#i swear everyone else manages to have a tag for their local stuff.

[electrosquash]

I wish US Americans would at least specify the country their PSA posts are relevant to. If not tag them something i can filter. I don't need to get alarmed over new t-mobile fines only to dig out the keyword "all 50 states" at the bottom of a unsourced un-alttexted screenshot making the rounds. I only have so much care in a day and i'd rather use it for stuff actually relevant to me.

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 325: Deku VS the Outside of U.A. ~Conclusion~

Previously on BnHA: Ochako was all “dear bloodthirsty mob, this kid you see standing before you has fought harder than anyone and put his life on the line to protect you all, so please chill the fuck out, jesus christ. like, putting aside that he’s humanity’s best hope and so it’s very much in your best interests to let him rest and recover someplace safe so that he can keep fighting for us, are y’all seriously going to turn away an injured and exhausted child in front of his sobbing mother?? seriously?? come on now.” I’m paraphrasing here but that’s basically how it went down. Anyway so then the mob was all, “...” and Deku collapsed to his knees in tears, and Gigantic Fox Lady and Kouta ran over to give him a hug but then the chapter ended.

Today on BnHA: Horikoshi is all “FINE, YOU CAN HUG HIM”, which, was that so hard?? The U.A. Clown Mob is all “come to think of it, we’ve kind of been taking the heroes for granted this entire time, maybe we should be less passive in the future. anyway so Deku if it’s not too much to ask, can you please save everyone and fix everything.” Deku is all “I sure can, and by the way I forgive you for swarming around all menacingly two minutes ago and trying to deny me basic shelter and stuff.” Ectoplasm is all, “hey Todogang get a load of this. [walks in a circle].” Hawks is all, “that’s literally the greatest thing I’ve ever seen.” Rat Principal is all, “anyway so that’s what your students did today, hope you’re enjoying your new *~*ROBOT LEG*~*, Aizawa.” Aizawa is all “[lots of exposition about Kurogiri and for some reason, Toga, while being all brooding and sexy].” All Might is all “[standing here right outside of U.A. doing absolutely nothing and being foreboding AF]” and that immediately sucked away all of the warm fuzzy feelings from the hugs, goddammit.

each new week has become a waiting game of “when will Deku finally get to take a bath so people will actually be willing to go near him and give him the hugs he deserves.” the stakes have never been so compelling. I’ve almost forgotten about AFO entirely

lmaoooooo

me: for the love of god will someone please give Deku a hug before I die of old age

Mineta: YOU GOT IT!! --

Iida: [SWIFTLY CUTS HIM OFF] NOT YOU

fucking losing it at Mineta’s crying face. he really wanted to hug him. I legit feel bad but this is also the funniest thing I have seen all week, omg

somehow Kouta, who last week was only a hand’s breadth away from touching Deku’s head, is now twenty miles away from him in this new chapter

can I make a Loki reference here. is this recap a good place to insert a joke about someone using a TVA time-rewinding device to fuck with my poor boy Kouta over here. well anyway there it is

AND NOW HE’S BACK ALL OF A SUDDEN OMG

(ETA: since when is he “niichan” omg?? can’t handle this cuteness.)

BUT THEY’RE STILL NOT HUGGING HIM FFFFKFFFFF. WHAT DO I HAVE TO DO. WHO DO I HAVE TO BRIBE AND/OR BLACKMAIL

OH NO KOUTA IS CRYING THAT’S IT I’M DONE FOR

“when I heard that lady I knew that I had to go, but then stop again within inches of actually touching you because you smell like week-old rotten onions.” listen Kouta, I’m not saying I don’t get it, but you all can’t keep doing this to me. it’s the way you guys keep teasing it. like, if you’re gonna hug him, hug him. don’t just stand there with your arms held rigidly out in front of you like a molded action figure

OH MY GOSH BUT HE SAID THE THING

KOUTA SWOOPING IN AT THE LAST MINUTE TO TAKE ALL THE CREDIT FOR FIXING DEKU LIKE THAT ONE KID IN THE GROUP PROJECT WHO DOES ABSOLUTELY NOTHING BUT STILL TAGS HIS NAME ONTO THE REPORT ANYWAY, WHAT A KNAVE

GASP

(  ´͈ ᗨ `͈ )

SHE PICKED HIM UP LIKE A LITTLE BABY OMG?? she just leaned right over and lifted this child like he was a small animal. like a lil baby futon that she was about to hang up to dry. oh my god

-- HEY WHAT

(: well that’s extremely fucked up. though sadly not too surprising given what we just saw these past couple chapters

incidentally, I hope that anyone who was legitimately defending the civilians’ perspective earlier takes note here of how quickly that line of thinking -- “we’re just trying to keep our families safe” and all that-- can lead to straight up bigotry. if you’re willing to deny a child shelter and protection simply because he’s not YOUR child, and because you’ve decided based on Internet rumors (no real-world parallels there, I’m sure) that he might present a threat, it’s really not that much further of a leap to discriminating against entire groups of people simply because you perceive those groups as being dangerous. I’m sure the people who turned Gigantic Fox Lady away also told themselves afterwards that they did it to protect their families. “better safe than sorry.” “she’ll be fine, someone will take her in, but as for us, we can’t afford to take that risk.” people can come up with all kinds of justifications for treating other people as less than human, and the really scary thing about it is how fucking easy it is

one last quick side note, which is that Horikoshi does a great job here of showing how scapegoating works, given that AFO is the one who’s really to blame and who presents the actual threat, and yet Deku is the one who ultimately winds up being the target of the mob’s fear and outrage despite him being as much of a victim as they are. gotta love that irony, which unfortunately plays out far too often in the real world as well.

anyway I’ll get off my soapbox now, sorry about that. let us continue

YES, FINALLY OH MY GOD!!!!

AND THAT’S THE STORY OF HOW GIGANTIC FOX LADY BECAME THE GREATEST HERO. PACK IT ALL UP, WE’RE DONE HERE KIDS

holy shit. the real MVP right there. thanks for getting it done champ

jesus christ I have had it up to here with these people

literally the bar is set so low at this point that I’ll go ahead and take it. helping him because it offers them a tactical advantage is at least one step up from not helping him at all

“WHY NOT SHIKETSU” MOTHERFUCKER I SWEAR TO GOD

-- thank you!!

okay this one guy with the antennae hair is having himself a character development speedrun here

-- okay, but this part?? fucking this part, right here??

can we repeat that again?? the part where this guy acknowledges that the problems of hero society were caused not just by said heroes, but also by said society?? the part where he acknowledges that they treated the heroes like celebrities who were putting on a show for them?? the part where he acknowledges that when push came to shove, the vast majority of those heroes, when faced with a situation that offered no reward, were nonetheless willing to put their lives on the line to protect the very same people who then turned around and blamed them rather than thanking them?? are the civilians of BnHA even allowed to have actual deep thoughts about this stuff. holy shit

bro!!

ANTENNAE HAIR GUY SHOVING KOUTA AND GIGANTIC FOX LADY OUT OF THE WAY TO SLAP HIS NAME ONTO THE END CREDITS AS EXECUTIVE PRODUCER. CONGRATULATIONS SON YOU FIGURED OUT THE CORE PHILOSOPHICAL QUESTION AT THE VERY HEART OF THE MANGA. WAY TO GO BUD

meanwhile, on today’s episode of “one more chapter to go till the big volume cliffhanger, how else can I drag things out let’s see”

it’s a panel. of people’s feet. just a bunch of normal feet. with sneakers and shit

this All Might shirt guy is getting more screentime in this arc than 90% of the class 1-A kids

I guess I’m supposed to feel sorry for this dude now that he’s all “if we let you stay here do you promise to somehow magically fix every single problem that we are now currently facing?” those are some ridiculously exacting standards my dude. come on now

KACCHAN SIGHTING

thank fuck I’m not the only one who’s thoroughly unimpressed by absolutely all of this lol. I feel better now. meanwhile Iida and Kouda and Kiri are ready to run over there and hug them all. you guys are way too forgiving. damn you and your pure hearts

anyway so Deku’s like “yeah, definitely”

(ETA: almost forgot to comment on the “I’m no longer alone” part – he basically corrects the guy and says “sorry, but you’ll need to direct that question towards all of us, not just me, because moving forward we’re a team.” good stuff.)

you know what though, all joking aside... fuck yeah. because perfect victory, right. the strongest guys don’t settle for anything less. so I guess Deku has pretty exacting standards himself

also can you all just take a look at this fucking kid who’s got so much light in his eyes now that I’m gonna need eclipse goggles. hot damn. “you’re welcome” says All Might Shirt Guy as he is frantically interviewed by several local news networks asking him how he daringly managed to save Deku all by himself. “well I guess I’ve just never been the kind of guy who can sit back and let a bunch of rabble-rousers blame a little kid for all of humanity’s problems. someone had to step in and take action, you know?”

oH MY GOD THE SCENE IS FINALLY ENDING

don’t let the door hit you on your way out All Might Shirt Guy

but meanwhile, sudden Tododrama action??

oh shit

there are honestly so many ways in which Ochako’s very moving speech could have wildly backfired that I genuinely have no clue where this is headed lol. how exciting!!

so now Horikoshi is once again stalling for time with random filler panels, but this one is 10x better than the shoes lol omg

(1) was Ectoplasm’s jacket always this oversized. (2) did you guys know that if you go back to chapter 319 you can see that Horikoshi gave us a sneak peak at Enji’s Sad Detective disguise and I in fact made a joke about it in the 319 recap not realizing it was actually the stone cold truth. (3) did Shouto deliberately speed up out of impatience because Hawks was walking so fucking slow and he couldn’t take it any longer. (4) and what, I ask you, is up with these dramatic speedlines. so many mysteries here. what a masterpiece

everyone is acting all shocked about something ahh what’s going on

wait what

what the heck. did they just loop around behind everyone. what was the point of that lol. “anyway, so this is what they look like from the back” well okay, thanks for that Ectoplasm

(ETA: so it seems like they were actually hanging out someplace else away from the crowd this whole time, I guess? here I thought they had more faith in Enji’s disguise. I guess Shouto and Hawks don’t particularly want to attract this crowd’s attention themselves right now either, though.)

I am so fucking confused lmao

speaking of All Might WHERE THE FUCK IS HE lol. but yes, good, OFA brings everyone together, and Hawks is very deeply moved about this out of the blue all of a sudden. you know how it is

aw heck yeah now this is another filler panel I can get behind

Mineta really wants that hug, good lord. I genuinely love this actually. Mineta if you could just stay little and cute and keep crying about how much you love your classmates in a non-gross way for the rest of the series I would be so appreciative. you’re doing great

IIDA IS HOLDING DEKU’S HAND THIS IS NOT A DRILL. ONE TIME WASN’T ENOUGH FOR MY MAN HE’S ADDICTED NOW

what did I tell you. Kiri wants to get all of the mob’s autographs now. Kiri you’re a peach

Shouji having a conversation with another mutant type is a very nice touch! we really need to get to his backstory soon. I feel like that casual remark from GFL earlier was kind of hinting at more to come

is this the first time we’ve ever seen the Yaoyorictionary in action?? never forget that Viz tried to call it the “Yaoyorozu Reference Book” because they hate fun

last but not least, KAMIBAKU IS BACK ON THE MENU, FUCK YEAH. Kaminari trying to spice things up and introduce a little bit of controversy by smacking Kacchan on the back of the head for god knows what. I will be deeply disappointed after this if I can’t find at least one person unironically declaring that KamiBaku is now toxic and abusive

lfkdlWLWK TODODRAMA??

oh my god. Shouto’s face. Enji’s face. the back to “oyaji” again. the blunt, not-taking-no-for-an-answer, “I don’t know how much louder the universe can scream at you that doing things alone is not it, so hopefully you got the point” directness of it. fffdlkslj I’m so ready for this Horikoshi please don’t fuck it up my expectations are so high

HOLY FUCK

I SCROLLED DOWN AND HE WAS ALL “( ❛‿❛)” AND I JUST WASN’T FUCKING EXPECTING THAT OKAY. JESUS CHRIST. GIVE ME A SEC

lol okay moment over and now Enji’s pulling his hat down all dramatically like a world-weary Cowboy

OH MY GOD WERE YOU FACETIMING??

AHHHHHHHHH

(ETA: not to put Iida down or anything, but it’s kind of strange that Aizawa is all “the class rep sure did great” when Ochako is the one that was giving that whole big speech for like twenty minutes just now lol.)

(ETA 2: “thank god Iida stepped in just in the nick of time to keep Mineta from hugging Deku.” sorry Mineta I really do like you lately but it’s still low-hanging fruit lol.)

HE LOOKS SO SAD??! HE LOOKS LIKE HEARTBREAK ITSELF??! I AM BESOUGHT WITH THE URGE TO REACH INTO MY SCREEN AND PULL HIM INTO THE SAFETY OF MY ARMS??? MY GOD, AND I THOUGHT DEKU NEEDED HUGS

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH okay I was gonna just hold down the letter H for a full minute and count it out loud but within about ten seconds I realized I needed to chill lol

-- but then again NO, I DON’T NEED TO CHILL, I HAVE ZERO CHILL, ACTUALLY, BECAUSE IT’S AIZAWA WITH A ROBOT LEG AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

COMPLETE WITH ROBOT TOES FOR THAT EXTRA TOUCH OF AUTHENTICITY!! I LIKE HOW HORIKOSHI PUT ALL THIS EXTRA “!!!” EMPHASIS AROUND IT IN CASE WE COULD SOMEHOW POSSIBLY FAIL TO TAKE NOTICE. “REMEMBER, EVERYONE?” SAYS HORIKOSHI HELPFULLY. “REMEMBER THAT TIME AIZAWA CHOPPED OFF HIS OWN LEG?” oh wow now that you mention it we somehow forgot all about that. like who do you take us for

OH NO NOT THE SAD BOYFRIEND ANGST THAT I WAS SECRETLY LOOKING FORWARD TO WITH GLEE

well at least he’s not M.I.A. or back with the villains again like I thought he might be. still, that’s gotta be brutal to know your friend is in there somewhere, but to not be able to reach him again no matter how hard you try. that’s the kind of angst that pays off in final battles just when you most expect it. such is my hope, at any rate

what’s this now??

trying to decide if this is Horikoshi’s way of saying don’t worry about that, or his way of saying definitely worry about that lol

anyway so Aizawa is out here being all irresponsibly handsome once again. when is someone going to do something about him

here for Sexy Robot Leg Eyepatch Aizawa clenching his fists and making speeches about revenge. pretty sure we’re all here for that

WELL, WELL, WELL

IT’S ABOUT FUCKING TIME

I’M VERY GLAD YOU’RE ALIVE AND SEEMINGLY WELL, THOUGH!

BUT WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK THOUGH, ALL MIGHT

ffff. bracing myself for that cliffhanger next week. you’d better not touch one hair on this man’s head Horikoshi. I’m watching you 

[glowinggator]

Happy Valentines Day!

Request: Hey since tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, think we can have a Rottmnt special? Like crush made them homemade chocolate and shyly gives it to them? ✨✨ pretty please! 🙏

Pairing: All, Non-Poly. (Raphael, Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo, & April O’Neil.) 

Content Warnings: None! Except for swearing?? I don’t know if people still tag for swears or not </3 

Word Count: 1658

You thank the universe that nobody could hear your heartbeat, for if they could, the world would surely fall apart at the intensity of its beats. Your face burns hot, and your body shakes with each step you take. You pray to every deity you can think of that you don’t drop the chocolate you stayed up all night making. Pan after pan and recipe after recipe lead you to this moment, finally finding the perfect concoction. That’s what you tell yourself, at least. No, it is perfect! Right? Fuck, what’s the backup plan if he doesn’t like it? Should you scrap it? Should you have brought some for everyone? You’re so lost in your thought, you hardly recognize your surroundings as you step into the lair. An enthusiastic “hey!” from your friends seals your fate: there’s no turning back now. No second-guessing.

You’re gonna give it to them. 

Raphael:

He’s so excited!! Chocolate? For him? From his crush?

He actually has to ask if you’re serious first, he can’t help it. Like really? Ethereal you made him homemade chocolate? He has to be dreaming.

“Are you sure you’re not confusing me for someone else? Not that I’m saying I don’t want it! Wait hold on, this isn’t coming out right-”

Raph what other giant, anthropomorphic snapping turtles do we know???

He smiles so big when you manage to stammer out that yes, this is for him, and he cradles the package so gently too. He’s such a sweetheart.

He actually made you something too!

He puts the box down gently before going to his room to grab it.

It’s a small handmade card with a little bouquet of wildflowers! (White trillium and starflower to be exact. He thought they were really pretty.) The bouquet is tied loosely with a red ribbon, pulled gently into a bow.

He was so nervous about giving it to you, that he actually wasn’t planning to at all! He’s had everything planned for weeks, but his anxiety kept getting the better of him. But getting something from you was exactly the kind of encouragement he needed to take that final leap.

He’s so flustered when he hands it over, and the way his hands shake makes you feel a little less shy. Maybe he does feel the same way?

Two shy dorks in love <3

Leonardo:

Yoo, for real? For him? Hell yeah, thank you!

He’s really confident on the outside. Like, he’s so excited and accepting about it it’s unreal. All of your anxieties melt away, as they tend to do around him, and you can’t even remember why you were so stressed in the first place! It’s Leo, after all.

He’s dying (in a good way) on the inside though. He’s just internally screaming. Holy shit his crush is giving him chocolate? And it’s homemade? Oh my god look at that tiny white chocolate drizzle, that’s so cute!! Is that a strawberry?? MANY thoughts, head FULL, and in LOVE.

(He’s gonna hardcore brag about it to his brothers later.)

His heart is pounding out of his chest, although he doesn’t divulge that information.

He asks you out right then and there. Like!!!

He doesn’t actually say the word “date,” but god. You’re suddenly all shy again, and you can’t do anything but nod furiously.

The date is super casual, (yes its at Hueso’s. He begs him to pull out all of the stops, and he does so, even if only to shut up Leo. Actual king <3)  and it really puts you at ease. At some point he moves to hold your hand, and you can’t help the way your heart leaps into your throat. And he'd be lying if he didn’t feel the same way.

His confession is so eloquent, and yet… dorky. Sweet. Like he’s rehearsed it a million times, trying to find the best possible words to win your heart. Little did he know, he’s always had it.

Donatello:

oh no

He didn’t plan for this. Like, this was literally the one thing he didn’t plan for.

(He has confidence issues, give him a break!! How could he have known that you were going to give him something too? And give it first as well?? Which sets a precedent for the gift he gives?? Social interactions are Awful and he’s in Hell.)

He’s still pleasantly surprised though!

He kind of short-circuits for a moment, and he’s completely deadpan for at least three seconds. It’s the worst couple seconds of your life. Then he comes back to reality and thanks you super genuinely.

(It’s hard to read him at the best of times, and this is. So much. He just doesn’t know what to do with himself!!!)

He takes his time looking at every detail on the chocolates, and your anxiety dies down as you see the softest smile grace his features. It’s so genuine, and you don’t even think he knows he is smiling, so it’s really reassuring.

You take the time to really study his features, and fuck, he’s really pretty. You’re both flustered when you guys come back to reality.

He made you a gift too!! In fact, he has a whole day planned out.

It’s a long and fun day of running around the Hidden City, and at night, in New York.

It’s incredible.

He’s confident, and he says all the right things. He’s had this night planned out for weeks, and fuck if it doesn’t shine through.

At the end of the night, he gives you his gift with averted eyes. It’s a strange contrast to the pure exciting, confident persona he’s been putting on all day.

It’s handmade, and tailored to your exact interests and equipped with his own, Donatello-Style flair.

He’s confident in his tech, and he knows you like the back of his hand, but this is… completely new territory.

Valentine’s Day has never been so perfect.

Michelangelo

He did the same thing, actually!!! So this is actually so perfect for him!!

He spent all night making the perfect chocolates. Most of them are filled, and those that aren’t have some unique, artistic drizzle adorning them. If you hadn’t known better, you would have thought he got them from a fancy chocolate place.

He genuinely can’t contain his excitement when you hand him the box all shyly. His eyes light up with the brightness of a dying star going supernova.

He immediately hugs you, careful not to crush the chocolates, and then his mouth is moving at a mile a minute. It’s almost hard to keep up!! He’s just so happy and excited, and he’s running to the kitchen and he has a box too??? Hello, what’s going on??

He’s trying so hard to not just blurt out a confession here and now.

It’s completely impromptu, but he suggests going out on the town. He didn’t plan it, he was honestly just planning to stay in and watch some movies with you, but now that you’ve brought him a Valentine’s Day gift too? That means you like him too right, maybe?

If he’s gonna confess to you, it’s sure as hell not gonna be in a sewer. (Even if it is his home. It just ain’t right, man!)

It’s really fun! You feel so at home with him, and there’s no pressure at all.

Everything just seems to fall into place around him. He’s your home. Unbeknownst to you, he feels the exact same way.

He confesses by the end of the night. It’s so sweet and sincere, but there isn’t a single moment of hesitation. He’s so head over heels for you, and that love shows itself in every movement and word.

April

She’s never been given chocolates before!! She’s always looked on in envy through middle school, highschool, at work, etc. So fuck, if she’s not immediately swarmed with emotion. She’s like, two seconds away from crying. I love her so much…

It’s actually really funny, because she ordered a really nice bouquet of ivory & pink flowers from her local flower shop for you, but they hadn’t arrived yet! She’s super upfront with it, and it gets a good laugh out of both of you. The classic April O’Neil luck, ey?

It definitely lightens the mood, and she suggests going out to a local restaurant to get lunch, and then maybe go sightseeing! Or maybe just goof around in the Hidden City? No pressure!

It’s super fun! You never want the night to end, to be quite honest.

You get to choose the music while you guys drive around, and you end up picking the silliest stuff. You guys laugh and belt out the lyrics to every song.

The food at the restaurant is perfect, and everything goes off without a hitch. At some point she reaches across the table to interlock fingers with you, and you’re suddenly alight with so much love and recognition that this is an official date, and your best friend - your crush - is holding hands with you, and her hand is so soft and warm and… you’re so in love. And unbeknownst to you, she’s feeling the exact same strain of emotion.

At the end of the night she takes you to a rainy spot in the Hidden City, and you guys dance and sing in the rain.

Everything feels so natural and perfect with her. She’s your safe space, your home, your world.

You can barely stand to part at the end of the night.

When you do get back to your home, you find her gift at your front door. It’s a beautiful bouquet of white Gardenias, pink Carnations, pink Peonies, and… a white Lily. They stand perfectly in a vase, apparently left at your doorstep by the delivery driver. You place them on your kitchen counter as soon as you can, and text her immediately.

You love her with all your heart, and she’s head over heels for you, too.

[graceslavenderhaze]

fight night  (jatp crew x reader)

readers home life hasn’t been the best and they’ve been lying to their friends about it. one night it all builds up and the reader shows up to julies, distraught. ( for this the boys are alive bc it just worked out best but other than that no changes.)

this has been sitting in my drafts so i thought i’d post it

trigger warning: family fights, anxiety, depression, past talk of eating disorders.

For a long time you use to just keep everything buried down. That was your fatal flaw. It wasn’t a trust issue, you just always had this feeling that if no one knew then everything would be fine. But your family had lately been falling apart, your parents always seemed disappointed in you, you were fighting with your siblings more and it felt it a ballon that kept on expanding. you didn’t know when everything was going to explode it just kept getting worse.

Today was the exploding point. It seemed like no matter what you did, it just wasn’t good enough. You were the black sheep in your family, they made you out to be it. They complained about how you dressed, what your room looked like, the music you played, the people you hung out with, and for what? You didn’t do anything that was textbook problem child material. 

You tried your hardest in school, you never asked for much, you cleaned almost everyone’s mess at home, and after a while that became your routine. Never be seen, never be heard and never get any credit for everything you do. Meanwhile your siblings, little miss perfect and the star academic got everything you wanted. Your parents attention, their approval, and their constant reassurance. 

By the time you were in high school, you were emotionally independent. A stranger to your own family pretty much. You went to an art school along with your siblings. Even as the oldest, you quickly fell into their shadows. Your sister a musical protégé on the violin, your parents paid for the best lessons, and without a doubt she’ll probably attend some ivy league. Your brother was in the advanced academics program, with yale and harvard already offering him scholarships in his sophomore year. Then there was you. You were in the art program, and while your teacher swears that all the top art schools have you on their radar. You still felt insignificant.

You worked a weekend job at the local coffee shop, latte love , it wasn’t everything but it helped pay for art supplies for you to build your portfolio. Their you met Julie Molina and Flynn Davis. Two girls who were your age, they attended the music program at your art school. You recognized them, Julie had been like the sun at the school. In the hallways always smiling and then her mom died, the sun went away hidden behind clouds. While Flynn was unapologetically herself and didn’t backdown from telling people how things were, she was fearless. They were also probably the first two people who knew your siblings and were able to separate you from them. 

Then later on in the year the three of you met Luke, Alex and Reggie. Latte Love was hosting its monthly open mic night. It was almost a year after Julie’s mom died, so in an attempt to coax her back into music, Flynn brought her around. You offered free hot chocolate on the house as a bribe if she wanted to come. After an hour of mainly middle schoolers trying to face stage fright, soccer parents who desperately tried to hold onto their high school garage band phase and any other mediocre act who gave it their all in effort. Sunset Curve preformed. 

That night honestly sent all six of your lives’ into a full spiral but in the best way. A month after you had met sunset curve, they formed a band with Julie and became, Julie and the Phantoms. Flynn becoming the band manager and you being the artist for ticket designs, posters and anything else. It helped distract you from everything going on in your life and with your friends you didn’t feel left out or the black sheep. You were you and they loved you for all of it. 

But you could only be happy for so long. Your family always managed to make you feel horrible about yourself, this week had felt like the worst its ever been. Your sister being recruited for a summer symphony in Australia, your brother would be off at a stem camp and your summer plans were just to work, make art and hang with your friends. Your family wasted no time in telling you that you were wasting your time, or that it was just some silly childish thing. They didn’t understand how big Julie and the Phantoms were becoming. The latest gig being opening for panic at the disco at the Orpheum. 

You couldn’t take it anymore, which is how you ended up walking to Julie’s house right in the beginning of a thunderstorm. When you finally made it to Julie’s front stoop you were drenched head to toe. Julie being the one to pull you in the front door. In her oversized smiley face sweatshirt and baggy sweats. The movie night dress code.

“Did you walk here?” She exclaims looking at the outdoor storm and turning back to her best friend. Your eyes red from crying and cheeks raw from wiping your tears rapidly. She’d been expecting you for weekly movie night, especially since her dad and brother had been away for a baseball game for the weekend. Just not in this state.

“More like swam.” You replied with a dry laugh. Trying to desperately hold yourself together. Knowing your friends were all in the living room, you didn’t want to burden them with your breakdown. 

“Hey was that the chinese food! Y/n? Whats wrong bean?” Flynn stated her mood changing halfway through the sentence noticing the state of their best friend. Who looked like she’d just had the world’s worst day. You smiled fondly at the nice name she’d given you, which was a coffee pun. 

“Family shit. Like always.” You said looking down at the floor and the puddle that you were slowly dripping onto the Molina residence’s welcome mat. Both girls smiled sympathetically, they had their fair share of stories of how bad things could get at the L/n household. 

“Come on! It’s movie night, you’re getting into cozy clothes and having junk food with your friends.” Julie said taking your hand and leading you upstairs to her room. Julie handed you spare clothes due to you being completely soaked. Then a towel to dry yourself off.

“Here, once you’re ready to come downstairs, we can put your stuff into the dryer.” Julie said smiling at her friend before leaving to give her privacy. Taking the towel she gave you and trying to dry your hair. Then changing into the cozy clothes she gave you. Your phone blowing up from texts from your family. Your parents wanting to know where you were. Not caring how hurt you were. Your siblings saying half assed apologies they didn’t mean. They’d done this before and they’d do it again. 

Ignoring the messages, you walked back downstairs. The comforting smell of chinese food wafting at you. Julie, Alex and Flynn stood at the table. Meanwhile Luke and Reggie were were at the local 7/11 getting slushies. 

“Did anyone order a hot mess?” You said jokingly getting their attention. Alex standing up and instantly hugging you as if he’d never see you again. Hugging him back. Alex’s hugs always felt as if it was a cloud. 

The Molina residence house phone then rang, the caller id labeling your house. “We can just let it go to message.” Julie said turning back from the phone to you. You shook your head, “I’m so over this bullshit.” Walking over to the phone you picked it up. 

“Hello ever so loving parental unit.” You said with sarcasm dripping off every word. “Pop off!” Flynn said as she bit into a dumpling. You bit back a smile. “Where are you? You can’t run out because you’re upset.” You heard your mom say. You rolled your eye. 

“Where i am every friday night. I told you in advance i had plans so when you take your attention span off miss perfect and genius boy remember you have a third fucking child. Goodnight!” You said promptly and then hung up placing the phone back on back on its home base. “Beyoncé would approve.” Flynn said clapping for dramatic effect.

“How much trouble are you going to be in for that?” Alex said passing your usual that Julie knew to order for you, you shrugged. “Bold of you to assume they’ll remember to ground me.” 

“Wow what a rag tag group of mommy and daddy issues we are.” Reggie announced as he placed the tray of slushies down on the counter. “Excuse you!” Julie exclaimed as she took a slip of her blueberry slushie. “She’s dead, that’s an issue.” Flynn said as she grabbed her green apple one. You choked on your food for a second, “Out of pocket!” 

“She’s right babe.” Luke said hugging her from behind. “You have mommy issues too.” Julie said turning around slightly. “Only the hottest people have both mommy and daddy issues!” Alex exclaimed holding a hand of for you and Reggie to high five. 

“My back hurts from having a healthy parental relationship and carrying that standard.” Flynn said cracking open her fortune cookie. You laughed looking around at your dysfunctional friend group. 

“We are all going to hell for these jokes alone.” You said taking a sip of your slushie. Reggie scoffed, “We’re just warming up.” 

[tae-cup]

The Investigators | Night Terrors (3)

Pairing: OT7 x Reader

Summary: The prestigious department of police and investigations in Seoul, Korea, is called to the small town of Cape Springs in rural California. Nothing is quite what it seems here.

Warnings: Blood, violence, you know crime stuff? Fluffy stuff somehow

Genre: Mystery, Crime, Angst, a lil humor, sexual innuendos

Word Count: 3.8k Words (It’s so short this time, but next chapter will be longer!) 

A/N: I swear to you, I have a story plan! Let me know if you want to be tagged. I apologize for not updating very fast, I hope this makes up for it? But I did just deliver about a thousand years of angst so who knows? School has sorta been kicking my ass so...

Thank you so much to @kingbewwy for helping with my story planning and ideas!!

Beautiful header by the wonderful @dnrequests

Other:

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                 Chung-hee’s house was obviously meant for a family, yet the entire two story affair seemed lonely. It had the air of grief that only happened when a loved one has passed. The mood was heavy as you arrived at the sprawling estate. Rows of swaying corn and vineyards rolled into the hills. 

               The boys didn’t have enough room in their van for both you and Hae-won, so you were driving her to the farm. Sadly, you were a little late because Hae-won refused for the longest time. The boys had given up on the fight and left long before you. You really had no reason to keep arguing with her, you didn’t care, but the boys did. In the beginning, she had seemed genuinely concerned about being a burden to you, but then it morphed into straight refusal. You managed to wrangle her into the car while she complained half-heartedly about not wanting to be a bother. So now the girl sat quietly beside you, staring blankly out the window. 

             You gripped the steering wheel, wondering if you should start a conversation or not. Your eyes slid over to look at her briefly. She didn’t seem to make a move to get out, so you unbuckled. 

“Let’s get inside. The boys are already here.” You gestured to the van outside. She seemed like a nice girl, you almost felt the need to mother her, despite most likely being around the same age. 

            You stepped outside the car, waiting for her to follow. Hae-won looked distant, not entirely there, as she followed your lead. She just stood, staring at the house. She was acting oddly, you just didn’t believe that she barely knew Joo-eun. Something wasn’t adding up. You pushed it off, instead remembering the small smiles she had and the light conversation she had with the boys. 

“You coming?” You asked, walking up to the front door. Before you could knock, the door swung open. 

“Y/N! Thank god you’re here!” Jin cried, pulling you into a hug. He rarely showed any physical affections so it took you by surprise. You jumped slightly at his touch and he let go quickly. He looked around outside, head turning left and right before pulling you inside and shutting the door. 

“Oh, Hae-won is still-” 

“Shush shush! We need to-” Jin let out a little squeak as the sound of a plate smashing echoed through the home. 

           You were standing in the front room, stairs to your right and a short hallway in front. To your left was a doorway that led to a dining room and you guessed the kitchen would be next to that. You heard the shouts of the six other men and Taehyung tumbled out of the doorway further down the hall. 

“What happened?” You narrowed your eyes, long strides carrying to the second doorway. Taehyung groaned, leaning against the wall. You walked by. You walked straight into the room and tried not to gawk at the sight. 

             A sweaty man wearing overalls and a red plaid shirt held up a dish. He held it above Jimin’s head who was trying to get away, grasping Yoongi’s hand. Namjoon stood in the corner, trying to shout over the angry farmer’s screaming. Hoseok stood beside Namjoon, eyes darting around the room. Pillows were thrown on the floor among scattered shards of glass. 

“What is going on here?” You tapped your foot impatiently against the wood floor, voice cutting through the air. 

          The farmer stopped mid-swing, plate dangerously close to cracking over Jimin’s head, Taehyung stumbled through the doorway and grabbed onto Jin, making the older man cry out as he was sent to the ground. Namjoon stopped yelling, mouth open, Hoseok looked guiltily at you while Yoongi pulled Jimin towards him harshly. 

“I already told you boys that I gave my statements to the local police!” The man shouted. 

“We looked through all the files! We couldn’t find anything and we have significant evidence to take you in, so please just let us talk to you!” Taehyung cried. Yoongi shot him a steel glare that shut up the younger. His jaw snapped shut quickly. 

“Sir,” You interrupted what was soon to be another fight. “Please, we just want to talk.” You coax. Then you shoot Yoongi a this is supposed to be your job look. 

“I’ve spoken for long enough, but you police never know when to stop, dammit.” He lurched for the nearest unbroken plate, but then stopped. 

            His hands hovered over the intricately painted plate and with a swift motion, he scooped it up and gently placed it on a high shelf. Chung-hee stared at the round plate for a long time, his eyes searching the surface as if looking for a hidden treasure. He found nothing. The man let out a long sigh and turned to face the room of detectives and police. He gestured haphazardly to the couch, motioning for you to sit down with the others. His boots crunched against the broken ceramic as he eased himself onto a leather chair. 

“Fine. I’ll tell you all I know.” He said carefully, seeming to struggle to get the words out. 

            Taehyung retrieved a small notebook from his back pocket and plopped onto the long sofa. Yoongi took a place beside him and you sat next to Yoongi. Namjoon took the spot to your right and Jin pulled up a chair. Jungkook, Hoseok, and Jimin sat on the edge of the fireplace. 

“I was home all night, my wife was at work.” Chung-hee grimaced as he said ‘wife’. Taehyung noted what he was saying, but you noticed him underline the word ‘wife’ and write a couple more comments. “She’s my...my ex wife.” The old man cleared his throat. “Anyway, I-”

“Why did you divorce?” Taehyung piped up, earning a hard jab in the ribs by Yoongi. 

“You can’t just ask that.” Yoongi drawled. 

“She grew tired of me. Kept telling me to move on.” Chung-hee looked at the space between you and Namjoon’s head. His eyes were dull. “But she was at work. She didn’t find her, she didn’t see the blood.” His fingers curled around the armrest. “I did.” The words cut through the still air, a pain evident. 

“I stayed up all night to see if Joo-eun was coming back from that party. It was after curfew, but I was more concerned about her safety than anything else.” He explained. 

“So there was no one there to vouch that you were home at the time?” Yoongi asked. 

“If you’re suggesting that I murdered my own daughter, you’re sorely mistaken.” Chung-hee’s voice was steely and his jaw clenched. 

         You placed a hand on Yoongi’s thigh to let him know to take it easy. You noticed the way the older man loosened up to your touch, but you didn’t dwell on it, focused instead on the task at hand. 

“Apologies, I was just making sure.” 

“Anyway, I found her at early light. It was like she had never left. Her car was still parked in the driveway, in the exact same spot as always. I went out to check and I knocked on the window a couple times. I thought maybe she fell asleep. Then I walked around to the front and saw the blood.” He paused, eyes glancing at the expressions you guys were wearing. 

            Yoongi was impassive, as always. Taehyung had his eyebrows furrowed together as he jotted down notes. Hoseok was listening intently, his lips pulled into a frown, while Jimin and Jungkook whispered a couple things to each other. Namjoon and Jin remained focused on the man, just like you. You urged him to continue with a nod. 

“I called 911 immediately.” 

“Dispatch claims that the call was received at noon, not early in the morning.” Namjoon stated smoothly. 

“Well they lied.” Chung-hee said factually as if it was the simplest thing in the world. “Everyone in this town lies, they just wanted to put this behind them.” 

           Namjoon and Jin exchanged worried looks. Before they could speak, you opened your mouth. Your brain was moving at a million miles a minute. Is he suggesting a systemic injustice? Is he purposefully trying to frame himself? Is he guilty, is he innocent? Question upon question built on each other in your mind. 

“Are you suggesting that there is a systemic injustice that has taken place?” You asked. 

“Yes!”

“And how do we know that you’re telling the truth and trying to justify the situation in your grief stricken state?” You tapped your foot against the wood floor. 

“I’m no longer grief stricken, I’m simply angered that this was allowed to happen.” Chung-hee stood. “I think that’s enough for today.” 

“I’m so sorry for your loss, please, don’t listen to them.” A new voice came from the doorway. Chung-hee whirled around, eyes widening in recognition. 

“Ah, Hae-won.” Namjoon beckoned her in and you resisted the unease in your stomach. You were beginning to get a headache, but you were too prideful to ask for a glass of water. 

“Do you know each other?” Jimin surveyed Hae-won and Chung-hee’s expressions. Hoseok’s eyes dragged between their body movements. 

“Only a little.” Hae-won murmured, but the sound was not fully committed. 

“Yes… only a bit.” Chung-hee seemed distant, his gaze straying to the far wall to his right. 

           You nodded with a small smile. As much as you’d like to beat your head in for having a headache at this exact moment, you could do no such thing. You resulted in massaging your temple with your left hand, trying to be as discreet as possible. Yoongi glanced suspiciously between the two but shrugged it off when you gently squeezed his thigh. 

“Chung-hee, where were you the night of Joo-eun’s murder?” Hae-won asked, taking a spot leaning against the wall. 

        Her face was blank, impassive, and in control. The 180 felt like whiplash. You could even see her as an interrogator, if she applied herself. The facade crumpled quickly 

“I was at my house, as always, waiting up for her to get home.” The man’s face fell, his hard exterior melting away. “I was praying my daughter was safe. Where were you?” The anguish in his tone did not go unnoticed. 

Hae-won visibly winced, her words devolving to a stutter. “I was at the party.” 

“Weren’t you the one that asked her to go?” 

“This isn’t my interrogation.” The young girl looked miserable. 

         You were really starting to disbelieve her story that they were simply 'acquaintances.’ The dark haired girl turned on her heel and ran out of the room. Whether the others wanted to believe it or not, it looked like a strong guilt burdened her shoulders. 

“That’s enough, Chung-hee.” Namjoon cleared his throat. “Can your wife vouch for you?”

“Ex wife, and no, that woman hates me to death.” 

“Why?”

“She thinks what you’re thinkin’. Thinks I killed her while she was out, or she thinks I’ve gone insane, up here.” He gestured to his temple. “But I haven’t, I swear.” 

          You pressed your lips into a thin line. He wasn’t giving any particularly stellar answers to these questions. He was just digging himself in deeper. You may not have noticed your hand still resting on the investigator’s thigh, but Yoongi did. 

           Yoongi had instinctually relaxed and now it seemed odd if he tensed once more. He didn’t particularly mind your hand on his upper thigh. In fact, your touch drove him wild. The pale man was resisting the urge to place his hand over yours. All seven men had discussed you, how they felt, and in some form or another, everyone had agreed they liked you...a lot. A lot more than a friend and possibly a lover. The issue with you being around for this case, was that it required all of his attention and you were distracting as hell. When you were around he couldn’t focus, none of them could. 

          So he settled on staring blankly, letting Taehyung take the lead. Hoseok watched him from his spot at the fireplace. His eyes raked down the man’s figure and landed on your hand on his thigh. A small smirk slipped onto the policeman’s face. The investigator just huffed a little and turned his attention back to Chung-hee. 

          You noticed your hand and withdrew, much to Yoongi’s dismay. Perhaps it would be better to focus on the case and less on you. Besides, he had six other amazing boyfriends. Was it selfish to want one more? 

          The others would disagree. They would happily indulge, except Jin and Namjoon might be apprehensive at first. It was a delicate balance between Jimin, Jungkook, and Taehyung’s foolishness and Hoseok, Namjoon, Jin, and his own maturity. He settled on focusing on the case. He’d get to you later. 

          Taehyung noted the last words of the farmer and then checked the time. It was almost dinner time. The day had gone by in a blink of an eye and you found yourself yawning a little. Your emotional energy was depleted after dealing with the farmer, Hae-won, and Yoongi. Luckily, you were allowed a break as Hae-won invited you back to her place for dinner. 

“It’s for protection, right?” She had said. 

           Hoseok switched with you and you somehow trusted him not to crash your car. He would drive Hae-won, since he was technically supposed to watch over her for the next 24 hours. You waved goodbye to them as they pulled out of the driveway. Then you turned to climb into the van with the other six remaining men. 

           It was only natural that they tried to shove you into the middle seat in the back. Like hell will I be doing that. You would not stoop so low! You shoved over into the corner seat and buckled up, abruptly ending any argument over your seating arrangements. This left an unhappy Jimin in the center. 

          so, now you were stuck in a van for an extended period of time with your coworkers. Coworkers that made you...extremely flustered. 

“So, that wasn’t very helpful.” Taehyung mumbled, awkwardly clearing his throat and turning to the window. 

         Namjoon sat in the passenger seat, Jin drove, Jimin was beside you and Taehyung was beside Jimin. Yoongi and Jungkook took the two seats in the middle of the van. 

“If anything, it made him more suspicious.” Yoongi added. 

“But we thought that way with Hak-kun and now he’s dead.” You pointed out. The atmosphere in the car tensed. “And what’s with Hae-won and Chung-hee?” 

“I don’t know, not really our business.” Jin said quickly to your surprise. Why was he...defending her? 

“She could be connected to a possible murder suspect.” You tried to glare at him through the rearview mirror but his eyes stayed planted on the road ahead. 

“Why are you so suspicious of her?” Namjoon turned in his seat. 

           This was a different kind of embarrassment. Were they accusing you of being jealous? Namjoon was someone you respected immensely. He was your boss, your secret crush, your mentor in many ways. You felt...ashamed. 

“I’m not, I’m asking the real questions.” You tried to defend yourself, but you were shaking to your core. The other boys avoided your gaze and turned to the windows. “Just forget I said anything.” You said softly, but in the silent car it felt like a shout. 

             Your heart felt like it was going to fall right out of your chest. The quiet of the car was suffocating, the tension rising. The uneasy feeling in your gut turned to anger. Why couldn’t they just believe you? Why can’t they just do their jobs? You tried your best to calm down, but Jimin seemed to feel your angered presence. The man slowly shifted away, pressing into Taehyung. The newbie investigator stayed staring at the window, yet he hooked an arm around Jimin’s waist to pull him in closer. 

            You weren’t entirely sure how the dynamics of the seven’s relationship worked, but it must be alright considering how long they’d been together. They would always believe and trust each other over you, that was a fact. Did you even matter to this team? You didn’t need to be here, they could have very well sent in the samples to the station, yet you dropped everything without a second thought to go see them. 

            How stupid. The dull ache of your head now pounded into a full on headache. It was painful and had you squeezing your eyes shut in an attempt to make it go away. The van pulled to a stop and the engine rumbled to a halt. In front of the van was your car, so Hoseok and Hae-won had already arrived. The lights in the kitchen were on. You massaged your temples and then moved to get out.

          Yoongi and Jungkook exited, then Jimin, then Taehyung. Namjoon and Jin stood outside as you emerged. They didn’t speak to you. The cold shoulder made your heart break, but you kept your discomfort inside. The car beeped as Jin locked it and pocketed the keys.

           You went up the couple steps and knocked on the door. Hoseok opened it with a smile, the smell of kimchi fried rice filling the air. Hae-won was humming and moving around the kitchen. The boys filed in behind you while Hoseok wordlessly handed you your car keys. The man may be a bit dense sometimes, but even he understood the tension hanging in the air. Only Hae-won didn’t seem bothered. She turned to greet you with a wide smile. She looked pretty, her hair messy but also framing her face perfectly. You subconsciously smoothed your own hair down. 

“Hello! Welcome welcome!” The girl had to shout over the sizzling from the kitchen. “Place your things down, make yourself comfortable! The food is almost ready.” She continued cheerfully, turning back to the stove. 

            You followed the others into the dining area. Yoongi and Taehyung were whispering back and forth, notepads out and pens pointing at various notes. Namjoon and Jin seemed to be having a silent conversation with their eyes. Yoongi jumped up to help Hae-won serve the dinner while Jungkook stared at you, his doe eyes holding a coldness that made you squirm. Hoseok frowned at the others, his brain clearly turning. He must have come to some conclusion because you felt his eyes settle on you. 

“Eat up!” Hae-won entered the room like a ball of sunshine, except it just made your head hurt more. The dishes were placed down and then the chatter kicked up. 

“Hae-won, where do you go to school?” Namjoon asked. 

“Well, I go to a university not far from here, but I’ve been content with the online courses while I do my work study here.” She explained, taking a large scoop of rice. When the bowl was passed to you, you placed the smallest portion into your bowl, but no one seemed to notice. 

          Yoongi noticed. He was observant and he knew despite the airhead personality of Taehyung, that he too was very observant. Was it because of what they said? Was that why the tension was palpable? The investigator was watching the analyst while trying not to seem suspicious. Something was going on and he wanted to know; as a coworker, right?

           Despite the agreement that they all sort of had a thing for their little forensic analyst, she had never shown much interest in them. He supposed it was a side effect of wanting things you couldn’t have. Yoongi took another bite of rice. You had a headache. He could tell from your body language. Should he ask if you were alright? No, that seemed too much right now. 

            You couldn’t take it anymore. The silence was strangling you. You couldn’t breathe. You could feel the panic attack coming. Your head pounded, worsened by being unable to draw a suitable amount of air in your lungs. 

“Are you alright?” Hae-won placed a hand on your arm, causing you to jump. She quickly withdrew her hand, staring at you with sympathetic eyes. 

“I’m-I’m fine.” You murmured, your breath short and labored. 

“Do you need anything? Aspirin? Water?” Hae-won stood while the other boys just looked elsewhere. 

“Aspirin is actually great.” You said quickly, “Where can I find that?”

“In the bathroom, I can go get it for you.” She said, but her smile was a little more forced. Her tone was harsher, but you paid it no mind. 

“No, no, I’m fine. I’ll get it. I need to freshen up a little too.” You said shakily, but your tone was firm. 

        She seemed to want to protest, an expression resembling anger or distraught flashing across the girl’s face. And just like that, it was gone. Her lips twisted back into a calming smile. 

“Of course. It’s in the medicine cabinet.” 

“Thank you.” You stood and rushed into the corridor towards the bathroom while Hae-won slowly sat down. 

          You could hear the conversation start back up, loud impersonations and even a couple waves of laughter. Were you lonely? You stared at yourself in the bathroom mirror. Just a little. You thought, turning on the faucet and splashing a handful of cold water onto your face. Get it together, Y/N. You dried off your face and opened the mirror. 

          It slowly swung out with a click. There were bandaids, gauze, various pill bottles, and facial cleansers. You rooted through the pill bottles before stumbling across an orange bottle labeled ASPIRIN. You shook it around, seeing it a little over half full. Your head was begging you to take one. You pressed down on the lid and twisted it open. You pursed your lips and then searched for a glass.

         You just had to get through this dinner and pretend everything was okay. Next to the sink was a glass holding a toothbrush. Okay, that’s too unsanitary. So you turned to leave and get a glass of water, your mind feeling hazy as you thought about walking back into that suffocating room. Wait, don't forget the aspirin. You turned and shook a pill out. You brought it to your lips, but stopped short. You didn’t get a degree in toxicology for nothing. Aren’t aspirin supposed to be round? 

         You frowned at the slim, green, tablet in hand. You pocketed it, not trusting the pill, and returned to the dinner. 

         They had all moved to the couch to watch a movie, but one look at Jungkook snuggled next to Hae-won made you halt. Fuck this. You thought to yourself. You didn’t deserve to punish yourself by staying. You just inhaled and left, slamming the door loudly behind you as you marched out. No one paid you a glance. 

Taglist: @lovelyseomin​

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[wastelandcrown]

logan lark’s adventures in trying to appease his parents

CHAPTER 6: don’t lose ur head (the terrifying tales of the grimm monarchy)

Summary: Logan Lark is a fairly average high school student. By all means, he should be impressing his parents on all grounds. Except...he doesn’t exactly have a social life. So after his parents give him puppy dog eyes, he decides to join the local theatre's youth production. Good grief...His life is about to get weird isn’t it?

Warnings: Potential ooc behavior, Roman is a teenager who makes bad choices EXTREME edition, Remus being Remus, Intrusive Thoughts, Minor Bad Parenting, so much swearing it’s insane (If I miss something please tell me!)

Notes: This fic is based off an idea from @under-the-blue-moonlight. If you wanna be tagged in chapters, please ask!! I love this freaking chapter SO much but I’m really scared of how it’s going to be received. All feedback is extremely welcome!! 

Pairings: Intrulogical, Eventual Rociet, One-Sided Logicality, Platonic DRLAMP

Tagslist: @under-the-blue-moonlight @why-should-i-tell-youu2 @im-actually-ok @hauntedturkeycalzonedreamer @croftersjam15 @rainbowsixth @snaketho @wasinotwantedatthisexactsecond @a-soul-among-the-stars @sweet-razz-tea @the-cactus-lord

Over the course of the next month Logan learns that despite their reputations, Roman and Remus are the opposite of what everyone thinks of them.

Logan is the smartest person he knows, there is no way in hell he’d ever miss Roman’s multiple attempts to sabotage his role as Hamilton. Smart, and yet so oblivious. Each time Roman had tried to mess with Logan after he began cultivating a friendship with Remus he was miraculously saved from the torment at the last second. Remus is a hundred percent certain that Logan has no idea that he’s fighting off his brother at each and every turn. He’s not certain of much, so it’s saying a lot. There is a beautiful dichotomy in Logan’s logs of the events and the stories Remus tells about his brother’s scourge against his brand new ‘enemy’. On a page labeled ‘Roman Incidents’ in Logan’s succinct handwriting documents every incident through the month when Roman attempted to sabotage him.

July 20th - Roman tripped near my things in the drama room while holding coffee. When I went to check on my things, someone had removed the contents of my bag and filled it with around six pounds of glitter. If this happens again, throw the bag away. Glitter makes anything unsalvageable. You will keep finding it everywhere. 

Remus knew Roman had been planning something. Of course he did. Though they didn’t share a room anymore, sneaking into it had never been exceptionally hard. Neither had eavesdropping, when it counted. It counted now more than ever because Remus had become unreasonably attached to Logan and when he heard Roman talking to himself and mentioning the name of his favourite little nerd badly he knew it was now or never. It took two excruciating hours of sitting still and listening to get the juicy stuff. He almost got caught by their mother twice. She’d only been home for three days and she’d checked on Roman twice in one night. If Remus told her about the amount of effort he was putting into something she might keel over dead from shock. 

What a funny sight that would be to him. His mother, dead from the shock of his hard work to do something good, thumping onto the floor. He laughs a little, quiet enough to keep Roman from hearing. His brain supplies the rational next step of Roman running out of his room and distraughtly cradling their mother’s head in his lap. Roman sobbing. Roman blaming him. Roman screaming about how it was his fault. And it would be, if she died like that. Remus doesn’t think it’s all that funny anymore, but once the train of thought starts it can’t be stopped. He decides that eavesdropping isn’t fun anymore and makes his way to the kitchen, trying to shake the idea of his brother cursing him out for killing their mother out of his mind. 

It doesn’t really work, but he tries anyway. The kitchen is full of distractions, good and bad. The knives in the block look so enticing to his self-proclaimed ‘shitty-dick-wad brain’, but the cookies he nabs from the cupboard are so easy to shove into his mouth that he figures it evens out. He sits at the kitchen island and doesn’t even bother to turn on the light. It takes six cookies in his mouth at once before he can direct his thoughts somewhere else momentarily. How in the hell is he going to combat Roman’s plan? He spits all the cookies onto the counter as his brother walks in, flicks on the light, and sighs deeply.

“You could at least do that onto a plate.”

Remus just shrugs, so Roman speaks again, “How’s your evening been?”

“Before like...five minutes ago I was really liking it.” Which was true, Roman slides into the seat next to him and picks a cookie from the box.

“What changed?”

“Shitty brain,” He replies, “Y’know how it gets.”

“I do indeed. Do you need anything?” His voice is surprisingly soft with him, to the point where Remus has to give him a confused look before deciding what to say next. He figures out how to fuck with Roman’s plan in that moment.

“I wanna go to Party City and terrorize the night staff.” 

Roman only chuckles, Remus watches his twin put away the cookies and grab his car keys from the bowl on the counter. 

“Come on then, we can buy some of those plastic babies you like so much.”

As Remus is falling asleep later that night, his chest feels warm. He attributes it to the upcoming scheme-ruining scheming. It’s easier than admitting that that was the first time Roman had willingly hung out with him alone since elementary school. He knows the next morning that Roman is most likely buttering up because he suspects Remus knows. Which is...fair. Even if it hurts a little. They get coffee on the way to the theatre and separate. They both have important things to do. The best part about their somewhat rocky-relationship is that they always know where the other is in order to avoid each other. Remus knows that Roman has gone to see Janus and probably make heart eyes and pine over him like a dumbass. Roman knows that Remus is off drooling over his arch nemesis. Today it is more imperative than ever. During practice Remus manages to steal Logan’s backpack while he’s busy. 

He swaps the contents out with the six pounds of glitter he bought the night before and shoves Logan’s things into his bag for safe keeping. Nobody would dare look into Remus’ bag for fear of gore or weird pornography, even if he only has one in his bag at the moment. He’s shoving a small notebook in when he catches a title. “Hamilton Performance Experiment”. It takes literally all of his self-control not to immediately snoop. He makes it through, eventually meeting up with Logan and even carrying his bag to ‘be nice’ so Logan doesn’t pick up on the bag glitter. When Roman walks by with his coffee and “trips”, spilling his coffee all over Logan’s bag, Remus smiles. 

“Oh! Logan I’m so sorry! What a terrible accident!” Roman cries, ever the actor. 

Logan looks downright frantic as he lunges for his bag and rips it open. Glitter goes everywhere. Logan’s hair, Roman’s shoes, the entire dressing room floor. The look of distress fades from Logan’s face momentarily, returning full force when he realizes his things are missing. 

Remus pulls them out of his bag in secret, walking to the corner of the room, walking back and exclaiming, “What a good prank Roman! You must be taking some tricks from my book!”

When he hands the things back to Logan, Logan smiles. He decides not to ask about the notebook. 

July 27th - One of the props from the prop room was moved in with my things. I suspect Roman because of the look on his face when Remus took the fall for me. 

Just because he didn’t ask about the notebook does not mean it left his memory. By the time he gets in the car alone with his brother he realizes that Roman is pissed off at him.

“Couldn’t you have left it alone? How did you even find out!?” 

“I have my ways. Now shut up about it before I tell mom about that time in 8th grade-”

“Okay! Okay! I’m shutting up!” 

And he did. However that included no longer voicing his plans out loud. Which meant Remus had to get creative. He was very very good at getting creative. 

Dinner with their mother was much more quiet that week. Both twins brooding and not speaking with each other, their mother only prompting Roman to talk. It was too familiar in the worst possible ways. Remus despised his mother, but he knew how much his brother loved her. She was...well she was beautiful, intelligent, a very influential fashion designer, extremely supportive. Roman would go on about how perfect she was for hours. Sure, Remus could concede that their mother was beautiful, intelligent, and a very influential fashion designer, but whenever Roman talks about her he never says she’s at all a good mother. Especially not to him. He watches her laugh breathily at one of Roman’s shitty anecdotes from practice and decides he’s had enough of family dinner. He gets up and dutifully cleans his plate and places it in the dishwasher. The chef gives him a smile, and he smiles back. 

“Remus, dear,” His mother begins in her shrill voice, “If you’re not going to eat with us, at least go and shower. Your smell is unbecoming.”

Then she turns back to her food like she didn’t just attempt to insult him. Jokes on her, it takes a lot more than that to hurt his feelings. He still ends up forcing himself into the shower for thirty-five minutes that night.

The rest of the week he’s more tired than usual, which the others notice. He makes an effort to not be, he really does. When his mom is in town, everything just sucks. He hangs out with Janus three times and Virgil once to get out of the house and away from his family. The other nights he spends sitting outside the convenience store with a monster or two. He ends up calling Logan one of those nights out of need for company. Logan chuckles when Remus makes up a silly reason for calling that he can’t even remember now, but he can remember Logan’s laugh. He listens to Logan talk about the book series he’s been reading and he feels a little lighter. He never ends up finding out what Roman has planned, but it’s so easy when it’s happening right in front of him. Despite his lethargy lately, he feels a fire lit in him when the missing prop is found with Logan’s bag. 

Virgil and Janus are the only two teenagers with keys to the prop room. If Logan stole the missing prop, he would have had to steal the key. No one but the twins even knew Janus had a key, and Virgil was dead set on not letting a soul into the prop room. The idea that Logan, precious little innocent fucking lamb Logan, committed theft not once but twice enrages Remus. When they find it with his things, Logan is utterly baffled. Then he realizes the implications and his face pales. Roman calls for Thomas, spouting off about how Logan stole the prop and he should face consequences, when Remus laughs as loudly as he can. 

“Hah! You guys are so funny! You think specs could ever!? Guess my prank worked out pretty damn good if you actually think Mr.Goody-Two-Shoes could commit such a heinous fucking crime!” 

Thomas sighs, tells Remus to just ask next time, and leaves. Roman stares at his brother for a solid minute with his mouth slightly ajar. Janus and Virgil are both looking at him like he’s insane because it’s so obvious to them that Roman did it. Patton is looking not at him, but at Logan, with so much concern. And Logan...Logan stares up at Remus with the look of a small and confused animal.

“Did you really do that?”

“Of course I did! I’m the resident rat bastard, I have to cause a little recreational chaos.”

He’s pretty sure Logan believes him until they’re leaving for the day and Logan whispers a ‘Thank you’ to him as he walks by. He would have melted into the floor if Janus hadn’t put a hand on his shoulder and pulled him down to whisper to him.

“Why the hell did you let Roman get away with that?” Virgil is on his other side now with a scowl.

“Don’t know what you’re talking about JJ! I committed a very heinous crime!”

“Then why did Roman ask to borrow Janus’ key earlier?” Virgil asks, and Remus drops his smile to replace it with an annoyed look. 

“He just fucking asked for it!? I can’t even believe I’m related to that half-witted twit.”

“Yeah,” Virgil scoffs, “Not really the sharpest sword in the armoury, is he?”

“Please, we’ve known that for years. What I’d like to know is what are we going to do about it?” This quieted Remus, but made Virgil smirk a little. 

Janus continued, “After the backpack incident, and now the stealing incident, I’m half-convinced we have a brand new chaos demon in the group.”

“At least Remus’ chaos is fun sometimes,” Virgil mutters, “Roman’s just an ass.”

Remus gets away with being quiet as they talk until they get into Janus’ beat up old van. He doesn’t call shotgun, doesn’t slap the car's ‘ass’ as a joke, he just climbs into the back and sits there. He’s so quiet that Janus and Virgil are a little shell shocked. 

“Remus?” Virgil asks quietly and pensively, it sounds just like that soft tone Roman used with him last week. 

He’s quiet, Janus starts the car and clicks his tongue, “I’m going to shove Roman down a flight of stairs.”

“Don’t.” He manages, and the boys in the front seats go quiet. Virgil passes him the aux cord. 

He plays “Call Them Brothers” by Regina Spektor and Janus and Virgil know that tonight will be a very quiet outing. 

They’re sitting at IHOP drawing dicks on their pancakes in syrup when Remus’ phone rings. Janus and Virgil know who’s calling the second Remus sees the caller ID and smiles. 

“Evening Logie-Bear, why do I get the pleasure of hearing your devilishly sexy voice in this IHOP tonight?” Remus says and Janus groans loudly.

“You’re at IHOP?” Is the first thing Logan says, which makes Remus smile even brighter.

“Yes, sir! I’m with Virge and Janny too, you wanna say hi?” 

Logan sounds a bit contemplative when he mutters, “I was hoping you’d be alone...”

Eavesdropping Janus and Virgil make surprised faces, Remus smacks Janus in the arm, “Oh you were, were you? Why? Phone sex?”

“I wanted to ask for an opinion on a predicament.” Virgil smirks and Janus nabs his phone to speak for Remus.

“Remus would love to-Remus let me talk-You should come have some pancakes with us-Ow, watch the face!-and tell us all about how your science is going.” Janus can hear Logan hiding his laughter through the phone as Remus wrestles with him in the booth. 

“It’s more of a philosophical predicament.”

Janus nearly sees red, eyes widening and making Remus cackle,“Why in the world would you ask Remus Grimm about phi-”

It’s silent for a few moments then Logan hears a familiar voice. “It’s Virgil, we’re at the IHOP on 81st and Green.”

Logan laughs brightly, “I’ll be there. Order something for me.”

They spend the evening with breakfast for dinner, and the four get into a fairly heated friendly debate about moral ethics. Janus isn’t sure he’s ever had more fun in his life. When he’s driving away from Virgil to drop Remus off at home, he can’t help but smile at Remus’ improved demeanor. 

“Remus,” He starts after they’re alone, “I thought you and Roman were doing better, did something happen?”

“He tried to sabotage Logan twice for entirely selfish reasons, I wouldn’t care if he dies!” Remus dramatically cries.

“You and I both know that’s not true.”

They’re quiet the rest of the ride, and Janus gets out to give Remus a hug before he goes in. Remus ignores Roman’s questions about his whereabouts and locks himself in his room to try and keep his mood up. It doesn’t work, but he tries. He does. 

August 3rd - Roman gave me a “peace offering” in the form of lunch. I am led to believe he was attempting to give me food poisoning, as Remus ate the lunch and has now come down with food poisoning.

His mother leaves for her office in Paris on August 1st. Roman cries and hugs her, says he’ll miss her, goes on and on about how it’s so terrible how she’s never home. He does this every time their mother and father leave, he has since they were young. Remus couldn’t give less of a shit. His plan now was finding out what Roman’s next move was. Which was hard because they were back to avoiding each other like the plague. They’d spent a few months getting better at being brothers, then one of their parents shows up and ruins it. This time it was great, Remus would never admit it, but it was. Roman made an effort when their parents weren’t around, a few months ago he started doing things like making dinner for them both and bringing it to him, offering to do a load of laundry for him while he was doing it, being mindful of his volume when practicing his singing and acting, all these little things. 

He’d even started initiating physical contact again, which Remus couldn’t get enough of. Literally. An occasional pat on the back, a grab of his hand to pull him somewhere, a light slap to his knee or arm when he said something distasteful. Giving physical affection to Remus was something that seemed to be unique to Roman. It had always been like that when they were younger, and Remus didn’t think he wanted it to stop. Any time he thinks about it he always drifts back to his head against Roman’s knee a few weeks ago when Roman had carded a hand through his hair and then a few minutes later practically tackled him to douse him in perfume The shit smelled awful, but afterwards Roman had slung an arm over his shoulder and gave him a squeeze. That and the closeness with Logan kept him buzzing for the next two days. 

Now there was nothing again. It was like Roman could turn off his affection for Remus and pretend he didn’t exist. Remus tried not to be angry about it, he really did, but he couldn’t stop the fire that he felt when the other people on stage got his praises and affection. Both of them were incredibly clingy, but Roman was so much worse at hiding it and it made Remus nearly scream. He piled all of his affectionate behavior onto Logan, and Logan never really minded. He’d place his head on Logan’s shoulder, hold his hand on stage, sit pressed up against him offstage. He loved it, he did. He loved protecting Logan, talking to Logan, existing in the same space as the dork was exhilarating. He hated having to protect Logan from his brother. There was no way in hell that Remus would let anything terrible happen to Logan, but there was no way he would ever let his brother’s stupid selfish decisions fall back on him. He knows he shouldn’t give a single shit, but he does. 

His tiredness fades with his mother, but he’s still exhausted because Roman keeps trying to fuck with Logan when he knows damn well Remus won’t let him. The selfish ass. This time, Roman has the gall to pull his entire scheme in front of Remus. 

“Logan,” He starts, his affected air is slightly dim today and his hands are hidden, “To apologize for my unkind actions, I have brought a peace offering.” 

Roman hands Logan a little bag from a restaurant Remus swears he recognizes. 

“Oh, thank you.” Logan says quietly, opening the bag and pulling out a wrapped burger. 

Logan takes it out and inspects it as Remus wracks his brain trying to remember where he knows the packaging. It hits him right before Logan takes a bite. This burger is from the restaurant that gave Roman food poisoning a few months ago. It looks like the same burger too. At this point, Remus is half-convinced Roman is taunting him. He’s in a bit of a panic and doesn’t think before he snatches the burger and shoves it in his mouth.

“Remus!” Both call out, the wrapper is still on the end of the burger so he pulls it out then chews and swallows the thing whole. 

He coughs and sputters for almost two minutes after, then shoots Roman an awful glare. 

“What just happened?” Logan asks, extremely puzzled. 

Roman is gawking at Remus again, “Why did you eat that!?” 

“Fuck you that’s why, you horsefucking shiteating egomaniac bastard.”

Roman walks off in a huff, Remus lays on the floor. 

“Are you alright?” Logan questions, handing him a water bottle.

Maneuvering onto his side, Remus takes a sip and his throat feels miles better, “I just straight up ate a burger whole like a fucking snake, how do you think I am dipshit?”

“Hm,” He pauses to think, “Bad.” 

Both boys laugh, and Logan joins Remus on the ground.

“I am beginning to believe your brother has a vendetta against me.”

“No shit, Sherlock.”

Logan pauses, looking at Remus who is still occasionally wheezing.

“Are you alright...emotionally?” Remus wheezes and laughs at the same time, sounding something similar to a goose. 

“‘Thought you didn’t know much about those, poindexter.”

“I do not. However, as your friend I feel like it’s important to ask.”

Remus just sighs, closes his eyes, and blows a raspberry at the ceiling.

“Me and Roman are complicated.”

“I can tell.” Remus laughs, Logan really is something else. 

It’s quiet when Remus asks, “Do you hate him?”

“No,” Logan’s response is measured and confident like he’s asked himself this question a hundred times, “I don’t hate him. I think he’s got some things to work out, and is taking out his frustration on me as of late.”

He keeps talking, Remus covers his closed eyes with his arm, “More importantly, do you hate him?”

He almost rockets to his feet when Logan says curiously, “Or, more interestingly, do you love him?”

It takes him nearly two and a half minutes sat up and sipping water, watching Logan pack his things, to muster up the will to tell the truth. 

“Of course I love him. Nobody else is gonna fucking do it.” 

He could barely comprehend Logan’s response to his admission so he shoved it out of his mind with all the force he could muster, then waved a goodbye to him when he parted and left Remus with his mind. 

He ends up going home early because his awful decision ended up actually giving him food poisoning. He takes a sick day the next day, and spends most of the time feeling like shit physically and emotionally. His brain has kept tabs on all the shitty feelings and thoughts he’s had and is now playing out a full length shitty horror movie about his life and his dumb brother and his shitty summer crush. Then there’s that conversation with Logan. The last sentence is running through him over and over again. He keeps coming back to it, though he’s sure Logan didn’t even mean anything by it. Seventeen words and his world was sent spinning. 

“Ah, I understand, it’s hard to love somebody when they don’t act like they love you back.” 

Logan doesn’t even know the half of it. 

August 20th - Roman asked me directly to leave the production. Though I admire the effort, all it achieved was a quite awful night, and an angry lecture(?) of sorts from Janus. I do not believe Roman will be trying this tactic ever again.

Roman tries to apologize multiple times, but something angry and petty in Remus doesn’t accept any of them. They’re both getting more and more frustrated by the minute. By the time the thirteenth of August rolls around they aren’t on speaking terms again and everyone can tell that it’s taking its toll on them both. Remus acts out more than usual against people he doesn’t usually target. He scared an ensemble girl one too many times, to the point where she ended up slapping him. He deserved it, but it still stung. Roman poured himself into his role more than ever, but it only ended up stressing him out even more than usual. When his voice so much as wavered on stage it shattered his confidence. 

It affected their friends as well. Roman spent more time with Patton and Emile, avoiding Remus and Janus as much as he could possibly manage. Janus rolled his eyes but just resigned himself to the tech booth with Virgil, Remus, and Logan. The only good thing that was happening lately was Janus’ newfound attachment to Logan. The pair's insane intelligence and love of debate meant one was nearly guaranteed every other time they were in the same room. It was exhilarating to watch, and probably exhilarating to take part in. Remus didn’t much care for debates, but watching Janus and Logan go at each other with an occasional snarky comment or new suggestion from Virgil was making him grow a fondness for them. At this point there was barely anybody in the theatre who didn’t adore Logan.

The staff, the cast, the tech. Everyone adored him. He was smart, diligent, and hard-working. He asked questions, didn’t undermine others, and respected the entire cast's talent at what they did. It was magical to watch everyone in the auditorium drift under Logan’s thumb. Remus was included. They were saving Say No To This until near last because of the lack of dancing involved, but it didn’t even matter. Say No To This was not needed in Remus’ seduction plan because Logan seemed to gravitate towards him with ease. He is a damn good friend and Remus is determined to make that boy his bride. 

Despite his growing lack of sleep and reliance on caffeine, Remus is skating by just fine without anything bad happening. Until his brother decides to fuck with his life again. He’s on the thin line between being shitty in secret and full-on breakdown, Roman really isn’t helping his case. Remus is lounging on the floor while Logan reads in a chair next to the makeup mirrors. He hears someone enter, but isn’t bothered enough to move. 

Ever the polite, Logan greets the newcomer “Ah, Hello Roman, how are you?”

“I need to ask you something.” His brother asks, and Remus turns his head away from the noise. 

“Alright, what is it?” Logan sounds so measured and calm.

There is a long pause, “What is it going to take for you to realize you should quit?”

The calmness in Logan’s voice wavers, and Remus can hear it wobble, “Excuse me?”

“You heard me! I mean, it’s obvious I've been trying to get you to leave, so what’s been keeping you!?” Roman raises his voice near instantly, that same childish selfishness burns from his tongue. 

“It is none of your business.” There’s a dignified fire raging under his voice now, it’s like he’s been practicing for this. 

“You’re not even a good actor! From what I can tell, you’re entirely uninteresting and way too intellectual to be here!” Roman continues, Remus feels the urge to get up but he can’t find the will to move. 

“Roman, please think before you say something you regret.” Remus knows what Roman is going to say before it happens.

“No!” His brother is so typical, “You have no idea what this role means to me, why can’t you just leave!?”

That’s typical too, Remus opens his eyes and looks at the pair. Logan looks pissed off, Roman looks pissed off, and Janus is watching from the doorway. 

“I try very hard to give you the benefit of the doubt in regards to your debilitating egomania, but it is beginning to appear as if your whole sense of stability and purpose is built upon some false reality where you need to be the star at every possible moment. Go to therapy about it, and leave me alone.” Logan spits this in Roman’s face, then turns back to his book. 

Clenching his fists and staring at the ground, Roman looks almost defeated until he catches Remus staring and his face morphs into something so bitter he has to force himself to look away. 

“No. I will not leave you alone until I get this part. None of you have any idea how much I need it.” 

“Roman-” Janus speaks up daringly from his spot by the door, his tone is enough to warn him to stand down. 

Roman’s eyes are squeezed shut, his fists are clenched, “I know we have the same face, but I’m not a failure like my brother.”

That sends Remus to his feet and out the door before anyone can say a word. As he passes Janus on the way out Janus tries to stop him but he pushes past him, past everyone, and out the front door of the theatre. 

Janus turns on Roman in an instant, walking slowly into the room and shutting the door with purpose. Roman’s eyes are sewed shut and all the guilt he tries to push down floods him when he makes eye contact with his pissed off friend. 

“Roman, we need to have a talk.” 

[ubernoxa]

The Slippery Slope: An Izzy Stradlin FANFICTION

Chapter 3: An Apetite for Destruction

Story Summary: After leaving Guns N’ Roses, Izzy find himself in a rut, and decideds to visit the local zoo. While visiting the penguin exhibit, he meets a red head named Poppy. Will they manage to keep standing while on their slippery slope?

Chapter Summary: Poppy calls an old friend for advice, and Izzy runs into Poppy at a record store and hope to corrects things.

Tags: @slashscowboyboots @smokeandmirrorz

Masterlist coming soon, but Chapter 1 Chapter 2

“Ohh god I made such a fool of myself, he is never going to talk to me again. Why am I so awkward?” Poppy whined into the phone as her old college roommate, Lissa, sympathetically listened. This wasn’t the first time Poppy had been freaking out about a guy, and she knew that it wasn’t going to be the last.

“Calm down Poppy, you are probably overanalyzing it,” Lissa was trying to calm Poppy down, but it wasn’t working.. She wished that Poppy had called her right after the date instead of the morning after. It was clear to Lisa that Poppy had spent most of the night overanalyzing and imagining future scenarios that wouldn’t happen.

Poppy sighed as she plopped down on her bed, still holding the phone to her ear. She wanted to kick herself. She wished she became an engineer instead of a biologist, so she could invent a time machine and travel back in time.

“Do you want to tell me what happened? It might help,” Lissa’s voice cut through the silence.

“So it is all the stupid busboy’s fault!” Poppy shouted into her phone. Lissa playfully rolled her eyes at the very limited story she told.

“I am going to need more details hun.”

“So everything is going great. He is super sweet and really funny. He started off super quiet, and barely spoke at the beginning of dinner. Once the food came he became kinda chatty,” Poppy began telling the story while Lissa nodded her head as she listened over the phone.

“What did you wear?” Lissa interrupted earning some confusion from Poppy.

“I don’t see how that is relevant.”

“Hey, it helps paint a picture of you on your date at some fancy italian restaurant in the middle of nowhere Indiana,” Lissa rebuttled earning a groan from Poppy.

After a couple moments of silence, Poppy broke the silence, “I wore the short gold dress.”

“Thanks, now you can continue the story,” Lissa sarcastically replied earning a light chuckle from Poppy who wished her old roommate was here in Indiana, and not in the middle of nowhere Maine.

“As I was saying, everything was going great. The food was spectacular, and we were clicking. Every once and a while silence would fill the space between us, but it was a comfortable silence. It was when we were looking at the menu or eating. We even shared our dinners. Like Lissa...this is going to sound really cheesy, but he even fed me his food. You know, like in those romance movies we watch all the time?”

“Aww that is really sweet of him. If he has a twin I call dibs,” Lissa half joked.

“Anyway, we both finished our dinners and this busboy….ohh god the fucking bus boy,” Lissa froze as Poppy swore. She had known Poppy for 5 years, and she had only heard the girl swear a handful of times.

“What did the busboy do? Did he make fun of you or something like that?”

“No. So the busboy goes and asks ‘Did you enjoy your dinner Mr Stradlin?’ Then I mumble something like Stradlin is a silly last name which it is! It didn’t sound like a real name to be honest. Sounds kinda like a sex joke. Anyway the busboy turns to me and says ‘Well I guess that is one of the perks of being a rockstar…you get to choose whatever name you want. Plus it’s not the weirdest name, he has a bandmate named Duff and another named Axl’. I fucking froze when the busboy said that. The reason Izzy didn’t want to talk about his job was because he was a part of Guns N’ Roses. That is why he never mentioned his last name to me,” Lissa didn’t need to be in the same room as Poppy to know that she was most likely dramatically flapping her arm in the air like the penguins she took care of.

“Wait wait wait...you went on a date with Izzy Stradlin,” Lissa was attempting to connect the dots and understand Poppy met a rockstar.

“I guess..” Poppy mumbled back.

“What do you mean I guess. You didn’t recognize him from all of the magazines that have been littering the checkout counter at practically every grocery store ever since he left Guns N’ Roses? It was also all over the radio!” Poppy groaned at Lisa’s comment. She should have known. Izzy wasn’t a name like Mike or Mark where there are thousands of people walking around with that name. There were probably a handful of people named Izzy, if any at all. An Izzy in Indiana who is a quiet musician and has brown hair could only have been Izzy the rockstar.

“God I’m an awkward idiot…” Poppy once again mumbled. She wanted to slap herself silly.

“What else happened,” Lissa asked after a couple moments of silence.

“Well anyway, once the busboy pointed out that Izzy was a rockstar, things got awkward. The busboy left, and when the check came he didn’t even look over it. He just handed our waitress his credit card and told her to process it as soon as possible. It was clear that he wanted out,” Poopy’s heart sunk as she recalled the moment.

“How were you the awkward one?” Lissa asked, trying to follow Poppy’s questionable logic.

“I haven’t gotten to that part yet. So we start to leave the restaurant and I missed that he offered to take my hand. Then when we were outside the restaurant waiting for the valet to grab our cars, he offered for us to go and walk to a nearby gelato place that I mentioned during appetizers. The problem was that I already saw the valet driving towards us in my car, and it felt like he was doing it out of pity…so I said no. The whole drive home I was kicking myself!”

“Doesn’t sound too bad hun. Also, he might have just been trying to get out of the restaurant before everyone else recognized him. From what I’ve heard from interviews and stuff, he never was the one who wanted to be the center of attention. Poppy...getting gelato might have been because he didn’t want the date to end…” Lissa was trying to lift Poppy’s spirits by giving an alternate scenario, one that Lissa believed to be the real reason.

“You’re just stressing yourself over nothing,” Lissa added trying the break the silence once again.

“What do I do, Lissa.”

“Go to a music shop. Find his albums and buy them so you could listen to them. Worst case you case you could show up and get some music for your penguins to listen to…”

“I’m going to stand out like a sore thumb….”

“Poppy...you will not stand out in a music shop”

After 20 minutes of Lissa convincing Poppy to get dress and head to the music shop, Poppy found herself standing outside the music store. The closest one was in Lafayette which was a quick drive from her apartment. She took a deep breath before she walked in.

Poppy almost jumped when the bell on the door rang.

“Welcome to Halls Music Shop,” On the outside Poppy smiled and waved at the man who was working the register, internally she wanted to bolt out of the shop because she felt several eyes on her.

The first floor was filled with records and cassette tapes. Poppy wandered towards the section labeled rock as she was determined to find the record and quickly leave as soon as possible. She sighed as she quickly realized how large the rock section was, this wasn’t going to be as easy as she expected. She was under the assumption that there were two maybe three type of rock music; classic, punk, and heavy. There were 15, 15 type of rock.

“Hey, I’m Ryan! Are you looking for anything in particular?” A tall brunette pulled her out of her thoughts of trying to figure out which one of the types of rock Izzy’s band was.

“Yeah….umm...it’s called Guns N’ Roses,” Poppy sent Ryan a soft smile who sent it right back to her.

“Good choice! I saw them live a year ago, and it was insane. If you ever get the chance I would highly recommend seeing them live. It’s almost impossible to believe how insanely awesome their shows are,” Ryan said to Poppy remembering most of the night from the show. His ticket was worth every penny, and he was hoping they would add more tour dates soon.

“Cool, I had a friend recommend them to me. She said I’d like them,” Poppy replied trying to keep the conversation going. It wasn’t a complete lie, but it was a rehearsed one.

“You haven’t been listening to them? They’re the only thing everyone is talking about!”

Across the small store, Izzy stood on the second floor looking through their guitars for sale. Did he need one? No.

Was he looking to distract himself from his date last night? Yes.

Everything was going perfect in his book. He was playing all the moves that his old band mates had taught him. From being overly sweet like Duff to making her endlessly laugh like Steven. Then the damn busboy had to blow his cover. Granted he really didn’t have a cover, but he still hated the busboy. Once the busboy opened his stupid mouth. He knew the entire time all that was going through Poppy’s head was that Izzy was a rockstar with a rockstar lifestyle.

He shook his head before deciding to just pick up his new strings, and headed down the stairs to the checkout. He found this place within the first week of movie back, and was forever great fun for it.

As he headed down the stairs, he immediately saw the redhead. Unsure of what had taken over him, Izzy headed towards the rock section where he saw Poppy looking through cassettes.

“Hey Pops,” A smile grew on Poppy’s face as Izzy stood next to her pretending to look through some of the cassettes.

“Hey,” Poppy felt her heart rate immediately skyrocket when he got even closer to her.

‘Don’t be awkward. Just keep breathing. Maybe Lissa was right about overanalyzing this entire situation’ poppy mental told herself.

“Looking for anything in particular?” Izzy was slowly piecing the pieces to the puzzle that was Poppy’s brain.

“Well I’m obviously looking for the perfect album,” Poppy teased back as she continued to purposely search away from the Guns N’ Roses section. After a couple of seconds of perusing through, Poppy smiled when she found the perfect cassette to tease Izzy with.

“Ahh, here we go,” Poppy grabbed a Motley Crue cassette and proudly showed it to Izzy, earning a playful eye roll from the guitarist. Poppy didn’t know a lot about rock bands, but she knew about the tension between Axl Rose and Vince Neil. There was a solid month where that’s all the magazines that littered the grocery store checkout aisle talked about.

“Girls, Girls, Grils?” A smirk was present on Izzy lips when he spoke.

“Yeah! First off I’m a girl, so obviously this album is for me. Secondly, there is nothing hotter than guys on bikes. Lastly, these songs just speak to me,” Poppy said, attempting to hide her laughter.

“These songs speak to you? Ohh do tell!” Izzy asked, a smirk never leaving his lips.

“Well, the first song Wild Side...clearly as you can tell by just looking at me I have such a rambunctious side! Plus I have worked with wild animals.”

“Ohh I can see it now, you and your penguin sidekicks probably get in all sorts of trouble,” Poppy laughed at Izzy’s comment before continuing on with her explanation.

“Girls, Girls, Girls….self explanatory. The song is clearly written for me...a female,” this earned a chuckle from Izzy who knew that Poppy had clearly never listened to the song before.

Poppy felt the nerves vanish as Izzy laughed. She felt her cheeks and ears redden. She felt smaller against the tall guitarist.

“What about Dancing on Glass?” Izzy asked, breaking the silence between them.

“Well as an ex-ballerina I don’t not see the appeal to dancing on glass…”

“It is about Nikki’s, the guy who wrote the song, Heroin overdose, the shit he and his band went through to get to that point in time, and how he wouldn't go through that routine again. Like he said,"it's just like dancing on glass” Poppy nodded as Izzy briefly talked about the song.

“Did you write any songs?” A soft smile formed on Izzy’s lips as he headed over towards where the Guns N’ Roses cassettes were. Poppy put the Motley Crue cassette that she had no intention of buying back and followed him.

“One of the most popular songs I worked on with Guns was Sweet Child of mine. It was definitely one of those all hands on deck situations, but I provided most of the chords. The intro bit is 100% Slash’s warm up. Out Ta Get Me was another one I wrote. It’s a fun song to play,” Poppy quickly interrupted Izzy by teasily correcting him, “Out to get me….out ta get me isn’t proper English.”

“Well I’ll have you know I’m the only one in Guns to have a high school degree, so grammatical correctness wasn’t are highest concern,” Poppy simply giggles at his remark before he continued talking.

“Mr. Brownstone was another good one Slash and I wrote. It’s about what a day in the life of being a struggling LA band on the strip.” Poppy watched as sorrow grew on his face.

“What about Patience, that one doesn’t sound at all like a rock n roll song,” Poppy tried to distract him by bringing up another song on the cassette that she was holding. It was called G N’ R Lies, a rather odd name for a album, but she assumed they had some sound reasoning for it.

“It’s not really,” Poppy nodded her head at his comment. He then went completely silent looking at the cassettes, memories of both good times and bad flooding his head.

“Well, maybe you should play it for me sometime.”

“Yeah, that sounds good.” Poppy felt a soft smile across her lips as he replied.

“You have too many albums Izzy..you make it hard to choose just one,” Poppy teased, still trying to lighten his mood.

When that didn’t work, she snatched the cassette he was holding, “Hmm Appetite for Destruction sounds like the one for me.”

“Ohh so are you telling me you crave destruction?” Izzy finally spoke again, a smirk lingering on his features.

“I’m a biologist who studies dangerous animals for a living, I don’t just crave destruction. I control it,” The words were coming out faster than she could think. What she was saying felt silly, but when she looked back to Izzy who now had his arm wrapped around her wrist she didn’t regret the words one bit.

“I would trust penguins under the dangerous animals category,” Izzy smugly replied.

“What about polar bears or mountain lions?”

“Okay, those...those are dangerous,” he didn’t look at her when he responded, but a smile lingered on his face.

“Is that all for you then today?” Ryan asked as Izzy placed the guitar strings he needed to buy on the counter.

“And a cassette of Appetite,” Izzy offered his hand and Poppy placed the cassette in his hand.

“Buying your own albums now?” Ryan asked, raising an eyebrow towards the guitarist.

Izzy shrugged before handing the cashier his credit card. Once the transaction was done, Poppy immediately reached down to grab his hand, slowly stroking it with her thumb.

“Do you have any plans for the afternoon?”

Poppy shook her head no before following Izzy to his car. She was expecting some luxury sports car, but instead he drove a burnt red truck. She couldn’t explain why, but it fit him perfectly.

He put the cassette in, and drove back to his place with Poppy along for the ride. She by no means was a singer, but she was quick to pick up on the refrains.

“You know that the song ‘Welcome to the Jungle’ isn’t very welcoming. I do not feel welcome in whatever jungle y’all were in when you performed that, and I have been to many jungles...if I may add,” Poppy said once Welcome to the Jungle finished. This earned a small smile from Izzy who was surprised that listening to his old album wasn’t making him incredibly pissed off, he figured it was because of Poppy who was dancing and poorly singing next to him.

About half way through ‘It’s so Easy’ Poppy just started cracking up.

“What?”

“It’s nothing,” Poppy tried to hide her giggle as she spoke.

“Sounds like something,” Now Izzy was curious to see the red head’s opinion on the song.

“It’s so easy, when everyone is trying to please me!” Poppy jokingly sang, mocking the song. Was his band seriously that cocky?

“Mock all you want, but that song is inspired by the life we lived,” Poppy dialed back on the mocking and continued to jokingly dance in her seat, clearly earning stares from nearby cars.

By the time Nightrain came on Poppy was pretending to play guitar and drums. Izzy couldn’t help, but smile at the reaction she had to his music.

“Your place is beautiful,” Poppy said as they pulled up to what she assumed to be Izzy’s place. It wasn’t an extravagant LA mansion, but it was home. It was also was a huge fuck you to Axl, since they both talked about living in the house growing up.

“Thanks,” Izzy replied as he unlocked the door. He couldn’t have unlocked the door faster.

Once Poppy made it inside she practically felt herself slammed up against the now closed front door. She looked up to see Izzy, who wore a look that made her want to melt. Holy fuck he looked hot towering over her.

“So, is this how you welcome most guests?” Poppy asked, unable to look away from his eyes.

Even though it was no later than 3pm, the foyer in his house was dark. His face was partially hidden in the shadows, but she could still see the outline of his face and his deep hazel eyes that she swore changed color in the afternoon sun.

She expected him to taste like a mix of alcohol and cigarettes, but she was quickly proven wrong. He tasted like caramel. The type of warm Carmel that you would find in pie. It was calming, as she felt his fingers dance down her sides.

As if on reflex, Poppy intertwined her fingers in his hair. Her mind went blank, unable to focus on any single thing as she felt Izzy’s tongue in her mouth. Izzy began to slowly guide Poppy towards his couch with intentions that could only be described as those belonging to a rockstar.

[vanderlindeandco]

The Long Haul: Chapter 1 (Felix Millstone x The Captain)

Also available to read on ArchiveOfOurOwn.

It was supposed to be a fairly simple job. The Unreliable needed a replacement part, and Nyoka had heard rumors that a ship had crashed in the wild on Monarch some years ago, a ship similar enough to the Unreliable that its parts should be compatible. We’d found it all right, Felix and Nyoka and I, and while she and I held off the mantisaurs, he had pulled the part that Parvati needed. Unfortunately, we’d managed to step on the toes of a large group of local marauders on our way back, which led to our hasty retreat to the Unreliable.

“Fixed it, Captain!” Parvati’s voice rang from deep in the ship and I keyed in our skip destination quickly, ignoring ADA’s warnings, as much as I knew we shouldn’t. The ship shook with the impact of a grenade launcher.

“All right, everyone hold on!” I clutched the arms of the captain’s seat in the Unreliable as the engines roared to life, wincing at the sound of bullets pattering against my ship’s sides. The ship rose, quivering at the beating it was taking, and then we were blasting towards the edge of Monarch’s atmosphere. I was about to skip the ship when Parvati’s voice rang through the halls.

“Captain, something’s wrong!” The smell of smoke reached my nostrils before I got to the engine room and found Parvati with Felix standing helplessly behind her, Parvati's gloved fingers moving a mile a minute over the recently-repaired engine. “I swear I put it in right, I-” she broke off, reaching a hand back. “Felix?”

He handed her the wrench he was holding and she went to work again. I knew there was nothing I could do to help and I’d only distract her by asking, so I waited, heart pounding, ready to grab the fire extinguisher hooked to the wall if need be. “Almost… got… it,” she muttered, switching the screwdriver with a wrench to crank something tighter. The smoke stopped suddenly, and she sat back on her heels, pushing her goggles back up to rest on her forehead. “I think that should do for now,” she said, her shoulders slumping with relief.

“What happened?” I asked.

“Law, I have no idea,” she said. “Everything was working just fine and then next thing I knew the engine was overheating. I-I’m sorry, boss. I must have done something wrong.”

“It’s all right, Parvati,” I said. “You got it taken care of. You had to install it fast, too, so I don’t blame you one bit.”

“Thank you, Captain,” she said. “I thought I knew how to do it but maybe I don’t know as much as I thought. If we could go to the Groundbreaker, well, I’m sure Junlei could help us.”

“You sure you only want to go there for her help with the ship?” I teased, and she blushed furiously.

“Captain!” she exclaimed, “We really could use her help!”

“I know,” I said, “I’m just teasing you. Think we can make it there?”

She looked back at the repair and nodded slowly. “I can’t promise it, but I’m pretty sure.”

“A 'pretty sure' from you is good enough for me,” I said. “Let’s go. Anything else you need to do before we skip?”

“No, ma’am,” she said.

“All right, then. Good work, Parvati.” I turned to return to the cockpit, Nyoka next to me. “Where’d Felix get off to?” I asked. I hadn’t noticed him leave the engine room, and didn’t see him on my way to the cockpit.

She shrugged. “Probably went to find some food. You know how he is.”

“Yeah,” I said. Still, I was a little surprised he hadn’t stuck around to see the problem through to its end. That wasn’t like him. True to Parvati’s word, we skipped successfully to the Groundbreaker, and I went upstairs to find Felix to ask if he wanted to come with us onto the ship. I knew Junlei and Parvati were likely to be working for some time, and Felix would be disappointed if Nyoka and I left without him. His bedroom door was closed and I knocked twice.

“Come in!”

I pushed open the door and stepped inside. He was sitting at his desk, cleaning the grenade launcher that he always used with such gusto. He looked up briefly, barely meeting my eyes with a smile that felt forced before his gaze returned to his task. “You disappeared earlier,” I said. “Everything okay?”

“Oh, yeah of course,” he said. “It just didn’t seem like there was much for me to do there. You know how I can be when it comes to that kind of stuff. More harm than good, right?”

“Maybe,” I said. His demeanor was off. He seemed nervous, and Felix wasn’t supposed to be nervous around me. It didn’t feel right, and I didn’t like it. “So everything’s ok?”

“Yep,” he said.

There was no point pestering him; I had learned Felix’s MO - if something was wrong, he’d bring it to me eventually and nothing I could do would get it out of him before then. “All right, I trust you,” I said. “You’d tell me if it wasn’t. You trying to come onto the Groundbreaker while Junlei helps Parvati with the ship, or do you want to stay here?”

“I’ll come, if you don’t mind,” he said, reaching for a rag to wipe his dirtied fingers on.

“I wouldn’t have asked if I minded. C’mon, let’s go.”

“All right, Boss.” He seemed lost in thought as we descended the ramps to the base level of the ship. He was probably just tired from the mission, coming down from the stress of it all. That made sense.

Nyoka joined us as we left the ship, and we crossed the landing pad, moving into the heart of the Groundbreaker. “Anyone looking for anything in particular?” I asked.

“I was thinking of getting a drink,” Nyoka said. “Anyone care to join?”

“At 11 AM? I think I’m good,” I said, and Felix laughed. He seemed a little more himself now, and I liked that.

“Suit yourself,” Nyoka said. “I’ll see you back on the ship.”

“What about you, Felix?” I asked as we continued down the thoroughfare.

He shrugged. “Nothing in particular. Just thought I’d tag along.”

“All right then,” I said. “I’m trying to find some deals on ammo. Wanna scare Belle into cutting me a discount?”

He looked at me incredulously. “I don’t know about that, Boss.”

“Oh right, ‘cause she’d be the one doing the scaring, wouldn’t she?”

He frowned, his lower lip jutting out in a pout that somehow tightened my chest. “That’s not fair,” he whined. “She sells weapons for a reason.” Even though it was fake, I hated seeing him upset. Of course, I felt that way about the rest of the crew too, but lately, I’d felt a little extra protective over Felix and I hadn't had the time to put my finger on why.

“I’m just kidding,” I said, nudging him with my elbow. “Cheer up.”

“Felix, is that you?” A female voice interrupted our conversation, and both Felix and I looked over to see a woman jogging toward us. She was tall, nearly as tall as Felix, dark red hair tucked into a loose braid that swung gracefully as she moved. A heavily modded revolver hung off her belt, and well-muscled arms emerged from her armor. Her face was pretty, dark gray eyes set under a strong brow, a dusting of freckles across her tan cheeks.

“Alaina?” Felix asked incredulously, opening his arms to embrace the woman as she reached him.

My stomach tightened slightly, a sour feeling in the back of my throat. Oh. That was why I had been paying a little extra attention to Felix lately.

Oh no.

I couldn’t let myself get distracted like this. Not when there was so much to get done. My romantic history was messy to say the least, and the last thing I wanted was to risk fouling up my friendship with Felix by letting my feelings get involved.

She had stepped back, and I realized she was holding out a hand for me to shake. “I’m Alaina,” she said.

I cleared my throat, shaking her hand firmly. “Rose Cornett. Pleasure to meet you.”

“I’ve heard of you,” she said. “Never thought I’d find Felix on your crew, though.”

“Why’s that?” I asked.

“Oh, you know. He’s a troublemaker. Didn’t think he’d be much for a crew like yours.”

“Shut up, Alaina,” Felix protested. “I’m not like that anymore.”

She raised an eyebrow skeptically. “You don’t seem very different to me.”

"Well, I am," he said obstinately. "I've got plenty of stories."

“Well, tell me 'em over the lunch you're about to buy me,” Alaina said. 

“Yeah, sure,” Felix said. “Wanna come, Captain?”

“Already ate.” The lie slipped off my tongue automatically. “Be back at the Unreliable in an hour. We’re out of here as soon as Parvati’s done.”

“Oh. Okay.” His face had grown more serious and I knew he had noticed the tone change I had failed to disguise. “See you then.”

“Yup.” I walked on towards Belle’s, silently cursing myself. Of course I had feelings for Felix. The stupidest thing about it was that I hadn’t realized it earlier. I was close with everyone on my crew, but now that I thought about it, I didn’t find myself admiring Nyoka’s smiles. I didn’t laugh as much with Parvati. I didn’t feel as much myself with ADA. Of course I liked him. He was kind, and brave, and loyal, and smart? Well, maybe not so much that. But Law, he was easy on the eyes. The thoughts crashed over me like a tsunami and again I cursed my own ignorance. Had it been so long since I’d had feelings for someone? Well, not counting the decades I spent on ice. How stupid could I be? I did my business with Belle quickly and then returned to the ship, holing up in my room and trying not to think of Felix’s date, or whatever it was, and how tightly he had embraced Alaina. I sat back, resting my feet on my desk and willing Parvati and Junlei to hurry up. The sooner we were out of here, the better.

[janiedean]

JB THE MUSICAL TENTATIVE SETLIST

... so this week me and a few anons were discussing crack plots and THIS came up, and now I sat down and I thought about it and hahaha here we go guys have what I came up with for the possible mamma mia!jb au except that it has springsteen songs instead of ABBA because that’s how I roll. this is the tag if anyone’s interested in what madness came out of that, but anyway I did come up with a plot with songs so here’s the thing.

the musical is obviously called tunnel of love because reasons.

people actually in it: brienne, jaime, their OC daughter [catelyn jr for this exercise], catelyn, tyrion, jon connington, loras, brynden tully, possibly selwyn

plot, numbers & so on:

ACT ONE

in pure rent style because I’m that bad with musical, we open with all everyone minor characters; save my love;

the scene opens in the island of tarth, where brienne is shown working at a bar covered in rock singers’ posters and getting helped by her seven year old daughter in the background cleaning tables or something, while her boss catelyn looks at her and tells her story; a good man is hard to find (pittsburgh) [obv with reworked lyrics];

cat jr goes back upstairs since they’re about to open, brienne asks for a small break, goes out on the beach, stares longingly at the ocean and wishes to have back the happiness she had once that while she loves her daughter she hasn’t quite managed to grasp yet though we still don’t know what it’s about; hello sunshine

brienne goes back to work, we move to cat jr - she wonders where her father ended up since brienne never told her who he was while she rustles through stuff in the attic and finds some half-faded letters sent to a couple men years ago and she wonders if one of them might be her father - she finds the addresses and writes them figuring that one of them might be and she wants to see her mother happy, so what’s the harm?; waitin’ on a sunny day;

first guy who arrives is joncon who tells her that no, he’s actually her godfather but he knew her mother for reasons and wonders at how long he’s been far from the island but he had to get over his bf who didn’t love him back; my hometown

second guy shows up and he’s renly who also confirms that he’s the other godfather and one of brienne’s oldest friends but maybe she should look a bit deeper to find her real dad and when she does things will go admittedly better - brienne will find her guy again same as he’ll find his guy at some point; two hearts;

cat jr goes back to the attic to look up for more clues and ends up finding a picture of brienne with two guys one of which was torn off but the other is there and wait he has her hair - it’s tyrion, who she assumes is her dad. she asks renly and jonc to help find the address and writes him and he gets there in time for her birthday, but when he arrives he tells her that no, the dad is actually his brother but he’s delighted to have a niece; surprise surprise;

at this point cat wants to know the backstory and why isn’t her dad there. the other three guys look at each other, sigh and tell her that well it happened years ago when they all were on vacation on tarth same as the whole of the lannister family....

IMMEDIATE FLASHBACK where we see younger jaime and brienne meeting at some beach party and jaime asks her to dance; tougher than the rest (jaime only);

she accepts even if she can’t believe it [he’s coming out of Bad Cersei Relationship News so he’s kinda fucked up but he honestly wants to leave her behind], they ended up having sex; cover me [jb duet];

later tywin finds out and forbids jaime from seeing her except that brienne who at that point wanted to be a singer and had regular gigs at catelyn’s bar comes up with a scheme to smuggle him out and have a night out with both tyrion’s help and the bar’s patrons etc; rosalita (brienne mainly + tyrion/jonc/renly + jaime getting himself dragged out of the house);

after that, they discuss running away together; thunder road (duet);

FLASHBACK ENDS, we’re back on the island where brienne finds out everyone showed up and she’s like yeah no I’m not calling him again, tyrion tries to tell her that it didn’t end badly because of the reasons she assumes, she cuts him short and says that she knows she’s going to end up alone and it’s fine, she always knew; when you’re alone;

at that point shit happened in between and renly started flirting with loras who’s another new bar patron, jonc started flirting with cat’s uncle, brienne is taking herself out of the equation, tyrion is flirting with bronn ie the local cop or something, ends up with choral number with reworked lyrics for spirit in the night, end act one.

ACT TWO

always rent style, opening number with everyone going for tunnel of love;

we open up straight somewhere else where jaime is on his own, living in some shitty small apartment having lost a hand after enrolling with the army after things went sour with both brienne and his family; born in the USA;

jaime muses about how things ended - basically cersei ruined stuff for them going to brienne and telling her about their rship and jaime had gone after her to call it quits after arguing with brienne on the beach about it but then brienne wouldn’t take his calls anymore and he never had the guts to go back. he receives a letter from tarth from tyrion who tells him he has half a chance in hell of fixing things and he hopes he can manage; back in your arms;

meanwhile on tarth cat jr is like shit this place is so boring will I ever get out of here did you three have such an interesting life until now, tyrion/jonc/renly explain her that when she leaves it’s better if she sticks to being herself rather than conforming to other people’s standards; growin’ up [all four of them]

meanwhile brienne is on her break again and is missing jaime horribly bc tyrion brought it all back and wishes she could get out of this damned impasse that her life became; badlands;

jaime arrives on tarth without brienne knowing and immediately meets his daughter and learns her middle name is actually jamie and realizes brienne named her half after him and is Overwhelmed As Fuck and swears that he’ll try to do right by her; living proof [both of them];

at that point though jonc and renly are like yeah we’re the godfathers though thank you and they all assure her that they’re going to be in her life; I’ll stand by you, [all three of them];

brienne finally learns that jaime is back and she’s not exactly that hyped because she thought he left her for c. and then she realizes he’s missing a hand and they have a heated-ish confrontation; for you [duet];

jaime is despairing that he’s ever going to win her back after she tells him he’s too late, everyone else assures him that if he goes for it convincingly he still has a shot; wrecking ball [everyone but jb];

jaime feels somehow better for that and gets his spirits back together; my love will not let you down;

jaime organizes things with cat and brynden so that evening while brienne is out serving drinks at the bar he shows up on stage like HEEEY I have to tell you something and tells her he still loves her and wants to get it started again between them; mary’s place [mainly jaime, everyone else does backup];

brienne is still like OH MY GOD SHOULD I, jaime proposes; i wanna marry you;

brienne decides that damn it she still loves him and he obviously means it so yeah sure she’ll marry him; leap of faith [jb mainly, everyone else choruses]

closing number with everyone having paired up etc with born to run.

... THERE THAT’S YOUR MUSICAL

[merlinhurricane]

Oo! I finally got a prompt idea! first I was thinking a basic coffee shop au for shiniida (since you made me ship them) but then I thought iida probably wouldn’t work in a coffee shop (“somethin somethin *waves hand around* coffee health somethin”) so he probably ACTUALLY works in one of those juice places that are all natural and put kale in your drinks and sleep deprived shinsou stumbled inside and asked for a black coffee and couldn’t understand why the cute barista was giving him that look

oooooh, yes!! thank you, luv. please keep em coming!!

(tags: shiniida, college au, no quirks au, swearing, iida is no mere barista—he’s a fckin Manager check yoself, multiple POVs bc i Can’t Not)

***

Hitoshi didn’t understand what was happening. Why was this man staring at him like he had a third head? Second head, whatever. Jesus, he was tired.

“Sir, we don’t serve coffee,” came the insistent voice behind the counter.

“Why the fuck not?” Hitoshi’s glared blearily at him, eyes burning. What kind of place didn’t serve coffee? Especially a place called “Pep Up”. What was peppier than fucking coffee?

His outrage and confusion must have shown in his eyes because the hapless employee rattled off an explanation about natural and organic juices and healthy body supplements. Hitoshi didn’t need any of that. Rubbing his temples and trying to get the world to come into better focus, he groaned. “Okay, you’re my last resort. Can you just, like, talk to your manager and see if you can rustle up some caffeine for me? I’ll pay extra. Please,” he begged. The prospect of walking further away from campus in search of actual coffee was a daunting one.

“I am the manager.” The man before him affirmed. “And I can assure you we do not have anything caffeinated. Not only does caffeine create a mild dependancy but it is also a diuretic and can have lasting consequences if imbibed on a daily basis.”

“Mm-hm, delicious consequences,” Hitoshi murmured, causing the manager to stiffen in what Hitoshi assumed was disapproval.

“Indeed.” The manager sighed. “I suspect more than caffeine or any kind of energy supplement—” Hitoshi brightened at the word “energy”—“you simply need sleep.”

Hitoshi forced out a hollow laugh and attempted once more to bring the broad shop manager into focus. The lights in here were too harsh, the colors too bright. He should have known it wasn’t a coffee shop. Just about ready to give up on this place and try elsewhere, he turned toward the door.

Somewhere between the decision to leave and the execution, however, there was a disconnect. Instead, he found himself staring at a display right next to the door. It was full of oddly shaped bottles in an eye-searing shade of orange. He suspected he would’ve stayed in that exact spot for even longer if something cold hadn’t been pressed into his hand, nearly giving him a heart attack.

“Wha?” He instinctively shoved away the cold, despite it actually being a bit of a relief to his warm, probably dehydrated skin.

To his surprise the cold lingered, along with an amused huff of air against his cheek. Hitoshi looked up to see Mr. Manager. Dear god, he was pretty. Shoulders for miles, square jaw, baby blues, an undercut—he would have been too overtly gorgeous for Hitoshi to even consider if it weren’t for the glasses (he had a weakness for them) softening his look and the fact that the guy was literally holding Hitoshi’s hand wrapped around a plastic cup of smoothie to keep him from dropping it. “Uhh.”

The smoothie was bright green. Why did everything have to be so bright?

“Kale-kiwi mix.” The manager explained, dropping his hand once he was sure Hitoshi had a good grasp of the thing. “With some other stuff. It’ll help you sleep.”

Hitoshi snorted. Sure, this guy was hot, but Ryan friggin Gosling could’ve handed him this smoothie, and he still would’ve been skeptical about the results. Still... “How much do I owe you?”

The man smiled, a sharp, bright slice of white in his ridiculously handsome face. Oh no. “Free of charge. That’s not even on the menu, so it doesn’t have a price. Just, do me a favor and recycle the cup, okay?” He paused for a moment, mouth curling into an enchanting moue of consideration. Oh no. “Maybe after you get some sleep.”

Dazed, exhausted, and utterly smitten, Hitoshi nodded and wobbled out the door into the night, sipping on his definitely-not-coffee.

***

Hitoshi made it home...somehow. He remembered the streetlights stringing long squiggling tails of illumination across his vision, and that was his Stage 3 sleep deprivation indicator. He was sincerely lucky he hadn’t passed out on the walk back to his place.

On the counter sat his nearly finished smoothie. It had been surprisingly tasty, though the thickness made it feel necessary to drink water before he brushed his teeth and collapsed into bed. He was feeling surprisingly well-rested. At least, he assumed this is what “well-rested” felt like, since he couldn’t recall ever experiencing it before.

Snorting at his sardonic thoughts, he moved to throw away the cup before remembering what the hot manager had said. Technically, he didn’t have to acquiesce to his request—Hitoshi didn’t even have a recycling bin in his apartment. Still, the guy had put up with Hitoshi at Stage 3 and hadn’t even charged him for the damn drink. The least he could do was not fuck up the earth with one damn plastic cup.

Campus probably had some recycling bins, and he had to hit the library to finish his project anyway. Tucking the near-empty cup into the elastic cupholder on his bag, he began the trek to campus.

About halfway there, he realized he’d forgotten to make cis morning coffee. Him. Forgetting coffee. What was the world coming to?

Already mourning the lack of caffeine buzz he’d have later, he stopped in front of the library bins. A list of accepted recyclables and their corresponding numbers wwas posted above the special recycling receptacle. Sighing, Hitoshi pulled out the smoothie cup and checked the bottom for a number, then immediately got distracted.

On the bottom of the cup, written in fine black sharpie was a phone number along with “Pep Up and call me. :)”

***

Tenya had evening shift again, and as he walked in that afternoon, he couldn’t help but be apprehensive. It had been a long time since he’d given out his number, and the few times he had done it this way in the past year, none had used it. Whether that was because they were heathens who didn’t recycle or check the recycling number before they did or if they simply weren’t interested, he didn—couldn’t know. And that was the way he liked it.

The stunned and exhausted man from yesterday had caught his eye first because he was acting...odd. Tenya had watched him standing outside the glass double doors, staring up at the shop’s sign as if it was the best thing he’d ever seen. As if it were a candle and he were the moth. When he’d finally gotten inside, he’d continued to watch as the man’s eyes flitted around the room, intelligence and exhaustion shining there in roughly equal measure. He was built like a rock-climber—slim, tall, long arms and legs, and a bit hungry-looking. Tenya had a history with that look. Tenya would be willing to rewrite history for that look.

Going by the bulging bag and air of stress coming off him in waves, he was likely a student at the local university. When he finally approached the counter, Tenya met a set of pale, violet eyes and lost his train of thought entirely. Thankfully, the man was definitely too out-of-it to notice. He smelled like a combination of moss and coffee, so it was no surprise that he was looking to obtain some of the latter.

Despite his clearly tired state and the shortness of the conversation, he’d managed to make Tenya laugh more than once. What would he be like when he was firing on all cylinders? Tenya wanted to find out.

“You’re a cheeky bastard, aren’t you?” A voice shook him from his reverie, drawing his gaze to the front doors, propped open at the moment to let in both the afternoon breeze and the very man who had been occupying Tenya’s thoughts. A pity his words weren’t more...encouraging, though. He sighed.

The man was shaking a grimy plastic cup in his fist even as he walked up to the counter to confront Tenya. He was amused to see that the guy’s hair stood on end just as much now as it had when he’d first appeared in the shop—which was mostly empty right now, thankfully. He was manning the counter while the current barista was on break. He met those lovely, startling eyes head-on. Time to get this over with then. “I apologize for having offended you.” Why couldn’t he have just ignored his advance and moved on like everyone else? Tenya thought sourly.

“The only thing I’m offended by is your lack of faith in me.” The man’s face was still adorned with dark smears beneath his eyes that nearly matched the irises in color, but his face was more mobile, his voice and gestures more lively. “Telling me to sleep before attempting to throw something away doesn’t show a lot of confidence in my cognitive abilities. Kind of a slap in the face.”

Tenya knew the feeling. “And yet here you are, presumably having slept and still holding a dirty cup,” he commented, voice dry and throat drier. Had he not seen the number then? “You do know you’re supposed to wash them before recycling, right?”

“Who has time for that?” He complained.

“Who carries an empty cup around with them all day just for the sake of argument?” Tenya countered.

The man was just as quick to respond. “Who writes their number on the bottom of the cup? How’s that strategy been working out for you?”

Tenya remained silent for a moment. So he’d definitely seen the number. “...what is this about?”

“Mostly wanted to apologize for probably acting crazy last night. And to thank you. For this.” He held up the cup. It was still frustratingly unclear whether he meant the drink or the number.

Tenya took a chance. “You could’ve just called me.”

He was rewarded with a crooked smile. “Truth be told, I also wanted to make sure I hadn’t hallucinated you.” He leaned against the counter. “You seem like the kind of guy that only exists in my imagination.”

Tenya flushed and looked away to hide how pleased he was. “You’re ridiculous.”

The man just grinned wider and bent over the counter to read his name tag. “Tenya, huh? I’m Hitoshi. Can I buy you a drink?”

—End—

***

[ijustreallylovezebras]

The Smell Of Books - Part Ten

Pairing: Loki Laufeyson x Reader

Summary: The reader works in a bookshop as a co-owner. Loki begins to work in the store after moving permanently to Midgard. They find love between the pages of second hand books

Requested: No

Warnings: Swearing, shouting, etc

A/N: sorry again for the long break before posting this part - but I hope you like it!!! Please remember to like, reblog, send asks and let me know what you think!! I kinda really like this part so please let me know!! As I said in a previous post, my tag lists have been wiped and started from scratch, please refer to the tag post I made before asking to be tagged!!

One of my favourite places to be was Ron’s coffee shop. It was a local cafe, an individual one similar to mine and Eva’s bookshop meaning that it was oftentimes rather empty, save for the locals.

The street on which mine and Ron’s shops resided was full of local independents like ours - there was Toby’s Record Shop, the Stevenson’s family bakery and Phil’s newsagents on the corner, to name a few of the stores I frequented on an almost daily basis.

And it was not uncommon for all of us store holders to bump into each other in Ron’s cafe. It was a favourite for anyone who had visited and Ron never forgot a face - he would ask customers he had met merely once about their life story, kids, husbands, wives, school. And people shared because Ron was that kind of person. And, if someone seemed down or having a hard time then Ron was quick to offer them an extra slab of cake or one of his coffee experiments by way of cheering them up.

It was Ron’s overwhelming friendliness that had attracted me to buying my little store on River Street.   

I sat at my favourite table in Ron’s cafe, a chai latte between my hands and a slice of coffee cake in front of me. I had brought a book, as I always did, but I had yet to open it, my mind preoccupied with other things.

Eva things, to be exact.

And Loki. Always Loki.

“You going to tell me what’s wrong or am I going to have to guess?” Ron asked, easing himself into the seat opposite me. I gave him a smile that I knew I couldn’t keep my exhaustion out of and shook my head, letting out a long breath.

“I’m fine, Ron,” I promised. “Just tired from all the shop admin.” Ron reached his wrinkled hand across the table and grabbed one of mine.

“I know when you’re not fine, Y/N,” he confided. “It’s in your eyes.” 

“Then my eyes are lying because I’m fine,” I insisted.

“Is Loki giving you grief?” He inquired. I looked at him for a moment, hesitating before answering.

“Not in the way you would think,” I paused. “Or hope,” I added with a laugh. Ron’s eyes crinkled with the smile I had grown to know so well over the years.

“You love him?” 

“Love is a strong word.” I countered.

“And yet...” Ron trailed off, looking at me expectantly.

“And yet,” I conceded. Ron nodded sagely.

“I suspected as much,” he looked at me hard for another few minutes before shaking his head again. “But that’s not what’s bothering you,” he decided.

“What gave it away?” I laughed.

“Because that’s never been the most important thing to you, has it?” Ron blinked a couple of times, clearly expecting me to cut in but I remained in silence, not wanting to admit anything that may make what was on my mind clear. “What’s going on with Eva?” 

Tears sprung to my eyes at his gentle tone and I turned my gaze to the table to try and hide my expression from the kind old man.

“Are you telepathic or something?” I laughed tearfully, bringing one hand up to cover my mouth. My eyes fell shut and I prayed to every God I knew - Thor and Loki excluded, they didn’t need to know what was going on - for my tears to remain unshed.

“I’ve seen a lot, Y/N, I’m old. I know when you’re hurting,” Ron confided, his tone was gentle and supporting and I wanted to hug him. 

“I don’t know how you do it, Ron,” I finally said.

“Do what?” Ron’s brow was creased in confusion.

“Get everyone to tell you their secrets,” Ron laughed openly at that.

His laughter was all the encouragement I needed to tell him what was going on. I confided about Loki’s first day, the books we’d shared, the notes we’d exchanged, the argument we had had. The argument itself seemed trivial in heindsight, yet at the time it had appeared to be the worst thing in the world. I got on to talking to Loki only yesterday and finding the hidden note in Eva’s room.

“What did he say in the note?” Ron asked, seemingly entranced by the tale.

“I don’t know - I haven’t read it yet,” I admitted. “I’ve been too scared - once I read it, that makes all of this real. I’ll have to talk to Eva, then to Loki and... I’m kind of content living in peace and obliviousness,” I told him. Ron shook his head disapprovingly, though the smile on his face was somewhat affectionate.

“You deserve better than content, Y/N. Whatever has been said in Loki’s note is clearly important - to him and, probably, to you. And even, at a stretch, to Eva.”

“How on Earth would it be important to Eva?” I asked incredulously.

“Because it seems to me that she’s scared of loosing you.”

“Eva?” I paused in the doorway to her room. I lent against the frame in my pyjamas.

“Yeah?” Eva asked, sat on her bed and pulling on some socks - how she wore socks to bed I would never understand.

“I have to talk to you,” Eva looked up, concern etched onto her features.

“Is something wrong?” I paused, debating whether or not to go through with it. I nodded hesitantly.

“Yeah - there is, actually,” I held up the piece of paper clutched in my hand. “Why did you have this?” Eva glanced up.

“What’s that?”

“A note that Loki wrote to me,” Eva froze at those words. “He put it in a book he was returning ages ago - and you took it,”

“Did you go into my room?” She asked instead.

“That’s not the point right now.” I argued, desperate to keep on track.

“No - did you go through my stuff?” Eva insisted, standing from her bed so she was face to face with me, a wounded expression on her face.

“Loki told me that he left me a note - I knew you had to have taken it. I didn’t go through anything. I picked it up from your desk,” I huffed in frustration. “Why did you take it?”

“Because he’s not good for you!” She finally busted out. I stared at her.

“I’m not a kid, Eva,” I hissed.

“I’m not saying that you are-”

“Then let me make my own fucking decisions!” I shouted.

“Not if it’s going to get you hurt!” She insisted.

“I’m a grown fucking woman, Eva.”

“And yet you don’t seem to know better than to become the whore of an arsehole who tried to take over the world!” She screamed. I stared at her and took a couple of steps back.

“Fuck you,” I spat, turning away.

“Where are you going?” She asked, following me out into the hallway, watching me grab my coat from the rack, taking my keys from the side table by the door.

“Away from you!” I screamed, slamming the door on my way out.

I rushed down the stairs into the empty shop, ensuring I locked it on my way out. I paused as I got outside and rested my back against the door, taking deep breaths as I slid down the wood coming to the realisation that I had nowhere to go.

It was a long shot to come here, I knew as much. I had never been before and, chances were, no one who I knew would answer the door. 

But it was the one place I could think of.

I pressed the intercom button and waited for a response, shivering in the cool summer’s evening. The intercom crackled to life.

“Hello?”

“Hi - my name’s Y/N Y/L/N? I’m a... friend of Loki’s?” I offered unsurely.

“A friend?” He inquired after a long pause.

“Well, he um, he works for me?” I suggested.

“Oh - the bookshop girl. Thor told us about you. Let me buzz you in,” two seconds later the gates to the Avenger’s compound opened.

I walked up the long drive and the door was open already, a figure standing in the light.

“Y/N?” It was Loki - dressed more casually than I had ever seen him before. “I didn’t realise Stark was being serious,” he admitted.

“Sorry,” I whispered, dropping my gaze to the floor.

“Are you - are you okay?” He asked. When I looked up at him the concern in his eyes was clear.

“I - I didn’t know where else to go,” it was then that the first sob of the evening ripped out of my throat. Loki didn’t hesitate before closing the gap between us and hugging me as tight as he could manage.

[winchester-with-wings]

Best $20 Ever Spent (Peter Parker x Reader)

Requested on Tumblr by @book-loving--anime-chick with the prompts:  

Catch me if you can!

Stop texting me weird stuff so late at night

Give it back!

Word Count: 1500ish

Summary: You and Peter work at the local movie theater but sometimes have a little too much fun so you don't get scheduled together very often.

Posted this on my Patreon back on the 15th! If you want teasers and early access to my fanfics, consider becoming a Patron! I have 3 tiers at 3, 5, and 10

The managers were seriously considering no longer scheduling you two together.

Even if you asked to work on a Wednesday night for a completely different reason, they were inclined to reject it.

“Peter works that night.”

“So?”

“You distract him from his work,” they’d say.

Sure, you two were best friends and had fun working at the local movie theater but you didn’t really see it that way. The closing duties always got done properly. What does it matter if you had a few laughs and breaks to talk while doing it?

Maybe they saw something you didn’t? Maybe they were listening to you and your best friend Cali gossip about the crew and the rumors about who had crushes on who. You’d hoped that the managers were smart enough to keep the gossip to themselves too. Hopefully, they wouldn’t tell Peter that you had a crush on him.

No. If anything, they were inclined to keep you apart for efficiency. They had to do that with a lot of people too, schedule those who work best together and those that don’t get along or perhaps get along too well…

But they hadn’t officially said no to you and Peter working together all the time. If they had, they wouldn’t have allowed Peter to swap shifts with Ned on Sunday night.

Peter was a tease. He loved riling you up and messing with you. His proudest accomplishment was hiding in an auditorium, waiting in the dark for a solid 5 minutes until he could jump out and scare you. The boy was actually laying on the carpeted ground hiding behind the reclining chairs!

This is probably the perfect example of how you two didn’t work well together.

He probably should’ve been somewhere else doing his job but instead he’d disappeared and gone radio silent, the managers were literally calling for him over the radio and he wasn’t answering.

You were actually doing your job! Ushering the auditorium and picking up trash.

“Y/N!” He jumps out and shouts your name.

“AHH! Peter!” You shout right back at him, throwing an empty cup at his face before collapsing to the ground and covering your face. Your fight or flight complex was actually fight, flight, or fall. “Peter!” You squeal rolling on the ground and laughing. “You almost scared the pee out of me!” Peter hops over the reclining chairs with ease and tries to help you up.

“I’m sorry,” he gasps between his own laughing.

“No, you’re not.”

“You should’ve seen your face!” His laughing is renewed while you get back to work, finishing the auditorium. He’s kind--or perhaps guilty enough--that he helps you by wiping down the recliners.

Later in your shift, you’re texting Cali and telling her about Peter’s latest shenanigans.

“I think he likes you,” she suggests for the thousandth time.

“Nooo he’s just a pain in the ass. He annoys everyone. He’s like that with everyone. It has nothing to do with me,” you respond.

“Don’t put yourself down like that! I really think Peter likes you! You should tell him how you feel!”

“I can’t tell Peter that I like him like that! Then it really will be impossible to work with him. It’ll make it hard to work here and then I’ll have to quit…”

In his typical, annoying fashion, Peter grabs your phone the moment you’re about to set it down. No one’s phone is safe around him. But you hadn’t locked your phone in time either!

“Pete! No!”

“Give it back Peter,” the manager says from their position at Guest Services. He doesn’t listen to them. It was all part of the routine.

“Whoya textin?” he asks, getting ready to scroll through your messages. “Cali?”

“No! Peter, give it back!”

It’s probably a good thing that the theater is absolutely dead on a Sunday night.

“Who does Cali have a crush on? You guys talking about boys?” He wiggles his shoulders and smirks at you. You lunge at him, trying to get your phone back. He dodges you.

“Catch me if you can!”

You engage in a game of cat and mouse running around the theater lobby. He holds it high above his head. You can’t reach it. You pinch his sides and he giggles. Catching him off balance, you two become tangled on the floor in front of your coworkers and manager. Everyone seems to be getting a laugh out of it, including the two of you. But the fact that he still has your phone unlocked and is still trying to read your text messages has your heart racing for a completely different reason. He can’t see those texts! He can’t find out like this!

A guest walks up to box office. You coworker goes back to their position. The manager leaves guest services to come mediate and separate the two of you before making a scene in front of the customers.

“Peter, give it back,” the manager says in their authoritative tone. The managers are usually fun and happy but they’re willing to lay down the law when things get out of hand. Just in time too. Peter scrolls for .5 seconds and then hands over your phone. You lock it right away but you also have no idea what he’s seen.

Your shift ends at midnight. The rest of the night was nice and uneventful with less hijinks from Peter but still fun conversations about friends, school, and summer plans.

Peter has your number. You text quite often too. But never at 2 am when you’re both so obviously tired from working late.

Your phone screen lights up and the vibrations of it on your nightstand wakes you up.

“What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever spent $20 on?”

“Well hello to you too,” you text back.

“...” He actually took the time to send those three dots. “So what is it? Or better yet, what’s the best $20 you ever spent?”

“Uh...my iridescent hombre metal water bottle…” It’s probably not the right answer but it’s all you can think of. You and Cali both bought one on a day off at the mall and kept getting them mixed up so they have stickers on them now to tell them apart. “Now stop texting me weird things so late at night. Lol.”

“Don’t you wanna know my answer?”

“Uh sure.”

“Tonight.”

“??”

“I paid Ned $20 to swap shifts with me so I could work with you.”

That stumps you. What does that mean? Why would he do that? Yeah, you guys had fun working together but you could hang outside of work too. You saw each other at school too. So...why would he do that?

“Lol wtf why?” you send that after realizing you’d left him on “read” for about two minutes when normally you guys respond within seconds.

“Because I wanted to work with you tonight.”

“Why?”

“Because I wanted to see you…”

“Why?”

Then your phone rings. It scares you. Enough that you drop your phone on your face.

“Hello?” you whisper, rubbing your nose. You fluff up your pillow so you’re sitting up in bed, fully awake now. It’s quiet on the other end. “Peter, I swear to god if you’re outside my window and are going to scare me, please don’t,” you beg. You chuckle when you finally hear Peter on the other end chuckling too. “Why are you calling me? What is this all about?”

“Y/N,” he says you name.

“Peter?” you say his name with the intent to make it sound awkward.

“What if I told you that I liked you?”

“Wh--” he cuts you off.

“That I bribed Ned to switch shifts with me so that I could work with you. So I could see you. So I could spend time with you. Because I…” he sighs, “because I like you, ya’know, like that?”

“Um...Peter…” you’re pretty sure your heart has stopped. You’re praying this isn’t one of his pranks. Peter is an annoying dweeb but he wouldn’t do that, right? That’d just be cruel.

“Why are you telling me this now?”

“Um...I might’ve read your texts to Cali.”

“Oh.”

“Do you really like me?” he asks. You don’t answer him right away, making him stew in the uncomfortable silence. “Y/N?”

“I mean, yeah, Pete. I like you. We’re friends.”

“But do you like me? Like enough to date me?”

“Oh um...yeah...I guess.” Peter sighs. Relieved? Happy? You’re not sure. Peter chuckles. You can imagine him running his fingers through his curly brown hair, the same way he does it when he finds that he’s passed a spanish test.

“So,” he sounds smug all of the sudden like he’s smirking at the phone. “Do you wanna go out sometime?”

“Pretty sure I just answered that.”

“But I wanna hear you say it,” Peter teases. You roll your eyes.

“Yes, Peter, I would like to go out with you. But first you have to answer one question.”

“Shoot.”

“How long have you liked me?”

“Oh, yeah...um...it’s gonna sound bad. But, uh, I kinda called dibs the first day you ever worked at the theater. And I’ve been bribing Ned for shifts every couple of weeks too.”

“Oh my god,” you giggle.

“Yeah, pretty silly huh?”

“No. It makes sense. But you know...once we’re dating, management is definitely not going to let us work together anymore.”

“Then I guess we’ll just have to go on a bunch of dates.”

tagging: @faithtrustandpixiedust95 @thinkwritexpress-official @autoblocked @book-loving--anime-chick @abbessolute @overlyobsethed @bookworm4ever99 @whoopxd @therealcap @geeksareunique @potterwolf16 @frankie2902 @ravenhaviland @starksparker @gracehappyfeet @softdudebro @blckthrns 

[enamis1]

OC INTERVIEW

it’s that time again where I ramble about stuff only i care about! i got tagged, as always by the lovely @courierspikeee and i'm tagging @worthlesssix if they're still around and wanna do stuff 1. Choose an OC. 2. Answer them as that OC. 3. Tag 5 people to do the same.

[Three months after the Second Battle of Hoover Dam and the declaration of Vegas’s independance a young ‘news courier’ managed to orchestrate an interview with the local courier-turned-leader on the casino floor of the Lucky 38]

1. What is your name? Viva. Or Empress Vivianne if you wanna be fancy.

2. How old are you? [she rubs the back of her head] somewhere in the ‘thirty’ ballpark I’m guessing 

3. What do you look like? You have eyes don’t you? And yes the white hair is natural. No, I don’t really know why it’s like that. Apparently it’s some genetic condition. 

4. Where are you from? Where do you live now? I'm from the West. I've been told. [pause] Maybe. But as far as anyone’s concerned I might as well be a native Mojave-ian. Won't be leaving Vegas or, hell, even the Lucky 38 anytime soon.

5. What was your childhood like? I’m sure it was fine. I mean, I have no memory of it, but I’m sure it was /fine/ 

6. What groups are you friendly with? Are you allied with any factions? [she groans] As you can imagine politics are a bit uhh… tense at the moment, what with me kicking the NCR out of my city and all. Our current alliance consists of the Families, the Kings, Freesiders, the Boomers, and the Followers. Once we get our issues here sorted I'm extending my hand to all the independent settlements in the area and we’ll go from there

7. Tell me about your best friend. Which one exactly? ‘Cuz I have a few. Oh, I know, I can tell you about this guy [she points over her shoulder to a securitron with a static smiley on its screen] This is Yes Man, he’s my second in command. [the robot raises a clawed hand and gives a cheerful ‘howdy’] It's not that i couldn't manage coordinating a brand new, independent nation by myself, but he does make all the busywork and number running and security that much easier. And he yells at me if I forget to eat or sleep for a few nights [Viva proceeds to glare at the robot, its smile unchanging]

8. Do you have a family? Tell me about them!  [Viva glances away for a moment] My friends are my family. [pause] and even if we don't get along entirely, that's just how it is. I wouldn't trade any of those fuckwits for the world.

9. What about a partner or partners?  [she gives a single loud laugh] Do I look like I have time for shit like that? Especially now of all times?

10. Who are your enemies, and why?  I’d hazard a guess and say at this point everyone who’s not my explicit ally [Viva drums her fingers for a moment] Of course the NCR is going to pretend to be nice for now, but politics is like chess. Complex, and annoying and I hate it. Give me a year and i’ll be begging for the Legion and their blunt insanity

11. Have you ever heard of The Brotherhood of Steel? What do you think about them?  Oh I’ve heard of them alright. [she grumbles under her breath] Good people. Bad priorities though. 

12. What about The Enclave? [shrug] no comment 

13. How do you feel about Super Mutants?  What you mean the ones up north? They're great and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. I mean, yeah sure they're pretty scary to be around, especially if the nightkin get antsy, but they're decent people. Marcus is… Marcus is a good man.

14. What’s the craziest fight you’ve ever been in? I… [she trails off, thinking] There was… /is/ a man. Who knew me from before. Long before. He challenged me to face him in a grave of ash and… I consider the three weeks it took to track him though the pits of hell as one very, very long and very exhausting fight. [she pauses again] That and all the verbal sparring along the way. And… everything after, too. 

15. Have you ever fought a Deathclaw? I mean… I've shot Deathclaws. And they're about as pants-shittingly terrifying as they've always been. But that's what the .50 cal is for

16. Do you like fighting? [she grins] I like shooting, I’ll tell you that much 

17. What’s your weapon of choice? [Viva holds up her finger to pause and proceeds to heft up an Anti-material Rifle. It’s new with a faint silvery sheen, and only a little scuffed from use, the Gun Runners logo still visible on the side. It is custom made, with every possible attachment, some parts are black carbon fiber. There are three bands of color around the stock and several engravings including six letters -CALBVR] [Viva is gleefully beaming as she wordlessly shows off the gun] 

18. How do you survive? Your wits, your charm, your skills, brute force, some combination? (a.k.a. what’s your S.P.E.C.I.A.L?) You don't get to where I am without a bit of everything. But you could say my speciality is shooting, robotics, and outplaying people in the games they weave. [she tilts her head back and hums] Back when I was still just a mailman i knew how to hide in plain sight. Saved my life more often than not. That and brass knuckles. Very effective. Anything mechanical is child’s play too. Can't figure out how to cook geko without burning it though, so all the money I saved on gear i spent on food. [she rubs the back of her head and mutters through her teeth] and bandages. so. many. bandages. I swear the world really wants me dead and is having better luck at it than I am

19. Have you ever been in a vault? What do you think about them?  Plenty ‘round these parts. Can't say I'm fond of lurking around /in/ them but… Marvels of tech those things, shame most of them failed. There's actually one or two I want to strip for parts in the future. If I can get the wildlife out beforehand that is. 

20. How do you beat all the radiation around here? Has it affected you?  Radiation and I have a… complicated relationship. [she turns to the securitron and mutters something with a slight smirk. Suddenly the lights of the bottom floor wink out. Viva faces forward once more, her already unnaturally green eyes now glowing with a faint, sickly light. The lights flick on just as suddenly with a loud clack and the woman giggles] Honestly if I don't end up as a ghoul by the end of my life I will be /very/ surprised

21. What’s your favorite wasteland critter?  Do… Do the robots count? Because I'm going with the robots anyway.

22. What’s your least favorite wasteland critter?  I’d say it starts with death and ends with claw, but that's not right. At least with those fuckers I know where to aim, no, first place goes to cazadores, the best reason for carrying around a shotgun. 

23. How do you feel about robots? [she gestures to the dozens of securitrons surrounding them with a wide grin] Bliss, home, paradise and then some. 

24. How many caps do you have on you right now? I mean- [she rummages in her pockets] I don't have my bag with me. 23. I can't fit more into these pockets they're too full of specialty ammo.

25. Nuka Cola or Sunset Sarsaparilla?  Nuka. I fucking hate Sarsaparilla and I know it's blasphemy in these parts, but listen, if you're dehydrated and all you have to drink is that mind-meltingly awful shit i'm looking for the nearest cactus to suck on

26. Do you do chems?  Uh. [she rubs her neck and nervously bounces her leg] I mean. Mentats are uh. Pretty… pretty great. [she bites her lip] Next question?

27. Do you ever think about the Pre-War world?  It fascinates me. What a life they lead to have created tech of this calibre [she gestures to the casino once more] I keep on finding parts of the old world that shine though, all the good, all the awful, all the same, always there. [she thinks for a moment] Like the past isn't as distant as people want to believe. But maybe that's just me… I've had more run-ins with old world ghosts that you’d believe. And I don't mean my previous employer either.

28. What’s your deepest regret? What would you do differently?  [her expression darkens] [after a minute of silence she shakes her head] Can't change what was done. No point dwelling. 

29. What’s your biggest achievement? Or what do you hope to achieve? [she exchanges a look with the smiling securitron] Right now? We’re in step four. There's a lot of steps to go. [exhale] And every single step takes more effort than anyone realizes. Because a lot of people don't think. Don't think about food, don't think about water, don't think about safety, don't think about business, don't think about what's next. I have to. And it's hard yaknow? But I've done more than I could ever imagine. I dethroned House, I defeated the Legion, I defanged the NCR. That’s more than most can say…

30. What do you want for the future? For yourself? Your friends? The world? [she sinks into her seat] I didn't do all of this because I thought it’d be fun. [her expression darkens to a cold seriousness] Vegas is something else. Vegas and the Mojave. Everything that's happened here is that much more important than anyone realizes. This place is a crossing point. A bridge. Between the West and the East. And bridges can't belong to either side. I need to make sure it stays that way. I need to make sure this place, everyone who put their faith in me, /my/ people are safe. Are fed. Are… Vegas has to prosper as it stands and everything else’ll be sorted out in time. That's what I want. The Mojave to thrive. And so help me I haven't walked through storms of fire and death to let all of this fall apart. [she raises her eyes, a haunting look with a smile] So tell everyone who’s gonna be listening - I have the shadow of a nation behind me. I won't waste it this time.

[shemakesmeforget]

25 fics to pick you up

Humor, crack not crack, romcom fics for @cuttlemefishwrites and y’all. I tried to make this list short, I SWEAR idk ENJOY!! Also you can check some other fic recs by moi here, here and here.

(i'm) the boy you'd die for by jenmishe 

Canonverse, Rated T, 6K

v-nikiforov ✓

[Video: A short clip where Victor is laying dramatically on the couch with miserable expression. “Heartbreaker” by Marina and the Diamonds is playing.]

13,481 likes

v-nikiforov✓ Am I the another one? (((

vitYASS victor,,,, honey,,,, i lvoe you so much,,,, but WHY are you like this.

red-blue-gay but??? does that mean that somebody has broken victor’s heart???? I DON'T UNDERSTAND

christophe-gc ✓ You’re ridiculous.

starsaregay But who recorded it?? Makkachin???

vityathebabe user @starsaregay asking the real question.

--- The adventures of Yuuri "Heartbreaker" Katsuki, or: how Yuuri became known as a cold player full of himself who doesn't care about anyone. (Hint: it's an anxiety and obliviousness.)

• ADORE!!! oblivious heartbreaker Yuuri + social media fic. The best description is actually one of the tags: everyone is in love with Yuuri: the fic.

  He Should Know by Lady_Ganesh

Past Yuuri/Chris, Canonverse, Rated T, 2K

A public service announcement Chris and Yuuri made for the Sochi Olympics comes to light.

• HI HI this speaks to me directly: Viktor is a dork and jealous and Yuuri is precious.... I just love this so much. 

Master Plans by Qwertzu (@qwertzu824)

Canonverse ish, Rated T, 17K

Who wouldn't want to date Yuuri and/or Viktor? Nobody is immune to their charm - including random strangers, who unfortunately have no idea the two are happily married and totally smitten with each other...

• This series!!! outsider pov, identity reveal, and the last installment!!!!! I die. You'll laugh and you’ll feel sorry for these people at the same time.

The Way to Life and Love is a Curved Trajectory by crossroadswrite  (@crossroadswrite)

Canonverse, Rated T, 5K

“Do you know Katsuki Yuuri?” Victor asks Chris, two minutes later, when he finally manages to convince himself to stop looking at the dip of Katsuki’s back and his powerful thighs in those tight Mizuno track pants, and the way his hands are poised in the air mid-skate, and his slicked back hair and brown eyes and flushed cheeks.

Christophe hums into the phone in a way that suggests he not only knows Katsuki Yuuri but he’s acquainted with him. Chris’ version of acquaintance is very physical and usually involves a healthy amount of groping. “Don’t you?”

“He’s Japan’s Ace,” Victor says, trying to rack his brain for more information. “His step sequence is good?”

Chris hums again. “You’re not that oblivious that you haven’t heard of Unfairly Beautiful Yuuri.”

“Who?”

(Or, the one where Victor falls - literally and then figuratively - for Yuuri. Also something about a Best Ass Poll that is way more official than it should be.)

• Alternate first meeting <3<3<3 you have it all: social media, pining and THAT ASS. I would say 12/10 would read again, but I have already, a bunch of times.

What you should know about dating a man with children by SassySalchow (diedraechin) (@diedraechin​)

Canonverse, Rated G, 2K

Based off a tumblr drabble prompt and then grew too big...

"AU scenario where the skaters mistake the triplets for Yuuri's kids when they first meet him, possibly when he brings them to the skater-only area as a b-day treat, or something? (Kudos if you can work in jealous!Victor somehow, but the skaters having a fun reaction would be A+, tbh. Would be lovely if you could include Chris and/or Yurio :D )

• Ahhhhhh my quick fix for whenever I’m feeling down, this Viktor is such a dork and extra, I love him.

5 times Viktor encountered culture shock in Hasetsu + 1 time Yuuri did by forochel (@forochel)

Canonverse, Rated T, 3K

this fic ... basically does what it says on the tin.

• I adore not so smooth Viktor in an environment he can't control (or at least do some research lol), good stuff.

Five Times Chris's Dating Advice Was Ignored By Russian Skaters by liliths

Canonverse, Rated T, 3K

—and one time it wasn't.

Christophe Giacometti. Twenty-five. Cat lover, chocolate eater. Professional Swiss figure skater and confirmed Grand Prix finalist. Running an unofficial dating advice ring for Russian skaters who don't listen to him to begin with. How did his life come to this?

Chris-centric, in which he is done with literally everyone. Except the dog.

• Chris is heaven sent and deserves a medal for dealing with awkward russian skaters.

just like me they long to be by sparklespiff (@todaythesamesky​)

Canonverse, Rated T, 3K

"Haven't you noticed that Yuuri gets everything he wants?"

"Everything that's in somebody else's power to give him," Mari says, before Victor can bring up last year's GPF. "He's not magic, just pretty."

"But it's like magic. My theory is that it's because he's sneaky beautiful, so you're not expecting it, and then, under all that stuff, whoa! Gorgeous. And it's too late to save yourself."

"Stuff?" Victor keeps smiling but makes his voice cold, the way he does when reporters overstep. His Yuuri doesn't have stuff. Everything about him is beautiful.

or:

Yuuri lives in a Beautiful Person Bubble. It's Victor's responsibility to make sure he never finds out.

• Again with oblivious heartbreaker Yuuri, this is ridiculously funny. Also, Mari and Phichit??? A++

The Boyfriend Paradox by japansace (@japansace​)

Canonverse, Rated T, 3K

For some inexplicable reason, Yuuri speaks Russian.

Now, as everyone knows, there are only two viable reasons why anyone ever learns a foreign language:

1. For school. 2. To impress a foreign love interest.

And Victor can’t quite bring himself to believe that Yuuri would be at all studious enough to hunt down Russian classes in Detroit of all places.

(Or: Victor gets jealous of a boyfriend that doesn’t exist.)

• We all think Yuuri is dense and oblivious but like Viktor is just????? SO BLIND???? it’s adorable.

The Thirst Trap by CharmingMonsters

Canonverse, Rated M, 12K (WIP)

Victor Nikiforov reads Thirst Tweets for a Buzzfeed video; Yuuri is anonymously quoted and wants to die. Phichit makes sure everyone is properly hydrated.

• Awkward meet cute, Yuuri the fanboy, sad pre Yuuri Viktor, hilarious but the feels omg 

Giacometti & Co. by Anna (arctic_grey) (@finleighsaid​)

Past Viktor/Chris, Past Yuuri/Chris, Canonverse, Rated M, 7K

Against his shoulder and into the fabric of his t-shirt, Yuuri mumbled, “HaveyoueversleptwithChris?”

He choked on his breath. Oh. Uh. “Errrr…” His mind raced. “A little?”

aka the fic where both Viktor and Yuuri have slept with Chris.

• Amazing!! I owe this fic so much! like really, this is cute, fun and jealous Viktor is the cherry on top.

The Early, Awkward Years by Nomanono (@nomanono​)

Viktor/Chris, Canonverse, Rated E, 6K

Victor Nikiforov wasn't always smooth and suave. His singular focus on skating created a pronounced inability to people, and Chris winds up bearing the brunt of his sexual incompetence.

• This is beyond funny, I had to stop reading 3 times to properly laugh. Inexperienced, not a playboy Viktor is the best best and Chris tries so hard, poor thing.

it's like you're photoshopped by Metis_Ink

Actors AU, Rated T, 10K

Not-So-Local Ex-Dancer Upsets Coworkers by Failing to Communicate with Celebrity Castmate, details at eleven.

//Yuuri just wants to retire already.

• The actual movie is amazing? the author literally wrote an entire musical for this fic, mad respect. And at some point I cried, legit tears, because I was laughing so hard. 

Pinning and Pining by Multiple_Universes (@witharthurkirkland)

Porn actors AU, Rated E, 51K

Victor starts his career as a porn star, working for a studio that has a somewhat… artistic approach to the whole genre. But that’s not the problem. The problem is: he can’t find a way to ask his hot co-star to be his boyfriend.

An AU where Victor and Yuuri are both porn stars who, despite all the hot sex filmed for a ton of movies, still end up in a situation where Yuuri is oblivious and Victor is pining away.

• The porn movies are so cheesy and bad but like artistic so you just laugh and laugh. Viktor is such a softie and there’s so much unresolved romantic tension, a big fave.

though the stars walk backward by alykapedia (@alykapediaaa​)

Space AU, Rated T, 8K

“Trust your heart if the seas catch fire, live by love though the stars walk backward.” - E.E. Cummings

Yuuri's only ever wanted to send a message out into the great vastness of space, maybe witness First Contact during his lifetime. He gets his wish. And then some.

• Alien viktor!!! an intergalactic booty call!!! fantastic!

Much Ado About Something by eternalsunshine13, Skowronek (@eternalsunshine13, @kaja-skowronek​)

Space AU, Rated T, 33K

By day, Victor Nikiforov is the head of European operations for LearX, a company on the forefront of private space travel. By night, he is makka-baby on Tumblr, a prominent figure in the small but passionate poodle fandom.

By day, Yuuri Katsuki runs F.O.O.L., a subsidiary of Katsuki Enterprises, whose stated goal is to bring LearX down one lawsuit after another. By night, he’s oodlesofpoodles, an active member of the poodle fandom and possibly makka-baby’s biggest fan.

By day, they duke it out in court. By night, they become friends—and maybe something more—as they fall for each other one Tumblr message at a time.

Or: a romantic comedy starring two idiots in love, the Katsuki family, the mothers Nikiforov, the husbands Chulanont-Giacometti, two doggos, six hamsters, one Yurio, and many, many schemes to get our favorite lovebirds together.

• Do they really hate each other?? are they falling in love?? is the tumblr app gonna crash all the damn time? I won't tell, you gotta read this.

The Vastness of Space by shysweetthing (@shysweetthing)

Space AU, Rated E, 16K

As chief communications officer on board the Interstellar Alliance Fleet’s Star Ship Victory, Yuuri doesn’t have to think about who he actually is on his home planet. He just has to listen to his captain, do his job, and…not fall in love with his best friend, the ship’s science officer, Victor Nikiforov.

Well. Two out of three’s not bad.

Then his mother calls with the worst possible news: She, the Empress of New Nihon, has arranged Yuuri’s marriage. There’s only one thing Yuuri can do: Fake a boyfriend, and fake one fast. Who better/worse to play that role than the friend he wishes was more? What can go wrong? It’s not like Yuuri can fall more in love...

• Mutual pining, fake dating and arranged marriage AND SPACE UGHHH all my weak spots. So sweet and good and the writing is on point, i cry.

The Unknown Unknown by opalish

Superpowers AU, Rated T, 7K

Yuuri never meant to become a supervillain. These things just happen to him. 

• One of the funniest fics I’ve ever read, the author has the best comic timing and this fic is beyond me like I practically laughed the whole time.

Dr. Shiny and the Case of the Beautiful Man by ShatteredPrism (@etherealalchemist​​)

Doctors AU, not rated, 6K 

There are about five things that Victor, in this very moment, is absolutely sure of.

1. The spawns of satan are here 2. they are not accompanied by their angel of a mother 3. they are with the most beautiful man he's ever seen 4. his scrubs are wet from where he'd dropped water on himself 5. and Victor is very, very gay.

Emphasis on point five, with a side of cupid's arrow and "ba-dum ba-dum" on a plate.

Because he is Very Gay, and not only is he Very Gay but he is also Hopelessly Attracted to a man who is undoubtedly Very Straight and very Unavailable and is perhaps the Most Beautiful Man Victor has ever seen.

---

in which Victor is a doctor, Yuuri is a godfather, and Yuri just wants some peace and quiet and a larger stash of lollipops.

• So pure and fun and Viktor is so so so extra.

pass that dutch by kiaronna (@kiaronna​)

High School/Mean Girls AU, Rated T, 5K

Maybe Viktor shouldn't have watched Mean Girls before he started his first day of high school in the United States, but he can't help it if he is suddenly inducted into his high school's very fashionable, Instagram-obsessed royalty. He can't help falling in love with the cute soccer player in his literature class, either. Even if he's supposed to be off limits.

• This captures the feel of the movie just right and Viktor is a mess, it’s just so cute.

esnake artist by sizhu (@sizhu)

Neighbors AU, Rated T, 1K

Yuuri meets the disarmingly attractive neighbor from upstairs, courtesy of Phichit forgetting to feed their scale baby.

Snakes like to go on adventures, too.

• Sassy Yuuri defending his reptile baby, a blessing.

all the types of dating by igneousbitch (@makkachinning)

Geology AU, Rated E, 8K

The only type of dating geologists are good at is radioactive carbon-dating. The rest goes completely over their heads.

(Viktor and Yuuri are geology professors leading a field course in Western Australia. Chaos ensues.)

Alfred shifts awkwardly. Looks at Viktor and Yuuri, and asks, “So, uh. Are you guys dating?”

Yuuri greatly misunderstands, and Viktor panics.

Of course we are, Yuuri says. Rather critically, he thinks to himself: why else would he be here, in the scorching, godforsaken heat, surrounded by a hundred kilos of rock, if not for the purpose of radiometric dating?

• I have no idea about geology and I still enjoyed this AU a lot, they’re pining so hard and ugh friends to lovers, my kryptonite.

Unconventional by so_shhy

Fandom AU, Rated M, 4K

After freezing up in front of his idol at a comic con panel, Yuuri decides that he needs an awful lot of alcohol to get over the embarrassment. It is a decision he will regret.

The fandom AU I can’t believe I wrote, featuring movie star!Victor Nikiforov and fanfic author!Yuuri Katsuki.

• So much second hand embarrassment but in a fun way, just brilliant.

If you can't take the heat... by mtothedestiel (@summersteve)

Reality show/Chef AU, not rated, 81K (WIP)

Stay tuned, coming up next it's Top Chef: International! Join thirteen chefs from around the globe as they battle it out for glory and prizes in the one and only New York City (and share all their innermost thoughts along the way!) Who will emerge victorious, and who will burn out?? Heartwarming triumphs, devastating eliminations, and even ~forbidden romance~ are all coming your way on this showstopping season of Top Chef!

• The script format threw me off for some time until I decided to read it and omg?? what a fool I’ve been for so long!!! this is incredible and well researched and makes me hungry all the damn time.

Coming Home Again by carafin (@carafinn)

Roommates AU, Rated T, 10K

Yuuri, given to periodic bouts of paranoia, would often wonder if Viktor is, in fact, a Russian drug lord on the loose, seeking refuge in a nondescript town in America. This would explain a manner of things: his evasiveness whenever probed about his job; the way he’d unpredictably throw out incisive, thoughtful commentary about the morning news over breakfast; his expensive tastes in shirts, watches, and wallets alike; why he’d want to stay here with Yuuri, of all places, when the contents his wardrobe alone could probably afford him a year-long stay at any condominium of his choice in the trendiest part of town.

And then he goes on to discover that Viktor actually has a premium account on club penguin, and that his five penguins are named Peanut Wigglebutt, Luke skyhopper, Zing Zing, Otto Von Longdong, and Mooshoo Vegetable, and beats the idea to death in his head.

• High quality hyper realistic amazing Yuuri the medical student being a mess, Viktor being a mystery but still a dork. Cute romance!!

[potrix-the-queerschlaeger]

WinterIron summer/first love AU

Anyone else want a very vaguely Call Me by Your Name inspired Bucky/Tony summer romance story? I know you do, so here we go.

Non-powered AU, set sometime in the mid-80s.

The Starks have spent their summers in the house Maria inherited from her parents for as long as Tony can remember. It was great when Tony was younger; lots of other kids who close by to play with, woods and lakes and rivers and beaches to explore, just weeks of being outside and having fun.

Tony’s 18 now, though, has finished college, and spending months cooped up in the Italian countryside with his parents—especially Howard—with nothing much to do isn’t exactly his idea of a good time. But Maria eventually manages to convince him, and so they pack up their things in Manhattan, and head to Italy.

For the first few weeks, Tony is mostly bored out of his mind. Some of his childhood friends are still around, and they all do hang out—going skinny dipping in the lake, sneaking out to the only disco in the area, drinking and smoking by the river—but Tony misses his lab, his ‘bots, the freedom to do whatever he wants and go wherever he wants, whenever he wants that he usually has in New York.

But then, a month or so into the summer, Howard announces that a grad student he’s been teaching last year (as a guest lecturer or something) will come to stay with them for a while. Tony doesn’t care, initially, because whenever Howard teaches a class it’s business related, and Tony could not give less of a shit about any of that.

He quickly changes his mind when James arrives, though. He doesn’t seem like the usual business student—he has long hair, drives a badass car, is missing an arm, and is absolutely gorgeous—and Tony is immediately intrigued.

(More after the break!)

Howard and Bucky, as he’s told everyone to call him, spend huge parts of every day working on Bucky’s dissertation together. Howard tends to get annoyed when Tony hangs around his study, but Bucky doesn’t seem to mind; in fact, he’s usually hiding grins whenever Tony bugs Howard to the point that Howard starts swearing at him.

Which does serve a purpose, because at that point, Howard usually calls it a day, and Tony gets Bucky to himself for the rest of the day. Bucky doesn’t talk about himself much, but Tony doesn’t care, because Bucky’s great. He isn’t a huge talker—all Tony really knows is that he used to be a soldier, and got hurt in combat—but he always listens to Tony, no matter what Tony’s rambling on about. They go swimming together, Bucky teaches Tony all kinds of scout and survival tricks, Tony plays the piano for Bucky, Bucky lets Tony read through his dissertation, and Tony lets him look at his notebooks full of code and ideas in return.

Needless to say, Tony is crushing hard. At first, he thinks it’s completely unrequited, because why wouldn’t it be? Bucky is in his twenties, is teaching while finishing his studies, has an established life in Brooklyn. And Tony has no idea what he’s going to be doing when he gets back home after the summer—he’s not going to work for Howard, fuck that—still lives with his parents, and is just not in the same league as Bucky, at all.

But then, sometimes, when Tony’s sneaking a glance at Bucky, Bucky is already looking at him, and blushes and quickly averts his eyes when Tony catches him. He’s very tactile and easily affectionate with everyone, but Tony thinks maybe more so with him than others. He just can’t tell for sure, and he’s not about to make a move, and possibly get punched in the face for it, unless he’s absolutely, 100% certain.

That doesn’t keep him from being jealous when Bucky tags along to the disco, and spends the whole evening dancing with one of the local girls, though. At first, Tony tries to shrug it off, dances with some of his friends, but it makes his stomach twist to watch Bucky and the girl. He decides to go back early, and is surprised when Bucky suddenly comes running after him.

He’s worried, and Tony tries to reassure him that he’s fine, but Bucky doesn’t believe it. Tony gets pissed when Bucky won’t let it go, and ends up blurting out that he really fucking likes Bucky, and that he knows Bucky isn’t like that, doesn’t feel like that, but that it still sucks to see him get all flirty with some random girl.

What he doesn’t expect is for Bucky to kiss him. They kiss until they’re both breathless, pressed together against a tree under the stars, holding each other so tightly it actually hurts a little. Bucky confesses that he’s not interested in women, that he likes Tony, but wasn’t sure Tony felt the same, didn’t want to pressure him, or make him uncomfortable.

The remaining week until Bucky heads back to New York is pure bliss. Whenever Bucky isn’t busy working, he’s with Tony. Every night, Tony crawls into Bucky’s bed, kissing and touching and holding him, falling in love more and more each day.

But, of course, Bucky has to head home eventually. Tony considers telling him that he’s in love with him, asking to stay in touch—they live only a subway ride apart, after all—but he chickens out. And Bucky doesn’t say anything, either. Which tells Tony that what they had wasn’t as serious for him as it was for Tony.

For the rest of the summer after Bucky’s left, Tony mopes. Everyone notices, even if they don’t know the reason; Jarvis does his best to keep Tony as busy as possible with chores in an attempt to distract him, while Ana practically stuffs him with cookies and other treats. Maria pulls him down to sit with her whenever Tony walks by, tucking him close, and reading out loud to him from whatever book she has with her that day.

Even Howard seems to be aware that something’s wrong, and he and Tony fight less than usual. One day, while Tony’s lying listlessly on the couch in Howard’s study, Howard goes as far as sitting down with him, and running his fingers through Tony’s hair. He doesn’t look at Tony when he tells him that losing first loves is always difficult, but that it will get better. Tony’s shocked that Howard even noticed, and that he doesn’t seem to be entirely disapproving. He ends up crying in Howard’s lap, but does feel a little bit better afterwards.

Back in New York in the fall, Tony decides to go back to school. Howard would have rather had him join the family business, but is supportive of higher education in general, so that goes about as well as could be expected. Tony’s still sad about Bucky—something he thinks won’t go away for a long, long while—but he’s coping, and moving on with his life.

Which is, of course, when sees Bucky again. Before he can decide if he should run away or not, Bucky spots him. They’ve lost all the easy camradie they’ve had in the summer, and their conversation is extremely stilted and awkward. They make small talk for a bit, but then Bucky asks how Tony’s been since he left, and Tony snaps. Because how does Bucky think he’s been? Fucking miserable, that’s how, because his first big love broke his heart and left, most likely never to be seen again.

Bucky looks confused. He asks if Tony didn’t find the shirt he’d left for him, which, in turn, confuses Tony. Bucky’s staring at the floor, not meeting Tony’s eyes, while he explains that he didn’t know how much he could expect from Tony, how serious their relationship had been for Tony. So he’d left his shirt, as a hint for Tony that he’d like to stay in contact, and had figured Tony was rejecting him when Tony had never written or called.

They both realise that they’re being dumb, and that everything has been a huge misunderstanding. Bucky takes Tony back to his apartment, and they stay in bed for hours.

When Tony calls his parents to say that he’s met a friend and won’t be home tonight, Howard just tells him to bring Bucky for dinner soon before hanging up.

[alia-turin]

That took way longer than I expected and I wrote it in a way I absolutely hate. I have been writing that since Thursday bits and pieces and I just hate it when I can’t sit and write it all in one go. Anyway here we are hope you guys enjoy. Some very angry Noct coming next chapter.

Fic Title: Take It and Run [cowboy au] Chapter: 9. Land Previous Chapters:  Prologue | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 |  Chapter 3 |  Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 Rating: G (Warnings: swearing, drinking, some self hate implied) Characters: Cor, Luche, Noctis, Glado, Ignis, Nyx, Luna, Ravus, Libertus, Crowe. Tagging: @birdsandivory @jojopitcher @lazarustrashpit @yourcoolfriendwithallthecandy @kairakara101 @parjiljehavey

“I heard a rumour.” Glado said as soon as he walked in the marshal’s office.

“Good morning to you too.” Cor didn’t look at him, Prompto brought him earlier some of the shrapnel from the stagecoach and he was busy examining these.

“Somebody left last night the saloon with a pretty girl who wasn’t a saloon girl. Half the town is talking.” Gladio chuckled and leaned over the desk his massive frame blocking the sunlight.

“I didn’t leave, I helped her, I walked her home, I walked back. She is half my age. Would you move?” Cor tapped Gladio’s arm to encourage him to do it faster.

“I’m not judging, in fact I’m happy for you. It’s nice if you can find some distraction.” Gladio gave him a big grin, Cor couldn’t believe how much he looked like his father.

“Are you done? I have work to do.” Just as he said that Prompto came back in carrying a box of more shrapnel.

“That’s everything.” The young man left them on Gladio’s desk. “Is there anything I can help with?”

“Why are you asking us, Noct is your boss.” Gladio said as he walked to his desk and started going through the burned pieces of wood and metal.

“He…”Prompto looked at Cor as if looking for support and Cor sighed.

“Noct is not in condition. I’m doing his job for now.” Cor explained. He wasn’t happy about it, but he wasn’t the boy’s father. Boy? He was a grown man, he should start acting like one. Cor hated himself for being so ‘easy’ and allowing Noctis to be so easily distracted, but he also felt responsible for him. He knew that his actions were misguided and in order to deal with things Noct had to be pushed to do them alone, and yet he couldn’t allow himself to do that.

Cor started angrily going through the box, not even sure what was he annoyed at. Was it himself, for allowing Noct to neglect his duties or was it actually at the sheriff.

“No…” he pulled the shrapnel that caught his attention. He ran towards the chest of drawers behind himself and started franticly looking through the pictures that were stored there.

“You found something?” Gadio got off his chair, Prompto following him like a puppy not sure what else to do.

“It’s the same.” Cor threw the pictures on the table. “It is him.”

Gladio grabbed the pictures and looked at them, looked at the shrapnel Cor was holding.

“Wats going on?” Prompto tried to peak over Gladio’s shoulder but the other man was taller than him.

“You know how every great marshal in the west has his enemy?” Gladio started and Cor gave him an angry look but the younger man absolutely didn’t care and continued. “Our Marshal here has his arch enemy. General Glauca. Man started in the army, eventually was dismissed for some sort of misconducted, almost was executed for it. Cor here has been on his trail for years, that’ why he moved to Insomnia, it’s in the center of his territory but there were crimes that followed Glauca’s pattern.”

“But there is nobody by the name Glauca in town.” Prompto sounded very naïve in his sentence.

“He hasn’t used the name Glauca since he left the army.” Cor explained. “He uses number of other names, but in the military he was known for his notorious use of explosives. The man was a genius, timers, tripwires, you name it.” He placed the shrapnel on his desk and next to it a picture that looked like very similar pieve of shrapnel. “The picture was taken five years, an army supply cart was attacked and bunch of explosives were stolen. Glauca, missed to kill one of the men, or more like thought he was dead. The man lived long enough for the marshals to arrive and described Glauca as the man who attacked them. We know that he is in possession of military explosives. We also know that same military explosives were used when they robbed the bank last year.”

“You cannot be sure.” Gladio said calmly and Cor didn’t blame him for wanting to pull away from the theory. A piece of shrapnel which hinted toward the stolen explosives meant nothing, but Cor wanted it to be truth. Arresting Glauca was going to gibe whole new meaning to his life.

“So…if this Glauca is…here…how do we find him?” Prompto asked almost innocently.

Cor didn’t have answer for him, what worried him more was that if Glauca was responsible for the bank as he initially suspected, but now was also doing that hit on the stagecoach probably he had been in town all that time. Under his nose, for all he knew he might be doing his groceries right now. Of course they had wanted posters all over the place, but these wanted posters looked like nothing. Any man with broad square jaw in his forties could be Glauca if you look I at certain angle.

 Luche watched the rodeo with little interest. His mind was running over and over through the events from the past days. In fact, he had been thinking so much over it that he couldn’t sleep well last night, with his alcohol filled adventures from the night before, he was running on very little sleep. At least this morning he finally managed to shave and looked more like himself.

“I need to impress her.” Nyx said that mostly to himself but Tredd and Luche gave him bored looks.

“Walk to her, pull your pants down and I’m sure she will remember you.” Tredd laughed, Luche smiled at his silliness, but Nyx just gave him a sulking look. The man had it bad for Ravus’ sister and he was going to use that. Through the night he couldn’t reach to a conclusion which of the other three was to blame for their failure, but Ravus was bothering him. The man disliked Ardyn, but the mayor had a leash on him, same way he did on all of them, in one way or another. Ravus wasn’t going to betray them out of love for Ardyn, but he was certainly going to do it to save his ass. That’s why he needed Nyx.  

“Listen, you need to be classy.” Luche said with his most serious expression trying not to look at Tredd who was failing at holding a laugh. “She ain’t some local saloon girl that will get impressed with your superior gun or rope skills. Bring her nice stuff. Laces for dresses. You know how hard is for woman who had all the shops of the East to find nice dresses here. You go in the general store and they have two fabrics. You need to win her with nice stuff.”

“Nice stuff…” Nyx repeated. Luche smiled, mostly to himself. Nyx was broke, as was he. Love made men do stupid stuff and he was betting on Nyx to be willing to do something stupid, out of love.  

“Listen to Luche. He knows very well what it means to like a girl who is worth more than you.” Tredd pointed down and Luche followed the direction of his finger. There she was. The key to all his questions.

“I don’t…” he decided not to finish that sentence. Did it even matter if he liked her not? He needed her that was for sure, but it wasn’t just as simple as going down saying some nice words and asking her to have coffee with him. He had little time and needed answers to questions he couldn’t just ask someone he just met.

“Excuse me. I need to make some money.” Tredd got up and walked past them, going directly to the referees to add his name.

“What is he doing?”  Nyx as usual was suspicious to everything Tredd was doing, and Luche couldn’t really blame him for that. Ironically Tredd was way more reliable than he gave out, but you had to go under the layers of…well Tredd, in order to figure out he wasn’t just stupid comments and bravado.

“Making money. Which probably we should do as well. Your girl won’t be very impressed by your empty pockets.” Luche got up as well patting his hat to clear the dust. He walked down to the referees and signed in his name for the roping.

Tredd was getting ready to jump on a horse, massive bay stallion which looked as mean as he was big. Luche walked to the fence and leaned over wanting to see up close Tredd falling on his ass.

“Your friend is doing good.” The redhaired girl was standing next to him watching as Tredd was managing to keep his balance on the horse. “To be honest I didn’t expect anyone to stand even a second on that horse.”

Luche just started at her not sure what to say. He knew he had to say something, but the last thing he expected was for her to talk to him. He has been thinking how to talk to her to get the information he needed, but now she was there, talking he just needed to lead the conversation in the right way.

“He is pretty good with horses. His only redeeming quality.” Luche gave her a charming smile but she wasn’t looking at him, she was looking at Tredd keeping his balance on the horse. “Is the horse yours?”

“Yes, I have provided most of the broncos for the event.” The referee sounded that Tredd had reached the minimum time required to be on the horse and he was still doing good. “Are you joining?”

“I’m not that good with broncos. I like horses don’t like falling of them” he patted the rope on his hip. “I’m better at roping and shooting but...” he didn’t need to explain that one shooting wasn’t really a competition and two he had no gun. Tredd got off the horse when the animal was finally tired, everyone applauded.

“Sheriff got you good cowboys by taking your guns away.” She turned towards him, her green eyes looing straight into his blue.

“I don’t blame him. There is nothing scarier than a man with a gun. Nothing as helpless as one without.” He had to bring that conversation to the mayor and why he was after her land but how? He couldn’t just ask her straight forward, she didn’t even know his name, why would she tell him that. “Especially since what happened with one of the sheriff’s deputies.”

“What do you mean?” judging by her tone and expression she didn’t know about the attack or the injured deputy. Maybe the sheriff and marshal were keeping it low key.

“I thought you knew…” he said slowly. He was stepping on very fragile ground and he might end being slapped in the face like Tredd. “I mean you left last night the marshal surely he mentioned it.”

“Of course. The Marshal walks me home and helps me with couple of horses and the whole town talks.” She didn’t seem as annoyed at his assumption as he thought she would be but she wasn’t happy either.

“I didn’t mean to…” Luche smiled in an apology and could see the lines on her face softening. His charms still worked even if he lacked sleep. “To be completely honest when I hared you arguing with your brother I was about to offer my own services. He had been pretty loud and obnoxious before you walked in, talking about his...disliking of you. Of course, none of that is my business, it just felt silly.”

“His disliking?” she shook her head. “What was he disliking? Working for living or?”

“That and the fact that the mayor offered you money for your property and you refused.” She didn’t react or answer to what he said and Luche cursed himself. He pushed it a bit too far. She wasn’t going to tell him anything. He should have started in a different way. He should have walked to her, introduce himself charm her… “Please forgive me it’s not my business. It just sounded strange on his end to complain about that. I mean mayor or no, it’s your family’s land. I lost mine few years ago due to my father’s bad business venture and would give arm and a leg to have it back.”

“I guess that explains your accent, you were obviously not born around here.” She smiled at him and for a second, he wanted to ask her million other things none of them related to his present issues. “My brother values money and the mayor offers a lot.” He could see she was hurt from the whole situation and wanted to tell her that everything would be okay. Strange feeling considering he didn’t really know her.

“Why would the mayor need so much land? Or he just wants some of it?” he saw Tredd approaching and knew he had very little time. That idiot was going to open his mouth and say something inappropriate.

“I don’t know. He has been purchased some other properties on that side of town, I guess he wants to connect them. Insomnia is growing really fast. We used to sell abut ten horses per year when we first moved in here. Now we provide horses and cattle for rodeos like this one so you cowboys don’t shoot at each other and stay entraining and we sell close to fifty horses per year, plus other cattle and produce. If the town continues to grow, land will be valuable.” She was distracted by Tredd who leaned on the other side of the fence smiling at her. She just looked at him and turned her head back to Luche as if pretending Tredd wasn’t there. “Anyway, I wish luck in the roping. I will see you around I hope.”

“I certainly hope so.” He smiled charmingly and watched her walk away.

“No bet, huh?”  Tredd slapped the back of Luche’s neck and he slapped him back on the forehead pushing his ha on the ground. “What did I miss?”

“Not much.” His conversation wasn’t complete lack of time but as he suspected it just added couple more questions. “The mayor is not just after her land, he is after land here in general. Either the land is valuable, it has something on it that no one knows about or he expects it to become valuable. Now that doesn’t really explain why he tricked us.”

“Maybe he didn’t.” Tredd was cleaning his hat from the dirt watching after the girl. Luche knew what was the other man thinking right now and wanted to punch him. “Maybe there was something in that stagecoach. That’s why it exploded. Something that had to disappear.”

Luche stared at him for a second, but that made perfect sense. There was something on that couch and now there was nothing.