#i thought i got robbie out of my system

[evillillad]

i think he deserves some snuggles

(robbie belongs to @clownsuu , sorry bud i had to get one last one out of my system)

ah ha ha freak molly vers under

molly why do u have that blood lust look on ur face

[leelei1980]

Loving Mr. Munson

Part Three-

CLEARING THE AIR

Dilf!Eddiemunson x reader

🛑 18+ Mature Content- Minors DNI!🛑

TW- always consensual sex/relationship age gap- oral- male receiving, P in V, unprotected sex( always wrap before you tap) Eddie talking about being a young single dad.

Eddie Munson has never been this happy in his life, there is only one problem, he is dating his son’s ex girlfriend and it can get a little awkward…

Eddie POV:

I haven't been this fucking happy in years. I feel like a new goddamn person. This woman, and it sounds so fucking cheesy when I say this , has breathed life into this old man. I get fucking giddy when I know she is coming over, I get fucking butterflies when I talk to her on the phone.Now I know I'm not fucking ancient, but I feel like I'm reliving my twenties again, the twenties that I never got to experience.

I was just barely in my 20's when I met Robbie's mom after a Corroded Coffin show, we were young and drunk and we hooked up in my van . That was all it took. One reckless night changed everything forever. I wanted to do the right thing, take responsibility so when I found out she was Pregnant I asked her to marry me, we barely knew each other but that's what you are supposed to do right?

I went to doctor appointments, worked as many hours as I could, so that we could have our own shitty little apartment. My friends and my uncle were super supportive, hers were not.

When Robert Wayne Munson was born I was terrified, I barely knew what to do with myself , let alone a baby, but I loved him more than anything. His Mother thought of him as a burden, she didn't want to be tied down, it was rough. We tried to make things work, she couldn't handle it and she left, leaving me to take care of a baby all on my own.  There was no way I could have done it without my Uncle Wayne and my friends, Wayne would watch Robbie during the day while I worked and my friends would switch off  according to work and school schedules until I got home. My support system was fucking amazing. I couldn't have done it without them.

Robbie and I literally grew up together, I tried to be the best dad in the world despite being young and having no idea what I was doing. I loved him so much, I wanted to be the father I didn't have. It wasn't easy, but I made it work, eventually his mother came to me asking for a divorce, she was older, settled and wanted to start a new life. We didn't need her, we had made it on our own.

Robbie was a good kid, goofy , smart, loving, and he was a daredevil, always doing stupid shit like his old man.

I cried when he graduated high school, cried when I dropped him off at college even though he was still local enough for me to see him on the weekends. I was proud of him.

He met a sweet, beautiful girl that was incredibly smart, goal oriented, had a great head on her shoulders. They dated their remaining years in college, even after graduating, they seemed so great together. And then he cheated on her. I was so disappointed, cheating in my book is nasty business. It's sneaky and disrespectful. He broke that poor girls heart, then she came to me to help pick up the pieces. She came to me to be comforted, and then she made a move on me and it was all over.

" I'm asking you to show me love like I have never seen....." She asked, as I looked down at her sweet ,beautiful face. Fuck. I thought for a moment I was dreaming , I had to confirm with her what I had thought she said and when she replied " Please Eddie, this is what I fucking want.." FUCK! I didn't hesitate. It's not like she was a stranger, I have known her for years, she's not impressionable and immature, she is a smart competent woman that knows what she wants. I have always admired how driven she is. Making love to her awakened something in me that I had forgotten I had, passion. I was so focused on just being a dad for so long , that was always my top priority, not my own needs. I wasn't a saint, there were random hookups every once in a while, but i learned my fucking lesson and always made sure to be safe. But that wasn't what I wanted. I something real.

I wanted what I now have with her.

It's more than sex, absolutely phenomenal sex, it's me being able to be myself, it's the two of us sitting on the couch drinking wine and just talking and laughing, it's sleeping in a bed that's warmed by another body at night and waking up the next morning tangled bedsheets, tangled limbs. Hearing her sleepy voice say." Good morning baby. Mmmmm-" as she stretches out beside me.

That was my current situation. My heart still skipped a beat when she called me 'Baby'. " Good morning Sweetheart." I wrapped her up in my arms and pulled her on top of me.

She snuggled into my neck, nipping at my sensitive skin, sending a jolt directly to my dick.

" It's going to be a very good morning, Mr.Munson." I could feel her lips leaving a trail of sloppy kisses down my throat, my chest, my stomach- Holy. Fuck. I was getting rock hard.

" Whatcha doin Princess?" I asked as I watched her slink her way down my body, she was so goddamn hot. I felt my muscles contract as she lowered the waistband of my boxers she set free my raging boner.

" Awww baby, is that for me?" She looked up at me with her big gorgeous eyes and then licked my aching tip.

" Fuuck, it’s for you, only you.” I groaned, as she took me into her mouth, slowly bobbing her head, taking her time, working her way down my shaft until she was practically gagging. Her mouth was like fucking magic ."Jesus Christ Darling- Fuck, you look so fucking beautiful with my cock in your mouth ...."

She pulled off with a pop." You have the prettiest cock I've ever seen. " she lazily licked the length and I shivered."I want to make you feel so good Eddie-"

" Oh it feels good, it feels fucking fantastic-"

She closed her small , soft hand around my cock and started to stroke , alternating between her hand and mouth.

I groaned as I wound my hands into her hair , gently cradling her head in my hands and lightly rolling my hips into her mouth. She moaned and the vibration gave me goosebumps." Fuck , that feels so fucking good . " I panted, "So FUCKING good- but Sweetheart, I want to finish inside you."

She pulled off again ." Thank fucking god! Those moans coming out of your mouth , are fucking killing me,- I'm so fucking wet for you right now, I'm aching to have you inside me." She slid off her panties and her bra and didn't waste time lowering herself down on my dick.

" Fuck- you are so wet-" I groaned.

" Your so fucking deep-" She whined and I grabbed onto her hips as she started rocking.

" Your so fucking tight-Mmmm,-." I raised my hips, fucking up into her and she gasped.

" Oh Eddie, it feels so good when I ride your cock, you fill me up so perfect,Mmmm-" she leaned down,her breasts just inches from my face, I raised myself up and drew one into my mouth. " Mmmm, baby, you know just what to do. "

I reached up , sliding my hand around the back of her neck and pulled her down for a kiss. She nibbled on my bottom lip before sliding her tongue into my mouth. I raised my hips to hers matching her rhythm , driving in deeper and deeper. She moaned into my mouth. I was getting so fucking close.

She pulled away from me and sat straight up, bouncing up and down on my cock, her perfect tits jiggling , " Oh god, oh my fucking god-" she threw her head back and it was a beautiful sight, her long lashed lids closed, her cheeks flushed and her full pouty lips opened as she whimpered and whined." Oh god, baby, I'm, I'm-" I could feel her walls tightening around me, squeezing my cock and I couldn't fight it any longer. My hips stuttered as I sloppily thrusted upward, crying out her name, breathing heavy as my orgasm hit me hard.

She rode out her release and collapsed with exhaustion onto my chest, trying to catch her breath.

I reached over to my nightstand and grabbed her hair scrunchie, I swear to god they were everywhere in my house now, and pulled her hair up off her neck, gathered it and looped the elastic around it.

She lifted her head up off my chest and smiled. " Thanks Baby." She leaned forward and pressed a kiss to my lips.

" It's the least I could do Sweetheart, goddamn, you were riding me like you were at a fucking rodeo. "

She laughed and buried her face in my neck." Giddy up."

" Yee-fucking-haw." I ran my hand up and down her sweaty back." Your fucking amazing, you know that? Everything you fucking do is amazing."

" Awww , you flatter me Munson." She traced one of the tattoos on my chest delicately with her finger. " No one has ever treated me the way you do."

I kissed the top of her head . " You deserve to be treated like a Princess."

" I am falling so hard for you Eddie Munson."

I could feel butterflies in my stomach. A grown ass man with butterflies. "Glad to hear it Darlin because I'm pretty sure I'm falling for you too." I tilted her chin so that I could look at her beautiful face.

She bit her lip than smiled." So does this mean we are official? Like I can start introducing you to people as my boyfriend?"

" There are people you want to introduce me too?" I chuckled.

" So many people, I want to officially introduce you to my roommate, my co-workers, my friends-"

" Have you told your parents?"

" I told them I was seeing someone."

" Are they going to freak the fuck out?" I was so fucking nervous for them to find out. I had met them and talked with them before, they were great people, friendly and down to earth, but that was when I was just 'Robbie's dad." And not the man currently fucking their daughter.

" My parents love you-"

" But it's different now Sweetheart."

" Eddie," she sighed." I'm in my mid twenties, I'm a college graduate, I have a good job, a good head on my shoulders. I'm not a baby, I am a grown woman that can make her own decisions and date can whoever she wants." She pointed at me. " YOU- Eddie Munson are what I want. You are sweet, successful, mature and extremely sexy. You make me so happy."

" You make me happy too Dollface. " I took her face in my hands and kissed her. When I pulled away I smirked at her, " So I'm Mature? Is that a nice way of saying I'm a fucking fossil?"

She laughed. " No!! Not at all! How old are you anyway? Your in your 40's...."

" 45."

" Your younger than my dad, so see-"

" Jesus! Please don't compare me to your dad, it just fucking weird."

She laughed again. " You don't look 45,-" she trailed a finger down my chest, my abs. " Your body is amazing."

" I'm a mechanic, if I didn't take care of myself I'd be walking around all hunched over and shit because of my job. Trying to be proactive, work on my core, my posture. That and I would work out to burn through my sexual frustration. "

" You must have been horny as hell because your fucking ripped."

" I won't have to work out as much now that you are around, having sex with you is a work out. "

" I do a lot of yoga and Pilates."

" I can tell, your very centered and very flexible."

" Maybe we can do them together sometime."

" I would be down for that, especially if I get to see your sweet ass in yoga pants."

" Baby I would wear them for you anytime." She kissed me again then sat up and wrapped herself up in the blanket. I watched her brows furrow together.

" What is it Sweets?"

" Tonight is family dinner night. Has Robbie talked to you at all since ' the incident'? "

" Yeah." My son had ignored me for three days- just straight up ignored me, wouldn't pick up when I called him, avoided me at the shop. It killed me, I had just wanted to talk it out- we always address our issues right away. Finally when he did come to me he said he didn't want to talk about it, just wanted to forget what he saw and move on. I gave him that, but I know it needs to be addressed, especially if we are going to pursue this relationship.

" Maybe I should just go home, I don't want to cause any trouble-"

" No Baby, I want you to stay with me. If we are going to make this work we need to deal with this right from the start."

She sighed." I bet Robbie hates me."

" Just remember who fucked around on who- he was the one who made the conscious decision to cheat on you. You didn't do anything wrong. You were not in a relationship when we were together, you had been broken up for weeks. He's pissed because he didn't want you to move on even though he clearly did and he's probably pissed At himself because he realized what a dumbass he was." I rolled over and straddled her kissing the tip of her nose then her lips. " It will be fine, we are in this together right?" I searched her eyes and saw them soften.

" Absolutely. Now I suppose I should get out of bed -"

I smiled and wrapped her up in my arms." Please Sweetheart, stay in bed with me just a little longer? It's our last morning together until next weekend-"

She smiled. " Ok , if I gotta." She wrapped me up as well and managed to push me onto my back. " Rodeo round 2?"

I smiled up at her." Yippee ki yay, little Darlin."

*************************************

" Thanks for making dinner Doll." I walked up behind her and wrapped my arms around her waist, pulling her back against me and kissing her neck.

" Mmmm, I'm happy too. I love to cook." She leaned back into me and I slid my hands up her rib cage and squeezed her breasts." Baby, your going to make me burn my Alfredo sauce, I gotta whisk that shit."

I laughed." Whisk it, whisk it good."

I kissed her one last time then backed away, hopping up to sit on the counter. I loved watching her, very precise, very methodical. She really was a wiz in the kitchen. " You keep cooking like this Princess and your going to make me fat."

" Impossible. I'll be here to help you work it off." She turned and winked.

I smiled, again, Jesus, I smiled more more these past 2 weeks then I have the last fifteen years.

There was a knock at the door, and I hollered for Robbie to come in.

" Is it safe? I'm not going to see your naked ass again am I? That shit scarred me for life." He entered the room ,hand over his eyes.

" No shithead , your not going to see my old wrinkly ass again." I hopped off the counter and went over and gave him a hug, that to my surprise he returned.

Robbie looked over at his Ex ." Hey."

" Hey Robbie." She replied back as she continued to stir.

So this was going to be a little awkward, understandable.

" Are you ok with me being here?" She asked him.

" I'm going to have to be now that your fucking my Father."

" Robbie-" I warned.

" You do remember that you were the one that ended our relationship right? That you didn't want me any more and that you were the one that wanted to move on?"

" Yes I remember," he paused." I just didn't expect you to move on so quickly. And with my fucking dad-"

" We didn't plan this Robbie, it's not like we were conspiring against you, to hurt you. It just happened, and I'm glad it did."

Ok, this is good right? Clearing the air and talking things through, making progress. I'm just going to sit back and let this happen.

I watched as he ran his fingers through his short curly hair. " Maybe I didn't want you to move on, maybe I hoped that you would take me back."

" Take you back? Robbie , you cheated on me, after all those years we were together, you cheated on me. I'm sorry but there is no way I would take you back, not when I would constantly be wondering if you were going to do it again."

" That's fair. I do regret it though. I was a total Asshole. For whatever it worth, I'm sorry."

" Thank you, Robbie."

" Your welcome. I still can't believe your dating my old man though, so fucking weird. What's even weirder is seeing him so happy. He's walking around with a dumbass grin on his face, whistling all the time at work.."

“ Uh , you do realize that I’m right here,” I commented.

He walked over to the couch and was about to sit down when he looked at me." I hope you steam cleaned this bitch , I don't want to be cozying up on this motherfucker and find your jizz on it."

A laugh erupted from my chest, and I heard my Sweetheart burst out laughing too. Yup, he was my kid alright.

" And if I could make a request? Can you please limit your sexcapades to your bedroom? I would be in a constant state of panic otherwise wondering what other surfaces in this house you two have tainted ."

I smirked." Whose house is this again?"

" Just saying, as someone that occasionally occupies this house-"

" Yes Robbie, your request has been granted ok? " I leaned back against the counter that only days before I had fucked my sweet Princess on. She gave me a knowing smile and I winked at her.

" Great, now that we have cleared the air, when do we eat? I'm fucking starving." Robbie clapped his hands together.

I sighed and shook my head. Yup, this kid was just like his father.

As always thanks for reading❤️

Comments and re-blogs make my heart melt❤️

[livwritesstuff]

Mid-bath, I realised that Eddie and Steve had daughters during Lush’s peak popularity with the bathbombs and bubble bars, the themed releases (especially for Halloween). How did that go?

omg as a mid-2010s adolescent who *loved* watching lush hauls (Zoella's specifically and that's someone I hadn't thought about in a bazillion years), I cannot believe I didn't think of this sooner

Okay, but I see your Lush, and I raise you this:

The mall closest to their town in Massachusetts (the epic Natick Mall for any fellow New Englanders) just so happens to separate the Lush and the Bath and Body Works by just two (2) stores.

Add a Yankee Candle to that shit and you’ve got a brand new circle of hell – that’s Eddie’s opinion anyways, and he’d be the one to know given how Steve pulls the migraine card every time the girls lobby for a trip to the mall.

Like most adolescent girls in the mid-2010s, Moe, Robbie, and Hazel love Lush and they love Bath and Body works, so it’s a given that they’ll be building time for both into their mall adventure.

For Eddie, it’s his least favorite part of an already not-so-enjoyable experience, because, yeah, one of those bath bombs or whatever might smell nice on its own, but a hundred thousand of the fuckers crammed into a store with less square footage than the entryway of his and Steve’s house…that’s gotta be some form of prison torture (and if it’s not, it should be).

Eventually, Eddie just sets them loose for that portion of their shopping trip, which Steve might not necessarily approve of (but what Steve doesn’t know can’t hurt him, and those two stores back to back definitely would hurt Eddie).

“Do not lose Hazel,” he tells Robbie and Moe, deadly serious even though Hazel is almost ten and the risk of losing her in a real way is getting slimmer and slimmer, “If you are not walking into the bookstore in exactly thirty minutes, I will send a mall cop in to bring you to me the long way. Through the food court where all the kids from your school will be. Capiche?”

The system works – the girls get to spend their dads’ money on over-scented garbage and Eddie gets to retain his sense of smell and his sanity – but it’s only half the battle. The second half takes place at home, in the upstairs bathroom that all three girls share.

“Hazel!,” they hear Moe yell, “That one was mine!”

Steve shoots Eddie a look, as if to say that’s all you, man.

“C’mon, Stevie,” he protests, “I broke up the last one about the stupid hand sanitizers.”

“Nope. You facilitated buying them that shit. You can deal with it.”

Right on cue, they hear Hazel upstairs start to cry. Eddie groans, gets to his feet, and heads upstairs.

Indeed, Hazel is sobbing, because she almost always is these days (Steve and Eddie secretly joke that she’d never cried as a baby because she was stock-piling it all for her elementary-school days), and wrapped in an elephant towel (there’s a hood with ears and everything; it’s very cute). Moe is holding a half-dissolved bath bomb that she’d clearly just fished out of the bathtub and wearing an unreasonably irate expression for what is ultimately just a glorified ball of baking soda and citric acid (Eddie looked it up).

“Dad – Hazel’s using my bath bomb.”

“It’s not yours!” Hazel hiccups.

Eddie squints at the deformed mess fizzing in Moe’s hand.

“I gotta side with Hazy here, Moe. I mean – c’mon. Did you actually want a Santa Claus-shaped bath bomb? Really?”

“Yeah,” she insists, “It’s limited edition, Dad. For the holiday collection.”

Eddie lets out a long sigh.

“Okay,” he says, “You guys are keeping this shit in your own rooms. Starting now.”

[serotoninisheldinkiwis]

spoilers for transformers earthspark (up to ep5) after the cut!!!

so I started watching earthspark and i have EMOTIONS abt it but mainly i'm looking much too far into the interactions between Bumblebee and Optimus and humming in thought

okay so! i'm gonna start off with the characters- Robbie and Mo are very good siblings- even with their faults, which just makes them look like even more accurate siblings- and I like them both a lot! Dot and Alex- we haven't seen them as much, but both of them are really fun! Alex's interactions with Bumblebee are absolutely hilarious as much as they're fandomish, and Dot doing her best to hold her family together- as weird as it's getting- is (impressively) working! All around strong human cast, at least for me! (Schloder is a tentative maybe. don't know enough about him yet but he's kinda a clown)

Twitch and Thrash!!!!! i!!! love them!!!! twitch is lowkey more my favorite (her personality and colors and vibes beseech me) but thrash is also a decently respectable transformer! they're both trying their best and making mistakes and working to fix them. it very much reads as two young people not knowing anything about the world and working it all out, and in general i love that! it has led to a teensy bit of annoyance (HELLO WHEN BOTH YOUR MOM AND YOUR WAR VETERAN MENTOR SAY MAYBE SWINDLE ISNT TRUSTWORTHY MAYBE THAT MEANS SOME TRUST?) but i also know that them experiencing that broken trust leads to the greater understanding of the Difference between the decepticon (only one as far as i know) that's redeemed vs the many others that haven't been

bumblebee!! i'm very much intrigued in this version- he seems older, which his design kinda helps to convey! the more almond-shaped eyes, the all around boxier shape- even with the more rounded shapes that he does have- he just reads as more of a young adult than a teen in this version, which i'm up for!!

but then with bumblebee there's also (what i'm guessing) is a s t r a i n e d relationship with optimus- which is (afaik) the first time we've seen bumblebee and optimus with a strained/not close relationship

i mean. bumblebee's very first episode he was in consisted of:

called out of hiding after who knows how long

being assigned to teach two literal newsparks how to be Cybertronian

him having to adjust to civilian life in the timespan of a day

him having to adjust to being a *celebrity*

him having to adjust to living *with people*

him having to save the life of a kid he was trusted with

and ALL of that was without a support system! bumblebee tried reaching out to Optimus, multiple times! the first time he tried to get help from Megatron- admittedly, he just never got a shot to use that advice, so that gets a pass- but the second time when Elita was on the call? she gave him vague advice, and then hung up on him when he started venting about it. like he hadn't been thrown into a completely alien (to him) situation and was, understandably, struggling. (i also think it's weird that megatron and elita didn't tell optimus that bumblebee called? like you'd think they let him know about the scout HE put on a mission struggling a bit with it

and then episode 5!! bumblebee called optimus! 28 times! 2 8 t i m e s!!! with information that could endanger the kids! and optimus waved it away with 'i was in orientation' LIKE BRO? if your highly capable Scout that's fought in a W a r is calling you that many times, i feel like you quietly step away from orientation and call back to find out what's going on???? why would you just ignore that??? what optimus has essentially done is throw bee into the deep end and toss a booklet of how to build a diy life preserver and i personally am VERY INTERESTED to see where the show takes it. bc i absolutely feel like their relationship is NOT where it normally is in transformers media (which is interesting! a fun change of pace)

either way, you also have the fact that bumblebee says that the Maltos is the first time he's felt part of a team in a long time. how long has he been in hiding? if not too long... how long has he not felt to be part of Optimus' team? how long has it been?

[wazzappp]

Retroviruses got me fucked up

@moosemonstrous are u ready for a dissertation? I hope so.

people who followed me for art I'm so sorry

ALRIGHT so we're gonna cover a couple areas.

General information about retroviruses.

Details about The Corruption and theories about how it works inside the body.

SPECIFICALLY ROBBIES viral weird shit. Cause what he has going on is even more fucked up than normal fucked up. Fucked up squared.

Me ranting about skin necrosis and why I shouldn't have just. Thown it in there because I thought it would look fucky wucky.

GENERAL INFORMATION ABOUT RETROVIRUSES:

As most people know, a virus is a cell that enters the body of a host and alters its DNA to turn that hosts cells into virus making factories. This is what allows viruses to duplicate and spread through the body so quickly. But whats that? 'What makes retroviruses different from other viruses?' I hear you asking? WELL EXCELLENT QUESTION THATS A PERFECT PLACE TO START. A retrovirus is different because its method of self duplication involves an enzyme called reverse transcriptase. This makes retroviral infection PERMANENT. Even if the virus is defeated by the immune system, those changes stick around. The phrasing used was 'ipso facto mutagenic' meaning 'by the fact itself/inevitable'.

...Which is kinda metal honestly I want it on a tee shirt (definetly not thinking of Amadeus saying that to Robbie as he tries his best to explain theres no way to undo whats going on with him. nahhhh angst don't got a hold on me like that [<- vibrating])

'Ohhh but if those genetic changes never go away, doesn't that mean that those viruses will get passed on through peoples children?' ASKING SUCH GOOD QUESTIONS TODAY MY MUTUAL BECAUSE THE ANSWER IS YES. Once a retrovirus codes itself into a hosts gnome, its called a provirus (pro gamer move right there) Fun (not fun) fact around 8% of the human gnome is made of proviruses. These are called endogenous viruses, and for the most part they just kinda sit there and stay dormant. TERRIFYINGLY, other viral infections can trigger these endogenous viruses out of dormancy. As for what actually causes a provirus to go dormant uhhhhhhhh I dunno. Couldn't find an answer in my research someone make me look stupid with an answer please because I wanna know.

Ok now lets talk about the immune system a little bit. There are a few different kind of cells at work (hehehehehe) that help to fight viruses and other infections in the body. The first are Cytotoxic T cells or Killer T Cells. These are the cells that directly destroy cells displaying genetic patterns they recognize as bad. Next we have CD+4 Cells (Helper T Cells) which act as a library that stores information about how to identify an infected cell, and shares that information with other Killer T cells once one figures it out. Then there are the Regulatory T cells which suppress your immune responses to maintain homeostasis. They're what (USUALLY) stops your immune system from killing you while trying to clear a virus. Last there are Macrophage. CELLS AT WORK MAID MILFS- I mean cells that clear the debris that remain after the Killer T Cells are done destroying them.

Retroviruses have two primary ways of either side-stepping the immune system or just. Overwhelming it completely. Acutely transforming retroviruses do just that. They reproduce too quickly for Killer T cells to destroy them all and exhaust the system. The second type are called Non Acute Retroviruses. They camouflage viral particles as immune cells to suppress the immune system. For example, HLTV-1 is a retrovirus that disguises itself as a Regulatory T cell to artificially suppress the immune response thats trying to kill it.

HTLV-1 is really interesting because most of the time patients are asymptomatic, but 5% can graduate to HTLV-1 associated myelopathy/tropical spastic paraparesis, which affects the spinal cord and white matter of the central nervous system. This usually results in the weakening of lower extremities and sometimes total bowl/bladder control loss. It suckkssssss (but is also a retrovirus that affects the central nervous system so were circling back to it later 👀).

SPECULATION ABOUT THE CORRUPTION:

I've said previously that The Corruption has potential for a retrovirus that affects the central nervous system by degrading the brains ability to regulate muscular contraction, while also pumping out a ton of cortisol and adrenaline to encourage 'hysterical strength'.

Now I did a little more research about Hypoglycemia and combined with the nerve damage people would likely die from cardiac arrhythmia, which is a life threatening kind of ventricular fibrillation. Long and short, it means their hearts don't have the proper energy and stimulation to keep beating properly, so they stop beating in sync. This results in insufficient blood flow to vital areas like the brain, and combined with the inadequate blood sugar, this would result in very fast brain death.

Let's talk about the immune systems response to this Corruption retrovirus. We would most likely see lots of inflammation, and with the main focus being on nerve cell this would probably result in meningitis, which is inflammation of the tissue surrounding the brain and spinal cord. If left untreated this could result in a coma and then death. So we're seeing a SHIT ton of pressure on the brain and central nervous system. Which is like. VERY BAD for a person. We're talking brain death very very fast.

As for how the virus would target the nervous system directly we could look to real world examples like rabies (ahhhh rabies. can never get away from you). The virus would attach to nicotinic acetylcholine receptors, which are what turns chemical signals into electrical signals in your nerves. It would then spread through the axons of the central nervous system and eventually reach the brain. We could also pull a rabies with 'once you see symptoms it's too late' which I, personally, find fucking terrifying.

In terms of the virus losing its effectiveness once outside the body of a Demon/Kaiju we would likely need to look at the anatomy of a retrovirus itself. The outermost area is composed of envelope spikes, which tell the cell to let it in. After that is an envelope protein which plays an important role in complete virus particle (virion) assembly. Theres then a protein shell that contains reverse transcriptase and the RNA gnome that it will use to recode a host cell. If this virus evolved to survive in an environment that is always warm (hell. lol. lmao.) it might not be prepared to deal with these colder temperatures in our world. This could result in damage to the protective protein barriers and cause damage to the real important parts, the RNA and reverse transcriptase. This would mean that the virus would not be near as effective as a fully intact retrovirus cell.

The Corruption could be an endogenous virus thats embedded into the Demon/Kaiju gnome that wouldn't affect them, but would absolutely affect us because we haven't seen them before.

ROBBIES WEIRD FUCKSHIT:

alright guys this is where we put the FI into SCIFI cause your about to read a whole lot of nonsense sentences.

Robbie. Robbie is fucking WEIRD in EVERY universe and this shit is absolutely not different. Him being exposed to that previously mentioned damaged version of the virus from a young age might not give him true immunity but it would give him SOMETHING to work with. His immune system is at least slightly familiar with it and at this point whatever damaged version he came into contact with has already established itself as a provirus in him.

The Corruption thats established itself in The Charger is different.

Like I mentioned in my first diagram, I think there was a chemical reaction that stabilized the corrosive aspect of The Corruption, but this reaction would also have had an effect on the retroviral properties of the Demon/Kaiju material. ESPECIALLY when we add Eli into the mix.

Now, I think generally the amount of radiation that these viruses would be exposed to would kill them (if you believe viruses are alive. there is some MEGA debate going on about that). But if the corruption was just stabilized/hardened on the outside and left squishy and organic on the inside, that would successfully protect everything. And whats that organic squishyness on the inside? EXCELLENT QUESTION AGAIN. If Eli died while inside The Charger then it's not a stretch to think his DNA would have been incorporated and stored via through the natural processes of the retrovirus as a provirus. And so you end up with the genetic mixture of a horrifying creature capable of heinous acts, and a Demon/Kaiju. WITH retroviral properties. Dear god.

Robbie would get exposed to this the very first time he enters the Charger. Because of his semi-immunity + genetic relation to Eli he would likely be able to overcome the more meatsuit damaging aspects of this mixture and just get right through the genome editing without much fuss from his immune system. We would still have a certain degree of damage to his nervous system which allows for that change in strength that would occur in usual examples of the virus (maybe some added aggression from mild influence in his amygdala), but not to a deadly degree. Honestly this shit would barely classify as a virus its just. A nightmare mutagen at this point. So while some of his gnome would remain fairly the same, a good 30% to 50% is megafucked.

Changing Robbies genotype to this degree will naturally result in a change to his phenotype! For the sake of fun were gonna ignore stem cells and their weirdness (for now. I just need to stew on it a little longer and I can make up some bullshit I'm sure). The damage his muscles would experience from less regulated signals would mean they experience muscle tears and subsequent muscle growth. For usual muscle damage from exercise this takes a few days, so if we wanted to keep with that timeline it could be interesting to introduce some minorly sped up healing. That would also be fun for reactivating the growth plates in his bones to allow him to become bigger and taller overall (boring body horror my beloved @cicada-candy that term is never leaving).

THEN you can get into some of the fucky wuckier traits like tapetum lucidum and TEEF. TEEEEEEFFFF. The teeth in particular could go a few different ways. You could just have growth and development of the canines resume until they become elongated and more prominant. OR. You could replace the teeth with bony protrusions from the skull that would push out the original canines and grow in their place. Because of the time it takes for bones to heal your looking at this happening around 20 weeks out. Literally any fun trait you want to take from Demon/Kaiju could apply here.

The most important part would be the nerve bundles on his spine that would be used to bluetooth to The Charger (<- this is a nonsense sentence. I am aware of this). These would provide faster communication with the charger and (theoretically) more intuitive movement, while also allowing him to eventually controlling the charger from the outside. Please note that this would cause EXTREME STRESS to his nervous system. It would be like a person trying to flex a muscle the size of another person for the first time. LEARNING PROCESS. TAKE IT SLOW OR HAVE AN ANEURYSM.

Which leads me to the youtuber apology part of this.

WHY I SHOULDNT HAVE JUMPED TO SKIN NECROSIS:

Skin necrosis is a result of the mass death of skin cells that is furthered by the damage to blood cells. This usually results in a blackened, leathery texture to the necrosed skin. I SHOULD HAVE NEVER EVEN MENTIONED THIS.

What I SHOULD have done is said 'hmm ah yes it would make more sense for some protective covering over these nerve concentrations to either come from materials in Robbies body or to mutate into the skin of the Demon/Kaiju'. This is why we do sufficient research before getting back on our bullshit, wazz (mental note mental note mental note mental note).

I am quite partial to the idea of that stronger/thicker Demon skin/armor growing under Robbies skin and it just itches and burns until he cant ignore it anymore. And then he can pull off. Whatever skin is on the top of it. HEHHEHEHOHOHOHO DELICOUS MENTAL IMAGE of him panicking because he just wanted to scratch his back but now theres blood on his hands and skin sloughing off and dear fucking lord how did he get to this point in his life (<- I daydream about normal things guys don't worry. very average things).

ANYWAY uhhhh if you made it this far I love you. Legit. Have a cookie. Take a nap. Have a happy holidaze <3.

[haleyboook]

The Marriage Pact

When Sloan and Chris become reunited and get more than a few drinks in their systems they remember something from their past, and it includes a marriage pact they made a decade ago. But the two decide to follow through with the agreement and get married!

warnings: mentions of sex, drinking, and swearing

word count: 2,750

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

“When I say birthday you say bitch!” My best friend Corrine shouts to the crowd of men at the bar

“Birthday”

“Bitch!”

“Birthday!”

“Bitch!!”

I shake my head at her as she remains standing on the bar stool across the way from me

I stare at the weird colored cocktail in my hands that she insisted I have

It’s extremely strong and very disgusting

“When Corrine texted me last week with an invite to celebrate your birthday I was honestly surprised.”

I look behind me quickly, seeing a very old friend that I haven’t spoken to in years

Chris smiles and hugs me tightly as I stare at him confused

“She invited you?”

“She invited a lot of people, clearly. How many of these people do you actually know Sloan?”

I look towards the groups of people and say “Probably about a fifth of them I’m acquainted with.”

His eyes widen as he laughs saying “Typical Corrine.”

“She sends out mass text messages, for all her parties. That’s where you come in, you must’ve accidentally been grouped in.”

He looks to me suspect saying “What you wouldn’t invite me by choice?”

I sigh saying “I don’t know, it’s been awhile.”

“Yeah it has, from what I’ve heard you’ve basically stopped acting?”

Shaking my head I say “Who told you that?”

He waves his phone saying “The internet. Your last show is going to be that sitcom? Really?”

“I need a break from acting. The roles I get are undeveloped and unenjoyable. I’m tired of playing the female arm candy in an action movie.”

“You’re done with Tom Cruises movies?”

I roll my eyes saying “Unless I get my own spin off, yeah.”

“That’s a shame. You’re so good at what you do, you need a better agent.”

Narrowing my eyes to him I say “It’s been at least 2 years since we’ve talked and this is what you want to talk about? What are you filming? Still at Marvel’s beck and call?”

He grumbles saying “funny. When you get a multi million dollar main character role you can have an opinion on my role but yeah I am still doing the marvel thing.”

“I can tell, you’re only in this good of shape when you’re filming marvel.”

“Thanks?”

I sigh and say “I also want a break to start a family or something. I’m ready to settle down.”

“Ah I see..”

“You want something to drink?” I ask

He nods saying “Yeah sure. What are you…having? Jesus what is that?” He motions towards the glittery glow in the dark drink in my hand

“It’s called a Sloan. Don’t ask me how Corrine thought of it, it’s nearly toxic waste.”

Chris looks over in the direction of our somewhat mutual friend getting men to shout in unison with her “I see she still has men wrapped around her finger.”

“She wouldn’t be Corrine if she couldn’t get men to wrap around her finger.”

“What’s she been up to in acting terms?”

I finish my drink and say “She’s in a new movie with Margot Robbie and Will smith.”

“Interesting pairing, I’ve gotta admit.”

I walk with him to the bar and the bartender says “What can I get you both?”

“Two more Sloan’s and also something drinkable.”

He smiles to us and Chris says “I’m not drinking that glittery toxic waste.”

“It’s my birthday are you forgetting that?”

“I hate when people leverage that. I already got you a gift. It’s in that disgustingly tall pile of gifts.”

“You owe me. It’s been 2 years since we’ve talked, you owe me.”

Grumbling he takes a sip as I carry the other drinks in my hands

He makes a face saying “It’s gross.”

I smile saying “good. Finish it.”

Shaking his head he says “this would kill my street cred y’know.”

“I’m sorry, what street cred?”

He scoffs as he finishes the drink and sets the glass down. He grabs the beer from my hand and says “I’m a beer guy, you know that.”

“And I’m a tequila gal, doesn’t mean Corrine cares.”

He nods and says “no family here today?”

I narrow my eyes to him saying “Surprised you didn’t read about that in the news.”

“What? What happened?”

Sighing I say “it is my birthday you know, and I really would like not discussing my family.”

“Fine, deal. No bringing up ex’s then.”

I smile saying “good. I was hoping you’d say that.”

“Does that mean you broke up with Garret??” He asks dumbfounded

Groaning I say “Don’t make me bring up Minka and Jessica.”

He groans loudly and says “I need more beer.”

He walks away and I follow as I laugh at his avoidance of the topic. I nudge him saying “Still want to ask about Garret?”

He narrows his eyes to me in annoyance as he pushes cash towards the bartender annoyed

“I’ll just ask him myself.”

I make a face and say “And Minka happens to go to the same spin class as me.” I smile to him

He huffs in annoyance and says “They wanted more and I wanted more time.”

I shake my head and say “Sounds about right.”

“Is that why you and Garret broke up?”

I scoff saying “No. Far from it. I wasn’t pushing him for more, he fell for his costar. She’s 10 years younger than me and she worships the ground he walks on. He told me about her and we were done. I threw his things off my balcony.”

His eyes widen and he says “Jesus.”

I shrug and say “There, you’re caught up on my romantic life.”

He laughs as I sigh, he says “I’m sorry. I was just curious. You guys were serious, at least I thought so.”

“We were, then I got swamped with work and he sought out comfort elsewhere. Fucking asshole..”

Chris and I laugh as I motion to the bartender for more tequila shots

“I have work tomorrow.”

“This should do nothing to you. Come on lightweight.”

The drunkenness quickly came over us as we just kept drinking together, the surroundings around us melted away as we caught up

“How’s your mom?” I ask as I squint at the beer in my hand

“She’s doing great. How’s yours?”

“Not going there right now.” I hum as I reach for my beer

“I think I’m drunk.” He says aimlessly as he stares at the ceiling that’s dimly lighting up the bar

“It feels great. It’s been too long.”

He smiles widely as my head hits his shoulder as I laugh and smile to him

His head rests on mine and he says “Another round please.” He motions towards the bartender

I spin the shot in my hand saying “This is the real Sloan! a shot and a beer to wash it down with… you know me so well.”

I smile to him as I turn my attention to him, he smiles saying “I’ve missed you so much.”

“Right back at you Evans. I’ve missed having friends that actually know me.”

We click our glasses together and say “Cheers to our reunion.”

He nods saying “Cheers to you, happy birthday Sloan Sloan.”

I smile and say “Ah I was wondering when that nickname was going to come up.”

I shoot back the shot and he follows after me a few seconds later

“Remember that stupid list we made?”

“When I was 22, i hadn’t met Garret yet and you were with Jessica. We wrote so many stupid things on that page.”

“Can’t remember what the paper even had on it.”

“We both wrote things we didn’t want each other to know for 10 years remember?”

I laugh and say “I remember.”

“God I wish we still had that paper.”

We both laugh as we sigh in defeat. I spin the liquid in the beer bottle as it dawns on me and I repeat “Under the three willow trees in our favorite park.. where the dog shit can’t be smelled from..”

He looks to me surprised and says “We buried it!”

I nod and he stands up quickly as I tumble out of my barstool from his sudden movement.

He steadies me as he holds my shoulders tightly

“We have to go.”

“What..?? This is my party!”

He nods saying “We have to go get it.”

I smile and say “Well okay I guess. But you owe me a cake I am going to miss my cake.”

“Deal.”

An Uber was called, we stumbled into the back seat as the woman says “You two alright back there?”

“Jimminy crickets we’re amazing! Oooo all this is for us? Okay… I see you.”

I grab the free candy and water she has set up for Uber guests

She pulls up to the park saying “You two going to be alright?”

Stumbling and basically rolling out of the car we laugh and i give her a thumbs up

“We’ll be perfect, thank you!” He thanks the driver as we approach the very dark park at this late of an hour

“I just love scary parks at this hour.”

“It’s not that late. It’s only like 1:30am or something like that.” He reassures me

As soon as we got to the trees I fell to my knees and struggled to dig at the grass. He laughed as he stumbled as he laughed so hard he fell over

I shush him and he laughs louder screaming “Who’s going to hear us out here!”

I crawl towards the play structure and steal some kids plastic pale and shovel

I dig at the grass and he grabs it from me saying “No, no let me.”

I sit back and watch as he digs with the weak shovel as it bends from his strength

He hits the box and I quickly push the shovel away as I impatiently pull the box that’s slightly damaged out

The dirt has eaten at it and the plastic bag hasn’t lasted very well

I guess it has been a decade

I pull the papers and read the list in my hands confused

I don’t remember this being in there

He pulls the bottom papers and reads them as I look through this written agreement that we signed

“Get this, I wrote that in ten years I hope I’ll be a more respectable actor and work on a award winning movie.”

He flips the page as he reads “In ten years I want to be married with a baby and a successful career. But all I really want is to be happy, whether that means giving up acting or not.”

His frown deepens as he looks to me as I read the list

1. Don’t let work get in the way of our friendship

Well clearly we didn’t follow up on that one

2. Help each other anytime it’s needed, career wise or otherwise.

He can’t help with things he doesn’t know about.

3. Always be each others backups, in any date scenario

That one was a stupid add, he only added that one because he knew he needed a date to his sisters wedding the next week. But I obliged.

4. In ten years, or less if we haven’t settled down and gotten married we’ll get married to each other

What the fuck ?!

I stare at the list of shit we wrote and I feel the stinging of a headache hit me as I go back to the first page

He pulls the other page from me as I go mute on him and he stares at me in confusion as I don’t respond to his questions

He reads through them with a smile and it only falters when he gets to number 4 and he looks to me as I stare at the agreement

He smiles and says “Ten years, huh?”

“Take this written agreement as a verbal and written contract that we are obligated and honored to marry the other if both see fit in their very single lives. Rules that may exempt the agreement would be a. A relationship b. A baby and a relationship c. A sexually transmitted disease d. a change in sexual orientation.”

Chris chuckles at the last two rules and I roll my eyes as I say “If not met with that criteria we are morally obligated to relieve each other of the embarrassment of being married too late in life.”

I scoff in annoyance saying “who wrote this shit oh my god.”

Chris smiles saying “I think it’s hilarious.”

“I think it’s- it’s… I don’t know!”

“I think we should listen to our twenty-something selves and follow up on this.”

I stare at him in shock and he nods saying “We promised, we’ve gotta follow up on this pact, we fell through with every other agreement, not this one too, come on.”

“We just started talking again,”

He nods saying “I haven’t had fun like this in years.. I feel like me when I’m with you. I haven’t felt like me in too long. Let’s go get our shotgun wedding, c’mon.”

I slowly warm up to the idea and my smile slowly widens as I begin to nod in agreement

He smiles back at me as his arms snake around me and lift me off the ground. Spinning around as we laugh loudly leads to us tumbling over again

“You call the Uber, I’ll look up a place to get married.”

I feel my fingers move but my mind not catching up as I proceed with our plans of marriage.

It seems completely rational to us and he shows me the 24/7 chapel only a city over and I smile widely as I nod saying “deal.”

He presses his hands to the sides of my face as his thumb brushes down my nose and he taps the top of my nose saying “deal.”

The Uber drive consisted of me sitting close to Chris with his arm wrapped around me as my hands held tightly to his other arm

Pulling up to the chapel the Uber driver didn’t say much but there expression wasn’t indescribable

But it irked me.

I straighten up my dress and lick my hands as I press them to Chris’ stray aways

He groans as he attempts to squirm away from me as I insist on fixing his hair

I nod as I smile saying “perfect.. you look perfect.”

“Thank you, you look beautiful.”

We enter the establishment and the lady behind the podium welcomes us and gets us on the fast track to getting married

“We have a selection of rings to pick from if you haven’t purchased one yet, we offer a character wedding, Elvis, and a few other options. There’s a tropical wedding, a traditional-”

I cut her off saying “traditional.”

Chris smiles saying “no Elvis?”

I push his shoulder as I shake my head. We are brought to the ring area and he immediately picks the ring that sticks out to him

It’s what stuck out to me, it was surprisingly beautiful for the other options they had

I shook the fake ministers hand as we met him 2 minutes before we were to be married

“I need you both to sign this document.”

I squinted my eyes as I read the words on the document and it was a basic marriage document and I flipped the page and signed my name across the bottom quickly

Chris scribbled his name quickly, not taking a second glance and says “if the misses says it’s safe to sign I believe her.”

The minister walks us down the isle as the director of the weddings clips a waist length veil onto my hair

I nod to her in appreciation and the ceremony proceeds as the alcohol was still very influential in the ceremony even happening

The pictures were taken as the minister asks “This is both of your opportunities to say something about the other.”

Chris nods and squeezes my hand saying “You’re my best friend, Sloan Sloan. I felt incomplete without you in my life and having you back in my life means everything. I can’t wait to navigate this new adventure with you as my wife.”

My cheeks redden as I blush and my heart flutters and does back flips.

He tilts his head to me as he admires my smile and he pulls my hand to his lips as he kisses them delicately

I swallow thickly as I say “There’s no one else I could possibly do this with, it’s only you that could put me at ease like this. You are my best friend and I can’t wait to be married to you. I love you, Chris.”

He smiles and the officiant smiles as they say “do you take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband?”

“I do.” I nod as my brain is still foggy

“and do you take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife?”

“I do.”

Chris smiles widely as the man says “I pronounce you husband and wife.”

Before the man can continue Chris kisses me, and once we got started kissing we didn’t stop

His arms wrapped around me as he dipped me into the kiss and the officiant shakes his head muttering “Jesus..”

The wedding director smiles widely and pats our shoulders saying “A few more pictures.”

We take our pictures and are handed glasses of champagne and a bottle as we are directed to the restaurant next door

Chris says “Hello wife.”

I smile as I look to him saying “Hello husband.”

We both laugh as we stumble towards the Italian restaurant next door

“What would you say to skipping the dinner and going home?” I chime

He looks to me and says “Sounds like a square deal.”

The second we got into the Uber his lips were pressed to my neck as the driver visibly cringed

The car ride was fast as the man clearly wanted us out of his car.

Chris lifted me as he stumbled in step up to my house. I laughed as I hung off his shoulder and he patted the back of my legs as he sang everlasting love by natalie cole

“This will be… an everlasting love..!! Ooo..yes it will be!”

He is hilarious and I haven’t laughed this hard in too long

He jingled the key into the door and shifted me in his arms as soon as the door was open.

He carried me through the door frame bridal style and says “Now it’s official!”

The door is kicked shut behind us as he walks like a blind mouse through the pitch black house

We laugh loudly as we bump into every object in my house as our lips are glued together

His teeth pull on my bottom lip as I mumble “Past the guest room. And laundry… keep going.”

We hit the wall again and he releases my lip as my lips press to his cheek

“You’ve almost got it.”

And victoriously he finds my bed and we fall into it slowly as he lands on me carefully, keeping his lips attached to the exposed skin on my neck

“We should’ve done this years ago.”

I hmm in response as I can’t talk through the blissful tingling I feel throughout my body

“Y-yeah.” I say as his lips trail down the exposed skin around my dress as his hands reach behind my back, searching for the zipper

The zipper breaks through his impatience and I grumble as I grow uncomfortable with the heat between my legs

“Just rip the dress- Chris..”

He didn’t have to be asked twice, the dress was ripped from the fabric at the zipper and he pulled it off me roughly as I mumbled into his skin as he hovered over me “oh finally…”

He pauses for a minute as his eyes retreat down to my exposed chest, my back arching at his hands moving down to my waist, the exposed skin quickly showcasing new goosebumps

“didn’t need a bra with that dress- did-did you?”

His fleeting eyes look to mine as I produce a furrowed look, my expression asking him what he’s waiting for

He slides his hands up to my face and says “Are you okay? You alright?”

I nod quickly and say “I’m perfect. I’m happy.”

“That’s all I want for you, lo.”

I nod as I heave a breath saying “Are you okay?”

“More than okay. I’ve wanted this for a long, long time. Is this- is me doing this, is it okay?”

I nod in agreement quickly saying “Not if you wait any longer, you’re killing me…”

I squirm while I’m under him, in near desperation as his grin runs wide and his eyebrows pop

“Oh… I see..”

He laughs as I hmm in response, patience is not my strong suit

“I got you, as your husband, I’ve got you all taken care of.”

And he does, he easily does. My eyes flutter in relief and the rush of adrenaline hits me as my hips rise up in response to him

“good job, honey.”

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

AAAAAAAAHHHH new story alert!!! eeeeeekkkk!!!! I’m so excited for this one! It’s already a bit steamy haha. I feel motivated to write this story so that’s exciting!!

I’m happy to introduce you guys/people to Sloan! She’s great and I hope you all end up liking her! she is different from Jules in the best ways, at least I think so??

I hope you like the story!!

Reply to be added to taglist!!

[aurorawest]

The Scottish Boy by Alex de Campi - 5/5 stars

This book managed to rip my heart out at least 3 times. I loved it. Medieval enemies-to-lovers slow burn; very romantic. Kinda read like fanfiction at times but in a good way. 10/10 would read a follow-up love story about Arundel and Captain Wekena. If you like Captive Prince, give this one a try.

Reforged by Seth Haddon - 4/5 stars

Pretty good bodyguard romantasy. Ironically CS Pacat blurbed this one (another am-I-in-the-matrix moment). The world was interesting and I enjoyed the politics, though they're definitely not as complicated as other SFF politics I've gone feral over (see: Captive Prince, Winter's Orbit, A Memory Called Empire). I ordered the sequel after I finished this.

The Doctor's Date by Heidi Cullinan - 4/5 stars

A Power Unbound by Freya Marske - 5/5 stars

Where do I start? I love, love, LOVE A Marvellous Light. It's one of my favorite books ever. None of the rest of the books in the trilogy could live up to it, really, because it's so good. You'll notice I rated this one 5 stars though, because quite honestly I fell prey to a bit of The Academy Paying The Lord of the Rings Trilogy Its Due syndrome. I did love this book and thought it was better than A Restless Truth (which I still loved!) but part of that is, quite frankly, just due to the fact that I prefer m/m romance to f/f romance.

Anyway. This was such a good finale to the trilogy. I loved that the romance was a giant middle finger to purity cultists. I loved that one of the mains was Italian. I loved finally getting the story of what happened to the Alston twins. One thing I thought was really cool was how, viewed from the outside, you totally get why Edwin is such a loner. I really admire from a writing perspective how Marske pulled that off.

I feel like there's a lot to be said about what Marske was trying to SAY with this book, but I definitely need to reread it first before I can articulate any of it. The purity culture stuff is obvious, but the magic system too. I feel like Jack when he's almost able to connect everything in his mind into a bigger idea, but he can't quite get there.

I've got a special edition from Illumicrate coming, so I'll be rereading it when I have that.

Oh also, this book was the embodiment of all that one tumblr post -

The Guncle by Steven Rowley - 5/5 stars

I saw this in bookstores for years before I finally gave in and bought it. The blurb makes it sound insufferable and twee. Ignore the blurb. This was such a good book about grief and learning how to live again after terrible loss.

I Like Me Better by Robby Weber - 4/5 stars

At last I can stop getting the Lauv song stuck in my head whenever I set eyes on this book (it's stuck in my head as I type this). Pretty standard-issue YA, but it was cute and had a good message.

The Stagsblood King by Gideon E Wood - 4/5 stars

Another book about moving on from grief! This is the second book in a trilogy. When I was trying to determine if I wanted to read on beyond book 1, I scoured the internet for information about what happens in books 2 and 3. Eventually I decided, hell, I enjoyed book 1 well enough, even if what I want to happen in the rest of the trilogy doesn't happen, they're worth reading. SO, to that end, I will tell anyone looking for info that Tel gets romantically involved with a new man in this one, which, eh. I still want him to somehow end up with Vared. It was still quite good though.

In the Lives of Puppets by TJ Klune - DNF at pg 82

So funnily, we were at the bookstore the day I was about to start reading this, and my wife pointed out Ravensong (also by Klune) to me and said, "Do you have this one?" I made a face and said, "That's an older one of his books and I'm wary of his early work after that horrible Verania series. I don't think I've ever read an author as hit or miss as TJ Klune."

I wrote the above when I was 60 pages in and now I have officially DNFed this. Listen. You know how in Thor: Love and Thunder, Taika Waititi was clearly given free rein to do whatever he wanted, so all of his worst impulses made it to the final cut unchecked? Yeah. That's what this book is like.

Here's my Storygraph review: I see Klune is officially Too Big To Edit now. This book has exactly the same problem that his awful Verania series had—a joke that's funny at first but quickly grows tiresome when it's repeated five times per page. The emphasis on Victor's asexuality was also weird and read like Klune was just super proud of himself for writing an ace character.

Lion's Legacy by LC Rosen - 4.25/5 stars

Queer, YA Indiana Jones, but less #problematic. This book had some eerie similarities to my own archaeology adventure novel(s), which made me wonder half-seriously if I somehow know Lev Rosen? Anyway, I feared this would be very heavy-handed and not nuanced on archaeology's ethical dilemmas, since it's YA and also the current culture is to view said dilemmas as completely black and white with no nuance, but I was pleasantly surprised. It manages to examine that, queerness, and daddy issues, plus has time to be a genuinely fun and exciting adventure story. Highly recommend.

Too White to be Coloured, Too Coloured to be Black by Ismail Lagardien - 4/5 stars

I picked up this memoir in a bookstore at OR Tambo airport in Johannesburg as research for Six Places to Fall in Love, since Percy is coloured. A pretty brutal read, but good, and definitely good research. The author was a photographer and journalist through the most violent years of apartheid.

The Splendid and the Vile by Erik Larson - 5/5 stars

Two nonfiction books in a row?? This is the second book by Erik Larson I've read, the first being the excellent The Devil in the White City. I'm not, in general, all that interested in WWII when it comes to military history, but this book is about the day to day lives of Churchill and the people surrounding him (with brief stops to visit FDR and high-ranking Nazis sprinkled throughout). This is a very, very good book, and I recommend reading it if only as a reminder of the resilience and bravery of ordinary people under terrifying circumstances.

Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh - 5/5 stars

Holy shit. Holy shit is this book good. Imagine the love child of Lost, Person of Interest, and Battlestar Galactica, but queer and with multiverse shenanigans thrown in.

I need everyone to read this book. Now. Yesterday. Get to it.

[rokhal]

GR/RE7 AU fanfic: Weird Fungus

Referencing this piece of meta explaining @wazzappp's amazing All-New Ghost Rider/Resident Evil fusion AU, here is a little fic about Robbie and Gabe settling in to their little off-grid house where the BSAA stashed them after they survived Dulvey, Louisiana, and developed a cleaning compulsion (Robbie) and a sudden desire to wander away where no one can find him physically, audibly, or psychically (Gabe).

To set the scene, imagine some well-meaning BSAA agent sends Robbie this thing in their regular food delivery.

“I appreciate the gesture,” Robbie said, keeping his voice level and his eyes facing the camera of his BSAA-issued laptop, “but please don’t send us any more legs.”

The agent on the other end frizzled out into pixels and cocked her head on a two-second delay. “Legs? Oh, the, uh.” She tapped on her screen. “Jam-on serano? It’s supposed to be really good with wine.”

“Jamón, ham, the leg. With the foot, and the bones and, uh.” Robbie swallowed as he recalled opening the weekly food delivery and finding the top half of the box occupied by a skinned, cured-and-dried, but still massive animal limb, the thin flesh just below the toes still printed with rope marks. He could see the seams between every muscle. He could see its kneecap. At the opposite end, he could see the severed end of its thigh bone. “M-my brother has sensory issues. He doesn’t eat meat anymore. I won’t eat it in front of him.”

The BSAA agent made a note. “We can accommodate special dietary needs if you let us know. Is there anything specific you would prefer?”

Robbie fought the urge to tear at his hair. “Um. Tomato soup? Like, regular tomato soup, not gazpacho? Macaroni noodles. Some kind of cheese that doesn’t get all stringy as soon as it cools down. Frijoles, you know, normal refried beans? He likes those but not the ones that come swimming in the weird broth. Um, fish is okay—as long as it doesn’t have heads or bones in it. Potatoes are good. Eggs are good.”

“There’s some stores near the military base that cater to Americans,” the agent offered, and Robbie died a little inside. “I’ll see if we can order through there. How about vegetables?”

“His garden is growing really good. We’re good for vegetables.”

“Wow.” Robbie wondered if he’d said something wrong as the agent made another note. “Very nice, I’m glad you two are settling in.”

Not much of an option, being on house-arrest, Robbie thought. “Thanks.”

“Are you excited to start classes?”

Robbie knew this script, a back-and-forth he’d muddled through with a half-dozen social workers back in LA. “Very much. I value my education and I will complete my assignments independently and on time.”

She chuckled. Robbie wondered if he’d said something wrong. “You know, this is the real world, not high school. You can ask for help if you need it. Have you picked a major yet?”

The BSAA hadn’t asked before enrolling Robbie in the University of Barcelona’s undergraduate correspondence program, anymore than they’d asked Gabe before signing him up for remote learning with the local equivalent to middle school. “Pick?” he asked hesitantly.

“I think you’ve still got a few weeks to think about it, and you can always change majors, but, yeah, you might want to contact their guidance department if you’re not sure what courses to sign up for.” Now it was Robbie’s turn to make a note. “Chris will be over today, you can try asking him.”

“Oh.” Mr. Redfield’s visits were always on short notice, but Robbie usually had more than a matter of hours to mentally prepare himself. “Uh. We also need more bleach, please.”

“You just got two liters last month,” the agent said. “You know it’s bad for the septic system?”

Robbie kept his face blank, open. “It’s for cleaning. I’m not pouring it in the drains.”

“You know you’re supposed to dilute it?” the agent pressed him.

“One to ten,” Robbie recited, realizing as he said it that he’d managed to use about five gallons of disinfectant in a single month. He may have a problem. “I’m keeping the kitchen clean. The counters and the refrigerator. And both bathrooms. The grout. Under the lid for the cistern. Door handles.”

“Okay, okay.” Robbie winced; two okays was never okay. “I’ll send you more bleach. And some gloves.”

“Thank-you.”

“You sleeping alright?”

Loaded question. Robbie’s eyes flicked involuntarily to the BSAA-issued Alexa perched on a high shelf in the kitchen. “I’m sleeping.”

“Bad dreams?” The agent’s image pixelated again before stabilizing, and Robbie took advantage of the brief signal disruption to press his face hard into both palms. He could control himself during the day but of course their bugs heard it when he woke up screaming.

“Yeah.”

“You want to talk about it?”

Robbie doubted she would take no for an answer and doubted his own ability to prevaricate. He shrugged. “Louisiana. Dinner table with Momm—Mrs. Baker, and her husband and Eveline.” That was an odd feature of his recurring nightmares: he identified Mr. and Mrs. Baker in his thoughts as Mommy and Daddy, and his fear of them was twisted together with familiarity, even gratitude. “They had my body chopped up in pots.”

The agent made a sympathetic noise. “They tried to eat you?”

“Could be worse,” Robbie said, shrugging again. At least the people they ate didn’t turn into fanged piles of black sludge and stagger around their decaying home for eternity. “I think I’m just…” He glanced around the study: empty, except for the big table and the bookshelf full of Spanish novels that had proved embarrassingly challenging. “I’m, like—in my dreams I’m looking down at myself in the pot and Mm-Mrs. Baker tells me to eat up. I mean. They didn’t have any real food.” He crossed his arms and dug his nails into his own elbows, fighting vertigo. “It was all rotten. No cans left. The animals were all dead.”

“You’re worried about what your brother went through,” the agent said, and Robbie straightened.

“No.” He held his breath, grasping for some plausible argument. They killed dogs that ate people, didn’t they? The BSAA’s hold on their lives now was absolute. “They only had him a few months. I, I mean. It’s my dreams. Making things up.”

“Any problems with your medication? You have the list of side effects to watch for?”

“No.” It was a daily BSAA-issued pill. The first day on his antifungal, Robbie threw up black mold into the toilet until he passed out and slept for ten hours. Better out than in, he’d figured. The next day, and every day since, had been fine. “I mean, no side effects. We’re okay.” A bird warbled and piped from outside, loud and close. Robbie hadn’t left any windows open overnight. He straightened and turned, just as he heard the side door click shut. “Gabe?”

“Should we cut this short?” the agent asked, helpful for once, and Robbie nodded.

“I appreciate it. It’s probably nothing.” He ended the call and checked the dining room, where Gabe often read or watched laggy videos on his own BSAA-issued laptop, and Gabe’s room, where a cornucopia of superhero collectibles spilled from the bed to the floor and a faint (illusory, had to be) scent of mildew lingered despite Robbie’s vigorous daily whole-house cleaning schedule. “Gabe?” He must be outside. Robbie tried to calm himself. Just because Gabe had left the house, didn’t mean he was going to wander over the hills and disappear for two days. Again.

He stepped over the threshold, out from the hundred-year-old walls of his new home and into the alien wilderness: hot sun and rocky hills, no sound but the wind in his ears and birds chattering in the spicy-sweet desert shrubs. He squinted downhill, to the south: shrubs, cliffs, the Mediterranean sea glittering up at him. He peered west: shrubs, hills, the distant remains of a shattered stone fort and the faintly visible danger signs surrounding a radioactive ghost town. He checked north: shrubs, gravel driveway that carved switchbacks over the hills until it disappeared over the horizon, still no Gabe. Assuming that it had been Gabe shutting the door behind him and not the wind, he’d only left the house a few minutes ago; he couldn’t have run out of Robbie’s sight that fast. He might be crouched down to examine some plant or insect, or he might be hiding. (It was still so strange to see Gabe doing these things: running, climbing, hiding. The goddamn study had never even suggested their treatment would do anything for Gabe’s physical limitations, just save his life. When he’d first found Gabe in the Baker house, strong and agile and trying his best to stab him to death, he’d thought Gabe was literally possessed by a demon. The little girl’s mental influence was gone; the abilities she’d given Gabe remained.) He circled around to the east side of the house, reassuring himself that he could always run back inside and climb out onto the roof to get a bird’s eye view (Gabe could just crouch down below some fragrant desert bush and almost disappear), and then all the air rushed out of his lungs with a strange little wheeze when he saw Gabe hunched over and kicking something in the garden.

“Hey, Bud.” Gabe hated being snuck up on after Louisiana, and honestly, so did Robbie. (Gabe could sneak up on him now.) Robbie picked his way through the sprawling jungle of the vegetable garden: beans twining up gnarled bushes and driftwood stakes, tomato vines heavy with fruit stretched out over the sandy ground between lush bunches of lettuce, mellow paprika peppers blazing like Christmas lights from leafy stems. Most of Gabe’s plants, he’d started by planting left-over stems and seeds from their weekly meal prep shipment directly into the dirt with a handful of rotting food-scraps, and they never failed to sprout with a few days of watering. Robbie found himself happy to eat these home-grown vegetables; watching Gabe mulch and water them as they unfurled their leaves and their flowers set into fruit made them more trustworthy, somehow, than the bitter green things sold chopped up in bags at the grocery store. If he’d known growing his own food was this easy, he’d have dug up a roadside strip back in Los Angeles years ago.

Normally there were bees buzzing around the pepper and tomato blossoms, but Gabe’s kicking had scared them off. Robbie approached slowly as Gabe grabbed his digging stick. He hated the tingle of fear down his spine. He had to concentrate to keep from grabbing the scar on his left forearm, reminding himself as he so often did that Gabe was a physically normal kid now. Normal kids could be violent. It didn’t mean anything was wrong. It didn’t mean this wasn’t Gabe.

Gabe side-stepped to hide what he’d been kicking from Robbie, shoving dirt over it with his well-worn stick. Robbie still saw a flash of something red, fleshy. He swallowed. “What is that?”

Gabe dropped his stick and rubbed his face in the crook of his elbow, breath hitching. Robbie stepped closer and saw that the red meaty object was not, to his profound relief, an animal. He wasn’t sure what it was: narrow, spongy, bruised and moist from Gabe’s shoe, with dark gray parts and a tapering red stripe on each of its wedge-shaped segments, looking like a dog’s mouth or one of those bizarre tropical flowers that only blooms every hundred years. “Weird fungus,” Gabe managed.

Robbie knelt down to look at it. He’d never seen a wild mushroom before; he didn’t expect them to be so big, or to be shaped like an open mouth. The colors were a bit like the red and white mushrooms in cartoons, though. “Is it poisonous?”

Gabe shook his head. “It helps the vegetables,” he choked out. “But, I. I didn’t mean to, I’m sorry, I’m sorry you got nightmares. I didn’t mean to.”

Robbie covered his mouth. This was his fault; he hadn’t checked that Gabe was in his room before his call with the BSAA agent. He had to get it through his head that Gabe could move quickly and quietly now, that this was their normal. “I’m so sorry you heard that,” he said. That wouldn’t undo that Gabe had heard that. “Buddy. Gabe.” He reached up for a hug, and Gabe hesitated, staring at his left arm. “That’s just a dream. That’s just my brain trying to make sense of things that make me unhappy, and I’m unhappy about what the Bakers and, and Eveline did to you. Not anything you did. Okay?” Gabe sniffled and rubbed his face again, and Robbie kept his arms open, waiting. “I’m so proud of you for making it out of there. For surviving. I’ll never blame you for anything you had to do to survive.”

Gabe stared down at the stomped remains of the mushroom. “I’m not creepy?”

“No, never. You’re my little bro,” Robbie assured him, and Gabe sat down and flung himself against Robbie’s side. “Why’d you kill the mushroom?”

“Cause it gave you my nightmares,” Gave mumbled. He must mean, nightmares about me, an accurate deduction that would make Dr. DaCosta back home intensely proud of his social reasoning skills, except that Robbie had never seen this mushroom before. Robbie figured that before Gabe smashed it, it must have been nightmarish to look at, in a Hot Topic sort of way. “It’s creepy.”

“I think it looks cool,” Robbie remarked. Spain was full of cool things, now that he had the time and safety to sit back and contemplate them: bugs. Seaweed and weird critters that washed up on the beach. Flowers. Birds that sang—he’d thought their reputation for “singing” was an exaggeration, but it turned out that birds actually do sing. An infinite carpet of stars stretching out overhead, pinks and blues and yellows and so many tiny white lights that the black night might as well have been splashed with foam. And now, huge mushrooms that looked like toothy mouths. “You said it helps the garden, right? I’m not scared of mushrooms that aren’t poisonous.”

“Sure you’re not,” Gabe muttered.

“I’m not scared of mushrooms outside the house,” Robbie qualified. “Will the vegetables be okay?”

Gabe looked up and bit his lip. “Maybe. If I water more. They can’t use the seawater.”

“I’ll calculate how much we can spare from the cistern without running low,” Robbie offered. “We can take shorter showers.”

“I’ll just grow another one.” Gabe poked at the fragments of mushroom with his shoe.

“You can do that?” Robbie had heard that mushrooms were easy to grow with a kit, but he’d never seen it done. He felt a swell of pride at the gardening knowledge Gabe had absorbed from his tablet so quickly.

“It’s really easy,” Gabe said. “But. You gotta tell me if you get my dreams again. Okay?”

“Okay.” Robbie hugged him tighter. “I won’t take your dreams.”

“I don’t think you can do that.” A bee circled overhead and landed on a bean flower. They watched as it nudged its whole head inside the petals, wings and legs fluttering industriously.

[callsign-magnolia]

Can you write a little something fluffy about Bob? Maybe about him on a first date?

AH! I sure can! I'm loving the multiple Bob asks that I'm getting! Thank you so much for the ask, babe! 🥰

I fixed my dress in the mirror for the fifth time. "Why is it that when I have something important is when nothing wants to fit right?" I asked, huffing and storming back into my closet. I searched through the rack and came up with nothing. The pale purple skater dress I had on would have to do. I slipped on some white wedges before grabbing my phone. "Shit!" I cursed, rushing downstairs. I was gonna be late for my date. I got into my car and sped through town, finding a parking spot right on time. I took a few deep breaths before getting out of my car and hiking my purse up on my shoulder. I looked down at my phone to see a text.

I'm by the coffee cart on the corner of Lakeview and Memorial. 😁

I was parked off Memorial and it was a short walk. I was surprised when my date asked me to join him at a farmers market. But it was different and I was excited and nervous all at once. Once I made it to the corner I looked around and saw him across the street. I took a deep breath and approached the blonde. "Robert?" I asked and he turned to me, a small smile appearing on his face. "H-hi." He said, holding out his hand. I think his nerves were worse than mine, so I just grabbed his hand and pulled him into a hug. "Hi." I said before we pulled away. "You look... beautiful." He said and a blush crept up my neck. "Thank you. You look very handsome." He had on a blue button up and khakis. "I really like your glasses." I said and he shook his head. "No one like BCG's." He said and I giggled, raising a brow. "BCG's?" I asked and he sighed. "I'm a Weapon's System Officer in the Navy and I have to wear these when we fly. They're so ugly we refer to them as birth control goggles. Tends to repel women." He said and I laughed.

"Well I think they suit you, and you still look very handsome with your BCG's." I said and he smiled, holding out his elbow for me to take. I wrapped my hand around his bicep, feeling the thick muscle hidden beneath his sleeve. "I thought we could get breakfast, then go and shop around a little." I smiled and nodded. "Sure. Sounds fun." We sat down for breakfast and I couldn't choose between waffles or pancakes, so Robert ordered waffles and I ordered pancakes before we split them in half and had both. "This was a wonderful idea." I said when I finished my food. "Like I said, why pick when you can have both?" He asked and I giggled. After breakfast he once again offered me his elbow as we walked. We walked around and he bought some vegetables and I found a candle that smelled heavenly. I stopped, looking at a stand with a bunch of preserves on it, and I was so focused I didn't realize Robert had stepped away.

I turned and was surprised to see a bouquet of purple tulips in front of me. "Oh, Robby!" I gasped. "They're beautiful." I said, taking the bouquet from him. I looked up to see him looking at me. "What?" I asked. "You called me Robby." He said and another blush crept onto my cheeks. "I'm sorry." I said and he shook his head. "No, I liked it. No ones ever called me Robby before." He said and I smiled at him, taking his arm one more time. "Well I'm glad I'm the first." I said as we walked up the street. We had been to every booth here and there was nothing else to do. "I know dates usually end after a few hours." He said, looking down at me. "But I really, really don't want this date to end." He said and I nodded in agreement. "Me either." I said and he smiled at me, his eyes so much brighter than they were and his smile lit up his face. "So, with that being said. Would you want to come back to my place? Cook dinner with me?" He asked and I couldn't help but smile and nod. "I'd love too, Robby." I said before taking his arm again.

Just realized this could be a prequel to the ask I did earlier!

Celebrate 500 followers with me! Send me an ask with an aviator and an idea and I'll write it! 🎉

[iamvegorott]

Meeting A Magical Man Pt. 66

Part 1: Link Prev: Link Next: Link

Robbie braced himself before slamming his shoulder into the door, flinging it open and off its hinges. He dove out of the way as Marvin and Phantom took his place. The two magic users held their hands out, causing all of the guns in the room to start glowing with either a bright green or a dark red, and when Marvin and Phantom twisted their wrists, the weapons snapped, the sound echoing in the room and nearly sounding like weak fireworks. Marvin and Phantom then threw their arms apart, making the destroyed guns fly and smack into most of the men, distracting them enough to make them not think to head up and get to Actor and the others. 

“Incoming!” Jackie shouted as he barged into the building, slamming himself into two of the men and tackling them to the ground. 

“I love that man,” Phantom said with a proud laugh. 

Chase had followed right behind Jackie, grabbing one of the destroyed guns, a long rifle of sorts, and held the muzzle of it before swinging it like a bat and smacking the other end of it across one of the man’s faces. 

“And I love that man.” Marvin had his own proud laugh. Before he finished his laugh, he and Phantom were suddenly being lifted in the air by Robbie, both sitting on his shoulders as he kicked one of the men away who was charging at them. 

“Am I loved, too?” Robbie asked as he looked up at them.” 

“Of course, darling.” Marvin giggled, patting the top of Robbie’s head. “You are my favorite nephew.” 

“Nice!” Robbie chuckled. He sat the two back down before taking off and knocking down three other men. 

“Let’s go,” Phantom said with an almost evil grin and flicked his wrists, casting a spell to harden his hands and started throwing punches. 

“Well, damn.” Marvin chuckled to himself before cracking his neck and joining in the fight. 

Chase scrambled around the large room, knocking men away and trying to see what he could figure out. Every building had a layout that should make sense, regardless of any type of security system or add-in. They all had the same frame. Chase fumbled over a man tossed by Robbie, landing and finding himself lying in front of one of the discarded guns, and noticed where the break had occurred. Only the gun’s handle had been damaged, meaning the weapon could still be used as intended. It would be difficult and possibly hurt Chase’s hand, even break a finger, but it would give him a better advantage. He knew Marvin didn’t like guns, but he also knew if Chase felt it necessary to stay safe, he’d be okay. Chase checked how many bullets there were. 

Two. 

He only had two to work worth. 

What kind of armed guard only had two bullets? 

Chase was going to need to be smart about using these. 

“Back off!” Chase warmed the several men that neared him, aiming the gun toward them. It was an awkward grip, but they didn’t need to know how awkward it felt. The men hesitated, holding their hands out without much thought.

The sooner we get upstairs, the better.

Chase heard Marvin’s voice echo in his head, the last thing he said before they broke into the building. He had a clear path. Those near him were distracted by the gun he held, and the others were too busy with his friends. Keeping the gun pointed at the men, Chase slowly made his way to the stairs. He took even slower steps up he went up them backward. Once he got halfway there, he glanced over his shoulder and noticed an electrical pad next to the door. It was locked, and with how that pad looked. It was likely a fingerprint scanner based on the size. He’d need help getting through that, be it magic or just breaking whatever connection the scanner had. Chase looked to his friends; Robbie had his back to him, Marvin and Phantom were using magic to throw and knock out several men, and he tensed up when he saw Jackie. He was fending for himself very well but was unaware of the man creeping up behind him, holding a knife and about to stab him. 

Chase didn’t have long. 

He lifted the gun, aimed, and braced himself for pain.

Inhale. Exhale.

Bang!

The man screamed in pain at having a bullet go through his hand, and Chase winced at the gun’s recoil pinching his fingers. 

“The door’s got a scanner lock!” Chase called over the chaos. “We need to break it!” 

Jackie was left alone as the other men panicked at the gunfire, and he looked around the room. He saw a metal box on the wall and assumed it had the power fuses inside. It was an interesting place for one of those, but Jackie knew nothing about making buildings. He did know he wouldn’t be able to make it to that side of the room easily and quickly with how men were still up. An answer came to mind as Robbie paused his rampage for a second and stood next to him.

“Yeet me!” Jackie said, pointing toward the box.

“What?” Robbie blinked in shock.

“Yeet me to the box so I can help Chase.” Jackie pointed with a finger with both hands now. 

“Okay?” Robbie scooped Jackie up, took a step, and threw the man across the room. Jackie landed with a few stumbling steps and caught himself with his hands on the wall. 

“Please be labeled, please be labeled,” Jackie mumbled before opening the metal box and sighing in relief at the overly detailed labels inside the box’s door. It told him exactly which one to mess with to break the scanner. 

It was easy.

Too easy.

But Jackie didn’t think much of it and grabbed the fuses for the scanner, yanking them out. Nothing happened at first as he looked to Chase and gave him a thumbs-up, but then there was sparking from the box. Not even having time to swear, Jackie got a face full of a projectile he couldn’t tell what they were, and he fell to his back. 

“Jackie!” Phantom cried out. 

Chase had rushed to the door and opened it at the same time as Jackie getting hit. His eyes widened at seeing the fireball that was Mad, and before he could react beyond that, one of the men grabbed him and pulled him away from the door. The man wrapped an arm around Chase’s neck while using his other hand to stab him in the side three times. 

“Chase!” Marvin’s voice cracked from how loud his scream was, and the world went gray around him as he watched Chase fall to the ground. 

No.

No.

NO!

NO!

----------

Tags: @brokentimewatch @bookwormscififan @d-structive @rainymae523 @ashtonisvibing

[ophanim-vesper]

While I know everyone's made a billion posts on their thoughts on Barbie, I thought I'd throw mine into the mix and say what I wanna say about the movie.

First things first, we all agree the Mattel board people are dolls, right? They're all just dolls, no further explanation? Ok good.

Second, I wanted to take a moment to appreciate how... Barbie Margot Robbie was in this movie. She was perfectly Barbie in every way. Every time I saw her on screen I felt a sense of comfort. She was the Barbie. The Barbie I looked up to as a child. The Barbie I got as a school bag and used everyday up until 6th grade. The Barbie I saw in the animated movies that I watched on screen, wishing I was a mermaid, a fairy or a princess. The Barbie who reminded me of the times when liking pink and playing with dolls was okay. The Barbie that made me feel proud, happy and safe to be born a girl.

At the same time, I also felt fear and anxiety for her, especially when she was in the real world. Everything about her character was shattered in an instant. When she found out women weren't as respected and successful as in her world. When she was viewed as an object and sexualized, harassed and diminished by every man she came across. When she found out girls hate her and blame her for pushing feminism back several years and further stereotyping women in a negative light.

It was actually heartbreaking seeing a hero of mine be so broken down by everything around her. And yet, in the face of so much adversity, she still found light at the end of the tunnel. A glimmer of hope for humanity and how being human has its ups and downs, it has its tears and laughter, and overall, it is beautiful.

Even when she was thrusted into the cold, heartless reality that was the Real World, she still wanted to be human and live in it. Not only to help change it, but to also experience it. She understands that life is complicated, but through it all, it is worthwhile. Perhaps, the more she lives and understands humans today, the more Barbie (the brand itself) could change for the betterment of both sides.

Another feeling I felt towards her was jealousy. Actually its more of a mix of jealousy and admiration. Barbie is the epitome of the pink girly style. As a kid, I did love that style, but overtime I began to resent it.

I resented it because of what people said it represented: a dumb, selfish bimbo that is the perfect stereotype of a Woman™ [derogatory]. I didn't want to be perceived that way, as I'm sure many did, so I did the only thing I could: renounce my femininity.

I thought this was the right thing to do. I thought I was breaking the status quo and pushing forward the new face of feminism. I wasn't though, if anything I was feeding into it. In the end, the whole: 'Pick Me/Not Like Other Girls' shtick is the complete opposite of what its thought to be: it seeks the attention of men and conforms into what they approve in a woman.

Now, I can't help but see anyone who is so confident in their girly, pink, feminine style and feel jealous. I wish I had never resented that side of me. In truth, I never hated pink, I never hated wearing dresses and I never hated being feminine. I was just afraid of how others would perceive me if I continued being girly. I wish I could be like those people and always be true to myself, instead of conforming to an ideal that would theoretically protect me from judgmental eyes.

I also want to talk about Sasha, the daughter. I can't help but see much of myself in her. Especially in the montage where she goes from loving Barbie and having a deep relationship with her mother, to despising it and becoming cruel and harsh to protect herself from the equally harsh world around her.

I was that girl who renounced the color pink and tried to be tough. I was the girl who looked down on other girls to be different. I tried to seek attention from my male peers unaware that I was not only not breaking the system but also feeding into it.

I absolutely love pink now and wish I could take back the days where I played with my dollhouses and had pool parties with my toys. But I can't do that anymore. The best I can do is stand still and watch other daughters see how far they've come.

[iguana-braces]

Honeybee (Bob x Reader)

From this request from this prompt list: “My lipgloss is all over your lips.” -- Masterlist

Description: High school reunions suck if you hated high school. But sometimes it’s nice to reconnect with old friends. Cynicism defeated by the power of fluff!

Warnings: mentions of slut shaming, brief swearing, kissing (how scandalous), the vaguest mentions of sex, judgmental small town vibes

Word Count: 2k

Note: This got way deeper than I expected and I might’ve cried writing it, I just think Bob would be such a great person to get deep with >.< Also, the title is taken from “Honeybee” by The Head and The Heart which was on repeat for this

It felt like the first day of school all over again. Everyone else seemed to coalesce together into their predetermined cliques and you were left on the fringes. You overheard people talking about how they had gotten married and divorced, had small armies of children, traveled the world, had lunches with celebrities and politicians. Of course, they were just show-boating, trying to present the best versions of themselves in the least amount of time. Still, it was intimidating to say the least.

“Were you– Did you transfer in senior year?”

“No, I think that was someone else.” I was here the entire time, Rebecca. We had a class together like, every semester. 

No, you couldn't let your cynicism ruin this. There was still a possibility that something good could come out of today. I’m an adult, with a job and debt and a cat, you reminded yourself. And I have friends outside of this place, real friends. These people don’t hold any power over me anymore. 

So, like a heat-seeking missile, you zeroed in on the other people who looked like they felt  just as awkward as you did, those who were engrossed in their phones or over-analyzing the limited options at the bar. Some of them you knew, some of them you wished you didn’t know. You committed to making small talk with a few of them, but it was stilted at best. 

Refilling your snack plate for the third time, you noticed a familiar pair of glasses across the table from you. Robby Floyd. You hadn’t thought about him in years, and certainly hadn’t expected him to show up here. You never had a class with him, but the two of you had worked at the same mom and pop restaurant after school. He was quiet, kind of awkward, but then again, you weren’t exactly the center of attention either. But you remembered those late nights closing together, sometimes he’d drive you home and sometimes you didn’t want to get out of the car.

He looked almost the same as he did in your fuzzy memories. Maybe more muscular, and somehow taller. But still, the same glasses, the same perfect hair, the same cute face…

“Hey, Robby. Robby Floyd." He looked up at this, blinking in surprise. "I don’t know if you remember me, but we worked together at–.”

“Y/N. Yeah, no, I remember.” Did his voice always sound like that? “Sorry, it's just that most people call me Bob now.”

"Bob…” You tested it out in your mind, but it felt so middle-aged. “Is that what you want me to call you?" 

"No, that's fine, Robby's fine. I just… haven’t heard it in a while."

"So what have you been up to lately?”

He thought for a second, then settled on, “Just… stuff.”

“Well, that’s thrilling to hear.”

“No, I know, it’s just… not something I’m really supposed to talk about.” The two of you drifted to a table where a plethora of empty drink cups had been abandoned. Of course, even people pushing thirty couldn’t be expected to clean up after themselves. 

“So you’re an assassin now?"

“No, I'm a weapon systems officer. In the Navy.”

Right, you vaguely remembered something about him enlisting after graduation. But the words weapons and Robby didn’t seem to fit in the same sentence. “So what do you do, blow things up? Like Battleship?”

“Well, I do it from a plane.”

Your eyes widened. “...That’s insane. I certainly would not have expected that from you.”

He just smiled and nodded, switching the topic to, “What about you, what have you been doing?”

“I am drowning in student debt, just like the rest of us. Except for you, I suppose. But I’ve been working from home mostly. Lately, I’ve been really into jigsaw puzzles, and I finally watched the John Wick series. So, yeah, exciting stuff.”

“John Wick, those are really good movies, I’ve heard,” he said sincerely. “And puzzles, that’s great mental stimulation. Helps improve your visual-spatial reasoning and short-term memory.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s exactly why I do it,” you replied. “Definitely not just for the pretty picture at the end.”

That got a laugh from him, and you mirrored it. Just like old times. 

Unavoidably, your conversation eventually turned to your glory days as minimum wage servers. 

“You were like the only person I actually enjoyed working with there.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, cuz you were nice and you actually did your job, instead of leaving shit behind for everyone else to clean up. You were proactive. And the Sunday brunch ladies loved you." Adopting the affect of withered, old biddie, you said mockingly, "That Robby Floyd is such a nice young man. If only my granddaughter wasn’t such a degenerate whore, maybe they could make a nice family.“

He grimaced. “They didn’t really say that, did they?”

“No, but the sentiment was there in their underlying tone. I just read between the lines." 

“Well, you were really good at your job too,” Robby insisted. 

“I wasn’t, but thank you for lying.”

“I’m not lying.”

Now it was your turn to grimace. “Really? I feel like I was kind of a mess back then.”

At this, Robby only shrugged. “Weren’t we all? I mean, we were kids.”

“Yeah, I don’t remember seeing you crying in the Walmart parking lot at 11pm on a Wednesday.”

“That’s because I went to the nature reserve to cry. No one’s there after dark, so...” You couldn't tell if he was telling the truth or just saying that to make you feel better, but that’s when you realized what was truly different about him. He seemed more confident, more at ease, more candid, as opposed to his former existence as an overly polite wallflower. 

“I see. That’s definitely a much more scenic location to cry at. You know, it’s insane how all that stupid stuff we were worried about back then just–”

“--Doesn’t mean anything now. Sorry.” 

“No, that’s exactly what I was going to say. It’s just gone, and now we have a million other things to worry about and in ten more years, those things will be gone too. And we’ll be sitting here, again, saying the same exact thing.”

“I hope not.”

“What?” 

“I mean, it’d be nice to see you again in ten years, but… not here. Anywhere but here again.”

“Because it sucks, right?” The fact that he said he wanted to see you again was overshadowed by the implication that someone else was willing to openly admit that high school reunions were awful ideas. 

But Robby didn’t respond, still too polite to be outrightly negative, but his silence was enough of a confirmation. 

“Why are we still here?” you asked. “It’s not like we have any reason to stay until the end of this thing. Do you wanna get out of here?”

“Yeah. Let’s go.”

It felt like the rush of skipping class, sneaking away in the middle of the day, leaving all the stress and awkwardness behind. And sneaking away with a boy– well, a man. Robby Floyd, to be specific. Lieutenant Robby Floyd! 

“My car’s over here.”

“So is mine.”

“...Rock, paper, scissors.” His paper beat your rock, so the two of you hopped into your rental car. Your hands were shaking as you buckled up and started the car. 

“Where are we even going?” you asked, laughing nervously. 

“Uh, I don’t know. Wherever you want to go.”

It was like Thelma and Louise, driving off the edge of the world. You felt like you could go anywhere, leave everything behind, with just the open road ahead. But no, you had to be normal about this. 

Deciding to lean into the nostalgia trip initiated by the reunion, you decided to stop by the restaurant you previously worked at. Unfortunately, it had been replaced by a franchise. The nature reserve was still standing though, so the two of you found the bench with the least amount of bird droppings on it and picked at fries from the drive-thru. 

It was quite scenic there. Birds of various colors perched on strands of tall grass in the marsh, trading mating calls back and forth. It wasn’t a bad place to have a breakdown, and you wondered if perhaps you should’ve spent more time there in your youth. Thinking about it, there were a lot of things you should’ve done in your youth, but didn’t for some stupid reason or another. 

“If you did go back in time, back to senior year, would you do anything different in your life?” you asked, breaking the easy silence between you. 

“Like, if I went back in time to being eighteen, but I still know everything I know now? Or if I went back in time to meet my younger self, and I was giving them advice?”

“Either, I guess.”

Robby thought for a moment, then started, “...Well, there’s a lot. If you think about all the social and political and economic events that have occured in the past decade, there’s so many things you could better prepare yourself for. I mean, I’d feel morally responsible to–”

“Okay, wait wait wait,” you interrupted. “I get what you’re saying, but that’s not what I meant. Let’s pretend that you did warn yourself about the pandemic and cryptocurrency and whatever, but what in your personal life would you change at that moment? Ten years ago today, the summer after senior year.”

You could see he was still overthinking this question, and you almost regretted asking it. But as you stared out at the landscape that had seen so many lifetimes, births and deaths and everything all over again, you surprised yourself by speaking again. 

“I think I would tell my younger self about today.” You hadn’t really thought about your answer, hoping Robby’s would steer the conversation in the direction you wanted. But once you started talking, the words spilled forth like a broken dam. “I would tell myself that coming to this reunion would make me feel just as shitty now as I felt back then and I’d have nothing to do with it. But I’d tell myself to go to work that night and talk to Robby Floyd. And to keep talking to him. And to not waste ten years before realizing how much I like spending time with you.”

“.... I think I might say the same thing.”

“Seriously?”

“I would.”

Part of your mind was already racing over the can of worms you’d just opened, the pandora’s box of what the fuck happens now. You have a job, an apartment, he flies planes to god-knows-where, how is this going to work– But the rest of you, every fiber of your being knew exactly what would happen next. 

You’d smile. A smile that felt like a weight being taken off your shoulders, a sigh of relief that echoed back through the ages.  

And he’d smile too. And that just made you smile harder. 

And you’d kiss him. He’d taste like french fries and ginger ale. 

And you’d feel like a teenager again, but in a good way this time.

When you finally pulled away, you couldn’t help but burst into laughter.

“What?” Robby asked, obviously confused.

“Well, the Sunday brunch ladies are not gonna be happy about this.”

“What do you mean?”

“My lipgloss is all over your lips,” you said, showing him his reflection in your phone and grabbing a napkin. “That’s certified whore behavior right there.”

He laughed, but shook his head and shrugged. “I don’t care.” 

You gasped exaggeratedly. “Hear that, world? Let it be known that Robby Floyd is an absolute whore. He’s kissing before marriage!”

“I think I’ve done worse things than that.”

Now your surprise was real. He blushed and clammed up, but you knew one day you’d get the full story. His full story, as you made up for all your lost time. 

[sensei-venus]

Omg! Please! As soon as Lawrence!Reader is strapped down on the car, Robby and Miguel think they're in the clear, but then she starts babbling on about how God knows what!

Bonus points if it's shit neither of them want to hear nor should know about lol

- and anxious gemini bound to get her wisdom teeth out

(Unedited) (Blood,Spit, Lawrence!Reader donky-konging Miguel and Robby in the dentist parking lot because she can, Miguel regrets trying to help, Robby wants to escape his violent sister for once.) ( @gemini-sensei )

“I hate you the mostttt- you and your fucking lush baby curls.” Reader said though a full mouth of cotton balls.

Her hands where stuck under her ass in the seat in hopes of keeping them to herself for the ride. Robby actually grimaced as he watched his sister from the front seat. It took over twenty minutes to even get her into the van and another ten to actually get her strapped in. The whole time she tried to drag them into the van and slam them against the hard plastic of the walls. She was able to smash Robby’s face into a window and then body slam Miguel into one of the back seats, knocking the air out of him.

Getting the Lawrence girl into a car after having her wisdom teeth removed seemed to be almost impossible.

Even with the help of Miguel it was still a challenge.

Miguel being called to help was a long shot. Bring Hawk would have been a nightmare, Demetri would probably never shut up, and Sam would be to worried. None of them would have been able to help try and corner the girl. She was still very loopy from the mass amount of drugs the dentist pumped into her. That did nothing to stop her from having her usual violent outbursts. If anything it only made her more unpredictable. Honestly it was scaring the hell out of Robby. And she was his sister at that.

Miguel was the only choice he really had.

Robby tried his best to ignore the gross red blood tinted drool that threatened to escape her lip. She looked at him but he couldn’t tell if she was looking at him or though him.

“Don’t you fucking dare-“ was all he was able to get out before Reader blew a fat bloody spit bubble his way. Miguel sat in the passenger seat in pure disgust. Watching the girl blow blood at them out of spite was one of the grossest things he had ever seen. He could handle a little bit of blood, but this was just nasty.

“You let them fucking steal my teeth you assholes. I’m going to steal your teeth.” She slurred before looking out the window. Her eyes glazed over , still loopy from the laughing gas and pain meds the dentist had given her. All of them jay sat in silence. The only sound was the ac going in the car.

Miguel slumped in the seat, slinging down in a heap. His eyes slowly moved to look over at Robby “Who thought this was a good idea? Letting you of all people take her home after getting her wisdom teeth take out.” Robby basically growls out “You already know who. Johnny didn’t want to do it because he didn’t want to hear her whining after the meds slowly started to seep out of her system!” Miguel slowly turned his head. His eyes locking with the dirty blonde.

His eye twitched a little in annoyance “Have you meet your sister? She’s a fucking hardass who likes picking fights. You thought she was going to be quiet after they got her high off her ass on pain killers?? Her teeth are gone dude. You think she’s happy.” Reader kicked at the back of Robby’s seat, soon turning to Miguel’s to do the same thing.

“Pay attention to me!!!” Reader whined from the back seat. Her hands still stuck under her butt as she looked at the two boys. Soon her eyes started to well up with tears. Both boys looked at each other for a split second. That was all it took before Reader was crying in the back seat, fat tears rolling down her chubby cheeks and red spit spilling down her chin. It dripped onto her thick thighs and stained her pants. Her chest hiccups with sobs as the minutes tick by.

Both guys freeze up as the violent and shit talking girl they know crys. Not even Robby can remember the last time he witnessed his sister cry over something. Maybe when they where kids as she fell at the skate park. Scraping her knee so bad it scared over.

Miguel wanted to hide away and get as far as possible. Reader crying was not on his too do list what so ever. Her crying had to be some kind of bad sign of some kind. He looked to Robby for some kind of plan.

“Hey it’s ok, why don’t we go get some ice cream? You always like ice cream, and it might make you feel a little better.” Robby says in hopes of calming her down.

“What if I call Tory and ask her if she wants to come over and play some video games with you? You love it when Tory comes over to hang out. I bet she would love to come over today.” Miguel thinks on his feet.

Reader slowly starts to calm down. Her heavy sobs start to slow but her lips still tremble. Eyes puffy and hot form the salty tears. Cheeks hot and flustered. Robby quickly grabs a hand full of napkins from the glove box. With them in hand he reaches back and gently wipes the mix of drool and bloody spit from his sisters face. She doesn’t do much and just lets him.

“Ok…” she says in a defeated tone of voice. Big eyes find their way to her brothers.

“Can Tory come for ice cream too?? Please??” She whimpers as she falls back into her seat. Slumping back and finally showing some sign of defeat.

In a instant relief fills Miguel and Robby.

Thank fucking god for Tory and ice cream.

[siempre-bucky]

Hello 🧡 may i make a request for TOP GUN BLURB NIGHT? Bob with the prompt (going to an amusement park, sharing a kiss in the alley way)

Please and thank you!

Bob Floyd x Reader

wc: 824

a/n: thank you for requesting my dear! I hope you like it!!

At first, you weren’t sure what a first date with Bob would’ve been like. You were expecting something quiet like a trip to walk along the sandy beach or a simple dinner and movie where he didn’t have to talk. You didn’t expect a carnival for your first date with the shy wso, and you certainly didn’t expect to learn so much about him in one night. 

You first learned that he was a gentleman, everything a young man should be. He arrived on time with flowers in hand, Bob dressed in his casual clothes alone made you want to invite him inside and skip the event altogether. He never let you open your door, playfully smacking your hand once or twice when you tried out of habit. Your wallet? Forget about it. Bob respectfully told you to put it away. 

“Bob it’s just lemonade, I got it,” you laughed, holding up your wallet. 

He shook his head and pouted his lips, “No, ma’am. Can’t let you do that,” he smirked. Heat rose to your cheeks, but you lowered your wallet and snatched the cash he held between his fingers, murmuring that you’d buy him something before the night was over. 

You then learned he was a little league champion pitcher and that he didn’t respond to the game booth worker's taunts kindly. “They’re assholes, Robby, don’t buy into that,” you told him, holding onto his arm. The dark blond shook his head and walked over, the baseball fitting nicely in his hand. The sight of it made you weak in the knees, you suddenly had a thing for baseball players. 

It was so very hot watching him adjust his glasses and seeing how his arm muscles flexed as he threw the ball. “For you,” he hummed as he held out a small brown bear from the dumbfounded worker to you. You took it gladly in one hand and held his hand with the other. 

“Did you play a lot as a kid?” you asked as you walked, your eyes scanning the happy crowd. 

Bob nodded as his thumb swiped along your hand for comfort, “Y-yeah, played all the way through high school. Some of my wso friends and I get together and play when we’re stateside,” he admitted shyly, obviously, he didn’t enjoy talking about himself, but you loved when he did.  

He talked your ear off, swapping stories as you stood in line for rides and for food. He told you of his childhood and you shared about the town you grew up in. You learned that he had a weak stomach for food smells, one whiff of a turkey leg stand and it cut him off mid-story. You held him up and guided him out of the area, placing him on a lone bench.

“Are you ok?” you asked, searching his face for discomfort. 

“I-I’m ok,” he grumbled while he held his stomach, “That truck just smelled really bad—jus’ got a little nauseous,” he tried to laugh it off. You smiled and rubbed his back before telling him you were going to buy him some water. For once, he didn’t protest which made you smile, happy that you could do something for him.  

You sat there for a while, talking and watching the people pass you. His knee bumped into yours and you didn’t flinch away, his touches were always soft. You assumed physical touch was his love language. His hand always seemed to find yours when in a crowd, he thought himself to be daring by putting his hand on your knee. “Are you feeling better?” You asked. Bob blushed and nodded sheepishly. 

“Much better, I’m sorry we had to take a break.” 

You giggled and took his hand, pulling him up with you. 

He was a boy scout, he told you in line for the Gravitron. “We were earning our camping badge and one of the other kids swore he was a UFO in the sky,” he blurted out, his blue eyes watching the machine spin rapidly. 

“A baseball player, a boy scout, and a weapons systems officer—do you have any more surprises for me, Floyd?” you giggled, nudging him with your elbow. Bob jokingly covered his stomach and let out the prettiest laugh you’d ever heard. 

Bob did in fact have one more surprise up his sleeve: he was the best kisser in the world. The way Bob had you pinned up against the wall with his hands digging into your hips and a knee between your legs had you melting. The alley was dark enough so you wouldn’t be seen but you could still see the bright fluorescent lights on his features. “Robby,” you whined as he pulled back, dragging your lower lip between his teeth. 

“Is this ok?” he asked, his voice low and husky near your lips. 

You nodded eagerly and cupped his face, “Don’t stop,” you whispered before crashing his lips back into yours.

[hummingbird-of-light]

Round 2: Twelfth story for @badthingshappenbingo ~

Title: My Dearest Robbie

Fandom: Star Trek (AOS)

Character(s): Robert "Robbie" Scott, Chris Scott, Original Alien Character(s)

Relationship(s): Robert "Robbie" Scott & Chris Scott

Rating: T

Words: 1,186

Prompt: I Have Your Loved One

Warnings: Mild Violence, Kidnapping, Blackmailing

(You can also find this story on AO3)

~ My Dearest Robbie ~

When Robert "Robbie" Scott once again read the message he had recieved a day ago, he still didn't know what to do. His mind was empty as he stared at the letters presenting themselves to him on his comm.

And even though he read the words over and over, he couldn't get a hold on the actual meaning behind them.

'We have your son. Do what we ask of you and he won't come to any harm.'

Robbie had no idea who these people were. Hell, he didn't even know why they had chosen him to be their puppet!

All he knew was that if he actually did what they wanted, he'd be one of the Federation's most wanted criminals. He'd betray every ideal the Federation stood for.

But looking at the picture of his injured and unconcious son Chris - a wee lad, only eighteen years old - the Scotsman knew that he didn't have much of a choice.

If he wanted him to survive, he'd have to do as these persons told him. He'd have to hack into Starfleet's systems from the inside and cause a huge malfunction that would allow for anyone to steal data.

It was hard. But not impossible for someone like Robbie. Like his girlfriend Leah always said, he was a mastermind. He could do basically anything.

And those persons blackmailing him seemed to know about that fact too. They knew what he was capable of. They knew who he was. And, most importantly, they knew that he'd do anything to protect his son.

There was no way out of this dilemma.

Robbie buried his face in his hands, hopeless and desperate. The criminals had been pretty clear about what would happen if he tried to contact Starfleet or the police and his heart ached at the thought of it.

He couldn't endanger his son. He had to save him.

And in order to do that, Robbie had to break the law and risk the end of the civilization they all knew. For if the wrong people got their hands on secured information, then the whole universe would turn upside down.

Robbie startled when his comm suddenly rang. He didn't know the number, yet still he answered the call.

"H-hello?" He couldn't keep his voice from trembling, fearing to hear the kidnappers of Chris talking. But it wasn't them. It was his son himself.

("D-Dad?")

"Chris! Chris, are ye alright? What did they do to ye?"

("P-please, ye h-have to do what they want. They s-said that they'll kill me if ye don't, dad. P-please, I don't wanna die!")

It broke Robbie's heart to hear his son's fearful voice. It was quite obvious that he was crying.

"I'll get ye out of there, laddie. Ye'll be okay. Just-"

("Hello, Mr. Scott.)

Robbie froze when he heard a different voice speaking. It was a deep baritone. The voice sounded smooth and cold.

"Who are ye? Why are ye doing this? What-"

("You're asking too many questions, Mr. Scott. And you're wasting time. Precious time you should use to get your work done and save your son.")

Robbie tried his best to analyze the voice and the words. A strange accent. Maybe even a translator was being used to translate the words into Federation standard. Okay. That was important. He needed to gather helpful information on the kidnappers.

"L-listen, what ye ask of me is crazy! I cannae just walk into the shipyard and hack into the system. I-I-I'd have to get into headquarters which isn't easy for a simple engineer who only designs and builds ships." He needed to get this man to see that what he and the rest of his people wanted wasn't possible.

("Then you better work on a solution for that problem. I would hate to harm such a bright young mind like your son is.")

In the background, Robbie could hear Chris muttering desperate pleads.

"D-don't hurt him!" Robbie yelled, actually surprised by how strong his voice sounded, so he quickly added a trembling, "Please."

("You have three days, Mr. Scott. Hack the system or your son will pay for your failure.")

The call was ended, leaving behind a sobbing Robbie in his room.

~

He buried his head in his hands. One day had passed and he still hadn't found a solution.

Robbie knew that it was impossible. He knew that he'd never get into Starfleet's headquarters. And even if he did, security would surely find and shoot him.

But he had to try it. Who was he if he didn't even attempt to save his son?

Determination mixed with fear as he got to his feet, grabbed his jacket and headed to the front door.

The Scotsman's eyes widened in disbelief at the sight that presented itself to him as soon as he stepped into the hallway.

Golden swirls of light. A human figure appearing inside his house. Robbie froze, fearing for the worst. But it was no intruder beaming himself into his house. No. It was...

"Chris!"

Robbie quickly ran over to the young man and wrapped his arms around him, pulling him close to his chest.

"D-Dad?" Chris whispered in confusion, holding on tightly to the figure of his father. Both Scotts apparently couldn't believe it.

As soon as Robbie let go of Chris, he cupped the boy's face in his hands and stared at him with wide eyes.

"H-how did ye get here?"

Chris only shook his head.

"I-I-I... there... there was this strange alien woman. She a-and her people boarded the shuttle I was held captive on. She s-said that ye are a friend of hers."

The relief he had felt just seconds ago, instantly vanished when Robbie heard his son's explanation. His heart skipped a beat.

No... it couldn't be.

"She g-gave me this for ye."

With trembling hands Chris pulled a wee piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to his father.

Robbie's heart was racing as he opened it slowly and read the lines written down on it.

'My dearest Robbie,

it has come to my ears that a small group of criminals decided to kidnap your adorable son. Don't ask how I know it. Let's just say that I have an eye on you. Even though I promised that you would never hear from me again, I couldn't just let these people blackmail my lifesaver. And, you see, it's actually a win-win-situation. I got to save my lifesaver's child and, in addition, caught new goods. I always wanted to try Romulan.

Stay safe, sweetheart! And give your beautiful girlfriend my best regards.'

Robbie swallowed hardly. It really was her. It really was...

"Nomira," he whispered.

"She instantly brought me here. She saved me, dad."

Once more Robbie pulled his sobbing son into his arms and ran one hand through his thick hair.

And even though he hated her, even though he was disgusted by Nomira and what she was doing in her restaurant, in that moment the Scotsman couldn't help but be grateful to her. For she had saved his loved one. His one and only son.

A/N: This is obviously a sequel to "Getting To Know Each Other" and "All That She Wants".

[thelunarbar]

Let Me Be Your Shelter - IceMav

Part two of what I have dubbed my Patience Series.

In which: Mav and Ice receive their first foster placement.

Word count: 2167

A/N: Part two! Yay! There will be a third part so be on the look out. There’s no real timeline for this other than sometime around 2013. And as usual no beta we die like Goose.

TW: mentions of death(minor characters), illusions to abuse(very subtle, but definitely there). Please let me know if you see other things I should tag.

-/-/-/-

They receive another call less than a month later. A boy this time. Robbie. He’s just eight and has been in the system for a little over two years. His father passed away three years before and his mother had been in and out of rehab since.

Mav spends the day setting up their second guest room as a boy’s bedroom. It comes much more naturally than the girl’s room did. They walls are a mossy green color, the bedspread is blue with little dinosaurs all over it. A three shelf book case is filled with easy chapter books and eyewitness books on various topics as well as a few comic books and graphic novels. Hopefully something will catch Robbie’s eye.

He finds Ice’s old globe in their closet and puts it on the desk as well as a lamp. And a large orb night light that projects stars onto the ceiling.

He wants to do more, but he knows it’ll have to wait until Robbie settles in a little. So he sighs and heads downstairs to bug Ice until Robbie shows up.

-/-/-/-

Ice gives up on trying to read after ten minutes of Mav pacing in the living room. He understands why Mav is so tense, but the pacing drives him crazy. Encouraging Mav to sit doesn’t help. So he suggest they make cookies instead and grins at the way Mav’s eyes light up.

“That’s a great idea!” Mav grabs his hand and drags him into the kitchen.

Ice is a firm believer in the clean-as-you-go policy. Mav quite obviously is not. The sink is full of dirty dishes and there’s flour on the floor when they’re done, but cookies are in the oven and Mav seems much more relaxed so Ice is willing to let it go this time. He presses a kiss to Mav’s temple.

“You’re doing the dishes.” He says as he heads for the living room. Mav pouts, but loves to the sink to start washing up.

-/-/-/-

Robbie is tall for his age with neatly combed brown hair and big eyes, which only look bigger behind his glasses. His clothes hang off his thin frame, but are too short in the sleeves and pant legs.

His social worker pushes him through the door, drops his duffel bag and hands a manila folder to Ice before leaving with the most insincere apology Mav has ever heard.

“Hey, Robbie. I’m Tom.” Ice introduces himself. Robbie stands a little straighter and offers Tom his hand.

“‘M Bob.” He says softly. “Not Robbie. Please.” Ice nods and shakes Bob’s hand.

“I’m Pete.” Pete shakes Bob’s hand as well and then grabs the handle of his duffel bag. “Wanna see your room?” Bob nods and follows the two of them upstairs.

About halfway up the stairs Bob stops, transfixed by the collection of framed photos on the wall. One in particular seems to have caught his eye, Ice and Mav in their dress uniforms on their wedding day. Ice and Mav share confused looks and Mav goes back down two steps to look at the photo with Bob.

“That was our wedding.” While they’re wedding was obviously a joyous occasion thinking about it still makes Mav a little sad because Bradley hadn’t been there. Had refused to come. Mav shakes those thoughts away.

Bob seems to come out of his stupor then. He turns to face Mav, eyes holding more sorrow than any child’s should. Mav wonders what’s running through his head.

“Sorry.” He mumbles.

“You’ve got nothing to be sorry about.” Mav assures him.

-/-/-/-

They leave Bob to get settled in his room, but after fifteen minutes Mav is antsy again so he piles the cookies on a plate and goes back upstairs.

Bob is perched on the edge of his bed reading one of the eyewitness books. He jumps when Mav knocks on the open door, but doesn’t say anything.

“Cookie?” Mav offers, holding out the plate. Bob smiles just a little and nods, taking a cookie from the plate. “I won’t tell if you take two.” Mav tells him, smiling. Bob grabs another cookie. Mav sets the plate on the nightstand and glances at the book Bob had been looking at. Flying Machine.

“You like planes?” Mav asks, nodding at the book. Bob nods. “I’m a pilot. And so is Tom.” Bob looks up at him, eyes wide.

“Really?” He asks, voice soft.

“Yup. In the navy.” Bob takes in this information as he begins nibbling at his second cookie. “Ever been in a plane?”

“A big one. Once.”

“Flying in the back just isn’t the same as being the pilot.” Mav picks up the book and flips it open. “Maybe someday I can take you up.” Mav smiles at the way Bob’s eyes light up.

-/-/-/-

Dinner is a quiet affair. Bob doesn’t talk, other than to thank them for the meal and disappears back to his room as soon as his plate is clean.

After dinner is finished and the dishes dealt with Ice and Mav settle in the living room. Ice in his overstuffed brown leather rocker/recliner and Mav on the edge of the couch hunched over the coffee table to work on a puzzle while Ice reads aloud from a copy of Pride and Prejudice that has clearly seen better days.

Puzzles aren’t Mav usual taste, but Ice likes to read aloud so Mav has to have something to do with his hands.

About eight Ice declares he’s tired and going to bed. Mav follows him to their room and flops back onto the bed while Ice goes about his nighttime routine.

“What’d you do with Bob’s file?” Mav asks, lifting his head to watch Ice strip off his shirt.

“It’s in my office.” Mav hums and pushes himself off the bed. He disappears for a moment to grab the file from Ice’s office.

Back in their room he drops down onto the end of the bed and flips the file open. He scans the first page, just general info about Bob, notes on his health, he has mild asthma and a very serious allergy to any and all free nuts. The second page is more personal information, including how his father died. Several things click into place at once.

“Shit.” Mav says softly, “Ice, his dad was in the navy.” Ice steps out of their en-suite bathroom with his toothbrush still hanging out of his mouth.

“Thit.” He mutters around his toothbrush. He steps back into the bathroom to spit and comes back without his toothbrush. He sits down beside Mav to look at the file.

“Died in an accident on a carrier three years ago. No specifics.” Mav tells him even though he knows Ice is reading it himself now.

“And his mom’s got a pill problem.” Ice sounds so forlorn, but Mav gets it. This poor kid just needs someone to be there consistently. Mav notes that there’s a phone number for the rehab center Bob’s mom is at and a note that says Bob calls after school Tuesdays and Thursday and Saturday early evening.

-/-/-/-/-

Mav wakes around two am. A common occurrence these days. Often woken by aches and pains and sometimes the occasional nightmare.

Tonight it’s pain. His back is twinging like crazy so he stands, being careful not to wake Ice, and does a couple stretches in the hopes of loosening his muscles. When that doesn’t work he shuffles out of the bedroom intent on making himself a cup of tea and sitting on the heating pad for awhile.

He stops when he sees the kitchen light on. Bob’s awake too. He shuffles down the stairs slowly, hand holding his lower back. Times like this he feels much older than he really is.

In the kitchen Bob, sans glasses, is on the counter on his knees, glass held in his hand. Mav can’t help his chuckle. Bob jumps and the glass slips from his fingers. It hits the ground, bounces twice and then cracks in two, top and bottom separating almost perfectly. Bob stares at Mav with wide eyes full of fear. He looks like he’s about to cry and Mav instantly feels bad.

“Hey, don’t worry about it, ok? It’s just a glass. I promise I’m not upset.” He smiles in what he hopes is a reassuring way and tries to bend to pick up the broken glass. He doesn’t even get halfway down before gasping in pain and slowly straightening back up. “Fuck.” He hisses softly, massaging at his lower back. “I’m too young to feel this old.” He tells Bob. Bob just blinks at him owlishly and shifts from kneeling to sitting before sliding off the counter. He collects the broken glass and throws it away.

“Sorry.” Bob finally mumbles around a yawn. “Jus’ need a drink.”

“You want some hot chocolate?” Mav offers. Bob hesitates for just a second before nodding.

“Please.” He mumbles before settling into one of the dining chairs. Mav grimaces at the pots and pans cupboard for a second before turning to look at Bob.

“Can you grab a pot for me? Bending’s a bit of a problem right now.” Bob nods and comes to grab a pot. He hands it to Mav and then takes his seat at the table again. Mav hums to himself as he pulls cocoa powder and sugar from the cabinet. When all the ingredients are combined in the pot and coming to a boil Mav puts the kettle on for his tea.

When the cocoa is done Mav pours it into a mug and sets the mug in front of Bob. He then pours the bowling water over his tea bag.

“I’m gonna go sit in the living room, you’re welcome to join me.” Mav gives Bob another smile before walking out of the kitchen, hand still massaging his aching back. He settles on the couch with a groan, flicks on the table lamp, and shoves the heating pad behind him before turning it on.

His heating pad is just starting to feel warm when Bob joins him. He kneels beside the coffee table and sets his mug down.

“Thank you.” He says softly. Mav nods and takes a sip of his tea. By the time he finishes cocoa Bob is yawning and rubbing his eyes. “Miss my mama.” He murmurs. Mav’s heart clenches and he doesn’t know what to say. Bob looks up at him with glassy eyes.

“I’m sorry, kiddo. I promise we’ll call her tomorrow afternoon.” Is the best he can up with. Unexpectedly Bob begins to sob. Mav sets his mug down and leans forward with a soft groan. “C’mere buddy.” He gestures for Bob to come to him. Still crying Bob gets to his feet and rounds the coffee table. He flinches a little when Mav reaches out, but doesn’t hesitate to sink to the hug Mav pulls him into. He sobs Mav’s shoulder, sinking into him. Mav rubs his back. “I know it’s hard.”

“Jus’ wanna go home.” Bob cries and Mav holds him a little tighter. He can feel a wet spot growing on his shoulder, but he doesn’t care. “Jus’ want Mama.” Bob fists Mav’s shirt in both hands.

They shift eventually so that Bob is sitting in Mav’s lap allowing Mav to relax against his heating pad again. They stay like that until Bob cries himself to sleep, still gripping Mav’s shirt in both hands. Mav continues rubbing circles on Bob’s back while sipping at his tepid tea.

Eventually he nods off as well, Bob held securely in his arms, head at an angle sure to give him a crick in his neck.

And that’s how Ice finds them four hours later.

-/-/-/-

That afternoon Bob calls his mom from the landline and the smile that breaks across his face when she answers warms Mav’s heart.

“Hi, Mama!” Bob says. There’s a beat of silence while his mom replies and then, “mmhm. I’m with Tom and Pete now. They’re takin’ good care of me. Uh-huh. I promise. I know.” He’s quiet for several seconds. “Miss you, Mama.” He says softly, eyes glassy with unshed tears. “When are you comin’ to get me so we can go home?” Whatever she says makes the first tears fall and Mav wants nothing more than to pull Bob into his arms again. “I understand. Ok. Uh-huh. I love you too, Mama.” And then he hands the phone back to Mav.

“D’you wanna hug?” Mav offers, holding his arm out. Bob accepts the invitation and starts to cry. It only lasts a minute though and then he’s wiping tears off his face and asking if he can go to his room which of course Mav allows him to do.

-/-/-/-

The rest of the afternoon is mostly quiet. Bob stays in his room and Mav does housework. And then Bradley shows up, making what was already an emotionally draining day even worse.

-/-/-/-

Tag list! Let me know if you’d to be added so you know when I post more parts.

@pollyna