#he he i drew this guy in my sketchbook before work. paper guy real

[mrdixon]

A Rugged Muse | Chapter 1

pairing: eventual daryl dixon x f!reader

wc: 3.1k

warnings: swearing, violence, slight depiction of gore, vomiting

summary: reader has a shit day. basically the day of the outbreak.

A/N: FIRST CHAPTER WOOOO i am clearly not an art major…. im in the different arts. so apologies to you visual artists im going off from my lack of knowledge from my hobby lol. i really hope you guys enjoy this series because i am EXCITED to write it.

a rugged muse masterlist |regular masterlist

“Fuck,” you groaned, slamming your forehead onto the desk in front of you. A few heads turned to look at you in the library, you cursed under your breath and looked up again after a moment. Adjusting the glasses askew on your face before looking at the paper on the desk. The paper before you was worn with erased pencil marks, slightly wrinkled. Art block was the worst, you’d rather be ten feet under than stuck with art block.

You sighed, it’s been months since your last project and even that was a fail. It didn't help that you only worked at a fucking minimum wage job, maybe you should've listened to your parents and became a doctor or something. It wasn't like it was always like this, no… art school was a breeze. You had hosted real galleries where people came to see your art, and now look at you. Moping around in a library, desperately trying to find something to draw.

After tapping your pencil against the table which by the way, earned many dirty looks, you scooted closer to the table. Picking up your old sketchbook and frantically flipping through it to find…. so many god damn drawings of, him. Your god forsaken ex boyfriend, but he was gorgeous.

You met him ironically enough in art class, way back in high school. He was there by choice, you were not. Yet everything about him was just so captivating that you couldn't help but not switch out of the class, thank god you didn't. You enjoyed the class more than you expected, painting being one of your favourite forms of art, oils being your preferred medium. You painted and sketched every moment of the day, not putting down that brush for one second. Your ex boyfriend was your inspiration, every detail on that stupid face was engraved in your mind like a marble statue. His beautiful plump lips and the beauty marks that scattered over his face being two of your favourite features.

Art was everything to you, and so was he. He was all you drew, he made life seem prettier and happier. But then he dumped you for some random chick he met in a bar, that was six months ago.

Since then you've had no motivation and no inspiration for your projects. Flowers no longer had their charm, abstracts looked dumb to you again, oils looked muddy. Nothing worked.

You picked up your pencil and started at the paper again, pushing your glasses up before hesitantly sketching out lines. Your mind wandered back to him, you still couldn’t believe it. After years of being together he’d just leave like that? Those years of pure, innocent love where you’d make breakfast with him, take baths together, even paint each other for fun. Date nights that were full of giggles and messily painting on each others skin, his fingertips grazing over your eyelids and nose as he sculpted you out of clay. He threw that all away for a woman he’s known for one night.

Your pencil moved furiously against the paper, scarring it like he scarred you. When you looked back down at it you noticed it was him, those hostile eyes from that night staring right through you. Those words of heartbreak echoing through your mind, words that came from lips that used to kiss you every morning. You huffed angrily, no matter how much you hated him, he always came back. He was always in your mind, plaguing your thoughts like venom. Slamming your pencil down you stood up, ripping the paper furiously.

Now there were whispers, people looked at you weirdly. After remembering your place in the world, you picked up your things and packed up quickly, aching to get back home to your bed. While in your haste, you dropped something. You already were in an irritable mood so you took a deep breath before causing a scene over a dropped item, crouching down to pick up just to notice it was the painting knife he had gifted you months before you broke up. The words ”To the love of my life…” engraved on it. After shoving the painting knife back into your bag angrily you quickly got back on your feet and headed towards the door, not before throwing half your sketches into the bin. As if you couldn’t get any more frustrated, someone bumped into you which caused you to whip around. Though no words came out of your mouth as you took in the sight of the person.

They were sickly pale, sweating profusely and trembling. Their eyes were bloodshot, matching the… bite wound on their forearm? They shook looking at you, mumbling a meek apology and pushing their sleeve down over their arm before walking away. Weird. Anyway.

You turned back around, must be some weird prank or something. Whatever, you were extremely tired and needed to get back to your apartment asap. As you left the library the humid August air hit you like a truck, not helping your heated mood at all. Grumbling to yourself you tried not to let it affect you, instead pushing your hair behind your shoulders, what a convenient day to forget your hair tie. Nothing was going your way, it was like the world was against you. A scream broke your thoughts, it came from somewhere ahead of you. Great, someone probably got mugged and now you were next. Just another thing to keep you moody.

A woman turned the corner, running towards you. You braced yourself for the mugging but to your surprise, it never came. The woman’s face was drained, it was as if she saw a ghost. She didn’t stop running, she was terrified and stuff was falling out of her purse but she didn’t even bother to pick them up. You watched as she ran past you without batting as eye, what is going on today? Shrugging, you picked up the stuff she dropped, finders keepers. Gum, tissues, tampons, condoms, and… her wallet. You almost jumped in joy, you could really use the money right now.

Finally out of your mood you practically skipped down the street, looking through the wallet and counting the cash. $10… $28… $48… $130… $135— oh wait that’s a Canadian $5 what the fuck— $140. One hundred forty fucking dollars in cash, that woman must’ve been loaded to carry this much cash. Well, now you carried it.

Another scream broke your daze, but this time it was closer. You looked up and saw another terrified woman running towards you, this time knocking into you which caused you to crash onto the floor, the cash scattering across the pavement. Back in your mood.

“What the fuck is your problem!?” You yelled, watching the woman continue running and not even look back. Is there a goddamn marathon you didn’t know about or what? You fiercely picked up the scattered cash, shoving them into your bag immediately before crossing your arms and continuing your walk back to your apartment. Fixing your glasses you saw a man get tackled to the ground by another man a street in front of you, was this happening to everyone???

Much to your horror you watched as the man on top mauled into the other’s neck, tearing through the skin and splattering blood everywhere. You froze, feeling your blood run cold at the sight. You watched as the man kept eating away at the now, dead person. The man’s head turned slightly to grab at more of the bloodied flesh, you now noticing the cloudy eyes and gray skin. This man was already dead, so how was he…

You snapped out of it, turning the other way to avoid whatever was happening. This had to be a sick joke. Your heart was beating in your ears, weaving through the back lanes to find a different path to your home. Hair stood at the back of your neck as your senses were now alert, if whatever that was is real, you had to be way more careful. It was quiet in the alley, calm. You let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding. Stopping for a second to catch your breath and recollect your thoughts, bending over slightly and placing your hands on your knees.

“Jesus christ,” you muttered. You couldn’t get the visual out of your head, that man was murdered right in front of you. His eyes bulging out of his head when he couldn’t even scream for help, that… monster ripping his throat out and devouring him in broad daylight. You shook your head, running your fingers through your hair frantically as you tried to rid your brain of that image.

A low groaning filled your ears and before you could register it you were falling to the ground, a grunt escaping you as you quickly turned onto your back. One of those things were falling over you, your quick reflexes holding them up by their shoulders. You got a clear view of what they looked like, their eyes were clouded over, veins more visible under their pale skin, their lips and chin dribbling with blood. You grimaced, trying to scream but nothing came out, nothing but a flow of air. They were strong, jaw snapping closer and closer to you. If you didn’t do anything now you’d end up like that guy on that street. No fucking way you were going to die like that.

Struggling a little, you lifted your legs under them and kicked from their stomach. Throwing the thing off of you, grunting you scrambled to your feet. The thing quickly following, their leg twisted as they got up from the position you flung them in. Surely it would’ve hurt if it were you, but unlike you, they weren’t living. You opened your bag and shoved your hand in, cursing yourself in your head for shoving everything in there. You held out your other arm protectively while stepping backwards from the thing. The hand in your bag searched wildly for something to defend yourself with, something to kill with. Could you even kill them?

Your back hit the wall, panic filling your body as the thing got closer. Before it could get any closer you tucked your forearm under their chin to hold them back, a loud cry escaping you as you fought to hold them back. When you were starting to give up, the hand in your bag finally found something metal. Ripping it out you immediately swung at it with the item, sinking it into their head which was surprisingly easy. Adrenaline probably. The thing fell to the ground, dead again.

You let out a heavy sigh, sliding down the wall. You looked down at your hands, bloodied with what you could only hope wasn’t your own blood. You were shaking profusely, your breathing uneven. You closed your eyes, trying to steady your breathing as you pressed your knees to your chest, the heel of your palm placed on your forehead. You stayed like this for a moment, you don’t know how long. But once you were ready you let out one last shaky breath before opening your eyes again, and glancing down at the thing on the ground in front of you.

You almost laughed as you realized you used the painting knife to end the thing, but you didn’t. You silently reached over and pulled it out, swallowing as it made a gross squelch sound. Looking down at your painting knife which was now covered in its blood, you wiped it off on their shirt. Taking a closer look at the body and noticing a bite mark on their shoulder, much like the person in the library. Your lip quivered as you imagined what had happened to them, what might’ve happened to you if you stayed. There was a low pit in your stomach as you stood up, your mouth suddenly filling with saliva before hunching over and vomiting. Your eyes filled with tears just realizing how close to death you were, throwing up your lunch.

You coughed, wiping your mouth on your sleeve before shoving the painting knife back into your bag. You had to get home, now. Your feet moved quickly, not stopping for even a second. There were barely anyone on the streets and you wondered if your home was even safe. Stop, your feet stopped. Don’t think like that. With a heavy breath you took off again, walking even faster towards your apartment building. Please, please, please….

You jolted suddenly as your phone started ringing, you grabbed it but didn’t stop walking. Answering without even checking the caller ID.

“Hello?” You said almost too quietly, still shaken up from your encounter with the thing.

“(Y/N)?? (Y/N), are you okay!?” The anxious voice yelled, it was your older brother, Glenn. You almost cried in happiness, walking even faster now.

“Yes Glenn, yes I’m fine…” you mumbled into the phone, breathing a sigh of relief that your brother was alive. “What is going on?”

“God, I don’t know. All I know is people are dying and coming back to life and eating each other and dying and coming back to—”

“Yeah, yeah I get it!” you cut him off, “I almost—” you stopped, deciding not to tell him about your fight. He was anxious enough, he always was but you didn’t want to worry him even more.

“Almost what?? You didn’t get bit did you!?” He yelled which caused you to pull your phone away from your ear in discomfort.

“No I didn’t, stop yelling.” You replied irritated, you heard him sigh on the other end. Hearing distant voices in the background. “Where are you?”

“I was at work when I saw everything go down, I drove back to the pizza place immediately.” He said more calmer, “but we’re gonna move out soon.”

You furrowed your brows in confusion, “wait why? Isn’t it safe there? Why not wait for help?”

“You didn’t hear? I thought you were always on your phone,” you scoffed in annoyance at his probe. “They’re setting up camps, courtesy of the military I think.”

You chest filled with hope, you were going to be safe. “Oh thank god, okay wait I’m going back to my place to grab some things. Where is the camp?”

When Glenn responded his end was filled with feedback, static. “It’s gonna. Arou— Ta—”

“Glenn?? You’re… you’re cutting off.” You said nervously, nearing your apartment.

“A— Yo— I’m—” And the call failed.

Dread filled your body once again, now you really were going to cry. You shakily walked through the apartment building, keeping guard for potential things around. Opting for the stairs, you walked swiftly up them. Out of breath by the time you reached your room, fortunately there was nothing to stop you.

Once you got in you immediately dropped everything, locking the door and collapsing to the floor. Tears filled your eyes once more and you let some of them escape and trickle down your cheeks, you were scared. Scared of those things roaming around, they could kill, you’ve seen it. You removed your glasses momentarily to wipe your face. You shook your head you took a deep breath and stood up, you had to pack and leave immediately. You didn’t know where you were going but you had to leave, you had to find Glenn.

Putting your glasses back on, you crawled over and rummaged through your closet carelessly, trying to find a backpack that was big enough to carry all your necessities. Your apartment was already a mess so you didn’t bother being slow and careful right now, which might have been a bad idea as you snagged your finger on a stray box cutter.

“Shit,” you muttered while pulling your hand back, a cut dragged along your index finger. You rushed over to the sink, washing it quickly before throwing a bandage over the cut. While doing so you heard a police siren drive by, the sound dying off as it drove farther and farther away. You sighed before returning to the closet, grabbing a big enough backpack and shoving as much clothes you could get while also leaving room for extra things.

You stood up and looked around your small apartment, your bed looked so inviting. You were exhausted beyond help, your body aching with the need to rest. I shouldn’t. You thought and continued scrambling for items to take with you, the amount of scattered pages of sketches filled the space that was your floor. Your heart broke at the thought of leaving your things behind but you knew it’d be useless to take with you, but you couldn’t take nothing.

You grabbed a few pencils and brushes, along with a small paint palette and placed them carefully into your bag, an empty sketchbook joining them. While searching you opened your desk drawer, three daggers which you made in a welding class a couple years ago. They were sturdy and well sharp enough, thank god you were good at making things. You took them and put them into a sheath to prevent stabbing yourself. You grabbed a few more things like a lighter, some bandaids, and batteries. You frowned at the lack of supplies you had on hand, but you tried to convince yourself that you’d be taken care of at the camps.

You moved over to your small kitchen and grabbed a water bottle which you filled, also grabbing a couple snacks that would keep you full for a few days at best. You heard a few distant screams outside, some screams of pain which caused you to wince. The sudden thought of living in an apocalypse dawned over you, a feeling of dread rushing through you. You couldn’t shake the feeling off but you chose to ignore it. You did not want to go into a panic right now, you had to have a clear and positive mind if you wanted to live.

You pulled your bag over your shoulders and walked over to your mirror to take a look at yourself, grounding yourself for the world outside. You wanted so badly to sleep but you knew you had to get a move on if you wanted to get to a camp safely.

“I can do this..” you whispered under your breath, clutching at the handle of one of your daggers, turning to the door. You just had to get to a camp, but more importantly you had to find Glenn.

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more a/n: for the sake of having glenn as reader's older brother im having him be around 24-27 years old right now, reader being like 23 ish. and daryl will be like 32….??? i dunno im trying to make this as canon as possible BUT UGH IT IS SO $&£”*^%*£ so yeah there will be a little bit of an age gap between reader and daryl but i hope that wont be too much of a problem for you guys…. probably not. and do not quote me if i get settings or the timeline wrong like twd is confusing enough for me……….. again im also like rewatching and making sure to make everything as close to the show as possible, but theres also the possibility of me altering the timeline (muehehehe). anyways tysm for reading and stay tuned! ★

[2hoothoots]

what if raz has a fifth archetype that's locked up and it's representative of his generational trauma

see, that's kind of a fun concept, but it doesn't really fit with how i see archetypes? the way i interpret them, they're something that you purposefully create to help you out, rather than something that spontaneously forms. i think if you wanted to explore, say, a trauma response in a character, it'd be more likely to be reflected in their mental world, for example.

besides, raz already has an archetype to represent his repressed trauma!

[well-its-not-human-anymore]

Hi! Could I get HC from the guys? 👀 How they would always react to catching the reader seeing them "badly", in addition to the fact that he usually avoids them, but with his brothers it is incredible and they feel bad because they think they do not like him.  But she actually likes them and she looks at them like that because she "studies" them to draw them and she is too clumsy and shy to talk to them, that's why she ends up avoiding them. Until finally he catches her drawing them with lots of hearts or maybe they'll find her notebook with lots of portraits of them.

It's kind of funny because when I study people to draw them, they think that I look at them with hatred xd maybe I should increase my glasses prescription

God, glasses are such a pain in the ass but I have to wear them. If I don't anyone within my near vicinity doesn't have a face. But why they gotta get dirty so easily???? Makes me wanna explode or something

TMNT Headcanons

The boys w/ a quiet reader who is fine with his brothers but acts cold around him and stares a lot

Michaelangelo

mikey couldn't describe his disappointment upon realizing that you didn't want to be friends with him

well, you never actually said that to him

but he was pretty sure it was the case

you'd never made an effort to be friends with him

stared at him an awful lot though, but there was always something off about your gaze when you looked at him

like you were sizing him up, scrutinizing him, like he was an opponent

it kinda worried him

to add to that, you didn't even attempt to look embarrassed when he caught you staring

you'd just stare harder

on your end it was quite the opposite

you always found the brothers fascinating and you LOVED studying their anatomy, you'd confessed this to Donnie early on and he happily indulged in your questions

and you loved how easily you got along with the boys

well, except for Mikey

but it wasn't for a lack of trying

whenever the orange sporting turtle came around your normally flamboyant personality crept back into its little corner and hid

any words of excitement that had previously been with you died in your throat

for the longest time you didn't understand it

and you hated not understanding things, so you turned to your only outlet

that's how you ended up with an entire sketchbook full of the youngest brother in vastly different styles and poses

you had a separate book for the others, none of them as detailed as this

and when you stared to analyze you'd fallen into a habit of not looking away when caught

by your logic, if you stared back hard enough he'd look away first or just assume you'd zoned out

he didn't

and on one hectic day you'd left your sketchbook open on the kitchen table in your rush to get to work

you hadn't even noticed the slip up until Leo texted you to let you know during your shift

instant panic

in truth, Mikey was the one who discovered the book upon waking up from his nap and he'd spent the next three hours analyzing every drawing

when you finally dropped in after work to grab your book the turtle was waiting for you with it in hand

he'd asked you if you hated him

you told him no and accepted your sketchbook from him

he was relieved and screaming excitedly, just in his head

"Do you maybe wanna hang out sometime?"

You sighed in relief and nodded

"If you're cool with it- you don't think I'm weird do you?"

"I mean- you are talking to a turtle..."

you lightly shoved his chest and smiled, although it faded within a second

"Oh hush, 10 o'clock tomorrow? I'll bring snacks."

he was so stunned he could only shoot you finger guns in approval

Donatello

Donnie genuinely couldn't understand your unease around him

he'd followed all the proper expectations of holding a conversation

he was polite and engaging

so why wouldn't you talk to him?

this boy has read so many social blogs to try and figure out what he was doing wrong and he just couldn't put his finger on it

you were fine with the rest of his brothers, you'd stay up for hours laughing and gaming with them

you'd even sat still long enough to listen to Leo explain some old Japanese myth that he'd read about in a book

but with him it was always a quick, cordial greetings and farewells with bland small talk in between

Donnie had picked up pretty quickly that you weren't interested in any sort of interaction with him

and he convinced himself that that was okay

but that didn't explain the staring

he'd caught you in the act several times, eyes narrowed and locked on him

especially when you were alone with him in a room or just in the lair

the poor turtle just couldn't put his finger on it

then he caught you drawing, he noticed early on that you always carried a small sketchbook on your person but he didn't think much of it

and it wasn't so much that he caught you drawing, in fact, he wouldn't have noticed if you hadn't snapped at him while he was trying to do a sudoku puzzle

"Damn it Donnie! Stop moving! If I fuck this arm up one more time I'm gonna decompose!"

he'd quickly moved back into the position he was in prior

"sorry?"

but you'd gone silent again, occasionally glancing up from your work and running your eyes along his frame before looking down again

nearly twenty minutes later Donnie had finished the puzzle and it seemed as though you had finished your drawing

"Uh- can I ask what are you-"

"I'm drawing you but you kept moving your arm and making me mess up. You always do that when I draw you so every damn picture I have of you stays a sketch because you always come out looking like a fucking octopus."

He just stared

"Sorry, I uh- I didn't mean to explode on you like that. I'm just- I'm really bad at talking to you okay? It's so easy with everyone else but you've just gotta be so damn smart all the time and I worry that you'll think I'm boring so I just... don't talk to you?"

Donnie is stunned™

You refuse to show him the drawing until you can complete the line art and color it

But at least he knows that you don't hate him

Leonardo

To be completely honest Leo didn't mind that you were distant from him

You created an aura of calm when you were around and you always managed to distract his brothers while you were present

And he enjoyed the alone time

But after a few months that calm acceptance turned into jealousy

Not that he would ever admit it

He would just push it off and ignore it, that usually seemed to work

So why wasn't it?

And your obvious staring problem didn't help at all

Leo didn't spend much time considering his appearance but something about your gaze made him self conscious

And he hated that with a passion

Why was it that you could hold entire debates with his siblings? Even his dad for gods sake. You'd have hour long conversations on almost everything but whenever he tried to say hello you'd make up some lame ass excuse and scamper away

He just wanted an explanation

It appeared that the answer resided in your sketchbook

You'd left it open on the couch when Raph had called you away to spar with him

Leo very delicately flipped through the pages, careful not to disturb some of the polaroid pictures of his brothers

He was admittedly surprised to find pictures of himself among the pages

One of him in a handstand, another of him meditating, there was even one of him mid sneeze that you'd recreated with pencil and paper

The image of his eyes was the most startling, but the book held no polaroid of his eyes

You drew them from memory

And he was shocked when you returned to the room and didn't immediately panic

But that might have been because he didn't try to withhold your book from you

"It took me three months to color them, your eyes. I could never get the shade of blue just right."

"I'm gonna be honest with you y/n, I really thought you didn't like me."

You had the nerve to roll your eyes and follow it with a laugh

"I don't. I mean- I do but no, you just remind me a lot of myself and I haven't exactly figured out why yet. I thought that maybe if I drew you it'd be easier to figure you out..."

"Well did it help?"

You grinned

"I'm talking to you, aren't I?"

Raphael

If there was one thing Raph hated it was not understanding something that was right in front of him

which is ironic, as a much younger version of himself probably couldn't care less

and a part of him wishes he didn't care about it so much

he wishes that your blatant avoidance of him didn't upset him

but shit, it got under his skin better than any needle ever could

was it too much to ask for you to just tell him what he said or did wrong?

was he asking too much of you?

but on the same scale you'd never shown obvious dislike towards him, you were never rude and you sure as hell didn't talk shit about him to his brothers

you got along great with them

in fact it was getting more difficult to remember a time before you became a part of his family

he'd become so used to your presence that it no longer put him off when he found you hanging around the lair

but in another sense he was certain that you hadn't spoken more than three sentences to him in your time knowing him or his family

so what was the reason

several months in he finally caught onto the staring, your narrow, glassy gaze locked onto his body and refusing to look away

he stared right back at you

this annoyed you for several reasons

because within five seconds your very peaceful drawing session had turned into a staring contest and your eyes were getting VERY dry

then you exhaled in a half-sigh and looked back down at your paper

"Huh, I guess your head is more of an oblong shape..."

he took offense to this

"What tha' hell is that supposed t'mean?"

now your eyes held more of an amused silent judgement, you begrudgingly held up your sketchbook

"I'm drawing you, you fucking walnut."

"Oh..."

now you rolled you eyes and tossed the book to him, he nearly dropped it and fumbled with the pages

your annoyance was quickly growing

"Careful with that."

He flipped through the pages at a snails pace, assumingly because he couldn't quite believe what he was seeing

you had some real talent

when he looked back up at you he was wearing that crooked smile

"and here I was thinkin' that my eyes were just green."

Hope I was able to get this down pretty well! I really enjoyed writing this one! Thanks for the patience!

-Mars 🌠

[buckys-black-dress]

inked

a/n: here she is!!! while i work on afl, here is my crackfic on tattoo artist bucky!! if u haven’t caught on yet, most of my writing is au’s because of all the possibilites in terms of scenarios and storylines. anyways, i hope you enjoy, lovies!!! xoxo, ali <3

wc: 2.8k 

[tattoo artist!bucky x fem!reader]

-

It was like an addiction. 

Your first tattoo you got was simple. It was a dainty, small one on your wrist.

But now, it was slowly developing into a sleeve.

Not that you minded, though. Your forearm was slowly becoming filled with designs that you kept going back and getting here and there.

And at the tattoo parlor near your apartment in Brooklyn, you had become a regular at this point.

It was called B&R Tattoo Shop, and it was run by two of the kindest, but most attractive men you’ve ever met. 

You’ve come to find out after getting to know the owners, that they opened the shop a bit after they returned from their second tour in the army and wanted to settle back in their hometown.  

Steve and James were hospitable to you, especially when they first met you. Steve was the one to meet you and speak with you at first, but he handed you off to James, or Bucky as he asked you to call him, because he was the artist at their shop that specialized in more of what you were looking for in terms of style. 

As far as first tattoo conversations go, you and Bucky got to know each other pretty well in one session. The tattoo itself took less than an hour, but it felt like Bucky was... prolonging it in a way, like he wanted to keep you there longer.

As you swung open the door of the shop, you were greeted by their piercer, Natasha. 

“Hey, back for another already?” She smirks from her spot behind the desk. While she wasn’t piercing, she usually worked the front if there was no one else free.

Your first tattoo had been done by Bucky, and you instantly fell in love.

With the tattoo. 

Well, Bucky too. Just a little bit.

He was extremely soothing and eased you into the process of tattooing you. He told you when something was going to happen, and as soon as you got used to the feeling of the needle against your skin. 

The more he talked to you, the less pain you felt. It was already not that painful, but you almost forgot about it with him talking to you. When he looked up to you as he finished, you looked like a confused puppy.

“Okay, all done, doll.” Bucky looked up at you, moving to turn off his machine.

“Oh... that was fast.” You furrowed your brows.

“Well, yeah, we moved pretty fast since it was a pretty small piece.” He explains, grabbing a paper towel and the anti-bacterial spray.

“Do you mind if I take a quick picture of it? I usually do, for my portfolio.” Bucky asks, inspecting the tattoo closely once again.

“Oh, yeah, that’s fine.” You wait for him to pull out his camera, take the picture, and he comes back with a piece of plastic film in his hand.

“Okay, so this saniderm has to stay on for about three days. This is how it’ll heal, and when you take it off just wash it up with a gentle soap and use a cream without any fragrance or any of that crap. I can give you a little of that spray if you wanna use it to clean it up if you ever feel like it’s dirty.” Bucky explains, giving you a mini bottle of the antibacterial spray.

“Thank you,” you say, moving to sit up in the chair. “How much do I owe you?”

“Uh, just about $40.” Bucky says without eye contact, heading to the computer at the front counter.

“$40? That’s it? When I signed the waiver it said the shop minimum was $75...?” You wonder out loud.

“Let’s just say you get a special discount, doll.” He smirks, typing something into the computer and only sparing you a glance.

“O-Oh. Alright.” You say sheepishly, handing him your credit card.

“Okay, you’re all set. Hopefully I’ll see you again soon.” He tells you with a gentle smile. It really contrasted his aura; a big, beefy guy with a metal prosthetic arm, covered in probably hundreds of tattoos. But here he was, smiling like sunshine.

“I think I will be. Have a nice day, Bucky.” 

“You too, sweetheart.” He gives you that smirk again, making you feel like you might actually pass out. And not because you just had a needle jabbed into your skin for almost an hour.

“Uh, I already talked to Bucky for my session today. I know I’m a bit early, I can wait if he’s still working on someone else.” You tell Natasha with a smile.

“Sure, let me get you your waiver.” She says, and you plop down into one of the chairs at the front and pulling out your book to pass time after filling out the form.

After a few minutes, Bucky emerges with a girl from his little tattooing corner.

You hear his voice first, looking up from the book while he talks to her.

“Okay, since this was your first piece and pretty small, I’ll only charge ya $55 for it, doll.” Bucky tells the girl with a smile, and you immediately feel a pang in your chest.

You didn’t want to say you were jealous, but goddamn it, your breathing became just a little more shallow at the sight you were currently witnessing.

Even Natasha and Steve turned their heads to him, confused looks on both of their faces.

“Oh! Y/N, you’re here! C’mon back, I’m sure Nat already set you up with your waiver.” You nod, not saying a word as you follow him to the familiar chair.

“So, are we still doing what we discussed on the phone?” Bucky asks, setting up his area to tattoo you.

“Actually, I was thinking something different.” You say sharply.

“Different?” The shock is evident on his features. 

“Yeah. Different. Just want a little something on my collarbone.” You say, sitting down. 

“O-Okay... what were you thinking of?” He asks, pulling out his sketchbook.

“I want an olive branch, going from here to here.” You show him where you want it to start and end. It was a bit of a stretch right across the left side of your chest. “Something simple and minimal. I’ve been thinking of starting the top of my sleeve, this might be a good way to transition into it.” You say nonchalantly.

“Uhm... alright. How does this look?” Bucky asks, showing you his sketch. “I would, of course, add more detail to your liking, just let me know.” 

“Yeah, I want some more shading, please.” You say shortly. You honestly weren’t trying to be mean, but you were irritated.

But in the end, you really had no right to be. 

After almost ten sessions with Bucky, he hasn’t made any indication that he likes you the way you like him.

Sure, he calls you pet names, but he does that to everyone. Even discounts. You weren’t special. He was just being nice and doing his job.

So honestly, you had to cut the act here.

“Are you sure this is what you want? Are you saving the other design for our next session?” Bucky asks, growing more and more concerned with your odd behavior. Usually you would talk to him about your day, how work was, really anything. 

“I don’t know. I think I might ask Steve to do that one instead.” You say out of spite, more than anything. You would never take a design that Bucky made specially for you to another person to tattoo on you, even if it was his own business partner.

“Wha- Why? Did I do something? You’ve been acting really weird today...” Bucky questions you carefully. “Talk to me, doll. Did you have a bad day at work?”

But that, that right there, was your breaking point. Doll. 

“No, I’m fine. Let’s just get this done.” You huff, laying down after nodding to the sketch that Bucky drew out. 

Bucky’s brows furrowed even further, but didn’t ask any more questions. He laid down the stencil and asked if the placement was alright. You looked in the mirror he handed you and nodded briefly. 

The entire time Bucky had the machine in his hand, neither of you spoke a word. He tried to make brief conversation, but you only responded with a hum or nod. 

When he finally finished up, you got up and headed to the counter without a word after looking at the finished tattoo in the mirror. 

Your face was blank, emotionless, and Bucky was truly lost. 

After you paid the full price of your piece, you walked out of the shop, not even sparing anyone a glance. 

Once you left, the shop was dead silent. Everyone either just finished up with a client or didn’t have any at the moment, and the shop was blanketed in an extremely uncomfortable silence.

“What the hell was that, man?” Sam’s voice broke the silence, making Bucky’s head snap towards him. 

“I-I... I have no idea. She was acting so...so weird today.” Bucky looked more confused than ever.

“You’re an idiot, you know that?” Natasha’s voice cuts through the palpable silence.

“Wh- What the hell did I do? I asked her too, and she didn’t give me an answer...” Bucky mumbles.

“Do you like her?” She fires back with a fire in her eyes.

“W-Well, yeah. She’s a regular.” Bucky answers, looking at his fiddling hands.

“Not like that, you dunce. You know what I mean, don’t act dumb.” Natasha rolls her eyes.

Bucky sighs, not making eye contact yet again.

“I-... I do like her.” He says. “But I don’t think she feels the same.” 

“Jesus fucking Christ... You really are a dumbass.” Sam sighs out.

Steve snorts at his words, nodding in agreement.

“Buck, she got jealous.” He explains, shaking his head at his best friend’s obliviousness.

“J-Jealous? Of what?” Bucky scoffs in shock.

“That girl you had right before her. Gave her a discount, called her pet names. The whole shabang.” Natasha points out to him. “Also, you gotta stop giving out discounts like that. You’ll lose more money than you’re makin’.” Natasha scoffs. 

“Wh- But... She never said anything...?” Bucky thinks back to all the times you’ve sat in his chair. You never made any indication that you were outwardly interested in him.

“I think she said enough today without actually saying much.” Steve laughs. His friend was a real idiot.

“I... But, why didn’t she say anything before?” Bucky asked.

“Buck, you never said anything either. I guess that when she heard you talk to that girl like that, she thought you really didn’t like her like that at all. You treated that girl the same way you treat her.” Natasha explains to Bucky, who had a look of realization on his face.

“But... I was just... being nice...” He says with his head in his hands. 

“Well, now she thinks you do that with all you clients, so...” Sam says, making the brunet’s head shoot up.

“Fuck. Fuck. I fucked up everything!” He exclaims. “I-I do like her!” 

“Well, don’t tell us that, tell her!” Sam shouts back to him, and before Bucky can process, he’s pulling out his phone and dialing your phone number.

“C’mon, pick up, pick up,” He mumbles repeatedly, but the call goes to voicemail. “Fuck.”

“Not pickin’ up?” Steve questions, coming to the front and picking up the shop phone. “Gimme her number, she’s doesn’t have to shop saved to her phone, right?” 

“No, I don’t think she does.” Bucky says, watching as Steve dials your number.

“Hello?” Your voice sounds annoyed as it filters through the phone. “Who’s this?” 

“Uh, Y/N! Hi!” Steve speaks, looking at Bucky in a panic, his facial expression screaming, ‘talk to her!’ 

“Steve? What’s up?” You ask, wondering what he needed. 

“You uhh... you forgot your book here!” He blurts out, trying to find an excuse, but quickly found one upon seeing your book resting on the seat where you were waiting. 

“O-Oh... I guess I’ll just turn around. I’ll be there in a few. Thanks, Steve.” You say, ready to hang up.

“O-Okay. Bye, Y/N.” He clears his throat, hanging up. “You have like, ten minutes to get your shit together and talk to her when she gets here. Good luck.” Steve pats Bucky on the shoulder, ready to haul Natasha and Sam to the back to give you two some privacy.

Bucky thought that this was the longest ten minutes of his life, and he was trying to conjure up a speech in his head to confess to you.

Finally, when you did appear through the doors, you looked lost. You only saw Bucky, which made you even more aggravated from the fact that you had to turn back around.

You were ready to head home and wallow in peace, but alas, you wanted your book. 

Bucky just watched as you picked up the book from his grasp across the desk, your eyes not meeting his while he kept his gaze on you very intently. 

Just as you turned around to leave, Bucky’s voice cut through the unbearable silence.

“Y/N?” He simply asks, and you feel like the wind’s been knocked out of your lungs at the sound of his small voice. This wasn’t the Bucky you knew and... loved.

“Yes, James?” You simply respond, and Bucky cringes at the sound of his first name being used. 

“Can I talk to you for a second?”

“...Why? Is everything alright?” And although your voice didn’t give it away, you felt your heart drop to your stomach. Any possible scenario popped into your head. He has a girlfriend. He’s gonna tell you he doesn’t wanna see you anymore. He-

“E-Everything’s fine, doll. Just wanted to tell you that... That I...” Bucky’s voice sounded strained, like there was something caught in his throat.

“Bucky, just spit it out.” You say, wanting to leave already.

“It’s just- I like you. A lot. And I’m so sorry for earlier with that other client. I was just trying to be nice, but I realized how that looked to you, and I never thought anything of it because I didn’t know if you liked me back or-” Bucky was rambling, and your eyes were wide as saucers.

“Bucky, Bucky stop. Let me talk before you drive your own head in with conclusions,” you say, resting your hand on top of his on the desk.

“I like you a lot, too. I didn’t think you like me either because of that girl before me. You just- you treated her the same way you treated me, and I got jealous. I know I didn’t have the right to be, but it just made me think that... that you didn’t feel the same way about me, that I was just another client to you. I’m sorry for jumping to conclusions, and also for being kind of a bitch to you...” Now you were the one rambling, your hands flying all over the place in explanation.

“D-Doll, I never wanted to make you feel that way. I’m sorry, too. I should’ve told you before, before I almost blew everything with you that we’ve been building these past months.” He says placing one large tattooed hand and one metal hand on the sides of your face. “But I’m not gonna miss my chance again. Y/N, would you like to go on a date with me?”

“I-I would love to, Bucky. Took you long enough to ask me.” You giggle, holding onto the hands on your face.

“Yeah, well, I’m kind of an idiot, if you haven’t already noticed.” He laughs, gazing into your eyes with a look that almost turned you to mush in his hands. 

“Do... do ya wanna go now?” You ask, nodding your head to the door.

“Sure, let me go grab my jacket from the back.” He tells you, and you nod, watching as he keeps his eyes on you until he disappears to the back.

“My man, who would’ve thought you’d finally man up?” Sam ridicules him as soon as Bucky appears.

“Dude, shut up. I got a date to get to, see you losers later.” He rolls his eyes, moving back out where you’re smiling at him.

“Ready, angel?” Bucky asks, slipping his hand into yours.

“Ready, handsome.” You reply, and as soon as you step out into the fall air, you plant a kiss on his cheek. “Where to, lover boy?”

[thegalleonsnest]

INTERVIEW CHORDICAL Time to ask the artist questions.

Figured I make the most of my down time due to my tablet going on fritz and ordering a new one, so I went ahead and drew this out in my sketchbook for the authentic journalist sketch style. It probably looks a bit cleaner than the actual style, but only because I was using super light H pencils before outlining.

Anyway, I actually wrote out the interview months ago, but never got around to uploading it, so they’re down here if you wanna read! It’s a bit longer than the average interview, but hey, my oc, I do what I want lol.

Who are you?

My name is Chordical Gallopano. I’m an artist who just graduated, but art’s not exactly at the top of my priority list at the moment.

Why is that? Are you going through an art block?

Eh, kind of? I guess it’s a bit of a small burn out, but I’ve gotten over it for the most part. If anything, I’m taking some time off to focus on myself. I still draw here and there, just not all that often. Mostly been helping Gramble at his barn.

Why come to Snaktooth Island?

Actually, the main reason was because I won a vacation raffle! I never really have faith in those raffles, but I was just like, “eh, screw it,” and gave it a shot. I was slacked jawed when I got the call about it too, hehe.

Wait, Lizbert held a raffle?

Well, yes she did, but my situation’s different. I found out that Lizbert held her own raffle, and Shelda won that one. The raffle I won let me pick a vacation of my choosing, as long as it was within the country; and then I remembered hearing about Lizbert’s trip to Snaktooth. Honestly, I didn’t care what grumps were saying about Lizbert and her Bugsnax discovery being real or not. It gave me a reason to go with her on her expedition. Thank grump that Lizbert wasn’t super finicky with external raffles and let me come anyway!

So was there any other reason you picked Snaktooth?

Erm...um...The best way that I could put it is that...I needed to get away. I needed a break from some stuff. I...rather not talk about it, at least not on the record. I would appreciate that.

Thoughts on Bugsnax?

Gonna be real, I’m not that into them like the rest of the guys here. They’re more annoying to deal with...and they’re a bit unnerving.

What’s wrong with them? Don’t you eat them too?

I mean, yes, I do, but only when I really have to. I’m pretty sure you noticed but uh, I rather not be stuck with nubs for paws for a week. I can’t draw without my fingies, and sketch paper isn’t exactly built for bacon grease media. There’s a couple of bugsnax that give me claws or something to work with, but even still, I prefer my fuzzy paws instead of cheepoof dust.

What exactly makes them “unnerving” to you?

It’s...hard to pinpoint why, but something about them rubs me the wrong way. I mean, they only exist on this island, apparently, and they turn your arms and legs into food. I don’t know about you, but I don’t think I would be one of those Grumpuses to yell “HOORAY” for having a weenie arm...At least they’re kind of cute as pets I guess.

Why did you leave town?

Honestly, the entire fight between Gramble and Wambus was something that hit its boiling point after being at each other’s throats for a while. They would constantly be fighting and bickering because of petty crap, and they wouldn’t settle things like adults! I had no choice but to basically be the mediator between them for months. It sucks. Even though I’m friends with both of them, I had to go with Gramble and help him.

What were they fighting about exactly?

If you’ve talked to Gramble already, he was right about one thing: Wambus broke into his barn and started snaknapping his little buddies. I actually SAW it happen too! Lizbert was only gone for a day; I get that we gotta eat, but what Wambus did was downright dirty. I just wish that they could just TALK about it instead of baring their fangs all the time. Otherwise, I don’t think we would have been in this mess to begin with.

Why did you go with Gramble and not Wambus?

Listen, Wambus is an older farmer grumpus, he can take care of himself. We’re still on good terms, but whatever beef he’s got with Gramble is between them. I’m just trying to mediate as best I can. I had to go help Gramble because have you SEEN the poor guy? He’s a wreck with how little sleep he gets! Not to mention he’s barely eating anything other than sauce and whatever science experiment Shelda had cooking up at the time! I’ve been helping out at his barn since almost the start, and I care about him...someone has to look after him.

Any info on Lizbert?

Lizbert is pretty cool, not gonna lie. I actually asked her if she needed any help documenting any of the Bugsnax and she’d let me go out with her and do live studies of them. I drew a good chunk of the bugsnax in her notes and helped keep them organized. For who she is, she is really encouraging and friendly. She would honestly be a good big sister if you let her, heh! She kept everyone fed from her hunts, but I don’t think she was keeping up with everyone. Like, socially, I mean.

Did she ever talk to the other Grumpuses?

Of course she did, but I don’t think she was really paying enough attention. It’s one thing to be a leader, but it’s another to actually listen to someone’s problems. I know she really cared about her partner, Eggabell, but I could tell she was a major priority most of the time. I think it’s because she spent more time hunting than actually being in town most of the time. If she had a break and someone else took over the hunting, I could see her spending time with the other Grumpuses, but as it stood, no one was willing to take her place. That’s probably why she did it anyway, in case they disappeared like she and Eggabell did.

Do you know what happened to Lizbert and Eggabell?

I wish I knew. The only thing I do know is that we were supposed to go to the mountains to document a few more Bugsnax and study some weird structures, but she ended up taking Eggabell instead. I know they had a falling out a few days beforehand, so maybe Lizbert decided that it would have been better if it was just the two of them so they could sort out their issues. But then that earthquake hit not too long after...Grump I hope they’re ok.

Thanks, Chordical. This was all very informative.

Hey, I’m glad I could give ya something to work with! If you ever need someone to talk to or just chill with for a bit, I’ll be hanging at Gramble’s. Bet we could compare some art notes while we’re at it!

[hangovercurse]

Blind Date (continued)

You invite Colson in after your blind date

Request: “I loved this so much! If you get the chance and are up to it, I’d love a second part!” ”I would like to read a second part of it”

Colson X Reader

Warnings: cursing

A/N: Have I edited this? No. Did I even look back over this after I wrote it? Also no

Word Count: 1974

Your hand touched the handle before you turned around, finding Colson in the same situation at his car door, still looking at you. “Do you maybe wanna… come in?” You asked, biting your lip. His face lit up, a smirk highlighting his features.

“I would love that.”

The man’s lanky figure strutted over to your front door as you opened it, pausing as he entered to take in the smell of your house that screamed you. He let his eyes wander around the place as he stepped further in, taking off his coat and shoes at the front entryway.

You moved into the kitchen, pulling out a bottle of red wine while he made his way into the space. You found a note on the counter from your best friend and roommate.

Staying at Eric’s tonight in case you and your date need the place to yourself <3

You rolled your eyes at the note, chuckling as you tossed it in the trash. You rustled through your drawers to grab a corkscrew, fiddling with the bottle as Colson shuffled into the room, standing behind you to encase you in his arms.

He took the corkscrew from your hands and opened the bottle with ease. “I was getting there,” you whined jokingly.

He chuckled, “I could see that.” You turned around and allowed your lower back to rest against the counter, squeezed between the surface and Colson. His arms rested on the countertop on either side of you, his figure leaning to be level with you.

You couldn’t help but admire his features, his bright blue eyes and the stubble on his jaw sparking your artistic mind. “I wish I could sketch you right now,” you murmured your thoughts aloud.

He smirked, leaning closer into you, your lips almost meeting, “why don’t you?”

You smiled, pressing a soft kiss to his lips before softly speaking, “you would get bored being my model.”

He pulled away from you, fingers running across your waist until they found your hands, intertwining your fingers. “I would be honored to be your model.”

You perked an eyebrow, “seriously?”

He shrugged, “I’ve done it before for cameras, and you are much more interesting than photographers.” He pulled you away from the counter, “go get your stuff and I’ll pour wine.”

Rolling your eyes, you walked towards your art room, which was really just your bedroom, “don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

When you returned, he was wandering your small living area, a glass of wine in his hands and one on the small coffee table. His eyes danced along the picture frames you and your roommate had placed around the house when you first moved in, which you honestly hadn’t looked at since.

You stepped into the room with your sketchbook and pencils, making your presence known. His gaze drifted to you with a smile, watching you settle onto the couch, “so, is this your roommate?” He motioned towards one of the pictures.

You glanced up, smiling at the goofy picture you two had taken at graduation, “yep, that’s us.” You turned your head back to your book, flipping to the next blank page as he continued asking about your pictures.

“Who’s in this one?” He asked, pointing to a photo of your roommate and her boyfriend, Eric.

You chuckled at the image of them pulling funny faces in the front seat of a car while you sat in the background looking bored, “that’s Eric, her boyfriend. We went on this huge road trip and they swore I wouldn’t have to third wheel, but I obviously did.”

Colson let out a small laugh, taking a sip of his wine, “and who is that?”

You had honestly forgotten about the picture he was pointing to, but seeing it made your stomach fill with unease. “Oh, I forgot that was still up,” you sighed at Colson’s curious expression, “that’s me and my ex, TJ. We broke up months ago, I thought I’d gotten everything of his out of here.”

Colson could see the discomfort in your expression, sitting down on the armchair next to your couch, throwing his legs over the side and posing dramatically. “Bad ex, huh?” You nodded, not wanting to make him uncomfortable with the conversation, though you wanted nothing more than to open up to him. “I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours.”

You rolled your eyes, turning so you could face him, “of all the poses, that’s what you pick?”

He smiled innocently, “yep.” A chuckle fell from your lips as you looked down at your sketchbook, pressing your pencil to the paper. “Fine, I’ll go first,” he began, “can’t really get to know each other if we don’t get at least a little bit of trauma out of the way.”

You looked up at him and giggled, “you got me there.”

He sighed, taking a sip of his wine, “Baze told me not to talk about it, but the look on your face when I asked you about him tells me you might be able to relate.” You raised an eyebrow but kept drawing, giving him a silent signal to continue. “I was dating this girl for a while, you’ve probably heard of her, Megan Fox.”

Your eyes went wide at the name, looking up at him in shock, “yeah, because that’s not an intimidating act to follow at all!”

Colson waved you off, “you’re doing great so far, don’t even worry about it.” You gave him a stern look, but he only continued with his story, “anyways, we were together for a while and she told me all the time she thought we were soulmates, and I believed her, you know?” You bit your lip, starting to feel slightly intimidated as he spoke about the woman. “But then she cheated on me after, like, 9 months. And I realized after we broke up how wrong we were for each other and how much she manipulated me.”

You frowned as he spoke, his tone getting sadder with each word. “That’s so shitty. I don’t understand why people cheat in long term relationships, especially after you’ve given them so much hope and trust. Like someone convinces you that they love you and then they go around and pull that shit. It’s evil.”

He nodded, a slight smile on his face, “I’m over it now though, in case you were worried. Came to the realization about a month or two later that I was better without her.”

You held the pencil in your hands still, trying to find the words you needed to say. “I, uh, I was dating that guy, TJ. We had been friends for a while and he asked me out and I said yes. Everything was great, you know? And then like almost a year end he starts acting all weird and possessive. Like just because we had been together for so long means he doesn’t have to treat me like his girlfriend anymore. He would make me feel like shit in front of our friends and just all around was being a shitty boyfriend.” Colson stared at you intensely with a frown on his face, eyebrows furrowed.

“A guy should never do that shit to his girl. You don’t deserve that shit, no one does.”

You nodded sadly, “yeah, well, then I found out like 4 months into all of this that he had cheated on me and gotten the girl pregnant so… I ended things real quick.” You let out a sad huff, turning your attention back to the book and continuing your sketch of the beautiful man in front of you. “I was really upset at first but now I’m just kind of angry. Dude was a dick.”

Colson let out a dry laugh as you took a long sip of wine, “sounds like it. I’m sorry you went through that shit.”

You shrugged, smiling up at him, “if I hadn’t, we wouldn’t be here.”

He chuckled, biting his lip, “guess something good came out of it.”

A blush spread across your cheeks, “oh yeah, the food was amazing.” Your words were full of sarcasm, yet the pout on his face still made you giggle, “I’m joking, loser.”

“You better be miss second-date.” You giggled but didn’t respond, turning back to draw him. It was quiet for a few moments, your pencil tracing along the paper.

He shifted, at which you glared up at him, “I told you you’d get bored.”

With a chuckle he said, “I’m not bored. I get to look at you while you draw, it’s far from boring.” You tried to look annoyed at him but failed miserably at his flattering words. “I was thinking though, since it’s my picture and all, I should get to make some executive decisions.”

You scoffed, “you chose your pose, what else would you like oh great model Colson?”

He rolled his eyes playfully, stretching his arm out to set his glass on the table. “Well, I mentioned that I have some tattoos,” he reached for the hem of his shirt, pulling it up, “you should draw them.”

Once his shirt was fully removed from his body, you couldn’t help but gawk just a little. His entire chest was covered in ink, designs beautifully engraved into his skin. “I was gonna make a joke about this only being our first date but holy shit, these are beautiful.”

He blushed, looking down shyly, ”I was honestly scared you weren’t gonna like them.”

You looked at him with wide eyes, “Seriously? This is so cool. I’m an artist, you really think I’m not gonna like tattoos? Its an art form in itself.”

Colson shrugged, moving back to his pose, expecting you to continue your drawing. Instead, your eyes wandered his torso, taking in every detail of the work. “If you’re lucky,” he commented slyly, “one day I might show you all of them.”

You rolled your eyes with a scoff, moving back into drawing position, “you think you’re so cool.”

A breathy laugh fell from his lips, “I do, actually.”

The two of you continued banter-laced conversation while you drew him, his likeness coming to life on your page. At some point it turned into 3 am, and you were struggling to keep your eyes opened, but you were finished.

“Here.” You turned the book to him, letting him take in your work. He didn’t speak for a few moments, causing worry to build in you. “I mean, it’s no Mona Lisa but-“

“That is fucking amazing.” He cut you off with a wide smile, “you make me look hot.”

You rolled your eyes with a grin, “I’m not going to feed your ego by saying something super lame like “that’s just what you look like,” but I’m glad you like it.” He chuckled at your response, climbing off of the chair to stand in front of you.

“Damn, I was really hoping to get my ego fed tonight.” He grabbed the sketchbook from you and threw it onto the couch next to you before grabbing your hands and pulling you up to stand.

You smiled to yourself, chest shaking with silent laughter, “does the sketch not feed it enough?”

He shook his head, “I need the approval of a really pretty girl to satisfy its hunger.”

Rolling your eyes, you leaned up into him, “you gotta work harder than that, Rockstar.” Your words came out breathy against his lips as he wrapped his arms around your waist.

His mouth connected to yours, the kiss deep and passionate. His soft lips meshed perfectly with yours, his hands pulling you up to stand on your tiptoes. Once you pulled away you stayed close to him, breathing in his intoxicating scent. He whispered, “I never thought a blind date could turn out so well.”

[itsallyscorner]

I’m so happy seeing someone on here give positions the respect it deserved as an album!!! U have no idea!! My fav currently is safety net, so that with Steve 🥺🤝

Aw thank you, hun! And thank you for the request! I’m so sorry it took long, thank you for being patient! I hope you enjoy, happy reading!🥰💛

💌.

safety net

*takes place in like early Avengers. Like First Avenger - Avengers* I’m not sure what this is, but I tried:)

You know you're really something, yeah

How we get here so damn fast?

Only you can tell me that

Baby, 'cause you know I'm coming back

You're making me forget my past

Never thought I’d feel like that again

I came to peace with my path

Now you got me off track

From waking up in the 21st century to becoming the Captain of the Avengers. Steve Rogers felt like time was moving through him. He was just a second on the clock while it continued to tick on to the next second, to a minute, and to an hour. Steve felt lost waking up in the new century. He didn’t know what the world was anymore. From someone who felt as if he had the world in his hands, now he was just a loner in a time he didn’t belong to.

He had no one. There wasn’t anyone in Brooklyn who he recognized. Not the man who worked at the deli, no newsie yelling out the new headline of the paper, not even one of those bullies who’d beat him up in the alleys. There was no Bucky. No sign of Peggy. Just a bunch of giant televisions hung on the buildings of New York and people with their eyes casted upon their phones.

Then he met you. Agent (y/n) of SHIELD. He recognized you as one of the many agents he bumped into when running out of HQ when he first woke up in NY. He officially met you when Fury introduced you to him.

“Captain Rogers, meet Agent (y/n), she’ll be helping you adjust to the 21st century.” Fury stood between you and Steve. While you had a comforting smile on your face, a hesitant expression was on the super soldier’s face.

“Captain Rogers, it’s an honor to meet you.” You stuck your hand out to him for a shake. Steve took your hand a few seconds after staring at it, nodding at you.

“I understand that everything seems confusing and you must be feeling so many emotions right now. But I hope you’ll allow me to help you adjust to the new world. We don’t have to rush into things, we can move at your pace. Whatever you’re comfortable with.” You spoke with such gentleness. For a moment, Steve forgot about the whole situation he was in. All he could thing about during that moment was how comforting your presence was and how safe it made him feel. Maybe a bit too safe.

Though he was timid, unresponsive, and hard to understand, you still stuck around to help him. Not once did you give up on him or missed a day of your sessions together. You were patient with him, even if he would raise his voice in frustration or just look off into space. You were kind and caring. You made sure he was eating well and that his fridge was well stocked whenever you came around. You were too good to him even though he was a complete dick to you.

Steve knew he was acting like a dick, it was a defense mechanism. His walls were built up to the skies, too scared to let anyone in, especially in the new world. But you were persistent. You didn’t let him knock you down with his childish behavior and hard glares. The day he apologized for his actions felt like some weight was taken off his shoulders. He hated being mean to you, you didn’t deserve it. Besides you were only doing your job.

After his apology, your sessions went smoother and Steve was actually learning things about the new world. From modern technology, terminology, pop culture, and operating daily appliances, you’ve basically taught Steve the basics of modern life. The more time you both spent together the more you’ve invaded his thoughts. When you left after sessions, he would reminisce about the light blush upon your cheeks, the way your lips moved when you talked, and how your eyes would connect with his. Sometimes he wondered how your lips would feel against his as he drew you in the brown sketchbook you’ve gifted him.

You were like Advil, you took away the pain and thoughts that racked his brain everyday and when he laid awake in his bed at night. He spent most of his time thinking about the past but when you were around you brought him to now. The world that he was in now. Sure, there was no Bucky or Peggy, but he had you. With you, the 21st century didn’t seem that bad.

I've never been this scared before

Feelings I just can't ignore

Don't know if I should fight or fly

But I don't mind

His feelings for you confused him as much as washing machines did. They just had too many buttons, what was the point of all of them? You could press any of them and they’d all wash your clothes, it’s the same result.

Steve wasn’t sure if he should fear his feelings for you or to follow them. The last time he felt this infatuated with a woman was with Peggy. And seeing how things ended up with Peggy, things weren’t so clear for you as well. Steve wasn’t sure if he was ready for a relationship. From having to adjust to the new world, to SHIELD, and being stuck on the past, Steve had a lot on his plate.

He was scared to break his walls down and let you in. He wanted you to be in his life but he was scared of having to face even more change. Steve tried to ignore his feelings for you, but he wasn’t too good at that either. When he ignored his feelings, you’d still find a way to crawl into his thoughts. Which led to him being frustrated at himself.

“Why do you have that look on your face, Steve?” You looked at him curiously, as you sat across from him. The two of you were in his dining room drinking some coffee that Steve successfully brewed.

“What look.” He gruffed out as he stirred his coffee.

“You’ve been glaring down at your coffee for the past few minutes.” You pointed out before taking a sip from your cup. “What’s wrong? You can tell me.”

“I think you’re an amazing gal and I adore you. And I can’t get you out of my damn head. I don’t know how to think straight without you being present in my mind.” Was what Steve wanted to say. He mentally screamed at himself for wanting to admit such a thing. Instead he ignored his stupid thoughts and tried to avoid your question.

“It’s nothing you need to worry about, (y/n).” Steve shook his head as he sent you a small smile.

You rolled your eyes at him, “Steve there’s obviously something going on on in your head, I’m not forcing you to tell me. But sometimes it’s nice to voice your thoughts, it helps, trust me.” Your hand glides across the table as it settled above his. The warmth from your palm made him feel safe, it was comforting, like a blanket.  

“You don’t need to always keep everything to yourself, Steve. There’s people who are willing to help you and listen, You don’t need to do everything on your own.” Steve feels his hearts race as your hand squeezes his own.

“Doing everything alone is all I know. I mean I’ve always had Bucky, but I just, I’ve always faced things on my own.” Steve explained, the pain could be heard in his voice as he spoke about the past and Bucky.

You nodded understandingly, “I know, Steve. It’s just— If you need anyone to talk to, I’m here for you.”

Mmm

Tripping, falling, with no safety net

Boy, it must be something that you said

Is it real this time or is it in my head?

Got me tripping, falling, with no safety net

Steve allowed himself to be embraced by you. After losing the battle of debating his feelings for you, he realized that he was stupid for pushing away his feelings for you. For once in his life Steve allowed himself to be selfish. He was doing something for him. He liked you and he was going to allow himself to have those feelings for you. No more pushing you away.

You and Steve sat on the couch that was in the living room of the apartment SHIELD had provided him. Unlike the previous months of sitting on separate seats, you guys now shared the couch. The two of you sat side by side in comfort. Steve had laid back on the couch, his legs sprawled in front of him as his hand moved against the paper in his sketchbook. You were facing the window that outlooked the peaceful street Steve lived on. A cup of coffee was in your hands as you stared out the window.

From time to time your shoulder or hand would brush against Steve’s bare arm. The thin material of his short sleeved shirt not doing him any justice, the feeling of electricity rushing through his body made him shiver as goosebumps formed on his skin.

He was discreetly drawing you in his sketchbook. He stole glances at you as you continued to look out the window, eyes slowly drooping. Steve quietly chuckled to himself as he closed his sketchbook and placed it to the side.

“Better not spill all that coffee on my couch.” He teased you with a hint of playfulness in his eyes. You’ve never seen that look in him, usually his eyes were clouded with distraction, longing for something. You’ve always thought that he might’ve been longing for the past, but you could be wrong.

You rest your head on the couch, “It’s not even your couch, Steven.” Steve rolls his eyes and takes your cup from you, placing it on the coffee table.

“It’s still my responsibility.” He watched as you yawned tiredly. You were clearly tired, you had bags under your eyes and you moved slower than you usually did. The only thing to blame was the mission you’ve just returned from.

“You know, you can take a nap if you want. Have you gotten any proper sleep since getting back?” Steve asked as he stood up to grab a blanket that hung on one of his cushioned chairs.

“Does two to three hours count?” You began as he opened up the blanket. “And I don’t want to be a burden Steve, I’m not sleeping on your couch—“ You’re cut off by Steve tucking you into the blanket.

“You’re sleeping here. You’ve been there to help me adapt to the new world and now it’s my turn to help you. So sleep.” He explained with a nod before returning to his spot on the couch.

A few minutes past until he hears you shuffle and suddenly your head is on his lap, “you’re comfier.” You simply say before drifting off.

While you slept before him, Steve couldn’t help but admire the features that graced your face. Every single spot, blemish, the way your eyelashes brushed against the apples of your cheeks, or how your pouty lips were so pink and bright that he wanted to kiss them.

At that moment, as he stared down at you, he realized that he was falling hard, harder than he’s ever fell. But he was okay with it, satisfied actually. He wasn’t hesitant or scared anymore, he was going to jump off from his walls and fall, because somehow he knew you’d be at the bottom ready to catch him. You’re his safety net. 

[trashforhockeyguys]

Don’t Hold Me -5- Carter Hart

A/N: All previous parts are linked in my masterlist as always. Please enjoy!

There was a sense of emptiness that came in the days that followed. You hadn’t spoken to Travis since he left your dorm room. You hadn’t even heard from Nolan. Ethan called the day after and yelled at you for being an idiot at the party, which you deserved. But nothing from the two other boys you considered to be your family. 

You weren’t sure how to fix it. You’d fucked up. You hadn’t pushed Travis that far before. Somehow you’d always worked it out before one of you left. This time was different though. This time you weren’t sure if he’d come back or not. You’d kicked him out. 

You took a sip of your coffee and ran your finger over the dark line you’d just drawn. Something about the drawing just didn’t feel right. But you couldn’t get the image out of your head, you had to get it down on paper. You had to try to at least get some of it down, otherwise you’d lose your mind. 

The way he looked that morning….you couldn’t stop thinking about it. 

He didn’t look away from his coffee cup after our fight, if you could even call it that. He looked more defeated than he did after a really bad loss. And you still couldn’t understand it. It’s not like you were anything to one another. He was Travis’s teammate. And you were just a girl. His teammate's friend. Nothing more to him than that. 

Yet as you worked on the shading for the drawing, you couldn’t help but wonder what else was going on in his head. With the hunch in his shoulders, like the weight of the world had crashed down on them, and the way he hung his head...you were missing something. 

There was something more to this relationship that you didn’t understand. Maybe you needed to stop pushing for a minute and just see. So, you drew. Slowly, very slowly, you began to capture more of the details, as much as you could remember. 

Your pencil flew across the page, you worked furiously. You were in your own little world as you worked on blending out the harsh lines. You were oblivious to what was going on around you. All you could think of was getting this done, maybe then you could forget the way he looked. 

The hurt. The disappointment. 

You didn’t want to remember it. Because you started to question things after that morning. He’d taken care of you, even though he had no real reason to. Other than the fact that Travis called him and asked him to do so. There was so much about him that you started to question….including your feelings towards him.

Surely though, one night wouldn’t change everything. It was one night. You weren’t the type of person to just turn on a dime like that. It was one night. 

“Hey, mind if I sit?”

You slammed your sketchbook closed and looked up. You cursed yourself for still coming to the same little coffee shop, just off of campus. The same place that Carter kept showing up at. 

“I promise I’m not stalking,” He swore, “TK is pretty worried about you.”

“Is that so? I wouldn’t know,” You replied. 

He pulled out the chair across the table and sat down. He had a worried look about him. You felt almost squeamish, you wanted to hide. He was paying too much attention to you. You didn’t like the way he was looking at you. It scared you. 

“What’s going on with you?”

“What do you mean Carter?”

“Not talking to TK? When was the last time you went more than a day without talking to him?��� 

You scoffed and started to pack up your pencils. You didn’t want to be here anymore. You didn’t want to be around him, not right now. Not when you didn’t even know how to be around him. You didn’t know how to talk to him. 

“None of your business,” You replied, starting to shove things into your bag. 

He reached for your notebook without you having the chance to stop him. You felt your skin crawl as you watched him flip through the pages. You hoped he wouldn’t find the ones you’d done of him. You didn’t want him to get the wrong idea. 

He’d glance up at you every now and again before flipping the page again. You chewed on your lip, waiting for him to shut the book and slide it back over to you. You wanted to reach for it, and take it out of his hands, but you couldn’t get yourself to move.

“These are really good,” He stated, “Is this what you do during games?”

You shrugged, trying to deflect the attention, “Sometimes.”

“Well I know you definitely don’t get TK to sit long enough to draw him.” 

“I do them from memory, mostly.”

“From memory? No way.”

“I see something and sometimes I can’t get it out of my head,” You admitted, feeling more vulnerable than you wanted to. 

He kept flipping through. You knew he was getting close to what you’d just been working on. You could feel your chest starting to squeeze. Why wouldn’t he just put it down already? Why was he even here? Couldn’t he just leave you alone?

“Is this?” He stopped and moved the sketch book around, changing the angle of his head as he did, “Is this me?”

You reached for the book, hoping you could make a great escape. Maybe you could just avoid him for the next couple of weeks. Not go to games or anything. Considering Travis still wouldn’t talk to you, it didn’t seem like it would be too hard to do. You could just keep hiding. 

“No, c’mon. Just for a second, act like you can actually stand to have a conversation with me,” He almost seemed to beg, “What is this?”

You swallowed hard and peered at the drawing, “The morning after that stupid party.”

“I realize that, but I-” he shook his head, “Why?” 

“I couldn’t get it out of my head,” You said quietly, “I looked back before I walked out and I…”

“You what?”

“I felt like my heart cracked a little,” You felt stupid for even saying that, “You looked so...I don’t know. But it was my fault. And I just couldn’t stop seeing that, so I drew it.” 

You reached for the book again, “I can just rip it out and we can forget this ever happened.”

“No. Don’t do that.” 

“Carter-”

“Look,” he sighed, “Travis pulled me aside after that weekend. He explained that people aren’t exactly your thing, and said that was all I needed to know. Even you said it was easier to hate me, and I still don’t know what you meant by that.”

“Carter-”

“Just, let me finish, okay?” He asked you, “It’s okay to let me in, even just a little bit. I won’t screw with you. Travis would kill me if I even thought about it. I’m not one of those guys though, Y/N. It’s okay to trust me, even just a little.”

“You make it sound so easy,” You told him.

He shrugged, “Maybe it is that easy.”

You almost laughed, “Okay, like winning every game is easy? Stopping every puck?”

“This isn’t hockey.” He leaned back in his chair. 

You watched as he took his hat off and messed with his hair for a moment before putting it back on. He looked back at the sketchbook again and sighed, “I get it, you don’t trust people. Whatever happened...it did a number on you. But you can’t live your life alone like this, not forever.”

You watched, unable to say anything as he got up. There was something in his eyes that you didn’t understand. You didn’t know what he wanted to gain from any type of relationship with you. You weren’t anything special. 

“My number is in your phone if you change your mind.”

He pushed your sketchbook back over to you and smiled softly, “Call Teeks, okay? He’s driving all of us crazy without you around.” 

“Why do you care?” You finally found the courage to ask, “Why do you care about me?”

He shrugged, “Because, I’ve seen the side of you that you like to hide. I’ve seen you laughing with TK and Patty. I’ve seen who you are when you don’t think anyone else is watching. And I think that girl is worth trying to get to know, whether she comes out or not.”

“All because of one night?” You questioned, “I barely even remember any of it, and suddenly I’m worth something to you?”

Hurt flashes across his face for a brief moment. He hadn’t expected that to be your response, but at the same time he wasn’t sure what he thought would happen. Just like you weren’t sure what he was trying to accomplish. You didn’t owe anything to one another. 

One night, that’s all it was. One night where he decided to act like a knight in shining armor. You didn’t need his pity or his sympathy. You didn’t need him to validate you in any way. You didn’t need him. You were okay on your own.

“Just call Travis,” He said, getting up, “I’ll see you around.”

You were left once again alone, looking at your drawing. He never closed the sketchbook. He never tried to give it back. The whole time he was looking down at it, and then back up at you. And then he just left. 

Suddenly you felt like the boy in the picture. Broken, defeated, alone. And once again this was your fault. He was trying, you just wouldn’t let him. You kept pushing and pushing. Eventually you’d push too hard and he’d really be gone. For some reason though, that really scared you. You didn’t like that idea. 

But you didn’t know what to do about it either. 

You took a deep breath and pulled your phone out before pulling up a contact, “Hey Trav...I’m sorry.”

You weren’t sure what to do about Carter, but you knew you needed Travis, no matter what. He was your person. And maybe, just maybe, he could help you figure out what to do about the boy you didn’t know you wanted.

[ayellowcurtain]

can I have David being popular in school and Matteo being low key jealous of all these girls (and guys) flirting with David but knows he doesn’t have a right to be jealous cause they haven’t even talked before so he just kinda pines from a distance but then David notices that Matteo is watching him and just drops hints that he’s also interested

Matteo tries to stay focused on his sketchbook, doodling all the stupid and loud girls constantly hovering David like vultures. He’s a good looking guy, everyone knows that and it’s so clear why this girls won’t ever leave his side.

He’s also really nice, apparently, that’s what Matteo hears others saying about him anyway. So it’s understandable that the school feels like a battle field of who’s going to get the boy’s attention.

His music is not loud enough anymore so Matteo stops drawing to turn the volume over to cover the annoying voices around him. Matteo already drew David so many times he can’t even count them. Most of the time he tries to draw him, but not completely right so if someone sees him drawing they won’t be able to tell who it is.

The last thing he needs it’s his friends with huge mouths to know about his interest for the popular kid.

And David - and all the girls and some boys - are a little too close for Matteo to feel comfortable drawing him, so he tries the girls. Long hairs, not as thick eyebrows, not as natural long eyelashes, plain skin.

He’s completely focused on his drawings and trying to improve his lines, make them thinner and straighter when someone bumps into him, making him draw a line crossing his page, ruining everything. He looks up and the girl didn’t even notice the shit she made him do so he gets up and shoves everything inside his backpack, leaving the crowd behind to go to his next class, hoping to find the classroom still empty so he can have some peace to draw.

Matteo is totally fine if he and David never really talk, if this stupid thing he has for the boy is forever a platonic feeling. Matteo is happy to have at least something ludic to keep his mind busy during his free time. He never even let himself think about them talking in real life. They don’t know each other so Matteo doesn’t know what they could talk about, if they even have anything in common.

So it’s a little surprising when David comes to sit next to him the next day during his first class, while Matteo is still basically half asleep and extremely grumpy for being awake so early in the day.

“I like your drawings.” David says out of nowhere and Matteo has to look at him to be sure David is talking to him.

“Thank you...?” Matteo frowns, trying to go back inside his memory, searching for the moment where David saw anything he made.

“Your friend, Jonas, posted something on his instagram and I saw it. It’s cool. I draw too.”

Matteo didn’t know that. He’s almost sure whatever Jonas took a picture of has no sign of his drawings of David so he doesn’t worry too much, except for the fact that David is talking to him. That the boy knows Matteo exists and he came to talk to him because he wants to.

“I didn’t know you drew.”

David smiles and Matteo drops his pen against the soft paper of his book, making sure to see every detail, every teeth, every hair starting to grow as a hint of a moustache. David relaxes in his chair, touching his hair and Matteo follows every movement, wanting to save it for later. And the thought that David might stay next to him for the class makes Matteo’s heart beat faster than ever before.

“I do, since I was young. It’s just a hobby thought, definetely not as good as you.” He smiles in a cute way now and Matteo looks down at his notes from yesterday’s class. He tends to draw circles, straight lines all around every page and David is looking at it too, making Matteo want to erase everything and explain himself.

“Thank you again, but it’s just a hobby for me too.”

Matteo should stop staring because he knows how obvious he can be with his expressions, but it’s hard to let the opportunity go. They’ll probably never talk again and Matteo wants to enjoy this and make it last for as long as possible. “Really? You don’t think about working with that?”

“I don’t know. Don’t think I could make actual money with it and I’m not rich so...I’ll probably go for something safer.”

His words linger in between them and Matteo swallows hard, feeling his words sitting bitterly inside him for thinking so little of his future. David avoids looking at him for a second now, grabbing his book and putting on his table. So he’s really staying right next to Matteo for the class.

“Never thought you were that type.”

“Which type?” Matteo frowns, feeling offended even though he was just a moment ago angry at himself for the same reason David is disappointed now.

“To go for the safe route.”

“Yeah, try to be poor and see how shitty that is...”

Matteo closes his eyes, bitting the inside of his cheek as hard as he can for being so rude. David looks at him with big eyes, clearly ashamed for how Matteo took his words.

“I didn’t mean it like that...I’m sorry, it was stupid.”

Before David can start apologizing again, Matteo shakes his head, hoping David understands he’s not in the wrong and shouldn’t feel bad.

“No, it’s okay. I was stupid.”

And another awkward moment starts between them as Matteo tries to continue this conversation, for once trying to keep someone entertained, interested.

“You think you can teach me?”

“What?” He asks, not sure of what they were talking about in the first place now.

“To properly draw. I really want to be as good as you.” Matteo sighs, knowing what David means, but still feeling weird for someone like David, the popular guy, thinking he can learn anything from someone like Matteo, the depressed one.

“I don’t think I’m a good teacher.”

“I’m sure you are. Can we meet tomorrow? After school?”

Matteo is not at all sure about it, but David won’t take a no as an answer.

“I’ll pay you a coffee and we’ll draw for a little. If it’s too annoying to you, we won’t do it again.”

And Matteo has to look at David, very sure that his thoughts are as clear as water on his face expression.

You really think you’re annoying? I would pay to look at your pretty face any day of my life.

[stareyedmoonchild]

Late Night Ideas

So this idea just popped into my head, and now you guys have to deal with it. Sorry, not sorry.

It was two A.M. on a Wednesday night, and Marinette was still working on her essay that was due in just a few hours. To say she was tired was the understatment of the century. Looking to her fifteenth sup of coffee, she decided she needed a break. Besides, the paper was almost done anyways. What harm could a little break do?

Closing her laptop, she took out her sketchbook and opened to a new page. Drawing always did calm her nerves.

"What to draw? What to draw," she mumbled to herself, while tapping her pencil on her chin.

Sitting up straighter, Marinette's hand began to move on it's own.

In the end, she drew the perfect boy that wasn't Adrien. In fact, the outcome looked nothing remotely like him.

Setting down her pencil she stared at the boy in her sketchbook. His forest green eyes where what stood out the most compared to his tan skin and midnight black hair. All in all he was a ten. In fact, he was so perfect that she gave him a name and and a personality.

"Damian Wayne. That's your name and sure you may be arrogant, blunt and a bit spoiled, but you do care. Sure it's in your own special way, but you mean well," she spoke with a smile, before she mused, "What am I doimg? I should get back to work, not talking to a drawing."

Pushing aside her sketchbook, Marinette reopened her laptop and continued to work on her essay. The only other time she stopped was when she went down to the kitchen to refill her coffee mug.

By the time she went to bed it was three in the morning. Just before she turned off the lights and headed up to her bed, she caught a glimpse of Damian. In way it almost felt as if he was staring right back at her.

"I must be more lonely than I originally thought. That, or I really should get to bed. But you know, I kind of wish you where real. Maybe, we could even be friends? I haven't have much of those since Lila came. Sure, Adrien tries, but he can only do so much with a sword hanging over his head. I should really go to sleep, otherwise I am really going to go insane," she said, tiredly.

That night, while Marinette was fast asleep, a pink glow lined the drawing of Damian Wayne. It would have went unnoticed, had everyone in room had been asleep, but of course a small red god watched the glow with knowing eyes. Marinette should really be careful of what she wished for.

Meanwhile, in another dimension. Damian Wayne had been sparing with his father when he suddenly felt sick. He even had to be escorted to his room much to his displeasure. As soon as he hit the bed he was out, but little did he know that would be the last time he would sleep in his room. That is, before waking in to a startled scream the next morning.

That morning Mariette reached over to her nightstand and snoozed her alarm, because damn she was tired. Just five more minutes wouldn't hurt, right? When she turnimg towards the wall, away from the morning light, Marinette found herself to nose to nose with an oddly familiar male.

With a startled scream, Marinette fell out of bed, while to male all but jumped out bed, ready to attack. There was a long pause between the two as they made eye contact.

"Marinette, is everything ok in there," could be heard from below her, but one look into the males eyes told her if she said anything about his presence she would be done for.

"Everthing's alright. I just tripped while getting out of bed," she called back.

"Ok, sweety. Just be more careful ok?"

"Sure thing," she yelled back, not once breaking eye contact with the male in front of her.

"So, Marinette, mind telling me where the hell am I," he demanded, more than asked, with a glare.

"I think I'm better suited to answer that question, Damian," Tikki said, appearing before the boy.

"Damian," Marinette questioned.

'This is going to be a long day,' the mini god thought to herself.

[mcrmadness]

Madness draws: my dä fanart from when I had my (arts) comeback in 2018

For years I didn’t draw anything because of a personal (art crisis) and because I simply was studying and working so much I just had no energy left for arts.

In 2018 I was done with schools and studying and dropped out of the school I was in at that moment, and also the horse stable I was working at (school related stuff) was sold and closed its doors so also my work ended. For the first time in almost 5 years I was actually free. The longest holidays I had has was 3 weeks summer holiday in 2016, I think. I had another in 2017 but of that I actually was having health issues (nothing serious) for 2 weeks and then had to be in school for the 3rd one, after which I even got the flu.

So I was SO excited when I finally was free the first day of November in 2018. After I had got enough sleep and rest, I started to find my creativity again. And I started to “daydream” before falling asleep every night, I started to write fanfictions in my head and I started to draw, too. Partially it was also because for the first time in years I had an online friend I enjoyed talking with and we had similar interests, aka dä and Bela/Farin, and that inspired me a lot to draw even more - but unfortunately that friendship did not work out in the end and we’re no longer friends.

Anyway, most of these drawings are very much Bela/Farin related again because I talked about that a lot with this person and I often asked what they’d want to see and then drew it if the idea was something I could carry out.

This is not the first one I drew but maybe the 4th or so. I’m just putting this here first because it’s the most “innocent” aka not too much shippy stuff rubbed into the faces of my followers who don’t care about that. There’s 5 different drawings + 1 comic behind the read more link. All of these, apart from the comic, where drawn into my old sketchbook.

About the drawing above - I didn’t use pencil for these first ones at all yet, I just drew them with the fineliners as I was still a bit rusty as the last time I REALLY drew anything was in 2013 aka over 5 years ago from 2018, so I had to actually look at my old comics and drawings to even figure out how to draw these characters anymore. And I think the last actual time I drew in this style was in 2011 even. And that is very visible from the first 2018′s drawing I did! ↓↓↓

This is the one - and wait, I have an explanation!

So with this person I mentioned, we just constantly had this playful debate over whether Bela is “bottom” or not - and honestly I couldn’t care less about that because I no longer read any fanfics. I do write fanfics - or a fanfic - but only for myself and as an asexual I have never been interested in writing about certain themes so I never need to think about the whole top/bottom stuff anyway. I used to read smut before until I one day just realized it’s SO BORING and uninteresting to read, started skipping all smut scenes and wanted to read fluff but all the fluff was so quickly and badly written because everyone wanted to write smut only, that I was left with absolutely nothing to read. So it was the old story again: I started writing/drawing the stuff I wanted to read and see.

However, back to the top/bottom topic, I always base my opinions with everything over how things are in real life and with these guys, if you look at how they are in interviews and on stage, the dynamics are not just plain black&white. I’ve never seen there anything that would indicate that just one is “top” or “bottom” whatsoever which is why I kept saying imo they’re more like just switching if you listen to their jokes. Remember: I don’t read any fanfiction and don’t give a fuck about smut (lol at the pun) and honestly, even tho I understand those jokes they do and say on stage, I wish not to have any visuals about any of that “activity” in my head.

So, to support my “they switch!” opinion, I drew this, just for fun. And it is the official first drawing I did in 2018. I just needed to fire back bigger than I could do with simple text messages :D

***

Moving on. The person in question was very fascinated by the idea that Farin would be a vampire and not Bela (to support their top/bottom views...) which is why I drew this:

Also a very quick one, without sketching anything before drawing with fineliners. This and the first image of this post both are very small in real life actually, the signature is about the same size in every drawing so you can see from that that they are actually pretty small.

Talking of the signature: The funniest thing to me about this IS the signature. Because I was so rusty I didn’t even know how to write it anymore :DDD You can compare it to the signature in the other drawings because in them it’s better. Why it’s so funny to me is because it should say “Aada” but it looks more like “Hella” which means “stove” in Finnish.

***

Next one was something I saw in my head and wanted to draw - I think this one was also done without sketching it at first:

Kinda simple, right? :D I just wanted to draw something with heavy shadows and they’re meant to be watching TV at night. I guess it came out pretty okay.

***

The next two I drew based on one of my old fanfics I wrote years and years ago. I’m a bit annoyed that I decied to draw these into my SKETCHBOOK when I could have used just paper I use for drawing but I guess I didn’t know yet where I was going to end up with these and drew them into the sketchbook because of that. I thought I didn’t sketch these at first but I have found photos of these with sketched with pencil so that means I started sketching my drawings at this point.

So, back to the fanfic, it’s one of the longer ones I wrote (but still not that long even) and set to happen in the late 80s. There was some drama in the story because of Bela’s drug use and Farin was very harsh and Bela left altogether. For some time they had no idea where each of them were but then one very rainy night they both were on a walk at the same time and happened to stumble upon each other for the first time in weeks or so. I can still see those scenes so vividly in my head and here’s my artistic view over those scenes:

Yes. I love drawing stuff like BRICKS.

I have used my Promarkers with the second image, the paper was not the best for them which is why the black looks awful.

What comes to the image... it really annoys me to look at that because how the FUCK that is something I have drawn? And it’s legit based on something I have written. ME??? Like wtf. My aroace ass just can’t handle me writing/drawing fluff like this. I have days when I need to see fluff more than anything and then have to produce the content because can’t find it from anywhere else and my brain is simultaneously like “flufffff 8))))” and “boohoo whyyyyy how staaaaaph D:” because I am so afraid of being connected to what I draw. Like. If I draw or write fluff, it doesn’t mean I would be a romantic person nor allosexual nor alloromantic, right? Because I can also draw a comic or write a story about a murderer and it doesn’t make me a psychopath either. It’s the exact same thing.

And in fact: I had a comic book character who was called Micro the Insane Murderer because that’s what he was. Also I once wrote a story about a serial killer but she was also insane. But for whatever reason it’s much harder to show people fluff I have written or drawn than my fictional serial killer stuff... I guess people just easier assume that you’re an allo, thanks to anormativity, but usually don’t think you’re a psychopath just because your OC is :D

***

The last one is the comic that has a Halloween theme as it was around Halloween and the person I talked with still wanted to see/read something where Farin is the vampire instead. So here’s something that was my first B/F comic in 7 years. I didn’t remember how to do pretty much anything anymore and the coloring is a bit off, and I was really still just trying to figure out how to do all this again :D

At that point I think my head was still filled with fanfiction stuff so the comic also is full of (hurt/comfort) drama - and a long-ass “backstory”. You can see that from this on I have moved to more humorous stories. Sometimes I draw occassional fluffy comics when I’m really on that weird mood (usually 1-2 days/month thanks to the uterus and hormones), but my main focus is on the humour and I wish to make people laugh.

But that’s about it. I think I have now posted everything here, the newer ones I have posted here after drawing them since 2019 but this post is the “missing link” between those old old comics and the newer stuff :D Then I of course have all the other traditional art like potraits and such I did in 2009-2012 which I have never shown here. Maybe I should post those too?

[pidgebeifong]

atla artist au

Aang is a painter. He’s loved painting ever since he was a child and first experimented with finger paints on the walls- which was, in hindsight, maybe not the best idea. He loves the way it detaches him from his worldly concerns. It’s almost like a form of meditation for him- the rest of the universe just falls away whenever he picks up his paintbrush, and all he can see is his canvas and the worlds he will create with a swirl of lemon yellow sun here, a wave of cerulean blue ocean there, a blur of sunset orange clouds at the edges. Everything he owns has been stained with paint in at least three places, which makes dressing for formal events a real pain. Sometimes he’ll deliberately paint his jeans with sunflowers or bees or anything that’s a sunny, bright yellow- his favourite colour- and wear them proudly for days. Katara jokes that she doesn’t even remember what the real colours of his hands look like, because they’re forever stained with paint that’s sunken so deeply into the folds of his skin that it makes it nearly impossible to rub off. People always ask him what his favourite thing to paint is, expecting it to be something like sunsets or mountains, but the truth is his favourite thing to study and paint is his Labrador, Appa, the first thing he ever drew. He started drawing at around five, the same age he adopted Appa, and to this day he can never get the way Appa’s golden fur shines just right under the blinding sunlight. He loves going to nature reserves and parks to study how light affects the leaves and flowers. Sometimes everything will just be too much, and he’ll jam as many paints into his pockets as he can, take a sketchbook, a water bottle and a paintbrush, and get on the bus to a park. He’ll sit quietly for hours, trying to capture moonlight on water or the flapping wings of a hummingbird.

Katara is a writer. She literally can’t remember a time she hasn’t loved to write. She has stacks and stacks of unfinished manuscripts lying around on the floor, tacked up to the walls in her room, and crumpled on the bedsheets. She has easily over a thousand different scenes written for her future novels on the Notes app in her phone, and she has a bad habit of scribbling ideas down on her hands on the rare occasions she doesn’t have her phone on her and there’s no paper in sight. She’s practically nocturnal at this point, because all her best ideas come to her at 3am, when she’s sleep-deprived and half-hallucinating. She always carries at least three pens on her at all times, and gets panicky when she’s forced to remove them whenever she has to dress up for anything formal. She’s really hypocritical whenever she gets on Aang’s case about his hands always being paint-stained, because all her hands are covered in ink, too- half-finished notes and ideas that got left on the cutting board. Katara hates cutting out characters that simply aren’t necessary to the scene and don’t add anything of value to the plot, because they’re her babies damnit and she worked hard on them. One would think that this would make her more sympathetic to her characters, but Aang and Sokka are appalled the first time they’re allowed to read one of her (mostly) finished manuscripts (who is she kidding, she doesn’t have a manuscript that’s even remotely finished for the life of her) and see how much torture and anguish and heartbreak she’s put her characters through. Katara is a huge advocate of making all her characters hit the lowest point they could possibly go, and then instead of making them get back up again, she gives them a shovel and instructions to dig lower. However, she’s a huge sucker for happy endings, and she practically dominates the tag #angst with a happy ending on AO3. She gets around three hours of sleep every night, none of them consecutive, and survives on black coffee and willpower alone. Everyone knows her as an avid reader, but she hasn’t really read an actual book since two years ago, and spends most of her time scrolling through 250k fanfictions at 2am.

Sokka is a photographer. He doesn’t have the skills that Aang has with his paintbrush, or the way Katara can make entire universes come to life with a few words, so for a long time he used to think that he was just going to be the ordinary guy in the group who’d only be known for loving meat to what is frankly an unhealthy degree, and that his only contribution to the team would be a slew of bad jokes and sarcastic remarks. He finds his calling very late in life, but the moment he picks up his first camera at age fourteen, everything just seems to fall perfectly into place. Sokka’s world always moves too fast and changes too quickly, but he can capture moments that will last forever with the click of a button, and he guesses that that’s what he loves about photography- that he can freeze moments in time and always be able to come back to them. Well, as long as he doesn’t lose his camera, but he’s got the photos all backed up on iCloud anyway, so that’s not really an issue. Sometimes, he’ll accompany Aang to nature parks, and Aang will paint the twisting vines of a plant while Sokka captures Aang’s relaxed, happy expression. His favourite photos are the ones he takes of his friends when they’re caught unaware- candid portraits of Suki laughing or Katara ruffling Aang’s hair or Toph trying and failing to hide a grudging smile. He loves old photos, too- loves the aesthetic of black-and-white photos, how they capture a scene that he knows full well happened decades ago but somehow make him feel like he’s living in the same moment. Experimenting with light is one of his favourite things to do- he loves playing with golden hour sunlight or early morning rays, loves hearing the satisfying click of his camera and knowing that he’s got another picture for the album (and his hugely successful Instagram account that has well over 50k followers).

Toph is a sculptor. She was born blind and never really got to experience art the same way the others did, so for a long time she buried her disappointment deep within her and never let jealousy rear its ugly head whenever she heard Katara singing praises about the latest painting Aang had just finished, or the beautiful photograph Sokka had captured of all of them laughing as a group, but then she discovered sculpture. An art she could appreciate from beneath her fingers, an art she could see by running her hands over it and feeling the crevices and curves and edges breathe themselves into life beneath her touch. Despite discovering the term for it late in life, Toph found that she’d actually been sculpting at a very young age. She’d been experimenting with PlayDoh and clay since before she could walk, but she’d never known that there was actually an art form in it that people did professionally until Aang had taken her to a museum and put her hands on a beautiful sculpture of an ancient Greek god. It was one of the only times she’d ever cried in her life, but those had been tears of pure joy- she didn’t want to sound like a sap, but she hadn’t realized that something so beautiful in the world existed until that life-changing moment at the museum. Sure, they’d been chased out by one particularly angry security guard who kept waving his baton around threateningly (‘can’t you two juveniles see that the sign clearly says no touching?!’ ‘actually sir, I’m blind so that would be a hard no’) but it had been worth it. Ever since then, Toph has been addicted to sculpting, feeling things take shape under her capable hands. She’s been told she can replicate faces with an accuracy that’s both astonishing and unnerving, despite not even being able to see (it only took a lot of years and  lot of hours spent tracing the lines of Aang’s face) and her work has been proudly displayed on Katara’s bedside table, Sokka’s desks and Aang’s shelves.

Suki is a martial arts instructor who has a degree in badassery. She started her own school at just fifteen years old, and named it the Kyoshi Warrior Academy, in honour of Kyoshi, her late martial arts instructor whom she had a deep respect for. She had black belt status in five different martial arts by the time she turned thirteen, and was a legend for her skill, hard work and talent in the martial arts community. She’s lost quite a few matches, but she’s more than made up for it with every win she’s achieved. The first time she met Sokka, she thought he was trying to steal from her, so she judo-flipped him, pinned him down and tied his wrists together, all of which took a maximum of three seconds. (‘wow, that’s kinky. so are you into that kind of thing?’ ‘shut up, asshole. what do you want from me? my wallet?’ ‘actually, I was going to ask you out on a date, but I mean sure, if you’re offering. I could use a little cash right about now, actually, because I think you just broke all the cards I have in my wallet when you body-slammed me to the ground, along with at least ten of my bones.’) Sokka had severely underestimated Suki’s skill at first, despite their rather unfortunate encounter (during which she actually had broken the bone in his arm, but he’d tried to wave it off and say that he didn’t mind, then subsequently screamed in pain because he’d tried to wave his broken arm), but he knew that he’d have to change his mindset in order to win her over. Eventually, he ended up changing his misogynistic mindset not only to go out with Suki, but because he realized that it was the right thing to do- something Katara was over the moon about. She and Suki have been joined at the hip ever since, and Sokka often jokes whether Suki is only dating him for his sister (‘damn, suki, it’s like you only come over for katara’ ... ‘wait. why aren’t any of you saying anything. katara did you just wink? sUKI DID YOU JUST KISS MY SISTER’S CHEEK-?! oh my god this is the worst betrayal I’ve experienced since toph said that she didn’t need to see my photographs in order to tell that they were ugly’). Jokes aside, Suki adores her boyfriend and his sister, and often teaches them self-defense in her free time. One of her best students is a girl named Ty Lee, who all her friends except Zuko seem to really hate for some reason. However, Ty Lee is a natural at self-defense and she and Suki get along like a house on fire. Katara still refuses point-blank to go to classes whenever Ty Lee is in attendance, but Suki has given up trying to understand why. In conclusion, Suki is one of those movie heroines who can munch a sandwich while apprehending twenty supervillains all twice her size, and still come out victorious.

Zuko is a theatre kid and aspiring actor. (Was anyone surprised by this, really?) His natural melodramatic emo kid personality makes him the perfect role for starring roles in school plays (at least, that’s what Azula always likes to say) and acting to him comes as naturally as breathing. He’s not-so-secretly a Shakespeare nerd and can literally recite Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet, two of his favourite plays, word for word. He also loves Hamilton and Dear Evan Hansen- and alright, maybe he also harbours a love for High School Musical (he’s never told anyone that, but everyone knows anyway because he made Azula suffer through all five movies with him which eventually led to her becoming so fed-up constantly belting out the lyrics at the top of his lungs that she recorded the audio and sent it to everyone at school, including Mai, whom he couldn’t look in the eyes for a straight two weeks). Before his mother left them, she used to say that Zuko got his acting genes from her, because she used to play the lead role in Love Amongst The Dragons every year in her old high school. Zuko asked Ursa if that meant Azula got her dancing genes from Ozai, and they’d both have a quiet little laugh as they imagined Ozai trying to dance ballet. Although Zuko adores the drama and the poignant atmosphere that comes with performing Shakespeare’s plays, Love Amongst The Dragons holds the top spot for his favourite play by far. He goes to see it every time the ache for his mother is too painful to ignore- even though the new actors, a group called the Ember Island Players, all but butcher it every year- and sometimes, he’ll deceive himself into thinking that his mother’s somewhere in the audience too, watching the play right there with him like they used to do all the time. He once took Azula to see it with him, just like they used to do when their mother was with them, and Azula cried when he told her that the reason he liked it was because it reminded him of their mother. The sight of her crying was so unnerving that Zuko went alone after that. Azula never protested, though, or teased him for liking the play again.

Azula is a dancing prodigy. She specializes in ballet, but she also does contemporary and modern. She tried her hand at tap and jazz, and although she naturally excelled in it, as usual, she decided that it just wasn’t for her. At the age of fourteen, Azula is already a world-renowned dancer and has broken records and made history with how skilled she is at dancing. She moves her body so fluidly that it’s hard to believe she’s even a person and not just a wisp or smoke, delicately floating and twirling and twisting through the air. Azula has a lot of pent-up anger and frustration about having to constantly seem perfect all the time in order to make up for the failure that Zuko is, and she’s found that physical exercise- namely, dance- is the best way to relieve her stress. She also knows a fair bit of martial arts- out of everyone, she and Ty Lee are the only ones who have managed to defeat Suki at hand-to-hand combat. If asked about it, Suki will vehemently deny that such an incident ever happened, which only serves to amuse Azula further. Azula started ballet at age three and advanced much further and quicker than any of her peers, which incited a lot of jealousy and basically ensured that she had virtually no friends in the ballet community, but it wasn’t like she was particularly desperate for companionship in the first place. She’s so famous that she’s a verified account on Instagram with over a million followers- she does some spare modelling work on the side when she can, and her stunning looks combined with her raw talent have made her into one of the most unattainably perfect girls to ever rule Instagram. Somehow, her dancing doesn’t distract her from her grades, because she also has a stellar report card that’s displayed on the wall of her numerous trophies and awards she’s achieved over the years. (Zuko has a half-broken shelf that sports exactly two awards, and one is a certificate of participation.) Azula was born for the spotlight. Whenever she steps onto a stage, the room goes completely, eerily still, as if holding on to her every move. She’s one of the most beautiful dancers to ever perform, and audiences sing praises about her every twirl, her every arch, as if a single pirouette she’s executed is already perfect enough to win her ten awards. She’s mesmerizing on stage, and kind of terrifying in the way that one would find someone too perfect to be terrifying. Her every move is effortless, graceful, as if she’s a weightless feather drifting through the breeze. She’s incredibly captivating and is set to be one of history’s stars.

Mai is a musician/singer. Her parents were extremely traditional and gave her piano and violin lessons for her fifth birthday, but she actually ended up enjoying them a lot. She has a great voice, too, so she started a YouTube channel a while back that features her doing covers and singing her own original songs sometimes. It’s now amassed a few thousand followers. Zuko has an admittedly great voice, too, and sometimes she invites him to her channel and they do these amazing duets. All of their followers ship them together, but Mai always denies that she likes him, despite her cheeks always blushing a bright pink whenever he’s brought up on live-streams. Her parents don’t approve of her channel, which they only found out about because they were being overbearing and went through her phone yet again, and they want her to go to school to study business instead. Mai doesn’t plan on giving up on her YouTube channel anytime soon, though. Before she discovered singing, she was clearly passionless about most everything, but now that she has, it feels like a fire slowly consuming her from the inside out. And she kind of likes it, to be honest. It feels good to be so passionate about something, especially since Zuko likes it just as much as she does. She’ll never admit it, but she knows how to play quite a few My Chemical Romance and Panic! At The Disco songs on the piano (which Zuko absolutely loves her for, because he’s the picture perfect stereotype of an emo boy). Writing and singing songs provides her with some sort of cathartic relief that she can’t really obtain from anywhere else. She’s incredibly musically talented, and was playing grade eight piano material at just eleven years old. She taught herself the guitar and the harp after her parents refused to give her any more lessons for fear that she would become too invested in music (Asian parents, y’all- they provide you with piano lessons but expect you to become a doctor or a lawyer because God forbid you pursue a career in music despite having studied it since you were five) and refuse to pursue a career in business.

Ty Lee is a gymnast. She tried ballet along with Azula, but didn’t like the discipline it took and ran out of patience with all the tedious instructions necessary to follow along with the class, finding that gymnastics was more to her liking. However, she and Azula make an awesome duo whenever they showcase their talents together. Ty Lee’s actually so good that trainees are already speculating that she could achieve a spot on her country’s national gymnastics team. She can do backflips, handstands, cartwheels and splits on a beam one after the other without even needing to catch her breath, and she’s impossibly fit. She loves crop tops- she thinks they show off her figure, which is nearly unattainable for most people. She’s also naturally talented at martial arts, and Suki frequently tells her that she learns faster than Suki can teach. She’s done every form of gymnastics imaginable- rhythmic, acrobatic, artistic- you name it, she’s done it. Originally she only took an interest in it because Azula begged her to join ballet with her, and Ty Lee found that she did like the strenuous physical exertion that ballet entailed, but everything just moved too slowly for her. Ty Lee likes fast-paced action, so gymnastics is the perfect fit for her. Sometimes, Azula will teach her some new ballet moves she learnt in class, and in return, Ty Lee will teach Azula a few gymnastics moves she invented by herself after following the standard textbook forms grew too boring. They once entered a talent show together and blew the crowd away with Azula’s captivating dancing and Ty Lee’s breathtaking gymnastics.

[lightsupinthenorth]

Read me like an open book part 1/2

Hey! :) Here is the first part of a two-part (at least I think ah ah) Harringrove fanfiction. It’s set a few years after the events of the third season (which Billy survived, obviously ^^). It starts on Steve’s birthday just because it’s my birthday today :p 

I hope you’ll enjoy ;) 

*

Read on AO3 

“It’s presents time, bitches!” Robin said, getting up from the floor, where Steve was still sprawled with Billy half-laying on top of him. 

They might have overdone it a little on the weed. Steve didn’t really care, though. He was relaxed and happy. So far, his twenty-first birthday had been the best birthday ever. Robin and Billy had organized a surprise gathering in their shared flat, inviting the kids, Nancy and Jonathan, as well as Joyce and Hopper. After everyone had left earlier in the evening, Robin had gone to her room and had come back with a bag of weed bought by Billy and her for the occasion, and they had gotten positively baked. 

Billy and Robin had insisted to give him his present when it was just the three of them instead of doing it at the same time as the others. When Steve had seen the weed, he had understood why. So, he was confused when Robin mentioned presents. 

“What presents?” 

“Your birthday presents, dingus. I know you’re high right now, but I didn’t think you were high enough to forget your own birthday.” Robin cackled. 

“Hey, I haven’t forgotten. I just kinda thought… wasn’t the weed the present?” 

“Pfff, no.” Billy replied. “What kind of present would that be? As if we didn’t already smoke weed on the regular.” 

He made them sound like potheads. They didn’t smoke that often… Then again, it did happen more frequently than their respective birthdays. 

“Yo, Buckley, can you go to my room and fetch my present for Steve too, now that you’re at it. It’s in the drawer of my bedside table.” Billy yelled, a lot louder than was necessary considering Robin was just in the next room. 

Steve whined. Billy’s voice was reverberating in his head. 

“Sure, you lazy fuck.” She yelled back, just as loud. 

They were so noisy!

“Open mine first!” Robin said as she sat down on the floor again, extending a rectangular package. 

Steve had to detangle himself from Billy, ignoring his mumbled complaints, before he tore into the brightly colored wrapping paper. He uncovered a thick book with a beautiful cover representing a sky full of stars. It was titled Long live the King. 

“I know you’ve taken to reading, these days, and this novel is amazing.” Robin assured. 

“It’s really not that good.” Billy grumbled, with a roll of his eyes.  

“Oh, you read it too?” Steve asked. 

“Uh… yeah, I did.” 

Billy was staring at Robin when he said it. And he was frowning. 

“Don’t listen to him, Steve, he’s being a buzzkill. You’re going to love it.” 

“I’m sure I will. Thanks Rob.” Steve hugged her.

He hoped Billy would still agree to help him with the book, even if he didn’t like it much. Ever since he knew Steve had trouble with written words, Billy would read to him all the time. It had become their thing. Steve loved his voice. Well, Steve loved everything about him, but that was off topic. 

“Now, here’s Hargrove gift.” 

Robin basically dropped the gift in Steve’s lap. The wrapping paper had multi-colored stars on it. Steve unraveled it carefully and found a set of pencils and a beautiful sketchbook. Billy and Robin’s gifts kind of coordinated aesthetically speaking, which was nice. Indeed, on the cover of the notebook was a drawing of the night sky, with the sea represented underneath. “My sea of stars”, was written on the front. 

Steve used to doodle distractingly during class. He’d been doing it since primary school. After he had graduated, his doodling habit had spread to his daily life. He would draw lines absentmindedly while he was on the phone or trace random shapes on discarded pieces of paper when he was watching TV but was too fidgety to focus. He hadn’t been seriously committed to drawing, though. He had only started making it into a real hobby after Starcourt. Billy had been the one to suggest it, in fact. After he’d literally come back to life, Steve and he had become good friends, and Billy had noticed his little habit and had bought him a sketch pad. Drawing helped Steve a lot. Gave him something to do when he was feeling restless, which was the case more often than not after the whole ‘Upside-Down and co’ experience. 

Steve was frustrated by his lack of technique, at first, and had almost given up on several occasions. But Billy had always been there to cheer him up and keep him going. He was certain Billy hadn’t even realized his compliments and encouragements had prevented Steve from calling it quits at least a dozen times. They spent hours together in their living room, on the couch, Steve drawing while Billy wrote in his huge notebook, with his feet on Steve’s lap. Steve was eager to spend many more hours that exact same way, drawing on the new sketchbook Billy had offered him. 

“It’s… it’s really nice, Billy. I love it. Thank you.”  

“You’re welcome, Pretty boy.”

They hugged, and Billy didn’t let him go, half-climbing on him again as they laid back down. 

“Ugh, guys, seriously, get a room.” Robin complained, which led to Steve blushing and Billy flipping her the bird. 

Steve would have attributed Billy’s behavior to the weed, but they had gotten more and more tactile since the beginning of their friendship about two years prior, so the weed didn’t have much to do with it. Except that maybe Billy would have waited for Robin to go to bed before attaching himself to Steve like a koala, if he hadn’t been high.

Either way, Steve was far from complaining: the more Billy touched him, the better. 

Before he went to bed that night, Steve took his secret sketchpad – the one in which he drew his best friend page after page (like an obsessed creep) – from under his mattress, and drew the version of Billy he had seen earlier: high Billy, with his lax body and hazy eyes.

A few minutes after putting his paper shrine back in its usual hiding spot, Steve fell asleep with a smile on his face, and the smell of Billy’s cologne on his own skin. He hoped all his birthdays to come would be similar to this one. 

*

When Steve got up the next morning, Billy and Robin were eating breakfast in the kitchen. 

He heard Billy say:

“Stop it, Robin. I can’t tell him, I just can’t.” 

It made no sense to him, since he had missed the beginning of the conversation, but his interest was picked. 

“You can’t tell who, what?” He asked as he went to the cupboard to get his favorite cereals. No way he would eat oatmeal like Robin and Billy. What a depressing way to start the day. 

“I, uh…” Billy started. Robin interrupted him, though: 

“He can’t tell his coworker that his new haircut looks stupid.” 

“Yeah… ‘Cause it would be mean, you know.” Billy added, before putting a huge spoonful of oatmeal in his mouth. 

“Uh… well, it’s true. It wouldn’t be a very nice thing to say, Rob.” Steve agreed. 

He put his box of cereals on the table and sat down next to Robin, in front of Billy, who was looking intently at his bowl.  

“Why do you think Billy should tell the poor guy his hair looks weird?” 

If anyone said that to Steve, he’d be devastated. That was for sure. 

“So he can let his hair grow back and have it cut in a more flattering way.” Robin explained. “It would be doing him a favor, in my opinion.”  

Steve hummed. “Makes sense”, he said. He was more focused on his fruit loops, though. It wasn’t like he cared about the guy anyway. He hadn’t even met him. 

Robin hadn’t either, so Steve didn’t know why she was so pressed on Billy giving him hair advice. Whatever floats her boat, he thought. 

His roommates were weird, sometimes. Nothing could be done about it. 

*

The next weekend, Steve and Billy were both off from their respective work, and Steve really wanted to start reading the book Robin had gotten him for his birthday. 

Billy was occupied with a novel of his own next to him, and Steve didn’t want to be a burden, so he started reading on his own. After a few pages, he was already hooked, but he got tired quickly, as he always did. Frustrated, he fidgeted a bit on the couch and brought the book closer to his face, as if it would help the words stop swimming in front of his eyes. 

Billy sighed. 

“What’s up, Pretty boy?” He asked, only then looking up from his own reading.

“I just… would it be okay… would you read to me? Please.” 

Billy sighed again, a bit louder. Steve’s face fell. It wasn’t that big of a deal, but Steve always looked forward to Billy reading out loud to him. 

“Sorry… I know you don’t like this book… I’ll ask Robin to read it to me when she gets home.” 

“No! I… I’ll do it, I’ll read for you. I really don’t mind.” Billy exclaimed. 

Steve was agreeably surprised by the amount of enthusiasm Billy displayed and he smiled at him when he handed him the book, letting their hands brush. 

“Thank you!” 

Steve kissed Billy’s cheek and laid his head on his shoulder.

“Don’t mention it, Pretty boy.”  

“Sure, I’ll mention it. It means a lot, you know.” 

Billy cleared his throat. “Right… if you say so.” 

Steve could feel the heat of Billy’s blush. 

He always downplayed the nice things he did, but Steve wouldn’t have it. He would keep showing Billy he was grateful for every little (and not so little) attention. Declaring his undying love to him would be a very effective way to make Billy realize how much Steve really appreciated him, but that would also do a lot more harm than good. Steve had to focus on the big picture, here. 

Billy began to read where Steve had stopped, and if Steve didn’t already know Billy disliked the book, he wouldn’t have been able to tell at all. He put his heart into it as he always did. Not only that, but Steve felt like Billy’s voice held even more emotion than it usually did. 

Steve fell into a sort of trance. The story was told in first person, from the point of view of a magician in a fantasy land, and Steve imagined himself as the narrator. In his mind, he could see everything Billy was describing: the village, the fields, the magnificent castle surrounded by a dark forest in which creatures lurked, the King who lived in the castle and whom the enchanter was secretly in love with.

Hours passed before Billy stopped reading. Still, Steve had to refrain himself from begging for one more chapter. He couldn’t be greedy; he didn’t want Billy to tire of him. 

“Here you go, Stevie.” 

“That was great. You’re the best.” 

“It’s just reading, Pretty boy. I didn’t hang the moon.” Billy mumbled. 

Steve nearly said “You might as well have”, but said: “It’s far better than ‘just reading’”, instead. That was a close call. 

They went to the kitchen to make dinner, and Robin came home from work right before the oven beeped. 

Steve ate his meal slowly, without really tasting it, and he didn’t say much, letting Robin and Billy do most of the talking. He was still somewhere far away, in a fantasy land ruled by a beautiful king. And, if the king was a carbon copy of Billy, it was nobody’s business but Steve’s. 

*

On Thursday, Billy went to Indianapolis, and Steve went with him. Apparently, Billy had been asked by his boss to go check and fix a few collection cars over there, and Billy had invited Steve to come with him. Said it would be fun. They’d spend the morning together and Billy would go to his work appointment after lunch.  

“Not that I’m not glad to have the opportunity of going on a fun little trip or anything, but couldn’t that guy find a garage in Indianapolis to take care of his cars? There must be more than a few.” Steve asked Billy, who had just started the car. 

“That’s because I’m the best in fucking Indiana, baby.” He said with a cocky grin. 

Steve rolled his eyes but couldn’t hold back his fond smile. 

“Right. Forget I asked.” 

“To answer more seriously, I don’t really know. But who gives a fuck? The guy paid extra… I mean like, a big wad of cash. So, fine by me.” 

Billy shrugged. 

Steve found it quite weird, but it was fine by him too. It wasn’t any of his business, anyway: he was just tagging along. 

He turned the radio on, and then Billy and he bickered for ages about what station to choose. That was somewhat of a tradition every time they were in a car together. 

“I’m driving, so I choose. It’s driver’s privilege, Pretty boy. Suck it up.” 

“But that’s not fair!” Steve whined. “You insisted to drive, it’s not like I had a choice.” 

“Too bad. You lose anyway.” 

Steve crossed his arms over his chest and pouted, making Billy laugh. The cold bastard. 

When they arrived in Indianapolis, Billy parked, and they chose a direction at random to go wander. Steve got caught up in some window-shopping, stopping abruptly in the middle of the sidewalk to stare at the newest Adidas sneakers behind the glass. 

Steve used to be given everything he wanted. Well, everything he wanted that could be bought with money. Now that he didn’t speak to his parents anymore and was financially independent, however, he couldn’t afford many unnecessary expenses. These shoes sadly fell into the “unnecessary” category. 

Billy had not immediately noticed Steve had stopped walking, so he had to go back on his tracks a little. 

“Hey, Stevie, give a guy a warning, would you? I turned to talk to you and you were not there anymore.” 

“Sorry, sorry. I was just… I wanted to take a look at these.” Steve pointed at the shoes. “I don’t know why I did, anyway… it’s not like I’m gonna buy them.” 

“Right… it’s fine. Let’s go get lunch, Pretty boy.” Billy said, steering him away from the shop, but not without giving the shoes a good look himself. 

They ate burgers and fries in a greasy joint they had stumbled upon. The food was pretty good. As a testament to that, Billy kept trying to steal fries off Steve’s basket. At first, Steve batted his hand away, but he gave up after a while. When Billy gave him a wide smile after finally succeeding, Steve couldn’t even be mad at him. He’d gave up all the fries in the world if it meant seeing Billy smile like that. Steve smiled back at him. 

In the afternoon, while Billy was at work, Steve went to a coffee shop and bought a cappuccino for himself, and a giant raisin oatmeal cookie to go for Billy. He grimaced a little as he ordered the latter. Billy really had weird tastes, sometimes. 

He sat down at a table and put the cookie in his backpack, before taking out his book. He progressed slowly, really slowly, only managing to read a chapter before he had to meet Billy back at the car. Yes, Steve had trouble with reading to begin with, but the fact that this book was making him emotional was not helping him read it any faster. 

He related to the narrator a lot. He, too, was in love with someone close to him yet unreachable. He, too, had to admire them in silence. And the object of his love was as beautiful and as brave as the King was described to be. The only difference was that the King was said to have brown hair and eyes.  

What the characters were going through also reminded him of what had happened because of the Upside-Down, in some way. Life in Hawkins was (or at least had been) so strange that it looked like something out of a fantasy novel. How wild was that? Steve mused, as he was waiting for Billy near his car. 

When Billy made it to the car, he was carrying a thick brown envelope in his right hand and a paper bag in the left. 

“Want some help with all that?” Steve asked. 

“Uh… No, thank you. I’ll be fine.” Billy assured, transferring the envelope in his left hand so he was carrying everything on the same side and could fetch the car keys from his pocket with his newly free hand. He opened the trunk and dropped everything in it. 

Steve didn’t bother asking what was in the envelope, or in the bag. If Billy had wanted to share the information, he already would have. Steve definitely wondered, though. 

“I have an oatmeal raisin cookie for you, if you’d like.” He said once they were in their seats, as he rummaged through his backpack in search of it. 

“Oh yeah thanks! that sounds perfect.” 

Billy took the paper bag from Steve’s hand as he unparked the car. Steve would have scolded him for eating while driving instead of focusing solely on the road, but that would have been slightly hypocritical of him. 

“Well, that’s a relief, because no way I’d have eaten that if you didn’t want it.” Steve made a face again. 

“That’s ‘cause you have bad tastes, Pretty boy.” Billy said, taking a big bite of the cookie and putting crumbs everywhere. 

Steve laughed. If only Billy knew how much Steve loved him, he would certainly backtrack on what he had just said.

“It’s delicious, you don’t know what you’re missing.” Billy said in between bites. 

Steve was watching him with a sad smile, glad that Billy’s eyes were on the road and not on him. It took him a few seconds to reply. 

“Oh I know, believe me. I know.” 

*

The next morning, when he woke up, Steve found the brown paper bag Billy had come back with at the foot of his bed. What the…? 

The idea of Billy sneaking into his room during the night to put it there made something tighten in his chest, but Steve was mostly preoccupied with finding out what was inside the bag. 

He basically jumped out of bed, which was very unusual of him (he was the exact opposite of a morning person), and reached for the bag. There was a box labelled Adidas in it… no way! Steve opened it with shaky hands and his jaw dropped. 

What… how… why? Steve was confused. Billy had gotten him the sneakers he’d been looking at in the shop window. How had he paid for them? Why would he spend so much money on Steve? Especially so soon after his birthday… This was far too much. 

Steve exited his room quicker than he would have if it had been on fire. 

“Billy!” Steve might have called his name slightly louder than he meant to.

Billy, who was sitting at the breakfast table with his back to Steve, jumped and put a hand over his heart. 

“Damn, Pretty boy, calm down. You nearly gave me a heart attack.” 

“What the fuck?” 

Robin darted her eyes between the two of them and announced: “I’ll leave you to it”, before retreating to her room with her bowl of disgustingly bland oatmeal. 

“What gives, Stevie?” 

“You know what, Billy. The shoes. What the fuck? Why did you buy them?” 

“Isn’t that obvious? You wanted them, and I wanted you to have them. It’s not that big a deal.” Billy was not looking at him as he spoke. 

Steve’s heart nearly melted. Because that was so fucking sweet of Billy to do what he did, and then say something like that. He couldn’t possibly accept the gift, though.  

“Not that big a deal? They’re so expensive, Billy… I can’t … I can’t just take them… it wouldn’t be right.” 

“Look, Steve… As I told you, my client from yesterday paid really well, and it’s my money, so I get to decide how to spend it, and I wanted to spend it on these shoes, for you. So please, keep them. They’re your size and not refundable, anyway. Either you keep them or they’ll just rot in the cupboard. That’s up to you.”

Steve was almost certain Billy was bullshitting him on the “not refundable” part, but he didn’t argue. It would be no use: Billy always won.  

So, he just hugged him tightly instead. Billy froze for a second, but quickly let go of the spoon he was still holding to hug Steve back. 

“Thank you so much. I don’t know what I did to deserve that.” 

“You don’t need to do anything in particular, Pretty boy. Being yourself is more than enough.” 

Steve was not a crier, but his eyes were undeniably misty. Billy couldn’t keep being so sweet and expect Steve to reign his feelings in. They were on the verge of overflowing already. 

After finally letting go of Billy (not before leaving a kiss on top of his head, though), Steve put the sneakers on. 

“Steve, seriously… you’re still wearing your pajamas.” 

Steve’s pajamas consisted in frayed basketball shorts and a old Hawkins High t-shirt, so it was fine to wear the sneakers with them in Steve’s book. And he wouldn’t take these off until he absolutely had to. 

“So what?” Steve asked. 

Billy rolled his eyes, but his ears were red. 

*

About a week later, Steve’s nightmares paid him a visit. They had left him alone for a while, but Steve knew they’d be back eventually. He saw Billy die again, which was simultaneously his worst and most common nightmare. 

“Hey, Steve. Stevie. Wake up, please.” 

He was shaken awake.

Thankfully, Billy was the one to wake him up from his dream, so Steve instantly knew he was alive and well. Steve threw his arms around him, buried his face in his neck, and inhaled his scent to calm himself down. 

Billy held him close and rubbed his back, whispering reassuring words in his ear:   

“You’re okay, Pretty boy. You’re fine. It was just a dream.” 

Yes, Steve was alright. But the most important thing was that Billy was. That had been the object of Steve’s concern. 

“I’m sorry… did I wake you?”

Billy sighed. 

“How many times do I have to tell you that I don’t mind, Steve?” 

“As many times as I have to tell you the same thing.”

Billy’s room was right next to Steve’s. It wasn’t the first time he woke Billy up with his nightmare-induced screams. And Billy’s night terrors had woken Steve up a few times too. 

“Touché.” Billy said. “Do you think you’ll be able to go back to sleep?” He added after a pause. 

“I don’t know… Could you read to me again?” 

“Sure, if it helps.” Billy agreed. 

Steve snatched the book from his bedside table and handed it to Billy, who opened it where the bookmark indicated Steve had stopped. 

“You read all this by yourself?” There was awe in Billy’s voice. 

Steve was blushing, but in the low light of his bedside lamp, it was probably not very noticeable. At least, he could always hope. 

“Yeah… uh… I was really into it.” 

He had read about seven chapters on his own, which, added to the ones Billy had read to him the other day, only left three before they reached the end. 

“Steve, you did really good!” 

Steve blushed even harder. His face was burning at that point. Billy sounded so proud of him. 

“It’s not like it’s a great achievement, or anything… but yeah, I guess it’s progress.” 

“Hey, of course it’s progress. It’s a lot, Steve. Don’t diminish your accomplishments.” Billy said in a firm tone.

“Okay, okay. I won’t.” 

“Good.” Billy sprawled on the bed and leaned against the headboard. He then tugged on Steve’s arm. “Now settle down.” 

Steve did as he was told and settled right next to him, resting his head on Billy’s chest and putting an arm over his waist. Steve loved the feeling of Billy’s naked skin against his. When they had first moved in together, Billy wore long-sleeved t-shirts almost constantly, self-conscious as his scars made him. Now, he slept in nothing but shorts. Steve wasn’t the only one who had been making progress.

Billy was barely three sentences into the third to last chapter when his voice broke. He cleared his throat and resumed the reading as if nothing had happened. His voice was now breathy, though. 

“Are you okay?” 

“Yes.”

“You sure? We can stop.” 

“I’m sure, Pretty boy. Now shut up and let me read.” 

Steve effectively shut up and Billy got back to the task at hand. 

In the last three chapters, the King lost his kingdom, the magician finally confessed their love and found out it was in fact reciprocated. Then, the narrator described their first kiss with the King, a kiss that made Steve’s chest constrict with longing. The fact that it was Billy’s voice describing it only made the longing ten time worse. 

As Billy read the last words: “He was not ruling the kingdom anymore, but to me he would always be king. My king, my light, my love, my everything”, Steve was on the verge of tears. 

He regularly went through terrifying nightmares and found himself unable to spill a single tear, but this book might do the trick. And okay, it might have been a bit mushy, but Steve was really digging it, alright? 

He opened his eyes and saw a tear stain on the last page. For a second, he thought he had already started crying without noticing, but his cheeks were dry. It then occurred to him that the tear had come from Billy. 

Steve put the book away from him and had to straddle him so they could be face to face. He then wiped Billy’s tears, but they kept coming. 

“What’s the matter, Billy?” 

Unlike Steve, Billy was a crier. Steve had seen him cry a bunch of times, when he’d been particularly tired, or sad, or frustrated. However, there was something he was not getting: why had Billy pretended he didn’t like the book in the first place? It had to be the book. What other reason did Billy have to cry right now?

“I… I’m sorry.” Billy just said before he started properly bawling and hid his face in his hands.  

Steve was even more confused… and slightly panicked. 

“Hey… hey… please, tell me what’s wrong. I… I don’t know what to do.”

Steve circled Billy’s wrists to ground him, but he didn’t try to pull his hands away from his face for fear it might make him retreat further into himself. 

“I just… this book hits me really hard.” His voice was muffled, but Steve could still make out the words.  

“But… you said it wasn’t very good.”

Billy lowered his hands. His eyes were red and puffy. 

“I meant it… It still makes me sad, though.” 

Steve frowned. He didn’t think a book could elicit such reaction in someone who didn’t like it all that much. 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” 

Steve wouldn’t have judged Billy, he would have understood. He never wanted Billy to feel so bad, and even less if it happened because of something Steve had asked of him. 

“I should have… I should have said something. I’m sorry.” Billy’s breathing was uneven, and Steve could see his tears threatening to come back. 

“Hey, no. Don’t be sorry. You don’t have to apologize. Just tell me next time, okay?”

Billy nodded and Steve smiled at him tentatively. 

“Let’s go to bed.” 

“Yeah, sounds good.” Billy mumbled. 

Steve turned the lights off before moving from Billy’s lap to lay down. As Billy snuggled up with him, Steve couldn’t help but think about his recent behavior. Billy was acting a tad strange these days. He had gotten a lot better at expressing his feelings verbally in the last couple of years, and Steve was positive that the Billy he knew would have told him the book would upset him instead of pretending he would be fine. 

Steve would have to talk to him when he was more clear-headed. The last thing he wanted was for Billy to close himself off again.   

*

Thank you for reading :D 

[wereallsaloonaticshere]

Fight blackmail with blackmail

Summery: Eduardo blackmails Edward and Thompson to steal money for them, but Juan feels bad about it so he gives Edward and Thompson blackmail to use against Eduardo. 

Tw internalized homophobia, blackmail

Fandom: Eddsworld, Saloonatics

Word count: 3144

This was a collaboration I did with @aubdawgdrawz, they made a drawing for the story and I wrote it basically.

It’s quite a lovely night. Twinkling silver lights glow above them, highlighted by the pitch black a lack of sun causes. These nights are a constant for everyone in the town of Spit bucket, including a certain detective and sheriff.

“I quite liked that one.” Edward says, walking side by side with Thompson, “I felt it had a nice flow from scene to scene, and the character’s romance wasn’t forced at all.”

“I liked the horse.” The two men paused and looked at each other. Then chuckled and continued walking up the steps to their house. 

“I liked him too.” Edward takes out the keys and fumbles, looking for the right one, “I was surprised he turned out to be the killer in the end. Even I didn’t find any signs for that.” 

“I think they just wanted ta shock the audience. The people who made it aren’t ‘xactly what I’d call geniuses.” 

“Oh, and I am?”

“Nope.” Thompson says, then directly after Edward breaks out in giggles. 

“Oh, how sweet. My eternal love.” Edward places his hand on Thompson’s shoulder and gives him a quick kiss on the cheek.

“Make it a real one.” Thompson teases, and pulls Edward down by the collar, kissing him on the lips. 

“Oi, Thompson!” Edward says, after they’ve pulled apart, “Someone might see us!” He smiles as he opens the door, and the two walk into their home. 

It would’ve been a perfect night, had Juan not overheard it from the other side of the house. Had Juan not taken pictures of their kiss with his new camera.

A fist slams onto the counter, and Eduardo smirks as Thompson turns to face him in his chair. Thompson tackles him, pinning him to the floor. 

“Lotta nerve ya got, ta come back here.” Thompson stretches his arm toward his desk, trying to reach the handcuffs. “Why are ya smilin’, anywho? What’re ya planning?”

“I know about you.” Eduardo said

“What’re you-”

“I know about you and Edward.” Eduardo says, and with that, Thompson freezes. “Disgusting.” He adds for unneeded clarity. 

Gritting his teeth, Thompson lets go, and they both stand up. He leans against his desk, trying to stay cool. 

“What do ya mean?” 

“My partner in crime took photos of it.” Eduardo takes a few out of his pocket and shows them to him. Thompson bolts to grab it but Eduardo holds it high above his head, and grabs Thompson’s arm. 

“Give ‘em ta me. I’ll do...I’ll do anything.” Thompson says, with his eye wide open. Eduardo’s lips curls. He crosses his arms.

“Anything? Is that so?” 

~

“Man, I sure do love being a bandit!” Eduardo says, lying on top of a literal pile of gold coins and paper money. 

“Yo también.” Marco says, cleaning a mirror with his shirt, angling the reflective part away from him to avoid seeing his reflection. 

“What?” Eduardo asks. As Eduardo complains about Marco only knowing Spanish, Juan tinkers with his camera on the other side of the room.

Recently, when a professional cameraman moved to town, wanting, “...a breath a fresh, countryside air...”, he left his door unlocked. The three bandits saw their chance and ransacked the place, taking everything they could see. The cameraman was devastated, obviously, but for Juan it was one of the best things to ever happen to him. He got his very own camera! And a good one at that; the latest model. 

“Pose!” Juan says, taking the camera in both hands and pointing it at his partners. 

“Juan, you don’t need to take pictures of everything!” Eduardo says, sitting up and crossing his arms.

“Lucky I do though! ‘Else we wouldn’t have all this stuff!” Juan takes the photo. Eduardo runs a hand through his hair, and turns to Marco, continuing his mildly racist one-sided conversation. “I’ma head out and take more-”

“Bye.” Eduardo says, still looking at Marco.

Juan rolls his eyes and walks out. He wanders here and there, without a real destination in mind. 

A blue butterfly in the corner, just about to land on a leaf. A cactus with pink flowers dotted across it. A house with two men talking through the window, which probably wouldn’t turn out too good, considering the time of night. Time had flown by, apparently. You wouldn’t really be able to see anything other than a clouded swirl against a black backdrop. 

Wait. The two men were the British man and the Sheriff! And they were talking...Juan could just about make out what they were saying.

“I just feel so guilty.” Edward says, running a hand through his hair, voice tainted by exhaustion. 

“Don’t be. They’re savages, the lot of ‘em.” Juan frowns as Thompson says it. 

“Maybe we should just...let them tell the public.” A pause as Thompson stares with wide, judgmental eyes. “I just think-”

“What? You think ruinin’ our lives is the right answer? How?”

“How could it not be? I know it’ll be rough-”

“Rough? We’ll get killed! You already know how harshly people treat people like us! Or were the bandits ruining our lives not enough evidence for you?” 

“Well, my apologies if I don’t like stealing from the bank!” 

“And I do?!” 

As they continued arguing, Juan started to break into a cold sweat. 

Cops don’t like stealing. This is information he already knew, of course, but...they were doing it anyways. To keep each other safe, even though they hated it. 

Juan had told Eduardo and given him the picture because he knew that would get the gang more money. But seeing how it affected them, how it broke apart something special and private...Juan didn’t need all that gold, and neither did the others. 

But Juan isn’t as stupid as he looked. He knows just asking them wouldn’t work at all. His mind wandered a tad, as it tended to do, and he thought of the phrase ‘fight fire with fire’. The thing to fight blackmail with was more blackmail, clearly. But what would convince Eduardo to give the pictures back?

Juan’s blood ran slightly cooler. The sketches. Juan, of course, still had them all. He knew what the right thing to do was. He ran back to base.

Back at base, Eduardo and Marco were already asleep. Juan doesn’t bother walking on his tip-toes, since both men are heavy sleepers. He uncovers two floorboards in the corner where he slept, and gingerly pulls out the box, opening it. 

Eduardo used to be an artist, until he stopped, along with other things, drawing. He’d draw whatever he wanted to remember. And boy, did Eduardo want to remember Juan exactly. The slope of his jawline, his crooked smile, his soft yet calloused skin. 

So he drew him, filled entire sketchbooks with Juan and him. Holding hands, kissing, other things. Anything he could think of. At first they were drawn few and far between, but when Juan thumbed through one of the books and said he loved them, it seemed like Eduardo had a dip pen attached to his hand.

But it didn’t last. Eduardo’s dad found the books, and he wasn’t exactly okay with what was in them. The two were just younger than 18 when that happened. A few years later, after Juan decided to become a bandit, they met again. Juan went to hug him but got shoved away. Eduardo acted like he had never met him before. It hit Juan in a soft spot, but he went along with it, knowing whatever Eduardo’s dad did to him wasn’t the greatest. But Eduardo was a different person, harsher, meaner. There were still times when his old self would come out, but it would so quickly be stifled Juan would wonder if he imagined it.

Juan looks in the box and pulls out a thin pad of paper, about 20 or so pieces. Juan, throughout the years, had probably seen these a million times, but that didn’t stop him from looking again, blushing at his past, at the feelings he used to know. At the boy he once loved, and the man he wasn’t sure he knew. Each drawing, each stroke of the pen, was carefully done, the signature in the corner of every one.

He put the pad in his coat pocket, closed the box and put it back in the floor, as if nothing has been or ever was there. He looked across the room at Eduardo. He hadn’t been the nicest, or least hypocritical person lately. He deserved this. 

On his walk back to the sheriff’s house, he thought about their time together, all those years ago. The jokes, the spats, the love. Juan had loved Eduardo, and these drawings had love written all over them. 

He wondered if Eduardo even remembers making them, or if he forced himself to forget.

~

There’s a knocking on the door, and Edward gets up first to answer it.

“Hel-” Juan shoves past him and walks over to their dinner table, placing the sketchpad on it, face down. 

“I’m really sorry, I am. So, so here,” Juan points at the pad, his other hand clenched in his pocket, and walks back towards the still opened door, “tell Eduardo that if he puts the film out you’ll put the drawings out. I really didn’t, I really didn’t mean to, to hurt you guys.” Why were tears flooding his eyes? 

Thompson, a little taller than him, blocks the exit.

“What’re you sorry for, boy?” Thompson says, balling his hands into fists.

“I...I told Eduardo about you guys.” Juan added quickly, “But I’m making it right! I gave you fire to use against his fire!”

“He’s going to burn our house down?” Edward asks, with more disbelief than fear.

“No, no, I-I just meant...” 

“You’re helping us get back at him?” Thompson says and squints.

“Yeah, ‘xactly!”

“Pardon, but I find it hard to believe you’d help us when you’re the one who got us here in the first place.” Edward glared. 

“Yeah, and how’d we even use these? It has his signature, but he could just say he didn’t draw them and that it’s another Eduardo. He ain’t famous or nothin’, no one’s gonna recognize it.” Thompson says, walking over to the table and inspecting them. He raises his eyebrows. “Though, if he did make ‘em...”

“Then...I could vouch for you, ‘cause I saw him draw them. Eye witness, right?” Juan tries to bargain.

“...The man in these drawin’s is you, bandit.” Thompson says, slowly. “Ya know that’d-”

“Put me in danger. I’m okay with it.” Juan stands straighter. “I just feel...guilty. I shouldn’t’ve let this go so far.”

“You shouldn’t have done it in the first place.” Edward says, and crosses his arms.

“Yeah, I know, but...I dunno. I guess I just did it because it’s us against the world, and I wanted to win.”

“That’s incredibly childish.” Edward rolled his eyes.

“So ya try an’ ruin our lives? We could lose our jobs, or get murdered over this!” 

“I’m sorry.” Juan says, and inches toward the door. “But just...when ya show Eduardo that, don’t tell him I gave it ta you guys.” 

“Hey! We ain’t done yet here-!” Thompson started, but Juan had already started running out the door. 

Edward began looking over the drawings . 

“These are actually...we could use these.” Edward says.

“I think it’d be kinda-”

“We would never actually publish them, of course.” Edward says, closing the door. “But we could simply bluff. I mean, they held it over our heads, why not return the favor?” 

“I like the way you think, Ed.” 

“Thank you dear.” He kisses him on the forehead. “Do you want to go fuck up that bastard’s life now, or shall we wait ‘till sunrise?” Thompson, slightly taken aback by Edward’s swearing, smiles.

“Hmm...I reckon we should wait until the next time we meet up for demands. Then spring it on him.” Thompson grins. 

“Swell idea, love.”

~

A knock on the door.

“Oh?” Edward asks, “Who is it?”

“It’s me.” Eduardo says from behind the door.

“Oh, right!” Edward opens the door, “Come in! Come in!” 

“...Why are you being so pleasant?” Eduardo glares, crossing his arms, “Ya know what? I don’t even care. So, what I want you two-”

“Oh, that won’t be necessary.” Edward slams the door shut. 

“Oh?” Eduardo laughs, “Then, I guess I’ll just have to-” Edward whips out a certain drawing pad. 

“What?” Eduardo’s eyes suddenly widen, and he takes a step back. Just as he’s about to pounce, Thompson jumps on him, pinning him to the floor again. “What’s-”

“Hand over the pictures, or we release these,” He waves the book just above Eduardo’s head, “to the press,” Edward states, standing over him.

“What do I care what the public thinks of me?! They already hate me!” Eduardo thrashed against the man, but Thompson had a strong grip.

“Maybe they do, but will fellow criminals? What’ll they think of ya then?” Thompson spits, “No more help from fellow gangs.”

“...How did you even-”

“Juan.” Edward and Thompson say at the same time. He might’ve helped them in the end, but he did start this whole thing, after all. Some anger was still harbored for the short man.

“Ugh!” Eduardo yelled. “...Fine. I’ll give you the pictures by sundown. But destroy those in front of me first.”

“That’s not how things work around here.” Edward crouches down, “You give us the pictures first. We wouldn’t lie to you - we’re cops after all. You’re more likely to con us then vice-versa.” 

“...Fine. I’ll do it.” Eduardo says, “Just don’t tell anyone. I’m not like that anymore.”

“...Go.” Thompson lets go of Eduardo and he walks out of the house, frazzled and angry. Betrayed.

~

“Hey, Juan?” Eduardo says through gritted teeth. Marco knew this tone; he walks out of the base and goes for a quick - or long - stroll. 

“Uh, yeah?” Juan focuses his eyes intently on his book, not looking up from it. He swallows.

“May I have a word?” Fists shaking with white knuckles, Eduardo glares with all that’s left in him at the man across the room, staring at his book in the corner. 

“Sh-sure. Just, um...just…” Juan’s hands start shaking. His eyes scan for Marco. He isn’t here. No one to help him if things get out of hand.

“JUST WHAT?!” Eduardo stomps his foot on the ground and storms over to Juan. Juan stands up, but it’s too late to move. On second thought, perhaps the corner of the room wasn’t the smartest place to hide. Eduardo lifts him by the collar and slams him against the corner. Juan’s trapped. He cowers, pressing himself further into the wall. “YOU...” 

Tears prick Eduardo’s eyes. Oh, how he hates it. He squeezes his eyes shut, his teeth grind together. 

“You ruined everything.” Eduardo seethes, “You’ve always ruined everything. You ruined. My. LIFE!”

“Hey! I didn’t - I didn’t ruin your life!” Juan defends himself, “Your dad did!” 

At that, Eduardo’s blood turns to freezing cold slush. He drops Juan and takes a step back.

“You...” Eduardo begins visibly shaking now, and crosses his arms as a short-hand to hugging himself. He shakes his head, “I-”

“We could’a ran away together, just you ‘n me! I swear, ‘Duardo, you were the best thing that’d ever happen ta’ me.” Juan gripped his arms, “But then you had to leave, and when we met again, it was like you were a different person!” He took a step forward and gestured that he wanted to hold Eduardo’s hands. Eduardo puts his hands in his pockets, then crosses his arms again, taking a step back. “You were - we were so happy back then. I guess I kept them because I wanted to remember that for a while.”

“Maybe you were happy,” Eduardo paused for a second, “but I wasn’t! Maybe I never wanted you, maybe you just heard what you wanted to hear!”

Juan narrowed his eyes at him. “I know what I heard. I know all those times we’d talk for hours about our future, about anything, about each other.” He clenched his fists, “You didn’t say platonic things to me, bunny.” 

“...Whatever I did when I was a punk-ass kid means nothing,” He tried to keep his voice from shaking, “you betrayed me, and went behind my back to the cops! What we said to each other years ago is worthless, so get out of my face about it.” 

“No, I won’t, because I refuse to believe those dozens of books filled with drawin’s don’t mean nothing to you, because throughout the years, they’ve always meant somethin’ to me, whenever I’ve looked at ‘em.”

“...what?” Eduardo asks. 

“Uh...the drawin’s?” Juan squints. “I still look at ‘em all the time.”

Eduardo sucked in a breath at the realization. He couldn’t believe he had kept them. All of them. And still cared to look.

“Did ya really think I’d just throw ‘em out?” Juan says to fill to gap in conversation. “They really are pretty-”

“Just, shut up.” Eduardo runs a hand through his hair. He’s blushing, slightly. Then, in a much softer voice that resembled defeat more than gentleness, “...Please.”

Juan opens his mouth to say something, but cuts himself off. He almost offered a hug, but stopped himself there, to. He hears Eduardo mumble something about his habit of drawing biting him in the ass twice, and he pauses, and decides to sail into uncharted territory.

“What your dad did ta you must’a been awful. I…” Juan can’t quite find the right words, “I don’t know how to make it better, but...can I try?” He stepped forward and again held out his hands for Eduardo to take. Eduardo just stared at them with a fixed gaze. “You-you don’t have to if you, if you don’t-”

Eduardo pulls Juan into a hug, and before either of them really have time to process it, Eduardo pulls out. 

“...Sorry for, uh, hurting your head.” Eduardo looks at his feet. He adds softly, “I’ll...try to not get so angry in the future.” 

“It’s fine -”

“No, it’s not.” Eduardo massages the bridge of his nose. “I’m sorry.”

“...I accept. I just want you ta be happy.” Juan says, and smiles, “Like when we were kids.”

“I don’t think I can ever be that person again.” Tears fall from his eyes just as fast as he can wipe them up, “I just can’t. Not after everything.” 

“Well…” Juan says, “then I’ll settle for happier.”

[ambereyesandwine]

We’ve Got Soul: Chapter 3

WC: 2450

Warnings: Sass, cursing, ya know, the usual

Beta’d By: @teaspacebar

Notes: This chapter is mostly relationship building between Fantasia and the boys, and to show the change in their relationships in the year-ish since the last chapter.

Chapter 3:

October 8, 2037

8:04 A.M.

           “Hey,” Fantasia called out around the hair-tie bit between her teeth. “Gavin, get up.” She shoved his shoulder before putting her hair up the rest of the way.

           “Nooo,” He groaned.

           “Seriously, you have to go to work today.”

           “I shouldn’t have to, it’s my birthday.”

           “Yesterday was your birthday, today is Thursday. Get up.”

           Gavin propped himself up on his elbows so he could face her. “What time is it?”

           “Eight. I let you sleep for as long as I could before I came in to get you, but I have to go, and you need to leave for work soon.” She was walking around Gavin’s apartment, finishing putting herself together as she spoke. “My blanket is folded on the couch, and I made you breakfast, it’s in the fridge. Take a shower before you go, you stink.”

           “You’re an asshole.” He called through his bedroom door.

           She grabbed her keys, “That’s what friends are for, I’ll see you later!” And the door was shut behind her. Fantasia boarded the next bus to get to Carl’s and rang the doorbell right on time.

           Markus answered the door, “Good morning Fantasia.”

           A smile plastered across her face. “Good morning,” Fantasia said as she walked through the house to the studio. When she entered the room, Carl turned in his chair to face her.

           “You’re late.”

           “I am not,” She dropped her bag under the desk by the door, “You just get bored when I’m not here.”

           “I’m an artist, I’m never bored.”

           “I’m an artist and I get bored regularly.”

           Carl chuckled lightly, “That’d be why you’re an apprentice with lots of work still to do. Today you’re working on texture. You get one color, and you’re going to tell me a story with just the paint thickness and brush stroke.”

           “That’s it?”

           “That’s it. Have fun.” Carl left the studio without another word.

           For a few moments, Fantasia just stood in front of the canvas with a blank stare. “How the hell am I supposed to do this?” She quirked her head a little. “What if I…” Fantasia collected a palette and the paint she’d need to make her color and got started. It was almost three hours later that Carl re-entered the studio to find her standing in front of a dull blue canvas with no visible concept, other failed attempts scattered on the floor.

           As Fantasia continued to add paint to the piece as she spoke, “I’m almost done.”

           “There’s nothing there. I told you to make a story, not a mess on a canvas.”

           “Just give me a minute.” Fantasia looked over her project one more time before turning to face Carl. “It’s done.”

           Carl sighed. “My dear, I sincerely hope you are about to surprise me.”

           “Don’t I always?” Fantasia turned on the lamp she had set up to shine over the painting from the upper-right corner of the canvas. The shadows cast by the ridges in the paint formed a city block, crowded with silhouettes.

           Carl nodded. “Pleasantly surprised, indeed. It’s an interesting idea to use the light, I may have to use that at some point.”

           “Thank you,” Fantasia’s smile grew as she looked between Carl and her painting.

           “I figured this would take you a larger portion of the day. You’re more than welcome to stay if you’d like to continue working.” Carl wheeled over to his lift and continued a large piece he had in progress.

           Fantasia grabbed her bag and found a place to sit on a table across the studio from Carl’s lift. She sat cross-legged and hunched over her sketchbook as she drew her mentor at work.

           Markus entered the room and approached Fantasia. “What are you drawing?”

           “Carl,” Fantasia replied lightly and showed Markus the page. “It’s fun to draw him when he’s too busy with other things to stop me.”

           “I can still hear you.”

           “But you won’t stop me cause you’re already in the lift.” Upon receiving no reply, Fantasia continued to sketch.

           “Do you need anything while I’m here?” Markus asked politely.

           “Just your company, if you have some time.” Fantasia looked up from her work to smile at him.

           Markus smiled back. “Of course.”

           Fantasia scooted over and moved her bag to the floor to make room for him. She patted the newly opened space, which Markus gladly filled. When he was seated on the table comfortably, Markus switched between watching Fantasia draw and watching Carl paint, almost as though he was studying.

           “What do you think?” Fantasia tilted her sketchbook Markus’s way to show him her semi-finished drawing.

           “I think it’s very life-like.”

           She hummed, “Mm, an easy answer. I’ll get an opinion out of you one day.”

           “Were you looking for another response?” Markus questioned lightly.

           A small huff left Fantasia’s chest. “No, Markus. It’s okay.” She smiled at him. “I think I’m gonna get some lunch. Carl?” She called across the studio, “I’m gonna make lunch, do you want anything?”

           Carl continued to paint as he replied, “No, I’m fine, help yourself.”

           “Awesome,” Fantasia hopped off the table and held her hand out toward Markus. “Do you want to come?”

           “If you’d like.” Markus took Fantasia’s hand and neatly slid off the table before following her into the kitchen.

           When Fantasia got to the kitchen, she immediately turned to Markus and asked, “What do you think Carl would like to eat?”

           “He said he didn’t want anything.”

           “Yes,” she huffed, “But he always says he doesn’t want anything and then as soon as I bring food into the studio, he asks you to make him something. I’m just trying to take out the middle step.”

           “He does seem to have a pattern.” Markus replied. “What about a salad?”

           “That sounds great, Carl could use some vegetables in his life.” Fantasia went to the fridge and collected lettuce, peppers, a cucumber, and some other vegetables. “Do you have any chicken breast?”

           “Yes, second shelf from the top.”

           “Awesome,” Fantasia grabbed the package and handed it to Markus. “Will you cook a couple up while I cut veggies?”

           “Of course.”

           The two had lunch put together in 20 minutes, and Fantasia put it out on the table while Markus went to collect Carl.

           “I said I wasn’t hungry,” He said, rolling up to the table. “But that does smell pretty good.”

           Fantasia smiled. “I figured you’d say that, that’s why we made enough for two to begin with. Here.” She placed his salad in front of him on the table.

           “Aww,” Carl said with disdain. “I smelled chicken, I thought it was all chicken. This is not real person food, it’s for herbivores.”

           “Good thing you’re an omnivore and can eat both.” Fantasia picked up her utensils and stared at Carl from across the table. “Eat.”

October 13, 2037

12:27 P.M.

           As Fantasia walked into the station, she was greeted by the call of her name.

           “Tasia!” Gavin jogged over to her and snatched the paper bag from her hands and kissed her on the cheek before plopping down at his desk. “Finally, I’m starving.”

           She sat down in her usual chair. “You’re super affectionate today, are you dying?” Fantasia said it between bites of fries.

           “Fuck you, I’m in a good mood.”

           She nodded, “Ah, there you are. What’s up?”

           “I made a big arrest today, for your information,” He laced the second half of his statement with attitude. “We’ve been looking for this guy for months,” Gavin continued to talk around mouthfuls of food, “And I got him today, cause I’m the fucking best.”

           “Uh huh.” Fantasia gestured with sarcastic curiosity, “So were you the only police officer at the scene, or did you have other people there?”

           “There were others.”

           “Uh huh, and did you do all the work by yourself while they just stood around, or were they all involved?”

           Gavin narrowed his eyes. “The second one…”

           “Uh huh, so did Gavin Reed get him or did the DPD get him. Together.”

           The pleasant expression on Gavin’s face melted. “You’re a soul-sucking terrorist. You know that?”

           “Chris, I fixed him!” Fantasia called out across the station.

           “Thank you!” Came back from the general direction of the break room.

           Gavin’s eyes went wide, “What was that?”

           Fantasia replied nonchalantly, “Chris texted me while I was on my way over. He said you were being scary. I fixed it.”

           “I hate you.”

           “I am the only person you don’t genuinely despise on some level or another, and I brought you food, so you have to be nice to me.”

           He grumbled to himself and silently ate his food with his normal, grumpy disposition until Fantasia got out her sketchbook.

           “What are you drawing.”

           “You’re talking with your mouth full, and it’s disgusting.”

           “Sorry m’lady.” Gavin dramatically attempted to swallow the entire mouthful of food and almost choked before trying to pretend nothing happened and asked again, “What’re you drawing.”

           She looked at him, perplexed. “Do you regret that? Do you regret what you just did, or do you stand by that?”

           “Yes.” His voice was strained as he coughed and reached for his drink.

           Fantasia nodded slowly with an affirmative hum before answering Gavin’s question. “I’m drawing you with a smile on your face. It’s so rare, I figured I’d capture it forever. Ya know, ‘make a picture, it’ll last longer’ and all that.”

           “That is not how the saying goes.”

           “Do I look like I give a fuck?”

           “Ouch, the Clever Comeback Queen has struck again, let’s hear it folks.”

           Fantasia rolled her eyes. “What else do you have going on today?”

           “Paperwork.”

           “Ah yes, saving the world and filling out paperwork. Real heroes don’t wear capes, they wear dirty leather jackets and listen to shitty music.”

           “Hey,” Gavin pointed accusingly at her, “You stay off my music. Carry on My Wayward Son is a classic.”

           She scoffed, “Yeah maybe, but its but its older than Hank and you act like it’s the last good song ever released.”

           “Cause it is.”

           “No. Look me in the eyes,” She pointed at her own face with two fingers. “I listen to you blast all kinds of terrible music from when you were in middle school and high school that is way different than Kansas, and I am willing to put money down that the only reason you’ve ever even heard of that song is cause of that show you used to watch cause you thought it would make you cool.”

           Gavin’s face crunched, trying to formulate a response, but he caved, “I got nothin.”

           “Yeah.”

           “You free this weekend, or do you have super special painting practice?”

           “I’m free, I think,” Fantasia stated as she started cleaning up their lunch. “Carl has some fancy charity auction thingy that I’m not allowed to go to.” She shrugged.

           “Why not?”

           “Oh, ya know, big names only, they have a reputation to keep up.”

           “So, you’re not even allowed to go?”

           “Nope.”

           “That’s dumb.”

           “Agreed. You wanna go out instead?”

           “Depends,” Gavin considered.

           “On?”

           “Are you gonna be pissy the whole time about how you didn’t get to go to the auction thing?”

           “What? No. It’s literally a bunch of old dudes in a room talking about ‘strokes’ all night and pretending they aren’t talking about their dicks. I am totally fine not being the only female in that room.”

           “Awesome, then I’ll see you later? I gotta get back to work.” Gavin gestured widely to his mostly empty desk.

           “Yeah, you have fun with all that. I’ll shoot you a text when I pick a place.”

           “It better not be some shitty line-dancing bar again.” He called out as Fantasia started to walk away.

           “If you actually cared you wouldn’t make me choose every time.” She shot finger guns at him before she turned to leave.

November 2, 2037

6:09 P.M.

           “So, dad, what’s for dinner?” Leo walked into the dining room where Fantasia and Markus were serving dinner.

           Fantasia’s smile dropped as soon as she saw Leo’s face.

           “Oh, hey Tay, wasn’t expecting to see you here. Are you on the menu tonight?”

           The resulting scowl and glare that Fantasia produced could have pierced most people’s skin, but Leo didn’t back down. “Nobody calls me Tay,” She seethed.

           “Exactly! So, I’m unique!” He smiled a shit-eating grin.

           “So, you can call me Fantasia. Nothing else.”

           “Oh ouch,” He turned to Markus, “That bitch is almost as cold as your insides tonight, huh?”

           “Leo,” Carl interrupted, “That’s enough. What do you want?”

           “Well food for starters, if you’re offering.”

           Carl made no gesture to offer the things his son demanded. “Why did you come here, Leo?”

           “What, I can’t just come over to hang out with my pops?”

           “You never have before,” Fantasia spat.

           Leo turned on her, “I’m sorry, who were you again? This is my dad, not yours, little orphan girl.”

           “I said enough,” Carl restated sternly. “No more games, Leo. Why are you here?”

           “I need money.”

           Carl looked confused, “I thought you said you got a job.”

           “Yeah, well it fell through and now I need money for rent.”

           “What do you mean it ‘fell through?’”

           “They found out about the ice, does it matter?” Leo’s agitation covered his face.

           A sigh left Carl’s chest, “How much do you need?”

           “A thousand dollars.”

           “Fine.”

           “Thanks, dad, I knew I could count on you.” Leo made a pointed glance toward Fantasia before he spoke again. “I’m glad the help is keeping you good company while I’m away.”

           “I’m not-” Fantasia started but dropped it when she saw Carl’s face. He was already upset, and she didn’t want to make it worse for him.

           “Was that all you needed?” Carl asked hopefully.

           “Yeah,” Leo started back out toward the door. “I can’t stick around. I got places to be.”

           “Oh.”

           “I’ll see you around pops,” Were Leo’s last words before the door closed behind him.

           Fantasia immediately turned to Carl and asked, “Are you okay?”

           He took a deep breath before replying, “I’m fine. What did you two make for dinner?” The smile on his face was forced.

           Markus chimed in, “Alfredo that Fantasia insisted we ‘wing.’”

           “I just didn’t want it to be something from a cookbook you have memorized! I wanted it to be fun!”

           Markus smiled. “It was fun.”

           “Then the mission was accomplished, can I eat now?” Carl reached for his plate.

           “Yeah, sorry.” Fantasia set the table the rest of the way and sat down across from Carl to dig into her food.

           The two ate in relative quiet with only the sounds of the dishes being washed as background noise.

[gvbejvmes]

Drabble Days - Drabble 1

Title: The Inside of a Tiffany Lamp Rating:  PG-13 Pairings: Gabriel/Nancy, Gabriel/Johnny Trigger Warnings: For the first part only -- Child abuse, homophobia, and homophobic slurs.

1979

Gabriel James sat at the kitchen table, tongue peeking out from between his teeth. His grandma had given him a set of fancy colored pencils for Christmas and he’d been putting them to use ever since. There had been some concern that he was too little for such a sharp gift, but it was like his hands were made for colored pencils. He knew how to hold them, how to move his hand so the lead wouldn’t snap in his hand. Some of it he had remembered from kindergarten, but most of it came naturally. He let his hand guide the way. They tended to know what his mind wanted to do.

He’d been working on this drawing for a couple of days. There was this cool lamp that was sitting in the stock room of the store, and Gabe knew it would make for an awesome drawing. So he spent two whole days at work with his dad so he could sit in the back and draw. He’d spent hours upon hours drawing the lamp so it looked perfect. Then he’d spent a whole day coloring his drawing in. It looked so cool. Even though the base of the lamp had looked better in his head than on paper, it still looked pretty good. It was loads better than anything Missy Hamilton drew (even though their teacher said she was so much better at coloring inside the lines than he was).

Once the drawing was done, he’d blown on it to get any extra color off, and gently smoothed it down on the backside. It needed to be absolutely perfect. He waited until after dinner to give his dad the drawing. “I made this for you.” He said, proudly presenting him with his days of hard work. Gabriel couldn’t help but to fidget nervously as he waited to see what his dad’s reaction was going to be.

Francis looked at the piece of paper. “What is this shit?” His lip curled up into an ugly sneer. He blinked a couple of times as he took in Gabe’s careful line work and coloring. “Why the fuck do I need this?” He held it a little further back before crumpling it into a ball. “It looks like a waste of time if you ask me. Can’t even tell what it is.”

He could feel his bottom lip shaking. All those hours and hours of work and for what? For his dad to just ball it up like it was trash? He couldn’t cry though. If he cried, his dad would just hit him. He really had thought that his dad was going to like it. He spent enough time at the store; he thought he’d like a picture of the coolest looking thing in there.

“Oh, Francis, look.” Maria unfurled the ball of paper, smoothing it out so Francis could get a better look at it. Gabe felt himself flinching as her fingers smoothed over the front of the drawing, smearing colors in places they weren’t supposed to go. “It’s the Tiffany lamp that we bought at that estate sale. Look! There’s the glass stones that make up the flowers, and there’s the base.” She smiled warmly at Gabe. “It looks just like the lamp, Gabriel.”

His father huffed and took the drawing again, blinking at it a few times. “Why do I need a picture of a lamp? It’s a lamp.” He crumpled the drawing up again and tossed it in the direction of the kitchen. “You shouldn’t spend so much time drawing anyway. Only sissies draw.”

And that was too much for Gabe to handle. He took off running to his room, tears streaming down his face as he ran. As soon as he was in the room he shared with his little sister, he crawled into the open closet. All he wanted to do was hide. He pulled his knees up to his chest, and looped his arms around them, burying his face into his knees and cried.

“My G?” A little voice asked, and his two year old sister crawled into the closet with him. Crap. He was pretty sure his mom had already put her down for the night. He must have been too loud. “You okay, my G?” And Georgiana poked and poked at his head until he looked up at her. “Why crying, my G?”

Gabe scrubbed at his face. Boys weren’t supposed to cry. He knew that much. His dad told him that all the time, but sometimes he just couldn’t help it. He let his legs down, and Georgiana immediately scrambled onto his lap, her little head leaning against him. “Dad didn’t like my drawing. I worked so hard on it, and he crumpled it up like it was trash.” He knew his sister probably had no idea what he was talking about, but that didn’t stop the words from coming out of his mouth.

“You draw pretty.” Georgiana decided. “Better than books.” She pressed a hand against his cheek before yawning. “Draw me princesses.”

A watery smile slid onto his face. “I’ll draw you as a princess.” He decided. “You’d make the prettiest princess.”

Georgiana yawned again. “Us as princesses. I want us as princesses.” She decided firmly.

This time Gabe yawned. “Okay, but we can’t show Dad, okay?”

“Okay.” His little sister said as she drifted off to sleep. “Okay."

1990

Gabe sat on top of one of the lunch tables in the middle of the quad. He had an hour to kill before baseball practice, which meant he had plenty of time to draw. Usually he liked to sketch the other kids who had a free seventh period. And when there was no one else out there, he would draw the leftover trash from lunch and the birds picking at the leftovers. Today there was a group of girls sitting at the tables, laughing and pretending to do their homework. Of course, he knew who the girls were, but it wasn’t as though they were friends. Maureen, Nancy, Darla, and Louise: Roswell High School’s bitch squad.

Before he even realized what he was doing, he was sketching out the four girls. It started out as just one of his basic sketches, but when the sun hit Nancy just right, he switched his focus to her. He flipped to a new page of his sketchbook and focused on Nancy. A part of him wished he had his colored pencils with him or even watercolor (even though he hated working with watercolors). He had always thought Nancy was beautiful, in an art sort of way, but the way the light hit her… For a moment he wondered if he thought she was beautiful in more than just an art sort of way. She was the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen in real life, and the lighting just made her look even more so.

He spent the entirety of the seventh period drawing Nancy. He focused on the way the sun made her skin look dewy, and the way her hair looked like spun gold before working on her eyes. In real life they always looked a little cold, but he added a little bit more warmth. He’d caught her mid-laugh and she just looked so happy.

“Is that me?”

He looked up in horror to find Nancy Conrad standing in front of him looking at his drawing. There was a look on her face he’d never seen before, and it made him blush. God, he couldn’t believe that he let himself get so caught up in his drawing that he didn’t even realize she’d walked over to him. “Uhm, yeah.” He ran a hand through his shaggy black hair, pushing his hair out of his eyes. Before he could talk himself out of it, he urgently tore the page out of his sketchbook and handed it to her. “I made this for you. Figured you’d want a reminder of how hot you look today.”

Nancy took the page from him, and studied for a long while before looking back at him, a smile on her face. “It’s missing something though.” And there was something in her voice that Gabe thought was odd, but he didn’t realize what it was until it was too late. “Your number isn’t on it.”

Oh, fuck. Was she flirting with him? Fuck, she was. She definitely was. Against his better judgement, he took the sketch back from her and scrawled his number in the corner like it was his signature. “There. All fixed.”

The second he handed it back to her, Nancy took off running back to her girls and he could hear the other girls squealing. Girls… They were too much.

“Gabe…” His best friend Derrick was suddenly standing next to him. “Why is the Bitch Squad looking at you and giggling?” When Gabe didn’t respond, Derrick punched him in the arm. “What did you do?”

“Nothing.” Gabe lied as he packed up his bag. “Absolutely nothing.”

2018

So, what difference does it make? So, what difference does it make? It makes none. But now you have gone and you must be looking very old tonight. The devil will find work for idle hands to do I stole and I lied, and why? Because you asked me to! But now you make me feel so ashamed.

What Difference Does It Make?

The floor of Gabe’s studio at the Collective was covered in newspaper as Gabe sat on the ground in front of a low table. There was a canvas spread out across the table - a canvas that Gabe had spent the past day acid washing to get it just right. There was a vision in his head and he was going to make it look perfect. He’d been up all night experimenting with ash and soot and how they retained color. His idea wouldn’t work if he couldn’t get the ash to hold the color just right. And he needed his idea to work. It had to work; it just had to. He didn’t know what he would do if it didn’t.

His Smith’s album was suddenly turned off, and he glanced up in surprise to find Kale in his studio with him. Frowning, he slid his glasses up into his hair and blinked wearily at his best friend, who he was now living with. How an eccentric millionaire had become his best friend was beyond him, but here they were. “Why’d you have to do that for?” He complained, yawning. God, how long had he been in his studio for?

Kale didn’t say anything at first. Instead he filled the electric kettle with water and took bread out of the breadbox and popped it into the microwave in Gabe’s kitchenette. “I got confirmation from my guy.” And that was one of the hundred quirks of Kaleidoscope Johnson - he had a guy for everything. “Jonathan was served the divorce papers yesterday morning.”

It was quiet. Gabe didn’t say anything, but he wasn’t lightly sketching out the lines for his painting either. Kale glanced over at him, but focused instead on making toast. In fact, he didn’t say anything until he had smeared jam on the toast and made two cups of herbal tea. He set everything down on the coffee table and beckoned Gabe to join him on the couch. When Gabe didn’t move, he rolled his eyes. “You didn’t come home last night.”

There was something about the way he said it that had Gabe pulling himself to his feet and stumbling over to the couch next to him. He picked up on his mugs and rolled it between the palms of his hand. It wasn’t his mug. It was one of Jay’s. He wasn’t going to tell Kale that though. Breathing in the scent of his tea, he stared into the pink water instead of looking at the other man.

“I’m not the poster child for healthy life choices, but when was the last time you slept?” Gabe rolled the cup between his hands. “You’re right. You’re not the person who should be asking me that.” He set his tea down, and picked up one of the slices of toast. After taking a bite, he sighed softly. “Shit, I don’t know.”

Kale took the other slice of toast, but didn’t take a bite. “What are you going to do, Gabey?” His gaze dropped over to Gabe’s work-in-progress. “What the point? You’re gonna paint your ex and what? Put it on display? Drop it off at the house with a note? I know I dumped you, but here, I made this for you?”

Rolling his eyes, Gabe viciously took a bite of his toast. “Fuck you.” He grumbled out, mid-bite.

“Maybe later, sweetheart.” He wrapped an arm around Gabe. “Can we go home now or are you going to keep up the artist recluse thing you have going on right now?”

Gabe picked up his tea. “Can we maybe just sit here for a while?” He murmured out softly. “Yeah, okay.”

2019

“Mr. James?” He was sitting in his office going over the budget when there was a knock at his office door. It was Kid. He said he was 18, but Gabe was pretty sure he was closer to 16. “You got a minute?”

Gabe couldn’t help but to smile at him. “Got more than a couple.” He closed his laptop and looked at him. There was something about him that reminded him so much of the life he could have had. “What’s up Kid?”

Instead of saying anything, he threw a small canvas down on Gabe’s desk. “I-made-this-for-you.” He mumbled out, suddenly looking down at his feet.

Gently picking it up, Gabe couldn’t help but to grin. It looked like his Narcissus, except it was spray-painted. “You made this for me?” He couldn’t help the teasing smile that slid onto his features.

Kid looked very very embarrassed all of a sudden. “I mean, I looked you up finally. Your work is okay and shit.” He shrugged out.

“You’ve been living here for two months, and you just now looked me up?” A wry smile slid onto his features.

The teenager side dramatically. “Ugh. I knew you were going to make a big deal about this.” He huffed out before throwing his hands up in the air and leaving Gabe’s office.

2020

They were laying on the floor of the Marchette Gallery. Gabe had gotten permission from Nik to stay in the gallery with Jay overnight. There was an air mattress on the floor and at one point there had been a bottle of wine and a picnic. It was long gone now, and now they were just laying on the air mattress, the lights of the blue room from his Reflections show licking at their skin.

He wasn’t sure how long they’d been laying there, staring at his art in the dark. He felt like he was five again, giving his father his drawing of that Tiffany lamp he hated. The only difference was that he knew Johnny had liked his pieces. “Did I ever tell you about this Tiffany lamp we had at the antique shop when I was little?”

Johnny was still staring at the way the blue lights reflected off the walls. “A real one?” He asked as he linked their hands together.

“Yeah.” He turned his head to watch Jay’s face. “Did you know there’s more to a Tiffany lamp than just the mosaic shade? When people buy knock-offs, they only focus on the shade, but there’s more to it than that. The real beauty is in the base. It ties the theme together.” He watched Jay’s face as he processed the information.

It was like a light bulb went off and Johnny immediately glanced at the base of the walls. Among the lights that were casting the shades of blue across the wall, were intricate silver wire twisted up together in the shape of fish. They snaked up the base of the walls, catching the light and sending it back through the room.

“Briel?” And now Johnny was looking at him. “Did you create the inside of a Tiffany lamp for me?”

Grinning, Gabe shifted so he was straddling him. “This might be brand new information for you, but I made this for you. I made all this for you.”

The other man ran gentle fingers over his face. “I hadn’t noticed.” He murmured out softly. “I never would have guessed.”