#granted a little a bit of Able To Draw... yay ^_^

[trainingdummyrabbit]

playing..

[letsperaltiago]

i love you and i like you

Based on @stars-my-darling's adorable post: 

“When Mac starts talking he will sometimes just randomly tell Amy that he loves her, usually at the end of an unrelated sentence. They later realise that he learnt to do this because Jake is always randomly telling Amy that he loves her and Mac is copying him." aka. 5 times toddler Mac Santiago-Peralta tells his mommy he loves her

Also includes prompt #101 from the 101 fluffy prompts-list: "…They just grow up so fast."

Read on ao3

Every like and reblog is appreciated <3

Amy Santiago has so far had a lifetime’s worth of great jobs, which, she knows, isn’t that hard when you love work and everything it implies. Everything from assisting her middle school’s librarian to that brief job at a small uptown museum her degree got her to being a respected sergeant in the NYPD. She’s loved every single job but, she’s now come to realise, nothing vill ever beat her most recent employment: Motherhood. With a capital M, yes.

Mac throws her and Jake’s worlds over like the tiny miracle of a storm he is and they’ve never looked back since. It’s brand new, it’s exciting, it’s scary, and though they’re not exactly religious, he’s the answer to their prayers. Parenthood turns out to be nothing like what they’d expected, like nothing they’d ever tried before and looking past some of the rough days, which are inevitable, it’s actually even better. They get to shape and watch a human grow; a human of which they’re both the genesis and they couldn’t be any more proud - both of each other but also their son.

Everything Mac does and achieves is a moment to remember, and they take nothing for granted: every new sound, even simple gurgles, every new movement, even the flick of a tiny finger? They beam, look at each other with wide, joyous eyes and celebrate their newborn addition to their little family. They hold on to everything they can, while they can although, they swear, every other day they’ll be lying in bed with him while he sleeps or watch him begin to explore their apartment on his own and they’ll take turns breaking the comfortable silence with what they’re both thinking:

“They just grow up so fast.”

Even if he’s merely grown a tenth of an inch since the last time they brought it up.

This fact aside, before they know it, their before so very tiny and helpless son can sit without assistance, sooner than later starts crawling and before they seem to have the time to catch up with the ladder he suddenly knows how to say “mama” and “dada” - and the day Mac takes his first steps, Amy filming on her phone while Jake is squatting to entice his son? Both parents guiltlessly shed a tiny tear rewatching the video that night after their little one, who suddenly seems so big, is put to bed.

With the walking comes the talking. Mac, like his dad, is an entertainer and seizes every chance he gets to chat with his parents, and anyone else who’ll listen for that matter, and hopefully make them laugh. Amy quickly sees through the fact that her son’s mannerism is definitely inspired by her husband’s, and Amy’s heart swells at every glimt of it: everything from Mac’s tiny ‘big dramatic movements’ to him attempting to crack small jokes (that sometimes are actually super funny but also mostly make people laugh because his delivery is beyond precious). Despite the fact that his personality is absolutely a solid blend of both parents, Jake’s genes definitely conquer everything else, and Amy doesn’t mind one bit. Although she could do without the short, Peralta-inspired attention span, which can be both very cute but also slightly maddening when you’ve told your barely 3-year old toddler 6 times to finish their meal meanwhile he’s to preoccupied by his father cleaning up the water said toddler spilled just seconds ago.

All in all, Mac is a copy of Jake, and in more ways that one Amy is grateful. Especially when the little boy starts getting a grasp of the word ‘love’ and what it actually means though his parents have showered him with it since before he was born. Jake and Amy will tell Mac ‘I love you’ on the daily and, besides this, his parents themselves aren’t exactly shy of telling each other, especially Jake who often tends to do it out of nowhere or any kind of context which the boy must’ve picked up on at some point.

It starts off quite naturally: the first time he says it.

One night after getting him washed down and put into his favorite firetruck-print pyjamas (the parents couldn’t deny him it even though they were far from thrilled), Amy’s sitting with Mac in his new so-called ‘big boy-bed’. Feeling her son’s curly-haired head nestled into her chest, one hand grabbing onto the fabric of her shirt while the other holds onto his best buddy Leo the Lion, Amy reads out loud from one of the many books she’s managed to accumulate for her son. Obviously worn out from the day Mac, as being almost 3 is very exhausting, stays silent and listens carefully to the sound of his mother’s voice, dutifully paying attention to the book’s colourful drawings and even sometimes pointing at them whenever Amy reaches a part of the story that’s been illustrated.

“Then the little puppy ran through the big big field and the big big forest to get back home-“

“Shee, Mommy,” Mac interrupts her with a lisp caused by the pacifier hanging from one corner of his mouth and points to the drawing of the running dog with his index finger. “Doggy runth!”

“Yeah, I see, baby,” she smiles before pecking the top of his head. Normally she’d ask him to remove his pacifier when he speaks. Her and Jake slowly trying to make the object something Mac knows he can use to relax rather than constantly needs, but when it’s this late and right before bedtime Amy can’t be bothered to reprimand him. For now she’s just proud of her tiny, smart guy. “Where is he running?” She pulls back to look at him, encouraging him to explain further.

“He’sh going home!” he smiles proudly to a point where his pacifier almost falls out, just barely clinging on for dear life.

“That’s right. He’s running home to his family - good job,” she chuckles sending him one last smile before skimming her wristwatch quickly realising bedtime is just minutes away. It’s not that they’re following a strict schedule that depends on every single minute and second of the day: something she’s actually glad Jake’s and his more laid-back lifestyle has transferred to their parenting-style. Although Mac, his parents have come to find out, will reach a point during the evening where it’ll be too late and he becomes overtired and impossible. Therefor 8 PM is the ultimate limit (on weekdays, that is) and Amy sees it quickly approaching so she quickly finishes up their story and shuts the book closed.

“That’s it for today, Mr. Mac. Time to visit dreamland,” simply not able to resist the feel and smell of her son’s newly washed curls, she places another kiss to the top of his head before climbing out of the small bed and hears him reply with a yawn which tells her that she’s probably timed bedtime perfectly. To the great delight of the now also tired mother (a high rank full-time job and a toddler will do that to you) she’s once more proved right when Mac gets under the covers without a trace of fight.

“Roshie?” he looks up at his mother with worried eyes as he hugs Leo the Lion a bit tighter. Those stupid beautiful brown eyes he’s inherited from Jake.  

“Oh,” Amy kneels down to the bed’s side and starts running her hand all over the duvet, mattress and bed-frame. “Where’s Rosie, bud?”

Rosie aka. the pink unicorn he’d gotten from auntie Roro back when he was still a tiny baby (though he’d always be Amy’s tiny baby) was missing and they both knew very well that there would be no sleeping without it. Suddenly her hand comes across a bump, to her relief revealing the stuffed animal once she lifts up the duvet.

“Yay, mommy!” her son smiles as if she’s cracked the mystery of the century and Amy can’t help but feel just a bit proud - anything she does that makes her boy happy will do that to her.

“There you go,” she smiles and places the unicorn in his arms right next to Leo the Lion. “All good, Mr. Mac?”

He nods profoundly, eyes suddenly clearly tired and droopy, which earns him a warm smile from his mother before she leans in and kisses his forehead tenderly, all at once running her hand fingers his curls as to get her one last fix for the day. Incredible how your child can become somehow addicting.

“Sleep well. I love you,” she pulls back to take him in, the declaration of love hanging in the air for a few seconds before, taking Amy by surprise, her son answers her.

“I wuv you.”

She knows ‘love’ is an abstract feeling that a toddler can’t really comprehend and isolate as an emotion, which is probably also why Mac’s never said it back before, and although she’s told him a million times before and has never awaited or needed an answer, him saying it back definitely throws her off in the most magical, proud, emotional way in a long time. She’s constantly proud of the little things he does on the daily, slowly becoming a tiny actual human with opinions and a personality, but this is a whole new level.

“Thank you for saying that,” she can feel tears forming in her eyes and throat, but doesn’t want to confuse the small child who’s just begun to understand ‘love’, and therefor doesn’t also need to be explained that crying can also be a sign of happiness. That is an oxymoron that will surely just confuse him when, currently, crying is Mac’s way of expressing and understanding sadness and anger.

“That was very sweet of you and I love you so so much too, baby,” she manages to say it one last time, without breaking, before getting up to turn on his tiny night light and leave. “Me and daddy will be just down the hall watching TV, okay?”

A slight movement from beneath the duvet lets her know he’s heard her before she allows herself to half-close the door and walk back to where Jake is cleaning up after dinner. There she is finally able to let out a few soft cries as she lets her husband in on the small, incredible moment she’s just had with their son. Of course, it instantly makes Jake feel like crying with joy too. Their baby is surely the best.

From there on it’s just one big mess of declarations, at the most random moments and Amy is very amused but also even more enamoured.

One night Jake is away on a stakeout which leaves Amy is home alone with Mac, and to the toddlers immense joy this means he’s allowed to sleep with his mom in her and dad’s enormous bed. Jake has told him to keep mommy safe while he’s gone and of course takes this task very seriously. It’s 3 AM, they’re both fast asleep when suddenly Amy is awoken by what seems to be quite some new weight on top of her chest.

“Mommy,” promptly breaks the silence slowly bringing Amy back to consciousness.

It takes her a second to collect herself but she instinctually reaches out to figure out exactly where her son is in the dark. It’s quickly clear that he’s stretched out stomach down across her chest. “Yes, baby?” she mumbles tiredly eyes still closed hoping that her son is just being restless and will go back to sleep.

“I need pee.”

“Oh.”

This, with a power that almost no other request from her son holds, immediately dawns upon and takes over her body pushing her to sit up. Mac is pretty much fully potty trained but only day-wise. During the night he still uses a diaper, and they’ve only just recently started easing him into the night-potty by telling him it’s an option. The boy showing initiative himself is an absolutely great start and even more importantly an opportunity she won’t let slip by.

“You wanna go use the potty?” she looks at him to make sure and he immediately nods. “Okay, lets go then.”

And so they scurry out of bed and make their way across the hall to the bathroom, hand in hand in the darkness, where once the light is turned on Mac’s potty awaits him.

With a bit of help from mommy, he pulls down his pyjamas pants and diaper before getting settled on the potty. There’s no hiding the fact that they’re both very tired, especially Mac whose head hangs a bit, almost asleep while giving in to his body’s need for relief while Amy sits dutifully on the floor besides him.

“Good job telling me, Mac,” she praises, smiling tiredly but the little boy is too tired to even react.

They stay like this for a while, in silence, Amy not wanting to interrupt a probably concentrated Mac, when suddenly he, to her surprise, is the one to break the silence.

“I’m peeing and I love you, mommy,” he mumbles tiredly almost fully asleep right there on the potty, messy curls hanging in whatever which way gravity will allow.

Then, as if she’d never been tired, asleep, woken up and feeling exhausted, Amy’s body rises to a much higher level of awareness. Warmth, one that completely makes her forget about the bathroom floor’s cold tiles, spreads throughout her entire being and if it wasn’t for the fact that he was currently trying to pee, Amy would’ve pulled him into the tightest hug right there. But she doesn’t, of course, and instead settles for a gleaming smile.

“Mommy loves you too, honey,” He’s her very own bedhead, she thinks to herself lovingly running a hand through his hair. “And I’m so proud of you for waking me up to go potty.”

It’s very faint, too tired to put much effort into it but there’s definitely a small smile growing on her son’s face, When he falls asleep on top of her chest a bit later after he’s done and has been put into a clean diaper, just to be safe, the smile is still there, Amy can tell even in the dark.

Another occasion, it’s safe to say, happens when Amy leasts expects it. They’re running on ‘tantrum from hell: hour who-even-knows-anymore’, this time triggered by the banal fact that, no, Mac wasn’t allowed to play with the big knife Jake had been using to cut vegetables for their dinner.

Everyone has their bad days, the parents are well aware, but this one of Mac’s was particularly bad. All day, from the minute he woke up and went straight to the living room instead of joining his parents in their bad, he’d been extra fussy thereby not feeling content with whichever way his parents tried to fix his mood. They’d been understandable and gone easy on him all day, hopelessly trying to please him while also not just giving in to his unreasonable demands. It appeared that this was very a fine line to walk, and so far it sure hadn’t offered them the intended results. Both parents were exhausted and Mac screaming was far, so very far, from their ideal way of spending the evening in.

Both Jake and Amy have tried experimented with different tactics, some that are known to work. Picking him up to soothe him; ask him if he’s hurting somewhere; offering him to choose one of his daily snacks like a glass of milk, yoghurt or a fruit; suggesting that they play a game…  But the little boy wants nothing. Nothing but that huge, sharp kitchen knife.

“Look, you can cry all you want, but daddy is not going to give you the knife. It’s dangerous, Mac,” Amy’s voice is definitely stern but nonetheless still calm well aware of the fact that screaming as well won’t get her anywhere. Besides that she also considers herself a structured, punctual but nonetheless also a cool mom: nevertheless enough is enough. She’s really had it by now, hands resting defensively on her hips  as she feels a head ache creeping up on her meanwhile her 3 year old, who’s now lying face down on the kitchen floor, lets out yet another scream.

“Listen to mom, bud,” Jake intervenes the best he can without interrupting his wife’s operation. “She’s super right, you know? The knife is very very sharp and in your small hands it can easily slip and hurt you. We don’t want that.”

Another scream is how he’s thanked for the explanation and Jake, even though he loves his son unconditionally, has to roll his eyes and sigh. Logic is not relevant when you’re working with a toddler, he has learned but nonetheless gives it a try every time they’re back in the arena - only to be disappointed.

They try not to be the kind of parents that scold or punish their kid unless it’s necessary and they but alas this is not one of them. Amy has had it and shares a look of confirmation with her husband before proceeding - she needs him to back her up on this.

“Okay, McClane Santiago-Peralta,” Amy says strictly. Full name? This is the point of no return, Jake knows.

“If you’re going to continue to behave like this then that’s up to you, but that also means it’s time for time-out, because daddy and I don’t know how to help you, when you keep screaming like that.”

God, she hates this side of parenthood and this shade of herself, though she knows it necessary.

“Knife!” Mac cries out rolling onto his back and hitting the floor with the palms of his tiny hands in protest of now both the knife and the time-out.

“I’m not going to keep discussing this with you,” she makes up her mind, picks up her son which results in him screaming/crying even louder while also putting up a fight by wiggling his entire body in his mother’s hold. “If you’re not going to go by yourself, like the big boy I know you usually are, then I’ll have to carry you there.”

And so Amy, knowing that the most important thing right now is that she sticks to her pledges, starts walking out of the kitchen and down the hall towards her son’s room. The wiggling continues, the crying doesn’t come to quit and he even adds kicking into the air as she carries him to the mess of it all. He really doesn’t want to go, even less have his mommy take him there since it’ll mean that he’s really pushed her to the limit.

Then suddenly the next wail he lets out suddenly sends the situation down a completely different path.

“I just want the knife and I- I wuv you, mommy!” her son screams loudly through his cry, face all red and scrunched up as if he was cursing her which by nature results in Amy freezing on the spot, left to wonder what the hell had prompted that outburst.

That one was new, she thinks, and how the hell do you handle this exact situation right? On one hand his previous acts, and the fact that he’s still hysterical, means that he deserves to be sent to his room; on the other hand he just screamed, bloody murder, that he loves her… Parenthood was indeed so confusing sometimes.

A sigh leaves her body.

“I love you too, Mac,” she figures he deserves, and always will deserve, to hear it back - no matter how frustrating and crazy the situation might be.

“And daddy does too, but it’s really hard for us to help you when you scream and cry like that, baby,” she gives explaining the consequences of his tantrum one last shot, and, to her surprise, the boy actually stills in her arms and buries his face into her chest. The cries die out before transitioning to small sniffles and alas Amy sees the opportunity to, perhaps, talk some sense into her son.

“We’d much rather have you use your words, tell mommy and daddy what’s actually wrong, rather than having you scream and cry like this. Do you understand?”

There’s silence but Amy can feel Mac’s tiny head slide up and down in nod against his chest, and relief, although it might still just be a false sense of safety, floods her entire body.

“So, what is actually wrong? Why are you sad?”

“I-“ Mac sniffles trying to mould his thoughts. “I just wanted help daddy make food.”

Of course, she thinks internally rolling her eyes.

“I see,” she nods. “And you can help daddy cook, but next time you’ll have to say it like that. Use your words, okay?”

He nods again before lovingly grasping onto a strand of his mother’s hair.

“Good,” she pecks the top of his head. “Now,” she cranes her neck to look down at her son’s face where it’s half buried into her tear-stained shirt. “Do you want to be in your room by yourself for a bit to calm down, or do you want to come help me and daddy clean the kitchen and set the table?”

“I wan’ help,” he mumbles obviously lacking energy after spending it all throwing the tantrum, but if he wants to be with them and redeem himself then Amy won’t be the one to stop him. It took a while, but Amy always tries to remember that he’s still very little meaning that it’s inevitable that some social skills aren’t fully developed. So whenever he can come to his senses, with his parents guidance or not, Amy will of course be the first one to endorse it.

“I’m glad to hear that,” she walks back towards the kitchen with Mac resting silently in her arms.

A third memory that pops into Amy’s mind upon trying to remember the many random moment’s where her son has shared his love for her out loud and of the blue (Peralta-stylez), is one time (of the many) they went grocery shopping together. They’d been wandering around the big grocery store, her and Mac, targeting the cereal aisle, hand in hand with a basket in Amy’s free hand.

“Okay, since you and daddy ate the last of the Fruit Loops this morning we need to get some cereal. You think you can help me with that?” she looks down at her son who’s already looking up to meet her eyes. Mac’s enchanting glimmering eyes instantly light up at the thought of responsibility, a trait he’s definitely inherited from her, and prompts an eager nod. Before she can even say or explain further, which he probably doesn’t actually need her to, he’s let go of her hand.

“More Fwuit Loops!” he exclaims happily as his tiny legs take him ahead, down the aisle, to reach the mosaic of colourful cereal-boxes.

“Sure, if that’s what you want, babe, but maybe…” she walks towards him, "we could try something else for once?” she tries to not be too strict about her son’s eating habits, especially when she knows Fruit Loops is usually the only straight up sugary stuff he eats daily, but also, she has to admit, secretly wishes she could perhaps trick him and Jake to eat something just a bit less… candy-like.

“What?” he stops and looks at her with a frown. “Something else?”

“Yeah,” she catches up with him and looks as the many options before him. “Like… bran-flakes, maybe? They look yummy, right?”

Either Amy is a really bad actor or her son simply too smart, but nonetheless Mac looks more than quite unimpressed when his mom pulls a boring, brown box out from the shelf to showcase it

“I donno want brain-flakes ew, mommy” and the face Mac makes, a face of utter disgust, would be way more solid proof than a paternity test if one was needed - he is definitely, without a single doubt, Jake Peralta’s son - and she definitely can’t help but chuckle at the similarity he constantly carries with him.

The tiny human’s hand starts dancing across all the different packages, probably gathering himself a good dose of various germs that in the moment Amy can’t make herself care about, and every now and then he’ll stop to study a cereal that’s caught his child-brain and eyes’ attention.

“There are so many to choose from, huh babe?” she encourages but keeping her distance as to be supportive of him doing something on his own, independent like a big boy.

First he stops in front of the Cheerios, which Amy can totally be content with, but alas he quickly, to Amy’s chagrin, puts them back in their spot. Then come the Frosted Flakes with their blue box and cute tiger cartoon (the perfect child-trap) which, if possible, are even worse than Fruit Loops. Amy unconsciously frowns at the thought of having to rip the box of cereal from her son’s grip when he in a few seconds won’t let go and instead grab the Bran Flakes. But to Amy’s great relief Mac’s finger continue their trip down past the tiger-trap, mindlessly mumbling small nothings to himself that she can’t quite make out. Then, all at once seeming way more determined than with previous ones, Mac throws himself at a bright and colourful box.

“These!” he exclaims jumping up and down on the spot with the held over his head in victory.

As soon as she gets a closer look, having gently grabbed the box from her son, it dawns on Amy that Jake Peralta being the father of her child isn’t exclusively beneficial. Not when their child is asking for Sour Patch Kids morning cereal and Amy knows it’s because he’s inspired by his dad as Jake will gladly share his candy with his son whenever he happens to have some.

“Oh, baby… “ Amy tries to keep up a neutral face as to not reveal how she dreads to get something that’s somehow even worse than the king of artificial ingredients, Fruit Loops, and sultan of sugar, Frosted Flakes, combined. “You sure you don’t just wanna get the Fruit Loops then? I don’t think you’ll like Sour Patch Kids.”

“Yes I do! I eat them with daddy all the time!”

Of course.

Her son is completely oblivious to her dread and shines proudly thinking he’s pleased his mom by finding something new (which it is - Amy can’t deny that) to have for breakfast. And Amy’s mom-heart can’t get herself to contradict her son’s persuasion of the fact that he’s accomplished the mission she set up for him. No way. Not when his face flows with pride like it does now.

“Okay,” she surrenders with a forsaken smile. “We can get these, but they’re very sugary so only for weekend mornings, got it?” she puts her hand forward as to shake on the deal.

Either it’s the handshake that takes his mind off of it, or her 3-year old actually somehow understands nutritional values, but he doesn’t flinch, doesn’t hesitate to meet her hand with his own, agreeing with her proposed deal. Immediately after she hands him back the box, it’s a mystery to Amy how such a simple thing can make her son that happy, he beams with excitement and basically hugs the box of sugary sweetness. Amy has to chuckle and then he’s off again to do his own little thing, prancing down the remains of the aisle chanting a made-up song, Amy guesses, to himself.

“Cereal. Breakfast. I love cereal. I love breakfast. I love mommy and mommy loves cereal and me and daddy and breakfast. Cereal, cereal, cereal!”

And to her, and Jake’s, sheer luck Amy manages to snap a short video of it for them to enjoy and fuss about for years.

That same night, Friday, they’re all lounging on the couch watching a movie. Tangled as per Mr. Mac’s demand because “Flynn Eugene whatever is really cool and the pretty princess hits him with a pan and the horse and green little thing are super fun too.”

So, needing no further arguments, they watch Tangled and snack on Sour Patch Kids (the candy, not the cereal) that Jake had bought on his way home from work after Amy had texted him about their adventure at the grocery store, attaching the video of their son singing.

Although, after a long day, by the time the lanterns in the movie light up the dark sky while Rapunzel and Flynn sing to each other, Mac is half, almost completely, passed out with his head in Amy’s lap and legs stretched across his father’s. Mommy stroking your face and playing with your curls turns out to be very soothing and sleep-inducing. Jake can also, if asked to testify, agree with this fact. Guess there’s something special about Peralta-curls Amy simply can’t resist.

“Ames, I think he’s asleep,” Jake whispers discreetly throwing his wife a knowing smile when he notices his son’s current state.

She, having not noticed being too busy watching the movie, looks down and sees, indeed, a sweet angel face with shut eyes and pouty lips that indicated that her son is, if not entirely, on the verge of being asleep. Nevertheless, every 30 seconds or so, his eyes will flutter just a bit, like tiny butterfly wings, as if he’s fighting to see the end of the movie - a movie he’s seen 134 times already.

“You want to go to bed, Mac?” she coos leaning down to peck his temple.

“Nu-uh,” he fights off the urge to say yes, Amy can tell.

“You sure?” she tries again.

He nods heavily in her lap, shuffling a bit in an attempt to get comfortable enough to, Amy knows, fall asleep. But he can’t seem to find the right spot, is surely overtired too and both parents can tell it’s a matter of minutes before he’ll give in to either fall asleep on the couch or demand to be put to bed.

And they’re right.

“Mommy,” he mumbles in the most exhausted and soft soft voice that makes Amy’s heart flutter time after time. “I love you but I wanna sleep - in my bed.”

Those three words, especially coming from Mac, will never seize to send a tiny jolt of joy and dopamine through her entire being. She chuckles softly stroking his back.

“That’s okay, baby. We’ve had a long day. Let's get you to bed.”

“Okay, I love you mommy. And daddy. Love,” he passes out before he can finish the sentence and won’t even notice his father carrying him to bed while Amy gazes after them with loving eyes.

Even three years in, four if you count the pregnancy, she can’t believe this sweet, beautiful and smart boy is hers. A bundle of love that is half her and half the man she loves the most (next to Mac himself, of course). Parenthood is an irregular graph with ups and down, but they have so much love that it’ll make up for the bad days and hard cases. In the very end the most important thing is that he, Mac Santiago-Peralta with his brown curly hair, tiny nose and deep brown eyes, is here and he’s theirs. Not only is he theirs but he is his own and he loves them, his parents, so much, every day. Plus, he’s so good at actually expressing it that Amy can’t help but feel like they’re definitely doing something right. She’s proud to know her son is surrounded by so much love that it has planted a seed that everyday blooms within him, making him spill over and spread his care and love to other people.

So, yes, Amy Santiago is 100% sure: she is definitely the luckiest, most loved mom in the entire universe. Mac Santiago-Peralta will always make sure of this.  

[angelruel]

vintage pt.2

      summary: the reader gets into an accident which causes her to lose her memory. as Ruel begins to rebuild their relationship and recall the good memories between them, some bad ones are restored as well and might threaten their future. 

masterlist

Word Count: 4.4 k (kind of long, oops)

       “Soooo what’s my favorite color?”

       “Easy. Blue,” he retorted while reaching over to fill in a space on the tic tac toe board that Y/N had drawn on her empty lap desk. He was the x’s and she played the o’s. It was a bit difficult for Ruel to pretend to not know all of her tricks she played in this game, but he was a very convincing loser. She had also taken the opportunity of his return to test him on some trivia of her personal likes and dislikes. 

       “Okay, here’s a good one,” she said as she filled the left hand corner on the board with a perfect circle. Ruel learned a long time ago that her strategy was to fill two corners and the center spot of the board in order to have an upper hand on winning. He watched her play the same way over again. Ruel admired her predictability and he almost felt confident enough that her tic tac toe skills returning would somehow correlate to her feelings for him to return as well.

       “Well finally a good one. Lay it on me.” He gave her his signature soft smile that he always grants her when he’s being his sweetest version of a boyfriend.

       “What’s my favorite song? Or, at least one of my favorite songs.”

       Ruel scrunches up his nose in thought, “hmmm. I’m gonna need a little more context, bub.”

       “Okay so maybe my favorite song I like to hear on a road trip. Something that gets me energized.” Ruel found it funny that she was reaching for more and more clues to jog her memory. They both knew that couldn’t she remember the last road trip she’d been on, or any of them for that matter. He was proud that she was at least in a more positive mood about not remembering things. 

       “Wait a Minute! by Willow Smith. There’s one.”

       Y/N’s happy expression dropped to a confused one. 

       “Huh? I don’t listen to Willow Smith.”

       They both just sat there for a while. There was still an apparent wall that Y/N had built up to secure herself from being hurt by Ruel since she barely knew him. 

       But the truth was that she barely knew herself.

       “Well, I guess I did listen to her music,” she dropped her head down. “I guess I just can’t remember it.” 

       Ruel used the sleeve of his sweater to wipe off the marker drawings on Y/N’s desk tray so that he could lean over it to hold her hands.

       “Hey, how about we do something else? I brought back some stuff like you asked me for.” She looked up and gave him a soft smile when he let go of her hands to grab a blue shoebox from the floor.

       “Oh, you brought gifts! Yay!” she exclaimed while clapping her dainty hands over and over. He sat the box in front of her lap on the hospital tray and she stared at it for a minute. One of the things she did remember was that blue was her favorite color. And after having a few conversations with Ruel, she discovered that his was brown. So, she assumed that the color of the box was a little nod to her. She thought that was really sweet.

       “You can go ahead,” he encouraged her. “If you have any questions, just ask.”

       She hesitated to lift the flimsy lid from the top. Partly because she was afraid that seeing the contents wouldn’t help jog her memories at all, and also because she was still pretty weak from the constant dosage of pain meds she’d grown accustomed to. 

       The first things to come out of the box were some polaroids and a bunch of little papers she grabbed that were grouped together. One of the polaroids showed a group photo in front of a campfire with little writing at the bottom that said ‘new years 2020.’ There were some post-it notes with little messages written on them in pencil. They were fading but Y/N could still make out what they said. It was a girl’s handwriting, and there was a little drawing of a pond? Or maybe a lake. 

i drew you a pond since you wanna act like a silly goose all the time. bitch.

               -y/n

       There was another one filled with words instead of a cute drawing, and she assumed this one was a serious matter.

hi, love. i left to go watch the sunrise with coco around 4 am-ish. you probably would’ve wanted to join us, but you look so peaceful when you’re sleeping. and coco said that you’ve been smothering me lately and encouraged me to sneak out. anyways, i’ll probably be back before you see this, but just in case i’m not, don’t call the cops. okay that’s all. in case i never return, i love you. 

                -y/n (under the heavy influence of stella)

       Ruel chimed in to explain. “Yeah, you used to leave me little notes like that sometimes instead of texting like a normal person.” 

       “And you kept them?”

       “Of course I did. I’m not a monster.” He joked and she playfully hit his chest with the stack of notes. Ruel scooted his chair closer to the side of Y/N’s bed and leaned in. “Lets see what else we got in here.”

       There were movie tickets, receipts from restaurants, and even old wristbands from festivals. 

       “Is this what you meant when you said I grow attached to material things?” She laughed on the outside but in reality, Y/N was so infatuated in the idea that a boy would keep a box of things that reminded him of her and their relationship. 

       “Ha yeah, I guess it kind of rubbed off on me after a while.” Ruel reached his hand into the box as well and pulled out a little beaded bracelet. It had a simple pattern of ocean blue and brown wooden beads. He played with it in between his fingers.

       “I remember this. Your cousin made it for us when you brought me to Thanksgiving. She kept running back and forth asking us what our favorite colors were. It was so cute. And she said we had to share it,” he reminisced. 

       He gave her the bracelet which she carefully placed on the wrist that wasn’t connected to an IV. There were mostly pictures in the box. Pictures of Y/N and Ruel in different settings: kissing, posing next to venue signs with his name on it, cooking, etc. She picked up one of the pictures and examined it carefully. 

       “I remember this,” she said in a nonchalant matter. Ruel looked up at her, then back at the picture in her hand.

       “You do?” 

       ���Yeah, I remember that whole trip. That was a fun trip. Hmm.” She hummed to herself in bliss with a grin on her face. 

       “Tell me about it,” he grinned back at her. “What do you remember?” She looked down for a while. It was almost like the times they spent together were in secret, and too precious to share with anyone else. She felt a deep connection to someone-whoever it was to make her feel such strong emotions in just the echos of the times they spent together. Y/N began longing for the person who made her experience this type of fondness. The person she was looking for was right in front of her. Why was she holding back?

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       “Okay, how do I say this,” Y/N’s hand snaked up to her head to rake through her hair as she paced in deep thought. She took in a deep breath and turned around to look at him sitting in the hospital chair across the room.

       “I-I want this to be special. I mean, you’ve been so patient and considerate with me. You haven’t tried to rush me into anything at all. But I see the way you look when you think I’m not paying attention. You’re hurting, and I’m sorry that it’s taken me so long to finally give in. Well not, finally give in, but. You know, you know what I’m trying to say right?” She used every ounce of energy she had to walk across the room to face him. She picked him up and brought his face close to hers. 

       “I’m trying to tell you that I love you,” she whispered and smiled softly. Before she could say anything else, Y/N heard the doorknob rattle in desperation to open it. 

       She quickly threw the teddy bear back into the chair and tried to pretend that she was doing anything else. 

       Ruel leaned into the door frame and struggled to keep his balance as he carried a Taco Bell bag and two drinks in his hands. 

       “Oh, let me help you with that,” Y/N rushed over to him to grab the drinks and his eyes grew in shock.

       “Well, it’s nice to see you up and moving so much. The doctor was right, you really have been getting stronger every day.” Y/N smiled up at him with pride as they both settled the food onto her desk. “So, have you heard anything yet?” 

       “Anything about what,” Y/N mumbled in between taking bites of her soft taco. She knew exactly what he was referring to, though.

       “Oh, you know. Like when are you gonna get out of this place? I mean, with the way you’re up and walking now,” he brought his free hand up to rest on the back of her neck as he examined her face with concerned eyes. “It’s been, what, four weeks now? They said four to six weeks, but by the looks of it, you’re healing up really well. You’ve done so good lately.”

       She mouthed ‘thank you’ and gave him another wide smile. Y/N was happy that he was proud of her progress. He played a big part of her growth, though. Through the discomfort and the multiple procedures she had to undergo, Ruel was always there at the side of her bed to rely on. Whether she was up at 4 am crying because she couldn’t remember the names of her dogs or freaking out in excitement after being able to stand up on her own, he was there for it all.

       And as her strength developed each day, so did her trust and love for him. She assumed that it wasn’t the same as their previous relationship, but it was more than enough to keep them happy. He would always tell her that he loved her, but she didn’t say it back. He told her it was fine, that he knew she didn’t really know who he was and he wouldn’t hold it against her. But in return, he needed for her to accept that he still loved her as much as he did before the accident and to be okay with him loving her even if it meant that she couldn’t love him equally back for a while. 

       But after spending so much time with him, Ruel was hardly a stranger to Y/N anymore. He was a friend, a very understanding and attractive friend. She couldn’t ignore the burning sensation she felt deep in her stomach when he would cuddle up close to her on the bed during their movie nights. She couldn’t ignore the desire or the comfort she felt for him any time that he was around (which was very often because Ruel was always around). He told her that he would wait for her, that she should take her time to decide if she wanted to continue their relationship whenever she was ready. He told her that she’d just gone through a major trauma and that she needed to focus on getting better. He said he would wait for her, but a part of her feared that he was only saying this to make her feel better. She feared that he had already accepted that they were just friends, that maybe he’d already began a new romance with some skinny long-haired girl in Sydney and he was just waiting for Y/N to get her strength back so that he could go home to her. 

       “Okay, well I have to tell you something,” she finally came out with. Ruel sat up straight in his chair to give her his full attention. His eyes were fixated on her face and his hands rested in his lap. She found herself lost in thought trying to remember what she wanted to tell him but she couldn’t focus on anything but his beauty. 

       “Did they already tell you whether you’re going home or not?” he laughed a little as he went to grab his drink off of the desk. “Did I miss it when I went to get lunch?” He used the side of his jeans to wipe the water that got on his hand from the cup. His huge hand. The same huge hand that he then used to move the long strands of hair out of his face. He’d previously told her that she did not like the long hair look on him and always encouraged him to get haircuts and shave. In the moment, Y/N couldn’t figure out why the hell anyone would ever encourage him to change his appearance when he looked like that. The long hair and mustache gave him a much more mature look in comparison to the old pictures and videos she would look at of him. She couldn’t understand why anyone would want to cut the hair that she so desperately wanted to run her fingers through. She quickly snapped out of it and shut her eyes so she couldn’t look at the beautiful boy in front of her.

       “I really do have to tell you something,” she started and stopped because she was nervous. With her eyes still closed, she felt Ruel’s hand grab hers.

       “What’s going on, why are you acting so weird?” he let out a nervous laugh and Y/N realized that he was probably feeling the same anxiety as her in the moment. She knew that someone had to be the confident one in this scenario, and she decided that it would be her. She took one last deep breath and let go of it.

       “Do you remember what I told you when I first told you I loved you?”

       “Yes,” he laughed again, “Do you want me to tell you the story again?” She nodded quickly in a child-like manner and looked at him in adoration.

       “It was a little after a month of us dating and I’d just taken you home after we went out driving and just hanging out. I was almost back in the car when I saw you run out of the house, barefoot, yelling at me to wait.” Y/N laughed a little and felt the tension between the two of them begin to melt away. 

       “And then what did I do?”

       “You went into this whole speech about how you felt and how you were very scared to be vulnerable because you were afraid of being hurt. And then you said something that I’d never forget,” he looked up at the ceiling as if the answers were written on the tiles, “you told me that the fear you felt only grew as you fell more in love with me. You said you thought that it would never go away, but you didn’t want it to stop you from embracing the happiness you felt when you were with me. And then you told me you loved me, and that you were scared of me. You said that I made you wanna jump into the fear rather than run away from it. You said you knew that you loved me as soon as you felt scared. Because you knew you had found something worth cherishing. And if it ever went away, you didn’t think you’d survive it.” He looked down. After saying all of that, it still seemed like there was something he was missing. He looked as if he didn’t manage to not break her heart. He was scared too.

       “Ruel?” Y/N let her hands relax and gripped onto his tighter. 

       “Yeah?”

       “I’m scared.” She began to fiddle with his long digits and almost felt hesitation to do anything next.

       “What are you afraid of-” he began, but was interrupted by the connection of her lips onto his. He freed his hand and rose it up to the back of her neck so he could deepen the kiss. They kissed again, and again. They kissed until their faces were red and she broke away for a moment to catch her breath. She smiled at him and he looked back at her in disbelief. 

       “I love you. I really do, Ruel. And I’m sorry that it’s taken me so long but I don’t want to be just friends. I want you in my life like you used to be,” her eyes dropped to her lap and her expression changed, “before everything got so fucked up.”

       He grabbed her face again and began to pepper it with kisses. At this point, Ruel was halfway onto her bed. She brought up her dainty hands to cup his face and she gently pulled away again. Ruel hitched a rushed breath out as he pouted in confusion as to why she pulled away. 

       “Oh yeah, I’m going home today.” She smiled with her teeth and he laughed in pure bliss before grabbing her face again.

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       The boxes piled in the middle of the living room all started to disappear one by one. Y/N watched in awe as Ruel picked up every box and placed it in its proper area. Her legs swung back and forth in boredom while she waited on top of the kitchen counter where Ruel had placed her since she refused to wear shoes on the trip to her apartment.

       “You’re such a good slave,” she told him in a sweet tone as her eyes followed him across the area. He shook his head, barely giving her an ounce of the attention she practically begged for, and continued moving things around. 

        “Honey are you sure you’re gonna be okay on your own like this? You can stay back home a little longer if you’d like,” Y/N’s mother remarked. She looked at her daughter with concern.

        “I’m not alone, I have Ruel. And besides, I’ve already left the nest once before. I should be fine.”

        “Well I guess I’ll be on my way home now. Call me if you need anything. Anything.” Y/N pecked a kiss on her cheek and guided her mom outside.

        By the time she got back into the apartment, the living room was clear of boxes and she moved down the hall in search of her boyfriend. She found Ruel in her bedroom on the edge of the bed hunched over his phone. 

        “What’s so interesting?” She sat down beside him and rested her chin on his shoulder. Once she realized what he was watching, she pulled out one of his airpods so she could listen in. It was from her Youtube channel she started a few months ago. She had faint memories of vlogging herself doing normal things like grocery shopping or going to her brother’s football games. She’d only looked at a few of her storytime videos, including the one where she details how she met Ruel. This was a video she hadn’t seen before, though. It was of her and Ruel together in some resort. It looked like they were on vacation and he explained to her that they were in Amsterdam for some music festival and had decided to make an entire trip out of it since it was so close to their anniversary. They’d coordinated matching outfits for the first weekend and were posing in front of the bathroom mirror together like lovesick idiots.

        “Damn, I’m so jealous of us.”

        Ruel let out a low chuckle at her and skipped through the parts she’d recorded of his performance.

        “Yeah, most people are.” He fast forwarded to a portion of the video after they returned to the hotel. Ruel was in the shower and Y/N was laying on the bed, recently showered, detailing all of the ways she was proud of her boyfriend. He laughed when she poked fun of how he forgot his own lyrics on stage.

        “Well that was almost cute,” he added and locked the phone.

        “Hey, it’s still pretty cute,” she laughed, “You can’t be mad at me for telling the truth, babe.”

        “Babe, huh?” he questioned as he turned to face her.

        “What, is that weird? Or too soon? I mean, you call me ‘bubs’ and ‘love’ all the time,” she looked down and played with the details of her jeans.

        “It’s adorable. I love it. And I love you,” he reassured her as he cupped her face and pulled it in for a puffy kiss. She kissed him back, this time with more dominance. Y/N kissed Ruel like there was a pot of gold hidden somewhere in his mouth that she was determined to get.

        Ruel matched her energy right away. He kissed her back and gripped the back of her neck to guide her face closer into his. They adorned each other with open mouths and full hearts. As they continued, Y/N felt the urge to go further and further with him, exploring his body and getting to know him on a more intimate level. They were so good at making out, it seemed like they’d done it a thousand times before. It felt like she was kissing a lover from a different lifetime, like she’d replayed scenarios over and over which all ended with her loving him. She couldn’t remember ever doing this with him before, but her body remembered. Everything with Ruel came with such ease. Every time he touched her body, she was overcome with euphoria and only craved more. She craved being closer to him, kissing him deeper.

        “Mmm, take this off please,” she tugged on his shirt and he quickly pulled it off before resuming his actions. Y/N felt herself falling into an intoxicated state as she moaned against his mouth. He responded to her by wrapping his hand around her thigh and pulling it closer against him. They both began to move in sync with each other, both giving and taking as their bodies danced a routine they knew too well. Y/N was so distracted by Ruel that she didn’t even hear her mother walk back in through the front door. She only whined when he pulled his face away from hers.

        “Why’dyoustop,” she breathed out. She was out of breath and watched him with puppy dog eyes as he stood up.

        “Your mom is back,” he stated flatly. He was clearly out of breath too and he was trying to calm himself down so he could see what was going on in the front.

       “...so?” she gave him a blank stare and patted on his side of the bed to join her again, “she can let herself out.”

       “Don’t worry, bubs. We’ve got time,” he chuckled to himself and pulled his shirt back on over his head. Y/N sighed and jumped from her side of the bed to join Ruel in the living room.

       “I’m sorry, hun. I forgot the most important box: your things from the hospital.” Y/N’s mother placed a small box on the counter and tapped the top of it lightly, “This is what you had on you when the crash happened. There’s not much in there, just the clothes you were wearing, your wallet, your phone,”

       “My phone?” Her eyes perked up. So did Ruel’s. “I’ve been meaning to ask you about that. I bet there’s a bunch of clues in there to help jog my memory,” she picked up the box and skipped down the hallway to drop it off. 

       “I’m pretty sure it’s dead, so you’ll have to find a charger for it. You probably have the same kind.” Her mom gestured towards Ruel, who looked like he’d just seen a ghost. His eyes were fixated in thought, emotionless and dazed in a trance.

        “Huh? Oh yeah, probably. Sure.” He snapped out of his guilty state quickly and turned to see Y/N coming back from her bedroom.       

        “Was that it, Mom? Cause we were just about to go out and get some food before it gets dark.” They both said goodbye and hugged Y/N’s mother. Once the door was shut behind her, Y/N grabbed Ruel’s hand with a quickness. His worries were suddenly gone as she led him down the hall. 

        It wasn’t long before they’d continued right where they left off. Y/N was still indulging herself in him and embracing the comfort she felt in his arms. She gripped the fabric of his shirt into her fists to deepen the kiss and felt the vibration from his mouth into hers as he let out muffled moans. With each kiss, she found herself thinking about all of the things she couldn’t wait to do with him before another thought popped into her mind and snapped her out of the daydream. She pulled away from him and turned her head towards the box.

        “I’ve been wondering what was left on my phone,” she gestured to the dresser. “I need to plug it up so I can see what was going on before I lost my memory. It would be cool to see who I last talked to right before my life was ruined, right?” She laughed and began to sit up. Ruel grabbed her hand and lightly pulled it so she could come back down to him.

        “I thought you wanted to do this, yeah? I mean hey, this is our first official night together alone. We can look into the phone later, right?”

        Y/N nodded and laid back down next to him. “Hmmm, you’re right. This first, phone later,” she declared before connecting their lips once more. As Ruel rolled his lanky body on top of hers, Y/N couldn’t help but wonder why Ruel was so against her looking at her phone. Was there a dirty secret in there that he didn’t want her to find? She dismissed her paranoid thoughts and continued.

a/n: okay, so that’s that on that. ugh what is on that phone that he doesn’t want her to see???? i hope this makes sense, i’ve reread it so many times and it seems like crap but i’m still going to post it. thank you for the support of my page, and please send me asks with what fics you would like to see next ;)

[marvelsbetch]

Peter Parker’s ultimate Bithrday gift.

Pairings: Tony/Pepper, Peter/Harley

Warning: Metions of death and sad boi Peter.

-Peter POV-

Today is the day. My 16th birthday, my first birthday with no family. My parents died when I was 6, Uncle was killed when I was 14 and Aunt May a few weeks ago. I have no biological family to celebrate with, granted I lived at Avengers tower (Mr Stark was 'fostering' me so I didn't have to go to a home) but none of them knew my birthday. I feel tears threaten to fall as I think back to my birthdays of previous years, parties, zoo trips, presents and think about how I won't get any of that this year.

I sit for a minute, trying to get my self together, before leaving my bedroom and prepare to pretend nothing is wrong. This'll be interesting.

-Tony's POV-

"Sir, it seems Mr. Parker is in slight distress." F.R.I.D.A.Y announced as I was in my workshop preparing the project me and Peter were gonna start.

"Why?" I asked putting the blue prints on his desk.

"I believe it is his birthday today." F.R.I.D.A.Y informed making me drop the pen in my hand.

It's the kids birthday? Why didn't I know about that? What do I get him?

A lightbulb went off in my head as I thought of the perfect present. It was something I had been meaning to do for a while but never found the right chance to give it to him. Now's the perfect time.

"F.R.I.D.A.Y make reservations at the Thai place Peter likes for everyone. Then inform everyone to be there for 7:00pm but keep it a secret from the kid." I instructed frantically searching for the present.

"Who do you mean by everyone?" F.R.I.D.A.Y asked with slight sass. Can an A.I have sass?

"Me, Peter, Steve, Pepper, Bucky, Rhody, Clint, Nat, Happy, Bruce, Wanda, Pietro, Thor, Loki, Sam, Harley, Morgan, Scott, Hope, Cassie, Strange, Shuri, T'Challa, the guardians, Danvers, Clint's family, Ned and MJ." I listed off hoping I didn't forget anyone.

"Done sir. Everyone has been invited and told not to tell Mr. Parker." F.R.I.D.A.Y told me. Yay, this could work.

After a few seconds I started to make my way up to the main living area where I knew most people would be. Peter was eating a bowl of cereal with Morgan on the couch, Steve was drawing in his sketch book, Pepper was just behind the door yelling down the phone at someone (I'd hate to be them), Nat was punching Clint for Hod knows what, Loki was sat in the corner reading a book near the window, Thor was trying to get someone to play an outdoor game with him, Harley was in the process of trying to remove cremated toast from the toaster without hurting himself and Bruce was on his tablet looking over Chemical formulas. Normal morning for the most part.

"Daddy!" Morgan yelled putting her cereal down and running towards me. I swiftly picked her up in my arms and cuddled her for a moment.

"Hey Kiddo, go finish your breakfast then I need your help with something." I told her before putting her back on the couch to finish her cereal.

"Hey dad, what've you got planned today?" Harley asked putting two more pieces of bread in the toaster.

"Nothing much but I need you in the lab after breakfast. You and Morgan need to help me with a decision." I told him.

The decision was what else to get Peter from him and Morgan, I didn't want my gift to be the only one he got but from the looks of everyone else they were preparing to go out for the day. Probably to buy Peter a gift, we all work best last minute anyway.

"Cool, what decision?" Harley asked.

"I'll tell you later. Top secret stuff and all that, make sure to check your phone." I reminded him before forcing the toast back up to stop burning.

"Coolio." He spoke and started to butter his toast.

"Hey Tony, we're gonna go out for the day. Don't know when we'll be back." I heard Steve inform.

I turned around and saw him, Bucky, Sam, Wanda, Clint, Nat and Pietro stood with jackets and bags on.

"Cool, don't cause too much damage." I told them receiving a few laughs before they headed towards the elevator and leaving.

A few seconds later I received a text message from Sam asking, 'What does a super human want on their 16th birthday?'. I smirked a little before responding with 'something sciencey or spider themed'.

"Hey Pete, you got anything planned for the day?" I asked as he walked into the kitchen to clean his now empty bowl.

"Nope, probably just hanging in my room or the lab if that's okay." He spoke.

"Course it is, why don't you get your daily training session in now and we can spend the rest of the day in the lab." I told him trying to buy myself some time with Harley and Morgan.

"Cool, I'll go now then. See you in about 2 hours." He said before walking off to his room to get ready.

"Okay kids, what do we get Peter for his birthday, we're gonna have to be quick so we can get it in time." I informed and dragged Harley to the living room to speak with Morgan as well.

"Well, I'll get him a card and some cheesy boyfriend thing, make sense for me. Why don't I take Morgan out with me and we can buy it out." Harley offered.

"You're a genius, I knew there was a reason I liked you. Morgan, go ask Mommy to get you dressed and ready to go out with Harley. Harley, take a shower, you smell like teenage angst." I complained while taking Morgan's empty bowl to the kitchen.

"Come on Morgan lets get ready. Also, Tony, are you giving Peter the thing tonight and do you want to get him anything else?" Pepper asked picking Morgan up.

"Yeah, a car but we probably won't be able to get him one on such short notice." I realised.

"I'll see what I can do while these are out. Make sure you respond to people's messaged otherwise this won't go as planned." Pepper warned before leaving the room closely followed by Harley. This left me with Thor, Loki and Bruce.

"Is the Man of Spider's birthday today? Why were none of us informed?" Thor asked.

"Because none of us knew until today. Anyway, we're going out for a meal tonight at 7:00 so if you want to buy him something then I'd advise going now to get something good. Also, do not tell him anything, he doesn't know that we know." I warned Thor knowing he's not the best secret keeper.

"Why not?" He asked offended.

"Because its a surprise to buffoon. Now, let's go and buy him a present. What to misguardians want for their birthdays?" Loki asked putting his book back on the shelf.

"Just get him a card and and some funny small things, not weaponry or armour." I informed the two gods before they disappeared.

"I'm gonna head off to. Might get him some stuff for the lab or his car since you're getting him one. See you later Tony." Bruce spoke before putting his shoes and jacket on.

"Bye Bruce, you're by far the one I trust the most." I told him as he left.

-At 5:00pm-

Me and Peter had been in the lab all day with out any hiccups. Well, he was wondering as to why my phone was constantly going off with texts from everyone we knew. Everyone who I invited informed me that they were able to make it and planned to be at the restaurant for 6:50 so when we got there at 7:00 he was truly surprised by his whole family.

"Hey kid, why don't you go and put something fancy on. We're going out for a meal." I told him putting my tools down to look at another photo sent by Thor. He was really excited to buy things for his 'Misguard Nephew'.

"Why? What's the occasion?" Peter asked tensing up a little.

"Nothing much, just thought it was time we all went out somewhere, as a family. Me, You, Pepper, Harley and Morgan." I told him smiling.

"Okay then, what time are we leaving?" He asked putting his tools away, the kids so neat.

"6:30 so I'd get a move on if I was you." I informed.

"Kay, see you in a bit." He said and ran off upstairs to shower.

Just as he left the room I got a call from Pepper.

"Hey Pep, did you get it?" I asked referring to the Mercedes-Benz we had decided to get him.

"Yeah I did, it's in the garage now, are we driving it to the restaurant or not? I need to know if we need to hide it." Pepper asked.

"Now, we'll take the limo and give him the cars in the restaurant. Don't bother hiding it, I'm sure he won't notice." I informed her as I started to make my way upstairs to get dressed for the night.

"Okay. Bye, Love you." She said making me smile.

"Love you to." I said before hanging up.

-6:30pm-

We were all ready and waiting in the garage for Happy to come and pick us up, he had also gone and bought Peter a birthday gift with Harley and Morgan. Me, Pepper, Peter and Harley were in suits while Morgan was in one of her 'princess dresses'.

Happy soon pulled up in the Limo and opened the door for us all to get in. I had given Steve the presents and cards off us so Peter didn't question what why we had a massive back with us and realise why we were going out.

-Outside the restaurant-

Once we pulled up to the restaurant we got out of the car and Harley put his hands over Peter's eyes so he couldn't see everyone in the restaurant. This is supposed to be a surprise after all.

We slowly made our way in as everyone got ready to yell at Peter. As soon as Harley removed his hands from Peter's eyes we all screamed 'surprise' and Peter got all red and his eyes started to water.

-Peter POV-

When everyone yelled surprise at me I got a little overwhelmed and embarrassed from all the attention. Everyone's eyes were on me but after a second or two I realised everyone was here and started to get a little chocked up.

"Oh Baby, come 'ere." Harley cooed and pulled me into his chest for a hug as tears started falling down my face. Soon Tony and Morgan were joining the hug and everyone was concerned.

"Pete, what's wrong?" Tony asked pulling away.

"I didn't thing I would be celebrating my birthday this year because I've not got a family. How did you all even know?" I asked as tears continued to fall down my face.

"F.R.I.D.A.Y told me this morning. That's why they were all out, they were getting everything ready for this and buying gifts. And you do have a family, we all love you so much and will support you through everything thing. We're you're family Pete." Tony told me pulling me into a solo hug before giving me back to Harley.

"LETS FEAST!" Thor yelled diffusing the emotional moment by making everyone laugh.

"Birthday Boy goes first." Harley announced and pushed me towards a massive buffet of all my favourite foods, most things on the menu to be honest. I hope the cooks got a bit tip for preparing all of this.

After food and pleasantries I was placed in a chair and faced with a mountain of presents ranging from too big to fit on the table to so small I could barley see them.

Most people were fighting to get me to open their presents first which amused me before an order was decided.

After almost an hour of opening presents and cards I was almost all the way through the pile with only Harley, Morgan's and Tony's left. Here's what everyone got me:

Steve- A pair of spider man high tops

Bucky- A silly string gun set

Clint (and family)- Fart bombs and bottles of liquid ass. (Tony confiscated them immediately)

Pietro- A new gym bag and clothes for working out

Wanda- School supplies (I always loose them, no matter what I'm doing)

Scott, Hope and Cassie- A FREAKING DRONE!!!

Rhodey- Beats headphones

Sam- A photography camera

Shuri and T'Challa- A vibranium bow staff (again, confiscated immediately)

Guardians- Vinyls of my three favourite almbums

Thor- a Spider key chain and joke spiders to put around the penthouse (the joke spiders were confiscated as well as Tony and Pepper despise them)

Loki- A vinyl player (upon hearing of the guardians presents) and a spell book (also confiscated)

Nat- Spy glasses that record everything and check to see if people have weapons (I will never take those off)

Bruce- Some car fresheners and a steering wheel cover, designed with a spider web (don't know why, I have no car)

Carol- Some cool alien things from various planets (will be studying those for a while)

Ned- The millennium falcon and three funko! Pop characters (Rick, Morty and Mr. Meeseeks)

MJ- A what do you meme party game

Happy- An Eiffel Tower Lego set.

"Oh my god guys, this is all amazing. How did you manage to get this stuff on such short notice?" I asked baffled as Happy started to load the car with the presents.

"It's New York and we had the whole day. Some of us also had access to other planets." Rhodey explained.

"You're not finished yet anyway. Here's Morgan's present and card, she picked them both out herself." Tony spoke handing me a rather large present wrapped in iron man wrapping paper. Wonder who did that.

The card was a big brother card making me smile widely as I started opening the present. Inside was a Star Wars pin set, a doctor who blanket and a tardis hoodie in XL. The size was probably chosen by Harley, I love oversized sweaters.

"Thanks Morgan. I love it." I told her giving her a big hug as Harley put the blanket around me, he knows me too well.

"Open mine." Harley demanded and shoved two gifts infront of me along with a card.

The card was a bit inappropriate, it started on the front 'Happy Birthday, scratch bellow to see your gift'. I scratch where it told me to and underneath it stated b**wjob. Tony glared as Harley smirked and I just went red.

"Just open the gifts now." Harley told me and placed the card face down on the table.

"After the card I don't think I want to." I spoke making me laugh a little bit still shove the boxes in my face. "Fine, Fine, just give me some space." I said pushing them away from my face.

In the first box was a supernatural backpack with patches on it, three pin sets (one of Spider-Man, one of iron man and one of supernatural), a pair of Sam and Dean sneakers and a Castiel Key chain. In the second box was a doctor who mug, a pair of rainbow heat high-top sneakers, a chord bracelet that says 'gay' in morse code, another bracket that says 'f*ck off' in morse code, a panic! At the disco long sleeve shirt, a high hopes tank top and finally, a panic! At the disco hoodie in XL.

"Aside from the card, I love it all. Thanks so much." I told him smiling before pulling him in for a quick kiss.

"Hey, no PDA in front of Morgan, how many times do I have to tell you. And you still have two more presents. Here's one." Tony announced handing me a small box from his pocket.

I opened it and inside were keys. Car keys. Car keys to a Mercedes-benz. Holy shit balls.

"Pepper went out today and bought you your very first car, we'll get you lessons soon but at least you don't have to worry about a car." Tony explained.

"Oh my god. That must've been so expensive. Thank you so so so so much Tony. And Pepper." I thanked and hugged them both.

"No problem kid. Now, one last thing." Tony informed handing me an envelope.

I opened it to find a small pack of papers inside with one word sticking out. They were Adoption papers.

"Now that you're 16 you'll also need to sign the papers so me and Pepper can officially adopt you. I've had those papers forever but I just never found the right time to give them to you. I hope you're okay with this, I would never try to re-" Tony started but I cut his off swiftly by pulling him into a bone crushing hug. He went silent and just hugged back as tears started to flow from my eyes.

"Thanks Dad, so much." I cried into his shoulder.

"No problem Kid, you're practically my son anyway, this just makes it official and easier in the long run." Tony explained as I pulled away to hug Pepper.

"Does this mean Peter are now Harley are brothers?" Cassie asked.

"Technically but as long as it's not biological then they're okay." Tony explained as I pulled away from Pepper and went back to Harley's arms.

"Now, ITS TIME TO PARTY!" Thor once again yelled.

"Will you shut your trap for once. Not everyone is deaf." Loki complained making everyone laugh at the two.

"Come on everyone, we're heading back to the tower to party and celebrate." Tony announced. "Ted, AJ you can come in the limo if you want. Also, your parents agreed to let you stay the night and dropped off clothes for you." Tony explained.

"Ned and MJ." I corrected earning a few laughs.

"Potato, poahto." Tony brushed off as we all left the restaurant and headed to our card to head back to the tower.

Safe to say, this was the best birthday in the history of birthdays.

[nevergiveupneverrun]

Bodyguard - Chapter Forty-One “Take the plunge”

Hello everybody, how are you? Here is chapter Forty-One of my Story Bodyguard. It’s Friday (yay) and what does Friday mean? A new chapter so let’s go!

I’m sorry by advance for the mistakes… English isn’t my first language and I do my best. Here is the link of the previous chapter: Click Here.

I hope you will enjoy this chapter :) 💛

                                –––––––––––––––––––––––

We arrive at the edge of the forest which marks the proximity of the property.

I start to decelerate slightly, and although the speed is lower, I feel Amelia tighten her grip.

She literally stuck to me on the end of the course so that I feel the full extent of her body in my back, without the millimeter that separates us. But one thing is unusual for this ride, a touch that I had never felt before: I discern indeed a weight between my two shoulder blades… and it took me several seconds to realize that this is the head of Amelia who is so rested against me, while I had again granted her the opportunity not to put a crash helmet.

I cannot help but think about our arrival about a week ago… and her body language that was the complete opposite of the one she displayed at that moment.

But I was delighted by this change which showed that she was no longer indifferent to my presence and even on the contrary that she was looking for it.

We leave the wood and find the silhouette of the chalet a few meters in front of us.

I park at the usual location, put the kickstand in place and wait a handful of seconds so that Amelia stands out from me, realizing that we have arrived.

I turn the headlights of the motorbike off and only the light of the moon about us illuminates the frame that surrounds us.

I wait a few more moments, but although Amelia has shifted behind me, she doesn’t get off the motorbike. I take a look back and I discovered her actually straightened on the vehicle hands on her thighs.

- You want to spend the night on the motorbike? I asked, laughing.

- I just finished thinking… she answers with a spark of mischief in her eyes.

- What? I replied without understanding what she insinuated. 

- You lost, remember… you bet I would not be able to go around the skating rink in less than a minute… and I found your forfeit… I think…

I almost forgot this episode… a bet that I knew was lost in advance because she had progressed at a full speed on her skates… but I just wanted to give her an extra opportunity to smile and react like a little girl. 

For a last evening of insouciance before we get back to the hustle and bustle of Seattle.

I climbed the motorbike to land and placed me and face Amelia, still sitting for her part.

- Well, tell me! I finally start impatiently while she remains silent, the discreet smile on her lips.

- I had thought of getting you to do pushups or running around the house a few times, but it would be too common…

She goes down at this moment of the motorbike while continuing to scrutinize me intensely.

- So I think of something much more original and funnier, she continues while passing me and nodding to follow her.

I follow her, a little intrigued by the idea that she may have had.

She doesn’t stop when we pass near the entrance of the house and continues to walk until she is positioned on the edge of the lake, on the teak boards that mark the approach of the stretch of water.

- Do you remember Campeche? She asks me, turning around.

- What part exactly?

- The small detour by the beach… it’s the perfect opportunity to concretize the idea… and make a remake of the scene described by Rosie.

- You… do you want me to jump into the water?

She watches me for a few seconds until a clear smile illuminates her features.

- I wonder what’s on this small platform in the middle of the lake… she says pointing a wooden surface with a float, several meters from the edge.

I remain motionless briefly, glancing at her.

I quickly remove my jacket (containing motorbike and chalet keys as well as my wallet) and put it down and I meet the eyes of Amelia, slightly wide open.

I give her a wink and dive without waiting while perceiving a weak cry behind me… a cry of surprise mixed with laughter.

The water is warm and even pleasant after the warm day we had.

I start a semi race to the mark she had indicated to me, resuming the competitor reflexes that years of training have instilled me.

I arrive in less than two minutes at the platform and sit on it and lift myself out of the water.

I waved a hand to her, while she is several hundred meters on the edge.

- What do you want me to do now? I shouted at her.

I distinguish her at a distance, in full laugh, the gaze fixed in my direction.

I put myself back in the water directly and do the opposite way, even trying to go even faster.

I find my starting point after a few crawl movements and leans against the boards in teak, hands-on it to support my head.

I look up to find her slightly bent over me, still smiling. I put a hand in my wet hair than on my face, feeling the water flow down my face.

- Are you crazy or what? She asks me, catching her breath.

- You thought I would not do it?

- Yes, I was half-joking, you know, but you didn’t even give me the time to tell you.

- On the other hand, you forget one thing… compared to Campeche…

I smiled for a few seconds, then in a quick movement, I get up on one hand and grabbed one of her arms pulling her towards me in the water.

She falls to the water by my side with a spontaneous “Ah!” who escapes from her and who makes me laugh.

She resurfaces after two seconds, the radiant face, the wet hair surrounding her face.

- You’re really crazy, she says in a laugh.

- If I remember correctly, in Campeche, you were ready for a midnight swim.

- Yes, it’s true, and we have almost the same moon tonight, she says, looking up to the sky.

I observe her at this moment: the rays of light of the star above us illuminates her features��� they even stand out a little more, underlined by the shine left by the water that slides on her face.

- And the water is almost as pleasant as in Mexico… she continues, redirecting her gaze to me. 

She then plunges underwater and I remain stunned a few seconds before noticing her again a few meters away.

- Don’t splash around too long, however… come back there…

- It was you who threw me in the water, I remind you…

I stretch two long movements of breaststroke to find her and put me in front of her, finding with my hands her waist under the water.

- Yes, and it was probably not super intelligent on my part… and you don’t know what kind of fish are the hosts of this lake…

- Are you going to make me believe that Loch Ness is prowling?

- In general, we see it only at the full moon…

She splashes my face laughing and I join her spontaneously.

However, I shift my hand behind her back and make her pass in front of me, so she heads to the mainland.

She swims with very slow and well-marked movements as if she wanted to prolong the experience.

Arrived near the edge, I position my two hands against her hips and lifts her to sit on the edge. She gets on her feet while I leave the water un my turn.

We observe ourselves for a few moments, totally soaked… and still dressed.

Amelia’s jeans, already tight, still draws a little more her legs as well as the top and the thin jacket she had on her.

I feel for my part, my shirt clearly sticks to my chest. I get my jacket down and catch Amelia’s eyes as she slips a hand through her hair.

- Come on, we look smart now, I say, laughing.

I guide her with a hand in the back and we find the entrance of the house.

I open quickly, we take off our shoes at the same time, leaving our shoes at the entrance.

- Direction, the bathroom… first! She announces, almost running up the stairs.

I follow her after a few seconds and find her with a towel in her hand, wiping her hair.

I take a towel in my turn but feel too much for her to change.

- I leave you the bathroom, I will dry in my room…

- Are you going to leave your beautiful shirt? She asks me in a smile.

- It was you who had the idea of the pledge… and sorry, but I will not keep a wet shirt on me…

- Pity, the shirt’s doing really well on you… I did well to offer it to you… she says stopping her movement against her hair.

I hold her gaze for a few seconds and then slip away, feeling almost blush under its intensity.

I meet my room and change me quickly: I opt for the first t-shirt and jeans that pass me by the hand and puts them in two breaths. I wipe my hair approximately, check that they are not pointing randomly in the mirror of my wardrobe and join the kitchen.

I prepare two cups, considering making a tea when a noise behind me leads me to return immediately.

Amelia changed, dressed in one of my t-shirts that she was now wearing to sleep and that came to her mid-thigh and she had tied her hair into a ponytail.

- You want tea? I thought maybe you wanted something hot…

- I’m fine, I’m not cold… I’m a bit hungry though…

- Do you want me to cook something fast?

She shakes her head and goes to the oven she opens the door.

She removes a cake pan covered with aluminum foil.

- We did not finish this cake… it would be a shame to waste, right?

I smile at her, removing two dessert plates from the buffet with two teaspoons.

I put the items on the kitchen bar, Amelia joins me and sits on one of the stools.

- Speaking of not wasting, I think we forgot to open a famous bottle…

This bottle of Saint-Emilion that we had not started at one of our dinners and was still waiting in the fridge.

I get the bottle in question and two wine glasses.

I open it while Amelia cuts the portion of the leftovers cake in two parts, and places them on the plates.

I fill the two glasses and hand one to Amelia, which she seizes immediately, while I sit down in front of her. 

- On our last night in this beautiful house! She announces, staring at me.

- On our last night, I repeated as we hit our two glasses.

We both take a sip of this wine so cherished to Amelia, then we enjoy a first bite of the chocolate cake.

- Always so good your cake, I’ll never get tired.

She smiles shyly, almost embarrassed by my compliment.

- Thank you so much, Owen… I did not tell you enough… but these few days in this very special place have really been…

Her voice goes out in full sentence and her face lowers.

- You have me…

I perceive her emotion, with a very slight quaver that resonates in her words.

I slide a hand against her arm and hold my fingers against her skin, a light back and forth.

- You have opened a place so strong for you… she continues after a pause of several seconds.

I smile at her discerning that spark of joy takes place on her face and sweeps the emotion. I gently withdraw my hand from her arm in parallel.

- Tonight, I really enjoyed myself… you knew how to be patient with me, but I really loved this little moment at the skating rink. And just now, you bluffed me, I didn’t think you were going to jump!

- You must not challenge me, you know, I answer with a smile. There are a few things that I would not be able to do…

- Really?

- You know that I would go to death to protect you, so jump fully dressed is well within my reach…

I regret my words the moment they come out of my mouth because I clumsily revived the threat to Amelia and the reason for my presence at her side. 

- I’m glad you were having fun, tonight, it’s the most important for me, I quickly resumed to change the subject.

I watch her finish her piece of cake and take a little wine while staring at me.

- I love these few days spent here… thank you very much for opening me this part of your life… and your past…

- You’re welcome.

- I know what it means for you to give me this confidence and to reveal a little more of your story and I am very grateful.

She is resting her teaspoon beside her plate and watching me a little more intensely.

I can then see her hand moving towards my face and her fingers sliding in the corner of my lips, in a furtive caress.

- You had a crumb… she says in a half-smile to justify her gesture.

I look down, a little embarrassed, to find my already empty plate.

- I love your cake too much, I lose my good manners…

A silence settles for a few moments, and I quickly notice the piercing gaze of Amelia… one of those signs that I knew that revealed that she had something very specific in mind.

- What are you thinking about? I finally ask in a smile.

- There is… just something that has intrigued me for several days… something I’ve seen…

- Ask me the question, because I have the impression that it will prevent you from sleeping… I propose in a slight laugh.

- Well, it’s a detail I noticed in your family picture…

- The one you found in the buffet?

- Yes… we can see the right hand of your mother… and the ring she had on her finger… her engagement ring has a very special shape… a symbol of infinity… in the same way as the ring, I had for our cover in Campeche.

- It’s normal Amelia, it’s the same ring, I answer, taking a sip of wine as if to give me some insurance.

- You mean that the ring I wore is your mother’s…

- Yes, exactly… it’s the engagement ring my father gave to my mother… a unique piece, which he designed with a jeweler… and my mother gave it to me before she died…

- Excuse me, I’m really clumsy with my questions. I don’t want to rekindle painful memories…

- It’s nothing… don’t worry, you can know anyway, it’s not a state secret…

I pause to prepare my words and the evocation of this memory.

- My mother was devastated by the disease… by throat cancer… a few months after my mother left us… an illness all the more difficult for her that she could no longer take refuge in the music… this disease quickly deprived her of her voice…

- That’s why you’re so sensitive when we talk about your mom’s voice…

- Yes, it was almost the hardest for me… and to see that she didn’t want to fight as if she was just hoping for something, find my father… the illness was probably dormant for a little while, but the shock of my father’s tragic death was the trigger for the disease to dominate… 

I stop, feeling that familiar feeling of guilt invade me because I had this belief that I was partly at fault. By losing the love of her life, my mother had lost taste in life.

- Just before leaving, she offered me this ring with a word she had left me explaining that where she went, she didn’t need it anymore because she would write infinity with my father… and that the ring was coming back to me for a new story…

- That’s what Rosie was referring to when she said your parents were connected to life, to death. But I don’t understand why this ring was in the envelope that Nathan had prepared with the accessories for the cover… you gave him beforehand?

- No, and I was as surprised as you… I had not seen this ring for many years… I thought I would never see it again with what happened…

- What had happened?

I find her eyes, my thoughts, and my words have preceded me. And the episode I was referring to, I had no desire to talk about it.

I did not want to wake up my anger. 

- Nothing important, I thought I lost it, that’s all…

- This ring is very beautiful anyway, I had the opportunity to contemplate it… your father had a lot of taste…

- He was very inspired… I said in a whisper.

- Your parents must be great people, I would have been happy to meet them…

- They would have worshiped you…

- You think? She asks with sparkling eyes.

- I am sure. Everyone falls under your spell, they would not have been an exception… 

She smiles broadly with an intense look that almost destabilizes me.

At the end of a period that I would not be able to estimate, she ends up leaving her stool and gathers our cutlery that she silently places in the sink.

I get on my feet too and she comes back to meet me, standing right in front of me.

- I… I really wanted to thank you for those few days… you were… perfect to make them sweeter… and I will remember the effort that you have agreed to make for me, letting me enter a part of your past… playing the guitar again for me…

- It was worth it, Amelia… you’re worth it, believe me…

Her face lights up after my words.

A face approaching me as she moves forward and embraces me settling her head against me.

I close my arms on her and make my hands come and go in her back.

- Thank you, you’ve done me a lot of good lately… she adds in a whisper before detaching herself after a few seconds. 

However, I keep my hands against her, bringing them back to her waist and staring into her eyes… captivated by her smile and the sparks in her eyes.

At this moment, I realize that I am almost reluctant to leave this little cocoon, back in the mountains. I had been free and carefree as I had not been for a long time.

And there was not much mystery about what had allowed me to be in such a pleasant and serene state of mind.

It is thanks to the wonderful young woman with whom I shared these few days and these moments of laughter and freedom. 

And this interlude outside the hustle and bustle of the city had been just as beneficial to me as her.

Reconciling me with my past, my story. 

Making me realize again how lucky I am to have such a rich place of memories, and how amazing my parents were…

My thoughts mingle so in my head while I watch Amelia in front of me.

I had found my little boy’s soul by jumping in the water for her just before.

I felt again freedom and carelessness in her presence, who had left me… she gave me almost a little crazy hope that happiness was possible… possible for me.

I lean gently towards her spontaneously, with this desire to make her aware of this sweet influence.

My right cheek slides against her face until my lips are close to her ear.

- You did me a lot of good too… I murmured in Amelia’s ear.

My face comes off gradually, slipping against her cheek, like a caress, and I could have pulled back.

But something keeps me close to her.

Something that I irresistibly want.

And I chase my reason and the frail excuses that could have blocked me.

I wanted to take the plunge… take the first step towards her.

My lips find the warmth of her cheek and rest for three long seconds.

Three seconds that flood me with a sweetness that overwhelms my whole being. 

That warms every single part of my body.

I finally detach myself and I look directly for her eyes.

A look where I read the surprise and another emotion that I have more trouble identifying…

I clear my throat, destabilized by my own reaction and my daring.

But a quick movement makes me stagger.

Amelia gets into my field of vision as she gets on tiptoes.

She returns a kiss to me.

But its nature is different and takes me by surprise: her kiss doesn’t actually land on my cheek, but on my lips.

Briefly.

Furtively.

A hurried contact that she initiates by rising on tiptoe to remedy our size difference.

And in a breath, before I have time to react or say anything, she has already left the kitchen.

Leaving me alone in the room.

With the memory of her lips inscribed on me.

A memory that vibrates intensely under my fingers… that redraw my mouth, connected to another for a few seconds.

A kiss so short that I almost doubt to have imagined.

But the vibrations that resonate under my fingers confirm the reality.

The reality of a stolen kiss.

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Thank you for reading. Tell me what you think and have a great weekend 💛

[pettyprocrastination]

I Don't Think We're On Earth-65 Anymore Cop!Frank Castle x Spider!Reader

@jarvis-ismy-copilot @wolfmothar @murdockmmatt @marvelobsessedteen

Summary: Jitterbug gets help from the Devil of hell's kitchen and learns a big detail about the masked vigilante.

Chapter five

“You mean to tell me you’re from another dimension?” Daredevil summed up. Once he swore to help her find her way home the pair took to the rooftops in travel, jumping and swinging from building to building as they spoke.

“Sounds crazy I know, but it’s the truth.”

“I believe you.”

Jitterbug halted on the edge of the building and looked at him. “Wait, really? Just like that? You just trust me like that?” Surely he should've been at least a little surprised.

The devil merely smiled. “I doubt you’d lie about it, and I mean after seeing a hole open up in the sky and spit you out like a soggy fry I don't have much room to argue.”

“Hm. Touche.”

“Not to mention I can hear your heartbeat.” He added before resuming their rooftop clamour once more.

“You can WHAT?”

Matt knew he should probably be more cautious of the woman. He knew nothing about her or where her allegiance lies. But what he knew was that she was telling the truth, that she was lost and needed to get home. Usually he would think she's crazy. Maybe it was the catholic in him insisting she help her, maybe it was his hero complex or his bleeding heart, or maybe it was seeing her fall out of the sky like a asteroid that made him think she was truly in a struggle.

Boy, he thought he had seen it all. The dead come back to life, a bullet-proof man, a woman with super strength and...whatever the hell was up with Danny. But this, oh this took the cake.

“Mind telling me where we’re going Devil-dude?” She swung right next to him by what looks to be a rope shooting out of her wrist. It was certainly a new power in his book.

“My apartment.” He answered. “We gotta figure out how exactly you got here, by what, and how to get you back. We need a game plan.”

“Sounds good to me. Your New York is a little different than mine so I'm just gonna follow your lead on this.”

Matt hadn’t expected Foggy and Karen to be at his apartment that night. He really didn’t. They had won a case that day and the trio wanted to celebrate, but Matt had left early to go on patrol.

“When the hell does he get back from this shit?” Foggy groaned. “It’s 2 am!”

Karen shushed him. “Dont! This is supposed to be a surprise Foggy and I'm pretty sure the family across the street can hear you!” She giggled a little bit when she spoke so he knew the pair were already buzzed. He could smell pizza, beer and cupcakes, no doubt store bought but the thought still warmed his heart. The group had come along way since they reopened their law-firm. Granted Foggy and Karen don't support his late night activities with open arms, but they love Matt. So they do their damndest to be there for him whenever they could. He couldn’t wish for a better family.

“Boy.” Jitterbug spoke. “You're friends are fucking loud.”

“I don’t know how to get you in there without them seeing you.” She snorted.

“Oh don’t worry about me, I can get in there like a sweet summer breeze. What room you want me in?”

He made a face.

“Yeah, bad wording on my part. Sorry.”

“My bedroom is behind a large door on the left, If I draw them to the windows the maybe-”

“Oh my god you're just like Castle.” She groaned and knocked on the door for him. “Too much thinking!”

“Wait no-”

“There he is!” The moment Foggy opened the door, Jitterbug disappeared in a gust of wind. His friend paused and pointed to Matt.

“Wait a minute, why did you knock at your own apartment?”

“I could hear you guys inside.”

Karen laughed from the couch. “I told you!”

Foggy waved her off. “Yeah, yeah I’ll work on my volume control another day. But now-” He placed a cold beer in his friend’s hand with an infectious smile. “-We celebrate!”

He walked in and glanced around the apartment. His kitchen was void and the hallway empty so where did Jitterbug disappear to? “You guys didn’t have to do this you know. It’s late.”

“Yet here we are.” Karen pointed out. “So you better park it Murdock, because you aren’t getting rid of us anytime soon.”

That may prove to be a problem.

“Let me just get dressed, this isn’t exactly comfortable.” Matt walked into his room, quickly shutting the door behind him.

Jitterbug stood in the center of his room, seemingly appearing out of nowhere. “Your friends are nice. Do they know about you-”

“They do.” He quickly shed his clothes, she merely raised a brow and watched him hurriedly dress himself. “It’s caused a lot of problems and it’s taken a long time for me to gain their trust again. But that trust will be broken again if they-”

“Find some random vigilante chick in your room?” She finished and waved him off. “I got you devil-dude. I’ll wait in here until their gone-” She pantomimed zipping her lips with a smile. “-quiet as a mouse.”

Matt’s shoulder dropped and let out a breath of relief. “Thank you. I know this is an urgent situation for you but-”

“You got a life to protect.” She plopped herself down on his bed, taking note of the silk sheets. “I get that.” She’d been through the struggle herself. Because of the life Jitterbug chose to live, she was pretty lonely. Many partners and friends had walked out of the heroine’s life because she would run off in the middle of a sentence or come home late at night barely able to stand. It was a harsh life, but one that she felt she had to live for the safety of others.

She noticed his eyes for the first time and froze. They were nice. Brown and soft, but unfocused. He was facing her as she spoke but his eyes never really focused on her as a person but more on the direction she was in.

“Wait a minute, are you blind?”

He cracked a smile. “Just a tad.”

One of his friend’s knocked on the door in rapid succession.

“Come on Murdock!” Foggy shouted and Jitterbug’s blood ran cold. “I wanna see if you can beat my mini cupcake record!” Matt smiled and shook his head.

“I’ll doubt I can, but I’ll try!” He finished tying the string in his pants and reached for the doorknob, only to freeze when he heard Jitterbug's voice hesitantly ask.

“Is your name..Matt Murdock?”

He turned to her, his hands coming to rest as his side and twitching. “I am, why?”

She opened her mouth to speak, before shutting it and shaking her head. “It’s nothing.” She motioned to the door and made a shooing motion with her hands, ready for his friends to leave and find a way home. “Let’s just hope your better than the one from my universe.”

Matt wanted to stay and ask what he was like and what he had done to her, but there was no time. He needed to spend time with his friends before ushering them out under the excuse that he needed to get some rest but truly so he can learn more about this mystery hero and how to get her back to her universe. He locked the door before him and she slid down to the floor, praying that the unlikely friend she just made wouldn’t simply make the situation worse.

I have officially finished writing and editing this fic!!yay!! Now I can focus on uploading the chapters and getting to work on other pieces!! So don't hesitate to send some requests my way ESPECIALLY for some more jitterbug content, you know I love that gal!! Also want you guys to know I am going to start writing for Griff from baby driver as well. Please don't hesitate to send me a message about a request, critiques or just wanted to say hi! I completely forgot the tag list until this chapter I'm so sorry sdnrksks but please let me know if you want to be tagged in the future chapters, hope you lovelies have a great day <3

[the-pandering-fool]

Disconnection is it a good thing?

In a world where video games are as prevalent as they are plentiful, how do they disconnect us from reality in a way we can kill and steal from just about anyone and feel no remorse? More importantly, is that a good thing?

At their core video games are an escape from reality that allow us (the player) to do things we never thought possible, or that we’ve always wanted to do without any real consequence. It’s because of this that many people love them, they can slay dragons and save the princess, be what they aren’t, and do so from the comfort of their own homes.

Being able to do impossible things has always driven mankind to great heights, it drove the Wright Brothers to build the first (functional) planes, Thomas Edison to make the incandescent light bulb and the phonograph. Needless to say it can accomplish amazing things. It’s what led people to make the first narrative driven games, they were a marvel of entertainment, for the first time rather than just being an observer you were the hero. These games gave you control and made an experience uniquely its own, like salted caramel. It’s a wonderful thing they do letting anyone be anything for any reason.

Let’s take an example of  a relatively recently released game Monster Hunter World (let’s call it MHW from here on out). In MHW you take on the role of a Hunter, someone who hunts Monsters - giant dangerous beasts with strange abilities - for science. I know that sounds a bit weird but we’ll talk about that later. What we’re going to talk about now, is how MHW uses common strategies in media to make players follow it’s narrative, not feel bad about hunting the dozens of monsters, harvesting their skin to craft various weapons and armor, and to keep hunting.

Most video games use some common strategies to make the player  feel like they’re not responsible for any bad decisions they make. One of these strategies  is called dissociation — in other words, disconnecting the player from the character they’re playing. In MHW one thing the do to achieve this is they never call you by name, instead they give you the title of Hunter or occasionally call you Fiver (a title given because you are from the 5th research fleet). They also call every other Hunter this too so don’t feel special just yet. By doing this they make you feel less important and like you’re one of many, and it’s not a bad thing to start with. MHW draws a clear line between you and your expectations, but also leave room for interpretation and character development, saying you have to earn your place here, and until you do you’re just a gear in the machine. And eventually you do, in the end you are granted the title of Sapphire Star, this title has significance in the lore of MHW so it’s quite an honor for you to have.

It’s not an easy road to earn your place in the world though, you need to be a skilled Hunter and craft some pretty strong gear to beat the final boss in MHW. You might be asking what I mean by “crafting strong gear”,  in MHW progression is both locked by story, player skill, and gear. This means that you’ll have to keep hunting specific monsters to harvest materials, or mats, to make better weapons and armour so it doesn’t take an hour to kill a monster or you don’t die by a sneeze from a stronger one. Monster slaying is exactly what the game wants  the player to do as well! By locking things behind progression walls the game makes you play more and more to fight stronger and cooler monsters.

In MHW the payer is given many ways to hunt as well. There are 14 different weapon classes each with their own unique set of skills and fighting styles. And let me tell you choosing just one is extremely hard. I myself use about 4 of them on a regular basis, the Insect Glaive (IG), Charge Blade (CB), Longsword (LS), and Switch Axe (SA). These names alone probably don’t mean much to you do they? I’m gonna get a bit technical here so if you’re not as big a nerd as I am skip ahead to the next part which I’ll mark with an * for you.

Now allow me to get into the nitty gritty of the IG for you as it is my personal favorite weapon. The IG is a powerful weapon used to give a player a much needed aerial advantage in combat. It has two main features which are its ability to propel a hunter into the air and stay there, and the Kinsect.

The Kinsect is your own little buggy buddy that helps you hunt more effectively by gathering different extracts from monsters. These extracts are categorized by color, red is attack, by collecting it your moveset changes and you’re able to dish out more damage, orange is defense/resistance, it gives you a small buff to your defense and elemental resistances, white is an amplifier, it boosts the effectiveness of the other extracts, and finally there’s green, it heals you just a little bit. And this is just 1 of 14 different weapon archetypes you can use. They also get even more complicated as well so there’s definitely a learning curve involved, but if you can master a weapon practically nothing can stop you.

*Some of you might be arguing that we as the player are destroying the ecosystem by going out and slaughtering these creatures and that’s wrong. It’s true that if you were to go out on a mission to kill every squirrel in existence you would damage the ecosystem. However in MHW every monster you hunt is an apex predator, meaning they’re at the top of the food chain and the only thing that they have to worry about are the other monsters you’ll eventually hunt.

Plus you need to have a suspension of belief to properly enjoy most games anyway, meaning you need to recognize that what you’re doing has no real world consequences. You can hunt a Legania a thousand times and you’re still gonna have to go to work on Monday.

I talked about the fact that you are hunting for science earlier and it’s true. In MHW you are exploring a brand new continent, dubbed the new world, and have very limited information on the creatures that live there. So it’s your job not only to hunt these monsters but to study them. You can even capture them and bring them back to your base so the rest of the research team can examine them further, this might not be the smartest way to do it, but hey it works. MHW encourages this by giving you bounties to hunt specific monsters and rewarding you with currency and mats. Plus the more you hunt a monster the better you get at it. You’re able to track them better, learn their individual quirks, such as what the best element to use while hunting them is. And you can do it with each of the many monsters making mayhem and mischief. Over time you learn their habits, you learn their weaknesses, and you learn their faults.

One of my personal favorite monsters from MHW is the aforementioned (and shown above yay for gifs!) Legania. It is, on the most basic level, an ice dragon. The Legania is also a ‘boss’ monster, it’s the true apex predator of one of the environments. At first the Legania is a pain in the ass to hunt, it’s nimble, has a variety of AOE attacks, and can fly. If you jump right in and try fighting it Leroy Jenkins style you’re probably gonna get carted (die) a few times.

On the other hand if you stay back and watch how it moves and interacts with the environment, you’ll learn that when it lands it becomes extremely vulnerable, and that you can force it to land in some places by placing bait. The game rewards you for playing the way it wants you to. Just like any other game there are proper ways to play where you get the best results.

Another strategy MHW uses is Immersion. It creates a world that makes sense and draws the player in. It accomplishes this by showing how the different creatures interact in the areas you explore. The player is constantly reminded how dangerous their job is by seeing the more docile herbivores eaten and hunted by the dominant predators. Even the predators fight in aptly named “turf wars”. The player can be hunting one creature and out of nowhere a bigger, stronger one can finish the job by flinging it around like a chew toy. In some instances you can also find two monsters fighting over food, or their hunting grounds overlap and they proceed to fight for dominance, the loser leaving the area wounded but still alive.

By giving players attainable goals, an immersive world, unique and challenging opponents, and many ways to play MHW does a great job disconnecting players from the real world. Yes, getting too lost in a game is a bad thing, but sometimes that’s exactly what someone needs. By giving players an outlet to forget the chaos of the world around them video games are an amazing thing. Moderation is the key to not only enjoying, but enjoying video games healthily. That’s right, it’s as simple as mere moderation. So next time you have a bad day, or maybe just need to shut out the day to day chaos of the world, grab a controller, hit up your friends, and just lose yourself in a good game.

[pillowfluffs]

Soulmate!Wonho // Chapter 2

Pairing: Wonho X Reader (female)

Genre: Soulmate!AU, fantasy, fluff, slight angst

Summary: After learning some things while writing back and forth with your soulmate a few nights ago, things get even more stranger.. Here’s to a new chapter in your life, however! But some strange figure might cause some.. complications..

Author’s Note: Yay! It’s officially been a week since Chapter 1 came out! I’m so excited for you guys to read this new chapter so please enjoy! And I suckk at summaries ;-; so my apologies, but please leave feedback, it’s much appreciated! But as mentioned before, I will be posting a new chapter on Saturdays 5:30pm Eastern Standard Time (U.S. Time) ((4:00pm Central Time // 2:00pm Pacific Standard Time)) Please Enjoy chapter 2!

You sat in your EP (enhanced placement) runes class, next to the window. The room was illuminated in a dark light from the cloudy skies outside. You sat next to the window which stretched from the ceiling to the ground. Tall pines and the woods were your view as you looked out and since it was a few more months until the end of the year, all the classes had small projects and assignments to do. Busy work for those who needed the credit to have a passing grade in the class. Your grades were “beyond exceptional” as the headmaster told you yesterday towards the end of your lesson of demoniaco, but you still had to attend classes for the last few months for attendance, but you didn’t really need to worry about the end of the year exam either. Your grades were proof enough of your mastery to the knowledge you absorbed so far.. You were of course proud of your achievements so far in college so you sat there in a dark blue quarter zip with no motif on it and black sweatpants, spacing out every now and then as you looked outside. Boredom filled you as small chatter of off subject things filled your ears and a movie played on the projector. The students used this time to study for other classes and finals or just to relax for the time being. The room was set up so all the students’ desks were on steps so there were about eight rows and each row as you went to the back of the room was raised by two steps and the desks themselves weren’t really desks either, they were long tables which curved along with the room. Each person had their own desk area. The last row looked down to see the front of the room along with the professor.

Professor Emanuel Demsky sat at his desk grading papers and entering them instantly into his computer. He was gifted with memoriam faciunt, the talent to allow the caster the ability to manipulate memories, but it also granted him significant memory capacity. He was considered one of the most powerful professors at the academy as this magic also allows the user to create new magic by combining spells from the other magic which the user has memorized before. Although he was deemed one of the most powerful, if anyone were to see him, they’d probably think he was a broken one; someone with a gift, but a very weak one and usually not full. Any gift could be broken but the holder cannot be able to use the power to the full capacity. An example would be the gift of invisibility, but only turning invisible about half way, which is very useless in this world.

You eyes grew heavy from the early wake and lowered your head into your arms, staring into the world outside as small pitter patters hit against the glass and a low rumble of thunder grew louder every few minutes. All the sound in the room including the talking in the back and the documentary on ancient runes in the front, were drowned out and all sort of merged to one sound quietly in the background as your ears focused on the rain and thunder outside. You watched the rain bounce off branches and leaves before your eyes shut and sleep enveloped you. The last thing your mind thought of was Wonho, vague images of what he could look like based of what you learned.

From the room’s furthest back row, in the far right corner, a man sat there and watched you as your slowly fell asleep into slumber with stone eyes. He sat there though the period, watching and absorbing every detail he saw. The way you breathed when you slept as your back rose and sunk, how your hair spread out over your arms and desks area. He was a somewhat tall guy, wearing a black long sleeve with a white shirt beneath, the bottom of the shirt peeking out with dark blue jeans and a light brown leather jacket with white vans’ slip ons. The bell rang and he noticed how you were still sound asleep in your seat. He sat patiently, waiting for everyone to leave the room as the professor continued to work diligently at his desk. As everyone made their way out the door, he stood up, picking up his backpack, slinging it over his left shoulder and making his way over next to you. He went down two rows and went to the very left end of the sixth row where you were, his shoes silent against the thinly carpeted ground.

You slept peacefully, hearing nothing including the low rumbles and cracks of thunder, the hum of the air conditioning right above your head.  You had no other class today, including the headmaster’s as the he went on his annual council meeting, so no class with him for the next week or two. The council are a group of mages who are considered the most powerful in the world. You felt a few tickling marks beginning to form on your right thigh as you knew Wonho was drawing. You began to stir in your sleep, beginning to wake up as the tickling wouldn’t stop. A smile grew on your face as you were waking.

He sat in the seat to the right of you, facing you, watching your every move. “How precious you are..” An eerie smile grew upon his face as he leaned his head against his right hand. He opened his left hand, a silver, almost black steam flowed out of his hand as it grew closer and closer to you as you began to wake up.

You sat up and opened your eyes, a warmness spreading through your body as you yawned and stretched. You turned to your right and gasped at the sight be. The bell had already rung and everyone was gone except for you. Luckily as mentioned before, you had no more classes so you were free to go wherever you wanted. You got up and left, saying a farewell to the professor who only waved in response without looking up as he entered grades to a previous test into his computer. The rain rained harder than before, same as well for the thunder; louder.

In a dimension separate from the world, outside of existence,  he looked through and watched you, an eerie smile smile on his face as he lay comfortable in his own little world. Though a pang of worry bloomed as he didn’t want you walked through the rain.

You walked out of the enchanted language building and made your way through campus back towards your own dorm. The rain did not bother you one bit as you just walked through, but that was only because the rain never touched you, except for the bottom of your pants which were slowly becoming soaked as you walked through puddles. You were manipulating the weather around you. The tickling sensation paused as you got up to leave the room earlier but it had returned once again but on your left thigh this time. “Ah, this tickles!” You reached down and scratched your left thigh, with a giggle, but it was no use; the tickling continued as you walked across campus. You pulled out a dark blue pen as you decided to always keep one on you since the events of last night with your soulmate. You wrote on the back of your hand “it tickles, can you draw or write on the wrists instead?” you smiled as you walked without looking. You weren’t paying attention to where you were walking before a pair of hands firmly grasped you by the biceps.

“Woah, careful there,” you gasped as your heart jumped at the strange man before you with a peculiar smile as he peered into your eyes, almost dropping the pen in your hand. He stood a half a head taller than you, his brown hair blowing gently in the breeze, gazing into your eyes. His hands slid down the sides of yours and he held you as your power expanded so now he was no longer in the rain as well. For some reason, you don’t know why either but you just couldn’t break the stare of his eyes with yours. “You almost walked straight into this tree,” he broke the silence. “Are you okay? I didn’t mean to startle you, I just want to make sure you’re okay.” He released his grasp on your arms with a kind smile and lingering touch.

“Oh, yeah, I’m fine, thank you.” You closed the pen cap, tucking it away into your pants pocket. “I was just drawing on my arm.” You shied away with a gentle smile, looking back to your hands, pulling your sleeves over your hands and looked back up. Your heart jumped a tad at his face as it was now closer, your smile fading. You were able to see all the details in his face; his prominent cheekbones, the way his rose colored lips were shaped as if he was a statue, carved from marble, how his hair was disheveled, the ends just above his eye lids. His eyes were a dark earthy brown which you were entranced to, as if you were under a spell. You weren’t going to lie but you felt a bit uncomfortable from such closeness. He was looking at you as if you were a significant other, a look filled with adoration and love but you had never seen this man before you. He seemed around your age, if not older, but that was just your opinion based on his height and looks.

“Well, be careful from now on, and watch where you’re going.” He gave you a quick smirk as he reached up and tucked a stray of your hair behind you ear, gliding his fingers tips down your cheeks. He leaned against the tree you were about to walk into, his height shortening a bit. “Where are you heading to?”

“Uh, I was just heading back to my dorm.” You bit your lip, you couldn’t help but feel a bit scared. For some reason, you felt powerless. As if you were in some sort of orb of a space which absorbed all the power you had in your body. You vision was beginning to blur longer you maintained eye contact. You attempted to use the last of your ability to mimic his, but nothing happened. No cold rush ran up your spine as you stood there. “Who is he?” For the first time in your life, you couldn’t absorb the ability of the person before you. If you had any warning alarms, they were being triggered right now.

“Are you okay? You look a bit.. Pale.” He pushed a strand of hair behind your ear, rubbing your cheek with the pad of his thumb. His right hand in his pocket tightened into a fist. His plan was going accordingly his way, and he made sure it was full proof. “You will be mine.. No matter what...”

“I have to go,” you mustered all the energy you had and left him. All the energy in your body you used for your abilities were gone, as if a dripping sponge was put through a wringer, drying every last drop out. The rain patted against your body as you walked faster, unable to use your ability. You turned around hoping to see him no longer there, but to your fear, he stood there leaning against the tree, watching you and eye contact was made right away. He pushed himself off the tree and started slowly approaching you. You turned back and made your way faster back to your dorm. You didn’t turn and  look back the entire way, it didn’t feel safe.

“What a tease she is.” He watched over you through his pocket dimension, ab amused grin stretched upon his face. He was a broken one and he didn’t have a soulmate. But when he saw you, he knew he had to break the natural laws of the universe. He wanted you all to himself; take you away from your soulmate as soon as possible because your destined day to meet could be any day.

You shut the door behind you, using the peephole to see if anyone outside, but saw no one. You locked the door and walked over to your bed and sat. You sat there doing nothing, wondering what you could do. Your room was quite spacious fortunately. Upon entering the dorm, the first thing you saw was the bed. Your bed, when you first moved in was against the right wall and the desk facing the left wall in the corner. And when you entered and turned left, there was a large bathroom with two toilets and two showers; one for you and one for the other person, well usually but since your room was at the end of the hallway, you had the bathroom all to yourself. You adjusted the furniture to your liking when you first moved in with the help of your neighbors so now the desk was facing the wall you faced when you first enter, allowing the natural light from outside to come in. Your bed was against the left wall and your head was next to your desk, in the left corner. The space where your bed once was was now a relaxation area; you brought in a black lounge chair and a jumbo sized black bean bag. Your mom insisted on being extra comfy so she bought you a cool gray rub, soft at the touch and a mini coffee table to place on the rug. You didn’t really have a theme but if anyone were to see your dorm, they would simply assume a dark theme. Now you felt stuffy and out of place in your own room. Your clothes were drenched from the rain outside, which continued harder than ever. You made a quick change of clothes, changing into a black hoodie this time and gray sweatpants. You grabbed your backpack and filled it with some of your EP runes and EP charms textbooks and left to go anywhere. You cracked the door open and peeked outside the door, turning your head left and right, luckily seeing no one in sight to be seen nor heard, but just a muffled laughter from your neighbor across the hall from you. You hadn’t really seen any neighbors of yours since the first day, but you didn’t mind; they were kind and kept to themselves. You closed your door, locking it and head to the stairwell. You walked down three levels and went outside, cautious and ready to change into a shadow mode from your demonic abilities to avoid the guy. You pulled your hood up, pulling the strings so the hood would close around your face masking you, using your ability from your pocket on the hoodie to shift the rain away from you. You walked swiftly and faster across campus. No one was outside due to the rain so if they did see you from inside, they wouldn’t know it was you which was ideal since you were known to be a pyrokinetic, an enemy of water.

The campus was substantial with openings here and there, but it was also littered with small groves here and there. Normally on a sunny day, there would be numerous amounts of other mages outside; studying, working out, sparring, anything. No matter what season it was, the campus was as magical as seen in pictures on the website; it was a prominent tourist attraction to anyone and everyone during breaks when students weren’t on campus.

You were sooner than you thought at the front gate of the school which was open but still heavily guarded. The guards simply looked at you then looked away; they wore contacts which scanned bodies for an ID card or if they were a guest, the guest tag. No matter where it was, they could scan and find it. If you didn’t have one on you, they would question you before leaving but you were not likely to get back in. Unlike your orientation day, the barrier was no obstacle for you those entering or leaving. As long as students had their ID card somewhere on them, they could get in and out with ease. ID cards were the key to everything at Mapnerry, literally. They got you into the school, buildings, computers, and more. The rumbling of thunder filled your ears as your walked as you walked along the sidewalk down a short hill towards a street full of life. There were numerous restaurants and bars, a mall where mages walked though daily. Many students often came here to have fun along with other activities similar to those done on campus. Mages of all kind walked by you with umbrellas and ponchos while the road was only slightly congested with cars. You walked down the road toward the corner, untying the strings to your hood, pulling the small opening to your face open. You turned left and entered the Espresso Express, one of the cafes in the mall, which was your favorite since it wasn’t as popular, meaning there were less people but a good amount would make them busy. It was a slight building huddled despondent among the tall apartment buildings where upperclassmen usually lived off of campus.

A warm breeze brushed your face and the fresh smell of roasted coffee filled your nostrils, causing you to suddenly feel bubbly and as if you were home on the inside. Unlike outside, the interior was warm and cheery, with bright lights and colorful murals on brick walls. Once you walked in, you passed booths where the seats were cushioned with black leather pillows. Edison light bulbs dangled over each table, illuminating the dark yet cozy cafe. It was only dark due to darkness outside from the storm since there were large windows which stretched from the ground to the ceiling. The retro styled cafe was partially full with mages socializing, students studying, even some business men tending to some meetings.

Almost all food restaurants were run, managed, and owned by culinary mages with abilities which allowed them to create and/or produce astonishing foods from the finest or repugnant of ingredients.

What you loved about this cafe was that in the level above, the cafe expanded into a spacious dining area. It was truly the quietest part of the cafe. You made your way upstairs, passing multiple students seated at their own single tables as finals were near approaching. Their tables littered with small pastries and coffee cups. You walked up the wide chestnut wood stairs, your hand gliding over the banister handles. There was only a handful of people towards the lighter side of the room and one on the darker side with their light on. The entire level was majority windows so they were sitting where there was better light. You went to the darker side in the far left corner and sat on the cushioned seat, placing your bag next to you. You spread out your books and notebooks, ready to do some heavy duty studying, adjusting the light so the brightness wouldn’t strain your eyes with a knob on the corner of the table. In the silence, you heard quiet music, but the peculiar thing was that it was very close to you. The nearest person was to your right in the other corner, which confused you even more about where it was coming from. It took you a moment until you realized it was yours and dug through your backpack, finding your phone to be on and playing music the entire time.

“Oh shoot,” you said to yourself. You paused the classical music only for a low battery notification to pop up. “Great, and of course I didn’t bring my charger,” you sighed. You shut off your phone, turning the ringer off and tossing it back in.

He sat there quietly, concentrated on the EP necromantiae textbook before him. Necromancy was the study of using the ability of necrokinesis to manipulate the dead, allowing the user to utilize magic revolving around the dead. “I should have taken EP animancy,” he mentally scolded himself for taking this challenging class. “I should have listened to Hyunwoo.” He sighed, rubbing his temple and closing his eyes as they were straining for hours. He leaned back against the plush cushion, throwing his head back and reaching for the brightness knob, turning it down a notch. He breathed calmly for a few minutes before he looked back up, looking around the room. He looked outside and saw how much darker it had been compared to this morning and that it had begun raining for awhile now, he just never noticed. He stood up and stretched his body as a yawn came out of him. “I need another coffee.” he thought to himself and got up, leaving his things neatly in his space, unafraid of anyone stealing his things since there was no one close to his space except for a girl sitting to his left in the far corner. He wore gray joggers, a black t-shirt with a black hooded jacket, and black ankle rain boots.

You saw a figure move through the room, but you assumed it was the guy to your right and pushed the thought away. You blocked out all the sound you could and any possible distractions in your peripheral vision, but you couldn’t help but think of the weird guy from earlier. You were pretty sure you had never seen him before but he spoke to you as if he already knew you. You yawned and began rubbing your eyes after sitting for about twenty minutes, continuing to feel drained from the moment you met him. You saw through your fingers as you rubbed and for a brief moment, you saw him. You moved your hands, looking around the room, but no one was there except for the same people on the far side of the room. “Pull yourself together, Y/N.” You slapped your cheeks lightly, opening your mind back up. “You’re starting to see things,” you sighed leaning back although you could have sworn you saw him just now in the same exact clothes, just staring at you from a few tables in front of you. You shook your head and  pulled your book closer, focusing on the text before you, writing down notes you believed to be significant.

He stood in line, waiting to order his third round of coffee. He watched his hand, admiring his soulmate’s handwriting. While he waited, he drew onto the back of his hand, below his soulmate’s handwriting, a rose.

“Next please.” He was cut off by the barista. “What would you like to order?”

“Hi, could I get a medium americano?” The barista put in the order. He stood at the same height as him but just a tad shorter The cafe was somewhat fuller compared to this morning.

“And would that be all?” His voice was monotone, most likely a recently graduated mage working hard to earn money to pay off student loans and debt. His eyes looked like he could have fallen asleep then and there while standing.

“Yes.” He handed the barista his card. He looked to the rose, anticipating to finish.

“Name for your order, sir?” The barista handed back his card along with a receipt and a copy for him to sign. Holding a cup in the other hand, ready to sign a name.

“Wonho.” He swiftly signed, returning the pen and receipt back. He pulled out his pen from before, continuing to finish the rose as he walked to the right of the main counter to the waiting area. This area was somewhat cooler than the register since it was closer to the door.

You sat fully focused on your notes before you. To be honest, you didn’t really need to study due to your highly exceptional academic levels. Even your professors had told you that you didn’t have to go into class anymore nor take the final at the end of the year, but you insisted. You wanted to be on the same academic level as the other mages and treated equally, but now that you really thought about it, you really didn’t have to study as of right now. You stood from your seat, stretching your body, loosening the tight muscles. Fortunately for you, you didn’t think you would get to it but now you did. You packed away your textbooks neatly and pulled out a book your father had gotten you as a going away gift and you never really had the time to read it. The book was called The Everything in Nothing by one of your favorite writing mages, Elizabeth Harmon. In this world, there were many types of mages such as good ones and bad ones; not every world is perfect. There were mages who made a living taking jobs and going on missions and quests such as Y’N’s father and mages who used their ability to do things such as open a restaurant or farm. The cover of the book was leathered with the title indented into the center. A brown leather book with a latch, made to look similar to a magus liber. It was stunning how much production value was put into Elizabeth’s books. Right when you opened the book, you suddenly got a bit light headed.

“Woah.” You caught yourself, grasping the table as a balance. You sat still for a minute, the dizziness going away. You swallowed feeling your throat dry. You went to your backpack, digging through only to find no water. “Guess I have to buy something then,” you sighed getting up and grabbing your wallet.

“Order for Wonho,” the female barista called, her voice bright and perky.

“Thank you.” Wonho reached for his coffee, continuing to draw a rose. He took the cup, making his way towards the sugar and cream counter. He opened the lid and a warm breath of americano coffee filled his nose.

Your head tilted to the side as the rose drawing had paused. “I wonder what he’s doing..” You thought to yourself as you approached the stairs. “What will it be like when I do meet him?” You began down the stairs.

He closed the lid, heading back up towards the stairs. He held his hot coffee in the hand he was drawing on. All the petals had been finished and now all he had to do was draw the stem. “Almost done~” He began on the first step.

The finished flower took your breath away. You brushed your finger over the finished flower as you walked down, not paying attention. Your body bumped into someone, causing your heart to jump in your chest, and the next thing you felt was something hot on your body but luckily your hoodie was thick enough so it didn’t hurt you.

“Ah, ow.” You stumbled backwards, landing on your bottom against the stairs. You felt embarrassment heat up your face as a small pain radiated from your back and bottom as you were face to face with the man before you.

“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry!” The man’s body hovered above yours. His arms were around your body, holding himself up. He was finely built and his muscles evident through his shirt. “Are you okay?” He pushed himself up, offering his hand to help you up.

“I’m okay.” You took his hand and he pulled you up as if you were a feather. Your hand was miniscule in his soft yet large hand.

“Again, I’m so sorry, I wasn’t paying atten-“ His words paused as he caught a glimpse of your hand. “A rose.” He held your hand in his, inspecting the rose. He didn’t say anything, looking at it, brushing his finger over it.

“What about it?” You stood on a stair above, matching his height, mixed emotions stirred within you. You looked closely at his facial features; how the ends of his black hair meeting his eyelids. He looked at you then, his dark eyes drilling into yours. You watched him movements, anticipating what he would do next.

He turned his hand, holding yours, showing the identical unfinished rose. “Is this your handwriting, Y/N?” His voice velvety in your ears, a soft smile growing on his face. He stood there with light eyes filled with wonder.

You felt your heart stopping and racing at the same time. “You’re.. My soulmate?” You bit your lip, preparing for the next answer, trying to restrain a smile. “You drew the rose?” You glanced back down, gesturing to the rose and looked back up to his. You’ve always wondered when you would meet your soulmate and how you would meet them one day in the future, but you guessed today was your destined day.

“I guess I am,” he smiled, nodding his head. He pulled you into his arms. “And you’re mine?”

“I guess so.” You smiled. A rollercoaster of emotions rushed through you as you looked your soulmate in the eye. The two of you stood there for a minute or two, taking in each other’s features, still holding hands. “Wait, the coffee.” His face was soft, his skin milky with his plump cheeks and rosy reddish and pink lips. His teeth perfectly straight and white though you noted that when he talked, there was a tiny lisp, but it was very cute.

“Oh, right.” He released your hand, scratching the back of his head. “I’m really sorry about your clothes.” He looked down to see your coffee stained sweatpants. “I have a spare change of clothes in my bag ‘cause I was going to go to the gym to workout, but you could wear them if you’d like.” He stood there with his right  hand remaining on the back of his neck as his weight was supported on his left leg and his left hand tucked into his pants pocket.

“It’s okay,” you sighed, looking down to your clothes. “I’ll most likely have to walk up to my dorm to change and maybe come back again.” You were a bit bummed now that you really thought about it. The heat of the coffee still present. You looked down at your clothes, the smell of coffee filling your nose.

“Please? I really insist, especially if you’re going to come back.” His voice earnest as he walked passed you. He stood two steps above you at a base set of five steps.

“What about you?” You looked down his body, seeing a coffee stain on his clothes as well but not as big as yours.

“I’ll be fine, don’t worry about me,” he smiled as he waved it off.

You bit your lip once again, contemplating. “Would it really be okay? I mean, I am his soulmate after all.. Wait, even if I did, wouldn’t they be too big on me?” You stood there, looking up to Wonho for a moment. “Can I try them on?” You tilted your head as your hands formed sweater paws, gripping your sleeves in your hands.

“Of course, come with me.” He gestured for you to follow him back up. “So you attend Mapnerry as well?” He broke the ice walking back up the staircase. His voice was affable, fitting his personality perfectly. To you, he seemed as if he could pass as a giant muscular teddy bear or bunny.

“Yeah, I’m a first year. You too?” You sped up, catching up to his pace and walked next to him back  into the room. You stood a whole head shorter than him, but you found this height difference comfortable.

He watched you and your soulmate from afar, a fiery resentment beginning to grow. He had a change of clothes on wearing a white hoodie with black jeans and sneakers. “Looks like there will be some.. Complications in my way.” He clenched his jaw as one of his eyes glowed red and his other glowed white, his magical energy radiating off of him though no one could see him.

~~~~~

Previous Chapter // Next Chapter

Masterlist

[katieskarlette]

Before the Storm:  A Reaction Post

I just finished binge-reading the latest WoW novel, and I have thoughts.  Quite a few of them, actually.  So here goes.

Short non-spoilery version:   Game tie-in novels are never going to be high literature, but for what it was, I really enjoyed this book.  I know Golden’s name has been mud around this neck of the internet lately, so this probably isn’t a popular opinion.  The contrast between Anduin and Sylvanas as leaders--and as people--was interesting to see, and the questions about how the living and the undead can (or should) interact were incredibly poignant.  There was only one significant lore development (at the very end, regarding a new variety of undead) that is easy to catch up on via a quick summary, so it’s not a mandatory read to understand Battle For Azeroth.  But as a character study and a fleshing-out of the world and how various issues stand going into the new expansion, it was a enjoyable read.  If you’re a fan of Anduin, Sylvanas, Genn, Calia, or goblins, definitely check it out.

Spoilers (as well as a mention of real-life death/grief) below.

I think sometimes fandom marinates in an echo chamber and, because of how seldom new canon material is released, we assume that because Blizzard isn’t releasing a weekly short story they’re letting unresolved plot threads dangle and fester.  Sometimes they do, granted, but there were an awful lot of things addressed (or at least mentioned) in this book that fandom has been wondering/worrying/complaining/speculating about:

The leadership void among the Darkspear.  The impact of losing so many soldiers and supplies in the war with the Legion.  What’s been going on in the Undercity while Sylvanas is away doing Warchief stuff.  The fact that none of the Horde leaders have families.  The reaction of the Cenarion Circle to their losses in Silithus.  The unpopularity of Gallywix among his own people.  The confusion and cross-faction misunderstandings about the disastrous battle of the Broken Shore.  The tension and lost trust after Genn Greymane and Admiral Rogers’ shenanigans at the start of Stormheim’s storyline.  Moira’s son not being a baby anymore.  The unresolved issues between Moira and Magni.  Velen’s grief over his son.  The fact that Tess and Mia Greymane exist.  Theramore.  Calia’s claim to the throne of Lordaeron.  The long-lasting impact of the Cataclysm.  The mixed opinions among the Horde about the way the goblins terraformed Azshara.  Kalec and Jaina’s relationship.  Lore from the priest order hall.  And yes, the fact that Anduin needs an heir.

I’m not saying all these things are settled or developed, or handled in ways I necessarily agree with, but it’s good to be reminded that Blizzard hasn’t forgotten about any of these elements.  (Wrathion, on the other hand...  Sigh.  Don’t get me started.  Suffice it to say he’s not even alluded to in the book.  Onyxia does get a passing mention in relation to how her scheming impacted the Wrynns.)

Anyway, moving on to the main theme of the book:  life, death, and all the corpse-gray areas in between.

It was hard to read sometimes because of how raw the emotions were and how hard the questions were that it asked.  I’m not sure that it would have the same impact on someone who has never grieved the death of a loved one, but for me it was quite emotional.  I got misty-eyed in several places.  

I found myself imagining what it would be like to see my much-beloved grandmother (who, by the time she died, was as hunched, emaciated and discolored as any Forsaken, although that’s not how I try to remember her) standing across a field from me.  To be able to speak to her again, tell her how much I love and miss her, to tell her what I’ve been doing in the last fifteen years...yet to see her as a withered, pungent, unnatural husk, to know she’d been denied the rest of the grave...  Faced with that choice, I don’t know how I would react.  I’m glad I never will--for a lot of reasons!

The book never said that Anduin imagined himself facing either of his parents under such circumstances, but I’m sure he must have.  (I mean, not that there was anything left of Varian to turn undead, but hypothetically speaking.)  Anduin’s a very empathetic person, and his own grief over his father was still so raw.  It certainly affected Genn, who I thought was written very well. 

I’ve never been a fan of the Forsaken, because their dark, mean-spirited, nihilistic outlook and the corpse/bone aesthetic don’t appeal to me. (It doesn’t in other contexts, either.  Give me cute jack o’ lanterns and chubby-cheeked ghosts for Halloween decorations, and skip the plastic tombstones and cardboard skeletons, please.)  This book gave a lot of insight into what it would be like to be undead, without the need for sleep, cut off from any living friends/relatives, with a body that’s slowly wearing out without the ability to heal or do physical therapy, knowing that you are repulsive and smelly to others, making the most of second chances while also perhaps yearning for the peace of true death, and being acutely aware of how fragile you really are.  It made the Forsaken more sympathetic and (excuse the pun) fleshed out.

I was also quite pleased to see acknowledgement of Forsaken who aren’t emotionless, gibbering eeeevil.  My lone, seldom-played undead alt, a lowbie priest, is that kind of a character:  holding onto the Light even though it now is painful to use, and refusing to stoop to being a monster just because she’s a walking corpse.  That wasn’t a viewpoint that was really highlighted in canon before.  (Of course, that means my little priest would be out there on the Arathi plain with a bunch of black arrows sticking out of her right now, so...)

I was disappointed that the book never mentioned Anduin bringing Elsie’s body back to Stormwind to bury beside Wyll.  I’m going to assume he did, because geez.

I still don’t know where they’re going with the new Light-infused variety of undead, but we’re not really supposed to.  It’s just a teaser and cliffhanger.  There’s a lot of story potential, anyway.  We’ll see.  I’m glad they didn’t remove Calia from the story completely, at least.

Speaking of cliffhangers, if that adorable gnome/goblin couple didn’t survive, I’m going to be majorly bummed out.  It was also interesting to know that goblins and gnomes can get married in canon.  Presumably other cross-species relationships can be made legal, too.

Anyone who’s emotionally invested in the Menethil dynasty has sure had a rollercoaster of ups and downs lately.  Yay, Calia’s finally in game!  Noooo, she’s not interested in claiming her throne!  Yay, she’s interested after all!  Nooooo, she’s dead!  Yay, she’s...undead?  And she's totally cool with the idea that Lordaeron belongs to the Forsaken?  (Which, I mean, it does, but it’s surprising to have her think that.  So many forum threads about this stuff suddenly became obsolete...)  And there’s a slim chance that her daughter is either undead or still alive out there somehow?  WHAAAAAAT? 

Oh yeah, she secretly got married to a footman, had a kid, escaped the Scourge, lived in Southshore for years under an assumed identity, and then presumably lost her husband and daughter when the town got Blighted (yet she’s okay with the Forsaken???), but we didn’t see the bodies so heaven only knows what plot twist could come of that.  

On one hand (the Watsonian one) it’s a tragic, awful thing for her to have gone through and I felt really bad for her.  On the other hand (the Doylist one), did she really need more tragic, awful backstory?  No.  No, she really did not.  It seemed like overkill, which makes me suspect they’re seeding a plot thread for the future.  Meh.  Hey, if she lived in Southshore, did she know the Rogers family?  Would Admiral Catherine Rogers recognize her as whatever her fake identity was?

On a related note, you’ve got Anduin who in the past was always like, “OMG noooo don’t compare me to Arthas!” and now is like, “Okay, Calia, I’m officially adopting you as my new big sister.”  Oh, the irony...

I should address the rainbow-striped elephant in the room:  There is no LGBTQIA+ representation in the book.  Anduin is specifically mentioned as having been attracted to the female dwarf Aerin, and he expects to fall in love with a woman someday.  Personally, I‘ve headcanoned him as bi, perhaps leaning a bit ace, while always expecting Blizz to have him marry a woman.  I do sympathize with those who had hoped that he might be canonically gay, and I strongly agree that Warcraft badly needs more representation in that regard.  In this book alone, it would have been so easy to have that blacksmith bringing a helmet as a gift to his long-lost Forsaken husband instead of friend.  But we also need a major Warcraft character to be unequivocally LGBT.  It’s way, way past time.  Get on it, Blizzard.

[Edited to add:  I almost forgot, another kind of representation I wish they had explored was that of physical disability.  As convenient as Anduin’s Magic Lie-and-Bad-Idea-Detecting Bones are, why couldn’t he have had some negative lasting effects of being crushed by the Divine Bell?  Chronic aches, maybe a limp at least?  Loss of a limb, even?  There is a narrative to be explored there, and as someone with a close family member who suffers from chronic pain and limited mobility it would be refreshing to see that kind of thing addressed.]

Moving on, I’ve never cared for Valeera Sanguinar that much, but I did like how she’s set up as Anduin’s super secret spy.  I wonder if she gets to wear pants now.

Big ol’ meanie Sylvanas made Baine and Anduin stop being pen pals.  *pout*  I loved how Magni called her “lassie,” though.  That takes balls of diamond, to be sure...

Speaking of the banshee queen, I tried very hard to read between the lines to see what their long-term plans are for her.  Just because the last line of the book is Anduin proclaiming that she’s beyond saving, that doesn’t mean they aren’t going to try to pull off some kind of redemption arc.  If anything it just draws our attention to the question.  

Is Anduin right?  A big part of his plot arc lately is how he’s finding his way, making mistakes and learning from them.  Could he be wrong about Sylvanas?  He saw potential for good in Garrosh that never developed, so it’s not impossible that he could find compassion for Sylvanas someday...if she shows remorse and a desire to change.  And that’s an “if” bigger than the sword sticking out of Silithus.

I didn’t see any signs of her wrestling with her conscience.  If anything, the emphasis on how some Forsaken do still have feelings (besides hatred, bitterness, and anger) condemned her all the more by comparison.  Yet she does regret Vol’jin’s death, and she did respect him.  And her feelings were definitely hurt by her sisters’ responses to her, and you have to have feelings to have them be hurt.  But her lack of remorse for any of the vicious, heartless things she does, combined with her new penchant for killing her own people, doesn’t bode well for her to have a change of heart any time soon.

I also kept a close eye on Nathanos.  In his short story they made a point of saying that his senses were sharper with his new body, and that he felt a pang of regret for the first time since his death.  That could simply be an indication of his renewed state, or it could be a tiny sliver of foreshadowing that he’s not 100% on board with Sylvanas’ plotting.  Then again, that was set before Legion, and he spent all of Stormheim frantically trying to find her, and worrying about her, and just generally not being remotely subtle about how much he cares for her.  Heh.  Then again, he can care about her (in whatever way the undead feel such bonds, that is) and still think she’s going too far with her ideas about the valkyr, raising more Forsaken, keeping them up and functioning indefinitely without the release of true death, etc.  Interesting potential for conflict there, as well.

I don’t know that I even want to see a Sylvanas redemption arc, but it’s fun to try guessing what Blizzard has planned.  And such a plot twist would alleviate some of the “Didn’t we just do this same ‘overthrow a bad warchief’ plot with Garrosh?” syndrome, and allow them to keep around one of the franchise’s most recognizable characters.

I was also relieved to find no evidence that Anduin is being corrupted by the Old Gods, Azerite, or anything else.  He’s true to himself and the Light, as always.  I appreciate characters who stubbornly insist that there is good in (almost) everyone, despite living in a world that does its best to beat that optimism out of them.  It’s not blind idealism or naivete; it’s faith and its own kind of strength.

Sylvanas and Anduin are fascinating foils for each other.  The stark contrast between a young king who is still finding his place and a bitter, scarred, centuries-old queen, someone who comes to understand that death is not always the enemy versus someone who digs in her heels and refuses to accept it, someone who wants his people to be happy versus someone who kills them for not agreeing with her...  It’s intriguing.

Was it the best book ever?  No.  Did I enjoy reading it?  Yes.  Is it absolutely necessary to read in order to understand the story going into the next expansion?  Nah.  Would it have been a lot better with Wrathion in it somehow?  Of course.  ;)

And that’s my two cents.  (Er, well, judging by how long this post got, more like $2.50.)

[ainchase]

Bluhen’s Journey

Let’sssssssssss dive into what Bluhen’s quest description says...

It’s nothing surprising or “whoa where did that come from” because we all kind of knew that he would choose the path of “I want to stay with the El Search Party even if I can’t be with them forever” but let’s just take a moment to appreciate

Bluhen’s, Erbluhen Emotion’s Lofty: Anpassen’s Ainchase’s journey

to this point

and what he went through to finally come to this resolution. When Ain was given his mission by the Goddess Ishmael and first arrived in Elrios to, now, say it with me, restore the energy to the unstable El, this was him:

Hear me, O creations of Ishmael: I was nothing but a single mass of light, before the will of God had reached me. Divine were the words that granted my form, and sacred was the mission my eyes opened to: “Thou shalt bestow energy on the weakened El.” To be born in the realm of God is to live by the words of God; I shall heed the call and accept the mission, to fulfill my purpose and return to the heavenly realm. I say again, By the sacred mission I have descended upon this land; My will is God’s will, and my existence is God’s wish.

Basically he’s saying

“Im getting the fuck out of here as soon as I do my job, which, the Goddess herself has given me, ehem, okay?”

And this mentality rings clear throughout the early stages of the Epic Quest in Ruben and Elder. Ain is eager to restore the shattered El and just get this shit done with as soon as possible. At first Ain couldn’t really understand why the ESP was helping the ungrateful human so much, and why they bother going through the trouble instead of focusing only on the objectives: restoring the El. Much to his dismay, everyone is a little too slow with the El Restoration business, and he’s beyond frustrated. 

Executor basically noped the fuck out of the party because they are too slow and he couldn’t stand human’s humanness (greed/incompetence/stupidity), Wanderer had a breakdown from all the lack of progress they were making with the mission. But Anpassen stayed, perhaps because he was fascinated by why and more importantly, how the El Search Party was finding the reason to do  things for others without expecting anything in return. 

What he discovered was altruism.

Ain becoming Lofty: Anpassen wasn’t because he was like “Oh cool so this is what human emotion is” or Lofty: Anpassen becoming Erbluhen Emotion wasn’t “I totally get human emotions now; so this is anger and this is happiness”

If you read his job descriptions carefully, you’ll learn that Ain was able to manifest El’s energy with something else; it wasn’t simply “human emotion” but compassion. Anpassen and Erbluhen is the product of Ain feeling compassion for his friends. The more he saw them helping each other even in times of hardship, he felt something within him. He was beginning to understand what it’s like to help someone and not expect anything for it. For Erbluhen, the ESP was in trouble and Anpassen desperately wanted to save them. It was something he never felt before. With his sincere desire to help his friends, he gained ability to control Eids even more effectively. So his entire character concept revolves around positive human social interactions like compassion, camaraderie, friendship, and such. It’s not “Oh yay I learned what sadness is today, I am so strong now.”

Now if this is a bit confusing from the way KoG throws around the word “emotion,” I understand. Sometimes I get the feeling they don’t know what they’re saying. This isn’t me saying I know their character more than them; I’m saying they blurred the line between compassion and “emotion” that it now all sounds really confusing and really what the f

I’m guessing they’re trying to say compassion and altruism are something only humans experience so a Celestial being such as Ain feeling altruistic is truly very “human” of him but we all know that’s not true; even animals can be altruistic and feel compassion for others. (See Elephants and Dolphins)

And they do try to draw a very distinct difference between Arme who loses even more “emotion” when he becomes Richter (reminiscent of Harnier losing herself as she becomes part of the El; Illuminos phenomenon, I guess it’s an effect of becoming more “God/Celestial”-like and less human), and Erbluhen Emotion becomes even more “emotional” when he becomes Bluhen. I guess being emotionally invested in others and helping each other is the concept KoG was trying to grasp. But simply saying “Emotion is Bluhen’s source of power” is really dodgy and confusing because malevolence and feeling murderous are also emotion...

So

Ain: I am going to finish my job and go back home to where I used to be a ball of light because humans are stinky

Anpassen: I don’t know why they’re wasting time; this is amusing. I wonder what motivates them to go out of their way to help each other. Oh hey what are these things they’re kind of cool; how do I use them???

Erbluhen Emotion: I am unsure exactly why but I want to help the party when they’re in trouble. I can control Eids however I want to and I can use them to make sure everyone in the party is safe... I want to be with them...? But they will forget me once I complete my mission and disappear. What’s the point of my existence, I wonder... Was I not created to fulfill an important mission? Am I allowed to care about my own well-being? For my own sake? I’ll leave my fate up to Elsword.

Bluhen: I thought I was going to disappear forever but I have been given another chance by the grace of Elia. I had fears and doubts about my future, as Henir’s influence weakened me. But my friends have not only saved me but also helped me find out who I am and what kind of future I want for myself. I want to be with the party as long as I could, even if the only thing left for me is regret because the times I have shared with them and will share with them is more important than the fear for my future.

I have skipped over a lot of Epic Quest existential crisis because I think we’ve all seen it before but... Man, Ain has come a loooooooooong way. I can’t wait to see how angsty Apostasia 3rd story is going to be.

[playeroneplayertwo]

I like the pictures for these two posts, but neither HORRIFIED nor WINGSPAN will appear on this two-part list. I would, however, fully endorse Horrified as an excellent gateway--and superior (!!) alternative to Pandemic.

NOTE: Part 1 can be found here--and apologies this took a lifetime to complete.

Harbour (2015) WTF is this OOP?; Complexity 2.09/5; BGG; Mechanisms: Worker Placement, Set Collection, Variable Player Powers

I already said that, for many, worker placement is the evergreen mechanic, so I figured I'd turn two entries on this list over to it. Where Coal Baron was a slight subversion of the genre, Harbour is not. This is the prototypical game in that you place a worker, do an action, and block a space. In Harbour, believe it or not, you're working in a... harbor. You, as a small gremlin-looking fellow visiting buildings to take actions, selling goods (cows, stone, wood, fish) in order to parlay those sales into purchasing new buildings in the harbor, thereby giving you new action spaces to do new cool stuff.

Harbour is a great entry into the inherently meaner side of worker placement because you only have one worker, so it's not quite as overwhelming as games where you start with a heap o' workers, but you can most certainly block action spaces. Not only that, but the market of the game is a simple system of fluctuating prices that are affected each time a player sells something. For a small box game, Harbour includes the idea of supply/demand, so things that aren't being sold to market are worth more, while things being sold constantly tank in value. Buildings have varied and interesting special abilities, and there are a lot of buildings that will come out into play during any given game, as well as a huge host of special abilities that players will start with, making the game play slightly asymmetrical.

With its worker placement, fluctuating market prices, buying/selling, and special abilities, Harbour is an excellent small box introduction to a plethora of Euro mechanics, and the fact that all of these interesting aspects are encapsulated in such a cleap, small box is remarkable. I will say, however, that of the six games on this list, Harbour is the game I'm least likely to play because I've grown past it as a gamer. I've seen this jokingly referred to as Tiny Epic Le Havre, which feels very on the nose. That being said, it does a remarkable job of introducing a handful of popular Euro mechanics, so if this game piques your interests, it has plenty of bigger, meatier siblings out there.

For a game that I haven't touched in a long while, Harbour is probably one of the best single small box game introductions to Euro mechanics I've played.

For those meat and potato worker placement fans (light to heavy): Lords of Waterdeep, Viticulture: Essential Edition, The Gallerist

If you enjoyed the market-based buying/selling/producing bits: Clans of Caledonia

Valley of the Kings (2014) Try it and get the deluxe edition; Complexity 2.19/5; BGG; Mechanisms: Card Drafting, Deck Building, Hand Management, Set Collection

It was inevitable that I include deck building on here. For me, deck building is like the junk food of mechanics. When I first encountered deck building, it was all I wanted to do. There is something driving and compulsive about it. You have the feeling that all you have are options, with infinite combos laid out at your feet. I wanted to try every theme and variation possible. For a little bit, the hobby seemed to be exploding with deck builders of all stripes, with variations popping up everywhere.

Things have cooled now, and it seems deck building has found a more comfortable passenger seat behind (or partnered alongside) other mechanics in mid+ weight Euros, and I think that pairing it with additional mechanics in bigger games actually brings the mechanic to life. Deck building is the idea that all players will start with a small deck of very basic and underpowered cards--generally consisting of cards of different currencies, like attack and some kind of purchasing currency--that you'll use to either buy or defeat other cards, adding them to your deck and thereby increasing the strength of purchasing or fighting, as well as the abilities available to you.

It's a simple idea, but boy is it like Pringles when you first play it. We have a lot of deck builders, and a bunch more that we've since parted ways with. The problem is that many feel a bit themeless and similar, begging the question: If you've played one deck builder, have you played them all?

I would argue no. That being said, if you've played one, you've played... most. Dominion, Marvel: Legendary, Star Realms, Aeon's End, Hero Realms, Nightfall, Paperback, Eminent Domain, Core Worlds, Ascension, Marvel Dicemasters (not deck but dice pool builder), Shadowrun: Crossfire/Dragonfire, and Thunderstone all feel pretty sorta similar. Granted, they each bring a little teeny bit of something different, but if you didn't like one of these, you probably won't like most/any of them.

Valley of the kings subverts a lot of the classic expectations of a deck builder. First of all, the market is spatially interesting. Not just a flat row of cards that randomly come out, these cards form a pyramid, and you're only able to purchase cards on the bottom row. For the first time, maybe it would behoove you not to buy a decent card on the bottom, because once you do, the card above it will "fall" down and become available to the next player. But maybe you should do it anyway, because there are plenty of cards that let you slightly manipulate the arrangement of the pyramid, anyway. More interesting than the pyramid, however, is the end game scoring. Most cards are not worth flat rate points, but rather points based on how many you were able to squirrel away. And by "squirrel away," I mean you'll literally need to start removing them from your deck, one at a time, and adding them to your "tomb" (errr, thematically-named scoring pile) in order to score. Great cards in your deck or hand at the end of the game are worth nothin'. Timing is everything. If you realize that the other player is burying way more cards than you and accelerating the speed of the game, you really need to get on your horse and get those cards into your tomb, otherwise you're going to be out a lot of points. But by removing the cards from your deck, you will become less powerful. So... when do you do it?

Tough choices are the queen in great games, and for a tiny box that is not expensive, this game packs a lot of difficult, interesting decisions.

For excellent straight-up deck builders to get you shufflin' everyday: Legendary Encounters: Alien and Arctic Scavengers

If you want a little bit of deck building in your slightly heavier Euros: Great Western Trail (most Alexander Pfister, really), Orléans (not deck, but pool building), Time of Crisis, Newton, Concordia, Founders of Gloomhaven, Undaunted: Normandy/North Africa

Welcome To... $20ish depending on the day; Complexity 1.82/5; BGG; Mechanisms: Roll & Write, Bingo, Pattern Building

Roll and write games are like the little subgenre that could. So small, so simple, and so popular. For the past few years, roll and writes have fought for a place at the table, and at this point, I think they've done it. Heck, they even have entries that are skewing heavier in weight (Welcome to Dino World). That being said, lightness permeates most roll and writes, and that's not a bad thing. Light doesn't necessarily translate to SLIGHT.

Roll and writes are games where players begin with the same, or very similar, starting sheets of paper, at which point some randomizing thingy like dice (see: roll and write) or cards are used to present variable restrictions or requirements that players must work on accomplishing. As you draw or write or fill-in boxes on your little paper, your sheet will begin to look quite different from everyone else's. At the end of the game, you'll calculate scores and the highest wins. Yay.

Roll and writes have a great tactile nature, which for some reason is easier to teach than more abstract ideas you'd find in an equally light game. Being able to draw routes or write down numbers or shade specific areas feels oddly familiar, which makes roll and write games very family friendly. They also generally have a small footprint, small box, and low price tag, without sacrificing replayability. We have a few roll and writes, and I can say that they all seem to have high replayability--if roll and writes are your thing. I've read plenty from people who don't seem to like roll and writes, but the myriad options that clever designers have managed to get into these tiny games are remarkable. In Railroad Ink, you will roll dice that show sections of track, and slowly you will draw tracks on tiny dry erase boards, working to score specific features before your turns run out. In the aforementioned Welcome to Dino World, you'll be building dinosaur pens, powering electric fences, building features for your park, and trying to prevent the dinos from busting out and devouring people your score.

But what about Welcome To...? This game is a small, card-driven roll and write where you flip three double-sided cards so you'll be showing a trio of pairs baring number on one side and a feature on the back of another card, forcing you to choose one and add it to your map of a minute subdivision. Your working to meet end game objectives for points, as well as build specific features, like parks, to make sure you have the best neighborhood around.

Welcome To... brings the simple gameplay and high replayability along with a charming theme and low price tag. I could always play Welcome To..., and it does everything without falling into a roll and write pitfall of being too vaguely mathy or themeless. We've played with family who have not moved beyond Scrabble, and they loved it. And we've played it more than our fair share at the end of the night with a cool adult beverage in hand.

Roll more and write more, too: The Cartographers, Railroad Ink, Silver & Gold, On Tour, Imperial Settlers: Roll and Write

I want something a smidge heavier than that Welcome To... game: Welcome to New Las Vegas!

If you just want a taste of this because it sounds a little juvenile: Get the app for Ganz Schon Clever, which technically may be my most played game ever considering how you just want to get a higher score. You can do better. No, you can do better! Play again! No, now!

***

SORRY this took so long to complete. The problem with taking a long time to write about some games is that now a handful are hard to get. Go figure. Check your local store, older games have plenty of life.

[sleepytoycollection]

SpacePops: A Review Part 2

Part 1: Here

Well, here I am again, this took me longer to get around to than I intended, but hey, I had four times as many dolls to look at. Not to mention how much drawing I’ve been doing for my main blog lately, so yeah I’ve been busy. 

Anywhoozle, as my first review can tell you, I found my Luna doll to have a certain amount of charm through all her cheapness, and if you can still find one from your local TRU; you might be lucky enough to snag them for round $2 bucks each as I did. And I def recommend getting one if you can, if nothing else for a nice, articulate spare body and some MH sized shoes. Just don’t let your self pay for than $5 for one. They’re not that fun. 

I was lucky enough to manage to get a hold of all five characters, so let’s see how they measure up to Luna. To avoid being too repetitive I’ll try to focus on their unique features only.

Let’s start with Rhea:

Rhea was actually the one I liked the best from her art work. I mean look at it, she looks amazing here, the boots, thigh high stockings, the layers, gloves and chains would’ve made for an amazing doll of the effort had been put in. 

I won’t ramble forever about the what-ifs, but it’s just so much of a punch to the stomach to know we’ll never see the real potential these had realized.

I’m not gonna go through the all the profiles, but if anyone’s interested I could scan them in for better visibility. 

Gremlin #2.

Getting her out of the box, the first thing that struck me was her hat.

And I mean that literally as there was nothing helping it attach to her head. Much as I’m grateful these dolls lack those plastic ties shot into their heads that mattel’s become so fond of; I don’t think a rubber band would’ve too much to ask for.

Here she out of the box:  

She’s...something.

After how much Luna has surprised me by simply being less bad than I feared; Rhea on the other hand was everything I’d worried these girls would be. 

Her hair is terrible, it’s the cheapest, nastiest of all the dolls, it’s literally the same stuff the Midnight magic dolls used. It had a gross, greasy feel and wants to pull away from the scalp if I dare try to run a comb through it. 

Ugh. On top of that, it became quickly clear I’d gotten a Rhea with a defective hand. Instead of the normal back and forth movement almost every other doll has, she’s got side to side movement. 

Except, her hands still have the dents in the molding indicating it’s not meant to turn that way. I’m at a loss. I really can’t tell how this happened, or how her hand isn’t falling off. 

It could’ve been worse in that regard, but there’s not many good uses for side to side movement that look natural. 

At this point I’d only opened the one doll prior, and so was extremely worried I’d simply gotten lucky with Luna. 

sigh. 

Her outfit is super cheap, made cheaper looking by how complex a design they were trying to emulate. It’s all one piece and gives the impression of a store bought Halloween costume in miniature. 

I will grant however, all the dolls having their name on their tag is cute. 

But it’s a wasted detail on something this cheap. The black band on her waist is a sort of flimsy, felt-like material, and the knit of her shorts is thin. I feel like I could easily tear a run in it if I pull just a little too much, especially being unhemmed as they are. 

She’s got a slight blue tint to her pale complexion, as you can see her here next to Catrine. 

The socks are made of paint, and I’d have rather they be left off entirely. Her left knee also doesn’t bend, and I have not been able to fix it yet.

As you can imagine, after Rhea I lost a lot of energy for these girls. She was the doll I’d wanted the most, and was just disappointing in every way, despite me already having incredibly low standards. 

Still, I was going to have to open these girls up eventually. So this time I decided to go for the design I’d liked the least with Athena: 

Every time I look at her dress I can’t help but think of the Flintstones. Not in a cute way either. 

It’s like if, after their crossover, a member of the Jestons universe tried to make a fashion version of their cave clothing as a cheap cash in, and just doesn’t work for me that much. Maybe it’s partly the colors used. 

It’s a little better art wise, but eh. Maybe if she wasn’t he same color as Rhea..?

Blah blah profile. 

Gremlin #3.

Despite my opinions on her look, out of the box she struck me as a pleasant increase in quality if nothing else.  Nothing falling off, no visible defects.

It was around this time tho I was starting to realize there seemed to be a decided aversion to hair gel. Her spiked updo’ is translated as a short ponytail here.

Can’t say I mind too much, but lack of gel means her hair gets pulled pretty easily, especially where her glasses are. She’s got nothing on Gilda Goldstag that’s for sure. 

Her tie is made of the same cheap fuzzy stuff Rhea’s belt was made of, for that matter her gold belt is the only new fabric type here. 

But to my great surprise her skirt has a separate over lay! 

And it’s even lined, I’ll admit it improved my opinion of her a good bit. It feels sturdy.

Her netted sleeve too is competently made. 

..but left a stain on her arm. 

With out the overlay her outfit looks a bit less flinstone-y, so I’m just gonna leave it off. 

Under her dress she has some pink tights, which I appreciate as they become less and less common in the doll world. Even if it makes me wonder why Rhea couldn’t have had socks. Just one of those things I guess.

Her glasses are held in neatly with, of all things, the help of tiny plastic bobby pins! 

!!! I’m sorry but that’s adorable, tiny pins! And they work! Amazing. 

Her hair is the same quality as Luna’s, thank goodness, and is easy enough to brush out.  

But to my dismay, her glasses don’t fit her face. If you put the arms over her actual ears, they set waayyyy too low. I can’t get them to twist so the bridge will set on her nose. But if I place them high enough so the lens can cover her eyes, they get stuck from her head being too wide and wont’ touch her face. 

That said, I like the shape and look of these, and I’m sure I have plenty of other dolls who can rock them. But it doesn’t say much for your line if your accessories can’t be used for the doll they were made to be used on.

Still, Athena was a huge improvement to my energy for these girls, so let’s hop over to Hera. 

I wanna take a sec to apologize for the quality of several of these pics, my camera’s very old and staring to kick the bucket. 

Hera’s pretty cute, if you like Draculaura. Which I do. The fact the lime green specifically reminds me of Snow Bite, which is my fav version of Ula helps make it a pleasant comparison. 

Gremlin #4. 

Yay! A different fabric! And hemming! It’s a dream come true~

Now if only I had the same excitement over her hair.

It’s the standard for these dolls tbh, but being curled has not agreed with it. I’m kinda afraid to touch it. She’s got a head band in there, but it’s very hidden.

even if it wasn’t, it’s just a plain ribbon, no where near the flower crown of her art.  

The dress is really the star here, of all the outfits so far it’s the one that feels the sturdiest, and no printed details. 

Her tag. 

Her tights are different fabric to the other ones we’ve seen. It’s not as stretchy, which is why you see it sagging around the knees. It’s the kind of netting you’d see as a tulle petticoat. 

It looks alright, but it makes me concerned with how durable these would be in the long run.  

Now,you may have noticed me not making any comments on the shoes. Well I have a very good reason for that:

They’re all the same. They reused the same shoe mold for all four of these girls, leaving only one who doesn’t have these heels. 

That girl being of course, Juno. 

She was my second favorite of all the girls when I saw their art all that time ago. 

Aside from how much I love the colors used, she has pants! And a shaved head! 

...And another Gremlin.

And last but not least, here she is:

Of all the girls, she’s the one who comes the closest to looking like her boxart. 

So not too surprising her outfit is to be my favorite of the bunch. 

She’s also the only one to use any kind of styling product. Fairly lightly, but it’s on there. Yet, despite how little there was used they still managed to get a good bit on her face. 

 Can’t have it all I suppose. 

But the flocking looks good. 

I also appreciate how she has the most unique face paint of all the ladies.  It’s not much by usual standards, but with every girl using the same face mold, they can use all the differences they can get.

Without her Jacket you can bein to see just how had that top is, but she can put her hands in her pockets, so if there had to be a trade off, I’ll admit they made the right one. 

Her jacket is nicely sewn, only her collar sporting an unfinished hem, but I don’t know how you’d really hem those jagged edges anyhow. It’s usable and looks alright. 

Her boots tho, no complaints there. By Spacepop standards these are the best shoes you’ll ever see. By normal doll standards they’re still not bad. 

I very serious when I say I love these pants. I feel like most of their clothing budget went into that fabric. Almost like someone was trying. 

Sigh. But then you get this. 

It’s garbage. The worst piece of all the clothing I’ve seen here, and there’s no way this would’ve held up to a child.

Now what else have I not covered..oh yeah. The gremlins. 

They suck. 

Like the shoes, the reused the same mold 4 times. Unlike the shoes, I never thought they were cute. 

Only 1 dared to use a different mold, Athen’s gremlin: 

...Who might be the only one that comes close to being endearing. The combo of a cute hair style, cute paint details, side glancing eyes, make Roxie almost a nice accessory. 

Whew, well, now I’ve gone through everything I could think to talk about. 

Having gone over every doll just cements that the execution of this line was a huge misstep on the part of Madame Alexander. Tho I can’t be sure.I get the impression they made these to compete with Monster High, but they company simply waited too long.  

By 2016 MH was going into the reboot, and with Mattel’s sales and quality going down MA seemed to lost faith in these ladies and gave up before release. It’s a shame too, Maybe the weren’t the most original idea on the market, but They could’ve been a nice solid competition. Instead we got these; and it leaves me with a sense of melancholy the more I think about the ways things are going. With new lines and experiments coming to a standstill nowadays, doll collecting has been less and less exciting. 

And now, less than a year after their debut Spacepops have gone the way of Pinkie Cooper and Novi Stars. In their own way, the last remnant of an era of collecting that’s now gone as styles shift to something else.   

Still, I plan to have fun my new new set of ladies, I haven’t completely decided how far I’ll go, maybe leave them as-is for posterity. Their flat face ups have grown on me. Maybe I just miss the bright, harsher colors that are going out of style. 

All that said, I bought a spare Athena to experiment with, so I’ll def have some follow ups with how these ladies look with a good repaint. 

Anyway, I’m tired and out of thoughts for now. Hopefully you found this somewhat informative, and as always thanks for reading. 

[thefandomships-imagines]

Ship

hi. ❤️ could i get a avengers, x men and suicide squad ship? 5'9, inverted triangle body shape, brown hair with bangs, heterochromia ( blue eyes, left one’s mixed with hazel ), baby face, dimples. slytherin. isfj. bi-curious. at first, i’m shy, quiet and reserved. usually playful, dirty minded and fun around friends. a perfectionist, control freak, slight clean freak. stubborn, jealous, emotional, punctual, impulsive, selfish, socially awkward. if i’m annoyed or impatient, i can say something mean or witty which later on i may regret. i put on a mask of confidence, but i’m really not due to my body insecurities and the small gap between my front teeth. when i’m hurt, i turn petty and may complain. when i’m nervous, i talk a lot. hate crying in front of people. don’t like to be forced into stuff or being compared to somebody. i don’t like to ask people for help. i can’t fall asleep without music. dislike romance. i stress over little things, like - make a big deal out of nothing. nervous whenever i do something out of my comfort zone. hopefully, one day i’ll find my true calling, but right now i’m thinking about becoming an actress. motherly towards kids. fashion is my passion, as well as reading and role playing on tumblr. after finishing high school, i want to travel the world. overprotective over my mom and lil’ sis, knowing my mom is a single parent. daddy issues. bad at cooking. spontaneous road trips with loud music on is life. prefers tea over coffee. dress to impress. thank you so much!

Note: Gifs or characters are not mine! I just get them off of tumblr or google, if you see one that’s yours and isnt credited, please contact me and i’ll fix that :)

Hello lovely! 

Avengers:

I ship you with Bruce Banner!

You strike me as a person that spends a lot of time in their ‘shell’, and isn’t very comfortably with others very quickly due to your reserved nature and said ‘ mask’ you tend to wear in front of people you don’t know very well.  It takes some time in order to get comfortable with others and that’s okay, and if there’s someone that understands that it’s Bruce, the only one who could see trough the confident banter next to Wanda Maximoff. It’s one of the things that made him interested in you from the moment he met you.  He is not the most extraverted person himself, not really going with playful conversation like the rest of the group tries to do.  It wasn’t until you two had both stayed behin while the rest went out into town that you realised that you had more in common than you thought. You got into conversation and somehow he immediately felt comfortable around you and started opening up to you bit by bit. This encouraged you to, unawarely, do the same. He kind of dragged you out of your shell and you started hanging out together more and more, which your friend Wanda did not take long to notice.  How you got together: Stupidly, Bruce had confided in his friend Tony about talking to you and about how comfortable you made him feel. Big mistake. Because if Tony smells drama, a way to draw his friend out of his comfort zone or both, he loooves to exploit it. One of the things bruce told him was that he did not understand how insecure you felt sometimes. When Tony asked why, the answer was that he found you absolutely breathtaking. You were beautiful, unique and you made him feel accepted and made him laugh. You’re honest, protective and smart. In short : he sounded like a lovesick puppy.  And since Tony knew Wanda was your friend, he went to her. Turned out she shipped it too and together, the unusual duo concocted a plan…… Bruce would NEVER hurt you, or make you feel small in a bad way. He respects you immensly and understands about 9/10 of the time. You’re the only one allowed completely into his mind, and hopes you trust him excactly the same. You’re also the only one allowed to tease him. Ever. 

X-men:

I ship you with Havoc!

Alex seems like a real asshole at first, and he probably was when he was younger. Tough from the moment that Charles and Erik went to fetch him out of jail, he changed completely. When you joined the group, it took time to get used to him . A LOT of time. Actually, he used to think of you as a little rude, and had trouble reading you so he didn’t usually make contact with you. This was the biggest problem in the beginning, not being able to get a read off each other causes a lot of fights and snarky comments, making the rest of the group unhappy with you seeming like enemies more than comrades. He began to feel more like understanding what you were about after spotting you in your free time. The way you were with your little sister, the bond you had reminded him of his own little brother. He saw how protective you were over her, for example when you got in trouble with a couple of jerks and you got them to fuck off. It made him want to be a better person for his own family.

When you got back, he acted completely differently than how he had seen you with your family. Your wall was back up and that was something he did understand. After all, he was the one that tore everything apart, landed in jail, all because he acted differenly, to not be vulnerable. He kept notincing more layers of yours after that. The way you spoke so indifferently and playfully to Raven and Banshee, wheres you were much more considerate of ‘Bozo’ aka Hank. The way ‘the claws’ came out when you were pissed, and the way you sat by yourself, buried in a book pretending to read while half-sulking later.  He started admiring you, though you never picked up on that and just kept doing so until Hank, while annoyed wih Alex,  uncharacteristically told him ‘to stop being a little bitch and do something other than swooning from afar, if he’s so tough’. So thats what he did. At first you really didnt understand why the hell he was interested in you and you actually thought it was a joke. Luckily that didn’t last very long. Alex is now the most attentive and protective guy you could wish for, though you’d never even thought of him being an option. 

Suicide Squad:

I ship you with Rick Flag! 

Rick, after all that happened was broken, lightly said. He didn’t know what to do with himself after the battle. Sure, he’d go home, shower, eat and sleep, but his visions of the world and of right and wrong were twisted up. Almost as if he’d lost his purpose. Good guys had turned out to be bad and a firebreathing-god gangster had sacrificed himself to save the rest, his family he had called it. So he just pretended to have moved on. The baddies went back to jail and he went back to work.

Rick and you hadn’t been on good or bad terms. You just accepted the fact that you co-existed. Sometimes you dares joke with each other. You see, Rick automatically hated criminals and didn’t hate figures associated with the law in a good way. The thing is, you were neither.  Well, you didn’t have a record, though your reputation was…..interesting. Which is why you got in the team, you were granted full immunity for the future. To be honest you would have done it for free, since you kinda do live on this planet and rather not have it detroyed. You weren’t as overpowered as your late friend El Diablo or as crazy as Harley, but damnit if you weren’t a badass.  Knives were your thing, and at your thing, you were the best. Granted, being about 5 times as agile and 3 times as fast as the average human also helped. And all while looking slayin’. Yeah, let’s pass the spandex. So, after the battle you simply returned to your old life as well, occasionally standing by on a A.R.G.U.S. mission, which is, after a couple of months, where you saw Rick again.  When you saw him, you almost flinched. He seemed so lost. Dark bags under his eyes, abviously thinner, paler than ever and he barely opened his mouth. Mr. gruffypants certainly didn’t deserve this.  When Rick saw you after a couple of months, his reaction was more the opposite of yours. He was slowly recovering from all his emotional damage, and now, he felt guilty. Very guilty as he looked at you. He was moving on but he felt wrong looking at another person, and finding that he enjoyed watching the way their outfit hugged their curves. He did not speak to you that night. 

Fastforward three weeks. A group of agents  were chasing an installment of the Triads. Yay, which meant you were called out of your comfy bed again since annoying you was easier that getting Boomerang, who would try to escape….. In the meanwhile, the guilt had been another factor combined in crushing Rick’s mental condition. The chase was going nowehere, well, apart from four killed and two wounded at your side, It was safe to say it was a shitty night.  When your team lost track of said Triads at 3 o’clock in the moring shit hit the fan. You had to call it in to Walker, who was not amused. Ambulances and coroners where called in an you were making sure everyone that needed it got help. You were not that much of a villain. All were accounted for, except your brusque Captain. Damnit.  When you finally did find him, you did not know excacty what to do. He was huddled against the wall of an abandoned building, your silly little superiour.  Slowly, you approached him, sliding against the wall next to him.  You didn’t say anything. Neither did he. 

You awoke to a car honking. Great, you thought. Six in the moring, in an abandoned builing, half asleep with Flags’ head on my lap…. FLAGS’ HEAD ON MY LAP. Shit. He did look cute, relaxed.  After about an hour he started to stir.  ‘I haven’t slept this long since months.’ he smiled.  ‘Great.’ you deadpanned. ‘I’m oficially functional as a plushie.’ 

You might be an odd couple, and you might not have been a ‘good guy’, but you were Captain Rick Flag’s salvation. And now, whichever idiot tries to mess with you  hasn’t just got a knife-wielding superhuman after them, but also a very pissed of Rick Flag.  The rest of the squad loved to tease you guys about it all. And that’s all fun and games until there’s another knife stuck in the wall at A.R.G.U.S. headquarters, which, lightly said, makes Walker, not amused.

Hope ya liked them all :3

WELL THAT WAS ONE HELL OF A RIDE. 1560 WORDS HELP.  Extra elaborate because IM OFICCIALLY BACK *cheers*. Let’s just hope i wont have any forced hiatusus anytime soon again (@.@) Also, thanks for sending me a message and being so sweet! 

I might be a lil rusty so if you find any silly errors made by me please send in something so le me can fix it :D

[gemvictorfromtheponyverse]

Love at first Lizard Chapter One

Surprise! Me and @green-love-paternoster totally tricked you guys, because it’s not actually cancelled! There is 3 planned chapters and today we are presenting chapter Number One!!! Yay!

@idemandaspinoff @zaridaxe @dorvanie

————————————————————————

“Everything is goin’ to be alright, Greeny.” Jenny whispered reassuringly, hugging the travel cage for her chameleon lizard closer. She’d owned ‘Greeny’, as she called him, for little under a week, and already she had to take him to the vet.

Glancing up at the building in front of her, she swallowed audibly. It hadn’t been easy to find a vet that even catered to lizards to begin with, and now that she had found one that claimed to have an in-house reptile expert, she felt nervous. It was not that she was nervous about what they’d think of her, or Greeny, but rather the fact that she had never been to a vet’s office before. She had always hated hospitals, and the vet’s office gave her the same creepy feeling in her gut.

Nonetheless, Greeny needed looking after, and there was nowhere else she could go. Taking one last, deep breath, she grabbed the door and opened it, stepping inside.

The waiting room was small, but cozy, with pictures of delighted animals - mostly dogs and cats, but also a few horses and a rabbit - lining the walls, and a childish jungle themed carpet covered the floor. In the corner, a reception desk had been placed, and serving it was a petite dark haired girl that hardly seemed tall enough to see anything over the counter.

Swallowing loudly once more, Jenny gathered her courage and approached her. “Excuse me, ma’am?”

The girl, who had been absentmindedly drawing doodles on a notebook, instantly looked up upon hearing Jenny’s voice.

She looked at Jenny with big, warm brown eyes and a welcoming smile exclaiming, “Oh, hello there! Aren’t you a delightful surprise, business has been slow today, as you can see.” The girl made a sweeping gesture around the empty waiting room with pen still in hand. “My name’s Clara, how may I help you today?”

Feeling a little more confident thanks to the girl’s cheery attitude, Jenny smiled back. “Hello there. I’m Jenny Flint, and I need someone to look at my lizard? He seems to be a bit ill.” She lifted up the travel cage still in her hands for the girl to see, as if to emphasise her statement. “I heard you help lizards.”

Clara’s smile shrunk a bit as she switched her gaze from Jenny to the lizard huddled inside the carrier cage. The poor thing clearly didn’t seem to be doing so well, since he barely moved within the cage. Clara’s no lizard expert, but she hoped whatever that is wrong with the lizard will get fixed soon.

Clara then glanced back toward Jenny with a slightly sympathetic expression, for she saw that Jenny was genuinely worried about the health of her pet lizard. “You heard correctly indeed! Our certified in-house reptile expert is certainly the best in all of London….but I must warn you that she can be a bit of a grumpy old tightwad sometimes,” added Clara with a mischievous lilt in her tone, an attempt to make Jenny feel more at ease. “If there’s anyone who can figure out the problem with your lizard, it’s her!”

Jenny bit her lip, barely holding back a smile. While the way Clara presented the woman was a bit odd, she sounded good enough. Before she could answer her, however, she was interrupted by another person entering the room.

“Clara! Have you got the file on that dog who…oh.” As the man, a tall brown haired guy in a doctor’s coat, spotted Jenny, he stopped immediately. He was standing just short of the threshold to the waiting room, and casually leaned against the wall as he gave Jenny a once over. “Clara, who’s the new customer?” He smiled, a mischievous and quite silly smile, that almost made Jenny wonder if vets were always this casual.

“John, this is Jenny,” explained Clara, returning an equally exuberant smile to the man in the doorway. “She came here today because her lizard is sick.”

Clara giggled as soon as she said that, which Jenny found quite odd, and the man’s grin seemed to grow even larger, as if this was some kind of inside joke just between the two of them.

“Right! A lizard!” John said enthusiastically, giving Clara another suggestive look. “Two beautiful female specimens for our dear loony lizard lady to take a look at. Oh, Vastra is surely going to be satisfied by this!” His grin was almost covering his entire face now, and Clara looked as though she was struggling very hard not to laugh her head off. What was supposedly so funny about the situation, Jenny didn’t know, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to find out, either.

Jenny had no idea what to expect next, but her attention soon got caught on the stunningly gorgeous woman that appeared beside John, most likely having been drawn in by all the commotion he and Clara was causing. The mystery woman was tall, about the same height as John. She had brilliantly sharp blue eyes framed behind thin, rounded black glasses, well defined cheekbones and jawline, and there was a strip of green running along the middle of her dark brown hair, which she kept tied in a neat bun. Jenny also noticed the woman’s seemingly impeccable sense of style, consisting of a silken form-fitting purple blouse tucked into her black slacks, and flats on her feet with a slightly raised heel. The woman definitely exuded a distinctive aura of flawless elegance and meticulous professionalism, that was in stark contrast with the easygoing atmosphere projected by the other two employees. Jenny couldn’t help holding in her breath at the awe inspiring sight of the beautiful woman, as something told her that this visit to the vet was going to get a lot more challenging.

The Doctor gave Vastra a far too gleeful look. “Ah, Vastra, glad to see you sticking your head round these parts. We got two fresh female samples for you to look at!” He tried to keep a serious tone, but utterly failed, and Jenny once more found herself confused as to why the doctor was referring to her and her lizard in such a way.

The woman, now identified to be Vastra, appeared to be utterly unimpressed as she shook her head and grumbled, “God grant me the strength to deal with these two foolish comedians without losing my sanity!” Vastra then stepped in closer and peered at Jenny’s lizard in the carrier cage for a moment, before looking back over her shoulder at John to say, “Nice try, Doctor Smith, but this one is a male. Honestly, for you to be a veterinarian, your horrendous grasp of biology troubles me!”

“Oi! I am a female!” Jenny objected sharply. Honestly, for a woman like that, gorgeous as she might be, to come here and call her a male. Like a male animal!

“And I do know biology!” John added, in response to the insult against his credentials as a veterinarian. “It’s just lizards that are, well…green and not green. Or the other way around!”

Completely ignoring John’s complaint, Vastra simply turned her head to face the visibly indignant Jenny and spoke smoothly, “Calm down, miss, I was actually referring to your pet, not you.” She allowed herself to do a quick visual scan of Jenny’s physical features and attire, noting that she was in fact rather attractive. Vastra immediately dismissed such inappropriate thoughts and continued in the same strictly formal tone, “Now, if you wouldn’t mind following me into my office room, I will be able to start properly examining your lizard there. It’s absolutely beyond my knowledge how Doctor Smith over here manage to get any work done, when he’s too busy making juvenile jokes with Miss Oswald.”

Sharply, Vastra turned around on her heels, and Jenny bit her lip hard to keep herself from letting out a noise as she caught sight of the woman’s well trimmed arse. It was the perfect, circular shape and Jenny could feel her cheeks heating up as she bit her lip even harder. Now was definitely not the time to lose herself to the appeal of the Lizard veterinarian, but by god, she was hot.

Holding the cage up in front of her like a shield, Jenny reluctantly turned to follow Vastra into her office.“Coming, Ma’am.” She said quietly, holding the cage a little tighter as she looked back at John and Clara by the desk, seeing them still giggling among themselves. “His name’s Greeny, by the way.” She didn’t know why she said the last part. It was stupid, extremely so, and she knew it. She knew no one who named their lizard Greeny, and yet, she had, thinking herself funny.

She just never thought she’d have to answer for it in front of an extremely hot lizard veterinarian.

Vastra stopped just before the door to her office, already having her hand on the doorknob, and Jenny swore she nearly dropped the cage when the oh so magnificent woman struck her with an expression of dubious disdain, one perfectly curved eyebrow raised up toward her forehead

“You can’t be serious, Miss Flint. ‘Greeny?’” Vastra scoffed in a haughty manner that was beginning to rub Jenny’s skin the wrong way. Throughout her years working in this clinic, Vastra had encountered pets with almost every single name you could imagine under the sun, but ‘Greeny’….now that was a new one; And by far, the least original she’ve ever heard. “You ought to be more creative than that, even my three year old nephew could come up with something better!“

Then without further ado, Vastra effortlessly twisted the doorknob to open the door leading into her office before walking in herself, and leaving Jenny standing outside with her mouth hanging agape in the wake of her surprisingly rude comment.

“Well I’m sorry, but I rather like calling my lizard Greeny. He is green.” Jenny couldn’t help but get defensive, because she couldn’t believe how unimaginably rude Vastra had just been. As if she had the right to judge what Jenny named her lizard!

Vastra wordlessly walked over to her desk at the other end of the room, where she picked up a disheveled stack of papers and proceeded to shuffle them.

“Well anybody with properly functioning eyes can clearly see that to be true, so my point still stands that naming him ‘Greeny’ is terribly redundant,” retorted Vastra while loftily waving away Jenny’s statement as if it was a pesky and insignificant fly.

Jenny huffed in annoyance. She’d told herself she wouldn’t care what they had to say about her and Greeny, but it was proving increasingly difficult, seeing as the veterinarian seemed to be hellbent on making everything harder and more embarrassing for Jenny. “Then what would you call a lizard? I, for one, cannot think of a better name.”

Vastra continued to occupy herself with various little miscellaneous tasks around her desk in order to avoid looking directly at her client, who she had mentally admitted to being the very most loveliest creature she’d ever laid eyes on, albeit not without tremendous difficulty. God knows it had been an excessively arduous task for her to maintain a steady, neutral composure out in the waiting room with Clara and John. No doubt those two would be cackling their heads off like hyenas if they could see her now, flustered out of her wits because of this stupidly beautiful girl with dark brown hair and charming brown eyes. She was exactly Vastra’s type, much to her utter dismay.

Using her naturally embedded cynicism as a pretense to mask her rising attraction, Vastra quipped in response,“How would I know, I’m only the vet around here. I don’t get paid enough to consult with painfully bland pet owners who can’t look beyond their animal’s physicality to give them an appropriate name.” Very subtly, Vastra’s head and shoulders seemed to become tense as she anticipated Jenny’s inevitable rebuttal, and the intoxicating sound of her Cockney accent that would come along with it.

At this, Jenny gave her an ice cold glare. Even for such a gorgeous woman as her, there wasn’t any good explanation for being quite so rude. The woman wouldn’t even look at her! It was almost as though she was not worthy of being acknowledged, for Vastra had better things to do.

Even with Clara’s warning poking at her from the back of her mind, it was frustrating. "Well then, maybe you could do your job, instead of complaining about things you clearly claimed are none or your concerns?”

Vastra could practically feel Jenny’s probing glare on the back of her head, causing an involuntary shiver to run down her spine. Nonetheless, she still managed to produce an articulate reply, “I simply stated my sympathies for your poor lizard who has to live the rest of his life with such a mediocre name as ‘Greeny’.” Then closing her eyes, Vastra inhaled a deep breath, and eventually was able to muster just enough courage to turn around toward her client. Obviously trying to be a bit more cordial, Vastra suggested, “Perhaps it would be best if you go ahead and tell me the reason you’re here, since we’ve just wasted half an hour debating your lizard’s name.”

Seeing her eyes, Jenny almost couldn’t breath. Gone was the frustration and anger, it all washed off of her like an unpleasant shower coming to an end. The brilliant blue eyes looked at her, waiting for her answer, and unconsciously, Jenny smiled. She didn’t even care that she had to spend half-an hour justifying her pet’s name to a stranger when she should have been at work. It didn’t matter anymore all of sudden.

“Yes, of course, uh, well…” Taking a deep breath, she tried to gather herself and figure out what to say next. “I recently bought this lizard, you see. I’ve only had him for little under a week, but he already seems to have gotten sick. He barely moves and won’t eat.”

It required every last ounce of willpower for Vastra not let herself become undone right there at the sight of Jenny’s radiant smile. She mentally cursed herself for getting too carried away with her unnecessarily snarky attitude, when she really should be helping Jenny tend to her lizard. Her demeanor softened considerably upon witnessing the apparent nervousness written all across Jenny’s face, and she smiled pityingly while gesturing toward the examination table in the middle of the room. “That does sound troublesome indeed, miss. I truly want to do everything I can to alleviate your lizard, but first I’ll need to ask that you take him out of the carrier cage for me.”

Jenny nodded, swallowing audibly as she walked over to the table, putting down the carrier case and opening it. Greeny was hiding in the furthest corner of the space, and she glanced at Vastra uncertainly. “Do you want to take him out?” She asked politely, standing by to lift him out herself if Vastra thought it was better. A little dumbstruck, Vastra nodded positively with a reassuring smile, “It would be my utmost pleasure, Miss Flint.”

Jenny’s ears instantly perked up upon detecting a mild, but still relatively evident Scottish accent among Vastra’s words, thus making her all the more attractive if that was even possible. Vastra went over to a cabinet on the wall where she retrieved a fresh pair of gloves, pulling them on with a satisfyingly audible snap.That simple action drew Jenny’s attention to Vastra’s exquisitely long fingers, which then set loose a chaotic whirlwind of very impure thoughts running through Jenny’s starstrucked mind;They might or might not, have been something along the lines of getting her body pinned against the office wall by the bewitchingly sexy veterinarian, and letting those surely capable fingers have their way with her. All that Jenny could do was keep biting her lip even harder, almost to the point of drawing blood, while simultaneously trying her best to appear normal in front of this goddamn goddess of a veterinarian. Jenny soon stepped aside to give Vastra access to the carrier and watched with baited breath as her hands reached into the carrier.

“That’s it, Greeny, who’s a good green lizard boy. Yes, come here to the nice veterinarian, I’m not going to hurt you,“cooed Vastra in such a beautifully soothing voice that it made Jenny want to laugh and her heart melt at the same time. Thanks to a bit of highly effective coaxing from Vastra, she finally succeeded in bringing Greeny out of his cozy carrier, holding him in a carefully firm, yet gentle grip.

Alas, everything was put into jeopardy, when the calmly quiet atmosphere of the room was suddenly interrupted by someone else bursting in through the door like a mighty blast of gale force wind.

“Madame! Strax is here to assist you, for the glory of this clinic!” The man standing and shouting in the doorway was short, buff and bald. He had slightly brown colored skin, and had Jenny not known any better, she would have compared him to an oversized, sentient cartoon potato. Only potatoes didn’t walk around screaming, nor did they dress like nurses. Still, in her mind Jenny decided to refer to…him? Him, as a potato.

The ruckus caused by Strax’s impromptu entrance did not sit well with Greeny, who began flailing his entire body within Vastra’s hands. That, in turn, caught Vastra off guard and she nearly dropped Greeny out of shock, but luckily she was able to catch herself at the last minute, and narrowly avoided getting her eye poked by one of the lizard’s sharp horns.

“Careful, Madame. The poky lizard would not do well on the floor.” Strax provided unhelpfully, the little potato not moving an inch and grinning like a madman at Vastra.

“STRAX! How many times must I tell you, not to be so BLOODY loud when you come into the office!” Barked Vastra in her exasperation at the rambunctious potato man. Then suddenly realizing the kind of language she had just used aloud, Vastra gave Jenny an apologetic grimace and said, “I am deeply sorry about this, Miss Flint, but my assistant can be quite….enthusiastic in his job sometimes.”

Inwardly, however, Vastra made herself a mental note to remember to kill the person responsible for feeding Strax the sherbert fancies that are making him obviously hyper.

Jenny merely shook her head. Nearly causing Vastra to drop Greeny aside, she found the little potato man quite adorable. “I believe it is fine. It does not appear to have been Mister Po…Strax’s intention to be disruptive. Right?” She smiled at the potato man, who smiled right back, as enthusiastic as ever before.

“Quite right, boy!” He confirmed, missing Jenny’s unamused expression as he turned his attention back to Vastra. “The Doctor was making coffee and thought you might be in need of assistance, Madame.”

Vastra was definitely looking forward to the Doctor’s funeral, in that case. As if this whole ordeal wasn’t already stressful enough, now that lanky buffoon had sent Strax in to cause even more trouble than necessary. This was just perfect, thought Vastra.

Jenny watched the two persons in front of her, swallowing hard as she felt the tension simmering between them. Vastra was obviously angry with Strax, but the latter was either too daft, or too oblivious of his surroundings to notice. Timidly, she spoke up. “Excuse me, I don’t mean to be a bother, but this appointment is coming out of my salary, so perhaps we can get on with it now?” She smiled half-heartedly, hoping it would be enough to get everything back on track.

Jenny’s voice cut right through Vastra’s flaring temper and brought her back to the situation at hand. Once again, she smiled sheepishly at Jenny saying, “Oh, yes, that we do indeed, for surely I would hate to put your paycheck at risk.” After taking a few seconds to compose herself, Vastra looked back toward Strax in silent resignation to address him with, “Alright, Strax, I’ll let you stay in here to assist me, but only if you promise to be quiet for God’s sake, and not touch anything until I tell you otherwise.”

Hearing that he was allowed to stay, Strax punched one of his short, stubby arms in the air, trying to make some kind of victory gesture. “I will help you Madame! For the glory of this clinic!”

Jenny laughed a little, not able to hold it back. Strax really was adorable. “Thanks. Scotland Yard doesn’t pay nearly as much as you’d think.”

Vastra paused in the midst of her inspection of Greeny the lizard to look at Jenny, equally impressed and curious. “Really, you work at Scotland Yard? Well, that does sound to be rather exciting, is it not?”

Jenny shrugged. “Yes ma’am, though it’s not very exciting. It’s mostly a lot of paperwork. Gets a bit lonely, too. That’s why I got a lizard - so I’d have some company that doesn’t require being walked three times a day and are allowed in my flat.”

“I see….even if it’s not as glamorous is you say, I have immense respect for anyone willing to risk their life in the name of justice at Scotland Yard. Although, I am sorry to hear that you’re feeling lonely,” spoke Vastra sympathetically, making casual conversation with her client as she continued to study Greeny. “I was just under the impression that such a seemingly likable, and decent girl as you would have plenty of friends to keep you company.”

Jenny blushed a little at Vastra’s glowing compliments, looking down at the floor. “I didn’t have many people before I joined Scotland Yard, and my current working schedule doesn’t exactly encourage lots of socialising and spending time with friends.” She bit her lip, trying not to let the other woman’s words get to her. It never bothered her that she had few people that she considered close to her, why would it now?

Vastra risked a brief discreet glance at Jenny and replied, “It would appear that you and I are the same in that regard, since I’m not exactly the type of person to put myself out there for all the world see. I’ll admit that I am much more adept at dealing with animals than I am with people. Apart from Doctor John, Clara, and even Strax, there’s actually nobody else that I can view as my friend.” Sensing Jenny’s increasing discomfort, Vastra then cleared her throat and decided to immediately change the subject. “I must say, Miss Flint, this is a really handsome Jackson Horned Chameleon you have here. It’s a shame that he had gotten sick so soon….what are his symptoms again, if I may ask?”

“He is not handsome, but well equipped for battle! It is most glorious!” Strax declared, before Jenny had a chance to repeat her lizards symptoms.

His eyes shone like stars as he spoke and Jenny found herself a bit uncomfortable by the thought that maybe he was attracted to things and people that could defend themselves. She shuddered.

“He’s not eating, and barely moving, ma’am.” Jenny told Vastra, trying to push Strax’s comment into the back of her mind where she’d never have to think of it again.

Vastra shot Strax a heated death glare as a warning before inquiring further, “Hmm, yes, he does appear to have lost some weight….what have you been feeding him?” Vastra then became aware of how Greeny was gradually curling himself against her arm, seemingly attracted to her natural body heat.

“I feed him insects. Mostly crickets, as instructions says.” Jenny said, looking straight at Vastra, a little questioning.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Asked a befuddled Vastra, afraid that she might have somehow offended her pretty client again. “I swear, I wasn’t trying to accuse you of any wrongdoing. Jackson Horned Chameleon diets are typically composed of insects and crickets, so at least you’re doing that right. Do you have some kind of enclosed habitat in your home to contain him in?”

Jenny nodded rapidly. She felt eager to please the gorgeous woman handling her lizard, wanted to show her that she was not some clueless person who just adopted an animal without a plan. “Yes, I have an enclosure at home, as one should have.”

Jenny’s confident statement was then rewarded with a dazzling smile of approval from Vastra that knocked all the air out of her lungs. Vastra’s tone was almost rather playful when she said,“Quite the responsible pet owner now, aren’t you? Very good, and can you please describe this enclosure to me?”

Jenny blushed at the praise, looking down at the floor, but glancing back at Vastra as she spoke,”It’s a mesh cage, as the guide said to avoid glass enclosures, and there’s a little tree for him to climb. That is about it.”

“Well I suppose that minimalism does have its appeal to some people, but I will advise you to add in a few more plants for his habitat,”Vastra suggested wisely. “What about the climate and average temperature of your home? Do you have any type of heat source that can be kept near Greeny’s cage?”

Jenny stared at her as though she’d suddenly grown a second head, or possibly a third eye. “Heat source? Climate?”

Jenny’s confused expression prompted Vastra to tilt her head, and lift one skeptical eyebrow as she spoke, “Miss Flint, you are aware of the fact that reptiles like Greeny are cold-blooded, and must gain heat from their surroundings in order to function, aren’t you? Or did they not teach you that back in grade school science class?”

At this, Jenny gave Vastra what she believed was the most apologetic smile ever to have existed, eyes quickly diverting and looking back down on the ground. The peach carpet sure was interesting to look at, Jenny decided. “I’m afraid I was never the sharpest one, ma’am. Haven’t had much education altogether, and can’t say I remember being taught anything about lizards.” She sighed, embarrassed. She had really hoped she would have done enough research to avoid exposing her rather lacking education in general.

The underlying sadness in Jenny’s words struck Vastra’s heart heavily, and she immediately regretted being so snide in her remark without actually meaning to. It physically pained her to see this beautiful, sweet young girl defeated by her own insecurities, which was preventing her from recognizing her full potential and self worth. Vastra, too, dropped her gaze to the floor as she was suddenly desperate to find something that could cheer up Jenny.

“There’s no reason why you should be embarrassed, Miss Flint,” Vastra began sincerely, eyes fixed onto Jenny’s depressed form. “Everyone makes mistakes sometimes, it’s a natural part of life. I know that you are trying your best to take care of Greeny, and I do not blame you for being uninformed regarding the biological anatomy of reptiles. You may not be well educated, but I can tell that you must possess a considerable amount of merit since you were able to get into Scotland Yard. So chin up a little, will you, for Greeny’s sake?” Vastra held up Greeny as if he was a sort of mascot in an attempt to uplift Jenny’s falling spirits, while acquiring a pleading puppy dog face herself to boot.

Jenny couldn’t help but smile a little. No one had ever tried so hard to encourage her and make her happy. If you want to be happy, you make yourself happy, her mom had used to say. But here this gorgeous veterinarian was, cheering her up like her life depended on it, and Greeny looking confused as he twisted around in her hands. “Alright, for you and Greeny.” She agreed finally, giving Vastra her largest grin.

Vastra released a little sigh of relief, and returned a pleasant smile of her own to Jenny; She was most delighted to witness how Jenny had transformed from a hopelessly wilted plant, to a lively blooming flower being fed by the rejuvenating waters of a spring shower. Another, albeit quite unexpected, result was that Vastra also found herself having a strange and powerful urge to always make Jenny happy like this in any way possible….depending on the probability of whether or not she’ll ever see her again at the clinic, that is. A part of her was already wishing and praying for Jenny to come back someday.

Vastra was so enraptured by her client’s joyous beauty, that it took her several minutes to find her tongue again. “Excellent! It is a scientifically proven fact that pets thrive much better when their owners possess a positive attitude, as opposed to being down in the dumps,”proclaimed Vastra, who included a sly wink to show that she was only teasing. “Now, I assume you will be glad to know that Greeny’s condition isn’t as serious as you think, and he can easily be cured with the use of a proper heat lamp. I’m sure that you will be able to buy one at your local pet store, or online if you prefer. Either way, I highly recommend that you get one as soon as possible, because Jackson Horned Chameleons need to be kept at a temperature of between 20 and 32 degrees celsius.”

At this point, Vastra didn’t mind in the slightest that Greeny was practically holding her arm captive, because the poor thing had clearly been deprived of warmth for so long.

Jenny nodded at her words, acting like a school kid confirming her teacher’s instructions for her homework assignment. “I’ll see about getting one uh…,”She glanced at the clock, trying to estimate how long she’d been there,”…on my way home. My shift’s over, by now, so I won’t really have anything better to do. Besides, the sooner Greeny gets what he needs, the better.” Jenny turned to Vastra and smiled, stretching out her hands expectantly.

“Smart thinking, Miss Flint, Greeny will certainly appreciate the sentiment. He should consider himself lucky having such a thoughtful and committed owner as you,” concluded Vastra while she prepared to give Greeny back to Jenny.

What was supposed to be a standard transaction suddenly became much more complicated when their hands touched upon Greeny. Both Jenny and Vastra gasped softly as sparks seemed to fly from the very first second they made that physical contact, feeling the invisible electricity race up their arms before ultimately exploding against their hearts. Their bodies trembled due to the sheer force of the impact, which continued to echo in massive rippling waves throughout their entire frame. Meanwhile, their overlapping hands had become extremely hot as if they were laying on a furnace, though the two of them fought the urge to jerk away lest they drop Greeny. The heat quickly spread to their faces, and their cheeks lit up with a blazing red color. Hearts pounding, palms sweating, minds spinning, neither Jenny nor Vastra had ever experienced anything this intense before, and they both struggled to fully comprehend what was happening to them. Eventually, they were able to remove their gaze from Greeny and locked eyes with each other instead. They immediately froze in place where they stood, as if some kind of mysterious unseen power had stripped them of all their ability to move. Everything else seemed to fade away until it was just the two of them left in this lofty, and surreal dimension that separated them from the rest of reality;The very air surrounding them had morphed and shifted itself, becoming significantly heavier with a daunting, unspoken question that loomed over their heads. Despite their current immobility, there was still a distinctly spiritual energy of restlessness that caused their souls to be irresistibly attracted to one another like opposite ends of a magnet. Vastra and Jenny both realized that something needed to be said if they were to break free of this awkward situation, but every word they meant to say instantly evaporated off of the tip of their tongues before they even had the chance, thus rendering their voices utterly useless.

Whether they liked it or not, they are completely, effectively, undeniably stuck.

They kept standing there, stagnant and unable to move for several more moments, before the door suddenly opened. Stepping in through the opening, was none other than Dr.John Smith himself.

“Strax, I need you! That pitbull that likes you is here and…” As he saw what he walked in on, he stopped, confusion quickly replaced by a mad grin. “Oh my…I’m sorry, Vastra, I thought you and Miss Flint would have been finished by now!” He let out a small laugh, and Vastra could see the joke in his eyes. “But I guess she required a lot of care!” He did a not-so subtle wink with his eye at this, and Vastra wanted to strangle him for his shameless behaviour.

The Doctor’s surprise intervention was enough to startle Vastra and Jenny into jumping apart from each other, with Jenny frantically clutching Greeny close to her chest. His gaze kept switching back and forth between the two women, as he was clearly relishing in the rare sight of a highly flustered Vastra. The other veterinarian glared daggers at him with laser point precision, being not thrilled at him barging into her office wearing that infuriatingly smug grin that she would love to tear off his face. Vastra fastidiously wiped her hands on her coat and hardened her facial expression, all in a futile attempt to make herself appear more dignified, yet the tell-tale fiery blush on her cheeks still remained. The Doctor always had the worst sense of timing, and Vastra hates the fact that this one incident has now given him basically unlimited ammunition to bombard her with.

“Ahem…uhh…Strax, it would seem that I will have to relieve you of your duties here at the present moment,” began Vastra calmly, as she was determined to pretend that nothing had ever happened. “Go ahead with Doctor Smith and report back to me when you are done.” She then turned her head to look directly at the Doctor and said to him, “And you, Doctor Smith, I simply cannot comprehend why you still insist on calling Miss Flint’s lizard a ‘she’ after we’ve been over it already. He did require a lot of care, but fortunately we were able to reach a viable solution. Now, do be so kind and remove yourself from my office, your unsightly hideous face is apparently causing Greeny some considerable discomfort.”

Vastra also made sure to punctuate her biting statement with an equally sardonic smile that told the Doctor ‘two can play at this game’.

“Ma’am!” Jenny couldn’t help the complaint that escaped her lips. Despite lacking in many other areas, Jenny had very good manners, and she knew what Vastra had said was not acceptable. Though the man had been immensely rude to his co-worker, and Greeny did look quite uncomfortable, it was simply not right to say such mean things to anyone.

John, however, didn’t seem as bothered by it. He simply gave her a wink and a smile, showing that it was all okay. “Don’t worry, my dear, the cold blooded tend to behave this way. Now, if you excuse me, I must be off.” Wasting no more time, John turned around and left the room, Strax hurrying to follow in his lead.

“Sir, wait for me!” He called out as he, too, left the room, short legs moving him as quick as possible away from Jenny and Vastra, leaving them completely alone once more.

Jenny glanced awkwardly around the room, trying to avoid looking at the veterinarian as she finally settled in with the task of putting Greeny back into his traveling cage. “Well, if there is nothing else, I suppose I should get going. I’ll remember to buy a heat lamp whenever I can.”

Jenny didn’t know why she was saying goodbye. She didn’t want to go, didn’t want to leave this gorgeous woman before her and likely never see her again. Yet, she had no choice, as there was no longer anything keeping her there. She sighed, deep and heavy.

Vastra’s head instantly swiveled back toward Jenny, her anger at the Doctor suddenly replaced with a grim sense of despair upon hearing Jenny say that. Truth be told, Vastra really didn’t want Jenny to leave either, but she knew she couldn’t risk violating professional business protocol by letting her suspiciously not-so-platonic feelings be revealed in front of this beautiful and lovely client, who had become the object of her affections. Rubbing the back of her neck with one hand, Vastra merely gave a small sheepish smile as she responded, “Yes, of course, it’s getting rather late….and I’m certain there are other clients that I need to attend to. Before I do that, though, I’d just like to say that it’s been my absolute pleasure helping you and Greeny today, Miss Flint.” Vastra paused for a moment, overcome with a sudden bout of self-consciousness, and temporarily diverted her gaze to the floor. She was soon able to look at Jenny again while her blue eyes shone faintly with optimism, and added, “I hope that you found my services here to be satisfactory then?”

Although they had gotten started on the wrong foot earlier, Vastra did genuinely mean what she said. Out of every other client that Vastra had come across during the course of her four year career at the clinic, none of them had ever fascinated or outright perplexed her quite like Jenny does. There was an unexplainable, penetrating, persistent feeling deep within her gut telling Vastra that maybe….just maybe….it will be different and special with Jenny. She had utterly no idea why she is willing to get her hopes up so high for this girl who she never knew existed until an hour ago, but at the same time she found herself unable to stop, too. While Vastra may be a certified know-it-all expert of lizards, she is actually terribly ignorant when it comes to matters of love.

Jenny couldn’t help but feel disappointed. After their hands had touched, she’d actually believed there was something between them, a connection perhaps. That maybe Vastra felt the same and shared even just a fraction of her own feelings. But, of course, not for her as she was just another worried pet owner. “Right. Yes, your service was excellent and much appreciated. Goodbye, Miss McIntosh.”

The two of them approached the door together, and there was a brief episode of awkwardly treading around eggshells, before Vastra finally insisted on holding the door open for Jenny to get through.

Glancing back wistfully at Vastra as she went, Jenny left the room, walking down the corridor and back to the waiting room. At the reception section, she saw Dr.Smith and the receptionist, Clara, standing there and chatting away amongst themselves. Quickly, Jenny tried to make a bee-line for the door, hoping to avoid any more awkwardness by escaping unnoticed. She really didn’t feel up to listening to another of the other veterinarian’s comments, with his painstakingly clear innuendos.

She was just about to open the door and step outside, when suddenly, she heard someone calling her name.

“Miss Flint, wait! Please don’t leave yet!

Jenny was able to recognize that voice as belonging to Vastra, who nearly tripped and fell over her feet while rushing to catch Jenny at the door before it was too late. Dr. John and Clara both ceased their animated conversation in favor of watching their co-coworker chasing after a particular client like a madwoman, which was something they’ve never seen before. Every muscle in Jenny’s body became notably rigid with anticipation, and she closed her eyes, gathering herself so that she could face the gorgeous veterinerian again without automatically falling apart on the spot. When Jenny finally turned around, Vastra was standing only ten inches away, looking rather out of breath as her chest heaved rapidly to refill her lungs with air, and there was a thin sheen of sweat covering her forehead. Even in this disheveled and exhausted state, did Jenny still considered Vastra to be the most extraordinarily attractive woman in the whole world. She also noticed that Vastra was holding a sheet of paper in her hand, inspiring a newfound sense of curiosity within her mind.

Once she had recovered enough of her energy to speak, Vastra said, “Pardon my, err, inconvenience, Miss Flint, but I’ve just realized that I forgot to ask for your phone number. It’s a precaution to help us keep in contact with you, in case any problems should arise with your pet, Greeny, later on in the future.”

Not really knowing what else to say, Vastra simply held out the sheet of paper in front of Jenny, silently requesting her to sign it.

Seeing the paper, Jenny couldn’t help but smile. It was only for Greeny’s sake, she knew, but a small part of her just couldn’t help but hope that there was something more to it. Smiling nonetheless, she took the offered paper and pen, quickly writing down her number before giving it back. As she did, however, a sudden and crazy idea hit her. “There you go. And, uh, if you wouldn’t mind, could I have your number as well? In case something does happen.”

It wasn’t until now that Vastra became aware of two other pairs of eyes watching them intently from across the opposite side of the room. Vastra blinked obliviously and tilted her head aside, trying to confirm if she had heard that correctly, or were her ears playing a false trick on her? Naturally, she found it hard to believe that anyone would ever want her number, especially this angelic, amazing young girl who she had been so insensitive to.

“Come on Vastra, do it!” Vastra could hear John whispering behind her back. “I know you can do it!”

“No way, she won’t!” Clara protested, indicating that there was probably a bet taking place between the two of them. “She’s always been all talk and no action!”

As soon as Clara said that, it was like two circuit wires had been inserted inside Vastra’s brain to shock it back to life again, and she managed to smile charmingly at Jenny. “I suppose that would be alright, even if it’s not something that I normally do,” answered Vastra, who then unceremoniously grabbed Jenny’s hand and scrawled her own number on it. “Well, there you have it! That’s actually all the information that I need, so….have a wonderful evening, Miss Flint.”

Vastra couldn’t understand why she just did that, writing her number onto Jenny’s bare hand instead of a piece of paper, like any other reasonable and normal person would.

Jenny smiled at her hand and turned around with the intention of walking out the door, but somehow ended up colliding headlong into it. Though a bit disoriented, Jenny was luckily able to find the door handle and swiftly exited the building. She wore a huge grin on her face, feeling more satisfied with herself than she’d been in a very, very long time. As she began heading down the sidewalk towards her apartment, Jenny abruptly stopped and carefully put the carrier on the ground. She then pulled out her phone from her pocket, typing the number on her hand into her phone’s contact list, and also taking a picture of her hand for good measure. She really didn’t want to lose the number, after having gone through so much just to get it.

And who knew? Maybe she would need to call and ask about Greeny….wait, who’s Greeny? Oh yeah, her pet lizard, how silly of her to forget for a minute there, again.

Still smiling, she bent down and picked up the carrier. “Love you little guy!”

Jenny truly did love Greeny. She had originally bought him to be less lonely, and now it seemed as though it had all worked out, in the best way possible.

————————————————————————

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[speckledspout]

Liquor Gonna Carry Me Down

ship: wincest (could be read as a general pairing though) rating: teen ao3 link tags: drinking, angst summary: “Dean hated it. He hated being sent on a mission by those pompous sons of bitches that thought they were better than anyone else with their perfectly manicured hands and fancy tools.” word count: 2,052 a/n: so this is kinda seen as a coda to the last episode but it takes place after the episode actually and this kinda came out of some of my own questions that i have when it comes to what’s currently happening in the plot. you’ll see what i’m talking about. plus it’s the first thing i’ve written since my dwbb so yay about that.

Dean was an alcoholic. He would try to deny it whenever Sam would bring it up (which wouldn’t be often because he knew where that conversation always ended) but there was no denying the facts. There was almost never a time that Sam didn’t see his brother without some kind of drink in his hand. However he was getting better. His morning coffee wasn’t spiked with whiskey anymore.

But there were times when everything around him would start to be a little bit too much and he needed something to numb the pain. Sometimes it would be failing on a hunt, getting more innocent people killed. Other times he just felt swallowed by everything that was around him, by the lies and the secrets and the weight of the entire goddamn world. Sometimes it would be all those things combined and well, Dean Winchester was only a man and he could only carry so much.

Sam would try to reassure Dean that he was good, that he did all that he could. He shouldn’t blame himself for those people that had died before he managed to get to them but that was just part of his personality. It was something built into him that made him him. He carried everything on his shoulders, never complained and thought that everything was his fault.

It was bad. The case was bad. How they got the case was bad. The outcome was bad. All of it was just… bad. The British Men of Letters had directed them to a case down in Texas, a werewolf they claimed had gone rouge and was turning the local folk in the small town, slowly building up their own pack.

Dean hated it. He hated being sent on a mission by those pompous sons of bitches that thought they were better than anyone else with their perfectly manicured hands and fancy tools.

And he couldn’t help but feel like he was working under Crowley again, hunting down the Alphas, just under a different name. But evil all smelled the same and this felt like it was only going to come back and bite them in the ass.

Freshly turned pups are usually wild but their uncoordinated and they expected that. The Brits said that there had been at least four people turned and in all honesty, Sam and Dean had dealt with bigger packs than that before and so Dean wasn’t sure why there was an uneasy feeling in his stomach as he pulled up in front of the warehouse that they were supposedly made nest in. However, when the six freshly turned pups attacked them, white teeth bared and hungry for human hearts, they were unprepared for it.

Four, they could handle four but six not including the bitch that turned them in the first place… it all felt like a trap. Like the Brits were purposely trying to get them killed.

It was sheer will power alone that they stayed alive. Sheer will power and adrenaline and the overpowering want to show the Brits that sending them down in the middle of nowhere wouldn’t kill a Winchester so easily.

Didn’t keep from Sam getting hurt though and when they got back to the Bunker, Dean broke out his secret stash of whiskey, not even bothering going to his room to drink it.

Accusations screamed through Dean’s head. Sam got hurt and it was all his fault. If only he trusted his gut or didn’t just go off the information that the Brits had given them. If only he took the little bit of extra time to check it out, to make sure that all the information was right and there wouldn’t be any extra surprises. If only… Sam wouldn’t have gotten hurt. The fucking kid that they had taken wouldn’t have gotten killed.

He felt sick, the alcohol was uneasy in his stomach and he closed his eyes only to be greeted with the image of Sam on his back with that… that thing on top of him. It was so close, he was so close to losing the one thing that he cared.

In all honesty, in the hunter’s world, it was nothing more than a scratch. The claws of the werewolf had broken the skin on Sam’s face leaving a gash that only looked worse than it actually was. Then the werewolf got a little too happy with a knife and sunk it into the soft flesh of Sam’s shoulder. Now that, that hurt like a bitch and it required six stitches which Dean administered with a clenched jaw and a furrowed brow. Sam had tried to reassure Dean that he was going to be alright, he was going to survive; granted he would be a little sore but he was okay. The werewolves were dead and they were alive and everything would be alright.

After Dean had patched Sam up, that’s when he went off to look for his bottle.

Sam looked at the form of his brother, sinking into the chair, staring into the endless glass of whiskey that was in his hand and Sam sighed. There would be no talking to him when he was acting like this, when he felt like this, when he believed every lie that he told himself and with a tired shake of his head, Sam turned and went off to the shower room.

This was always the most relaxing part of hunting. The unwinding. The getting clean. The washing away the dirt and grime and blood that coated his skin and got matted in his hair. He washed away the weight of the hunt, watching it as it went down the drain until the water ran clear.

Dean was still sitting in that chair, still holding onto the bottle staring off into nothing as Sam came back up into the library.

He stood in the doorway for a second before deciding to grab the bottle from his loose fingers and screwed on the cap. “May I take this from you?” Sam wasn’t asking.

“That didn’t sound like a question.” Dean replied looking at the bottle that Sam was holding before meeting Sam’s gaze. He was not going to get the bottle back, no matter how much he begged.

Sam put the bottle down on the table before he moved to sit on the edge right next to Dean.

Dean swallowed thickly. “How are you feeling?” I mean… how does your shoulder feel?” He asked, vaguely gesturing to Sam’s shoulder where he had just stitched him up.

“It’s fine. I’m fine.” Sam said, putting as much emphasis in his words as he could. “What about you? Hmm? How are you feeling?”

“Oh, just great?” The sarcasm was heavy in Dean’s voice but other than that there was no other emotion evident. He stood up. “Now, can I have my drink back or…?”

“No.” Sam said, pushing Dean back down in his seat and moved to where he was now standing directly in front of his brother. Dean stared up at Sam, eyes void of anything and Sam leaned forward, grabbing Dean’s face in between his hands, forcing him to look at him. “Dean… I just want a straight answer from you, man. Alright? No lies.”

Dean scoffed but he answered anyway. “I just don’t like seeing you get hurt.”

“Yeah, well, it’s an occupational hazard of the job. We get hurt. I get hurt. Then we lick our wounds clean and we wake up the next day to do the same thing over again. Hunt down monsters and I’ll be fine…” But Dean was shaking his head.

“Hunt down monsters, huh? Or do you mean just go where those Brits tell us to go?” Dean snapped, eyes on fire now.

“Is that what this is about?” Sam asked, being sure to keep his voice soft. “That we took a job from them?”

“Yeah, Sam! It’s about that. I know that I agreed to trust you about them but Sam, they led us into a trap. They nearly got you killed… again. I can’t… Sam, this goes against everything that I believe in and you… I don’t understand man, how you can be so willing to just work with them after what they did to you.”

“I’m not just willing to work with them, Dean. I don’t trust them but they didn’t send us into a trap. They had faulty intel and…”

“Then why didn’t they insist on coming with us? They were all the more willing to just send us on our merry way but they didn’t seem to be jumping the gun to join us.”

“Because I told them not to come with us, Dean. I’m not stupid. Having you and them in the same room together for hours on end, that would only cause trouble and I know that.” Sam still hadn’t moved his hands from Dean’s face. “I don’t like them anymore than you do but Dean, this could be the end of monsters. The end of innocent people dying. They killed the Alpha vamp…”

“No, you saved their incompetent asses and killed the Alpha vamp.” Dean corrected. That night when they got back from the Brits compound, Dean made Sam tell the whole story and of course his little brother sold himself short, completely disregarding the fact that it was him that saved the day, not them.

Sam sighed, lips pressed into a hard line before continuing. “Okay but still, I wouldn’t have been able to do that if it weren’t for them, if they hadn’t drawn him out of hiding in the first place. With their technology and our skills, Dean, we could kill all the monsters. We could get rid of them all.” There was this smile on Sam’s face that almost seemed shy, like he couldn’t believe what he was saying despite the fact that it was a truth that was drawing nearer every day with every monster that they killed.

“Yeah and then what? What happens when we kill all the monsters and there’s nothing left to hunt? Are you just going to go back to school, become a lawyer, live that life that you’ve always wanted with no more monsters to drag you back in?”

“The life that I’ve always wanted, Dean, was to live my life with you. I don’t care what we do as long as I’m with you.”

Dean scoffed. Leave it up to his girl of a brother to turn this all sappy. “You don’t mean that.” Dean replied with that smile that he had when he was trying to cover up what he was actually feeling. Give Sam the chance to leave and he would.

A world without monsters was the best chance that he was going to get.

“You really believe that, don’t you?” Sam whispered like the words suddenly held so much weight that he couldn’t actually say them. “You really don’t think that you’re all that I want… that I…” He swallowed around the lump in his throat. “That I love you, Dean.”

That time Dean barked out a laugh. He didn’t believe in love. There was no such thing. Just a stupid emotion that Hallmark thrusts upon everyone to sell movies and have people believe that… that… there was no such thing, alright.

“I’m serious, Dean. I mean, I am the one that puts up with your cocky attitude and the random outburst of anger that you have. I am the one that has to deal with your suicidal tendencies that you call saving others. I am the one that has to listen to you scream the same four songs over and over again. I am the one that has to listen to you complain about the crappy motels we sleep in. I am the one that worries about you night and day. I am the one that stays awake at nights worried that you won’t make it home. Okay? I do that and if that isn’t love, then I don’t know what is.”

There was pain in Dean’s eyes. “I’m scared.” He finally admitted.

And Sam felt the air knocked out of his lungs from Dean’s confession.

“Of what?”

A swallow. A pause. The downcast look and then Dean met his brothers waiting gaze. “Of what I’ll be in a world without monsters.”

tagging: @wetsammywinchester, @clearlylostmymind, @kittenofdoomage, @kansaskissedlips, @ilostmyshoe-79, @fawnjensen, @brosinlove, @oh-jesus-sammy, @not-moose-one-shots, @ramblingmandean, @pictures-over-words, @justanothersaltandburn, @purgatoan, @masterlynovak

Post-Episode: s12e14 The Raid

[honestintensecontradiction-blog]

I have been, for some time now, trying to figure out what it is that I want to do in life. I thought I had it all figured it out, but really I’d just latched on to this dream I’d had when I was about sixteen, and I never stopped to question or rethink it in anyway; I never really had the courage, or presence of mind maybe, to rethink or revisit that vision at all; to ask myself if that was still what I wanted. And now, seven years later, I have to face that question again. And no, that’s not what I still want to do; I have no idea what I do. So after years of blindness and distractions, here are the things I have figured out in the past three and a half months: - I am an astoundingly indecisive person; mostly I think that stems from a lack of faith in myself; and a little bit of the grass-is-always-greener-on-the-other-side complex (also I overuse semi-colons to death; also my metaphors are quite cliche and weak - working on that) - This indecision is, in part, a result of who I am as a person as well; I don’t ever want to be just one thing or type, I want to find a way to amalgamate the different pieces of my person into one functional, coherent, whole. If asked to choose between this or that, my answer will, more often than not, be either both or neither; I either want a little of both or nothing to do with it, but it’s very rarely that I’ll have a clear choice - this isn’t something I want to change, but figure out how to imbibe, because I do believe finding balance is important to a good, peaceful life (sort of explains my blog name, doesn’t it?) - I’ve stopped reading books; mostly I think just as a result of the world we live in and all the distractions it presents; also a little because of the people I’ve surrounded myself with, most who, for the most part, don’t read; I’d first become properly invested in reading when I was surrounded by people that are much more vicarious readers that I was - so I need those people in my life again - My family, while wanting the best for me, has a very different world view that I do; eg. they say that something like drawing/art can be taken up seriously at a later stage in my life whilst in my youth I should focus on earning money - and I believe that there are some things within you, in your hands and your heart, that make art come through; and you need to capture and cultivate that or it’ll be lost, and that money can be earned at any time; this consistent environmental input also obviously contributes in large part to my confusion (also because I have seen them struggle for money and seem them be comfortable and enjoy life with it, and I don’t want to be naive and oblivious and take their hard work for granted, but I also don’t want to sell my soul to money) - I’ve wanted to have a blog for years now, and I even tried but I always ended up deleting it in its entirety, because for a long time I believed that I had nothing interesting to say, and I didn’t want to come off sounding silly or worse; education and independence have given me the confidence to realise that I am who I am and the things I think and life I live are as valid as anyone else’s - I’ve also realised that one’s personality decides the type of work and work environment one should choose, but the field depends entirely on external influences, be it books, role models, family, friends, so on - If asked about my biggest, most impossible dreams, the first things that come to my mind aren’t even related to work - they concern having a loving partner, cherished friends, and a good family life; not to say that my dream is to a house-wife, simply that I have been starved for affection and intimacy my entire life and I don’t want to let that damage me or make me bitter but I also have a deep craving to share true, sincere love with the people in my life. eg. I’m 23 and I’ve never had a relationship, or even a date; only one friend who truly, sincerely knows me and that I’m entirely honest with and she’s on a different continent. So yes, I crave love and hugs and hand-holding; so much in fact that I felt the need to write about it even when making a post related to the work I want to find - I also keep questioning what it is I should be doing, and I want a purpose and a goal, but no one thing comes to mind; its like that episode of Doctor Who where he can’t accurately see the future because the person is genuinely undecided and so it keeps changing every second. It’s like that with me as well. And because of this severe lack of self-direction, I feel weak-willed and scared because of how impressionable I am at this time; every new person I meet who seems to have even a small goal becomes amazing and instead of learning from them and seeing what motivates them, I try to blindly follow their goals! Literally, in a short span of time, I’ve considered publishing, management consulting, investment banking, psychology, graphic design, trading, interior design, sales, accounting, creative pursuits like film, art and writing, library or museum work, marketing and coding. I’ve completely lost sight of my self. I’m not sure what actually brings me joy, and what’s interesting because it brings someone else joy and they present a happy, fulfilling picture of it.

As I’m writing I’ve realised that one of the things that I am certainly excellent at, and that I thoroughly enjoy, is analysing literature; sort of a given since that’s what I’ve studied. And maybe, after writing my thoughts down a lot, and coming back to it much later, I’ll be able to analyse and find hidden inside the answers; because we always say that analysing an art is a self-portrait in a way, so if not my writing, then my analysing will tell me what I cant hear right now! I’m actually excited about this. Just earlier today I was wondering why I’ve started this blog and what the point of it all is, but already, here we are; it’s not as much about the writing as it is about the analysing; that’s my favourite part and that’s what, at least for now I think, will help me figure things out a little. 

More later, but for now, yay!