#i ended up applying for like a dozen jobs heard back from five of them and two of THOSE gave me automated interviews...

[baelavelaryon]

so i've officially gotten the job!!! 🥳🥳 i start NEXT WEEK

[the-scarlet-witch-22]

Chaconne (Agatha Harkness x Reader)

Summary: You are an aspiring concert violinist who attends an audition for the Manhattan Symphony Orchestra, under the new direction of famous conductor Agatha Harkness

Word Count: 4.2K

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBNquKkKcF4

A/N: Hello! This is an AU fic heavily inspired by one of my favorite tv shows Mozart In The Jungle. This is going to be at least 3 more chapters, and I already have the second part done so it should be uploaded by the weekend. Also, I added a link to the piece that is heavily mentioned throughout this fic. It’s not necessary to listen to it before reading (or at all haha), I just thought I’d add it in for anyone curious :) Hope y’all enjoy! Please let me know what you think, and my inbox is always open for any questions. Also: I do not own Mozart In The Jungle...Jeff Bezos please do not sue me. 

You rushed through the bustling streets of Manhattan, silently cursing yourself for not getting a cab. Not that it would’ve made much of a difference; rush hour in the city was horrendous no matter what form of transportation you chose. But at least you would have been sitting in an air conditioned car and not running through the crowded streets. You tightened your grip on your violin case as you hurried across the street, destination clear in your mind.

You had been finishing up your final private lesson of the day when you received a call from one of your old college friends. They informed you to drop everything you were doing, not literally because that would include your very expensive and very fragile violin, and hurry down to symphony hall because one of the first violinists in the Manhattan Symphony had sprained her wrist and they were holding open auditions.

A part of you knew the odds of being selected from hundreds of the best violinists in one of the most affluent cities for music was slim to none, but you also knew you had to take this chance. It’s what you had been working so hard towards during undergrad and grad school, and it would be nice to have a more...stable job. The Manhattan Symphony Orchestra was one of the greatest and well respected orchestras in the world, and you would kill to earn a chair.  

You ran faster than you had in months, and made a mental note to add more cardio to your basically nonexistent workout regime because wow, you were out of shape. Rounding the corner, you quickly dodged running into other pedestrians and could see symphony hall a block away. Despite the burning in your lungs begging you to stop running like a mad woman, you picked up the pace and sprinted to the building.

Ever since you started playing the violin you swore to anyone who would listen that you would play in the Manhattan Symphony Orchestra. Your siblings would always ask for concert tickets to see their favorite band, or sporting tickets, but you always begged your parents to take you to the symphony. While your siblings hated it and complained how long and boring it was (and the outrage that they weren’t allowed to bring food inside), you were enraptured by the entire experience.

You fell in love with the sounds of Dvorak, Beethoven, Brahms, and Tchaikovsky. Sitting in the concert hall you waited in anticipation to watch the musicians who had spent their entire lives preparing for that moment; to pour every ounce of their soul into their instruments. Ever since the moment you stepped inside your first concert hall at the young age of five, you knew this is where you wanted to spend the rest of your life.

Shaking those thoughts aside you hurried through the building to where the blind auditions were being held. You silently thanked whatever genius came up with the idea of a blind audition, because you were a mess after running over twelve blocks from your apartment. Following the signs on the walls, you found the warm up room, but was surprised to find everyone packing up.

There were over a dozen people of various ages, and you noticed one of them crying. A woman around your age noticed your disheveled appearance and sighed. “If you’re here for the blind auditions, they were cancelled.”

You felt your heart drop. “What? Did they already find someone?”

“No, because the new conductor is a total psycho,” Someone else said angrily. “She kept yelling about how we’re all wasting her time and she’d rather have her pet rabbit play New World Symphony.” He motioned to the girl who was sobbing. “And she told Megan her tone was so bad that she would personally throw her violin into a wood chipper so no one would have to suffer through her performing again.”

The new conductor he was referring to was one of your favorites. Agatha Harkness. She was beloved throughout the music community and had many fans, but you had heard rumors of her hard work ethic and ability to make people cry in under a minute. You thought back to your undergrad violin lessons where one of your professors told you that your tone while playing Mendelssohn sounded like a dying donkey. Musicians were often times very blunt.

“That’s a bit harsh.”

“A bit?” The guy rolled his eyes. “This job isn’t worth it. I’m going to audition for the second violin chair in Iowa. It might not be as great of an orchestra but at least their conductor isn’t the devil incarnate.”

As the others continued to pack up, you still felt your gut twisting at what could have been. Feeling rejected, you left the room and saw the back entrance to the stage open. From a quick glance around it appeared the hallway was deserted, so you quickly ran through the door, violin case still in hand.

Time came to a stand still as you walked on stage and stared into the seemingly empty concert hall. You dreamt about this moment more times than you cared to admit. There was something so peaceful about being on stage. Taking a deep breath, you closed your eyes and pictured a scene you had spent years dreaming about. Realizing the opportunity to play in this hall wouldn’t likely come again, you made the split decision to open your violin case.

Staring at your violin, you briefly wondered if this was a good idea. But, you silently argued that no one else was around, and besides, you did run half a mile to get here. It would be a waste to not play and appreciate the gorgeous acoustics. Plus you could feel your fingers aching to play something, anything, to let out the feelings of  disappointment from missing the auditions.

Gently pulling out your bow, you applied a generous amount of rosin before grabbing your violin. You took a few minutes to tune, and the moment your bow hit the strings you felt a shiver at how the sound bounced off the walls. You went through a condensed version of your normal warm up and played a few different scales before debating on what piece to play.

Although your friend had briefly explained the audition would be sight reading and then playing excerpts from Dvorak’s New World Symphony, the auditions were over and you wanted to play something else. It wasn’t the flashiest piece, or one of the better known violin concertos, but it felt right. Vitali’s Chaconne arranged by Charlier. You had originally learned the gorgeous piece during your junior year of undergrad for a concerto competition and it had quickly become a favorite.

Clearing your mind of everything but the music, you closed your eyes and began to play. Your bow swept across the string, producing the opening g-minor chord. The melodic sound rang through the empty hall and you felt your heart ache at how good this felt. It had been a while since you had the time to play this piece, but it was like it had been no time at all. Your fingers danced across the strings and you felt all the uneasiness leave your body.

While this wasn’t the most complex piece you had ever played, it required your full attention. The chaconne was structured as a simple sixteen bar phrase that was rephrased and dallied up with different techniques and melodies which made it easy enough to memorize, but hard enough that you needed to focus on the pattern your fingers made.

With every movement of your bow, every run you made up and down the fingerboard, you were letting out the pain and sadness you felt radiating through your body. It was hard to put into words how playing the violin made you feel, but the best explanation you had come up with was that it was your salvation. There was no sweeter medicine than performing. No matter how out of control life was, how bad things got, your solution was turning to music. It saved you.

As you neared the end of the piece, you felt your bow arm gently ache and you knew you had to have complete focus if you were going to hit the upcoming octave slides that led to the double stops of doom. Octaves were never a violinist’s favorite technique, and they were your own personal kryptonite. You had rather tiny hands, which made the stretch from your index to your pinky rather difficult on a good day. You changed the position of your hand to make the reach to hit the upper octave, but briefly winced when you realized you had fallen flat on the lower note.

You ended with a flourish of your bow on the final g-minor chord and let out the breath you had been holding in. You stood there for a moment, soaking in the afterglow of your performance and enjoying the quiet that radiated throughout the spacious room. Just as you went to clean off your violin and leave before you got kicked out, you heard the sound of slow clapping from within the hall. The hall was dimmed and you saw a figure sitting far up in the upper rows. The mystery figure continued clapping and they stood up and walked down the steps towards the stage. There in all her glory stood Agatha Harkness, the newest conductor of the Manhattan Symphony Orchestra.

“Not bad, but your octave slides could use some touching up,” Agatha offered as she stood at the bottom of the stage. “You tend to go flat on the lower notes.”

You felt your breath hitch as you saw the famous, and apparently very scary, conductor staring at you. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t realize anyone was still here.”

“Ah so you aren’t here for the auditions?” Agatha questioned, arching an eyebrow up at you. “What are you doing here then, breaking and entering? I’d hate to have to call security on you.”

“What? No, no I’m not...” You stammered, feeling your cheeks turn red. “I came for the auditions but I was told they were cancelled.”

Agatha laughed, and you noticed how it was more of a cackle. “They were. But believe me dear, I’m sure you would have done the same if you were in my shoes.”

“One of them said you threatened to throw their violin in a wood chipper. Isn’t that a little mean?” You pointed out.

“You did not have to listen to that imbecile butcher the opening of Mendelssohn,” Agatha argued, folding her hands across her chest. “Throwing her violin in a wood chipper would be the least I could do to ensure no one else suffers hearing that disgrace of a sound ever again.”

You stifled a giggle that threatened to escape. “I’m sure it wasn’t that bad.”

Agatha waved her hand in the air. “Maybe. But you,” she pointed a finger at you, intrigue colored her features. “You were good. Vitali’s Chaconne is a personal favorite of mine. Everyone always chooses to play Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D Major, or Mendelssohn, or Brahms, or something big and flashy. I’ve always preferred a more subdued piece like Vitali. Violinists don’t take enough time to appreciate the beauty of a chaconne.”

You stared at her in disbelief. Almost no one had even heard of Vitali’s Chaconne, but she did and it was her favorite. “Thank you, Miss Harkness. I-“

“Ah ah ah,” Agatha waved a finger to silence you. “I’m not finished. You were good, but not great. Your octave slides were flat. Your bow hold is giving me a headache, you need to relax more. Your vibrato is too fast, we need to work on slowing it down. Didn’t your teacher ever tell you that? And don’t even get me started on your opening chord.” She eyed the younger woman before continuing. “But despite all that, you have promise.”

You were speechless. She wasn’t yelling at you? “You think I have promise?”

Agatha nodded. “Which is why I’m offering you a job.”

“I got the position?” You smiled. “I can’t believe it.”

Agatha’s eyebrows furrowed. “What? No, don’t be ridiculous. You’re not ready to play with the Manhattan Symphony.”

“But you said you were offering me a job,” you repeated the words of the older woman.

“And I am. As my personal assistant,” Agatha explained as if it was the most obvious answer.

“You want me to be your assistant?” You said in disbelief. “Miss Harkness I’m not so sure if I’m qualified-“

Agatha cut you off again. “If you’re serious about being a violinist, especially being a violinist in my orchestra, we need to work on your technique. Natural talent only gets you so far my dear.” She shrugged. “And I may have just fired my newest assistant for being entirely incompetent.”

“I don’t know what to say,” You admitted. This certainly isn’t how you expected your day to go.

“I’m not going to force you to work for me, dear,” Agatha drawled out. “You can walk right out that door and continue on with your presumably simple and boring life.”

“And if I stay?” You prompted, already knowing what you were going to choose.

Agatha slowly walked up the steps of the stage and approached you. “Well then I’ll have my work cut out for me. As will you, darling. I’ll be working you quite hard.” You blushed at her suggestive tone and she smirked at your reaction. “Blushing already? I’ve barely even started.”

You cleared you throat before nodding. “Alright. I’ll do it.”

“Then let’s get started.” Agatha smirked. “This is going to be fun. Now, let’s take it from the top.”

Working for Agatha was interesting. She was very hard to read, and you could never tell if she was mad at you or if she was just in a mood. You had spent the past few weeks helping her prepare for the first symphony rehearsal of the season. Granted you weren’t doing much to help, all she was asking you to do was make copies of parts and to organize folders for each section.

Today was different. You entered the mostly empty building with a drink holder containing two cups of coffee in one hand and your violin case in the other when the sound of Agatha’s heels came click-clacking down the hallway. From the moment she rounded the corner, you could tell she was in a foul mood.

She was mumbling something incoherent but she stopped when she spotted you. “You’re late.”

You chose to not comment on the fact you were an hour early and instead carefully set down your violin case to hand her one of the cups of coffee. “Bad morning?”

“Hayward is an asshole,” Agatha seethed. “I had the entire season planned out but he thinks I’m not appealing to our investors.”

Well that explained it. Tyler Hayward was CFO of the Manhattan Symphony Orchestra and was a Grade-A asshole. You only had a few interactions with the man but they had all been quite unpleasant. He was less than pleased to discover Agatha had fired the assistant he hired and chose to hire you without consulting him. Luckily Agatha had all but kicked him out of her office and told you to come to her if he gave you a hard time.

“How is Dvorak’s Symphony No. 9 not appealing to investors?” You asked in confusion. “Everyone loves The New World Symphony.”

“That’s not the problem. He thinks I’m playing it too safe with the soloists,” Agatha explained and you thought of the soloists selected thus far. You could see how they would be safe options, but who doesn’t love Joshua Bell?

“But it’s too late to get out of those contracts without losing money,” You pointed out. “Does Hayward not know that?”

“Oh believe me, Hayward always gets his way,” Agatha spat out, and you noticed she appeared to be growing angrier. “He’s still mad I was voted in as music director by the board instead of his choice for the position, so he’s punishing me. And now I have to deal with Maximoff.”

You made a mental note to address the first part about Hayward later when Agatha wasn’t as grumpy, but grinned at the mention of the famous pianist. “Maximoff as in the Wanda Maximoff? She’s-“

“A wild card and not the soloist I envisioned having,” Agatha finished for you, glaring at the mere thought of the woman as you both walked towards her office.

“But she’s an amazing pianist,” You argued, remembering the one time you had the opportunity to watch her perform live with the Royal Philharmonic. “The way she plays is beautiful, and magical, and-“

Agatha growled and glared at you, picking up the speed she was walking at. “And she has no control. She doesn’t listen to direction and thinks she’s always right. Her ego is her downfall.”

You arched an eyebrow. “Wow, that sounds absolutely nothing like you.”

Agatha let out a laugh but still sent you another glare. “Don’t push it, darling,” Agatha warned you as she unlocked the door to her office. “I am nothing like Wanda Maximoff.”

You rolled your eyes after she turned around. “Right. So I’ll take the Beethoven parts out to make room for Wanda’s piece?”

Agatha sighed and combed her fingers through her wildly curly hair. “Well I’d rather just tell the little Sokovian princess she’s not allowed anywhere near my orchestra. But since that would be frowned upon, yes put the Beethoven back. Her agent should be emailing us the parts later today.”

You set off to prepare the dreadful task of reorganizing each folder while Agatha studied different scores. She had her baton out and was mindlessly conducting as she went through the fourth movement of the Dvorak. Over the past few weeks you had started to fall in love with watching her conduct. There was something so mesmerizing by the way she could bring different pieces to life with the mere movement of her hands. You watched her right hand lightly grip the baton and noticed the position of her fingers lightly grasping the silver object while her blue eyes scanned the score.

She felt your staring and smirked as she continued conducting. “See something you like, dear?”

Blushing furiously you went back to your task of sorting music, but every once in a while you allowed yourself to take a break to watch Agatha conduct, and although she smirked whenever she noticed, she didn’t make any more comments. Eventually you finished the work and put the folders away while filing the Beethoven in the cabinet.

“Good, you’re done,” Agatha said as she stood up. “Now it’s time for my favorite part of the day.”

You internally groaned and realized what she wanted. “Where you make one of the interns cry and go get lunch?”

“Close, dear. But no.” She motioned to your violin case. “Come.”

This was your least favorite part of the day. Now, you were used to receiving constructive criticism, and even just good old fashioned criticism. Over the years you had less than kind violin teachers, and you shuddered at the memory of Stefan throwing a chair across the room when you only had three pages of Mendelssohn fully memorized two months before your recital preview. He kept yelling in Russian that he would not be the first faculty member to have a student fail a preview. Or the time Jacqueline caused you to have a panic attack right before your sophomore year concerto competition because she didn’t ‘like your stage presence’ and went on some insane rant, and then yelled at you more while you were sobbing. Ah, the fond memories you had of college.

But there was something so intensely nerve wracking about performing in front of Agatha that it made all of those encounters seem like fun and games. You weren’t sure what it was about the woman, but there was just something about her presence that constantly had you on edge. What made it ten times worse was that Agatha seemed to be aware of the effect she had on you, and did whatever she could to make you blush.

You took a few moments to tune your violin and roll your shoulders back while Agatha made herself comfortable in the audience, but you both knew she wouldn’t stay out there for long.

“Now darling,” Agatha called out from her seat. “I want you to remember what we’ve been working on. The first impression you set when your bow hits the string needs to be dominating. I want to feel like you’re pinning me down on the stage. Make me want it.”

You stared at her incredulously and shook your head, trying not to visualize what she just said to you. “Right...pinning...dominating,” You murmured as you straightened your stance and took a deep breath. Setting your bow on the string, you made sure it was positioned at the frog.

“I can see you tensing from all the way out here,” Agatha said in a mocking tone. “Do I need to come up there and help you relax?”

You knew her coming anywhere near you would do the opposite to relax you. “Nope. Just stay where you are!”

“Oh, are you the one giving orders now, my dear?” Agatha teased as she slowly got out of her seat and made her way towards the stage. “I’m just trying to help. You need to relax your shoulders, otherwise you’re going to end up with a hunchback.”

“I like the Hunchback of Notre Dame,” You offered weakly as you watched her stalk her way up the stairs, her heels clicking up each step.

Agatha rolled her eyes. “Of course you do.” She closed the distance between you and put her hands on your shoulders. “You need to relax.” She examined you closer and arched an eyebrow. “And breathe, my dear. Unless you want to fall in my arms.” You had taken to staring at the floor of the stage until you felt her hand gently cup your chin, forcing you to gaze at her. “Am I that hideous to look at that?”

“Ha, you’re so funny,” You managed to get out before taking a deep breath, and once again tried to relax your shoulders.

Despite your best efforts, you still felt tense, and Agatha noticed it as well. Letting out a gentle huff she moved behind you and began to rub your upper back. “Jeez, have you ever had a massage? It seems like you need one.”

“That’s a bit above my current pay check,” You quipped and blushed when you heard her responding chuckle.

“If you’re asking for a raise, you’re going to have to do better than that,” Agatha replied, her breath tickling your ear and sending delightful shivers down your spine. “You need to let go, darling. This much tension in your shoulders will do too much damage to your posture.”

She hit a particularly hard knot and you couldn’t help but moan at the sensation. You thought you heard Agatha mumble something under her breath but you were so lost in the sensation you didn’t ask her what she said. Agatha continued rubbing your shoulders and you slowly felt yourself relax into her touch.

“That’s it,” Agatha murmured. “Good girl.” Your eyes shot open at the praise and you heard her lightly chuckle. “Relax, dear. I could do this all day.”

Your shoulders eventually loosened up and you couldn’t help but groan when Agatha took a step away from you. “Quit your whining and play that chord,” Agatha demanded as she turned away from you, clapping her hands loudly. “I want to be wowed.”

Taking a deep breath, you fixed your stance before setting your bow back on the string. You were hesitating, and Agatha knew it too.

“Any day now. It’s not like I have anything else to do,” Agatha’s words were sharp but you knew she meant it as encouragement.

You let go of any fears you had of what would come next as you positioned your fingers on the string and rolled your bow to produce the g-minor chord. Your left wrist was loose enough to slow down your vibrato and you went through the first section without any interruptions from Agatha. As you began the next phrase you remembered what Agatha had told you about making it bigger and better than before.

“Always leave them wanting more,” Agatha had instructed her. “Make each phrase slightly different. No one wants to suffer through ten minutes of the same few notes.”

You added more vibrato for this phrase and changed the dynamics so you were growing in sound until you heard her calling for you to stop.

“Stop! Stop, that’s enough,” Agatha yelled as she walked back towards you. “That was...better.”

“Dare I say you sound surprised?” You joked causing her to glare at you.

“Fishing for compliments, are we?” She questioned, but eventually relented. “You’re getting better.”

You grinned wildly at her praise. “That was the nicest thing you’ve said to me so far today.”

“Keeping score?” Agatha mused, a smile threatening to tug at her lips at your enthusiasm. “Like I said, you’re getting better, but there’s a lot of work to do. I want to hear those octave slides and not feel like my ears are bleeding from your intonation. Chop chop.”

[theloneliestshipper]

I don't always do collaborations but when I do it's an utterly self-indulgent crossover of two Star Wars properties that have absolutely no reason to overlap and a potential audience of about five people. Also I do it with @nyelung.

AO3 Link

And never kick the ball! Rated T

“... Hutts don’t have feet!” The final words of Baroness Deathmark echo through the arena. Having heard the introduction a few dozen times or more in the last year alone, Boba could say it with her if he were in the mood. He’s not.

They’ve changed the arena up for the season. There’s only so many ways that the Nar Shaddaa Huttball arena can be changed but apparently they went all out this time and rearranged a significant portion of the walkways and traps. He can make out something that looks suspiciously like a series of trapdoors surrounding the mag-ball’s centre spot, undoubtedly hiding some nasty surprises. Well, since Fennec managed to draw Djarin in as the team captain he’s not too worried that one of their team will find out what’s beneath those trapdoors the hard way.

Two minutes into the game Boba is scowling inside his helmet - not an unusual occurrence if the Quesh Rotworms were to be asked. He came aboard as a coach last year, when there were children’s teams on Tatooine who could play better so they had seen it a lot.

“It’s nice that for once it’s not our players getting maimed,” Fennec comments. “It was getting hard to find new ones.

Huttball is one of the most brutal semi-legal sports in the galaxy and even though all players are fully armoured - part of the reason why the sport is so popular in the Mandalorian sector - and killing during the game has been forbidden since the Cold War, injuries or even crippledom aren’t uncommon because the players are also armed to the teeth. That’s what the Frogdog wearing the number seven just found out the hard way when Djarin and Aelto perfectly executed a manoeuvre to take the ball from him.

Baroness Deathmark on the other hand should avoid dark alleys tonight since the ban on killing did not apply to the way she verbally tore Frogdog Seven apart with her remarks. The handsigns he throws in the direction of the commentator box are basically a promise to hunt her down and kill her slowly and painfully. At least that’s what they mean in Mandalorian space and that’s what has Boba scowling. Why promise the commentator utterly brutal torture when it was Djarin and Aelto who maimed him?

It’s not his problem, Boba reminds himself and concentrates on giving Djarin reports on the Frogdog team’s movements. If Baroness Deathmark earns another deathmark to her name, it’s nothing he has to worry about.

In the end, Boba doesn’t have to feel too bad about the Rotworm’s performance even though they took quite the beating and lost by two points against the Frogdogs. Baroness Deathmark’s final comment is just as cutting as the spikes Tika fell on in the second half. They’re still stitching all the muscles and tendons back together in the med-area but Tika will probably never play again.

Still, just one player permanently out of commission and eight points scored versus ten lost is much better than the Rotworms have managed in decades. Overall Boba is quite content. “Do you think they serve Spotchka here?”

Fennec raises one brow. “Do you mean: Do they serve affordable Spotchka here that’s not actually engine grease? No idea, let’s find out.”

___

The commentator booth is quiet now. Leia takes a second to let her head fall back and to roll the stiffness out of her neck. When she turns her chair around, the event producer Lando Calrissian is standing in the doorway, his headset still on. “Nice work today,” he says, covering the mic with his hand. “You really live up to your name.”

“Let them try it,” Leia scoffs as she picks up her satchel and jacket. “If I had a credit for every huttballer who threatened to kill me I could retire yesterday. And anyway, I didn’t say anything that wasn’t blatantly obvious to every being in the stands.”

“Still, I’d watch your back while you’re on Nar Shaddaa. And listen, my buddy Han is in town this weekend. Why don’t you let me set you up?”

“I’m busy next weekend.”

“Sure you are. Where are you going now? Home to your tooka and the latest episode of Sith Mansions?”

“For your information I’m going to a cantina. To meet someone.”

The fact that she doesn’t yet know who she’s going to meet doesn’t seem important. She might be a farm girl from Anchorhead, but she’s never had any trouble getting someone to pay for her drinks. Maybe she’ll get really lucky and it’ll even be someone who isn’t a spicer, slicer, smuggler or assassin. That would be a nice change of pace.

The Slippery Slope cantina is crowded with fans. Some of the Frogdog and Rotworm players are there for their contract-mandated mingling. As usual the Mandalorian players keep their distinctive helmets on for the personal holos their fans will want and to protect their privacy.

She passes by a knot of fans in Frogdog colors, several different languages conversing in varying tones of outrage. She hears “the Baroness” and smiles to herself as she finds a seat at the bar. She doesn’t need a helmet to keep people from recognizing her face. It’s her voice they know...and sometimes despise.

There’s a man two seats down wearing Mandalorian armor, but it’s not painted with team colors. He’s a fan, maybe. His helmet is resting out of sight beneath the bar while he nurses a glass of Spotchka. Spotchka sounds pretty good, actually.

He glances in her direction, but there’s no shift in body language, no smile. Shame. He’s a good-looking man and probably has a very nice smile. Leia signals the bartender and nods in his direction. “I’ll have whatever he’s having.”

That catches his attention, if briefly. He lifts his glass in a silent salute, one eyebrow slightly raised. Still no offer. Maybe he’s partnered. She lets her eyes drift down over his armor, applying what she’s learned from interviews with the Mandalorian huttball players. It looks like beskar to her.

The bartender delivers her Spotchka and her attention strays from the Mandalorian to any other likely candidates at the bar. Everyone is talking about the match.

“She’s dead,” a heated voice rises behind her, but not addressed to her. “Who does she think she is? That play was bullshit. You know it, I know it. There was nothing he could have done.”

Leia doesn’t have to turn around to know that the person speaking is wearing Frogdog yellow. They can whine about it all they want, but their player had at least two opportunities to pass before the Rotworms took him out.

Some players want all the glory. That’s not her fault.

“She had no right to tear into him like that. No wonder everyone hates her.”

“It’s her fucking job.” The unexpected defense comes from the Mandalorian sitting two seats down. He’s turned his chair to face the yellow-clad group, and there’s an unmistakable challenge in his low tone. “If your player did his, you wouldn’t have lost him two minutes in.”

The man who was speaking turned a startling shade of purple. Almost Rotworm purple. “Who asked you?”

“It’s a public place. If you want to have a private conversation I suggest you go home.” It’s not a suggestion. The Mandalorian makes that clear by standing up.

“You can go to hell! You and that fucking bitch-”

“Did someone say my name?” Suddenly there’s a woman standing between them, and Leia recognizes her instantly. Fennec Shand. Her iconic steely gaze is now fixed on the outraged fan. “You want to go home.”

In spite of the clamor around them there’s a silence and stillness that makes the threat implicit. The fan bares his teeth in a snarl before turning to go. Some of his friends leave with him and the rest drift away.

Fennec’s head tips toward the bartender. “Her drink is on me.” She winks at Leia before walking away. Maybe she’s more recognizable than she thought.

“Well. That was exciting,” she says, more to herself, but the Mandalorian nods as he reclaims his seat.

“You know Fennec?”

“Just by reputation.” She takes a quick sip of her paid-for drink. “That’s definitely the first time a huttball coach has bought me a drink.”

“Your lucky night.” The corner of his mouth curves up just enough to make Leia feel validated. A very nice smile indeed.

“And she’s a legend, obviously. It’s a shame she’s stuck holding up the Rotworms by herself.”

His smile hardens, just a little. “Is it?”

“There’s gotta be a dozen better teams who would be delighted to have her. And the Rotworms might be better than they were a year ago, but their offense is still half-awake at best and I heard her defense coach only got the job because his daddy rules Mandalore.”

“You believe everything you hear?”

“No, but I kind of have to keep my ear to the ground. Like you said, it’s my fucking job.”

“You’re Baroness Deathmark.” He says it with disbelief. “That’s why-” He directs a look of annoyance at the place where Fennec Shand vanished into the crowd.

“My friends call me ‘Leia.’” She leans forward, resting her chin on her hand. “I don’t think I got your name.”

For a moment the Mandalorian hesitates. Then there’s a shift in his posture, a slight relaxing of his shoulders and Leia’s willing to bet that that twitch in his face could become an actual playful smile. “Why don’t you tell me? Since it’s your job to know everything.”

It’s a challenge that makes her sit up. He’s someone connected, then. A promoter or a staff member. That explains how he knows Fennec. “Okay,” she says, intrigued. This could be fun. “Where did you grow up?”

“Kamino. What about you?”

She’s never heard of it. No help there. “Tatooine. My local team was the Anchorhead Womp Rats.”

“Did you play?”

“I’m supposed to be the one asking the questions,” she reminds him. “Did you play?”

“Yes. For the Skullhunters of Mandalore.”

“Fenn Shysa’s team?”

His head tilts to one side. “How do you know Fenn?”

“Everyone knows Fenn. Are you single?”

“You think that will help you figure it out?”

She raises her eyebrows. “Maybe I just want to know.”

“Yes. I’m single. You?”

“Yes.” She pauses to take a sip of Spotchka. “I wanted to play, but Uncle Owen wouldn’t let me. Too violent. I tried telling him that it wasn’t like the old days where entire teams could be massacred in a match, but for some reason he didn’t find that convincing.”

He nods in agreement. “It used to be a rite of passage in Mando culture. Now it’s just sports.”

“You don’t sound too enthusiastic for someone hanging out with Fennec Shand.” For a short moment Leia entertains the question whether he resents the no-killing-part or Huttball itself.

He shrugs. “There’s better sports.”

She hates to admit it, but she’s stumped. He knows the game but doesn’t particularly seem to like it. He can handle himself in a confrontation but it’s not as if the legendary Fennec Shand needs a bodyguard. Is it possible that someone actually hired a Mandalorian to take out Baroness Deathmark? But no, his surprise about her identity had been genuine. “Okay, final question. Why are you here?”

“Don’t quote me on this… nah, forget it.”

Oh, so it’s a story. “Come on. Entertain a lady.”

It’s clear that he’s tempted, calculating loss of face versus the chance to win her over for wherever this flirtation is going. Leia’s got a few suggestions already lined up in her mind. With an inaudible sigh he comes to a decision. “Dad kept nagging me to make connections beyond bounty hunting and Huttball is a lucrative enough business. It could be worse.”

Now there’s a hint. “So your father is…?”

“Some might say he rules Mandalore.” He gives her a quick smirk before finishing off his drink.

It all adds up quickly in her head, his history as a player on Mandalore, his knowledge of the game and his connection to Fennec Shand. She sets her glass down hastily in case she needs to make a very quick exit.

“You asked for my name,” he says, drawing it out with the ruthlessness of a professional Huttball defensive coach. “It’s Boba Fett. And for the record, that’s not how I got the job.”

As he speaks he stands and removes his helmet from the shelf under the bar and Leia recognizes it immediately. For one thing, it has the Rotworm logo painted on the side. She couldn’t say a word now even if she tried, but when Boba Fett turns to face her, it’s with a smile.

“I’m sure you have more opinions on what my team did wrong. Maybe you’d like to tell them to me over dinner.”

“I do,” she manages. “Especially about your team’s inability to follow through.” Feeling a little bit daring, Leia leans in to make her intentions perfectly clear. “What about dinner at my place?”

[speechlessxx]

Crossing Lines. 2 (Andy Barber x Reader, Ransom Drysdale x Reader)

Summary: The line between best friend and lover is so thin... Can you choose which one to cross? 

Warnings: expected ending let’s be honest, angst, fluff, language! (this is the last part... btw)

for fic purposes, Ransom and Andy aren’t twins and their physical similarities will not be mentioned LOL

Word Count: 2.4 k

Read Part 1 Here

The rest of the night was a drunken blur. You vaguely remembered the way Andy held you in the park as you drunkenly cried into his chest. He listened attentively as you ranted and cursed Hugh Ransom Drysdale – whom he assumed was the other man on the porch. Andy put together the pieces and with your slurred confessions, he understood that the best friend of yours held a special place in your heart, but it didn’t deter Andy’s attraction or his growing feelings for you either.

You woke up in your apartment with a dull headache and fifteen missed calls – along with fifty-five messages – from Ransom. And one “have a good day :)” from Andy, but you decided to ignore and ghost both men. You were too confused to even entertain the idea – the possibility of you and Andy, especially when you were still questioning your feelings and the fate of your friendship with Ransom.

Over a week of radio silence from you left Ransom antsy. You had never iced him out like this. The longest you two had gone without speaking was three days – when he stood you up at a university gala so that he could fly out to the Victoria Secret Fashion Show and hook up with a model. You were so angry with him but forgave him all the same when he showed up to your dorm with two pints of ice cream and a smile.

It always so easy to get you to accept his apologies. He thought it was because you two were meant to be in each other’s lives. That your smiles and laughs – and even your playful jabs – were meant to brighten his day, every day for the rest of your lives. And it hurt him when his pleads and apologizes were left on read.

He blamed your absent responses to his dozens of messages and voicemails on that hotshot Assistant District Attorney. He blamed Andy Barber for turning you against him. And his anger towards – what seemed to be his rival – only heightened when both he and Andy Barber pulled up to the front of your apartment complex.

“What are you doing here?” Ransom said, accusingly, as he balanced the cookies and cream pint on top of the mint chocolate chip.

Andy didn’t even respond. Like the night the two were acquainted, he simply ignored Ransom and began to stride towards the complex’s doors. Fumbling with his keys, Ransom quickly locked the Beamer and chased after the suited lawyer.

“Did she invite you?” Ransom prodded. He felt a dull ache in his heart at the thought. Is this what you’ve been doing for the past week? Ignoring him to be around Andy?

Andy huffed, still ignoring the other man, as he pressed your apartment number’s button on the intercom systems. Ransom looked over at the takeout bag in Andy’s hands. Though he couldn’t see the contents, he recognized the logo. It was from your favorite Japanese place – the one you said had the best shrimp tempura rolls. He remembered you tried to get him to go with you, but he blew you off to go to a bar with his rich friends. Did Andy know your order? Did Andy take you there?

Ransom repeated his question and Andy just gave him a side glare as he pressed the button next to your apartment number again.

“No.” Andy finally answered. “I went by her office to see if she wanted lunch, but her co-workers said she’s been sick.”

Relief rushed through Ransom. So, you were ignoring both of them – that’s fine. Ransom smirked to himself. His years of friendship with you gave him the insight to know that whenever you were sick, you preferred hot soup as opposed to sushi – that you’d puke the raw fish right up.

“Hi, sorry, hello?” Your voice statically came over the speakers.

“Hey.” “Hi, (Y/N).” Andy and Ransom said at the same time. Andy shot a glare at Ransom.

“(Y/N),” Ransom said, pushing Andy’s hand away so that he could press the button. “It’s Ransom. I have ice cream and uh…”

“Ransom, I…” you sighed. “I’m sick.”

“I know, but I know all the best remedies.”

“Sorry.” You deadpanned. “I don’t… I don’t think you should be up here.”

Andy lightly shoved Ransom’s hand away from the button, pressing onto it firmly. “Hey, it’s Andy… Lauren and Sabine said you were under the weather, so I brought you lunch from that Japanese place you liked so much.”

“Andy, I…” You frowned as you spoke though neither could see it. Were they there together? “I’m sorry… I’m just so sick… and I tend to throw up sushi when I’m – “

“I actually bought you ramen.” Andy said, hope still in his voice. “I remember you told me you throw up sushi when you get sick, so I thought I’d better order some soup instead.” Ransom’s brows knitted together – when did you have time to tell Andy this? How long have you two known each other?

“Oh…” You facepalmed. The slap was audible and made Ransom crack a smile. “Okay fine… C’mon up, Andy.” That smile quickly dropped.

Andy smirked at Ransom as the doors buzzed and unlocked, but Ransom was not going down without a fight.

-=+=-

Several days later, it was Ransom’s turn to show up at your office, but this time you were there. Your work friends, Sabine and Lauren, were divided about the strange predicament you found yourself in. They were the ones who arranged for you and Andy to meet, but they were also the ones living vicariously through the love triangle you stumbled in.

“What are you doing here?” You groaned as Ransom showed up with two coffees in his hands. He put one cup on your desk and brought his to his lips with a smirk. “Hugh – “

“You’re ignoring my calls and texts, but you sure do love giving Andy Barber attention… Did you know he has a kid?” Ransom poked. “I know you wouldn’t date people with kids. The ex’s still in the picture y’know.”

“Considering how I haven’t dated anyone since college, I’m in no room to judge.” You frowned. “Now, unless you’re in some legal trouble, I suggest you leave.”

Ransom shook his head and pushed you back into your seat when you moved to stand. “He’s also really old…”

“Not much older than you and I.”

Ransom frowned. What did Andy Barber have that he didn’t? Why were you so intent on breaking your own dating rules for him?

“What’s it about him?” Ransom wondered aloud. “Is it his job? Dating an ADA would surely get you out of this joint… Hell, maybe you could even be a trophy wife. Stop working, drive around his Audi. You can probably even be friends with the ex-wife�� Laurie, I think that’s her name. Aw, you and Barber would be so cute… Imagine him going to the country club with his pretty, young wife.” He snorted.

“Ransom!” You scolded as you glanced around at those who were listening in the conversation. You were already given flack for being friends with Harlan Thrombey’s grandson. You didn’t need your other co-workers to whisper about your attempts at social climbing by dating Andy Barber. “What is wrong with you! Andy’s a good guy. I’d date him even if he wasn’t a lawyer. Now shut up and leave.”

“No… No!” Ransom argued, lightly slapping your hands away when you tried to push him towards the doors.

“You’re making a scene at my work-place, Ransom,” you aggressively whispered.

“No!” Ransom repeated, his voice rising. Those who weren’t paying attention before were certainly now. “I just wanna know… what’s it about Andrew Stephen Barber that’s got you ignoring me? Huh?” When you didn’t respond, he grew angrier. Why weren’t you answering?! Did your ghosting also apply to real life? “(Y/N), I told you I loved you and you just got in a car with him and left me.”

You bit your lip, furrowing your brows as you glanced around. Those who were trying to discreetly listen abandoned their attempts. They watched on as if they were watching a soap.

“You sleep around.” You muttered. “You parade girl after girl around me as if it didn’t hurt, Ransom. I cancelled my date with Andy, so I could go to your mom’s party. You invited me and ditched me, so that you could go fuck some wannabe model in your grandad’s house. You only came looking for me when you needed a damn condom!” You heard some snickering in the background, but you were too focused on trying not to cry to care.

“I – “

“I’ve been at your beck and call for years. And now, I think…” you stared up at Ransom’s eyes, your own shiny with tears. “I think you only keep me in your life because I’m the only one who gives a damn about you.”

“(Y/N) – “Ransom sighed. “No… I love you, that’s why,” he tried to grab your arm, but you pulled away, shaking your head. “No guy has ever been good enough for you. That’s why I never let them date you!”

“What?” You asked in disbelief. Your tongue darted out to lick your lips as you thought about every date – every guy who came into your life who miraculously disappeared after meeting Ransom. “Son of a – “

“And Andrew Fucking Barber is definitely not good enough for you.”

“And what you are?” You prompted. Your eyes wide and with your shaky tone, Ransom knew you were on the brink of crying. “Ransom,” you shook your head, “I loved you for years. I loved you despite you constantly sleeping with other girls, despite you always ditching me, or despite your family. I loved you even though you can be heartless and insensitive. I loved you so much I put my life on pause to always help you – to always be there for you… But Ransom, I can’t do this anymore… I’m sorry. I can’t…”

“Hey pal,” the security guard finally stepped up just as the tears started to roll down your cheeks. “I think you gotta go.” When Ransom reached out to grab you, the guard quickly stood between you. “Now, Mr. Drysdale.”

Ransom stared at you as you slumped back into your seat. Lauren and Sabine immediately rushed to your side, but you waved them off as you put your head in your hands. You were embarrassed that you caused a scene. You were embarrassed that you confessed your love for Ransom. But it gave you clarity.

The love you had for Ransom was toxic.

And you needed to let it go.

Ransom allowed himself to be dragged out of the office and onto the pavement. The guard told him not to come back. “You leave Miss (Y/L) alone, alright, man?” The guard said. “I know Andy Barber… and when he finds out about this, he ain’t gonna be happy.”

“I’m not scared of Andy fucking Barber.” Ransom rolled his eyes.

“Nah, but he’s got some pull in the DA’s office. He can get a restraining order approved in minutes, pal…” The guard chuckled. “You leave Miss (Y/L) alone.”

Ransom watched as the guard hobbled back into the office, closing the doors behind him. He tried to look through the glass, to get one last glimpse of you. He always wished you’d be the first to confess your love … But he never expected it to be like that.

Now, he couldn’t help but wonder… was this your last conversation? He made you cry and he couldn’t even apologize for that … After this, are you cutting him off completely?

-=+=-

Andy Barber was attentive, observant. He was kind. Growing up with a murderer as a father, he found that his compassion was a way to compensate for his father’s sins. He strived to make a name for himself aside from being Bloody Billy’s son. He was a good man.

A man that put aside his late evening plans to drive from Newton to Boston just to pick you up. A man who put his night on pause just to spend some time with you on a whim of a phone call.

If it had been Ransom, he’d be scolding you as he drove. Blaming you for wasting his time. He’d guilt you and make you feel worse.

But Andy wasn’t Ransom.

Andy made you feel wanted.

“I’m sorry,” you muttered when you slumped into Andy’s couch. “I didn’t know where else to go… Ransom knows where I live and if I see him at my apartment, I think I’m gonna lose my shit and I’ll need a lawyer.”

Andy chuckled as he settled down next to you, handing you a cup of coffee. You smiled and thanked him as you put your head on his shoulder. “I’ll represent you, no worries. I’ll even do it pro bono.”

“I don’t think you’re allowed to,” you laughed. “Circumstantially, they say that lawyers shouldn’t represent their significant – “you bit your lip, cutting yourself off. You’re thinking too far, (Y/N), you scolded yourself.

Andy smirked. “Significant other?” He asked, bringing his cup to his lips, taking a long sip. “Taking strides now, are we?”

“Sorry…” you felt heat rise to your face.

“No, you’re fine,” Andy smiled and pressed a kiss to the top of your head. “We’ll take strides.” He muttered and nodded. “If that’s what you want?”

“Yeah, Andy… I do.” You smiled to yourself as you brought took a sip.

Your nose scrunched up. You had forgotten to tell Andy your meticulous coffee order. Whenever you were at Ransom’s, you didn’t need to tell him – he just knew. Your heart ached at the thought of losing your best friend, the one of the only people who knew you. After years of friendship, you couldn’t just burn that bridge… right?

You pulled your head from Andy’s shoulder and looked over at him. He smiled at you and you couldn’t help but smile back. This growing relationship was fresh. It was new and it felt healthy.  Sure, Andy didn’t know your coffee order, but like Ransom, he could learn it. Maybe he could even memorize it by heart.

You smiled at the thought and leaned into Andy, pressing your lips onto his.

You weren’t sure what fate had in store for you and Ransom – whether that friendship ended forever or will revive itself in due time…

But you were certain about Andy…

You were certain you wanted this new beginning.

[argyle-s]

Hello,

My name is Molly Bragg. I’m a bi trans gender author who has writing for almost three decades. I’m passionate about creating the kind of content I enjoy, which means stories that center around queer women, I’ve recently completed a original queer genre romance novel and I’m looking for help covering the cost of having it professionally edited.

To give you a preview of what you would be supporting, here’s Chapter 1:

***

Beth watched the buildings pass as the air cab carried her over Los Angeles taking in the changes the last ten years had wrought on the city.  Most of the low-income areas had been bulldozed, and those areas were now filled with alien arcologies.  Massive buildings that stretched kilometers into the sky, each one a city unto itself, and in their shadows, the skyscrapers that had once been incredible achievements of human architecture and engineering.  The buildings which had been hubs of human industry and centers of financial empires were now reduced to little more than playhouses for the backwards primitives who had the misfortune to be born natives of the Galactic Hegemony’s latest colony world. If they’d had another century or two things might have been different.  Humanity had been advancing quickly.  They wouldn’t have been on par with the technology of the Hegemony by any stretch, but they might have been able to dictate better terms.  The Gatekeepers hadn’t cared.  The gate had drifted into a stable orbit in the outer system, and the Gatekeepers had announced that, like it or not, the Sol system was being added to their vast network of space fold gates.  The first ships from the Hegemony had arrived just a month later, and ever since, Earth had been on the road to becoming the galactic equivalent of a banana republic. So far, her job and her savings had let her avoid the worst of what was happening, but unemployment was at a record high as alien automation systems replaced human labor in almost every sector.  The company she worked for had shifted gears from research and development to reverse engineering alien tech and had seen a short windfall in profits, but that was starting to vanish as the inevitable inflation drove prices up and the people they had been selling reverse engineered tech could no longer afford it. Beth wasn’t really that worried for herself.  She’d been poor before, and however much she might hate the idea she could survive being poor again.  What brought her to LA today was Sam.  Sam was getting close to graduation, and she had acceptance letters from every college that could afford postage.  A 4.0 unweighted GPA, high SAT scores, and a couple of impressive summer internships meant that schools were falling all over themselves to offer her full rides.  Ten years ago, that would have all but ensured her a bright future.  These days a PhD from Harvard, Yale, or MIT wasn’t worth the cost of paper to print the degree. People still made noise about human exceptionalism and about taking humanity’s place in the larger galactic community, but Beth had spent a lot of time over the last decade studying the history of colonization on Earth, and it never once ended well for the people being colonized.Regardless of what  happened to the colonized peoples as a whole, there were always individual exceptions...  people who avoided the fate of their brethren.  It was her determination to ensure her daughter’s future that brought her to LA today.   While billionaires had started buying their kids spots in alien schools the moment they were  allowed out of the Sol System, Beth didn’t have that option.  She was well off enough that she and Sam weren’t feeling the effects of the colonization yet, but nowhere near rich enough to buy a ticket off-world for Sam, much less pay for an off-world education.  Instead, she’d spent years looking into other options.  So far, none of her work had paid off, but she hadn’t given up hope.   She was headed to a meeting with a broker who helped place kids into programs that offered grants, scholarships and all expenses paid exchange programs.  She was going to find a way to offer her daughter a better future than most of Earth’s children could look forward to.  No matter what it took. *** “Ms. Murray, it’s so nice to meet you,” the man said as he held out his hand.  Beth took it and gave it a quick shake while trying her best not to let on that he reminded her of a used car salesman.  She needed his help, and it wouldn’t do to offend him. “Nice to meet you too, Mr. Cooper.” “Please, call me Owen,” he said.  “Right this way.” He led her out of the small, brightly decorated waiting room and into a small, neat office.  He gestured to a chair in front of his desk as he walked around behind it and took his seat. “So, I just want to make sure we’re on the same page here Ms. Murray.  You are looking for an opportunity for your daughter to continue her education off-world, is that correct?” “Yes,” Beth said. “Okay.  I just wanted to make sure that we’re both looking for the same outcome.  Now, I’ve gone through Samantha’s records.  Academically, she’s in great shape, and the extra-curriculars are good too.  I’ve been able to find at least twenty different programs that will accept her.” “That’s great,” Beth said, though she didn’t believe it.  She’d heard the exact same thing from more than a dozen other brokers, and she suspected she wasn’t going to hear anything new.  “What are the terms?” “It varies from program to program.  All of them require a period of indenture, but some are as low as eight years.” Beth tried to hide her disappointment.  She wanted to give her daughter a better future, not sell her into virtual slavery for almost a decade. “Owen, I’m looking for a program without any period of indenture.  I know they exist, but you’re the fifteenth broker I’ve talked to and none of them have offered even an application to an indenture free program.” “They do exist, but Ms. Murray, you must understand.  There are a lot of people who want their children to receive an off-world education, and slots which don’t require a period of indentured service are in especially high demand.” “I understand that, but I haven’t gotten high demand, I’ve gotten completely unavailable.  I’d like to know why no one will even consider letting her apply.” Owen looked at her for almost a minute, not saying anything, before he finally leaned back in his chair and let out a weary sigh. “Honestly, Ms. Murray?” “Please.” “Those slots go to the kids of billionaires, presidents, CEO’s, ambassadors, kings and other high level government types.  Each year, a handful will go to some poor kids from the ghetto so that they can parade them around as part of a puff piece about how generous the aliens are, but that’s just window dressing.  The truth is, your daughter is neither rich enough, nor poor enough to ever get one of those slots.” Beth had to bite her tongue to keep from swearing.  She wasn’t surprised at all, but she was angry and frustrated.  She’d half suspected something like that was going on, but hearing it spelled out so clearly was still enough to make her blood boil. “Isn’t there anything, any way that I can get her off-world without selling her into slavery?” “Ms. Murray, Indentured Service is hardly slavery.” “It’s close enough.” Owen stared at her for a moment, and then shook his head. “What?” “It’s nothing.” “It’s something,” she said.  “Please.” He sighed.  “It’s not something I would normally offer to someone of your background.” “What does that mean?” “It means that some aliens have cultural practices that people of Western European descent find unpalatable, while those from other cultures would find those practices perfectly normal.” “I’m not sure I follow.” “Ms. Murray, you are aware that, much to the surprise of every biologist on the planet, there are a number of species with whom humanity shares a degree of reproductive compatibility?” “I am,” she said. “Well, there is a species called the Sionnach.  They’re native to a planet called Talamh in the Grian system, and they bear a rather striking resemblance to humans.  There are differences of course, but the basic morphology is the same.  The reason I bring this up is that about eighty years ago, Talamh suffered an environmental catastrophe that wiped out nearly ninety-five percent of their population in the span of a few weeks.  Because of their reproductive practices prior to the incident, the Sionnach found themselves facing a sort of genetic bottleneck, and they decided that the best way to alleviate this was to seek an outside infusion of genetic material.” “They’re looking for breeding stock,” Beth said. “Yes.” “You can’t be serious.” “And this is why I don’t offer this option to white people,” Owen said.  “Ms. Murray, I’m not suggesting you sell your daughter off as some kind of brood mare.  The Sionnach take selection of their mates very, very seriously.  They gather applications from a number of candidates, and the Sionnach in question reviews them, and selects the ones they like.  Then, their family reviews their choices, and select a candidate.  The candidate is then brought to the house of their prospective spouse, and they spend a period of time together.  Roughly five hours.  During that time they talk, get to know each other, and decide if they want to proceed.  If both parties agree, they enter a five year engagement.  During those five years, the candidate is treated as a member of the house.  They are given a stipend, they’re educated, they’re housed, fed, provided with medical care, and they undergo medical procedures which allow them to survive on Talamh without special equipment.” “What sort of medical procedures?” “Talamh is a high gravity world with a higher-than-normal concentration of heavy metals in the environment.  Your daughter would need procedures to be able to stand up to the local gravity, and to be able to filter out metals she would not normally be able to purge from her system.  She would also undergo a type of gene therapy which would make her more resistant to radiation and give her the ability to see parts of the infrared spectrum and hear sounds normally outside of the range of human hearing.” “That sounds dangerous.” “The Sionnach are one of the founding species of the Hegemony.  Their technology is thousands of years more advanced than ours, and they’ve been doing these procedures since before humans built their first cities.” Beth shook her head.  “An arranged marriage…  I don’t know.” “If I’m honest, it’s a long shot.  You would have to take your daughter for a screening.  She’d have to pass the screening for any sort of genetic issues that would eliminate her, then she would have to be selected by one of the Sionnach.  If that happens, you and your family would have to travel to Talamh at the expense of the Sionnach house that selected her, and your daughter would have to get through the initial interview.  But if she does, she would get the education you want for her.” “And what happens at the end of the five years if she decides she doesn’t want to marry the person who selected her.” “Then she’s free to walk away.  She’d be given a small amount of money, and passage to anywhere within the Hegemony, but she’d be free to do what she wants.” “No indenture?  No repayment of expenses?” Beth asked. “No,” Owen said.  “But again, it’s a long shot, and I take my normal fee just to put you through the application process, whether she gets selected or not.” “How many humans get selected?” Beth asked. “She’d be the first,” Owen said. “What’s your fee?” Beth asked. “Five hundred Hegemony credits.” Beth winced.  Given current exchange rates, that was almost ten thousand dollars. “How quickly would we know?” Beth asked. Owen turned and woke up his computer.  She watched as he pulled up a page and scrolled through before clicking on a link. “There’s only one family looking right now.  Applications are due by the end of next week.  You’d know in a month, tops.” Beth thought about it for a moment.  It was a longshot, and she wasn’t entirely sure it was a good idea, but it was better than an indenture, so she reached for her credit card. *** Sam looked up from her homework at the sound of a light knock on her bedroom door.  The door was wide open, and her mother was standing there looking at her.  Sam couldn’t quite place the expression on her face but given the appointment she had earlier, Sam didn’t have any doubt about what it meant. “No luck, huh?” she asked, trying not to let the relief she felt creep into her voice.  She knew an off-world education would open a lot of doors for her and give her opportunities that she wouldn’t have otherwise, and she really did want to go off-world, travel in space and see other planets someday, but the idea of living on another planet for four or more years was both frightening and overwhelming. “Not much,” her mom said.  “He did have one program you could apply for that doesn’t include an indenture period.  I emailed you the link to the application.  I need you to fill it out today, because I made an appointment for tomorrow for you to go for the physical and psych scan that’s required.” “Tomorrow?  Mom, tomorrow’s Jenny’s birthday party.” “I know, sweetie, and I’m sorry.  I know you were looking forward to the party, but you might have to miss it.  I’ve already got us portal tokens, and tomorrow is the only day we can go before the deadline without you missing school.  I made the appointment for as early as I could, so you should get home in time to go.” Sam wanted to argue, but she already knew it was useless.  She hadn’t missed a day of school since halfway through the eighth grade, and she knew her mom wasn’t going to let her start less than a month before graduation.  She also knew her mom wasn’t going to let her pass up a chance at an off-world scholarship just to go to a birthday party.  Even if the birthday girl was her best friend who she’d been crushing on since Kindergarten.  Of course, her mom didn’t exactly know that last part because she hadn’t told her she liked girls.  She’d considered telling her a few times, but she’d always changed her mind at the last minute, because if her mom knew she liked girls, she might decide that Jenny was a distraction that Sam didn’t need in her life and that wasn’t a battle she wanted to fight. “Fine,” she said, reaching for her laptop.  “I’ll do the application now.” “Thank you.  And Sam, I love you.” “I love you too, mom,” she said. Her mom left and Sam opened up the email link, which took her to a form that asked her for an invite code.  She checked the email and sure enough, there was a code for her.  She copied it and pasted it into the form, and when she did, it took her to the next page, and a lot of the information was prepopulated, including her latest ID card photo, name and age, along with her school transcripts and medical records.  The stuff that was left for her to fill out read more like a dating profile than a college application. The first section was hobbies and interests and activities.  She thought about it for a minute and decided to just be honest instead of going through all the BS she usually did for the college apps.  She put down soccer, swimming, surfing, electronics, robotics, reading, martial arts, camping and motocross.  She attached pictures of herself in her soccer uniform, along with a couple of video clips from some of the team’s games, then she added a few videos of her swim meets, and a couple of pictures and some videos of her surfing.  She pulled up her YouTube folder and attached a few build videos for some of her robotics projects, along with the parts lists, schematics, models for the 3D printed parts, and the source code for the micro-controllers she’d written.  She added a picture of her holding two trophies from a local Karate tournament where she’d placed second in sparring, and third in bo staff, and added a few videos of her matches.  She also added a few pictures from her camping trips and a picture of her sitting on a dirt bike, along with a video Jenny had taken of her running one of the beginner courses, then pulled up her ebook library and dumped the list of all her books, listed her favorite movies and attached all her playlists from her music library. The next section was a little weird.  It asked about what sort of foods she liked, so she gave a list.  Then is asked whether she enjoyed various activities.  Most of them were fairly common things.  Theater, music, art.  A couple she had to check the cultural database link.  She was surprised and excited when she found out that whoever was sponsoring this program apparently considered dragon racing important enough to put on the questionnaire. All in all, she spent about two hours filling out the application, and once she was done, she hit submit, and then pulled out her cell phone and opened up her text messages with Jenny. Sam:  ‘Bad news.  I might miss your party.’ Jenny:  ‘What?!!!’ Sam:  ‘Mom’s dragging me to New York in the morning for a physical and a psych scan for a scholarship.’ Jenny:  ‘She’s still on that off-world college kick?’ Sam:  ‘Yeah.’ Jenny:  ‘Girl, you don’t want to go to college with ET’s’ Sam:  ‘I’ve got to get accepted before I have to worry about it.’ Jenny:  ‘Come by my place when you’re done.  Even if you miss the party, I want to see you.’ Sam:  ‘Will do.  See you tomorrow.’ Jenny;  ‘Night.’ Sam sat down her phone and looked at her homework.  She’d wanted to finish before dinner, but there was no way that was happening now.  She grabbed it anyway and went back to work, trying to get as much done as possible before her mom called her downstairs. 

***

End Chapter 1

***

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[bangtan-madi]

All Of Our Lifetimes — Five: Requiem

Pairing — Taehyung x Reader

Tags — boyfriend!Taehyung, husband!Taehyung reincarnation au, lovers to strangers and to lovers again, established relationship, implied soulmate au

Genre — fluff, angst, crime (ish)

Word Count — 2.5k

Summary — Does love ever truly end, or does it simply take another form in a new life? The cycle is like clockwork: your lives end and you’re reborn again. You’ve lived it over and over. Each cycle, one of you loses your memories and is tragically unaware until the other finds and awakens their lover. After all these eons, all these lifetimes, is it possible to find each other again—even when neither of you awakens with your memories?

Part — 5 / 15

Warnings — language

A/N — Taglist is open! Comment, message, or ask and I’ll add you to the roster :) (Also I’m a freakin’ moron and forgot to post on Wednesday night like usual, which was yesterday. So enjoy this late chapter lol!)

Previous — Next

The first person you text is Namjoon. To you, he was the obvious choice. Friendly, open, and the first of the members to accept you into their enclave. It wasn't anything in particular, just saying hi and reminding him of who you are and that you were looking forward to tomorrow.

Not two minutes later, he replies and invites you to join a group chat he'd just created for you and all seven members.

"This way, we can all keep in touch!" he says. "DMs are fine, of course, but if we all wanna get to know each other, group chats can be a lot of fun."

He wasn't wrong. The remainder of Sunday evening is spent texting the members. On the way home, while you cook a quick dinner, and when you're relaxing before bed. They're flooding your messages with all kinds of hilarity. Jungkook and Hoseok are a fan of memes, while Yoongi seems to prefer the straightforward communication that gifs provide. Jimin and Namjoon adore emojis, and Jin sticks to his usual bad dad jokes. Taehyung replies to a question every now and then, but for the most part, he's absent from the conversation.

"You're awfully quiet, Taehyung-ssi," Jimin teases half-way through a conversation on whether or not mint ice cream is edible.

"I'm working, but you guys are blowing up my phone so it's hard to concentrate."

A sigh slips out as you reply, "You can put your phone on vibrate, Taehyung. Really, we won't mind. Or at least I certainly won't."

His response is speedy. "Okay. I'll talk to you all tomorrow."

Namjoon sends you a private message. "Don't let him bother you. He can get like this when he's focused. He doesn't do well with things distracting him."

"Yeah...you're probably right."

"Oh, I definitely am!"

"Hey, thank you again for everything. Except for Kim Taehyung, I really feel at ease with everyone. I feel like we're going to get along great at the set tomorrow."

"My pleasure, [Y/n]. I really wanted to avoid you feeling like more of an outsider than you probably already do. Being in a new country, even if you speak the language, can be scary. I've been to enough of them to know that there's no place like home...but maybe we can make it a bit easier."

A smile spreads across your face at his genuine spirit and pure kindness. "You have, big time! Each of you is really fun to be around. Honestly? I can't wait for 'Run' tomorrow! Can I ask where we're going? I didn't see a production report yet, and Director Hyeon hasn't responded to my email."

"We'll probably knock out a few episodes in one night, and I think we're closing down the Seoul Museum of Art. They're going to close a bit early so we can have it to ourselves. The games we have planned will happen there!"

You turn your eyes away from your cell phone at the mention of the museum. Recalling what happened over the weekend, returning to that place doesn't seem like a terrific idea. But then again, if you are there with Taehyung, maybe the two of you can finally talk about what you see in your dreams.

Maybe, just maybe, you can get those answers.

Your resolve strengthens a little bit, and a new message comes through, one not from the group chat or Namjoon. You click out of your conversation with the leader and check the notification.

"Who are you?"

The question is blunt and straightforward, coming from the second-youngest member via a private chat. You open the message, and your fingers hover above the keyboard for a few moments.

"Hi Taehyung. What do you mean?"

"I know we've met before. I can't remember where."

You bite your lip at his statement. So you were right; he does have some sort of familiarity with you, too. Now, to figure out just how much.

"Have you been to a concert before? Or a fan-sign? Maybe you worked on the set of Hwarang?"

"None of those. I actually didn't listen to much of your music before recently, and I've never been to a concert or fan-sign. And I've never worked on any set before."

"You weren't a fan of BTS? Even though you applied to Big Hit?"

"Nope. Actually, my roommate Milo was the Bangtan superfan. I heard of you guys through her, and then of Big Hit. I applied because I wanted to live in Seoul. It's been my dream all my life. Big Hit just happened to have the job I wanted in the ideal location. Call it fate, I guess."

A half-truth, but it will have to do for now.

"I know. I remember. Your gut feeling."

You pause, your fingers halting mid-type. How did he already know about that? You hadn't mentioned it in either the group chat or in the earlier conversation. In fact, the only person you'd mentioned the gut feeling about Seoul to was—

"I have to go, sorry. I'll see you at the museum tomorrow. I think you know the way."

The museum looks almost spooky after the sun begins to set over the buildings that touch the sky. Downtown Seoul is as beautiful as ever as the bright oranges and pastel pinks bathe the exteriors of each in brilliant colors. If it weren't for the thirty or so Big Hit employees rushing about, you might've stood at the entrance for much longer than thirty seconds.

But the moment you're on-scene, you go to work. One of the producers flags you down, offers a brief introduction, and tells you where to hide the English words.

"Have you seen what we did a few episodes back, eighty-seven and eighty-eight?" he asks, shoving a stack of stickers into your hands. "When we put Hangul all over the Oil Tank Culture Park?"

You shake your head, offering a sheepish smile. "I haven't...exactly watched too much 'Run.'"

The producer waves it off. "Just run around the building and stick these wherever you think seven boys may or may not find them. Feel free to go crazy. We have fifteen minutes to get everything set before filming starts. The boys should be here soon. So, go! Once you're done, come back here. While they're running around, you can help me with the grading system."

"Grading system?"

"They're going to make sentences with the words they find. Since you know English the best, you can award points to each word based on difficulty in using."

A smile spreads across your face. "Got it! Sounds fun."

You speed off into the museum, weaving past the sound and lighting crew that are attempting to set up. Several of the museum staff have also stayed behind to give guidance, and you're relieved that the boys and company have the entire building to themselves. This wouldn't be possible during daytime hours when the public is here.

You begin sticking several dozen stickers along the walls, on the frames of pieces of art, on the marble floor. Basically, anywhere you can reach. You cover the Van Gogh exhibit with difficult words like "effervescence" and "halcyon," along with colorful words like "lilac" and "vermilion."

The further into the building you move, the fewer and fewer people you see. Once you've passed the room of modern art and approach the Winged Victory of Samothrace, there's no one in sight. Down to your last few words, you slip into the dimmed hallway and turn the corner.

Winged Victory is just as you remember. Tall and beautiful and haunting. The statue is still so familiar to you. Looking at the base, you can almost see the body of the woman from your dream. Right before you and Taehyung started running for your lives, this was where a murder occurred.

You flinch at the memory of the blood, but something else inside you is pulling you out of the room and towards the fountain. Last time you saw it, you ran from the room and left the friendly acquaintance behind. Part of you wonders what he must've thought. Surely, you looked like you'd seen a ghost.

But you might as well have.

Your feet tip-toe on the marble. The boys have most certainly arrived, and the filming has started from the sound of it. Their crazed and excited laughter fills the echo-y halls. Seeing as there aren't any stickers this far into the museum, you take your chances and continue moving deeper in. The producer could wait just a few more minutes, couldn't he?

The last of the sunlight ricochets across each panel of glass in the dome ceiling, greeting you with shards of light skewed in every direction. Like fireflies dancing together, they bring an almost magical aura to the open space, one very different from the horrors of your nightmares. The columns are made of ever-moving fire, and the fountain is made of glittery stars.

As you stand in the doorway, your throat drys and tightens. Seeing this place again, no matter how different, brings back the memories you can't explain. Are they even memories? Surely, that has to be what they are. But from when or from whom, you can't explain. They're a requiem for someone you hardly know.

Does Taehyung know the answers? Does he know more than you about this event you keep playing over and over in your mind? He's been in your dreams ever since you were a child, as a version much older than you were then and even older than you are now. Who has just one dream their whole lives, unless the explanation is that he has that dream, too?

You shake your head at the absurdity of it all. "What am I doing here?" you murmur, running your hand through your hair.

"Are you okay?"

The deep voice behind you causes you to jump and spin, eyes wide as you spot a familiar face at the entrance to the fountain. Taehyung stands with his hands in the pockets of his pants, his head tilted as he observes you.

"Holy shit, don't sneak up on people!"

The brunet smirks a little and shrugs. "Didn't mean to, sorry. You were staring off into space and didn't even hear me walk down the hallway. And it's hard to be quiet on marble floors."

"God, sorry, I didn't mean to snap." You run your hands over your face. "This museum has...some strange memories for me. I thought coming back here would help, but I think I've made it worse."

"How do you mean? I thought you hadn't been to Seoul before?"

"I haven't. It's complicated." Your eyes flicker to the corridor behind him. "Where's your cameraman?"

"I ditched him, told him I was running off to the restroom. But I didn't see you anywhere, so I figured you'd be back here."

Eyebrows pulling together, you reply, "How'd you figure that?"

"Well, you seemed really freaked out last weekend. You ran out of here like a ghost was chasing you. I was honestly worried until I saw you at Big Hit the next day, and you seemed fine, so..."

He trails off, and the realization of his words hits you. "Wait...shit, were you the one I was talking to both times I visited here this week? The one in the hoodie and mask?"

Taehyung nods, though there's a tiny line between his brows that shows he's as confused as you are. "Yes? I thought you knew that from day one, when you spoke to me at the Van Gogh exhibit."

Shaking your head fervently, you spout, "No! Not at all. I had no idea, honest to god. I just thought you were shy or introverted or maybe had a tough time talking to girls. I never, ever thought you were..." You gesture to all of him.

His brown eyes widen as he steps closer and out of the doorway. "Wait, really? You had no idea."

"None!"

He chuckles softly, turning to gaze at the fountain as the sunlight fades to soft blues of night. "I'd assumed you knew who I was. You were so open and friendly to a perfect stranger. I thought you'd recognized me."

"Not at all," you retort. "I was being nice and friendly because there was something about you that was so damn familiar. Kind of like this whole place, actually. I don't know. I can't explain it."

Taehyung nods and runs a hand through his curly locks. "I won't lie, there's something off about this place for me, too." He shifts his attention from the fountain to you. "You weren't lying about anything you said before, were you? About you being called to Seoul and not knowing why?"

You lock eyes with him as you reply, "I promise, everything I said was true."

"Then why did you run away?"

A heavy sigh slips out, and you sit down on the water fountain's edge. Looking into the water to your side, you run various ways to go about this disclosure. Blunt truth? A comforting lie? A bit of both?

"[Y/n]?"

"I've had this...nightmare, ever since I was a little girl. Ever since I could remember. It's always the same. I'm running for my life with someone I know that I care deeply about. We're trying to escape a murderer who's closing in behind us. He's just slaughtered one of our friends and he's coming for us."

You pause to take a breath, and Taehyung takes that pause to sit beside you. He doesn't say a word, only waist patiently for you to continue.

"We're eventually trapped. The man with me tells me to run while he distracts the murderer. Of course, I don't listen. There's a fight. We're both injured. And we both die."

There's a pregnant pause in the air before Taehyung hangs his head and murmurs, "That sounds horrible."

"I haven't told you everything," you reply. "I'm afraid I shouldn't...but what the hell." You gesture to the space around you. "In my dream, the entire thing is set here, in the Seoul Museum of Art. Our friend was killed at the base of Winged Victory. The fight happens among these columns. And the man and I, we die in this very fountain, bleeding out from gunshot wounds."

You turn to face the man beside you, seeing his eyes shift from his feet to yours as his head tilts slightly. "And every time, it's the same three people besides me. The same woman at the base of Winged Victory, the same murderer with a gun, the same man that this nightmare-version of me loves. I have no idea who the first two are..."

In your hesitation, Taehyung says, "But you know the last one."

Nodding, your knuckles turn white as you drip your knees. Here it goes. All or nothing. No turning back now.

"I do. He's—"

"—Me."

Taglist — @just-call-me-trash-can​, @jaienn​

[renwritesstuff]

first impressions

I submit to #MERWEEK2020, First Impressions. Samantha Traynor x FemShep

Sure the first time they spoke was on the Normandy SR-2, but that was not the first time they met.

October 22, 2183

“I thought you were allergic?”

“To free food and rubbing shoulders with the top brass?” A plump woman with a short bob of brown hair and blue eyes arched an eyebrow as she swept lipstick over thin lips.

“To bullshit,” Specialist Samantha Traynor clarified, her arms still crossed as she hunched in her desk chair. 

Specialist Mary Dietrich gave an acknowledging shrug. “You’re not wrong, but free food does wonders for keeping my bullshit allergy at bay.” She made a theatrical sniffing noise.

Sam pressed harder, “You know the ANN vultures will be there. Probably Khalisah al-Jilani too, your archnemesis.” She took a loud slurp of cold tea from the mug on her desk, racking her brain for more reasons why they shouldn’t go out tonight. “Also Staff Lieutenant Jeong and the rest of the smug quartermasters who love rejecting our grant proposals. You know we would be done with the new defense suite if Jeong wasn’t besties with Bautista in applied physics, right?”

Sighing, Mary made flicking motions to smooth out wrinkles on the sleeves of her dress blues. “Well now I want to go just to kick Jeong in the balls.” The orange holo screen projected from her wrist that was acting as a mirror disappeared as she set a glare on her fellow R&D mate. “C’mon Sam. Contrary to your belief, this is actually one of the perks of working on Arcturus Station. First on the victory tour to celebrate the end of the Eden Prime War! Oo-rah!”

Oo-rah, Sam groaned inwardly and more than a little sarcastically. Her nose wrinkled with her silent scowl.

Mary must have seen the face Sam made, because she stood up, hands on hips. “Suck it up, newbie! I will pull rank on you if it’ll make you leave the damn lab.”

Samantha squawked in protest. “I leave the lab!”  

Sometimes! To sleep!

Traynor.

Okay, I sleep on the couch most nights. To change?

...Traynor.

Well they shouldn’t make the laundry service so convenient then. To shower?

……Traynor.

Fine! L Wing has the best faucets! Not my fault the washroom is one door down! I am a slave to convenience, okay??? It keeps my mind researching and developing per my job title, doesn’t it??

“Sleeping and making tea don’t count,” Mary scoffed back. “Plus this is a big deal. Don’t you want to be able to tell your grandkids about meeting all the heroes who saved the Citadel and the Council?”

“...Do I have to?”

A laundry back was draped over Sam’s face, filling her vision with crinkling plastic. Mary patted her head through the bag. “Damn right, you do. Or you get to tell Lydia you made me late.”

Oh fuck. She had only met Mary’s wife Lydia half a dozen times in the 6 months since she started at R&D on Arcturus, but the woman made an impression. A stern, stoic Kodiak mechanic, Lydia had never cracked a smile once at any of the dozens of quips and small jokes Sam compulsively made. And Lydia had a voice like a drill sergeant that made Sam want to stand up straight before offering to do push ups please-and-thank-you-ma’am.

Pulling the bag off her face, Sam unzipped it to find her dress blues freshly laundered and folded crisply. She mumbled, “....I’ll be good.”

Arcturus Station was the pride and joy of the Alliance with a state of the art light rail to traverse the 5km diameter arms. At the center was a large convention hall that could hold 20,000 of the 45,000 population at one time. Surrounding departments had been cleared out to serve as food stations, coat checks and privacy areas to host the current set of guests. 

Sucks to be them, Sam frowned in empathy as she waited with Mary in the biometric security line. I can’t imagine having to clean up and stash all the rubbish we have lying around just so some fancy-pants donor can hang their coat up. Reminds me of a grammar school open house.

The overwhelming number of people made it hard for her to carry on a conversation with her coworker. Mostly human, with a few asari in sleek dresses and tuxedoed turians sprinkled in made up the meandering line that started at the light rail station. Background noise consisted of a dull roar of voices that grew louder the closer the two women got to the convention hall proper with just the faintest bass beat of music.

As they finally crested the last stairwell, the site of the grand hall was truly breathtaking. Large blast windows revealed a swirling backdrop of the Arcturus Stream nebula. Even the Arcturus mass effect relay was visible, the blue element zero core at its center flickering like a star. A few moving pins of light appeared next to the relay, more ships arriving to join the fleets already at Arcturus Station.

Decorated in heavy Alliance blue and gold, there were holo posters posted at intervals around the circular hall. Dramatic vid portraits of human heroes (with occasional notable alien Council SpecTRes appearing in between, no doubt a nod to the Council guests present) animated silently, larger than life. 

A red-headed woman appeared multiple times at different angles and wardrobes on the vids, clearly the focus of the event. In one image the woman was pictured with a straight backed salute wearing dress blues, another wielded a rifle in heavy armor, another was flanked by a group of men and women (human and alien alike).

Commander Annelise Shepard, First Human SpecTRe. Hero of the Citadel. Captain of the Normandy SR-1, the most advanced ship in the Alliance Navy.

The room was warm with all the bodies and Sam found herself clinging to Mary, who was busy texting Lydia to attempt to meet up somewhere on the crowded floor. The clamor of conversation barely dipped during a few speeches broadcast across the hall. Admiral David Anderson’s low bass voice welcomed the guests to the station and indicated there would be a meet-and-greet with the Heroes of the Citadel after cocktails.

Excited jabbering was all around them as people tried to catch glimpses of the headliner heroes. Sam was only somewhat familiar about the events from a few weeks ago, much of it still under top secret clearance. Just that all the recent geth activity triggered from the terrorist attack on Eden Prime culminated in the attack at the Citadel. A joint task force crew, helmed by the first human SpecTRe, was responsible for bringing the terrorist down and saving the Citadel and the Council at the cost of human lives.

It seems kind of far-fetched, doesn’t it, Traynor?

Like something I’d read in a story. Or play in a video game.

Ooo, I hope it has a character creator. And I can make the character super hot.

It took the better part of a half hour of crowd weaving to track down Lydia Dietrich, Mary’s wife. A tall woman with very short, slicked-back hair was nursing a beer while she chatted with a small group of fellow mechanics hunkered by the dessert table. While Lydia and Mary started a row of friendly bickering (“What took you so long?” “What took you so long?”), Sam wandered over to the desserts to seize an opening in the line.

Ooo, lemon curd tarts! Her fingertips drummed impatiently on her pant leg as she watched the pile of tarts diminish with each new tiny plate down the buffet line. Couples in front of and behind her were laughing and gossiping.

“Oh did you see the Commander? I saw Cameron snap a holo of her.”

“I thought she’d be taller.”

“Not sure why they felt the need to bring the quarian, too.”

“I mean, it was on the crew, right?”

She. She is on the crew. Even Sam knew that.

“Can’t believe General Williams’ granddaughter was there, too. I thought all that family knew how to do was surrender.”

“Maybe she and the quarian were a distraction for the real heroes to do the real work.”

Simpering laughter followed which made Samantha’s skin crawl.

“Not sure why they had to open this event to all the little minions at the station. We paid forty-five thousand credits a plate for this? While little desk-jockeys like miss-didn’t-even-do-her-hair over there can show up and eat our food?”

It took a glance backward for Sam to realize they were talking about her. She resisted the temptation to lift a self-conscious hand to her hair.

Poppycock, I know I look amazing. I always look amazing.

“I know, darling. Our tax dollars pay their salary. You’d think they’d have the courtesy to stand behind us in line. Like good help.”

Remaining silent, Sam continued the slow march to the dessert table. She did fire up her Omni-tool and do a quick scan while waiting, the extranet chugging a bit due to the density of guests. But she was satisfied with her results.

The long-awaited distance closed and Sam finally stood before a half-empty buffet table. The dextro desserts had been picked over, as had some of the hybrid mini-cakes and parfaits. It looked like everything was in the process of getting refreshed by the catering company. Several waitstaff with tall silver trays were making their way over from the back. 

But all that mattered is that there were still three lemon curd tarts left. All of which ended up on Sam’s dainty white plate as she swept out of the line. She felt a tug on her sleeve.

An older human woman in a far too tight evening gown scowled back at her. “I beg your pardon! Where do you think you’re going? How dare you take the last tarts? Have you any idea how long we’ve been waiting?”

Sam shrugged. “I’d wager about five seconds less than you as I was ahead of you in the same line?”

The woman’s date, a balding, rat-faced gentleman in a shiny tuxedo stuck a finger in Sam’s face. “Such rudeness! We actually paid good money to be here, so we deserve priority.”

“Perhaps she’s with the catering company, darling,” the wife simpered back as though struck with a thought. “She’s certainly dressed like them.” Her saccharine-smile was betrayed by cold, smug brown eyes.

An excited commotion could be heard behind them in line, but Sam didn’t dare glance away.

Remember, Traynor. Fixed eye contact. Bullies look for weakness.

She smiled back. “I wouldn’t say you paid Good Money to be here, did you?” She took a bite of lemon tart, savoring the acerbic flavor accented by a light sugary texture.

“What do you mean?” The couple replied in unison matching their haughty glares.

“You really should have better security on your Omni-tool. I mean, any old desk-jockey could just waltz right in and see that your asari mistress scored you free tickets. An asari mistress in the quarian slave trade, no doubt. Tsk tsk.”

The glaring transitioned to sputtering, confusion from the husband and outrage from the wife. 

“Oh don’t worry, I reported her to the authorities for tax evasion, too. I mean, how else will your tax dollars pay my salary, right? It's the only way I can afford to eat such delicious tarts.” And Samantha took another large satisfying bite before saluting with the pastry, turning on her heel, and walking proudly off to go find Mary and Lydia.

The couple stepped out of line to argue, hands gesturing wildly. They turned to leave when they walked straight into the source of the commotion: Commander Annelise Shepard flanked by Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams and Tali’Zorah nar Rayya. All 3 women stood, hands on hips, glaring back at the pair. The two fled the hall, pushing past other lines in a desperate bid to save their dignity.

Ash and Tali burst into laughter before spotting Garrus Vakarian waving them over to a photo op with the turian hierarchy. Shepard remained behind, watching the dark-haired lieutenant disappear into the crowd. Her eyes crinkled and she suppressed an airy laugh.

“What are you so happy about, Shepard?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re smiling.”

“Am I?” Commander Annelise Shepard tried for nonchalance as she helped herself to a fresh lemon curd tart. She sniffed the confection, intrigued. She had never seen anything like it, but she couldn’t wait to try it.

“You are. It’s been awhile.” The asari in a low-necked evening gown came up and wrapped a hand around Shepard’s elbow, careful of the sling that held her left arm hugged tight to her chest.

“Oh, uh, yea. There’s just been a lot on my mind lately.”

“Well, I’m grateful for whatever it was.”

“Me too, Liara. Me too.”

And for the rest of that night Shepard’s smile came a little easier.

[beautifulletdownfics]

‘someday, someday’ :: tumblr edition, #30 :: the epilogue

June, five months later.

Seattle

“I can feel the love of my girlfriend in the building!”

“Oh boy,” I said under my breath, walking towards the sound of Harry’s booming voice.

“He’s been annoyingly upbeat all day,” Harry’s manager said from his spot walking next to me, “He’s lucky nobody’s hit him with a tranquilliser gun.” 

I laughed, “I’m extremely sorry. I’ll try to keep him out of your hair for a few days.”

“Nina!” Harry squawked out my name, still out of sight. The empty corridors of the venue made his voice carry throughout the whole place.

I landed in Seattle a few hours before, there was a hold up at the airport customs, but I slept on the plane so wasn’t feeling too foggy from travel. Harry had a show here tonight, and then two sold-out nights in Los Angeles before we had a small getaway planned in Jamaica. He was on a ‘micro tour’ which consisted of forty dates across Europe and the US, promoting the EP that dropped back in March and also giving Harry a break from writing his next album. I went to the opening night show in London four weeks ago and hadn’t seen Harry since.

We rounded a corner, and I saw him, jogging towards us in a tour hoody, jeans and fluffy socks with no shoes. Harry’s cheeks were red, and his eyes were wide with joy, my tummy clenched at the sight of him; at the sight of how happy seeing me made him. 

“Hello!” Harry yelled happily, not slowing at all before crashing into me and holding my body tightly against his, “Hello, you’re here! I love you. I’m so fucking in love with you.”

“I’ll see you later, mate,” His manager said somewhere behind me, “Soundcheck is at three, okay?”

Harry must have held up a thumb in agreement because we were left alone a moment later, my face pressed into the warm material of his jumper and my arms wrapped tightly around Harry’s back.

“Do you speak?” Harry asked, swaying us from side to side in a hug, “Because when I saw you a month ago, you could speak.” “Hi,” I bleated out, thickly, “I’ve missed you.” He squeezed me almost too tightly, “I missed you too. So much. I’m so excited about this week.”

I threaded my hands behind his neck then, needing to show my affection. I managed to get in half a dozen kisses to his jaw and side of Harry’s mouth before he loosened his grip and covered my mouth with his. The kiss was slow and heated me all the way through, feeling Harry’s body after so many weeks lit a fire in my gut.

He felt it too.

“Lemme show you my dressing room,” He said between pecks to my lips. “I’ve missed you so much.”

It wasn’t far away, Harry took the handle of my suitcase from where his manager had left it and then strode off down the hallway, leaving me to trot along behind him trying to catch up. I skipped passed him, slapping my hand gently to his bum and turning back to give him a cheeky look.

Harry shook his head and muttered something to himself just as we passed a door he disappeared into. I skidded back to follow him, taking in the small but inviting space we had just walked into. Harry shut the door behind me and had me engulfed in another kiss before I could get a good look at Harry’s space on tour.

His palms pressed against the base of my spine before Harry expertly unclasped my bra under my shirt, his fingers moved around to dance across my nipples.

“Well that feels odd,” I said as he attached his mouth to my neck, my bra sitting strangely over my shoulders and bunching under the fabric of my shirt. There was a reason the layers usually came off in a particular order, Harry jumped the gun though, and I can’t say I blamed him for it.

“Odd?” Harry questioned, lightly squeezing my left breast as he sucked behind my ear. It sent a rush of heat straight through me, and when I stumbled against him, Harry laughed against my chin. “That’s more like it.”

A moment later, my shirt and bra were off, and Harry gently pushed me back until I was pressed against the closed door. His eyes sparkled when he pulled back to look at me, his own cheeks flushed with desire while his chest heaved up and down. I reached for his belt loops, missing the feeling of him against him and wanting to feel his hardness against me again.

“Harry,” I whined.

“Fucking look at you,” He breathed, taking a finger and tracing it down from my neck, between my bare breasts and then down to the button of my jeans, “Can I keep going?”

“Does this door lock?” Harry reached behind me to the handle, and I heard a satisfying click, “Yes.”

A smile grew across my face, and I reached up for Harry’s shoulders to pull him down for another searing kiss. His fingers congregated at the top of my trousers, quickly flipping the button out of its spot and unzipping them. We giggled our way through him trying to peel the tight skinny jeans from my legs, he kneeled in front of me as he struggled to get my shoes off and then the jeans over my feet. My palms rested on Harry’s back as I hunched over in laughter. My laughter died, though when the trousers were gone, and Harry looked up at me from the floor, his warm breath fanning against me. 

Before I could think he pressed a kiss below my belly button and tugged down my knickers, “You’re so beautiful,” Harry said, “I missed this so much.”

+++

“C’mon, we have a job to do,” Harry flung open the door to his dressing room and pulled me down the corridor.

“A job?” I ran a hand through my hair, hoping I didn’t look like I’d just had three orgasms. “Yes, I’m on crew afternoon tea,” Harry told me impatiently, “So we’re making cookies.”

“Cookies? Where on earth are we making cookies?”

“Here,” He held out his arm in a big reveal, the catering kitchen before us, “I have use of this kitchen for the next hour. Morning tea is at two.”

“We’re making cookies.”

“Yes.”

“You’re such a charming idiot,” I grinned, “I love you.”

His face lit up as he took his phone out of his pocket and gave it to me, “You DJ and I’ll be ... What’s that guy's name? The cooking one?” 

“Jamie Oliver?” 

“No,” he shook his head, still trying to think of the name himself. Harry was looking over what had been left out on the bench, it seemed whoever was letting Harry use the kitchen was protective of their space and had elected to put everything he would need in plain sight. 

“Gordon Ramsey?” I tried. 

“No, the other one ... That’s different.” 

“Noel Fielding?” 

Harry stopped short and looked at me with a sceptical look on his face, “Noel Fielding,” he said flatly, “He’s the host, he doesn’t cook, Nina!” 

“Paul Hollywood then.”

“No.”

I smiled, “You’re not giving me a very good indication of who you mean.” 

“Ainsley! That Ainsley guy, with the grin,” Harry demonstrated the nature of the grin in question. 

“That’s a girls name,” I said, not finding the name familiar in the slightest. 

“Ainsley is badass,” Harry blew me off, “I’ll show you.” 

We spent the next twenty minutes fumbling our way through the cookie recipe Harry saved onto his phone. He was adamant we double the recipe, so there was plenty for everyone. Halfway through I was banned from helping anymore after I went rogue and decided not to measure out the chocolate chips, instead I was eyeballing the amount.

“Don’t mess up the recipe!” He reached for the bowl and tried to intercept the chocolate chips I was shaking in.

“You can never have too many choc chips, Harry.” “Yes, you can! That’s why they tell you how much to put in! It’s about ratios, Nina!”

“Ratios don’t apply to chocolate chips, you measure that shit with your heart.”

He glared at me, looking every bit the disagreeable child, “If there’s too high a chocolate content the cookies will burn. It’s a chemical reaction! They’ve got—”

—You need to cool it on the Bon Appetite videos, mate.”

“Mate!” Harry latched onto my waist and dug his fingers in to tickle me, “Boyfriends don’t get ‘mate’, thank you very much.”

When we presented the cookies later on at crew afternoon tea Harry admitted that maybe I hadn’t completely ruined the batch, he ate four before anyone else got to them, and I didn’t try very hard at all not to be smug about how much he liked the treat. I watched him happily prattle away to different people, shovelling more cookies into his mouth with abandon as the social gathering went on.

“You made cookies so you’d have an excuse to eat cookies, didn’t you?” I confronted him when Harry handed me a cup of tea a little while later, “You’ve got a little bit, c’ mere.”

I wiped the corner of his mouth where a smudge of chocolate sat with my thumb, avoiding the heated look he was giving me, and he settled onto the sofa next to me, “I did nothing of the sort.”

“Hmmm,” I smiled, blowing onto the surface of my tea to cool it.

+++

Los Angeles, Day Two

You’re so cute when you play xx

“Concentrate, Harry,” I snatched the sticky-note he wrote for me off the end of his finger and stuck it to the piano.

“It’s true,” He pressed a kiss to my cheek and stood up off the stool, finally looking as though he was ready to take soundcheck seriously.

This was Harry’s idea, as so many crazy ideas were. He waited 24 hours after I joined him in Seattle before trying it out on me, casually mentioning that it would be cool if I could play the song we wrote together on stage with him one night. As with so many things, Harry broke the idea to me slowly, and I was swayed from my status of categorically absolutely not to where we currently were. Which was us both up on stage behind a grand piano during his last Los Angeles soundcheck. 

A roadie set up a microphone at the piano for me to sing harmonies despite my telling Harry over and over I wouldn’t be using it. I knew what Harry was thinking though, that the more we rehearsed it through, the more I would get lost in the song and find myself humming along supporting Harry’s voice where the song needed it. He was using my instinct against me.

Or he would if he ever got to actually singing the song through. For now, he seemed content to mess about and get crew members to request songs for me to play.

“Harry,” I was finally reaching my threshold, my nerves eroding my ability to play along much further.

He looked at me and his face fell slightly, but he gave me a warm smile, “Okay, let’s do a proper run through.”

“Thank you.”

I started the intro slowly, closing my eyes to enjoy the way the sound of the keys spread through the venue. I really did love this song, and despite how often I heard it since it’s release, there was still a warming kind of magic to it. It took me back to meeting Harry and him seeing my musicality for the first time last year. They were such sweet memories, and I loved thinking about how little I knew at the time; how much I underestimated what Harry’s effect on my life would be.

When Harry started singing into his microphone I opened my eyes to watch him, he was facing the empty stadium, still as he let his voice carry. He told me earlier he was thinking about changing a few runs tonight but he didn’t want to distract or take away from the fact this would probably be the only time we played it live together. 

By the time he started singing the second chorus I had tears in my eyes and his band were all quiet watching. None of them was setting up for the next song or distracted on their phones, everyone was watching Harry perform to the empty theatre.

His head slowly turned around to me when I started singing along behind him. He smiled through the next few lyrics, removing his mic from the stand and walking over to be closer to me. Our voices did sound lovely together, although I felt horribly exposed doing so. I stuck to just doing what the voices on Rodger’s recorded version did. We were missing the strings and some of the effects from the piano, but there was a simple beauty to just performing the song with this grand piano in front of me.

The instrumental came and I focused on getting the more complicated piano part I had written sounding perfect. Harry’s music director told me earlier if I wanted to extend it I could, but again, I was wary of settling too much of the attention on myself. This was Harry’s show and I wanted his fans to see him in a different way, not to be introduced too much to the idea of me.

“Fuck, that was amazing,” Harry said into the microphone as I played through the final few chords. He was grinning ear to ear, watching my hands on the keys. 

“Your voice sounds beautiful,” I told him.

 He reached over me for the yellow sticky-note stack and black sharpie, scrawling something out before tearing off the note and sticking it to the piano right in front of me.

I love you. x

+++

“You nervous?” “More nervous than I’ve been in years,” I hurried back without looking at who was speaking, I recognised the voice of Harry’s manager.

It was halfway through Harry’s set on the second night in Los Angeles. We were getting a charter flight from LAX straight after the show to Jamaica for four days. But before that, I needed to get through what was about to happen next.

There was a grand piano on stage that wasn’t usually there, and Harry’s band were going to clear off for the song, leaving just Harry and me on stage. He was confident that our relationship would stay under wraps. It was easy enough to let the thousands of fans in the audience believe that I was merely the girl who helped Harry write the song. 

Harry’s band members came off, offering me wishes of luck as they all scrambled in different directions; some needing the bathroom and others on the hunt for a snack. I could hear Harry talking to the crowd, and I tried to tune into what he was saying.

“I have a treat coming up for you now,” He said slowly into his microphone, looking over his shoulder at where I was standing, probably checking I was there. The crowd roared.

“I’ll kill him for this,” I said to nobody in particular. 

“You were magic at soundcheck,” Harry’s drummer told me, “Have fun out there.”

“The story of the next song is probably my favourite of any of my songs,” Harry’s voice drew me back, I ran my hands down my skirt and ruffled my hair nervously, “It was a sad little broken song until this person came along and saved it … I’m so excited to have her here tonight to play it with me … Now, you all need to give her a very warm welcome because I am absolutely sure she will never agree to this again. For one night only, this is Nina Lawrence joining me to play my favourite song from the EP, Life Is Grey.”

I stumbled up the stairs and into the stage lights, crossing quickly to the middle where Harry was standing at his microphone. His face was cracked open in a huge smile that made me laugh at him as he opened his arms for a greeting hug. It felt oddly platonic, but he whispered he loved me right into my ear, turning back to his audience with one arm over my shoulder and the other held out wide, encouraging the applause being sent out way.

He took both his hands back to his microphone after a moment, and I shuffled behind him to find my place at the piano. It had been a long time since I was last on stage playing an instrument other than my trumpet. The sticky notes from soundcheck were still stuck to the piano and I smiled at them both.

I adjusted the microphone at my mouth and held my fingers over the keys, strumming out a few chords as Harry told the story of the song and thanked the crowd for the umpteenth time. Then, he turned to me and smiled, “Let’s go,” he mouthed.

I nodded once and started playing without breaking eye contact. 

+++

Whitehouse, Jamaica

“Chin up!”

Harry’s neck snapped back, his eyes hitting the ceiling, “It was! I swear, I looked down for a second.”

“You can’t look at your fingers,” I lowered myself onto the piano stool next to him, “It’s bad technique.”

“I was just checking,” He mumbled pathetically, ducking his cheek down to his bare shoulder to scratch at an itch.

“Your fingers are still there,” I told him gently, resting my hand on his thigh, his small yellow swimmer shorts showing more of his legs than I was used to, “It sounds lovely.”

“It sounds nothing like when you play it.”

“You’re grouchy, did you have a nap at all?” “No,” Harry frowned, when his fingers missed three notes in quick succession, “Shit.” “Don’t stop,” I encouraged, giving his leg a squeeze, “Keep going. A few missed notes are no reason to stop.”

I could feel droplets from my wet hair drip down my back, and one must have hit Harry because he turned to look at me with a smirk on his face as he inspected what I was wearing, “I like holiday Nina. She’s a bit of an exhibitionist.”

“Shut up! I’m wearing the same thing as you!”

Harry’s eyes dropped to my chest, biting his lip as his eyes hovered over my floral bikini top, “Trust me, it’s not even close to the same thing.”

“We’re fifteen metres from the beach!” I exclaimed, jumping up from my spot and stomping toward the kitchen, “Swimmers are perfectly acceptable attire.”

“I’m going to miss seeing your arse like this,” Harry had followed me in, he went over to the bar cart and got out two clean glasses, “Margarita?”

“Please,” I responded petulantly, my gaze going out over the small pool to the beach beyond our private condo. 

Harry stayed here years before when he was writing songs for his first solo album, and I loved that he brought me here too. It was private and secluded and beautiful … And came with a baby grand piano where I was continuing to teach Harry to play.

We took our drinks out to the ocean, dipping down in the warm water when it was a comfortable depth to sit and sip at the cocktails. This was our evening routine before cooking a meal together—a sunset swim, a few cocktails and usually, sex in the shower before dinner. Harry was very good at the holiday thing.

“I’m going to write the album in London,” He said after a long silence between us. “Well, as much as possible anyway.”

I waited a moment before responding, “Are you sure?” “I am,” Harry replied quickly. 

It was a decision he was taking his time on making, all his previous albums had been written in Los Angeles but for his next Harry was tossing up the idea of staying in the UK. I didn’t want to influence his decision at all, but in truth, the thought of him working overseas filled me with dread. I had grown so used to having him around, and the last four weeks, while he was on his micro tour, was insight enough into what it would be like if he wrote the album abroad.

Even worse was the thought of him writing the album in Los Angeles and then going straight into touring it worldwide. 

“What are you thinking?” He asked finally, “You’ve gone quiet on me.”

“I don’t want to jinx it,” I swam a little closer to him, accepting the seat when he hitched his leg up in front of him.

Harry kissed my shoulder, his free arm snaking around my waist in the water, “Jinx it?”

“Well, obviously I’m extremely biased to the writing in London plan …”

“You are?” Harry grinned up at me, freshly freckled from the sun and his nose a little pink.

“Yeah,” I moved my arm around his shoulder and took the final mouthful of my margarita.

“I love you,” He told me, “You’re a lot of the reason to stay in London. I don’t want to write overseas and then disappear on tour. We’ll never see each other.”

I frowned, “You shouldn’t stay just for me.”

“I also think it’s time to try something new with my music,” He continued, “I’ve always run away to write … Usually, with a broken heart or a deep sense of dissatisfaction in my life. This time will be different in so many ways. I don’t have a reason to run away.”

“You know if you stay in London, you’ll end up coming to a hundred symphonies?” 

“Sounds great,” Harry replied without blinking. “And my nosy girlfriends will be crashing in your living room after we day drink all summer in your backyard?”

He nodded, “I volunteer as Designated Driver.”

I screwed up my face, “You’ll probably end up with my hair ties all through your car, and I’ll take all your warmest socks?”

Harry mocked seriousness, “Right we’re buying you your own pair of those hiking socks, you can’t just rifle through my draws willy nilly.”

“I always eat more than half the ice cream,” I continued.

“You’re not going to convince me otherwise,” Harry kissed the side of my mouth, sweetly, “I love you, Nina.”

“And I love your socks.”

++

HELLO!

And now we’re really done!! Thank you so much for reading along and an every bigger thank you if you reached out at some point to say you liked this story. Your encouragement is worth more than gold.

xx

[youarejesting]

BTS365 Prompt.Week24

[Full Masterlist] [Prompt Masterlist]

Beta: @jung-hoseok-s-airplane

Please tag me in your work if you use my prompts. I want to see your work. Ever your Jester.

Tell me your birthday and I will tag you on your special day!

═══════ ೋღ ღೋ ═══════

         June 11th - 17th

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Kim Seokjin - Red Rose

You worked at the Ama-Jin florist. The owner Jin was a lovely young man who was a little hit and miss when it came to flower arrangements. Sometimes he would make beautiful bouquets and other times he made horrific flower crowns that looked out of this world. Your job as the actual florist was to take his failed attempts and correct them. That and compliment him daily. No, seriously this was in your job description.

Min Yoongi - Bourbon

Min Yoongi worked on a modest farm, every morning he would wake early. Brush his teeth and hair, he would dress before applying copious amounts of sunscreen before getting to work. First, he would call for Holly, giving her some breakfast while he fed the chickens, there were three hens and a rooster. He then would go to the cow, he had only one as the calf didn’t survive the harsh winter and he would sit on his stool and collect the milk. 

“Hey my moo, give it a few months and you can try again with Seokjin Stud Desirabull okay?” He patted the sad cow and stood up. Heading to the kitchen he began making a quick breakfast before heading back out with Holly. They worked together in the field, managing his crops which took all day. 

 “Holly, let’s check the fences, and then it is time to head back early. I can make something small for dinner and I can have a drink.” The two took the tractor back to the shed behind the house and he saw a strange car pull up in his driveway. You stepped out looking like one of those beautiful women on television whilst he felt a little more like a dirty hick.

“I just moved into the place across the road and I thought I heard from the town about you,” you smiled, he frowned, what had they said. “Oh, it wasn’t anything bad. They said you were hard-working, kind and caring but you often put other things before your own needs, they all said you were so thin so as I was making dinner I made a little extra by accident and well I thought I might offer some of it to you.”

He lifted the lid to see a delicious looking casserole, “Well, I wish I knew I would have prepared something to welcome you, do you and your husband need any eggs or milk?”

“Oh no, it’s just me.” You sighed.“Well me, I was dumb eighteen year old, trusted a boy fell pregnant and he said he would marry me and take care of us but here I am. But who needs a guy like that. I sure don’t and my little five year old is beautiful taking after me, of course.” 

Yoongi grinned at the fondness on your face. “If ever you need anything I am just across the road. I am Yoongi and this is my dog Holly, he is a boy but when I first got him I thought he was a girl.”

“Oh right, I forgot to introduce myself. I am y/n and my daughter, Daehyung, is a girl, I thought she was a boy while I was pregnant. I picked the name early and I got so used to it, I just couldn’t change it.”

Jung Hoseok - Hem

Jung Hoseok had to visit a tailor for his best friend's wedding. Yoongi wanted all his groomsmen to be well dressed, he sent them the same address and told them to go in their own time. When he arrived crossing the polished wood floors, past dozens of multicolored suits, jackets, trousers and tuxedo sets.

He stopped awkwardly in front of the young woman who was busy arranging some cuff-links under the glass counter. She sang quietly to herself and squeaked when she saw him standing there trying to appear like he was interested in a green tie that caught his eye for all the wrong reasons. He hadn’t even noticed his lips pulling down into a frown of disdain towards the atrocity.

“Hi, thank you for your patience. How can I help you?” This startled Hoseok and he ended up dropping the tie and lunging for his head knocking over the display. “Woah!”

Hoseok looked up sheepish from the floor watching the young woman place the display back on the corner of the cabinet. “Uh here. I am here to get fitted for a suit.”

“Oh thank gosh, can I just say this puke green color is not good at all.”

“Right, it is hideous!”

Kim Namjoon - Corn

“I got the homis in my bag, Have you heard of that? Homis made of steel from Korea. They the be-e-est. Ridin' to the farm...” Namjoon had been singing it repeatedly for a few days but he couldn’t get past this line. Giving up for the moment, deciding instead to go to the kitchen. He hummed the tune as he looked through the fridge. There was food, but it had to be cooked and he was banned from cooking when he set the oven mitts on fire.

He ordered something and waited for it to arrive, he tried distracting himself with the 94 Liners group chat, they were currently mass messaging meme pictures of Namjoon from twitter. But even the funny caption on his distorted face couldn’t stop him thinking about the lyrics.

The doorbell rang and he ran to the door singing to himself. “I got the homis in my bag, Have you heard of that? Homis made of steel from Korea. They the be-e-est.” Namjoon threw the door open to see you, a beautiful young woman with a long blonde ponytail and the longest eyelashes fluttering over sparkling orbs.  “Riding to the farm…”

His voice died and you grinned up at him “Grabbing all the corn? I mean it was a half-rhyme does it count?” your laugh was absolutely infectious.

Park Jimin - Nature Photography (mentions the name Cocaine)

Jimin had joined his best friend and soulmate for a photography class, the two had an affinity for photographs but while Taehyung was more into taking the photo. Jimin preferred to just collect them. But as a fun day out, they had joined a nature photography group at the park where they would take pictures of the summer atmosphere in Seoul. 

It was while he was taking a picture he got tackled by a big Samoyed dog, Jimin couldn’t help giggling as the dog began licking his cheek happily. “You are a cute boy aren’t you, what’s your name?” He took a peek at the tag and fell back laughing. 

“Cocaine, baby you can’t run away!” you puffed putting a leash on your dog and going to apologize when your dog spotted Taehyung walking over with a Hotteok in each hand. The dog lunged forward and pulled you with him onto Jimin.

“Hello, Mister Dog Sir. How are you?” Taehyung chuckled deeply. You held your dog's leash arm outstretched preventing you from pulling yourself up. “Do you like Hotteok, we have to ask first if you are allowed to eat some?”

“What do you think you are doing Tae?” Jimin asked after hearing the clicking of a camera, he watched your eyes which had been scrunched shut scared of the fall open hesitantly. Jimin realized he had instinctively tried to catch you. 

“Nature Photography,” Taehyung replied, you looked up to see he was taking pictures of the two of you in the compromising position.

“I am so sorry, I didn’t mean for my dog to attack you,” you said sitting up on Jimin’s lap and trying to get up when you let out a hiss. He looked at your knee to see the graze, just holding your hips leaning over to his bag for a band-aid.

“Stay still and I will patch you up.” You were blushing. It wasn't exactly normal to sit in someone else’s lap. 

Taehyung's camera continued to go off and your soft blush darkened with every click. “There all done!”

Kim Taehyung - Blooms day

It was Blooms Day. A day where soulmates around the world get to bloom a child. Taehyung and yourself were so excited heading off to the special Nursery gardens and you walked along the trail together watching the flowers to see if any of them accepted your soulmate bond. Other couples were now dressing and cooing with their newborn Bloom babies but Taehyung looked at you nervously; you had almost walked the entire garden. You took Taehyung’s hand. 

“Don’t give up Tae if it is not this year there is always next year we are more than ready for a bloom baby when it is ready for us” Though you said these words you reached the last turn of the trail in the greenhouse and outside the exit doors you saw a few couples consoling one another. 

Looking to your left Taehyung was crying silently. His lip was dropped and shaking but he didn’t make a sound, the tears slowly flowing down his cheeks like tiny drops of water running down a window. You were about to leave, stopping in front of the last pot these were the rarest flowers of them all, you stood admiring them for a moment not yet ready to accept your fate.

You heard the sound that one only hears when their bloom baby was being born. You followed the sound pulling Taehyung around the pot until you saw a flower growing out from the ground behind the pot it was a tiny flower with dark navy petals and it began to open and you laid out the blanket and gently laid the newborn bloom baby into the soft fabric wrapping them to keep them warm.

Taehyung wanted a boy wanting to teach him how to play catch and all those father-son moments. You turned to him smiling sadly “Baby I am sorry, it is a girl, I know how badly you wanted a little boy.”

“I realized that it didn’t matter what gender they were, I just wanted our little one to be healthy” he smiled “I guess that’s what was holding us back, I am sorry my love. I am going to teach you how to play catch and everything else better than any boy.”

Jeon Jungkook - Eat your vegetables

“Dinner’s ready” you shouted, hearing the feet scattering through the house. It was a madhouse at mealtimes if your husband Jungkook was anything to go by. It was halfway through your own dinner when you heard. “I am done, dad let’s play video games”

“Wait!” You called and they hung their heads and sat down at the table. You stood up and walked around looking at their plates and calling them out on the left over vegetables. “Why didn’t you eat your vegetables?”

“Because they taste funny, mummy” Your son said to you jutting out his bottom lip and looking up at you with big eyes. Trying to appear cute clasping his hands together in a plea.

“Yeah, mummy they taste funny.” Jungkook pulled the same face and you put your hands on your hips.

“If you want to stay in the same bed tonight, let alone anything else you two better eat your vegetables” Jungkook lifted his plate to his mouth and began shovelling the vegetables into his mouth and chewing them as quickly as he could. Before turning to his son and encouraging him to eat his vegetables before racing him for a bath. Jungkook was running around the living room trying to clean up toys and the video games watching you with a big eager smile.

[inyri]

Equivalent Exchange (a SWTOR story): Chapter 39- Extinction Burst

Equivalent Exchange by inyri

Fandom: Star Wars: The Old Republic Characters: Female Imperial Agent (Cipher Nine)/Theron Shan Rating: E (this chapter: M. Trigger warning: graphic violence.) Summary: If one wishes to gain something, one must offer something of equal value. In spycraft, it’s easy. Applying it to a relationship is another matter entirely. F!Agent/Theron Shan. (Spoilers for Shadow of Revan and Knights of the Fallen Empire/Knights of the Eternal Throne.)

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(Yes, yes, I KNOW. A new job, two moves and a new baby- four months old now- will rather put one off one’s writing game. Mea maxima culpa.)

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Chapter Thirty-Nine: Extinction Burst

The wire bites in; a memory surfaces.

***

She is sixteen years old.

The final combat examination is tomorrow and she ought to be in quarters but she begged an extra hour before curfew from the matron; the training rooms aren’t kept locked, as a rule, and she needs every minute of practice she can scrounge. If her mark isn’t in the top five she may as well forget the advanced course next year and that means goodbye to any hope of an Intelligence traineeship, which is entirely unacceptable. She hasn’t worked this hard to wind up stamping travel papers on some backwater planet, another factory-molded cog in the machine of the Diplomatic Corps. Father would be so- he’d be-

He’d be-

-angryashameddisappointedIraisedyoubetterthanthispathetic-

( oh, that hurts, oh, oh- a blank space in the memory and then it keeps going, like a stutter in an old recording-)

Not that ImpInt would be any less of a machine- she isn’t so naive as that. This is the Empire, after all.

In any case, her favorite room at the end of the hall’s empty. Setting the program to random- not nearly as good as a live partner but being out of quarters is bad enough, even with permission; any two of them caught together now after stupid Taima ratted out last weekend’s party’d mean a week locked in at least- she squares off against the combat droid.

Half an hour and three-quarters of the way through the fifth training sequence later, sweat prickles on her back beneath her shirt as the door slides open behind her and chill air from the corridor wafts into the room.

“Matron Rossi gave me a pass,” she pants between dodges, lifting her right arm to block and then counter the droid’s swing. It must be one of the patrolling guards, she thinks- heavy steps behind her, booted soles scraping on the duracrete floor, not another cadet soft-footed in standard-issue trainers. Turning around now would be dangerous; whoever it is, they’re disrupting the program. Rather rude. “But it’s in my trouser pocket so you’ll have to wait until the end of this sequence.”

Two more steps, drawing nearer as she aims a punch at the center target- stupid guards, they never did listen worth a damn. Against her better judgment she turns her head to look and suddenly she can’t breathe- something wraps around her throat, stiff and unyielding under her scrabbling fingers, tightening, tightening-

(It wasn’t a wire, then. But she was only a child, really, still fighting training dummies and shooting practice guns at printed targets between arithmetic and elocution and Imperial history lessons. A strap, one would think, ought to have been enough.)

She can’t cry out, she can’t get her hands beneath it, she can’t breathe, oh stars -

The room’s going dark. Did the lights shut off? She can barely see the combat droid as it lurches forward to flank her, still working its way by rote through the program; it’s going to catch her right in the teeth if she doesn’t move but that’s really not going to matter if she strangles first, which frankly seems more likely (what are you doing , stupid girl, think or you’re going to die here, MOVE)-

- until she finally, finally remembers the lesson from three weeks ago’s grappling practice and pivots toward him, throwing her weight sideways as hard as she possibly can.

The pressure eases on her throat just a little. Balling up one fist, she drives it hard into her attacker’s groin. He- thank all the stars it’s a he, that’d have been properly useless on a woman- flinches and she tries to snake her hand up the gap between his arm and body, searching for leverage. Whoever he is, he’s got probably a quarter-meter of height and a few dozen kilograms of weight on her and she’ll never be able to throw him over but if she can at least get him off-balance she might stand a chance. With the little breath she has she tries to scream; he claps a hand over her mouth and she bites down hard, wishing for pointed teeth like Nyssa’s or Dzurai’s because she only tastes leather and not blood and he’s got both ends of the strap in one hand, now, twisting it roughly around her neck and pulling her down until she’s bowed over-

She’s been hit by the droid dozens of times in her training. She remembers the sound and the feel of it, a dense slap of metal on flesh hard enough to leave welts for days, and wonders why it doesn’t hurt this time- she hears it strike home, that same awful thudding sound and then a crack, sharp, like dry kindling breaking underfoot. She should feel it. It should hurt. Why doesn’t it hurt?

The strap slips away, sliding against her skin. The combat droid’s tinny voice chirps accusingly, warning light flashing in the corner of her vision- SEQUENCE FAILED. She needs to run, needs to get away; she starts to stumble toward the door and trips over something underfoot, falling to her knees, crawling.

SEQUENCE FAILED.

Her hand comes down on the man’s face. Frantic, she yanks it away but he doesn’t stir, doesn’t even move and-

SEQUENCE FAILED.

His eyes are open, vague and staring, his head twisted on his neck at an awful angle-

SEQUENCE FAILED.

(It was pure stupid luck how the droid had hit him, though her would-be assassin had had it coming: couldn’t even kill a half-trained girl and he was stupid to boot, leaving the last message from Ellix’s father- fucking Ellix, that lazy little shit, it wasn’t her fault all his family’s money couldn’t buy him decent marks and that she’d thrashed him in the preliminaries last week- on the commpad in his pocket for security to find. But she’d never seen anyone die before. She’d never killed anyone before, even if indirectly, even if it was an accident and she was only trying to run.

He’d had it coming. She had let that thought soothe her in the moments when his face filled her dreams.)

She takes a deep breath in, and screams.

***

It isn’t the first time Nine’s had a garrote around her throat; it likely won’t be the last. But she has two things in her favor that she didn’t at sixteen.

Even as the wire cuts at her skin she can feel the attack angle’s not quite right, meant to snare someone taller- as it is, it nearly hits her jawbone and bites into the soft flesh beneath her chin. On someone Theron’s height- on Theron, it would have been Theron here if she hadn’t intervened - it would have caught him just at the pulse-point, through to the carotids maybe even before he lost his breath. Their nasty little mole sprung his trap on the wrong person and it took him a few seconds too long to realize it, long enough for her to start to shift to counter him. Too bad for him.

The misjudged angle alone might have let her survive, even unarmed. But the second thing in her favor is that unlike all those years ago she’s armed with more than her bare fists tonight and (all right, maybe it’s three things in her favor) she gives precisely zero fucks about how badly she’s about to make him hurt.

Fighting the reflexive urge to grab at the wire, she moves her right hand to her belt instead and draws her knife. It springs into her fingers, blade humming but inaudible beneath the scuff of boots on duracrete and her desperate ragged breaths; she reverses grip and drives it straight backward into her attacker.

(She hopes. If she misses she can strike again, of course, but even at a bad angle the wire’s still making mincemeat of her throat and there’s only so much time before- well. Best not to test whether Valkorion really does mean to keep her alive.)

If Theron’s scars are anything close to par for the SIS course, its agents take twice as many beatings as she ever did in Imperial Intelligence. Whether that’s down to bad luck or subpar training is a matter of debate, but all the thrashings in the galaxy still can’t prepare one for a vibroknife to the groin and when her strike hits home- more in the thigh, really, she feels the blade bite through fabric and into muscle without the telltale skitter-scrape of metal on bone- she twists it hard.

It’s enough. For a fraction of a second the wire pulls tauter and she smells blood before she feels it, trickling down into her collar, but then he lets go with one hand to push her away, to put some distance between himself and her knife. When the blade rips free he snarls, the first meaningful sound she’s heard him make since she entered the room. He hadn’t expected that, clearly. Theron too often only carried his blasters or at best a utility knife and it would have been a tricky shot; if he’d hesitated for even a moment-

Theron always tried to talk his way out of things. But it’s hard to talk with an opened throat.

Her attacker- human or near it in this light, with the sort of face one could pass in the street and forget a moment later- starts to duck back behind the crates that had hidden him initially. As he moves out of sight she reaches for a kolto syringe, then thinks better of it. It would only take a few seconds and he won’t be getting at her neck again but what else is he armed with? A few seconds might be long enough for her to find out the hard way.

The stack of crates casts a dark shadow in the flickering light. He’s only a step or two ahead of her now, slowed by the wound, and she closes the distance with a leap and throws all her weight at his back. Grabbing with her free hand at his collar, she manages a fistful and holds tight to it, clinging fast to drag him down. He staggers and braces himself against a corner as she gets her blade arm up around his throat, then the other.

“Yield,” Nine hisses in his ear. “Or-”

She barely hears the shot go off.

It misses, more or less; the bolt of energy only grazes her right thigh, a split second of heat and pain that she dismisses before the sound of it leaves her ears. He would have had to shoot through himself to hit her anywhere vital but still- now she’s brought a blade to a gunfight and he appears to be going for or.

Oh, well. Too bad for him.

When she won’t let go he turns instead, putting her squarely between his body and the crates behind, and her back slams against the corner with enough force to rattle her teeth once and then again and then again. Between blows she slashes at his side; his throat would be easier but she wants him to talk, not bleed to death on the storeroom floor. The blade skitters off something hard beneath his jacket, raising sparks within the shadows. Armor. This isn’t going to-  

She hits the crate a fourth time and it knocks the air out of her.

Oof. Change of plan, then.

He rocks forward once more. This time, though, she lets go and drops before he can pin her, tucking into a sideways roll that takes her just clear of his feet to the left as she throws her knife to the right. It clatters across the duracrete and with her weight suddenly gone he pauses, turning in the direction of the noise. (It’s a little disappointing he fell for that one, really. Oldest trick in the book.) She flips on her stealth generator in one quick movement and by the time he looks back toward her she’s gone.

“Stop fucking around, Cipher.” His voice is softer than she would have expected and subtly hoarse. Unfamiliar, though clearly he knows her- or of her, at least. “Let’s finish this.”

A single larger storage box, perhaps two meters tall, sits further to her left amid the stacked-up piles. If she can get on top of it she’d have a better angle to get a shot off, or a dart-

“You’re bleeding,” he says, not moving; she takes a silent step toward the box and then another and another, glancing down at the ground around her feet. Maybe she ought to have used the kolto after all; the best stealth tech in the galaxy can’t mask a blood trail. “You think you can hide?”

She’s behind the box now. She reaches up, hands outstretched, gripping the lid. Keep talking, idiot. Keep talking.

Click-click-click, the sound of an augment screwed onto a blaster barrel. “Don’t bother going for the door, by the way. Got it covered.”

Oh, now he’s just being insulting.

Slowly, carefully, silently- her belt clasp knocks slightly against the lip of the lid and she freezes in place, one foot atop the box, until she’s certain he’s not moving toward her- she pulls herself up and edges toward the far side. Where is he? She can’t quite see him. Hiding up against something, maybe- his voice hadn’t moved, but he could be projecting it or- shit, what if he’s got stealth tech, too?

No. He hadn’t been cloaked when he struck at her, she’d just been distracted. He’s hiding, and probably telling the truth about a sightline on the exit: he thinks she’s prey. He thinks she’s wounded, bleeding, frightened. He thinks she’s outmatched and trying to escape, to regroup and find allies to come back and finish the job.

(Cipher, Cipher, run away, live to fight another day. Valkorion’s voice sing-songs in the back of her head. A pithy little rhyme. Isn’t that what you were taught?

Nine grits her teeth. Shall I just let him lop my head off, old man? How long will your ghost last after I die?

Spirit, Valkorion murmurs. Spirit. But I can show you where-

Be silent, she says, and loads a sedative dart into the launcher on her wrist. I’m hunting.)

Crouched atop the box, she scans the room. Think like a ‘pub- he expects her to break before he does. Where would she have holed up, were she him? No stealth and a leg injury- somewhere ground-level but with cover, a niche in the wall or a well-placed column-

There! The tip of a blued-out blaster pistol peeks out beyond the edge of a ration crate, reflecting just enough light to be visible from her perch as it tracks back and forth along the line of the exit door. Target located. Step one, complete. Now to step two- three quick hops ought to put her just above him but only if he doesn’t get punchy at the first hint of a sound, and if he’s already wiggling his fucking gun around like a stimmed-up infantry grunt she’d bet he’s the punchy type.

She can think of a quick way to fix that, of course: can’t get punchy if he can’t hear. Hylo won’t be happy with her, but to mangle the metaphor one can’t make an omelet without breaking a few crates.

Sorry, Hylo.

She pulls a flashbang off her belt and yanks the pin with her teeth, holds the grenade clenched in her fist as she starts to count down the fuse. Five. Four. Three- she lofts the grenade and watches as it soars, landing a meter away and rolling toward the SIS agent’s feet as he peeks out of cover at the noise - two - and she presses her hands firmly over her ears. One.  

The moment the glare fades through her pressed-shut eyelids she’s moving, launching from her perch to the next-nearest stack and then the next, knocked out of alignment by the shockwave and wobbling alarmingly, and then one last leap to just above where her opponent’s now bent over and shaking his head back and forth like a half-stunned bantha. His bowed head creates a perfect target, a wide strip of skin exposed between hairline and collar.

She fires the dart into the back of his neck.

She waits.

He keeps moving for another six seconds (quicker-than-average metabolism; she makes a mental note) before his legs give way and his blaster falls from his limp fingers. Slumped against the crate, he slides down into a half-seated sprawl, head turning slowly from side to side as he squints into the dark.

“Where-?” He’s slurring now. Good. “Gonna kill me now, Cipher? Too ‘fraid to not hide?”

Switching off her generator, she jumps down to the floor beside him and kicks his blaster well out of reach. “Hardly afraid.” She doubts he can even hear her after a flashbang practically to the face. “You’re going to have a nice little nap, and then you and I-” he’s nearly unconscious now- “need to have a little talk.”

He heard that much, at least. Making a face, he grits his teeth and she hears something crack just as his eyes start to roll upward and one cheek starts to spasm.

Oh, for fuck’s sake. Amateur.

“You’re not getting out of this,” she sighs, reaches into a belt pouch for the antitoxin injector she always keeps there, flips the cap back and jams it roughly into the man’s neck, “nearly that easily. Sleep well, agent.” His eyelids flicker, then drift fully shut; she slaps him hard- he deserves it, after all, for what he would have done to Theron and for her mangled throat; she’s still bleeding where the wire bit in and it’s worse than she’d first thought, shirt soaked down to her collarbones now and the smell of her own blood filling her nose even over the lingering oxidizer- and he doesn’t rouse. “We’ll chat again soon.”

No answer.

Good.

“SCORPIO?” She activates her comm but suspects she doesn’t need to. That droid has ears everywhere. “SCORPIO, I need you and Lana at my location- and Doctor Lokin. And a pair of restraining cuffs.”

“Of course, Commander.” A pause, and then- “Transport?”

“And a duffel bag. A large one.”

SCORPIO never smiles; her chassis isn't capable of it. Given how smug she sounds, that's almost certainly for the best. “Of course, Commander. En route."

[moodyvalentinestories]

A Holly Jolly Christ-Mess. Part 12. | Rachel x Hunt

12: Quite Convincing

“Holidays are joyful, there’s always something new...” – Merry Christmas, Darling (Carpenters)

Summary: Thomas somehow ends up in the middle of a Fields Family Celebration. And things are going... uh... great. Mhm. Totally.

Pairing: Thomas Hunt x Rachel Fields

Words: ~ 1,400 words

Notes: We’re going for a bit more of Thomas’ POV again because reasons. Shh. You’ll get it in a couple of parts. Maybe. If I do a decent job, anyway.

❥ Moodyvalentine’s Masterlist ❥ Christmas Series Masterlist

Shortly after Rachel had left to meet her family, Thomas had made his way to his favourite screening room on campus to get started on watching the atrocities his students called short films. He took a pouch full of flash drives out of his bag, reaching inside to pull one out at random. It didn’t have a name written on it – though he’d specifically asked them to do just that – and he didn’t find out whose film it was until the credits rolled. He was tempted to give them an F just for that, but decided that it had, in fact, been almost acceptable so he graded it fairly, simply subtracting some points for their inability to follow instructions.

He’d just started watching the second film when his phone vibrated – a text from Rachel.

This is hell.

He furrowed his brows, unsure if she was serious or joking. This was why he preferred to speak to people instead of text them.

Do you need me to pick you up? – T.

She didn’t reply immediately so he focussed his attention on Mr Sergio’s project again. It only took a few seconds until Thomas was ready to smash his head into a wall. He was glad when the vibration of his phone announced another text – and, therefore, a distraction.

No. But I wish I was with you instead.

He smiled. He, too, would have much rather spent time with her than watch ‘Sleeping Spark – a fabulous Lance original’. But, alas, that wasn’t possible at the moment.

You will be. Tomorrow. – T.

His thumb hovered over the play button, but he didn’t even have the time to press it before the next message arrived.

You should come.

A sigh escaped him. He would have loved that, really, he would have.

You know I can’t. – T.

This time, he actually managed to watch a few more minutes – though, truly, he would have much rather lobotomised himself – before his phone went off again.

My mother’s trying to get me to come back home.

His heart stopped for a moment. Of course, Rachel was just trying to get her way. But what if…? The next text came almost immediately.

She can be quite convincing.

If she was anything like her daughter, Thomas didn’t doubt it. He stopped the film, his focus shot anyway.

Stop that. – T.

He could almost imagine her grin when she typed her next message.

I don’t know, she’s making a pretty good case.

The next message was simply her live location. With a sigh, he turned everything off, and made his way to his car. A terrible idea, no doubt. But she was in public, in the same city he lived in. Granted, it was a large city, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t run into each other accidentally. Lord knew it had happened often enough before.

He spent the entire drive trying to rationalise his decision, though he knew full well that there was no rational explanation for why he was on his way to her now.

It didn’t take long until he was there – though it did take quite a bit of time until he found a parking spot. Once he finally did, he checked his phone again. Rachel – and her family, he reminded himself – was less than a two-minute walk away, according to his phone. He sent her another message before getting out of his car.

I’m here. – T.

He put his phone in his pocket, confident he’d find her without directions, and began looking for her. He walked past dozens of stalls selling all kinds of Christmas-themed – and some… not Christmas-themed – knick-knacks before he found one offering a variety of hot beverages. Hadn’t she said something about not surviving this day without mulled wine? Surely, she had to be—

“Professor Hunt!”

She sounded genuinely surprised and Thomas smiled to himself, making a mental note to watch her film next to see if she could apply those acting skills to his assignment as well, before he turned around. She and three others – her family, he assumed – were standing around a bar table. They looked rather strange together, he found.

The woman next to Rachel looked just like her – or, well, the other way around – except she was, of course, quite a bit older. She was also a little smaller in height, and perhaps it was that – or her age – that made her look a bit chubbier. That, however, was as far as family resemblance went between any of them.

The older man stuck out the most, tall and bulky, towering over the rest of them. The younger man was the opposite – though still a bit taller than Rachel, he was also very lanky and, if Thomas had been one to judge people by appearances, he would have said he looked like he preferred to spend his time behind a computer rather than out in the real world.

“Miss Fields,” he said as he approached them, his usual emotionless expression on his face. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

She shrugged and struggled to hold back a grin. “Well, it is Christmas… almost, anyway. I had to show my family around a bit, didn’t I?” Her father opened his mouth to say something, but just then, she continued. “Everyone, this is Professor Hunt.” She turned to her father specifically and stressed, “Thomas Hunt.”

His eyes widened, and he immediately went to shake Thomas’ hand. “Richard Fields, Rachel’s father. It’s such an honour to meet you, Mr Hunt.”

Thomas saw Rachel roll her eyes at that. He’d have to ask her why later, but for now, he was busy being greeted by the rest of her family. The other two weren’t quite as enthusiastic, but certainly not impolite.

He stayed for a little while, making small talk with the parents of the woman he loved, who weren’t supposed to find out he was in love with their daughter. It wasn’t quite as awkward as he thought it would be, and they turned out to be rather pleasant. Of course, he wasn’t going to judge their character based on a short conversation only. He trusted Rachel’s assessment of them and remained wary throughout their interactions.

“Well, I should be on my way,” he said after a while, noticing but choosing to ignore Rachel’s pleading eyes. Staying any longer was certainly not a good idea. Surely, she would understand.

It wasn’t her that spoke up, though. Her father did. “What a shame. I was hoping you could stay for a drink.”

“I was just going to get us all a refill,” her mother chimed in after a moment’s hesitation.

He sighed, and looked over at Rachel, who only shrugged. She was giving him a choice. Her family, though, not so much. “Very well. I suppose I can stay a little longer.”

“Wonderful,” Mrs Fields said and clapped her hands together. “I’m not sure I can carry five mugs, though…”

She looked at Thomas, who immediately offered his help, not thinking too much of it. He didn’t see Rachel’s shocked expression when he did.

“No, I should go with him,” Rachel immediately protested. She shot a glare in her father’s direction, “My money’s got to be good for something, right?”

Her mother shot her down immediately. “I’m going to get us a refill. Mr Hunt will join me. Right?”

“Of course,” he reiterated before following her to the stall. He heard Rachel mutter something under her breath though he didn’t understand what she was saying.

Mrs Fields and Thomas walked in uncomfortable silence for a moment. Eventually, he got a bit too uncomfortable, and tried to start a conversation. “You have a very talented daughter.”

“And a very stupid one,” she said, taking him by surprise.

He raised an eyebrow. “I wouldn’t say that. She doesn’t seem—”

“She obviously has a massive crush on you.”

He stopped in his tracks. Shit. “Excuse me?”

“If I can be honest, it’s why I asked you to come with me. To warn you. She can be… quite convincing if she wants to be. I would hope you wouldn’t fall for her charms.”

Thomas coughed. “I don’t believe that is the case but… I will be careful not to lead her on. Thank you, Mrs Fields.”

“Oh,” she said, turning to him to study his face for a moment. “I should have realised. You’re already sleeping with her.”

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[carmenlire]

Meet Me in the Stacks Ch. 3

read from beginning

read on ao3

As soon as Yoongi hears the overhead announcement that the library is officially closed, he’s shutting down his computer at the reference desk and heading towards the back to grab his things. It’s one of the last Sundays of the season that they’re open and he’s eager to enjoy the end of his weekend before coming back to work for another six straight days.

He passes by Taehyung who’d been assigned to the computer area for today’s shift and winces a little as he sees his coworker helping three different people print while trying to hurry them along as quickly and subtly as possible.

When Yoongi gets to their workroom, Jin and Jimin are already packed up and ready to head out.

“Is Namjoon at the restaurant already?”

Jimin laughs as he types something on his phone. “Of course. He rode his bike there and already put in his name for a table. We should be seated as soon as we get there. Hobi-hyung just drove straight to the restaurant on his way back into town so he'll be there, too.”

Groaning, Yoongi makes sure he has his wallet and keys before shuffling over to the door. “Thank God. I’m hungry and need to vent.”

“Ah, Yoongi-chi, what pissed you off today?”

Grumbling as he opens the door and still sees Taehyung helping the last patron, Yoongi just mutters, “I’ll tell everyone later.”

Jin and Jimin hum in understanding, knowing that they never talk shit about patrons when they’re at work and can be overheard.

The three of them leave through the staff entrance at the back, Jimin making eye contact with Tae to make sure he knows where they’ll be waiting, and Yoongi squints at the bright early evening sunshine.

It’s a little past five o’clock but it’s still warm. Yoongi feels a little like a bat or a particularly grubby mole as his eyes literally burn at the brightness.

Jimin sees his suffering and has the audacity to laugh. “Hyung, you should get out more, enjoy the fresh air. You look like a baby vampire.”

Yoongi snorts. “Fuck off, Jimin,” he retorts absently.

Thankfully, it’s not too much more before Taehyung comes tumbling out of the staff entrance.

“Oh my God,” he whispers, looking like he’d just stared death in the face. “I didn’t think I’d ever make it out of there.”

Everyone laughs in commiseration at their friend’s dramatics. “We were losing hope too,” Jin snickers before patting him on the shoulder. “But you’re free now and Yoongi’s about to start eating his foot so let's get to the restaurant.”

They decide to walk since it’s such a nice day and not for the first time, Yoongi begrudgingly admits that he really does love living in a small town where everything is within walking distance. The library is just a few blocks from Main Street, closer to the school, and Main Street is chock full of small businesses-- everything from a coffee shop to the soap store that he spends way too much at every time he visits to a world-famous toy store that makes their little corner of the world especially hectic during the Holidays.

There are a dozen restaurants, each with their own specialty, and Yoongi is glad that Namjoon had chosen the barbeque place for his week’s pick. The six of them go out every Sunday evening for what they’ve taken to calling family dinners and while he’ll never admit it aloud, Yoongi loves this little tradition of theirs.

It’s a pleasant walk, less than fifteen minutes, and Namjoon’s bike is clearly visible near the front. When everyone walks in, they see Hoseok and Namjoon at their favorite table in the corner. A messy few minutes later as everyone settles, and Yoongi breathes a sigh of relief at sitting down and being off the clock and away from hell, at least for the next fifteen hours.

“So,” Taehyung starts, skimming over a menu he could probably recite at this point. “How was your weekend, Hoseok-hyung?”

Hoseok grins, taking a sip of his coke that he must’ve ordered before everyone else arrived. “It was wonderful, Tae-ah. I’m glad I put in for this weekend off. Going back home was fun, especially since the weather was so nice, and my mom sent me back with enough food to feed an army.”

“Well, we know where to stop by for dinner this week, don’t we,” Jimin asks and Hoseok groans good-naturedly.

“I’m glad you had a good time, even if you left the rest of us to suffer in your stead,” Taehyung says solemnly and Namjoon snorts.

“What happened this afternoon, Tae? I know Yoongi texted me last night about how awful things were at closing yesterday but you look, no offense, a little wrung out.”

Yoongi interjects before Taehyung can reply. “You act like you don’t remember how Saturdays used to be. If we’re not dead then it’s Bedlam. Just because you’re management now doesn’t mean you should be so impervious to the plights of your staff. After all, if it weren’t for us common librarians--”

Everyone, including Namjoon, groans at the familiar spiel. “Stop bullshitting, hyung. Did I not cover the desk all week with you last month when Jin took off and we were short staffed in the evenings? And did I not have to calm down Cerano when he almost went nuclear at the prospect of, God forbid, having to pay for his 132 single-sided color prints?”

Grumbling, Yoongi just rolls his eyes. “At least you didn’t get hit on by a woman looking old enough to be your grandmother yesterday. And I couldn’t very well offend her delicate sensibilities and tell her I was gay as fuck, so I just had to smile as she had the audacity to pinch my cheeks and call me a goddamn dumpling. When I tell you that I’m entitled to financial compensation--”

“The union pays a fair wage, you know,” Jimin breaks in mildly and Yoongi just glares at the flagrant disrespect.

Before things can get any more out of hand, though, Namjoon calms everyone down. “Well, it’s good to know that the building’s still standing and that my department is making me proud even when I’m not there.”

Everyone scoffs and as the topic turns to talking about potential plans for the group to go on a weekend trip together over the summer, Yoongi reflects that he’s really quite glad he took this job in a small town a few years ago.

Yoongi hadn’t always known what he wanted to do. He’d majored in history in college-- minoring in a few other areas that caught his interest-- but knew he didn’t have the patience to pursue his Ph.D. and become a professor. He’d always had fond memories of his own library back home, though, of reading any book he could get his hands on, of his mom taking him every week when he was still young enough to participate in children’s programs.

As graduation had started looming, Yoongi had applied for an internship at a research library and had fallen in love. He loved learning and helping others find what they wanted made him feel good, like he was making a difference, even if it was such a small one. As soon as his last semester had began and his internship had wrapped up for the summer, he’d started applying for Masters programs in Library Science and had learned very quickly that there is a lot that goes into making libraries run smoothly and stay relevant to the masses.

He’d been roommates with Seokjin and Namjoon during college and while he’d wandered from library to library for a few years, trying different types of institutions to see what fit and what didn't, his old roommates had started as entry level librarians in a small town a couple of hours away from university.

The three of them had stayed in touch and Yoongi had treated them to a celebratory dinner whenever Namjoon was promoted to first assistant manager and then manager of the adult services department. Seokjin, for his part, was content enough in his role, tending to his collections and away from the pressure of dealing with the director directly and having to make all those big grand strategic plans for their department and library at large.

Namjoon thrived in his new role and when he’d reached out to Yoongi, let him know that someone was retiring and they’d have a spot open, Yoongi hadn’t hesitated to apply.

His best friend hadn’t been part of the interview committee and all around, that made things easier. He’d been offered the job the next day, started within a month, and had quickly found himself surrounded by idiots.

He loved it.

Yoongi’s been at the library for a few years now and while the whole department is full of dumbasses, they have the highest circulation of any neighboring library and Namjoon keeps them all in line with firm but fluid leadership.

Moving to a new town is always nerve wracking but Yoongi likes to think that he’s settled into things. He had Namjoon and Seokjin but his other coworkers in the department became fast friends, welcoming him with open arms. Of course, he’d heard stories about Hobi and Jimin and Taehyung-- but they had heard stories too and they had seemed to be friends almost before he even started his new position.

All in all, things were good. Yoongi didn’t absolutely hate his job, he had good friends, and he lived in a quiet neighbourhood with a bustling town life that he rarely participated in but knew he could if he did.

Yoongi’s thoughts break off as he hears Jimin’s peel of laughter. Tuning back into the conversation, he hears Hoseok exclaim, “You should see the way Yoongi turns red whenever he comes up to the desk. I thought his ears were gonna catch fire the last time he helped him.”

Glaring, Yoongi demands, “What the hell are you cretins talking about now?”

It’s Namjoon who laughs. “Everyone was filling me in on your admirer. I can’t believe you’ve had to tell him where the computers are six times and you haven’t lost your patience yet. It must be love,” he teases with a grin and Yoongi plots murder.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Joon-ah,” he says stiffly and resolutely ignores the fact that it’s getting a little warm in the restaurant.

Thankfully, everyone simmers down as the waitress comes by with drinks-- Hoseok and Namjoon ordered for everyone while they were waiting-- and it’s time to order food.

That only eats up so much time though and soon enough, Yoongi’s back in the hot seat and cursing his existence for moving here and landing himself with a bunch of idiots.

“So hyung,” Taehyung starts with a wide smile. “Have you gotten Jungkook’s number yet?”

Yoongi just narrows his eyes. “How do you know his name?”

Taehyung waves the question away. “Oh, we’re getting to be friends,” he answers airily.

Jimin giggles and it’s a little concerning how devious it sounds. “Sometimes he comes in and you’re not there so we got to talking one day when Taehyungie and I were at the desk together. He really is cute, isn’t he?”

Feeling like he’s chewing glass, Yoongi grits out, “I guess if you’re into that kind of thing.”

“And are you into that,” Hoseok asks with an infuriating smirk. “You know, tall and toned and with those tattoos--”

“The way his hair falls into his eyes,” Jin adds dreamily. “The way he dresses like he wants to tell you to fuck off but then he speaks and he’s the cutest, most polite thing you ever saw--”

Yoongi tries to keep from smiling but sees from the way Namjoon’s eyes sharpen as he watches him and knows he’s not being as subtle as he’d like. Knowing that he has to say something, all Yoongi can manage is, “So maybe I think he’s attractive. That doesn’t mean anything’s going to happen.”

“And why not,” Jimin asks, genuinely curious. “You like him, he likes you--”

“How on earth can you know that,” Yoongi cuts in flatly. “He’s never done anything to show he’s interested in me as more than the librarian who knows where the copier is.”

He’s stunned when the entire table groans in unison.

“You have got to be kidding me,” Hoseok asks, looking a little put-out. “As if Jungkook doesn’t make a beeline towards you whenever he comes to the library.”

“Like he doesn’t know exactly where everything is by now and like he isn’t a reasonably well-adjusted adult who could figure things out by himself but still asks you for help just so he can bask in your grumpy little gremlin presence for a few minutes--”

“Wait what,” Yoongi breaks in, shocked. “What do you mean he knows where everything is? Every time he comes in, he needs directions.”

“Yeah, from you,” Seokjin says pointedly.

“If he doesn’t see you at the reference desk, he doesn’t even look at us,” Taehyung adds. “At least before I introduced myself and pulled him into a conversation. The most we ever got from him was a wave and a little smile.”

From his periphery, Yoongi sees Namjoon open his mouth and he closes his eyes in defeat, knows that his friend is about to put the final nail in the coffin that has been Yoongi’s frankly impressive ability to downplay his feelings and any hope that they might be reciprocated.

He’s right.

Namjoon looks sheepish as he adds his two cents. “If this is who I think we’re talking about, I’ve seen him around.”

Looking intrigued, Hoseok prompts, “Do tell.”

With a wary glance in Yoongi’s direction, like Namjoon is afraid he’ll just lunge across the table to shut him up, Namjoon explains, “I was walking back from a managers meeting and saw someone in the New Nonfiction section? He was a little distracted looking at the cover of a book and someone bumped into him. He was admittedly pretty hot so I wasn’t running back to my office like I usually am--”

Jin snorts but Namjoon merely plods on, neck a little warm, “Anyway, I heard the patron who bumped into him ask if he knew where the scanner was and Jungkook told them. I was ready to step in but he had it handled. A few minutes later after I talked to Jimin-ah at the computer desk, I looked up and he was actually helping the old woman scan her papers.”

Nodding along like it confirms everything they’ve been saying, Hoseok looks smug. “He’s not only a gentlemen but he knows how to use technology.”

Jin stabs into his starter salad that's just been placed in front of him before pointing his fork with a cherry tomato hanging off the end at Yoongi. “Snap him up before someone else does, Yoongi-chi.”

Taeyhung laughs. “Yeah, you know Jimin and I are always looking--”

“Shut up,” Yoongi pleads quietly as he brings a hand up to his temple. “What the fuck,” he mutters to himself, wondering what Jungkook’s aim is here.

“Isn’t it obvious, hyung,” Namjoon asks, making Yoongi realize he must’ve spoken aloud. “He’s trying to woo you.”

With an unattractive snort, Jin tacks on, “I know it might be hard to believe, but some people think you’re cute.”

Yoongi blinks but Jin doesn’t let him say anything before his tone turns philosophically wry and he’s continuing, “Some people really like the grump look. Admittedly, I didn’t think odds were on that you’d find someone at work when all you do is glare at your computer screen mutinously and whisper under your breath about running away to a fishing village in Florida but here we are and Jungkook seems like a nice enough guy, albeit one who makes me worry about his taste in men, if he likes them so prickly--”

“Oh but hyung,” Taehyung breaks in mischievously, “Have you really seen Yoongi with Jungkook? He turns into a little kitten, I swear--”

“Yah, I’m still your hyung, you brat,” Yoongi interrupts darkly. “Would it kill you to show a little respect?”

“But he’s right, Yoongi.” Jimin would almost look apologetic if it wasn’t for the devilish gleam in his eye. “I’ve seen you stutter when Jungkook asks you a question and as soon as you see him, your whole face lights up. Granted, I don’t think most people would be able to notice but your dourness is only, like at a one out of ten instead of off the charts. He even makes you smile when he’s being adorably awkward, too.”

“Too,” Yoongi repeats, squinting a little.

Taehyung nods solemnly. “You’re a mess around him, Yoongi-hyung.”

“A match made in heaven then,” Hoseok crows and the rest of the table laughs.

Yoongi’s just trying to stop his thoughts from spinning out of control at the fount of information that just dumped all over him. Deciding he needs a quick break to get himself under control, he moves his chair back, merely offering, "I need to go to the restroom," when Jimin looks at him in question.

The group waves him on, having a merry time, and Yoongi rolls his eyes even as he huffs out a fond laugh at their antics, even if they're at his expense.

They come to this restaurant at least once a month-- they all love barbecue a little too much-- and Yoongi's sliding around tables and heading towards the restrooms near the front of the building. He spends a few minutes at the sink, and when he looks at himself in the mirror, he winces seeing that his face definitely didn't hide his reactions to all the ribbing about Jungkook.

He collects himself and feels better as he washes his hands and goes to head back to the table. Swinging open the door, he's passing the hostess stand when he hears someone call out his name. "Yoongi?"

Looking over, Yoongi freezes when he meets Jungkook's eyes. Out of everyone in town, Yoongi despairs, he just just had to run into his crush when he'd just gotten himself back under control. He only hopes that none of his friends are looking over or he'll never hear the end of it.

"Hi, Jungkook," He greets warmly. Not seeing anyone obviously with him, Yoongi asks, "Are you eating alone?"

He's all set to ask Jungkook if he'd like to join him and his friends-- and he knows, he knows, that his friends will have way too much to say if he brings him back to his table but there's a little voice in his head that points out that Jungkook seems pretty new in town and if he's eating out at a restaurant alone, he might like some company and apparently, Jungkook is already friends or at least friendly with the devil twins and it might not even be so bad to eat with Jungkook, to see how he acts with the most important people in Yoongi's life, that he'd love to spend more time with him outside of the library-- but all of his rambling internal wishes are for naught when Jungkook just smiles sheepishly and nods towards where the hostess is walking towards them with a bag.

"I'm just picking up takeout, don't worry."

Yoongi nods, thinking of what he can say to add to the conversation before the silence grows too long and awkward between them. "This is one of the best restaurants in town. Even their takeout is amazing."

Jungkook grins and reaches out for the bag the hostess holds, murmuring his thanks before he turns fully to Yoongi. "I might have a serious weakness for their lamb skewers. I come here like, twice a week at least," he admits with a little laugh and Yoongi doesn't know why, but he's endeared.

"That's what I usually get," Yoongi says and watches Jungkook's eyes light up.

"Really, Yoongi-ssi?" Yoongi nods, feels his face get warmer which is infuriating since he had just cooled down but Jungkook suddenly looks a little nervous as he bites his lip. Finally, looking at Yoongi a little shyly, Jungkook says, "Maybe one of these days we could get lamb skewers together?"

Before Yoongi even has a chance to respond, Jungkook's eyes are widening and he's almost backtracking. "I know that we don't really talk outside of the library and that even when we do, you're always helping me but I thought it might be nice to talk-- outside of your work, sometime. If you wanted to, of course! I don't mean to put you on the spot and I know it must be awkward to have to tell someone who sees you at your work no but please feel free to if you don't want to--"

"Jungkook-ah," Yoongi finally breaks in just for Jungkook to obviously cut himself off and take a deep breath. "I'd like that."

"Yeah," Jungkook asks, hopeful, eyes wide and the hint of a smile curling on his mouth.

Yoongi had mostly talked before he'd let himself think but it's not like this isn't what his friends were just hinting at. He's still loathe to get his hopes up but if this is Jungkook making a move or trying to be friends, then Yoongi definitely doesn't want to discourage that. And while he knows he's a flustered mess, he'd really like to hang out with Jungkook more, especially outside of work. "Yeah," he confirms with a smile of his own, tentative and small, just to watch Jungkook grin.

It's almost blinding. Yoongi loves it.

"Great," Jungkook says. "We'll definitely do that then."

Yoongi can't think of anything to say besides repeating Jungkook again. "Great," he says, abashed and drops his eyes to stare at Jungkook's combat boots.

Looking down, he doesn't see the way Jungkook's gaze softens, turns into something gentler and unforgivably enamored.

It's silent between them for a moment and Yoongi's used up all of his brainpower to get this far so it's a little startling when Jungkook suddenly shifts and lifts his bag a little, apologetic. "It was really great running into you, Yoongi-ssi but I should probably get going before my food gets cold. I'll see you soon?"

Nodding along to whatever Jungkook was saying, Yoongi blinks a little before offering, "Hyung."

Jungkook tilts his head a little, confused, and Yoongi takes a breath. "You can call me hyung. If you want."

This time it's Jungkook's turn to look away, flustered and happy, but he's meeting Yoongi's eyes again a split second later. "Okay, then. Hyung. I'll see you later?"

"Okay, Jungkook-ah. I'll see you later. It was nice running into you like this."

Jungkook waves with his free hand, smile bright as he steps toward the door. "Bye, hyung!"

Yoongi watches him stride past the big window and sighs a little to himself. He doesn't really know what the last five minutes were but he's happy and a little nervous but definitely feeling good.

Knowing that his friends will probably start looking for him soon, he take a deep breath, wills the blush he just knows is high on his cheeks to fade, and walks back to their table.

Everyone smiles at his return and he takes his seat quietly, listening to Hoseok update everyone on how his parents are and what he did this weekend back in his hometown. He's not really paying attention to the conversation though, too wrapped up in what just happened with Jungkook and if it means what he really wants it to mean and how it might connect to what his friends had been telling him before he'd left the table.

There's a pause in the conversation as the waitress brings their meals out and Yoongi debates with himself on bringing Jungkook back up but he wants to be sure, can’t quite stop the hope from sparking but before it starts raging out of control. He just needs one last bit of reassurance.

Taking a deep breath, his quiet voice breaks through the pandemonium that’s his friends making fun of him.

“So he really doesn’t need help,” he asks, out of nowhere, trying to pretend the answer isn’t important to him, like he’s not hinging on his friends’ next words. “He only singles me out?”

Jin’s eyes soften as he looks at him and Yoongi feels both put on the spot but comforted as one of his oldest friends just nods softly. “I’m telling you, Yoongi-yah, Jungkook is at least interested in you.”

“Definitely,” Jimin confirms nodding earnestly. “Did you know that he’s had his office printer set-up for weeks now but still comes to the library to work sometimes? But hyung, if he doesn’t see you then he just wanders in the books for a little while before grabbing one and checking out. He really is just coming to the library for you.”

“Maybe you should give him a chance, hyung,” Taehyung encourages and Yoongi smiles despite himself.

His friends really do mean well even if they’re a pain in his ass most of the time.

“I don’t know,” he says, unsure and not bothering to hide it. “What if I do something, or let myself think something means something, and it turns out he’s just a nice guy who’s polite and I read way too much into things?”

It looks like Hoseok is praying for patience but his voice is soft and nothing but supportive and understanding as he replies, “Then you still put yourself out there and that’s something to be proud of. Plus, you’re both so awkward and nice that it wouldn’t ruin anything. You could at least be friends.”

“As your manager,” Namjoon breaks in and Yoongi stiffens a little wondering if this is going to be one of the times when his friend has to be the bad guy. “I don’t see anything wrong with talking to him outside of the library or even asking him on a date. You’re never presumptuous or pushy, hyung. If he even hinted that he wasn’t into you like that, you’d back up and remain professional. I don’t see any issue with you crushing on a patron.”

The rest of the table cheers now that they have their boss’ approval and Yoongi pretends like he doesn’t feel the same relief.

“Whatever,” he finally says when the expectant looks of his friends starts to be a bit much and he feels like he has to speak. “We’ll see what happens but I’m not in any rush to make a fool of myself.”

“Ah hyung,” Jimin says, wrapping an arm around Yoongi’s shoulders, “You’ll be fine. It’s not like Jungkook doesn’t look ready to bookmark your ass as soon as you give the okay.”

Yoongi chokes, reaching for his water, and all of his friends laugh at his flustered face, rapidly turning red. He hates them, he really does.

But then Seokjin pats his shoulder and deftly turns the topic back to work and how he’d almost gotten into a fight with a group of teenagers who’d called him an ancient hag when he’d merely told them to lower their voices a little, and Namjoon looks like he’s seeing his department demerits flash in front of his eyes and everyone’s laughing as the heat is taken off of Yoongi and he decides that this isn’t so bad, after all.

He doesn’t know if anything will come from his conversation with Jungkook tonight, so he decides not to say anything, doesn’t want to give anyone any more fodder against him-- really doesn’t want his friends to get so excited that it makes him hope, too. He’ll see what happens and maybe he won’t try so hard to hide his feelings.

Ignoring a voice that sounds suspiciously like Jimin telling him that he’s already shit at hiding his feelings, Yoongi forgets about crushes and guys who can be both hot and adorable at the same time and enjoys the rest of his family dinner with his friends, thinking about how his life is made up of small moments like these that all string together to make a pretty good existence, all in all.

[maritzaerwin]

How to Formulate Your Career Goals and Objectives (+Examples)

Progress results from targeted action. When you are not quite sure where you want to be career-wise, you won’t accomplish much. You need a strong sense of direction to push your career forward and that’s where precise career goals come into play.

By knowing where you want to be in 3-, 5-years, and, more importantly, understanding how you’ll get to that point can help you massively improve your career progression and accelerate job search. So let’s dive in and take a look at why having goals is important and how you can get better at meeting them!

Why You Need to Have Clear Career Goals

Job searching without career goals is like driving without a rearview mirror — you can easily miss some big opportunity heading your way. Setting clear professional goals and objectives can help you stay on track towards your success.

In fact, precise goal setting is one of the four techniques the US military used to increase NAVY SEAL passing rates from 25% to 33%. And their framework also delivers great results in the “civilian” fields.

Goal-setting teaches you to break lofty, intangible dreams into smaller, daily steps that are much easier to accomplish. For instance, rather than stating that you want to get a high-paid IT job, drill down to the specific goals such as a) write or update your resume b) craft a compelling cover letter c) find and review at least 5 job posts this week and so on.

Mental rehearsals help you visualize yourself in succeeding with your stated course of action.

Self-talk. Talk positively to yourself. The military found that doing so helped recruits “override fears” that are generated by the amygdala — a useful part of our brain that helps us deal with anxiety. So pep talk yourself into the right mood whenever you feel like the job blues are about to hit you.

Practice arousal control — getting your excitement or anxiety levels in check with the right breathing and emotional control techniques is key to helping you mitigate the crippling emotions and fears.

This framework is an excellent tool for helping you formalize and push through your day-to-day job search and short-term career goals.

When it comes to long term career goals, you’ll need some extra time to think and strategize about what you want to achieve in life.

Do you want an increase in your earnings, move up the career ladder, or change your occupation entirely? Asking yourself where you would like to be in five or ten years is a good starting point.

Doing so helps you work backward and plan for more short-term, smaller, and more achievable goals with an objective (as per technique above) and slaying them effectively so that you can hit your five or ten-year target.

Also, by having a formalized list of both short-term and long-term career goals, you’ll be able to easily answer the “what are your career goals?” interview question!

So let’s get started with the goal-setting part!

How to Set Your Career Goals

The benefits of setting a career goal give you something to work towards achieving, but it spurs you on to take the necessary steps needed to fulfill your long-term ambitions.

So how do you identify those steps? Here are some pointers, plus career goals examples.

Aim for Smaller Byte-Sized Career Goals

When setting up your career goals, be careful not to bite off more than you can chew. Set yourself smaller goals that can be spread out daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly. This way you will not become overwhelmed by trying to achieve too much at once and potentially suffering a career set-back should you fail to meet your goals.

It is very easy to say ‘I want to double my salary in five years’, but achieving that goal can be made much more difficult if you try to take on too much too soon. So rather than writing down that broad idea, consider the following wording instead:

“In five years, I want to break into a management position in my industry that pays $80,000-$100,000 on average. To accomplish that I will need to a) improve my leadership skills by completing an online training course (by December 2020)  b)negotiate more supervisory responsibilities at my current job (starting from Jan 2021) c)get more proactive during group work (whenever the opportunity comes up).”

Having such a detailed formula planned out with achievable goals set at regular intervals is much more effective than merely stating some ‘dreamy’ objective without thinking much about how you’ll accomplish it.

Get Your Priorities Straight

Berkeley Career & People division advises prioritizing all the goals you are setting. As the earlier example shows, your grand career goal will likely involve several interim steps. Prioritizing them helps you focus your attention on what’s really important right now and reduces the overwhelm.

Also, as studies show people who can precisely picture or describe their set goals are 1.2 to 1.4 times more likely to achieve them eventually.

So get that pen and paper, jot down your big long-term goal. Then pounder over and add short-term sub-goals that stand for steps you’ll be taking to get there. Here’s an example:

“In 3 years, I’d like to work as a Customer Success Manager for a SaaS startup with 1+ million active monthly users. I’d like to have a salary of $95,000 to $120,000. 

This year, I will maximize my issue resolution rate to 90% and try to raise the Customer Satisfaction Score to 85%.

By May 2021, I will complete a course in product management and apply for a certification from Boston University via edX

During the next year, I will attend at least 5 SaaS startup/Product Management meetups to network. 

Also, by February 2022, I will negotiate a promotion at my current job (from Customer Support Specialist to Customer Support Supervisor).”

Set H.A.R.D Goals

You’ve probably heard about SMART goals a dozen of times already. But the truth is…SMART goals don’t really work for most people. As one study suggests: only 15% of survey respondents agreed that their set SMART goals will help them accomplish something this year.

HARD goal-setting isn’t a new concept either. But it’s a big boon is that it helps you set more ruthless and refined goals — ones that are both challenging and delightful to achieve.

HARD stands for:

H — Heartfelt: Can you create an emotional attachment to the set goal? In three adjectives, describe what makes you want this. Your motivation can be intrinsic, extrinsic, or personal.

A — Animated: Can you visualize your goal? In great detail, describe exactly where you want to be and what do you want to do in 3-,5-,10-years. Try to paint the best picture you can.

 R — Required: What’s required of you to get to where you want to be? Set deadlines for yourself. What do you want to get done in 90 days? In the next 30 days? What can you accomplish today?

D — Difficult. What are the possible stumbling blocks on your way to the top? Do you need extra skills, training, credential, confidence? What difficulties will you need to overcome to achieve your outcome?

Research shows that people who use the HARD goal-setting technique end up feeling up to 75% more fulfilled than people using weaker frameworks. So give yourself a challenge, OK?

Several More Career Goals Statement Examples To Swipe

If you need some more inspiration, think about your career goals from either of the following perspectives:

Level up your skills

Improve your in-person networking skills

Get better at networking on LinkedIn

Boost your performance metrics

Get a new degree or extra certifications

Obtain a new license

Speak at an industry event

Change jobs or career fields

Negotiate a promotion

Break into management/executive roles

Improve your personal brand

Find a new weekend job

Launch a side-hustle

Start a business

By knowing what direction and steps you need to take in life over the foreseeable future will keep you ahead of the curve. Setting career goals will prevent you from going forward in an aimless direction and will make you stop and think carefully before taking up opportunities that are not quite right for your long-term goals.

How to Create Winning Career Objectives

While career goals are rather ‘personal’, a career objective (also known as resume objective) is a succinct statement atop of your resume explaining what you want to get from the job and what you are bringing to the table.

A career objective should align with your career goals. When these two don’t match, you can easily get derailed from your selected career pass and settle for opportunities that don’t quite tick all the boxes.

We wrote a separate big guide on writing great resume objectives with some snappy examples, so be sure to check it out. Here’s we’ll just recap some key best practices:

Maintain a positive, confident tone. Speak about what you want to achieve, rather than what you’d want to avoid.

Customize your career objectives to each role to make a positive impression with a potential employer.

Keep it short. A good career objective does not need to incorporate all your goals. It should not be more than 2-3 short sentences long.

It should be about “them”, not “you”. Don’t just say what you want from this job. Indicate how you can help the company.

Here’s a quick career objective statement for a recent graduate, looking for an internship position:

“BA of Management Sunnydale College graduate with strong marketing analysis, social media marketing, and writing skills seeks a full-time internship at Communications/Marketing Department at a SaaS startup”.

Don’t Forget to Create Accountability

Having career goals is one thing, but taking the necessary steps to reach them is another. You may sit and imagine yourself working in your dream job, but unless you actually take those physical steps to reach your goal, a dream is all it will ever be.

That’s why you need to build a strong accountability system to support your goals.

One study suggests that you have a 65% higher chance of completing a goal if you commit to someone. And your success rate rises to 95% if you have regular meetings with the person you’ve committed. While building an accountability tandem with a professional career advisor or mentor can give you the most acceleration, committing to your friend, spouse, or family member can be very beneficial too. They’ll act as your support system and will help you to get going despite possible setbacks.

Further, by becoming accountable for what you do, and remembering to praise yourself once you have finished a set of tasks, you can get great satisfaction from being another step closer to your dream job. This in itself can be extremely motivating and will encourage you to take the next step, then the next step, and so on.

You can also try to use various habit trackers and planning tools to personally track your progress on your small day-to-day goals. Doing so also helps you visualize your progress over time — a helpful and satisfying thing to do!

Wrap Up

Your career goals will remain ephemeral unless you break them down into management chunks, write down the outcomes, and place them on a timeline. By creating and accomplishing small steps one at a time, you will be consistently working towards your end goal, but you will also be more productive and motivated along this path to complete these tasks because you have a firm career goal in mind!

This post has been originally published on September 4, 2017 and has been extensively revised and updated on July 21, 2020.

The post How to Formulate Your Career Goals and Objectives (+Examples) appeared first on Freesumes.com.

How to Formulate Your Career Goals and Objectives (+Examples) published first on https://skillsireweb.tumblr.com/

[awfulcomingdown]

Nintendo Switch Demos Review (Or, “Without a Paddle, I Might Add”)

Introduction

Over the past couple of weeks, or maybe months, I’ve downloaded some demos on my Switch that I’d intended to eventually play. And then I didn’t play them, which led me to believe that I might never do so.

And then, a couple of days ago, I found my self drunk, alone in the darkness of my sister’s home office, while her and her fiancee slept in another room. While drinking and staring out the window into the unfamiliar street, an idea hit me. I should play all those demos, right now.

And so I quickly walked down the hallway, as if afraid the inclination to really do this might dissipate as quickly as it’d formed, to my temporary bedroom where the Switch was laying on a nightstand, and brought it back to that dark office. I then proceeded to do it. I played all four demos, writing and becoming progressively more drunk as I went, until typing itself seemed an impossible, or at least undesirable, task. And then I went to sleep. 

And now, I’ve taken those somewhat less than clear notes and formed them into a mostly comprehensible summary of my feelings on those games. And here they are. 

The Touryst

I heard about this game for the first time in a Nintendo Direct, I think. It looked goofy. It looked too goofy for my liking. I planned to not ever think about it again. And then I didn’t for some time.

The next time I thought about it, it was because a Youtube video extolling the virtues of this game’s beauty and graphical prowess scrolled past my eyes on the Youtube homepage. I didn’t click on it, and I didn’t think much about it. However, I did think some about it.

Then I saw this demo, and I figured, sure, let’s try it.

This demo is very short. Well, at least, it felt very short to me, sitting in my sister’s makeshift home office, a couple of drinks in to what would eventually become a too many drinks to be having alone night. It flew by.

As soon as the game began, I was struck. It’s beautiful, in what feels like an extremely unique way. 

It’s bizarre. The background is completely blurred, and you’re running around what feels like a tiny, static world that’s been put together by hand and pushed out to sea. It all feels very still. Apparently the people who made this game have been making video games since 1999. I feel as though they may have learned some very worthwhile things in that time.

The other thing that struck me as significant while I played this short demo was the fact that I had managed to ignore and look down on this game for so long. How was it that nobody was grabbing me by the shoulders, shaking me, and screaming “The Touryst is a fucking masterpiece, idiot. Just because the main character has a goofy mustache doesn’t mean this whole thing’s a joke. Play it. Fuck you.” 

Now, that might not be totally fair. I mean, that Youtube video I saw about the game was literally titled “The Touryst is Stunning: Switch Game of the Year Contender?” which, to be fair, is a very funny thing to name a video. I would like to know who made the call on adding that question mark. Wild stuff.

And, again, to be fair, if you search “The Touryst” into the old Youtube search bar, you’ll come up with dozens of videos (okay I actually only saw three, but I didn’t scroll that far) making similar claims about the game’s greatness (funnily enough, all three of the videos I saw ended with a fucking question mark. That’s not a joke. Like, they really wanted you to be tempted to click the video just to find out if the game is, in fact, a contender for Switch game of the year. What a time.).

So my point is maybe less that there weren’t people talking (or, asking?), about this game, and more that it doesn’t seem as though anyone was giving this supposed masterpiece the respect that a masterpiece deserves. Which is to say, after watching exactly four minutes and 37 seconds of the first of those videos, I was able to conclude that not a single video on the entirety of Youtube had a single interesting or worthwhile thing to say about the game. And this seems...shitty.

If this game is a masterpiece (and sadly it seems as though we’ll never know, but, by god, we will continue to ask), then maybe it deserves something more than a Youtube video of a dude talking about its “tight gameplay” and “excellent soundtrack.”

Maybe we should do more than that. Maybe we should treat masterpiece video games with the same respect that a masterpiece film or album receives. 

Maybe we should be writing thousands of words about the brilliance of said masterpiece, and actually attempt to discuss what exactly about the game makes it so noteworthy.

Maybe we should take the time to say whether or not it is a masterpiece, and not just ask the fucking question.

Dragon Quest Builders 2

As I finished the very short demo of The Touryst, I decided I would play the demos in whatever order they happened to be lined up in on my Switch homepage. As I scrolled to the right, I was struck with fear when I saw Dragon  Quest Builders 2 was next up.

Despite being too drunk at the time to notice that the game icon literally says “Jumbo Demo,” I still knew, having learned from the Dragon Quest XI demo, that this demo could literally take the rest of my life to finish.

“Fuck,” I wrote. “I really didn’t want to play this one next. For all I know, this demo lasts eight and a half hours, and I’ll be here ‘till sunrise. It’s been loading for 30 seconds now, and I’m scared. Dear god.”

Some amount of these fears were quelled when the game finally finished loading, and the music began to play. Despite having never owned or really played a Dragon Quest game, I fucking love Dragon Quest music. Sure, it’s beautiful, but it’s not just that. Something about the music makes me feel as though the music has no idea as to how beautiful it actually is. It feels as though the music doesn’t know how profound it really is, and this only serves to make it that much more affecting. I feel this is a part of the charm of the series as a whole: Dragon Quest games never go out of their way to let you know that they know how brilliant they are.

Anyway, I grabbed another beer, bringing the Switch along with me to the fridge so I could continue to listen to the title screen music while I did, and began the demo. The beer was stronger and more expensive than anything I would’ve bought - and I doubt it was my sister who bought it, it was probably some bizarre house warming gift - and tasted to me like a mixture of apple cider and rock salt. It was palatable.

The game, DQB2, as it will henceforth be known, opens with a character customization screen. Now, I may have just been drunk then, and I may just be an asshole now, but the minimal amount of customization one can actually apply to their character struck me immediately, and continues to strike me now, as profound.

All that you’re allowed to change about the character is their hair colour, skin tone, and eye colour. Along with this, you’re also allowed to choose their name.

This small amount of change that you’re allowed to make to the character makes it feel as though you are inserting some very small amount of yourself into this pre-existing character. Like, the character you’ll be controlling is their own living, existing being, and you’re now just a part of that being. It almost feels like a tidy summation of what it is to control any character in any video game you’ve ever played. Which is to say, these characters always exist, having been made long before we gain control over them, before we come into contact with them, and as such we are incapable of actually fully putting ourselves into them. No matter how much character customization or character control they (the creator) allow, the player will always only be meeting them halfway, as the two of them work, isolated from one another, to create what is now a unique being. 

Okay, I’ll stop now. But I’m serious about this.

Anyway, the opening of this game is pretty terrific. You wake up a prisoner on a large, monster-ruled pirate ship, and are immediately let out of your jail cell in order to help fix some things around the monster ship. You are enlisted for such duties as the result of your known designation as a “builder.” The skeleton pirate who frees you from your cage makes it clear that while you are a shitty, unimportant builder, that’s still enough for you to be capable of handling the small jobs they have for you. So, you help the monsters clean up the ship, and this acts as the first of what I assume to be many, many tutorials.

The dialogue during this opening section left me legitimately shocked. Nearly every thing that every monster said to me managed to make me silently laugh and/or over exaggeratedly look around the room as if to ask “Is anyone else seeing this!?” (nobody else was - everyone else was asleep and not thinking about video game dialogue).

In order to not write out fifteen different things, I’ll put here what struck me as the most clever of the writing. After asking the skeleton pirate who originally woke you up who he is and what you’re all doing on this ship, he answers:

“If you’re that desperate to find out how far up the creek you are - without a paddle, I might add - go and talk to those five monsters beneath the flag over there.”

This line in particular, along with the majority of the rest of the lines, led me to think about the absurd amount of time it must have taken for the localizers of this game to craft such a great translation.  I mean, yeah, obviously the writing was terrific to begin with in Japanese, but the fact that they were able to translate that into such immediately brilliant English text is insane. I’d like to meet the people behind this translation, so that I could ask them what drives them to care so deeply about what they do.

The rest of this demo - or, at least, the rest of it that I managed to play that night* - was made up of me doing menial tasks (talk to monsters, learn to craft, learn to fight, etc.) until I finally decided that I simply could not play any longer, and left it at that for DQB2 for the time being.

*(note: I was really loving this demo, but decided that I needed to move on to another game, as it was already 1:16am and, as I wrote in my open google doc that night, I was “already pretty fucked up.” I played through the beginning of the demo again the next day while sober, and it took me about two minutes to get to where I made it to in like 45 minutes while drunk. Gotta love it.)

I’m mainly really curious about how a game like this gets made. I don’t know what the sales figures for this game were like in Japan, but as far as I could tell, very few people in North America really gave a fuck about it. The thing is, it seems really, really well made, and I know for a fact it is ridiculously large. I have questions about how something this big and seemingly great (and definitely carefully made), gets created, released, and then ostensibly immediately forgotten about. Art and commerce are weird. 

Anyway, I doubt I’ll ever play this game. It is too big, and too chill, and I have too many other things that I need to be doing, or at least I often feel as though I do.

Ape Out

I literally can’t think about this game without referring to it as “Ape Escape” in my head. I’ve never played Ape Escape, but that is definitely a better freedom-seeking-ape based video game name.

Anyway, this game is beautiful, in a really jarring way. It’s beautiful in a way that I guess can’t be communicated through trailers, because something about this demo immediately struck a chord with me that no trailer for it had done.

This game is electric. You play as an ape, making your way out of a poisonous building, murdering any human who gets in your way (which is to say you play as an ape who is attempting to escape).

You can move with the left stick, aim with the right stick, grab with the left trigger, and throw/punch with the right trigger. And then you just fucking kill.

The music is an absurd mix of smashing drums and symbols, getting hit in time with your launching of men into walls, turning those men into limbs and torsos (which you can then pick up and throw at other men to stun them), and turning those walls into red paint splattered canvases.

Playing this game makes me really want to play the rest of this game, if only to see how far they can take this kinetic energy that pulses throughout the first three stages. How long does the novelty of having a drum hit perfectly coincide with a body hitting a wall and becoming a corpse last? Or, should I say, what did the developers (Gabe Cuzzillo, the game says, is the creator) do to make it so that fucking pulsing excitement deep in the players sternum lasts for the entirety of the experience? 

I feel like this is a game that I could beat over the course of one delirious, sleepless night, though for now we can all only sit and hope that when I do finally purchase and play the full game, it forces me to do so. 

Cadence of Hyrule

The music is so good. It sounds like you’re standing in an alternate universe Legend of Zelda elevator, a universe in which the Legend of Zelda isn’t a video game series, but is instead a religious belief.

Remember when this game got announced, and we were all like “What the fuck!?”? And then it came out, and some people were like “This is really good!” and other people were like “I like real Zelda better…”

Anyway. We should appreciate things more.

You know, I bought the first one of these games, on sale, for $5, and it really just did not click with me. Something about having to move on beat really bothered me. Like it was always the game’s fault, and not my own, that things were going wrong. It always felt like my Guitar Hero guitar was missing one battery, or like my Wiimote was miscalibrated, and that was causing all the troubles. It always felt like I was missing some peripheral accessory. It’s not a feeling that feels worth dealing with these days.

This just...isn’t as fun, and doesn’t feel as good, as any of the other three games I was playing. Specifically, I can’t stop thinking about The Touryst and DQB2. I thought that I didn’t like many 3D games, but fuck. Those got me. 

The End (Closing Thought That I Wrote Immediately After Finishing These Demos)

This was cool, and this was good. We might even say that I “really needed this,” or, at least, “am really happy to have had this.” 

But I’m sobering up, and a remix of some old Zelda song is playing, and I love it, and it’s time to go to bed. Tomorrow, one of my friends will come pick me up from my sister’s house, and I will return home, indefinitely, for now. Everything is fucking weird. But I’m going home. I can’t sit in the darkness of my sister’s home office playing Nintendo Switch demos forever, sadly.

After The End

I’m home now, and I’m tired. Everything is bizarre. I am definitely going to play all of The Touryst eventually, and I am almost definitely going to play all of Ape Escape eventually (I actually wrote the wrong name here by accident, and didn't realize it until now, a day later. They should have just named it Ape Escape. Fuck it.). As for DQB2 and CoHR, they were chill,  and I will remember them, and the drunken night we had together, fondly. But I suppose this is the end of the road between me and them. 

Anyway, I’ve got four essays due in the next 10 days, and then some online essay after that. I’m also playing through a very long and old JRPG right now, and I think I love it. All of that is to say that I won’t be playing any of these games any more for the time being. So for the time being, I’m thankful we all had that one night together. One night of repose, and of lonely drinking, in a house and a town I’d never been in before, in a room that was not my own, staring at a street that I couldn’t recognize. I’m home now, for some amount of time, and hopefully that time is good.

Goodnight.

[moveslikebuckywrites]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Good Omens (TV) Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens) Characters: Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale (Good Omens), Ellen Degeneres Additional Tags: Crack, Memes, I have no excuses, shenanigans with the "fuck shit up jacket", because of course it is, never thought I'd tag Ellen in a fic Summary:

What happens when a demon decides to use old memes from 2010 and his "fuck shit up jacket" to cause a ruckus in Soho?

This, apparently.

~~~

I have no excuses this is a crackfic that came about from a conversation in the Ineffable Outliers Discord with myself, @apple-duty​, and @cassandrasummer​ xD

~~~

An undetermined Friday, post Armageddon.  Mayfair, London

Anyone walking down the street in Mayfair that night would hear shouting.  Or at least they would, but the walls of the flat knew better than to let any sound out without permission.  If one were to look through the window, one would see an iPhone slam against a concrete wall1.

Crowley had been trying to get a hold of Aziraphale for well past two days, with no answer.  He’d driven by the shop, but the angel had been out both times.  He, of course, did not want to appear like he cared so scoping out the shop more than necessary was completely out of the question2.

He sat in his ostentatious throne seething; how dare Aziraphale avoid him like this.  Two could play it this game, and he could play very demonically if he wanted to.

Crowley stood and went to the closet in his bedroom and pulled out two very specific items.  A black jacket with reflective orange tape and a large, oddly shaped black case.

Yes, two could play at this game.  And if the angel wanted to ignore him, he’d make that task impossible.

---

6:00 AM Saturday morning; the sidewalk outside of A.Z. Fell and Co.  Soho, London

“C’mon, Linda, just pop on back to mine for a bit, yer mum ain’t gonna know!”

“Danny ya absolute toss, I’ll do no such thing!”

The young couple swayed through the near empty streets of Soho, drunk on wine and each other’s company.

“But Linda-“

“Don’t ‘But Linda’ me Danny Williams,” Linda says, pointing a shaky finger in his face with no real bite behind her words, “We ain’t been dating but a fortnight and you ain’t gettin’ me in the bed that easily!”

“But Linda, when I’m with you I can…I can…” Danny grasped for something, anything to say, “I can hear music!”

“Cheek!” she said but looped her arm back in his anyway and leaned against him as they started back down the street.

“Really can, ya know?” Danny said with more than a little bounce in his step, “Really snazzy saxophone music!”

“Danny,” Linda pointed towards a tall ginger man in a utilities uniform, “I think it’s that man in front of old Mr. Fell’s.”

Sure enough, as they got closer, the man was playing on a saxophone.  At six am outside of a bookshop.  This would seem to have no discernable reason, but the great thing about the human brain in the way She made it is that when there is no reason, that’s reason enough.

“Well I dunno why he’s doing it, but for a telephone worker he sure is great at those few bars of whatever that is.”

“Sounds familiar though, don’t it?” Linda said quizzically, “Wonder where I’ve heard it before?”

“Either way, it’s Soho on a weekend, he’s probably just a sloshed as we are.”

“Probably so, now walk me home you old buffoon.”

Danny and Linda strolled off arm in arm and the obvious utility worker kept playing on.

---

8:00 AM Saturday morning; the sidewalk outside of A.Z. Fell and Co.  Soho, London

Bill Waters was a patient man.  An upstanding member of the community.  A lawyer.  He dressed in smart suits and was never seen without his pork pie hat.  He had an image.

They had scoffed when he’d opened his practice in Soho.  They’d laughed.  But now?  Oh, now, he was one of the most respected litigators in London.

He prided himself on his work ethic, his attention to detail, and his meticulous methods.  He prided himself on his patience with his clients, with his family, and with anyone who he met.  The community loved him, his neighbors loved him, his family adored him.

Which is why several people milling around the early morning streets were shocked to see him jumping up and down and yelling at a street performer.

“Sir, I demand in the name of common decency that you stop this at once!” Bill shouted, face turning a rather embarrassing shade one could liken to a tomato plant, “It’s been two bloody hours!3”

If the man from the utilities paid any mind to him, he didn’t let it show.  Just kept playing the same four bars over and over again.

“I will call your superiors!  What are you even supposed to be doing?!”

The man just continued with his smooth beats and rhythmic dancing.  Was it dancing?  Could barely call it that in the first place.  Like something out of a bad 1970’s instructional video.

Bill continued to yell; the man continued to ignore it.

This just wouldn’t do, Bill resolved to phone the utilities company at once.  He threw his hat down in frustration and stormed back across the street to his offices.

---

10:00 AM Saturday morning; the sidewalk outside of A.Z. Fell and Co.  Soho, London

“D’you think he lost some kind of bet?”

“Dunno…sounds familiar though, doesn’t it?”

“Ain’t this that shit from Eurovision like ten years ago?  The saxophone guy?”

Nathan, Alice, and Jude were gathered around the strange man with the saxophone.  They’d already tossed some money in his hat and were waiting for him to get around to taking requests.  They were also by far not the only ones in the crowd.

“It is!” Alice said pulling up YouTube on her phone, “It’s the Epic Sax Guy music!”

“Christ that meme is older than dirt,” Jude said grimacing, “Why you reckon he’s doing this?”

“Maybe Mr. Fell pissed him off,” Nathan said, laughing, “He’s pissed off enough people around here with those weird hours.”

“Dad said he’s been at it since six this morning,” Alice (last name of Waters) said, “That’s four hours ago!  That’s insane!”

“We oughta put it up somewhere, do a live stream or something.  See how long he goes!”

“You know, Nathan, maybe we should,” Jude said, pulling out his cell phone, “Hell, I don’t have anywhere to be.”

The saxophone man played on.

---

11:00 AM Saturday morning; the news offices of the BBC

“Christ, William, it must be a slow day if this is what you’re giving me.” Margaret, producer for the BBC Weekend News said angrily into the phone receiver, “You really expect me to send reporters out to video a street performer in Soho?  As if they aren’t a dime a dozen?”

She listened to the murmuring on the other end of the line, “Five hours?  The whole time?  And he’s dressed like what?  A utilities worker?  What do you mean Twitter?”

Margaret pulled out her phone and opened the app, clicking through to the trending page.  Sure enough, there at number one: #UtilitySaxMan.

“Well, it is a slow day.  Fine, send someone, just try to find me something real to put on the air by tonight, yes?  I can’t just be putting Twitter fluff on the air!”

Margret slammed the phone back on the receiver and shook her head.  What was the news world coming to these days?  She blamed the millennials.

---

11:30 AM London time (3:30 AM California time).  The Montecito home of Ellen DeGeneres

“I’m just saying we need this guy on the show.  You know how much the audience loves an internet celebrity.  Yes, that’s why I called you, because you’re in London.”

To the dismay of her wife who just wanted to sleep, Ellen was on the phone at 3:30 in the morning with one of the show’s associates in England.  Once she got the idea to have someone on her show, there really wasn’t much anyone could do to stop her.

“So, no one knows who this guy is?  He just showed up with a saxophone and started playing? Well that won’t stop us.  Just go down there and talk to him when he stops playing.  I just need him on my show, he’s trending like crazy, the memes are ridiculous!”

“I should probably go, but don’t let me down!  This guy is insane, he should be a star!”

She hung up as Portia throws a pillow at her.

---

1:00 PM Saturday morning; the sidewalk outside of A.Z. Fell and Co.  Soho, London

“Play Single Ladies!” A voice from the gathered crowd shouted.

“Shut up, he’s not taking requests!” Jude shouted back at them.

“What are you, his agent?”

“I might be after this is over, you don’t know that!” Jude hissed from behind his phone, he wasn’t sure how much longer he could keep this up.

The livestream was an immediate hit.  He’s been inundated with new followers and reaction memes4. Even the BBC was here, along with several people in strange getups.  He’d gotten three direct tweets from Ellen DeGeneres already, though he couldn’t answer.  Not while the livestream was going.

This dude was insane.  He never stopped; he was like a damn machine.  Just kept playing and dancing (badly) and playing.  He ignored everyone around him, ignored that his hat was now full past capacity of spare change and 1£ notes.

It was like he was on a mission, though what that mission could be was anyone’s guess.

“Young man, have you any idea who this fellow is?” one of the men, this one wearing a monocle, asked him.

“Nah, can’t say that I do,” said Jude, “I mean, he hangs out at Mr. Fell’s shop a lot, seems to know him.  Dunno why he’s doing this though.”

“Did you hear that?” the man in the suit said to another, this one with a two-tone wig, “He knows the bookshop owner!  That’s our in!”

---

3:00 PM Saturday morning; the sidewalk outside of A.Z. Fell and Co.  Soho, London

“It is clearly a performance showing the prevalence of man over the subjugation of the corporate world!  He celebrates his union job by playing this jubilant music!” said the man in the two-tone wig.

“I beg to differ; it is quite certainly a cry at the unjust conditions faced by workers!” said the man with a monocle.

These two had exactly three things in common:  They were art critics, they were insufferable, and they had been arguing about this for the better part of two hours.

“How can you be so daft?  The rawness and realness and power of this performance can only be described as euphoric!”

“Ah but you fail to take into account the monotony and the repetitive action!  This man is in a prison of his own creation!  A brilliant metaphor for the world under capitalism!”

The two men continued arguing and were approached by a man in a tan coat that was about one hundred and fifty years out of date.

“Pardon me, gentlemen,” the man said, “But could you possibly tell me what all of the commotion is outside of my bookshop?”

“Oh, my goodness, you must be Mr. Fell!  And you haven’t heard?!” shouted the first critic, acting as though he might faint, “The art world is completely a buzz!”

“It would seem, my friend, that the next great performance artist of our times has taken up residence outside your bookshop!  Please, please introduce us to him!”

Mr. Fell looked confused as he tore away from the art critics and through the crowd.  Past the young man with the camera, past the BBC News van, and past some Americans speaking very loudly into their cell phones.

“Crowley, what on Earth are you doing?”

The saxophone music stops abruptly.  All eyes turn and focus on Mr. Fell.

“Oh, hello Angel…” the saxophone man stammers, “Just..uh…”

Before anyone can say anything, Mr. Fell storms forward and grabs the saxophone man by the arm, ushering him into the bookshop, behind a sign that clearly says “CLOSED”.

The crowd disperses, first the news van, then the passerby, then the art critics and the Americans.  Jude stands there for a moment wondering what just happened.

He soon forgets why he was there in the first place, and if Twitter held any clues for him, they’re long gone now.  Later, he'd look in his book-bag and find it full of loose change and 1£ notes.

Just an ordinary Saturday in Soho.

---

3:15 PM Saturday afternoon; inside A.Z. Fell and Co.  Soho, London

“Would you care to explain, dear,” Aziraphale says as he unpacks his leather satchel, “just why you’re playing saxophone on my front stoop?  And the news vans?  And the art critics.  You know how much I hate art critics!”

“You wouldn’t answer your phone,” Crowley says sulking on his favorite couch, “Got mad.”

“And did you conveniently forget dinner last week when I told you I’d be in Munich for a book auction for a few days?” Aziraphale shoots him a pointed look, “or were you just not listening in the first place?”

“Ngk.”

“I see,” the angel says, turning back to his books in a huff, “and how long were you out there?”

Crowley mumbled.

"Didn't quite catch that."

"I said ten hours," Crowley snapped, "Doing very demonic things, ruining everyone's weekend.  Can take the demon out of hell but not hell out of the demon and all that." He crossed his arms over his chest and sulked lower into the couch than should be possible.

Aziraphale smiled to himself as he put away his new books, “Yes of course, my dear.  Is that why you brought out the 'mess stuff up' jacket?Brightening everyone’s day with a bit of music, giving the BBC something to talk about?  Such a demonic level of happiness out in the street today.”

“I-well-well,you-I-“ Crowley stammered, jumping up to stalk behind the angel to prove his point, “I made an old bloke with a pork pie hat have a fit, right in the middle of the street!”

Aziraphale sighed, Crowley was never quite as smooth as he pretended to be, and the angel saw right through him.

“My dear you are quite ridiculous, next time just come with me then you won’t feel the need for this nonsense.”

Crowley shoved his hands back in his pockets, trying to look aloof and failing, “I mean…I guess.  Could use a vacation.  Plenty of demonic wiles to get up to outside the country.  Gotta keep you out of trouble...of course.”

Aziraphale smiled at him, clasping his hands together, “There we go then, problem solved!”

If the angel knew it was an excuse on the demon’s part to spend more time with him, he didn’t say.  Nor did he mind in the slightest.

-----

1 – The iPhone, of course, knew better than to break.  Just who’s apartment do you think we’re dealing with here, hmm?

2 – Least of all because he was scared of a certain angel picking up on a certain demon’s propensity to be what the kids referred to as a stage five clinger.

3 – In Bill Waters’ defense, he’d been late at the office the previous night working on a particularly challenging case.  He’d been so exhausted, when the saxophone started up at around 6 am he’d thought himself hallucinating.

4 – Some choice memes that were shared on twitter:

[deathfrisbeeinthetardis]

Come the Lightning and the Thunder

Inspired by a hunter!Shane head cannon by the amazing @daizyredz, who also helped me brainstorm the basics for this fic! Heres my late Christmas and early New Years present for you, thanks for talking to me so much :P

Thank you to lovely @solstudio for the beta, any remaining issues are my own, so go check out her work too

Summary:

“I’m just gonna get the holy water.” Shane wheezes out an ‘okay’ because, really, Ryan keeps on surprising him with how good he could be if only he knew the truth. Even with the limited knowledge, he has the basics of protection down all right. “Joke all you want, and don’t ask me for some later.” “I won’t.” Shane replies with a smile, he’s good with his own, thank you very much.

Read below the cut or on Ao3 here!

Shane walked into the church, giving it a once over. He was already fed up with this. Why they couldn’t have just emailed the man instead of coming all the way to visit and interview is beyond Shane, though he had to admit it made slightly better entertainment. He certainly wasn’t going to hold back his annoyance, he hadn’t planned on seeing the Father again anytime in his life. 

They had the cameras all set up before the man himself came striding into frame, shaking both their hands as they introduced themselves. He gives no outer indication, but the Father’s eyes glint sharply when they land on Shane, and his grip is just that much tighter than necessary. 

Fine, Shane can play that game if the padre wants to start the damn thing. 

He watches politely as Ryan asks the pastor about ghosts and demons, the mixture of worry and satisfaction fighting across his face as all of his painstaking research is confirmed by this new source of authority. Shane could have helped him fact check of course, but that would have defeated the whole purpose of his self-imposed post here. 

“Do you have any advice for us, before we go into these places where we may come into contact with not so nice spirits?” Yeah, not go there, Shane thinks. It would certainly make his job easier.

“Are we still on camera?” The priest asks, eyes flicking to Shane. It was fast, but he noticed just the same. 

It wasn’t likely the man would suggest applying wards, that would be overkill for a couple of new internet ghost hunters, not mentioning that it would also mess with all the camera footage and make this interview useless. If the look he shot Shane was any indication, he’s more likely concerned that Shane might react to whatever anti-supernatural advice he was about to give and blow his own cover—-which, frankly, is insulting. Shane’s not a rookie by any standards, and Gary knows that. He just manages to stop himself from clenching his jaw, schooling his face into purely neutral attention. He’s not going to give the man any satisfaction.

“Was this helpful?” Father Thomas asks, holding out his hand for Shane to shake at the end of their demon info session. He almost scoffs. 

“Fascinating.” He says, playing off his somewhat cooled annoyance as amused disbelief, it fits well with the personality that he’s trying to set up. It isn’t like he hates the pastor, the man has known his family since before he could remember. Shane just happened to be very tired of the specific quality of his methods in dealing with cases.

Shane keeps his handheld camera going as they make their way out, Ryan already starting to ramble a little in anticipation of the next stage of their trip. It was amazing, really, how a man could be so scared of the supernatural yet still be willing to put himself into these dangerous situations without any decent protection by his side, none that he knew of anyway. The Madej brand is the best on the market nowadays if he does say so himself.

“You’re not worried about that at all?” Ryan asks, turning around to face Shane with an incredulous smile.

“No,” Shane says with some resolution, why should he be? He was prepared for almost anything, even though all his equipment had to be travel-sized. 

It’s barely been five minutes and Ryan has already latched onto the Father’s annoying catchphrase, muttering 'do not be afraid’ even as they leave the church. He sincerely hopes his companion doesn’t say it too much on location, it might distract him enough to endanger them both if they encounter a situation. 

“Jesus says chill,” Shane says if just to jab at the old pastor. The man had done enough of his 'evangelizing’ on him in his training for a few dozen lifetimes. It also seems to make Ryan calmer when he jokes about the supernatural, he thinks, mouth tilting almost instinctively in response to Ryan’s bright eyes and nervous smile. Shane files that piece of information away for later, in case he ever needed to maintain control for him to do his job.

They’re five feet part when Shane freezes, right at the last of a row of small windows looking into a staircase. Something’s here. A thump sounds from the other side of the glass.

Shane sees Ryan’s whole countenance tighten, eyes fixing instantly on a spot above Shane’s head on the half-transparent panes, right where the noise had come.

“The way the shadows play with your mind.” Shane murmurs, jiggling a hand in front of his face in exaggerated spookiness, hoping Ryan won’t notice the white ghosts of air that spring out with each breath. It was deathly cold where he stood. Shane had thought with the Winchester house’s fame and the damn church in the area, the spirits here would have been taken care of long ago. Apparently, no one bothered to be competent and finish their job. 

“I didn’t see something, I heard a noise right up there." 

"Probably bats.” He says offhandedly, deliberately turning his back to the spot Ryan’s gazing at with that surprising intensity the man occasionally has.

His companion has all the right instincts and sharp senses it is almost a shame he’s working to suppress them. For the dozenth time, Shane considers recruiting the man, but his morals gnaw at him for ever trying to bring a civilian into the life.

When Ryan’s camera battery dies along with Shane’s flashlight, he knows the spirit is following them, likely waiting for them to split so it can do the ol’ sneak attack. Well, Shane’s gonna give it what it wants.

He convinces Ryan to let him explore alone for a bit, but turns off his camera immediately after he’s out of sight. No need to create opportunities for the spirit to show up on film any time soon, neither did he want Ryan seeing what he was about to do. 

Following the cold spots, he slips down into the basement. Peering around with his flashlight, he couldn’t see much, but that held little significance. Despite his earlier dismissal of Ryan’s beliefs, experience has him knowing well that most of his enemies have learned to stay hidden in the shadows, invisible to all except their prey. 

Shane shivers as he reaches the end of one concrete alcove, kneeling down to brush away the dust on the end wall, the cold enough to numb his limbs. With practiced ease, he drew a concealed knife from the sole of his boot, the polished silver glinting in the glare of the flashlight for a second before the battery gave out. Typical. The wind was picking up down here, with not a single window or vent in sight. It knows what he’s about to do.

A grin spreads across his face, and without hesitation Shane sliced the knife down the pad of his thumb, curling his palm to catch the blood that flowed from the wound with more intensity than people usually expect. Then he began to draw on the wall, an intricate symbol that had been drilled into his head enough that he didn’t need the light, struggling back onto his knees when a gust of roaring wind slammed him into the sidewall. He put in the last stroke, and as suddenly as it rushed about, the air quieted, the room filling with tense, suppressed energy. 

The symbol was glowing a soft rose on the concrete, darkening gradually into the crimson of his blood. Shane loosed a sigh, digging out some tissues to clean the remaining red from his hands, already hearing footsteps approaching the door. He’ll have to call this in and get someone to deal with the spirit, and in the meantime, he had to make sure Ryan didn’t see this.

“Why I’m walking here by my fucking self is beyond me,” Ryan says, and Shane rolls his eyes in the darkness. It’s merely for the cameras since he can hear Mark trailing behind his companion, camera poised to capture the best footage. 

Checking again that he didn’t have blood on him, Shane purposefully stomped a step towards the flashlight beam, and sure enough, an echoing yelp rang through the basement. 

“What are you–, hey man, calm down.” Shane laughs at the fear quickly transitioning to bemused annoyance on Ryan’s face. It’s too easy, really. 

He keeps grinning, denying the prank until the last moment,  the smaller man’s breath uneven from his own wheezes as he halfheartedly chases after Shane. But they get out of the basement with no spirit on their tail, which is the point. 

Ryan loiters near the porch, indecision written all over his face. It shouldn’t be too bad, as far as Shane is concerned, the spider doll island was far more disgusting and bothersome than the dainty house that faced them for the night. 

“Are you alright man? Let’s get in there.” he urges, half out of necessity and half out of genuine concern, was there something his companion was noticing about the place that he wasn’t seeing? His eyes sweep over the slightly unkempt exterior. The Sallie house had its name in the community, sure enough, but the demon was dealt with a decade back, all that remained was its oversized reputation. 

“Yeah I know, I’m just gonna get the holy water." 

Shane wheezes out an 'okay’ because, really, Ryan keeps on surprising him with how good he could be if only he knew the truth. Even with the limited knowledge, he has the basics of protection down all right.

"Joke all you want, and don’t ask me for some later." 

"I won’t.” Shane replies with a smile, he’s good with his own, thank you very much. 

The paranormal investigator Ryan digs up is complete bullshit, Shane can tell by his unfamiliar name and the tools he brings with him. It equally amused and annoyed him what technology people these days have made to detect the supernatural, just so they could forget the admittedly more bloody and painful but actually effective methods. 

They congregate in the kitchen to do the flashlight test, and Shane feels Ryan’s eyes on his back as he stalks toward the counter. He could literally see the man’s apprehension grow as he starts talking to the demon just like he would to a guy down the street, just to set Ryan off.

When the light turns on the first time, Shane’s laughing himself breathless at Ryan’s panic, all of them having retreated to the other side of the cozy room. 

“Where’s my holy water?” He copies, and takes the glare Ryan shoots him from his position on the floor with glee. His guard is up though. It’s probably just the reflector cooling, but the chance of danger is still there, slim as it is. 

“If you actually don’t like us, please, just turn it on.” His voice shakes slightly, but it’s more excitement than fear. It’s been a while since he was on a good old fashioned demon job, contrary to belief, LA is actually quite lacking in that department. He starts the chanting at the back of his mind, just in case. Getting right up in the flashlight’s personal space, Shane casually lets a hand drop to the floor, a twitch of fingers has his knife slipped out and pressed against the inside of his wrist and away from the light. 

There are flickers. Ryan shouts and panics. Everyone comes out of the interaction fine.

This isn’t half as bad as his family warned him to be, Shane thinks, spreading his arms wide as he lays on his back in the dark basement. Seriously with all his love for tradition and the older ways of his work, there are some people that should really embrace new tactics for the new world. 

This might actually be fun.