#it’s so fun for no reason i manage this museum so fucking well. hell yeah

[ceramicbird]

the belobog history and culture museum event is so funny because i don’t want to do anything else. why would i want to do simulated universe or calyxes or whatever when i can play Museum Management Simulator

[miekasa]

future nostalgia (eren jaeger)

↯ pairing: eren jaeger x (fem) reader, armin is absolutely putting in the work and deserves wingman of the year, mikasa is your well-reasoned, protective friend how you like them apples

↯ genres and warnings: college au, fluff, everybody is a little bit of an idiot, armin and eren supremacy, i will find a way to make levi captain of something in any and every au

↯ word count: 1.5k

↯ summary: armin arlert is the greatest wingman a boy could ask for; unfortunately he’s also oblivious as hell and painfully single himself, but you know what, he’s doing his best (aka you and eren putting your friends through the mental wingman/wingwoman olympics).

↯ notes: i’m running out of gifs to use i’m going to have to learn how to use photoshop to make headers rip in peace to me, also this an old piece, reworked for eren again, sometimes i cheat off of myself it’s okay  

“Just come by the rink during practice,” Armin pleas, “I promise, he can put his hot-headedness to good use!”

“I don’t doubt that,” you chuckle, your voice booming through the speaker of his phone, “But I’m pretty sure the rink is closed to non-athletes or team members, Armin.”

“But I can get you access! Manager’s privileges!” Armin boasts.

“While I appreciate the reminder about how single you think I am—and, I do, truly, Armin, from the bottom of my heart, thank you—you don’t have to try and set me up with one of your hockey jockeys.”

“They’re not jockeys!” Armin protests.

“Reiner Braun is most definitely a jockey.”

Armin slumps down a bit. Okay, most of them are good people. Most of the time. Look, Reiner is the exception, not the norm, but even he could be analytical and composed when he needed to be. 

“I’m going to tell him you said that,” Armin threatens.

“Fine, then I’ll tell him that you almost leaked his nudes to the entire girls volleyball team freshman year.”

“You play dirty,” Armin pouts, face growing red at the memory. (In his defense, it was freshman year, pretty much the first time in his life he’d had alcohol unsupervised, and in his drunken haze he thought he might have been doing Reiner a favor; he was pining over Christa pretty hard). “Which is exactly why you’ll love Eren!”

“Eren, still?” you question, trying to hide the amusement in your tone. “What’s the infatuation with me and Eren? You know, if I’m being honest, Jean is more my type, or even the captain—what’s his name again?”

“You mean Levi?” Armin questions, incredulous, “He’s the exact opposite of your type, don’t lie to me!”

“He’s still hot.”

“Is he really?” Mikasa’s voice questions doubtfully; and you can practically feel her rolling her eyes from across the receiver, “You can do better than him, (Y/N).”

“Wait, am I on speaker?” you ask.

“Maybe, doesn’t matter,” Armin hums, brushing away the topic, “Like I was saying, Eren is great, and you’re great, so you’d be great together! Plus, he’s kind of loaded, and very generous. Not that you’re shallow or anything, but I’m just saying, he’d take you on nice dates.”

“You’re kind of loaded and you don’t take me on nice dates.”

“Because we’re not dating.”

“You could take me on a friend date,” you muse, “Don’t be stingy, Armin.”

“She has a point,” Mikasa quips, “You always go to the fancy museums and don’t invite us.”

“Because the last time I did, you fell asleep! In the middle of the coral reef exhibit!” Armin whines.

“Because it was boring as fuck,” Mikasa deadpans, prompting you to chuckle.

“I have to agree. I’m afraid if you and Eren have the same taste in dates, it will never work out.”

“We don’t!” Armin insists, “Look, Eren is exactly your type, (Y/N), I’m telling you! He’s cute, athletic, but not bulky, and little clumsy, but it can be charming! Plus he loves puppies, cares about the environment, believes the healthcare system is corrupt, and hates most branches of law enforcement! What more could you want!”

“Armin,” you pause, holding back your laughter, “Maybe you should set yourself up with Eren if you think he’s that great.”

Armin chokes on the other end of the line, and your chuckles stumble out; you can imagine the blonde growing red and increasingly embarrassed with every passing second.

Mikasa hums. “Armin and Eren do have good chemistry—”

“Hello?! I don’t want to date Eren!”

“—but, I’ll vouch for Eren on this, too,” Mikasa continues, “I think you two would be good together.”

You bite the inside of your cheek. You’d always known Mikasa was in support of setting you up with Eren too—albeit much more subtle than her blonde counterpart—but she’d never said it explicitly; showing her approval in contended nods and hums whenever Armin would scheme to get you and Eren together. It was somewhat reassuring to hear.

You’re about to continue teasing Armin about the subject, when you hear your apartment door unlock. You shift your phone to your other hand, as you hear the sound of keys clanging onto the hook near the door.

“Look, guys, I gotta go,” you tell him, “This is been fun, but maybe focus on working out your feelings before setting me up, yeah? I wouldn’t want to get in the way of such a beautiful friends to lovers story.”

“Will you—I want you to date Eren, not date him myself! There—be quiet, Mikasa—there are no feelings to work out, I don’t even like g—”

“Sounds, good Armin,” you chuckle, words hurried as you hear footsteps approaching you, “Try and get Levi’s number for me, would you? Rumor has it he’s loaded, too—old money rich and everything.”

“But Eren is perfect—” is all you hear before you end the call, a pair of arms wrapping around your waist from behind, just as your thumb presses against your screen.

Ruffled, brown hair falls onto your shoulders as a chin is propped up against your neck; a flurry feather light kisses greeting you soon after. You hum, reaching your hand back to curl into the brown tresses, a final, exaggerated kiss pressed into the juncture of your neck and shoulder.

“Why are you trying to get Captain’s number,” Eren questions, voice muffled as he nuzzles his nose behind your ear, “No offense, but I think you’d have to line up behind his hundred and one fangirls first, babe.”

You chuckle lightly, neck growing warm as Eren continues to bury himself into your skin. His is cold from the winter air, but you don’t know why he insists on inflicting it onto you, when you know he’ll be back to furnace temperatures within the next ten minutes.

“I’m just messing with Armin,” you answer, resting on of your hands over Eren’s at your waist and giving it a squeeze, “He’s still trying to set us up.”

Eren chuckles, undoing his hold on you to spin you around to face him, cold hands cupping either side of your face. You scrunch your nose at the frigid feeling, but Eren finds it cute, leaning forward to press a kiss to the tip of your nose as an apology.

“Well, Armin is nothing if not loyal,” Eren muses.

“He’s too good for you,” you jest, poking at Eren’s forehead playfully, “He’s putting in all this work to be a good wingman, and you’re slacking off.”

“Technically, he’s not doing any work, we’re already together.”

“Yeah, but he doesn’t know that.”

“And who’s fault is that?” Eren questions, using his hands to squish your cheeks together, “I wanted to tell him two months ago.”

“First of all, this secret thing was your idea to begin with,” you point out, “Which—oh, by the way, I told you Mikasa approves of you; she said we’d be cute together on the phone.”

“That doesn’t mean she still won’t castrate me if we ever break up,” Eren says, a shudder running down his spine at the thought of it.

It’s not that he wanted to keep your relationship a complete secret from all of your friends forever, but he was hesitant at first, unsure of how your two friend groups would merge and take the news. And, he knew how much Mikasa cared about you, and truthfully, the dark haired girl scared him a little.

But it was bordering on half a year now, and he was certain that somebody would catch on soon enough. That, or Eren would accidentally let it slip to the entire hockey team one of these days—he almost has on a handful of occasions, but you don’t need to know about all of that.

And while a part of him did like the privacy that came along with dating in secrecy, Eren was finding it increasingly difficult to pretend to not be in love with you whenever you two went out with your friends; and to not brag that he had a super hot, super supportive girlfriend to wear his jersey during games, and Jean didn’t.

“You have plans to break up with me, Jaeger?” you question, but there’s a playful lilt in your voice.

It makes Eren grin, using his grip on your face to pull you closer, words ghosting over your lips before he pulls you in for a kiss, “Not in a million years.”

[starlocked01]

The Black Coffee Widower

AO3 Link

Dukexiety Week Day 3- Coffee Shop

WC: 4.2K

Summary: Virgil works the late-night shift at the local coffee shop. That's where he poisons and picks up his victims. He wasn't ready for the one who didn't fight back.

Content Warnings (there's a lot today): Serial Killer/Coffee Shop AU Unsympathetic Virgil, Poisoning, Kidnapping, Swearing, Gun Violence, Negative Self-talk, Self Hatred, Murder and Attempted Murder, Implied Sexual content. Sexual innuendo, referenced rape, referenced mutilation, Strangulation, Hospitals, Police

@dukexietyweek

The simple fact was that they glowed. Virgil had long ago given up on trying to explain it to himself; they just glowed when he saw them. It was like a premonition- a beautiful soft light that needed to be contained lest it sullied the rest of the world by leaving it dim and grungy in comparison.

Virgil was grungy. He knew very well he didn't and would never glow as they did. Maybe that was the reason why. Maybe if he ever had to tell someone why he did it, he'd tell them that.

He killed them because they glowed and no one should be able to glow.

However, he'd never cared all that much about the whys. The hows were so much more fun. How did he pick his victims? Easy. They glowed and walked in at the wrong time. How did a weak, little, pathetic loser subdue the perfect glowing people? Bitter coffee was a perfect cover for bitter poisons. How did he end their lives? Any way he pleased.

How did he avoid detection? A healthy dose of anxiety kept him careful. Too many of the brightest glowing people escaped because they'd be missed. He never went by his legal name anywhere. He stayed patient and alert. He was the nobody that no one could ever remember. Playing barista sucked but it was the perfect cover. No one ever suspected the sulky, little, dimwitted worker stuck on the insomniacs shift at the quiet little 24-hour cafe. And no one ever really noticed if the store's hours were a bit unpredictable between 2 am and 4 am. That was the best time for hunting; it worked and Virgil wasn't going to stop anytime soon.

---

Virgil knelt, his latest catch already unconscious and tied up behind the counter when the doorbell chimed. Cursing at himself for forgetting to lock the door, Virgil grabbed a refill pack of napkins and stood cautiously. He gasped, finding the man who had entered shone twice as brightly as the woman he already had tied up. Certain that Miss Double-Soy-Latte-with-Hazelnut-Syrup-and-Whipped-Cream-you-got-that-Sugar? wasn't about to wake up and cause a scene, Virgil watched the man as he studied the menu.

The first thing he would do is take the man’s studded wrist gauntlet and fishnet fingerless gloves. Those things couldn't belong to someone who glows. Virgil squinted and could just make out a loosely looped studded belt to match, hanging off the man’s hip and exposing his lack of undergarments. Virgil hungrily followed the curve of that hip with his eyes up to the man's stomach peeking out underneath the ragged edge of a homemade cropped band t-shirt. He wanted to punch that stomach, to feel what it was like when the man tensed and when he stayed soft in compliance.

Next, he stared at shapely arms crossed in front of the man's chest. Those arms looked strong as a vice and he wondered how much effort it would take to break those delicate bones to render the muscles useless. Would he break first?

The man wore a sleeveless leather vest, displaying a museum's worth of inkwork, tentacles and snakes, and other writhing forms accented periodically with teeth and eyes and fangs and beaks. A rendition of the Harry Potter Death Eater mark set into the shoulder and tattooed thorns circled his neck. Virgil found himself getting hot under the collar and decided two in one night would be a fun challenge.

It was hard to see the man’s face until he flashed Virgil a brilliantly blinding smile as if on cue. The smile was all the sign Virgil needed to know this man would die tonight. He was practically begging Virgil to save him from the light radiating from his face. His gorgeous, handsome, wild-eyed face.

Virgil wanted so badly to touch the messy, overdue 5 o'clock shadow, to feel the scars left by razor nicks and frequent skin irritation. He wanted to wipe away the heavy eyeliner and mascara, run dirty fingers through greasy, dyed hair. He wanted those eyes to see him for who he is so he could spare them the pain of hoping there had been another ending once he'd entered the shop.

If the stranger was uncomfortable with his intense gaze, he certainly didn't show it as he approached the counter. Virgil squirmed as a cacophony of overlapping mismatched beats of a second hand overwhelmed his entire sense of hearing. Looking down, he quickly spotted a wristwatch on the unconscious woman's wrist and stepped on it to deaden the maddening sound. Soon all he could hear was the new customer's watch ticking erratically as though it needed to be wound up.

"Heya, kitten! Like what you see, baby?" the man smirked at Virgil as he leaned down on the counter and made sultry suggestive eyes at him.

"Excuse me?" Virgil hissed, recoiling from the familiarity.

"Woah, kitty's got claws huh?" the man giggled. Virgil stiffened, well aware how close the man could come to looking down and spotting the woman. And if he attempted to turn him in it wouldn't end pretty. He didn't want to have to clean up the shop after a struggle before having his fun.

"What are you ordering?" Virgil asked tersely.

"Me-ow. Guess you don't swing my way- darn. I bet you've got a totally bodacious booty too," the man batted his eyelashes at Virgil.

"That isn't on the menu. Order or get lost, yeah?" Virgil growled, trying to seem as disinterested in the enticing man as he could manage.

"Right. Seven shots of espresso, a shot of creamer, and a shot of the pineapple ginger concentrate, s'il vous plait," the man listed off as though he'd ordered the same thing a hundred times.

Virgil froze, unsure how to ring up the disgusting concoction, "what the hell? What kind of drink is that?"

"It's like me. One of a kind," the man beamed, brushing bleached silver hair out of his eyes, "can you handle that, kitty kat?"

"Stop with the pet names," Virgil rolled his eyes and finished inputting the drink, "um.. that will be… $6.69."

"Eyo! Sixty niiiiiiine," the man giggled emphatically while pulling out his money to pay.

Virgil rolled his eyes, "childish. Name for the order?"

"Uh, your phone number."

"What?"

"Damn you don't take hints!" the man placed one hand on his chest and bowed with a flourish, "my name is Remus, and I think you're very cute, kitty kat."

"You are maddening! Just call me Virgil!" he snapped, getting a cup ready to prepare the last drink Remus would ever have, "it's gonna take a minute to pull all those shots. Gosh… that much caffeine could kill you…" Virgil smirked at his own joke.

Remus took the smirk for a friendly smile and grinned, "I got all night for you, Virgil."

"That's cute. I'll let you know when it's ready," Virgil smiled, making direct eye contact as he added his favorite blend of sedatives to Remus’s cup.

It only took 30 seconds before Remus hit the floor with a confused grunt. Virgil was almost impressed the man had downed half the drink in one gulp. Moving quickly, Virgil locked the shop and dragged Remus back behind the counter, binding and gagging the flirtatious idiot. Tonight was going to be so special.

---

It hadn’t been easy, moving both bodies- cursing his weak, pathetic self the entire time. He made sure to dose both of them again after stashing them in the trunk so he could go back and finish out his shift.

He smiled pleasantly at the officers who stopped by just before the morning shift, careful to not give them any reason to be suspicious as he packed up day-old donuts and prepared two drinks nearly as caffeinated as Remus’s drink had been but significantly less poisoned. But still a little poisoned because fuck the police.

It took every muscle in Virgil’s body to not run gleefully to the car when the morning shift came to relieve him from work. He hid his excitement behind his usual persona of snarky disinterest and exhaustion until he was safely in the car and blasting his favorite CD on the drive home.

Pulling directly into the garage, Virgil shut down the car and giggled as the door shut slowly on his prisoners' last hope for rescue. Working at a leisurely pace, Virgil dragged first Remus then the woman down into his basement, both drowsy and barely able to make a complaint. It only seemed fair they die in the order they'd been caught so Virgil laid Remus out on the couch while he tied the woman down to his workbench.

The woman began to moan pathetically just as Virgil was tying down the last limb. It was not a moment too soon. He chuckled to himself and smacked her face a few times to help her wake up.

"Look alive, sunshine! You won't be much longer, I'm afraid," Virgil quipped as she blinked awake and started to panic at the restraints holding her down.

God, he hated when they screamed almost as much as he hated the watches. Virgil waited as long as he could stand the high-pitched whining pleas for freedom and help before loudly shushing until she quieted.

"Shh! Stop yelling or I will restrict your breathing," Virgil hissed, laying a prohibitive finger to her lips, "I promise you'll live longer if you stay quiet."

"You'll let me go?"

"No. I'll just take my time," Virgil smirked as the color drained from her face and her lip began to quiver, "ohh. Ohh, don't be so dramatic, sweetheart. It's time to grow up and realize death is inevitable."

Virgil laughed as she started screaming again, only turning away when Remus stirred from his sleep.

"Oh, dear. You've woken up my other guest. Now you know, he's special. You're going to have the life choked out of you, slowly but surely, but he gets to lose a lot more than his life. Count yourself lucky, sweetheart." Virgil turned to examine the man on the couch again as he blearily blinked up at him.

"You coulda'sked, kitkat," Remus mumbled nearly incomprehensibly. Virgil tilted his head in confusion as he watched Remus. The man slowly regained awareness, and even as Virgil stood above him with a hard frown, he smiled back up at his captor.

"What the hell are you getting on about?" Virgil asked with a growl, hoping to startle that unsettling grin off Remus’ face.

Remus laughed, "you coulda just asked if you wanted to do a scene, cutie! Although I love the attention to realism. Like you actually drugged me to bring me home!"

Virgil stared, completely in shock at what he was hearing, "wait.. you think…"

"That you were too shy to ask me out so you drugged me and dragged me back home? Yes," Remus nodded enthusiastically, "if you have some whips and an electric hand mixer we can have some real fun, you sexy little kitten!" Remus bumped his eyebrows suggestively, leaving Virgil absolutely stunned.

"What is going on here?!?" the woman on the table cried out.

"Shut the hell up!" Virgil barked back at her, too confused to do much more than stare at Remus. Why did he like this? Why did Virgil like that Remus liked this? He felt hot and confused but also certain about one thing he absolutely wanted.

Experimentally he reached down and laid his hand on Remus’ exposed stomach. Watching Remus for his reaction, Virgil slowly slid his hand along the skin and up to Remus’s chest. Remus shut his eyes with a smile and shivered at the touch, "oh yeah, baby. I can purr for you, kitty. Anything you want."

Virgil inhaled sharply, pulling back his hand and looking back at the other prisoner as she lay whimpering on the table.

Well shit, what was he supposed to do with a captive audience?

---

Virgil didn't know what he'd been thinking, letting Remus go after all was said and done. Remus had been fun and so down for all of his sickest fantasies, supplying quite a few of his own. He'd stolen Remus’ watch and put it on the woman's body before shooting both timepieces on her wrist. The ticking had probably driven him to let Remus go. That had to explain it

He dumped the woman as far as he possibly could and hoped beyond reason that Remus wouldn't recognize her in the news and realized what he'd done. For a week he lived in fear of the cops showing up at work or worse his house, armed with search warrants and one hell of a witness. For a week, nothing happened.

It turned out he'd worried for nothing. Just when Virgil began to itch again to get rid of another glowing being, despite the police pressure pushing him to lay low, Remus came back in during his shift.

"Hello, my little purrrfect kitten!" Remus beamed as he walked into the shop.

Virgil froze and slowly turned back to face him, "you- you came back?"

"Mhm. Never got your number but I wanted to see you again, Virgie. Figured we could have some more fun this time," Remus smirked as he leaned casually against the counter, "one usual with the special sauce please!"

"Special sauce?" Virgil asked, still amazed Remus had even come back to the cafe.

"You know," Remus leaned in close and whispered, "the stuff that knocks me out so you can take me home and we can get it on freakier than my last BDSM club"

"Wow, you- you liked it that much?" Virgil let out a low whistle. He studied Remus again, stricken by the fact he didn't glow so much this time. Even though Virgil wanted to take care of another glowing bastard, he was so much more interested in this willing abductee.

"Yeah, I did! That shit's hot as fuck!" Remus beamed. Virgil checked the time on his terminal display and realized it was nearly the time his least favorite police patrons would be making their morning run.

"Look, uh… why don't we save the tranqs for my place?" Virgil smirked as he started to prepare Remus’ strange order, "I'm amazed this drink doesn't put you in a coma already."

Remus giggled, "sometimes it takes a little something extra to get the heart pumping, yeah?"

"Hm. Well, I get off in two hours-"

"I'll be sitting right here in the corner then. I wanna get to know you, Virgie."

"A horrible mistake for you, really," Virgil laughed, heart fluttering far too much.

"Plus I think I left my watch at your place…"

"I haven't seen it this week. We can look though," Virgil lied smoothly, knowing very well the police had the timepiece in evidence.

Remus kept flirting as Virgil cleaned the store and served the early morning crowd, true to his word about waiting to leave with Virgil. They walked out to his car and Remus held out his arm expectantly when they sat down.

"What?" Virgil asked suspiciously.

"You're off the clock, let's get this party started. Surely you have the special stuff in here- you injected me last time."

Virgil flushed, "um.. really? You don't want to wait to know where we're going first?"

"How am I supposed to pretend I'm getting kidnapped if you don't knock me out? At least tie my hands?" Remus bat his eyes at Virgil who rolled his eyes and leaned over to grab a scarf out of the glove box.

"You're ridiculous."

"Yeah but you like it, kitten."

---

Logan stared at the evidence bored, absolutely baffled. In 5 months there had been 18 victims, a consistent signature, and every promise that someone would turn up with a connection to this perp. Or someone should know where these folks had been headed when they fell into the unsub's trap.

And then after Lydia with the two watches- nothing. No bodies were found for weeks. No whisperings of the media-named Black Widower who aggressively mutilated his male victims almost beyond recognition after raping them and humiliated the women after strangling them with silk scarves.

"I just don’t understand. Guys like this don’t go dormant! It's against every drive they have. What are we missing, Patton?"

Patton looked up from his third cup of coffee, "I don't know, Lo. What about the two-unsub theory? Maybe they met up and are keeping each other occupied?"

Logan rolled his eyes, "oh sure. Two serial killers, one who's gay and one who hates women meet and start playing house. Real cute."

"It could happen…" Patton replied defensively, already reaching for a second donut as his partner glared disapprovingly.

"No. I think it's the same unsub. The watches are always shot while the victim wears them. It's consistent. It's a single, unique signature that the media still hasn't published. If it's two different killers, they knew about each other and were purposefully copying each other long before they went dormant."

"Well, I'm not going to complain that we aren't finding more victims. I'd rather people not be mysteriously killed and maimed by the Black Widower...s," Patton lifted his chin defiantly. He stood and walked over to the evidence board, studying the geographic profile again, the map showing a confusing cluster of dumpsites, victim's homes, and last sightings, and puzzled over the strangeness of the case.

"If this case goes cold, we may never find the unsub. He lives his life, free to decide to start again while all of his victims lay rotting in the ground. Their families don't deserve to live with that fear," Logan sighed heavily in near defeat, "of course I don’t want more victims. I want this man caught. Why did he suddenly stop?"

---

For a month, Remus had come in once or twice a week, asking Virgil for the secret sauce and flirting with him until the end of his shift. The randomness of his timing and anticipation of his visits made it impossible for Virgil to hunt. He didn't quite mind because seeing Remus was always better than the thrill of the kill.

Virgil finally relented and watched with quiet admiration as Remus celebrated over getting his number, and their relationship only moved faster after that. Pretty soon Remus was able to convince him to go on an actual date after work, grabbing breakfast at a nearby diner and hitting up his apartment afterward. Virgil had rarely spent so long away from his own home, but being out with Remus made him feel almost normal.

Media slowly stopped covering the Black Widower and Virgil smiled to himself just imagining how frustrated the police must be that they couldn't find him.

Virgil was happy, laying next to his boyfriend who loved him despite almost every eccentricity. He almost believed nothing could go wrong with Remus there.

"Uh, kit kat? I have a bit of a confession to make," Virgil winced, cursing himself for being so naive to believe that foolish sentiment.

"What’s up, dukey?" Virgil rolled to his side to face his boyfriend, "you can tell me anything."

"I don't- promise you won't get mad or like.. react badly?" Remus asked quietly, alarming Virgil even more.

He gently laid a hand on Remus’ neck and rubbed that roughened cheek with his thumb, "what's going on, Rem? You're scaring me."

Remus visibly gulped and whispered, "I know what happened to my watch. Virgil, I've always known.."

Virgil pulled back slowly. So this is what it actually felt like to be caught. His heart hammered in his throat, making a verbal reply impossible. He strained to not start crushing Remus’ throat and his own heart in his panic. This was love and this was a threat and god the way Remus looked at him right now only complicated everything else so much more.

He wasn't scared. He wasn't wriggling away from Virgil’s touch. Remus stared death in the eye unflinchingly.

He'd always figured his boyfriend must be brave or stupid, but Virgil hadn't counted on both.

"I know… what you are… and I still fell in love with you, Virgil. If you're gonna… could you at least drug me first and let me kiss you with my last breath?"

Very quickly several pieces fell into place as Virgil stared at the man who loved him despite every flaw and couldn't even beg for his own safety or life.

Remus knew what happened the night they met.

Remus had made the connections to the other murders and the subsequent drought of victims.

Remus could have turned him in- directly to the officers at the shop a half dozen times and a hundred other times when they weren’t spending time together.

Remus loved him.

Remus loved him and was scared of this confrontation.

Remus was not scared of dying.

Killing his boyfriend would be the exact link the cops would need to capture him.

Not killing his boyfriend for knowing his secret would be the largest risk imaginable.

Virgil couldn’t live without Remus

His hand was slowly choking Remus out despite his reluctance to take action.

Virgil gasped and pushed Remus away roughly, darting out of the bed and down the hall. He didn't stop until he heard Remus calling out for him.

Shit.

"Virgil!" his voice came out hoarse and painfully weak sounding. Virgil knew he should run.

But Remus was calling for him. And this was his fault.

"Virgil?" it was a question, asked in a voice that couldn't get enough air to support itself. He could leave and Remus would probably die a very painful death, all alone, with his fingers and palm emblazoned in the bruising that would provide the cause of death.

Remus loved him. He couldn't let this be the end.

Virgil flew back into the bedroom, grabbed the landline, and made the call.

"Remus, I am so sorry. Just keep breathing, baby. I am so so sorry!" Virgil apologized profusely, waiting for the emergency operator to pick up.

---

Hospital staff had to pry Virgil from Remus’ side as they moved him quickly into the O.R. Virgil paced and wondered how exactly to explain Remus’s injuries without getting arrested to distract himself from the fear that Remus would die in surgery.

He should have never let himself get so close to someone so smart and funny and perfect and… glowing. Virgil sat and waited for the doctor's verdict, pulling his hood over his eyes to block out the throngs of injured, sick, frantically glowing people around him.

Ages passed until Virgil heard his name and looked up suddenly for the source. A doctor and a police officer stood before him and all of the adrenaline in his body screamed that he needed to run.

"Uh.. how is he, doc?" Virgil asked, fighting himself to not scream or make a scene.

"Remus Crowne is currently in recovery and you may visit him. Due to the nature of his injuries, we have contacted the police to speak with him first," the doctor intoned, voice dripping with suspicion.

The officer took the pause to speak up, "would you like to make a statement, Mr. Kier?"

"I just want to see him," Virgil replied in a raspy voice, shaking his head in denial as he stood.

"Very well. This way, sir," the doctor led Virgil and the officer back towards the recovery rooms. When they arrived, Virgil nearly choked seeing Remus talking with the same two officers who came into his shop each morning. The shorter one knelt beside the bed to hold Remus’ hand. He spoke softly and asked all the questions while his partner stood tall and took notes, looking incredulously at the injured man. Virgil instinctively wanted to barge in and protect Remus from these pigs but the third held him back with a firm hand on his shoulder.

Before long the two officers left the room, eyeing Virgil disdainfully. He waited for the words that would send his world crashing around him even more than it already had.

"You- you can go in now, hon," Virgil's head tilted in confusion as the third officer let him go, "just be more careful in the future."

"I- what? No charges?" Virgil barely whispered, glancing towards the bed where Remus laid watching the tv.

"Believe me, if it had been me, I don’t care how consensual- I would have pressed charges for sending me to the E.R. have a good day, sir. Come along, Patton." The stricter-looking cop turned, gesturing to the kinder one and all three left quickly. Virgil beamed and ran to Remus’ side.

"You're welcome, kitten," Remus coughed and reached for Virgil’s hand.

"I'm so sorry- I didn't want to, Rem-"

"Shhhh. I told them it was a sex fantasy gone a bit too far. If I'd known you liked strangling dudes too-"

"Now you shush!" Virgil leaned in close, "you get better fast now, okay?"

"I always wanted to date a serial killer.. promise you won't leave me over this?" Remus grinned weakly up at Virgil, "I could help you, ya know."

"Shhhh this is just the pain meds talking. You don’t know a serial killer," Virgil laughed as tears of relief streamed down his cheeks. He gave Remus a dramatic stage wink and held his hand securely.

"Aww, you're right. I'm just stuck with a pretty boy who doesn't know his own strength," Remus grinned and watched Virgil rather than the tv until a nurse came to shoo his boyfriend away for the night.

Remus couldn't wait for their first hunt together.

[lo-55]

Playing With Fire Ch. 2

What Do You Know?

@emrysaf

When dawn breaks through the window and assaults your eyes you take a few long minutes to relish the feeling of obliviousness. 

If you lay here for long enough and pretend hard enough that yesterday never happened maybe you can open your eyes to your own living room, or even a hospital room where they’ll tell you you took too many Benadryl and hallucinated everything. 

Eventually you have to open your eyes and look to the ceiling. 

You really don’t wanna do this, but here you are. Doing this. 

You really, really wanna open your eyes and find yourself home, with the storm blown over and your life back to normal. You wanna call your parents, who you never knew you could miss quite this bad. 

You can’t do any of these things. 

All you can do is open your eyes and look at the unfamiliar ceiling.

There’s a few cracks in it that you count while you remind yourself how to breathe. Eventually you have to get up and change into the school uniform instead of the blinding orange jumpsuit. If you remember right you were all supposed to meet in a classroom to get your final assignments, and then jump on a train and go to your new company with a resume in hand. 

You ended up following a pair of girls to the classroom, where you plopped yourself next to Shinra. You didn’t see Arthur or Ogun anywhere, which was weird. If you recalled right Ogun stayed in the fourth after graduation, and he and Arthur were close friends of Shinra, even if Arthus disagreed with that fact for the most part. 

You shoot Shinra a quick grin, and turn to face the front again. 

If you remember right, this was where your were assigned the fourth in the game, along with Ogun. You (or the MAIN character) got in trouble snooping around and Ogun, after hearing your reasoning, turned himself into your own personal body guard. 

Now that you were thinking about it, it might be a good idea to start writing everything you know down. 

God knows you’re gonna forget something important when you need to remember it. 

Er, Sol knows? 

This is stupid. 

You look up at some nameless teacher who paces the front, holding a stack of assignments for you and copies of the applications that had been sent to each of the companies. 

This is it. 

You sit a bit straighter. 

The teacher hands out each person a form. When you look to the side you see Shinra grinning that huge, nervous smile of his and it’s all you can do not to pinch his cheeks and tell him how cute he is. 

The teacher finally hands you your assignment. 

Company 8. 

You do a fist pump. 

“Hell yeah! First choice!” 

A few of your classmates shoot you startled looks. Was your character really so quiet before? 

“Hey, I got the same one,” Shinra poked his head over to see. The list was pretty simple. All it said was the company number, their captain, leuitenant, and address. A glance around revealed that everyone else had a whole packet of information on their new companies. But 8 was so small, and so new, apparently they didn’t warrant it. 

That was fine. You already knew enough it hardly mattered. 

“We’ll be together then,” you say cheerfully. “Wanna take the train together?” 

Please say yes. I don’t know where the train station is. Or how to ride one. 

Shinra nodded, “Yeah. Sounds like fun.” 

“Wanna meet at my room and we’ll go? It says we’re supposed to meet them at their station this afternoon.” 

“Are you sure?” Shinra looked startled. You poked his cheek. 

“I wouldn’t have said it if I wasn’t, babe.” 

Shinra suddenly looked unsettled. “You’re not just doing this to mess with me, right?” 

“Mess with you?” You cocked your head. “What would I do that for?” 

He didn’t have an answer for that, but it made you sad. You knew he got teased a lot, but was it really so bad he thought you being friendly was a trick? 

You were so gonna get in a fight here someday. 

You flipped your company eight paper around so you could take a look at the copy of your resume that they’d be getting there. It was pretty bare bones. It had your name, age, weight, height, blood type, and listed you as a Second Class Fire Soldier, as well as your grades. They were all pretty average, but apparently you were good at math. 

You didn’t have a home address, but it did say you were Ueno, but that part you knew already. In the game you’d gone to Asakusa on an errand, done a bunch of side quests, and found out that Ueno was your home town and it was nearby. It was mostly made of museums and old buildings. 

Still nothing about your pyrokinesis. Damn it. 

This was starting to get annoying. 

“So I’ll see you in a few hours, right?” You clarify quickly, looking up at Shinra. 

Shinra still looks surprised, but he nods quickly, with another small smile. “Yeah. I’ll see you then.” 

You bump fists with him again before you retreat to your room. 

You take to your desk and grab a pencil and paper to try to write down everything you remember, in english for good measure. You don’t know how you know japanese now, but then again you don’t know a lot of things lately. 

What I know for sure: 

MAIN CHARACTER’s family is from Ueno. They died in an infernal fire. They had a sister they’re looking for. They have their sisters ring, a scar on their wrist, and lighter that’s connected to the Tragic Back Story. After the fire SISTER enrolled in the Fire Force Special Academy, leaving MAIN on their own for a few years. She disappeared not long after graduating, and MAIN joined to try to find her in turn. 

In the original game MAIN joins fourth company, which their sister was a part of before her disappearance. In their first night there they dream of a man in a red suit who smiles and pats their head. He’s probably important. Maybe dad??? Likely dead. They snoop around and get in trouble a couple of times, but the captain is on their side and let’s it slide with a slap on the wrist? And no mention of wanting to be lit on fire. He’s a cool, if weird old dude. 

Ogun takes it upon himself to look after MAIN after they nearly get arrested looking into 5th company. 

    Note, avoid the Princess until after Shinra works his magic. 

A choice is made: agree to let Ogun help or ditch him. 

MAIN chose help and together THEY snuck into the Holy Sol Temple. While Ogun looks above, MAIN manages to find a door leading down to old training grounds.

    Note. MAIN didn’t know they were for the shadow sun whatever they were called training. 

MAIN gets lost and pops out at the end of a tunnel, where Joker happens to be setting some cards up. 

    Note . Why???? 

A choice is made ; Tell Joker the truth or lie. 

MAIN admits to Joker that they’re looking into a disappearance, and suspect the church of having something to do with it. They admit that they think the entire situation is a little hazy, and the history is a fragile thing. After that Joker is considered a Friend.  

MAIN returns to Ogun, but only hints at what they found underground. That night they dream of the Man in Red, who tries to speak to them and pats them again. They notice he has a ring with the same design as their own. 

MAIN also spent time in Asakusa with Benimaru Shinmon and Konro. MAIN was little more than an over glorified messenger at the time, but took advantage of the opportunity to see their old home. (UENO) 

    Note. Benimaru is hot

A choice is maid ; leave at once or help out. 

Did a buncha side quests in Asakusa when MAIN stumbled on an old subway entrance in the basement of a restaurant they were working in. The owner says it’s dangerous to go down, but there are a few other holes around the city. Most have been boarded up long ago. 

MAIN, not knowing what they are, leaves them be. 

    Note. Were the subways part of the underground church forbidden place??? Asakusa doesn’t follow the church? So they don’t think they’d curses just dark and flooded? 

MAIN goes home. Rumors of the White Clad begin to circulate, and MAIN goes to company eight to ask Shinra about them directly, thinking that their sister might have been taken by them. 

. . . 

You look at your paper and realize something vital. 

You’ve misspelled maid. 

Fuck it. 

You also write the three powers you could have picked down in blue ink, taking the last pen in your drawer out.

The fire wings, Phoenix in the game. They were support type, with heavy defense properties and minor healing powers, but you couldn't fly which was lame. 

The fire spear, the Sun Lance, was a damage type power. It took fire from around you and made a blade at the end of a long stick. Technically it was a spear, but if you flipped it upside down you could ride it like a witches broom. That one you could fly with, but not the wings. 

The magnet sand, Dark Desert, was a tank type. They made a lot of long range weapons and smashed through fire pretty easily and made strong walls, but it couldn't get too close to you or you yourself will take damage, and you can’t move while you use it. 

They’re all really cool, but you still don’t know which you have and you have no idea how to find out. And you can’t ask anyone or you’ll look crazy! 

...Maybe you should arrange an ‘accidental’ fall down the stairs and claim anmesia. 

Just when you’re seriously considering that option a harsh knock sounds on the door. 

You jump and smash your arm so hard into the drawer you actually break the bottom out of it. 

“Shit! Just a second!” You yell at the door. You scramble to try to hide the evidence when you realize ; the drawer isn’t broken. The bottom is fake. 

You carefully extract, from within, a thin, red, leatherbound book. A look at the inside cover shows you a note. 

To keep your thoughts in order, you scatter brain. 

<3 Fuyuki

Another knock sounds. 

“Hey! Are you ready to go?” Calls Shinra from the other side. 

“Y-yeah! Just a second!” You stuff the book into the front pocket of your bag and throw yourself to the door. You swing it open and throw Shinra back with your blinding grin. 

“Let’s go!” 

~

When the two of you board the train, each clutching your bag close, you’re forced to stand shoulder to shoulder with Shinra, who ends up keeping up his grin the whole time even though you can see him visibly straining to stop it. 

It probably doesn’t help that you keep looking at him, but oh well. 

The second you step out on the platform the screaming starts. A burning train is on its way. An infernal. You and Shinra scramble towards the sound, with Shinra in the lead, and come to a halt just in time to see the train stop. Fire streams out the windows and a creature from a nightmare crawls out of door. 

You swallow thickly. You can smell burning flesh. You can feel heat on your skin. 

This is real. 

You tear your eyes away from the walking corpse in time to see Company 8’s bad ass entrance. They’re all so cool! Maki is such a badass, and Obi is way too strong, and Iris is sweet faced and determined- 

You’re barely able to focus on the infernal itself, and you actually forget that the big metal sign is going to fall up until it happens. 

Shinra shoots off like a bullet. 

You’re left behind, your hair whipping behind you and your arm raised to protect your face while Shinra saves Iris for not-the-last-time. 

You watch him introduce himself, for a moment feeling like you’re just an observer. Its not really intruding, but the familiarity of it all doesn’t help anything. 

It’s not until Shinra points at you and says your name that you snap to attention. Your body knows to salute even if you don’t. 

“Sir!” You echo. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. That was totally awesome, sir.” 

Obi gives you a brief once over before he nods, seriously. 

“Yes. Yes it was. It’s good to have the two of you. Come on. We should get going, back to the cathedral.” 

You and Shinra hurry to grab your things and follow after the four of them. 

When they’re not looking you elbow Shinra. 

“That was so cool!” You hiss. “I didn’t even have time to react and you totally saved the sister!” 

“A-ah, you really think so?” Shinra looked away, his cheeks pink and his grin huge. He scratched his cheek in embarrassment. “ I just did what any hero would!” 

You laugh and swing your arm around his shoulder. “True! Still, it was really awesome. I know I can count on you to help me in the future, right?” 

Shinra nods quickly, however embarrassed he might be.

“Yeah! Or I’m not-” 

You don’t get to hear his new, weird nickname. You’re cut off by the fact that instead of loading into a matchbox the captain has called you a cab. 

That’s weird. 

You know that’s weird. 

“...I don’t get it, but I’m not fighting it,” you say after a minute, and crawl inside. Shinra follows suit and the two of you finally make your way to the run down cathedral. 

Home suite home. 

 ~  ~

A/N So which power do you guys wanna see?

Dark Desert, Phoenix, or Sun Lance? Please let me know!

[cockasinthebird]

Stuck? Stuck.

This year for the senior weekend trip, Hawkins High students gets to enjoy a lovely stay at a hotel so cheap it's a risky gamble to even set foot there, and a Saturday trip to the Indianapolis Museum of Art, to which absolutely everyone is equally excited about.

Which is not at all.

Steve groans and sits up in the hard bed he has to sleep in for two whole nights, sharing his room with three other guys from his year that he swears he has never ever seen before, despite them all knowing his name and history quite well.

The drive here hadn't been that long, although it felt like hours, nerve ridden and anxious to not sleep in the safety of his own haunted mansion. Sure it's nice to be surrounded by people on all sides if he were to tell the truth, but...

Billy fucking Hargrove had been staring at him all day, sat two rows behind on the bus, and whenever Steve turned to look, he was met with an icy stare and suspicious grin. Billy had even actively gone out of his way to bump into Steve, push him around and kick his bags away, to which Tommy had laughed and patted Billy on the back, that fucking traitor. Sure they hadn't talked since after the fight with Jonathan, but Steve didn't know their friendship had been so fragile.

With an exhausted sigh and jittery hands, Steve carefully closes the door to his room, then heads down the hallway to find the elevator. He can never sleep when he's away from home, yet Dustin had convinced him that this is a great idea! Get out and have some fun! People always hook up on those senior trips! And then he did that Chewbacca wanna purr of a sound, prompting Steve to push his cap down his face.

The elevator climbs slowly up to his floor as he thumbs his lighter, on and off, on and off. Who here would he even hook up with that he hasn't already before he got together with Nancy? And now that they're over and Billy is running the school instead, Steve's odds had fallen even farther into the pits of hell.

He just needs to get out for a smoke, and maybe flirt his way to a drink or two at the sleazy bar; this place doesn't look like it cares about serving minors alcohol, what with the water stained ceiling and floor, the peeling tape, and the creaky as shit elevator, as it barely can manage a ding once it reaches the 4th level.

It whines just the same as he steps inside and feels it bounce dangerously underneath his weight. It requires several attempts and hard jabs from Steve before the ground floor button registers his attempts, and starts closing.

When just in the last second, strong fingers curl around the rusty metal and pries open the doors again.

That grin, those curls, the sun-kissed skin.

Billy fucking Hargrove.

“Where you off to, Harrington?” he asks with a flash of predatory teeth and steps into the limited space.

Suddenly Steve is feeling hot and claustrophobic, heart racing both from the presence of his enemy, and from the fear that the elevator might not be able to support both their weights.

“Why the fuck should I tell you?” he snaps and does his best not to meet those blue skies that just won't give him the same courtesy of pretending the other doesn't exist.

“Could be you wanted some company,” Billy says with a low tone that hints at something secret and suggestive.

“And why are you up?” Steve doesn't really care to know, but thoughts of why Billy might be up and about this late flows freely. There would only be one reason, and maybe it's the second floor where all the girls are located.

But he doesn't press the 2nd floor button. Simply puts his hands in his denim jacket and leans with his back against the wall.

“Oh you know exactly why I'm awake this late, princess,” Billy drawls out and licks his lips.

Which Steve doesn't notice, if anyone were to ask. He pulls up a cigarette from the back he has stashed in his back pocket, and slips it between his lips to save time once they're able to get away from each other again.

Yet it's gone just as quick, as Billy reaches out and snags it away, just to place it beneath his mustache. And Steve stares daggers at him, all too quickly he's angry, but really it takes no time with Hargrove around, as his mere presence in Steve's life in a constant source of pain and fury.

“What the fuck you asshole, give it back!” Steve frowns and clenches his fist with a strong urge to punch. It's been too long since he's felt the bliss of nicotine, and he can feel it in his blood. “Get your own shitty cigarettes.”

“Why don't you come over here and take it, then?” Billy muses with a cocky grin that goes from ear to ear.

“Yeah yeah, very mature, give me my fucking cigarette back, Hargrove. I'm almost out of smokes and patience with you.” Steve turns to stare at him now, a few feet apart filled with air so tense you could cut it with a fucking butter knife.

“Well that was quick,” comes the response as a mean spirited chuckle.

“Oh don't be like that; you've been harassing me all fucking day you shit!” And Steve steps closer, up to where he can feel Hargrove's breathing. “What is your deal with me?”

Billy lifts up his chin, looking all brash and smug. “Do I have to one?”

“Why else would you be making my life a living hell?” Steve's fists clench tighter. “Isn't it bad enough you stole my best friend and 'knocked me off my throne'?” he says with possibly the most infuriated air-quotes anyone could ever manage.

“Nope.” Short and crude, the p popping loudly despite the cigarette caught between teeth.

“Then what the fuck do you want?!”

And as Billy's grin somehow grows more sinister, he doesn't get to answer before there's an abrupt jump of the elevator and a nerve wrecking screech.

The loud whir of cogs and mechanics silent. The elevator has stopped.

“Are... are we...” Steve dares not say, as if that would make it real and not just his imagination.

Billy shoves Steve away and steps over to press a button, any button, and when there's no response, tries a second button, then a third, then every other option there. Punches the keys over and over and over-

“Fucking stop that! You're just making it all worse!” Steve shouts and grabs on to Billy's sleeve to tear him away.

“Oh like you know how a fucking elevator works!” Billy snarls back and pushes Steve hard for having even dared to touch him. “I know your grades, I've heard the questions you ask in class, I bet even Max could answer half the shit you can't!”

Steve doesn't even have time to think before he flings his fist after Billy, who catches it perfectly on the nose. Cigarette flies from his mouth, blood drips onto the sticky floor, onto Billy's dirty boots and his clean, white tee. And he continues being unable to think, as Billy fucking laughs.

“God damn Harrington, I can't believe you had the guts to do that,” he sounds near insane as he talks, swipes his tongue up to lick his upper lip clean of dark red. “You know you're gonna regret that now, right?”

“According to you I don't know shit.” Steve stands with his feet too far apart, shoulders raised and fists aching for more. As much as he would prefer not to fight, since he always gets his ass kicked, the rush of seeing blood flow from Billy's nose is invigorating.

No matter how prepared he thinks he is, Billy's fist still feels like a goddamn boulder against his eye, and barely has Steve staggered backwards at the brute force, before Billy grabs him by the collar of his striped polo and shoves him into a corner; caging him there with his own broad, muscular shape.

“You punch like a girl, Stevie,” his voice low and... oddly sensuous?

He reeks of cologne, teeth sharp and perfect like a wolf, body sturdy and thick, pressed into Steve with such intent that he can feel every inch of power.

“What are you gonna do now, Harrington?” Billy's chuckles like thunder in his chest as they stay flush together.

Steve feels his heart beat in his swelling eye, lumping in his throat, beating against his ribs like xylophones, and somewhere between his legs. Red really is a great color on Billy's lips.

“What are my options?” he groans out and wants to move away from the insufferable heat that's gathering too far down.

Eyes jump around every one of Billy's strong features, looking like a damn model from afar and up close like this. Jaw square and stubbly, an ocean's view in his eyes, a thousand eyelashes that he doesn't deserve to have, freckles like a starry night that he didn't even know existed on Billy's perfect skin, lips so hopelessly inviting despite the wicked grin.

And maybe Billy catches how he's being admired right now, because his smile falters to a slightly slack jaw. “Doesn't seem like you have any,” he mumbles out, tone uncertain of something.

“I fucking hate you, Billy.�� Steve can't move his head away, can't tear his gaze from where that tongue peeks out to lick his lips clean once more.

With a timid whisper, barely more than a breath, Billy utters out, “I hate me, too.”

Lips meet with obscene force, Billy pushing against Steve's mouth as if it's his only source of life, and immediately Steve opens up; tastes the metallic blood that still drips slowly down from Billy's wounded nose, and feels that captivating tongue intrude deep as it urgently memorizes every inch of wet heat.

It's as if they've both been starving for years, and now they're all too worried it'll end in the blink of an eye.

Billy bites and pulls at Steve's lower lip with a guttural groan.

“Fuck, Billy-” Steve nearly moans out and tries to buck out his hips.

“Shut the fuck up, Harrington, or I'll punch you again,” Billy growls and dives back in to lick where his teeth had just tortured sensitive skin.

“Mmh- ah-” and Steve pulls away to say, “Do it.”

“What?” Billy has never looked more dumbfounded.

“Fucking hit me again.” Steve licks his lips clean of Billy's blood and stares intensely down at him. “Slap me in the face.”

And Billy grins like the devil, bites down on his tongue, breathing staggered as he contemplates on whether or not Steve is serious. Then brings a flat hand across a pale cheek.

It stings and burns throughout his entire body, anger and lust confusingly mixing and making his blood pump faster, his cock growing harder. He pokes at the inside of that cheek where he can practically feel the red hand print form.

“God you're a freak, pretty boy.” Billy wags his tongue and stares with a confident brow. “This why Nancy Wheeler left you, huh? She couldn't keep up with your perverted desires.”

Steve doesn't speak, simply digs a hand in between them, and oh what an exciting bulge he finds there, one that forces out an “Arrh,” from stained lips and feels the hips below urge closer.

“Like you're one to talk.” Now Steve is the one to smirk, crooked and looking like the cat that got the cream.

Which Billy fucking hates. All he can do is press their lips together again and grind his full dick against Steve's hand caught between them. His movement irrepressible as he rolls his hips and swallows every single moan that spills from Steve's puffy lips, pleased and turned on by every syllable, irritated that Harrington can't just shut the fuck up.

It would be all too easy to get caught like this. But isn't that just exciting?

That thought strikes both of them at the same time it seems, because just as Steve moves his hand out of the way, Billy's flies down tear away at their belts, all the while maintaining the rhythmic dance of their ever so insatiable tongues.

Neither dares to utter a single word, because the wrong one could stop it all too soon, so they settle on hushed grunts and groans, barely a cursed word till Billy's hand shoves into Steve's trunks once his fly is down.

“A-ah- shit, Billy-” Steve moans out and closes both his hands in the denim jacket.

“Be fucking quiet, Harrington, I swear to God,” Billy hisses out with his gaze low.

Attention caught on how fucking long and hairy Steve is, the head of his flushed cock wet with pre. He doesn't waste any time with getting himself out as well, his own leaking erection girthy with clear veins snaking around. Not as long as King Steve's magnificent dick, but definitely wider.

“Fuck,” Steve breathes out hard at the sight of them both out in the open like that, shiny and standing at full size.

A moan cuts through him as Billy brings his free hand up to muffle every sound, with such force that it knocks Steve's head into the wall. The pure display of dominance that that move is, makes Steve leak even worse and struggles to keep his eyes open.

“I said shut the fuck up,” Billy's voice deep and threatening.

Steve feels as if he's staring death in the eyes, and all he can do is whine and thrust his hips into the iron grip around both their throbbing cocks. It's dry and uncomfortable, but fuck if it doesn't get him to where he needs to go.

And once again their minds must be in perfect sync, because Billy brings up his hand, and Steve watches intently as Billy spits into his palm, clear blue eyes never looking up to catch how burning amber stares.

Finally he gives in, when that slick hand twists around the two of them, and Steve's eyes roll back between fluttering lids as his mind goes blank with searing pleasure. A calloused hand, thick veins, hoarse groans, all of it the only things to matter in his world now, as every practiced jerk of his all too hard prick tears away at his self control and shoves him into the deep end of urges he never realized he had.

Urges he doesn't care to ignore.

Never before has he heard Billy go this long without insulting him, and he kinda misses it. He fights to open his eyes again, and catches how Billy's brows are raised high up and pinched together, his mouth wide as he barely manages to choke his own moans before they grow too loud, stare locked down where he's fisting them together with such fervor he could light a fire with it.

Steve is aching to hear Billy call him names, throw around abuse like it's nothing and shame him for something, anything. Perhaps tonight will give him new material finally, call him a queer or gay, just to then overpower him as he always does when they fight, now maybe followed by... a handjob? A blowjob? As long as his hands are on him, Steve won't complain anymore.

Can't complain when he's so close. He hadn't realized how badly he needed release at all till Billy had started pushing into him just minutes ago. Had their constant struggle just been pent up sexual tensions? Was this what it was all leading up to? An inevitability? Billy pumping his closed hand around them in a gross as all hell elevator, feeling every single inch of Steve's painfully intense erection?

“Fuck, ah shit, lift up your shirt,” Billy's quick to groan out with labored breathing that stutters as he speeds up his hand as fast as he can go.

And Steve doesn't hesitate to do as told, brings both hands from Billy's jean jacket to his own striped polo and lifts it up as high as he can, what with the way they're crammed together in a corner.

Feels the heat gather, the coil in his gut tightening till it's seconds away from springing, the vice grip around him doing wonders in pulling him to the edge, then shoves him off as he cums, hips shoving into Billy's rough hand with short bursts as he moans against the one stealing away his air, feels how he ejects wet heat all over his abs in a toe-curling feat.

Shortly followed by Billy as he empties all he's worth onto Steve's stomach, forehead pressed on top of the hand covering Steve's mouth, eyes still unblinking as he watches what a gorgeous mess they're making. He squeezes their spent dicks till the last drop drips down his broad fingers, and then lifts up his hand.

Ensures that Steve is watching, as Billy sticks out his whole tongue and licks his hand clean, sucking on the digits till there's not a trace left.

Steve moans into his hand at that, and despite the fact that he's been depleted of all his energy, still feels it jolt through him and burn into his memory for forever.

Finally Billy pulls his hand from Steve's mouth, and wipes the spit off in his jeans as he steps away.

And Steve nearly collapses without the support of thick muscles to keep him up, boneless in the afterglow of the best orgasm he's had in months. But... what's he going to do with the way they've painted his abdomen? There's no fucking towels or paper here, and he can't just take off his expensive polo shit and use that! He stares down in slight panic and gestures with his hands as if he's just going to, what, wipe it off?

When his sight gets blinded by something soft that reeks of musky sweat, and he catches Billy's shirt before it would fall to the floor. He looks up to see Billy put his jacket on again.

“Use that to uh...” He points to the cum that slowly runs down Steve's exposed skin.

Although hesitant for very good reasons, Steve does eventually wipe himself dry with Billy's tee, and awkwardly hands it back, as if he can really use it for anything now.

And a prolonged silence fills the air between them, as Steve remains in the corner and Billy struggles a bit with the doors; no clue what floor they're on anymore, and the counter above probably hasn't worked in years.

“What happens now?” Steve asks cautiously from where he's sitting in the same corner, a spot that he dares not leave.

Billy groans out a complaint and shakes his head at the immovable steel doors. Then goes to sit next to Steve with only slight space between their bodies.

“You mean if we make it out of here alive?” he laughs, and hears Steve give a tired chuckle as well. “That depends...” his tone grows wary and serious. “Harrington... if you tell anyone about this, I will fucking kill you, you understand?”

Their eyes meet, and in Billy's there's a storm of mixed feelings. Fear of getting hurt, premature anger of being found out about, and maybe hope? But that could just be Steve projecting his own thoughts and feelings onto the other.

“And what if I don't?” Steve swallows hard around the anxiety that clumps together in his throat. “What if I don't tell anyone about... us?”

One corner of Billy's rather stern grimace quirks up. “Then I'll see you tomorrow night.”

[spidercakes]

Have a fun lil ABO high school starker thing (because apparently that’s what I’ve been feeling lately) :) Featuring omega!Tony and alpha!Peter

*

Peter watches Tony like he always does, in like, a not creepy way. Okay, always watching him his kinda creepy but its not really always its mostly when he comes and goes from his locker because Peter’s is three down and Tony is always a whirlwind of drama and snark that Peter thinks is amusing. And also because he has a giant neon crush on Tony and has for like, ages. But he’s a year younger and he can’t say he blames omegas for mostly dating older when their pool of potential dates thinks farting on each other is the funniest thing they’ve ever seen. Even he doesn’t like alphas his age and he is alphas his age.

Still, Tony. He walks in, some guy trailing behind him obviously trying to get his attention but Tony ignores him for the most part. “Oh come on, at least take the-” Tony cuts him off as he turns around. He looks beyond annoyed so Peter grins, sure that Tony’s companion is about to get told off.

“Okay, I don’t know what gave you the impression I actually give a shit about you but I don’t. I wanted to fuck you, I did that. Now get the hell out of my face,” Tony snaps at him.

Peter shakes his head because they never learn. This happens at least once a week and they all react the way this guy does now, yelling about Tony being a slut or whatever insult that comes to mind. “Dude, if the worst you can say about Tony is that he has a lot of sex I think he’s winning,” Peter says and then his eyes go wide because he hadn’t meant to say that out loud.

Tony looks over, then looks him over and Peter swears to god he’s going to die of embarrassment. “Why don’t you shut up and stay out of it,” the guy snaps at Peter.

“If you want me to stay out of it then stop shrieking like a banshee for everyone to hear, it is seven thirty in the morning you are so annoying,” Peter says, shutting his locker door and he’s fully prepared to flee because he hadn’t meant to say that either but Tony’s voice stops him.

“See, he thinks your annoying too and he didn’t even have to deal with the shitty sex,” Tony says, shrugging like this is something that can’t be helped and he turns to his locker. “So how about you go, hmm?” He flicks his fingers at the guy in dismissal and Peter’s kind of shocked that he just goes. Peter turns too, figuring he’s also been dismissed. “Oh, not you. Where’d you come from?” Tony asks him and Peter frowns.

“I’ve been here the whole time,” he says and Tony rolls his eyes.

“Yeah, I can see that but like, why are you here now?” he asks.

Okay, MJ would totally think its arrogant that Tony didn’t know Peter’s locker was three down from his but also Peter didn’t know bananas weren’t supposed to make his mouth all tingly until last week so if he can go sixteen years without noticing an allergy he figures Tony can be forgiven about the locker thing. “That’s my locker,” he says, gesturing to it. “Which is what I meant by I’ve been here the whole time.”

Tony looks him over again and Peter wishes he would stop that or maybe continue he’s not sure yet, his brain is panicking. “Huh. Well there’s something new.”

*

Peter is trying with some success to jam his books back into his locker when Tony walks up to him. “How come I don’t know you?” he asks and he takes a bite of his apple.

He has no idea how Tony can make these things look so damn casual. “Probably because I’m a year younger than you,” Peter says, finally managing to shove his biology text book back into his locker shelf.

“That’s no excuse, plenty of people go to parties,” Tony says and its so cute that he thinks Peter has ever been invited to any party ever.

“Uh, yeah, the only parties I go to are the ones involving Dungeons and Dragons so that’s like, probably another reason why you don’t know me.”

He doesn’t really expect Tony to look excited but he lights up anyway. “I love D&D!”

“I don’t but that’s because MJ keeps finding ways to make sure my characters die.” Usually in horrible ways and he works so hard to make them live but somehow he always ends up with a himbo who dies brutally.

“Michelle? Yeah, she’s great. A little intense, but hilarious,” he says and if he didn’t describe her as intense he would assume that Tony was talking about some other Michelle. Not that any of her friends call her that.

“How do you know MJ?”

“She likes to draw people in crisis in detention and I’m in there a lot. Which brings me to point number two, we have friends in common and I’m offended no one has introduced us,” he says.

Peter’s fucking confused and in a good way maybe? He has no idea what’s going on but it seems good so there’s that. “MJ likes to toy with people, she probably did it on purpose.” Definitely more like, she’s known that Peter has had a crush on Tony since forever and she’s never said anything about them talking anywhere let alone detention.

“Uh huh. So here’s the thing Peter, and I had to dig for that information because for someone reason everyone knows you as penis? I’ll forgive whatever weirdness that is, point is I think you’re cute and we’re gunna go a date and you better like Star Wars otherwise I’ll have to shoot myself for being attracted to someone who doesn’t like Star Wars and that’s messy so. See you at eight?” he asks and Jesus Peter wishes he had that kind of confidence.

“I’ve already seen the new Star Wars movie. I went opening night, obviously,” he says, frowning at himself because why is he even arguing this?

“Great, so did I. We can compare notes on how we think things should have went and annoy the other movie patrons with it. See you at eight?” he asks again, totally unperturbed and man, Peter is probably in love with him.

“Yeah, sure. But like, I have so many opinions so you should be prepared. I literally have notes and like, a slide show about it.” He has no idea why he admitted that out loud and honestly its more of a theory board done up Charlie Day style with a bunch of strings attached to it so Ned can stop being wrong and realize why Peter is right about everything to do with Star Wars canon but also. There’s no need to say any of that out loud.

Tony doesn’t look the least bit put off by that and instead grins, “good, and you should be prepared too because I have a freakish amount of Star Wars knowledge just lingering around in my brain for when morons try to claim they know more about Star Wars that I do.”

Peter grins, “awesome!”

*

MJ looks confused and Peter is also confused, he gets it. “You went on a date with Tony Stark? Stark doesn’t do dates, he barely even does one night stands.”

Oh, he does one night stands just fine, maybe a little too fine if his dramatic love life is any indication. Still though, he went on a date with Tony so he shrugs. “Well I don’t know but we went on a date and it was nice and he’s a total heathen when it comes to Star Wars theories but I can forgive that.”

MJ rolls her eyes, “dude, if he killed a man right in front of you you’d forgive it if you got a chance to sleep with the guy,” she points out.

“Oh my god MJ, don’t be so rude. I don’t want to just sleep with him, like a relationship would be nice. If he’s interested, which is probably a no because I’m me and he’s him but still. I can dream.” Its not like he doesn't already and if nothing else he did get to go on a date with the guy so there’s that.

“Nice to see MJ wasn’t talking out her ass when she said you weren't you know, like that. You know what I mean,” Tony says, making Peter jump in surprise as he sits beside him.

He does know what Tony means though and he lets out an annoyed huff. “Oh my god alphas are all so fucking annoying. They’re all ‘why don’t omegas like me,’” he says in a fake whiny voice, “but then they go on to make fun of literally everything omegas do and how they do it and then to top it off they walk around trying just scent people like walking up and sniffing the shit out of someone isn’t creepy as hell. They don’t like you because you’re stupid, Chad.”

Tony squints at him, “how are you single? What’s wrong with you? Do you keep a bag of baby teeth under your pillow?” he asks and Peter frowns.

“Oh he’s got no baby teeth, no bag of hair, and he’s not pretending to be woke just to get laid either, he’s just like that. His downside is that his voice hasn’t gone through puberty and he has a really sad tragic backstory that will make you want to pet him to make him feel better and that’s disgusting,” MJ says, laying out Peter Facts like its her job. Except she and Tony clearly talked about something because they’re talking like they did and he is so confused. “Also he’s dumb as hell and doesn’t know omegas have vetting systems, which is why he looks like he’s trying to take a shit right now.”

“Perfect. So we’re going to a museum later, right?” he tells Peter and he nods because like, obviously.

[wheresmynaya]

Lopez’s 8 Ch.2 | Brittana

I didn’t expect such a big response for the first chapter LOL I’m glad everyone’s here for this. Thanks for spreading the word! <33

Also available on ff.net (x) ao3 (x) & below the cut!

The next morning, Santana and Brittany are seated side by side in one of Santana’s favorite cafés. Santana’s stuffing her face with pancakes like she hasn’t eaten in days while Brittany tries to wrap her head around everything Santana has told her about the heist.

When the waitress comes around with Brittany’s hot chocolate and a top-up of Santana’s coffee, Brittany smoothly pulls a flask from her jacket and twists off the lid.

Santana watches as she pours a splash of peppermint schnapps into her mug and starts to stir before concealing the flask again.

“That’s new,” Santana comments with a chuckle, “Did you develop a drinking problem while I was away?”

Brittany rolls her eyes, “No, but I might if you insist on starting every morning like this.”

“Like what?” Santana smiles sweetly, “With breakfast and the pleasure of my company?”

Brittany squints and goes to correct her, “With you tricking me into having breakfast with you so you can bombard me with your dastardly plans on the way here.”

“Admit it, Britt,” Santana says smugly as she sticks her fork through a bite of pancakes, “You’ve missed this. You’ve missed me and all the fun we use to have. Tell me you’re not the least bit interested now that you’ve heard everything.”

Brittany sighs and goes to take a long sip of her hot chocolate.

Santana watches and waits, but Brittany remains quiet. It makes Santana smirk deviously.

“That’s what I thought,” Santana gives her a triumphant grin, “You can’t resist a good thing. You so want this, just say it.”

Brittany scoffs. If she didn’t find Santana’s confidence so damn attractive, she’d roll her eyes at it for the millionth time that morning.

“Okay, so you want to rob a museum…” Brittany clarifies hesitantly after taking another sip.

Santana shakes her head, “Not the museum, just someone in it.”

“That’s right,” Brittany nods, “You want to rob Rachel Berry.”

“Oh my God, Britt!” Santana hushes and eyes around them to see if anyone heard. When the coast is clear she turns back to Brittany with her voice lowered, “Could you be any louder? Who knows who’s listening, she’s like the biggest star right now.”

“I don’t know why,” Brittany scoffs, “You know she pays the paparazzi to follow her around, right?”

“Yeah, it’s ridiculous but so is she,” Santana shrugs, “She’s always causing a scene to get her name on the front page. Remember that one scandal involving a panty raid?”

“How could I forget! She was caught red-handed,” Brittany laughs before her tone grows serious, “Rumor has it that she once ate a bull testicle too.”

Santana frowns in disgust and pauses before taking another bite, “Can you not? I’m eating…”

“That’s her claim to fame, Santana, eating a bull testicle…like singular she didn’t even eat both of them!” Brittany says while she waves her hand around, “It’s such a waste.”

“Well the key words here are rumor has it,” Santana jokes, “Who knows what the hell goes on with her. And besides, why would anyone want to eat a fucking bull testicle in the first place? That’s gross.”

“It’s a delicacy in some places,” Brittany mumbles which earns her a quizzical glare from Santana, “So I’ve heard. People do strange things for fame.”

“Clearly,” Santana replies, “We all know Rachel Berry sucks but she’s the one hosting the Met Gala this year so it’s kind of out of my hands. She’s our mark by like…default.”

“Right,” Brittany nods and goes back to piecing everything together. Her face is cutely screwed up in deep concentration and Santana’s sure Brittany’s about to say that she’s the biggest pain in her ass which Santana’s totally use to hearing by now.

To her surprise, Brittany just let’s out an exhausted sigh.

“There’s no way we’d be able to pull this off with just the two of us,” She says, “There’s too many moving parts, we’d need like a group of 11 to 13 people – “

“Oddly specific,” Santana points out around a mouthful of pancakes while Brittany rambles on.

“ – At the very least and like a whole bunch of money which neither of us has,” Brittany gives her a look, “So how’s that going to work out?”

“Well for starters, we’d only need a team of seven and just a few grand,” Santana answers proudly, “That’s where the credit line I asked about comes into play.”

“Oh, just a few grand? Is that all?” Brittany quips, “You think money grows on trees or something? It doesn’t, I tried. Remember?”

“Yes, yes I remember. The pay-off is going to be big,” Santana jokes back as her voice dips down into a flirty tone, “And I’m sure you can work out something. Give yourself some credit, you can be very persuasive when you want.”

“Well one of us has to be judging by your failed attempt to seduce me yesterday,” Brittany smirks.

“Please. If I was going to seduce you, you’d know it.”

“I’m sure,” Brittany lets out a laugh before getting serious again, “Even if I could manage to get what you need, we’re working with such a tight schedule. We’d need to acquire a whole team like now. It’s crazy talk.”

“No, it’s genius,” Santana corrects her while Brittany takes a sip, “You have got to admit that this is some of my best work, Britt.”

She’s not wrong, it really is a great plan. It’s just that Brittany doesn’t want Santana to get herself locked up again, she doesn’t think she could last that long without having her around, but you only get locked up if you get caught and that has never happened when she and Brittany are together.

It really gets Brittany thinking though, what’s the hurry other than the obvious? Why does it have to be the Met Gala? What isn’t Santana telling her?

“Why do you need to do this?” Brittany asks suddenly and there’s this seriousness in her tone, “Tell me the reason and maybe I’ll consider it.”

Santana’s answer comes easily as she smirks, “Because it’s what I’m good at.”

“Babe, you’re good at a lot of things. Trust me on that, but this?” Brittany shakes her head, “I don’t have a good feeling about this,” Brittany says earnestly.

The old term of endearment falls so easily that Brittany doesn’t realize she says it. They’ve always playfully called each other names like that for years so it’s not big deal, even if Brittany sometimes gets a fluttery feeling in the pit of her stomach.

Santana lets out a long sigh and lowers her tone too, “There’s nothing to worry about. I have gone over this thing thousands of times, literally. It’s all I thought about when I was away and I have it perfected. If we get into a bind – which we won’t, probably – I can get us out. It might’ve taken me like three years to get it just right, but it’ll run like clockwork now. I promise.”

What surprises Brittany is the fact that Santana holds out her pinky to her.

“No. Don’t do that,” Brittany scoffs and points at Santana’s hand, “Pinky promises are reserved for promises that you can keep.”

“I know,” Santana replies and inches closer, “Why do you think I’m doing this?”

Brittany’s slow to answer and instead just stares down at her mug.

“Listen,” Santana adds in this husky tone and puts down her fork altogether to give Brittany her full attention. She has her serious voice on now too when she says, “I need you with me, B.”

Brittany bites her lip to keep from smiling as she peeks up at Santana. The brunette is staring back with these pleading big, brown eyes and Brittany struggles against the pull. She can feel herself caving the longer she stares back though, because feeling needed? By Santana? That’s Brittany’s kryptonite.

But Santana knows that too and Brittany can’t give into her so easily.

“Why can’t you find someone else if it’s so important for you to do?” Brittany asks but again Santana is too quick to answer.

“It has to be you and me leading this thing. That’s the only way this will work.”

“You’re just saying that,” Brittany brushes off with the shake of her head. She tries to make light of the situation, “You’ve found someone else before. That’s how Dani came into the picture, right? You can do it again. Maybe the next person will have green hair this time?”  

Brittany sees that she has struck a nerve with the way Santana takes a sharp inhale at the blow, but the brunette remains persistent despite the waver.

“I can’t do this with anyone else,” Santana says simply, “There’s no one like you, Britt.”

Her words and her tone has Brittany’s playful smirk falling and the blonde looks to Santana almost in wonderment. Those words Santana said, she rarely hers them. Or rather, she rarely believes them but when they come from Santana it means something different altogether.

Brittany trusts her – well, they trust each other – and that’s rare in their industry. Con artists don’t trust anyone and they can’t be trusted either. That’s just how it is, but it’s always been different for them.

“Don’t you want out of the bootlegging biz?” Santana asks to fill the silence.

Brittany’s smirk returns, “That’s not what it’s called anymore…”

“Whatever, you know what I mean,” Santana shrugs and finds Brittany’s eyes, “You’re better than that watered down shit, that I know. Don’t waste your talents on it, Britt. Do this thing with me instead. Please.”

It takes Brittany a moment for Santana’s words to sink in, but then she’s letting out a telltale sigh of defeat. She doesn’t even have to say anything, Santana just knows she has won this round.

“Alright, I’ll do it,” Brittany finally agrees aloud and takes Santana’s pinky in hers, “You happy now? You’ve successfully corrupted me.”

“Don’t pin that on me! You were like that before I even met you,” Santana grins, “But yes, I’m very happy.”

Brittany keeps her pinky curled around Santana’s for a second longer as she says, “Good, but just know I’m only agreeing to this because I like how you sound when you say please.”

“I know you do,” Santana winks. She pauses there for a second, admiring the way Brittany’s cat-like eyes darken in a way that occasionally has one of them being dragged off to a bathroom stall. Santana stays focused though and goes to pick up her fork again before offering a bite to Brittany, “Now taste this before it gets cold.”

“But I’m not hungry.”

“Liar,” Santana accuses playfully, “You’re always hungry.”

“Yeah, but not for pancakes.”  

Brittany gives Santana a proud smirk to which Santana rolls her eyes, “Just take a bite.”  

Brittany looks down at the offered fork warily then back into Santana’s hopeful eyes. She rocks the fork from side to side like she’s trying entice her with it. Ultimately Brittany rolls her eyes and succumbs to Santana yet again. She lets Santana guide the small bite into her mouth and hums almost instantly at the taste.

“Tastes like clouds,” Brittany’s in awe and goes to grab her own fork.

“Told you,” Santana smirks and slides her plate closer so that Brittany can help herself.

“So this team you’re talking about,” Brittany mumbles with her mouth full, “Got anyone in mind?”

Santana bobs her head from side to side, “Possibly. That’s what I’ll need your help with first, partner.”

Brittany smiles deviously at her new title, “Let’s hurry up and get to work then!”    

\\

They’re back at the loft and have cleared off the dining table so that it’s now covered in headshots and resumes. Santana and Brittany have been rifling through the paperwork for hours now trying to select the perfect person for job.

“What about this one?” Santana suggests and pushes the fashion designer’s details across the table towards Brittany.

Brittany pushes her laptop out of the way and goes to take a look at the profile. After once glance, she quickly shakes her head and throws the paper off to the side with a, “Nope.”

Santana gasps and goes to pick it up, “Why not? She’s young, she’s well-known, she’s – “

“Got a record,” Brittany fills in.

“Don’t we all?” Santana smirks.

Brittany narrows her eyes, “Not the kind of record you want around this type of job. Holly Holliday is a flight risk. She rarely completes a job. I don’t want us to worry about whether or not she’ll stick around long enough to see this through.”

“Well, there’s millions of dollars in it for her if she does,” Santana replies sarcastically.

Brittany gives her a look, “It’s a big if, Santana. We can find someone better.”

“Okay, okay. We’ll keep looking,” Santana sighs and goes back to searching.

“Ah, how about him?” Brittany suggests a moment later and reveals a picture of world-renowned designer Kurt Hummel.

Santana waves him off, “No. No boys allowed.”

“Not even a gay one?” Brittany asks and goes to frown at the picture, “He’d be perfect for this. Impressive portfolio, easily intimidated yet highly motivated by the potential pay-off.  Just look at his porcelain face.”

“Porcelain cracks with enough pressure,” Santana replies matter-of-factly, “If he someone gets picked up, we need to make sure he doesn’t start singing and with a face like that? I’m sure he’d sing his ass off.”

“True,” Brittany pouts at his picture, “I bet he gives really facials though.”

Santana fakes a gag, “Gross, Britt.”

“What? I was talking about skin care. See?”

Santana glances up to find Brittany looking genuine as she holds up his picture. She smiles apologetically and shakes her head, “It’s still a no. I’m going for all-girl here. We can’t have a guy in the group, even if his face does look baby-butt smooth. Besides, he’s rich already. We need someone who needs us.”

“Alright,” Brittany shrugs and sets down the picture.

A few moments later Santana plucks another profile from the stack and shows it to Brittany, “What about this one? Pretty sure we’ve worked with her before actually…”

Brittany reads the name April Rhodes and starts to chuckle, “I remember her! She got caught trying to smuggle a whole butterball turkey out from this banquet dinner…between her legs. ”

“Stuffing and all,” Santana recalls and goes to read the profile again, “She’s down for anything and she’s a talker too. Perfect for what we need. Now she’s apparently into fashion?”

“More like rehab,” Brittany corrects after doing a quick search on her laptop. She turns the screen to Santana, “Been in there now for six weeks.”

“Damn it! Third time’s the charm I guess,” Santana shrugs, “We’ll keep looking.”

A few more failed attempts later, Brittany starts to giggle to herself. Santana wonders how late it is and if Brittany is starting to get a little delirious.

“What?” Santana asks.

“I’m beginning to think you have a type,” Brittany teases while she taps away on her laptop.

“A type?”

“Mhmm,” Brittany hums without looking up.

Santana frowns, “I don’t have a type.”

“All your suggestions have been blonde and blue-eyed,” Brittany points out, “Hate to break it to you, honey, but you have a type.”

“My ex has blue hair, blue. That totally cancels out your theory.”

“But she was blonde when you met her,” Brittany grins and peeks over the screen of her laptop, “Admitting you have a type is the first step to recovery.”

“Oh is it?” Santana quirks her brow, trying to brush it off, “You sure that’s not addiction?”

“Same difference.”

Santana shakes her head, “Let’s just focus here.”

Although now that Brittany has mentioned, she’s become really aware of the last four people she has suggested. She didn’t know she was doing it – obviously – but now that Brittany’s pointed it out, she’ll just have to be more observant.

She doesn’t have a type, she just has standards and coincidentally those standards have been met by people who just so happened to be blonde and blue-eyed.

Does that mean she has a type? Of course not.

That’s when her eyes catch a profile she hasn’t suggested yet. She plucks up the paper and skims the details. Her smile grows the more she reads.

“She’s the one,” Santana mumbles and turns the paper to show Brittany, “This is our fashion designer and look, she isn’t blonde.”

Brittany scans the information and Santana watches her smile grow too.

“Let’s go get her.”

\\

Brittany manages to gain her and Santana entry into the designer’s next fashion show which just so happens to be the worst hour and a half they have experienced in a long time. Santana actually feels sorry for the models because any outfit that consists of a gigantic, floppy bow tied around your neck paired with a buttoned-up cardigan that is the same color as mashed up peas and carrots is just a travesty.

“I don’t know, Britt,” Santana whispers as another model walks by, “I’m having second thoughts. This is horrible, just look at that one’s shoes.”

Brittany glances over just in time to see Santana cringe. She does her best to stifle her laugh as she whispers back, “She doesn’t have to appeal to us, remember? She has to appeal to Rachel Berry, the same Rachel Berry who coined the term Sexy Librarian Chic.”

Santana nods, “You’re right. We need someone with just as horrible taste as her.”

“Exactly,” Brittany smiles down at Santana encouragingly, “We’ve found our designer for sure.”

\\

It’s hard for Santana and Brittany to sit through the entire show without screwing their faces up in disgust, but they manage to pull through and once the show ends they go off to find their designer.

It doesn’t take long though. When they find who they’re looking for, she’s huddled up in a corner surrounded by used disinfectant wipes. She’s in the middle of furiously scrubbing a high heel while she recovers from sobbing when Santana and Brittany walk up.

“Hi. Are you Emma?” Brittany asks softly, “Emma Pillsbury?”

The designer looks absolutely wrecked with her mascara running down her cheeks and this panicked look in her eye. It kind of freaks Santana out at first glance.

The red-haired woman hiccups as she looks to them, “Yes?”

“Awesome,” Brittany shows off that infectious, mega-watt grin and takes another step closer, “We’re big fans of your work.”

“You are?” Emma doesn’t look too sure.

“Of course,” Brittany shrugs casually and kicks away some of the used wipes so that she can perch herself on an upturned crate near the woman, “I would’ve never thought to pair a lime green cardi with mustard yellow loafers.”

“That’s because you have taste,” Santana jokes purely because she can’t help herself.

Brittany shoots her a glare and quickly tries to do some damage control before Emma starts to hyperventilate again, “You’re a fashion icon, Emma.”

“Tell that to the debt collectors,” Emma frowns, “I’m a failure. There’s no way I can come back from this. I put everything I had left into this show. It’s only a matter of time before everything’s taken from me.”

Brittany softens at Emma becoming increasingly distressed. Deep down, she feels a little bad for the woman. She seems like a nice person, genuine enough, and completely broke.

She’s the perfect person for the job.

“What if we told you that we can make this all go away?” Santana speaks up when she finds Brittany getting swept up in her feelings.

Emma blinks and glances between the two women skeptically, “I wouldn’t believe you.”

“Well start believing because we can,” Santana says through her smirk.

“What do you have in mind?” Emma questions.

Santana glances to Brittany and gives her a nod, almost as if she’s passing the mic.

“Dress Rachel Berry for the Met Gala,” Brittany supplies quietly so that only the three of them can hear.

Emma spurts out a disbelieving laugh, “You can’t be serious.”

Santana and Brittany remain stoic and it has Emma’s smile falling instantly.

“You’re serious,” Emma says gravely.

“We are,” Santana nods.

“Rachel Berry?” Emma pushes the idea away, “She’s…I’ve never dressed anyone with her kind of star power. How would I even be an option for her?”

“Come with us and we’ll explain everything,” Brittany offers.

Emma looks a little like a frightened doe but she stands regardless and agrees to follow them out to their car. It’s actually really concerning how little effort they had to use in order to get Emma to agree to a meeting, but they aren’t complaining too much.

\\

Once they get back to the loft, Brittany pulls up a picture of the most blingiest bling that ever blinged: the Toussaint. Emma’s eyes go wide at that size of the diamonds encased in the necklace while Santana gives a vague rundown of how Rachel Berry, the Toussaint, and Emma all play an important role in the outcome of this heist.

Unlike Brittany, Emma only needs to hear the parts of the plan that she’s directly involved with so it doesn’t take as long for the designer to get her head wrapped around the opportunity.

“I still don’t understand how you expect me to get a hold of this necklace,” Emma says a bit later, “And frankly, I think it’s too gaudy for the work I’m known for.”

“Known for? That’s a reach,” Santana teases lowly but plasters on an encouraging smile as she turns to face her again, “This necklace has history. It’s perfect for this year’s theme and if it’s Rachel Berry we’re talking about…the bigger the bling, the better. They’ll lend it out if it’s for her.”

Emma sighs but ultimately lets Santana sway her, “Okay, I can do this.”

“Yeah you can!” Brittany cheers before glancing to Santana and sending her a wink.

Santana ignores how her stomach flips at the sight and goes back to explaining what they need Emma to do first.

\\

Later that night, Santana and Brittany are back on the hunt again for their next recruit. Brittany’s eyes are starting to do that thing where they sting whenever she blinks, so she looks over to Santana who is fully immersed in her search.

“Can we take a break?” Brittany asks, “I’m getting snacky.”

“You’re always snacky,” Santana chuckles as Brittany goes to stand. She doesn’t even notice Brittany rounding the table until her warm hands squeeze tenderly at her shoulders. She feels Brittany’s thumbs dig into her tight muscles, working out the tension there, and she can’t help but moan at the sensation.

“Come on. Take a break,” Brittany husks as her hands continue to work, “We’ve been going at it all day.”

Santana can practically hear the smugness in her tone for that innuendo; Brittany can be the biggest tease sometimes and that’s coming from her.

She stays focused on the task at hand though, “I’m close, Britt. I can feel it.”

“I haven’t heard that in awhile,” Brittany chuckles darkly as she withdraws her hands and goes looking for a snack.

Santana raises a brow, “I find that hard to believe.”

“You’re right,” Brittany says as she goes to lean against the kitchen counter with an apple in hand. She looks back at Santana with this mischievous glint in her eye, “What I meant to say was that I haven’t heard that from you in awhile.”

Santana lets out a laugh but Brittany just takes a bite of her apple, never breaking eye contact. In fact, her smug grin grows as she chews.

“And I’m sure you want to change that?” Santana asks as her voice dips into that deliciously raspy-hot-as-hell tone of hers, “Don’t you?”

“Is that an invitation?” Brittany practically purrs after wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

“You find me a hacker and we’ll see where your luck takes you.”

Brittany sinks her teeth into the apple then snatches up a bag of chips and a beer before retuning to the search with a renewed enthusiasm. It takes her all of twenty minutes before she’s stumbling upon someone promising.

\\

“Can I borrow your car?” Santana asks the next day while Brittany is busy at work trying to sift through potential people needed for other roles in the heist.

“Which one?”

“Any.”

The blonde shrugs, “Sure. Where’re you going? Paying another friend a visit?”

Santana smirks, “Something like that.”

Brittany gives her a questioning look before going to grab the keys, “Can I come?”

“Not yet,” Santana answers, “But I’ll need your help a little later.”

“Sure,” Brittany shuffles through the mix for Santana’s favorite and tosses them over to her, “I just filled that one up too.”

Santana smiles sweetly and comes over to press a chaste kiss to Brittany’s cheek in thanks, “I’ll see you later. Don’t get into any trouble while I’m out.”

“Speak for yourself,” Brittany chuckles although she can feel a blush blossoming at the feel of Santana’s lip on her skin. God, she’s so sex-deprived. If just a little kiss on the cheek gets her going, who knows what’ll happen if Santana leaves one on her lips next.

The brunette gives her one last wave of her fingers before she heads out, leaving Brittany to distract her wandering thought by looking up that possible hacker’s details and setting up a meeting.

\\

Awhile later, Santana finds herself standing across the street from a jeweler she once tagged along with her father to when she was younger. Her father and the shop owner were close friends back in the day, and judging by her father’s reputation, she’s sure the shop owner must’ve dabbled into the business as well otherwise, why would they be so close?

Santana remembers playing with the owner’s daughter every once in awhile though when she and her father would come by. Word on the street is that the daughter took over the business after the owner’s passing, so it’s only natural that Santana returns now.

They both have followed in their fathers’ footsteps in a way and she’s sure they could be of use to each other.

Santana waits for the jeweler in the window to notice her watching from across the way. When she finally does, she quickly speaks to her colleague before making her exit.

Santana smiles politely as the other woman nears, she looks like she has barely aged since the last time she saw her.

“Hey Tina,” Santana greets.

“Santana, Hi!” Tina replies happily, “God, it’s been a long time. I haven’t seen you since the funeral.”

“Yeah, I’ve been busy,” Santana says vaguely, “How’s business?”

“It’s okay,” Tina shrugs as her smile falls, “We’re going through a little rough patch at the moment, but we’ll be okay. What brings you out this way?”

“Well, I kind of need your help with something,” Santana tells her.

Tina’s voice lowers, “Is everything okay? I heard you were in jail…”

“Yeah, I was,” Santana answers with a chuckle and goes to check her watch, “You got time for a walk? I can explain everything.”

Tina glances over at the shop for a moment before she nods, “Yeah, of course. What do you need help with?”

\\

Santana breezes into the loft awhile later with the biggest of grins on her face.

“Got a jeweler!” She says proudly as she shrugs out of her blazer. When she doesn’t hear a reply she ventures in deeper and calls out, “Britt? You here?”

“Yeah!” Brittany answers back and Santana follows the sound of her voice around the corner.

She finds the blonde seated next to a woman she recognizes from Brittany’s pile of suggestions but she still has questions. The two of them are squeezed in on a loveseat that Santana totally forgot about and they’re both staring down as the woman’s fingers type furiously at her laptop.

“What’s going on here? Who the hell are you?” Santana asks, but her tone comes out way more aggressive than she intended.

Brittany looks up questioningly upon hearing the snap, “This is Mercedes. She’s our new hacker.”

“I didn’t agree to anything yet,” Mercedes corrects her.

Santana’s brow rises as she looks from the woman to Brittany, “You chose someone named after a car?”

Mercedes gives Santana a look, the first time she’s torn her eyes away from the screen, but Brittany cuts in before anything happens.

“She’s really great, Santana,” Brittany tells her and goes to pat her thigh, “Come sit, she’s already infiltrated the museum’s security system.”

“What?” Santana gasps and quickly comes in close, foregoing Brittany’s lap so she can see the screen. Sure enough, it’s all there: access to every camera in the entire building.

“Is this what you’re looking for?” Mercedes asks casually.

“Yup,” Brittany beamed and looked to Santana who was now pressed up against her shoulder, “What do you think?”

“Anyone can hack into some cameras,” Santana waves off as she pushes away from Brittany to stand, “What else can you-“

Suddenly all the lights in the loft went out and the three of them were plunged into darkness for a few seconds until the sound of a mouse click turned them back on.

Mercedes smirks at the dumbfounded look on Santana’s face, “It took me a matter of seconds to run this place. Whoever is in charge of your busted ass security system here should be fired.”

When Santana’s only reply is a dropped jaw, Brittany takes that as all the approval she needs and enlists Mercedes on the spot.

\\

Once Mercedes heads out, Santana and Brittany set off on their next task for the day. This one is something Brittany’s been organizing while Santana was off meeting with Tina, so she fills Santana in on the way to the restaurant where they’re meant to meet Emma.

Brittany takes the lead on this one, telling the designer that the mission here is to make Rachel Berry as jealous as possible so that she’ll stop at nothing to nab Emma Pillsbury as her fashion designer for the Gala. Emma’s not so sure she’s following along, but Brittany tells her not to worry about it and just do what they talked about earlier while Santana was away.

Emma nods resolutely and heads inside while Santana and Brittany hang by the car.

“Who’s she meeting with?” Santana asks.

“You’ll see,” Brittany answers, “You aren’t the only one who has a few tricks up her sleeve.”

Santana tilts her head to the side in wonder, but Brittany just leans against the car with her arms crossed and rests her head back to soak in the warm sunlight.

Santana watches with awe, the way sunrays halo her makes Brittany look almost angelic. Santana knows that couldn’t be further from the truth though and the thought makes her smirk.

They stand there a moment longer somewhat watching from the window as Rachel Berry’s biggest rival, Sunshine Corazon, enters the restaurant and walks over to the table where Emma is seated. The singer and designer talk excitedly while Brittany pulls a camera from the car and pops off the lens cover.

“Hold this,” She directs and passes it to Santana before walking over to snap a couple pictures of the two carrying on. Santana watches curiously until Brittany returns to her side, “You know how much we can get for pictures like these? Could easily pay for nice meal and a few drinks.”

“Is that your way of asking me on a date?” Santana snickers as she passes Brittany the lens cap.

“Date?” Brittany feigns surprise, “You don’t date. At least that’s what you told me before you started dating Dani.”

Santana let’s out a deep sigh at another one of Brittany’s Dani-related jabs, “You’re never going to let that go, huh?”

“Nope,” Brittany grins, “Especially because she got you arrested once.”

“Not funny,” Santana huffs and goes to cross her arms.

Brittany’s quick to slip her hand between them though and slides down Santana’s forearm so that her pinky locks with the brunette’s, “I’m sorry. Don’t be mad.”

Santana rolls her eyes at the sickeningly sweet tone but she can’t help the smile that forms. When it comes to Brittany, sometimes she really can’t help herself. She’s like putty in her hands, but that goes both ways at times too.

“Oh look, Emma’s coming out now,” Brittany points out as she drops Santana’s pinky and goes to stow away the camera.

Santana hates how she already misses the closeness but pushes away the feeling and gets back into the car along with Brittany and Emma.

\\

When the pictures of Emma’s lunch with Sunshine Corazon are released to the public it only takes a matter of minutes before Rachel Berry’s manager is calling to book Emma for the Gala.

“Mission accomplished,” Brittany smirks and pumps her fist in the air, “And I got a couple hundred bucks for the pictures!”

“Big money,” Santana teases.

Brittany continues to smirk as she closes the distance between them, “What’d you say we blow this popsicle stand and grab a drink?”

“Tempting,” Santana says as Brittany’s eyes linger on Santana’s lips, “But I’ve got work to do.”

Brittany let’s out a sigh and turns away, “You’re no fun.”

\\

“Okay so here me out,” Brittany begins as she and Santana walk down a crowded street, “This girl is a little out there but she’s got the best hands I’ve ever seen.”

Santana quirks a brow, “I’m offended.”

“Hey, it’s been awhile,” Brittany replies with a wink, “You might need to refresh my memory.”

“Yeah, you’d love that would you?” Santana laughs.

“You have no idea. Come on,” Brittany smirks then grabs onto Santana’s wrist to pulls her through a crowd surrounding a busker.

It’s a tight fit so Santana hooks her fingers into Brittany’s belt loops and practically molds herself to the blonde’s back – you know, so they don’t get separated.

Brittany loves every minute of it of course.

Santana also doesn’t mind the closeness too much either.

“She’s there,” Brittany points out to the girl doing some trick with a few red solo cups.

Santana rolls to the tips of her toes to get a better look which makes Brittany chuckle.

“Come here, shorty,” She teases and pulls the girl around to stand in front of her instead. Her hands linger on Santana’s hips, “Can you see now?”  

“Yeah,” Santana mumbles and watches the girl in front of them work her magic on some tourist.

She’s quick with her hands and just as charismatic as Brittany too but there’s something about her that’s a little too flashy. Maybe it’s the hot pink, furry vest she wears or the heart-shaped sunglasses sitting atop her head. Santana has no idea, but the girl’s swift nab of the man’s watch without him knowing has her interests piqued.

“See what I mean?” Brittany nudges Santana.

“She’s good,” Santana agrees and as the crowd starts to disperse she and Brittany head over.

“Hey hotties,” The girl greets and does a quick nod so that her sunglasses fall over her eyes. She points over to Santana’s watch, “That’s nice.”

“Don’t even think about it,” Santana smirks.

The girl tilts her head to the side and looks between them, “You 5-0?”

Santana and Brittany look to each other and laugh wholeheartedly.

“Fuck no!”

“Yeah, no way!” Brittany adds too, “What’s your name, kid?”

“Sugar,” The girl supplies and Santana’s sure the girl is lying, “Why?”

“Well Sugar, we were just admiring your special talents,” Santana says smoothly, “Got time for a chat?”

“Time is money,” Sugar replies looking skeptic, “So unless there’s something in it for me, the answer is no.”

“Oh, there’s definitely going to be something in it for you,” Brittany tells her with a grin, “Come take a walk.”

Sugar eyes the two warily, “I’ll go…but only if you buy me a bubble tea.”

“A what?” Santana frowns.

“It’s a drink,” Brittany chuckles, “You’ve never had it?”

“No?”

“Have you been living under a rock?” Sugar gasps.

“No, I’ve been in jail.”

“San,” Brittany hushes, not wanting to scare the girl off but to both of their surprise Sugar looks even more interested than ever before.

“What’d you do?” Sugar asks as her smile widens.

“You don’t just ask people that,” Santana scoffs, “That’s exactly how you get shanked.”

“Do you have a shank?”

“What.”

“Can I see it?”

“Anyway!” Brittany claps to get both of their attention, “So bubble tea, we need to get you one asap!” Brittany answers as she licks her slips. The movement of her tongue catches Santana’s eye which has her watching very, very closely, “I’m getting thirsty just thinking about it.”

“Yeah, imagine how I feel. I’ve been lifting things off tourists all day in this heat,” Sugar pulls out a wad of ones and starts to fan herself with it.

“Heat? It’s barely 70 degrees out,” Santana laughs, “Maybe if you’d lose that ridiculous vest-“

“The thirst is still real!” Sugar tells them then glances to Santana with a smirk, “I’m sure you know something about it judging by the way you just eye-fucked blondie here.”

Brittany’s brows shoot up as she turns to Santana. She presses her hand to her chest in surprise, “You did what now?”

Santana ignores Brittany’s teasing and narrows her eyes on the girl, “Fine. We’ll get you your dumb drink and then we’ll talk.”

Sugar beams, “Perfect.”

\\

Later that night, Santana and Brittany are lounging on the couch with their feet propped up on the coffee table. They’ve both had the longest day ever so far and can barely keep their eyes open long enough to scarf down dinner. They have the tv on but Santana isn’t really watching, her head is too full of scattered thoughts and schemes to focus on anything else.

Brittany seems to notice and goes to turn down the volume.

“You don’t stop, do you?” She asks Santana.

The brunette is slow to answer but Brittany’s not sure if that’s because she’s so deep in thought or just exhausted. When she lets out a yawn, Brittany gets her answer.

“There’s only one more person that we need,” Santana tells her like Brittany doesn’t know, “One more and that’s the whole team.”

“Yeah, I get that but you didn’t answer my question,” Brittany replies softly. She moves to brush Santana’s hair behind her ear then keeps her hand pressed against Santana’s cheek, “You’re gonna burn out if you keep at it like this.”

Santana smiles apologetically and overlaps Brittany’s hand with hers, “I won’t. We’re almost there. Once the team is complete then we can breathe a little. I know what I’m doing, Britt, you don’t have to worry about me.”

“Hard not to,” Brittany shrugs as she pulls her hand out from underneath Santana’s.

Santana watches as her features harden a little and she wonders why that is.

Their dynamic has always been a little unconventional, especially when the casual sex became a thing, and maybe once upon a time they could’ve really been something but nothing ever happened. Santana doesn’t date – not really – and Brittany never voiced her feelings if she had them so here they are: just a couple of friends who are gay and do crime.

Is it a dangerous combo considering their past and the crazy amount of sexual chemistry?

Probably, but it works for them.

“Can I borrow a car again tomorrow?” Santana asks, wanting to fill the heavy silence.

“You know, you don’t have to ask every time right?” Brittany says with her head cocked to the side, “As long as you don’t crash any of them, I don’t care.”

“I was just checking,” Santana nods as Brittany turns back to the tv screen, “I’m going upstate tomorrow.”

“Let me guess,” Brittany replies, “To see a friend?”

“Yeah.”

“And you don’t want me to come.”

Santana sighs, “It’s not that I don’t want you to. There’s things to be done here and I don’t want both of us to be away if it’s not needed. We’re on such a tight schedule.”

“I know,” Brittany reaches over to squeeze Santana’s knee, “I just wish you weren’t so cryptic all the time. You’re my best friend, my partner-in-crime. You should tell me things.”

Santana bites her lip. Sometimes Brittany makes things sound so easy, so simple.

“I’m sorry, Britt. I didn’t realize…”

“It’s fine,” Brittany says earnestly, “I’m not mad. It’s just something I’ve noticed lately.”

“Yeah,” Santana mumbles as she starts to get lost in her thoughts.

“I’m gonna head to bed,” Brittany says a moment later and gives Santana’s knee one more squeeze as she stands, “Night, Santana.”

“Goodnight Britt,” Santana says back and watches the blonde make her way up the stairs. She feels a sudden heaviness but she isn’t what caused it. Instead, she just chalks it up to being tired and heads off to bed a little while later too.

\\

Santana leaves at the crack of dawn the next day in hopes of beating the traffic. Brittany isn’t even awake yet, but she feels weird leaving the loft without saying anything so she scribbles down a quick note and slides the piece of paper under Brittany’s bedroom door before heading off:

Hey B,

Off to see that ‘friend’ I’ll be home before dinner. Have a good morning! Xo

– S

\\

As Santana follows the winding road through a neighborhood of massive, cookie-cutter houses, she can’t help but roll her eyes at how basic it all is. If it weren’t for a familiar SUV parked in the driveway, Santana would’ve driven right pass her intended destination.

She parks her car a little ways down the road and walks up, already dialing the number.

It rings once, twice, three times but on the fourth someone finally answers.

“Santana?”

“Hey Q,” Santana smirks at the surprise she hears. She doesn’t think she’ll ever get over it, “How are you these days?”

“Uhm, good?”

“And the kid?”

“Also good.”

“That’s good.”

“Are you calling just to ask how I am? Because that’s very odd and completely unlike you.”

“Checking in on one of my oldest friends is unlike me?” Santana answers as she walks up the woman’s driveway and easily unlocks the side gate.

“Uh, yeah. It is.”

“That’s rude.”

“No, it’s accurate. I thought you were in jail.”

“I was. Got out on good behavior.”

“Bullshit.”

“It’s true.”

“Well, congrats. Now, what do you really want?

Santana wanders into her garage, “For you to come out for a chat.”

The woman laughs down the line, “I don’t even know where you live anymore, Santana.”

“That’s fine,” Santana says, “I’ve come to you.”

“What?”

“I’m in your garage, Fabray.”

“What?!”

Santana soon hears a door leading into the garage open and someone call out, “Mommy will be right back, Beth!” Then it closes and fast footsteps approach until the blonde rounds on Santana. She flinches as the surprise, “What the hell, Lopez!”

“Hey Quinn,” Santana grins as she hangs up the phone and slips it into her pocket.

Quinn shakes her head and laughs, “What the hell are you doing in my garage?”

“Like I said,” Santana shrugs while her eyes go to roam all of the expensive appliances surrounding the room, “I’m here for a chat.”

After knowing Santana almost as long as Brittany has, Quinn knows exactly what that means and goes to cross her arms, “I’m retired.”

Santana rolls her eyes, “People come out of retirement all the time and after you hear what I’ve got up my sleeve you’ll do the same.”

“No, no,” Quinn waves off, “I don’t want to hear what you have to say, Santana. I have to think about my – “

“Family because you’re a mother, “ Santana fills in sarcastically, “I know, I was there when you gave birth for some odd reason.”

“You and Brittany offered!”

“I was just being nice, I didn’t actually want to go,” Santana replies, “That shit scarred me for life! Like, is your vagina okay now?”

Quinn gives her a tired look, “You did not just ask me that.”

“I’m just saying,” Santana holds up her hands in defense, “That was the most fucked up thing I’ve ever se-“

“Mommy!” A small person suddenly cries out as the garage door slams open. The sudden sound has Quinn shoving Santana to the side out of her daughter’s sight, “I’m hungry!”

“Okay baby, I’ll fix you a snack in just a second,” Quinn calls out. She catches Santana mimicking her and slaps her shoulder, “Are you going to tell me why you’re here or not?”

“I need a Fence,” Santana says simply, “I’ve got something big going here and you’re the best of the best.”

“That might be the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me,” Quinn eyes her curiously, “But I’m not doing it. Like I said, I’m retired. “

“Bullshit,” Santana scoffs as she looks around at all the stolen goods, “You’re bored with the whole Suzy Homemaker front because if you weren’t you wouldn’t have all this crap hiding in your garage.”

Quinn softens and eyes Santana analytically, “How much are we talking?”

“A lot,” Santana smirks and leans in to whisper Quinn’s proposed cut.

Quinn’s jaw drops at the sound of the amount.

“Sound good to you?”

Quinn sputters out a laugh, “Uh yeah, sounds very good.”

“Excellent,” Santana beams and calls over her shoulder as she turns to leave, “Team meeting is on Monday. Don’t be late.”

“Wait, you have a whole team?”

Santana smirks, “I do now.”

[monabela]

this is here because I was listening to esc songs and Goodbye To Yesterday suddenly seemed like a great song to write a fic about. so here you go, a small, mostly aimless thing. the title... is from that other estonian song. no, not Play. it’s from Verona.

never said enough

pairings/characters: Belarus (Nadzeya)/Estonia (Eduard)

word count: 3268 summary: Nadzeya wakes up alone, and she doesn’t understand why. The only one with the answer to that question is the man who left her, and she’s determined to find it.

Something is off.

Nadzeya doesn’t open her eyes, trying to listen for what woke her. The room is quiet. Her whole house is quiet. She sighs, and outside, down on the narrow street, a car starts. It idles, just a few seconds, and then the sound echoes off the old buildings as the car leaves the street.

Without opening her eyes, Nadzeya flings her arm out across her bed, hitting the empty pillow next to her.

“Fucking coward,” she grits, letting the wave of anger she feels quickly overtake the welling of sadness. Anger is, in her experience, much easier to deal with. Her fingers clench in the empty pillow, arm quickly getting cold. How fucking early is it?

Finally, Nadzeya wrenches her eyes open to check the alarm clock on its shelf across the room, nestled between her collection of CDs. Six-fucking-fourteen, is he serious? Groaning, she turns over and tucks her arm back underneath the covers, pressing her face into the mattress, into the lingering, familiar smell of pine and fresh bread.

Although she dozes off and finds it’s half past six by the time she opens her eyes again, trying to go fully back to sleep seems like a futile exercise at this point, so she curses some more under her breath, just to make sure she stays angry instead of slipping even slightly toward despondent, and rolls out of bed. There is absolutely no reason to be up; it’s her day off work and there is nothing to be done around the house. Maybe, somewhere, she had planned on spending at least the morning… Not alone.

But she overestimated Eduard Mets, obviously.

There is no note anywhere in his ever-hurried handwriting that explains his abrupt departure from her bed and her house, no text or voice message left.

Nadzeya had expected more. Too much, evidently. Coward.

It’s a good thing she spent so much of her teens and early twenties being angry at just about everything—including herself, more often than not—because she finds it’s barely any effort to hold on to the ire now, slamming doors up and down her narrow house and stomping on the many stairs.

She knows he’s an evasive man, is the thing. Eduard has these things he refuses to talk about, and Nadzeya knows she’s stubborn, but he manages to talk around her every time she asks. It’s impressive, and it does—it did—intrigue her. That little bit of mystery.

Of course, it now turns out it’s just cowardice.

Without noticing, she has started dragging her feet. It’s still barely gone seven, but Nadzeya goes and puts on the heaviest boots she can find, digging them out from underneath some festival outfits from the past few years. They don’t match her T-shirt and jeans at all, but she needs to stomp some more.

Eduard liked these boots, one of the first times they met up. Said they made her look like some ancient warrior queen. Then, of course, they’d had sex in his awful little tent, and they haven’t really stopped since.

Kicking the wardrobe, Nadzeya focuses on her anger. She doesn’t understand what happened here, and she hates not understanding things.

Since she’s up now, she makes breakfast, deciding to go all out with it because she might as well, and also to spite Eduard if just in spirit. That man is religious about breakfast.

After managing to eat everything she makes, Nadzeya reads the news, which is one thing that always serves to make her feel worse. As expected, it works. Somewhat. It also serves to remind her that it’s more fun to be able to bitch about it to someone, even if just over text messages. She’ll be damned if she texts Eduard as if he didn’t run out on her at ass o’clock in the morning, though. He doesn’t deserve that.

She’s sure she didn’t deserve that.

There’s the sadness again, threatening to drown out the anger that is much preferable.

No one would accuse Nadzeya Alyakhnovich of being a melodramatic person, but that’s just because very few people actually know her well. When she was eleven, a girl in school laughed at her dress, and she still despises her with a vengeance, just because it’s a petty thing to do and that’s what makes it fun. She told Eduard this, once. He seemed impressed by her ability to hold a grudge at the time, because he isn’t the type—much too logical for that, and probably too much of a fucking coward—but he didn’t seem particularly surprised that she would. He has strange talents, and understanding her is one of them.

Remembering that makes this even more confusing, and it’s getting harder to stay angry. The sun is rising outside, slowly bringing color to the cold streets of the city, lifting the haze of night under which he slunk away, and Nadzeya just needs to understand.

Everything about Eduard is rational; he’s always thinking about everything, so what the hell was he thinking?

It’s almost eight now. Nadzeya has already had it with this day.

Getting out her phone, she opens her contacts. Scrolls to Eduard’s name. Although she opens their messages—she never realized, she thinks, how often they talk about the most mundane things, like the most recent conversation, which is about how hay fever is a bitch—she does not send anything new.

Instead, she yanks her bag from the table, throws her phone into it, and slams all the doors on the way out.

There is only room for one coward in this—this relationship, and it sure as hell will not be Nadzeya. She’d be dishonoring the name of Alyakhnovich if she were. So she’s going to find the man who is.

It’s still too cold of a spring morning to be outside without a coat on, let alone ride on a motorcycle, but Nadzeya just puts her helmet on and determinedly ignores the goosebumps crawling down her bare arms.

Eduard lives barely fifteen minutes away, just outside of the city’s main bustle, on the lower floors of terraced building that would be lovely if age hadn’t weathered it to a dull grey color. He’s constantly complaining about the lack of parking space, but Nadzeya just slides her bike between two cars and stomps her way to the front door of number 14A, where she rings the doorbell just once. She isn’t desperate, after all. Not sad. Just pissed off.

The door isn’t opened, and fine. If he wants to be like that, two can play that game.

Nadzeya rings the doorbell about ten times in quick succession, then slams on the door with a closed fist.

“Come out!” she shouts. “You coward!”

Still no movement in Eduard’s house, but somewhere else, a door opens, and then there’s a man’s voice from above her.

“Hey, what’s goin’ on down there?”

Nadzeya takes a step back to look at Eduard’s upstairs neighbor standing on his tiny balcony, the neighbor who must be the one Eduard says is always making noise at inconvenient hours but also keeps giving him baked goods, which apparently makes it okay. Nadzeya thinks that’s bribery, but then if anything could bribe Eduard, it would be baked goods.

“Oh, hey!” the neighbor is saying. “You’re Eduard’s girl, right?”

And, really, Nadzeya resents being called a girl—she’s well in her thirties—let alone someone’s girl, but she just shrugs now. The man grins.

“Sounds like he’s in trouble, huh? Can’t imagine Mets doin’ anything to deserve all that racket, so it must be pretty bad.”

“Where the fuck is he?” Nadzeya narrows her eyes up at the man, ignoring his obvious attempt to get some gossip out of her. He just keeps grinning, unperturbed, light hair flopping all over the place. He looks like someone who makes a lot of noise, for sure.

“Went off to work.” A vague gesture in the direction of the city center.

“It’s Saturday.”

“Yeah, that’s what I said when I saw him leave!” The man shrugs. “He’s a workaholic, that guy. Or he’s avoidin’ ya. Wouldn’t blame him, no offense.”

Nadzeya quirks her eyebrows minutely, decides to take it as a compliment, turns, and walks back to her motorcycle.

“Wish him good luck from me!” the neighbor yells after her when she takes off. She will not.

It’s remarkable how much she knows about Eduard. Except it’s not, really, Nadzeya realizes. She knows she has no real skill with people, never has and never will, but it became easy to talk to Eduard. At first, maybe, they talked when they weren’t busy having sex, but if she’s honest with herself, it didn’t take long before it was the other way around.

Case in point; she knows where he works. They’ve had lunch together a few times, somewhere near the university when Eduard was between lectures and Nadzeya between shifts at the museum—she would be lying if she said she doesn’t enjoy the looks she gets when she manages to get away on the days she does demonstrations and is in full period costume. With fake bloodstains.

There are no lectures on Saturdays, though, not in Eduard’s department, and if he were doing research, she’d know.

She’d know.

She parks her motorcycle haphazardly between some bicycles, very nearly knocking one over. It’s hard to resist the urge to kick it, but she’d probably damage it with these boots and the fucking bike didn’t do anything wrong.

Even early on a Saturday morning, the hall of the university is fairly busy with students. Nadzeya weaves her way through them to the information desk, slamming her palm down on it and startling the woman sitting there.

“Good mor—” she starts.

“I’m looking for Eduard Mets,” Nadzeya says. “Where is he?”

For a long moment, the woman just blinks up at her owlishly. Nadzeya bites the inside of her cheek.

“He works here.”

“Yes, of course. He should be up in…” She trails off as she gestures upwards. “Actually, there he is.”

Turning, Nadzeya follows her gaze up to the mezzanine level over the canteen area of the hall. Eduard has his back turned to the desk and is talking to a young man who must be one of his students. He’s tucked his hands underneath his own upper arms in a familiar gesture and is wearing the same turquoise sweater he was yesterday, despite obviously having been at home.

“Thanks,” Nadzeya tells the woman behind the desk, and goes to find some stairs, hoping Eduard hasn’t run off by the time she gets up there.

He has not. When she throws the door of the stairwell open and starts towards him, he looks up at the heavy footfalls of her boots, and freezes, eyes wide. The student looks between them curiously. He appears quite young to be at university.

“Nadzeya,” Eduard starts as she nears, and he gestures at the boy. “I’m—”

“Thanks, Mr Mets, bye!” the student says, and scuttles off to the other end of the mezzanine level, barely pretending not to pay attention to them anymore. He might even be pulling out his phone to report to his friends. Eduard looks after him for a moment, raising his hands forlornly.

“Pretty smart kid,” Nadzeya comments. Eduard turns back to her, expression caught between apprehensive and plain sheepish. It’s not fear, and she doesn’t know if she’s glad about that or not. It would have been easier if he was afraid, maybe. His sea-green eyes are bright as ever, even if the way they are squinted slightly behind his glasses indicates that he hasn’t had enough sleep. It was one o’clock by the time they’d gone to bed.

“What are you doing here, Nadzeya?”

“I could ask you the same thing,” she snaps.

“I work here—”

“Not on fucking Saturdays, Eduard. I’m not an idiot.” She takes a step closer, tilting her head back to look up at him. He swallows visibly, eyes flitting everywhere but her face. Her next words are a hiss. “What the fuck happened?”

“I just thought…” He adjusts his glasses. “Can we do this somewhere more private, maybe?”

“Absolutely not.” She jabs a finger against his chest. Her nail polish is chipped, and she has not put on makeup, which is very rare, but she’s too upset to give a damn. “All I need is an explanation. You’re a teacher, it can’t be that hard.”

“Look, it’s… I…” He chews on his lip nervously. When he reaches for his glasses, his long fingers brush against her cold arm. He pitches his voice low. “I didn’t think I should stay.”

Nadzeya frowns up at him, jerking her chin to demand more explanation.

“I didn’t think you’d want me to.”

She blinks, trying to process that.

“Why not?”

“We didn’t—” He leans closer to her after glancing around nervously. “We didn’t have sex. Last night.”

“And?” They don’t always have sex when they meet, now, no matter the time of day. In fact, more often than not, they just have lunch, or go to a museum, or that concert a few weeks back. For all intents and purposes, they have been dating, despite never having named it as such.

“Nadzeya, I’ve never stayed the night.”

“Yes, you have.”

“No.” He takes a deep breath. “I’ve stayed late, but never… Like that. I’ve always left, you know, afterwards.”

She wonders at how that brain of his made this leap of logic, because she’s a smart woman and she has no idea what the hell he means right now. Afterwards? What about the nights they’ve just spent watching ever stranger documentaries or just drinking beer and talking, when he only left because he said he had work in the morning?

“So because we didn’t fuck—” she narrows her eyes when he winces and looks around again— “you decide it’s okay to leave without any kind of message? How the fuck does that sound logical?”

“I should have written something, but I wanted to spare myself the awkwardness, Nadzeya!” he hisses. “I thought you wouldn’t want me to stay!”

“You thought I—” She tries to take a deep breath, and find to her surprise and horror that it’s difficult, breath shuddering. “You can’t think for me, Eduard Mets.”

“I thought…”

“You’re always thinking! I know!” There are probably people watching, and this might be getting live-tweeted. She doesn’t care. “But you don’t think for me. You don’t get to decide what I want.”

“I know.” He touches her arm. His fingers are warm.

“You don't, obviously! If you knew what I wanted, we wouldn’t fucking be here, we’d be having breakfast in my kitchen! Because you’d know I don’t give a fuck whether we have sex, Eduard.”

The anger is difficult to hold on to, and the sadness that it has been keeping at bay is surging up. She finds herself grasping Eduard’s sweater, gritting her teeth against the empty feeling in her chest, the unwelcome taste of tears at the back of her throat. It’s easier to be angry, because at least if she’s just angry, she doesn’t have to face up to the fact that this thing—that Eduard—means more to her than she had anticipated. More than it seems to mean to Eduard.

“I don’t know how you can still think I just care about getting laid.” It’s said through gritted teeth, and Eduard bites his lip in return, slowly reaching for her face, swiping a thumb across her cheekbone. Nadzeya looks up at him, meeting the familiar sea-green eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he says. She swallows, averting her gaze. Eduard’s chest rises and falls steadily under her fingers, and she watches it for a moment. He waits, silent. He knows she talks when she wants to, that she sometimes needs to put the words in order first. It’s another one of those things that make this situation so baffling.

“I don’t think it’s been that kind of casual for a long time, at least for me,” she says at the hollow of his throat. “Maybe I wanted it to be.”

“Nadzeya—”

She looks up now, not knowing what she’ll say until she says it, and then it seems strange she didn’t realize.

“I’m in love with you,” she tells him, and the series of expressions that flits across his face is unreadable. “So don’t try to decide for me what I—”

He kisses her, pushing both hands into her hair in that way he does. There may be a gasp somewhere on the mezzanine level.

It’s a hard kiss, one that speaks of emotion, and Nadzeya doesn’t know what to do. Eduard’s heart is thundering under her palm as she spreads her hand against his chest.

“I’m so sorry,” he breathes when he pulls away, a curious light in his eyes. “Nadzeya, I’m a coward. I’m such… I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, you are,” she whispers, still out of her depth. This entire situation is… Not one she’d predict herself getting into, but maybe she herself underestimates her penchant for melodrama as well.

“Let’s try again.” Eduard presses his lips together and searches her gaze. “I feel the same, Nadzeya. I feel the same. I was just scared, and I’m sorry.”

All the air leaves her lungs in a great rush, and Nadzeya closes her eyes for a long moment, willing the tears back definitively. This whole thing is melodramatic enough as is. She wants to call Eduard an idiot, and maybe herself as well, a bit, because she recognizes somewhere that he isn’t the only one at fault here, but Eduard is the one who walked out, so she feels justified in not bringing that up right now. They’ll get around to that.

“Okay,” she says instead, curling her fingers against his lean chest. “Okay. Let’s try again.”

He smiles, a little tentatively, and she shakes her head, fond despite herself. She feels… Light. It’s a curious feeling, a pretty rare one, but she likes it. Still, she attempts to look stern when she lifts her gaze back to Eduard’s.

“Don’t ever—” she pokes his chest— “try to think for me again, Eduard Mets. You have no right.”

He catches her wrist.

“I won’t.” There’s an earnest expression on his face that would honestly disgust Nadzeya in any other situation, but she’ll take it this time.

“Good.” She tugs her own arm back until he leans forward and kisses her again. It’s soft, this time, no intent beyond it. Eduard tastes like peppermint.

When someone nearby clears their throat, he pulls back, making a face. Color is quickly rising in his pale cheeks, and Nadzeya grins.

“You’re gonna be the talk of the school, Mr Mets.”

“Oh, god. Can we leave? I really have nothing to do here anyway, and I think I owe you breakfast.”

“Fine.” She raises an eyebrow. “I’ve done breakfast, though. You owe me lunch.”

“It’s nine!”

“We’ll make do.”

As they leave, Eduard gets his coat from a locker and drapes it over her shoulders, pine and fresh bread surrounding her. She pulls it around herself, willing to revel in it for now. They have things to work out, but they’ll work them out later.

At the doors, she hears the young student from before shout, “Have a nice day, Mr Mets!”

Eduard groans, and Nadzeya can’t help but grin, turning to wave up at the boy.

“Don’t encourage him,” Eduard says.

She smiles and tugs him outside. It’s a nice morning.

[krystalkoya]

Paint Me Over | 02

Chapter Summary: Hoseok doesn't want to call himself a pessimist, but what are the chances he'll run into you again? A lot higher than he thinks.

pairing: writer!hoseok x reader

genre: fluff, future angst, smut

rating: +18 

word count: 7.7k

chapter warnings:  18+ slight smut, fingering, dirty talk, pretty tame for now

The theme for this chapter (particularly the smut) is B.M.O (also by ari lennox). This whole thing was strangely inspired by a museum project I had to do, sadly i didn't get to experience the smut. enjoy 😉

01 | 02 | 03 | 04

...

Break Me Off

“I don’t see why you're making a big deal out of this.”

“It isn’t a big deal, promise! It’s just strange coming from you, that’s all.”

“Oh yeah, and what’s so strange about it?”

“Nothing, just the fact that in all the time I’ve known you you’ve never expressed an interest in coming to one of my shows before.”

“Well excuse me for wanting to support my friend.”

Hoseok collapses onto his bed, laying spread eagle on the freshly washed sheets. He had some time earlier (not really, he was just procrastinating because he didn't want to write that next section of his book) so he spent it tidying up and doing some chores around the house. When he gave Taehyung a call he assumed he would be slightly suspicious, granted he had every right to be, given the fact that Hoseok had never willingly asked to go to one of Tae's shows before, but not to this extent!

Of course, there was only one reason for his sudden interest, but he opted to keep that insignificant detail hidden from his friend. He’d like to believe it was to spare Taehyung’s feelings, but he knew the man wouldn’t be offended once he discovered how much more appealing it would be to tease Hoseok instead. And he would much rather spare himself that embarrassment.

“Fine, fine. I mean I’m not complaining. There’s one next weekend. I wasn’t planning on attending but I guess we can—"

“Great, I’ll clear my calendar.” Hoseok rushes out before Taehyung can finish his sentence.

“Uh, cool. I guess I’ll see you then? That last showing must’ve really left an impression on you…” he mutters as an afterthought.

A small smile spreads across his face as he answers. “Yeah, something like that.” And by now his grin is so wide he swears Taehyung can see it through the phone.

Next week comes much slower than expected but once Saturday rolls around Hoseok becomes an anxious ball of both excitement and anxiety. So much so that Taehyung starts to take notice.

“Okay, what the hell is going on with you? Have you been feeling okay?”

If Hoseok wanted to keep Tae from knowing the real reason he was here he was doing a terrible job at it. First asking to go to an art gala and now this? This was strange even for him.

“Seriously, you’ve been darting your head around the room so much tonight that I'm worried it's going to fall off. Did you even hear anything I just said?”

“I did,” Hoseok lies, doing his best to control himself, but his eyes still wander around the room as if in search of something. Of someone, rather.

“Oh really, what was the last thing I said?” he tests him.

Hoseok’s eyes snap to Taehyung who stares back at him blankly. The former’s expression turns sheepish when he realizes he can’t recall anything Taehyung said to him within the past 5 minutes.

Tae sighs, shaking his head at him. “I said I have to get back to my booth soon. Remember? I chose to enter last minute with some of the photos I took down at the lake with Jin the other day. Got some cool shots too. You gonna be okay if I leave you for a bit?”

Hoseok nods, vaguely remembering him saying something of the sort. “Yeah, I’ll be fine. I’m glad you entered, people seriously need to see your work.”

Taehyung squints his eyes at him wearily.

“What?” Hoseok asks, tired of his friend's judgy eyes.

“Nothing, it’s just...you sure you’re feeling okay? You don’t usually compliment me so openly. And I'm not one to fish for compliments, trust me, but it's like pulling teeth with you. ”

Hoseok scoffs. “Not true!” At his friend’s deadpan look in response Hoseok follows up with, “Isn't the fact that I rotate out your photos as my wallpaper good enough?”

Tae snorts in response, grunting out a "For you, I guess." But to Hoseok's dismay, he doesn't quit. “Nah, there’s definitely something up with you." As Tae proceeds to break down his strange behavior, Hoseok grows more anxious, if that was even possible.

"Let’s see, you asked to come to one of my art shows, not the other way around, you were excited about it even… your head’s been swiveling around the room nonstop like the pet parakeet I used to have when I was 8, and you seem to be paying even less attention to me than you usually do.”

"You had a pet parakeet?"

"Sure did, was even training him alert me every time my brother got near my snack stash but we only got as far as a something that sounded like a garbled version my name before we got a cat and well... you know the rest."

"I'm sorry for your loss-"

"Thank you, I still miss him even to this- hey! Quit trying to distract me! I'm onto you..." he says menacingly, beady little eyes boring so far into Hoseok he's starting to think Taehyung can see straight through him. Safe to say, he's glad he wore his big boy undies today. His other boxers (the one with all the marvel characters on it) were in the wash.

He squirms under Taehyung’s gaze but he keeps reminding himself there was nothing to worry about. There was no way he could connect the dots and discover the real reason he was here. But Taehyung, the perceptive bastard, somehow always manages to prove him wrong.

He blurts out excitedly, as if having his own personal eureka! moment, though his realizations aren't nearly as profound as Einstein's. “You’re meeting up with someone aren’t you?”

Hoseok regards him coolly, responding with a calm ‘no, why would I be?’ that he is very proud of. He ups the ante on his whole nonchalant attitude by pretending to be engaged in the nearby artwork in hopes that Taehyung will drop the subject altogether. But the slight red tinge in his cheeks reveal his true emotions and not for the first time he curses his inability to control his body’s physical reactions.

“Don’t bullshit me, you only ever act like this when you're nervous. You're totally blushing right now!" Hoseok was, in fact, blushing, but despite that he still tries to deny it, clapping a hand over his cheeks to cover it up. "Am not. And I'm not acting any weirder than I usually do. I'm always like this." "Bull-fucking-shit!" Tae explains with an incredulous laugh. "Remember that double date we went on a while back? With the Park sisters? You were acting just like this. Now quit fucking with me, did you meet someone?”

"Yeah? well that was before I found out they wanted to bag the both of us. This may come as a surprise but I'm not into foursomes." He shrugs. k lashes out at that accusation, strongly refuting such a claim. Bad choice. At that moment Taehyung knows he’s right because anytime Hoseok gets this worked up over something, it most likely means he’s lying.

“Hey you passed up a good opportunity and screwed me over in the process. They were twins man, twins!" He shakes his head as if to get back on track. "Quit changing the subject! You did meet someone didn't you?” He lets out a gasp. “Was it that girl from the last art show?”

No fucking way, how did he...? Welp, the cat's out of the bag now. And Hoseok didn't even have to say anything, miraculously his friend just figured it out all on his own. If he's honest with himself, he's a little impressed. Doesn't stop him from scrubbing a hand down his face in annoyance, but impressed nonetheless. He turns to Tae with narrowed eyes. “Of all days you choose today to play detective? Why don't you take those sleuthing skills and mosey on down to the local police department. Don't you think your talents are going to waste always butting in on my love life?”

“Not at all." Tae sing-songs from beside him. "You didn't deny it so I take it it was her. I just figured because I saw you two talking the other night. And you haven't talked to a girl since..." he trails off, "so is she meeting you here?”

He wishes. “Not exactly,” he sighs thinking it was a stupid idea to even come here in the first place.

“I didn’t get her number or anything. We just talked and… I came tonight hoping she would be here…”

“You mean you don’t even know if she’s here?!” Taehyung exclaims and it doesn’t make him feel any better. In fact, it makes this dumb idea feel ten times worse.

“Well maybe if someone hadn’t been so eager to drag me away the other night I could’ve stayed long enough to get her instagram at least.”

Tae actually looks remorseful for once. "Yeah that was my bad wasn't it, sorry” he says sincerely. “But you do know it’s a long shot that you’re gonna find her. For some artist’s things like this are just a one time thing. Who's to say she comes back regularly enough to be here for the second week in a row?”

Hoseok sighs because he's already thought this through the entire week before. “I know that already. Which is why I’m prepared, more than anything, to be disappointed. We’ve been here for half an hour and still haven’t seen her so it’s not looking too good right now.”

Taehyung claps a hand on Hoseok shoulder encouragingly, if not to comfort the man whose hopes were near shot to shit. He's sincerely happy for his friend. This is the first time he's shown such an interest in someone in a long while, but he still needs to be realistic. “Hey cheer up, the night’s still young. There’s a still a chance she's here so just put all your faith in that basket." He glances behind him, expression seemingly caught between wanting to stay and help Hoseok find his mystery girl or attending to his more pressing duties. Finally he seems to make up his mind, "I’m going to head over to my booth now. You gonna be okay on your own?”

He nods to assure his friend. “Yeah, yeah. Go have fun. I know how much you love seeing the expression on people’s faces when they look at your work. As they should, you’re really good at what you do.”

Taehyung beams, a hand on his chest in shock. “Well, I'll be...you're just showering me with compliments today aren't you?" He says in a poor (extremely poor) attempt at a southern belle accent. "I’ll catch you later.” And with a wave he’s off to whatever section of the gala was his for the night.

Hoseok makes his way through the gala slowly, observing the art as he goes along, but most importantly scanning the faces of the artists who made them. Unfortunately, none of the faces he sees is the one that he is looking for. Eventually, he makes his way back to the refreshment table, located off to the side this time. This gala is a lot more minimalistic, opting to put out an off-putting combination of bottled waters and lollipops as refreshments rather than homemade cookies and punch.

Hoseok grabs a water, deciding he’s not in the mood for sweets tonight. He sighs forlornly and takes a swig, shifting his weight to one leg so that he can observe the various people viewing the artwork displayed about the room. Well, he didn’t find what he was looking for here tonight but he can’t deny it was a good showing. Just like the last one, there were several pieces he enjoyed looking at and he would’ve gone through again to get a better look at a few that caught his eye if he hadn’t heard your voice.

“Well, well, well, look who it is. How goes it stick?”

Hoseok damn near drowns drinking his bottled water. He has to hit his chest several times while he coughs up the liquid, trying his best to ignore the fact that he’s sputtering like an absolute fool as you watch on in amusement.

There’s no forced apology for startling him this time when you say, “Is this going to become our thing now? Meeting at refreshment tables, you choking on your drink?” you ask with a smirk.

He brushes off the water that dribbled down his chest as if that will change that fact that his shirt is now wet. He sighs, at least it was only water and not something that could actually stain. “I hope not. Why does it seem like I’m always at a disadvantage in these situations?”

“Oh you most definitely are.” You say as you reach past him to grab a lollipop out of the decorative bowl. "Learn how to drink properly will you?"

He stares down at you, unwrapping the lolli and popping it into your mouth, as he wills something to come to his brain so he can speak. The irony. This whole time he had been looking for you and now when you finally show up he has nothing to say.

Fortunately, you beat him to it. “So. What brings you back to another one of these shin-digs? No offense, but you don’t seem like the type to frequent galas on the regular.”

“And why not? I told you I’m an artist.”

“You’re a writer. And you don’t strike me as the ‘artsy’ type either. You’re more clear cut, precise, all sharp edges, you know? What d'you write anyway? Instruction manuals?” You question with a pop of your candy.

He ignores your question in favor of asking you one of his own.

"So what do you have a booth set up today too or are you just a member of the audience like me?”

You gesture vaguely down the room. “Yep, I actually do have a booth set up. Somewhere over there. I’m surprised I didn’t see you earlier, did you already cycle all the way through?” you ask and when he nods you quirk your head to the side in thought.

“Huh, you must’ve caught me when I was away from my booth then cause I definitely would have noticed you if you passed by.”

"Aww am I that memorable to you?" he teases but in reality his stomach jumps in glee at the thought. "How could I forget? You were the only one who pitched a fit in front of my booth the whole night. Longest argument I've had in weeks." He scoffs. "I'd hardly call it an argument. And I did not pitch a fit." You wave a dissmisive hand in the air. "Debate then, whatever you want to call it. So?" He gives you a puzzling look. "So what?" "So, did you like it? My piece?" you ask with a hint of eagerness. "Depends, which one was yours?" The smirk is there again but you don't say anything and that's when it clicks. He rolls his eyes toward the ceiling. "Don't tell me." You mime zipping your lips and throwing away the key, that infuriating smile still present on your face, only this time its wider lets him know everything he needs to. "You can’t be serious.”

It was earlier in the night, but he remembers that piece so well because it was so different from the others. Blue is the first (and only thing) that comes to mind. Seriously, the whole page was just blue. No texture marks, no additional detail that would make it seem like any other effort went into it other than grabbing blue paint and slathering it across a canvas.

“I assume you want a 10 page paper on the meaning behind the blue paint or the symbolism of using 8.5 x 11 cardstock on your desk by tomorrow?”

He sputters. “Honestly, any explanation would be fine at this point.”

It’s such a drastic change from your last painting that he doubts he would have guessed that both images came from the same artist. What, did the amount of time it took to put all that detail in your first piece drain you that much that all you could come up with this time was the color blue on a page? He couldn’t make sense of this change up.

“It can mean whatever you want. The sky. The ocean. Hell, the color blue on a fucking page. That’s it. Maybe I just wasn't done.” You shrug. "Who knows I might go back and add to it later if I'm up to it."

You must notice that he’s still staring at you with what must be a look of utter bewilderment on his face so you elaborate.

“I like the color blue, so I painted blue.”

He’s about to argue again but you stop him.

“Hey, sometimes you just got to paint what you feel.” “Look, what do you write about? I know I joked instruction manuals earlier but holy shit that can't really be it can it?” You ask almost fearfully.

“God no, I'm not that boring." You seem to visibly relax at that which he finds amusing. "Prose mostly. Short stories, mostly but I'm working on a writing something longer, a book actually ”

“Prose,” you repeat questioningly. But it’s without judgement. Now you’re trying to make sense of him, maybe. It’s funny, people usually stop him to ask questions when they hear he’s writing a book. But here you are, concerned with the genre he writes instead, not the content.

“Yeah, prose. I used to write poetry a while back but I stopped cause-“

“Wait, hold up. Poetry? You?”

“Yeah…” He narrows his eyes in question. “Why is that so hard to believe?”

You take a moment to think before you reply. “I mean, in a way it’s not. Poetry’s got all those symbols and hidden meanings you English teachers love so much but… I don’t know. I guess I didn’t expect it coming from a guy like you.”

"A guy like- you know what I'm not even gonna ask. I have a feeling I'll only be offended.

“You said you stopped, why was that?” you ask suddenly.

“Stopped what? Poetry?” At your nod of confirmation he continues, “It just wasn't my thing anymore?” He shrugs not really giving it much thought.

You shake your head as if disappointed. “That’s a shame. I love poetry. It’s like the rawest of all genres— a window to the speaker's deepest thoughts and feelings.”

He nods, understanding, “Maybe that’s why I left it. All those feelings..." he shakes his head, "yeah, it just wasn't for me anymore.”

“And what’s wrong with feelings?”

So many questions tonight. Some of which he doesn't have the answer to. You're really forcing him to do some serious reflection aren't you? Well prepare to be sorely disappointed because Hoseok hasn't done that in years. “Nothing, really. I'm just…at a different stage in my life where they aren't as needed. ” He stares down at the linoleum floor, musing that it's high time he get a new pair of sneakers, while you appease him with your sharp gaze.

Though he’s not looking at you, he presumes you’re still staring him down when he hears you hum in thought. It’s quiet save for the light chatter around the room, which only serves to make him even more uncomfortable. But that doesn’t last long because suddenly you are tugging on his arm as you mutter a hasty ‘come with me.’

He can’t do much but follow you as you pull him along past the rows of people in the main room to some back corner of the museum. He muses that wherever you are pulling him off to is better than the mini interrogation you were giving him just moments ago. No longer in the part of the building that had been sectioned off for the gala for the night, you arrive at an alcove at the back, a seemingly unnoticed part of the museum. If he had to guess he would say this part of the museum was not in use from the way it was isolated from the rest of the pieces.

“Uh…” Hoseok starts, “Are we allowed to be here?”

“Relax. Of course we are. No one said we couldn’t view the rest of museum while we’re here.”

"Yeah but... are we allowed to be here here?" he asks just to get a huff in annoyance in response.

As you burrow deeper into the alcove, he notices there is an entryway off to one side, but he can’t tell what it leads to just yet.

Luckily he doesn't have to wait long to find out when you pull him through the doorway.

“This is one of my favorite exhibits. It won’t be up for much longer though. They’re replacing it soon.” He hears you say.

Hoseok looks around at the interior of the room, and, it’s not the first thing he notices, but he can’t help but see that all four walls were mirrored. He could see his reflection no matter where he looked.

Rather, the first thing he noticed is something he can barely even describe. There seemed to be stalactites and stalagmites protruding from the ceiling and the floors of the room. He moves to get a closer look at one when you press a button on the wall and the figures light up, each flashing in almost every color of the rainbow, all of them illuminating the dark room beautifully. To Hoseok, the lighting in the room is reminiscent of his high school dance, a cheesy affair where teachers had lit a disco ball in the school gym and placed strobe lights about the room to achieve a ‘70s theme’ for the spring bash sophomore year.

Hoseok walks near to one figure, almost as tall as him in height and protruding from the ground. He touches one gently and comes to find out that it’s made of the same material of the inflatable arm floats your mom puts you in when you're just a wee toddler learning how to swim. Each are dotted with black polka dots which only adds to the confusion in trying to figure out just what exactly he’s looking at. He settles on tentacles, because though the dripstones favor something you would see in a cave, they are curved in a way that looks similar to the arms of an octopus.

Before he can ask you what the hell he’s staring at, you press another button and a voice starts speaking overhead.

It’s a female voice, and she’s speaking a language entirely different from the ones he’s familiar with. It sounds… if he’s not mistaken, like Japanese. And he’s only able to make that discernment because of the several times Tae forced him to watch that cartoon with the hyperactive redheaded twink and the emotionally distant brooding tall one. Something to do with volleyball but to Hoseok it just looked like a shoujo (was that the right term?) romance and a gangbang waiting to happen.

“'Love is Calling'" you say as you return to his side. "That's the name of the exhibit. It’s by Yayoi Kusama and she’s reciting her poem ‘Residing in a Castle of Shed Tears.’”

He takes a 360 of the room, acknowledging your words with a hum. “I can’t understand a word she’s saying, but it’s nice.” He says.

You walk over to one of the figures nearest to you to touch it. “It is. One of the things I love most about it is just being immersed in this room while listening to her speak. I can’t understand Japanese, no, but I think that’s apart of the appeal. Maybe you’re supposed to explore the room for yourself while she speaks to another part of you.”

“Okay, but what if you do speak Japanese?” He counters.

You shrug, hands behind your back as you walk to the opposite side of the room. “I assume that’s even better. Being able to understand what she’s saying as you navigate this maze of a room.”

There’s quiet again aside from Yayoi’s voice. You both listen intently, as you continue to look at the flashing lights and your reflections in the mirrored walls.

“What do you see?” you ask him suddenly.

“Huh?” He heard you clearly, but he wonders what you mean. He sees exactly the same thing as you, doesn’t he?

“At first glance, what do you see? You don’t understand the poem so your just left with this room. What do you see?” you clarify.

"Ok, we're not doing this. Leave that job to my shrink."

"You see a therapist?"

"No, but I probably should. The things I see and hear from these kids on a daily? It's no wonder I'm not crazy yet."

You laugh and poorly try to mask it in favor of saying, "Be serious. What do you see? I want to know."

Hoseok thinks about it for a moment before he settles on telling you his impression of the room when he first came in. How the space resembled a cave with colorful dripstones hanging from the ceiling and protruding from the ground, and how the figures resemble tentacles, reaching out to him now.

You come to join him as he is speaking and now you stand side by side, the both of you observing your reflections in the wall before you. Hoseok takes this moment to return the question, asking you what you see.

You laugh as if finding something funny. “To be honest, the first time I came in here I was confused…”

Hoseok nods in agreement because that was certainly an experience for him.

You continue, “…and I could see that confusion in my reflection—everywhere I looked. But after that, once the lights came on I saw some inflatable pool toys with multi-colored lights stuck in ‘em.”

“That’s it?” He asks, expecting something more profound, especially after he just gave you his testament on how the figures resembled dripstones and tentacles at the same time.

“No,” you smile. “I said that just to get under your skin.” You share a laugh at that and he should be annoyed but for reason unknown he isn't. Once your chuckles subside, you continue.

“You see, I was in here for so long, left to nothing but my thoughts and Kusama’s recitation playing in the background that I started seeing something else. The room was so dark and then all of a sudden there was light—lots of it, protruding from the ground, the ceiling everywhere. It’s hard to explain...” you say, struggling to express your thoughts clearly.

Hoseok nods understanding, “Like the candlestick at the end of a dark hallway.”

You snap your fingers in excitement. “Yeah, like that. It’s like, hope in a dark place. You must be loving this, aren’t you?”

He chuckles, not denying it. “Of course I am. Look who’s talking miss ‘not-everything-has-a-meaning.”

“Hey, I still think like that, but not in the way you think. I said art was subjective didn’t I? My meaning isn’t always going to be the same as yours.”

He takes a moment to think about your words and he comes to the conclusion that you may have a point. There wasn’t just one answer.

By this time Kasuma has finished her recitation and you pull him along again. Your doing a lot of that tonight and he's not sure how he feels about being your human rag doll.

“Come here, I want to show you something.”

You arrive back at the wall, near the buttons, only this time he notices a plaque on tacked to the wall.

“It’s Kasuma’s poem translated into English.”

Residing in a Castle of Shed Tears

When the time comes around for people to encounter the end of their life having put on years, death seems to be quietly approaching It was not supposed to be my style to be frightened of that, but I am In the shadows of my loved ones footprints, distress revisits me at the dead of night refreshing my memories Being in love with and longing for you, I have locked myself up in this “castle of shed tears” Now may be the time for me to wander off into the place, the guidepost to the other world points to And the sky is waiting for me, attended by numerous clouds Overwhelmed by your tenderness that has always encouraged me I have been searching for “love” in earnest taking my wish for happiness along Let me call out to and ask the birds flying about in the sky I want to convey to them my feelings Over many long years, with art as a weapon I have treaded the path in search of love During the days I have lived through keeping “despair”, “emptiness” and “loneliness” all to myself along the way there were times when the fireworks of life “splendidly” adorned the sky Dancing in the night sky in a myriad of colors, the fireworks sprinkled dust all over my body I will never forget that exhilarating moment Now I think is the time to dedicate my heart to you, my dearest Was the beauty of the end of one’s life nothing more than illusion? Would you give me an answer to this? Devoting all my heart to you, I have lived through to this day Hoping to leave beautiful footprints at the end of my life I spend each day praying that my wish will be fulfilled This is my message of love to you

                                                                                                                                                                                       -Yayoi Kusama

“Heartbreaking isn’t it?”

Hoseok still reads it over as he replies, “Yeah.”

“Unrequited love is the worst. But I think, like many artists, that she just wanted to share her story and if anyone could relate to that, then all the better.”

He turns to look at you. “You don’t think there’s anything deeper there?”

“Oh for sure,” you nod. “The way she explores themes of death, loneliness and unrequited love all in the same breadth? That’s deep. But I don’t think it’s invalid if you experience something different while in here. Sometimes artists just want to invoke feelings of happiness, or sadness, or I don’t know, the feeling of being in love in their viewers.”

“It’s about the experience.” He states more than questions.

You smile, probably because this is the first sign of him actually getting it. “Right, just like living in the moment. At least that's how I want people to feel when they look at my art.”

He stares at you for a moment, surprised by your well-fleshed out thoughts. “You’ve thought about this a lot haven’t you?”

You pin him with a look. “I told you, it was my favorite exhibit. I’m sad to see it go.”

He agrees with you, telling you he wished he knew about it sooner. He’s reading over the words of the poem again, absorbing Kasuma’s message but he can feel your eyes on him.

 “What?” He turns to ask you.

“Nothing, it’s just, you look really nice under these colored lights.”

He quirks a brow, “And that’s funny? Are you sure I look nice?” He hastily starts checking his reflection in the mirror.

You burst out into giggles, hands out to placate him, “No, nice I promise. I don’t even know why I’m laughing really. You look more than nice actually. Attractive even...” This last part is murmured and if you two were out in the main room he probably would not have caught it.

He peaks with interest at that and when he looks over at you are looking at him, lip caught between your teeth in a coy smile.

“Attractive, huh? Is this the part of the night where you stop insulting me and starting laying me on with compliments?" He teases.

You pin him with a hardened glare, though there is no malice in it. It's mischievous more than anything.

“I have eyes, stick. I could see how someone could find you somewhat...visually-appealing.”

He turns toward you. “The feelings mutual. Although..." he squints as if trying to see better, "it may just be the lightning doing you justice.”

You scoff, hitting his arm playfully. “Hey, I look good in all lighting, especially the shitty ones.”

You both share a chuckle and when it dies down he speaks. "Fine, ok?" he gives in. "I agree."

"Good." You say decidedly, still chuckling.

Hoseok makes the fatal mistake, then of glancing down at your lips, which are now glistening due to the tongue that darted out just moments prior to wet them.

The moment after, after you both stop chuckling is spent in silence, staring at each other, waiting for the other to say something next.

But it never happens. Hoseok doesn’t know who leans in first, all he knows is that your lips feel like soft pillows pressed against his. The kiss is slow at first, taking the time to savor the taste of the other and when Hoseok tastes the sweetness of the strawberry lollipop you were sucking on earlier he moans.

He wants to taste more, so he is grateful when he licks your bottom lip, begging you to open up to him and you do. His tongue darts into your mouth, starting its exploration into every crevice and corner he can find.

When his teeth can’t help but graze your bottom lip you moan and he finds the sound pleasing to his ears. He’s eager to find more ways to make you moan so pretty for him again when you pull away.

Your arms, which at some point had slid up to wrap around his neck, now slide down to rest on his chest.

“You don’t know how badly I wanted to keep going but goddammit I needed air.” You pant heavily against him.

He smiles, bending to capture your lips in light pecks. “I took your breath away?”

You groan and roll your eyes. A second later your groaning again, not because you’re annoyed, but because Hoseok has attached his lips to your neck.

“God you’re cheesy. You’re not like this all the time are you?”

He detaches from your neck with a wet pop, sinking his teeth into the spot before dragging his lips up to your ear. “Trust me that when I tell you that when I get you into bed, you’ll never want me to shut up." You whimper slightly at his words, managing to choke out a meek, “Still corny.”

You say this but you’re turned on nonetheless. Hoseok can tell by the way you rub your thighs together in what you think is in an inconspicuous manner. But to him, a man who has been starved of sex for so long and who is so in tune with your body because it is exactly what his is feeling, your actions are as clear as day to him. And he wants to do more, so much more just to make you beg for that sweet release he's more than willing to give you.

“It's true. And you wouldn't be able to shut me up. Wanna see how wet this dirty little pussy can get for me.” He mutters lowly, a hand travelling down between the apex of your thighs.

Ever resilient, you mumble out a 'doubt it' as you struggle to keep your composure. “Oh yeah? So you don’t want my fingers on your clit? Shoved so far up your hole and stretching you wide? Hmm?” He applies pressure with his fingertips. “Rubbing this pussy to climax again and again and again?”

He smirks when you moan, hands clutching the lapels of his open shirt as you whine under his touch.

“Still too cheesy for you? I can be quiet if you want me to, I'll be good. Promise.” He says, the palm of his hand now massaging your entire center.

“No, no you’re not. Just please touch me.”

Satisfied with your response, he hastily undoes the buttons of your jeans and snakes a wrist down your pants.

He practically groans when he feels how wet you are, soaking through your panties beautifully.

“For someone so turned off by my words you’re awfully wet.” he notes.

You’re glare at him is cut short when his fingers graze your clit, focusing his attention on that little nub full of nerves. You're expression softening into a silent moan that you are no doubt trying to keep from him.

You bury your head in his chest and give in to your pleasure when he rubs harder; smiling in victory, he lets you lean against him, enjoying the vibrations of your groans against his neck.

“Right there, keep going, please…”

To your horror, he does exactly that, but only briefly. “I don’t know…” he starts up again, much slower this time, as if debating whether to continue or not. “You insulted me. Why should I?”

“Please…” you look up at him with pleading eyes. Fearful even, probably that he'll stop and leave you high and dry. “God, I need it.”

He hums, contemplating your words. “You gonna moan pretty for me if I do?”

You release a sharp moan at a particularly harsh brush of his fingers against your clit.

“Like that,” he says as if to clarify exactly how he wants you to sound.

“Yes, yes. Just please.. Shit ”

He concentrates on pleasuring you, wanting to hear what you sound like when you orgasm under his touch. He rubs faster, arm tiring but he continues just to see your brow scrunch in pleasure like that and your pants pick up in intensity.

“Oh god…” you whisper, “how are you so good with your fingers.”

He doesn’t know whether that was meant for him to hear or not but he doesn’t mind. If you think this is good, just wait till he gives you his tongue.

But that can wait for another time. And good god he can't fucking wait. Your so fucking wet it's driving him insane. He uses some of the slick collecting it on his fingertips before travelling back up and assaulting your clit again and you go absolutely fucking wild. He has to shush you, remembering your in public, though he doubts anyone is close enough to overhear. A resounding chorus of 'yeses' and a chant of his name mark your orgasm and he revels in it. Your sounds, your expressions, the way you squeeze his fingers between your thighs as if to secure him there forever.

“Hoseok, ahh… Hoseok, I’m cumming.”

"I know baby, I know. Feel good?"

He gives you no time to answer, not even waiting for you to come down from your high when he captures your lips, still massaging between your legs though much lighter now being considerate of overstimulating you (this time). He pushes your shirt up, all the way past your breasts and his lips travel down to trail open-mouthed kisses across the soft mounds encased in a simple but cute black bra. He’s just slid one cup down, exposing your quickly hardening nipple to the cold air. He helps it along by sucking your the bud into his mouth, teeth lightly grazing.

“Ahh, Hoseok slow down.” You say, winding your hands in his hair but doing nothing to detach him from your breast.

“Can’t.” He yanks the cup covering your other nipple down and attaches his lips to that breast. “Want you so bad.” He murmurs around your nipple in his mouth.

You moan approvingly. “Me too. Want it, your cock in my mouth, my pussy…”

It’s Hoseok’s turn to groan and he does so, resting his head against your chest as he tries to calm himself down because at this rate he's going to blow his load in his pants and he can't have that.

But try as he might to calm himself he can't, not when you continue to whisper all the dirty things you want him to do to you in here. In public.

“Want you to fuck me so good, right here where anyone can walk in and see. I want you to fuck me so far up this wall I’ll start screaming with how good it is.”

“Fuck.” He says because he wants to do just that. Exactly as you described because the image is so undeniably hot that he can barely contain himself.

He’s just figured out whether he wants to fuck your pussy or your mouth first (your mouth) when his phone rings loudly from its place in his back pocket.

His plan is to ignore it but you seem to think differently when you pull away, urging him he should answer it. When he hesitates you say, ‘it might be important’. He considers saying 'this is too' but decides against it, reluctantly digging into his back pocket for the device instead.

His plan B is to answer whoever is calling, tell them he can’t talk right now, and get right back on track to fucking that filthy little mouth of yours but you are already tidying yourself up. He’s sad to see your tits go as you right your bra and pull your shirt down, looking in the mirror to fix what can be salvaged of your makeup and hair.

“Hello,” he answers the phone with a bitterness, annoyed at whoever the cockblock was on the other line.

Taehyung. Of course. He said he had been looking for him all over, concerned and he just wanted to make sure he was safe. Hoseok would be touched, if he weren’t in the middle of trying to get his dick wet so instead he winds up annoyed.

He tells him he’ll meet him out front in a few minutes, it’s obvious by the way you have cleaned yourself up that his night of fun is over.

“Yeah, see you there. Okay, bye.” Hoseok finishes up his call and when done you push him towards the exit.

“Come on, we’re not supposed to be here, this part of the museum was closed for renovation.”

“I thought you said-“

“Yeah, I lied. Congratulations stick, you’re that much closer to living on the wild side.” You give him a pat on the back.

"Don't you think what we just did in there gets me some points? At least enough to drop the nickname?"

"The nickname stays, that's with you for life but I guess you can claim some cool points. Only a few though!" You clarify. "That was pretty tame to be quite honest."

By now you two have reached the main room of the gala and he can see the crowd has died down now that the night is coming to an end.

He catches your elbow before you can move any further into the room. “Careful there, lying to me never fares well for those involved.” He mutters lowly into your ear.

“Sure, whatever,” comes your dismissive response but in spite of it he can see you shiver at his words. A hint of a smile graces his lips in triumph.

Taehyung spots Hoseok and comes bounding over, the ‘where were you?’ dying on his lips when you come into view.

Instead a small ‘o’ graces his features when he realizes what Hoseok must have been up to. And who he was up to it with.

“Well,” you say, putting distance between yourself and Hoseok (and he’s only slightly sad about it), “It was nice meeting you Hoseok.” You extend your hand out formally, as if he didn’t just finger you to orgasm just a few minutes ago.

He takes it, playing along. Your gazes must linger a little to long because a sudden cough from Taehyung is startling you back to reality.

“And, Taehyung right? I heard a lot about you from other artists. Loved your collection by the way. You took some really great shots.”

“Ahh, thank you.” Tae accepts the compliment humbly, his hand coming up to brush you off.

“It was nothing. Just a last minute entry.” He tells you how he wished he had more time to go around the whole gala to see what you came up with this time. You share a knowing smile with Hoseok, no doubt Taehyung would be shocked as well to see the drastic difference between your first piece and this one.

“Anyways, I better go but it was nice meeting you both.” You say politely, stare lingering on Hoseok before you turn to leave.

Taehyung bumps his shoulder which jars him out of whatever trance he was just in.

“So is it right to assume that what I’m thinking right now is correct or...” He questions and suddenly Hoseok is reminded that he’s supposed to be mad at Taehyung. “If you’re thinking that you are an immense cockblocker then yeah, definitely.”

Taehyung’s eyes bug out of his head at that comment. “Wait. So you mean…”

Hoseok sighs, “Yeah and I was this close. But someone just had to call me right in the middle of it.”

Tae has the audacity to look apologetic as he claps a sympathetic hand on Hoseok’s shoulder. “Sorry man, but this is great. To be honest I didn’t peg you as the type to be into public sex but good for you.”

It’s only when Hoseok arrives back at his apartment that night, replaying the memories of tonight that he hopes are permanently etched into his brain that he realizes he forgot to get your number yet again.

He got lucky today, but what are the chances he���s going to find you again?

He calls up Taehyung in a panic, explaining his predicament but all Taehyung can offer is an unhelpful decree of ‘wow, you are an idiot’ so he hangs up.

Although, before he ended the call, Tae did suggest that the universe might be on his side on this one, if he found her once he could do it again. But Hoseok is not one to push his luck so he highly doubts it.

He goes to bed that night, and this time bittersweet memories of a one-night stand (could what you did together even be considered a one-night stand? Calling it a half-a-night stand seemed more fitting) interspersed with thoughts that this would be the last time he sees the peculiar painter again fill his brain.

[dkronpa]

Chapter 4: The Sky is Just a Skip Away ~Daily Life Part 1~

//Not much to say other than I hope you enjoy this next chapter. Got this one planned out pretty well methinks.

-Chapter 4, Daily Life, A game of trust-

 ~Ding dong, bing bong~

 “Gooood morning everyone! It is now 7am! Rise and shine, it’s gonna be another beautiful day!” Monokuma’s announcement played. I was ready this time though. More like I could barely get any sleep with Yokozawa-san’s outburst still playing in my mind.

 Today was a new day though. I was in the shower as soon as morning started. My clothes for the day were already laid out. I was gonna make sure this was a new turning point for the group. A real do-over.

 No matter what happened yesterday.

 -Chapter 4, Daily Life, Talents-

 Things were going as well as you’d expect. I walked into the dining hall to find Amaterasu-san and Okanaya-kun having a stand-off. “I fucking knew you would use your talent against us eventually! Now gimme back what’s rightfully mine!”

 “You’re delusional if you think I’m gonna give you anything.” Amaterasu-san looked unusually serious, a terrifying aura surrounding her body. Kirishima-san ran up to me, looking exhausted.

 “Nagata-kun…! Please help us out, they’ve been staring each other down for the past five minutes! I’m worried they’ll hurt each other…!” She clung to my sleeve and pleaded. Honestly looking at how fired up the two seemed, I didn’t want to get involved at all. What the hell happened here?!

 “A-Amaterasu-san, maybe you should just-“

 “Sorry Doi-chan but I can’t give up that easily. It’s a matter of pride.”

 “Pride…?” He said matter-of-factly.

 “I suppose it was just a matter of time before you and I exchanged blows…I’m gonna settle this quickly!” Okanaya-kun cracked his knuckles. Amaterasu-san took a defensive stance, preparing for whatever attack Okanaya-kun was about to throw at her.

 “Both of you cease this at once!” Asano-san’s voice rang throughout the cafeteria. Both of them snapped their heads to Asano-san who was glaring at the two, her cheeks puffed out in annoyance. “What childish behaviour! All of this over a bacon sandwich!”

 What.

 “It was the last of the bacon this morning cause Amaterasu already monopolised the rest of it!” Okanaya-kun argued.

 “I don’t know what he’s talking about.” Saying this, Amaterasu-san nonchalantly took a bite of a bacon sandwich.

 “No! My breakfast!”

 “Really, are you two not too loud for this early in the morning…?” Sly-san rubbed his temples. Slightly surprised he hadn’t stepped in to solve this.

 “Gross. You cooked this way too much.” Amaterasu-san offered a crestfallen Okanaya-kun the rest of the sandwich.

 “I don’t want the rest of it! You’ve already bitten into it!” He complained before slumping into his seat, poking at the rest of the food on his plate.

 “Okanaya-kun’s…kind of like a little kid sometimes, isn’t he…?”

 “He can still be scary…” Kirishima-san sighed.

 “Alright, if you won’t eat then I’ll feed it to Doi-chan.”

 “Wh-why me?!” Kurohiko-san’s face flushed.

 “You don’t want a hot girl to feed you? I guess you’re less of a useless man than I thought. Congrats.” Amaterasu-san gave a thumbs up.

 “Why are you congratulating me for the bare minimum…?” Kurohiko-san questioned.

 “Kurohiko-kun, it is very ungrateful to turn down Amaterasu-san’s offer! You should eat the sandwich!” Asano-san said.

 “Wh-what?! You too?!”

 “You three are so strange…” Yokozawa-san murmured.

 “Sorry that you don’t have friends.” Amaterasu-san said, forcing the sandwich onto Kurohiko-san’s plate despite his protests.

 “Wh-who doesn’t have friends?! I have friends!”

 “Speaking of which…Graves isn’t here. Any word on that?” Okanaya-kun asked. Yokozawa-san stopped for a moment before averting his gaze from the group. Last night…there’s no way that what she said isn’t still on everybody’s minds.

 “No. I haven’t seen her today. I’m not her damn sidekick, so why should I be keeping tabs on her? If you wanna know where she is why don’t you track her down yourself instead of relying on someone like me.”

 “Eh!?” Okanaya-kun leans over the table, “who the hell d’you think you are talking shit to me?!”

 “What? I didn’t say anything wrong. No reason you should be getting offended.” Yokozawa-san said in a more timid tone. Okanaya-kun let out a growl before sitting down once again and continuing to eat what was left of his meal.

 “Never a dull day, I guess…” I said half-jokingly.

 “Bonjour mein amigos!” Kurosaki-san barged into the cafeteria.

 “None of those words were from the same language.” Asano-san pointed out.

 “I have some very interesting news to deliver. I went to investigate ahead of everyone else about the new building that’s opened up to us, and you won’t believe it! It’s a treasure for those with Ultimate talents! Let’s hurry up and explore together!”

 “Can’t you see we’re eating? Go away.”

 “Herr Knives, don’t be crueeel! I thought we really bonded this time around!”

 “Do you wanna die?!” Sly-san snapped.

 “They’re like an old married couple.” Amaterasu-san commented.

 “Huh?! Who is?!” Sly-san glared.

 --

 We all stood outside of the fourth building painting in a multitude of colours, none of which went well with each other. It was like it was painted with melted candy, a sickeningly sweet sight. “Kurosaki, you said you already got a head start. What kind of building is this, some kind of artsy building?”

 “Non! This is a talent development building!” Kurosaki-san announced, throwing his arms into the air to present the building.

 “The hell does that mean?” Okanaya-kun said.

 “Monokuma told me earlier to pass on the message. Basically, this building was constructed for us all to develop our individual talents. Each floor has 4 talent labs, one for each student in our class. It’s fantastic! Tres bien!” Kurosaki-san cheered as he half-skipped into the building ahead of the rest of us.

 “He seems quite happy to scamper off by himself. I suppose this time we should just investigate alone? Everyone will wanna see what their talent labs are like, I’m guessing.” Kurohiko-san suggested.

 “I have no objections.” Asano-san supported. “I do wonder might have been prepared for me.”

 …I’m the Ultimate Lucky Student. Is it even possible to create a lab like that?

 -Talent Lab Floor 1 (Ultimate Thief)-

 I walked into a room; the door painted with a large shining diamond. The room was decorated wall to wall with maps of famous museums, prepared with different tools I was unfamiliar with, but Amaterasu-san seemed rather enthralled with. So, this is the standard we’re looking at for Talent labs?

 “This is pretty incredible, don’t you think? I haven’t seen tools this high quality before. If I used stuff like this, I could stop even the most high tech security systems in under 10 minutes.” Amaterasu-san’s words definitely should’ve had more energy behind them. Even though she was staring intently at them, her face still refused to display any hint of emotion.

 “It’s certainly interesting. You think you’ll use these tools when we get out of here?”

 “Possibly. I don’t usually need tools, but if it’s a seriously tough job then maybe I’ll use this stuff. Of course, carrying all the stuff I want will be difficult.” She said trying to cram as many tools as she could into her pockets and arms.

 “M-maybe wait until we’ve actually found a way out before trying to take all this stuff…?”

 “Ah. Yeah. Good shout.” She nods, starting to put stuff back. Amaterasu-san has stayed in the background a lot during this whole game, she’s clearly smart but she doesn’t show off. Not to mention she doesn’t have a big personality. I wonder if she keeps to herself because of her talent. Or is it another reason…?

 -Talent Lab Floor 1 (Ultimate Taxidermist)-

 I went through the door with a goat’s head painted on the front. I could already tell I was going to be entering Kirishima-san’s room. What I couldn’t have prepared for what the horror show that would follow.

 The back wall was decorated with various animals that were stuffed and sewn then mounted onto the wall as ornaments. A large table in the centre of the room fit with sewing needles, thread and various other tools for taxidermy. Kirishima-san was in the corner look inside a closet.

 “Wh-what’s in there…?” I managed to get out as I approached her.

 “It seems that a load of unstuffed animals have been prepared for me. Even some unsewn. Guess this really is constructed to improve our talents.” Kirishima-san noted. I-it’s full of animals?!

 “D-doesn’t it smell really bad in there?! Wouldn’t you rather keep that closed?!” I argued as she continued to shuffle around the closet, I kept my distance.

 “It looks like they’ve already been treated properly. Which makes sense, this is the 4th building that we’ve gotten to explore so it naturally means these have been here a while. Monokuma must have treated the animals in advance for when I’d get here.” Kirishima-san murmured.

 “I…I see.”

 Kirishima-san’s movements slowed down before she took a deep breath, “I know this stuff grosses you out, Nagata-kun, but…” She turns to me, “…this…this sort of stuff is fun for me! It means a lot. It’s something I learned by someone I love so…I might spend some time in here when I want to calm down. I hope you don’t think that’s gross…” She paused, “N-no…e-even if you think it’s gross, I’ll still do it…I don’t want to be ashamed of my talent anymore, so…! There!”

 “K-Kirishima-san…” I wasn’t entirely sure what to say in response. She really had changed from when I met ‘Ram’. Kirishima-san is a lot more vocal and assertive. Even if she’s still timid, she’s sticking up for herself and her talent. It’s such a contrast. “Well, how can I think it’s gross when you’ve got so much passion for it? Spend your time here when you need to, I won’t judge you for practicing your talent.”

 “Ah…r-right! I will then!” Her smile was almost blinding. She’s come so far, she’s managed to gain a smile despite all that’s happened, rather than lose one.

 -Talent Labs Floor 1 (Ultimate Living Doll)-

 I entered the room with the pink door. I found a large plastic box in the back of the room, large enough for a human person to stand in. There was a table in the corner set up for a tea party and an old gramophone in another corner. A desk with many textbooks and various other things that didn’t seem to match up.

 “Ah, Nagata-kun…” I looked over to see Asano-san standing in front of the box. A solemn expression on her face, “it seems this lab was developed for me. This box resembles the one my parents would make me stand in during my display days.”

 “I…I see…” Right…all this time I forgot, Asano-san’s talent and what she went through to get it. The items around the room make more sense now though, her parents forced her to learn literature, music, and etiquette. “I mean, this doesn’t seem so bad. You have a nice library of books as well as somewhere to relax and play music-“

 “Please do not try to make me feel better.” Asano-san said, hugging herself, “it’s such a depressing sight now that I think about it. How much of my youth was spent inside that box, I wonder…? Now Monokuma would choose to put the box here as well…?”

 “A-Asano-san…”

 “I…I am more than a box, Nagata-kun. I wish to prove that to the world. That the Ultimate Living Doll is more than just forced surgeries! I am capable, I tell you!” I could hear the fear in her voice. Was she this terrified of her own talent now?

 “…of course, you are. You’ve always been more than your looks. I mean, you’ve always been helpful in class trials and you’re kind of like the voice of reason in the group. Even Okanaya-kun will listen to you.” I said.

 “Y…yes, I suppose.”

 “Plus, you don’t wait for permission for anything anymore. You’ve been making more and more of your own decisions. That’s proof enough that you’re more than your looks.”

 “P-please, you are giving me too much credit.” She waved her hand to dismiss my comment, “I fear I still have a long way to go…so, please wait until I am able to be fully reliable.”

 “Of course. That’s what friends are for.”

 “Friends…yes.” She smiled fondly. I wonder is Asano-san has ever had friends before? Or listened to her own thoughts…this killing game, ironically enough, it’s made her much stronger.

 “Ah, that reminds me. I tried going into the talent lab next to mine, however it was locked.”

 “Locked?” I repeated.

 “Indeed. Monokuma then appeared. He told me that the lab was prepared for the late Kibe-san. However, since she died before the building was opened, he saw no reason to keep it unlocked.” Asano-san explained.

 “So…only the labs of those alive are unlocked.” I surmised. Asano-san firmly nodded. “It’s a shame. I would’ve liked to have seen the other talent labs. Maybe there could have been hints to our situation in them.”

 “You think Monokuma would do such a thing?”

 My mind went to the photo I found in the library during my investigation of the history building. There was definitely something strange, but I needed more information. “I think anything’s possible in this killing game…”

 Asano-san nodded in agreement.

 -Talent Labs Floor 2 (Ultimate Tour Guide)-

 “HEEEEEEEEEEEELL YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!” I stumbled as I walked into the room with a map of Tokyo painted onto it. Okanaya-kun was running around the room gazing, almost lovingly, at all these maps.

 “O-Okanaya-kun…?!”

 “Ah, Nagata, check it out! Look at the quality of these maps! They’re so fuckin’ detailed! They have ones for bus routes, landmarks, trainlines, it’s just so much info! This is great for expanding my knowledge and shit!”

 “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you more excited.”

 “How I not be?! And all these books about history of towns and landmarks are ones I’ve never read before! There might even be more info that I’ve never learned!” His eyes were lit up like stars as he spoke.

 “I’m glad you’re happy. Feel like you deserve it after everything we’ve had to deal with thus far.”

 “Yeah, I’m sure a lot of people’ll be happy with their talent labs. Finally, we’re all getting to do what we love after being forced into such a shitty situation, it’s no wonder I’m happy. Oi, Nagata! When we get outta here I wanna give you a tour sometime so stop the tour company I work for!”

 “Sure, sounds like a good deal.” I nodded. Okanaya-kun started off abrasive and unapproachable, almost terrifying like a monster, but getting to know him…he’s got a lot of love in him for his friends. Sure, he’s hot-headed, but he’s not a malicious person. I…I want to escape with Okanaya-kun.

 -Talent Labs Floor 2 (Ultimate Explorer)-

 I was about to head into an unpainted door when Kurosaki-san suddenly exited. I bumped into him as he swiftly locked the door to his lab before he looked back and smiled at me. “Ah~ no peeking!” He said.

 “Peeking?”

 “Sorry, sorry. The stuff in my lab is rather delicate. Many artefacts and such. I don’t want to risk anything getting damaged, so I’d prefer to keep my research lab off-limits for everyone. You understand, right?”

 “Not really. I’m sure everyone would be careful, but…if you’re that concerned about it…”

 “Indeed, I am.” He confirmed. Kurosaki-san would never lie to me, right…? He’s hidden things, sure, but I don’t think he’s ever outright lied to me. But for some reason, this situation…why do I feel so uneasy about this lab?

 Kurosaki-san, just what are you…?

 -Talent Labs Floor 3 (Ultimate Blogger)-

 The door this time had Wi-Fi bars painted on it which made it easy to guess I’d be walking into Yokozawa-san’s talent lab. There was a large multi-monitor computer setup in the room along with a shelf of various drinks and snacks and a refrigerator.

 “So this is what was prepared for the Ultimate Blogger…” I wonder, this computer’s here then maybe-

 “Don’t bother trying to search anything.” Yokozawa-san said.

 “Gwah!” I jumped back. Somehow Yokozawa-san had managed to sneak up on me again just like in the storage room yesterday. Come to think of it, I almost missed him on day 1 and Watanabe-san said she didn’t see him when she and the group woke up before splitting off. “Y-Yokozawa-san…you surprised me.”

 “I get that a lot.” He said.

 “…right.” I forced myself to say something, so we weren’t left in awkward silence, “…ah, you mentioned about searching?”

 “No Wi-Fi.” Was the answer I got. “Well…there’s Wi-Fi, but it’s password protected, and I couldn’t find the password anywhere. So, I can’t connect to the Wi-Fi. The only thing I can really do on that computer setup is write documents and play minesweeper.”

 “Is that so? That’s a shame, I was hoping we might’ve found a way to alert the outside world.”

 “Same here. Imagine my disappointment. The one time my talent might’ve been useful, and I can’t do anything. I’ll try a few passwords out and see if anything sticks, but I can’t promise anything. Password could literally be anything.” He shoved one hand in his pocket and fiddled with his hood with his other hand.

 “Well…if anyone can figure it’ll be you, right?”

 “I guess.” He shrugged.

 “Yokozawa-san?”

 “I just wanna be useful, is all. This might be my only chance, so I don’t want to fuck this up. Leave it to me and I’ll figure it out, but…I can’t promise anything.” Yokozawa-san walked away and sat at the computer.

 Junpei Yokozawa…a massive online presence, ironically has no presence in real life to the point he’s almost invisible. But if it weren’t for him, we might have not solved Shinko-san’s murder. He’s intelligent but clearly wary of everyone and refuses to allow himself to get close to people. Graves-san seems to have taken a shine to him but it doesn’t seem like the feeling is mutual…but if anyone could help us find information on our situation, it’ll be him…

 -Talent Labs Floor 3 (Ultimate Romance Expert)-

 “It’s…not too flashy, is it?” Kurohiko-san commented as he looked around the purple walled room with the red carpet. “A little gaudy, if I’m honest. And this divider in the middle…is it supposed to be for blind dates? How will that help me develop my talent?”

 “I’m not too sure.” I admitted. Romance is a difficult talent, I think.

 “Ah.” He opened up a drawer filled with sheets of paper, “this is more like it! Dating profiles! Now these would help develop my talent! Maybe I should get everybody to fill these out, it could be fun. What do you think?”

 “Should we really be thinking about our love lives when we’re in this situation?”

 “Of course we should! Lord knows we need a little positivity in here and love is about the most positive force in the world!” He flashed a ‘pretty boy’ smile that I hadn’t ever previously seen before. I think it’s easy to forget how much of a people person Kurohiko-san actually is despite all his…clumsiness.

 “I guess I understand that perspective, but I doubt many others would see it that way.”

 “Probably not, but…at this point anything’s possible, don’t you think? Love can bloom in the strangest of places!”

 I tilted my head a little, “I suppose?”

 Kurohiko-san stared at me, “Ah, geez…you’re really dense then, aren’t you? Nothing I can do about that until you realise it yourself though. I’ll support you when you figure it out.” He placed a hand on my shoulder and gave me a thumbs up.

 I…honestly still don’t get Kurohiko-san. When I first met him, he was a complete disaster but now he rambles much less and seems to have a better hold over his thoughts and feelings. Is he reliable? I’m still not entirely sure, plus I still have trouble figuring out what he’s talking about half the time. What am I supposed to be realising?

 -Talent Labs Floor 3 (Ultimate Assassin)-

 I entered the room painted to look like door is dripping down from top of the doorframe to find a wall covered in different types of knives, swords, and guns. Horrifying, to say the least, when you’re in a killing game.

 “Don’t worry, I took out all of the ammo.” Sly-san assured me.

 “O-oh, good.” Can he read me that easily?

 “You always barge into other people’s rooms unannounced?” He questioned.

 “H-huh? Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean to-“

 “It was a joke. Hah.”

 “O…oh…” There was a phrase of awkward silence.

 “Why do you always stand like that?” Sly-san asked as he examined one of the firearms on the wall. “Y’know…like you’re apologising for existing? I thought you just needed time to warm up to everyone, but you do it even when you don’t realise I’m around.”

 “I do that…? Wait, what do you mean when I ‘don’t realise you’re around’?”

 “Constantly, and yet as soon as we step into a class trial, all of that nervousness disappears. Weird.” He put the gun back onto the wall and turns to look at me, slight suspicion in his eyes, “tell me something, Nagata. How does someone so timid become the lead in such dire circumstances?”

 “Are you suspicious of me?”

 “The fact you didn’t answer my question makes you look even more suspicious.” His hand reached into his hoodie.

 “S-seriously, what’s up with you?! I don’t know why! I don’t even realise I’m doing that, okay?”

 Sly-san stared at me, his hand lowered from his hoodie. “I suppose that could be true. Out of everyone here, you’re the second-least likely mastermind. Only beaten by Kirishima who I put as 10th- bottom of the list.”

 “You have theories on who the mastermind is?”

 “Obviously. Everybody should. Top of the list is Kurosaki, obviously. It’s way too suspicious for him to just know everything there is to know about this killing game and the crimes committed during it. It’s hard to not be suspicious of him.”

 “I suppose…” I murmured. Kurosaki-san was definitely suspicious, but being the mastermind…? I don’t know, ”Wait, you said 10th for Kirishima? You include yourself on that list?”

 “It’s possible I’m an unaware culprit. We don’t even remember how we all got here, who knows what else we might be unaware of.”

 “I didn’t think of that? You really think the mastermind would do something like that…? Plus, the mastermind being one of us…? Wouldn’t that be risky for the mastermind? What’s the goal in taking part in the game?”

 “Exactly that: taking suspicion away. Understand? No sane person would willing take part in a killing game they set up, therefore, we have to consider they’re not a sane person.  Don’t know about you, but that just makes Kurosaki even more suspicious.”

 Sly-san’s so calculating and level-headed. I’m still scared of him, admittedly, but he’s definitely one of the most reliable people here. However, we still don’t know anything about Sly-san. Someone so quiet about himself but also so intimidating…what am I supposed to think? Or act? He even considered me for being the mastermind. He considered himself as being the mastermind…

 -Talent Labs Floor 4 (Ultimate Lucky Student)-

 I walked into a room with a lucky cat painted on the front. Before I even stepped in, I was sure this was going to be my talent lab, and upon entering my suspicions were…not entirely cleared up. I found a small garden in the centre of the room filled with clovers. The wall was lined with items that were typically thought to increase luck. Horseshoes, a rabbit’s foot, pennies.

 Was this really supposed to help me develop my talent? Then again, how else would you develop Ultimate luck?

 “Whooooa! This shit’s awesome!” I jumped when Okanaya-kun’s voice suddenly came from the doorway behind me, “Nagata, you’re research lab is really cool!”

 “C-cool? I don’t see how.”

 “Well, your luck is supposed to affect people around you, right? So…it looks like this stuff is supposed to be used to see if lucky items can make you a better lucky charm. Ain’t it cool if you look at like that? You could be even better for us!”

 “Ah! You’re right, that does make sense! Maybe if I start carrying around more stuff like this in my pockets, everyone will be blessed with some better fortune. In this situation, we’ll need as much luck as possible…hmm, looking at this stuff, only a rabbit’s foot is lucky to carry around on my person, huh?”

 “Well, maybe we can do something about that!” Okanaya-kun walked over to the clovers and began gently sifting through them, what’s he up to? He suddenly stood up straight with a bright smile spread across his face, “Bingo!” His hands started to move methodically crafting something delicately at his fingertips.

 “What are you…?”

 “Here! Hold your hand out!” He extended one hand to me. I hesitated for a moment before giving him my hand. His other hand came from behind him and slipped something onto my index finger. A four-leaf clover ring tied together with stems. “There! You could make a bunch of these and it makes you, like, infinitely luckier!”

 “O…Okanaya-kun, thank you.” I stared at the ring not entirely sure how I was supposed to respond to the gesture. “A…although…isn’t it only the person that finds the four-leaf clover that the luck works on?”

 “Ah?! Really?!” Okanaya-kun tapped out a rhythm with his foot and hummed along with the beat, “then…you better stick close! If that clover’ll only work on me, then you’ll just have to be my lucky charm!”

 “St-stick close, huh…?” Geez, he says such embarrassing things so easily, ”Then, if you’ll put up with me…”

“Hah! Good to have you around!”

 -Talent Labs Floor 4 (Ultimate Secret Agent)-

 I walked into the final unlocked lab. By process of elimination, this has to belong to Graves-san…I wonder what I’ll find in here? I go to open the door but the handle just rattles. Huh? Is it locked? I thought Monokuma opened the labs of everybody who was still alive…right?

 “Yikes, my dude! I go to the bathroom and find you trying to break into my talent lab!” Graves-san laughed heartily at me as she approached her talent door. She placed her hand on the wall next to her lab, a beep played which revealed a security pad. She typed in a number I couldn’t see at the current angle and the door clicked to signify it had unlocked. Graves-san turned to me, “wanna see?”

 “U-um…if you don’t mind.”

 “Sure! Let’s go!” She was back to her cheery self. Even so, after last night after the trial…I followed her into the talent lab, however…

 “Huh? There’s nothing in here!” I exclaimed when I was greeted with a bare white-tiled room.

 “Oh, right! Everything’s here, it’s just hidden behind passcodes and ocular scanners and stuff like that. Pretty much only I’m able to access the stuff in this lab, pretty suitable for the Ultimate Secret Agent, right?! I’m uber excited to see if there are any secrets to discover about my lab!” Her eyes sparkled.

 “I see…well, if any labs were gonna hold secrets it would be either yours or Kurosaki-san’s.”

 “Riiiiight~ Yuuki is definitely hiding something from all of us! I’m gonna try and figure it out very quickly! I wonder if anyone knows anything about it? Maybe Sly does?”

 “I suppose they hang around together a lot, though…I don’t even think Sly-san like Kurosaki-san…”

 “Business relationship, duh.” Graves-san shrugged. “Once I expose him, everything will be revealed…I’m sure of it. Everything will finally make sense.” She spoke with a kind of determination I hadn’t heard from her before.

 Graves-san…I’m so uncertain of her. I don’t know how she feels about me, and I’m not sure how I’m supposed to feel about her. She’s been explicit with how she feels fine about killing to escape to the point that I worry for everyone’s safety, and yet…she seems focused on uncovering the secrets of the killing game at the same time.

 What is you aim? Who are you really, Graves-san?

 -Chapter 4 Daily Life, Reporting-

 All of us, bar Graves-san reassembled back in the dining hall to discuss what we had all found. The nine of us sat around the large centre table looking at each other with rather blank expressions, “I mean…if there even much to talk about this time around…? We all got to explore our individual talent research labs. That’s all the building had to offer, right?” Kurohiko-san said.

 “Kurohiko-kun is correct. I failed to find anything of value there.” Asano-san agreed.

 “Not to mention all the labs of those who passed away are locked up. We can’t explore then even if we wanted to.” Yokozawa-san said.

 “Monokuma confirmed as much. I tried to pick the locks but Monokuma said he made them unpickable, even by me.” Amaterasu-san added.

 “Well, if we explored all the research labs then I guess there’s nothing to be done!” Kurosaki-san shrugged.

 “Not all of them. Kurosaki…you didn’t let anybody into your research lab. What’s in there?” Sly-san asked.

 “Nothing interesting, but it’s stuff for the Ultimate Explorer so it’s a little dangerous. I’m keeping it locked so that nobody gets hurt or anything.”

 “Locked? Your room locked…?” Sly-san cocked an eyebrow, “my lab doesn’t lock.”

 “Oh? How odd. My lab came with a lock.” Kurosaki-san murmured.

 “So did Graves-san…well, not so much a lock as it was a security system. Something about it being part of her talent getting developed.” I said.

 “Eh?! You ran into Graves?!” Okanaya-kun exclaimed, “sh-she didn’t do anything, right?! You’d tell us if she hurt you, yeah?!”

 “Okanaya-kun, Nagata-kun’s clearly okay. Let’s not doubt Graves-san so much…” Kirishima-san said.

 “Don’t doubt her?! Did you forget how she was actin’ after the class trial? How she’s been acting since the class trial before that?!”

 “O-Okanaya-san, you shouldn’t yell like that at girls…” Kurohiko-san tried to reason. “I’m in agreement. Graves-san is probably just as scared as the rest of us, she’s just not handling it in the same manner.”

 “She seemed chipper when I saw her.” I said.

 “Probably because she realises how terrible you’d be if you tried to murder someone.” Amaterasu-san said.

 “A-ah…probably.” I admitted. Yeah, Graves-san knows who a threat to her safety could be. This whole thing might be her becoming overly cautious. Although it’s hard to totally determine what it could be with her…

 “Well…if there’s nothing else to discuss, then I suppose we’re done for the day, huh? This was the shortest meeting we’ve ever had.” Sly-san said.

 “Yep. Well, later.” Amaterasu-san gave a half-ass wave before promptly exiting the room.

 “S’up with her?” Okanaya-kun asked.

 “Not sure. She’s been kinda weird the past few days. I’ve asked her about it, but she just keeps saying she’s been wanting to spend time by herself. Obviously, it’s something more than that.” Kurohiko-san said.

 “Weird for Amaterasu to be so secretive…” Okanaya-kun frowned.

 “No, I disagree. Although myself and Kurohiko-kun are fairly close with Amaterasu-san, we don’t know anything about her past her name and talent.” Asano-san said.

 “She’s flew under the radar. Though that’s probably how someone like her prefers it, being the Ultimate Thief.” Kurosaki-san smirked.

 “You’re probably right. I just kinda wish she’d open up even a little…” Kurohiko-san shrugged.

 -Chapter 4 Daily Life, No Air-

The next morning, we had all been called into the gym for Monokuma’s next motive announcement. When we all arrived Monokuma was standing in the middle of the room, idly playing miniature golf, wearing a visor and carefully aiming. He hit the golf ball with far too much force sending it across the room, imbedding itself into the wall.

 “WAAAAAH!!” Kurohiko-san cried out, clutching to Asano-san’s arm, “t-talk about unnecessary force!”

 “Yeah, I’d say that’s a hole-in-one.” Monokuma shrugged, throwing away the visor and golf club. “Anyway, how’re we all doing? Feeling kill-y or what?”

 “Do you actually want an answer?” Yokozawa-san clicked his tongue at Monokuma.

 “…who are you again?”

 “Bastard…” Yokozawa-san spat back.

 “Careful now! It would be bad if you used up all the air in here!” Monokuma giggled.

 “What?” Yokozawa-san raised an eyebrow.

 “I suppose I had to give you a heads up on this motive otherwise you might all end up dead before you even realise what’s going on. Alrighty, better start learning to conserve your oxygen cause this motive is oxygen deprivation!”

 “Oxygen…deprivation?” Kirishima-san repeated.

 “Yeppers! Every day I’m gonna decrease the oxygen level in this killing game area by 1%, so yesterday the oxygen level was the usual level at around 21% and today its been lowered to 20%!” Monokuma explained.

 “What the hell?! Ain’t that the sky above us outside?! How you supposed to decrease the oxygen levels?” Okanaya-kun questioned.

 “Huh? Oh, I guess I never mentioned it until now but there’s actually a layer of glass covering the top of this place. So, actually, you’re totally trapped inside here! Up until now there have been air regulators on the sides of the buildings which have been keeping the air breathable, but from now on I’ll be decreasing the levels. The only way to stop it is…you guessed it! Kill someone!” Monokuma cackled as he disappeared behind the podium.

 “Shit…” Kurosaki-san cursed under his breath, “he’s become so desperate to basically give us a time limit like this…? Sadistic bastard.”

 “He’s…gonna suffocate us…?” Kirishima-san trembled.

 “Worse than that…” Sly-san shook his head. “Gradually decreasing the oxygen levels won’t let you die so nicely like that. It’s much slower, dangerous.”

 “At 20% it’s fine, really. Places like Salt Lake City have an oxygen concentration of 17.9%.  Getting lower is when it becomes a problem. I know a decent amount about this cause I’ve climbed the odd mountain or two during my explorations. At around 15%, you can experience a bunch of different symptoms, usually nausea and dizziness. Possibly confusion if you develop High Altitude Cerebral Edema, or HACE. Further drops in oxygen levels can cause cyanosis or respiratory distress which can lead to fainting and such.” Kurosaki-san explained.

 “Wh-what the fuck…so that shit’s gonna happen to us?!” Okanaya-kun paled.

 “That’s not all to worry about…” Graves-san continued, “we clearly don’t have the resources to treat any symptoms should they start to develop. So, trying to do a class trial when we’re all super loopy…? No chance we’d pass.”

 “So, waiting until the oxygen levels are low is a viable option for someone if they wanna get out.” Amaterasu-san said.

 “Amaterasu-san…!” Kurohiko-san turned to her.

 “It is.” Amaterasu-san shrugged, “although probably means they couldn’t kill anyone efficiently at that point.”

 “She’s got a point. Really, if a murder doesn’t occur before we hit 16% then one won’t happen at all, if I had to guess.” Asano-san theorised. “This is…a test of time. Either all of us die or one of us kills.”

 “Would Monokuma really do that though?! To just…end the killing game in a way like that?!”  Yokozawa-san questioned.

 “Our lives are just playthings to him. Doesn’t matter how we die.” Graves-san answered.

 “Nagata, you good?” Okanaya-kun placed a hand on my shoulder. I had been hearing what everyone was saying, but I was having trouble reacting. It’s really came down to this? Monokuma’s just gonna put a time limit on our lives and see if that kills us? No way, that can’t happen…right? I don’t wanna die like that…

 “S-sorry, it’s just…a freaky thing to think about…” I murmured, rubbing the back of my neck. “What the hell are we supposed to do about something like this? Is there even a way out…?”

 “N-Nagata-kun?”

 “Ah! S-sorry, Kirishima-san. I didn’t mean to sound pessimistic, it’s just…”

 “I understand…b-but I’m sure there’s a solution! We just have to find it! We still have a few days before any effects settle in, right? Then let’s use our time wisely and try to escape before then!” Kirishima-san seemed pumped up.

 “Good luck with that.” Amaterasu-san nodded before heading to the door.

 “W-wait, Amaterasu-san, where are you going?!” Kurohiko-san called out.

 Amaterasu-san turned back and stared at Kurohiko-san. Suddenly she struck a dramatic pose and simply said, “it’s a secret” before promptly leaving like yesterday.

 “Seriously, what is up with her? It’s getting annoying…” Yokozawa-san complained, though looking rather thoughtful, “ah…I gotta try and occupy myself while I think stuff over. I’m gonna go to my research lab if anyone needs me.” He pulled his hood over his head and left the room.

 “Yokozawa-kun…Amaterasu-san…we need to work…together…” Kirishima-san twiddled her thumbs as she tried to keep her enthusiasm.

 “Then the rest of us’ll work on finding an escape route. Nothing much else we can hope to do. Plus, with our numbers we can pair off and search like that.” Sly-san suggested.

 “Nah, no point in that. If we pair up, we’ll end up covering less ground. It’s better for us to split up.” Okanaya-kun said.

 “I can’t believe I’m saying it, but I’m in agreement with Herr Okanaya. It’ll better our chances of finding an exit if we all investigate separately.” Kurosaki-san seconded. Sly-san stared at Kurosaki-san with a confused expression.

 “…fine then. We’ll do that.” Sly-san conceded. “We can’t afford to waste the rest of the day, so let’s hurry up. Split up everyone, we’ve got an exit to uncover.”

[mst3kproject]

403: City Limits

I only have one story about this movie and that’s how a while back I had a dream in which Kim Cattrall and Jennifer Connolly were trying to escape from an evil toy factory owned by Nicholas Cage, and in the dream I was thinking wow, City Limits is different than I remember.  Moving on.

In the non-dream version of the movie, a plague has killed off all the adults except James Earl Jones – I must admit, if you have to keep one he’s a pretty good choice.  He adopts some bland kid named Lee, who grows up, puts on a Cubone costume, and heads off into the ruins of Los Angeles to find other badly-dressed, motorcycle-riding survivors like him.  If he had any sense, he’d have stayed in the middle of nowhere with Horse Girl, since the first bunch he meets try to arrest him and the second just aren’t impressed by his resume.  Lee ends up killing some guy named Dirty Bob, so the various motorcycle gangs that now rule the world decide to subject him to trial by combat, based on something they read in a comic book.  Somehow this results in smashing a couple of dinosaur skeletons and uniting the gangs to take on the federally authorized Sunia Corporation, who shoot anybody who doesn’t want to work for them.  What the hell happened to Horse Girl?

Yeah, I have a lot of trouble following what is going on in this movie.  Most of it takes place in poorly-lit darkness, the characters all look alike and dress like piles of laundry, and nothing anybody does is properly motivated. There’s something almost Ed-Wood-ian about the way scenes in City Limits refuse to add up to a narrative. Reaction shots get dropped in with no explanation of why characters are reacting the way they are, and there’s some bits, like the Beer Santa or what Yogi sees out the window, that I honestly can’t tell whether they’re flashbacks or not.  It’s a good thing the narrating voice of James Earl Jones shows up from time to time to tell us what people are doing, or else I would have no idea.

What does the Sunia company want?  They say they want to provide electricity and food for the world, and if this is just a front for something evil we never hear about it.  Shooting people who won’t work for them is pretty evil, but if there’s a larger Evil Plan at work I couldn’t tell.  What do the Clippers and the DA’s want?  They might have had some kind of system of their own at work before Sunia showed up but all we hear about is the truce between the two.  What was Lee’s plan at the end?  Why bother having people zoom in on armored motorbikes if Albert was right there with the air support?  Why the hell is Carver the main villain when he never even gets out of his fucking chair?

Note To Self: if I ever want to conquer the world, I should avoid saying I am inevitable.  It doesn’t go well for anybody.

Maybe Sunia isn’t the problem, but the government that sponsor them?  Possibly, but we know even less about what passes for ‘the federal government’ in this dystopia than we do about Sunia.  We never meet anybody who represents them.  What kind of government can you have after almost everybody over the age of twelve died of the plague?  This is one of those things that, if the movie hadn’t brought it up, I would never have thought about it – but once they’ve mentioned it, it bugs me.

The impression I’m left with is City Limits is basically a sequence of ideas somebody thought were cool, with minimal effort made to string them together into an actual story.  Skull Helmet?  Cool. Motorcycle race through dinosaur bones? Very cool!  Biker Viking Funeral? Extremely cool!  James Earl Jones blowing shit up with RC kamikaze airplanes?  What could be cooler than that?  And yeah, all this stuff is fun to watch, but unfortunately that’s just not the same as actually caring about it.

Without coherence or character development to get us interested, the audience is left in exactly the spot Space Mutiny managed to avoid: we just don’t see the point.  The only real entertainment value in the film is a few moments of amusing absurdity sprinkled in here and there.  The fake-ass dinosaur skeleton is hilarious – as is the establishing shot of the museum, which looks extremely well-groomed for having been ruled by motorcycle gangs for fifteen years.  The stinger moment of Bolo hollering in panic as the dinky RC plane closes in to blow him up also got a laugh out of me.  Even these would be much improved, though, if we had a better idea what was actually going on.

Because of all this stuff stacked against me giving a shit, I had to watch the movie twice to get anything out of it.  On the second viewing, when I stopped expecting to understand what was happening in the plot, I managed to find a couple of interesting ideas peeking out.  One was how, here and there, City Limits tries to create a culture for these people who were abandoned as children.  Like the film itself, this is based on what a twelve-year-old might think looks cool: the clothes and lairs made out of scavenged bits of 80’s culture.  The party-animal, bike-riding lifestyle.  The use of comic books as a guide to what life was like before the apocalypse.  The weird funeral they hold for Whitey.  There’s a Trashpunk Neverland sort of vibe to the whole thing, as if we really are in a world designed by children who never grew up.  I wonder if that’s brilliant, or just a poor reflection on the maturity of the film-makers.

The other is an apparently earnest attempt to say something about colonialism.  Dr. Wickings (who the hell is giving out doctorates after the end of the world?) argues that the bikers are human beings who are just defending their homeland, and should be treated with compassion.  Her bosses at Sunia reply that the bikers are barbarians who need to be gotten out of the way.  This is the logic of everybody, everywhere, who has ever conquered anybody else. The Romans said it about the Gauls, the Spaniards said it about the Aztecs, the bad guys in Avatar said it about the Na’vi.  In each case, the conquerors who call the conquered ‘barbarians’ use it as an excuse to treat them barbarously.

This is stated explicitly enough in City Limits that it’s clearly intentional, and the analogy continues: Sunia has technology the locals don’t, and that could be of real benefit to everybody – but Sunia aren’t interested in peaceful trade or selfless charity, and the only benefit they want is for themselves (presumably, since like I said, their overall plan is never gone into).  The natives had plenty of problems and enmities of their own before this outside force showed up, but they had a system and it worked before Sunia pitted them against each other for gain (again, presumably).

As a theme, this falls apart in two places, both of which I’ve already mentioned.  First, we don’t care – we don’t know who these characters are and we can’t tell them apart, so we’re not invested in whether they get conquered or not.  I think the laundry-heap costumes are also a major contributor to this.  They tend to make all the characters look alike, jumbles of colour without distinguishable silhouettes.  Costuming can say quite a lot about a character, but if there’s too much going on the details get lost.

Second, we don’t really have a compelling reason to consider Sunia the bad guys.  I swear I know better now than to expect that MST3K cut anything that really mattered, but it was still kind of a surprise to find that there was no missing scene that detailed Sunia’s Evil Master Plan.  A supervillain with no Evil Plan is a pretty lousy supervillain, even if his non-evil plan is to be achieved by evil means, and especially when we don’t care about the victims.  We just don’t know enough about what was going on here before Sunia showed up to be able to say if it was better or worse in any way.  As it stands, Sunia’s offer of food, medicine, electricity, and an end to the gang warfare seems like a pretty good idea to me.

A couple more random notes that didn’t fit anywhere else in the review: since I work in that field myself, I have to say that I’m happy glasses survived the end of civilization.  It must be much easier to rediscover all the other technologies when everybody can see.  Maybe that’s why there’s so much gasoline and electricity in this post-apocalyptic world – people like James Earl Jones and Kim Cattrall with their glasses could see well enough to keep them coming!

Then there’s the fact that everywhere Lee goes, girls kinda smile awkwardly at him and then immediately take his side.  Horse Girl does it, Kim Cattrall does it, Rae Dawn Chong does it… why?  There seem to be lots of boys around, so it’s not like the apocalypse left the world with a shortage of dick.  This is why so-called ‘incels’ go on shooting sprees – because movies like this have told them that dull white boys should have girls all over them just because they showed up.

Seriously, what the hell happened to Horse Girl?  Why was she even in the movie?  She comes and goes before the opening credits are over and has no effect on the plot.  Did she reappear somewhere and I just never noticed?  That’s one of the big rules of storytelling, folks – if you place a horse on the mantlepiece in Act I, you have to use it!

[artificialqueens]

Cold-hearted bitch (Rujubee) - moony

AN: This is my first submission so I am very excited and a little nervous. I hope you enjoy it!

Being a cold-hearted bitch doesn’t work for everyone, but it does work for Raven.

Well, truth to be told, it works for her most of the time. Which absolutely does not explain how in hell she ended up in a car with the most annoying of her co-workers in the middle of a five hours road trip to a city she doesn’t even remember the name of. Come on! The bitchiness is supposed to save her from situations like this! She has played all of her cold-hearted, dirty, malicious, bitchy tricks to push this girl away but there is no! fucking! way!

So, here she is, at 9 a.m. on a Tuesday, trapped in the smallest car made by humankind with her least favourite co-worker who doesn’t seem like she’s going to shut up anytime soon. The trip feels eternal right now.

“I was thinking we need to unpack as fast as we can and…”

Raven is not listening, not really. She’s way too focused on the road and her own annoyance to pay attention, sorry not sorry. Also, Jujubee can and will say the same fucking thing eight times in a row so it’s actually better for both of them if she only has to listen to it once.

To be completely honest with herself, she knows Jujubee is not… horrible. She knows it could be worse: her co-worker could be a smelly pig or a chronic smoker, and that would be utterly awful because Raven can not stand certain odours. So, yeah, she knows it could be worse, but there’s still something about Jujubee that has always rubbed her the wrong way.

For starters she talks so fucking much that it’s annoying to spend more than five minutes near her. She talks about everything and everyone, and always has an opinion to give even if no one cares (even when Raven doesn’t care in the slightest).

And even though she talks that much, everyone else seems to love her. People at the office treat her like she is the coolest person to be around, always engaged in conversation with some person or other and smiling full-time as if it was a vital part of their job.

But uh-uh, Raven is the only one who seems to be able to see through it, through the falsehood. She truly can’t stand the constant fake smiles and the string of fake compliments that come out of her mouth. It’s just so artificial that it’s hard to understand why other people don’t notice!

It doesn’t make sense at all. See, why would she offer to travel with Raven if she hadn’t an ulterior motive? Raven, who hasn’t been nice to her by any means and who has made it crystal clear she doesn’t want her friendship or any other kind of relationship. Why does she keep being nice and sweet when everything she gets as a response is dry and rude? No. Fucking. Sense.

“I was also thinking about visiting some museum to make sure we make the most of the trip What do you think about going sightseeing tomorrow morning? It could be fun.”

“No.”

“No? Okay, we can make other plans obviously, I’m pretty certain the hotel has a pool…”

“No.”

“Oh? You don’t like pools either?”

“No, I don’t like making plans on a work trip.”

“Come on! The convention doesn’t start until Thursday we’re totally free tomorrow. We have to do something!”

“No.”

“Come on, Raven, don’t be a mood-killer!”

“Let’s get things straight: I’m here because of work and I am not planning on doing anything but working, least of everything doing something with you. Have I made myself clear?”

“Loud and clear.”

For the first time in the two hours they have been sharing the car, Jujubee is quiet. Raven almost feels guilty for hurting the other woman’s feelings. Almost. The silence is too rewarding for that.

Of course, it doesn’t last long.

“You know? When everyone in the office said you were a bitch and I shouldn’t try to be friendly with you I told them to fuck off because I thought that maybe it was just a defence mechanism and what you needed was someone to try a little. But I guess I was wrong, so I’m sorry if I bothered you too much, I quit. I’ll find some other way to come back home on Sunday so you can drive in peace.”

Dirty emotional blackmailer bitch.

“You don’t have to do that, just stop assuming you know a single thing about me and everything will go great.”

“Okay.”

Everyone but the car is silent again, but this time the tension is so high it’s uncomfortable. In an unexpected turn of events, Raven starts to miss Jujubee’s constant rambling about stupid things. Something, anything to fill the void would be useful at that point.

“Listen.” It’s Raven who finally breaks the silence “It’s not personal.”

“Yes, it is.”

“Well, yes. But it’s also personal with most of the people I know so don’t worry too much about it.”

“I’m not worried, I just don’t get it.”

“Why?”

“Why?” She exclaims, “I’ve been nothing but friendly with you and still… I don’t know what I did to piss you off!”

“Honestly? You being friendly with everyone is what pisses me off the most. You can’t like everyone.”

“I do!”

“You can’t.”

“But I do!”

“Fuck that, as if! It is impossible to like every single person you meet.”

“Well, you know, being fucked on the regular does help to be in a happy mood and to actually engage in healthy social interactions. You should try it sometime.”

Silence makes an appearance again but this time is neither uncomfortable or relieving. It is only there for three or four seconds, the seconds it takes for Raven to actually process what her allegedly sweet and kind co-worker just said. Damn, she’s funny.

“Bitch,” she says back, not being able to contain the smirk.

“Have I entered an alternate universe or did you really just crack a smile for me?”

“Don’t get used to it.”

“Does it mean you like me now?”

“No.”

“And if I stop talking?”

“Still no, but it will make things easier for both of us.”

“Okay.”

Surprisingly, she does stop talking. She turns up the radio and doesn’t even sing along with most of the songs. It feels so much like heaven that Raven thinks for a brief second that she could even grow to like the woman sitting next to her. Maybe. Only if she’s able to be like this for the rest of the trip.

They keep on with their journey in a calm quietness, only broken by the sound of the radio and some questions here and there about having to pee. When they finally arrive in the town, Raven is in such a good mood that she’s willing to overlook her first impression of Jujubee (loud, boring and fake af) and give her another chance. That is, until she learns that they’re going to have to share not only a room but a bed because Jujubee has messed up their reservation.

Fuck.

Being a cold-hearted bitch comes naturally to Raven most of the time. Specially when she’s around someone she doesn’t like (which is most people), and specially if those people have done something to piss her off (which they do most of the time). So, it is not a surprise that after checking into their hotel room she goes into a rant about how incapable her co-worker is if she’s not even able to book two rooms properly. She’s fuming, and a string of smoke is about to come out of her head if she doesn’t calm down quickly. She could probably strangle Jujubee with her own hand in this concrete moment.

She needs to calm down. God.

Raven is trying her best to stop talking and to breathe deeply and not to look in Jujubee’s direction for both of their sakes. Step by step she manages to put herself into a state in which she doesn’t want to kill anyone anymore, which allows her to grab some clean clothes from her bag and run towards the bathroom.

“I’m going to have a shower,” she says, still not looking into her new roommate.

“Good.”

The only thing that comes to her mind after a while in the shower is how pissed her friend Raja would be if she knew the amount of water she is wasting. That’s good, that means she’s not angry anymore, or at least she isn’t when she doesn’t think about what’s going to happen that same night. It’s something, it’s progress. She finally talks herself into coming out of it after the third stomach rumble. They haven’t had anything to eat for a long, long time and she’s not about to risk another fury attack just because she’s hungry. No ma’am.

When Raven comes out of the bathroom, she sees something she never expected to see. There she is, Jujubee, of course, but surrounded but like fifteen food containers that seem to have every and each of the dishes Raven regularly brings to the office. What in fucking hell.

“What is this?” She doesn’t mean to sound as dry as it has, she’s just shocked.

“I’m sorry, I know it’s too much but I just wanted to apologise… I know I fucked up. Sorry.”

Raven is too busy debating about if what Jujubee did is creepy or endearing to answer. She really is.

“Please say something.”

“I can not believe this.”

“Sorry? I’m trying!” She can see how Jujubee is getting nervous by her lack of response but it’s just too much.

“I told you stop trying!”

“I can’t!”

It has reached the point in which both of them are screaming. Raven can feel the rage coming up on her spine and it’s really hard to keep it at bay.

“Yes, you can!”

“I don’t want to then!”

“Why?!”

“Because I like you, okay?  Is that enough of a reason for you?”

What the flying fuck. What. The. Fuck. She didn’t see that coming, like at all. And it is probably showing on her face too, it has to be showing.

“Fuck, I’m sorry. Forget that, okay? I didn’t mean it.”

“Okay.”

That is probably not the cleverest reply she’s ever given, but it will do for now. She completely ignores her roommate for the few minutes it takes for her to grab her stuff and jump into the bathroom. Everything goes down the second the door closes.

She’s so fucking mad. Who does she think she is? Making up that kind of bullshit? Laughing at Raven’s face, saying she likes her when that’s clearly a cop out for her massive fuck up. Oh, but she knew it, it’s not a surprise that Jujubee has ended up being a fake ass, is it? All the work she’s done to calm down in the shower has gone to shit because Miss I-smile-at-the-devil needs a way to run away from her mistake. No. Fucking. Way.

Raven’s ready to confront as she opens the door. She has been preparing that massive speech while eating her favourite chicken and rice dish; she’s ready to deliver it in her coldest tone, she’s got no mercy. That is, until she sees the look on Jujubee’s face and her heart faints. The girl looks so miserable. Her eyes are red and puffy, and she’s not making a good job trying to conceal it.

Raven’s staring, waiting for some words, a reaction, something, but it never comes. Jujubee drops her dirty clothes somewhere around her suitcase and proceeds to get into their bed without adding anything else. Raven knows she must be feeling very hungry and that she’s clearly upset, but she doesn’t really know what she’s supposed to do in these kinds of situations. She’s never been good around people, even worse at feelings and stuff. She doesn’t know how to react, but she knows she has to try.

“Jujubee…”

“Please, don’t. I’m tired and I want to sleep. You can shout at me tomorrow.”

“I’m not going to shout at you.”

“Sure thing.” The irony in the tone sets Raven up a little bit, but she manages it. She can’t get angry now.

“Listen… I’m not going to say I’m not… bothered about what happened with the room, but everybody makes mistakes so… It could be worse. Just don’t use silly excuses next time and we will be fine.”

That was good. Raven feels like that was good, kind, understanding. Probably gave Jujubee some peace of mind? Or maybe not, but she hopes so. She is confronted by a lack of response for the first time since she’s known Jujubee, so she decides the best thing is to clean up whatever is left of the food and go to sleep herself. Tomorrow will be a new day, one in which she will probably be able to book a new room and not share more than what is strictly necessary time with other people.

She’s almost asleep when she hears Jujubee’s voice again.

“It was not an excuse.”

“What?”

“It was not an excuse, what I said. It’s the truth.”

Raven sighs. Either she’s playing with her or she’s truly delusional.

“You don’t know me.”

“Yeah, but I’d like to.” She waits for an answer for a couple of seconds, but keeps going as there isn’t one. “You make those remarks about makeup that hardly anyone understands but you seem to know a weird lot about, you’re interesting. And I know you’re funny as well, I’ve seen you around the office with people you are friends with, they can’t stop laughing. You always are a little distant but you’re only truly mean with people who don’t do their work properly, and I like that you have that kind of integrity. I could go all night like this. I know I don’t know most of who you are, Raven, but I’d really, really like to, if you let me.”

In any other situation and with any other person, Raven would have probably laughed at those same words. Instead, she feels something in her dark and nasty insides that moves her to answer in a different way:

“Okay.”

[oneunicornaway]

Date Night

I did the whole spiel once already, but the gist of it is: Jupeter date. Heist. Mafia. Juno is a badass, and Peter is horny.

Thanks a lot to @chyww, @tackyjackpack, and @tinyplanetss for the emotional support, willingness to correct my grammar at times, and general awesomeness <3 <3 <3

This is pretty long and might be better on AO3

"I promise you, Juno, that this will be the best date anyone has ever taken you on."

Juno had sputtered and fidgeted and had been damn close to hanging up the phone right then, but in the end he couldn't deny that the idea of having Peter Nureyev, best thief in the galaxy, concentrated only on him for one whole night, was a very enticing one. Which is why he had listened to Nureyev when he had given him a time and place and had accepted to 'dress up a bit'.

It's not exactly that he regretted it... not really, it's just that he felt utterly ridiculous clad in his favorite jumpsuit and jacket and light make up, as he waited at the corner of Fitzgerald and 6th.

Just as he was considering leaving, date be damned, or at least removing his earrings, to feel a bit less out of place, someone came up behind him. Without thinking, Juno turned on himself, fist at the ready, only to strike at empty air, merely displacing a bit of Peter Nureyev's hair with the movement.

The thief's smile was wide and amused. Juno's heart missed a bit.

"I'm happy to see you're as vigilant as ever, Juno."

His movement was slow but sure as he approached Juno, and the PI was torn between slapping the smile off his face and leaning into his embrace.

Peter's hand curled around his waist and Juno considered the fact that no one cared if he spent his life smooching Peter Nureyev's face off. Nureyev made the kiss last and linger and yet he couldn't get enough of it. It felt as though the world stopped every time the thief kissed him, was near him, as though Juno could feel the universe expand outwards, as if suddenly, he wasn't only Juno Steel, former garbage cop, beat detective and one-eyed loser. Peter Nureyev made him feel as though there was more to Mars, more to the stars above that didn't shine through the dome, and Juno didn't ever want it to stop.

Peter gently ended the kiss, and it took Juno some efforts not to cling to him. Nureyev didn't seem to have the same reserves, and he let his hand linger in Juno's hair, lightly caressing his cheek with his thumb.

"I missed you."

"Yeah... I... me too."

Feelings were dumb and he had a lot of them. Benzaiten would have made so much fun of him.

Peter let his hand fall to take Juno’s.

"Shall we?"

"Sure."

As it was, Juno wouldn't have minded staying alone with Peter Nureyev in a random, dark street. Here, besides the thief's side, the shadows seemed almost welcoming. But Nureyev had promised a wonderful date, and Juno Steel didn’t get many of those, and so he was rather curious of what the thief had imagined for him.

"So, what adventures have you been part of lately? My wonderful detective."

Juno scoffed.

"I don't think I would call them 'adventures'. The life of a PI is not as interesting as it sounds, you know."

Nureyev smiled fondly and pressed lightly on his hand, making a soothing motion with his thumb that left Juno’s skin tingling with heat.

"I beg to differ, considering our history together - Nureyev sounded positively gleeful at being able to say 'our history'. Besides, as long as it's about you, I wouldn't mind hearing boring stories."

That was... annoyingly smooth.

"Well then, brace yourself for the riveting story of the thousand cheating spouses, with a side of tax evasion and one very badly executed museum heist."

Nureyev chuckled, and Juno went on to tell the preposterous story of one cheating wife, who had managed to put together a whole scheme to keep the identity of her famous lover a secret.

As he talked, he could feel the tension leave his body, Nureyev's presence going from a burning furnace to reassuring fireplace embers, which warmed him up to the core without burning his skin. He was halfway through explaining the extensive mailing system he had found out, the key to solve the case, when they arrived at their destination.

"I have a reservation for Duke and Dahlia Rose." Announced Nureyev, seemingly completely at ease with suddenly taking up Duke Rose’s personae.

After the internal roller coaster that the names provoked in Juno - Nureyev never gave his name in public places, and Juno got an alias most of the time as well, but Duke and Dahlia were married and it always felt as though Nureyev was pushing him over an edge of sentimentality that he wasn't ready to cross by himself - he took in the place Nureyev had brought him in. It was a restaurant, and despite being in one of the shadiest part of town, it seemed to be rather upper class. The walls were richly decorated with dark red hangings and some precious looking vases on their own small tables. The restaurant was only half-full, and the people already seated wore discreetly rich clothes and pieces of jewelry, a rare occurrence in Hyperion city, where people either showed you how poor they were, or fled you for not being rich enough.

There were a few waiters, but they didn't seem to be entirely overcome with their clients. One of them didn't even seem to take care of any of them, and was instead carrying some boxes to the kitchen. Apart from the mild murmur of ongoing conversations, the place was eerily calm. There was no yelling bartender, no singing group of drunk friends, no drunkard by the bar and no greasy meat that looked like it had spent four year in a cryogenic fridge. This was a place for Duke and Dahlia Rose, world class thieves and art collectors.

Juno felt like a fly on the wall.

"Do you like it, love?" Asked Nur... Duke Rose after Juno had absentmindedly followed him to their table.

"Um? Yeah, sure."

Was this the best date ever Nureyev had promised him? Did he think he liked this? Worse, did he expect him to like this? To be just as elegant and refined as a Dahlia Rose?

There was a pit in his stomach, growing by the second, and it tasted like bitter disappointment.

The same waiter passed by them, hefting once again an unlabeled package, and paying them no mind.

 Wait.

Juno followed the waiter with his eyes, until he disappeared in what didn't quite look like a proper restaurant's kitchen.

What.

He lowered his eyes to his menu. At first glance it seemed like a normal menu for a restaurant of this kind. Looking closely however, there wasn't much choice for such a refined place, and a good third of the dishes were annotated in pencil with notes that indicated they weren't served at the time, or that the kitchen didn't have one ingredient anymore. All in all, Juno was growing increasingly more convinced that this place wasn’t, in fact, what it pretended to be.

Juno looked up at his companion. Duke Rose had one elbow resting on the table, cupping his face in one hand as he smiled up adoringly in the perfect picture of an enamored idiot. And below that surface, Juno could see the sharp edges of Nureyev's enjoyment.

What a beautiful bastard.

"Duke, darling" Juno said, trying his best Dahlia's voice, "who did you say owns this restaurant again?"

"Oh, a very respectable constable of Hyperion city, love. Their name is Rosamund Lorland I believe."

Of fucking course.

Peter wasn't restraining himself much anymore, offering a smug smile that made Juno want to strangle him. He settled for kicking him under the table, but it seemed the thief had anticipated the move, and his foot only met air.

"Good evening."

A waitress interrupted Juno's attempts, looking young, sweet, and ready to murder for a pay raise.

"What can I get you tonight? Do you want to start with some drinks?"

Before Juno could say anything, Duke Rose ordered what seemed like a full menu for himself and Dahlia. As he said the last part of their order—some kind of "boeuf bourguignon", whatever that meant—the waitress' demeanor changed. It was subtle enough that Juno only caught it because he was still looking at her, but her eyes focused, and her stance adjusted slightly.

"I'm sorry, but this order is no longer available. The shipment for the ingredients of the dressing is late."

They even had a decent excuse. Peter had not only led him to a front, it was even a good one.

Charming as ever, Duke did not back down, insisting instead.

"Surely, something can be arranged? I promised my husband he would get to taste this delicacy you are known to provide."

Juno ignored the sudden drop in his stomach to try a Dahlia smile at the waitress. She looked defiantly at the two of them, but ended up conceding:

"I'll try and talk to my manager, see what he can do."

She left, and Juno went back to glaring at his so-called husband. Peter smiled sweetly and it took a lot of effort for Juno not to leap over the table and commit marital violence

"There are no bugs in here, so you can talk freely as long as you make sure that you look as charming as ever." Peter finally said, with a small, fond smile that was as much his as it was Duke's.

"What the hell, Nureyev?!" Juno tried to keep up a Dahlia smile. "First of all, I thought this was supposed to be a date. Second of all, if this is one of your heists, I will actually turn you in this time, and faster than you can say my name. And last but not least, why the hell did you just give the mafia a good reason to kill us both?!"

Peter Nureyev, because he was a scheming, lying bastard, didn't have any problem keeping up his persona as he responded.

"Well then. To respond in kind, here are my points. First of all, this is a date. Did you really think I expected you to be satisfied with a boring dinner and a quiet evening? I did say it was going to be wonderful, and I know how much you like solving mysteries and being a hero, especially with your recent string of boring affairs, and so I delivered."

Damn that bastard, but he... wasn't exactly wrong. Despite Juno's annoyance, this was more interesting than a simple dinner. Peter obviously saw the resignation in Juno's face because he gave him a smug eyebrow waggle, disguised as Duke presenting the jug of water to Dahlia. Juno grumpily went back to glaring and Duke served him some water before resuming the conversation.

"Second of all, this is... well, this isn't only a heist." For the first time, Peter seemed somewhat bashful and Juno straightened to give him a piece of his mind. "But, love," - that man knew how to silence him much too well - "Rosamund Lorland is, I believe, a very dangerous man, and his recent drug deals are on the brink of starting a war with the Triads. I do believe this little... adventure could give us what you need to convict him. As for turning me in..." Peter offered a sly smile "I think we both remember how that turned out last time. And while I wouldn't exactly mind, I think we both can think of better ways to spent our late evening... don't you?"

Juno could feel his cheeks burning up. There was more he wanted to ask, more questions Nureyev had to answer to, but by the time he was recovered, the waitress had turned up again.

"The manager wants to see you. Come with me please."

Juno stood up at the same time as Peter, and the waitress didn't protest. She led them through the restaurant to the kitchen. If any other customer was surprised at their passage, none of them showed it and, as far as Juno could tell, watched them go by placidly.

Inside, the cover was dropped. There was a chef of course, but it seemed like the dishes he was preparing weren't nearly as delicious or as varied as the menu made them out to be.

And then, of course, looking prim and awesome, stood Rosamund Lorland.

Juno recognized them from the picture that used to hang in the precinct of the HCPD. Lorland was young for a crime lord, younger than most mafia leaders, and younger than Juno himself. They were the former commander of a Triad squadron. Impatient and hot headed, they had been quick to cause more trouble than the HCPD usually saw in organized crime. It wasn't clear whether they had been kicked out of the Triad for making too much trouble or if they had abandoned ship to pursue their own, private goals, but one thing was certain: one year after Lorland began getting a name for themselves they founded their own mafia family, in direct concurrence with the Triad and all drug trafficking groups. In a sense, Lorland was far from the worst of the criminal to roam the street of Hyperion City. They sold drugs to anyone that could afford it, including kids and homeless people with enough cash to forget their radiation poisoning, and they commanded a full-fledged underground militia made out of all the outcasts, the ones nobody wanted to see employed in their shop or near their children, the worst of Hyperion City. But then again, in that, they weren't straying from your usual mafia boss or crime boss, and while Juno didn't have to like it, but he knew that wasn't why Rosamund Lorland was a big fish to catch for the HCPD.

The thing was, Lorland was ambitious, and Lorland was a firm believer of doing things their own way.

Lorland had begun selling their various drugs in Triad, Kanagawa and Adichi territories. This had already led to several open fights between Lorland's factions and the older, more institutionalized mafiosi. Nobody in their right mind appreciated the fact that there were mafias in Hyperion City, but anyone could recognize that they liked to keep the peace almost as much as the city's police department. Lorland, was, for all intent and purpose, the troublemaker that threw a wrench in the balance Hyperion's civilians had found amongst the chaos that was the city.

It was obvious that this new mafia lord was more than ready to start a war, and Juno, amongst other, found Hyperion's streets animated enough already. He stole a glance at Nureyev. That bastard really knew how to manipulate him. He did want to put Lorland in a prison cell, and Nureyev was nothing if not freakingly good at stealing pretty much anything from whoever was stupid enough to buy into one of his various personae. After all, there was, really, no technical difference between stealing evidence and any precious artefact.

Juno was going to go along with this, wasn't he.

Duke Rose smiled pleasantly at Lorland, and it seemed as though it had a triumphant edge to it. Juno had to suppress a smile of his own. One had to admit Peter Nureyev was good at what he did. Even when what he did was convince beat-up PIs to bend their morals, it seemed.

"I heard you requested to see me." Lorland extended a hand for Duke to shake. "Duke Rose, is that it?" Their voice was exceedingly melodious, in a very deliberate way that sounded immediately pompous to Juno's ear. That was good, the more full of themselves they were, the easier it would be to make them think the Rose couple didn't represent any kind of threat. However, Lorland had successfully managed to put together a business despite being threatened by Hyperion City's largest mafia families and they were far from stupid. It would do no good for Juno to overlook them as simply what they appeared, and he resolved to keep a close eye on them.

"Duke and Dahlia Rose, in fact" At this, Lorland looked at him. Dahlia would have been smoking a cigar or something along those lines; as it were, Juno's lungs were shit, so he had to settle with giving what was supposed to be a haughty glance. "As you may know, my husband's family is of a certain... importance throughout the galaxy" - at this, Lorland gave the slightest nod, which made Juno wonders if Nureyev had managed to give his fictional relatives enough substance that they actually had a reputation, or if Lorland merely didn't want to admit to not knowing them - "and we would be interested in dealing with you, and to buy... merchandises... from your organization."

Juno had to make an effort not to roll his eyes at the unnecessary dramatic tone.

But then he realized Dahlia Rose didn't give a shit about speaking his mind or being rude.

"What my husband is trying to say is, we'd like to buy your coke."

Lorland smiled at the deadpan voice, and nodded.

"Of course. Our product is of very high quality. Would you like to try it?"

Dahlia arched an eyebrow in what Juno hoped to be a pointed way.

"No. I have a strict policy of never sampling the product. It makes one slow, and I can't have that."

Lorland laughed, softly and politely like a politician.

"Well then, I think this deserves you visit the parlor. Candis? Would you mind telling Val to come up? I'm going to need her."

Juno and Peter's waitress nodded curtly and swiftly left the room, while Lorland gestured for them both to follow.

Juno took the opportunity to steal a glance at Nureyev, only to see that the thief was already looking at him intently. When he saw Juno looking, though, his intense demeanor dropped to break into a smile, and Duke reappeared on his face.

"I have to admit I'm quite surprised you're coming to me with this. Don't me wrong, I would say we are the best suppliers on Mars, but I doubt an enterprise such as yours needs to go so far to get its merchandise."

"Oh, the problem is not with the merchandise itself," Peter intervened, to Juno's relief. "But we've been having what you could call... legal problems. I'm sure you understand."

Once again, Lorland nodded, eager to seem all knowing, and Juno relaxed slightly. For all their obvious smarts, they also seemed to be a very proud character, which—Juno had observed it in the past—made them an easy target for Peter's manipulation.

Not that he approved of the thief's methods.

 Lorland led them through unmarked corridor for what seemed like several minutes. They climbed down some stairs, then up others, and up again, turning several times. By the time they arrived in front of a simple, unlabeled door, Juno was thoroughly disoriented.

They entered in what seemed to be an office, and Lorland began talking about prices, schedules, meeting places. Peter responded in kind, apparently fully prepared to deploy an entire fictive market for the Rose network. Juno tried as best as he could to appear bored rather than lost, and scanned the room whenever he felt secure enough in the knowledge that Lorland was concentrating on Peter. The room seemed like the normal desk room of any businessman, although it was a bit barer that Juno would have expected. No pricey paintings hung on the wall, and while the room was decorated, it was in a comfortable way rather than a showy one.

Eventually Juno spotted something interesting.

The walls weren't entirely bare, as it was. There were several bookshelves artfully stacked behind the desk, and besides one of them... a patch of paint that reflected the light emitted by the ceiling lamp slightly differently. It was so discreet Juno might not have spotted it... were it not for the fact that he had a similar spot in his own office, from clipping a wall after one drink too many. Rita had put plaster which hid the hole almost flawlessly, but looking closely at it, you could see a faint difference in the paint’s color where the light hit it. Somehow, he doubted this was the result of one of Lorland's burst of anger—the oman seemed exceedingly composed—and if there was an emplacement for any kind of valuable object Peter was after, it would most likely be there.

Juno was really going through with this, wasn't he? Somehow, he couldn't find it in himself to mind.

Someone knocked at the office door, and Lorland, looking unsurprised, called them inside.

"Val, there you are! I need your help to draw a contract for those gentlemen."

"I'm a lady, please." Juno corrected out of automatism.

Lorland rolled with this without breaking a sweat, and went on to point out some of the specifications Peter had given. Val looked like death had warmed over. Pale, and bone-thin, with deep, purplish shadow under her eyes. She wasn’t that old, from what Juno could tell, but she looked as though a slight breeze might break her in half.

"I suppose you will want to go over the legal matters with Val?” Finally said Lorland. “She’s my main jurist." Duke Rose agreed with a flourish Juno blocked out.

"Then, shall the lady and I go and oversee the merchandise? I know you said you didn't want to test it, but surely you want to take a look at it."

Juno shot a discreet glance at Peter, who near imperceptibly (or so Juno hoped) nodded.

"Your desire for honesty honors you. Duke!"

Duke Rose was like an overeager puppy, Juno decided, as Peter bounded over to him.

He took hold of Duke's collar and brought him in for a kiss, silently gesturing towards the patch of wall with his eyes.

Even inside enemy territory, kissing Peter was like drinking rejuvenating water, and Juno would probably have lost himself in it, if he hadn't felt Peter's hands roaming his body. First, he could feel the thief testing the give of his hip, where he kept his holster —and god, was Juno happy for his paranoia at this moment – and checked for the presence of Juno’s blaster. Then, he carefully pressed something under the flap of Juno's jacket, where it would be hidden from Lorland's eyes.

Juno heard a cough from behind him and detached himself from his wannabe husband. Duke seemed ready to chase after him, looking desperate and glazed for an instant. And Juno was sure it was a mask, the face of a man Peter only pretended to be, but this look of open desire, of near neediness, made it hard for Juno to remind himself they were technically still doing business.

"Be good." Dahlia finally said, in his imperious voice, and Duke nodded, obedient and star-struck. Juno didn’t dare to send a glance towards the frail Val to make his point across. He just had to trust that Nureyev knew him as well as he pretended to and would understand the meaning behind his words.

Then, he abruptly looked back at Lorland, who bowed their head slightly, letting Juno get out of the room before them and following him in the corridors.

As the mafioso led him through the complex, he discreetly put a hand to what Peter had stuck into his jacket. It seemed to be a small electronic device, probably an audio recorder or a camera, but Juno couldn't be sure. In any case, this was genius. All Juno had to do was to follow Lorland directly to the evidence of his drug deals.

This time, the way was rather straightforward, and, considering the number of stairs they had to take, the hall in which Lorland led him was underground. It was large and well lit, and seemed to be working like Juno would have assumed a standard factory to. Juno counted a dozen workers in chemistry goons and white masks, which protected them from inhaling too much of the substance they were working with. They also—Juno noted with a twinge of annoyance—hid their face from their eyes down. Lorland led Juno to the end of the hall, where a person, made anonymous by their working clothes, was closing small packages full of white powder and tidying them up into neat piles. Lorland pointed at the display.

"Those would be the type of merchandise we would sell you, as per our agreement."

Juno nodded, trying to get closer to the bags. He hoped the device contained a camera because it didn’t seem as though Lorland was ever going to talk without euphemism, and he needed the evidence to be as tight as possible.

"Would you mind if I took a look for myself?" Juno could feel Dahlia's persona slipping, slowly, away from him, but he desperately needed something that would actually incriminate Lorland.

"Of course, go ahead." The oman responded pleasantly, but Juno was acutely aware of the pair of pale eyes drilling holes into him.

He didn't really know how to recognize good coke. Coke, sure, it was part of the training as a cop, and you had to be able to say whether you were arresting someone for poorly labeled flour or for actual crack. But he had never taken a hit himself, and he didn't know how to assess the quality short of snorting the stuff.

He looked at the little bag quizzically, trying to look as though he was examining it from different angles so that he could put it under what he hoped was a lens. He was almost sure he had the evidence necessary—provided Nureyev did give him a camera—when Lorland spoke again.

"So, would you say you got a good look at my premises, milady... Dahlia Rose?"

Lorland's words sounded slow, careful, almost deliberate. Juno froze, and turned his head minutely, to look back towards them.

"Beg your pardon?"

Lorland took a step towards him, and Juno instinctively took a step back.

"I know my circuit is far from the most developed on Mars, let alone in the universe, but you should have known not to underestimate us."

Lorland kept advancing, and Juno kept retreating, to the point where he'd soon hit the wall behind him.

"It was clever using the name of the Roses, but I doubt you are in any way related to them."

Around them, the employees had dropped their initial task, and were looking in his direction. Several of them had lowered their mask and opened their lab coat to reveal a variety of weapons.

"I have to admit, your lackey was rather well-prepared, but you got too arrogant in the end. Did you really think I had noticed nothing?"

Juno had no moment to consider the hilarity of Peter Nureyev being anyone’s assistant, much less his, before Lorland produced a gun out of his jacket.

Juno was sure the mafioso was about to give him dramatic parting words, but he didn’t have that kind of time. Before Lorland could say anything, Juno did the only thing he could think of and threw the bag of coke at Lorland's eyes, before diving to the side.

Lorland sputtered and tried to shoot at Juno, but the surprise and the powder exploding in his face made them flail and the shot missed Juno by a mile.

Juno wiped out his own gun and blasted the employee closest to him, the one still standing besides the table full of coke packagings. The man dropped down, stunned and unlikely to get up again for a while. Juno dropped behind the table with his slack body.

He accepted the rest of the mafia to drop down on him as soon as they could, and for him to be quickly overwhelmed, but after a few seconds, he realized the room was oddly silent. Risking a peak, he realized the dozen mafiosi—including Lorland, who seemed to have somewhat recovered despite puffy red eyes—were looking a him warily. More specifically, they were looking at the table in front of him, full of fragile coke packagings.

Oh. Seemed like Rosamund Lorland needed a lesson in where to pick their battle. Juno couldn't help but smile as he picked up several white bags. Nobody dared to shoot him and the precious merchandise, but he was sure they were going to come up with some kind of plan quickly. He had to be quicker.

Thing was, Juno had never been that good at planning. Doing, he was okay at, but planning was an entirely different game.

He did the first thing he could think of. That is, to throw the handful of bags he had towards his assailant and shoot one of them before ducking back behind the table. The bag exploded, and a confused scuffle rang out. Several shots hit Juno's table and soon the air was full of coke dust. A cry rang out, and Juno instantly knew they were coming for him. In a moment of clarity, he took the mask of the passed out mafioso to put it against his own mouth and nose, and scrambled along the wall, trying as well as he could to stay hidden from view. But the steps behind him were fast: it wouldn’t take them long to find him, and then one shot would be enough.

Suddenly, an alarm rang out. Juno only had the time to be surprised before it stopped, just as the lights above him abruptly went off, with a resounding “CLACK”. In an instant, the whole hall was shrouded in darkness, and Juno listened to the confused silence around him.

A muffled cry of pain rang out, breaking the silence, and something heavy and fleshy dropped to the ground not too far from Juno, and suddenly the whole room exploded in the confused and angry orders of Lorland’s underlings trying to reorganize themselves. A smile forced itself on Juno's smile and he called out to the darkness.

"Be nice."

"You know me, Dahlia" said Peter, "I'm always nice."

Juno heard what could easily be interpreted as Peter putting another mafioso in a sleeper’s hold, muffling their cry of surprise somehow and letting their body fall down to the ground once they were unconscious, and Juno had to refrain a snort.

Peter didn't seem to have any problems navigating through the darkness, and when he took Juno's hand, it was to guide him firmly towards a source of dim light, making him bend down and crawl before him in a narrow space. As Juno's eyes adjusted, he realized it was an opened air vent that led directly outside. He didn’t recognize the street, but it was large, and dimly lit, and he could only assume they weren’t too far from the restaurant in which Peter had led him earlier. They were probably in one of the outer districts, those who were battling against the Martian desert and were full of decrepit, abandoned building. Far from prying, witnessing eyes.

As soon as they were both through, Juno turned to Peter.

"Do you have everything you need?"

The thief smiled, and pulled Juno against him, delicately pushing the protective mask down.

"I do."

Juno flushed, and was about to protest when a door he previously hadn't seen opened, revealing several goons sputtering as they tumbled outside. The light seemed to be back in the factory, probably thanks to an emergency generator.

Juno cursed, and he and Peter began to run, from a common, silent accord.

"Here!"

Peter tugged on his hand and Juno ungracefully tumbled behind him, under some kind of electric generator, emerging from the uneven ground. The shouting didn't stop behind him, and the streets in front of them didn't offer for much cover. Neither Nureyev nor him said anything, but Juno knew they had to find a way to distract Lorland while they were escaping, or they would end up the evening with more holes in them than Juno was personally comfortable with.

From their barely hidden spot they could see the narrow windows of the factory, who were obscured by a faint, pale sort of mist, and they could hear the coughing fits of Lorland's employees and associates. The commotion must have kicked even more of the drug into the air, Juno noted.

And he had a sudden, terrible, stupid idea.

"I'm going to regret this" he mumbled, as he straightened his back to try and make the shot.

"Juno! What are you..."

"Shush." Juno said firmly, with a very Dahlia like confidence. Lorland and company hadn't spotted him yet, but it wouldn't take long before they did, and Juno only had one shot at this. He pictured the blast's trajectory; breathed, in, and out. And fired.

For some reason, he expected it to be delayed, to take a few instants. Instead, as soon as the blast tore through the glass widow, the room exploded. Juno winced, but as far as he could tell, the explosion wasn't too violent, and the screaming didn't stop so he assumed (hopped, desperately) nobody had actually died from it. However, he was willing to bet Lorland's precious refinery equipment was done for, and it seemed the explosion had started a small but rapidly growing fire, making the mafiosi thoroughly distracted.

"Come on, let's go." He took Peter's hand in his, leading him away from the scene and in the nearest dark corner. As he walked, he dialed one of the memorized number in his phone.

"Hello? Yeah, I'd like to report a fire down..." he squinted at the street sign "Terrienstreet." He hung up before anyone could ask for his name. Maybe Khan would recognize his number, but by then he'd have caught a whole mafia ring, so Juno figured he was in the clear.

A taxi was passing by and he hollered for it, getting in it quick and fast and rattling off an address not too far from his place, while Peter climbed in right behind him.

And just like that, they were gone.

 Juno was still holding Peter's hand as they made their escape through the city, squeezing it harder than he really meant to, adrenaline still coursing through his veins. He looked up at the thief, and met dark eyes, staring into him with intensity.

"It seems as though you had fun."

Juno then realized the grin tearing through his own face. He thought about Rex Glass’ foxy smile, smug and full of sharp teeth, and wondered if it was how he looked to Peter at the moment.

"Yeah, I..." he had to admit, "I think I did actually."

Peter smiled, looking way too charming and smart for it to be soft, but Juno thought he could get away with calling it fond.

The thief used the hand that was still intertwined with Juno to drag the lady towards him, making him lean in the car from one side to another.

"I'm truly glad you did."

And then Peter Nureyev pulled him down to kiss him.

 The taxi driver had to throw them out in the end, and Juno would have said he was ashamed to have been making out with his boyfriend like a goddamn teenager, but he really, really wasn't.

Peter's hand didn't leave his as they made their rather hurried way towards Juno's flat. When Juno opened his door, however, he felt compelled to stop his momentum to turn and face Nureyev.

Peter stared back, looking neither surprised nor worried.

"Do you want to come in?"

Peter stepped closer, until their chests were a hair away from touching each other.

"I would very much like that, yes."

There was more to Juno's idea, there really was, but not kissing Peter Nureyev at this moment would have been a task he wasn't strong enough to undertake.

When he detached himself from Peter, the thief looked very much like Duke Rose had earlier, dazed and wanton, and it sent a shiver up Juno's spine.

"I really think it was, you know." Juno ceded to the temptation of running his hand up and down Peter’s neck. The thief seemed thoroughly distracted by the touch, and his response was a bit more delayed then Juno would have excepted.

"That it… was what?”

"The best date I've ever had." Peter’s half-lidded eyes shot open at the words, and Juno, for the time since he had met him, thought he may have managed to tear through Peter Nureyev’s cool composure.

"I... Thank you."

Well, this was rather out of character. Juno couldn’t help but chuckle in unexpected giddiness.

"What? I don't get a smug, smooth response, from Peter Nureyev, best thief in the whole wide galaxy?"

Peter’s smile, this time, was almost bashful – although Juno didn’t miss there was still a sharpness to it, dormant behind Peter’s pliant demeanor.

"I guess Duke Rose's rubbing of off me."

Peter crowded closer.

"Yeah,” Juno let his grip grow more imperious on Peter’s neck and throat, guiding the thief where he wanted him. “I guess Dahlia's rubbing of off me too."

When Juno kissed him, Peter felt soft and wielding under his lips. The feeling was intoxicating, as if Peter Nureyev was finally ready to drop his final mask with him by, just this one time, yielding control over to him, and Juno nearly drowned in it, crowding Peter until the thief had to cling to him to keep his balance. When Juno finally managed to detach himself from silken - soft and sharp lips - Peter was still relaying on him to defy gravity, and his eyes bore through Juno as if they could reach directly into his soul.

"How long are you staying this time?"

"A few weeks, most likely."

It wasn't forever, maybe, but for now it was enough.

[timeisacephalopod]

Flying High

Hey y’all, have some Nebula/ Carol Danvers because I guess that’s a pairing I like now lmao. Think of this as canon adjacent- Nebula is human (imagine bald Karen Gillan) but Carol’s backstory is pretty much the same minus her hero origins obviously. Also, there’s no Captain Marvel spoilers in here.

Carol watches the new mechanic mess with the engine in front of her. She looks deceptively small next to it but she’s seen the woman order her crew around. She isn’t the type to suffer incompetence kindly. “Hey,” Maria says, flicking her ear as she walks by. “Are you going to fly or stare at that poor mechanic’s ass all day?” she asks.

“I wasn't staring at her ass, I was watching her work. Give me some credit here,” she says, walking off to join Maria because she does, in fact, enjoy flying.

She doesn’t expect to be stopped on her way by and certainly not by the mechanic she’d only been watching work, honest. “Can’t fly today, I need to do maintenance,” she tells Carol.

“What? No, I need to fly,” she says, shaking her head a little.

She gets a steely look from the mechanic instead of a confirmation for flight. “The plane needs maintenance and I do work on my time, not yours,” she says harshly.

Carol turns to look at Maria, who looks just as confused as she does. When her confusion turns to a grin Maria shakes her head. “Don’t you dare,” she says, letting out a yell when Carol takes off. “Get back here!” Maria yells, chasing after her but she’s always been the faster one. Maria might be better at the tactical in the air but Carol is faster on her feet.

When she gets to Maria’s plane she climbs in, watching as Maria gets there just a touch too late. “Get out of there!” Maria says.

Carol shakes her head. “Not a damn chance.”

*

Nebula doesn’t much care for her coworkers because they irritate her and she knows they don’t like her either given how often they call her a bitch when they think she’s not listening. But she’s their boss and she’ll damn well tell them when they aren’t doing the work right. She’s had better teams then this and she’ll be damn sure this team gets better too. But there is one woman, tenacious if distracted, that catches her attention.

Carol is strange for the army, doesn’t tend to care for orders and has a hard time staying down when she’s fallen. Nebula has to admire the sheer strength it has to deal with coworkers who don’t much care for her presence. She knows what its like working in a field of men, they frequently insult her without ever realizing she’s better than them at her job, hence being in this position over them. Carol knows her skills are superior too, and her friend Maria’s but her attitude is totally different from Nebula’s. She learned to be hard, to ignore criticism when it made no sense and to develop a thick skin. Carol doesn’t seem to have the same methods.

Instead of a thick skin what she’s got is an impenetrable shield of humor and self worth. When something sets her back Carol makes it her business to get back up again and try and then do better until she’s mastered it. She gets her fair share of blowback but its like everything slides right off her as she stands back up to do it all again. Its intriguing, if strange.

This is what she’s thinking about while she’s got her head stuffed in an engine given that they’re no longer complicated to her. She can take this whole thing apart and put it back together again with her eyes closed she knows these planes so well. Her team doesn’t know them as well as she does and it annoys her when her authority is questioned when she’s undoubtedly the expert. “That any closer to being fixed?” someone asks and Nebula removes her head from her work to find Carol there, looking up at her with a grin on her face, aviators blocking her eyes, and a McDonald’s cup in hand. Weird combination, but it works on her.

“At the moment, no. Leave me to my work and it’ll be done quick enough,” she says, turning back to the engine.

“You ever take a break?” Carol asks, laughing.

“No. Neither do you. That’s what makes you so good,” she points out. Some people slack, some people are dedicated but lack talent, and some people are naturally born to fly with high level of motivation to get into the sky.

“Yeah, but I still know how to relax. Seems like you have a tough time with that,” Carol says. “Or so the guys say. But they managed to blow themselves up twice last week so maybe they aren’t reliable.”

They both know that’s probably the only true thing her team has ever said about her. “I swear the air force has sent me simpletons,” she mumbles and Carol laughs.

“Yeah, kinda. Its fun to watch you order them around though. They won’t admit it but they’re scared of you,” she says like Nebula doesn’t know that already.

“Good,” Nebula mumbles.

*

“God damnit Danvers, can you focus on something other then Nebula?” Maria says and rude alright, the woman has skills. Carol’s just admiring them. She’d die if she had all those parts scattered around her but its obvious Nebula knows what everything is and where it goes. She’s grilling her team something fierce though and its clear they’re failing her expectations.

“Come on Maria, you gotta admit her putting them all in their place is funny,” she says.

“Less funny when they nearly fucked your engine,” she points out.

Carol shakes her head. “Nah. Even if Nebula missed their mistake, and she wouldn’t, we both know I’m good enough to get out of it,” she says.

“You’re gunna get yourself killed one of these days,” Maria says, shaking her head.

“Maybe it’ll happen in your plane. You know, since you’re not quick enough to get to it,” she says and Maria shoves her playfully.

“Asshole,” she says.

Carol shoves her back, “you love me.”

“Only because I’m forced to,” Maria says and they both laugh.

*

Its not that Carol is surprised that Nebula has been experimenting with engines- she’s sure Lawson hand picked her for a reason, but she’s surprised to find that Nebula wants her to test her new design. “Don’t look shocked Danvers, it was either you or Maria. You’re the best flyers,” she says, voice harsh despite that technically being a compliment. With Nebula its hard to tell.

Lawson raises an eyebrow, “what do you say, Danvers?”

She shrugs, “why the hell not?”

*

Nebula walks out with her, running over how everything works like they haven’t done this a million times already. “Out of curiosity,” Carol asks, “why me over Maria?” she asks. She’s been dying to know and so has Maria.

For a moment she doesn’t thin Nebula will answer given how shrewd she looks. “I like you better,” she says eventually and Carol laughs.

“Seriously? That’s it?” Its deceptively simple and so unlike Nebula.

She shrugs. “Maria is a better tactical flyer, but you’ll give this plane a run for its money. No one will put this thing through the ringer like you will. You’re insane. And I like you better,” she says, offering Carol a small smile.

“That’s more like it,” she says, winking at Nebula as she climbs into the plane.

*

Lawson looks nervous and she should. Nebula is sure everything will go right but this is testing and like any testing there are risks. Carol takes them on without worry, flying the plane through maneuvers easily and far faster than she should for a test. But that’s why Nebula chose her. Because she’s good, and she’s fearless, and because she’ll push Nebula’s designs to their limits. She’ll make sure everything that needs testing will get it and if something goes wrong she won’t choke.

“She’s got this,” Nebula tells Lawson.

“I know that, but you know how she is,” Lawson says.

Nebula nods. “That’s why I chose her.”

*

When Carol gets out of the plane she feels invigorated the way she does after all her flights. Nebula waits at the edge of the building , eyes on her design. “Its good,” Carol tells her as she approaches, “could be faster though.”

Nebula rolls her eyes, “its faster than anything currently in the air.”

“Could still be faster,” Carol tells her. She’s gifted with another small smile from Nebula.

“I’ll consider it in my design revisions but I’m more concerned with the steering.”

Carol grins, “steering’s fine. Make it faster.”

“Are you prepared to test it again?” Nebula asks, changing the subject.

Carol considers it for a moment. “Tell you what, I’ll gift you with another test run if you gift me with a date,” she says.

Nebula frowns. “I don’t do dates.”

“But you could, and I’ve been reliably informed that I’m a great date,” she says.

“By who, Maria?” Nebula says, hitting her where it hurts.

“Ouch Nebs, that hurts, really. Come on, you could use some time off to loosen up a little, have a good time. Your team has got you wound tight,” she says.

Nebula sighs, rubbing her temples. “They’re incompetent apes, I wish I had my old team,” she mumbles. Legendary team too, nicknamed themselves the Guardians of the Galaxy. Half of them went to NASA and the other half came to the army.

“Yeah, not gunna argue with you there,” Carol says, laughing. “Pretty sure they’re learning though.”

“At the speed of molasses moving through a snowbank,” Nebula mumbles.

“Better than my team. Maria is good,” she says and that’s it, that’s the whole short list of the best of the best.

Nebula looks pained. “You make a point.”

“I know. That date though,” she says. “Could be fun.”

“I don’t do fun,” Nebula says.

“We could do serious, I think there’s a museum in town.”

“There’s no museum I’ve checked,” Nebula says and of course she has.

“Fine. We can like... sit around and contemplate... life,” she says, falling short of serious topics to think about.

Nebula sighs. “You’re awful at this. But I accept, provided I get to rub you flying my designs in everyone’s faces,” she says and Carol snorts.

“That’s not even a real stipulation, I was going to do that later anyway. Maria has probably already started for me.”

Thankfully Nebula looks gleeful. “Excellent, lets go make people jealous!” she says enthusiastically, taking off towards the cafeteria area. Carol follows along, shaking her head but pleased that she’s totally going to get five bucks from Maria. She’s never been turned down for a date, not even from infamously prickly Nebula.

[losttalongthewayy]

prompt: cs + Henry leaving Storybrooke + babyDuckling <3

— ღ   —

It’s a day. One of those days that gets worse and worse no matter how hard you try to turn it around.

Emma almost hung the towel around midday, but actually managed to make it through five in the afternoon, in time for Killian to come home after work.

It’s her day with their kid; the one day of the week Emma usually looks forward to the most and yet…

It simply was not good.

Emma barely waits for Killian to walk all the way in the house before she’s already reaching for her keys. “Estella’s upstairs in her room.”

“Um, whu–” Killian stammers as Emma rushes past him, with not a hello, much less a kiss. “Where are you going?”

At the question, she actually freezes on her spot and turns. She shrugs, ignoring how much it kills her to see the confusion in his eyes. “Out,” she says, and it sounds pathetic —she is pathetic, she feels pathetic anyway.

Honestly, she just can’t do it today anymore. She needs to go somewhere that isn’t home and —

“All right, I’ll…do you want me to save you some dinner?”

“I’m good,” Emma tells him quickly.

They look at each other, share a powerful look, and thankfully, Killian nods, somehow knowing she needs this without her saying much more. “Aye, all right,” Killian says softly in the end. “Love you, Swan.”

Emma nods. “You too.” She promises before stepping out the door at last.

— ღ   —

Four hours later or so, Emma returns to a quiet house —a little too quiet if she’s being honest. Killian is in the living room; sat on the couch by himself. The lights are dimmed; a trusty drink of rum is in front of him while the fire burns in the fireplace.

Emma feels guilty immediately —not for needing the time away, but for leaving without giving him any sort of an explanation.

She settles by him on the couch without saying anything. She snuggles into his side and breathes him in deeply —he’s on his second drink and the fact that she can tell, almost makes her smile.

Almost.

“What did Estella tell you?”

He doesn’t reply at first, he hums, hugging her to him tightly, making Emma feel properly at home just like that.

In the end, he softly says, “she only said mummy didn’t bring the stroller…”

“Actually—” Emma wants to set the story straight; take all the blame and then some, but then… “You know what? That actually sums it up pretty well.”

Killian looks at her fully, his eyes soft and understanding, trying to read her. “Hard day eh?”

Emma lets out a pathetic whimper and buries her face in his chest. “Yeah,” she replies simply. That is honestly the understatement of the century. “She was so mad at me, I don’t think she’s ever been mad at me like she was today. " She says, slowly forcing herself to look up at him. "I don’t even blame her, you know? I was horrible. I’m still so upset at myself and I’m not the toddler…”

Killian listens; he nods too, but Emma knows it doesn’t especially mean he agrees with what she’s saying.

“She adores you.”

“I know,” Emma agrees. “Today just sucked,” she adds anyway and shrugs. “She’s three; she’s going to be good as new tomorrow, but… I still —I wasn’t…” she trails off, licking her lips, rethinking how she’s really feeling about all this. “She just deserved better than the mom I was today…”

“Emma,” he says softly.

She shakes her head, avoiding his eyes stubbornly.

“Love?”

“Um?”

“Do you want to talk about it? Do you want to tell me what really happened?”

She takes in a deep breath. “Yah…” She does actually. Despite of how horrible today was, she wants Killian to know about it. She wants him to listen and she wants him to understand —even when she doesn’t especially understands it herself right now.

Killian smiles at her, that encouraging little thing he always does for her when she needs that extra push to carry on.

It helps.

“Today wasn’t actually all bad, you know?” She says. “Estella and I drove to the city, it was pouring rain so that sucked, but she was still awesome about the whole thing. I did take the stroller at first, you know? But it was useless. I ended up getting soaked myself and so did the stupid stroller.”

“Okay.”

“We ended up ditching it and instead walking to the Children’s museum without it.” She tells him. “We had my umbrella and it actually wasn’t so bad then. Estella was wearing her ducky rubber boots so she loved that. We got to the museum just fine then, and we actually had a lot of fun …”

“That doesn’t sound too terrible love?”

“It wasn’t.” Emma agrees, smiling sadly. “Time flew by, she did have fun which was what I wanted for today but then…when it was time to leave, everything just went wrong.” She sighs, rolling her eyes at herself. “She ran out of steam. I was hoping she’d nap in the car for a little while before doing something else, but —she was just not having anything. She was cranky and sleepy, slightly wet still from the rain, and for whatever goddamn reason, on top of everything, I lost my damn car.”

Emma’s frustration is hard to hide. She’s still so damn mad at herself. “I’ve never in my life forgotten where I parked a car, but I swear to God, I had no fucking idea where I left it. We walked so much looking for the damn thing. Estella was beyond exhausted. She cried so much. I almost ended up crying myself.” She finds herself confessing uneasily. “I didn’t know what to do. She was so tired she didn’t want to walk anymore and I ended getting so upset with her even though it wasn’t her fault. I just needed her to walk so we could get the hell out of there and it was just such a fight with her. It was awful…”

“Oh love,” Killian coos, tilting her chin up with his finger, making her look up at him gently. “I’m so sorry.”

Emma shakes her head, shakes his hand away. “It’s not your fault, it’s not Estella’s fault either. I got in a mood and that poor kid —I sucked, I completely sucked today…”

“Emma,” he says, but Emma’s stubborn as ever and isn’t having it, she shakes her head strongly instead.

“She cried so much,” Emma repeats then just in case Killian didn’t hear her the first time.

And she knows it shouldn’t be such a big deal, kids cry, babies cry, she knows this, still… “I pretty much had to drag her alongside me as we walked up and down those stupid streets looking for my car.”

“You found it obviously.”

“Yeah,” Emma replies, eyes casting down to her hands on her lap. She shakes her head slightly. “Estella was so done by then; kid was pissed, wouldn’t talk to me, wouldn’t even look at me, didn’t even let me buckle her in the car. Took her a while, but did it all herself. She’d been really excited to visit the little Ducklings at the public garden later, but there was just no way either of us wanted to stay in Boston after that, so I drove us home…”

Emma’s glad when Killian doesn’t rush to say anything back. He instead hugs her tighter to him and Emma thinks that’s exactly what she needs in that moment.

She drops a tiny kiss to his chest and looks up into his eyes. “I don’t how what got into me today, I was just… I don’t know, I wasn’t … I just wasn’t great…”

He nods at her words, understandingly and Emma feels a little bit of that awful weight on her shoulders lifting.

Of course then he says… “I think I may know what might have gotten into you, love…”

She frowns at that —deep inside she knows it as well, but she doesn’t want to hear it.

She closes her eyes tight when Killian says it anyway. “Maybe you’re just sad Emma…”

And she wishes she didn’t know exactly what he means. Emma also wishes she didn’t agree with him so damn much.

Traitorous tears start pooling at her eyes immediately and Emma feels the urge to get away; she doesn’t want to face those feelings on top of the horrible day she’s had, but…

“I’m going to miss the lad a lot too, you know?”

She gives up then, she can’t do it anymore; she covers her face with her hands when the tears in her eyes burn so much she can’t stop them any longer.

Her heart aches —literally aches and for the first time today, she decides to just let it all out.

Killian’s a rock —quite literally he is. He doesn’t waver or falter as she cries against him. He holds her and strokes her back. He doesn’t rush her, he doesn’t tell her to calm down, or that everything’s well, because the truth is, even if Henry leaving is exactly what their kid needs, it doesn’t mean knowing that makes any of this any easier on them.

On Emma.

“Do you want to talk about that?”

Emma shakes her head against his chest.

Killian nods, humming softly. “That’s quite all right love,” he assures her. “I’m here whenever you’re ready, love —so is Henry.”

Emma breathes deeply but doesn’t respond.

“Estella is probably not even going to remember she was upset tomorrow morning. Everything’s going to be all right…”

“I hope so.”

“I know so, Swan…”

And the moniker alone makes her smile —he doesn’t use it as often anymore so when he does it’s that little bit more special.

“Thank you, Killian…”

“Always.”

— ღ   —

For the second day in a row, Emma comes home to find her daughter sleeping. Is just after two, so it’s actually not that odd that Estella is napping.

It takes so much in her not to give in to tears the second she sees her though. They are in Henry’s bedroom, Estella perfectly asleep, snuggled up next to him in all of her three-year-old glory. Henry’s distracted on his phone, the fingers of his free hand idly playing in Estella’s hair as the baby naps using him as her pillow.

To say Henry Mills adores his baby sister is the understatement of the decade.

To say Estella Jones idolizes her big brother is the understatement of the millennium.

Emma waits by Henry’s door for just a little while longer, he hasn’t noticed her yet, so she stays quiet, just watching them.

It’s not strange, the way her heart starts aching the more she’s there, the more she realizes this may easily be the last time Estella gets to nap with Henry. The last time he gets to ‘babysit’ her for them while they are both at the station. The last time he fixed her downright awful macaroni and cheese that is barely edible but Estella still loves (and eats) because Henry let her help and made of a stupid ordinary lunch an entire operation.

The last time she gets to spend time with both her kids in who knows how long.

“You know I can see you right?”

Emma groans, disguising her near almost breakdown with a laugh she has to force out and a silly expression on her face as she steps in the room. “Didn’t want to bug, you seemed to be handling it all just fine.”

“Right,” Henry says, lowering his phone to watch Emma moving to sit on the edge of his bed. He gives her a thoughtful look for a moment before asking, “You mean besides all the dishes in the sink and the blackened pot we nearly burned to ashes downstairs?”

Emma shakes her head, smiling; she doesn’t even have it in her to be mad about anything right now. “Yeah, I meant despite all that,” she tells him, before looking at Estella. “You got her to nap, that’s as much a success as any these days…”

Henry gives her that one; he matches her smile and nods. “She was good actually, I think I only had to tell her like five stories and she was out.”

“Only?”

“Yeah mom, only…”

Mom. Emma feels her entire face fall and crumple at that one. She hates it.

“Mom,” Henry whispers then.

Emma looks up at him, trying her best not to actually cry. “She’s going to miss you like crazy.”

Henry huffs a tiny chuckle. “I’m going to miss you a lot too mom.”

Busted.

Emma sighs and just looks at them —the softly way Estella is snoring, the way her little hand clutches at her blankie and how impossibly close to Henry she is —as though she’s physically refusing to let go of him just yet.

Emma wishes she could be as blunt as Estella right then.

“You know,” Henry starts, bringing Emma back to reality. Her eyes snap to his and she listens. “I really love this place, and you, Killian, this kid,” he says looking down at Estella. “I —I’m obviously not going to be gone forev —I mean, you know I’m going to come back, right?”

Emma’s throat feels too tight to form words, so she just nods at him.

“I just need to do this —it’s, I…”

“It’s all right,” Emma interrupts, saving him from having to come up with explanations she truly doesn’t need from him. She does get it. She understands him. “It still sucks kid; we are all going to miss you so much.”

Henry nods, he looks away, and Emma feels an immediate need to say something. The last thing she wants is to make Henry feel guilty about his decision, about anything, really. “We weren’t shocked by your decision, you know? We understand, kid. You’ve been here in Storybrooke your whole life, pretty much…”

He nods, but then says, “Except for that one year in New York.”

Emma’s smile at that comes easy and genuinely. “Yeah, except for that one year in New York…” She agrees.

“It was a good year.”

She chuckles a little —the tears in her eyes be damned. “Yeah, kid, yes it was…” She says. “We were away from everyone, but I still don’t think I’d give away that year with you for anything.”

Henry thinks about it for a moment before just coming to the same conclusion himself. “Neither would I,” he says. “Although can you imagine how much fun it would have been to have Killian with us that year?” He asks her; suddenly his tone is playful and even excited.

Emma can’t help but grin. “Oh, I can.”

“New York would have driven him crazy back then! I’d pay cash money to have seen him navigate the big apple for the first time.”

Emma can’t exactly say that she doesn’t agree. Still, she’s the parent so... “Pray he doesn’t ever hear you making fun of him like this though.”

“Because of his old age and all?”

She laughs, can’t honestly help herself. “Maybe it is a good thing you’re going; I’d hate my husband daring you to a duel on his ship or whatever it is he does for that level of disrespect.”

“Mom,” Henry almost pleads, shaking his head and oh so short of rolling his eyes at her. He doesn’t though, instead he searches for her eyes, looks right through her and the sadness hiding behind her smile.

“I’ll keep in touch, I promise I will.”

Emma nods, somehow their little bubble of blissful denial bursting just like that. “You’d better.”

“I will mom,” he promises once more. “I’m going to be okay.”

Emma nods, she knows he is. “You will, kid. I love you, you know?”

He nods. “I love you too…”

— ღ   —

.

.

.

.

.

.

— ღ   —

AN : The way it works in my head;

- Estella was born when Henry was 14 going on 15. So he’s 18ish when he leaves Storybrooke. I’ve had bits of this written forever since I always did think he’ll want to see something (a lot) more than Storybrooke eventually. It never truly occurred to me he wouldn’t do college, but whey, here we are lol :)

-- friendly disclaimer btw, CS babe numero 1 is going to stay Estella in my book lol This is subject to change after the finale and just how much of Baby Hope we see, but truly, I'm quite attached to Miss Estella so most likely I'm going to stick to her and baby Ollie as my go-to cs kiddos =)

[alien-bodies]

Oversharing Time!!!

(i just made that title up that’s not the official title I’m just Like That)

Ok so @frogyell​ tagged my main account (I am BLEST) but that’s for Refined Star Trek Content and this one’s for excellent moodboard content and garbage so here’s the garbage!!! I’m putting it under a cut bc it manipulates your brain to want to read through 85 fuckin facts about me more wow I love science

rules: answer these 85 statements about yourself, then tag 20 people.

1. last drink: Water! off to a great start

2. last phone call: my local Hot Topic. I feel like I should also mention I work there. But if you don’t know that and steal my phone you’ll see I have a contact named Hot Topic

3. last text message: Google sent me a verification code, but the last one I sent was to my brother it says “k”

4. last song you listened to: It’s called The Horror Of Your Love by Ludo, if I had to delete all but one song on my 121-song Best Enemies playlist I’d keep this one it’s Peak and kinda has vore but it’s metaphorical. metavoreical, if you will

5. time you cried: during my latest EMDR sesh! I was in Wales and everything it was a Lot I got ice cream after

6. dated someone twice? Big No

7. kissed someone and regretted it? Not really?

8. been cheated on? my ex had 16 anime dating sims downloaded at one point while we were dating does that count

9. lost someone special? yea

10. been depressed? hella

11. gotten drunk and thrown up? I’ve been drunk 1 time and it was when I was playing English handbells at my dad’s church’s wassail night but I did not throw up no

fave colors

12. Black

13. Lavendar

14. Light blue

in the last year have you…

15. made new friends? Hell Yell!!

16. fallen out of love? k i n d a ? ?

17. laughed until you cried? oh absolutely

18. found out someone was talking about you? OH BOY YUP YUP

19. met someone who changed you? yes! she managed to physically alter my hippocampus without touching it how fuckign whack is that

20. found out who your friends are? It’s always the same miraculous group chat

21. kissed someone on your facebook friends list? sure have

general

22. how many of your facebook friends do you know irl? I keep it nice and refined so all of them. My old account is another story

23. do you have any pets? one beautiful and talented cat named Moriarty. A good description is she’s got puppy software on cat hardware.

24. do you want to change your name? listen I’ve been through 4.5 of these fuckers, I like Nate, I’m Quite Finished

25. what did you do for your last birthday? invited 2 pals over, I remember one of them suddenly whipped out I Am The Doctor and the Dr Who theme on the piano out of fuckin nowhere and I was like “Daniel what the hell you’re so talented” and then I hardcore dissociated the rest of the day

26. what time did you wake up today? 10:00

27. what were you doing at midnight last night? chatting w @houseofoakdown​ and also editing my monstrosity of a fanfiction

28. what is something you cant wait for? Going back to school! then I can graduate in my pajamas and eat creamed corn in celebration

30. what are you listening to right now? the same goddamn playlist, this one’s called Battle Cry by The Family Crest, i cri erytiem

31. have you ever talked to a person named tom? probably???

32. something thats getting on your nerves? my brother vaping in the bathroom with the fan on at 12:30am

33. most visited website: tungle dot hell

34. hair color: I started out blonde af now I’m less blonde but still blonde.

35. long or short hair: short

36. do you have a crush on someone: :[] yes

37. what do you like about yourself: i’m hella smart, my moodboards are bangin, my writing is cool af, I’m well-hydrated at all times

38. want any piercings? Big No

39. blood type: A+!!!!! thats me!!!!!

40. nicknames: my brother calls me a goon sometimes

41. relationship status: im married to my laptop

42. zodiac: I was born on the last day of Taurus so I’m a definite Taurus/Gemini power combo

43. pronouns: they/them, tho in some places I use he/him bc The Dysphoria got hog wild enough I decided to pretend to be a trans guy so ppl would take me seriously, but I’m moving more towards they/them everywhere now. 

44. fave tv shows: Dr Fuck, Sherlock (I’m armed with a pitchfork and an arsenal of beefed up tv & film knowledge come on fight me), DOWNTON ABBEY

45. tattoos: in August I will get a bee on my right arm and probably a Secret Word in Gallifreyan on my left it’ll say fuck

46. right or left handed: one time I was bored in grade 10 and tried to make myself ambidextrous but that was a hassle so I’m firmly right handed. Except in archery.

47. ever had surgery: got all 4 wisom teeth out not long ago! I still need to squirt water in my gum holes so I get all the mushy food out :{

48. piercings: I used to have my ears pierced but they’re grown tf over now!

49. sport: first of all what the hell is this question looking for second of all I have a red belt (which is 2 below black belt) in Taekwondo. I really need to do that again hhhhhh

50. vacation: i went to England and France in the summer with my family as a “””grad trip”””, it was lots of fun but my collection of sensory issues extended to chomping and I dissociated so intensely in The Louvre my mom told me to go back outside so I wrote fanfiction while listening to 21 Pilots and chatting w my imaginary friends and it took me like 18 hours to process I’d seen The Mona Lisa with mine own 2 eyes. Also the plane was delayed twice bc we used Air Canada for some godforsaken reason and I had 0 hours of sleep when I went to the Sherlock Holmes museum and I started talkin to this bust of Sherlock Holmes and then I hadn’t eaten enough and we were walking to this bookstore and I said “I need food!” and my dad said “We’ll get it AFTER” then I shouted “I’M GONNA DIE” so I got a BLT from Tesco. 

51. trainers: h

more general

52. eating: the last thing I ate was chocolate chips straight out of the bag

53. drinking: I got another cup of water

54. im about to watch: my entire fanfiction to take 3000 notes on consistency. and by watch I mean read

55. waiting for: my brother (not vaping) to get out of the bathroom so I can PEE

56. want: Orphan Black to be on Netflix so I can actually binge watch it then call my grandma about it

57. get married: idk I didn’t think I was a get married person but since realizing I’m a lesbian it seems like a good idea!

58. career: nurse and a writer. I might just move to London and work double time to write enough scripts I have some street cred then pitch a TV adaptation of Faction Paradox to the BBC and win

which is better

59. hugs or kisses: hugs bc it means my friends are in my vicinity not Toronto

60. lips or eyes: uh. eyes???????????

61. shorter or taller: i’m 5′3″ and I would love a tol partner

62. older or younger: i don’t think I care

63. nice arms or stomach: what fresh hell does this mean. I’d like a nice stomach free of gastrointestinal issues and acid reflux. not that I have either of those but just in case

64. hookup or relationship: I have 300 many self-esteem issues so imma say relationship

65. troublemaker or hesitant: AU where I don’t have anxiety and I’m a trouble maker

have you ever

66. kissed a stranger: noop

67. drank hard liquor: I PUT RUM IN THE WASSAIL HELL YEAH also once someone bought me a shot at a queer dance thing bc it was payday and my friend told me to gulp the WHOLE SHOT and then the lemonade so I don’t barf and I was like “brah this is too high-stakes” so I poured the vodka in the lemonade and took sips and everyone stared at me

68. lost glasses: in grade 6 and then my mom threatened to make me wear one of those granny glasses chains so I never lost them again

69. turned someone down: ya this kid Cyrus used to chase me around in grade 5 and I’d run away always he was weird af one time he made out with a folder right in front of me in the middle of class

70. sex on first date: probs not at this point but I’m not opposed to the general idea when I’m less w h a c k e d  u p

71. broken someones heart: Not that I know of?

72. had your heart broken: c o n s i s t e n t l y in the most fricked up ways god

73. been arrested: no but once I booed at the police bc the local nazis (yeah) were gonna have a rally so we had a counter-rally and I dropped in but there were no nazis except one old dude in a MAGA hat showed up 2 hours late lmao

74. cried when someone died: oui

75. fallen for a friend: Big Lesbian Mood

do you believe in

76. yourself: YA BB

77. miracles: not as such

78. love at first sight: nah

79. santa claus: I wasn’t allowed to believe in Santa as a child bc he was “too much like God” sad

80. kiss on a first date: ye!

81. angels: big no

other

82. best friend’s name: I don’t exactly have a proper best friend but I’m goin with Liam

83. eye colour: blue/grey

84. fave movie: either The Force Awakens (bc I love bb8 and I’m gay 4 Rey) or Interstellar shut up

85. fave actor: uh idk let’s go with my brother

WOW THAT WAS LONG JEE🅱️US. I’m tagging @houseofoakdown @spoonietimelordy @gemvictorfromtheponyverse @spockswhales @raesand and that exhausts the ppl I know but you’re all worth quadruple in my heart 💖