0-feralscientist-0

[waterisntreal]

The real question is why is Henry asking Jace about Ruben and not the bard teacher or Jawbone?

[birdb1tch]

is jace prime even alive still? DOES IT MATTER?? are they four separate jaces that are split from one or did one jace create three other jaces?

[rowan-ashtree]

sorry boss i can't come to work today. yeah i stayed up too late reading evil toxic old man yaoi and i need to stay home to keep thinking about Them.

[freswoe]

IM GONNA FUCKING EXPLODE. JACE STARDIAMOND I *KNEW* YOU WERE SUSPICIOUS. YOU AND PORTER CO-CONSPIRATOR MOTHERFUCKERS.

‘without the sound of footsteps’ OH SO HE HAS MAGIC AND IS SUPER QUIET. MAYBE A SORCERER MAYBE ALSO AN ARCANE FUCKING TRICKSTER ROGUE. JACE STARDIAMOND WHEN I CATCH YOU. WHEN I CATCH YOU JACE

[italicized-oh]

hi oh my gosh welcome back!! glad to hear you finished your dissertation omfg congratulations!! for prompts, idk how specific you wanted/what you were looking for, but how about jace and porter getting caught by one of their coworkers while theyre "on a date" in bastion city (theyre actually there for [handwavey evil plan reasons] but yknow. they need a cover)?

oh rip i did not finish dissertation i finished one part of it 😭 but i am putting her aside now bc im sick of her. we're getting a divorce so i can come back to her door in 2 months weeping. but i digress

mmmmm. yes. i love this prompt it's delicious for me in particular. In my head this is early in their, um, collaboration. Jace doesn’t quite have the hang of manipulating Porter yet, but boy does Porter have his number.

Jace has a headache. This isn’t surprising, because he’s out with Porter on a school night in the godawful sports bar they always go to because it’s the best place to not be overheard. Which means that it’s so fucking loud in here he can feel the sound in his teeth. Which means that he’s approximately twelve minutes away from swallowing down a surge and fucking up his blood pressure. Again. 

Which means, of course, that the only thing that could make this planning session-cum-torture hour better for Jace is if someone saw him and Porter together, in a booth, on a Thursday, heads bent together, very obviously not watching the pro bloodrush championship something-or-other that every other person is screaming their heads off about.

“Jace, Porter, how lovely to see you!” Jace grits his teeth together even harder at the smirk already curling across Porter’s lips, allowing himself one moment of sheer, blind rage at the cruel whims of the universe. And then he puts on a smile that says just how happy he is to see his coworkers outside work, because he is a kind and genuine person and definitely not fighting a migraine and plotting the end of the world with Solace’s newest god of rage.

“Lucilla, darling, how are you? You look stunning, as always,” Porter kicks Jace under the table, “and Zara, of course, hello.” Jace lets more of his teeth out into his smile as he turns to Zara, because she, at least, should know better. She’s wearing a smug grin and has her arm wrapped around Lucilla, toying idly with the taffeta bunched at her hip. Eyes dancing, Zara glances between Jace and Porter, and Jace can watch in real time as she starts connecting dots that do not exist to be connected.

“Love, I think we’re interrupting–” is all Zara gets out (that bitch, Jace is going to hex her shelf in the faculty lounge fridge so all her blood turns into Kool-Aid) before Lucilla is gushing about Ruben’s recent developments to Jace.

“Really, he’s made such progress, I can’t thank you two enough for taking him under your wing. I–” Jace tunes Lucilla out, smiling and nodding in all the right places, and subtly Messages Porter.

If you don’t have a way to end this in the next fifteen seconds I’m going to kill everyone in this room and then myself. Porter sips at his beer, seemingly unaffected, having some kind of nonverbal something with Zara, which really shouldn’t make Jace as upset as it does, except he has a headache rapidly developing into a migraine and is being forced to engage in niceties about Ruben Hopclap of all his students, why not one of the competent Rat Grinders, or even Kipperlily. Gods, how is this his life.

Porter. Do. Something. Then a third Message, just for drama. Please.

It’s always a little creepy to Jace when Porter turns on the charm, because even from their relatively few interactions so far, Jace knows that charisma means very different things to different people. Case in point:

“Ah, Lucilla,” Porter says with an indulgent smile (indulgent? What the hell does he have to indulge?). “I’m afraid Ms. Sool is correct; as wonderful as I know your company is, Stardiamond here gets tetchy when people interrupt our alone time.” 

(Gods. fucking. damnit. This is what Jace gets for letting Porter do the talking. Next time, Jace is just fucking Teleporting away or something.)

Porter’s hand covers Jace’s atop the table (fully covers, Jace does not observe, because why would he) and presses down with just this side of too much pressure as he continues. “It’s a full time job keeping him satisfied, you know, or I’m sure we’d love to keep chatting.” Jace feels the bones of his fingers creak as Porter increases the force of his hand on Jace's. “Isn’t that right, sweetheart?” 

Jace barely manages a nod, his brain fuzzed over in some mix of confusion, fury, and- probably nothing else.

Lucilla’s eyebrows creep up her forehead (almost as high as Zara’s have), and she turns a fascinating shade of periwinkle. Putting a hand to her chest with a (truly unnecessary, if you ask Jace) gasp, she says, “Oh, oh, dear, thank you for saying something, Porter, you know how I ramble on, I’m just so impressed by– oh, and there I go again!” Lucilla’s laugh is musical, because of course it is, and her whole body ripples with it.

(Jace isn’t watching, of course, but he is watching Porter watching, which he refuses to think about until this weekend. Maybe next.)

“Anyway, we’ll leave you two to it, won’t we, babe?” She turns into Zara’s arms, and Zara throws a triumphant wink Jace’s way as they depart. He stares daggers at her back, already weighing whether or not to make this a thing he has to talk about with Porter, whose hand is still covering Jace's.

At least, Jace thinks, his maybe-fractured fingers are distracting him from the throbbing pain in his skull. Fucking hell.

[t4tozier]

this is so silly but im picturing zara and jace being the kind of besties where they share literally everything. so when jace and porter start sleeping together jace immediately texts her and is like “look i KNOW it’s a bad idea to sleep with a coworker but hes SO hot. whats the worst that could happen. and jsyk however many inches youre picturing? add two” and eventually porter finds these texts and is MORTIFIED like “you told our coworker and mutual friend about my dick?? you call me a pervert but what’s this??” and jace is like “well zara and i dont have any secrets sooooo obviously i did. and youre still a pervert and a creep for going through my crystal”

hey silly is where i live babe.

i love this i absolutely see it. i think also zara is just like. so uninterested in porter outside of his relationship with jace. like she's like yes you are objectively an attractive man. but you're also kind of a dick so what i really care about is how you're treating my best friend.

and jace is such an oversharer. i think that when it comes to like just talking with coworkers in general he keeps it pretty locked up, he doesn't necessarily need everyone knowing his business and he likes what pretending that he's just a guy gets him. but zara isn't just a coworker and he desperately needs to tell someone about it so he's giving her all the gory details. i can't remember what the actual audio is now but there's this tiktok/reel that's like "he's so hot like my body actually had a physical reaction" "i don't wanna hear that" something like that. that's jace and zara like he starts waxing poetic about porter's balls or some shit and zara's like i love you. i literally never want to hear you say the word teabagging ever again.

and jace does have the auto-lock on his crystal but he forgets one day and has it open when he goes to shower and porter just happens to catch it before it closes. he's not planning on looking. honestly, he's not, but then he sees a text from zara that reads you actually got him to call you dr. stardiamond? it does end up being kind of a fight (that of course ends in more fucking) but jace is just honest and is like "have i ever told you that i wasn't going to tell anyone? no. i love zara and it's not like she's going around telling all the faculty at aguefort. now, what gives you the right to go snooping through my crystal?" and porter's just spluttering with rage because that's his gut reaction to being embarrassed and jace is like "she's gonna know either way. so either i tell her or she watches." and porter rolls his eyes and spits profanity at him and then fucks him so hard he has to call out sick the next day.

but then like a week later he comes up to jace and goes "she can watch" and walks away like he didn't even say anything, leaving jace open-mouthed in shock and confusion. ten seconds later he's texting zara like he said yes <3