#hes been rotating in my head for a fat sec

[ryssbelle]

Introducing to this jumbled up mess of a family: Lief! Hes actually already made his debut in a comic but he was easy to miss

Hes the stand in for Jades kid from @spjs fic Lost Opportunity which is so good ah, Jade is also their oc and I love her which is why shes here. I'm not gonna spoil anything more tho hehe

Well kind of. I have to explain the guy. I'll put it in the tags for those who wanna read the fic and figure out who Lief is standing in for lol.

Lief doesnt do much in the story up until the 3rd movies storyline, hes kind of just a fun silly guy in the background until then.

He's around the same age as Poppy, so they were in school together, he hangs out a lot with JD, but when JD isn't around he'll go bug Floyd or Branch. Floyd doesnt mind entertaining him but Branch has trouble since Lief is a massive klutz, so hes afraid he'll break something or hurt himself.

[extraintrovertedalien]

You got a name?

‘You seem like an interesting individual with good music taste for blasting RAIN by Ben Platt in the middle of the night’

AU August

Day/Prompt: Day 1 - Coffee shop

Ship: Pre-prinxiety, platonic royality

Word count: 1244

Cw: swearing / food mention

@tsshipmonth2020

Virgil has been working on this particular coffee shop for three years now and never has been assigned to the night shift. Unfortunately, with the loss of a few of their employees due to a new coffee shop opening that happens to be near where they all live, he had to be moved to the night shift. It didn’t matter if the other shop was nearer and that he has to prepare for a lot of caffeine to intake.

When he first got to this job as a barista three years ago, it took him a long time to adjust to the other employees, the regular customers, the route to the shop, and the environment. He isn’t going to do that again if not necessary.

He already knew a few of the employees in the night shift cuz’ he was always the last one at the shop and they always met at the end of the day to inform them if there were any deliveries or important memos(and sometimes gossip about the regulars).

~*~*~

It was Virgil’s first day on the night shift and he is currently on an empty bus, listening to one of his playlists. He wanted to get some rest earlier to prevent intaking much more caffeine than he needed. He liked to pretend that he did get some rest and, not ended up endlessly scrolling and indecisively changing the appearance of his Tumblr blog.

When he arrived, he saw his co-worker, Janus, cleaning up the counter and preparing his stuff to end his shift. There was a small exchange between the two before Virgil fully settled in behind the counter, waiting for his other co-workers to come in. Eventually, Patton came in causing the bell on the door to ring, catching Virgil’s attention. “Good evening, Virgil!” Patton cheered as he skipped to the back, passing Virgil, to drop his stuff.

The two conversed for a while, with a customer or two coming in every once in a while. After an hour or so, Patton excused himself to sort out the delivery the shop received earlier. He also informed Virgil that if a person named Roman comes in, just tell him that Patton is at the back and just let him through. Virgil was worried they were letting random people inside, but Patton had been on the night shift for as long as he was on the day shift so, he just nodded at Patton’s request.

After a few customers, Virgil decides to make himself a drink. While his back was facing the shop’s entrance, he heard the bell by the door, signaling that a person had entered the shop. “I’ll be with you in a sec,” Virgil stated, still not facing the person.

~*~*~

Roman has been friends with Patton ever since they were in kindergarten and even though he wouldn't exactly trust the man with his life, seeing that he'd drop anything to pet a cat, he's still the friend that Roman had since the start and he wouldn't have it any other way.

As Roman entered the shop with his earphones blasting some Ben Platt tunes, he’s frantically searching for something in his messenger bag. He looked up when he realized no one had greeted him when he entered. Usually, Patton would happily greet him with a pun or already handing him his drink. Now, he sees a barista with purple hair with their back facing him.

"Ahh, you're new I presume," he continued to look inside his bag as he walked to the counter. "Well, my order is kinda complicated so, you're gonna have to write this down," he warns as the barista walks over to him. "Okay, SO... a skim milk latte, with 2 extra shots of espresso... affogato style... make two of those shots without caffeine... add only 4 squirts of fat-free vanilla... steamed at 180 degrees... add caramel on top... no whip... and don't fill the cup all the way…" he notices the barista just standing in front of him. He stops what he was doing and fully looks up to see the other doing something on the monitor in front of him. "W-why aren't you writing this down?" Roman inquires as he marvels and gawks at the gorgeous human being in front of him. Eyeing him from head to... how far his eyeballs can reach with a countertop in between the two.

"What size?" the barista asks, keeping their eyes on the monitor. "Uhh… the big one. Do- do you need me to repeat everythi-" He was cut off, "Ventihalfcafquadextrahotwithroomskinnycaramelmachiatto? You got a name?" Roman doesn't know how to react. He's in between confused, impressed, and somewhat offended. The barista was now looking at him, waiting for his answer. Roman looks over to the other's name tag that says 'Virgil'; when he looks back at Virgil, realizes that he still hasn't answered. "That…" he trailed off.

Virgil raised an eyebrow. "That sure is… a question... that has an answer," Roman continued, stammering. Virgil rested his chin on his palm, his elbow on the counter. He flashed the customer an amused grin, "Take your time, man. I got all night long," Roman’s face went red but eventually did tell the barista his name after apologizing. “Ahh. So you’re Roman,” Virgil acknowledged as he wrote the name on the cup. “Patton’s in the back. Let yourself in,”

~*~*~

“Why didn’t you tell me you had a hot new barista coming in today?!” Roman whisper-yelled to his friend as he closed the door behind him. “Who? Virgil? He’s been working on this shop for as long as I have. This is his first time in the night shift, though,” Patton explained as he took the box of their new blender out of the larger box and handed it to Roman. “Can you give this to him and ask him to set it up on the counter? We’ve been waiting for that blender for months,” Patton politely asked with a smile. “Sure thing, Pat,”

“Hey. Patton asked me to give this to you and he asked if you could set it up,” Roman stated as he handed the box over to Virgil. Virgil finished the drink he was working on when he recognized the box and snatched the box from Roman’s hands and exclaimed, “Oh! Thank fuck! We’ve been waiting for this for months!” He placed it on the counter and excitedly took out the blender from the box. Roman snickered at the other’s antics, amused. “Oh! That’s your drink right there,” Virgil pointed to the drink he left on the counter. Roman thanked him and flashed him a smile as he heads back to his friend.

“What’cha got there, Roman?” Patton began. “Uhm? My usual drink?” Roman replied, confused. “No, silly. There’s something written on the side,” Patton giggled. Roman rotated the drink in his hands and sees small scribbled untidy handwriting. ‘You seem like an interesting individual with good music taste for blasting RAIN by Ben Platt in the middle of the night’ followed by a phone number. Roman blushed at the note.

He could hear the bell by the door ring followed by talking, muffled by the walls:

“What’s up, bitches!”

“Sup’ asshole. Where the fuck have you been? Is that- Is that a drink from the traitors?”

“Don’t worry, babe. It tastes like shit. I was gonna throw- Is that a new blender?!”

“Fuck yeah it is!”

‘This is going to be interesting,’ Roman smiled.

I honestly don't know how to write when it isn't prinxiety so for the entire(ish) month will be mostly prinxiety. But, if you want me to write a different ship with the prompt on a specific day on AU August, send me an ask! I can at least give it a try😅

[rivertellsstories]

Arise and seize the day

newsies fantasy au first chapter is finally here!

tag list:

@have-we-got-news-for-you​

@and-i-lostmy-shoe​

@sure-as-a-star​

@newsies-more-like-gaysies​

Mush Meyers has been forced to let go of a lot of things. But he’ll be damned before he ever lets go of Kid Blink’s hand.

[dearsadgoat]

recovery

recently, there was a major fire in my city. a little before the fire happened, i went through probably the lowest point in my life i’ve been in thus far. it culminated into one night of forcing myself to break down a number of walls and fake fronts i put up around me. these stood for about 5 years.

during that 5 year period i lied to myself and tried to trick myself into thinking i was something else so i could fit in with my rapidly changing friend groups, both online and in real life. i started distancing myself from a number of things, including shows, interests, and friends. i pushed away mlp for fear that my friends who were now falling out of it would ditch me if i were still into it. i pushed away my desire to learn music because the relationship between my brother and i only got worse as high school went on. i pushed away old friend groups for reasons so stupid i dont remember anymore.

instead of doing videos for fun and my own enjoyment, i started making them with the intention of becoming popular. i was never good at those and i wasn’t willing to learn to make myself better because i only wanted the success. the worst part about this was the fact that i did it for so long i managed to make myself believe that this was what i wanted, to be making low effort gaming videos on youtube well past its peak. because that’s what I thought I was going to “make it” doing. it should be noted i pushed away a group of youtuber friends before this, who may have been able to talk sense into me.

to this day i have only met one other person who makes videos.

fast forward to a few months ago. back in june, i started a new job, the one im currently working, doing lifeguarding at a pool. in july, my friends and i did our annual trip to anime expo, and aside from some incidents it was fun. i went on vacation with my family to arizona, and we saw a number of beautiful sights. i enjoyed it a lot.

however, this is the end of the fun.

anime expo, as always, brought me the panic of being around so many people. it isn’t the volume of people however, im relatively comfortable in a crowd. its the idea that i can look around in any direction and see people probably way happier and in better places in life than i am. look one way, i see a group of attractive people in cosplay that’s way better than mine. look the other way, i see a group of friends all laughing and clearly have shared interests, unlike my friends where we all have kinda splintered tastes so we don’t spend all the time together at conventions.

i spent a good amount of the convention wandering it with my friend mike. we went as Haru and Rin from Free, him being Haru, me being Rin.

around that time i was having major self image issues. i gained a good amount of weight the months prior, and i couldn’t lose it no matter what i tried, and consistently going to the gym, doing workouts given to me by professionals showing me no change killed my motivation. i couldn’t get myself to even go anymore come june.

so when mike was stopped by 10+ people (i stopped counting after a while) for pictures and to compliment him on his cosplay, meanwhile outright ignoring me, i started feeling like my image issues weren’t just “in my head” like i’d been told. despite this i tried my best to ignore it and move on. except i couldn’t.

the other cosplay i did was a crossplay of Mako Mankanshoku from Kill la Kill. I actually had the right length/hair color for Mako’s hair, so I saved money on a wig and got it cut like hers. the hair actually looked fine in context of the cosplay, however the cosplay in the context of anything was atrocious.

i couldn’t fit into the seifuku i bought, despite being sure to buy a size much larger than what you’d expect. trying to ignore my brain telling me im a fat fuck i improvised with a white shirt and a light blue neckerchief. with the wrong color shoes, basic shirt, neckerchief, basic skirt, and my hair cut instead of a wig, i was the definition of awful cosplay.

i hyped up finally being able to crossdress in public to myself for months. i’ve wanted to crossdress publicly since i was 15. at no other convention in the past did i have the courage. i got rid of pretty much all body hair, and upon finally being able to do so, i thought it was everything i wanted.

looking in the mirror showed me i was nothing more than an ugly fatass trying to look cute. i was the fucking person people at conventions take candid photos of and post on tumblr to make fun of. im sure im gonna one day come across a picture of me in that “cosplay” accompanied with some text about how embarrassing i was.

so with now both my cosplays fun sucked out of them by myself, the rest of the convention went on, but i couldn’t fully suppress the idea that i was unhappy.

the arizona trip i’ll save for another post, it’s a complete offshoot with it’s own backstory.

these are nowhere near all of the events i feel caused enough problems for what happens later, just the major ones. also there’s no way i can write every single thing that’s happened to me and contributed to my sad demeanor over the last 21 years.

after that though, the rest of the summer is a blur, i dont remember anything i did, and i don’t remember starting school again. i just know i’ve been going for almost 16 weeks now.

for some reason, a lot of things that didn’t use to bug me have been bugging me. stuff that I thought i’d grown accustomed to seeing, like the ever poisonous anti-male rhetoric that this site likes to parade. i’ve been on tumblr since i was like 13, i’ve seen it, i should be used to it and know to ignore it, right?

i guess not. every post i see related to something meant to make me feel shitty for being a guy takes another chip at me throughout the day. despite my best efforts i can’t forget them.

i just don’t have the energy to put up with stuff anymore, and it really feels like im out of energy to put into caring about things. i’ve been feeling like this since the beginning of the above five year period of not knowing why i wasn’t happy with what i was supposed to be happy with.

eventually we get to one saturday at work. two pools are being used for an event, the third is being rented out for a kids birthday party. im on the tower supervising the party when my best friend kaylie comes to rotate me. we chat for a sec, and as i start to walk off, she says my name. i turn around and she points at the water. no more than 3 feet from where im standing, two kids are wrestling in the water. except they weren’t wrestling for fun, they were wrestling to get on top of one another and drowning each other in the process. mind you, this is the deepest part of the pool and it’s only like 4 1/2 feet deep. I slide in, hoist up both of them, and launch into the caring procedure bullshit.

i get them out, tell kaylie im going to get a towel, and eventually other guards start asking me what happened. all of the sudden people are toting me as being a hero for making my first rescue withing my first year. you’d think that’s something to be proud of, right?

yeah you’d think that.

i felt nothing. all i had was that i was doing my job, and if it were like ten seconds earlier kaylie would’ve got them. i didn’t do anything special.

of course that ended up as a conflict in my mind, and on the way home i bought alcohol and spent the night drinking alone.

fast forward a few more days, and i get home from work. it wasn’t a particularly hard day, or any major thing happened, just a lot of small little things that chipped away at my patience, a few comments made by coworkers that really weren’t asked for, and this and that ultimately led to me driving home at the end of the night upset.

i get home, and think to myself im going to unwind with some video games. i dont remember what happened or what i was playing, but some major thing happened that led to me calmly turning off the game and turning to my computer to stare at it for the next two hours, only occasionally clicking to something new.

nobody tells you what it’s like to break. partly because, they cant. the way i see it everyone breaks differently. every breakdown i’d had up until that point had been loud, angry, and full of jerky motions through teary, blurred eyes. they were like someone kicking over something i was making in one fell swoop.

this time it felt like i watched someone pick away at the foundation until it all started to slide down like sand.

i broke, at first without tears, questioning what i was doing at that moment, and what i was doing in general. nothing made sense. my head couldn’t keep a thought for a moment. i felt like my chest was caving in. i didnt end up eating anything that night. i honestly can’t describe how i felt and what i did, it was such a blur.

i started going on a nostalgia scavenger hunt. something i had seen recently drove me to want to search out the mlp meetup group i used to be a part of. i found pictures of me and my friends at different events back in 2011, 2012, and i started doing what i can only describe as motioning a whimper. as in, whatever you picture when you think of whimpering, only without sound.

I saw pictures of me being happy, truly happy. i hadn’t been truly happy in the last 5-6 years since these pictures were taken. at least not for more than the occasional time.

as if on queue, a friend from one group of friends i changed myself to fit in with messaged me. i asked him if he wanted to take a trip with me, and i spilled everything.

i confessed to being a liar, a poser, a shitty person who couldn’t even tell his friends that he wasn’t everything he said he was. i told him at one point in my life i had actual ambition and ways to achieve success outside of being the scummy piece of shit i’d become when i became friends with them. (please dont misunderstand, they’re good people, i just had a warped sense of what i needed to do to be their friend back then)

he let me angrily type and rant and have a major breakdown to him without interruption for almost an hour, and finally he paused me and started trying to talk me through this.

after he gave me his piece on the matter, i turned to another one of my best friends, jacob. jacob was one of the irl friends i went to meetups with, and we’ve been friends since middle school. we’re closer than anyone else i know i’d bet, even closer than kaylie and i.

because of time differences, our conversation lasted the next two days, basically telling him everything, that i wasn’t happy with myself, that i haven’t been happy with anything for a long time. the only thing that mattered to me in his response was that nothing was different between us. he said he was going to a therapist soon, and said that i should try it. i have not, and i dont plan to for fear of what i might find out. still, everything he said i took to heart and i thank him for it.

at this point, i decided that i could fix all of this, that i could make myself someone i’d like to be. i was going to work hard and no matter what i wasn’t going to break like that ever again. nothing was going to stop me, no matter the odds.

someone up there must love testing my patience.

a week later, the fire happened. within the span of an hour i had gone from coming home from a test, to helping my mom with the recycling, to rushing home because the sky over our house was brown. the next few hours was me running on no food, a sweaty, ash-covered mess, to get everything of importance out of the house. everything that was too hard to replace was taken. as painful as it was it meant leaving behind just about everything that had value to me, as i took only the things that mattered in a worldly view, not a personal view.

God listened to my prayers that day, and the fires burned half a mile from my house, but no closer. The trail i walked a thousand times growing up was no more. it’s about 4 houses down from mine, to give perspective. everything was black and soot, trees stood with burn marks and missing leaves. The creek was dried up. everything is a mess. i walked out and took pictures of it a few days after, just for memory sake.

that day was a test to see whether or not I was actually going to keep my word. i didn’t break that day, despite wanting to often, and i did what was most important for my family.

since then, i’ve shuffled around a lot of different aspects of my life. a lot of things are changing, and im not comfortable with a lot of them. however, these are good changes. i have to make myself uncomfortable to be able to find what i belong to once again.

and i hope and i pray that this is going to be the time i prove to myself i can break out of this

[multsicorn]

fic: how do you make it for real (zimbits, 1/5)

for @queersherlockian, the first chapter of my much-belated @fandomtrumpshateaction fic  this chapter is ~5k words, rated g, but there’s much more, and porn, to come.  also here on ao3.

Jack Zimmermann's an adjunct history professor at Samwell University. Bitty works at Annie's, at the start of what's now his second year after graduation.

And they both want more than what they have. Not love, but a step up that ladder to professional success that sometimes seems hard to even find....

They'll take love, though, if it comes.

Jack Zimmermann's life is built from routines. People think that he's boring, but he likes it, the way that each block of his day slots neatly into the next. He appreciates predictability, he hates to be left at loose ends, and even though he hasn't played a game of hockey in years, he'll probably live by the locker-room code of habit and superstition for the rest of his life.

Samwell University seems nice. Professor Atley, the newly-appointed head of the History Department, is brisk but genuinely welcoming in what's now their second time meeting. As an adjunct at Samwell, she tells him, he'll be teaching three lower-level classes. She hopes that he'll also find some time to get started on his first book, the time that he couldn't (he'd confessed to the committee) seem to find or make last year in Virginia, which he knows for both threat and encouragement. He's grateful, always, for the welcome, and still worried that he'll come up short.

The grounds are pleasant, relaxing, all red brick and green lawns and wide paths. They look like nothing more than a brochure come to life, and Jack would move into the center of a glossy paper tri-fold if only he could work towards a tenure-track position there.

His schedule, gridded out, shows a clear block between 3:00 and 4:30. If he can find somewhere to sit and work and maybe eat, he should be able to use that block of time to make progress on writing a book a little bit every day. Crossing the street that separates campus from a straggling gap-toothed line of restaurants and stores, he fetches up in front of a cozy coffee shop. The sign in the window says it's called Annie's, and the door promises that it's open till 8 p.m. every night.

_X_

Within the first few weeks of the semester, Annie's has definitively become Jack's favorite place to work, ever. His office is amazing because it's all his, the best place to squirrel away books and papers, but there's always a danger of distraction when he tries to get work done there. Camilla, the smartest adjunct in the department, stops by several times a day for quick breaks to chat about nothing. Chris Chow appears at at all times of day and night just in case, he says, Jack's there, and Jack's never learned how to turn away a student who actually wants to learn. But he has other work he needs to get done. And Annie's has decent coffee, and a daily rotating selection of the best pies he's ever tasted, anywhere, in his life, and, most importantly, no one who ever wants to talk to him. He buries himself there in the writings of the war in peace.

Or, when he's stuck, he can look around. Just every once in a while, he'll catalog the pairs of girls in glossy high ponytails talking to each another, the gray-haired men and women who've claimed the few armchairs in the shop with their paperbacks, the laptop users, the phone-players-with, the interview that's always in progress. The population, though its characteristics remain stable, changes in individual composition from day to day. Only two people (besides himself) are consistently present: a petite Asian girl with an awesome sidecut, who's always either drawing or painting, and Cute Blond Boy.

He'd worried at first that the girl was drawing the coffee shop's patrons. It seems like the obvious reason to draw there, to take advantage of all the subjects to sketch, so Jack couldn't have blamed her in fairness. But he skulks around behind the back of her table enough times, anyway, to see that her artwork is abstract. So then he's relieved, and just a bit guilty at feeling that now he's the one who's overstepped.

Cute Blond Boy is more of a problem. He could almost just be another of the phone-players-with, except that more often than not he's sitting at the coffee shop's long wooden bar, and chatting in between customers with whoever's working behind the counter that day. Jack couldn't figure out what he talks about over the general level of ambient noise, even if he were eavesdropping, which he'd never do. Sometimes Cute Blond Boy even sits at same table as the girl who does the paintings, and Jack doesn't know if they know each other from anywhere besides this coffee shop. Which is to say: Jack doesn't know whether to hope or to fear that any day now Cute Blond Boy will sit his cute ass down next to him, and just start talking as if they're friends.

_X_

It's in the middle of October when the trees are putting on Samwell red and the first round of midterms is busy kicking just about everyone's ass that Jack arrives at Annie's and orders his customary large light roast coffee 'and a slice of today's special pie' before he notices that Cute Blond Boy is manning the register.

"That'll be $8.31," Eric says. His name is Eric, his nametag says.

"So you work here now?" Jack says, brilliantly. Eric keeps holding out his hand, which - right. Credit card. Jack can't believe he forgot something so basic.

Eric takes it with a lift of his perfectly groomed eyebrows. "I've been working here for years," he says. "Usually I'm in the back. I'm just filling in for my friend Dex today, 'cause he says that his project won't compile - don't even ask me what that means, I don't know - but he's usually here on Wednesdays. And, hold on a sec, can you sign this."

Jack does so without comment.

"So, you like pie?" Eric maneuvers a slice out of the pan and slides onto a clean white plate, all the while keeping the layers of apple stacked neatly on top of each other.

"Yes," Jack says. "Well, not always. But the pie here, it's just, so good. Like." He leans over the counter in his enthusiasm, its edge biting into the pudge of his stomach. "If you could propose to a baked good, I'd be getting down on one knee right now."

"Oh, my goodness," Eric says, fanning his face with his hand theatrically. Jack's made him blush. "Wow. Really?"

"Not literally," Jack says. He shrugs, awkwardly. Eric can't see it, anyway, his back is turned now as he's getting Jack's coffee. "But, yeah, they really are that good."

"I don't even know what to say to that." Eric puts Jack's plate and his mug down together on the counter; his hands are steady, not affected at all. But the smile on his face looks… shy? It's not a look Jack's seen on him before - not that he's been secretly watching Eric eat lunch for the last few weeks or anything. "But thanks."

"Er, yeah," Jack says. "I mean. It's just a job anyway, right?"

"Just a job!?" Eric glares. "No more pie for you, mister. My pies are my flesh and blood, my beloved children, the lights of my life - "

"Your pies?" Jack interrupts the tumbling avalanche of words. "I thought… they were, um, 'Annie's' pies."

"Yes, my pies," Eric says. He puffs himself up with indignation like a peacock. "I told you, I work in the back. I make 'em. I make all the pastries, actually, but the pies are my own recipes."

"Oh," Jack says. "That's cool." He blinks. Cute Blond Boy is also an amazing pie-baker. "Um. That's really cool. Could you tell me about it?"

"Of course," Eric says, and now he's leaning over the counter. "Just try and get me to stop once I've started. Gosh. But, wait, a customer," he continues, stepping back from the counter and straightening up. Jack's pleased that he's not a customer, apparently. "Just a minute," Eric says, as Jack takes his food and shifts it over to the side of the counter to make space for the girl who steps up in front of the register.

"Yeah. I should get some work done, too," Jack says, to Eric, who's not listening any more. Now, where did the sugar go? He should know, since he's been coming here for weeks now. And he shouldn't have introduced himself by saying he loves pie, either. Now Eric probably thinks he's fat because he likes eating too much; he was hockey's new hope as a kid, just as fat, there's no way Eric knows that.

Not that he should care what Eric thinks, anyway.

"Ask me anytime, okay?" Eric says. "Another day, when I'm not on shift."

"Sure," Jack says. He's fumbling with the milk thermos: it doesn't want to open today, either.

To his right, he hears Eric say, "Sorry about that, honey. Now. How can I help you?" Of course Eric would be that guy who calls everyone honey; it doesn't mean anything, one way or the other.

And Jack won't get to talk to him again. He wants to, of course he does. But he knows himself, and he knows that it's just not going to happen.

_X_

What happens instead is that when he walks into Annie's the next day, planning to sit by himself, like usual, Eric waves at him with a smile. Jack can take that much of a hint. He returns the greeting, and after he's bought his coffee and a splice of today's special pie - it's apple nut brittle, which sounds promising, from the guy behind the counter with the intriguing cloud and small puff-cloud of hair, name of Derek, he goes to sit down at the table that Eric's already sitting at.

"Hi, Eric," he says. He occupies himself in settling his food on the table, and the bag with his papers in it under his feet, which is all he can think of to do.

"Hi," Eric says, with a smile. "Call me Bitty. All my friends do. And you're - ?"

"Oh," Jack says. He'd felt like they knew each other, after yesterday; he'd forgotten that he hadn't even told Eric - Bitty - his name. "I'm Jack." His instinct is to follow every introduction with a handshake, but Bitty's hands stay comfortably wrapped around his coffee cup, and so Jack shoves his back into his pockets instead.

"Jack," Bitty nods. "Hi, again."

"So…" Jack casts around, tries to remember why he'd thought that he could do this, yesterday. "You make pies?"

"Pies, pastries, sometimes bread. Or quick breads - it all depends. But the pies are my recipes, not Annies', so that's why they're my favorites."

Jack digs into his pie then, the shiny nut-studded surface crackling under the pressure of the fork's tines. He gets some of it onto the fork along with apples and a layer of crust. "By the way, this is delicious," he says, a bit of intensely appreciative chewing later. It's crunchy and chewy and sweet and even a little bit savory, too. "This is - " a pause to chew some more. "So much better than delicious. But I don't know what word means that."

"Flattery gets you nowhere," Bitty says, but he's blushing.

It makes Jack desperate, and dumb. "So, how did you start doing this?"

"Well, what happened is this. I started working here my sophomore year of college. I had a scholarship, freshman year, but I lost it, and so I needed to make money for books and stuff somehow. And at holiday time I brought in cookies to share with my co-workers, because that's just something I, alright? But Annie, she was so impressed with these simple little sugar cookies that she insisted that I switch to working in the back, making the baked goods. Well! You should know that it doesn't take insisting to get me to bake things! I love baking, and I was so excited to have a job doing it... but I still had to finish school, which was more of a struggle. And by the time I figured out that I wanted to do this, but in my own way, well, it turns out that having a degree in American Studies, even one with a concentration in Food Culture, doesn't help for having a bakery."

Jack scrapes the tines of his fork through the syrup that's slowly spreading across his plate. "I know what you mean," he says.

"You do?" Bitty puts down his sandwich, and pushes the plate far enough away that he can rest his hands flat on the table. "People always tell me that having a degree is better than having none, but sometimes I wonder if culinary school would've been a better choice."

"Ha, yeah. Maybe." Jack chews on his inner lip. "I teach history, and I enjoy it," the stresses of how and whether he can find a way to advance in the field aside, "but I spent, uh… many years. Training to be something completely different, and it is frustrating, to feel like all those years of work and getting better weren't good for anything in the end."

Bitty nods. "I wouldn't say not good for anything, because my friends from college are still with me, but… I get what you're saying, too. Definitely."

Jack eats a couple more bites of his pie before he continues, "It's challenging to switch tracks, I'm not saying it's not. But it's doable, and - " he gestures at what's left of his pie with his fork, though honestly he'd believe in Bitty even without its evidence " - I'm sure you can do it."

Bitty eats a little bit more of his sandwich, too, looking thoughtful. "I hope so," he says. "I think it just feels so difficult, because… I don't even know what I don't know. My normal M.O. is to bake people pie, but - how do you get your own bakery? And do I even want to start my own as an owner, like Annie did with this place, or is there, like, a job I can get? Because I don't think I need all that financial stress, if I could run the bakery of a place that someone else owned, but the way I bake is too Southern and nowhere near French enough to be a proper pastry chef, so..." Bitty trails off, and shoves the last remaining bit of his sandwich into his mouth with both hands.

Jack clamps down, hard, on this unhelpful and probably unwanted urge to volunteer - my parents are rich. I bet I could find enough money for whatever you need. Instead he says, "I don't know about any of this. But I wish I could help."

Bitty wipes the crumbs from his face. "You are helping. It's so nice just to talk about this. And to someone who understands how I feel! Saying don't get discouraged is all well and good, but sometimes I do get discouraged, you know?"

Jack leans forward. "I do know." And he manages, barely, to keep the coffee cup his arm had knocked into from falling over. "I feel like nothing I do is ever good enough."

"Exactly! I try and try - "

"And apply to every open position I find, but what do I do when they tell me, sorry, you're a very strong candidate, but you're just not a good fit for us."

"Ugh," Bitty says, "that's the worst. And I could say, well, at least you have positions to apply to, but, I don't know. Is that really better? I feel like I'd find it equally frustrating, just differently."

"It's hard to compare," Jack agrees. "And the thing is that I've always tried to be better, at everything I do. So there's nothing more frustrating than when I can't, and - " Jack suddenly remembers something. "What time is it, again?"

Bitty's phone responds before Jack's even succeeded in finding his own. "Five to four."

Jack swears in his head, uncreatively. "How did that happen." He's packing the papers that he hasn't looked at even once this afternoon, back into his bag quickly as he says, "I need to go now, the staff meeting's at four, but we'll talk later, right," and he's gone before Bitty has a chance to answer.

_X_

Jack's barely found himself a table at Annie's the next day when Bitty bounces over from the direction of the bar and plops down in the seat opposite.

"Jack! What are you doing here?" His coffee sloshes dangerously, cup too full to withstand the force of his enthusiasm.

"Work," Jack says. "Obviously."

"So? What kind of work do you do?"

Jack sighs. "You don't want to know. It's not interesting to people outside the field." Which he's reminded of every time he does answer such a question, and is rewarded for his efforts with glazed-over eyes or people hastily backing away.

"I wouldn't ask if I didn't want to know," Bitty says. "And, besides, now you've got me curious."

"Uh," Jack says. He's had years of practice giving elevator pitches in conference halls; this shouldn't be too hard. "I'm studying the process of negotiation and reconciliation of contradictory identities among American and Canadian soldiers in World War II, specifically in the context of the intensely homosocial environment of a military unit within the ever-present homophobia of midcentury North American culture, how these contexts work together to construct a unique set of expectations for masculinity, and exploring the ways in which homosexual desires and behaviors were understood and expressed by men in these conditions."

Bitty's nodding like a bobblehead. It's too much nodding, probably.

"Is that good?"

"Hm," Bitty says. "Something about World War II and - homosexuality?"

"Basically, yeah." Jack wipes his palms surreptitiously on his knees.

"Interesting," Bitty says. The i's of the word stretch out like taffy. "Do you mind if I ask you why?"

"Well," Jack says, "I've been fascinated by World War II since I was a kid. When I was little I wanted to go and fight in it - ha. I didn't have a real clear idea of how history worked, back then. And then, later, the more I learned about it, the more I learned about why that might not have been the best idea." Jack shrugs. "But I found all the things I was learning so interesting that I kept wanting to find out more and more, so here I am." Jack pauses for breath, and also to eat a bite of the pie that he'd been neglecting shamefully. The meringue on the top of it is pillowy, a shocking contrast to the firmness of the lightly-cooked apple chunks right underneath; and underlying it all, the rich crumbly shortbread crust completes a wide-ranging palette of textures. "And," Jack says, swallowing and taking another bite and doing it all over again, "I'm bi."

"I did wonder, when you said 'homosexual.'" Bitty doesn't have food today, but he sips his coffee slowly, brow furrowed in thought. "It's not that I think there's anything wrong with straight people studying our history, but I'm still not sure how I feel about it."

"Our," Jack says. He thinks that he was supposed to catch that. "Are you bi too, or…?"

Bitty laughs. "I think you're literally the first person who's ever asked me that. No, I'm gay. But I'm sure you're not surprised."

"Not exactly surprised." Jack eats a bit more of his pie. It's so good, he's in a constant state of surprise at just how good it can be. "But I didn't want to assume, either."

"I appreciate the sentiment! I used to wish that people wouldn't… but I don't mind, now. It can be useful, and besides, it's not like I don't want people to know."

Jack nods. "That makes sense, I guess. I've just always hated it when people assume they know things about me, whether they're true or not."

"Speaking of which," Bitty says. "You said that you teach history... is it here? I mean, at Samwell? Are you a professor, or what?"

Jack drinks his coffee, this time. It's lukewarm already: unpleasant, but he swallows it anyway. "Only an adjunct." Then he cuts his remaining pie precisely. "But, technically, yeah."

"That's cool, though," Bitty says. "And what are you working on right now? Specifically?"

"Do you mean, what am I supposed to be working on right now?" Jack asks.

He means it to be teasing, but Bitty seems to take the riposte seriously. "No, that wasn't what I meant," he says. "But if you really should be, then sorry for distracting you. I'll stop now."

"I really should," Jack agrees. There's regret there, but - he'll never make progress if he spend all his dedicated research hours chatting instead, no matter how tempting it is.

"We'll talk more tomorrow?" Bitty asks.

"We will," Jack says, and already, he believes it when he says it. That they will. That it's likely, and not impossible. It's a nice feeling to have.

_X_

A few days later, when Jack's relaxing into the rhythm of his and Bitty's conversations - which is irregular, and mostly consists of him listening to Bitty go on and on, which, as he says when Bitty asks him, he does like, very much - Bitty says, "Oh, and you have to meet Lardo."

"Who's Lardo?"

"See the girl painting in the corner behind you?"

Jack twists around in his chair, and he sees - oh. It's the Coffee Shop Artist Girl. He turns back towards Bitty, and nods. It's so strange, though, to think that just over a week ago, she and Bitty were equally strangers to him.

"I've barely talked to her all week," Bitty continues, "Because I've been so busy talking to you. So, come on over, I'll introduce you."

"Now?" Jack asks, but Bitty's already getting up, picking up his coffee and his sandwich, too, which preemptively puts to rest any questions as to whether he might be coming back. Jack frowns, but there's nothing for him to do but follow Bitty to Lardo's table.

"Mind if we sit here?" Bitty asks.

Lardo looks up from the canvas she's painting with an expression of concentration that dissolves instantly into a smile when she registers who's asking. "Bits! Of course. But who's this guy?"

Bitty steps to the side, which isn't necessary. Jack's too tall to be able to hide effectively behind him, anyway. "This is Jack. He teaches history here at Samwell."

"Nice to meet you," Jack says, though he's not sure if it's technically a lie or not. He puts out his hand to shake, anyway.

Lardo's answering grip is firm, but fleeting. As she takes her hand back she looks Jack over quickly, appraisingly, and he wishes he could guess at what she sees. "Cool," she says. "Name's Lardo. Artist."

The table's scattered all over with papers, brushes, tubes of paint, so on, and so forth, but Lardo quickly moves them into piles so that Jack and Bitty can set their food down.

"Are you a professional artist?" Jack asks, sliding into the seat just vacated by a bulky bag of mysterious contents that's been relocated to the floor. "Or is it just a hobby?"

"I sell paintings," Lardo says. She's staring, currently, at the swoops and intersecting triangles of red and purple and black on the canvas in front of her, as if they hold the answers to the mysteries of the universe. "Not enough to live on."

"What Lardo means," Bitty says, "is that she is an artist. A real artist. Because art's about whether you love what you do, not about how much money you're paid."

"Thanks, Bits." Lardo's stirring her brush in the water, washing off the purple. The curlicues it makes as it finishes the process of disappearing fascinate Jack.

"And Lardo loves art," Bitty continues, passionately, seeming oblivious to the fact that Jack's making no move to disagree with him.

"The way you love baking pies," Lardo murmurs. The flawless back-and-forth catch of conversational passes makes Jack wonder if this is a defense they've run together before.

"Yeah," Bitty says.

"Are you sure, though?" Jack asks. Lardo lifts her head, and they both stare daggers at him.

"We could still ask you to leave this table." Bitty, apparently, has a way of making the nicest-seeming sentence threatening.

"I mean," Jack stumbles, hastening to clarify. "Not about being a real artist. But about loving it. How do you know? How are you sure?" The daggers disappear - thank goodness - only to be replaced by matching looks of disbelief.

"You just do," Lardo says. And that argument done, she selects a hair-thin brush and loads it up with blue paint, ready to illustrate her words with action. Or pictures, for all Jack knows.

"I don't think either of us could stop if we tried to," Bitty says. He looks significantly at the piece of pie that, come to think of it, Jack can't believe he's left untouched for so long in front of him. He takes a bite. It's pecan today, with a hint of some spice that makes the flavor of the nuts pop like Jack's never tasted. It's so good he actually has to bite back on a moan.

When it comes to what Bitty said, though. "Huh." Jack's not sure what to make of it. "What would you do, though, if you didn't have anything like that?"

Lardo and Bitty look at each other. "Something easier," they answer in unison.

"Or at least something that pays better," Bitty continues as Lardo carries on with her work. "You teach at a university. I bet you get a salary, and benefits."

"Ha. You'd think," Jack says. "My parents still have to help me out. And... I try? But they gave me three intro courses this year, and ninety percent of my lectures are composed of freshmen who don't seem to want to learn anything. It's a good feeling, though, when I do get someone interested in the material."

"I tutor for so many things," Lardo says. Her paintbrush continues on its movements, not missing a beat. My parents keep offering to support me so I can make art full time. But - I don't wanna."

When Bitty speaks up, his voice is bitter in exactly the way his pie isn't, and Jack realizes that he hasn't said anything for more than a minute. "My parents say they don't understand why I'm still working the same job I had while they were paying for my college degree. As if I didn't want something better!"

"That's rough," Jack says. "I feel incredibly lucky that my parents have been so supportive. Even when I realized midway through one career path that I wanted to change course, they never pressured me one way or the other."

"That's nice," Bitty says, though his smile seems brittle around the edges, like the pie's dark chocolate-drizzled crust. "But - excuse me. What exactly do you mean by 'change course'?"

"I'd rather not talk about it." If that's possible.

"Oh," Bitty says. "Of course. Sorry." He darts a look sideways to Lardo, as if for help, but she's studying her canvas, tongue sticking out the side of her mouth. As Jack watches Bitty watch her, she narrows her eyes at it suspiciously and tries another swipe of color. "So…" Bitty says. "Did you catch the Pats game the other night?"

Jack makes a face. "I don't follow football."

"And Bitty doesn't root for the Patriots." Lardo's eyes don't leave the blue and purple paint that she's now mixing with a small, blunt knife.

"Well," Bitty says. "I'm not gonna try to start a conversation about the Falcons in Boston."

"It'd be like asking about the Habs down here," Jack agrees. Bitty looks at him curiously, then, but thankfully doesn't follow up the look with any questions.

_X_

At the end of October, Jack walks into Annie's and headfirst into a swag of brilliant green tinsel. He looks around and sees more tinsel swinging in uneven loops from one side of the ceiling to the other and back, giant fuzzy glittering purple spiders climbing up the wall and over the bakery case, and behind him, in the window, a pair of clockwork man-like contraptions with pumpkins for heads.

"Wow," he says, sinking down automatically into his now-usual seat next to Bitty and Lardo.

"I know, right?" Bitty says. "'swawesome decorations."

"I'm so impressed," Jack agrees. He steals a bite of pie from the plate that's sitting unguarded in front of Bitty.

"I think they're okay," Lardo puts in, and Jack almost chokes on his pie. It would be a real pity if he had, a desecration of the pumpkin pie that has an almost cream-like texture and a more mellow flavor than he's used to.

"You don't like them?" he asks, when he recovers.

"She made them for us," Bitty explains. "Annie wanted a change of scenery. And I, for one, am very thankful, no matter how creepy they are," and now Jack can make sense of the smirk that's been lurking at the edge of Lardo's expression. She gives up on suppressing it, then, and she and Bitty bump fists.

"Ah. Okay."

"So," Bitty says. "Do either of you two have plans for Halloween?"

"As if," Lardo says. "My costume is 'swawesome, but I don't know any place worthy of it."

"I was thinking of staying home to give out candy," Jack says. "But my apartment building's mostly grad students. I don't think there'll be many kids."

"What are you, ninety?" Lardo asks. "Give up on the kids, anyway."

But - "That's perfect," Bitty says, leaning forward with the telltale gleam of enthusiasm bright in his eye. "Not your lack of plans, no offense, guys. But because y'all are definitely both coming to my friend Adam's Halloween party."

"I'm in," Lardo says.

"And especially you, Jack. I know you'd probably be working like always, but that's exactly why I think you need to try just loosening up for once. A party would do you good."

"Okay," Jack says. He can't think of a reason, at that moment, to refuse.

_X_

Only later do several problems with this plan occur to him:

First, he doesn't have an appropriate costume. Last time he dressed as Leo Major, no one even recognized the name after he told them who he was supposed to be. He needs something better, but he doesn't know what.

Second… it's a college party. There will be drinks. He's been avoiding parties for the last decade or so of his life, and he's not sure what temporary loss of grip on reality made him think he should go to this one.

(Oh, yes, he is.)

Which brings him to the third and last problem. Which isn't one, actually. Since Bitty didn't intend this to be a date, which he didn't, that's obvious from the way that he invited Jack and Lardo together and equally. It's not a date, it's nothing like one, so that's a problem avoided, there, because Jack's even worse at dating than he is at parties. And he wouldn't want to be on a date with Bitty even if he could.