#i fear for the day when my ipad just stops working

[mxdarling]

[“put that down! you’ll hurt yourself with that.” / “you’re so pretty when you smile.”]

•❅───✧❅✦❅✧───❅• •❅───✧❅✦❅✧───❅•

ೃ⁀➷: summary: idia bought a new multiplayer game, and he wants to play it with his player one, you.

ೃ⁀➷: word count: 2.3k (2334)

ೃ⁀➷: reference/Inspiration: playlist

ೃ⁀➷: event: [200 followers event]

[author's note:] JDJDKD MORE IDIA CONTENT WOOHOOO this was supposed to be his belated birthday gift from me but uhh cough cough writer block hit me like a bitch soo.. didn't finish before new years, and it's now like- 4 months late??? anyways, thank you anon for requesting idia with dialogue #3 and #7!! my last yandere idia work had him a little creepy so i made him cute this time loll i hope it's to your satisfaction anon!

[warnings:] lowercase, yandere behavior, more fluff than yandere, established relationship, reader is a gamer, cuddling, kisses, reader is ticklish, poor explanation of game mechanics, mentions of fear for judgement, reader is portrayed as a crybaby, one paragraph mentions idia being a creep, game is a rip-off of minecraft (fantasy version), toxic teammates.

[note:] If there is anything else triggering here that I didn’t list in the warnings section, please tell me. i don’t condone this type of behavior, this is merely just for entertaining purposes and some sort of coping mechanism for me. if you continue to read beyond this point, ignoring my warnings, i am not responsible for your actions from here on out.

[GN reader]

IDIA SHROUD seemed to be in a good mood today, at least according to what you've seen so far. probably because his latest purchase is the cause of his being in such an upbeat mood. not that you're complaining; it was rather cute seeing him all excited and giddy when he found a new game to play. it's like a whole new, different side of him comes out whenever he starts to ramble about the features of the game and why he should absolutely play it right now. of course, as his player one, you're automatically going to be the first person he's going to play with. not that you mind, really. playing with idia was always a fun experience; it reminded you a lot of how you would spend your free time back in your world.

(those days of laziness, those days of unproductivity where you did nothing but lay down on your bed and do nothing—no school work to do, no club activities to do, no studying for an upcoming exam—just pure idleness. then when you're bored, you could just use your phone, PC, or iPad to entertain you as the day goes by, playing nonstop until late hours in the evening. god, you miss those days.)

you often wondered what genre of video games this new world had to offer. you knew that it wouldn't be so different from your own world, but you weren't sure just how many of your friends were affiliated with gaming entertainment. out of fear that judgement would be placed upon you if you shared this interest of yours, your love for video games has been hidden—so to find someone else (with that someone else being idia) that likes video games and is very well versed in them is a dream come true. it was a long process to get him to play with you, let alone consider you a friend and not try to avoid you every 2 seconds—still, it was a feat you were proud of because now you get to experience many, many different sides of idia that you would have never known 9 months ago.

(you once heard idia curse like at least twenty times in one breathe when one of his teammates was being shitty and a prick, he sounded so angry and scary that you backed into a corner to avoid getting burnt by his scorching, bright red hair that grew the more angrier he got. the only reason he stopped was when he heard quiet sobs in the corner of his room and turned around away from his computer to see you huddled in the corner of his room. quickly he went over there, completely abandoning his game and comforting you. he hates seeing his cute prefect cry, especially because of him, he's not the great at comforting but when he hugged you so tightly, your quiet sobs turned into silence. right then and there he swore to never be the reason you're crying and when you do, he'll be right there with you.)

you are currently cross-sitting in his very comfy bed, watching as idia set up two controllers and plugged in the PCs to turn them on (you're still surprised he's got more than 2 PCs, which, if you really think about it, his family background makes it make sense). after waiting for the PCs to turn on, he then connects the controllers to the PCs and opens up the game on both screens. you would insist on helping him set up, but due to you literally being isekai'd into this unknown world of twisted wonderland, you aren't too familiar with many things besides the whole magic stuff—plus, you aren't too keen on breaking any of idia's stuff because of your lack of knowledge on how to do technology.

(technology in general is so extremely confusing, you would argue wholeheartedly all day and all night, and idia would agree with you and low-key flex on how knowledgeable he is in the field of technology, just to impress you and show how reliable he is. secretly, he likes it when he's useful to you.)

"sorry! it took a while to set up..." in slightly shaking hands, he hands over the controller to you while holding the other in his free hand. he looked rather nervous when he faced you to give the controller, like he's worried he wasted your time waiting for him. it reminded you of a puppy looking up to its owner apologetically when they did something wrong, so cute, you thought, adorable even, you added.

"haha! it's okay! you didn't take that long anyway." you gave him a reassuring look, a soft smile, and bright eyes, showing him that you weren't bothered by having to wait a bit as he set up for you two to play.

both screens show the in-game loading screen, and the bar quickly fills up due to the fast internet speed (one you're quite envious of). slowly it fades to the starting screen, where a big text is bouncing 'tap to start' in both of your faces. Idia presses to start immediately, wanting to get into gameplay as fast as he can while you take a moment to admire the visual aspects and effects of the game in silent awe. you always had a thing for the visual stuff that was shown in-game. by slowly pressing the button on your control, you enter the game and begin a fantastical journey with idia.

“put that down! you’ll hurt yourself with that!” he says worriedly as he watches you damage your avatar's HP bar this early in gameplay. usually he gets really annoyed when he plays with noobs and normies; they stink at comprehending basic knowledge, do dumb things in-game, ask too many questions, and ruin the whole gameplay experience for him. 'ugh, how annoying.' is his usual reaction to such—of course he wouldn't think of that towards you! never ever would he ever think this way towards you; even if you do things noobs and normies usually do, he can't bring himself to be annoyed—you were too cute in his eyes. he would never admit this to your face, though, and he still gets red just at the thought of him thinking you are cute. It's true though; don't get him wrong, but... the embarrassment that comes with thinking about these thoughts is just too much for his poor little heart! honestly, he's for sure that one day you'll be the death of him, does he care though? not really; in fact, he would probably love that.

(he blushes so hard whenever he thinks of you in his clothes; it's the way your natural scent clings onto his shirts, the way his shirts made you even cuter than you already are—one of the only reasons he doesn't wash his clothes immediately because he wants to savor your smell to memory. he's a creep, yes, but he's one devoted creep.)

"whoops! sorry didn't see that, haha..." nervously laughing at your mistake, you eat whatever consumable you have in your inventory to try and restore as much health as you lost. as your avatar munches on the food in its hand, from the corner of your screen, you can see idia's avatar walking towards you. once it's near enough to your avatar, you can see the animation of a bunch of items being dropped and your inventory picking up due to the proximity between the items and your avatar. you opened your inventory, curious about what he just gave you since it looked like quite a lot of items, and confused about why he was giving you so many items in the first place. your eyes widen in shock as the items he's given you are one stack of steak, every weapon in-game (sword, axe, pickaxe, shovel, hoe), but in steel, and a full set of steel armor.

your mouth continues to gape open as you put on the armor set on your avatar. how did he get so much stuff this fast? it hasn't even been an hour yet! "where.. did you get so much stuff!?" you ask naively, following idia around as you don't want to get lost, die, and lose all your stuff. "stole half of those from villages, some from mining, and a few from trading" he says so casually as he continues to walk in an unknown direction, like this was a regular thing for him, not to mention this was a hard difficulty! he's playing this game like it's not easy mode! "could've gotten more if it weren't for those stingy mobs..." furrowing his eyebrows, he let out a small huff of frustration, pressing slightly harder on the buttons on his controller, not noticing how your mouth dropped down even further at his passing comment. as she presses on, walking in an unknown direction, you're hit with the hundredth reminder that he's on a whole other level than you when it comes to gaming.

three hours in, and you guys decided to play on public servers, where you'll get to play different game modes other than the usual story and survival modes. once the two of you picked a game to play, the room quickly filled with laughter, shouting, incoherent grumbling, screams of terror, and many more in between. you two decided to save a team game as last since idia wasn't enthusiastic about playing together with other players because he just wanted to play with you, and there was an underlying fear that you would encounter toxic teammates. but since you were practically begging him to just try it at least once, he couldn't help but give in to your pleas.

it was fun, he supposed. it wasn't as annoying or infuriating as he thought it would be, but he still had to keep up not making really snarky remarks when certain players were interacting with you. he'd hate to have you see such a mean, ugly, and disgusting side of him. other than that, it was an okay experience. he thinks it would've been better if it was just him and you on a team; wouldn't it be kind of romantic? you and him against everyone else?

then what he feared most would happen actually happened. suddenly some fucking jerk is screaming insults at you for not being good enough, and before that teammate got two more words in, he exploded on them. curses upon curses spit out his mouth in rapid speed, and the voices of that said teammate slowly but surely die down as their ego and pride go down with them. in the midst of anger and chaos between him and the teammate, you could feel tears building up inside you; everything around you started to blur, and the sounds that filled your ears were starting to get tuned out. you couldn't even hear that idia stopped screaming curses, turned off both PCs, and went to take the controller from your hand, lift you up into his lap, and slowly wrap his arms around you.

once he had you fully in his grasp, he tightened his grip, making sure not to let you get away from him. he wasn't good at words, especially when trying to comfort someone, but seeing you cry was making him cry too. he did, after all, swear to always be with you when you cry. raising one of his hands, he placed it at the back of your head and gently pushed towards his neck. then his hand went down to rub your back, up and down, up and down, at a slow pace. letting you cry it all out in peace while also letting you know he's there with you.

a few minutes have passed, and your sobs have gone silent. your eyes have become droopy and sleepy, and it feels almost impossible to keep them open. suddenly, a hand lifts your chin, and you feel a pair of lips come into contact with your forehead. it wasn't like a quick kiss; no, the kiss lasted for at least a few seconds before pulling away. even then, upon pulling away, you feel another kiss on your cheek, this time a little quicker than the forehead kiss. then another kiss on your other cheek, then another on your nose, another on your jawline, another on your earlobes, and finally, his lips hovered over your own lips.

you could feel the hesitation when he let out a nervous breath; the thought of your lips on his always sends him into an electrifying and drunken daze. he can't think straight when he's this close to you, but even then, it gives him an unusual feeling of contentment and confidence. the luck he has to be able to snag such an adorable, cute, amazing, and beautiful person like you in his life. he almost can't believe it. swallowing his own nervousness for your comfort, he presses against your soft lips delicately. soon after making physical contact with your lips, he feels a smile form on your face—a small smile, yet it was enough for him. any smile from you is enough for him, because seeing you happy is the best view he could ever lay his eyes on.

feeling out of breath, he's the first to let go but also the first to frown at the loss of touch. i want to stay like this forever, he thought as he watched you emit a giggle after the kiss. fire burns brightly in his heart, and he starts to wonder if you being the death of him will really come true. his cheeks burn that ever-warm red that he knows you've seen many, many times before, but he can't help it. when you pull him into a world through rose-tinted glasses, no way could he be immune to such an effect.

"i really can’t take it when you cry like that… smile for me, alright? you’re so pretty when you smile."

•❅───✧❅✦❅✧───❅• •❅───✧❅✦❅✧───❅•

PLEASE DO NOT COPY, REPOST, SHARE, TRANSLATE OR REUPLOAD ANY OF MY WORKS TO OTHER SITES WITHOUT MY PERMISSION + REBLOGS AND COMMENTS ARE APPRECIATED.

[stars4gojo]

Used to it

Dad!Gojo x Fem!reader // young Megumi and Tsumiki // 947 words

Leaving home comes easy for Gojo except now he has three reasons to come back

More of my work 🤍

When you and Gojo first took tsumiki and Megumi in your house, many people told you how difficult raising two children was going to be. You remember Gojo dismissing them with the wave of his hand, even when your own mother freaked out at the thought of you two adopting children without getting married (she seemed to ignore the fact that you two were only 17) Gojo reassured her, saying how it couldn’t be so difficult and since he’s the strongest he would have no problems at all.

However, being the strongest doesn’t seem to matter at all in this house. Gojo, without question, was at the bottom of the food chain and the two children were alarmingly at the top of the household. 

Your mothers fears were only confirmed when Megumi refused to eat any vegetables for the first six months of his stay and had thrown them directly at Gojo’s face MULTIPLE times so he just had to get used it, turning on his limitless everytime Megumi reached for the greens that were taunting him on his plate. Or that one time Tsumiki got stage fright during her ballet rehearsals so Gojo, a grown 190 cm tall man, wore a tutu, definitely too small on him and performed next to the little 9 year old girl, who would then take first place at the rehearsal only at the cost of getting dirty looks and hushed whispers from other parents. He had then begged you to take Tsumiki to her classes which you obviously refused as everytime Gojo would take her to her classes she had the expression of a 9 year old who just took over the whole world so he just got used to it. 

But one thing, even after 2 whole years, he could not get used to was leaving for longer business trips. When it was just the two of you, he would begrudgingly leave with a reassuring kiss to your forehead, letting you know that he would return.

The first time he left for his business trip he didn’t expect the children to even bat an eye, but soon the day came and when he went to say goodbye to Tsumiki and Megumi they didn’t seem to have a reaction, too invested in the cartoon they were watching on their iPads that Gojo got them despite your efforts to stop him talking about the bad effects of screen-time that he chose to ignore so they wouldn’t bother you two during your alone time. 

“Hey cmon now, at-least look at me when I’m saying goodbye you won’t be seeing me for a while now” Gojo said with a little smile tugging on his lips.

The two children went wide eyed as they turned towards Gojo, the realisation was almost comical and you stifled back a laugh. However, the laughter soon became shock as they both immediately became teary eyed and rushed to get off the couch and run towards Gojo.

Gojo was more taken aback at the sudden outburst of emotions from his normally moody children.

Gojo bent down to their eye level as they rushed to give him a hug.

“What’s wrong???” Gojo asked in slight surprise.

“Please don’t go” A muffled voice voice was heard that belonged to Tsumiki as her arms became tighter around his neck.  

“We’ll be very nice please? Megumi will eat all his vegetables! Wont you Megumi?!” Tsumiki spoke fast as she nudged Megumi who was standing behind Tsumiki, observing the situation with tears forming.

Megumi nodded in response and Gojo only smiled in response. 

“You guys..” he started off with a chuckle and you slightly hit him on his back so he could take them more seriously.

“You guys do know that I’ll be back in 2 days right? It’s just a short trip I need to make for work?” He spoke softly as Tsumiki let go of him.

Now you went to Megumi who was still at the verge of tears and picked him up so he could rest on your hip. You wiped his tears as he cuddled into your neck obviously embarrassed of his little outburst of emotions.

“Satoru is going on a business trip, he goes on them all the time and always comes back” you spoke with a little giggle as you watched Tsumikis sad expression turn into embarrassment.

“I’m glad to know I’m still wanted in this house” Gojo spoke as he got back on his feet. 

“Now all of you come here so I can give you a little goodbye kiss” He added while making comical kissing sounds.

Megumi was quick to want to be put down and run away with Tsumiki as their little feet pattered across the apartment floor with little giggles. You watched as Gojo chased after them and grabbed them both in his arms in the same time to give them both a disgustingly kiss mixed with saliva.

“GROSSSS” the two kids shouted but you could tell there was no real bite to it.

“Now..” Gojo started with a sinister grin

“Oh no.” You thought.

“WE ATTACK NOW!!” Gojo shouted as all three of them ran towards you almost knocking you down as they attacked you with soft kisses in between laughter.

Now, Gojo could say in confidence, maybe there were sacrifices he had to make, some things he had to get used to. But, he wouldn’t change it for anything because Gojo Satoru was the strongest and being with the three of you only made him stronger, his motivation to fight and  protect. 

[oddvanilla]

Dhar Mann might've been secretly a "villain" the whole time....

Pt.1 (?)

No, you're not hallucinating. You saw that title correctly. Believe it or not, I have had ridiculous beef for years with the man who many love, and even adore, Dhar Mann. And therefore, I'll be elaborating today on why such a "good person" like him is considered one of my sworn enemies, and why I think you should consider him one too.

Many people, and especially parents, assume that Dhar Mann is a great influence on kids, and a friendly individual. And although for the most part; that can be true, but you need to look at the bigger picture.

"The Dhar Mann Effect" is what I like to call it. A serious, and contagious virus that even the most experienced and hard-working doctors can't find the cure to. "What does the Dhar Mann effect do?" ...You may be asking. Well, great question! The Dhar Mann effect is when you form an addiction and obsession to watching the supposedly "short films" made by no other than Dhar Mann himself. And I'm not talking about a little, silly obsession. I'm talking about serious addictions that can lead into binge watching video after video non-stop. Such things should be taken far way solemnly.

And the prime example is my younger sister. Among many of my Dhar Mann-obsessed friends, I'd say she's the worst case. It started out around 2 years ago, when their substitute teacher played a Dhar Mann video at class (since many students have requested it), and ever since, she got hooked. I knew then that there was no coming back, she reached the "no-return" point.

I'd go as far as saying that it's like drugs to her. She can't survive a day without watching at least 3 videos in one sitting. And yes, that includes re-watching or re-visiting older videos. Trust me, it's deeper than just a "So you see...". My sister can qualify as an iPad kid, now, if I had to say so. And even currently, as I'm writing this, I can hear Jay's voice, One of Dhar Mann's most popular actors— playing from her room. I feel like it's not the same, and those damages may be irreversible. My poor sister can't live her life to the fullest anymore. All she does is wait for the new Dhar Mann video. And while she waits for the next one, she just rewatches his old videos, making sure she knows all the lore.

This is not a "haha" joke, people. This is dead serious. No joke. I'm not crossing my fingers. I'm not what nowadays kids call "capping 🧢". I'm being genuine and I'm typing this with the straightest face ever.

Another issue I have with Dhar Mann is how threatening he appears to me. I can promise you that if you look long enough into his smile, you'll realise it's slightly unsettling. Did you notice his face almost always looks the same in every picture? Well, you're probably not trippin'. That's because he has that same smile in literally every picture I could find of him.

What are the chances he might be a robot? Ready for the day we all fall for his spell and none of us are safe anymore, so he can finally strike? There is something so terrifying about him. Every time I look at that smile, I can't help but shiver a bit of fear. But mostly, I'm quite intimidated by his disturbing behaviour. The way he never fails to stare dead into our souls. That's what I find strange.

But hold up, the theories don't stop... at least not yet! Did you notice the way Dhar Mann ends every single one of his videos with "Hey Dhar Mann fam!" ??? What are the chances that he refers to us as his fam (family) to hide the fact we're probably stuck in his basement? If we're talking lore-wise, I'd say the reason Dhar Mann calls us his fam is the following: We're all chilling at our homes, until one day... A Dhar Mann video comes to our recommendations. By watching the media, you're secretly agreeing to sign an invisible contract that gives ol' Dhar the ability to adopt you. Child or not. And just because you're now part of his fam, doesn't mean he can't trap you into the basement and lock you up with multiple of many victims. The only time he'll ever check on you is when he comes in the basement and greets you with "Hey Dhar Mann Fam!" While feeding you those meaningless videos.

I'll show you a couple of examples, and YOU tell me what these videos could possibly teach kids who barely know what photosynthesis is.

Now, be real, just for a moment, WHY IS THE SECOND VIDEO A GODDAMN SERIES????? ARE YOU TELLING ME THAT ITS A CASUAL THING THAT THE PROTAGONIST EXPERIENCES ON SIMPLE OCCASIONS TO GET JUMPED???

I think another weird part is that Dhar Mann featured another EXTREMELY popular YouTuber named "Mr. Beast" many, many times, but even then— he feels this need to pull out knock off Mr. Beast...ahem ahem....Mr. "feast"...??????

No joke. Just search up "Dhar Mann Mr. Feast" and count how many videos come up. But if you're so lazy to check, it's 4. yea. 4 DAMN VIDEOS ABOUT A MR BEAST RIP OFF. YOU GUYS NEED TO WAKE UP AND REALISE THIS IS A MAN WITH A WIFE AND 2 KIDS.

And back to square one, What's the moral meaning behind this media he displays for the youth?

Not Dhar Mann (a multi millionaire) copying the "NO CHICK-FIL-A SAUCE?" girl???? Smh...

So... Do you think Dhar Mann is really the innocent "moral philosopher" he claims himself as? Or is it deeper than a "Hey Dhar Mann Fam"?. But either way, that's it for today. Thank you all for listening to my Ted Talk.

SORRY GUYS IM HIGH ON VITAMIN GUMMIES (AGAIN) AND LIKE I DO THINK DHAR MANN IS MY SWORN ENEMY BUT LIKE YALL BETTER NOT TAKE THIS /SRS LMAOOOO🙏🙏🙏

[joels-darlin]

Take Care

Pairings: Pedro Pascal x f!reader

Warnings: fluff, brief mention of alcohol, mentions of stress.

Summary: After a rough week at work Pedro wants to take care of you.

Word count: 1289

Author Note: I woke up this morning inspired to write and this little piece came together as I was getting ready to start my work day. Hope you all enjoy, any feedback is appreciated <3

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

It was late. The house being virtually silent except, coming from the office in the next room, the sounds of you clicking away furiously at the keyboard. The atmosphere was particularly comforting to him as he sat mulling over the script for the next job lined up.

You worked too hard he already knew that and on multiple occasions had expressed that you didn't have to work at all, he had enough for the two of you to live comfortably. But he also knew that you loved your job, eyes lighting up with pure passion every time you spoke about it. A wave of worry washed over him briefly remembering that it was a very busy period, the project you where working on just a mere few weeks away from release so it was all hands on deck. The only comfort being that he knew you had a great team around you who where a solid support system. Everyday you made him proud and the moment he sees your name on something you had poured your soul into then his heart will probably burst of out his chest.

Leaving the iPad to one side for a moment he left the couch in search of you, mainly to put the niggles at the back of his mind to rest but also ask if anything was needed. He had eaten alone early in the evening as you where stuck in endless meetings. No bother to him but he was concerned you weren’t getting enough nutrition - making a mental note to ask if food had crossed your mind yet.

Stood in the doorway of the office he took in the sight of you hunched over at the desk, fingers working away furiously. You had a small scowl on your face which told him something wasn’t right, there it was again that wave of worry sharp in his chest. Opting for the mix of comfy but professional then your upper body adorned a smart t-shirt and then on the bottom half those damn Grogu pyjama pants you absolutely wore to death. He loved that you where a bit of a nerd, it was cute. Pedro’s mind wondered for a second upon laying eyes on you again. He knew you where a fan when you met, the sheer surprise and acknowledgement in your face as you locked eyes with him for the first time - there was also that well worn Grogu backpack you clutched so tightly like a prized possession.

What he loved the most though you treated him like the normal human being he is, it was refreshing to say the least. After accidentally bumping into you whilst at his local coffee shop (completely at fault and too busy looking at his phone). The contents of the cup once held in your tiny hands ended up spilt on the floor. Apologising profusely he quickly ordered you a fresh one, holding your small hand up to stop him from continuing to grovel and with a simple but breath taking smile said “Accidents happen, don’t worry”. Pedro knew he was done from that moment and quickly suggested fetching a table. Normally he wouldn’t stay and chat in fear of being recognised but you caught his eye leaving him wanting to know more. It was just general chit chat but he hung onto every word that familiar sparkle in your eyes showing through so clearly. He still felt bad for the coffee incident and at least wanted to make it up to you but on some level this felt different. After for what felt like hours the conversation was interrupted by a phone call from his agent and he had to dash.

It happened again a week later in that same coffee shop (minus the bumping and spilt coffee this time) he spotted you instantly when ordering his drink - tucked away in the corner head buried in a book. Grabbing an extra coffee on his order he headed straight for your table, eager to talk again. Both knowing this was probably going to become a habit you exchanged phone numbers and what started out as friends for the first few months grew into the solid loving relationship you where in now, 2 years later. He knew how lucky he was.

”P…you okay?” your voice brought him back to the present moment eyes searching his. Completely lost in his thoughts, unsure of how long he had been stood in the doorway. “I’m okay mi amor, I came to check on you but obviously got distracted” he chuckled moving from the door to behind the office chair. Pedro wrapped his warm arms around your shoulders planting a gentle kiss atop your head. You leant into his embrace taking a moment to breathe, the stress of the day was starting to get too much and you knew it was time to clock off. “Worried about you cariño, have you eaten today?” he half-whispered against your ear. As if on queue then your stomach growled “I’ll take that as a no then…come on or I’m resorting to other tactics” he laughed softly tapping your shoulder and freeing you from his embrace.

Curious you spun in your chair facing him cocking one eyebrow “Tactics hey? like what Pedrito?” Oh he loves it when you use that nickname, it’s gets him. Every. Damn. Time. Pedro didn’t even think his lips just smashing against yours kissing you passionately. Moving to wrap your arms around his neck pulling him closer you continue the heated exchange, his hands coming up to cradle your face gently. He moved back leaning his forehead against yours after a few moments, both breathless. “How about a frozen pizza & some wine? then we can spend what’s left of the evening on the couch”. You pondered for a moment. Technically you had done all your tasks for the day as well as the extra thrown in last minute (hence why you where working so late again). Plus it was Friday - with no work obligations for the next day then you where free to enjoy after a stressful week. “That sounds perfect to me…I’ll be out in a minute” you smiled at him.

It wasn’t a minute…more like 10 when you had finally logged off and headed for the kitchen, finding Pedro stood near the hot oven sipping on a glass of wine. “Got your favourite…” he beamed pouring a serving in the empty wine glass “and pizza is nearly done, go get on the couch querida”. Like a true gentlemen he doted on you bringing the pizza fresh from the oven, stealing a slice for himself of course, and topping the wine glass up when required . He knew it was a rough one and aimed to care for you the same way you do for him when he has bad days at the office. One bottle of wine in and a random film was playing on the TV. No idea what was even going on though because you did not pay any attention - too busy wrapped up in your head about the man snuggled up next to you. Turning your head to look at him for a moment before reaching over, laying a hand flat on his chest for support, placing a chaste kiss on his lips. This caught his attention eyes locking with yours. “Thankyou P” you said softly. He didn't need to ask why, he already knew, flashing you a toothy grin pulling your frame closer to his. Life wasn’t always perfect but with Pedro in it then it made things a hell of a lot easier.

[bamboozledbird]

IGNITE: A Teen Wolf S1 AU (Reader's Version) // Prev. / Chapter 3 / Next

Characters: Stiles Stilinski, fem!reader, omc, ofc Pairing: Eventual Stiles x Reader, but man are we talking slow burn Word Count: 6.2k Warnings: Canon typical gore/violence, parental death (rip to your fake mom), depictions of depression (apathy, dissociation, 'numb little bug' vibes) Tags: Canon has been lovingly scrapped for parts, author is a chaotic bi and it shows, prolific overuse of the em dash, the slowest of burns i fear

Summary: You can always smell ash long after the fire is gone. Perhaps, that’s why you still can’t breathe without choking on the past. It’s been four years since your mom died. Four years since she burned alive. Four years since you didn’t. You survived, but they must have buried your heart with her because most days you feel like a shadow, some horrifically sad creature caught halfway between a ghost and a lamb for slaughter. 

You can’t scrub the bitter smell of hospital from your memories, not even with denial. Maybe, that’s why death and disease follows Stiles wherever he goes now. It’s been eight years since his mom died. Eight years since he didn’t. Eight years since he decided that he wouldn’t let anyone he loved die ever again. He survived, but Scott’s new-found abilities and the murky world they’ve been dragged into is making it pretty damn hard to keep his promise. 

Time never stops turning. The grief never dissipates. Children soldier on—but in a town where all the monsters under the bed are real and old family skeletons rattle in every closet, how long can two fragile, breakable humans survive? 

Maybe, the real question is: How long will they want to? Chapter Summary: More information about the animal attack comes to light. You can’t decide if you're more scared of the monster or becoming friends with someone new. 

A/N: You can also check me out on ao3 (dork_knight) for the full lore version!

You were surprised to see your dad’s car in the garage. He wasn’t supposed to be off work for hours, and he certainly never came home early on weekdays. You would be more nervous if there was anyone left in your life to grieve. It was just the two of you now. Your mom hadn’t ever talked about her family; you weren't even sure if she ever had one, and Grandma and Papa Dickinson died before you even had the chance to remember them. You wished, sometimes, that there was someone else in the house. Someone who could fill the cold silence and closed doors. Someone who might chase away the ghosts lingering in the long halls and photographs on the walls. It was a futile dream. You were going to die in this house, and someday a new family would chase your family’s shadows away with laughter.

You felt a bittersweet sense of déjà vu when you walked into the house and saw your dad sitting at the kitchen table. The kitchen was his spot before everything went wrong. He puttered around the island in the mornings with his thermos of coffee and tablet, somehow knowing exactly when to flip the bubbling pancakes on the griddle without glancing up from whatever NPR article he was reading. He only looked up from the screen to kiss your mom on the cheek and give you a side-squeeze until you whined about your inability to breathe. 

That was a long time ago, you reminded yourself as your dad looked up from his iPad. It’d been four years, but he still hadn’t quite figured out how to hug you and the kitchen never smelled like pancakes and cinnamon syrup anymore. “How was school?” your dad finally said after a long moment of uneasy eye-contact. 

Your brow wrinkled, and your head canted slightly, “You really want to talk about my day?”

“Of course,” your dad paused and rubbed his hands over his face, “but there is something important I wanted to talk to you about.” His stubble had grown out enough that you could see where the brown was starting to gray. He looked so old for a moment, and you weren't quite sure how to feel. You never did around him. 

Frowning, you sat down in the chair across from him, “Did someone die?”

“No,” your dad quickly replied, and then he sighed, “well, yes.” He set his iPad to the side and took his thick reading glasses off, “You know about the animal attacks.” It wasn’t a question. You figured that was how this would go; it was easier to pretend you didn’t exist if he monologued to the spot on the wall just over your shoulder. “Sheriff Stilinski and I agree that a curfew is the best course of action, considering the situation we’re in.”

Best course of action. You chewed on what was left of your nails and resisted the sigh budding in your chest. So, this was a council meeting too. You just didn’t get a vote. “Okay.” 

“Okay.” Your dad blinked a few times and rubbed at his jaw, like he’d been expecting you to fight him on it. Most of the fight fizzled out in you a long time ago; it was just easier to pretend. You got that from him, you thought. You inherited your dad’s love for mystery novels and his ability to deny reality straight to its face, and that was where the similarity ended. Your face, your skin, your heart—your exhausting curiosity—that was all your mom. It must be why your dad couldn’t keep his gaze on you for long. He ran his fingers through his short crop of dark hair and said, “Anyone under the age of 18 needs to be home by 9:00 every night.” 

“Fine.” It wasn’t like you had much of a social life anyway, and the curio shop you worked for closed long before dark. “So,” you fiddled with the edge of a decorative bamboo placemat that hadn’t seen a plate in years, “do the police have any idea what kind of animal’s going all Pac-Man on people?”

Your dad stared at you for a moment, a deep divot developing above the crooked bridge of his nose. You looked down at your hands and mumbled, “The vampire Pomeranian, not the wimpyass circle.”

His mouth tugged a little, and you would’ve sworn he was fighting a smile if everything else in the world didn’t directly contradict the theory. “Not exactly.”

“Which means…” you shook your head a little and tugged your fingers through your unruly hair, grimacing a bit as they snagged on a few knots where your hair had frizzed together, “they’ve ruled out tiny bloodsucking dogs, or they’ve narrowed it down to a few probable options?” 

He paused for a long moment, and you pulled your shins to your chest, focusing on the tips of your sneakers hanging off the edge of the wooden seat. You turned your cheek into your kneecaps and waited for your dad to make an excuse and leave. You’d pushed. You always had to push. 

“There were wolf fibers on the girl.”

You whipped your head up from your knees, eyes wide and mouth slightly parted. You were a little embarrassed that you were more stunned by your dad sharing confidential information with you than a wolf migrating to central California for the first time in over a hundred years. “And the bus driver?”

“He’s still…unresponsive. Stilinski is looking into the possibility that he was attacked by the same animal.” 

“Huh,” you said quietly, eyes glazing over as you considered the possibility.

“Regardless, you need to be home before dark until they catch the damn thing,” he leaned back against his chair, tipping his head back with his bottle of Miller High life. The golden liquid sloshed back and forth with the strength of his swallow. It was the first time you’d seen him drink since the funeral, but you knew about the empty bottles he threw away in the trash outside. Over the years, the number varied; you noticed a significant increase around anniversaries, birthdays, and Christmas. You left extra take-out in the fridge during those weeks, always his favorites, and they were gone in the morning. You twisted the pendant on your necklace and made a note to order Little India’s tandoori chicken after your shift.

“I have to work tonight.” You said quietly, nibbling the bed of your thumbnail, “I’m off at 8:00.” 

You both dreaded and longed for your boss’s absurd take on the situation—though boss wasn’t quite the right word for Maggie Sinclair. Despite the fact that she owned Curio Killed the Cat and approved your paychecks, Maggie was the least authoritative person you knew. You’d say Mags was like an older sister, but older sisters generally didn’t require so much supervision around open flames and sangria—and anything else sparkling enough to distract her sporadic focus. Your mom used to look out for her before she died; you supposed Maggie was just another thing you inherited from her. Your favorite thing probably, but that was something you’d most likely take to your grave.

Your dad’s face went blank for a moment, as it always did when he was reminded of anything remotely related to your mom. It was easier for him, you thought, to pretend that she never existed. You couldn’t even be bitter about it; you hadn’t even cried at the funeral. You cried much later, of course, but by then the pity well had run dry. Nobody cared how you coped, so long as you coped quickly. You’d wasted those precious first few months of constant consolations with numbness, with monotonous, 'Thank you,’s and, 'It’s sad, but I’m okay,'s and then, eventually, everyone stopped asking if you were okay. Time passed. You didn’t touch any of the casseroles in the fridge. People moved on. You lived in the wake and pushed people away with an acrid bite that would disappoint the resurrection right out of your mother. Your dad was just coping. You both were. 

“Right,” he cleared his throat, “come straight home after.”

You shouldered your backpack and stood up, “Always do.”

You still didn’t know how Maggie met your mom, given the 15-year age gap and their vastly different…everything, but Maggie had been in your life for as long as you could remember. You spent so much time in Maggie’s store after your mom died that you figured you might as well get paid for shelving spell books and grimoires while you were there—even if you did think that most of Maggie’s customers were totally off their rocker. Of course, in-person customers were a rare oddity in Curio Killed the Cat.

The store was always slow on weekdays, weekends too actually. Most of Maggie’s business was online; she shipped ‘haunted’ and ‘magical’ artifacts all across the globe to e-goths with bad backs and Wicca wannabes. Truthfully, Maggie didn’t really need your help running the storefront, but she claimed she enjoyed the company—even if said company was bitterly sarcastic and hypercritical of the product she was stocking. 

“Hey, Mags,” you called. The bell on the front door tinkled in the background as you shoved it open with your shoulder. You paused to scratch under Maggie’s ancient tabby’s chin until he let out a sawing purr. You weren't exactly sure how old Gizmo was, but he behaved more like the taxidermied animals on the walls than the stray cats that lived in the small alley behind the store. 

“Maggie’s head popped up from the circle of book-stack pillars surrounding her. A few of her black curls frizzed out from her bun like a chaotic springy bow and her sweater swallowed her whole despite the relatively warm evening. “Babe,” Maggie placed her hands on your shoulders and grinned at you with a little too much teeth, “thorn in my side, light of my life.”

You lifted the large pair of acrylic glasses from Maggie’s nest of curls and then slipped them over her rounded nose with a reluctant sigh, “What?”

“Glasses. That was next on the agenda.” Maggie blinked owlishly behind her lenses as her eyes adjusted, and then they lit up with whatever it was she’d miraculously remembered, “I am so delighted to see you.”

“It’s Monday.” Gizmo curled around your leg and meowed pathetically until you bent down and lifted him onto you shoulder, “I work Mondays.”

Maggie rolled her eyes, “I’m aware; I made the schedule. The Concerta isn’t completely defective.”

You grinned a little, and Gizmo kneaded your chest in agreement, “So: You’re delighted to see me.”

Nodding rapidly, Maggie picked up a lavishly bound book from one of the stacks of new inventory. It was so tall that it reached her chin, and there were four more just like it in the back. “I need these stocked for realsies,” Maggie said, blowing off the thin layer of dust that had started to gather on the cover. She dropped the book back on top of the pile with a loud thump and carefully avoided knocking anything over on her way to the front of the store, “And I’m currently in the middle of a bidding war.”

“Haunted or historical?” you grabbed the clunky price gun off of the tarot card display.

“A little of both actually,” Maggie hummed, fiercely focused on the computer screen. Her nose was almost smashed against the monitor.

You set Gizmo down on the floor, patting his head tenderly when he let out a disgruntled whine and clawed at your thin knee socks. Eventually, the effort became too much for his poor paws to bear, and he waddled off towards one of his many nesting spots. “For you or for the store?” you pulled the stepladder away from the wall of stone runes and protection charms and plopped yourself down on the top step.

“For you, actually,” Maggie grinned a little and winked, “don’t say I never gave ya’ nothing.”

“Wonderful,” you dropped your chin into your cupped hands, “a poltergeist bonus.”

Maggie huffed and shoved the sleeves of her hand-knitted cardigan up to her elbows, “It’s not actually haunted. Not really. It’s like…a spirit router, basically. Whatever. It’ll make me feel better about you walking around with a rabid Cujo on the loose.”

“Aw,” you smirked good-naturedly and slapped a price tag on a book entitled ‘Heal the Witch Wound Inside’—$35.99, and for what? You were too amused to point out the redundancy of rabid Cujo. “You got me a guardian angel.”

“Trying to,” Maggie corrected her under her breath, “but MagikMike9917 is a persistent little bitch.”

You laughed and slid ‘Witch Wound’ into the self-help section, “Just get me a mini-taser; they come in some real cute cases now.”

“Mhm.” Maggie briefly glanced over in your direction and then abruptly whirled her head back towards the thick book in your hands, “Not that one.”

You narrowed your gaze as you examined the cover of the book more closely. You had to admit, it was beautiful. The leather was a deep burgundy, and the spine was hand stitched together with gold thread—but it was the carving on the front that really caught your attention. There were two wolves etched into the leather. Their howling snouts pointed towards the full moon above their heads, and their tails entwined around the roots of a large tree sprouting into the sky. Ornate symbols framed the borders of the scene, and a few scattered jewels glinted in the light. It must have taken at least a week to finish. 

You held up the book, your brow curved into a high arch, “This for me too? ‘Cause I’ve already seen The Witcher; pretty sure I got the gist.”

Rolling her eyes, Maggie reached blindly for her soup mug of passionflower and mugwort tea. The smell of it was truly rank, but you had grown accustomed to the musky bitterness over the years. “That one’s already sold. They should be dropping by to pick it up anytime now.” She raised her cup towards you, “I told you bestiaries are essential reading.”

“For dungeon masters, maybe,” you hummed as you studied the cover again. The red and citrine jewels in the wolves’ eyes seemed to be winking at you when the light hit them at the just right angle. 

“Which is an essential contribution to society,” Maggie punctuated her sentence with a loud slurp. 

Your lips gave way to a small grin as you set the book to the side. You’d stocked around half the stacks of books when the front door chimed for the first time since your shift started. You looked towards the door and squinted at the increasingly familiar smattering of freckles and moles, “Are you stalking me now? I will tell your dad; I’m not above snitching or stitches.” 

Stiles blinked a few times and then shook his head, holding up his hands, “I swear on my jeep this time it’s a coincidence. I ordered something here like a week ago.”

You folded your arms over your chest, “And your jeep is sacred, is it?”

Stiles nodded solemnly and rested his hand over his chest, “The sacredest.” 

If the muttered cursing and aggressive sipping was anything to go by, Maggie was too busy with her eBay war to be of any help with inventory. Stocking would have to wait. You stood up and glanced over Stiles’s shoulder, “Where’s your sidekick?”

Stiles squeezed one eye almost completely shut and looked off into the void with the other until realization dawned over his face, “You mean Scott?” He snorted and shot you a grin that was loaded with self-pity, “I’m usually the sidekick reference. Always, actually.” 

You nodded and looked down, searching for the culprit of the little head butting into your shin. Gizmo was probably the most ineffective, geriatric guard dog in the entire animal kingdom, but you appreciated the effort. You scooped him up into your arms so that he could better inspect the strange boy who’d invaded his den and nuzzled your nose against the black stripe on top of his head. “They do tend to never shut up.” 

Stiles looked like he wanted to argue—a frequent expression of you were beginning to realize—and then his shoulders slumped in defeat, “Holy shit, I’ve been type-casted.”

“You could do an arthouse film,” you tilted your head, “show people you’ve got range.”

Stiles nodded, considering the idea, “My charming wit and boyish good looks are really holding me back.” He stooped down to scratch behind Gizmo’s ears. Gizmo bristled for a moment, eyeing his hand suspiciously, but he eventually flopped back in your arms after a few curious sniffs. “No one takes me seriously.”

“Uh huh.” You watched Stiles pet Gizmo and tucked a strand of your hair behind your ear, trying to remember the last man Gizmo hadn’t bit. She couldn’t recall a single one. Warmth enveloped your face when Stiles looked up and met your gaze. He didn’t appear to think much of it, just turned his eyes towards the ground and stroked Gizmo’s little gray toes. 

You set Giz down, despite his pathetic protests, and turned towards the stockpile of inventory, fighting the urge to bite your nails to the quick, “So, what’d you order, boy wonder?” You looked over your shoulder when Stiles didn’t answer. He was smiling a little, mostly to himself, with his hands shoved in his pockets. Your brows quirked, “What?”

“Nothing.” He groaned a little when you kept looking at him, your brows still cocked, and then shrugged with his hands still fisted in his jacket pockets, “It’s just not so bad, the sidekick thing. It’s not so pathetic when you say it like that.”

You swallowed, a little startled by his honesty even though you were the one who’d insisted upon it. “Order?”

“Right,” he nodded a few times and rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s a thickass book, wolves on the front, about yea big,” Stiles held his palms almost six inches apart from each other. “Please don’t make me say the name; I’m pretty sure it’s Latin.”

You grabbed the bestiary you’d set aside earlier and looked at the cover again; there was a small inscription just below the tree roots. “It’s Greek, actually.” You brushed your fingers over the indented letters, “φυσιολόγος.”

Stiles shook his head and took his frustration out on the air with a dramatic jerk of his hands, “In English?”

“The Naturalist,” your lips curled into a shrewd smile, “so sorry we don’t carry it in Japanese.”

Stiles pursed his lips and snatched the book out of your hands. “Hilarious. Truly. I don’t just watch anime, y’know. I also like…” he trailed off and scratched at the nape of his neck, “very cool, normal things.”

“Such as?” 

He pulled a face that was distinctly reminiscent of a little kid sticking their tongue out, “Such as shut your face.”

“Wow.” Shaking your head, you returned to your task of shelving books—this one was about the spiritual properties of mushrooms—and made a popping noise with your tongue against the top of your mouth, “You better hope there’s an English translation in there ‘cause consider my mouth officially shut.”

“I’m not an idiot,” Stiles continued quickly, words almost overlapping with the speed of his tongue, before you could take advantage of such low-hanging fruit, “I made sure I could read it before I bought it—being comprehensible is literally the least it can do for 50 bucks plus shipping.” He shook his head and held up the book, “Can you believe the library wouldn’t order it for me?”

“Imagine that,” you chided, “and with all the demand for vintage bestiaries too.”

He dropped his order on top of a rickety writing desk that supposedly belonged to a Beacon Hills’ heretic who died in the 1800s—at least, according to the tag hanging from one of the drawers and Maggie’s generous interpretation of her family history. “D&D is coming back in a big, big way,” Stiles pointed at you and winked with obnoxious flourish, “just you wait.”

You smirked, pointedly ignoring your recurrent childhood obsession with Egyptian and Roman mythology, and smacked the side of the price gun until the sticker tape unjammed, “My instinct is to make fun of you, but I’m afraid the hypocrisy will catch up with me.”

“What?” Stiles glanced around the store and smirked, “Are you one of those new-agey astrology, crystal nerds? How many fingers is my aura holding up right now?”

You gave him a flat look and reached for another book. “We don’t sell crystals, actually. They aren’t that common in ritualistic spell-casting.”

Stiles blinked slowly, “You’re joking.”

“Wish I was.” You still weren't entirely sure exactly how much of spiritualist-mythical crap Maggie believed. She contradicted herself constantly, and often said things just to make your face pinch in disbelief, but at the same time she still insisted that you keep a protection charm bundle under your bed. The smell of the divination tea, at the very least, was great at warding off unwanted chitchat. “Animal blood is the main ingredient in most of ‘em.”

“That’s…repulsive,” Stiles cringed, restless fingers meandering towards the shelves of books next to you. He pulled out a small illuminated grimoire and flipped through the yellowing pages, pulling a face every so often at some of the more unsavory hex materials. 

You pried the book from his fingers and slid it back into its correct slot. Maggie didn’t actually ask you to organize them; her exact words were, ‘Slap a sticker on ‘em and stick ‘em on a shelf,’ but the idea of such a chaotic setup haunted you until you finally reshelved them all with a revised, occult-specific Dewey Decimal System. “It’s actually just corn syrup and—”

“100% authentic dove juice,” Maggie interrupted from behind the front counter without removing her face from her monitor.

Stiles jerked his head to the side, evidently just realizing that there was someone else in the room with you, and then swiveled back to you with his face stretched out in a toothy grin, “That dove juice discount must save you, like, so much money.”

You watched Stiles, warily and wearily, reach for a meditation journal from one of the heaps by your legs, “I have to stock that.”

Stiles turned the journal over in his hands, “Lemme help.”

You huffed deeply and gestured to the diligently organized bookshelves, “I have a system.”

He gave a staunch shake of his head and hunched down so that he could read the small stickers on the spines, “I owe you—for covering for me.”

You took the journal from his hands and squatted down to the bottom shelf. You quickly found the guided meditation section and managed to squeeze the bulky notebook between ‘Walking the Pagan Path’ and ‘Warding Your Mind' with some aggressive wiggling. You looked up briefly and met Stiles’s eyeline. He was especially lanky from this angle. Lanky and soft, with his layers of sleeves and rounded features. You tucked a loose curl behind your ear and looked back at the line of jewel-toned spines, “How is he? Scott?”

“Better.” He tapped his fingers against the top of the bookshelf to a rhythmic beat that felt familiar, “Exposure therapy is a real pain in the ass.”

“I thought it was ‘low blood sugar.’”

“That too.” Stiles leaned over your head and grabbed another book, and you shivered the soft cotton hem of his jacket skimmed over your face. “He’s hemophobic and breakfastphobic,” he said as he handed you the book. You hummed softly in appreciation as he continued, “It’s a vicious cycle, actually. Dude would totally fall apart without me.”

“That’s nice.” You tipped your chin up towards him and grinned, “Totally bogus, but still nice.”

“I told you.” His smile was smug, but somehow still dopey enough to be charming, “I’m a nice guy.”

Your thighs started to ache from squatting in the same position for so long, so you dropped onto your knees, shivering as your bare skin pressed against the cold hardwood floor. “I’m still not sharing my sacrificial blood discount with you.”

“Guess I have to get a job here, then,” Stiles shrugged and leaned against the bookcase, jerking back a bit when he turned his head and came face-to-face with a yellow-eyed taxidermied owl. He turned it around until the glass eyes were safely pointed in the opposite direction and said, “That way I can drive you nuts all day long and become a master wizard.”

You clicked your tongue; the cluck rang with saccharinely sweet pity, “Sucks that you’re only qualified for the first part.”

“Yeah? How’d you get the job, then? You clearly don’t respect the craft.” Stiles ran his spindly fingers along a row of spines, and you wondered if he could play the piano. He certainly had the hands for it. 

“Mags knew my mom, so…” you chewed on your lip until the metallic tang of copper burst on the tip of your tongue. You abruptly returned your attention to shelving the Wicca section and fiddled with the spines until they were all perfectly in line with each other, “It’s more nepotism than anything else, but I do take the history books home sometimes.”

Stiles looked at you, and the prickling sensation of being seen started slithering through your nervous system again. It took you a few tries to get Greek and Roman Necromancy to slip into the small gap on the shelf in front of you. Stiles crouched down next to you. His mouth was twisted around a sly smile, but you could see the earnestness in his eyes, “Witch training?”

You grinned a little, grateful for the out, “Hardly. I just like the lore.”

“Yeah,” Stiles’ gaze drifted towards the book he ordered; the wolves’ gleaming eyes were almost hypnotic, “me too.” 

“I’d hope so, for 50 bucks.” you nudged his knee with your elbow, and he swayed precariously on his perched toes and then shot you a glare that lacked any actual malice. “There are cheaper D&D monster manuals, y’know.”

He snickered and elbowed you in the ribs, gently but his bony limbs were sharp and unforgiving, “I knew you were a nerd.”

You were tempted to rebut the accusation, but he already had far too much evidence to the contrary. At least, he didn’t know about your Data/Geordi fanfiction phase—and no one ever would, you thought darkly. You’d have to kill them, probably, or at the very least flee the country. “At least I’m not a sucker.” You stood up and brushed off your socks, though there was nothing to be done about the red indentations on your kneecaps from kneeling on oak flooring for so long, “Just how easy would it be to convince you to drop another 50 on a replica Byzantine amulet?”

Stiles held out his hand, shaking it in the air incessantly for far too long. You tilted your head and tried not to smirk at his predicament. The longer you watched him struggle, the more pathetic his pleading became. Eventually, Stiles groaned and pushed himself onto his feet with exaggerated effort, “Obviously not very. Evil spirit didn’t even crack the top 20 on my suspect pool.”

“Got it.” You propped your arm on top of an antique guillotine, bent elbow crooked along the wooden pillory. Stiles stared at the rusted blade and then gawked at your arm. He looked like he was a few seconds away from shoving you out of the way, even though the edge was dull with age and safely secured to the iron frame with thick rope. Rolling your eyes, you stepped away from the antique and trailed your fingers over a less forbidding oddity. 

You spun the brass globe a few times and said, “So silver bullets, then? I’m sure there’s some kind of bulk-discount we can work out.”

Stiles’ eyes snapped to your face, “What?”

“You know,” you gestured towards the order he abandoned while buzzing after you like an especially tenacious mosquito, “for all the werewolves running around town. Thought you’d already know that, being a wannabe wizard n’all.” 

“Right.” Stiles’s jaw shut with a click as he ran his hand over his head, “Duh.” He rubbed at his bicep and swallowed a few times before clearing his throat, “Didn’t get to that chapter yet. Clearly, I’ve got a lot of studying to do before I graduate from apprentice to master.” 

You squinted at him, mulling over if you should call him out on his odd behavior or just chalk it up to his usual weirdness. Maggie materialized behind you before you could do either. She placed her hands on your shoulders, squeezing softly, and then shuffled you to the side so that she could join your little circle, “I’m strictly anti-gun violence; the NRA hates me—but we do carry wolfsbane essence.”

“Don’t say essence,” you grimaced.

“We have some wolfsbane goo in the back.” Maggie pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose and pivoted back to you, “Happy?”

“Not even remotely.” You turned towards Stiles, finally grateful for his presence. Usually, you were on your own in your never-ending believer versus non-believer disputes, and Maggie was somehow under the impression that she wasn’t massively outnumbered beyond these four spooky walls. Oddly, Stiles looked lost in thought. The one time you needed his dismissive snark, and he just had to actually consider the opposing side.

“Is this like the dove juice thing?” Stiles watched Maggie’s face closely, astute eyes tracking every minute twitch and flicker in her expression. It was easy to make out all the different pieces of Sheriff Stilinski in his face like this. You could see the calculations running behind his eyes, the strings coming together, the chess pieces moving. The effect was startlingly piercing. “Or is this actually the real deal?”

You stared at him, face scrunched in bewilderment, but Maggie was undeterred, “We only sell the real deal in the back, to the honored few.”

Stiles looked towards you, his right brow raised. You sighed, folding your arms over your chest and flicking your hair over your shoulder, “Real useless, but…yeah. The plants are real I guess.”

Maggie winked, “I’ll even give you the friends and family discount.”

You scoffed, “We aren’t friends.”

Stiles frowned, momentarily distracted from his intense investigation of Maggie’s body language, “We aren’t?”

You licked your rapidly drying lips and shook your head slightly, more confused than indignant. Truth be told, you’d expected him to agree with you. You hadn’t known each other for long, and he seemed to be more interested in your connection to Lydia than forming one with you. You hadn’t even considered the possibility that he wanted to talk to you about anything else. It’d been a long time since anyone wanted to, that’s all. The friends who hugged you at the funeral, they stopped coming around a long time ago, and they still avoided you at school—like you were contagious, like you’d leak radiation and your misery would metastasize in their bone marrow. You still woke up crying sometimes, throat claggy with stubborn shadows, choking on the hollow bones of picked-apart memories—too busy shoveling dirt to consider tomorrow. 

You scratched at your arm absently and rolled your eyes, slowly, so that everyone could see how utterly unaffected you were, “It’s a couple hundred bucks for a few millimeters of emulsified weeds. If we were friends, I wouldn’t even let you buy something so stupid.”

Stiles’s frown quickly curved into a crooked grin, boyishly charming and vexingly sure, “Sounds like that’s exactly what you’re trying to do.”

Maggie reappeared through the door to the back room, locking it with one of the many keys dangling from her strawberry lanyard. You didn’t have a clue when she’d disappeared to begin with, but the vial clutched in her hand was far more interesting. It was filled with a thick purple liquid, so dark it was almost black. Maggie held it out to Stiles and laughed at his inquisitive stare, “It’s on the house this time, ‘cause you’re such good friends with my darlingest girl.”

Eventually, Stiles took the vial from her hand. “Yeah, darling,” Stiles smirked and rolled the vial between his long fingers, “‘cause we’re such good friends.” The liquid sloshed slowly, a little like a lava lamp, and you kind of wanted to stuff it down his throat.

“Careful with that,” Maggie blinked at you behind her thick lenses. She wasn’t grinning or winking. It was a little eerie to see her so still, like her body had been snatched by a pod person and it was trying to mimic casual human behavior. “It's potent stuff. Shish-kebab a were with that, and they’ll be dead by sunrise—humans too, obviously, so please don’t stick it in your mouth.”

“If you can even get that close,” Stiles muttered to himself as he held the vial up to his pinched gaze.

“To a werewolf,” you deadpanned, looking between the two of them, searching their faces for any indication of irony. Bat-shit. Your grand total of two friends were both certifiably batty.

Stiles was too busy looking at the back of Maggie’s head to absorb your mockery. Your brow furrowed at the intensity of his stare until your attention was diverted to the dusky orange cast over his skin. You glanced out the window; daylight was rapidly fading. Was it really already almost 8:30? “You should probably head home,” you raised your chin towards the door, “if you don’t want to run into the big bad wolf with a purple goo heavy arsenal.” 

He let out a little laugh, more like a breath really, and muttered, “You have no idea.” Your forehead crinkled as you parsed over whatever the hell that meant, and Stiles shoved the book he ordered into his already overcrowded backpack. “I’ll see you at school.”

Your chin bobbed as you gave him a little nod. You lifted Gizmo from his bed of tasseled meditation cushions, for your own comfort this time, and nosed into his matted fur. Maybe, Stiles was just…really into larping, or maybe he was just…a really dedicated collector of supernatural keepsakes—because there was absolutely no way that you just naturally attracted delusional conspiracy theorists. You’d already met your quota of one the moment you were born. 

“Get home safe.” Stiles’s voice pulled your face from Gizmo’s neck. He lingered against the doorframe, clutching his backpack strap. The corner of his mouth cocked into a tight smile, “No more dead batteries after dark, okay? I’ll kick your ass if you get eaten.”

You took a moment to smile, but once you did, it unfurled over your entire face like sunset coating the store in a golden glow. The corners of your eyes crinkled as you shook your head a little, “I’ll try to restrain myself from killing any more cars.”

“Friends,” Stiles grinned and pointed at you, “we’re totally friends.” He ducked out the door before you had the chance to disagree, but you couldn’t decide if you really wanted to this time. 

You almost dropped Gizmo when Maggie bumped you with your hip. “Who the hell was that?” 

“Stiles. He’s…” you waved your hand in the air and eventually settled on, “a friend.”

Maggie stroked the gray fluff on Gizmo’s cheek, cooed when he rubbed his face against her palm, and then pursed her lips, “Uh huh.”

You shrugged and buried your nose in Gizmo’s neck again, taking solace in the fact that at least half of your face was hidden by silver fur, “So he’s more like a fungus in my life.”

Maggie’s grin was insufferable. Her cheeks dimpled, and her eyes nearly disappeared into happy little crescent moons, “Uh huh.”

You glowered at a stuffed crow perched on top of a water-logged armoire; there was a shine in its beaded eyes that appeared a lot like laughter. “You are the single most irritating person I have ever met.”

It was an admirable trait, never getting upset, never getting offended—but at the moment you wished that Maggie wasn’t so idealistic. She simply gave you a smile that was annoyingly wrought with meaning and took Gizmo from your arms. “Whoever the hell he is, he’s right. Get your ass home before the Wolf Man bites it.”

Maggie wiggled her fingers in the air, and you shoved them away from your face. “I’m going. I’m going.” You paused at the door, gave the store one last look and Gizmo a little good-bye wave, “Seriously, mini-taser, Mags. Prime shipping’s gotta be faster than the spirit realm.” At the very least, a taser might actually have a chance against whatever carnivore was hell-bent on ruining your sophomore year.

[rikitachiquita]

come back... be here | ni-ki

✧ synopsis: working at a cafe can be really fun: the customers being nice, cracking jokes with your coworkers, singing while brewing coffee and so on. but it's even more fun when two members of the staff bicker and fight all day and keep everyone entertained. that's what  hybe cafe is like, thanks to ni-ki and y/n.

✦ warnings: everything is a mess tbh, confrontation??, they talk about feelings

⋆16 they are going to start dating in 3 months (700 words)

y/n had to talk to ni-ki, she had to understand what was going on. Was he actually serious or was he just joking around? did he have a crush on her?

she got up from the cardboard box she was sitting on, in the back of the store. she had taken a five minutes break earlier since the coffee shop was really calm, with very few customers, mostly students studying on their ipads and laptops. she was relaxing a bit when the whole fiasco happened.

she decided that she would be mature and go talk to him. she just hoped he would do the same. 

she got up from her weirdly comfortable seat, took a deep breath to calm herself before she went up to face him and started walking, headed for the front. she walked through the door, the kitchen and went to the counter, where ni-ki was.

she saw him there, he was standing there, leaning on the counter, his hands kind of restlessly shaking. he looked up at her and after locking eyes with her for a short moment, he went back to looking at his hands.

“can we talk?” y/n asked

“when the shift ends” he said “we shouldn’t talk about that while working”

y/n agreed and went back to working, and he did the same. she was feeling a bit anxious, anticipating the worst scenarios ever where he would tell y/n he actually hated her and that it was just a bet.

the hour and a half left for their shift passed quickly and they found themself standing in front of each other in the private staff-only parking space near the cafe. 

y/n decided to break the ice first “so, was it all a prank of some sort to hurt me?” she said

“what? no that is not it at all” ni-ki quickly replied

“then what is it?” 

“i mean, it’s quite simple, i have a crush on you” ni-ki admitted freely. she wasn’t one to be so upfront about his feelings but something about y/n made him comfortable and able to speak freely. 

“i really didn’t expect that” y/n admitted

“why?”

“i mean we are always fighting and bickering, i really felt like you hated me for a moment”

“yeah i see why, but no, i always felt kind of drawn to you but i didn't want to make it weird so i acted that way, it was kind of childish on my side” ni-ki said

“i was just as childish, cause at first i really wanted to be close to you”

they both stopped talking and paused for a second.

“so?” y/n asked

“i think we should start getting to know each other, see if the hearted was actually real or not, let’s see” ni-ki said

“my hatred was very much real” y/n said laughing “but yeah, you are right, we see if we can be friends. I have to get used to you not being my worst enemy and i need time to do that, and you probably need some time too. then we will talk again”

“that is what i was thinking of doing” he said

“so we aren’t rivals anymore?” y/n asked with a small smile on her face. being honest to herself, she had been waiting for this for a while.

“nope!” ni-ki responded, sharing the same small smile as y/n and obviously sharing the same feeling, he had waited for this moment for even longer

y/n made a small step and hugged the tall boy, squeezing him tightly. ni-ki started laughing and squeezed her back. she started laughing as well and when she felt ni-kis hands tickling her on the waist the laugh turned hysterical.

what they didn’t know was that eunchae, jake and beomgyu where there as well, looking at them.

“i’m going to be replaced i fear” beomgyu said

“we can all just cry together when they ditch us for eachother” jake added

“yeah they are going to be bestfriends and forget about us” euncahe agreed

“nah they are going to date in about three months” a voice, coming from yeonjun who was standing behind them and listening to them, said.

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✧ note: guess who's back? back again shady's back! tell a friend! guys im sorry for making u wait so long but school and training were kicking my ass. anyways im backkkkkk

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[nukki93]

How long have you been 24/7? What advice would you give to someone looking to make the plunge? My biggest fear is wearing around friend/family/colleagues.

That's a really good question! I've been 24/7 for over 3 years now I guess. I don't have an exact date as it was a transition, but it should be at least 3 years without cheating.

I would summarize my advice as "be prepared and confident".

Organization/Item advices:

Always have at least 2 diapers and wet wipes for changing with you. Sometimes you'll stay somewhere longer as planned, drink more than you planned and spare diapers will come in handy. A very helpful item for that is a wet bag. You can find them on Amazon and they have two zippers and 2 diapers and a pack of wipes usually fit perfectly in them. You can drop it in your backpack and even if someone gets a glance on the content of your backpack everything will be hidden. It's also useful to store a used diaper if you can't get rid of it discreetly, because it's pretty air tight.

Also a nice item I use often is a tiny backpack. Decathlon sells them, they're very cheap and super handy to carry your wet bag and your purse. You can also drop your power bank or your iPad in there and you have a perfect excuse why you're carrying it around. It's also way more chill then carrying your full size backpack around all day.

Something to wear over your diaper. Look for underwear or onesies that hide your diaper safely. It will help you be way more relaxed around friends/family etc. If you have to worry that something is peeking out all the time it will be very stressful and you'll be constantly checking your waistband, if your t-shirt slipped up etc. which really hurts confidence while wearing. I got these awesome boxershorts from here, which are made for people that wear thicker diapers and they cover them completely. I even go to the gym with them without any problems.

Confidence advices:

You'll eventually have to change your diaper on the go. Start train to change in public restrooms. At the beginning it's probably very hard to do it when other people can hear you, but after doing it for 50 times you stop caring about it.

Addition to point 1: If you can't change your diaper while standing, learn it. It's almost unavoidable and if you leaned it, the results will be at least on par with laying down. Just prepare your diaper, grab the wings with the tapes behind your back, adjust the height, lay against a wall, pull the diaper up between your legs and close the tapes. I like to close the top ones first and then I can adjust the bottom tapes without having to lean on the wall anymore, but maybe the other way works better for you.

Place your bag with your diapers strategically: If you're visiting friends or family it might seem very hard to take your diapers to the toilet without it being noticed. I found that it often helps if you place your bag in the hallway. It's usually not weird to leave it there if you don't need it and when you head to the toilet you can just grab it and take it with you.

Have a good story. Think about how you want to explain it to others if they'll notice. This will only be for the absolute emergency if someone asks you about it. How do you want to explain it? Imo a white lie about being incontinent is fine, but everyone has to decide for himself. But if you have a story on hand, it will improve the situation greatly, if someone should really ask about it.

I guess that's a good starting point if you try to go 24/7. It takes time to get confident with all the little problems you'll encounter, but this is part of the journey (and hopefully fun) and you'll get better and better and at some point you'll go through TSA with a diaper on and you won't have any concerns.

[epoch-smog]

another recovered piece of media and I also fixed it up. The first two images were from my ipad when I was going through the routes and taking notes. Last image is cleaned up

context garble:

I first thought of Cedar being the ghostly sickened apparition before I decided "mmm actually what if it was juicier if it was the apprentice before resurrection" and so Jin appearing in Julian's hallucination bit became real.

Also I thought it would be a cool point of Jin appearing in these kinds of hallucinations and flashbacks would be more clues to who Cedar was before they became Cedar.

And since in this scene it would be in Julian's warped fears, it would make more sense that Jin would appear instead of Cedar. (because Julian and Jin worked together and it's from his perspective/brain) And before I decided to cut Jin's hair shorter I did originally keep Jin's and Cedar's hair the same length.

Another extra stuff:

I wanted Jin to be the one to lead the crematorium project, it just happened that way because Jin wanted to stop being distracted at the palace and really try hard to help people in Vesuvia. But they slowly got consumed by what they were doing and the plauge, haha double meaning.

At the crematorium project I wanted Jin to be the one, or one of the few, to keep writing down victims names and details. Probably in hopes to give them dignity and maybe be able to contact living relatives of the death, or if the relatives are out of the country, then they can find their loved ones later. They kept doing it until they were too weak to keep it up. And they were sending off those lists to Julian at the palace.

Julian was also too busy in his own deal and slowly forgot about the papers and to check in. So the reports stopped and it was days or weeks before Julian learned that Jin was dead. Thus "I died from your neglect" while that's not really true because Jin also tried to hide their symptoms as much as they could.

[m1ckeyb3rry]

i think it’s the fact that he can go so many directions that makes it hard for me to write him argh i want to write him soooo bad. AND STOP free his haircut let him live only he can pull it off 😣

if you write for kaiser pls do something twisted i would be SO invested you don’t understand. and omg let me hear about that nagi plot pls pls

i def feel that HAHA i think in every fandom people will interpret characters in their own ways but some characters (ex rin, shidou, barou) tend to have pretty standard fandom characterizations from fic to fic (now whether i AGREE with these standard characterizations is a separate thing but at least they are consistent) and others can be completely diff depending on who the author is. i think kaiser (and to a lesser extent nagi and sae) is subject to the latter where everyone sees him in a slightly diff way so it’s hard to nail down which version of him YOU want to write yk.

AHHH i feel like kaiser is a really good character to write darker stuff for so i do think that if i wrote for him it would be a heavier story than what i’ve been putting out recently. and we shall ignore the haircut…tbh rooting for a kainess breakup because long hair kaiser/man bun kaiser is so MAJESTIC i think ness gives him the shitty haircut on purpose so he can gatekeep

nagi plot under the cut!! heheh it’s pretty convoluted and also atm just a bunch of rough notes on my ipad…i would have to try writing the first chapter a couple of times to see if it even flowed the way i wanted it to and to make the according adjustments if it was something w potential so even if i do ever end up writing this particular story the finished product might be very different than this!! that said i am in fact sharing the entire outline so i fear you will not be very surprised by any plot twists if i ever work on this or post it

basically it’s a mix of a couple of fics for other fandoms that i never got around to writing + some newer ideas that i have had!! the main cast of characters is ofc y/n and nagi but also rin is there!! and sae and reo but they’re secondary to the main trio

it starts off in a post-apocalyptic world overrun by monsters and which has a loose oligarchy-type government. y/n is the bastard child of duke l/n, who is the head of one of the influential government families. when she’s youngish (twelve or so??) her mother dies and officials attempt to arrest her for identity fraud when she claims that she must be sent to the l/n estate as they are her only surviving family. she manages to escape and learns how to use some weapon (either a sword or a spear idk atm) to kill monsters as she has a strong desire to protect those less fortunate than her, as well as to prove herself and one day find her father so she can have a family again.

on the other hand nagi is the eternal warrior (there would be a more researched title for him but atm this is my placeholder) whose original self was there 1000 years ago when the apocalypse began and was the only one able to fight back against the monsters when they appeared. he has been reincarnating (though WITHOUT his memories LMAOAO he’s not ancient i prommy he just looks the same/has the same name in every lifetime) and once people viewed him as a defender of the people, but a while ago the mikages (another one if the influential families) took custody of him and he’s basically been their enforcer for the past 100 years so people kinda hate him. he is kind of jaded and lonely after witnessing/causing so many deaths and he doesn’t see much of a point to life besides following whatever orders reo/the mikages give him and killing who he’s told to.

at some point nagi is told to kill y/n (it’s revealed eventually that it’s because duke l/n realized she’s out there and called in a favor w the mikages but we don’t know that at first) but instead of killing her he ends up saving her life. even he can’t explain why he took the initiative to disobey orders for the first time so he decides he’ll stick with her for the time being until he can figure it out (plus going back to the mikages isn’t really an option considering he’s gone against them)

while y/n + nagi are on the run, they meet rin, who is VERY confused about a lot of things. the itoshis are basically the family above all of the other families, and he’s supposed to be their heir, plus he has memories of having a great childhood with his parents and older brother, but for some reason he finds himself on the street with nothing but a note in his fist that says “don’t trust father and sae”. nagi and y/n decide that rin’s goals of trying to reclaim his position as heir and figure out the meaning of the note (which is in his own handwriting though he doesn’t remember it) align with theirs of finding duke l/n and. just chilling ig?? idk nagi is kinda there at that point HAHA. anyways so they all decide they’ll work together.

a bunch of stuff happens blah blah this entire part will come to me when i’m actually writing LMAOOO. anyways then it’s revealed that before getting thrown out, rin realized that if he ever got to close to asking questions/getting curious about the apocalypse, he’d suddenly forget what he was doing (in an unnatural way not just him being dumb), so he began writing down notes to himself to keep track of his suspicions. however he is found out and his notes are burned before he’s cast out and his memories selectively erased, though he managed to save the note telling him not to trust his family so that he didn’t end up falling into the same pattern again.

rin reveals that sae has the power to alter memories, and that he suspects the itoshis (plus the other influential families) also have some knowledge of how the apocalypse began and how it can be ended/the monsters gotten rid of for good. y/n reaches duke l/n but he rejects her and says he wishes he sent nagi after her sooner, and that he also regrets sending them any money at all because things would’ve been better if she would’ve died as a kid. nagi manages to round up the members of the influential families (#boyboss 😜) and sae has a change of heart from seeing rin again after so long; he says that there is a way that they can stop the apocalypse from ever happening, but that means that the influential families lose the power they obtained after the fall of the world, so they’ve been hiding it from everyone since they discovered it.

every generation, an itoshi is born with the power to wipe memories and send one person back in time. with that power, they could conceivably return to the beginning of the apocalypse and prevent it from ever happening. sae is the one with that power in the present and he decides that having wealth/whatever isn’t worth the destruction of the world, so he agrees to send back y/n, as he believes she has the best chance at managing to set things right.

y/n travels back in time and meets the first version of nagi, who ends up falling in love with her. unfortunately even before the apocalypse things were kinda unsettled as everyone realized Something was going to happened, and eventually a world war breaks out, which og nagi and y/n get involved in. y/n is fatally wounded at one point, but before she dies she manages to tell og nagi everything about the future and how he has to stop the box containing the beginning of the apocalypse from being opened. sadly og nagi invented being down bad and he is so distraught by her death that he opens the box and curses himself to the cycle of reincarnation so that he can meet her in the future.

y/n wakes up back in the future unsuccessful and also shocked that the one who started the apocalypse was nagi (even though current nagi has no clue about any of this). sae is furious that she wasted his power and didn’t actually accomplish anything, but at some point rin realizes he also has that power?? not the memory part he just can also send her back to the past…not sure why this is the case but it’ll come to me as i’m writing and hopefully not feel like an asspull DHSKSJSJ. anyways even though she’s lowkey traumatized y/n agrees to try one more time.

og nagi falls in love with her again ofc (we’re three for three here if you all are keeping track) but before the world war can break out, y/n kills nagi. he is understandably shocked but instead of being angry at her he tells her she must’ve had a reason and dies decently happy considering he was murdered for something he hadn’t even done yet 😭 because nobody else has the knowledge of where the box is besides y/n, the apocalypse is averted, and the world war is concluded in a relatively typical way instead of supernaturally, so life goes on as best as it can.

however, y/n is then stranded in that timeline of 1000 years ago, without anyone she knows (as og nagi is obviously dead and the others aren’t born yet). she can’t return to a future which doesn’t exist so she’s just stuck there for the rest of her life.

the epilogue is a series of letters she writes to nagi and rin, detailing her life and how she misses them. the last letter is addressed to nagi, wherein she explains that death is coming for her soon and she hopes that wherever she ends up next is the same place that he is. it’s kinda unclear whether she’s talking to og nagi or her nagi from the no-longer-future but you know me and my open endings 🤩 leaving it up to reader interpretation is my fav thing and i will do so at the slightest provocation

[sincelastsession]

Therapy went well I feel. I am looking in my inbox for the dissociative information you were gonna send me. I really need to find a printer that doesn't have cartridges that are a zillion dollars. I'd like to be able to print out things and put it in a bright colored big binder, I think that would help me not lose therapy papers. Adhd is a bitch to find loopholes for.

One thing my Dominant partner does is loophole my brain to stop when I'm in a worry spiral. I really want to know why on earth my brain stops the bullshit for him and not other ppl or myself. It just feels like my brain clicks into place. Sometimes if he has time we have a little play and he puts me in sub space. It feels like complete relief like I'm floppy relaxed and floating and I crave and chase that feeling. There's nothing that compares. The idea of letting anyone else dominate me is sickening. It gives me a break, it's like letting someone else drive when you're so exhausted from life. He isn't a perfect Dom because honestly as a woman that has been a Domme it's not easy to always accommodate your subs and we've had hiccups but I don't think I'd trade him out for anyone else in the D/s dynamic. We've been on a break from playing for a bit because of his lack of time which bums me out but I know he can't fix that currently and is having a hard time so I've been holding space and giving him praise and recognition for being there for me at the capacity he can be currently. I think he deserves it and I'm not fawning. Sometimes I worry he will be mad. This is a very irrational fear of mine. But I worry about even the calmest of men exploding at me. I think it stems from my dad issues and general bad experiences with men. Matt knows about my fears and keeps his anger generally private unless he's asking to vent about something and needing support which he rarely does these days. At a long distance I feel as safe with him as I would in person. There are people i've known longer than him but not all of them are safe. Very few are safe, even the most well meaning in my mind.

My ex is also protective of me.

I find it odd that the men that are sorta grouchy assholes to others see me and are like "I WANT THAT WEIRD GOBLIN CREATURE AND IM GONNA PROTECT IT" This trope is HILARIOUS to me. I literally don't understand why though. I can't complain.

Travis is going to take pto for the therapy appointment.

He got me an iPad from his work with a digital art program I've been wanting. He said it was because I'm doing a good job and handling things well. I told him he didn't have to but he said he wanted to and emphasized he didn't expect anything in return and just wanted to make me happy. I'm really grateful for a friend with no ulterior motives. He works at CACRC downtown and it's just a refurbished one, they sorta get their pick of things they aren't going to sell so he assured me it wasn't something I needed to even consider paying him back for lol because I'd been talking abt buying a used one.

I do wish sometimes I had feelings for Travis other than just a really good big brother type. I wish we could cuddle as friends however I don't feel comfy and he gets it. Sometimes he gets big hugs tho. He really deserves a good woman to be the maw maw to his paw paw. I have sorta made it a side mission to wing woman and introduce him to people so they can see his kind heart. He has been through addiction and homelessness and is part of the recovery circuit in the sense I could call and ask if we could "find a bed" for someone ready to get help.

I've told him he'd make a fine therapist and counselor for people with autism and drug addiction especially. I think you will see that.

I feel lucky to have such a supportive friend.

[cicada-dust]

engagement announcement

I'm engaged to my childhood best friend, we’ve known each other practically since we were born. We met in preschool our birthdays 48 days apart. Then 5 years later we both had new baby brothers 23 days apart. My younger brother and his became inseparable and throughout our childhood, we would become as close to each other as they were. Together we used to steal my grandma's iPad and create low-budget films on iMovie. Our backyards are the setting of thousands of hectic videos using up my grandma's storage. Eventually, the iPad stopped working and all of them are gone. Save one video of us running through the tall grass at the beach. We shout that there was a snake (there wasn't) and jump and hid, screaming. The video comes out of focus and my mum says Honey there's something wrong with the camera. Years before, we were enrolled in the same elementary school, Queen Anne Elementary. A 5-minute walk from my house and a 45-minute drive from his. His parents didn't want him to be lonely at the other schools, but despite the commitment for us to go to school from kindergarten to 3rd grade (when I left) we talked 4 times and looked at each other for a total of 13 times. We were still best friends just not in school. I had my 3 girlfriends and he had a group of friends, they would trade Pokemon cards behind the school during recess. Another matter was Maddie. She and I became friends in kindergarten despite going to different schools. I'm not actually sure how we met, but I do remember that we were terrified of her. Once she was missing for 2 weeks from school, she had told me she had gone to Antarctica and assuming it was warm (it was spring) she only packed tank tops and shorts. Coincidentally her parents forgot to check the weather forecast and also packed warm weather clothes. She had told me because of this honest mistake her father had frozen to death. It was almost a year after this when I found out her father was in fact alive. I never asked where she really went for the two weeks she was gone. Maddie had always been a possessive friend, and we had lived a few minutes away from each other. Me and Roland (the fiance) had drifted apart in the next couple years. He was shy and sometimes you had to meet him all over again when you saw him, awkwardly saying hello until it seemed it remembered you knew him. Then we would tear through his house with Nerf guns looking to torture our younger brothers. In middle school we stayed friends but more awkward than before, mostly being dragged by our brothers to see each other. During covid, we saw each other more often ditching online school for family cookouts. That summer I sat in my dad's office with my mum and my brother together reading. My dad walked to the world map tacked slightly crookedly onto the drywall. He pointed to a tiny neon orange island near Australia. He’d asked us if we knew what it was called. I was twelve at the time, and my brother seven. I had lived at 1914 Third Avenue North for as long as I could remember. My handprints were inlaid in our backyard along with with my name from when cement was being poured. On the side of the house buried a couple feet under were my brother's old Octonaut toys. Me and Roland had performed cult rituals on them and buried them in fear of getting possessed. My brother said he didn't know what the tiny neon orange country was called. I read the small black text and said ‘New Zealand’ giggling at my dad. He narrowed his eyes and asked if I had cheated which I fiercely denied. Two months later our house was empty and we boarded a plane to a tiny neon orange country. I awkwardly gave Roland a side hug. I never went back. But back to the engagement. I was 5 years old. Sitting underneath a play tent I asked him to marry me. He said yes. To be more accurate he said ‘I guess so’, but it didn't matter, we were engaged. I found his Instagram about 6 months ago I told him that we were still engaged. He didn't remember.

[subtextures]

Outsider Art (2014)

The other night I drove out to my sister’s house west of Austin to be included in 4th of July activities, since I have been home by myself for a few days. After I arrived, my sister and I talked about our children, books we are reading, and the illustrations she has been creating on her ipad for our joint art/poetry project we have been working on for the last seven months. Bill, her long time spouse, came downstairs talked a little about selling his trailer since he was getting out of the big stuff as they thought about selling their house of thirty years. Then we headed over to one of their neighbor’s homes for dinner and a place to watch the fireworks of the wealthy neighborhoods on the hillsides nearby.

            It was a pleasant evening for Texas at the beginning of summer. The host was a sculptor/potter whose house, with multiple units combining living space with a studio space, and a guest house to rent out for all of the special events in Austin, like SXSW or ACL. An architect friend of my sister’s designed the house; she was at the party as well. It was a creative group. Food was served, wine was poured, the fireworks were to be looked forward to.  Later, they dotted the sky to Ahh’s and oooh’s as the conversations continued beneath the jaunty explosions. Around 11, I sat down into a conversation my sister and one of her old fine arts instructor from the University were having. It was a pleasant conversation with talk of fellow students and the classes they were in together. It reminded me of a conversation I had with a fellow writer a few days before: how fun it is to talk about art and writing with people who actually create art and poetry and think about making art and poetry, and not about shaping it for sale.  Bill joined us, told one of his goofy zen jokes and answered yes when asked if he were an artist too. Bill creates art from things he finds, a true bricouler. He has pieces in a downtown hotel, and some of the “stuff” he found appeared as sculptures on a wall in a layout of Architectural Digest. Bill makes stuff, and does not worry about it after that. But no one knew that, they just looked at him and his goofy jokes.  Someone laughed and the old instructor said in what was almost dismissive, “oh, outsider art.” The conversation shifted as is the way with rivers and language; a couple of guitars were brought out as the fireworks slowed down; and a mixture of Robert Earl King and the Beatles almost became a sing-along: freedom in America.  After the party broke up and we headed back to my sister and Bill’s house we talked about the people, and the time, more than thirty years ago, when we were at university when Donna was in that instructor’s art class.

The question always comes up when you are talking to writers or artists you haven’t seen in awhile: So, you still writing, painting, building those crazy sculptures, working on your stuff? There is always a fear at the back of that question that one will stop. That one day, after being beaten on for so long, you will quit. That the effort to turn one’s work into yourself, while resisting paying-work’s effort to transform you into drudgery, is often too soul wrenching to bear. So you quit. There is nothing wrong with that; art is hard, or is supposed to be at least. But the assumption is always, that you have quit, even when you haven’t. So, eventually only a few people know and even less care. And even when you haven’t quit, the seriousness of your art is questioned: have you gotten published, do you have show, have you sold anything, started/finished your MFA, have you won any prizes or gone to any conferences, retreats? The work itself is never the conversation. When I was an academic, briefly, at two points in my life: one in literature, the other literacy, the conversation always revolved around other’s work, or office politics; not the work you were doing, somehow, that was made to seem unimportant. It is the credentials of one kind or another, which are important, to a very odd degree. What sent me down this trail of thought was the almost dismissive tone in the phrase “outsider art:” an outsider without credentials. I think “artists” who cling to anything other than the work are more on the outside of art than the “outsiders.” The concern they have is on how they are perceived, not how they perceive the work (art) they do.

I am not sure why this bothers me so much. It is hard to continue to write and produce art as you go through your day to day life. You shouldn’t take out your artistic insecurities by attacking others who are just as lost in the struggle to create as you are.

(July 5-6, 2014)

[totori9]

Electronics Intermittent Fasting

Y'all know what intermittent fasting is. You set a time block for when you eat, when you're not in that time block you fast.

Try the same thing with electronics!!!

What to do?

The technique:

Allot an 8 hour time slot during which you're allowed to use electronics.

Also:

1) Work is not excluded. If you work 8 hours a day on a screen, you'll either have to set your time block for those eight hours or use the screen less.

2) Electronics like a kettle, the oven, lamps,... are obviously always allowed.

3) Adapt to your needs. You'll likely still want to use messenger apps or music (in the background, e.g. while reading a book -> what matters is spending time on the screen directly).

That was all you need to know! For whatever reason, you can skip the example and jump straight to the conclusion.

Example

We use ipads in school, i. e. I need to use electronics by default. I can't use paper instead because that's very impractical!

So my time slot is from 8 am to 4 pm. Technically, school starts at 7:40 but for simplicity's sake I use 8. Most days, I'm not even home by 4 pm. Which means that I have zero phone/gaming time left!

I don't want that!! So what'd I do? First, let's look at my experience after roughly 3 weeks:

Checked on my phone games in school. Because I don't have much time and would rather socialize than spend time on my phone, I very quickly do what I need to do and then stop.

Stopped opening apps for no reason.

Downloaded interesting videos/articles to watch during commute.

Soooo bored!!!

Soooo much time!!!

Because of the above, I started picking up hobbies. When you're bored, you just have to do something. I read, drew, meditated, cleaned, baked, gardened, walked, jogged, worked out, thought, studied, ...

When I did get to spend time on my phone, which was like once a weekday and on the weekend, I somehow didn't want to. Even though I could've binged 8 hours straight, I spend majority of that time productively. Learned something, watched a documentary, or, when playing games, played with more awareness - no doing things just for the instant gratification, I actually thought about what I wanted to do and did just that. I didn't waste my time, I used it. Stopping also became easier.

One thing I allowed myself was one (1) YouTube video a day after having completed all tasks. BUT with a catch! I could only choose from my Watch Later (which is mostly really educational vids) and I had one minute to choose. Didn't even do this every day!

I want to say at this point: It was HARD. But I pulled through. I am so so so proud of myself!!!!! Before, I was on my phone literally the entire day, not kidding, every waking moment. Had to give my phone and laptop to my parents and hid the TV remote.

I was just super determined. I know exactly what I want in life, and I'm gonna get it, even through all my tears and fears and anxiety and problems. The thought of having had the chance of living my dream life and having thrown it away because of a stupid fucking fear scares me more than anything. I've been addicted before, I know that it's hard, and it's okay to fail. You just have to get back up and keep improving ever so slightly, always keeping in mind that you can and will get better.

Sheesh, 'twas heavy!

What would've definitely helped would've been a routine and set hobbies. BUT I'm still working on implementing those, so yeah, too bad I guess!

Conclusion

(Probable) Pros

More time

More mindful

More productive

More disciplined

Probably also happier

Cons

Less flexible in your usage (Not less flexible with emails/text messages)

Bored (Not really a con)

Thank you so much for reading!!! Bless you!!! Hope this helped, please try it out - what are your thoughts?

[quirkle2]

a boy and his bunny-owl-moth :)

[rafescoke]

Older ; Rafe Cameron

masterlist

Pairing: Rafe Cameron x reader

Summary: Maybe falling in love with a Maybank wouldn’t be too bad.

Warnings: Mentions of sexual abuse!, alcohol, getting intoxicated, sexual harassment, swearing, sweet Rafe Cameron

A/N: I don’t think this is my best fic, but let me know if I should continue this mini series!! thank you so much for 500+ followers, ily <33

p.s; you know the drill.. send requests!

(Y/N) wondered if a boy like him would ever like a girl like her.

It’s the soft touches against her skin, you see, that got her all worked up at work. She had a bad day at school, getting in a fight with her brother over not washing the dishes piling up in the sink, and there he was;

In his blue plaid shirt, his hair messily parted and that beautiful smile of his. He laughed at something the girl in front of him had said, and (Y/N) felt a pang of hurt across her heart.

“Go. Table 7.”

“What? I’m on my break!” She huffed, picking up her half-eaten sandwich and motioning it to the manager. “I have 10 minutes left.”

“We’re short of staff today,” he grunted, trying to balance the tray and an iPad on both hands. “Please.”

“Do I get more pay this month?”

“I’ll think about it,” he grumbled, and handed her the tray as she wrapped the sandwich again. “Oh, can you tell your brother that he’s fired? He didn’t come for his shift again today.”

“Not my problem,” she mumbled, taking the tray into her hands before proceeding to the diners. Her eyes swept over the many tables, and stopped at the seventh table from the front.

Fuck.

She swallowed her saliva, trying to contain her nervousness as she walked towards the table. She hoped against hope he wouldn’t notice her and continue to talk to whoever she was in front of him, but she wasn’t that lucky.

“Hey,” Rafe said softly, looking up to her. (Y/N) smiled weakly, not wanting to pull any attention towards her and hurried up to serve them.

“Hey, um-” the girl before him stopped her, and (Y/N) turned to look at her with her usual server smile. She hates it. “The pasta’s cold, can I get a new one?”

“Come on, Dee, it’s not that big of a deal,” Rafe said, but (Y/N) tried her hardest to maintain the smile. She couldn’t care less about her pasta, and she wouldn’t even bat an eye if an animal had crawled into her meal.

“I’ll reheat it for you,” she smiled fakely, picking up the plate before walking back towards the kitchen. Her smile completely disappeared when she pushed through the door separating the dining area and the kitchen, and proceeded to the cook.

“Another bitch?”

“Another bitch,” she sighed, and watched as the cook laughed and placed the pasta in the microwave. “You know, John, I really wish I don’t have to work in a restaurant.”

“It gives money, so I ain’t complaining much,” he mumbled, fiddling with the buttons on the stove. “But you’re still so young, mija. Don’t stress yourself too much. Where’s the brother?”

“JJ? I don’t know. He didn’t even come to school today. I wish he’s a better brother.”

“He is,” he shrugged, watching the timer counted down to signal the end of the reheating process. “He’s just ain’t showing it. They’ll appear.”

“What’ll appear?”

“The love.”

(Y/N) laughed, flatting her tray against the metal surface to let the cook placed the reheated pasta. “There’s no such thing as love, John. It’s all made up for little girls to believe.”

“Are you not a little girl?”

(Y/N) smiled, muttered a ‘thank you’ before proceeding to table number 7. She took a deep breath and forced herself to form the most politest smile ever, and placed the pasta in front of the girl, or Dee, or whatever Rafe was calling her.

“Thanks,” she muttered, not looking at her, but (Y/N) couldn’t help but noticed the side glance Rafe had given her during their brief meeting, but she didn’t want to dwell so much on that thought, not when she needed to make an amount of money to help put food for her family.

“You’re back late.”

“Sorry dad, I was working,” she sighed, placing her house keys on the table. “Have you eaten?”

Luke swatted his hands, motioning that he’s content. (Y/N) sighed a breath of relief, not feeling like making him anything and was just asking out of politeness.

“Your pants are a little bit tight today.”

(Y/N) stopped in her tracks and closed her eyes, the sudden wave of fear engulfing her. She bit her lips before turning to her father, “It’s the only pair I have left. The others are still in the laundry bag.”

“Hmm,” Luke hummed, his eyes still intently glued on the television screen. (Y/N) heard the soaring of a football game, and prayed it was his team that had won the match so that he wouldn’t be as cross.

“I’m going to my room, okay?”

“Wait-”

Her chest was heaving heavily now, being so afraid of her own father that she could feel her tears starting to form. She forced a weak smile, “Yeah?”

She didn’t realise how he had gotten up from his previous seat in front of the television, being so caught up with the warnings inside her head. He leaned onto her, smelling her scent, and tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear.

“You’re not out with any boys, are you?”

“No,” she whispered, and she gripped onto the hem of her work top. “Dad, can I please go?”

“Why are you so scared?” He continued, his pointer grazing against her ear to her cheeks. “I’m your dad, remember?”

“Dad?”

Luke pulled away from her and walked towards the television again when a certain blonde boy appeared from the front door, his eyebrows furrowed. JJ’s eyes followed his father’s movement, and ended at the sight of his sister.

The tightness in his body softened as he took a step closer to her, “You’re okay?”

“Yeah,” she mumbled, wiping the hot tears away from her face and giving him a weak smile. “I’m just going to stay in my room, okay?”

“Okay,” JJ said, watching as she walked slowly towards the back of the house. He glanced at his father, silent as ever, and muttered something under his breath before making his way to his room as well.

JJ Maybank hates Luke Maybank more than anything else in the world, but he also loves him more than anything else in the world. He had wished for nothing else other than his father actually being a father figure for (Y/N), if not him. He could see how much she needed Luke to become some kind of a guardian.

Every time there was a PTA meeting, it had been John to come and see her teachers. John had joked a lot of times before, saying how he’s going to adopt her one day, and when JJ was just 14, he used to get so overprotective of his sister that he would pull a face and gesture some kind of a rude word at him.

But if that's what it takes for her to finally be safe, he’s willing to lose her.

“Hey,” JJ knocked on her door softly, and he waited quietly to hear her shuffle of movements. He waited a few more seconds, and when heard the lock unlocking, forced himself a smile.

“Do you want to go to the bonfire party tonight?” He asked, raising his eyebrows to motion how serious he was. JJ never liked bringing (Y/N) to see the other pogues, and he had tried to assure himself that it was because of how she’s a year younger, but he couldn’t deny the real truth;

(Y/N) knew about his huge crush towards Kie, and the last time she hang out with them resulted into him having to tackle her down before she could say anything to the girl.

“Is Kie not coming or something?” (Y/N) made a face, but JJ could see the happy glint in her eyes.

“Can you drop that topic already?” He sighed, “Are you coming or not?”

“Um-” she glanced at something behind her back, sighed, and nodded slowly. “Okay. I guess I could use some time off schoolwork.”

“Don’t stress too much about school,” JJ shrugged, “You’re still 17.”

(Y/N) rolled her eyes, “Can you go, now? And oh, you’re fired by the way.”

“They love me, they’ll hire me again,” JJ shrugged, and gave her another comforting smile before making his way back to his room. “You know you can always tal-”

“No, I don’t know,” she groaned playfully, closing the door against his face as JJ laughed. His heart soared, and he swore he would do anything in his will to protect his sister from their father, heartbreak, or whatever.

. . .

“I missed you!” Kie exclaimed, pulling her into a hug and giving her a kiss on her cheeks. “God, you’re taller than me now.”

(Y/N) glanced at her brother, to which he was motioning his thumb against his neck, trying to tell her that he would kill her if she says anything to the girl. (Y/N) laughed, “I missed you too, Kie.”

(Y/N) situated herself beside Pope, watching as he flicked through his Chemistry text book, and scribbled something a note on one of the pages.

“Isotopes has the same number of protons but different number of neutrons,” (Y/N) mumbled, pointing to false knowledge he’ve written. Pope looked at her, amazed, and let out the loudest laugh ever that JJ had to scream from the front for him to shut up.

“Shit, (Y/N),” he continued to laugh, erasing his mistake and jotting down the correct information. “And you’re younger. Do you hear that JJ?”

“What?” JJ yelled back, his eyes focusing on the road.

“Maybe you should be as clever as your sister,” Pope laughed, and Kie gave him a high-five from the front seat. He turned to look at her again, “Where’d you learn that?”

“JJ’s text book.”

Pope laughed, his head shaking at the thought of JJ sleeping while his sister sneaked into his room to steal his text book. He finally understood the reason why he was always in detention for not bringing his book.

“Stay close, and don’t wander away,” JJ warned, staring straight into her eyes. She laughed at his tone, but her smile disappeared when he pulled her again.

“I mean it, (Y/N).”

“Are you seriously turning into dad, now?”

“Don’t mention his name,” he sighed, fixing his hair and walking before him with his friends. “Just stay close, okay?”

(Y/N) rolled her eyes, already seeing how boring her night was going to be; trying to understand the inside jokes between JJ and his friends, not being allowed to drink any alcohol and is going to be constantly asked to fix her ribbed top so not much of her skin is exposed.

She sighed, following her brother, but as soon as they got further away she felt the need to just hang out, maybe searching for her friends and getting a drink for herself. She was never a fan of alcohol, so JJ really didn’t have to worry about her getting drunk.

“You’re (Y/N), right?”

(Y/N) looked up to a pair of gorgeous green eyes, and she felt her heart sink. She looked away, not expecting her best friend’s boyfriend, and sighed.

“What do you need, Carter? I’m looking for Emily too.”

“Oh, she’s not coming,” he shrugged, standing beside her. She felt the sudden warmth and scooted further, not wanting to allow any attention towards her. “Something about a stomach ache.”

“Why aren’t you resting with her?” She pulled a look, crossing her arms. She didn’t want to talk to him or even look at him, but he didn’t seem to get that note.

“And pass up this year’s bonfire party? Nah,” he sipped on his red cup, and leaned against her. She could feel his lips beside her ear now, “Wanna get a drink?”

“I don’t drink.”

“Come on,” he expressed, throwing his arms up into the air in fake exasperation. “It’s a party. You cannot enjoy a party without being drunk.”

“Hm,” she shrugged, still not interested. She thought about what else she could say to get him away from her. “Worth trying, I guess.”

“You are damn impossible to please, Maybank,” Carter laughed, showing his pearly white teeth. (Y/N) smiled at this, taking the statement into a compliment, and made to walk away. He grabbed her wrist before she could get away, and she sighed in annoyance.

“One drink,” he smiled. “And I’ll leave you alone.”

(Y/N) thought about this, long and hard, and the sudden thought of wanting to be free for once entered her mind. She gave him a small nod.

“One drink.”

“One drink,” he confirmed, and pulled her to the drinks section. (Y/N) waited for him to get her a drink, her eyes swarming over the sea of people dancing, some talking, some already kissing and some just standing. This was her third bonfire party in Obx, and the party didn’t get any boring.

“Here you go,” Carter appeared, placing the red cup into her hands. “Let’s chug it down together. Are you ready? 1, 2, 3!”

(Y/N) scrunched up her face at the strong taste of vodka, feeling her throat burning. It felt good though, especially when you are in need to forget some hesvy things in your mind.

“What do you say?” Carter smiled, “Want more?”

“I’ll try more,” she laughed, giving him the cup as he muttered ‘I told you so’ and came back with another cup. They counted together again, and (Y/N) never felt better after drinking an intoxicating drink.

She didn’t remember why she never liked alcohol, but at that moment, she felt like drinking her money and family issues away. She didn’t even realise when Carter had placed his arms around her, telling her humourless jokes that she laughed at anyways.

“Wanna go to my car?”

“Huh?” She looked at him, half-smiling and half-frowning. She was at her 7th cup now, but being a lightweight person, she felt like she was on her 30th cup. “What for?”

“Driving around town,” he smiled, standing up and offering his hand. “Wanna drive around with me?”

“Just you?” She mumbled, closing her eyes. She could feel his arms around her, trying to help her walk, but she didn’t have enough energy to push him away. If anything, she was glad he had brought her away from the loud music that made her dizzy.

“Where’s the car?” (Y/N) whined, feeling her arms hurting from the rough grip by Carter. She could hear the crunch of twigs under her feet, and when she finally had an ounce of power to see her surroundings, she saw the empty car park near the beach.

“Carter, I don’t feel so good,” she said, trying to push him away. The grip around her tightened, and she had never felt so panicked as she was at that time. She tried to calm down, still looking for anyone who can help her, but the parking lot was deserted.

“Carter, I can walk,” she tried again, but he didn’t let go. She understood the whole situation clearly now, and wished she had stayed with JJ and his friends instead of wandering around by herself.

“Hey, hey, hey.”

Carter stopped walking, cursing while he turned to look at the voice behind him. (Y/N) grunted, feeling her arms bruising, and she couldn’t even glance up to see who it was that saved her. She could feel her eyesight getting darker as she leaned on Carter for some type of balance.

“Where are you going?”

“None of your business,” Carter groaned, still holding her by his side. “Don’t you have anything to do? Like golf, or something.”

“Nah,” the voice replied, and (Y/N) perked up at the way his voice sounded. It was all so familiar to her. . .

“Look, Cameron, just go, okay? I’m not in your business, so stay out of mine,” Carter huffed, walking backwards slowly. “And she’s with me, right, (Y/N), you’re with me?”

“Let her go, man,” Rafe sighed, “I’m making it easy for you. Let her go.”

“Come on, I’m not letting you take her with you,” he shrugged, “Rafe. I swear. You don’t want to mess with me.”

“Aren’t you a little bit too old for her?” Rafe raised a brow, “Aren’t you my age, or something?”

“Fuck!” Carter yelled, and (Y/N) gasped from the sudden pain coursing through her veins at the jerk. “Go and fuck off.”

“You’re not leaving me a choice, man,” Rafe said, and before anyone could process, Carter was down to the ground, yelling at Rafe for him to stop as he kept throwing punches after punches, his forehead creasing and his knuckles ripping.

(Y/N) groaned from the ground, unable to get up, and she swore he had drugged her. She was never this weak, not even when she was sick, and she hated how she couldn’t even lift a finger.

“Don’t fucking touch her again!” Rafe yelled, spitting on the groaning boy as he grunted against the pain, his knuckles all bruised up and bloody.

“Hey, you’re okay?” Rafe asked, helping her to her feet. (Y/N) nodded, still so weak, and wrapped her hands around his arms as he watched her limped.

“You know what? Let me carry you,” he sighed, looking at the previous space where he had had a fight with Carter. He was nowhere to be seen now, and Rafe didn’t think he could fight him off for the second time, not when he’s tired.

“I can walk,” she mumbled, trying to push him off, but even a second after he let her go she tripped onto the road, and grunted at her burning knees. “My knees, oh my god, I’m in so much pain!”

“Let me carry you,” he sighed again, squatting to her level. She looked so sad, pouting her lips and her eyebrows all scrunched down. She shook her head when he tried to hold her, crossing her arms.

“(Y/N), let me carry you.”

“I don’t even know you!” She spat, her eyes glassy and her cheeks red. Rafe didn’t know she would be like this when she was drunk, but he couldn’t deny the amusement he was feeling.

“Of course you know me,” he tried again, slowly wrapping his fingers around her wrist. “It’s Rafe.”

“I don’t know any Rafe.”

“It’s Rafael Cameron,” Rafe rolled his eyes, cringing at the sound of his full name. He never liked the name, saying how it made him look like some type of a knight in 1823, but it was one of the only memories left of his real mother.

“I know a Rafael,” she nodded. “But he don’t look like you.”

“(Y/N), let’s just go before some creep decides to kidnap you,” he pulled her up, to which she obliged at the sound of ‘kidnapping’. “I’ll send you to your house, okay?”

“No!” She pulled him close, hugging him tightly that he was too stunned to react. His arms weren’t even touching her, stopping midway, and he only hugged her back when she cried.

“He’s gonna be mad at me,” she whimpered, tugging on his collar. “And he’s going to beat me up and-”

“Wait, wait, who?” He pulled her off, watching as she looked at him with those eyes again. Rafe furrowed his eyebrows, his chest heaving. “Does JJ do-”

“Not JJ,” she cried, and pulled him towards a random car. “Can I please just stay with you until the next morning? Please.”

“Are you sure?” Rafe looked around, and he thought about Dee who was waiting for him at the party. He shook his head at the thought, not wanting to put her first. “We can stay somewhere else?”

(Y/N) nodded frantically, and Rafe thought about the truth behind all of her words. She was never this miserable, looking all happy when he sees her at the restaurant, taking orders with that goddamn smile and laughing at the unfunny jokes old men would give her just for some tips.

Without him knowing, the restaurant by the bay became one of his top favourite restaurants, but it wasn’t because of the food. Rafe never really liked their steaks, always preferring the one closer to the country club, but he was willing to put aside his cravings for that one certain waitress.

“Okay,” he nodded, leading her to the jeep parked a few cars away. She looked so tired, her hair messily tucked behind her ears, her makeup smudged, and Rafe felt a sudden wave of relief for being there in the parking lot to grab his phone in the car.

The drive was silent, and Rafe even thought that she had gone to sleep. When he looked at her from the corners of his eyes, he was surprised to see her silently staring at the dark view outside, unmoving.

He parked outside of the hotel he usually goes to when he’s in need for some alone time, checking the time on his phone before helping her out. She didn’t say a word to him, keeping her head down, only inching closer when they were on their way up to their room.

(Y/N) never been to a fancy hotel like this, only staying in a small hotel in Spain with her aunt 4 summers ago, so she was quite bewildered when she looked around the room. She bit her lips, staring at the one queen bed, and turned to look at him.

“Are we sharing a bed?”

“Oh, no, we don’t have to,” Rafe quickly said, trying to calm her down. “I think you should sleep it off. I’ll stay on the sofa.”

“Okay, thanks.”

But she couldn’t close her eyes. Every time she tried to sleep it off, she would think about Luke with his hands around her face, forcing her to look up to his eyes and whispering sweet-nothings into her ear. JJ never knew about this, and (Y/N) never wanted to tell him out of fear and disappointment, so she had been keeping the secret for a really long time.

“Rafe?”

“Hmm?”

“Thanks for bringing me here.”

“It’s nothing,” he huffed, and (Y/N) heard him shift. The sound of a pillow hitting the floor blared throughout the dark room, and (Y/N) felt bad about letting him sleep on the sofa, especially when he was the one who had brought her to the hotel.

“You can stay in the bed with me.”

“Really? I can’t do that.”

“Why?” She asked, because she really didn’t mind sharing a bed with Rafe Cameron. It wasn’t like she was going to attack him.

“Just because.”

“Is it because you don’t like me?” She asked, and she heard an amused laugh coming from the sofa.

“Trust me, you’re wrong on that one,” he replied simply, and (Y/N) had to think of what he said again.

Wrong?

“Is it because I’m a minor?”

“We’re only 2 years apart.”

“So what’s the problem?” She pressed, because she couldn’t understand why he couldn’t just sleep on the same bed as her. They didn’t have to be all pushed up to each other. . .

“Because,” he sighed, “I’m scared.”

“Of what?”

“Of stuff.”

“Rafe, I don’t understand,” she closed her eyes, her mind woozy from the back and forth fight with the boy.

Rafe sighed again, licking his lips before standing up from the sofa. “Okay, but I’m not a creep, okay?”

“So it is because I’m a minor,” she nodded to herself, and she felt a sudden wave of disappointment. If only she was a year older.

“Whatever,” he breathed, trying to get the best position under the covers. He felt her fingers and quickly pulled his hand away, his heart beating.

“You’re weird.”

“I just said I’m scared,” he shrugged, and finally settled comfortably. He felt so much better now, not having to pull his legs together and crossed his arms just to fit on the sofa.

“What if I do want you to sleep with me on the bed?”

“Shut up,” he groaned.

“No, Rafe, what if I do want you-”

“Shut up before I make you.”

(Y/N)’s eyes went wide, and she thought of the many times she had repeated this exact line in a movie and how she had romanticised her own scenario to that line. She never thought of Rafe Cameron as the protagonist, only imagining Timotheé Chalamet and no one else.

“You’re still drunk, okay?” He suddenly said, and (Y/N) bit her lips at his exasperated tone. “I don’t want to take advantage of you. I’m not Carter.”

“Okay,” she said softly, “I didn’t ask for you to fuck me, though.”

“Really? You’re begging for it right now.”

“I just want you to get comfortable.”

“Hm.”

“You’re full of yourself.”

“Yeah? You should see the eyes you give me at the restaurant,” he replied simply, and he could feel himself thinking of her slightly narrowed eyes, looking straight at him.

He shifted his position, placing a pillow against his front.

“Why didn’t you act on it?”

“Oh god, we’re still on this?” He grunted, “Go to sleep.”

“Why wouldn’t you want to fuck me?”

“Jesus Christ,” he muttered, and before she could think about anything else to say to him next, he had pulled her shoulders so that she could look at him.

She squinted against the darkness, using the moonlight as a source of light to stare into his beautiful blue orbs.

“I would fuck you, but I won’t do it when you’re drunk.”

“I’m not drunk.”

“You are, because-” he grazed his thumb against her bottom lip, and she had to hold her breath. “You’re not this open to me when you’re sober.”

“Isn’t it more fun, though? To fuck when you’re drunk?”

“I’d only do that if you’re my girlfriend.”

“So can I be your girlfriend?”

“I’ll think about it tomorrow,” he smiled, and pushed her back to face the ceiling. “Now sleep.”

“What if I want to become your girlfriend now?”

“JJ will kill me.”

“Can you kill him back?”

“(Y/N),” Rafe sighed, being so tired of going back and worth with her on this. Of course he wanted to touch her, more than anything else in the world, but he couldn’t do it when she was in a state like this. “Go to sleep.”

“Okay.”

“Okay. Good girl.”

“Okay.”

He waited a few more minutes, ready to answer any remarks, but what came after was only her soft snores. He sighed in relief, leaning on his arms as he stared at her. He watched as her chest heaved peacefully, feeling all kinds of emotions at once, and he finally realised the truth;

This time he wasn’t playing; Rafe Cameron would never bring a girl to a fancy hotel for nothing other than sex, but here he was; refusing her teasings, and keeping her safe. It finally hit him; he would bring (Y/N) anywhere if that’s the only way to keep her smile.

He shut his eyes, making a mental note to make fun of her drunk state in the morning.

#Part 2

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taglist is closed atm! :(

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[littlespoonevan]

Flipped version of buddie in the gym in 4x04 👀

i mean since u asked....

(also ok when i meant flipped i didn’t necessarily mean eddie angry and buck not. i meant more buck being the calm to eddie’s metaphorical storm just to be clear aksdjfh)

-

Eddie sits on the bench in the locker room staring at his shaking hands. It’s just the adrenaline leaving your body, he reminds himself. It’s been a long shift.

The longest fucking shift of his life.

LA really had to have the worst blackout in the last twenty years on his first day back, didn’t it? He feels shame and fear well up inside him as he thinks of the elevator. The way his chest constricted so tightly he thought his lungs would explode, the way he clung to the sound of Buck’s voice through the radio and then clung to the man himself when they’d finally managed to pry the doors open.

As if summoned by Eddie’s thoughts, Buck drops down on the bench next to him, knocking their shoulders together gently. Eddie doesn’t look at him, can’t yet, and clenches and unclenches his fingers. It doesn’t stop the shaking.

“You alright?” Buck asks softly. So softly, like a gentle breeze could knock Eddie over and he hates that. Hates that he still feels so weak after all this time.

“I was supposed to be okay,” he says hollowly, finally balling up his hands into fists and setting them on his lap.

Buck doesn’t answer right away but Eddie can feel him shift beside him. “Well,” he says slowly, “speaking as the person who watched you get shot, I’m definitely not okay. So I’d be really surprised if you were.”

That makes Eddie look up. Buck’s stare is unwavering, expression plain and open, and Eddie feels a twist of guilt knot itself up inside him even though he knows it’s not his fault Buck was there. Hell, he’s lucky Buck was there. He wouldn’t be alive if he hadn’t been.

“You’re not?” he asks, voice cracking over the words.

“No,” Buck tells him, reaching out and taking one of Eddie’s trembling hands to lock it with his own. “I’m pretty sure Dr Copeland considered blocking my number after all the emergency sessions I called her for in the two weeks after you got shot.”

That makes Eddie blink. Buck had been staying with him back then and while he’d definitely disappeared into Eddie’s room or the backyard a few times with his iPad Eddie hadn’t realised it was to talk to Dr Copeland.

“Having you back at work-” Buck starts then. “I’m glad you’re back because I missed my partner and it felt wrong being here without you but- Eddie, I’ve been so fucking terrified of you getting hurt for the past 24 hours you have no idea.”

Eddie huffs out a tired laugh, leaning into Buck’s shoulder a little more. “It helped, knowing you were there.” He glances down at their joined hands resting on Buck’s knee before flicking his gaze back up to meet Buck’s eyes. “You’re always there.”

A slow smile spreads across Buck’s face and he bumps their shoulders again. “You can’t get rid of me that easy, Diaz.”

“Wasn’t trying to,” Eddie murmurs. In fact, he’s pretty sure he’s been trying to do the opposite this whole time.

Something flickers in Buck’s expression but it’s gone before Eddie can decipher what it was. Then Buck is tugging on his hand a little and making like he’s about to stand. “Come on. Let me take you home.”

Eddie thinks about Buck driving him to get Christopher after the earthquake, thinks about himself driving Buck and Chris home after the tsunami, thinks about Buck driving him home after the hospital four months ago and thinks this is probably where they’re always going to end up.

Maybe one day they’ll just give up on the pretence altogether and start taking one car.

He lets Buck pull him to his feet and reaches for his gear bag before they make their way out of the locker room.

He doesn’t let go of Buck’s hand.