#i know I say 'this is the stupidest thing i've ever written' EVERY TIME BUT

[d0wnb4df0rf1cm3n]

Send Noods

Shuri Udaku x Reader

Summary: Shuri's hungry. You're confused what she's hungry for.

Word Count: 1K

Warnings: fluff, a lil bit of smutty smut smut (still 18+ pls), tbh this is just funny to me. NOT CANON COMPLIANT

Author's Note: i cant lie this maybe the stupidest thing i've ever written but its funny and cute and shuri deserves that.

I'm going to be working late tonight. Send noods? Read.

You weren't really sure how to react to Shuri's request. On the one hand, you two had a pretty active and healthy sex life - nudes weren't really the least conservative thing you two had engaged in.

On the other hand, it seemed particularly odd that she would ask for them if she intended to spend the rest of the evening in the labs.

You were slightly pissed off that she had cancelled on yet another date night in favour of working on whatever it was that she was developing - but you understood the importance of her job to Wakanda, so you let it slide.

The prospect of taking nudes excited you - you'd never done it before. You looked yourself once over in the mirror, taking in every inch of your reflection. Not for the first time since moving in with Shuri, you felt... sexy. Wanted. Your confidence wasn't lacking - you knew you were beautiful without Shuri's validation - but there was something about Shuri's spontaneity that made your confidence spike.

You showered, making sure to pamper yourself the same way you knew Shuri would if she were here with you. You shaved, did your skincare, painted your nails in Shuri's favourite colour.

You walked into the massive closet that Shuri had engineered for you, looking for the beautiful lingerie that Shuri had recently brought back from California. She'd been out there for a convention with Peter (Parker) and she'd sent you a picture of the lingerie with a 'thinking of you' message attached. Safe to say that you were so touch-starved that the idea of her thinking of you in that way had got you wet.

You put the lingerie on, marveling at how you felt more naked than if you had been nude, and posed in front of the mirror. You felt powerful in this. You put your favourite heels on, knowing how Shuri loved to unbuckle them for you, and lay on the bed.

You set your phone up on a tripod and took a series of pictures that were risque enough that you'd leave her wanting, but conservative enough that Shuri would want to come to bed. You want to entice her away from her work - the true love of her life.

You googled 'boudoir' and took reference from the poses you found. The photos you took were far from crude - no, they were tasteful, almost works of art.

You smiled when you were done. Shuri asked for nudes? Well, nudes she would get.

You sent her the photos and then threw your phone face down on the bed. Now to wait.

Shuri's phone pinged. She made a mental reminder to check it in a moment, just after she had finished her work on this new suit. She had modified the Black Panther suit, infusing it with the same nanotechnology that Peter had been working on at MIT. She was excited to test out her improvements.

Her phone pinged again. Whoever it was really wanted to get a hold of her. She sighed when her text tone rang out again, standing up to grab her phone.

From: Sithandwa <;3 Image 📸

What the hell did you want now? Maybe you were asking what noodles she wanted? She opened her phone and promptly turned the screen to the table. What had she just seen?

She looked around to make sure there was no one else in the lab - of course, no one else was in the lab because she had a strict 'you must leave the lab at 8pm' which she enforced for everyone except herself. She looked at her phone again to find 5 pictures of you spread over your shared bed, posing in ways that made her mouth water and pussy clench.

Shuri told Griot to look up the lab and she sprinted down the halls - god, you looked delicious and she wanted to devour you.

She opened your bedroom door to see you sitting on the edge of the bed, anxiously biting your nails.

You were so nervous. What if you'd completely misread the signals - no response from Shuri was normally never a good sign.

The door swung open and Shuri stood in the doorway, eyes raking over you, a smile playing on her lips. She stalked over to you, hand cupping your face. She pulled you in for a passionate kiss - her tongue slipping inside your mouth. You relaxed into her hold, kissing her back and pulling her towards you.

She climbed onto the bed, straddling you as she rocked into you. You felt something hard under the confines of her trousers and you smiled. You were in for a fun night.

"What did I do to deserve these beautiful pictures of you, sithandwa?" She asked, pulling away to rest her forehead against yours. You looked up in confusion.

"What? You asked for them, remember?"

Shuri looked confused, "Uh- no I didn't?"

"Yes, you did. See," you pulled your phone from the bedside table, "You said, 'send nudes'." Shuri burst out laughing.

You curled away from her, embarrassed, but she pulled you back into her arms, laughter still bubbling up. She cupped your cheeks and looked into your eyes, "I meant noodles, sithandwa, not nudes." You smiled involuntarily, laughter bubbling up from you too, "Not that I'm not appreciative of your gorgeous photos, but you've ruined my plan for this evening."

"I think I already have an idea of what your plan was for this evening."

"And do you like it?"

You nodded gently, a wave of shyness washing over you.

Shuri lifted your chin up with her finger, "Words, princess."

"Yes, please."

She pushed you down so your back was on the bed, "Good girl."

She kissed you again, fingers trailing up and down your sides. She peeled the straps of the lingerie down, revealing each inch of your skin, pressing light kisses to the expanse of your shoulders.

She kissed down your navel, taking her time to make you squirm. If there was any art that Shuri had perfected, it was the art of fucking you just right.

You stopped her as she reached the softness of your belly. She looked up at you, puzzled, but burst into laughter as soon as she heard what you had to say.

"After this can we get noodles?"

fin.

[mldniqhts]

Agape

Pairing: Marc Spector x Fem!Reader

Summary: you've known Marc Spector for a while. But what you would have never realized is that it was all a part of a plan to keep you safe.

On the outside, it was terror. Violent clashes of wind and thunder, moving full speed, screaming at the top of their lungs. It was loud tonight. Violent. Unstoppable. Haunting. The people of London were staggering by, clenching their hats, avoiding it to get lost in the determined wind.

But in the comfort of your home, nothing could be heard. Music echoed through the halls, stopping at the corners. The vile, cruel acts of the Earth died.

But not fully.

It was still a threat. He was still a threat. Sitting in front of you, Marc waited for your response. He'd known for a long time this was bound to happen. An inevitable event. I know who you were. What you did to escape. But they're back.

You stared at him, hoping that in a matter of seconds he would burst out laughing, saying that this is some sort of joke. You wished. Goddammit, you wished.

“Do you really expect me to believe that?” your voice was cold, threatening itself. Marc knew what you were capable of. He just wishes that you could admit to it now. You were in denial. He knew you were.

“Yes, I do…” he replies softly. A face of pleading written all over his face.

Shaking your head, you were about to launch yourself in front of him, wanting to scream at him to walk away, to leave, to never come back. But it was your name that pushed out his lips clear and without hesitation.

And your heart dropped.

You froze. What the f-

“How do you know that name?” your words came out of your own lips before you could even process your train of thought.

Marc studied you. Analyzing your every move. “Nobody calls me that,” you said, moving your hand slowly behind your back to ready a kitchen knife.

You didn’t know what to do, what else to say or even ask apart from the stupidest questions you could ever think of, hopefully getting an answer through your weak demands. “Tell me who you are.” you couldn’t admit you were scared, but it was obvious that the man in front of you didn’t seem to be threatened by you as he didn’t move a muscle.

"I know your name. I've known it since the first day we met. But please listen to me. Those are the wrong questions to ask,” he said. “The right is how much time we have.”

“Until what?”

Despite the knife held close up to his neck, he didn’t seem to flinch, his posture rested but still clearly tense, almost waiting for something… someone to come inside. “Until they find you,” he answered. “In which to my approximation is not a lot.”

You shook your head. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”

His brows furrowed for a moment, raising his hands immediately for you to see them before he began to bCk up, keeping his eyes fixated on you. “I can see your scared, but you gotta trust me. They’re gonna be here-“

Before he could finish his sentence a loud shatter came from your right. Turning your head immediately you caught your wind broken and nearby a ball rolling in between the two of you. A bomb.

Following it with your eyes, it took you more than it should to realize what would happen next. And just as you locked eyes with him again, he had launched himself over you, the last thing seeing was his eyes popped open before smoke covered your eyes.

“Get down!” he yelled before the bomb turned off. Feeling a heavy weight on you, you quickly got pushed against your shelf of books, turning into a ball on the floor.

You couldn’t hear for a good few seconds as smoke had dug its way down your throat. Coughing, you opened your eyes, not seeing anything but the smoke that engulfed you while your ears rang.

Pushing yourself up, you quickly felt an arm wrap around you. With quick instincts, you dug your names into his skin before you felt his other arm touch your shoulder softly but with pressure, quickly realizing it was him.

“You okay?” you barely heard through the loud echos. Covering your mouth with your elbow, you nodded before pushed you towards the direction of your exit.

You knew you could have trust this man. You’ve not only just fully known the man he was today, but he has figured you out himself. And knowing who you were, who you truly were was a dangerous things.

But one thing was for certain as you felt his touch: a man would never truly abandon a woman like that. Not if he genuinely cared for her.

[hyenadon]

im just gonna type this post out bc no one will see it (dante and olivia might) but I just need these thoughts to be expressed. online. into the screaming void of the internet which is of course not a screaming void but whatever whatever

sometimes I feel so like. unbalanced in love. Like. its interesting and also maybe terrible? Its like I get love in giant hits but never consistently. And its all different types of love too and never at the same time, so it never like. it never really feels like i'm FULL on love. Like theres that one piece of writing from a cql fanfic, fuck, wait, let me find it

"Wei Ying has always had a heart that could swallow the universe whole, that would teeter over the precipice dividing love and war and leap blindly. He had resigned himself to the likelihood that no one would ever quite feel for him as he felt for them." I think thats by afterwords by silkwings but im pretty sure they deleted their fic

I just feel greedy for it sometimes, I feel starving for love, I feel like scrabbling at scraps for love. And sometimes (not all the time, sometimes) I feel like "no one would ever feel for [me] as [i] feel for them"

at the same time though i'm NOT scrabbling at scraps of love, i'm NOT.

I'm given love pretty consistently. When olivia and I have our silly little talks about dr who or er or temeraire thats just. well thats just olivia and I. thats the love we have. we talk and I love it and we can talk about the stupidest things but its just. its just a chance to hear each others voice and to say "hey I love you. talk to me about something that matters to you and I will listen."

and the same goes for dante but I feel like I am not sharing an interest with him and i'm seriously considering getting into lego boats or something just so we can share that. not out of guilt or anything like obligation. i just love talking to dante. I love sharing interests with him. I love when he talks abt the things he likes. and dante always responds to me with so much empathy and understanding. Whenever I have a bad time dante is like yeah bud I get you. I honestly feel like a tiny bit bad that i'm not into boats bc I can just see how much joy that brings dante and like...I wanna get in on that.

And like. again I am given love. Best example is mumma messaging me recently and just basically saying "oh, yeah, my first book is dedicated to you. You didn't know that? of course it was."

but in a way, way nicer phrasing, and in little shared pieces of jargon just between us. I cried on the train home yesterday.

I'm so rich in love from these people.

and sometimes my coworker lena, who cracks my back and hums "damn that sucks" when I complain about my rotten family. Shes brilliant she really gives as much as she can to love me its just.

But who else do I have? yknow? I know there are orher people who love me but who do I TRUST to love me? Who can I even LET love me? Certainly not my biofam. They don't even know me. It's never enough it will never be enough.

As much as my Mumma will love every poem and every story ive ever written, and how she will shower me with praise, and be proud of me just for getting out of bed and staying alive, I want Sheila Monahan to apologize, fuck, I want her to BEG for my forgiveness for how she treated me.

just like in general:

(apologize for hitting me. Apologize for smacking a vaccuum cord around my knees when I was like. 10, idk. apologize for constantly calling me a bitch or a cunt when I was in high school. I deserve so, SO many apologies from her. apologize for the time you saw me do poetry in front of 4k people and asked "when can i leave?")

AND HEY, SHEILA, APOLOGIZE FOR HITTING AND CALLING ME A MEAN BITCH ON MY FIRST SLEIGH BELLS CONCERT. I've never been to a bells concert since them and my only memory of them is tainted by you calling me a cunt. Sheila. you suck.

but the apology I want the most is just. Sorry I never listened to your writing. I just want my biomom to tell me my writing is lovely. Bc its the thing im good at, i'm ALWAYS good at writing. And when I did yearbook she never even read it.

At least my dad read it. I still don't trust that man, I think he's a coward for allowing my mother to be terrible to me, but he read my words, and liked them.

yearbook was beautiful. yearbook was a work of art I will never replicate.

And the people that matter love it. Olivia and dante have seen it and read it and love it.

My biological father actually loves it very much. He says it's rockstar material. He was gonna show it to his coworkers.

But Sheila didnt even read it. She didnt even read the parts where i tried to commit suicie multiple times. bc if she did she might have cornered me.

But god. I just think.

what a horrible family I have that my father will allow my mother to ignore my attempts.

What awful people.

what deeply awful humans.

[yellowocaballero]

Jon's Trapped in Temporal Time-Out: A TMA Time Travelling Tale

Sasha was tipping some whiskey from her secret flask into her tea when Tim poked his head into the breakroom and announced that he had found a corpse.

Sasha and Martin, hunched over their paltry lunches and pathetic lives situated upon a rickety metal breakroom table and equally rickety metal chairs, stared at him. 

“Like,” Sasha said finally, “a human one?”

Tim shrugged. “Humanoid? I didn’t want to poke it and see if it was fleshy, so I guess the jury’s out.”

Hm. Sasha put her flask away. The day was no longer boring, so it was unnecessary. 

The most relevant questions ought to be asked first. “Should we tell Jon?”

“He might throw a bitch fit about how corpses are unhygienic, so no?”

Martin drained his tea and stood up from the rickety metal chair, resigned. “I’ll get the broom.”

I kept on bitching about how much I dislike the beginning scenes of TMA time travelling AUs so my friend @lazuliquetzal​ (who wrote the best TMA time travelling fic in the fandom) told me to put my money where my mouth is. It’s nowhere near her level, but in my defense it’s probably even stupider than Reflection. 10K of stupid under the cut. 

Sasha was tipping some whiskey from her secret flask into her tea when Tim poked his head into the breakroom and announced that he had found a corpse.

Sasha and Martin, hunched over their paltry lunches and pathetic lives situated upon a rickety metal breakroom table and equally rickety metal chairs, stared at him. 

“Like,” Sasha said finally, “a human one?”

Tim shrugged. “Humanoid? I didn’t want to poke it and see if it was fleshy, so I guess the jury’s out.”

Hm. Sasha put her flask away. The day was no longer boring, so it was unnecessary. 

The most relevant questions ought to be asked first. “Should we tell Jon?”

“He might throw a bitch fit about how corpses are unhygienic, so no?”

Martin drained his tea and stood up from the rickety metal chair, resigned. “I’ll get the broom.”

****

There was, indeed, a corpse in the Archives.

More specifically, in the stacks. The worst place to die, or least be dumped. Sasha had to admit the logic of it: it was the darkest depths of the library that Martin had informed her was ‘somewhat creepy’ and ‘kind of ominous’ so ‘please stop sleeping there you’re going to give me a heart attack’. After Martin flipped on a few lights that were never flipped on (apparently Elias was a cheapskate, which explained the breakroom) they could all gawk at the corpse to their heart’s content. 

Very kindly and thoughtfully, Tim asked Martin if he wanted to stay out of the library and maybe to ‘tell someone’ or something. Both Sasha and Tim had mutually and silently agreed that Martin seemed the type to have a delicate constitution. Granted, he hadn’t seemed the type to win Magnus Anarchist every month by breaking into abandoned buildings with absolutely no shame, so maybe he was the kind that surprised you. 

But Martin had just looked a little unimpressed. “Do you seriously think this is my first corpse? I went to university.”

That somewhat intimidated Sasha, who abruptly worried that she had missed out on an essential university experience again. “Is that a typical university experience?”

Martin paused a beat. 

“Uh,” he said, “yeah, sure, of course. Hazing, you know.”

“Is that what hazing…?”

“Fraternities.”

Tim, from where he had been standing at the entrance to the stacks snapping on the sterile gloves he had liberated from the cleaning supply closet, looked delighted. “You were in a frat too, Martin? What kind of hardcore frat had corpse hazings? Was it the Sigma Gammas? My frat always thought they were way too crazy, but we were a business one -”

“You know what,” Martin said, “let’s just worry about the corpse.”

After Sasha tied her hair in a ponytail and Martin snapped on his own gloves, they awkwardly approached the aisle where Tim had been trying to find a reference book for Jon. Sasha was worried that they would have to hunt for it a little, or that there would be a bad jump scare, but when they found it she saw that it wasn’t subtle at all.

It was sprawled on the ground, face mashed into the cheap and somewhat gross carpet. Sasha approached it with absolutely no hesitation, which Tim and Martin gladly let her do, and squatted down to get a better look at the figure. 

She definitely needed to make a coroner’s report. She was the objective expert in coroner’s reports. 

 “Tim, can you run back and get one of Jon’s silly little tape recorders for my coroner’s report?”

“Did you just see that on the telly?” Tim asked skeptically. “Because if you did -”

“Oh, here one is. That’s really convenient!” Martin grabbed one off the shelf and pressed play, letting the tape roll. “Good idea, Sasha. We need proof to Jon that we were researching.”

Probably...not what Jon meant for them to be researching, but Sasha liked to believe that it was the intent that mattered. She pulled a pencil out of her pencil skirt pocket, poking the figure thoughtfully. “Report by Sasha James, Archival Assistant.” There, now it was work. “At 1:30pm today, Tim Stoker discovered a corpse in the Archives, thereby referred to as John Doe -”

“Do we have to call it John Doe?” Tim complained, standing next ot her and crossing his arms. “Then we have too many Johns, it’ll get confusing.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Sasha said dismissively. “Ours is Jon, this guy’s John. Completely different.”

“Sasha, I’m not sure that’s how words work.”

“What are you, an English major?”

“Yes! I was an editor for a living!”

“Sorry if I don’t listen to guys who were fired from book editing school -”

“Uh,” Martin said, “have we checked to see if he’s actually dead?”

Sasha and Tim fell silent. Sasha looked at Tim. Tim shook his head. 

“Seriously, mate?” Sasha asked, unimpressed. 

“I didn’t want to touch the corpse!” Tim cried. “So sue me! It’s not as if he’s moving!”

Pussy. Sasha gently reached out and pushed aside a little of the corpse’s very long and pretty curly hair. What was that, 3C? Jesus, that had to be work. Sasha was 3A and the amount of hair care products she owned was insane.

She waved her hand at the boys for silence and put her thumb against his pulse, concentrating hard. Martin quietly walked over and crouched down too, eyeing his chest. 

“I don’t feel a pulse,” Sasha said finally. 

“Also, uh, I’m not a doctor,” Martin said, “but he’s definitely not breathing.”

“I told you,” Tim said defensively. “You just look at the thing, and you go - yep, that’s a corpse!”

“Corpse appears to be an ethnically ambiguous adult man with very nice hair,” Sasha said loudly. Martin helpfully held out the recorder to catch her voice better. “Maybe 190cm. Incredibly skinny - potential cause of death. He’s dressed in...some very ratty clothing. Potentially homeless.”

“It definitely smells,” Tim said, pinching his nose. Sasha didn’t blame him - the clothing was an overlarge green hoodie, ratty and threadbare, and his jeans weren’t any better. His boots were worn and soft leather. “Maybe he’s a homeless guy who snuck in and died?”

“That’s so sad,” Martin said softly. “Also a little gross.”

“Have some respect for the dead, guys,” Sasha said, as she poked the dead guy with a pencil. “Tim, go flip him over.”

Tim held his hands up, stepping away. “I couldn’t possibly. Martin loves flipping people over.”

“This again?” Martin asked, frustrated. “This is just like when you made me handle the Rawlings case because you’re scared of the suburbs!”

“They have too many eyes, Martin!”

“I am surrounded by cowards,” Sasha noted for the recorder. Nothing for it, then. Sasha carefully straightened, wobbling on her heels, before solidly wiggling her hands underneath the corpse’s chest. He was cold - dead a while. 

It was surprisingly difficult to flip over a limp adult man. Sasha was strong, but the corpse’s flesh was weak, and he was all floppy. Eventually Tim got over himself long enough to help her, making a very disgusted face the entire time, and they were able to finally get a good look at the man’s face.

Abruptly, upon seeing it, they all quieted. 

There was something about seeing a man splayed out on the ground that was a little funny, if you worked for the Magnus Institute and had probably encountered a Leitener two years ago and lost all empathy. No more impediments in the search for science. But there was something very different about looking at a person, who had a nose and lips and a very ratty hoodie, and knowing that it was no longer a person. Just a lot of cloth and meat and blood and organs and nice hair that once was a person, back when things were easier and the world was a little less harsh.

But maybe Sasha was caught by sentimentality: after all, the corpse looked a little like Jon.

Judging from the stunned faces of her compatriots as they all bent around the figure, they all thought the same thing. Tim’s jaw was open, and Martin’s hand was covering his mouth in shock. 

“Man,” Tim said. “This sucks. And it’s really creepy.”

“He must have been really gorgeous,” Martin said. “That’s so sad.” 

Actually, Sasha tilted her head and took another look. He had sharp and severe features, elegant and striking. A large and thin, sharp nose, and equally sharp lips. His face was just as sharp and gaunt, as emancipated as the rest of him. He had strange scars trailing up his neck and curving around his jaw, but it just kind of accentuated the intense atmosphere. 

It was probably a pretty stupid thing to focus on, but in her defense it wasn’t really the face of a homeless guy. Well, maybe. Hot homeless people existed.

Sasha frowned. She’s only met one other person this hot. 

“Hey,” she said, “doesn’t he look like Jon?”

Both the men titled their heads. 

Finally, Tim said, “Nah, he’s hotter.”

“Agreed,” Sasha said. “I think the scars really do it.” 

“Uh, guys,” Martin said. 

Sasha grabbed her tape recorder out of Martin’s hands, resuming her coroner’s report. “Subject appears to be in his thirties. Weirdly attractive, but that’s probably not as important as we feel it is.” She looked down at his hands, carefully using her pencil to push up the sleeve. “What looks like an aged and badly healed burn scar on his right hand. Supports homeless guy evidence.”

“Knife scar over his throat,” Tim quietly observed. “Someone tried to kill this guy.”

“Guys,” Martin said. 

“Well, I guess this is the point where we worry about body disposal,” Sasha said, straightening. “I think Elias could handle this discreetly and professionally, but that might involve letting Jon know. And I don’t think any of us want that kind of stress in our lives.”

“So, are we not even pretending to want to call the cops, or…?”

“Listen to me!”

Both Tim and Sasha shut up, somewhat guiltily. Martin had straightened too, fists balled, looking firm and determined and resolute - everything that Martin wasn’t, really. Martin lived unsure of himself, never expressing his own feelings or ending every opinion with an “I don’t know, maybe, that’s just my thoughts, what do you think?”. 

So Tim and Sasha paid attention, and when Sasha nodded encouragingly at him he seemed to find further courage. Solemnly, with the air of a wise man by the side of the road, Martin said, “This guy isn’t hotter than Jon.”

Christ. Sasha takes it all back.

 Tim propped a hand on his hip supportively as Sasha rolled her eyes. “Look, mate,” Tim said, “I know that you think Jon’s the hottest person in existence, and maybe objectively he’s fine as hell, but once you know him for longer than three months he loses all attractiveness. It would be like being into the DMV clerk. The really pretentious cousin at all of your family reunions who tries to explain your own job to you. The dude in your English class who thinks he invented feminism.”

“That was you,” Sasha said. 

“I am the objective expert in Jon,” Martin said firmly, shutting down the dissent. “He’s, like, my muse, okay? And can I say, as I have spent so many long hours memorizing the curve of his jaw - that’s the same jaw.”

If Sasha had a retort to that, or if Tim wanted to judge Martin for his taste in men further, neither of them had a chance. There wasn't an opportunity to say anything more, because the corpse opened its eyes. 

Sasha’s first thought was this: wow, what green eyes. 

Sasha’s second thought was: the fuck?

His eyes didn’t focus on her, or snap anywhere. They drifted a little lazily, fixed on the right, but the man was undoubtedly aware. His fingers twitched, he tilted his head from left to right, and his left hand - doubtlessly the hand that still felt texture - clenched the thin and cheap rug. The man’s jaw slackened a little, as if in surprise. 

For their part, the Assistants frantically looked at each other, all conveying the exact same thought - you said he was dead!

Sasha froze to her spot, petrified. She could handle corpses, or coroner’s reports, or mysteries. Sasha was intelligent, unkind, firm, socially incompetent, and a Libra. She could handle the dead, but the living? Sasha had no idea what to do with alive people.

But Tim did. He hesitated two moments, reeling back in shock, before he abruptly composed himself. He crouched down to the guy, and modulated his voice to sound calming and firm. “Hey, don’t strain yourself. Are you alright? Do you hurt anywhere?”

The man turned his head in Tim's direction, hiding his expression from Sasha, but she saw Tim’s eyes widen. Martin, standing closer to his feet, wrung his hands - clearly torn on what to do, uncertain how to help. Martin always hated being uncertain how to help the most. Which was pretty unfortunate, because Martin always wanted to help, and Martin was always uncertain. 

“Can you speak?” Tim asked gently. “If you can’t speak, go ahead and knock on the floor for me, okay?”

“If we pack him into your car, we can say that we found him on the street,” Sasha piped up. As much as she distrusted NHS, and as much as the NHS refused to touch anybody who had ever stepped foot inside the Institute, they could hardly refuse somebody if they just lied their ass off about it. “They’ll have to treat him then, right?”

“We could make it so much worse if we move him,” Martin said quickly, just as strangely firm. “We need to take our chances with 999.”

“We don’t even know if he’s injured,” Sasha pointed out, somewhat optimistically. “Maybe this whole thing can just, like, not be a problem.”

Yeah, Sasha definitely preferred corpses. 

The man was opening and closing his mouth, before he coughed wetly. Sasha clinically noted that it was the first time she had seen his chest move. As Tim reached forward, murmuring gently, and helped the man sit up, she saw that his chest didn’t move at all.

“Alright, let’s try to get you up.” Tim helped the man shift so he was leaning against the bookcase - uncomfortable, but a better position if he started coughing up blood. “We should fetch you some water - Martin, I don’t think he has any injury like that, he just seems out of it. His eyes aren’t focusing on me at all.”

Strangely, the man scoffed at that. The sound made him cough again, but the derision was unmistakable.

The derision was extremely familiar. 

When Sasha looked at Martin his eyes were wide behind his glasses, and she knew that he had heard the same thing that she did. 

Finally, with a raspy and hoarse voice, the man said, “Well, isn’t this fucking fun.”

Everybody stared at him. His voice...different, definitely, with a less posh accent and strained vocal cords scratching his tones. But when Sasha glanced at Tim, she just knew that he was remembering when Jon had insisted on coming into work with a terrible cold and Martin had to bully him home. He had sounded eerily like…

“Is this your idea of a joke?” the man said. 

Tim, from where he was crouched next to the guy, turned his attention back to him. “I’m a funny guy, but last time I checked head injuries aren’t a joke.” He tracked his finger across the man’s eyes, frowning when they didn’t follow. “You definitely have a concussion, mate. If you can walk, we need to -”

“Lord, alright, I get it.” The man raised his burned hand and clumsily rubbed his eyes. “You’re mad at me, I’m sleeping on the couch, whatever. Is all of this really necessary?”

“Uh,” Tim said intelligently. “Mate, I’m not your boyfriend.”

The man waved his other hand in Tim’s direction as he pressed his fingers into his eyes in exhaustion. “I’m hardly speaking to you.” Tim’s jaw dropped in shock as the man angled his face upwards, the crown of his head jamming uncomfortably against the metal shelving. “In my defense, I was doing the best I could with the resources you gave me. It’s water under the bridge. I’ve forgotten about it already! So let’s just get back to our eldritch hellscape.”

Everybody stared at each other. 

“We should move this into the break room,” Martin said. “There’s tea there.”

“Oh, don’t be rude,” Jon said, “making Martin into a caricature of himself. You like Martin, you told me so.”

“Counterpoint,” Sasha said weakly, “the bullpen has Jon. And I really don’t want to explain this to Jon.”

“I don’t even know who this one is,” the man said. “What? Not going to tell me?”

“Okay, like, fucking rude, but whatever.”

“I don’t know who you’re talking to,” Tim said firmly, reaching out and putting a firm hand on the man’s arm. The man didn’t recoil or jerk away, just looking down in vague surprise. “But they aren’t here right now. You’re in the basement of the Magnus Institute, alright? I’m Tim Stoker, at your service, and these are my coworkers. I think you have a brain injury. If you can walk, we need to get you -”

“I can’t eat here,” the man said, but he made no effort to remove Tim’s arm. He moved his other hand, pressing it against Tim’s own, as if they were friends. “Cutting me off from my Knowledge -” it was capitalized, Sasha could hear it “ - chaining me to my desk, for - what? You’re not even answering me? Come on!” The man’s voice raised, and for the first time Sasha could hear something ragged in it. “Don’t give me the silent treatment!”

“Jon.”

It was Martin, standing at a distance from the man - from all of them. He was wringing his hands again, shoulders hunched and tense, but his expression was caught in that same mysterious firmness. 

The man didn't react. Not in surprise, not in shock, not in unrecognition. He just scowled a little, ignoring all of them. 

“Jon,” Martin said, louder. “This isn’t solving anything. Don’t be stubborn.”

“I’m not the one being stubborn, Martin,” Jon - Jon?! - muttered, folding his arms. Like an infant. Like, hypothetically, something Jon would do. “I just don’t think omniscient fear gods should be petty.”

Everybody looked at each other. 

“This needs tea,” Martin proclaimed finally, and everybody nodded in silent agreement.

Every nodded in agreement - even, strangely enough, Jonathan Sims himself. 

****

This plan had a few complexities. 

The first complexity was dealing with Jon - their Boss - himself. In an act of cunning psychological warfare, Martin had gone ahead of them and used his endless and infinite subtle acts of manipulation to guarantee that Jon wouldn’t interrupt them. This situation was already Quite A Bit, nobody wanted to babysit their boss. 

Who Sasha frequently felt as if she babysat a bit. Having the youngest person in the office be the very rigid and authoritarian boss was objectively a little funny. But you know what’s not funny? Transphobia. 

Eventually Martin came back and waved them forward, and Tim gently yet firmly dragged the man upwards and put a hand on his back. 

“Do you mind if I touch you?” Tim asked. He sounded resigned about it - barely expecting Jon to respond. “Let me know how you want me to guide you.”

“Oh, it’s whatever. If you’re going to play it this way.” Jon easily looped his arm through Tim’s, who didn’t bother to mask his shock. “Let’s just get this over with.”

Sasha went ahead of them, watching Tim walk Jon down the aisle - hah! - with his arm looped through his elbow and a hand on his back. It was exactly the kind of care and meticulousness that Sasha always saw in him when it came to others. He literally walked grannies across the street. It was horrendous. She got second-hand embarrassed whenever she saw it.

Tim was loudly, extremely, messily kind. He was a person who adopted lost causes, like young men too grumpy to make real friends and women who only knew academia and never people. Sasha told him that once he got his teeth into something he never let go. It would get him into trouble one day. Maybe it already had. 

Sure enough, when Sasha opened the library door for them and peeked her head into the hallway, she saw that Jon’s office door was very firmly shut and locked. Even more incriminatingly, she heard his cute little theater drama monologues starting. Tim had found Jon’s theater aspirations very adorable and he had tried recording them to put on his Snapchat and maybe get him discovered by an agent, but unfortunately the videos made Tim’s phone bleed. They had given Martin ten pounds to taste the blood. Man would do anything for ten pounds, but seeing as they all worked this job that probably applied to all them. 

A workplace made out of people who always picked ‘dare’ in truth or dare. It was kind of a miracle they were still alive. Sasha was a little uncertain how she had survived to thirty five, actually. 

Once Sasha gave the all clear, Tim was able to bring Jon (Neo-Jon? Nega-Jon? Dark Jon? Mean Jon? No, that was just Jon) into the bullpen. Softly narrating what he was doing, he pulled out a chair and lowered Jon into it. 

Homeless Jon hasn’t been blind for very long, Sasha noted clinically. Long enough that he seemed more mildly irritated by it than anything else, but instead of orienting himself or testing out where he was he just kind of slumped in his chair. 

“Jon - uh, the Boss is taken care of?” Tim asked Martin, who was rapidly bustling into the bullpen with four cups of tea that he seemed to be under the impression would help. Tim had sat Homeless Jon in Martin’s chair, which seemed to fluster Martin a bit. 

“Uh, yeah. Gave him a normal statement to get his guard down, then five of the - you know, weird - statements and said that he has to go through all of them today. He’ll be in there for an hour at least.” 

Sasha frowned. “After two he gets a headache and gets bitchy.”

“Three o’clock exactly,” Tim said solemnly.

“Oh, leave off,” Homeless Jon said, “it wasn’t that bad.”

Everybody double taked and looked at each other significantly - which was quickly becoming their predominant mode of communication in a ruthless act of ableism. But Martin just held out a cup of tea, faltering as he clearly stopped to wonder the easiest way to give it to him. 

“Can you hold out your hands, Jon? I have some tea for you. It’s hot, so be careful, okay?”

“If the tea’s spiders I’m going to take it out on Annabelle,” Weird Jon said, but he held out his hands anyway and let Martin put the mug in them. He sniffed it cautiously, checking for spiders, before taking a cautious sip. 

To Sasha and Tim, Martin said, “I know, he’s going to fall asleep after two. I mean, it might be because I drugged his tea a little -”

Weird Jon spat out his tea back into the mug. 

“ - so we shouldn’t be interrupted,” Martin said brightly, clapping his hands. “Now! I think it’s time for explanations, don’t you?” He turned his mighty gaze upon Thankfully Blind Jon, who was occupied carefully holding the tea away from himself. “Drink your tea, Jon.”

Jon drank his tea. His expression twisted. “It tastes just like his.”

Everybody looked at each other. Tim mouthed the word ‘time traveller’ very clearly. Both Sasha and Martin nodded. It was the obvious explanation. 

“An explanation now, please,” Martin said pleasantly. “If you’re a time traveller, you can tell us. This is a safe space.”

Jon-from-the-future’s expression harshened in creases. He hadn’t once relaxed, expression permanently tightened in annoyance and disgruntlement. It was ridiculously Jon. 

Definitely a time traveller. You didn’t work at the Magnus Institute without secretly spending your life deeply hoping you run into a time traveller. Every researcher upstairs secretly prayed to discover the majesty. Everyone in Artifact Storage eagerly gathered around mysterious clocks and dared each other to touch them. Sasha, Queen of Truth-or-Dare, was the undisputed expert in making other people touch weird clocks and recording their reactions.

“Fine,” Super Time Traveller Jon said. “I know this is what you want. Statement of a stupid punishment by the pettiest little color in the evil crayon box. Recorded by the Archivist, in situ. Statement begins.”

Wow, Jon still had his job in the future? That’s a surprise. 

Martin was mouthing the word ‘evil crayon box’ to himself, looking increasingly concerned. The forgotten tape recorder, clenched in Sasha’s fist without her even realizing it, clicked and whirred. 

Then the Archivist began to speak. 

***

In the hazy amber of a memory, there exists an office.

You can see it clearly in your mind’s Eye, even now. You could likely navigate all of it blindfolded - which you now see that your god has the intention to test. Every corner of it is known to you, in the most subtle and mundane of ways. There’s a dust bunny in that corner, never tidied. A mysterious stain on the far right ceiling. The faint smell of blood, just under the vents. The hot waft of tea; your hands wrapped around a mug. 

Through these lonely offices, ghosts roam. They cling to desks and chairs; lingering in favorite mugs or in forgotten hair ties. A metal file cabinet holding neat rows of clothing, blood-stained jackets abandoned. A whiteboard with stubborn flakes of dried marker, forgotten handwriting clinging to life. These imprints no longer evoke terror or grief or pain. They are as familiar as the bloodstains and tea. Even death, eventually, is familiar. After long enough in a nightmare, it becomes indistinguishable from reality. 

There is nothing unfamiliar in the Magnus Institute.

Nothing save these voices, emerging from nothing. Every one of your six million senses have been cut off - your hundred eyes reduced to none. You are cognizant only of two familiar voices, and one unfamiliar one. A firm hand, with calloused fingers from leafing through aged paper. A creaky desk chair - Martin’s, undoubtedly, always squeaking as he fidgeted in distraction. The air tastes the same as it used to back then, before the AC broke and no repairman would step inside to repair it. Daisy did, eventually. Three familiar voices, rendered unfamiliar by the harsh tides of wind and cruel plastic hands. 

You are afraid of very little, these days. In this world that you’ve built, there is nothing that can harm you. The twisted little puppet strung up in his tower has been long since been disposed of, and the awful and terrifying future has settled into a gentle present. The apocalypse grows tedious after a while, and the buffet of fears start tasting a little samey.

But if anything could frighten you, this would. If anything would petrify you, it would be Tim’s kind smile, which died a year before Tim did. If anything could freeze you to your chair, it would be the sight of Sasha with red-rimmed eyes asking why you never even noticed that she was gone. 

The sanctuary of memory corrupted. A mental place of safety infiltrated. A mind turned inside out, exposing its vulnerable flesh to the world. 

There is nothing else this could be but your own personal hell. 

Your loyal servant crouches on bended knee, giving this final prayer to you. He asks, humbly and with great reverence, one simple question:

Why couldn’t this have waited until after I got my milk?

***

The spell ruptured.

It was almost tangible, like a change in air pressure making your ears pop. Sasha blinked harshly, rubbing at her ears and trying to soothe strange ringing. Tim exhaled heavily and Martin screwed his eyes open and shut harshly, as if he was seeing spots. 

The only person unaffected was Weirdly Christian Jon, who was slumped in Martin’s chair with his arms folded over his chest. He was still looking at the ceiling - speaking to whoever he had been addressing this entire time. 

“Just one day,” Jon was saying. “Just one day! It was going to be a nice day! We had decided to take a day trip to the Flesh garden and have a picnic! My darling and beautiful husband was going to make us a cake! ‘Walk down to the Hell corner store’, my husband says. ‘Pick us up some Eldritch milk’, he says. ‘Why do I have to do it’, I says, ‘I’m in the middle of something’. ‘We need cake for bridge night with the girls and I’ll divorce you if you don’t do it’, he says. I didn’t even change out of my nightmare pyjamas! What did I ever do to you? How are you still upset about the eye thing?”

Sasha and the Assistants, still digesting the extremely disturbing monologue, let him talk. Sasha was caught up in how it felt exactly like Jon’s little drama monologues. Granted, he had obviously gotten a lot more practice - guy could go to Broadway - but the weird lilting and falling sing-songyness was just the same. And he only ever did that for the very weird ones. The ones that they were pretty certain were actually true. 

So that probably meant at one point in the future, if Jon was speaking about the Archives as if they had worked there for years. Probably during the apocalypse. Which was happening. Which Jon had...built? Like, as a personal thing, or in a metaphor for capitalism and the human race? Definitely the capitalism thing - Jon was prone to flights of filing-induced passion that sometimes accidentally resulted in a stapler flying and punching a hole through the wall, but she couldn’t even imagine him even purposefully punching someone, much less being the Antichrist. Unless it was one of those things that just happened to you, like a rare genetic defect. 

“Seriously. What was the alternative here? Endless horrorterrors, everybody screaming all the time? It was boring. You eat one Statement about somebody standing in line at a slaughterhouse conveyor belt and you’ve eaten them all. I didn’t do it because I didn’t like you, although for the record I don’t. But you have to admit that having Eldritch Lidls are much more practical than just having a bunch of people lying around screaming all the time. It’s not as if I don’t have other eyes, I hardly miss them. There’s no chocolate cakes in the swirling vortex of mankind’s worst nightmares!”

Okay. They had to find a way to engage with this guy. He was completely ignoring them, probably because he thought that they were mean ghosts. Sasha was only one of those things, and it was hurting her feelings. Judging from the expression on Tim’s face he was thinking the same thing. 

Or - wait, Sasha knew that eyebrow. That was the ‘please please please tell the apocalypse has zombies’ eyebrow. Great. 

But Martin was just looking thoughtful again. Sasha was pretty proud of him - it was probably very difficult for the poor man to remain coherent in the face of the crazy time-traveller who was definitely hotter than their already objectively unfairly hot boss. 

“Jon,” Martin said, cutting Jon’s tired rant about how eggs benedict were much better these days, “Uh, I have an idea? Maybe you can’t get out of the - nightmare by bargaining with it. Do you know how to normally escape these things?”

Jon angled his head down and frowned in Martin’s direction. So far Martin seemed to be the only person who could shut Jon up, which was a hilarious turnaround from normal life. Sasha hadn’t heard anything about Martin being a sad little ghost, but it was hard to believe that Martin was a survivor in the zombie apocalypse. 

“You go through the statement and you walk through it,” Jon said, in a very ‘duh’ kind of way. “Give the statement, highfive corpses, whatever.”

“Right, right.” Martin wrung his hands, biting at his lip. “So maybe it’s like that. Maybe instead of asking to be let out - you just have to walk through it. Like - like it’s a maze. Does that make sense? I’m not sure, it’s just an idea.”

Jon pinched the bridge of his nose, sighing. “Right as always, Martin.” Everybody’s jaw dropped, and Martin squeaked. “Fine, fine. Let’s...interact with the evil ghosts.” Jon gestured out with his arms, in a very ‘come at me bro’ gesture. “Go ahead and shoot. Hit me with how much you hate me and how disappointed you are that I never amounted to anything and started the apocalypse.”

Finally! Interrogation time! 

But before Sasha could finally find out if global warming had killed the world, Tim jumped in. ��Are there zombies in the apocalypse?!” Tim cried, way too excited. “Is it like the Walking Dead? Or is it more Last of Us?”

Jon squinted in Tim’s direction. “Define zombie.”

“...hunger for human flesh, shambling, gross looking?” Tim rolled his eyes. “Don’t tell me you still haven’t seen any zombie movies.”

“I’m omniscient, I’ve seen every zombie movie,” Jon lied blatantly. “I just think that you’re - you know, stereotyping. Sometimes people are the undead and eat humans and they’re - they’re very normal people.”

“Yeah, Tim, be sensitive,” Sasha said gleefully. She put the tape recorder on Martin’s desk, deciding that she would definitely need a transcript of this interview later. Also maybe ask more questions about that omniscient thing, but she was sure Jon was just exaggerating. If you asked Jon today if he was the smartest person on Earth he’d probably say yes. Jon wasn’t even the smartest person in the room.

For good measure, she drew out her little notebook from her pencil skirt pocket, flipping through it looking for a clean page. “The Archives have never gotten a time traveller before. This is unprecedented in its history.” Well, she really didn’t know what Gertrude had gotten up to, but she dearly hoped it wasn’t this. “Do you have any warnings? Desperate messages from a ruined world, that kind of thing?”

“I’m not a time traveller,” Jon said flatly, “so no.”

Everybody stared at him in abject pity.

“Mate,” Tim said sympathetically, “it’s 2015. You’re a time traveller.”

“No, I’m in a pocket hell dimension in a period beyond time and space,” Jon corrected arrogantly. “Time travel doesn’t exist.”

“The apocalypse exists but time travel doesn’t exist?” Martin cried. “That’s so unfair! Like, give us something, you know?”

“Your life is very hard,” the extratemporal reject said. 

Typical Jon. A classic case of time travel and here he was denying it. Sasha crossed her arms, upset that they were wasting time debating temporal physics when they could be talking about zombies. She was a historian and had priorities. “Your denial ain’t cute, mate. You’re just wasting all of our time.” Jon opened his mouth, but Sasha steamrolled over him. “You want evidence, right? Do you need to, like, touch my face? Make sure that I’m not a sexy ghost?”

“That’s a stereotype that nobody actually does,” Jon said. 

“Insensitive as always, Sasha,” Martin condemned. 

“How else are we going to prove it to him?” Sasha said, somewhat defensively. “It’s not as if we have any evidence that we’re not sexy ghosts.”

With utmost care and incredible gentleness, Tim reached out an open hand and gently smooshed it into Jon’s face.

Jon slumped in his seat, arms folded, unimpressed. 

“No mortal who is not my darling husband has dared to touch me since I became the Antichrist,” Jon said.

“I don’t know,” Tim said, withdrawing his hand and looking at Sasha. “What’s more unbelievable: Jon as the Antichrist or Jon with a husband?”

“Jon’s gay?” Martin cried, face beet red. “Gay Jon? Gay Jon real?”

“So, like, how do you get the Antichrist gig?” Sasha asked as she silently passed Tim a fiver. Her queerdar had never been so wrong. “Is it like an adventurer quest you can do or would you call it more of a rare genetic disorder thing?”

“Definitely rare genetic disorder.”

“Then does that mean that our Jon also has the Antichrist gene?” Tim asked, alarmed. “You’d never think so just looking at him! It’s always the quiet ones.”

“No, this makes sense,” Martin said.

Tim stared at him. “So, is that, like, a negative for you, or a positive…?”

Martin’s silence was incriminating. 

“It’s a positive,” Jon said helpfully, startling everyone. They had conveniently forgotten not to talk about one very horny man’s very horny crush in front of sad grumpy time travelling crush. “He’s into it.”

“Wow, Jon,” Tim said, “what would your husband say?”

In a completely pointless show of sass, Jon rolled his eyes. “My useless husband is likely much more concerned with how I managed to get trapped in a nightmare dimension on my way back from the Hell corner store.” He waved a hand absently. “So, if we can hurry this up? Get started on the whole torturing me thing? Right now you’re just on track to annoying me to death.”

“We annoy you to death now!” Tim exclaimed, as Martin’s eyes boggled. “Isn’t that more proof for the time traveller theory?”

“It wasn’t annoying,” Jon said curtly. “I secretly enjoyed it. I always felt a little bad that I wasn’t included. Or wouldn’t let myself be included.”

That, abruptly, made everyone feel a little bad. Not guilty, seeing as Jon neither wanted nor deserved their affection, but just kind of bad. Future Jon didn’t seem any happier than regular Jon. Sasha liked to imagine that if she was trapped in an indeterminate period in time and space in a post-apoc hellscape, she’d at least be having fun.

Everybody looked at each other, equally a little uncomfortable. Tim was the one who finally took control of the situation, as the self-appointed Jon & Everyone Else mediator. He had taken up the mantle years ago and worse it with pride, and occasional exhaustion. 

“Look,” Tim said, as reasonably as possible. “Let’s just say, hypothetically, this was super cool and awesome time travel. Let’s also say maybe this was completely baller and you’re from a post apoc future where everyone wears leather.”

“That’s just Melanie.”

“Put it down as one person who wears leather in the future!” Tim cried, and Sasha obediently jotted it down.”But let’s just put all of this in a hypothetical situation where you aren’t...uh, in a bad dream? So would there, hypothetically, be a way to stop the apocalypse or something?”

Jesus christ. What a try-hard. 

Sasha crossed her arms, glaring at Tim. From next to her, Martin looked just as peeved. “Seriously, dude? Like we can just up and stop capitalism?”

“I don’t want responsibility for stopping the apocalypse,” Martin protested. “I can barely navigate the bus system. What if the Terminator comes after my mother or something?”

“You’ll be a bit better off, frankly,” Jon said. Martin nodded, conceding the point, before looking faintly disturbed. 

“But he said that he caused it,” Tim protested. “Maybe the power of friendship can fix this? I mean, the apocalypse is cool, but I feel like this is the part where we’re all badasses and we fight evil or something.” Tim’s eyes widened. “That’s what the Magnus Institute is for. To stop the apocalypse!”

“Every day I feel a slight sense of emptiness due to my internalized guilt about your death, but you are usually wrong about things,” Jon said flatly, which seemed to both perk Tim up and depress him slightly. “And no. There’s nothing you can do. There’s no one event that precipitated the apocalypse; no rules of engagement. You are puppets on strings, indulging in the fantasy of free will. Yes, Sasha, the apocalypse is capitalism.”

Everybody stood in slightly depressed silence over this. Sasha, personally, was a little relieved. She really didn’t have to deal with the whole ‘preventing the apocalypse’ thing. She’d rather spend the finals days of the world in hedonism, frankly. 

Really, the unique providence of the millennial was to live your entire life half-way convinced you were in the twilight years of the world. This hedonism and apathy was second nature. Or maybe the apathy was a Leitner - Sasha had lost track of that too. 

“Aw, man,” Martin said, summarizing the abstract and complex feelings deftly and succinctly. “This sucks.”

“Yeah, this blows,” Tim agreed. “So should I buy my muscle car now, or later, or what?”

Then Martin and Tim started arguing over fuel efficiency in the apocalypse, and Jon royally checked out of the conversation. Sasha imagined that he was internally having a bit of a Saving Private Ryan moment where flashbacks of bombshells exploded behind his eyelids or whatever the fuck. The important thing is that everyone was distracted, and Sasha could finally check up on their most important gambit of the day: making sure Jon wasn’t bothering them. 

Sasha listened carefully for the sounds of Jon’s little theater monologues, and caught only faint hints of sound. She slipped past everyone into the hallway and approached Jon’s office door, pressing her ear against the cheap wood. But she didn’t need to worry: he was still reciting away, oblivious to the actual interesting shit that was happening outside his door. Jon was a delicate plant, you couldn’t stress him out too much or he would die. Hopefully Martin’s drugged tea would kick in soon -

But Antichrist Jon’s head jerked towards her, directly behind him, and Sasha saw his unfocused green eyes fixate directly on her. No, not on her - on the door, or something beyond it. For just a second, his eyes flared a sharp and toxic green. 

“There you are,” Creepy Jon hissed. 

Well, sorry for leaving rooms without telling him, but she hadn’t thought that he even noticed, much less got resentful about it. But Weird Jon was standing up with no hesitation, and effortlessly swerved around Martin’s desk and stalked into the hallway. For the first time, his expression looked a little dangerous. It was bizarre and off putting, like seeing a ragged yet murderous two meter kitten. 

He reached out an arm and let it trail across the wall, stopping short when he felt it hit wood instead of plaster. Tim and Martin surged forward to stop him, yelling warnings, but Sasha quickly stepped back. She never impeded the timeless march of science and progress. Sasha had done far worse in Artifact Storage for knowledge. 

Jon brushed his hand down the door until it hit the doorknob and angrily twisted it, heaving the door open with unnecessary force. Tim and Martin spilled into the hallway as Angry Jon stalked inside, and Sasha eagerly hung in the door frame for a front row seat into the drama. 

“This is your fault,” Jon intoned dangerously, directly in the face of a deathly affronted Jon. 

In the spirit of the First Directive, Sasha heroically stretched out an arm and prevented Tim and Martin from spilling into the office. It was the right call. Jon stalked forward into the office, hair whipping in a nonexistent wind, expression obscured but undoubtedly thunderous, advancing on the terrified Archivist, as -

He tripped over a chair left carelessly in the center of the office, rocketing forward to land flatly on his face. 

Beside her, Martin went white as a sheet. “Oh no.”

Simultaneously, in complete and total unison, Jon and the Archivist yelled, “Martin!”

****

Jon and the Archivist sat across from each other, exuding waves of pure mutual hatred.

Tim had quickly helped the Archivist up, moving the chair forward and getting him situated there. The Archivist’s mood was not improved by any of this. Which was difficult enough to handle by itself, if manageable. Sasha knew how to manage grumpy time travelling blind Antichrists who had gotten lost on their way to the corner store.

She even knew how to handle their boss, who was extremely grumpy about being harassed by a random homeless person with nice hair. Jon hated statement givers at the best of times, much less seemingly homeless ex-corpses. Or, well, Sasha didn’t know if he was an ex-corpse, but he was certainly an animate one. 

They were both being so annoying about it Sasha was trying to determine if she should change their nicknames to something more derogatory. Thing 1 and Thing 2? Too long. 

Both of them were very grumpy about the fact that Martin had pushed aside the chair for guests in front of Jon’s desks when he deposited the drugged tea, accidentally moving it close to the center of the office. Jon had known this because he saw it happen. The Archivist had known this because he, apparently, knew Martin very well. 

Today had really been a bonding experience with Sasha, Martin, and Tim. Their skill at silent communication had reached borderline telepathy. They all looked at each other significantly as the Jons were caught in their mutual dyad of hatred, silently commiserating over the fact that their one goal had been spoiled by the greatest wildcard of all. Sasha privately liked to consider herself somewhat of a wildcard, but she was depressingly aware that the entire Archive team was composed of wildcards. Maybe that’s why half of them didn’t survive the apocalypse. 

It was a little unlikely that Jon was a survivor/instigator in the zombie apocalypse, actually. Dude definitely would have bit it if he wasn’t cheating with Antichrist powers. Now, if Sasha had Antichrist powers, this whole game would be looking very different -

“Boss, this is a statement giver,” Tim hinted desperately, hands clenched so hard on the back of the Archivist’s chair that his knuckles were turning white. “Remember what Elias said about statement givers? About how we can’t harass them?”

“I was in the middle of a recording and this man was unnecessarily confrontational,” Jon said crisply. Sasha caught her eye jumping frantically back and forth between the two, trying to reconcile them. Honestly, if it wasn’t for Martin’s horny surety, she wouldn’t have realized that they were the same person at all. The Archivist’s most defining attribute was his big and fluffy hair, and Jon was sadly lacking in the nice hair department. That fade and twists were the shackle around his ankle. So was the sweater vest, baggy tweed jacket, and ill-fitting.“He’s lucky I’m not throwing him out.”

Martin, who looked as if he was having his tenth gay crisis of the morning, didn’t seem to hold the same opinion, but he was king of bad taste anyway. 

“Remember what Elias said about harassing confused, blind statement givers? Remember that? Boss?”

Jon looked confused. “He didn’t specify the community of people with disabilities.”

“It was implied? Jon?”

“The optics would be terrible,” Sasha said, before snickering. Martin stomped on her foot. She stomped on his back, which definitely hurt a lot more. “Look, Jon, sorry about all of this. He was just - uh - really insistent that he talk to you -”

“I think if our visitor hassles Jon then maybe, objectively, you can say that Jon brought it on himself,” Martin said, in a daring show of anti-Jon sentiment.

This act of subtle rebellion was the first thing that broke the Archivist out of his cycle of hatred. He threw out a hand, bowling over Jon’s desktop cup of pens and sending them tumbling over the desk. Sasha saw him specifically orient his hand to do so. “Thank you, Martin! Your understanding of paraphysics is always immaculate.”

“Wow, really?”

“Stop complimenting my assistants,” Jon hissed, frantically diving to save his pens. “And stop - gesticulating over my desk! You did that on purpose!”

“Harassing the blind, Jon!”

“You don’t even need to tearfully blame me for how I ruined your life,” the Archivist said flatly. “You existing in my vicinity is torment enough.”

“That’s what I keep saying,” Sasha said, before pausing a beat. “I meant the first part, ha ha ha, obviously -”

“This man is a very normal statement giver who will be leaving any minute now,” Martin jumped in, “so there’s really no reason for us all to fight, when you think about it -”

“If you all don’t get out of my office, you are all fired -”

“You are listening.”

Everybody stopped talking at once, staring at the Archivist. He was still staring intently ahead, straight into his counterpart. Jon was hiding it, quite badly, but he was unsettled. He hadn’t even acknowledged that he and the man looked alike - the thought undoubtedly running through his brain and soundly dismissed - but it was clearly rattling him. But there was something else that was scaring him too - maybe the Archivist’s green eyes, so foreign from his own brown? His intense and furious expression, like cut glass? The particularly strange and heavy feeling in the air, prickling down the back of Sasha’s neck?

He hadn’t even stopped the recorder. 

“You are here,” the Archivist continued calmly. “You were listening in. Why you were listening in on him, and his regurgitated aftertaste of Statements, I do not know. I felt you, and I came to you. We cannot forsake each other. Do not hide yourself from me.”

The effect was immediate. 

The Archivist’s neck snapped forward, so harshly he cracked his head on Jon’s desk. Strangely enough, Jon screamed too, holding a hand to his temple as if he was suddenly pierced by a blinding headache. Tim immediately bent down to check on Archivist, making sure that he hadn’t hurt himself, as Martin bustled around the desk to check on Jon. Jon batted his hands away, scowling, so he was just fine. But the Archivist didn’t groan, or stir, or moan. He just lay there, still and limp, and when Tim shook him he didn’t even tense. 

The air was heavy, a tang of metal in her mouth like the crackle before a storm, and Sasha couldn’t fight a shiver. But she couldn’t take her eyes off Jon, either: the way he stared at the Archivist, hand on his forehead, eyes wide and growing wider. 

“Dad…?”

When the Archivist stirred, the spell was broken, and Jon’s mouth snapped shut so quickly it was as if he had never spoken at all. He turned his head and moaned, eyes opening uselessly. They were back to their usual toxic green, no flaring or flashing. 

“Mar’in? Where…”

“I’m here,” Martin said quickly, and ducked around the desk to grab the Archivist’s hand and squeeze. For just a second, Jon looked a little jealous. Sasha had the sense that Jon had never been mothered than anyone other than Martin and Tim, and the prospect confused and frightened him so much he reacted aggressively to it. “Everything alright? You hit your head.”

“How many eyes?” the Archivist asked weakly. 

“...physically, or functionally?”

But the Archivist just ran his burned hand over his smooth hand, kneading it and feeling the skin. “Still gone. Damn it.” He straightened, grimacing and spitting out a stray tendril of hair out of his mouth. “So it’s true…”

“So what’s true?” Tim asked urgently. “Do you finally believe us about the time travel thing? Because man, I have so many questions -”

He didn’t get the opportunity to say anything. The Archivist reached out a hand, fingers brushing against his shirt, and the Archivist’s hand abruptly clenched on the fabric. Tightly, roughly, the Archivist pulled him down and extended his other arm, and caught Tim in an awkward and lopsided hug. 

Tim carefully straightened him and returned the hug, gracing the Archivist with the patented Perfect Stoker Hug, and the Archivist buried his face in Tim’s shoulder. His chest didn’t heave, and his breath didn’t catch, but the element of desperation was pungent and unmistakable. 

“You were right,” Jon whispered. “We messed it all up.”

“Sure, yeah, totally!” Tim said, clapping the Archivist on the back in a masculine, yet sensitive way. “So, does this mean the zombie apocalypse is totally a-go, or…”

“Sasha,” the Archivist said, and Sasha chose to ignore her own personal distaste for hugs and being touched so she could step forward and hug him too. 

He clutched onto her just as tightly as he had Tim, which surprised her a little. Jon and Tim had probably been best friends in the future, and Sasha couldn’t imagine her and Jon ever truly being close. He respected her as a colleague, but that was probably because Sasha purposefully left her manuscripts around the office and aggressively used as many big words in front of him as possible. Jon had always been an obstacle to her - innocently stupid at best, malicious at worst. To think that he would grip her so tightly…

With meticulous care, the Archivist separated from her. His expression was crumpled, and for the first time Sasha saw something over than aggravation or impatience in Jon’s face. Relaxed and soft, he looked like a different man. No - he was a different man, it was just apparent. The change softened his sharp lines into something a little friendlier; his striking exterior melting into something pretty instead of imposing. 

Slowly, he raised his hand a little to tangle it in her hair. He frowned a little, gently tugging at it and feeling it spring back into place. “So it was curly…like mine…”

A lot of little hints snowballed into one strange and foreign realization. “Do you not remember me?”

“Dolls stole your identity,” the Archivist said apologetically. 

“Like credit card fraud, or -”

“Metaphysically.” He paused guiltily. “I mourned you as an abstract concept?”

“Like I’m every woman in Hollywood?” Sasha screeched, outraged. This was not trans rights. “Alright, royally fuck that. Feel my hair, mister. Full permission to touch it. Feel that? You call that abstract?” The Archivist shook his head, eyes wide, and Sasha gently moved his hand to rest on the top of her head. “Taller than you in eight cm heels, remember? You asked me how I walked in them, and I said -”

“ - Barbie’s Princess Charm School,” the Archivist said automatically, eyes widening. “I do remember.”

Martin clearly waited around to be tenderly embraced, and was disappointed. 

The Archivist stepped away from Sasha, expression creased in furious thought. “So it’s real. So far as anything’s real, I suppose. But I don’t understand how -” the Archivist’s eyes widened, and he snapped his fingers in realization. “The manhole!”

Everybody stared at him. 

“I’m sorry,” Jon said pleasantly, “what is going on -”

“I was walking down the street, and I remember hearing city work!” the Archivist said brightly. “They were doing their monthly ‘clearing the gators out of the sewer pipes’ maintenance! And the Beholding told me that there was an open manhole, and I said oh it’ll be fine, I’m a demigod on Earth, I don’t fall down manholes - and then -”

The door to Jon’s office dramatically crashed open, and everybody jumped straight in the air. Jon, whose office had seen two more incredibly theatrical entrances than usual today, immediately bristled and opened his mouth to earn them all another harassment complaint, before he abruptly shut his mouth. 

It was Elias, their miniature and unspeakably boring boss extraordinaire. He stood in the doorway, one hand clutching the doorframe, suit jacket askew and chest heaving. Had he ran down here?

“Is someone here?” the Archivist asked. 

“Uh, yeah,” Tim said, stepping forward cautiously. “It’s our boss, Mr. Bouchard. Elias, we’re taking a statement, can we help - ?”

“How did that get here?” Elias asked, voice strangely tense and coiled. “How did you - not even I could -”

“That makes sense!” Martin cried, thumping a fist on his open palm. “Elias wants to time travel just as much as everyone else in the Institute!”

“I’m sorry,” Jon said, pathetically behind, “time travel -”

“Did the time traveller sensor alarms in the basement go off?” Sasha asked, surprised. “I thought only Artifact Storage had those.”

“Uh, Mr. Statement Giver, are you okay?” Tim asked, but it was already too late.

The Archivist had turned to face Elias, expression unreadable. Sasha felt that crackle again, weighing down the air, and she saw the Archivist’s hair puff and frizz slightly with a green crackle. His neon green pupils shone again and spun, like an infernal wheel. 

“What’s wrong, Elias?” the Archivist mocked, as energy coursed through him. “Upset that Mama has a new favorite?”

And Sasha saw in that moment that the Archivist, who possessed the most inhuman green eyes she had ever seen, had eyes the same shade as Elias. 

“Oh, man,” Sasha said, “is Elias a time traveller too?”

“Only in the most mundane way. Can’t even get a little bit of special attention, Elias? Sad!” It was second-hand thrilling to watch someone mock their boss, living the dreams of everyone in the room. Even if it was a little weird how much Jon seemed to hate this guy - nobody hated Elias, just like nobody liked him, and nobody had any strong feelings at all besides unpromoted women.

 At the door, Elias’ expression was slack in - amazement? Was amazement the right word? He was staring at Jon as if...words didn’t even describe it. At least in any way that Sasha wanted to think about. 

“Mr. Bouchard, I swear I can explain,” Sasha, who could not explain, said hurriedly. “We found this corpse and we were going to tell you, but -”

But the Archivist cut her off, as if nothing was less important than explaining himself to Elias. “Did you want to know how to stop the apocalypse, Sasha?”

Sasha froze. Martin and Tim did too. Jon, who nobody had actually bothered to brief since he was kind of the fifth most important person in the room, dropped his pen. “Uh,” Sasha said, sweating. For the first time she understood the possible upsides of not knowing something. “I mean, if I have to, but you said that it was inevitable -”

“Oh, yes. But, just once every one or two centuries, a man comes along who fancies himself fate.” The Archivist raised a hand, eyes spinning and spinning, as Elias stood frozen in the doorframe. “I’ll be honest, Jonah. This isn’t to save the world. That’s so last year. I just really fucking hate you.” Something cracked in the air. “Ceaseless watcher, smite this -”

The door slammed shut. Sasha heard Elias lock it behind him. They all stood around as footsteps quickly echoed through the Archives, and another door slammed. Which was probably being locked too. 

They stood in silence, the Archivist having clearly heard the slams. He let his hand fall, but the energy didn’t cease crackling around him. He didn’t look resentful or disappointed - just thoughtful. 

“Everything in due time, I suppose. I guess it is pretty unfair to get to smite that man twice,” the Archivist said thoughtfully. “I’ll give someone else a turn.” His mouth twitched wryly. “You know, Sasha, there’s one other way to prevent the apocalypse.”

“Is it work?” Sasha asked tiredly. 

“You may kill the man who arranged the dominos,” the Archivist intoned, before hanging his head towards a petrified Jon. “Or you may kill the man who toppled them over.”

Sasha stared at Jon. Jon stared back, frozen like a deer in headlights.

Martin silently passed Sasha a penknife from Jon’s desk. 

“I’m very qualified for this job,” Jon protested weakly.

“Queen of feminism, I very much support you,” Tim said quickly, putting himself in between Sasha and Jon in a heroic display of stupidity, “but, maybe, killing your boss to take his job, is perhaps, maybe not that much of a great idea, just a thought?”

“The job’s being the Antichrist,” the Archivist pointed out, crossing his arms. 

“The direct action against sexism, xenophobia, and transphobia is very admirable,” Tim said, eyes held up as if he was placating a tiger, “but think of it this way - if you kill the Antichrist, then you become the Antichrist, like in - uh -”

“Pokemon,” Martin volunteered. 

Tim snapped his fingers. “Pokemon! So you shouldn’t -” He halted, turning back to Martin. “Pokemon? Seriously? That’s becoming champion -”

“A - alright, alright! Everybody stop!” Jon shakily stood up, brushing aside the empty tea mug right next to him. “That’s enough of all of this! I may not know what’s going on, or who this man is, or why he looks like me -”

“Hm,” Martin said, eyeing the empty tea mug. 

“ - why he looks like a homeless person, why he barged into my office and insulted me, why you are all defending this atrocious behavior, why you are calling it the work of time travel, which does not exist and you have no proof for it anyway -”

“Jon,” Martin said, watching Jon’s arm tremble, “maybe you should -”

“Shut up, Martin!”

“Don’t be rude to him!” the Archivist snapped. 

“You’ve been rude to him twice today!”

“I’m allowed to be rude to him! He’s even ruder to me! I’m the nice one!”

“ - and you were glowing in my office, which is just frankly rude,” Jon continued viciously, steamrolling over the Archivist. “You gave me a terrible headache, you hugged my assistants very inappropriately for the workplace, you made my boss walk in before trying to smite him, you encourage violence against my own person in revenge for a job that I definitely deserve -”

Both of Jon’s arms were shaking, and Tim’s eyebrows were slowly raising. “Boss, you should sit down, I think -”

“ - I want an explanation!” Jon yelled, slamming the desk. “And I’m not going to stop until you tell me what’s going on!”

Then Jon passed out. 

Everybody watched it happen. Everybody, save perhaps the Archivist, had noticed that it was about to happen: at first a tremor, then a shake, and then a final collapse. Like a marionette with his strings cut, Jon slumped over and crumpled solidly on the floor. 

Everybody stood in disaffected silence. Martin carefully stepped over and prodded Jon with his foot. “Out cold.” He shot a considering gaze at the empty tea mug. “Sorry, guys. Looks like I accidentally used the delayed action sedative.”

"It’s alright,” Tim said magnanimously. “At least that problem is solved now. Maybe we can convince him this was a bad dream when he wakes up.”

“If he insists it was real, we’ll just ask him for evidence and refuse to believe him without it,” Sasha suggested. 

“Isn’t that kinda gaslighting?” Martin asked. “Isn’t that, you know, a little morally dubious -”

“You did drug him,” Tim pointed out.

“I mean, hardly the first time?”

“Maybe Martin should be the Antichrist,” Sasha said thoughtfully.

The Archivist’s face was doing something extremely interesting, yet inscrutable.

“I really don’t want to be Antichrist, though,” Martin said apologetically. “Does it even pay?”

“Jon did say it was a job…” Sasha said, already considering herself in the role. “Do you guys think I’d be sexier as the Antichrist? Be honest.”

“Yes and completely,” Tim said immediately, before realizing that he said that too quickly. “I mean. I’d never objectify you. I respect women. But -”

“Oh, I see how it is,” Martin said, throwing up his hands. “When you think being the Antichrist is kind of hot it’s normal and M/F of you. But when I do it, then it’s ‘gross’ and ‘get that away from me’. Great double standards, guys.”

“It’s not the fact that it’s a guy,” Tim protested, “it’s the fact that it’s Jon -”

“Oh, when you think being the Antichrist is kind of hot then it’s normal and cis of you,” Sasha said heatedly, “but when Tim respects trans women, then it’s ‘gross’ and -”

“I respect all women,” Tim said, equally heatedly, “but I do want to acknowledge the systematic marginalization of trans women within the community, especially trans women of color like yourself -”

A hoarse wheeze echoed through the office.

Everyone froze, terrified by the haunted sound, but after a second Sasha realized it was the Archivist - Jon - who was laughing. 

They had never heard him laugh before. He was practically wheezing with it, bent over with his hands on his knees, with a strained cackle that fizzed with static around the corners. He was smiling broadly, his grin splitting his cheeks, for the first time that Sasha had ever seen. 

He straightened and threw his head back and laughed too, a greater belly-laugh that was so hysterical and fragile and free that it struck something strange and raw in Sasha’s heart. He rubbed his face with his hand, still laughing, and eventually broke into coughs. 

“I understand now,” Jon said, when he stopped coughing. “I thought that you had deposited me here in revenge. You had sensed that I was happy - that the green skies were beautiful, that your large eye seemed kind that day - and that you found it a waste of emotion. But that wasn’t true, was it? It must have been an accident. I’ve never been happier to hear these idiots arguing, and you’ve lost me like a toy behind a bookshelf. The strange stupidity of it! I’m enchanted.” He sombered a little, expression falling from hysterical glee into a soft and resigned happiness. He held up his hand, feeling the crackle of electricity run across his palms. “But you See me now. The foolish man brought you down upon us, and I intercepted your lightning bolt. His eyes, mundane and paltry, are closed, and you feel my consciousness in replacement of him. I can feel you already - my Eyes opening, the Reality that we built together calling me back. When your infinite grace re-aligns with every one of my atoms, forming the fabric of my world, I’ll snap back.”

Just like that?

Sasha had thought that there would be an...adventure, or quest, or something. At least a research binge. Some kind of heroic group effort. But the Archivist was a stretched rubber band, held tightly and out of position, and after long enough straining against its center it had to snap back. A telly flickering in and out, blaring the song of a dead channel. 

“Do we have time to group hug or something?” Tim offered weakly, undoubtedly thinking the same thing as she was. “Last goodbyes? Anything?”

“Howl’s Moving Castle moment?” Martin asked urgently. “I’ll find you in the future, right? We’re still together there, right?”

“Martin,” Jon said, strangely fond, “we were never apart.”

Martin turned a unique shade of red. 

But it was Sasha who Jon turned to, face angled to the sound of her voice. His expression was still distantly fond, but there was something strange in it too - a wry recognition, a subtle knowledge, a faint recollection of a joke that only he knew. 

“Sasha,” Jon said, “so long as you’re brave, and buy ten fire extinguishers and hide them around the office, things will be just fine. Buy twelve fire extinguishers, just to be safe. And don’t ever go inside Artifact Storage again. Not even for Alicia’s birthday party. If it’s a choice between worms and Artifact Storage then choose worms, the scars add a certain appeal. I cannot stress enough, not even if you lose your jacket in Artifact Storage -”

“Are you sure you don’t have anything to say to me?” Martin asked desperately, almost crying. Sasha, personally, wanted to circle back around to the worm thing. “Sad goodbyes? Waving a handkerchief? I thought you said I was alive? Don’t you have anything?”

Jon rolled his eyes. “Goodness, Martin, if you insist. There is something I’ve been meaning to tell you. In fact, I do believe it’s about time.” 

Martin’s mind clearly projected very loudly ‘I’ve been in love with you this entire time’ in blatant wish-fulfillment. Everybody held their breaths. 

Jon drew himself up to his full, imposing height, and sternly looked at all of them. “I’m tired of holding my tongue about this, Martin,” Jon said finally, and Martin qualified. “For the last time, I don’t load the dishwasher wrong. I load the dishwasher correctly. It’s you who’s always insisting that the cups go on the bottom. It’s a freakish way to live your life, and I’ll never forgive you for -”

Static blared in Sasha’s ears and overwrote her mind, and she screamed. The sensation was a pickaxe driven into her ears, an unforgivable rip and tear, and she heard her screams echoed in concert. 

Then the pain abated, and was gone. 

Sasha, Tim, and Martin were left standing in an empty office, accompanied only by the unconscious figure of their boss. There was nothing left of the Archivist, nor any suggestion that he had ever been here - just a drained mug, some scattered pens, and a lingering sense of malaise and confusion. 

Everybody looked at each other, feeling strangely and uniquely connected. It was hardly Sasha’s strangest Magnus Institute experience, but maybe it was the funnest. 

“Well,” Tim said finally, “at least one day this week wasn’t boring.”

“Yeah, I didn’t even have to get drunk today.” Sasha sighed. “We definitely have to gaslight Jon about this.”

Martin was already carefully lugging Jon onto his chair, arranging him so his arms were folded on the desk with his cheek resting on his forearm. “We’ll pretend it was just a weird dream.” He propped his hands on his hips, satisfied. “Hopefully this convinces him he needs more sleep.” Martin gasped in sudden realization. “Maybe he becomes the Antichrist because he needs more sleep! Guys, I have a great twenty step plan for saving the world.”

“Oh, come on, we said that was too much work.” Tim shrugged and opened the office door, holding it open and gesturing for them all to come out. “I think if we just friendship Jon to death, all of our problems will be solved.”

Martin just shrugged, following him out. They really did have paperwork that they needed to get back to. “Both are vital components. But...hey, it’s not weird to put the mugs on the bottom rack, is it? There’s not really that much of a difference, right?”

“Mate, you’re a fucking freak.” Tim looked backwards at Sasha, who was still standing in the office, dazed. “Sash, you coming? Let’s go day-drinking.”

“Yeah,” Sasha said, “in a sec.”

He shrugged and left the door propped open, and Sasha heard their bickering fade slowly as they walked down the hallway. 

But she couldn’t help staring at Jon sleeping at his desk, chest falling in and out, inhaling and exhaling slowly through his nose. His short, carefully maintained hair and meticulous fade. His baggy tweed and ill-fitting slacks. The subtle and shameful kind of earnestness, the desire mixed with fear mixed with hope mixed with genuine desire for a better future. He just wanted to be happy, to not be afraid anymore. He seemed weirdly human, when compared with his inhuman self. Or maybe it was the other way around. 

The tape recorder on Jon’s desk was still running. Sasha squinted at it, taking a second to listen to the staticy hiss. It was familiar, in the strangest possible way. It felt familiar -

Sasha reached out and grabbed the tape recorder, stuffing it in her pencil skirt pocket. “Just remember,” Sasha whispered, “I’d make a great candidate for Antichrist.”

She ran to go catch up with her coworkers, shutting the door behind them and leaving Jon sleeping contentedly in his office, head pillowed on his arms, dreaming strange and comforting dreams.

[starlightsearches]

Your headcanon about Eddie actually wanting to be babied a bit is SO good you’re so damn smart! Just letting him rest his pretty head on your tits and stroking him off real slow, going ‘good boy’ and ‘that’s it, honey’. The pleasure combined with feeling so safe and loved hits him like a truck and-I’m broken. My brain is a slushie over this. Need to take care of man need to put him in jar with holes poked in the lid like a firefly

Let Me Be Good to You

My love, the inspiration you have provided for me is simply *chef's kiss* 🤌 I've thought about it every day since you've shared it with me, and I hope you enjoy this little blurb I've written in response 💖

Please let me know if you liked this—comments always make my week! Requests are open if you'd like to send something in or scream your thoughts about this perfect boy 🥰

Eddie x Gender Neutral Reader

Warnings: no spoilers, 18+ only!, hand job (m recieving), spit as lube, cum eating, eddie is self-deprecating, PRAISE KINK, pet names, veeeeeeeeerrrrrry soft dom/sub dynamics if you're looking for it, idk if it's good or not I'm just horny lol

Eddie flops down on the mattress beside you with a dramatic sigh, burying his face in your stuffed ewok. He made fun of you for buying it in the moment, but you know it's his favorite—always in his arms whenever he's stretched long across your bed. Out of habit, your fingers stroke through his hair, scratching your nails at the scalp the way you know he likes.

"Rough day?"

Eddie nods, his big eyes finding yours over the horizon of your pillows, tough exterior discarded along with his jacket on your floor.

You lay back so you're at his level, pressing a kiss to the bridge of his nose. "Wanna talk about it?"

He pauses, chewing on the words. It doesn't surprise you—Eddie lets most things roll off his shoulders, but when he gets hit by something, it hits hard.

"It's nothing, just, uh,"—he flips onto his back, posed like a corpse with the ewok trapped under his arms— "I'm probably gonna flunk Mrs. O'Donnell's class again, 'cause I . . . I failed her last test."

"What?"

It's literally the last thing you'd ever expected him to say. You'd helped him study for that test yourself, gone over the practice problems with until you were sure he could could do them blind-folded, underwater, and half-dead. The stupidest thing was that you didn't really need to do that much prep; Eddie was good at math. He was good at a lot of things when it came to school . . . he just had a hard time getting himself to focus.

His big, brown eyes are glassy with tears, pointed at the ceiling, unblinking, so they won't stain his cheeks. "She wouldn't even grade it. Said I cheated."

His voice is soft, and small—quieter than you're used to. You, on the other hand, are ready to explode.

"Are you shitting me?"

You're off the bed—leaping over him—grabbing your keys, balling up a jacket in your hand, about to march to the door before he grabs at your wrist, pulling you back to him with a few stumbling steps.

"Babe, where are you going?"

"To the school. I'm gonna give that raggedy bitch a piece of my mind."

He pulls you back down against the mattress, slipping your keys from your hand and tossing them onto your bedside table. You're still thinking about escape—until he pulls you tight against his chest, bodies curled around each other, legs intertwined. You've always been a little helpless when you're trapped in Eddie's arms.

"You don't have to do that, honey. My counselor said she'd talk to Mrs. O'Donnell, at least convince her to let me retake it."

"That's so unfair," you sigh, limply punching at one of the pillows. Against your best attempts, he's kneaded the anger right out of you, the rings on his fingers catching along your shoulder blade with every stroke of his hand.

"It's whatever," Eddie shrugs, like the action could make him care less, "she's always hated me. And it's not like she's wrong. I'd think I was too stupid to do it on my own, if I were her."

Stupid. God, you couldn't hate that fucking word more. You shift onto your hip, sick to your stomach that he could even think that way.

"Don't say that."

He's still not looking at you, chewing at his bottom lip, fiddling with the hem of your top. "Why not? It's true."

"No it isn't, Eddie." You've got his face sandwiched in both of your hands, begging him to look you in the eyes, even if he doesn't want you to see him cry. "You're smart, Eddie. You are. I don't give a fuck what Mrs. O'Donnell thinks."

The tears are there, pooling against the junctions of your thumbs. It breaks your fucking heart to think how little he hears those words—not from teachers, not from people in his classes, probably not even from his friends. Wayne was a good guy, but school had never really been all that great for him either. He wouldn't even think a worry like that would be on Eddie's mind.

Eddie's voice is wet, lips trembling around the word. "Really?"

"Yes, really,"—you're getting a little enthusiastic, but you mean it, and you can't temper your praise when he needs it so badly—"of course you're smart. You're so, so, so smart, Eddie."

He laughs weakly, pushing at your shoulder when you start to pepper him with kisses, but you know his heart's not in it, petting along the side of your face, warm fingers cupped around the back of your neck.

Big eyes locked onto yours, he couldn't hide from you if he tried. "Say it again."

You press your lips against his temple, punctuating each compliment with another gentle kiss. "You are smart. And you're fucking talented. And kind. And so, so good to me."

Your path leads you to his lips, capturing them against yours, pressing him so far back into the pillows that strands of his hair are tickling at your cheeks. His hand comes to rest at your jaw, the bottom of his palm just barely brushing against your skin, like he's still not sure if he should be allowed to touch you. You lean in to his hand.

Eddie kisses you the way he knows you like, darting the tip of his tongue against your lips before upping the pressure, moaning against your skin. His free hand travels along your spine, fingers striking up a melody that only he can hear.

And then he grips tight at your waist, and things are decidedly less sweet, fingers carving indents in your side as you shift more of your weight on top of him, chest to chest, the top of your thigh dragging along his crotch.

Eddie groans at the feeling, a twitch in his hips, looking for a little more friction.

You're gonna give him more than a little.

Petting a hand over his thigh, you slide closer to the distended fabric of his jeans, just barely stroking the edge of your thumb across the shape of him, feeling his cock throb for you through the thick fabric.

Spit spreads across his chin as you whisper, his head pressed back and eyes clenched tight. "Let me take care of you, baby."

Eddie nods—your teasing has taken the words out of his mouth, but he's putty in your hands, compliant as you get comfortable against your headboard, pulling him into the space between your legs.

Gentle fingers brush a few strands of his hair away from your face as his head comes to rest against your shoulder, his wet breaths at your neck. Eddie stares at the soft patch of skin just below your earlobe, vision going dark at the edges when you slip your hand inside his unbuttoned pants.

He sighs, lifting his back as he shifts into your grip, coming back down to rest with his head pillowed against your chest.

"Comfortable?" you ask, meeting his eyes with a sly smile. He's got a pretty little flush in his cheeks, dark eyelashes framing his big doe-eyes, looking up at you with a kind of disbelief you'd never understand.

He nods, flushing darker when you press a kiss to the top of his head.

Eddie's cock is pretty, and thick—dark red when you slip it from the confines of his boxers and bring it into the light. He whines when you let go, but the sound is cut off in his throat when he hears your spit meet the palm of your hand.

"How does that feel?"

You're coating the base of him, stroking higher, further over his hot skin—always gentle with him—rolling the tip of his cock in your palm until it's all shiny and slick, your spit mixing with the first drops of pre-cum he's leaking.

The groan he answers with rumbles through your own chest, hair tickling at your chin as he nods. "Feels good—real good, baby, please don't stop."

There's no need to worry about that. Heat builds at your own core just watching him squirm, his lips parted and glistening and eyes shut tight.

You feel his fingers wrap tight around your thigh, the softness of hands contrasted with the bite of his rings, and he struggles in vain to get at your core, trying to give back some of the pleasure he's getting. You kick his hand down to the sheets with a gentle nudge of your leg. His knuckles turn white with the grip he's got on the fabric.

"Don't worry about me, baby. This is about you."

Eddie nods, lips pressed tight, trying to stopper the little moans slipping through. You don't want him to hold back.

Kissing across his temples, you pepper praises into his ear, listening closely to the sounds he makes in response.

"You're such a good boy, Eddie. So good for me. Such a smart, pretty boy. God you're pretty, Eddie. Did you know that?"

He's having a hard time responding, his cock pulsing in your hand. Your fingers travel easier over his skin with the slick he's beginning to spill. Eddie's head falls back, eyes blown wide, when you play with his slit, massaging the sensitive skin with the pad of your thumb.

"Baby," he calls out, his sweat-slicked t-shirt riding up a little over his hips with the way he writhes, revealing the thin stretch of skin above his belt, and the dark little hairs that grow there, "m'gonna cum."

You just tighten the circle of your fingers, speeding the pace of your hand over his taut skin.

"Go ahead, baby," you tell him, your own breathing heavy, "I want you to."

He spills, thick white ropes of cum staining his black t-shirt, and his body curves around the sound he makes, a deep, satisfied groan coursing from his lungs.

"Fuck, baby," he breathes, big eyes meeting yours, going wider when you clean some of the cum off his shirt with your thumb, popping it between your lips.

He mashes his face against yours, kissing the taste of him from your mouth, his tongue licking at yours.

You laugh at the dopey grin on his face when you part from the kiss. "Feeling better?"

"Uh, yeah," Eddie chuckles, tucking himself back into his pants, a little self-conscious. You take his hands in your own, twining your fingers together. His tongue darts over dark pink lips, eyes locked on yours.

"Good," —you give him a soft peck, and then another—" 'cause you deserve it, Eddie. You deserve the whole goddamn world."

[lalaangeldust]

𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲'𝐫𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐟𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐝 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐚 𝐜𝐫𝐮𝐬𝐡 𝐨𝐧 𝐲𝐨𝐮

𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐨𝐧𝐬 & 𝐫𝐚𝐦𝐛𝐥𝐞𝐬

[ 𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀 ] : none :)

[ 𝗳𝗲𝗮𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 ] : kaminari denki // bakugo katsuki // sero hanta

𝐤𝐚𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐫𝐢 𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐤𝐢

ah yes, the bakusquad's resident pretty boy

he would definitely be the most obvious about his crush

two words: shitty flirting

horrible pick-up lines and just overall bad flirting

he pulls through sometimes though ( with sero's advice ) and his ego inflates through the roof if he can get you flustered and blushing

but if you give him the same energy, he will immediately combust

all function out the window

congratulations, you broke denki

none of your possessions are safe when denki is within the vicinity

shirts, hoodies, skirts, hats, jewelry, hair accessories

if he can grab it, he will have it

he has worn / stolen everything in your closet at least once, if not it is most definitely his goal

it does not matter if he fits it or not, he will make it work

he has no shame

but one time he stretched out one of your favorite skirts and it tore a bit and he felt soooo bad

"it not my fault i have a fat ass, y/n"

but he brought you to the mall on a date with him to get a new one, so it's all works out ;)

denki honestly just lives to make you laugh

every time he's the reason you're laughing, it makes his chest puff up so big

DONT EVEN GET ME STARTED ON MF TICKLING

if you two are close, he will without a doubt start a mock wrestling match and it always turns into a tickling fit with you pinned underneath him and wailing

but do NOT under any circumstances tickle him

he with shriek like a girl and accidentally activate his quirk

you nearly died

HE FELT BAD FOR THAT TOO

he's also just so infatuated with like- everything you do????

it doesn't matter how mundane you think it might be, as long as you're doing it, denki is so enthralled watching whatever it is you're doing

it's rather endearing

in all honesty, he'd probably blurt out he likes you outta no where while in the middle of a convo

he lights up every time your name is so much as mentioned

or- or

he'd be day dreaming, completely lost in his own world and someone would come up to him and ask him what he's thinking ab cus he looks basically dead to the world

still in a daze from being abruptly brought back to reality he'd just dreamily sigh, "y/n~" without even realizing

mans was SO embarrassed afterwards

face was beet red

*frantically looks around to see if you heard him or not*

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

bonus: love languages!!

physical touch // giving

words of affirmation // receiving

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

𝐛𝐚𝐤𝐮𝐠𝐨 𝐤𝐚𝐭𝐬𝐮𝐤𝐢

he's so emotionally constipated

that's not to say we wouldn't know he'd have feelings for you

he's actually pretty emotionally intelligent, and would be very perceptive of your emotions contrary to popular belief, he's just oblivious to his own feelings and emotions

he'd just ignore them

try his best to ignore you

key word try

but he always gives in and he'd make up dumb reasons to come bother you like-

he'd barge into your dorm while you're studying and he'd be like

"y/n i need a pen,"

"oh? uh ok, here you can have this one," you hand him a pen that you happened to have tucked behind your ear

"no not that one,"

...????

"can't you go to momo and ask her to make the pen you want..?"

bakugo starts to get grumpy at this point lmao

"no, she doesn't know how to make it,"

"well, what pen do you want..??"

bakugo hesitates cus he doesn't wanna admit that he doesn't actually want a pen, he wants to be with you

"that one," he lamely points at a beat up tinkerbell pen that you've had since you were like twelve

"really?? out of all the pens you choose that one?"

"shut up and just get it"

"... you can grab it,"

he goes and grabs it and goes to walk out the door without a word and right before he leaves he leans back and looks at you

"i need a pencil"

"OH MY GOD BAKUGO"

he kept the tinkerbell pen btw

like denki, bakugo would steal things from your dorm and not just anything, things that are actually inconvenient to misplace

he'd take your bobby pin container or your favorite brush so you'd come to him to ask where it went, he'd give it back ofc but not without a fight

he'd act totally clueless and he'd wait till you actually start to get pissed to tell you where he actually put your thing

so back to how he'd actually be very aware of your emotions

he'd notice the smallest changes and can always tell when you're upset but he wouldn't exactly know how to help you

so instead of using words, he'd use actions

you had a really bad day and he walked you to your dorm and when he came in he's like

"shit, your dorm is a fucking disaster, how do you live like this," you scowl at bakugo cus like- wtf i'm rlly emotional here you're not helping

he scoffs and bends down to start picking up your shit

"seriously, i have no idea how you find anything in here, nothing is organized" and he'd just keeps grumbling like an old man while completely cleaning and reorganizing your room

dont you dare try and help him though, he will yell at you

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

bonus: love languages!!

acts of service // giving

quality time // receiving

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

𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐨 𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐚

I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS ONE

sero SCREAMS besfriends to lovers troupe

like- you two are already practically dating without even realizing it

the romantic tension

you guys banter and flirt with eachother so often, you both have no idea whether you're serious when you jokingly call the other sexy or not

the oblivious idiots troupe

sero makes everything a competition

not nearly to extent as bakugo would, but still goes a bit over the top

he'd use anything as an excuse to show off for you

one time, like the spiderman fanboy he is, he challenged you to see who can hang upside down the longest without passing out ( literally the stupidest idea, sero, you're going to loose braincells )

sero won, obviously and he takes full advantage of bragging rights

everyone says how denki's the flirt and whatever but NO

sero is the biggest mf flirt and denki got his game from him

so with that being said, you are not safe

HE IS A BULLY

he respects boundaries of course but that doesn't mean he's not gonna try and test his limits a bit and mess with you

he's always trying to get you flustered

god forbid you're shorter than him because he will tease the shit outta you for it

when you two train together, mf goes on overdrive ESPECIALLY if you two happen to be sparring together

he'd hover over you and lean his face in ever so slightly while your talking to him just to get a rise outta you

TILT YOUR HEAD UP WITH ONE FINGER

"could you repeat that? i'm having a hard time hearing,"

SHEEEEEEEE

but you also make fun of him for being tall, so it checks out

whenever he says some slick shit you're just like-

"I'm sorry, what? That's funny coming from someone who's above the national average height. you're disgusting, tall man; shrink perhaps" ( if anyone knows what tiktok audio i'm referencing, i'm in love with you )

hope you have your casket ready because sero's gonna slaughter your ass for that shit

ok but one time while you two were partnered up for hero training, you got on his nerves and he tied you up and left you hanging and the mf just left

maaaan were you livid

15 minutes

15 minutes you were left up there while sero was doing god knows what

you gave him the silent treatment for the rest of the day and sero was genuinely distressed cus he didn't mean to make you so mad

but lucky for him, he always knows how to get you to smile no matter how sad or are or how angry you are with him

he shoots you a piece of tape with his handwriting on it

he made up some stupid, horribly written poem asking for your forgiveness and he's just looking at you the entire time you're reading it with an exaggerated pout

how can you say mad at him?

on the topic of him sending you notes on his tape

he'd totally leave pieces of his tape in really obscure places in your dorm or even under your desk

they'd be really stupid messages too like-

"you stink"

or a really random inside joke you two have that makes literally no sense but even just the thought of it makes you laugh to tears

he'd also leave little origami figures he made with his tape in random places for you to find too

or he'd just give them to you

you have a shelf specifically dedicated for the things sero has made for you ( and he's really touched you actually keep all his shitty arts and crafts projects )

in conclusion, sero is the best and he is my favorite and i'd die for him

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

bonus: love languages!!

gift giving // giving

physical touch // giving and recieving

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

If you guys want, i can elaborate on their love languages in another post! <3

𝒇𝒊𝒏 . ✩

[countessofravenclaw]

Ok, 27 and 30, Diecesca (those two specifically reminded me of Diecesca haha)

"This is the stupidest thing I've ever heard" "lets keep it a secret"

Interesting... actually even with the love I have for them, I have never written them before since I don't really write Violetta that often.

So this is based on that headcanon that Matteo and Fran met and became friends with during the selection process for 2022 Eurovision for Italy. That's for the context. And trust me, this is will be about Diecesca, eventually anyway

"Sounded good today Balsano," Francesca said as her Eurovions "rival" Matteo Balsano got off the stage after his last rehearsal before the dress rehearsal. Fran had been listening to him while waiting for her own turn.

She and Matteo had met as they went against each other for the spot to represent Italy in the Eurovision. They were rivals on the stage, but actually off it, they got along quite well. If she couldn't win, then Matteo probably was Italy's best shot.

"Thanks, Caviglia," Matteo said smirking, "I am ready to utterly beat you tomorrow."

"In your dreams," she responded laughing.

"By the way, wanna get a drink with me at the hotel after this?"

"I hope you are not asking me out," Fran raised a eyebrow at him. She really hope this was not the case. They were not that familiar with each other, that she would know if he was single or not, but she had not noticed at all if he was interested in her.

"Oh, no no no no no," Matteo quickly corrected himself with a horrified expression. "That's not what I meant. I am taken anyway."

"Good, because I am not available either," Fran sighed in relief. Very awkward situation. She liked Matteo, so it would have been a shame if their blossoming friendship would have come to end like this. "as you can see."

She raised her left hand to show her wedding and engagement rings. Now that she thought about it, Matteo probably knew it already since her rings were not the most unnoticeable thing in the world.

*

"I live in Buenos Aires but we travel a lot due to our careers," Fran explained to Matteo s they were sitting those drinks. "My husband, Diego Hernandez, you maybe have heard of him, is Spanish so we have toured a lot in Spain and in Italy due to it."

"I live in Buenos Aires as well," Matteo remarked surprised, "What are the odds? My girlfriend is Mexican/Argentinian, don't ask, it gets complicated. Well how did you and your husband meet?"

"Oh my God, it was so dump," Fran lowered her head for a moment laughing, "We met when I was 18 and he was 19, but didn't date until a year later. He originally dated my best friend, Violetta Castillo, you also maybe have heard of her. All my friends are musicians. And I actually dated Diego's best friend Marco at the time..."

"Hold it right there," Matteo interrupted her, "You and your best friend dated two guys who also were best friends?"

"Yes," Fran didn't really understand why Matteo was harping on that.

"My best friend and Luna's, my girlfriend's best friend are also together. Nina sometimes writes songs for me." Matteo laughed, "We have more in common than we thought."

"That is odd I admit it." Fran laughed as a response, "But then Vilu and Diego broke up, I'll spare you the details, and Marco and I did. then after a tour, me and Diego got together ánd since he was Vilu's ex, I just felt quite awkward about it so we just kind of kept it a secret... It did not work and everyone found out." She looked up at Matteo to see his reaction.

"I honestly would like to say that that was the stupidest thing I ever heard... but it is so not..." Matteo said to her, "If I would give you details about every love story that me and my friends have had, wed be here until morning"

[scribbleboxfox]

Definitely not the friend of the person who sent the artwork with the chair–

Can confirm, she's been rambling on and on about your fic for weeks. Months. I decided I had to read it for myself, since she spoke so highly of it, so I started today. Somewhere around the seventh chapter now. I'm always cracking up at the notes at the end. For the record, you nailed Caboose. I could hear his voice more clearly than anyone else's.

That aside, I did have a real question. Figured I'd ask since apparently you're a super easy to talk to/contact (if my excited friend's notes about sharing the artwork have been any indication). I do not know how tumblr works, though. Fingers crossed I figure it out quick.

The actual questions:

How did you come up with the idea for your story?

How did you make it work? As in, how did you make a plot, stick to it, and then keep going–

How are you able to impersonate fandom characters so accurately and not fear being incorrect??? (I struggle with this, hence my not having written fanfiction in, like, ever haha)

Thanks for coming to my TedTalk.

AHHHH YES HELLO HI I'M SO GLAD YOU STARTED READING AND I HOPE YOU LIKE IT!!

I'm going to put my answers under a cut so it doesn't clog up people's dashboards. (Click on the "Keep Reading" link/button thing to see them!)

Gonna try to answer your first two questions together, since they pair up nicely.

Honestly, and this is going to sound silly, the idea for The Long Road Home sprung from a goofy one-liner that I thought up for Fox to say. More specifically; I'd come up with Fox as a way to give Locus a goofy sidekick that annoyed him but ultimately became his best friend. She was originally just a silly OC that I did some doodles of, and I wasn't planning on getting attached to her or Red vs. Blue. But then I imagined the stupidest, funniest one-liner I have ever come up with.

Unfortunately, said one-liner needed context. Over a million words of context, apparently LOL. So I started brainstorming, came up with a plot, and planned it out. It's hard to explain the exact technical work that went into building this thing, but I'll try;

Initially, I started by asking myself "where do I want these characters to end up, and how are they going to get there?" Then I determined the load-bearing plot points from there;

The characters meet Fox

She convinces them to work together with Locus

Locus earns some of Kimball's trust; enough for Kimball to let him help Fox on her crusade to find evidence against Hargrove that the UNSC will have to pay attention to

They go to Earth and Locus discovers the power of friendship

At the same time, Hargrove decides to continue his campaign to wipe out Chorus

[Insert other spoilery plot points here]

From there, I came up with a document that holds all the super important plot points and the order in which they happen, along with all the necessary sub-plots that help move the story along.

The way I format it is "Chapter Name: Plot point 1 - Plot point 2 - plot point 3" so I know what needs to happen in each chapter. I've included an image below that hopefully helps illustrate this a little better;

This was the first thing I did when planning my fic. It took me a while to finalize it; I didn't manage to get it close to the finalized version that exists now until around Chapter 14. Since then I've tidied it up even further as I've tightened up my overall story direction, and continue to do so every few chapters I write to make sure that everything that happens in future chapters makes sense with what's happened in previous ones.

TL;DR: this document exists for me to know where the fic is going and how to get there, and serves as a framework for the overall story as a whole.

The next step; which is more of a housekeeping thing on my part, is the chapter outlines. These basically serve as a rough draft and help me get all the "filler" down so I can use it to connect the stuff that happens in each chapter. To further explain; I outline the chapter scene-by-scene and include some of the more minute details that happen. I like to write these like they're a FandomWiki article about an episode of a TV show so I don't get too descriptive with them (they're rough drafts after all,) though I'll usually include pieces of dialogue that I think could actually work in the chapter, or serve as a means of getting an idea across.

Here's an image of what it looks like;

Since these are basically rough drafts, I like to use them to just throw down whatever ideas I can come up with, and then in the final draft (AKA the actual chapter) I iron out all the stuff that either won't work or isn't as good as it could be.

Both of these documents help me stay on track and keep me motivated. I find that the timeline document keeps me super excited about what's going to happen in future chapters, because I can just scroll down and see it. And the outline document allows me to throw out whatever ideas think will work on a chapter-by-chapter basis without my perfectionism kicking me in the head.

TL;DR #2: to actually answer your question about how I make it work; I found a technical method that works best for me (which I've outlined above.) Basically, I found a way to get down all the basic ideas for what I wanted to happen in my story. Then, before each chapter, I wrote outlines that define the exact execution of each idea that happens in that specific chapter. Utilizing both in tandem have helped keep me on track, and kept me motivated for what comes next in the story.

Hopefully that makes sense! :'D

As for how I handle character-voice... I've re-watched Red vs. Blue a few dozen times now, so I have some idea of the general cadence of the main characters (what they would say and how they would say it.) But honestly, the way I nail it down in my fic is I just...read their dialogue aloud. Or failing that, I'll read it in my head using the voice of the character I'm trying to emulate.

It usually takes me a few tries to be successful, and I'm honestly super happy that you think I nailed Caboose since I always struggle the most with him.

When all else fails though, I'll either re-watch the Chorus Trilogy or pull up the (incomplete) WikiQuote page for it. Since The Long Road Home takes place immediately after that part of the show, the dialogue from the Chorus Trilogy is the best reference for characterizing the main cast.

TL;DR #3: Research and references are your best friends when writing dialogue. I find that if I can't imagine a character saying a certain thing, then they either wouldn't say it the way I'm trying to write them saying it, or they wouldn't say it at all. Reading dialogue aloud can help A LOT with figuring out if something sounds right.

(But also don't worry about dialogue being perfect. In the more recent chapters, my characterization for some of the Reds and Blues has definitely slipped lol. I think, if you are going to try to write a fic at some point, the most important thing is that you love the characters and the media they came from, and that you're having fun overall!)

Thanks so much for all the questions! It always puts a huge smile on my face whenever anyone asks about my fic! :D

Have a great day! <3

[bardicious]

Loki S1E4 Spoilers

.

.

.

.

This is my most negative review so far, so if you really liked this episode, please dont read for your own benefit. No seriously, I drag this show in every possible way. Give no receipts, all bitching.

If you dont want to see your fav show dragged, please look away.

.

LMAO. It's official, this is one of the stupidest shows I've ever seen. Jfc.

Things I didn't appreciate about this episode:

1. Sylvie being a Variant because she was born a woman? Are you literally fucking kidding me? Jfc. I HATE this, for so many reasons. One because her being born a girl suggests that Loki cannot change his sex at will. This has always been a headcanon of mind, and you know what, since Loki does it in the comics, I feel its a valid one. Fucking hate this.

2. Loki's whole bullshit sequence with Sif. Not funny, annoying, and cruel. Much like Sif herself.

3. Mobius and Loki being friends??? Listen, I am a bit fond of the Lokius ship, sure. But they were never ever on those terms, what a fucking joke.

4. Sylvie and Loki's romantic relationship??? Really??? Really?? Just wow.

5. Loki and Mobius dying? Really, now just go fuck yourselves writers. Well, we know Loki is alive, we dont know what happened to Mobius. I'm wondering what those death sticks really do then. Still didn't appreciate the disrespect on both characters.

6. The Time Keepers being robots, all the ridiculous theatrics of it? It's so lame. Who the fuck decided Loki was going to be a comedy again? Yeah, thanks for nothing.

And these are just the points that made me angriest.

The series continues to be poorly written. Mostly in dialogue, reactions, and reasoning on the TVA's part. I dont get the impression that the TVA has ever been a threat and I'm surprised they lasted this long. Excuse me, but if little Sylvie could escape so easy, what the fuck was Loki doing?

On the discourse of this whole show, because I see it everywhere. Yeah, sorry, but Loki is hella ooc. And thats the tea on that. What I will say is, there's no way the show writers are doing it on purpose. They aren't actively trying to make Loki look this stupid. I'm pretty sure Loki has just been labeled as the "hero" at this point. So Loki doesn't get interesting characterization. No, I believe he's getting the Thor treatment of the first few movies.

They are banking on all their decent writing on Sylvie because she's the anti-villain? Because obviously they do not want an anti-villain as their main focus. Yeah, it's pure coincidence. That said, I dont know what this means for Sylvie at the end of the series. It's possible she'll just become a fan favorite. I already like her (and as far as I'm concerned, I'm sticking with my headcanon)

That said, I thought Sylvie's capture was so sad. Poor child. That did give brownie points for her being a Loki, but not enough where I'd change my headcanon, because this show has way too many things I dislike.

Loki continues to be useless. He literally just has stuff happen to him and doesn't move the plot forward much at all. I guess the writers didn't have a chance to learn that your protagonist is supposed to be proactive for them to be interesting? Weird, for something as high budget as Marvel, you would think they would care about their writers having some proper experience.

The Lokis are freaking ugly. What the fuck is up with this low budget ass show? This isn't the first time I've hated the costuming in a Marvel show, see: Falcon. The only decent one so far was Wanda's.

I thought this whole episode was a joke and I was waiting for the punch line the entire time.

Lastly, because I dont want to be unfair. These are all the points I liked:

1. Hunter B-15. So happy she's on the Lokis side. I love her. I've finally come around to loving her completely. She was one of the good points of this episode.

2. It was nice to see Asgard again, and little Sylvie was adorable. She was so happy. I'm glad to get another glimpse at Loki's life. And this makes sense of why she's so vague about everything. She doesn't have a life in Asgard.

3. Loki's hair in one scene was particularly gorgeous. I'll be going back in to screenshot it. 👀

4. Loki and Sylvie fighting, both of them fighting equally just as well.

5. I still like the idea of all the Lokis.

....and yeah, that's it. Most of these are just little details, like, visually speaking most of the production is nice (Except for the Time Keepers, the Loki's costumes)

This wasn't a great one, folks. And I imagine the rest of the series will be the same. Because this is a comedy after all. And once again, I feel thats where we go wrong. Because Loki was never supposed to be a comedy, nor was Thor. Yet recently they've made comedies of both of them.

That said, wow, I am okay now, yeah, this series is just bad, hard to even extrapolate anything, but now I realize they're not doing this maliciously. imo, they just have very bad takes. I maintain that if Tom was completely in charge, Loki would be as we remembered him, but frankly, I think it has more to do with this series being a comedy than anything. Let's hope Doctor Strange isn't a comedy, shall we?

PS. This show is really making me come to terms with throwing away canon, every single episode. So that's definitely a plus.

[impala1967dwinchester]

Sam Winchester: Trouble Makers

Pairing: Teen!Sam W. x Teen!Reader

Pov: Sam

Warnings: Fluff, Sam, making trouble, kissing, teenage love, Getting into trouble.

Summary: All the two of them is getting into trouble and each other.

Word Count: 2k

A/N: This is just cuteness, with a teenager Sam, straight fluff between Sam and the reader. Also written for band-psychos 1.5 followers bingo writing challenge 2021.

Square: Late night adventure

Sam Winchester Master list

Main Master list

Taglist: @band--psycho @sweetdetectivequeen @wonderfulworldofwinchester

"Come on Sam, hurry your ass up!" Y/n said half screaming and half whispering at me from the window. I grumbled and moved in my bed.

"Sam, you promised we'd go out tonight!" She whispered. I tossed in my bed before throwing the sheets away from my warm body. I had worn my previous day's clothes to bed, knowing that Y/n would be at my window way too early.

"Quiet down, give me a second," I said pushing my sneakers on and standing up. She stood in front of my window, leaving it open just a bit for her. She danced outside the window and gave me a look of excitement.

I grabbed my cell phone and jumped out of the window. It was more chiller than I anticipated. Y/n dressed in jeans, a long-sleeved shirt, and a fluffy long sweater. It was cute. She looked warm as she danced and moved in front of me. She hummed with her eye closed barely missing bumps in the sidewalk, or garbage in the street.

"Y/n watch out would ya'" I said running to catch up with her. I have known Y/n since we were little kids that played in the sandbox at school. Basically growing up with each other. Both of us school being smart, and street smart with people.

She was the type of girl that dressed up for homecoming and graduation but at her heart, she was a full-out tomboy. She is beautiful she stops in the road turns and swings to look at me. Her smile only becomes bigger as she remembers that I'm behind her.

Today at school I had promised Y/n during our second period ap class. She had already been begging me for the last week. Texting me during the week.

"Y/n since you're the one who wanted to go out. What are your plans for tonight?" I asked, looking over at her. Without missing a beat, "Yeah, I have an idea. With it being two in the morning, I was thinking we could go to the old arcade place down on western street." She said smiling, with begging eyes behind that smile.

Whatever you want Y/n, you know all you gotta do is ask me and I'll give it to you. What else would I do for you? Anything to see that bright smile in the light of the moon. Anything to be the boy... man that makes you feel like you're at the top of the world.

"We can figure it out, Y/n," I said taking her hand in mine. We usually walked around for a few hours before getting into trouble wherever we would, or we could possibly never be found out about.

We walked down the street, hands together clasped together like she never wanted to let go of me. It was that homey feeling. The feeling of knowing no matter what else is going on outside, or maybe just around our bubble. Nothing is messing with our moments together.

I'd like to think that's why sometimes we don't get caught. That's the best feeling. But regardless of that, let me tell you of the night that I got into some trouble with my dear Y/n.

We had finally made our way to the arcade. No cars parked outside, and all the lights were out. This was the same building that was lit up during the day and always had a full parking lot in front. It was also the place that Dean would take me most of the time when he had a girl or girls over at the house.

I had all the high scores on the speed racing machines, and I knew all the right patterns for getting the most tickets. The number of tickets I'd have by the end of the day was shocking. The times that I'd gone up to the front desks and claimed my prizes were great.

But that was outweighed by the times that with said tickets I had taken soft animals and stupid little items for Y/n. No, we weren't dating, but yes how much I wished I could have her for my own. take care of her like she's supposed to be.

Y/n had become my friend in a science class. Dean had introduced her to a douchebag, which ended up breaking her heart. Since then Y/n has come to me every time a boy has hurt her, but I've never been harsh and rude about the things she tells me I just console her and do what 'friends' are supposed to do.

'Friends' aren't supposed to fall for each other. They aren't supposed to wake up at two in the morning to break into a building just so she can have some midnight fun.

Y/n hasn't dated anyone in a long while, but the fear of her doing so is raw and harsh for me. Afraid that I'll have to pick up the pieces again, repair her and not kill that guy that broke her down yet again. I just wish.

I wish that she be smart enough to see that she has an amazing guy standing right next to her already. There's no need to go searching through the pit of bad guys, or guys that just want her body for sex.

I don't want those things right now... I just want her heart, I want her beautiful mind. To realize that she isn't missing out because I'm already there for her.

Regardless of that, we had arrived at the old arcade building. Y/n pulled a bobby pin from her hair one that was already there in case she needed it. She was much the female version of macgyver.

Lock picking the front door wasn't that hard. But having Y/n over my shoulder only made me feel hot, it was a weird feeling. My body could feel her eyes tracing down my body.

Down my spine, it tingled. Back up to my neck. it was so strange. I wonder if this is how Y/n feels when my gaze gets stuck on her in school, or just when she's walking in front of me.

"Sammy, you brought the quarters right?" She questioned me as I shut the door after letting her walk in first. "Come on Y/n you know I always do," I said, locking the door just in case.

Going to machines first, she grasped m hand and pulled me with her. Her hands were so soft and warm. They were much smaller than mine. But you ever get that feeling where something is just right, I wonder if Y/n feels it too?

"Come on Sammy, please!" She said as I handed her the quarters for the stupidest game they had. Pac man. The game that Y/n had a strong love/hate relationship with. Her love for the design of the game, but her hate for how she could never get past my high score.

"Sammy go play a game before the sun comes up and we have to leave." She said turning her head slightly to glare at me. "No, Y/n I think I'll stay right here," I said with a cock tone.

"Yeah stay here and watch me fail."She said rolling her eyes before going back to the game. She tried four times before giving up and grabbing my hand once again leading me towards the ski ball area.

"Mr. Kay has really kicked up this area," I said looking at the different colored machines and how many he really did have. She looked around a raised eyebrow before opening my hand and taking the necessary number of quarters and starting a game.

Let me remind you we were doing this all in the dark. She giggled as the balls dispensed. She was thought just a second early causing her fingers to get in the way of the balls. "Shit." I turned around

"What? Did you... Are you okay?" I said stumbling across my words. "Yeah I'm fine Sammy, the balls just hit my fingers." She said as I held her hand in my own inspecting her fingers. Before kissing them all individually.

When I looked up she was blushing and smiling. My actions now processing in my head. "I'm so sorry, I didn't... I'm..." "Sammy it's okay, you know if I had a problem with something I'd most definitely tell you." She said patting my cheek gently, before going back to her game.

I felt so hot, so warm, so in love. Is that possible to fall in love with someone just by what they say. Because if so, that's what had just happened.

when Y/n had finished that game. I couldn't help but let my hands roam, they roamed up her back, up her spine, just behind her neck. "Sam? What?" She started to talk.

But I think she might have got lost in my eyes, or maybe in the moment. IOnce her eye met mine, I couldn't help but kiss her, bring her lips closer to me.

Y/n let me guiding her lips towards my own. She plump kissable lips towards me. She at this moment looked so beautiful, so perfect. The sun was starting to come in from the big glass-paned windows. It laid nicely across her face and her body.

Once our lips did finally meet. It felt like magic if that's even possible. Her hands coming up to grasp my face, mine falling down to her hips, pulling her closer to my body.

"Y/n" I breathed out, turning her in my grasp before I gently laid her down onto one of the used ski-ball machines. She moaned into our kiss, but unfortunately, there's a thing call air. And we both so desperately needed it.

We stayed in this position for a moment catching our breath, but not before we could get any further. The light of the building turned on, I was so dazed and stuck in the gaze of Y/n sweet eyes. I didn't hear the click of the old man's shoes against the tile floor.

"Excuse me?" I heard. In the slipt of a second, I was off of Y/n and standing, as if I had just been caught by my father. "I'm so sorry Mt. Kay. We'll be leaving now. I'm so sorry, please don't tell my father." I jumbled out, grabbing Y/n's hand to pull her up.

He took one look at Y/n and me. He smiled and spoke in a rather harsh voice. "I did feel like I had forgotten somethin' last night. You two are fine. I remember sneakin' away with my girl many years ago. And don't fear, Sammy I won't be tellin' anyone." Mr. Kay said waving us off.

I could feel Y/n's heartbeat in her hand. We walked out the front door, the sun beaming just over the peak of the trees. We walked in silence before Y/n spoke, "You know I thought that was going to worse than it did." She said, our hands still clasped together.

Her hair a wreck since I had run my hand through it while making out with her. "We finally got caught," I said, looking forward. The number of mixed emotions going on in my body right now was confusing the hell out of me.

"Sam?" She said. "Sam, what's going in your mind? I can see the steam pouring out of your ears." She said trying to make me laugh. "Sam please talk to me?" She said tugging on my hand.

"Y/n... I'm sorry." Her eyebrows bent inward. "What? You've.. Huh?" She said stopping in her spot. " I'm sorry that I just kiss you like that, and that we got caught."

She just smiled and rolled her eyes. "Stop apologizing, I liked you kissing me." She said stepping closer to me, a most likely dumbfounded expression. "Close your lips, and kiss me again Sammy." She said leaning in closer.

I hadn't thought that Y/n also was fallin' in love with me. Stupid teenager's minds. Getting caught, but loving the trouble we caused. "I think Sammy.. I think I love you. I think I've loved you for a long time now." Y/n said. I smiled and hummed in agreement.

Completed on: 05/20/2021

Posted on: 05/21/2021

[chateautae]

JDURNXUXNXJUXNFJUDNSMRUNDKAOWOWIRUNCNXNMVJRUNEUZNCUV7RJBZJF7EJkoaieienn3jdkJDUFJDUXUDJNEYCURNSUNTJSIXNDNXUDUWJIW73IAJXNCNBXBCNJSIS7

SAMMY, YOU DONT KNOW HOW HARD I WAS CLUCTHING ON TO MY PILLOWS WHIKE READING CHPT 13 OF MID. OKAY.

I CRIED SO MUCH. OH MY GOD. NO STORRY HAS EVERY MADE ME FEEL LIKE THIS EVER. THIS WAS SO DIFFERENT, SO FUCKING REAL, I COUKD FEEL IT ALL, HOW MUCH PAIN Y/N WAS GOING THROUGH, DEPRESSION FUCKING SUCKS. I deal with mild depression myself and mild anxiety, my heart kept sinking, so much, FUCKIMG HISUNG ACTING WIYHOUT UNDERSTAND LING BLODDY CONSEQUENCES ON ITHER PEOPLE FOR HIS DIRTY ACTIONS HE HAS A SPECIAL SPOT IN THE DEEPEST MARIANA TRENCH POINT OF HELL.

The character development of Taehyung here is just like tye sweetest sugar piece. One bite can give you pain. What i mean to say is that, I crave that attention love myself when I'm at my lowest points. I have to help myself alot at the end. I cried when I read on how Tae takes care of her. No one. Deserves pain like. No one. I wish the world could be a kinder place.

Joining hosing in he'll is that stupid ass mother of YN. Ugh. Everytime she speaks I want to go enter my phone and shut her mouth with take and just drag her out of that god damn scene.

Nothing can beat Taehyungs character in this novel. No fan fiction I've read so far has reached this level and no one will. You've made a special place for MID Tae in my heart Sammy. And I'm always coming back to this novel for comfort. You have a MID LIFETIME SUBSCRIBER now. I mean it.

Coming back to the stupidest anon who said mean things to you. I really hope you understand importance of hardwork. Writing masterpieces like this is no joke. Sammy will take her time and space to put out her thoughts. Who on earth are you to tell her to speed up you pestering cockroach!

I feel hurt, happy, joy, anger all at once. Like I said I crave for attention like YN gets here. Everyone deserves that. I hope everyone does.

Chpt 14 coming and then an end.... this might be an everlasting story in my mind. Thank you Sammy for this. For putting out your thoughts into a story like this. It's an escape for us. You respect that do complete justice. I really wish only the best for you.

Thanks for the properly written warnings too.

Always rooting for you.

-🦄 (I've never written to u before, so just choosing my anon symbol lol)

A lifetime mid subscriber I;M CRYING!! AHHH I'M SO HAPPY I COULD MAKE YOU FEEL ALL THESE THINGS WITH MY WRITING all I ever wanted was an engaging story and being able to see all your wonderful reactions like this really makes all the hard work worth it 🥺 I'm so glad I created a piece of comfort for you, and to receive such praise for my writing makes me feel so blessed, thank youuu <33

AND YES YOU MAY BE UNICORN ANON FEOIONI

[rpmemesbyarat]

RP meme from Scream Queens Ep 5 "Pumpkin Patch" (Note: Offensive content, use at own discretion)

The theme was "Let Them Eat Cake," so my dad bought me this foreclosed McMansion down the street, and, like, 500 of my closest friends came dressed in 18th century attire, and, oh, the pool was filled with this, like, caviar slurry. And then at midnight, we just burnt the house down. When the firefighters came, they were actually strippers, and they put out the fire with champagne.

So walk me through this, honey.

Well, as you can see, every pumpkin in the patch is artisanal.

Then we move past the ice sculptures of demonic peeing cherubs, and yes, they will all be peeing vodka and Red Bull.

I'm sorry. Corn maze?

It's just that doing an exact replica maze from The Shining would have taken us way over budget on man power alone.

I told you money was no object.

Well, apparently, one of them died or something.

Do you have any idea what's at stake here?

Okay, well, it's not my fault that some guy died in the '70s.

I am tired of your sad-sack, I'm-a-total-downer-all-the-time schtick.

I'm over it!

Oh, my God, why are you so depressed?

Why do I have to be the homely one?

Just a second, nutbag.

God, do I have to spell it out for you?

You're a weird, psycho lunatic who's gonna end up in an asylum somewhere, staring at a wall, trying to nurse a watering can.

That's it! I can't take this anymore!

That is such a Mary Todd Lincoln thing to say.

You scream "I'm done with you" kind of a lot, and yet you're still standing here.

I think you know you have a good thing going.

You get to bask in my starlight as I do all the work and you get to grumble behind my back about how disrespected you are.

There's the door.

There's the door, bitch!

You did not deserve to be spoken to like that. Ever.

That is bollocks!

Clearly this fake kidnapping is a play to get the sympathy vote. So Gone Girl.

This is the biggest candle night of the year!

I hate you right now!

Halloween is the greatest night of the year. Greatest night. Because on this night, even kind of shy, kind of homely girls dress up like total sluts. I mean, every costume is just a slutty version of something. Slutty teacher, slutty nurse, slutty nun. I saw a girl last year dressed as slutty al-Qaeda!

See, Halloween it's a night for dudes with killer bods to walk around with our shirts off. And it's totally appropriate, as long as we call ourselves gladiators, Chippendales.

I have no idea how you got into this college.

Look, we'll just hang out and play charades!

This cannot be happening!

Hey, what about Black Hairy Tongue Disease? I mean, does nobody here care about Black Hairy Tongue?

What about my pumpkin patch?

I blame you for this.

[NAME], nice boobs.

Join me in saying you are not afraid!

Just baking some cookies for the neighborhood trick-or-treaters.

Uh, they're toenail cookies.

Pink fur coats worn in all weather, my idea. Flapper dresses made out of feathers, also my idea. Oversized sunglasses worn everywhere, my idea, my idea, my idea!

So why are you baking toenail cookies and giving them to children?

Okay, whose side are you on?

I'm gonna let you in on a little secret. I'm what you call

a "switch-hitter."

Wait, are you bisexual? Because that's what "switch-hitter" means.

Do you mean "double agent"?

What are you writing?

Do you know how big Halloween is in the candle community?

Is this an ant farm?

There's a mom ant, Deborah, who mostly just lies around and she has about 100 husband ants, who come around and give it to her good, which she really enjoys. And then there's about a million sterile daughter ants who feed her and are her slaves. So, an ideal family.

She'd win. And then I'd beg to be her second-in-command, while quietly pull the strings behind the scenes like Dick Cheney.

This plan involves a lot of circuitous logic.

Oh, my God! Those are, like, $100 each!

They're the highest quality candles that can be purchased retail.

What a brilliant and revolutionary idea.

Are you cheating?

This is a clear violation of the honor code.

You must be new here.

Who are you calling?

I'm gonna get you fired.

At least you wore something nice today.

Remember to smile for your mug shot.

I'm burping uncontrollably like Robert Durst.

They'll know I'm guilty!

I'm next in line and in charge here.

You can sum up my viewpoint on this with one word; indifference.

We are her only hope.

Sometimes, in order for a person to achieve their full potential, they have to do things on their own.

I am in charge here!

I love that you're a man.

This is the most sensual song ever written.

We need to do this right now!

I just saw her boobs.

Oh, a salad date is, it's like, it's more casual than dinner, but more formal than coffee.

Whose pants are these?

You know, you're a human being with feelings and needs, right?

Enough about me and my confusion and sad dead feeling inside.

It just really hurt my feelings.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure my so-called friends are the ones that turned me in so I'm just feeling, like, super alone right now.

Man, I am your biggest Instagram fan!

I just think you are a style genius.

I will never be able to repay you for the kindness you've shown me in here.

Besties for life, I say.

Your bail's been posted.

I knew you'd bail me out.

Can I just say what a relief it is to be able to share it with somebody and not feel judged?

You know, I mean, all my girlfriends are like, "That's immoral." "You should be ashamed of yourself!"

Ashamed? What the hell you got to be ashamed for?

You should be proud.

I could've lost my job.

I mean, it lasted, like, 45 seconds, and the whole time, it just felt like I was getting stabbed in the abdomen.

I tied him up and I kept my uniform on and proceeded

to read him his rights. My favorite being "You got the right to remain sexy."

Give me some!

You know he's sexy!

That was one of the best nights of my life.

Well, I've already contacted the police department, despite the fact that a person can't be considered "missing" until at least 72 hours has passed.

That's morbid.

I've already hired an investigator.

What, are you two a couple now?

What the hell are you doing?

You sold me down the river, bitch.

Wait, Gary Coleman's parents stole his kidneys?

I would never say that, because I'm pretty sure that never even happened.

Why does ratting me out sound like exactly something you would do?

You know, I've never thought of myself as a killer, but I am seriously considering ramming this pick into the back of your eye socket.

Maybe you'll get your head sawed off.

You have cameras in my room?

I have eyes everywhere, bitch.

The name of my future perfume is Revenge.

How is that something you just happen to know?

That is stupidest thing I've ever heard.

What's the password?

I just can't eat any more of these.

This ain't The Marriage Ref! This ain't Judge Joe Brown! We ain't on the Maury Show! We ain't standin' in line trying to get tickets to Dr. Phil! I am not Steve Harvey, people, and this ain't the Family Feud!

I'm tryin' to catch a killer.

Help me get the spy gear in the car!

How can you promise?

We're in a maze, you don't know where you're going!

I always knew it would come to this.

Why are we doing this right now?

I forgot the flashlights!

What am I supposed to do with this?

This is so creepy.

It smell like booty in here.

I'm getting a nervous feeling in my stomach.

I might start farting. If I cut some, you promise not to tell anyone?

Oh, my boob!

Stay where you are! I'll come and get you!

Ooh, this is nice.

It's really beautiful.

It looks like you just crossed some stuff out and wrote that in in marker.

Okay, can we talk about that for a second? Because it just happened a few hours ago, and I'm still really traumatized.

I need some cheering up right now.

Excuse me, darling, I'm exhausted.

Wait, we need to hear what happened to you.

Just wondering where you find a house with a pit. The market for them would be pretty limited.

Did you escape, or did you kill him?

I've always had a thing for bad boys.

That got way out of hand.