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classysassy9791 · 4 years

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Ch. 1

Chapter 2 Word Count: 4,100 Can also be found here

"I want you to be strong, like I know you can."

Dawn crested over the horizon, awakening the small animals that scurried out from beneath the thicket as birds of song flew overhead. The warmth of the sun kept away the early morning chill in the air, as a young boy began to rouse from sleep, tucked away in the midst of long, golden fields. He nuzzled his face further into the soft fur beneath his head, sighing deeply with content.

"Come, son," a deep voice spoke, as they nudged the boy's chin to keep the dreams at bay.

Squinting against the intruding sunlight, Shippou lazily opened his eyes to be greeted with the clear blue skies above. Wisps of clouds rolled lazily by and he could hear the croaking of a toad from the nearby pond. He tightened his hand into a fist and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, his mouth opening in a deep yawn. .

The wet nose retracted from his face. "Day has approached. It's time to wake."

Bright green eyes opened fully to peer up at the demon above him. Armor covered his golden fur, which shimmered in the sun, and his brown gaze held the warmth of fire.

"Father?" Shippou whispered, stretching his arms over his head.

The fox demon chuckled and waited for the boy to rouse completely. "Sleeping the day away is not a wise decision, Shippou. There is still much to learn before the Fox Demon Promotional Exams."

He nodded mutely and slowly stood, causing his shaggy auburn hair to fall into his eyes. His father uncurled his tail from around him and padded out from beneath the tree they had slept under for the night. "Of course, Father," Shippou replied sleepily, shaking his head to clear away the remaining drowsiness. He felt more tired than usual, he noted dully.

It took another few minutes before he was fully awake, and during that time excitement slowly began to build within his chest. Training had always been his favorite part of the day. He couldn't wait to become a great demon – he would grow up to be big and strong, just like his father!

Suddenly, a loud thump came from behind him, causing him to jump wildly. He cried out dramatically, quickly finding cover behind his father's hind paw, his heart thumping rapidly in his chest as fear crept over him like a winter's chill. His father gave out a big-bellied laugh as Shippou noticed the dead rodent laying at their feet. The tall grass parted, revealing a beautiful fox demon. With her humanoid features and copper-colored hair pulled back by a blue ribbon, it was obvious which parent Shippou took after. Upon recognizing her, the small fox demon visibly relaxed and sighed with relief.

"My, that is not the way for a warrior to act." His father chuckled.

"But I'm just a kid," he argued begrudgingly, puffing out his cheeks while his arms crossed over his chest.

Kind, emerald eyes flickered over him, lips pulled into a smile. "Oh dear, you sure are spirited this morning." Her laughter rang like the tinkling of bells. "Shall you eat breakfast before your training? I'm sure no warrior will fight well without a proper meal."

He grinned ear-to-ear at her words, his previous annoyance already forgotten. "Of course, Mother," he answered cheerfully.

He scampered over to her, eager and ready to satisfy the hunger gnawing at his stomach. But when he glanced up, no longer did the beautiful fox demon stand before him. Instead, she had been replaced by the image of a human girl. Obsidian hair spilled softly over her shoulders and she dressed in a strange, white and green outfit. Most of her face was shadowed, darkened, but he could see the up-turn of her lips, the grace of her smile. She waved to him, his name a whisper, "Shippou."

Perplexed, Shippou quickly shut his eyes and shook his head. He must be seeing things, and he was, for when he looked back at his mother's confused expression, the human girl had disappeared.

"Is everything all right?" the female fox prodded gently, concern evident in her voice.

He wasn't sure what to think, but decided to chalk it up as some kind of illusion. He nodded his head curtly and grinned. "Yeah, everything's great!"

As the small family sat around their morning meal, Shippou found his mind elsewhere, studying the pretty girl in his head. He couldn't remember ever meeting someone like that before, so why did she appear to him now? Furthermore, who exactly was she? The human appeared nothing like the villagers he had seen, and didn't resemble a holy person either.

However, he couldn't help but notice the longing in his heart and the sting of tears threatening to spill down his cheeks. He closed his eyes to bring forth the image of her once more, but he couldn't. It was as if she had never existed.

. . .

The rich smell of damp leaves permeated the forest as wisps of silver-gray steam curled and danced their way through the air, as if excited to escape the gentle pull of the hot springs. Water splashed quietly over tiny falls as an owl hooted nearby. Eerie noises always accompanied the night, but in the warmth of the springs, it felt like a little safe haven.

Shippou giggled with glee as he jumped off the rocky edge and into the water. A small splash sent a cascading wave over his mother and father, the latter of whom roared with laughter. In this moment, it became the most perfect memory of his family, and Shippou would cling to it for a long time. It was the way his family should always be.

In that snapshot, the undamaged personality of his family was so golden and sacred; he wanted to keep it forever.

"Calm down, Shippou," his mother chastised him from her place against the rocks, holding up her hands to defend against another splash. "There is no need to be so playful."

"Let him play," his father contended with a grin. "He will only be a boy once. He should enjoy it." He growled happily and nudged his mate's cheek with his nose.

Shippou snickered, watching as his parents loved one another.

"Yeah, Mama," he joked. "I'm just a kid."

That earned him a playful glare from his mother, whose next words quickly died on her tongue by her mate's kiss. Heat crept up Shippou's neck as he glanced away, embarrassed by his parents' show of affection.

It wasn't uncommon for them to be tender toward one another. He considered it normal for his family, but as he grew older, he found himself wondering if he would ever have those feelings. He didn't have any friends, but his father assured him he would meet plenty of other fox demons once he entered into the Fox Demon Promotional Exams. Ever since then, he only dreamt about all the other foxes he would meet.

Shippou turned on his back and floated on top of the hot springs. The water moved softly around his outstretched fingers, caressing them warmly, moving circularly in their wake. He pulled his hand back and watched the drips, both transparent and opaque from the steam.

He glanced upward, his eyes ghosting over the half-moon night, accompanied by a flurry of stars. They illuminated the darkness, bordered by tall tree branches overhead. It was another perfect evening, so innocent and full of love. His parents' mumbled conversation could be heard in the distance, but as he dunked his head into the water, their voices became muffled completely.

He closed his eyes and simply floated beneath the water, letting his mind wander to everything and nothing.

"Think of all the fun things you can do when there's two of you," he heard himself say.

"Listen kid…" a gruff voice replied with annoyance.

"Mom and dad and I always took baths together, and we had a really great time."

"Remind me to explain it to you when you're a bit bigger."

His eyes shot open in alarm and he struggled to the surface of the pond. He pushed through the water into the steamy air above, gasping for breath. He quickly glanced around the hot springs, his eyes darting between the rocky shores, but there was nobody there.

"Is everything all right, Son?" his mother called, worried from where she sat upon one of the rocks.

His chest heaved as he drew in breath, blinking against the water dripping from his bangs. What was that just now? The conversation felt so real… surely he had never said those things. And that gruff voice… where had it come from? Who had it belonged to?

"Son," his father said sternly, moving through the water toward him. "What's wrong?"

Shippou quickly shook his head and gave his father a shaky smile. "N-Nothing's wrong. Everything's fine."

The elder fox demon gave him a skeptical look, but finally exhaled deeply before returning to his mate's side.

His head whirling from what he had experienced below the water, Shippou couldn't help the fear creeping up his spine. That vision, those voices… it felt almost as if he was remembering something, a figment of his imagination long forgotten.

Was that truly what it was? A memory?

. . .

The adrenaline flooded his system, right into his blood. He felt like his heart would explode and his eyes were wide, letting in every ounce of the fading light. His body wanted to either run fast for the hills or work to find some kind of weapon, but instead he stayed perfectly still right where he knelt. Sometimes freezing became the best choice, and in reality, he only had three choices anyway.

Shippou fought to quell the hammering in his chest, but he knew that would never happen. He watched through the brush carefully as he hid behind a tree, his ears alert to the surrounding forest life. He didn't regret coming. It had been his mission, after all. But he wondered why he felt so scared? No other demons seemed to be. Maybe they were, he silently noted. Maybe they were scared all the time. Perhaps that was the definition of bravery.

An agonized howl reached into the darkening sky as rain fell from the heavens.

Shippou blinked away the memory, shaking his head to regain focus. Suddenly, golden light from ignited fire appeared a few paces to the east. His adrenaline surged so fast, he almost vomited. He could feel the saliva thickening in his mouth as he swallowed past the hard lump in his throat. At some point, he would have to move, but he was frozen in absolute terror.

"I'm just a kid," he whispered aloud into the night air, his voice trembling even to his own ears. "Why me?"

"Come out, little fox," a grating voice taunted through the forest. "I know you're here somewhere."

The demon drew closer. Shippou squeezed his eyes shut as he battled with himself to move. He could feel his legs shake beneath him and his hands were no better.

"Father," he cried out softly.

"It's okay to be afraid, Shippou. Without fear, there would be no courage. A strong demon knows when to run and when to fight."

"R-Right," the fox kit mumbled, opening his eyes. "I have to be strong."

With a deep breath, he ventured from his hiding spot and sped through the forest, his heart pounding as he heard his pursuer's quickening footsteps behind him. He had to think of something. His mind racked over all his fox magic and tricks, contemplating which one to use. Time was running out. He needed to make a decision fast.

Furrowing his brows, he jumped up and climbed the trunk of a tree high into its branches. From there, he could have a better vantage point of the forest floor. He rested one arm over his bent knee, waiting quietly for his opponent. His abilities were not very strong yet, and they were mostly for defensive maneuvers, but he had to try.

Blood splattered against the ground, staining it red.

"Little fox," the demon called out again, coming to stop just beneath him. His snake-like tongue flickered out of his mouth to taste the air. "I can smell your fear. You're here somewhere."

Shippou gulped, taking out a small top from an inside pocket. "Here goes nothing," he whispered. "Smashing top!"

In one fluid motion, he threw the top straight toward the green, lizard demon, which looked up with wide-eyes. The top grew in size, spinning and causing a large wind to encompass them. It landed straight on the demon's head, forcing him to crumple to the ground.

Wasting no time, Shippou threw a ball of blue fire from his hand, surrounding the spinning top with flames. It spread and spun in a dizzying fashion, setting the strong wind around them on fire. It seemed to stop the demon for the time being, but unfortunately it was only an illusion and wouldn't hold him for long.

Shippou turned and jumped along the surrounding trees, galloping across the branches to put distance between him and his opponent. When he could barely feel the rush of the wind from his attack, he dropped to the forest floor and placed a leaf upon his head. "Transform!"

In a cloud of smoke, he vanished, and in his place stood a young man who looked like any ordinary villager. He quickened his pace through the trees, praying he somehow tricked the demon in order to make his escape.

His father knelt down, clutching a body to his chest, as auburn hair spun softly over his arm, a blue ribbon shifting with the breeze.

"I have to be strong," he muttered to himself, memories of that dark day swirling through his mind. I need to protect the ones I care for. I need to—

His thoughts were cut short as a slimy claw wrapped around his body, the ground disappearing beneath him, bringing a shriek from his throat as his disguise vanished and reverted him back to his small, fox demon self.

"Let me go!"

The demon picked him up to look at him, tongue hanging out as thick saliva dripped from his mouth. "Thought you could fool me?" he sneered, eyes narrowing with rage.

"Don't eat me!" Shippou begged as he clenched his eyes shut, pushing and tugging against the claws that held him in its grasp. "I don't even taste good!"

A sudden howl of laughter reached his ears, startling the kit. He opened an eye, peering curiously at the demon. "You've done well, Shippou."

The demon suddenly began to shrink, changing back into its original form as a mere toy, and Shippou was released onto the ground. A large, fox demon appeared and picked it up, stuffing it back into the pocket of his vest. He chuckled at the boy's annoyed glare. Shippou puffed out his cheeks and crossed his arms over his chest.

"That was playing dirty, Father," he grumbled.

"Nonsense," the elder fox demon claimed, setting his hands on his hips. "I told you I wasn't going to hold back."

"You didn't have to be so scary," he argued, a blush dusting the bridge of his nose. "Besides, how can I defeat that terrifying of a monster? I'm not that strong yet."

"But you will be one day. I'm simply preparing you for what to expect when the time comes."

Shippou tugged at the blue ribbon that held his hair back, letting his fingers linger on it, before pulling away and straightening out the rest of his clothes. "I'm never going to be ready at this rate."

His father scooped him up in his arms and placed him on his shoulder. "You will be," he assured as they ventured toward home. "We just need to train a little harder."

"Great job on that lizard demon, Shippou."

Emerald eyes wide, Shippou quickly scanned the forest in search of the owner of the voice. It felt so familiar, and yet the trees surrounding them were empty. Only he and his father were present, leaving the kit to wonder if he had even heard the man's voice at all.

"Yeah," he finally replied distractedly to his father's statement, looking down into his hand. He clenched and unclenched his fist, mulling over the voice before chalking it up to a figment of his imagination.

But he couldn't deny that he felt a little surer of himself.

. . .

Sun filtered through the green canopy above as fresh fallen rain dripped from the leaves. Shippou eyed the red apple in his hand curiously, twisting and turning it every angle as he pondered. Advancing in the Fox Demon Promotional Exams had been harder than he thought. It had been fairly simple at first; trick a few lowly villagers and jump three ranks no problem. But now, he had to do that to a dozen villagers to even gain a tenth of a point.

He wrinkled his nose as he took a bite of his apple, wet and crisp as it broke between his teeth with a soft crunch. His father had stayed behind at home, encouraging Shippou to return once in a while to let him know how it was going, insisting that this was a journey the young kit had to take on his own – to find his strength and independence. Which was why he had traveled away from the other competitors only hoping to find some new meat to toy with.

Suddenly, there was the sound of bells. He closed his eyes in response, the clanking of metal sounding so familiar. Of course it sounds familiar, he silently admonished. It's metal. But he couldn't figure out why the sound of the bells was accompanied by the image of a monk's staff, the rings jingling as the owner beat the path beside him.

Images came to him in rapid flashes; a male figure leaning against a golden staff - the same golden rod used as a weapon in battle - shouting over his shoulder, the gleam of the staff catching his eyes - talking to this man like an ally - all too fast to make sense of, and all too strange to be done by what he presumed was a holy man.

'Holy man? More like a ladies man.' The memory called out to him, the sound of his voice causing a sharp pain that brought him to tremble.

As if on cue, he heard a shuffling beneath him and glanced down between the leaves, catching sight of a man walking along the dirt path. Dressed in purple cloth, it appeared as if he was a holy person of some sort. A monk or priest perhaps? His heart leapt into his throat at the similarities before he quickly shook his head.

Now was not the time to have a mental break down. Training his thoughts back on the Fox Demon Promotional Exams, a sly grin slid onto Shippou's face as he finished his apple and stuffed the core into a hole in the tree.

If he was able to trick a man of the cloth, he would jump ranks in the exams.

"Come to papa," he snickered, quietly dropping down to a lower branch to catch a better look.

The dark-haired man came upon a fork in the road and glanced in both directions. He jingled the golden staff he had in his left hand before promptly letting it fall to the ground. It landed on the path veering toward the right.

"So, I should go right," he murmured, furrowing his dark brows as he glanced down the aforementioned direction.

Two traveling village men walked up behind him, conversing with each other. "Did you hear about the new woman working at the rest house up ahead?"

The monk glanced over his shoulder at them.

"They say her fair complexion and beautiful eyes are unparalleled," the second man responded. "And I understand she's unattached."

Laughing, the first guy sarcastically snipped, "I could use a bite to eat," as both men continued down the path to the left.

"Just what I was thinking."

The man watched after them for a moment, before placing his foot on the edge of the staff and turning it so it pointed toward the other path. "Divine intervention."

Emerald eyes peered closely at the man as he grabbed his staff and stood, immediately following after the villagers. He raised a brow. "I thought he was a holy man, but he sounds like a ladies' man to me," he grumbled.

An evil grin pulled at Shippou's cheeks as he narrowed his eyes. He now had an idea as to how he was going to trick the poor monk.

The sound of bells kept pulling at the back of his mind, making his head ache, but he forced himself to ignore it. Getting distracted would certainly spell failure, and he really needed to win this one.

Quickly running through the brush to get ahead of him, Shippou placed a leaf on his head, whispering, "Transform." In his place was a beautiful village woman, who apparently had fallen and twisted her ankle. He snickered, hearing the monk approach. This was going to be good.

Groaning in obvious distress, the woman rubbed her ankle gingerly. The man of the cloth waltzed up, his brows raised, as he eyed the predicament she had gotten herself into.

"Oh my," he spoke. "What do we have here?"

"Oh, Priest, I've fallen and hurt my ankle. I don't think I can walk," she beckoned, tears springing to her eyes.

He kneeled down beside her, offering her a warm smile. "There, there, now. I'll help you to the rest house ahead."

"Goodness, you are so kind, Priest," she purred, batting her eyelashes.

"I'm a monk, not a priest," he clarified, offering his hand. When she grasped it believing he would help her stand, he instead clasped his other hand over hers. "You are so beautiful. Would you grant me the honor of bearing my children?"

Is he serious?! Shippou felt heat creep up his neck and flush his cheeks. "U-Uh… O-Oh my, monk," he replied, his voice quivering. Stay in character! he mentally chastised himself, clenching his jaw as he tried to keep his transformation intact. I won't last much longer…

The monk only continued to smile, making Shippou wither under his gaze.

"Y-Yes, I will bear your children!" the woman finally agreed quickly.

His brows shot up in surprise. "You will?"

"O-Of course! For such a kind man as you, I will do anything!"

Poof!

Oh, no! Shippou inwardly groaned, feeling his tail twitch in the open air. Hopefully he didn't notice!

"Anything?" the monk questioned, violet eyes twinkling, wrapping an arm around her shoulder as if ready to pull her to her feet.

"A-Anything," she replied in earnest. Come on, stupid! Take the bait!

He cleared his throat, and quickly dropped her hand. "Then perhaps do better than a woman when trying to trick a pure man such as myself."

With that, Shippou's transformation ended, the cloud of smoke revealing his small fox demon self.

"Why you!" he called out, shooting an angry glare at the man. "How did you know?"

The monk shrugged. "I've known since I first saw you. Your demonic aura is weak, but detectable. Did you honestly think that ruse would work on me? I am a man of the cloth. Your tricks can do me no harm."

He turned away and began walking down the path once more. "Wait! I'm a demon. Aren't you going to slay me?"

Turning, the man gave him a smile and a knowing glance. "You're just a child, hardly a threat to anyone."

"Oh, I'll show you!" he grumbled, scrunching his nose and puffing out his cheeks in distaste, watching the monk walk away from him.

Inwardly, Shippou swore he would get his revenge on that monk. No matter what! He had a reputation to build, after all.

#inuyasha #inukag #mirsan #fanfiction #inuyasha fanfiction #kagome #miroku #sango #shippou #sassy stays classy #my fanfiction #tomorrow's destiny

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i-am-a-closet-fanfic-fiend · 5 years

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Queer Eye for the Cap Guy ~ Part 5

A/N: Hi Lovelies! Happy Saturday! I hope everyone is enjoying their weekends! It’s finally time for some grooming. I know I know the bearded look does it for some but, bear with me. It’s for the sake of the story. ;)

This is the interaction that made me want to write this story so I’ve really loved writing it. I hope you enjoy!

Summary: Field trip with Antoni and Jonathan, before Jonathan goes to work.

Rating: K+

Warnings: Angst, insecurity. Steve is working through some things.

Word Count: 2062

“Hello, handsomes. What is that gorgeous smell that is wafting through the air?” Jonathan gushed as he strutted into the restaurant.

“Steve made lasagna,” Antoni announced proudly.

“Would you like to try?” Steve offered somewhat bashfully, though he was smiling.

“Of course.”

He held his hair back as Antoni fed him a bite.

“That is delicious!”

“Thanks,” Steve grinned.

“Seriously it’s so good. But do you know my only complaint though?”

“What?” he asked doing his best to hide his disappointment.

“That’s it’s not spaghetti and meatballs. Because then we could have had a Lady and the Tramp moment and it would have been cayute AF.”

Neither Steve nor Antoni could hold back their laughter.

“Next time,” Steve promised.

“Just name the time and place, henny.”

“I thought I was supposed to meet you at the loft.”

“You were, but then Antoni invited me on your field trip before our grooming session.”

“Field trip?”

“Something fun, I promise. Ready?”

“Sure thing.”

They both thanked Angelo for his time and expertise. Steve promised a return visit very soon; he was beaming as they headed out into the warm afternoon.

“So, now that we’ve taught you how to make some real food, I figured we’d explore your indulgence a little bit.”

They had stopped outside of one of Steve’s favorite places, and Antoni immediately saw the glimmer in his eyes.

“You’ve been here too?” he gaped.

“It’s the best chocolate shop in Brooklyn,” he shrugged. “Easiest way to make Y/n smile after a rough mission.”

“Well, have you ever learned how they actually work with the chocolate?”

Steve shook his head.

“Then you’re in for a treat.”

“Antoni! Jonathan!” Martin greeted the trio as soon as they ducked into the shop. “You didn’t tell me you were bringing one of my best customers.”

“I didn’t know that I was,” he laughed.

“How are you, Steve?”

“Doing well. And yourself?”

“No complaints. Now I understand you want to learn more about chocolate than that it tastes amazing.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then follow me.”

They spent the afternoon learning about mixing chocolate blends and how to temper. Steve even managed some tempered chocolate swirls which were impressively shiny.

“How is the lovely y/n these days? She hasn’t come with you the past couple of times,” Martin asked as they were cleaning up.

Steve grinned at the mention of her name.

“Busy saving the world. As always. Although if she finds out I came here and didn’t get her something I’ll be in trouble.”

“Let me fix you a box of her favorites before you leave,” he offered with a wink.

“You’re a lifesaver.”

Steve thanked Antoni quietly but profusely when they returned to the loft.

However despite the bubbliness of the day’s adventures, the super soldier grew worried as he turned to face Jonathan. This had been the part he’d been the most worried about.

“You look like my cat when I took him to be declawed.”

“What’d your cat do?”

“Ran in circles and clawed the curtains until he crashed into an ottoman. And just let me say Bobby will kill you if you ruin the curtains.”

“Guess I’ll have to stand down then,” he chuckled.

“I’m going to take care of you. I promise. Come on.”He led him into a room with salon chair and lots of grooming tools. “Step into my office. Have a seat.”

Steve warily sat, back ramrod straight, at the edge of the seat.

“I can see that you’re worried. So take a deep breath for me.” He waited until Steve followed orders. “Okay good. So, we’re just going to talk first. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Can I touch your beard?”

“Sure.”

“So talk to me about this whole situation,” Jonathan coaxed, running his hands over Steve’s unkempt beard. “Because it’s a little out of control.”

“Well, it’s left over from when I was on the run. I have a pretty recognizable face, but with the beard – no one really looked twice,” he shrugged. “No one expected America’s clean-faced golden boy to be sporting a beard and shaggy hair.”

Jonathan nodded, understandingly.

“So why did you keep it after your name was cleared?”

“I guess that I just got used to it.”

Jonathan nodded, remaining silent for a moment as he considered his answer.

“Do you feel like you’re still trying to hide?”

“Sometimes,” Steve admitted, looking up and making eye contact.

“I don’t want you hiding any more. I want to see you. Because you are gorgeous inside and out. And I want you to look in the mirror and be proud of who you are. And I want you to see the man that you want to see. When did you last really felt comfortable with how you looked?”

“I’m not sure I ever have,” Steve admitted. “I didn’t care much one way or another before the serum. The dames weren’t looking at me one way or another. And after, well, I was Captain America. Senator Brandt’s team picked the look. I had nothing to do with it.”

“And after the ice?” Jonathan prompted.

“Not as much has changed as I’d like. I was still paraded around. Had to be the war hero they wanted me to be.”

“So when you went on the run that was the first time that you were really free from everyone’s restrictions on you?”

“Pretty much,” Steve agreed in an almost stunned tone. He hadn’t exactly thought about it like that. His voice was quiet when he continued. “As terrible as I felt about everything that happened with the Accords… and with Tony, I couldn’t help but be relieved to not have anyone pulling the strings anymore.” When he met Jonathan’s gaze, guilt was the clear emotion. “That must sound terrible.”

“Not at all,” Jonathan assured him. “At the end of the day, when we finally go to sleep the only person we’re left alone with ourselves, and we have to be happy and love that person. So you have to do what’s right for you.”

“Even if that means a Mohawk?” Steve joked weakly.

“Look, nobody’s got time for everybody else’s expectations, henny. The only person whose opinion matters is you. But if your opinion is wrong then it’s up to your very loyal grooming expert,” he added with a flourish.

Steve snorted.

“So what is my very loyal grooming expert’s opinion on my look?”

Jonathan shook his head.

“Nope. I want to hear from you first. You’ve had your look defined by other people for too long. What do you want to see when you look in the mirror?”

Steve glanced at his reflection. He’d looked in mirrors more in the past two days than he had in the past three years combined. What did he like? Did he like anything?

“I like my hair darker like it is now, and something closer to that forties style. I don’t want to cut it short again. But I also like the facial hair. Maybe just a more…”

“Refined. Groomed. Version. Yes. I love it. I love your beard, but I don’t want it to be like your beard is wearing you. You know?”

“That’s fair.”

“Okay, so let’s start with your beard and then we’ll take care of your luscious locks.”

“Let’s do it,” Steve agreed.

Jonathan kept up a constant stream of commentary throughout his work. Steve found it incredibly calming.

“Do you see how now your beard enhances your jaw line instead of hiding it?”

“Yeah, I do,” Steve admitted as he angled his head to see the sharp line of his jaw.

He couldn’t deny that he liked the way he looked. It looked deliberate… and flattering.

“Oh you are going to be turning girls down left and right, henny,” Jonathan gushed as he finished cleaning up the beard.

Steve let out a hollow laugh.

“I’d like to find one I didn’t want to turn down.”

“Why do you want to turn them all down?”

He frowned and shifted in the chair as Jonathan cleaned the blades of the clippers.

“I guess it’s just… they all seem to want Captain America. Not Steve Rogers. I want someone who sees past all that. Someone who sees me.”

The grooming expert nodded as he set down his tools and started spritzing down Steve’s hair with a spray bottle.

“And you deserve that. We all deserve people who see past all of the extras and all of the walls we put up. They are so important. Do you feel like you get that from your other friends?”

“Some more than others. I mean Bucky and Sam are my brothers. Sometimes I think they know me better than I know myself. Bucky has been by my side for my entire life. And Sam is so similar to me. Even though we fought sixty years apart, he understands being a soldier and fighting – boots on the ground and blood in your mouth. I don’t know what I would do without them,” he sniffed, allowing a few tears to escape before wiping them away. “And Nat. Not one I would’ve seen coming, but I suppose that’s her strong suit. She’s a great friend and I’m lucky to have her. And then there’s y/n,” he couldn’t help the smile that spread across his face when he mentioned your name.

“Your fellow chocoholic.”

“Yeah. She’s my…”

Best friend? Buck would strangle me. So would Sam.

“She’s my best girl. A really amazing friend. She helped me make amends with Tony. She’s also one of the few people I’ve seen win a staring contest with both Bucky and Nat.”

“She sounds special.”

“Extremely. She always knows just what to say to make everything better. Sometimes I swear she’s magic.” Steve’s cheeks quickly gained a candy apple red hue as he processed what he just said. “But that’s corny.”

“It’s not corny. It’s sweet. You deserve magic in your life.”

“What are we doing with this mess of hair, huh?” Steve asked, desperate to derail the conversation.

Jonathan could tell that pushing him wasn’t going to work. He felt embarrassed and was shutting down, so he allowed the change in topic.

“Well, I was think we’ll take the side shorter. Not super short. And then we’ll leave a little bit of length on top and I’ll show you how to style it.”

“That sounds great.”

“Alright, are you ready to see the new Steve Rogers?” Jonathan sing-songed.

“I’m nervous. Is it weird for me to be nervous?”

“Not at all. Just take a deep breath. You look fierce. Like if you wanted a modeling career, baby, sales would go through the roof.”

“Somehow I doubt that,” he chuckled. “Okay. I’m ready. Spin me around.”

“Alright, close your eyes. One, two, three. Open.”

“Are you sure this is actually me?”

The only assurance Steve had was that the reflection’s eyes bugged out of his head as he was certain he was doing.

“Oh my god.”

“Do you like?”

“Yeah,” Steve huffed out in a giddy laugh. “I do. It’s so different. But it feels right.”

“That’s exactly what I want to hear. Oh I’m so glad.”

��Thank you, Jonathan.”

“You are so welcome.”

“Can I give you a hug?” Steve asked shyly.

“Of course, henny. You never have to ask if you can give me a hug.”

Jonathan’s Interview

“Steve is an absolutely gorgeous human being. He is the full package. But he doesn’t believe that at all. I want to show him that he is worthy of all the love in the world. I think he is having a hard time seeing himself under all of this,” he gestured to his face, indicating hair and beard. “And I don’t think he had a clear idea of what he wants to look like. And it can be really hard. And your appearance isn’t everything, it’s totally about the kind of person you are on the inside. But when you don’t like who you’re seeing in the mirror, that affects how you think about yourself and your mood and your interactions with other people. Everyone deserves to love themselves and I hope that this helps Steve have the confidence to embrace the wonderful man he is. He’s like a masterpiece waiting to be unveiled and all we have to do is whip off the sheet which in this case is the fugitive beard.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A/N: Okay so I’v been outed. Winter Soldier press Tour Chris is my favorite Chris. No disrespect to all of his other amazing looks, just my personal preference. But seriously, I really loved writing this part and I’m looking forward to the rest of the story.

Thanks for all the love as always.

xoxo

Naynay

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#Queer Eye for the Cap Guy #Steve Gets Queer Eyed #Cap Gets Queer Eyed #steve rogers

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jjk-emotrash · 5 years

Text

Blood and Gasoline - Chapter 11

Type: Mafia!AU

Group/s: Mainly BTS, Got7, Blackpink

Pairing: Yoongi x Reader (OC), Jikook x Reader (OC)

Safety: NSFW

Warnings (Whole Fic): Swearing, Violence, Prostitution, Misogyny/Anti-Feminist Views, Torture, Smut, Non-Con/Rape, Death, SOME Fluff

Word Count: 3.4k

Masterlist

As she left the house, Y/N made sure to grab her purse and phone. After calling a taxi into town, the first place she visited was the club, but she found nobody there. The building was deadly silent and eerie, the top of the bar in need of a dusting and empty glasses left on the tables around the perimeter of the room. Getting out of the club as fast as she could to continue her search, Y/N wandered around the town and looked in the windows of all the bars and diners in town to see if she could see the two men.

Eventually, after an hour of searching she found the pair sat in an old seedy looking bar in the outskirts of town. Just entering the building put Y/N on edge, but she persisted and walked in. The bar smelled damp, smoke and alcohol mixing in with the thick scent of the building. A group of middle-aged men sat near the door smoking and playing poker; one of the men, who was built like brick wall, eyed Y/N up and down with a sickening smirk. The walls were wood lined with paint peeling off and the floorboards creaked beneath her feet as she took in her surroundings, anxiety rising in her chest.

“You alright love? You look a bit lost.” Asked a man with a thick accent, dressed in a yellowing shirt and grey trousers with braces hanging from his hips, stopping her in her tracks.

“Yeah, I’m just looking for two people…” Y/N answered anxiously, slowly edging away from the man.

“Well I’m the manager and bartender of the joint, what do they look like I might have served them?” he spoke and sat on the edge of an unsteady looking table.

“It’s actually those two over there, sat by the bar.” Y/N replied and pointed at her friends, slump.

“Ah, they showed up at about two this morning,” the man scoffed and stood to walk away, letting her go to the boys, “I would’ve kicked ‘em out but they kept paying for drinks an’ I can’t afford to refuse service right now.”

Y/N started walking over to the two men when the group that was sat by the door suddenly blocked her path, circling her. She kindly asked them to let her through, but they wouldn’t budge; she asked again, more firmly this time, but still they wouldn’t move.

“Please, I’ve asked you twice already. Let me through.” Y/N persisted, starting to become more anxious by the second.

“Why should we? Personally, I think you should come with us, beautiful.” One man with shaggy brown hair and a deep voice answered and proceeded to stroke her cheek with the back of his hand.

“Don’t touch me.” She protested and fought back. His other hand slipped around her back and slapped her ass. Wiggling out of his grip and trying to remember everything Jackson had taught her about fighting, “Let me go!”. To the huddle of men’s shock, Y/N landed a swift kick to her harasser’s temple. Making the rest of the group jump away from her.

“What the fuck?! You bitch!” with his head and ego bruised, the man lunged for her but was suddenly held back.

“I believe the lady asked you not to touch her.” An all too familiar voice sounded in Y/N’s ears. Jimin. She could see that the man in her friends grasp stiffened at the sound of his voice, fear flooding his eyes.

“If I were you, I’d back off before she kicks you again.” Jungkook added clapping the offender on the shoulder. “Wouldn't you agree lads?” He asked the other men with a smirk. It seemed that the group of men were eerily familiar with the pair as they immediately backed away and left the bar.

“Apologise.” Jimin said to the man, whipping his gun out of his pocket and pressing it to his back and he quickly obeyed, looking to Y/N for help.

“I’m sorry, honestly I am, please just tell them to let me go.”

Taking the opportunity to scare the man more, actually starting to enjoy herself, she did something that made the man gulp. “Hmmm, I'm not sure I forgive you.” She said walking closer to the restrained man, “What do you think Jimin, Jungkook - does he really deserve forgiveness?”

“We should kill him for even laying a single finger on you Y/N.” Jimin growled and almost reduced the man to tears in fear. “But I think he's learned his lesson not to touch a woman without her consent. Haven't you?”

The man quickly nodded and pleaded for forgiveness, practically sobbing that he wouldn't ever do it again. The once intimidating figure was now a trembling mess before her.

She leaned in close before whispering her forgiveness, then fisted her hand in the front of his shirt and stepping closer, “But I swear, if you ever lay a much as a finger on another unwilling person, I will become your personal poltergeist.” Y/N hissed at the man earning a smirk from the boys. The man nodded and whispered one final word to him, “Run.”

The man fled the bar immediately after, leaving Y/N alone with Jimin and Jungkook.

“Hey…” Y/N said shyly, unsure of what to say after the scene she had caused.

“What are you doing here?” Jungkook asked gruffly, his voice thick and stinking of whiskey.

“I could ask you the same thing.” Y/N replied and crinkled her nose at the overwhelming stench of whiskey washing over the pair that she hadn't noticed before “It’s barely three in the afternoon, you both stink.”

Now they were alone in the bar, she had the chance to fully take in their appearances. The pair graced matching dark circles and messy hair, suit jackets off, shirts untucked and ties loose. Rough, would be an understatement.

“I’d much rather be here than at the mansion and have to see you and Yoongi fawning over one another.” Jimin answered bitterly, his eyes turning dark – the previous protectiveness in his eyes fading.

“Well you don’t have to worry about that. It seems like he only wanted to have sex with me to piss the two of you off. He never actually wanted me for me, at least I think he did. He treated me like another conquest instead of a person in front of the boys when we went downstairs this morning. I should've known better than to trust him like that. It was a mistake.” Y/N answered. The words lifting a weight off her chest as she realised that she had been manipulated.

“I’m gonna kill him.” Jungkook muttered angrily as Jimin clenched his jaw, silently fuming.

“Guys calm down. He didn’t force me into it, you don’t need to go in guns blazing.” Y/N pushed the boys back with a palm on each of their chests, stopping them in their tracks of heading out of the bar. “It’s not going to happen again. And I’m going to tell him as much when we get back. Just please, come home. I was worried about you when I went downstairs, and you were nowhere to be found...”

Jimin sighed and ran his fingers through his messy hair to calm himself then placed the other hand on top of hers. “I’m sorry that we made you worried Y/N, but you have to understand how horrible it was for us to hear you two going at it last night.” His voice broke slightly, and his voice lowered to a whisper “You do know my room is directly below his?”

“I…didn’t know that at all, Jimin…” Y/N gulped and looked down at her feet in shame.

“Hey?” Jimin said softly and lifted her head back up with two fingers, he hated seeing her upset in any form. “It’s not your fault, I’m just jealous that it wasn’t me.”

“Amen to that,” Jungkook added with a snort and circled his arm around her waist. “Well at least we know what she’s into now.” He joked with a smirk earning himself a laugh from Jimin and a light slap to the chest from Y/N.

“Thank you, by the way, for helping me out with those guys.” Y/N smiled at the two boys, happy everything was somewhat normal again.

“You don't need to thank us honey, besides you were doing pretty well on your own. That was a damn good kick.” Jungkook replied making Y/N grin with pride. Jimin then cleared his throat and straightened himself out before extending a hand towards Y/N. She took it with a giggle.

“Our dearest Y/N,” Jimin started in a fake ‘posh’ tone, “would you do us the honour of allowing us to treat you to dinner tonight?”

“Charming as always, Jimin...” Y/N giggled making the man smirk, before replying to his request in a similar tone, “I would be delighted to spend the evening dining with the pair of you.”

“M’lady,” Jungkook offered his arm for Y/N to take. The pair escorted her out of the bar then payed for the taxi ride back to the mansion.

The second they stepped through the door, the trio were bombarded with questions. The two men just laughed at the group’s excitable nature, Y/N on the other hand started to back away and bumped into the two men’s chests behind her. Jimin immediately placed a protective hand on her waist and Jungkook kissed the crown of her head gently making the men surrounding them back off a little, but the group completely dispersed when the gruff voice of Min Yoongi sounded from behind the group.

“What a touching display of affection, now hands off her.” Yoongi strode through the group with a deadly calm face.

“No,” Jungkook replied instantly, “you don’t get to decide who wants to be with. That’s up to Y/N.”

“Well, Y/N darling, who is it that you want to spend the evening with?” Yoongi stroked her cheek gently, making her eyes flutter closed at the soft gesture. But she quickly snapped out of it, remembering how he manipulated her into making the men flanking her jealous.

“I’m spending the evening with Jimin and Jungkook, Sir. And nothing you say, or do, will make me change my mind.” Y/N told him in a sickly sweet voice that made Yoongi growl in anger slightly, before addressing the rest of the gang “Now if you’ll all excuse me I’m going to go have a bath. If any of you interrupt me in the next few hours, I will not hesitate to punch you in the gut. Are we clear?” She heard both Jimin and Jungkook snicker behind her as the group of men facing her nodded slowly in surprise and slight fear – Yoongi could only glare. Y/N then turned to the two men behind her. “I’ll be ready for 7:30, meet me back here then?”

“Your wish is our command,” Jimin said with a smirk and leaned in to kiss her cheek softly before whispering, “Enjoy your bath princess.”

Jimin walked away with Jungkook in tow, the younger winking at Y/N as he non-too-subtly brushed past. The rest of the gang walked away in bewilderment, Namjoon blinking in shock at the scene he had witnessed. When he met Y/N’s eye, he blushed furiously and looked away before he too disappeared into the house. Only Y/N and Yoongi were left standing in the foyer. Y/N nodded at him curtly and started to walk away.

“What changed?” Yoongi suddenly asked, stopping Y/N in her tracks. With a sigh she turned to face him.

“Why did you fuck me knowing full-well that Jimin and Jungkook liked me, and that their bedrooms are directly beneath ours? You knew they would hear us Yoongi! You knew that it would drive them crazy and that they’d leave.” Y/N exploded, all of her thoughts and feeling on full display. There was no going back now.

He replied, his eyes becoming softer as he saw just how much his actions hurt her. “I wasn’t thinking properly, and I know that it’s no excuse, I just wanted to show them that you were mine - because I want you to be mine Y/N. And only mine, no one else’s. I’m selfish, I’ll admit that, and what I did was wrong and I’m sorry that I ended up hurting you in the process, that was never my intention.”

“But you don’t mind hurting your brothers? Yoongi that’s fucked up. I really did like you, honestly I think I still do. But I’m not sure that I want to be with you if that’s how you’re going to behave.” Y/N said, defeated. He reached out for her, but she just shook her head with a sigh and looked away.

“Good luck with your date with the boys tonight. As much as I hope it was me taking you out on the town tonight, I want you to be happy here. And if they make you happy, then so be it.” Yoongi said stiffly, trying to stay calm. Y/N knew that he was struggling here so gave him the benefit of the doubt.

“Thank you, Yoongi.” She smiled softly at him before turning on her heel and heading upstairs to start getting ready. When Y/N entered her bedroom, she threw herself down face first on the bed and hugged her pillow, thinking about what she should do. Her head was reeling with all the thoughts running wild. Perking up, she decided to call Lisa to help her get ready, and to talk everything over.

“Lisa? Can you come round, I need your help.” Y/n asked as soon as the red-head answered the phone.

“I’ll be there in ten.”

Lisa arrived nine minutes later, and immediately ran upstairs to Y/N’s bedroom and burst through the door. Y/N engulfed her friend in a tight hug.

“Are you okay? That call had me worried…” Lisa mumbled into Y/N’s shoulder. Y/N nodded and pulled away to look Lisa in the eye.

“Me and Yoongi had sex.” Y/N stated bluntly, getting straight to the point.

“What?!” Lisa exclaimed and gripped onto Y/N’s shoulders. “Okay back, tell me everything.”

“Okay first of all ow, your claws are hurting my biceps.” Y/N said with a smile making Lisa giggle and release Y/N from her vice grip. “Secondly, I errm…yeah we fucked.” Y/n walked over to the bed and laid down. “I made a mistake, he only fucked me to make Jimin and Jungkook pissed cause their bedrooms are beneath ours and they could hear everything, and they basically ran away to a dingy bar and got hammered when they could hear us fucking above them. When I found them, they had sobered up a bit but still stunk of whiskey. Anyway, they asked me out on a kind of date tonight and now Yoongi’s pissed at them but wants me to be happy and I’m so fucking confused.”

“Damn, girl.” Lisa laid on her side next to Y/n and stroked her hair gently. “So, what are you gonna do?”

“Well I’m going on the date. But what should I do if they take things further?” Y/N turned to face Lisa only to see Lisa smirking.

“Honey, if you get the chance to have a ménage à trois with Jimin and Jungkook – fucking take it. If only so you can tell me what they’re like in bed.”

“Oh my god Lisa!” Y/N laughed and rolled back onto her back. “Won’t that make me kind of a hoe, you know three guys in 24 hours?”

“Oh it’d make you a complete hoe, but what’s wrong with that? If guys can get away with fucking around so can we. We deserve to have some fun too. Trust me, if I was in your position I’d pounce on them the second we got in the-” Lisa was cut off by Y/n’s hand covering her mouth with a smile.

“I get it!” Y/N laughed Lisa licked her hand slightly with a wink making Y/N pull her hand away instantly, “For fucks sake, Lisa!”

Feeling playful and wanting cheer Y/N up more, Lisa rolled over to straddle Y/n and kissed Y/n fully on the mouth. Y/N squeaked and pinched Lisa’s thigh gently. Lisa pulled away with her tongue between her teeth and a twinkle in her eye. Y/N giggled and rolled them over so Lisa was underneath Y/n and started to tickle her abdomen.

“Shit! Y/N stop!” Lisa spluttered out through loud laughs and managed to pull Y/N off her. Unfortunately, they didn’t see how close they were to the end of the bed and they both crashed to the floor in a fit of hysterics, limbs tangled together. Y/N kissed Lisa on the nose making her giggle and scrunch up her face cutely.

“You know, if things don’t work out with the guys maybe we should give it a shot.” Y/N mused, half-jokingly with a small giggle.

Lisa giggled as well and kissed Y/N once more on the lips, pulling Y/N closer with a manicured hand on the nape of her neck. The girls had kissed before at the club when tipsy and had fooled around on multiple nights when Jisoo and Jennie went out on a date, so this was almost normal for the two close friends. Over time they had become almost like friends with benefits – no strings attached. They detached with giggles and rose to their feet.

“I’m gonna go take a bath,” Y/N asked with a grin, “wanna choose me something to wear?”

Y/N bathed peacefully as she hummed absentmindedly, thinking of all the many things Jungkook and Jimin could have planned for her. Meanwhile, Lisa carefully studied her friends wardrobe for a dress before settling on a simple but sexy little black dress and some red heels to match the lipstick she had chosen. Once Y/N was dried and dressed, makeup applied and hair parser styled, a flurry of butterflies erupted in the pit of her stomach.

"Lisa? Am I mad for doing this?" Y/N asked as she put her phone in a black and gold accented clutch.

"No of course not. What makes you ask that?" Lisa bewilderedly replied from her spot on the bed.

"I don't know...I just, even though Yoongi hurt me I don't want to upset him...and going on this date might just jeopardise whatever it was we had."

"It won't." The answering voice didn't belong to that of her best friend, but of the man in question. Turning on her heel, Y/N saw Yoongi stood in the doorframe.

"I'll leave you two be." Lisa said as Y/N and Yoongi locked eyes, giving her friends hands a squeeze before exciting the room.

"You look beautiful, Y/N." The compliment left his lips softly, barely audible. "May I enter?"

"You may."

He sits on the bed and reveals and black velvet box from behind his back. "I got you something."

"You can't buy me back with jewellery."

"I'm not trying to." his eyes are soft as he gazes at the woman in front of him and reaches out for her to take a seat next to him on the bed. She concedes. He opens the box to reveal a diamond choker, taking her breath away. "I had this picked out ready for your birthday but I thought that now is a good a time as any other. Especially after my previous actions."

"I...I can't accept this..." Y/N manages to treat her eyes away from the stunning choker to look at him.

"Yes, you can. What I told you last night and this morning remains to be true. I care deeply for you, all I want is your happiness. If that means you being with Jungkook, or Jimin, or hell even both - I will not stand in your way. All I want right now is your forgiveness. And for you to wear this tonight, a piece as beautiful as this deserves to be worn by someone worthy of its beauty. And you more than qualify."

"Okay," Y/N replies softly with a mood before turning around for him to place it around her neck. Once the clap was sealed, she turned back to face him. A sorrowful look adorned his features, trying and failing to mask it.

"You have two gentlemen waiting for you downstairs, I shouldn't keep you from them any longer." Yoongi says as he stands and makes his way to the shared bathroom to get to his our bedroom.

"Yoongi," Y/N calls as he pauses, "I forgive you." he says nothing, walking through the doorway and closing it behind him.

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scoobydoominuscoobydoo · 6 years

Photo

Part Seven:

“You’re so smart I could kiss you right now!”

Being a senior seemed to just be a short 365 days of trying to keep it together because damn it you were almost at the finish line.

Mrs. Moony, the track and field coach, always liked to say, “The last lap is always the longest!”

To which she would receive a mixture of glares because nobody was enjoying her trying to make them feel less miserable.

Since track and field was one of the few things Shaggy liked to think he was decent at, he always took Mrs. Moony’s life lessons to heart. At least the ones that applied to him, even though it was always interesting to learn how to prepare a proper sedar dinner.

At first, Shaggy hadn’t feared the step to becoming a senior.

People’s expectations of him never had much of an effect on him.

Not even his parents hounding him about which “respectable” colleges to apply to bugged him all that much.

He was always gonna be his own person and if people wanted or expected something other than that, than they didn’t want Shaggy and they’d need to fulfill their expectations in someone else.

Even his best friends had expectations for him that were never gonna happen of his own free will.

But that had changed when they reached adulthood.

Well, three of them did.

Since Velma was technically a year ahead in high school she was still 17. But mentally she was in between the ages of 45 and 6, it all depended on the time of day and the cycle of the moon.

Regardless of the grey area that was Velma’s age, once senior year had started the gang all seemed to have adopted the trait called acceptance.

Never really pushing each other towards any sort of direction like they did when they were younger. Now they just silently supported and reassured that they were always on each other’s sides. Which is something they could all use since the rest of the world was peeking it’s head in their direction and asking in that stupid wishy washy voice, “So what are you planning on doing with your life after high school?”

Shaggy had always laughed softly while rubbing the back of his neck and saying he was considering Career #1 or Career #2.

That was enough for the world to go back to their corner of not minding their own business.

Fred and Velma both had their versions of a five year plan mapped out in their heads and had no issue talking the world’s ear off so that it couldn’t get an opinionated word in.

Velma and Freddie thrived in planning, especially when it came to their own futures.

Shaggy remembered the first time he saw early applications for Stanford sprawled out in the back of the Mystery Machine. During freshman year Velma had being getting a lot of interested letters and phone calls but the only college that would ever catch her eye was Stanford.

Velms had been crawling between each piece of paper, each asking a lot of questions Shag never even really considered. Especially back when he was 15.

He wasn’t really confident that Velma thought about them either because she ended up throwing the packet away and avoided discussing the subject with her parents and the distressed guidance counselor.

At the start of senior year Fred had gone up to Massachusetts for an interview with Harvard, even though it didn’t really interest him at all. Daph had made that observation a long time ago. Deep down she was sure Fred was getting swept by the world trying to drag him around, not even sure what he wanted to do with himself.

Regardless of whether or not Fred and Velms were ready, they were definitely prepared.

Shag wasn’t really sure what was going on with Daph when it came to her future.

Ever since they had reunited in the 6th grade Daphne had been obsessed with NYU. He remembered that glint in her eye when she’d talk about it, mouth full of tater tots and hands covered in glitter due to art class incidents.

It was the same glint that had overwhelmed him when they first met in that hallway and a strange purple girl had given Norville Rogers a name.

That NYU glint disappeared a long time ago though.

High school happened.

Drama happened.

Fred happened.

It wasn’t really anyone’s fault, once your age has the suffix “teen” in it, NYU glints tend to get chewed up and spit out, now bruised and battered and not really wanting to get up again.

Too many people telling her to be realistic and aim lower. Telling her to hold back.

But if anyone could convince the glint to stand up and face the future again, it was Daphne.

At least, that’t what Shaggy thought.

He had seen little peeks of the glint this year when she discussed all the appealing things on her transcript that she was sure would appeal to NYU’s ideals.

He loved that glint, and he really hoped that Daph was able to help it stand up and bring it with her through the rest of her life.

Senior year had brought forth a new form of jokes that Shaggy utilized wholeheartedly. He called them the community college jokes, and they actually got laughs out of people which was honestly a miracle.

The whole schtick just consisted of him reacting to his grades, or even if anything inconvenient happened, and stating, “Now I’ll never get into community college!”

These jokes were the answer to people’s questions that involved his plans regarding the future.

At this point in his life he believed he had everything together, that he was actually gonna make it through this high school shit with only mild trauma and a crippling fear of silicon.

He could see the finish line, and while his calves we killing him and sweat was pouring out of him, he had made it.

But than Daphne had run up in front of him and stopped him in the middle of the track. “Daph, like what are you doing?” He nervously eyed his parents who were sitting off by themselves on the bleachers. Neither one of them had peeked up from their phones. Their dark eyes always seemed to be on something other than him, ever since he was born its been that way.

He felt his eyes welling up with tears and he wished he could leave the track, just for a couple minutes.

But Daphne was holding on tightly to his shoulders.

“Da-Daphne can you ju-” He was left breathless by the sight of Daph’s bright violet eyes one him, not leaving him for even a second.

The whole world went quiet, like it all seemed to just disappear.

Leaving just a breathless shaggy dog and a strange purple girl.

He wasn’t sure what to do, he wasn’t frightened by the purple girl, but he wasn’t sure what she was gonna do. Suddenly something happened that made his heart totally stop- it was one pause for a few moments.

The purple girl’s eyes sparkled, with this hope and happiness that felt almost familiar to him. A familiar glint. One he seemed to adore, like it was an old friend.

And those violet stars grew closer and closer until he felt like he was gonna burn up, but he didn’t even care. Because that glint was beautiful.

He closed his eyes, ready to burst into flames.

But instead he felt something cold and soft.

Her lips on his.

And it’s rushed and clumsy.

And they have no idea what they’re supposed to do. Almost as if it’s their first ever kiss and they have zero experience.

At least that’s what feels like.

Rushed, clumsy, and new.

Oh so new and it feels too right to even be happening.

The right thing never happens to them.

They get chased by men in masks and pretend their parents love them. They Set up elaborate traps that are doomed to fail and they avoid eye contact with with people who laugh at them in the hallways.

He feels her purple hands grip onto his shaking ones. And suddenly he doesn’t care.

Because it’s about time he found something good on this damn track.

They both slowly pulled away and just stared at each other. His face probably looking just as shocked as her’s.

Her grip on his hand’s tightened.

His heartbeat returned.

He stroked the back of her hand with his thumb.

Her eyes sparkled.

He let out a startled yelp at the sound of his alarm clock losing it’s fucking mind.

Shag stared down at the meal that had been slapped down on his tray. Normally the lunch crew were very friendly to him since he was one of the few people that complimented them on their food without fail.

“Dorrine must have gotten a visit from her ex again, that’d explain her mood.” He thought as he began to worm his way through all the tables and walked toward the back door.

He sighed as he noticed that the usual soggy french fries were dried out and kinda spongy looking.

It wasn’t that big of a deal since he just dipped them in the canned gravy that they served with the bagged mashed potatoes.

Food truly was a work of divine art.

He pushed open the back door and instantly spotted the unforgettable colors of his people.

Velma joked about how after freshman year they somehow all became totally color coded when it came to their wardrobe. It wasn’t until Velma had pointed it out that Shag realized just how much green he owned. But that was fine, he liked green.

Today was just wearing a green hoodie over a white tee and jeans.

Fred had used to be obsessed with wearing ascots when they were in middle school. If he wasn’t wearing anything kitschy around his neck than he might as well have been naked. And then it was dumb hats that you would wear on backwards more for principle’s sake than style.

And now they were in the era of watches, but just the old looking ones with hash marks instead of numbers.

Currently Freddie was wearing a silver one that he seemed to favor quite a bit.

And Velms was sitting next to him, picking at the sad excuse of a salad that they served for people who weren’t willing to brave the risk of food poisoning. She was rocking a black turtle neck and a simple orange cardigan.

Velma had always worn turtle necks for as long as Shag had known her.

The reason back then was she still had baby fat and kids were assholes so a lot of names were shouted out to her and they would stick in her head.

Those words turned into turtle necks.

Now Shag was pretty sure she just wore them because she hated the way anything else looked on her.

Daph was sitting on their table facing his direction as she seemed to be invested in the large Subway sandwich she had in her hands. Her pink cheeks were stuffed and there was mayo stuck on the corner of her mouth.

He grinned to himself. Daphne would always be the strange purple girl.

It was as if she couldn’t physically leave the house unless she had something purple on.

Sometimes her whole outfit would be an elaborate display of purple with almost every accessory you could think of. And sometimes it was just a subtle display, maybe just purple shoes or a purple hairclip.

Today she had met in the middle with a royal purple tanktop and earrings to go with her black jeans and green scarf.

Daph was never able to put it in human words as to why she adored the color purple some much, but she ensured them that if at least one of the human languages had the right word to describe it, she would use it all the time.

She looked up from her sub, that seemed to be the love of her life at that moment, and made direct eye contact with him.

And then she sent him a bright smile and mouthed out the word “Hi.”

He returned the smile and made his way over to their table.

Well it wasn’t really their table, it was just some old picnic bench in the the central courtyard. After they had been officially branded as the weird Nancy Drew wannabes they ended up hiding outside while eating, unless it rained.Than they’d just sit in the back of the Mystery Machine in a circle, knees touching.

They didn’t purposely isolate themselves, it just kinda happened.

They figured that would be a lot easier than being involved in unnecessary drama.

Of course after all the business with Marilyn Andrews and them finding Natalie McCall, they had been getting a lot more attention.

Shaggy still wasn’t used to queen bee Natalie waving to them and asking them if they wanted to go out and do something with student council later.

So lunch wasn’t as quiet as it used to be, but at least they weren’t getting hounded by teenagers with condescending tones.

At the moment, the gang was alone.

“You took your own sweet time getting here. Usually you’re the first one in line for lunch.” Velma looked over at him and popped a cherry tomato in her mouth, “God didn’t give you the world’s longest legs for nothing.”

Shag rolled his eyes and grabbed a napkin from his tray, handing it to Daphne.

He pointed at the corner of his mouth and she nodded, wiping the mayo off.

“Well I was about to make a mad dash for the front of the line, like maybe hop over a few tables in the process.” Daph giggled and took another big bite of her one true love.

He placed his tray on the table next to where Daphne was sitting and leaned against the edge next to her.

“But Nat popped out of fucking nowhere and was asking me about hanging out this weekend.” He shoved his hands in his pockets, looking for his cell phone which he had the terrible inkling he had left sitting in the back of the van.

Fred chuckled, “Nat seems to like popping out of freakin’ nowhere when it comes to you Shag.”

“Hardy har Freddie.” He let out a soft sigh of relief as he remembered he’d put his phone in his back pocket. Velma jumped in, “No wait, maybe Fred is right. I mean all the signs are there, you’re the only one she reached out to on all the social stuff.” She picked up what sort of looked like an olive and threw toward him.

Totally missing and hitting Daph.

She let out an annoyed huff but said nothing, seeming to choose putting her full attention on her sandwich.

Velma smirked, it had just occurred to her that this conversation topic was the last thing Daph would wanna participate in. So Velma did as Velma does. She kept pushing the topic.

“I mean I’m pretty sure the cheerleaders probably told her everything, about how you were the one who made the promise that we’d find her.” Shag’s cheeks went pink and he rolled his eyes, now he knew Velma was just trying to get him all flustered.

“One, she has a boyfriend who she is pretty happy with last I checked. And two, the only thing I did to earn her feelings was make that promise. Like, other than that I did fuck all.” He reached behind him and picked up a spongy french fry.

Velms snicked and shook her head, still gauging Daph’s reactions to everything they were saying.

For now it seemed that she was just trying to ignore the conversation and pay attention to her food. But Velma could see right through her, and she could see that Daph was getting annoyed. Perfect.

“Oh my dear Shaggy, my darling Norville.” He cringed and threw another fry at her. She stuck her tongue out and continued, “Crushing on someone is not as simple as liking one person at a time. That’s like you having one favorite food.” Shaggy placed a hand over his heart and faked a hurt gasp.

Velma nodded, “I know right? Seems impossible.” She popped another tomato in her mouth.

She sent a quick glance over toward an annoyed Daphne and then proceeded, “You see it’s possible for her to still really like her boyfriend, whoever the hell he was, and also like you, maybe just the teeniest tiniest bit.”

“Mensa level vocab there Einstein.” Fred giggled and poked Velma in the shoulder. “Thank you.” She shoved another one of those olive looking things in Freddie’s mouth to shut him up.

“Or,” She made clear eye contact with Daph, who was avoiding looking at anything besides the damn sandwich,

“It’s possible she’s over her boyfriend and just likes you now, that’s the kind of thing that happens when you’re a sophomore, you’re still young and not really sure what the hell you want yet.”

Shag writhed uncomfortably, “Okay Velms like that might be taking a little too much liberty. Plus if that were the case, which it isn’t, than it’s more Nat’s business than ours anyway.” She spotted Daph’s small nod and grin at his response.

She sighed.

Daphne will always be easy to read.

“The point is that sometimes people like one person and it seems like a forever deal and nothing is gonna change it, but than they’re brains mature and decide they want something else.” Fred sent her a confused look, which she ignored.

This was definitely something that was higher than his current social skills level.

The issues that come with being a sheltered mayor’s kid.

Shaggy gave her a confused look as well, but it was a different kind of confused.

“Yeah, like I know that Velms. Like you just described the basics of high school dating. Any reason why you’re talking about this?” Velma sent a subtle glance back to Daph, who was definitely going red.

She smirked, she was done here.

Letting out a loud sigh, she turned back to her depressed salad, “No real reason, I just like to tease you on how much of a ladies man you are. You’re quite the slugger son.”

Shag grinned, “Shut the hell your mouth, loser.”

Velma and Fred giggled, bringing their attention back to whatever they were doing before they started talking about Nat’s love life.

“Ahem! A-Anyway- oh thanks Daph.” Daph handed him the rest of her sandwich and Velma snickered, she had talked the appetite right out of her.

He seemed to basically inhale to sandwich in a few seconds as his friends watched on in awe. Velma still believed that if they ever needed to be involved in a school fundraiser, they just needed to have people pay to try and get Shaggy full. They would be able to pay back the school’s debt tenfold and then some.

He crumpled up the wrapper and carried on, “The thing Nat wanted to talk to me about was student council having a party tonight in our- I mean the- central courtyard.”

He gestured to the area around them with his free hand.

“It’s supposed to be for the varsity teams and stuff but like she believed we deserved to come.”

Velma groaned, “Oh yeah that sounds like a blast, lets hang out with the lovely young men and women that made high school a living hell for us.”

Shag sent her a warning look and she shut up, bitterly picking at her lunch.

“I didn’t wanna flat out say ‘No’ to her so I just said we’d talk about it and get back to her.” Velma turned and look over at him and whined, “Why the fuck would would you give that poor girl some hope??” Shag flinched and rolled his eyes.

“Because Velms, she’s a sweet girl and she’s just trying to make things right between us and the rest of the damn student body before we graduate and only return for awkward high school reunions 20 years from now.”

Velma opened her mouth to respond, but she didn’t feel like that statement deserved one of her smartass comments.

So she just sat there opening and closing her mouth, trying to think of the right thing to say.

Suddenly, Daphne finally said something after remaining quiet for the whole time Shag had been out there. He almost was startled by the sound of her clear and high pitched voice, but was still always glad to hear it, “Well since the goldfish isn’t saying anything I will.”

Fred snickered.

Another olive resembling substance was shoved in his mouth.

Daph turned and their eyes met instantly.

Shaggy gulped, he suddenly remembered the dream he had last night.

Of them.

And their eyes.

And their hands.

And most of all, their lips. Their clumsy lips.

“I’ll only go if Shags goes.” Velma turned and looked at both of them so fast that her glasses fell down her nose and she needed to straighten them out.

Daph seemed to suddenly realize what she said and looked down at her hands.

“I-I um. I meant I’ll- I’m okay with it i-if we all wanna go.” Fred’s shocked face settled and he nodded.

Velma snickered.

“Oh yeah only if all of us go.”

“Velma you are invited to shut up at anytime.” Daph still hadn’t looked up from her hands.

“Don’t wanna.”

Shag rolled his eyes, Daphne had set her off again.

Velma had turned into the stereotypical Bond villain and was now drumming her fingers together.

After a minute of horrifying silence and clear evil scheming she spoke, “Alright, I’ll go to this dumb party to patch up the holes of my flawed high school life.” Shaggy grinned and was about to speak but Daphne placed a finger over his mouth to stop him.

She raised her eyebrow at Velms than said, “If??”

Velma cackled, “You don’t miss a beat my dear nemesis!”

Shaggy didn’t even know what was happening anymore, and he could tell Freddie had gotten lost in this conversation a long time ago and was now playing puzzle games on his phone while absentmindedly listening to bits and pieces.

“I’ll eagerly go and be nice to every stupid letterman jacket there if......”

Her gaze hopped from Daph to Shaggy and back again and suddenly Shag felt very nervous.

“You two wear matching earrings”

That’s not as bad as he was expecting.

Daph looked back at Shag and he nodded.

She sighed and turned back to Velma, “Alright fine. Do you have anymore weirdly specific demands or are you done exploiting your power?”

Velma shrugged and picked up the last tomato in the bowl, throwing it in her mouth.

Shaggy’s grin resurfaced and he turned toward Fred, “Fredison? Like, you in bud?” Fred was pulled out of his spot the difference streak shortly to send him a thumbs up, “It’ll be really fun, I mean that’s what I think anyway.”

Shag nodded and turned toward a trash can a few feet away from them.

He took the form as if he was about to shoot a basket and threw the wadded up Subway wrapper.

Unsurprisingly, he missed and watched as the wrapper rested on the ground next to the wrapper less basket. Daph let out a loud, “Booooooo!!!!!” And Velma said, “You suck, you’ll never be Shaq!!” Fred sent him and apologetic look and nodded in agreement.

Shag let out a loud groan and threw his hands in the air, “Nooooooo!!!!!! Now I’ll never get accepted into community college!!!”

The people sitting by the courtyard exit in the cafeteria could hear a loud mixture of boos and laughter.

Shaggy didn’t actually remember the exact reason he had gotten his ears pierced. Deep down he was pretty sure Velma had manipulated the situation to convince him that it was his idea but in reality it was hers.

The main reason he went with was, “Hell yeah I’m 18 losers and I can do whatever I want and so I’m gonna get holes punched in my ears!!”

He only had a couple pairs of earrings, both of which were purchased as gifts by Daphne.

The whole experience was a blur since they only had one place where you could get your ears pierced cheap. And it was jewelry store for 12 year old girls. Plus he was pretty sure he cried which made him just wanna bury the experience ten times more.

At this point he didn’t really think the whole ordeal was worth it since Shag only wore things in his ears every so often.

He stared out of his bedroom window, resting his elbows on the window sill, just waiting for that familiar relic to pull up in their fancy half circle driveway. It was still up for debate whether his parents had actually heard him when he told them he was going out tonight and wasn’t sure what time he would get home.

He sighed and closed his eyes, running his hands through his hair.

They wouldn’t really care unless they genuinely required his presence for something, usually to be a model for their “experimental” pieces.

If that was the case than they would be royally pissed off that he left the house and wasn’t on standby for their dumb paintings.

It wasn’t the normal bad stuff he did that pissed them off, the couldn’t give less of a shit about his staying out past curfew or something. But oh boy if he dared to do a load of laundry or go and drop of their recyclables, that’s when all hell would break loose.

The last time he washed the dishes they got so mad that he was only allowed to leave the house for school and nothing else, for a whole week.

Apparently they had been needing those dirty dishes to complete their latest work of art.

They could have given him a heads up or something but okay fine.

Cruel and unusual punishment it is.

Of course as soon as the gang found out they snuck in through his bedroom window, on the third floor, and hung out with him. Everyday for a week they did that. It was like they were all sharing his punishment to the point that it wasn’t a punishment anymore.

Shaggy grinned as he looked down at chipped paint on the sill that had gone through the runner with them all stomping on it when they’d climb in.

He stared at one large bare patch that was just exposed wood now.

Climbing up a ladder to a third story window every day was just asking for trouble. Especially when it came to Danger Prone Daphne.

It was on a Thursday when her danger prone ways finally got the best of her.

She had somehow lost her footing on the ladder right when she had reached the sill. Luckily she was fast and gripped onto the wood, cringing as she felt the paint peel up under her fingernails.

“Jeepers! Freddie help me!!!”

The whole gang turned toward the window urgently and Velma let out a distressed cry as they all ran over to help Daph.

Shag was surprised that he was the first one to get to her and didn’t waste anytime grabbing onto her wrist and bracing his legs as he began to pull as hard as was humanly possible. He felt Fred grip onto his sides, helping him pull. He was sure Velma was doing the same thing behind Fred.

After a long struggle of forcing themselves to back up and not lose their footing they had gotten her up on the sill.

Everyone let out a loud sigh of relief and Shag let go of her wrists, that had turned totally red from how tightly he was holding on. He was about to ask her if she was alright but she quickly bounded off the window sill, where he now saw a lot of the paint had been chipped off, and wrapped her arms around Shaggy’s neck.

Shag’s eyes widened, that wasn��t what he was expecting.

“Oh Fred I knew you’d save me!”

He closed his eyes and sighed, now that was what he was expecting.

Fred cleared his throat, clearly not a fan of the turned tables. “Er Daph.....”

Instantly Daph’s eyes shot open and she quickly assessed the situation she was in.

She let out a nervous chuckle and backed up, avoiding eye contact with Shaggy. “I-I mean, thank you Shaggy.” Focusing on twiddling her thumbs she let out a couple thank you’s to Fred and Velms as well.

Shag decided to brush the whole interaction off and grinned, “You are very welcome my dear.”

He grinned at the memory.

And remembered how the idea of Daph giving him the kind of hugs she gave Fred made his heart race a little too fast.

That was probably the start of him being aware of how much he just liked to look at Daphne. Seeing every little subconscious tick she had. Those little grins she’d give to the little things that made her happy. The way she’d play with her rings when she was deathly bored. Her uncharacteristically boorish laugh that would always make everyone around her just as happy as she was.

He figured that was the start of things being weird between them. The start of something being there.

Stroking the bare wood his mind flashed back to the first time he ever met his purple girl. Her speaking a little too loudly just to make sure he was listening to every word she was saying. And of course he was, because everything about this strange purple alien captivated him. And everything about her always would.

Sighing he directed his attention back toward the window.

Who was he kidding?

Ever since he had met her he had seen that something standing between them, just pulling them together. Very slowly.

He had just never seen it pulling them, until he asked Daph to dance.

That was something Shaggy didn’t do with Daphne, but he did it anyway.

And now senior year was a lot more complicated than it needed to be.

He let out a loud groan that made Scooby jump and almost fall off his spot at the foot of Shag’s bed.

Shag didn’t have anytime to laugh at him because he spotted the dim lights of a “groovy” green micro-van. They must have seen him waiting like a loser with no life outside of his friends because Daph stuck her torso out of the passenger side window. He spotted that huge smile and her waving her arms back and forth like windmill propellers.

He waved back to signal that he saw her.

God even from the damn third floor of his house and at 7 o’clock at night he could still see those eyes.

Petting Scooby on the head he said, “See you later bud. Like I’ll try to bring back some high school party snack food for you.” The dog’s head perked up and he licked Shag’s hand. Letting out a low whine as some sort of thank you.

He was 100% certain that his dog could understand English and anyone that said otherwise could take it up with his Great Dane that just whined out a thank you for him.

Walking over to the hatch that was sort of his bedroom door, he pushed it down and watched the ladder fall, creating a path for his exit.

Once he had closed up his “door” he stared down toward the stairs that would lead him into the living room, which was in eye shot of the studio. And judging by the strong scent of charcoal and acrylic that’s definitely where his parents where.

He didn’t wanna risk being spotted and stopped so they could ask him to take his shoes off real quick so mom could do something weird like paint a pair of shoes onto his bare feet. And he didn’t have time for that.

There was back staircase that led down to the back door, which they could only see if they were in the kitchen.

And they were never in the kitchen.

He took a deep breath as he wrapped his fingers around the knob.

Hopefully, he wouldn’t be grounded until graduation when he came back.

He dashed quickly through the back yard, avoiding the spotlights dad had set up to show off his flower garden. Taking one last look behind him, he opened the fence gate that would take him to the front gate.

“Shags, everytime we pick you up from your house anytime after four you act like you’re trying to break out of prison.” Daph giggled as she turned fully in the front seat so that she was looking at him sitting in the back.

He chuckled halfheartedly and shrugged, “My parents are time wasters, what else can I say?”

Her gaze seemed to be ten times more intense to him when they were surrounded by the beginnings of evening. His dream involving her eyes being the equivalent of young, violet stars didn’t seem all that absurd now that he was looking at her directly.

Not even realizing that nobody had said anything for a good five minutes because he was too busy just being caught in bright, purple headlights.

Velma rolled her eyes.

Freddie was too busy driving to care what his passengers were doing.

“AHEM!!!”

Daph and Shag jumped out of their pocket universe and back into reality, both turning their attention to Velms.

Velma folded her arms over her chest and smirked at the obvious blush on Daph’s cheeks, “I believe you two losers made a promise to me in exchange for my attendance to this apparently obligatory gathering of jackasses.”

They stared at her blankly for a second, piecing the sentence together before their faces lit up in remembrance and Daphne grabbed her purse.

After a couple seconds of fishing around, she pulled out a small Ziploc bag containing a single stud earring with a purple jewel.

It was then that Shaggy realized Daphne was wearing the stud’s brother or sister on her left ear. When Velma said matching earrings this isn’t what he was picturing. He figured she meant like they’d both wear a set of pearls or something. Not wearing one half of one set.

That was like saying that Daph was his other half to a bunch of people who didn’t have any business knowing any of that.

Suddenly his eyes widened as he realized what was going on and turned to look at Velma. She currently was sporting an innocent grin, but he knew damn well what she was doing.

He wanted to groan or sigh or something but instead he just grabbed the baggie and opened it.

Why did Velms suddenly care enough to meddle in her friend’s lives?

She never cared enough about that before.

She’d just let weirdness and drama happen and stay as far away from it as possible.

“Y-You put it in your right ear Shags.” Daph stated, a huge grin stuck on her face. He nodded, his eyes not leaving Velma’s.

She just stuck her tongue out at him and directed her attention to Fred, who seemed to be in his own little world at the moment. Just waiting for the exit that would take them to the high school.

Honestly it gave Shag the chills at just how easily Velma was able to control the mood around her with a single action. Daph was a big, beaming mess. Shag couldn’t stop fucking staring at her. And Fred was stuck in one track mind mode.

He wouldn’t even be surprised if Velma had ordered them to wear matching earrings just so the the van would be dead quiet on the way to the party.

And Shaggy was fairly certain he was the only one that could ever figure out Velma’s ulterior motives.

She wasn’t on a Bond villain level.

No she could scheme fucking circles around Auric Goldfinger.

And due to her scheme, the ride was silent for the rest of the way to the school.

Eventually they were pulling into the school’s parking lot and to the spot farthest away from where they had hidden from Andrews. Seeing the school at night time, when it was dark, sent a wave of chills through Shag’s body.

He didn’t like this one bit.

He saw Velma leaning her head against the walls of the van, reaching up and tracing the spot wear the bullet holes used to be. Fred’s dad had payed to repair them a couple weeks after it happened.

After they had gotten enough pictures for all the newspapers and networks of course.

Fred was just keeping his hands on the keys that he had just pulled out of the ignition, face blank like he was trying to prevent himself from getting shaken up about something that was already over and done with.

Daphne bit her lip and kept her eyes on the compartment where they kept the spare tire, never really brave enough to bring it up with Freddie again.

Velma had yelled at him for a long time at the police station after they had given their statements and were just ready to go home.

But after that, nobody really saw a point in fighting over it.

It didn’t matter anymore.

There was maybe a couple minutes of brooding silence before Velma let out a sigh and began to crawl toward the back door.

“Let’s get this shit over with.”

That seemed to snap everybody out of it and as a group they walked toward the school.

The setup was about what you’d expect from the Student Council budget.

Balloons and tablecloths.

That was about it.

In the school colors of course.

Orange and Purple.

As soon as the gang entered they were welcomed by a bubbly Nat, who wasted no time announcing their arrival to the whole damn party.

Shaggy and Velma eyed each other, both in the mood to go hide behind the snack table to avoid all the new eyes on them.

Daphne and Freddie instantly got comfortable moved into conversation mode with a group of the cheerleaders. Shag turned to ask Velma if she wanted to hide in the big bowl of pretzels with him, but saw that she was already there, stuffing her face so she would have an excuse not to talk.

Of course Jesse McIntyre didn’t care and quickly approached her.

Now he was in dangerous territory, but luckily he seemed to be a master of one sided conversation seeing as Velma was only contributing the occasional nod and Jesse still looked thoroughly invested.

Shaggy smiled, still awkwardly standing at the entrance alone.

He looked over at Fred and Daph, one of the cheerleaders must have said something funny because Daph was letting out that amazingly terrifying laugh.

Fred’s laugh look so composed compared to her’s, a couple of the cheerleaders looked a little spooked by the noises coming from the girl’s mouth. Shag sighed, this was usually how parties ended up when all four of them went to one.

Fred and Daphne being the only ones brave enough to have conversations.

Velma letting other people start conversations with her.

And Shaggy standing alone near the snack table staring at his phone.

Or in this case, staring at Daphne but that’s neither here nor there.

He wasn’t really sure how long he had just been standing like there staring at Daphne Blake like a sad asshole, but he soon felt a small hand grab onto his and begin to tug him toward all the “fun.”

Startled, he looked down and saw Natalie gripping onto him, a wide smile on her face.

Shag always thought it was a little weird that Nat had like the exact same shade of blue eyes that Fred did. Freddie constantly promises they aren’t related but Shaggy still didn’t totally buy it. He felt like someone had to be lying.

But other than the eyes, Nat and Fred were nothing alike.

Nat’s natural hair color was a light sunkissed brown, although she usually had it dyed some crazy unnatural color.

This month she had it dyed a dark purple that was darker at the roots and faded into a lighter purple at the tips.

He gulped, everything he was gonna look at for the rest of his fucking life would remind him of Daphne wasn’t it?

Cool. He was glad to be in a perpetual state of patheticness for all eternity.

His eyes shot back down to Nat, who was about the same height as Velms. Meaning she was far too small to him, like miles down. She giggled before saying, “I’m not letting you get out of having fun.”

He groaned, “Aw damn it, so close.”

She giggled again and steered him toward a huddle of people.”

His heartbeat picked up, it was group of the football players. The same ones that would call him “Mop Top” and “The Jolly Green Giant.” He had no idea how to talk to new people that he knew nothing about. That was pitiful considering he had grown up with most of them and he could only recall their first names.

That big bowl of pretzels suddenly became incredibly tempting.

‘No! We’re not chickening out! This was our idea to begin with and we’re gonna follow through with it!’

‘Who the fuck is ‘we’?! I’m on my own moron.’

“Everyone,” Nat’s clear voice rang out and attracted the group’s attention like a suspicious noise attracted Fred away from Mystery Machine. “You guys remember Shaggy right?” Still not letting go of his hand, she pulled him forward so that they were both included in the man huddle.

A couple of them stared at him blankly, having no idea who the hell this tall boy was.

Most of them smirked and nodded.

A few looked sort of sheepish, probably remembering something rude they said to him or about him.

One guy, Christopher Merlin, said, “Yeah he’s with the Nancy’s right?”

Is that what the gang was officially branded as now? The Nancy’s?

Shaggy figured it could have been a lot worse, if anything is could be taken as a compliment.

A very backhanded one.

Nat sent them all a very intimidating smile and said, “He’s also the one who stood up to Hayden and the cheer squad and promised them he’d find me.” Shag raised an eyebrow and looked down at her, “Stood up to,” is definitely stretching his actions out way too far.

He had really only said something to Hayden because if he didn’t Daphne would probably scalp her.

He wasn’t totally sure how far the truth had been re-woven before it had reached Nat. So it was possible that all the attention she was giving him was misdirected. Or he was just refusing to believe that Velma’s pointless teasing had some light to it.

It was then that he realized that Nat was still squeezing onto his hand, and that alone was really weird. But the fact that they were in front of half of the football team made it seem like some crazy dream he’d have that Fred would try to over explain and Daph would ask what he had for dinner that night.

He had the strong desire to pinch his arm and suddenly wake up in a cold sweat.

All the stares he was getting from guys who had never really been on amazing terms with was making him ever regret convincing the gang to come to this thing.

Since when was he the one that cared about ending their high school days on a good note?

Nat had been carrying on a conversation for what seemed like a million years, Shaggy was just praying that she’d be done soon and just drag him over to the damn pretzels.

A better idea would be to let go of Nat’s hand and excuse himself from the conversation, that’s what Shag normally would do.

But Shag wasn’t exactly set to normal tonight.

He figured he’d be fine as long as he wasn’t directly addressed.

But of course the second he thought it, the fates chuckled and pulled their puppet strings, forcing Shaggy Rogers to be directly addressed at a high school party.

“So, Shagster,” That was a new one, “When the hell did you do that to your ears?” One of the players that was standing next to him, Shag was sure his name was Randy, tugged lightly on his right ear. The one with Daph’s earring in it.

Suddenly everyone looked back at him, a look of realization on everyone’s faces as they saw what Randy was gently yanking on.

Shaggy didn’t answer for a few seconds, as he was trying to collect his thoughts and his thoughts were currently a big jumble of, ‘Oh Zoinks. Fuckin. Shit Shit Shit.’

And he was fairly certain that all of those weren’t a proper response to Randy’s question.

‘Wait, what the hell did he ask me again?!’

‘Ears....’

‘Oh yeah.’

He let out a quiet breath and finally replied, “Like, um, at the beginning of this year. You know, because I was officially 18 so I wanted to do something dumb but not really dumb.” God this was painful.

“Yeah? Well, purple looks just darling on you.” Randy chuckled and turned back towards the group.

Shag let out a soft laugh, behind that laugh was the desire to go hide in the Mystery Machine. But that would mean letting go of Nat’s hand forcefully and just leaving the circle. And suddenly Shaggy was afraid of hurting these people’s damn feelings.

Seventeen year old Shaggy wouldn’t have cared.

But to be fair seventeen year old Shaggy only had to worry about the mask of the week and an occasional bad grade because he hadn’t gotten enough sleep the night before.

He was sure his hands felt incredibly sweaty in Nat’s, but of course she was barely acting like her holding his hand was beyond their current friendship level.

Suddenly his clammy hand that felt almost fused to Nat’s was pulled from the small girl’s grip and he swore he felt his hand take in a big gulp of air.

Looking up he wondered what had forcefully released Shag’s hand from a death grip.

As he looked over he saw that familiar bright red hair rush between him and Nat, “Henry oh my word it feels like forever since I last saw you!”

Daphne had run forward and pulled one of the players, now identified at Henry, into a classy side hug. Henry gave her a confused smile and chuckled, “Daphne I saw you in Macro this morning. You threw a pack of Skittles at me remember?”

Shaggy grinned, he remembered that.

Daph stared at the football player blankly, as if it occurred to her that he wouldn’t remember that. Eventually she let out a sheepish giggle and began to rub the back of her neck, “I-I guess that just feels like forever you know?”

Shag could feel his insides imploding for her, now she had been trapped in a painful social situation.

Henry just gave her a soft smile and turned his attention back to Randy, who was now rambling about how they took Skittles out of the school vending machines for some reason.

Daph let out a quiet, possibly relieved, sigh and turned back toward Shag sending him and amused look.

In return he gave her an apologetic one.

For a split second Daph’s eyes had left his and darted to the left of him. It was then that Shaggy remembered Nat was standing next to him, and had been gripping onto his hand up until a minute ago.

It came to his mind that Daphne didn’t need to run between him and Nat since it probably would have been much easier for her to just run between him and Randy.

He quickly brushed those thoughts to the side since this was Daphne and she tended to do everything without thinking about it and just ended up confusing herself when she was asked why the hell she did that.

After another minute of awkwardly standing in the middle of the huddle Daph silently took the spot between Randy and Shag.

Neither of them contributed anything to the conversations happening around them.

They just stood next to each other, and that was enough to make both of them feel safe.

Shaggy had shoved both of his hands in his pockets in fear that Nat might try to grab his hand again and then she would have to suffer holding onto his nasty, damp hands.

Occasionally the group would be sent into loud bouts of laughter, and during those times Daph and Shags would giggle along, pretending they 100% knew what hilarious thing had just been said and they also thought it was hilarious.

Sometimes she’d catch him looking at her and vice versa and then they’d look into each other’s eyes for a couple seconds before giggling awkwardly and turning away.

So far this party thing had been fairly standard for the two of them, although it had a pretty shaky start and Shag doubted he would ever actually get to the damn snack table. But that was okay, he thought, at least he wasn’t stranded and alone over here.

“So wait. Wait, wait, wait...”

Everyone’s attention was drawn to the guy standing next Henry, Shag recognized him as Elliot, Daph recognized him as the 3rd date she had gone on during sophomore year.

“Daphne I thought you were dating the Jones guy?”

Shaggy looked down at her, she was wearing a very confused expression.

She bit her bottom lip let out a puzzled laugh, “Um....I’m not. W-We’re just friends as far as I can tell.”

Randy snorted, “Where the hell did that come from Elliot? Are we playing Truth or Dare, 8th grade edition?” Elliot gave him and annoyed glare, “Well fuckin’ I’m sorry dude! I just kinda always assumed Blake and Jones were and item and then the Nancy’s show up tonight and it’s fucking Blake and Rogers wearing the couples earrings.”

He lifted up his hands and gestured between the two of them.

Instantly all eyes were on them, and Shag could feel Nat’s powerful stare.

That was it.

It was time to just die.

Anytime.

Right now preferably.

Daphne let out another nervous chuckle and Shag saw her fingers begin to fidget as she tried to think of a response.

Deciding he needed to help her, he took in a deep breath, “It’s- There not couple’s earrings. Like Velma just dared us to wear matching earrings to this party so that she would-um come.” That was never gonna get any easier was it?

Randy raised an eyebrow skeptically, and the rest of the team followed him.

Nat let out a chuckle, “So you two aren’t a thing?”

‘Define thing.’ Shag thought as he would admit that things were really complicated between them. But that was also none of their damn business.

He shook his head, “Like we’re just friends guys, right Daph?”

For a second he was wondering who he was asking the question for.

The crowd of curious football players and one student council president.

Or for himself, maybe searching for some sort of reality check that would remind him that Daphne was always gonna be in love with Fred.

That “always” was probably the biggest thing keeping his feelings hidden, so far down that even he didn’t see them. And maybe if he heard that “always” again in the form of her agreeing that they were just friends, than he’d be able to accept and move on.

But instead of Daph agreeing with him, she just stared up at him for several seconds, looking absolutely lost even though she knew right where she was.

And suddenly Shag felt lost too. There was no “always?” Where was it?!

What the hell did this mean now?

Daphne never answered his question.

Instead she exited the huddle and rushed past everything and everyone, and straight toward the exit into their courtyard.

And of fucking course Shag wasted no time following her because now they had been transported into some stupid rom com and chasing after her went right along with this Freeform worthy script.

Fred and Velma both sent concerned glance toward them but Velma signalled to Fred to just let them go.

He nodded, confusion clearly on his face.

The huddle plus Nat stared after them.

Nat let out another chuckle before turning back to the group.

“Elliot what door have you opened?”

Elliot scowled, “Oh sure it’s always my fault Miss ‘So like you are totally not dating right?’” He pretended to bat his eyelashes and twirl his hair with his fingers.

Nat rolled her eyes, “Randy, you’re the one that went to the same class as them, what do you think.”

He remained silent for a few seconds, maintaining a pensive look, “He asked her to dance at prom a couple months ago right? And she actually danced with him right?”

Everyone nodded and looked at one another knowingly.

Except Nat who seemed to be missing some crucial detail.

“So? Guys and girls can dance and not have it result in a marriage proposal.” She placed her hands on her hips.

The huddle all snickered before Henry clued the confused girl in, “Dear Natalie, we have basically grown up with Daphne always being a part of our life, dances included.” Nat still wasn’t getting why this was a big deal.

“During the eight year worth of dances, stupidly awkward middle school dances to trashy dance parties where losers spike the punch,” He sent an annoyed look over toward Randy, who just let out an exaggerated cackle, “Daphne Blake has never, and when I say never I fucking mean never-no exceptions, danced with anyone except Fred Jones.”

Shaggy groaned and ran his hands through his hair, what exactly was happening right now?

What was he trying to accomplish by chasing after her?

Was he trying to be dashing or something?

Because he doubted he looked anywhere near dashing as he tried not to trip on loose tiles.

Not to mention his hands were still in his pockets.

So he definitely looked like some sort of freakishly tall, armless creatures that was just bounding through nature.

Truly horrifying.

He wasn’t even surprised that Daph could run so fast even though she was wearing heels.

He had seen her take on some terrifying men in masks twice he size in six inch heels.

Lucky for him, high heels weren’t particularly quiet shoes and so he had a distinct *clip clop* to follow. This went on for several minutes and he had the sinking feeling that Daph would never stop running for the rest of eternity.

So he decided to call out to her.

“Excuse me!! Daphne! Have you run out of juice yet?!”

He then turned a corner and was surprised to see that he had caught up to her quite a bit. Now she was only a few feet in front of him.

“Jesus I’d like to talk to you about the Avengers’ initiative, good God!”

He heard her let out a soft laugh.

She stopped running.

So did he.

She still hadn’t turned around to look at him.

He shifted his weight from on foot to the other, just staring at her messy red hair that had gotten wrecked up by the force of her endurance running through the whole damn school.

When she did eventually turn around he was terrified.

Mainly because his brilliant rom com hero’s plot hadn’t been written out this far.

He stared at her for a few seconds.

She didn’t look mad or sad or happy or anything really.

She just looked like Daphne with messy hair and red cheeks.

What really sent his heartbeat going beyond the speed limit was that fucking glint in her eyes. Why was it there?!

‘Fuck it. Like we’ll do it live’

He took a couple steps forward.

He gulped.

Breathing was really hard if he thought about it.

“Daph, like what’s wrong?”

Brilliant, he clearly had grand control of this situation.

Daph looked down at her feet, an amused smile on her face.

When she did reply, it seemed annoyed, “Timing, that’s what’s wrong.”

He raised an eyebrow.

Timing?

Timing.

His eyes widened.

Timing!

Oh.

Timing.

“Yeah.”

Daphne looked back up at him, her eyes still practically glowing.

“Shags I.......I really wish I had danced with you sooner than the end of senior year.” She took a step forward and he instinctively took his hands out of his pockets, letting her grab onto both of them.

He intertwined his fingers with her’s instantly.

“I wish I had been smart enough to ask you sooner....”

She shook her head and smiled up at him.

“My dumb ass probably wouldn’t have said yes.”

He thought about for a second before nodding.

“And damn it, when I finally did say yes to you it fucking a few months before all four of us separate for our new lives!!” He saw her eyes begin to tear up so he squeezed her hands tightly.

She let out a pained chuckle, “I don’t suppose NYU happens to interest you at all huh?”

He smirked at her, “New York has amazing food, and you soon. But other than that I don’t see any appeal.” She sighed and nodded.

Silence.

For a long time, just silence.

“Wait so you are for sure accepted into NYU than?” She beamed brighter than any star he had ever seen, honestly all stars were posers compared to her damn smiles.

“Orientation starts August 26th.”

He squeezed her hands again.

“So I have one more summer with you....”

She squeezed back.

“Indeed you do.”

A/N Okay this took me way too long to write and I know it’s really long but the fact that it’s so long is why it’s been like eight millions years since i updated!

#scooby doo #shaphne #shaggy rogers #daphne blake #shaphne fanfiction

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acaranna · 7 years

Text

McHanzo Week Day 1: Morning || Night

Yes, I gave in and wrote a little something. No idea if it’s good but it wouldn’t leave my head. So, have fun reading! <3 (Beneath the ‘Keep Reading’ because it turned a tiny bit longer than 500 words. XD)

“Good morning folks! It’s 6am and we’re all ready to -” The woman’s voice cut off sharply when Jesse slammed his mechanical hand down onto the little radio. He groaned quietly into his pillow already knowing that he needed yet another alarm clock. The loud crack from the shell hadn’t sounded healthy at all. He would have to ask Winston for a new one.

Jesse rolled over onto his back and turned his head toward the other side of the bed. The empty side. Hanzo was away on the other side of the planet, on a mission with Lena, Hana and Lucio. It was supposed to be a short mission. Only four days, Winston had said. It turned out to not be that short.

They were coming up on day nine and Jesse noticed Hanzo’s absence more and more. Not only did he have trouble waking up in the morning; he also couldn’t fall asleep until he was either too drunk or too exhausted to stay awake. Though there was a tendency towards the latter over the last few days.

“How can one person have such an influence on another,” he wondered quietly while staring at the unused white pillow beside his head. “It should be impossible and yet here I am.” He chuckled and rubbed a hand over his face. His eyes felt gritty and his skin was sticky with dried sweat.

Exhaustion tugged on his limbs but Jesse forced his body to move out of the warm cocoon he had made in the absence of Hanzo’s body heat. His foot caught on his discarded jeans and nearly sent him sprawling across the floor. He cursed but continued on until bare feet met the cold, cold tiles of the bathroom.

Jesse whined pitifully but knew that there was nobody there to chuckle behind him. So he quickly moved onto the rug in front of the shower. He never liked getting cold feet because once they lost their warmth he needed a lot of time to get them warmed up again. Hanzo knew that and teased him endlessly about it. Surprisingly, Jesse found himself missing the gentle ribbing.

He showered, quick and efficient. There was no need to draw it out. With no Hanzo there to join him beneath the warm water, Jesse didn’t see the need for indulgence. He had learned to be quick when water was scarce and valuable. Every drop was rationed and used carefully. The ability to work with little to nothing saved him and his friends more than once.

Ten minutes later Jesse stepped out of the shower and wrapped a towel around his hips. He slipped in front of the mirror and barely caught his balance. He sighed, still tired. Running a hand across his face Jesse stared at his blurry mirror image. His beard was getting shaggy again.

“Might as well try to look a lil’ bit more human,” he sighed. “Jus’ in case my sweetpea comes home ta me.” He didn’t get his hopes up, though. Even if the team managed to wrap up their mission right that second it would take them at least another day to come back to the Watchpoint. Still, Jesse felt better when he put the trimmer down again. Tamed but still wild enough to give him his preferred rugged look. Not that anyone acknowledged it.

Half an hour after getting out of bed, Jesse ambled through the empty hallways. His goal was the kitchen because there was a mug of coffee with his name on it. Literally. Hanzo and Genji had bought him the gaudy atrocity for Christmas the year before and Jesse loved it. Everyone knew to never use it when Jesse was on base.

“Good morning, Jesse. I hope you slept well,” Angela smiled and took his mug out of the cupboard. She poured him a coffee and he blew her a kiss which made her laugh softly.

“As well as can be expected,” he replied with a huff while his body dropped heavily into one of the chairs. Angela sighed and joined him at the table. They drank their coffee quietly and Jesse’s mind drifted while his eyes stared sightlessly out of the window. Maybe he would head to the shooting range and go through a couple of training rounds, even if it would be a lot less exciting without his favourite sparring partner there.

A noise from the entrance of the kitchen roused Jesse from his internal musings. He lazily turned his head to check who disturbed the early silence. His eyes widened when a disheveled, exhausted Hanzo stumbled into the kitchen. Their gazes locked for a moment and Hanzo managed a small, happy smile.

Jesse barely had time to turn his body away from the table before his boyfriend stumbled over and dropped gracelessly into his lap. Strong arms wrapped around his neck and a cold nose buried itself in his neck. Jesse shuddered but embraced Hanzo just as hard.

“Han,” he breathed, arms curled tightly around the man in his lap. “When did you get back? I thought you wouldn’t be back for another twentyfour hours. Honestly, I was wondering whether or not you found someone better than me and ran off with them, leaving lil’ ol’ me behind.”

Hanzo grumbled quietly but leaned back a little. His gaze was unfocused from exhaustion even if he tried to glare at him and Jesse winced slightly. He needed to get his man into bed and soon. If his jokes fell on more or less deaf ears it was past high time.

“Did Winston not tell you? We left as soon as the mission was over. Yesterday morning. From the battlefield right into the carrier.” The words were quiet and slightly slurred but Jesse understood them. He frowned and wracked his brain, trying to remember if Winston had told them. Nothing came to mind.

“Nah, he didn’t. But that’s quite alright,” Jesse huffed and held Hanzo a little tighter. “You’re back now and I think it’s time for you to sleep. You’re being affectionate in front of someone.” He glanced at Angela who hid her smile behind her own coffee. Hanzo didn’t seem to notice.

“No, we still need to debrief,” he shook his head even though his body did everything in order to get closer to Jesse’s warmth. “Jack is waiting. He wants to see us as soon as we’re back.”

“He can wait for a while longer,” Jesse decided. “You need sleep more than a debriefing now. Also Jack ��” He fell quiet when Angela chuckled softly. A glance down made him smile, too. Hanzo had already given in to exhaustion.

#mchanzo #overwatch #mchanzo week 2017 #mchanzoweek2017 #p:mchanzo

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how2to18 · 6 years

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I FIRST MET Lee Goldberg on January 10, 1971, which is the day I was born, nine years after Lee showed up. I don’t remember this meeting, though there are some adorable photos that mark the occasion. Since then, what I can tell you is that I’ve come to depend on him for the kind of advice only an older brother can provide:

How to kill a guy.

How to get rid of that guy’s body.

How to perpetuate a long con where you pretend to be that guy.

That sort of thing.

Such is the benefit of having an older brother with the same profession … which, in our case, is writing crime fiction. Lee’s been on the job for a long time now. His first book, .357: Vigilante (under the pseudonym Ian Ludlow), came out in 1985. His first script, an episode of Spenser: For Hire entitled “If You Knew Sammy” co-written with his longtime writing partner Bill Rabkin, was produced in 1987. In the intervening years, I’ve seen Lee hit the highest highs — number-one best sellers, like his new book, True Fiction, which spent the better part of March and April atop Amazon’s best-seller list, and top-rated TV shows, like Diagnosis Murder, the classic crime drama he executive produced — but also the lowest lows. There was the time he wrote for a talking dolphin. There was also the time he wrote for a non-talking dolphin. And then there was a debilitating fall that cost him the use of both of his arms for many months, a frightening experience for anyone, but particularly daunting for a person who makes a living typing. Through it all, what has never changed is the devotion Lee has had for the crime genre, his optimism that luck is a thing you create for yourself, and his sense of humor for the absurd things in the world. He’s sold millions of books around the world. He’s written dialogue for Dick Van Dyke and David Hasselhoff. He’s inhabited some of the legendary characters in the mystery canon: Nero Wolfe. Monk. Spenser.

Mostly? He’s just my older brother.

So when I told him about 25 years ago that I also wanted to be an author, that I wanted to take my shot — this was after I’d graduated college and tinkered around in advertising for a few years — he gave me the best piece of practical advice I’ve ever received, which was this: Learn how to do more than one thing. Write short stories, write novels, write essays, write screenplays, write criticism, teach, become flexible, so that you always have a way to tell your story, so that you always have a way to earn a living as a writer, because there will come a time when you can’t sell something, when you need to have a back-up plan that doesn’t crush your soul, because as much as he had succeeded, he’d also failed, over and over again.

He was right, of course.

I do all of those things now, just like he has at one time or another.

In the last two decades that we’ve had this job — without ever actually working together — we’ve been able to experience a lot of cool things with one another. There was the night we spent with Donald Westlake, asking him all the questions we’d been holding on to since childhood. There were the weeks we were both on the New York Times best-seller list at the same time, Lee with a book he’d written with Janet Evanovich, me with a book I’d written with Brad Meltzer. Or the time we signed autographs for Stuart Anderson from the Black Angus. No, really. We met the Black Angus.

But also, in all that time, I’ve never read a single interview with Lee that satisfied me. He’s a funny guy, and so I think he gets a lot of questions that are set-ups for easy quips, which is a uniquely Goldbergian trait that I know we share — the ability to take any serious topic and turn it into a joke — but it also makes me feel like his hundreds of thousands of readers only know one side of him as person. So. This one time? We’re gonna fix that.

TOD GOLDBERG: What were those first nine years without me like?

LEE GOLDBERG: My first instinct was to reply with a joke … but I’m going to give you a serious answer. Those were the years when mom and dad were still married, so it was the only time we resembled a TV family. Our parents even had sitcom-y careers. Dad was a TV anchorman and mom was a model/socialite. We were moving up the ladder, from a starter house in Oakland to a brand new tract home in the suburbs. We spent the weekends at a beach house we rented in Capitola. We even had a Ford Country Squire station wagon. All that was missing was a shaggy, Please Don’t Eat the Daisies dog (which we got shortly after dad left … better late than never). We’d eat TV dinners in front of the TV watching dad tell us the news. In that environment, is it any wonder I turned out the way I did? You missed that tiny window of time when mom was, well, a mom and could be a lot of fun … but wait, this is about me, not mom, or the inspiration for all of your fiction. Let’s get back to me and mine.

I spent a lot of those nine years play-acting TV shows like the Wild Wild West and Batman with Karen (for you, dear reader, she is our sister, who is two years younger than me). I got to be James West and Batman … while Karen always got stuck being Artemus Gordon or Robin or whoever the second banana happened to be … and she wasn’t too happy about it.

When I wasn’t doing that, I was staging radio dramas and talk shows on my tape recorder. (I fell asleep each night listening to talk radio and old-time radio dramas.) I cast our neighborhood friends as guest actors (in the radio dramas) and either in-studio guests or callers for my talk radio programs. I would then play the recordings back, recording them on a second recorder, to edit out stuff that didn’t work and to add music (the theme song of my radio show was “Up, Up and Away”).

My pretend play was elaborate storytelling. I suppose I did it because I was imaginative … but probably to shelter/cocoon myself from all the arguments going on in the house (and there were a lot of them). I didn’t know, of course, that I wasn’t just playing, I was rehearsing for my future career … like a guy who plays doctor and then, like, actually becomes one.

I often get asked what it’s like to have a family of writers and artists, and it’s hard to explain, exactly, because it’s the only way we’ve lived. Our sisters are both writers and artists, our mother, after her socialite period, became a newspaper columnist covering socialites, our father — not that I ever lived with him as a sentient human — as you noted, was a TV news journalist, and then there’re all the uncles and cousins and whatnot, too. But you were the first one, really, to make it on a national stage, which I know gave me the confidence to aim big, and which I suspect made it easier for our sisters, too. Did seeing mom’s and dad’s success and, in many ways, eventual failure — both of them had these sort of big-league dreams but ended up never quite getting there, which ended up driving them both a bit mad — provide some motivation for you?

There’s no question that dad being on television and mom being a writer shaped me in profound ways. There is a lot of both of them in me … though more of mom than dad. They were both comfortable in front of an audience, whether it was on camera or standing on front of people. Mom had a big, outgoing personality and great sense of humor. She was a deft schmoozer and a big ego. She was a profound exaggerator in her storytelling, for both comic and dramatic effect. She went after what she wanted, personally and professionally. She was a fighter. I have a lot of those same attributes, though I hope with less of the destructive flip side. For example, I know when I am exaggerating a story and, I like to believe, so does my audience. We’re in on the joke together. It’s like when an audience buys into the franchise of a TV series … no matter how ludicrous it might be (she’s a nun — and she can fly! A detective with OCD! A drug-addicted doctor who hates his patients!) … because they want to enjoy the ride. Unlike mom, I don’t believe my exaggerations are the truth and then exaggerate them the next time I tell the story, and then exaggerate that, until I am heading into something approaching clinical delusion. I know where the truth ends and the embellishment, for comedic or dramatic effect, begins. I’m deeply afraid the day will come, though, when I lose that self-awareness.

I haven’t talked much about dad because he wasn’t really in my life after I was 10 years old (though he was in my life more than you or our sisters). Dad grew up wanting to be a TV anchorman … despite coming from a small logging town and having zero contacts … and yet he achieved that dream. He eventually became an anchorman on KPIX, the CBS affiliate in San Francisco … a major station in a major market … and it should have been a stepping-stone to the national stage. Getting there had to take talent, drive, and confidence … but somewhere along the line he lost his mojo … or, more likely, his backbone. I was too young at the time to know why or how it happened, or if mom was somehow to blame. But he became a weak, wishy-washy, superficial man. He let people, he let life, walk all over him. He stood up for nothing and nobody and lost everything. He showed me it was possible to achieve your dream, but through his failure, he also showed me you had to be strong to keep it. That’s not all I learned from him. Seeing him on TV every night also made television — the industry and the medium — something approachable to me. He made the TV part of my family. He made it small and human. My father was a TV screen, and I knew that I was stronger than he was. So yeah, I could break into TV. No problem. And I did.

One of the nice things about having siblings who are also writers is that they give you the unvarnished truth about your books — so when you’ve told me in the past that a book I’ve written is good, I know it’s good, and when you tell me a book I’ve written is just okay, it validates my impostor syndrome and saves me a trip to the therapist that week, which is also nice. And so I was pretty excited to tell you the other night how much I loved True Fiction, and not just because I thought it was your best book — which it is — but because I thought it marked an evolution in your writing, which is a thing that excites me as the biggest Lee Goldberg fan in the country. This is your funniest book, but it’s also one that lovingly shows an admiration for the thriller genre, and it shows your growth as a writer. In scenes where you might have gone for an easy punch line 20 years ago, you now have something that is funny but has a larger emotional relevance as well. Where you might have held back on a scene because it was too absurd, you now blow scenes up to be beyond absurd, because the genre you’re skewering requires it. Essentially, True Fiction is you at the top of your powers, both in terms of observation but also in terms of execution. Can you sustain that level without becoming a parody of yourself?

God, I hope so. I’m facing that problem now as I plot the third book with these characters. The first sequel, Killer Thriller, came very easily to me and felt like a natural extension of True Fiction. I never wanted either book to be a satire of thrillers, but rather an exploration of the difference between fiction and reality, between who we think we are and who we really are … and how the stories we consume in movies, TV, and books shape so much of what we expect out of life and from ourselves. I wanted to acknowledge the clichés, formulas, and tropes of the genre, confess my love for them, and then totally subvert them … while delivering the same pleasure that thrillers do. But most of all, I wanted it to be a fun, fast-moving, exhilarating novel that felt like watching a great action movie. I wasn’t sure I could pull it off.

Here’s the funny thing, and it’s probably blatantly obvious to a lot of other people, but I didn’t realize until one night recently, when I was talking to you, that I’ve explored these same issues and themes now in three books — The Walk, Watch Me Die, and True Fiction (four if you count the sequel). So perhaps it’s actually too late and I’ve already become a parody of myself.

I think the most satisfying thing for me, as a reader of your books, was seeing how the influence of different parts of your writing life came together to make True Fiction such a joy to read. The influence of your time writing with Janet Evanovich was clear to me in the pacing. Your years writing Monk show up in your ability to make even secondary characters complete, rounded individuals. And of course your life as a TV writer and producer makes the action set pieces come alive (in a way that I, frankly, cannot do — when I was writing the Burn Notice books, for instance, I’d go and look at your books and scripts to see how you choreographed big fight scenes, or scenes where you’re blowing things up, and they really worked as a primer for me). Is that pulling-in a conscious part of your writing process or is it atavistic at this point?

Hold on a minute while I look up “atavistic.” No, it’s mostly conscious. I wanted this book to show off everything I’ve learned from being a screenwriter and working with Janet. That means I wanted it to be as visual and fast-moving as a screenplay, to be driven by dialogue and action rather than by clever prose or internal monologues that get you inside a character’s head (usually to give you exposition). When you write a script, everything has to be conveyed through dialogue and action … unless you use narration as a crutch for bad writing (which it is 90 percent of the time). One of the reasons Janet and I work so well as collaborators is that she thinks like a screenwriter, even though she isn’t one. She believes the writing should never call attention to itself, that the clever lines or observations should be in the character’s mouths, not in the prose, and that there should never be any boring parts (bla bla bla as she calls it). Exposition and lengthy descriptions are cut to their bare essence, usually a single line or two that makes the point. It’s an approach to writing that starts the moment you start plotting the story. I discovered, from writing a number of novels with her, how to take my screenwriting instincts and apply them to writing a novel without losing my voice. Actually, I think I finally found it.

It’s interesting to me that both of us write crime fiction but come at the genre from different angles. You have always written more about heroes — not always traditional heroes, exactly, but people who are invested in fighting crime, at any rate — and I’ve typically written about bad guys or antiheroes. I remember a conversation we had, however, after my second book came out and it lost a bunch of nice awards, but no one read it … and you said, “You could try maybe putting a joke in between the suicide attempts, the carving up of little children, and the murdering of women who look a lot like your wife, see how that feels.” You were being funny, of course, but it was also one of those moments of self-realization that I had that maybe you’ve always known: that people read crime fiction to feel satisfied at the end, not to feel like they want to kill themselves. So your approach to crime novels has always been very satisfying — a love interest, a heist, glamorous locales, a mystery that is solved in 285 pages, the world largely set right again by the time the credits roll. Do you think that comes from your TV background, or is it something more personal?

I love reading. I want to be entertained. That doesn’t mean a book has to be funny. But it doesn’t have to be unrelentingly dark and bleak. There are a lot of “literary” writers who think they aren’t good at what they do, or won’t be taken “seriously,” unless they are making the reader feel absolutely miserable. There are some readers who might find that experience engaging, relaxing, and an escape from their day-to-day lives … but it’s a very small number, certainly not one that will sustain a lucrative writing career. People can take heartbreak, pain, and continuing tragedy and despair in a novel as long as you also give them some humanity, some heart, and especially some humor. Open the drapes and let the sunlight in now and then. I’m a big believer that there’s always humor in our lives, even in the saddest, most dire moments. You know that to be true in our own lives.

Escaping into books was always how I coped, so I understand entirely. But do you remember the first book you read that made you think, “Oh, I could do this.”

Yes, I do. It was Fletch by Gregory McDonald. The dialogue was so good that the publisher put a page of it on the front cover. It was the first time I read a great crime story told primarily through dialogue. Yet it was every bit as rich, in character and plot, as far wordier and less dialogue-driven books. I studied Fletch and Confess, Fletch the way some Jews study the Talmud. I didn’t have McDonald’s skill, but somehow I knew after reading his book that I could be a writer. (Later, Robert B. Parker’s Spenser novels gave me the same feeling … but Fletch was the revelation.)

So maybe the better question is: Do you remember the first time you thought that you didn’t want to consume a book, you wanted to be the one who actually made the thing?

Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove. To me, that’s a perfect novel. I’ve read it many times trying to see how he pulled it off. What gives me hope is that even McMurtry isn’t capable of doing it every time he writes a book. It’s a goal he still strives to achieve … with mixed results. But in every book he writes, even the truly bad ones (and he has a few), there are moments of brilliance that I wish I had the talent to achieve.

Last question and then I promise I’ll let you get back to refreshing your Amazon page: I tried to count how many books you’ve written or contributed to, but I have two English degrees, so it got into math I’m frankly not qualified to do. It’s something like 75 books. Plus you wrote or produced 25 different TV shows. And launched a publishing company. You have a wife. You have a daughter. You have friends. You have family. You’ve had a bunch of great pets. You have profoundly odd hobbies, like smoking meats and flying your drone around, which essentially means you’re one step away from being one of those guys with a big-ass train set in the basement. When, in the last 35 years, have you slept?

I get lots of sleep … it’s rare when I get less than eight hours. Sometimes I get a few hours more. I honestly feel like I waste a lot of time, that I procrastinate too much, that I’m too lazy, and that I should be getting a lot more done. I feel like I’m capable of being much more productive than I am and that I’m letting myself and my family down, that I am not living up to my potential creatively. I wish I could survive on three or four hours of sleep a night. Think how much I could get done!

Tod Goldberg is the New York Times best-selling author of several books of fiction, most recently, Gangsterland. He directs the Low Residency MFA program in Creative Writing & Writing for the Performing Arts at the University of California, Riverside.

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