#i also. thought the same thing about non-rapid fits . so i think

[bleachbleachbleach]

For the anniversary ask: how do you think the aging of Shinigami works?

@jiyle asked a variation of the same, so I will count this answer for both!

As you both know, there are lots of different shinigami aging theories out there, which I think is fabulous. Here’s mine!

I. BIOLOGY

How does shinigami aging work? My first impulse was not to try too hard to analogize it to human aging. I mean, how old is Lightning McQueen in human years? He’s a car, so why not just imagine him in car years? As someone who owns a car that is the same age as the cinematic masterpiece, Pixar's Cars, "16-year old car" carries a lot of meaning that is untranslatable to an approximate human age.

But maybe shinigami aging is more similar to human aging than it first appears. Sure, shinigami aging is wacky and non-linear, but so is human aging. Human aging sees periods of rapid development, and also periods of (seeming) stasis. Aging approximates different mathematical functions at different points in a person’s life.

Generally speaking, that seems to describe what we see of shinigami aging pretty decently, too. It seems like the three main distinctions between shinigami and human aging are:

Shinigami live longer lol.

Shinigami periods of development and stasis are more pronounced. Rather than just having their aging streeeeetched to fit the length of their lifespan, their periods of development are more acute/extreme.

Human aging is more readily generalizable to a population, whereas shinigami seem more variable. We have the Academy Kids + Hitsugaya more or less getting older at some kind of regular interval, even if maybe they are not quite exactly the same interval. But we also have Unohana. And Shinji, for that matter, lopsided man of mystery.

As for more specifics? Meh. People in Seireitei probably age differently than those in Rukongai. Shinigami probably age differently than non-shinigami souls. (Which I imagine could make for some interesting family dynamics!) The reiryoku you possess probably plays a role here, and perhaps even its expression as reiatsu plays a separate one. I think there are a lot of variables to play with here and I take a plot of pleasure in that. To add to the variables, I’m frankly not convinced that time is even linear in Soul Society, nor am I convinced that time (and space) are uniform ACROSS Soul Society.

One last thought to close this section: If we want to imagine the biological age of a shinigami, particularly a Captain-class shinigami, what analogy is most appropriate? Do we analogize age in terms of humanity? That thing shinigami echo/ghost? Or is it more appropriate to imagine their life milestones like those of a star, a ball of incredible and otherworldly energy?

The Hell Arc seems to strongly imply that the Gotei did not think about this. Or at least, possibly not enough.

--

Below the cut: Shinigami theories of development, age as an identity category and its relative importance (or lack thereof), and how human interaction might impact these ideas.

--

II. CULTURE

Because their biological age is harder to meaningfully quantify, I feel like it’s probably even less important, culturally, to shinigami than it is to us. As age approaches infinity, what is one millennium, or two? Things like your class/rank/reiatsu classification seem like they would be infinitely more relevant for anyone trying to figure out who you are, or how to interact with you. (Imagine GoteiMingle… instead of A/S/L you give your rank/gender/division. What a miserable little website, LOL.)

I think it’s also worth thinking about what Soul Society’s conceptions of these different, less culturally relevant life stages would be, since for humans, the concept of "childhood" (what it is, what ages it covers, why it matters) is already historically variable. Soul Society does seem to mostly acknowledge that children are different than adults, so there’s that. (Maybe because of the preponderance of ghost children they deal with?). Yoruichi understands Byakuya as an adolescent in TBTP, and Kyouraku and Ukitake express similar sensibilities in the Beast Swords arc.

But it also seems like Soi Fon is Yoruichi’s vassal before she’s understood is a child, and I imagine Byakuya is family head-in-training before he is a child, too.

This is an oversimplification, but in the Edo period, childhood/adulthood were understood as particular social stages demarcated by coming-of-age ceremonies. These did roughly align with biological age, though children transitioned into "adulthood" somewhere between ages 13 and 20 (in the scheme of things, a pretty broad range). As a child, you got to play and socialize. But you were also already understood to be in-training to become a samurai, or a merchant, or a priest, or family head, or marriageable, or whatever; and then you became that thing. You weren’t an adult because you turned 18, or 20, but because you acquired the ability to do adult work. (And/or your paranoid family really needed you, at age 3, to be family head, LOL. But let’s ignore those cases.)

This seems to track with Soul Society’s sensibilities, in the sense that shinigami adulthood would be less about your biological age than about having completed training (e.g. Academy). I’m not saying that this is how you *should* see things; I just think it’s likely that this is how they do. In a world where rank and/or class supersedes all, and adulthood is defined as the ability to do adult work, if you’re employed then you’re an adult. 

Like, I don’t think shinigami by and large see Hitsugaya as a child. We don't generally tend to see his authority questioned (at least in formal situations; antics happen in a different register). He probably did intentional work for this, yeah, but it’s not as though his youth were this insurmountable obstacle to achieving respect as a captain. I feel like most shinigami probably don’t go around thinking "what is this child doing here"; and moreover, they also probably don’t even think, even in a neutral way, "that one is a child." He's a captain.

Ironically, the two people who don’t ever seem to get on board with this* are Ichigo and Aizen, with Ichigo calling him "Toushirou" and Aizen calling him "Hitsugaya-kun" (both when they are celebrating birthdays AND when Aizen is repainting the Council of 46 chambers with fresh blood). Because, well, Aizen is an asshole, and Ichigo is on his own planet and has clear ideas about how that planet works, LOL. Which is fine because it’s a great planet.

And I think all of this can be true without having to be completely blind to Hitsugaya’s biological age, whatever it may be. He knows he’s young, and tends to be upfront about that as long as that’s not taken to be synonymous with not being an adult.

In Chapter 80 Renji refers to him as 例の天才児 (rei no tensaiji), or "the model child prodigy." Mildly derisive, but I’m pretty sure it’s the "model" part rather than the "child" part that Renji finds annoying. (Though the Viz omits both of these, so perhaps they had a different opinion, XD.)

In Chapter 208, Shawlong Qufong also describes Hitsugaya as 幼い (osanai), "young," in the sense of not being fully-developed, which he links grammatically to a description of Hitsugaya’s bankai. I think it’s intended more a statement of fact than it is an insult—osanai doesn’t have an inherently negative connotation, though maybe it’s worth mentioning that it appears to evoke the idea of literal babies more than say, a young man or even a young boy.

AND SURE, what does Shawlong know about shinigami. What does Shawlong know about anything? But I think we can throw Shawlong a bone and take this to mean that Hitsugaya’s biological age is unambiguously young. But in spite of this, it may not be functionally relevant or "read" socially in shinigami day-to-day.

* NB: Hinamori is in her own category!! And omake Ukitake, who I'll reference later. There’s also the bathhouse lady from Shinigami Cup 74, who reads Hitsugaya as a child in spite of the fact that they are in the Seireitei (I assume—how far would Hitsugaya have agreed to walk with all their paperwork in hand??) and he is literally wearing his Captain’s haori. I think about her all the time. She keeps me up at night. 

III. HUMANITY

This isn’t to say that referencing someone’s youth can’t be done derogatorily. Byakuya shouts at Ichigo during their big pre-execution fight, and called him 小僧 (kozou), "boy." Which I mean, Ichigo is literally… 15… And Byakuya is what, more than 10x that?

More to the point, I think it’s really interesting to think about how shinigami specifically think about human age, too. All humans are younger than anyone in the main cast, and the Karakura Kids are BABIES. But they are also human adolescents, on the cusp of childhood and adulthood at once, and I imagine that’s often baffling and/or fascinating to the shinigami. I mean, I think Ichigo is baffling to Soul Society for a lot of reasons, LOL, but this would be another one for the bingo card.

Additionally, during the Edo period, the concept of adolescence as a "thing" was kind of on-again, off-again, and inasmuch as we can play with Soul Society’s Edo references that one seems fun to me, in terms of whether or not a shinigami believes that there’s anything between childhood and adulthood. Especially when you think about what the modern vs. Edo expectations of different biological ages and their relationship to adulthood might be. And ESPECIALLY ESPECIALLY when you think about the ways those differences are countered by the fact that they are living a manga series, and fifteen-year olds in manga series are a whole other Thing. I mean, even in the most slice-of-life corner of Bleach, half of Ichigo’s friends are living independently at 15!

I’m also interested in shifting ideas of childhood in Soul Society as a result of ongoing contact with the human world. Being a shinigami is by and large defined by services rendered. It’s in the name! And if you’re not doing that, then what are you doing. But if you’re an "adult" after six measly years of Academy, potentially for thousands of years, and being an adult is defined by doing work, I imagine it’s difficult to remember what childhood even is, or what forms of play/pleasure/curiosity were part of it (and perhaps should still be cultivated, even on the other side of the divide). I know they have clubs and whatnot, but I don’t think that means this difficulty does not exist. Does contact with the human world help? (Or do they just end up ferrying a bunch of extremely sad overworked salarymen ghosts across like, "That’s rough, buddy.")

Did the development of children’s literature as a form inspire Ukitake’s "Sougyo’s Refusal!" serialization? What about his (somewhat haphazard) gifts of candy? The fact that he actually knows everyone’s birthdays and puts them into the SC? Is this the way Ukitake, as a thousanty-something year-old shinigami, courts modernity?

[hanemiso]

Operation: Dairy For Dazai

>>>a dazai osamu x reader<<<

request: "omg i love your post about Dazai and his possibility of having lactose intolerance hahaha, i wish you could do a fanfic out from that"

a/n: um this is such a great idea??? this was so much fun to write omg i hope y'all like it! also i know dazai doesn't necessarily drink coffee with milk and sugar/creamer, but for the sake of the story he does! also sorry if the gif looks weird, i couldn't find his weird little run anywhere else.

synopsis: no one has seen dazai drink milk or consume dairy of any kind...it's up to the agency to figure out if dazai is lactose intoleralnt or not!

warnings: one swear word, dazai not being able to handle dairy

"hey atsushi, you ever notice that dazai doesn't consume dairy?"

"what do you mean, y/n?" atsushi asks, glancing up at you from the computer.

"think about it. have you ever seen dazai drink milk? eat cheese? buy ice cream?" you press on, raising your brows.

atsushi takes a second to think before responding with, "now that you mention it, no i haven't...why are you asking anyway?"

"i think dazai is lactose intolerant."

you now have atsushi's full attention as he rolls closer to your desk and furrows his brows. he looks around the room for the brunette you're talking about before turning back to you, "you think so? i don't know...maybe it's like a dietary thing."

you deadpan, "you really think the man who goes out of his way to try new attempts at committing suicide--the one who came into the office with a hallucinogenic mushroom from a random mountain--is concerned with his own nutrition?"

atsushi goes silent and nods his head in agreement.

"come on, atsushi. i mean, why would that be the one thing out of his entire diet that he'd choose to cut out?"

"that's true, i've seen the kinds of things he eats...but why is this something you're interested in?"

"because, atsushi, the thought of THE dazai osamu even having one slight weakness--and the fact that it very well may be dairy, of all things-- is amusing. you don't find it interesting? that he can survive things like bullet wounds and getting kidnapped without any problem, but a glass of milk could completely ruin him?"

atsushi was beginning to take interest in what you were talking about. you had a point, he couldn't deny that. they don't know much about dazai and his life as it is. just as it began clicking in his brain, kunikida walks over to your desk to tell you both to get back to work. at the sound of his footsteps, you turn towards him and before he can say anything at all, you ask him the same question as atsushi. kunikida has a smiliar reaction and response to atsushi, which just adds to the curiosity of dazai's possible dairy problem.

"i don't pay attention to that idiot's diet anyway, nor do i care." he says matter-of-factly.

anyone could tell that kunikida was slightly interested, just by the way he was continuing to linger by your desk as you continued talking about it with atsushi. soon enough, tanizaki had joined the conversation; then ranpo and kenji, and soon everyone in the agency other than fukuzawa. everyone was huddled around your desk, sharing memories of dazai's lack of dairy consumption. it was then decided that this theory of dazai being lactose intolerant would be put to the test when dazai returned to the office.

ranpo had come up with the idea, it wasn't too elaborate but a simple plan that could trick even the likes of dazai into drinking a glass of milk. during the discussion of dazai's dietary habits, it was also brought to everyone's attention by kunikida that it seems dazai doesn't have a high spice tolerance either. with that in mind, the plan was for the agency to have a joint dinner tonight, with curry on the menu tonight; spicy curry to be exact. dazai always flirts with you in the office, so it was your job to distract him by indulging in his pick-up lines and such. once he takes a bite and realizes it's too spicy for him, he'd try to find water to alleviate the pain, but coincidentally there is no water in sight. because of this, he'd be forced to drink the glass of milk you hand him. of course, if this didn't work, for dessert you'd give him a cup of coffee with milk and sugar (he uses non-dairy creamer in his coffee anyway).

you and kyouka set up a table to put the bowls of curry on, while atsushi and kunikida began bringing in the curry. tanizaki, naomi, and ranpo were in charge of getting the desserts to really sell the image of a nice gathering. kenji and yosano were in charge of tinkering with the water pipes to close off any possibility of access to water. this task was treated with such care, as any mission brought into the agency would be. each and every one of you were interested in learning about this side of dazai; are you going the extra mile for such a minuscule detail of someone's life? yes, but will it be amusing to find out the truth? also yes.

soon enough, dazai is spotted out the window. the truth is about to be revealed, and you are all nervous but excited.

"remember guys, act natural! operation: dairy for dazai starts now!" you exclaim quietly.

you can hear everyone take a deep breath and begin "talking" amongst themselves as dazai walks in. he stops in his tracks as he eyes the table holding all the bowls of curry and widens his eyes in surprise.

"oh? what's this?" he asks, gesturing to the table.

"y/n suggested having dinner in the agency tonight, so we got some curry and desserts." atsushi explains.

"have a bowl, dazai-kun." you smile at him as you hand him the bowl of spicy curry.

"ah, you're too nice, my belladonna!" he exclaims and grabs the bowl.

so far so good, you think.

you can feel the tension in the room as everyone waits for dazai to take a bite. the conversations carry on amongst people, but no one was truly paying attention to what was being said. the gazes of each member of the agency shifted to dazai as he raised the spoon up to his mouth. you could hear the sound of everyone in the room holding their breaths, even kunikida was sweating.

once the spoon had been placed in his mouth, everyone froze in place. you and atsushi tried to pretend to not be paying much attention to dazai, but it was so hard not to when all of a sudden he stopped chewing. you both slowly turn your head towards him and see his eyes go wide once again. he hurries to the nearest trashcan and spits out the spoonful, quickly turning and looking for a cup of water on the table.

"w-what's wrong, dazai-san?" atsushi asks, also sweating.

"h-hot! spicy curry! atsushi-kun, i need water! please!" dazai exclaims.

you run to the table and pretend to look for a cup of water before grabbing the glass of milk and hurrying towards dazai.

"sorry dazai-kun, i couldn't find any water, but i heard milk helps with the pain!" you hold out the glass of milk.

it feels like time stops as dazai sits there, breathing shallows breaths in attempts to stop the fire in his mouth, and contemplating whether he wants to try his luck with continuing to gasp for air or drinking the milk. he hates suffering, after all. in his mind, all that matters at this moment is extinguishing the flames dancing on his tongue. he grabs the glass, just as planned, and drinks a couple big gulps. everyone is now turned to him, asking if he's okay.

"i'm...fine." he says between pants.

now it was only a matter of time. the dinner continued as normal, but dazai wasn't as social as usual. he sat down with you and atsushi as you continued to talk about different missions.

"oh yeah, dazai-kun, do you remember--" you turn to look at him but realize he's staring at the ground intently as sweat beads on his face, "dazai?"

he blinks once and tries regaining his composure as he looks up at you with his usual smile, "yes, belladonna?"

"are you feeling alright?" you ask with concern laced in your voice.

"of course i am!" dazai tries to reply cheerily, but his bright tone is cut off by a rumbling in his stomach that makes his face twist.

he tries replacing his expression with a smile again, but it looks more pained as another low rumble emits from his body. at this point, everyone in the office is stealing glances. he looks back at the ground as his eyes widen yet again, and only two words are uttered before he takes off running to the bathroom:

"oh shit."

everyone stares at the door, processing what just happened. it was so silent, the only sound you could hear was dazai's rapid footsteps echoing down the hall.

"i knew it." you smirk a bit to yourself.

but your feeling of victory is brief as the horrid smell invades your nostrils. your poor co-workers get assaulted by the same stench, and you all are forced to evacuate.

operation: dairy for dazai was a success, but at what cost?

------------------------------------------

BONUS: how chuuya found out about dazai's lactose intolerance

chuuya was the only person who knew of dazai's problem with dairy, but the way he found out was purely accidental and scarred him.

the event took place when they were 17, and they were both stopping for a drink at a local cafe after a mission. the mission wasn't too bad, but it was early in the morning and chuuya wanted coffee. dazai told him it would stunt his already lacking growth, so chuuya wasn't in the greatest mood; he never was around dazai.

"i wanna sit down so you can order for me!" dazai claps his hands together.

"hey! i don't wan-" chuuya begins to protest but dazai cuts him off while walking away.

"you know what i like!"

chuuya grumbles in annoyance as he heads to the counter and orders two drinks. in his fit of anger, he accidentally ordered two coffees with milk and sugar, but failed to notice as he brought the cups to the table dazai sat at. he narrows his eyes as he sets the cup down in front of dazai and sits across from him. chuuya stares out the window to try and tune out dazai when he hears dazai ask him something quietly.

"is there...milk in this?"

chuuya scoffs and replies, "what's wrong, can't handle a bit of milk?"

he was obviously joking, but the sound that emits from dazai's body in response makes him realize it was no joke. dazai quickly stands and runs to the bathroom while chuuya sits there in disbelief, but with the hope that the rest of the day won't be ruined because of it.

that was wishful thinking though, as they frequently had to stop at public restrooms on their way home and chuuya had to deal with the rancid odor that followed dazai as closely as his own shadow.

taglist: @justmycupoftea93 @loveliestmolly @darlingimawitch @b-i-t-t-i-e-s @browneyespinkhair @silverstar22x @stupidfrogfreak @anotakugardener @jhopesstickeredcarrier @joyfulartisanstudentlamp @spacedoutcoffeebeans @puddingowo66 @kaeyapng @beomluvrr @imobsessedwithskkanditshows

[not-me-simping-for-blasty]

Wrong Number, Asshole - A Bakugou Katsuki Soulmate AU

All Parts 

Part 14:

It was getting a little exhausting at this point.

You were once again searching through hero rankings, staring and staring and hoping that it would make a difference- but it didn’t. Of course it didn’t. You just couldn’t think of any prototype that felt like it was good enough. 

Your eyes burned as you closed out of one website, opened another, and rinsed and repeated several times over. Nothing was new or exciting. It was all the same recycled clips and drama about the same few top heroes you’d already been used to seeing. It also didn’t help either that nearly every community board, almost every comment, was currently serving as a means to bash some pro-hero named Dynamite nd nothing else.

Apparently the attack he stopped a few days ago had a few more casualties than the public would’ve liked. On one hand, you sort of understood. His quirk, while effective, did seem objectively dangerous- but, you also couldn’t help feeling bad for the poor guy. Often the most effective means of stopping violence was through more violence, and that wasn’t his fault. And he definitely didn’t deserve to be blamed for a situation that was already bad in the first place- especially at the non-stop rate he was being vilified.

It was everywhere you looked. Thread after thread of people pulling old clips and resurfacing audio and digging into his apparently very messy past. You couldn’t imagine how that would feel- didn’t even want to try. You didn’t know who Dynamite was as a civilian- you didn’t really care enough to look- but some part of you still hoped he was okay. 

You suppose that your hope matter in the end though, because even from your sympathetic angle, lives lost were still lives lost- and he was at the center of all of it.

You rubbed at your eyes, groaning loudly as you realize how much time you wasted looking at yet another news reel of nothing but Dynamite criticism. This wasn’t helping. This wasn’t productive, but you didn’t know where else to look.

You closed your laptop’s lid, nearly cheering as you realized what time it was. 

Woah. 

Remember that excitement earlier? All gone now.

Bakugou didn’t call you any names, didn’t make any jokes. You wouldn’t necessarily say he was a conversationalist, but over the last few days he had at least been indulgent of your antics. This didn’t feel that way. His response was cold, succinct, dismissive. He seemed angry- well, angrier than usual. 

You tried to think of a response but nothing felt right. You deleted the words almost as soon as you began typing them out.

You winced.

That, uh- you thought you were past this part of the relationship. A week ago, sure, you would’ve just barreled on without a second thought, but that didn’t feel right anymore. 

This was the first genuinely mean thing Bakugou had said to you quite some time now. It hurt, and the ironic thing was, you actually thought it would’ve hurt less if he called you a name at the end of it- at least then you’d know he was joking.

But you didn’t think he was joking this time, and it didn’t feel good.

His response only made you feel worse, but you didn’t want to push. You were sure Bakugou would see your genuine concern as nothing more than picking a fight- and you didn’t want that.

God, what a shitty day. You thought, shoulders slumping as you abandoned your phone on the bed. Might as well just start getting ready for bed. 

You hopped in the shower, turning the water practically scalding, but it didn’t make you feel any warmer than before. 

Jesus, when did I get so pathetic? He’s just another guy.

Except even you shook your head at that. You didn’t want him to be just another guy. Bakugou was your soulmate, and, as you were quickly finding out, that made everything hurt a lot more. 

When you left the shower, changing into clothes that didn’t feel as comfortable as you remembered, you realized just how tired and defeated you felt. So tired and defeated, that you almost didn’t hear your phone buzz. 

It buzzed four times, in quick, rapid succession, and even you were embarrassed by how you sprinted over to grab it. 

You glance up at his earlier message- the one that made you feel so miserable. 

Bakugou was still essentially saying the same thing, but now it felt different. You wanted to smack yourself. Why was this so dramatic? Why did it feel like your mood depended entirely on whether he was nice to you or not?

When did you allow yourself to get so attached? 

The thought made your head spin, and you very easily decided it wasn’t something that you wanted to get into. It definitely was not a thought process that would help you right now, or in any way be productive. 

So you tabled it completely. Because you were a responsible adult who did very responsible adult things like bottling up feelings that made you scared. 

Instead, you decided to tell him about a safe feeling you were having; a normal person feeling. A feeling that wasn’t something completely ridiculous like being overly attached to someone who’s only once, sort of, confirmed that he even likes you. A feeling definitely that wasn’t panic over someone who could very easily mean the names he calls you, someone who you’ve latched onto for no other reason than your own naïve dream of a fairytale love- oh god? Were you wrong? Were you reading into something that wasn’t there? Did he even care that you were his soulmate? He probably didn’t, right? He never said otherwise but he never confirmed it either which basically meant that Bakugou told you that it didn’t matter to him- that you didn’t matter to hi-

You closed your eyes, taking a deep breath. That wouldn’t help. Your cyclical anxiety wouldn’t help anything, especially if you were once putting words and thoughts into Bakugou’s mouth even after he explicitly told you not to. 

This is what you tried to avoid earlier. This exact thing. 

God, you wished you could compartmentalize better; but you couldn’t, so you settled for the next best thing.

You tried to focus on comforting the him on the other side of the phone instead of questioning the him inside your head, because the real Bakugou obviously needed it; and if your rambling was what it took for him to feel a little better than you’d make it happen. 

For him. 

Okay, you could do this. This conversation was normal, zero risk, expertly functional, nice- sort of comfortable, even?

That earlier thought? That poor, poor, ill-fitting word you used? Comfortable? 

Yeah, it’s gone now. Should’ve never been there in the first place.

Oh well, nothing left to do but go back to another familiar game, right? This one’s called pretending you’re fine.

It doesn’t bother you? 

What kind of loaded question was that? Even worse- what was your response to it? 

Bakugou started typing something and quickly deleted it. You watched as he didn’t start typing again, and that only solidified it for you.

The way you answered him was wrong. You were supposed to be reassuring him, not letting your own stupid worries slip through. Talking about your anxiety? To a person who was already having his own emotionally exhausting day?

Jesus christ, you didn’t think you could come up with a stupider move if somebody paid you. 

You felt that sickly feeling from earlier coming back again. You shouldn’t have said that. It was revealing too much and it was an insensitive response during a conversation that should’ve been about him. And maybe you just offended him and made him think you were selfish and not someone he could rely on and he’d never want to talk to you again because you just admitted you were unhinged and why would he want to put up with that when he-

You wanted to smash your head into a wall. God, why couldn’t your brain just shut up? 

Bakugou didn’t say that to you. Any of that. You were once again putting words in his mouth, and it’d been all of 3 minutes and he hadn’t even responded yet.

He wasn’t a bad guy, and he wasn’t just suddenly going to drop you. You knew that. He’d already proven several times that he actually cared about you, and would seek you out if you didn’t find him first. You also knew that the blunt things he said weren’t always meant to be rude, and the names he called you, while crude, were still just odd forms of endearment. 

You were just overthinking things. Bakugou was a nicer guy than he seemed- you knew that more than anything. 

With that in mind, you tried to re-focus on only saying words that would make him feel better from now on.

Your phone buzzed.

When you typed it out- you realized again just how stupid you were being.

This entire time, this entire conversation, you had been stuck in your own head and rendered essentially blind to what Bakugou was actually saying. 

He wasn’t asking you these questions to cause you doubt, he was asking for reassurance.

You wanted to scream. You were so consumed with your own worries that you couldn’t see his responses for the insecurities that they were.

When he asked ‘It doesn’t bother you?’- That was him really asking “Do you like me? Do you think I’m actually a good person?”

And the answer was yes. Easily yes. You might not have known concrete facts about him, or even really anything past his name, but you knew his personality. And you think that maybe that made things clearer than any first name could’ve.

 God, why were you so worried about how he’d react to your anxiety earlier? Why did you ever think Bakugou wasn’t just as emotionally stilted as you? 

You were both the same brand of socially inept- that’s the only way this relationship would have ever worked.

With that in mind, you cast away your worry. It didn’t matter right now. You had to be the strong one because Bakugou couldn’t be. He deserved that much.

Your heart broke. 

You wanted to hug him and tell him nice things and stop every person who said he wasn’t good from ever speaking again.

You watched him read the text, but it didn’t seem like he was going to respond.

You hoped he was okay- that what you said was enough to reassure him, because you meant it. All of it. 

But even so you couldn’t stop worrying, so after 10 minutes or so, you sent him another text before you could stop yourself.

Bakugou said he wasn’t a liar, so you’d trust him. If he said he felt better than you did your job, and you’d allow yourself to relax. 

At least this once.

[downwiththemutantnjnjaturtles]

We Met Within This Screen (chapt. 2)

[Donnie x fem reader]

Sfw, part 1 here

Intellectually, Donnie was the best matchup for their leader as today was sparring day. He'd gone against his oldest brother many times, sometimes even coming out the victor himself, but today was just not his day.

He held his staff with that iron grip of his and waited for Leo to come at him. Donnie was more on the defensive than any of his brothers; he had to be. Out of all he was weakest physically but superior in calculations, but he was missing range in this matchup. Leo had a hard time disarming him as his katana could sometimes get lodged in the solid wood staff, giving Donnie leverage to perform the finisher in the short time it took him to dislodge his sword. He thought this time would be how that would happen.

"You're slow today, Donnie," Leo said as he lunged at his brother with a swing of his katana, forcing Donnie to step back. He was too focused on blocking Leo's rapid succession of attacks to respond.

Leo reeled back to swing his blade again but Donnie parried and struck his arm with his staff, shoving it aside. For a split second, Leo actually thought he was fixing to go down by this move if Donnie could hit him again quick enough. But his brother hesitated in thought, and without any reluctance himself, he used his other katana to put him in a compromising position. The match was over and Donnie was forced to stand down.

"Why did you hesitate?" Leo questioned him, lowering his blade. Raph watched from the sidelines with Mikey as they prepared to go up next. Since Leo was the winner, it was Raph's turn next to spar in his younger brother's place.

Donnie huffed and dropped his stance, putting his staff away. "It's just an off day," he replied. Splinter wasn't there to dictate today's training session and tournament, so Donnie was already on his way out to go to his lab by the time Raph stepped up to spar. But Leo sheathed his sword and put a hand on Donnie's shoulder, stopping him in his tracks.

"You've been pretty eager to run back to your lab lately," Leo said matter-of-factly. He was wondering what was going on, why Donnie seemed weirdly distant the last couple of weeks. He had gone through a very withdrawn phase in earlier times upon entering his teenage years, but now, he was legitimately making everyone guess. He didn't snap at his brothers, and he wasn't any more impatient than usual. But something was different. He'd been spending a lot more time holed up in his lab, which everyone began to notice. Leo wanted to know what was wrong.

Donnie shifted and shrugged, "Like I said, I've been busy with some projects. Also, it's not like I have much to do out here beside training and patrol."

Leo opened his mouth to speak, but Mikey jumped on between them. "You missed game night last week! You never miss it," he butted in. Both Donnie and Leo gave him a look as if to say really? and he added in, "Well, uh...not usually."

Gently moving Mikey aside, Leo wanted to continue, but he saw Donnie staring at him expecting a follow-up when he didn't really have one. Whatever this was, Leo knew that coming at Donnie with questions was not the way to go about it. So he stepped back and gave his brother some space.

"We all have off days," Leo said finally after an awkward moment of silence. "Just work on your speed, Don."

"Got it."

With that, Donnie turned to leave, and Raph entered the ring to go against Leo in the last match of the night.

Once Donnie was gone, Leo got ready to spar with Raph. As they got into position, he contemplated bringing this recent development up with the other two, but decided against it in the end. He didn't want to incriminate Donnie, especially with Raph's assertive approach to handling things. Donnie could be somewhat flighty at times when it came to resolving matters of emotion, at times a little too introspective, but Leo couldn't fault him—he had his own struggles with that very thing, too.

Done, finally, Donnie thought as he skirted into his lab and started up the game. He was late to the party quite literally; training lasted longer than he'd thought, and he was disappointed to see that his newest friend was online, but not responding to his invite. Did everyone get together and play without him? After a few minutes, he almost decided on giving up. The instance made him contemplate whether he even wanted to continue this. Perhaps he'd been too eager.

He sighed. And then the menu pinged, and he was there reading the message in an instant.

Hey, sorry I partied up without you, I just didn't know if you were gonna be on or not :/

Without even thinking, he licked his lips typed back, repeatedly deleting and retyping his message to make sure it was casual but not too casual, apologetic but not desperate—

It's okay, don't worry about it

Likewise sorry it took me so long to get here.

That would do. He'd be lying to say he wasn't feeling that flutter in his stomach; the excitement of something new got to him in a way that only a discovery in his research did, or how he felt when he mastered a new technique in his training.

Let's get started then :)

They started the game, and this time he kept the mic on, as she did. They talked back and forth as they fought creatures and enemies and looted things, eventually coming to learn that she herself was in New York City. He was surprised; suddenly, the world felt a lot smaller, and he couldn't concentrate on just playing after that. The time they spent became more of an opportunity to converse than to play a mundane game for hours on end.

At some point, she switched the topic to his whereabouts. Donnie's breath hitched.

"I'm...not anywhere near. So it doesn't really matter," he told her, cringing. If the guys found out—if Splinter found out—he would be in such trouble.

"Oh," she paused for a moment, trying to find something to say. "That's alright, I don't want you to feel like you have to tell me, you know?"

He'd muted his mic to release a deep breath. He got lost in thought thinking about how in that moment, he wanted to be human. If he weren't a giant mutant turtle, he could actually form a connection with someone. It was a very "Mikey" thing to think, he reckoned, but at times he wanted friends just like his brother did.

"Yeah, sorry, I just…"

"It's really no problem, dude."

He felt as though he could hear the smile in her voice. What did she look like, he wondered. He wanted to see her, but he couldn't ask for that when he could never do the same. If he could get her name, he'd be in the clear to do some preliminary lookups on this person, but so far, she'd been dodgy about sharing info about herself as well. He couldn't blame her. They were two strangers online, one with a huge secret and the other completely in the dark about who he truly was. For all she knew, he could have been a creep, looking to stalk her online and perhaps do even worse. The thought made him feel almost nauseous, how she could be considering that about him as a possibility as they spoke. But she seemed comfortable enough. Unlike him, who was still slightly skeptical of the entire thing, because after spending his whole life in practical isolation, he was at a loss as to what to say or do after a certain point. The conversation died off and both of them thought simultaneously about how weird the sudden silence between them felt.

She hummed, as if searching for something to bring up. When she spoke, he was taken aback—"Hey, I'm gonna be honest, I really like talking to you but this game is getting boring. Do you wanna chat somewhere else?"

"Uh…" he trailed off, mind shooting blanks. Oh, was it just a horrible idea. He couldn't keep the jig up forever; the truth was bound to get revealed somewhere down the line. He was fixing to reject the proposition, tell her that he didn't want to take it that far. She could be anyone. The likelihood of it being a clever ruse on account of the Foot Clan was slim, but the paranoia still worked ambiently in the background noise of his mind. But his other doubt stopped him—when would he ever have a chance at this again? He wanted to have the strength to say no and leave it at that. The loneliness that crept up on him from time to time had something else to say.

"Yeah," he answered after a terribly long pause of mumbling, fighting with himself all the way as she told him where to add her. He could have kicked himself had it not been for the fact that he knew how to encrypt data, and that as long as he didn't leak a word about his inner circle or life, it would be okay. It didn't feel okay, though.

"Nice! I'll text you, see you later, Bo. I had a lot of fun tonight," she chirped.

Before he could respond, she was gone from the party, and the mic went silent. It happened so fast. He was barely caught up with the fact that he was now receiving messages and prompts to talk, but he couldn't bring himself to answer right away. He had to refocus his logic; how could this be used by the enemy as a way to get to them? Could they have somehow anticipated he'd download this game and find this random on there? The more the thought about it, the more glaringly obvious it was that it was not the case. It was just too improbable.

"The probability of the Foot being able to simulate such a specific scenario in order to get intel on us is so slim, it is practically non-existent," he told himself as he finally pulled up the messages. He read through them. "Approximately a zero-point-zero-zero-zero..."

My name is (Y/N), by the way :)

Well, that was easier than expected. He figured that somehow, the name suited you—a fitting name for such a personality. But it also gave him a glimmer of hope. It made him want to ask why you appeared to trust him, as he could be anyone on the Earth over the screen, not his benevolent self. Which she had no way of proving, technically. But he soon came to realize the screen painted him in a whole new light that it casted on him. It hit then that he could be anyone. He didn't have to be himself; not necessarily. She'd never have to know, as he could wear a human mask and she'd be none the wiser. Problem was, the lying made him feel guilty, and slowly would develop to be the thorn in his side.

Donnie thoughtfully stared at the screen. Now that he was here, some of his anxiety began to fade. He found himself actually able to talk, someone to listen to his tangents and even build upon them. They spent hours texting back and forth about anything and everything until it was almost time for him to put the phone down to leave for patrol. He felt giddy, like a kid, all over again.

________________________________________

Had you ever been able to talk to someone this easily?

You asked yourself that question as you exchanged with the faceless and nameless stranger over your screen, chatting from afternoon to night. Time flew by in an instant, with him, and you loved every minute. He was someone intellectual, but funny and so easy to talk to that it was as though the conversation carried itself. After some time he came out about his age after you revealed yours. Oftentimes, he'd just present to you a random question when the subject tapered off and run with it, like now:

What do you think of reptiles?

Puzzled, you took a second to reply. Odd question.

Why do you ask? Do you have one?

I was just curious

What do you think of them?

The chat indicator flip-flopped between "typing" and "idle" a few times before a message finally popped up, and you smiled. You'd learned over this short time that he was a dork in a cute way.

Well...I think they're pretty cool.

They've got natural armor and you would be surprised to know just how fast a turtle can be

You laughed a little to yourself. It was such a random thing to bring up, yet you were endeared. Deciding you'd go along with it, you asked him what else he knew about turtles.

Well...

__________________________________________________

Donnie was wondering what he was talking about just as much as she probably was. Stupid, he thought, facepalming. His first time really speaking with a human as an equal and he starts talking about turtles. Of course he knew a lot about them, he was one himself—but for some reason he found himself wanting to dispel myths and misunderstandings about turtles as if they reflected on him, when as far as she knew, he was just a human guy like herself.

He groaned lightly and typed, thinking up a fact that wasn't too conspicuous.

Red eared sliders are semi-aquatic.

As he typed the next part, he caught himself writing "we" instead of "they", to his dismay. He quickly fixed the error and continued, feeling weirdly exposed as it was almost as though in sharing this information, he was putting himself under a microscope for her to inspect.

They can hold their breath for up to thirty minutes, usually

Holding his breath was something he'd tested numerous times before. He and his brothers had actually made a game out of it on a few occasions, with Leo leading at thirty-three minutes, Donnie in second at thirty-one. Raph broke at twenty-nine minutes and Mikey followed behind in last at just twenty-seven. The ability could be trained, nonetheless.

That's interesting, I wonder what it's like to be able to go underwater so long?

It's kind of cool, you should try sometime

For THIRTY MINUTES?

Shit. He promptly replied:

No—not like I can hold my breath that long, I just mean you should try to see sometime I guess

I tested it just for the fun of it.

Looking up how long humans could hold their breath on average (between thirty seconds and two minutes), he bumped the number up a little bit and added:

Personally, I'm at two minutes and forty-five seconds

He was embarrassed, partially covering his face as he waited for a response. Such a foolish slip-up; he couldn't afford to say anything cryptic. But he still was fairly sure that he had recovered that alright. He couldn't help but think about how awkward or weird he seemed to her. Who talked about this?

I don't think I could hold my breath for more than a minute, kudos to you haha

Anyway, sorry to switch gears all of a sudden but if you don't mind me asking, what's up with your family? You have any siblings?

He told her no. He would not bring his brothers into this, lest it be the slim chance of a ploy, after all. He said his family situation was unconventional and left it at that.

With that, he said to her goodnight and put his phone away, getting up to go get geared for patrol. It was only then he noticed the figure leaning against the doorway.

Chapter 3

[whatifyoulivelikethat]

insightful notes about body insecurity from a reader :) another perspective is always nice to have

I just want to thank you for replying to messages about body insecurity and topics like that in such a nuanced and thoughtful manner.

I read them a lot of times to remind myself, and sometimes it's easier to engrave in my mind if the words are from someone else (I feel so tired of reminding myself). I remember an instance where I got sucked into comparing my bodies with models and idols, and it just leaves me feeling bad. My parents always compared me to my sister (she was 7 years older) and how different our bodies looked even when I was barely going through puberty at that age. I've always been told how pretty the hourglass figure is, and that's what my sister had, and I've always wanted to have that as well but I just... Don't. I've had times where I'm underweight and normal, and my body goes through a rapid back and forth, and I just feel so done with it. I don't care if I have flat ass, or little boobs, or if my waist hip ratio isn't good enough. When has my body became something to be measured and calculated only for it to end to be wrong just cause it doesn't fit the mold?

No one's beauty and confidence takes away my own, and if beautiful doesn't work, bodies can be just left to being bodies. Sometimes, it's okay to not feel super great and it's wonderful to feel confident but we can't always maintain that. The best thing, fo me at least, is too keep in a mindset that nothing takes away my responsibility to properly care for my body and that I owe it to myself to not hate it. This entity that I move and live in isn't meant to be used by companies to turn me against it, much more to make me think I'm any less worth. I love it when people are confident and much more when they're working towards that. I feel so much better when I reread some stuff here, and even though I'm still awed by how you've described you look (maybe envious) I'm happy that my body is strong enough. And in a pandemic! Plus, I've put it way more effort to get fit so I'll be stronger and it's quite fulfilling. It took a while but I'm glad I arrived.

Thank you.

I enjoyed reading this a lot. I'm glad you've come to a more balanced mindset of how you look at your body and recognize that it is something that needs to be maintained on a consistent basis rather than an "end goal" or "finish line". Maintaining it is hard. It's unrealistic to think that you can always be a positive, confident person, but it is important to know that the difficult times are not permanent.

You've worked hard. :)

I wouldn't say I'm strong... XD I should probably definitely work out (in a non-sexual manner). I do recognize that because I have a certain body type, I go through different things than people who have body types that are different to my own. But personally, to me, bodies are bodies. There is so much variation that it seems strange to compare. Not only that, but nature is complex and unpredictable in many ways. Gene expression is different for everyone because so many factors are involved. No, what I look for in people is who they are, who they have chosen to become, and who they want to be. Diversity should be appreciated. Why should everyone be the same? That would be very boring.

There was a time where I very much disliked by body. I looked very different due to the circumstances I was in and my mental state. I was in a state of constant emotional pain, and it showed. Even when I was a more healthy body weight, I wouldn't talk about my body in a positive light. I wasn't used to it. I had to learn that it was okay to like my body, to celebrate it, to praise it. I know I am not to everyone's taste. I like the way I look. I like saying I do. And I think everyone should be able to say that they do. It would be great if it could happen quickly and easily, but I know it is not so simple. I hope everyone who struggles with this can give themselves some grace.

also

”Comparison is the thief of joy.” – Theodore Roosevelt

[victorromeofox-blog]

VRF Website and Community

VRF Website and Community - Soft Opening Coming Soon!

I've been a little less active here in the last little bit, but have been working behind the scenes to build up the VRF website and planning around community-building.  I'm just about ready to start opening the site to semi-public access and start inviting trusted people to the Discord within the next week!  There is some information below introducing some of the content and features of the site and Discord server.  Please contact me (Ask or email preferred) if you would like access - I recommend reading the rest of this post before you do, but it is not required.

If you’re looking to better understand BDSM and kink, participate in a community of rational, respectful, and conscientious kink practitioners, and contribute to protecting, uplifting, and helping others - while still enjoying some fantasies - you are exactly the type of person who would be a great fit for this space.

If you’re “just here for the porn”, this website and community are not going to be what you’re looking for.  They are specifically a pushback against that very mentality, and the rampant toxicity and problematic discourse in the online BDSM/kink space, especially CNC kink, and your needs will be better met elsewhere.  Same goes for those who are just out to get nudes, roleplay online, organize hookups, or find a submissive - there are other spaces geared toward that.

In the meantime, I'd like to explain what this all means to me, where VRF is headed next, and what factors I'm taking into consideration as I continue.  This is going to be a fairly reflective post - almost like a letter of intent - but I'm putting it out there primarily for transparency and also for those of you who want some insight into my thoughts and process.

VRF - A Quick Recap

When I started VRF in 2015, I didn't really have a goal.  I was just looking to curate the kinds of porn I enjoyed the most on Tumblr and occasionally added some captions that came to mind as I did - and accidentally cultivated a sizeable following.  As the blog grew and began to have more interactions with others on the network, I realized that I couldn't stay in-persona all the time - not without sending a potentially dangerous message - so I started answering asks and giving advice out of character, as myself.  These "real" interactions, as well as the reality checks that kept rolling in, set the tone for what VRF would become - and made me feel much more comfortable with running a blog featuring questionable content.

I stepped away from the blog and went on hiatus in 2016; I saw a sharp rise in hateful, bigoted, and violent voices online and no longer felt comfortable that my posts would remain firmly in the realm of fantasy for the majority of readers.  Although the original @violent-rape-fantasies was terminated in 2019, I made a fairly complete backup of the entire blog before it went down.  I returned in late 2020 to start again from scratch, try to rebuild my following, and reconnect with the community - that effort was terminated by Tumblr in 2021, leading me to the two blogs I currently have (@VictorRomeoFox-blog / @violent-rape-fantasies-2​) and to create a self-hosted website containing the original VRF archives with major quality-of-life improvements to the Tumblr experience.

This process made me consider what my goals are for VRF, how I want to achieve them, and what promises I make to the community as part of that journey.  

VRF - Mission and Values

VRF's mission is to be a safe, inclusive, and collaborative space that promotes affirmative consent, healthy relationships, and conscientious kink, where consenting adults can explore their kinks, enjoy fictional fantasies, and uplift one another without overbearing guilt or shame.

Let me quickly break some of this down:

safe: I want people to feel comfortable consuming and interacting with me and my content - not only the kinks and acts depicted in the fantasies, but in the entirety of the space that VRF projects, including knowing that their personhood, privacy, anonymity, and emotional safety are important to me.

inclusive: although I focus primarily on male-on-female scenarios, people from all walks of life are welcome so long as they are good citizens of the community and conscientious kink practitioners.  This also means rejecting hate, bigotry, and willful ignorance.

collaborative: VRF is discursive, both in-persona and out-of-character; the content and direction I take is often influenced by the conversations I have with followers, the asks and submissions I receive, and the state of the community as I see it.  I want to always be in conversation with the community to understand its needs and goals so that I can better meet them.

affirmative consent: as discussed in a previous post, I highlight affirmative consent because it centers around positive action as opposed to consent, which can be a passive state.  I believe this is critical for conscientious kink.

healthy relationships: the relationships we hold shape who we are, who we become, and how we interact with the world around us.  I believe that healthy relationships build healthier, happier lives - this concerns all relationships, from friendships to families to romantic or sexual partnerships.  I have seen less emphasis in this community on relationships, and interpersonal interactions in general, and think that this is a major oversight.

conscientious kink: kink can be dangerous or harmful when not practiced with care and consideration - not just for physical health, but for mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being.  It requires reflection, introspection, and communication in order to form intentionality - the understanding behind what you do, how you do it, and why you do it.

reducing guilt: this is one of the concerns I get most often from followers - how to reconcile their guilt for enjoying consensual non-consent, and whether it is morally wrong or an indication that something is wrong with them.  I believe that CNC, like most kinks, can be practiced in a conscientious way to reduce and mitigate the potential dangers, but that it requires consistent effort, education, and research.

Aside from these, I identified values which are important for me to maintain in order to meet the mission.  Some of them are:

transparency: I try to be as transparent as I can, while maintaining my privacy and anonymity, so that people know that I have nothing to hide.  I cannot build a safe space without building trust, and I can’t build trust without being honest and transparent.

leadership by example: if I am positioning myself as a resource and giving advice to others, I must embody the values I put forward and lead by example, not by words; otherwise, what I say is worthless and lacks substance.

data- and research-driven: I want to provide people with a deeper understanding of themselves and their kinks; while anecdotal information can at times be helpful, I want the things I posit to have weight and justification behind them.  This means an intersection of data, research, and analysis around all of the factors involved, including moral philosophy, psychology, sociology, and biology.

care and patience: these kinks are difficult and hurtful to some people, and confusing or conflicting to others.  I need to be caring, considerate, and patient in order for people to feel comfortable engaging with my content and interacting with me.

contextualized: these kinks and fantasies don’t exist in a vacuum and must be contextualized in order to remain conscientious of the relationship it maintains to the real world.  This means that I don’t want fantasies misrepresented as reality or reality misconstrued as fantasy, and the onus is on me to ensure that followers are seeing both sides of the equation.

quality over quantity: I have a limited amount of time that I can dedicate to VRF work, and want to make the best possible use of that time.  I want to focus on high-quality content, both in-persona fantasies and out-of-character advice, research, and resources, without worrying about how much or how frequently I’m posting.  It also means that I care far less about the number of followers and viewers I have, and much more about whether I am cultivating the kind of followers that match my vision for VRF and its community.

There are other factors and values as well, but these are the biggest ones for me.  They drive how I present myself, how I interact with the community, and what kinds of content I put forth.

VRF Website - Content and Features

What does the website allow me to do that I couldn’t on Tumblr?

No censorship, frustrating filters, or threat of termination - I can focus on my content without running into blockers at every turn, or worrying that I’m going to lose all my work without warning.

Better content controls, organization, and layout - I can group posts logically and have different ways for users to access and view them instead of being one monolithic stream of posts.

Tagging and search - I’ve tagged my archive with kinks, features, toys, actions, positions, locations, and more to make it easier to both find content that you want to see and avoid content that you don’t.  The VRF site features granular search controls, including tag combinations, so you can engage with the site how you choose.

Random Post/Random Caption - sometimes, you’re in the mood to mix things up.  Instead of seeing a temporally-sorted feed of posts, you can go to a random post or caption from the menu bar.

Clear disclaimers and view control - instead of my content being blended into a sea of posts, which creates difficulty in carving out that safe cognitive space for engaging with these kinks or necessitates rapid context-switching, all of my posts will be in one central repository with clear disclaimers where I have control over how things are viewed.

The VRF Archive - the content from the original @violent-rape-fantasies blog have been restored to the VRF website.

There are some downsides, of course - like the lack of network discovery, limited server space and resources, cost, maintenance, and effort.  But the benefits greatly outweigh the additional overhead.

VRF Community

What’s the VRF Discord community all about?

This is a new idea I’m playing with - I’m not new to Discord or community management, but combining that with VRF is a new endeavor for me.  Since I’m going to be shifting my focus from Tumblr to the VRF website, some of those network and community interactions from Tumblr will move to Discord instead, such as interacting with followers, taking requests, feedback, and suggestions, and delving deeper into kink philosophy, fantasy, and practice.

I’ve set up the Discord in a way that different sections can be partitioned - like general discussion, BDSM/kink discussion, CNC fantasies, member content (submissions), and so on.  The different sections are accessible to different levels of membership and verification to maintain that safe, inclusive, and collaborative space.  For example, agreeing to the rules and guidelines gives you access to the general discussion section; verifying your age gives you access to BDSM- and kink-related sections; and being an active and trusted member who contributes to the server over time gets you access to the private sections.

This will also be a much easier way to get in contact with me, and keep the majority of my interactions with the community in one place, instead of hunting across Tumblr messenger for both my accounts, Asks, Twitter, Discord DMs, Telegram, Kik, and email.

VRF - Next Steps and Future Work

In the next few weeks, the VRF website and Discord community will soft-open and move toward general opening.  This is a new direction for me, but after assessing my priorities and goals, it is the solution best suited for what I want to achieve.  I will continue to use Tumblr, but will likely be focusing the majority of my time on the website and Discord.

The mission and values I’ve identified leave quite a bit of room to explore various ways to express these kinks and share knowledge.  I’m not hard-set on VRF being a blog with porn and captions, and could see changes or pivots in the future.  I would love for this work to be able to generate some modest revenue in the future in order to cover basic operating costs, support survivors of abuse as well as kink education and safety, and commission custom content.  As an aside, if you read all of this, please start your request for access with the word “potato” in all caps to let me know you got this far.

I also want to move toward a more ethical and sustainable model of captions and fantasies.  My first step toward this is in creating gifs myself and fully crediting the source, which I started doing when I returned from hiatus.  Concurrently, I am working with my partner, who is an artist, to develop illustrations and animations to accompany captions instead of commercial pornography - we’re still in the R&D phase for this, but hope to share some early content soon (including a fantasy and sketch that we’re working on to accompany a follower submission).  Ideally, we would be able to collaborate with submitters and sex workers to create fully original, credited, and compensated content - but that’s a huge stretch goal for the future.

We are also considering other formats for fantasy and knowledge delivery, including a visual novel format or interactive media (i.e., games) if the art development turns out well and proves sustainable.  We’re both fairly busy people in our personal and professional lives, and in situations where we have to maintain a fairly strict separation between kink involvement and our everyday lives, so carving out time for VRF work is challenging at times!

I look forward to seeing folks on the VRF website and Discord community soon!

[rachelbethhines]

Tangled Salt Marathon - Short Cuts

So the reviews for Rapunzel’s Return are taking longer then expected and due to real life complications I’ve now fallen behind in my intended schedule. So in order to catch up, I’ll be doing a series of rapid-fire mini reviews of all the official shorts that the series released in addition to the usual reviews. 

Summary: Ten shorts were released throughout the three seasons of the show detailing Rapunzel’s misadventures in Corona. 

 Check Mate

Pascal tries to get Max to play chess with him, but the horse is too busy with guard duty to play. Pascal’s antics wind up causing a fire and Max must save him. 

This short, plus the later Unicorn-y short, and the episode Pascal’s Story pretty much confirms that chess is pascal’s favorite game. Shame that’s the only idiosyncrasy that the series gives besides being the conscious of the group that sometimes gives the other characters guilty looks.  

I said it before and I’ll say again, the animal sidekicks in the franchise don’t have enough personality to carry whole episodes by themselves, but shorts like this are ok and where things like this should have stayed.   

Prison Bake

Attila recounts how he used his baking skills to break his fellow pub thugs out of prison back before they met Rapunzel. 

This just raises so many questions. Why were they arrested? What was their punishment besides jail? Why weren’t they just re-arrested later after escaping? If they were all wanted criminals before meeting Raps then why did they try to call the guards during the movie to collect the reward money on Eugene’s head? Do we really think “crack-down on crime” Frederic would pardon them before Rapunzel’s return? How do we know they weren’t just framed given how shitty Corona’s legal system is? 

Like I just need a tiny bit more context show. Two to three minutes isn’t really long enough to set up conflicts. These shorts should have been more like five or six minutes really. 

Also Ludwig the Castle Cook is also just wasted. They built a model for him and hired a VA and everything and all he does is appear in this one short and nothing else. Like I think he makes a non-speaking cameo in The Alchemist Returns or something, but that’s it. It’s a clear mismanagement of resources.  

Make Me Smile

Rapunzel tries unsuccessfully to make Old Lady Crowley smile, but it’s not until she holds an honest conversation with the woman does she find a solution. 

This is best short out of the bunch, and not just cause it stars the great Pat Carol either. 

This is how Rapunzel should have been handled in the main series proper. Which is why I screen-grabbed this whole convo. It’s perfect. 

Rapunzel spent 18 years lock in a tower. Of course she doesn’t understand different perspectives from her own cause her development has been stunted. She’s compassionate but lacks empathy. So she has a hard time connecting with others, but once she slows down an actually takes the time to listen to people she is capable of learning. 

We needed more of this; just on a larger scale. Have Raps make mistakes, have people be annoyed with her or right angry when she messes up, and then have her learn. 

Why the series thought it was a good idea to have everyone kiss her royal arse instead while she dug in her heels and consendinly took charge of everything even while still screwing up, I’ll never know. 

Hare Peace

Feldspar asks Rapunzel to take care of his “precious”. Rapunzel thinks he means a pet rabbit, and is run ragged trying to keep up with it, but it turns out he was talking about his prized cabbage instead. 

These shorts overall work a lot better than the main show. They know what they are and don’t try to be anything else. Therefore they deliver what is promised competently. They’re nothing amazing nor groundbreaking and in truth I wouldn’t want a whole series of them, but I get the feeling this is what the head executives at Disney were expecting when they signed off on the show and not whatever mess the main series turned out to be. 

Night Bite

Rapunzel, Eugene, and the animals are out camping for the night and Max gets irritated by all the bugs. 

What doesn’t work so well is the placement of some of the shorts. This particular short aired during season two and indeed that would make sense given that they are camping out here. Which why would they do that if they were still in Corona... 

Yet some of the later shorts, which also aired during season two, clearly do take place in Corona debunking that theory. Just some context would be nice show, that’s all. 

Also this short is meh.. not bad, not, good, just there.  

Hiccup Fever

Rapunzel gets the hiccups and everyone in Corona seems to have advice on how to get rid of them, but only Eugene has the solution. 

I’d argue that this is the funniest of the shorts. I legit laughed out loud at some points which is rare. 

However it does sadly prove on thing. 

Rapunzel was always a shit girlfriend, even before season three. 

Being a douche to your boyfriend isn’t funny show. 

Snowball

Rapunzel and Pascal plan to have some fun in the snow and things go awry.   

So where and when is this exactly?

Unlike the other shorts, the context and setting for this one is paramount to whether or not Rapunzel is a simply lazy or a an outright dick. 

For you see, Rapunzel had never been outside in the show before Queen for a Day. Ergo, this can only take place during the latter half of season one or during season two. 

Now season two makes a lot of sense. They’re at some cabin in the woods that was never mentioned are seen on screen before and this did air during season two anyways. If that is the case then Raps just avoiding her planned road trip like always. 

However, the last short and the next two also aired during season two and all of those do take place in Corona during season one and even the wiki states that they were all meant to take place during season one in original concept. 

Yet if that is the case then Rapunzel is ignoring Varian right now and playing around in the thing that almost killed him... 

Oh and that still doesn’t explain where this cabin is. Is it the mountain retreat that the King and Queen were going to spend their anniversary at? 

What’s really mind boggling though is that they made this short in order to reuse the character models from Queen for a Day in order to save money, but then went and built this whole set that’s never seen outside of this short. 

Like seriously who was on charge of the budget decisions in the series? 

Hairdon't

Rapunzel offers to cut Eugene’s hair but then messes it up. She spends all day trying to stop Eugene from seeing his new do, but turns out the hairstyle becomes a hit with the Corona townspeople. 

Rapunzel seriously lucked out here and it borderlines on the main series style levels of BS. She asks Eugene not to get upset before he sees what she’s done and, guess what, he is rightly upset. 

Honestly the series needed to let Eugene get angry at Rapunzel for stuff. That’s what happens in relationships, you will make your partner mad at times and that’s ok. It’s all about how both of you handle that. 

We never get to see how Eugene and Rapunzel would handle a real ordinary conflict and not just magic/ex girlfriend shenanigans that don't end with them putting off talking about it. 

Even their best episodes in season two still are over conflicts that don’t have any immediate impact on their lives and are mostly hypotheticals to them, like kids or how other people should approach dating. And of course by season three Eugene is just reduced to a doormat. 

Unicorn-y

Rapunzel tries to help Vladimir find his missing prized unicorn figurine in this spoof of old detective movies. Turns out Max and Pascal had found it and were using it to play chess. 

Ok, first off, Eugene has the patience of a saint and deserves so much better than Raps and her bullcrap here. Same goes for Lance who is tied up as well during this scene. 

But also this is another short that needed to be more than three mins long. The “mystery” is over before it even starts and the film noir parody only barely has time register in the viewer’s mind and then it’s over with. 

Shorty’s Theme Song Takeover! 

The last of the shorts aired after the show had ended as part of the Disney Channel’s on going promotional gimmick “Theme Song Takeover!” 

Shorty finds Rapunzel’s journal and sings his own version of the show’s theme song, “Wind in my Beard”. 

It’s ok. 

All of Disney’s animated shows for the 2019/2020 line up has done one and some are funnier than than this and others not so. The Shorty one is pretty middle ground but what makes it work is that Rapunzel is completely oblivious to what’s going on and only Shorty, always the anomaly of the series, can perceive the fourth wall. Thus proving he was never really human. 

As for placement, we know it’s season three cause of Rapunzel’s dress and they’re mostly likely inside the Snuggly Duckling right now. So just slot it in wherever you see fit. 

Conclusion 

That’s it for the shorts. The rest of Rapunzel’s Return should be up later this week and then hopefully I’ll be all caught up in time to cover the next episode next week. 

[superangsty]

👉🏼👈🏼 ive been fixating on spirk lately and would like to talk abt it, if you were being sincere in your tags

fsdgfh honestly when I want to talk about something it’s mostly just me SCREAMING bc that SCENE man that SCENE. Like, the rest of STID is garbage especially when they brought Kirk back with Khan’s blood like what was that??? Why did they do that?? Also I feel like the first two films of AOS are really missing the whole crew being like a family and made it instead about a bunch of beautiful straight people having awkwardly written personal issues.

FIRST THINGS FIRST: required reading is of course Henry Jenkin's thing about The Glass. I tend to assume everyone has read it but if you haven't. Get on that. Here it is:

When I try to explain slash to non-fans, I often reference that moment in Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan where Spock is dying and Kirk stands there, a wall of glass separating the two longtime buddies. Both of them are reaching out towards each other, their hands pressed hard against the glass, trying to establish physical contact. They both have so much they want to say and so little time to say it. Spock calls Kirk his friend, the fullest expression of their feelings anywhere in the series. Almost everyone who watches the scene feels the passion the two men share, the hunger for something more than what they are allowed. And, I tell my nonfan listeners, slash is what happens when you take away the glass.

Anyway all I'm saying is that no matter what JJ Abrams thinks he CAN'T recreate WoK because he doesn't UNDERSTAND WoK at the necessary level.

But with regards to STID so like okay at a very basic level you've got two things which are 1) Spock having Big Feelings and 2) the knowledge that Vulcans kiss with their hands and these two things on their own were enough to make 14 year old me watching it in the cinema for the first time feel ABSOLUTELY INSANE like for real I've been chasing that high ever since. And when Spock starts screaming? That's the Good Shit. 

Also sidenote there's this theme park nearby (ish) called Thorpe Park and I went there on school trips a couple of times and there's a ride there called Rumba Rapids and the music they play in the queue is really not relevant but its fun and when I was 16 I suggested to my friends how much funnier films would be if it was playing during sad scenes so one time we watched STID and when we got to this scene we turned the volume down low and the rumba rapids music up high. Not relevant to this post, but I just Unlocked that memory while I was thinking about this and I wanted to share.

Just gonna preface this by saying that Spock's death in WoK is obviously a lot more compelling than Kirk's in STID because in AOS JJ Abrams has this obsession with making Kirk the big hero who's so amazing and brilliant and is carrying the entire world on his shoulders so of Course he would give up his life to save the ship (and when you think of the parallels w his father doing the same it becomes even more about him trying to live up to his father's reputation and idk! I feel like it cheapens the sentiment!). Meanwhile the original films they'd moved past TOS's kirk-centric vibe and it was about the crew working together bc they're a family and it's about Spock! Who'd run away to try and escape all these feelings that had come from the enterprise! And it's like yes he can explain his decision with the 'needs of the many' logic but at the end of the day he is doing this to save the people he loves and EVERYONE knows it.

One thing I will say in STID's favour is that the lead-up to this scene with the repetition of the "Better get down here. Better hurry." line from WoK is excellent mostly because Quinto is a much better actor than Shatner and you can see how INSTANTLY he understands it's to do w Kirk as opposed to Shatner looking over at Spock's empty chair and being like huh. Wots all this then. Also I like the way Quinto Spock runs I think it's funny :)

The next part when Scotty's like blah blah decontamination whatever after Spock asks him to open the door like sure okay I can get behind Spock being so overwhelmed that his common sense flies out the window but what I DON’T like is that it's only them down there. Where is the Drama of the entire engineering department watching Kirk have a meltdown over his best friend dying? Where's Kirk needing to be held back by three people because he's so desperate to get to Spock? Where's Scotty saying 'he's dead already' and the life just DRAINING out of Kirk? In STID it's just like "open the door." "can't do that." "yeah okay whatever."

NEXT BIT: Their dying conversation. In WoK Kirk and Spock have known each other most of their lives. They don't need to say much bc they just Understand each otherand you see that! When Kirk is finishing Spock's sentence and when Spock says "I have been and always shall be your friend" which seems a lot more meaningful than STID Kirk and Spock going "I want you to know why I went back for you" "Because you are my friend" and yeah it still HURTS but it's like. They don't have the history they don't have that enduring kinda love they just have a couple of years of being vaguely passive aggressive towards each other and it's still nice for Spock to realise like oh this is friends! This is a friendship! But Kirk's death just doesn't seem as tragic!!!

That being said. There ARE some raw lines there like "I'm scared Spock. Help me not to be. How do you choose not to feel?" "I do not know. Right now I am failing." Like that's IT that's the GOOD SHIT it's been nearly 8 years and I still think about it all the time. And again I can't say much for Chris Pine but Zachary Quinto's acting is MILES ahead of Shatner's and the crying! Spock crying! It's So Much!!!!!!!! And I like the music. I like the long shot of their hands meeting between the glass. It's very cinematic which while missing the campiness of WoK has it's own charm.

I like in WoK when Spock dies and Kirk slumps like he's lost every last bit of energy he had, like he's dying too, however I ALSO very much like in STID when Spock just fucking. Screams. And then goes and runs on a train and beats up Benedict Cumberbatch. I feel like it's fitting that Kirk dying kinda untethers him and lets him just absolutely lose his shit. I love seeing men beat each other up.

This has gone on much too long. Sorry I guess it just turns out I have Thoughts and this is probably barely skimming the surface but it's 9am on a Thursday and I have class in an hour but I've been sitting here rewatching the scenes and typing out this rant. As I said I really don't think I have anything original to say but like. Here ya go babe

[intheseautumnhands]

Sorting Hat Chats: Oxventures

Hey look, I finally actually got a sorting post written! .... and it's one that I'm pretty sure interests absolutely nobody else, because I don't think anyone else in the Sorting Hat Chats community is into Oxventures, and also the reverse. But the brainwanderings will go where they wish and they don't ask me for permission, and I've been marathoning (and sleeping to) a lot of Oxventures lately, so let's go.

Just in case anyone does choose to take a look, I'll do a brief sum up of both system and canon, so that no one's lost. System first, because I have some other thoughts about canon I want to mention. The full rundown of the basics is here, but just so we're all on the same page:

A VERY BRIEF OVERVIEW OF THE @sortinghatchats​SYSTEM

Your Primary house is your motivations, values, and why you do what you do. 

Lion Primaries do it this way because their gut tells them it's right.

Bird Primaries do it this way because the system they've put together to guide them tells them this is what's right.

Badger Primaries do it this way because it's the best thing for the community as a whole, or for the most people.

Snake Primaries do it this way because it's the best thing for the people they prioritize.

Your Secondary house is how you approach the world, the methods that come most easily and naturally to you.

Lion Secondaries charge. They attack problems head-on and directly, and they're in their comfort zone when they are their authentic selves.

Bird Secondaries plan. They collect tools, skills, and information, and they're in their comfort zone when they're prepared for the situation.

Badger Secondaries toil. They put their nose to the grindstone or they build connections to get things done, and they're in their comfort zone when things call for steady, consistent work.

Snake Secondaries improvise. They're adaptive and quick on their feet, and they're in their comfort zone when they have the wiggle room to go with what comes to them.

Other terminology may come up as well. I will try and link to posts that explain it better if I end up using anything.

A VERY BRIEF EXPLANATION OF OXVENTURES

Oxventures is the D&D Actual Play show done by the youtube gaming channels Outside Xbox and Outside Xtra, DMed by Johnny Chiodini from the tabletop game channel Dicebreaker. They've been going since fall 2017, first in-person and now streamed. It is an extremely fun show with a group of very entertaining players that have been basically learning to play as it goes. If you're into D&D shows and not too bothered by a very hand-wavey approach to rules, I greatly recommend it.

There are, however, some things that make it difficult to sort. It's a comedy show, and while I don't think this is true for every comedy, in general, it's very easy for characterization to occasionally get passed over for a laugh. It's sometimes hard to tell what jokes are being thrown around OOC versus IC. And the D&D format means there is no going back and editing anything; characterization is developed on the fly, and there's already been discussion that talked about how some of the characters changed as they were being played. Also, it's action-driven -- you don't always get a lot of information on what's going through people's head, so motivation can be hard to pin down.

So it's a little difficult and I've gotten wobbly on a lot of them. Which makes it a great choice for my first sorting!

(...To be fair, it's my first sorting post. I've been watching this system and sorting things to myself for -- *checks when I first mentioned it* wait hold on five years? Really? Okay, cool. Excuse me while I sit and have a mental montage to How Far We've Come as I remember all the fine-tuning it's been through in that time.

Anyway, I've been sorting things to myself for five years, so I'm not new to this, I'm just new to trying to explain my whys, so I hope this comes out understandable. I'm sorry for the rambling, because we're already 750 words in and I haven't even started.)

   ANYWAY LET'S GET TO THE SORTING.

Corazón de Ballena, human pirate rogue  Corazón, oh Corazón, what... do I even do with you. He's clearly not a Badger -- fairness and other people's needs are not his priority. Between the obvious Jack Sparrow riff and the "pirate seeking glory" thing, my instinct is to say a Lion Primary, probably a Gloryhound Lion in specific. I could see a Bird Primary, just because there is something extremely constructed-feeling about Corazón -- I think his truth would look very Snake-like, prioritizing himself and the people he chooses, but I could see it.

But I'm going to lean into a full Snake Primary, I think. While he doesn't care about most people, he does care very much about the people who do matter to him -- see his whole complicated relationship with his father, even after his father tried to kill him; see his burning down a guy's house because he's mean to Prudence; to some extent, see his attempt to help end his old crew's curse. He puts people above anything else, but only the people he chooses to (or where can't help it, in his father's case) I think he'd almost like people to believe that he's Burned and doesn't care about anyone else, but he very much is not, though he doesn't seem to let new people into the circle often or easily, either. I could still very much see a Gloryhound Lion, but in the end I think if asked to put the party first or fame and fortune first -- he would complain, he would never let them hear the end of it, but he would also choose the party every single time.

For Secondary: Corazón would really want people to think he's a Snake. If he could read the descriptions and pick his own, I'm pretty sure he'd say he was a Snake. Adaptable, cunning, deceitful -- and it's not that he's not these things, but the way it manifests itself feels much more like a rapid-fire Bird Secondary. He's analytical, he learned magic entirely from books, and I haven't actually counted, but I would bet you that he makes more investigation rolls than anyone else. While his quickly thought up plans do work, they often tend to rely on things he already knows -- disguise self and minor illusion come up often, hiding and evading, etc. He seems to be one of the party that gets the most non-combat use out of his various magical abilities. It's a very quick and jack-of-many-trades style of Bird, but it's still very Bird.

Dob, half-orc bard  Dob is quite possibly the loudest loyalist primary... just, that I have ever seen, ever. To start with, I'm just going to drop this quote here: "I know there's good in you, jailor I just met!"

How about the way that he's first introduced as a bard who goes from town to town playing the lullaby his lost sister used to sing to him, searching for her. Or his habit of, to quote TV Tropes, "engaging in random acts of adoption". Or the time he tried to learn spells to apologize to the dead orphans. Or how he still managed to forgive the skeletons that killed the orphans. Or the time he forgave the cult that almost got them all killed. Or giving the cultists (from a different cult) relationship advice. Or the time he ended up listening to the jailor's marriage woes. Or....

Look, I could keep going but I think we've got enough examples. So: Badger or Snake? On the one hand he definitely seems to worry about saving his particular people first when there's danger... but, there's a level of guilt about innocent people who have died on his watch, and that habit of taking in random people on multiple adventures, that really makes me lean towards a Badger Primary. Dob seems to genuinely care about everyone they cross as a default, and of all of them, he's the first I can see coming to the aid of an enemy who he has no prior positive experiences with.

As for a Secondary, Dob is the master of quick plans, quicker lies, and steamrolling NPCs into going along with things. The entire party ends up thinking on their feet more often than not, but he seems to do his best work that way, as a Snake Secondary often does. Sometimes he goes so fast that he forgets something and makes a mistake -- which is how "don't be a Dob" has become a thing -- but his impulsive ideas actually work out more often than it doesn't, and he's also very good at connecting with a wide variety of people. On the page for Snake/Slytherin Secondaries, the SHC site says, 

"Slytherins will adapt to their own best advantage without thinking about it. They’ll walk into a situation and things will work out to their benefit without them quite knowing what happened or what they did to influence it." 

-- and doesn't that just fit with Dob's ridiculous amounts of luck?

He does seem to spend a fair amount of time in his neutral state, or at least adapting in a non-conscious kind of way. There is something generally blunt about Dob a lot of the time, enough that I considered Lion pretty heavily -- but in the end, he works best when he's running on the fly and making shit up, in a way that feels extremely Snake to me. And he's not only so good at lying, but so quick to default to it, that Lion doesn't feel accurate.

Egbert the Careless, dragonborn paladin Poor Egbert, the worst paladin. While his original order really seems to prioritize a very classic Paragon Lion Primary, Egbert barely seems to have a model of one -- it's more of a performance, which is being chipped steadily away by the rest of the party. He tries, but I can't see a genuine Lion Primary from his background killing people so casually. Or hitting an old man with a cursed mace over and over until he turns into a seal. And then keeping the seal as a pet. Or just... saying "maybe crime is good!" because he likes the food at the crime den. He's trying, but he's really not good at it. So the question remains: what is he?

I think it's hard to place him because, one, he really want to be that Lion. And second, whatever he is, I think the values that motivation is set on are... kind of in flux? I don't think he's super burned; I think he might be lightly charred at best. But: if he's a Bird, he's in the process of losing the truth of "whatever the Order of the Dragon Door says is right" to something that comes more from the party and probably more genuinely. If he's a Badger, he's in the process of changing communities. If he's a Snake, the Order is getting pushed more and more out of his inner circle, replaced by the party.

I was leaning Badger, but the more I think about it, I think that's the remnants of the attempt to play Lion. I think Egbert's a Snake Primary who is starting to shed his old skin. (There's like three layers of bad joke in that, and I'm sorry.) The Lion priorities made that Snake look a little more Badger-y, but he does so, so many things that just don't strike me as caring deep down about need. Like the thing where he turned an old man into a seal. I just keep looking at that incident and I either need to completely ignore that incident -- which is hard, when Seal Gaiman is still hanging around -- or go with something else. His reaction to Dana's bigotry in Snow Mercy does feel a little more Badger-y to me... but that could still be that Lion Performance flavoring, and/or a symptom of how the party as a whole gets pissed about anti-tiefling sentiment coming out in sympathy of another maligned race. I also feel like a Badger would be working a little more actively on atonement and stop getting distracted.

He is, however, a very loud Lion Secondary. While the party as a whole does a lot of ploys that involve deceit or talking their way into things, Egbert is rarely the one doing that part. He doesn't bother with subtlety, or with doing any of the many things he can as a paladin, which is how we got the whole glorious "you've been able to teleport for how long?" moment. He does sometimes manage to make connections that move the story along, and he always does it by being himself.

But most of all, I can't think of a better word to describe how Egbert attacks a situation than charging. I'm just going to quote again from the site: 

"their problems are met head on rather than subverted, negotiated, or cajoled. They have an efficiency so direct it’s almost combative." 

And that seems like Egbert to a T.

Merilwen, wood elf druid Merilwen is a Badger Primary whose version of "people" is "animals, my community, and also I guess these four now". She doesn't really seem to care about what would traditionally be considered "people", and Ellen (who plays her) has spoken about how Merilwen's morals towards non-animals is pretty much entirely influenced by the party --  but with the things she cares about she strikes me as extremely Badger. She's absolutely ready to throw down everything for the party, but when they're not in danger from it, she will also absolutely fight the rest of them for an animal -- see that incident where she talked everyone out of fighting the Owlbear. "Animals are hurt" or "you hurt my friends" is the fastest way to bring out her viscous side.

She could also maybe be a Snake who includes all animals in her circle, but: one, I very much feel like she'd choose whether to prioritize her friends or an animal over who needs her more. Two, the way she interacts with her family and her community in Elf Hazard seems very Badger to me. Her worry about not being able to see her family again, her unwillingness to disappoint them and decision to take a new name to make them happy, even after the danger is past. Things like Merilwen's Meat-Grinder also strike me this way -- specifically, her willingness to do massive damage to save the party and subsequent discomfort with having done it, even though she doesn't care that much about the people who were hurt even after having done it. "Fair and loyal" seems like a good way to sum up her morality in general. Her being so close to Dob and understanding each other so well also adds to this (even if a lot of that likely has to do with Ellen and Luke (who plays Dob) being so close as much as anything, but if I try to separate out things that are OOC-influence I will be here forever).

I'm torn between the foundational Secondaries for her: Bird, or Badger. There is something about her likelihood to fall back on "I turn into a [cat/bear/octopus]" as a plan that feels a little Bird-like to me -- that fallback on the favored, most well-used, best-understood tools, even in situations where it takes a little forcing to make them fit. On the other hand, she seems to be the one most likely to see a job that's not being done as part of the plan, and go fill that role. She's certainly steady, trustworthy, quiet, and consistent. I don't think she has a problem with shortcuts on many things, but could see her raising objections about things she actively cares about. She also often solves things by connecting with animals, which fits when you consider her people/community largely being animal-based. I'm still a little back and forth on this, but in the end, I'm going to lean towards a Badger Secondary.

Prudence, tiefling warlock I'm having a hard time putting my finger on Prudence. I think this is partly Jane's play style -- I feel like she's the least likely to go into what's going on in Prudence's head or why she's doing things, and she doesn't really have a driving goal we're aware of except "do things to make Cthulhu pleased", but that's mostly along the way. She's not a Badger. I would lean towards not a Lion; I guess it's possibly she's a Lion whose gut morality is about hedonism, "I should have what I want", or something like that, but I really don't get the impression that she has much of an internal morality overall. "Some things are just wrong and you can't talk your way out of it" (to quote the Lion/Gryffindor Primary page) absolutely does not sound like something Prudence would ever thing.

So again we're between the decided Primaries: Bird or Snake? I could see her being a Bird, but I have no idea what her truth is at this point. Still, I want to lean towards Snake Primary, specifically one that was burnt. We're going into how-IC-was-this-anyway territory here again, but there's a moment early on, in Brawl of the Wild, where Jane is narrating Prudence hurling herself in front of two of the others and stops mid-narration to ask "wait, why am I doing that" -- it feels incredibly like a Snake who's found themselves unburning while they weren't paying attention and now is trying to figure out how this happened. She's also pretty open with how fond she is of the party, pleased as punch when Corazón burns down the house of a guy who's an asshole to her, even more pleased when Egbert seems corruptible, seems genuinely happy that the group has gotten more lax about killing, and of course there's "You'll never leave me, Corazón, I'll kill you first" and hugging the Egbert-statue after he's been kidnapped when no one can see her.

But more than the party, what makes me lean towards Snake is her relationship with her warlock patron. There's nothing cold, nothing business-like, it's not even worshipful: Cthulhu-dad is kind of a joke, but... it's also not? Even if the actual fatherly-ness of it can be read as joking, she still genuinely seems to have warm, loving feelings for him, and that particular set-up really strikes me a loyalist thing.

(That gives us an all-loyalist party, but honestly, considering they're not the most moral people around and how quickly they all bond... that kind of works?)

Bird Secondary -- her plans tend to be the most practical, she has her favored methods for handling things, and her interest in all things magic strikes me as very Bird-with-a-favorite-thing. Her Bird seems pretty good at reading people, too, particularly knowing the party's strengths -- which is often chaos and making things up. She's not quite a rapid-fire as Corazón, but she's pretty good on her feet if need be... it's just that her lack of interest in what's morally right means the plan she usually pulls out is "eldritch blast". To be fair, it usually works.

IN SUMMATION:

Corazón: Snake Primary/Bird Secondary (possible Snake performance)

Dob: Badger Primary/Snake Secondary (possible Badger model)

Egbert: Snake Primary (attempting to model the Order and possibly Shattershield's Lion Primary, which comes off weirdly Badger-ish in the end)/Lion Secondary

Merilwen: Badger Primary (whose "people" are animals, the elf community she grew up in, and now the Oxventurers)/Badger Secondary

Prudence: Unburning Snake Primary/Bird Secondary

OXVENTURE IN THE DARK BONUS ROUND:

Very recently they've begun an Oxventure spin-off series, playing Blades in the Dark instead. We're only two episodes in, and since part of the plan is to rotate who's in each episode, most of them are only in one -- and since we've gotten so little of the new group, and so much can change as the players learn their characters and find their feet, I can't confidently sort them right now. But I think it'd be interesting to share some initial impressions and see how they hold up down the line. Spoilers for both episodes if anyone's behind, I'll put Lillith and Barnaby last just to be sure.

Edvard: If Edvard the inventor is not a Bird Secondary, I will eat my hat. I could see him going the way of the traditional SHC impulsive scientists who do things For Science, and ending up in Lion/Bird territory, or going towards Bird/Bird; at the moment I don't think he'll be a loyalist, but we'll see!

Zillah: I think we know less about Zillah than anyone else at this point, but we do know that, one, she's doing crime to get money for her family, and two, she seems pretty level-headed. I'm thinking maybe a Lion Secondary, leaning away from Bird Primary but at this point could see anything else.

Kasamir: Between his class/playbook being about having his fingers in a lot of crime pies, Johnny saying he's not really good at anything besides crime, and his slight mentor-y vibe in episode one, I'm getting Badger Secondary or Bird Secondary vibes -- leaning Badger right now, but we'll see. (I'm also getting Mozzie-from-White-Collar-but-more-physical vibes, but I cannot find the sorting that Moz used to be under, unfortunately. I want to say either Badger/Bird or Bird/Badger.) He doesn't strike me as a Lion Primary at this point, but we'll see.

Lillith: I was going to say Bird Secondary because she's leaning so hard into the intellectual, but so far she has tried to solve problems by befriending a ghost girl and convincing the workers to start a union so.... I'm feeling some Badger/Lion or Lion/Badger vibes coming off her at this point. She might slide into a more Bird-y role in the future, or it might end up looking more like a model.

Barnaby: Despite having gotten through two episodes now basically saving the day by being himself, I don't get Lion Secondary vibes from him -- actually, I'm thinking he could end up a Badger Secondary, just extremely far on the Courtier Badger side of the scale, and one that’s very full of himself. Not sure on that yet, though. Primary: no idea, but probably not Badger.

[kaasknot]

1x6 thoughts

first things first:

holy SHIT you guys we have canon gays, extremely canon, incontrovertible, unapologetic main character gays in a high-budget genre flick. !!!!!!!!

moiraine was clearly the pov character of this ep, and it was done beautifully. the rapid clip of the scenes and her constant frenetic movement within them really conveyed the terrible anxiety she's operating under: managing not only five unruly potential chosen ones, but also cutthroat tower politics. even when she was perfectly still i got the impression of a quiet surface hiding turmoil beneath. massive, massive props to rosamund pike for carrying it off so seamlessly.

siuan was also fantastically dynamic. the change between the static, uncompromising amyrlin seat in an official capacity, her more relaxed "half mask" to prospective novices, and her true face to moiraine was a tribute to sophie okonedo's craft. i was also so satisfied by the set decoration and worldbuilding in this ep,too, and how it built siuan's character—the difference between her sitting room, where she meets people in a semi-informal fashion, versus her inner sanctum, which is tairen through and through. (i especially loved the detail of her mending nets to keep her hands busy; crochet for fishermen’s daughters.)

also just... it’s so nice to have nonsexual nudity and non-explicit sex scenes. lookin’ at you, GoT.

i'm relieved we finally got moiraine healing mat, though it was a bit of an anticlimax for me; for the first time, mat looked like he was actually cursed/possessed instead of just sick—and then it was over. (not over over, we still haven't addressed padan fain's cameo from last ep, but it still felt rushed.) also i haven't read the books in 20 years but i'm pretty damn sure mat went on the ways with everyone else. i'm trying to remind myself that this is more an "inspired by" than a word-for-word adaptation, but i'm struggling to imagine a way forward from here, especially after all the lead-up the show gave about mat as a potential dragon. that ending... i have questions.

perrin and egwene's plot also suffered. not so much in the internal logic of the episode, where they were minor characters and played such, but as it tied to the previous episode and the story as a whole. if perrin’s condition was that critical when they left the whitecloaks, how they fuck did they get to tar valon before he bled out?? alternately if they were that close to tar valon, why the fuck didn’t warders or the city guard or someone chase them off? the tower's influence might wane the further away you go from tar valon, but the same can be said of the whitecloaks and amador.

and then loial. i’m not sure someone who hasn’t read the books would pick up that he was the one who knew about the waygates. like, the reason he’s in the plot at this point is because he knows the ways. i assume that’s why moiraine brought him to the white tower, so they could hash out their travel plans, but we didn’t hear the conversation, so... idk, he seemed surplus to the plot’s requirements. i love loial, but the pace is so rushed that the show doesn’t seem to be using him effectively.

it’s just one more way in which s1 would have benefited from 10 episodes instead of 8. the showrunners are working miracles with what they’ve got, but it's still coming at the expense of the through-plot. that said, we’re still incredibly early in the series—maybe later, after other characters get their moments in the sun, we can look back and things will fit better into a more coherent whole. (also honestly, given the sheer density of named characters in the books, i don't think we're going to see the slow character development everyone was given. it's going to be brisk, because there simply isn't time.)

i'm really eager to re-watch all of season 1 as a complete piece of storytelling.

[therealsaintscully]

My list of X-Files inspired BBC Sherlock fic prompts

 I recently finished reading @88thparallel​‘s fabulous “Written in Ashes”, a BBC Sherlock fic inspired by the X-Files episode Demons. I’m a huge X-Files fan myself, and the idea of adapting an XF story into a Sherlock one sent me down a rabbit hole. I decided to compose a list of ideas, all up for grabs, for X-Files plots that can be adapted in interesting ways to a BBC Sherlock casefics.

Below you’ll find a list of X-Files episode with their original description, and some suggestions based on my knowledge of the two shows of what makes the plot an interesting one to write. As I mentioned, these ideas are PROMPTS, suggestions - feel free to write them. In fact it’ll be my honor! Let me know if and when you do (I might even create a collection for them in AO3).

Ice (1x07) - Mulder and Scully  investigate the death of an Alaskan research team. Isolated and alone, the agents and their accompanying team discover the existence of extraterrestrial parasitic organisms that drive their hosts into impulsive fits of rage.  Cool plot points you might enjoy writing: extreme nature adventures (mountains, snow, remote research facilities); isolated together with strangers in a distant location (Ice was supposed to be a bottle episode); a lot of suspense as Mulder and Scully’s trust in each other is put to the test (a handgun showdown), physical inspections rife with sexual tension, ooo! 

Darkness Falls (1x19) - Mulder and Scully are called in to investigate when a team of loggers disappear without a trace. Initially suspecting eco-terrorism, the agents find themselves trapped by a seemingly ancient menace lurking in the woods. According to Wikipedia, “Chris Carter was inspired to write this episode based on an interest in dendrochronology (sic? that’s how it’s spelled in wikipedia), a subject that involves analyzing annual growth rings found in non-tropical tree species.”  An interesting topic to develop!  Cool plot points you might enjoy writing: Just like in Ice, opportunity to write magnificent nature descriptions; also like in Ice, Mulder and Scully have to fend to themselves against the ‘others’; wonderful quotes such as “Rugged manly-men. In the full bloom of their manhood.” and “Come on, Scully. It'll be a nice trip to the forest." A Three Garridebs moment could work here!

Pusher (3x17) - Ah, Pusher. An early Vince Gilligan classic! Mulder and Scully’s assistance is requested for a case involving a man, who goes by the pseudonym "Pusher", seemingly capable of bending people to his will. The suspect uses his mysterious abilities to manipulate Mulder into a dangerous end game.  Cool plot points you might enjoy writing: Many parallels can be found between Modell and Eurus and or Moriarty; the game of cat and mouse in hopes of luring Mulder as the end game is quite similar to the TFP/TGG; the final game of Russian roulette with Mulder at the end is a classic MSR scene which could be lovely to write for John and Sherlock (Gillian is amazing with that One Tear™  while she threatens Modell); an opportunity to instill a fear of a very specific shade of blue in your readers; a chance of a sequel, since Modell returns with a vengeance in Kitsunegari.

Jose Chung's From Outer Space (3X20) - Mulder and Scully hear, and promptly investigate, a story about an alien abduction of two teenagers. Each witness provides a different version of the same facts. Within the episode, a thriller novelist, Jose Chung, writes a book about the incident.  Cool plot points you might enjoy writing: Humor! Lots and lots self-aware, meta-type inner-jokes humor as an observant book writer describes Mulder/Sherlock’s many weird traits.

Avatar (3x21) - Assistant Director Walter Skinner  is accused of murdering a prostitute, Mulder and Scully investigate to determine the truth behind what happened. Cool plot points you might enjoy writing: A fine chance to turn Skinner into Sholto or one of John’s other army friends (Skinner discusses trauma from his days in Vietnam in this episode, which could be adapted to Afghanistan). John Asks for Sherlock’s help on behalf of Sholto/said friend and there’s a thrilling prospect of some good old jealousy :) *After writing this I kinda fell in love with this idea and I might attempt writing this, but I’m absolutely not claiming this exclusively! If you like the idea go ahead!

Paper Hearts (4X08) - Another Vince Gilligan episode, my go-to one these days for when I miss the show and need a good dose of Mulder and Scully. I can go on and on about why I love this episode but I’ll spare you from that right now ;) Mulder and Scully find that a child killer who Mulder had helped to apprehend several years earlier had claimed more victims than he had confessed to; and in the resulting investigation, learn that the killer is now claiming to have killed Mulder's sister Samantha. Cool plot points you might enjoy writing: The Alice in Wonderland theme in the episode is somewhat reminiscent of the Hansel and Gretel theme from TRF so Moriarty could be one way to go; another way to go is have Eurus as a villain in a TFP plot fix-it (if you find the Sherrinford plot exaggerated), with Sherlock’s hope of finding Victor’s body by the end of the game.

Zero Sum (4x21) - In the episode, a case Mulder is asked to investigate is covertly covered up by the agents' boss Walter Skinner, who has made a sinister bargain with The Smoking Man. Scully is missing in this episode (Mulder cites her cancer treatments; Gillian Anderson was filming something else at the time). Cool plot points you might enjoy writing: A wonderful opportunity for a Lestrade-as-Skinner story!  (and you’re given a fine chance to write a Lestade naked with nothing but pants situation); Mulder is a bit lost without Scully in this episode so that’s added background Johnlock angst; the story can happen when John is away, either during his honeymoon or after Mary dies.

The Pine Bluff Variant (5x18) - This is an underrated episode which I quite like, personally. Scully grows suspicious of Mulder when she thinks he may be helping a terrorist organization. Scully begins to wonder if he is now a traitor to the FBI. It is eventually revealed that Mulder is working as a mole in the group, and he is trying to stop them before they are able to use a biological weapon—that may have been created by members of the U.S. government—which causes rapid degeneration of human flesh. Cool plot points you might enjoy: alternating POVs between Sherlock and John; a lot of tension between John and Sherlock while John is suspicious; Mycroft recruiting Sherlock to appear as a traitor.

Triangle (6x03) - What can I possibly say about Triangle that hadn’t been said before? Cool plot points you might enjoy: An AU-within-AU opportunity - a chance for John and Sherlock to meet in a WW2 era, saved by rebel-Nazi Lestrade, Sherlock’s irregulars are The Lone Gunmen, a kiss, a punch, “You’re my one in five billion” (remember when there 5 billion people on this planet?) :) If you do write this, please make sure present John and past John pass each other by and get a strange, tingling sensation as a result! It’s one of my favorite scenes in the entire show.

Dreamland I & II (6x04 and 6x05) - Mulder and Scully visit Area 51. But when the agents witness the flight of a mysterious craft, Mulder and a member of the Men in Black switch bodies, unbeknownst to the others. In part two, Scully begins to suspect that her partner's strange behavior is more than it appears to be, while Mulder fights to return his life to normal before it is too late. Cool plot points you might enjoy: Humor, humor and more humor. Mostly Morris Fletcher trying to bed John (=Scully) who promptly pulls a gun on him. That should be an awesome scene to write in and of itself. And let’s not forget “Lately, for lunch, you've been having this six-ounce cup of yogurt, plain yogurt, into which you stir bee pollen because you're on a bee pollen kick even though I tell you you're a doctor and you should know better.“ as well as “I’d kiss you if you weren’t so damn ugly.”

Tithonus (6x09) - Another underrated episode. I think it deals with the theme of death’s inevitability rather beautifully. Scully learns that she, but not Mulder, is being given a chance to prove her worth at the FBI, and—paired with a new partner—she investigates a crime scene photographer with an uncanny knack for arriving just in time to see his victims' final moments. What she does not expect, however, is for Death to play a role himself. Cool plot points you might enjoy writing: John exploring on his own, for one reason or another, attached to another investigator (things happen!); this episode further explores a theory referred throughout the show since Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose, that Dana Scully is immortal (she seems to avoid death in this episode as well). It’s an Appointment in Samarra sort of story.

Monday (6x15) - Mulder and Scully are stuck in a deadly time loop. It’s a story that writes itself! Cool plot points you might enjoy writing: Sherlock or John having a really bad morning, over and over again.

Alpha (6x16) - Mulder and Scully investigate several killings blamed on an Asian dog called the Wanshang Dhole, thought to be extinct. Mulder and Scully join an obstinate Sheriff, a seemingly eccentric hunter, and a reclusive canine expert to find it. However, there is more mystery to the expert than meets the eye. Cool plot points you might enjoy writing: I enjoy this episode because it has some gentle but obvious MSR moments. Scully is suspicious (and low-key jealous) of Karin Berquist’s involvement in the case and it colors her opinion of the investigation. A key quote in this episode, preformed softly and beautifully by Gillian, is: “She's enamored of you Mulder. Don't underestimate a woman. They can be tricksters, too.”

The Unnatural (6x17) - This is a weird ass episode, let’s admit it. This is DD’s love story to baseball and it’s silly and sometimes boring/slow. BUT, it has lovely MRS moments.  Cool plot points you might enjoy writing: The structure of story within a story (Mulder retells his time spent with Arthur Dales who tells him the story of Josh Exley) is interesting enough. The opening and closing scenes are lovely as well of course!

X-Cops (7x12) - Mulder and Scully are interviewed for the Fox reality television program Cops during an X-Files investigation. Mulder, hunting what he believes to be a werewolf, discovers that the monster terrorizing people instead feeds on fear. While Mulder embraces the publicity of Cops, Scully is more uncomfortable about appearing on national television. Cool plot points you might enjoy writing: It’s your chance to write a Sherlock crossver fic about an X-Files crossover episode. If that’s not cool, I don’t no what is.

Hollywood A.D. (7x18) - Let’s admit it, Hollywood A.D is not a good episode, as funny as it is. This episode was one of the first signs the show had lost its edge, possibly because they thought this would be their truly-this-time last season. However, it IS funny and gave rise to fans claims that by this point, Mulder and Scully were Definitely Sleeping Together. Wayne Federman, an entrepreneurial Hollywood producer and college friend of Walter Skinner picks up the idea for a film based on the X-Files, however Mulder and Scully find that the level of realism in their fictional portrayal is somewhat questionable. Meanwhile, during the filming of the movie, Mulder and Scully research the mysterious "Lazarus Bowl", an artifact that supposedly has the exact words that Jesus Christ spoke to raise Lazarus from the dead recorded on its surface. Cool plot points you might enjoy writing: Lots of inner-jokes and crack humor, many fluffy moments, the chance to imagine who’ll play Lestrade, Sherlock and John in a BBC Film, Lazarus could refer to The Fall(!), which could be the plot to said film.

The X-Files: I Want to Believe - Mulder and Scully have both left the FBI, but when an FBI agent is mysteriously kidnapped, and a former priest who has been convicted of being a child molester claims to be experiencing psychic visions of the endangered agent, they reluctantly accept the FBI's request for their paranormal expertise. I know, I know. Don’t look at me like that. I didn’t like it either at first, but a) compared to the revival seasons, it’s not that bad and b) in terms of established relationship angst, it’s a fucking goldmine. Cool plot points you might enjoy writing: A chance to write a post-recent-retirement fic for Sherlock and John, with a lot of tension in their established relationship based around John’s reluctance to return to their lives as investigators. IWTB has quotes like “This isn't my life anymore, Mulder. I'm done chasing monsters in the dark.” and “This stubbornness of yours, it's why I fell in love with you.”  So there! Don’t dismiss the idea so quickly!

Wow, this turned out longer than I expected! I hope you liked them, and even if you don’t write anything - I definitely enjoyed this exercise.

My finished fics are ready to be read on AO3 :)

[psychopersonified]

KIdnapped!Q - Part 2

Continued from Part 1 here.

---------

“The boyfriend don’t feed you??” she shakes her head and sends a glare at Bond’s direction indicating what she thinks about his efforts.

Q nearly spit takes his tea. He forces it down, choking in the process.

Bond clears his throat. “I think… you’ll find the boyfriend tries his best,” he grinds out, still looking straight ahead, his tone betraying more than a little indignation.

-----------

Notes: The event told roughly from Bond's POV especially the first half. Plus the aftermath. This is me trying to get into Bond's head. Also, let's all get on Bond's case shall we? 

Towards the end, there is exposition of technical plot. I've tried to interject it with humour and also to use this opportunity for character development.

Some parts borrowed heavily from Spectre (movie) but does not take place in that universe.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Level 5 Lobbby, SIS (MI6) HQ

Kneeling beside Q in the Level 5 lobby of MI6 HQ, Bond vacillates between being livid at himself and overwrought with worry for Q. The young man is crumpled unconscious on the marble floor. He had seen it coming. Q was already too pale in the car, lips almost colourless. He had to call Q’s name twice before he responded to exit the vehicle.

He should have dealt with it in the parking garage, instead of turning Q into a spectacle here in the lobby. He recognised the symptoms of hyperventilation when he saw it. Bond was hoping to get Q to medical before helping him recover.

He checks Q’s pulse, rapid but weak. He’s breath is still shallow. If medical doesn’t get there in the next minute, he’s going to pick Q up and carry him there. A crowd is forming around them. Level 5 lobby is the main exchange lobby inside HQ - where the ‘public’ meets the ‘secret’. The floors above level 5 house the Executive and Operational branches. Level 5 and below that are the public facing areas - accounts, administrative, HR, logistics, cafeteria, etc. To get to the upper levels, they have to change to the restricted lift banks further to the rear of the building.

And now, it’s right in the middle of the workday morning. Curious staff from both upstairs and downstairs are standing around staring. Bond wants badly to tell them to -piss off-, but it would just make rumours spread faster.

Dr. Chen arrives just then with two of her aides, a crash cart and a gurney. Together they put Q onto the gurney, checking his vitals on the way to Medical.

“BP  87/60. Pulse 110. Oxygen saturation 92%. Glucose levels 61mg/dL,“ One of the medical aides report.

“He’s borderline hypoxic and in hypoglycaemic shock. Prepare glucagon shot, and glucose IV drip.” Dr Chen orders as they fit Q with an oxygen mask.

Knowing Q, he likely hadn’t taken breakfast yet that morning either. He was still asleep when Bond left for HQ. Add that to the fact that Q barely had dinner the night before; appetite suppressed by the cold he was having - he was running very low on reserves.

—

The treatment room doors close in his face. One of the senior nurses had brandished a folded stethoscope in his face like a weapon and told him to stay. That was Maria, a straight talking matronly nurse of Pilipino descent, the only nurse in medical that isn’t afraid of his 00-status despite being nearly a foot shorter than him. So he’s now left pacing the corridor outside.

—

Earlier that day

When his phone buzzed that morning with a security alert ::Lobby Alert:: , 007 was in a meeting in the operations centre with M, Tanner and 004 running through plans for the next mission in Libya. A local warlord was buying guns presumably to fight ISIS insurgents but intel has it that he’s gone from fighting them to suppling them - profits were better.

007 had excused himself to a corner to check the app that would give him access to the security cameras in Q’s building. The sight of the three men at the door with the battering ram had him on his feet in an instant - heart in his throat. The distress signal came through seconds later.

He was out of the conference room door in seconds and into the main operations area where the wall of monitors stood. R was there and had apparently received the same alert - the warning flashing red and urgent across one of the monitors.

“007, Sir!” R called out to him from across the room, “Q’s distress signal was just activated.” R looked to Bond like he might have an explanation.

M and the others in the conference room had followed him out when they noticed him leave abruptly.

“I just received the same alert. Security cameras show three men attempting to gain access.” Bond held up his phone to indicate how he knew.

Panic flickered across R’s face for a moment; but her training kicked in and she started calling out orders to the minions around her, “Executive Protocol Q! Attempted forced entry at Quartermaster’s residence in progress. I want CCTV feeds around his residence. Get the police on the line, how fast can they get a patrol unit there-...”

What happened next was a flurry of activity. Bond’s only deference to protocol was to turn to M and nod his leave before sprinting out. Tanner caught up with him at the lifts, a tablet in hand. He swiped his Chief of Staff card and tapped a short code that would give him (or more accurately M) preferential lift access in emergencies.

“M says to take his car. R can patch through the feeds and update us on the way.” Bond would normally object to having someone tag along with him, but in this instance a government vehicle with its blues-and-twos flashing would get them through traffic quicker.

By the time they got to the parking garage, they were joined by another team of agents. Tanner had the keys to M’s Jaguar and took position as driver, he signalled to one of the other agents jump into the front passenger seat - leaving 007 to stew in the back. The remaining agents followed in a separate vehicle.

-

“Tanner... a little more speed would be appreciated.”

“007, why don’t you pay attention to the tablet and help R out?” Tanner suggested politely.

-

007 flung the door open before the car even made a full stop. He engaged the second assailant just as Q made it across the Jag’s bonnet to the other side. Bond would later dispute the police report that indicated excessive force was used to subdue the assailant. A broken nose, partially crushed windpipe and dislocated knee was hardly excessive in his line of work.

—---

Present

Dr Chen emerges from the treatment room 15 minutes later.

“He’s fine. He’s fine.” Chen holds up her hands to placate Bond before he can do his double-0 looming. “Oxygen levels are back to normal and blood glucose readings are back up. He just needs rest and some food in him.”

Q comes fully around in half an hour. The glucose and oxygen supplement doing wonders. He’s sitting up on the recovery bed having tea and biscuits that Bond managed to retrieve from Q’s stash in Q-Branch.

Mallory and Eve are present as well, intercepting Q before Bond has had a chance to see him privately. Pleasantries done, M leaves the room and gestures for 007 to follow him out, leaving Eve to continue her conversation with Q.

—

Outside Recovery Room A

“007, It’s been a trying day. How are you?” M opens.

Bond makes a non-committal sound, “Sir. I know you didn’t want to see me to discuss my mental health.”

M sighs. Why must everything be so difficult with this one.

“Fine. I want to discuss Q’s protection detail for the next few weeks until we get this threat sorted. You are off the Tripoli mission next week, 004 will be taking lead,” M offers.

Bond would normally protest, but this time he makes no move. Internally he is relieved. This saves him from having to come up with an excuse for why he won’t be going.

“We’re going to have to move Q to a secure location. MI5 has safe houses and resources we can tap into— “ Mallory sees the snarl forming on 007’s lips and quickly adds, ”—but I have a feeling you are going to want to have a say in it.”

Bond backs down and considers a moment. “I still have my place. The floorplan is easy to secure. A few upgrades and it should be adequate.”

“And the rest of the detail?”

“I’ll… need two more officers. Better yet, field agents in line for the 00-program. Consider this their asset protection training.”

M nods in approval. But something is left unsaid. M decides that it is time to get it out of the agent.

“How long has it been going on?” Bond knows M is not talking about the protection detail anymore.

“Just over a year.” He says matter of fact looking at a point past M’s shoulder. Bond isn’t volunteering more information than that. M doesn’t look surprised. If anything, he looks thoughtful.

Both men are clearly uncomfortable with the personal segue of the conversation. A pause and they both look away and clear their throats at the same time.

M ends the discussion on something they are more accustomed to, “Well, I trust you have this area under control. Tomorrow morning, we’ll reconvene to discuss any information R and Forensics can recover.”

Bond nods. “Very well, sir.” The fact the M hasn’t removed him from the case is consent enough.

——

Inside Recovery Room A

“How are you?” Eve rubs his blanket covered shin.

“Aside from it being one of the worst days of my life? Alright all things considered.“

Eve reaches over to give him a tight hug, more for her own sake than Q’s, “You had everyone so worried!… Thank goodness for the pen.”

“Yes well… Bond’s penchant for pilfering Q-branch equipment finally came in handy.”

Eve ruffles his hair and presses a kiss to his cheek, “You did really well today. I’m so proud of you.”

Q shrugs, what can he say? He doesn’t feel particularly proud. More numb if anything now that’s it’s over. Eve seems to sense this and goes for humour instead, ”Did Tanner tell you? He put 007 in the backseat of the Jag on the way to you.”

“I did wonder about that…” He could imagine Bond’s ire at having to relinquish control and wait patiently. Eve and Q share a conspiratorial smile.

“The rumour mill is spinning in overdrive; thought you might to know. It was quite the spectacle this morning in the lobby.”

Q pinches the bridge of his nose; mortified. “Not my finest moment I’ll admit. I’ve single handedly destroyed what little street cred Q-Branch had left.”

“Oh Q... that’s not what people are talking about—,” at his blank look, she unlocks the phone in her hand and pulls up the internal messaging app. She scrolls to a video and selects it before showing it to him.

It was of Q crumpled dramatically on his side just in front of the lift banks. 007 is crouched over him, one of his hands cradling Q’s head. Tanner is standing nearby, phone to his ear. The video captures 007’s other hand coming up to touch the pulse point at Q’s neck. A few moments later the agent looks up, taking in the crowd, his eyes a blazing blue, expression tinged with fear. Dr. Chen arrives soon after, cutting off the view from that angle.

Oh… OH…- In his mind, Q had expected the incident to be far more comical. A tech boffin kissing the floor from panic induced hypoxia has the potential to be the stuff of comic legend; if schadenfreude was your cup of tea. But the video was far from amusing. Poignant would be a more accurate description. Bond will be a handful to deal with later.

At the sobering thought, Q changes the subject, “Did I make the tele?”

Eve grins and nods,”All morning… breaking news and all. It’s being spun as a possible terror attack, as shots were fired and we need to maintain your cover. Mallory negotiated a quid pro quo with MI5. They are getting credit for the quick response in apprehending the suspects in exchange for publicly copping to counter-terrorism failure.”

“There were quite a lot of shots exchanged. Was anyone hurt?” Q recalled the street was rather busy.  

“Aside from the assailants, none seriously. Some civilian injuries, but all stable.” That assuages his guilt somewhat.

“Has anyone been to the flat?”

“Forensics is taking a look now.”

“Derek, the officer in the lobby? Is he—“

“He’s just out of surgery. Critical but stable.” This is why Q loves Eve, she knows everything.

“Don’t suppose anyone knows what happened to the cats?” Q is a little sheepish to be asking about his pets when human lives were threatened this morning.

“The cats are fine. Emily from forensics found them huddled in the laundry room. She’ll bring them back here at the end of her shift,” Eve reassures him, “But at the moment, your lion is loose and prowling the halls.”

Ah right, “Eve… does everyone know?”

Eve smiles at him, “Q... everyone’s known for months. Including Mallory.”

Just then the door opens and Bond reenters. Eve takes her leave. She pats Bond on his bicep on the way out and he acknowledges with a nod. When she’s cleared the doorway, he closes the door and locks it behind her. Finally. Some privacy.

Bond is silent intent when he comes to sit on the recovery bed facing Q. He removes the mug of tea from Q’s hands and sets it safely aside - gently demanding.

He leans in to wrap his arms tightly around Q, crushing Q against his chest. He runs his calloused hands over Q’s back, neck and into his hair - then buries his nose in that unruly mop of hair, breathing in deeply. When he’s a little calmer, a little more composed - he relaxes his hold to nuzzle Q around the temple before going in for a kiss, hands still stroking the sides of Q’s face and neck.

Q’s glasses are askew from all the petting. “Alright… I’m alright…. ,“ He soothes the agent, and has to take hold of Bond’s hands to quiet him. He knows Bond in this unsettled mood - a predator caught off guard, challenged… insecure. Bond would very well take things too far to reassure himself if Q lets him. And this isn’t an appropriate time or place.

“Are you still going to Tripoli on Monday?” Q tries to distract the clingy agent.

“No. M stood me down… I’ve been reassigned as your PPO,” Bond rumbles softly into his hair.

“Aren’t you a little overqualified to play bodyguard?” Q needles him.  

“Hmm… you deserve the best,” he mumbles into the corner of Q’s mouth.

Q snorts at the backhanded compliment Bond’s paid himself.

Bond whispers, “I’ve been told I’m rather good at what I do.”

Bravado. Let him have it- Q thinks, “You’re incorrigible.”

“And you’re precious,” Bond had not intended that to be out loud, and is a little embarrassed even before Q calls him out on it.

“Gah! You’re incredibly mushy today,” Q pushes him away lightly, mock cringing.

Bond leans back, but his hands have escaped and have wandered around Q’s waist, thumbs caressing the ticklish flesh, “Considering the events of today, I think I’m entitled.” Bond leans back in for a kiss.

Pillow talk. They’re engaging in pillow talk in the middle of the day in Medical. -Surreal- Q thinks.

The door handle rattles. Bond squeezes his eyes shut and exhales in exasperation -Seriously, can everyone just piss off!

Undeterred by the universal sign for a request to privacy, the person the other side raps on the door.

Bond goes to unlock it. Q picks up his tea to hide his mirth.

The door opens to reveal Nurse Maria sporting a -very- disapproving scowl. She’s back to check in on Q’s condition. She keeps her eyes on Bond as she enters, keeping him at bay with her stare alone. Bond moves away to a decent distance and stands at parade rest, eyes straight ahead; the very picture of obedience.

She turns to Q and fusses over his vitals and starts removing the IV drip.

“Rest. No more dangerous stunts. Eat more... Too skinny. Tsk!” she makes a sound of disapproval.

“The boyfriend don’t feed you??” she shakes her head and sends a glare at Bond’s direction indicating what she thinks about his efforts.

Q nearly spit takes his tea. He forces it down, choking in the process.

Bond clears his throat. “I think… you’ll find the boyfriend tries his best,” he grinds out, still looking straight ahead, his tone betraying more than a little indignation.

“Hmph…” Maria huffs unimpressed, as she fluffs Q’s pillow.

Mercilessly she adds, “Maybe the boyfriend is too busy. Always travelling. You should tell him to slow down. Spend more time at home.”

All this she directs at Q but there is no mistaking who the words are actually for.

“I’ll umm… I’ll make sure to let him know.” Q tries to defuse the situation. If it comes down to an actual contest of words between those two, Q’s not sure Bond would win.

——

Quartermaster’s Residence

Late that afternoon, once forensics is done collecting evidence, Bond is back home - well technically Q’s place. He speaks to Emily, Head Forensics Tech onsite for an update.

“Place is untouched, only damage appears to be the door. Nothing appears to be out of place, but you’d be able to tell better than us. It doesn’t look like the assailants bothered to search for anything. Which confirms the suspicion that they were not after anything, but Q himself.”She informs him - which to Bond is the worst case scenario. Q has something they want, and if the failed attempt today does not dissuade them, then they will try again.

“We’ll have some technicians back onsite to secure the door at least temporarily and do a more thorough sweep… Right then, cats are in their carriers in the laundry room. Do you still want us to take them to HQ?”

“No, that’s fine. I’ll take it from here. Thank you Emily.” Emily pats him on the shoulder much like Eve did before leaving.

Bond has two other agents with him:

Agent Monica Chalmers, former Squadron leader in the Royal Air Force, calm, tough as nails with surprisingly good hand to hand combat skills for a pilot.

Agent Peter Coyle former Major in the Royal Marines, good all rounder but with a dormant sense of rebelliousness that Bond see lying just beneath the highly disciplined exterior.

Both are experienced field agents and nine months into the Double-0 program and top of their batch. He’d consulted 009 earlier for his recommendation and Bond remembered them from the selection weekend ten months ago when he assisted 009 in the testing process.*

Bond gets them to help pack a few bags for Q as well as collect any projects and papers he was working on - directing them where things are and pointing out the items he wants packed.

When they’re done and about to leave, Bond emerges form the laundry room with his own bag and a cat carrier, “I hope the both of you like cats.”

Chalmers is quick to indicate affirmative. Coyle hesitates a split second too long; 007 smells blood and smiles sharkily. “Well you do now,” and promptly hands over the carrier case to him.

-—-

Notting Hill, Chelsea

Then they swing by MI6 to pick up Q before heading to Bond’s place in Chelsea.

They have a polite dinner, all four of them standing around the kitchen bar, because Bond’s bachelor pad lacks any real furniture. Bond refuses to be embarrassed. The place smells musty from disuse, and the overhead lighting is harsh and unflattering. It’s in a very nice part of town, but the place is frankly depressing. Q’s only been here a handful of times. Barely furnished and incomplete, it represents Bond’s past - he still comes by time to time especially after missions where he’s had to do some morally questionable things. He comes here to shed the proverbial filth so to speak; before returning to his present, his life with Q. Psychological compartmentalisation in physical form.

Q had let the cats out to explore. Jellicles the younger tuxedo cat is curious, zooming about the place and chattering to himself. Q thinks his boldness is due to the place not smelling entirely alien. Bond had to pull the cat off the hanging kitchen lights at one point.

But Spot (after Data’s cat) the older orange moggie is having none of it. The big former street cat is attempting to climb Q’s jeans, wanting to be held and cuddled. Q finally gives up and picks up the cat and hitches it to his side like child - the large moggie is as heavy as one too. With the cat mollified, Q can finish his dinner.

After dinner, Q transfers the cat to Bond’s arms before excusing himself to shower and get ready for the night. Bond is in his usual white shirt open at the collar, gun holster still around his shoulders. The orange cat fidgets in his arms, head-butting him under the jaw. Jellicles who was lounging on the kitchen bar now feels left out and is reared up on his hind legs, front paws on Bond’s other shoulder, meowing incessantly. “Yess, alright…,” he sets down his fork in mild annoyance to pet the cat along his long sinuous spine and get him to sit back down.

Agents Chalmers and Coyle exchange a look. Here is the idolised spy, the revered Double-0 agent, the man himself in his private setting and nothing lives up to expectation. The cognitive dissonance throws them.

Bond ever the observant one catches their open stares, understanding immediately. His voice is low, tired even, heavy with the the years of service and untold horrors he’d witnessed and done, “They lie in the brochures. I hope neither of you are doing it for the lifestyle.” And that concludes Bond’s pearl of wisdom for the day.

When they’re done clearing up, Bond gives them their instructions.

“Familiarise yourselves with the floorplan, entry and exits. Let me know what improvements we need and an escape plan for contingencies.”

“In the evenings when I’m around, you won’t need to stay. Check in with the police guards outside and have them keep watch of the building. But I won’t be here all the time. At some point I -will- leave to go after whoever is behind this.”  

“The both you will need to take turns sleeping on the couch. Or make alternative arrangements for him if the threat becomes untenable. We’ll discuss more tomorrow.“

With that, they’re dismissed.

——

That night, when the lights are out, and they’re both scrubbed clean of the days’ stress  - Bond crawls into bed behind Q. Q can sense it in the cautiousness and light tremors in Bond’s movements, like he’s trying to keep it together.  

Once his guard drops, James is near inconsolable. Wrapped possessively around Q, hands everywhere, legs tangled - his face is buried in the back of Q’s neck. The man is silent, except for the harsh and erratic breathing - and not the good kind either. The back collar of Q’s pyjamas is wet with tears.

Q does his best to soothe, petting and rubbing the muscled arms wrapped around him. He brings the man’s hands up to his face and kisses the cuts and bruises on his knuckles. “James, I’m alright…. I’m right here…” he whispers over and over.

He doesn’t try to stop the emotional breakdown, better to let him have it. Q feels a little guilty, he’s feeling somewhat detached from the days’ traumatic events. Maybe it’s because he got to panic while it was happening and it is now out of his system.  He’s cool and calm now while James suffers the emotional fallout.

Q recalls the video that Eve presented to him earlier in the afternoon. The camera capturing with stunning clarity the raw emotion behind the agent’s blue eyes. If the agent knew about the video, he’d make the person who took it will disappear. Which reminds Q to make a mental note to nuke the video from the messaging platform in the morning.

James is past the tears now and demanding more. The soothing caresses turning to something more serious, more consuming. Q is more than happy to give. They comfort each other until they’re both exhausted enough to fall asleep.

---------

Saturday 10:00  

SIS (MI6) Ops Centre Level 9 - Operations Room C.

R is providing sitrep. Images flash across the wall of screens to the front of the room.

“…—The ambulance was stolen from the Forest Hill Station south of London. Three assailants. Two in custody--” Their mugshots appear on screen:

Assailant 1 sports a bandaid under his chin. “…— is under medical observation for possible head trauma from hitting the cobblestone street—…”

Assailant 2 is much worse off, broken nose, a large hematoma under the right eye, and ugly bruising across the throat. “…— is also under medical observation for a partially crushed windpipe and dislocated knee.”

“Hospital will not release them for questioning until Sunday or Monday at the latest. Human rights and all. Third assailant was cornered by our agents, but opened fire into the crowd. Luckily there were no serious injuries. Agents stood down to avoid risk to civilian population and the assailant escaped on a stolen motorcycle.”

“Facial recognition places them as local members of a south London crime syndicate. Armed robbery, money laundering and the likes - serious crimes but nothing on the scale that would suggest going after a head of department in SIS.”

“Hired muscle. Nothing more. So that if the attempt fails or they get caught, it can’t be traced to whoever ordered it,” M concludes.

“Yes, sir. But they would have to know where to drop the asset off if it were successful though.” Agent Chalmers chimes in.

“Note the unusual timing; in the middle of a workday morning meant that they had to know that Q would be home at the time. That he was relatively unguarded—“ that Bond wasn’t home, was left unsaid. “—which means they were watching. Or told when to initiate the attempt.” Tanner added.

Q is only half paying attention to the discussion. Mark from IT-Branch came in earlier to hand him three new boxes of electronics - bless him. A new phone, laptop and hotspot router (because Bond’s place has no telephone or internet); unboxing them was like taking a hit for an addict in withdrawal. Q is preoccupied with setting them up and re-downloading data from the secure cloud services. He feels nearly like himself again. He had spent most of yesterday without them and he didn’t know what to do with himself.

“The place was untouched. The target was Q. What worries me is motive. Why would anyone take such a risk to provoke MI6 by abducting the Quartermaster knowing we would have the motivation and resources to go after them. Not unless the payoff is something that would massively change the way they forward their agenda. It has to be something they need him for. Something they can’t replicate, not even if they had the plans.” 007 concludes.

M who was rocking lightly in his chair whilst listening stops, leans forward and sighs. He looks over at Q, “What have you been working on?”

Mallory couldn’t keep track of all of it. Yes Q-Branch spent millions in R&D but they made the government (and by extension secured SIS funding) at least ten times what they spent. Declassified plans, schematics and programming codes sold at auction to private defence, Infosec and engineering companies for tens of millions.

The Q-Branch minions might be the butt of jokes at times in SIS, but their work not only kept operatives alive but helped keep the lights on in MI6. It is no wonder that MI5 wanted a slice of that pie. Sometimes M wondered why Q hasn’t left to go work in private. He’d asked him that once, and all he got in reply was something to the effect of ‘reigning in egomaniacal tendencies with public oversight and knowing which side you’re on’.

“Take your pick—” Q huffs in mild frustration, then realises who he was speaking to and adds,”—Sir.”

Q’s feeling tetchy this morning. Aside from tech withdrawal, his cold had gotten worse so his nose is completely stuffed. The general fatigue that accompanies a cold is exacerbated by his aching leg muscles from all that running the day before. Then he’d discovered he’d ripped a nail right off the finger bed in his haste to remove the hard drive so it stings when he types. He’s feeling a full on sulk coming. Bond already bore the brunt of his crabbiness this morning attempting to get him ready to come in to HQ.

“What about the project you’ve been working on with Mark? With the Shadow Network?” R said trying to be helpful.

“What about it? And please, I prefer Gemini Network - sounds less villainy.”

“I heard Mark say it could be a game changer, that it will give us the upper hand when it comes to controlling information.”

“Well in theory….” Q is being a little evasive.

Mallory looks over at Eve and tips his chin up at her. Eve knows at once to go and fetch Mark. They’ve learned over the years that when Q says something is ‘in theory’, it means he’s already gone ahead and built a proof a concept it or at the very least it tested the theory.

Mark enters the operations room like he’s been summoned to the headmasters office. “Sir? You asked to see me?”

“Tell us about the Gemini Network.” M dives right in without preamble.

“You mean the Shadow Network?” Mark looks for clarification.

“Why does everyone insist on calling it that?…” Q is slightly miffed.

Mark begins, “Well, the concept started years ago when we first used it to trap Silva in his earlier days. Quantum was trying to undermine your predecessor through Q-Branch, cascade of equipment failures leading to the death of a field agent. Basically we built a replica of Q-Branch systems and let Silva run his virus in it to learn what he was doing.”

“Since then we’ve evolved and developed the concept into a full shadow network that now protects MI6 systems. We created an AI shepherded by our cybersecurity team that patrols our systems; learning the normal functions - what’s secure, what’s not.” Mark pauses to check if everyone is still following.

“The idea is that when an anomaly in the system is detected, the AI isolates the suspicious node and shunts it into its shadow network. The shadow network presents itself as a legitimate fully functioning system and lets whatever suspicious activity continue unchallenged. But all the while it is watching and learning. It then flags the human team who can then decide if it is harmless or a legitimate threat. We can then use what it learns to patch the actual system. Think of it like an evolving immune system for cybersecurity. The more it learns the more robust it gets.”

Q then reasons, “The AI represents thousands of hours of machine training and learning, valuable in it of itself. But not impossible to recreate - though having MI6 as a training ground does make it harder for anyone to catchup to it.”

Bond notices Mark’s excited body language. The man is almost bouncing on his toes, “But… I’m guessing there is more to this…?”

Marks looks to Q and they have a non-verbal exchange. Those two are thick as thieves when it comes to programming, though Mark still refuses to transfer to Q-Branch for the sake of his sanity. Bond has met Mark numerous times, he likes the guy. Mark looks up to Q like an adoring little brother wanting someday to be just as good. Which means he’s an enabler who goes along with Q’s ideas without any sense of self preservation.

“Recently, Mark and I found a new application for it. We managed to package the AI into a worm that can be used to infiltrate a target network. It will still require us to inject it behind a firewall, either through hacking or physically. But once inside, it starts watching and learning - filtering traffic internally between nodes; as well as incoming and outgoing traffic outside of the network. It will sit dormant until activated…”

Eve’s eyes are wide, “Oh boys, what have you created?”

“…When activated, it will deploy the Shadow Network, into which we can shunt specific network traffic. A) The captured node still thinks its in the master system and functions normally. B) The AI then replaces the captured node with a mimic so to the master system, nothing is amiss.”

“The beauty of this is that it does not require us to crack security. When authentication is required, the AI simply returns the node back in to authenticate before shunting it back out. Do you see? We can compel any system to unlock its door by hiding behind the captured node.“ Mark points out looking like he’s about to explode with excitement.

Even Tanner is stunned now. R, who has heard it all before and told them repeatedly how dangerous of an idea this was - has her hands pressed together as if in prayer covering her mouth

“The node itself is tricked into thinking it is still interacting with the master system - which makes it voluntarily reveal information which we can collect or use as we see fit. Alternately we can seed it with misinformation to bring back to the master system.”

“Its the ultimate spy - Agent 1001.” Mark declares gleefully. His attempt at humour falls flat. If he‘d added Ta-Da! at the end of it, Bond was going to cuff him behind the head.

Mark pulls himself together and continues, “In practical terms it means we can change literally any information - while both sides remain unaware because there are now two truths depending on which network you are interacting with. ”

“But that’s just the start—.” Q takes over.

“There’s more?“ Mallory drawls out, feeling a migraine coming.

Q is apologetic, “What’s the most secure form of record keeping at the moment? …Blockchain. A set of records linked cryptographically together, with a distributed ledger that technically guarantees security. You can’t change any data in a block retroactively without changing all the subsequent blocks…. not unless you have consensus of at least 51% of all the nodes in the ledger.“

“Q… As riveting as this exposition is, get to the point.” Bond’s tone is a warning, his consonants sharper. Even he’s catching on to where this is leading and dreading it.

“Yes alright..” Q doesn’t get why everyone seems more upset than impressed.

”The point is, theoretically if we manage to get the worm into a peer-to-peer network and let spread throughout, we can apply the Shadow Network concept to launch a mass ‘eclipse attack’ on the distributed ledger. The nodes in the network must stay in constant contact to compare data for consensus. If the AI shunts off enough of the nodes into its Shadow Network and manage to trick 51% of the nodes into accepting our version of the chain before returning it, we change the ledger. Change the ledger and—“

“—You’ve hacked blockchain.“ Eve finishes for him, disbelieving.

“So are we talking about bitcoin?” Agent Coyle hazards a guess.

“Oh Agent Coyle… cryptocurrency is just the beginning. Just imagine any database that depends on blockchain for its immutability. Voting records? Supply chains? Financial records? Anti-counterfeit measures? The Shadow Network lets you - Change. Your. Digital. Reality.” Q finishes with a flourish; in purely intellectual terms, the concept is truly quite clever.

Tanner looks to Mallory alarmed,“Sir… 35 central banks are now experimenting with issuing digital state currencies on blockchain. At least 10 will be going ahead in this year and another 15 in the next 2 years.“

Silence. You could hear a pin drop.

Bond who has been standing off to the side of the monitors in his characteristic agent pose, legs apart one hand in his pocket; exhales loudly and points out ominously, “So whoever controls the AI, controls the Shadow Network and everything it can do - the Shadow Master. “

All heads in the room turn to Q….

“Yes, that would be one way of putting it. Personally, I prefer the term Shadow Architect,” Q chortles at the absurdity of the comic villain names.

But no one one else is laughing. And they’re all looking at him expectantly. Except Mark, he laughs at all of Q’s jokes.  

-Christ-. Bond is torn between wanting to strangle the oblivious idiot himself and wanting to put the genius in a glass cage for his own safety.

A moment later, Q has a dawning realisation about what he’s managed to get himself into this time.

“It..Its just theoretical!” Denial.

“Technically this belongs to SIS…” Bargaining.

“We just thought it would be a helpful tool for our operatives to turn the odds in their favour!” Anger.

“What in the world possessed me to think…” Depression

“Owwh shit.” Acceptance.

Q stops his pacing in front of the monitor wall and collapses into a chair nearby. Elbows on his knees, head in his hands.

When he’s done cycling through emotions, M raises and eyebrow,“Well, I’m glad we’ve all come to the same conclusion,” M’s sarcasm flies over his head.

——

As a result of the meeting, Q & Mark are sent away to put their project into a secure vault in the servers - until M knows what to do with it. Q feels like they’ve just been sent to ‘time out’ - to think about what they’ve done.

Once he’s done that, he goes to Q-Branch to serve out his sentence.

Q-Branch is the only ‘secret’ arm in SIS that is located between the garage and basement bunkers. It’s more practical that way as larger projects (cars, boats, etc) would be a logistical pain to move if they were on the upper levels. Three whole floors make up Q’s lair that he shares with thirty or so minions.

It’s Saturday, so only a skeleton crew is present most of them are working in the floors below. None are in the office areas.

Bond is still in the meeting upstairs with M and the others. So Q makes himself tea and sticks his nose in the steam curling out of the mug to open his sinuses. He’s running through the theory he’s told the others in his head - trying to poke holes in it. But no, the simulation running on his computer is telling him how terrifyingly efficient the AI would be once activated.

The main doors to Q-Branch offices hiss open. Q doesn’t turn around, knowing who it is. Bond comes to sit a little noisily in a swivel chair next to him, facing the other way. He’s radiating ‘we need to talk’ vibes, but even then Bond usually just invades his space until Q speaks first.

“James, I’m sorry about being a tosser this morning. I shouldn’t have taken it out on you. The eggs were fine.” Q makes a peace offering. And since no one is around, he reaches out to trace a finger around Bond’s tie pin.

Bond doesn’t move away which means he’s forgiven. Thats the thing with Bond, he’s not really a man of many words when he’s not actively trying to charm a mark. So when he does want to talk, best pay attention.

“Whats the damage?” Q asks.

“Mark is going to need his own protection detail.”

“Oh, he’s going to love that….” Poor Mark is going to have to explain that to his Bumble dates.

“Well, it might teach him not to be such an enabler and grow a pair around you.”

“Hah! Tell it to his face.”

“I did. Now, stop making him do things that will get him in trouble. You don’t want that on your conscience.” Bond chastises. The poor guy is like Igor to Q’s Dr Frankenstein.

Suitably reproached, Q doesn’t have anything to say for himself. He continues playing with Bond’s tie.

“Mallory is thinking of forming an internal oversight committee to run risk analysis on Q-Branch projects. He doesn’t want to accidentally end up with a cyberworld equivalent of a Manhattan project in his lap.

“He’s afraid I’ll turn into Ozymandias…,” then remembering that Bond probably didn’t get the reference, ”Antagonist, very smart, tries to take over the world.” He supplies by way of explanation.  

Bond laughs a little, “If you do turn villainous, does that make me your henchman?”

Q considers, “More arc nemesis I should think. Don’t pretend that M won’t send you to shot me if I do. And don’t pretend you won’t either.”

“Are you expecting me to refuse?”

“No Mr Bond, I expect you to come get me.”

----  To Be Continued ---

[everythingoesnk]

Once in Rockfield Farm (1/5)

summary; you own Rockfield Farm and your bf Mary Austin asks you if you can help her friends with an enormous favour that will lead to a much bigger unprecedented change into your life. Thanks to a cute guy specifically.

word count; 6 126

disclaimers, PLEASE read them; don’t forget this is fiction. i’m using queen‘s 70s era as a base for the story but it won’t be historically accurate. the song mentioned towards the end of the chapter is from Taylor Swift, i don’t claim those lyrics as mine. sorry in advance if u find a f*cked up grammar mistake or whatever. feedback would mean everything, it’s the first time i’m posting something i’ve written it feels like i’m giving birth looool

warnings; minor violence at some point and mention of abuse

********

Mary didn’t stop until she convinced you to give green light to her proposal.

She called it like that, but it seemed more like an order. Both of you knew she wouldn’t let it pass until you agreed to.

Taken aback, you refused at first.

The idea of four strangers living in your house, coexisting with you in the only safe space you knew, wasn’t appealing whatsoever.

Even though all they needed was a studio to record, they’d have to stay until the album was finished. They could afford to rent a proper one, but Mary made it quite clear that getting out of town was crucial to avoid possible distractions.

You’d been fired from your job because the restaurant bankrupted, so the money they were going to pay for rent was welcomed.

Your grandfather passed Rockfield Farm on to you when he died.

It was a lovely place full of good memories, mainly concerning hours on end together in the studio he built in the attic throughout the years. The relationship you had with him had always been special, but ever since your nana passed away at the age of 70, your bond became stronger.

He also wasn’t there anymore, and you tried not to think too much about it, just were glad that you met someone like him. He was the main reason you loved making music so much.

Sadly, as you grew up, although your talent for writing songs and producing music was undeniable, you realized you needed to be realistic and pursue a more down-to-earth career.

Medicine was another thing you were slightly attracted to, it wasn’t your passion but it would have to do.

The music business was too complex and difficult to get in, and wasting your time wasn’t on your plans. It’s not like you were a prodigy or a diamond in the rough, anyway. That was your honest opinion.

But now and then you’d succumb and compose. It was an effective way to forget about the rest of the world and vent whenever something would make you sad, grumpy, anxious, angry… Rarely did you write about happy feelings.

What’s the fun in claiming how fulfilled you are with your life? Which you weren’t, but still.

Ballads and songs that’d leave you with your heart aching on the floor were your daily bread.

Mary was the only one allowed to hear your little creations. She’d try to get you to show them to the world, to step out of the comfort zone and perform them in public, to rush out of those same four walls.

You were quick to brush her comments off every time, content with her and your dog being the only ones to get to listen to your babies.

“How long they’re going to take?” you asked using a fake uninterested tone, pretending not to care whether they needed weeks, months or a year.

The truth was that you wished for the album to be done quite fast.

“Who knows,” Mary said. “When the album’s finished I’m the first to know, but in the meantime Freddie won’t give me any clues”

You nodded, unsatisfied with the answer.

“Thanks for agreeing to this. I owe you big” her eyes found yours and yours softened.

“If anything it’s them who do, don’t you think?”

Mary grinned and offered to cook something for tonight’s dinner.

She left you alone with your molecular pathology notes resting on your lap.

It was your last year in University, thank the Lord. One last effort and you would be a doctor.

After memorizing various concepts you found yourself staring at the horizon wondering how was Freddie Mercury like.

Obviously because of Mary you sort of formed this idea of him, but hadn’t had a face to face yet. About the other Queen members… yeah, Mary mentioned them sometimes, vaguely: she described John as a nice fella to have around, Brian as the only one with common sense, and last but not least, when it came to Roger’s personality, she told you hesitantly to judge him yourself.

You thanked her when she handed you the pen you forgot inside.

Mary gave you an encouraging smile, placing her hand on your shoulder and squeezing it.

As soon as she turned around to go back inside, you called her name, squinting your eyes to try and get a better sight of the vehicle that kept getting closer to your property.

“What?”

When she spotted the van she sighed happily.

“Finally”

Mary ran to wait for them in the parking area. She was over the moon, clapping and waving effusively to welcome them.

“Are you coming or not?” Mary shouted, gesturing you to go and stand next to her.

You took your time to get up from sitting upon the grass and do just that.

Not a single second since they pulled over went by and Mary was already imprisoning Freddie in her arms.

You chuckled, completely sure he would be dead in a matter of seconds if she wouldn’t loose her grip.

He lovingly wrapped her in his and stroked her hair.

All of a sudden, running from the backyard where he usually played in the mud (this time was no different), your dog appeared on scene. You asked him to remain quiet and by your side, which to your dismay he did not obey.

He went and greeted Queen, who pushed him away with no bad intentions, they just didn’t want to get dirt on their trousers.

John, nevertheless, got on his knees and began patting him. It did not take long for him to regret it when Sherlock seemed to be captivated by his face, licking it non-stop.

You cleared your throat. It would be nice of Mary to introduce you, being the one who organized this whole of a mess in the first place.

Apparently she read your mind. The next thing she did was link arms with you.

“This is (Y/N)” she spoke. “Freddie, come here”

“You have no idea how happy I am to finally meet you”

Freddie gave you two sweet kisses, one on each cheek.

“Same here” you nodded and mirrored his smile when you saw it reached his eyes.

In a heartbeat you were fascinated by him.

There was this intriguing strong aura he projected that made you feel like you were in the presence of someone from the royalty, someone important.

Freddie examined you from head to toe and fell in love immediately with your outfit, a pastel blue dress with tiny sunflowers printed all over it. He did spot your exposed feet and smiled pleasedly at your choice of painting your toenails with the colours of the rainbow.

“Boys, don’t be rude and come say hi” he gestured his bandmates, who were taking a rapid glimpse of their new temporary home, and stepped aside.

“Nice to meet you, I’m Brian”

“Nice to meet you too” you kindly responded, shaking his hand.

“Thank you very much for allowing us to record our album here. If we win a Grammy expect you to be the first one we address in the speech” he joked, face beaming with a heavenly smile.

Damn, you were so soft for him already. And you wanted to touch his curls.

“You’re welcome, Brian”

“Yes, we’re endlessly grateful” another gentle voice joined the conversation.

John stood now in front of you.

“Hi, I’m John Deacon”

“I know” you laughed, tilting your head to the side. “I hope your stay here is… productive”

“I hope so too” he smiled big, and it made your heart melt. He was so cute.

Roger was next.

He was wearing a black leather jacket that fit him like a glove. One silver bracelet hugging his right wrist, matching the necklace around the neck. What caught your attention the most was the glittery rosy shoes, though. He had long blond messy hair (like the others, except the colour part), and prominent sideburns.

They looked ridiculous, you thought, although every second you spent contemplating his face the less they bothered you.

He was gorgeous, what the hell?

You got somehow a little nervous.

“Productive it shall be. I’m Roger” he spoke, referring your words from before. He took your hand and held it to his lips. “We’ve come to the right place, guys. With such a pretty face like hers we’ll never run out of inspiration” he snorted when he heard John face-palming himself.

You raised an eyebrow, unimpressed.

Sure Roger didn’t mean that at all, it was just his constant flirty mood Mary warned you about taking over him, you reasoned.

“Don’t get it started, Rog. We don’t want her to kick us out the very first day” Brian scolded him like a father would his children.

Roger laughed, his silly expression never fading away, and soon he was again observing you.

“I was joking, I’m sorry if it made you uncomfortable,” he said, taking some of the heat out.

“It didn’t,” you said back, confident.

You followed the others when they headed to the house carrying their respective suitcases with Mary as the leader.

Roger was fast to grab his and catch up with you.

“You live alone?”

“I have Sherlock”

He was still in ecstasy, trying to get everyone’s attention.

“That’s it?”

“That’s it” you shrugged. “It’s not as tragic as it sounds. I enjoy my own company”

“Oh. Anyway. This is a farm, right? You do all the, huh… you know, farm work on your own?” he looked around, scanning a bit the surroundings. He pointed with his chin at one big rooster. “The guardian of the house, eh?”

You let out a vague chuckle that made Roger proud, already eager to make you like him.

The reason was obvious: you were so eyecatching he almost tripped when he missed one of Sherlock’s toys on one of the porch steps, too engrossed in how the sun made the freckles in your face stand out.

“My grandfather baptized this piece of land as Rockfield Farm, but it hasn’t been a proper farm for years. Now it’s just… my house”

“You know,” he began, digging deep around his mind to come up with something so the conversation wouldn’t end, “years ago I had this summer job in a much more immense place than this. I had to watch over 200 sheep every day”

“Was it as entertaining as it sounds?”

“Clearly not”

Roger extended his hand to stop the door from closing after John came in. He motioned you to go first and winked, but you didn’t notice the last part, which slightly bothered him.

“(Y/N), this place is precious!” you heard Freddie praise.

Mary interrupted you before you could thank him.

“Then you sure are going to love the studio even more! C’mon”

//

“How did your grandfather manage to get this studio together? It’s pretty impressive” Brian enthusiastically asked, taking a small sip of tea.

The six of you were now chilling in the living room. It was the perfect time for them to rest since the road trip had been long.

Moments before they finished unpacking and settling down, Mary and you gossiped in the kitchen. She remarked how attentive Roger acted towards you, and asked if you were into him.

“Are you stupid?” you couldn’t believe her. “We’ve known each other for what, ten minutes?”

“I was just wondering whether there was desire at first sight or something”

“Desire at first sight?” you repeated slowly, taking in every word.

“It was a softer way to ask if you’d give him a ride or not” she laughed watching you gesture her to lower it down. “I’m just asking because I can tell he would”

Before answering Brian, you looked over at Roger.

He’d taken off his jacket and was rolling up the sleeves of the white tee he wore underneath.

Your lips parted, finding that mundane action quite amusing and sexy on him.

You looked away, guilt taking over you for having stared too keenly. There was nothing wrong about it, and you couldn’t explain why you felt agitated. Maybe you were self-conscious about whether the others noticed.

Forcing yourself to remember Brian’s words and with a sense of pride, you smirked behind your cup, gazing at the wooden floor.

Your grandfather poured his soul into this studio, which he also referred to as a sanctuary. It made you happy to hear Brian acknowledging its value.

There were several electric and acoustic guitars, a generous collection of microphones your grandmother enjoyed saving, two trumpets, a synthesizer -to which Freddie and Roger scoffed loudly at-, a drumkit, one saxophone, and a bass.

Not to mention the tape machine that still worked perfectly plus the recording booth.

Mary told you that John Reid, who was looking after Queen at the moment, managed to convince the label to provide them with a significant amount of money. You assumed they’d brought enough tapes to record on, therefore yours would remain intact.

“He bought half of the instruments”

“The other half?” John inquired.

“He stole them” you answered, not much of a fan about it.

“Whew!” Roger whistled.

You took a short sip of the tea and turned slightly towards the window, presencing a flash of light.

“A piano?”

Freddie dropped the question with no high hopes.

“Pardon?” you turned your head and looked at him over your shoulder with your body still facing towards the window.

The head movement was so fast that a clip you wore to hold a fraction of hair in place loosened a bit, letting the lock to fell down your face.

Roger stared at you in awe.

The light illuminating the room had a warm cosy tone, which surely helped to make your skin look softer and smooth. He wasn’t aware of the heart eyes he was giving you, but Brian, John and Mary were.

When you batted your lashes, he looked away and saw Brian try and fail to hide a smile when they locked eyes. He’d been caught.

“Do you have a piano?” Freddie questioned again, eyebrows raised a little.

A tiny playful smile made its way to your lips.

“Of course I have a piano” you cockily answered.

When you saw Fred’s satisfied grin appear you instantly knew he liked you as much as you liked him. It wasn’t in the attic; you’d show it to him later.

To be honest, the piano was your favourite instrument to play. So delicate, so powerful and majestic.

“Excuse me for a second” you got up from your seat, everyone confused by your sudden urge to leave, but not alarmed.

That light from before wasn’t a bolt of lightning, you came to realize, it was a car that parked outside.

A little voice popped in your head guessing it could be him, but it couldn’t… right? There were approximately two hours from Cardiff to get there.

It sure was someone lost, or maybe they were stopping by to beg to use your bathroom because they couldn’t hold it in anymore. It wouldn’t be the first time.

“How about we start dinner? I’m starving” Mary added.

Their voices kept getting lower and lower as you crossed the corridor, oblivious to Roger’s eyes following your every move.

You stepped outside and closed the heavy door behind you, but not completely.

The silhouette of the last person you’d want to see in the entire world was leaning against a red car, one you did know very well because you lost your virginity in the backseat. He was humming to a tune you didn’t recognize, head facing downwards.

Picking at the fabric of the sweater you put on to forbid the cool air of the night from touching your skin, you opened your mouth.

“Leonardo!” you whisper shouted.

He definitely heard you, although he turned a deaf ear.

“Leo, what the fuck!”

“You’re a stupid whore”

Shit. He’s drunk? You prayed he wouldn’t make a scene, not now, with Mary and the guys around. The shame to have them complicit of whatever could possibly happen would be unbearable.

“You’re miserable” he went on with his speech, voice thick, which made it difficult for you to understand him.

You called it quits three months ago. Apparently he wasn’t any close to getting over the fact you ended it.

“Leave”

After what felt forever, he abruptly raised his head.

“What?” the expression on his face revealed he wasn’t happy.

What his eyes showed freaked the hell out of you: they revealed an intense desire, either with words or physically, to hurt you. He wasn’t sober, and you were aware that he had struggled with alcoholism when he was a teenager. It was fair to say Leonardo never put a finger on you in that way before, but alcohol was the push he needed to do it and his body was full of it now.

A lump formed in your throat.

“Get out of here”

“I just want to talk” lifting his hands up in an attempt to seem harmless, losing balance doing so, he took a few steps forward trying his best to sound convincing so you wouldn’t move and listen to him.

“I don’t want to hear what you have to say”

“How do you think I felt? Huh? When I saw you making out with that moron? You’re so selfish. A fucking slut, (Y/N). You disgust me”

That was the final straw. You promised you wouldn’t give in and start an argument, but he fucking did have to bring that up. He had the nerve to blame you for moving on and having some fun with a guy a few days ago at a party.

“Are you serious right now, Leo? How dare you?! We’re not together!” funny enough, this time it was you walking up to him not giving a damn anymore about the consequences.

When you raised your fist to punch him, even in his state, he managed to catch your wrist on time.

“How wrong you’ve done me” he hissed, tightening the grip. That’d leave marks for sure.

He pushed you against the car, causing your back to crack roughly. The situation was so tense not even the tears were brave to roll down your face, your vision blurry and unclear.

“Please, Leo!”

Mary’s voice never felt so good in your ears.

You totally forgot about them, that you could’ve screamed for help instead of dealing with Leo on your own, too absorbed in rage to be able to think things through.

“Do something, help her!” she pleaded the boys.

Four arms were fast to catch him and throw him to the ground.

Everything was happening so fast, almost as fast as your crazy heartbeats.

Brian came to you and held you by the shoulders, checking you out entirely, looking for bruises. He was asking repeatedly if you were alright, if that man dared to touch you. You could hear him, but it felt like he were miles away from you, his words echoing in the back of your mind.

Mary grabbed your arm and the two guided you, treating you like you had some kind of disability.

Before letting them drag you inside, you quickly turned your head to see what was going on, and saw a fuming Roger threatening Leo to disappear and never come back.

Freddie and John remained behind him in case he’d lose his temper. They looked at each other in astonishment; it was the first time they saw Roger like that.

“(Y/N)” Mary called you, once in the common room. “Fancy a glass of water?”

“I’ll be right back with it,” Brian said, his long legs taking him to the kitchen.

“Sit down, babe”

“I don’t want to. I’m fine”

She could perfectly see the tension in your shoulders.

“You’re not. But it’s fine, it’ll be fine” she sympathized, caressing your hair.

At this point you were lost for words. You were confused, angry, stunned.

“Here, take it. It’ll do you good, (Y/N). Is there anything else you n—” Brian began, offering you freshwater to maybe comfort you and make the knot you felt in your throat go away.

“For fuck’s sake!” you felt choleric. Maybe you were about to pass out.

Freddie, John and Roger came in and stopped dead in their tracks when they heard you complain.

Brian blinked a few times.

You were desperate for some time alone to process the last couple of minutes, but that wasn’t any excuse for you to take it out on Brian when all he wanted was for you to get better.

“I’m sorry” you lamented, ashamed at your behaviour, and took the glass not looking at anyone in the eye. That’s when you saw you were indeed shaking a little bit.

He smiled comprehensively, not giving too much attention to your outburst.

“Who the fuck was that?” Freddie wondered.

John elbowed him and mouthed “not now”.

“I’m so embarrassed. I’m sorry you had to witness that” you sighed, choking back the agony.

“Don’t apologize. That piece of shit shouldn’t have treated you like that. He looked mad” Freddie condemned.

Another heavy sigh escaped your mouth when you saw everyone staring intently at you, hating the feeling of their unasked pity.

Roger hadn’t said a word. His muscles were tense, mind way too far from the scene recalling something from the past.

//

It’d been several weeks since Queen came to stay.

To your surprise you had no complaints. They helped you without hesitation with the housework and kept their rooms tidy. More or less. The only thing you could protest about was that after the sessions it seemed like the studio had been the target of a fateful hurricane.

However, they were too cute to stay mad at for more than ten seconds.

Coming out of your shell was easy because of them. It didn’t take you long to feel comfortable enough to show your true self instead of hiding in your room like you did the first three days.

Reading a book easily kept your mind busy, except now; it was unbearably hot outdoors and indoors. Without taking your eyes off the page, you held the Coca-Cola can against your neck seeking a refreshing sensation.

“Mind if I join?”

You lowered the sunglasses until they were fitted a little bit below the bridge of your nose. The sun was hiding behind a cloud now, making it easier to adjust your vision and get it focused on whoever that was.

A shirtless Roger stood before you, with a towel around his neck that he rushed to spread on the hammock next to yours.

His skin glowing due to the sweat made him look rather tempting.

Your brain lent a helping hand forcing you to smile and nod because you wouldn’t, couldn’t do that yourself.

A small grin tugged at his lips when he noticed your eyes on him longer than usual.

“You’re always studying, angel” he pointed out, lying down and crossing his arms above his head.

You let out a loud sigh you’d been holding in, cheeks red at the pet name he chose. Anytime he’d call you something sweet rather than by your name, it was always how you tended to react.

There was no denying that you’d sort of developed a small crush on him.

Nobody could blame you, though; the same thing would happen to any human being with feelings.

He always treated you as one of them, making sure you didn’t feel left out. His sense of humour was similar to yours, and you appreciated it when he included you in their plans even if he knew you were occupied with Uni and probably wouldn’t be able to join.

Also, he was hot as fuck. You swore you’d never seen a man so beautiful in your life so far.

“I have to if I want to pass my exams”

“Sure, but you’re always studying” he emphasized. “It cannot be healthy”

It couldn’t, but everything was so difficult and you were so lost at some points you thought the world as you knew it could end if you took the smallest break.

“(Y/N)”

“Tell me”

“Seeing you stressed out stresses me” he sat straight, took the book from you and shoved it away. “Fuck this. I suggest you have some fun before the pressure ages you”

“And what do you recommend, ay?” you questioned, crossing your arms across your chest.

“We could play Frisbee”

“Frisbee? Really?”

“Why not? I’m sure you’re not that bad” he teased, getting to his feet.

You faked a laugh and stood up.

“Don’t underestimate my skills”

He used his hand to mimic a mouth talking nonsense, and approached the pool since the frisbee was floating in the water. But he stopped when he felt he stepped on something, proceeding to lift his foot to see what it was.

Roger knelt down and picked a piece of paper up, which said in messy handwriting together with scribbles here and there: You tell me ‘bout your past, thinking your future was me.

His brows cocked in surprise and your eyes widened. You grabbed it out of his hand and held it close to your heart reflexively, as if protecting it. It must have flown out from within the pages of the book when he first threw it away.

Roger watched you curiously, crouched down still, as you breathed slow and deep avoiding eye contact. You could feel your face getting hotter.

He got up with an unnoticeable smile.

“That’s yours? It’s decent”

You waited for something to get out of your mouth, but this time your brain didn’t find a way to help you out, speechless at the fact that he liked it.

“Do you have more? I’d love to hear” he continued, glancing at you.

“Oh, n-no” you forced a laughter. “I don’t”

“I’m glad you’re not as bad as a lyricist as you are as a liar”

You gave him a dirty look and the corners of his eyes crinkled at that. He puppy-eyed you.

“Please?”

“No, Roger”

“We don’t protest when you’re in our recording sessions, you could return the favour”

“Excuse me? You’re in my goddamn house. Watch your tone”

He giggled, fascinated by how cute you turned out to be when poked at.

“What do I have to do for you to say yes?”

“Nothing. It’s not happening”

“(Y/N)!” he pleaded. “I want to hear you sing”

You shook your head.

“And I want to own all the dogs on the planet. Guess we’re both stuck”

Roger groaned in defeat and turned around to get his hands on the frisbee.

For some odd reason, it made your heart dance in your chest knowing he was willing to sit down with you and listen.

A sense of enthusiasm and confidence moved you and shockingly enough you found yourself considering the idea.

Roger gave you a quick head nod.

“Ready?”

You didn’t know what the hell you were doing but you whispered a small “okay”. It couldn’t be that bad, right?

“Take a few steps back first, you’re too close”

You pulled a face at him but quickly shook your head.

“I said I’ll do it”

Roger wasn’t getting it.

“Do w—“ he stopped mid-sentence, his sapphire eyes widening in understanding this wasn’t about playing Frisbee anymore. “Yes!” he took you in his arms and spun you around.

Since he was shirtless you could feel how well built he was. Although he wasn’t the most athletic man out there, apparently drumming on and on was enough to keep him fit.

“Rog, Rog! Enough! I’m feeling dizzy”

You were wearing a mini skirt that had a tiny slit on one of the sides. Seeing it rolled itself up a little you adjusted its length, avoiding any extra space to anyone’s imagination. Too late for Roger though.

When satisfied with how your skirt fitted, you looked up and saw a subtle wink roaming his lips.

“I’m ready when you are” he announced, bending over to grab his shirt and put it on.

At first your legs wouldn’t cooperate.

Roger followed you closely.

He saw you toy with your hair, questioning yourself why you agreed to do this when you weren’t a hundred per cent sure about it. He placed his hands on your shoulders and slowly massaged the back of your neck with his thumbs, relieving some of the pressure.

Every single hair of your body stood on ends.

“Don’t be nervous, love. We can drop it whenever you want” he conceded, tossing an arm around your shoulders.

Opening the door to the studio you felt sick, already regretting your decision.

Roger took a sit on the couch, watching you like you were about to do a mind-blowing performance that’d change the meaning of his life forever.

Feeling like a rat in a laboratory with the doctors waiting to see if the experiment was successful or not, you shifted weight from one foot to the other, discomfort intensifying.

The piercing electric blue of his eyes triggered something in you when they met yours. You didn’t know how but it seemed like he was speaking to you through them, encouraging and imploring you to open up to him.

“Take it easy, (Y/N). It’s not a big deal”

“It is for me”

You sank down on one of the chairs next to the control room, poorly trying to hide how intimidated you were.

“You’re singing, then? Or reading the lyrics out loud?”

“Singing” you muttered. God knows if you went downstairs to pick up your notebook you wouldn’t come back.

A very cheeky expression overtook his face.

“Okay, go ahead” he gestured, rubbing his chin.

You clenched your jaw and snapped your eyes shut. It was easier to do it if you weren’t looking. You’d just imagine it was your grandfather in the room with you instead.

“Time won’t fly, it’s like I’m paralyzed by it I’d like to be my old self again But I’m still trying to find it

After plaid shirt days and nights when you made me your own Now you mail back my things and I walk home alone”

Roger’s fingers fidgeted at the sight of you tucking a piece of hair behind your ear, silently wishing it was him doing it.

He saw how your angelic features relaxed along to every word you sang. When it comes to your voice... He had to remind himself he didn’t die nor was leaving a dream, because it felt like he were in the very gates of heaven.

His breathing quickened, well aware he was witnessing something intimate.

Leaning closer, elbows resting on his knees, he allowed your voice to transport him to the place and time you were describing.

“But you keep my old scarf From that very first week 'Cause it reminds you of innocence And it smells like me You can’t get rid of it

'Cause you remember it all too well”

You swallowed before opening your eyes and speaking.

“There’s more but that’s the part I’m most proud of”

Roger’d fallen silent, his brain on fire.

He seemed to be absent, daydreaming probably.

Your heartbeat could make you go deaf any second, partly because you allowed him to have a peek at your heart partly because you were dying to know if he was any positive about it.

“You sounded like an angel” he stated in the softest voice, working on coming back to his senses.

There was nothing you could do apart from blushing and awkwardly shaking your head, yet on the inside you were saturated with a strong feeling that filled you completely: his opinion was relevant to you and the reaction he had was more than enough.

“You’re exaggerating. Thank you though, for your words. You’re very kind” you said, entwining ankles.

“Is it…” Roger was afraid this would ruin the mood. He decided to give it a shot and solve any doubt. More importantly, he wanted to make sure you were alright.

You weren’t stupid and knew where he was going.

“About Leonardo? Yes. Next question” you explained bitterly cutting him off, and pressed your lips together making an effort to not roll your eyes and appear rude.

He did ruin the mood.

Roger felt bad now.

“I’m sorry. Forget it”

“It’s fine” the flat tone you used before switched to a more delicate one.

It was overwhelming that he cared. He didn’t have to but he cared.

“I experienced something similar. I know how fucked up domestic abuse is” Roger confessed, bowing his head.

Wait, what? He what?

“Rog…” you got up and carefully sat next to him.

It shocked you how quick the atmosphere changed.

“It’s nothing, dear, it was a long time ago. She was… she was crazy” he laughed drily and cleared his throat. “You know what I mean”

“I do not. What you saw when Leonardo showed up was a one-time thing. He was drunk and barely himself, but I’m so terribly sorry you had to go through that”

“Ah, good for you then” he tapped you on the knee with a small smile on his face.

It broke your heart. How could anyone be so goddamn evil? You just couldn’t understand why they were people like that out there, willing to harm others deliberately.

Your mind drifted to Leonardo, did he become one of them?

Glancing at Roger, you hesitantly got closer to rest your cheek against his shoulder, letting him know mutely you were there in case he needed to vent more often. You intended to cuddle for just a few seconds before it turned out weird. That was until he wrapped an arm around you to keep you in position.

“Thank you” he whispered.

It sent shivers down your spine hearing for the first time his voice discreetly cracking up. You weren’t entirely sure about what he was thanking you for, though.

Roger didn’t quite understand why such information slipped out his mouth. Maybe he thought it was appropriate to share it since he contemplated you went through the same thing after what he saw. He just wanted to make sure you knew you could count on him as well.

The boys knew about the matter, obviously, but there was this thing about you he hadn’t figured out just yet that pushed him to speak to you about it.

That’s what his mind was saying, his heart on the other hand defended the idea that he felt comfortable with you and that since he presenced the incident with Leonardo he remembered his experience. Hence the fit of anger he had.

The thought alone of that scumbag hurting you made his head collapse. He was very sensitive about the subject.

“Better?” you wondered out loud after a while of snuggling, yet you didn’t move, finding the proximity significantly pleasant.

“Yeah, uh, sorry” he cleared his throat and released you.

“It’s more than okay”

He nodded, not really looking at you yet.

You tried to think of something that could distract him from those undeserved and heartrending memories.

There was no point of comparison to what Roger had struggled with, but every time you argued with Leo during the year your relationship lasted, you were grateful that your friends organized sporadic plans to help you forget about the fights.

You had to do that for Roger. You had to entertain him. To keep his mind occupied.

“Freddie explained to me drums are much more complicated than what they seem”

Roger glanced over the drumkit.

He was suspicious at first about the topic change, and looked at you from the corner of his eye.

“It can be very ambitious if you don’t do try for real, instead of goofing around. There’s too much going on. People believe it’s just hitting the drums and you’re good. Wankers”

It was unmissable how his face lit up, talking about his passion.

Crossing an ankle over your knee, you bent forward to get a better sight of his much more eased features.

“I’m sure it requires a lot of hard work, the coordination on hands and feet and all that stuff. Singing along as well must be tiring”

Roger’s eyes bored into yours, as if studying and reflecting upon your words. A corner of his mouth lifted.

“Yeah,” he replied amused, “physically it can be tough”

He knew what you were doing.

Just when he was about to ask you if you wanted him to teach you some basics, John came flying through the door.

“For God’s sake, there you are. Roger, I need you. Freddie and Brian are arguing again. Help me out spreading some peace before Freddie slaps him”

****

end of part one, lemme know what you think ! ♡

[lilith-lovett]

Found Families - Home is Where the Hart is - Chapter Sixteen

We have arrived in Act 2 and Logan is now officially Patton’s son but how long will that happiness last, prepare yourself for more angst and heartbreak to come but don’t worry there will be plenty of fluff in there for you also. Thank you for you support and kind comments.

Masterlist

Summary: The time has arrived for Logan to leave 

Word Count: 7972 (prepare yourself for some longer chapters)

Warnings: Past child abuse, bullying, hospital mention, self-deprecation, panic attack, non-verbal, swearing, reference to injuries, bruises, implied depression, disordered eating, death mention. (If there is anything I was missed please let me know).

Logan was waiting at the window. He had hardly slept that night, recalling Patton’s promise to him, for him to return the following day to take him home. Home. He had never had a home before. His parents house was more comparable to a museum then a family home, filled with precious artefacts which he would be severely punished if he touched. Even his room was bare apart from the simple bed and desk though he spent more nights locked in the nightmarish closest, clawing at the walls and gasping for air. That was not a home. The Orphanage was not a home to Logan either, with the shared living space he was segregated within, he had no space of his own, the others had no care for his personal privacy or his possessions, they were violated and destroyed. That was not a home.

What would Patton’s house be like? Logan thought as he gazed wistfully out of the window and onto the street. He imagined it would be large, given the size of his family, but simultaneously cosy with decorative pillows and soft blankets draped across the sizeable couch. Toys and games scattered in organised chaos around the living area, Roman’s artwork framed and mounted on the wall, along side the family portraits - mostly of his children of course - each wall painted a different blindingly bright colour. A wide expense of kitchen, perfect for the preparation of a multitude of incredible dishes, producing an wonderful odour which would flow through the entire house, reaching every room and seeping through the walls becoming apart of the foundation. That was a home.

Logan had packed his minimal belongings the night before, all of his clothes, shoes and personal items fitting into a single rucksack, he placed underneath his bed ready to be collected the minute Patton arrived. But until then he was stuck, looking out of the window, while the other kids laughed and played around him though Logan didn’t take much notice but he was aware of the certain happiness which had entered the Orphanage since Madame Claire was arrested and they were free of her control. The common room didn’t seem so horrible any more.

Just as Logan paid no attention to them, they paid him no mind, which seemed to be a common occurrence since returning from the hospital. Gone were the nasty comments whispered behind his back or spoken within full hearing range, the 10 pm beating leaving him to pick himself up off the floor and treat his ever growing number of injuries. They treated him with a sense of civility, presumably out of thanks for taking the brunt of Madame Claire’s abuse and the one who led to her long awaited arrest. Perhaps Logan had also thought to harshly of his fellow orphans who were also facing cruelty at the hands of their supposed guardians and were mere products of their environment, as was he. They banded together for survival purposes, using a pack like mentality to serve as protection against any potential threats or danger. It was understandable. Had Logan been raised differently he expected he would do the same for the sake of survival in a world which had not treated them kindly. Logan remained separated, though now by personal choice rather then his fellow orphans hatred of him and they all lived in a strange sense of harmony.

Logan pressed his fingers to the glass in order to get a better view. The anticipation was killing him - figuratively of course - and every time he saw a pedestrian cross the street his heart leapt into his throat, only to sink again when a stranger was revealed instead of Patton. This occurred several times until he caught a splash of yellow, a yellow so familiar to him, it was the yellow rain jacket which had been worn on every single one of Patton’s visits and he couldn’t conceal the audible squeak of excitement as he leapt to his feet and near ran out of the common room for the boys dormitory to collect his rucksack with a sense of child like wonder he had thought lost but it didn’t last for long.

“And where do you think you are going in such a hurry, Lobot?” Brandon asked his voice thick with hatred and mockery. He was blocking Logan entry into the dorm, wicked grin widening as he approached. It seemed not all of his former bullies were content leaving him alone.

“Let me through, Brandon,” Logan demanded standing a little straighter in an attempt to make himself seem more imposing but Brandon only laughed.

“No, I don’t think I will, everyone else might have backed off but not me. I am only just getting started with you,” Brandon said taking another step forward as Logan took one back.  

“Your efforts will all be for naught as I am leaving you and this place today,” Logan announced raising his chin only for Brandon to bark out a laugh in response, the harshness of the sound causing Logan to flinch.

“Ha, don’t make me laugh. How pathetic are you to believe that man would want to adopt you?” Brandon spat backing Logan into the wall. “I bet he will just be like all of the others, they will pretend to love you, pretend to care for you and then…they will leave you,”.

“No, Pat…Mr Hart isn’t like that?” Logan exclaimed refusing to believe any more lies.

“No Logan, your dear Patton is exactly like that. He will see soon enough what a horrible mistake he made in choosing you and you will be back,” Brandon growled like an animal pressing one hand against Logan’s chest to keep him from escaping. “You will be all…alone,”.

Logan voice-box spasmed painfully in his throat as he opened his mouth to retort but no sound came out, with those five words Brandon had stolen his voice and he was helpless to defend himself, so instead he hung his head and awaited the first hit which never came.

“You will be back Lobot and when you do I will be here waiting for you,” Brandon said and smiled a final time before releasing Logan who stumbled barely catching himself as Brandon sauntered off, leaving Logan with a dangerous swirl of thoughts in his head.

You will be all alone.

Alone

Alone

Alone

Logan picked himself up and charged into his room, settling on his bed in attempt to settle his hammering heart and rapid breathing. He threw his bag across the room and run his hand through his hair again and again, wishing he could scream but his voice was trapped inside. He sat on the edge of his bed, running his hands up and down his arms as he fought an internal war and attempted to count through the breathing technique Patton had taught him, in attempt to control his quickening breaths. Until he heard a faint knock on the door, he silenced his choked breaths, fearing Brandon had returned to further torture him but when the door opened it revealed a boy…Noah he believed his name was. A small - far to small - quiet boy around eight or nine who Logan hadn’t heard say anything more than a few words. He wasn’t one of Brandon’s cronies but he hadn’t leapt to Logan’s rescue the minute he was cornered but Logan hadn’t expected him too.

Noah stared at Logan’s sorry state with a troubled expression on his face, Logan expected him to laugh, to berate him before running off to tell the others he found the robot crying but Noah did none of those things. Instead he closed the door, softly without making a sound, walked soundlessly over towards Logan’s bed and sat down beside him, risking short glances towards him every so often as Logan wrung his hands and rocked back and forth.

“A-are you okay?” Noah asked his voice barely louder than a whisper as he tapped his fingertips against his thighs. Logan was momentarily stunned, he had never expected one of his fellow orphans, the children who frequently bullied and were a source of years of torment for him, to attempt to comfort him. His head snapped around quickly causing Noah to flinch back at the intensity.

“Are you alright, I heard what Brandon said. He is a…bastard,” Noah repeated a little louder this time before breaking into a fit of soft giggles at the rude term he had used, lessening the weight on Logan’s chest slightly.

Logan nodded his head, as his voice had yet to return, perplexed by the suddenness of Noah’s concern.

“That is…good, I guess…Um, I just wanted to say sorry, we were all jerks to you,” Noah admitted both the confession and apology shocked Logan to the point he had almost entirely forgotten about his altercation with Brandon.

Logan shook his head quickly in response.

“No, you did everyone a favour in…getting rid of…her,” Noah stammered out as if the memory of Madame Claire plagued him still just as it did Logan.

Logan shook his head again, slower this time, momentarily confused by how he assisted in any way.

“Still, thanks. It helped,” Noah said his voice returning to it’s soft whisper as he bowed his head, long hair falling into his eyes.

Logan pointed to his own injuries and bruises before motioning to Noah who nodded before he had even finished his motion, he sighed and lifted up his shirt, which was far to big for his tiny frame, revealing a large and painful looking bruise across his abdomen and ribs.

“She found out I was the one who led Miss Maggie to seeing your bruises, it wasn’t the first time it had happened,” Noah admitted lowering his shirt, then fell silent again. This moment of consolidation between the pair felt significant as if a break through had been made in forming a relationship, perhaps a tentative friendship or at least an understanding of each other. “Uh, Maggie wanted to see you. That is why I came up, I think that guy is here,”.

Logan startled. Patton. He had completely forgotten about Patton. His throat spasmed painfully as he raised a hand to it. He couldn’t meet Patton like this, he was supposed to be going home with him, this was supposed to be a momentous occasion and not to be ruined by his over reaction to the words of a bully. Noah seemed to notice Logan drastic change in demeanour as his expression once again changed to concern.

“It will be alright, if this guy is a good as I have heard, you will be okay,” Noah said laying a tentative hand on Logan’s shoulder. “And don’t worry about your voice, it happens to me all of the time, okay?”.

Logan glanced up at his strange new acquaintance curiously, he didn’t know any of the specifics of Noah’s past, he knew that like his own it certainly wasn’t good. He had been hurt by the people who were supposed to care for him and that lead him here, where that abuse only continued. Just like him.

“Are you ready?” Noah asked standing and extending his hand out toward Logan, who nodded and took it graciously, allowing himself to be assisted before taking a final deep breath, collected his bag and followed Noah down to the foyer where Patton would be waiting for him.

“Logan, you are here,” Maggie exclaimed when she caught sight of Logan, she paused for a moment presumably taking note of Logan’s dishevelled appearance and her expression swiftly converted to one of concern as her gaze flitted between Noah and himself.

“Logan can’t talk right now but other than that he is okay,” Noah said who glanced towards Logan as he explained briefly the situation which Logan was incredible grateful for. Noah’s voice had quietened again but not to the extent where he became impossible to understand.

“Are you sure, Logan?” Maggie asked a hint of worry present in her tone as she presumably studied him, he nodded in response and the tension eased from her shoulders somewhat. “Okay, well, are you already to head off?”.

Logan glanced over to where Patton was stood for the first time since arriving in the foyer, he was dressed as he typically was with a sheepish grin stretched across his lips. Logan imagined he had worried Patton also and an overwhelming feeling of guilt crawled over him as he averted his gaze to his floor, clutching his bag tighter to his chest which didn’t escape the notice of Patton who had been becoming increasing perceptive these days.

“It is alright Logan, you can take all the time you need to say goodbye,” Patton said throwing him a smile when Logan eventually worked up the courage to meet his eye.

Logan turned to Noah first who was in the process of attempting to sneak away, presumably believing he was interrupting, he caught his eye and smiled as it was the only form of communication he could manage. Noah returned the smile, speaking his goodbyes without words but they reached Logan nonetheless. He believed perhaps in a different time and place, without the burden and memory of their pasts a top their shoulders and the fight for survival, the two of them could have been friends, close friends, able to confide in each other and share common interests but fate hadn’t been kind to either of them. Logan hoped Noah would to find his ‘Patton’. Next he turned to Maggie, the woman who had fought and advocated for him even in the moments when he did not earn or deserve her support, she had been his only ally in this lonely place and every day he was eternally grateful for her company.

“I told you so,” Maggie giggled as she wiped away a few tears, referring to the open day where she had told him to not lose hope, the very day he met Patton and that day had led him to where he was now. “I don’t know what I am going to do without you, reading isn’t going to be nearly as fun but don’t you worry about me, you won’t get a rid of me that easily. You may be entering a new and exciting chapter of your life but just as I told you before, circumstances may change and we may be apart but I will never leave you, Logan,”.

Maggie was crying openly now, Logan too was fighting back tears now and then he did something entirely out of character. He threw himself into Maggie’s arms, squeezing tightly just as he felt hers wind around his slight frame, holding on just as tight. Eventually they broke apart and she pressed a final kiss to his forehead as he left to stand by Patton side.

“You are welcome to come over any time you like, you too kiddo,” Patton said Noah jolting in surprise at his mention then smiling and nodding in response.

“Thank you Patton,” Maggie said dabbing at her wet cheeks. “Goodbye Logan,”.

Logan smiled once again and waved as he left with Patton, leaving between the Orphanage he had spent the last two years of his life, where he had been tortured and tormented for simply being. He was leaving that all behind and beginning a new life. Logan Baxter would become Logan Hart…he only hoped he would live up to the name.

Patton could barely contain his excitement as he drove home, Logan sat in the passenger seat just like he had imagined though not present in his fantasies was Logan’s silence. Noah hadn’t explained what caused Logan to become non-verbal and Patton hadn’t pressed the subject any further, hoping in due time his voice would return to him, instead he attempted to fill the weighty silence with his soft humming along to the radio as he snuck glances at Logan every so often. He was staring out of the window, presumably studying his surroundings as he fidgeted unconsciously with the cube in his hand, nervousness present in his rigid posture and frantic hands.

“Hey Logan, I know this is a massive change for you and I want you to feel comfortable and safe, so I don’t want to push you into anything you don’t want to do or talk about and please tell me if I am doing something wrong or making you uncomfortable. Your happiness is my top priority,” Patton said after an elongated silence. He knew breaking down Logan’s walls would be difficult but he was determined and wouldn’t give up so easily. “The kids are all pretty excited to see you again, they want to give you a tour of the house and show you your new room, we can also go shopping for clothes and some things to decorate your room if you like?”.

The conversation continued to flow with Patton firing out different topics and statements while Logan reacted, nodding, shaking his head and even smiling at some points but despite the lengthy car journey Logan’s voice still hadn’t returned which sparked a negative swirl of thoughts. What if he was being to much? Going to fast? What if Logan had changed his mind and he didn’t want to be adopted by him? Patton cut off the dangerous downward spiral of negativity with a few deep breaths, Emile’s advice ringing in his ears and shooting a smile towards Logan who had paused in his observations to eye Patton’s change in demeanour curiously, in an effort to appease him.

“I am so happy you are here Logan ,” Patton said watching as Logan’s pale complexion blushed and Patton outwardly squealed. “Aw kiddo, you are so cute,”.

Logan spluttered and pouted, crossing his arms over his chest and turning away in a mock annoyance as Patton laughed at the display. They would be just fine. As a family, they would support each other through all difficulties which may arise and through times of both light and darkness and come out stronger together. He had faith they would be okay.

 “Well kiddo, we are here,” Patton announced as Logan shrank back, his former apprehension returning. “Come on, you have nothing to worry about, I promise,”.

Logan nodded and collected his belongings, walking cautiously behind Patton as they approached the large house. It was surprisingly big and well-maintained, particularly the front garden; a luscious green lawn, a combination of wild flowers and potted plants skillfully arranged in an explosion of colour and pleasant fragrances, bees buzzing happily from flower to flower. Azaleas, freesias, geraniums, hydrangeas and others of all varieties in full bloom. Logan couldn’t recall the last time he had seen such a breath-taking garden, evident from it’s appearance it was well-loved by it’s carer. Upon entering the house they were met with Roman, Virgil, Declan and a man he did not recognise, waiting in what Logan presumed to be the general living area from the choice in furnishings and the ‘homey’ atmosphere.

“We are back, did you miss us?”Patton said as Declan rushed into his arms and Patton lifting him, balancing the toddler on his hip but the others attention was all turned upon Logan.

“Welcome Logan, Patton has told me all about you. I’m Emile, kind of the honorary uncle,” Emile explained as he extended a hand to Logan which he took out of politeness, Patton had informed him of his rather strange relationship with Emile - who had a rather unnatural hair colour - that he was in fact not related to the family in any way and was actually Patton’s close friend but took the place of the children ‘uncle’ as Patton had no siblings himself. He also explained that Emile was a therapist, a field which Logan found fascinating but struggled himself to comprehend and for an unknown reason he felt somewhat self-conscious in the presence of a therapist who may easily be able to read his expressions and mannerisms. “Do you how do?”.

“Just ignore that,” Virgil said seeming to note Logan confusion in regards to the grammatically incorrect statement. “Long time no see,”. Logan merely nodded in response - as it was all he in the moment could do - which gained him a rather strange look from both Virgil and Roman he could not decipher.

“Well now you are here, let us make haste and begin the grand tour,” Roman proclaimed with a dramatic sweep of the arm. “Come dear brethren, to our first location the living room,”.

“Unfortunately, I will have to miss the tour, I am needed back at work but I was nice meeting you Logan,” Emile said before saying his goodbyes and exiting as the tour commenced.

Beginning in the living room - where they were already stood - Roman began retelling the several stylistic choices with Patton chiming in every so often as Virgil collapsed onto the couch, Declan crawling over to nestle in beside him. The living room was moderately sized, open-planned leading to the dining and kitchen area through an archway, with a staircase leading to the second storey on the left. The walls were a pale blue with a single yellow accent wall which held the majority of the decorations, picture frames and a sizeable shelf holding; various miscellaneous knick-knacks, books and a large framed family portrait. Furniture filled almost all available space, from the enormous couch which sat in the centre of the room, adorned in decorative cushions and the softest looking blankets Logan believed he had ever seen also in a variety of bright colours and interesting patterns, a similarly styled armchair sat adjacent to the couch. Toy and games congregated in a organised clutter in each corner and no space was left unfilled by personal items which only someone as unique as Patton would own. Light flooded into the room through the wide open windows and a pleasant aroma of lavender was emitted from half burned candles laid on the coffee table. 

Moving on, into the kitchen and dining area, the bright theme continued with the walls painted this time a much brighter azure. A sizeable dining table, seating eight, filled the majority of the room with each seat covering colour corresponding to the favourite colour of a family member, a glass vase filled with wild flowers similar to those seen in the garden acted as the centrepiece. To the right, was the gigantic and well-loved kitchen, from the first look it was evidently Patton’s area of the house with a matching soft grey and baby blue appearance. Appliances and baking supplies covered the expanse of counter-space, a variety novelty items such as cooking utensils and cutlery were proudly displayed and a overwhelming amount of cookery and baking themed puns were littered throughout the kitchen and Patton’s consistent giggling only grew louder. To the left, held a bathroom and utility room, both of which Roman purposefully skipped instead excitably rushing upstairs to where the bedrooms were situated.

“My room first!” Roman announced bounding down the hallways passing several other doorways, pausing in front of the one decorated in several brightly coloured stickers referencing things Logan did not recognise.

Roman’s room was much like Roman himself. Dramatic. With crimson walls, accented with white and gold, decorated in a variety of signed posters, artwork and other theatrical adornments, a queen size canopy bed sat against one wall with a similar red and gold coloured bed-spread patterned with tiny crowns fitting with the ‘princely’ theme, a stuffed dragon toy sat proudly at the head. Opposite from the bed was a desk which previously may have been white but years of paint spills and bored doodles had permanently stained it, drawing utensils and half-finished drawings were strewn across the workspace in a haphazard mess which Logan desperately desired to organise. One wall contained a wardrobe overflowing with clothes, costumes and other miscellaneous items Roman presumably felt some sort of attachment to, mindless mess; purposeless knick-knack and aesthetic pieces were scattered across all available surfaces. The room had an overall sense of organised chaos, nothing at all like Logan’s old room with its pristine walls and no personal touch or flair as Roman’s had, personalised to fit Roman’s identity flawlessly.

Secondly, Virgil and Declan’s shared room, slightly smaller than Roman’s room but still moderately sized. Each brother’s section easily identified by the choices in colour and style. Virgil’s segment of the room was considerably darker than Declan’s with deep purple walls plastered with posters unlike Roman’s, handwritten notes pinned up and string lights hanging above his bed as a secondary light source, his bedspread was of a similar colour with a grey stuff donkey and a skeleton doll tucked beneath the sheets and a soft grey weighted blanket sat, folded on the edge of his bed which Logan believed was commonly used to reduce anxiety and stress in order to improve sleep. Virgil’s room also included a desk, though far neater than Roman’s still contained a considerably number of stationary spread across it, at the back portion of the desk sat a collection of journals varying in size and colour, stacked orderly via these characteristics creating a satisfying gradient affect. Adjacent to the desk was a bookcase which Logan took particular interest in, it contain numerous titles and authors he himself was familiar with specifically those focusing around gothic fiction but there was also a considerably number of modern poetry books which took him by surprise. Virgil had fewer belongings than Roman though a far greater number than himself, a guitar had been balanced against his night-stand which held a pair of purple headphones, a locked notebook and a miniature book of poems. The room was less visually distracting as Roman but just as stimulating as Logan studied his surrounding, theorising from Virgil’s withdrawn disposition he spent a great majority of his time spent in his room where he could freely express himself.

Declan’s section of the room was arguably smaller than Virgil which was understandable given the age difference and their difference in needs. The bed was smaller with barriers on each side presumably for protection purposes, the blanket was a intense sunshine yellow and perhaps the softest blanket Logan had ever witnessed in his life, it was also filled with stuffed toys, the largest being a yellow and green striped snake which engulfed much of the bed along with a variety of others. A lime green beanbag chair sat in the back corner of the room which similarly held more soft toys and on the left of the bed stood an appropriately sized cabinet, holding games, books and yet again more toys. This section provided a sharp contrast in colours given the harshness of Virgil’s area but also contributed a cheerful brightness to the otherwise dark room.

Separated from the other bedrooms was Patton’s, it was simple, modest but filled with memories, picture frames adorned every baby blue wall and surface, containing moments of importance immortalised in frozen images. Award and certificates, photo albums stacked high, set proudly on display. His own large bed was covered in a plain grey bedspread and a solitary stuffed dog sat the head. Despite its simplicity Logan felt largely at ease in Patton’s room as it held the same soothing air as Patton did as if Patton’s spirit had been built into the foundation of the house, his personality stretched throughout the many rooms, filling each of them with the same sense of comfort which Logan had grown to need.

“Now lastly, welcome to your room Logan,” Patton announced as he open the final door just across from Virgil and Declan’s, to the right of Roman’s.

The room was large, far larger than Logan had expected and already painted and  furnished with deep navy blue walls and a bed pressed again one wall, dressed in a tartan bedspread of varying shades of blue and sat in the centre was a simple stuff bear. On the opposite wall a dark wood desk which provided plenty of workspace for studying, on each side was a similarly coloured bookcase, stretching high to the ceiling, half filled with books, titles some of which he had read others of which he recognised and remembered seeing in the book-store Patton had taken him to some while ago now though still granted him enough shelf space. The room as contained an empty wardrobe waiting to be filled, a bedside table barren expect for a solitary reading lamp. Logan glanced around the room…his room with amazement and a hint of fear. All of this was his, he could hardly believe it, how much this must of cost to organise for his coming? It was far to much. He wished he had his voice to tell Patton so, he would be content with an undecorated closet, spacious enough for a simple bed and desk for it was all he required but as the thought of the cramped and narrow closet entered his mind his throat tightened further.

“It is pretty bare at the moment but over the weekend we can go shopping, you can choose some decorations and buy you some more clothes,” Patton said with a smile but Logan struggled to return it. Patton would be spending more money on him, he had done far more for Logan than anyone else had, simply being allowed into his home and accepted in his family dynamic was enough. “Well, that is the tour finished and I am starving so how about I make dinner a little earlier tonight?”. The answer was a excited exclamation from Roman, Virgil and Declan.

“Excellent, Logan do you like spaghetti bolognese?” Patton asked and to be honest Logan did not know, the meals at the orphanage rarely changed and while living with his parents he was kept on a strict diet but in order to not displease Patton he nodded.

With that Logan then found himself directed back downstairs and into the dining area, taking a seat beside Virgil who was scrolling through his cellular device, while Patton worked in the kitchen to prepare their meal. Roman who had sat diagonally to Logan, vibrated excitedly in his seat, Declan who sat adjacent to both Roman and Virgil balanced on his knees mimicking Roman’s excitement. Not long later, Patton had completed the preparations and set his plate of food down in front of him. Logan allowed the delicious smell to fill his nostrils as every one else dug in before doing so himself, pasta was always a difficult food for him to eat as it was nearly impossible for him to separate it into matching halves so he kept to his ingrained rule of only eating half of whatever he was provided but he made an effort and when he did he struggled to stop. He couldn’t recall a time when he had ingested something so delicious.

“So Logan, I have a very important question for you. What is your favourite Disney movie?” Roman asked pausing in his consumption to the phrase the serious sounding question. “You do know what Disney is, right?. Presumably gauging Logan’s confusion from his blank expression, another shake of the head gave him his answer.

“You don’t know what Disney is!” Virgil exclaimed appearing to be in a state of shock at his admission which only added to Logan’s level of perplexity.

“God, you are so uncultured,” Roman sighed his gaze returned to his meal until his eyes once again lit up. “Hey padre, can we have a movie night, we can show specs here all of our favourite movies?”.

“I don’t see why not, lets do it,” Patton said with a grin and Roman and Virgil both hurried to finish their meals before leaving the table in order to begin their preparations for the ‘movie night’ as Roman referred to it. “Don’t worry Logan, they just get a little excited. Are you finished?”.

Logan nodded, pushing away his plate with approximately half of the pasta left on his plate, Patton eyed it with a strange look before sighing and removing it with his own, in order to clean them. How stupid. Logan should be washing dishes, not allowing Patton to do it for him. He stood abruptly and made his way over to the sink where Patton was stood, to take over the job of cleaning them.

“Don’t worry about this kiddo, you go and sit and we will get started soon,” Patton said directing him to the living room while he continued cleaning.

Only a short while later, after all preparations had been made; suitable treats and refreshments provided, soft blankets tossed across their laps and films had been selected, one per sibling and a fourth chosen by Patton that he believed Logan would appreciate. They began with Roman’s pick, one of the earlier Disney films, named Sleeping Beauty which told the story of a Princess who was sent away to live in the woods with some supernatural beings and then returned sixteen years later, only to become cursed and fall into a deep sleep so a prince could come and save her. Thought the premise was rather outdated and somewhat offensive the animation style was appealing and the musical numbers enjoyable, it became evident to Logan why it was Roman’s favourite relatively quickly as he jumped up to perform every song as Virgil berated him, throwing pieces of popcorn at him. Virgil choice was The Nightmare before Christmas though it was not near any of those holidays, the plot was rather strange with some rather frightening Halloween creatures attempting to ‘steal’ Christmas by kidnapping the fabled Santa Claus and in the middle Virgil and Roman broke into a debate regarding whether or not the film should be classified as a Halloween or a Christmas film. Though Declan’s choice may have been the strangest of all, The Jungle Book in which animals could talk and a jaguar tasked himself with returning the main character to the ‘man village’ as he was being hunted by a tiger, though Logan believed Declan may have only like the film because of the inclusion of a snake as a character despite the character in question being a villain who did make an attempt on the main characters life. The final film chosen by Patton particularly for Logan, piqued his interest. Big Hero Six, in which Hiro an incredibly intelligent child with an aptitude for robotics loses his older brother in a fire and with the help of his brother’s invention a healthcare robot named Baymax and his friends forms a superhero team in order to discover what happened to his brother, initially seeking revenge but later finds forgiveness and by the end everyone bar him was crying at the ‘death’ of Baymax. Though the bitter-sweet ending was lost to Logan he appreciated the heavy inclusion of science and robotics and by the end he found himself enjoying the film.

Following the movie night, Roman and Virgil retired to their rooms and Logan collected a book from his rucksack before returning to the living room and sat beside Patton who held a drowsy Declan in his lap, gently running his fingers through his curls as Logan observed him.

“Are you okay Logan?” Patton asked a hated question of his as he rarely understood his own feelings. “You have been quiet all day,”. Logan pressed two fingers against his throat, communicating that his voice still hadn’t returned despite all his efforts but he still could scarcely make a sound.

“It is okay, this is a massive change and you are adapting to a new environment which will take time but please I want you to tell me if…” Patton was cut off.

“Dad!” Virgil called from upstairs. “Roman is being an idiot,”.

“Am not, you are the stupid one!” Roman shot back. The noise seemed to startled Declan to let out an ear-piercing cry as Logan slapped his hands over his ears in an attempt to block out the incessant crying. Patton leapt up, immediately cradled Declan to his chest, rocking him back and forth and murmuring soothing words of comfort in an effort to calm him but to no avail. The cries only increased in volume as did the anger-fuelled bickering upstairs, the painful noise scraping against the inside of his head.

Patton seemed to note Logan’s growing distress at the influx of noise and he called upstairs as he continued to try and quiet Declan but his efforts were unsuccessful in solving the disagreement between Roman and Virgil and their argument only grew louder as they spat degrading nicknames at each other. This pattern continued for another few minutes until Logan recognised the signs of growing panic in Patton manner and expression as he found himself unable to settle the distress of Declan or the conflict between Roman and Virgil, the sight unsettled Logan it seemed unnatural for Patton’s typically happy disposition to be maimed by anxiety. So Logan did something entirely unlike him, he stood up, removed his hand from his ears despite his own spike in anxiety at the increased noise level and held out in arms.

“Oh, thank you so much, kiddo,” Patton said grateful, once he realised what Logan meant by the action and gently lowered the still screaming and squirming child into his arms before hurrying upstairs. Logan sat down with a wriggling Declan in his lap. Now what does he do now?

 “Now, I want you both to apologise to each other,” Patton said somewhat sternly to Roman and Virgil who shared the same shame filled look. Their argument had been resolved quickly through both of them sharing their sides and opinions while the other listened and by the end both understood the other feelings.

“Sorry,” Virgil grumbled sinking further into his hoodie.

“I must also apologise for my words,” Roman and extended a hand out towards Virgil. “Truce,”.

“Truce,” Virgil repeated taking his hand, a small smile creeping onto his face.

“Yay, now I need to go and save Logan from D…” Patton paused he didn’t hear screaming and crying any more, which was unusual. If Dee was having one of his meltdowns it typically took up to half an hour to calm him down. What if something had happened?

“Logan!” Patton called out as he hurried downstairs, followed by Roman and Virgil but his worries were dispelled instantly as he heard Logan’s soft voice reading to Declan as he sat nicely in his lap, babbling along to Logan’s words.

Patton’s heart swelled with pride as he, Roman and Virgil moved silently to sit and listen to Logan’s telling of A Study in Scarlet, the very book he had explained to Patton the day they met. Logan’s voice was low and calm a little shaky in some areas from lack of use but it worked in settling Dee from his outburst in a matter of minutes. He was incredible, quiet and conscientious, so mature for his age though Patton knew that was the result of years of abuse and it would take time for Logan to fully open up to him but he was determined and willing. After all Logan was a member of his famILY now.              

Once Declan began to drift in and out consciousness in Logan’s lap he stopped, closed his book and then only noticed Patton, Roman and Virgil’s presence, intently listening to him as he read aloud. It felt natural as reading and immersing himself into a new world through the words written on a page was a way in which often calmed himself after his own moments of infrequent upset, to begin reading to the wailing child and it worked, he quieten almost immediately and at one point attempted to read along though most came out as indecipherable nonsense. He felt his face heat up at the attention he was receiving and unconsciously curled in on himself in the hope they would move their focus elsewhere.

“I think it is someone’s bedtime,” Patton said taking the limp toddler from Logan’s lap. “Say goodnight, DeeDee,”.

“Night-night, Lo-Lo,” Declan mumbled waving his gloved hand in Logan’s direction.

“Goodnight,” Logan said unsure of what else to say. Once Declan had been put to sleep, Roman and Virgil departed shortly after, retiring to their own bedrooms, leaving only himself and Patton left in the swiftly darkening living room, illuminated by lamp light.

“Thank you Logan, for helping with Dee,” Patton said with a warm smile.

“It was a simple task, I have done nothing to deserve your thanks,” Logan admitted glancing down at the book in his lap, only realising now it was the very book he had been reading and explained to Patton the first time they met which felt so long ago now.

“No Logan, you did something for me, no matter how small a thing it may have been, you still did it though it made you uncomfortable. So, thank you,” Patton explained decreasing the proximity between them. “How are you feeling?”.

“I am a little…overwhelmed though I suppose it is to be expected going through such a significant change but…” Logan paused unsure of whether or not to continue but with a encouraging prompt from Pattopn he did. “You are not the first potential guardian to…show interest in me. It was at my previous orphanage, I had been there for a year at this point and a young couple began to visit me. They were both pleasant and kind-hearted people, they came to see me weekly and as the orphanage policy, organised a week long transitionary period where I would live with them in order to see if I was the correct fit for their household. It was my fault they changed, I became difficult, a burden on them, I was not the same child they had met at the orphanage and I was treated as such. When the week was finished and I returned to the orphanage they promised they would come back to see me the next week but I never saw them again, I do not blame them for their actions, they were deserved but that experience I believe has somewhat affected my own behaviour and I merely wish to apologise for it in advance,”.

Patton was silent and for a moment Logan believed he may be regretting his decision to adopt him and bring him into his family with his new insight into Logan’ past and behaviours and was planning to return him to the orphanage the following morning. Thankfully, he hadn’t yet unpacked his belongings in preparation for this moment. But instead of the anger he expected to follow at this admission, tears appeared in Patton’s eyes.

“Logan, kiddo, no,” Patton whimpered a sound which made Logan’s heart seize up. “You aren’t my possession or something to be returned at my choosing, you are my son and it my job as your dad to love and protect you no matter the circumstances or how difficult it may be. Those people…they should have done the same, attempted to understand your behaviour instead of punishing you for it. I promise you, I will love you and care for you like a dad is supposed to, that is my promise to you,”.

“Okay,” Logan whispered unsure of what else to say, there was a swirl of emotions within his head and chest, none of which he understood. His eyes stung with unshed tears and he scrubbed at them in the hope they would vanish but to no avail, one rolled down his cheek.

“Can I hug you kiddo?” Patton asked arms already outstretched when Logan nodded, needing the warmth and comfort of Patton’s arms as they enveloped him in a sense of security and he never wanted to leave them.

They sat curled up together, Logan burrowed within Patton’s arms until he felt himself growing weary, a yawn breaking from his lips as Patton suggested with a tired giggle he go to bed. Now in the bedroom. No, his bedroom. He undressed, replacing his day clothes with his pyjamas and prepared to go to sleep but the bear tucked beneath the covers caught his attention. Logan took it from it’s position against the pillows, tracing his fingertips across the soft grey fur. How strange that Patton’s same comforting nature was imbued into this lifeless toy. He had never owned a toy before, his biological parents thought them frivolous and a distraction from his studies and the Orphanage’s were to be shared amongst all of the children but he never saw the appeal of them until now. Logan hugged the simple bear tight against his chest, using it’s paw the wipe the wetness from his cheeks and he fell quickly to sleep, underneath his new sheets, in his new bed, in his new room, in his new home and new family.

Logan slept peacefully for the first night in years.

Notes: Noah is a new and completely unintentional OC which I have fallen in love with, so if anyone would like some headcanons for him please let me know.

Also, the Hart house is somewhat modeled after my own house.

And lastly, I am in need of information of how American middle schools work as I am from Scotland and I have no idea. Thanks.

Tag list: @poems-art-darkness-n-more @i-do-not-dislike-fudge @alex-cain @tacochippy @mason-does-a-thing @darkrainbow333 @amber1594 @falseh0od @lovingcreatorstrawberry @callboxkat @anxiousangel121 @comicsimpson @harrypotternerdprincess @cobythinks @whatschooldoesntteachyou @fandomkitty8 @coloursintheblur @read-write-inspire-repeat @clinicalawesomeness @deceit-sanders-deserved-better @scared-ghosthunter

If you would like to be added to the tag list, have a question about the series and it’s characters or you simply want to say hi, please do not hesitate to send me an ask or a message.

[you-andthebottlemen]

56 - Request: SIDETRACK song fic

******************

Going against my better judgement, a verrryyyy drunk Evangeline is posting this at 4am.... 

I got home a couple days ago and life hasn’t been so kind to me.  Aka I had ‘welcome home’ drinks with friends which turned into me crying over all the scary things going on for me right now and making everyone just watch catfish/van videos with me.....

You wouldn’t believe how many tries it took to type this without typos...anywayyyy please send me your thoughts and ENJOY!! And listen to past me below:

***************

Okay so I don’t think I’ve ever worked as hard or as long on a request before....I’m pretty proud of this one? I tried to draw both from the request and the lyrics and meld it all together. Ahhh I hope you all love it as much as I do! 

Would honestly love some feedback on this one, so if you read it and love it or hate it or something in between, please feel free to drop me a message or an ask! I just want my writing to get better so I wanna know what works and what doesn’t etc. Just give me any and all thoughts :)

Based on this request:

A Sidetrack song fic where the reader is one of Van’s best friends (like a second Larry) and they’ve always been more than just mates... and they start to get somewhere but then Van gets the hots for another girl and he always has to visit when they tour by her house, but they fall out and the reader’s the god in the ‘if I try to talk to god and she’s forgot your name, you won’t get through’ lyric and Van realises that it’s the reader that he’s really wanted all along? [1/2] And it’s kind of angsty because the reader’s like ‘well why didn’t you have me when you had the chance’ and there’s really sad Van because he realises how dirty he did the reader but it ends with a big load of fluff? Is this a bad concept? Idk [2/2]

I hope this is everything you wanted anon, thank you sooo much for requesting <3

Also I hope you don’t mind that I wrote this from two POV’s! It seemed to make more sense to me to write a song fic from Van’s POV idk….

E x

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‘YOUR’ – reader’s POV:

Your roommates were away, you had no idea where Larry was and since Van would be late back from the studio, you felt a little lost at your own house party. It had grown way bigger than planned and you didn’t know half the people who’d shown up. You escaped to the kitchen, thinking it would be a refuge from the drunken house guests and their plus one’s. But alas, you were thrown into the deep end of drinking games. Somehow, you’d been convinced to play a round of Truth or Dare. You despised the game, well drinking games in general, but were tipsy enough already not to care. The music was loud in your ears and your whole body was buzzing.

So far you’d been lucky, relatively speaking. You pranked called your sister. You told the story of your most embarrassing sexual encounter. It was all pretty juvenile but that was okay. You just kept drinking your way through your six pack of canned ciders and enjoyed the feeling of slowly becoming intoxicated. Though through your drunken haze, you managed to spot a familiar black suede jacket and mop of sandy brown hair try and pass through the kitchen unnoticed.

“Vaaan!”

Van turned on his heels, his face lighting up when he saw you. He came over and leant on the wall beside where you were sat. You rested your head on him and he stroked your hair gently as a hello. Quickly you pulled away and introduced Van to anyone at the table he’d not already met.

“Gotten a bit mental here y/n,” he laughed, looking around him. You nodded and shrugged; not your problem right now.

“Come and play Van!” Ella interrupted, reaching out to hold his arm and batting her eyelashes at him flirtatiously.

Your stomach nauseated for a moment. She probably had a crush on him, quite a few your friends did. No one understood how you could simply be friends with Van and not head over heels in love with him. Though what people didn’t know, was that somewhere along the way you’d began to feel some very non-platonic feelings develop. This terrified you beyond belief. You were y/n and Van. Best mates. You’d seen the worst of each other and you’d seen the best, shared life experiences, grown together. You were the ‘female Larry’ apparently. You knew nothing else. And because of all this, you kept your feelings a secret, buried deep inside, too afraid of losing him.

“Nah, I was just gonna duck out for a smoke actually,” he replied, trying to worm his way out politely.

“Come on Van…I daaare you,” you replied, looking up at him mischievously.

You knew he wouldn’t be able to resist that glint in your eyes. Van took one of your cans and sat down beside you with a heavy eye roll.

Sure, maybe you and Van were a little closer than just friends at times with your cuddles or meaningless flirtations. Sometimes you even thought that just maybe, he felt the same things for you back. However, you were never sure and never confident enough to say anything. You just suffered in silence and pretended you didn’t feel whatever it was you felt.

Despite his strong dislike of drinking games, Van was actually enjoying himself. Everyone was laughing and goofing around, Van had a grin plastered to his face and you felt warm inside seeing him take part in some normality. It was good for him.

“Truth or dare?”

“Dare,” Van replied confidently then took a sip of his drink.

“Van, I dare you to kiss y/n,” one of the girls said, a sly smile on her face.

Your stomach dropped and your heart seized up in your chest. No way. You didn’t want your first, or only kiss, with Van to be because of a stupid, drunken dare. You began to panic and sweat lightly. With a gulp you glanced at Van. He had a dreamy little smile on his lips. You wanted to stop playing, to back out. Though you found yourself too nervous to speak.

Everyone else at the table looked utterly thrilled at the prospect of seeing you two kiss, except Ella who wore a tiny frown.

“Alright…” Van said quietly to himself then skulled the rest of his can. “Pucker up, babe,” he winked. You just stared at him blankly.

Before you could prepare for or even think about what was happening, Van moved in and held a hand to your jaw then pressed his soft, cider flavoured lips to yours. You swore your heart stopped. After a second of shock induced stillness, you kissed him back. Hard. You heard people cheer and whistle but all you could think about was how Van’s lips were warm and his faced seemed to fit perfectly together with yours and how his hand felt cupping your cheek.

When you both pulled back for air, you met his swimming blue eyes for a moment, and both just stared into each other. It was a proper kiss, not just a peck and you didn’t know what to make of it. Van sat back into his chair and laughed as he hung an arm around the back of your chair casually. You couldn’t wrap your head around what’d just happened; you were too drunk and too dizzied by your feelings and rapid heart rate. You sat back quietly and took another gulp of cider from your half empty can, then forced a smile onto your  dazed face. The rest of the game played out like a dream; you couldn’t focus and things felt blurry. Your mind was stuck on the fact that you’d just kissed Van, your best friend and it was a big fucking deal for you. Was it a big deal for him too?

Eventually you sipped water and sat out of the final rounds under the pretence you were feeling dizzy; not exactly a lie. You watched as Van completed dare after dare and listened to the occasional truth he’d have to spill. When your mate from work, Todd suggested another game, you pulled a face. Van took your hand in his under the table and without a fight, you let him lead you away out of the kitchen.  

In the living room you spotted Larry playing cards on the sofa around the coffee table, wedged between the arm rest and a couple making out. Nice. Van picked up a bottle of wine from the coffee table, careful not to disturb the game. You looked at all the chaos around you; people hooking up, dancing, talking, taking photos. Some poor chap on the floor. Van placed a hand on the small of your back.

“Wanna get outta here?”

“Yes please.”

You and Van slipped away from the heart of the party and disappeared to your room. You collapsed back onto your bed with your eyes shut. Even though you were still, the alcohol in your blood made you feel as though you were actually on a boat rocking side to side.

Van shed his jacket then fiddled around with your record player but gave up when he realised the music from the living room would drown out anything he put on. He sat beside you on the bed and opened the bottle he’d brought. You sat up and he held it out to you. You took a swig then passed it back. You took it in turns with the bottle while making pointless, drunk chatter under the yellow glow of your fairy lights. All the while, the thought of kissing Van played on your mind.

When you’d had enough wine, you fell onto your back again and stared up at the ceiling. Van put the bottle on the floor then lay down, his shoulder pressed to yours. You were close enough to smell his cologne and hear his breath. You shut your eyes and Van let out a contented sigh.

“Some dare huh…” you said nervously, but your tone light-hearted.

“Yeah,” he chuckled. Van moved to lay on his side and face you, his head propped up with his arm. “You’re a good kisser,” he added.

You fluttered your eyes open and gazed up at him. He was really close now and your chest tightened once again. You didn’t know how to reply but you were sure the hot pink blush on your cheeks said it all. Van’s eyes were sparkling in the dim light, his eyelashes casting small shadows onto his cheeks. You looked at the seas of freckles dotted around his face, his gingery stubble, the shape of his pink lips. Quite simply, he looked beautiful. Van was staring at you too and he seemed to notice your eyes on his lips. The tension in the air was so thick you could have cut it with a knife. This was brand new territory for you both.

“Van I- “

Before you could finish your sentence, Van swooped in and kissed you, again. Your eyes widened in shock for a moment then you melted into the kiss. You grabbed his hair urgently in your hands and he wrapped an arm around your waist, pulling you as close as he could. You didn’t realise how desperate you were for this moment until you were thrown into it. You found your rhythm together and things heated up quickly. Van slipped a warm hand under your shirt, running his fingers lightly across your skin, making you shiver. You pulled away slightly and looked at him. Both of you breathed heavily.

“Is this okay?” he asked, his voice a low whisper.

You nodded and moved your hands slowly to his belt, keeping your eyes locked on his. They were still sparkling but now full of lust; it drove you mad to see him look at you that way.

“It’s not weird?” you asked.

“Not weird,” he breathed with eyes half shut, and impatiently kissed you again.

You managed to undo Van’s belt and he ripped it away, your shirt close behind. Somehow you both shed the rest of your clothing and you hardly had a moment to think about the fact you were naked in front of Van for the first time; utterly vulnerable. You were too intoxicated by both alcohol and him to care. Van pulled you beneath the sheets, skin on skin and all thoughts of the party outside or drinking games or friendship, left your minds.

……………………………..

You thought things with Van had started to get somewhere after you’d drunkenly slept together for the first time. The sex was messy, but it was intense and felt right. Furthermore, it stirred those feelings in you that you couldn’t ignore any longer. You thought maybe he reciprocated whatever it was that you had begun to feel for him. It had felt like more than just sex between friends. But it seemed you were wrong. It wasn’t too awkward at first but after a little while, Van seemed distant and distracted. Soon enough, he was off on tour again and things became even more complicated.

You spoke on the phone or facetime every so often, but it was different. This was the first time you and Van had been on the outs and it was killing you. You’d spoken to Larry briefly; all he’d said was that Van probably had the hots for some girl and his head wasn’t straight because of it, not to take it personally. But you were taking it personally and for the first time, you’d hoped that girl was you. That perhaps his behaviour was because he was struggling to come to terms with his feelings for you too.

Weeks went by and after a long period of deliberation, you decided to take the plunge and tell Van how you felt. When tour was done and he was home, you managed to get Van to commit to coming over for a drink. You heard his knock on the door, you let him in saying a shaky hello. He kissed you on the cheek and asked how you’d been. It all felt forced. Once the pleasantries were done, you decided to bite the bullet.

“Van, I know things with us have been…off lately. But I think I need to tell you…” you began, folding your hands into your lap nervously.

Van placed his drink down on the table and looked at you, his expression unreadable. You squeezed your eyes shut and exhaled before looking him dead in the eye and letting your heart spill from your mouth.

“I have feelings for you. I tried to ignore it but ever since that one night at the party I just… can’t keep pretending.”

The bombshell was dropped. It felt equally like a weight had been lifted and like you’d just made the worst decision of all time. Van sat up and ran his hands through his hair. Your heart began to pound and you felt a little faint. You couldn’t believe what you’d said, or the implications of such words. Van opened his mouth and for a moment, you thought he might just confess his feelings as well.

“Look, y/n. I…I’ve met someone.”

You blinked slowly and shook your head in disbelief. That was the last thing you expected him to respond with.

“What?”

“I knew it was a mistake for us to sleep together,” he muttered and your heart broke. “It’s messed everything up.” He looked away from you and bit his lip.

“Van, you kissed me first?! You led me on.”

You felt angry now and you fought to hold back tears.

“I was drunk y/n…. I shouldn’t have. I’m sorry.”

“So this girl then, that’s why you’ve been so distant from me?”

“Partly, I guess. I don’t know...” Van looked down again; he knew he was being a dick.

You scoffed angrily and wiped your watery eyes. It was your own fault for reading so much into it. It was just one instance of drunken sex between friends, nothing more, clearly. You’d been wrong to cling onto any shred of hope that it had been significant. You should never have said anything.

“So, you don’t feel anything for me at all?” you asked bluntly.

“You’re my best mate…” he replied quietly.

You nodded and turned away, that was all the answer you needed. You felt devasted and it made your chest burn. Not only had you been rejected, you’d probably lost your best friend. You couldn’t shake the anger you felt towards Van for taking you to your room, kissing you, initiating things. Though how was he to know that to you, it would all mean so much more? You sighed sadly, letting the pain flood your body and slowly replace the anger. You didn’t expect him to drop everything and just be with you. But you didn’t think the conversation would go like this…

“But that’s my point… we are best mates. I know you like no one else,” you said slowly, trying to let the anger go. “Van, I should be everything you want…”

………………………………

Van’s POV

“But that’s my point… we are best mates. I know you like no one else. Van, I should be everything you want…”

I didn’t know what to say or what to do. I was frozen. Y/n was my best mate apart from Larry. Yeah, we’d had the one night of drunk sex that had made things weird. But I didn’t know she had feelings? That freaked me the fuck out. I’d never have kissed her for that dare if I’d known…I wouldn’t have led her on this way.

Her words, ‘I should be everything you want’ rang through my brain and did my head in.

“I’m sorry,” I repeated, like an absolute mug. I was standing there breaking her heart and had nothin’ to say. Christ.

I felt annoyed she’d not said anything sooner about how she felt. And annoyed at myself for having missed it all this time. Y/n let her head fall into her hands and she sniffed, holding back tears. I reached out to put a hand on her arm but she sat bolt upright and ducked away from my touch. Her eyes were all red and glassy.

“You should go Van, forget I said anything.”

“Y/n…”

“Just go Van, go back to your girl.”

Her voice was sharp and hit me like a slap in the face. Y/n stood and motioned towards the door. I was feeling frustrated, mad at the fact she’d thrown all these feelings at me and was upset she wasn’t getting the same feelings from me back.

“Fuck this. See you,” I said, my voice flat and pissed off.

I left without another word, not really sure of what the fuck just happened. I knew I was in the wrong; I could have handled this better. Talk to her sooner, tell her I’d met someone sooner. But how was I to know she had feelings for me? Besides, she didn’t exactly seem willing to talk it out. Guess I’d not given that impression either. I didn’t wanna stick around and fight about it.

Once I was outside her front gate, I let out a heavy, frustrated sigh and raised my arms so I could fold them behind my head to breathe. My mind was racing a million miles an hour and I was full of feelings I didn’t know what to do with. If I was being honest, the fact I’d met someone wasn’t the whole reason I’d been off with y/n. It was just weird after the party, awkward and I didn’t know how to act.

Ironically, the person I would talk with about what to do in this situation would be y/n. But obviously that wasn’t going to happen. I contemplated calling Larry, but he was on a night out and didn’t need the bother.

As I walked down y/n’s street to head home, I flicked through my contacts. Zina. The girl I’d met on tour, the one I’d mentioned to y/n. I couldn’t talk to her about all this, but I could talk to her. Distract myself. I checked the time in her part of the world then pushed call. I spent the rest of the walk home talking and laughing with Zina, letting the situation with y/n get flooded out of my head completely.

………………

I was used to the ‘long distance’ sort of thing by now; I was hardly ever in the same place as my friends, family, whoever I was dating. It was always hard, but it was a lifestyle you got used to, especially when the perk of it is getting to travel the world and play music. Me and Zina had hit things off in America when we last toured. She even came out to visit me back in England once. She was incredible. Me and her just bounced off each other immediately, like we’d known each other for ages. Plus, she was dead gorgeous.

I was back in America, staying at hers for a while before a press run started. I was sat on her couch, legs stretched out on the coffee table and scrolling through my phone aimlessly. I decided to log onto Instagram for the first time in what, 6 months? A year? Don’t know. I scrolled down the feed and saw a post by y/n.

My heart dropped into my stomach. I’d not seen her or spoken to her since that night at her house. We’d never not talked for this long before. Were we even still mates? Usually when I’d fall out with someone, I’d just let things go their separate ways. You go your way and I’ll go mine, you know? And that’s sort of what I’d done here too; neither of us had reached out to one another.

Y/n was smiling wide, her arms wrapped around someone I didn’t know. She looked happy but it stung and I couldn’t tell you why. Quietly, Zina sat down beside me. I quickly switched my phone off and put it down.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, handing me a cup of tea and eyeing the phone I’d slid away.  

“Nothin’ babe,” I smiled and leant over to kiss her.

She kissed me back but seemed off, kind of hesitant.

“Why were you looking at that photo of y/n?”

Zina and me had been together a few months now, so I’d told her in short what happened between me and y/n. Her feelings, my lack of, now the no contact.

“I wasn’t, it just came up on Instagram or whatever,” I replied, sighing and rubbing my face with my empty hand.

“Okay…”

I sipped my tea and tucked Zina up beside me. She curled her feet under her and rested her head on my shoulder. We sat in silence for a while just letting the sun from her large glass windows hit us and soak in.

“Do you ever wish things with her had been different?” she asked.

“What? I mean yeah, I don’t like that she’s suddenly gone from my life. Aside from Larry she was my best pal.”

“I mean, do you wish you had tried things with her? Been with her?”

Being thrown this idea of an alternative option threw me off. I’d not considered it all. It was like if someone had suggested I’d date Larry. She was my best friend. She’d always been on one side of the spectrum, off limits. I’d never seen her as anything but what she always was to me.

But then again….I had slept with her that time so I guess it wasn’t the same after all. Maybe subconsciously I had seen her in a different light and so I crossed that boundary with her. Thinking about lines and boundaries made my head spin. The possibility of being in a relationship with y/n genuinely had not crossed my mind, not even when she confessed her feelings to me. It was one that made me feel an overwhelming sense of confusion. It was too much to take apart in my head so I simply pushed it away. She was my friend, like Larry.

“No. Where’s this comin’ from babe?” I asked, looking down at Zina.

She shrugged and looked away. The vibe between us felt weird now, like she was upset about something I couldn’t see. I let out a breath. Girls, Christ.

…………………

“Van, I can’t do this. I can’t be with you while clearly, you’re in love with someone else.”

Zina wiped tears from her eyes and sniffed, avoiding my gaze. My bags were packed by the door, waiting for me to pick them up and run to the taxi to get to the airport with boys. Tour was starting up again. But that could wait right now.

“What? I’m not in love with someone else,” I pleaded, pain and confusion ripping right through me. I moved closer and took her shoulders in my hands. “Please don’t do this, I love you. No one else,” I said softly.

“Stop…please. You know I love you too, but I don’t want this anymore.”

Zina pushed my hands off her and wrapped her arms around herself. Tears leaked down her cheeks and she took a step back. I felt my own eyes start to prickle.

“I don’t fuckin’ understand what you’re sayin’ Zina. Things were good with us? Are good with us. Who am I supposedly in love with?”

“Y/n.” She said bluntly. My eyes bulged and frustration bubbled up inside.

“Fuck’s sake no I’m not. How many times do we have to go through this? She was my friend. Like Larry.”

Zina rolled her eyes angrily.

“Van. You always talk about her with the guys, asking what she’s up to. You write songs about her still, I know you do. She’s always on your mind and you miss her, I get it. But I think if you stop and look a little harder, you’ll see why. You’re in love with her and you don’t even know it,” she let it all spill out of her. I stood in stunned silence at the words being thrown at me.

“It’s not your fault but I can’t keep feeling like I’m second best or just a place holder…” she sniffed, her eyes still running like taps. I wanted to wipe the tears from her cheeks, but I knew she wouldn’t let me.

“You’re not, I swear. Don’t do this,” I begged.

“I just can’t be with you anymore Van. I love you but I can’t.”

Fuck this. I moved closer and grabbed her face in my hands and kissed her. She kissed me back weakly. I could feel her tears melt onto my skin. When I pulled back, hands still on her jaw, I stared at her, thinking maybe she would change her mind. Instead all I got was silence and could see heartbreak written all over face. My hands dropped to my side in shock and defeat. I couldn’t believe it. It was really over, and I didn’t get a say.

“I’m sorry,” I said to her, feeling completely floored and not able to piece anything better together.

“Just please, make it worth it,” she replied and my face scrunched up in confusion. “Fix things with y/n.”

After a final embrace and goodbye despite my protests, I picked up my bags and left. Zina closed the door behind me and I wondered if I’d ever see her again. The taxi van pulled up shortly after and I got in without a word. I was speechless.

“You alright mate?” Larry asked.

“Yeah,” I grunted and looked out the window.

Zina was right, it wasn’t my fault. It was y/n’s. In my mind it made sense to shift the blame to her. I wasn’t in love with her. Zina had left me for no reason.

Days passed and I’d finally told Larry what happened. He kept me stocked up on smokes and whatever else to get me through. I vented my frustration on stage, thrashing about and yelling…and that helped. But I was still in bits about it. I’d lost my best friend and my girlfriend all in a matter of months and the common denominator was me. I was mad at y/n still but equally as mad at myself.

“You need to speak to y/n…just call her,” Larry said finally, fed up to the back teeth with my stroppy moods.

“She won’t wanna hear about my break up mate,” I replied, dismissing the idea. “Plus I don’t know that I really wanna talk to her anyway…”

“She cares about you Van, as much as I do. Give her some credit…”

I sighed and threw the PlayStation controller down beside me. I tipped my head back onto the couch and groaned. Larry paused the game. I rolled my head round to look at him.

“Should I really call her?”

“You gotta try and fix things man. It’s driving us all mad.”

That night after the show, I stayed back in the green room and called y/n. My palms were sweating and I had no idea what I was going to say to her, or where to even begin.

Turns out that didn’t matter; she didn’t pick up. Typical. I turned my phone off and headed outside for a smoke. I stood leaning against the wall breathing the smoke in and out slowly, contemplating everything that’d happened until the ciggie was done. When I got back on the bus Larry threw me an expecting look. I just shook my head and said nothing on the subject.

…………………

I kept trying to call y/n, but I never got through. At first I thought maybe she was just busy but quickly I realised she was ducking my calls. A move I knew well. I texted, even sent one of them Instagram messages but got nothing back. It was driving me up the wall. The anger I felt towards her started to fade away and it was replaced with a sort of panic. I’d well and truly fucked this up.

The rest of the tour dragged by slowly. All I could think of was y/n; it was like a switch had flipped in my head. I spent my days wondering what she was doing, who with. My nights were spent thinking about how things could have been different. I missed her.

In my many hours of contemplation and the many packets of ciggies I went through, it began to dawn on me that y/n was sort of…everything. She gave me direction, kept me grounded, was my voice of reason. She was like god, I looked to her for it all. She had always been there no matter what. And now she was just gone; she may as well have forgotten my name at this point.

When tour finally came to an end, I’d never been more anxious to get home. I needed to get my life back, get y/n back. The whole flight I was jittery and bouncing my leg; annoying Larry and Bondy to no end. When the plane landed, I darted off so quickly the boys lost track of me. As I raced through customs and baggage and all that, I couldn’t help but think of how y/n would always be there to meet me, holding up a card that said ‘McCann’. But this time she wasn’t.

Once I was in the back of a taxi and had given y/n’s address, I phoned her but as usual ignored and straight to voicemail. God, she had the will power of an ox. I texted saying I was home, that I needed to see her. After a few minutes, to my utter fuckin’ surprise, I saw the little text bubble pop up for a second and a response came through. I held my breath.

‘I’m going out’

‘Will you wait for me?’

‘Fine.”

I let out a shaky exhale of relief and put my phone away.

“Mate, do you reckon we can get there ASAP?” I asked the driver, trying to keep my voice normal; he didn’t know how much was on the line for me right now.

“There’s traffic so we’ll have to take the bridge,” he replied.

I thanked him and sat back, staring out the window as we drove. I thought about the night I’d last seen y/n. She’d confessed her feelings and I didn’t listen, didn’t give her a chance, didn’t try to salvage the friendship or even tell her it was okay. I panicked and responded badly. I pushed her away and did her real dirty. I was embarrassed with myself honestly. I could fix it though, I had to. She meant the absolute world to me.

I loved her. I love her.

My heart stopped for a second at the sudden realisation. Zina was right. My daft fuckin’ brain had only just made the connection. I was in love with y/n. I smiled and chuckled to myself as the feelings escaped my heart and spread through my body like wildfire. Bloody hell.

We should have been at y/n’s by now, but we weren’t. I was on the verge of just jumping out the car and running there.

“We’ve taken the quickest route,” the driver insisted.

I wasn’t convinced. We were stuck in traffic and moving dead slow. I thought about y/n waiting for me, probably pissed off at me for taking so long on top of everything else.

“Okay 5, five minutes,” the driver said eventually, looking at me in the rear-view mirror. He could probably tell how impatient I was getting.

When we drove up y/n’s street I was sure I was going to have a heart attack. I’d never been like this over a girl before. But to be fair, it wasn’t just any girl. It was y/n, my best friend. My absolute fucking goddess.

I paid the driver and grabbed my bags. As I walked up her drive, y/n’s words ‘I should be everything you want’ came back to mind. She was everything I wanted and needed and I’d been too blind to see it before now.

………………………

‘Your’ POV

Van crashed through your front door, dropping his bags to the ground in the hallway. He almost went to hug you, but you took a step back. He seemed breathless and his face fell when you moved away from him.

“Y/n…” he said.

The sound of his voice made you feel weak; you’d missed him beyond anything. The last few months had been torture, with ignoring Van and trying to forget your feelings. Though despite everything they only grew stronger. But you swallowed the tears and remembered why you were in this situation to begin with.

“Why did you need to see me?” you asked bluntly.

“Can we sit?”

“Come into the kitchen.”

You didn’t want Van getting comfortable, it would be too easy to just let him back in and fall back under his spell. Standing either side of the kitchen counter opposite each other, you both waited for the other to speak first.

“Thank you for waitin’,” Van said and you shrugged.

Your curiosity had gotten the better of you. You’d been able to ignore Van’s calls and messages while he was away, just. But when he said he was home…you couldn’t hold back anymore. Your heart ached for him as much as you wished it didn’t. You missed your best friend, in fact, you were completely in love with him.

You raked your eyes over Van. He’d not changed physically but he looked like he’d been through hell. His eyes had soft bags under them, his hair was greasy and his eyes looked wild. You wondered what had been going on for him the last few months. You knew he’d been seeing someone but anything beyond that you had no clue as you’d avoided the rest of the boys almost as fiercely as you’d avoided Van, not wanting any reminder of it all.

“Y/n…I’m sorry, I’m so fuckin’ sorry.”

You looked at Van with stone cold eyes.

“Me and Zina broke up and-“

“Oh, so because you’re all alone now you come crawling back to me?” you snapped.

The nerve he had. You felt taken for granted as a friend, your feelings for him aside.

“No, shit….no. It just made me realise that I’d made a mistake. I need you y/n.”

You heart pounded at his words. Part of you felt outrageously angry and other part felt like you could break down into tears at any moment and just throw yourself into his arms. You shut your eyes and exhaled to calm yourself.

“You said we’d messed everything up. You shut me down and I don’t know…we fell out. I don’t know if this can be fixed. I can’t just forget all that because you ‘need me’ again.”

Van walked over to your side of the counter and stood in front of you. He tucked a stray strand of hair behind his ear. You could tell he was genuinely sorry and that he’d felt all the backlash he needed without you pushing him away further. But you just couldn’t see how things could ever go back to the way they were.

“Please y/n”.

“Van, I never expected you to drop everything and be with me. I just needed to tell you how I felt and work through it. You’re my best friend, I needed you to be there for me. You just immediately told me you’d met someone? Besides, you led me on, but that doesn’t matter. You showed me your true colours and it fucking hurt.”

You let the honest truth come out, he needed to hear it. You’d had plenty of time to reflect on how you felt about it all and it felt good to finally get it off your chest. Van looked distraught.

“Trust me if I’d known you had feelings for me, I never would have done that stupid dare…never would have slept with you…There’s so many things I should have said and done different. I’m so, so sorry. I can’t change it now but please let me fix it?” His voice was quiet and whiny, broken in a way you’d never heard. He was being sincere.

You kept silent and looked away, no idea what to do or say. You knew he wasn’t at fault for some of it, he wasn’t to know how you felt. You should have been honest with him before it all led to that night. But you couldn’t shake the resentment you felt towards him for all that followed. Van seemed to take the silence as a rejection and pushed his hair back like he did when he was stressed or nervous.

“Y/n… I love you. Okay? I’m in love with you.”

Your eyes bulged and your jaw dropped in absolute bewilderment.

“What?!” you all but shouted.

“It’s you, I want you. I think I have all along,” he replied quietly, not blinking.

“Are you joking?”

Van’s facial expression melded into one of confusion.

“Well why didn’t you have me when you had the chance?” you asked.

“I didn’t know I felt this way back then and look I’m here now, as soon as I could get here to tell you,” he reasoned.

Van dropped to his knees in front of you and gently took your hands in his. His touch made your skin light up. He looked sad and desperate. The tears had begun to seep out of your eyes and you couldn’t wipe them away so they trickled down your cheeks uncomfortably.

“You have to believe me y/n. I love you and I will make it up to you. You’re my best friend.”

Your gut wrenched. Van was begging you. Seeing him like this only made your heart scream at you louder. You melted down to your knees in front of him and took his face in your hands. Fuck it.

“I love you too, Van.”

His eyes lit up and his mouth opened slightly.

“You do?”

“Of course, you idiot,” you sniffed and chuckled through the tears.

Van pulled you into him and you threw your arms around his neck. You held each other tightly for a long while, collapsed on the floor and folded together. You cried into his neck and he rubbed your back, letting you get it all out. It felt so good to be back in his arms and have the weight of missing him lifted from your shoulders. You didn’t want to let him go; it felt like he was holding all your broken bits together.

As you untangled yourself from him and wiped your face, Van stared at you. He reached out and gently moved the sweaty, tear stained strands of hair from your forehead. Your eyes latched onto his and you were overwhelmed with love. It was almost all too much to believe.

When Van finally kissed you, it felt like all the hurt and all the shit that had happened between you dissipated. It was you and him, together again and as unbreakable as ever.

…………………………………

“Oi, move over,” you grumbled at Van.

He was spread out in your bed like a starfish, taking up all the space.

“Nope,” he grinned.

You rolled your eyes but couldn’t contain the smile. Van looked so cute; his hair messy from drying overnight and all bundled up in your duvet. After you placed the fresh mugs of tea down on your bedside table you wiggled in to fit beside him. Once you were under the covers, Van snaked his arms around your middle and pulled you tight against his naked body. Your head was against his chest and you kissed his collarbones.

“Bed day today?” he asked as he crept his hands under your shirt, his voice low and sleepy.

“I’d love that,” you replied happily.

Life in love with your best friend was amazing. Things had slowly been patched up between you and Van, you’d been able to bridge the gap between best friends and relationship well. You still teased each other as much as ever, still had each other’s backs. Only now you got to kiss, have sex and say I love you also; it was perfect.

After a few hours of on and off napping, making out and watching youtube videos in bed, it was time to get up and get ready for your friends to come around. Van sat smoking out of your open window and watched as you put on your makeup, genuinely interested in how it all worked. He was so cute like that.

Larry arrived early to help with the barbeque. He and Van smoked on the patio while it heated up, talking about whatever it was they talked about when you weren’t around. Maybe even you? You watched from the kitchen window as they laughed and bickered between themselves. You’d all come so far since being the spotty, unruly teenagers you were when you’d first met. You never would have guessed you’d end up with Van at all. You weren’t sure if your seventeen-year-old self would be impressed or grossed out by it.

When they gave you the signal it was ready, you carried out the food to be cooked. Once you placed it down, Van slung his arm around your waist and pulled you in for a kiss.

“I’m never gonna get used to this,” Larry laughed looking between you two.

“Me either,” you and Van said at the same time. You burst out laughing and kissed again, giddy with love for one another.

After dinner, once the music had been turned up and the bottles of spirits brought out, everyone sat around in the living room.

“We should play a drinking game…” Todd proposed, and you rolled your eyes. Some things never changed.

“Yeah. How about Truth or Dare?” Van suggested smugly, his eyes meeting yours.

“No need. You can just kiss me now, don’t need a dare to do it,” you grinned and grabbed Van by the chin before planting a heavy kiss on his lips.

Maybe drinking games weren’t so bad after all?

[sswwimagine]

Try A Little Longer || Fred Weasley

Original Post: on ssimagines

Pairing: Fred Weasley x Spanish!reader

Word Count: 2153 (without translations), 2274 (with translations)

Summary: You are at Hogwarts for the triwizard tournament. You have a hard time with understanding a lot of what’s going on. Fred Weasley takes an interest in you.

Warnings: a big bowl of sweet, poorly written french and spanish (a warning because it’s probably really bad)

Request: can i request a fred weasley imagine where the reader is from Spain, and transferred to hogwarts during the year of the triwizard tournament and fred tries to learn spanish to ask her to the yule ball and to impress her?

Very Long Note: My spanish knowledge consists of two years in junior high so the majority of it is google translate and probably written wrong sorry. I did my best and put a lot of time into it

Also through research I discovered that the majority of young witches and wizards from Spain attend Beauxbatons. Since you wanted it set during the triwizard tournament anyway, I just made the reader from Beauxbatons.  I hope you don’t mind. (Boys from Beauxbatons also visited Hogwarts during the Goblet of Fire)

Ellipses in talking when it is english are words that the reader isn’t able to understand whether they are spoke to fast or they haven’t learned them yet.

This is obviously already been posted, but since I started my smaller blogs, I wanted all my work for each fandom in one place. Instead of just reblogging everything I figured that I would repost it. 

Request/Taglist

Masterlist

For the first five years of your magical training so far, you have attended Beauxbatons. You weren’t from France, but rather Spain. There wasn’t a school in Spain, so your parents sent you to the closest one in France like many other residents of Spain. This caused you to be fluent in both Spanish and French, but you preferred to talk in your native tongue unless you had no other option. 

This year your school was participating in the Triwizard tournament being held at Hogwarts in Scotland. All summer you had talked with your parents about going. They were worried about because it was so far from home and you would know very little of the native language. You vowed to them that all summer you would work on your English if they were to allow you to go. Now you were with the rest of your school preparing to enter what you’d been told was the great hall. 

Your school had prepared an elaborate entrance that you had practiced your timing often for this day. You and two other girls had actually been the ones to plan it. You were excited for this moment. You were just waiting for your que now. 

Your best friend, Nora, who was also from Spain, stood beside you tapping her foot quickly. It sounded almost as if she was tapping it to the beat of her own heart. She turned to you spoke.

“¿Cuanto tiempo más?” she asked (translation: how much longer?). Her tone was clipped and sharp. The words that usually followed out of her mouth like butter seemed harsh like spikes. You took her in for a moment shocked that she was being so short.  You turned her mouth to reply when someone beat you to it. 

“Vous devez parler le français ou l`anglais ici non espangol,” it was Fleur (French translation: you must speak French or English not Spanish). She hated it whenever any of us spoke out native languages back at school. You thought it was because she didn’t like not being able to tell what others were talking about, but Nora always insisted that it was just what you were supposed to do. She was more patient than you 

You looked to Nora who just rolled her eyes. That was so not like her. You quickly turned to Madam Maxine.

“Puis- je aller à mon sac?” You asked (French translation: Can I go to my bag?). She looked you over before glancing to Nora. 

“Oui, rapidement,” she said nodding (French translation: Yes, quickly). You ran down the hall to your where you left your bag. Inside it held a small granola bar. You had put it there when Nora refused to eat during the carriage ride over. She was diabetic and needed to eat otherwise she got mean because of her low blood sugar. You ran back.

As you turned to corner you saw the doors were already open and your class mates were making their way inside. You ran as fast as you could to reach them before they had all entered, but you weren’t fast enough. You had to run to your stop through the large doors. As you leaned in for one of the dramatic sigh, you tossed Nora the granola bar hoping to go undetected by the rooms occupants. She caught it with ease not even breaking her form. 

You looked at the table to your left to see a red-haired boy staring at you holding back laughter. He nudged the boy next to him who looked just like him and whispered something in his ear. The second boy laughed looking at you as you moved forward. If what you had done got back to Fleur somehow, she would be so mad at you. There was a good chance she’d have you cleaning up after the flying horses for the next week. You said a silent prayer that the twin red heads wouldn’t say anything. 

When you made it to the front of the room, whose name fit it perfectly, you looked back at the boys. The one that first noticed your antics was still looking at you, but you couldn’t tell if the other one was. You turned to see that Nora was being blacked from view slightly. She was eating the granola bar. A small smile formed on your face as you turned back to watch the Drumstrang make their entrance. 

It had been over three months since you had arrived to the Scotland Castle. You quickly found that your summer English studies where nowhere near what you needed them to be. You had a hard time talking with the students of Hogwarts and even harder time talking two different versions of broken English with Drumstrang students. You had decided that you would no longer try and talk to the students unless Nora, who had been speaking English since she was nine, was around or they initiated the conversation.

The boy from the first night had tried on many occasions to talk to you, but you had no idea what he was saying most of time. The words were far too confusing for you. They sounded nothing like what you had worked on. Given you only worked on magical terms, foods, and simple conversations, almost everything was too complex for you. You hadn’t realized that you would need more than that until it came to using it. 

Nora had dragged you to the Library to practice your English and work on some of your studies. The two of you were sitting at a large bookshelf with several books in front of you. All of them you had apparently read before, but this time they were in English instead of Spanish and French. There was an arrangement of types of books. Some were textbooks while other were story books. You had been doing pretty well so far. 

“Pienso que el chico pelirrojo gustas,” Nora said softly so no one told her to speak another language (translation: I think the redheaded boy likes you). The past five years of conditioning you had done so you only spoke French when in common areas at school had been thrown away when you got here. If no one was going to understand you than why speak French instead of your native language. 

Nora pointed to the re headed boy. When you looked at him, he quickly scrambled to look busy with his text book. Nora had been trying to embarrass you with his crush on you. Every time the red-haired boy, who you had learned was named Fred, came up to you to with Nora around, she tried to play translator for the two of you. She even tried to include his tone in her words, but you pretty sure she was just seeing things that weren’t there between you two. 

Sure, you thought he was attractive, and it was true that many times you had fantasied about him taking you on a date and kissing you, but there was no way that could ever happen. You didn’t even speak the same language. You would need a translator just to hold a conversation. You doubted that he enjoyed everything he said being put through a filter. 

“Sus nombre son Fred,” you said matching your tone to hers (translation: his name is Fred). You had told her his name more times than you could count on one hand, but she never remembered.  She was really good with languages, but not names. 

“Cualquiera,” she said laughing. “El es guapo. Tal vez él te preguntará a el baile.”

(Translation: whatever. He is handsome. Maybe he’ll ask you to the ball.)

You rolled your eyes at your friends. You had to admit if he did choose to ask you to the Yule ball that was happening in just a month you would definitely not say no. There was this fear that you had that if he asked you, you wouldn’t be able to understand him and you would just say no without realizing it. 

Something similar had happened last week when a girl from Hogwarts had ask you if you wanted to walk to class with her, but you didn’t understand so you just said no. She looked so hurt and she wouldn’t talk to you until you had Nora go up and ask her what was wrong. She ended up thinking your confusion was pretty fun, but you were so embarrassed that you felt backed into a corner.

“Tengo que ir a buscar a alguien. Te veré en la cena,” Nora said as she stood up (translation: I have to go find someone. I will see you at dinner). She gathered a few books and placed them on a small cart not too far away. She returned to give you a small hug before turning to leave.

“Aprobado, adios,” you said as you watched her leave (translation: okay, bye). She gave you a small wave without looking at you. You continued to work on your English as you read over the books. 

Out of the corner of your eye you saw someone come up to where you were. You didn’t know if they were coming to talk to you so you didn’t turn to them right away. After a few seconds, you heard words pour out of their mouth. You looked to see it was Fred.

“Can I sit here?” he asked gesturing to the chair beside you. This was a phrase you knew well by now.

“Yes,” you said nodding with a large smile carved into your cheeks. Your accent was strong in the simple word. 

“I saw you … here and I … I would come over and say hi,” Fred started but you didn’t understand all the words. You tried to piece together what he was saying. 

“Hello to you Fred,” you said. You really hoped that that was the right response in this situation. Sometimes you couldn’t always read situations because you had learned had a different social culture. You were doing much better than you were three month ago, and you proud of that.

“Hi,” He said as he sat in the seat Nora had deserted not too long ago. He angled his body towards you. It seemed as he was planning to continue talking. You moved to face him as much as you could without moving the chair.

“What I can help with?” You asked. Your words were labored and slow, and your English was broken, but you were pretty sure you were able to get all the message across. 

“I was actually planning on asking you something.,” He said. Fred shifted in his seat. 

He looked a little uncomfortable as he searched his pockets for something. After about a minute of fumbling around, he pulled a small ripped and crumpled piece of paper out of his pocket. You held back the small laugh that was budding in your throat. You didn’t think it was appropriate to laugh at him. 

He flattened out the paper the best he could. As you waited expectantly, He cleared his throat and sat up straight.

“¿Quieres ir conmigo a la bola de Navidad??” He spoke hesitantly and his pronunciation was terrible, but the effort warmed you (translation: Do you want to go with me to the Christmas ball? In this situation that ball means the round kind. It is incorrect on purpose.). His wording wasn’t perfect, but he was trying and you really appreciated that. You gave it second trying to decide what the best reponse was.

“¿Quieres decir ‘quieres ir a el baile de Navidad conmigo’?” you spoke (translation: Do you mean 'do you want to go to the Yule Ball with me'?). You weren’t usually one to correct people, but you couldn’t have him going around saying bola instead of baile. He would embarrass himself if someone he didn’t even know were to correct him. 

Your correction had sadly back fired and his face turned a red more vibrant than his hair. He just nodded very quickly and not meeting your gaze. You bite your lip. There was no way that you were going to say no to him. The only thing that really had been holding you back before could be solved if a little bit of effort which you now knew he was willing to put in. 

“Me encantaría ir contigo,” you said (translation: I would love to go with you). 

He looked at you with furrowed eyebrows. Apparently, he only looked into that one phrase. He probably didn’t think of finding out more just like you hadn’t when you came to Hogwarts. You cleared your throat and tried to come with all the words you were going to need.

“I would like that,” You said. Your accent made your English sound more elegant than it was. His eyes lit up and a smile grew to stretch from ear to ear. 

“Really, that’s great,” he spoke quickly and you couldn’t understand it all. “I have … tell George. Nora … be … I… did it. … Ron can… it.”

You listened to him as he stood up excitedly with his bag on his shoulder. He turned to walk out still talking. You were pretty sure that he was not talking to you anymore. He stopped suddenly right before he left your sight line and turned on his heels. 

“I forgot to say goodbye,” He said sheepishly. His neck was redder than usual and that let you to smile.

“Goodbye, Fred,” You said. “I see you later.” 

“Adios, Y/N,” he replied. “Hasta luego.”

(translation: goodbye Y/N. See you later.)