth. He was then subsequently tipped almost half of the meal price.

But San's good day, no matter how good it was, didn't last forever. Walking out of the restaurant to go home, San noticed a new sign on Ana's Taqueria's wall. His stomach dropped to his feet.

The sign advertised a dance night with "four phenomenal men" in two weeks from today. San read through the sign again and again. Each time, it sounded more and more like the exact show that he and his friends had put on the night before. He whipped out his phone and took a picture of the sign and sent it to his manager, his head swimming with thoughts and worries.

They couldn't do that, not when El Diablo Caliente had just hosted a dance night. San strapped on his seatbelt and started his car, but sat in the parking lot, staring at the rival restaurant. There wasn't much he could do. They hadn't trademarked or claimed dancing as their own original thought - Ana's Taqueria could do whatever they wanted to do. But that still left the knot in San's stomach unresolved, and he was filled with a sudden burst of anger and resentment for the restaurant.

San turned off his car and hopped out. He made his way across the street and walked into Ana's Taqueria.

"I'd like to speak with the manager," San said as greeting when he threw open the door. He must have looked odd still dressed in his work uniform. The restaurant wasn't too busy, but a good amount of customers still stared at him as he strode past the welcome podium and headed towards the cashier.

"Is Ana here?" He asked as evenly as he could to the young girl that was seated at the cashier with wide eyes.

"She is," the cashier said slowly to him, her eyes flickering around the store. San felt bad for a minute - perhaps he was being too harsh to a poor girl that had no decision in the dance night - but then someone that only could have been Ana appeared behind the counter, and the rage settled comfortably back into his chest.

She couldn't have been much older than him. Ana had curly blonde hair that was pulled back into a carefree low bun on the nape of her neck and had piercing eyes. She grinned with an alluring smile when she saw him and San's anger flared up.

"Hello," he said, giving her a small nod. "I'm San. A waiter from El Diablo Caliente."

"Your performance last night was truly something," Ana said softly and gave him a sweet smile. San wanted to punch her in the face. "I didn't attend, but I could see you and your friends performing from over here. You're all very talented."

"Thank you," San managed to say. "I noticed you're also having a dance night."

Ana's smile widened. "I do hope you don't mind," she said. "We're friends, are we not?"

San's mouth twitched. "Not just because we both work at Mexican restaurants that are close by," San said, trying to prevent any sort of emotion from appearing on his face.

Ana frowned. "Well, that's not very sportsmanlike, is it?" She said, resting her elbows on the counter. "We're simply hiring dancers as your restaurant did. There's nothing stopping me from doing this. It's simply a good idea."

Not when you're tearing our business to the ground, San wanted to say. Not when you're stealing and profiting off of our idea just because we thought of something better than you did.

"It is a good idea," San said instead. "But we thought of it first. It's abundantly clear that you copied us rather than simply taking inspiration. Four dancers? You at least have been subtle."

Ana's eyes shimmered with something that made San's stomach flip. "Well, I've already hired the dancers," she shrugged. "They're professional, actually. We paid good money for them."

San thought about how El Diablo Caliente's dancers were just college students and his blood boiled. "We're both Mexican restaurants, yes?" He started, not sure of where he was going with this. His emotions were driving this talk. Ana watched him in amusement like this was some mildly entertaining comedy show.

"Then let's have a dance competition," San offered. "If we're as good as you said we were, and your dancers are professional, it should be fun. Just some friendly competition."

Ana's eyes were shining now. "Sounds like a wonderful idea. At our restaurant? Our stage is much bigger than yours."

"Sure," San said evenly. "And also on the night that your poster says on your wall. Think of it as a community event."

They both knew that this competition wasn't just against the dancers - it was a competition against the Mexican restaurants. Ana had made this competition personal by twisting El Diablo Caliente's unique ideas into her own. San was ready to run her into the ground.

"I'll have the sign changed by tomorrow morning," Ana said idly. "It was truly a pleasure meeting you, San. Train hard. You'll need it." He could swear that he saw fire flare up in her eyes. She gave a goodbye wave, then disappeared into the back of the restaurant, her curly hair bouncing against her neck as she trailed away.

When San unlocked his phone in his car only minutes later, his phone was blown up by texts from his manager.

Copiers! She had texted. The nerve. What the hell?

San quickly texted the deal he had made with Ana to his manager, who responded with excitement. You four will destroy them, she said, and San could only hope she was right. In actuality, he had no idea how he was going to pull this off. But luckily, he wasn't alone.

"They sound awful," Yunho said during their second practice. Now that it had rolled into July, the sun beat down on them harder than ever. All four of them were sporting muscle t-shirts to feel more comfortable, but it was still sweltering.

"Right?" San could only agree. "They saw how well we did and decided to copy our idea."

"Do you have any idea who the other four will be?" Mingi asked, and then took a long drink of water. Wooyoung was crouched next to him, listening intently.

San shook his head. "I just know that they're professionals," he sighed. "Ana contacted my manager and said that there will be judges. I don't know exactly what will happen if we win or lose."

"It sounds like we just need to please the crowd, though," Wooyoung pointed out. "If it's just a dance-off, there's nothing that's directly on the line for the restaurants themselves. If I enjoy a performance enough, I won't care what the judges say."

"But we still should win," San said. "If we want to knock down Ana a few pegs." San crouched down and turned on his phone. The familiar sound of Juanes blasted through the speakers, and the rest of them stood up straighter.

"Let's kick ass, shall we?" San said while stretching his arms, and the others nodded with vigor.

The days flew by. Between waiting tables and practicing with Wooyoung, Mingi, and Yunho for the competition, San was booked. More than once he had collapsed onto his bed after he got home from his shift and fell asleep immediately. When he was awake, he spent most of his idle time worrying about the dance battle.

He was confident in their group. He admired and respected the other three tremendously and felt pride in his own abilities. But there was still that fear and that unknown element of the professional dancers. How good would they be? San imagined them wiping the floor with his team and his stomach did a backflip. They had to win. He had to win.

The days ticked down to the competition, and soon the four of them were entering Ana's Taqueria on the night of the competition. They wore clothes similar to they had in their first performance, but instead had matching shiny red vests. "They match with the roses really well," Mingi had said with his rose in between his teeth.

Once they were inside, Yunho scouted the restaurant and spotted Ana's professional group of dancers. He nudged San and nodded his head towards them.

The first aspect of them that San noticed about them was how young they were. The group seemed the same age as San's group, perhaps even younger than them. On the back of all of their black shirts in shiny lettering was Stray Dancers.

"They're not professional," Yunho hissed. "They're just another college group. I know them. Did Ana just tell us they're professional dancers to scare us?"

"Felix!" Wooyoung cried, oblivious to their nervous chatter, and clapped the back of one of the rival dancers. San, Yunho, and Mingi tensed.

"He knows one of them?" San asked to no one in particular.

"Wooyoung knows everyone, it seems," Mingi said as Wooyoung began to laugh with Felix and the other three dancers as if they were best friends.

"I guess it will be good for us if the tension isn't there," Yunho said, and they all nodded. "It's more of a friendly competition that way. We just need to beat them for Ana."

San let Wooyoung fraternize with the enemy for a while longer before he walked up to him and pulled on his shirt. "Woo, let's get ready," he said cheerfully, though his insides were starting to swim.

"San!" Wooyoung cried. "Meet the Stray Dancers. I've worked with them before." San opened his mouth to stop him, but Wooyoung had already started his extroverted spiel. "This is Felix, this is Chan, this is Hyunjin, and this is Minho," he said, pointing to each one of them, who waved kindly to San in return. San didn't love the idea that Wooyoung was friends with their opponents, but it helped ease the anxiety in his stomach.

"Hi," he said to each of them and nodded. "Nice to meet you guys," he said quickly, "but Wooyoung, we have to go." Without waiting for a reply or protest, San snagged Wooyoung and dragged him away from the Stray Dancers before he could strike up more conversation.

"I was having a nice time," Wooyoung whined when they were a good distance away and back with Yunho and Mingi.

"You can talk to them after the competition," Mingi said wisely, and San was relieved that someone felt similar to him. "The show starts soon anyway. We should stretch now, even if we're not the first ones on stage."

That was at least one good aspect of it all - San could at least gauge how good the Stray Dancers were before they took the stage. "Right, let's find a place," Yunho agreed, glancing around the restaurant to find a place to stretch. San was about to point out a room that seemed to be unoccupied when he saw Tía María in the crowd.

"Go on without me, I'll be there in a minute," San said, and rushed over to her. "María," he said, the happiness in his voice not unnoticed. "I'm so glad you're here. Thank you for coming here to support me."

"Make sure to wipe them to the floor, Santiago," Tía María said as greeting, and San was surprised at how upfront she was. She must have noticed the shock to cross his face, so she continued to speak. "I dislike Ana. I just want to see that smile gone from her face." She nodded over to the other side of the restaurant, and Ana was there. She was casually chatting with a customer, but San felt the resentment bubble in his stomach regardless.

"We will, Tía," San said, even if he didn't quite believe it himself.

Tía María smiled. "It's just like being a waiter, Santiago. You are here to cater to the public. You've already proven yourself to be wonderful to people - full of expression and charms. But you also are humble and kind. This competition is no different. Show them Santiago and they will come back to El Diablo Caliente in no time." She stood up and wrapped her arms around him in a hug.

"Estarás asombrando, mijo," she said, and San's heart filled up with love. He was ready if Tía María believed he was ready.

Shortly after his warmup with the other three dancers, they situated themselves at a table to watch the Stray Dancers perform. While Ana walked up on stage and introduced the Stray Dancers, San glanced around and found the judges near the front of the stage. They didn't seem particularly uptight or fancy - all three of them wore casual clothing. It was odd how laid back Ana had staged this. Did she really think this competition would be easy to win?

And then the Stray Dancers began to perform. Unbeknownst to San before, their black Stray Dancers tshirts had little pins of the Mexico flag above their heart, and they danced with castanets that made pleasant clicking noises. San was impressed with their ingenuity. The clicks frequently matched up with their footwork and gave the illusion that they were tap dancing. Not only that, all four of them were equally mesmerizing and pleasing to watch.

Minho was frequently in the center and made most of the crowd members swoon. Hyunjin did a move with his legs that caused someone to whistle during their performance. Chan had wondrous arms that were mesmerizing to look at each time he raised them and clicked his castanets. Felix was more fluid than a river and made his intricate dance moves look easy. But as good as they were, San felt pride in himself and his teammates. He thought they could win.

The crowd burst into applause once they were finished. "It's time," Yunho whispered and stood up, the rest of them following suit. Wooyoung sauntered up to the stage first and high-fived all four of the Stray Dancers as they descended from the stage. San risked a glance at Ana and found her eyes already on him. She had a sinister sort of smile that, to a random onlooker, looked like she was amused. He looked away and tried to shake her steel eyes from his vision.

Ana, like she did with her own group of dancers, introduced San's group to the audience. "And San Choi," she finished, and the crowd whooped and cheered as he gave a bow and smile to the crowd. As Ana walked off of the stage, she glanced at San. However, this time, he was looking at her already. San raised his eyebrows and smiled a devious smile. Then, Juanes began to play, and San's body was taken over by the dancing demon that he had cultivated dearly in their weeks of practice.

The performance was exhilarating. It was a mass catharsis of the tension and stress San had built up from this competition, and the audience only saw it as marvelous stage presence. He took the time to do certain moves with more fluidity and sensuality. The rose was in and out of his mouth. He managed to fit in multiple winks, smirks, and run his hands through his gelled and dark hair. Every movement from the first chord of the song to the last made the entire culture of Mexico smile down on him. He knew this because when the music ended and the clapping started, Tía María's eyes were shining with a fondness and pride that could only come straight from the heart.

"San, you were insane on stage," Yunho commented when they walked off of the stage amidst the cheers and clapping. "What possessed you?"

"Spite," San said. He had found Ana's eyes once again. She seemed calm, as though San had not just delivered a show-stopping performance in a tiny Mexican restaurant. He gave her a wink and did not give any more attention to her. The judges may have had the final say in the competition, but San knew that customers would flock back to El Diablo Caliente regardless of the outcome. Their cheers were more like roars and were infinitely louder than the ones that the Stray Dancers had received.

"That was sick," Chan said to San as he passed them by. The rest of them gave smiles.

"Thank you, you four were also amazing," San said idly, thinking about the results. They reached their table and sat down.

"I think we won," Wooyoung whispered to them immediately after they were situated.

"No doubt," Mingi agreed.

"I hope," San said to them. He watched the judges shuffle around in their seats and finish taking notes. Then, one of them stood up and began to walk towards the microphone. San's stomach became a gymnast.

"Here we go," he whispered, his heart rate picking up. "Hey, wait a minute," he said, turning to Mingi. Mingi was the one that had told the judges their team name, like how Ana's group was called the Stray Dancers. "What exactly did you name us?"

Mingi smiled at him.

"Both performances were spectacular," the judge said into the microphone, surprisingly jovial. The Stray Dancers and San's group snapped their heads to the stage to listen. "But we think this group did an exceptional job of pumping up the crowd while also keeping the integrity of Mexican music, and therefore deserves the win. Congratulations to Santiago and his Rosy Men, you're our winners."

"Santiago and what?" San gaped at Mingi while the restaurant exploded into cheers. "Mingi, you-"

"We won," he said, clapping him on the back. "Go and celebrate. Don't think too much about it." He was smiling so wide. San sighed and matched his smile. They had won.

Tía María was glowing as she approached their table. She promptly went over to San and kissed his cheek before giving him the biggest hug he had ever felt from her. "Maravilloso," she whispered while she rubbed his back. San felt tears touch his eyelids and he hugged her tighter. They had done it, and had made one of San's most beloved people happy.

After Tía María left San's embrace, Ana approached them with a stiffness. "Congratulations," she said, giving them a smile. But San had seen Ana smile before, and this was not her usual snarky smile. This was a fake smile, a smile that had been punched with the loss of her dance team. San relished in her discomfort.

"Thank you," San said, giving her a smile that was genuine and a little bit more. "Maybe next time, don't try to copy us at our own game." He smiled as her face contorted with anger and frustration. She stormed off away from them, and the four of them high-fived each other.

The next day. business didn't just boom, it exploded. San walked into El Diablo Caliente the next day and it was like Ana's Taqueria had never opened. The restaurant was packed and the other servers were happy to see him. The customers were especially happy to see him. The girls that he had served months ago waved at him. "You were so cool on stage!" One said as he passed by, and San took the opportunity to give her a wink.

"I know."

He left their gasping expressions for the back of the restaurant where he clocked in and got ready to work. As he rolled up his sleeves, he couldn't help but look at how much more alive El Diablo Caliente was now. Although the store hadn't had a paint job recently, the red walls glowed with newness. People in the restaurant smiled extra widely as they feasted on their meal.

But that was not what tickled San the most about his restaurant. The icing on the cake was the amount of cars in the parking lot. Less than half of the amount of cars that they had were in the lot of Ana's Taqueria. Everything, finally, had fallen back into a blissful harmony, and San was elated to be a part of the melody of the restaurant once again. San let his charming façade wash over him like a waterfall and felt the tingling warmth of a new day in the restaurant he appreciably called home.

[stylesluxx]

unashamed – e.call

[warnings: alienation]

summary: in which embry isn’t ashamed of y/n | tradgoth!reader | requested!

word count: 1,685

masterlist

By now, you were used to all the stares. Well, actually, no one stared anymore, just stayed away from you.

You don't know what turned people off; was it the jet black hair or the black lipstick? Maybe it was the eyeliner and the big black combat boots? But did you care? No.

Your mom thought it was a phase, but you never felt more confident in the way you looked.

When you first were getting into your look, your classmates stared, and you heard all the whispers. It was discouraging at first, but your mom always told you to hold your head high no matter what.

At first, it was the big black boots. Your eyes almost turned into hearts at first sight of them. But then you wanted to push it even further, the novelty of the boots wore off. You went for all black clothes now, ditching the floral skirts and donating whatever else wasn't you anymore. You wore your favorite black boots with black dresses, black shirts, black mini skirts, black jeans, as long as it was black, you would wear it.

Once you had the perfect wardrobe, you started doing your makeup. Black eyeliner, thick or thin, long or short, depended on the day.

But soon, that wasn't enough, and to complete your full evolution, you went and got box dye and dyed your hair jet black.

The whole style change garnered you the eyes of the entire school, but once they got used to the look, the stares subdued.

You were happy people no longer stared, but now you felt alienated. You were always shy, never had any real friends, just people you'd talk to in class. But no one would speak to you now.

You thought that maybe you should go back to your old look, but that wouldn't change anything. People would think you were confused, and they already made up their minds about you.

So, you held your head high, confident in yourself. Sure, you wished people would talk to you and give you a chance, but it wasn't worth trading your confidence and happiness for it.

But one day, you were in the library, not looking for any book, in particular, just thumbing along the spines. You finished reading the summary on the back of a book, and as you were looking for the spot you took it from, your eyes met another. The staring brown eyes were on the other side of the bookshelf, unwavering from yours.

You blinked and felt your cheeks heat up, not used to the looks anymore (but it was also just weird that someone was looking right into your eyes). You coughed gently, hoping to distract the boy across from you, but his soft amber eyes were unwavering.

"Um, are you alright?" You finally spoke up, keeping your voice low since you were in the library.

He seemed to have snapped out of his gaze. His face that displayed shock, was now covered with joy.

"You're Y/N, right?" He asked, an aloof smile on his face as he reached down to grab his backpack.

"Uh... yeah, Y/N," You nodded and walked as he quickly walked around the shelf.

He was now standing in front of you, tall and slender, warm russet skin, and the brown eyes that were just about ingrained into your brain.

"I'm Embry!"

He stuck his hand out, waiting for you to shake it. You hesitantly met your hand with his and shook it.

"Yeah, I know. We've gone to school since freshman year," You chuckled awkwardly.

You tried pulling your hand away, but it was practically glued, the way Embry was gripping it. You tugged it back, giving him a tight smile, and turned to walk away. It wasn't a lot, but you weren't used to the chitchatting, so you were growing uncomfortable. You were used to being isolated, forced to be alone.

"Wait, do you think... you could... help me find a good book?" He asked as if trying to make something up.

You raised an eyebrow but still nodded, walking a little further down the aisle.

"This is my favorite book, like, ever. You might like it, I don't know, don't really know what you like," You shrugged and grabbed the book of the shelf, handing it to the boy.

"Thank you. I'll make sure to give it a read. And I'll let you know what I think," He nodded and looked down at the book in his hands. "Do we have any classes together?"

"I don't really know; I just focus on the lesson if I'm honest," You shrugged. "But yeah, definitely let me know if you like it."

"Okay, I will. I better get going, they're waiting for me," He sighed and looked back at the table at the end of the aisle.

At the small circular table was Jacob Black and Quil Ateara. You didn't realize the two of them were there, their eyes locked on you and Embry. But now that you noticed them, they looked very on guard, ready to jump into action. But nothing crazy ever happened at your school, so you don't know why they were so tense.

"Yeah, you do that. They look like they're about to combust," You joked and turned away. "Talk to you later, Embry."

From then, you two grew to be practically inseparable.

He read the book fairly quickly and found you during lunch, going on and on about it. All you could do was smile; it was rare that someone liked something just as much as you did. And to hear him go on about it made you happy because he was happy, and you could see his eyes twinkle as he talked.

It became something like a book club, but you were always talking about things other than the books you'd recommend to each other. You were hanging out after school, getting pizza, watching the movie versions of the books you read. It was a great time. You finally had a friend.

Of course, you had to overcome the disbelief that he wanted to hang out with you, and it took even longer for you to believe he didn't care what other people thought.

He would wrap an arm around your shoulder, and even though you'd get flushed with embarrassment, he wouldn't think anything of it. You weren't embarrassed by him, of course, but now all eyes were back on you. You heard the whispers (you always did). The boy that went off the rails and joined a "gang" with the goth girl. It was all the school could talk about for weeks.

But the pack didn't think anything about your new relationship with their pack brother. They were happy, which you thought was weird; you thought they would judge you and maybe try to talk him out of it.

You found out about the pack and the imprinting after Embry invited you to Emily's for dinner one weekend.

He was asking you about how often you had to dye your hair, honestly intrigued. This made Paul laugh and say, "imprinting makes you interested in the most random things."

This comment caught your attention but what made you even more suspicious was Seth nudging him and saying, "bro, he didn't tell her yet! Idiot."

You had looked over at Embry, an eyebrow raised, but he just gave you a sheepish smile. You let it go for the time being, but the next movie night you had, you pressed him.

He spilled though you found it weird, you weren't going to push away the only person you had.

"So, Jake and Quil heard when I said they were going to combust? Like, because of the good hearing thing?" You asked, hand over your open mouth.

"That's your only question?" He chuckled and pulled you into his chest, kissing the top of your head.

You didn't know when you two had crossed the line from best friends to boyfriend and girlfriend, but you theorized it was that night.

He gripped your hand as you walked into the cafeteria. Instead of sitting alone at lunch, you sat with the pack and Kim. It made you happy to feel like you were a part of something. Something that accepted you for who you are.

"Maybe you can do that thing you do with your eyes on my eyes," Embry said, his head supported but by his hand as he looked at you lovingly.

"You mean eyeliner? You'll really let me?" You asked, your eyes lighting up with joy.

"Yeah, sure, seems fun," Your boyfriend shrugged nonchalantly, but you knew he was bubbling with happiness just at the sight of how happy you were.

"Y/N, please send me a picture of that," Quil chuckled, making Embry roll his eyes.

It was tv night at your house, very different from movie night. Leave it to your boyfriend to make a big deal about the difference. ("It's the principle!")

Tonight you were starting Golden Girls (Embry's choice. You wanted to start Community but Embry won rock, paper, scissors fair and square).

"Who even introduced you to Golden Girls?" You asked, holding the black eyeliner pen in your hand as you started your project.

"My mom, of course... duh Y/N," He mumbled the last part, making you giggle.

You finished one eye and went to move to the other, but you paused. At first, you were looking at your work, but then you started thinking about how perfect he was and how grateful you were to have him in your life.

You hadn't realized you were smiling like a goofy idiot until Embry spoke up.

"What? Did you mess up?" He asked and reached for the hand mirror on the coffee table.

"No, I just realized how much I love you, that's all," You shrugged and went back to doing his eyeliner.

Once you finished, you pulled back and kissed his cheek before looking at your masterpiece.

"You look great!" You smiled.

"Do I look like you?" He asked, smiling back at you

"Even better, baby."

[AN: heyyy, it’s me back from the dead. sorry I’ve been gone for like a month but I had the worst writer’s block omg. hopefully you all like this and I hope this somehow pushes me to keep writing but we’ll see lol]

[frogtanii]

hq boys as the crimes they’d commit

warnings: CRIMES, crackfic, probably many typos idk i’m so tired lmaooo, cursing, drinking ??? idfk 😩💦

an: and i did this for what?? inspired by hq hcs royalty @sugardaddykenma @hina-wit-da-glock (AJSKSJ SORRY FOR TAGGING Y’ALL IF YOU SEE THIS, IT IS DEF NOT UP TO PAR W Y’ALLS WORKS ILY)

karasuno

sawamura daichi- insurance fraud!! somehow this is such a dad crime to commit?? dadchi didn’t try (dumb excuse, how do you accidentally commit insurance fraud smh) to commit insurance fraud but at one point in his late-thirties, he was very very broke and was already working as much as possible so, he decided to fake an ankle injury, as you do, and filed a bunch of claims which made him bank. daichi kept doing it until he was able to quit one of his jobs and buy himself a really nice suit and a rolex (uhhh 🥵). he somehow never got caught tho and to this day, none of his friends know how he was able to afford a tesla on a cop’s salary (sorry daichi but acab 😔✨)

sugawara kōshi- child abandonment!! ok you can try and fight me on this but i feel in my bones that suga absolutely despises children. he can tolerate ages 10+ but anything younger than that, he will punt them into the next dimension. the thing is, people just assume he likes kids because of how good he is with his team which is why his aunt begged him to babysit his nephew taro. taro was being an absolute brat when suga took him out for the day and he was 👉👈 this close to snapping. he put taro down for like 3 seconds to pay for their ice cream and when he turned back, the demon spawn was gone. he panicked, running around the park looking for taro when it turns out, taro was just bent down behind the bench. some random karen called the police and suga has never craved murder more.

nishinoya yuu- arson!! you CANNOT tell me nishinoya doesn’t have a ~murder~ playlist that he listens to to get himself hype (me too noya, me too). one night, he got a lil too hype listening to start a riot by duckwrth and watching demolition videos on youtube. he snuck out of his house to an empty shed like 30 minutes away and maybe... lit it on fire while genocide by lil darkie played on a speaker nearby. what he did NOT anticipate was the absolute size of the fire so he freaked out and called the firefighters who promptly called the police. he didn’t want to get grounded so he called daichi to bail him out. daichi still told noya’s parents 😔.

tanaka ryūnosuke- vandalism!! tanaka had been on alt tiktok and saw a group of cool friends spray painting an abandoned building. he thought “that’s cool, lemme do that!” but then he realized he had no friends (AHDGS JK I LOVE TANAKA). he asked nishinoya who was grounded from the arson incident and he knew he definitely couldn’t ask daichi, suga, asahi, or enoshita so he decided to go it alone. that proved to be a MASSIVE mistake. he got the supplies, arrived to the building of his choice (thanks saeko :3), and decided to spray paint a huge p3ni5 in bright red paint. he finished “successfully” and zoomed back home. what he didn’t realize with his two-and-a-half braincells is that he signed his glorious piece with his full name. the cops were at his house the next morning...🧍

hinata shoyō- forgery!! hinata did NOT think that forgery was even a crime. how was he supposed to know that he wasn’t allowed to copy his mom’s signature on a permission form! all he wanted was to go to an overnight training camp 😿

kageyama tobio- attempted murder!! kageyama swears it sounds worse than was and he is absolutely incorrect. what happened was so much worse. he and hinata were having a competition to see who could hold their breath the longest underwater (you can’t tell me they haven’t done some dumbass shit like this) and kageyma lost almost instantly (he has the tiny lungs of an asthmatic). he didn’t want hinata to notice so he held hinata’s head under the water for like 10 seconds. suga walked in though, saw hinata thrashing around in the water and immediately called the police. kageyama never forgave him.

tsukishima kei- cyberbullying!! first of all, i had no idea you could get arrested for cyber bullying!? that being said, neither did tsukishima who spent 80% of his time making fun of people online (and on his real account!! bold). eventually one of the people he bullied (hinata) reported him on instagram and his very lame account was deleted (pls don’t bully people online 😤).

yamaguchi tadashi- shoplifting!! andjksh this is so funny because this scenario has happened to me and i can just SEE this happening to poor tadashi. yamaguchi gets super late night cravings (and usually tsukki will walk with him at like 3 am 🥺 nEWAYS) so he’ll sneak out and walk to the mini-mart near his house. one night, he was so tired but also super hungry so he went onto his nightly routine and basically sleepwalked into the store. he picked out his favorite chips and candy bar (which are sour cream&onion lays and milky ways in case you were wondering 😌✨) and just... walked out the store without paying. the store clerk was mysteriously missing so yamaguchi made it all the way home, ate half the bag of chips and passed out without realizing what he’d done. once he did, he cried for 2 hours straight.

nekoma

kuroo tetsurō- telemarketing fraud!! kuroo originally did telemarketing fraud as a joke?? like he was trying to prank call someone pretending that they had lost their information and they actually gave it to him??? he was mildly concerned but even more excited. he did it over and over again but he never used the info for anything. to this day, kuroo literally has a notebook full of credit card numbers and bank account passwords but he refuses to use it because he believes it’s ✨wrong✨(but it isn’t wrong to take all that information in the first place under false pretenses, not realizing that once people find out, they are forced to close credit cards and accounts but go off self righteous king). once he brought the book up to kenma and he offered to sell it on the dark web. now kuroo feels less bad about what he’s done! :D

kozume kenma- computer crime!! pfttt this one seems kinda obvious but what do you expect from kenma :). he spends so much time on the internet, he’s definitely picked up some less than legal skills that still help him now 👀. kenma did little mini crimes like getting into other people’s wifi but his crowning achievement was when he hacked into the minneapolis pd website and had it so when you opened the page, a black lives matter screen came up. he never told anyone that it was him who did it but he thinks it’s the best he’s ever done.

yaku morisuke- racketeering!! yaku, the feral king, ran an underground gambling ring in the basement of nekoma (do they have basements?? who knows! i don’t!) during his third year. the only reason it didn’t get shut down was because coach nekomata took a portion of yaku’s profits whenever he won (which was literally all the time). everyone on the team has lost money to him which is why they never play with him anymore. they won’t even let yaku play monopoly 😔.

haiba lev- indecent exposure!! poor lev’s head is so empty, he tends to fall for whatever pranks his senpai’s do to him. this time kuroo had somehow convinced him that in order to grow his schlong, he had to run outside naked for 10 minutes because the moonlight had special growing properties. lev was a lil scared ngl because he was already superrr tall and didn’t need to grow his height (or his dick ((boy is hung)) but poor lev is insecure) but he did it anyway. long story short, an old woman saw him parading around the neighborhood naked and called el policia. 0/10 dick did NOT grow and had to spend a night in jail naked 😿

aoba johsai

oikawa tōru- prostitution!! KAKKAKA iwazumi made fun of oikawa for being so shitty and said that he couldn’t pick up anyone if he tried. flattykawa took this as a personal challenge and went out onto the street, asking people if they’d have sex with him. with the way he was asking (and the way he was dressed), people assumed he was a paid w h o r e and someone eventually reported him. iwazumi had to pick oikawa up from the station- he never let him live this one down.

iwaizumi hajime- battery!! it wasn’t technically battery but oikawa is a lil bitch and overreacts (at least in his words -_-). the amount of times iwa-chan has beat the absolute shit out of oikawa is uNREAL. he just can’t handle the stupidity sometimes so he just smacks the crap outta him. not for real for real but the way oikawa reacts, you’d think a murder was occurring. one time, shittykawa screeched so loud, they got a noise complaint -_- hajime hates it in these streets.

matsukawa issei & hanamaki takahiro- conspiracy!! issei and hiro have a secret blog where they discuss conspiracy theories and such but one day, hiro found an article that explained how jfk’s death was an inside job. he sent it to issei who began to theorize how HE’D do it. that devolved into a massive thread on their blog of how’d they murder a president which blew up and caught the attention of the cia who sent the a letter telling them to quietly delete the blog. they did because they were terrified but they kept the letter and now it’s framed in issei’s apartment.

kyōtani kentarō- assault!! baby is an angry little boy but for all the right reasons. he was at a bar (when he’s all grown up, duh) and he spotted an absolute drunk creep hitting on a girl who clearlyyyy did not reciprocate his feelings. kyōtani, being the respectful king that he is, went over to the guy, pulled him by the jacket and beat. the. shit. out of him. while the bartender was happy with the fact that the creep was out, he was not impressed with the damage to his bar. he just sent kyōtani out who casually adjusted his leather jacket and rings, and hopped on his motorcycle to ride away into the night. i am the FATTEST simp for this man ONG 🥴

shiratorizawa

ushijima wakatoshi- stalking!! poor ushijima has no idea how intimidating he can be. he was on a train late at night after practice and the woman sitting across from him left her purse sitting on the seat. being the gentleman that he is, he took the purse and followed her to return it. the only problem is that the closer he got, the faster she ran and when he tried to speak (yknow with his scary, deep, baritone voice), the woman screeched and called the cops on him because he was a “strange, big man who was following her home.” when the police showed up, ushijima was painfully confused and just held up this tiny ass purse in his massive hands. the cops laughed.

tendō satori- ???!! no one knows what crimes (or how many 😳) tendō has committed but each of his teammates have different ideas- ushijima: “i don’t believe tendou is capable of committing any sort of felony. well, maybe murder”; semi: “of COURSE he’s capable of crimes??! do you know how many times i’ve seen him come into the dorm with a suspicious stain of red on his sweater?? *shudders* if i end up dead, tendō did it...” in actuality, the only crime tendō has committed is ~drugs~ but he’s not bouta tell his friends that.

goshiki tsutomu- would be a VICTIM!! my baby tsutomu would NEVER commit a crime!!! i love this man with my everything and the only crime he’s committed is being too damn cute 😤🥺